A Decisive Loss for Israel

From The Electronic Intifada

Thousands of Palestinians attend a rally organized by Hamas in Gaza City days after Israel declared a unilateral ceasefire, 20 January 2009

Israel’s objectives from the war on Gaza were set long before its launch: to remove the Hamas movement and government, achieve the reinstallation of the Fatah leader, Mahmoud Abbas, in Gaza, and end the armed resistance. Two other objectives were not announced. First, restore the Israeli public’s wavering confidence in its armed forces after its defeat by Hizballah in 2006. Second, boost the coalition government in the coming elections.

Accordingly, we declare that Israel lost, and lost decisively. What did it achieve? The killing of large numbers of civilians, children and women, and the destruction of homes, ministry buildings and other infrastructure with the most advanced United States weapons and other internationally banned chemical and phosphorous elements. Almost 2,000 children were killed and injured in desperate pursuit of political goals. Many international organizations called these attacks war crimes, yet barely a word of denunciation was uttered by any western leader. What message does the European Union mean to send Palestinians by its shameful silence on these crimes, when it speaks incessantly on human rights?

If anything, the last three weeks, and previous 18 months, have proved that the Palestinians can never be broken by either starvation, economic strangulation or brutal attack. European leaders have only one option: to recognize the outcome of a democratic process they had called for and supported.

The aggression failed to undermine or weaken the Hamas-led government, or turn Palestinians against Hamas. If anything, public support is stronger than ever in Palestine and worldwide. Hamas’s military capabilities have not been hurt, either. This explains Israel scurrying to sign such a strange agreement with the US to stop arms reaching Hamas. It is doomed to fail. As the former Israeli chief of staff Moshe Yaalon and Benjamin Netanyahu agreed, Israeli forces failed to achieve their objectives.

Why is Israel allowed a continuous flow of the most lethal arms, including banned weapons, while national resistance movements are denied the means of defense? International laws permit occupied nations to resist their occupiers, and that is a right we aim to utilize to the full.

Israel must accept the reality that it is incapable of breaking the Palestinian resistance. Similarly, Europe must accept that bringing back Abbas on an Israeli tank is not an option. Nor are attempts to win by “diplomacy” what the might of the Israeli military failed to secure by force. To state that all aid for Gaza reconstruction must go through the illegal government of appointed Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad suggests there is no end to some parties’ exploitation of Palestinians. We will never cease to pursue national unity, but we will never allow it to be attained by compromising Palestinian rights.

And to President Obama we say: the wave of hope that met your election was heavily dampened by your silence on the Gaza massacre. This was compounded by your pre-election statement siding with the Israeli settlers of Sderot. You would do well to know the history of the places of which you speak. Sderot, which may be known to some as an Israeli town, lies on the ruins of Najd, a Palestinian village ransacked in May 1948 by Zionist terrorist gangs. Villagers were forced from their beds and homes with nothing but the clothes they were wearing, rendering them refugees for the next 61 years. That is the story of Sderot. It is never a good start to get your tyrant and victims mixed up, but there is still room for a revival of passionate optimism. Only if you decide to fairly address the issue of the 6 million Palestinian refugees and the ending of occupation of Palestinian lands, including Jerusalem, will you be able to start a new relationship with the Muslim world.

Mousa Abu Marzook is deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau mousa DOT abumarzook AT gmail DOT com. This essay was first published in The Guardian’s Comment is Free.

The Indian Example

From The Electronic Intifada

Israeli soldiers arrest Palestinians suspected of throwing stones during a protest in the West Bank city of Hebron, 30 December 2008

In Gaza, Palestinians have once again been blamed for their own deaths. The British made a similar argument 151 years ago when they killed thousands of Indian civilians — 1,200 in a single village — in response to the largest anti-colonial uprising of the 19th century. If Israel truly desires peace with the Palestinians and safety for its citizens, it should look back to one of the greatest, and misunderstood, independence movements in history.

Most people believe India won its independence from the British exclusively through Gandhi’s famous strategy of nonviolence. They’re wrong; armed resistance has deep roots in India. During the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, also known as the First War of Independence, Hindus and Muslims serving in the infantry for the British East Indian Company revolted against the British Empire, killing British officers and civilians alike. While the majority of these cavalrymen were Hindu, Muslims also partook in the rebellion. These Muslim fighters called themselves “jihadis” and even “suicide ghazis.”

The British quashed the revolt, but for the next 90 years Indian violence, even terrorism, in response continued. In the early 20th century, Indian militants, frustrated with the Congress party — the party of Gandhi and Nehru — regularly resorted to acts of violence to overthrow the British. Official government reports note 210 “revolutionary outrages” and at least 1,000 “terrorists” involved in more than 101 attempted attacks between 1906 and 1917 in the state of Bengal alone (see Peter Heehs, “Terrorism in India During the Freedom Struggle,” The Historian, 22 March 1993). One young revolutionary, Bhagat Singh, later referred to as “Shaheed” Bhagat Singh, bombed the Legislative Assembly in 1929.

On the other hand, Palestinians are usually portrayed in Israel and the West as exclusively militants or terrorists. Yet Palestinians have a vibrant, albeit unsuccessful, history of nonviolent resistance. In 1936, the Palestinians maintained a six-month general strike, the beginning of what became known as the Great Arab Revolt. The British retaliated by declaring martial law, jailing and killing large numbers of Palestinians, and destroying numerous Palestinian homes. The revolt lasted for three years and was the largest and longest anti-colonial uprising in the British Empire.

Fifty years later, the first Palestinian intifada was largely nonviolent and included acts of mass civil disobedience like flying the Palestinian flag, organizing strikes and boycotting Israeli products. In 1985, Mubarak Awad, a Palestinian-American psychologist from Jerusalem established a center for nonviolent resistance on the teachings of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. He was deported by Israel in 1988 (see Mubarak Awad, “Non-Violent Resistance: A Strategy for the Occupied Territories.” Journal of Palestine Studies. Summer 1984). A year later, Beit Sahour, a town near Bethlehem, engaged in a tax revolt against Israel, under the famous American slogan “No taxation without representation.” The Israeli army responded by arresting over 80 Palestinians, cutting telephone lines, blocking food shipments into the town and confiscating millions of dollars in Palestinian goods.

What about the current conflict? All the public hears about are the small, makeshift rockets Palestinians fire into southern Israel. But farmers, fisherman and children had been nonviolently resisting the Israeli occupation for years.

Up until the Israeli invasion, Gaza fishermen had been disobeying Israeli orders by fishing in their waters — not unlike Gandhi when he urged Indians to march to the sea to collect their own salt against British orders. In response, the British beat and imprisoned Gandhi’s marchers. Likewise, the Israeli navy repeatedly forced Palestinian fisherman to strip to their underwear and swim to Israeli navy ships, where they are detained and their boats confiscated.

Since 2002, Palestinian men, women and children have been sitting in front of Israeli bulldozers flattening their olive groves to construct a wall deep into the West Bank. The Israeli army has responded to these peaceful protestors with tear gas, beatings, arrests and even death.

The pattern occurred time and again: nonviolent Palestinian resistance would be crushed by Israeli force and ignored by the West. With nothing to show for their efforts, is it any surprise that the Palestinian peaceful protest movement founders? Violence has always been a historical response to colonialism and repression, in conflicts from India to Algeria to South Africa. That doesn’t make attacks on civilians right — or strategically effective, for that matter. In fact, as we all know, the Indian revolt against the British Empire only finally succeeded when Gandhi convinced his countrymen to resist peacefully. Extremist factions, like those during the Indian independence movement, only gain strength and popularity when Israel flattens even the most harmless dissent.

Radhika Sainath is a civil rights attorney and an editor of Peace Under Fire: Israel/Palestine and the International Solidarity Movement. She lived in the West Bank from October 2002-December 2003.

Taking Image Co-Option the Other Way

Given my recent posting on the attempts to co-opt the image of people like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Che Guevara in the service of the system, and in particular the use of Dr. King to legitimize Obama’s presidency, I had to say that I found this distinct attempt to do the reverse. The great site The Marxist-Leninist has posted a series of posters that take this now rather iconographic Obama campaign poster and turn it to revolutionary ends.

Check them out, they are quite good. Here are some of my favourites:

Olympic Spirit Waning: Dismal Perspectives for Vancouver and Its 2010 Winter Games

After years of lies about the 2010 Winter Olympics and the prosperity they will bring to the city, province, and country, it’s no surprise that workers are a bit perplexed by the way things are really panning out. Despite promises of economic windfall, the games were wildly unpopular from the very beginning of the bidding process. Now, in the face of world economic crisis and a teetering housing market, the Olympics are projected to be almost $1 billion over budget (Vancouver Sun, 15 Nov. 2008). On top of this spending, the city is apparently negotiating a no-longer-secret deal to bail out the developers and financiers of the Athletes’ Village, and who also own the Whistler/Blackcomb ski resort (also skirting bankruptcy), where much of the 2010 Winter Games will take place. This deal stands to cost the public purse an additional $100 million, and now we are being told by the Vancouver Olympic Committee (VANOC) that businesses ought to shut down and send their employees on mandatory vacations during the two weeks of the games – to ease traffic congestion. It’s difficult to imagine how this could possibly jumpstart the economy and be good for small business.

Larry’s games

The idea of an Olympic bid was not overwhelmingly popular among Vancouverites. While former mayor Larry Campbell supported the Olympics, it was his promise of a referendum to decide the matter that swept him to power with a landslide victory in 2002—that, and the promise to turn the infamous vacant Woodward’s building into social housing, right in the heart of the downtown eastside where it is needed most. The referendum (actually a non-binding plebiscite) took place on 22 Feb. 2003 and came through 64 per cent in favour of the Olympics. This is not such a surprise considering the pro-Olympic campaign outspent the anti-Olympic campaign by a ratio if 88:1 (2010 Winter Olympics, www.wikipedia.org).

Larry Campbell is known for a number things, including the fantastic television drama DaVinci’s Inquest (based on his experience as Vancouver’s coroner from 1981 to 1996), and for splitting Vancouver’s left municipal party, the Coalition of Progressive Electors (COPE), in 2005. As Mayor, he sold the Woodward’s building to developers and did very little to address poverty on the downtown eastside. He did open the country’s first and only safe injection site; but, as a former cop, he is better known by drug-users and prostitutes for increasing police presence in the neighbourhood. His out-and-out betrayal on the issue of the Woodward’s building and his affinity for the notoriously corrupt Vancouver Police Department justifiably repelled his base. No surprise, his new small-l liberal party, Vision Vancouver, was unable to mobilize the same mass support in the following 2005 municipal elections and the right-wing Non-Partisan Association (NPA) took the mayoral seat with the usual low voter turnout. In return for his sell-out, Campbell was rewarded with a seat in the big-L Liberal senate, and thus apparently deserves the title “Honourable”.

High stakes

In normal times, hosting the Olympics can be good for developers, but it is never good for small business and definitely not good for the public purse. The 2004 Athens Summer Olympics are a case in point. Georgios Alogoskoufis, Greece’s right-wing Christian Democrat Finance Minister, was either overly optimistic or lying—twice—when he adjusted cost estimates from 4.6 billion euros to 8.95 billion euros after the fact, and then again to 11 billion euros (Southeast European Times, 19 Nov 2004). According to the Greek Embassy’s website, only 1.752 billion euros were raised from investors, ticket sales, etc., and the remainder was footed by the state. We can only guess what the final bill for the Vancouver Olympics will look like.

Besides, these are not normal times. Your average worker now knows that Canada is in recession, along with the United States. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty finally admitted to Parliament last month that recession was not only a possibility, but that “we may be in a technical recession” (Financial Post, 24 Nov 2008). 70,600 Canadian jobs were lost in the month of November alone, proportionally comparable to the half million lost that same month in the United States (Globe and Mail, 5 Dec 2008). Meanwhile, the big three auto makers are threatening to close down if they are not bailed out by governments in the US and Canada. While it is estimated that one in ten jobs is directly or indirectly linked to auto manufacturing in the US, it is possible that the number is closer to one in seven in Canada because of our larger parts industry and the resource extraction to fuel it (CTV News, 25 Nov 2008). Whether the bail-out packages currently being debated go through or not, they are intended to prop up the big three only until March 2009, while we know that this is only the beginning of a world economic crisis unlike capitalism has ever seen before.

Ironically, one of the Olympics’ largest corporate sponsors is supposed to be General Motors. They have committed to contribute $14 million cash and $53 million in cars, marketing and services. In November, GM was assuring that they were committed to the Olympics “no matter what.” Their financial commitments to the Olympics now seem absurd in the face of recent news that they are shutting down all North American operations for the month of January, and then what? Apparently GM isn’t the only Olympic sponsor in serious economic trouble, and only 40 per cent of promised cash and donations have come in (The Canadian Press, 15 Dec 2008). According to Dave Cobb, VANOC’s vice-president of revenue and marketing, all the payments are on time, so there’s no reason to worry. This is coming from a fellow who has decided to “hold out” looking for the two final international sponsors “until market conditions stabilize”. This doesn’t sound like a wise move; he might be holding out for a very long time.

Economic context

British Columbia, and Greater Vancouver in particular, stand to be hit hard by plummeting consumer spending and the bursting housing bubble. The vast majority of low-cost consumer goods flowing into Canada from China have come through the Port of Vancouver, bolstering the city’s booming shipping and warehousing industries. As spending slows and lending decreases, there will be less traffic through the ports and less work for dockworkers, warehousers, and shippers.

At the same time, housing values have arguably been more artificially inflated in Vancouver than anywhere else in Canada. According to the Real Estate Board of Greater Vancouver’s November 2008 market summary, the benchmark price for a home in Greater Vancouver is down 12 per cent in the last six months, at $495,000 compared to $560,000 in May. Of course, prices are expected to decline further, which means that many households will owe more in their mortgage than their home is worth—not a good situation to be in.

Meanwhile, more than 200,000 British Columbians are employed in the construction industry. With housing sales down 69 per cent in November 2008 compared to November 2007 and housing starts also beginning to decrease, we can expect many of these workers to find themselves without work very shortly. Worse, nearly one in three construction workers are youth (The Vancouver Sun, 18 Dec 2008) and it is an industry made up of “self-employed” contractors and sub-contractors who are not technically employees, do not have employment rights, and do not qualify for employment insurance. These big earners, who are accustomed to being big spenders, will find themselves without any kind of safety net to fall on. This is the economic context in which we are spending billions of dollars to host the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Housing and homelessness

Much of the opposition to hosting the 2010 games has been framed in light of growing poverty, homelessness, and a general housing crisis in Vancouver. While the cost of purchasing a home has been soaring on the basis of speculation, the need for affordable rental housing is very real. Rents in Vancouver are higher than many fully-employed people can afford, let alone the unemployed and under-employed. Whether it’s a decent bachelor pad or a rundown two-bedroom basement suite, you won’t find anything legal for less than $1000. This is frightening when minimum wage is still stuck at $8 per hour and many full-time workers are netting less than this amount each month. Meanwhile, homeless rates are through the roof. The 2008 Metro Vancouver Homeless count, which took place on 11th March, found an astonishing 2,660 people sleeping without shelter, on the street – a 373% increase since 2002 (The Province, 17 Sep. 2008).

When Vancouver hosted the World’s Fair in 1986, 500 residents were forcibly evicted from the downtown eastside so that their low-income housing could be turned into high-end hotels for tourists. There is legitimate fear that this is happening again, and even without the Olympics, the housing boom has prompted landlords to cash in. The owners of many single resident occupancy hotels (SROs) have already sold their buildings at high rates to condo developers set on gentrifying Canada’s poorest neighbourhood. Housing and anti-poverty advocates have been protesting the Olympics on the basis that we need to spend on social housing before committing billions to a big fancy international spectacle (that nobody can afford to attend anyway). At the time of the bid, federal, provincial, and municipal governments responded to opposition by pledging that nobody would be homeless because of the games and that resources would be committed to developing new social housing. While the city is committing money on paper, SRO rooms are closing at a rate faster than they are being replaced.

“Business as usual”
The capitalists and their representatives in government are fond of telling us that there is no money to spend on frivolous things like social housing, but somehow they are able to funnel billions of dollars into their friends’ pockets (and their own) at the drop of a hat. Around the world, financial institutions and corporate giants continue to be rewarded for their negligence and collective mismanagement, to the tune of trillions of dollars in government bailouts.

Vancouver City Council found itself caught up in a bail-out scandal of its own in November. Just days before a municipal election, it was leaked to the media that the city was secretly negotiating a $100 million deal to bail out Fortress Investment Group—the main financial backer for Millennium Development Corp. who are building the 1,000-unit Athlete’s Village. What wasn’t as widely publicized is the fact that the city had already doled out $190 million to Fortress as a loan guarantee. Both municipal parties took the bait and diverted all of their publicity and campaigning efforts to slandering the mystery councilor who leaked the document and reiterating to the public that “these sorts of real estate deals must take place behind closed doors”. What the public really cared about, however, was that the city would consider handing over such a large amount to a near-bankrupt development corporation while we are witnessing increasing homelessness, poverty, and addiction. As is the case with all public-private partnerships, the public investment in the Athlete’s Village will reap rewards only for the private investors—Millennium Corp. and Fortress. The “leaked document” scandal was, of course, a red herring to divert pre-election attention away from the questionable allocation of municipal funds and the larger homelessness issue. Not surprisingly, was haven’t heard a word about it since the November 15th election.

Adding insult to injury, VANOC CEO John Furlong announced in mid-November that everybody ought to be making a contribution to reduce traffic during the games. He suggested that businesses adjust schedules, shut down or send their employees on mandatory vacation for these two weeks. To quote an unlikely source, “it’s not going to be business as usual” says Virginia Green, president of the Business Council of BC (The Vancouver Sun, 13 Nov 2008, www.canada.com). Industrious Vancouverites can’t even hope to make a quick buck turning over tickets for a profit, as VANOC has promised to crack down on scalpers. It has become blatantly obvious—with high ticket prices and lotteries for the most popular events—that very few of Vancouver’s residents will actually benefit from the games, while we will all be inconvenienced. Whether we’re forced on unpaid vacation, stuck in traffic because of rerouting, or forced out of business altogether, we will all be hit in the next few years while we’re stuck footing the bill for the 2010 Olympics.

There is growing disillusionment with the games. As the effects of the economic crisis hit home this holiday season, Olympic spirit is waning. This process will be accelerated in the coming period and we can expect swift changes in consciousness among ordinary Canadians. The excessive and frivolous expenditure on the games will become more and more offensive and their unpopularity will only increase. The 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics are set to be a disaster; or, to use a very Canadian expression, they are going to be a complete gong show.

Workers at York U. Defeat Forced Ratification

A message from of the striking workers at York University

On Jan 9, York University appealed to the Ministry of Labour to bring its latest offer directly to the union membership for ratification. The vote took place on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Ten days after the administration walked away from the bargaining table, the results are in: Workers have voted to reject the offer. Is this a surprise? Not really.

At a General Membership Meeting on Jan 8 the very same offer was discussed. The 600 workers present at the meeting voted overwhelmingly (85%) not to send the offer to ratification, but instead to send the bargaining team back to the table with a strong mandate to continue negotiations. Why would York appeal to the Ministry of Labour on an offer that was sure to fail? “This result is not a surprise. We told York’s administration that they were wasting everyone’s time by forcing us to vote on an inadequate offer, but they insisted on putting us through this expensive and time-consuming process,” said Tyler Shipley, spokesperson for the union. The current offer (almost identical to the one rejected on Nov 6 when the strike began) does not adequately address job security, graduate funding, health benefits or back to work protocol.

The administration at York has wasted over another week of what could have been productive bargaining at the table. This has been their tactic since negotiations began and throughout the strike. Delay and hope that the workers will become demoralized under the pressure of public opinion; delay and hope they will succumb to financial hardship; delay and hope the membership will cave to a bad deal. In fact, York only came to the table seven days out of the first 70 days of the strike! Like bargaining with a brick wall, York’s typical response to the workers’ demands has been: “Not inclined.”

On Monday and Tuesday the workers demonstrated their resolve, but Dr. Mamdouh Shoukri, president of York University, remains recalcitrant: “This is our offer for settlement. Now it is up to the Union and its members to reconsider their demands and step back from the brink.” Premier Dalton McGuinty is now calling in a mediator to “bang heads together” to reach a settlement (as he so gracefully put it this morning).

The defeat of the anti-union and anti-democratic forced ratification vote was a victory for the workers at York and for the struggle for good-quality and well-funded education in Canada. But the struggle is not over. Now workers may have to face back-to-work legislation; and it appears as though Mr. McGuinty may be posturing to go that route. If this happens, the struggle will be immediately translated into a political struggle for the right to strike. Workers will have to organize to spread the struggle to other workers, unionized and non-unionized, and to hold firm at the picket lines.

A Merger for the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) and a Change in Direction

The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPN-M) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unity Center-Masal) were formally unified on Monday, creating a new communist party – the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified-Maoist) (CPN-UM) that will aim at orchestrating a New Democratic Revolution in the country, government-run newspaper The Rising Nepal reported on Tuesday.

With the unification of the two parties, the Prachandapath will no more be the guiding principle of the new party. It will be guided by the “Marxist-Leninist-Maoist/Maoist thoughts” principles. The joint convention of the two parties on Monday decided to take Prachandapath into the internal discussion of the party.

“We have successfully unified the two parties,” said Narayankaji Shrestha “Prakash”, former general secretary of the CPN-Unity Center-Masal, talking with the media people following the merger.

Prakash said that the joint meeting decided to have 175-member central committee, which will be the organizer of the party convention. Currently, the central committee has 137 members — 106 from the CPN-M and 31 from the Unity Center. The next meeting of the party will appoint the rest of the members.

The joint meeting also elected Pushpa Kamal Dahal “Prachanda”, the prime minister, as the chairman of the new party. It decided to dissolve the CPN-M and the CPN (Unity Centre-Masal).

It endorsed the political report and the interim statute. The interim statute will guide the party until the party’s convention.

The party will organize a unification declaration mass meeting Tuesday in capital Kathmandu.

Nar Bahadur Karmacharya, founding member of the Communist Party of Nepal, said that the two parties decided to unite in order to bring about the New Democratic Revolution in the country.

Prior to the joint convention, the CPN-M decided to increase the number of central committee members to 106. The separate meetings of the two parties had reached a common viewpoint that the revolution has not been completed in the country.

Now onwards, the party’s policy would be people’s federal democratic national republic, said Prakash, adding that the party would devote to lead the peace process to the logical end and make a people-oriented constitution, protecting the national sovereignty.

According report from Nepali national news agency RSS, there might be three mechanisms in the party — secretariat, politburo and central committee.

Source:Xinhua

Protections for Endangered Wolves Wiped Out

The grey wolf. Will the Bush administrations efforts finally push this species over the edge?

As one of his final acts in office, now former President Bush and his administration officially removed the grey wolf from the list of protected species under the auspices of the Endangered Species Act. Other attempts to do so earlier in presidency were able to be successfully blocked by activists on the grounds that state management plans were inadequate to protect the wolves, but the current order to remove them from the listing comes as a result of a federal ruling in which a judge declared that plans in Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Utah and Wisconsin were indeed fitting enough to relax environmental and, perhaps, hunting regulations.

Defenders of Wildlife, a prominent conservation group, called the delisting “premature” and added that the species’ recovery in the northern Rocky Mountain region had “begun once again to restore natural balance to the [area].”

Protections for the grey wolf have long history of being challenged by the wealthy and powerful ranching and farming interests that feel the protections on the species threaten their profits by way of putting their livestock in danger. As a result, the ecologically healthy predator-prey equilibrium suffers, affecting both the hunted species and others on the food chain. The wolves have been hunted almost to extinction in recent centuries, and only time will tell if the latest actions against them will push them over the edge.

Mass protests Denounce Racist Police Killing of Oscar Grant by Christopher Banks

Cop arrested in response to militant demonstrations

Only a few hours into a New Year that many believe to be a new era of “change,” a young, 22-year-old African American father was shot in the back by a white police officer in Oakland, Calif.

Demonstrators display placards in remembrance of Oscar Grant and other victims of police brutality, Oakland, Calif., Jan. 14.

The entire world has become witness to the brutal shooting of Oscar Grant III at the hands of a contingent of racist police. At around 2 a.m. on Jan. 1, Bay Area Rapid Transit police officers responded to a reported scuffle between two sets of passengers on a train. Upon arrival, the BART police officers indiscriminately detained young, African American passengers and bystanders on the train station platform. Grant, the father of a 4-year-old daughter and a butcher at a local grocery store, was among those detained.

Onlookers captured video from various angles using their cell phones. The video evidence gives an indisputable account of what happened: BART police officers grab Grant without any apparent reason or provocation, violently force him to lie on his stomach and handcuff him. With one officer pressing his knee with the full weight of his body into the head and neck of Grant, another officer draws his weapon, points it and kills Grant with one shot to the back.

As Grant lay dying in public view of dozens of people, the other cops scrambled in an attempt to confiscate the phones and cameras of witnesses who had recorded the killing.

For Oakland residents, the incident is part of a long history of racism and police terror. In September 2006, Gary King Jr., a 20-year-old Black man, was killed by Oakland police. Casper Banjo, a well-known local Black artist, was killed by Oakland police in March 2007. Just days later, Oakland cops shot and killed José Luis Buenrostro-González, a 15-year-old Latino youth. It is no coincidence that the Black Panther Party, largely a product of the Black community’s need for self-defense against state violence, was born in the streets of Oakland.

For an entire week following the killing, the Oakland city government held its breath. BART officials worked feverishly to cover up the incident, calling it an “accidental weapon discharge.” Struggling to win the sympathy of outraged residents, they suggested that the killer cop believed he was holding a taser and not a gun—as if discharging a potentially deadly electric shock on a handcuffed man would have been less objectionable.

The lies and cover-up fell to pieces as video footage of the shooting spread across the world with lighting speed through television and the Internet.

With not a single officer involved in Grant’s shooting fired, arrested, or even detained for questioning seven days after the killing, thousands of Oakland residents poured into the streets Jan. 7. Outraged protesters demanded justice for Oscar Grant and all other victims of police brutality. They condemned the racist “justice” system for abducting young and poor people of color to feed them into prisons, plundering the most precious resource of their community: its youth.

Unable to ignore this mass movement, officials caved. Mehserle was charged with murder and arrested on Jan. 13.

City government, state forces show their true colors

The corporate media’s racist coverage sought to portray the demonstrators as roving bands of vandals. In reality, the demonstrators who marched and rallied were highly disciplined and extremely politically conscious.

Though the protests have not taken a single life, the city has been quick to allocate resources to protect stores and other private property from “unruly demonstrators.” In contrast, other than trying to shake off any responsibility, the city did little on its own initiative to respond to Grant’s brutal death.

Even as the community denounced the police’s abuse of force, Mayor Ron Dellums stated greater powers may be given to police to suppress further demonstrations. Oakland officials said they are going to contract private security firms to reinforce the police presence downtown. The city will pay for security from its redevelopment fund. (San Francisco Chronicle, Jan. 15)

In other words, Oakland’s redevelopment plan includes augmenting the policing of the cities poorest residents. Police repression is an effective gentrification tool for driving out the poor in order to make room for wealthier residents, whom city officials and the business community see as more desirable.

On top of the large sums that will be spent on additional security to protect businesses, city officials have also disclosed that stores that suffered damages during demonstrations would receive $2,000 each to offset repair costs. If only government officials showed as much concern and diligence when it comes to reparations for the victims of police brutality and their family members!

The pronouncements made by Dellums and other city officials reveal whose interests the government and state really serve. Quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle, Dellums directly addressed the business community repeatedly as he attempted to alleviate their concerns about further demonstrations or any disturbances that might affect sales and other commercial activity.

At the same time, the concerns of city officials and their moneyed constituents show that the demonstrations have had a tremendous impact. Confronted with the possibility of a militant mass movement organized around resistance to police terrorism, the city of Oakland was compelled to do something it did not do when its police officers killed King Jr., Banjo, or Buenrostro-González: They arrested a cop and charged him with murder.

This is a lesson in how history is made. Victories are won not by waiting patiently for wealthy politicians to “do the right thing,” but when people go into independent political motion, creating a movement that challenges the interests of those that prosper from the inequalities inherent in this racist, criminal system.

The outcome of the trial is not going to be determined in the courtroom. The courts, themselves an arm of the state, would just as quickly throw out the whole case and let Mehserle walk. Mehserle’s arrest was a victory won in the streets. Justice—not only for Grant but for all victims of police brutality—can only be guaranteed through continued struggle.

Flobots – Rise

So much pain we
Dont know how to be but angry
Feel infected like weve got gangrene
Please dont let anybody try to change me
Me
Just me
In the middle of a sea full of faces
Full of faces
Some laugh some salivate
Whats in your alleyway
Recycling bins or bullet cases
Its not equal
Its not fair
Were different people
But were not scared
We aint never scared
To pave a new path
Make a new street
Build a new bridge
Say can you see by the dawns early light
Free slaves running
Songs words werent right
Now a new days coming
The few stay stunning while the many are handsome
Your soul is alive but they want it for ransom
The base drumming is the anthem
We step to the heartbeats of our granddaughters and grandsons
And

Rise together we

Lost hope and found need
Grounded by our surroundings
Did the walls scream universities
Or you and i verse the tees
React automatic and we burst when squeezed
And make 9-11 each emergency
Urgency amber to red like the turning leaves
Oh please let the hurting cease
Don’t let apathy police the populace
We will march across
Those stereotypes that were marked for us
The answers obvious
We switch the consonants
Change the sword to words and lift continents

If you believe in redemption
I’m calling to you from another dimension

Help to Boycott Israel and Its Corporate Partners

I thought I would put this up, having been emailed it by some local Palestinian activists. It is a list of companies that support Israel.

• AOL Time Warner
  Time Life magazine, CNN, ICQ
• Apax Partners
  Jonny Rockets, Sunglass Hut.
• Arsenal Football Club
• Coca-Cola
  Fruitopia, Fanta, Kia Orange, Lilt, Sprite, Sunkist
• Caterpillar
• Danone
  HP foods, Evian, Volvic, Jacob
• Delta Galil
  Hema, Barbie, Carrefour, Auchan, Tchibo, Victoria’s Secret, GAP, Banana Republic, Structure, J-Crew, JC Penny, Pryca, Lindex, DIM, DKNY, Ralph Lauren, Playtex, cK, Hugo Boss, M&S
• Disney
• Emblaze
• Estée Lauder
  Aramis, Clinique, DKNY, Prescriptives, Origins, MAC, La Mer, Bobbi Brown, Tommy Hilfiger, Jane, Donna Karan, Aveda, Stila, Jo Malone, Bumble & Bumble, Kate Spade
• Home Depot
  Villager’s Hardware, Georgia Lighting, Apex Supply, EXPO Design Centres
• IBM
• Intel
• Johnson & Johnson
• Kimberly-Clark
  Kleenex, Kotex, Huggies, Andrex
• Lewis Trust Group
  River Island, Isrotel hotels, Britannia Pacific
• The Limited Inc
  Express stores, Lerner New York, Structure, New York & Company, Mast Industries, Intimate Brands, Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, White Barn Candle Company, Henri Bendel
• L’Oreal
  Giorgio Armani, Redken 5th Avenue, Lancome Paris, Vichy, Cacharel, La Roche-Posay, Garnier, Biotherm, Helena Rubinstein, Maybelline, Ralph Lauren, Carson
• Marks & Spencer
  M&S, St.Michaels
• McDonald’s
• Motorola
• Nestle
  Nescafé, Perrier, Vittel, Pure Life, Carnation, Libby’s, Milkmaid, Nesquik, Maggi, Buitoni, Cross & Blackwell, KitKat, Milkybar, Quality Street, Smarties, After Eight, Aero, Polo, Lion, Felix cat food, L’Oréal
• News Corporation
  TV: Fox, Sky, Star, Phoenix, Granada, CNBC. UK newspapers: Standard Newspaper, News of the World, The Sun, The Times. Australian Newspapers: The Telegraph , Gold Coast Bulletin, Herald Sun, Independent, Sunday Mail. US newspapers: New York Post. Publishers: Harper Collins Ragan, Zondervan, National Geographical. Nursery World, Rawkus, NDS, Mushroom Records, ChinaByte.com, Festival Records
• Nokia
• Revlon
  New World Entertainment, Forbes
• Sara Lee
  Hanes, Playtex, Champion, Leggs, Douwe Egberts, Bryan, DIM, Ambi Pur, Bali, Superior Coffee, Just My Size, Kiwi, Maison Cafe, Nur die, Pilao, Lovable, Outer Banks, Wonderbra, Sanex, Pickwick, Gossard, Body Mist, Brylcreem, Aqua Velva, Radox
• Siemens
• Selfridges
• Starbucks
  Seattle Coffee, Pasqua, Hear Music, Tazo
• Timberland

Martin Luther King, Jr., Obama, and the Struggle Against Racism

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr & Malcolm X. Does Obama mean the completion of their struggles?

With Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, this year coming at the same time as the swearing in of Barack Obama, millions of Americans, both black and white, will be marching to honour the life and contributions of one of the greatest leaders of the American Civil Rights Movement.  This is a good time to ask ourselves how far we have come, how far we still have to go, and how do we get there.  The following is the text of a new flyer from the Workers International League, the American affiliate of the International Marxist Tendency, and its publication Socialist Appeal:

An overwhelming 95 percent of black voters cast their ballots for Barack Obama. The scenes on the streets in Chicago and around the country were full of jubilation, as many working people, both Black and white, fervently believe that change is now on the horizon.

Spike Lee, the famous director of such films as Do the Right Thing, Bamboozled, Malcolm X, and others, has gone so far as to say that America has moved beyond race. The day after the election, he said the following on MSNBC: “It’s a new day. It’s a new dawn. It’s a new beginning.” Has the U.S. truly moved beyond racism? As nice as this sounds, this is unfortunately not the case.

Racism is interwoven into the very fabric of capitalism. Malcolm X once said: “You can’t have capitalism without racism.” We would add: “You can’t have racism without capitalism.” In other words, we cannot end the scourge of racism, while leaving capitalism intact, and ending capitalism is something that Barack Obama will not, and cannot do. Obama actually beat McCain by 6 percent amongst voters making more than $200,000. This is just one indication that the wealthy feel that he is a “safe” choice as far as their interests are concerned.

The fact is, systemic racism still plagues America. One-quarter of Black Americans live in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, twice the percentage for whites. Currently, due to a racist judicial system, more Black men are in prison than are enrolled in college. In fact, despite the immense turnouts of Black voters in this election, over 1.5 million Black men were prevented from voting at all, due to felony disenfranchisement.

Obama’s victory proves that integration, not separation, is the deep desire of millions of Black workers and their white class brothers and sisters. However, genuine integration can never be achieved as long as the majority of the population is dominated by a handful of wealthy capitalists. Many Black capitalists are already planning to cash in on Obama’s victory. As one commentator pointed out rather bluntly in the Wall Street Journal: “Black Power Brokers Ready to Rise in Tandem With New President.” These super rich people have nothing in common with the average worker or young person, no matter what color they are.

Martin Luther King Jr., began with a pacifist and reformist approach, but soon realized that formal political equality would not eliminate the institutionalized economic inequality and deep roots of racial discrimination. He was rapidly moving toward a class analysis on the eve of his murder. During a speech in Frogmore, SC in November of 1966 he said the following: “You can’t talk about solving the economic problem of the Negro without talking about billions of dollars. You can’t talk about ending the slums without first saying profit must be taken out of slums … we are treading in difficult water, because it really means that we are saying that something is wrong … with capitalism … There must be a better distribution of wealth and maybe America must move toward a democratic socialism.” He was in Memphis to support striking garbage collection workers when he was killed in April, 1968.

Tragically, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. were both assassinated before they were able to fully develop these ideas, but it is clear what direction they were headed. The magnificent Civil Rights movement, had it been able to link up with the struggle of the  working class as a whole, could have been a massive force for social change – revolutionary change. This is why these leaders had to be eliminated.

Only the socialist transformation of society can truly lay the foundations for ending racism once and for all. Such a transformation can only result from the united struggle of all workers against the bosses.

In the meantime, we need union-controlled hiring halls in the poorest communities; a crash program of public works to create jobs and rebuild infrastructure; the outlawing of all forms of discrimination; and an end to the phony war on drugs that imprisons and disenfranchises millions. Some of these points were taken up by Cynthia McKinney’s Power to the People presidential campaign, which the WIL supported.

We did not support her because she is Black, but because her program raised important demands that need to be taken up by all workers, particularly Black workers, who most acutely experience the effects of this decaying system. Ultimately, these demands can only be achieved by uniting the whole of the working class, in a mass party of labor based on the unions, a political vehicle through which we can fight for our collective interests. That would truly be “change we can believe in.”

In Love and Rage

Palestine: What You Need to Know About Israel’s “Colonies”

A four-minute video by Anna Baltzer, Jewish-American volunteer with International Womens Peace Service in the West Bank

From World News Daily Information Clearing House:

Anna Baltzer, a young Jewish American, went to the West Bank to discover the realities of daily life for Palestinians under the occupation. What she found would change her outlook on the conflict forever. She wrote this book to give voice to the stories of the people who welcomed her with open arms as their lives crumbled around them. For five months, Baltzer lived and worked with farmers, Palestinian and Israeli activists, and the families of political prisoners, traveling with them across endless checkpoints and roadblocks to reach hospitals, universities, and olive groves.

Baltzer witnessed firsthand the environmental devastation brought on by expanding settlements and outposts and the destruction wrought by Israels Security Fence, which separates many families from each other, their communities, their land, and basic human services. What emerges from Baltzers journal is not a sensationalist tale of suicide bombers and conspiracies, but a compelling and inspiring description of the trials of daily life under the occupation. Anna Baltzer is a Jewish American graduate of Columbia University, Fulbright scholar, and two-time volunteer with the International Womens Peace Service in the West Bank, where she documented human rights abuses and supported the nonviolent resistance movement to the occupation.

Ingrid Betancourt and the ‘Death’ of the Colombian Armed Struggle

The following is from Liberation News, the organ of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. As usual, do not take the posting of this article as an endorsement of the line of either the PSL or the FARC.

Former Colombian presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt has become a darling of the liberal human rights movement since her July 2008 release from captivity by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP). One admirer has even described her as a “secular saint.”

In reality, Betancourt is using her popularity and seemingly progressive rhetoric to reorient the debate surrounding the exchange of prisoners between the FARC and the right-wing Colombian government. The change in discourse promotes the agenda of the U.S. and Colombian ruling classes while hurting the poor and working people of the world.

Venezuela Sends Aid to Palestine

On January 6th the government of Venezuela expelled the Israeli ambassador to that country in protest of Israeli’s slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Since then the Bolivaran government has taken it to the next level and has begun to send much-needed aid to Gaza, where Palestinians have been under Israeli military attack since Dec. 27. On January 11th a C-130 cargo plane left Venezuela with a cargo that included the first shipment of aid to Gaza, including 80 tons of much needed medicine, water and food. Along with the the cargo, some thirty Venezuelan doctors were also on board along with the Simon Bolivar Humanitarian Workforce.

Venezuela. like many other countries, has seen massive protests against the Israeli war on Gaza, and president Hugo Chávez, has publicly pressured the Egyptian government and the United Nations to guarantee that the supplies reach Gaza. Egypt shares a border with Gaza, but its U.S.-puppet regime has done little to help Palestinians, and has actively cooperated with the Israeli strangulation of Gaza.

Venezuela is planning to send more shipments in the coming weeks. In another developement, on Jan. 14, Bolivian President Evo Morales announced that his country, too, was breaking off ties with Israel.

Israel’s Reliable Ally in the Frozen North

Normally when people call out Israel’s allies for supporting, both politico-morally, and militarily, the country’s constant assaults on the masses of Palestinians, the power squarely in their sites is the United States, but the other day another country took its spot in the limelight, Canada.

Or at least that’s the message that was sent to the world this past Monday, when Canada earned the disdains accorded to it as the only country at a United Nations human rights council in Geneva to vote against a motion condemning Israel’s attack on Gaza, an ongoing attack that in 22 days has seen 1203 Palestinians killed by Israel, including 368 children & 105 women, and injured a further 5320, and caused a total of 90,000 Gazans to flee their homes. At the council, another thirteen countries, mostly from Europe, abstained from the vote while the U.S. doesn’t sit on the body. The motion, which is non-binding, calls for an investigation into human rights violations by the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF).

Canada’s representative on the council, one Marius Grinius, spoke out against the motion, criticizing it for apparently failing to acknowledge that the invasion was the result of rockets fired by Hamas into Israel. Never mind the fact that the rockets actually came after several Israeli incursions into Gaza left dozens of people dead during and immediately following five months of ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, or that Israel has imposed a suffocating blockade on Gaza for the last eighteen months, cutting off desperately-needed humanitarian relief to the million and a half people living in the open air prison that has Gaza has become, and that is strikingly similar to such atrocities of the past as the Warsaw Ghetto, or that Israel’s invasion of Gaza has done far more damage to civilians and critical infrastructure than Hamas’s unguided rockets could ever do in Israel. In the eyes of Israel and its allies like Canada, the current situation is all the fault of Hamas.

Like the far more prominent United States, Canada has been unwavering in its support for Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza, as if Israel were some sort of proverbial David facing off against a Palestinian Goliath. To anyone who prides themselves as being reasonable, such a position obviously absurd, as is made plain by any superficial accounting of the balance of forces between Israel and the Palestinians (one being armed to the teeth as a regional hegemon by the Americans, the other being occupied for sixty years and with little economy to speak of), or by the death and destruction currently being rained down on Gaza compared to the relative pinpricks Israel has had to endure.

In his only statement on the current Israeli invasion, which was a press release issued back on January 4, Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon put the blame for the violence squarely on the shoulders of the brutalized Palestinians, saying, “We urge renewed international diplomatic efforts to achieve a sustainable and durable ceasefire, starting with the halting of all rocket attacks on Israel. Canada maintains that the rocket attacks are the cause of this crisis.”

In the following days, when the IDF bombed a United Nations school on January 6, an attack in which at least 40 Palestinians, who were seeking shelter from the unrelenting aerial assault, were killed by Israeli guided bombs, the Tory government blamed Hamas. While the UN and other Western governments criticized this staggering violation of international law and began calling more strongly for a ceasefire, Canada remained steadfast in its support for Israel. This time the role of expressing Canada’s position fell to Peter Kent, former Canwest journalist and now Minister of State for Foreign Affairs for the Americas (yes, that’s right, for the Americas). According to Mr. Kent, “We really don’t have complete details yet, other than the fact that we know that Hamas has made a habit of using civilians and civilian infrastructure as shields for their terrorist activities, and that would seem to be the case again today.” So while acknowledging he doesn’t actually have the details, he sees fit to blame Hamas with no evidence offered. As it  would later become known, Hamas wasn’t hiding behind civilians in the school.

In the eyes of its loyal ally Canada, Israel can do no wrong, even if it drops a fucking bomb on a UN school. Mr. Kent continued “In many ways Hamas behaves as if they are trying to have more of their people killed to make a terrible terrorist point.” One can only imagine the hysterics the corporate media or the Tories would go into if such a claim were made against the Israeli government when its civilians are killed. But such claims made against Hamas, despite Gaza being one of the most densely populated places on earth and the long history of Israel killing civilians, are perfectly reasonable assertions to make. Kent and the Torries also went so far as to suggest that Canada would only support a ceasefire if Hamas not only ends its rocket attacks but disarms itself. Despite being the aggressor, occupier and advanced military power, Israel has had no such conditions imposed on it by its allies, and is instead given free reigh to prosecute its war on Palestinians and kill any civilians that get in the way.

However, in Canada the Tories are not alone in their support for the Zionist state, with new Liberal Party leader and well-known Iraq War and imperialism proponent, Michael Ignatieff, also strongly backing Israel’s massacre of Palestinains in Gaza. Ignatieff said on the matter, “Canada has to support the right of a democratic country to defend itself.”. Obviously, for Ignatieff, as for the Tories, that right of self-defence does not extend to Palestinians, whose democratically elected government was subject to sanctions by Canada almost immediately following its election in 2006 in elections that were declared to be free and fair. Ignatieff and his Tory counter-parts have also remained conspicuously silent on the recent banning of Arab parties from running in next month’s elections by the “democratic” Israeli government, among other patently undemocratic measures imposed on the country’s Arab citizens.

For its part, the position of the NDP, the party I myself am a member of, is not all that much better than that of its capitalist electoral competitors. While the NDP has criticizing the Tory’s one-sided response to the war, it has nevertheless treated Israel and Palestine as if they are equal combatants sharing an equal amount of responsibility for the conflagration. This is the party, again that I am a member of, that we should all recall punished Svend Robinson in 2002 , with then party leader Alexa McDonough removing him as parliamentary critic for the Middle East, after he had the courage to call what Israel’s killing of Palestinian civilians what they really were, and still are, terrorist actions, and criticized Canada’s erstwhile imperial ally for engaging in murder and torture.

In the past, Canada, while it always supported Israel’s occupation of Palestine, used to be  far less blunt about it, and would always give-up some sort of modest public effort to pass itself off as more balanced than it truly was. However, this strategy began to shift under the Liberal administration if Paul Martin in 2005, when Canada started voting with the small minority of the UN’s Israel supporters against General Assembly resolutions criticizing its occupation of the Palestinian territories and its military targeting of civilians.

This decisively pro-Israeli shift by the Liberal government was followed up on by the Harper Tories’ uncritical support for Israel’s bloody war against Lebanon in the summer of 2006, in which over 1,000 people were killed, most of whom were Lebanese civilians. In that conflict, among the non-combatants killed by the Israeli military was a Canadian peacekeeper stationed at a UN post in the town of Khiam in the south of Lebanon. The Israeli government claimed it didn’t know that the peacekeepers were located there, but the UN has continued to insist Israel was notified several times as to the peacekeepers’ position. Despite this murder of a Canadian citizen by the Israeli war, the Tory government continued to uncritically support Israel, going so far as to work with the United States and Britain to undermine the efforts of other European and Arab leaders to broker a ceasefire in order to allow Israel’s attack on Lebanon and Hezbollah positions to continue.

Firming up its pro-Zionist credentials, Canada was also the first state to withdraw funding from the Palestinian Authority after the democratic election of Hamas in 2006, an effort aimed at punishing the Palestinians for electing a party that is less than compliant towards imperialism in the Middle East. Further working on building on its diplomatic support for Israeli aggression in the region, Canada announced in the fall of 2007 that it was negotiating a counter-terrorism and homeland security agreement with the Zionist state. The agreement between the two allies promotes greater cooperation on technology, counter-terrorism efforts, border-crossing security and biometric identification among other things.

Also, contrary to its own export policy, which prohibits Canadian military exports to governments engaged in war or human rights violations, Canada also acts as an arms supplier to Israel, again alongsie the far more prominent United States. Also, contrary to the rhetoric that the government forces the average Canadian to be force fed about Canada being a peace loving nation, Canada is in fact consistently in the top ten of the world’s biggest military exporters. As the Coalition Opposed to the Arms Trade reports, Canadian companies have provided Israel with important high tech electronic components for its primarily U.S.-made weapons systems. These include components for Israel’s AH-64 Apache attack helicopters, F-15 Eagle tactical bombers and F-16 Fighting Falcon bombers.

However, Canada’s apologist stance towards Israeli agrression shouldn’t be taken in isolation, as it needs to be situated within Canada’s wider foreign policy, which is becoming more belligerent under the government of Stephen Harper. Since the early 1990s, Canadian corporate investments have spread at an ever faster pace across the globe and into the developing world. In 2007 Canada ranked eighth among the top foreign investor nations in the world, and it has consistently ranked in the top ten in the last several years. Controlled for the size of its economy, Canada is the second largest investor among G7 nations in the global South, and income earned by Canadian multinationals off of their developing world investments has increased steadily over the last few decades, rising by 535 per cent from 1980 to 2007, to a total of $23.6 billion in earnings in the latter year.

Also, just like the third world investments of other rich nations like the U.S., Canadian ones are mired in human rights violations and environmental catastrophe. From mining, to oil and gas development, to sweatshop manufacturing, to banking, Canadian companies are systematically engaging in displacement of indigenous peoples from their land, destruction of ecosystems, targeted violence against local resistance to their investments and union busting. All this is done with the support of the Canadian government, whether headed by Liberals or Tories. The Canadian government has backed the global expansion of Canadian capital through its aggressive pursuit of structural adjustment policies, one-sided trade and investment agreements and an aid policy designed in large measure to push forward the liberalization foreign markets. We also shouldn’t forget Canada’s absolute refusal to establish human rights legislation to govern the foreign activities of its corporations, many of which receive government funding for their predatory activities. Canada has also sought to undermine the UN’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, being only of four countries to actually vote against the declaration, the other three being the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

Also, as was mentione before, this massive expansion of international capital has been accompanied by a more aggressive Canadian security posture. Militarism goes hand in hand with imperialist ambitions, and Canada is no different than other major powers. Canada’s military spending is projected to increase by just over $18 billion from 2005 to 2010 alone, and by upwards of $50 billion over the next two decades.

Whether it’s defending investments, challenging so-called “rogue states” or intervening in so-called “failed states”, the Canadian ruling class, as its military and political leaders make clear, is preparing for ongoing asymmetric conflicts and clearly identifies the third world as the main source of instability and insecurity threatening Canada and it and its Western allies’ investments. To make its case, Canada has often deployed the highly flexible concept of “terrorism”. In the last five years the Canadian armed forces have played a lead role in the occupation of Afghanistan, propping up one group of terrorists against another, and participated in a coup against a democratically-elected government in Haiti.

As a member of the group of the most powerful imperialist nations on Earth, and with growing international interests, Canada along with its allies supports the status quo between North and South and actively pursues policies that promote imperialism’s desired form of global stability. In the end this has entailed support for countries that are openly compliant with the West, and enforce on a regional level imperial “order” against those enemies, whether they are labelled as “terrorists”, “rogue states” or “failed states”, seeking some measure of self-determination. Thus since the 1990s Canada has become a stronger and more open supporter of Israel than it has in the past, just as it has strengthened its ties with the not so crypto-fascist government of Colombia in recent years.

Canadian support for Israel, then, however much it’s promoted by a powerful Israel lobby or opportunist politicians, is nevertheless rooted in a broader outlook on the world order that involves a more generally belligerent attitude toward the global South.

This attitude is now as Canadian as maple syrup, and we shouldn’t expect it to change anytime soon. That will require a sustained movement for global social justice with a clear anti-imperialist focus.

In Love and Rage