Murray J. Brown

U.N. To Canada: Ignoring Hunger Won’t Make It Go Away

2012-05-19T16:30:44Z

U.N. To Canada: Ignoring Hunger Won't Make It Go Away »

The UN Special Envoy had this to say about his visit to Canada:

"Canada has long been seen as a land of plenty. Yet today one in ten families with a child under six is unable to meet their daily food needs. These rates of food insecurity are unacceptable, and it is time for Canada to adopt a national right to food strategy. What I’ve seen in Canada is a system that presents barriers for the poor to access nutritious diets and that tolerates increased inequalities between rich and poor, and Aboriginal non-Aboriginal peoples. Canada is much admired for its achievements in the area of human rights, which it has championed for many years. But hunger and access to adequate diets, too, are human rights issues — and here much remains to be done."

All but one federal minister agreed to meet with him and the one who did, Health Minister Aglukkaq, an Inuit from Nunavut, continued the Harperialist ostriching ("He’s ill-informed. I found it a bit patronizing… It’s about fighting environmentalists…") in stark contrast to the position taken by Inuit leaders:

[T]he current inability for a significant portion of Inuit to access safe, sufficient, nutritionally adequate, and socially acceptable food is undermining the well being of the population and the very integrity of the culture. Although the health of Canadian Aboriginal Peoples has been identified as a pressing issue, action to address the right to food in Inuit communities is insufficient. Immediate intervention is needed through the collaborative engagement of various levels of government, Inuit organizations and communities to develop a resolution if the situation is to be improved.

As Doug Cuthland put it in The Star Phoenix:

The Conservative strategy is clear. Have an Inuit politician parrot the party line, thus making the issue internal to aboriginal people. In the House of Commons question period she was answering questions directed toward Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan. Sadly this is a federal government that would rather fight and turn people against one another than deal with the very important issues of poverty and malnutrition.

U.N. to Canada: Ignoring Hunger Won't Make It Go Away

The official response to the U.N. Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food's visit to Canada was patronizing and dismissive.

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Demand better of bands who glorify violence against women

2012-05-18T04:25:02Z

Demand better of bands who glorify violence against women »

Kudos to +Jairus Khan of the industrial band Ad·ver·sary for taken a principled stand opposing the violence against women, sexism, racism and other stupid -isms glorified by widely-known bands (within the genre) with whom he shares the stage at Kinetik, the yearly weekend underground music festival held in Montreal, Canada.

The 'PSA' video backing his performance can be seen here: http://vimeo.com/42322595

Kinetik Update 2012: Ad·ver·sary’s Performance

We were contacted a few days before leaving for Kinetik by Jairus Khan from Ad·ver·sary. He told us that he was planning a visual presentation for his set at the festival which he anticipated would at…

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Scathing report on Toronto G20 police conduct

2012-05-17T06:42:19Z

Scathing report on Toronto G20 police conduct »

Toronto police used excessive force to suppress lawful dissent at the G20 summit in June 2010, according to an independent civilian review.

“What occurred over the course of the weekend resulted in the largest mass arrests in Canadian history. These disturbances had a profound impact not only on the citizens of Toronto and Canada generally, but on public confidence in the police as well,” writes Gerry McNeilly, head of the Office of the Independent Police Review Director (OIPRD), a citizen agency that today tabled the 300-page systemic review report. … The OIPRD concludes that many of the arrests of peaceful demonstrators were illegal — without proper warrants or reasonable grounds — and that the conditions and treatment of prisoners inside a makeshift detention centre were "improper and unnecessary". … "The common themes were allegations of unlawful searches, unlawful arrests, excessive use of force, improper detention and issues related to the prison’s processing centre," he said. — http://goo.gl/GzK1s

This OPIRD report comes on the heels of the acquittal of notorious G20 hacktivist Byron Sonne on all (trumped up) charges for which he was held in jail for more than a year. [See http://goo.gl/cZXcL & http://goo.gl/9NQIz ]

Earlier this week, another independent review exonerated the actions of the RCMP at the G20. Foretelling the OPIRD report, it indicated that RCMP officers had been concerned about the severe tactics ordered by the Toronto police commanders. In particular, they cited the use of 'kettling', the controversial crowd-control tactic of coralling and containing protestors, in contravention of standing policies, and which was further abused for prolonged detention causing unnecessary suffering for hours in the pouring rain. [See http://goo.gl/DN231 & http://goo.gl/4NZtt ]

Having watched the reputation of the RCMP steadily decline over the years owing to scandals and the oppressive practices used at previous summits, I had expected to see that the G20 policing tactics had been directed by the feds. Instead, I find our local police have become severely autocratic and insensitive to the civil rights of our citizens.

Finally, in the OPIRD report: McNeilly concludes that the decision by Prime Minister Stephen Harper to expand the G8 meeting in Huntsville, Ont., to a full blown meeting of the G20 leaders in Toronto just four months before the event posed serious challenges.

Harper should accept the responsibility of his hubris for this fiasco. The G20 should never have been situated in downtown Toronto, let alone with such short time to prepare.

G20 report slams police for 'excessive' force – Canada – CBC News

Poor planning by various levels of police, along with orders by a Toronto deputy police chief to take back the streets, are to blame for the more than 1,100 arrests during the 2010 summit, says the pr…

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Game over for the Climate

2012-05-10T19:37:41Z

Game over for the Climate »

Harperialist economics will doom our world.

I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.” If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate. Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. … President Obama speaks of a “planet in peril,” but he does not provide the leadership needed to change the world’s course. Our leaders must speak candidly to the public — which yearns for open, honest discussion — explaining that our continued technological leadership and economic well-being demand a reasoned change of our energy course. History has shown that the American public can rise to the challenge, but leadership is essential. The science of the situation is clear — it’s time for the politics to follow. This is a plan that can unify conservatives and liberals, environmentalists and business. Every major national science academy in the world has reported that global warming is real, caused mostly by humans, and requires urgent action. The cost of acting goes far higher the longer we wait — we can’t wait any longer to avoid the worst and be judged immoral by coming generations.

Game Over for the Climate

If Canada exploits the oil in its tar sands, civilization will be at risk.

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Murray Bookchin explains Anarchism

2012-05-08T10:01:25Z

Murray Bookchin explains Anarchism »

Bookchin speaks about what drew him towards anarchism after becoming disenchanted with communism, with which he’d been actively involved from a very young age beginning in the early 1930s.

In the 1960s, he developed his ideas into the political theory of social ecology, from which later, in the 1990s, he evolved the post-anarchist libertarian socialist philosophy of communalism, however these periods are not addressed in this short video clip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_ecology
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communalism_(political_philosophy)

Murray Bookchin Explains Anarchism

an ongoing revolution explained

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Canada to outlaw masks worn by activists at ‘tumultuous demonstrations’

2012-05-07T21:44:57Z

Canada to outlaw masks worn by activists at 'tumultuous demonstrations' »

Bill C-309, first introduced before the House of Commons last year, would amend the Criminal Code of Canada and impose a five year prison sentence for anyone convicted of the offence and make such an act an indictable offence. A "tumultuous demonstration" could be defined as a "riot" or an "unlawful assembly". Activists may choose to wear masks at demonstrations for many reasons, including the wish to conceal their faces, for example, at an anti-police brutality rally in case they face retribution from the police or to protect their identity from police in general. Other reasons may include protecting oneself from the effects of chemical weapons such as tear gas or pepper spray. … This could mean wearing a mask at a demonstration in itself could put you in conflict with the police if the demonstration was, for example, declared illegal.

Activist Communiqué: Wearing a mask could soon be an illegal act during 'tumultuous demonstrations' |

A new private Members Bill — Bill C-309 — will make it illegal for demonstrators to cover their faces during "tumultuous demonstrations," with a penalty of up to five years in prison. Bill…

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UN to investigate Canada’s broken food system

2012-05-07T21:47:34Z

UN to investigate Canada's broken food system »

More than two million Canadians regularly don't have enough to eat, people on government income support and those earning minimum wage are often forced to choose between food and rent, and rates of food insecurity in some northern communities reaches an astounding 79 per cent. At the same time, farmers and fishers are going out of business, a quarter of Canadians are considered obese, and the industrial food production system is one of the leading contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. Our food system is broken, and the United Nations has noticed.

UN to investigate Canada's broken food system

As the blockbuster film the Hunger Games set a spring opening weekend record of $155 million in tick… – The View from the West – Winnipeg Free Press.

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Eating Less Meat is a Defense against Climate Change

2012-04-30T11:53:51Z

Eating Less Meat is a Defense against Climate Change »

I'm still an omnivore but since becoming more acutely aware of the risks of unabated climate change, I've dramatically curtailed my meat consumption, particularly beef, which I've largely replaced in my diet with chicken and tofu, instead.

Shifting the world’s reliance on fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is important, certainly. But the world’s best chance for achieving timely, disaster-averting climate change may actually be a vegetarian diet eating less meat, according to a recent report in World Watch Magazine. … “The entire goal of today’s international climate objectives can be achieved by replacing just one-fourth of today’s least eco-friendly food products with better alternatives.” … [R]eplacing livestock products with meat alternatives would “have far more rapid effects on greenhouse gas emissions and their atmospheric concentrations — and thus on the rate the climate is warming — than actions to replace fossil fuels with renewable energy.” … The human population is expected to grow by 35% between 2006 and 2050, while livestock numbers are expected to double during the same period.“ This would make the amount of livestock-related emissions even more unacceptable than today’s perilous levels,” states the report. “It also means that an effective strategy must involved replacing livestock products with better alternatives, rather than substituting one meat product with another that has a somewhat lower carbon footprint.”

The article goes on to explain why food producers should be encouraging such dietary changes.

“The case for change is no longer only a public policy or an ethical case, but is now also a business case,” write Goodland and Anhang. “We believe it is the best available business case among all industries to reverse climate change quickly.”

Eating Less Meat Is World's Best Chance For Timely Climate Change, Say Experts – Forbes

Replacing livestock products with meat alternatives, say the authors of a new report, would "have far more rapid effects on greenhouse gas emissions and their atmospheric concentrations — and thus on …

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Undercover Anarchist

2012-04-24T20:33:48Z

Undercover Anarchist »

What happens when a cop falls in love with the radicals he’s spying on? Mark Kennedy found out the hard way.

David Kushner’s piece published in ROLLING STONE (01 March 2012), about a British undercover cop who infiltrated radical environmental groups as the War on Eco-Terrorists was unfolding around the world, makes for a fascinating story of subterfuge, values, and betrayal.

Undercover Anarchist — 74.220.215.94 — Readability

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Cuba’s Sustainability is Not an Accident

2012-04-24T19:48:07Z

Cuba's Sustainability is Not an Accident »

Cuba gets a lot of attention for sustainable practices it has adopted over the last few decades, but they’re often framed as accidental choices—that embargo restrictions have made it difficult to get things like pesticides and traditional building materials and so has ended up with sustainable architecture and agriculture because it had no other choice.

See: Cuba: The Accidental Revolution – Part 1 (Bullfrog Films clip)
And: The Power of Community. How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (sub español)

Although that’s true to some degree, it’s an unfair generalization in many ways … but the government deserves credit for integrating sustainability, very intentionally, into policy initiatives. … Authors Daniel Whittle and Orlando Rey Santos explain in a research paper on Cuba’s environment that CITMA, the Ministry of Science, Technology, and Environment, became the first cabinet-level agency devoted to the environment when it was established in 1994—and that it almost immediately began assessing Cuba’s air and water quality, land degradation, biodiversity resources, and human settlements, among others.

Why Cuba's Sustainability is Not an Accident

Cuba gets a lot of attention for sustainable practices it has adopted over the last few decades, but they're often framed as accidental choices.

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