Marginal Notes

"Classquakes" and Not So "Natural" Disasters

Watching the news coverage of the current situation in Haiti is overwhelming. I feel very helpless, as I'm sure many do, and yet I take the seemingly insufficient step of donating online. When I consider the historical and current oppression of this region, I shut off emotionally because I know I am implicated in the tragedy...The only place to begin is with the seemingly insufficient steps of further educating myself and speaking out in the spirit of solidarity. So, I begin...

In his article Haiti, "Classquakes," and American Empire, Paul Stree writes that geographer Kenneth Hewitt coined the phrase "classquake" to describe 20th century earthquakes' differentiated pattern of destruction which fell mainly on slums and poor rural villages.

I have selected some excerpts on the article, but encourage you to read it in its entirety.

The earthquake catastrophe in Haiti is being portrayed on the national and local evening news as a natural disaster that has elicited a virtuous humanitarian response from the inherently noble and benevolent United States.

It’s about bad geologic (and cosmic, as in “acts of God”) forces versus good Uncle Sam, that fine democratic friend of the poor and downtrodden around the world.

“This is an opportunity,” the editors of The New York Times arrogantly proclaim today, “for President Obama to demonstrate how the United States shoulders its responsibilities and mobilizes other countries to do their part” (NYT, January 14, 2010, A28).

But Haiti’s agony and the role of the U.S. is much more complicated than the childish morality play being broadcast on the Telescreens.
 
Earthquakes are natural developments, but vulnerability to them is richly anthropogenic (“man made”) and is not spread evenly across the fractured and intersecting global landscapes of race, class, and empire. As Mike Davis pointed out in his 2006 book Planet of Slums, a chilling expose of the atrocious living (and dying) conditions that US.-led neoliberal capitalism has imposed on the ever more mega-urbanized poor of the global South: ”Even more than landslides and floods, earthquakes make precise audits of the urban housing crisis…seismic destruction usually maps with uncanny accuracy to poor-quality brick, mud, or concrete residential housing...Seismic hazard is the fine print in the devil’s bargain of informal housing…”

The “relaxation” of regulations on housing planning and construction combines with the concentration of much of the South’s urban population “on or near active tectonic plate margins” to put millions in peril.

“Seismic risk is so unevenly distributed in most cities,” Davis learned, that one leading “hazard geographer” (Kenneth Hewitt) coined the phrase “classquake” to describe 20th century earthquakes’ “biased pattern of destruction,” which fell mainly on “slums, tenement districts, [and] poor rural villages.”

Davis’ (and Hewitt’s) analysis clearly applies to the current Haitian tragedy, vastly magnified by the desperately impoverished and informal, unregulated housing conditions of masses of marginalized people in and around the sprawling slums of Port au Prince.  In that city’s most notorious slum, Cite-Soliel, David noted, population densities are “comparable to cattle feedlots” crowding more residents per acre into low-rise housing than there were in famous congested tenement districts such as the Lower East Side in the 1900s or in contemporary highrise cores such as central Tokyo and Manhattan.” [1]

...

The hyper-concentration of poor Haitians in seismically hyper-vulnerable subs-standard housing in and around Port au-Prince, it is worth noting, is a direct outcome of U.S. trade policies that undermined Haitian small farmers, sending rural residents into and around the capital city.

A reformist priest named Jan Baptiste Aristide threatened Washington’s vicious neoliberal regime when he won Haiti’s first free election in 1990. Aristide came to office with strong support from the poor majority. His hostility to U.S.-imposed misery led Washington to move to undermine his regime from the outset. Aristide was removed in a U.S.-supported coup in 1991 but returned amidst popular upheaval in 1994. The Clinton White House initially backed the coup regime even more strongly than did George Bush I. Thanks to its rhetoric about “democracy” at home and abroad, the militantly corporate-neoliberal NAFTA-promoting Clinton administration felt compelled to pretend that they backed Aristide’s return to power in 1994.  The Clinton Pentagon and State Department delayed that return for two years and made it clear that Aristide’s restoration to nominal power depended upon him promising not to help the poor by offering any further challenges to Washington’s “free market” economics.  “By 1994,” Chomsky explained last year, “Clinton decided that the population was sufficiently intimidated, and he sent US forces to restore the elected president – that’s now called a humanitarian intervention – but on very strict conditions, namely that the president had to accept a very harsh neoliberal regime, in particular, no protection for the economy.” [4]
       
In February 2004, the U.S. and France – Haiti’s traditional sadistic masters – joined hands (along with Canada) across their supposed great cultural divide to support another military coup.  This U.S.-directed putsch exported Aristide to Central Africa.

...

Under the Woodrow Wilson-fan Barack Obama, as under George Bush II, Washington has banned Aristide from revisiting region.  Obama sided with the corrupt Haitian elite by refusing to act against the shutting out of Aristide’s popular party (Family Lavalas) from Haitian elections in the spring of 2009. [6]

Washington has responded to the heavily racial-ized imperial “classquake” with Pentagon military “assessments” while China, Venezuela, and Cuba have acted promptly with direct humanitarian assistance and human solidarity.  Look for the imperial masters to seek “disaster capitalist” (Naomi Klein) opportunities in the terrible tragedy in Haiti, which has been suffering the shocks and aftershocks of world capitalist empire since the end of the 15th century.

Links:

Recommended organizations for 'on the ground' donations from Canada Haiti Action Network

Haiti, "Classquakes," and American Empire by Paul Street, via ZNet

Our Role in Haiti's Plight by Peter Hallward, The Guardian

Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert by Naomi Klein, via ZNet

O Canada...Our Home and Imperialist Land

As many of you know, the Canadian national anthem actually begins:

O Canada!
Our home and native land.

Seriously, is that an acknowledgment that this land was stolen from indigenous groups?
Growing up, I took it to mean our land of origin or natural land...What did you think?

Anyway, studying migration over the past few years in world that cannot be described as anything other than a system of global apartheid, I have become leery of nationalism and associated holidays.

I've been slowly making my way through Yves Engler's recent book 'The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy' which is described as follows:

This book could change how you see Canada.  Most of us believe this country’s primary role has been as peacekeeper or honest broker in difficult-to-solve disputes. But, contrary to the mythology of Canada as a force for good in the world, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy sheds light on many dark corners: from troops that joined the British in Sudan in 1885 to gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean and aspirations of Central American empire, to participation in the U.N. mission that killed Patrice Lumumba in the Congo, to important support for apartheid South Africa, Zionism and the U.S. war in Vietnam, to helping overthrow Salvador Allende and supporting the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile, to Haiti, Iraq and Afghanistan today.

Anyway, I have to work today so I don't have time to develop this entry as much as I would like to...but I will leave you with a recent article by Todd Gordon which analyzes Canada's official response to recent events in Iran, Honduras and Peru in an article titled 'Acceptable Versus Unacceptable Repression: A Lesson in Canadian Imperial Hypocrisy.'

June has been a difficult month for progressive activists around the world. Mass protests in Iran and indigenous blockades in Peru were met with heavy repression, while a left-of-centre President in Honduras was ousted in a military coup. What these tragic events do offer us, however, is a very clear perspective on Canadian foreign policy.

Consider the Canadian response to the events in Iran. Canada issued three press releases on the events in Iran, all by Foreign Affairs Minister, Lawrence Cannon. The first was on June 15 after the repression against the protests challenging electoral fraud began. It called for an investigation into the allegations of fraud by the Iranian government and condemned the government’s move to ban protests.

On June 21, after perhaps the worst day of violent repression of protesters in Iran up to that point by government security forces and the government-aligned militia, in which more than a dozen people were killed, Canada issued a sharp condemnation of the Iranian government. In the press release, Cannon stated that:

“Canada condemns the decision of the Iranian authorities to use violence and force against their own people … The Iranian people deserve to have their voices heard, without fear of intimidation and violence. Canada condemns the use of force to stifle dissent, and we continue to call on Iran to fully respect all of its human rights obligations, both in law and in practice, and to conduct a thorough and transparent investigation into the fraud allegations.”

A third statement was released on June 25 calling for the release of political prisoners and personally criticizing the Iranian official put in charge of the investigation of the detained reformist leaders.

But what did the Canadian government say following the first rumblings of a potential military coup against the moderately left wing Honduran president, Jose Manuel Zelaya, on June 25? Nothing. As of the evening of June 29, it had issued one rather tepid press release late on June 28, more than 12 hours after the coup became known outside Honduras.

And what did the Canadian government say when over 50 indigenous activists in Peru were gunned down on June 5th by military and police forces for protesting their government’s free trade policies? Nothing. The massacre of indigenous protesters in Peru, many of whose bodies were then dumped by police in a river, didn’t rate any mention at all.

So why does Iran rate a sharp rebuke, but a military coup in Honduras and brutal repression in Peru inspire cautious condemnation and silence respectively?

Canadian Economic Interests versus Human Rights

For starters, the Iranian government is a part of the “Axis of Evil” in the war on “terror,” of which Canada is an eager member. Thus Iran is a fair target for criticism when it moves to crush dissent, as it should be. (Though we should be mindful that the interests of Canada, like those of the U.S. or U.K., aren’t necessarily a democratic Iran but a compliant one; one need only look at the history of foreign intervention in Iran in the 20th century to be skeptical about the intentions of imperial powers.)

But the situation is different when it comes to Honduras and Peru.

In Honduras, Canadian corporations – largely, though not exclusively, in mining – are major economic players. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, from 1996-2006 Canada was in fact the second largest foreign investor in the Central American country. Mining companies like Goldcorp, Yamana and Breakwater Resources benefit from a mining law passed in the wake of Hurricane Mitch in 1998 that strongly favours foreign corporations over the rights of local communities. The mining law and Canadian investments, particularly Goldcorp’s San Martin open pit mine, have been the target of large demonstrations and blockades over the last few years by indigenous peoples and small farmers whose lands and livelihoods are threatened by the expansion of – well documented – ecologically-disastrous Canadian mining.

In active support of Canadian capital (and foreign capital more generally) in Honduras, the Canadian government has supported, through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), structural adjustment (now described as Poverty Reduction Strategies). Structural adjustment is aimed at the neoliberalization of the Honduran government and its public policies. Among other things, CIDA committed $1.5-million from 2004 to 2010 toward a program at the Universidad Nacional de Honduras to assist in the development and implementation of the country’s Poverty Reduction Strategy process. The Canadian government has also been pursuing a free trade agreement (FTA) with Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador.

It should come as no surprise, then, that social movements opposed to mining investment and reactionary mining laws are a threat to well-established Canadian interests in Honduras. President Zelaya was also not on the best of terms with the mining industry. In his inaugural address in January 2006 he declared a moratorium on the granting of new mining concessions. While by no means stopping existing exploration or halting operational mines, this move was nevertheless seen as a threat to the security and stability of mining in the country, and industry officials responded with lobbying and advertising campaigns to push their interests.

Zelaya’s tenure also saw the adoption of a minimum wage increase, measures to nationalize energy generation plants and the telephone system, and Honduras’s entrance into the Venezuelan-initiated Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, a political and economic formation that seeks to counter imperialist influence in the region.

Against this backdrop Zelaya, supported by trade unions and social movements, called a vote for June 28 to determine if a majority of Hondurans wanted to have a referendum during the upcoming elections in November on convening a constitutional assembly. If called, the constitutional assembly would seek to replace the current constitution, adopted in 1982 by a brutal American-backed military regime, with one more inclusive and democratic. Such a constitution could very well further jeopardize mining interests in the country.

But the vote – to decide whether or not to have a referendum – was strongly opposed by the anti-Zelaya-dominated Congress and Supreme Court and by the military, all of whom claimed it’s illegal. Their efforts to block the vote in the days leading up to it brought thousands of Hondurans onto the streets, as the first concerns about a potential coup were raised. But early in the morning of June 28 the military made its move, violently detaining Zelaya at his house and then deporting him to Costa Rica. Anti-Zelaya President of the Congress (and fellow member of Zelaya’s Liberal Party), Roberto Michelletti, read a letter of resignation later in the day allegedly signed by the ousted President, but Zelaya denies signing the letter. The military occupied the country, establishing checkpoints at the entrance of towns, while the national telephone system, cell phone service and the energy grid has been shut down in a number of areas.

The threat to the interests of the Canadian government and corporations has subsided, at least for the time being.

And so the Canadian government is much cagier around the situation in Honduras than it is with respect to Iran. The Organization of American States (OAS) did pass a resolution on Friday June, 26, after the first rumblings of a coup were heard, which called for the maintenance of democracy and the rule of law. Yet, at the same time, in the special session of the OAS Permanent Council on the situation in Honduras held that same day the Canadian representative remained silent. Foreign Affairs and International Trade issued no press release on the 26th or the 27th condemning the clear threat to Honduran democracy.

A press release was finally issued by Peter Kent, Minister of State for the Americas, very late in the evening of June 28. While Kent condemns the coup d’état, he “calls on all parties to show restraint and to seek a peaceful resolution” to the crisis, as if all parties, including Zelaya and his supporters, are responsible for the military-orchestrated coup or are equally unrestrained in their actions. This position is echoed in the Canadian representative’s statement to the OAS Permanent Council following the coup on the 28th. Canada has thus far failed, furthermore, to call for the reinstatement of the Honduran President, placing it politically behind the United States, which has called for Zelaya’s return, in its response to the coup.

Non-Response to the Massacre in Peru

In Peru, meanwhile, Canadian companies have over $2.3-billion in investments, ranking fourth among foreign investors in general but first in mining, according to Foreign Affairs and International Trade. In an effort to strengthen the rights of Canadian capital in the Andean nation and lock in its access to Peruvian resources, Canada signed a free trade agreement with Peru late in 2008.

CIDA has also been busy at work in Peru, spending over $24-million between 2002 and 2009 on public sector reform (aimed at “improving efficiency”), developing new institutional and regulatory frameworks in the hydrocarbons sector (promoting “international private sector investment”), and reform in the mineral sector. Export Development Canada (EDC) – a government credit agency designed to finance Canadian foreign investment – recently posted a permanent representative for the Andean Region in Lima. EDC President, Eric Seigel, proclaimed that “EDC intends to become a permanent member of the Andean financial community, supporting growth for both Andean and Canadian companies operating in the region.”

And so Canada said nothing when Peruvian President, Alan García, sent in a 600 strong police and military force – including armoured personnel carriers and helicopter gun-ships – to crush a blockade of a major highway by 5,000 indigenous activists. The military and police assault led to the deaths of fifty protesters and the disappearance of many – possibly hundreds – more, according to indigenous organizations. Nine police officers were also killed during the assault when indigenous people fought back in self defense against the massive government show of brutal force.

While Canada remained silent about the repression in Peru, it couldn’t contain itself when, a mere two weeks later, Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade, proudly announced that legislation to implement the Canada-Peru FTA was passed by parliament. But it was precisely the neoliberal and Free Trade policies of García that sparked the blockades in the first place. García, who has a long history of violence and political corruption that led to his exile in the 1990s, has moved to open up large swathes of indigenous land in the Amazon to foreign resource companies, sweetening the deal for Canadian and other foreign companies with low tax and royalty rates and cheap government-subsidized electricity rates.

The result, predictably, has been a steady growth of Canadian and other foreign resource firms in the Peruvian Amazon, and increasing confrontations between them and indigenous communities. Canada’s FTA with Peru, along with the American FTA, will only intensify the conflicts surrounding resource development and indigenous land.

If it’s Good for Canadian Business…

It’s no accident that the Canadian government quickly and sharply condemns some instances of repression, such as that in Iran, while it ignores or tepidly responds to others. If it’s good for Canadian business, then it’s okay. This is imperialist Canada in the developing world: exploit people and their resources to make a buck, and if some repression is required along the way, well so be it. This isn’t just an American act; it’s a Canadian one too, and it’s becoming all too familiar.

It’s also worth noting here that Canadian involvement in Honduras and Peru (and many more countries besides) extends beyond investment interests and financing neoliberal reform. Canada has also trained Honduran and Peruvian military personnel through the Military Training Assistance Programme (MTAP). The MTAP provides language, officer and “peace support” operations training to roughly 1,300 military personnel from sixty-three different developing countries a year. According to its Directorate, the MTAP serves to “promote Canadian foreign and defence policy interests.” It “uses the mechanism of military training assistance to develop and enhance bilateral and defence relationships with countries of strategic interest to Canada.”

It happens to be the case that many of the participating countries are ones with which Canada has, or is hoping to develop, strong economic ties and which have troubling human rights records, including Peru and Honduras.

The reality of Canadian involvement in the third world is an ugly one, and deserves greater attention from the Canadian Left. The Honduran and Peruvian situations are not the exception to the rule of Canadian foreign policy. They represent the normal practice of the Canadian government defending Canadian business interests against the human rights of workers, poor communities, and indigenous peoples.

Link:

'Acceptable Versus Unacceptable Repression: A Lesson in Canadian Imperial Hypocrisy' by Todd Gordon via New Socialist

A Different Picture of O Canada:

The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy by Yves Engler

The Dark Side of the Nation: Essays on Multiculturalism, Nationalism and Gender by Himani Bannerji

My University is Being Hijacked and Condi is Among the Terrorists!

This is what I had to say at the protest against Condoleezza Rice who was invited by The University of Calgary to open its new school of public policy...

A couple of weeks ago, I began a petition asking The University of Calgary to rescind its invitation to Dr. Condoleezza Rice to be the keynote speaker at tonight's gala.

I'm happy to say that, to date, we have collected over 250 signatures online and more in hard copy. The petition was signed by faculty and students at The U of C and members of local and international communities.

I did, however, have a well-known professor write to me to say that she felt too threatened by her department to sign the petition and that she feared losing her job.

The Iraq and Afghanistan invasions were launched using the rhetoric of freedoms and rights. And yet, over the past couple of weeks, I have become more aware than ever of the efforts that are made in North America to curb our freedom of speech.

Unfortunately for Dr. Mintz - the chair of the new school of public policy - we will not all be silenced.

The chair of the school of public policy - Dr. Jack Mintz - who incidentally sits on the board of Imperial Oil - celebrates Dr. Rice as "a good example of what a school of public policy can achieve."

Let us consider what the policies of the Bush administration - including those formulated and implemented by Condoleezza Rice - have achieved:

• The illegal invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan
• The deaths of over a million Iraqi people
• The worsening of violence against women in both Iraq and Afghanistan despite the sickening use of the rhetoric of women's rights that was employed by people such as Rice while at the same time the Bush administration launched an aggressive campaign to undermine the rights of women in America
• These invasions were accompanied by racist propaganda and the militarization of borders which undoubtedly heightened racism in the world - most notably Islamaphobia
• What is estimated to be a trillion dollar war has resulted in cutbacks to education, health care and other critical domestic arenas in the United States
• Finally, the Iraq invasion is considered to be one of the key contributing factors to current global economic recession

So, I would like to ask Dr. Mintz - again the chair of The U of C's new school of public policy - when you say that Rice offers a good example of what can be achieved, good for whom? Who benefits? Who loses?

I my eyes, the policies that Dr. Mintz celebrates come at the cost to millions of people including myself and all of you standing in this crowd.

I believe the news has reported that tonight's gala is a $500 plate affair. How many of us here can afford a $500 for a meal?

I think we can safely say that this public policy institute has invited local elites and plans to serve up policies in their interests while the rest of us - the majority - are left scrounging for scraps.

We are not just angry that The University of Calgary has invited a war criminal to our campus and our city. We are angry because of the underlying values of the policies that Dr. rice represents. And, be certain that academic freedom and integrity are not among them!

To use a favourite phrase of Bush and company, I say MAKE NO MISTAKE that we will not accept imperialism of any kind.

We are through with illegal invasions that secure the interests of global elites while killing millions. We will not fund invasions that take from the public coffers and leave us with crises of education, child care and housing.

And be sure that we will not settle for Imperialism Lite. We will not turn a blind eye because some administrations limit torture to the bombing of those on the streets. What is imperialist war other than mass torture and mass murder?!

The illegal occupations carry on. People continue to be murdered while Condoleezza gets a helping of Alberta beef.

Condoleezza Rice's policies are not good in any way, shape or form. Indeed, the outcomes of Dr. Rice's policies should be held up and identified as an example of the horrors that result when policy is made at the service of the military industrial complex, oil corporations and geopolitical gain.

Canada can no longer be the United State's Imperial puppet.
Canada must get out of Afghanistan.

Links:

'Contentious Condi Visits Calgary' by Katy Anderson, The Gauntlet

Interview that I did with CJSW's 'Yeah, What She Said'

Online petition 'Illegal War is Not Good Policy'

Pictures of the Calgary protest of Condi's visit by local photographer Robert Thivierge

Canada's Role in Industries of War and Peace

Here is an interesting clip from a film called 'MYTHS  FOR PROFITS' which explores 'Canada’s role in Industries of War and Peace’. Through diverse interviews and case studies this documentary unveils the specific interests and profits that are made by certain corporation, individuals and agency within Canada. The Canadian government and the military would like us to believe that we are altruistic peacekeepers helping people around the world. But is this accurate? 'MYTHS FOR PROFIT' examines how these misconception are maintained and who stands to gain by perpetuating them. By understanding the systems of power in Canada we can move forward in challenging how they operate and collectively create change.

Illegal War is Not Good Policy

I have lived in Calgary for my whole life...I have always struggled with the Conservative culture, but it is rare that it overwhelms and shocks me. I feel incredibly sad that The University of Calgary would honor Condoleezza Rice by inviting her to be the keynote speaker at the opening of its new school of public policy. This is ugly. This is wrong. How can the deaths of so many innocent people be called "good policy"? I feel like I am in Wonderland; Dr. Mintz's words are nonsensical. How do these people fool their minds and hearts that pillage of other lands for resources is good in any way?

How can The University of Calgary support this decision? How is it that a graduate student like myself has to go through all sorts of hoops to get a small study approved by an ethics board, but Dr. Mintz is supported in his invitation of someone who has behaved unethically and harmed millions? Is there any such thing as academic integrity or are things like ethics boards just part of an empty process to pretend that we are doing everything OK? I hope not. I hope that University of Calgary students and faculty will resist and protest this decision with the support of members in local and international communities.

Petition to Dr. Harvey Weingarten, President of The University of Calgary:

The University of Calgary has announced that it has invited former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to be the keynote speaker at the opening gala of its new school of public policy. The director of the public policy school, Dr. John Mintz, celebrates Dr. Rice as “a good example of what a school of public policy can achieve.”

We, the undersigned, are a group of academics, activists and concerned persons who stand with global human rights organizations and the International Criminal Court to condemn the atrocities that were committed under the Bush administration's Iraq invasion and occupation. The evidence is overwhelming that Dr. Rice was a principal participant in the planning and propaganda efforts of an aggressive occupational war waged in violation of international law.

Multiple estimates indicate that over 1.2 million Iraqi people have died as a result of the war. According to the United Nations High Commission on Refugees, over 4 million Iraqis have been displaced from their homes. The invasion and occupation of Iraq has devastated the lives of people across America. Along with those who have lost family and friends, all suffer from the trillions of dollars spent on an illegal war, which is now resulting in drastic budget cuts to fundamental domestic policy sectors, infrastructure, and essential services.

The outcomes of Dr. Rice’s policies should be held up and identified as an example of the horrors that result when policy is made at the service of the military industrial complex, oil cartels, and geopolitical gain. These policies should not be honored at an institution of higher learning. Dr Rice's participation will not only undermine the credible standing of the new school of public policy, but tarnish the reputation of the University of Calgary as a whole.

We, the undersigned, strongly urge The University of Calgary to rescind its invitation to Dr Rice to open its new school of public policy. To do otherwise sanctions and celebrates violations of international laws, including illegal war causing the deaths of millions.

Links:

Please sign the electronic version of this petition.

Please contact me if you are in Calgary and able to collect signatures; I will send you a hard copy of the petition.

For extensive documentation of Rice's activities, see Stanford Says No to War here.

The Western Mother's Burden

While Madonna and Angelina swoop in to rescue children from the so-called Third World, Salma offers up breast milk a-la-drive-thru.

I so want to see Salma Hayek's breastfeeding moment as an act of kindness and solidarity...

It just seems to me that the colonial project where White women were cast as "mothers of the nation," for instance in the colonization of Canada, has morphed into the imperial project where Western women are cast as "mothers of the globe."

Interestingly, Salma Hayek narrates a Pamper's commercial  for the Pampers “1 Pack = 1 Vaccine” program – a partnership with UNICEF. Supposedly, for each pack of "specially marked" Pampers diapers and wipes that one buys during a promotion period, Pampers donates the cost of one vaccine to UNICEF.

Hoyden About Town already says it all in her blog entry on this commercial titled 'White Babies Saving the World, One Nappy at a Time."

No wonder I’m so tuckered out all the time. It is very difficult being white. We have a lot of work to do and that work starts young. White babies are saving the world even while they are wetting their nappies. That’s just how it is when you’re white, you’re always on duty. We don’t just buy any nappies for our babies, we buy special nappies from a company that puts tiny, almost insignificant, amounts towards vaccines for those other babies. We like to combine our philanthropy with our grocery shopping, it saves time and it helps capitalism, which is our way of also bringing freedom to the world. We’re helping all you black people, brown people, yellow people, we don’t have time to learn all your “nationalities” so we just like to think of you as the people of the rainbow, and we love to think of you in costume, your national dress is so cute. And how cute are your babies, we love your babies? Sooo cute.

Colonialism, slavery, exploitation of natural resources, missionaries, political interference, the arbitrary re-zoning of borders, sex tourism, cultural imperialism.. and 5 cents with every pack of Pampers nappies towards your vaccine program. Rainbow people, you’re welcome!

What else can I say?

Bright Spots in Dark Times

The New Year seemed to stumble in through crises...from the attacks in Mumbai, to the uprising in Greece, and most recently Israel's brutal disciplining of Gaza...it is as though the world is writhing in pain and desperation to escape its suffocating rule.

The local news in Calgary reported four murders at the start of the year...and it seemed like various tragedies swept Canada...and the weather has remained bitterly cold as though nature condemns us.

I have been turning away from the news and finding comfort in my personal life and in various distractions...

We watched Ghost Town the other evening. It is a charming film and Ricky Gervais gives a hilarious performance.

I have also been enjoying video clips of Mike Gravel. You can watch him here when he starts talking candidly about U.S. imperialism in response to a question about Iran. It is simply freaky to see the stark truth on any mainstream programming. You can also watch his very funny account of how he got the Pentagon Papers into the public record. This is fascinating! If you have not watched it, WATCH IT.

Finally, here is some interesting work by an artist named Andrea Dezso. Her collection "Lessons From My Mother" consists of 48 individually framed cotton squares embroidered with "advice" passed on from her mother such as: My mother claimed that men will like me more if I pretend to be less smart."

Well, it is time for a cup of tea...I wish all my readers a bearable if not bright New Year.

Demythologized Dictators and Humanized Celebrities

Bono is making poverty history. Iraq is being liberated. Someone is saving the whales. China is a human rights violator. Oprah is saving an entire continent. Hugo Chavez is a terrorist. All the people on Entertainment Tonight are giving back...

...except for Sean Penn. Writing about his recent trip to Cuba and Venezuela, Penn lists among his motivations: "to deepen my understanding of Chávez and Venezuela and excite my writing hand."

Huh?

In his recent article for The Nation, Penn opens by saying:

Soon to be Vice President-elect Joe Biden was rallying the troops: "We can no longer be energy dependent on Saudi Arabia or a Venezuelan dictator." Well, I know what Saudi Arabia is. But having been to Venezuela in 2006, touring slums, mixing with the wealthy opposition and spending days and hours at its president's side, I wondered, without wondering, to whom Senator Biden was referring. Hugo Chávez Frías is the democratically elected president of Venezuela (and by democratically elected I mean that he has repeatedly stood before the voters in internationally sanctioned elections and won large majorities, in a system that, despite flaws and irregularities, has allowed his opponents to defeat him and win office, both in a countrywide referendum last year and in regional elections in November). And Biden's words were the kind of rhetoric that had recently led us into a life-losing and monetarily costly war, which, while toppling a shmuck in Iraq, had also toppled the most dynamic principles upon which the United States was founded, enhanced recruitment for Al Qaeda and deconstructed the US military.

By now, October 2008, I had digested my earlier visits to Venezuela and Cuba and time spent with Chávez and Fidel Castro. I had grown increasingly intolerant of the propaganda. Though Chávez himself has a penchant for rhetoric, never has it been a cause for war. In hopes of demythologizing this "dictator," I decided to pay him another visit. By this time I had come to say to friends in private, "It's true, Chávez may not be a good man. But he may well be a great one."

Read the rest of the article and/or listen to Penn share his views.

Links:

"Conversations with Chavez and Castro" by Sean Penn via The Nation

Banana Republicans

I could write a blog post about blood cell phones and conflict in the Congo. And, I could tell you how I have never owned a cell phone and that would be the truth. And, I could tell you that I don't own a cell phone because I am a socially conscious consumer (problematic phrase?) and that would be a lie. (I am just an introvert and can't imagine paying money to communicate everywhere-and-anywhere!)

I could and will tell you that I shop at Old Navy, the Gap, and Banana Republic.

I throw Enloe's classic Bananas, Bases, and Beaches back on the bookshelf and walk the aisles for clothes from a corporation that more or less explicitly celebrates garments that are the product of militarization, structural adjustment, and neocolonialism.

How do I live with myself?

I don't know...anxiously, sleepily, angrily, hysterically...occasionally hopefully...I guess like I imagine others live in this world.

Bedtime Stories and Living Nightmares

Via Social Design Notes, I found Goodnight Bush -  a parody of the children's classic Goodnight Moon and a satirical look at the Bush administration.

The Bush administration was unique in its blatant imperialism and it's explicit introduction of a pre-emptive strike policy. My fear is that the public, including much of the the political left, views the Bush administration as an anomaly in U.S. history.

In truth, the U.S. has a consistent record of militarism and imperialism.

My hope is that the public will scrutinize the next administration. Bush may be tucked away in bed, but the living nightmares will continue under McCain or Obama.

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Another interesting story about photographer Zoriah Miller who was banned from all U.S. military facilities around the world for publishing photos on his website of U.S. Marines killed in a June 26, 2008 suicide attack in Garma, Iraq.