Orientalist Anarchists

Found an interesting interview with an Iranian Anarchist

and a blog by a Bangladesh Anarchist;

• Tasneem Khalil A journalist from Dhaka, Bangladesh. Endorses and advocates Libertarian Socialism and Free/Open Software & Publication. Subjects of interest primarily include Culture, Humanity, Alternative Media, Propaganda and Politics.

For a different view from this part of the world check them out.

I used Orient as in Edward Saids; Orientalism.

Al-Ahram Weekly | Opinion | Preface to Orientalism
Edward Said - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Also see my articles:

My Favorite Muslim

The Need for Arab Anarchism

Ibn Khaldun 14th Century Arab Libertarian

Can you be a Muslim Anarchist?

Antinominalist Anarchism

My Final Comment on the Cartoon Controversy

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Desert Iraq for Afghanistan

You tell em Jack. But wait if the American deserters come up here do ya think they will sign up for our humanitarian operations in Afghanistan? And where will our troops go when they desert from Afghanistan?

Canada should welcome US deserters, Layton says
American deserters dodging military duty in Iraq share Canadian values and should be welcomed in this country, NDP Leader Jack Layton says."It makes a lot of sense to welcome these young people, recognize that they've taken a position that's exactly the same position that Canadians took," he said yesterday. "It would be inappropriate to send them back in my view ... We're glad they've chosen our country." Layton urged the Conservative government to grant sanctuary to young soldiers, noting Canada became a safe haven for Americans seeking to avoid the Vietnam draft more than 30 years ago."We should be looking at it," he said. "These young people are courageous individuals. They've made a decision of conscience."Layton denied that it would upset ties with the U.S. if Canada suddenly became a place of refuge for those fleeing that country's unpopular war."There are tens of thousands of people and their families now all across our country who came to us in an earlier period around the Vietnam War. I don't think that disrupted relations between the two countries."His comments followed an Ottawa visit by Cindy Sheehan, who has become an outspoken anti-war campaigner after the death of her son Casey in Iraq. She used a Parliament Hill news conference yesterday to urge Canada to offer sanctuary to U.S. deserters.

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Revisionist History

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, (a lobby for business not citizens, a private association who appoints its directors does not elect them) is now blogging. Be still my beating heart, another right wing blog.

This one though engages in one of those extreme historical revinisionism, one that should send our pal Warren Kinsella into a paralax of outrage. But will it?

Anyways the CTF blog equates the Holocaust with the Cuban Revolution. Yep. All those Batista Cubans, American mafia types, CIA and ITT folks and hoteliers, the rum runners and pimps, all those nice folks were supposedly executed by Che.

In reality, pre-revolutionary Havana was a brothel and casino for US
playboys, the Mafia and a rich Cuban elite.

Well you wouldn't know it from the CTF article that just over a thousand members of the military and secret police were tried for crimes against the people and executed. Note just over 1000. Armed thugs who oppressed the people. But these twits say this;

Che's slaughter of (bound and gagged) Cubans (Che was himself an Argentine) exceeded Heinrich Himmler's prewar slaughter of Germans – to scale, that is. Nazi Germany became the modern standard for political evil even before World War II.

Clever that, pre war slaughter of Germans, no reference to Jews. Oh wait yes he does.

Political executions up to the time might have reached a couple thousand, and most of these were of renegade Nazis themselves during the indiscriminate butchery known as the "Night of the Long Knives." The famous Kristallnacht that horrified civilized opinion worldwide caused a grand total of 71 deaths. This in a nation of 70 million.

And the point is, Castro and Che are nasty. Well lets see how many Cubans died of malnutrition, starvation, police burtality under Batista and other former dictators working for the United Fruit Company? Lets compare apples and apples not rehtorical attempts to; lessen the horror and impact of the Nazi's, or compare Cuban nationalism with Nationalist Socialism in Germany.

Batista was the U.S. government's "man in Havana," even though U.S. officials knew that he was a brutal, antidemocratic, corrupt tyrant in full partnership with Mafia murderers and drug dealers. None of this mattered to Washington policymakers. What mattered was that as "our man in Havana," when Batista received orders from Washington, he obeyed.A Libertarian Visits Cuba, Part 1

No lets look at Latin America and the the US policy of imperialism in the region.

US Imperialism which began in the region with Monroe Doctrine and the colonization of Cuba, Nicarauga and other countries by the Confederate States as slave economies, became the basis of the sugar plantations and fruit production of the post WWII economies in the region.

How many Guatemalans have been murdered since the CIA and United Fruit company engineered the coup there in 1954, prior to the Cuban Revolution. This set the tone for the struggles of national liberation in the region. The revolutionaries knew that death was certain at the hands of the US and CIA and their front regimes.

Unfortunately, the CIA “success” in Iran, which produced the CIA’s ouster of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister, bred a CIA “success” in another part of the world, Latin America. One year after the 1953 coup in Iran, the CIA did it again, this time in Guatemala, where U.S. officials feared the communist threat even more than they did in Iran.An Anti-Democracy Foreign Policy: Guatemala

How many Chileans died at the hands of Pinochet whose coup was organized by the US State Department and the CIA.?

How many Argentinians were 'dissapeared' under the US client regime of the Argentinian Generals?

And how many Cubans have been killed by the Cuban exile community and their links to the fascist movements in Latin America and around the world. Many of those same groups being made up of ex Nazi's and notorious Anti-Semites like the World Anti-Bolshevik League.

Many of our leaders seem to view Florida's Cuban conservatives, including the assassins and terrorists among them, as People Who Vote. - Alice Walker, introduction, The Sweet Abys

And how many CIA attempts were there on Castro from the very begining of the revolution. Enough to make anyone paranoid.

Yep what Che and Castro did was unconsionable, but understandable under the circumstances.

Hundreds of suspected Batista-era agents, policemen and soldiers were put on public trial for human rights abuses and war crimes, including murder and torture. Most of those convicted of murder were executed by firing squad, and the rest received long prison sentences. One of the most notorious examples of “revolutionary justice” being the executions of over 70 captured Batista regime soldiers, directed by Raúl Castro after capturing Santiago. Guevara was appointed supreme prosecutor in La Cabaña Fortress. This was part of a large-scale attempt by Fidel Castro to cleanse the security forces of Batista loyalists that could launch a counter-revolution. Many others were dismissed from the army and police, and some high-ranking officials in the ancien régime were exiled as military attachés.

In 1961 after the Bay of Pigs Invasion, the new Cuban government also confiscated all property held by religious organizations without compensation including the Roman Catholic Church. Hundreds of members of the clergy, including a bishop, were permanently expelled from the nation, with the new Cuban government being officially atheist.

• Cuban Revolution

What the vast right wing conspiracy of the CIA and its fascist allies in the Anti-Bolshevik movement during the cold war did was far closer to the tactics and poltics of Himmler and Hitler than anyting the Che or Castro did.

A revolution implies violence, but a coup implies a regime of violence. The former is caused by the State and its military and the ruling class organizing violence against the people. The latter is the States policy in order to repress the freedom of workers, peasants and the middle class.

Yep a little reading can be a dangerous thing. And in this case the anonymous blogger at the CTF blog read one little right wing article and based his falacious argument on it. Well here is some reading for him to correct the stupidity of his article.


A tip o the blog to Calgary Grit for this.



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Spam Attack

This is rich.

Blue Security Shifted Attack, Brought Down Blogs

This is a wild tale of a denial-of-service attack, allegedly orchestrated by a big time spammer against an anti-spam security company that brought down a blogging site.

The denial-of-service attack that crashed TypePad and LiveJournal this week was caused by anti-spam company Blue Security, which pinned the target on the blog in an attempt to save its own servers, analysts said Thursday. Blue Security denied that it knew the attack would crash its blog host.

And this is richer.

Spyware pusher shut down and fined $4 million
ZDNet -\
Just released by the FTC - Sanford Wallace (nicknamed Spamford for his history of spamming) and his company Smartbot.net have been ordered to shut down operations and give up $4,089,500 of their ill-gotten gains.

FTC Orders Wallace To Pay $4 Million For Spyware Scam

Users were duped into thinking they needed software being sold by "Spam King" Sanford Wallace because he exploited an Internet Explorer vulnerability to install real spyware on their PCs.

Spam is capitalism unleashed on the internet. Which is why I keep getting those emails about increasing my penis size, nasty russian girls willing to do anything and security updating of my Chase Manhattan bank account.


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Climate Change...On Jupiter

Uh oh this will give Rona Ambrose and the Conservatives another excuse to not deal with climate change here. I can hear the right wing deniers now; "see its natural".

New storm on Jupiter hints at climate change

A storm is brewing half a billion miles away and in a rare event, astronomers get to watch it closely.

Jupiter is growing a new red spot and the Hubble Space Telescope is photographing the scene. Backyard astronomers have been following the action, too.

The global change cycle began when the last of the white oval-shaped storms formed south of the Great Red Spot in 1939. As the storms started to merge between 1998 and 2000, the mixing of heat began to slow down at that latitude and has continued slowing ever since.


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Desert Moon

Titan, the planet Saturn's most mysterious moon, now poses a fresh puzzle: mile upon mile of rippling dunes similar to the desert sand dunes of the Sahara or Arabia have been discovered on its tarry surface -- but what they're made of nobody knows. Dunes gird Saturn moon

Cassini Flies By Saturn's Moon Titan, Sees More Craters

NASA and Partners Release New Movies Of Titan

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Grandinite Scoop

Grandinite scoops the MSM with a cellphone photo and on the spot report of IBEW members holding an information picket in Calgary at the offices of CNRL who are wanting to bring in temporary workers into Fort McMurray.


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Happy Marxmas

Today is Herr Doctor Professor Karl Marx's 188 birthday.

Happy Marxmas.

Karl Marx: The Story of His Life, 1918

"Je ne suis pas Marxiste."
--Karl Marx, 1818-1883

And the good doctor in his Phd Thesis Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy by Karl Marx posits an early theory of quantum mechanics as dialectics.

Betcha didn't know that.

"Just as we have seen that necessity, connection, differentiation, within itself, is transferred to or rather expressed in the atom, that ideality is present here only in this form external to itself, so it is with motion too, the question of which necessarily arises once the motion of the atoms is compared with the motion of the Cata tas sugcriseis [composite] bodies, that is, of the concrete. In comparison with this motion, the motion of the atoms is in principle absolute, that is, all empirical conditions in it are disregarded, it is ideal. In general, in expounding Epicurean philosophy and its immanent dialectics, one has to bear in mind that, while the principle is an imagined one, assuming the form of being in relation to the concrete world, the dialectics, the inner essence of these ontological determinations, as a form, in itself void, of the absolute, can show itself only in such a way that they, being immediate, enter into a necessary confrontation with the concrete world and reveal, in their specific relation to it, that they are only the imagined form of its ideality, external to itself, and not as presupposed, but rather only as ideality of the concrete. Thus its determinations are in themselves untrue and self-negating. The only conception of the world that is expressed is, that its basis is that which has no presuppositions, which is nothing. Epicurean philosophy is important because of the naiveness with which conclusions are expressed without the prejudice of our day."

Also See: Heisenberg's Physics and Philosophy


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Humanitarian War

US Progressives For War have a new Kosovo in their sights; Darfur. While opposed to the war in Iraq and so so about the continuing war in Afghanistan now they want the US , and of course Canada, to enter the conflict in the Sudan, specifically to defend the victims of ethnic cleansing in Darfur.

`It's always in Canada's interests to try to elevate... humanitarian rights.'
Peter MacKay, foreign affairs minister

A conflict that the international community has exasperated by its lack of involvement but its overflowing of crocodile tears. And would the discovery of oil reserves in the region and its neighbour Chad have anything to do with this? Nah.

Sat Apr 29, 1:40 PM ET

Laura Cacho of Working Assets hands a protester a sign during a mass rally against the war in Iraq on Saturday, April 29, 2006 in New York, NY. (AP Photo/Adam Rountree)

The international community has had plenty of opportunity to intervene with armed force, to create a barrier between the refugee camps and the conflicting forces in the region. But like Rawanda the original colonial powers in the region pull the strings behind the scenes, exerting their great power influence over the region. In this case the US and Canada have less to say about this than say oh Britain and France the original Imperialist powers in the region.

The Sudan Wars were a series of conflicts in the Sudan part of Africa in the late 19th Century. The conflicts erupted between the British and the Muslims Africans in the Sudan in 1881 because of religious disputes and the British attempt to end the "new" slavery trade. Muslim fundamentalists instigated a rebellion against the British, driving them and their Egyptian armies from Sudan. Britain atoned for the loss in 1898, militarily reclaiming control of the Sudan. Following this engagement, competition between Britain and France for the south of Sudan led to military conflict, ended by diplomatic avenues which partitioned the disputed area. Both events demonstrate the intensifying struggle to control Africa, and the conflict between the European powers in the race of imperialism. This conflict gave rise to the beginning of World War I. Sudan Wars

French Equatorial Africa (Introduction)
Chad • Congo • Gabon • Central African Republic

French Equatorial Africa was a former administrative grouping of four French territories in west central Africa. It was first formed in 1910 by the federation of three French imperial colonies — Gabon, Middle Congo, and Ubangi-Shari-Chad — comprising a total area of 969,112 square miles (2,500,000 sq km). Chad was separated from Ubangi-Shari in 1920 to form a fourth colony.

In 1934, French Equatorial Africa was transformed into a unified territory of France, but in 1946 it was re-divided into four separate overseas territories (TOM — territoires d'outre-mer).

The federation ended in 1959 after the territories had chosen — in 1958 — to become self-governing republics of the French Community. Middle Congo was renamed Republic of the Congo, and Ubangi-Shari became the Central African Republic. All four republics attained their independence in 1960.

In the case of Africa, this human element is seen in the variety of forces that affected or moulded her history and experience. Lydia Polgreen summarized the roots of Africa’s present burden: Africa was a land carved for a colonial feast. For her, “it is a truism of Africa that the borders bequeathed by white colonial powers, drawn in the 19th-century scramble for Africa at the convenience of London, Paris and Brussels, became the Blackman’s burden”. And if the inherited colonial- nation state has been the Blackman’s burden, it has also been the African despot’s best friend, a powerful tool when wielded by crafty hands. In fact, the excesses of African dictators, from Mobutu Sesse Seko to Robert Mugabe, from Sani Abacha to Charles Taylor, were enabled, to a greater or lesser degree, by the inherent conflicts created by artificial state boundaries that allowed a powerful central government to play tribal, ethnic and religious groups against one another. Aligned to that, colonialism destroyed some African cultural values and structures that would have conduced to the emergence of accountability in governance. This is well depicted by the fact that until now as Ali Mazrui argued, “Africa has borrowed Western tastes without Western skills, Western consumption patterns without Western production techniques, urbanization without industrialization, secularization (erosion of religion) without scientification.” African Poverty as Failure of Leadership

Beware of war for humanity or humanitarianism, behind the rehtoric lies the profit motive. And it is the only motive that drives war, whether for good or evil.

What the postcolonial left who oppose intervention and the liberal internationalists who support intervention in Darfur (but oppose it in the Middle East) share is a common concern about the conditions of the Third World. They are likely to agree that the West is fully or partially responsible for the deterioration of those conditions. Unlike those on the right like the current President of the U.S., their foreign policy ideas transcend crass national self interests and are burdened by their moral consciences. Where they disagree however is in what role the West can play in alleviating the global south’s conditions. Where the liberals want the West to intervene to save the poor Africans from killing themselves (which can be understood in a post-Rwanda context as either humanitarianism or on the other extreme, a neo-imperial continuation of the white man’s burden), the postcolonial left want the West out of the third world. Since the West is responsible for the poverty, war and low rates of democratic and human development in places like Africa, the Middle East and beyond – vis-à-vis colonialism and neo-colonialism – they should just butt out. SkarredBlog

Also See: War and the Market State

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Shocking Canadiana

Well Canadian architect and Cape Breton historian, Paul Chiasson has released his book on the Chinese Discovery of Canada; THE ISLAND OF SEVEN CITIES One of several books and documents that have been released in the past year saying that the Zheng He expeditionary force found North America in 1421. While he was Chinese and it was a Chinese armada he led, Zheng He was a Muslim, so one could say a Muslim discovered North America

The map clearly shows the Americas and Africa
Photo:The Economist/PA

Enlarge Image

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Bermuda Triangle

Who says there is nothing new under the sun? Or in this case in the ocean where the sun never shines.

Monsters from beneath the Bermuda Triangle
In the permanently dark waters beneath the Bermuda Triangle, scientists have uncovered a remarkably diverse range of extraordinary sea creatures. Retrieving tiny sea animals - zooplankton - at depths of up to three miles, and even reading their genetic codes on a rolling sea, scientists carrying out a census of marine life have revealed new details about the role of these fragile creatures in the climate and food chain, from fish to whales.

And of course food for Cthulu's relatives.



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Bear Pickens

Our friend from Peace River, Ursus Major woke up this morning and went for something to eat.

A black bear wandered into a grocery store in Peace River, Alta., late Tuesday, with one thing on his mind. Sweets"He jumped up into the bakery case, he tested a few things out and he really liked the strawberry mousse,'' said store night manager Trevor Allen.

He is still at large. Alberta Wildelife have issued a description of the culprit and his partner.

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Canada's Prison Indsustrial Complex

The Harpocrites Bushite plan for crime in Canada is two fold. One is to sacrifice child care for more prison spaces...Tory plan will create jail spaces at expense of day-care spaces ... The other is to create a privatized prison industry in Canada like that which has grown in the United States. Creating more jail spaces than school spaces.

Private prison operators waiting to cash in on Harper policies Unfortunately Canada has found out again thanks to the Harris government that this is another Harpocrite plan doomed to failure, just like their day care plan, Ontario jail privatization project fails

Harpers call to continue criminlization of marijuana and other drugs is a further example of his Republican North politics. It was the War on Drugs that opened up and exapanded the American privatized prison industrial complex that now dominates in that country.Tory policies would create prison boom: experts

And Harpers get tough on guns populist campaign coincides with his get tough on drugs and crime leading to increased spending in one of the most regressive forms of social programs, prisons.

The U.S. War on Drugs: Political Economics of a New Slavery

Compiled by Drug Policy Alliance. August 2001.

---

The U.S. "war on drugs" is big business -- a multi-billion dollar public/private venture that radically inflates the value of illegal drugs and is used to criminalize the poorest people of color, trapping them in a vicious cycle of addiction, unemployment and incarceration:

• $27 billion for interdiction and law enforcement, $1.3 billion for Plan Colombia in 2000.
  
• $9.4 billion in 2000 to imprison close to 500,000 people convicted of non-violent drug offenses, 75% of whom are Black.
  
• $80 to $100 billion in lost earnings.
  
• Untold billions in homeless shelters, healthcare, chemical dependency and psychiatric treatment, etc.

• 
  

It behooves us on the left to take up the call made by Angela Davis and others who call for an end to Prisons and the Prison Industrial Complex. Something Anarchists such as Kropotkin and Berkman have advocated at the turn of last century.

Resources on Prison Privatization

The Raggedness of Prison Privatization:
Australia, Britain, Canada, New Zealand and the United States Compared

PRIVATE ADULT PRISONS:
WHAT DO WE REALLY KNOW AND WHY DON’T WE KNOW MORE?*

New Internationalist: Crime pays: well, it does if you run the prison

Grassroots CCA Prison Report 2003

The modern private prison business first emerged and established itself publicly in 1984 when
the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) was awarded a contract to take over a facility in
Hamilton County, Tennessee. This marked the first time that any government in the country had
contracted out the complete operation of a jail to a private operator.1 The following year, CCA
gained further public attention when it offered to take over the entire state prison system of
Tennessee for $200 million. The bid was ultimately defeated due to strong opposition from
public employees and the skepticism of the state legislature.2 Despite that initial defeat, CCA
since then has successfully expanded, as have other for-profit prison companies. As of
December 2000, there were 153 private correctional facilities (prisons, jails and detention
centers) operating in the United States3 with a capacity of over

Private Prisons: Profits of Crime

Private prisons are a symptom, a response by private capital to the "opportunities" created by society's temper tantrum approach
to the problem of criminality.

The big business of prisons

By Eve Goldberg and Linda Evans

More than 1.8 million people are currently behind bars in the US -- the highest per capita incarceration rate in the history of the world. In 1995 alone, 150 new US prisons were built and filled.

Privately managed prisons go before the review board

With 1.5 million people behind bars, the United States imprisons a larger share of its population than any other nation. Indeed, the rate of incarceration in the United States has grown much faster than the population in the past decade, leading to serious overcrowding in local, state and federal al prisons. Federal facilities are operating at 160 percent of capacity, while state facilities are at 117 percent, despite a desired capacity rate of percent that allows for periodic maintenance and repairs, special housing for protective custody, disciplinary cases and emergency needs.

The cost of confining inmates in the United States almost doubled in the past five years, reaching $50 billion lion annually, or $33,334 per inmate, per year. Estimates show that one 700-bed bed jail and one 1,600-bed prison need to be opened every week just to meet the rising demand. The projected annual construction cost of this is $5.98 billion.

But, with the political climate favoring decreasing taxes and reducing the size of government, it is unlikely that cities and counties will be able to build and manage many more prisons.

At the same time, the war on drugs and the get tough, policies, like the "three strikes" laws, will yield even greater numbers of inmates

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Who Speaks For Canadian Women

Well not Real Women no matter how much they insist on it. They speak for right wing fundamentalist protestant women, a minority if ever there was one, except in the rank and file of Harpers Reform/Alliance/Conservatives. Their agenda, pretty clear;

Real Women’s letter to MP’s has called upon the Harper government to defund the powerful radical feminist lobby that allows only one interpretation of women’s rights and equality to be represented.

Lorraine McNamara, Real Women’s National President, writes, “The feminist ideology does not now, and never has had the support of the vast majority of Canadian women.”

McNamara writes, “Feminist groups have few, if any, members, and are, in effect, mostly phantom organizations sustained only by the funding they receive from the Status of Women. Since these organizations represent no one but the women who run them, they should not receive financial support from the Canadian taxpayer.”

Also see:

History of the WRF

Catholic Hajib

Whose Family Values?

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Must Be Nice

Senior tobacco exec won't go to jail in massive fraud caseA former tobacco company executive will not serve any jail time after pleading guilty to conspiring to smuggle cigarettes, and defrauding the Canadian government of more than $1 billion in taxes, CBC News has learned.

Gee doesn't he qualify for the Tories new get tough on crime laws. What no minimum mandatory sentence. Nah, he's rich.

And RJR/BAT profits are rising on the basis of their criminal activities. Pennsylvania Attorney General Corbett files suit to recover additional tobacco funds



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Who Pays The Most

Budget redux lets look at who actually pays the most for the Government of Canada. Courtesy of the Government of Canada. And with big tax cuts to corporations in the Conservative budget business will again pay less than you and me.

With the Conservatives increase in sin taxes and income taxes to offset the GST cut and corporate tax cuts, you and me will still be paying more than those who make the profit off our labour, big business.

Which is why I say cut income taxes for all workers earning $100,000 or less, increase personal income taxes on the rich ruling class families and close their offshore loopholes, and tax capitalist businesses on their before net earnings.

Where the Money Comes From

The federal government’s budgetary revenues came from a variety of taxes and other sources.

• Personal income tax is the biggest revenue source. In 2004–05, it provided $89.8 billion in federal funding. That’s more than 45 per cent of all federal revenues.

• Revenues from the goods and services tax provided $29.8 billion, or 15 per cent of total federal funds.

• Corporate income tax raised about $30 billion, just over 15 per cent of federal finances.

• A number of other taxes—such as non-resident taxes, customs import duties, energy taxes and excise taxes on alcohol and tobacco—made up $16.7 billion, or nearly 81⁄2 per cent of revenues.

• As well, employment insurance premiums, which are treated as part of general revenues, contributed $17.3 billion to federal finances, or 8.7 per cent of the total.

• And other revenues—such as earnings by Crown corporations and the sale of goods and services—provided the remaining $14.9 billion, or 71⁄2 per cent of total revenues. This included a one-time $2.6-billion net gain from the sale of the federal government’s remaining shares in Petro-Canada.

Oh note the stupidity of the Liberals selling off our shares in Petro-Canada, short term gain for long term loss.CBC News: Petro-Canada earnings rise in Q1

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Free Marketers Call for French Revolution

The French student worker revolt of last month has inspired some interesting support from unusual places. In this case the right wing Free Market News Network. David Lindorff writes a column entitiled AMERICANS SHOULD TAKE A LESSON FROM "SISSY" FRENCH YOUTH where he says that Americans could take a lesson in the need to struggle against wage slavery.

France remains one country where lifestyle and culture are valued. French people still insist on taking time to enjoy life, on having vacations when they are most enjoyable (summer), on receiving a fair wage, and on having some security in one’s job and health. Here in the U.S., we Americans are working longer and harder every year even as our standard of living falls, no one is secure in her job, health benefits are being gutted and our hope of retirement security is being undermined by political charlatans and an administration that is bankrupting the country with outlandishly expensive imperial wars.

The youth of France are standing up and fighting against the effort by a conservative government to Americanize their economy. Good for them!

When will we Americans wake up, take to the streets, and demand that our economy be humanized?

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Stupid Economist

Ok this guy misses the whole point of the Fordist arguement of capitalist economics.

Gas Prices Should be Even Higher, Canadian Researcher Claims

“Governments need to make adopting alternative technologies worth it to both the consumer and the producer. One way is by raising, not reducing, fuel taxes.”

The internal combustion/global warming dilemma has been a long time in the making.

For some reason (Tsigaris can’t quite figure why), internal combustion cars were deemed “fittest” back at the turn of the last century in an industrial-Darwinism scenario that continues to influence society and the choices it makes.

What he calls an “historical accident” put society on the internal-combustion super-highway. In the early 1900s, internal combustion, steam and electric technologies used to power automobiles were competing just about equal in the North American market. In fact, electric and steam vehicles were ahead of internal combustion technology at one point in time.

“Imagine what our world would be like if electric cars had won,” dreams Tsigaris. “Imagine what one hundred years of fine-tuning and innovation on electric cars would have produced by now.”

Gee and what would that look like well business already is looking at a new Fordism, hybird and electric car manufacturing. But Fordism none the less

A New Fordism

December 02, 2005

Progressive businesses that downplay whiz-bang marketing ideas and offer real solutions to social ills could start a more meaningful dialogue with consumers. See how it's all shaking out by clicking HERE

Fordist manufacturing, car production, is what grew the capitalist economy of the twentieth century, starting in the U.S. then spreading to Canada, Europe and Japan after WWII. It is now growing the Asian tigers, Korea, Phillipines, etc. and of course China and India.

As for alternatives, well public transit was always the alternative until as the great historical documentary Who Framed Roger Rabbit shows, GM and other car companies bought up the privatized bus companies and wiped them out.

Ford versus GE. GE and other electrical companies were not yet as strong as monopolies to be able to control the market and introduce electric cars. Nor did they have the manufacturing base for car production. Nor the interest. Instead they provided the electric cars for private transit, which was wiped out by the motorization of transit, and expansion of the suburbs and shopping centre culture.

On one hand, complex innovations like supermarkets were made possible by the existence of the automobile, on the other hand their growth (by replacing the nearby corner grocery) made the automobile more of a necessity. The relationship was tightly intertwined. In spite of a growing, more urban population, the number of grocery stores topped out in the late 1930's and declined by 40 percent through the postwar years as the larger supermarket became dominant. Sales per store increased dramatically.

The growth of the suburbs was another environmental change that made the auto more of a necessity. Suburbs first developed after the Civil War when electric street cars expanded the boundaries of many cities. Along the street car line sub-developments or suburbs popped up. Many times the street car owner and land developer were one in the same. Of course, the auto made urban decentralization even easier for the developer and more convenient for the consumer. The increased distance to almost anything and the lack of public transportation which characterized the post-World War II suburb made the automobile much more than a luxury.The Growth of Automotive Transportation

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NDP Anti-Scab Legislation

Once again the NDP will try in this sitting of the Parliament to bring in Anti-Scab legislation. Maybe this time the 'left of centre' Liberals will support it. Unlike last year. Now that they are the opposition and not the government they have no excuse not to.

Mon 1 May 2006 NDP MPs launch anti-scab bill on May Day

NDP MP Pat Martin is introducing legislation today that would ban the use of replacement workers during labour disputes and work stoppages under federal jurisdiction.

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Conference Board on the Budget

Gosh they sound like the NDP.

The non-partisan Conference Board of Canada weighed in with a lengthy budget analysis yesterday it concluded that increased government spending on education, infrastructure and skills development "would have provided 'more bang for the buck.' "


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Harpers Faith Based Child Care

Thanks to those social conservatives on the right, the cat is out of the bag. Another Bushite program the Harpocrite has stolen and is planning to implement is faith based social services delivery.

In this case apparently that's the Conservative Government plan for Child Care delivery in Canada No wonder they are so vague about it. Faith based social service delivery through the backdoor. So says CanadianChristitianity.com

They have spoken about creating 125,000 new child care spaces, referring obliquely, at least, to doing so through tax credits and assistance to parent co-operatives. And HRDC minister Diane Finley keeps hinting that the Tories are looking for proposals that would reduce the need for a universal, state-run system.

And one key to their success could well be in motivating parent groups and parent-church co-operatives to come up with child care strategies that will work in the densely-populated sectors of the large cities.

Churches and religious agencies have been real catalysts for social change in the large cities, in recent years. Their effectiveness has often related to the ability of their leaders to understand both their neighborhoods and the families that make them up.

In formulating their child care policies, leaders at all levels need to have the right kinds of listening devices honed in on family and faith groups.

Not that the Bushite 'Faith Based Social Services' was one of the Convservatives Five Points during the election. Kept that one pretty close to their chest. But now the cat is outta the bag. Better a daycare in a church basement than a non profit secular daycare (cause that's shudder, horror, a government/state run one).

And in Canada there is no historic separation of Church and State. And let's not forget that.

In Canada, church and faith based social service delivery has been so successful. Just ask the kids from the Mount Cashel Orphanage in Newfoundland or the those who attended the Canadian State/Church Residential schools. Just two examples of the success of faith based service delivery. And it has been just as successful in the U.S.



More stories on Harper's imitation of Bush

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Pathetic

Pathetic is the word for the Flame Out in Calgary.

Not Choke, that actually would mean they had showed up to play. But they hadn't.

By the second period I had switched to a far less predictable and more exciting competition and tuned in a re-run of Alien vs. Predator

And the Flames Fans well only the Wing Fans were less vocal. Pathetic team matched by pathetic fans.

Only more pathetic was their defeat at the hands of team that was once a Walt Disney fantasy.






Ducks oust the Flames in Game 7

CALGARY, Alberta - The much-ballyhooed Battle of Alberta will have to wait. The Mighty Ducks, not the Calgary Flames, are moving on in the playoffs.

With the Edmonton Oilers waiting in the wings for a potential second-round date opposite their provincial rivals, and the Alberta media whetting the appetite of the local populace with virtually non-stop preview reports, the Flames fell victim to a virtual mirror image Wednesday night at the Pengrowth Saddledome.

Teemu Selanne's team-high third goal of the series gave the Ducks the lead 5:12 into the second period, and they played Calgary-style, shut-down defense the rest of the way en route to a 3-0 victory in the final game of their opening-round battle.

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Tory Bankers

So who really benefits from the Tories tax cuts the most. Why the most underprivileged of all Canadians. The Banks. They will get a boost to their bottom line on July 1st, with an increase tax cut to their base capital increased from a mere $300 million to $1 billion, costing the government $45 million in lost revenue. More than any other costs.

Compare that to all their tax cuts for average Canadians which will cost half that, around $22 million. So who really benefits from the Tories budget? Well the wealthiest and greedyist of all Canadians.

Bank Taxes

Financial companies such as banks and insurers will start paying the 1.25 percent tax on their capital at the C$1 billion level instead of today's C$300 million as of July 1, according to budget documents. The change will cost the government C$45 million by 2008.

ALSO SEE: Service Charges


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Alberta Ghouls

Here is an example of privatization of medical services Alberta style. Of course it's perfectly legal since these services are not conducted under Alberta Health Care. But it is NOT legal under international law. Because a ghoul is still a ghoul.

Kidneys bought from Pakistani donors

CALGARY -- An Alberta company is helping patients with failing kidneys buy new ones from live Pakistani donors, sparking a debate about the ethics of trafficking in human body parts.

Overseas Medical Services in Calgary will arrange a speedy kidney donation and transplant surgery through Lahore-based Aadil Hospital for $32,000 US.

Livers, pancreases and lungs are also available for cash from Pakistani donors, Aruna Thurairajan, a former Sri Lankan medical administrator who owns Overseas Medical, said this week.

But since she began offering the service earlier this year, she has received requests only for kidney donations, she said.

Medical tourism speeds treatment – for a fee

Huge wait for MRI led to surgery in India


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