Vandana Shiva illuminates myths about poverty

This is definitely one of the more interesting things I've read this week. Jeffrey Sachs, head of the Earth Institute and author of The End of Poverty, would have you believe that the root of poverty lies in large sections of the world being "left behind" while the Industrial Revolution carried western civilization to new heights. Vandana Shiva begs to differ. "The poor are not those who have been 'left behind'; they are the ones who have been robbed. Without the destruction of India's rich textile industry, without the takeover of the spice trade, without the genocide of the native American tribes, without African slavery, the Industrial Revolution would not have resulted in new riches for Europe or North America. It was this violent takeover of Third World resources and markets that created wealth in the North and poverty in the South. Two of the great economic myths of our time allow people to deny this intimate link, and spread misconceptions about what poverty is.

You can read this article by Vandana Shiva at Ode Magazine.

Find books by Vandana Shiva at Powells.com

Debate: Should the US end the trade embargo on Cuba?

The United Nations voted Tuesday 182-4 to urge the United States to end its 44-year old trade embargo against Cuba, the fourteenth straight year the international body has voted for such a move. Though the United States has routinely ignored the resolutions, many are concerned that the embargo has kept innocent Cubans in poverty, while doing nothing to foster democracy. Should the United States end the embargo?

Join the debate at The Latin Americanist

Remembering Rosa Parks... sort of.

"Le Rage des Oubli's," ran the headline of France's Liberation a few days after Katrina struck. Translation, "The Rage of the Forgotten." The picture below the headline featured a lone black woman screaming at the top of her lungs on a street in New Orleans, presumably one of the many African-Americans left stranded without food or water. The tragic truth in the French critique of American racism was its prophetic rather than descriptive quality: the angry ones were going to be forgotten, because they were angry. The perception of the American press is that it knows two courses of action when dealing with angry minorities: crush them or erase them. Unfortunately, this writer see Rosa Parks slowly being marshaled in the latter course.

Check it out: Robert Oscar Lopez on Counterpunch Is the French perception accurate and where do we begin to change the media if it is?

Chinese Women Bloggers Explore Uncharted Territories

Lost Sparrow, Sister Lotus and a host of other Chinese women are changing the rules between the sexes and prompting government censorship as they post the more kinky details of their lives online. Oh my.

Read this article: Eugenia Chien, Pacific News Service

Mr. Floatie's Political Turd

Folks here at Black Bear Speaks have suggested copyrighting the phrase "2-foot coil" for months now. Notice how I imply that there is more than one of us? That's because there is, me and my giant turd I keep in a tupperware container under the bathroom sink. Sort of like this guy in BC, he feels you shouldn't flush your favorite buddy either. Let me know what you think.

VICTORIA, BC - When you're a two-metre tall human turd, who talks with a falsetto voice and wears a slightly tilted sailor's cap, you're used to turning heads, as well as stomachs.

So James Skwarok, better known by the name of his character, Mr. Floatie, was certainly expecting to draw attention when he threw that cap into the ring in a bid to be mayor of Victoria. In fact, as leader of the campaign to get sewage treatment here, he counts on it to tell all who will listen that the City of Gardens uses the Pacific Ocean as its toilet.

But when earlier this month a stink was raised about Mr. Floatie's candidacy, it proved too much. City officials, correctly noting he's "a costume character," not a real person, and thereby ineligible, took him to court to get him off the ballot for the Nov. 19 election.

God bless you, Mr. Floatie! Read more about Mr. Floatie here: Sewage activist wiped off B.C. ballot

Audio: Patents on Living Creatures?

There has never been a better time than now to start growing your own food.

You might have heard about scientists splicing animal genes into food grains or fish whose genes are tinkered with to make them twice their normal size. Over 80% of soy in this country is genetically modified and the soy that isn't may well have mixed with genetically modified crops.

Are genetically modified foods improving the quality of your life?

The award-winning film "Life Running Out of Control" lays out the science and politics of genetic modification. Get more info by downloading this mp3: Against the Grain

Oil for Food Program: Smoking Gun or Smokescreen?

Paul Volcker, head of the United Nations independent enquiry investigating problems of corruption surrounding the oil-for-food program, has found that 2,200 international firms contributed to corrupting the UN program, as well as supporting Saddam Hussein's regime, by paying unaccounted surcharges -which allegedly went straight into the pockets of the leadership - in order to do oil business with Iraq. But former director of the oil-for-food program Denis Halliday argues that the enquiry "has diverted attention away from genuine scandals of size and significance, and neglected breeches of international law by UN Security Council member states in connection with UN aggression on Iraq, UN sanctions on Iraq and the corruption and abuse of the oil-for-food program." In other words, although the report succeeded in exposing corruption, it failed to expose the fact that all companies were, in one way or another, vetted by members of the Security Council to do business in Iraq.

Read the article by
Serene Assir at Al-Ahram Weekly

Audio: Was the 2004 Election Stolen?

A Debate on Ohio One Year After Bush's Victory

Questions remain over the outcome of the Ohio election and whether Bush fairly won the state and the presidency. Explore these questions with a debate between Mark Crispin Miller and Mark Hertsgaard. Issues regarding the 2004 election may never be resolved, let's try to generate solutions to the problem so that we don't have to go down this road again.

Download this audio file from Democracy Now! or read the Transcript.

Photography Slideshow - Leaves of Confusion

This is a gutwrenching photo exhibit. Poverty on parade. This will motivate you to do more for your fellow human than ever before. You are forewarned.

A few weeks ago, the Brazilian photographer Flavio Cannalonga walked among the people in the Chapare, Bolivia. From that experience came this brief but beautiful exhibit. "Narco-traffickers are definitely nowhere to be found there. Only regular people, only children, only the old, only men and women. Victimized, abandoned, forgotten," says Cannalonga of the coca growers of the Tropic of Cochabamba.

Flavio Cannalonga (text by Luis Gomez) at Salón Chingón
Intro and Translation: http://salonchingon.com/cinema/folhas.php?city=ny
QuickTime slideshow: http://salonchingon.com/movies/folhas1.mov (22mg download)

A New Weapon for Wal-Mart: A War Room

This begs the question "What are you afraid of you big baby?" I think this bully is tired of getting laughed at and is about to kick some butts.

Wal-Mart is taking a page from the modern political playbook. Under fire from well-organized opponents who have hammered the retailer with criticisms of its wages, health insurance and treatment of workers, Wal-Mart has quietly recruited former presidential advisers, including Michael K. Deaver, who was Ronald Reagan's image-meister, and Leslie Dach, one of Bill Clinton's media consultants, to set up a rapid-response public relations team in Arkansas.

Read this article by Michael Barbaro of the New York Times on the Common Dreams blog.

What is the responsiblity of Major League Ball to the poor?

The question we need to ask is, Does baseball have a broader responsibility to the Dominican Republic and these 10- and 11-year-old kids who think they have a better chance of emerging from desperately poor conditions with a stick and a milk-carton glove than by staying in school?

Read it here: Dave Zirin in The Nation

Chavez and Maradona Lead Rebuke of Bush

NAFTA has been a crushing blow to manufacturing workers in this part of the US as one plant after another continues to shut down leaving millions unemployed. Can the the result of FTAA be any better? Does Bush really think the Venezuelans are going to give up their oil without a fight?

The opposition to Bush and his proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), as well as neoconservative economic policies and capitalism in general, took on a creative twist this time, with a massive march that ended in a rally at a sports stadium involving a heterogeneous group of Latin American leaders: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bolivian socialist leader Evo Morales, Argentine leaders of the unemployed, Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, singers from all over the continent, and, of course, Diego Maradona, legendary soccer hero.

Read this article by
Jordana Timerman, The Nation

Fallujah: The Hidden Massacre

Powerful new evidence emerged yesterday that the United States dropped massive quantities of white phosphorus on the Iraqi city of Fallujah during the attack on the city in November 2004, killing insurgents and civilians with the appalling burns that are the signature of this weapon. The Italian documentary "Fallujah: the Hidden Massacre," broadcast today for the first time, also provides what it claims is clinching evidence that incendiary bombs known as Mark 77, a new, improved form of napalm, was used in the attack on Fallujah, in breach of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons of 1980, which only allows its use against military targets.

WARNING: Video contains graphic and disturbing images of victims of phosphorus bombing.
Peter Popham (article) The Independent UK / Truthout.org
Sigfrido Ranucci (video) Rainews24 / Truthout.org
Here's the link to read more and watch the video: www.truthout.org/docs_2005/11 0805Z.shtml

China pledges to double reliance on renewable energy by 2020

Too little, too late? Not if you are a solar panel manufacturer.

Jonathan Watts in Beijing
Tuesday November 8, 2005
The Guardian

China, the world's second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, announced plans yesterday to more than double its reliance on renewable energy by 2020, which could make it a leading player in the wind, solar and hydropower industries.

But environmentalists said that Beijing's new target was still not ambitious enough to offset the climatic damage caused by its spectacular economic growth, which will continue to be predominantly fuelled by coal.

Read the rest at: Guardian Unlimited, Special reports, China pledges to double reliance on renewable energy by 2020

Senator Deb Stabenow's Comments on AWNR Oil Drilling

In order to be objective, here's both a Democratic and Republican response to my letters regarding removal of the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge oil drilling proposal from the federal budget resolution. Below are Democratic Senator Stabenow's and Republican Congressman Ehler's comments, both of whom are opposed to drilling in the refuge.


November 2, 2005

Mr. Jerome Alicki

Thank you . . .

. . . for contacting me regarding your opposition to drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). I share your concerns about this issue.

The Senate Budget Resolution includes a provision - based on the President's budget proposal - to make it easier to open the Arctic Refuge to oil and gas drilling. The Arctic Refuge drilling provision would prevent a full and fair debate on energy and environmental policy like we have had in past Congresses. This provision would prevent the Senate from filibustering legislation to open the Arctic Refuge to drilling. It would also limit the ability of the Senate to offer amendments or make any modifications to such a bill.

On March 16, 2005, Senator Maria Cantwell offered an amendment to remove the Arctic Refuge drilling provision from the Senate Budget Resolution. I supported this amendment, and unfortunately this amendment failed by a vote of 49 - 51. The Senate Budget Resolution will now go to a House-Senate conference where a final budget will be drafted.

Although I understand the need to decrease our nation's dependency on foreign oil, I do not believe that we must destroy this beautiful wildlife refuge to achieve that objective. I firmly believe that the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge needs to be protected from drilling. At stake are close to 100,000 acres of nearly pristine land - home to some of the most unique and diverse wildlife in the Arctic. As the budgetary process continues, you can rest assured that I will continue to fight to prevent drilling in the Arctic Refuge.

Again, thank you for contacting me. Please do not hesitate to contact me if I can be of further assistance to your or your family.


Sincerely,

Debbie Stabenow
United States Senator
DS:mg

Congressman Ehler's (R - Michigan) Recent Letter on ANWR Drilling

November 1, 2005



Dear Jerome,

Thank you for taking the time to contact me about the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) and the budget. I appreciate hearing your willingness to share your comments.

I have consistently opposed opening ANWR to oil and gas drilling. I believe our time and money is better spent improving fuel efficiency and developing alternative and renewable fuels. However, as this legislation moves through the House and Senate, other significant issues in addition to exploration and drilling in ANWR may be added. This legislation is likely to come before Congress in late fall for a final vote.

Thank you again for you comments. I will keep your thoughts in mind as this issue proceeds.

Sincerely,

Vernon J. Ehlers
Member of Congress


"I appreciate hearing your willingness to share your comments." Hmmm...

Although I'm glad my congressman is opposed to opening ANWR for exploitation and I'm glad that he feels alternative energy sources are the way to go, in this statement he is leaving the door open in case some other issue added to the bill forces him to vote for it. It's a question of priorities, and there may be something more important down the road that changes his mind. But I ask you: What's more important right now than ending our dependence on fossil fuels and foreign energy sources and developing new energy technologies to replace the ones we have now? Can you possibly think of a better solution to the Petroleum War, Congressman? Stop messing around with a wildlife preserve and build some damn windmills on the shore of Lake Michigan for christsake. We can power an electric vehicle fleet using the wind coming off the Great Lakes. Shouldn't we stop spending hundreds of billions of dollars on war, and instead spend a hundred billion on converting everyone's gas powered vehicles to electricity?

By the way Congressman, if you would like someone on your staff who can write, I don't have anything to do tomorrow and I'm available for a job interview.