Fee hikes are a blow to University of California students

MediaNews editorial
Posted: 11/23/2009 12:01:00 AM PST

STUDENTS ATTENDING the University of California next fall will be paying 32 percent more in fees than they are now. That's an increase of $2,514 on top of a $662 increase this year over last. No wonder students are protesting at UC campuses across the state.

As recently as 1993, UC student fees were just $1,624 a year, far less than at many public universities in other states. The low fees made higher education financially available to many people who otherwise would not have advanced their schooling.
Large subsidies to UC were an important part of California's commitment to expanding educational opportunities, which not only helped students, but enhanced the economic growth and quality of life in the state.

Even before the current recession and series of state budget crises, California's financing of higher education had been eroding. Today's weak economy, with its consequent reductions in state revenues, has placed a severe burden on the UC system. Regents had no choice but to substantially raise student fees.

UC has laid off 1,900 employees, imposed furloughs on faculty and staff, cut 3,800 positions and left vacant another 1,600. But even with these spending reductions, the university faces a bleak fiscal year with $1 billion less in state revenues.

However, even with the huge increases in fees, the cost of attending the University of California for many students is considerably
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less than it is at similar private universities and colleges, where tuition is often at least three times higher.

Students from families with household incomes under $60,000 (near the state median) do not have to pay fees, allowing lower-income residents access to UC. But what about those from middle-income families who do not qualify for a fee waiver?

Stanford, which charges more than triple what UC students will pay in fees next year, waives tuition for students from households earning less than $100,000 a year. That means Stanford could be more affordable for many middle-income families than UC.
For the next few years, we do not see any way the state can make it possible for the UC system to lower fees. But every effort must be made to avoid more increases.
In the long run, California needs to make a more stable commitment toward higher eduction, perhaps by guaranteeing a given percentage subsidy of UC costs so that there are no more huge, unanticipated spikes in student fees.

For their part, UC leaders need to make greater efforts to hold down costs. Perhaps an independent audit of university finances would help find ways to prevent expenses from rising far faster than the rate of inflation.

Most important, the current severe economic downturn in California should not set a new ceiling for state spending on higher education. As the economy recovers, so should Sacramento's commitment to California's public colleges and universities.

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Delhi Declaration

This 11th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers' Parties, held in New Delhi, 20-22 November 2009 to discuss "The international capitalist crisis, the workers' and peoples' struggle, the alternatives and the role of the communist and working class movement":

Reiterates that the current global recession is a systemic crisis of capitalism demonstrating its historic limits and the need for its revolutionary overthrow. It demonstrates the sharpening of the main contradiction of capitalism between its social nature of production and individual capitalist appropriation. The political representatives of Capital try to conceal this unresolvable contradiction between capital and labour that lies at the heart of the crisis. This crisis intensifies rivalries between imperialist powers who along with the international institutions-the IMF World Bank, WTO and others - are implementing their 'solutions' which essentially aim to intensify capitalist exploitation. Military and political 'solutions' are aggressively pursued globally by imperialism. NATO is promoting a new aggressive strategy. The political systems are becoming more reactionary curtailing democratic and civil liberties, trade union rights etc. This crisis is further deepening the structural corruption under capitalism which is being institutionalised. 


Reaffirms that the current crisis, probably the most acute and all encompassing since the Great Depression of 1929, has left no field untouched. Hundreds of thousands of factories are closed. Agrarian and rural economies are under distress intensifying misery and poverty of millions of cultivators and farm workers globally. Millions of people are left jobless and homeless. Unemployment is growing to unprecedented levels and is officially expected to breach the 50 million mark. Inequalities are increasing across the globe – the rich are getting richer and the poor, poorer. More than one billion people, that is one-sixth of humanity go hungry. Youth, women and immigrants are the first victims.

True to their class nature, the response of the respective capitalist governments to overcome this crisis fails to address these basic concerns. All the neo-liberal votaries and social democratic managers of capitalism, who had so far decried the State are now utilising the state for rescuing them, thus underlining a basic fact that the capitalist state has always defended and enlarged avenues for super profits. While the costs of the rescue packages and bailouts are at public expense, the benefits accrue to few. The bailout packages announced, are addressed first to rescue and then enlarge profit making avenues. Banks and financial corporates are now back in business and making profits. Growing unemployment and the depression of real wages is the burden for the working people as against the gift of huge bailout packages for the corporations.

Realises that this crisis is no aberration based on the greed of a few or lack of effective regulatory mechanisms. Profit maximisation, the raison d' etre of capitalism, has sharply widened economic inequalities both between countries and within countries in these decades of 'globalisation'. The natural consequence was a decline in the purchasing power of the vast majority of world population. The present crisis is thus a systemic crisis. This once again vindicates the Marxist analysis that the capitalist system is inherently crisis ridden. Capital, in its quest for profits, traverses boundaries and tramples upon anything and everything. In the process it intensifies exploitation of the working class and other strata of working people, imposing greater hardships. Capitalism in fact requires to maintain a reserve army of labour. The liberation from such capitalist barbarity can come only with the establishment of the real alternative, socialism. This requires the strengthening of anti-imperialist and anti-monopoly struggles. Our struggle for an alternative is thus a struggle against the capitalist system. Our struggle for an alternative is for a system where there is no exploitation of people by people and nation by nation. It is a struggle for another world, a just world, a socialist world.

Conscious of the fact that the dominant imperialist powers would seek their way out of the crisis by putting greater burdens on the working people, by seeking to penetrate and dominate the markets of countries with medium and lower level of capitalist development, commonly called developing countries.

This they are trying to achieve firstly, through the WTO Doha round of trade talks, which reflect the unequal economic agreements at the expense of the peoples of these countries particularly with reference to agricultural standards and Non Agricultural Market Access (NAMA).

Secondly, capitalism, which in the first place is responsible for the destruction of the environment, is trying to transfer the entire burden of safeguarding the planet from climate change, which in the first place they had caused, onto the shoulders of the working class and working people. Capitalism's proposal for restructuring in the name of climate change has little relation to the protection of the environment. Corporate inspired 'Green development' and 'green economy' are sought to be used to impose new state monopoly regulations which support profit maximisation and impose new hardships on the people. Profit maximisation under capitalism is thus not compatible with environmental protection and peoples' rights.

Notes that the only way out of this capitalist crisis for the working class and the common people is to intensify struggles against the rule of capital. It is the experience of the working class that when it mobilises its strength and resists these attempts it can be successful in protecting its rights. Industry sit-ins, factory occupations and such militant working class actions have forced the ruling classes to consider the demands of the workers. Latin America, the current theatre of popular mobilisations and working class actions, has shown how rights can be protected and won through struggle. In these times of crisis, once again the working class is seething with discontent. Many countries have witnessed and are witnessing huge working class actions, demanding amelioration. These working class actions need to be further strengthened by mobilising the vast mass of suffering people, not just for immediate alleviation but for a long-term solution to their plight.

Imperialism, buoyed by the demise of the Soviet Union and the periods of boom preceding this crisis had carried out unprecedented attacks on the rights of the working class and the people. This has been accompanied by frenzied anti-communist propaganda not only in individual countries but at global and inter-state forums (EU, OSCE, Council of Europe). However much they may try, the achievements and contributions of socialism in defining the contours of modern civilisation remain inerasable. Faced with these relentless attacks, our struggles thus far had been mainly, defensive struggles, struggles to protect the rights that we had won earlier. Today's conjuncture warrants the launch of an offensive, not just to protect our rights but win new rights. Not for winning few rights but for dismantling the entire capitalist edifice – for an onslaught on the rule of capital, for a political alternative – socialism.

Resolves that under these conditions, the communist and workers parties shall actively work to rally and mobilise the widest possible sections of the popular forces in the struggle for full time stable employment, exclusively public and free for all health, education and social welfare, against gender inequality and racism, and for the protection of the rights of all sections of the working people including the youth, women, migrant workers and those from ethnic and national minorities.


Calls upon the communist and workers parties to undertake this task in their respective countries and launch broad struggles for the rights of the people and against the capitalist system. Though the capitalist system is inherently crisis ridden, it does not collapse automatically. The absence of a communist-led counterattack, engenders the danger of rise of reactionary forces. The ruling classes launch an all out attack to prevent the growth of the communists and the workers' parties to protect their status quo. Social democracy continues to spread illusions about the real character of capitalism, advancing slogans such as 'humanisation of capitalism', 'regulation', 'global governance' etc. These in fact support the strategy of capital by denying class struggle and buttressing the pursuit of anti-popular policies. No amount of reform can eliminate exploitation under capitalism. Capitalism has to be overthrown. This requires the intensification of ideological and political working class led popular struggles. All sorts of theories like 'there is no alternative' to imperialist globalisation are propagated. Countering them, our response is 'socialism is the alternative'.

We, the communist and workers' parties coming from all parts of the globe and representing the interests of the working class and all other toiling sections of society (the vast majority of global population) underlining the irreplaceable role of the communist parties call upon the people to join us in strengthening the struggles to declare that socialism is the only real alternative for the future of humankind and that the future is ours.

November 22, 2009

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Honduran Resistance Warns of Escalating Violence as Coup Regime Decrees State of Emergency

IFCO/Pastors for Peace Calls on President Obama: Don't Support the Illegal Coup Regime in Honduras, Don't Recognize the Nov. 29th Elections

Waldina Mejia, spokesperson for the Honduran Resistance and

Manolo De Los Santos of Pastors for Peace are available for interviews in English and Spanish.

Under the glare of international condemnation, the illegal coup government and the military in Honduras have decreed a state of emergency as they move forward toward elections on Sunday, November 29th.

Resistance forces who are calling for the reinstatement of President Manuel Zelaya have continued street demonstrations for the past 148 days. They remain steadfast against any election without Zelaya’s reinstatement and are calling for the immediate end to violence and repression by the coup regime.

“Elections under these conditions would be an act of fraud against the people of Honduras,” said Dr. Luther Castillo, a young Garifuna (African and indigenous descendant) physician from the Atlantic Coast region of Honduras, who is secretary of communications for the National Resistance Front Against the Coup.

Castillo reports that a new wave of repression has been unleashed by the coup regime. “The military has attacked our Garifuna Community Hospital, and arrested many peaceful demonstrators.”

“These elections are illegal because they were called by an unconstitutional government. They were set up to legitimize the illegal coup against the constitutional government of Manuel Zelaya” said Waldina Mejia, a spokesperson for the Honduran Resistance, who is currently in the US.

The National Resistance Front Against the Coup is calling for the international community not to recognize the election and to support the restoration of their constitution and their duly elected government.

They are also calling for a constitutional assembly to respond to the letters from 600,000 marginalized Hondurans who want equal treatment under the law in their own country.

The US State Department has said that the US will recognize the results of the November 29th elections. The International Republican Institute (IRI) and the National Democratic Institute (NDI) (both conservative think tanks who were active in destabilizing the region in the 1980’s) are sending observers to the elections, indicating that they recognize them as legitimate and not the farce elections that they are.

"We support the people of Honduras and the Honduran resistance in protesting the continuing repression, the illegal coup and the fraudulent elections in Honduras. An election held at gunpoint cannot be free and fair,” said Manolo de Los Santos, spokesperson for IFCO/Pastors for Peace.

IFCO/PASTORS FOR PEACE
418 West 145th Street, 3-FL.
New York NY 10031
tel: 212.926.5757 - fax 212.926.5842 - e-mail ifco@igc.org

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news-arrest warrants for calgary fascists

It might be a "night of the long knives" redux for the Aryan Guard as a bomb attack supposedly targeted one of their own. A 17 year old youth was arrested when his bus made a stop in Portage la Praire Manitoba, his arrest was in connection with the attack in Calgary. Kyle Robert McKee a leader of the neo-nazi movement, is also being sought by the Police.

A posting on the neo-nazi stormfront Canada forum reported that the Aryan Guard officially disbanded.
The discussion thread blamed a rowdy lot of drunks for ruining the group and says that the "...bombing attack was launched against the former girlfriend of ... John Marleau - an associate of the Aryan Guard"

According to the Calgary Sun: "The 29-year-old woman living in the townhouse says she has nothing to do with the neo-Nazis, and was targeted because she spurned the advances of a senior Aryan Guard member, who is "best friends" with the accused. "He's stalking me," said the woman, who asked to remain anonymous.

Welcome news after the statement of the Central Executive Committee of the Communist Party of Canada on November 4th. read it here.

• Latest from the Calgary Herald

• Full report here

• Anti-Racist Canada site
  

trivia: do you know that the makers of doc martens boots have tried to sue white supremacists over the years? The claim is that fascists have hurt the reputation of the famous brand.

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a look back-crawford cartoon #1

The Red Haggis series of comic strips appeared in the Young Worker during the 1930s.

"Hoot Mon!" seems to be a catch phrase used often in the cartoon.

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Tackle the real issues of the English Defence League (EDL) & the British National Party (BNP)

The united demonstration in Barking against the candidacy of BNP leader Nick Griffin must not be the last example of unity in the struggle to prevent him becoming an MP.

But anti-fascists must also be vigilant about what kind of campaign they organise.

There have been a number of unfortunate examples in the past when demonstrators have come from outside to show the flag and have alienated communities by their activities, including abusing local people as racist without justification.

The first thing to be recognised by anti-racists from outside Barking is that local anti-fascist organisation already exists.

There has been consistent leafleting and other activities, designed to show the local electorate that, whatever the justifiable grievances over government action or, more accurately, inaction, a vote for a racist party is not the way forward.

Until recently, people in Barking could find jobs in Ford, the docks and many local factories, but those days are gone and the government has not done anywhere near enough to stimulate growth and provide proper jobs.

Tackling the lack of jobs in areas such as Barking is essential to minimise working-class alienation.

It is bizarre that much of the media, including the BBC, portrays the BNP leader as somehow representing what it calls the "white working class."

Like Oswald Mosley before him, Griffin comes from a wealthy land-owning family and was able to buy a farm in mid-Wales without ever having done a proper job in his life.

The idea that he shares any life experience with the working-class people of Barking is laughable.

However, his candidacy does indeed pose a challenge there, since the incumbent MP was also born with a silver spoon in her mouth, married into further wealth and slipped easily from the far-left of Labour's London municipal politics to the neoliberalism of new Labour in Parliament.

And her pronouncements on immigration have proved helpful to the BNP, which will use them during the election.

One of the greatest failings of the Labour government since 1997 has been to adopt the Tory policy on housing, encouraging an unsustainable private housing boom, handing over huge swathes of council accommodation to private landlords and refusing to finance upgrading of homes unless tenants vote for transfer to the private sector.

The net result has been negative equity and repossessions for many working people who could not meet their repayments.

At the same time, hundreds of thousands of families are stuck in never-ending queues for council accommodation because of stock transfers, tenants' right to buy and government refusal to fund a massive council housebuilding programme.

The blame for pressure on scarce housing resources in places such as Barking lies four square with the government not with immigrants to Britain.

Yet local MP Hodge said in 2007: "Most new migrant families are economic migrants who choose to come to live and work here. If you choose to come to Britain, should you presume the right to access social housing?"

This was a despicable attempt to scapegoat migrants rather than accept that inadequate council housing was the fault of her government.

Housing and jobs remain the key issues that are exploited by racists to set worker against worker and damage the class unity that is essential to not only see off a fascist carpetbagger but build progressive policy alternatives to new Labour's neoliberalism.

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Aminatou Haidar: Saharawi entering ninth day of hunger strike in Canary Islands

Contact:
James Tweedie [Journalist of the Canary Islands]
Cell: +34 685 570 578
Land-line: +34 922 646 193
tweedie.james@gmail.com

Aminatou Haidar: Saharawi entering ninth day of hunger strike in Canary Islands

(Above and below): Saharawi Aminatou Haidar, who is on hunger strike in Lanzarote, Canary Islands

Mari Carmen from the Asociacion Canaria De Solidaridad Con El Pueblo Saharaui in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria says that Aminatou has been on hunger strike since Sunday November 15, but is drinking water.

She said that Aminatou is 42 years old and has health problems stemming from her four-year 'disappearance' and torture by the Moroccan authorities.

Mari Carmen confirmed that Aminatou's passport was confiscated by the Moroccan authorities and that the Spanish authorities were holding her at Lanzarote airport.

This afternoon there was be a protest rally in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. There will be another protest rally outside the Moroccan consulate in Las Palmas on Thursday November 26.

The telephone of the solidarity campaign is: +34 928 240 884. (expect to be answered in Spanish).

James Tweedie [Journalist of the Canary Islands]
Cell: +34 685 570 578
Land-line: +34 922 646 193
tweedie.james@gmail.com

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Canadian imperialism's sick manifestations

No to Torture, No to War
Virtual March on Parliament Hill
Call your MP, November 24, 25 and 26, 2009

Election fraud. Torture. Increasing civilian casualties.
If ever there was a time to ask the Afghan people what they want for their future that time is now.

Afghan MP Malalai Joya, “the bravest woman in Afghanistan”, has been speaking to audiences across Canada, to launch her new book, A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice. Today we write to ask for your help in ensuring she speaks to your elected representatives about the future of Afghanistan.

All Canadian MPs and Senators have been invited to a Parliamentary Roundtable on Afghanistan with Malalai Joya, at 11:30 am, November 26, 2009 in Ottawa. You can make sure your MP hears what this courageous woman has to say about Canadian policy on Afghanistan.

Will your MP listen? Join the virtual march on Parliament Hill to make sure they do, by phoning and emailing your MP on November 24 and 25.

What you can say to your MP

• On November 26 will you be participating in the Parliamentary roundtable discussion with Afghan MP Malalai Joya?
• Unlike the corrupt warlords and druglords in the Afghan parliament Malalai Joya actually represents widespread sentiment in Afghanistan (she had the second highest number of votes in Farah province)
• She also represents the views of a majority of Canadians who want the troops to come home – not in 2011, but now. The majority of Afghans and Canadians want the troops to leave.
• In 2007, she was undemocratically suspended from parliament, and threatened with sexual violence by members of that parliament on the pretext that she had insulted other MPs, while the warlords in the Afghan Parliament continue to enjoy impunity.
• Malalai Joya has survived multiple assassination attempts for her views.
• Malalai Joya has important policy ideas for concrete steps for building an independent and genuinely democratic Afghanistan.
• Given the seriousness of the conflict in Afghanistan and its impacts on society here at home, Parliamentarians have an obligation to engage, learn, and understand.
• If you are serious about democracy in Afghanistan, call for her immediate reinstatement to the Afghan Parliament

For further information about the abuse of detainees please see the Canadian Peace Alliance statement at the end of this e-mail.

Tell your MP to RSVP to: Ottawa.peace.assembly@gmail.com or 613-859-6996.
A full list of contact information for MP's is available at http://bit.ly/1bjGA

What else can you do?

Donate your Facebook status. On November 24, 25, and 26, change your Facebook status to: "2011 is too late, it is better that you withdraw your troops now. Stop wasting your taxpayers' money and young lives killing to prop up drug lords and warlords." - Afghan MP Malalai Joya.

If you agree, please donate your status and join our virtual march on Ottawa. Contact your MP today and demand they meet with Malalai Joya while she is in Ottawa. Visit http://ottawapeace.blogspot.com for details.

The Parliamentary Roundtable on Afghanistan is hosted by the Canadian Peace Alliance and the Ottawa Peace Assembly
Canadian Peace Alliance: http://acp-cpa.ca
Ottawa Peace Assembly: http://ottawapeace.blogspot.com
Malalai Joya Defence Committee: http://www.MalalaiJoya.com

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End Torture
End the War

The testimony of Richard Colvin shows that the highest levels of the Conservative Government are complicit in war crimes. As many as 600 detainees, many of whom were just innocent bystanders, were handed over to Afghan law enforcement agencies by the Canadian forces. Torture by the Afghan police forces is known to be widespread.

Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay are challenging the credibility of Colvin, saying that he is listening to “Taliban propaganda” Yet it is the Harper government that totally lacks credibility on this issue. It is hard to believe that they didn't see multiple memos and reports from one of the top diplomats in Afghanistan. It would represent a radical departure from standard procedure for any government.

And even if the memos didn't circulate to the political masters in the Conservative party, there were countless reports from international agencies such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, School of Law of New York University, Center for Human Rights and Human Rights Watch which all said that torture of detainees was widespread. The Tories must have know this information or they showed a woeful lack of knowledge about their main foreign policy plank.

Once the issue of detainee torture hit the media in early 2007, the Harper Government worked to both discredit the reports and to allay fears with a new detainee transfer agreement. That agreement has not stopped the torture of innocent Afghan civilians.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission released a report in April 2009 that interviewed people who had been detained by Afghan police and army. The results were staggering. According to their findings, 98.5% of detainees said that were tortured. They have concluded that torture “is a commonplace practice in Afghanistan’s law enforcement institutions,” and add that “torture is also perpetrated by the parties to the armed conflict in Afghanistan, including the international security forces.”

According to Afghan MP Malalai Joya, “It is an open secret that this happens. The Canadian government is still supporting this.”

An inquiry into the torture of detainees is long overdue but given the obstructionist nature of the Conservatives, we are unlikely to get a full accounting of these scandalous revelations. Peter MacKay, who earlier this year called for a Parliamentary discussion on the future role of Canada in Afghanistan has decided to cancel that debate, likely because he fears any scrutiny on the torture issue. Complicity in war crimes is too serious an issue to be swept under the carpet. There must be a parliamentary debate on ending Canada's complicity in the crime of the Afghan war.

Torture is part and parcel of this occupation and the so-called 'war on terror.' Right now, the U.S. is expanded the prison at Bagram Airbase in what Afghans are calling a 'new Guantanamo.' Only by ending this occupation can we ensure an end to Canadian complicity in torture. We need to bring the troops home immediately.

Canadian Peace Alliance

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Web review-highlights, Nov./09

the web and blogosphere highlights column



STUDENTS

The blog CampusConservativeWatch is a good place to find the latest leads on the tactics of the Conservatives and others in the attempt to destroy the Canadian Federation of Students. At the moment. It links to another post on Canadian Dimension magazine, about the situation in Manitoba. It lists members of the campus conservatives showing that many on the list have repeatedly ran for president of the student union, like a battering ram on a door. That's a good illustration of a co-relation. Heres a quick link

If you look at the bottom of the CampusConservativeWatch post you'll find comments that are crude and whiny. You know: CFS is the twin of the NDP, That Progressive Students4CFS is a Marxist group (like that's a bad thing),that it is a Stalinist group, that it is sneaky, and in addition to the usual red baiting, charges that it is anti-Semitic. Get a load of that! Sounds like Tory talk right? Hardly constructive debate, it's a trap for the left to end up not talking about the issues of the student movement and becoming more isolated.

ART

Imagine being part of a group that builds a hidden underground complex with cinema, bar and restaurant. Well, imagine no more as this is reality in Paris, France. a group les UX has been a boon to the arts but a focus of the police there. They make world headlines in 2007 when they were brought to trial for repairing the Pantheon clock. Now that's Guerrilla art!
group's link 1 2


POLITICS IN OTTAWA

So do you know how you're MP votes? Maybe not because it's such a pain to find out. Well this website makes it just a little easier to see how you're Member of Parliament vote on those burning issues.

RADIO AND MUSIC


Ever read old comic books, and old issues of magazines like Popular Mechanics?
You might have come across ads for poems-wanted. Well there is an end product and they have a genre song-poems. And apparently, people collect these. Here is a website that features song-poems and what I find of most interest is how the industry works. Check out the section that titled "a Series of Deceptions". That's Capitalism.

what is this "song-poem"?

DJ SPOOKY discusses globalization.

DJ Spooky, that subliminal kid, released a new album and DVD entitled

the secret song. It takes elements that are far and wide ranging from Adam Smith to the October Revolution. The Wall Street Journal did a quick blurb about the album, focusing on quotes from The Wealth of Nations read in Mandarin which is featured on one track. The blurb in the paper sounded happy that American ideals had moved to China. I'm not too sure that wall street's take on this is Globalization, but more Cultural Imperialism. Are they one and the same or are they different creatures? Globalization can be more organic and democratic than that. But that debate is new and is still to be played out. The secret song is more than that, after all perhaps China has influenced the west in ways we have not yet realized?

Of course there are many other facets that the website talks about: Global financial meltdown, socialism in Russia, struggles in Iran, technology (example: the iPod).

It's not a political lecture in the traditional sense, it's music, it's art. And as art it does it's job well: to explore, explain, to make a statement, to make one think. Maybe globalization can be a people's movement after all?

that subliminal link including music samples and video.




CO-OP

and since this section deals with radio here's this month link: to CO-OP radio's website

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news over the past while, of interest to youth-long title I know.

• WINNIPEG- At the steps of the legislature, members of the University of Manitoba's Campus Conservatives tried to block Canadian Federation of Students members from marching up the steps during November 5th's Day of Action. Tried is the keyword. The counter protest was swamped by students in the CFS lead action.
  
  
• GOD'S RIVER, MANITOBA- September 16th. Students hold classes in a tent after the school building failed to meet the fire code. Teachers made the most of the situation however by adding such traditional teaching such as fishing, bannock making to the curriculum. The school has since been fixed, but the incident brings to attention the seriousness of the lack of proper funding in northern, and reservation schools. Not to mention government bureaucracy. Government building plans requiring paved parking lots in a fly in community is but one example of such red tape.
  

• WINNIPEG- Manitoba Justice held a forum in early October telling people in Winnipeg's North End to report sex workers to the authorities. Rational for this is that many sex workers in an area will be an indicator of a drug house nearby. Reports will therefore help shut down such drug houses. Residents at the forum however had other ideas. Some asked why the laws cannot be updated and a red light district set up. "At least they'd know what's happening, and it's not out in the open," said Marie, a resident who did not want her last name used. It was reported that some bail conditions for sex workers barred them from entering certain zones, including in some cases Sage House, a place for people who are trying to leave the sex trade.

• BRANDON, MANITOBA- Too Much Macho? In September police in Brandon, Manitoba laid charges against people involved in a bare knuckle fight club called "Brandon Beat Down" after a fighter was sent to hospital with a ruptured spleen. The group was modelled after the movie and book fight club. In the movie a line goes "the first rule of fight club is, you do not talk about fight club." However a video was posted to YouTube and police took note and the video was pulled. When youth self organise, they go all out it seems. Maybe it's time for funding more recreation programs for youth. First budget item: boxing gloves.

• WINNIPEG- In September, 29 year old Geraldine Beardy from Garden Hill First Nation was beaten into a coma for trying to shoplift a $1.49 can of meat from a store in Winnipeg. When confronted, she was told to leave the store. After this, she was bludgeoned with a bat. The store's owner has been charged with assault after the death of the victim. Vigilantism is a suspected motive in the attack. Protecting property rights has really gone overboard.

• WINNIPEG- City Council approved new garbage carts designed to automate trash collection, reducing the need for workers. After the so called "semi-privatization" of the water and waste department, these new bins are to have RFID chip technology to track bins and many predict, impose new user fees for waste collection. Good for the environment. Bad for the poor. Bad for clean streets.

• NEW DELHI, INDIA- In November, Authorities in New Delhi, India have released 25 child workers/slaves from a factory sweat shop. In a story that reads like Pinocchio and the puppet master, the children were enslaved after their parents were tricked into sending them to the city to attend school. The children, with ages between 8 and 14, were forced to make toys and were often beaten for poor work, given rations of two meals a day and forced to sleep in the factory.

• BRANDON, MANITOBA-Four Filipino workers in Brandon, Manitoba have been subjected to mistreatment while working at the local Wendy's restaurant. Imelda Campecino, Alan Acar, Glen Syping, and Mercedes Comia paid $3000 to a employment agency and $1700 each in airfare to go to Saskatchewan. The workers were told that the expenses to the agency and airfares would be reimbursed. After arriving in a restaurant in that province, they were told there was no work and sent to Brandon. ( The laws regarding foreign workers are more lax in Saskatchewan* ). The Brandon eatery happened to be owned by the same Trotter family that owned the Saskatchewan business. The four workers were docked $600 a month to live in a house owned by their boss, for a whopping $2400 a month. The going rate for a comparable house was $1200 plus utilities. They were threatened with being sent back to the Philippines regularly. At one point passports were briefly withheld according to a Brandon comrade's discussion with the workers. Alan Acar injured his wrist at work, and had to pay for the medical treatment himself. When he missed his shift due to his time off for medical treatment, he was fired. The other three workers refused to return to work after the fourth was canned. According to the CBC report, Barb Bakker, a Saskatchewan-based manager of the Trotters' business, threatened the four with eviction as well as cancellation of their work permits and even arrest. Communists, labour activists and local politicians soon heard of the situation. Protests were to have taken place during the Manitoba Federation of Labour's convention in Brandon but were postponed until the story broke on the CBC television news . An NDP MLA's office secured another job for the workers in Thompson, Manitoba to clear up any legal limbo due to the shadiness of the previous work situation. A protest did occur latter at the Brandon Wendy's and this protest marked a serious rift in the Brandon labour council executive and activist sections. Some on the council were for and some against the action. The Manitoba Department of Labour has taken action in the case, helping recover money for unauthorized deductions and unpaid wages, holiday, overtime, and vacation pay. The franchise owner, Jordan Trotter, has since reimbursed the airfare. Another success story for foreign worker and immigration programs. For bosses.
  

* After a case involving crazy high recruitment fees and Maple Leaf Workers in Brandon, Manitoba has outlawed such fees and toughened laws a little. It is thought that Saskatchewan is now used as a back door to circumvent such laws in Manitoba.

• SELKIRK, MANITOBA-The RCMP in Selkirk, Manitoba defended it's use of torture against a 16 year old girl in a cell in 2007 (the incident was reported in the People's Voice). The police say that the girl, who was drunk, shoved an officer and then, was tasered and fitted with a spit mask. The girl claims that four officers held her down while tasering her three times. Scars on her thigh tell the story. Taser use against kids is not all that rare. In Ontario, a 14 year old girl in Sioux Lookout afflicted with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome was tasered by police while in custody.
  

• SYDNEY, NOVA SCOTIA-September 29. Soldier Matthew Wilcox was sentenced to 2 years in prison for shooting another soldier in a tent in Afghanistan. The soldier has recurring nightmares and shows signs of post-tramatic stress disorder.

• BRANDON, MANITOBA-At Brandon University, the new "Afghanistan Mission Memorial Award" was announced, giving free tuition to children of slain soldiers. Very macabre. Of course there are strings. To be eligible to receive the award, a student must have graduated from high school and have started the first year of study before the age of 21 and is good only for a first degree. What? Having your parents die for your education isn't good enough? How many hoops are there to jump through? It looks like a public relations stunt since only a handful of students would qualify. Losing a parent is a high price to pay.
  

• PINE FALLS, MANITOBA- Town residents walked the picket line alongside locked out workers. Business owners said that the lock out at the Tembec paper mill was hurting small businesses. The lock out started on August 31. Tembec Inc. wants a 35 per cent cut in wages and benefits. The lock out drags on well into November and still continues. 70 workers and their families have left the town in search of work. A food bank, the USW/COPE Family Resource Centre has been set up for the workers. Bannock and soup from the nearby First Nation was sent. A worker explains a common feeling about the tough times during the lockout: "Personally I find it embarrassing, disappointing and frustrating. I've been a working man since I was 17 years old. Pride is a big thing. I can't believe I need charity." Funny that everyone is giving this Christmas except the Tembec mill owners. Want to be more generous than millionaires? donate to the resource centre or help out. Contact Bouvier at 367-2323 or Bruneau at 367-8989, or e-mail usw31375 (AT) mts.net. It should be noted that Tembec's pine falls mill had previously shut down its de-inking plant citing the low cost of pulp wood making it more profitable to use logs over recycled paper.
  

• OTTAWA- Protesters took democracy into their own hands during the Oct.26th question period in the House of Commons and were arrested and removed with force because of it. The protest was about climate change and government's inaction. Six protesters were arrested. 120 more were kicked out of the house. Canada.com mentioned: "Veteran parliamentarians said they could not recall a protest in the House of Commons that had ever involved so many people or which seemed as well-orchestrated." If you care about public affairs they arrest you. But if you are apathetic, keep to yourself, and don't question, well you are the model citizen.
  

• UNITED KINGDOM-The war over copyright continued in the United Kingdom as Microsoft zapped the Xbox Live service to owners of modified Xbox 360 consoles. The consoles are able to play pirated games. While the modified consoles still work as stand alone units, they are unable to connect to Xbox Live. Only unmodified units still have that capability. So far.

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Disinfo about Cuba

If the National Post was a true champion of 'market forces' it would do us all a favour & go out of busisness, for the paper has never made a profit and is the subsidized spout of bile of the ruling class in Canada.- RY eds


Letter to the National Post Editor on "Don't go to Cuba"

There is a lot of disinformation about Cuba. But why does the National Post seek to get a viewpoint from a US-based institution, Human Rights Watch (HRW)? This organization presents itself, according to its web site, as "one of the world's leading independent organizations dedicated to defending and protecting human rights, a nonprofit, nongovernmental human rights organization...supported by contributions from private individuals and foundations worldwide. It accepts no government funds, directly or indirectly."

According to its own web site, it garnered total revenues for 2008 of over $41 million dollars.

Of the 100,000 $ plus donors, 22 are anonymous, but of those who are not so, the list includes companies such as Adobe. There is a long list of foundations, most based in the US. This includes the NY-based Ford Foundation. This foundation, stemming from the Ford Motor Company family, boasts $15.6 billion distributed worldwide for 2008.

One cannot say that HRW is really distancing itself from governments if we notice the name of Arturo Valenzuela as a member of the advisory Committee in the HRW Americas Section. He was a strong Bill and Hillary Clinton Democratic Party supporter and major fund-raiser; once Hillary lost the presidential bid, Valenzuela went on to finance and support the Obama campaign. He has since been nominated by President Obama as the US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs. One has to keep in mind that the Obama Administration maintains the blockade against Cuba and which includes what the National Post is suggesting, but applied to US citizens: the banning of non-Cuban American tourists from the US to visit the island. The reason for this policy is the very raison d'être of the blockade being pursued for 50 years, that is, to starve the Cuban people into submission.

The Washington-protected anti-Castro terrorists in Florida even organized the 1997 bombings in Havana tourist installations with the admitted goal of disturbing the tourist industry on the island. In one of these bombings, a Canadian/Italian tourist Fabio Di Celmo was assassinated. By the away, Luis Posada Carriles (who is according to his own admission responsible for these activities), can be seen today walking the Miami streets, a free man. What does the National Post or HRW have to say about this? Where is the documented proof furnished by HRW that there are five political prisoners, internationally known as the Cuban Five, who are in US jails since 1998 on trumped-up charges? The "crime" of the Cuban Five: to try and stop these terrorists activities against their own people which have resulted in thousands of deaths and incalculable material damage. Where is the outcry about human right violations in the US?

Instead of believing the foreign-based HRW, why not come a bit closer to home and take into account the direct experience and study of so many Canadians, going "far beyond the comfortable resorts", as you say? I am one of the many.

Fact Number One: no one in Cuba is arrested, tried and convicted for having different views. Cuba is a country exhibiting amazing diversity of views. The National Post and HRW normally refer to a small group of about 75 individuals who were arrested and later tried in the spring of 2003, of which about 50 are still imprisoned. There is plenty of documented evidence, in English, available to the National Post and HRW showing that all of these individuals were financially and organizationally tied to the US Interests Section in Havana (the equivalent of an Embassy when there is no diplomatic relations). These individuals were acting in support of the US blockade policy and the disruption of the constitutional order in Cuba. Canada, like most other countries including the USA, also has laws such as the one existing in Cuba, a law which prohibits its citizens from collaborating with a foreign power against the interests of their own country. It is called treason. There is even a law in Canada which prohibits companies and individuals in Canada with complying with the US Helms-Burton extra-territorial law that seeks to hinder non-US companies in its commercial dealings with Cuba.

Fact Number Two: As far as the accusation that unemployment is considered to be ant-social, implying that people can be imprisoned for this, this is also false. There is indeed a publicly acknowledged problem in Cuba: a very small section of the population does not want to work. However, the Cubans deal with this through their usual method of persuasion and education. If a member of the National Post Editorial Board would ever wander off the "comfortable resorts", one could not help but not notice bill boards. They appeal to those people who do not want, to work. Those who do not work still have all their basic material, social and cultural needs satisfied-quite an accomplishment for a blockaded Third World country-. The government appeals to them to do their share for the society which offers so many benefits to all. The approach is so patient that I at times find it frustrating, knowing full well what the Cubans have gone through over so many decades to arrive where they are now. But no one is punished for not working. This problem of not working and the possible solutions are the subject of so much public and lively debate in the Cuban media and amongst the population in general.

Fact Number Three: "Dangerousness" is not a "legal catch-all" as the National Posts asserts without any facts. "Dangerousness" is applied only to those who are committing illicit economic and social activities-but even then persuasion and education are the guidelines-. However, Cuba remains one of the most peaceful, crime-free places in South and Central America and the Caribbean. One can even compare this situation favourably to many major Canadian cities and surely to American ones whose inner poor sections have in many occasions deteriorated into a law-of-the-jungle situation.

If Cuba really dealt with vagrancy and dangerousness in a heavy-handed manner, than the situation in Cuba would also exhibit serious social tensions, which in general, it does not.

Cuba is in a no-win situation with the National Post and HRW. The Cuban government openly deals with problems of vagrancy and economic problems. The National Post and HRW jump on this; however, if the Cuban government hid this from its own people and the world, than the Cubans would be accused of hiding the truth.

The National Post Editorial Board "Don't' go to Cuba" is so biased, unfounded and such as provocation against a sovereign nation with which Canada has diplomatic relations, that the Editorial Board should withdraw it; instead it should print all the letters that it is now getting from readers. Many of them are surely contesting the allegations against Cuba and the Editorial's appeal to Canadians so that we follow in the footsteps of Washington and thus do damage to the Cuban economy of which the tourist industry is one of the most important sectors. As far as the people, academics, business people, open-minded members of Parliament, and all sections of society, we will continue to visit Cuba as much as we want. It is quite ironic (and a bit pitiful) that the National Post, at a time when it is asking for a self-imposed ban for Canadians to visit Cuba, the majority of American people, a respectable number of members of Congress, and many mainstream media are currently pressuring the Obama Administration to allow US tourism to Cuba!!

Arnold August
Author, journalist, lecturer
Montreal

November 20, 2009.

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