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well, i just read the first article mentioned at post #27 here, and there's a lot of material in there. it seems to go over things that most people do know about already...haven't read the other articles yet. and have to get to other things still today..
I'm not a fan of Iggy, nor the Liberal party as a whole at present because they aren't doing what is necessary for peace, nor for the economy, nor the environment. they're just propping up Harper and the downward trend to ruin.
it's really too bad the coalition with Dion and Duceppe and Layton didn't get the opportunity to form the government. i think we'd have been better off.
of course now we have the chance for the NDP to increase it's presence, and this can be good, if they stick to a program for ordinary people and the environment. i imagine that in any case there will still always be people who will vote Conservative or Liberal or Green, and that's what Parliament is for. What bothers me now is that the Harper/Ignatieff tag team are bypassing parliament altogether in many of their laws and regulations. that's not democracy.
hi thanks "most people know about already" ... well, that's gratifying - it really is - to know that informed Cdns are there - but I'm concerned that Canada via either Harper or Iggy - will reverse the earlier decision to "pull combat troops" from Afgh. - I think Mr. Harper has been reiterating the "official position" to lull everybody into a sense of complacency
my point, I think, in posting stuff that's "already known", is that people think it's in the past - the PNAC didn't intend to stop in Iraq, but to press on to Damascus and Beirut and Riyadh, if they had to, to "remake" the Muslim Middle East in the most-hopeful likeness of America.
Bush obliged the PNACers (known), followed their blueprints to launch against Iraq(known) by lying about it (already known) and now Obama - while it's common knowledge that he's "exiting" Iraq, in reality, there is no such thing.
Everybody has bought the notion that Obama's outa there... but uh-uh... no such thing. We need to understand that Exiting Iraq is a non-starter - even in these times of "restraint" - despite the expense - money that esp. America doesn't have - skyrockeTED deficits, debt, AND despite the increased radicalization of Muslims worldwide which all that BS (Big Spending - on Muslim nations... duh!
(Muslims KNOW what's going on - yer average "smallfolk" American and Canadian haven't got a clue).
Change? none. Obama's following the same plan laid down by Bush (PNAC), and Harper and Iggy are acquiescing (as Bush and Obama have) TO that plan
(as witnessed by their refusing Galloway - as per JDL pressure)
JDL and AIPAC are exactly on the same page - the PNAC/Likud page - create fear in people and trample over Palestinians and their chilren's children? I don't think so - NO way to peace and security! but that's the excuse as in Galloway
I think it's critical to link Harper, Iggy, and Bush - Canadians, i think, still really like Obama -but just 'cuz he ain't Bush - and probably aren't ready to have a lot of cold water tossed in their faces
But my fear is that Harper or Iggy WILL EXPAND Canada's "collusion" in AFghanistan - by hook or by crook -
wait for some unspeakable horror to emerge, as a pretext (9/11 worked for PNAC)
and Canadians will simply fall for it, given the level (I think) of unconsciousness (and propaganda) (eg headline: "Men allowed to rape their wives in Afghanistan" - okay, the law hasn't been passed, and it's now "set aside" - fine - but the enormous impression LEFT on Canadians - and the world - is that "these people are savages, and deserve our focused (military) what-for"
An election is fairly imminent - plus the economy could get a LOT worse - if the latter happened, a lot of people might resist a lot more, any further military action, wherever - so they'll try to move on this before that happens - but not before they soften us up with "outrage" at "them, over there"...
My dream? revitalize Galloway's message in the conversation of Canadians and get George Galloway MP and Iggy - live and in person - in a series of open and honest debates across-Canada - for three weeks!
If your reaction to that. given all of the above (links incl) was, "Ain't gonna happen"... then I'm really preachin' to the choir
and apologize for bendin' yer ear...
but here's hoping we can find some common ground to build on towards sanity and justice
and it won't include crude oil - which, along wiith corresponding freeways, filled with low-flyers - is largely what the problem IS in this crazy woyld...
it ain't about Israel, it ain't about Muslims, and it ain't about "democracy"
It's really about Oil and why we're juiced in it
dear fogbrella, you are indeed preachin' to the choir. i am onside with your concerns.
i am glad you've gone over the issues, for others who might not be aware of these dynamics.
and sometimes we all need reminding.
i got online too today to put down a few lines that the OP here and some other threads connected in the neural networks...
- it needs to be said that some of the people/groups mentioned in the OP article have some very anti-progressive and unhelpful ideas on a number of issues, however we can disagree on those elements, and work on agreeing that war should end. it's a task. or several tasks.
- the psalmist i quoted existed a few millenia ago, and thus had his own culture reflected in language used, and translated centuries later. today people use many different names for 'God' and have many different understandings, if they choose to talk or think about what this means, or doesn't mean. There remains a sector on the 'right' who are very unwilling to consider 'God' other than a middle-aged or older male patriarchal figure. i'm not really sure how to deal with this, except to point out verses in the scriptures they adhere to wherein 'God' is also referred to as a hen with chicks, as female wisdom, or spirit embuing all life on earth...
and that latter element got me thinking about physical life, and how we're all connected.
in a very physical way, because of the globalization of food, ironically enough, our bodies now contain vitamins, minerals, amino acids (protein building blocks), enzymes, etc. from all over the world. quite literally. these elements are used by the systems in our bodies to form our cells. even our genes. so really, physically speaking, we are quite one with other peoples around the globe. in addition, our blood which is mostly water, is made up of H2O, elements which themselves circle the globe in gaseous as well as liquid form- clouds, rain, drinking water, breath.
so what all this means is that while at cultural levels there is much room for manipulating differences, at the most basic level of reality, we share almost everything with the bombed villagers in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the maimed Tamil children, the assaulted women of the DRC, and others suffering the fallout.
-and these thoughts also linked up with other understandings of spirituality, very diverse, and also brought me back to the Greens, as in the Green Party, and whatever happened to talk of cooperating with political Greens? there was a thread here once on that subject. perhaps it was too formal an alliance, and simply more loose cooperation is appropriate. similarly with people in other parties.
anyway, just some thoughts. haven't had a chance to read all the other threads here at babble. trust lots of helpful things are being worked out...oh yes, now i remember specifically the link to the Greens- it was the comment at the Conservative Ontario candidate thread on the spring bear hunt. Personally, i think the spring bear hunt is an abomination, creating orphan young. The main purpose seems to be to support the lodge income in the north, hosting US and Canadian hunters. This is where we need viable income alternatives. Similarly if people shoot to feed themselves directly. Getting public control of finance, and public support for diverse economic alternatives will eliminate a large part of the motivation there. the macho element in shooting mother bears is another task, again, but linked to self-esteem and economic challenges.
so there's my ramblings for the morning...
I for one am not suggesting Ukraine raise the iron curtain again. And I think it would be a bad move for Ukraine, as Israel is under suspicion of, to send more weapons and military expertise to Georgia. Saakashvili is a pawn of the west in what seems to be an escalation of colder war and military encirclement of China and Russia.
And some people, including some percentage of Ukrainians, dont believe that Ukraine should become a member country of NATO. NATO is a cold war era alliance. NATO is an obsolete relic of the cold war and should be dismantled as was the USSR. The world has been there and done that. There is no legitimate purpose for nuclear weapons.
Fidel, at present i think it's incredibly stupid for anyone to be sending weapons anywhere. nukes or conventional.
the whole weaponry thing has to be back-rolled, not bankrolled. that goes for NATO as well as the SCO, and any other aggressors.
i don't know a lot about the NATO role in Rwanda, but i do know that NATO was very bad in the bombing of Yugoslavia.
thanks for those explanations in #39 and #40, Fidel, i hadn't heard that before, and it does make sense.
did I say Fidel? [chuckle] guess it should have been Frmrsldr. sometimes you babblers get me all mixed up.
We're not seeing SCO countries occupying very many countries militarily in this hemisphere, our own "backyard"
US Army School of the Americas and the ongoing war on democracy
NATO, must be Disbanded for Contributing to the Scourge of War, and For Defying Peremptory Norms
Fidel, for a long time leftists in this hemisphere have chosen only to look at the crimes perpetuated in this hemisphere. and those crimes are vast.
however, this is no reason to ignore crimes committed on other continents. and there are many. This situation in Burma is appalling, massacred peoples, orphaned young, a rampage of regional and distant aggressors anxious for petrofuel, routes, and other resources. and there are other current examples which have been elucidated elsewhere.
People today around the world know the fact that no big powers are innocent of horrendous crimes. it's time the left admit that.
it's time the left start aligning it's messaging with reality.
The reality is that the Reagan administration promised the Soviets that if German reunification took place, NATO would cease expansion into Eastern Europe and Asia.
The reality is that there still exist anywhere from 700 to more than a 1000 US military bases, troop occupations, and communications installations for military purposes outside of the USA.
The USA is still spending more on military than the next ten countries combined.
In a bygone era when the sun never set on the British empire, that country's imperials spent just twice what their next two largest military rivals allocated to war.
NATO is allegedly still there in Europe to protect Europeans from a cold war threat that doesnt exist anymore.
The USA's is the only military with nuclear weapons stationed on foreign soil and roaming the seven seas.
And it looks as if Obama's administration is filled with cold war hawks same as before. The infamous School of the Americas remains open for business as usual.
In spite of the end of the cold war and dissolution of the USSR, war and great suffering reign merrily.
there was a lot of meddling by a number of parties during the cold war. denial isn't the purpose of the thread title.
at present, there is a imbalance of power, militarily, but financially all the big powers are dependent upon eachother.
here's a specific item which gives a sense of the kind of relationship you may be trying to describe, vis a vis NATO and Russia.
it does give a sense that the Harper and NATO rhetoric about the danger of Russia is a lot of hot air.
"What is the US-Russia HEU agreement?HEU stands for highly enriched uranium. In 1993, the US and Russia entered into an agreement whereby the Russians would dismantle a significant portion of their nuclear weapons by 2013. This agreement is known as the US-Russia Highly Enriched Uranium agreement or the megatons-to-megawatts agreement. It stipulates the annual quantities of HEU that may be delivered to the US by Russia. The dismantled weapons contain a valuable resource for Russia. HEU can be blended down into low enriched uranium (LEU) and sold in the western world market as reactor fuel for hard currency.
There are three main components that make up LEU: natural uranium (the mine concentrates or U3O8); conversion services that convert U3O8 to UF6; and enrichment, the process of enriching UF6 to LEU. Together, U3O8 plus UF6 conversion is referred to as the natural uranium feed component of the fuel. This feed displaces primary U3O8 production and uranium conversion services.
This agreement provided a major source of new supply - the equivalent of one major mine. Since new supplies of this magnitude can be disruptive in the uranium market, Cameco placed a high priority on ensuring this material was marketed in the western world market in a disciplined fashion and sought participation in the marketing of the natural feed component.
In 1994, the United States Enrichment Corporation (USEC) as agent for the US government, and Russia, signed an agreement whereby USEC would purchase the enrichment component of the LEU upon delivery to the US. In 1999, Cameco and two other western companies, AREVA and NUKEM, Inc. concluded an agreement with Russia whereby they have the option to purchase the majority of the natural feed component of LEU. This agreement is officially called the UF6 Feed Component Implementing Contract. In November 2001, the western companies agreed to exercise a portion of their options to bring predictability to the program - predictable supply to the western market and predictable revenue to the Russians.
As of March, 2008 325 metric tons of weapons grade HEU from the former Soviet Union has been recycled which is equivalent to eliminating 13,000 nuclear warheads."
http://www.cameco.com/uranium_101/markets/
Fidel, in the post above you are making assumtions about some kind of 'argument' you say i'm making.
i just thought that clip on global trade in nuclear materials was interesting for a variety of reasons. i know that corporations based here do deals with corporations based in Russia and China and other countries all the time.
so when people like Harper try to spin other countries as dangers to global peace, its completely bogus spin. Harper and Iggy are promoting the industries of fossil fuels, nukes, and NATO military toys, including ammunitions fashioned from depleted uranium which we and the US then dispense on places like Afghanistan and Pakistan.
most ironic are perhaps the nuclear missiles planted on foreign soil, pointed at the supposedly scary countries we pay to get their old nukes for recycling.
not to speak of all that radioactive material being moved around the planet ad infinitum, for so-called 'peaceful nukes'. as well as the processing leakage into Lake Ontario, and groundwater, and from open cracked storage in Elliot Lake, and Saskatchewan, and airborne from mining uranium against the will of residents, and then dumping it against the will of residents elsewhere...
while meanwhile the wind blows free and clean
I think you meant to address FrmrSldr's post immediately above yours? I agree with FrmrSldr. As far as capitalists are concerned, profits precede everything else. During the cold war, the Soviets did sell weapons and raw materials to non-Soviet countries, some of which were aligned with neither of the cold war era super powers. Weapons technology was something the Soviets felt they needed to allocate precious resources toward in order to maintain an even footing with the west. And it provided them with stores of reserve currencies for trade purposes.
But since 1991 and perestroika, the Russians were convinced by Harvard and European economists and politicians that vicious cold war trade embargoes could be avoided, if Russia and satellite countries could integrate their economies with the western world. So now, besides export of raw materials and energy, Russia still has some incentive to export weapons to countries like Iran, China and India etc, as long as this colder war encirclement of Russia and China is taking place.
I dont know much about nuclear weapons or nuclear technology, but by what I've read the hypocrisy is ongoing wrt nuclear weapons proliferation, and especially in regard to technological imperialism wrt nuclear technology for the purposes of electrical power. We all know that electrical power is viewed by the UN as necessary for eliminating absolute poverty, powering water distribution and sewage systems required for modern society etc. And we can see the hypocrisy wrt the west's treatment of Iran's attempts to develop nuclear power in what is a desert country trying to wean itself from dependence on fossil fuels.
I tend to believe that one of the greatest dangers for nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorists is Pakistan. That country has been run by US-backed military dictatorships for a long time. And somehow, some way, that country developed nuclear weapons capability during the 1990's. Several investigative, "non-mainstream" new reports I've read say that Pakistan had help and was passed nuclear weapons secrets by at least one high ranking military official representing a certain government. People like Canadian poet, Peter Dale Scott, have written about cold war since Viet Nam, and I think there are "deep state" politicking taking place behind the veil of democracy and government transparency around the world still today. Yes we do have our own dissident poets and writers, and their messages are sometimes muted by propaganda machinery here. The Americans suggested that the post cold war era would be a time of conspiracy theories. And I think that as long as there exist democratic deficits around the world, inlcuding here in the plutocracies of North America, there will continue to be suspicions and destabilizing acts of terrorism. And I think colder warriors are counting on it.
yes, my last comment was directed to the one above it.
here's my take on the thread title, "Left and Right Against the Military Industrial Complex":
Military powers fund military corporations which put taxpayer dollars into financier's pockets, impoverishing populations while subjecting us all to the horrors of war.
To make these private profits for themselves, military corporations need to keep sending rockets into space, bombs into other peoples' homes, along with military transports, drones, nuclear and chemical weapons.
To make these military instruments, they need to obtain what's left of the earth's oil, gas, uranium, and other minerals for fuel and for chemical and nuclear weaponry. Military powers like NATO and others use their conventional, nuclear, and chemical weapons directly in a global war on civilian populations, for the specific Stalin-like purpose of relocating people from valuable resource lands.
When resident populations are sufficiently moved, massacred, or otherwise subjugated, affiliated corporations can then go in and take the oil, gas, uranium, and other 'needed' resources. Those materials are then made into further military weaponry to keep the corporate war machine profits flowing into financier's pockets.
The military corporations and their governments use all kinds of crap spin through controlled media to try to convince audiences that they are acting honourably.
The reality is that we're in a run to the bottom of the ecological and ethical pit.
Populations of all the major powers need to step to the side, and put up blocks on the run.
we need to get ourselves grounded in the earth, for energy,
and find the answers blowing in the wind, and sparkling in the sun.
if we do so, we may prevent all major military powers from obtaining the means for perpetual war on the earth and on all of us.
can you imagine? no energy for warmongers, lots for us, and an earth that can breathe. maybe even get a chance to recuperate.
what a concept.
just wanted to note here that while i understand many people feel it helpful to use a maternal image for earth, what has often happened is that this is combined with a paternal image for 'God', in the 'sky'. not saying this is the case with your use of the term, Fidel, but it's something i've noticed more generally, and it's problematic in a dualistic kind of way.
it sets up 'above' and 'below' gender-affiliated hierarchies, and all kinds of other stuff.
just flagging the issue here, generally i'm game for people using all kinds of names that they find useful in these matters. there is so much diversity and sometimes its just a theoretical distinction vs. what people may need at any given time from a compassionate perspective.
i guess as long as people are aware of these dynamics, and don't go imposing their views, particularly in a way that translates those images into oppressive behaviour towards people, or other inhabitants of the earth.
ok,thanks for clarifying
As far as I'm concerned, the Bolsheviks were never leftists; they were only believed to be so for a time, until they pulled their midnight coup and began repressing the left in Russia. Which resulted in the revolution refocussing on the Bolsheviks in the Third Russian Revolution aka the Left Wing Uprising, really just a continuation of the same revolution, and ultimately brutally stomped down by Bolshevik thugs. They even slaughtered the exact people who had stormed the Winter Palace and enabled them to come to power in the first place, during the Kronstadt Uprising, and then had the audacity to sip champagne and celebrate the bicentennial of the Paris Commune the next day - while the original revolutionaries were having their fingernails pulled out and being lined up before firing squads.
They certainly weren't Marxist - being that they wiped out the worker-controlled Factory Committees in favour of state-sponsored organizations, something that Marx utterly loathed (see "Critique of the Gotha Program"), spoke in favour of a personal dictatorship (again, Marx spits at this) and imposed wage labour on groups already implementing Marx's system of labour certificates (an outright attack on Marxist practice). Incidentally causing a catastrophic economic collapse. They just liked to use Marx's name and photo and the catchphrases associated with the movement to brand themselves, but the remnants of the Marxist movement they labelled "Kautskyism" and dismissed.
Finally they were notorious exploiters of not only the peasants, but the proletariat too. Lenin at one point even threatened to execute workers in Bolshevik print shops by decimation (one in ten to be shot) because, he claimed, they were lazy shirkers. Even the worst capitalists, at least in the industrialized world, didn't go that far.
Wrapping oneself up in red flag and tacked a photo of Karl to one's forehead is just a branding exercise, an usurpation.
The right may frequently criticize the Bolsheviks in a sophomoric way, but the most powerful, informed and damning criticisms actually tend to come from the left. I've seen supporters of Lenin or Trotsky who know their stuff trounce some very good right-wing debaters, simply because the right doesn't really have a very powerful critique of Bolshevism and they were left floundering without the facts. Similarly, I've seen Marxists eat defenders of Lenin etc for breakfast.
well that's useful info for this thread wrt differences between bolsheviks and marxists. thanks.
maybe one day we'll get to the point where there are enough leftists and rightists and all kinds of others 'ists' that understand eachother enough to be able to work together, so that we can stop the 'military industrial complex' and its slaughters in places like Gaza, in Tamil lands, in the DRC, in ...
In fact capitalists and their hirelings in cosmetic governments went much further in the war on democracy.
True, they did. In the West and in the USSR. Imo, the Bolsheviks were mere state capitalists masquerading as socialists.
Sorry for the thread drift, be glad to discuss this in another thread if anyone wants to continue.
was going to say that we probably should call the 'Military industrial complex' the 'Military-industrial Finance-Insurance-Real-Estate-energy- media- security Complex.' = Mi Fire 'ems Complex. Fire' em all. it's an unhealthy complex.
an item over at the Sri Lanka III thread that thirusuj posted, from a South Asia centre, commented on the economy and the situation there, the country was bankrupt. another article talked about the likely inevitability of a Tamil State in future, given the obscene behaviour of the current rulers in Colombo, and their army, supported by powerful rulers of other countries, (and those who mouth platitudes and do nothing.)
it seems the entire world is bankrupt. even the earth has been rupted by the banks. so different nature-and-people-run set-ups are needed. i guess this is where the details in differences between 'leftists' and 'rightists' get important.
as i understand it, and tell me if i'm wrong, 'rightists' are defined as those who don't like to have any kind of set-up other than a 'market'-based one that is effectively controlled by people who know how to play 'the market', (whatever that is, these days.) 'leftists' like to have set-ups where people get together and make decisions about how to organize things.
there is a possibility for more dialogue and maybe more convergence these days because the majority of people who may have considered themselves 'rightists' are doing very poorly in 'the market', so they don't really trust that system now. and there is more openness on the part of those who consider themselves 'leftists' to critique the behaviour of so-called 'socialist' regimes of the past.
so out of this maybe there are ways to talk about what kind of structures the majority of peoples in any given area might find possible and/or useful.