Thursday, May 10, 2007

Much Ado About Nothing

That would describe Green Party Leader Elizabeth May's campaign in Central Nova if we go by her web page. Remember she announced her candidacy in March, and got the Liberal endorsement a month ago. And since January we have been on election alert.

So how come her web page is not up to date?




New campaign site is coming soon

A new campaign website for Elizabeth May, candidate for MP for the Nove Scotia riding of Central Nova is coming soon ...


See:

Green Party

Elizabeth May


Peter MacKay


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Busting A Green Anarchist

Temporary worker; Jeff Monaghan , who was publicly arrested and taken out in handcuffs from his workplace, for leaking a draft of the Governments green plan, is an anarchist.

Clearly someone in the PMO knew this and ordered the arrest in order to smear the Environmental movement as being 'anarchists'.
Government defends arrest of public servant

We are after all dealing with a government of so called self professed Libertarians who know well the political mileu they exist in, which includes anarchists. They know it far better than their Liberal predecessors in fact.

And as such being our new Conservative Law and Order government are shamelessly using the bugaboo of the apprehended threat of 'anarchism' to justify this overkill on a leak of a government draft of their environmental plan.

I would suggest that they pinpointed
Jeff Monaghan deliberately to send a chill not only through the Ministry of the Environment but all government departments. And now they will use his being an anarchist to further the smear job they plan. After all originally the media reported that John Baird issued a fax saying they released the plan by mistake.

After all his arrest by the RCMP is not a usual bust, nor one that the State Police Force would initiate themselves. They had to have been informed as to who had leaked the governments green plan . Ask yourselves this, why did they not arrest a predominant journalist instead, as they have done in the past when it came to leaks. That is they were informed as to whom the government had suspicions had leaked the document.

In his press conference today
Jeff Monaghan said as much, while not saying he was the source of the leaked information. It is interesting that the MSM refers to hims as a "a federal bureaucrat", a "civil servant", when in fact these are political appointments and jobs covered by the Federal Labour Relations Act.

He is in fact none of these, he is but a lowly temporary worker, whose position may or may not carry the weight of being a civil servant or bureaucrat, since he is dispensable.

His is a job that can be easily replaced day by day, which was the point of introducing temporary workers into the civil service, to reduce costs. It is part of the Neo-Con Reinventing Government scheme, ironically introduced by the Liberals, which sees the reduction of the civil service from career occupations to contract jobs, in order to save the government money on paying less in benefits ( they still pay the same in wages except that the wages go to a Padrone not the worker).

He is neither a civil servant nor a bureaucrat nor even one who may have been covered by the governments own secrecy code applied to the civil service, he is a Temporary or Contract worker. A worker hired by a third party that contracts out workers to fill government jobs. Ironically he worked in this position for four years, which should have made him a public servant, but he was denied his rights to that job description, which would have made him federal employees subject to the rules and regulations of the state and to the right to belong to the federal Public Service Union.

As such he was not granted these rights, since the State decided to contract out his job to save money. So did they have any right to arrest him? Apparently not, since they let him go and he held a press conference exposing them.

In order to get around the conditions of work under the Canada Labour Act, which covers federal employees, the government contracts out work to temporary labour agencies. This means their workers get lower wages than PSAC employees, are not covered by the Labour Relations Act, and are not subject to the same security and secrecy provisions of other public sector workers.

You can't have it both ways, which is what the Conservatives forgot in this case. And thinking they actually had a federal employee who leaked their Green Plan mistakenly sent the RCMP after a temporary worker. And they identified him as an Anarchist, which means this was a political arrest. He was arrested only days after he was profiled in the Ottawa Citizen for his role in Ottawa's Anarchist Bookstore.

Ottawa's anarchist bookshop a spot for 'fringe' thinkers to gather

Exile Infoshop opens on Bank Street to offer alternative media, resources

Garrett Zehr, with files from Bruce Ward, The Ottawa Citizen

Published: Thursday, May 03, 2007

But Jeff Monaghan, a member of the group's organizing collective, said the project is much more than just another bookstore.

"This is a community space," he said. "Infoshops are part of a much larger social movement, putting complex theories of social equality into practice and identifying with related movements and struggles demanding freedom and dignity."




What makes Jeff admirable is that he understands this, and in his press conference today exposed this hypocrisy. The fact temporary workers are being used to replace long term public service positions, he worked in his position for four years, that the government selectively uses secrecy to repress information available to the public.

Clearly the government of Stephen Harper is far more Stalinist than Libertarian and for exposing that again, post Garth Turner, we have Jeff to thank .

Unfortunately his arrest shows that Anarchism is still considered a threat to the State by statists.

Government worker Jeff Monaghan, an employee at Environment Canada, was arrested and led away in handcuffs from his office early Wednesday as co-workers looked on. At a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday, Monaghan called it a "politically engineered raid of my workplace."

"The spectacle of my arrest, the subsequent RCMP press release and the prepared statements from Environment Canada, including [Environment Minister John] Baird, have been crafted to bully public servants," he said.

Monaghan, 27, also called the proposed charges "vengeful" and an "extension of a government-wide communication strategy pinned on secrecy, intimidation and centralization."

Baird said the arrest was a signal to other government employees that leaks of information wouldn't be tolerated.

But Monaghan, whose job was to monitor news reports about the government, said Thursday the proposed charges are "without precedent" in the extent to which they are disproportionate to the alleged offence.

On Thursday, he fired back at his accusers, calling the proposed charges a "profound threat to the public interest." He said they're part of a Tory communications strategy "pinned on secrecy, intimidation and centralization."

"The spectacle of my arrest, the subsequent RCMP press release, and the prepared statements from Environment Canada, including minister Baird, have been crafted to bully public servants whom they, in a paranoid fit, believe are partisan and embittered," Monaghan told a news conference.

He never admitted to the leak, but made it clear that he was profoundly opposed to the government's handling of the climate-change file. For four years he had worked on contract at Environment Canada, reading media articles and writing analyses of what they contained.

At the same time, Monaghan was helping to open an anarchist bookstore in downtown Ottawa that lists as its beliefs ``egalitarianism, co-operation and a collective struggle against abuses of power."

He said the government has undermined its legal commitment under the Kyoto agreement on climate change, and tried to "fool the public" into thinking otherwise through a carefully crafted public relations strategy. He said Environment Canada officials he worked with dutifully went along with the strategy even when it crossed the line into partisan activities.

"Our society knows the threat presented by the changing climate, global warming, and the rapidly increasing growth of industrial emissions," Monaghan said. "We deserve real action, not cynically calculated PR campaigns and witch-hunts on public servants."

Depending on who you talk to, the 27-year-old anarchist is either a victimized whistleblower or an alleged criminal who leaked sensitive government information.

Worker by day, anarchist book store operator... also by day

The unidentified Environment Canada employee who was escorted out of his office in handcuffs yesterday for allegedly leaking documents to the press came forward Thursday, accusing the Harper government of using bully tactics to discourage whistleblowers from coming forward.

In a brief news conference on Parliament Hill, 27-year-old Jeffrey Monaghan, a temporary government employee of four years — oh, and also a member of an Ottawa-based anarchist collective that opened a book store just over a week ago — announced he has not been charged with a crime.

"What I can tell you is that the proposed charges against me pose a profound threat to the public interest," said Mr. Monaghan, who did not take any questions.

"They are without precedent in their disproportionality, they are vengeful and they are an extension of a government-wide communications strategy pinned on secrecy, intimidation and centralization."

For more on Mr. Monaghan's comments and the document he allegedly leaked, read the story here.



Then Jeff shaved....

Jeff Monaghan, at the news conference Thursday, called the proposed charges an 'extension of a government-wide communication strategy pinned on secrecy intimidation and centralization.'

Jeff Monaghan, at the news conference Thursday, called the proposed charges an 'extension of a government-wide communication strategy pinned on secrecy intimidation and centralization.'
(CBC)


And here is the real irony of it all; this was the Conservative Governments much lauded democratic reform week.

This week, in its much-heralded “Week of Democratic Reform”, the federal government has delivered PR – public relations.

“It would be laughable if it wasn’t so worrying,” said Green Party leader Elizabeth May. “What we are seeing is a government so deeply committed to deflection and avoiding the real issues that they are starting to believe their own spin.”

Ms. May said that the so-called Week of Democratic Reform was really a week of gimmickry and housekeeping: new rules on loans to political parties; more seats in parliament for growing provinces and an extra day of voting.


SEE:

Harpers Fascism

Leo Strauss and the Calgary School

Post Modern Conservatives.

Why The Conservatives Are Not Libertarians

Trotsky on Harper

The Great Dismantler

Man O Steel

More PMO Censorship


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Rent Control Filibuster

The Liberals and NDP filibustered the Alberta Legislature last night when the Tories tried to sneak their toothless rent control bill through the Legislature.
Tories refuse rent debate

Marathon debate over soaring rents keeps Alberta legislators up all night

Canadian Press

Published: Thursday, May 10, 2007

EDMONTON (CP) - An overnight debate in the Alberta legislature over new housing legislation had NDP Leader Brian Mason ordering pizzas and Liberal members stashing food.

Mason says he felt like a kid at a sleepover as he ordered fast food for his NDP colleagues and shared food with security staff. Liberal Leader Kevin Taft didn't join the marathon debate about whether rent controls should be brought in, but his members stashed food in the assembly to keep up their strength.

Government whip Frank Oberle said rent controls would stifle construction of new housing units, so the legislation that eventually passed second reading did not include them.

It instead limits rent increases to once a year, increases fines for landlords who ignore the rules and give tenants more notice when their apartments are being converted to condos.

Opposition politicians say that's sadly inadequate for thousands of people facing huge rent hikes, forcing some to leave Alberta in search of cheaper housing.

Rent legislation debate goes overnight (9:35 a.m.)

edmontonjournal.com

Published: Thursday, May 10, 2007

EDMONTON - In a rare move, the Alberta legislature sat all night to debate the Conservative government's controversial rent legislation.

The New Democrats introduced an amendment about 8:30 a.m. today to bring in rent guidelines. The amendment is still being debated.

Liberal-sponsored amendments to the legislation - Bill 34, the Tenancies Statutes Amendment Act - were passed early this morning.

The legislation will limit rent increases to once per year and require landlords to give tenants a year's notice before turning their buildings into condominiums.

But the government has steadfastly refused to include rent controls in the legislation even though a committee recommended rent-control legislation.

The Liberals said in a prepared statement today one of their amendments doubles the fines for landlords who violate the rules on condo conversions.

The debate was continuing this morning. Live video of the legislature is available at http://media.assembly.ab.ca/livevideo.



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Gas Gouging

Gas gouging is here again. The reason of course is that it is spring. And prices rise in the spring just like dandelions.

PILGRIM: Now, this spring, gas price is an annual event. In 22 of the last 23 years, prices have risen some time after March 15th and go up until about mid-May.

The Center for Policy Alternatives reports that Canadians are paying as much as 27 cents per litre too much for gas.
 "For example, drivers in Toronto are currently being overcharged 15 cents
per litre," Mackenzie says.
The situation is the same across the country:
in Halifax drivers arecurrently overpaying 19 cents per litre;
21 cents per litre
in Winnipeg; 18 cents per litre in Edmonton;
and a whopping 27 cents per litre
in Vancouver.

You can use their handy dandy tool to find out how much you are being
screwed by Big Oil.


The image “http://policyalternatives.ca/images/upload/news/gas_gouge_meter.jpg.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
And from GasBuddy.com

Edmonton
Today 104.855
Yesterday 104.877
One Week Ago 105.102
One Month Ago 98.740
One Year Ago 101.510

Using the above price for gas Hugh Mackenzie's Gas price gouge: The sequel.calculator finds that in Edmonton;

Your gas prices are 21.1¢ per litre above the normalized cost of 82.9¢ per litre in Edmonton
With today's crude oil price of $62.01 USD per barrel and the US dollar at $1.11 CAD, the price of regular unleaded gasoline in Edmonton should be 82.9¢ per litre at normal profit margins. At a price of $1.04 per litre, you are paying 21.1¢ per litre in pure excess profit. Across Canada, an extra margin of 21.1¢ per litre generates an additional profit of 21.1 million dollars per day

Further from Gasbuddy.com we find that prices for gas have steadily increased over the past six years.

http://66.70.86.64/test.gaschart?Country=Canada&Crude=f&Period=72&Areas=Edmonton,,&Unit=CAN%20c/L

"Expect even higher profits, especially during the second and third quarters, their busiest season," said Jason Toews, co-founder of gasbuddy.com, a website that compares gas prices across the country. Toews predicts prices will peak at $1.30 a litre for self-serve, regular unleaded by August. This means more money for Big Oil, while gas retailers, Toews says, are making very little.

And even if there is competition between Gas Stations over prices this happens; Wisconsin Gas Station Owner Ordered To Raise Prices

So much for the free market.

And even without provincial and federal taxes on gasoline, that Linda Letherdale and her pals at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation whine about, the price would still be going up.

Oil prices rose Thursday despite a U.S. report showing that stocks of gasoline, crude and distillate fuels all rose,

"At this point it doesn't even matter any more what the reasons behind the price rise are," said Bruce Cran, president of the Consumers' Association of Canada.

He said consumers are "exhausted and frustrated" and are being gouged at the pumps for reasons that aren't clear.

"We've got no satisfactory explanations as to why these huge price rises take place year after year," said Cran, whose group received hundreds of calls Tuesday from motorists looking for answers.

According to MJ Ervin & Associates Inc. a Calgary-based consulting firm, the national average price of gas on Tuesday was reported at about $1.10 a litre, up five cents from the average price in March and 19 cents from the average price in January.

"This is a trend that we see every spring," said Catherine Hay, Senior Associate with MJ Ervin and Associates.

"This is something that we see in anticipation of the big driving season every year," she said.

Hay said this time last year the national average gas price was $1.08, only two cents lower that this year

Just like dandelions

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Green Deja Vu

Civil Servant arrested over Green Plan leak

Reminds me of this;

Tories muzzle environmental scientist

Mere days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper got up in the House of Commons and claimed his Accountability Act would protect civil servants who speak out about unethical behaviour, Mark Tushingham, a scientist with Environment Canada, got an e-mail from the Environment Minister's office.

Tushingham was just about to give a presentation on the science behind his novel Hotter Than Hell at the National Press Club. Released last November with little fanfare, it's about the Earth becoming so hot from climate change that America and Canada are at war over water.

"I was entering the elevator 15 minutes before the event when I got a call on my cellphone," says Tushingham's publisher, Elizabeth Margaris at DreamCatcher Publishing. "[Tushingham] said, 'I've got bad news. I can't go.' He was told [by the Environment Minister's office] not to appear."

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Mon Dieu

The image “http://www.thestar.com/images/assets/223126_3.JPG” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors.
Dear God;

Should I lead a third place party in Ottawa or in Quebec City.


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Fish Contamination

Not only do we have to worry about mercury in fish now we have to worry about Melamine too.

Tainted feed sent to Canadian fish farms, food agency says


And just like mercury we are assured that the melamine contamination is not harmful to humans. Yet.
Officials say risk is low from fish fed melamine-spiked food,
Once again human beings are subjected to the outrages of the primitive accumulation of capital, criminal capitalism by any other name, as China joins the world market.
China Zeroes In On Food And Drug Safety

But China is not alone, the deregulated market place in America is their model;
Food czar: Inspections flawed, lack resources

China issues draft rules for pig slaughterhouses
And you and I and our animals end up being poisoned.

The neo-con fetish for privatization,deregulation,reductions in pulic sector cleaning and housekeeping staff and contracting out, have led to major health crisis's; SARS, BSE, etc. in the past decade.

A social cost they did not anticipate in their reinventing of government.

Proving once again that capitalism is not sustainable, it is killing us.



http://www.vaccinationnews.com/dailynews/2003/January/mercuryFood_poptext.jpg

SEE:

Criminal Capitalism: Pet Food Scandal


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More Critics of Bio Fuels

The truth about bio-fuels is spreading.

Biofuels and the destruction of the rain forest

Murray Dobbin's Last Stage Of Denial: ethanol will save us!

A H/T to Driving the Porcelain Bus.


See

Bio Fuel

Bio-Fuels

ADM

Ethanol



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Global Farmers Fight Back


My comrades who are Free Market Libertarians and mutualists who oppose capitalism in favour of a cooperative marketplace, will find much to praise in this new farmers movement. It poses a real alternative to capitalist globalization and corporatist free trade. None other than creation of a new movement for a cooperative commonwealth.

The latest attempt to destroy the Wheat Board in Canada is an example of the attack by the State on small farmers in favour of the Agribusiness cartels in the developed world. The Green Revolution, the push for GMO crops and patents on crops as well as using arable land for production for export; palm oil, are examples of non sustainable agribusiness versus the sustainable production of local farmers.

The recent Fraser Institute report by Preston Manning and Mike Harris calling for the end of supply management, the Wheat Board , and subsidies in the market place for farmers, does nothing but open up the farm marketplace to the agribusiness oligopolies. Ironic since Manning's daddy ran a party; Social Credit, made up of farmers that saw these same oligopolies as enemies of a producer run economy.


The fact is that the majority of farmers in the world are family farmers, not far removed from their peasant roots. It is the peasantry that provides the basis for the survival of the food economy. But with the advent of capitalist globalization the peasantry has become a new force in the world economy as Warren Bellow points out.

It is agricultural reform, the privatization of the inherent collectivism of peasant farming, the enclosure of common lands that led to the creation of capitalism in Britain. Forced off the land the peasants move to the cities to look for work becoming the proletariat.

But not all have done so, since it is the farmers who support the cities with their food production. And forced by globalization to collectivize farmers are reforming cooperatives to deal with the new demands of the marketplace.

Thai pig farmers protest at CPF headquarters

S. Korea may allow farmers to export locally grown rice: gov't source

Farmers Cooperative Extends Rollout Of SOA Tool

Connecting Coffee Growers and Drinkers

Cameroon: Coffee - Reasons Behind Poor Performance

Phoenixville Farmer's Market returns to town for sixth season

Innovations in rural financial system inPunjab


What began in England over 400 hundred years ago is now writ wide across the globe. It is not Free Trade nor Free Markets but the concentration of capital and its power to monopolize the market. It is the transformation of agriculture from sustainable economics to the economics of unrestrained growth. Thus the land, people and environment suffer as we see in Indonesia as the islands there burn for the sake of the agribusiness palm oil industry.

Whereas export crops like organic and fair trade coffee have become a basis for sustainable export farming, which can support sustainable agriculture as well as meet the farmers need to be part of a global market place.


Free Trade vs. Small Farmers

Walden Bello is Executive Director of Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based research and advocacy institute, and a Professor of Sociology at the University of the Philippines at Diliman.

The main battle cry of Via Campesina, whose coordinating center is located in Indonesia, is “WTO Out of Agriculture” and its alternative program is food sovereignty. Food sovereignty means first and foremost the immediate adoption of policies that favor small producers. This would include, according to Indonesian farmer Henry Saragih, Via's coordinator, and Ahmad Ya'kub, Deputy for Policy Studies of the Indonesian Peasant Union Federation (FSPI), “the protection of the domestic market from low-priced imports, remunerative prices for all farmers and fishers, abolition of all direct and indirect export subsidies, and the phasing out of domestic subsidies that promote unsustainable agriculture.”

Via's program, however, goes beyond the adoption of pro-smallholder trade policies. It also calls for an end to the Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights regime, which allows corporations to patent plant seeds, thus appropriating for private profit what has evolved through the creative interaction of the natural world with human communities over eons. Seeds and all other plant genetic resources should be considered part of the common heritage of humanity, the group believes, and not be subject to privatization.

Agrarian reform, long avoided by landed elites in countries like the Philippines, is a central element in Via's platform, as is sustainable, ecologically sensitive organic or biodynamic farming by small peasant producers. The organization has set itself apart from both the First Green Revolution based on chemical-intensive agriculture and the Second Green Revolution driven by genetic engineering (GE). The disastrous environmental side effects of the first are well known, says Via, which means all the more that the precautionary principle must be rigorously applied to the second, to avoid negative health and environmental outcomes.

The opposition to GE-based agriculture has created a powerful link between farmers and consumers who are angry at corporations for marketing genetically modified commodities without proper labeling, thus denying consumers a choice. In the European Union, a solid alliance of farmers, consumers, and environmentalists prevented the import of GE-modified products from the United States for several years. Although the EU has cautiously allowed in a few GE imports since 2004, 54% of European consumers continue to think GE food is ”dangerous.” Opposition to other harmful processes such as food irradiation has also contributed to the tightening of ties between farmers and consumers, large numbers of whom now think that public health and environmental impact should be more important determinants of consumer behavior than price.

More and more people are beginning to realize that local production and culinary traditions are intimately related, and that this relationship is threatened by corporate control of food production, processing, marketing, and consumption. This is why Jose Bove's justification for dismantling a MacDonald's resonated widely in Asia: “When we said we would protest by dismantling the half-built McDonald's in our town, everybody understood why -- the symbolism was so strong. It was for proper food against malbouffe [awful standardized food], agricultural workers against multinationals. The extreme right and other nationalists tried to make out it was anti-Americanism, but the vast majority knew it was no such thing. It was a protest against a form of production that wants to dominate the world.”

Many economists, technocrats, policymakers, and urban intellectuals have long viewed small farmers as a doomed class. Once regarded as passive objects to be manipulated by elites, they are now resisting the capitalist, socialist, and developmentalist paradigms that would consign them to ruin. They have become what Karl Marx described as a politically conscious “class-for-itself.” And even as peasants refuse to “go gently into that good night,” to borrow a line from Dylan Thomas, developments in the 21st century are revealing traditional pro-development visions to be deeply flawed. The escalating protests of peasant groups such as Via Campesina, are not a return to the past. As environmental crises multiply and the social dysfunctions of urban-industrial life pile up, the farmers' movement has relevance not only to peasants but to everyone who is threatened by the catastrophic consequences of obsolete modernist paradigms for organizing production, community, and life.

Farmers hungry for change


At this week's intergovernmental meeting in Rome to assess progress towards the pledge to halve hunger by 2015, the mood was sombre. Figures from the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) show not a reduction but an increase of more than 25 million chronically undernourished people since 1996. The figure, now at more than 850 million, is testament to how current global policies are consigning the hungry to stay hungry.

So what is going wrong? In 2002, when the UN World Food Summit pledge was last reviewed, the parallel Forum for Food Sovereignty, organised by non-governmental groups representing small farmers and those who feel the sharp end of hunger directly, concluded that the problem was not a lack of political will, as the FAO asserted, but the opposite. Trade liberalisation, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering and military dominance, it said, were now the main causes of hunger.

The farmers, from 30 countries, who participated in the conference were eloquent about how farming for small producers is more than just a food production system. Edgar Gonzales Castro, from Peru, said his vision of the future was "traditional" agriculture aimed at satisfying the needs of farmers, rather than generating profit. "What matters is that, on the family plot of land, farmers and their families have a range of crops to fill the cooking pot," he said.

"When governments decide to hold public consultations to help guide their decisions, policy experts as well as representatives of large farmers and agrifood corporations are usually centre stage, not small-scale producers, consumers and their organisations," says Pimbert.

The message of the report is that small-scale farmers - the majority of growers in the world - want radically different policies from those being promoted by their governments. The call is for policies to start from the perspectives of food producers and consumers rather than the demand for profit.

If "one-planet farming" means that western governments will only support farming practices that provide healthy, local food, maintain livelihoods for local producers and conserve resilient landscapes, then there is common ground with small-scale farmers. But if it means a uniform system for all, this will accelerate the hunt to source food globally and as cheaply as possible.

This will result in a continuing decline in food quality, with ever higher social and environmental costs, and be lorded over by fewer and fewer transnational agribusinesses. It would lead both to greater obesity and greater starvation, and see the eradication of more farmers and further loss of farmland.

Farmers' Views on the Future of Food and Small Scale Producers is at http://www.iied.org/pubs/pdf/full/14503IIED.pdf

Friends of African Farmers & Fishermen

Friends of African Farmers & Fishermen is a Non Profit local community organisation formed by local women and men who are farmers and fishermen. Due to increasing poverty in the area, the local people formed this organisation of Volunteers to help themselves. Due to lack of money and machinery for farming and fishing, wish to appeal for donations of Farm Machinery ie, tractors, irrigation equipment etc. Donations for our Agricultural and development projects in Volta Region of Ghana. To help women and children to have food to eat.Train the young women and youth to acquire the needed skills. To also help farmers with farming machinery and fishing equipment. This would generate income for the local people.Non Profit Organisation.

SEE:

Free Trade Not Aid

Free Trade and Africa

The War For Chocolate

IWD Economic Freedom for Women

Water War

Development Versus Population Growth


WTO: Privatization of Water

Is There a Silver Lining to the WTO Talks? No





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Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Nationalism Will Not Stop North American Union


The drive to further Fortress North America is gaining ground with through the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) Also known as the North American Union. It is the natural follow up to NAFTA, driven by the events of 9/11.

Unfortunately the response so far has been that of narrow nationalism and the wailing over the death of sovereignty.

In the U.S. it has been led by nativist populist Lou Dobbs, and in Canada by left nationalist Maude Barlow, making strange bedfellows indeed.
DOBBS: There are rising concerns in Canada about the SPP, the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership which some think is directly the foundation for something called the North American Union. The Bush administration is pretty excited about that, saying the initiative is meant to increase security and prosperity for all of North America. Opponents, however, say the initiative is nothing less than a plan to create a North American Union that would eliminate sovereignty for all three nations.

As Christine Romans now reports, grassroots opposition is rising in Canada.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In Ottawa, author and activist Maude Barlow has unrestrained contempt for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. She's concerned about a grab for Canada's natural resources and a watering down of its regulations and benefits by the biggest corporations doing business in North America. And that's just for starters.

MAUDE BARLOW, THE COUNCIL OF CANADIANS: If Canadians and Americans and Mexicans, ordinary people, saw what these guys are talking about, including one trade bloc, one security perimeter, one -- you know, everybody agreeing with George Bush's foreign policy, and don't ask any questions -- you know, lowest common denominator environmental standards, I don't think they would go for it.

ROMANS: Her group, the Council of Canadians, has published a citizens guide called "Integrate This," denouncing the deep integration agenda between the United States, Mexico and Canada. The stated goal established by presidents Bush, Fox and Prime Minister Paul Martin is integration by 2010. Harmonizing regulations for a safer, more prosperous North America.

But Barlow recently testified before a parliamentary trade committee that the SPP "... is quite literally about eliminating Canada's ability to determine independent regulatory standards, environmental protections, energy security, foreign, military, immigration and other policies."

Among the Canadians left, a growing fear that big business is drafting government policy behind closed doors.

BRUCE CAMPBELL, CANADIAN CENTER FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES: This is a vast initiative. It's an umbrella for a whole bunch of initiatives. There's 20 working groups and initiatives totaling about 300. And very little is known really about the nitty-gritty of these. We have a superficial knowledge, but I think we need -- we need to know more.

ROMANS: He's hoping all three legislative bodies will insist on oversight.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROMANS: It's just emerging as an issue now before Canada's lawmakers, driven by progressives and Canadian nationalists. In the U.S., the (INAUDIBLE) opposition is dominated by border control advocates. Strange bedfellows, they both agree, but both are wondering why more people aren't raising questions. Canadian immigration opponents promise plenty of noise as the next trilateral meeting of leaders approaches in Canada this time -- Lou.

DOBBS: The new -- the new world order that this president's father talked about with such great enthusiasm seems to be high on the agenda in this administration. It's remarkable to me, the arrogance, the idea of just simply throwing away the nation's sovereignty. But they're trying to do so in many ways.


But like opposition to NAFTA this narrow nationalism fails to address the real nature of this agreement and thus is unable to effectively offer any alternative.

For narrow nationalism has already been defeated by the continental reality of the trading blocs created as a result of the evolution of the WTO.
It was begun in the 1970's with the creation of the Trilateral Commission and has evolved since then into a new global order of capital integration and a new era of inter-capital imperialism.

The New World Order was declared by George Bush I and the result has been almost two decades of transformation of the nation state into the corporatist state. That is where the State is a partner with the private sector, the ultimate P3 is globalization.

The agenda of the corporatist state is to access large amounts of public funds accessible for private investment, such as public pension funds/Social Security.

It is replacing the Fordist Welfare State in the U.S. and the social security state in social democratic countries like Canada and Mexico. It is creating blended economies of trading blocs in Latin America, Europe, Asia, and ultimately at its source; North America. Left out is Africa which remains the cheap goods, labour and raw resource colony of the New World Order, and the place they can invest.

Immigration Bill Advances North American Union
By Cliff Kincaid
Apr 29, 2007

Rep. Edward Royce, a high-ranking conservative California Republican, said over the weekend that a White House-backed amnesty plan for illegal aliens has provisions which undermine the national sovereignty of the U.S. and help facilitate development of a North American Union, much like the European Union that supersedes the sovereignty of 27 European countries.

He vowed to defy the White House and mobilize House Republicans against the bill, backed by what he called the "open borders lobby."



This is a new development in the decadence of the period of State Captialism. Ultimately as corporations replaced governments in providing services, they developed the need for trade agreements that allowed for their access to these services intra and internationally.

The dialectic was that globalization required nation states to promote it, but through a new form of governance, one modeled on corporate agreements rather than on binding national and international models of governance. APEC, the WTO, the GATTS, etc. are all corporate treaties signed by two parties, the State and its corporate allies. They are not international trade agreements solely between governments, and their dispute resolution boards are made up of corporate as well as judicial lawyers.



A group supporting North American integration is preparing to hold its annual "North American Model Parliament" for students from the United States, Canada and Mexico.

The North American Forum on Integration, or NAFI, is scheduled to hold "Triumvirate," in Washington, D.C., May 20–25.

NAFI, according to the group's website, is as a non-profit organization based in Montreal, dedicated to "address the issues raised by North American integration as well as identify new ideas and strategies to reinforce the North American region."

The group's support of North American integration is documented by an objective listed to "identify the elements of the North American agenda which would allow the consolidation and reinforcement of the North American region."

A variety of issues pertinent to the formation and operation of a North American Community are debated by the mock parliament, including expanding immigration, stimulating investment in Mexico and revising NAFTA to move in the direction of becoming a regional government.

This year's Triumvirate themes are listed as the creations of a customs union, water management, human trafficking and telecommunications in North America.

Last year's Triumvirate 2006 was held in the Mexican Senate.

Triumvirate 2005, the first NAFI mock North American Parliament, was held in Ottawa, Canada.

As WND reported, Raymond Chretien, the president of the Triumvirate and the former Canadian ambassador to both Mexico and the U.S., was quoted as claiming the exercise was intended to be more than academic.

"The creation of a North American parliament, such as the one being simulated by these young people, should be considered," he told WND.

The recent development of TILMA, a labour, capital, agreement between Alberta and B.C. which allows for NAFTA regulations to be applied in the two provinces as a way of breaking traditional inter provincial barriers is another example of the NAU being put into practice.

The North American Union is the child of the privateers and neo-cons despite the opposition of the traditional right in the U.S. In Canada the right has always admired the U.S. and been contientalist, it is the left who has been nationalistic.

Preserving America’s Freedom

Wood’s actions in Idaho were the first successful and visible manifestations of a groundswell of opposition to the NAU that has materialized in recent months. Led by members of the John Birch Society (of which this magazine is an affiliate), concerned grass-roots activists have succeeded in raising awareness at the local and state level of the dangers presented by the SPP and the move toward further North American integration. As a result of these efforts, resolutions opposing a North American Union have been introduced in 18 states as we go to press. So far, resolutions opposing the SPP and NAU efforts of the federal government have been passed by state legislatures in Idaho and Montana. But it is in Idaho that opposition to the SPP had its first great success.

North American Union

One example is the reaction to evidence that U.S. officials are laying the groundwork for a North American entity, sometimes called a "North American Community" or "North American Union" of the U.S., Canada and Mexico in economic and other spheres. I attended a Washington conference devoted to developing a North American legal system that included literature outlining the creation of a North American Supreme Court. Lou Dobbs of CNN had me on his show recently to talk about it. "It's clear that you're as astounded as I am and as my colleagues are that more people in the media are not focusing on this issue," he said. Indeed, it is a story with dramatic implications for the survival of our nation as a sovereign entity. Yet, Dobbs is the only major media figure to consider the issue newsworthy. Conservative radio host Michael Medved openly ridiculed those who are covering the issue, and Fox News won't touch it.

In the latest developments, Judicial Watch, the public interest law firm, has uncovered federal documents indicating that secretive "working groups" in the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a Bush Administration initiative, are working on a "One Card" concept to facilitate cross-border movement between the three countries. The SPP is being sold to the public as an attempt to help business, but the documents indicate a far-reaching effort to erase national borders and even national identity. Previous documents released by Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act reveal a strategy called "evolution by stealth" to undermine the sovereignty of the three countries. That suggests a determined effort to keep this from the American people.

It may be difficult for the rest of the media to continue ignoring the controversy because opposition to the SPP is growing not only in the U.S. but Canada and Mexico. In fact, activists, academics, union officials, politicians and journalists from Canada, Mexico and the United States were in Ottawa from March 31-April 1 to organize opposition to the initiative. Judi McLeod of the Canada Free Press reports sources close to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper as saying that he is firmly against Canada being part of any North American Union and that Canadian sovereignty is "everything" to him.

Actually what right winger Judi McLeod said in her article was far less flattering of Harper, and more to my point;

"This newspaper had been told by trusted sources that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper is against the NAU. But not only is Harper's silence on the NAU deafening, his top ministers attend NAU meetings."

Mar. 31, 2006: At the Summit
of the Americas in Cancun,
Canada (under new Prime
Minister Stephen Harper) along with the
U.S. and Mexico release the Leaders' Joint
Statement. The statement presents six action
points to move toward a North American
Union, aka a North American Community.
These action points include:
1) Establishment of a Trilateral Regulatory
Cooperative Framework,
2) Establishment of the North American
Competitiveness Council (NACC),
3) Provision for North American Emergency
Management,
4) Provision for Avian and Human
Pandemic Influenza Management,
5) Development of North American Energy
Security,
6) Assure Smart, Secure North American
Borders.
The release of the new Fraser Institute study by Preston Manning and Mike Harris shows that the conservative corporatist lobby embraces the North American Union, unlike their social conservative counterparts.

Canada must reduce trade and ownership barriers, integrate economy with U.S., say Manning and Harris

Canada needs to fully open its economy and drop restrictions on foreign ownership in all business sectors including banking, financial services and telecommunications, Preston Manning and Mike Harris say in a new policy paper released today by independent research organizations The Fraser Institute and the Montreal Economic Institute.

The two also call for eliminating Canada’s supply boards and agricultural subsidies, establishing a customs union and common external tariff with the United States, and reforming Canada’s approach to foreign aid.

International Trade Liberalization

Freer international trade offers the most effective means of increasing Canadian prosperity and sustaining essential social services. Manning and Harris propose eliminating protectionist measures from supply management to business subsidies, systematic privatization of government export promotion and development programs, elimination of ideologically driven efforts to diversity trade patterns and partners, and fully opening up the domestic market to international competition.

Maximizing the Benefits of Strong Canada-US Relations

Whether Canadians like it or not, Canada's influence in the world depends to a large extent on its ability to gain and exert influence in Washington. Harris and Manning propose a Canada-US Customs Union involving a common external tariff, a joint approach to the treatment of third-country goods, a fully integrated energy market, a common approach to trade remedies and border security, and an integrated government procurement regime.

The solution lies not in narrow nationalism but in the labour movement creating a continental opposition to the NAU by focusing on the environment. It is not the Kyoto protocol perse that is the weak link in the Harper Bush push for a North American Union, it is government regulation they oppose. The push is for deregulation, to have national standards meet the lowest common denominator.

Regulations pertaining to food and pesticides, environmental issues by any other name, being subjected to not only NAFTA but the SPP protocols as well.

Better break out the veggie-scrubbers: Canada is set to raise its limits on pesticide residues on fruit and vegetables for hundreds of products.

The move is part of an effort to harmonize Canadian pesticide rules with those of the United States, which allows higher residue levels for 40 per cent of the pesticides it regulates.

Differences in residue limits, which apply both to domestic and imported food, pose a potential "trade irritant," said Richard Aucoin, chief registrar of the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, which sets Canada's pesticide rules.

Canadian regulators and their U.S. counterparts have been working to harmonize pesticide regulations since 1996, as part of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Now the effort is being fast-tracked as an initiative under the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP), a wide-ranging plan to streamline regulatory and security protocols across North America.

The SPP's 2006 report identified stricter residue limits as "barriers to trade."

When it comes to the environment, environmental health, green house gas reductions, the three Amigos oppose tougher regulations. It is this that is the weakness in ruling class plans for a Continental union. And the source of real opposition to the SPP. It is not a narrow nationalist response but a global solidarity alternative to corporate globalization.


Asserting that “global warming has transformed the issue of pollution into the ultimate health and safety issue,”

United Steelworkers (USW) president Leo W. Gerard on May 7 told the North American Labor Conference on Climate Crisis that regulating both carbon emissions and trade more stringently are essential for addressing the global climate crisis.


“Labor, environmental and human rights standards are at the core of our vision for making the global economy work for workers,” Gerard told more than 300 delegates. “They should become the new gold standard for how nations trade with each other.”


Gerard characterized the Labor Movement’s vision of addressing global warming as fundamentally at odds with the approach of giving away the right to emit carbon pollution to the world’s giant corporations and letting them make immense profits by trading and acquiring those rights without ever addressing the basic inequalities in our global economy.


“We need to use regulation of global warming and trade to lift two billion people out of poverty around the world,” he said. “To do that, we’ll need to regulate a lot of economic activity — from power plants to fuel efficiency to energy efficiency — and we’ll need to use this regulation as a powerful tool to improve workers’ lives, both here in North America and across the globe. The struggle for sustainability is not just about cleaning up the planet. It’s about engaging in raising standards of living over the long term – creating a world that has the capacity to solve the divisions of wealth and poverty that are the drivers of international conflict.”

To create a real opposition to capitalist contientalism and globalization a new movement of the Cooperative Commonwealth must be built.


An alternative form of stateless socialism based on community self management is the only solution to the crisis of capitalism with its attempts to privatize and commodify the world while avoiding the social and environmental costs of its actions.


Technocracy offered a possible alternative industrial model of contientalism under self management, the IWW and the Socialist Industrial Unionism of DeLeon offered models of self management of Fordist production. Combined they offer a real alternative to the current models of capitalism. See my paper: The Administration of Things: 20th Century North American Economic Models for A Post Capitalist Society, Socialist Industrialization, Syndicalism and Technocracy


While the cooperative commonwealth offers a political economic model of a market without the state.



See:

Deep Integration

Origins of the Captialist State In Canada

Time For A Canadian Steel Workers Union

Will Canadian Labour Accept Free Trade?

Cold Gold

Mittal Plays Monopoly



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