1. See no evil, do no harm, do no harm mediate: Canada complicit in the coup in Honduras
2. The presidential election in Afghanistan: 41 candidates, but none that I would shake hands even if my life depended
3. Hamid Karzai and women: the outgoing president reached an agreement for re-election that returns the Afghan Shiite Stone Age
4. The disease legacy of the green revolution: how climate change affects the Indian monsoon
5. Between fatalism and optimism which to choose in this era of impending Apocalypse of industrial civilization?
MEDIA DEVELOPMENT AND HONDURAS
I come back early in the show about the coup in Honduras ...
I had occasion in recent years by the show to see that every time the Canadian media closely follow the official views of Ottawa about events abroad
When Ottawa
denounces, as is the case with the election in Iran, our media do the job and denounce, as
When Ottawa decided that a coup is a good thing, as when Jean-Bertrand Aristide was ousted from power in Haiti in February 2004, the media find a way to twist reality to make us believe that is the case
And now, well, everything indicates that the coup d'état that took place in Honduras a few weeks ago that the Harper government's case, and for Canadian companies doing business there ...
Result: even a person who keeps a close eye on events on a daily basis what is happening in Honduras will not know much if it relies on the Canadian media
He or she will know nothing about events that continue now, the blockades, strikes calling all return the democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya
Since he was overthrown by the army last June 28 the majority of teachers were on strike
Recently, workers in the health system, air traffic controllers and taxi drivers have also taken action against the coup
In response, the army sent troops to monitor airports and hospitals across the country
Then all this resistance is under the threat military repression
Everything, including the tacit support of Ottawa for the coup, no mention in the Canadian media ... weird
Last Tuesday, the Foreign Minister of Honduras in exile has openly stated that Canada offered its support to the military government ... he asked to suspend aid to the regime
Not a word in our media about that
Ambassador of Canada to Costa Rica, Neil Reeder, met officials of the coup last week ... silence
The Canadian media have also ignored the fact that Canada is the only major donor that has not cut its ties
and assist the military government of Honduras
Finally, a month after the coup, CBC granted an interview to Graham Russell of Rights Action, a Canadian group with close ties to Honduras to expose how Ottawa reacted to the coup
Unfortunately, the good reviews of Russell were buried by an interview immediately after with Peter Kent Minister of State for Foreign Affairs who is doing everything to prevent the return of Zelaya in his post
But the media are even less interested in denouncing the influence of Canadian companies who influence policy toward Honduras Ottawa
Rights Action has for his part denounced the fact that Goldcorp has provided buses and money to People who have rallied to support the coup
A connection between the 2nd largest gold producer and the army has passed under the nose of our media
noted that under pressure from NGOs, Two weeks ago, companies like Nike and Gap and other U.S. companies doing business in Honduras have issued a joint text requiring a return to democracy
But, with 50% of its production in Honduras, the Montreal company Guildan the largest manufacturer of t-shirt in the world, refused to join this written statement
Guildan employs 11,000 people in Honduras ... and must not have liked the Zelaya's decision earlier this year to increase the minimum wage by 60%
Is our government and Canadian companies are really in favor of the overthrow of a democratically elected president?
All signs point to yes
But it's hard to say how much, as our media will not put our journalists seriously about it ... AFGHANISTAN ELECTIONS
Unlike 2004, the world does not excite the hair of the legs with the presidential elections in Afghanistan scheduled for August 20
In fact, wherever you look at this election is seen with a lot of pessimism
Hamid Karzai, the outgoing president and leader of the 41 candidates, could not generate the same sympathy from the West as the last time
However, its candidate for Vice-President, Qasim Faheem, is a lord Tajik war with Afghan much blood on their hands, I do not understand ...
To ensure his re-election, Karzai has agreements and alliances with the warlords of all ethnic groups of Afghanistan
And his main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, is managing better than place
A friendly face representing the warlords, he is their spokesman, as has already Hamid Karzai was
In 3rd place in the polls just Ramzan Bashardost, probably the candidate most respected for his integrity among Afghans
He was one of the few to openly denounce the corruption of the Karzai administration
But alas, without the support of soldiers and money from opium, he has no chance of winning
The rest of the 41 candidates included a list of monsters and clowns without interest
who have mostly avoided openly support the Taliban, but most can not hide their affiliation with either them or the warlords
most candidates want talks with the Taliban in order to stabilize the country, including Hamid Karzai
But paradoxically, these candidates do not say much about the NATO presence on their territory
far the main subjects of the election were corruption and lack of security ... which is the return of the Taliban, but especially to warlords
In fact, the Afghan defense without much fear the warlords of the north-bearded religious zealots hyper
killings, abductions and rape by warlords supported by NATO have done much more damage to the state law and order in the country
recall that five years ago, Afghans had lined up at the polls in hopes of finding some security ... Well, we can easily say today that they have been bitterly disappointed
We hear about it, stay there
RAPE LAW OF AFGHANISTAN
You may recall the famous law of rape has been proved spring by the Karzai administration in Afghanistan
Under the official name of the law of the Shiite family, she was rightly condemned strongly by the international community ...
At this point Hamid Karzai said he would rewrite it, especially considering the fact that he had not read before signing
So with a little help of Canadian lawyers, the new text of the law still continues to demonstrate the kind of misogynistic puppet government set up by NATO military occupation
say that the thing that we were sold the most after the invasion was the liberation of Afghan ...
The Shia law reduces the status of women than it is in Saudi Arabia, which means less than nothing
groups defending the rights of Afghan women have roundly denounced this act that directly recalls the restrictions imposed by the Taliban in the time they were in power
And although the new law has some improvements, its most repressive articles against women still violate the constitution of Afghanistan
which outlawed discrimination and distinction between citizens
law gives the husband the right to cut Shiite basic maintenance to his wife, including food
if she refused the sexual demands of her husband ... and women must have permission from their husbands to have a job
The law gives all rights to fathers and grandfathers to custody
... and allows a rapist compensate a girl he had injured during the assault with money, thus preventing it from being tried and convicted in court
Uh ... is ... these barbaric act of the Middle Ages were believed to be things of the past with the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001, right?
However, Karzai gave them a new life by affixing the seal of support from President
CLIMATE CHANGE INDIA
intensification of droughts, floods and cyclones are the predictable results of climate change and instability that comes with
The monsoon has failed in India right now, and the drought that goes with it, affecting the two-thirds of the country
especially in the fertile plains of the Ganges, the bread basket of India
This failure of the monsoon and worsen droughts generalized the already severe food crisis that hit India since the liberalization policies that have transformed India into the new capital of famine
This also implies a deepening water crisis ...
The monsoon has the annual task of recharging ground water aquifers and surface water systems
But the widespread drought that year will change all that
Must also remember that the fragility of the Indian food autarky is due to the model of green revolution in 1966
That is to say, the hydro-chemical-intensive agriculture imposed by the U.S. and the World Bank since 1966
India has been fully exploited its underground water sources, especially since the 1970s with massive loans from the World Bank
And intensive farming of monocultures for export require large quantities of water as sugarcane
With the effect of climate change, northern India has seen water levels fall by 4 cm per year between August 2002 and 2008
109 km cube of water underground has disappeared during the same years
majority of this water was then extracted for chemical agriculture inherited from the green revolution, he also
Needless to say while the solution at this time of climate crisis, food and water would go en masse to a system of agriculture based on biodiversity
Small organic farms improve food security by increasing resilience and reducing vulnerability to climate change
biodiverse agricultural systems can respond more effectively to the water crisis
because their production is based on crops that require much less, in fact, up to 10 times less than chemical systems
transforming, among others, the ground water tank through its organic composition, thereby reducing the need for aggressive irrigation systems
Our crises do not come from heaven or the devil, they are human institutions ...
the dominant paradigm of agriculture based on the Green Revolution and genetically modified organisms, the promotion of monoculture and the use of chemical fertilizers and hydrocarbons
The same people and companies behind these idiotic ideas will certainly attempt to take advantage of the current crisis to promote new ideas beneficial to them
example by patenting seeds Resilience that farmers have evolved through the centuries by calling it a
invention summary, the current agricultural crisis will push the Indian government to act, and the bellies of many Indians, the obvious alternative would be the way of biodiversity and keep as far away as possible from the Green Revolution
INDUSTRIAL REVELATION
Who bothers to think about the past century and the coming century, it has much to be paralyzed with fear and anxiety
between the years 1750 and 2000, all indicators such as population overall, the concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere, the amount of fish in the seas, the destruction of tropical forests, the number of automobiles, the use of water, etc..
all this show without a shadow of a doubt that at this rate the human race has drained the earth of its resources, or at least will in the next century destroyed the main ecological systems that allow civilization to exist
The root of evil is obviously the dominant economic model that drives the world rapidly toward a state of chaos
all named earlier trends are accelerating rapidly towards the worst ... and nothing, absolutely nothing to suggest that we change direction in time
We are collectively under the illusion that we can live more or less as comfortable now in the next century if only we could slightly modify our individual towards a more sustainable lifestyle
Although other three billion people will join us in our Western lifestyle destructive
is simply the denial
destiny is already written for the industrial society based on capitalism, and no amount of green and ethical shopping or demonstrations may be changing anything
Climate change dangerously approaching the point of no return, while our political leaders continue to promote economic growth to pull us out of the crisis
Faced with this scenario that I consider very realistic, there are two modes of thought:
the fatalist who says that we must now make plans to cross the fall of civilization
and optimistic that says we must do everything to prevent billions of people die in the next century
In recent years I have been very optimistic, saying that if we have reason on our side and that we act now, the worst can be avoided
I believed and I continue to believe that science and technology, if they are viable services institutions, will enable us to move to a new stage of evolution for the species
But I understand the fatalistic, quite ... it took him almost 40 years our governments to recognize the surface the existence of climate change and the effect of capitalist industry on the biosphere
... and solutions, major reforms are still slow in coming, and all plans for the next 20-30 years are void
shit So I understand the fatalistic who say there is nothing to do, that the dropped from our industrial civilization is inevitable and you just have to plan how we will get
But it's a scenario that I refuse: the widespread famine, wars, destruction of our ecosystems ... we can not recover from it
Yes, the human species is totally resilient and can endure almost anything ... But if
civilizations collapse, as in the Middle Ages, is the psychopath who took control
And history shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that humans do not learn from their mistakes past
What we learn from this Apocalypse? Absolutely nothing.
is why I remain an optimist, why I say we need new economic and political institutions
An economy that is not based on market growth, what is needed is efficient participatory economy based on solidarity, diversity, fairness and self-management
We must prevent the first fall of civilization to prevent further waves of disaster that will certainly sounds furrow
No matter how low the hope is to see humanity change direction, a global revolution orderly, sustainable and structured We have no choice but to keep this possibility in mind and work to achieve
0 comments:
Post a Comment