LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment

Sunday, September 03, 2006

Deconstructing International Relations

I found this very interesting article on International Relations. Which at least one blogger has an interest in, and bemoans the lack of political blogs dealing with IR.

So to make up for it a teensy weensy bit read this:

An Immanent Critique of International Relations “It’s the end of the world as we knew it”

International Relations (IR) is a discipline that was originally created to investigate the
scourge of war in terms of its causes, and also possible cures of what was then seen –
and indeed still is – as the malady of the body politic. (Lord Davies, 1919) More
recently, IR has been charged with the investigation of who gets what and under which
conditions. (Ken Booth, 1995) The normative aims are still the same in that the
corollary of the ‘who gets what argument’ is to suggest that iniquitous distribution may
cause conflict, the purpose of the discipline being to suggest ways to avoid it.2
The materialist/utilitarian emphasis present in both normative goals outlined above are
inherently conflictual and this point has been hammered home by realists and
neorealists ad infinatum. More progressive theories in IR, interdependency theory,
world systems, Marxist, neoliberal and so forth are also wedded to the materialist
commitment, and whilst the ‘difference’ of the arguments usually revolves around the
explanatory, the progressive remedial aspect of the theories become bogged down by
an implicit or explicit commitment to the ethic of progress, the state and the market.

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Safe Injection Site Unsafe From Tories

Late Friday afternoon, the begining of the long weekend and Health Minister Tony Clement announces an eleventh hour reprieve for Vancouvers successful Safe Injection Site. An underwhelming announcement given the timing.

A site applauded and reported on at the International AIDS conference in Toronto earlier this month. A conference Clement attended, but he probably missed this workshop.

But the funding for the site only continues until the last day of December 2007, like many other Harpocrite government announcements which end in 2007. Or when they win a majority. When they will shut the site down.

The reason for the limited funding? Well good old Tony gave it in his press release; "Given the need for more facts, I am unable to approve the current request to extend the Vancouver site for another three and a-half years," said Clement.

The need for more facts? Huh? What facts could those be?

Harper has said he would wait for the RCMP report's findings before deciding whether to allow the site to continue with federal approval.Safe injection site should continue, BC criminologists report

A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in June 2006 showed drug users who frequented the clinic were more likely to go into detox and other rehabilitation facilities.

Numerous studies have been conducted both by outside researchers and within the Vancouver clinic itself, including a report released last week conducted by the BC Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, which found that "three-quarters of Insite users report the facility has positively changed their injecting behaviour."

According to the peer-reviewed studies on the site, drug users complete an average of 600 injections per day at SIS, staff have treated 453 overdoses with no fatalities, more than 4,000 referrals were made to counselling and other support services, and addicts who inject there are more likely to seek detoxification. The facility has also reduced the number of syringes discarded on the street and curbed needle sharing, which puts a user at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS or Hepatitis C. Business groups support safe-injection site

Promise made promise not kept.

Why is Clement fudging on full funding for Insite? Well because the facts are that the Conservatives drug policy is the same as that south of the border; just say no to drugs.

Another priority is youth crime prevention. We are working with Minister Day to keep youth at risk from succumbing to the culture of guns, gangs and drugs.Speech for the Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada ...

You see its a conflict between what is good for the health of drug victims, and what is good for victims of crime. The Tories look to making policy for the latter not the former. Despite the facts.

Health Minister Tony Clement said he is delaying a decision on whether Vancouver's controversial safe injection site should remain open, as the Canadian Police Association took a strong stance against the program.

And of course the inherent Tory belief in facts like these.....Debate on "reefer madness" resurfaces

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Vancouver, herion, safe-insection-site, junkies, Canada, drugs, crime, health, medicine, Clement, Toews, Harper, Government, medicare, healthcare, drugcrime, funding, AIDS,

Private Cops Protect Flaherty

So explain this why is the Finance Department paying out over $1 million dollars to private cops to protect Jim Flaherty the Minister of Finance? What happened to the RCMP who already protect MPs? And what were they protecting? The Budget?

2006-04-01	INITIAL SECURITY	PROTECTION SERVICES	$284,406.00
2006-04-01	INITIAL SECURITY	PROTECTION SERVICES	$320,438.46
2006-04-01	INITIAL SECURITY	PROTECTION SERVICES	$489,342.68

A tip o' the blog to Harper Bizarro and MyBlagh

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Voltaire Would Be Ashamed

Over this:

Jew hater sentenced
In a precedent-setting case, a Two Hills engineer was sent to jail for 16 months for showing what the judge called an "appalling" level of hatred toward Jews on his website. Crown prosecutor Steven Bilodeau said the case will be a "benchmark" for future cases because it's the first hate-crime conviction in Canada involving Internet postings.

Let us repeat the sacred oath of Liberty as attributed to the French Philosopher Voltaire;

I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it

Where is the outrage.Have we forgotten that the basis of liberty is free speech.

"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." (George Orwell)

Oh yeah this is Canada and we have limits on free speech. Unlike our American counterparts.

Both the Charter and the Criminal Code do not allow for unfettered free speech in Canada and now it is being applied to the internet.

So this kind of crap happens to people who wear tinfoil hats. No literally his wife wears a tinfoil hat. She thinks aliens talk to her.

Sentana-Ries, who changed his name from Reinhard Mueller, was found guilty by a jury in December of wilfully promoting hatred for anti-Semitic writings he posted on his website, Federation of Free Planets.

On the site, he blamed Jews for everything from lying about the Holocaust to engineering the AIDS virus to kill scores of people and make the population easier to control.

During often-bizarre sentencing arguments Thursday, Sentana-Ries, who acted as his own lawyer, informed court that he held the title of "Lion of the Tribe of Judah" and as such was the guardian and protector of Jewish people. He also said he and his wife, Seila Sentana-Ries, had been persecuted for nearly a decade by various spy agencies because of their secret powers and knowledge.

His website is called the Federation of Free Planets and he claims to be the Lion of Juadeh. By now we have figured out this guy is a nut bar. So would anyone reading his ramblings. So they institutionalize him by putting him in jail. Cause in Alberta we closed all the mental institutes.Which is where he should probably be.

If his site is so scary and offesnsive how come it's so hard to find? I did a Google search could not find it I kept getting Star Trek sites. I finally found it by Googling his psuedonymn but only because it was refered to in a message board. This guy is a real danger you know cause you really, really, have to look for his page.

Of course dweebs like this guy will be applauding this attack on free speech. Though he too is guilty of hate speech.

"While we are on the subject of leftist anti-Jewish hate, why does Ted, whose blog does such pioneering work, link to an anti-Semite like Robert "F*** the Jews" McClelland? Not for the same reasons that someone else regularly does, I expect. So why, Ted, why? That bigot and the hater calling himself "Dawg" don't belong on your site."

The irony is this occured in Conservative Republican lite Alberta. Supposedly the home of right wing libertarians like Monte Solberg, Stephen Harper, the NCC etc. etc. You know the guys that claim to hate the Nanny State.

Imagine how terrible it would be to live in Canada if it weren’t for a government that suckles, guides, and watches over us for our entire lives, no matter where we go or what we do, just like a gigantic, doting, dependent, mildly abusive mother (sure, mom has her faults but who doesn’t?). Welcome to Canadaby Monte Solberg

And lets not forget self professed libertarian Rona Ambrose.

Rona Ambrose, self-described as a libertarian and avid reader of Ayn Rand, gained a cabinet post as Environment Minister ahead of many other more experienced Alberta MPs. She has previously worked on intergovernmental affairs for the Alberta government.

Will she speak out on this attack on free speech. Doubtful. She is MIA as environment minister, so coming out of her gopher hole to speak out over this anti-libertarian statist censorship is unlikely.

And freedom of course is a contradiction to this mishmash ideology of so called conservatives, they want a free market but support a statist Christian interpretation of morality.

There are free market-oriented social conservatives who have some paleo instincts, including Alliance M.P.s Jason Kenney and Monte Solberg.

But in reality it is a sop to the Zionist lobby in Canada who would deny us free speech claiming any opposition to Israel is anti-semitism, To praphrase GB Shaw "accusations of anti-semitism are the the last refuge of the scoundral".

This sop to the Zionists by the Conservatives is ironic indeed. The Reform/Alliance/Conservatives are awash in real neo-nazis and anti-semites as their base, and those wierdo evangelical Christians who see Israel as the coming of the Apocalypse and the Rapture.

Our so called Canadian Conservatives who claim to be economic libertarians are just as Statist as the Liberals.

This idiot had a web page, he is isolated in Two Hills, even if he published on the WWW and Internet. He does not hold a position of influence like of a noted Historian and Fascist like David Irving. And his site is far less scary than this guy.
Or these guys.

Who may be next? Why not the Western Standard of course, since they published anti-Mulsim hate articles. Will Ezra Levant speak out for free speech on the internet? Even if is is anti-semitic. Unlikely.

There is glee in this report from the Canadian Jewish News, that free speech is restricted in Canada.

Len Rudner, director of community relations for Canadian Jewish Congress, said, “to the best of my knowledge, this is the first time there’s been a successful conviction under [hate crime laws] for contents on an Internet website.”

He said it was significant that an existing piece of legislation was applied to a new medium. “But there was never anything in Section 319 [of the Criminal Code regarding hate crimes] that would act as a bar to it applying to the Internet,” he added.

Ottawa human rights lawyer Richard Warman said the charge and conviction of Mueller “just shows how on top of things the Edmonton [Police] hate crime unit is. They really have become the poster child of what a hate crimes unit can do.”

Warman said a second Edmonton man, Glenn Bahr, has also been charged under the Criminal Code for material he allegedly posted on two websites.

Beware you could be next!

I wrote this after having presented a workshop on Godwin, Proudhon and Benjamin Tucker on Anarchism at this weekends Edmonton Anarchist Bookfair.

Also See:

Censorship

Zionism

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Haiti Atrocities

The Bablyon Project reports on this story; Lancet: 8,000 Murdered 35,000 Raped in Haiti - Almost Half by Canadian Trained and Backed Authorities which they claim has not been covered in the Canadian Media. Actually it is getting major coverage....

Rape victims march for justice in Haitian capital
International Herald Tribune, France - 1 Sep 2006
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti Wearing white dresses and black masks, 150 rape victims marched through Haiti's capital Friday to demand justice and an end to ...
Rape victim march to demand justice in Haiti Westmeath Independent
Haitian Rape Victims Risk Their Lives to Demand Their Rights U.S. Newswire (press release)
Haiti: Rape Victims To March Through Capital Hardbeatnews.com
all 14 news articles »
Open season on Haiti's poor, study finds
Montreal Gazette, Canada - 1 Sep 2006
... study by US social workers confirms what the Canadian and Quebec governments have always denied: a massive campaign of repression against Haiti's poor under ...
Human rights abuses frequent in Haiti's capital News-Medical.net
Shocking Lancet Study: 8,000 Murders, 35,000 Rapes & Sexual ... Caribbean PressReleases.com (press release)
UN Troops To Boost Patrols Near Haiti-Dominican Border Easy Bourse (Communiqués de presse)
all 6 news articles »
Invisible Violence: Ignoring Murder In Post-coup Haiti
Center for Research on Globalization, Canada - 31 Aug 2006
... NPR report interviewed two members of the UN force, one US police trainer, one Haitian police official and Gérard Latortue, the head of Haiti’s unelected ...
Post-Aristide Haiti still violent StarPhoenix
all 3 news articles »

Canadian troops accused of making rape, death threats
Regina Leader-Post, Canada - 2 Sep 2006
MONTREAL -- Canadian troops and police with the United Nations in Haiti made death threats during house raids and made sexual threats against women while drunk ...
Canadian troops accused of rape threats Vancouver Sun (subscription)
Canadians threatened us Montreal Gazette
all 8 news articles »

Eyewitnesses Account: UN Forces Open Fire on Poor Haitian Neighborhood
Women Recount Gang Rape, Abuse at Hearing Against Haitian Death Squad Leader Emmanuel Constant

The response to this news from the Governments of Canada and Quebec,and the oppostion parties will be interesting. Will our Haitian born Govenor General speak out or whimp out?

Why? Because Haiti is our colony , and our source of sweatshop labour for Quebec and Canadian companies like Gilden.

This is a another case of needing to Bring Our Troops and Cops Home.....

Also See:

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Contradictions

No civil war in Iraq, says Bush

Ok so Bush says there is 'no' civil war currently in Iraq, and the Pentagon agrees sort of....

Pentagon: Country ripe for civil war

So the question we all have to ask is...will there be a civil war in time for the U.S. elections in November. Place your wagers.

Also See:

War

Iraq

US Imperialism

US Economy

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Negotiations with the Taliban

The Terrorist State of Pakistan is making deals with the Taliban while executing competing warlords for their favour. So all ya pro-war dweebs whose the appeasers now?

The Lost Territories

North Waziristan and Quetta: Pakistani Tribal regions continue to slide into the hands of the Taliban and al-Qaeda
The Taliban have fought the Pakistani Army to a standstill, and forced them to largely remain in barracks in the North Waziristan agency capital of Miranshah. Beheadings of suspected U.S. spies are now commonplace; the bodies of the two latest victims "were dumped at separate places near Miranshah." Despite this, the Pakistani government is openly negotiating with the Taliban. This is the second time the Pakistani government has negotiated a settlement with the Taliban since the Pakistani Army was largely defeated in 2004.

The Taliban are not only negotiating a settlement which will allow them to remain in control of North Waziristan, but one which would require the Pakistani government to pay ‘huge compensation’ for fighting in the region. The Daily Times reports on the haggling over the tribute to be paid to the Taliban.

And for those of you who dismiss Jack Laytons call for negotiations well lookee who is in the Kabul Government and who Karzai is planning to make deals with.
Yep time to get out NOW!

Remember This War?
Abdul Salaam Rocketi, a former frontline Mujahedin commander in Afghanistan, earned a surname that reflects his prowess with rocket-propelled grenades and spent eight months in detention after U.S.-led forces drove out the Taliban in 2001. Now, as a member of the Afghan parliament, he encourages his former Taliban comrades to reconcile with the government of President Hamid Karzai. It's widely agreed that Afghanistan's national army and police, despite some improvements, are far too small and weak to take on powerful narco-traffickers, local warlords and increasingly audaciousKarzai's recent proposal to recruit tribal militias to become a sort of police auxiliary, which he figures will just encourage them to greater lawlessness and corruption. "These militias destroyed our country," he says, referring to the devastating civil war that shattered Afghanistan following the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. "The nation was fed up with them, so the Afghan people welcomed the Taliban. And now the government wants to bring them back? This is madness.

Also See:

Afghanistan

War

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Another Free Online Book

The Class of the New by Richard Barbrook

Netizens, elancers, cognitarians, swarm-capitalists, hackers, produsumers, knowledge workers, pro-ams... these are just a few of the monikers that have been applied to the new social class emerging from the networked workplace.

In this short book, Richard Barbrook presents a collection of quotations from authors who in different ways attempt to identify an innovative element within society: ‘the class of the new’. Announcing a new economic and social paradigm, this class constitutes a ‘social prophecy’ of the shape of work to come. From Adam Smith's ‘Philosophers’ of the late 18th century, down to the ‘Creative Class’ celebrated by sociologist Richard Florida today, the class of the new represents the future of production within and beyond capitalism.

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