To the masked G20 protestors

Setting cars on fire so that nasty smoke billows out into the air like the capitalists make, the cars possibly blowing up/shooting off glass hurting people and other animals, throwing things at police, who are human beings, throwing things at horses (Gleneagles and other summits/don't know if happened in TO), trying to hit police with protest banner sticks, etc., etc. is not the "change" I want to see in the world, and, as an anarchist, I, too, am for the replacement of capitalism. Imagine the general populace trying to filter through all this thanks to the police and the corporate media. If we don't do what we do with love in our hearts, we are tools of the status quo, pawns showing up to play our parts at the summit theatre, "justifying" the very repression we oppose. Take the masks off. Go to jail for what you believe. Give good interviews so the people know why you did what you did. With love in your heart.

The Seven Sins of Greenwashing

This week I have swine flu, West Nile, SARS and a raging disgust for the panic-mongering elite all rolled into one

It's "woman," fascists

What's with this new corporate media preference for the word "female" to replace woman/women? (AP/Reuters/UPI/CanWest ad nauseum headlines reading, for example, "Iran hangs female" or "Female soldier killed in Afghanistan.")

I wonder if it comes from cop jargon: a [race] female or [race] male was shot.... Nothing like objectifying us even further/equating us with members of some subordinate species. Oh, yeah, that's right, to the rulers and their apologists we are.

Obamanausea really sweeping over me

A wave of sad and sickening mass dementia is leading these numbed and desperate people, who can't feel the power to change the world already lying in their own hands, to worship corporate-media-created saviours. They are Jim Jones' folks heading for the Koolaid.

Poor deeply troubled elite (and their help)

By Deb Riechmann, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Citing danger to American economy, the Bush administration came to the rescue of the U.S. auto industry Friday, offering US$17.4 billion in emergency loans in exchange for concessions from the deeply troubled carmakers and their workers.

"Carmakers" don't MAKE cars. They exploit the labour of those who DO. THEIR workers = enough said. BOSSES don't make "concessions": WORKERS DO, in great part because the class collaborationist union bureaucracy sells workers out daily, always identifying with the poor bosses. Way past time for more sit-down strikes and ignoring house slave "representatives."

white poppies "provoke"

white poppies for peace November 11, 2008

The Ottawa White Poppy Collective will lay a wreath decorated with white poppies at the War Memorial on November 11 at 12:30 P.M.

We have chosen not to lay our wreath during the public wreath laying time near the end of the official ceremony to avoid any appearance of competition with or distraction from that ceremony. We will be conducting our own small ceremony as an alternative to the socially-sanctioned one. Meeting each year for a ceremony in which the trappings and nostalgia of war are clearly prominent will not end war. We remember all those who died and are dying in war, soldier and civilian alike, by working to prevent war. The white poppy is a symbol, a pledge that war must not happen again. It is also a challenge to the worn-out belief in violence as a means of conflict resolution.

History of the white poppy: in 1933 the Co-operative Women's Guild produced the first white poppies to be worn on Armistice Day (later called Remembrance Day). The idea for a white poppy arose from the concerns of the wives, mothers, sisters and lovers of the men who had died and been injured in World War One. Increasingly aware of the likelihood of another war, they chose this symbol “as a pledge to Peace that war must not happen again.” See the Peace Pledge Union website: http://www.ppu.org.uk/whitepoppy/index.html.

For more info about the Ottawa event, contact Brenda Vellino at 613 730-0446/brenda_carr@carleton.ca or Ian Harvey at 613 868-7630/mmediamaniac@yahoo.com.

"A vote for either John McCain or Barack Obama is—at best—an act of criminal negligence" (Mickey Z.)

Glad to see I'm not the only one disappointed in Noam's and Howard's take on electoral politics. I still don't get why they are taking this position, these men who used to say that voting is only bread and circuses, spectacle, distraction. It's so much worse than that.

voting is a a sham, a spectacle, a circus to distract the people

If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal

Emma Goldman

Ditto on the "gas shortage"

But if you watch TV or read newspapers intended for the masses (every paper/publication not dedicated to the business classes), every day you will hear the alarms meant to scare us into submission and fatalism.

THERE IS NO FOOD SHORTAGE

Funny how publications written for the elite tell the truth a lot of the time because their readers are the people running the world while the masses get all the propaganda to keep us confused and powerless.

Rescuing Mothers' Day

Mother's Day was originally started after the Civil War, as a protest to
the carnage of that war, by women who had lost their sons. Here is the
original Mother's Day Proclamation from 1870, followed by a bit of
history (or should I say "herstory"):

......................................

Mothers' Day Proclamation: Julia Ward Howe, Boston, 1870

Arise, then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether
our baptism be that of water or of fears!

Say firmly: "We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant
agencies. Our husbands shall not come to us, reeking with carnage, for
caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.

We women of one country will be too tender of those of another country
to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs. From the bosom of the
devastated earth a voice goes up with our own.
It says "Disarm, Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of
justice."

Blood does not wipe our dishonor nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plow and the anvil at the summons of war,
let women now leave all that may be left of home for a great and earnest
day of counsel. Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate
the dead.

Let them then solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means
whereby the great human family can live in peace, each bearing after
their own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar, but of God.

In the name of womanhood and of humanity, I earnestly ask that a general
congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed and held
at some place deemed most convenient and at the earliest period
consistent with its objects, to promote the alliance of the different
nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the
great and general interests of peace.

Julia Ward Howe
Boston
1870

*************************************************************
Mother's Day for Peace - by Ruth Rosen.
Honor Mother with Rallies in the Streets.The holiday began in activism;
it needs rescuing from commercialism and platitudes.

Every year, people snipe at the shallow commercialism of Mother's Day.
But to ignore your mother on this holy holiday is unthinkable. And if
you are a mother, you'll be devastated if your ingrates fail to honor
you at least one day of the year.

Mother's Day wasn't always like this. The women who conceived Mother's
Day would be bewildered by the ubiquitous ads that hound us to find that
"perfect gift for Mom." They would expect women to be marching in the
streets, not eating with their families in restaurants. This is because
Mother's Day began as a holiday that commemorated women's public
activism, not as a celebration of a mother's devotion to her family.

The story begins in 1858 when a community activist named Anna Reeves
Jarvis organized Mothers' Works Days in West Virginia. Her immediate
goal was to improve sanitation in Appalachian communities. During the
Civil War, Jarvis pried women from their families to care for the
wounded on both sides.
Afterward she convened meetings to persuale men to lay aside their
hostilities.

In 1872, Juulia Ward Howe, author of the "Battle Hymn of the Republic",
proposed an annual Mother's Day for Peace. Committed to abolishing war,
Howe
wrote: "Our husbands shall not come to us reeking with carnage... Our
sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to
teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We women of one country will
be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be
trained to injure theirs".

For the next 30 years, Americans celebrated Mothers' Day for Peace on
June 2.

Many middle-class women in the 19th century believed that they bore a
special responsibility as actual or potential mothers to care for the
casualties of society and to turn America into a more civilized nation.
They played a leading role in the abolitionist movement to end slavery.
In the following decades, they launched successful campaigns against
lynching and consumer fraud and battled for improved working conditions
for women and protection for children, public health services and social
welfare assistance to the poor.
To the activists, the connection between motherhood and the fight for
social and economic justice seemed self-evident.

In 1913, Congress declared the second Sunday in May to be Mother's Day.
By then, the growing consumer culture had successfully redefined women
as consumers for their families. Politicians and businessmen eagerly
enbraced the idea of celebrating the private sacrifices made by
individual mothers. As the Florists' Review, the industry's trade
jounal, bluntly put it, "This was a holiday that could be exploited."

The new advertising industry quickly taught Americans how to honor their
mothers - by buying flowers. Outraged by florists who were seling
carnations for the exorbitant price of $1 apeice, Anna Jarvis' duaghter
undertook a campaging against those who "would undermine Mother's Day
with their greed."
But she fought a losing battle. Within a few years, the Florists'
Review triumphantly announced that it was "Miss Jarvis who was
completely squelched."

Since then, Mother's Day has ballooned into a billion-dollar industry.

Americans may revere the idea of motherhood and love their own mothers,
but not all mothers. Poor, unemployed rmothers may enjoy flowers, but
they also need child care, job training, health care, a higher minimum
wage and paid parental leave. Working mothers may enjoy breakfast in
bed, but they also need the kind of governmental assistance provided by
every other industrialized society.

With a little imagination, we could restore Mother's Day as a holiday
that celebrates women's political engagement in society. During the
1980's, some peace groups gathered at nuclear test sites on Mother's Day
to protest the arms race. Today, our greatest threat is not from
missilies but from our indifference toward human welfare and the health
of our planet. Imagine, if you can, an annual Million Mother March in
the nation's capital. Imagine a Mother's Day filled with voices
demanding social and economic justice and a sustainable future, rather
than speeches studded with syrupy platitudes.

Some will think it insulting to alter our current way of celebrating
Mother's Day. But public activism does not preclude private expressions
of love and gratitude. (Nor does it prevent people from expressing their
appreciation all year round.)

Nineteenth century women dared to dream of a day that honored women's
civil activism. We can do no less. We should honor their vision with
civic activism.

Ruth Rosen is a professor of history at UC Davis.

That's what I'm talkin' about!

Bolivian President Evo Morales' 10 commandments to save the planet, life and humanity

1-Acabar con el sistema capitalista

1-Stopping the capitalist system

2-Renunciar a las guerras

2-Renouncing wars

3-Un mundo sin imperialismo ni colonialismo

3-A world without imperialism or colonialism

4-Derecho al agua

4-Right to water

5-Desarrollo de energías limpias

5-Development of clean energies

6-Respeto a la madre tierra

6-Respect for Mother Earth

7-Servicios básicos como derechos humanos

7-Basic services as human rights

8-Combatir las desigualdades

8-Fighting inequalities

9-Promover la diversidad de culturas y economías

9-Promoting diversity of cultures and economies

10-Vivir bien, no vivir mejor a costa del otro

10-Living well, not living better at the expense of others

Violence is not necessary when, united as a class, all that workers need to do is fold their arms to gain the world.

Being the change we want to see in the world

You don't see the ridiculous irony of your video (and your tactics?) against CANSEC? You say out of one side of your mouths that you are against their bombs and their wars while simultaneously saying you want to make war on them and throwing your version of a bomb at them! How are you any different? Because your bombs are smaller and cheaper? Because you don't have the power of the corporate state? Why would any person for peace, love and solidarity look forward to a world in which the new bosses are the same as the old ones? BTW, I'm an anarchist, too, and some of the Black Bloc is becoming its own corporate media caricature. Talk about stepping right into the cops'/propagandists' trap and alienating yourselves from working people.

Who needs to be educated??

Oppression anywhere, resistance everywhere!

Vandals deface peacekeeping monument
Saturday, April 05, 2008

OTTAWA - The curator of Ottawa's peacekeeping monument, defaced with anti-war graffiti this week, says the vandals chose altogether the wrong target.

Sometime Thursday or Friday, the eastern stone wall of the monument facing Sussex Drive was spraypainted with messages apparently [sic] objecting to Canada's involvement in Afghanistan. As of yesterday, the graffiti on the wall still read "Afghan civilians dead," "oppression anywhere resistance everywhere[,]" and included an anarchy symbol.

The monument, however, predates Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan.

"It's a monument to the very act of carrying out Canada's foreign policy by the military[,] and going wherever we're sent to hopefully convince the warring factions to stop fighting and start talking," curator John Gardam said.

"If only these people could be educated as to what the monument really means, then maybe they would show a little more respect."

Industrial war on "odour" and germs

Febreze is everywhere on TV leading the charge against the nasty smell of fish, for example, the man cooking the fish while covering his nose, as if a person would cook and eat something that so disgusted him! It is unconscionable for us to have breaths even hinting of such noxious scents as garlic and onions (racism is at the root of that prejudice, I'm sure) and coffee, one gum commercial showing a "friend" and a co-worker telling the offending party in an utterly scornful and repulsed way that he needs a particular piece of chemical gum to "freshen" his offensive breath the second he speaks from a foot away. And germs, so scary and ubiquitous! There is the Lysol ad with the colourful swarming representations of germs all over the phone before the kid picks it up. We need antiseptic wipes just to take the bus or go grocery shopping. Febreze again must be sprayed and even huffed in the air by the crazily Febreze-dedicated mom. Odours stay locked in soft surfaces, duh, so we hafta spray Febreze all over our furniture, carpets and curtains to magically "remove" those noxious stenches because, of course, the petrochemical industry cares about our environment. We must trust them when they tell us that germs and odours are to be feared and that we need their products. We hafta have disposal toilet brushes and dusters with Febreze, too. Febreze is taking over! And that is normal while worrying about environmental pollution and cancer is only for tree-hugging fruitcakes.