The Complexity of Mandela

By Danny Schechter
Consortium News
July 15, 2011

Nelson Mandela was one of the last century’s great freedom fighters, taking on the evils of white supremacy in South Africa and defying the cold-hearted Realpolitik of Washington. But his triumph meant that the Western media would water down his radicalism and transform him into a less complex figure, writes Danny Schechter from South Africa.

Only days shy of 93, Nelson Mandela is still kicking, inspiring an international day of community service in his name, on his July 18th birthday.

While activists, athletes and entertainers are honoring him by responding to his call for engagement, journalists in the obit departments are quietly combing their archives for footage and tributes that will air when he moves on to the next world. I have already seen a program-length obit that a major network has ready to go.

The Religious Left, Born Again

Progressive activists are finding inspiration in churches, synagogues and mosques.

By Theo Anderson
In These Times
July 4, 2011

For three decades, the religious right has monopolized media coverage of religion in American life. But the big story of the next few decades, spiritually speaking, might be the re-emergence of the religious left as a powerful political force.

What’s going on in Illinois offers solid evidence for that theory. This past spring, the state’s General Assembly considered two controversial bills. One proposed to give courts the authority to seal the criminal records of people who were arrested and then released because the charges were dropped or the defendant was acquitted. As it stood, the records could not be sealed if the person had a prior conviction. Employers almost never hire job seekers with a recent arrest on their record, so the law left large numbers of people unemployable. The other bill proposed the legalization of medical marijuana.

Reflections on the site of rebellion

Rob O'Flanagan
Guelph Mercury
July 15, 2011

"The Women of Batoche"

Walking through the battlefield of the Riel Rebellion a few days ago, legs stiff from cycling against the wind on a gravel road, and trying desperately to quench an unquenchable thirst, I was reduced to insignificance by the soft, eloquent beauty of the Batoche, Saskatchewan area, and saddened by the intense sense of loss and injustice that hangs in the dry air over that historic region.

A kind of Utopian dream was once draped over that small patch of Canada. Looking out into idle fields painstakingly cleared over 125 years ago from the dense brush and forested banks of the South Saskatchewan River, I caught myself thinking that vision is not dead, but simply dormant, waiting for its time. One can always dream.

Tar Sands Come to Saskatchewan!

Oilsands Quest receives approval for 15-year leases for Axe Lake lands

Also read:  Carbon Copy: Preventing Oil Sands Fever in Saskatchewan 

CALGARY, July 15, 2011

Oilsands Quest is pleased to announce that it has received approval from the Government of Saskatchewan to convert portions of the Axe Lake permits to 15-year leases. These leases, the first oil sands leases in Saskatchewan, are one of the key elements the Company needs in place to proceed to development of a commercial oil sands production facility.

"These leases mark a key milestone in our path forward," said Garth Wong, Chief Executive Officer of Oilsands Quest. "In the past, some potential investors have expressed concern about the short term permits under which the Axe Lake lands were held. The 15-year leases will give us the certainty of land tenure we need to underpin commercial development at Axe Lake. The Government of Saskatchewan has demonstrated its commitment to oil sands exploration and development, and we appreciate its confidence that Oilsands Quest will be able to deliver on the value of these assets both for our investors and for the people of Saskatchewan."

The two leases, OSA00001 and 0SA00002 will be governed under the terms of the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulations, 1969 and will expire on March 31, 2027.

Please see http://www.oilsandsquest.com/our_projects/july15-2011-map.html to view a map showing Oilsands Quest's land leases and permits.

About Oilsands Quest

Oilsands Quest Inc. (www.oilsandsquest.com) is exploring and developing oil sands permits and licences, located in Saskatchewan and Alberta, and developing Saskatchewan's first commercial oil sands discovery. It is leading the establishment of the province of Saskatchewan's emerging oil sands industry.

Spanish Civil War – 75th anniversary

Next Year Country

July 18 marks the 75^th anniversary of the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Below is the first part of the BBC documentary "The Origins of the Spanish Civil War."

For information on Canadian internationalists in the Spanish Civil War visit The Friends and Veterans of the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion.

Union Democracy and Labour Rights: A Cautionary Tale

Brad Walchuk
York University
Global Labour Journal,Vol. 2,Iss. 2

In recent years, trade unions in Canada have become increasingly reliant on constructing workers’ rights as part of the broader rubric of human rights. While the topic of labour rights has become popular in recent academic literature, it remains under explored. An important element of constructing labour rights as human rights is its impact on union democracy and rank-and-file mobilization, though this has yet to be fully explored.

Utilizing the case study of the Hospital Employees’ Union (HEU) struggle against Bill 29, this paper suggests that a reliance on the construction of labour rights as human rights and the corresponding judicial strategy prevents the development of a from a more radical, grassroots social movement unionism and instead facilitates the proliferation of hierarchical, elite dominated forms trade unionism. It concludes by suggesting that unions must be cautious of the potential downfalls of quelling militant grassroots activism in lieu of a rights-based challenge

Read this article HERE.

The influence of Cuban medical internationalism: "Cooperation - not aid"

Katelynn Northam
Dalhousie University News
July 15, 2011

Cuba is a small island nation perhaps best known among Canadians for being a great vacation destination. It cannot be said to be a rich country – which is perhaps why it’s so surprising that Cuba finds itself exporting more medical assistance to developing countries than all the world’s industrialized countries combined.

John Kirk has been a professor at Dalhousie for 33 years, and currently teaches in the Spanish and Latin American Studies department. He has recently released a book, Cuban Medical Internationalism: Origins, Evolution, and Goals, which he co-authored with H. Michael Erisman of Indiana State University.

The book looks at exactly how and why it came to be that Cuba—a country of eleven million people with a land area comparable to the size of Nova Scotia—has become one of the biggest exporters of doctors and medical care in the world, and a leader in the field of medical internationalism.

Single Desk Good for Potash - Why Not Grain?

Canadian Wheat Board Alliance

You have to admire politicians who set aside long held beliefs when they are confronted with the reality of how the world works. Reality sets in once they arrive in government and are responsible to more than just their supporters. A good couple of cases in point are former Alberta Conservative Premier Peter Lougheed and Saskatchewan’s Premier Brad Wall. Both were elected on strong free enterprise platforms and both confronted the necessity of regulating a defective commodity market to protect a critical resource for their provinces.

Lougheed had the courage to successfully confront a reluctant foreign owned industry and a hostile Federal government. Time will tell if Premier Wall is made of the same stern stuff.

Ten Years Ago Portugal Legalized All Drugs -- What Happened Next?

By Tony O'Neil
The Fix
 July 14, 2011

Drug related deaths fell by 50%

The government in Portugal has no plans to back down. Although the Netherlands is the European country most associated with liberal drug laws, it has already been ten years since Portugal became the first European nation to take the brave step of decriminalizing possession of all drugs within its borders—from marijuana to heroin, and everything in between. This controversial move went into effect in June of 2001, in response to the country’s spiraling HIV/AIDS statistics.

While many critics in the poor and largely conservative country attacked the sea change in drug policy, fearing it would lead to drug tourism while simultaneously worsening the country’s already shockingly high rate of hard drug use, a report published in 2009 by the Cato Institute tells a different story. Glenn Greenwald, the attorney and author who conducted the research, told Time: “Judging by every metric, drug decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success. It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country."

Frederick Engels on the Historical Development of Modern Socialism

By Thomas Riggins
Dissident Voice
July 14th, 2011

Robert Owen's New Lanark

In the first chapter of Part Three of his classic work “Anti-Dühring”, Engels discusses the origins of the modern socialist movement. He begins with the enthronement of “Reason” by the pre-revolutionary 18th century French philosophers who thought that only reason could be used to answer any of the questions of existence.

After the overthrow of Louis XVI and the abolition of the monarchical French state, a new state was constructed by the revolutionaries — one based on “eternal” reason and designed to be completely rational. The spiritual progenitor of this state was Rousseau’s book “The Social Contract”. But “eternal” reason turned out to be simply the explanation of existence from the point of view of the rising bourgeois class. The complexity of the new political reality they had created quite eluded them as the contradictions between their class and the newly conscious masses of the disposed poor of Paris and the countryside began to manifest themselves. The wretched of the earth exerted themselves and the bourgeois rational state fell apart and morphed into the Reign of Terror under which the masses, for a moment, gained “the mastery” and saved the Revolution.

Read more HERE.

AEP Shelves Major Carbon Capture Project: What is the future for Saskatchewan's project?

Environmental Leader
July 14, 2011

American Electric Power has shelved plans to build one of the nation’s first carbon capture and storage facilities, terminating a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy.

In a statement, AEP cited the “current uncertain status of U.S. climate policy” and the weak economy as reasons for halting plans for a commercial-scale CCS system at its Mountaineer coal-fired plant in New Haven, W.Va. (pictured). In 2009, the Department of Energy selected AEP’s CCS project for funding of up to $334 million.

Plans called for the system to capture about 1.5 million metric tons of CO2 per year, which would have been treated, compressed and stored about 1.5 miles below the earth’s surface.

Israeli Left launches public campaign against new law banning boycotts

By Jonathan Lis and Tomer Zarchin 
Haaertz.com
July 12, 2011
 

The Gush Shalom movement took its campaign to the legal level and filed a petition to the Supreme Court claiming the boycott law is unconstitutional and anti-democratic.

Israeli leftist organizations launched Tuesday a series of protests against the boycott law passed in the Knesset the night before.

"The boycott law is another attempt by the parliamentary majority in Israel to silence any criticism against the government's policies in general and its policies in the occupied territories in particular, and prevent an open and productive political discourse, which is the backbone of a democratic regime," the petition said.

In the hours following the law's approval approximately 2,000 people joined the Facebook page opened by Peace Now movement calling for a boycott of products from the settlements. The Solidarity Sheikh Jarrah movement joined that call, and say that so far around 1,500 people have petitioned against the bill.

"The public protests against the destruction of democracy will not stop with polite petitions to the Supreme Court," Peace Now said in a statement, "The first to feel the struggle will be the factories in the territories, which will first the first time feel the economic impact of an ideological boycott."

MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima), who resides in the Ma'aleh Michmash settlement, said that his he and his family "are not like a cottage cheese box that you can boycott." He added that those oppose the law are motivated by hate for segments of Israeli society.

According to the law, a person or an organization calling for the boycott of Israel, including the settlements, can be sued by the boycott's targets without having to prove that they sustained damage. The court will then decide how much compensation is to be paid. The second part of the law says a person or a company that declare a boycott of Israel or the settlements will not be able to bid in government tenders.

Italy: Barbarians -- in Suits -- at the Gates

By Conn Hallinan
Foreign Policy in Review
July 13, 2011

PAESTUM, ITALY -- Walls tell you a lot about a country’s history. Since their purpose is to keep people out who want to get in, they generally mean trouble. In the case of this stunning ruin of a city southeast of Naples, back in the 6th century BC the Greeks were trying to keep out the Etruscans who didn’t cotton to a colony plunked down in their midst.

Italy has lots of walls, particularly in the north and center where towns and cities cluster on the high ground. The Italians did not build on mountain tops for the view. What is picturesque now was safe haven from the barbarians back then.

50 Stunning Political Artworks

NAUPE
See all 50 HERE.

Solidarity with Saskatchewan workers

All Together Now! conference delegates support Saskatchewan workers as they bargain for decent working conditions.

NUPGE News

Ottawa (13 July 2011) - Members of the Saskatchewan Government and General Employees' Union (SGEU/NUPGE), at three different workplaces, are in a strike position and are rallying support from across the labour movement.

Members employed by the Saskatchewan Cancer Agency, the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology and the Workers’ Compensation Board have been bargaining for the last year or more without a settlement.

SGEU/NUPGE members working at the Saskatchewan Crop Insurance Corporation took strike action in June, only to be threatened by the Wall government a day later if they did not return to work. A renewed tentative collective agreement was reached on June 24. It is awaiting ratification.

As the All Together Now! Champions 4 Change, from across the country, gathered in Halifax in June, they wanted to convey messages of solidarity to the members in Saskatchewan.

Additionally, as a way to rally support for the tough bargaining that is going on across the province,

SGEU/NUPGE launched a public services campaign video entitled, Disappears which highlights the negative repercussions for communities if workers are eliminated.