Starving for Justice in Gitmo North: "We are slowly dying in here..."

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Starving for Justice in Gitmo North:
"We are slowly dying in here..."


Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada
(416) 651-5800, tasc@web.ca

January 30, 2007


"We are slowly dying in here..."

Weekend Scare Underscores Very Real Danger of Sudden Death for Hunger Striking Detainees at Canada's Guantanamo North

Still No Medical Monitoring After Two Months Without Food

JANUARY 30, 2007 -- "We are slowly dying in here," Mohammad Mahjoub says over the phone on day 67 of his hunger strike, day 56 for Mahmoud Jaballah and Hassan Almrei. "Our situation is very bad."

The three men, held indefinitely under the much-criticized security certificate regime of secret evidence and deportation to torture, are kept at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre (KIHC), dubbed Guantanamo North.

Despite last Thursday's visit by Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, who did not meet with the detainees, there has been no negotiation with the men, and no effort to end a critical situation that could turn deadly at any time.

NO MEDICAL MONITORING

Indeed, the detainees' lives are on the line as staff at the facility play a dangerous game of roulette: despite considerable medical literature spelling out the need for daily medical checks of hunger strikers who have passed day 10 without food, medical staff have NOT conducted a single physical check on any of the detainees, who are subsisting on water and juice. The need to check weight, pulse, blood pressure, respiration, electrolytes, and sodium and potassium levels, among other standards, is essential in preventing the kind of traumatic incident that occurred this past weekend.

On Saturday, January 27, Mr. Jaballah reports that he felt dizziness at about 3:15 pm, pressed the emergency button, and someone finally saw him at approximately 4 pm. He was very weak and unable to walk, and requested that if he needed to be taken to another area for medical help, that this be done with a wheelchair or cart. He was informed that a cart would arrive
at 6 pm. He again felt quite ill, pressed the emergency button, fell down, and was rendered unconscious, only waking up in another section of the KIHC.

He reports experiencing great pain that left him screaming, and a complete lack of control over his body, with uncontrollable shivering and shaking. "Because there has been no daily monitoring of blood, pulse, weight, or other vital signs, it is hard to pinpoint the exact cause of this incident, but our consultation with a Toronto-area physician who has attended to one of the men during a prior hunger strike says that low potassium or sodium could be one cause, coupled with dehydration and possible heart arrhythmia," says Matthew Behrens of the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada. "Needless to say, all of these can lead to a sudden life-threatening drop in blood pressure that could place any of the men in a coma."

DETAINEES VERY WEAK

Daily calls from the detainees indicate they are so weak that they spend most of the day lying down. One has blood in his urine. Another is suffering the severe effects of high blood pressure. Another has broken out in severe skin rashes causing incessant itching, while a severely swollen
tongue has not been dealt with either. All are weak and dizzy from two months without food.

And there is no end in sight.

The detainees, their families, and friends and supporters are concerned that Stockwell Day used his trip to KIHC to justify his preconceived notion of the situation, rather than use the occasion as an opportunity to actually learn the real reasons behind the hunger strike.

STOCKWELL DAY NOT GETTING FULL PICTURE

Stockwell Day did not get a full picture when he visited Guantanamo North. He was unable to taste the daily humiliation the men face at the hands of guards, nor to hear what it is like to be denied medical treatment for things like Hepatitis C, blood in the urine, or a double hernia. Day
needed to hear what it is like to be held indefinitely, without charge, on secret evidence, for upwards of seven years, as these men are living through, to understand that having a microwave and a TV in your facility does nothing to ease the pain of lengthy separation from families, the mental torture of being held on secret 'evidence' neither you nor your lawyer will ever get to challenge, and the daily fear of deportation to torture in Syria or Egypt.

PROBLEM ALREADY FLAGGED BY CORRECTIONAL INVESTIGATOR

Day also did not get a taste of what it's like when there is no oversight agency or ombudsperson to deal fairly with complaints, a key reason for the hunger strike that was in fact flagged by the federal government's 2005/2006 Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator, which concluded "The transfer of detainees from Ontario facilities to the Kingston holding centre means that the detainees will lose the benefit of a rigorous ombudsman's legislative framework to file complaints about their care and humane treatment while in custody. The Office of the Correctional Investigator is concerned that the detainees will no longer have the benefits and legal protections afforded by ombudsman legislation. Pursuant to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, a non-profit organization with no legislative framework, such as the Red Cross, is unlikely to meet the protocol's requirement for domestic oversight." (See below for full text of relevant section of the report)

INITIAL HOPES DASHED

Mahmoud Jaballah explains that despite initial hope that things might be better at KIHC than they were at Metro West Detention in Toronto, the punitive, mean-spirited atmosphere that has taken hold of the facility, especially after they initially raised minor complaints about guards'
behaviour, has become intolerable. Guards are regularly slamming cell doors, making rude comments, and making daily life difficult for the men, who are not allowed to speak to pre-approved media without those same guards present.

The threat they feel to their personal safety, and the even greater fear of false allegations being made against them, means they are now trapped in an Orwellian nightmare that could cause them their lives.

The men are told that health care, which used to be available to them in their living unit, can now only be delivered in the next building. The men say they do not feel safe going to the next building without a supervisor present so there is a witness to possible false allegations that could
harm their chances for bail. [The facility is top-heavy with staff, including two directors, two secretaries, seven supervisors, 12 guards -- all for the three men] So unless they comply with petty and unreasonable prison rules, they are denied a basic human right.

MEDICAL STAFF AND DUTY TO CARE

Last week, a group of some 70 health workers across Canada challenged the lack of ethical standards at KIHC, and campaign representatives point out that the World Medical Association Declaration on Hunger Strikers (adopted by the 43rd World Medical Assembly Malta, November 1991 and editorially revised by the WMA General Assembly, Pilanesberg, South Africa, October 2006) states at point #5 that "Physicians attending hunger strikers can experience a conflict between their loyalty to the employing authority (such as prison management) and their loyalty to patients. Physicians with dual loyalties are bound by the same ethical principles as other physicians, that is to say that their primary obligation is to the
individual patient."

As each minute ticks by, the spectre of the Criminal Code of Canada looms larger, which defines as criminally negligent anyone who "in doing anything or, in omitting to do anything that it is his duty to do, shows wanton or reckless disregard for the lives or safety of other persons."

TAKE ACTION

1. WRITE /CALL/FAX Day, Finley and Harper. It is crucial that public
pressure continue to be felt in Ottawa. It is such pressure that forced
Day to go to KIHC; such pressure will be required to get negotiations going.

Specific points to raise:

a. The men be should provided with immediate and daily medical care in
their living unit.

b. If the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre will not send in health
care staff (something they did before September), the government must allow an
independent outside doctor in to check on the men.

c. The federal government must immediately appoint a neutral mediator to
deal with the problems, and set up a system to deal with ongoing issues
that is balanced and fair (as per the concerns raised by the federal
government's own Office of the Correctional Investigator)

d. The men should not have to die for a little bit of dignity.

*Stockwell Day, MP
House of Commons, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Phone: (613) 995-1702
Fax: (613) 995.1154
day.s@parl.gc.ca
communications@psepc.gc.ca

NOTE: Stockwell Day is the Minister responsible for the Canadian Border Services Agency (which runs the KIHC). Demand that he meet immediately with the detainees or appoint a neutral party to immediately resolve the crisis at KIHC.

*Diane Finley, MP
Phone (866) 496-3400 (Simcoe constituency office).
Finley.D@parl.gc.ca

NOTE: Finley is the new immigration minister. Ask that, as one of the two ministers responsible for signing security certificates, she meet with the families of the detainees (who have requested a meeting) and that she also take action to meet the reasonable demands of the detainees.

* Stephen Harper, Prime Minister of Canada
Phone: (613) 992-4211
Fax: 613-941-6900
pm@pm.gc.ca


2. SOLIDARITY LETTERS.
Write a support card to the detainees (let us know at tasc@web.ca if you
have so we can monitor if mail is getting through). Mohammad Mahjoub,
Mahmoud Jaballah, and Hassan Almrei can be reached:

Kingston Immigration Holding Centre
c/o CSC RHQ Ontario Region
440 King Street West
PO Box 1174
Kingston, Ontario K7L 4Y8


Further info: Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, (416) 651-5800,
tasc@web.ca, www.homesnotbombs.ca

+++++++
Annual Report of the Correctional Investigator, 2005/06 (with respect to
Kingston Immigration Holding Centre)
The second policy issue that concerns my Office is the situation of
individuals detained pursuant to national security certificates. A
national
security certificate is a removal order issued by the Government of
Canada
against permanent residents and foreign nationals who are inadmissible to
Canada on grounds of national security. A recent decision has been made
by
the federal government to transfer security certificate detainees held
under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act from Ontario facilities
to a federal facility, pending their removal from Canada.
In Ontario facilities, the detainees could legally file complaints
regarding conditions of confinement with the Office of the Ontario
Ombudsman. That Office had the jurisdiction to investigate complaints
filed by the detainees pursuant to the Ontario Ombudsman Act.
The Immigration Holding Centre has been built in Kingston within
the perimeter fence of Millhaven Penitentiary. The Canadian Border
Service
Agency entered into a service contract with the Correctional Service to
provide the Border Service Agency with the physical detention facility
and
with security staff. The Border Service Agency has a contract in place
with the Red Cross to monitor the care and treatment of detainees in
immigration holding centres, including the new Kingston holding centre.
The Red Cross, a non-government organization, has no enabling legislation
to carry out a role as an oversight agency. The transfer of detainees
from
Ontario facilities to the Kingston holding centre means that the
detainees
will lose the benefit of a rigorous ombudsman's legislative framework to
file complaints about their care and humane treatment while in custody.
The Office of the Correctional Investigator is concerned that the
detainees
will no longer have the benefits and legal protections afforded by
ombudsman legislation. Pursuant to the Optional Protocol to the
Convention
against Torture, a non-profit organization with no legislative framework,
such as the Red Cross, is unlikely to meet the protocol's requirement for
domestic oversight. (full report available at
http://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/reports/AR200506_e.asp)





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Urgent Update from the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, re Hunger
Strike at Canada's Guantanamo Bay

Friends:

Tomorrow (Friday, February 2), family members of the detainees will be in
Ottawa to plead with the government to intervene and bring an end to the
hunger strike. Below is a brief update from a press release that is going
out today.

You can help!

At 11 am central standard time, we will be in front of the Prime Minister's
office seeking an emergency meeting. From wherever you are, please start
calling at 11 am-11:30 am to (613) 992-4211 and urge:

1. That family members of the hunger strikers and one supporter be allowed
in.

2. That Mr. Harper intervene immediately to meet the demands of the secret
trial detainees and help end the hunger strike.

3. That Mr. Harper instruct Stockwell Day to immediately appoint the
Correctional Investigator (an independent ombudsperson responsible for
federal prisons) to assume jurisdiction over the Kingston Immigration
Holding Centre, as per Mr. Day's discretion in Section 170 of the
Corrections and Conditional Release Act ( 1992, c. 20 ) (ie, 170. (1) The
Correctional Investigator may commence an investigation: (a) on the receipt
of a complaint by or on behalf of an offender; (b) at the request of the
Minister; or (c) on the initiative of the Correctional Investigator.)

If you can please also call Stockwell Day or email him the same message as
in point # 3 above:
Stockwell Day, MP
House of Commons, Ottawa, ON K1A 0A6
Phone: (613) 995-1702
Fax: (613) 995.1154
day.s@parl.gc.ca
communications@psepc.gc.ca


Update below...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Families of Secret Trial Detainees To Seek 11th Hour Solution to End Hunger
Strike;
Former Solicitor General Proposes Solution to Life-and Death Situation at
Canada's Guantanamo Bay as Facility Rejects Outside Negotiating Team

PRESS CONFERENCE: 10:15 am, Charles Lynch Room, Centre Block, Parliament
RALLY: Steps of Parliament Hill, 10:30 am

FEBRUARY 1, 2007 -- On Day 70 of a hunger strike for secret trial detainee
Mohammad Mahjoub and day 59 for detainees Mahmoud Jaballah and Hassan
Almrei, friends, family, and supporters of the men will converge on
Parliament Hill Friday, February 2 at 10:30 am to call on the federal
government to immediately intervene and bring about an end to the crisis
situation at Canada's Guantanamo Bay (aka Kingston Immigration Holding
Centre, or KIHC)

Mona Elfouli, whose husband is Mohammad Mahjoub, and Ahmad
Jaballah, the eldest of six Jaballah children, will be among MPs, a medical
professional, and supporters addressing the media at a 10:15 am press
conference in the Charles Lynch Room in Parliament. MP Bill Siksay will
also participate. They will then proceed to the rally.

This 11th hour appeal to the government comes on the heels of the
rejection of a special negotiating team that was prepared to go to the
Millhaven Penitentiary today and work out a framework to resolve the many
outstanding issues. Team members were to have included former Solicitor
General Warren Allmand, internationally renowned refugee advocate Mary Jo
Leddy, OC, Montreal imam Salam El Manyawi, and Karl Flecker, the national
human rights and anti-racism director of the Canadian Labour Congress.
Former NDP leader Ed Broadbent expressed a willingness to be part of the
team, and has said he is available next week should the government change
its mind.

"Is the government going to let our loved ones die?" Elfouli asks.
"We are very, very concerned that the men are not receiving medical care,
and that no one is talking with them about their demands."

In addition to being denied medical care, the men are also
concerned about a punitive atmosphere at the Kingston Immigration Holding
Centre, and the lack of an objective ombudsperson to deal with the many
grievances that continue to arise.

Warren Allmand, meanwhile, is calling for the Correctional
Investigator, the ombudsperson for all federal inmates except the three men
on hunger strike, to assume jurisdiction over the KIHC, investigate the
complaints, and "prepare an independent set of recommendations to assist in
resolving this emergency situation. Unfortunately, there is no other
independent ombudsman for these detainees and the Correctional Investigator
provides the only hope of resolving the crisis. I urge the government to
act quickly."

Last week, a group of 70 medical professionals called on Ottawa to
immediately provide medical care for the detainees and ongoing monitoring
of their vital signs as the hunger strike drags on. To date, they have yet
to receive any medical care.

For more information: The Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada,
(416) 651-5800


(In this email are a callout for vigils on Wednesday, February 7, a guide
to MPs who need to be contacted before Tuesday morning, and an update on
the hunger strike and events of the past two days)


1. CALL FOR "LET THEM EAT CHOCOLATE SAUCE" ACTIONS WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7

2. LATEST EVENTS (Families Face Slammed Door at Prime Minister's Office;
Outside Physician Rejected by Kingston Immigration Holding Centre)

3. BACKGROUND. Documents, letters, statements, and more on the hunger
strike are all available at http://www.homesnotbombs.ca/gitmonorthstrike.htm


1. URGENT CALL TO ACTION FOR WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 7
The hunger strike at the Kingston Immigration Holding Centre (KIHC)
continues with no end in sight. The government of Canada is refusing to
negotiate. As Mohammad Mahjoub, Mahmoud Jaballah, and Hassan Almrei try to
hang on (today is day 72 for Mahjoub, 61 for Jaballah and Almrei), Public
Sadism Minister Stockwell Day continues to spew an atrocious string of lies
about the men and their circumstances, going so far as to state to Canadian
Press, "[They have a] refrigerator stocked with a variety of juices, soy
milk, honey and chocolate sauce."

Well then, it must be okay to deny these men their Charter rights, to deny
them their rights under the Convention Against Torture, under countless
other covenants and treaties Canada has signed, because, after all, their
unit at Guantanamo Bay North has chocolate sauce in the refrigerator!

The Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada is calling for nationwide
vigils and pourings of chocolate sauce on Wednesday, February 7, which will
be day 75 of Mohammad Mahjoub's hunger strike, day 64 for Hassan Almrei and
Mahmoud Jaballah. In Toronto, for example, from 5-6 pm, we plan to pour
chocolate sauce over a copy of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in front
of the Toronto offices of the organization that regularly tramples those
rights and freedoms, CSIS. We will also pour chocolate sauce over the
Convention Against Torture, also being violated in the cases of Canada's
secret trial detainees.

(If you have issues with chocolate sauce and prefer another form of public
vigil, perhaps with maple syrup, or without any sauces, condiments, or
juices, that's fine too. Just email tasc@web.ca if you can do something
publicly on day 75 of the hunger strike)

Please join us in this display of outrage over the callousness and reckless
disregard for human life that is being shown by the Canadian government
towards Canada's secret trial detainees. And keep calling the government
(see update below). They ARE feeling the pressure.


TWO THINGS THAT NEED TO BE DONE IMMEDIATELY
1. On Tuesday, two separate House committees will consider emergency
resolutions calling for the government to recognize the emergency nature of
the crisis and to immediately appoint the Office of the Correctional
Investigator to assume jurisdiction over the Kingston Immigration Holding
Centre to investigate current and ongoing complaints of those currently on
hunger strike, and prepare an independent set of recommendations for
resolution of grievances.

One is the Standing Committee on Public Safety (whose members are Garry
Breitkreuz, Joe Comartin, Roy Cullen, Sue Barnes, Gord Brown, Raymond Chan,
Irwin Cotler, Laurie Hawn, Dave MacKenzie, Serge Ménard, Maria Mourani, and
Rick Norlock).

The other is the Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration (whose
members are Norman Doyle, Meili Faille, Andrew Telegdi, Omar Alghabra,
Barry Devolin, Raymond Gravel, Nina Grewal, Rahim Jaffer, Jim Karygiannis,
Ed Komarnicki, Bill Siksay, Blair Wilson)

Please call the MPs and urge them to support the resolution on resolving
the hunger strike that will be introduced. If one of these MPs represents
your riding, please let them know that too. If you do not know how to
contact your MP, go to
http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/about/people/house/mpscur.asp?Language=E&p
aram
=c

Find the name of the MP, and the contact information will follow.

2. Call Stockwell Day's office and send him an email with the same message:
resolve the hunger strike, appoint the Correctional Investigator
Phone: (613) 995-1702
Fax: (613) 995.1154
day.s@parl.gc.ca
communications@psepc.gc.ca

3. Call Stephen Harper with the same message: resolve the hunger strike,
appoint the Correctional Investigator
(613) 992-4211
Fax: 613-941-6900
pm@pm.gc.ca


+++++++++++++++

Hunger Strike Update February 4, 2007

A. Harper, Day Refuse to Meet with Families in Ottawa
B. Independent Physician Denied Entry to Guantanamo North
C. Harper checking with lawyers over lawsuits?
D. Why the Red Cross is an Inappropriate Oversight Body
E. KIHC Directors Finally "Meet" with the Men on Day 70 of Hunger Strike
F. "These Men are Being Tortured."

a. Harper, Day Refuse to Meet with Families in Ottawa
At the conclusion of a well-attended press conference during which friends
and family of Canada's secret trial detainees asked whether the government
was willing to let their loved ones die, the answer came back to them in
the form of a slammed door and a refusal to meet from prime minister
Stephen Harper and "public safety" minister Stockwell Day.
About 40 people quickly came together for a rally on Parliament
Hill and a march to the prime minister's office, where they were met by
frowning security and, eventually, a spokesperson who said he could not do
anything.
Mona Elfouli eloquently pleaded the case of her husband, Mohammad
Mahjoub, saying this was the last time she wants to be in Ottawa, because
she wants her husband released and an end to the torture of the secret
trial process that has plagued their family since June, 2000.
Ahmad Jaballah told reporters that the men are being treated like
caged animals and, indeed, that was exactly how Stockwell Day treated them
when he visited the facility almost two weeks ago, peering in at them but
refusing to speak with them or hear their concerns.
Afnan Jaballah, 13, the youngest daughter of Mr. Jaballah and
Husnah Al-Mashtouli, held a picture of her dad. She talked about how
difficult it has been for her and her siblings to not have their dad with
them, how much she wants him home, how unfair it is to keep him in jail
because of secrets.
While reporters seemed interested in minute details of the
conditions at KIHC, they were reminded that the men do not want fresh
newspaper clippings to line the bottom of their cage; it is time to open
the doors of that cage and end the psychological torture of indefinite
detention and deportation to torture.
Strong statements were also issued by Montreal nurse Scott
Weinstein, the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, and NDP MP Bill
Siksay, who has worked tirelessly on this issue. For statements at the
press conference see http://www.homesnotbombs.ca/statements.htm
Media coverage was widespread (though very belated, finally
covering the issue after 70 days of hunger striking!). A good chunk of the
press conference was carried live on CBC Newsworld, and dozens of
newspapers, radio stations, and TV news shows carried the story all day
Friday and Saturday.
Meanwhile, former Solicitor General Warren Allmand called for the
appointment of the Office of the Correctional Investigator, an independent
ombudsperson, to help resolve the crisis.


b. Independent Physician Denied Entry to Guantanamo North
Today Mohammad Mahjoub reports trouble breathing, chest pain (as if
something hard is pushing down on his chest), and pain in his left arm.
This has happened to him repeatedly throughout the hunger strike. However,
the nurse who "presents" daily did not check his pulse, blood pressure,
blood levels, or any other vital sign.
Since day 1 of the hunger strike, medical staff at Canada's
Guantanamo Bay have refused to monitor the vital signs of the men, a
serious breach of medical ethics. Despite repeated requests for health
care, the men are told they can only receive such care if they move to
another part of the facility. Known as the "treatment room," there is
nothing particularly special about it. All it has, in essence, are the
portable tools of the trade that are easily enough carried to the cells or
living unit of the men.
The men are happy to go to the "treatment room" if provided with a
supervisor (to protect against false allegations being made against them by
the guards). A supervisor is never provided, so medical care is denied,
with medical staff claiming they do not have the "consent" of the detainees
to treat them. This is Orwellian nonsense. Daily, the men have made written
and oral requests for health care, but it is denied until they stop
insisting on their right not to be falsely accused (not too much to ask,
given that their whole 6.5 years of incarceration is based on false
allegations!).
The promise of medical care if the men comply with inexplicably
petty prison rules is unconscionable, especially when such care was
provided in the living unit before September. It is punitive, and reckless.
A week ago, Mahmoud Jaballah suffered a severe medical emergency
during which he was rendered unconscious. He woke up in another section of
the KIHC, screaming in pain. He was eventually dumped back in his cell,
with no tests, no follow-up.
In response to this denial of care, supporters contacted a Kingston
physician who has been security cleared for other federal penitentiaries in
the area. This doctor was prepared to go into the living unit, provide an
assessment, and make recommendations. A letter rejecting the doctor was
given to Mohammad Mahjoub on Thursday. In it, the so-called head of "health
care" at Millhaven wrote that the proposed doctor was not to their mind
cleared for penitentiaries and that health care would be provided when they
"consented" to it. (See reference above to the Orwellian nature of consent)

c. Harper checking with lawyers over lawsuits?
One has to wonder if the federal government is consulting its
lawyers with respect to possible lawsuits over charges of criminal
negligence causing death. "The government is pursuing its actions according
to law," Harper said. "We are reassuring ourselves on a constant basis that
these people are being treated in a humane manner." They are not, however,
reassuring "these people" and their families!!!

d. Why the Red Cross is an Inappropriate Oversight Body
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day claims everything's fine because the
Red Cross has toured the facility. As nurse Scott Weinstein pointed out
Friday in Ottawa, "in order for the Red Cross to gain access, they must
make an agreement with the government to keep their findings confidential
between them and the government. This agreement to keep their findings
secret, which the Red Cross has also done with their access to prisoners in
the Guantanamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prisons, means the Red Cross is not
able to be a public and accountable advocate and monitor for the prisoners.
We are demanding an open, public and accountable monitoring of the
prisoners. We agree with the call of former Solicitor General Warren
Allmand to appoint the Office of the Correctional Investigator to assume
jurisdiction. The detainees are the only three people in federal
penitentiaries without access to an independent ombudsperson.

e. KIHC Directors Finally "Meet" with the Men on Day 70 of Hunger Strike
On Day 70 of the hunger strike, the two directors of the Gitmo
North finally condescended to visit the men to find out what is going on
(this after much letter writing and phone calling in the previous weeks
reminding them of the urgency of communication!). But the visit was a
pathetic exercise. After all the suffering the men have gone through, they
were only asked, "So, what are your demands?"
Mohammad Mahjoub asked if the directors had heard from their
families, lawyers, and the Campaign to Stop Secret Trials in Canada, all of
whom have been writing and calling about the demands for weeks on end. When
they said yes, he asked why they had to ask the detainees about the demands
when the former group of people had already been making this clear.
Mahmoud Jaballah said that the demands had been placed on their
desks 70 days ago, and that the men had already received a written
rejection of all of them. He asked if there was anything new for them to
offer.
There was nothing new to offer.
Hence, there was nothing to meet about. In the Orwellian way in
which Gitmo North operates, the meeting will no doubt be referred to by the
staff as "a refusal to talk" in the same manner that their urgent requests
for health care are being translated into "a refusal to consent to health
care."


f. "These Men are Being Tortured."
(From the press conference statement of the Campaign to Stop Secret trials
in Canada)
The men are constantly asked: why a hunger strike? Aren't you only
hurting yourselves? The answer to that is obvious. The hurting began long
ago. These men have already been deeply hurt by secrecy, by lies, by
unfounded and vicious allegations of so-called security agencies whose word
can hardly be believed, especially in light of the Arar Inquiry, by the
frustration of being allowed no meaningful opportunity to clear their
names, by indefinite detention, by the threat of deportation to torture.
This has gone on for between 5.5 and 6.5 years, and there is no end in
sight.
Torture experts have concluded that the ultimate sign of
successful, psychological torture is to have the subject of that torture
become self-abusing. If we can define two months of no food as
self-abusing, then it is clear that this government's effort to torture
these innocent men, whether in Syria and Egypt, or here at home, has been
successful.
All this for individuals who have never been charged with, much
less convicted of, a single offence.
We want an answer from the government today. Are we to assume that
you are hoping these three men will die? Is this so that you can finally
sweep under the rug the collateral damage of a system of judicial
inquisition that, through public exposure, has embarrassed Canada on the
world stage and become the object of intense criticism from the United
Nations, Amnesty International, and other human rights bodies? Unless you
can show us positive, concrete steps to immediately resolve the life and
death situation of the hunger strike, to stop blocking efforts to release
these men to their friends and families, and to end the process to deport
them to torture, we cannot assume otherwise." (full statement at
http://www.homesnotbombs.ca/statements.htm)



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Gorilla Radio for Monday, February 5, 2007

[Listen to Ape Pod here.]


Welcome to GR, etc. Thank God for Jean Chretien! Six years into the disaster on wheels to south of us, the former democratic nation of the United States of America, Canadians should be lighting candles of thanks that the former prime minister, despite his myriad political failings, had the good sense to maintain a semblence of independence in Canada's foreign police by keeping the country out of the bloody conflagration in Iraq. Sadly, he sacrificed the continuous rotation of nearly three thousand Canadians to sustain the illegal occupation of Afghanistan, another disastrous project of George W. Bush's administration. Unbelievably though, the inheritors of the keys to Sussex Drive are eager to enjoin more closely Canada's ties to Empire America.

Clever Conservative Party leader, Stephen Harper, his own ascension to power in this country contingent on massive support by agents of the U.S. regime, and his own averred adherence to that regime's militarist philosophy, is determined to carry forward the long-dreamed, in some quarters, political and economic integration of the North American continent; hitching his poltical wagon, and your children's future, to the shooting star of a doomed empire.

Connie Fogal is the leader of the Canadian Action Party. CAP has been at the fore of the fight being waged by those Canadian citizens who believe Canada should remain independent of the elephant to the south, especially in matters of foreign military adventures. Connie Fogal on the conspiracies and less so of a North American Union in the first half.

And; they blazed into Washington riding a wave of voter revulsion of the incumbent government. Scandals of epic, unprecedented dimension are the hallmark of the Bush administration, and now, with majority control of both houses of Congress, the Democratic Party is in a position to initiate, impanel, and chair congressional committees to begin the long process of redress for a criminal conspiracy centred at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and so far responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands, and the pilfering of untold billions of dollars from the U.S. treasury. David Swanson is the Washington director of Democrats.com and ImpeachPAC.org, and co-founder of the groups, After Downing street.org and Meet with Cindy.org. David Swanson and an accounting of the 110th Congress of the United States of America in the second half.

And; Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of the good things you can get up to in and around Victoria in the coming week. But first, Connie Fogal and shining a light on the dark corners of the deep integration.

Super Bull 2007: When Hawks Cry

The Super Bowl:
When Hawks Cry

Dave Zirin

Last night's Super Bowl was a Roman Vomitorium of odious spew. This wasn't the good, the bad, and the ugly. It was the dreary, the vile, and the insipid made only palatable by the thought of Mike Ditka in a dark bar drinking whiskey shots, chased with the salty discharge humans call tears.

The game itself, even more than most Super Bowls, ill-served a thrilling NFL season. Despite an electric Devin Hester 92 yard kick off return to open the came, the game quickly devolved into sloppy boredom as the ball and steady rain combined to create something closer to the Poseidon Adventure than a football game.

Color Commentator Phil Simms told us early on that the "weather wouldn't be a factor." Not since we were told the "insurgency is in its last throes" has my dear, innocent television emitted such idiocy.

At the NFL's recommendation--perhaps on advice from the geniuses at Halliburton?--the field was left uncovered all day. As a result, there were eight turnovers in the game, with five first half fumbles. Even worse, despite CBS's investment in 47 High Definition cameras, the lenses were continuously fogged. It was like Cujo was attacking the screen, trying to slobber all over my pretzels.

Yes, the game was close, but when the graphic came on screen that the Colts had 20 first downs to the Bears' four, it only confirmed my impression of what was really happening: a dingy mismatch.

As often occurs in Super Bowls, the Bears got desperate in the second half, which meant their hapless quarterback, Rex Grossman, started winging his famous dying quails all over the field. He threw so many of these lame ducks, he's lucky Dick Cheney didn't emerge from the stands to shoot him in the face. At that point, there wasn't a bookie in Reno who would have let you bet that Rex would throw a disastrous game changing interception, which is exactly what happened when Kelvin Hayden with 11:44 left in the game, returned one for a score.

If the game was a bust, the equivalent of Titanic if it had starred Jim Nabors (Manning) and Tara Reid (Grossman), the halftime show was for me a let down of epic proportions. I love Prince. Repeat: Love Prince. I went to college in the Twin Cities, saw His Purple Highness live, and knew women who went to college in the area just because they thought they might meet him.

Perhaps I had unrealistic expectations that Prince would do Janet Jackson one better, and make her flashing of the infamous nipple look like a Pax TV special. But Prince has in recent years become a Jehovah's Witness, denounced profanity and begun to carry himself in a way that makes Tony Dungy look like Marilyn Manson. So I didn't expect the profane Prince of "Head", "Get Off," or the sly pansexual genius of "If I was Your Girlfriend". BUT Prince, in his 2004 album Musicology, has a brilliant song about anti-Arab racism, called "Cinnamon Girl." So I thought we might get something with some kind of political content. My hopes were too high. But to call his performance, as ESPN.com did, "Badass: start to finish" makes me wonder how far the badass bar has been lowered. Yes he looked great with that purple guitar, but he played a cover of "Proud Mary." Dang, I would have settled for "Little Red (Freakin') Corvette"!

America may have swooned for The Kid, but more than a few hearts were broken along the banks of Lake Minnetonka. If Prince was a letdown, the commercials - always a highlight - were
insipid. Rather than catalog the collectively banal, nihilistic, K-Federocity of it all, I want to focus on one: the Snickers ad where two men accidentally kiss and then proceed to tear out their own chest hair in an effort to recover their "manliness." This stood out as the most tired, homophobic exercise I've seen on television since Rick Santorum explained to America how gay relationships could be likened to "man on dog" love. (For the record, I would hate to die and be reincarnated as the Santorum family pooch.) It was the nadir in corporate America's yearly over-hyped orgy of wasted talent.

The night was turning like mayonnaise left on the radiator, until the commercial break at the start of the fourth quarter. In the middle of this river of waste, was a moment--a kernel of joy--that made the 39 hours I spent in front of my television worth the while.

Appearing on screen was a very regular looking guy with the tag line, "Jonathan Powers, Iraq War Vet." He said, "When it comes to Iraq, America's divided." My hackles immediately were raised. It's the Super Bowl and I was convinced that I was about to be told that we all needed to give Bush a Chance.

But then Mr. Powers faded off the screen, replaced by another vet named Brian Van Ripe who said. "On one hand, you've got two thirds of the American people..." Then another vet, Robin Eckstein saying "A bipartisan majority in congress, the Iraq Study Group,..." then another, Joshua Lansdale: "And veterans like us all opposed to the escalation." Then another named Robert Loria, an amputee, saying, "On the other hand, there's George Bush, who supports escalation. If you support escalation, you don't support the troops." Finally a last vet. Andrew Horne, saying "Join the troops. Stop the escalation." (See this starkly powerful ad at votevets.org)

It seems that this ad was regional, in the DC/Virginia/Maryland area, and not national. In other words far more people were exposed to Kevin Federline than this collection of brave men and women. But this one spot had more genuine drama and humanity than the other 38 hours and
59 minutes of treacle combined. My house of rowdy revelers was struck silent. Announcers speak of football players like they are soldiers in some kind of war. It was bracing and even beautiful to see the day's collective bombast humbled by a calm exhalation of reality.



Dave Zirin is the author of the forthcoming books: "The Muhammad Ali Handbook"
(MQ Publications) and "Welcome to the Terrordome: The Pain, Politics and Promise of Sports" (Haymarket).

You can receive his column Edge of Sports, every week by e-mailing edgeofsports-subscribe@zirin.com


Contact him at
edgeofsports@gmail.com

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Edgeofsports mailing list
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http://mail102.csoft.net/mailman/listinfo/edgeofsports

The 2007 Homeless Needs Survey

Victoria - After many months of careful research and preparation, the Victoria Cool Aid Society is pleased to announce that the 2007 Homeless Needs Survey has officially begun. The questionnaire will be administered at over 40 locations throughout the capital region over the next four days.

We invite you to join us on Tuesday, February 6th at one location, 1414 Douglas Street, which has been generously donated as a base camp for this project. Here at 1:00 pm, Mayor Lowe and others will be on hand to show their support for this very worthwhile community undertaking.

On Monday, February 5th, 2007, an enumeration was conducted at shelters, facilities, agencies, institutions, motels and other locations which are known to be utilized by individuals and families who are experiencing homelessness. This information, combined with the knowledge we will gain
from the questionnaires completed over the course of this week, will provide valuable qualitative and quantitative data of both housing needs and the barriers encountered by those in our community who are homeless.

The Homeless Needs Survey is a partnership between Cool Aid, Community Council and over 60 social service agencies in the capital region - such as the Victoria Native Friendship Centre and the Salvation Army. The purpose of the needs survey is to gather first-hand information from the people who are homeless that will result in effective solutions to homelessness in this region.

The Government of Canada has contributed funding to this initiative. Other funding supporters include the City of Victoria, the Capital Regional District, the Ladybug Foundation, the United Way, the Victoria Real Estate Board, Vancity Victoria Branch, the Salvation Army, Moore Paterson Architects, Kiwanis Rose Manor, Shoppers Drug Mart, Shaw Cablesystems, Diamond Communications, Thrifty Foods, Old Victoria Water Company, Capital Iron, Anounce Printer, Canadian Home Builders Association, Cob's Bakery, DTI Computers, Fibre Options, Oak Bay Kiwanis, Leadership Victoria, Regent Hotel, Tom Harris Cellular, VIHA - Vancouver Island Health Authority, and others. In fact this project would never have been possible without the
tremendous support from every level of government and assistance received from business, community, individuals and hard-working staff and volunteers throughout the capital region.



N E W S R E L E A S E

For Immediate Release: February 5, 2007

Additional information can be found at our website www.coolaid.org.

Information: http://coolaid.org

Kathy Stinson, Executive Director of Victoria Cool Aid or
Don McTavish, Manager of Shelters
(250) 383-1977

Jane Worton, Researcher, Community Council
(250) 383-6166

Boxing Palestine: Quartet Condemns Justice

‘Quartet’ Corners PLO,
Hamas into Critical Options

Nicola Nasser
5 February 2007

In Washington on February 2, the Middle East Quartet of peace mediators promised the Palestinian people more of the same devastating status quo, perpetuating their 40-year old Israeli occupation, prolonging the international siege imposed on them, exacerbating their internal divide, and thus cornering them into a situation that they can only shake off either through civil war or unconditional surrender to the U.S.-backed Israeli-dictated fait accompli, unless their national sense of accountability could prevail to make mutual compromises into national consensus.

The Quartet statement read to reporters by the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon boils down to promising them only more of what the U.S. former president Jimmy Carter recently summed up: “In the last six years there has not been one day of good faith, substantive negotiation between Israel and the Palestinians, not one day.”

“Recognizing the critical need to end the Palestinian/Israeli conflict,” the Quartet pledged to support efforts to put in place a process with the goal of ending the occupation that began in 1967 and creating an independent, democratic and viable Palestinian state, living side by side in peace and security with Israel, and reaffirmed its commitment to a just, lasting, and comprehensive peace based on UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338,” the statement said.

It was a positive introductory comprehension of the end goal, which Ki-moon and his co-mediators – the High Representative for European Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, European Commissioner for External Relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Russian and German counterparts, Sergei Lavrov and Frank-Walter Steinmeier -- immediately shot in the feet by the “road map” they adopted to reach that goal.

They failed to incorporate any reference in their statement to the UN Security Council resolution 1515, which commits them and the international community to the so-called two-state solution, although it was a non-binding resolution because it wasn’t adopted according to Chapter VII of the UN Charter.

Then they evaded any time-tabled commitment to reviving the peace process. True they “welcomed” the 23 December summit of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli premier Ehud Olmert and their trilateral meeting with Rice, scheduled for February 21, but the upcoming meeting according to the Quartet will be only a “dialogue” and to Rice’s on record statements will be “informal.” The Quartet’s pledge “to give active follow-up to these meetings and to remain closely engaged” sounded hollow and meaningless.

The Quartet also “noted the continuing importance of the Arab Peace Initiative,” which envisions an all-comprising and comprehensive solution for the conflict with Israel, but failed to suggest an international peace conferences, some dubs as Madrid II -- a key demand by the Arab League, the PLO and Palestinian Authority (PA). Israel has rejected both the Arab Initiative and the conference idea.

The international mediators “called for continued international assistance to the Palestinian people,” and “encouraged … the development of the Palestinian economy,” but, in obvious self-contradiction, did not lift the Israeli and U.S.-led siege imposed as a collective punishment on the PA and people.

Hypocritically, “the Quartet called for Palestinian unity,” but fomented the Palestinian divide by urging donors to selectively “focus on preserving and building the capacity of institutions of Palestinian governance,” while at the same time maintaining the diplomatic, economic and political isolation of the democratically elected Palestinian government and ignoring Russian, Qatari and British parliamentarian demands to engage the PA government shortly ahead of their meeting.

Similarly, “the Quartet expressed its deep concern at the violence among Palestinians,” but failed to commit its U.S. member to refrain from fueling the violence with money, training and weapons to one side of the infighting in a declared pledge to oust an elected government or coerce it into accepting the Israeli preconditions to lift the siege.

Then the Quartet concluded with reiterating “its call for the Palestinian Authority Government to commit … to non-violence, recognition of Israel, and acceptance of previous agreements and obligations,” ignoring the fact that the PA government, regardless of whether led by Fatah or Hamas, is an institution mandated according to Oslo accords to manage the Palestinian apolitical autonomy and is only an administrative tool of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), the political authority who sets the PA’s terms of reference and still committed to the aforesaid “principles,” a strict commitment pressuring it into the brink of civil war.

Palestinian Options

The disappointing outcome of the Quartet meeting rules out any early resumption of “formal” peace talks, leaves the Palestinian people and leadership divided on the verge of civil war under the pressures of both the occupation and siege, thus leaving the divide with only one option: Individual and collective dialogue to review the deadlocked and futile peace process as well as the yet un-delivering violent and non-violent resistance, which both have almost reached a standstill.

Palestinian pollster Khalil al-Shikaki in a surveyed analysis dated February 1 (www.pcpsr.org) concluded that President Abbas has four options to break through the Palestinian impasse: 1) to form a national unity government, 2) to organize early presidential and legislative election, 3) to fire the Hamas-led Palestinian government and form an emergency one, and 4) to resign. Al-Shikaki ruled out the last three options as counterproductive to the “Palestinian vital interests” and could lead to more infighting. However his preferable first option could not “completely end the siege and boycott in a short period.”

The only breakthrough left is mutual compromises. According to al-Shikaki, Hamas’ flexibility in dealing “positively” with the Quartet’s three conditions to “respect” the signed accords, recognize Israel as a “fait accompli” and agree to an open-ended truce makes the first option “viable.” The Fatah-led PLO has yet to reciprocate by giving priority to national consensus more than to the Israeli-drafted and Quartet-adopted three conditions. Palestinian national unity will lead in the end to break through the siege.

All sides of the Palestinian divide, the Israeli Occupying Power and the world community should adapt to the fact that the 40-year old monopoly of Palestinian decision-making by Fatah came to an end on January 25, 2006, when Hamas broke into the role of a principal decision-maker by a landslide electoral victory that empowered it with dominant executive and legislative powers, and sooner or later the Islamic Resistance Movement will gain a parallel dominance in the PLO, a democratically-clinched right that Hamas in its defense has tactically contributed to the ensuing bloody power struggle.

However 12 months on, the unity government has failed the national bilateral and multilateral dialogue as well as Islamic and Arab mediation efforts, including Qatari, Egyptian, Jordanian, Syrian and Islamic mediators; several ceasefire agreements have so far collapsed on the security approach. The latest Saudi Arabian good offices are also expected to stumble on the same approach, which foiled previous similar efforts.

Fatah’s Revolutionary Council, chaired by Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah on Sunday, suspended a three-day session in waiting for the outcome of the Mecca-hosted talks between Abbas and Hamas’ leader Khalid Misha’al on Feb. 5, but warned the PLO will go for the Hamas-rejected presidential and legislative election in June if the two leaders failed to agree on a unity government based on the Quartet’s three conditions, which practically will sooner or later doom the outcome, because Hamas views its subscription to the Quartet’s agenda as a carte blanche for the Quartet, Israel and the PLO to resume their 15-year old counterproductive and futile so-called “peace process.”

The PLO and Fatah leadership insists on Hamas accommodating the Quartet conditions as a Palestinian obligation to lift the siege, which Hamas says was only tightened after its electoral victory and was in place before that as a mechanism to pressure the PLO into accepting the comatose former Israeli premier Ariel Sharon-initiated long-term interim arrangement of a transitional Palestinian state on 42 percent of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Both Hamas and the PLO have recently unequivocally rejected this Israeli unilateral plan. The Quartet’s silence or vague stance on the arrangement and their promised “informal” revival of high-level Israeli – Palestinian “dialogue” should provide enough common ground for a PLO-Hamas consensus.

The deadlocked peace process, the paralysis of the PLO and PA institutions, the inability of the Palestinian presidency and government alike to rule the autonomous 42 percent of the Israeli-reoccupied West Bank or the militarily-besieged Gaza Strip, the zero sum situation where the Palestinians have neither an “armed struggle” nor popular non-violent resistance save for seasonal symbolic expressions and where the erosion of public trust in both leading movements, according to latest Palestinian public surveys, threatens to render the Palestinians leaderless, all have locked the Palestinian national liberation movement in its current impasse.

The ensuing divide has led to bloody street battles that embroiled both the Fatah and Hamas security executive forces in a militia-style power struggle in mutual self-destruction, taking down with them what government institutions the PA has built since 1993, including public services infrastructure like power stations, universities and police and intelligence stations, especially in Gaza Strip - - as this mission was left for the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in the West Bank - - amid mounting and widening popular outrage, security chaos exacerbated by the crushing economic siege, popular loss of hope deepened by the Quartet’s latest unpromising meeting, helplessness of Arab and Islamic brothers who are too preoccupied to rush for rescue with the several battle fronts opened by turn once by the U.S. and then by Israel.

All these and other factors are creating the ideal environment to look for survival in a new anti-occupation uprising that might sweep away also the autonomy and both protagonists who are wasting their energies in a struggle over who manages the Palestinian prison, according to the Palestinian-Arab Israeli MP, Azmi Bishara, in a recent article.

However, joining of the Oslo political institutions by Hamas, accompanied by the two-year old strict commitment to a unilateral truce, was an indirect declaration of a change in course and tactics that confused the movement’s declared strategy among supporters because of the contradiction between rejecting the Oslo status quo and being incorporated into its institutions, let alone being embroiled in bloody power struggle over who leads them.

Similarly, the dead end the negotiations with Israel has reached, the meager results the negotaitions have produced, the insistence of the PLO on holding the Palestinian self-determination hostage to the whims of the Israeli-U.S. good faith and its determination to commit Hamas to the same futile course – which deprived the PLO even of the limited autonomy it was offered on an interim basis until July 1997, provided a “legitimate” PLO cover to slicing Jerusalem off the occupied territories and isolating it as inaccessible for Palestinians, and doubled the colonial Jewish settlers to more than 450.000 since 1967 -- have eroded the PLO’s credibility.

Salam Fayyad, the former PA Finance Minister and a founder of the new Third Way political party alongside Hanan Ashrawi who are both incumbent MPs, described the current status quo to the Seventh Annual Herzliya Conference in Tel Aviv on Jan. 24: “The nature of relations today between Israelis and Palestinians has reached levels of micromanagement, where Israel is involved in the minute details of the lives of Palestinians. It is important to remember that the entirety of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is ruled by military orders – not by politics, logic, or reason – but by military orders with (Israel’s) “security” dictating the rules of the game.” To hell of course with Palestinian security!

Both sides have all the compelling reasons to backtrack and bend on individual as well as collective reviews of the status quo.



Nicola Nasser is a veteran Arab journalist based in Ramallah, West Bank of the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

Sheehan Launching 'The Occupation Project'

Grannies do Heavy Lifting














http://www.chronwatch.com/content/
images-uploaded/sheehan%20hussein.jpg
Sunday, 04 February 2007
by Cindy Sheehan

My dear friend, Diane Baker, from Dallas-Ft. Worth who is a United Church of Christ Minister and fearless crusader for peace is also a grandmother, has a degenerative disease, and was sweeping garbage in DC for being arrested there this past October protesting the illegal and immoral war in Iraq: to save your children and the children of Iraq.

02/04/07 "ICHBlog" -- - -Three grandmas are going to Federal Prison for 1-3 months each for protesting the inhumane and horrifically criminal School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Ga. They compromised the fence line protesting how the SOA (School of Assassins) training of murderers who oppress, torture and kill people all over the world...even throwing in a few South American dictators here and there. They did it to save your children and the children of the world.

My "grannies' in the Granny Peace Brigade get arrested over and over again all over the country trying to enlist in the US military to save your children and the children of Iraq.

Diane was sentenced to eight hours of sweeping trash in DC; which is a filthy city, but the trash that needs to be taken out resides in the White House. Diane was doing what each and every American has the right and the moral duty to do: she was exercising her First Amendment freedoms and her obligation to dissent against an out of control government. The "compassionate" judge ordered Diane, who is obviously physically challenged by her disease, to do this community service in freezing weather. Diane's entire life is community service to her country and to her patients in the hospice where she lovingly helps people go to the other side.

War is peace; hate is love; injustice is justice; indifference is compassion and this country is seriously upside down from over six years of an administration that thinks that good things are happening in a country where their policies have killed almost a million people and a "president" that goes to Wall Street to congratulate the only people who are benefit ting from his tax cuts and war for profit.

The members of Congress who role into their comfortable offices from hired cars and walk between their offices and the Congress building in underground tunnels in the oppressive heat of summer, or the dire cold of winter; are contemplating weak and cowardly measures for only symbolic opposition to a war that is killing the children of the sinking middle class in this country and the brown, non-Christian, non-English speaking children of Iraq. The people in the US who have everything to lose are allowing Congress to be complicit in the war crimes of BushCo.

The people of the US are also allowing Grannies to do the heavy lifting and hard work and prison time for us all. These wonderfully brave and committed women should be home playing and spoiling their own grandchildren, but they are putting their tired and sometimes diseased bodies on the line for yours.

Beginning on Monday, February 5th, the Occupation Project is beginning sit-ins in every House Rep and Senator's offices across this nation to demand an end to the war in Iraq by voting "nay" to giving any more money to BushCo for their murderous war.

Join the Occupation. Put your body on the line like these brave Grandmas have and as our brave, tired, and deceived soldiers do everyday for BushCo's lies.

Do it for all the children.

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was killed in Bush's war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and the Camp Casey Peace Institute. She is the author of three books, the most recent is: Peace Mom: A Mother's Journey Through Heartache to Activism.


source:
http://www.ichblog.eu:80/content/view/342/2/

Die TV, DIE!!!

Notes from a Super Bowl Sunday with the TV B-Gone - Die, TV!

Christopher Ketcham

Friday, 02 February 2007




The TV-B-Gone, which fits in the palm of the hand, is a universal remote whose sole purpose and power is to shut down televisions. During last year's Super Bowl Sunday, it resulted in at least one thrown bottle, two near fist-fights, twenty-seven (by my count) disappeared Hail Marys, touchdowns, and tackles, one half-time show half-seen (or seen, rather, in a kind of slow motion shutter effect — I with TV-B-Gone closing the screen, the bartender mashing finger into the on-button like a man poking out eyes), and one near-hammering-into-pulp of a writer waving a TV-B-Gone.

I deployed across Brooklyn that fateful Super Bowl 2006 with a single unit for a test run, assaulting mostly sports bars and taverns and also one restaurant (where no one in the crowd, not even the staff, noticed the quieting of the television — for me, a key indicator). I have since been terrorizing televisions almost daily. I go nowhere without the TV-B-Gone. I have killed televisions in Charles de Gaulle Airport, in Heathrow, on the streets of Paris, in the restaurants of small Utah towns, in a Virgin Megastore on Manhattan island, and in countless Brooklyn bars.

Mitch Altman, the 50-year-old inventor of the TV-B-Gone, tells me that when he feels depressed he arms himself and heads into the streets. "It's almost a compulsion for me. When I see a TV going in a public place, I go out of my way to turn it off," he says. "Imagine a room where there's an uptight person wearing really bright clothing and jumping up and down and yelling. It's hard to be relaxed when that person is present. When a TV goes off, I notice people's shoulders and arms relax — the body language changes completely. When I'm feeling blue, I turn off a television or two and life just seems a whole lot better."


Altman is a California technophile, a computer whiz, a self-described "geek." He pioneered virtual reality technologies in the 1980s and early versions of voice-recognition software. He built disk drives that were always smaller and faster, and eventually co-founded a company called 3Ware, which perfects disk drive "controllers." He was also a television addict. "I used to collect TVs off the street," he says. "I had 50 TVs in my mom's basement. She was very patient with me. I watched TV every waking moment of my life. But even as a little kid, I remember watching TV and telling myself, 'I don't like this, why am I watching this?' I was five years old when I asked that question. But I kept watching. The one show that I really hated was Gilligan's Island. But it delivered just enough to keep me coming back for more. That is the process of addiction."

Then, in 1980, Altman was watching TV as always, and the question came up that had been dogging him since he was five years old, and suddenly TV was over for him. "I was watching Gilligan's Island — nothing against Bob Denver, but I just couldn't handle it anymore. I went cold turkey. And I've never had a TV since."

It wasn't just Gilligan's Island. It was the physical and psychological awfulness of the experience of watching television. It was the fact that Altman one day sat down in a restaurant with old friends he hadn't seen in years, "but there was a television playing nearby and we found ourselves watching the TV — unable not to watch the television — instead of talking to each other, being with each other."

TV is unique in the EEG activity it summons in the human brain, and unique as well in that it drastically reduces the metabolic rate of the human organism. When you sleep, you use more energy than when you watch TV. When you stare at a painting or read a book or knit or fart in bed, you use more energy. EEG activity during television-watching is marked by alpha waves, those dreamy, spacey waves that also exist between sleeping and waking — a passive state in which sustained intense critical thought is pretty much impossible. Alpha waves are also associated with coma.

The technology that Altman devised to counteract this horror was simple. The TV-B-Gone consists of a computer chip programmed with a database of all the power codes of televisions in existence that Altman could track down from the public domain. The diode eye uses infrared light, which makes it felicitous to zap through clothing or across window panes or from a distance. "The chip speaks 214 power codes that work on thousands of different television sets," Altman says. "The power code for a Panasonic is the same as for a RCA. The TV industry made it so easy on me! I'd love to have a Cell-Phone-B-Gone, a Bush-B-Gone. But those things aren't so easy to get rid of." I suggested a unit that expands and clarifies the purpose, a unit that permanently disables the offending television. "There's no remote control code for 'blow up the tv,'" Altman tells me. "You can always buy a brick. Certainly a bomb is a technology that's been around for a while." One possible avenue is the use of a concentrated electromagnetic pulse that would burn out the circuits. "But how," Altman asks, "do you make it directional enough that it wouldn't harm the button-pusher? That's the question." Researchers should get to work.

Since Oct. 19, 2004, when Altman launched his product, more than 112,000 units have been sold in every state and territory of the US, and worldwide in over 80 countries. In 2005, Altman traveled on a TV-B-Gone tour across Europe, appearing on BBC TV sixteen times in two days — ironic enough. "My main reason for going to Europe," he says, "was for field-testing on European TVs." In January, a host on New York's WBAI talk radio, which was giving away TV-B-Gones for its winter fundraiser, noted that enthusiasts are now suggesting ingenious modifications. For example, one might mount the tv-killing diode eye in a hat, with the clicker device linked by cable in one's pocket. Or you might build an amplification unit with multiple flood-eyes that literally, as Altman put it, "turn off televisions any direction you look."

Super Bowl 2006 was effectively my own field test. Why go after the Super Bowl? The Super Bowl by its attraction of those scores of millions of human eyes brings to bear what is arguably the most expensive and sophisticated marketing and propaganda apparatus in history, and therefore it represents television's awfulness par excellence. Also, there is the issue of the essential but unspoken pathologic weirdness of men who never exercise gathering to peer at other grown men who run around on a screen in a plastic box chasing a piece of leather and smack each other on the ass when they catch the leather (at which sight the men watching the ants on the screen in the plastic box clap and jump up and down and touch each other as well).

When employing the TV-B-Gone among lunatics such as this, immense care must be taken. Here are suggested rules for terrorizing the upcoming event on February 4. First off, when the TV goes out, the TV-B-Goner should scream the loudest in protest to deflect suspicion. This makes strategic comrades of strangers who otherwise will want to smash your TV-B-Gone to bits. Second, order your drink before you strike; otherwise, the bartender will be too busy fending off the apes protesting the darkness at noon on the screen. Third, be drunk, even if you're not; everyone else is. Fourth, frequently throw up your hands in cheers; you can also, to look normal, produce a steady black-pantherish fist to celebrate "your team" (pick one); this allows innumerable angles to grab the eye of the target TV. Fifth, and most importantly, do not stand up in the midst of the horror of the evening to announce, after too many drinks, that you and the TV-B-Gone are the source of the trouble and that the TV-B-Gone is just wonderful and you can buy it anytime at www.tvbgone.com.




Christopher Ketcham is a freelance journalist who has written for Harpers', Penthouse and Salon.com. He can be reached through his website: christopherketcham.com

Hugo the Horrible [BBC]

Chavez gets sweeping new powers



Critics say Mr Chavez is gathering powers in his own hands

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has been granted new special powers after an extraordinary assembly vote in the main square of the capital, Caracas.
Mr Chavez will now be able to rule by decree for the next 18 months.

His planned reforms will affect the energy sector, telecommunications, the economy and defence, among others.

Mr Chavez has said the legislation will transform the country into a socialist society. Opponents describe the new law as an abuse of power.

In the open-air public ceremony in the capital, lawmakers voted unanimously to grant the Venezuelan leader the new powers, shouting: "Long live Socialism."

He has been trying to export his kind of radical populism and I think his behaviour is threatening to democracies in the region

US deputy secretary of state
John Negroponte

Congressional Vice President Roberto Hernandez said the assembly passed the law so Mr Chavez could "urgently set up the framework for resolving the grave problems we have".

According to the so-called enabling law, the president can remake laws for "the construction of a new, sustainable economic and social model" to achieve an equal distribution of wealth.

Mr Chavez will be able to effect change by presidential decree in 11 broad areas.

Commanding position

It is expected that President Chavez will, in effect, nationalise the oil and gas industries, taking a majority share in their ownership.


Mr Chavez has huge assembly support after an opposition boycott
The move will involve companies like Exxon, BP and Chevron but it is uncertain what, if any, form of compensation those companies might receive.

Mr Chavez has popular support after his re-election victory last year, the assembly has been on his side since the opposition boycotted parliamentary elections in 2005, and Venezuela is reaping huge revenues from high oil prices.

He wants to scrap presidential term limits and rewrite the constitution to build what he calls "socialism for the 21st Century".

Officials say he has no intention of turning Venezuela into a communist state, arguing that freedom of speech and religion will all be safe.

But the US has again been critical of his leadership.

John Negroponte told a hearing to confirm his position as the new deputy secretary of state that Mr Chavez has not been a "constructive force in the hemisphere".

"He has been trying to export his kind of radical populism and I think that his behaviour is threatening to democracies in the region," Mr Negroponte said.

source:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6315819.stm

Spitzer’s First Budget

Spitzer’s First Budget Assails Health Care System





By DANNY HAKIM
Published: February 1, 2007

ALBANY, Jan. 31 — Gov. Eliot Spitzer proposed to radically restructure aid to New York’s sprawling health care industry in his first budget Wednesday, saying that the system props up failing hospitals and too often overlooks patients’ needs, while consuming roughly a third of the state’s budget.

The health care changes were among several ambitious proposals that the new governor outlined in his $120.6 billion budget, which would increase overall spending by 6.3 percent — about double the rate of inflation — and cut $1.2 billion from existing health care programs. The cuts would offset billions of dollars worth of proposed property tax cuts and increased education aid.

Many of the governor’s ideas, which followed up on his campaign pledge to toss aside the conventional way of doing business in Albany, would indeed reshape the way the state operates. But they face tough going in the Legislature, where Mr. Spitzer’s brash style has already put him on a collision course with the top legislative leaders, prematurely ending the political honeymoon that often greets newly elected governors. [News analysis, Page B5.]

To control health care spending, Mr. Spitzer would hold the growth of Medicaid to 1.7 percent, compared to 8 percent growth rates in recent years, by cutting subsidies to hospitals and nursing homes, slashing Medicaid reimbursement rates and by stepping up efforts to combat fraud. Conversely, he outlined a plan to make low-cost health insurance coverage available to the state’s 400,000 uninsured children.

His budget also called for several other major measures.

One was an education plan that would increase state aid to schools by $7 billion annually within four years and throw out the complex formula used to distribute school aid around the state. New York City would receive $3.17 billion more annually within four years, with the expectation that the city stick to Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to increase its own spending by $2.2 billion annually within four years.

But a new municipal-aid formula would favor impoverished cities and take nearly $350 million a year away from New York City.

The budget also includes a $1,000- per-child tax deduction for private school tuition. Similar proposals failed to pass under the previous governor.

Another was a $6 billion, three-year property tax relief plan that would focus new aid on middle-class homeowners, granting an average of $920 in relief for such families in the New York suburbs and an average of $512 upstate. The Senate has proposed distributing the same amount of money in two years in a more broadly based manner.

A third major proposal would increase the state work force by nearly 2,500, including 355 workers who would carry out new policies on civil commitment of sexually violent predators. The governor also proposed creating 166 new environmental and conservation jobs, and create an office specializing in climate change to look at ways to reduce global warming.

Mr. Spitzer, readying for a fight over the health care cuts and school aid, told lawmakers on Wednesday morning that he would take his case to the public. Polls show the governor is far more popular than the Legislature.

“I’m going to be out there talking to voters, citizens, homeowners, taxpayers, editorial boards,” the governor said in his speech to lawmakers. “I’m going to be speaking to anybody who will listen. This is not a debate that will be cloistered in the halls of this building. This is a debate that I plan to bring to the people.”

The Republican Senate majority leader, Joseph L. Bruno, a frequent ally of the health care industry, said he had “serious differences” with the governor’s proposals, and also took aim at his style.

“When you’re governing, it’s all about compromise,” he added. People who “draw lines in the sand don’t get on-time budgets. They don’t get results.”

In taking on the health care system, Mr. Spitzer is confronting the nation’s costliest Medicaid program, one that helps support an expansive but money-losing hospital industry with arcane financing rules often designed to keep state aid in place, no matter the effect on patient care.

The health care proposals drew a sharp and immediate response from two politically powerful interest groups, the Greater New York Hospital Association and 1199 S.E.I.U., the health care workers’ union, which, in a joint statement, said the governor’s health proposals were “riddled with inaccuracies.”

Those two groups have cultivated close ties to legislators and spent millions on political contributions, and in the past have defeated similar proposed cuts by saturating the airwaves with television commercials explaining their viewpoint.

The governor’s Medicaid proposals would freeze reimbursement rates to hospitals and nursing homes, lower reimbursements to pharmacies and overhaul payments to hospitals to help them increase salaries.

But many advocacy groups were supportive, saying the proposals brought needed reform to a byzantine system of paying for health care. Michael Kink, legislative counsel of Housing Works, an advocacy and service organization for people with AIDS, said the governor “moves health care money towards patients and front-line care providers, and away from big institutions that don’t serve many Medicaid beneficiaries.”

For his part, the governor contended that “every patient will come out ahead in the long run,” adding that large hospitals and nursing homes “can afford it.”

“They are the ones who have received almost an unending supply of capital and cash over the last 10 or 15 years,” he said. “They will have to rationalize their own operations to make themselves accountable for those dollars they are getting.”

Kenneth E. Raske, the president of the Greater New York Hospital Association, said the cuts could hurt patient care. “He cuts us and we have to cut into the operations of the hospitals, particularly since no one has helped us by putting a freeze on our cost of doing business,” he said.

The governor’s proposed spending increases exceeded former Gov. George E. Pataki’s proposals in his executive budget a year ago — which were just over 4 percent for the total budget. But in his speech, Mr. Spitzer emphasized that his proposals were far lower than the final budget that the Legislature enacted, which increased spending over all by more than 9 percent.

Dealing just with the state’s spending of its own money, not federal aid, the governor is proposing to increase total state spending 7.8 percent, to $83.6 billion, or about three times the rate of inflation projected for the state.

Edmund J. McMahon, the director of the Empire Center for New York State Policy, an affiliate of the conservative policy group the Manhattan Institute, called the proposed spending increase the largest in an executive budget “since Pataki’s first election-year budget.”

“Unless the normal law of physics is suspended, it lays the groundwork for a big increase,” in spending, he said.

The governor said he was not proposing any new taxes, but Republicans disagreed, pointing to $449 million in business-tax loopholes that the governor is proposing to close and $67.7 million in new or higher fees in the budget. The governor also said he would create a special commission to explore whether some of the state’s prisons can be closed.

The governor warned lawmakers not to spend more than he was proposing, a notion that made some lawmakers roll their eyes.

“I think it’s kind of naïve to think you’re going to give this budget to the Legislature and they’re not going to enhance it in some way,” said James Tedisco, the leader of Republicans in the Assembly.

Ryszard Kapuscinski: Man with a mission

Kapuscinski Is Dead?




Ryszard Kapuscinski: Man with a mission

By Shefa Siegel

TheTyee.ca

January 24, 2007 Last month I was travelling Nicaragua with two Polish friends. As new friends do, we were fumbling for things to talk about, points of commonality, shared interests. "Shefa loves Kapuscinski," one told the other. An approving look. "But Kapuscinski," the friend asked, "he is dead?" I shook my head vigorously no, insisting he had a new book waiting to be published in English. Later, when I returned to Vancouver, I opened talks with the owner of a bookstore to bring the Polish travel writer for a signing once the book was published. "I must meet him," I told the storeowner.


Now the press agencies are reporting that in fact it is true, that Ryszard Kapuscinski has died at the age of 74, supposedly after a long illness. I gather there is much afoot in the world at the moment. Bombs in Baghdad, nukes in Tehran, the Democrats on the march; all the front page stories to which I have become immune in six long years of global insanity; six years in which I feel like I have been holding my breath, waiting to live. But the death of Kapuscinski makes me cry out to the walls of my empty apartment. This is news. This is sadness. This is a loss, a man I knew only from the six or seven books of his that are translated to English, and somebody who clearly never waited to live, nor for his life to begin.


For Kapuscinski was no mere travel writer, no mundane reporter. He revived the sagging, inert genre of traveloguing -- a form that had the vitality sapped from it a century ago when the British and American readership commercialized imperialism. Kapuscinski combined two rare attributes: courage and poetry. The obituaries will all record the same impressive resume: that as a reporter he witnessed 27 coups, reported from all over post-colonial Africa in the 1960s, put himself in mortal danger and later wrote books that were well received. But this will explain nothing. For any knee-twitching journalist in Addis Ababa can salivate over the prospects of an imminent war in Somalia, and work over his editor at Reuters to get him on the last flight in before the bombs drop. There is an endless reservoir of humans who derive pleasure from seeing other people cast into man's deepest darkness, and finance this need by reporting the facts from the interior of hotel rooms in war zones.


Risked all


Kapuscinski definitely had the daredevil gene. For no good reason, he would drive sacked roads in war-torn Nigeria to find out exactly who was controlling what areas, and be beaten and have gasoline poured over him before escaping with his life (a story for which his editors berated him by writing him with the curt message, "Ryszard, we must request you stop doing such things"). He definitely had stones. When he was temporarily positioned behind a desk and war broke out in Congo, he finagled a posting to Nigeria, changed the ticket to Cairo, flew to southern Sudan, bought a car, and drove to the Congo without permission, protection or pleasure. (Indeed from this experience he wound up imprisoned and hours from execution.)


For what defined Kapuscinski was not his ability to manage his heart rate, but his reflection, and the poetic attention to words, to understanding people and situations, which no longer exists in any mainstream literary medium. The proof of his genius is simply the weight of his books. For example, there are countless sources to read about Ethiopia and Haile Selassie. But look at the footnotes to Michael Ignatieff's reportage from Africa in The Warrior's Honour, and you will see that at the end of it all, he says something to the effect of nothing else claims the mantle of Kapuscinski's rendering of the fall of Selassie in The Emperor. Because in this book about majesty, Kapuscinski took the reader back through the ages, all the way to biblical stories of court intrigues chronicled by the Book of Esther or the feud between David and Saul narrated in the Book of Kings. And the technique was so simple, it is a miracle nobody did it before. He found the former courtiers of Selassie's last days (not a simple task of reporting), then recorded their monologues in their own voices. He let the places and the people he was experiencing and interviewing speak for themselves. Kapuscinski did what journalists were invented to do, which is give humanity to those who are different from ourselves. He was, in the most subtle form possible, an emissary for peace and for justice in the world.


Portrait maker


For his techniques, there are some who called Kapuscinski a liar (as a journalist from National Geographic told me colleagues of his believed). Indeed, he willingly admitted he did not take notes, that he believed any form of recording changed what people said. But, he explained, in the words that each person delivers, there is a unifying theme, a core idea, a trope to which Kapuscinski honed his attention. And it was this essence he later recorded from the relative quiet of his hotel room. But this is simply where Kapuscinski transformed reportage from a mediocre professional skill to a fine art. His goal was truth, not facts; he drew portraits rather than assessments; in many cases, his canvas was himself.


And much of the time he was so bang on it hurts as an aspiring writer to see how good somebody can be. When I was travelling parts of Africa as a UN consultant, and struggling with the feeling of having somehow been separated from reality, it was Kapuscinski who illuminated for me why I felt this way. "People from the United Nations form a club unto themselves," he commented in The Soccer War. "Many of them are pretentious: they look on everything and everyone from a global perspective, which means, simply, that they look down. They repeat the word 'global' in every sentence, which makes it difficult to settle everyday human problems with them."


Kapuscinski seemed to look down on no one, and was at his best with everyday problems, like when the truck he was being transported by broke down in the middle of Mauritania's desert. Africa was his first and only love. This is so clear from his collection of essays Shadow of the Sun, and a book of war reportage from Angola called Another Day of Life. Maybe it was the times, those early post-colonial days when a coup or revolution could break out at any moment, but Kapuscinski also clearly loved something about the contradictions of a continent at once so broken and so whole. He loved its austerity and its joy just beneath the surface. He did not care so much for Latin America, where he reported for five years, satirizing its "baroque" sensibilities. Everything in Latin America has to be the biggest, he wrote. If it has a river it is the longest, a mountain it is the tallest (he never did seem to report from Asia!), the plains the widest, a forest the biggest. He was not afraid to criticize or to love, all of which opened Kapuscinski to criticism, and even a certain kind of obscurity.


For although those who know him really know him, even my Polish friends knew him only because he had become something of a Polish celebrity by that point, coming as the special guest of an event where a statue was unveiled for a Polish traveller who cycled around Africa. This is to say, they were not terribly familiar with his books, much less his mission. And this is the key point about Kapuscinski, with whom I am obviously in love, passionate and partial: he possessed a profound sense of mission.


Towards peace through understanding


He admitted as much in an interview given to Charlie Rose some years ago, saying he had made a conscious decision to concentrate on history in the making rather than the history of the past, and that he felt a compulsive need to explain things to people with the hope that the deeper we know each other, the more peaceful humans will be.


This mission was more delicately wrapped in an essay he wrote years ago for Granta, which was later republished and used as the fulcrum for The Soccer War, called in various forms something like "High time I started writing the next book." In this essay, he highlights all the things he means to write about -- a form which serves as the file I now keep called, simply, "The Book I Mean to Write" -- if only he had time. "I would write a dictionary describing how different words take on different meanings depending on where they are spoken in the world," Kapuscinski writes. "I would write about the time I was sent to Latin America, but didn't really like it. I would write about how hard it is for a northerner to survive in the tropics, or what it feels like to hide in a hotel room when all white men are being rounded up on the streets, or the experience of being in motion so often, flying, stewardesses, passports, hotels, typewriters, loneliness. I would write about all this, if only things didn't keep coming up. If only the world would calm down for a moment. If only I could take a break from my deepest sense of mission."


A conviction so deep it becomes a mission is so rare for non-ideologues, zealots or fanatics, that Kapuscinski deserves praise, and respect, memorializing and dedications for holding so stoically to his own purpose throughout his life. His words alone will survive him. That is something. But more than his words a writer wants to be remembered for his ideas, which have a way of seeping into the world, and becoming part of the collective unconscious long after, in fact only after their bodies have passed and just their lines remain. To feel such gratitude and warmth for a person I only think I know, when in fact all I know are his words, is a testament to the righteousness of Kapuscinski's core idea, that the more the lives of others are explained to us, the less likely we are to fight. This is to say, the more likely we are to love. This is a tribute not only to Kapuscinski himself, but also to everyone who feels the inexplicable humanistic drive to put thought to order, apply meaning to language, give life to words.


"You must choose your words carefully," Kapuscinski said, "because there are so many of them in the world." It is a reassurance that the humanistic will is still alive in humanity, no matter how troubled, corrupt, or infuriating; no matter how desperately we need the world to become calmer, so that we can release our clenched teeth, and remember what it is like to breathe again.



Shefa Siegel is a writer, environmental consultant for the United Nations Industrial Development Organization and doctoral student at the University of British Columbia. He lives in Victoria.


source:
http://thetyee.ca/Books/2007/01/24/Kapuscinski/

Canada's Disappearing Internet Freedom

Canada Sleeps Through War to 'Save the Internet'

Pitched battle in U.S. over 'net neutrality' Digital democracy at risk if telecoms get their way say opponents.

By Bryan Zandberg
Published: January 17, 2007


TheTyee.ca

Net neutrality. A bland phrase capable of sparking a digital revolt.

In the United States it's the hot-button Internet issue of the day, a threat deemed so grave to free expression it gave rise to a stunning right-left coalition and galvanized celebrities and rock icons like REM with church groups, rights groups, academics, the CEOs of Google and Amazon, web pioneers Vint Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee and the 1.5 million Americans who sent a petition to Congress. (Not to mention providing the raison d'être for this hip short film primer on the topic.)

In Canada, on the other hand, the latest count on Kevin McArthur's online net neutrality petition clocks in at, well, a paltry 217 signatures.

It's not that the fight over net neutrality doesn't matter in Canada. At issue here, as in the United States, is whether telecom companies can favour some Internet sites over others by charging different rates to different customers and making some sites much easier to access than others. Critics say the practice threatens the Internet's level playing field and would stifle smaller independent voices on the web.

At stake is nothing less than democratic speech in the Canadian modern era, says McArthur. "I mean this is The People vs. Larry Flint all over again, only this time it's digital."

Odd then that public debate on the issue in Canada has been a non-starter. Especially when, between the two countries, it's Canada where the World Wide Web is most poised to become the latest plaything of the rich and the powerful.

'Sounds innocuous, but isn't'

To understand what net neutrality is and why it's important, it pays to take a look at what's been happening south of the border.

In 2005, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) redefined "broadband," recasting it as an information, rather than a telecommunication, service.

"It sounds like an innocuous change, but it isn't," explains Ben Scott, a spokesperson for net neutrality for Free Press, a media democracy NGO based in Washington, D.C. With the stroke of a pen, Scott says the decision undid the entire regulatory regime attached to telecom services, thrusting them into "a category that has virtually no regulations."

The change didn't bode well for a broad spectrum of Internet users, from start-up companies to anyone who uses Google or YouTube. Whereas previously telcos were legally obliged to deliver packets of bits and bytes blindly, as an information service that restriction was no longer in force. This opened the door for what Scott calls a "CEOs-go-to-Wall-Street" scenario: almost immediately, the major carriers began to toy with the idea of creating a two-tier Internet, replete with a fast-track for content creators willing to pay for preferential service, and a slow lane for everyone else.

The idea of telcos acting as gatekeepers, combined with what that would potentially and physically do to the Internet, set off a firestorm of public protest. And in spite of the fact the telcos spent hundreds of millions of dollars lobbying Capitol Hill, a bill that would have paved the way for a two-tiered net died along with Republican majorities in the House and the Senate.
Now, Scott says a climate of intense public and congressional scrutiny will bar the telcos from acting as gatekeepers until net neutrality can be protected by law.

But what's to stop them in Canada? Less and less, it would appear.

Canada's hands-off stance

Professor Michael Geist has been talking about net neutrality and digital rights in his Toronto Star and Ottawa Citizen columns and via his blog for a while now. The Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law says that even though Canada is rapidly deregulating the telecom industry, public debate amounts to little more than a whisper.
Just like in the States, net neutrality in Canada hovers in a state of legal limbo; the threadbare language of the Telecommunications Act means that two-tier Internet is more than a distant possibility; it's already here.

"I think it's already happening now but for the most part people don't recognize it," says Geist, who is based at the University of Ottawa.

"Some of the providers are already engaged in some of these kinds of activities, with little transparency and considerable uncertainty as to whether or not the legal system prohibits it."
Geist offers the example of profs who post their lectures online via an application called BitTorrent, free software designed to send large amounts of multi-media data from point A to point B. He says lately these video clips and audio files "slow to a crawl" when students try to download them because of "package-shaping" practices by companies like Rogers.

Digital profits up for grabs

Packet-shaping, or prioritizing the kinds of information being sent through the pipes, is the thin edge of the wedge, says Geist. All kind of digital rights are up in the air right now.
Much of this is because Internet service providers (ISPs) like Telus and Shaw have always offered "unlimited" bandwidth to subscribers, counting on the fact that the vast majority of users only use a sliver of it.

But with today's wave of user-generated content -- video, wikis, podcasts, MP3s, open source software and Internet telephone -- the old "unlimited" paradigm is broken. Telecoms are as tired of watching the average user eat up more and more bandwidth as they are of watching 100 million video clips a day zip through their wires, via free sites like YouTube. And their shareholders aren't seeing any of that Internet cornucopia -- like Google's recent $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube -- reflected in their company's quarterly reports.

While he says he can appreciate the telcos' concerns -- something's got to be done about the shrinking amount of available bandwidth -- Geist says they're going about it the wrong way.
"If all you're doing is saying, 'This is our existing service and we just want to extract additional dollars because we think Google makes too much money'...I don't know that that's a particularly convincing argument."

McArthur goes further. He says companies are in effect creating a problem so they can charge to fix it. "[Even] if everyone paid for a tier-one service, it would be THE EXACT SAME service we have today," he wrote by e-mail. "Quality of service only works while someone else is getting screwed."

"It's an attempt to extract more rent out of your server," Geist summarizes, "even if it comes at the expense of both their users' interests and the broader interest of the Internet as a whole."
Telus declined to address the issue of net neutrality in an interview and Shaw representatives did not return calls.

COA versus CNN

Steve Anderson's situation brings the potential effect of two-tier Internet into focus. Anderson is a master's student in online media studies at Simon Fraser University. He's also the managing editor of an independent online news source called COAnews, where he and a coterie of mostly volunteer editors stream a lot of audio and video files that sometimes fly in the face of what you see on the evening news. Under a two-tiered system, he says COA's shoestring budget would almost certainly keep it off the fast track.

"Right now we can literally compete with CNN or whatever if we provide news that people want to look at," he explains. "But if that situation goes through, then we just can't afford to pay the fees that CNN can, just like we can't afford to put up a cable news television show."
With few willing to wait for clips if they download at a snail's pace, the slow lane bottle-neck would be the death of independent online media, both for COAnews and for the thousands of other grassroots efforts trying to get their message out there. The Internet, he thinks, is in danger of falling in the for-profit footsteps of its predecessors radio and television.

Telus you didn't do it

Another wrinkle with deregulation is what happens when the carriers start to peep at what it is they're carrying, and then discriminate based on what they see. The landmark example -- the one that even advocates in the U.S. cite -- actually took place here in Canada when Telus blocked a website run by striking Telus employees called "Voices for Change."

Free speech activists were furious, but the company defended itself, saying it was acting to protect the identities of the people who chose to cross the picket lines, whose photographs were purportedly posted on the site. Regardless of their rationale, Telus cut access to another 766 totally unrelated sites by pulling the plug on the Florida server that hosted Voices for Change.
Marita Moll and Leslie Shade call these and other incidents of information-tampering "good reasons for Canadians to be concerned."

The pair, who work with the Canadian Research Alliance for Community Innovation and Networking, recently penned a joint e-mail to The Tyee in which they criticized the conclusions of the Telecommunications Policy Review Panel (TPRC), which delivered a 400-page report last year calling for sweeping changes to Canada's telecom oversight body, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC).

In a nutshell, the panel determined that the CRTC should concern itself with monitoring the social and technical aspects of telecommunications, and leave economic issues up to market forces. Markets are to be regarded as competitive unless proven otherwise, said the panel, a conclusion warmly welcomed by the Conservative government.

But Moll and Shade see the sidelining of the CRTC as having negative ramifications for the industry, and moreover for the public good.

"Telecommunications are oligopolies and do not really engage in competitive behaviour," they wrote. "They own the markets together and they will co-operate in protecting those markets. As such, they have a huge incentive to collaborate to contain bandwidth use to the infrastructure channels they are prepared to provide."

The Big Four

By Geist's count, the biggest four Canadian providers (Telus, Shaw, Rogers and Bell) control 60 per cent of the country's $32 billion telecom market; the top eight control upwards of 80 to 90 per cent. Last week's Canwest-Alliance merger only highlights the how the list of players is shortening.

"There is the real incentive for some of these providers to exclude or diminish the quality of some of the new content that is emerging that I think will increasingly be seen as competitive."
Case in point: the CRTC's favourable ruling for Vonage, an Internet telephone company that complained about a quality of service fee imposed by Shaw, a decision which was overturned by Stephen Harper's Conservative government. Geist is concerned about the fact that the expert panel intended to oversee Canadian telecommunications is increasingly being told to butt out.
"They've actually tried to be hands-on on some issues and got themselves slapped down pretty good by the government."

You don't have to look to Internet telephone to see how the same near-monopolies work with web services. Even if there are eight Internet service providers in Canada, Geist says consumers typically only have the option of choosing between one of two providers for an Internet connection.

"You get cable or ADSL, or nothing," he notes. "That's not a competitive environment at all."
Which means that if in the future companies anger customers the way Telus or Shaw have in the past, "there's little reason to believe that consumers will have options to move to other services if they're unhappy."

Regardless of the situation, telecom deregulation is still "quite clearly the top priority of the Industry minister [Maxime Bernier]," says Geist.

"But the [government's] focus again has been solely one-sided: it's just been on deregulating without addressing these kinds of issues. And there's a certain irony there because this represents by far the best opportunity to build in some net neutrality provisions."

Canada's backwardness in this regard is made all the more apparent given a surprising move by the FCC in the recent AT&T-BellSouth merger. As a condition of U.S. government approval for the takeover, the FCC made both companies agree to respect network neutrality for two years, when clearer-cut legislation is expected to replace the murky language that currently regulates net neutrality in that country.

That move finds no parallel in Canada, where Section 36 of the Telecommunications Act offers no clearer guidance on the topic than the following line: "a Canadian carrier shall not control the content or influence the meaning or purpose of telecommunications carried by it for the public."
Experts like Geist, McArthur, Moll and Shade agree that guideline is as outdated as it is insufficient. In Ottawa last October, Moll and Shade took part in the Alternative Telecommunications Policy Forum, where a panel drafted the following proposal for a guideline: "network operators shall not discriminate against content, applications, or services on broadband Internet services based on their source or ownership."

That clause, meant as an appendix to the net neutrality recommendations in last year's TCRP report, has so far fallen on deaf ears on Parliament Hill.

According to Geist, Industry minister Maxime Bernier has thus far shown "little appetite" for inserting any such language into the Telecommunications Act.
Bernier did not respond to e-mails requesting an interview.

Canadians asleep on issue

For the moment, and judging by every indication, Canada limps into an uncharted electronic future in a near-total policy vacuum on the matter of net neutrality.
That vacuum, twinned with public apathy, is nothing short of a boon for telecom companies, say Moll and Shade, who go on to add that "public policy is obviously serving their needs."
And while the telecom lobbies swamp commissions like the recent TCRP with thousands of pages of testimony, "the few folks sending in submissions in the public interest are barely on the map," they say.

Given that fundamental aspects of how the Internet works are being decided by the PMO, Shade and Moll say it's up to the public to get Canadian politicians "up to speed" on net neutrality the way the American public did in the U.S. To date, there is scarce indication that any of the major parties are thinking about the issue; McArthur says a letter to his Conservative MP in Edmonton didn't even generate a standard response letter. He says only the Green party and the NDP are actively working on net neutrality.

So while many tout the digital revolution as ushering in a new wave of democracy, only 217 of them in Canada have stepped back from the glow and done something to protect it.
"There are lots of things to be really optimistic about online," says Geist, "but this isn't one of them."


source:
http://www1.thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2007/01/17/NetNeutrality/

Related Tyee stories:

• To Censor Pro-Union Web Site, Telus Blocked 766 Others
• CanCon Adapts to a Wild New Media World
• A Net Abuzz with Activism

Bush Speech Terror Claim Debunked A Year Ago

Just one of many State of the Union lies, following in the tradition of the
2003 yellowcake fraud, Bush commits an impeachable offense by knowingly
lying to the American people

Prison Planet | January 24, 2007
Paul Joseph Watson


A claim made by President Bush in his State of the Union speech last night,
that an attack on an L.A. skyscraper had been averted, was universally
debunked as a hoax by Mayors, CIA, FBI and NSA personnel and counter-terror
experts nearly a year ago when it first surfaced. By regurgitating this
fraud, Bush has committed an impeachable offense by knowingly lying to the
American people.

Bush's address was punctuated with deception, horse hockey and
propagandistic drivel throughout, again reinforcing a characteristic that
was born in 2003 when Bush told the nation that Iraq had sought to buy
uranium from Niger , a claim the CIA had informed the administration was
based on falsified documents ten months before it was included in the
speech.

Amidst the cacophony of bullshit came this belter.

"We stopped an al Qaeda plot to fly a hijacked airplane into the tallest
building on the West Coast."

According to numerous public officials, terror experts and intelligence
personnel, this is simply not true.

Bush's is referring to an announcement made on February 9th last year in
which he made the claim that an Al-Qaeda plan to fly a plane into the LA
Library Tower was thwarted in 2002. The release of the news that the plot
had been prevented by means of tapping terrorist suspect's phones was
politically timed to coincide with the start of legal hearings on the Bush
administration's domestic eavesdropping program.

Fox "News," the White House's PR mouthpiece, immediately began showing
footage from the movie Independence Day, in which the famous tower is
destroyed.

Hours after the announcement, the mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio
Villaraigosa, went public with comments of his absolute bewilderment
concerning the alleged plot.

"I'm amazed that the president would make this (announcement) on national TV
and not inform us of these details through the appropriate channels," the
mayor said in an interview with The Associated Press. "I don't expect a call
from the president - but somebody."

The day after the announcement, twenty three separate intelligence experts,
all with either CIA, FBI, NSA or military credentials, both in and out of
service, angrily disputed Bush's remarks about the alleged L.A. plot, with
one going as far as saying that the President was "full of shit."

Another described the claims as "worthless intel that was discarded long
ago."

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A New York Times story cited "several counter-terrorism officials" as saying
that "the plot never progressed past the planning stages.... 'To take that
and make it into a disrupted plot is just ludicrous,' said one senior FBI
official."

The New York Daily News cited another senior counterterrorism official who
said: "There was no definitive plot. It never materialized or got past the
thought stage."

The Washington Post also dismissed the alleged plot as nothing more than
talk, noting that no actual attack plan had been thwarted.

The LA attack plot arose from the same discredited informant who said that
Washington and New York financial institutions were being targeted, which
led the White House to raise the terror alert right as the 2004 election
campaign was beginning.

"The President has cheapened the entire intelligence community by dragging
us into his fantasy world," said a veteran field operative of the Central
Intelligence Agency. "He is basing this absurd claim on the same discredited
informant who told us Al Qaeda would attack selected financial institutions
in New York and Washington."

In June 2004 John Pistole, the FBI's counterterrorism director, said he was
"not sure what [the CIA] was referring to," after a CIA counterterrorism
official who testified under the alias "Ted Davis" said that the US had
prevented aviation attacks against the east and west coast.

Questions were raised at the White House press briefing as to the noticeably
convenient announcement of a four year old alleged foiled plot in relation
to the furore about domestic spying.

"But is it just a coincidence? You had February 6th circled on the calendar
for the hearings, the NSA hearings. Is it just a pure coincidence that this
comes out today?" asked one journalist.

"Scott, I wanted to just ask a follow-up about the LA plot. Is there
something missing from this story, a practical application, a few facts?
Because if you want to commandeer a plane and fly it into a tower, if you
used shoe bombs, wouldn't you blow off the cockpit? Or is there something
missing from this story?" asked another.

There was indeed a great deal missing from this story in that it was nothing
more than hot air manufactured by the Bush administration at the most
politically expedient time, a psychological fraud unleashed on the public in
order to silence critics of the illegal NSA surveillance spying program.

Bush has again committed the impeachable offense of knowingly lying to the
American people in regurgitating the debunked plot in last night's State of
the Union address.

Gorilla Radio for Monday, January 22, 2007

This past week, a friend of this program, currently on a book tour of the States, asked me if I was interested in coming down to one of his book events in Washington state. Not the first time I'd been invited to the land of the free, but this time I felt I needed to explore my own trepidations about crossing the 49th.

In the first half, a departure from form for a little ranting, reading, and raving.

And; the Common Energy Lectures kicked off at the University of Victoria last week. Common Energy describe themselves as: "a network of students, staff, faculty, and regional partners centered at UVic, working to create solutions to the climate crisis in Victoria."

Professor Ned Djilali is a Canada Research Chair and Director of the Institute for Integrated Energy Systems on the series, and he'll join us with some of the cutting edge technology development coming out of the university and what that means for the future of Victoria and beyond in the second half.

And; Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of the good things you can get up to in and around Victoria in the coming week.

But first, the ugliness that has become America.

Bloggers Who Criticize Government May Face Prison

Bill would allow rounding up and imprisoning of non-registered political writers

Steve Watson
Infowars.net
Thursday, January 18, 2007

You'd be forgiven for thinking that it was some new restriction on free speech in Communist China. But it isn't. The U.S. Government wants to force bloggers and online grassroots activists to register and regularly report their activities to Congress in the latest astounding attack on the internet and the First Amendment.

Richard A. Viguerie, Chairman of GrassrootsFreedom.com, a website dedicated to fighting efforts to silence grassroots movements, states:

"Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill currently before the Senate, would require grassroots causes, even bloggers, who communicate to 500 or more members of the public on policy matters, to register and report quarterly to Congress the same as the big K Street lobbyists. Section 220 would amend existing lobbying reporting law by creating the most expansive intrusion on First Amendment rights ever. For the first time in history, critics of Congress will need to register and report with Congress itself."

In other words Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats may redefine the meaning of lobbying in order that political communications to and even between citizens falls under the same legislation.

Under current law any 'lobbyist" who 'knowingly and willingly fails to file or report." quarterly to the government faces criminal charges including a possible jail term of up to one year.

The amendment is currently on hold.

This latest attack on bloggers comes hot on the heels of Republican Senator John McCain's proposal to introduce legislation that would fine blogs up to $300,000 for offensive statements, photos and videos posted by visitors on comment boards.

McCain's proposal is presented under the banner of saving children from sexual predators and encourages informants to shop website owners to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, who then pass the information on to the relevant police authorities.



Despite a total lack of any evidence that children are being victimized en mass by bloggers or people who leave comments on blog sites, it seems likely that the proposal will become legislation in some form. It is well known that McCain has a distaste for his blogosphere critics, causing a definite conflict of interest where any proposal to restrict blogs on his part is concerned.

In recent months, a chorus of propaganda intended to demonize the Internet and further lead it down a path of strict control has spewed forth from numerous establishment organs:

During an appearance with his wife Barbara on Fox News last November, George Bush senior slammed Internet bloggers for creating an "adversarial and ugly climate."

- The White House's own recently de-classified strategy for "winning the war on terror" targets Internet conspiracy theories as a recruiting ground for terrorists and threatens to "diminish" their influence.

- The Pentagon recently announced its effort to infiltrate the Internet and propagandize for the war on terror.

- In a speech last month, Homeland Security director Michael Chertoff identified the web as a "terror training camp," through which "disaffected people living in the United States" are developing "radical ideologies and potentially violent skills." Chertoff pledged to dispatch Homeland Security agents to local police departments in order to aid in the apprehension of domestic terrorists who use the Internet as a political tool.

- A landmark legal case on behalf of the Recording Industry Association of America and other global trade organizations seeks to criminalize all Internet file sharing of any kind as copyright infringement, effectively shutting down the world wide web - and their argument is supported by the U.S. government.

- A landmark legal ruling in Sydney goes further than ever before in setting the trap door for the destruction of the Internet as we know it and the end of alternative news websites and blogs by creating the precedent that simply linking to other websites is breach of copyright and piracy.

- The European Union, led by former Stalinist and potential future British Prime Minister John Reid, has also vowed to shut down "terrorists" who use the Internet to spread propaganda.

- The EU also recently proposed legislation that would prevent users from uploading any form of video without a license.

- We have also previously exposed how moves are afoot to clamp down on internet neutrality and even to designate a highly restricted new form of the internet known as Internet 2.

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Make no mistake, the internet, one of the greatest outposts of free speech ever created is under constant attack by powerful people who cannot operate within a society where information flows freely and unhindered. All these moves mimic stories we hear every week out of State Controlled Communist China, where the internet is strictly regulated and virtually exists as its own entity away from the rest of the web.

The phrases "Chinese government" and "Mao Zedong" have even been censored on China's official Web sites because they are "Sensitive phrases". Are we to allow our supposedly Democratic governments to implement the same type of restrictive policies here?

Under section 220 of the lobbying reform bill, Infowars.net could be required to seek a license in order to bring this information to you. IF we were granted a license we would then have to report our activities to the government four times per year in order to bring you this information. Does that sound more like free speech or more like totalitarianism?

***********

Take action:

As well as calling the Senate you should go to GrassrootsFreedom.com which has a petition that you can sign against Section 220 of S. 1, the lobbying reform bill.

Paul Joseph Watson contributed to this report.