‘Stop Gap Housing’ Idea Could Make Big Dent in Homelessness

A plan to house Vancouver’s homeless is taking shape on the drawing board of a local architect. It calls for the rapid erection of temporary villages assembled from the same type of modular units that mining companies provide for remote workers.

“Stop Gap Housing” is what architect Gregory Henriquez calls it.

“All of us in this community have long been advocates for permanent housing,” he said. “But we’ve gotten to the point where the numbers of homeless are so staggering that I’m left wondering if we will ever catch up doing it that way. I don’t think we can. I think there has to be a stop-gap measure. And that’s what this is.”

Henriquez, whose Woodward’s includes 200 units of social housing built to last hundreds of years, stressed that Stop Gap Housing would never replace permanent homes.

“It’s portable dwellings. It’s not meant to be a permanent fixture on the landscape. But it could serve for several years until we complete the construction of permanent housing,” he said. “I think it’s better than leaving people homeless.”

It’s also cheaper.

BC’s Homeless Death Toll: 56 or More in Two Years

Darrell Mickasko burned to death in a Vancouver alley.

Tally of homeless deaths released to Tyee by chief coroner.

By Monte Paulsen and Tom Sandborn
Published: April 17, 2008

At least 56 homeless British Columbians died during 2006 and 2007, according to provincial statistics obtained by The Tyee.

B.C.’s homeless died at a rate that’s at least 19 per cent higher than the general population, according to the office of the chief coroner.

Read the Coroner’s report

The original three-page document tallying homeless deaths, done at the request of The Tyee, can be found here.

“These deaths were preventable,” said MLA David Chudnovsky, a New Democrat who serves as the opposition critic for homelessness. “These are people who would still be alive if they’d had someplace to live.”

The report tallies 31 homeless deaths in 2006 and another 25 in 2007. But housing advocates criticized the coroner for excluding the deaths of some formerly homeless people who died in hospital.

“Our governments are culpable for these preventable deaths,” said David Eby, an attorney at Pivot Legal Society. “People are literally dying in the streets.”

Overdoses, blunt injuries, hangings

The office of the chief coroner prepared this report in response to requests from The Tyee. Among its findings:

The death rates among homeless persons in 2007 was 21.3 per 10,000 people, while the rate among the general population in 2006 was 17.9 per 10,000. So using the coroner’s indirect comparison, B.C.’s homeless population is dying at a rate 19 per cent higher than the general population.

Two thirds of the homeless dead were living on the street, while the remaining third lived in a homeless shelter. Thus the (uncalculated) rate of death among street homeless is higher than 19 per cent above average.

Poisoning by drugs or alcohol was the leading cause of death, followed by blunt injuries (e.g., hit by a car), hangings and stabbings. One drowned and one died of smoke inhalation. Another nine deaths are either undetermined or still under investigation.

All of those counted were found in B.C.’s cities: 13 in Vancouver, 11 in Victoria, four in New Westminster, three each in North Vancouver and Surrey, and two each in Chilliwack, Kelowna and Nanaimo.

Young and Aboriginal

Aboriginals represented 14.3 per cent of the deaths in the coroner’s report, while comprising just 4.4 per cent of B.C.’s population.

Older Article-Vancouver backs out on Housing Committments

Vancouver Drops Olympics Housing Pledge

Promise was ‘non-binding’ NPA votes.

View full article and comments here http:///Bigstory/2007/06/29/NoHousing/

By Monte Paulsen

Published: June 29, 2007

TheTyee.ca

Mayor Sam Sullivan and the Non-Partisan Association have rejected pleas for more new social housing by 2010. Critics warn that Thursday night’s decision by Vancouver City Council assures that homeless Canadians will outnumber athletes at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.

“Homelessness is going to get a lot worse in this city, and the NPA is fully responsible,” said City Councillor David Cadman, who represents the opposing Council of Progressive Electors (COPE).

In a series of 6-5 votes, the NPA strong-armed Vancouver City Council into approving a misleading report drafted in the office of Housing Minister Rich Coleman and approved by the organizers of the 2010 games (VANOC). The report, awkwardly titled the Joint Partner Response to the Inner-City Inclusive Commitments (ICI) Housing Table Report, asserts that the housing recommendations developed for VANOC are “not binding.”

NPA councillors Suzanne Anton, Elizabeth Ball, Kim Capri, Peter Ladner and B.C. Lee also voted in lock-step with Mayor Sam Sullivan to defeat motions introduced by Vision Vancouver and COPE requesting an emergency meeting with federal and provincial housing ministers.

‘Huge things’

“We don’t need this motion,” Sullivan said. “We are working on a lot of things … Huge things.” The mayor did not provide details.

“Sullivan hasn’t delivered anything,” responded Councillor Cadman. “He claims credit for social housing at Woodward’s in spite of the fact that he voted against it. He claims credit for social housing at Southeast False Creek in spite of the fact that his first action as mayor was to slash social housing at that site. He claims credit for the SRO rooms purchased by the province, even though Minister Coleman has plainly said the city had nothing to do with that purchase.”

The Non-Partisan Alliance’s party-line votes came after a half-day of passionate public testimony, in which Vancouver citizens implored council to reject VANOC’s draft report and invite senior governments to a sit-down. Mayor Sullivan rolled out of council chambers during the second speaker, and remained missing-in-action for the remaining four hours of public testimony.

One of the many presentations that Sullivan refused to hear was a plan presented by Pivot Legal Society under which new homeless housing could be paid for out of existing provincial, city and VANOC funds. Pivot and 2010 Watch released documents on Thursday that they say show the city will earn $64.5 million from development of the Olympic Village, which is now under construction at Southeast False Creek.

‘No time to walk away’

Sullivan and his obedient NPA vote also defied an editorial in The Vancouver Sun, which stated, “2010 housing promises must be honoured.”

The June 26 editorial was uncharacteristically blunt: “…this is no time for the Olympic partners to walk away from promises made. Many of the housing commitments were key to gaining community support for the Games, and they must be honoured.”

Vision Vancouver and COPE councillors warned that since it takes a minimum of two years to develop social housing, Thursday night’s vote was probably the last chance this council would get to address Olympic homelessness.

“In all likelihood there will be a strike,” Cadman said. “That will place a hiatus on everything. And that hiatus will effectively delay action on housing until the fall. At that point, it will simply be too late to develop, permit and build new social housing in time for the 2010 Olympics.”

“I don’t want to give up hope until the day before the opening ceremonies,” said David Eby, a housing activist and staff lawyer at Pivot Legal Society. “But I’m getting a sinking feeling that the streets of Vancouver are going to look a lot worse when the Olympics arrive.”

UN’s harsh view of Vancouver

Any doubt that the world is watching was erased by a top-of-page-one headline in Thursday’s The Vancouver Sun, which declared “Vancouver a scarred paradise.” The Sun report described Vancouver as “a city with staggering wealth and soul-crushing poverty.” The article cited a report by the United Nations Population Fund stating that the Downtown Eastside “is home to a hepatitis C (HCV) rate of just below 70 per cent and an HIV prevalence rate of an estimated 30 per cent — the same as Botswana’s.”

Another high-profile report issued this week seemed to predict the NPA’s failure to act. Shelter: Homelessness in a Growth Economy was written by Gordon Laird and published by the Alberta-based Sheldon Chumir Foundation. The report estimated that as many as 300,000 Canadians are already homeless, at a cost to taxpayers of between $4.5 and $6 billion every year.

“Canadian governments,” Laird wrote, “have focused more on short-term crisis management over long-term strategic investment. Their response to homelessness over the last decade has sometimes bordered on outright neglect. In practical terms, absenteeism on housing and homelessness has exacerbated efforts to reduce poverty in Canada.”

UN criticizes Canada Twice in One Day (Oct. 22, 2007)

UN Criticizes Canada Twice in One Day

A good rep gone bad.

By Rob Annandale
Published: October 22, 2007
TheTyee.ca

Canada’s treasured self-image as a land of wealth and justice took a hit on Monday when two UN officials separately blasted the country’s recent social and human rights record.

UN Human Rights Commissioner Louise Arbour said Canada’s decision last month not to support a declaration on indigenous rights suggested her compatriots had an “unduly romantic” view of their country. And UN housing envoy Miloon Kothari wrapped up a two-week Canadian tour by releasing a highly critical preliminary report.

But the international organization has not soured entirely on the country that used to top its lists of the world’s best places to live. On the heels of last week’s survey suggesting the majority of Afghans approve of a continued foreign presence on their territory, UN humanitarian chief John Holmes praised Canada’s role in Afghanistan and expressed hope its troops would stay as long as necessary.

A new study puts Canada’s military budget at around $18 billion annually, its highest since World War II and more than 100 times higher than federal spending to combat homelessness. And while two out of three UN officials may disapprove, it doesn’t take a political scientist to know which of these issues – Afghanistan, aboriginal rights or homelessness – is most likely to be a major election issue next time around. No wonder Arbour aimed her barbs not at Stephen Harper, but at all Canadians.

Fallon Resigns As Mideast Military Chief

“The top U.S. military commander for the Middle East resigned Tuesday amid speculation about a rift over U.S. policy in Iran,” the AP reports.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that Adm. William J. Fallon had asked for permission to retire and that Gates agreed. Gates said the decision, effective March 31, was entirely Fallon’s and that Gates believed it was “the right thing to do.”
Fallon was the subject of an article published last week in Esquire magazine that portrayed him as opposed to President Bush’s Iran policy. It described Fallon as a lone voice against taking military action to stop the Iranian nuclear program.

Fallon, who is traveling in Iraq, issued a statement through his U.S. headquarters in Tampa, Fla.

“Recent press reports suggesting a disconnect between my views and the president’s policy objectives have become a distraction at a critical time and hamper efforts in the Centcom region,” Fallon said.

“And although I don’t believe there have ever been any differences about the objectives of our policy in the Central Command area of responsibility, the simple perception that there is makes it difficult for me to effectively serve America’s interests there,” Fallon added.

Gates described as “ridiculous” any notion that Fallon’s departure signals the United States is planning to go to war with Iran. And he said “there is a misperception” that Fallon disagrees with the administration’s approach to Iran.

“I don’t think there were differences at all,” Gates added.

List of documentaries to watch and spread

A good friend of mine recommended that we compile a list of informative and accessible documentaries that coincide with the aims of the fungus in the hopes of raising as much awareness as possible. He compiled this list of documentaries that are available on the internet at various locations. Thanks so much C for the info.

Here are various websites where many of these documentaries are available:
- Ovguide
- movie alien
- joox
- Divxlive
- Weatherwars.info
- Alex jones websites
- Infowars
- Prison planet
- Vancouver9-11truth.org
- Commondreams.org
- skolnicksreport

Here are the recommended documentaries. I haven’t seen many of them yet, so I can’t comment too much on them. Remember that thinking critically is always the key when attempting to decipher the information from any media source.

- Hacking Democracy
- America: Freedom to Fascism
- Who killed John O’Neill
- The Weather Underground
- JFK: The Bush Connection
- Alex Jones: Endgame, Matrix of Evil, Terrorstorm, and many others…
- FEMA – Concentration Camps
- Banking with Nazis
- The Panama Deception
- Decoding the past – secrets of the dollar bill
- Illuminazi
- The Illuminati
- The History of Freemasonry
- WMD: Weapons of mass deception
- The Secret NASA transmissions
- The Future of Food

I will be making a conscious effort to write more on the blog…..
until the next episode,

D-Fungus

The 9 phases of interspirituality as explained by wayne teasdale

A universal spirituality is eminently practical in nine ways and, through these ways, becomes immensely transformative of the individual, the community, and the world. Interspirituality finds these nine elements in the mature expressions of spirituality in every tradition – that is, in their saints or mystics. These include 1. an actualized moral capacity; 2. a sense of solidarity and interdependence with all beings; 3. deep nonviolence; 4. humility of heart; 5. a spiritual practice; 6. mature self-knowledge; 7. simplicity of life; 8. love in action, or compassionate service; and 9. prophetic voice, or witness, and action.

LOVE truly is the answer my friends

This is an article I wrote. The ‘beautiful game’ refers to soccer:

If the majority of scientists and economists are correct in their analysis of global warming trends, the planet is facing a significant environmental and socio-economic crisis in the years to come. If what we are told is true, we have a very short window of opportunity (scientists estimate 10 – 20 years) in which to eliminate our bad habits in order to save the planet. We have a purpose; we are, and I say this very humbly, the most important generation to walk the planet. Think of ten years over the course of human history: It is merely a momentary blip; a blink of an eye over the course of a cosmic millennium. And you and I, for whatever reason, are alive and breathing during this most precious and scary and exhilarating of times. The way our generation conducts business as well as the way our generation conducts our own individual lives is integral to the success or the demise of the planet. Still don’t think you have a purpose?

What Is Progress?

Tell people something they know already and they will thank you for it.
Tell them something new and they will hate you for it.

http://www.monbiot.com/ 

Posted December 4, 2007

The numbers show that this should be the real question at the Bali talks.

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 4th December 2007

When you warn people about the dangers of climate change, they call you a saint. When you explain what needs to be done to stop it, they call you a communist. Let me show you why.

There is now a broad scientific consensus that we need to prevent temperatures from rising by more than 2°C above their pre-industrial level. Beyond that point, the Greenland ice sheet could go into irreversible meltdown, some ecosystems collapse, billions suffer from water stress, droughts could start to threaten global food supplies(1,2).

The government proposes to cut the UK’s carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. This target is based on a report published in 2000(3). That report was based on an assessment published in 1995, which drew on scientific papers published a few years earlier. The UK’s policy, in other words, is based on papers some 15 years old. Our target, which is one of the toughest on earth, bears no relation to current science.

Over the past fortnight, both Gordon Brown and his adviser Sir Nicholas Stern have proposed raising the cut to 80%(4,5). Where did this figure come from? The last G8 summit adopted the aim of a global cut of 50% by 2050, which means that 80% would be roughly the UK’s fair share. But the G8’s target isn’t based on current science either.

In the new summary published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), you will find a table which links different cuts to likely temperatures(6). To prevent global warming from eventually exceeding 2°, it suggests, by 2050 the world needs to cut its emissions to roughly 15% of the volume in 2000.

I looked up the global figures for carbon dioxide production in 2000(7) and divided it by the current population(8). This gives a baseline figure of 3.58 tonnes of CO2 per person. An 85% cut means that (if the population remains constant) the global output per head should be reduced to 0.537t by 2050. The UK currently produces 9.6 tonnes per head and the US 23.6t(9,10). Reducing these figures to 0.537t means a 94.4% cut in the UK and a 97.7% cut in the US. But the world population will rise in the same period. If we assume a population of 9bn in 2050(11), the cuts rise to 95.9% in the UK and 98.3% in the US.

The IPCC figures might also be out of date. In a footnote beneath the table, the panel admits that “emission reductions … might be underestimated due to missing carbon cycle feedbacks”. What this means is that the impact of the biosphere’s response to global warming has not been fully considered. As seawater warms, for example, it releases carbon dioxide. As soil bacteria heat up, they respire more, generating more CO2. As temperatures rise, tropical forests die back, releasing the carbon they contain. These are examples of positive feedbacks. A recent paper (all the references are on my website) estimates that feedbacks account for about 18% of global warming(12). They are likely to intensify.

A paper in Geophysical Research Letters finds that even with a 90% global cut by 2050, the 2° threshold “is eventually broken”(13). To stabilise temperatures at 1.5° above the pre-industrial level requires a global cut of 100%. The diplomats who started talks in Bali yesterday should be discussing the complete decarbonisation of the global economy.

It is not impossible. In a previous article I showed how by switching the whole economy over to the use of electricity and by deploying the latest thinking on regional supergrids, grid balancing and energy storage, you could run almost the entire energy system on renewable power(14). The major exception is flying (don’t expect to see battery-powered jetliners) which suggests that we should be closing rather than opening runways.

A monk’s perspective on the joys and value of FRIENDSHIP

A long read, but if you’ve got time this is a well written excerpt from “A Monk in the World: Cultivating a Spiritual Life” by Wayne Teasdale.

All of us realize, I think, that friendship is one of the greatest, most fulfilling human joys. Each of us has, or should have, many friendships, and each of us can probably look back to a particularly important friendship in our childhood, a friendship that greatly nourished us in our need for companionship and acceptance, a friendship with someone with whom we could share our secrets and our dreams.

Don’t want to be a War Criminal

AWOL U.S. soldier seeks refugee status

American finds hope in NDP MP Libby Davies’ lobbying efforts

Andy Ivens

The Province

Monday, December 03, 2007

CREDIT: Nick Procaylo, The Province American soldier Brad McCall, 20, arrived in Vancouver in early October as a conscientious objector.

Uncle Sam wants Brad McCall.

The U.S. Army wants the AWOL private from Kentucky to go to Iraq to fight George W. Bush’s “war on terror,” but McCall’s conscience won’t allow it.

He applied to be a conscientious objector, but as his date to ship out approached, McCall realized that, like many other “COs,” he’d be in the war zone before a decision came down.

So, in early October, the six-foot-two GI followed the route of an estimated 50,000 previous American war resisters to Vancouver and applied for refugee status, which at least delays his possible extradition to the U.S., where he’d likely be tried for desertion.

“I don’t want to go to Iraq because I don’t want to be a war criminal,” McCall, 20, said yesterday.

“Any participation in the war in Iraq can be punishable as a war crime. The war is a criminal act, in my opinion and many countries’ opinion.”

McCall thinks the army recruiters who convinced him to sign up last year stretched the truth.

“We were told we probably wouldn’t be going to Iraq because [the war] was ending,” he said.

While posted at Fort Carson, Colo., “I heard the atrocities being committed on innocent people and soldiers laughing about that.”

That prompted him to apply for conscientious-objector status.

“They just laughed at me,” he said. “So I took the necessary steps and took off.”

His family has virtually disowned him, but he has found an esprit de corps in Vancouver.

“My parents and I don’t really communicate much,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of people here who have given me a lot of support.”

He’s been put up in the east Vancouver home of Colleen Fuller.

“I called the War Resisters Support Campaign [www.resisters.ca] and she volunteered her house for [an AWOL] soldier. I’ve been here ever since,” he said.

If he returned to the U.S., McCall figures he’d face a court martial and be ordered to serve “a few years” in the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kan.

Asked what he would like the Canadian government to do with the growing number of war resisters in Canada, McCall said: “Take us in. Do what Canada used to do in ’70s. Be a haven from militarism.”

Last month, the first two American military deserters to ask Canadian courts to allow them to stay in this country — Jeremy Hinzman and Brandon Hughey — received bad news from the Supreme Court of Canada.

The high court declined them leave to appeal a decision by the Federal Court of Appeal on their application for refugee status.

One crucial difference between the deserters who fled north during the Vietnam War and today’s resisters appears to be the evolution of the U.S. Army from a conscript force to today’s all-volunteer service, the court noted in its reasons.

“I was shocked,” said McCall, who remains “optimistic” that Canadians will convince their federal politicians to amend the refugee provisions of the law.

He has Vancouver East NDP MP Libby Davies in his corner.

“With their legal avenues pretty well exhausted, that’s absolutely the right direction to take — lobbying for change to the law to allow resisters to apply for landed-

immigrant status,” said Davies.

“We [New Democrat MPs] have a motion right now before the Citizenship and Immigration Committee that, if approved, would create a special category for war resisters that would allow them to stay in Canada.”

The motion — “to allow conscientious objectors and their immediate family members . . . who have refused or left military service related to the war in Iraq, to apply to remain and work in Canada and be eligible for permanent resident status” — will go before the committee later this week.

If the committee endorses the motion, said Davies, “we would then get that into the House [of Commons] and get the House to adopt it. There are many, many well-known Canadians who have made amazing contributions to this country who came here as war resisters.”

She suggested people write Citizenship and Immigration Minister Diane Finlay, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day and their own MPs to voice support for the motion.

Colleen Fuller urged others to join the war-resisters campaign.

“The [Hinzman and Hughey] decision is bad for anybody, not just Americans,” she said. “Normally, Canada goes by the United Nations. That’s why we didn’t go to Iraq — because the UN didn’t see that as a legal way to go.”

The U.S. Pentagon refused to comment on McCall’s case.

aivens@png.canwest.com

Security

Security

 

 

Security … what does this word mean in relation to life as we know it today? For the most part, it means safety and freedom from worry. It is said to be the end that all men strive for; but is security a utopian goal or is it another word for rut?

Let us visualize the secure man; and by this term, I mean a man who has settled for financial and personal security for his goal in life. In general, he is a man who has pushed ambition and initiative aside and settled down, so to speak, in a boring, but safe and comfortable rut for the rest of his life. His future is but an extension of his present, and he accepts it as such with a complacent shrug of his shoulders. His ideas and ideals are those of society in general and he is accepted as a respectable, but average and prosaic man. But is he a man? has he any self-respect or pride in himself? How could he, when he has risked nothing and gained nothing? What does he think when he sees his youthful dreams of adventure, accomplishment, travel and romance buried under the cloak of conformity? How does he feel when he realizes that he has barely tasted the meal of life; when he sees the prison he has made for himself in pursuit of the almighty dollar? If he thinks this is all well and good, fine, but think of the tragedy of a man who has sacrificed his freedom on the altar of security, and wishes he could turn back the hands of time. A man is to be pitied who lacked the courage to accept the challenge of freedom and depart from the cushion of security and see life as it is instead of living it second-hand. Life has by-passed this man and he has watched from a secure place, afraid to seek anything better What has he done except to sit and wait for the tomorrow which never comes?

Turn back the pages of history and see the men who have shaped the destiny of the world. Security was never theirs, but they lived rather than existed. Where would the world be if all men had sought security and not taken risks or gambled with their lives on the chance that, if they won, life would be different and richer? It is from the bystanders (who are in the vast majority) that we receive the propaganda that life is not worth living, that life is drudgery, that the ambitions of youth must he laid aside for a life which is but a painful wait for death. These are the ones who squeeze what excitement they can from life out of the imaginations and experiences of others through books and movies. These are the insignificant and forgotten men who preach conformity because it is all they know. These are the men who dream at night of what could have been, but who wake at dawn to take their places at the now-familiar rut and to merely exist through another day. For them, the romance of life is long dead and they are forced to go through the years on a treadmill, cursing their existence, yet afraid to die because of the unknown which faces them after death. They lacked the only true courage: the kind which enables men to face the unknown regardless of the consequences.

As an afterthought, it seems hardly proper to write of life without once mentioning happiness; so we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

 

 

by Hunter S. Thompson (1955).

Senate Bill 1959: Are YOU a terrorist?

Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 (Introduced in Senate)

Go to this link and type in “S 1959″
http://thomas.loc.gov/

You may have heard the fuss about it as HR 1955. Well, it passed the house, and now YOU may be considered a terrorist the next time you THINK about using force to protect your civil liberties.
Do you care about a political issue or religion or social change? Do you care about the Bill of Rights?
Here is language directly from S 1959:
“The term `violent radicalization’ means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.”
Take out the word “violence” and you’re looking at a law that threatens belief systems, ideology, politics, religion, and social change.
This bill is an offensive threat to our civil liberties.
How far will they go to silence any and all dissent? Will it soon be a threat to our security and freedom to protest, to question, to demonstrate, to think? Would Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, John Lennon, Eddie Vedder be considered terrorists for the lyrical content of their songs? Even when the vast majority of all thinkers believe that peaceful means is the only means for facilitating change, is it still ‘unpatriotic’ to question the direction of our leadership? Are you a terrorist for wanting a better and brighter future that believes in equality, freedom, justice and peace? Is such thinking going to send you to jail for believing in an “extremist belief system”? Our freedoms and rights took thousands of years and innumerous suffering to gain, and many of us have had the luxury of living in a democracy our entire lifetime. But now, that luxury may very well be a thing of the past if this bill passes… What would the founders of America think if they knew what was happening to their treasured nation?

Please become politicalized. Learn about what is happening in our domestic politics, because the future of our nation and the world is at stake. Your voice counts. Failure to understand these issues coupled with an apathetic attitude could land those of us who believe in the ideals of freedom, love, peace, justice, and equality in some serious hot water.

For more information on this terrifying Orwellianish scenario, check out this link:

http://colorado.indymedia.org/node/240

An inherent Goodness?

This is an interesting study referring to human socialization, morals, values and the Goodness. Does this study show that we have an inherent value system that is passed on to us just like DNA… some kind of guiding energy perhaps that is ingrained in the human experience?

Imperialism blamed for Pakistan’s woes

News Features By Travis LupickPublish Date: November 15, 2007Hari Sharma knows how to piss off a government. In 1965, he left India forwork in the United States. Three years later, he was asked to leave for”fraternizing” with Students for a Democratic Society, the Black Panthers,and other iconic groups of that era.After relocating to Canada, SFU hired Sharma as a professor. Over the nextfew years, political activity resulted in his Indian passport beingrevoked and a year-long battle for Canadian citizenship.Today, Sharma is 74 years old and president of the South Asian Network forSecularism and Democracy. His view on the present situation in Pakistanhas been shaped by a life of activism for secularism and peace.“Get the fucking Americans and Canadians out of Afghanistan and thatproblem would be solved forever,” Sharma said, answering a question on howto control Pakistani Islamists.

Dreams And Another Look At The Year 2000((7)?) Eduardo Galeano

The new millennium is upon us. It’s not something to be taken all that seriously considering the fact that the year 2001 of the Christian era is the year 1379 of the Muslims, the year 5114 of the Mayans and the year 5762 of the Jews. The new millennium will begin on January 1st by a whim of the Roman Senators, who one fine day decided to break with the tradition that called for celebrating the new year at the beginning of spring. The Christian countdown results from yet another whim: one fine day the Roman Pope decided to ascribe a date to the birth of Jesus, although no one knew when he was born. Time laughs at the limits we invent so we can believe it obeys us. Nevertheless, the whole world celebrates and fears this frontier. It has become an invitation to every sort of conjecture.

Millennium here, millennium there, the occasion gives rise to all manner of exaggerating orators holding forth on the destiny of humanity. For those who would have us believe in God’s wrath, there are predictions of the world’s end, accompanied by great chaos. Meanwhile, time continues, without a word, its long march through space and mystery. The truth is, no one can resist. On such a date, arbitrary though it may be, most of us experience the temptation of asking ourselves what the time to come will bring. Who knows what it will bring. We have but a single certainty: in the 21st century, if we’re still here, we’ll all be 20th century people. Worse yet, we’ll be people of the last millennium.

Wise Words

ZNet | Activism

Confronting Empire

by Arundhati Roy; January 28, 2003

 

 

I’ve been asked to speak about “How to confront Empire?” It’s a huge question, and I have no easy answers.

When we speak of confronting “Empire,” we need to identify what “Empire” means. Does it mean the U.S. Government (and its European satellites), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and multinational corporations? Or is it something more than that?

In many countries, Empire has sprouted other subsidiary heads, some dangerous byproducts — nationalism, religious bigotry, fascism and, of course terrorism. All these march arm in arm with the project of corporate globalization.

Let me illustrate what I mean. India — the world’s biggest democracy — is currently at the forefront of the corporate globalization project. Its “market” of one billion people is being prized open by the WTO. Corporatization and Privatization are being welcomed by the Government and the Indian elite.