» Archive: February 2004
Haiti Commentary
Black Commentator: "In willful ignorance and with every bad intention, the U.S. corporate media ask the ridiculous question, Should the US intervene in Haiti, or not? The bloody answer screams back from the Haitian mountains and cities: Washington has already intervened militarily in Haiti, through its surrogates’ armed invasion from the Dominican Republic."
Democracy Now: "Many of the men leading the armed insurrection in Haiti right now are well known to veteran Haiti observers and, for that matter, the US intelligence agencies that worked closely with the paramilitary death squads which terrorized Haiti in the early 1990s. People like Louis Jodel Chamblain, the former number 2 man in FRAPH, Guy Philippe, a former police chief who was trained by US Special forces in Ecuador and Jean Tatun, another leader of FRAPH."
Body and Soul: "Whatever the reasons for Bush's dislike of Aristide, it's becoming more and more obvious that this administration is not remotely interested in any sort of "political solution," as they've been suggesting. They simply want Aristide gone, and don't seem particularly concerned with what amalgamation of business elites and death squad leaders takes his place. If this administration were interested in compromise, we wouldn't have a Republican congressman saying that Aristide has two choices -- he can leave in a plane, or leave in a body bag."
Bush's UN Security Council to Haiti: Sorry, Won't help you
By Anthony Fenton
February 28, 2004
Yesterday George Bush announced that Haiti’s democratically elected President Aristide should step down if he knows what’s good for him. As such, the blame for the so-called “political impasse” is placed squarely on Aristide’s shoulders, despite the fact that he has repeatedly agreed to capitulate to the US, CARICOM and OAS ‘Plan of Action’. The real problem remains the refusal on the part of the opposition to negotiate with Aristide, a steadfast refusal that they have irrationally made for four years with the backing of recycled Reagan and Bush I acolytes.
Taking advantage of technology
Satellite photos aiding Inuit in hunt
IQALUIT - Inuit in Pond Inlet are using space-age tools help them with hunting at the floe edge – where the ice meets sea water.The European Space Agency's Northern View Floe Edge Information Service, sends updated ice maps of inlets around Lancaster Sound to the community of Pond Inlet.
Pond Inlet resident David Qamaniq says with global warming, Inuit elders are finding it hard to predict the weather and ice conditions.
He says the satellite-based service makes it safer for hunters to travel, showing the location and conditions of the fast, always moving, always dangerous floe edge.
The great Canadian shame
Poor health picture for First Nations and Inuit in Canada
A health report released this week confirms that aboriginal peoples' health is worse than that of Canadians as a whole.As dismal as that is, it's not the end by any means.While they are making some gains, their lives are still on average five to 10 years shorter than those of other Canadians, says a report by Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI), an independent organization mandated by Canada's health ministers to provide health information.
The report also notes that Aboriginal people in Canada have higher suicide rates, higher infant mortality rates, three times the rate of diabetes, 16 times the rate of tuberculosis, experience worse social, economic and environmental conditions than those of non-Aboriginal people, have lower average educational levels than non-Aboriginal peoples, experience higher unemployment rates, and have lower average incomes than non-Aboriginal people.
That's a pretty extensive list, but it doesn't end there
At least 33 per cent of First Nations and Inuit, compared to 18 per cent of non-Aboriginal people, live in inadequate, unsuitable or unaffordable housing, according to data from Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. Poor housing has been associated with health problems.At some point the Federal government will be forced to live up to its obligations towards the Aboriginal people of Canada - the only question is, "How many more people have to kill themselves, die of preventable disease, or live out their lives in substandard living conditions before that happens?"
NYTimes on Haiti
The New York Times has a reasonably sane article on the situation in Haiti.
They have a point. Over the past several years, the United States and the Organization of American States have placed increasingly onerous demands on Mr. Aristide. Foreign diplomats insisted that the senators in the contested seats resign; all did so several months after Mr. Aristide's re-election. Though Mr. Aristide called for new elections, the opposition demanded that he himself step down before it would cooperate. Last year, a State Department official in Haiti, speaking on condition of anonymity, told me that the United States wouldn't tolerate that kind of intransigence but also said that no support for new elections would be forthcoming until President Aristide improved "security." And yet by the time the diplomat said this, the administration had long since withdrawn support from Haiti's fledgling police force, with predictable and now obvious results.
Editorial: Call Alexa
My theory: if you have time to read this right now, you have time to take 2 minutes to call Alexa McDonough and ask her to take a strong stand in support of democracy in Haiti.
Her constituency office: (902) 426-8691
My reasoning: Calling Bill Graham is necessary but useless, because he won't change Canadian policy without a fight. The only way to make that fight happen is to convince McDonough, who is the NDP's Foreign Affairs critic, to loudly and publicly criticize Graham.
She already has the information. She just needs to know that you think she should stand up and say something.
A quick summary of what I think should be advocated, from this excellent analysis:
The current crisis is not about supporting or opposing Aristide the man, but about defending constitutional democracy in Haiti. In a democracy, elections-and not vigilante violence-should be the measure of 'the will of the people.' Aristide has repeatedly invited the opposition to participate in elections and they have refused, knowing that they cannot win at the pollsAnd it should always be noted that to this day, the US is funding that opposition, with Canada's unflinching support.
Keep in mind, of course, that Haiti is facing a very likely military coup in the coming days, and that it can still be stopped with an absolute minimum of effort on the part of the US and Canada.
Haiti's People 'Ready to die' to Save Democracy
John Kerry, frontrunner of the “anyone but Bush in 2004” power grab, harangued the Bush administration yesterday for it’s Haiti policy, claiming they “created the environment within which the insurgency could grow and take root.” [New York Times, Feb. 24, 04]
Kerry’s comments come as others in the international community are tiring of the U.S., Canada, France, OAS/CARICOM line of effective ambivalence toward the violent insurgency that has had Haiti in its throes since February 5th. Even the current chair of CARICOM, Jamaican Prime Minister P.J. Patterson, seems to have lost faith in his organisation’s ability to restore peace.
The reappearance of the FRAPH/FAD'H is nothing less than a stinking stain on today's Haiti
Haiti Support Group press release - 25 February 2004
[Contains valuable background information on the people that will be leading the attacks that are sure to come on Port-au-Prince in the coming days. //dru See also: Haiti: Five Facts and One Urgent Appeal]
Congresswoman Waters Introduces Resolution Supporting Immediate U.S. Assistance to Prevent a Bloodbath in Haiti
[Press Release]
The US in Haiti: Why?
After reading the Urgent Appeal to citizens to understand the role of the US and Canadian governments in the Haitian crisis and take immediate action that Anthony and I sent out, a friend asked the obvious next question: why?
That is: if president Aristide is doing a good job of making things a bit better for the majority of Haitians despite the best efforts of the US, as we claim, then why on earth would we want to overthrow them? What follows is my response:
The question is always, necessarily: 'a good job for whom?'
The US Government, like the Canadian one, is largely dominated by corporate interests. So that's who someone has to do a good job for, in order to, in "fact", be doing a good job.
Haiti is the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere. Paradoxically, this makes it rather important in a number of ways.
- As a source of cheap labour. Disney has used Haitian sweatshops to make pocahontas pajamas, among other things, for 11cents/hour. Of 8 million Haitians, around 7 million are willing to work for almost nothing. There are plenty of new 'free trade zones' being set up (tax breaks, controlled access, disempowered labour force, and so on).
- As a standard-bearer. If wages go up in Haiti, they will eventually go up in all the other sweatshops in the Americas, and perhaps abroad. As long as corporations can use Haiti as a reference to say "*well*, in Haiti, we only have to pay...", they can keep costs down everywhere else. That's why the US put massive pressure on the Haitian Government not to raise the minimum wage. What's good for 7 million Haitians, in this case (and many others) is a *huge* problem for corporate America.
- As a potential example. The consistent reason that the US has sustained relentless, vicious (and well documented) terror campaigns in extremely poor countries is to keep them from becoming what is called "the threat of a good example". This is why Cuba is such a huge problem: they'll never be a military threat to the US, but having a dirt-poor country that provides all of its citizens with housing, health care, and adequate food is a bad example. How could other poor people in the region not take notice and ask "why not us?" This is why the poorest countries that institute progressive measures are targeted--if they can make progress socially, then anyone can. Especially those with many times the money and resources.
Like many other poor countries, Haiti is actually rich. It's just that all the riches have been stolen and used to enrich people in Porto Fino, not Port-au-Prince.
Full Transcript: Interview with Duff Conacher
The following is the full transcript of an interview that appeared in issue #15 of the Dominion. This version has not benefitted from copyediting, but contains interesting material that didn't make it into the print version.
read more...Interview with Trevor Ngwane
The following is a transcript of an email interview with Trevor Ngwane of the South African Anti-Privatization Forum. For information about him, as well as a fascinating account of the last two decades in South Africa, see the interview that appeared in New Left Review.
read more...Murray Dobbin's Call for "Word Warriors"
WANTED: COMMITTED WORD WARRIORS
From the van-annouce listserve
I am starting a national list of people who are willing to commit to writing at least one letter-to-the editor every two weeks. I will commit to sending out at least one suggested topic plus analysis and writing points every week to make it as easy as possible. If you are at least interested, read on. If not, sorry to bother you. - Murray Dobbin.
Murray can be contacted through this link:
A Win!
The Board of the National Magazine Awards Foundation has voted to re-instate the poetry category for this year's awards. This comes after much public protest and letter writing (see Dominion's January 13th issue). It is an excellent and gratifying example of policy chages in response to community concerns. Their website is www.magazine-awards.com if you are intreseted in more information or in entering the contest.
Sex and Silence at Yale
Naomi Wolf: "In the late fall of 1983, professor Harold Bloom did something banal, human, and destructive: He put his hand on a student’s inner thigh—a student whom he was tasked with teaching and grading. The student was me, a 20-year-old senior at Yale. Here is why I am telling this story now: I began, nearly a year ago, to try—privately—to start a conversation with my alma mater that would reassure me that steps had been taken in the ensuing years to ensure that unwanted sexual advances of this sort weren’t still occurring. I expected Yale to be responsive. After nine months and many calls and e-mails, I was shocked to conclude that the atmosphere of collusion that had helped to keep me quiet twenty years ago was still intact—as secretive as a Masonic lodge."
Child Labour in BC
Seven Oaks Magazine: "Bill 37, the child labour legislation adopted by the B.C. Liberals' during this past year, has sent a clear message to teenage workers across the province: You have been made redundant; there are now new, more easily abused workers in town; no matter how close you thought you were to completing your 500 training-waged hours, the bottom just got lower. Thanks to Minister of Labour Graham Bruce and Gordon Campbell’s B.C. Liberals bringing in the most regressive child labour bill in North America, 12-year-old children can now work and, hell, they might not even think that six bucks sucks."
Forest and Trees
Is a worker at McDonalds providing a service or are they 'manufacturing' a hamburger when they assemble the lettuce, patty and bun components?
No, seriously. Stop laughing.
As the NY Times reports, this question is actually considered in the new Economic Report of the President. According to N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, this distinction is "an important consideration" when looking at economic policy.
Part of the report asks, "When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?"
If you are only making $4 an hour, does it really matter whether you are part of the service sector or the manufacturing sector?
If you can't house and feed yourself, let alone a family, perhaps the real question is not what sector the job is in, but whether it is a job at all.
DARPA creating a race of robo-grunts
"Imagine divisions of grunts able to go without food and sleep for days on end while performing at peak level. That's the perverse dream of the Defense Sciences Office's new Metabolic Dominance Program.""Much of this will be a matter of uncapping the natural safety mechanisms against excessive strain that humans have evolved with - overclocking the grunt, so to speak. But the DoD doesn't seem much concerned by the potential ill effects; ..."
Mom sues RIAA members for racketeering
"A New Jersey mother has turned the tables on the Recording Industry Association of America by suing the major labels for racketeering."
Letter to Government and Corp. Media About Haiti
Though often futile, speaking truth to power can be therapeutic. Here's a copy of a letter I sent out to about 200 corporate lackeys regarding the crisis in Haiti. Some of the main addresses are at the bottom of the letter, for ease of clipping and pasting, if one is so inclined as to send their own letter...
Drop'd
CBC: Maritimes Hit by 'Weather Bomb'
Are we ever.
Scandal?
Cross-posted from PaulMartinTime.ca...
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East Coast Music Awards 2004: Post-Mortem
Sylvia Nickerson, St. John's NL
Now that I’m back in my snug Halifax apartment, far away from the insanity of George Street, the laminated conference badges and the sense of importance about it all, it’s hard to know what conclusion to come to. Did I have a good time? Would I subject myself again to the ECMAs? I’m just not sure.
Fruits and Vegetables Prohibited At Border, Especially Pineapples
Just when you think all those "nice Canadian" stereotypes are baloney, along comes this story.
Canadian response to "confused" American woman bringing explosives into our country:
"It's quite likely this woman did not know that the grenade was inside her vehicle and she is apparently quite shaken up by the whole ordeal, so charges are quite unlikely," Constable Shields said.
If she had been a Canadian travelling into the U.S., she'd be in a Syrian prison by now.
The Cost of Empire
A two-part series from Asia Times. Part I, Part II.
Bravery and Fidelity
Guardian: "Neither fidelity nor bravery is all that useful, on a practical level, in running a country. The first suggests self-denial, altruism, a long-sightedness and commitment to the principles of honesty and deferred gratification that are totally at odds with aggressive first world capitalism. The second combines altruism with reckless self-endangerment and the privileging of physical instinct over rational judgment - qualities that aren't going to do anyone a power of good in a situation room."
The Halifax Symposium
Two important things:
I'm helping organize the Halifax International Symposium on Independent Media and Journalism, where we will discuss disinformation and ways of dealing with it. It's July 1-4, Halifax is beautiful that time of year, and you should come.
In the months leading up to the Symposium, I'm organizing a series of round table discussions, the first of which has just started. The first theme is 'advocacy journalism', and there will be new contributions daily.
The Trouble With Farms
National Farmer's Union: "Today, the federal government estimated Canadian realized net farm income for 2003 at negative $13-million - the lowest level ever recorded, far lower than during the Depression. Realized net farm income from the markets alone, net of government payments, is almostnegative $5-billion. "This is the most spectacular and damaging market failure in the history of Canadian agriculture," said NFU President Stewart Wells."
Jesus of Men with Exotic Brooms
Have you ever wondered why Canadian films garner only 4-6 % of Canadian box office revenues? Take out french language productions, and we are down to a shocking 1% of film revenue in OUR OWN COUNTRY.
It isn't for lack of trying. Because Canadian producers and distributors lack the marketing muscle that allows Hollywood blockbusters to dominate theatres, our films seldom stick around long enough to build an audience (when they get into theatres at all).
The First Weekend Club wants to change all this. Members attend showings of Canadian films on their first weekends to help buy such films some extra time in theatres.
Media AWOL
Antonia Zerbisias: "A database search of that period turned up some 13,000 references to former President Bill Clinton's having avoided the draft — and only about 50 about Bush's military career."
Wow.
Random Thoughts from the ECMA's
Sylvia Nickerson, St. John's, NL
It’s a sunny day in St. John’s, and there are slow snowflakes meandering down to earth. On Duckworth and Water streets the telephone polls are plastered with posters advertising the many musical happenings around town in the next two days. There’s way too much to take it all in, so selection is tricky. Hey, I realize it’s Valentine’s Day today. I’d like to give someone a Valentine, but who?
read more...Day Zero: A report from this year’s East Coast Music Awards in St. John’s NL
Sylvia Nickerson, St. John's, NL
The ECMAs may be one of many things: 1) Atlantic Canada’s largest music industry awards show featuring this region’s most important schmoozers, handlers, dealers, techies, groupies, reporters and Music Industry Exec, 2) an Awards show that the rest of the world won’t have a chance to forget, because it didn’t know it existed, 3) an opportunity to “check one’s liver at the door” and write it off as a business expense, 4) an event where a gaggle of nervous young musicians might be “discovered”. Who knows. It may be all of the above. I feel for the ECMAs. Any event involving people from so many different rungs on the ladder is bound to involve some kind of mad scramble to the top. Even if that’s not what you’re into, at an event like this, it must be hard to resist the pressure to impress.
Exhausted
Want an exhaustive list of informative articles about pressing issues in American politics? Go read the February 11 entry at thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse. That's a serious overview.
What About Africa's Debt?
LA Times: "The almost instant success that James A. Baker III has had in his international lobbying to have Iraq's debt forgiven raises an uncomfortable comparison: how little has been done to relieve the African debt that cripples some of the world's poorest countries."
Campbell Liberals 'Do a 180' on welfare time-limits...or was it a 360?
“Social catastrophe” averted as Campbell government ‘flip-flops’ on welfare time-limits.
by Anthony Fenton
An important victory was won Friday by those opposed to the B.C. Liberals punitive welfare reform efforts. “Province backs off plan for dramatic cuts to welfare,” read the Vancouver Sun front-page headline on Saturday. The major policy ‘flip-flop’ will enable all those who are meeting the requirements of their employment plans to continue receiving benefits. Seth Klein - Director of BC Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives - stated that the 2-year time limit is now “completely superfluous, because already even without a time-limit law, if you don’t abide by your employment plan you can be cut off.”
Life imitates art imitating art imitating life imitating art
"Honestly, listening to this stuff for the first time in, I'd say, 40 years, took me right back to 1966," Levy said. "It was quite amazing, listening to all these old tunes again, for the first time in so long. It was emotional for me. It took you back to a time when there was this idealism that, today, almost appears to be hokey."
National treasure Eugene Levy is nominated for a grammy for A Mighty Wind. And people claim that Americans don't get irony.
Corporate Media Lackeys: And the Beat Goes on
by Anthony Fenton
This year, I’ve made a resolution to keep a closer eye on our national print media, the Globe and Mail and National Post. With each passing day, this exercise becomes all the more fascinating as the Globe and Post both obediently protect the corporate status quo.
Issue #14
For all those who just read the weblog, Issue #14 of the Dominion is now online.
Did Campbell Forgive Debts to Fish Farms?
Environmentalists in BC are claiming that the BC Liberal government under Gordon Campbell may have forgiven debts to the BC fish farms.
It is claimed that shortly after the 2001 election the BC Liberals forgave fish farms for rent and fine violations.
As of late the BC fish farms have been under the microscope for the quality of the salmon they raise for consumption in Canada and around the world.
Seize the... Plant?
Unionized workers at have taken over an aluminum smelter run by Alcan. They're keeping the plant running normally while protesting plans to shut it down.
Fountain at the centre of the world
The NYTimes has a fun review of the novel "The Fountain At the Center of the World":
It's a mucky title for a sublimely frisky novel, one that throws more acid-tipped darts at Nafta and the World Trade Organization than a foot-high stack of Mother Jones and Nation back issues. Newman's book follows three characters (one in London, one in Mexico, one in Costa Rica) in the years leading up to the 1999 W.T.O. protests in Seattle, and it reads like what you'd get if Tom Wolfe clambered inside the head of Noam Chomsky -- it elegantly and angrily scorches a lot of earth. You wouldn't want to read many novels that were as hyper-politicized as this one is, but there's something almost old-fashioned about the way Newman wears his heart utterly on his sleeve.I wouldn't be surprised, in fact, if ''The Fountain at the Center of the World'' became the talismanic ''Catch-22'' of the antiglobalization protest movement, the fictional complement to Naomi Klein's influential treatise ''No Logo.'' Expect to see copies of it peeking out of battered rucksacks from Berkeley to Burlington. Though if you are the kind of person who will want to retch at the notion of a novel in which one of the primary characters is named after Daniel Ortega, consider yourself warned.
British People are Smarter than the Globe and Mail
Christian Science Monitor: Despite Hutton results, polls show Brits don't trust Blair on WMD issue
Illegally arrested WTO Protesters win settlement
News.com.au: "[The City of] Seattle will pay $US250,000 ($325,000) to settle a lawsuit brought by World Trade Organisation protesters who alleged their rights to free speech and protection from unreasonable searches and seizures were violated when police arrested them during 1999 demonstrations."
Anti-Jazz
Not three hours after I posted the previous entry quoting Arundhati Roy's latest essay, someone posted a comment characterizing it as "Anti-American". I have to say, my immediate reaction to the term "anti-American" is to make some smart-ass remark like...
"I have lots of friends who are Americans," or:
"I guess that makes me a self-hating American".
But in this case, Arundhati Roy has already written a much more eloquent response that goes straight to the heart of the matter, so I'll let her dismantle the claim herself:
Recently, those who have criticised the actions of the US government (myself included) have been called "anti-American". Anti-Americanism is in the process of being consecrated into an ideology. The term is usually used by the American establishment to discredit and, not falsely - but shall we say inaccurately - define its critics. Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they're heard and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised national pride.What does the term mean? That you're anti-jazz? Or that you're opposed to free speech? That you don't delight in Toni Morrison or John Updike? That you have a quarrel with giant sequoias? Does it mean you don't admire the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who marched against nuclear weapons, or the thousands of war resisters who forced their government to withdraw from Vietnam? Does it mean that you hate all Americans?
This sly conflation of America's music, literature, the breathtaking physical beauty of the land, the ordinary pleasures of ordinary people with criticism of the US government's foreign policy is a deliberate and extremely effective strategy. It's like a retreating army taking cover in a heavily populated city, hoping that the prospect of hitting civilian targets will deter enemy fire.
There are many Americans who would be mortified to be associated with their government's policies. The most scholarly, scathing, incisive, hilarious critiques of the hypocrisy and the contradictions in US government policy come from American citizens. (Similarly, in India, not hundreds, but millions of us would be ashamed and offended, if we were in any way implicated with the present Indian government's fascist policies.)
To call someone anti-American, indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment has set out for you: If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not good, you're evil. If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.
Debating Rape
Arundhati Roy: "In the great cities of Europe and America, where a few years ago these things would only have been whispered, now people are openly talking about the good side of imperialism and the need for a strong empire to police an unruly world. The new missionaries want order at the cost of justice. Discipline at the cost of dignity. And ascendancy at any price. Occasionally some of us are invited to "debate" the issue on "neutral" platforms provided by the corporate media. Debating imperialism is a bit like debating the pros and cons of rape. What can we say? That we really miss it?"