Briarpatch Magazine » dave

Call for submissions: The Saskatchewan Issue

dave — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 02:19:42 +0000

With worldwide demand for Saskatchewan resources and the skyrocketing prices of oil, natural gas, grain, potash and uranium, the province now leads the country in economic growth. Couple this trend with the recent election of the right-wing Saskatchewan Party, and Saskatchewan, the birthplace of Canadian socialism, is undergoing significant transformations, including a government attack on [...]

The State of the Union: Extreme Failure

dave — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 17:25:22 +0000

Two takes on the state of the union to our south:

1. The Extreme Reality Makeover Show

By Hank Stuever Washington Post July 29, 2008

'Symbolic to our era like a sledgehammer to drywall, the biggest house that ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" ever made over -- a sprawling, four-bedroom starter castle, a three-car garage mahal with a turret and all -- has gone into foreclosure, in the 'burbs south of Atlanta.'

2. It's a Class War, Stupid Election season will be packed with distractions, but the real issue is becoming a matter of life and death

By Matt Taibbi Rolling Stone Jul 15, 2008

I am a single mother with a 9-year-old boy. To stay warm at night my son and I would pull off all the pillows from the couch and pile them on the kitchen floor. I'd hang a blanket from the kitchen doorway and we'd sleep right there on the floor. By February we ran out of wood and I burned my mother's dining room furniture. I have no oil for hot water. We boil our water on the stove and pour it in the tub. I'd like to order one of your flags and hang it upside down at the capital building... we are certainly a country in distress.

— Letter from a single mother in a Vermont city, to Senator Bernie Sanders

Seeds, crops and GMOs: New variety registration regulations threaten organic farming

dave — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 23:31:11 +0000

Listen to this special Making the Links Radio program, "Seed Variety Control by Private Interests" on how the Canadian Food Inspection Agency seed regulations will be changed to accommodate the interests of private concerns and the transnational corporations who are pursuing genetically engineered seed production. Host Don Kossick talks with organic farmer and National Farmers Union leader, Terry Boehm, about what these changes in seed variety registration will mean for farm communities and the organic farm movement in Canada. The SOD position paper states, "The availability of high quality seed free from contamination by GMO varieties and seed that is certified organic or eligible for use in certified organic seed propagation is fundamental requirement for organic grain faming in Canada. The proposed Seed Variety regulation threatens quality, access, public accountability, and the buyers right to unbiased information about seed." Listen here.

Olympics, anti-racism, despair, etc.

dave — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:11:19 +0000

From an investigation of the impact of the Olympics on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside to an exploration of Buddhism's looming schism, from an in-depth look at the confrontational tactics of anti-racist activism in urban Alberta to Derrick Jensen's thoughts on the liberatory potential of despair, this issue of Briarpatch seeks out tales of grace and courage in the unlikeliest of places.

Letter from the Editor: Drinking deeply from a half-empty glass

dave — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:06:45 +0000

“We are moving into a period of bewilderment, a curious moment in which people find light in the midst of despair, and vertigo at the summit of their hopes. It is a religious moment also, and here is the danger. People will want to obey the voice of Authority, and many strange constructs of just [...]

“It’s tremendous fun to fight back”: An interview with Derrick Jensen

dave — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:06:20 +0000

**By Dave Oswald Mitchell Briarpatch Magazine August 2008**

"If the book we are reading does not wake us, as with a fist hammering on our skull, why then do we read it? . . . what we must have are those books which come upon us like ill fortune, and distress us deeply, like the death of one we love better than ourselves, like suicide. A book must be an ice-axe to break the sea frozen inside us."

Franz Kafka

Derrick Jensen has been called the philosopher poet of the ecological movement. His books include The Culture of Make Believe, the two-volume Endgame, and most recently How Shall I Live My Life?: On Liberating the Earth from Civilization. Common to all his work is a fierce commitment to expose the roots of the violence and destruction that underpin the comforts and privileges of civilization.

Going Dutch: Reflections on nation, race and privilege

dave — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:03:53 +0000

**By Sadiqa Khan Briarpatch Magazine August 2008**

i. I stop at a roadside chip truck on a bright November afternoon. The chip truck worker is an older man leaning from an elevated window over a handful of customers.

-A medium fries with mayo, please. -You must be Dutch! Only the Dutch eat 'em that way. -Yeah, I am Dutch. -You know what else they like on their fries? -Peanut sauce. -What? No, mustard! Only the Dutch will ask for mustard. -Oh, really? -But you're not actually Dutch. -Yes, I am. -No, no. Come on, now.

ii. I am volunteering at a festival, working the doors of an event with a fellow volunteer, a tall, friendly man. We are seated at a desk together, searching through a box of name tags for our own names.

-Your name sounds Dutch, I say. -Yes, my parents are Dutch. -I'm from there, too. Do you speak Dutch at all? -No, not really. A bit of German. But I've been to Holland. To a little town in the north called Stadskanaal. -Oh, really. My aunt lives there. I've been to Stadskanaal lots of times. My mom's family is from the north. -Hey, small world! -Yeah. -But you're not Dutch, are you?

iii. I walk into a Dutch vice-consulate office to renew my passport. There are photographs on the wall: Amsterdam's narrow row houses and boats with curved, dark sails. I speak to the secretary, a woman with square-framed glasses on a gold chain.

-Hi, I'm here to renew my passport. -This is the Dutch vice-consulate. -I know. -You need to have a Dutch passport.

iv. At a crowded reception following a graduation ceremony, an acquaintance introduces me to a stylish, white-haired woman.

-This is Sadiqa. She's Dutch, too. -You mean Indonesian! -No, Dutch. The woman turns to my acquaintance. -How can she be Dutch?

I do not know how to divide myself into fractions when it comes to my ethnicity; I cannot say how much of me is my first language, or the food that was common on our family table, or where that food was grown. A genealogist might classify me as half Dutch and half Kenyan, and within the Kenyan half, several eighths and sixteenths Pakistani and Afghani.

Olympic Profits: The 2010 Games versus Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside

dave — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:00:46 +0000

**By Christopher A. Shaw Briarpatch Magazine August 2008**

"I'm watching things speed up in my own city, Vancouver, as legislators tighten the noose around society's most defenceless members. In the lead-up to 2010's Olympic orgasm for developers, the city council has passed laws to keep street people from sitting on park benches or reclining in parks. Behind this crazy-making effort to create a ‘civil city' is a conception of humans as rubbish."

Geoff Olson, "The Future Isn't What It Used To Be," Common Ground, July 2007

"The law in its majesty prohibits rich and poor alike from sleeping under bridges."

Anatole France

Home to legions of homeless people, drug dealers and users, sex trade workers and the working poor, Vancouver's Downtown Eastside suffers levels of disease that are comparable to the worst found in the Third World and crime rates on persons and property that exceed all of the rest of Vancouver combined. A sense of defeat hovers over much of Hastings Street like a fog. But in defiance to circumstance, there is pride here, too, and community. It's more than possible to imagine that the Downtown Eastside with its vibrant history would blossom in thousands of ways if only the various levels of government cared enough to help. That government doesn't care speaks volumes to social priorities in Vancouver's headlong rush to be a "world-class" city, and nowhere is this more obvious than in the handling of the Downtown Eastside and its inhabitants in the lead-up to the 2010 Olympics.

Fighting fire with fire: Anti-racist organizing in Alberta

dave — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:58:29 +0000

**By Ava McDougall* Briarpatch Magazine August 2008**

*Author's note: With the exception of Jason Devine and Bonnie Collins, all anti-racist activists quoted in this article have been given pseudonyms. The writer's name has also been changed. The reason for this should be obvious: neo-Nazis are dangerous, and those who organize to stop them put themselves at risk.

Even more dangerous than neo-Nazis, though, is the prospect that the actions of a few extremists could distract attention from the systemic discrimination and violence that indigenous peoples, people of colour and queer people (to name just a few of our society's marginalized groups) encounter every day.

Blatant racism may infuriate or disgust us, but so too should elevated rates of poverty, violence, and poor health among members of oppressed groups-the real-world consequences of systemic racism and discrimination. Neo-Nazi organizing in our communities demands our attention, but so do these more subtle but far more widespread manifestations of racism.

Jason Devine and his fiancée Bonnie Collins live with their four sons, ages three to nine, in a cluttered townhouse on a quiet side street in Calgary. Both Devine and Collins are active members of the Communist Party of Canada and Anti-Racist Action (Calgary). On February 12, 2008, while the boys slept upstairs, Devine heard a crash and saw a flash outside his kitchen window. He knew immediately that someone had thrown a firebomb at his house.

The threatened future of Canada’s universal, public postal service

dave — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:57:20 +0000

This is very frightening. On a related note, Canada Post is set to formally withdraw from the Publications Assistance Program (a key support for small media like Briarpatch) in April 2009, and plans to introduce “distance-related pricing” (meaning it will cost us more to send a magazine to Halifax or Toronto than to Saskatoon) [...]