Environmentali$m

While corporate lobbies attack environmental NGO's the same corporations also fund these Green NGO's in order to; a) appear as good corporate citizens b) buy their silence c) limit their lobbying efforts on behalf of the environment.

I have made this point before in relation to the Green NGO's that use the Seal Hunt as their favorite form of fund raising.

Now lets look at the Green NGO Lobby and their relationship with Big Oil.

Saving the bathwater while throwing out the baby: the unacceptable warp of Woof

Isn't it high time that mining critics spoke out about the consequences of massive tar sands exploitation in Canada and Venezuela? After all, much of it is mining under another name, requiring the extraction of huge chunks of land by shovel-and-truck.

And when will we finally declare WWF (colloquially known as "Woof" ), or at least WWF-Canada, to be an Enemy of the People?

This week's announcement that WWF has accepted a million dollars (Canadian) over five years from Inco to "advance a number of conservation initiatives" is just the latest in a wave of corporate bribes taken by the world's largest subscription "conservation" NGO over the past twenty years, in several countries including Australia and Indonesia . Take it from the horse's mouth: "“We have a track record of engaging with companies to reduce their ecological footprint. WWF works with big industry, like mining and forestry, because it is vital to achieve our conservation goals.” That's according to Arlin Hackman, Chief Conservation Officer for WWF-Canada. “Expanding our relationship with Inco is a logical and welcome next step for us both. We are excited about what we can accomplish together.”

What they can be pretty sure to accomplish is a another fraudulent "green card" awarded to Canada's most disreputable big mining company, more sinecures for WWF staff, and further sleepless nights for peoples at the sharp and bitter end of Inco's (and some of WWF's) operations on their doorstep.

Let's return for a moment to the murky world of tar sands - because the Inco deal is only half the story behind WWF-Canada's complicity in destruction. According to researcher, Peter Cizek (writing in the July/August issue of "Canadian Dimension" magazine) ten years ago WWF and the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (CPAWS) got a grant from the Pew Family Trusts based in Philadelphia. The scion of the family had originally set up Suncor, a prime exploiter of tar sands, when he was backing the neo-Nazi John Birch Society and declaring war on "godless communists". Though the original business fell on the rocks, Pew still owns Sunoco, a refiner of "syncrude".

A 1999 grant of $1.8 million over two years from Pew to the WWF aand CPAWS was designed to“protect at least 20 million acres of boreal forest wilderness in the Yukon and Northwest Territories of Canada.” Declares Peter Cizek: "Even though they never came even close to this lofty objective, the Pew kept cranking the dose of crackerjack cash higher and higher, from $2.1 million per year in 2000 to $4.5 million per year in 2002-03, topping out with a mind-blowing speedball injection of $12 million — the Pew’s single biggest grant in 2004."

We all know that (to paraphase Lord Action) "money corrupts and absolute money corrupts absolutely" - and this came pretty close to absolute money, even for an already well-heeled group like WWF-Canada. Says Cizek: " Just like they do not oppose the tar sands in Alberta, WWF and CPAWS also do not oppose the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline in the Northwest Territories. After all, the new president and CEO of WWF, Mike Russill, is a former senior executive of Suncor."

So, no surprise there. And no surprise that WWF and CPAWS are only lobbying to establish a network of protected areas before the start of construction, while ignoring the impacts of tar sands extraction itself. Last year, WWF, CPAWS and another outfit, called Ducks Unlimited, squeezed an additional $9 million to conduct more studies to identify such a network under the government-approved Northwest Territories Protected Areas Strategy. This time it came from the Canadian federal goverment

According to Cizek, in 1996 WWF had threatened to sue that same federal government for approving Canada’s first diamond mine, without designating protected areas for the central arctic region. "WWF then withdrew its lawsuit in exchange for the government’s commitment to develop a Northwest Territories Protected Areas Strategy. Since this strategy was approved in 1999, WWF has not formally identified, much less established, any protected areas in the central arctic, while only two areas have received temporary protection elsewhere in the Northwest Territories under this strategy."

Buying silence

As pointed out in many postings on this site, WWF is not unique among environmental (and development) NGOs in its readiness to "sup with the devil." But it does use a shorter spoon than most. The trade-offs it makes with mining companies have potentially more serious consequences than those done by smaller organisations within other industrial, or consumer, sectors. This is not just because it's universally known and active, but because it claim to employ the best science in defending global habitats.

When an NGO ignores the impacts of a company's core operations ( mine and infrastructure), in return for a bag of corporate money to go and do its own thing elsewhere, what else can can we call it but "buying silence"? True, not all national WWF branches operate in the same way, or sing to the same songsheet. WWF-UK's work on tightening mining standards in Europe is, no doubt, commendable. WWF-India took strong issue with its parent body in Geneva after it signed up to a quasi-certification scheme for the world's largest cement manufacturer, Lafarge, in 2001.

Also See:

Peak Oil

Tar Sands



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Nuke The Tar Sands

PC Leadership hopeful Jim Dinning and the Fraser Institute both agree we need to nuke the tar sands.

As usual the purveyors of privatization really are state capitalists. The Fraser Institute report calls for more use of private nuclear power plants - with government covering insurance, risk-management and startup costs - to reduce emissions and offset the use of gas to power oilsands facilities.

Yep you and I pay for private nuke plants we take the risk we cover all the initial expenses and get nothing for it. Why not just build em ourselves. But that begs the question why do we need nuke plants in the tar sands.

Dinning says its because gas is too expensive. Yeah but nuke plants use too much water, which already is a problem with the Tar Sands. They will use steam injection to remove the tar from the sands. Such steam injection uses more water than conventional strip mining and its heat extraction processes.

Shell's process involves drilling into the shale and using electric heaters to bake the rock to 700 degrees Fahrenheit, which releases oil and gas at the molecular level so it can be pumped to the surface. The company has been researching and testing this method for 20 years and believes it could be profitable even if the price of crude oil fell to $30 a barrel. Chevron's process, so far tried only on paper, uses carbon dioxide, possibly aided by propellants and explosives, to break the rock underground and then pump in heated carbon dioxide to free up the oil. Energy Independence, Our Shale Deposits, Making OPEC Obsolete

Radioactive waste also needs to be processed. This is more of a problem than a solution. The real solution is to slow down development of the tar sands to meet the environmental and community needs of Northerners. But that won't happen in Alberta since we are governed by the interests of Dallas and Houston whose head offices are in Calgary.


Also See:

Peak Oil

Tar Sands



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Harper War Monger

In his speech at the Canadian War Museum to kick off Veterans week Stephen Harper engaged in historical revisionism par excellance. First he praised and quoted the only Quebecois to support the First World War. An Anglo compradore; Talbot Papineau.

" Twenty thousand soldiers fought in the neutral zone and captured the Village of Passchendaele.

The price paid was extremely high – 16,000 fallen, including the great Canadian patriot from Quebec, Talbot Papineau.

Papineau, a brilliant lawyer and orator - whom many expected to one day become prime minister - was one of Canada’s most eloquent champions of the cause.

In defence of Canada's participation in the First War, he wrote:

"It is true that Canada has not heard the roar of German guns, nor been struck by deadly zeppelins,

But every shot fired against Belgium or France was aimed at much as Canada's heart as at the bodies of our brave allies.""

Talbot Papineau's full letter to his cousin Henri Bourassa and Bourassas reply is here.

Harper was not just name dropping, or grasping at straws finding a Quebecois who supported the war. Instead the debate between Papineau and Bourassa is relevant to the current conflict in Afghanistan. It is an argument against the NDP and those who would oppose the current Conservative mission in Kandahar.

As Bourassa replied to his cousin, the concerns he raised sound very familiar.

As early as the month of March 1900, I pointed out the possibility of a conflict between Great Britain and Germany and the danger of laying down in South Africa a precedent, the fatal consequence of which would be to draw Canada into all the wars undertaken by the United Kingdom. Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the liberal leaders laughed at my apprehensions; against my warnings they quoted the childish safeguard of the "no precedent clause" inserted in the Order in Council of the 14th of October 1899. For many years after, till 1912, and 1913, they kept singing the praises of the Kaiser and extolling the peaceful virtues of Germany. They now try to regain time by denouncing vociferously the "barbarity" of the "Huns." To-day, as in 1900, in 1911, and always, I believe that all the nations of Europe are the victims of their own mistakes, of the complacent servility with which they submitted to the dominance of all Imperialists and traders in human flesh, who, in England as in Germany, in France as in Russia, have brought the peoples to slaughter in order to increase their reapings of cursed gold. German Imperialism and British Imperialism, French Militarism and Russian Tsarism, I hate with equal detestation; and I believe as firmly today as in 1899 that Canada, a nation of America, has a nobler mission to fulfil than to bind herself to the fate of the nations of Europe or to any spoliating Empire - whether it be the spoliators of Belgium, Alsace, or Poland, or those of Ireland or the Transvaal, of Greece or the Balkans.

Politicians of both parties, your liberal friends as well as their conservative opponents, feign to be much scandalised at my "treasonable disloyalty." I could well afford to look upon them as a pack of knaves and hypocrites. In 1896, your liberal leaders and friends stumped the whole province of Quebec with the cry "WHY SHOULD WE FIGHT FOR ENGLAND?" From 1902 to 1911, Sir Wilfrid Laurier was acclaimed by them as the indomitable champion of Canada's autonomy against British Imperialism. His resisting attitude at the Imperial Conferences of 1902 and 1907 was praised to the skies. His famous phrase on the "vortex of European militarism", and his determination to keep Canada far from it, became the party's by-word - always in the Province of Quebec, of course.

Besides Papineau's defense of Imperialist war Harper went on to praise his old pal General Stan Waters. Waters was founding member and stalwart of the Reform Party.

One of the Canadian heroes of the Second World War was one of my early mentors in politics: the late, great General Stan Waters.

He had been a member of the legendary Devil’s Brigade – and he led the victorious Allied troops into Rome.

Later he became the top commander in the Canadian Army, a successful business and community leader and the country’s first elected senator.

General Waters was an individual with an incredible courage of conviction, boundless drive and determination and the deep sense of humour of a man who believed he had cheated death more than once.

He believed in war, in the nobility of service in war, when the cause is just, when the purpose clear, and only when there is no other way.

Our military history is filled with larger-than-life characters like Talbot Papineau and Stan Waters.

And Harper, the academic, the politician but never the veteran, believes in War. He is using this November 11 and Veterans week to justify his adventurism and opportunist warmongering in sacrificing our Canadian troops in his war in Afghanistan. Shame on him.

He has forgotten the real meaning of Lest We Forget. Authentic Canadian Veterans, like the War Amps, truly understand the horror of war which is why their slogan is Never Again It is something real veterans including those now in Kandahar understand only too well. While arm chair Generals like Harper will never know the true meaning of sacrifice.

The NEVER AGAIN! logo is the "reverse arms" illustration. It is an international symbol of the tragedy of war. It represents a soldier's rifle planted into the ground with a helmet placed on top. In wartime, this traditionally marked the temporary grave of a fallen soldier until he could be given a proper burial. This powerful image is not only used on Remembrance Day, but year-round as a reminder of the horrors of war. NEVER AGAIN!

Afghanistan






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Cro-Magnon

If you saw a Cro-Magnon walking down the street they would be almost indistinguishable from modern humans. The only differences would be:

• A slightly larger and more muscular body
• A somewhat larger skull and brain

If they wore a business suit and nice hair cut, a Cro-Magnon could possibly sell you a used car.


Arnold Schwarzenegger: "The people are very smart."


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Tax Fairness

Now Flaherty clamps down on offshore tax havens

First income trusts, next tax havens?



About time. Like the Ponzi Income Trusts now the Conservatives are cracking down on the other capitalist tax avoidance scheme, one favoured by Canadian Ruling Class scions like the Irvings and Bronfmans.

Suddenly the Tories have gone from neo-con tax cutters to, shudder, NDP lite Tax Fairness advocates. See what happens when you become the government, your ideology goes out the window replaced by fiscal pragmatism.

I love how Jim Flaherty stands in the House and accuses the Liberals of being the party of Canada's corporate elite sounding like Jack Layton. Truly gives new meaning to being Harpocrites.

Of course this is also the party that campaigned to defend Income Trusts and sucked up to the business lobbies on Bay Street and in Calgary. Now, well they gotta find that money to pay for their income spliting plan for seniors. A plan they stole from Garth Turner whom they turfed. Now Helen Guergis is taking credit for Garths idea.

Jim Flaherty when asked about pension-splitting by reporters, October 2, 2006
“…it’s not a high priority, I can tell you that…”

In their campaign for Tax Fairness the Harpocrites are stealing from the NDP and Turner. They should be sued them for violating intellectual property rights.

CANADA'S NEW GOVERNMENT STRENGTHENS THE INCOME TAX SYSTEM

See:

Unproductive Capital

Income Trusts

Tax Avoidance



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White Poppies

Nip white poppies in the bud, legion says

Antiwar symbol 'illegal, disturbing'

Illegal? Copywrite infringement? Hmm I think what is really disturbing is the fact the Legion is more concerned about its profiting from the Poppy campaign then the message behind the symbol. They are making a fuss over less than 200 white poppies being sold in Edmonton becuase it might cut into their privatized business.

Off our jackets the poppies blow
The Legion is working with a supplier making poppy stickers with glue that won't ruin fabric and leather — perfect for kids who lose poppies even quicker than adults.For now, Legion branches sell red plastic "We remember" wristbands for children. Also available are poppy scarf pins, earrings, tie tacks and metal poppy pins that use clasps or two-piece magnets to stay attached to clothes.The Legion began selling poppies four years after the end of World War I. They were made by disabled veterans and production continued until 1996 in sheltered workshops run by Veterans Affairs Canada in Toronto and Montreal, staffed by disabled former members of the military and their dependants. Poppies are now made by a private company.

My pal Robin wrote this letter to the Journal in response to the White Poppy kerfufell, well said Robin. His sentiment was echoed by other writers. No one is NOT wearing a red poppy so why the fuss. Called it corporate monopoly.

Why not wear both?

The Edmonton Journal

Published: Thursday, November 09, 2006

I think the Royal Canadian Legion is in error in arguing they have a patent on poppies, and I am rather surprised that a spokesperson for the legion thinks that the call for peace is an "inappropriate political message" for Remembrance Day.

My paternal grandfather was killed in the First World War. My father never knew his dad. He was born after my grandfather died, and felt his whole life that he had missed something precious in not knowing his father.

My maternal grandfather was gassed in the first poison gas attack in history. A Canadian volunteer, he spent nearly four years in a German POW camp and, 38 years later, died from medical complications arising from the gassing.

the Arnhem airborne landing in 1944. He was an non-commissioned officer in the Canadian Army when I was growing up.

I was honourably discharged from the Canadian Army in 1962.

I mention this because I intend to wear a white poppy, alongside the red poppy I always wear at this time of year.

If the legion thinks I'm not being respectful of my forebears, I must respectfully disagree.

If they think they have property rights on white poppies as well as red ones, let them take me to court and determine the matter in a civil and orderly fashion.

As for my mixing my call for peace with my remembrance of the unfortunate victims of warfare, I'm sorry if the legion feels it is "inappropriate," though they are correct in charging that in calling for peace I am being "political."

I learned my attitudes toward war from Jesus, among others.

And if calling for peace is "political," I suppose I shall have to be.

Robin S. Hunter, Edmonton

And after all White Poppies seem appropriate when you consider that our Troops are in Afghanistan home of the Opium Poppy trade, and those poppies are white.


See:

Opium


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Fundamentalists Attack Gays

In democratic Israel. Yep fundamentalism once again attacks secular pluralist democratic rights for all. Just like their Arab neighbours do. This is the real meaning of the so called clash of civilizations, the patriarchical state versus secular pluralist human rights. Once again the religious state and the State religion deny human rights. Time to abolish them both.

Police brace for Jerusalem gay rally Independent Online
Jerusalem gay parade canceled Indianapolis Star
Jews and Muslims unite against homosexuals (Daily Telegraph)
Israeli Religious Leaders Show Gay Intolerance (NPR)




Ultra-orthodox Jews at a protest yesterday against the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem (Pavel Wolberg/EPA)


See:

Gay

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Not Listening

The Harpocrites love to consult 'stakeholders', well not always, they set up invisible online polls that they don't advertise asking 'stakeholders' for input. Ministers visit folks and listen to them but don't change their positions on party policy. So whats it good for? Absolutely nothing. But hey they consulted.


Day talks gun control at Dawson College

Calling the meeting "productive," Day seemed not to have changed his mind on the gun registry issue after the discussion at Dawson. Day’s press aide said yesterday’s meeting was part of an extensive series of countrywide discussions with stakeholders over the gun-control issue.

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Whyte Wash

City to foot Whyte policing bill Why? The bars on Whyte Avenue profited handsomely from the NHL playoffs. They charged more for their booze, they overcrowded their bars, they provided negligable security, and they don't have to pay for policing. The bill should go to the Old Strathcona Hospitality Association, which represents these profiteers and also to the Old Strathcona Business Association. The riots on Whyte were a direct result of their profiteering and they should foot the bill, not taxpayers. How come none of our self-righteous right wingers ,like the folks at the Edmonton Sun, have come to this libertarian conclusion. Instead the right wing business types on city council deny the obvious; “To blame the bar owners for the stuff on Whyte Avenue is a mistake,” said Coun. Mike Nickel. Nope it's not a mistake it is their fault and they should pay.

See:

Whyte Avenue


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Murder City

So explain this. Alberta has an overwhelming majority of Conservatives federally and provincially, the party of Law and Order.Alberta also has the highest murder rate in Canada. So much for their ability to actually get tough on crime.

Despite the high number of murders in Toronto, Ontario’s rate was still below the national average. Among Canada’s larger cities, Edmonton had the highest homicide rate. Murder rate rises, says Stats Can

See:

A Murder of Crows in Canada's Murder Capital

Murder

Crime

Edmonton


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