» Archive: May 2006
There Is No War In Afghanistan
Stephen Harper's defense minister, Gordon O'Connor, doesn't believe there is a war in Afghanistan.
"I don't consider this war," said O'Connor, declining to elaborate on what exactly in his view constitutes warfare.
Prior to joining Parliament in 2004 O'Connor was a senior associate at Hill and Knowlton. One of the world's largest PR firms, Hill and Knowlton famously helped to sell the Gulf War to the American public by fabricating stories of Iraqi soldiers killing Kuwaiti babies by tearing them from their incubators.
If Harper's Conservatives are unsure whether there is indeed a war in Afghanistan, they may want to consult those directly affected by the conflict, such as the families of Canadian soldiers killed in this non-war, or the Afghans who recently witnessed the murder of their families by indiscriminate American air strikes.
WaPo on Tar Sands
Once again, the US press covers a different side of the Alberta oil boom.
..
Washington Post: Canada Pays Environmentally for U.S. Oil Thirst
"Huge mines here turning tarry sand into cash for Canada and oil for the United States are taking an unexpectedly high environmental toll, sucking water from rivers and natural gas from wells and producing large amounts of gases linked to global warming."
Headlines you won't see outside of Quebec
CBC Montreal: Quebec says smoking ban won't lead to economic disaster
Ice T on Democracy
Counterpunch: "One of Rock the Vote's few high points came in the early 1990s when the organization aired over 175 public service announcements in which artists gave their frank views on democracy. Our favorite was Ice-T's. 'I'm as anti "the system" as you could possibly be,' he said. 'We've got two options--the vote or hostile takeover. I'm down with either one.'"
Allied Media Conference
If I was a fair bit closer to Ohio, I'd be making my way to the Allied Media Conference this summer.
Michael Ignatieff
"Again, the paradox of the Iraq operation is that half measures are more dangerous than whole measures. Imperial powers do not have the luxury of timidity, for timidity is not prudence; it is a confession of weakness."
...
"The case for empire is that it has become, in a place like Iraq, the last hope for democracy and stability alike."
-- Michael Ignatieff, "Empire Lite"
And now, for a brief hockey interlude
The Battle of Alberta: "Now that was a crazy hockey game. Fantastic! I think that you can safely stop worrying about the watchability of this series. It had it all - hitting, scoring, fighting . . . That was epic. Epic."
Also, check out Colby Cosh's lively coverage of the Western Conference final.
We now return to non-Hockey-related news.
India
Alex Cockburn has an interesting account of Indian politics.
The major Indian national media, with the honorable exception of The Hindu and a handful of other papers, are overwhelmingly anti-Left. They made fools of themselves in 2004 when they predicted popular approval at the polls for the neoliberal reforms and were astounded when the opposite occurred. In 2006 they have made asses of themselves again. In West Bengal, they now offer the explanation that the latest CPIM victory is all due to the splendid personality of Buddhadev Bhattacharya, chief minister of West Bengal, a man the elite see a great 'reformer', using the word to denote the imposition of the neoliberal agenda.
From Six Nations
7:25. DO WHATEVER YOU CAN DO. Get the word out. Media blackout. All kinds of shit is happening. The Riot Cops are coming in. It’s not as benign as they make it sound on the radio. They’re pepper spraying and beating up everybody.
JUST MY PREDICTION
7:05 pm. According to my crystal ball, this is what’s going to happen. The Caledonians, who are mostly not Caledonians, and their ringleader definitely is not, will continue to riot at the end of Argyle street near the Six nations barricade. More and more will come from Hamilton and other towns and cities around and maybe from even further away, like Ottawa. The ringleader and his shorthaired sidekicks are probably bankrolled by Indian Affairs or CSIS or RCMP or dirty tricks squad. As more and more non-natives arrive, the ringleaders will rev them up with some carefully scripted racial slurs and slogans that will rouse them up, “Let’s go kill the Indians”. Then fights will break out amongst them. Because some do not really want to kill the Indians. Then the instigators will start fights going between them. More cops will come in. Then the ringleader will turn the crowd against the cops for not letting them get by to get at the Indians. Then rocks and bricks will start flying at the cops. Then more cops will come in and more bricks will fly hurting maybe a dozen cops. That’s when the people demand that the army come in and restore order.
How do I know this? Chateauguay 1990!
Several contacts informed us that most of the rioters are not Caledonians. They are outsiders. They’re there on “business”.
PLAN II – IS THE ARMY IS GOING TO ARRIVE?
4:10 pm. Why would the police be instigating rioters? Because Canada wants to bring in the army. The army has been sitting in the wings for months now. They are in the middle of a recruiting campaign. They’re trying to make it look like they have a valuable role to play, keeping the peace in Canada. We all know that the Six Nation-Caledonia peace was broken in the first place by sending in the armed forces. Instead of doing the honorable thing, putting their documents on the table, sitting down and talking like adults, the Canadian authorities came on with a show of force. They mislead people in Caledonia and made them feel insecure. They conducted a campaign designed to make it look like everything was the fault of the Indians. Though it is now a month since the aborted raid on Six Nations, they still haven’t admitted publicly that the Six Nations people occupying the construction site are occupying our own land.
They’re following the old colonial plan. Britain has always made high minded statements about how their Indians are under their benevolent protection. Meanwhile they let their abused lower classes steal from us. They subsidize their trips over here to make it easier for them to do this. They kept them in miserable living conditions at home to make them want to leave. This is the same old, same old. Canada inherited the British system and Canada too made an underclass. Then it incited this underclass to attack the “Indians”. This will throw up a smokescreen and they are going to try to make us look satisfied when peace is restored instead of restoring the land they stolen.
It is really disappointing to see this kind of subversive tactic in the 21st century. Violence could so easily have been averted with a few upstanding statements by Canadian political leaders.
This time one thing is different. They haven’t been able to keep their secret from the Canadian public and the world. They are at least beginning to know what’s going on. People won’t stand for it.
Canada, it’s not too late to turn things around. The trip of even only 1000 miles starts with the first step. A few days ago it looked as if Canada had seen the road and was ready to start down a new direction. It’s still not too late to try.
Canadians, please ask your government to call off its undercover riot instigators with their skinheads and get back to the table to talk.
-----
“Bread and Cheese Day” ruined. Queen Vicki must be rolling in her grave. She used to say, “We are not amused”. All hydro is out around there. Tyendinaga has railroad blocked again. At least 3 bridges are blocked out west. All support is important. Near and far. Isn’t there any kind of way to resolve this peacefully? Do dealings with Canada always have to degenerate into mob rule? Why do they let these mobs do this to us?
The greatest weapon we have is the truth. That’s what they’re fearful of.
ARE CHATEAUGUAY AND LASALLE ATTACKS ON MOHAWKS IN 1990 BEING SET UP BY SOMEONE?
3:20 pm. Update: It is escalating. There are many police there. One of the chiefs went out to offer cedar and put down his cane and tried to bring peace. He got hit in the head. They were given until 2:30 BY THE opp to move from the barricades. They refused. That’s when the road was dug up.
The Indians are behaving peacefully. They want to stop the trespasser from coming over and hurting them. The’re threatening to kill the Indians.
UPDATE. Rioting broke out today after the Six Nations opened Argyle Road. Caledonians rushed them. Smashed cards. Attacked people. In order to protect themselves, the Six Nations got a payloader and startedto dig up the road. The OPP asked them to stop so they could clear the trespassing Caledonian rioters.
Six Nations decided to give them a chance and held off on the trench they digging across the road. The Caledonians rushed them. The police started pepper spraying guess who? Not the trespassing rioters, but the Indians. This was more than a violation of their word. So the Six Nations resumed digging the trench.
We’re giving you these details because the medial will automatically presume that we are at fault. The CBC is still saying that we have a “purported” land claim as if it hasn’t had time since February 28 to do some research for itself that our claims are all set out in formal document backed by archival evidence.
The Caledonians rushed the barricades. The cops actually pepper sprayed the Indigenous people. Several Caledonians were hurt in fights between themselves. Shades of Chateuguay. Rioting went on night after night until the army came it. That’s what appears to be instigated here. More cops coming from Orillia.
How much do you want to bet that only one or two token charges will be laid against the Caledonian trespassers.
S.O.S. RIOTS SPARKED AT SIX NATIONS BY DAVID PETERSON’S “DOUBLE DEALING”
May 22, 2006: Six Nations
3:05 pm. All kinds police. Caledonial rushed the barricade. Our people went after them. Cops pepper sprayed. We dug up the road. Cops asked for more time. More cops coming in from Orrilia.
Mohawk “Whiskey Trench” at Caledonia. A police set up??
Canada doesn’t really want this land issue settled. They’re trying to find a way to get police in there to use force to put an end to this problem Canada has.
People in the communities. Get on your local media and get this up to the minute news. Not 5 days from now. By then everybody might be dead. We don’t want blood shed.
Punched one of chiefs in the head. It was all orchestrated. We can tell. These white people can be controlled. OPP have training in this. They can foresee this and stop it.
2:00 pm
Are the cops dressed in civilian clothes organizing the protesters? This happened in 1990 at LaSalle when our people were taking disabled elderly grandparents and very young children out of Kahnawake which was about to be raided by the Canadian army. The cars were all trapped on the Mercier Bridge for hours in the hot sizzling sun. The trip should have taken no more than 5 minutes. There was no way out except off the bridge and through Whiskey Trench – a long cement walked corridor leading under a bridge. At the end of the bridge, the rioters gathered with piles of rocks. The cops let our cars through. The cops stood by and the rioters stoned them.
It is tense. We were optimistic and took down one barricade this morning around 6:00 am this morning. Argyle leads directly into Caledonia. The attacks certainly don’t make engender trust of the Canadian authorities. Our older people did not want to remove the barricades. But the consensus of the people was to open the road. This morning Caledonians drove up Argyle and smashed some of our cars. Hundreds of Indigenous people and our supporters are here right now. We are trying to protect our people from the hooligans of Caledonia. The Six Nations blocked it off with a radio tower. Now David Peterson is talking on the CBC that “They set the talks back”. It’s the opposite. He is sad about the situation right now. What is Peterson promising the Caledonians. Is it opposite to what he’s telling the Six Nations people that the land is to be returned? Now nobody can use the road. The Caledonians have been throwing rocks at the Six Nations people, shouting racial slurs.
HELP SIX NATIONS. OPP CONDONE MOB RULE. “ALL HELL AND SHIT HAS BROKEN LOOSE”. YOUR HELP IS URGENTLY NEEDED RIGHT NOW!
1:00 Monday. May 22, 2006. Day 83 of the land reclamation at Six Nations has gone sour. In a gesture of goodwill, Six Nations people took down the barricade on Argyle Street in front of the barricade at 6:00 am this morning. Yesterday the Caledonians blocked the road for 6 buses of supporters from Toronto. They also blocked ambulances from going to the hospital. “If white people can’t use that road, than neither can Indian”. One man died alone because they did not let him family go to his bedside. A car with a reporter and some women from Six Nations paper was surrounded by Caledonian men and women. They smashed the windows. The Ontario Provincial Police stood around shoulder to shoulder without moving, just watching, allowing the hooliganism to go on. “We are looking after it,” they told the Six Nations people. When Six Nations people went to help the people who were being attacked, they were surrounded by more Caledonians, who shoved and hit them and accused the Indigenous people of instigating the violence. When a woman was hit, the Six Nations men jumped in and about three or four big fights broke out. The OPP continued to allow these Caledonian hoodlums to keep up their attack.
The Six Nations have put up the barricade again.
There is a large police presence. But just standing there. They are not stopping the Caledonia people from coming in. “Every time we try to soften things up and deal with people on the expectation they will behave in a civilized way, we get attacked”. You can’t trust them. Be prepared
While you’re doing it. “They speak with forked tongue”.
This is public misbehavior which is a direct result of the way the issues are handled by the Canadian government and the Canadian press. They do not present the legitimate basis of the Six Nations people’s complaints. They make it look like we are the law breakers. They are wrong in letting the public not know of our legitimate claims. It’s time for canada’s terrorist act against indigenous people to stop. The blame for this lies squarely on the shoulders of the public officials in the way they are handling and presenting this whole issue.
EVERYBODY DO SOMETHING.
Try the Prime Minister, the police, the UN, anyone you can think of who may take responsibility for law and order in Ontario.
The Boss takes on the Boss
An amazing interview with Dave Marsh about Springsteen's new recording of folk songs.
"So every song has its individual, specific history. But the history of all of them, if they've survived for any length of time, is that somebody picks them up and puts themselves into them. It's always particular to the people who are singing them, and it's always a link back to the origins--you're looking backward while you look forward."
Liberals in Afghanistan
Chantal Hebert: "Afghanistan is now certain to become a defining theme of the campaign for the leadership of the Liberal party."
Multiculturalism: The Non-policy
Rocco Galati takes on the practice of Canadian "multiculturalism".
Does this mean a right to public funding of non-denominational schools other than those of the Anglo and Franco majorities? No. The Supreme Court of Canada slammed that door. Only the two superior races have those language rights.
Does it mean funding of hospitals, which serve "multiculturalism"? No. French-speaking hospitals have the right say the Courts, and obviously the rest will be English.
Does it mean any proportionate airtime on the publicly funded CBCs, TVOs, and other public airwaves? Not a chance. You have to struggle for "private" CRTC licenses.
Order and Kos
Markos Moulitsas Zuniga of the Daily Kos tells a Louisville paper about political movements in the US:
It's been a year since Dean took the helm of the Democratic Party. Movement-building isn't measured in months, it's measured in decades. It took the Republicans 30 years, from being way out in the wilderness in 1964, to take over, to start electing their conservative activists at the school-board level, at the county level. In 1980, 16 years later, they were able to get Ronald Reagan into the White House. And it took them another 14 years -- a total of 30 years -- to get the Newt Gingrich revolution and take over Congress. This is all a long-term process. We haven't even had one single election since Dean was elected. But the key is that we had nothing when Dean took over. Nothing in the states. There was no party in about 90 percent of the country. Did not exist. Suddenly you have Dean, who is putting money into the states. And we're slowly building. If we win in November, it's not gonna be because the movement is healthy and finished. Far from it. If we win in November, it's gonna be because the Republicans screwed up. People ask me, "How do you feel about 2008? Are you optimistic?" And I say, "I'm really, really optimistic about 2016." That's the year when we will finally have parity with the institutions and the on-the-ground organizing the conservatives have today.
Bono Saves Africa... Again
Harry Browne: "No Africans write about Africa. Only one is presented in an interview as having any agency at all, Nigerian finance minister Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala. It is remarkable that even for the sake of appearances Bono is incapable of hiding his essential paternalism."
New Campaign Stateside
Psst. ITMFA.
All your base expansion are belong to us
Asia Times covers protests against the expansion of a US military base in S. Korea.
Friedman's Moving Deadline
FAIR has an excellent little takedown of Tom Friedman today, entitled Tom Friedman's Flexible Deadlines. Friedman does all the work.
Immigrant Rights Movement as New New Left
Brian Kwoba: "In LA, for example, despite the media's focus on flag-wavers to the exclusion of political messages, there were home-made signs saying 'Are our troops in Iraq illegal too?' and 'Your Foreign Policy Brought Me Here.' If those workers don't represent the inspiring potential for a radical challenge to neoliberalism and imperialism inside the movement, we'd have to be politically impotent. Or Democratic Party enthusiasts."
"We cannot negotiate with terrorists"
From Kahentinetha Horn:
MNN. April 6, 2006. Canada and Ontario appointed Jane Stewart and Barbara McDougall to come up with long term solutions to Canada’s claims to our lands in Haldimand County. The standoff at Six Nations is now in its 68th day. We have been barricading the construction of an illegal housing project by Henco Industries on our land. One of our Women sent Queen Elizabeth a letter asking if she gave these two women the right to speak on her behalf to us on a nation-to-nation basis. We want to know their mandate and who it came from. If it’s not the Queen, then it’s no use talking to them. At the very least, it should be Governor General of Canada, Michaele Jean, who also needs the Queen’s permission. Actually what we really need is proof that they represent the opinion of the Canadian people. We know they don’t have that. So who do they represent?
read more...Mayday for May Day
International Workers' Day is so passé. That must be why the US Congress changed it to Loyalty Day.
Hamas
Ramzy Baroud: "So what if Hamas has adhered to a virtually unilateral ceasefire for over a year, while Israel did not? So what if the newly formed government has given ample evidence that it is keenly interested in dialogue, not violence? So what if the majority of the Palestinian people have adamantly and repeatedly -- according to recent public opinion polls -- expressed their interest in a negotiated settlement with Israel? Indeed, so many “so whats� that hardly matter now, since it is quite clear that the US and the EU’s real intentions are to topple the Palestinian government, along with the sham of a doctrine which claims that democratizing the Arabs is the ultimate policy objective of Bush and Blair."