–Worthy of a read and some thought. Religion has come back into style in the pages of the analytical journals but they rarely talk about the systematic use of religious propaganda by the elite. Looking back through history shows us who it is that needs to take on religious symbolism and who, in the end, benefits from it. We must start looking deeper than religious reasons for these conflicts if we are going to see the real reasons for war and oppression.

–Exxon continues its pseudo-science lobby against the idea that global warming is happening and that burning oil is causing it George Monbiot reports.

On the letters page of the Guardian last week, a Dr Alan Kendall attacked the Royal Society for “smearing” its opponents. It had sent an official letter to Exxon, complaining about the oil company’s “inaccurate and misleading” portrayal of the science of climate change, and its funding of lobby groups which deny that global warming is taking place. The letter, Dr Kendall argued, was an attempt to “stifle legitimate discussion”(1).

–Yep. The Federal Conservatives have once again cut services so that all working peoples’ lives get that much harder but those that already have easy lives get that much easier. The fight continues.

More from the Public Service Alliance of Canada: PSAC News Release - Conservatives don’t need to belt-tighten with a $13.2-billion surplus

–Private Health Care is more costly to the consumer than public healthcare. The US is the prime example of this. The only reason that it has not stopped completely in the US is that there has been a middle socio-economic class that has been able to subsidise it but that is changing fast.

–Now, does this mean that the US government is actually going to give some aid to the AU so that it can have some independence or is the US just going to use this opportunity to take a little more from the African people? Hmmm, I wonder…

–Agreed.

–Workers’ co-ops are rescuing capitalism as it continues its slide into crisis after crisis in Western Canada. The problem here is that if you want things to start to change then you are going to have to organise politically as well as taking over the capitalists bankrupt enterprises.

–You can have everything right now (and by the way, you also need it right now or we might look upon you as a *gasp* working class person — which you are if you need this loan) … if you give us your life and work for the bank for 10% of your wage as well as the company you work for. Yep, it is just one more reason that your work is not your own, your car is not yours, your house is not yours, your kids are not yours, your decisions are not yours….

–Yet another example of “Charity” by big oil. There is nothing that a company does that is not in its own best interests… the problem is that those best interests are usually not in the best interests of everyone else.

-The war in Afghanistan is turning into the exact thing that the Left has been warning about before the conflict started. You cannot fight a people on their own soil while telling them that you have come to take all their money and have them invite you in.

–You can say that again. Not only has it hurt living standards, it has hurt the potential for standards to increase.

–Griping about deaths? One could shout back,” start questioning why so many of your people are dying!” We both should not be laying our lives down for imperial ambitions of the elite. We must start standing up to this false dichotomy given to us by the war machine. It is not us or them, it is war or peace. We want peace, we want an end to needless death in the fight for land, ideology, and imperialism. Troops out now! Start the process of peace and restart the political process.

–The Federal Conservatives are going to cut spending… this means cutting services to those that need them in favour of tax breaks to those that have too much to begin with.

–Lay them off, hire them, lay them off…. these people better unionise or they are going to be looking at job security like that of a part-time gas attendant.

–Irving can try to polish its image as a “green” company but we know that they are just focusing on a few PR sensitive areas. The mistakes that they are making that result in the destruction of habitat and the environment generally are a result of systematic processes of exploiting the environment for profit.

–When the Conservative government cannot even get businesses on-board with their plans then I think that it is time to really ask who is pulling the strings… and why does it look like they are coming straight across the boarder.

–The House of Representatives is not exactly representing the interests of those that elected them.

I doubt that the contents of this article won’t be increasingly publicised in the not so distant future …

“For many months, the George W. Bush administration has been complaining that Iranian meddling in Iraq is a threat to the country’s stability and to U.S. troops. The irony of this publicity campaign over Tehran’s alleged bid to undermine the occupation is that Iran may well be the main factor holding up a showdown between militant Shiites and U.S. forces.”

No kidding.

Juan Cole’s analysis of the partially declassified report is rather interesting as well; and can be viewed on his blog: Informed Comment

“Hezbollah is a problem to the U.S. not because it is a religious group … but because Hezbollah is a national resistance organization.”

Date of Action: Sept 25
Location: University of New Brunswick Engineering Building

It was a smalll action in terms of numbers, but maybe calling it small is a bit of a misnomer because it seemed to take on a much larger character in terms of the responses it produced and the overall disruption of Exxon Mobil’s recruitment party.
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“…Felipe Calderon, with support of Bush, FOX News’ Dick Morris, Wal-Mart, Craft, and yes, Halliburton, has been “declared victorious.” “

From: Embassy of Cuba in Athens, Monday, September 25, 2006
Press Communiqué

The President of the Non-Aligned Movement has learned with indignation that on the afternoon of Saturday 23 September 2006, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, H.E. Mr. Nicolás Maduro, was illegally held for an hour and a half at JFK Airport by authorities of the Government of the United States of America, as he was about to board a flight bound for the city of Miami on his way to Caracas. The Venezuelan Foreign Minister informed that, while held, he was threatened to be beaten and handcuffed, in addition to being insulted and having his documents removed. The President of the Non-Aligned Movement considers that the incident with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of one of its member countries is an unacceptable violation of the Vienna Convention, of the obligations of the Government of the United States of America as host country of the United Nations and of all relevant norms and practices regarding the treatment of internationally protected persons. Therefore, the President of the Non-Aligned Movement hereby expresses its strongest protest to this gross provocation, which could take place again against any member of the Movement.

New York, 23 September 2006

“People honestly concerned about Darfur should listen to the calm common sense of Alex de Waal, a fellow of the Global Equity Initiative at Harvard, an advisor to the African Union, and author of “Darfur: A Short History of a Long War”:

“I don’t believe there is a military solution. It will not defeat the holdout rebel groups. What it will do is, it will kill more people, create more hunger, create more displacement and make the situation even more intractable … I think the key thing to bear in mind is that the solution to Darfur is a political solution. No solution can be imposed by any amount of arm twisting, any amount of bluster, any amount of military force. Even if we sent 100,000 NATO troops, we would not be able to impose a solution. The solution has to come through political negotiation.”

Where is all the Aghanistan-earmarked billions of dollars in aid going? It’s being sqanedered by multinationals. No wonder conditions aren’t greatly improving on the ground.

Read this article on why America is not really a neoliberal society. “There exists very robust scientific evidence that the United States is not a neoliberal society (as it is constantly defined) and that the U.S. state is not reducing its key role in developing the national economy… This empirical evidence shows that federal government interventionism (in the economic, political, cultural, and security spheres) has increased over the last thirty years. In the economic sphere, for example, protectionism has not declined. It has grown, with higher subsidies to the agricultural, military, aerospace, and biomedical sectors. In the social arena, state interventions to weaken social rights (and most particularly labor rights) have increased enormously (not only under Reagan, but also under Bush Senior, Clinton, and Bush Junior), and surveillance of the citizenry has increased exponentially.”

The imperialist assault continues at home and abroad. A large public service union in South Korea is rooted by riot police; their offices stormed and its leaders arrested. This happend after the S. Korean government passed a law that requires unions to register as legal entities. The problem is that the law serverely limits the right to strike and right to assemble in public.

This is a good article on why NATO’s mission in Afghanistan is not likely to succeed. It’s interesting to see how Canada’s propaganda machine and acadmic elites are cranking out stories engineered to garner support for the mission. The facts however, are really indisputable.
Is it really just a coincidence that there is a major oil pipline runnning throught he country, and that it is worth billions upon billions?

Asaf Rashid
(Sept 23, 2006)

Universities are places of critical thought and study, not places where there is simply complacent acceptance of ideas just because those ideas are supportive of particularly influential institutions in our society. Considering this, UNB’s recently unveiled Milton Gregg Centre for the Study of War and Society is an example of what universities should shy away from. The Gregg Centre seeks to uncritically promote the Canadian Armed Forces rather than to engage in the academic exercise of critically evaluating their actions and ideas. I would argue that if UNB wants to maintain and/or develop the image of an institute of critical thought and study, the Gregg Centre should be moved off campus, with its affiliation to UNB severed. My reasoning is as follows.
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Will Canada send F-18s to Afghanistan?

Of course it’s unethical to commodify a public good; but the analysis needs to include more than just ethical arguments.

“Everyone’s heard about the human rights abuses in African gold and diamond mines. But when it comes to their ultra-cool, razor-thin cell phones, American consumers won’t get the message.”

–Of-course they do not want people to know… it is because you wouldn’t like the answer. The corporations that CIDA continues to promote overseas are not the nicest group you will meet… in fact, they are among the worst human rights and environment abusers around.

–I agree with Chavez, everyone should read Hegemony or Survival… or just go online and read Chomsky’s writings for free. Pretty much everything that he says in the book is somewhere online. The book just makes it easier to find.

–The rich continue to take from the poor. The Bretton Woods system must go.