Most Canadians are embarrassed and utterly disgusted with what our Conservative government has done. Unfortunately, because of our ’First Past the Post’ electoral system and the bitter reality that a majority government can do anything they want, we can’t do much about it, at least not until the next elections. When that time comes, we promise to do our best to remove from power these fanatics who have shamed Canada and put us on the wrong side of history.
Palestine, of course, was welcomed as a Non-Member Observer State. “Voting by an overwhelming majority - 138 in favour to 9 against (Canada, Czech Republic, Israel, Marshall Islands, Micronesia (Federated States of), Nauru, Panama, Palau, United States), with 41 abstentions — the General Assembly today accorded Palestine non-Member Observer State status in the United Nations.“
For those Canadians who have not been in the loop and would like to put into context what the Harper Government has just done, ask yourself this; was it to the best interest of Canada to vote and lobby against this resolution? If the answer is that you don't know, then Canada should have abstained.
For now, please accept our humble apologies for what our government has done. I can assure you that many of us are elated and celebrating much like the rest of the world. Congratulations, Palestine.
The simple fact is that even though it is our technological evolution that is bringing about an economic metamorphosis that we see manifesting itself as a global financial crisis, it will be the environmental revolution forcing our civilization to implement the concept of sustainability that will finally transform our society. In essence, we need to seriously rethink our current economic system.
“Humans must immediately implement a series of radical measures to halt carbon emissions or prepare for the collapse of entire ecosystems and the displacement, suffering and death of hundreds of millions of the globe’s inhabitants, according to a report commissioned by the World Bank. The continued failure to respond aggressively to climate change, the report warns, will mean that the planet will inevitably warm by at least 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the end of the century, ushering in an apocalypse.”
Below you will find four lectures that provide further insight into our current predicament:
This was an excellent discussion where Prof. Finkelstein provided a secular perspective focusing on international law, while Mr. Tzortzis shared his perspective as an international public speaker on Islam.
What I found especially of interest, however, were the following opening remarks by Prof. Finkelstein:
“I was asked to speak on a very specific topic this evening namely ‘How to resolve the conflict’, if I had my choice in the matter I would’ve preferred to speak about what’s happening now in Gaza and more importantly, what seems to be unfolding in Lebanon, which is quite serious and quite ominous. I think we’re headed towards a crossroads in the Israeli-Palestine conflict in Lebanon in the near future, probably in the next several months…
“In my opinion, there is a very sinister plot, and I don’t usually use the word plot, and there is a very sinister conspiracy, and I don’t usually use the word conspiracy, but I do think there is a plot, a conspiracy afoot, not just by the usual suspects the US and Israel, but also France, Italy, Canada, all the western powers are now acting in concert for a decisive moment.
“We should be very sensitive to that fact and just as they’re laying the groundwork for their evil, we should now be preparing ourselves and not being left at the last moment trying to mitigate a war but to prepare for it because it’s going to be a decisive moment. It will either be 1967 where a significant defeat was delivered to the Arab world or it’ll be 1956 where the British and the French and the imperial powers at the time suffered a major setback. But it is serious and in my opinion it’s really, if I could use the word, it’s quite filthy.”
To emphasize the hypocrisy of US foreign policy in the following reply from President Obama, the word “missiles” has been replaced by “drones”, the word “landing” replaced by “striking”, and the word “Israel(i)” replaced by “the country’s”. Obama’s actual video reply follows the modified quote.
"Let's understand what the precipitating event here was that's causing the current crisis, and that was an ever-escalating number of drones that were striking, not just in the country’s territory, but in areas that are populated, and there's no country on Earth that would tolerate drones raining down on its citizens from outside its borders.
“So we are fully supportive of the country’s right to defend itself from dronesstriking people's homes and workplaces and potentially killing civilians, and we will continue to support the country’s right to defend itself.”
“In 1973 Oregon became the first state to modify its law and decriminalize marijuana use, which meant possession became a civil offense punishable by a fine. A key reason for this legislative change was pressure exerted by the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML), a private citizens group founded in 1971 that believed drug laws were unfair to recreational users. The American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Bar Association (ABA) also supported marijuana law reform – the AMA came out in favor of dropping penalties for possession of insignificant amounts of marijuana in 1972, while the ABA recommended decriminalization in 1973.”
“Ten other states followed Oregon in decriminalizing marijuana and it appeared the nation was well on its way toward a federal policy of less stringent marijuana regulation. This policy seemed all but guaranteed when Jimmy Carter, a liberal politician, was elected to the White House in 1976.”
“Carter chose Dr. Peter Bourne as his special assistant for health issues and instructed him to come up with a plan for reorganizing drug policy. Borne… argued in March 1977 in favor of decriminalizing marijuana. Five months later President Carter asked Congress for legislation to eliminate federal penalties for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana. Though a call for drastic legal change, this was not an extreme departure from everyday reality, as most local police departments were not arresting individuals for possessing small quantities of marijuana.”
In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the elections, and the War on Drugs entered a new stage. “In his first year in office, Reagan called for total abstinence and substantially more funding for law enforcement – under the Reagan administration the enforcement part of the federal drug control budget shifted from one half to two thirds. The following year, Reagan launched a huge new campaign to combat drug trafficking and organized crime. It involved a variety of federal agencies and included the Defense Department, which was allowed for the first time to take an active part in the war on drugs. Vice President George Bush played a prominent part in the campaign by leading a task force to combat trafficking in Florida.”
“By 1984, thirteen antidrug task forces involving multiple federal agencies were operating nationwide and Nancy Reagan’s ‘Just Say No’ campaign, a program that promoted the value of a drug-free life style, was being inaugurated in the schools. A year later, 1985, a federal drive was begun to combat the growth of marijuana plants.”
“African-Americans are arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned for drug offenses at far higher rates than whites. This racial disparity bears little relationship to racial differences in drug offending. For example, although the proportion of all drug users who are black is generally in the range of 13 to 15 percent, blacks constitute 36 percent of arrests for drug possession. Blacks constitute 63 percent of all drug offenders admitted to state prisons. In at least fifteen states, black men were sent to prison on drug charges at rates ranging from twenty to fifty-seven times those of white men.”
The monetary cost of this has been astronomical to the U.S. taxpayer. In 2007 alone, a staggering $74 billion was spent on corrections, $104 billion on policing, and $50 billion on judicial, even though reports indicate that $37 billion would be saved annually with legalization.
"The sacrifices we make to build these prisons are astonishing. Between 1987 and 2007, state spending on prisons increased by 40 percent (as a percent of the general fund). State spending on higher education decreased by 30 percent. We are financing our prisons by cutting our colleges.
"We continue to build even though prisons are often disappointing for economic development. The best jobs go to people from out of town, and dollars spent on prisons have little 'multiplier' effect. They don’t generate future additional dollars of economic activity, as do dollars spent on transportation, schools and so forth. Every dollar invested in highway construction generates $2.50 of gross domestic product in the short term. Raising teacher wages by 10 percent is associated with a 5 percent decrease in drop-out rates. But still we shortchange our schools and other rural enterprise, and build new prisons."
One of the most astonishing aspects of the war on drugs, specifically in relation to cannabis, is that even though the federal government has classified it as a ‘Schedule I’ substance, which means that according to the federal government the cannabis plant “has no currently accepted medical use”, in the United States there are at present 5 people who have a federal medical marijuana license.
“Rather than respond to public and political demands for marijuana's medical availability, federal drug agencies are instead promoting bureaucratically sanctioned alternatives which are synthetic, expensive and often ineffective. It is ironic that after decades of pretending marijuana is medically useless, federal drug agencies are now aggressively pushing synthetic Marinol, the so-called ‘pot pill,’ by arguing it is as safe and effective as marijuana.”
“‘There was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high (it was actually the number 1 question) and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation, and I don’t know what this says about the online audience,’ Mr. Obama said, drawing a laugh. He said he wanted to make sure the question got answered. ‘The answer is no, I don’t think that was a good strategy.’”
“The feds are busting growers who operate in full compliance with state laws, vowing to seize the property of anyone who dares to even rent to legal pot dispensaries, and threatening to imprison state employees responsible for regulating medical marijuana…
“‘There's no question that Obama's the worst president on medical marijuana,’ says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. ‘He's gone from first to worst.’”
The audacity of a leader that is willing to destroy countless lives for something that he has admitted to doing himself, frequently, must be taxing to those who have and are still willing to support him.
“’It’s very monumental,’ said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington-based group that advocates legalization. ‘No state has ever done this. Technically, marijuana isn’t even legal in Amsterdam.’”
Under the measures, “personal possession of up to an ounce (28.5 grams) of marijuana would be legal for anyone at least 21 years of age. They also will permit cannabis to be legally sold and taxed at state-licensed stores in a system modeled after a regime many states have in place for alcohol sales.”
In addition, the cultivation of up to six plants for personal use will be legal in Colorado while still remaining illegal in Washington State.
Just to recap, in the United States, hundreds of thousands of people are being arrested for marijuana violations under the pretence that marijuana has no medical use, but at the same time the government has allowed 5 people to carry a federal medical marijuana license. The US government has also authorized pharmaceutical companies to synthesize THC, the active ingredient of marijuana, and to market and sell it as medicine. Meanwhile, in an unprecedented move, Washington State and Colorado have gone beyond the medical marijuana debate and legalized the recreational use of cannabis.
“Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself; and where they are, they should be changed. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against possession of marihuana in private for personal use... Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marihuana.”
While we wait to obtain our freedom we should keep in mind that those who consume cannabis are not criminals. They are our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, our grandparents and our children, and many have been sacrificed to further the agenda of certain individuals and organizations who feed off the profits from the criminalization of a plant.
“In 1973 Oregon became the first state to modify its law and decriminalize marijuana use, which meant possession became a civil offense punishable by a fine. A key reason for this legislative change was pressure exerted by the National Organization to Reform Marijuana Laws (NORML), a private citizens group founded in 1971 that believed drug laws were unfair to recreational users."
Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs - Johann Hari on RAI (1/2)
Below you will find the names and websites of some of the more prominent groups spearheading the battle to end prohibition in the United States and Canada. They are trying to bring sanity back into our lives and I’m sure they would appreciate our support as much as we appreciate their efforts.
“Zaki said that once the status of a Palestinian state is upgraded, the Palestinians would be able to pursue Israel for ‘war crimes’ in the International Criminal Court.
“’Once we become a recognized state, we will go to all UN agencies to force the international community to take legal action against Israel,’”
Two differing perspectives on the Israeli offensive in Gaza that began on 27 December 2008
From Vancouver, with Love: a prayer for Gaza from Elders of the Coast Salish Territory, January 2009
Below you will find four interviews conducted by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! The first is a 2008 interview with Gore Vidal about where we’ve come from - up to and including the Bush years. The second, third, and forth are 2012 interviews with Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, and Ralph Nader, respectively, summarizing Obama’s first term and giving us a glimpse of what to expect for the next four years.
“’It’s very monumental,’ said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington-based group that advocates legalization. ‘No state has ever done this. Technically, marijuana isn’t even legal in Amsterdam.’”
Under the measures, “personal possession of up to an ounce (28.5 grams) of marijuana would be legal for anyone at least 21 years of age. They also will permit cannabis to be legally sold and taxed at state-licensed stores in a system modeled after a regime many states have in place for alcohol sales.”
In addition, the cultivation of up to six plants for personal use will be legal in Colorado while still remaining illegal in Washington State.
“The Obama administration has quietly unleashed a multi¬agency crackdown on medical cannabis that goes far beyond anything undertaken by George W. Bush. The feds are busting growers who operate in full compliance with state laws, vowing to seize the property of anyone who dares to even rent to legal pot dispensaries, and threatening to imprison state employees responsible for regulating medical marijuana…
“‘There's no question that Obama's the worst president on medical marijuana,’ says Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project. ‘He's gone from first to worst.’”
Everything, however, changed on 6 November 2012. The citizens of the United States from Washington and Colorado joined the fray, and I for one welcome them.
Below you will find the most recent global map available from wikipedia on the legality of cannabis. Please pay special attention to the two dark blue areas shown in the United States of America. Expect there to be more.
The 57th United States presidential election will be held on Tuesday, November 6, 2012. I’ve been asked numerous times who I would vote for if I was eligible to vote, one of the third party candidates has been my answer. My reasoning, if your only choice is to vote for the lesser of two evils, then in the limit you will only end up with pure evil.
Below you will find two videos; the full 2012 third party presidential debate preceded by an excellent interview by Amy Goodman with George Farah, founder and executive director of Open Debates, where he explains how the presidential debates came to be and how private corporations with the assistance of the Republican and Democratic parties where able to “seize control of the presidential debates from the League of Women Voters in 1987.”
“GEORGE FARAH: Well, the commission, the Commission on Presidential Debates, sounds like a government agency. It sounds like a nonpartisan entity, which is by design. It’s intended to deceive the American people. But in reality, it’s a private corporation, financed primarily by Anheuser-Busch and other major companies, that was created by the Republican and Democratic parties to seize control of the presidential debates from the League of Women Voters in 1987. And precisely as you said, Amy, every four years, this commission allows the major-party campaigns to meet behind closed doors and draft a secret contract, a memorandum of understanding that dictates many of the terms.
“The reason for the commission’s creation is that the previous sponsor, the League of Women Voters, was a genuine nonpartisan entity, our voice, the voice of the American people, in the negotiation room, and time and time again, the League had the courage to stand up to the Republican and Democratic campaigns to insist on challenging and creative formats, to insist on the inclusion of independent candidates that the vast majority of the American people wanted to see, and most importantly, to insist on transparency, so that any attempts by the Republican and Democratic parties to manipulate the presidential debates would pay—would result in an enormous political price…
“AMY GOODMAN: George, you have a lot of—you have a lot of time here, so I really want you to lay out how this happened. Explain the moment when this was taken out of the hands of the League of Women Voters and this commission was formed. How was this justified?
“GEORGE FARAH: The best part of the history starts in 1980. In 1980, John B. Anderson, an independent candidate for president, runs against President Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan. President Jimmy Carter absolutely opposed independent candidate John Anderson’s participation in the presidential debates, and the League had a choice: do they support the independent candidate’s participation and defy the wishes of the president of the United States, or do they capitulate to the demands of President Jimmy Carter? The League did the right thing: it stood up to the president of the United States, invited John B. Anderson. The president refused to show up. The League went forward anyway and had a presidential debate that was watched by 55 million Americans.
“You fast-forward four years later, Amy, and the Walter Mondale and Ronald Reagan campaigns vetoed 80 of the moderators that the League of Women Voters had proposed for the debates…”
“The entire 2012 Third Party Presidential Debate complete with participants including Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, Constitution Party candidate Virgil Goode, & Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson.
“The debate was moderated by Larry King & hosted by the Free And Equal Elections Foundation at the Hilton Chicago. Topics discussed include war on drugs, legalization of marijuana, foreign policy, civil liberties, economy, education reform, & domestic policy.”
As for which third party candidate I would vote for, considering my stance on privacy, prohibition, politics, and the environment, the answer should be obvious after watching the debate above.
"The November election is not a battle between Republicans and Democrats. It is not a battle between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. It is a battle between the corporate state and us. And if we do not immediately engage in this battle we are finished, as climate scientists have made clear. I will defy corporate power in small and large ways. I will invest my energy now solely in acts of resistance, in civil disobedience and in defiance. Those who rebel are our only hope. And for this reason I will vote next month for Jill Stein, the Green Party candidate, although I could as easily vote for Rocky Anderson of the Justice Party. I will step outside the system. Voting for the “lesser evil”—or failing to vote at all—is part of the corporate agenda to crush what is left of our anemic democracy. And those who continue to participate in the vaudeville of a two-party process, who refuse to confront in every way possible the structures of corporate power, assure our mutual destruction."
"Why I’m Voting Green" by Chris Hedges
RT Debate - Third-party Candidates on WikiLeaks - Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party candidate Dr. Jill Stein
“The scale of the water problem is so big that governments can’t solve it alone. They need the help of the private sector.”
Privatization of water, however, has some serious adversaries. Veronica Lake, a Michigan-based environmental activist, in a 2004 article cautions that corporations are using the following three tactics to take control of the world's water:
1. “Through ‘water mining’ of the aquifers and vast sources of water that feed streams, and rivers;
2. “Through long-term leases or concessions allowing corporations to take over the delivery of water systems and the collection of revenues;
All is not doom and gloom however. “On 28 July 2010, through Resolution 64/292, the United Nations General Assembly explicitly recognized the human right to water and sanitation and acknowledged that clean drinking water and sanitation are essential to the realisation of all human rights” (more info at the Council of Canadians and the People's Summit).
1. “Recognizes the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights;
2. “Calls upon States and international organizations to provide financial resources, capacity-building and technology transfer, through international assistance and cooperation, in particular to developing countries, in order to scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable drinking water and sanitation for all;
3. “Welcomes the decision by the Human Rights Council to request that the independent expert on human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation submit an annual report to the General Assembly, and encourages her to continue working on all aspects of her mandate and, in consultation with all relevant United Nations agencies, funds and programmes, to include in her report to the Assembly, at its sixty-sixth session, the principal challenges related to the realization of the human right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation and their impact on the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.”
