Briarpatch Magazine » the briar-wire http://briarpatchmagazine.com Fiercely independent (and often irreverent) news & views. Mon, 21 Jul 2008 18:25:25 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.5.1 en The threatened future of Canada’s universal, public postal service http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/07/13/the-future-of-universal-public-postal-service-is-at-stake/ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/07/13/the-future-of-universal-public-postal-service-is-at-stake/#comments Sun, 13 Jul 2008 23:57:20 +0000 dave http://briarpatchmagazine.com/?p=672 http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/07/13/the-future-of-universal-public-postal-service-is-at-stake/feed/ The Harper ‘Apology’ — Saying ‘Sorry’ with a Forked Tongue http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/07/03/harper-apology/ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/07/03/harper-apology/#comments Fri, 04 Jul 2008 01:10:11 +0000 dave http://briarpatchmagazine.com/?p=671 By Mike Krebs Socialist Voice June 29, 2008 Mike Krebs is an Indigenous activist in Vancouver and a contributing editor of Socialist Voice. Related Reading: Roots and Revolutionary Dynamics of Indigenous Struggles in Canada "I want to get rid of the Indian problem. I do not think as a matter of fact, that the country ought to continuously protect a class of people who are able to stand alone... Our objective is to continue until there is not a single Indian in Canada that has not been absorbed into the body politic and there is no Indian question, and no Indian Department, that is the whole object of this Bill." -Duncan Campbell Scott, head of the Department of Indian Affairs and founder of the residential school system, 1920 On June 11, 2008, Stephen Harper, prime minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party, issued an "apology" for the residential school system that over 150,000 Indigenous children were forced through. The hype before and after the statement was enormous, with extensive coverage in all major media. This event had a strong emotional and psychological impact on Indigenous survivors of residential schools all across Canada, who suffered attempted forced assimilation as well as countless acts of violence, rape, and abuse. Descendents of those subjected to this system were equally affected. People packed into community halls and similar venues on June 11 for what was bound to be an emotionally triggering day for survivors, regardless of their view towards the meaning of the "apology." Some survivors reportedly felt that the statement was a step forward, while many were highly critical. In trying to understand the responses of Indigenous people across Canada to this "apology," it is first important to address what it did not do. It must be judged in terms of the ability of Indigenous people to move forward in the process of true healing, not just from the effects of the residential school system, but from the entire process of Canadian colonialism. In this framework, the deficiencies of the "apology" are much greater than any positive impact it could have. A crime of genocide "I don't want to hear it. You know, you might as well send the janitor up to apologize...if it's just empty words or a nicely written text." - Michael Cachagee, survivor of Shingwauk Indian Residential School[1] If there is one thing that Mr. Harper's "apology" provided that could be considered groundbreaking or new, it's the idea that there can be crimes without criminals. You would think offering an "apology" means taking some sort of accountability for the residential school system. But Harper's statement acknowledges that what happened is a "mistake" without dealing with it as a crime, and without any sense of any individual accountability for it. It views the residential school system as only a mistake. No discussion of the residential school system can be meaningful without acknowledging that this was an act of genocide. For those who value the importance of international law and the United Nations convention of genocide, let's look at the UN definition itself as outlined in the "Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948": "Article 2. In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group." Arguably all five of these criteria apply to the residential school system and other aspects of the Canadian government's colonization of Indigenous people. And there can be no argument that parts (b) and (e) apply, as a number of Indigenous writers have pointed out.[2] It is important to note that guilt for this crime lies not only with the individuals who committed specific crimes against Indigenous people (i.e. sexual assault, physical violence, forced removal), but also with those who enacted the entire policy. So even though Harper apologized for the residential schools as a "system," it doesn't absolve individuals who participated in the numerous criminal acts they committed. Yet, that is what Harper's statement attempts to do by apologizing on behalf of "all Canadians," deceptively hiding behind the false logic that "nobody is guilty if everyone is." This is similar to some of the ideas discussed by Cherokee activist and academic Andrea Smith in Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Smith uses Carol Adam's concept of the "absent referent" in exploring various aspects of sexual violence against Indigenous women, as well as how this concept recurs throughout Western society, mythology, and history. One example is that of the "battered" woman, which makes women "the inherent victims of battering. The batterer is rendered invisible and thus the absent referent".[3] A similar tool of deception is at work in not only the "apology," but the entire approach of the Canadian government in its "solutions" to the residential school issue. Aside from notorious cases like that of the Archbishop Hubert O'Connor,[4] and others who can be easily tarred as "bad people who did bad things," in Harper's statement the perpetrator of the crimes against residential school survivors has no tangible face, almost no concrete existence. FULL ARTICLE]]> http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/07/03/harper-apology/feed/ ‘Dare Anyone Say a Word?’: The Canadian Labour Congress Convention of 2008 http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/22/dare-anyone-say-a-word/ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/22/dare-anyone-say-a-word/#comments Sun, 22 Jun 2008 23:33:55 +0000 dave http://briarpatchmagazine.com/?p=670 By John Peters Socialist Project E-Bulletin No. 114 June 17, 2008 There is always something unsettling about people who say one thing and do another. There is for one thing the hypocrisy. Then, there is the uncertainty. It only takes a few disappointments to sow the seeds of doubt about whether you can ever trust a person's judgement again or whether you can ever expect them to fulfill their responsibilities in the future. These problems become even greater when those in leadership positions engage in such 'shambolic' efforts that involve saying much and doing little, while rejecting all criticism. Couple this with trying to shut down any hints of debate or questioning of decisions or strategies, and what you end up with is a sort of variation on the 'Emperor has no clothes' fable. All these problems were very much in evidence at the recent Canadian Labour Congress Convention in Toronto (May 26-30, 2008) and all of these problems raise serious red flags about the state of the Canadian labour movement today. But in a variation of the story, there was something even more staged and more malevolent about the Congress - more an event of the ‘Leader has no clothes, but I dare anyone to say anything about it.' Even though there were many good resolutions dealing with renewing organizing, fighting privatization, establishing a national pharmacare program, and protecting and renewing good, unionized manufacturing jobs, there was very little to suggest that the Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) would play any effective role in pushing these policies forward. Many of the final CLC resolutions suggested nothing more than future meetings with union staff to discuss options. Others only broached the importance of raising issues. Few detailed how a campaign would actually be launched. None made the promise that any money would be devoted to these causes. Even more worrisome was that in the floor debates, there was a good deal of evidence that the CLC and many in leadership positions were more interested in trying to shut down discussion and shut down the kind of activism necessary to move progressive ideas forward, rather than trying to stir passions, raise public awareness, and mobilize workers across Canada. ]]> http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/22/dare-anyone-say-a-word/feed/ Bush’s last stand: The Status of Forces Agreement http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/19/status-of-forces-agreement/ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/19/status-of-forces-agreement/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:50:18 +0000 dave http://briarpatchmagazine.com/?p=668 Why Iraq won't be South Korea By Pepe Escobar Asia Times June 20, 2008 The United States invasion of Iraq then takes on an even broader meaning. Not only does it constitute an attempt to control the global oil spigot and hence the global economy though domination over the Middle East. It also constitutes a powerful US military bridgehead on the Eurasian land mass which ... yields it a powerful geostrategic position in Eurasia with at least the potentiality to disrupt any consolidation of an Eurasian power that could indeed be the next step in that endless accumulation of political power that must always accompany the equally endless accumulation of capital. - David Harvey, The New Imperialism, 2003 WASHINGTON - Everyone remembers the George W Bush "Mission Accomplished" victory speech on board of an aircraft carrier off the San Diego coast in the spring of 2003. Over five years - and a trillion dollars - later, Bush's last stand is to force a neo-colonial Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) under Iraqi throats by the end of July, acquire the right to go on "war on terror" mode in Iraq forever, declare victory and thus win - finally - his war, now opposed by a striking majority of Americans. Call it "occupation forever". But there's one glitch: Iraqis are not falling for it. I need your oil so bad Flash back to September 2001. The neo-conservatives wanted their "new Pearl Harbor" really bad - something they had virtually implored for via the Project for a New American Century. They got it on September 11, 2001. Then the short anti-Taliban war in Afghanistan turned out to be a sort of test drive for Iraq. Echoing astute past observations by Hannah Arendt, US nationalism and imperialism was coupled with racism (towards Arabs and Islam). And the invasion of Iraq was finally conceptualized as a "demonstration project" - the push to create in the Mesopotamian sands a US-style, wealthy consumer society, a demilitarized client state under benign US protection. Better yet, a 21st century version of the South Korean "tiger" miracle - engineered by US military-technological power. But it all went way beyond Iraq as a new South Korea. David Harvey, the brilliant Oxford-educated American geographer who proposes, in his own words, long-term geopolitical analysis based on "historical-geographical materialism", wrote in 2003 that the invasion of Iraq offered "a vital strategic bridgehead ... on the Eurasian land mass that just happens to be the center of production of the oil that currently fuels (and will continue to fuel for at least the next 50 years) not only the global economy but also every large military machine that dares to oppose that of the United States." An empire of military bases and control of oil fields. These two crucial "benchmarks", applied to Iraq, are what's left of that alliance between the neo-cons and the Christian Right which took over the US government with an imperial project of military rule over global oil resources. Now it's twilight time; and no wonder the Bush administration has come out with all guns blazing. Without a new, US Big Oil-friendly Iraqi oil law, and without a SOFA, US$3 trillion - according to Joseph Stiglitz's and Linda Bilmes' book - will have been spent for nothing. However, on Thursday, the New York Times reported that Exxon Mobil, Shell, Total and BP were in the final stages of negotiations on contracts that will return them to Iraq, 36 years after losing their oil concession to nationalization by Saddam Hussein. They are reportedly in negotiations with the Oil Ministry for no-bid contracts to service Iraq's largest fields. Should the deals go through, they would lay the foundation for the first commercial work for major Western companies in Iraq since the American invasion in 2003. It is expected that Iraq's output could increase to about 3 million barrels a day from its current 2.5 million. Initially, the Bush administration wanted no less than 58 permanent US bases in Iraq. There are already 30 in place. It doesn't matter that on April 8, US ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker had said the US "will not establish permanent bases in Iraq and we anticipate that it will expressly foreswear them". The Bush administration's ploy essentially amounts to turning over legal control of US bases to a client regime. Heavy pressure is the name of the game. To convince the Iraqis, the Bush administration is holding no less than $50 billion of Iraqi money in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Other "subtle" forms of pressure also apply. The Iraqis wanted to sell oil in euros as well as in dollars. The Bush administration issued its fatwa - and it's a "no". This shady deal the Bush administration wants so badly is a SOFA only in theory. In fact, it's a smokescreen. Under US law, it would have to be submitted to the senate. The Bush administration wants to totally bypass the senate. And the deal is not about Iraq either. It's essentially about Iran - as in the neo-con 2003 mantra "real men go to Tehran". That's the meaning of the Bush administration demand, according to Iraqi lawmakers, of "the right ... to strike, from within Iraqi territory, any country it considers a threat to its national security." The Bush administration wants to totally control Iraqi airspace. The Bush administration wants to employ US firepower without approval from the "sovereign" Iraqi government. The Bush administration wants immunity from prosecution in Iraqi courts for all American troops and even dozens of thousands of contractors - most of them Blackwater-style mercenaries. The US Army simply cannot function properly without these privatized warriors. Were a deal to be reached under the current terms - the deadline remains July 31 - nothing would be easier for the Bush administration than to accuse Iran of interfering in Iraq - as it is already doing non stop - and then attack Iran under the "legal" cover of this SOFA. The Bush administration also would have a hard time getting the US Congress to explicitly approve an attack on Iran. So why not use the Iraqi Parliament instead? No wonder scores of Iraqi parliamentarians, Sunni and Shi'ite alike, fear the deal is basically a cover to use Iraq as a base to attack Iran. Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, went to Tehran and solemnly promised that Iraq would not be used as a US base for an attack on Iran. Iran Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told Maliki that Iraqis have to "think of a solution to free" themselves from US power. Not surprisingly, Khamenei advised Maliki not to sign the deal. Maliki, for his part, reassured the Iranians in no uncertain terms Iraq is not an arena for a deadly US-Iran Armageddon. FULL ARTICLE]]> http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/19/status-of-forces-agreement/feed/ Disaster in the Making: Canada Concludes Its Free Trade Agreement With Colombia http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/12/disaster-in-the-making/ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/12/disaster-in-the-making/#comments Thu, 12 Jun 2008 21:14:26 +0000 dave http://briarpatchmagazine.com/?p=667 By Todd Gordon The Bullet #112 SocialistProject.ca What's the monetary value of a Colombian trade unionist's life? As it turns out, it depends on how many are killed in a given year since the potential fines the Colombian government will have to pay as penalty under its free trade agreement (FTA) with Canada whenever a union activist is killed is capped at $15 million. If this sounds like a sick joke I apologize, but this is in effect what the Canadian government actually negotiated. On June 7th, Canada proudly proclaimed that it had successfully concluded its trade deal with the human rights-troubled Andean country. Negotiated with an efficiency that must make the Bush administration - whose own trade agreement with Colombia has stalled because of Congressional opposition - jealous, the deal was concluded less than a year after negotiations began. With four Canadian cabinet ministers visiting Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and other members of his cabinet between July 2007 and February 2008, it's clear the Harper Tories had made the trade deal a major priority despite Colombia's appalling human rights record (see, for example, my article on Canada and Colombia). As new Foreign Affairs minister (and ex-Liberal), David Emerson, declared, "The Government of Canada is delivering on its commitment to open up opportunities for Canadian business in the Americas and around the world." The agreement, which still hasn't been made public, will now undergo a legal review by Canadian and Colombian lawyers. After the review is completed, it'll be brought to the House of Commons for ratification, which should not be a problem for the Tories despite their minority government since the Liberals have said they'll support it if it contains language on human rights. It does - but I'll come back to that in a moment.]]> http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/12/disaster-in-the-making/feed/ Dumpster-diving into the American Dream http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/11/dumpster-diving-into-the-american-dream/ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/11/dumpster-diving-into-the-american-dream/#comments Wed, 11 Jun 2008 19:23:16 +0000 dave http://briarpatchmagazine.com/?p=665 Squeezing the American Dream A review of The Big Squeeze: Tough times for the American worker
By Nicholas von Hoffman, Truthdig June 9, 2008 http://www.alternet.org/story/87405/
You may be surprised to learn that the pleasant person from FedEx Ground delivering your package owns the truck which he or she has parked in front of your house. FedEx Ground drivers, you will find out in Steven Greenhouse's The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, are not FedEx employees. They are what are called independent contractors, although it demands no little effort to discern what about their position is independent. If they do not do what they are told, their contracts are abrogated forthwith. They are required to buy their own truck with 60 monthly installments of $781.12, which comes to $46,867.20. Plus there is a final kicker payment of $8,000, all of which adds up to a grand total of almost $55,000. On top of this, as an independent business person, the driver must bear the costs of insurance, maintenance, fuel, repairs and the fee for the FedEx uniform rental. FedEx Ground drivers who want to take vacations must hire their own replacements to cover the routes while they are gone. If a FedEx Ground independent contractor can afford it, he should take a vacation because the hours are long, the work is hard and the compensation is less than princely. A driver will take home between $25,000 and $35,000 a year. One of the strengths of Greenhouse's book is that it puts the meat of specificity on the bones of labor statistics. The Big Squeeze is salted with interviews and biographies of people in dozens of occupations. It is instructive to read the statistics concerning highly trained people losing their jobs to people in low-wage countries, but the numbers take on painful significance when you are introduced to an electrical engineer named Myra Bronstein, working for Watchmark, a Bellevue, Wash., firm which develops software used by cell phone companies. One day Bronstein and 17 of her colleagues got an e-mail asking them to report to Watchmark's boardroom the following morning. As Myra and the other quality assurance engineers gathered in the boardroom, the director of human resources began giving out large manila envelopes. Once everyone was there, Myra recalled, "The head of HR said, 'Unfortunately, we're having layoffs, and you're in the room because you're being impacted by the layoffs.'" The 18 engineers were dumbstruck, but the head of human resources pressed on. "'Your replacements,'" she continued, "'are flying in from India, and you're expected to train them if you are going to receive severance.'"]]> http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/06/11/dumpster-diving-into-the-american-dream/feed/ Jailed Algonquin Leader Begins Hunger Strike http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/16/jailed-algonquin-leader-begins-hunger-strike/ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/16/jailed-algonquin-leader-begins-hunger-strike/#comments Fri, 16 May 2008 16:31:31 +0000 dave http://briarpatchmagazine.com/?p=656 Ardoch Algonquin First Nation May 15, 2008 - For Immediate Release On February 15, 2008 Ardoch Algonquin First Nation (AAFN) Spokesperson Robert Lovelace was sentenced in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in Kingston to 6 months in maximum security, plus crippling fines, for peacefully protesting uranium mining in the Ardoch homeland. Chief Paula Sherman was fined $15,000 and given until today to pay the fine, failing which she will be jailed. On March 17, a Superior Court judge in Thunder Bay sentenced six leaders of the Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) to six months after they were found in contempt of court in a dispute which is virtually identical to that of the Ardoch Algonquins. The jailing of respected, law-abiding community leaders has had a devastating impact on our communities, particularly on the families of those incarcerated. The indifference shown by the McGuinty government towards the rights of First Nation communities and the imposition of long jail terms and crippling fines in the name of "the rule of law" has further eroded respect for both the legal system and the government of Ontario in the eyes of First Nations people in this province.]]> http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/16/jailed-algonquin-leader-begins-hunger-strike/feed/ The Giant Pool of Money http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/14/the-giant-pool-of-money/ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/14/the-giant-pool-of-money/#comments Wed, 14 May 2008 22:31:31 +0000 dave http://briarpatchmagazine.com/?p=655 This American Life has just put out a show on the U.S. housing/credit crisis. TIL does an excellent job of teasing out the complex causes and devastating consequences of the subprime disaster.]]> http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/14/the-giant-pool-of-money/feed/ Shawn Brant’s Arrest – Statement by Sue Collis, Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/07/statement-on-shawn-brants-arrest/ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/07/statement-on-shawn-brants-arrest/#comments Wed, 07 May 2008 17:09:24 +0000 dave http://briarpatchmagazine.com/?p=649 http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/07/statement-on-shawn-brants-arrest/feed/ Financing the banker’s funeral http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/05/financing-the-bankers-funeral/ http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/05/financing-the-bankers-funeral/#comments Mon, 05 May 2008 16:54:09 +0000 dave http://briarpatchmagazine.com/?p=647 We need a national white-collar crime system that can take on finance bigwigs and hold them accountable. by Ken Georgetti Rabble.ca April 30, 2008 In recent months, as U.S. hedge funds have imploded south of the border, working Canadians have been told our economy isn't "subprimed." Sure, the experts say, current problems in global credit markets may mean less cash is available for Canadian companies. It will certainly mean fewer buyers for Canadian exports as U.S. workers face house foreclosures and higher costs for basic necessities. But be thankful, the experts reassure, you could be someone else. You could be one of the two million Americans who recently lost their homes after shady mortgage brokers sold them on crooked contracts. ]]> http://briarpatchmagazine.com/2008/05/05/financing-the-bankers-funeral/feed/