Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Two Tier Alberta


'Alberta sets the agenda for Canada' Jean Charest 1996

No truer words were ever spoken about the Klein Revolution, and they come back to haunt us again and again as Canadians and as long suffering Albertans.

Little Jean said that when has leader of the Federal Conservatives. As Leader of the Quebec Liberal Party and now that Provinces Premier, he tried to implement his own version of the Klein Revolution in that province over the past two years. Unsuccesfully of course, since Quebec is a social democratic society, and Republican Lite policies while appealing to the mythical ' taxpayers', fall flat when it comes to privatization and outsourcing of the public sector and its unions. Cause those same taxpayers are the workers who are unionized and who use public services.

Part 1: Third Way for Health Care

“I don't think it's two tier,” Mr. Klein said. “I guess it's subjective.”

Today Ralph announced his plans for introducing two tiered health care in Alberta. And it will have a major impact on Health Care across Canada.

Klein launches 'third way' for health care
Alberta Premier Ralph Klein has unveiled changes to the province's health-care system, his long-awaited "third way" mix of public and private options. At a news conference with provincial Health Minister Iris Evans on Tuesday morning, Klein released a plan to transform the system. They fended off questions about whether it would contravene the Canada Health Act or create a two-tier system. "The things that are medically necessary will be provided," Evans said. Klein repeatedly said that he couldn't answer those questions because the province is just starting to form the new strategy. "You don't snap your fingers and it doesn't happen overnight," he said.


Oh that Ralph he is so coy, overnight indeed, he has been planning this for six years since the passing of Bill 11.

Among the changes cited in a 12-point plan released on Tuesday, Alberta plans to:
* Change regulations to provide choice in hospital rooms and enhanced medical goods and services.
* Develop a Health Care Assurance Act for Albertans.
* Expand primary health-care services.
* Control spiraling drug costs.
* Increase the number of health-care providers.
* Improve health services in rural communities.

Alberta's Third Way
By SCOTT DEVEAU
Tuesday, July 12,
Globe and Mail Update
The Alberta government announced its Third Way to provide health care in the province at a press conference in Calgary Tuesday.“The action will start immediately,” Alberta Premier Ralph Klein said Tuesday.
Among the reforms, Mr. Klein announced that Albertans would be able to use secondary insurance to help pay for podiatry and chiropractic services beyond what's covered by Alberta health care by the end of this month.
By September, the province hopes to allow patients in hospitals to choose special accommodations above the standard hospital room and to choose enhanced medical goods and services beyond what doctors decide is medically necessary. Regional health authorities will be able to charge for those special accommodations, Mr. Klein said.

A standing room-only crowd greets the premier. He tells the assembled he only has a few minutes because he has to meet some young farmers.

Do his government's proposals break the Canada Health Act? "No," replies Ralph, who does not elaborate.

What happened to all that stuff about taking on the feds? "We're just starting. You don't just snap your fingers and it doesn't happen overnight."

Where is this Third Way headed? Can you expand?

"I can't expand on it because I don't know. Something may or may not challenge the Canada Health Act."

What we do know is, among the ponderings and promises, people with money will be able to spend their scratch to get nicer hospital rooms and use insurance for services beyond what's covered now and walk on a fancy-pants Birmingham replacement hip rather than the regular-people Premier's Choice replacement hip.

Next year, what's covered by the public plan and what's not will be up for discussion. But Ralph will be gone or very near the exit sign. For now, we see these extras for the affluent, yet another spin on Ralph's Alberta Advantage. By -- Calgary Sun


Well the Supreme Court opened the can of worms with its ruling on provinces responsibility to provide health care for its citizens even if that meant private health care plans. Top court strikes down Quebec private health-care ban

And now Ralph has announced, wait for it, that he intends to apply this in Alberta as part of his Third Way for Healthcare. That is instead of using the American model of privatization he will use the European/British model of two tiered health care. That model of economic efficiency that almost destroyed the British NHS.

Ever since Bill 11 was passed in Alberta, and the weak kneed Feds failed to challenge Ralph over it, his agenda has been to allow for privatization of health care by hook or by crook. And so far many crooked backdoor privatization schemes have occured, mainly in Calgary. All of them associated with members of his party and government.

While Quebec stalls on what the meaning of the Supreme Court ruling means to their highly privatized healthcare system, Montreal has become the private health-care capital of Canada, Ralph has picked up the ball the Fed's fumbled and has declared war on Canada's Public Health Care system.

It's the showdown that has been waiting for five years, and with a Minority Liberal Government facing a BQ and Conservative opposition that will defend Ralph for their own reasons, (the BQ because it will defend Provincial Autonomy and the Conservatives, well they are from Alberta and are the party of privatization) don't expect much but the gnashing and grinding of teeth from Health Minister Dosanjh.


"In Ottawa, Federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh pledged to enforce the Canada Health Act. He said Ottawa is in talks with "Alberta, B.C., Quebec and other provinces where there may be violations on diagnostic or surgical aspects of health care." Describing the health act as the "charter of medicare," Dosanjh said the legislation is a "very important instrument in maintaining our system of health care across the country and it will be enforced." Dosanjh said Health Canada is investigating alleged violations, but was not more specific." Clinics' spread vexes ministers


The Feds may have little stomach for a fight with Ralph as our toothless Health Minister confirmed;

In Ottawa, federal Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh said his initial reaction was positive. "No user fees and no queue-jumping are the linchpins of our medicare system," Dosanjh said."These fundamental characteristics of our system will continue to be protected for all Canadians. "I am pleased to see Alberta has reaffirmed its commitment to the Canada Health Act, and that the proposed package, in my view, indicates a generally positive step in ensuring better health care for Albertans."
Klein: let patients buy better service

The media made a big deal with selective quoting of the former NDP Premier of Saskatchewan; Roy Romanow, who did the Romanow Report on Medicare, claiming he was not opposed to Ralph's plan.

Roy Romanow, the former Saskatchewan premier who headed the 2002 royal commission on health care, said the reforms appeared "pretty mild" and most would likely not breach the federal universality provisions.
Klein: let patients buy better service

What he actually said was that Ralphs plan still leads to two tiered care:

But former federal health commissioner Roy Romanow, who led a federal commission on the health care system, says while he has no problem with the proposal on hospital rooms, putting a price tag on joint replacements amounts to two-tiered care. He also attacked the notion that adding more private health care to the system would reduce the load on the public system. "Take a look at the United Kingdom, take a look at France, take a look at any of those countries that have attempted this and what happens is, the wait times increase both in the public sector and in the private sector." CBC Saskatchewan

Canadians who support public services and public delivery of those services, view it as money well spent. Those on the right view it as limiting their friends from making a profit off of us. Be afraid Canada, be very afraid, Ralph and his federal counterparts in Harpers Conservatives will be out to convince you that two tiered health care is the best reform for medical services delivery.

The Alberta Federation of Labour pointedly stated that; More private health insurance will increase business costs and undermine "Alberta Advantage" Corporate Alberta should take tories out to the woodshed. I like that last bit but unfortunately Corporate Alberta likes two tiered medicare, after all THEY CAN AFFORD IT.

Other critics have panned the plan that's not a plan.

"This isn't a plan, it's a grab bag of ideas big and small, new and old. It appears to reflect the split in the government caucus between those, including Premier Klein, who want more privatization, and those who champion public health care, as does Health Minister Iris Evans." Edmonton Journal Editorial.

"The rich in this province will get the Birmingham hip and the rest of us will get the tragically hip," Alberta NDP Leader Brian Mason said of specialized hip surgery which has fewer complications and works better in younger, active patients than traditional hip replacements. The bone-conserving procedure can be three times more expensive than a traditional hip replacement and is only available in Calgary as part of a pilot project.
Klein: let patients buy better service

I like that sound bite Brian. And folks please note where is this hip replacement procedure only available? Like I have said before there is Alberta, and then there is Calgary, and the Klein agenda is set in Calgary by the PC's (Party of Calgary).

The health care “reforms” announced by the Alberta government yesterday take the province further down the dangerous path to a full two-tier health care system, says AUPE President Dan MacLennan. “Albertans should be gravely concerned about the idea of allowing the wealthy to pay extra for ‘enhanced’ health care services,” MacLennan said. “There is a great risk that it will not be long before what we now think of as a basic medical necessity will be described as ‘enhanced.’Allowing physicians to offer Cadillac services to well-heeled patients will over the long term drive many medical professionals out of the public health system to run purely for-profit medical businesses, he warned. “The danger is that waiting lists for basic public health services will grow longer and that the quality of service in the public health system will get worse."
Alberta health care ‘reforms’ increase risk of creating two-tier health system

"Third Way" is the Evolution of Private Health Care

CUPE Alberta President decries sneaking in two-tier system by stealth

Government’s plan more of the same private health agenda
Albertans have long rejected two-tier care for the privileged.
Says the UNA press release

"Alberta's Liberal opposition immediately criticized the proposals and called on the federal government to penalize Alberta. "There's no question we're headed towards a two-tiered health-care system," said Liberal Leader Kevin Taft. "That just goes against everything that we stand for in Alberta." Government’s “Third Way” Fails to Address Real Health Care Issues, Taft.

The Friends of Medicare, a lobby group fighting privatization of health care, said the new system could allow doctors to line their pockets by pressuring patients."Allowing doctors to charge an extra fee to provide an enhanced system -- a hip or surgery or service -- will create pressure for doctors to oversell to patients," said spokesman Harvey Voogd."It will create a conflict of interest for the patient-doctor relationship."

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation applauded the move, though, saying patients "should have the right to spend their own money on health-care services for themselves and their loved ones." Alberta: better health care for wealthy

Oh there's those taxpayers again, they are a business lobby and of course they think this is great. Right up there with tax breaks. They like the idea that those that can afford to pay for private services should be able to. But boy they hate the idea of making the rich pay for public health care for everyone.

It's an old story, as old as Medicare itself, when Tommy Douglas introduced single payer health care in Saskatchewan and Alberta offered the 'choice' of multiple payer plans. What goes around comes around.

And if that isn't scary enough for those of you on summer vacation how about two tier daycare. Scrap the National Daycare plan the Liberals tried to introduce, Alberta has swung it's own deal for public funding of private service delivery.

Part 2: Daycare

In Alberta the Ralph Regime rolls on, taxing federal tax money to fund private for profit daycare and babysitting services. The impact of the Federal Government funding two tier daycare in Alberta cannot be underestimated for the rest of Canada. CUPE has figured it out,
Alberta deal opens the door to big box child care

Be afraid Canada be very afraid, cause what happens here will impact on you too. Conservative provincial governments will adopt the Klein agenda with a me too attitude. Heck even Liberal Provincial governments like those in B.C. and Quebec will follow the Klein lead.

The Liberals began pursuing provincial side-deals after Dryden failed to get all 10 provinces and three territories to sign one deal for national standards.Quebec and Alberta have balked at the plan, saying they don't want Ottawa to dictate to them how to spend the money. CTV News

The Alberta NDP plead;Allow parents to choose high quality, low-cost, non-profit child care - Martin So what happens to all that provincial tax money that funded daycare, will it be used to supplement the federal windfall, I doubt it. More than likely it will be adjusted in the provincial budget and disappear into the general revenues.

And the federal money? Will it be used to fund early education programs? Nah, more than likely it will fund training programs for Baba and Dido to learn how to babysit, as New Brunswick Conservative Preimier Bernard Lord has proposed. Premier advances N.B. position on federal child-care funding With tax credits for the rest of us, which will hardly pay for a years worth of groceries let alone the cost of daycare services.

This is the free choice model of the federal Conservatives for daycare, give parents choice, which just means giving taxpayers back their money, while leaving public day care to dangle by the rope of underfunding.

Monday, July 11, 2005

G8 Summit on Africa Is Chretien's Legacy


It's not often many Canadians have anything nice to say about the Liberals or the regime of Chretien and Martin, but all Canadians should be proud of their efforts which bore fruit last week in Scotland at the G8.

In all the backslapping last week at the G8 whether it was Bono and Geldolf or Blair and Bush, they forgot the agenda on Africa was set three years ago in Kananaskis by Canadian PM Jean Chretien.

He reduced the usual three day love fest to thirty hours with a single focus; Africa. G8 summit takes to its roots This was the Canadian commitment to Africa. To kick the butts of the other G8 leaders to get down to business or as Chretien said at the time, in his own inimical way;

"We will walk the talk of the Africa Action Plan," adding, "There will be some people who will say it's not enough. But it's a departure - you could see the reaction of the African leaders. They were excited."


The leaders promised to reduce by $19 billion US the debt of 22 African countries that follow "sound economic policies and good governance." On top of other debt relief, that represents a reduction of $30 billion US for Africa, or two-thirds of the continent's debt. Chretien, in his closing news conference, said Canada will spend $6 billion over five years "to allow Africa to find its way out of poverty. The plan is in response to a document drafted by African leaders - called the New Partnership for Africa's Development, or NEPAD - that is meant to address cynicism from donor countries that aid to Africa is too-often lost in a sinkhole of Swiss bank accounts and questionable projects. "G-8 leaders commit to landmark plan to help break Africa's cycle of poverty


This was followed up the next year with a G8 meeting with African leaders,
NOTES FOR REMARKS BY PRIME MINISTER JEAN CHRÉTIEN WELCOMING PARTICIPANTS OF G8 NEPAD ROUNTABLE

So while the media and the pundints applauded Tony Blair for inviting African leaders to the Scotland G8 meeting last week, Chretien had already done so back in 2002, with a follow up meeting in 2003. Canada set the agenda for this round of talks, Blair was basking in the glow of Chretiens efforts.

CHRéTIEN, BLAIR STRUGGLE TO MAKE G-8 SUMMIT MEANINGFUL FOR AFRICA

In fact all Tony had going for him was he was hosting PM and had gotten a commitment from his old friend George Bush II to throw a little more money inthe pot, a pot already set up by Chretien three years ago.
Chretien Presses Bush on Aid to Africa

Bono who recently said he wanted to kick Paul Martins butt seems to foget the praise he heaped on both Martin and Chretien at the Leadership Convention in 2003 that saw Martin take over from Chretien. "Bono applauded Chretien's efforts in a recent letter, saying "From the perspective of a pesky Irish rockster, your leadership in Africa will be a legacy that lives on and flourishes way beyond your time in office."

Martin in his quest to match Chretiens generosity declared that Canada would be the first country to fund production of generic Aids drugs for Africa, something the US and its pharmaceutical company lobbies have opposed.

"The appearance of U2's Bono at the Liberal leadership convention has not only drawn attention to what has become more of a celebration than a race, it shows where new Liberal leader Paul Martin is focused, according to UN AIDS envoy Stephen Lewis. Lewis said he believes that having Bono at the convention signals Martin's commitment to a Canadian initiative to get generic AIDS drugs to Africa as well as an increase in foreign aid -- two projects he said Martin could pursue more vigorously than his predecessor. "I think Paul Martin is completely committed to generic drugs legislation," Lewis told CTV.ca News. "And I think that by having Bono at the Liberal convention, Paul Martin is giving the signal that we're likely to be contributing more to the resources of the Global (AIDS) Fund." Bono and Martin join forces on aid to Africa

How quickly they forget. Geldof and Bono, have put pressure on the G8 leaders to live up to their commitments, and while Canada has not fully made a commitment to .07 funding by 2015,(again a target originally made by another Liberal PM, Lester B. Pearson) the efforts of Canada to make Africa the issue at the G8 to come up with a generic AIDS plan, and to look at breaking down trade barriers, is more than done by any other country to date, including by Tony come lately.

If Martin was realistic, heck even pragmatic, in telling Bono and Geldof that Canada would not make a commitment, regardless of the surplus, to .07% now, it's because he put on the mantel of Fianance Minister. And he told Bono and Geldof, Canada will contribute what it actually can, which was increased with the passing of the Better Balanced Budget of the NDP. Not what we might need for PR purposes, and summit photo ops, but what we realistically can. On top of the commitments we have already made over the last three years.


This then is the legacy of the Chretien Government, that Africa would become a focus of the G8 and of the world three years after Chretien made it His issue.

Something that we can all be proud of, and in our usual Canadian way, sit back and say others can take credit for what was another Canadian first.

While the Liberals and Chretien are tainted with Adscam, the real legacy of the last decade of the Chretien regime will be the success or failure of the world to deal with the crisis in Africa.

But Chretien will at least be able to take credit for making the industrial countries of the G8 take the plight of Africa seriously. Without his efforts Blair, Bono and Geldoff would not have been able to make it the issue of this G8 meeting.

Damn I almost feel like I have been possesed by the spirit of Warren Kinsella. But hey credit where credit is due, and Canada and Chretien did not get enough credit this week for what happened at the G8 meeting in Scotland.

But what else is new, eh?

Saturday, July 09, 2005

Rebel Yell

Louis Riel and the Northwest Rebellion

The origins of Western Alienation, embraced today by the Conservative Right in Alberta, was in the Northwest Rebellion.

And it was the Conservative government of MacDonald that imposed it's colonial,
read Ontario, domination over Western Canada to avoid the creation of an autonomous government. In short to stop the creation of a Quebec in the prairies.

Ironic isn't it, that the loudest voices crying out that 'West Wants In', are the heirs of the Ontario Imperialists of the Conservative party of MacDonald.

Those who supported an autonomous West were the Quebecois. Not out of spite over the loss of independence after the battle of the plains of Abraham, but out of a belief that Canada was a federation of peoples.

1867: Four provinces choose to sign the new federation project; Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Lower Canada that will now be known as the province of Québec. The vote is very close, but finally, the federation passes in Québec (27 for, 22 against). But George-Étienne Cartier, one of the fathers of this federation along with MacDonald, originally saw this as a pact between two people: the French-Canadien and the English. In truth, the deal offers nothing of the sort, and the people of Québec are absolutely not recognised as an equal partner in this deal. Québec is nothing more than a province among four. These two visions of what Canada should be still clash today. It's the "Québec is a people and a nation different from the rest of Canada" vision versus the "Québec is just a province like the others" one. The new dominion of Canada will know a new age of prosperity, but the people now referred to as "French-Canadians" do not benefit much from the great games of finance and commerce, and remain a largely exploited work force. To boot, they are now nothing more than a minority in an officially "bilingual" country, where in fact, practice imposes English. Quebec First Era: from Federation to the Quiet Revolution (1867-1960)

The Quebecois viewed Quebec as one region, Ontario as another, and that the West was itself an autonomous region that should determine for itself, it's role in Confederation. That was not to be as the Ontario mercantilists, with their support from the British Crown and its monopoly corporations like the Hudson's Bay Company declared the West theirs, and used the North West Mounted Police and colonialist property owner militas to exert its rule .

The result was the Riel Rebellion, the great North West Rebellion where the West declared itself an autonmous region with its own government of the peoples by the peoples, including Metis and Natives, as well as settlers.


Métis Bill of Rights


PROVISIONAL GOVERNING COUNCIL BILL OF RIGHTS

This is the formal List of Rights drawn up by the Provisional Governing Council of the Metis Nation, as the formal conditions for the entry of Rupert's Land into Confederation on December 1, 1869.

  1. That the people have the right to elect their own legislature.
  2. That the legislature have the power to pass all laws local to the Territory over the veto of the Executive by a two-thirds vote.
  3. That no act of the Dominion Parliament (local to the Territory) be binding on the people until sanctioned by the Legislature of the Territory.
  4. That all Sheriffs, Magistrates, Constables, School Commissioners, etc., be elected by the people.
  5. A free Homestead and Preemption Land law.
  6. That a portion of the public lands be appropriated to the benefit of schools, the building of bridges, roads and public buildings.
  7. That it be guaranteed to connect Winnipeg by rail with the nearest line of railroad, within a term of five years; the land grant to be subject to the Local Legislature.
  8. That for the term of four years all military, civil and municipal expenses be paid out of the Dominion funds.
  9. That the Military be composed of the inhabitants now existing in the Territory.
  10. That the English and French languages be common in the legislature and courts and that all public documents and acts of the legislature be published in both languages.
  11. That the Judge of the Supreme Court speak the English and French languages.
  12. That treaties be concluded and ratified between the Dominion Government and the several tribes of Indians in the Territory to ensure peace on the frontier.
  13. That we have a fair and full representation in the Canadian Parliament.
  14. That all privileges, customs and usage existing at the time of the transfer be respected.
  • This meeting took place in Fort Garry on Wednesday, December 1, 1869.

  • Photograph of Gabriel Dumont at Fort Assiniboine,
    May 1885; Glenbow-Alberta Institute.


    This was the peoples charter that Gabriel Dumont, and the Metis Council crafted and invited Louis Riel out of exile in the U.S. to join them in a Metis reistance in Western Canada. The demand for self government spread through out the West from Winnipeg to the Saskatchewan Alberta border.

    Dumont impressed George Woodcock, 'the gentle anarchist' of Canadian letters, who wrote a biography of Ghandi as well as Dumont. As a pacifist anarchist Woodcock, a transplanted Brit, living and teaching in Victoria, saw Dumont and the Northwest Rebellion as a struggle for an indigenous form of self government that was completely different from the parilmentary system imposed on Canada by the Conservatives and their British masters.

    From his birth at Red River (now Winnipeg, Manitoba) in December of 1837 to his death in 1906 at Batoche, 100 kms (60 miles) north of Saskatoon on the South Saskatchewan River, Dumont saw the bison go from a seemingly unlimited renewable resource to near extinction. He observed Saskatchewan change from a teeming and wild land of grasses, rivers and forests - a land without boundaries - to a tamed, measured-out patchwork of farmland tended by sod-busters from somewhere else. And he witnessed a freedom-loving people become subjugated to a fiefdom in the faraway, insensitive capital of Ottawa, a place whose foreign laws were carried out by the disciplined, military-like Redcoats of the North-West Mounted Police.

    "Though illiterate, Dumont's first request to the territorial government was for education for Metis kids," Woodcock writes in Gabriel Dumont. "His next request was for land. It's the Conservative government of Sir John A. Macdonald's unheeding of injustice and unresponsiveness to land claims that led to revolt."

    Dumont's background as an Indian fighter and buffalo hunter made him a formidable foe for the North-West Mounted Police and federal forces. A true guerrilla fighter, he used the element of surprise and his knowledge of the land to great effect.

    Riel was a martyr, perhaps with messianic delusions. But Dumont, writes Woodcock, was a Canadian hero in the "high romantic vein," like a Homerian protagonist, the "greatest Metis buffalo hunter, who had no superior when it came to the wisdom of the wilds." Gabriel Dumont by Gordon McIntyre


    1869 and 1884-85 : Ottawa plans a new Canada "from coast to coast" and wants to send new settlers in the lands between Ontario and British-Columbia. In doing so, the MacDonald government ignores the presence of the Natives that already live there, like the French-speaking Manitoba Métis. Louis Riel takes the lead of a rebellion that will oppose him to Ottawa. The Canadian government has absolutely no intention of seeing a second Québec emerge in the west and sends the army to crush the rebels. Riel and eight Native chiefs are sentenced to death by an exclusively English-speaking jury. Québec strongly denounces the verdict and Montréal is on the verge of ethnic war. MacDonald declares "Even if all the dogs of Québec bark, Riel will be hanged!" (approximate translation). In Québec, all wear black armbands in memory of the "lost brother". Once more, one's hero is the other's enemy.

    Quebec First Era: from Federation to the Quiet Revolution (1867-1960)



    Poundmakers Surrender Speech (exerpt)

    "When you came, we treated you well. What did you do in return? You stole our land. You shared a little food with us. And you said you paid for it. You killed off our buffalo for no useful purpose for you. We did not destroy the buffalo. We know they are useful. Everything we needed came from them. What will you destroy next?

    When I was a young man, I often went on a war party. We rode all day. And all day we passed through herds of buffalo. The plains were black as far as one could see with herds of buffalo. We killed one only for food.

    After the whites came, the buffalo became fewer and fewer. We all know that. We began to hate the white persons. They were robbing us of our birthright. We became very poor. We wandered to the south. The buffalo were not coming back. We were told, "the land is not yours anymore. We were to stay only on our small patches of land that were leftover (iskonikana). Our grandfathers travelled on these great plains and called it their own.

    Why do I have to live on a small patch like the white persons? I only want my freedom."

    The general's reply to Poundmaker's speech was that the Indians had defied the government by taking up arms; that their members had killed farmer instructors and Indian agents. "These men must be given and tried and punished." Poundmaker, as chief, would be taken hostage and remain a prisoner for the good behaviour of his people.


    Ah yes hostage taking, like concentration camps and homelands in South Africa modeled on Indian Reserves in Canada, were all introduced by the British. Hostage Taking was introduced into into the Middle East by T.E. Lawerance, where it is still a popular tactic today.

    The Northwest Rebellion is known in the United States as the period of the Plains Indian Wars, as American settlers, and robber barons move westward. Had the Riel Rebellion succeeded, like the failed rebellion of farmers and artisans in 1837 in Upper and Lower Canada, then the history of North America, not just Canada would have been different.

    The alternative would have been a Metis, White, Native nation from Manitoba across the Prairies, south to the Dakotas and West to the Pacific Nothwest.

    "Poundmaker and the legendary Big Bear, who was forced by starvation of his people to finally take treaty in 1882, were leaders in the fight for fair treatment. "The principle strategy of the Indian leaders was to build a widespread political movement," says Stonechild, "like the political lobbying type of thing you see today.For their roles in the rebellion, Poundmaker and Big Bear were sentenced to three years each in Manitoba's Stoney Mountain Penitentiary. As a sop to Crowfoot, whom Ottawa did not wish to anger, Poundmaker's hair was not cut and he was released after serving only seven months of his sentence. Still, his health suffered in prison and he died just months after his release, while visiting his adopted father Crowfoot. The year was 1886. He was 44." Poundmaker by Dave Yanko

    In 1887 Louis Riel is hung as a traitor against the Conservative Government in Ottawa. In Quebec the people take to the streets to protest the political execution of Riel, in Ontario the ruling class and its Conservative Party clinks glasses and celebrates the death of the 'traitor' Riel with the comprador politicians from Quebec..

    November 22 1885, to the March Field, Montréal

    The emotion is at his height. Louis Riel has just been hung to have dared to claim the rights of its compatriots. While Ontario celebrates, the Quebecois are completely dismayed. The shops are closed, the tocsin resounds. November 22, on the March Field, takes place one of the more moving gatherings of the history of the Quebec. Fifty thousand persons attend the event, carrying to the arm the black armband of the mourning.

    On the tribune, several speakers succeed themselves to denounce the federal government of the Conservatives, but the one that book the words more memorable Is Honored Haberdasher. Here the transcription of this that again today is considered as the one of the bigger speeches of the history of the Quebec. Note that to this era, one used the term "race" for done reference to the "populates".

    Riel, our brother, dead east, victim of his devotedness to the cause of the Hybrid one of which it was the boss, victim of the fanaticism and treason; fanaticism of Sir John and of someone of its friends; treason three of the ours that, to keep their wallet, sold their brother.

    While killing Riel, Sir John did not only hit our race to the cÅ“ur, but it especially hit the cause of justice and humanity that, represented in all the languages and sanctified by the whole beliefs religious, required grace for the prisoner of Regina, our poor brother of the North-Ouest…

    We here fifty thousand citizens, met under the protective aegis of the Constitution, in the name of the humanity that screams vengeance, in the name of two millions of French in pleurs, to launch to the federal minister in escape a last malédiction that, passing on itself echo in echo on the shores of our big river, will go to attain it the moment it will lose view the earth Judicial.

    As for those that remain, as for the three that represented the Quebec province in the federal government, and that do not there represent more than the treason, bend the head in front of their failure, and cry their sad one goes out; for the blood spot than they carry to the forehead is indelible, as to remember it of their cowardice. They will have the goes out of their brother Caïn.

    Opposite this crime, in the presence of these failures, which is our duty? We have three things to do: we to unite to punish the guilty ones; break the alliance that our representatives did with the orangisme; and look for in a more natural alliance and less dangerous the protection of our national interests.

    We to unite! Oh, that I feel comfortable while pronouncing these words! There are twenty years that I ask the union of all the lively forces of the nation. There are twenty years that I say to my brothers to sacrifice on the altar of the fatherland in danger the hates that we blinded and the divisions that we killed. […] it was necessary the national misfortune that we deplore, it was necessary the death of the one of the ours for that this rallying cry fût understand. […]

    And then, do not forget, we liberal, that if the nation in mourning because of the assassination of Riel, the conservative ones our brothers are damaged in a deeper pain than the ours. They cry Riel as us, but also they cry the fall and the treason of their bosses. Them that were if proud and with reason, of Chapleau and of Langevin, that see in the the one eloquence and in the skillfulness of the other the good day country, are obliged to bend the head and to curse today those that they blessed yesterday. […]

    Chapleau refused the hand of a brother to keep the one of Sir John; it preferred the screams of some fanatics to the Canadian French one the whole nation blessings; it preferred the death to life; the death for him, the death for Riel; his career is broken as the one of Riel, only this one fell in man, that one in traitor!

    For an good political analysis of the Northwest Rebellion and its importance in defining the West read Beal, Bob; Macleod, Rod. - Prairie fire : the 1885 North-West Rebellion. - [Rev. ed.] - Toronto : McClelland & Stewart, 1994. - 384 p.

    And thus began the histoirc annexation of the Canadian West by the mercantilist monopolies of the CPR and Hudson's Bay Comapny under the armed rule of Conservative Party hacks in Ottawa, British colonial governors like the Selkirk family in Manitoba, and their colonial military force the NWMP.

    McLean, Don. - 1885 : Metis rebellion or government conspiracy? - [S.l.] : Pemmican Publications, 1985. - 137 p
    • Claims that the Conservative government forced the Métis into rebellion in order to save the Canadian Pacific Railway financially.
    • Rea, J.E. - "The Hudson's Bay Company and the North-West Rebellion". - The Beaver. - Outfit 313, no. 1 (Summer 1982). - P. 43-57
    With Indian lands ceded to the railway, the CPR needed farmers and workers to open up the West. They invited immigrants to come and farm on homestead land, adjacent to the railway. Winnipeg boomed as the grain capital of North America, directly linked to the Chicago Grain Exchange, today the castles of capital still stand in the wind swept streets of a depressed Winnipeg. The great banks that Wobbly Joe Hill sang about, stand empty and dead, where they once ruled the Western expansion of eastern capitalism.

    The second wave of Western alienation came with rise of a militant labour and socialist movement in the West. The west was RED before it was Red Neck. The IWW and the Socialist Party of Canada with its militant industrial union, the One Big Union (OBU) were active across the Prairies. The OBU itself was created in 1919 in Calgary, on the eve of the Winnipeg General Strike. Ukrainian, Scots, Irish, Icelandic, Finns, Germans, and Jews from Eastern and Central Europe homesteaded the land and took jobs in the mines and forests. They created their own socialist organizations and newspapers, like the Ukrainian Labour Farmer Temple.



    During the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, and its brutal repression by the RCMP, many immigrants were deported as enemy aliens and Bolsheviki, by the Conservative Party and the ruling class in Ottawa.

    After the boom of the 1920's farmers and workers organized across the prairies into political parties, in Alberta the United Farmers of Alberta was a coalition of farmers and labour activists. The platform included recall of MLA's and referendums. Ideas that today have been taken up by the Right Wing.

    The CCF, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, (later to become the NDP) was founded in the Grain Exchange building in Calgary in 1932. It was the original Western Reform Party. It then came out with a socialist declaration entitled the Regina Manifesto, in 1933. A fitting tribute to the original Prairie populist Lous Riel , who was imprisoned and hung in Regina.

    During the Depression out of the West came the On to Ottawa Trek that the Left in Canada challenged the Borden Conservative government to end the concentration camps for the unemployed, and called for a living wage at the time, unemployment insurance and a social safety net.

    The complaints of those in the West were always the same, we had a different vision of Canada, one that like the original Metis declaration called for autonomy, and direct government.

    Today those socialist bashers on the right who identify with U.S. Republicanism and equate their wanna be Americanism with Alberta Seperation, or with right wing populism of the Reform/Alliance/Conservative party, or even cheer on Ralph Klein as he bashes Ottawa, would do well to learn their history lessons of Western Canada's past. It is a libertarian socialist history not a right wing one.

    Sure the West wants in, but we want a new confederation as do the peoples of Quebec. This is not about giving right wing governments in the provinces more power, this is about creating a new federation, which was the original vision of Papineau, Mackenzie, Dumont, Riel, Poundmaker, Carl Berg, Pritchard, and J.S.Woodsworth. A peoples confederation, a federation of the self governed, a Cooperative Commonwealth, not a Conservative or Liberal government in Ottawa, but proportional representation, that cedes decision making to local levels of govenment, whether it is muncipalities, or native self government.

    The provinces of Alberta and Sasksatchewan are celebrating our centennials but so are the IWW and the Socialist Party of Canada, equally founders of the West . The provinces are creatures of Ottawa, our muncipalities are founded by the peoples who live here. Their power was taken away despite ancient British traditions that recongized the autonomy of cities and their aldermen, in order for the State to expand its empire in the West. Provincial autonomy is tyranny of the State over the popular political insitiutions of the people:
    1. That all Sheriffs, Magistrates, Constables, School Commissioners, etc., be elected by the people.
    2. That a portion of the public lands be appropriated to the benefit of schools, the building of bridges, roads and public buildings.
    In the West our history has been shaped by the British Colonialists of Canadian Confederation and their mercantilist partners the HBC and the CPR. In our history lessons we learn little of the Native, Metis or immigrant struggles, settling instead for the history of the victors. We are not taught that Quebec supported the West and it's struggle to be an autonomous self governing region, an equal partner in Confederation. Instead we are taught all that rebelious Quebec wanted was French speaking rights, and their support of Riel was to spite the English rulers in Ottawa.

    I believe the speech reprinted below by Louis-Joseph Papineau exposes the lies of the origins of Confederation as a common agreement between regions. His is an alterantive history of Canada, that has not been available in the West in our social studies classes in school.

    Papineau was no mere Quebec Nationalist, he was a Canadian, who saw this as a new country, one like the United States, offered a new land, and a new federation of peoples, in his Speech to the Institut Canadien he preciently predicted Canada would become not just a home to European Immigrants but Asian immigrants as well. This is his speech on Confederation, a Quebec ideal that was usurped by the familial and mercalintalist interests in Ontario. His idealism and his vision of Canada fits well with those of us in the West.

    Papineau led the 1837 rebellion for a government of the people, for a constiuent assembly against the vested interests of the Family Compact. Papineau passed legislation, the first in Canada, giving Jews the vote.

    During the Spanish Civil War, the left in Canada who joined the international Brigades named their Brigade the Mackenzie-Papineau Brigade, the Mac-Paps, in honor of the heros of the 1837 Rebellion.


    Alberta politicians have always aligned with Quebec, for their own political and provincial interests against the Ottawa power brokers for sure, but Quebec's view of history is little revealed to the average person in the West. Instead these same politicians invoke Quebec's vision of Canada, as the 'selfish aggrandizment of special powers and intersts', which of course they should get as well.

    The people in the West have always wanted a different kind of Confederation, but our own ruling class uses this 'alienation' as a cheap trick to maintain their own power base, which has moved from Winnipeg in the 19th and early 20th Century, to Calgary in the 21st Century.

    I would advise that reading this whole speech would be revealing of the half truths and lies that have shaped English Canada's version of what Quebec wants for Canada. And indeed the real history of Canada and Confederation as the betrayl of legislative authority and its usurption by the landed aristocracy of British mercantilism. As it is I have exerpted portions I feel are pertinent to this article.

    1867 Speech of Louis-Joseph Papineau at the Institut canadien

    Among the most important and useful truths, those that pertain the the better political organization of a society are at the forefront. They are among those of which it is a shame to have not studied carefully, and cowardly to dare not proclaim, when we believe that those we possess are true and therefore useful.

    The good political doctrines of modern times, I find them condensed, explained and delivered for the love of peoples and for their regeneration, in a few lines of the 1776 Declaration of Independence, and the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

    The true sociological doctrines of modern times can be summed up in a few words: Recognizing that, in the political and temporal order, the only legitimate authority is the one to which the majority of the nation has given its consent; that are wise and beneficial constitutions only those for which the governed have been consulted, and to which the majorities have given their free approbation; that all which is a human institution is destined to successive change; that the continuous perfectibility of man in society gives him the right and imposes him the duty to demand the improvements which are appropriate for new circumstances, for the new needs of the community in which he lives and evolves.

    It is not the precipitated acceptance of the butched Quebec Act of confederation that can prove the wisdom of the statesmen of England. It is not their work; it was prepared in hiding, without the authorization of their constituents, by some colonists anxious to stud themselves to the power that had escaped them. The sinistre project is the works of badly famed and personally interested men, it is the achievement of evil at the British Parliament, surprised, misled, and inattentive to what it was doing.

    At first sight, the act of confederation cannot have the approval of those who believe in the wisdom and the justice of the Parliament and the excellency of the English constitution, since it violates its fundamental principles, by taking control over the sums of money belonging to the colonists alone and not to the metropolis nor to any authority in the metropolis. It is guiltier than any of the preceding acts. It has the same defects, and it has new ones, which are unique to it, and which are more exorbitant against the colonists than were those of the parliamentary charters granted or imposed before. The others were given in times and conditions that were difficult and exceptional. The transfer of a new country, with a majority whose religious beliefs and political education differed deeply from those of the minority, could have let us fear that the latter be exposed to denials of justice. Full religious tolerance, the most important of the rights which belong to men in society, had not been understood nor allowed at the time. England was persecuting at home, insane and unjust; she was insane and unjust here, here more than elsewhere, because the public law was supposed to protect us from evil. She ignored it. If she had restricted herself to protective measures for the minorities, she would have been praised; but she exceeded the goal, she oppressed the majority, she did wrong. But it was then a common error which misled her and which excuses her. The odious laws of intolerance are repudiated by all of the civilized world today, except for Rome and St. Petersbourg. There too however, sooner or later it will be necessary to render justice at the sight of the benefits which it pours on the States which respect it.

    The concision in the word of Cavour: "The free Church in the free State", is one of the most beautiful titles given to respect, love and admiration, justly acquired by this famous statesman. These happy words, which once stated can never be forgotten, which, in a short sentence, contain a complete and perfect code on the subject they expose and explain, in one moment, -- as if all the tongues of fire of the Coterie had touched all those which tried to retain them -- allow us to understand, love, and proclaim the full truth which was only obscurely perceived and timidly loved before. And yet this revelation, sudden for a lot of people, is already codified, since a long time, for all, in the thirty-six States of the Union next door.

    The free, independent Churches, separated from the State, do not require anything from it in presence of one another, are the happiest and become most useful, because of this separation from the State and the proximity of their rivals. They rely on their knowledge and their virtues, they do not require nothing else. They as nothing of what they consider useful to the promotion of their cult, all to the benefit of all their ministers, their charity, and their benevolent organizations. Watching one another, they are eminently moral, because the exposure and publicity would punish each fault they commit. No fault being able to go by unpunished, one will rarely occur. Where only one Church rules, it is not useful, it represses heresies, schisms and witches. Its adversaries claim: "it must necessarily be that it is wrong, if it is so cruel." and its friends say: "it must necessarily be that it is divine, if it obtains support in spite of these cruelties."

    When the right to freethinking, whether religious, political or scientific, is as generally proclaimed as it is it by the laws, the values and the practice of our days, it cannot be lost. Judicious people will not need to demand it later.

    Other parliamentary acts against Canada were acts of rigour, following disorders which would have been prevented by a tiny portion of the concessions that were granted much too late. The merit of these concessions is small and has little value, because they were made only after executions which were murders.

    The present act was inflicted to provinces which were peaceful, where there no longer existed animosities of race or religion to calm down. Where nobody was guilty, all were punished, since they received a law for which they were not consulted.

    This new governmental plan reveals, more than the others, the violent animosity of that the aristocracy feels towards elective institutions. It was only after long years of ceaseless efforts that the Legislative Councils were made elective. Did those who had been morally glorified by tearing off this important concession to the colonial and metropolitan authorities glorify themselves much today by ravishing it to their compatriots? On the contrary, they felt and they knew that they would not escape the contempt that these tergiversations deserved. They fought among themselves with eagerness to obtain nobility titles from overseas. They defrauded on the one hand their country and other the other they were even defrauding among themselves for the superiority of the rank; and they found ways to associate many accomplices to their shame, as if it was less dark because it was shared! They promised the elected counsellers to have them counsellers for life. They created themselves a fake aristocracy, that became such by their participation in an obvious violation of the law. All these intrigues were immoral enough to please the English cabinet and to push it to adopt an act even worse than almost all its past wrongs. These reactionaries were asking the institutions of the Middle Ages back at the very moment the noble English people was demolishing them.

    No, it is not true that the political discussions, which were as sharp in both Canadas, were a fight between races. They were as rough in Upper Canada, where there was only one nationality, than here, where there were two. The majorities of both of them were uninterested friends of rights freedoms, and privileges due to all the English subjects. They were voluntarily exposing themselves to liefull slanderings, to dangerous angers, to sanguinary revenges sometimes, from egoistic minorities, by themselves weak, but supported by the strenght of the bayonnettes paid with the gold of the people, but everywhere directed against the people.

    The privileged people always think that the prayers and the complaints against the abuses which benefit them are an invitation to repress them by violence. Proud, just and enlightened men, whose convictions are intense because they are the result of strong studies and long meditations, have faith in the empire of reason, and it is for reason alone that they ask the correction of the abuses. Their efforts are addressed to all, to the powerful ones initially, to inspire them sympathy for the people that are suffering and that were impoverished by the abuses. They present them with glory and happiness to conquer, if they know how to render the society of their time more prosperous and more moral that it was it in the times which preceded. They address them initially and preferably, because their mind being more cultivated, they would be better prepared to be able to consider questions of general interest under all their various aspects, and to solve them quickly and correctly when selfishness does not blind them. They address the masses after, to say them that the sabre is not in their hands, but that reason is the richest and most invaluable of divine gifts and that it was separated almost equally amongst all, that the culture of the mind can centuplicate its fruitfulness and strength; that to clear the land one needs physical strenght enlightened by experience, but that in order to make good constitutions and good laws, and to apply them wisely, it is necessary to have before all a strong reason, enlightened not only by serious studies, but above all by a real devotion to the country, and the absence of any personal covetousness of ambition or interest. Here is what could seen before, here is what has since become so rare, now that fortunes acquired at the expense of the public and personal honor, have become so numerous! How badly do these reproaches of propensity to violence come from those who constantly have recourse to violence to prevent the free discussion of political or social questions, physical violence by means of the law, moral violence by the anathema!

    Papineau was 81 years old when he appeared at the Institute in 1867


    Friday, July 08, 2005

    London Blitz

    In August 1940, Trotsky wrote: "History teaches us that when ad-venturist organizations lack sufficient political forces to solve a task, the idea of terrorist acts arises by itself. This is the classic formula of individual terrorism."

    Terrorism is the last act of the desperate organization, an appeal to chaos. If we ignore historical instruction that those who have mastered this foul art form provide, we will become the grave-digger of U.S. freedom and national survival. Trotsky taught that terrorism is a calculated, though misguided and misanthropic, approach to addressing the helplessness of the masses.

    Defending against it is a permanent societal posture. The only historically effective short-term solution to terrorism is to deal with its symptoms terroristically. For the long term, state-sponsored, institutionalized terrorism must witness its breeding grounds defoliated by a process of expanding social and economic justice. When common people, in whose behalf the terrorist acts, renounce violence and dare to hope for a better future, terrorism withers away. In navigating a complex, interdependent, yet economically polarized world full of apocalyptic weapons, these are the only roads. MR

    Combined Arms Center-May-June 2002 English Edition -Cashiering Freedom for Security: Lessons in Modern Terrorism -J. Michael Brower

    This then is the counter-intuitive American policy adopted after 9/11. The irony is the use of Trotsky's analysis of Terrorism to justify America's 'War on Terror'. Which has resulted in Imperialist War in Iraq, and Afghanistan that has done nothing but exasperate and expand the now existing asymmetrical terror war plaguing Europe-not America.

    The exortation is that somehow 'the common people' of the Middle East will 'renounce' terrorism, when it is inflicted on them by Osama Bin Laden Inc. on one side and U.S. Imperialism on the other.

    Whether a terrorist attempt, even a 'successful' one throws the ruling class into confusion depends on the concrete political circumstances. In any case the confusion can only be shortlived; the capitalist state does not base itself on government ministers and cannot be eliminated with them. The classes it serves will always find new people; the mechanism remains intact and continues to function.

    But the disarray introduced into the ranks of the working masses themselves by a terrorist attempt is much deeper. If it is enough to arm oneself with a pistol in order to achieve one's goal, why the efforts of the class struggle? If a thimbleful of gunpowder and a little chunk of lead is enough to shoot the enemy through the neck, what need is there for a class organisation? If it makes sense to terrify highly placed personages with the roar of explosions, where is the need for the party? Why meetings, mass agitation and elections if one can so easily take aim at the ministerial bench from the gallery of parliament?

    In our eyes, individual terror is inadmissible precisely because it belittles the role of the masses in their own consciousness, reconciles them to their powerlessness, and turns their eyes and hopes towards a great avenger and liberator who some day will come and accomplish his mission.

    The more 'effective' the terrorist acts, the greater their impact, the more they reduce the interest of the masses in self-organisation and self-education. But the smoke from the confusion clears away, the panic disappears, the successor of the murdered minister makes his appearance, life again settles into the old rut, the wheel of capitalist exploitation turns as before; only the police repression grows more savage and brazen. And as a result, in place of the kindled hopes and artificially aroused excitement comes disillusionment and apathy.

    Leon Trotsky: 1923 -- Why Marxists oppose Individual Terrorism

    As the peoples movment in Lebanon has shown the only way forward is a mass movement for democracy. It's greatest threat is not Osama Bin Laden Inc. but the State Terror of those who seek hegemony over the area and their Imperialist enablers. As we have seen in the brtual repression of the revolts of the 'common people' in Kyrgyztan and the other 'Stans that are now the authoritarian client states of US Imperialism in it's war against Osama Bin Laden Inc.

    Osama Bin Laden Inc. is a corporation, a combination of banking and engineering enterprise one of the largest in the Middle East, after Bechtel and Halliburton.

    Amid globalization, Al Qaeda looks a lot like GM


    By David E. Kaplan and Kevin Whitelaw


    "Having lost his deeply religious father while he was still a child, bin Laden would, throughout his life, be influenced by religiously radical older men," Peter Bergen writes in Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden. The first of these were professors of Islamic studies at Jeddah's King Abdul-Aziz University. One was a founder of the global jihad movement, the other the brother of a man who'd written the movement's key text. "It's as if Ronald Reagan and Milton Friedman's brother had taught him about capitalism," Bergen

    Osama Bin Laden Inc. is in inter-imperialist competition with his former employer the United States Government and its spy agency the CIA.

    Oil and power make for strange bedfellows. In June 1977, George W Bush started his first drilling company, Arbusto Energy, with a $50,000 investment from Houston businessman James R. Bath. Bath, along with Bush, had been suspended from the Texas Air National Guard for "failure to accomplish [the] annual medical examination" (in Bush's case he refused to be tested for illegal drug use). In their award-winning 1993 expose The Outlaw Bank, Time magazine writers Jonathan Beaty and S.C. Gwynne reported that Bath "made his fortune by investing money for [Sheikh Kalid bin] Mahfouz and ... Sheikh bin Laden." Since Bath had "no substantial money of his own at the time," Beaty and Gwynne suggest that Arbusto Energy was financed by Bath's Saudi Arabian clients. And who was bin Laden? The billionaire father of ex-CIA "freedom fighter" Osama bin Laden. Earth Island Journal; March 22, 2002;

    As such Osama Bin Laden Inc. is an extension of the Saudi Arabian State in its competiton to maintain its hegemony in the Middle East.

    By the end, Osama bin Laden was running Al-Qaeda like a company, according to Bergen, and hence why he put the "inc." in the title of his book. Like a CEO, bin Laden sends orders down the chain of command so the eventual perpetrator may never know his orders came from bin Laden himself. Secondly, bin Laden himself may use corporate tools; for example, writing a statement on a computer, faxing it to an associate who then broadcast it by satellite to newspapers who then posted it on their Web site. Thirdly, Al-Qaeda is like a traditional holding company in the sense it was comprised of numerous groups and nationalities all under an umbrella leadership. Holy War, Inc: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden

    Osama Bin Laden Inc. is engaged in an asymmetrical war of terror,one that is set out to determine the future of the Middle East in favour of his Saudi masters over their neighbours. And lets not beat around the bush (pun intended) about this, Bin Laden Inc. is the military arm of the Saudi Ruling Class and their imperialist endeavours to dominate the Arab world with their brand of Islamic fundamentalism.

    According to Jordanian government sources and European intelligence documents, Zarqawi first set up Jund al-Sham in Afghanistan in late 1999 with $200,000 in startup money from bin Laden. The group's objective was to operate in a geographical area known as the "Levant," which encompasses Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan where al Qaeda's presence was deemed too weak. Headed by Zarqawi, Jund al-Sham federated about 150 jihadis, including Jordanian Islamic militants exiled by the Jordanian government earlier that year, as well as various recruits from Syria (some holdouts of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood), and Lebanon (mostly Palestinian refugees of the movement "Asbat al Ansar"). These militants were trained in explosive, guerrilla warfare and chemical weapons techniques at a training facility ("Al Matar Training Camp") operated by Zarqawi near the Afghan city of Herat, close to the Iranian border. ABC News: The New Head of Jihad Inc.?

    The London bombing yesterday, the Spanish train bombing last year, the massacre in Beslan and 9/11 are not reflections of class struggle or even a clash of cultures, as
    Thomas Friedman would have it. They are reflections in a mirror darkly of the inter-imperialist rivalries that have existed since the Middle East was carved up by British and American oil interests in the 1920's.

    Nor should anyone mistake them for Anti-Imperialist struggles or struggles for National Liberation. They are the last gasp of a fuedalistic empire, that of the Saudi's, biting the hand that has fed it for almost 100 years, Anglo-American Imperialism.

    In short it is a fascist movement, as are all such movements that prey upon civilian populations. Such was the case in the bombing of Guernica in the Spanish Civil War and the bombings yesterday in London. These muslim fascists; Osama Bin Laden Inc., Hamas, Hezzbolah,Chechen rebels, the Iranian State, the Saudi State, are Anti-Semite's disguised as Anti-Zionists, who use the Palistinian plight as cover for their defense of their medivalist empire. Like all the other little potentates in the region they fear a real peoples movement, a real peoples revolution. They offer the illusion of Anti-Imperialist struggle against U.S. hegemony, while being opposed to any real revolutionary struggle that would liberate the masses from their authoritarian oil masters.

      "You can't blow up a social relationship. The total collapse of this society would provide no guarantee about what would replace it. Unless a majority of people had the ideas and organization sufficient for creation of an alternative society, we would see the old world reassert itself because it is what people would be used to, what they believed in, what existed unchallenged in their own personalities.

      Proponants of terrorism and guerrillaism are to be opposed because their actions are vangaurdist and authoritarian, because their ideas are wrong or unrelated to the results of their actions, because killing cannot be justified, and finally because their actions produce either repression with nothing in return or an authoritarian regime."

    You Can't Blow up a Social Relationship - The Anarchist case against Terrorism

    As the United States Government continues to give succour to the Saudi State, in effect gives succour to the fascist terrorists of Osama Bin Laden Inc. In effect America's war on terror has become a terrorist war across the face of Europe, and the Empire is just as responsible for yesterdays terror attack in London as the actual perpetrators are.

    As the United States and Britain have privatized their invading armies in Iraq and Afgahnistan, so do fascist regimes like the Saudi's in their use of the private services of Osma Bin Laden Inc. to maintain their regional hegemony.

    Some
    misguided writers are looking in all the wrong places for why this attack on a civilian population in London occured. They are looking at the mystical eschatology of dates, was July 7 significant etc., was this the anniversary of some event significant in the mind of these terrorists?

    The anwser is simple, no.

    It was to disrupt the G8 meeting, which it did effectively, including disrupting the protest movement that had gathered demanding aid for Africa and ironically an end to the War in Iraq. It detracts from the issues of African Poverty and Global Warming, since these are of no concern to Osama Bin Laden Inc. and his employers. In fact any positive moves in the direction of aid to Africa would end the Islamic hegemony over the continent. And any moves towards reductions in green house gases would of course impact on Saudi oil exports.

    As George II likes to tell the American people; "better to fight a war abroad than at home". Well his war against terror has three fronts now, Afghanistan (the forgotten war), Iraq, and now Europe. The Europeans should take no comfort from the compassionate words of the American Empire, its they who have brought the terror to Europe. Anywhere but their backyard. Whatever the cost in loss of civilian lives in Iraq or Europe , George II will continue his corporate war against his corporate rival in the Middle East.

    Those who fight a war on three fronts, historically have failed. Lessons learned by Napolean and Hitler but lost on Rumsfeld, Cheney and Bush.

    Comment


    The price of occupation

    Tariq Ali
    Friday July 8, 2005
    The Guardian

    During the last phase of the Troubles, the IRA targeted mainland Britain: it came close to blowing up Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet in Brighton. Some years later a missile was fired at No 10. London's financial quarter was also targeted. There was no secret as to the identity of the organisation that carried out the hits or its demands. And all this happened despite the various Prevention of Terrorism Acts passed by the Commons.

    The bombers who targeted London yesterday are anonymous. It is assumed that those who carried out these attacks are linked to al-Qaida. We simply do not know. Al-Qaida is not the only terrorist group in existence. It has rivals within the Muslim diaspora. But it is safe to assume that the cause of these bombs is the unstinting support given by New Labour and its prime minister to the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

    One of the arguments deployed by Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, when he appealed to Tony Blair not to support the war in Iraq was prescient: "An assault on Iraq will inflame world opinion and jeopardise security and peace everywhere. London, as one of the major world cities, has a great deal to lose from war and a lot to gain from peace, international cooperation and global stability."

    Most Londoners (as the rest of the country) were opposed to the Iraq war. Tragically, they have suffered the blow and paid the price for the re-election of Blair and a continuation of the war.

    Ever since 9/11, I have been arguing that the "war against terror" is immoral and counterproductive. It sanctions the use of state terror - bombing raids, torture, countless civilian deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq - against Islamo-anarchists whose numbers are small, but whose reach is deadly. The solution then, as now, is political, not military. The British ruling elite understood this perfectly well in the case of Ireland. Security measures, anti-terror laws rushed through parliament, identity cards, a curtailment of civil liberties, will not solve the problem. If anything, they will push young Muslims in the direction of mindless violence.

    The real solution lies in immediately ending the occupation of Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine. Just because these three wars are reported sporadically and mean little to the everyday lives of most Europeans does not mean the anger and bitterness they arouse in the Muslim world and its diaspora is insignificant. As long as western politicians wage their wars and their colleagues in the Muslim world watch in silence, young people will be attracted to the groups who carry out random acts of revenge.

    At the beginning of the G8, Blair suggested that "poverty was the cause of terrorism". It is not so. The principal cause of this violence is the violence being inflicted on the people of the Muslim world. And unless this is recognised, the horrors will continue.

    · Tariq Ali's latest book is Speaking of Empire and Resistance.

    This in not a war

    By TIMOTHY GARTON ASH

    Author of eight books of political writing, most recently Free World: Why a Crisis of the West Reveals the Opportunity of Our Time.

    Saturday, July 9, 2005

    Globe and Mail Update

    While these bombings have produced the largest single casualty toll in London since 1945, this is not a war in the sense that American commentators like to imagine it.

    Wars are won by armies. Armies backed by strong societies, economies and intelligence, to be sure; but still, armies. This one never will be.

    There will be more of this. Terrorism is not a single army that can be defeated, like Hitler's Wehrmacht. It's a technique, a means to an end, made more widely available by those "advances" in the technology of killing. It will be used, and used again. To some extent, we will have to learn to live with it, as we do with other chronic threats.

    How much freedom are we now prepared to sacrifice in the name of security? There is a real danger that countries like the United States and the United Kingdom move toward a national security state, with further curtailment of civil liberties. That must not be -- for it will cost us liberty without bringing us any guarantee of security. I, for one, would rather remain more free, and face a marginally higher risk of being blown up by a terrorist bomb.

    This does not mean being passive in response to these atrocities. But the right response does not lie, as commentators on America's Fox News would have us believe, in more military firepower to zap "the enemy" in Iraq or elsewhere. It lies in skilled policing and intelligent policy.

    Quietly refusing the melodramatic metaphor of war, London's Metropolitan Police described the sites of the tube and bus bombings as "crime scenes." That's right. Crimes. Working in the most ethnically diverse city in the world, they have developed patient techniques of community relations and intelligence-gathering, as well as detection after the event.

    These days, events that happen faraway, in Khartoum or Kandahar, impact directly upon us, sometimes fatally as we commute to work, sitting in the Underground train between Kings Cross and Russell Square. There is no such thing as foreign policy any more. This is perhaps the deepest lesson of the London bombings. this is not a war in any familiar sense of the term.

    It is, however, the beginning of a long struggle, in which the conventional distinction between domestic and foreign policy no longer applies. For example, the way we treat our immigrants affects what happens in the Middle East, and our policies in the Middle East affect the way our immigrants will behave. No developed liberal democracy in the world can afford not to have a foreign policy in regions vital to our security. Europe and the world's other English-speaking democracies need to learn the lessons of London, and fast. But let's be sure we learn the right lessons.