The People Mourn in Venezuela

A Sea of Tears in Caracas

by TRNN

A Sea of Tears in Caracas In a raw emotional outpouring, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans walk along side the coffin of President Hugo Chavez

Oscar León is an experienced international press correspondent and documentary filmmaker based in Arizona. His work has reached continental TV broadcast in many occasions on Telesur, ECTV, Ecuavisa, Radio Canada, Canal Uno and even Fox Sports Latin America and El Garaje TV; he has been a TRNN correspondent since 2010. Oscar has reported from as many as 9 countries and more than 12 cities in US; his coverage includes TV reports, special reports and TV specials, not only covering social movements, politics and economics but environmental issues, culture and sports as well. This includes the series "Reportero del Sur", "Occupy USA - El Otoño Americano", "Habia una vez en Arizona", "Motor X" all TV mini series broadcasted to all Americas and "Once upon a time in Arizona" finalist in Radio Canada's "Migration" 2010 contest.

New Details for the Iraq War Crime

 A Low, Dishonest Decade: New Details for the Iraq War Crime Mosaic

by Chris Floyd - Empire Burlesque

The truth-telling of the imprisoned Bradley Manning continues to bear rich fruit, even as he faces a lifetime in prison for acting on principle to save innocent lives and prevent his country from staining itself further with war crimes. This week, the Guardian released a special investigation into the hideous regime of torture that the United States imposed and empowered during its years-long rape of Iraq.

The Guardian report draws on the trove of documents that Manning gave to Wikileaks (and the now diplomatically "sequestered" Julian Assange) to provide new details on the direct links of America's highest officials -- including the bipartisanly adored and now much mourned retired apparatchik David Petraeus -- to the torture of tens of thousands of Iraqis.

In many ways, of course, it's hardly a revelation that American forces were deeply involved in torture during the "extraordinary achievement" (B. Obama) in Iraq. Some cranks have been writing about it since the earliest days of the invasion -- as in this piece, from August 2003:

Here's a headline you don't see every day: "War Criminals Hire War Criminals to Hunt Down War Criminals."

Perhaps that's not the precise wording used by the Washington Post this week, but it is the absolute essence of its story about the Bush Regime's new campaign to put Saddam's murderous security forces on America's payroll.

Yes, the sahibs in Bush's Iraqi Raj are now doling out American tax dollars to hire the murderers of the infamous Mukhabarat and other agents of the Baathist Gestapo – perhaps hundreds of them. The logic, if that's the word, seems to be that these bloodstained "insiders" will lead their new imperial masters to other bloodstained "insiders" responsible for bombing the UN headquarters in Baghdad – and killing another dozen American soldiers while Little George was playing with his putts during his month-long Texas siesta.

Naturally, the Iraqi people – even the Bush-appointed leaders of the Potemkin "Governing Council" – aren't exactly overjoyed at seeing Saddam's goons return, flush with American money and firepower. And they're certainly not reassured by the fact that the Bushists have also re-opened Saddam's most notorious prison, the dread Abu Ghraib, and are now, Mukhabarat-like, filling it with Iraqis – men, women and children as young as 11 – seized from their homes or plucked off the street to be held incommunicado, indefinitely, without due process, just like the old days. As The Times reports, weeping relatives who dare approach the gleaming American razor-wire in search of their "disappeared" loved ones are referred to a crude, hand-written sign pinned to a spike: "No visits are allowed, no information will be given and you must leave." Perhaps an Iraqi Akhmatova will do justice to these scenes one day.

There were many, many more where that came from, from many sources, as the mosaic of horror built up, fragment by fragment. Unfortunately, America's multifarious war crime in Iraq is news that stays news -- because awareness of the depth of evil we wrought there has scarcely penetrated the American public consciousness. And of course, the Wikileaks documents give more form and substance to the piecemeal parceling of earlier truth fragments.

The Guardian pieces focus on the long lineage of the American way of torture, as represented by the figure of James Steele, a Special Forces offer who made his bones in the torture racket during the murderous American-backed, American-trained, American-funded "counterinsurgency" campaigns in Latin America during the 1980s. Steele has a little pal back in those days by the name of Davy Petraeus; later, the two worked cheek-by-jowl in Iraq to foment a hell on earth of sectarian violence and state terror.

In June 2004 Petraeus arrived in Baghdad with the brief to train a new Iraqi police force with an emphasis on counterinsurgency. Steele and serving US colonel James Coffman introduced Petraeus to a small hardened group of police commandos, many of them among the toughest survivors of the old regime, including General Adnan Thabit …With Steele and Coffman as his point men, Petraeus began pouring money from a multi-million dollar fund into what would become the Special Police Commandos. According to the US Government Accounts Office, they received a share of an $8.2bn (£5.4bn) fund paid for by the US tax payer. The exact amount they received is classified. With Petraeus' almost unlimited access to money and weapons, and Steele's field expertise in counterinsurgency the stage was set for the commandos to emerge as a terrifying force.

One more element would complete the picture. The US had barred members of the violent Shia militias like the Badr Brigade and the Mahdi Army from joining the security forces, but by the summer of 2004 they had lifted the ban. Shia militia members from all over the country arrived in Baghdad "by the lorry-load" to join the new commandos. These men were eager to fight the Sunnis: many sought revenge for decades of Sunni-supported, brutal Saddam rule, and a chance to hit back at the violent insurgents and the indiscriminate terror of al-Qaida.

Petraeus and Steele would unleash this local force on the Sunni population as well as the insurgents and their supporters and anyone else who was unlucky enough to get in the way. It was classic counterinsurgency. It was also letting a lethal, sectarian genie out of the bottle. The consequences for Iraqi society would be catastrophic. At the height of the civil war two years later, 3,000 bodies a month were turning up on the streets of Iraq — many of them innocent civilians of sectarian war that ignited on both side.

Again, it's been known for years -- to anyone who wants to know -- that the vicious sectarian civil war in Iraq was deliberately seeded and pushed by the Pentagon brass and their White House bosses. [For an in-depth look, see Ulster on the Eurphrates: The Anglo-American Dirty War in Iraq.] As the Guardian investigation confirms, Petraeus was hip-deep in the process. The aim of this deeply evil program, one supposes, was to achieve the "creative destruction" so beloved of the neocon savants who provided the "intellectual" framework for the Hitlerian act of aggression. True to their Trotskyist roots, they longed for the cleansing fire of war and ruin to clear the ground for their fanatical, world-shaping dreams. (Unlike Trotsky, of course, they never led troops in the field or put their own lives on the line.) Or as that deep thinker Glenn Reynolds once put it, gleefully: "More rubble, less trouble."

What happened, of course, was the opposite: more rubble meant more trouble, and the shallow fools and blithering incompetents who comprise the American leadership class lost control of the situation. The carnage was so horrific that it threatened to damage the whole war-profiteering enterprise; why, there were even a few timorous calls among some quadrants of the elite suggesting that maybe it was time to begin thinking about considering the idea of mulling over at some unspecified point in the future the vague possibility of maybe thinking about considering the possibility of ending the war sometime, maybe, somewhere down the line. This tinkling trickle of potential opposition was quickly quelled, however, with the great googily-moogily "Surge": another invasion with thousands of American troops, more bribes for Sunni extremists, plus months of maniacal, American-backed "ethnic cleansing" to help Shiite collaborators eke out a victory in the civil war.

In one of the many blood-dark ironies of the war, Petraeus was put in charge of the murderous effort to stem the sectarian violence he had been fomenting at Washington's command. When the killing levels were no longer at historically unprecedented levels but were merely the worst anywhere in the world, the "surge" was proclaimed a great triumph, and Petraeus was the bipartisan hero of the hour.

(Speaking of bipartisan, let us not forget the Bush Regime bloodbath in Iraq was preceded by the murder of upwards of a million innocent Iraqis -- including an officially admitted total of 500,000 children -- in the ruthless sanction regime imposed by the good ole Big Dawg himself back in the 90s.)

But while he was showering in accolades on Capitol Hill, this is what the system installed by Petraeus and Steele and their Washington masters was doing back in Iraq:

The commandos set up a network of secret detention centres where insurgents could be brought and information extracted from them. The commandos used the most brutal methods to make detainees talk. There is no evidence that Steele or Coffman took part in these torture sessions, but General Muntadher al Samari, a former general in the Iraqi army, who worked after the invasion with the US to rebuild the police force claims that they knew exactly what was going on and were even supplying the commandos with lists of people they wanted brought in. He says he tried to stop the torture on several occasions, but failed and fled the country.

"We were having lunch. Col Steele, Col Coffman, and the door opened and Captain Jabr was there torturing a prisoner. He [the victim] was hanging upside down and Steele got up and just closed the door, he didn't say anything – it was just normal for him."

He says there were 13 to 14 secret prisons in Baghdad under the control of the Interior Ministry and used by the Special Police Commandos. He alleges that Steele and Coffman had access to all these prisons and that he visited one in Baghdad with both men. "They were secret, never declared. But the American top brass and the Iraqi leadership knew all about these prisons. The things that went on there: drilling, murder, torture. The ugliest sort of torture I've ever seen."

According to one soldier with the 69th Armoured Regiment who was deployed in Samarra in 2005 but who doesn't want to be identified: "It was like the Nazis … like the Gestapo basically. They [the commandos] would essentially torture anybody that they had good reason to suspect, knew something, or was part of the insurgency … or supporting it, and people knew about that."

... Neil Smith, a 20-year-old medic who was based in Samarra, remembers what low ranking US soldiers in the canteen said. "What was pretty widely known in our battalion, definitely in our platoon, was that they were pretty violent with their interrogations. That they would beat people, shock them with electrical shock, stab them, I don't know what else ... it sounds like pretty awful things. If you sent a guy there he was going to get tortured and perhaps raped or whatever, humiliated and brutalised by the special commandos in order for them to get whatever information they wanted."

He now lives in Detroit and is a born-again Christian. He spoke to the Guardian because he said he now considered it his religious duty to speak out about what he saw. "I don't think folks back home in America had any idea what American soldiers were involved in over there, the torture and all kinds of stuff."

Through Facebook, Twitter and social media the Guardian managed to make contact with three soldiers who confirmed they were handing over detainees to be tortured by the special commandos, but none except Smith were prepared to go on camera.

"If somebody gets arrested and we hand them over to MoI they're going to get their balls hooked, electrocuted or they're going to get beaten or raped up the ass with a coke bottle or something like that," one said. He left the army in September 2006. Now 28, he works with refugees from the Arab world in Detroit teaching recent arrivals, including Iraqis, English.

"I suppose it is my way of saying sorry," he said.

But as we have seen in all the recent media hoopla around the 10th anniversary of the invasion, none of criminals in charge of the war crime, or the savants who promoted it, or the media sycophants who "stovepiped" the lies of the warmongers to the public, or any member of the political-media elite who by direct or collateral hand were complicit in this war crime have ever apologized for what they have done -- much less been made to suffer the slightest discomfort or inconvenience for it.

As for Steele himself, he left Iraq after helping set up the torture apparatus and went into -- what else? -- the oil business.

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Ignoring a Genocide: Allowing the Rohingya People Die

Ignoring Genocide: Rohingya People Deserve to Live

by Ramzy Baroud - PalestineChronicle.com

One fails to understand the unperturbed attitude with which regional and international leaders and organizations are treating the unrelenting onslaught against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, formally known as Burma. Numbers speak of atrocities where every violent act is prelude to greater violence and ethnic cleansing. Yet, western governments’ normalization with the Myanmar regime continues unabated, regional leaders are as gutless as ever and even human rights organizations seem compelled by habitual urges to issue statements lacking meaningful, decisive and coordinated calls for action.

Meanwhile the ‘boat people’ remain on their own. On February 26, fishermen discovered a rickety wooden boat floating randomly at sea, nearly 25 kilometers (16 miles) off the coast of Indonesia’s northern province of Aceh. The Associated Press and other media reported there were 121 people on board including children who were extremely weak, dehydrated and nearly starved. They were Rohingya refugees who preferred to take their chances at sea rather than stay in Myanmar. To understand the decision of a parent to risk his child’s life in a tumultuous sea would require understanding the greater risks awaiting them at home.

Reporting for Voice of America from Jakarta, Kate Lamb cited a moderate estimate of the outcome of communal violence in the Arakan state, which left hundreds of Rohingya Muslims dead, thousands of homes burnt and nearly 115,000 displaced. The number is likely to be higher at all fronts. Many fleeing Rohingya perished at sea or disappeared to never be seen again. Harrowing stories are told and reported of families separating and boats sunk. There are documented events in which various regional navies and border police sent back refugees after they successfully braved the deadly journey to other countries - Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh and elsewhere. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) reported that nearly 13,000 Rohingya refugees attempted to leave Myanmar on smugglers’ boats in the Bay of Bengal in 2012. At least five hundred drowned.

But who are the Rohingya people?

Myanmar officials and media wish to simply see the Rohingyas as ‘illegal Bengali immigrants’, a credulous reading of history at best. The intentions of this inaccurate classification, however, are truly sinister for it is meant to provide a legal clearance to forcefully deport the Rohingya population. Myanmar President Then Sein had in fact made an ‘offer’ to the UN last year that he was willing to send the Rohingya people “to any other country willing to accept them.” The UN declined.

Rohingya Muslims, however, are native to the state of “Rohang”, officially known as Rakhine or Arakan. If one is to seek historical accuracy, not only are the Rohingya people native to Myanmar, it was in fact Burma that occupied Rakhine in the 1700’s. Over the years, especially in the first half of the 20th century, the original inhabitants of Arakan were joined by cheap or forced labor from Bengal and India, who permanently settled there. For decades, tension brewed between Buddhists and Muslims in the region. Naturally, a majority backed by a military junta is likely to prevail over a minority without any serious regional or international backers. Without much balance of power to be mentioned, the Rohingya population of Arakan, estimated at nearly 800,000, subsisted between the nightmare of having no legal status (as they are still denied citizenship), little or no rights and the occasional ethnic purges carried out by their Buddhist neighbors with the support of their government, army and police. The worst of such violence in recent years took place between June and October of last year. Buddhists also paid a heavy price for the clashes, but the stateless Rohingyas, being isolated and defenseless, were the ones to carry the heaviest death toll and destruction.

And just when ‘calm’ is reported – as in returning to the status quo of utter discrimination and political alienation of the Rohingyas – violence erupts once more, and every time the diameters of the conflict grow bigger. In late February, an angry Buddhist mob attacked non-Rohingya Muslim schools, shops and homes in the capital Rangoon, regional and international media reported. The cause of the violence was a rumor that the Muslim community is planning to build a mosque.

What is taking place in Arakan is most dangerous, not only because of the magnitude of the atrocities and the perpetual suffering of the Rohingya people, which are often described as the world’s most persecuted people. Other layers of danger also exist that threatens to widen the parameters of the conflict throughout the Southeast Asia region, bringing instability to already unstable border areas, and, of course, as was the case recently, take the conflict from an ethnic one to a purely religious one. In a region of a unique mix of ethnicities and religions, the plight of the Rohingyas could become the trigger that would set already fractious parts of the region ablaze.

Although the plight of the Rohingya people have in recent months crossed the line from the terrible, but hidden tragedy into a recurring media topic, it is still facing many hurdles that must be overcome in order for some action to be taken. While the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has been making major economic leaps forward, it remains politically ineffective, with little interest in issues pertaining to human rights. Under the guise of its commitment to ‘non-interference’ and disproportionate attention to the festering territorial disputes in the South China Sea, ASEAN seems unaware that the Rohingya people even exist. Worst, ASEAN leaders were reportedly in agreement that Myanmar should chair their 2014 summit, as a reward for superficial reforms undertaken by Rangoon to ease its political isolation and open up its market beyond China and few other countries.

Meanwhile, western countries, led by the United States are clamoring to divide the large Myanmar economic cake amongst themselves, and are saying next to nothing about the current human rights records of Rangoon. The minor democratic reforms in Myanmar seem, after all, a pretext to allow the country back to western arms. And the race to Rangoon has indeed begun, unhindered by the continued persecution of the Rohingya people. On February 26, Myanmar's President Sein met in Oslo with Norway's Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in a ‘landmark’ visit. They spoke economy, of course, for Myanmar has plenty to offer. And regarding the conflict in Arakan, Jens Stoltenberg unambiguously declared it to be an internal Burmese affair, reducing it to most belittling statements. In regards to ‘disagreements’ over citizenship, he said, “we have encouraged dialogue, but we will not demand that Burma’s government give citizenship to the Rohingyas.” Moreover, to reward Sein for his supposedly bold democratic reforms, Norway took the lead by waving off nearly have of its debt and other countries followed suit, including Japan which dropped $3 billion last year.

While one is used to official hypocrisy, whether by ASEAN or western governments, many are still scratching their heads over the unforgivable silence of democracy advocate and Noble Peace Prize recipient Aung San Suu Kyi. Luckily, others are speaking out. Bangladesh's Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus, along with former Timor-Leste president Ramos-Horta had both recently spoke with decisive terms in support of the persecuted Rohingya people.

“The minority Muslim Rohingya continue to suffer unspeakable persecution, with more than 1,000 killed and hundreds of thousands displaced from their homes just in recent months, apparently with the complicity and protection of security forces,” the Nobel laureates wrote in the Huffington Post on February 20. They criticized the prejudicial Citizenship Law of 1982 and called for granting the Rohingya people full citizenship.

The perpetual suffering of the Rohingya people must end. They are deserving of rights and dignity. They are weary of crossing unforgiving seas and walking harsh terrains seeking mere survival. More voices must join those who are speaking out in support of their rights. ASEAN must break away from its silence and tediously guarded policies and western countries must be confronted by their own civil societies: no normalization with Rangoon when innocent men, women and children are being burned alive in their own homes. This injustice needs to be known to the world and serious, organized and determined efforts must follow to bring the persecution of the Rohingya people to an end.

 

- Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is: My Father was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story (Pluto Press).

Grinding Howe Sound Down

Under the Radar; Howe Sound Gravel Mine an Environmental Catastrophe

by Rafe Mair - The Canadian.org

There is a new axiom in BC, evidently, which says, ‘You can’t be against EVERYTHING."

Unhappily, this had led the NDP and Energy critic John Horgan to support Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plants in northwest BC for export. This is turning out to be an unmitigated disaster and my prediction is that there will be no LNG plants in BC thus no market.

But this new axiom, so critical to those who would take away our heritage, is also permitting a gravel pit to be developed in Howe Sound at McNab Creek. This is not for want of private opposition – it is alive and very well indeed. What it’s lacking is public awareness.

Howe Sound is a world-class area. It’s taken a hell of a beating since my Dad, Mom and I fished it back when if you didn’t get a fish you must have forgotten to put a hook on your line. Eagles have returned to how they were in the days when I was a boy and so have porpoises. Whales are being sighted again. Salmon runs, except the ones dependent on the Ashlu, which has been ruined by a private power company, are returning. Howe Sound is for boaters, canoeists, and a paradise for kayaks, as it may well become again for fishermen.

This hasn’t all happened by accident. There are a number of organizations and individuals who have put their hearts and sweat into making these good things happen.

Now in the midst of this recovering of our heritage, a company called Burnco wants to build a 77-hectare gravel pit, running day and night, all year. In doing this they will excavate the entire estuary from one side of the valley to the other, thus eliminating one of only three estuaries in Howe Sound.

This horrid enterprise will change the movement of water through the valley thus threatening the entire estuary and the ecology it sustains. There are 21 species at risk, including Roosevelt Elk, introduced there in 2010 by the BC Ministry of Environment (one of my old stamping grounds) as well as our usual coastal wildlife.

There are other serious problems – like a gravel pit being worked 24/7/365, bringing noise and light pollution in a big way.

Here is the bad news – the really bad news. The project has already got approval in principle and is moving towards environmental hearings. This is the beloved “process” of the MP for the area, John Weston. He has never seen government-style “process” at work. I have and at the risk of repeating myself I’d rather have a root canal without anesthetic than go to another of those democratic disgraces.

When you go to such a meeting to protest the project, period, you are ruled out of order. You’re only there, you see, to help frame the environmental principles to be imposed. The unstated reality, none the less a fact for not being stated, is that this is a done deal.

Even the environmental review is cold comfort, for whatever constraints are put in place, the company will ignore them. You don’t have to go far to see what I mean – wander up to the Independent Power Project (IPP) on the Ashlu River. Though they crossed their heart and hoped to die that they would live up to their commitment they haven’t. The environmental destruction they have inflicted has been enormous.
Just 16 private power projects in this region - a quarter of the total in operation in BC - generated a staggering 749 environmental violations in a one year period, according to recent documents pried loose by freedom of information request. These companies faced virtually no consequences for their actions.

It’s a bit long but worth reading is what Gwen Barlee of the Wilderness Committee wrote on the subject:

Last year (2011) I received a tip that there were serious problems with the Ashlu private power project. The person who called me said: ‘they are killing the river.’

We had been hearing rumours that private power projects have significant problems with fish kills, so when I got that phone call I immediately submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request to confirm what was happening.

FOIs are a tool used by civil society groups like the Wilderness Committee, reporters and private citizens to gain access to government documents that might not otherwise see the light of day. They can be an important part of keeping government open and transparent...

...After waiting for more than eight months for our FOI to arrive, we received more than 3000 pages of government documents about environmental problems at the Ashlu project. Those documents showed that there where repeated problems with fish being stranded on gravel bars resulting in fish kills and that efforts to get the owners of the project, Innergex Renewable Energy Inc, to address these issues were “not satisfactory.”

In those documents staff from the provincial Ministry of the Environment and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) where quoted as saying things like “FYI: lotsa dead fish from yesterday’s Ashlu episode . . . will be interesting to see DFO’s response” and “I agree, their requirement is to keep the fish ladder functional, and this is the key time of year regardless of whether they think they are ‘losing too much water’ to keep it operational.”...

...One of the most concerning revelations of these investigations is an industry practice known as ramping, which increases and decreases flow levels downstream of the power project. Ramping down the river flow has the potential to strand and kill fish and can also result in egg dewatering and cause spawning interference.

The private power industry has often claimed that their projects would not be built in fish habitat but we have seen that in far too many cases that is not the case. According to … Watershed Watch, 72% of river diversion projects are located in known or suspected fish habitat. Private power proponents have told us that their projects would not impact fish but now we are seeing serious problems in regards to fish stranding, kills and habitat damage.

Let’s put it plainly – once you get to the environmental assessment stage, it’s all easy as pie to agree to anything and know that no government inspectors will trouble you - and even if they do, there will be no charges laid.

All is not lost.

First Nations have a special connection to this area and will no doubt fight the project.

Secondly, if the people make enough fuss, the project can be stopped, as the Glacier-Howser private river power project was stopped by irate citizens. There’s a story there to end on.

The company, which gets the right to put on the meeting, doesn’t like too many tiresome citizens around, so instead of holding this hearing in Nelson, the population centre, they hold it in Kaslo, with but 1,000 people.

Over 1,100 people showed up! And the project was effectively stopped because the company couldn’t or wouldn't put in proper safeguards for the Bull Trout population.

The motto is, as the great Scottish Bard, Sir Harry Lauder put it, “Keep right on ‘til the end of the road.”

Or as I put it after the Alcan victory in 1993, you never know you’ve won until you’ve won.


Rafe Mair was a B.C. MLA 1975 to 1981, Minister of Environment from late 1978 through 1979. Since 1981 he has been a radio talk show host, and is recognized as one of B.C.'s pre-eminent journalists.

Killing Hopes of Peace in Bethlehem One Olive Tree at a Time

Settlers Cut 60 Olive Trees Near Bethlehem

by Saed Bannoura - IMEMC and Agencies

The Palestine News Network (PNN) has reported that a number of extremist Israeli settlers cut, on Tuesday morning, nearly 60 Palestinian olive trees that belong to a resident of Nahhalin town, in the Bethlehem District.

Owner of orchard, Taha Fannoun, told PNN that settlers of the nearby Beit Ayin illegal settlement carried out the attack.

Fannoun added that he filed a complaint to the Israeli Police, and said that this attack is not an isolated incident as the settlers are responsible for dozens of attacks against Palestinian lands and residents in the area.

In related news, Palestinian medical sources reported on Monday evening that a Palestinian youth from Doha town, west of Bethlehem, was injured after being attacked and beaten by Israeli soldiers.

The youth, Malek Abdul-Aziz Adawi, 17, suffered moderate injuries and was moved to the Beit Jalal governmental hospital.

Venezuela's Social Work Left Undone

Venezuela's Real Division Over Who Benefits from Oil Wealth 

by Alex Main - TRNN

American "Mainstream" media accuses Chavez of leaving Venezuela "divided and polarized", but Venezuela is not divided over Chavez's personality, it's whether oil wealth will go to the people or the elite.

In his work at CEPR, Alexander Main focuses on U.S. foreign policy in Latin America and the Caribbean and regularly engages with U.S. policy makers and civil society groups to inform the public debate. He is frequently interviewed by media in the U.S. and Latin American and his analyses on U.S. policy in the Americas have been published in a variety of domestic and international media outlets including Foreign Policy, NACLA and the Monde diplomatique. Prior to CEPR, Alexander spent more than six years in Latin America working as an international relations analyst. He has a degree in history and political science from the Sorbonne University in Paris, France.

The Coup Chavez Denied

The Assassination of Hugo Chavez

by Greg Palast

Fracking: A Stain that Can't Be Washed Away

You Can’t Wash Away Fracking’s Effects

by WALTER BRASCH

José Lara just wanted a job. A company working in the natural gas fields needed a man to power wash wastewater tanks. Clean off the debris. Make them shining again. And so José Lara became a power washer for the Rain for Rent Co.

“The chemicals, the smell was so bad. Once I got out, I couldn’t stop throwing up. I couldn’t even talk,” Lara said in his deposition, translated from Spanish.

The company that had hired him didn’t provide him a respirator or protective clothing. That’s not unusual in the natural gas fields. José Lara did his job until he no longer could work. At the age of 42, he died from pancreatic and liver cancer.

Accidents, injuries, and health problems are not all that unusual in the booming natural gas industry that uses horizontal hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, to invade the earth in order to extract methane gas.

Of the 750 chemicals that can be used in the fracking process, more than 650 of them are toxic or carcinogens, according to a report filed with the U.S. House of Representatives in April 2011. Several public health studies reveal that homeowners living near fracked wells show higher levels of acute illnesses than homeowners living outside the “Sacrifice Zone,” as the energy industry calls it.

In addition to toxic chemicals and high volumes of water, the energy industry uses silica sand in the mixture it sends at high pressure deep into the earth to destroy the layers of rock. The National Institute for Occupational Health and Safety (NIOSH) issued a Hazard Alert about the effects of crystalline silica. According to NIOSH there are seven primary sources of exposure during the fracking process, all of which could contribute to workers getting silicosis, the result of silica entering lung tissue and causing inflammation and scarring. Excessive silica can also lead to kidney and autoimmune diseases, lung cancer, tuberculosis, and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD).

In the Alert, NIOSH pointed out that its studies revealed about 79 percent of all samples it took in five states exceeded acceptable health levels, with 31 percent of all samples exceeding acceptable health levels by 10 times. However, the Hazard Alert is only advisory; it carries no legal or regulatory authority.

In addition to the normal diesel emissions of trucks and trains, there are numerous incidents of leaks, some of several thousand gallons, much of which spills onto roadways and into creeks, from highway accidents of tractor-trailer trucks carrying wastewater and other chemicals.

The process of fracking requires constant truck travel to and from the wells, as many as 200 trips per day per well. Each day, interstate carriers transport about five million gallons of hazardous materials. Not included among the daily 800,000 shipments are the shipments by intrastate carriers, which don’t have to report their cargo deliveries to the Department of Transportation. “Millions of gallons of wastewater produced a day, buzzing down the road, and still nobody’s really keeping track,” Myron Arnowitt, the Pennsylvania state director for Clean Water Action, told AlterNet.

Drivers routinely work long weeks, have little time for rest, and hope they’ll make enough to get that house they want for their families.

But fatigue causes accidents. And contrary to industry claims, workers don’t always wear protective gear when around toxic chemicals they put into the earth, and the toxic chemicals they extract from the earth. Or the toxic chemicals they drive on public roads.

In the Great Recession, people become desperate for any kind of job. And the natural gas industry has responded with high-paying jobs. Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett is ecstatic that a side benefit of destroying the environment and public health is an improvement in the economy and more jobs—even if most of the workers in Pennsylvania now sport license plates from Texas and Oklahoma.

The drivers, and most of the industry, are non-union or are hired as independent contractors with no benefits. The billion dollar corporations like it that way. It means there are no worker safety committees. No workplace regulations monitored by the workers. And if a worker complains about a safety or health violation, there’s no grievance procedure. Hire them fast. Fire them faster.

No matter how much propaganda the industry spills out about its safety record and how it cares about its workers, the reality is that working for a company that fracks the earth is about as risky as it gets for worker health and safety.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issued Rain for Rent nine violations for exposing José Lara to hydrogen sulfide and not adequately protecting him from the effects of the cyanide-like gas.

It no longer matters to José Lara.

The effects from fracking should matter to every everyone else.



[Dr. Brasch is an award-winning journalist and professor emeritus of mass communications. His latest book is Fracking Pennsylvania, an in-depth analysis of the effects of fracking upon public health, the environment, worker safety, and agriculture. Dr. Brasch also investigates the history of energy policies in the U.S. and the relationships between the energy companies and politicians at local, state, and federal levels. The book is available at amazon.com, www.greeleyandstone.com, or local bookstores.]


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Walter M. Brasch, Ph.D.
Latest Book: Before the First Snow: Stories from the Revolution
(www.greeleyandstone.com)
www.walterbrasch.com
www.walterbrasch.blogspot.com
www.facebook.com/walterbrasch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6cC4zHnFAY

Illegal Neck Snare Wolf Management in BC

BC's Torturous Wolf Management

by Chris Genovali - Raincoast Conservation Foundation

Although an increasing number of British Columbians are learning about the provincial government's unscientific and unethical wolf cull, most are likely unaware their tax dollars are supporting not only the killing but also the sanctioned torturing of these animals. To compound matters, the government's persecution and inhumane treatment of wolves is ostensibly being carried out to "protect" privately owned cattle grazing on provincial Crown land.

Brad Hill, a wildlife photographer and biologist from the Columbia Valley, discovered that the province has been placing wolf neck snares on Crown land near his home. Hill located 18 snares near a bait pile of road-killed elk and mule deer, designed to draw wolves into the area.

Snares are the most inhumane, legally allowed traps in use. The U.S. National Humane Education Society describes snares as primitive and brutal. Snares can catch animals by the neck, midsection, or a limb. As the animal struggles to become free, the wire grows tighter around the animal's body. This can result in broken legs, crushed organs, and suffocation. Animals caught in these traps die slow, painful deaths.

Moreover, the use of neck snares to kill wolves is another violation by Canada of an international treaty -- in this case "The Agreement of International Humane Trapping Standards," which came into force on June 1, 1999. Canada is a signatory to the agreement.



Hill has also learned that the neck snares targeting wolves were placed by provincial conservation officers at the behest of a privately held ranching operation that runs cattle on this particular Crown land. The justification for the snaring is highly dubious with evidence of wolf predation being highly questionable at best.

The threat of wolves to livestock is routinely exaggerated by ranching and trophy hunting interests, despite evidence to the contrary. To put it in perspective, approximately 200,000 head of cattle are run on Crown land in B.C.; government records confirm that over the last 12 months 162 depredations can be attributed to all predators, including but not limited to wolves.

"Even if these snares successfully targeted the suspected wolves, the result is morally repugnant and ecologically illogical. But it could easily end up being much worse than that -- I've recently seen coyote and cougar tracks in the area, and the snares don't care what animal they strangle to death," says Hill, who is running an online anti-snaring petition which has garnered over 2,300 signatures.

There is no reliable way to ensure the targeted species is the only one trapped as neck snares and other lethal traps kill indiscriminately. A recent article in the Wildlife News revealed "for the last two years, since wolves in the Northern Rockies were delisted (in the U.S.), wolf trappers in Idaho have killed approximately 177 wolves (via snaring and other trapping methods). However, during just the 2011/2012 trapping season these trappers have captured approximately 246 non-target animals."

In a seminal paper published in the journal Animal Welfare, Raincoast Conservation Foundation large carnivore scientists Drs. Paul Paquet and Chris Darimont wrote that "In most parts of North America where wolves persist, human disturbance has already, or is now, displacing wolves from favourable habitat. Additional disturbances, additive to current background disruption, may surpass the level of habituation or innate behavioural plasticity that allows wolves to cope with human encroachment."

The direct killing of wolves, whether by snaring, trapping or trophy hunting is a harsh addition to the numerous and significant challenges Canis lupus already faces in a human-dominated landscape.

"The province's primary conservation philosophy regards wolves as a dispensable 'resource' or as 'problem animals', which should be exploited and killed with little regard for the pain and suffering they might endure. Rather than being dedicated to the promotion of a responsible wildlife ethic and contemporary principles of wildlife conservation, government agencies are the primary enablers in the legalized destruction of wolves," states Paquet, in response to the latest wolf snare revelations.

Wolves are clearly under siege in B.C., largely because of a seat-of-the-pants management approach in which political science trumps biological science. According to the B.C. government, approximately 1,200 wolves were killed deliberately in 2010 by hunters and trappers for sport, trophy or profit. This staggering death toll is recklessly taken from an unknown population of wolves, but is allowed to occur in order to mollify special interests, including ranchers and trophy hunters. The emerging snare controversy in the Columbia Valley is a preview of things to come if the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources' "Draft Management Plan For The Grey Wolf In British Columbia" is actually put into practice.

A few days ago Hill was informed by his MLA's constituent office that the snares on Crown land near his home have been removed. He's just posted an eloquent account at the Nature Photographer's Network website about his neck snare discovery and his efforts to stop the killing. Here is an excerpt of his reaction to the news that these inhumane devices are, at least temporarily, inactivated:

"That felt good. But not nearly as good as when I traveled to the snare site the next morning to confirm the removal of the snares and found the area absolutely littered in wolf tracks -- and, most critically, found the snares gone. I felt the best when I looked up on the hillside above the snares and saw five wolves emerge from the forest, stop and lock their eyes on me for about a few seconds, and then turn and disappear into the woods.

It's a small victory. We made the government blink. They noticed, and they tried to defuse the situation. In all likelihood we saved between one and five wolves, at least for awhile.

We haven't done anything yet to stop the future use of killing neck snares in BC, or to make the powers-that-be reconsider their strategy for managing wolves and other apex carnivores in BC. The big fight -- the one where we convince the government to discard historical bias and actually look at the science -- is still to come."

Memo to the BBC: "Just Reporting Ain't Rocket Science"

BC Newsnight, Iraq And The Export Of Democracy

by David Cromwell - Media Lens

It is a prerequisite for corporate journalists that they respect the ideological conventions of their paymasters and of state power – a vital source of 'news' and 'informed' comment, after all. At the same time, the corporate journalist likes to project a self-serving image as a valiant investigator, a champion of democracy, and a facilitator of fair and balanced debate. All too often, of course, the public can see through the charade.

Huw Edwards, the BBC newsreader, once related an anecdote about being accosted on a train by an 'enraged' man:

'Shortly after my return from Lashkar Gah [a city in southern Afghanistan and the capital of Helmand Province] in 2008, I was confronted by a man on a train heading for London. In a blistering conversation that lasted no more than five minutes, he raised fundamental concerns about the BBC's coverage of Afghanistan. They were all linked in some way to the nature of the British media's relationship with the armed forces.

'He had been enraged by our "twisted" reporting, our status as "prisoners" of the forces during our stay in Helmand, and our seemingly wilful refusal to report "the truth". Ah, yes. The truth.' (Richard Lance Keeble and John Mair, editors, Afghanistan, War and the Media: Deadlines and Frontlines, Arima Publishing, Bury St Edmunds, 2010, p. ix)

The BBC man's airily dismissive response – 'Ah yes. The truth' – may play well on the page, in black and white. But he doesn't tell the reader what he actually said to the challenger in the train, and how their exchange ended. After all, that would involve Edwards revealing his opinion, which BBC journalists are ostensibly not allowed to do!

Instead, he sighs philosophically and tells his readers that 'the truth' is the journalist's 'most elusive aspiration', adding:

'In war reporting, that elusiveness is taken to even more daunting levels.'

Huw Edwards makes accurate reporting sound like some abstruse problem in quantum gravity, something 'elusive' that will perhaps forever be out of reach. But his fellow train passenger was surely right. There are 'fundamental concerns about the BBC's coverage of Afghanistan' - and Iraq, Israel-Palestine, Iran, Syria, poverty, global capitalism, impending climate chaos, and on and on. But Edwards – someone entrusted with reading the News at Ten and commenting on royal pageants, no less - is part of the exclusive inner BBC News circle characterised by institutional groupthink that permits no fundamental concerns about the broadcaster's role.

As sociologist Stuart Hall correctly observes:

'The media define for the majority of the population what significant events are taking place, but, also, they offer powerful interpretations of how to understand these events.'

And in any 'responsible' discussion of events and issues, the boundaries are set within manageable limits that preclude serious challenges to the establishment. As a prime example, historian Mark Curtis cites the BBC programme Question Time - chaired by David Dimbleby, another senior corporation man (and former Bullingdon Club member) entrusted with live commentary of state events - as 'a microcosm of how the media works':

'rarely are critical voices invited. If they are, it is so rare that their views can end up sounding ridiculous in comparison with the "normal" and "balanced" views of the other panellists. It is acceptable for Question Time panellists to criticise each other from within the elite consensus but not for anyone to criticise all of them from outside that consensus.' (Web of Deceit, Vintage, 2003, p. 378)

Curtis continues:

'The evidence is overwhelming that BBC and commercial television news report on Britain's foreign policy in ways that resemble straightforward state propaganda organs. Although by no means directed by the state, their output might as well be; it is not even subtle. BBC, ITV and Channel 5 news simply report nothing seriously critical on British foreign policy; the exception is the odd report on Channel 4 news. Television news – the source of most people's information – provides the most extreme media distortion ... playing an even greater ideological function than the press.' (Ibid., p. 379)

Crafty Propaganda

This ideological function was clear in the BBC Newsnight 'special' edition on February 26, 2013, titled 'Iraq: 10 Years On'. One of the guests on the platform in front of an invited audience was the grandly titled 'World Affairs Editor', John Simpson. The veteran journalist has an air of avuncular gravitas, like a political-reporting version of David Attenborough, which helps to promote the notion of BBC News as authoritative and insightful. But look at his words in the cold light of common sense, stripped of the ponderous tone and stolid presentation, and they actually contain little of substance, far less anything that seriously challenges power (as we have documented before: see here and here). Indeed, sometimes those words are simply deceptive. For example, at one point in his Newsnight contribution Simpson really did say:

'It came as a genuine shock to Blair and Bush to find that Saddam had craftily got rid of his weapons beforehand.'

What secret psychic powers could Simpson possibly possess to detect 'genuine shock' inside the brains of Blair and Bush? Rather than Saddam 'craftily' getting rid of his weapons, why didn't Simpson report, as he should have done 10 years ago, that Iraq had been effectively disarmed of its WMD?

The BBC website itself still has a transcript of an interview with Saddam Hussein, conducted by Tony Benn in February 2003, in which Saddam says: 'Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction whatsoever.' Indeed, the Iraqi weapons chief General Hussein Kamal, who defected from the regime in 1995, told the CIA, British intelligence and UN inspectors that Iraq had got rid of its WMD following the 1990-91 Gulf War:

'All weapons-- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed.'

This was revealed in an issue of Newsweek magazine published in February 2003, before the invasion of Iraq. But it was to no avail in halting the predetermined course for war set by Bush, with Blair a willing accomplice. Indeed, the US media watchdog, FAIR, reported that 'no major U.S. newspapers or national television news shows' touched the story; it was ignored. Craftily, or otherwise, the BBC's John Simpson did not mention any of this on Newsnight.

Later, Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark addressed Hans Blix via video link:

'You were the senior weapons inspector. You were tasked with looking for and finding WMD. We're in a position now where Iran may well be on its way to having WMD.'

This was outrageous bias by a high-profile, 'impartial' BBC journalist. It was positively Kafkaesque for a senior BBC journalist, in discussing the propaganda-led catastrophe of Iraq, to repeat the same invented WMD scare story in relation to Iran, apparently with complete unawareness!

There is no solid evidence at all, only supposition and fear-mongering by powerful Western countries and Israel, that Iran is developing WMD (see The Iran 'Threat' in a Kafkaesque World by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson). But the bias was persistent in Kirsty Wark's approach throughout Newsnight as BBC 'moderator'. In her interview with former prime minister Tony Blair, Wark even asked:

'But isn't terrible in a way that in this country now we cannot go to war on the basis of intelligence again, can we?'

Wark's ignorance of the realpolitik of the motivation for war is unforgiveable and all but inexplicable.The Iraq war was certainly not waged 'on the basis of intelligence'. Instead, as the infamous Downing Street memos revealed, 'the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy'. And the policy was to launch a war of aggression against Iraq.

Indeed, Washington and London conspired to lure Saddam into supposedly obstructing the UN, thus providing an insidious pretext for war. As we noted in 2005, the 'real news in the Downing Street memos' was spelled out by reporter Michael Smith in the Los Angeles Times:

'Although Blair and Bush still insist the decision to go to the UN was about averting war, one memo states that it was, in fact, about "wrong-footing" Hussein into giving them a legal justification for war.

'British officials hoped the ultimatum could be framed in words that would be so unacceptable to Hussein that he would reject it outright. But they were far from certain this would work, so there was also a Plan B... Put simply, US aircraft patrolling the southern no-fly zone were dropping a lot more bombs in the hope of provoking a reaction that would give the allies an excuse to carry out a full-scale bombing campaign, an air war, the first stage of the conflict.'

Smith's insightful conclusion was that the 'way in which the intelligence was "fixed" to justify war was old news.' Instead:

'The real news is the shady April 2002 deal [when Blair visited Bush in Crawford, Texas] to go to war, the cynical use of the UN to provide an excuse, and the secret, illegal air war without the backing of Congress.'

Alan Greenspan, the long-serving chair of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, famously wrote:

'I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.' (The Age of Turbulence, Penguin, New York, 2007, p. 463)

And Michael Klare, a professor of peace and world security studies and author of Resource Wars, observed that:

'Controlling Iraq is about oil as power, rather than oil as fuel. Control over the Persian Gulf translates into control over Europe, Japan, and China. It's having our hand on the spigot.'

Exporting Democracy Down The Barrel Of A Gun

But such realism is not ideologically acceptable, perhaps not even thinkable, to anyone with aspirations to be a safe pair of BBC hands; and it is seemingly not permitted to intrude into any prepared BBC script.

The author and political analyst Nafeez Ahmed was present at the recording of the Newsnight special and he was given a few seconds to speak from the audience. The very same day that the Newsnight special was broadcast, he published a piece that exposed and demolished the principal 'seven myths' underpinning the BBC's limiting and distorted framing of debate. These included the mendacious claim that decision-making in Washington and London had been skewed by 'wrong intelligence', and that the Blair government's decision to go to war was based on legitimate parliamentary process. In short, says Ahmed:

'Newsnight ignored the now well-documented fact that the war was conceived for a set of narrow strategic goals which did not genuinely have the interests of the Iraqi people at heart.... Despite the facts being widely and easily available in the public record, Newsnight's programme on the 10 year anniversary of the war obfuscated them to such an extent that the real, serious questions were largely overlooked.'

If one single, loaded question epitomised the BBC's service to state propaganda, it was when Kirsty Wark asked her colleague, BBC Newsnight diplomatic and defence editor Mark Urban:

'Do you think the idea of exporting democracy at the end of a barrel of a gun has gone?'

Media Lens reader Tony Shenton challenged Kirsty Wark on email (February 26, 2013):

'You clearly believe that Britain invades other countries to export democracy and freedom. Thus, please can you explain why Blair and Cameron et al continue to be friends with brutal dictators such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain etc?

'Isn't Noam Chomsky correct when he says Britain and the US will support the most brutal regimes as long [as] they remain subservient to Western elites?'

Wark responded (February 27, 2013):

'Thank you for your email. You are entitled to your opinion, but I don't know how you can presume to know what I think, I was simply framing a question.'

Shenton replied (February 28, 2013):

'As you know, how you frame a debate reveals a lot about your ideological beliefs.'

Wark's ideologically-loaded question about the West 'exporting democracy' recalls a bizarre email once sent to Media Lens by Helen Boaden, then BBC News director. She had attached six pages of quotes from Bush and Blair supposedly proving their benign intentions behind invading Iraq!

The Function Of BBC News? Preserving The Balance Of Power!

Nick Robinson provides a succinct job description of his role as BBC political editor in the book Live From Downing Street:

'My job is to report on what those in power are thinking and doing and on those who attempt to hold them to account in Parliament.' (Bantam Books, 2012, foreword).

This notion of public service broadcasting has been around since the early days of the BBC, all the way back to the 1920s. Commercial stations followed suit. Stuart Hood, a former Controller of BBC Television, once observed of both the BBC and commercial stations that they:

'interpreted impartiality as the acceptance of that segment of opinion which constitutes parliamentary consensus. Opinion that falls outside that consensus has difficulty in finding expression.' (James Curran and Jean Seaton, Power Without Responsibility: The press and broadcasting in Britain, 5th edition, Routledge , London, 1997, p. 170)

Author Dan Hind notes correctly that when society is already dominated by corporate interests, corporate media 'balance and impartiality' heavily favour those who have already secured huge power, 'while making this bias seem both natural and just.' (The Return of the Public, Verso, 2007, p. 56).

Hind adds:

'...the BBC's managers remain convinced that they can discern what the population needs to know and that they can frame political and economic controversies in a balanced and fair way. The notion of public service helps them to see themselves as high-minded professionals. Their right to decide what receives publicity derives from their technical accomplishments, their experience and their commitment to a quite specific ideology.' (Ibid., p. 56)

This 'specific ideology' is, as we have elucidated in several books and numerous alerts, the false assumption that 'our' government will act out of benign intent, even when inflicting humanitarian catastrophes on other countries; and that corporate-led capitalism is a natural – or, at least, unchallengeable - state of affairs.

BBC managers, senior editors and journalists have internalised this false notion, so that they are incapable of treating state propaganda and disinformation with the requisite scrutiny and scepticism. The results of this gross failure for democracy include Permanent War, rampant corporate capitalism and effectively zero government response to the threat of climate chaos. Is it not time, then, for a Gandhi-style campaign of peaceful disobedience towards the corporate media, not least the BBC?


SUGGESTED ACTION

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.

Kirsty Wark, BBC Newsnight presenter
Email: kirsty.wark@bbc.co.uk
Twitter: @KirstyWark

Wearing the Black and Green in Comox: First Annual Anarchist Bookfair Rise-Up for May

Rise-Up for May Day Weekend at the Comox Valley Anarchist Book Fair

On Saturday, May 4, 2013, the Village Muse Bookstore in Cumberland (centrally located on Vancouver Island in British Columbia) will be hosting the first ever Comox Valley Anarchist Book Fair at The Abbey, featuring a May Day feast of subversive ideas and creative resistance possibilities. As a black and green event, it is bathed in both the radical legacy of the Cumberland mine wars and the soaring Beltane spirit of the Merry Month of May, and has absolutely nothing to do with Queen Victoria's birthday.

This anarchist festival of the book has been fomented in the cooperative spirit of mutual aid that unites Cumberland and Denman Island co-conspirators. While we anticipate that lots of anarchists and anarchist-friendly folks will converge on Cumberland that weekend, you don't have to be a self-described anarchist to attend the Book Fair. All you need is an open mind and an anti-authoritarian sense of curiosity.

In The Abbey on this day, you will find rows of tables peopled by individuals, distros, and bookstores that feature a wide array of anarchist and anarchist-related books, zines, publications, and crafts. Participating bookstores and distros, in alphabetical order, so far include: BC Blackout (Vancouver/Denman Island), Black Banner Distro (Vancouver), Black Sheep Collective (Calgary), Camas Books (Victoria), One Way Ticket (Victoria), Red Lion Press (Nanaimo), Spartacus Books (Vancouver), Village Muse Bookstore ( Cumberland), and Warrior Publications (Vancouver).

At this point, individual book authors who will be at tables include: Gord Hill, Grant Schilling, Jeff Shantz, Larry Gambone, Matta, Matt Rader, Miles Olson, Ron Sakolsky, Sean Woods, and Tom Swanky. Only a limited number of tables are still available, so please apply asap.There will be free food all day and a potluck at the Abbey between 6 and 7 PM. The Abbey will provide space for an “art wall”and an acoustic open-mic event starting at 7:30 PM, dubbed The Creative Mayhem Anarchist Cabaret.

Across the street from the Abbey, at the OAP Hall, there will be a series of free direct action, skill-sharing and radical history workshops at the top of every hour all day. They will feature such topics as: combating the Raven and Bear coal mines/anti-pipeline solidarity; street theatre; rewilding; Cortes Island forest defense; the BC government's historical use of biological warfare against indigenous people through the spread of smallpox on Vancouver Island and in the Comox Valley; decolonization; and Cumberland's radical roots. Outdoors, there will be a medicinal plant walk and a blacksmithing workshop. As we get closer to the Book Fair date, we will provide more detailed info on titles, facilitators and scheduling, as well as billeting possibilities for out-of-towners.

On the occasion of this 2013 May Day event, we recognize the 127th anniversary of the judicial murder of the Haymarket anarchists in their fight against wage slavery back in 1886, and we remember Ginger Goodwin, who was shot in the back by the law at Comox Lake for militant union organizing activities among his fellow Cumberland mine workers and for his principled refusal of conscription during the First World War.

In turn, we commemorate the hundredth anniversary of local resistance to the military invasion and occupation of Cumberland by order of BC Attorney General Bowser in 1913. His kilted dragoons were stationed in the village at the behest of coal baron Robert Dunsmuir to protect his financial empire by breaking the Vancouver Island miners' strike of 1912-1914 and restoring order through the imposition of martial law. Today, anarchists, along with many others, are engaged in an effort to prevent Cumberland from once again becoming a mining town under the thumb of the coal bosses should the Compliance Energy Corporation's proposal for a Raven coal mine project get approved, which would then open the door for the proposed open-pit Bear coal mine to be precariously perched over Comox Lake, threatening the village's water supply.

Finally, we respectfully acknowledge that we are holding this event on K'ómoks' territory, and we express our solidarity with their ongoing struggle for their land and against colonization.




For Immediate Release

Contacts: Cathy Stoyko
Ron Sakolsky (250-335-0843)

Thought-Police: Mind-Kettling Resistance

Strategies of Containment

by William T. Hathaway

Many of us on the left have been kettled at demonstrations: surrounded by a wall of police, herded into a small area, and prevented from reaching our goal. The term is a translation of kesseln, the German military tactic of enclosing an enemy force within a tight cordon of troops and gradually wearing it down rather than attacking it directly.

But we are also kettled by the thought police, and that's even more insidious. This strategy of containment is used politically to confine potentially revolutionary energy into an area where it can't reach its goal. Instead of by cops, we are corralled by institutions that purport to be progressive or even socialist. This pseudo-left diverts our energies away from organizing a militant working class and towards supporting the Democratic Party. Democrat congressman Dennis Kucinich referred to this when he described his calls for a more peaceful US foreign policy as a way to keep peace activists within "the big tent" -- the Democratic Party. The Democrats like to have a few seeming progressives like Kucinich in their ranks to create the illusion that they are the party of change.

They also have media and political groups on their periphery that are often critical of their policies but consistently promote the premise that this party is our only chance and with enough effort it can be made progressive. They spend their energy trying to convince the Democrats to move left. Their base is not in the working class but among slightly-left-of-liberal professionals who prefer progressive policies because they will benefit from them. They want to reduce the accumulation of wealth by the superrich and direct more of it in their direction and some of it down to the masses to ease discontent. As befits their class, they are well educated and have access to financial and political power. They communicate professionally and persuasively. Like the wall of cops, their message is clear: You must stay here. The only way to change the system is from within it. There is no alternative.

To prevent militant rank-and-file activism, labor bureaucrats also kettle workers into pro-capitalist unions tied to the Democratic Party. The union hierarchy exists to block independent action by the workers. The leaders speak with populist rhetoric, but to keep their privileged position they collude with employers to force lower wages and poorer working conditions onto their members.

The goal of these pseudo-left media, political groups, and unions is to hold us within capitalist institutions, thus rendering our efforts futile. The police kettle us physically and the pseudo-left tries to kettle us mentally, to keep us in the system.

"Working within the system" is a strategy promoted by the system itself in order to divert demands for fundamental change into superficial reforms. But this gradual approach has been proved to be a sham. Hard won improvements in wages, health care, and retirement benefits are being reversed under both Democrat and Republican presidents.

Instead of advancing Roosevelt's modest reforms, the Democrats have undermined them. They have consistently served the needs of capital for imperialist wars and exploitation of workers. When they allowed wage increases in the 1950s and '60s, it was largely to stimulate domestic consumption. When they supported equal employment opportunities for women and minorities in the '70s and '80s, it was largely to expand the labor pool so corporations could reverse the earlier wage increases.

It's not just greed that causes corporations to be vicious. The system requires this. Slashing labor costs is the only way they can maintain dominance in the face of low-wage competition from emerging industrial powers such as China and India. The corps are shifting their economic pressures onto us, the workers. They've lowered wages to the point where young workers are earning less than their parents did. The only "progress" is that now we all have an equal opportunity for the lousy jobs that are available.

The Democrats led this attack on workers when they were in office and colluded with it when they were in the opposition. Labor union leadership cooperated in this betrayal of their members. Throughout it all the pseudo-left clucked in disapproval but continued to support the Democrats. This pattern continues today.

But more and more people are now breaking free of these strategies of containment. A look at the historical record and the experience of our day-to-day reality show we've been kettled with lies. It has become obvious that capitalism can't produce long-term prosperity for its workers. Its profits must continually increase, and it has three ways of generating those: exploiting our labor by paying us less than the value we have added to the product; innovating new ways to lower costs; expanding their markets. Now that these last two methods are approaching their limits, the exploitation must increase to produce the required profits.

Liberal prosperity was a feature of the Keynesian phase of capitalism, a 30-year bubble of better wages that occurred only in North America and Europe when it was necessary to stimulate consumer demand. But those conditions are gone and can't return. The world market has become more important than the home country, and selling there requires low prices, which in turn requires cheap labor.

We're now in the consolidation phase of capitalism, when global competition eliminates the less effective predators and wealth concentrates in fewer and fewer giant corps and the rest of us become their vassals. We have to overthrow this barbaric system and build a humane one or face an increasingly degraded life.

To direct this struggle successfully, we need a political program based on the lessons of history and a strategy for implementing it. We need a militant base within the working class that can defend workers independently of the unions. We must break decisively from the Democratic Party, that graveyard of social movements. We need media that inform the working class rather than delude it. And we must do all this internationally, coordinating our efforts with workers in other countries to build democratic socialism, where the people decide how the economic life of society will be organized. When the resources and productive capacity of the world belong to its people, they can use them to meet human needs rather than to generate private profits for a few owners.

This is the challenge of our time, an historic battle for liberation. It's an enormous job, but no more difficult than other evolutionary changes humanity has mastered. The best program I've found for building this economic democracy is the Socialist Equality Party's: http://www.wsws.org.

*

William T. Hathaway is an adjunct professor of American studies at the University of Oldenburg in Germany. His latest book, RADICAL PEACE: People Refusing War, presents the experiences of peace activists who have moved beyond demonstrations and petitions into direct action, defying the government's laws and impeding its ability to kill. Chapters are posted on a page of the publisher's website at http://media.trineday.com/radicalpeace. He is also the author of SUMMER SNOW, the story of an American warrior in Central Asia who falls in love with a Sufi Muslim and learns from her an alternative to the military mentality. Chapters are available at www.peacewriter.org.

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ray Mesaud Burhi, Bob Simpson, Janine Bandcroft Mar 4, 2013

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Pacific Free Press

Two weeks ago, the European Union's Parliament approved a Free Trade deal with Morocco, promising to extend duty-free status to more of that country's agriculture and fisheries exports.

It's a deal that, if ratified, would strengthen economic and political ties with the North African nation. While garnering bumper profits for transnational corporations and a handful of Moroccan insiders, this deal will not, in Member of the European Parliament, Jose Bove's opinion, benefit either Moroccan farmers, or be helpful in addressing the displacement and ongoing occupation by Morocco of the indigenous people of Western Sahara.


Listen. Hear.

As in Palestine, the EU, and the United States continue to, despite repeated UN resolutions declaring its illegality, support and profit from the brutal occupation.

Ray Mesaud Burhi is the official representative to Canada of the government of the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic in exile. He and his family fled their homeland in Western Sahara when he was a child, settling in the refugee camp at Tindouf, Algeria.

Burhi received his engineering degree at the University of Oriente in Cuba, and master's degree in international cooperation and development at the University of Barcelona. He has served Saharawi Delegations to Spain, the EU, South-East Asia and now North America. Ray Mesaud Burhi will be here in Victoria on the 22nd of this month as part of a public event for Western Sahara sponsored by the Barnard-Boecker Centre Foundation's Mining Justice Action Committee, and UVic's Social Justice Studies Program.

Ray Mesaud Burhi in the first half.

And; in anticipation of British Columbia's looming election, the BC Liberals have introduced a bit of legislation that promises to complete what the long-gone and unlamented Social Credit party tried to foist on us before their immolation nearly 25 years ago. The innocuously titled, Bill 8 is a Harper-styled omnibus of rich give-aways to corporations far and near, and if allowed to run its ruinous course will entirely reverse decades of forestry policy in the province, delivering up whole hog unknowable lucre to the likes of mega-corps BAM and TAM, Shock Doctrine troopers specializing in "distressed asset management." It would mean a mass transfer of wealth into private hands, chapping public assets, while endangering the future well-being of both the people and wildlife of BC.

Bob Simpson is MLA for Cariboo North, sitting as an Independent since his unceremonious ejection by erstwhile NDP leader, Carole James in 2010. He's been warning everyone who'll listen, Bill 8 is a bad deal all around for this province, saying; "[I]t's a backroom deal with no requirement for public consultation." He also says it's tantamount to the privatization of our publicly held forests. Of Christie Clark's effort with Bill 8, Simpson says; "The public will see it as privatization" adding; "...[T]his is a 100-year conversation in B.C. and the public has always said 'no' and they're going to say 'no' again." Perhaps they will, if given the chance to find out about it.

Bob Simpson and rooting out the rotten core of Bill 8 in the second half.

And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom the hour to bring us newz from our city's streets and beyond. But first, Ray Mesaud Burhri and that other occupation state, the Saharawi Arab Democratic Republic.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Monday, 5-6pm Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

Getting to the Heart of BC's Forestry Dilemma

'Heartwood' Explores Clash Between Different Visions for Future of Forestry

by Damien Gillis - The Canadian.org

"Cortes is not just a bunch of crazy tree-huggers...We want to log our lands. We want a community forest," one of the subjects of the forthcoming documentary film Heartwood tells Vancouver-based director Daniel Pierce. The film explores the conflict over logging practices on a remote island on BC's south coast, which encapsulates a larger debate currently shaping the future of forestry in the province. The question it poses is not whether to log, but who does it, how they go about it, and who reaps the benefits.

Pierce is in the final stage of a "crowd funding" campaign to raise donations from the public to help finish the project. This relatively new tool is having a profound impact on filmmaking and other creative endeavours, which now have a whole new avenue for financial support.

Heartwood is the follow-up effort to Pierce's The Hollow Tree (2011), on the battle to save a famous Stanley Park landmark, which was licensed to CBC's Documentary Channel and Knowledge Network. On the Indiegogo.com crowd funding site for Heartwood, Pierce notes, "While that film was about the citizens of Vancouver trying to save a dead tree, it is only logical that my next film would be about people taking a stand for living trees."

For that, Pierce journeyed to Cortes Island, near Campbell River, off the east coast of Vancouver Island. The small island is at the centre of the battle to protect some of the last remaining stands of old growth forest in the province.

As Ray Grigg explained in a recent Common Sense Canadian story on the subject, "The surrounding majestic forests of Douglas fir, technically designated as CDFmm (Coastal Douglas-fir, Moist Maritime), have been obliterated to less than 1% of their original area. Cortes Island happens to contain one of the last sparse pockets of this once spectacular forest ecology."

The need to conserve BC's old growth forests like the one on Cortes was at the centre of a recent report by the Sierra Club BC titled, "Carbon at Risk: B.C.'s Unprotected Old Growth Rainforests". The report argues that BC can't meet its climate targets while continuing the practice of old growth logging, which releases an estimated 3 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere each year. "One year of logging old-growth rainforest on Vancouver Island and the south coast eliminates B.C.'s progress in reducing annual emissions," the report suggests.

According to the Sierra Club's Jens Weitling, “We blew B.C.’s entire carbon savings for a year because the B.C. government doesn’t have a plan to protect the rare old-growth forests of Vancouver Island and the South Coast.”

At the centre of Heartwood's narrative lies the conflict between two different visions for the future of logging on the island. On one side is Island Timberlands, the forestry behemoth owned by Wall Street investment giant Brookfield Asset Management and the province's multi-billion dollar investment fund, BCIMC. Island Timberlands wants to continue with large-scale clear cuts on Cortes.

In stark contrast is a new vision for small-scale, locally owned and operated logging, which brings together First Nations and non-aboriginal Cortesians seeking a more sustainable form of development for their community. This joint venture between the Cortes Forestry Co-op and local Klahoose First Nation is seeking a Community Forest License that would apply to the majority of crown forest lands on the island.

"They want to see this land managed in an ecosystem-based forestry model," says Pierce. "Unlike industrial clear-cut methods employed by companies like Island Timberlands, this smaller-scale approach would allow the forest ecosystem to flourish, while local communities can extract a living from the forest for centuries to come. In this way, Cortesians are demonstrating in no uncertain terms how they want forestry to be done on Cortes. But Island Timberlands — while making some amendments to its logging plans — has shown little interest in changing its paradigm."

As one interviewee puts it in the film's trailer, "We should do it smaller and slower and on a community scale and have the benefits stay here, rather than be exported into profits in New York."

Once the key environmental and economic topic is BC, forestry has seen its profile shrink compared with other issues like oil pipelines and fish farms in recent years. But failed forestry policies are once again stoking heated debate in the run-up to BC's next election in May - from the Auditor General's scathing report on the mismangement of BC's forestry sector last year, to fresh concerns about the privatization of public forests and the climate impacts of old growth logging.

Pierce aims to use his film and related media to plant forestry on the agenda in May. "In exchange for your contribution," he writes, "I promise to devote my whole being to delivering this story to you with soul and compassion — on the web, on television, and in cinemas. Together, we can make our voices heard and make BC's forests a key provincial election issue in 2013." Heartwood has been in production since last year. Funds from this crowd funding campaign, which ends March 5, will go towards finishing the project. Donors can choose between a range of rewards for their contribution, including a digital download of the film and forest-themed photographic prints and artwork.



Damien Gillis is a Vancouver-based documentary filmmaker with a focus on environmental and social justice issues - especially relating to water, energy, and saving Canada's wild salmon.