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As Chief Spence Starves, Canadians Awaken from Idleness and Remember Their Roots December 25, 2012Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, First Nations.
Tags: Canada, canada protest, First Nations, hunger strike, idle no more, naomi klein, political protest, roger hollander, Stephen Harper, theresa spence
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I woke up just past midnight with a bolt. My six-month-old son was crying. He has a cold – the second of his short life–and his blocked nose frightens him. I was about to get up when he started snoring again. I, on the other hand, was wide awake.
Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence, shown in December, 2011. (Sean Kilpatrick /THE CANADIAN PRESS)
A single thought entered my head: Chief Theresa Spence is hungry. Actually it wasn't a thought. It was a feeling. The feeling of hunger. Lying in my dark room, I pictured the chief of the Attawapiskat First Nation lying on a pile of blankets in her teepee across from Parliament Hill, entering day 14 of her hunger strike.
I had of course been following Chief Spence's protest and her demand to meet with Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discuss the plight of her people and his demolition of treaty rights through omnibus legislation. I had worried about her. Supported her. Helped circulate the petitions. But now, before the distancing filters of light and reason had a chance to intervene, I felt her. The determination behind her hunger. The radicality of choosing this time of year, a time of so much stuffing – mouths, birds, stockings – to say: I am hungry. My people are hungry. So many people are hungry and homeless. Your new laws will only lead to more of this misery. Can we talk about it like human beings?
Lying there, I imagined another resolve too – Prime Minister Harper's. Telling himself: I will not meet with her. I will not cave in to her. I will not be forced to do anything.
Mr. Harper may relent, scared of the political fallout from letting this great leader die. I dearly hope he does. I want Chief Spence to eat. But I won't soon forget this clash between these two very different kinds of resolve, one so sealed off, closed in; the other cracked wide open, a conduit for the pain of the world.
But Chief Spence's hunger is not just speaking to Mr. Harper. It is also speaking to all of us, telling us that the time for bitching and moaning is over. Now is the time to act, to stand strong and unbending for the people, places and principles that we love.
This message is a potent gift. So is the Idle No More movement – its name at once a firm commitment to the future, while at the same time a gentle self-criticism of the past. We did sit idly by, but no more.
The greatest blessing of all, however, is indigenous sovereignty itself. It is the huge stretches of this country that have never been ceded by war or treaty. It is the treaties signed and still recognized by our courts. If Canadians have a chance of stopping Mr. Harper's planet-trashing plans, it will be because these legally binding rights – backed up by mass movements, court challenges, and direct action will stand in his way. All Canadians should offer our deepest thanks that our indigenous brothers and sisters have protected their land rights for all these generations, refusing to turn them into one-off payments, no matter how badly they were needed. These are the rights Mr. Harper is trying to extinguish now.
During this season of light and magic, something truly magical is spreading. There are round dances by the dollar stores. There are drums drowning out muzak in shopping malls. There are eagle feathers upstaging the fake Santas. The people whose land our founders stole and whose culture they tried to stamp out are rising up, hungry for justice. Canada's roots are showing. And these roots will make us all stand stronger.
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, now out in paperback. Her earlier books include the international best-seller, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (which has just been re-published in a special 10th Anniversary Edition); and the collection Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (2002). To read all her latest writing visit www.naomiklein.org. You can follow her on Twitter: @NaomiAKlein.
I am cut and pasting my comments from a like article just to give readers an idea of what entailed here.
What the Government has proposed is to allow the concept of "private property rights" onto Reserve lands. What they claim is that by doing so they will "Create wealth".
What will really happen is a small group of natives will be granted title to the lands and then be able to sell the land off to developers. This is Capitalism at work where one small group gets rich and the rest get nothing.
By converting it into "Private Property" the land that could not be sold because it owned by the tribe as a whole, the land suddenly acquires "monetary value" under the capitalist system and this is pointed to as proof that they create wealth.
That the tribe in the future might have no land base at all because the "wealth creators" sold it all off for personal gain to someone wanting to build ski lodges or condo's is of no concern to the Government. (Added to that allowing the corporation to then pollute the land they now own at will thus removing all those treaty impediments to more tar sand development or pipeline construction)
No clearer example exists.
Private property is theft.
NAFTA did that to the indigenous communities of Mexico. Harper's stealth final solution for Aboriginal peoples dovetails well with his authoritarianism, corporatism, neo-conservativism and arch-Zionism. It is all part of the one big nasty ideology of 21st century fascism as a North American response to the 21st century socialism of South America (where incidentally, the poorest, most exploited heart of the American continent is again beating strong due to the efforts of the Morales government with the support of Chavez and Correa).
Deborah R. Martin
Love Canada's First Nations! Believe in Canada, the native one. … http://www.MillionaireProjects…
When a concept exists which claims the very Earth is a commodity to be exploited and commodified all other crimes follow. What madness to think that that which we did not create somehow can belong to some particular individual when the reverse is true: People belong to the Earth and not the other way around. Western thinking is dangerous in its immaturity.
George Washington
Thank you for your excellent insights.
No, private property is not theft. Allowing an elite few to own most/all property IS THEFT. Liberalism teaches us to blame "things" instead of blaming elites and their rotten egos and evil intentions. Liberals serve master this way. It's very likely that the optimum system consists of private property on a very small scale, to allow for owning specialized tools for creative work. But strong limits on how far that can go. Likewise, elitism is needed in the sense that certain highly productive "fountainheads" can benefit the society as a whole, but again, strong limits on how far that can go. In other words, keep the human ego on a VERY short leash. But don't blame the idea, don't blame the tool, don't blame the system. Blame the sociopath elites with their rotten egos and evil intentions.
Gabriele Drozdowski
rtdrury – you seem to have missed the point. Individual land ownership is a large part of the cause of the problem, as it divides people, and encourages only caring about their small portion, whereas communal land ownership encourages larger scale thinking (i.e. seven generations ahead), the health of not just one parcel, but the local environment. Yes, people still can have their own houses and land, but if individuals degrade the land or abuse it, the community as a whole can address this. A fragmented populace of individual owners is powerless to stop the destruction by the Elite, as it is clear that the courts or justice systems often get corrupted as well.
Mary McCurnin
glen taves
We're Idle No More empirePie Dec 22cnd, 2012
We're Idle no more we've been conned too many times before so I'll say it once more we're idle no no more
we've been conned by the right we've been conned by the left we've been rounded up poisoned and left bereft
Now corporate Harper has a new plan for us we're all under the bus with this omnibus bill to poison our water for short term gain for they've sold our soul to the corporate store
they have pallets of cash a forty five thousand million dollar stash for a first strike jet we don't need for an empire that don't lead the apple pie empire of bad seed
we've been conned by the right, left and middle too we've been rounded up poisoned and left bereft so Join hands in a circle of strength
dance to the east dance to the west
dance to the south dance to the north
for we're Idle no more for we're Idle no more for we're Idle no more
I nominate Chief Spence for the Nobel Peace prize on behalf of Mother Earth. Hell, if Obama can get the award, why not a authentic hero?
Here's a hint for those of you who are not living in Canada who post on CD, about Stevie harper: He's a psychopath.
Harper will let Chief Spence starve herself to death. And he won't give a tin-plated damn. He refuses to listen to anyone who is not either: A) a Corporate bagman, or B) a boot-licking sycophant. He has all but openly mocked Chief Spence as being a manipulative cry-baby.
Harper has a long and well documented history of being possessed of a virulent, violent bias and racist view of Canada's native peoples, pretty much along the lines of "Damn, dirty drunken injuns oughta just go and die."
Intercontinental Cry is compiling videos and links that speak to the conversation about and to better understand history, the intense actions by corporations and government around the world to cut off indigenous rights to their traditional lands, culture, ways of being, stewardwship of resources and future generations right to determine their own sustainable models of development.
Gabriele Drozdowski
Yes, Intercontinental Cry is a great resource for documentation on indigenous lands and rights abuses happening across the globe.
This episode would do as a a new chapter in an updated, "Shock Doctrine"; right in line with the usual neo-con tricks so well documented. This scheme sounds exactly like what happened to Russia under Boris Yeltsin"s privatization policies with the help and advice of US neo-con advisors, who also became very rich. The result was seven billionaire oligarchs and the the Russian poverty rate hitting 50 % as Russia's immense socialized resources and enterprises were sold off at below bargain rates and the economy collapsed. Credit Bill Clinton for that one, he sent the "experts"; Milton Freeman and the Chicago School strike again. See Janine Wedel, The Shadow Elite for a thorough description.
Portland is with you
Good story, gal! Love Canada's First Nations! Believe in Canada, the native one.
Naomi Klein does and I do. Just let's do it and have a better world starting with Canada. In the USA we can believe in our First and founding people.
Why should anyone believe in Canada's first nations?
Gabriele Drozdowski
Gabriele Drozdowski
Lack of, or under education about indigenous people is a serious flaw in our Western society. The conquering nations have worked hard at keeping it that way.
Gabriele. Henry Wallace responds to most indigenous issues with the same response, " I believe in america or canada the native one." It was a reasonable question, why do you believe in the native america, as in why do you always say that without ever saying why. Yes, that lack of education works both ways.
Well that and cultural and actual genocide of Canada's natives…
I am afraid the day the Cultural Genocide of Our First nations people will be complete is when their lands and tribal holdings turned into "private property" that can be bought and sold.
Aurora borealis The icy sky at night Paddles cut the water In a long and hurried flight From the white man to the fields of green And the homeland we've never seen.
They killed us in our tepee And they cut our women down They might have left some babies Cryin' on the ground But the firesticks and the wagons come And the night falls on the setting sun.
They massacred the buffalo Kitty corner from the bank The taxis run across my feet And my eyes have turned to blanks In my little box at the top of the stairs With my Indian rug and a pipe to share.
I wish a was a trapper I would give thousand pelts To sleep with Pocahontas And find out how she felt In the mornin' on the fields of green In the homeland we've never seen.
And maybe Marlon Brando Will be there by the fire We'll sit and talk of Hollywood And the good things there for hire And the Astrodome and the first tepee Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me Marlon Brando, Pocahontas and me Pocahontas.
(Neil Young)
And how about you, how do you stand in solidarity with Native people?
In the midst of despair a ray of hope: The indigenous peoples of our common home planet are on the rise and if any peoples exist who understand what needs doing it is them. Solidarity!
Actually fasting is healthy, up to around 30 days. Do your body good, whack the franken-food industry, and scare the politicians all in one fell swoop.
There is a MASSIVE difference between fasting (which means limited *intake* of food) and a Hunger Strike (which is voluntarily starving yourself to death if necessary to make a point).
Spence is on a Hunger Strike, and I have the very bad feeling she is going to become Harper's 'Bobby Sands'.
When is the last time you fasted for 30 days? What were the benefits?
Try hung parlament procedure which would have prevented the Con servatives from getting into government in the first place. Virtually every other parliamentary system has it. It works.
Too bad Harper views Parliamentary procedure as an impediment to the looting of the nation's economy and resources.
You'll want to get started.
Happy Holidays a simple truth:
When we negate the ego (world) we negate the world pain, suffering, oppression etc…and heal ourselves and the world.
Best wishes to indigenous peoples and their common-sense ethic of stewardship and sustainability.
Stephen Harper was elected with 38% of the vote because Canada has two strong parties (plus the Green Party, which elected its first member of parliament) to the left of Harper, which split the vote. The only answer is to change to a proportional, or at least an instant-runoff, system.
Or, not even anything that fancy. Just require regular runoffs in every riding that didn't get a 50%+1. This would have prevented the current Canadian govt.
I firmly believe Canada will throw out the Con servative or Tories at the next federal election.
I don't understand how after our Bushite catastrophe and other conservative disasters worldwide, Canadians could have voted for a conservative Prime Minister.
Mary McCurnin
Maybe the election was hacked and stolen. In my gut I feel this has been going on for decaded in the USA.
it seems that the only way conservatives can win is to steal elections.
"Conservatives". What a ridiculous name for people who only want to conserve the right to destroy everything in the name of profit.
Rich Smith
They used to be called reactionary. Words are potentially so powerful yet rarely used to reflect that power. Call it as you see it rather than using words that others foist upon you.
There is a growing amount of evidence that the last Federal Canadian election was tampered with in favor of Harper.
I woke up the other night hungry. I ate something and went to go sleep. But, something was gnawing at me. I knew enough people didn't care enough to stop Harper and I wished I was wrong. It's not the beginning, it's the end. This single protest won't be the spark. Yawn! And if it were, it would be too little too late even if we did miraculously stop the Canadian tar sands… too skeptical to believe… z-z-z-z…
wow, you are very brave to accept your fate, but one day you will still have to stand up.
No, I'm afraid standing up never goes as planned. It will cause Canadians to split as never before. It won't be pretty.
I'd rather it not be pretty and be right, than be uglier yet in silence.
That is a good reply. Some day we will all have to stand up and that will be a good day.
First Nations have a ten thousand year history in Canada, which is a Crown Confederation less than 150 years old. Canada is a Royal Occupation with far less historical legitimacy than Israel's. Is Queen Elizabeth staying up at night worrying about Chief Spence? Or will she make the usual Royal Proclamation from the gilded tower: "Let them eat cake!"
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In Quebec It's Official: Mass Movement Leads to Victory for Students September 22, 2012Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Economic Crisis, Education, Quebec.
Tags: jean charest, maple spring, naomi klein, parti quebecois, pauline marois, quebec, quebec election, quebec strike, roger hollander, student protest, student strike, student tuition, students
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Published on Friday, September 21, 2012 by Common Dreams
Naomi Klein: 'This is why radical movements are mercilessly mocked. They can win.'
Students protesting the rise in tuition fees demonstrate in Montreal Saturday, April 14, 2012. (Graham Hughes/THE CANADIAN PRESS)
After a year of revolt which became known as the "Maple Spring"—including massive street protests that received global attention—university students across Quebec were celebrating victory on Thursday night following the announcement from newly elected Premier Pauline Marois that the government was cancelling the proposed tuition hike that led to the student uprising and nullifying the contentious Bill 78 law which was introduced to curb the powerful protests.
"It's a total victory!" said Martine Desjardins, president of the Fédération étudiante universitaire du Québec, which is the largest student association with about 125,000 students. "It's a new era of collaboration instead of confrontation."
"Together we've written a chapter in the history of Quebec," she added. "It's a triumph of justice and equity."
Well-known Canadian author and activist Naomi Klein, responded to the news by tweeting:
This is why radical movements are mercilessly mocked. They can win. "It's official: Quebec tuition hikes are history"
And, "Bravo to the striking students," tweeted Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, a spokesperson for the Coalition large de l'association pour une solidarité syndicale étudiante (CLASSE) during the most tumultous and pitched episodes of the student mobilization, in French:
Victoire étudiante! Bravo aux grévistes ! "@LP_LaPresse: La hausse des droits de scolarité annulée, la loi 12 abrogée bit.ly/SbBSse"
Marois' announcement followed her very first cabinet meeting and was a fulfillment of promises she made during her recent campaign against the former premier, Jean Charest. For his part, Charest became the prime target of ire for students during their fight against the tuition hikes and following the passage of Bill 78, which he signed. The most odious sections of Bill 78, which later became Law 12, will be nullified by decree, said Marois.
The Montreal Gazette reports:
Whichever side of the debate you were on, there was no denying the significance of the moment. Marois, who was criticized by the Liberals for wearing a symbolic red square in solidarity with students for much of the conflict, made a promise to cancel the tuition increase — and she moved quickly to fulfill that commitment.
Students, who organized countless marches and clanged pots and never wavered from their goal of keeping education accessible with a tuition freeze, seemed at last to have triumphed definitively.
The various student groups, which range from the more radical CLASSE to the less strident FEUQ, do not share all the same political goals or tactics, but it is unquestionable that their shared movement helped lead to the downfall of the Charest government, paved the path for Marois victory, and culminated in yesterday's victory.
As CBC News reports:
"It's certain that we were very present[…] during the election to make sure that Charest, who was elected with a weak majority vote in 2008, was not reelected," said Desjardins.
Another more militant student association, CLASSE — the Coalition Large des Association pour une Solidarite Syndicale Étudiante — has as its central mandate a goal to keep fighting for free tuition. But Desjardins said FEUQ plans a calmer approach on pressure tactics.
Desjardins said she does not believe CLASSE's campaign for free tuition will negatively impact the FEUQ's plans. She pointed out that both groups had clearly outlined their differences during the student crisis.
The FEUQ president also said a consensus between the government and all student associations is possible.
White House to Be Encircled by Tar Sands Activists on Sunday November 4, 2011Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Energy, Environment.
Tags: alberta tar sands, bill mckben, bryan farrell, canada pipeline, daryl hannah, dirty oil, environment, james hansen, keystone xl, naomi klein, oil contamination, oil pipeline, roger hollander, tar sands, tm dechristopher, transcanada corp
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A lot has happened since 65 people (including myself) were arrested in front of the White House on August 20th to protest a planned 1,400-mile pipeline carrying tar sands oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast. For starters, over a thousand more people from across the country were arrested in the subsequent two weeks, including big names like NASA climate scientist James Hansen, author Naomi Klein and actress Daryl Hannah. Support from high places soon followed, from the New York Times editorial page to nine Nobel Peace Laureates.
Momentum kept rolling throughout September with protests popping up at Obama campaign events and an impressive day of civil disobedience where over 200 people were arrested on Parliament Hill in Ottawa. As attention continued to swirl around an issue that had only weeks prior been known by environmentalists and people living along the proposed pipeline route, cracks within government began to emerge.
By early October emails emerged detailing a scandalous relationship between State Department employees and a former Hillary Clinton presidential campaign leader turned pipeline lobbyist. The New York Times called this discovery a "flouting of environmental law." Not long thereafter, 20 members of Congress and three high-ranking senators expressed "serious concerns" about the pipeline and the State Department's tainted approval process
Continuing its reckless behavior, the State Department announced this week that it had lost tens of thousands of public comments on the pipeline and won't say how the remaining will be handled. Perhaps this level of inaction and the negative press that followed led President Obama to step forward on Tuesday and assume full ownership of the ultimate decision on the Keystone XL pipeline. He even went as far as to downplay the importance of jobs the pipeline might bring, saying, "I think folks in Nebraska, like all across the country, aren't going to say to themselves, "We'll take a few thousand jobs if it means that our kids are potentially drinking water that would damage their health …"
Author Bill McKibben, de-facto leader of the Tar Sands Action movement, called Obama's first comments on the pipeline a major turning point:
"Only a day ago the President's press secretary said the State Department would make the call. Now, it's very good to see the President taking full ownership of this decision and indicating that the environment will be the top priority going forward.
Of course, it's not just people in Nebraska that are upset about this project. People from all 50 states were arrested in Washington this August protesting the pipeline and they will be coming back to the White House this Sunday because this pipeline is also a conduit for climate change."
Not only will they be coming back to the White House, but this time they'll be encircling it. Over 4,000 people have signed up to show the president, as the organizers put it, that "he has the support needed to reject the pipeline – and that there will be real consequences if he doesn't.
According to Reuters, President Obama's advisers are already worried that approval of the pipeline could cost him political support from Democrats in 2012.
Senior officials at the White House and Obama's Chicago campaign headquarters have fielded complaints from supporters who are unhappy about TransCanada Corp's plan to build a massive pipeline to transport crude from Alberta to Texas, sources familiar with the situation said.
The concerns could contribute to a delay in the approval process for the Keystone XL pipeline just as the 2012 presidential campaign heats up.
This is a good sign, but obviously for anyone involved in the campaign, anything short of a rejection will be unacceptable. As environmental activist Tim DeChristopher noted in a letter from prison last week, there's another way to look at Sunday's action: "It's an opportunity to meet the people you will be linking hands with in front of a bulldozer if Obama actually signs off on this misguided pipeline."
If you can be in Washington DC on Sunday sign up to take part in what will undoubtedly be a momentous day. Here are the details, according to the Tar Sands Action website:
We will meet at the center fountain of Lafayette Square Park. The rally begins at 2 PM, with a little bit of live music starting at 1:30.
The rally will be MC'd by Bill McKibben, featuring speakers from across the movement to stop the pipeline. After the rally, we'll receive direction on how to get in to position around the White House. We have a team of over 100 monitors and marshals ready to make sure everything goes smoothly.
After we surround the White House, we'll head back to the park, and hopefully wrap up just as the sun sets at 5:30.
Occupy Wall Street: The Most Important Thing in the World Now October 7, 2011Posted by rogerhollander in Democracy, Economic Crisis, Revolution.
Tags: capitalism, democracy, Economic Crisis, environment, global economy, naomi klein, occupy wall street, protest, roger hollander, unemployment, Wall Street
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I was honored to be invited to speak at Occupy Wall Street on Thursday night. Since amplification is (disgracefully) banned, and everything I say will have to be repeated by hundreds of people so others can hear (a k a "the human microphone"), what I actually say at Liberty Plaza will have to be very short. With that in mind, here is the longer, uncut version of the speech.
I love you.
And I didn't just say that so that hundreds of you would shout "I love you" back, though that is obviously a bonus feature of the human microphone. Say unto others what you would have them say unto you, only way louder.
Yesterday, one of the speakers at the labor rally said: "We found each other." That sentiment captures the beauty of what is being created here. A wide-open space (as well as an idea so big it can't be contained by any space) for all the people who want a better world to find each other. We are so grateful.
If there is one thing I know, it is that the 1 percent loves a crisis. When people are panicked and desperate and no one seems to know what to do, that is the ideal time to push through their wish list of pro-corporate policies: privatizing education and social security, slashing public services, getting rid of the last constraints on corporate power. Amidst the economic crisis, this is happening the world over.
And there is only one thing that can block this tactic, and fortunately, it's a very big thing: the 99 percent. And that 99 percent is taking to the streets from Madison to Madrid to say "No. We will not pay for your crisis."
That slogan began in Italy in 2008. It ricocheted to Greece and France and Ireland and finally it has made its way to the square mile where the crisis began.
"Why are they protesting?" ask the baffled pundits on TV. Meanwhile, the rest of the world asks: "What took you so long?" "We've been wondering when you were going to show up." And most of all: "Welcome."
Many people have drawn parallels between Occupy Wall Street and the so-called anti-globalization protests that came to world attention in Seattle in 1999. That was the last time a global, youth-led, decentralized movement took direct aim at corporate power. And I am proud to have been part of what we called "the movement of movements."
But there are important differences too. For instance, we chose summits as our targets: the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund, the G8. Summits are transient by their nature, they only last a week. That made us transient too. We'd appear, grab world headlines, then disappear. And in the frenzy of hyper patriotism and militarism that followed the 9/11 attacks, it was easy to sweep us away completely, at least in North America.
Occupy Wall Street, on the other hand, has chosen a fixed target. And you have put no end date on your presence here. This is wise. Only when you stay put can you grow roots. This is crucial. It is a fact of the information age that too many movements spring up like beautiful flowers but quickly die off. It's because they don't have roots. And they don't have long term plans for how they are going to sustain themselves. So when storms come, they get washed away.
Being horizontal and deeply democratic is wonderful. But these principles are compatible with the hard work of building structures and institutions that are sturdy enough to weather the storms ahead. I have great faith that this will happen.
Something else this movement is doing right: You have committed yourselves to non-violence. You have refused to give the media the images of broken windows and street fights it craves so desperately. And that tremendous discipline has meant that, again and again, the story has been the disgraceful and unprovoked police brutality. Which we saw more of just last night. Meanwhile, support for this movement grows and grows. More wisdom.
But the biggest difference a decade makes is that in 1999, we were taking on capitalism at the peak of a frenzied economic boom. Unemployment was low, stock portfolios were bulging. The media was drunk on easy money. Back then it was all about start-ups, not shutdowns.
We pointed out that the deregulation behind the frenzy came at a price. It was damaging to labor standards. It was damaging to environmental standards. Corporations were becoming more powerful than governments and that was damaging to our democracies. But to be honest with you, while the good times rolled, taking on an economic system based on greed was a tough sell, at least in rich countries.
Ten years later, it seems as if there aren't any more rich countries. Just a whole lot of rich people. People who got rich looting the public wealth and exhausting natural resources around the world.
The point is, today everyone can see that the system is deeply unjust and careening out of control. Unfettered greed has trashed the global economy. And it is trashing the natural world as well. We are overfishing our oceans, polluting our water with fracking and deepwater drilling, turning to the dirtiest forms of energy on the planet, like the Alberta tar sands. And the atmosphere cannot absorb the amount of carbon we are putting into it, creating dangerous warming. The new normal is serial disasters: economic and ecological.
These are the facts on the ground. They are so blatant, so obvious, that it is a lot easier to connect with the public than it was in 1999, and to build the movement quickly.
We all know, or at least sense, that the world is upside down: we act as if there is no end to what is actually finite—fossil fuels and the atmospheric space to absorb their emissions. And we act as if there are strict and immovable limits to what is actually bountiful—the financial resources to build the kind of society we need.
The task of our time is to turn this around: to challenge this false scarcity. To insist that we can afford to build a decent, inclusive society—while at the same time, respect the real limits to what the earth can take.
What climate change means is that we have to do this on a deadline. This time our movement cannot get distracted, divided, burned out or swept away by events. This time we have to succeed. And I'm not talking about regulating the banks and increasing taxes on the rich, though that's important.
I am talking about changing the underlying values that govern our society. That is hard to fit into a single media-friendly demand, and it's also hard to figure out how to do it. But it is no less urgent for being difficult.
That is what I see happening in this square. In the way you are feeding each other, keeping each other warm, sharing information freely and proving health care, meditation classes and empowerment training. My favorite sign here says, "I care about you." In a culture that trains people to avoid each other's gaze, to say, "Let them die," that is a deeply radical statement.
A few final thoughts. In this great struggle, here are some things that don't matter.
§ What we wear.
§ Whether we shake our fists or make peace signs.
§ Whether we can fit our dreams for a better world into a media soundbite.
And here are a few things that do matter.
§ Our courage.
§ Our moral compass.
§ How we treat each other.
We have picked a fight with the most powerful economic and political forces on the planet. That's frightening. And as this movement grows from strength to strength, it will get more frightening. Always be aware that there will be a temptation to shift to smaller targets—like, say, the person sitting next to you at this meeting. After all, that is a battle that's easier to win.
Don't give in to the temptation. I'm not saying don't call each other on shit. But this time, let's treat each other as if we plan to work side by side in struggle for many, many years to come. Because the task before will demand nothing less.
Let's treat this beautiful movement as if it is most important thing in the world. Because it is. It really is.
Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, now out in paperback. Her earlier books include the international best-seller, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies (which has just been re-published in a special 10th Anniversary Edition); and the collection Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (2002). To read all her latest writing visit www.naomiklein.org. You can follow her on Twitter: @NaomiAKlein.
Author Naomi Klein arrested in oilsands protest September 3, 2011Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Energy, Environment.
Tags: activism, alberta oil, canada oil, climate change, environment, keystone xl, mitch potter, naomi klein, obama administration, oil pipeline, pipeline arrests, roger hollander, tar sands, tar sands arrests
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Toronto author and activist Naomi Klein was not planning to be among them. Support the cause? Sure. Speak to the anti-tarsands faithful? Absolutely. But to actually get arrested?
No, Klein and the other Canadian protesters in Washington agreed — that is a stand best left to their U.S. counterparts, who need not worry whether such close encounters with law enforcement will hamper their ability to cross borders in the future.
Yet there was Klein on Friday, being led away by police in the latest harvest of detainees after a last-second decision to put her liberty on the line in opposition to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline.
Two weeks ago, when the rolling protests began, the detentions lasted two full days. But the sheer volume of arrests — Klein was among 166 taken away Friday — has forced DC authorities to accelerate processing. Barely two hours after she was taken away, Klein was let go. Like everyone else, she was cited for "failure to obey."
"I wasn't planning to get arrested," Klein told the Star minutes after she was sprung.
"It was a last-minute decision. I was sitting there with several indigenous leaders from Canada. And when it became clear they intended to stay where they were and expose themselves to arrest, well . . ." She did the same.
For Klein, it was a first-ever arrest. "I write. And I'm an activist. But I'm not a chanter, not a marcher. I've never been arrested before.
"But that's what's been happened for two weeks. Climate scientists, landowners, a wide range of people who all feel this same sense of urgency. The feeling is that we can't just talk about the stakes on Twitter and leave it at that. If we mean what we say then we have to act like it."
Klein is unsure yet whether the bust will come back haunt her in future cross-border travels. For now, her speedy release means she will be free to fulfill plans to address Saturday's campaign-ending protest in Lafayette Park opposite the White House.
The overarching question in D.C., however, is whether the cause is already lost.
Though no final decision on the $7 billion TransCanada pipeline is expected for 90 days, all the body language emanating from the Obama administration suggests minds are made up and the project to nearly double the American intact of carbon-intensive Alberta bitumen is a go.
Last week the U.S. State Department gave the strongest endorsement yet of the plan to build the metre-wide steel straw from Alberta to Texas in its final environmental assessment.
U.S. Energy Secretary Steve Chu, in a subsequent interview, framed the issue as "not perfect, but it's a trade-off.
"It's certainly true that having Canada as a supplier for our oil is much more comforting than to have other countries supply our oil," Chu said.
And Friday, Team Obama was hastily retreating on another key environmental policy, instructing the Environmental Protection Agency to delay plans to tighten ozone standards. The Sierra Club, among others, denounced the decision as a gift to "coal and oil polluters."
Many longtime interpreters of Washington's political tea leaves suggest the final political considerations for Keystone XL come down to jobs. A $7 billion, shovel-ready project here and now, for a President whose future likely depends on how Americans are working in November, 2012, when Obama comes up for re-election.
The political risks for Obama are vast, insofar as many of those arrested these past two weeks are among his truest believers — the young, grassroots activists who help lift him to power in 2008, fully expecting an administration that would follow through on its promise to wean the country off fossil fuels.
One of them, Courtney Hight, acknowledged her discomfort in an interview with the Star. The Floridian activist was "one of the first boots on the ground for Obama," dedicated three years of her life as his campaign's Youth Vote Director. She went on to join the White House Council on Environmental Quality before shifting back to activism as co-director of the Energy Action Coalition.
She was arrested Thursday, outside the front door of the President she thought agreed with her.
"It feels inherently weird and uncomfortable for me to do something remotely critical of this president," Hight told the Star after her release.
"But I feel ownership over his current position. I am disappointed he is not being stronger, although it is understandable given the continuing attacks he is facing," said Hight.
"We need old Barack Obama to rise above the politics and just barrel through. And so getting arrested, if that is what it takes, is meant to remind him of the things he once believed — things I think he still believes — that inspired millions of young people to support him."
None are ready to concede defeat on Keystone XL. As Klein says, if the pro-tarsands lobby was "100 per cent convinced the deal is done they would not be blanketing the U.S. TV networks with ads trying to sell this thing to the public."
But Klein observed that if Obama ultimately approves Keystone XL, part of the fallout will be to free the broader climate movement from the illusion that "there is a saviour in the White House who just needs to be awakened to come to the rescue."
The protests against Keystone XL, says Klein, are simply one facet of a broader, multi-pronged campaign targeting the industry through multiple pressure points, from consumer campaigns to boycotts to agitating individual corporations to commit to avoiding tarsands oil.
"Powerful movements are built on strategy, not saviours. So if it turns out that Obama approves this pipeline, the movement is not going to crawl away, it's going to change strategy," she said.
"It will be healthy for people to know there isn't a saviour in the White House. We have to build the movement we want. And the strategy can't be trying wake up one person."
'No Tar Sands': Margot Kidder Marches on Washington August 20, 2011Posted by rogerhollander in Energy, Environment.
Tags: alberta tar sands, Canada, canada actress, carbon emissions, environment, environmental disaster, margot kidder, martin knelman, naomi klein, oil pipeline, pipeline, protest, roger hollander, Stephen Harper, tantoo cardinal, tar sands
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Margot Kidder became Hollywood's most famous Canadian by playing Lois Lane in four Superman movies.
Actor Christopher Reeve, as Superman, and Margot Kidder, as Lois Lane, appear in a scene from the 1978 movie 'Superman. But later, when she was orchestrating a comeback after a series of disasters, she took on a gig doing the voice of a character named Earth Mother in the cartoon show Captain Planet.
Among the lines she delivered: "Hold on, Planeteer, I hate to interrupt your eco-argument, but there's a nuclear waste spill on the ocean."
Next week Kidder will be playing Earth Mother for real — doing whatever it takes to get herself arrested in front of the White House while trying to persuade Barack Obama not to sign a deal allowing a new pipeline carrying oil from the Alberta tar sands to Texas.
One of her partners in crime is another celebrated Canadian-born actress and dear old friend, Tantoo Cardinal, an Aboriginal from northern Alberta.
Theirs will be only two faces among the thousands taking part in a large-scale protest, but they will bring a bit of showbiz glitter to the event while showing there are Canadians as well as Americans appalled by the horrifying danger of spreading poison from Alberta all over North America.
(A number of other prominent Canadians are also involved in the protest, including Naomi Klein.)
"This is not just about oil," Kidder explained this week in a phone interview from her home in Montana. "It's about climate change and irreversible damage to the environment."
These days, at 62, Kidder works occasionally, doing such acting gigs as her appearance a year ago at Toronto's Panasonic Theater in Nora Ephron's Love, Loss and What I Wore.
But most of the time, she lives quietly, simply and happily in Montana, close to her daughter and grandchildren.
Being at the center of the Hollywood circus may be a distant memory, but Kidder still has the ebullient spirit, charmingly goofy smile and twangy voice that made her a popular favorite.
And she's still the fearless adventurer and reckless maverick who was born in Yellowknife and grew up in northern mining camps, the daughter of a rambunctious mining engineer from Texas known as Happy Kidder.
Her old friend Norman Jewison, who cast her in her first Hollywood movie in the 1960s, recalls that even back then, "she was a woman of causes, passionate and not afraid to stand her ground."
That has not changed. Though she has been a U.S. resident for decades, Kidder has proudly held onto her Canadian citizenship. But she became a dual citizen so that she could vote against George W. Bush in 2004 — and so she could take part in protests against the Iraq war without being at risk of deportation.
"Tantoo and I are both northern Canadian babies who believe that the North is a beautiful place worth saving.
"The tar sands have caused a lot of damage already in Alberta, where a lot of people have a weird new kind of cancer. The kind of oil being extracted is thick and corrosive, like molasses, and it has to be pumped at a high heat, emitting poisonous carbon."
There is already one pipeline running from Alberta to Texas, and there have been disturbing leaks. According to Kidder, the proposed new pipeline would destroy the freshwater rivers and other natural wonders of Montana, because it's bound to leak.
"We already have experts who warn that if the tar sands industry is allowed to expand and build another pipeline, the damages will be irreversible and the long-term consequences horrendous," warns Kidder. "In fact this is the most serious climate changer we have on the planet."
So why are political leaders in Ottawa and Washington in favour of expanding the tar sands?
"In his 2008 campaign, Obama made a promise to stand up to oil companies and Wall Street," says Kidder, "but now he is being pressed to sign this agreement between now and November, and those who worked for Obama are so discouraged. A lot of people are dismayed that democracy is losing out to huge corporations that contribute billions to political campaigns."
Kidder and other demonstrators hope to persuade Obama to stand up to the oil companies and refuse to sign the pipeline deal. In the process of making the point, she expects to land in a Washington jail, if only briefly.
As for Canada, she laments: "Stephen Harper is more interested in short-term profit than long-term consequences. But I have two beautiful grandchildren, and I would like them to live on a beautiful planet."
Environmental Leaders Call for Civil Disobedience to Stop the Keystone XL Pipeline June 23, 2011Posted by rogerhollander in Canada, Environment.
Tags: alberta, Canada, carbon emissions, civil disobedience, climate change, danny glover, david suzuki, emissions, environment, epa, greenhouse effect, james hansen, keystone, keystone pipeline, keystone xl, Maude Barlow, naomi klein, pipeline, tar sands, tar sands oil, tom goldtooth, wendell berry, wes hackson
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Dear Friends,
This will be a slightly longer letter than common for the internet age—it's serious stuff.
The short version is we want you to consider doing something hard: coming to Washington in the hottest and stickiest weeks of the summer and engaging in civil disobedience that will likely get you arrested.
The full version goes like this:
As you know, the planet is steadily warming: 2010 was the warmest year on record, and we've seen the resulting chaos in almost every corner of the earth.A coalition of clean energy advocates march from the Canadian Embassy to the White House to condemn a proposed pipeline that would bring tar sands oil, allegedly toxic, from Canada to the United States, in Washington D.C. in July 2010. (Photo: ZUMA Press)
And as you also know, our democracy is increasingly controlled by special interests interested only in their short-term profit.
These two trends collide this summer in Washington, where the State Department and the White House have to decide whether to grant a certificate of 'national interest' to some of the biggest fossil fuel players on earth. These corporations want to build the so-called 'Keystone XL Pipeline' from Canada's tar sands to Texas refineries.
To call this project a horror is serious understatement. The tar sands have wrecked huge parts of Alberta, disrupting ways of life in indigenous communities—First Nations communities in Canada, and tribes along the pipeline route in the U.S. have demanded the destruction cease. The pipeline crosses crucial areas like the Oglalla Aquifer where a spill would be disastrous—and though the pipeline companies insist they are using 'state of the art' technologies that should leak only once every 7 years, the precursor pipeline and its pumping stations have leaked a dozen times in the past year. These local impacts alone would be cause enough to block such a plan. But the Keystone Pipeline would also be a fifteen hundred mile fuse to the biggest carbon bomb on the continent, a way to make it easier and faster to trigger the final overheating of our planet, the one place to which we are all indigenous.
How much carbon lies in the recoverable tar sands of Alberta? A recent calculation from some of our foremost scientists puts the figure at about 200 parts per million. Even with the new pipeline they won't be able to burn that much overnight—but each development like this makes it easier to get more oil out. As the climatologist Jim Hansen (one of the signatories to this letter) explained, if we have any chance of getting back to a stable climate "the principal requirement is that coal emissions must be phased out by 2030 and unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands, must be left in the ground." In other words, he added, "if the tar sands are thrown into the mix it is essentially game over." The Keystone pipeline is an essential part of the game. "Unless we get increased market access, like with Keystone XL, we're going to be stuck," said Ralph Glass, an economist and vice-president at AJM Petroleum Consultants in Calgary, told a Canadian newspaper last week.
Given all that, you'd suspect that there's no way the Obama administration would ever permit this pipeline. But in the last few months the president has signed pieces of paper opening much of Alaska to oil drilling, and permitting coal-mining on federal land in Wyoming that will produce as much CO2 as 300 power plants operating at full bore.
And Secretary of State Clinton has already said she's 'inclined' to recommend the pipeline go forward. Partly it's because of the political commotion over high gas prices, though more tar sands oil would do nothing to change that picture. But it's also because of intense pressure from industry. TransCanada Pipeline, the company behind Keystone, has hired as its chief lobbyist for the project a man named Paul Elliott, who served as deputy national director of Clinton's presidential campaign. Meanwhile, the US Chamber of Commerce—a bigger funder of political campaigns than the RNC and DNC combined—has demanded that the administration "move quickly to approve the Keystone XL pipeline," which is not so surprising—they've also told the U.S. EPA that if the planet warms that will be okay because humans can 'adapt their physiology' to cope. The Koch Brothers, needless to say, are also backing the plan, and may reap huge profits from it.
So we're pretty sure that without serious pressure the Keystone Pipeline will get its permit from Washington. A wonderful coalition of environmental groups has built a strong campaign across the continent—from Cree and Dene indigenous leaders to Nebraska farmers, they've spoken out strongly against the destruction of their land. We need to join them, and to say even if our own homes won't be crossed by this pipeline, our joint home—the earth—will be wrecked by the carbon that pours down it.
And we need to say something else, too: it's time to stop letting corporate power make the most important decisions our planet faces.
We don't have the money to compete with those corporations, but we do have our bodies, and beginning in mid August many of us will use them. We will, each day through Labor Day, march on the White House, risking arrest with our trespass. We will do it in dignified fashion, demonstrating that in this case we are the conservatives, and that our foes—who would change the composition of the atmosphere are dangerous radicals. Come dressed as if for a business meeting—this is, in fact, serious business. And another sartorial tip—if you wore an Obama button during the 2008 campaign, why not wear it again? We very much still want to believe in the promise of that young Senator who told us that with his election the 'rise of the oceans would begin to slow and the planet start to heal.' We don't understand what combination of bureaucratic obstinacy and insider dealing has derailed those efforts, but we remember his request that his supporters continue on after the election to pressure the government for change. We'll do what we can.
And one more thing: we don't want college kids to be the only cannon fodder in this fight. They've led the way so far on climate change—10,000 came to DC for the Powershift gathering earlier this spring. They've marched this month in West Virginia to protest mountaintop removal; Tim DeChristopher faces sentencing this summer in Utah for his creative protest. Now it's time for people who've spent their lives pouring carbon into the atmosphere (and whose careers won't be as damaged by an arrest record) to step up too. Most of us signing this letter are veterans of this work, and we think it's past time for elders to behave like elders. One thing we don't want is a smash up: if you can't control your passions, this action is not for you.
This won't be a one-shot day of action. We plan for it to continue for several weeks, to the date in September when by law the administration can either grant or deny the permit for the pipeline. Not all of us can actually get arrested—half the signatories to this letter live in Canada, and might well find our entry into the U.S. barred. But we will be making plans for sympathy demonstrations outside Canadian consulates in the U.S., and U.S. consulates in Canada—the decision-makers need to know they're being watched.
Winning this battle won't save the climate. But losing it will mean the chances of runaway climate change go way up—that we'll endure an endless future of the floods and droughts we've seen this year. And we're fighting for the political future too—for the premise that we should make decisions based on science and reason, not political connection. You have to start somewhere, and this is where we choose to begin.
If you think you might want to be a part of this action, we need you to sign up here. As plans solidify in the next few weeks we'll be in touch with you to arrange nonviolence training; our colleagues at a variety of environmental and democracy campaigns will be coordinating the actual arrangements.
We know we're asking a lot. You should think long and hard on it, and pray if you're the praying type. But to us, it's as much privilege as burden to get to join this fight in the most serious possible way. We hope you'll join us.
Maude Barlow
Wendell Berry
Tom Goldtooth
Danny Glover
James Hansen
Wes Jackson
Naomi Klein
Bill McKibben
George Poitras
David Suzuki
Gus Speth
p.s.—Please pass this letter on to anyone else you think might be interested. We realize that what we're asking isn't easy, and we're very grateful that you're willing even to consider it.
International Attention Focused on Berkeley Divestment Vote April 14, 2010Posted by rogerhollander in Israel, Gaza & Middle East.
Tags: aipac, allie bidwell, anti-defamation, asuc, berkeley, daily cal, desmond tutu, divestment, gaza, General Electric, israel, israel apartheid, israeli millitary, lebanon, naomi klein, Noam Chomsky, Palestinians, roger hollander, uc berkeley, united technologies, university california, west bank
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(Roger's note: as a former elected member of the ASUC Executive Committee (1961 -1962), a precursor to the current Senate, I take special pleasure in posting this item on my blog. The main argument for the apologists of Israeli apartheid, that it is unfair to single out Israel as a violator of human rights, is specious. When addressing a particular political problem, one is not obligated to include all others. Of course there are other governments worthy of condemnation (none more than the government of the United States of America); but the genocidal policies of past and present Israeli governments with respect to the Palestinian peoples, and particularly the Gaza massacre, represent major violations that neither can nor should not be ignored.)
International attention will descend on the ASUC Senate meeting tonight as senators consider upholding the passage of a controversial bill urging the student government and the University of California to divest from two companies that have provided war supplies to the Israeli military.
The bill names two companies-United Technologies and General Electric-as supplying Israel with the technology necessary to attack civilian populations in Lebanon, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The bill originally passed the senate March 17 by a 16-4 vote following about six hours of discussion. A two-thirds majority, or 14 votes, is needed in order to override the veto.
Senators have received more than 13,000 e-mails, roughly split between both sides of the controversy.
Prominent figures including South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu, activist Naomi Klein and leftist MIT professor Noam Chomsky have spoken in support of overriding ASUC President Will Smelko's March 24 veto of the bill. Local and national pro-Israel groups such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)-an influential Washington, D.C. lobby organization-Berkeley Hillel and the Anti-Defamation League have each stated the bill is divisive and unfairly targets Israel.
Supporters of the bill say divesting from the two companies would make a powerful statement against Israeli actions in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, which supporters have compared to apartheid-era South Africa.
In a recent letter to the UC Berkeley community, Tutu, who won the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts opposing apartheid in South Africa-said he endorsed the bill and urged senators to uphold the original vote, which he compared to similar efforts at UC Berkeley to divest from South Africa in the 1980s.
He said in an e-mail Tuesday that he had a message for ASUC senators.
"I salute you for wanting to take a moral stand," he said in the e-mail. "(Your predecessors) changed the moral climate in the U.S. and the consequence was the Anti-Apartheid legislation, which helped to dismantle apartheid non-violently. Today is your turn. Will you look back on this day with pride or with shame?"
Wayne Firestone, national president of Hillel-a Jewish campus organization-released a statement last month condemning the bill. The statement stated that the bill is "one-sided, divisive and undermines the pursuit of peace" and ignores human rights violations of other countries.
"The ASUC bill will not contribute a whit to the advancement of peace in the Middle East and will only serve to divide the Berkeley community," Firestone said in the statement.
Pro-Israel activist organization J Street U, joined 18 other organizations-including Berkeley Hillel, the American Jewish Committee, the Jewish Federation of the East Bay, the Jewish National Fund and StandWithUs/SF Voice for Israel-in crafting an April 5 letter to UC Berkeley Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer stating that they felt the bill was dishonest and misleading.
Among concerns listed in the letter was that the bill "unfairly targets" Israel while marginalizing Jewish students on campus who support Israel.
"Though it states that the 'ASUC resolution should not be considered taking sides in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict,' the exclusive focus on Israel suggests otherwise," the letter states.
Critics of the bill have said senators cannot make a proper judgement of an issue as complicated as the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Student Action Senator Parth Bhatt, who voted against the bill, said he felt the ASUC should not take a stance on such an issue because it marginalizes one community on campus.
"I don't think the ASUC should put any student in that position," Bhatt said. "The conflict is very complex and something I don't think our senators know enough about to vote on."
But CalSERVE Senator Ariel Boone said she supported the bill because she felt compelled to defend human rights.
"I went to Israel and had a really interesting time with Berkeley Hillel in January, and I have Holocaust survivors among my family," Boone said in an e-mail. "I have never felt so uniquely qualified to speak on an issue."
AIPAC has recently stated the need for a strategy to combat anti-Israel sentiments on U.S. university campuses.
"How are we going to beat back the anti-Israel divestment resolution at Berkeley?" said Jonathan Kessler, leadership development director for AIPAC, at a recent conference of the lobbying group. "We're going to make sure that pro-Israel students take over the student government and reverse the vote. This is how AIPAC operates in our nation's capitol. This is how AIPAC must operate on our nation's campuses."
But according to spokesperson Josh Block, the group did not take a position in the recent ASUC election.
"We don't rate or endorse candidates," Block said in an e-mail. "Of course we would always, publicly and consistently encourage pro-Israel students to be active in civic and political life."
Read statements in opposition and in support of the divestment bill:
Letter to Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost of UC Berkeley George Breslauer
© 2010 The Daily Californian
Private Contractors "Like Vultures Coming to Grab the Loot" February 20, 2010Posted by rogerhollander in Haiti.
Tags: aid, anthony fenton, aristide, haiti, haiti aid, haiti earthquake, haiti relief, haliburton, mercenaries, naomi klein, private contractors, privatisation, privatization, rene preval, roger hollander
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Friday 19 February 2010
by: Anthony Fenton | Inter Press Service
Vancouver – Critics are concerned that private military contractors are positioning themselves at the centre of an emerging "shock doctrine" for earthquake-ravaged Haiti.
Next month, a prominent umbrella organisation for private military and logistic corporations, the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA), is co-organising a "Haiti summit" which aims to bring together "leading officials" for "private consultations with attending contractors and investors" in Miami, Florida.
Dubbed the "mercenary trade association" by journalist Jeremy Scahill, author of "Blackwater: the Rise of the World' Most Powerful Mercenary Army", the IPOA wasted no time setting up a "Haiti Earthquake Support" page on its website following the Jan. 12 earthquake that devastated the Caribbean country.
IPOA's director Doug Brooks says, "The first contacts we got were journalists looking for security when they went in." The website of IPOA member company, Hart Security, says they are currently in Haiti "supporting clients from the fields of media, consultancy and medical in their disaster recovery efforts." Several other IPOA members have either bid on or received contracts for work in Haiti.
Likewise, the private military contractor, Raidon Tactics, has at least 30 former U.S. Special Operations soldiers on the ground, where they have been guarding aid convoys and providing security for "news agencies," according to a Raidon employee who told IPS his company received over 1,000 phone calls in response to an ad posting "for open positions for Static Security Positions and Mobile Security Positions" in Haiti.
Just over a week following the earthquake, the IPOA teamed up with Global Investment Summits (GIS), a UK-based private company that specialises in bringing private contractors and government officials from "emerging post-conflict countries" together, to host an "Afghanistan Reconstruction Summit", in Istanbul, Turkey. It was there, says IPOA's director Doug Brooks, that the idea for the Haiti summit was hatched "over beers".
GIS's CEO, Kevin Lumb, told IPS that the key feature of the Haiti summit will be "what we call roundtables, [where] we put the ministers and their procurement people, and arrange appointments with contractors." Lumb added that his company "specialise[s] in putting governments together [with private contractors]."
IPOA was "so pleased" with the Afghanistan summit, says Lumb, they asked GIS to do "all the organising, all the selling" for the Haiti summit. Lumb pointed out that all of the profits from the event will be donated to the Clinton-Bush Haiti relief fund.
While acknowledging that there will be a "a commercial angle" to the event and that "major companies, major players in the world" have committed to attend, Lumb declined to name most of the participants.
One of the companies Lumb did mention is DACC Associates, a private contractor that specialises in management and security consulting with contracts providing "advice and counsel" to governments in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
DACC President Douglas Melvin, a former Special Forces commander, State Department official and director of Security and Administrative Services for President George W. Bush, acknowledged that "from a revenue perspective, yes there's wonderful opportunities at these events."
Melvin added that he believes most attendees will be "coming together for the right reasons," a genuine concern for Haiti, are "not coming to exploit" the dire situation there, and does not expect his company to profit off of their potential contracts there.
Naomi Klein, author of "The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism", is concerned that the thesis of her best-selling book will once again be tested in Haiti. She told IPS in an e-mail, "Haiti doesn't need cookie cutter one-size fits all reconstruction, designed by the same gang that made same such a hash of Iraq, Afghanistan and New Orleans – and indeed the same people responsible for the decimation of Haiti's own economy in the name of 'aid.'"
Unhappy with critics' characterisation of the IPOA, Brooks said, "If Scahill and Klein have the resources, the capabilities, the equipment, to go in and do it themselves then more power to them."
University of California at Los Angeles professor Nandini Gunewardena, co-editor of "Capitalizing on Catastrophe: Neoliberal Strategies in Disaster Reconstruction," told IPS that "privatisation is not the way to go for disaster assistance."
"Traditionally, corporations have positioned themselves in a way that they benefit at the expense of the people. We cannot afford for that to happen in Haiti," she said, adding that "any kind of intermediate or long-term assistance strategy has to be framed within that framework of human security."
This, according to the U.N-.based Commission on Human Security, means "creating political, social, environmental, economic, military and cultural systems that together give people the building blocks of survival, livelihood and dignity."
Denouncing the "standard recipe of neoliberal policies," Gunewardena said, "If private corporations are going to contribute to Haiti's restoration, they have to be held accountable, not to their own standards, but to those of the people."
Reached by telephone, Haiti's former Minister of Defence under the first presidency of Jean Bertand Aristide, Patrick Elie, agreed. He's worried about the potential privatisation of his country's rebuilding, "because these private companies [aren't] liable, you can't take them to the United Nations, you can't take them to The Hague, and they operate in kind of legal limbo. And they are the more dangerous for it."
Elie, who accepted a position as advisor to President Rene Preval following the earthquake, added "These guys are like vultures coming to grab the loot over this disaster, and probably money that might have been injected into the Haitian economy is going to be just grabbed by these companies and I'm sure that they are not only these mercenary companies but also the other companies like Halliburton or these other ones that always [come] on the heels of the troops."
In its 2008 report, "Private Security Contractors at War: Ending the Culture of Impunity," the NGO Human Rights First decried the "failure of the U.S. government to effectively control their actions, and in particular the inability or unwillingness of the Department of Justice (DoJ) to hold them criminally responsible for their illegal actions."
The IPOA's Brooks told IPS that members of the Haitian diaspora and Haiti's embassy have been invited and are "going to be a big part" of the summit.
While stressing that it's impossible to know the exact details of an event that is planned outside of public scrutiny, Elie countered that if high-level Haitian officials were to participate, "It's either out of ignorance or complicity."
Worried that Haiti is already seeing armed contractors in addition to the presence of more than 20,000 U.S., Canadian, and U.N. soldiers, Elie says he has seen private contractors accompanying NGOs, "walking about carrying assault rifles."
If the U.S. military pulls out and hands over the armed presence to private contractors, "It opens the door to all kinds of abuses. Let's face it, the Haitian state is too weak to really deal efficiently with this kind of threat if it materialises," he said.
The history of post-disaster political economy has shown that such a threat is all too likely, says Elie. "We've seen it happen so many times before that whenever there is a disaster, there are a bunch of vultures trying to profit from it, whether it's a man-made disaster like Iraq, or a nature-made disaster like Haiti."


text:
Jogos Friv Burger Restaurant
Bookmarks Games press combine Ctrl and D
Mais tipos de jogo: 1 Player, Burger, Cooking, Flash, Food, Food Serving, Kids, Simulation
Descrição do Jogos friv Burger Restaurant
Like all restaurant sims, time is a factor in Burger Restaurant. Your customers have a limited amount of patience, and taking too long to prepare orders means bad business.
Get ready to serve milkshakes, hamburgers, French fries and get your restaComo jogar friv Burger Restaurant
Prepare the orders by clicking with the left mouse button on the machines and ingredients.
1. Made a mistake? Click on the trashcan to throw it away.
2. You can put unfinished orders on the silver plates. In the meantime you can prepare something else.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
The North East site's Dutch owners, Akzo Nobel plan to make 50 redundancies as part of a global cost cutting exercise
Brothers Glen and Steve Watson recently acquired the ten year lease for Aquarius, a 17,897 sq ft warehouse in Team Valley Trading Estate, Gateshead.
New documentary focuses on the Hutchinsons, of Forest-in-Teesdale, as they attempt to breed the perfect flock of Swaledale sheep
The Fund, managed by enterprise agency NBSL, has been extended until June 2015
Project close to Newcastle University maintains features of 18th century townhouses
The Tyneside-based manufacturer of moulded trays has been bought by Keighley's PFF Packaging
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Editor-in-Chief, Trinity Mirror North East
Darren was appointed editor of the Chronicle in September 2011, following a six-year spell as editor of the Evening Gazette in Teesside.
He has held a number of senior roles on regional newspapers across England, Scotland and Wales over the last 15 years and is now editor-in-chief of Trinity Mirror North East.


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Following the success of Hampshire Water Festival, Staunton Festival will feature fun and informative ways of conserving vital resources such as water and power.
Meanwhile, visitors enjoy a fun family day out with free sports activities, delicious food and a great programme of entertainment!
Please note that while there are some gravel walkways, the ground can be uneven.
Dogs on leads are welcomed in the parkland, but guide dogs only in the Farm and gardens.
Please come and support us - we look forward to seeing you ...


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« Scott's Garden: Onion
Scott's Garden: Dirt Temperature »
by NewsWatch 12 Staff
Published April 18, 2012
By Chris Leone
Ryan Retzlaff tore his ACL his senior year at South Medford. After a year away from the game Retzlaff is back as a walk-on receiver for Southern Oregon University, looking to make it on the depth chart.
Tags: southern oregon univeristy sports, southern oregon university football


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Creating an account with Tribecafilm.com gives you access to more features and services, like our weekly newsletter and other special features just for the film community.
Print Source
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Phone: 468229722
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Press Contact
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Phone: 201 925 1122
When tickets for a screening or event are no longer available, they will be listed as RUSH. The Rush system functions as a stand-by line that will form at the venue approximately 45 minutes prior to scheduled start time. Admittance is based on availability and will begin 15 minutes prior to program start time. Rush Tickets are the same price as advance tickets payable upon entry. There is a limit of one Rush Ticket per person.


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- Adult Adventure
- Some Body Parts
- Tools and Tapers
- Straight Barbells
- Accessories
- Curved Barbells
- Replacement Parts
- Captive Bead Rings
- Earlets & Tunnels
- 14k Gold Only
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- Organics
- Charms
- Hide Your Piercing
- Circular Barbells
- Genuine Diamond Jewelry
- Fixed Bead Rings
- Screwball Rings
Review Details
In & Out Princes Wand
- Product Review (submitted on July 31, 2012):
- Feels great, lube it up and it fell in on its own. The ring fits me just right (I'm not well indowed). I had it in for about 5 min and blew my load, my partner tried it and had the same results although he could not get the ring over his glans because his penis is a bit larger than mine. We are both in our sixties and are having a great time experimentig with our new toy


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Latest Updates
August 21, 2014
After fleeing their homes and surviving a perilous Mediterranean crossing, African migrants in Italy are falling prey to labor gangs.
August 4, 2014
The Dow Chemical Company must stop dodging its responsibility towards the survivors of the Bhopal disaster.
Press Release
June 30, 2014
Amnesty International USA is urging The Dow Chemical Company (Dow) to comply with a summons to appear at a July 4 hearing.
June 20, 2014
A landmark UK court ruling paves the way for Shell to finally be held accountable for devastating oil pollution in the Niger Delta, Amnesty International said today.
More Amnesty News and Multimedia
Music and the Arts
Musicians and artists worldwide have been a vital part of Amnesty International's global efforts to bring human rights to every man, woman and child in the world.


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Man Who Jumped Into Bronx Zoo Tiger Den Recovering; Tiger OK Too
A 400-pound Siberian tiger named Bachuta soon will be back on display at the Bronx Zoo after a bizarre incident in which a man jumped from the monorail into the tiger den and suffered severe injuries. Zoo workers distracted the cat long enough for the man to escape.
Little is known about the man, identified by relatives and friends as David M. Villalobos, 25, of Mahopac, N.Y. He was hospitalized with broken bones and bites suffered during the roughly 10 minutes he was in direct contact with the tiger.
Zoo director Jim Breheny said it was the first time in the monorail's 35 years of operation that someone had done what Villalobos did Friday afternoon: take a flying leap about 17 feet to the ground, clearing the wall surrounding the enclosure where Bachuta was spending his day.
Villalobos survived because of the actions of the tiger and zoo workers, said Breheny. "Tigers are extremely capable predators. What they typically do is grab a prey animal either by the head or by the back of the neck, and it's over very quickly," he said. "This cat did not do this to the individual. I think it was just the tiger's response and the fact we got there so quickly ... that saved the guy's life."
"I think it's safe to say if the tiger really wanted to do harm to this individual, he certainly would have had the time to do that," Breheny added. "The tiger did nothing wrong in this case at all."
The man had been visiting the zoo by himself and was in the last car of the Monorail, whose wagon-like cars are not enclosed but have railings to keep people inside of them. Villalobos, though, climbed over the railing and jumped.
"This is the first incident of its kind," said Breheny, defending the monorail's safety record and adding, "When someone is determined to do something very harmful to themselves, it is very hard to stop them."
After zoo workers were alerted that someone was in the tiger den, they arrived within minutes and used a fire extinguisher to distract Bachuta. Once the tiger had moved away from Villalobos, the zoo staff directed him to roll under an electrical wire that the animals know not to approach for fear of being shocked.
Villalobos was conscious and talking, and he did what zoo workers told him to do, said Breheny.
Bachuta is an 11-year-old tiger who has been at the zoo for about three years. He is one of several tigers living at the zoo's 43-acre Wild Asia exhibit, which is visible only from the monorail.
Tigers are the largest of the world's big cats and human-tiger encounters rarely end well for humans, making the Bronx Zoo incident all the more remarkable.
In 2005, Bronx Zoo employee Robin Silverman was killed when she walked into the Wild Asia exhibit and was mauled by two Siberian tigers.
On Christmas Day in 2007, 17-year-old Carlos Sousa Jr. died after a tiger escaped its enclosure at the San Francisco Zoo. Officials later said Sousa and two companions had taunted the tiger, which was able to climb over the wall and chase them down. That tiger was killed by police.
Breheny said despite Friday's incident, it was a "good day" at the zoo because of the ending. "We have the cat which is still alive, and we have this guy that we pulled out of this exhibit and he's still alive," he said.
Villalobos' Facebook page suggests a man absorbed with nature, animals, women's rights issues, and the environment. One friend, Paul Giarraputo, told the local ABC affiliate that lately he had become concerned with some of the postings. "It seemed a little strange," he said.
firstname.lastname@example.com © 2014, The Baltimore Sun


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The third-place Colorado Mammoth (4-7) will replace head coach Bob Hamley and assistant coaches. (Photo: Jack Dempsey)
The Colorado Mammoth have announced that head coach Bob Hamley and assistants Ed Comeau and Sean Ferris have been relieved of their coaching duties effective immediately.
"I have tremendous respect and admiration for Bob, Ed and Sean, and can't say enough about what tremendous men they are," said Mammoth president & general manager Steve Govett. "Unfortunately, our team has not met the organization's expectations. Change was necessary."
Hamley has a career regular season record of 79-94 (.457) behind the bench with a 5-6 playoff record. He joined the Mammoth midway through the 2010 season, posting a 29-37 record with Colorado and 0-3 mark in the postseason, during his five-year tenure.
Assistant coaches Comeau and Ferris were in their fourth years with the team. Colorado ranks third in the West Division with a 4-7 record so far.
No replacements have been named at this time. An announcement regarding the coaching staff will be made in the near future.
Colorado hosts the Calgary Roughnecks on 'Lacrosse Out Cancer' Night at Pepsi Center live on TSN2 (Canada) and ESPN3 (U.S.) on Saturday at 9pm ET.
Tag(s): Home Colorado Mammoth


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Hearing Loss
Hearing loss is a decrease in the ability to hear. It can vary in degree of loss and occur in one or both ears. There are three parts of the ear. Problems that contribute to hearing loss can occur in one or more of these parts.
Hearing loss is one of the most common health conditions in the United States. Although it affects people of all ages, the numbers increase significantly with age.
Hearing loss is the most common birth defect. Approximately half of the cases of hearing loss in children result from genetic factors. Problems during birth or soon after can also lead to hearing loss, such as lack of oxygen, severe jaundice, or bleeding in the brain.
Two of the most common causes of hearing loss in older adults are presbycusis and tinnitus.
Presbycusis develops slowly as a person ages, especially after age 50, and continues to worsen. It is caused by a combination of hereditary and environmental factors, including exposure to noise and smoking. This condition makes it hard for a person to hear normal conversation and tolerate loud sounds. It sometimes involves permanent damage of the inner ear structures or nerve pathways in the ear leading to the brain .
Tinnitus is ringing, hissing, or roaring sounds in the ears. It can occur with any kind of hearing loss and often is caused by loud noise or certain medications. The condition can also be a sign of other health problems, such as allergies and heart and blood vessel conditions. Tinnitus can occur on and off and can stop completely.
Anatomy of the Ear
Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.
There are three main types of hearing loss: conductive, sensorineural, and mixed.
Conductive hearing loss is due to problems in the outer or middle ear that interfere with sound passing to the inner ear. It usually involves a decrease in sound level and can often be corrected by medical or surgical treatment.
Causes of conductive hearing loss:
- Blockage by ear wax
- Fluid in the middle ear
- Ear infection, also known as otitis media
- Otosclerosis —a disorder of the bones in the middle ear
- Hole in the eardrum
- Abnormalities in the outer ear, middle ear, or ear canal
- Defect at birth that causes complete closure of the ear canal
- Tumors
- Trauma leading to disruption of the bones in the middle ear
Sensorineural hearing loss is due to damage to the inner ear or the major nerve pathway that goes from the inner ear to the brain. In addition to a decrease in sound level, it also affects the ability to understand speech. This type of hearing loss is permanent. It cannot be corrected medically or surgically, but it can be treated with hearing aids and assistive devices.
Causes of sensorineural hearing loss include:
- Excess noise
- Birth injury
- Hereditary factors
- Aging
Exposure to toxic substances, including drugs like:
- Streptomycin
- Gentamicin
- Chemotherapy drugs
- Diuretics
- Steroids
- Heart medications
- Quinine
- Anesthetics
- Aspirin-containing drugs
- Tumors like acoustic neuroma
- Cardiovascular disease
- Multiple sclerosis
- Viruses such as measles, mumps, adenovirus, andrubella
- History of meningitis or syphilis
- Neurologic diseases such as multiple sclerosis and stroke
- Inner ear disorders such as Meniere's disease
- Otosclerosis affecting the inner ear
- Previous brain or ear surgery causing damage to the inner ear
- External trauma to the ear
Mixed hearing loss is due to a combination of both conductive and sensorineural hearing loss.
Last reviewedSeptember 2014by Michael Woods, MD
Please be aware that this information is provided to supplement the care provided by your physician. It is neither intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice. CALL YOUR HEALTHCARE PROVIDER IMMEDIATELY IF YOU THINK YOU MAY HAVE A MEDICAL EMERGENCY. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider prior to starting any new treatment or with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.


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Time-Zone Processing with Asterisk, Part II
Last month, I wrote about a system for handling telephone calls with Asterisk that automatically handled the call depending on the time of day at a remote location. Use of the system, however, depended on the user performing the critical task of setting up the remote location's time with a telephone call. Rather than rely on the user to initiate the telephone call manually, it would be easier if the call occurred automatically.
If the setup call occurs automatically, the user won't forget to do it. The initial SIP registration may occur at a very strange hour in the home location, but the SIP registration occurs because a user has plugged something in. Therefore, we know the user is awake and can take a short call. Asterisk provides a management interface that reports when SIP registrations occur and can be used to take action based on it. With a bit of additional processing, a script talking to the manager can initiate calls only when the SIP registration is "new".
The Asterisk Manager reports events processed by Asterisk and accepts commands over the interface. The form of the interface is a text-based protocol that separates event reports and commands into clusters of lines with a key: value format. For example, the registration of extension 300 using the SIP protocol looks like this:
Event: PeerStatus PeerStatus: Registered Peer: SIP/300
Before gaining access to the Asterisk manager, clients must authenticate against the list of administrative users stored in /etc/asterisk/manager.conf. Once logged in, a client can issue commands or query the value of variables with a set of lines that starts with a first line of Action:, followed by a command. Responses to commands typically start with Response: Success.
Because the protocol is text-based, it can be scripted in a language like Expect. A component is also available for the Perl Object Environment (POE), a framework that builds event-driven programs in Perl. The freely available component provides the base-level response parsing that would need to be written in Expect, so it is a much more extensible foundation for programs controlling the Asterisk manager.
The main code for the program is simple. POE sets up a system where state handlers are called in response to program states. A state can be defined by the programmer or by an external event. The typical flow through the program is to notice a SIP registration, check to see whether it has an active time-zone registration and if not, to initiate a configuration call.
To execute code in response to an event, the POE framework uses a hash called CallBacks. Every entry in CallBacks defines a state based on the event received from the manager. When an event matches a callback, the handler defined for the state is triggered. To set up a trigger with the CallBacks clause, identify every line in the event and set up a hash so that the left-hand side of each line of the event is the key value for a line of the hash. As an example, consider the callback definition for the SIP registration event earlier:
Event: PeerStatus register => { 'Event' => 'PeerStatus', PeerStatus: Registered 'PeerStatus' => 'Registered', } Peer: SIP/300
To link the callback to a handler, the inline_states hash has a list of states and references to the corresponding code to call. Although it is possible to inline event-handler code, for readability I have separated the code out into external procedures. Code called in response to a CallBack cannot be passed arguments:
123456789*123456789*123456789*123456789*123456789*12 inline_states => { register => \®ister_state_handler, },
Based on the flow of the program, three events are of interest. First, SIP registration events are used to start the entire process. SIP registrations typically occur hourly, so it is important to initiate the call only when a registration is the "first" registration. To prevent duplicate telephone calls from being initiated, the program will request data from both the Asterisk internal database AstDB as well as the SIP peer information. The second and third events will handle responses to commands and database queries, respectively. A fourth event will handle initiating the telephone call after receiving data back from the queries. The code I am currently using also has a state defined for unregister events, though it is a stub for an event that I am not currently using.
The core of the program is only 35 lines, most of which defines the program event states and shows what code will be used in response to those states. Note that the state of call is defined by the program and not by a callback, so the call state can be entered only by the program itself and not in response to an event from the manager. (A full listing of the program is available on the Linux Journal FTP site; see Resources.)
POE::Component::Client::Asterisk::Manager->new( Alias => 'monitor', RemoteHost => 'localhost', RemotePort => 5038, Username => 'autotzcaller', Password => 'secretpassword', CallBacks => { input => ':all', response => { 'Response' => 'Success', }, dbresponse => { 'Event' => 'DBGetResponse', }, register => { 'Event' => 'PeerStatus', 'PeerStatus' => 'Registered', }, unregister => { 'Event' => 'PeerStatus', 'PeerStatus' => 'Unregistered', }, }, inline_states => { input => \&input_state_handler, response => \&response_state_handler, dbresponse => \&db_response_state_handler, register => \®ister_state_handler, call => \&call_state_handler, unregister => \&unregister_state_handler, }, ); POE::Kernel->run(); exit(0);
Two of the state handlers are only stubs. The input state handler prints out whatever it gets if a debug flag is set, and it is there for development purposes. It catches any unrecognized events that come from the manager, and it can be useful when testing that callbacks are catching the important events. The unregister state handler currently doesn't do anything, but it is there as a hook to expand if I choose in the future to take any action based on that.
With the core of the program in place, let's look at each of the states in the order they will be called through a typical program execution flow.
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2013 San Diego 3-Day
Viva Las Boobies
We are mothers, daughters, sisters and brothers. Nieces, nephews, sons, granddaughters, partners and friends. Through this event we have become a family, bonded by a common go, to help find a cure for this horrible disease that has affected each of our lives in so many ways.
We are the 2013 Viva Las Boobies team.
Please join us as we take an amazing journey in the fight to end breast cancer! The Susan G. Komen 3-Day™ is a 60-mile walk over the course of three days. Seventy-five percent of the net proceeds raised by the Komen 3-Day help fund national research and large public health outreach programs. The remaining 25 percent helps fund local community and Affiliate support and outreach programs.