Syria

Syria - orthographic by L'Americain

Last night I watched the news.  Images of children burned in what was reported as a chemical weapon attack.  The image of Bashar Al-Assad speaking in his own language, apparently claiming he did not use these weapons. A report from British Prime Minister David Cameron saying that the House of Commons does not support military action in Syria. Representatives of the UN unable to find out conclusively that the Al-Assad regime used these weapons. The White House threatening to take action but unwilling to say how much.

After all the news coverage on this issue I cannot decide what is true and what is propaganda.  There are two things I can perceive however. One, is that the turmoil in the Middle East is overwhelming and families of all faiths are suffering unimaginably and will continue to suffer even after the violence stops. Two, is that no-one is winning except the military industrial complex.

As I think about this I am reminded of all the wars that have happened over the centuries and conclude ordinary citizens never benefit.  War never grants or promises freedom to the people.  The ruling elite may win or lose but those who are beneath them always lose.  They lose a sense of peace, loved ones and limbs. Whenever rulers decide we must go to war, it is for their gain, their purse, their territory, while it is the soldiers, the wives, the husbands and the children who are asked to sacrifice their lives.

How can we know any military intervention is a just intervention when the truth is only available after the conflict is over and the facts become the subject of history? How can we respond thoughtfully and ethically?

Mulcair's Reply to Proroguing Parliament Letter in which NDP was cc'd

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mulcair

Thank you for your past email. I really appreciate hearing your feedback and comments - please know that I do take your input seriously as it helps to inform my work.

First, regarding prorogation, Parliament is the one place where the federal government has to respond to questions - and now Mr. Harper has even shut that down. Since the Duffy-Wallin senate expense scandal exploded in May, the prime minister showed up to Question Period only 5 times. It is quite clear that Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are again doing whatever they can to run away from accountability.

Canadians deserve better.

I am proud of all that the NDP team has accomplished this Parliamentary session - we worked really hard right up to the end to ensure that we got some meaningful results for Canadians. I'd like to take this opportunity to share some of this work with you.

One of our most significant victories was the House of Commons' adoption of our landmark motion on transparency - a very detailed plan that would open up MP expenses and create an independent body to replace the secretive Board of Internal Economy. New Democrats know that MP spending should be open and transparent and MPs should be accountable to the taxpayers who pay their salaries! You can read the full text of the NDP motion here:
http://www.ndp.ca/news/ndp-proposes-independent-oversight-mp-expenses.

We held the Conservatives to account with our solid work in Question Period - day after day we grilled them on the Senate scandals and the missing 90 thousand dollar cheque. We launched a campaign to abolish the Senate - I invite you to join the over 20,000 Canadians who signed our petition:
http://rolluptheredcarpet.ca. This summer we will take our campaign to communities across the country to gather more support for putting an end to the unelected, unaccountable, scandal-ridden Senate.

We relentlessly pushed the Harper government on jobs and growth - asking over 100 questions in Question Period about their job-killing economic agenda! We fought their harmful changes to EI and seniors' pensions, their reckless cuts to our food inspection, border and search and rescue services. We stood up for the safety and well-being of Canadians while the Conservatives chose different priorities - putting your safety at risk while allowing tax-payer dollars to fund their Senate cronies. When they moved to sell-off Canada's interests through secret trade deals we countered them at every turn. When they tried to push down wages for Canadians by allowing foreign workers to work for less, we forced them to reverse their plans.

And, I was so impressed with our NDP MPs on the Standing Committee of Citizenship and Immigration who held together a filibuster to stop the Conservatives and their destructive legislation that would deprive Canadians of their rights as citizens.

I fought hard to strengthen the Parliamentary Budget Officer and to help hold the government to account for their economic and budgetary decisions. This is especially important since the Conservatives can't account for $3.1 billion from their last budget! Unfortunately, Conservative MPs used their majority to kill my proposed legislation, Bill C-476.

New Democrats are pushing back on all of the Conservatives' damaging policies, gross mismanagement and irresponsible cuts to social services. You can count on us to continue to be the fiercest opposition the Harper Conservatives have ever seen! We're showing Canadians that we are a government in waiting with the experience and ability it takes to defeat the Conservatives in 2015. What's more, the vision of the NDP relies on the idea that economic growth must always be accompanied by an improvement in our quality of life for all. Collectively, we have the right to aspire to a better future for our children and grandchildren.

All the best for an enjoyable summer. I hope to see many of you as I visit communities across the country.

Sincerely,


Thomas Mulcair, M.P. (Outremont)
Leader of the Official Opposition
New Democratic Party of Canada

(posted with permission from Tom Mulcair)

Proroguing Parliament - open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Photo by Montrealais

Rt. Honourable Prime Minister Stephen Harper

Prime Minister of Canada

80 Wellington Street

Ottawa, ON

K1A 0A2

Dear Prime Minister

I write to you today because I am really concerned about what is happening in Canada. 

Since coming to Canada in 1965 I have learned a great deal about civil society. It is the spirit of caring that has enabled me to move beyond cynicism and apathy, and that spirit which also makes me really concerned about our future.

Every day I meet well informed Canadian citizens who love this country, who work hard to do their job to the best of their ability, who spend hours contributing to community, for the greater good. Among friends, colleagues and acquaintances I have observed an ethic of citizenship and social responsibility which has inspired me to think beyond my own self interest. Or better yet, to see that my self interest is located in the interest of all.

For people to be the best they can be, they need a society which inspires and acknowledges this spirit of care and concern for our fellow citizens. But many events of late indicate that Canada as a nation no longer exists. What we could so easily believe if we allow ourselves to be influenced by mainstream media news, is that this land is merely a petro state or an opportunity for foreign profit. When we as individuals and as a society believe the only thing that matters is the economy then we cease to care for life itself.

When you call for parliament to be prorogued for the third time, I wonder if you are acting as an employee of a large corporation rather than the prime protector of our nation. It allows cynicism to grow just as the events around Lac-Mégantic, the shooting of Sammy Yatim, the senate scandal and so many other news headlines, make us wonder what happened to the ethic of good government. Where are the standards we thought were realized through centuries of struggle towards human rights, and our responsibilities in a democratic society? Where are our philosophers, our healers, our teachers in parliament?

I believe they are there in Ottawa and in the Canadian conscience – but these voices must be allowed, must be heard. Please do NOT prorogue parliament in September.

yours sincerely

Janet Vickers

Interrogating the White Race

Trayvon Martin, Reza Aslan and Jesus are linked, not just because they have been in the news lately but because there seems to be, thanks to Fox News, a lot of noise around race, religion, good and evil. Most of it a disconnected framing of beliefs built on prejudice.

Rather than moving away from bigotry, right-wing media seems to want to inflame it. Is this a strategy to keep public fears and prejudices chained to hierarchy and oppression?

Christ with beard (Wikimedia commons)

In an article titled Who Owns Jesus? Tasbeeh Herwees interrogates the interview between Fox News' Lauren Green and Reza Aslan. Tasbeeh says "The insinuation underlying Green's questions was that a Muslim writing about Jesus was not just outlandish, but inconceivable without some kind of hidden agenda."

How dare Aslan write about Jesus when he is not white? That would be the question among many people who are informed only by popular propaganda.

Who knew, without having read Herwees article, that middle eastern people were found to be white in a 1915 court case when Syrian immigrant George Dow fought to overturn a ruling that proclaimed him ineligible for naturalization because he wasn't white. A federal appeals court ruled in his favour because of Jesus!

Aslan remained patient and rational throughout the interview as though he were explaining something to an eight year old.  Perhaps because "Aslan, like many Muslims, faces this kind of suspicion in his everyday life - by policemen, TSA officers and passers-by who find his dark skin and foreign name threatening" says Herwees.

Where did the term "white race" come from?  It entered the "European languages in the late 17th century beginning with the racialization of slavery at the time, in the context of the Atlantic slave trade and enslavement of native peoples in the Spanish Empire", says Wikipedia.

In this context it could be argued that economics required this category so that the "white man" could, with a free conscience colonise America, India and Africa.  But it seems it was not enough.  Scientific studies had to be pursued to support the white man's entitlement to exploit and abuse other people for profit.

Samuel George Morton (1799-1851) created Crania Americana (1839), An Inquiry into the Distinctive Characteristics of the Aboriginal Race of America and Crania Aegyptiaca (1844), and concluded that "the ancient Egyptians were not African but white and that Caucasians and Negroes were already distinct three thousand years ago." (Wikipedia)

After centuries of the white man's savage treatment towards aboriginal peoples it seems like some are desperate to hold onto the notions of white supremacy, long after the survey of human mitochondrial DNA (Cann, Stonekind, and Wilson. Nature. 1987), points out that "all mitochondrial DNAs stem from one woman" who lived 200,000 years ago in Africa.

Or more to the point, it seems like capitalism requires a global state of injustice and structural violence in order to maintain its hegemony. But this can only be maintained while we, the majority of people, remain in a state of preferred ignorance and apathy.

Prison Industrial Complex

The murder of a teenage boy by an armed vigilante, George Zimmerman, is only one crime set within a legal and penal system that has criminalized poverty. Poor people, especially those of color, are worth nothing to corporations and private contractors if they are on the street. In jails and prisons, however, they each can generate corporate revenues of $30,000 to$40,000 a year. This use of the bodies of the poor to make money for corporations fuels the system of neoslavery that defines our prison system.

                                                                                         Chris Hedges