A brief overview of Obama’s recent health care struggle:

• Obama to abandon bipartisan health reform by Toby Harnden — Telegraph.co.uk

This article outs (via Open Secrets) Senators who have received money tied to the health insurance industry. Certainly, an important consideration when you have a Democratic majority in a House that has trouble passing the health care plan that championed Obama’s election platform. Though as the article points out, the list “is not presented to suggest that any of the congressional members have been ‘bought’ by the health insurance industry. But what flesh-and-bone human being would not at least be influenced by such largesse?”

• Pulling the plug on the public option by T.L. Caswell — Truthdig.org

And as usual in American politics, the coverage slowly walks away from serious attempts to reform health care, real discussions of alternatives, or comparative studies with other countries, and more and more this issue becomes a test to see if Obama fits the President’s shoes.

The outrage directed at Obama from both Democrats and Republicans, left and right, is curious, if anything. There are those who have internalized his campaign of hope and change, as if these ideals can only surface and spread via Obama alone. We are the sheep and Obama the shepherd, as far as this group is concerned.

There are others, though skeptical of naïve Obama worshippers, certainly do wish he has a more successful term — or at least month (it’s been a rough 8 years) — than Dubya. Not just for their personal enjoyment, but for the whole country. And maybe, and this might be a stretch, to shift international public opinion on the United States.

I think these people would side with William Pfaff in his recent piece on Truthdig, who blames the American public: seniors who are convinced Medicare is not a government program, but rather “delivered through the benevolence of hospitals and doctor, or by divine providence”; or those citizens who stubbornly believe the “American system is superior to all others on Earth…If not, why does everyone in the world want to come to live in the United States?”

• You can’t blame Obama for American stubbornness by William Pfaff — Truthdig.org

And then there is David Michael Green who sees Obama’s commitment to bipartisanism as nothing more than “total capitulation” to “the folks who have such small minorities in Congress that they can’t even muster forty percent of Senate votes to block consideration of legislation by filibuster”.

• Guess what? He’s a terrible President by David Michael Green — Counterpunch.org

• Political soul searching — The Ottawa Citizen

The NDP convention will feature a speaker from the Obama presidential campaign; many within the party support this. They feel the party needs effective strategies to engage with younger voters who don’t identify with any of the federal parties. Lawrence Martin discusses this and believes a name change is the first step in the right direction.

• A new name for the NDP would be like a fresh coat of paint by Lawrence Martin — The Globe and Mail

One of the proposed names is to drop the ‘new’ and become, simply, the Democratic Party — another connection to the Democratic Party of America. Maybe it is true the NDP are trying to mimic the Obama sensation as much as they can? Though Obama’s campaign was successful, Barry Weisleder argues the NDP should distance themselves from the American democrats.

• Obama’s spin doctor has no business at NDP convention by Barry Weisleder — Rabble

Corvin Russell, on his rabble.ca blog, points out the lack of any racial or gender diversity on the program for the NDP convention.

• NDP bring white fest to Halifax by Corvin Russell — Rabble

• NDP Federal Convention speakers list

The situation in Afghanistan continues to deteriorate leading up to the Aug. 20 elections. Amidst a rising civilian and military death toll, the election campaign is taking on farcical proportions. Assassinations of political elites have become a regular occurrence, and many of the people running in the election are former war criminals themselves, including Karzai’s vice-presidential candidate, Mohammad Qasim Fahim. Canadian brigadier general Jon Vance told Le Devoir last week that Canada has failed its mission. It remains unclear what role Canada will play after 2011.

• NATO is an unwelcome wedding guest by Linda McQuaig — Toronto Star

• Pundits putting spin on war by Scott Taylor — The Chronicle Herald

Israel-Palestine

As Obama presses to have “natural growth” settlements curbed, the New York Times reported this Monday that Palestinians are being illegally evicted from their homes. A member of the British Consulate is reported as being “appalled” by the evictions and the UN special Middle East coordinator described them as “totally unacceptable actions by Israel.”

On ZNet this week, Ali Abunimah suggests that a one-state solution is likely the best way forward. “As George Mitchell surely knows from his experience in Northern Ireland, when two national communities lay claim to the same land and one dominates the other by force, partition only changes the contours of the conflict.”

• Why Obama’s peace process is still going nowhere Ali Abunimah — The Electronic Intifada

• Web warfare team unveiled by Jonathan Cook — Information Clearing House (Originally published in The National — Abu Dhabi)

Honduras

Canadian defence minister Peter MacKay is pondering whether or not to cut funding for a handful of Honduran soldiers trained by the Canadian Forces while ousted president Manuel Zelaya has been refused the right to return to his country. Roberto Micheletti, the illegitimate and internationally unrecognized president who overthrew Zelaya in a coup, seems quite comfortable that Western powers will not be to stern on him, and a resolution to the situation seems highly unlikely in the near future. Meanwhile, the situation in Honduras itself continues to deteriorate.

• Media crackdown in Honduras worsens by Anastasia Moloney — Reuters

• Showdown in ‘Tegucigolpe‏ by Stephen Zunes — Common Dreams

For some very informative context on the coup:

• Obama’s First Coup d’Etat: Honduran President has been Kidnapped: Updates 1-17 by Eva Golinger — Venezuela Analysis

Others

On other global war fronts, Obama appears to be abandoning his approach of mutual respect for Iran as details emerge of U.S. proposals to cut Iran’s gasoline imports if nuclear talks are rejected. As Noam Chomsky points out, the very discussion of Iran’s nuclear ambitions in the face of massive U.S. and Israeli armaments—not to mention the major military occupations led by these states—is a clear indication of the extent of American propaganda efforts. That is to say, how can the U.S. justify itself in deepening sanctions against Iran while it busily occupies Iraq and pursues an agenda in the Israel-Palestine conflict in clear violation of international law?

Other developments merit attention, including the Venezuela-Colombia stand-off, military operations in Pakistan’s Swat valley and the country’s Supreme Court decision to charge Musharraf’s imposition of emergency rule in 2007 as unconstitutional. Developments in Kenya, Nigeria and Zimbabwe also merit attention.

• Abdelrazik vows to clear name from ‘unjust’ UN no-fly list — CBC News

In This Toronto Star article Abdelrazik says he was tortured by Sudanese officials and was told by a CSIS agent that “Sudan will be your Guantanamo.”

• Abdelrazik describes details of interrogation in Sudan — Toronto Star

The Globe has published the heavily redacted CSIS documents detailing correspondence between Canadian and Sudanese officials. These documents reveal that Sudan wanted a ‘permanent solution’ to the imprisonment of Abdelrazik. CSIS did not seem to take this threat too seriously.

• Canada ‘indifferent’ to Sudan’s threat to kill Abdelrazik, files show by Paul Koring — The Globe and Mail

Abdelrazik’s ordeal has been described by many as ‘Kafkaesque’: from being arrested without explanation to being granted permission by the Canadian government to return home while remaining on the UN ‘no-fly’ list. Rick Salutin requests a very un-Kafkaesque conclusion: an explanation.

• Welcome home, Mr. Abdelrazik by Rick Salutin — Rabble.ca

A great resource on Abdelrazik’s story including a timeline, updates, government files and ways to get involved:

• Abousfian Abdelrazik: Project Fly Home — People’s Commission on Immigration “Security” Measures

Ottawa was strikingly dilatory in denouncing the military coup in Honduras. In fact, by all appearances the Harper government tacitly supports the ousting of President Jose Manuel Zelaya. On Rabble, Yves Engler, author of the recently published Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, discusses the Zelaya government’s involvement in the move towards a left-leaning front of Latin American nations as another factor in the Harper government’s antipathy.

• Harper Government Isolated as Opposition to Coup in Honduras Grows by Yves Englar — Rabble.ca

A different kind of civics lesson

Capital is determined to make working people bear the brunt of the economic crisis they did not create. But amid all the concessions being successfully extracted from organized labour, there is also resistance, as exemplified by the strike of municipal workers in Toronto. Greg Albo and Herman Rosenfeld offer some in-depth analysis in The Bullet:

• Toronto City Workers on Strike: Battling Neoliberal Urbanism by Greg Albo and Herman Rosenfeld — The Bullet

And James Laxer devotes a recent Rabble blog to the subject:

• On the Toronto Civic Workers Strike by James Laxer — Rabble.ca

The road to recovery

While the idol of economic growth appears increasingly to have clay feet, especially in light of the catastrophic ecological crisis, many progressive voices remain committed to growth, albeit in a different guise from the bankrupt neo-liberal model. In a recent contribution to the Relentlessly Progressive Economics blog, Andrew Jackson argues for public investment in such areas as urban infrastructure and alternative energy as the only viable stimulus to economic recovery:

• Rebuilding Our Economy: Public Investment and Green Jobs by Andrew Jackson — Progressive Economics

“Obama would do well to reflect upon the recent interview in Le Monde given by Gérard Chaliand,” writes Immanuel Wallerstein on the MRZine website. “Chaliand is a leading geostrategist, specializing in so-called irregular wars […] He is very clear on the military situation. ‘Victory is impossible in Afghanistan… . Today, one must try to negotiate. There is no other solution.’”

• Afghanistan: Shoals Ahead for President Obama by Immanuel Wallerstein — MRZine

• Canadians ready to elbow out other nations; Global role rising in importance by Randy Boswell — CanWest News Service

• Detainees should have rights; It is an embarrassment that Canada’s Supreme Court won’t recognize that the Charter should apply to prisoners of Canadian Forces by Amir Attaran — The Ottawa Citizen.

The controversial views of Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid must confronted as well. “The US failure to destroy the al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leadership in the 2001 war that liberated Afghanistan allowed both groups to take up safe residence in the tribal badlands of the Federal Administered Tribal Areas that form a buffer zone between Afghanistan and Pakistan,” Rashid writes in the New York Review of Books. “The insurgency in Pakistan is perhaps even more deadly than the one in Afghanistan.”

• Pakistan on the Brink by Ahmed Rashid — The New York Review of Books

• Obama’s bulldozer risks turning the Taliban into Pakistan’s Khmer Rouge: Unless the US president can break his hardline posture, the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan could prove his Vietnam by Pankaj Mishra — The Guardian

With another volley of missiles from North Korea, some context is necessary. “The Pyongyang leadership seems to know something about US global policy that our own policymakers and pundits have overlooked,” writes author Michael Parenti. “In a word, the United States has never attacked or invaded any nation that has a nuclear arsenal.”

• North Korea: “Sanity” at the Brink by Michael Parenti — Michaelparenti.org

The partial U.S. withdraw from Iraq also merits close attention. Despite president Obama’s claim that, “Nothing will be gained by spending our time and energy laying blame for the past,” New York Times columnist Paul Krugman writes that “the only way we can regain our moral compass, not just for the sake of our position in the world, but for the sake of our own national conscience, is to investigate how that happened, and, if necessary, to prosecute those responsible.”

• Reclaiming America’s Soul by Paul Krugman — The New York Times

“Ottawa’s hostility towards Zelaya is likely motivated by particular corporate interests and his support for the social transformation taking place across Latin America.” Yves Englar on Harper’s position on the military coup in Honduras.

• Canada Alone In Opposing the Return of Zelaya In Honduras by Yves Englar — Canadian Dimension

The military coup claims Zelaya’s proposed public poll that sought to ask the country whether or not to consider opening the constitution to revisions is a move towards a more despotic government. Critical commentators suggest the actual concern is that the President, who ran on a fairly conservative platform, has become increasingly committed to promoting human rights and reducing corporate control of the country (in short, social transformation), which the largely U.S.-trained military and the West see as a dangerous influence of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez.

Burbach provides a critical analysis of the recent events.

• Honduran Coup: Target Left? by Roger Burbach — Counterpunch.org

Yves Englar suggests that Canada’s hesitation to denounce the coup is motivated by corporate interests that are at risk should Zelaya return to the country and resume his presidential rule.

• Harper government isolated as opposition to coup in Honduras grows by Yves Engler — Rabble.ca

Kozloff explains how the coup in Honduras isn’t anything new — just another attempt of the “globalizing corporate elite” to try and prevent progressive reform and an increase in the quality of life for the citizens of a poor nation.

• Same Old Globalizers and Torture School Grads by Nikolas Kozloff — Counterpunch.org

An appeal for support by the co-founder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK:

• Hondurans Call Out for Help From the International Community by Medea Benjamin — The Huffington Post

Democracy Now!’s Amy Goodman talks with Andres Conteris about how media censorship in Honduras has forced journalists in hiding; the spreading violence in the country; and how the curfew imposed by the coup has limited citizens’ rights.

• Honduran Coup Regime Blocks Ousted President Zelaya’s Return; Troops Open Fire on Supporters at Airport Killing Two by Amy Goodman and Andres Conteris — Zmag

A recent face-to-face poll suggests that the majority of Afghans want peaceful negotiations with the Taliban.

• Afghans Want Peace Not More War by Dave Markland — Rabble.ca
• Afghans Want Reconciliation with Taliban — Angus Reid Global Monitor

Despite these wishes, the first major strike in Afghanistan under Obama was launched this week and included sending nearly 4,000 US Marines and 650 Afghan forces into Helmand province. Obama has declared a plan to pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq by August 2010, but it would appear he is not done with Afghanistan.

• U.S., Afghanistan Launch Big Push Against Taliban — CBC News, Canadian Press
• U.S. Launches Helmand Offensive Against Taliban by Mark Tran — The Guardian

At least new rules of engagement (oh, the euphemisms of war!) command troops to not to fire at the Taliban if there is any risk of civilian death or injury. Should this really be something new?

• Our Troops Get Tighter Rules of Engagement by Matthew Fisher — Winnipeg Free Press

Political theory and nationalist holidays

More troubling than the deployment of more troops into Afghanistan is the lack of any clear goal. I would attribute this, at least in part, to a lack of proper understanding of democracy or any of the ideals Western troops attempt to spread. Not to mention, the whole concept of westernization. So, what better time to brush up on our political theory than the first week of July, where the numerous celebrations of nationalism afford us many opportunities to resubmit our allegiance and devotion to the state and the political system we know very little about. Len Krimerman on the dilemma of democracy:

• Democracy’s Dilemma And/Or It’s Dangerous Dream by Len Krimerman — ZNet

And with a nod to our Southern neighbours, here is an interesting essay on the revolutionary pamphleteer whose words are used and abused by many American politicians, most recently during Obama’s inaugural address earlier this year. But, can you blame any of them? Thomas Paine’s passionate prose is so convincing which politician wouldn’t want to borrow a couple of phrases in an attempt to reawaken even the smallest nationalist sentiment?

• The Age of Paine by Scott Tucker — Truthdig

Having recently declared the estimated future cost of Canada’s participation in the Afghan war a secret matter of national security, the Department of Defence reversed itself, revealing a price tag for the war on Afghanistan that — surprise, surprise — far outstrips original expectations. The cost for 2009-10 is estimated at $1.513 billion, and at $1.468 billion for 2010-11, while total costs for the 2001-2011 period are estimated at $9 billion. Mike Blanchfield of Canwest News Service reports:

• Canada’s ballooning Afghan war cost no longer national secret by Mike Blanchfield — The Ottawa Citizen

No new nukes for Ontario

The Ontario government will not be proceeding with plans to revamp and expand the nuclear energy sector, which accounts for half the province’s electricity needs. Here’s the Globe and Mail’s Karen Howlett with the story:

• AECL’s future in doubt as Ontario suspends nuclear power plans by Karen Howlett — The Globe and Mail

Stanford vs. Swift

It was a foregone conclusion that the financial crisis would be used as a pretext to attack what remains of the gains of organized labour. As billionaires are bailed out, the union-bashing, benefit-crushing chorus grows steadily louder. Last week, CBC radio’s The Current featured a debate between Canadian Auto Workers Union economist Jim Stanford and Canadian Federation of Independent Business President and CEO Catherine Swift about whether unions should be making greater concessions during the crisis. Listen to the argument:

• The Current for June 25, 2009 — CBC radio’s The Current

Not with a bang but a whimper?

Karl Marx and Leo Panitch may be gracing the pages of the Globe and Mail these days, but the question remains: Where’s the rage? In face of an ecological crisis that threatens humankind’s very survival and the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, serious political protest should be staging a major comeback. But in the overdeveloped countries of the North resistance seems in surprisingly short supply. The perplexing silence of the left is the stuff of recent columns by Murray Dobbin on Rabble:

• Imagine: Prosperity without growth by Murray Dobbin — Rabble.ca

and Thomas Walkom of The Toronto Star:

• The silence of the left by Thomas Walkom — The Toronto Star

Free As In Freedom

An interesting piece on how the ‘digital generation’ is accustomed to free, open access to information, music, movies and each other, and as a result are unconsciously resisting corporate control of culture.

• Free as in Freedom — Redpepper.org

The New Socialism

This Wired feature comments on the influence of peer-to-peer file sharing, social networking sites and open source programs on the way with which we organize. Despite a misunderstanding of socialism (Kelly seems to conflate socialism with communism), this piece helps raise some important questions on whether or not new technologies can form the base of a new social movement.

• The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society is Coming Online by Kevin Kelly — Wired Magazine

Twittering in Tehran

These social networking sites also change how T.V. news and newspapers gather their stories, where they get their information and the angle from which they report. MacPhail is optimistic that the flood of tweets from Iran has changed the news media game: social capital has now replaced investment capital.

• Twittering in Tehran and How the Small is the New Big by Wayne MacPhail — Rabble.ca

You Provide the Tweets, We’ll Provide the Info War

Bratich provides a critical reminder that the while the plethora of alternative voices via Twitter may help mainstream media break out of the incestuous, self-referential circle of ‘reliable, independent’ sources, we must continue to be just as objective with Tweets as we are with every other news source.

• You Provide the Tweets, We’ll Provide the Info War by Jack Bratich — Counterpunch.org

The 18th Brumaire of Barack Obama

Before we get too committed to the possibility of a digital revolution, we need to be reminded that there are issues outside a Facebook post that are renewing interest in socialist and Marxist thought. The Globe’s Ian Brown, with the help of Leo Panitch, discuss how the financial collapse has lead to a resurgence of interest in Marxism.

• The 18th Brumaire of Barack Obama by Ian Brown — The Globe and Mail

• Who Can We Bank On, Who Can We Trust, As Crisis Sharpens? by Danny Schechter — Zcommunications

Truthdig Editor Robert Scheer says that “the Bush-Obama strategy of throwing trillions at the banks to solve the mortgage crisis is a huge bust. The financial moguls, while tickled pink to have $1.25 trillion in toxic assets covered by the feds, along with hundreds of billions in direct handouts, are not using that money to turn around the free fall in housing foreclosures.” And, “aside from a tight mortgage market, the problem in preventing foreclosures has to do with homeowners losing their jobs. Although President Obama was wise enough to at least launch a job stimulus program, a far greater amount of federal funding benefits Wall Street as opposed to Main Street.”

Further, with state and local governments beingforced into draconian budget cuts, firing workers who are among the most reliable in making their mortgage payments, the Obama administration won’t spend even a small fraction of what it has wasted on the banks to cover state shortfalls.

• Foreclosure Fiasco by Robert Scheer — Truthdig

New research by economic historians Eichengreen and O’Rourke, Financial Times Editor compare the current economic crisis with the early phase of the Great Depression, in terms of the stock market crash and the collapse of world trade: “Globally we are tracking or doing even worse than the Great Depression … This is a Depression-sized event.”

Financial Times editor Martin Wolf, quotes approvingly from their work which also predicts that because current governments are applying the lessons taken from the Great Depression, that the thirties disaster need not be repeated. Two opposing dangers arise, he writes. One is that the stimulus is withdrawn too soon, as happened in the 1930s. The other danger is that stimulus is withdrawn too late resulting in unsustainable government funding and continued deficits.

• The recession tracks the Great Depression — by Martin Wolf — Financial Times

• A Tale of Two Depressionsby Barry Eichengreen and Kevin H. O’Rourke — VOX

“Marxism has been out of favour so long, even its jargon sounds refreshing,” writes Ian Brown as he surveys and interviews well known Marxists Leo Panitch, Paul Street and Doug Henwood about how they interpret the collapse of the world’s largest corporations and the state’s decision to take them into partial public ownership.

• The 18th Brumaire of Barack Obama by Ian Brown — Globe and Mail

Journalist Barbara Ehrenreich surveys the perennially poor and the working poor to determine how the economic crisis is affecting them.

• Too Poor to Make the News by Barbara Ehrenreich — New York Times

• Imagine: Prosperity without growth by Murray Dobbin — Rabble.ca

Canadian journalist Murray Dobbin argues that the dual economic and climate crises “have arrived just in time to wake us up, just in time for us to choose to save the planet and ourselves from a truly grim future. Not just rising oceans and the loss of coastal communities — but a nightmarish dystopia characterized by global social unrest, the rise of fascism, mass starvation and wars over energy and water”.

Globe and Mail Environment Reporter Martin Mittelstadt reviews new books by three heavyweights James Lovelock, Lester Brown and John Michael Greer each of whom warns of dire consequences of global warming and peak oil.

• Brace yourselves for apocalypse now — The Globe and Mail

NEEDED: A DIFFERENT GUARDIAN OF THE ARCTIC

Inuit activist Sheila Watt-Cloutier argues that as the Northwest Passage sea-ice coverage is lost, instead of aggressively facing climate change, Canada has decided the best way to keep foreign ships from running the passage is with our military. She advocates instead for co-operative management of the Arctic, by means of an Arctic treaty that charges circumpolar indigenous peoples with the stewardship of the Arctic and international co-management boards that would integrate traditional and scientific knowledge to ensure sound and peaceful management of the Arctic’s natural resources.

• NEEDED: A DIFFERENT GUARDIAN OF THE ARCTIC by Sheila Watt-Cloutier — The Globe and Mail

CLIMATE CRUNCH

The economic crisis is leading to falling carbon emissions - so why is it not good for the climate? By Oscar Reyes. Reyes shows how, in the midst of recession, Europe¹s carbon trading systems presents polluting industries a lifeline by cashing in their unwanted permits, while the Œprice signal¹ that is meant to change their polluting ways is rendered largely meaningless.

• CLIMATE CRUNCH by Oscar Reyes — Redpepper Magazine

Video: Leon Panitch, co-editor of Socialist Register , author of Renewing Socialism , explains why capitalist mechanisms like cap and trade won¹t end CO2 emissions.

• Thoroughly modern Marx Pt. 2 by Leo Panitch — Real News Network via Youtube

Economic Crisis and Food Sovereignty

Video: Around the world, hunger is growing, while millions of working farmers face ruin. Even in Canada, unsound and dangerous corporate practices menace our food supply. The worldwide movement for food sovereignty aims to ensure peoples¹ capacity to shape their own food production systems, free from control by agribusiness giants.

• Economic Crisis and Food Sovereignty — Climate and Capitalism Blog

The world should brace itself for millions of climate refugees in coming decades, a mass migration that will be larger than any in human history, says a new report.

• World faces daunting refugee crisis because of climate change by Martin Mittelstaedt — Globe and Mail

Even European governments, with the strongest public commitment to reduce carbon emissions, are using stimulus packages to subsidize fossil fuels to a far greater degree than renewable energy sources.

• More subsidies for fossil fuels in recovery plans by Stephen Leahy for InterPress Service

While the recent convention of the Saskatchewan NDP passed an anti-nuclearization, pro-renewable development resolution, its newly elected leader Dwaine Lingenfelter’, is strong commitment to nuclear development and the linking of nuclear energy to the tar sands development in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

• Saskatchewan NDP divided on nuclear power by Don Kossick — Rabble.ca

The notion that the world is a better place under Obama is dangerous, granting the president extreme latitude. So long as this image persists, and Obama’s team is spending millions to insure it does, the possibility of any real change is distant and unlikely. The lies and distortions of Obama need to be exposed. This edition of War Zones focuses on some of the best recently published articles that grapple with Obama’s foreign policy:

Chomsky went unpublished for months, only to produce two consecutive articles condemning the Obama administration.

• Why We Can’t See the Trees or the Forest: The Torture Memos and Historical Amnesia by Noam Chomsky — TomDispatch

• Turning Point? By Noam Chomsky — Chomsky.com

In his “reaching out” in Cairo, as in his “anti-nuclear” speech in Berlin, as in the “hope” he spun at his inauguration, this clever young politician is playing the part for which he was drafted and promoted. This is to present a benign, seductive, even celebrity face to American power, which can then proceed towards its strategic goal of dominance, regardless of the wishes of the rest of humanity and the rights and lives of our children.”

• Smile On The Face Of The Tiger by John Pilger‏ — Znet

• Team Obama/Cult Obama by Bill Blum‏ — Znet

• Obama Electrifies The World: Can We Believe The Hype? by Danny Schechter‏ — Znet

• Middle East reacts to Obama — The Real News Network

• Obama in Cairo: A Bush in sheep’s clothing by Ali Abunimah — The Guardian

• Obama’s Cairo Speech by by Gilber Archar — Socialist Project

Indigenous people in Peru engaged in protesting the development of the Amazon rainforest have been the target of violent and deadly government repression. Canada is implicated in two ways: Canadian companies are behind some of the oil and gas projects at issue, and Canada is about to sign a free trade deal with Peru. The Council of Canadians is calling on citizens to oppose the free trade agreement:

• ACTION ALERT: Canada must halt free trade agreement with Peru — Council of Canadians

Blowing in the wind

Minister of Natural Resources Lisa Raitt, currently in disgrace for remarks about the “sexy” shortage of isotopes for medical testing that were brought to light by a stray digital recording, commented during the same taped conversation that she suspects money which had been slated for wind energy development was funneled into the tar sands by Environment Minister Jim Prentice. Stephen Maher of the Chronicle Herald reports:

• Wind money given to oil producers instead, Raitt tape suggests

Federal science minister attacks academic freedom

The Canadian Association of University Teachers is calling for the resignation of Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, the same Minister who made headlines for hedging when asked if he believed in evolution. In question this time is not the Minister’s doubts about evolution, but rather his effort to have the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council defund a York University academic conference on Israel Palestine. CAUT has also criticized the SSHRC President for his complicity. Read the statements:

• Open Letter to the President of SSHRC — Canadian Association of University Teachers

• CAUT calls for Minister Goodyear’s resignation over political interference and attack on academic freedom — Canadian Association of University Teachers

The dark underbelly of the maple leaf

In his Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy, author Yves Engler takes the shine off Canada’s image as an international do-gooder. He is interviewed by Sean Mullen on Redeye:

• Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy —Redeye: Vancouver Cooperative Radio (via Rabble podcast)

GDP poor measure of well-being

Notwithstanding steady increases in GDP, over the last 20 years, housing costs rose, job quality declined and income inequality intensified, according to a study by top researchers headed up by former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow. The researchers, who are developing a new index intended to improve on GDP as an overall indicator of how Canadians are faring, found that young people aged 15 to 24 have experienced a decline in both economic and physical health. Globe and Mail Economics reporter Heather Scoffield highlights the study:

• Quality of life declining for young Canadians — The Globe and Mail

Sign of the times?

Leo Panitch and Marxism make the Globe and Mail in an essay by Ian Brown:

• The 18th Brumaire of Barack Obama by Ian Brown— The Globe and Mail

• European Social Democrats Defeated by By Stefan Steinberg
• Far Right Gains in Britain by Martin Wainwright
• A Fine European Farce by by Serge Halimi
• Europe’s Pipeline Politics by By Richard Galpin

The New York Times reports on President Obama’s plans for the “new General Motors”.

• Obama Is Upbeat for G.M.’s Future by Bill Vlasic and Nick Bunkley —The NY Times

Multinational Monitor Editor Robert Weissman argues that instead of declaring bankruptcy, the government could have announced the taking of GM through eminent domain. Nationalisation would have been better for shareholders, bondholders and the United Automobile Workers union. And with complete control of the company, the government could have explicitly set out to manage General Motors in the public interest.

• GM Nationalization: The Path Not Taken, Choices Still Ahead by Robert Weissman — Multinational monitor blog

Economist journalist Greg Palast shows how the Obama GM bankruptcy policy arranges for workers’ pension fund to be used to pay off $6 billion loans to the likes of JP Morgan and Citibank.

• Grand Theft Auto: How Stevie the Rat bankrupted GM by Greg Palast — Gregpalast.com

Film maker Michael Moore, writing from his home base in Flint Michigan, urges President Obama to convert auto factories to factories that build mass transit vehicles and alternative energy devices, in the same manner and urgency that President Roosevelt in 1942 ordered GM to halt all car production and immediately used the assembly lines to build planes, tanks and machine guns.

• Goodbye, GM by Michael Moore — Common Dreams

Robert Weissman argues that President Obama’s bankruptcy and restructuring plan— shaped by a secretive, unaccountable group of Wall Street expats without expertise in the industry — seems designed above all to perpetuate GM as a corporate entity. Preserving corporate GM should be not an end, but a means to protecting workers and their communities, preserving the U.S. manufacturing base, forcing the industry onto an innovative and ecologically sustainable path, and advancing consumer interests.

• Bankrupt Thinking by Robert Weissman — Multinational monitor blog

Retired CAW trade unionist Herman Rosenfeld takes on arguments that promote a concessions approach by auto workers as the solution to the auto crisis.

• On Auto Collective Bargaining Issues by Herman Rosenfeld — Worker Solidarity Blogspot

“In order for political action to be effective, so that protests, resistance and struggles are really able to change things, to convert insurrections into revolutions, a political instrument capable of overcoming the dispersion and fragmentation of the exploited and the oppressed is required, one that can create spaces to bring together those who, in spite of their differences, have a common enemy; that is able to strengthen existing struggles and promote others by orientating their actions according to a thorough analysis of the political situation; that can act as an instrument for cohering the many expressions of resistance and struggle.”

This is the first of a series of articles to appear in Links magazine on making revolution in the 21st century.

• Marta Harnecker: Ideas for the struggle #1 — Insurrections or revolutions? Marta Harnecker — Links magazine

Richard Vogel offers a point-by-point comparison of the principles and practices of socialism versus those of capitalism, and outlines socialist initiatives to combat neo-liberal globalization.

• The Socialist Alternative by Richard D Vogel — Combatingglobalization.com

IN the light of both the real experience of socialism in the recent past and the opportunities provided by today¹s economic crisis, Rick Wolff outlines a new definition of socialism including both its micro and macro dimensions.

• Capitalist Crisis, Socialist Renewal by Rick Wolff — Monthly Review

In these two articles Federico Fuentes and Hermann Albrecht each describe the latest developments emerging in building socialism in Venezuela.

• Venezuela: ‘When the working class roars, capitalists tremble’ by Federico Fuentes — Greenleft.org

• Venezuela: Five iron and steel plants and the Carabobo Ceramics nationalized by Hermann Albrecht — Marxist.com

Former Winnipeger Derek Rosin describes in detail the players and the events which has led to socialist revolution in Nepal. He also describes the philosophy underlying the Maoist revolutionary strategy and some of its unique character.

• Against All Odds:Revolution in Nepal Moving Forward by Derek Rosin — Socialist Project

• Democratic deficit: parliament and democracy by Simon Basketter — Socialist Worker online

Rulers of the World Meet in Private

• Are the people who ‘really run the world’ meeting this weekend? by Adam Abrams — Haaretz.com

Cynicism on Eve of European Parliamentary Elections

• It’s grim up north by Mark Mardell — BBC.com

Latvia on Thin Ice

• In search of Europe: Latvia by Jonny Dymond — BBC.com

According to Jeffrey St. Clair /Joshua Frank, “after intense pressure from the pollution lobby, Obama’s approach to attacking with climate change has been whittled down to nothing more than weak market-driven economics that can too easily be manipulated politically.”

They credit Obama’s move to end funding for the planned nuclear waste repository at the Yucca Mountain. But this decision, they say, must be countered by the administration’s ongoing promotion of nuclear power as corrective to climate change. Both Chu and Obama’s chief science advisor John Holdren are pushing for federal subsidies for a new generation of nuclear power plants. And they are promising billions more for the nuclear lobby under the guise of research and development, the pipeline of federal subsidies that has kept the industry alive since Three Mile Island. Again, they credit Obama’s sweeping overhaul of the car fuel efficiency (CAFE) and exhaust emissions standards, which have languished unmodified for more than a decade, then draw attention to its drawbacks. These include the administration’s relentless push to replace oil with biofuels, which will push marginal agriculture lands into production of genetically-engineered and pesticide saturated monocrops, scalping topsoil and draining dwindling water supplies across the Great Plains and Midwest.

• The Politics of Bait-and-Switch: Obama and the Environment by Jeffrey St. Clair and Joshua Frank — Counterpunch.org

James Handley of the Carbon Tax Center analyses President Obama¹s Cap and Trade emissions policy.

• Cap and trade won’t cut it by James Handley — Real News Network

George Monbiot describes the growing risk of doing little or nothing to combat climate change.

• Price of doing nothing costs the earth by George Monbiot — The Guardian

On March 2, 2009 around 4,000 people came to the Capitol Power Coal Plant in Washington, DC, with over 2,000 risking arrest through civil disobedience. Joshua Kahn Russell explains the strategy underlying this approach to building a mass-based climate justice movement.

• Climate Justice and Coal’s Funeral Procession by Joshua Kahn Russell — zmags.org

The head of Export Development Canada is expecting rougher economic waters ahead based on the rising rate of corporate loan defaults, reports Kevin Carmichael for the Globe and Mail:

• Corporate loan defaults to rise: EDC head — Globe and Mail

And here’s the Globe and Mail’s Tavia Grant with the latest figures on the predictable impact of the recession on unemployment: - Canadian EI claims soar 10.6% — Globe and Mail

The dark side of infrastructure spending

The Conservatives are using the economic crisis as a pretext to axe environmental impact assessments, particularly in connection with oil and gas projects on First Nations land, according to Todd Gordon, assistant professor of Canadian Studies at the University of Toronto. He’s interviewed by Mordecai Briemberg on Redeye at:

• Canada’s shock doctrine — Redeye radio via rabble.ca

You can also read Gordon’s article in The Bullet

What’s mine is yours?

At the invitation of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), indigenous representatives from Canada visited communities affected by Canadian-financed mining activities in Ecuador earlier this month to share experiences and discuss indigenous peoples’ right of prior and informed consent on projects affecting their lands or territories. Jennifer Moore reports for Upside Down World:

• Ecuador’s Future for Canadian Transnationals: An Exchange of Indigenous Perspectives — Upside down world

Busting Bill C-15

Bill C-15 (formerly Bill C-26), the legislation proposed by the Conservative Party to introduce mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses in Canada, is a misguided approach to curbing drug use and violence, according to Deborah Peterson Small, Executive Director and founder of Break the Chains, a US organization that campaigns for fair drug policies. Writing in Rabble, Small warns that mandatory minimum drug sentencing is not an effective deterrent to crime, as the American experience demonstrates:

• A message to Canada: Don’t repeat mistakes of U.S. ‘war on drugs’ — rabble.ca

Something fishy at the supermarket

Greenpeace Canada will be targeting supermarket chains in a plan to draw attention to unsustainable fishing practices, Amelia Bellamy-Royds tells us in The Tyee:

• Greenpeace to confront stores over seafood policies — The Tyee