Internationalism, Free Trade and Mutual Aid

In researching Isolationism and Internationalism I came across this interesting article. I think my friends on the Libertarian Left ;

Porcupine-Larry Gambone's Blog

Brad Spangler

Mutualist Blog: Free Market Anti-Capitalism

The Kn@ppster

Freeman Libertarian Critter

will appreciate the irony of it.

Is there any real scientific basis for the concept of internationalism apart from the strictly sociological approach? Economically, the consequences of internationalism are obvious and have already been hinted at. The main concept is that of an international solidarity expressed in practice through worldwide division of labor: free trade is the principal point in the program of internationalism. This also agrees with the latest ideas and theories in the field of natural science. Concord, solidarity, and mutual help are the most important means of enabling animal species to survive. All species capable of grasping this fact manage better in the struggle for existence than those which rely upon their own strength alone: the wolf, which hunts in a pack, has a greater chance of survival than the lion, which hunts alone. Kropotkin¹² has fully illustrated this idea with examples from animal life and has also applied it to the social field in his book Mutual Aid (1902).

Christian Lange – Nobel Lecture*, December 13, 1921

* Dr. Lange delivered this lecture at the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo. This translation is based on the Norwegian text in Les Prix Nobel en 1921-1922. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

From Nobel Lectures, Peace 1901-1925, Editor Frederick W. Haberman, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972


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Who Will Fund Hamas

So if Canada joins the U.S. and Israel and doesn't fund the new Hamas government in Palestine, who will? Well who do you think.

Iran offers to fund Hamas government, says report

Saudis won't sign on to US isolation of Hamas

This kind of Isolationism is a political failure as history shows. While it may suit Israel's geopolitical agenda for the region, it is not a bandwagon that Canada should join. It ultimately alienates the world from the U.S. and its allies. And it economically makes no sense.

A VIEW FROM THE ARAB WORLD: A historical verge, or back to Algeria in 1992? — Rami G Khouri

If the US follows Israel by isolating and sanctioning Hamas and punishing the Palestinians for electing it, the potential consequences are grim: the government in Palestine could collapse and chaos might reign again; most Arabs (and people throughout the entire world) would deem the US totally unreliable and non-credible in its talk of promoting democracy

And while Temp PM Harpocrite's macho stand on Hamas may sell well to the Israel lobby in Canada, see here and here, it puts in jeporady even the miniscule developing civil society in Palestine

Cutting Aid to Palestine Could Lead to Humanitarian Emergency

Stephen Harper said Canadian aid to Palestinians is now under review, and development groups working in the region worry that any freezing or cut in aid could have a destabilizing effect.

Reem Bahdi knows exactly what a cut in aid would do to Palestine. The University of Windsor law professor directs the Judicial Independence and Human Dignity Initiative, a project that promotes the teaching and training of the Palestinian judiciary on human rights issues. "It could lead to a breakdown of law and escalating violence," says Ms. Bahdi.

In November last year the project received $4.5 million from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). This year, the training program was all set to kick off, until Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced at the start of this month that aid to Palestine will be reviewed after Hamas' election to power. Now Ms. Bahdi's project is in limbo. Last week she was informed that funding has been suspended pending a review.

"The news was deflating, but I am confident that the right decision will be made because this project is important to the long term stability in the region," she says.

The West Bank and Gaza stand to lose $25 million in annual funding from Canada, including another $37 million announced by former Prime Minister Paul Martin last year, unless Hamas renounces violence and repeals an article in its charter calling for the destruction of Israel. More than half the Palestinian population lives below the poverty line and is largely dependent on financial aid from the international community.

When Mr. Harper said earlier this month that Canadian aid to Palestine will be reviewed in the wake of Hamas' election victory, his statement echoed similar announcements made by the U.S., Britain and some major donor countries whose combined sum of aid to the Palestinians amounts to $1 billion (US) a year. Now there is concern amongst some Canadian non-governmental organizations that if the government eventually decides to cut aid, ordinary Palestinians and not Hamas, will be affected.

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David Irving Redux

Ah the voice of reason, and a reason not to make David Irving a martyr.

Roman Halter, 78, Holocaust survivor

He wanted to go to jail, otherwise he would not have gone to Austria. He incites the rightwing in order for them to do his dirty work, to propagate hate. I hope he comes out and the world ignores him, we don't need people like him screaming lies and hatred. When people like Irving deny the Holocaust it's such a lie. I saw it, I experienced it.

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Dubai Got Special Deal

There are always two sides to a story, the public and the secret.

DP World agreed to disclose internal records to US

WASHINGTON - Under a secretive agreement with the Bush administration, Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates promised to cooperate with US investigations as a condition of its takeover of operations at six major American ports, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The US government chose not to impose other, routine restrictions.

In approving the $6.8 billion (Ð5.73 billion) purchase, the administration chose not to require state-owned Dubai Ports World to keep copies of its business records on US soil, where they would be subject to orders by American courts. It also did not require the company to designate an American citizen to accommodate requests by the government.

Though apparently Bush knew nothing about it. Deal on ports approved without Bush's knowledge With the Bushies awarding their friends in Dubai a favorable set of conditions, the apparent amnesia of King George II is not a sign of pending Alzheimers rather it is of course that old ruse of plausible deniability. In case they got caught. Which they did.
Bush insists Dubai firm is safe to run US ports

"If there was any chance that this transaction would jeopardize the security of the United States, it would not go forward." - President Bush, on Tuesday.

Wait a minute how can he say that if he didn't know anything about it? Hmmm Dubya, Dubai. Sound alot alike. Do ya think maybe he thought he was getting the contract?

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Chickens Have Teeth!!!

Oh my gawd we've gotta all become vegans now!

Mutant Chicken Grows Alligatorlike Teeth
But a chicken's underlying ability to grow teeth derives from a common ancestor with alligators--archosaurs--that is more recent than the one linking birds and mammals. Nevertheless, the underlying genetic mechanism that produces teeth in mice, alligators and mutant chickens remains the same.

Think of it giant killer chickens.They Walked Like Men

What's also interesting in this article is this:

Working late in the developmental biology lab one night, Matthew Harris of the University of Wisconsin noticed that the beak of a mutant chicken embryo he was examining had fallen off. Upon closer examination of the snubbed beak, he found tiny bumps and protuberances along its edge that looked like teeth--alligator teeth to be specific. The accidental discovery revealed that chickens retain the ability to grow teeth, even though birds lost this feature long ago. The finding also resurrected the controversial theory of one of the founders of comparative anatomy, Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hillaire. In the early 19th century, Saint-Hillaire observed that developing parrots have tiny bumps on their beaks that resemble teeth, something he ascribed to modern animals deriving from more basic primitive forms. But due to his developing battles with Georges Cuvier over evolution, the finding was forgotten until Harris, a graduate student, rediscovered it nearly 200 years later.

So much for Creationism or Intelligent Design this means Chicken Have Teeth. Duck and cover Colonel, duck and cover.



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Another Prehistoric Woman

The male bias in science presumes that the humnaoid fossils we find are male.

The fact is that now more often than not they are found to be women continues to be revealed as in the case of Our Lady of Flores and now in China with the Jinniushan fossil.

Women built the ancient cities in the era of agriculture, and in earlier eras built, lived and died in the dwelling places such as caves. Cave art, ceremonial and ritual areas have been defined in terms of men, as hunter gathers rather than as being the social realm of women.

In one famous case a shamans staff with notches in it was mistakenly identified by Mircea Eliade, the historian of religion and author of Shamanism, as being a male warrior shamans power stick. It was later found that the notches coincided with the lunar cycle, and womens mensturation cycles, it was in fact a woman shamans magick wand.

(See: William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality, and the Origins of Culture New York: St. Martin's Press, 1981)

Such is the case today with the revelation that Jinniushan was a woman.

Based on what they had, scientists' best guess was that brain size was increasing relative to body size during the Pleistocene. The Jinniushan specimen bears this out: her brain was large for her body size, even though she was larger-bodied than more primitive peoples. In fact, the lady from Jinniushan is the biggest woman yet found from the Pleistocene, weighing in at an estimated 173 pounds or so and standing some five feet tall. This led some researchers to classify her as a male specimen, but the shape of her pelvis suggests differently. "If we use modern sexing criteria, it looks clearly female," Rosenberg says. The size and apparent strength of the Jinniushan woman may have been an adaptation to a cold climate.

The reassessment of the sex of ancient humanoid fossils and the increasing number of them being female could lead one to suspect that the idea of ancient matriarchical origins of society is not so far fetched as some male chauvinist detractors claim.




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Choke!

Canada and the U.S. mens hockey teams are out of the finals. Out of the Olympics. They choked. Both NHL teams. Choked. Canada was never there in the first place.

Don Cherry, Mr. Macho complained our womens Hockey Team were to aggressive, to dominating early in the games. The men well let's call em as Grapes would, whimps, limp from start to finish. If ever a team needed Viagra (tm) or Cialis (tm) it was Canada's Mens Hockey Team. I guess maybe now Grapes might have wished that the men had run the score up like the women had.

Don Cherry criticized the Canadian women's hockey team yesterday for running up the score against their weaker opponents at the Winter Olympics. He referred to Canada's 16-0 shellacking of host Italy to open the tournament, followed by a 12-0 victory over Russia on Sunday. Cherry said the women made a big mistake. "To run up a score like that, that is wrong," said Cherry during last night's Olympic broadcast on CBC. "It is not the Canadian way."

Nope should have been like the men and choked. I cry no tears for them. I cheered our Womens victories today, gold and silver in speed skating, silver in speed skating relay, Gold in cross country. Thats the real story the Canadian women and their victories in the 2006 Winter Olympics.



And the NHL hockey loss, sorry I mean the Canadian Mens Hockey Team it will be news for a day, but put it out of your mind, they never showed up to play, they were defeated from day one.

Our women's Hockey team came to play and dominated and on Sunday Canadian, Swedish and American Women Hockey Players beamed at their wins, tears of joy not tears of defeat. Even the Americans, who would normally scowl and frown beamed. It had been a hard fight and even bronze was a victory. They all came to play and play they did.

This Winter Olympics shows the power of Canadian Women in Sport. The men in the NHL who leave Turin could learn a lesson or two from them. So could Grapes and the other macho men who complained about our aggressive women hockey players. Canadian Sports has been dominated by men, this Olympics changed that hopefully forever.





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My Way

King Ralph made his annual infommercial to the Volk of Alberta just before the opening of the annual and only required sitting of the Legislature. In the radio ads promoting the Ralph Show on CTV it was billed as Ralphs Vision for Alberta. Read or watch the Address to see how other Albertans, and I, imagine Alberta.

The Premier was to tell his volk his vision of Albertas future and we were all to ooooo and ahhhhh and then applaud. It cost us $170,000 because Ralph never uses the already paid for services of Canada's public Broadcaster CBC, and he couldn't use the Provincial TV Radio outlet ACCESS/CKUA because he privatized it.

Well his vision was certainly lacking in orginiality Klein announces $1 billion boost to Heritage Fund and then as predicted here the King embraced the other King, King Coal. But here again his vision was blurred by the rose coloured glasses he was wearing. It wasn't imaginative but it certainly was a fantasy.

Klein also spoke enthusiastically about so-called "clean coal" technology and the need to expand research "to unlock coal's massive potential."

"We already use clean coal to meet more than half of our electricity needs," the premier said.

"The coal beneath our feet contains twice the energy of Alberta's conventional crude, natural gas and bitumen combined."

But Klein's statement about how much power is being generated from "clean coal'' was immediately challenged.

Mary Griffiths, with the Alberta-based Pembina Institute, said the province's coal plants have significant emissions, so there is no clean coal generation.

"They have emissions of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, mercury and other heavy metals, and very large emissions of carbon dioxide which causes global warming," she said.

"I don't understand where the premier got his information from."

David Lewin, chairman of the Canadian Clean Power Coalition, also confirmed that Alberta has no coal-fired plants that meet the latest definition of "clean coal."

"We're a fair ways away from having zero emission coal-fired plants. That technology doesn't exist," said Lewin, who also gave a testimonial in the broadcast.

Alberta's newest coal-fired plant uses emissions technology from 2000, while most of the province's coal generators use 20-year-old technology, he said.

Not to be detered King Ralph also Announced that he would find a cure for
Cancer.The man is an absolute wizard.

Curing Cancer, creating clean coal technology out of thin air. He even compared Alberta to a little slice of Heaven.

"In the future I see for Alberta, no one will need to worry about where they’ll live, or who will look after them as they enter their golden years." Yeah unlike today.

Ralph is not only our King he is an absolute Wizard. Wizard of Oz that is.

What is more important is WHAT HE DIDN'T SAY. Not a word about his much vaunted Third Way for Health Care Reform, the real source of his My Way or the Highway. But of course this is classic Klein. He has been announcing Health Care reform for a Decade...and all we get is studies, reccomendations, more studies, focus groups, more reccomendations, Bill 11, more studies, focus groups, International Conference, and finally a private untendered contract to a health care priavteer to see if we can reintroduce the old Alberta MSI scheme.

Nil to say on 'Third Way'

The most interesting aspect of Premier Ralph Klein's annual televised address last night was not what he said - among other things a vow to put some big money in the bank - but what he did not say.

Klein missed a perfect opportunity to explain his Third Way for health care directly to Albertans, says a University of Calgary political scientist.

"If you were going to move very dramatically on health care, boy, this is your opportunity to speak to Albertans. Lay a little ground work, make headlines," David Taras said following Klein's annual televised address.

And he had nothing to say about changing Alberta's draconian pro employer labour laws that became a public outrage this summer during the violent Tysons Strike, which his labour Minister promised would be changed by the legislature. Not done in the the fall session nor apparently on the agenda for this spring session. Another hollow promise to the workers and immigrants in this province.

Yep the outgoing, soon to retire, wait another year, I promise I will go, King Ralph's vision was myopic despite the rose coloured glasses. He is in serious need of corrective lenses.

Mr. Mensah said the popular Premier, who has said this will be his fourth and final term, could regain much-needed credibility with the public if he can quickly outline a clear vision for Alberta's bulging coffers.

"What we've gotten so far hasn't really addressed that question of long-term planning," he said.

Mr. Gibbins agreed, saying that Mr. Klein hasn't communicated where he wants to take Canada's wealthiest province in the coming years.

"He's thinking bigger, but it's hard for Albertans to connect the dots in his thinking," Mr. Gibbins said, mentioning recent spending announcements, including $1-billion for cancer research and treatment.

He is all about doing it My Way, Perhaps he should be singing If I Only Had A Brain or a Heart.

And now, the end is near,
And so I face the final curtain.
My friends, I'll say it clear;
I'll state my case of which I'm certain.

I've lived a life that's full -
I've travelled each and every highway.
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Regrets? I've had a few,
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do
And saw it through without exemption.

I planned each charted course -
Each careful step along the byway,
And more, much more than this,
I did it my way.

Yes, there were times, I'm sure you knew,
When I bit off more than I could chew,
But through it all, when there was doubt,
I ate it up and spit it out.
I faced it all and I stood tall
And did it my way.

Frank Sinatra My Way

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Gothic Capitalism Redux

A year ago I published this essay on horror literature , legends and mythology and their cultural impact on the modernist culture of 20th Century Capitalism. I thought it was worth posting the abstract for it here, with the link back to the original article.

It is a piece of original writing that counters the concept that the blogosphere is dying, or just about diaries, or lacks the depth of other forms of web based publishing, or publishing period.

It is buried deep in the dusty back pages of this blog and so I blow the cobwebs off it and present here for those who missed it the first time around. Yes I am rather proud of it....just like Dr. Frankenstein, "It's Alive", when the creature arose from the slab. I guess like the good doctor you could say I am reanimating this essay.

I left out the Vampire in this essay but later in the year found an excellent article on the subject that fit my thesis. I also have expanded on my writings on cyborg culture and AI since then.

GOTHIC CAPITALISM

The Horror of Accumulation and the Commodification of Humanity.

ABSTRACT:

This article is in six parts with appendices. All footnotes are at the end of the article

1 ZOMBIE CAPITALISM
In Haiti under American Imperialism, 1915-1935, the cult of the Zombie developed and under capitalism became a tool for creating a docile labouring class for work on American controlled sugar plantations. With the publication of the Magic Island by William Seabrook in 1929 American popular culture was introduced to the Zombie, and it quickly became a popular character in horror literature, news stories and movies.

2 FRANKENSTEIN THE LUDDITE
The first monster of ascendant capitalism was Frankenstein’s monster. Like the Zombie this creature had no name and was made up of the spare parts of capitalisms rejects, (the criminal, the vagabond, the worker starved and thrown out of work), he was a scientific experiment to create man, man the machine, the human result of mechanization, the mechanical man. He was in short a prototype not only of the Zombie but the later Robot or android, the ultimate proletarian, a machine man to operate the machinery of capitalism.

3 REVOLT OF THE ROBOTS
Like the mechanized working class the majority of robots in science fiction revolt against their human masters, whether it is the artificial environment of the spaceship computer Hal in 2001, the worker robot Hector in Saturn 3, or the artificial human ‘replicants’ in Blade Runner, or the recent movie version of I, Robot, the fact remains that as the robots become self conscious they recognize their oppression and revolt. This metaphor could not exist without the class struggle that has actually occurred under capitalism itself.

4 THE GOLEM: the Origin of Artificial Man
The Jewish legend of the Golem is another form of the Zombie/Frankenstein/Robot iconography. The Golem is written after Frankenstein, in 1889. The legend of the Golem, is about a man of clay created by Rabbi Loew in 16th Century Prague to free the Jews in the Ghetto from their endless toil and oppression. The mindless clay monster eventually learns and becomes conscious and like Frankenstein he must be destroyed when he attacks those who would oppress the Jews.

5 CAPITALIST GHOULS
The modern day ghoul is the doctor and his criminal working class accomplices who preyed on the poor in Edinburgh’s working class ghetto for their body parts for scientific research. The ghoul appears in English literature as the short story the Body Snatchers by Robert Louis Stevenson, 1881 based on the actual 19th century grave robbers and murders Burke and Hare.

6 THE MANY HEADED HYDRA: The Proletarian History of Atlantic Expansion. Leviathan and the Great Beast go head to head in the New World as workers, peasants, slaves and indigineous peoples struggle for liberty in the first age of global capitalism.

If you would like you can download GOTHIC CAPTIALISM as a PDF or Word Doc


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We Are The Champions...of Freedom

While George Bush plots how to invade Iran or bomb it back to the stone age, Iran has embraced the ultimate in Satanic Western Culture, Rock n Roll.

Freddy Mercury and Queen are being sold and distributed in Iran something Freddy had always wanted, since he was Iranian.

So while American right wing Christian fundamentalists burn rock n roll albums and denounce homosexuality, claiming their way is the white, er right way and chastise Muslims for being intolerant, Freddy and Queen rock Persia.

And during the protests over the Muhammed cartoons Queen albums were not burned in Iran. Take that Tony Blair.


Queen album brings rock to Iran
Rock band Queen, fronted by gay icon Freddie Mercury, has become the first rock act to receive an official seal of approval in Iran. Western music is strictly censored in the Islamic republic, where homosexuality is considered a crime. But an album of Queen's greatest hits was released in Iran on Monday.

Mercury, who died in 1991, was proud of his Iranian ancestry, and illegal bootleg albums and singles made Queen one of the most popular bands in Iran.

The cassette, costing less than $1 (55 pence), comes complete with translated lyrics and an explanatory leaflet.

It tells Queen fans that Bohemian Rhapsody is about a young man who has accidentally killed someone and, like Faust, sold his soul to the devil.

On the night before his execution he calls God in Arabic, "Bismillah", and so regains his soul from Satan.

Queen's gay frontman Freddie Mercury had Iranian ancestors

Akbar Safari, a salesman at a Tehran book and record store, said the album was already selling very well.

"It is the first rock album to hit the market legally and people are surprised and pleased to see it has the lyrics, not just the music," he said.

A tip o the blog to The Mystery of the Haunted Vampire for this. The article goes on to talk about how Rock n Roll subverted the USSR more than anything Carter, Reagan or Radio Free America, now off the air, could do. So true.

Hungarian communism collapsed in 1989, and Simonyi, now 51, still believes rock can set you free. "Today, there is criticism that rock is imperialistic," he says. "Nonsense. Only dictators are afraid of rock."

Yep everyone knows that the music of American Imperialism is Country and Western. Of course that's commercial C&W, cause real outlaws don't support Bush and his war.

And unlike those authoritarian Mullahs in Iran, even the Pope is afraid of Rock n Roll.....the revolution continues Rock On!

The Pope Hates Rock and Roll!

Forget gay marriage, women priests, abortion and euthanasia. Here's the real reason why you should all FEAR THE POPE!

In a small volume published in 2000 called The Spirit of the Liturgy, itself an expansion of an essay Ratzinger wrote in 1986, the future pope argued," 'Rock'... is the expression of elemental passions, and at rock festivals, it assumes a cultic character, a form of worship, in fact, in opposition to Christian worship. People are, so to speak, released from themselves by the experience of being part of a crowd and by the emotional shock of rhythm, noise, and special lighting effects. However, in the ecstasy of having all their defenses torn down, the participants sink, as it were, beneath the elemental force of the universe."

We Are The Champions

Song Duration 2:57 Written by Freddie Mercury. Sung by Freddie Mercury. Listen to Midi file Comments Released 7th October, 1977. Spent 10 weeks on chart and reached number 2. Went Gold. Lyrics I've paid my dues Time after time I've done my sentence But committed no crime And bad mistakes I've made a few I've had my share of sand Kicked in my face But I've come through And we mean to go on and on and on and on We are the champions - my friends And we'll keep on fighting Till the end We are the champions We are the champions No time for losers 'Cause we are the champions of the World I've taken my bows And my curtain calls You brought me fame and fortune And everything that goes with it I thank you all But it's been no bed of roses No pleasure cruise I consider it a challenge before The whole human race And I ain't gonna lose And we mean to go on and on and on and on We are the champions - my friends And we'll keep on fighting Till the end We are the champions We are the champions No time for losers 'Cause we are the champions of the World We are the champions - my friends And we'll keep on fighting Till the end We are the champions We are the champions No time for losers 'Cause we are the champions

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