The War For Chocolate

In an article about Chocolate and the continuing civil war in the Ivory Coast, there was a Canadian connection.....The cocoa industry is a sensitive subject here. Secrecy is such a priority that the government doesn't publish official production figures. French-Canadian journalist Guy-Andre Kieffer, who wrote articles about corruption in Ivory Coast — including its cocoa industry — disappeared in the country in 2004 and was believed murdered. The vast majority of the crop is grown in government-held territory, but the U.N. report said rebels use cocoa, along with gold, diamonds and timber, to fund "their military activities, as well as for personal profit." On the other side, the U.N. said, the government "is dependent on the cocoa crop to maintain solvency and succeed in paying its civil servants, including the military."

War in Africa is always about business, about the resources a region has. The right wing analysists will talk about tribalism, and try to project this as still the Dark Continent of primitive peoples warring amongst themselves. But such is not the case.

In the Congo and Rawanda the conflict is over gold, silver, and diamonds, still is. In Sierra Leone its over diamonds. In Ethiopia and Somolia its oil and heavy metals. In the Sudan, its not about Darfur, its about oil. Nigeria, Angola, oil.

And my favorite is Chad. You never hear of Chad except once a decade when one of its neighbours and their European allies decides to invade. Little Chad is one richest countries in heavy metals, uranium and precious ores. If nuclear power gains popularity again expect Chad to be in the news.

And chocolate, well that is a major commodity that while it melts in your mouth it's harvested and processed by child slaves in the Ivory Coast. Ironcially this was the point of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory that critics overlooked.

Children who are slaves are then dragooned into the internecine rivalries as child soldiers. Just as we have Child Armies in the Central African conflicts funded by the diamond trade, we have child armies in the Ivory Coast funded by Hershey. As the saying goes War is good for business, invest your son.

Victory at MotherCorp

JB the CBC Election Blogger has added the Green Party Blog and Blogging Greens to his blog side bar listings. And he wrote about the NDP candiates blogs and a very funny piece on Monte Solbergs blog and his new roommate Chuck Strahls blog. Very funny. All is forgiven JB. Could you remind the PTB that the CBC main election page still has the Green Party lumped in with 'Others'.

Blogging NDP Candidates

Jack doesn't blog, strange that for such a with it guy. Nor does any mysterious unnamed party flack on their website (like with Tory Flog). Nor does Jacks brain trust of Anne, Brad, or Jamie. However there are Blogging NDP Candidates and their blogs are listed here. And while the Tories and Liberals have TV ads the NDP has Radio Ads, rumour has it that Jack is being toured with an Amish Horse and Carriage.

Green Opportunism: The Anti-Sealing Lobby

Green organizer quits over seal hunt opposition

Lori-Ann Martino, who was a candidate in Labrador riding in the 2004 federal election, says she cannot abide the party's opposition to a commercial seal hunt.

"This is a terrible strategy," said Martino, who feels the Green party is attempting to recruit voters who are morally opposed to the seal hunt but may not be informed about it.

"I have put so much work personally in distancing Newfoundland from that generic, stereotypical view [that] completely overrides the complexity of the issue ... and the economic importance and cultural importance of the hunt," Martino said.

Martino, though, said Green strategists hoping to appeal to new voters devised the initiative.

She said rank-and-file members she consulted did not support the decision.

"There was just such a disconnect between the membership and the leadership. And the Green party was never supposed to be about leaders," Martino said.

Harris said potential economic replacements for the seal hunt could include ecotourism.

Good on ya Martino. Jim Harris has placed the Green Party in the position of taking on a popular yet misguided opposition against Sealers. Martino is right it isn't about cute cuddly seals, thats incidental. Its about oddles and oddles of money that Green NGO's make off the seals so called plight.

Its about demonizing people in favour of animals. its about anthropomorphizing seals and dehumanizing sealers. Its about eco-racism, Inuit sealers are never attacked but Newfoundlanders are, cause they are Irish. The English colonial attitude about the stupid peasant Irish is reflected in the language and attitude of the anti-sealer movement.

I have taken the unpopular position of questioning the whole logic behind the anti-seal hunt protest last sealing season on my Red Between the Lines Blog.
See:

• Did Viagra impact the Seal Hunt

• Seal Hunt Deja Vu Redux

• Who Speaks for the Sealers?

• A Rational Observation on the Seal Hunt

• Seal Hunt Deja Vu.

I was influenced by a critical article on Greenpeace that appeared in the Fall 2004 Issue Of Labour/le Travail, The Canadian Labour History Journal, that I reccomend reading: Environmental Justice for Whom? Class, New Social Movements, and the Environment: A Case Study of Greenpeace Canada, 1971-2000 by John-Henry Harter.

It is rare that the left or labour or anyone identified as progressive criticizes the Real Politicks of the Green NGO movement. But here is an excellent article that shows how Greenpeace first aligned with the Sealers, then abandoned them on the ice so to speak by first supporting a limited hunt and then calling on their own for the ending of any hunt. Harter goes on to link this anti-worker attitude to the very nature and structure of Greenpeace and its subsequent attempts in the last few years to bust the union created by its own workers.

While the knee jerk reaction of Canadians and Americans, young and old, left or right, is to end the seal hunt this is neither sound social ecology nor real environmentalism.It is psuedo environmentalism created as a publicity ploy by GreenPeace many years ago to get their name known to the public. And it foucused on the cute cuddly seals while making the sealers into brutal sadistic Nazi like killers.



It all had to do with the success of the PR image they created around the cute big eyed seals. A subliminal image in the eye of the poor seal shows a sealer about to club it.

The success of this PR move led to the split between Paul Watson and Greenpeace, over their moving on to other issues, while Watson wanted to make the seal hunt their main focus. Thus Watson created the Sea Sheperd Society opposed to both Whaling and Sealing. Like Greenpeace he bought a boat and hit the high seas like Captain Ahab, for Paul his Moby Dick was the Whaling industry.

And there is a difference between these two sea marine mammals and their status as endangered species. Which is why focusing on one species that is not endangered perse, over one that is, blurs the lines between rational ecology from animal liberation.

And currently this issue is no longer about rational ecology or even environmentalism it has become a simple Animal Liberation cause celebre on one hand and a quick way to make bucks and get free publicity for Green NGO organizations like the Humane Society of North America. Who launch the same campaign year after year with little intention of changing the seal hunt, but cashing in on donations from the gullible.

The seal hunt in Canada this year was scandal ridden with a falsified news story sensationalizing the hunt in the Boston Globe.

The Boston Globe has retracted an article by a Halifax-based freelancer that described the opening day of the seal hunt. The article, by Halifax-based writer Barbara Stewart, was published Wednesday, and described vividly how on the preceding day "hunters on about 300 boats converged on ice floes, shooting harp seal cubs by the hundreds, as the ice and water turned red."

The story was untrue, a figment of the writers graphic imagination. But it sold to a liberal newspaper conditioned to see the seal hunt as bad. Greenpeace which had begun the campaign jointly with the sealers to reduce the quotas had abandoned them and went on the attack against them. The Seal hunt maybe the issue on the surface but beneath the surface the target has been the workers; the sealers.

This isn't an anti-sealing movement its an Anti-Sealer movement, and those in Newfoundland know it. Which is why Martio in all good conciousness could not continue in the Green Party where an Ontario based leadership made a decision based upon populist politics.

In the ROC we have been so innundated with this anti-sealer propaganda that every year like clockwork the campaigns rollout , the protests begin and the money flows in to the various Green NGO's. If people were so concerned about the sealers fate that money would flow to them to pay them to end the hunt.

During last seasons seal hunt a member of the Board of Wattson's Sea Sheperd Society sayed it was ok to kill sealers to stop the hunt. Dr. Vlasak was an outspoke Animial Rights activist who had already said it was ok to kill scientists who work on lab animals.

Vlasak was barred from entering the United Kingdom after he told a 2003 conference in the United States that he supports assassination of animal researchers as a means of stopping animal-based research.

"If these vivisectors were being targeted for assassination, and call it political assassination or what have you ... strictly from a fear and intimidation factor, that would be an effective tactic," Vlasak said at the time.

In an interview this week with the CBC, Vlasak did not back down from those remarks, and he said he also supported violence against sealers.

"Are these people comparable to people that chop up animals in laboratories just to further their academic careers? Yeah, I think they're all abhorrent in a certain way," he said.

Meanwhile, Vlasak – who did not back down from any of his previous comments about violence – has blasted CBC's coverage of his views.

He said his comments were not comprehensively reported by CBC, and that he was not speaking on behalf of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

"What an unethical breach of journalistic integrity," he wrote in an e-mail message, adding that he had repeatedly described the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as a non-violent organization.

"I didn't expect much from a Newfie, but you have hit a new low for one-sided reporting," Vlasak wrote.

Watson himself was pressured to get rid of Vlasak, but that was not the only incident where violence against sealers was promoted by Watson. RCMP investigate death threats against a sealernd his family posted on the Sea Shepard Blog.

The CBC reported; An April 2 posting on a blog on the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's website identified Genge's name, mailing address, phone number and even the name of his wife. The RCMP are investigating the incident.

These are not just aborations from an otherwise socially conscious campaign, they show that the anti-sealing campaigners will stop at nothing to destroy the livilihoods of the sealers. After that you can expect them to pop into your neighbourhood to end the slaughter of inncocence in the meat packing plants.
Or the lobsters in your local resteraunt.

This is not about living with animals, the animal activists around Sea Shepard or PETA have one agenda, them or us. And in this case the them is animals and the us is well us. They want to impose their vegan, not vegetarian but the much more radical dietary restriction, morality on us. And after all if their tactics resemble shock troops, thats cause Adolph was a vegetarian too. One's dietary preferences do not a progressive social movement make.

And their opposition to the seal hunt is purely opportunist now, they will make millions of dollars doing it, funding their lifestyle activism, with little or no concern for the impact they have on the the people and their communities. Whether it is sealers in the Arctic, Norway, Greenland or Newfoundland.

In Watson's case what began as a campaign against the stupidity of Whaling has now become a campaign against fishing. Period. Like globe hopping anti-globaliztion spokespersons, Watson is a one man show, who pops up whereever he thinks an injustice is being done protests, gets busted, makes the news and leaves. With no consideration his actions have on the people or communities he disrupts. This isn't eco activism this is eco protest tourism.

After all as Vlasak said he doesn't much care for Newfies, nor does Greepeace or Paul Watson. They only care about using the seal hunt to publicize themselves to gain more money from the unsuspecting but sympathetic public.

As they go on another mission somewhere else in the world to disrupt another community. This is not eco-activism, this is not the long struggle of working with communities to evolve change. It is animal liberation at the cost of other animals, us. This is simply eco protest tourism. Meanwhile, Watson's protest is over for this year. His ship the Farley Mowat passed by the seal hunt off the northeast coast of Newfoundland before heading to the Grand Banks to protest overfishing. The Farley Mowat has now left Canadian waters and is now sailing to Bermuda.

Victory!

Pressure from progressive bloggers and blogging dippers has forced the CTV Election Weblog to add the Green Bloggers to its links! And congrats to them for publishing comments, the other webbieelectionbloggies don't. And congrats to actually publishing a visitor blog article, and a good one at that. And for actually having this. Its unique. They have also been watching the blogosphere for leads and giving credit to the source. Again CTV take the lead in web blogging during this election. Hey Mother Corp there are lessons to be learned here.

And while giving tips o the blog I wanna draw your attention to the great coverage on CPAC. Yesterday they ran a feature background documentary on Day Care/Early Childhood Education in Canada, featuring all sides of the debate. The winners clearly were propenants of publicly funded, regulated daycre. Great documentary very fair and balanced.

Harper the Statist

Ok I couldn't believe it when I read this editorial but here it is. For a moment I will let you guess where this came from.

Tories offer a big buyoff

Day-care allowance echoes Quebec's statist programs

Well, it's not your father's Canadian Alliance any more.

The Conservative Party's baby bonus -- more precisely, its promised annual $1,200 allowance per child -- is classic state interventionism. It's also a significant upping of the bid in the parties' competition to stake out the family values constituency.

As such, it is the thin end of what could become a ruinously expensive wedge. Society may be prepared to countenance tax breaks for low-income families, but as a general principle, people who have children should pay for them.

Why would anybody expect the state to do so?

The reason, of course, is that Quebec's socialist Parti Quebecois started this madness in 1997, with its so-called $5-a-day day care. Since upped to $7, it proved wildly popular.

Looking for a vote-winner itself last year, the embattled federal Liberal government adopted the idea, pledging $5 billion over five years for national day care.

Frankly, Quebec's experience should have been a salutary warning, rather than an inspiration.

Well contrary to this editorial the Quebec program didn't just pay parents it provided a public regulated non profit day care system for children. It then subsidized these programs at a cost of $5 per day allowing for more affordable access. The creation of public day care spaces is what this ediorial must mean by statist.

That is not what the Harper plan is, not even close, his plan is to give parents $4 a day, with no plan to fund non profit regulated public child care or build more centres.

So to call his plan statist is a bit much. To compare it to the Quebec model is an even greater jump in logic. To say that this isn't your fathers Alliance party, well yes it is, it just isn't yer grandaddies Reform Party of Presto Manning.

To say that people who have children should pay for them contradicts the conservative eulogy of the sacredness of family, and how children are a resource for the future. Thats the contradiction of conservative thinking, on the one hand children are their parents problem on the other they are our future. Which is it?

Well both, but in order to raise children and to have them socially develop not as a resource but as citizens in the commune, err community, then they are a responsibility for all of us. Hence it takes a village, always did, to raise children. Today society is the extended family that replaces the tribe, clan and village. So yes we do have a social responsibility for children. Thats why we have public education and need public regulated day care in the community and in our schools and workplaces.

The editorial, was not from the National Post, scion of the new right, nor from the Calgary Sun or any of the Sun papers. Nope it was from the Calgary Herald today. So anybody still out there think our media is liberal?

More MSM Election Weblogs

Canwest news, publishers of the Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen, owners of Global TV etc. have their correspondents web blogging about the election here.
And for Alberta politics from the Press Gallery in the Leg I can highly reccomend Graham Thompsons new blog at the Edmonton Journal.

Albertans Challenge Harpers Day Care Plan

I got this email from Public Interst Alberta which has been lobbying for better child care in Alberta. Thought I would print the whole thing as it raises serious criticisms of Harpers Made In Alberta Day Care Plan.

The Conservative Party of Canada released their plan for Childcare
yesterday. The main focus of the Conservative Party plan is to give families
$100 per month for every child under the age of 6 ($2.4 billion annually)
regardless of income and allow them to "choose" their own childcare
preferences.

The media called on Public Interest Alberta to respond to this new plan. In
particular, I did a CBC Television Interview (in English and French that ran
province wide) and an interview in the Calgary Herald and the Edmonton
Journal (see article).

It is very important that people who care about this important public
interest issues use the election to participate in phone in shows and write
letters to the editor of your local new papers. Here are some points that
are important when looking at this issue.


* Families will not have a real choice for childcare and early
childhood education options unless there is an affordable, accessible and
high quality childcare system in place.

* Giving all parents money directly as a policy to build a childcare
system is the same as giving money to everyone who owns a car and expecting
that will build a road system.

* The tax incentives for corporations to start new childcare centres
will not work. This was tried by the Harris government and it failed because
most businesses are not interested in creating childcare centres. They do
however, want their employees to be able to access quality childcare and
expect that their tax dollars will provide this important public service.

* The Conservative plan makes no mention of support for low and
middle income families who are currently getting subsidies other than to say
that the current agreements will end next year. Under Alberta's recently
released 5 point plan to use the federal childcare funds, families are
currently able to receive a subsidy up to $500/month per child ($575 for
infants) (paid directly to the childcare centres) for licensed and
accredited childcare. Presumably the subsidy arrangement for these families
would be replaced by the Conservative plan with this $100/month plan.

* The Conservative party plan does not even mention early childhood
education as an essential element of any childcare system. The current 5
point provincial plan allows families to receive $100/month for early
learning opportunities for pre-school children.

* There is no mention in this plan for enhancing necessary supports
for parents such as exists with Alberta's new parent link centres.

* The Conservative plan does not address the issue of children
between the ages of 6 and 12 who require before and after school care. There
is a real crisis in after school care that needs to be addressed and any
childcare plan must reflect this.

* Quality childcare comes when childcare workers are well trained
and properly paid for the important work they do. The Conservative plan does
not address the need to increase the training and pay childcare workers get
and would not support the current salary and training for childcare workers
announced in Alberta's 5 point plan for childcare.



I hope these points help provide some context to the debate and will
encourage you to speak out on this issue.



Thank you for your support of Public Interest Alberta.



Sincerely,



Bill Moore-Kilgannon

Executive Director

Public Interest Alberta

From the Harpers Mouth

quoth-the-harper This is a great article on Harper I highly reccomend it. Couldn't have done a better job on it myself, nice piece of research and political analysis.

Harpers Day Care Plan Redux

For $1200 a year here is the kind of child care Harpers sacred 'Parental Choice' brings. This happened in Ontario where the Harper plan is already in place introduced by Mike Harris.

Woman's mental deficiency cited

Jeffrey's grandmother assessed in 1970
Had been charged in death of her first baby, court told

The 54-year-old woman facing a murder charge for the starvation death of her grandson, Jeffrey Baldwin, was diagnosed with "borderline mental retardation" 35 years ago, court heard yesterday.Elva Bottineau, who was assessed at the Clarke Institute of Psychiatry in 1970 by psychiatrist Dr. Eugene Mandryk, was described in a report as being of "borderline mentally defective intelligence," and displaying "social immaturity, poor judgment, aggressive tendencies and poor impulse control." Bottineau and Kidman, 53, have pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder of five-year-old Jeffrey, who died of septic shock on Nov. 30, 2002. They have also pleaded not guilty to the unlawful confinement a granddaughter. Despite each having a criminal record for child abuse, the couple was given custody of Jeffrey and his three siblings by the Catholic Children's Aid Society.

Like the Conservatives and Real Women the Catholic Childrens's Aid Society probably adhered to the idea that parenting and child rearing are 'natural', and one needs no training it just comes to you when you have children. Yep ideology trumps reason. Much like Harpers dumb Made in Alberta Child Care plan.