Friday, August 04, 2006

Gone Fishing


It's the long weekend in Alberta, though federal workers don't get the day off. So I am gone, but not forgotten. Won't be blogging this weekend. See ya Tuesday. Besides there is enough fun stuff here to read....catch up on some of my older pieces, while you wait for my pithy comments on the world as it is, as it was and as it should be.

Terrorist Government

Comments made on my article Hezbollah Are Not Terorrists claim that no government or state would allow a political organization to be armed and independent of the state. Of course that is true, however the Lebanese Government recognizes Hezbollah as its National Resistance.

And of course there is another state in the neighbourhood that has a history of arising from terrorism.

Lessons From History

On July 22, 1946, the King David Hotel was blown up by Jewish terrorists killing 91 and injuring 45 - mostly British and Arabs. The attack was ordered by the Haganah, the Jewish paramilitary terrorist organization which was the precursor to the IDF. The actual attack was caried out by the group Irgun under the leadership of Menachem Begin, later the Prime Minister of Isreal.


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Lets Get Our Facts Straight


There is a myth being perpetuated by Pro-Israel commentators and pundits that Hezbollah has been using rocket attacks on Israel before the current Lebanon conflict. Untrue.

Of course that doesn't stop Israeli apologists like Warren Kinsella from lying in print.

"What media admonitions are now being levelled Hezbollah, which Canada still considers a terrorist organization – and which fired hundreds of rockets at Israelis for months, and continues to do so? Nary a peep."

The fact is that it was Hamas that has been attaking Israel with rockets for months, not Hezbollah who only began their rocket attacks after Israel attacked southern Lebanon.

Of course Hezbollah has been accused of rocket attacks before, which turned out not to be true. And that was in 2005.

No rocket attacks were conducted prior to the raid into Israel in July when Hezbollah captured the Israel soldiers.

That clearly exposes Kinsella's 'big lie' though he is not the only one to make this false claim. And of course he does so because he equates Hezbollah to the Nazi's as does the National Post.

So we are clear let me repeat this 'fact'; Hezbollah launched its 'counter offensive' only after Israel launched its attack on Southern Lebanon, NOT before.

Nor were Hezbollah attacks made against civilians in the past two years, they were on Israel Defense Forces on the Lebanese border.
Hezbollah, which fought a guerrilla war against Israel's 18-year occupation of Lebanon's southern border, frequently targets Israeli troops in the disputed Shebaa farms area.


Thats the facts.


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The Tyrant

Accusations of dictator and tyrant abound in the press these days.

Of course they are refering to this guy;















Of course those same accusations could apply to this guy too;
















Also See:

Cuba

One Party State

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Liberal Leadership Race Woman-less

Far and Wide does an assessment on the 'contenders' for the Liberal Leadership who he thinks have a chance. Who's Winning The Liberal Leadership Race? CTV says that the backroom boys agree. Liberal brass suggest tight 5-way leadership race

Unfortunately there are NO women in this listing. Where are they?

You have at least two running, Caroline Bennet and Martha Hall Findlay. So the Liberals publish a Pink Paper on Women in the Party and the top dogs in this race remain, men.

Calgary Herald Columnist Don Martin opines that Martha Hall Findlay may be the dark horse.
No-name Toronto lawyer vows to take Liberals out of the doghouse As does the Tor Star;MARTHA'S THE ONE TO WATCH

Hope springs eternal as the saying goes. But boys being boys, and backroom boys being the ultimate boys club, well the Liberals will be a long time coming in electing a woman as leader.

Why? Well they can look to the Conservatives who elected a woman PM only to lose the election. Not her fault, it was a Mulroney backlash. And the NDP has had two women leaders, neither of which managed to get the publicity Jack the Moustache has.

Parliamentary Politics remains a boys club regardless of sufferage. Women in the Liberal Party remain tokens, just ask Sheila who was stabbed in the back by Martin. Or ask Ignatieff who took his seat from a woman MP.

The Liberals are all about tokenism. Always have been, always will be. They have their token labour types, like Buzz and the General Workers Union in Toronto, they have their token minority groups,aboriginals, in the closet gays and lesbians, visible minorities, pro-lifers, pro-choice, ethnic minorities, women, etc.

Tokenism is Liberalism.


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A Green Harper?

The Edmonton Journal suggests that Harper could become the Green PM if he made Clayoquot Sound a national park. I am sure the editorial board had its tongue firmly in its cheek, with this cheeky comment;

If the B.C. government won't come to its senses and reverse the regional board's decision and permanently protect the area, Prime Minister Stephen Harper ought to find a way. Harper could think of it as a fitting payback to the lumber industry that has embarrassed him over his softwood lumber deal, and at the same time as a way of winning back some of the environmental support his government has lost over the retreat from the Kyoto climate-change accord.

Anyone in the PMO reading the Edmonton Journal? You might want to pass this on to the Harper.



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Murray Bookchin RIP


It is with great sadness that I have found out that anarchist theoritician, the author of Listen Marxist, The Limits of the City, etc. Founder of the Social Ecology Movement and anti-Lifestylist/Anti-Post Leftist Anarchism, and general curmodgen of the anarchist movement, Murray Bookchin has passed away.I agreed with Bookchin more than I disagreed with him.

For instance he dared to challenge the tree huggers with this idea; strip mining is better than deep mining. Mining is a horrible experience for workers as we can tell from the amount of mine accidents that occur. Far safer is strip mining. While it looks awful, the fact is that for the workers who mine, it is far more effective and safe. And the land can be reclaimed. While a mine can never be reclaimed. Those who talk about strip mining raping the earth should think about the miles of deep mines that dig into the earth never to be used again for anything expect perhaps for dumping toxic and nuclear waste. Brilliant.

A toast to Murray who will be with us still in his volumous writings. And I hope will continue to influence our movement with his thoughts. Because he remains a real alternative to the dweebs like the Chuck O , Jason McQuinn and the Green Anarchists. They are intellectual fleas and woe betide our movement with them as the next generation of anarchists. Ok everyone back to the books, lets read our Bookchin to get a good grounding in modern anarchist thought.


Here is a biography/eulogy on Murray.


Murray Bookchin, visionary social theorist, dies at 85
Murray Bookchin, the visionary social theorist and activist, died
this Sunday, July 30.
By Brian Tokar
Murray Bookchin, the visionary social theorist and activist, died
during the early morning of Sunday, July 30th in his home in Burlington,
Vermont. During a prolific career of writing, teaching and political
activism that spanned half a century, Bookchin forged a new
anti-authoritarian outlook rooted in ecology, dialectical philosophy and
left libertarianism.


Keywords: Analysis, Global, Political Theory,

Murray Bookchin

Murray Bookchin, the visionary social theorist and activist, died
during the early morning of Sunday, July 30th in his home in Burlington,
Vermont. During a prolific career of writing, teaching and political
activism that spanned half a century, Bookchin forged a new
anti-authoritarian outlook rooted in ecology, dialectical philosophy and
left libertarianism.

During the 1950s and ‘60s, Bookchin built upon the legacies of utopian
social philosophy and critical theory, challenging the primacy of
Marxism on the left and linking contemporary ecological and urban crises
to problems of capital and social hierarchy in general. Beginning in the
mid-sixties, he pioneered a new political and philosophical
synthesis*termed social ecology*that sought to reclaim local
political power, by means of direct popular democracy, against the
consolidation and increasing centralization of the nation state.

From the 1960s to the present, the utopian dimension of Bookchin’s
social ecology inspired several generations of social and ecological
activists, from the pioneering urban ecology movements of the sixties,
to the 1970s’ back-to-the-land, antinuclear, and sustainable technology
movements, the beginnings of Green politics and organic agriculture in
the early 1980s, and the anti-authoritarian global justice movement that
came of age in 1999 in the streets of Seattle. His influence was often
cited by prominent political and social activists throughout the US,
Europe, South America, Turkey, Japan, and beyond.

Even as numerous social movements drew on his ideas, however, Bookchin
remained a relentless critic of the currents in those movements that he
found deeply disturbing, including the New Left’s drift toward
Marxism-Leninism in the late 1960s, tendencies toward mysticism and
misanthropy in the radical environmental movement, and the growing focus
on individualism and personal lifestyles among 1990s anarchists. In the
late 1990s, Bookchin broke with anarchism, the political tradition he
had been most identified with for over 30 years and articulated a new
political vision that he called communalism.

Bookchin was raised in a leftist family in the Bronx during the 1920s
and ‘30s. He enjoyed retelling the story of his expulsion from the Young
Communist League at age 18 for openly criticizing Stalin, his brief
flirtation with Trotskyism as a labor organizer in the foundries of New
Jersey, and his introduction to anarchism by veterans of the immigrant
labor movement during the 1950s. In 1974, he co-founded the Institute
for Social Ecology, along with Dan Chodorkoff, then a graduate student
at Vermont’s Goddard College. For 30 years, the Institute for Social
Ecology has brought thousands of students to Vermont for intensive
educational programs focusing on the theory and praxis of social
ecology. A self-educated scholar and public intellectual, Bookchin
served as a full professor at Ramapo College of New Jersey despite his
own lack of conventional academic credentials.He published more than 20
books and many hundreds of articles during his lifetime, many of which
were
translated into Italian, German, Spanish, Japanese, Turkish and other
languages.

During the 1960s - ‘80s, Bookchin emphasized his fundamental
theoretical break with Marxism, arguing that Marx’s central focus on
economics and class obscured the more profound role of social hierarchy
in the shaping of human history. His anthropological studies affirmed
the role of domination by age, gender and other manifestations of social
power as the antecedents of modern-day economic exploitation. In The
Ecology of Freedom(1982), he examined the parallel legacies of
domination and freedom in human societies, from prehistoric times to the
present, and he later published a four-volume work,The Third Revolution,
exploring anti-authoritarian currents throughout the Western
revolutionary tradition.

At the same time, he criticized the lack of philosophical rigor that
has often plagued the anarchist tradition, and drew theoretical
sustenance from dialectical philosophy*particularly the works of
Aristotle and Hegel; the Frankfurt School*of which he became
increasingly critical in later years*and even the works of Marx and
Lenin. During the past year, even while terminally ill in Burlington,
Bookchin was working toward a re-evaluation of what he perceived as the
historic failure of the 20th century left. He argued that Marxist crisis
theory failed to recognize the inherent flexibility and malleability of
capitalism, and that Marx never saw capitalism in its true contemporary
sense. Until his death, Bookchin asserted that only the ecological
problems created by modern capitalism were of sufficient magnitude to
portend the system’s demise.

Murray Bookchin was diagnosed several months ago with a fatal heart
condition. He will be remembered by his devoted family members*including
his long-time companion Janet Biehl, his former wife Bea Bookchin, his
son, daughter, son-in-law, and granddaughter*as well as his friends,
colleagues and frequent correspondents throughout the world. There will
be a public memorial service in Burlington, Vermont on Sunday, August
13th. For more information, contact info(at)social-ecology.org.


Also See:

Anarchists


Anarchism

RIP/Obitruaries



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Thursday, August 03, 2006

Laxer Wrong

James Laxer, the old new leftie is wrong again. He predicts that Kennedy will win the Liberal Leadership race and be a threat to both the NDP and Conservatives. Wishful thinking that. He dismisses Bob Rae outright. Of course that was yesterday. Today we know that Bob Rae has raised more filthy Liberal lucre than any other Leadership hopeful. Leaving the likes of Ken Dryden to reconsider their campaigns.

Its a race between the back room boys candidate Ignatieff and Rae. No other Liberals need apply.

Ignatieff remains the voice of the right wing of the party, apparently Rae can mobilize the progressive wing at least in Toronto. While Laxer claims Kennedy has sold more memberships, that merely places him as King Maker, not a contender. Kennedy is dull, dull, dull as a candidate.

Rae has been underestimated because of the debacle of his NDP government in Ontario. And while the Liberal base is strong in Ontario, it is a National Leadership race. And the only thing that wins such a race is money. And the Liberals are all about money. Grassroots support is nice rhetoric, but its cold hard cash that buys, err...wins races.

So it behooves me to ask the remaining Liberal Leadership candidates to do us all a big favour; quit. This is a two man race, lets get it on before December. How about doing it in September, so we can have a nice fall election. Huh, how about it?


http://www.magazine.utoronto.ca/02autumn/images/Ignatieff&Rae3.jpg

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Pets Perish


Like the debacle of the evacuation of New Orleans after Katrina, once again peoples animal companions were denied the right to evacuate with their human owners from Lebanon. While this item covers the US evacuation, the Canadian State also denied its citizens the right to bring their pets with them from Lebanon.

US Rescue Efforts Again Fail Animals and their People
The cruise ships and helicopters sent by the U.S. to rescue Americans from war torn Lebanon are poignant symbols of our government’s commitment to its citizens, wherever they may be. Yet for many of the people who are desperate to escape the strife, the government’s plan comes at a high cost. U.S. officials forced these men, women and children, who already lost their homes and belongings, to leave their dogs, cats and other companion animals behind. Beloved animals were ordered out of their owners’ arms, abandoned on the streets and left to starve amidst the rubble.
Motro: In war, all living creatures can use some luck

Luna the albino boxer lolls indolently on her queen-size doggy bed in a Tel Aviv beauty salon while her master's customers stream through to be permed, streaked and touched up. Fat and secure, nothing disrupts Luna's quiet life of privileged luxury.

In contrast Luna's compatriot a mere 60 miles away is living life on the edge. A long-haired spaniel is featured smack on Page 1 of Haaretz, Israel's most prestigious newspaper. She stares at the camera with limpid gaze, showing off pink tongue, fluffy ears and snappy red leash. Around her paws lie jagged chunks of collapsed wall, smashed glass, shredded curtain and twisted metal.


Of course unlike Corporations that are defined as 'persons' under US law, animals are still defined as property, thus evacuations limit the amount of 'property' evacuees can travel with. Catch 22 until we change the laws around companion animals to be deemed 'persons'.

Pets are property, and people traditionally have received little more than the animal's market value, according to Joyce Tischler, founding director of the Animal Legal Defense Fund, an advocacy group based in Cotati, Calif.



And of course the indiscriminate bombing of the Lebanese coastline by Israel has created suffering for animals there too. Oil slicks are now contaminating the Mediterranean coast line.

Coastal animals latest casualty in war-torn Lebanon Discovery Reports Canada

Lebanon Oil Spill Makes Animals Casualties of War National Geographic



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The New Cuban Revolution


David Suzuki covers the Cuban Green Revolution in his TV Series the Nature of Things. Rather timely it should show this week. Proving that the revolution in Cuba is alive and kicking, regardless of the embargo by the US and the declining health of el presidente.



cuba:
the accidental revolution

Cuba: The Accidental Revolution are two one-hour documentaries celebrating the country's success in providing for itself in the face of a massive economic crisis, and how its latest revolutions, an agricultural revolution and a revolution in science and medicine are having repercussions around the world.

Without fertilizer and pesticides, Cubans turned to organic methods. Without fuel and machinery parts, Cubans turned to oxen. Without fuel to transport food, Cubans started to grow food in the cities where it is consumed. Urban gardens were established in vacant lots, school playgrounds, patios and back yards. As a result Cuba created the largest program in sustainable agriculture ever undertaken. By 1999 Cuba's agricultural production had recovered and in some cases reached historic levels.

It is this adaptablitiy of the Cuban State that will allow it to survive the eventual death of Castro. And no it won't turn reactionary and collapse into Mafia Capitalism like the Soviet Union did. Despite the rhetoric about the 'Castro dictatorship' the Cuban revolution is still a 'Peoples Revolution', and the people will defend their gains.

Also See:
CUBA


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