Postmodern News Archives 2

2006-08-21T21:51:00.000-07:00

From New Internationalist
May 2005

Planet Earth is home to an astonishing variety of life, from bacteria that live in the extreme heat of volcanic lava to ice-cap dwelling polar bears, from city-based humans to luminous fish in deep ocean trenches. All are interconnected in a fragile web of life called ‘biodiversity’.

Life on earth first evolved in the oceans over 2.5 billion years ago. Perhaps half a million years ago, one species of primate became more and more successful, and humanity spread throughout the world. By 10,000 years ago we were domesticating plants and animals; and by the 20th century our high-energy technologies and productive activities meant we were capable of the total transformation of ecosystems, something unprecedented in history.

The number of species threatened with extinction is a clear indicator of the state of the world’s ecosystems. Extinction means the death of birth. Five mass extinctions have happened in the past 500 million years. The sixth and greatest extinction in the history of our planet is happening today. It is almost entirely due to human activity, and is faster than any in history: we are losing species at a rate of up to 1,000 times the natural rate of extinction. Between a third and a half of terrestrial species are expected to die out over the next two centuries if current trends continue unchecked.

Humanity’s threats to biodiversity are manifold, from habitat loss to destruction of grasslands and forests, from overfishing, pollution and contamination to global climate change. The inter-relatedness of ecosystems means that a small loss in one area can affect many other species around it: for example, the decline of the honeybee leaves many fruit crops and flowers unpollinated. For in nature, diversity breeds diversity: trees in turn provide homes and food for birds, insects, other plants and animals and fungi.

This interrelatedness of all beings includes us. Human beings rely directly on the planet’s biodiversity for food, shelter and health; and indirectly for clean water, pure air and fertile soils. The lesson we need to learn urgently is this: we cannot do without the rest of the planet’s biodiversity, but it can do very well without us.

LIFE – THE FACTS

• The Millennium Ecosystems Assessment considered four different scenarios for global development over the next 50 years. In all four, the pressures on ecosystems continue to grow and biodiversity continues to be lost. Between 10% and 15% of plant species may be extinct by 2050.

• Some 23% of mammal species, 12% of bird species and 32% of amphibian species are threatened with extinction.

• Over the past few hundred years, humans have increased the species extinction rate by as much as 1,000 times the background rates typical over the planet’s history.

• In some sea areas the total weight of fish available to be captured is less than a hundredth of that caught before the onset of industrial fishing.

• The distribution of species on Earth is becoming more homogenous. For example, a high proportion of the 100 or so non-native species in the Baltic Sea are native to the North American Great Lakes, while 75% of the 175 recently arrived species in the Great Lakes are native to the Baltic.

Government Spending = Nearly One-Third U.S. Economy

By Bill Ahern
From The Heartland Institute
1999

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, governments in the United States have become increasingly involved in the economy. One indicator of that growing involvement is the ever- higher fraction of the overall economy that is represented by government expenditures.

In 1900, total government expenditures equaled 8.2 percent of GDP. By 1997, that figure had nearly quadrupled, to 31.1 percent. Thanks to currently robust economic growth, it is estimated that by the year 2000 total government expenditures will represent "just" 30.0 percent of GDP.

The composition of government expenditures has also changed dramatically over time. At the turn of the century, most government spending paid for education and training, physical resources, and national defense. Today, most government activity involves transferring income from one group to another. Transfer programs--which represented just 2.0 percent of all government spending in 1900--are expected to account for 42.4 percent of government spending in 1999.

The budgetary authority of the various levels of government has also been transformed over the course of the century. In 1900, the bulk of government spending, 62.2 percent, took place at the state and local levels. Today, the federal government spends more than twice as much as state and local governments combined.

Extreme Weather Extremely Costly

By David Suzuki
From CNEWS
2006

Global warming may have been the last thing on the minds of Vancouverites as they dug out from a record November snowfall and cold snap. But it's another reminder of how much we all depend on the stability of our atmosphere.

While residents of other Canadian cities may scoff at Lotus land's relatively minor misfortunes, the city has certainly had its fair share of weather anomalies lately. First, record rains churned up rivers and caused landslides in the city's watersheds, leading to turbidity problems in the drinking water supply and a boil-water advisory across the region. Then, just as the water began to clear, a record cold and snowfall paralyzed the city.

What has this got to do with global warming? Well, extreme weather events like these are exactly the kind of thing climatologists say will become more common as our climate heats up. How confusing is that? Global warming can cause heavy snowfalls. But it's true.

This ability to link global warming to so many weather-related phenomena has created a bit of a joke: Blame everything on global warming. Stock market down? Global warming. Can't get a date? Global warming.

But underlying the joke is a serious fact. Our atmosphere is connected to everything - including us. By adding vast amounts of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide to the atmosphere (from our industries, cars and power plants) we're trapping more heat near the surface of the earth. More heat means more energy. Adding so much energy to our atmosphere creates the potential for more violent outbursts - like the weather Vancouver has been feeling lately.

This is why it's so imperative and urgent for humanity to get this problem under control. It's not as though global warming is just a minor inconvenience. Left unchecked, it's set to become a major hindrance to economic growth and international development. Vancouver newspapers were full of stories during both extreme weather events about how much these "natural" disasters were going to cost the city's economy.

In developing countries, severe weather events are doing more than harming the economy - they're killing people. Of course, extreme weather has always killed people. But in a recent article in the journal Science, Indian researchers report that extreme summer monsoon rains in India are becoming more common. Last summer, for example, more than 1,000 people died during one torrential rainstorm around Mumbai.

For the Science study, researchers analyzed data during the period 1951 to 2000 from more than 1,800 weather stations around central and eastern India. They found that while overall rainfall remained fairly consistent during the 50-year period, the number of extreme rainfall events doubled. Researchers cannot conclusively say that human-induced global warming is the cause, but the study's findings are in line with what computer models predict will continue to happen unless we seriously curb greenhouse gas emissions.

The new research helps shed light on why, when global warming models predict more rain in places like India, rainfall there doesn't seem to have increased overall. The answer is that, although annual average rainfall hasn't necessarily increased, extreme rainfalls have. That's unfortunate because more steady rainfall could actually benefit India's agriculture. Extreme weather benefits no one, especially in a developing country like India that lacks the infrastructure to deal with it.

Keep that in mind for Canada. Canadians by and large sure wouldn't mind more pleasant weather. But global warming won't benefit anyone if more extreme weather is the result. Just ask folks in Vancouver.

Take the Nature Challenge and learn more at www.davidsuzuki.org.

2006-08-21T21:48:00.000-07:00

The Star in Man : Jung and Technology

By Dolores E. Brien
From The Jung Page
2005

Jung's references to technology are few and pessimistic. Technology itself is neutral, he wrote, neither good nor bad. Whether it does harm to us, or not, depends on our attitude towards it, how we use it. But human nature being what it is, it is certain we will use it for evil as well as good. He thought that technology gendered an "imbalance" in life, dulling our "natural versatility of action" and dulling our instincts.

Technology has given us an illusion that we are superior to nature and that we can do whatever we will to do. Unless we strip ourselves of our false sense of power, nature, both that within us and without, will one day destroy us. We must ask ourselves: "Who is applying this technical skill? In whose hands does this power lie? "Our technical capabilities have become so dangerous that we must question what kind of people are they who control them. How, we need to ask, can the the mind of modern Western man be changed "so that he would renounce his terrible skill".

According to Jung, we project onto technology what in earlier eras we would have projected onto the supernatural. For many, indeed, technology is experienced as numinous. Under the influence of science along with technology, we are less willing to attribute events to divine intervention. But unconsciously, we still cling to the hope of a revelation of that archetype of "order, deliverance, salvation and wholeness." We express this hope, however, in symbols derived from technology rather than from traditional religious beliefs or from mythology.

It is characteristic of our time that the archetype, in contrast to its previous manifestations, should now take the form of an object, a technological construction, in order to avoid the odiousness of mythological personification. Anything that looks technological goes down without difficulty with modern man. The possibility of space travel has made the unpopular idea of metaphysical intervention much more acceptable.

(As an apt if bizarre case in point, readers will remember the account of the Heaven's Gate cult of but a few years ago. The members of the cult members committed suicide in the belief that after death they would be re-united in a space-ship waiting for them in outerspace.)

A more ambiguous, but highly evocative association with technology came to Jung in the form of a youthful fantasy. In later years, he was able to recall it vividly, as he did in a letter to Aniela Jaffé. Aniela Jaffé had written to Jung about her dream of a copper pot which had been hung from a ceiling. Electrical wires which came from all directions made it vibrate but eventually the wires disappeared and the pot vibrated from "atmospheric electric oscillations." Jung found the dream was remarkably similar to what he referred to as "my first systematic fantasy" (at the age of about 15 or 16) which for weeks occupied him while on his long and boring walk to school. Some fifteen years later in Memories, Dreams, Reflections Jung related the daydream again, but in greater detail. He was, he remembered, king of an island in a great lake. On the island was a mountain with a small, medieval town at the bottom. He lived on the top of the mountain in a watchtower which was fortified with weapons and heavy cannon. In it there was a fine library "where you could find everything worth knowing." Below in the town there lived a few hundred inhabitants. Although there was a mayor and a council of elders, he held the post of justice of the peace and advisor but held court only occasionally.

The ego-centered imagery of this young "master of the universe," ruling wisely but alone from his mountain top tower, conveys a sense of order, rationality and benign power. His island is well defended against enemies, the affairs of his citizens are kept well in hand by his delegates. Everything is nicely under control leaving him free to explore the treasures of the library. But in the heart of his tower, this young ruler discovered a strange secret, which came to him, Jung tells us, as a shock.

The tower harbored a hidden "nerve center" which Jung first describes as a thick cable of twisted copper wire serving as a conduit for a flow of energy taken from the air. Initially its form reminds him of a tree with its branches resembling a sort of crown. But then he changes his mind and says, no, it is more like an inverted tree with its roots thrust into the air. Although Jung does not say so directly, the cable is an image of "the world-tree" reaching from heaven to earth, found in many mythologies and prominently in alchemy. Jung calls the cable vaguely and somewhat ominously, an "inconceivable something." An unknown, "mysterious substance," drawn from the air, is sucked down to the cellar and into a laboratory where he transforms it into gold, specifically gold coins. "This was really an arcanum" he remembered, "of whose nature I neither had nor wished to form any conception."

Jung recalled that he consciously refrained from figuring out how this transformation took place. It was as if "there was a kind of inner prohibition: one was not supposed to look into it too closely, nor ask what kind of substance was extracted from the air." He felt at the time that a very important secret of nature had been given to him and one which he had to keep not only from the council of elders, but also from himself.

Jung responded to Jaffé that her dream of an electrical circuit was an important symbol of the self. He must have had in mind his own fantasy as well. "Through the self," he wrote to her, 'we are plunged into the torrent of cosmic events. Everything essential happens in the self and the ego functions as a receiver, spectator, and transmitter. What is so peculiar is the symbolization of the self as an apparatus. A 'machine' is always something thought up, deliberately put together for a definite purpose. Who has invented this machine? (Cf. the symbol of the 'world clock!') The Tantrists say that things represent the distinctness of God's thoughts. The machine is a microcosm, what Paracelsus called 'the star in man.' I always have the feeling that these symbols touch on the great secrets, the magnalia Dei.'

This daydream of the fifteen-year-old Jung foreshadows the adult Jung's fascination with alchemy. We know from Memories Dreams, Reflections that the imaginings of his youth carried profound meaning for him that influenced him throughout his lifetime. But what more can we draw from this brief passage? His remarks to Jaffé very likely had a source in two of Jung's studies he had been recently working on. His lectures on Paracelsus were published in 1942, the same year as his reply to Jaffé. Earlier in 1938 he had published his commentary on "The Visions of Zosimos,"an important third century alchemist. The imagery of the fantasy-the copper cable, the world-tree, the transformation into gold-can be found in both studies along with Jung's interpretation of their symbolic meaning. It is reasonable to presume that when he wrote to Jaffé he was still very much immersed in their revelations. What intrigues Jung is something new-the association of the self with technological apparatus.

The self as tool, as machine
When Jung speaks of the self functioning as "receiver, spectator, and transmitter," he is imagining it as a kind of instrument. That which exists outside the self-a thing-is received by the self, is observed by it, and is communicated further by that self. The self acts as a funnel for the psychic energy which is contained in the object. Here the role of the self seems passive, serving as a "spectator," somewhat analogous to a camera or television. What is communicated in turn to the cosmos, however, bears the imprint of the self through which it has been conducted. But the self is more than passive receptor mirroring, or imaging what it has received.

In the fantasy, the flow of energy ends in a laboratory hidden in the cellar. Jung refers to the laboratory itself as an elaborate machine. How strange, Jung writes to Jaffé, that the self should be symbolized in this way-as a "machine," an "apparatus," in a word, as a piece of technology. After all, a tool is something made by us, and for our purpose. The self it seems is not only a receptor, but an agent as well, or in alchemical terms, the artifex. It is the "self" who achieves the transformation of the energy into gold. Jung's wonder at this mysterious apparatus, reminds him of Paracelsus's idea concerning the "star in man" and therein he finds a possible explanation of its meaning.

The star in man
In keeping with the traditional alchemist notion of the macro-microcosm, Paracelsus believed that the human being is a small cosmos, and that what governs the great cosmos is identical with what governs the little cosmos of man.

[Man] can be understood only as an image of the macrocosm, of the Great Creature. Only then does it become manifest what is in him. For what is outside is also inside; and what is not outside man is not inside. The outer and the inner are one thing, one constellation, one influence, one concordance, one duration, one fruit.

{Man} carries the stars within himself, . . . he is the microcosm, and thus carries in him the whole firmament with all its influences.

There is nothing in heaven or in earth that is not also in man. . . .In him is God who is also in Heaven; and all the forces of Heaven operate likewise in man. Where else can Heaven be rediscovered if not in man? Since it acts from us, it must also be in us.

That which Paracelsus called the "Light of Nature," the "star in man" is also known as the filius philosophorum. In commenting on Paracelsus and the "star in man," Jung notes that this "natural light of man," this "filius philosophorum" "was extracted from matter by human art and, by means of the opus made into a new-light bringer." In the case of Christ's incarnation, the miracle of man's salvation is accomplished by God; in the latter, the salvation or transfiguration of the universe is brought about by the mind of man. Man, as it were, "takes the place of the Creator." In judging the outcome of this notion of the alchemists, Jung recognizes its contribution to the inevitable dominance of science and technology.

Medieval alchemy prepared the way for the greatest intervention in the divine world order that man has ever attempted: alchemy was the dawn of the scientific age, when the daemon of the scientific spirit compelled the forces of nature to serve man to an extent that had never been known before. It was from the spirit of alchemy that Goethe wrought the figure of the "superman" Faust, and this superman led Nietszsche's Zarathrustra to declare that God was dead and to proclaim the will to give birth to the superman, to "create a god for yourself out of your seven devils." Here we find the true roots, the preparatory processes deep in the psyche, which unleased the forces at work in the world today. Science and technology have indeed conquered the world, but whether the psyche has gained anything is another matter.

This statement is consistent with Jung's opinion, mentioned earlier, about the danger of technology as the result of the manipulation of nature. The alchemists made a distinction between God who became Man in Christ, the light of the world and the filius philosophorum, "the light of nature,"who was "extracted from matter by human art and, by means of the opus, made into a new light-bringer." In the case of the former man's situation is "I under God." With the other, it is "God under me." Jung excuses the alchemists as being naive and not aware of what they were doing. Nevertheless the splitting off of divine from human power had been irrevocably accomplished. From now on, human beings will think and act if they were God. Nature is subordinated too, becoming primarily a tool to fulfill our needs and desires.

In an excursus on alchemy in The Soul's Logical Life, Wolfgang Giegerich adds to Jung's insight into the profound and permanent transition initiated by the alchemists in humankind's relation to both nature and the divine. The ancient power of myth, Giegerich states, in which knowledge is reserved to the Gods alone is subverted with the advent of alchemy. No longer is knowledge something which is received, but rather as something to be acquired through experiment and invention. Under the sway of the Gods, man can only attempt to decipher that which has been given to him. The alchemist, on the other hand, "acts on his own resonsibility." "He is no longer in the status of passive recipient, as man had been on the mythological stage of the soul's development." From this change in man's attitude towards God and nature, science and technology evolve.

What is inside is outside and what is outside is inside

It is significant, that in his letter to Jaffé Jung makes no judgment about the meaning of the fantasy and does not try to draw any conclusions from it. Instead he leaves open what this "star in man," might mean. What does it signify that we are "plunged into the torrent of cosmic events?" Echoing Paracelsus, he had said elsewhere that there is nothing outside, which is not also inside. Or conversely, nothing inside which is not outside. He writes wonderingly that he "always has the feeling that these symbols touch on the great secrets, the magnalia Dei."

Jung thought of the machine as a symbol of the self. This machine, in Jung's fantasy, transforms energy into gold. In his commentaries on Zosimos, Jung had observed: "It is in truth the inner man. . . who passes through the stages that transform the copper into silver and the silver into gold, and who thus undergoes a gradual enhancement of value." He admitted that the modern individual would find it very odd that metals could be symbols for spiritual growth. But he claimed this was an old tradition and was not unique to the alchemists. He cites a dream of Zarathustra in which he saw a tree with branches of gold, silver, steel and mixed iron. This tree, according to Jung, "corresponds to the metallic tree of alchemy, the arbor philosphica, which, if it has any meaning at all, symbolizes spiritual growth and the highest illumination." This is the same as the "world-tree" which his copper cable resembled (CW 13, para. 288). What is strange, of course, is that metal appears cold and without life and therefore the opposite of spirit. But if the spirit itself seems leaden perhaps one ought to seek that metal out because there may be hidden in it "either a deadly demon or the dove of the Holy Ghost."

In that same passage referring to the arbor philosophica, Jung wonders if the greed for precious metals was not nature's way "to prod man's consciousness towards greater expansion and greater clarity." (CW 13, paras. 118, 119). This is an unexpected remark especially given Jung's usual pessimistic attitude towards human intentions and behavior. It is reminiscent of Wolfgang Giegerich's controversial assertion that the magnum opus of our time is the "bottom line," the making of money. If we concede (many do not) that this is indeed the magnum opus of our time, we are still inclined to see it as more as an evil than as a good, despite the good that money also can do. The magnum opus was never sought in moral terms of good and evil. This question that Jung throws in somewhat offhandedly, is worth pondering. One may not want to honor human greed for money symbolized by "precious metals" as the magnum opus, but few can doubt that it is an overwhelmingly dominant force in our market driven, global culture. Is it possible to imagine that in the relentless pursuit of profit we will come to "a greater expansion and greater clarity?" Towards what and of what? we may well ask.

Technology tends to be split off from us; it exists "out there, " useful to us, but separate and distinct from us. It is surely not us, we believe. We depend on it, it is true. Life, despite the protestations of the modern day Luddites, would be inconceivable without it. At the same time we are suspicious and fearful of its seemingly autonomous, self-generating power. Jung returned repeatedly to Paracelsus's refrain, that what is inside is also outside but conversely what is outside is also inside. Are technology, as the art of making, crafting (in the original meaning of the word techne) and the end product of that making , in fact, external to us?

Are they purely instrumental and merely subject to our purposes or intentions? Could it be that technology, this "machine," this "apparatus" is more than a symbol of the self, but actually partakes of the self in some integral way, could be a certain manifestation of the self? "Who,"asked Jung, "has invented this machine?" After all, this machine has been "thought up" and created by man. It was "inside" him in some sense before it was produced, that is, also found on the "outside." This suggests that there may well be a more intimate relationship between the individual and technology than has been so far acknowledged.

Jung's thinking on technology is not explicit nor developed, but, as is so often the case with Jung, seminal, richly evocative. Alchemy is arcane, but technology today is just as arcane even to the adepts of technology, never mind the rest of us. With Jung, not as a guide exactly, but as a kind of prod, the "star in man" of the former may cast its light on the latter.

2006-07-29T23:46:00.000-07:00

Challenging Impunity

The International Criminal Court was launched in April 2002. Noah Novogrodsky outlines the goals of the Court and describes the barriers to its success.
From New Internationalist

In mid-October this year the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued indictments for the arrest of Joseph Kony and four other leaders of Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). The LRA is notorious for a 21-year campaign of terror in Northern Uganda – including the abduction of thousands of children and the widespread use of child soldiers. Kony and the other LRA leaders are charged with ‘crimes against humanity’ and ‘war crimes’.

The case against the LRA is a test of the power and limits of the ICC just three years after its birth. The new legal body taking shape at The Hague is a direct legacy of the Nuremberg tribunals which tried Nazi war criminals after World War Two. But unlike Nuremberg the ICC contains the promise of a universal court for universal crimes.

It is this elusive goal that sustains the victims of human rights abuses hungry for individual accountability, the diplomats who negotiated the Court’s creation in Rome during the summer of 1998, and the international lawyers and activists who desperately want such an institution.

Supporters of the Court believe it is the most significant advance in international human rights law in the last half-century. In addition to Northern Uganda, the ICC has begun investigations into atrocities in the Congo and, most recently, in Darfur, Sudan. The Chief Prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, is an Argentinean with a domestic record of successful prosecutions of corrupt politicians, organized criminals and the generals responsible for mass ‘disappearances’ during Argentina’s ‘dirty war’ of the 1970s and early 1980s.

Naming war criminals
But what can the Court really do? The ICC has no police force connected to its operations, so it can’t directly arrest indicted suspects. If the prosecutor can persuade UN peacekeepers or sympathetic states to arrest suspects, the Court will provide criminal justice for a select number of the world’s worst killers. In the process the ICC hopes to destigmatize warring communities and rid them of collective guilt by assigning blame to individuals.

For victims and their families the Court offers the possibility of retribution through law – a forum where they can bear witness to the atrocities they’ve experienced – and a compensation fund. Equally important, the ICC aims to influence international politics by naming and isolating war criminals. In 1999 Louise Arbour, former UN war crimes prosecutor for the Balkans, timed the indictment of Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic to ensure that NATO would not cut a deal over Kosovo with a criminal suspect. Two years later, Milosevic was arrested by Serbian police and turned over to the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia.

Even without its enforcement problems, the Court will have to overcome external enemies and internal deficiencies. The fact that the ICC’s first cases are all in Africa has led to the predictable charge that the Court represents the selective imposition of Western values on poor states.

The Court is an international anomaly – an institution created by treaty among 99 states that functions without the co-operation of a few key actors, many of whom are openly hostile to it. That treaty – the 1998 Rome Statute – is the product of compromise. In the end, the Treaty created a court capable of prosecuting only three universal offences: war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

The result is a codification of international criminal norms which will stop the creation of ad hoc UN criminal tribunals – like the ones for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The Court’s statute identifies rape and torture as crimes against humanity and provides clear definitions of liability for officers in command positions who are barred from arguing that they were simply ‘following orders’. The statute also guarantees defendants substantial ‘due process’ protections (for the accused) and preserves a right of appeal. Despotic heads of state from signatory states are stripped of the immunity that allowed Idi Amin, Uganda’s one-time dictator, to retire in luxury. The Court also entrenches the principle of ‘complementarity’ – which means the ICC will step aside if legitimate national courts decide to try war criminals.

The ICC has the power to investigate human rights abuses on the territory of states that have signed and ratified the treaty or when the suspect hails from a signatory state. If the Security Council refers a matter to the Court, as it did belatedly in response to the slaughter in Darfur, the ICC may take jurisdiction even where the affected state objects to the presence of outside investigators. But more often cases will come from a state that is unable or unwilling to prosecute serious crimes committed on its own soil. In Uganda, for example, the Government is all too willing to let the ICC prosecute the LRA. (If the Court were to indict Government soldiers for their abuses, the picture might look very different). Any mass crime, committed in a signatory state unable to mount a genuine prosecution, can come before the ICC.

Of course, the Court only binds those states (and, by extension, individuals from those states) that sign and ratify the treaty. In theory, however, the Court could exercise jurisdiction over an individual from a non-state party who commits grave violations on the territory of a signatory state. Peacekeepers or foreign forces from non-state parties are potentially bound to the Court if they are arrested for crimes committed on the soil of a signatory state.

Bilateral deals
This is the source of the United States’ well-publicized opposition to the Court. Notwithstanding a litany of safeguards – among them the ICC’s limited jurisdiction to try only the most egregious international crimes, the Court’s inability to try crimes committed on US soil and its explicit deference to domestic procedures – the Bush Administration so loathes the ICC that it attempted to ‘unsign’ the treaty. (President Clinton actually signed the treaty on 31 December 2000 but refused to submit it to the Senate for ratification.)

Washington has not only refused to join the Court, it has actively lobbied against it. In response to concerns that the Court would try US soldiers or officials in frivolous or politically motivated cases, the Bush Administration has negotiated bilateral deals with dozens of countries who’ve agreed never to surrender US citizens to the Court, regardless of the alleged crimes or the site of the offence. Congress also passed the ‘American Servicemembers’ Protection Act’ which prevents the US from aiding the Court. The bill was nicknamed ‘the Hague Invasion Act’ – the ICC is based in the Netherlands and the act pre-authorizes the President to use force to free American soldiers or their colleagues if they were ever brought before the Court.

External opposition is not the Court’s only problem. The limited scope of the ICC’s statute precludes it from seizing jurisdiction over many high-profile international crimes. For example, although the ICC was created by the UN, attacks on UN personnel may only be considered if committed during an armed conflict on the territory of a member state. When the UN’s headquarters in Baghdad was blown up in the summer of 2003, ICC investigators were powerless to probe the incident.

The Court’s focus on consensus definitions of war crimes and genocide limits its range of potential cases and leaves it, quite literally, fighting the last war. The ICC thus reflects the tragedy of Bosnia in 1993, not Afghanistan in 2005. Post 9/11, suspected non-state terrorists are detained by US forces in legal limbo at Guantánamo Bay. And human smugglers operate unchecked in states with underdeveloped legal systems, instead of being sent to the ICC.

Finally, the ICC faces the very real problem that it is powerless to address abuses arising from many of the world’s great powers. Russia, China, Iraq, India, Pakistan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia have joined the US in refusing to sign the Rome Treaty. Much of this is due to domestic concerns – Iran has no interest in allowing an international body to examine the horrors of Iranian prisons. But the cost to the international community is significant. China and India are burgeoning economic and geopolitical powers; their absence from a court capable of trying individuals according to common standards erodes the notion of universal justice. At present, sex traffickers, arms dealers, even international terrorists, from countries that have not signed the Rome Statute, are beyond the Court’s reach.

The ICC is left to prosecute ‘crimes against humanity’, ‘genocide’ and ‘war crimes’ in states that have joined the Court. In addition to Uganda, the list of signatories where such crimes may have been committed since 1 July 2002 includes the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia, Colombia and Sierra Leone. Civil wars may explain why each of those states has joined – they are undoubtedly hoping the Court will prosecute rebel forces – but the legal hook remains. Sadly, there is little current evidence that the spectre of ICC prosecutions has changed the behaviour of human rights abusers on the ground. In Northern Uganda many human rights advocates fear that the ICC will complicate efforts to achieve a negotiated settlement after decades of fighting.

The challenge will be to conduct fair and transparent trials in the face of criticism that the Court is merely a vehicle for Northern states to condemn select crimes in the South – not an instrument of universal justice. Over time the states that have joined the ICC hope to persuade the others. The goal is to lead by example, prosecuting humanity’s worst crimes effectively and reversing the past century’s culture of impunity.

Continued US opposition hurts but, as the Uganda indictments demonstrate, the Bush Administration has been unable to derail the ICC. Likewise, a change in the US position will not guarantee the Court’s future success. For that, its fortunes may well turn on an expansion in the list of crimes within its authority and the involvement of emerging powers as members.

Imagine this: an institution that includes China and India – and can prosecute Joseph Kony as well as Private Lynndie England of Abu Ghraib infamy. That will truly be an International Criminal Court.

The ICC has just targeted Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army for crimes against humanity, including the abduction of children as armed fighters. These former child soldiers are now at a rehabilitation centre in neighbouring Sierra Leone. Photo: Clive Shirley / Globalaware

Noah Benjamin Novogrodsky is Director of the International Human Rights Program and Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of Toronto

2006-07-20T16:27:00.000-07:00

Time's "Green Century" Advice: Less Environmental Activism

From Extra!
2002

Time's August 26 cover feature on "The Green Century" promises to explain "How to Save the Earth." The answer, according to a prominent article inside: blame environmentalists for a lack of environmental progress.

Andrew Goldstein's "Too Green for Their Own Good?" begins with this question: "How come, at a time when the environmental movement is stronger and richer than ever, our most pressing ecological problems just get worse?" One answer might be that the strength of the environmental movement is a testament to the public’s concern for the declining state of the environment. But for Goldstein, it seems to be almost the opposite: Environmentalists are partly to blame, since "it's easier to protest, to hurl venom at practices you don't like, than to find new ways to do business and create change." He writes that the "dogma of traditional green activism" might be what's wrong, as it "has done little to save the planet."

Goldstein offers plenty of advice for green groups-- like "Embrace the Market" and "Business Is Not the Enemy"-- while presenting remarkably little evidence to back up his opinions. "For starters," he writes, "when companies make efforts to turn green, environmentalists shouldn't jump down their throats the minute they see any backsliding." As an example, a former Greenpeace executive turned corporate consultant criticizes environmental groups for opposing Ford Motor Co., "arguably Detroit's most environmentally friendly carmaker," during the debate over fuel-efficiency standards. But as Goldstein parenthetically notes, Ford was lobbying against raising those standards, which have not been increased since 1985. Is it really "dogma" to think that 17 years later, standards should be raised?

It's true that Ford has made a special PR effort to enhance its green reputation. One tactic: sponsoring another major Time magazine environmental series, "Heroes for the Planet." The magazine was very upfront about how Ford's sponsorship would influence its reporting: Time's international editor explained that the series would be unlikely to address auto pollution, since "we don't run airline ads next to stories about airline crashes" (Wall Street Journal, 9/21/98). Ford has two full-page ads in the August 26 issue.

Goldstein also chastises environmental groups for not supporting a Clinton-era emissions trading proposal to reduce emissions by allowing power plants to trade "pollution credits" with other companies. Environmentalists blocked the plan, he says, because they viewed it as a ruse for companies to avoid cutting back on emissions. The result of such opposition was clear to Time: "Result: Today the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has no ability to regulate carbon, and the old, pollution-spewing plants are still in operation."

Contrary to Goldstein's assertions, some major environmental groups, like the Environmental Defense Fund, did in fact endorse emissions-trading plans in the 1990s; such a plan was enacted to limit acid rain in 1990 and expanded in 1995. While some green groups are skeptical that such plans are the most effective way to reduce pollution, the most important opponents to the Clinton proposal were global-warming skeptics in Congress (New York Times, 11/12/00).

More importantly, Goldstein neglects a more direct interference with the EPA: the Bush administration's well-publicized decision in March 2001 to remove carbon dioxide from the list of power plant emissions that the Environmental Protection Agency would regulate. This decision was linked to the concerns of energy companies, not pressure from environmentalists (Associated Press, 4/26/02).

Goldstein has similar advice on the fight over genetically modified foods, advising environmentalists that "it's time to raise the white flag and ask the world's bioengineers for a seat at the bargaining table." Suggesting that biotechnology is the key to ending hunger, he explains, "What could be better for the environment than a cheap, simple way for farmers to double or triple their output while using fewer pesticides on less land?" That sounds nice, but the notion that biotech dramatically improves yields while lowering pesticide use is nothing if not disputed. For instance, some studies have shown that farmers planting bioengineered crops like Monsanto's Roundup Ready soy use as much as five time more herbicide than farmers using conventional crops (Rachel's Environment & Health News, 2/15/01). Studies of crop yields show marginal increases in production, which in some cases do not make up for the increased costs of the genetically modified seeds (USDA Economic Research Service, 5/16/02).

Even if one accepts, for the sake of argument, that biotech is unambiguously good at increasing farm production, would that really feed the hungry? The anti-hunger group Food First has calculated that the world's farmers already produce enough to provide every person 4.3 pounds of food per day, if only it were distributed equitably (www.foodfirst.org). Rather than address such analysis directly, however, Goldstein dismisses critics of biotechnology as "crop tramplers and lab burners."

The magazine closes by recommending that green groups and "an environmentally friendly media" should stop using "scare tactics" and rely instead on sound science and honest analysis. Goldstein's use of vague, misleading anecdotes to bash environmentalists isn't particularly helpful to the environment-- but it is friendly to the corporate advertisers, including auto makers and oil companies, who sponsored Time's "How to Save the Earth" issue.

ACTION: Encourage Time to hold its reporting on environmental activism to a higher standard. "Too Green for Their Own Good?" relies on weak anecdotal arguments to bash environmentalists, while ignoring or downplaying evidence that would challenge the article's thesis. Ask Time whether corporate sponsorship of its environmental coverage influenced its journalism, as it did in 1998.

2006-07-19T22:37:00.000-07:00

PRISONS ARE A FAILED EXPERIMENT (ESPECIALLY FOR WOMEN)(excerpt)

FromPrisonJustice.ca

The Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies and the Native Women's Association of Canada made the original complaint to the Commission on behalf of women who were being held in Saskatchewan Maximum Security Penitentiary for Men.

This complaint is also supported by the Aboriginal Women's Action Network, Assembly of First Nations, National Association of Friendship Centres, Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, Strength in Sisterhood, Disabled Women's Network Canada, National Action Committee on the Status of Women, Canadian Bar Association and Amnesty International.

It alleges that the Canadian government has breached its fiduciary duties to federally sentenced women in Canada and has disregarded the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and certain international human rights obligations, including the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, which, in 1975, Canada agreed to uphold. Information on the full submissions made to the Canadian Human Rights Commission can be viewed on line at http://www.elizabethfry.ca Women in Prison

“Most importantly, the risks that they [women] pose to the public, as a group, is minimal, and at that, considerably different from the security risk posed by men” (Arbour, 1996: 228). Women represent a small portion of Canada's prison population and their particular needs are overlooked, especially in the areas of meaningful treatment and life-skills programs. Women's crimes are predominantly non-violent and reflect the social and economic standing of women in society. 75 per cent of women serving time do so for minor offences such as shoplifting, fraud, or drug and alcohol offences. The needs of women in prison reflect the same needs of as those in the community at large. 35 per cent of provincially and 48 per cent of federally sentenced women have a grade nine education or lower, and 40 per cent have been classified as illiterate.

Most of the women serving time were unemployed at the time of their arrest. Consider first that 70 per cent of the world's poor are women, and that single mothers with children under the age of 18 have a poverty rate of 57 per cent: Two-thirds of federally sentenced women are single mothers, many of whom lose their children to social services and must contend with regaining custody upon their release. Seventy-two per cent of provincially and 82 per cent of federally sentenced women have histories of physical and/or sexual abuse. In terms of violent offences committed by women, 62 per cent of these charges are for ‘low-level’ or ‘common’ assault. Most women serving time for violent offences committed their crime against a spouse or partner, and they are likely to report having been physically or sexually abused, often by the person they assaulted. There are only 64 women serving life sentences for murder in Canada.

Discriminatory Correctional Laws and Policies
Correctional laws and policies discriminate against all women. Of particular concern is the over-classification of federally sentenced women as ‘maximum security.’ Approximately 42 per cent of federally sentenced women are classified as minimum security, yet are imprisoned in facilities that provide much higher security than most of them require. Federally sentenced women do not have the same access as men to lower security institutions and halfway houses, programming, education, or family contact.

Other examples of discrimination are the utter lack of adequate programs and services for federally sentenced women at all security levels; women-centred programs, programs for addiction and health, education and employment training such as vocational training, computer maintenance and upgrading education and programs linked to upgrading in the community.

Of particular concern for women in prison is the lack of healthcare services. Women in prison have as much need for specialized care (e.g. gynaecology and maternity that are specific to women) as do women outside of prison. Additional considerations for the proper medical care of women versus men includes dental care services such as prenatal and postnatal care in particular.

Further, treatment services focused on overcoming histories of drug and/or alcohol dependency, as reasons for dependencies are different for women than for men. Psychological, psychiatric and counselling services for overcoming difficulties including but not limited to abuse issues, which should be provided by women healthcare professionals. Finally, because women more often than men are responsible for the care taking needs of their parents and elders, parenting services such as childcare and elder care are also needed.

Since the year 2000 closing the Prison for Women (P4W) in Kingston, Ontario, maximum-security women have been transferred en masse to isolated sections of men's prisons. As a result, there has been a dramatic increase in suicide attempts and other self-destructive acts. As one female prisoner explains: “women try to find a way out of these inhumane conditions, even through death.”

Canada is in the process of ignoring every recommendation made on the treatment of women in prison and is in the process of building five new ‘super’ maximum-security prisons for women. Other concerns for imprisoned women are the virtual absence of minimum-security conditions for women, the labelling of women with mental health problems as dangerous, and the continued use of male guards on the front lines of women's prisons.

More recently, in 2003, women formerly housed in men’s prisons are being transferred into the newly constructed, special maximum security ‘pods’ located in each regional prison for federally sentenced women despite the fact that much research (i.e. the Correctional Services of Canada’s 1992 Regional Facilities for Federally Sentenced Women Operation Plan) indicates that federally sentenced women are not generally a danger to others and do not require maximum-security accommodation. Rather, this research shows that less than five percent of the women warranted a maximum-security classification while the large majority being either minimum or low medium.

These special maximum-security ‘pods’ mean that women must endure more egregious conditions. For example, in the men’s prisons, these women were held to conditions governing federally sentenced men, albeit with considerably fewer programs, movement and benefits. However, after their transfer out of the men’s prisons, these women, while wanting to be closer to families, communities and ‘sister’ prisoners must contend with poorer quality and quantity of recreation and food while suffering more extreme custodial sanctions in facilities for federally sentence women.

One formerly federally sentenced woman comments on the special maximum-security ‘pods’

Imagine your reactions if you were just one Aboriginal woman, incarcerated since 1978 when - after suffering these assaults by uniformed men, in 1994 you are transferred to a men’s penitentiary in Saskatchewan. Termed “therapy.” You manage to ‘survive’ another more than eight years under segregated conditions until transferred in March, 2003 to one of the “new” maximum security units for women.

Here you are denied all rehabilitation-relevant programs including your own rights under s.15 of the 1985 Charter enactment and the 1992 CCRA, which includes the right to full participation in all Aboriginal spirituality. You must complete the mandatory correctional “programming;” you must agree to be handcuffed and shackled and while accompanied by two officers, be degraded and be used to instil fear and from that fear - compliance throughout the rest of the population - all in order to gain a few hours in the gym while the other women are barred from the same gym and locked down during this movement! You are expected to show respect to your keepers throughout this ordeal.

Female Aboriginal Prisoners
Aboriginal peoples are over-represented in Canadian prisons. In 1999, the incarceration rate for Aboriginal people was 735 per 100,000 of the Canadian population, compared to a national average incarceration rate of 151 per 100,000. “Discrimination against Aboriginal women is rampant in Canada's federal prisons”, says the Native Women's Association of Canada (NWAC). Aboriginal women represent 27 per cent of all women serving federal time, yet account for less than two per cent of Canada's population. Moreover, 50 per cent of women classified as ‘maximum security’ prisoners are Aboriginal women.

Aboriginal women in prison often go into federal facilities on lesser charges, and commit infractions in prison that lead to longer sentences. Those federally sentenced women classified as ‘maximum security’ have no access to core programs and services designed for women under federal law, and are denied specific programs designed for Aboriginal prisoners. Many of these female Aboriginal prisoners have been serving time involuntarily in men’s prisons and psychiatric wards. Serving time in a men’s prison not only puts these women at risk to male violence, but also denies them equal access to the programs and services that the men receive.

Kim Pate, the Executive Director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies, draws attention to the fact that Aboriginal women and women with disabilities are particularly discriminated against: “Being Aboriginal means you are seen as higher risk; being poor means you are seen as higher risk; and being disabled means you are seen as higher risk. All of this results in women receiving a higher security classification, so if you are a poor, Aboriginal woman with a disability, they literally throw away the key.”

Women Prisoners with Mental and Developmental Disabilities
The Disabled Women's Network Canada states that federally sentenced women with mental and developmental disabilities are being discriminated against under Section 17 of the Corrections and Conditional Release Regulation, which equates mental disability with a security risk. This legislation applies higher security classifications to these women, and perpetuates negative stereotypes and assumptions, which characterise mental disability as dangerous. Because of their higher security classifications based on disability, women who are suicidal or have mental or cognitive disabilities, are often isolated, deprived of clothing, and placed in stripped or barren cells.

Prisons have become a substitute for community-based mental health services. With the increased cutbacks to healthcare and social programs, the law is increasingly coming into conflict with women's lives, as they are relegated into prisons instead of receiving appropriate services within the community.

Canada Sacks Three Whistle-Blowing Scientists

From healthcoalition.ca

The Canadian government fired three high-profile scientists to punish them for publicly challenging federal decisions on veterinary drugs, the scientists' union said on Thursday.

But a spokesman for Health Canada said the dismissal of Margaret Haydon, Shiv Chopra and Gerard Lambert had nothing to do with their whistle-blowing activities. "There is absolutely no connection," said Ryan Baker, a spokesman for the department, where the scientists worked in a section that reviews and approves veterinary drugs. "This is not because of anything they may have said publicly," Baker said.

The scientists have a lengthy history of disagreement with the department, which has reprimanded them in the past. Haydon and Chopra spoke out against a growth hormone for dairy cattle, called bovine somatotropin, that Monsanto Co. unsuccessfully applied to sell in Canada in the 1990s. They said the company did not submit enough information to prove the drug was safe for cows or humans, and complained they were pressured by the department to approve it.

More recently, Chopra and Lambert complained the department approved a new method of use for the antibiotic tylosin, marketed by the Canadian animal health division of Eli Lilly and Co., despite their concerns that it could lead to antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Haydon also criticized livestock feed rules in the wake of Canada's first homegrown case of mad cow disease last year. The precise reasons for the firings were outlined in letters delivered to the scientists at their homes on Wednesday, Health Canada's Baker said, declining to elaborate for privacy reasons. "The individuals in question are able to share it with you if they choose to," Baker said. Chopra declined comment and referred questions to his lawyer, who in turn referred calls to the scientists' union, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada.

The union's president also declined to discuss the reasons given by Health Canada until a hearing is held, possibly in six months. "We will be addressing what Health Canada has put in the letters and we will be showing that, despite what they say, the real cause of the letters of termination is the public criticism of the department and the government of Canada," Steve Hindle said. "The fact that it's three (people fired) on the same day is unusual, and it also, I believe, lends credence to the argument we're putting forward that (the firings are) a result of them being whistle-blowers," Hindle said.

The firings outraged activist groups who said whistle-blowers need better laws to protect them. "All these scientists were trying to do was protect the food supply, and they got fired for doing their job," said Bradford Duplisea of the Canadian Health Coalition. The federal government had introduced new measures to protect bureaucrats who report concerns about their departments, but the proposed legislation was not enacted before the June 28 federal election.

Fired Scientists Spoke Out on Drug Approvals

By Paul Weinberg
Fromhealthcoalition.ca

The decision to fire three Health Canada veterinary scientists working in the government office that tests new drugs used on animals raised for food was made at the highest levels of the Canadian bureaucracy with the co-operation of the food and pharmaceutical industries.

That blunt statement comes from Michael McBane, co-ordinator of the Ottawa-based Canadian Health Coalition, which represents groups of seniors, farmers, women, labour unions and healthcare professionals. "The animal drug industry basically worked really hard with senior management in Health Canada and with the Privy Council office (which advises senior government leaders and helps set departments' policies), to have the scientists removed," McBane told IPS in an interview.

Adding to the controversy was the timing of the firings of Shiv Chopra, Margaret Haydon and Gerard Lambert --Jul. 14, just weeks after the national election and before a new group of ministers overseeing all departments, including Health Canada, were sworn in. At the time the three scientists in the department's veterinary drugs directorate were on stress leave after alleging harassment by departmental officials.

Health Canada spokesperson Ryan Baker declined to comment on the suggestion that officials and corporate powers colluded to orchestrate the firings, and called the dismissals "a personal matter." But Chopra told IPS his letter of termination cited "disobedience" as the reason for the action. "Given your previous disciplinary record and your continued unwillingness to accept responsibility for work assigned to you, I have determined that the bond of trust that is essential to productive employer employee relationship has been irreparably breached," Deputy Health Minister Ian Green wrote in the letter, reported The Canadian Press on Wednesday.

Steve Hindle, the president of the labour union that represents the scientists, says Health Canada "just reached the end of its rope" after years of reprimanding and suspending the scientists for their public opposition to the approval of specific veterinary drugs.

For example, resistance from Chopra, Haydon and Lambert towards a bovine growth hormone developed by agri-business giant Monsanto ultimately led to a Senate inquiry in the 1990s and a decision to not approve the drug in Canada. Also, before the May 2003 discovery of mad cow disease in a cattle herd in western Alberta province, which led countries like the United States and Japan to ban Canadian beef, Chopra and Haydon had warned that too little was being done by the food industry and its regulators in the Canadian Food Inspection Agency to prevent remains of dead cattle being used as feed for other cows. The Indian-born Chopra, who has successfully launched anti-discrimination cases against Health Canada for failing to promote employees of non-European origin, has no explanation for the timing of the firings, but says the loss in income is creating "new stress" for the researchers and their families.

Because they were dismissed from their jobs, they are not eligible for severance payments, he notes. Hindle's Professional Institute of the Public Service says it will appeal the firings before the Public Service StaffRelations Board, an independent tribunal that adjudicates disputes between the federal government and its employees, if Health Canada fails to reinstate them. Although Chopra applauds the union's support, he says the grievance appeal process will only deal with the technical and legal aspects of the department's action.

Left out, he adds, will be the substance of the issue: the ability of the powerful food and pharmaceutical lobbies to pressure Ottawa to bypass scientific concerns about the introduction of suspected cancer-causing hormones and the excessive use of antibiotics in animals; the latter has been singled out for the declining effectiveness of antibiotics on human beings. "The pharmaceutical companies openly for years kept on going to the Privy Council (and saying) that there are problems within veterinary drugs at Health Canada; they have backlogs of drugs that are not being passed. When we ask (the drug companies) for data, they don't produce any," Chopra adds.

But Jean Szkotnicki, president of the Canadian Animal Health Institute, the veterinary drugs industry association, denies her organisation played a role in the firings. In fact, her industry benefits from a "robust" review of animal drugs, she told IPS. At the same time, added Szkotnicki, Canada is losing potential research and development investment dollars from food and pharmaceutical companies because of the slow pace of testing of veterinary drugs at Health Canada.

The same drugs have been endorsed by officials in other countries after going through "a similar type risk assessment and risk management programme," she added. "We are often one of the last countries in the world to approve a product," according to Szkotnicki. Chopra counters that the animal drug industry has not produced any new products for many years, beyond "spreading and maintaining" the same types of hormones and antibiotics "of questionable safety" in the Canadian meat industry. McBane adds that the European Union (EU) continues to ban imports of Canadian beef because of its hormone content.

The issue is the right of government scientists to do their job, he adds. "At the end of the day, these scientists were performing their statutory duty under the law, in this case the Food and Drugs Act. And their senior managers, the deputy minister, the associate deputy minister and the director general were basically telling them to operate outside of the rule of law, to ignore the laws of Canada, and to expose Canadians to known health risks." Chopra says he expects the Senate to investigate the firings. In 1998 the standing Senate Committee on Agriculture and Forestry promised Health Canada scientists that in exchange for testimony on the safety of Canada's food, their jobs would not be jeopardised. "They told us, 'anytime, if anything happens to you, come to us'," recalls Chopra.

Scientist gets congratulatory letter from Health Canada after being fired

BY DENNIS BUECKERTOTTAWA
From healthcoalition.ca

Three weeks after firing Shiv Chopra for insubordination, Health Canada has sent him a gold watch and congratulatory letter praising his 35 years of "dedicated service." Chopra, one of three Health Canada whistleblowers fired on July 14, said he was insulted to get the glowing letter of praise after months of what he calls harassment by the department, culminating in his firing.

"Your years of service have not gone unnoticed and you have earned. . . praise and respect," says the letter signed by Deputy Health Minister Ian Green. "Please accept this special tribute as we honour you and your career. It's an acknowledgement of our sincere appreciation."

In contrast, Green's July 14 letter of dismissal cited concerns about Chopra's work performance and blasted him for "total lack of progress" in a project he had been assigned. "I have concluded that you have chosen to deliberately refuse to comply with my instructions," Green says in the earlier letter. "Given your previous disciplinary record and your continued unwillingness to accept responsibility for work assigned to you, I have determined that the bond of trust that is essential to productive employer employee relationship has been irreparably breached."

In the later letter, along with his gold watch Chopra received a framed, honorary certificate signed by Prime Minister Paul Martin. A Health department spokesman later said the award simply reflects departmental policy to recognize all veteran employees. "The reasons for Dr. Chopra's termination in July are not in any way related to his 35 years service award," Health Canada spokesman Ryan Baker said Wednesday. Chopra and his colleagues Margaret Haydon and Gerard Lambert, who were fired for insubordination on the same day, maintain they have been targeted because of their record as whistle-blowers. The scientists have said publicly they were being pressured to approve drugs despite human safety concerns.

In the late 1990s, they publicly opposed bovine growth hormone, a product that enhances milk production in cows. Their criticism led to a Senate inquiry and a decision not to approve the drug. During the anthrax scare following the September 2001 terror attacks, Chopra criticized then-health minister Allan Rock's decision to spend millions stockpiling antibiotics, saying the fear of bioterrorism was overblown. Chopra and Haydon warned last year that measures to prevent mad cow disease were inadequate. Subsequently a case of the disease was identified, with disastrous results for the beef industry. Health Canada has initiated numerous disciplinary proceedings against the scientists, who in turn filed grievances in a complicated tangle of cases, most of which they have won.

In a letter of grievance over his July 14 firing, Chopra says he was subject to "severe and debilitating harassment" over the 18 months preceding his dismissal. Chopra said that for five months this year, he was given no work to do.

He was then given a project but was separated from other colleagues with whom he needed to consult as part of his research. Chopra said that he, Haydon and Lambert were separated from other Health Canada employees and assigned to work in isolated offices where they had difficulty getting access to department data. All three say the stress of their battles at Health Canada have made them ill; a fourth member of the veterinary drug assessment group, Chris Bassude, died last year. ...Shiv Chopra, one of three whistleblowers who were abruptly axed last month, wasn't impressed with yesterday's home delivery.

"This is a very bad joke. This is adding insult to injury," he told Sun Media from his home in Manotick, outside Ottawa. "I completed 35 years of service on June 20, and on the 14th of July I got fired," Chopra said. "Now they send me this award for distinguished service." (Quotes from Sun Media)

2006-07-19T22:10:00.000-07:00

How many Sisters do we have to lose?
From Amnesty International Canada

Helen Betty Osborne was a 19-year-old Cree student from northern Manitoba. She dreamed of becoming a teacher. On November 12, 1971, four white men abducted her from the streets of The Pas. She was sexually assaulted and brutally murdered. A judge said later:

... the men who abducted Osborne believed that young Aboriginal women were objects with no human value beyond sexual gratification ... Betty Osborne would be alive today had she not been an Aboriginal woman.

The murder of Helen Betty Osborne – and her family’s long search for justice – is one of the nine stories of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls told in Stolen Sisters: Discrimination and Violence against Indigenous Women in Canada, a report by Amnesty International.

These stories represent just part of the terror and suffering that has been inflicted on Indigenous or Aboriginal women and their families across Canada.

This violence can be stopped. But only if Canadian officials take concerted action to protect the lives of First Nations, Inuit and Métis women and girls.

On March 25, 2003 – three decades after the murder of Helen Betty Osborne – her 16-year-old cousin, Felicia Solomon, went missing in Winnipeg. The first posters seeking information on her disappearance were distributed by her family, not the police. Parts of her body were found three months later.

Lives at risk
According to a Canadian government statistic, young Indigenous women are five times more likely than other women of the same age to die as the result of violence.

Indigenous women have long struggled to draw attention to violence within their own families and communities. Canadian police and public officials have also long been aware of a pattern of racist violence against Indigenous women in Canadian cities – but have done little to prevent it.

The pattern looks like this:

Racist and sexist stereotypes deny the dignity and worth of Indigenous women, encouraging some men to feel they can get away with acts of hatred against them.

Decades of government policy have impoverished and broken apart Indigenous families and communities, leaving many Indigenous women and girls extremely vulnerable to exploitation and attack.

Many police forces have failed to institute necessary measures – such as training, protocols and accountability mechanisms – to ensure that officers understand and respect the Indigenous communities they serve. Without such measures, police too often fail to do all they can to ensure the safety of Indigenous women and girls whose lives are in danger.
No excuse for government inaction
There is no excuse for government inaction. In fact, many of the steps needed to ensure the safety and well-being of Indigenous women have already been identified by government inquiries – including the inquiry into the murder of Helen Betty Osborne.

All levels of government should work closely with Indigenous women’s organizations to develop a comprehensive and coordinated programme of action to stop violence against Indigenous women. Immediate action should be taken to implement a number of long overdue reforms, including:

Institute measures to ensure that police thoroughly investigate all reports of missing women and girls

Provide adequate, stable funding to the frontline organizations that provide culturally-appropriate services such as shelter, support and counselling to help Indigenous women and girls escape from harm’s way
“When will the Canadian government finally recognize the real dangers faced by Indigenous women?” asks Darlene Osborne, a relative of Felicia Solomon and Helen Betty Osborne. “Families like mine all over Canada are wondering how many more sisters and daughters we have to lose before real government action is taken.”

The Human Rights of Indigenous Peoples: Overview
Despite some progress over the last decade, indigenous peoples around the world continue to live in hardship and danger due to the failure of states to uphold their fundamental human rights.

Indigenous peoples are being uprooted from their lands and communities as a consequence of discriminatory government policies, the impact of armed conflicts, and the actions of private economic interests.

Cut off from resources and traditions vital to their welfare and survival, many indigenous peoples are unable to fully enjoy such human rights as the right to food, the right to health, the right to housing, or cultural rights. Instead they face marginalisation, poverty, disease and violence – in some instances extinction as a people.

With the disruption of traditional ways of life, indigenous women may face particular challenges, losing status in their own society or finding that frustration and strife in the community is mirrored by violence in the household. For the growing numbers of indigenous women who have migrated to urban settings or who live on land with a heavy military presence, racial and sexual discrimination in the larger society may lead to a heightened risk of violence and unequal access to the protection of the justice system.

Promoting Global standards
Amnesty works with Indigenous peoples around the globe to advance urgently needed laws and standards to protect their cultures, livelihoods and territories. The most significant of these is the draft United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples [see right sidebar for link].

Denouncing abuses
Social marginalization and legal discrimination place Indigenous peoples at risk of a wide range of human rights violations directed against community leaders, individuals and Indigenous societies as a whole. Amnesty International takes action by exposing abuses in reports and the press, and by mobilizing public pressure through tools like our Urgent Action Network.

Holding Canadian officials responsible
The Canadian government has told the United Nations that the situation of Indigenous peoples is “the most pressing human rights issue facing Canadians.” Yet the Canadian government has repeatedly failed to implement UN the recommendations of UN human rights bodies concerning the protection of Indigenous peoples’ rights in Canada . Amnesty International’s work in Canada has included the land rights of the Lubicon Cree, the police shooting of Dudley George, and violence against Indigenous women.

"For far too long the hopes and aspirations of indigenous peoples have been ignored; their lands have been taken; their cultures denigrated or directly attacked; their languages and customs suppressed; their wisdom and traditional knowledge overlooked; and their sustainable ways of developing natural resources dismissed. Some have even faced the threat of extinction.... The answer to these grave threats must be to confront them without delay." -Kofi Annan, U.N. Secretary General 2004

Mos Def Arrested After Performing 'Katrina Klap' Outside Awards Show

From GNN
2006

Mos Def was taken into custody and charged with disorderly conduct Thursday night after an unauthorized performance outside Radio City Music Hall during the Video Music Awards, police confirmed to MTV News. He was released early Friday (September 1) morning.

According to authorities, the rapper pulled up in front of the venue in a flatbed truck at around 10 p.m. for an impromptu show for the people gathered outside. An NYPD spokesperson said officers asked Mos Def and members of his entourage to shut down their operation due to crowd conditions and the overall safety of everyone involved.

It wasn’t clear whether Mos Def (real name: Dante Smith) ignored or refused the orders, the police spokesperson continued.

Sources close to the rapper said Mos Def was performing “Katrina Clap,” a freestyle indictment of the Bush administration’s slow response to last year’s hurricane victims in New Orleans.

After Mos Def arrived at Radio City Music Hall with his team in tow, the source said, officers on the scene approached the truck inquiring about a permit. When police were told a permit was in possession, officers let the one-song performance continue.

The source said additional officers then approached the rapper demanding the operation be shut down immediately. The order wasn’t communicated to Mos Def immediately, so the rapper didn’t end his performance right away, the source said. Police then began to arrest members of the rapper’s entourage, including his brother, according to the source. According to a statement released by Mos Def’s publicist on Friday, the rapper did not have a permit.

“Mos Def chose to use his voice to speak for those who are losing their own during this critical period of reconstruction,” the statement reads. ”[He] was in the middle of performing and as soon as he was made aware of the police’s presence, he shut everything down.

His staff and team were willing to comply as well but the police overreacted. Mos Def was not charged but given a summons for operating a sound-reproduction device without a permit, which he is going to contest.”

Members of Mos Def’s camp say they videotaped the incident and will publish it, possibly on a Web site, to shed light on their side of the confrontation.

2006-07-19T15:02:00.000-07:00

The Development of Postmodernism

Wikipedia
(excerpt)

From modernism
Modernity, is defined as a period or condition loosely identified with the Industrial Revolution, or the Enlightenment. One "project" of modernity is said to have been the fostering of progress, which was thought to be achievable by incorporating principles of rationality and hierarchy into aspects of public and artistic life. (see also post-industrial, Information Age). Although useful distinctions can be drawn between the modernist and postmodernist eras, this does not erase the many continuities present between them. One of the most significant differences between modernism and postmodernism is the concern for universality or totality. While modernist artists aimed to capture universality or totality in some sense, postmodernists have rejected these ambitions as "metanarratives."

This usage is ascribed to the philosophers Jean-François Lyotard and Jean Baudrillard. Lyotard understood modernity as a cultural condition characterized by constant change in the pursuit of progress, and postmodernity to represent the culmination of this process, where constant change has become a status quo and the notion of progress, obsolete. Following Ludwig Wittgenstein's critique of the possibility of absolute and total knowledge, Lyotard also further argued that the various "master-narratives" of progress, such as positivist science, Marxism, and Structuralism, were defunct as a method of achieving progress. Writers such as John Ralston Saul among others have argued that postmodernism represents an accumulated disillusionment with the promises of the Enlightenment project and its progress of science, so central to modern thinking.

Notable contributors
The existentialists like Nietzsche brought a new nihilism and atheism which influenced culture. Post-colonialism after World War Two contributed to the idea that one cannot have an objectively superior lifestyle or belief. This idea was taken further by the anti-foundationalist philosophers: Heidegger, then Ludwig Wittgenstein, then Derrida, who re-examined the fundamentals of knowledge; they argue that rationality was neither as sure nor as clear as modernists or rationalists assert. Psychologists also assert a cognitive bias, which points at the human bias of truth.Søren Kierkegaard and Karl Barth's important fideist approach to theology and lifestyle, brought an irreverence for reason, and the rise of subjectivity.

Features of postmodern culture begin to arise in the 1920s with the emergence of the Dada art movement. Both World Wars (perhaps even the concept of a World War), contributed to postmodernism; it is with the end of the Second World War that recognizably post-modernist attitudes begin to emerge. Some identify the burgeoning anti-establishment movements of the 1960s as an early trend toward postmodernism. The theory gained some of its strongest ground early on in French academia. In 1979 Jean-François Lyotard wrote a short but influential work The Postmodern Condition : a report on knowledge. Also, Richard Rorty wrote "Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature" (1979). Jean Baudrillard, Michel Foucault, and Roland Barthes are also strongly influential in 1970s postmodern theory.

Marxist critics argue that postmodernism is symptomatic of "late capitalism" and the decline of institutions, particularly the nation-state. The literary critic Fredric Jameson and the geographer David Harvey have also identified post-modernity with "late capitalism" or "flexible accumulation". This situation, called finance capitalism, is characterized by a high degree of mobility of labor and capital, and what Harvey called "time and space compression." They suggest that this coincides with the breakdown of the Bretton Woods system which they believe defined the economic order following the Second World War.

Other thinkers assert that post-modernity is the natural reaction to mass broadcasting and a society conditioned to mass production and mass politics.

The movement has had diverse political ramifications: its anti-ideological ideas appear conducive to, and strongly associated with, the feminist movement, racial equality movements, gay rights movements, most forms of late 20th century anarchism, even the peace movement and various hybrids of these in the current anti-globalization movement. Unsurprisingly, none of these institutions entirely embraces all aspects of the postmodern movement in its most concentrated definition, but reflect, or in true postmodern style, borrow from some of its core ideas.

Deconstruction
Deconstruction is a term which is used to denote the application of post-modern ideas of criticism, or theory, to a "text" or "artifact". A deconstruction is meant to undermine the frame of reference and assumptions that underpin the text or the artifact.

In its original use, a "deconstruction" is an important textual "occurrence" described and analyzed by many postmodern authors and philosophers. They argued that aspects in the text itself would undermine its own authority or assumptions, that internal contradictions would erase boundaries or categories which the work relied on or asserted.

Post-structuralists beginning with Jacques Derrida, who coined the term, argued that the existence of deconstructions implied that there was no intrinsic essence to a text, merely the contrast of difference. This is analogous to the scientific idea that only the variations are real, that there is no established norm to a genetic population, or the idea that the difference in perception between black and white is the context. A deconstruction is created when the "deeper" substance of text opposes the text's more "superficial" form. This too is not an idea isolated to post-structuralists, but is related to the idea of hermeneutics in literature, and was asserted as early as Plato, and by modern thinkers such as Leo Strauss. Derrida's argument is that deconstruction proves that texts have multiple meanings, and the "violence" between the different meanings of text may be elucidated by close textual analysis.

Popularly, close textual analyses describing deconstruction within a text are often themselves called deconstructions. Derrida argued, however, that deconstruction is not a method or a tool, but an occurrence within the text itself. Writings about deconstruction perhaps are referred to in academic circles as deconstructive readings, in conformance with this view of the word.

Deconstruction is far more important to postmodernism than its seemingly narrow focus on text might imply. According to Derrida, one consequence of deconstruction is that the text may be defined so broadly as to encompass not just written words, but the entire spectrum of symbols and phenomena within Western thought. To Derrida, a result of deconstruction is that no Western philosopher has been able to successfully escape from this large web of text and reach the purely text free "signified" which they imagined to exist "just beyond" the text.

The more common use of the term is the more general process of pointing to contradictions between the intent and surface of a work, and the assumptions about it. A work then "deconstructs" assumptions when it places them in context. For example, someone who can pass as the opposite sex is said to "deconstruct" gender roles, because there is a conflict between the superficial appearance, and the reality of the person's gender.

Lifestyle
As a cultural movement, features that have contributed to postmodernity include globalization, consumerism, the fragmentation of authority, and the commodification of knowledge. In the era of postmodern culture, people have rejected the grand, supposedly universal stories and paradigms such as religion, conventional philosophy, capitalism and gender that have defined culture and behavior in the past, and have instead begun to organize their cultural life around a variety of more local and subcultural ideologies, myths and stories.

The result of accepting postmodernism is the view that different realms of discourse are incommensurable and incapable of judging the results of other discourse. It is the idea that all such metanarratives and paradigms are stable only while they fit the available evidence, and can potentially be overturned when phenomena occur that the paradigm cannot account for, and a better explanatory model (itself subject to the same fate) is found.

Postmodernism in visual art
Where modernists hoped to unearth universals or the fundamentals of art, postmodernism aims to unseat them, to embrace diversity and contradiction. A postmodern approach to art thus rejects the distinction between low and high art forms. The postmodern creator, in turn, is free to combine any elements or styles in a work, even in ways that are counter to or irrelevant to the apparent function of the object. Postmodern style is often characterized by eclecticism, digression, collage, pastiche, irony, the return of ornament and historical reference, and the appropriation of popular media. Some artistic movements commonly called postmodern are pop art, architectural deconstructivism, magical realism in literature, maximalism, and neo-romanticism. It rejects rigid genre boundaries and promotes parody, irony, and playfulness, commonly referred to as jouissance by postmodern theorists. Unlike modern art, postmodern art does not approach this fragmentation as somehow faulty or undesirable, but rather celebrates it.

As the gravity of the search for underlying truth is relieved, it is replaced with 'play'. As postmodern icon David Byrne, and his band Talking Heads said: "Stop making sense."

Post-modernity, in attacking the perceived elitist approach of Modernism, sought greater connection with broader audiences. This is often labelled "accessibility" and is a central point of dispute in the question of the value of postmodern art. It has also embraced the mixing of words with art, collage and other movements in modernity, in an attempt to create more multiplicity of medium and message. Much of this centers on a shift of basic subject matter: postmodern artists regard the mass media as a fundamental subject for art, and use forms, tropes, and materials - such as banks of video monitors, found art, and depictions of media objects - as focal points for their art. With his "invention" of "readymade", Marcel Duchamp is often seen as a forerunner on postmodern art. Where Andy Warhol furthered the concept with his appropriation of common popular symbols and "ready-made" cultural artifacts, bringing the previously mundane or trivial onto the previously hallowed ground of high art.

Postmodernism's critical stance is interlinked with presenting new appraisals of previous works. As implied above, the works of the Dada movement received greater attention, as did collagists such as Robert Rauschenberg, whose works were initially considered unimportant in the context of the modernism of the 1950s, but who, by the 1980s, began to be seen as seminal. Post-modernism also elevated the importance of cinema in artistic discussions, placing it on a peer level with the other fine arts. This is both because of the blurring of distinctions between "high" and "low" forms, and because of the recognition that cinema represented the creation of simulacra which was later duplicated in the other arts. Davor Dzalto, for example, attacks the postmodern positions in art and culture generally, confronting a sustainable personal identity, together with notions of creativity, freedom and communion, to the postmodern deconstruction of any metaphysical identity. But in the critique he stresses a positive role of postmodern views for a further historical, cultural and artistic development.

Postmodernism in music
Postmodern music is both a musical style and a musical condition. As a musical style, postmodern music contains characteristics of postmodern art—that is, art after modernism, eclecticism in musical form and musical genre, combining characteristics from different genres, or employing jump-cut sectionalization (such as blocks). It tends to be self-referential and ironic, and it blurs the boundaries between "high art" and kitsch. Daniel Albright (2004) summarizes the traits of the postmodern style as bricolage, polystylism, and randomness.

As a musical condition, postmodern music is simply the state of music in postmodernity, music after modernity. In this sense, postmodern music does not have any one particular style or characteristic, and is not necessarily postmodern in style or technique. The music of modernity, however, was viewed primarily as a means of expression while the music of postmodernity is valued more as a spectacle, a good for mass consumption, and an indicator of group identity. For example, one significant role of music in postmodern society is to act as a badge by which people can signify their identity as a member of a particular subculture.

Postmodernity is also seen as an outgrowth of minimalism, as stated by composer Don Davis. Postmodern music was utilized by film in the 1999 blockbuster "The Matrix," with music composed by Davis. With no central themes or motifs, and a very random arrangement of music, all linked by only similar musical texturing or orchestration, the music is as different from the norm as the film is. That is not to say it is bad music. It is Don Davis at his finest, and his use of postmodern music continued into the sequels "The Matrix Reloaded," and "The Matrix Revolutions," being better than the actual films themselves.

Postmodernism in graphic design for the most part has been a visual and decorative movement. Many designers and design critics contend that postmodernism, in the literary or architectural sense of the term, never really impacted graphic design as it did these other fields. Alternatively, some argue that it did but took on a different persona. This can be seen in the work produced at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Michigan during the late 1980s to late 1990s and at the MFA program at CalArts in California. But when all was said and done, the various notions of the postmodern in the various design fields never really stuck to graphic design as it did with architecture. Some argue that the "movement" (if it ever was one) had little to no impact on graphic design. More likely, it did, but more in the sense of a continuation or re-evaluation of the modern.

Some would argue that this continuous re-evaluation is also just a component of the design process - happening for most of the second half of the 20th century in the profession. Since it was ultimately the work of graphic designers that inspired pop artists like Warhol and Liechtenstein, and architects like Robert Venturi and Denise Scott-Brown, it could be argued that graphic design practice and designs may be the root of Postmodernism.

Graphic design saw a massive popular raising at the end of the seventies in form of Graffiti and Hip Hop culture's rise. Graphic forms of expression became a vast everyday hobby among school kids all around the developed western countries. Along side this 'movement', that took rebellious and even criminal cultural forms, was born the mass hobby of coding computer graphics. This phenomenon worked as a stepping stone towards the graphic infrastructure that is applied in the majority of computer interfaces today.

Postmodernism in literature
Postmodern literature argues for expansion, the return of reference, the celebration of fragmentation rather than the fear of it, and the role of reference itself in literature. While drawing on the experimental tendencies of authors such as Ernest Hemingway and William Faulkner in English, and Jorge Luis Borges in Spanish - writers who were taken as influences by American postmodern authors such as Norman Mailer, Thomas Pynchon, Kurt Vonnegut, Don DeLillo, John Barth, William Gaddis, David Foster Wallace, and Paul Auster - the advocates of postmodern literature argue that the present is fundamentally different from the modern period, and therefore requires a new literary sensibility.

Post Modernism in Cinema
Post modernism in film can loosely be used to describe a film in which the audience's suspension of disbelief is destroyed, or at the very least toyed with, in order to free the audience's appreciation of the work, and the creator's means with which to express it. The cornerstones of conventional narrative structure and characterisation are changed and even turned on their head in order to create a work whose internal logic forms its means of expression.

Though a popular movement in theatre, particularly with Bertolt Brecht's epic theatre and verfremdungseffekt, post modernist film didn't break into the mainstream until the advent of the French New Wave in the 1950's and 60's, with such films as Jean-Luc Godard's À bout de souffle.

Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí's 1928 surrealist short Un Chien Andalou could be argued as a post modernist film however its extreme deconstruction of structure and character make its meaning almost entirely arbitrary, and thus to still convey some desired meaning post modernist films still maintain some conventional elements in order for the audience to grasp them. Two such examples are Jane Campion's Two Friends, in which the story of two school girls is showed in episodic segments arranged in reverse order; and Karel Reisz's The French Lieutenant's Woman, in which the story being played out on the screen is mirrored in the private lives of the actors playing it, which we also see. By making small but significant changes to the conventions of cinema the artificiality of the experience and the world presented is emphasised in the audience's mind, in order to remove them from the conventional emotional bonds they have to the subject matter, and to give them a new view of it.

Postmodernism in architecture
As with many cultural movements, one of postmodernism's most pronounced and visible ideas can be seen in architecture. The functional, and formalized, shapes and spaces of the modernist movement are replaced by unapologetically diverse aesthetics; styles collide, form is adopted for its own sake, and new ways of viewing familiar styles and space abound.

Architects generally considered postmodern include: Peter Eisenman, Philip Johnson (later works), John Burgee, Robert Venturi, Ricardo Bofill, James Stirling, Charles Willard Moore, and Frank Gehry.

Postmodernism in planning and urban design
Post modern landscapes in contemporary cities can be understood better in the context of globalization which can be described as a variant form of capitalism where a growing proportion of all economic activity is being progressively organised at the international rather than the national, spatial scale. This international scope not only influences economic patterns, but also induces a multicultural ambience to metropolitan cities, effectively blending cultures into an altered context. David Harvey, in his seminal work, The Condition of Postmodernity argues that postmodernism, by way of contrasts, privileges heterogeneity and difference as liberative forces in the redefinition of cultural discourse and rejects metanarratives and overarching theories. It purports an existence of multi-visionary thinking within the mosaic of the contemporary metropolis. It heralded the shift from modernism to a "perspectivism that questions how radically different realities may co-exist, collide and interpenetrate."

Postmodernity and digital communications
Technological utopianism is a common trait in Western history — from the 1700s when Adam Smith essentially labelled technological progress as the source of the Wealth of Nations, through the novels of Jules Verne in the late 1800s (with the notable exception of his then-unpublished Paris in the 20th Century), through Winston Churchill's belief that there was little an inventor could not achieve. Its manifestation in post-modernity was first through the explosion of analog mass broadcasting of television. Strongly associated with the work of Marshall McLuhan who argued that "the medium is the message", the ability of mass broadcasting to create visual symbols and mass action was seen as a liberating force in human affairs, even though at the same time Newton N. Minow was calling television "a vast wasteland".

The second wave of technological utopianism associated with postmodern thought came with the introduction of digital internetworking, and became identified with Esther Dyson and such popular outlets as Wired Magazine. According to this view digital communications makes the fragmentation of modern society a positive feature, since individuals can seek out those artistic, cultural and community experiences which they regard as being correct for themselves.

The common thread is that the fragmentation of society and communication gives the individual more autonomy to create their own environment and narrative. This links into the postmodern novel, which deals with the experience of structuring "truth" from fragments.

Postmodernism in political science
According to postmodernist political theorists, there are many situations which are considered political in nature that can not be adequately discussed in traditional realist and liberal approaches to political science. Some examples they cite include the situation of a “draft-age youth whose identity is claimed in national narratives of ‘national security’ and the universalizing narratives of the ‘rights of man,’” of “the woman whose very womb is claimed by the irresolvable contesting narratives of ‘church,’ ‘paternity,’ ‘economy,’ and ‘liberal polity.’ They argue that in these cases, there are no fixed categories, stable sets of values, or common sense meanings to be understood in their scholarly exploration. They contend that liberal approaches do not aid in understanding these types of situations; arguing that there is no individual or social or institutional structure whose values can impose a meaning or interpretive narrative.

Postmodernists argue that meaning and interpretation in these types of situations is always uncertain and arbitrary. They contend that the power in effect here is not that of oppression, but that of the cultural and social implications around them, which they say creates the framework within which they see themselves, which creates the boundaries of their possible courses of action.

2006-07-18T10:49:00.000-07:00

True Cost Accounting
(excerpt)
From Adbusters.org

Cost of global warming
Private insurers hit hard by global warming costs prepared a report in 2001 demonstrating that more frequent tropical cyclones, loss of land as a result of rising sea levels, and damage to fishing stocks, agriculture and water supplies amounted to a yearly bill of $304.2 billion.

Source: United Nations Environmental Programme, financial services initiative report, February 2001

Cost of air pollution
According to Science magazine, exposure to air pollution affects “death rates, hospitalizations and medical visits, complications of asthma and bronchitis, days of work lost, restricted-activity days, and a variety of measures of lung damage.” A World Health Organization study of France, Switzerland and Austria found that their health costs due to traffic pollution amounted to approximately 1.7 percent of GDP, dramatically more than the cost of treating injuries from traffic accidents.

Source: CNN.com “Traffic pollution 'kills thousands every year' “ September 1, 2000

In Canada, the province of Ontario estimates that air pollution costs its 12 million residents at least $1 billion annually in hospital admissions, emergency room visits and worker absenteeism.

Source: Ontario Medical Association, “The Illness Costs of Air Pollution Ontario” June 2000

And the World Bank reports that in China – home to some of the most polluted air in the world – the deaths and illnesses of urban residents due to air pollution cost an estimated 5 percent of GDP.

Source: World Bank “Urbanization and Urban Air Pollution” in Beyond Economic Growth, 2000

Cost of driving
What would it cost to drive if the price tag of gas and cars included air pollution, road construction and maintenance; property taxes lost from land cleared for freeways; free parking paid for by taxes; noise and vibration damage to structures; protection of petroleum supply lines; sprawl and loss of transportation options; auto accidents; and congestion? A number of researchers have tried to answer this question, and John Holtzclaw of the Sierra Club profiled eight studies that, when averaged, estimated the true price of gas at $6.05 a gallon.

Source: John Holtzclaw “America's Autos On Welfare” Sierra Club

As for vehicles, transportation analyst Todd Litman has calculated that the external costs of driving would add $42,363 to the sticker price of a shiny new car, based on a 12.5 year lifespan.

Source: Todd Litman, “Transportation Costs & Benefits,” June 2004

Here's a comprehensive yet highly readable discussion of driving externalities produced by Redefining Progress:

Source: Beyond Gas Taxes: Linking Driving Fees to Externalities by Mark M. Glickman, March 2001

ECOLOGICAL FOOTPRINT

An ecological footprint is the amount of productive land area required to sustain one human being. Globally, there are about 1.9 hectares of productive area per person, but the average ecological footprint is already 2.3 hectares. So we would need 1.5 Earths to live sustainably.

The largest footprint belongs to citizens of the US, at 9.57 hectares. Five Earths would be needed if everyone in the world consumed at that rate. People in Bangladesh, on the other hand, need just 0.5 hectares. And China is somewhere in the middle, at 1.36 hectares.

But what will it look like in a few decades, when China has a population of 1.5 billion? Supposing that Chinese levels of consumption then are equivalent to American levels now, the Earth doesn’t stand a chance. If the US provides the benchmark for global consumption, 25 Earths will be needed to satiate everyone’s wants.

Calculate your own personal ecological footprint

For more information visit these websites:

redefiningprogress.org
footprintnetwork.org

2006-07-17T22:52:00.000-07:00

Mexican Government Launches Bloody Assault on Oaxaca Protesters

By Rafael Azul
From Canadian Dimension
2006

Thousands of federal riot police invaded Oaxaca on Sunday to crush an oppositional movement that has held control of the southern Mexican state for several months. The significance of this police operation goes beyond the Oaxaca protests, which have been driven by growing poverty and inequality. It is a warning to the nation’s working class that Mexico’s ruling elite is willing resort to naked violence and repression. The defense of the Oaxacan protesters requires the mobilization of working people throughout Mexico.

The assault began at 8 a.m. on Sunday when 4,536 Federal Preventive Police (PFP) officers and 120 Federal Investigations Agency (AFI) agents entered the state. The force was equipped with 14 armored vehicles capable of shooting water under pressure as well as pepper and teargas, and six helicopters. The police took the state’s capital city, Oaxaca, 13 hours after the assault began, leaving three dead and scores injured.

A teargas projectile crushed the chest of José Alberto Lopez Bernal, a nurse, killing him. Fidel Garcia, a student, died of a bullet wound. A third casualty, a teacher, has not been identified.

Officially, 40 to 50 arrests were made. However, there are reports of people having disappeared and being unaccounted for, including 160 from the town of Nochixtalan who were taken off a bus on Monday morning and have not been heard from since.

Supporters of the Popular Assembly of Oaxacan Peoples (APPO) resisted the assault. APPO was formed in the wake of brutal attacks on striking teachers last June 14. On that day, state police assaulted and burned down an encampment of teachers, killing two and injuring many others.

Popular anger in Oaxaca has also been fueled by years of corrupt government by Governor Ulises Ruiz of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), compounded by the paralysis of government reconstruction agencies one year after Hurricane Stan destroyed much of the state’s infrastructure. Other factors are the siphoning of water resources from Indian communities to the tourist industry and the collapse of corn prices.

The main demand of APPO and the teachers after June 14 was the removal of Governor Ruiz. Over the last two months, APPO supporters occupied government buildings to press this demand.

Two weeks ago the Mexican Senate rejected APPO’s demand when senators from the conservative National Action Party (PAN) joined with their PRI counterparts to support Ruiz. At this point the administration of President Vicente Fox (PAN) began preparing the assault on Oaxaca.

Last week the local bureaucracy of the National Teachers Union (SNTE), under pressure from the national SNTE leaders, forced through a vote to end the five-month strike by the Oaxaca teachers. This opened the way for the police repression to begin.

When the police operation began, APPO radio broadcasts appealed to the population to confront the police with flowers and banners, but to avoid violence. Thousands poured into the streets, erecting barricades that slowed down the security forces.

Proceso magazine reports that the depth of opposition to the federal police took the PFP command by surprise. As the police were marching forward, hundreds risked their lives by lying down and chaining themselves in the path of the police vehicles, braving teargas and water cannon, until physically removed by the PFP officers. Helicopters spread teargas ahead of the advancing federal forces.

An on-the-spot correspondent, Julio Ponce, indicated that APPO officials are now attempting to make a list of the arrested and disappeared and ascertain where they are being kept. APPO has received reports that the arrested have been beaten and abused in makeshift jails. Many of those arrested were transported to a nearby military base.

Several times during the assault the police contingent was forced to detour around massive barricades and residents who confronted them with a rain of stones and sticks. In two neighborhoods, Aleman and Viguera, scenes of fierce resistance, hooded PFP officers were seen systematically breaking into homes and conducting illegal searches.

Participating in the operation were paramilitary squads linked to the Institutional Revolutionary Party. Last Friday a PRI squad killed three people in Oaxaca, including Indymedia correspondent Brad Will. This was seized on by President Fox as the pretext for launching the police assault—not against the killers, but against the popular resistance. The police action has nothing to do with protecting the population against paramilitary death squads.

Fox’s lame-duck administration has given contradictory signals about his support for Ruiz, intimating at times that the governor’s removal would be a small price to pay to settle the crisis in Oaxaca. However, press reports indicate that President-elect Felipe Calderon, also of the PAN, favored a harder line, wishing to prevent the crisis from spilling over into his term, which begins December 1.

The PFP-AIF force entered Oaxaca’s central square at 7:30 p.m. and proceeded to break up APPO’s headquarters with earth-moving equipment. APPO supporters then retreated to the vicinity of the radio station from which it transmits. Neighborhood residents had congregated en masse to defend the station despite suspicious interruptions in telephone and electrical service to the area.

Over 50,000 students and workers took to the streets in Mexico City on Monday in response to the assault on Oaxaca. Among the protesters were many residents of Nezacoyotl, a working class suburb with a large population of migrants from the Mexican south. The demonstration included supporters of independent unions. With the possible exception of the electrical workers union (SUTERM), unions connected to the PRI-linked Labor Congress (CT) boycotted the protests.

While many of the protesters were rank-and-file members of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD), the party’s leader, Lopez Obrador, refused to give support to the strike action in Oaxaca, despite APPO’s appeals for his backing. The Oaxaca crisis has deeply divided the PRD, with some PRD governors supporting the Fox administration. Even while he was contesting his narrow loss in this summer’s presidential election, Lopez Obrador kept largely silent on the social rebellion in Oaxaca, underscoring his own support for Mexican bourgeois institutions and the capitalist order.

While the Oaxaca schools were supposed to reopen on Monday, it appears that in some of the Indian communities parents attacked teachers who attempted to go back to work. In response to the Oaxaca repression, a dissident faction of the SNTE called the National Committee of Education Workers (CNTE) has declared an indefinite strike of teachers in the southern states of Guerrero, Michoacan and Zacatecas, as well as in Mexico City.

On Monday there appeared to be a stand-off in Oaxaca. The University Radio Station is still under APPO control. APPO has set up new barricades and moved its headquarters to Santo Domingo Square. APPO leaders are preparing to convene a congress to form a new government in Oaxaca, and organizations similar to the APPO are being created in other southern states.

2006-07-17T19:55:00.000-07:00

Life Goes On

By Tijn Touber
From Ode

Cardiologist Pim van Lommel did a monumental study of near-death experiences—which raises fascinating questions about life after death, DNA, the collective unconscious, and everyone’s karma.

When the The Lancet published his study of near-death experiences, Dutch cardiologist Pim van Lommel couldn’t have known it would make him into one of the world’s most-talked-about scientists. It seems everyone wants to know about the man who managed to get his study of this controversial topic published in one of the leading journals of medical research. Yet it’s not really surprising that its publication in 2001 created a stir. Never before had such a systematic study been conducted into the experiences of people who were declared dead and then came back to life. And never before have we seen such a clear illustration of how these people’s stories could affect our way of thinking about life and death.

Van Lommel, 63, isn’t one to seek name and fame. On this lovely summer day in his garden near the Dutch city of Arnhem, he displays more interest in what’s going on at Ode magazine than in his own story. That same deep curiosity was at work 35 years ago when Van Lommel, working as a physician’s assistant in a hospital, listened intently to a patient talk about her near-death experience. He was immediately fascinated. But it wasn’t until years later, as he read the book Return from Tomorrow in which the American doctor George Ritchie describes his own near-death experience in detail, that Van Lommel wondered if there were many other people who had undergone similar experiences.

Van Lommel decided from then on to ask all his patients whether they remembered anything that had happened during their cardiac arrests. “The answer was usually ‘no’ but sometimes ‘why?’ When I heard the latter, I extended the office visit.” Over two years he heard stories from 12 patients and his scientific curiosity was piqued. Those stories were the beginning of a years-long study.

"I was looking down at my own body from up above and saw doctors and nurses fighting for my life. I could hear what they were saying. Then I got a warm feeling and I was in a tunnel. At the end of that tunnel was a bright, warm, white, vibrating light. It was beautiful. It gave me a feeling of peace and confidence. I floated towards it. The warm feeling became stronger and stronger. I felt at home, loved, nearly ecstatic. I saw my life flash before me. Suddenly I felt the pain of the accident once again and shot back into my body. I was furious that the doctors had brought me back."

Just about every description of a near-death experience is this beautiful. People feel connected and supported. They grasp how the universe works. They experience unconditional love. They feel free of the pressing concerns of earthly existence. Who wouldn’t want such an experience? “It sounds fantastic, doesn’t it?” Van Lommel laughs. “But it’s not always easy to deal with. When people come back, they often have the feeling they’re being imprisoned. And it can take years before they are able or have the courage to integrate the insights they’ve gained into their everyday life.”

Still, a majority of people who have had a near-death experience describe it as magnificent and say it enriched their lives. Van Lommel explains, “The most important thing people are left with is that they are no longer afraid of death. This is because they have experienced that their consciousness lives on, that there is continuity. Their life and their identity don’t end when the body dies. They simply have the feeling they’re taking off their coat.”
That may sound like it’s coming from someone who’s spent a little too much time hanging around New Age bookstores. But from what Van Lommel has seen, near-death experiences are not at all limited to members of the “spiritual” community. They are just as prevalent among people who were extremely skeptical about the topic beforehand.

I became “detached” from the body and hovered within and around it. It was possible to see the surrounding bedroom and my body even though my eyes were closed. I was suddenly able to ‘think’ hundreds or thousands of times faster—and with greater clarity—than is humanly normal or possible. At this point I realized and accepted that I had died. It was time to move on. It was a feeling of total peace—completely without fear or pain, and didn’t involve any emotions at all.

The most remarkable thing, Van Lommel says, is that his patients have such consciousness-expanding experiences while their brains register no activity. But that’s impossible, according to the current level of medical knowledge. Because most scientists believe that consciousness occurs in the brain, this creates a mystery: How can people experience consciousness while they are unconscious during a cardiac arrest(a clinical death)?

After all those years of intensive study, Van Lommel still speaks with reverence about the miracle of the near-death experience. “At that moment these people are not only conscious; their consciousness is even more expansive than ever. They can think extremely clearly, have memories going back to their earliest childhood and experience an intense connection with everything and everyone around them. And yet the brain shows no activity at all!”

This has raised a number of large questions for Van Lommel: “What is consciousness and where is it located? What is my identity? Who is doing the observing when I see my body down there on the operating table? What is life? What is death?”

In order to convince his colleagues of the validity of these new insights, Van Lommel first had to demonstrate that this expansion of the consciousness occurred, in fact, during the period of brain death. It was not difficult to prove. Patients were often able to describe precisely what had happened during their cardiac arrest. They knew, for example, exactly where the nurse put their dentures or what doctors and family members had said. How would someone whose brain wasn’t active know these things?

Nevertheless, some scientists continue to assert that these experiences must happen at a time when there is still some brain function going on. Van Lommel is crystal clear in his response: “When the heart stops beating, blood flow stops within a second. Then, 6.5 seconds later, EEG activity starts to change due to the shortage of oxygen. After 15 seconds there is a straight, flat line and the electrical activity in the cerebral cortex has disappeared completely. We cannot measure the brain stem, but testing on animals has demonstrated that activity has ceased there as well. Moreover, you can prove that the brain stem is no longer functioning because it regulates our basic reflexes, such as the pupil response and swallowing reflex, which no longer respond. So you can easily stick a tube down someone’s throat. The respiratory centre also shuts down. If the individual is not reanimated within five to 10 minutes, their brain cells are irreversibly damaged.”

He is aware that his findings on consciousness fly in face of orthodox scientific thinking. It is remarkable that an authoritative science journal like The Lancet was willing to publish his article. But it wasn’t without a struggle. Van Lommel recalls with a smile, “It took months before I got the green light. And then they suddenly wanted it finished, within a day.”

Van Lommel’s work raises profound questions about what “death” actually means: “Up to now, ‘death’ simply meant the end of consciousness, of identity, of life,” he notes. But his study topples that concept, along with the prevailing medical myths about who has near-death experiences. “In the past, these experiences were attributed to physiological, psychological, pharmacological or religious reasons. So to a shortage of oxygen, the release of endorphins, receptor blockages, fear of death, hallucinations, religious expectations or a combination of all these factors. But our research indicates that none of these factors determine whether or not someone has a near-death experience.”

This experience is a blessing for me, for now I know for sure that body and soul are separated, and that there is life after death. It has convinced me that consciousness lives on beyond the grave. Death is not death, but another form of life.

Van Lommel contends that the brain does not produce consciousness or store memories. He points out that American computer science expert Simon Berkovich and Dutch brain researcher Herms Romijn, working independently of one another, came to the same conclusion: that it is impossible for the brain to store everything you think and experience in your life. This would require a processing speed of 1024 bits per second. Simply watching an hour of television would already be too much for our brains. “If you want to store that amount of information—along with the associative thoughts produced—your brain would be pretty much full,” Van Lommel says. “Anatomically and functionally, it is simply impossible for the brain to have this level of speed.”

So this would mean that the brain is actually a receiver and transmitter of information. “You could compare the brain to a television set that tunes into specific electromagnetic waves and converts them into image and sound.

“Our waking consciousness, the consciousness we have during our daily activities,” Van Lommel continues, “reduces all the information there is to a single truth that we experience as ‘reality.’ During near-death experiences, however, people are not limited to their bodies or their waking consciousness, which means they experience many more realities.”

This explains why people who have a near-death experience sometimes have great difficulty functioning in their daily lives afterwards. They retain the sensitivity that enables them to tune into different channels simultaneously, making a cocktail party or bus ride an overwhelming experience as all the information from people around them comes in on all channels.

According to Van Lommel, near-death experiences can only be explained if you assume that consciousness, along with all our experiences and memories, is located outside the brain. When asked where that consciousness is located, Van Lommel can only speculate. “I suspect there is a dimension where this information is stored—a kind of collective consciousness we tune into to gain access to our identity and our memories.”

By means of this collective information field, we are not only connected to our own information, but also that of others and even the information from the past and future. “There are people who see the future during a near-death experience,” Van Lommel says. “For example, there was a man who saw his future family. Years later, he found himself in a situation he had already seen during his near-death experience. I suspect this is also the way déjà vu works.” According to Van Lommel’s research, during a near-death experience, people can also make contact with the dead, even if they don’t know them.

But how does the brain “know” what information to tune into? How can someone tune into his own memories and not those of other people? Van Lommel’s answer is surprisingly short and simple: “DNA. And primarily the so-called ‘junk DNA,’ which accounts for around 95 percent of the total, whose function we don’t understand.” He suspects that the DNA, unique to every person and every organism, works like a receptor mechanism, a kind of simultaneous translator between the information fields and the organism.

The idea that DNA works as a receptor mechanism to attune people to their specific consciousness fields sheds new light on the discussion of organ transplantation. Imagine you get a new heart. The DNA of that heart will gear itself to the consciousness field of the donor, not the recipient. Does this mean you suddenly get different information? Yes, Van Lommel says: “There are stories of people who developed radically different desires and lifestyles after an organ transplant. For example, there’s a story of a ballet dancer who suddenly wanted to drive a motorcycle and eat junk food.”

The cliché is true: People see their lives flash before them at the time of death. And people gain insight into the consequences of their actions. They might see themselves as at 4 years old, taking away their sister’s toys, and feel her pain. Van Lommel comments, “At that moment it’s as if you have the thoughts of someone else inside you. You are given insight into the impact of your thoughts, words and deeds on yourself and others. So it appears that every thought we have is a form of energy that continues to exist forever.”

People who have experienced such a “life review” say it’s not so much about what you do as the intention behind it. “It is extremely intense to experience that everything that goes around comes around.” Van Lommel leans forward to be sure his words come across. “No one avoids the consequences of their thoughts. That’s very confrontational. Some people discover there’s something they can never put right. Others come back and immediately start calling people to apologize for something they did 20 years ago.”

So is there a Last Judgment after all? Van Lommel is clear: “Absolutely not. No one is judged. It’s an insight experience. Most people go through this flashback in the presence of a being made of light. That being is entirely loving, absolutely accepting, without judgment, but has complete insight. The flashback changes people’s understanding of life. They adopt other values. They feel they are one with nature and the planet. There is no longer any difference between themselves and others. It’s not about power, appearance, nice cars, clothes, a young body. It’s about completely different things: love for yourself, for nature, for your fellow human beings. The message is as old as time, but now they’ve experienced it themselves and they have to live by it.”

Then, after a short silence, he says, thoughtfully: “It’s almost scary to realize that every thought has a consequence. If you let that sink in…every thought we have, positive or negative, has an impact on us, each other and nature.”

Do you have to nearly die to learn these life lessons? No, says Van Lommel, who has never had a near-death experience himself. Thanks to his research, he learned so many valuable lessons that he decided to abandon his career in cardiology in 1992 and dedicate himself fully to further research, publishing and lecturing on the subject of near-death experiences. He founded the Merkawah Foundation in the Hague, the Dutch department for the International Association for Near-Death Studies, which offers information and guidance to Dutch people who have had near-death experiences.
“Working with it and being open to it have changed my life,” Van Lommel says. “I now see that everything stems from consciousness. I better understand that you create your own reality based on the consciousness you have and the intention from which you live. I understand that consciousness is the basis of life, and that life is principally about compassion, empathy and love.”

2006-07-17T19:26:00.000-07:00

Canada’s Media Monopoly

One perspective is enough, says CanWest
By James Winter
From Extra!
2002

A dispute between Canada’s largest media company and its journalists has put media concentration on the political agenda as seldom before. In January, organizations representing journalists across Canada called for a parliamentary inquiry into media concentration, especially at CanWest Global Communications.

The Canadian Association of Journalists (CAJ) and the Quebec Federation of Professional Journalists (QFPJ) denounced actions of the media giant as "a disturbing pattern of censorship and repression of dissenting views."

CAJ vice president Paul Schneidereit said the federal government needs to examine the issue of media ownership concentration. "We feel it’s time for the elected officials of this country to be looking at what the repercussions [of media concentration] are for the general public," he said. The Quebec provincial government has said it might introduce legislation to force "a plurality of opinion" and diverse sources of information, according to culture minister Diane Lemieux.

The Newspaper Guild of Canada demanded that CanWest "immediately cease its attack on divergent opinions." The Guild--the largest journalists’ union in North America--called in February for the Winnipeg-based media conglomerate to adopt principles that would respect the editorial autonomy of each paper and its columnists, and allow editors, rather than corporate headquarters, to make news judgments.

Buying the chains
In 2000, CanWest bought up the Hollinger and Southam newspaper holdings from conservative media mogul Conrad Black (who was profiled in Extra!, 11-12/96). In 2001, it acquired majority control of Black’s National Post, a Toronto-based Canada-wide daily.

In addition to the National Post, CanWest now owns 14 large city dailies, 120 smaller dailies and weeklies, and the Global TV network, Canada’s second-largest private broadcaster. The company also has private TV networks in Australia, New Zealand and Ireland, among other holdings.

CanWest set off the media furor in December with its a decision to require all of its daily newspapers to run corporate editorials produced in its Winnipeg head office. Initially, the company sent out one editorial weekly, but said this would increase to three times a week. The company also said locally-written material should not contradict the party line handed down in corporate editorials. Ownership and management have clashed with journalists and columnists who’ve cringed under the new controls.

Journalists at CanWest's Montreal Gazette led the resistance, holding a brief byline strike, putting up a website to rally support, and enlisting the support of the union and other journalists. The Montreal Gazette’s publisher, Michael Goldbloom, had earlier resigned over what he called CanWest's "centralized management style" (Canadian Press, 1/11/02).

CanWest chair Israel ("Izzy") Asper told the CanWest Global annual shareholders meeting on January 30 that "on national and international key issues we should have one, not 14, editorial positions." But this reverses the guarantee of local autonomy the newspaper chains promised regulators when they were allowed to amass their empires, gobbling up independent dailies from the 1970s through the 1990s. Even under Conrad Black’s determined watch, Southam was still running a "Statement of Editorial Independence" in its annual report in 1995. "For more than a century, Southam has proudly upheld its policy of editorial independence on all matters involving news and opinion. In the widely different environments in which Southam operates across the country, publishers and editors make their own editorial decisions," the annual report said.

Canadian concentration
Initially, the Asper family, which owns CanWest, arrogantly dismissed the widespread criticism of their actions. CanWest publications committee chair David Asper borrowed lyrics from the rock group REM: "I can say to our critics and especially to the bleeding hearts of the journalist community that it’s the end of the world as they know it--and I feel fine," he said in a January speech.

By mid-February, however, the company backtracked somewhat, announcing that it would not go beyond imposing one editorial per week.

Observers say the controversy is a result of media concentration in Canada, where five companies, including CanWest, control most media outlets. The telephone company Bell Canada owns the Globe and Mail as well as CTV, the largest private television network; it also controls Sympatico, a Web portal and high-speed Internet link. Montreal-based Quebecor owns the Sun newspaper chain, magazines, cable TV, the Canoe Internet portal, music and video stores and the private TVA network in Quebec.

Torstar Corporation, publisher of Harlequin romance novels, also owns the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest circulation daily, as well as four other dailies and 69 weeklies. Rogers Communications has interests in cable, radio, television, magazines, video stores and wireless telephone.

"You can fit everyone who controls significant Canadian media in my office," Vince Carlin, chair of the School of Journalism at Ryerson University in Toronto, told the Washington Post (1/27/02). "This is not a healthy situation."

Columnist censorship
John Miller, director of Ryerson's newspaper journalism program, told the Washington Post that CanWest newsrooms have become demoralized. "It is not so much the national editorial, but the fact that everyone has been sent the message they have to watch what they write," Miller said. "If it goes against what is perceived as the Asper line, then some stories aren’t going to get written, or some stories will be written and then they will be killed."

Author and Southam columnist Lawrence Martin’s contract was not renewed in 2001, because of his criticism of Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien--a friend of Izzy Asper, who once led the Manitoba Liberal Party (Toronto Sun, 8/26/01).

Toronto Sun columnist Peter Worthington was critical of the Aspers and had his column pulled from the Windsor Star, a Southam paper, as a result. "I got a rather embarrassed call from the Windsor Star...saying they had been ordered to drop my column and not run [it] under any circumstances," Worthington told the Toronto Star (1/16/02).

Doug Cuthand, a First Nations columnist for the Regina Leader Post, wrote an essay in early January that was sympathetic to the plight of Palestinians in the West Bank, comparing them to Canada’s indigenous peoples. The Aspers, who are "well known for their unstinting support of Israel," according to the Toronto Star (1/12/02), had the column killed.

Stephen Kimber, a columnist for 15 years with the Halifax Daily News, quit in January after his column was killed by corporate headquarters. Kimber wrote in the column, which was eventually published in the Globe and Mail (1/7/02), that

CanWest’s owners, Winnipeg’s Asper family, which made its fortune in the television business, appear to consider their newspapers not only as profit centers and promotional vehicles for their television network but also as private, personal pulpits from which to express their views.

The Aspers support the federal Liberal Party. They're pro-Israel. They think rich people like themselves deserve tax breaks. They support privatizing health care delivery. And they believe their newspapers...should agree with them.

"I think that they could have gotten away with the ‘national editorials’ policy," Kimber told the Toronto Star (1/12/02). "But it’s clear now that what they really wanted to do was stifle other people's opinions."

Stephanie Domet, another freelance columnist for the Halifax Sunday Daily News, resigned a few days later after writing a column in support of Kimber for The Coast, a Halifax weekly, that was later posted on the CBC’s website (1/7/02).

The name of the game
Four reporters at CanWest’s Regina Leader Post were suspended for five days in early March, for talking to outside media, and another six were given letters of reprimand after they withdrew their bylines in protest over an incident of censorship at the newspaper. Management at the Leader Post had censored a story by reporter Michelle Lang about a speech critical of CanWest by the Toronto Star’s Haroon Siddiqui.

In March, the International Federation of Journalists accused CanWest of corporate censorship and victimizing journalists who are trying to defend professional standards. "If this had happened in Eastern Europe 15 years ago there would have been widespread protests from media owners and journalists' groups," the IFJ said in a press release March 14. "The issues today are no different--the fight for editorial freedom and protection from censorship."

In 1991, after acquiring a 20 percent stake in New Zealand's TV3, Izzy Asper gathered 200 employees of the station in the cafeteria and astounded them by asking a journalist, "You. What business do you think you're in?"

The journalist replied that "the business we're in is to make sure our audience gets the most carefully researched news and information possible." Asper asked the same questions of the drama and entertainment departments and got similar answers.

"You're all wrong," he told them. "You're in the business of selling soap."

Oil, Currency and the War on Iraq

By Cóilín Nunan
From Feasta

It will not come as news to anyone that the US dominates the world economically and militarily. But the exact mechanisms by which American hegemony has been established and maintained are perhaps less well understood than they might be. One tool used to great effect has been the dollar, but its efficacy has recently been under threat since Europe introduced the euro.

The dollar is the de facto world reserve currency: the US currency accounts for approximately two thirds of all official exchange reserves. More than four-fifths of all foreign exchange transactions and half of all world exports are denominated in dollars. In addition, all IMF loans are denominated in dollars.

But the more dollars there are circulating outside the US, or invested by foreign owners in American assets, the more the rest of the world has had to provide the US with goods and services in exchange for these dollars. The dollars cost the US next to nothing to produce, so the fact that the world uses the currency in this way means that the US is importing vast quantities of goods and services virtually for free.

Since so many foreign-owned dollars are not spent on American goods and services, the US is able to run a huge trade deficit year after year without apparently any major economic consequences. The most recently published figures, for example, show that in November of last year US imports were worth 48% more than US exports1. No other country can run such a large trade deficit with impunity. The financial media tell us the US is acting as the 'consumer of last resort' and the implication is that we should be thankful, but a more enlightening description of this state of affairs would be to say that it is getting a massive interest-free loan from the rest of the world.

While the US' position may seem inviolable, one should remember that the more you have, the more you have to lose. And recently there have been signs of how, for the first time in a long time, the US may be beginning to lose.

One of the stated economic objectives, and perhaps the primary objective, when setting up the euro was to turn it into a reserve currency to challenge the dollar so that Europe too could get something for nothing.

This however would be a disaster for the US. Not only would they lose a large part of their annual subsidy of effectively free goods and services, but countries switching to euro reserves from dollar reserves would bring down the value of the US currency. Imports would start to cost Americans a lot more and as increasing numbers of those holding dollars began to spend them, the US would have to start paying its debts by supplying in goods and services to foreign countries, thus reducing American living standards. As countries and businesses converted their dollar assets into euro assets, the US property and stock market bubbles would, without doubt, burst. The Federal Reserve would no longer be able to print more money to reflate the bubble, as it is currently openly considering doing, because, without lots of eager foreigners prepared to mop them up, a serious inflation would result which, in turn, would make foreigners even more reluctant to hold the US currency and thus heighten the crisis.

There is though one major obstacle to this happening: oil. Oil is not just by far the most important commodity traded internationally, it is the lifeblood of all modern industrialised economies. If you don't have oil, you have to buy it. And if you want to buy oil on the international markets, you usually have to have dollars. Until recently all OPEC countries agreed to sell their oil for dollars only. So long as this remained the case, the euro was unlikely to become the major reserve currency: there is not a lot of point in stockpiling euros if every time you need to buy oil you have to change them into dollars. This arrangement also meant that the US effectively part-controlled the entire world oil market: you could only buy oil if you had dollars, and only one country had the right to print dollars - the US.

If on the other hand OPEC were to decide to accept euros only for its oil (assuming for a moment it were allowed to make this decision), then American economic dominance would be over. Not only would Europe not need as many dollars anymore, but Japan which imports over 80% of its oil from the Middle East would think it wise to convert a large portion of its dollar assets to euro assets (Japan is the major subsidiser of the US because it holds so many dollar investments). The US on the other hand, being the world's largest oil importer would have to run a trade surplus to acquire euros. The conversion from trade deficit to trade surplus would have to be achieved at a time when its property and stock market prices were collapsing and its domestic supplies of oil and gas were contracting. It would be a very painful conversion.

The purely economic arguments for OPEC converting to the euro, at least for a while, seem very strong. The Euro-zone does not run a huge trade deficit nor is it heavily endebted to the rest of the world like the US and interest rates in the Euro-zone are also significantly higher. The Euro-zone has a larger share of world trade than the US and is the Middle East's main trading partner. And nearly everything you can buy for dollars you can also buy for euros - apart, of course, from oil. Furthermore, if OPEC were to convert their dollar assets to euro assets and then require payment for oil in Euros, their assets would immediately increase in value, since oil importing countries would be forced to also convert part of their assets, driving the prices up. For OPEC, backing the euro would be a self-fulfilling prophesy. They could then at some later date move to some other currency, perhaps back to the dollar, and again make huge profits.

But of course it is not a purely economic decision.

So far only one OPEC country has dared switch to the euro: Iraq, in November 20002, 3. There is little doubt that this was a deliberate attempt by Saddam to strike back at the US, but in economic terms it has also turned out to have been a huge success: at the time of Iraq's conversion the euro was worth around 83 US cents but it is now worth over $1.05. There may however be other consequences to this decision.

One other OPEC country has been talking publicly about possible conversion to the euro since 1999: Iran2,4, a country which has since been included in the George W. Bush's 'axis of evil'.

A third OPEC country which has recently fallen out with the US government is Venezuela and it too has been showing disloyalty to the dollar. Under Hugo Chavez's rule, Venezuela has established barter deals for trading its oil with 12 Latin American countries as well as Cuba. This means that the US is missing out on its usual subsidy and might help explain the American wish to see the back of Chavez. At the OPEC summit in September 2000, Chavez delivered to the OPEC heads of state the report of the 'International Seminar on the Future of Energy', a conference called by Chavez earlier that year to examine the future supplies of both fossil and renewable energies. One of the two key recommendations of the report was that 'OPEC take advantage of high-tech electronic barter and bi-lateral exchanges of its oil with its developing country customers'5, i.e. OPEC should avoid using both the dollar and the euro for many transactions.

And last April, a senior OPEC representative gave a public speech in Spain during Spain's presidency of the EU during which he made clear that though OPEC had as yet no plans to make oil available for euros, it was an option that was being considered and which could well be of economic benefit to many OPEC countries, particularly those of the Middle East6.

As oil production is now in decline in most oil producing countries, the importance of the remaining large oil producers, particularly those of the Middle East, is going to grow and grow in years to come7.

Iraq, whose oil production has been severely curtailed by sanctions, is one of a very small number of countries which can help ease this looming oil shortage. Europe, like most of the rest of the world, wishes to see a peaceful resolution of the current US-Iraqi tensions and a gradual lifting of the sanctions - this would certainly serve its interests best. But as Iraqi oil is denominated in euros, allowing it to become more widely available at present could loosen the dollar stranglehold and possibly do more damage than good to US economic health.

All of this is bad news for the US economy and the dollar. The fear for Washington will be that not only will the future price of oil not be right, but the currency might not be right either. Which perhaps helps explain why the US is increasingly turning to its second major tool for dominating world affairs: military force.

Petrodollar or Petroeuro? A new source of global conflict: November 2004 article by Cóilín Nunan

2006-07-17T18:39:00.000-07:00

The Impact of Privatization on Women

By Jane Stinson
From Canadian Dimension
2006

Privatization is not gender-neutral. It threatens advances toward women’s equality in the labour market and in the home.

In the labour market, privatization usually means lower wages for women workers, fewer workplace rights, reduced health and welfare benefits, no pension coverage, less predictable work hours, more precarious employment, a heavier workload and generally more exploitative working conditions.

Privatization is a term that encompasses many specific practices. Generally it is used to refer to the transfer of work from the public sector to the private sector. But it encompasses much more than that, including the transfer of work from a public, paid realm to the private, unpaid realm of the home. This may be the result of cutbacks in public services or the failure to have those services grow and expand to meet growing needs.

In the labour market, sub-contracting is one of the most common forms of privatization, whereby a private company is awarded a contract to perform work. Sub-contracting is common at all levels of government in Canada — by the federal, provincial and local governments — where the responsibility for work or services is transferred from the government to a private company.

Outsourcing is another term for sub-contracting. It differs from privatization only in that it does not involve transferring work from the public to the private sector. It involves a transfer of work from one private-sector body to another, for the same reasons that privatization occurs.

Why the Drive to Privatize?
Privatization (and outsourcing) is pursued to lower costs, especially labour costs. The decision is often justified by claiming that certain services and the workers who perform them are ancillary or not integral to the core service or function. For example, the Romanow Commission on health care, which was very critical of private health care, considered it acceptable to privatize health-care services (cleaning, food, laundry) on the grounds they were ancillary and not an integral part of the health-care delivery system. And the recent decision by General Motors to lower labour costs at its Oshawa plant by sub-contracting custodial work is based on this same logic.

This logic and assumptions behind these decisions are faulty and have serious consequences for workers, especially women workers and women workers of colour, who are too often employed in the low-end jobs. Research examining the largest case of privatization in Canadian history revealed how disastrous this policy is for these women.

Contracting Out in B.C. Health Care
Sub-contracting of support services in hospitals and long-term care centres in British Columbia in 2003 and 2004 represented the largest wave of privatization in Canadian history. About 8,500 cleaners, food service, laundry and security workers employed by hospitals and long-term care facilities in the lower mainland and southern Vancouver Island lost their jobs to contracting out between October, 2003, and July, 2004.

These workers had been represented by the Hospital Employees’ Union, the B.C. health division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees. As a result of building a strong union prepared to take strike action when necessary and a history of addressing low wages for women workers, the HEU had achieved good wages and benefits in their collective agreement. The International Woodworkers of America (IWA) negotiated a sweetheart deal with the private contractors to represent the contracted-out workers.

When the jobs were contracted out they went from being the highest-paid hospital housekeepers in Canada to the lowest-paid. Their wages were cut from almost $20 an hour to $10.50 an hour. This represented about a 30-year rollback in their wages, according to calculations by Professor Marjorie Cohen. And thousands of individuals, mainly women, lost their jobs.

Other important workplace rights and benefits were also cut through contracting out. The pension plan was eliminated. Vacations were cut back from a level of 20 days after five years with one additional day for each year of service, to the minimum legally allowable, the Employment Standards Act requirements. Seventeen weeks paid parental leave was eliminated. Benefits were cut for those with less than 20 hours of work per week. Those who worked enough to qualify for benefits now faced co-payment of the premiums. The Long Term Disability plan and injury-on-duty leave were eliminated. An accumulated sick-leave plan based on 1.5 days per month was cut back to two days sick leave every six months, with no ability to accumulate leave.

As well, the scheduling of work hours became far less predictable. The HEU contract had provided 14 days notice of change based on seniority and position, with overtime payment for changes in work hours. The collective agreement, negotiated by the IWA for the sub-contracted workers, provided no guarantee of work hours, no schedule and no overtime for changes to work hours. Unpredictable work hours wreak havoc with planning childcare or time with family and friends.

Exploitative Conditions for Contract Workers
Workers interviewed under the new sub-contracted regime disclosed intense, exhausting and hazardous workloads. One woman worker reported: “For the last couple of months I haven’t taken the last 15-minute break.” Another said: “If I take my 30-minute lunch break I will never finish the job. I either stay longer or rush to get it done.” A third woman explained: “If the work is not done, you’ll be fired because of complaints. The contractor pushes us to do too much. It’s abusive.”

Despite the conditions, many workers wanted more hours of work, because half of those interviewed worked between 20 and 37.5 hours per week — a twilight zone between full- and part-time. Few hours combined with low wages meant pay was inadequate. Most lived far below the poverty line, and almost half of the workers interviewed had at least one other job.

The sub-contracted workers complained of exhaustion and pain. All but one of the 24 workers interviewed reported adverse health impacts, like soreness, stiffness, numbness, migraines, pulled muscles, cuts and burns — and this was in the space of less than one year of working for the private contractors. Despite these serious health complaints, about half did not take sick time, either because they were afraid they would lose their job or because they could not afford to be given few paid sick days.

One woman in her forties said she couldn’t see herself working to age 50 because the job was just too heavy. “Every day, because of the workload, I feel like I’m going downhill. I’m just so tired.” Another 40-year-old single mother with two jobs said, “I’m flat down when I go home to bed.”

Afraid to Speak Out
Depressed, angry, upset and frustrated were how these women felt working under these conditions. These feelings were most severe for those who were former HEU members and had experienced a big drop in pay, an increase in workload, the loss of many workplace rights, and who missed co-workers and better relations with their former supervisors.

Despite these feelings, their anger and stress was locked inside. As one women said: “I get quieter. I don’t want to talk to anybody. Sometimes I cry. I feel like I’m going to explode inside. I disagree, but listen and don’t say anything.” Another woman revealed, “I feel angry but try not to show it, because I’m scared for my supervisor to know. I can’t lose this job.”

Impacts at Home
Not surprisingly, their feelings about work spilled over into their home lives. One woman lamented that there was “not enough time to spend with the children. I have no energy. I just go home and sleep. I’m tired and don’t want to have friends over. I ask my daughter to do things, but I couldn’t give her a birthday or even buy gift for her.”

These women experienced tremendous guilt for not being able to spend time and energy with their families or not being able to provide the things their children wanted.

Their kids had to do without, many started working as adolescents to try to help the family, and older ones had to give up plans to go to school in order to find work. Recreation and holidays were cut back and some were forced to move to find cheaper housing.

The women interviewed working in these sub-contracted jobs were mainly immigrants, and the impact of their work affected their extended families abroad. Despite their difficult conditions in Canada, many continued to send money to support their extended families, members of which needed the money to survive or continue in school with the hope of immigrating once they graduated. As one woman, who was now working at three jobs to make up for her former HEU salary explained, “We send the same amount of mo-ney now, even with a lower income. We need more jobs to make up the difference. Even then, it’s still not enough money for them. They don’t understand the situation here.”

This case study of privatization reveals many adverse implications for women. Privatization eliminated thousands of good jobs for women, replacing them with exhausting and dangerous work by rolling back wages and other important workplace rights gained over 30 years. It consigned immigrant women of colour to these exploitative conditions, reinforcing them in a role of second-class citizens at work marked by divisions on the basis of race and ethnicity. It generated more domestic conflict and sacrifices for their children, and undermined their own ability to participate in community and civic activities. In short, it made it harder for these women to get ahead in the workplace or at home.

Privatization Means Greater Inequality
This case study reveals that privatization and contracting out leads to greater inequality. It widens the gap in wages, workplace rights and working conditions between one group of workers (the so-called ancillary workers whose jobs are subcontracted) and the remaining employees. It reinforces poverty for visible minority, immigrant workers, who tend to be employed in such jobs given their higher rates of unemployment and fewer options for work. Fewer workplace rights, exploitative, exhausting work and low pay create conditions for the social exclusion of these workers, reinforcing sexual and racial divisions in society.

The good news in this case is that the B.C. Labour Relations Board struck down the weak collective agreements that the IWA had signed with the private contractors on the grounds that there was no worker input or ratification. And the HEU was successful in organizing these workers and signing a new collective agreement that improved their wages and workplace rights. But the new collective agreements did not regain all of the lost ground, and it is still a long road back to the standards these workers previously enjoyed.

2006-07-17T18:35:00.000-07:00

America’s Other War: Terrorizing Colombia

By Doug Stokes
From Canadian Dimension
2005

Throughout the Cold War, Colombia was one of the largest recipients of U.S. counter-insurgency military aid and training. Counter-insurgency—CI for short—was designed to reorient recipient militaries away from a posture of external defence, toward one of “internal defence” against allegedly Soviet-aligned guerrillas. States that received U.S. CI military aid were told to police their own populations to make sure that “subversion” did not grow. Interestingly, when we examine the manuals used by U.S. military trainers to find out what they mean by subversion, we find some interesting clues as to why so many civilians died at the hands of Latin American “internal security states.”

Here is one example. A manual used to train Colombia CI forces tells them to ask: “Are there any legal political organizations which may be a front for insurgent activities? Is the public education system vulnerable to infiltration by insurgent agents? What is the influence of politics on teachers, textbooks, and students, conversely, what influence does the education system exercise on politics?” They are then told to ask “what is the nature of the labor organizations; what relationship exists between these organizations, the government, and the insurgents?” In outlining targets for CI intelligence operations, the manual identifies a number of different occupational categories and generic social identities. These include “merchants” and “bar owners and bar girls” and “ordinary citizens who are typical members of organizations or associations which play an important role in the local society.”

In particular, U.S.-backed CI forces are told to concentrate specifically on “leaders of dissident groups (minorities, religious sects, labor unions, political factions) who may be able to identify insurgent personnel, their methods of operation, and local agencies the insurgents hope to exploit.” The manual also states that insurgent forces typically try to work with labour unions and union leaders to determine “the principal causes of discontent which can best be exploited to overthrow the established government [and] recruit loyal supporters.”

It suggests that organizations that stress “immediate social, political, or economic reform may be an indication that the insurgents have gained a significant degree of control.” Here is the manual’s list of Insurgent Activity Indicators:

Refusal of peasants to pay rent, taxes, or loan payments. Increase in the number of entertainers with a political message. Discrediting the judicial system and police organizations. Characterization of the armed forces as the enemy of the people. Appearance of questionable doctrine in the educational system. Appearance of many new members in established organizations like labour organizations. Increased unrest among labourers. Increased student activity against the government and its police, or against minority groups, foreigners and the like. An increased number of articles or advertisements in newspapers criticizing the government. Strikes or work stoppages called to protest government actions. Increase of petitions demanding government redress of grievances. Proliferation of slogans pinpointing specific grievances. Initiation of letter-writing campaigns to newspapers and government officials deploring undesirable conditions and blaming individuals in power.

U.S. CI strategy can be seen to be directly at odds with broad swathes of democratic activity and serves to entrench and reproduce a particular kind of political stability in Colombia. Central to this security posture is the secret advocacy of state terrorism and the development of covert paramilitary networks. In 1962, General William Yarborough, head of a U.S. Army Special Warfare team that provided the initial blueprint for the reorientation of the Colombian military toward CI, stated that:

“It is the considered opinion of the survey team that a concerted country team effort should be made now to select civilian and military personnel for clandestine training in resistance operations in case they are needed later. This should be done with a view toward development of a civil and military structure for exploitation in the event that the Colombian internal security system deteriorates further. This structure should be used to pressure toward reforms known to be needed, perform counter-agent and counter-propaganda functions and as necessary execute paramilitary, sabotage and/or terrorist activities against known communist proponents. It should be backed by the United States. The apparatus should be charged with clandestine execution of plans developed by the United States Government toward defined objectives in the political, economic and military fields. This would permit passing to the offensive in all fields of endeavor rather than depending on the Colombians to find their own solution.”

Today, Colombia is the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid and training in the world; it has more U.S.-trained security personnel than any other country. Under both Clinton’s “Plan Colombia” and Bush’s “Andean Regional Initiative,” billions of dollars have been sent to Colombia allegedly for a war on drugs and terror against Colombia’s indigenous guerrilla group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The U.S. argues that the FARC are “narco- guerrillas” and post-9/11 “narco-terrorists.”

This is grossly disingenuous. James Milford, former deputy administrator of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), has acknowledged that, while the FARC “generate revenue by ‘taxing’ local drug-related activities” in those regions it controls, “there is little to indicate the insurgent groups are trafficking in cocaine themselves, either by producing cocaine … and selling it to Mexican syndicates, or by establishing their own distribution networks in the United States.”

On the other hand, he points out that Carlos Castaño, who headed the paramilitary umbrella group United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), is a “major cocaine trafficker in his own right” and has close links to the North Valley drug syndicate, “among the most powerful drug trafficking groups in Colombia.” Former DEA administrator Donnie Marshall also confirmed that right-wing paramilitary groups “raise funds through extortion, or by protecting laboratory operations in northern and central Colombia. The Carlos Castano organization and possibly other paramilitary groups appear to be directly involved in processing cocaine. At least one of these paramilitary groups appears to be involved in exporting cocaine from Colombia.” Marshall concluded in 2001, a year after “Plan Colombia” began, that “at present, there is no corroborated information that the FARC is involved directly in the shipment of drugs from Colombia to international markets.”

Klaus Nyholm, director of the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), has pointed out that the “guerrillas are something different than the traffickers, the local fronts are quite autonomous. But in some areas, they’re not involved at all. And in others, they actively tell the farmers not to grow coca.” In the rebels’ former Demilitarized Zone, Nyholm stated, “drug cultivation has not increased or decreased” once the “FARC took control.” Indeed, Nyholm noted in 1999 that the FARC were cooperating with a $6 million UN project to replace coca crops with new forms of legal alternative development. In 2003 he reiterated this point, and argued that, “the paramilitary relation with drug trafficking undoubtedly is much more intimate [than the FARC’s]. Many of the paramilitary bands started as the drug traffickers’ hired guns. They are more autonomous now, but have maintained their close relations with the drug traffickers. In some of the coastal towns it can, in fact, sometimes be hard to tell whether a man is a paramilitary chief, a big coca planter, a cocaine lab owner, a rancher, or a local politician. He may be all five things at a time.”

Clearly the FARC are bit players in comparison to the paramilitary networks and the cocaine barons that these paramilitaries protect. So, with both the U.S. and the UN anti-drug agencies consistently reporting over a number of years that the paramilitaries are far more heavily involved than the FARC in drug cultivation, refinement and transhipment to the U.S., why has Plan Colombia emphasised the FARC’s alleged links to international drug trafficking?

The reason is quite simply that paramilitaries have long been central to the operation of U.S.-backed Colombian counterinsurgency and state terror. Going all the way back to 1962 and Yarborough’s call for an integrated paramilitary network, the U.S. has been instrumental in setting up and perpetuating covert paramilitary networks with intimate connections with the Colombian military. These paramilitaries carry out a “dirty war” against “subversion” and are responsible for the vast majority of human-rights abuses committed in Colombia today. For example, in 2002 over 8,000 political assassinations were committed in Colombia, 80 per cent of them perpetrated by paramilitary groups. Three out of four trade-union activists murdered worldwide are killed by the Colombian paramilitaries, while 2.7 million civilians have been forcibly displaced from their homes. According to the UN, lecturers and teachers are “among the workers most often affected by killings, threats and violence-related displacement.” Paramilitary groups also regularly target human-rights activists, indigenous leaders and community activists.

Why does the U.S. support Colombian state terror? There are two main reasons: capital stability and oil. By attempting to destroy the FARC and Colombia’s progressive civil society, both the Colombian and U.S. elites hope to create stability for continued inward investment and resource extraction. General Peter Pace, commander-in-chief of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) under the Clinton Administration and the man responsible for implementing U.S. security-assistance programs throughout Latin America, argues that vital U.S. national interests, which he defines as “those of broad, over-riding importance to the survival, safety and vitality of our nation,” include the maintenance of stability and unhindered access to Latin American markets by U.S. transnationals in the post-Cold War period. Noting that, “our trade within the Americas represents approximately 46 per cent of all U.S. exports, and we expect this percentage to increase in the future,” Pace goes on to explain that beneath the U.S. military’s role in Colombia is the need to maintain a “continued stability required for access to market … which is critical to the continued economic expansion and prosperity of the United States.” U.S. security assistance to the Colombian military is necessary because any “loss of our Caribbean and Latin American markets would seriously damage the health of the U.S. economy.”

Similarly, Marc Grossman, U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, underscores the crucial role that oil interests play in driving U.S. intervention in Colombia:

“[Colombian insurgents] represent a danger to the $4.3 billion in direct U.S. investment in Colombia. They regularly attack U.S. interests, including the railway used by the Drummond Coal Mining facility and Occidental Petroleum’s stake in the Cano Limon oil pipeline. Terrorist attacks on the Cano Limon pipeline also pose a threat to U.S. energy security. Colombia supplied three per cent of U.S. oil imports in 2001, and possesses substantial potential oil and natural gas reserves.”

The Colombian state remains firmly wedded to the implementation of neo-liberal reforms, as well as the increasing militarization of social life under the pretext of a “war on terror.” The reforms are pushing more of Colombia’s people into poverty. In 1999, at the inception of Plan Colombia, the World Bank noted that “more than half of Colombians [were] living in poverty: the proportion of poor [has] returned to its 1988 level, after having declined by 20 percentage points between 1978 and 1995.” The mid-1990s recession added to Colombia’s woes and contributed to “a rise in inequality, a decline in macroeconomic performance, and a doubling in unemployment.” The picture is less bleak for Colombia’s elites. In 1990, the ratio of income between the poorest and richest 10 per cent was 40-to-one. Following a decade of economic restructuring, this ratio had climbed to 80-to-one in the year 2000.

Under the current hardline Colombian president, Alvaro Uribe, Colombia is undergoing further IMF structural adjustment to benefit transnational corporations. In the oil industry, for example, Uribe is lowering the royalties paid to Colombia by foreign oil companies and has effectively privatized the state-owned oil company, Ecopetrol. Uribe argues that this is necessary to make Colombia internationally “competitive” and to prevent it becoming a net importer of oil. Meanwhile, Colombia’s oil regions are becoming fully militarized, with the paramilitaries effectively running a number of towns. This model of what Uribe euphemistically terms “Democratic Security” is being rolled out across Colombia as an integral part of the joint U.S.-Colombia militarization program.

In preventing this ongoing human tragedy, activists must do everything they can to prevent U.S. military aid to Colombia and to raise awareness of the awful consequences of this so-called “security assistance.” Those living in Canada can start by asking why their government sold helicopters to the U.S. in 1999, helicopters that were then sent to Colombia to be used for “counter-drug” missions. The Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade argued that the sale of these combat helicopters was necessary as the impact of not selling the helicopters would “be a loss of jobs for Canadians with no benefit to global peace and security.” But is the price of 40 second-hand combat helicopters really worth the bloodof the thousands murdered each year in Colombia’s brutal U.S.-supported war?

Doug Stokes’ new book, America’s Other War: Terrorizing Colombia, will be published this year by Zed Books in New York City.

2006-07-17T17:37:00.000-07:00

U.S. Vetoes of U.N. Resolutions on Behalf of Israel [72-97]

By Donald Neff
From If Americans Knew.org

On March 17, 1970, the United States cast its first veto in the United Nations Security Council during the presidency of Richard Nixon, when Henry Kissinger was the national security adviser. It was a historic moment, since up to that time Washington had been able to score heavy propaganda points because of the Soviet Union’s profligate use of its veto. The first U.S. veto in history was a gesture of support for Britain, which was under Security Council pressure to end the white minority government in southern Rhodesia.

Two years later, however, on Sept. 10, 1972, the United States employed its veto for the second time—to shield Israel. That veto, as it turned out, signalled the start of a cynical policy to use the U.S. veto repeatedly to shield Israel from international criticism, censure and sanctions.

Washington used its veto 32 times to shield Israel from critical draft resolutions between 1972 and 1997. This constituted nearly half of the total of 69 U.S. vetoes cast since the founding of the U.N. The Soviet Union cast 115 vetoes during the same period.

The initial 1972 veto to protect Israel was cast by George Bush [Sr.] in his capacity as U.S. ambassador to the world body. Ironically, it was Bush as president who temporarily stopped the use of the veto to shield Israel 18 years later. The last such veto was cast on May 31, 1990, it was thought, killing a resolution approved by all 14 other council members to send a U.N. mission to study Israeli abuses of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Then President Bill Clinton came along and cast three more.

The rationale for casting the first veto to protect Israel was explained by Bush at the time as a new policy to combat terrorists. The draft resolution had condemned Israel’s heavy air attacks against Lebanon and Syria, starting Sept. 6, the day after 11 Israeli athletes were killed at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games in an abortive Palestinian attempt to seize them as hostages to trade for Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Between 200 and 500 Lebanese, Syrians and Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed in the Israeli raids.

Nonetheless, Bush complained that the resolution had failed to condemn terrorist attacks against Israel, adding: “We are implementing a new policy that is much broader than that of the question of Israel and the Jews. What is involved is the problem of terrorism, a matter that goes right to the heart of our civilized life.”

Unfortunately, this “policy” proved to be only a rationale for protecting Israel from censure for violating a broad range of international laws. This became very clear when the next U.S. veto was cast a year later, on July 26, 1973. It had nothing to do with terrorism. The draft resolution affirmed the rights of the Palestinians and established provisions for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories as embodied in previous General Assembly resolutions. Nonetheless, Washington killed this international effort to end Israel’s occupation of Palestinian lands.

Washington used the veto four more times in 1975-76 while Henry Kissinger was secretary of state. One of these vetoes arguably may have involved terrorism, since the draft condemned Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians in response to attacks on Israel. But the three other vetoes had nothing at all to do with terrorism.

One, in fact, struck down a draft resolution that reflected U.S. policy against Israel’s alteration of the status of Jerusalem and establishment of Jewish settlements in occupied territory. Only two days earlier, U.S. Ambassador William W. Scranton had given a speech in the United Nations calling Israeli settlements illegal and rejecting Israel’s claim to all of Jerusalem. Yet on March 25, 1976, the U.S. vetoed a resolution reflecting Scranton’s positions which had been passed unanimously by the other 14 members of the council.

The two other vetoes during Kissinger’s reign also were cast in 1976. One, on Jan. 26, killed a draft resolution calling for recognition of the right of self-determination for Palestinians. The other, on June 29, called for affirmation of the “inalienable rights” of the Palestinians.

The Carter administration cast only one veto. But it had nothing to do with terrorism. It came on April 30, 1980, killing a draft that endorsed self-determination for the Palestinian people.

The all-time abuser of the veto was the administration of Ronald Reagan, the most pro-Israel presidency in U.S. history, with the most pro-Israel secretary of state, George Shultz, since Kissinger. The Reagan team cynically invoked the veto 18 times to protect Israel. A record six of these vetoes were cast in 1982 alone. Nine of the Reagan vetoes resulted directly from Security Council attempts to condemn Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and Israel’s refusal to surrender the territory in southern Lebanon which it still occupies today. The other nine vetoes shielded Israel from council criticism for such illicit acts as the Feb. 4, 1986, skyjacking of a Libyan plane.

Israeli warplanes forced the executive jet to land in Israel, allegedly in an effort to capture Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal. He was not aboard and, after interrogation, the passengers were allowed to leave. The U.S. delegate explained that this act of piracy was excusable “because we believe that the ability to take such action in carefully defined and limited circumstances is an aspect of the inherent right of self-defense recognized in the U.N. Charter.”

Other vetoes employed on Israel’s exclusive behalf included the Jan. 20, 1982 killing of a demand that Israel withdraw from the Golan Heights it had occupied in 1967; the April 20, 1982 condemnation of an Israeli soldier who shot 11 Muslim worshippers at the Haram Al-Sharif in the Old City of Jerusalem; the Feb. 1, 1988 call for Israel to stop violating Palestinian human rights in the occupied territories, abide by the Fourth Geneva Convention and formalize a leading role for the United Nations in future peace negotiations; the April 15, 1988 resolution requesting that Israel permit the return of expelled Palestinians, condemning Israel’s shooting of civilians, calling on Israel to uphold the Fourth Geneva Convention and calling for a peace settlement under U.N. auspices.

The Bush [Sr.] administration used the veto four times to protect Israel: on Feb. 17, 1989, to kill a draft strongly deploring Israel’s repression of the Palestinian uprising and calling on Israel to respect the human rights of the Palestinians; on June 9, 1989, deploring Israel’s violation of the human rights of the Palestinians; on Nov. 7, 1989, demanding Israel return property confiscated from Palestinians during a tax protest and calling on Israel to allow a fact-finding mission to observe Israel’s suppression tactics against the Palestinian uprising; and, finally, on May 31, 1990, calling for a fact-finding mission on abuses against Palestinians in Israeli-occupied lands.

The May 31, 1990 veto was the last, presumably, as the result of a secret understanding, if not an official agreement, with Russia and the three other Security Council members with veto power. By then it had become obvious that the council could not be effective in a post-Cold War world if Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States recklessly invoked their vetoes.

Moreover, the international alliances sought by Washington to repel Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in August, 1990 made it necessary for the Bush administration to retain unity in the Security Council. As a result, instead of abstaining on or vetoing resolutions critical of Israel, as it did in 1989 and the first half of 1990, the Bush administration abruptly joined other members in late 1990, 1991 and 1992 in passing six resolutions deploring or strongly condemning Israel’s conduct against the Palestinians.

These resolutions brought the total passed by the council against Israel since its birth to 68. If the United States had not invoked its veto, the record against Israel would total 100 resolutions condemning or otherwise criticizing its behavior or supporting the rights of Palestinians.

The agreement on vetoes held until March, 1995, when President Clinton invoked the veto after all 14 other members approved a U.N. Security Council resolution calling on Israel to rescind a decision to expropriate 130 acres of land in Arab East Jerusalem. The Clinton administration exercised two more vetoes in 1997, both of them on resolutions otherwise unanimously supported by the 14 other Security Council members. The draft resolution was critical of Israel’s plans to establish a new settlement at Har Homa ⁄ Jabal Abu Ghneim in East Jerusalem in the midst of Palestinian housing.

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