–For those of you looking for some analysis of the rescue of Betancourt and future of the FARC-EP.

–Freedom of the press in Iraq? See post below.

–Freedom of the press in Israel? Not likely.

Omer was abused and assaulted by Israeli security personnel at the Allenby border crossing into Israel from Jordan as he tried to return to his home last week in the Gaza Strip.

–Klein points out that imperialism is in full swing in Iraq. Profits. It is all about profits.

–The CPI (Marxist) may leave the coalition it formed with Congress after the last election. Congress would be wise to yield to the communists’ demand of independent nuclear policy and rational economic policy.

–Hitchens gets a taste of what he didn’t before consider torture. It seems now he does. The question is, can he now admit that his position on Iraq was immoral and wrong?

–A glimpse into life in Cuba.

–How about the fact that they are 50% of the population and there is no good reason that women shouldn’t be in government?

–Not sure that this is true, but it is an interesting article.

–Some comments on the revolutionary process in Nepal. We knew that there were different tendencies in the CPN(M) and they are now starting to express themselves. The problem should be solved by putting it to the people. The communal assemblies should be deciding the direction forward, not opportunists in the upper strata of the Party. The direction forward must be transitional, not “reformist” (ie: backwards and to the right).

–It is about time the BBC ran a headline like this. Of-course, this is not an indepth analysis by the BBC, it is a report on Oxfam. Food prices do not have to rise that much to force millions into poverty — or worse. For Lula to claim that it only increases food prices 3% is insulting and narrow-minded. There may be a way to produce fuel from algae, but that technology is not the answer to our problems right now as it will be years before we can use it. We must have a plan for implementing currently available technology to reduce emissions and it must be done in a planned and regulated way for it to actually reduce emissions significantly.

–Howard Zinn’s book read to you. Have a listen.

–The rich in Bolivia think that they do not need the rest of the country. They are wrong, of-course, but that doesn’t stop them from inciting racist hatred against the poorer indigenous regions that now, for the first time since colonization, have power.

–Jim Lobe knows neo-conservatives. The Real News brings this interview.

–I am not sure that this is possible. Given that the Associated Press is the basis for the CBC, BBC, NYT, Washington Post, Yahoo News, The Guardian UK, and almost every other newspaper/online news source around, banning information from AP would have a rather chilling effect on news blogging. However, I like the initiative’s ethic. We cannot let these massive corporate-media monopolies use regressive copyright laws (or, in this case, interpretations of copyright laws) from interfering with freedom of speech and criticism (this is probably what it is really about anyway). I suggest that they only use article from the elite capitalist press such as Bloomberg and Thompson-Reuters. That way there is no chance of bloggers finding any balance in their stories — ever. That is, unless these rather wealthy (comparatively to Leftnews.org and the like) news aggregators turn to independent news sources from the grassroots, and that will only happen if people start contributing money to those sources. The Real News would be a good place to start.

–Just imagine what he would say about the massive underfunding of science and basic research in Canada.

–Lectures on Capital by Karl Marx. Watch, listen, learn.

–Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, writes an article for the Guardian on immigration and the hypocrisy of liberal Europe.

–Analysis of the media debacle over Chavez’s comments about FARC. Weisbrot sets the record straight.

–This includes Atlantica type policies.

–More on Chavez’s call for the FARC to release their prisoners and end their insurgency and find a new path forward.

–It is good to remind ourselves (and those not aware around us) that Marx rejected the idea that there would be a natural “final collapse” of capitalism. Heinrich points this out very clearly in this article. It is not the fact that capitalism might collapse that we continue to argue (and organise) against it, it is the fact that the nature of capitalism is immoral, contradictory, biased, exploitative, and oppressive that we do — that, and the understanding that there’s a better alternative (TABA). Have a read.

–Next time someone questions whether there really is money to be made off war and whether anyone is that nasty, look no further then this mess.

Waxman: “It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history.”

–Bolivia’s elite show their true colours.

–It is nonsense, of-course. The US election campaign has started and the tone has changed dramatically. Obama and McCain are too close on the issues to tell them apart in most things. The economy is no exception as both candidates from both parties accept free-market rhetoric around globalisation and “open” markets. Liberal economics is the uniting force around the US political elite.

–This is great stuff. Have a read of the analysis that Lebowitz brings to the table to help us understand the process going on in Venezuela.

–We continue to undermine the future generation’s ability to analyse the world with conservative, ideologically driven, ahistorical, crap in our text books.

–Neo-liberals love flat taxes and tolls. They will use any excuse to implement them and their favorite reason now is the environment. There is nothing different about the solutions to the environmental question that requires a shift from progressive taxation to regressive user-fees and flat-taxes. We must not let these economic reforms pass because we want green solutions. The rich have benefited from the economy treating the environment as an externality, they should be paying for the consequences.

A comment from this thread which is in response to this article on CBC.

By:JA Penn

I am not sure of the exact figures offhand, but about half the working population makes < $5 + min wage.

The tremendous irony is that a flat tax does nothing to make people work harder or make more money. Everyone in NB knows that if you have a good job, then you probably work for the government! That means your salary is paid by people’s taxes. If your taxes go down, the government is giving you a raise, meaning it has to pay you more. Where is the tax money to do that going to come from?

If you work in the private sector, and make a good salary, then chances are you do business with the gov’t as a chief client, or with some gov’t-sponsored entity. That means it is still tax money that finds its way into your pocket.

If you do business entirely with the private sector, then it has nothing to do with the public of NB, and is therefore of no benefit — except by the taxes it pays to the public purse. If someone does business on your turf, they should pay a rent, no?

And finally, if you work in the private sector, then chances are you work for barely a living wage (if you call that living). It is true that these people get screwed over by gov’t taxation and deserve better. We should reduce taxes on annual incomes of <$36,000, and increase the 0% bracket to half that amount.

Our income tax regime is progressive at low and medium incomes - the marginal tax rate above $100k is flat. So the poor and middle class get screwed, the rich do quite well.

As for value-added and sales taxes, they are regressive. They suck more of your income the less you have. Indeed, they plain suck.

The Liberals can’t be serious about these measures. They simply won’t work in New Brunswick. The public is in general disadvantaged economically; only government intervention gives us a good standard of living. The measures the Libs propose would impoverish the public coffers and make the people leave the province in greater numbers, setting up a vicious circle.

We can reduce taxes progressively AND have greater expenditure on public goods and services (education, health care, elder care, child care, etc.) - i.e. have our cake and eat it too. But we will need to elect a government that establishes publicly-owned enterprises that make money for us the way capitalists make money for themselves: Earning profits from producing and selling things, charging rents on land and resources, and receiving interest from finances. These would funnel economic surpluses back into democratic hands.

Socialism or barbarism, in short. There you have it.

–This is a couple of days old, and came out before the OECD stated that Canada will avoid recession, but it is an interesting look at the state of the Canadian economy. Jim Stanford, for all his bad judgment when it comes to picking alliances in the CAW, can still sum it all up quite well.

Here is what should strike anyone thinking about the future of the Canadian economy:

Another tidbit: StatsCan also reported last week that there are now more Canadians working in retail trade than in manufacturing. In other words, more Canadians sell stuff, than make it. Does anyone remotely believe that that is a sustainable role for a national economy? And today the Conference Board has indicated that consumer confidence has hit a 7-year low. So much for the happy shoppers.

–Chomsky. Read.

–Solutions only come from correct analysis and the identification of the root problems. Have a read and send it to the CBC Radio news department so their reporters start to understand the issues (ha).

–Labour Notes goes on the offensive against concession bargaining at the Big Three by the CAW.

–Indeed, one could blame the entire finance capital system for most of the problems the world faces today (and the industrial/land capitalist system for the rest).

–Fisk tells us how it really is in the fight against al-Qa’ida.