Also see Organizing for the Anti-Capitalist Transition | MR Zine

Chavez’ proposal for a Fifth International is “a political thunderbolt and should initiate new and broad discussion of the role of internationalism in the struggle against imperialism and for socialism. Such a discussion can only contribute to our ideological and political consciousness. We are at the very beginning of a process and it would be wise to reserve any tendency to hasty judgment.”

“The 300 delegates to the Québec solidaire convention voted unanimously, with a standing ovation, to endorse the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions “against Israeli occupation, colonization and apartheid.” … The Coalition pour la Justice et la Paix en Palestine comprises 17 – now 18, with the inclusion of Québec solidaire – organizations in Quebec: Jewish, Muslim and Christian groups, NGOs, the Quebec Federation of Women (FFQ) and a major teachers’ union affiliated with the Confederation of National Trade Unions (CSN).”

Leftist groups in Anglophone Canada are risking being left behind on the wrong side of history by not endorsing the BDS campaign.

An informative analysis of the recent Conservative-influenced attacks on the CFS.

“[O]ur analysis on this stuff is simple, any enemy of the Conservatives is a friend of ours. So we’re cheering for the Canadian Federation of Students. We’re also cheering for the PIRGs, organized labour, environmentalists, pro-choice organizers, public health care workers, stem-cell researchers, evolutionary biologists, open mindedness, decency, etc.”

Speaker: Julio Chavez, Mayor of Carora (2004-2008) Visit to Canada.

First-hand Report: from a major player in the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela. Julio Chavez won the election for mayor in 2004 and came to office with only one goal: to democratize the municipality and turn it over to the citizens.

Mr. Chavez will describe how key city institutions were transformed through public participation despite fierce opposition from the locale elite.

(1) Place: McMaster University, Room 1A3, Health and Science Bld’g. Hamilton, ON
Time: 7:30 pm
Date: Thursday, October 8. 2009.

(2) Place: York University,
305 York Lanes, Downsview, ON
Time: 12:30 – 2:00 pm
Date: Friday, October 9. 2009.

(3) Place: University of Toronto,
South Dinning Room, Hart House
Time: 2:00 pm
Date: Saturday, October 10. 2009.

“The point about the “colour bar”, whether it operates formally or de facto, is that it excludes non-white labour from certain positions, or substantially reduces their participation in those roles. These positions are sought after for the levels of skill, responsibility, autonomy and rewards entailed in them. But those social facts about the job – skill, responsibility, autonomy and rewards – are interpreted by racist institutions as natural or cultural facts. Thus, ‘whiteness’ = skill, responsibility, self-government and the rewards those qualities deliver. In much the same way, the socially produced imperative to drive workers harder and extract more free overtime labour is interpreted as a particular expression of one’s culture and personality, ie. as a reflection of one’s ‘flexibility’. So, what race does is not just overlap with class, but constitute it, rendering its demarcations more intelligible in the terms of bourgeois ideology.”

“The “lone wolf” who stabbed Marwa 18 times inside the courtroom is the product of the society he lives in. If anything, the murder of Marwa should raise the discussion about the latent (perhaps not so latent anymore) racism against Muslims that has been growing in European societies in the last few decades, and noticeably so since the mid-90s.”

Academic censorship is increasing throughout North American academe.

“If conservative administrators can’t get away with openly firing critics of Israel and defenders of multiculturalism, they have another tactic at their disposal. Some university leaders are attacking outspoken faculty on the grounds that university employees have no free speech rights when it comes to criticizing their own institutions.”

The Fightback Editorial Board is presenting this draft document for discussion amongst Canadian workers, youth and revolutionaries. Here they explain how Canada is not immune to the crisis of capitalism. The task of this document is to gauge the impact of the economic crisis on consciousness and politics so that revolutionaries may orientate their forces for maximum effect.

“16% of people in England and Wales think it is acceptable for a man to beat his wife or girlfriend if she nags; 13% think it is acceptable for a man to beat his wife or girlfriend if she flirts with other men; 20% think it is acceptable for a man to beat his wife or girlfriend if she dresses in sexy or revealing clothing in public; 11% think it okay to beat if the wife or girlfriend doesn’t treat the man with respect; 8% think it okay to beat if she is caught cheating.

Further, 36% think a woman should be held co-responsible for being raped if she is drunk; 26% if she is wearing revealing or sexy clothing; 43% if she flirts heavily beforehand; 49% if she does not clearly say ‘no’; 42% if she is using drugs; 47% if she is a prostitute; 14% if she is out walking alone at night.”

Shane Martinez, member of CAAE will debate a representative from the UNB Student Union live on-air Jan 23rd at 10 am. The main issue up for debate will be tuition fees. The SU will defend its position opposing the current tuition freeze, calling for higher tuition fees for everyone. Shane Martinez will present CAAE’s argument against high tuition fees.

Listen here online: http://www.chsrfm.ca/stream.php

Education is a right!

John Pilger’s Palestine is Still the Issue
7:00 PM, Thursday, Jan. 15
Tilley Hall 303, UNB

In 1977, the award-winning journalist and film-maker, John Pilger, made a
documentary called Palestine Is Still The Issue (1977). He told how almost a
million Palestinians had been forced off their land in 1948, and again in 1967.
In this in-depth documentary, he has returned to the West Bank of the Jordan
and Gaza, and to Israel, to ask why the Palestinians, whose right of return was
affirmed by the United Nations more than half a century ago, are still caught
in a terrible limbo — refugees in their own land, controlled by Israel in the
longest military occupation in modern times. Read a recent article by John
Pilger on the situation in Gaza here:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21680.htm

Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land
7:00 pm, Saturday, Jan. 17
Conserver House, 180 St. John St.

Peace, Propaganda & the Promised Land is a 2004 documentary by Sut Jhally and
Bathsheba Ratzkoff which provides a striking comparison of U.S. and
international media coverage of the crisis in the Middle East, zeroing in on
how structural distortions in U.S. coverage have reinforced false perceptions
of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and which analyzes and explains
how–through the use of language, framing and context–the Israeli occupation
of the West Bank and Gaza remains hidden in the news media.

Donations will be taken at both film screenings for Gaza humanitarian relief
efforts.

With refreshments.

For more information, contact Fredericton Palestine Solidarity at
info@frederictonpeace.org or visit: www.frederictonpeace.org

Labour activists should read this article and commit these seven reasons, along with the arguments, to memory. They will come in handy during a drive, when workers are trying to evaluate the “pros and cons” of unionization, or when management is engaged in anti-labour propaganda.

Struggling Ontario joins have-not ranks

Ontario to get slice of equalization pie

What does this actually mean for Canada?

This article also includes a link to the opposing website: Boycott DMC Pharmacy

It’s only a matter of time before we see this in Canada – if it doesn’t already exist. If you have doubts, google “Calgary pharmacist Maria Bizecki”. I can’t stomach re-posting that junk.

“A new poll by the Associated Press and Yahoo News has found that deep-seated racial misgivings could cost Barack Obama the White House if the election is close. The poll found one-third of white Democrats harbor negative views toward blacks. The polling suggests Obama would receive an estimated six percentage points more support if there were no racial prejudice.”

Also see: When You’re a Black Candidate There’s No Such Thing as a Safe Lead | Counter Punch

“For example, if Obama goes into election day with a six point lead (say 53-47 percent), it would only take 3.01 percent of supposed Obama voters to change their minds to defeat him by 49.99 to 50.01 percent. Only five percent would need to change their minds to wipe out a ten percent lead.”

“Academics and researchers from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, Cuba, Ecuador, France, Mexico, Peru, Phillipines, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom, United States, Uruguay and Venezuela participated in The International Political Economy Conference: Responses from the South to the Global Economic Crisis, held in Caracas from October 8 to 11, 2008 … We convene a second International Political Economy Conference: Responses from the South to the Global Economic Crisis to be held in the first four months of 2009.”

“Across the 24 OECD nations for which data was available, the cumulative increase in inequality was around 7 percent from the mid-1980s to mid-2000s … The report said income inequality in general had risen significantly since 2000 in Canada, Germany, Norway, the United States, Italy, and Finland”

Buzz Hargrove, the outspoken former national president of the Canadian Auto Workers, will speak at a public lecture in Fredericton on Wednesday, October 22, 2008 at the Wu Conference Centre, University of New Brunswick at 4 p.m..

In “Looking Back, Looking Ahead”, the New Brunswick-born Hargrove will talk about his life as a trade unionist and why Canadian democracy needs a strong labour movement to survive. Mr. Hargrove’s speech is sponsored by the New Brunswick Labour History Project at the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton. A public reception hosted by the Office of the Vice-President of Research Services, UNB, will follow. Everyone is most welcome to attend.

For further information contact Carol Ferguson, Project Officer, New Brunswick Labour History Project at 506-453-4599 or cferguso@unb.ca.

Buzz Hargrove prononcera une conférence publique à la UNB

Buzz Hargrove, ce syndicaliste au franc-parler et ancien président national des Travailleurs canadiens de l’automobile, prononcera une conférence publique au Wu Conference Centre de la University of New Brunswick à Fredericton, le mercredi 22 octobre 2008 à 16 h.

Dans sa présentation intitulée « Lookink Back, Looking Ahead», Hargrove, un natif du Nouveau-Brunswick, parlera de sa vie de syndicaliste et démontrera que la démocratie canadienne a besoin d’un mouvement ouvrier fort pour survivre.

La conférence de Monsieur Hargrove est parrainée par le Projet d’histoire du travail au Nouveau-Brunswick (Fredericton). Une réception, offerte par le Bureau du vice-recteur à la recherche de la UNB, suivra. Bienvenue à toutes et à tous.

Pour plus de renseignements, veuillez contacter la chargée de projet Carol Ferguson, Projet d’histoire du travail au Nouveau-Brunswick, au 506-453-4599 ou par courriel : cferguso@unb.ca .

Some proposals outlined at: “The International Conference on Political Economy [which] took place in Caracas, Venezuela from October 8-11, 2008, and was attended by academics and researchers from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, Cuba, Ecuador, Spain, the United States, the Philippines, France, England, Mexico, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. … The Second International Conference on Political Economy: Responses from the South to the World Economic Crisis, [will] take place in Caracas in the first quarter of the year 2009.”

Last week, the Monthly Review group stated: “At Monthly Review we therefore should take as a primary task the job of driving the stake into the heart of what should be mortally wounded neoliberalism … Let us ruthlessly ridicule all the years of the dishonest jargon of “economic freedom” and “reform” spewed upon the public by economists and journalists serving as the bankers’ whores. Let us help clear the ground for a global return to the socialist path, the only hope for the majority of humankind — the propertyless.”

William K. Tabb’s article is a brilliant contribution to this objective.

“In a perverse way, Henry Paulson and his co-conspirators have done the [U.S.] public a great favor. He has told [them] that, Yes, the federal government can come up with $700-plus billion, in an instant, if the health of the nation demands it. He has expanded the fiscal scope of the domestic political debate, so that it may encompass projects of transformational size. Never again can the corporate class speak of socially valuable projects being so large as to “break the bank” or the budget. Popular forces are now free to think large, too, without being ridiculed from the corporate Right.”