test blog #10

Now that Omar Khadr - 26 years old, 11 of those years spent in a concentration camp - is finally in Canada, I find little to say. His mistreatment at the hands of both the US and Canadian governments is horrendous, shameful, and irreversible. Khadr is still in prison, having had the misfortune of being recruited as a child soldier. The Harper Government refers to Khadr as a "convicted terrorist," said conviction coming from a show-trial that would have made Joseph Stalin proud. As I wrote recently about another big lie , the saddest part is how many Canadians believe it. I thank and admire Khadr's legal team, who worked endlessly to make this happen. Thanks to Stephen Harper, there was only one "Westerner" still languishing at Guantanamo. (What a bizarre distinction in this circumstance.) What about the other 166 remaining prisoners? What about that, Mr. Obama?

She said she'd pray for me. I said nothing. She said let's discuss abortion. I told her to fuck off. * * * * Long ago, I blogged about receiving a holiday card with a proselytizing message underlined in red. Wmtc readers had a good discussion around it , with responses running the gamut. The person who left that card for me recently resurfaced on my radar. But she won't be appearing again. I want to share our exchange, to get it off my chest, as well as to hear your reactions. Former Co-worker and I worked together briefly, one day a week, several years ago. She was a nice person to work with, and we would sometimes chat. We haven't worked together in more than four years, and we do not keep in touch. She sends photos of her children to, apparently, everyone she has ever known. I never respond. But I guess she keeps in touch with other former co-workers, because she heard I had resigned my position at Evil Corporate Law Firm, and contacted me. Hey Laura, I just emailed ...

Hard on the heels of the defeat of Motion 312  - on the mind-bending spectacle of the Minister of the Status of Women voting with the anti-choice contingent , on the sobering sight of de facto Deputy Prime Minister Jason Kenney voting the way a former U.S. anti-abortion activist could be expected to vote - we learn that the next chapter in Stephen "I Promise Not to Re-open the Abortion Date" Harper's latest reopening of the abortion debate involves sex-selective abortions . Supposedly some women terminate pregnancies because a fetus is male or female. And supposedly this is bad, and wrong, and we should stop them. And supposedly some feminists agree. Or should I say "some supposed feminists" agree? Here's the thing. A fetus is a fetus is a fetus. And choice is choice is choice. At some future date, Canada's House of Commons will be asked to consider the following motion: That the House condemn discrimination against females occurring through sex-selecti...

Revolutionary thought of the day: And all the criminals in their coats and ties Are free to drink martinis And watch the sun rise - Bob Dylan A woman refuses to kill people, and she is torn from her family and put in jail. A man orders some people to kill some other people, and he enjoys a position of great power and prestige. A shameful human condition.

From the Toronto Star : I am ashamed to be a Canadian. I have been involved with the campaign to keep Kim Rivera in Canada for some time. It is obvious that most Canadians think that as a conscientious objector to the war in Iraq she should stay here rather than face court martial and jail separate from her family. When I opened my Star on Thursday I saw another story of a deportation on the same page as Rivera's story. Fatemeh Derakhshandeh Tosarvandan is to be sent back to Iran, where she could face stoning as a result of an accusation of adultery. What kind of a country has Canada become? Elizabeth (Beth) Guthrie Toronto * When the Iraq war was just getting underway, a person in the United States asked me if conscientious objectors would be allowed to stay in Canada as had been the case during the Vietnam War. It never occurred to me that a policy that had been practised to the benefit of both Canada and the U.S. since at least 1850 would not be followed now and I assured him t...

I quit my job today, a job I've had for five years, a job which I've hated for about four of those years. I've known my employer has read my blog from time to time, and once used some information against me. So I've kept quiet publicly (and complained constantly in private!). But now I can let it all out. First the cuts The position started out all right. I've done legal document production work since 1990. I've worked in many corporate law firms, and the quality of the workplace can vary widely, from hellish to quite pleasant. This was a decent firm. My pay rate was good, and I was treated decently, albeit with a below-average physical space. Then the fun started. In early 2008, the firm laid off about one-third of the staff. There had been seven people on my shift, and we were cut to three, of course with no corresponding reduction of work. After all, we're machines, right? We can just set ourselves to a higher speed. With the surviving staff reeling from ...

My grief for the Rivera family and my rage at this cruel, anti-democratic government roils unabated. I am haunted by thoughts of my dear friend Kimberly Rivera, who has given so much to so many people, all by herself in a jail cell, and by thoughts of those four beautiful children waking up, day after day, to the reality of a motherless family. Mario Rivera is one of the best fathers I've ever seen. He is loving and kind, strict when he needs to be but always gentle, just like Kim. But Kim is their rock. I fear for them all, ripped from their vibrant community in Toronto, plunked down in Texas, in a new world, without their mom. All completely avoidable. Entirely the fault of Stephen Harper, Jason Kenney, and everyone who voted for them. * * * * I have some personal news that I want to announce and write about. Please know that the above is true, no matter what else is happening in my life.

Now that some of the details have been made public , I need to write about my experience yesterday and the last few days. As the public battle to keep Kimberly Rivera and her family in Canada raged, there was, simultaneously, a more private effort to help the Rivera family personally. The War Resisters Support Campaign - especially one person, and many of you know who she is - made heroic efforts to minimize the trauma to the family. The night before the actual deportation, Kim said goodbye to her children, not knowing when she will see them again. What more can be said about such a scene - so painful, so unjust, so completely unnecessary. Kim then went with our lead organizer to Kingston; they spent the night near the border. In the morning Kim surrendered to authorities and was immediately taken into custody at Fort Drum. Meanwhile, Thursday at dawn, a few campaigners met at the Riveras' apartment. We packed up a large passenger van (which we had rented specifically for this) wit...

As you may have heard, the Federal Court has denied Kimberly Rivera a stay of removal and leave to appeal. Kim and her family are scheduled to leave Canada tomorrow. We continue to call on Immigration Minister Jason to stop this injustice. Please continue to call and email Minister Kenney. Urge him to stop this deportation, which will result in a family being torn apart. Phone: 613-954-1064 Fax: 613-957.2688 Email: jason.kenney@parl.gc.ca, minister@cic.gc.ca If you are as angry about this injustice as I am, please consider responding to an important feature story about the Riveras in the Toronto Star . Letters can be sent to lettertoed@thestar.ca. The War Resisters Support Campaign will continue to fight to keep U.S. Iraq War resisters in Canada. We thank you for your support and we hope you will continue to fight with us. Tomorrow morning we are helping the Riveras get to the border. Kim will likely be taken into custody immediately. This is a dark day for Canada.

In today's Globe and Mail : Don’t deport war resister Kimberly Rivera By Desmond Tutu When the United States and Britain made the case in 2003 for the invasion of Iraq, it was on the basis of a lie. We were told that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that these weapons posed an imminent threat to humanity. For the millions around the world who took part in peaceful protests opposing the war, there was certainly profound skepticism about the deeply flawed evidence presented to support the illegal invasion. But those who were called to fight this war believed what their leaders had told them. The reason we know this is because U.S. soldiers such as Kimberly Rivera, through her own experience in Iraq, came to the conclusion that the invasion had nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, the presence of U.S. forces only created immense misery for civilians and soldiers alike. Those leaders to whom soldiers such as Kimberly Rivera looked for answers failed a ...

The Province of Manitoba has announced that it will cover health care for refugee claimants, in defiance of Jason Kenney's vindictive cuts to help at the federal level. (I haven't been able to find the link from the Winnipeg Free Press ; I hope this capture at iPolitics is trustworthy.) Manitoba will help refugees access health benefits the federal government recently took away. Health Minister Theresa Oswald said in a prepared statement that the province doesn’t agree with the cut because it’s hurting families and will lead to longer-term and more expensive problems. Agencies and advocates for privately sponsored refugees and health-care providers have rallied against Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s cuts to supplemental health benefits that took effect June 30. The refugees’ sponsors were left to pay for any prescription drugs, prosthetic limbs, wheelchairs, vision and dental care they needed, otherwise, they would go without. Dr. Mike Dillon, who has worked with refugee...

Here I am again, gushing about another novel by Colson Whitehead. For my last grab at pleasure reading before trudging back to my grad-school cell, I went back to the only book by Whitehead - fiction and nonfiction - that I hadn't read: John Henry Days , published in 2001 and shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize. I don't know why I didn't read this book when it first came out, since I loved Whitehead's debut novel, The Intuitionist . And once again, a novel by this man knocks me out. On the surface, this book combines two central stories. One is set in the present, as a pop journalist, purveyor of PR fluff disguised as articles, visits the town of Talcott, West Virginia, for the first annual John Henry Days Festival. The other story is set in the distant past: a historical-fiction imagining of John Henry, a recently emancipated African American labourer, one of many doing the world's most dangerous work, just a whisper away from slavery. Also in the present or the rec...

Author Judy Rebick, Alex Neve of Amnesty International Canada, Bruce Cox of Greenpeace, Maude Barlow of the Council of Canadians, and Brigette DePape of "Stop Harper" fame: a great video. Please watch and share.

From the New Democratic Party: Allow conscientious objectors to stay in Canada SURREY – New Democrats are calling on the government to respect parliament’s commitment to allow conscientious objectors to the U.S. war in Iraq to remain in Canada on humanitarian and compassionate grounds. “U.S. war resisters in Canada have entered the country legally, after refusing to serve in the military for reasons of conscience. This is clearly a legitimate ground for protection,” said NDP Immigration critic Jinny Sims. “Parliament has adopted two motions in support of these people’s efforts to stay in Canada – a commitment which has been ignored by the Conservative government.” Amnesty International has called on the Conservatives to rescind Operational Bulletin 202, which tells immigration officers that conscientious objectors may be considered deserters, guilty of crimes and inadmissible to Canada. The NDP believes this bulletin runs contrary to Parliament’s motion to respect war resisters and sh...

The Harper Government has schooled us in austerity basics. Call it Privatization 101. Ottawa Citizen : DND to pay $100 million to private firm to replace laid-off workers Just months after issuing notices to public servants that their jobs were being eliminated to save money the Defence Department is looking at paying a private firm $100 million to provide those same services, according to DND documents obtained by the Citizen. The contract would cover management services, maintenance and repair and janitorial services for army installations in western Canada, including 10 training areas and 17 armouries. But the proposed contract, to run from 2013 to 2018, has union leaders angry and accusing the Conservative government and DND of using the public service layoffs as a guise for privatizing more federal jobs. “We were told that those jobs were not needed and those people wouldn’t be replaced,” said John MacLennan, national president of the Union of National Defence Employees, which rep...

In this video, Provincial MP Cheri DiNovo introduces war resister Kimberly Rivera to the Ontario legislative assembly. She asks her fellow MPPs to contact the federal government on Kim's behalf. DiNovo's late husband was a war resister, and her short speech is very touching.

Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jason Kenney 613.954.1064

Enough about September 11. Not for those who lost loved ones that day. Not for those who suffered serious trauma and need to mark the anniversary for emotional and spiritual reasons. That's a personal matter. But for the US. For the world. Enough already. On September 11, 2001, the people of the United States got a small taste of the terror and pain that so much of the world has lived with for so long, and continues to live with. The people of the United States got a small sample of what their own country has done to dozens of nation-states over decades and centuries of its history. That includes "its own people," as some are so fond of saying. There are, and may always be, very real and unanswered questions about why the several official stories of what happened that day make absolutely no sense. (If you think "conspiracy theorists" are nuts, you should hear what the government says!) If you are interested in my thoughts and feelings about that, these posts...

I was planning on spending the final few weeks of my summer reading, and blogging the remainder of my notes from Marxism 2012. That all changed when the Rivera family was ordered to leave Canada by September 20. While Kim and lawyer Alyssa Manning pursue all avenues to challenge this injustice in court, the War Resisters Support Campaign is trying to make visible the widespread support for Kim, and for allowing all US war resisters to remain in Canada. If you're in Canada, check this page for local actions you can participate in - or call a friend and organize your own. Today begins the final year of my Master of Information degree. This year I'm taking all electives, and actually not dreading the start of school. Not-dread is the most I can muster, but that's a big improvement. This term I have "Children's Cultural Texts"* - "texts" being current academia-speak for all messaging (books, movies, games, advertising, and so on) - and "Public Libr...

Please read, sign, and share! Change.org/LetKimStay All are welcome to sign; this is not limited to Canadians.

See below for actions you can take to help US war resister Kimberly Rivera. We had an amazing community meeting in the Parkdale neighbourhood of Toronto last night. More than 200 people crowded into the Parkdale United Church basement to show their support for their friend and neighbour Kim Rivera, and to voice their disgust at the Harper Government for its callous, wrongheaded decision that Kim and her family leave Canada. Rivera - an Iraq War veteran who refused a second deployment and came to Canada with her family in 2007 - has been told she must leave Canada and return to the US by September 20. If she is turned over to the US military, Rivera will likely face a lengthy jail sentence. She will also have a felony conviction that will remain on her record and restrict her opportunities on her record for the rest of her life. Some of the loudest applause of the evening was in response to a letter from the Most Reverend Desmond Tutu , urging Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Jas...

Gloria Nafziger at Amnesty International Canada: Amnesty International considers Kimberly Rivera to be a conscientious objector, and as such would consider her to be a prisoner of conscience should she be detained for military evasion, upon removal to the United States. Amnesty International considers a conscientious objector to be any person who, for reasons of conscience or profound conviction, refuses either to perform any form of service in the armed forces or applies for non-combatant status. This can include refusal to participate in a war because one disagrees with its aims or the manner in which it was being waged, even if one does not oppose taking part in all wars. Wherever such a person is detained or imprisoned solely for their beliefs as a conscientious objector, Amnesty International considers that person to be a prisoner of conscience, and calls for their immediate and unconditional release. The right to refuse to perform military service for reasons of conscience is in...

In today's Toronto Star : Let U.S. war resister stay in Canada For the last few years, I have followed our government’s response to the issue of American war resisters in Canada, so I was not surprised but was still so deeply saddened to learn that Kimberly Rivera, the first female U.S. war resister to seek refuge in Canada, has been ordered to leave our country by Sept. 20. Ironically, that’s the day before International Peace Day. This order goes against the clearly expressed wishes of many of our elected parliamentarians who have argued that U.S. war resisters should be allowed to stay in our country. This order also goes against a fundamental Canadian belief that we have an obligation and a responsibility to protect all who face unjust punishment or persecution if returned to their own country of origin because of their actions or their beliefs. This order also, quite simply, goes against what is right and moral and just. There are those, including our own Prime Minister and me...

Check back at Resisters.ca/Support the Rivera Family for updates on how you can help, including materials for download.

Tonight in Toronto, supporters of US war resisters and the Parkdale community will gather at United Church of Parkdale to support war resister Kimberly Rivera and her family. The Harper Government has ordered the Riveras to leave Canada by September 20. At the meeting, we will take several actions calling on the government to let the Riveras stay, and announce more plans of how you can help. If you can't attend, stay tuned for more information. If you're in the area, I hope to see you there.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu, a hero for peace. The Iraq war “has destabilized and polarized the world to a greater extent than any other conflict in history,” wrote Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel prize in 1984. “Those responsible for this suffering and loss of life should be treading the same path as some of their African and Asian peers who have been made to answer for their actions in the Hague,” he added. The Hague, Netherlands, based court is the world’s first permanent war crimes tribunal and has been in operation for 10 years. So far it has launched prosecutions only in Africa, including in Sudan, Congo, Libya and Ivory Coast. Tutu has long been a staunch critic of the Iraq war, while others opposed to the conflict — including playwright Harold Pinter — have previously called for Bush and Blair to face prosecution at the Hague. “The then-leaders of the U.S. and U.K. fabricated the grounds to behave like playground bullies and drive us further apart. They have driven us to the edge ...

Revolutionary thought of the day: I'd rather go to prison for desertion than kill a child by mistake. Camilo Mejia, US War Resister

Please watch. It's not the complete press conference, but it's a good portion of it, and it's worth seeing.

One of the most exciting and illuminating sessions I attended at the 2012 Marxism Conference was a history of how abortion rights were won - and are threatened - in both the UK and Canada. I am honoured that some of my friends and comrades from the peace movement were integral to the abortion-rights struggle in Canada. * * * * "Never Going Back!" Abortion Rights: How Women Won the Right May 27, 2012 Judith Orr, Michelle Robidoux (with honourable mention to Carolyn Egan, in the audience) Judith Orr Feminist, socialist, author, editor of Socialist Worker (UK) I thought I'd start by explaining what the situation is in the UK, in terms of the law. Not everyone is aware of what is legal. UK abortion law In 1967, the Abortion Act was passed, which made abortion legal if two doctors decided it would be against the woman's mental or physical health to carry the pregnancy. This makes it the only procedure in the UK that you need two doctors to sign off on. You don't need ...