Christmas wish

This is transcribed from a generic Christmas card I'm sending too my family this year.

What is Peace?
Peace is simple...
It's holding the door open for a stranger and waving to a child in the care next to you.
It'd doing something nice for someone withou getting caught, and giving and sharing with those who are in need.
Peace is reaching out and holding back.
It's practicing the golden rule as often as you can, and remembering to say please and thank you.
Peace is saying hello to people you pass on the street and letting cars pull out ahead of you in busy holiday traffic.
Peace is living each day with the spirit of CHRISTMAS in your heart...
(open card up)
...and peace is what's wished for you -- at Christmas and always.

Merry Christmas one and all!
Love and Peace,
Stephen

Stock Day shows his true colours

Read this lovely piece of ecological sensitivity from the blog of my parent's MP, Stockwell Day

Hey who knows, maybe Al Gore is right.

Maybe all my constituents living high up on the West Bench, or Lakeview Heights , or the hills of Logan Lake will soon be sitting on lakeside property as one of the many benefits of global warming.

All I know is last weekend when I got home from Ottawa there was more snow in my driveway than we usually get in a year.

And I was begging for Big Al's Glacial Melt when the mercury hit -24°. Do not despair, my fellow dwellers of the Okanagan and Nicola Valleys .

Lest the Tories try to change their tune and pander to Canadians with a new, more sensitive approach to the environment, please keep this Stock Day blog post in mind come election day.

Twenty-six years ago, John Lennon died.

Well, another year gone by, and another anniversary (26th) of the murder of John Lennon, except this year, I missed it. It was yesterday. Anyway, every year I post the lyrics to one or more of John's songs in memory of his life. Lst year, I posted "Imagine" and "Happy Xmas (War is Over)." This year, I will post "Give Peace a Chance" and "In My Life." We miss you John.

Give Peace a Chance

Ev'rybody's talking about
Bagism, Shagism, Dragism, Madism, Ragism, Tagism
This-ism, that-ism
Isn't it the most
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Ev'rybody's talking about
Ministers, Sinisters, Banisters and canisters,
Bishops and Fishops and Rabbis and Pop eyes,
And bye bye, bye byes.
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Let me tell you now
Ev'rybody's talking about
Revolution, Evolution, Mastication, Flagelolation, Regulations.
Integrations, Meditations, United Nations, Congratulations
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

Oh Let's stick to it
Ev'rybody's talking about
John and Yoko, Timmy Leary, Rosemary, Tommy smothers, Bob Dylan,
Tommy Cooper, Derek Tayor, Norman Mailer, Alan Ginsberg, Hare Krishna,
Hare Krishna
All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

In My Life

There are places I'll remember
All my life, though some have changed
Some forever, not for better
Some have gone and some remain
All these places had their moments
With lovers and friends, I still can recall
Some are dead and some are living
In my life, I've loved them all

But of all these friends and lovers
There is no one compares with you
And these memories lose their meaning
When I think of love as something new
Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I'll love you more

Though I know I'll never lose affection
For people and things that went before
I know I'll often stop and think about them
In my life, I'll love you more

NDP hurtling toward irrelevance

I think that the NDP are hutling towards irrelevance. My problem with them is that they seem to be more interested in attacking the Liberals and trying to make deals with the Conservatives rather than the other way around.

They strike me of late as being shallow and politically opportunistic. They brought down the Liberal government which was going to pass a child care act. Child care advocates criticized the NDP for this. At the time, I was kind of with the NDP on this, but after I've seen what the Conservatives have done on this file, I wish I hadn't.

The NDP beats it's chest talking with the Tories about the Clean Air Act, but it's all show. It's grandstanding. The Tories won't move toward anything approaching a responsible green plan, and the Jack Layton knows it.

Yes, the Liberal governments of the past were corrupt. I'm not a Liberal; I have no horse in this race. They had to be held account to that, and they were, in the last election.

However, the times have changed since then. The Martin/Chretien Liberals were merely corrupt. The Harper Conservatives are threatening to tear are the fabric of Canadian society as we know it.

The Liberals have a new leader. Fair is fair, and he should be given a fair chance, instead of trying to tie him to the sponsorship scandal as the NDP are trying to do, when he had nothing to do with it. Stephane Dion is a man who is known for his honesty and integrity. In fact, to my knowledge, serious political commentators, even those critical of Stephane Dion, have not mentioned the sponsorship scandal.

I think much more helpful and instructive is the example being set by Elizabeth May and Adrienne Carr of the Green Party, who are welcoming his leadership of the Liberal Party with open arms. They are moving beyond petty partisanship, thinking about what is best for the country, and actually hoping he will be a good Liberal leader.

The progressive movement in Canada has much bigger fish to fry than Stephane Dion. Stephen Harper is the leader of by far the most right wing government in Canadian history, he must be stopped at all costs. The best bet for that in a majority of ridings across the country right now are probably the Libs.

Blogosphere, meet Andrea McKenzie.

I'd like to introduce you to an old friend of mine (not in terms of age but in terms of years knowing), Andrea Mackenzie from Victoria. She is an aspiring writer, and has just started up her new blog. She has had published a book of her finest poetry, A Mother's String.

Welcome to the blogosphere, Andrea.

World AIDS Day

Today is world AIDS Day. I'm too tired to put up a lengthy post on it, suffice it to say the global AIDS pandemic, especially in Africa, is one of the critical issues of our time.

My generation will be defined in part by how it responds to this pandemic. Will we stand up, take notice, and demand that Western governments provide support to battle it, or would we rather carry on with our mindless, insular lives.

I like what Matt Good has to say about the day.

History for the Greens

In brighter news, the Green Party of Canada has made history yesterday, coming in second in a federal by-election in London North-Centre.

I am very excited by the news, as I have been attracted to the Green philosophy for years. While I do think it is very important to ensure that Harper's Conservatives aren't re-elected in the next election, I think that the Liberals and New Democrats have largely made themselves irrelevant to me and other voters who are looking for a new set of priorities for the creation of a more humane society. I also like the Green's approach to practicing politics, which is generally much more conciliatory and cooperative.

Anyway, I'm quite pleased. For more on their platform,, go here.

Quebec as a "nation"

Canadian history was made on two counts yesterday.

First, the House of Commons, in contrast to the wishes of the vast majority of Canadians, passed a motion to declare the Quebecois a nation within Canada. Most members of all major parties in the Commons supported the motion.

There are many problems I have with this, not the least of which, there was no consultation at all. It was said by proponents that the motion was in effect meaningless, that it was simply meant to defuse a Bloc Quebecois motion to declare Quebec a nation outside of Canada.

The question I have is, if it was meaningless, why have the motion in the first place; why not simply defeat the Bloc motion. If it was not meaningless, and we should be concerned, why was there no consultation? I would submit that there is great concern.

I could very easily see the Bloc presenting a motion to the House asking that the Quebecois status as a nation be constitutionally recognized. How could the other parties say no? If informally, then why not constitutionally?

I think that we could be opening a pandora's box that we could very much regret opening.

Ken Dryden's speech in the House sums of my feelings precisely:

This is pure politics. All this started with the ludicrous concept of having a debate fundamental to the country based on different understandings of the word "nation." In the last few days, it has deteriorated into the ludicrous reality of such a debate in practice.

To those who want to engage the debate honestly, seeking definitional clarity - forget it. Other parties to the debate want none of it. They want to say "nation" means whatever they want it to mean, now and to change definition whenever they decide they want it to mean something different. So they can go to the public and argue and spin, and try to achieve by misunderstanding what they can't by understanding.

When I first arrived in Montreal, it was the pride of Quebecers that struck me. The whole world's being taken over by the English language, American culture; Quebecers had no chance. But they said no, not me, not here. I know what I am. And that's who I'm going to be. Forever.

And Quebecers know who they are. They've had to. They couldn't have made it if they didn't. They don't need any official definers to tell them. And some day we, all Canadians, will get down on paper what Canada really is, what Quebec really is, what together we have made ourselves to be. But it won't happen this way. It can't happen this way.

Does the Bloc really want to engage Canadians outside Quebec so they will agree that "Quebec is a nation"? Not at all. They want the process to be so inappropriate that all such Canadians will reject the question. To grease that slippery slope, so that Canadians inside Quebec will reject those outside Quebec, and the Bloc's cause of independence will be advanced.

The pawn in this game is the public. As Canadians, we feel deeply about our country. Politicians and political advocates for decades have been playing games with our emotions, manipulating them for their/our own purposes. They/we have completely poisoned the well of discussion and debate on this question. No side trusts any other, no citizen trusts any politician.

It's snowing!

(Well OK, this pic was taken the day after it started).

Water

It's something that we take for granted. It's probably our second most important natural resource, next to air. I never thought I'd realize how much it is taken for granted, and how lucky we are to live in a part of the world where access to clean water isn't normally a problem. I still don't think I really know how much, but I do believe I have a vague idea.

Here in Vancouver, we've been under a boiled water advisory for almost a week now. Don't know when it's going to be lifted, but hopefully soon.

It has been a very humbling experience, and I think there are two lessons to draw. One, we have to be humbled by the wealth of our society that allows us access to commercial "substitutes" such as bottled water that ensure we don't go thirsty. We don't realize how many people die in various parts of the world for want of food. Two, we have to realize what in important and precious part of our ecosystem water is. It is a finite resource, we can run out, and we must start making a real effort to conserve.

Something else I've been thinking about is climate change as it relates to impacts on the weather generally, and more specifically the wind-and rain-storm that let to the soiling of the reservoirs. Of course I don't know for sure if it is climate-change related, and if so, how much, but it does make me think about the lack of respect we show for our environment, whether in the form of carbon emissions or water waste, and how it all could come back on us in the long run.

The next time I do the dishes, I think I'm gonna use less water.

Sy Hersh on a secret CIA report.

According to Pullitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, a secret CIA report has found no evidence of a nuclear weapons-building program in Iraq:

The Administration’s planning for a military attack on Iran was made far more complicated earlier this fall by a highly classified draft assessment by the C.I.A. challenging the White House’s assumptions about how close Iran might be to building a nuclear bomb. The C.I.A. found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency. (The C.I.A. declined to comment on this story.)

The C.I.A.’s analysis, which has been circulated to other agencies for comment, was based on technical intelligence collected by overhead satellites, and on other empirical evidence, such as measurements of the radioactivity of water samples and smoke plumes from factories and power plants. Additional data have been gathered, intelligence sources told me, by high-tech (and highly classified) radioactivity-detection devices that clandestine American and Israeli agents placed near suspected nuclear-weapons facilities inside Iran in the past year or so. No significant amounts of radioactivity were found.

A current senior intelligence official confirmed the existence of the C.I.A. analysis, and told me that the White House had been hostile to it. The White House’s dismissal of the C.I.A. findings on Iran is widely known in the intelligence community. Cheney and his aides discounted the assessment, the former senior intelligence official said. “They’re not looking for a smoking gun,” the official added, referring to specific intelligence about Iranian nuclear planning. “They’re looking for the degree of comfort level they think they need to accomplish the mission.” The Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency also challenged the C.I.A.’s analysis. “The D.I.A. is fighting the agency’s conclusions, and disputing its approach,” the former senior intelligence official said. Bush and Cheney, he added, can try to prevent the C.I.A. assessment from being incorporated into a forthcoming National Intelligence Estimate on Iranian nuclear capabilities, “but they can’t stop the agency from putting it out for comment inside the intelligence community.” The C.I.A. assessment warned the White House that it would be a mistake to conclude that the failure to find a secret nuclear-weapons program in Iran merely meant that the Iranians had done a good job of hiding it. The former senior intelligence official noted that at the height of the Cold War the Soviets were equally skilled at deception and misdirection, yet the American intelligence community was readily able to unravel the details of their long-range-missile and nuclear-weapons programs. But some in the White House, including in Cheney’s office, had made just such an assumption—that “the lack of evidence means they must have it,” the former official said.

Appearing on Democracy Now! today, Hersh indicated he didn't know if the Bush Administration would attack Iran. Some of his contacts say that Bush will not be prevented from bombing Iran before leaving office. Others say that the foreign policy realists in the administration may well prevail.

This is basically what we're down to: hoping that the far right wing foreign policy realists in the US will prevail over the even farther right wing neocons. I think the stakes are too high to allow the Bushies to go into Iran.

Grameen Bank

Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the revolutionary Grameen Bank that has freed gosh knows how many Bangladeshis from extreme poverty, has won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Essentially, the Grameen Bank provides microcredit loans, small loans to the extremely poor, without collateral or interest. I have a bit of a bakcground in community economic development, so such concepts are not new to me. The result is that poverty levels are reduced, and the wealth created by the loan stays in the community. Go here for more basic info on microcredit.

Ray McGovern: Cheney-Gates Cabal

From Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst:

The “Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal ” may now be down to one. But there is every sign that Cheney will continue to be the dominant force in the White House, and he recently asserted:

You cannot make national security policy on the basis of [elections]. It may not be popular with the public. It doesn’t matter, in the sense that we have to continue the mission [in Iraq].

Granted, Cheney made those comments before the election. But it is virtually certain that Bush vetted with Cheney the nomination of Robert Gates to succeed Rumsfeld and, if past experience is precedent, it is a virtual certainty that Gates will continue to earn an A+ for “loyalty.” Look for a “Cheney-Gates cabal.”

Dems take Congress; Rumsfeld resigns

Great news. The Democrats have captured, easily, the House of Representatives and narrowly captured the Senate. It is not likely that a whole lot will change as a result with respect to foreign policy, but it is a sweeping repudiation of the US policy vis a vis Iraq. The Democrats didn't even have a position, didn't even say anything meaningful, and they still won. That's gotta hurt if you're a Repuglican.



An offshoot of this that is another important development is the resignation of Donald Rumsfeld. Bush has chosen former CIA analyst Bob Gates to replace him.

There is certainly no guarantee that Gates will be anything more than marginally better. He may well not be. However, given that Rumsfeld resigned immediately after his party's ouster in the congressional elections, I can arrive at no other conclusion that he has resigned in disgrace. That is entirely appropriate, and that is an important statement on the policies he has supported.

That he has resigned is a good start but not nearly enough though. He should be tried for war crimes.

Constitutionally, all decision-making power with respect to foreign policy rests in the executive branch. However, this also gives the Democrats some leverage on two counts, hypothetically speaking. Whomever Bush chooses must be confirmed by the Senate. If they don't like him, the can defeat the nomination.

Second, if they choose to, they can impeach the president. They can either choose to do so outright, in which case Dick Cheney would be president (gulp), or they can hang it over his head and blakcmail him with it in order to encourage more sensible policies from Bush. I highly doubt it will happen, but it could.

Amnesty Award for Mandela

Nelson Mandela has been awarded Amnesty International's highest honour, the Ambassador of Conscience Award. I'm pleased that one of my heroes is being honoured in such a way. How his activism has continued through his life span, from anti-apartheid activist to political prisoner to resurrected movement leader to president of South Africa to elder statesmen for the world, is truly inspiring. The presenting of this award to him is a vindication not only of his life's work, but also the need to continue to stand up for human rights in the world, as Mr. Mandela does.

Reasons not to vote for Stephen Harper

These are the reasons I can come up with at this point in time. I will publish a more extensive list when the next federal election comes.

1) abandoning Kyoto commitments, in the face of overwhelming evidence of the climate change threat, which Canada and almost all other industrialized countries had already signed.

2) refusing to endorse the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous peoples, a document that many countries including Canada has worked on for 20 years, thus further harming relations with aboriginals in Canada.

3) phony choice in child care policy, in place of national child care policy agreed to by Canada and the provinces

4) trashing of the Kelowna accord for aboriginal peoples, again agreed to by the feds and the provincesw

5) raising the income tax of the poorest income group.

6) supporting the Israeli flattening of Lebanon.

7) gutting of social programs which support women, aboriginals, volunteers, and adult literacy.

7) language and decisions used by Stephen Harper which is eerily similar to language and decisions used by George Bush, such as "cut and run," "stay the course," banning coverage of soldier's caskets.

8) as detailed above, an unwillingness or inability to work with the provinces or the international community.

9) inability or unwillingness to work with the opposition parties, after complaining as the official opposition in the previous Parliament that the government was unwilling to work with them. The Difference is that the previous government did work with the opposition; it was just a different party. The Harper regime is unable or unwilling to work with any of the opposition parties.

10) David Emerson.

11) Garth Turner.

12) threatening to kill gun registry.

13) proposed legislation that would allow police to spy on internet users without a warrant.

14) if elected with a majority, a Harper Conservative government will likely sign on to the US's dangerous misguided ballistic missle defence program.

15) breaking promises to increase foreign aid to G* average, and instead letting it fall.

Bill Maher takes on the neocons

From Crooks and Liars, check on Bill Maher do a new segment in which he rips into the neon "thinktanks'" histry of abject failure.

Bad move, Stephen Harper.

I'm not a member of the Liberal Party, but as a concerned Canadian citizen, I do care who will be prime minister of Canada after the next election. When Michael Ignatieff called the Israel attack on Qana a war crime, I finally felt that he might actually be OK after all in that position.

I don't think he had in mind what was coming from the Conservatives in response, but I'm not surprised. When Stephen Harper called not only Ignatieff but all Liberal leadership candidates anti-Israel, he implicitly also called all of us who agree with Ignatieff anti-Israel, and that's a lot of Canadians. He called me anti-Israel.

I think that even most Canadians who would disagree with Ignatieff and agree with Harper on Israel wouldn't be so myopic and simple-minded as to believe that that necessarily means that Ignatieff is anti-Israel.

I think Ken Dryden said it best, when he said that Harper is "completely wrong."

He said, “all that is, is creating divides and Mr. Harper has shown himself to be a great divider," and went on to say that since Harper became prime minister, he has proven himself to be a great divider, dividing Canada into black and white, into those with us and those against us.

Now to the heart of the issue, as far as I'm concerned. The indiscriminate killing of civilians is wrong, regardless who the victim is and who the perpetrator is. Simple and easy to understand, one would think, but apparently beyond the comprehension of many.

One of those many, the Prime Minister of Canada, called myself and many other good Canadians anti-Israel. Bad move, Harper.

Give me hegemony or give me death

This is from Antiwar.com

The problem is not that the Democrats are intimidated. The problem is that the Democrats are part of the problem. The editors of Impeach the President indirectly acknowledge this fact when they report that Congress "looked the other way" when Bush acknowledged that he lied to cover up his felony of illegally spying on U.S. citizens and declared the real criminal to be the NSA official who blew the whistle. Democrats, no less than Republicans, have permitted the Bush regime to violate the separation of powers and the rule of law. A branch of government that no longer defends its power is a branch of government that no longer believes in its power. Just as the Reichstag faded away for Hitler, the U.S. Congress has faded away for the Bush administration.

Claes Ryn is correct when he says a change of mind has occurred. The Constitution and the political system based on it are on the ropes because the players no longer believe in them. They believe in executive power to act forcefully in behalf of "American exceptionalism."

Civil libertarians rely on the judiciary to defend constitutional rights, but the Supreme Court has been compromised by Bush's appointments of Roberts and Alito, men who believe in "energy in the executive." Without support from Congress, the judiciary cannot protect civil liberty. With the passage of the recent detainee and spy bills, Congress has allied itself with the Bush regime against civil liberty.

Beliefs are more important than institutions. Michael Polanyi wrote that if people believed in the principles of Stalinism, democracy would uphold Stalinism. If people believe in American hegemony, they will not complain when barriers to hegemonic actions are removed. If people believe fighting terrorism is more important than civil liberty, they will lose civil liberty.

What America needs to refurbish is its beliefs. Without renewing our beliefs, we cannot renew our civil liberties and hold government accountable.

Chomsky on 9/11 conspiracy theories

Here's Chomsky making the best succinct statement I have heard yet against the proliferation of 9/11 conspiracy theories, in a Znet sustainer forum.:

ZNet Sustianer: Dear Noam, There is much documentation observed and uncovered by the 911 families themselves suggesting a criminal conspiracy within the Bush Administration to cover-up the 9/11 attacks (see DVD, 9/11: Press for Truth). Additionally, much evidence has been put forward to question the official version of events. This has come in part from Paul Thompson, an activist who has creatively established the 9/11 Timeline, a free 9/11 investigative database for activist researchers, which now, according to The Village Voice’s James Ridgeway, rivals the 9/11 Commission’s report in accuracy and lucidity (see,http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0416,mondo1,52830,6.html, or www.cooperativeresearch.org).

Noam Chomsky: Hard for me to respond to the rest of the letter, because I am not persuaded by the assumption that much documentation and other evidence has been uncovered. To determine that, we'd have to investigate the alleged evidence. Take, say, the physical evidence. There are ways to assess that: submit it to specialists -- of whom there are thousands -- who have the requisite background in civil-mechanical engineering, materials science, building construction, etc., for review and analysis; and one cannot gain the required knowledge by surfing the internet. In fact, that's been done, by the professional association of civil engineers. Or, take the course pursued by anyone who thinks they have made a genuine discovery: submit it to a serious journal for peer review and publication. To my knowledge, there isn't a single submission.

ZNet Sustianer: A question that arises for me is that regardless of this issue, how do I as an activist prevent myself from getting distracted by such things as conspiracy theories instead of focusing on the bigger picture of the institutional analysis of private profit over people?

Noam Chomsky: I think this reaches the heart of the matter. One of the major consequences of the 9/11 movement has been to draw enormous amounts of energy and effort away from activism directed to real and ongoing crimes of state, and their institutional background, crimes that are far more serious than blowing up the WTC would be, if there were any credibility to that thesis. That is, I suspect, why the 9/11 movement is treated far more tolerantly by centers of power than is the norm for serious critical and activist work. How do you personally set priorities? That's of course up to you. I've explained my priorities often, in print as well as elsewhere, but we have to make our own judgments.