Originally posted by Nephthys: the scary dheg-dheer and qori-is-maris were my bedtime stories Do you remember them? Can you please tell it to us? I wonder why these stories were so scary and why were they told to small children? If you like we can start a new thread for people to post the stories of their childhood, such as the 'qori-is-maris' and others. Thanks, L

This is what I call state child snatching and the seizure and indoctrination of Somali children. Laws that are used here, were initially designed to deal with children at risk because they were found in company of people reputed to be criminal, immoral and distortedly. However, now they use these laws to ensure that Somali children receive cultural education in order that they would be re-socialized to the ‘British way.’ The use of law secures the detention of children of a “deviant” ethnic group in this case the Somali in a special setting/foster care and the deployment of this foster care system is used by the state as a vehicle for social control, but more especially for re-socialization. It is all done in order to assimilate them and wean them from their culture and language. I only hope that the Brits will emerge from this racist path and move into a period of greater toleration of ethnic difference.

Question(s): Is it true that Somalis are nomadic pastoral people that dwelled in deferent regions at different times in history? If so, how could secession take place without a national referendum by the people? If northern Somalia does secede, who has the right to live there? Can I, a Somali person enjoy the land if I so choose, even though my family members were not born there? What is the difference between a Somali and a Somali Lander? And finally, what are the historical claims to the northern region of Somali territory? Thanks for your time and I eagerly await for your answers. Cheers, L.

Here is the question: Is China Africa's new master? http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?forumID=3852&edition=2&ttl=20071127041021 BBC poses a racist question. Why Master? Why must Africa have one? Please try to give your input on this racist question there, as I have. Thanks!

From all the problems that Sudan and its people face in Darfur and beyond, this is the biggest news that the bbc brings to the attention of the public: A white lady that may get lashed. How many women and children are dying right now in darfur?

Zeitgeist [Religion] The Greatest Story Ever Sold: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNf-P_5u_Hw -I found the documentary to be quite interesting. However, I thought that it was too over generalizing, simply because not all religions believe in the story of a god born out of a virgin. I wished the narrator would just stick to Christianity and its likeliness to these pagan religions. That said, I was intrigued by the similarities of Horus and Christ, however I could not find any reliable source on the birth of Horus...can someone tell me whether the Egyptian mythology states that Horus was indeed also born from a virgin. I found few none-authoritative sites that state he was not born from a virgin and others that say he was. Anyway, what do you guys think, Any Egyptologists? What is your take on zeitgeist? By the way, if you like try to down load or watch the rest on youtube, it is a very interesting documentary and it covers such topics as, 9/11, the Federal Reserve, and the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America), among other. Cheers;)

the proverb-Beggars cannot be choosers fits in here very well. Brother, when you are applying for a job, it's never s good idea to make demands, it's better to apply for the job and see where they place/need you-- It is they who will determine the place of employment, not you. Next time be a little bit more deplomatic and make the request once you have the job-- perhaps you can make a request to be moved.

Salama aleykum, Walaalo yaal, waxaan doonayaa in aad igu caawintiin information aan raadinaayo, hadii aad awoodi kartiin. Mahadsanid. 1. Waxaan radiinaayaa scholarly/authoritative information oo ah ama soomali ama ingriis, laakiin aan jeclahay in ay tahay infromation af somaali ku qoran oo ku saabsan intellectual/ideological exchange ka mid baxay Musliminta Somalida iyo Muslimiinta Sawahiliga ku hadla ee ku nool East Africa. Hadii aad taqaaniin wax ah print ama (more likely) online ah, labadaba waa welcome. Thanks! 2. Mida labaad waxaan raadinayaa wixii oo ah relevant information oo ku saabsan Somali Muslim organizations, ama dad ah Muslim leaders ama individuals oo publishgareeyey their exchanges with other Muslim organizations, ama leaders ama individuals in the region (East Africa); iyo xataa dadka ku nool diaspora organizations etc. Also, wax hadii aad ka taqaaniin Somalida ku nool meelaha af Sawahiliga lagu hadlo ee East Africa. Waxaan rabaa in aan ogaado, wixii connection ka mid baxay Somali Muslim organization iyo kuwo Tanzaniin ah oo labadoodaba qabaam magac isku midah, oo la yiraahdo Al-Sunna Wal Jama’ah. Waad mahadsantihiin, iga raali ahaada af soomaliga iyo afingriiska aan isku qasay.

Bring me my Philips Mental Jacket Do we today have an available bioethics? Yes, we do, a bad one: what the Germans call Bindestrich-Ethik, or 'hyphen-ethics', where what gets lost in the hyphenation is ethics as such. The problem is not that a universal ethics is being dissolved into a multitude of specialised ones (bioethics, business ethics, medical ethics and so on) but that particular scientific breakthroughs are immediately set against humanist 'values', leading to complaints that biogenetics, for example, threatens our sense of dignity and autonomy. The main consequence of the current breakthroughs in biogenetics is that natural organisms have become objects open to manipulation. Nature, human and inhuman, is 'desubstantialised', deprived of its impenetrable density, of what Heidegger called 'earth'. If biogenetics is able to reduce the human psyche to an object of manipulation, it is evidence of what Heidegger perceived as the 'danger' inherent in modern technology. By reducing a human being to a natural object whose properties can be altered, what we lose is not (only) humanity but nature itself. In this sense, Francis Fukuyama is right in Our Posthuman Future: the notion of humanity relies on the belief that we possess an inherited 'human nature', that we are born with an unfathomable dimension of ourselves.* The gene directly responsible for the onset of Huntington's chorea has been isolated, and anyone can now be told not only whether they will get Huntington's, but when. At issue is a transcription mistake: the stuttering repetition of the nucleotide sequence CAG in the middle of a particular gene. The age at which the disease will appear depends implacably on the number of repetitions of CAG: if there are 40, you will get the first symptoms at 59; if 41, at 54; if 50, at 27. Healthy living, keeping fit, the best medicine, none of them can help. We can submit to a test and, if it is positive, find out exactly when we will go mad and die. It's hard to imagine a clearer confrontation with the meaninglessness of a life-determining contingency. No wonder the majority of people (including the scientist who identified the gene) choose not to know, an ignorance that is not simply negative, since it allows us to fantasise. The prospect of biogenetic intervention opened up by increasing access to the human genome effectively emancipates humankind from the constraints of a finite species, from enslavement to the 'selfish gene'. Emancipation comes at a price, however. In a talk he gave in Marburg in 2001, Habermas repeated his warning against biogenetic manipulation. There are, as he sees it, two main threats. First, that such interventions will blur the borderline between the made and the spontaneous and thus affect the way we understand ourselves. For an adolescent to learn that his 'spontaneous' (say, aggressive or peaceful) disposition is the result of a deliberate external intervention into his genetic code will undermine the heart of his identity, putting paid to the notion that we develop our moral being through Bildung, the painful struggle to educate our natural dispositions. Ultimately, biogenetic intervention could render the idea of education meaningless. Second, such interventions will give rise to asymmetrical relations between those who are 'spontaneously' human and those whose characters have been manipulated: some individuals will be the privileged 'creators' of others. At the most elementary level, this will affect our sexual identity. The ability of parents to choose the sex of their offspring is one issue. Another is the status of sex-change operations. Up until now, it has been possible to justify these by evoking a gap between biological and psychic identity: when a biological man experiences himself as a woman trapped in a man's body, it is reasonable that (s)he be allowed to change her biological sex in order to introduce a balance between her sexual and her emotional life. Biogenetic manipulation opens up much more radical perspectives. It may retroactively change our understanding of ourselves as 'natural' beings, in the sense that we will experience our 'natural' dispositions as mediated, not as given - as things which can in principle be manipulated and therefore as merely contingent. There can be no return to a naive immediacy once we know that our natural dispositions depend on genetic contingency; to stick to them through thick and thin will be as false as sticking to the old 'organic' mores. According to Habermas, however, we should act as if this were not the case, and thus maintain our sense of dignity and autonomy. The paradox is that this autonomy can be preserved only by prohibiting access to the contingency which determines us - that is, by limiting the possibilities of scientific intervention. This is a new version of the old argument that, if we are to retain our moral dignity, it's better not to know certain things. Curtailing science, as Habermas seems to be suggesting, would come at the price of widening the split between science and ethics: a split which already prevents us from seeing the way these new conditions compel us to transform and reinvent the notions of freedom, autonomy and ethical responsibility. According to a possible Roman Catholic counter-argument, the true danger is that, in engaging in biogenetics, we forget that we have immortal souls. This argument only displaces the problem, however. If this were the case, Catholic believers would be the ideal people to engage in biogenetic manipulation, since they would be aware that they were dealing only with the material aspect of human existence, not with the spiritual kernel. Their faith would protect them from reductionism. If we have an autonomous spiritual dimension, there is no need to fear biogenetic manipulation. From the psychoanalytic standpoint, the core of the problem resides in the autonomy of the symbolic order. Suppose I am impotent because of some unresolved blockage in my symbolic universe and, instead of 'educating' myself by trying to resolve the blockage, I take Viagra. The solution works, I am able to perform again sexually, but the problem remains. How will the symbolic blockage be affected by this chemical solution? How will the solution be 'subjectivised'? The situation is undecidable: the solution might unblock the symbolic obstacle, compelling me to accept its meaninglessness; or it might cause the obstacle to return at some more fundamental level (in a paranoiac attitude, perhaps, so that I experience myself as exposed to the caprice of a 'master' whose interventions can decide my destiny). There is always a symbolic price to be paid for such 'unearned' solutions. And, mutatis mutandis, the same goes for attempts to fight crime through biochemical or biogenetic intervention; compelling criminals to take medication to curb excessive aggression, for example, leaves intact the social mechanisms that triggered the aggression in the first place. Another lesson of psychoanalysis is that, contrary to the notion that curiosity is innate, that there is deep inside each one of us a Wissenstrieb, a 'drive to know', there is, in fact, the opposite. Every advance in knowledge has to be earned by a painful struggle against our spontaneous propensity for ignorance. If there's a history of Huntington's chorea in my family, should I take the test which will tell me whether or not (and when) I will inexorably get it? If I can't bear the prospect of knowing when I will die, the (not very realistic) solution may appear to be to authorise another person or institution whom I trust completely to test me and not tell me the result, but, if the result is positive, to kill me unexpectedly and painlessly in my sleep just before the disease's onset. The problem with this solution is that I know that the Other knows the answer, and this ruins everything, exposing me to gnawing suspicion. The ideal solution may then be for me, if I suspect that my child may have the disease, to test him without his knowing and kill him painlessly at the right moment. The ultimate fantasy here would be that an anonymous state institution would do this for us without our knowledge. Again the question surfaces, however, of whether or not we know that the Other knows. The way to a perfect totalitarian society is open. What is false is the underlying premise: that the ultimate ethical duty is to protect others from pain, to keep them in ignorance. It's not so much that we are losing our dignity and freedom with the advance of biogenetics but that we realise we never had them in the first place. If, as Fukuyama argues, we already have 'therapies that blur the line between what we achieve on our own and what we achieve because of the levels of various chemicals in our brains', the efficiency of these therapies implies that 'what we achieve on our own' also depends on the 'levels of various chemicals in our brains'. We are not being told, to quote Tom Wolfe, 'Sorry, but Your Soul Just Died': we are in effect being told that we never had a soul in the first place. If the claims of biogenetics hold, then the choice is between clinging to the illusion of dignity and accepting the reality of what we are. If, as Fukuyama says, 'the desire for recognition has a biological basis and that basis is related to levels of serotonin in the brain,' our awareness of this fact must undermine the sense of dignity that comes from being recognised by others. We can have it only at the price of a disavowal: although I know very well that my self-esteem depends on serotonin, I nonetheless enjoy it. Fukuyama writes: The normal, and morally acceptable, way of overcoming low self-esteem was to struggle with oneself and with others, to work hard, to endure sometimes painful sacrifices, and finally to rise and be seen as having done so. The problem with self-esteem as it is understood in American pop psychology is that it becomes an entitlement, something everyone needs to have whether it is deserved or not. This devalues self-esteem and makes the quest for it self-defeating. But now along comes the American pharmaceutical industry, which through drugs like Zoloft and Prozac can provide self-esteem in a bottle by elevating brain serotonin. Imagine the following scenario: I am to take part in a quiz, but instead of working away at getting up the facts, I use drugs to enhance my memory. The self-esteem I acquire by winning the competition is still based on a real achievement: I performed better than my opponent who had spent night after night trying to memorise the relevant data. The intuitive counter-argument is that only my opponent has the right to be proud of his performance, because his knowledge, unlike mine, was the result of hard work. There's something inherently patronising in that. Again, we see it as perfectly justified when someone with a good natural singing voice takes pride in his performance, although we're aware that his singing has more to do with talent than with effort and training. If, however, I were to improve my singing by the use of a drug, I would be denied the same recognition (unless I had put a lot of effort into inventing the drug in question before testing it on myself). The point is that both hard work and natural talent are considered 'part of me', while using a drug is 'artificial' enhancement because it is a form of external manipulation. Which brings us back to the same problem: once we know that my 'natural talent' depends on the levels of certain chemicals in my brain, does it matter, morally, whether I acquired it from outside or have possessed it from birth? To further complicate matters, it's possible that my willingness to accept discipline and work hard itself depends on certain chemicals. What if, in order to win a quiz, I don't take a drug which enhances my memory but one which 'merely' strengthens my resolve? Is this still 'cheating'? One reason Fukuyama moved from his 'end-of-history' theory to a consideration of the new threat posed by the brain sciences is that the biogenetic threat is a much more radical version of the 'end of history', one that has the potential to render the free autonomous subject of liberal democracy obsolete. There is a deeper reason, however, for Fukuyama's turn: the prospect of biogenetic manipulation has forced him, consciously or not, to take note of the dark obverse of his idealised image of liberal democracy. All of a sudden, he has been compelled to confront the prospect of corporations misusing the free market to manipulate people and engage in terrifying medical experiments, of rich people breeding their offspring as an exclusive race with superior mental and physical capacities, thus instigating a new class warfare. It is clear to Fukuyama that the only way to limit this danger is to reassert strong state control of the market and to develop new forms of a democratic political will. While agreeing with all this, I am tempted to add that we need these measures independently of the biogenetic threat, simply in order to control the potential of the global market economy. Maybe the problem is not biogenetics itself, but rather the context of power relations within which it functions. Fukuyama's arguments are at once too abstract and too concrete. He fails to raise the full philosophical implications of the new mind sciences and technologies, and to locate them in their antagonistic socioeconomic context. What he doesn't grasp (and what a true Hegelian should have grasped) is the necessary link between the two ends of history, the passage from the one to the other: the liberal-democratic end of history immediately turns into its opposite, since, in the hour of its triumph, it starts to lose its foundation - the liberal-democratic subject. Biogenetic (and, more generally, cognitivist-evolutionary) reductionism should be attacked from a different direction. Bo Dahlbom is right, in his 1993 critique of Daniel Dennett, to insist on the social character of 'mind'. Theories of mind are obviously conditioned by their historical context: Fredric Jameson recently proposed a reading of Dennett's Consciousness Explained as an allegory of late capitalism with its motifs of competition, decentralisation etc. Even more important, Dennett himself insists that tools, the externalised 'intelligence' on which human beings rely, are an inherent part of human identity: it is meaningless to imagine a human being as a biological entity without the complex network of his/her tools - it would be like imagining a goose without its feathers. But in saying this he opens up a path which should be foll0wed much further. Since, to express it in good old Marxist terms, man is the totality of his/her social relations, Dennett should take the next logical step and analyse this network of social relations. The problem is not how to reduce mind to neuronal activity, or replace the language of mind by that of brain processes, but rather to grasp how mind can emerge only from the network of social relations and material supplements. The real problem is not how, if at all, machines can imitate the human mind, but how the 'identity' of the human mind can incorporate machines. In March 2002, Kevin Warwick, a professor of cybernetics at Reading University, had his neuronal system directly linked to a computer network. He thus became the first human being to whom data could be fed directly, bypassing the five senses. This is the future: not the replacement of the human mind by the computer, but a combination of the two. In May 2002, it was reported that scientists at New York University had attached a computer chip directly to a rat's brain, making it possible to steer the rat by means of a mechanism similar to that in a remote-controlled toy car. It is already possible for blind people to get elementary information about their surroundings fed directly into their brain, bypassing the apparatus of visual perception; what was new in the case of the rat was that, for the first time, the 'will' of a living agent, its 'spontaneous' decisions about its movements, were taken over by an external agency. The philosophical question here is whether the unfortunate rat was aware that something was wrong, that its movements were being decided by another power. And when the same experiment is performed on a human being (which, ethical questions notwithstanding, shouldn't be much more complicated than it was in the case of the rat), will the steered person be aware that an external power is deciding his movements? And if so, will this power be experienced as an irresistible inner drive, or as coercion? It is symptomatic that the applications of this mechanism envisioned by the scientists involved and by the journalists who reported the story were to do with humanitarian aid and the anti-terrorist campaign: the steered rats or other animals could be used, it was suggested, to contact earthquake victims buried under rubble, or to attack terrorists without risking human lives. A year from now, Philips plan to market a phone-cum-CD-player woven into the material of a jacket, which can be dry-cleaned without damaging the digital machinery. This is not the innocent advance it may appear to be. The Philips jacket will represent a quasi-organic prosthesis, less an external apparatus with which we interact than part of our self-experience as a living organism. The parallel often drawn between the increasing invisibility of computer chips and the fact that when we learn something sufficiently well, we cease to be aware of it, is misleading. The sign that we have learned a language is that we no longer need to focus on its rules: not only do we speak it spontaneously, but actively focusing on the rules would prevent us from speaking it fluently. We have, however, previously had to learn the language which we have now internalised: invisible computer chips are 'out there', and act not spontaneously, but blindly. Hegel would not have shrunk from the idea of the human genome and biogenetic intervention, preferring ignorance to risk. Instead, he would have rejoiced at the shattering of the old idea that 'Thou art that,' as though our notions of human identity had been definitively fixed. Contrary to Habermas, we should take the objectivisation of the genome fully on board. Reducing my being to the genome forces me to traverse the phantasmal stuff of which my ego is made, and only in this way can my subjectivity properly emerge. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v25/n10/zize01_.html

Greetins comrades, This is what the UK university experience now has to offer. Next thing you know, being "Asian-looking"/Muslim won't just be suspicious, it will be illegal. Arguably, it already is. Universities urged to spy on Muslims Vikram Dodd Monday October 16 2006 The Guardian Lecturers and university staff across Britain are to be asked to spy on "Asian-looking" and Muslim students they suspect of involvement in Islamic extremism and supporting terrorist violence, the Guardian has learned. They will be told to inform on students to special branch because the government believes campuses have become "fertile recruiting grounds" for extremists. The Department for Education has drawn up a series of proposals which are to be sent to universities and other centres of higher education before the end of the year. The 18-page document acknowledges that universities will be anxious about passing information to special branch, for fear it amounts to "collaborating with the 'secret police'". It says there will be "concerns about police targeting certain sections of the student population (eg Muslims)". The proposals are likely to cause anxiety among academics, and provoke anger from British Muslim groups at a time when ministers are at the focus of rows over issues such as the wearing of the veil and forcing Islamic schools to accept pupils from other faiths. Wakkas Khan, president of the Federation of Student Islamic Societies, said: "It sounds to me to be potentially the widest infringement of the rights of Muslim students that there ever has been in this country. It is clearly targeting Muslim students and treating them to a higher level of suspicion and scrutiny. It sounds like you're guilty until you're proven innocent." Gemma Tumelty, president of the National Union of Students, said: "They are going to treat everyone Muslim with suspicion on the basis of their faith. It's bearing on the side of McCarthyism." The document, which has been obtained by the Guardian, was sent within the last month to selected official bodies for consultation and reveals the full extent of what the authorities fear is happening in universities. It claims that Islamic societies at universities have become increasingly political in recent years and discusses monitoring their leaflets and speakers. The document warns of talent-spotting by terrorists on campuses and of students being "groomed" for extremism. In a section on factors that can radicalise students, the document identifies Muslims from "segregated" backgrounds as more likely to hold radical views than those who have "integrated into wider society". It also claims that students who study in their home towns could act as a link between extremism on campuses and in their local communities. The government wants universities to crack down on extremism, and the document says campus staff should volunteer information to special branch and not wait to be contacted by detectives. It says: "Special branch are aware that many HEIs [higher education institutions] will have a number of concerns about working closely with special branch. Some common concerns are that institutions will be seen to be collaborating with the 'secret police'. "HEIs may also worry about what special branch will do with any information supplied by an HEI and what action the police may subsequently take ... Special branch are not the 'secret police' and are accountable." The document says radicalisation on campus is unlikely to be overt: "While radicalisation may not be widespread, there is some evidence to suggest that students at further and higher educational establishments have been involved in terrorist- related activity, which could include actively radicalising fellow students on campus." The document adds: "Perhaps most importantly, universities and colleges provide a fertile recruiting ground for students. "There are different categories of students who may be 'sucked in' to an Islamist extremist ideology ... There are those who may be new to a university or college environment and vulnerable to 'grooming' by individuals with their own agenda as they search for friends and social groups; there are those who may be actively looking for extremist individuals with whom to associate. Campuses provide an opportunity for individuals who are already radicalised to form new networks, and extend existing ones." The document urges close attention be paid to university Islamic societies and - under the heading "inspiring radical speakers" - says: "Islamic societies have tended to invite more radical speakers or preachers on to campuses ... They can be forceful, persuasive and eloquent. They are able to fill a vacuum created by young Muslims' feelings of alienation from their parents' generation by providing greater 'clarity' from an Islamic point of view on a range of issues, and potentially a greater sense of purpose about how Muslim students can respond." It suggests checks should be made on external speakers at Islamic society events: "The control of university or college Islamic societies by certain extremist individuals can play a significant role in the extent of Islamist extremism on campus." The document says potential extremists can be talent-spotted at campus meetings then channelled to events off campus. The document gives five real-life examples of extremism in universities. The first talks of suspicious computer use by "Asian" students, which was reported by library staff. In language some may balk at, it talks of students of "Asian appearance" being suspected extremists. A senior education department source told the Guardian: "There's loads of anecdotal evidence of radicalisation. At the same time there are people who pushing this who have their own agendas, and the government has to strike the right balance." Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

When General Siyad Barre staged a coup d'etat, in 1966 and the army took control of the government. He proclaimed Somalia's commitment to scientific socialism and turned to the Soviet Union for support as we know. The government then attempted to suppress lineage and tribal affiliations and appealed for national cooperation. A cult was created around the person of the head of state. Muslim religious leaders were executed in 1975 primarily because; I presume that Somalis being adherents of three main Sufi brotherhoods- the Qadirirya, the Ahmadiya, and the Salihiya, had a tendency to regard ancestors as Sufi saints. Consequently, the Sufi communities were commonly established on the boundaries between tribal groups where they could serve as mediators and arbitrators. Barre’s actions echo the array of anti-Sufi forces that had been gaining ground during the first half of the century, but especially since the 1920s. The anti-Sufi forces were composed of nationalists and secularisers, perhaps most significant being Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Ataturk saw the Sufi brotherhoods as a reactionary and subversive element in the newly established Republic of Turkey and ordered their suppression in 1925. Siyad Barre, similar to Ataturk closed many of the Sufi tekkes and the tombs of Saints because in his eyes, there was simply no place in a land aspiring to become a secular and a modern nation state to those deemed “primitiveâ€. Therefore, Barre’s action towards the religious leaders was an attempt to change the traditional role the Sufis played in Somalia. Sufis served the tribes as teachers and judges, administering Muslim law and in matrimonial, Property and contract matters. And when a local Sufi saint died, his tomb often became a venerated place, the object of pilgrimages, and was sanctified by his reputation for baraka. Sufism fitted very well into the Somali society which already had innumerable holy men, who also provided religious services and were the objects of veneration. Consequently, Barre’s attempted to create a Westphalian system type state in which the citizens have obligations and allegiance to the nation-state, rather than tribal religious leaders in the present or the spiritual world, let to the executions of religious leaders in 1975. Barre’s secularization of the Somali society included giving equal legal rights to women, the promotion of literacy, and the move to settle the nomads on state farms or collectives.

ASPARTAME Aspartame is the most controversial food additive in history. The most recent evidence, linking it to leukaemia and lymphoma, has added substantial fuel to the ongoing protests of doctors, scientists and consumer groups who allege that this artificial sweetener should never have been released onto the market and that allowing it to remain in the food chain is killing us by degrees. Once upon a time, aspartame was listed by the Pentagon as a biochemical warfare agent . Today it's an integral part of the modern diet. Sold commercially under names like NutraSweet and Canderel, aspartame can be found in more than 5,000 foods, including fizzy drinks, chewing gum, table-top sweeteners, diet and diabetic foods, breakfast cereals, jams, sweets, vitamins, prescription and over-the-counter drugs. This means that there is a good chance that you and your family are among the two thirds of the adult population and 40 per cent of children who regularly ingest this artificial sweetener. Because it contains no calories, aspartame is considered a boon to health-conscious individuals everywhere; and most of us, if we think about it at all, think it is safe. But independent scientists say aspartame can produce a range of disturbing adverse effects in humans, including headaches, memory loss, mood swings, seizures, multiple sclerosis and Parkinson's-like symptoms, tumours and even death. Concerns over aspartame's toxicity meant that for eight years, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) denied it approval, effectively keeping it off the world market. This caution was based on compelling evidence, brought to light by numerous eminent scientists, litigators and consumer groups, that aspartame contributed to serious central nervous system damage and had been shown to cause cancer in animals. Eventually, however, political muscle, won out over scientific rigour, and aspartame was approved for use in 1981 (see timeline for details). The FDA's about-turn opened the floodgates for aspartame's swift approval by more than 70 regulatory authorities around the world. But, as the remarkable history of the sweetener shows, the clean bill of health given to it by government regulators - whose raison d'etre should be to protect the public from harm - is simply not worth the paper it is printed on. ASPARTAME REACTIONS: A HIDDEN EPIDEMIC Aspartame has been linked to a host of devastating central nervous system disorders When aspartame was approved for use, Dr HJ Roberts, director of the Palm Beach Institute for Medical Research, had no reason to doubt the FDA's decision. 'But my attitude changed,' he says, 'after repeatedly encountering serious reactions in my patients that seemed justifiably linked to aspartame.' Twenty years on, Roberts has coined the phrase 'aspartame disease' to describe the wide range of adverse effects he has seen among aspartame-guzzling patients. He estimates: 'Hundreds of thousands of consumers, more likely millions, currently suffer major reactions to products containing aspartame. Today, every physician probably encounters aspartame disease in everyday practice, especially among patients with illnesses that are undiagnosed or difficult to treat.' As a guide for other doctors, Roberts, a recognised expert in difficult diagnoses, has published a lengthy series of case studies, Aspartame Disease: an ignored epidemic (Sunshine Sentinel Press), in which he meticulously details his treatment of 1,200 aspartame-sensitive individuals, or 'reactors', encountered in his own practice. Following accepted medical procedure for detecting sensitivities to foods, Roberts had his patients remove aspartame from their diets. With nearly two thirds of reactors, symptoms began to improve within days of removing aspartame, and improvements were maintained as long as aspartame was kept out of their diet. Roberts' case studies parallel much of what was revealed in the FDA's report on adverse reactions to aspartame - that toxicity often reveals itself through central nervous system disorders and compromised immunity. His casework shows that aspartame toxicity can mimic the symptoms of and/or worsen several diseases that fall into these broad categories (see the box above). CONDITIONS MIMICKED BY ASPARTAME TOXICITY multiple sclerosis Parkinson's disease Alzheimer's disease fibromyalgia arthritis multiple chemical sensitivity chronic fatigue syndrome attention deficit disorder panic disorder depression and other psychological disorders lupus diabetes and diabetic complications birth defects lymphoma Lyme disease hypothyroidism Case studies, especially a large series like this, address some of the issues surrounding real-world use in a way that laboratory studies never can; and the conclusions that can be drawn from such observations aren't just startling, they are also potentially highly significant. In fact, Roberts believes that one of the major problems with aspartame research has been the continued over-emphasis on laboratory studies. This has meant that the input of concerned independent physicians and other interested persons, especially consumers, is 'reflexively discounted as "anecdotal"'. Many of the diseases listed by Roberts fall into the category of medicine's 'mystery diseases' - conditions with no clear aetiology and few effective cures. And while no one is suggesting that aspartame is the single cause of such diseases, Roberts' research suggests that some people diagnosed with, for example, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's or chronic fatigue syndrome may end up on a regimen of potentially harmful drugs that could have been avoided if they simply stopped ingesting aspartame-laced products. The full report is in the September 2005 issue of the Ecologist magazine. More on the dangers of Aspartame: http://www.aspartamekills.com/

Suppose a young woman is taking The Pill because she heard that it will regulate her period and reduce her menstrual cramping. Women also justify chemical contraceptives for the sake of clearing acne, loosing weight or preventing endometriosis. Other women are required to take oral contraceptives as a requirement for other prescription drugs, such as Accutane. These seemingly beneficial side effects of oral contraceptives are only half of the story. In a July, 2005 press release, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the World Health Organization classified estrogen-progesterone birth control pills as "carcinogenic to humans". Carcinogenic means "cancer-causing." Chemical contraceptives were previously considered "probably carcinogenic to humans." They also "stressed that there is no convincing evidence that oral contraceptives (OCs) have a protective effect against some types of cancer." They go on to admit that OCs increase the risk of some cancers (breast, cervix and liver) while decreasing the risk of others (endometrial and ovarian). Because of this benefit and risk relationship, it is hardly responsible for only one side of the information to be given to women, especially when it is sold primarily on the basis of these so-called benefits. It does not seem logical that any woman would place her body at risk for these deadly cancers, even if for the sake of reducing the risk of other cancers. Meanwhile, in the process a woman on The Pill is destroying her fertility. Medical doctors and researchers agree that one of the best ways to prevent some common cancers (such as breast cancer) in women is to conceive and bear a child and to breastfeed naturally. This is the body's natural means of protecting itself from cancer. Why isn't this information shared with women? Maybe it’s time for women to rethink taking The Pill for the so-called health benefits. http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/news/050831/index.htm

Oral Contraceptives declared carcinogenic by World Health Organization Suppose a young woman is taking The Pill because she heard that it will regulate her period and reduce her menstrual cramping. Women also justify chemical contraceptives for the sake of clearing acne, loosing weight or preventing endometriosis. Other women are required to take oral contraceptives as a requirement for other prescription drugs, such as Accutane. These seemingly beneficial side effects of oral contraceptives are only half of the story. In a July, 2005 press release, the International Agency for Research on Cancer and the World Health Organization classified estrogen-progesterone birth control pills as "carcinogenic to humans". Carcinogenic means "cancer-causing." Chemical contraceptives were previously considered "probably carcinogenic to humans." http://www.abortionbreastcancer.com/news/050831/index.htm

An interview with Tariq Ali By David Barsamian Tariq Ali was born in Lahore, then a part of British-ruled India, now in Pakistan. For many years he has been based in London where he is an editor of New Left Review. He’s written more than a dozen books on world history and politics. He is also a filmmaker, playwright, and novelist. He is the author of The Clash of Fundamentalisms and Bush in Babylon. His latest book is Speaking of Empire & Resistance. I talked with him in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia on December 16, 2005 during the Perdana Gobal Peace Forum. BARSAMIAN: Lawrence of Arabia wrote in 1920, “The people of England have been led in Iraq into a trap from which it will be hard to escape with dignity and honour. They have been tricked into it by a steady withholding of information. It is a disgrace to our imperial record, and may soon be too inflamed for any ordinary cure.... Our unfortunate troops, under hard conditions of climate and supply are policing an immense area, paying dearly every day in lives for the willfully wrong policy.†It’s interesting how history moves in cycles. ALI: I’ve always argued that though history never repeats itself exactly, it constantly echoes. And these echoes of history are with us as long as the structures of the world remain basically the same. On May 1, 2005, the Sunday Times of London published the Downing Street memo. It became front-page news in Britain, but not in the U.S. Explain what it is. The Downing Street memo is the record of a set of secret conversations, which took place at the highest levels of the British government and intelligence and civil services. What the memorandum reveals is that from the beginning they were determined to lie their way to war. The date of the memo is July 23, 2002, months before the invasion of Iraq. Essentially these rogues were devising a plan to go to war, setting traps for the Iraqi government. The staggering thing is that despite the publication of the Downing Street memorandum, Blair is still prime minister of Britain, Jack Straw is still foreign secretary, and George Bush and Dick Cheney are still running the United States. The public is so cynical it doesn’t much care. Another stunning revelation that appeared in the British press, the Daily Mirror, was that President Bush proposed bombing Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arab satellite network. Al-Jazeera posed a big problem—from the beginning it provided alternative images. These images could be seen in Europe. The number of European citizens, especially in France, Germany, and Britain, buying Al-Jazeera cable sets so that they could access the station went up by two million at the start of the war. Even though people couldn’t speak a word of Arabic, they did not trust Western images and they wanted to see alternatives. And it was in order to destroy any possibility of alternative images that the U.S. bombed Al-Jazeera in Afghanistan at the start of the war there. They bombed Al-Jazeera positions even though Al-Jazeera’s directors had told them, “This is where our offices are. Please make sure they don’t bomb us.†Besides the murder of Tariq Ayoub, we have seen a senior Al-Jazeera correspondent arrested in Spain and charged with terrorism on the basis of information received from the U.S. We have an Al-Jazeera correspondent arrested and tortured in Abu Ghraib prison and we have an Al-Jazeera correspondent at Guantanamo Bay. On July 7, 2005 the London underground and a bus were bombed, resulting in scores of deaths and casualties. What has happened to civil liberties in Britain since the bombings? The London bombings were a tragedy because innocents died and these young kids who carried them out took their own lives. Senseless carnage on the streets of a city which, by and large, had opposed the war. Nonetheless, one had to ask, “Why did they do it?†And here you saw for one whole week the British establishment and the entire British media system closing ranks. I think, without blowing my own trumpet, that I was the only person who wrote in the Guardian the following day an article on the bombings, saying that this was a direct outcome of Blair’s decision to go to war in Iraq. The Guardian, to its credit, published this. But the letters columns published attacks on me for days on end, without anyone being allowed to respond. Normally after I make a public intervention, I get about 100 emails, sometimes a bit more, 80 percent usually in favor, 20 percent against. After this article, I got over 800 emails and over 90 percent of them were in favor. Within two weeks it became clear that what I had said was right. The first opinion poll, published in the Guardian, showed that 66 percent of the British public said that the attacks on London were a direct outcome of the war on Iraq. Then we had the leak of a letter written by the head of the British Foreign Office to the prime minister’s office a year prior to the bombings saying, “I am deeply concerned that our foreign policy and intervention in Iraq are creating havoc inside the Muslim communities in Britain.†Then we had a special report, commissioned by the Royal Institute of International Affairs, a semi-Foreign Office think tank. They said, “The war in Iraq has created massive problems within Britain itself and has threatened the security of our country.†July 7 brought all that to the fore. Blair’s ratings are now down. He is a much loathed and despised prime minister. And civil liberties? Blair, in order to show that he was doing something, has waged a war on civil liberties. He has demanded emergency laws and demanded that the police should be allowed to detain and hold suspects for 90 days. The 90-day law was a law of apartheid South Africa, which used to be criticized by liberals and conservatives alike as something unacceptable within a democratic state. But there already is a law under existing legislation whereby police can detain someone for 14 days without access to a lawyer. The shoddy compromise was 28 days, not the proposed 90. The parliamentarians who defeated the 90-day law said, “We’ve defeated Blair,†which is true. They humiliated him. But for the police to hold someone for a whole month? Unheard of. Habeas corpus suspended, the right to hold prisoners without trial indefinitely? This is what is going on in Britain today. Part of the lexicon of the war on terrorism are such phrases as ghost detainees, extraordinary rendition, secret flights, and secret prisons. This has created a brouhaha in Europe and prompted a visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to explain the situation. We know that Condoleezza Rice was subjected to quite tough questioning, especially when she visited Germany, because they had lifted a German citizen when he was vacationing somewhere and had taken him to some prison. According to this unfortunate German citizen, he was sodomized, tortured, and locked up. Finally they realized he wasn’t guilty of anything and had to release him. He’s now trying to sue the U.S. government. He was kidnapped and the German government didn’t lift a finger to do anything. When Condoleezza Rice visited Berlin, the new German chancellor, who supported the Iraq war, Angela Merkel, had to confront Rice on this question because the German press was outraged. There is outrage all over Europe. The Italians, who have a pro-U.S. government, are nonetheless angry that people are lifted off the streets of Rome and taken on planes to Guantánamo, prisons in Egypt, or wherever. No one quite knows. The European media have been very angry and say it’s a violation of human rights laws. Blair, of course, is the only one who isn’t angry because he’s been fully collaborating with this. Unmarked planes have been seen taking off from British airports with prisoners. Some of the prisons they have been taken to are in Eastern Europe. You will recall that throughout the Cold War we were told Eastern Europe were satellite states of the Soviet Union, they didn’t have their own freedoms. Exactly the same is happening now. It’s just that they’ve become satellite states of the U.S. In many cases the same people who were working with the Russians are now working with the U.S. I wouldn’t be surprised if many of the prison guards and wardens are the same. Eastern Europe dissidents who used to scream and shout in order to get U.S. assistance—Václav Havel, Adam Michnik, Lech Walechsa—where are they now? Why don’t they speak up? Michnik and Havel actually supported the war in Iraq and presumably justified this as part of the fight against “barbarism†or whatever. I don’t know. But this is another aspect of the situation in Europe, which very few people actually discuss. Sectors of the U.S. elite are critical of the Iraq war such as Richard Haass of the Council on Foreign Relations and Colin Powell’s deputy, Lawrence Wilkerson. Even the New York Times. The gist of their critique, however, is based not on the immorality or criminality of attacking a country, but on the incompetence and ineptitude of the Bush administration. Their logic is that if they had done it properly, we wouldn’t have any problems. The people who only talk about ineptitude are people who basically supported the war and now feel compelled to come out against it because it’s gone wrong. It’s the fact that they didn’t expect a resistance. That’s very, very dangerous talk. It is no way to fight this crazed adventurism of the Bush administration. It totally plays into their hands. They can then point to these people and say, “They want us to send more troops.†And we might have a weird situation where many Democrats, like Hillary Clinton and her gang, are attacking Republicans for not sending more troops. Is this what the next political debate within the American political establishment should be? We did send enough troops. No, you didn’t send enough troops. We did, you didn’t, we did, you didn’t. Give us a break. In an article in the Guardian, you write that “the argument that withdrawal will lead to civil war is slightly absurd.†Why do you say that? Because a form of civil war exists already. Whenever imperial powers occupy a country, historically speaking, there is one basic policy they follow, which is divide and rule. Usually they go for a minority ethnic community, give them all sorts of privileges, and hope that will do the trick. In Iraq the British did that with the Sunnis. It kept the Shia at bay. It relied on the Sunni elite to do the trick for them, which worked for a short time. The U.S. is relying largely on the Kurds and collaborationist element within the Shia religious leadership to do the business for them. I’m not sure it’s going to work with the rest of Iraq. But the notion that if they leave, there will be a civil war is utterly ludicrous because it’s their presence that has created a civil war situation inside Iraq. Harold Pinter won the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature. His acceptance speech, “Art, Truth, and Politics,†was a critique of U.S. power around the world. He says, “The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them.†What kind of coverage did Pinter, who is British, get? Harold Pinter is probably the greatest living playwright in the English-speaking world today. He is highly respected in Britain, including by people who don’t agree with his political opinions. His speech was shown on Channel 4 television, extracts were shown on the BBC. It was a very moving speech because he was ill in bed. It was given massive coverage in the British media and in Europe. I think it’s been translated into almost every European language. It was certainly publicized widely all over Asia, Africa, and a big extract of Pinter’s speech was shown on Telesur, the Latin American TV channel. And I’m sure Al-Jazeera broadcast it as well. The only country where this speech was not broadcast or covered was in the U.S. U.S. military power is unchallenged and supreme. However, on the economic level, the U.S. is plagued by a number of serious problems. Other than weapons and cultural products, such as music, Hollywood films, and video games, there are very few things made in the U.S. that people around the world want. So there seems to be a paradox, perhaps echoing previous empires, of great military power, on one hand, and an eroding economic base. This is true and it certainly applies to the British and the European empires of the 20th century. Though in the case of the Germans, they were defeated not economically, but militarily. But, by and large, empires extend themselves too far, their economies begin to suffer, and there are rebellions within. It’s the conjunction of all these events which usually helps to bring about the fall of empires. The U.S. can’t do this indefinitely, granted, but it can do it easily for another 25 years. I think the alarm bells are beginning to ring inside the U.S. because they are threatened now not by this spurious threat of terror or tiny groups of religious extremists, but by economic developments in East Asia. The emergence of China as a very major player does potentially threaten the U.S., though even here I would advise caution. I have many colleagues and friends in the American academy who sometimes get carried away by the development of China. They sort of ascribe to the Chinese leadership motives that are remote from Chinese thinking. The Chinese, after all, are dependent on the U.S. market so this notion that they can punish the U.S. just by withdrawing from the dollar reserves and going to the Euro would punish themselves. If the U.S. imposed tariffs on Chinese exports to the U.S., then the Chinese could do something. But as long as they don’t impose tariff barriers and there is free trade taking place between both countries, then the Chinese are not going to do anything, because the Chinese economy is booming. The most dynamic capitalism you see today is in China, not in the U.S., Europe, or South Korea even. Hurricane Katrina exposed enormous fissures. in the U.S. Months after the hurricane, large sections of New Orleans still do not have clean water, sanitation, electricity. How was this seen in the British press? The European press, not just Britain, are pretty obsessed with the U.S. because this is the empire before which they scrape and bow. Anything that happens there is of enormous concern. The coverage of the New Orleans events in the European media was as if it was happening to their own countries. But they were also shocked, just as for the first two weeks the U.S. media was in a state of complete shock. Even journalists on Fox television were reporting with real anger because they couldn’t believe what they were seeing and, like many Americans, had no idea that so many black people lived in New Orleans. So this was a part of the U.S., which they said was almost like the Third World. It isn’t almost. It is. In this situation, what you see is a state that cannot provide the basic amenities of life either to countries it’s occupying or to its own country. We know all this and there has been endless stuff written about it. The thing is, as long as no political, social, or economic alternative exists, they will carry on getting away with it. Wouldn’t it be great if in New Orleans they stood independent candidates against the two-party system and won. Just a small thing, but it would reverberate throughout the U.S., saying, “You let us down and we’re going to let you down.†How is fighting power today different from the 1960s? It’s very different in the sense that in the 1960s and 1970s, and even the early 1980s, there was still a lot of hope that you could get rid of this system and transform it through a series of democratic revolutions or insurrections or whatever. That no longer exists in large parts of the world. So there is a general feeling that really we’re stuck, there is no real alternative to the system. That is the feeling in North America, Europe, and large chunks of Asia and Africa. Not in Latin America. Here you have the beginnings of an alternative. This is why the propaganda war against Chavez and the attempts to overthrow him make sense from the U.S. point of view. Chavez is totally challenging the neoliberal economic order. He quotes Simon Bolivar and numerous other leaders of Latin American nationalism to say what needs to be done. And it’s a very clever, intelligent operation. He is using money from the oil wealth of Venezuela, which has benefited the Venezuelan poor enormously because they’re lucky to have a government that doesn’t accept neoliberal jargon and neoliberal prescriptions. So you have had in Venezuela a massive social expenditure on health, education, creating shelter for the poor, land reform, giving land to the peasant farmers, slum dwellers getting the right to the houses they have built and the land on which they have built them. All this is happening. Gradually, news of this experience is traveling through Latin America because ideas cross borders very easily, they don’t need passports. So Chavez and the Bolivarians in Venezuela have become a pole of attraction for social movements throughout Latin America. These, I would say, are social movements which are movements in the genuine sense of the word. Every single deprived layer is active in some way or the other. Latin America, from that point of view, is extremely important today in terms of offering some social alternatives. One of the things they told me in Cuba, they said, “We get fed up with these ****** articles in the American press saying, ‘After Fidel, Who? Miami? Raul Castro?’†They said, “No, the answer is very simple. After Fidel, Hugo Chavez, because,†they said, “this is Latin America.†This continent has a habit of throwing up popular leaders who express the aspirations of the poor. Telesur TV, which you’ve been involved in, went on the air in 2005. It broadcasts from Caracas and is supported by the governments of Venezuela, Argentina, Cuba, and Uruguay. This is an idea that grew over the years. I remember going to Caracas in 2003 to celebrate the defeat of the coup attempt against Chavez. I said to them at a big public rally where Chavez and others were present that one has to fight on many fronts and one of the fronts one has to fight on is the media front. And I said, “We have in the Arab world Al-Jazeera and what we need in the Latin American world is Al Bolivar.†Afterwards, Chavez pointed out to me, “We can’t call it Al Bolivar because the Brazilians have no memory of Bolivar. He didn’t go there.†So they called it Telesur instead. And together with Eduardo Galeano, Fernando Solanas, many other intellectuals, I’m on the advisory board. So when they ask us, we play an advisory role. It’s early yet to judge whether it will be a success or not. They have not reached the level of Al-Jazeera. Also, their project is slightly different from Al-Jazeera’s. Telesur’s project is to unify Latin America, so it’s critical of what’s going on, but at the same time it has a very constructive side to it. The theme of the World Social Forum is “another world is possible.†What signs do you see that another world is possible? The signs are there, largely in Latin America. I have to say that in Africa and Asia there are not many signs. There are some. You have the discontent of the Chinese peasants now, who are demanding more and more social rights. You have some social movements in India which have scored some victories. But in terms of an overall alternative to the existing neoliberal order, the big struggles that are taking place in Latin America. So there are these possibilities. I don’t exaggerate them. The nice thing about the World Social Forum is that it’s a gathering of like-minded people who meet once a year or once every two years and say, “Hi, guys, we’re still around.†Which is nice, but it’s not sufficient. What does the title of your book Rough Music mean? “Rough music†is a phrase that was popularized by the English historian E. P. Thompson who said, “Rough music is the term which has been generally used in England since the end of the 17th century to denote a rude cacophony, with or without more elaborate ritual, which usually directed mockery or hostility against individuals who offended against certain community norms.†My book Rough Music is a rude cacophony against Tony Blair and all the wielders of power and his embedded journalists in the media who tell endless lies.

If this has already been posted, please feel free to delete it. When Somali civil engineering student Mukhtar Ahmed Osman was beaten unconscious in the snow by a gang of teenagers in a Moscow suburb, nobody came to his aid. While much of the violence seems to be purely racist, some believe Africans are also targeted as scapegoats for Russian society's ills and the media is often accused of fostering an image of African students as drug-dealers. The attacks have turned murderous in recent years. In St Petersburg, three Africans have been killed in suspected race attacks since September. Non-African foreign students have also been murdered, but it is the black students who attract most attention from the racists. Juldas, now leader of the African students at RUDN, says "monkey" insults and actual assaults are so frequent that students have ceased reporting them. "We see it as normal now because that's how we live." http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4737468.stm

It's called 'divide and conquer', it's an old colonial strategy.

I've been thinking about this cartoon incident lately. We've all seen the pictures on TV. Embassies firebombed, call for violence and the boycotting of Danish foods. All because of an opinion cartoon in a newspaper. One Islamic leader said that it is unacceptable to insult any prophet of god, including Jesus. However, I can't tell if there's been a religious figure/prophet so cartooned as Jesus has been. So, according to the Islamic leader/Imam, it sounds like all the Muslims should come to the defence of all prophets, including Jesus. But I have not heard event a hint of dissent by our Muslim community about Jesus getting made fun of. So, my question is where is the defence? I guess, what I’m trying to say is that, I'm puzzled that when an Imam, a religious teacher, says all prophets are sacred...no one has stepped up publicly (that I have seen) to defend the others at any time in the past. I find this lack of continuity a puzzling paradox that doesn't make sense. So, my question to you is, where was the public support when the other prophets received the same ridicule?

Corporatocracy Economic Hit Men An interview with John Perkins By Daniel McLeod Late last year a small publisher released an autobiography titled Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by John Perkins. Written in the style of a spy novel, Perkins recounted his years as chief economist for MAIN, an international consulting firm based in Boston. His job there was to produce inflated economic forecasts to be used by the World Bank to plan massive engineering and construction projects in Third World nations. Young and successful, his career afforded a charmed life through the 1970s, filled with travel, women, money, and professional prestige. Despite the outer trappings of mainstream success, Perkins was morally torn by his true role as an economic hit man (EHM). A tongue-in-cheek term for his profession, this moniker revealed more about his trade than any corporate title. “Economic hit men,†Perkins writes, “are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder.†His explicit tasks as an EHM were to justify World Bank loans funneling money into the pockets of huge U.S. contractors (such as Bechtel and Halliburton) and to bankrupt those nations soon after the corporations were paid. Saddled with debt, these countries could easily be tapped for UN votes, military bases, or access to coveted natural resources by their creditors, namely the U.S. government. Perkins’s resume as an EHM included Indonesia, Panama, Ecuador, Columbia, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and other strategically important countries. The ultimate goal for EHMs was simple: to expand U.S. corporate empire. With little to no major media coverage, Confessions sold 150,000 copies within months and appeared on over 20 bestseller lists, including those of the New York Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, and USA Today. Penguin (a subsidiary of the British conglomerate, Pearson) published the paperback in December 2005. DANIEL MCLEOD: You place economic hit men in a long line of imperial agents including Roman centurions, Spanish conquistadors, and 18th and 19th century colonial powers. All of these approaches relied on military force, but EHMs are different. Can you recount the origins of this strategy for empire building? JOHN PERKINS: I really think it came out of our supposed success in Iran in the early 1950s. The Iranians had democratically elected a president (Mossadegh) and he began to clamp down on the oil companies, insisting that they pay fair taxes so the people of Iran would be recompensed for the oil being taken out of their country. The British and the U.S. were involved there and our oil companies were very resentful of this so we decided to get rid of Mossadegh. We figured that we could not send in troops because Iran was bordering the Soviet Union, which had nuclear weapons. Rather than sending in troops, we sent a CIA agent, Kermit Roosevelt, Teddy Roosevelt’s grandson. With a few million dollars, Kermit managed to overthrow the democratically elected Mossadegh and replace him with the Shah of Iran, who we all know was a despot—and a friend of the oil companies. This experience taught the people in charge—what I refer to as the corporatocracy—that creating empire by using agents like Roosevelt was a lot cheaper and safer than the old military model. The only problem was that Roosevelt was a CIA agent and had he been discovered, the U.S. government would have been very embarrassed, to say the least. Soon after that, the decision was made to employ people from private businesses—making it difficult to trace these activities back to Washington. What happens when an EHM fails to persuade a leader of a country to sign on to the empire’s agenda? That’s pretty rare. In a few short decades EHMs were successful a majority of the time. But there are occasions when they failed, as I failed with Panama’s president, Omar Torrijos. At such times, what we call the jackals, CIA-sanctioned assassins, are sent in to overthrow governments or assassinate the leaders—as in Guatemala with Arbenz, Chile with Allende, and Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. When I failed with Omar Torrijos—who refused to play the game—his private plane went down in a fiery crash. We all knew it was a CIA-supported assassination. What was your relationship with Omar Torrijos? I liked Omar Torrijos as a person. When I was sent to Panama to bring him around, he told me, “I realize that if I play your game I will become very wealthy, but that’s really not my interest here. I want to help my poor people so you can either get out of the country or stay here and do it the way I want to do it.†I went back to Boston and relayed this message to my boss at MAIN. We decided to stay in Panama. After all, we could make some money and felt we still had a chance to bring Torrijos around. The thing was I knew he was probably in trouble because I knew the system was built on the assumption that leaders are corruptible and when a leader like Torrijos is not corruptible, it sets an example throughout the world. Torrijos had staked his reputation on convincing the U.S. to turn the canal over to Panama. So even though I really appreciated the firm stand he took, I feared the jackals would be called in. In your book you recount your greatest accomplishment as an EHM. You refer to it as “the deal of the century, the deal that changed the course of world history, but never reached newspapers.†What was this deal and your role in brokering it? In the early 1970s OPEC basically shut down the oil flow, resulting in long lines of cars at gas stations. We were afraid that we were going to have another depression comparable to the 1930s. As a result, the U.S. Treasury Department came to me and other EHMs and retained us to find a way to make sure the U.S. would never again be held hostage by OPEC. We knew the key was Saudi Arabia because it controlled more oil than anybody else in the world and we knew the House of Saud, the royal family, was corruptible. We worked out a deal whereby the House of Saud would reinvest petrol-dollars in U.S. treasury securities. The Treasury Department would use the interest earned on these investments to pay U.S. companies to westernize Saudi Arabia—to build power plants, industrial parks, and whole cities out of the desert. Over the past decades this has amounted to trillions of dollars paid to U.S. companies to build Saudi Arabia in the image of the West. Part of the agreement also was for Saudi Arabia to maintain the price of oil at a level acceptable to us and we would agree to keep the House of Saud in power. It was an amazing deal that worked incredibly well until today. It’s now falling apart for a number of reasons. One is that the House of Saud is very unpopular in Saudi Arabia and throughout the Muslim world because they struck this deal and have surrounded Islam’s most sacred sites with petrochemical plants, McDonalds, and other symbols of materialism. Another reason is that we are powerless, given our failure in Iraq, to control the Middle East and the rising tide of Muslim extremism. I imagine a common response is that all this sounds like a ploy hatched by a few cigar-smoking capitalists in a dark room miles underground; that this is conspiracy theory. It’s certainly not a conspiracy. By definition a conspiracy is illegal. None of this is illegal. The way economic hit men work should be illegal, but because we write the international laws it isn’t. Members of the corporatocracy get together on occasion and many of them spend a lot of time in Washington, DC, but they don’t have to do it in dark rooms smoking cigars because they’re not doing anything illegal. These people are constantly moving back and forth at the highest levels through an open door policy. One year a guy is president of the world’s biggest oil company and the next he’s vice president of the United States or holding a cabinet position. After serving his or her term, she or he goes back into the oil, chemical, or manufacturing company as CEO. It’s a crazy system. It’s tailor-made for corruption. Are the corporatocracy agenda setters conscious that theirs is an imperial one at odds with the stated ideals of U.S. democracy? The ones at the top are very aware of it. They know exactly what they’re doing. They’re empire builders. Now within these organizations—the World Bank, Bechtel, Halliburton, Monsanto, and all these other companies—there are hundreds of thousands who are not conscious of it. They are really the pawns. They should be conscious, but it’s easy to be in denial. Our educational institutions and our systems of reward make it easy to convince yourself that what you’re doing is really helping poor people. That’s one of the reasons I wrote the book. I don’t want anybody to be in the position where they can’t clearly see what they’re doing. An intriguing aspect of your story is that you were very conscious of the role you were playing as an EHM. How were you able to justify your actions? I had been a Peace Corps volunteer in Ecuador and that made me conscious of the broader picture. Nonetheless, once I ended up being an EHM, I had people like World Bank president Robert McNamara patting me on the back. I was lecturing at Harvard and many other institutions around the world. I was praised for what I did. I wrote papers that were published and it was all above ground. Based on my Boston University degree in macroeconomics, I could rationalize it by saying that what I was doing increased GNP. However, the problem is that increasing GNP often only helps those at the very top of the totem pole. It does not help the people living in cardboard shacks in Jakarta or Caracas. Even though I knew in my heart what I was doing was wrong, in my head I could justify it because it was right according to every institution I worked for and because of my education. I could turn a blind eye. You wrote this book to help Americans recognize the true nature of our society and our agency within it. Are people being reached for the first time? We’ve received a tremendous number of letters and emails. My publisher at one point had an intern go through these to come up with the most common theme and what she came up with was paraphrased like this: “I knew this was happening in my heart, but whenever I talked about it people called me paranoid or crazy so I stopped talking about it. Now I’ve read your book and my suspicions have been confirmed. Not only am I going to talk about it, but I’m also going to act upon it.†Hearing that is extremely gratifying—especially the part when they say they are not only going to talk about it, but are also determined to act on it. I’m not sure what people are actually doing, but I know that they are making an impact in just talking about what’s going on. After you quit the game, you wanted to write a book and come clean, but you received bribes and threats for over a decade. What made you break your silence? Shortly after 9/11, I went to ground zero and as I stood there smelling the charred flesh and seeing the smoke still rising, I knew I had to write this book and take responsibility for my past. What happened that day was a direct result of the empire building my fellow EHMs and I participated in. It was an act of mass murder by a mass murderer, but it represented the anger that seethes around the world. Osama Bin Laden has unfortunately become a hero not just in the Middle East, but also in much of Latin America and many other places. He shouldn’t be in this position and I realized that the American people needed to hear the real story. I had to come clean in a way that would help Americans wake up to the corporatocracy and understand why U.S. policies stoke so much hatred. Unless we change direction, the future is a bleak one for the younger generations and we’ll only change when we come to understand what’s going on. With Katrina, the quagmires in Iraq and Afghanistan, rising resistance in South America, a shaky House of Saud, and the embattled status of the U.S. dollar, do you believe the corporatocracy is at a breaking point? History tells us that no empire survives. This one is no exception. The U.S. has 5 percent of the world’s population and we’re consuming more than 25 percent of the world’s resources. That’s not a model that can be replicated. What we are is a failure that is causing unheard of inequality and environmental damage on a global scale. Ours is an empire in the throes of collapse.

by Gretchen Gordon This past Sunday, the people of Bolivia elected indigenous leader Evo Morales as their next president. In elections that have captured international attention, Morales' Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) won over 50 percent of the popular vote, with a 20 percent lead over conservative opponent Jorge Quiroga. MAS' win represents a significant increase over pre-election polls, which placed Morales at a maximum of 30-34 percent, and within a few points of Quiroga. The surprisingly large victory achieved by Morales at the polls, however, belies the great challenge ahead for a MAS government when it actually takes power next year. Last week, in a packed soccer stadium in Cochabamba, Bolivia, Marcello Guzman carried a large billowing multicolored checkered indigenous flag against a strong wind. Among 60,000 fellow Bolivians, Guzman stood beneath a darkening sky, holding out despite an impending thunderstorm for the chance to cheer on Morales in his final campaign rally before elections. Guzman describes himself as a member of Bolivia's two largest indigenous groups, a "Quechua and Aymaran brother of Evo," and his proud sentiment represents the intense feeling of expectation alive in Bolivia as it stands poised to usher in South America's first indigenous president. "Evo! Evo! Evo!" chants the crowd as Morales's hoarse voice implores the audience to be part of "the struggle for the liberation of the people of Bolivia." "We're very close to recovering the land and all the natural resources... to nationalizing all of the natural resources," shouts Evo. "The natural resources can't be given away, can't be privatized, they belong in the hands of the Bolivian state!" After centuries of rule by criollos, often foreign-educated upper class, Bolivia remains the poorest country in South America despite a rich supply of natural gas and other resources. The prospect of Morales' Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party taking power has had many in Bolivia, the region, and beyond watching attentively the unfolding events in this small, often overlooked, country. As Morales tells the crowd, the change currently taking place in Bolivia "is not only the hope of Bolivia but the hope of Latin America." In the last three years, exacerbated by free-market or "neo-liberal" reforms, Bolivia's historic disparity of wealth and power has come to a boiling point. Bolivians have repeatedly taken to the streets, and amid violent clashes with security forces, two successive governments have prematurely resigned. Among the critical issues in play are who will control the country's rich natural gas reserves, and whether or not Bolivia's disenfranchised indigenous majority will finally have a share in the nation's wealth and power. The hope resting on Morales' shoulders is that with a MAS government, Bolivia's vast resources will be exploited for the country's own development, and the privatization, deregulation, and other neo-liberal economic policies put in place in the last twenty years will be reformed. "Now we're going to industrialize our prime materials," says Guzman excitedly, right before the bamboo stick holding up his flag breaks in half from the wind. "We're no longer going to be tenants in our own home. Now we're going to be owners of our own house." But just as many in Bolivia look to Morales as a lifeline to a country drowning in poverty and conflict, Morales' same proposals of change inspire an almost similar degree of fear from certain sectors within the country (both left and right), as well as from financial interests abroad. Election radio spots by business groups warned that if Morales is elected, he will do away with private property as the spots allege has occurred under President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela. Others predict that Morales' plan to decriminalize the cultivation of coca, traditionally grown for medicine, tea, and religious uses but also utilized in cocaine production, will cause the country to be isolated internationally. U.S. officials have added to these fears with various public statements of concern over a Morales presidency. But Morales and running mate Alvaro Garcia Linera are the first to temper both the over-ambitious hopes of the left as well as the exaggerated fears on the right. "We should admit that Bolivia will still be capitalist in the next 50 to 100 years," Linera said in recent interviews. An examination of MAS' platform on gas, for example, reveals that Morales' proposal of nationalization is anything but a Cuba-style expropriation. In fact, before massive protests last May, MAS didn't support the call for nationalization. Now their platform calls for a "nationalization without confiscation," with proposals geared toward renegotiation of contracts on terms more favorable to Bolivia, while candidates further to the left called for a more forceful "nationalization without indemnization." Before the election, Morales told La Gaceta, "If I'm elected president, unfortunately it will be my duty to respect those neo-liberal laws. Some changes we will be able to make by decree, others through the legislature, but immediately there aren't going to be great changes because these are 20 years of neo-liberal laws- that can't be erased in one swipe." But this moderate talk is exactly what many of the social movements in Bolivia fear. Many of the indigenous, campesino, miner, and other sectors who have created the public debate and environment for a possible MAS victory feel like Morales is not going far enough to represent their interests. "They are advancing a presidential campaign, but they don't have 100 percent backing of the social movements," says Giselle Gonzalez, a member of the Coordinadora in Defense of Water, the leading group in Cochabamba's 2000 fight against water privatization. "You can feel in the air a certain sense of hope, but still I don't believe that they'll part ways with the multinational corporations," says Gonzalez. "There are people within MAS who are going to look for their personal interest instead of that of the population." Abraham Delgado, a water activist from the city of El Alto echoes this doubt. "They talk about nationalization, but in reality it's not nationalization- 80 percent stays in the hands of the corporations... we stay in the same system, the same model." Various social groups and leaders, including a recent politically-embarrassing public announcement by a MAS Senator, have given a MAS government varying time periods of three to six months to comply with the demands of the Bolivian people, specifically on the issues of gas and the constituent assembly. Failure to make significant progress, they promise, will bring renewed social protest from MAS' own current supporters. While Morales surprised voters with his substantial electoral victory Sunday, the greater test for MAS is only beginning. Once in power, MAS will face the monumental challenge of balancing diverse social movement demands for radical change, with investor fears and U.S. pressures. MAS, while winning a majority in the House of Representatives, will also have to struggle with a minority presence in the Senate. For the many Bolivians who have waited so long and sacrificed so much in order to finally grab hold of a place at the negotiating table, putting too much hope into another government carries significant risk. "It's dangerous because the majority of the people believe that MAS is going to solve things," says Delgado. "There's going to be a significant sense of frustration, because after the elections nothing is going to happen. Those who are going to be frustrated aren't going to be MAS, it will be the people, who have so much hope for MAS." What others in the social movements point to, is that the radical change being sought in Bolivia is not something Evo Morales, or any one president can do himself. What Morales can do, is to help create a favorable environment for the change that the social movements have already set in motion. A major component of that is the convening of a constituent assembly, set for July of 2006, which would put ordinary Bolivians, rather than the president or congress, in charge of deciding major issues such as gas nationalization, land reform, and regional autonomy. "All these issues need real solutions, not band-aid solutions," says Gonzalez. "The solutions need to come from the bottom, and this is going to happen with the constituent assembly, with the participation of everyone." Morales, himself, points to the power of the constituent assembly as a key mandate of the MAS party. "It's the constituent assembly with unlimited powers, that will create a power based in the people to construct this new Bolivia that we're looking for." Proposals for what a constituent assembly would actually look like, who would participate, and what power it would have, however, vary drastically among different interests within Bolivia. From all accounts, the work of constructing a successful constituent assembly invested with sufficient power to be able to tackle the profound issues in play will be an onerous endeavor, laden with potential pitfalls. As Morales finishes his speech in the stadium, now in a full rain, Marcello Guzman stands attentive with the several thousand viewers who remain. He's rigged his bamboo pole back together and holds his flag high against the dark evening sky. While Evo Morales has succeeded in taking power, giving that power back to the people may be his hardest challenge yet.

Originally posted by uchi: Really? Yep, they certainly are serious about it.

Former Canadian Minister Of Defence Asks Canadian Parliament Asked To Hold Hearings On Relations With Alien "Et" Civilizations PRWEB) - OTTAWA, CANADA (PRWEB) November 24, 2005 -- A former Canadian Minister of Defence and Deputy Prime Minister under Pierre Trudeau has joined forces with three Non-governmental organizations to ask the Parliament of Canada to hold public hearings on Exopolitics -- relations with “ETs.†By “ETs,†Mr. Hellyer and these organizations mean ethical, advanced extraterrestrial civilizations that may now be visiting Earth. On September 25, 2005, in a startling speech at the University of Toronto that caught the attention of mainstream newspapers and magazines, Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister from 1963-67 under Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Prime Minister Lester Pearson, publicly stated: "UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head." Mr. Hellyer went on to say, "I'm so concerned about what the consequences might be of starting an intergalactic war, that I just think I had to say something." Hellyer revealed, "The secrecy involved in all matters pertaining to the Roswell incident was unparalled. The classification was, from the outset, above top secret, so the vast majority of U.S. officials and politicians, let alone a mere allied minister of defence, were never in-the-loop." Hellyer warned, "The United States military are preparing weapons which could be used against the aliens, and they could get us into an intergalactic war without us ever having any warning. He stated, "The Bush administration has finally agreed to let the military build a forward base on the moon, which will put them in a better position to keep track of the goings and comings of the visitors from space, and to shoot at them, if they so decide." Hellyer’s speech ended with a standing ovation. He said, "The time has come to lift the veil of secrecy, and let the truth emerge, so there can be a real and informed debate, about one of the most important problems facing our planet today." Three Non-governmental organizations took Hellyer’s words to heart, and approached Canada’s Parliament in Ottawa, Canada’s capital, to hold public hearings on a possible ET presence, and what Canada should do. The Canadian Senate, which is an appointed body, has held objective, well-regarded hearings and issued reports on controversial issues such as same-sex marriage and medical marijuana, On October 20, 2005, the Institute for Cooperation in Space requested Canadian Senator Colin Kenny, Senator, Chair of The Senate Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, “schedule public hearings on the Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, so that witnesses such as the Hon. Paul Hellyer, and Canadian-connected high level military-intelligence, NORAD-connected, scientific, and governmental witnesses facilitated by the Disclosure Project and by the Toronto Exopolitics Symposium can present compelling evidence, testimony, and Public Policy recommendations.†The Non-governmental organizations seeking Parliament hearings include Canada-based Toronto Exopolitics Symposium, which organized the University of Toronto Symposium at which Mr. Hellyer spoke. The Disclosure Project, a U.S.– based organization that has assembled high level military-intelligence witnesses of a possible ET presence, is also one of the organizations seeking Canadian Parliament hearings. Vancouver-based Institute for Cooperation in Space (ICIS), whose International Director headed a proposed 1977 Extraterrestrial Communication Study for the White House of former U.S. President Jimmy Carter, who himself has publicly reported a 1969 Close Encounter of the First Kind with a UFO, filed the original request for Canadian Parliament hearings. The Canadian Exopolitics Initiative, presented by the organizations to a Senate Committee panel hearing in Winnipeg, Canada, on March 10, 2005, proposes that the Government of Canada undertake a Decade of Contact. The proposed Decade of Contact is “a 10-year process of formal, funded public education, scientific research, educational curricula development and implementation, strategic planning, community activity, and public outreach concerning our terrestrial society’s full cultural, political, social, legal, and governmental communication and public interest diplomacy with advanced, ethical Off-Planet cultures now visiting Earth.†Canada has a long history of opposing the basing of weapons in Outer Space. On September 22, 2004 Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin declared to the U.N. General Assembly,†"Space is our final frontier. It has always captured our imagination. What a tragedy it would be if space became one big weapons arsenal and the scene of a new arms race. Martin stated, "In 1967, the United Nations agreed that weapons of mass destruction must not be based in space. The time has come to extend this ban to all weapons..." In May, 2003, speaking before the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence and Veterans Affairs, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada Lloyd Axworthy, stated “Washington's offer to Canada is not an invitation to join America under a protective shield, but it presents a global security doctrine that violates Canadian values on many levels." Axworthy concluded, “There should be an uncompromising commitment to preventing the placement of weapons in space.†On February 24, 2005, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin made official Canada's decision not to take part in the U.S government’s Ballistic Missile Defence program. Paul Hellyer, who now seeks Canadian Parliament hearings on relations with ETs, on May 15, 2003, stated in Toronto’s Globe & Mail newspaper, “Canada should accept the long-standing invitation of U.S. Congressman Dennis Kucinich of Ohio to launch a conference to seek approval of an international treaty to ban weapons in space. That would be a positive Canadian contribution toward a more peaceful world.†In early November 2005, the Canadian Senate wrote ICIS, indicating the Senate Committee could not hold hearings on ETs in 2005, because of their already crowded schedule. “That does not deter us,†one spokesperson for the Non-governmental organizations said, “We are going ahead with our request to Prime Minister Paul Martin and the official opposition leaders in the House of Commons now, and we will re-apply with the Senate of Canada in early 2006. “Time is on the side of open disclosure that there are ethical Extraterrestrial civilizations visiting Earth,†The spokesperson stated. “Our Canadian government needs to openly address these important issues of the possible deployment of weapons in outer war plans against ethical ET societies.†http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20051124/bs_prweb/prweb314382_1

Clearly they mean to provoke the Muslim populace in Europe. I wonder what would happen if I made a movie about Jews and how their book, the Talmud is a disgusting piece of hate literature that advocates the rape and murder of young girls

Listen to this guy describe the accident, it's quite funny. http://www.chumfm.com/MorningShow/bits/march24.swf

In September 2004, I attended a gathering organized by the Youth Environmental Network. Dedicated to a vision of environmental justice, the gathering was a coming together of two estranged friends: anti-racism and environmentalism. The gathering entitled “Green Justice†was meant to discuss this division through workshops on anti-racism, anti-oppression, and strategic planning integrating a stronger anti-racist framework within environmental movements. Typical things happened: a lot of crying, a lot of people storming out, a lot of people of colour patiently explaining racism to wide-eyed earthy types. There was also the occasional “Namaste†from the dreaded, drum-playing white guy. To be expected. But I noticed two things that unsettled me. All the people of colour in attendance (myself included) worked solely in social justice organizations outside of environmental activism: anti-racism activists, counselors, and anti-poverty organizers. Meanwhile, most of the white attendees worked in environmental organizations. I know that all of the issues of environmentalism and social justice are connected. Capitalism thrives off the exploitation of both the environment and labour and the seeds of oppression in our society can be found in capitalist ideologies. I know that a vision of a just world should include principles of social justice and a healthy environment but, in reality, I had never attended a rally or event organized by the Sierra Youth Coalition. I haven’t even mustered any anticipation for more radical, anti-capitalist gatherings, like the annual Wild Earth gathering held in British Columbia. Then again, I can’t remember seeing any environmental organizations coming to support women’s centers or marching with me in anti-poverty marches. The division is almost stifling. It would be very easy to locate the differences in political agendas and visions. After all, activists tend to keep their message to the straight and narrow in order to keep their movement on task. But there is something more than stark differences in politics. The makeup of many environmental organizations in terms of staff or and vision remains devoid of any real analysis or acknowledgement of colonialism, racism, or other forms of oppression. There is a general assumption in the environmental movement that there is a homogenous group of humans who exploit the environment, yet environmentalists work without an understanding of the power relations inherent in the legacy of colonialism and racism. With this absence comes a complete silencing of a more complex analysis and understanding of environmental justice. Sometimes it doesn’t hit me until I walk by one of their rallies or attend a meeting: why are these environmental movements so white? I wonder if sometimes they stop and look around and ask, “Why are we so white?†I say this with the acknowledgement that there is no monolithic environmental movement, and that there are several strains in the West that have an integrated analysis. When I say “environmental movement,†I speak of the normative discourses of environmentalism presented by the mainstream media and by larger, well-funded environmental organizations that maintain a stronghold in the movement. So, all you Green primitivism and anarchists can relax (not that I see any real anti-racist analysis from you guys either.) It is not a simple coincidence that this division exists. The lack of analysis around race and other forms of oppression has created absolute barriers, preventing anti-racist activists from engaging with and participating in environmental movements. There is an argument from some environmental organizations that protecting the environment is part of Aboriginal justice. Yet when the outreach bug occurs in some of these organizations, issues of racism and colonization remain symbolic or on the periphery. Instead of taking racism seriously, Aboriginal people and people of colour are used to provide either last minute diversity training or safe representation at events. Various cultures are co-opted as drumming circles and didgeridoo jams are given more attention, than discussions of why the movement remains white and void of anti-racism analysis. Representation is relegated to opening ceremonies, entertainment, or shallow roles that reinforce stereotypes. When I write that environmental exploitation and racism are old friends, I do literally mean that those two relationships are intertwined in our history. Colonization and environmental degradation did not happen separately. With a history (and current system) of colonization, the process of resource extraction and environmental degradation occurred simultaneously with exploiting people of colour and dispossessing Aboriginal peoples of their land. As the Canadian settlers laid the first tracks of the railroad, it was the Chinese Head Tax that enabled such a permanent fixture of colonialism. One can see this connection throughout our history: environmental expropriation and exploitation and the subjugation of the colonized. But, with colonization comes resistance. Often, nationalist and/or anti-colonial movements struggle around and fight for the control of resources-the control of the environment. The affects of colonization through globalization have led to the Rubber-Tapping Movement in Brazil, and struggles against corporate monopolies through crop-burning on Monsanto farms. Colonization displaces people from their means of survival through resource appropriation and the erection of barriers and controls that continue to exploit and marginalize these populations. The major impacts of this relationship have been felt disproportionately by people of colour and Aboriginal peoples. The historical fact of colonization needs to be at the core of our understanding and analysis of environmental and social justice organizing. But in this specific argument, colonization is equivalent with white supremacy and privilege. In the beginning, I was actually very passionate about environmentalism. In fact, it came before any analysis on anti-racism or feminism. For me, it was the most blatant form of exploitation and oppression that I could articulate. My protest against uranium mining in Northern Saskatchewan and the clear impacts on Aboriginal communities in rural, resource heavy areas moved me to earn a double major in political science and environmental studies. For me, the connection between environmental degradation and colonialism was evident. I entered into programs that struggled to critically analyze race and gender, in the whitest community I had ever lived in. There were several themes I saw in the environmental scene: - The notion of conservation of the pristine and untouched, that we need to fight to keep things the way that they are. -the importance of individual responsibility in making better consumer choices-without the realization of privilege inherent in these choices (Not everyone can afford to buy a $10 bottle of organic, biodegradable shampoo). -Growing populations mean growing consumption and more waste, “so we gotta tell them Chinese, Indians and Africans to stop reproducing so much.†-****ed-up notions that “the land†belongs to all of us equally. Sorry dudes, this land ain’t ours. -The romanticisation of Aboriginal peoples as having a child-like innocence and pure relationship and knowledge of nature. This is knowledge that Western environmentalists feel entitled to through research, development and eco-tourism. There are many questions on how gender, class, race and colonization affect consumer choice, and how the definition of pristine wilderness changes on colonized land. The notion of power is omitted from discussions of these uncomfortable questions. Environmentalism cannot take up power and oppression as a movement because it largely enjoys the safety of Western, middle-class, white support. It’s safe to give money to a rainforest in some far-off corner of Vancouver Island, but to support the rights of the Secwepemc people against ski resorts and sun peaks? Well, that’s a treaty issue, not an environmental one. However, the examples of sun peaks could actually provide an opportunity to fully realize the connections and contradictions of racism, colonization, sovereignty and environmental struggle. Since the expansion of the SunPeaks Ski Resort began on the traditional territory of Secwepemc, Neskonlith, and Adams lake bands, 54 members of these bands have been arrested while protesting some with court injunctions prohibiting them from entering their own traditional territory. The Secwepemc struggle is not only about traditional land rights, but is against expansion and environmental degradation. Yet, the major environmental organizations remain silent in this struggle, despite the fact that his is as much an environmental issue as it is a sovereignty issue. That environmental degradation and exploitation will affect marginalized communities first-whether it is toxic waste dumping in racialized communities, or the clearcutting of unceded land-does not make the radar of many environmental organizations. A new vision of environmental justice could provide an important step in shifting our concept of environmentalism, in that it names power in a very strategic way. Furthermore, it will reshape our relationship to and understanding of both the environment and of nature- not as things outside of us, but as things that are part of us, of our community and of history. IF we name colonization as the basis of our history and understanding, then land and treaty issues should be treated with the same importance as environmental disputes. In fact, it is ignorance and denial of our colonial history and the continued oppression of Aboriginal communities in our province that is at the base of our environmental fog. It is not due to a minor oversight, but rather, to an historic environmental privilege that issues such as the preservation of pristine wilderness, for camping and bird watching are prioritized. A participant at the Green Justice conference asked me a challenging question. “how do you expect us to take racism and sexism seriously when you don’t take environmentalism seriously?†I was almost ready to agree with them because, in truth, I hadn’t taken environmentalism seriously. But it occurred to me that my work and current passions were actually environmental. My question in return was, “ why is there betterment of our immediate communities not seen as an environmental issue? IF we are organizing against violence against women or for better transit fort he working poor and safe streets for sex-trade workers, why is this not seen as part of environmentalism?†This form of organizing may not be recognized as “environmental activism†according to its standard definition. But, if there was more analysis and organization around racism and colonization, perhaps we could shift the definition of environmentalism, and then I could take it seriously. The integration of these politics and theories is not as simple as adopting an environmental justice politic or writing some environmental policies integrating a social justice perspective. There must be serious discussion about what constitutes an environmental and what a social issue as well as a deeper analysis of social and economic justice and environmental racism. Our conclusions with regard to these definitions and analyses will change the make-up and campaigns of the environmental movement. There can be no false unity when racism continues to tokenize Aboriginal peoples and peoples of colour. Environmentalists need to be taken to task for a vision that lacks a coherent analysis or practice of anti oppression, because as long as environmentalists organize and rant against Aboriginal peoples using the resources of their land or the working poor making unsustainable choices in their limited purchasing power, they are not in a place where social justice can be assumed. Sadly, as long as they maintain that position, those of us dedicated to social justice and anti-racism will struggle against environmentalists to make our concern heard.