Hard to imagine a more powerful use of political street theatre than this.
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for May 2007.
Tags: anti-war, direct action
By Anthony Fenton
June/July 2007
If maintaining Canada’s Afghan occupation requires a “perception war” on Canadian soil, then are Canadians now the enemy? Anthony Fenton investigates.
Right: Detail of cover illustration by Robert Carter
Few Canadians know that the transformation of Canada’s military and foreign policy establishment towards more aggressive opperations has been afoot since the end of the Cold War. But in the face of Canada’s escalating engagement in a dirty counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, are Canadians finally beginning to wake up to this fact? The military and economic establishments certainly fear as much, which is why we’ve witnessed such a media barrage of patriotism and militarism in the past year. Canada’s heavily concentrated media industry and its incomplete and uncritically supportive coverage of Canada’s Afghan adventure have been crucial to the establishment’s effort to push public opinion into line with Canada’s new foreign policy alignment.
GENEVIEVE SIMMS
By Nicole Cohen
June/July 2007
I don’t recall the exact moment I became skeptical of the term labour of love, but I do remember the day it began feeling like an inappropriate descriptor for Shameless, the independent, feminist magazine for teens I co-founded in 2003 and edited until recently.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been getting a lot of flak in the North American press for refusing to renew the license of a major private broadcaster, but there’s much more to the story than meets the eye.
After being cut off by the Conservative chair during his presentation to a parliamentary hearing on continental integration a couple of weeks ago, Gordon Laxer finally got to say his piece in yesterday’s Globe and Mail.
Judge for yourself whether Laxer’s remarks were “not relevant.”
Tags: energy
You’d have to read right to the end of this article on Harper’s frontline pep rally to find this gem of a punchline:
But there were visible signs his audience, which crowded around the podium and sat atop armoured vehicles parked behind Harper for the benefit of the cameras, was decidedly non-partisan.
Scores of soldiers began filing out the moment the prime minister finished speaking. An officer stopped them and said: “The prime minister is still here - so that means we’re still here. Get back inside.”
Tags: anti-war, foreign policy
![[image of michael moore donning rubber gloves]](http://www.commondreams.org/archive/wp-content/photos/thumb_0519_09.jpg)
In March, Moore travelled to Cuba with a group of emergency workers from New York’s Ground Zero to see whether they would receive better care under the Castro regime than they had under George Bush. He had applied for permission to travel in October 2006 and received no reply.
In a letter dated May 2, the treasury department notified Moore that it was investigating him for unlicensed travel to Cuba, or, as the missive put it, engaging in “travel-related transactions involving Cuba.”
Now team Moore is hitting back.
Two good reads via Insurgent American:
Old MacDonald Had A Farmers’ Market:
Total self-sufficiency is a noble, misguided ideal
By Bill McKibben
Incharacter
Winter 2007
“It is rumored in the corridors that the erratic and attention-seeking Canadian ED, Samy Watson, was defending Wolfowitz in the Board, and apparently supporting the obstructive Americans, while Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, his boss, was back in Canada taking credit for having pushed Wolfowitz into such negotiations. This is typical of the Harper government, playing both sides against the middle as it attempts to curry favor with anyone who they think will be fooled.”
http://www.worldbankpresident.org/archives/000733.php
(thanks to Murray Dobbin for the tip-off)
