With the recent food riots in Haiti, everyone is acting as if hunger is a new thing.
"For the first time in decades", writes the Globe and Mail's Eric Reguly, "the spectre of widespread hunger for millions looms as food prices explode."
For the first time in decades? No. This is just the first time in decades that people have been paying attention. Remember "We are the World"? That was sometime in the middle of the 1980s.
In 1996 at the U.N. World Food Summit, the developed nations pledged to cut world hunger in half by 2015.
And this is "the first time in decades"? Maybe it's just the first time it might start to affect developed nations. 'cause trust me, people have been starving for a long, long time.
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
The Story of Abraham
I wrote before about the detestable thing that Christians call "Original Sin". This is the idea that all humans are cursed with the "sin" of wanting wisdom over submissive ignorance. According to the Christian churches we should aim to avoid acquiring knowledge.
It's important to analyze these messages because, quite simply, adherence to religion is not based on technical facts. It's not based on looking at the holy book of the religion, critically examining it, comparing it to the actual universe and saying, "Yes, this lines up!" No. Adherence to a religion is based on an emotional tie. Everything else is rationalization.
Let's turn to chapter 22 of Genesis.
It starts off simply enough. God says to Abraham, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac" up a mountain and "Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering".
The proper reaction - at least in modern times - to hearing a voice in your head calling out for you to set your son on fire is to call 911. This sort of thing occasionally happens to women and it's called "severe postpartum depression" or "postpartum psychosis". It's rarer in men, but the 911 operators would know what to do with Abraham: they would tell him to put the kid in a room by himself and wait by the front door for the social worker to show up.
911 isn't for Abraham. Admittedly, there was no 911 in his day, but still ... the guy doesn't even ask for clarification. He doesn't react with surprise or shocked indignation. He is the very model of stupid obedience. He grabs his son and heads off to the mountain. "Gee, Dad", the boy asks, "there's wood for a fire, but what are we going to burn in sacrifice?" Abraham, noble servant of God, dodges the question.
At the last moment, as Abraham is about to kill his son, God calls it all off. Then, as a reward for his utterly reprehensible and mindless obedience, God tells Abraham, "I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore."
Yeah, nice. That's a lovely, beautiful message, isn't it? Offer to kill your children and you will be rewarded.
I don't see how anyone can offer Christianity as a moral compass when it contains stories that value ignorance over wisdom and mindless obedience over ethical compassion. Even if there were some kind of powerful entity that demands the death of your children, your job is to fight it, not slaughter your children and beg for the scraps from its table.
Anything less just isn't human.
It's important to analyze these messages because, quite simply, adherence to religion is not based on technical facts. It's not based on looking at the holy book of the religion, critically examining it, comparing it to the actual universe and saying, "Yes, this lines up!" No. Adherence to a religion is based on an emotional tie. Everything else is rationalization.
Let's turn to chapter 22 of Genesis.
It starts off simply enough. God says to Abraham, "Take your son, your only son, Isaac" up a mountain and "Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering".
The proper reaction - at least in modern times - to hearing a voice in your head calling out for you to set your son on fire is to call 911. This sort of thing occasionally happens to women and it's called "severe postpartum depression" or "postpartum psychosis". It's rarer in men, but the 911 operators would know what to do with Abraham: they would tell him to put the kid in a room by himself and wait by the front door for the social worker to show up.
911 isn't for Abraham. Admittedly, there was no 911 in his day, but still ... the guy doesn't even ask for clarification. He doesn't react with surprise or shocked indignation. He is the very model of stupid obedience. He grabs his son and heads off to the mountain. "Gee, Dad", the boy asks, "there's wood for a fire, but what are we going to burn in sacrifice?" Abraham, noble servant of God, dodges the question.
At the last moment, as Abraham is about to kill his son, God calls it all off. Then, as a reward for his utterly reprehensible and mindless obedience, God tells Abraham, "I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore."
Yeah, nice. That's a lovely, beautiful message, isn't it? Offer to kill your children and you will be rewarded.
I don't see how anyone can offer Christianity as a moral compass when it contains stories that value ignorance over wisdom and mindless obedience over ethical compassion. Even if there were some kind of powerful entity that demands the death of your children, your job is to fight it, not slaughter your children and beg for the scraps from its table.
Anything less just isn't human.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Pack of Lies about Haiti
AP can't stop lying about Haiti.
Haiti had a democratic government. The president of Haiti was a man named Jean-Bertrand Aristide who, besides being a priest who had worked with the poor for years, was legitimately elected. (The elections were legitimate according to everyone except the American government.)
By 2004, the Western powers had had enough of Aristide. He was raising corporate taxes, raising minimum wage and building hospitals and schools - especially medical schools - with the tiny amounts of extra taxes. This was unforgivable. It was causing a rise in the cost of Haitian labour and a rise in the cost of sugar. Corporate profits were at stake.
So the Canadian, French and American governments decided to have Aristide overthrown. They called it "Responsibility to Protect", which came with the clever acronym "R2P". R2P says, basically, that some people simply don't know how to run their own countries. R2P says that, when people democratically choose the wrong leaders, who propel them down the "wrong" path, we have the "responsibility" to "protect" them from their bad choices.
Bad choices include, especially, any intent to use tax money to improve the lot of citizens.
A generation or two ago, "R2P" was simply called "The White Man's Burden". All these silly, illiterate black and brown folk need us to take over their countries and show them how to be exploited ... er ... how to run their economies.
So the Americans exiled Aristide, closed the hospitals and took over the university as their barracks. We helped. So did the French. The people rioted when we tried to impose the rulership of the pro-business party, a party that had 5% of the vote in the last election. The rioting was put down by U.N. "peacekeepers" who declared that these were the vicious human-rights violating leftovers of the Aristide "regime". In actuality, they were the poor people who, after a century of Spanish and American occupation, had finally seen hope in Aristide.
Now look at the lies that the Associated Press continues to churn out. These people are eating dirt. Why? We subsidize our grain and tell them they can't subsidize their production. Then we sell our grain on their market and tell them they can't use tariffs. Free trade, y'know? So they can't make any money and what they do get leaves their country. And they eat dirt.
But AP would have you believe that "world food shortages" are the problem. What a ridiculous lie!
The protesters demand that the 9000 "peacekeepers" leave because they are blamed "in part" for the food shortage. They should be blamed in whole! Those peacekeepers, whom AP tells us "helped usher in a democratic transition", actually hold the status quo of starvation over the Haitian people. AP would have us believe that the protesters are a bunch of ignorant negro villagers lashing out in a stupid fashion when, in reality, they know exactly who is killing them: the international force that overrode - not "ushered in" - their democracy.
The article goes on to discuss Guy Phillipe, formerly Washington's hero in the "liberation" of Haiti, who is now wanted on drug charges. Oh, how fast Eurasia and Eastasia can be confused!
And, oh yes, the Western world "have focused too much on political stability without helping to alleviate poverty".
No. They've focused right where they wanted - on making Haiti in to a miserable, cheap labour market. Who cares how many people starve, as long as North Americans can buy three dollar t-shirts and gorge themselves on sugar until we're all obese diabetics.
Haiti had a democratic government. The president of Haiti was a man named Jean-Bertrand Aristide who, besides being a priest who had worked with the poor for years, was legitimately elected. (The elections were legitimate according to everyone except the American government.)
By 2004, the Western powers had had enough of Aristide. He was raising corporate taxes, raising minimum wage and building hospitals and schools - especially medical schools - with the tiny amounts of extra taxes. This was unforgivable. It was causing a rise in the cost of Haitian labour and a rise in the cost of sugar. Corporate profits were at stake.
So the Canadian, French and American governments decided to have Aristide overthrown. They called it "Responsibility to Protect", which came with the clever acronym "R2P". R2P says, basically, that some people simply don't know how to run their own countries. R2P says that, when people democratically choose the wrong leaders, who propel them down the "wrong" path, we have the "responsibility" to "protect" them from their bad choices.
Bad choices include, especially, any intent to use tax money to improve the lot of citizens.
A generation or two ago, "R2P" was simply called "The White Man's Burden". All these silly, illiterate black and brown folk need us to take over their countries and show them how to be exploited ... er ... how to run their economies.
So the Americans exiled Aristide, closed the hospitals and took over the university as their barracks. We helped. So did the French. The people rioted when we tried to impose the rulership of the pro-business party, a party that had 5% of the vote in the last election. The rioting was put down by U.N. "peacekeepers" who declared that these were the vicious human-rights violating leftovers of the Aristide "regime". In actuality, they were the poor people who, after a century of Spanish and American occupation, had finally seen hope in Aristide.
Now look at the lies that the Associated Press continues to churn out. These people are eating dirt. Why? We subsidize our grain and tell them they can't subsidize their production. Then we sell our grain on their market and tell them they can't use tariffs. Free trade, y'know? So they can't make any money and what they do get leaves their country. And they eat dirt.
But AP would have you believe that "world food shortages" are the problem. What a ridiculous lie!
The protesters demand that the 9000 "peacekeepers" leave because they are blamed "in part" for the food shortage. They should be blamed in whole! Those peacekeepers, whom AP tells us "helped usher in a democratic transition", actually hold the status quo of starvation over the Haitian people. AP would have us believe that the protesters are a bunch of ignorant negro villagers lashing out in a stupid fashion when, in reality, they know exactly who is killing them: the international force that overrode - not "ushered in" - their democracy.
The article goes on to discuss Guy Phillipe, formerly Washington's hero in the "liberation" of Haiti, who is now wanted on drug charges. Oh, how fast Eurasia and Eastasia can be confused!
And, oh yes, the Western world "have focused too much on political stability without helping to alleviate poverty".
No. They've focused right where they wanted - on making Haiti in to a miserable, cheap labour market. Who cares how many people starve, as long as North Americans can buy three dollar t-shirts and gorge themselves on sugar until we're all obese diabetics.
Thursday, April 03, 2008
Knee Jerk Anti-Americanism
I don't like to think of myself as having knee-jerk opinions. This is, after all, the Deep Thought Korner.
When I reached my opinion on American foreign policy, and now the Canadian foreign policy that Harper, O'Connor, Day, McKay and Hillier are following, I reached it based on a lot of evidence. Each of the following represents a huge volume of reading and analysis, but I have condensed it in to a single, simple list of things about American and Canadian foreign policy that I don't like.
1. The Land mine treaty. Spearheaded by Canada. Opposed by the United States.
2. The use of poisonous Depleted Uranium shells.
3. The unwarranted NATO bombing of Serbia, where no ethnic cleansing was ever shown to have happened.
4. The unwarranted invasion of Haiti, because we needed their cheap labour.
5. The unwarranted invasion of Afghanistan after the Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden if only the U.S. would show evidence of his complicity in 9/11.
6. Illegal incarceration in Guantanamo Bay.
7. Torture in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
8. The extraordinary rendition to Syria and torture of Maher Arar, among others.
9. The development of new nuclear weapons.
10. Opposition to climate change.
11. The tight loop between government jobs and lobbying positions for the military industry.
12. The cowardly appeal to "support the troops" and "be patriotic" rather than actually responding to criticism of immoral military ventures.
Each of the things in the list above, a list which is hardly exhaustive, could be expounded (and have been expounded by other people) in to volumes of evidence, analysis and information.
There is nothing "knee-jerk" about concluding that American foreign policy is immoral and that I don't want Canada's foreign policy to go the same way. This is a thoroughly considered position, a position I would gladly debate with anyone, and there is nothing "knee-jerk" about it.
In fact, the only thing that seems to be "knee-jerk" and poorly thought out is the thoughtless, instantaneous accusation of "knee-jerk anti-Americanism". If you have an argument, present it. Name calling will get you nowhere.
When I reached my opinion on American foreign policy, and now the Canadian foreign policy that Harper, O'Connor, Day, McKay and Hillier are following, I reached it based on a lot of evidence. Each of the following represents a huge volume of reading and analysis, but I have condensed it in to a single, simple list of things about American and Canadian foreign policy that I don't like.
1. The Land mine treaty. Spearheaded by Canada. Opposed by the United States.
2. The use of poisonous Depleted Uranium shells.
3. The unwarranted NATO bombing of Serbia, where no ethnic cleansing was ever shown to have happened.
4. The unwarranted invasion of Haiti, because we needed their cheap labour.
5. The unwarranted invasion of Afghanistan after the Taliban offered to turn over Bin Laden if only the U.S. would show evidence of his complicity in 9/11.
6. Illegal incarceration in Guantanamo Bay.
7. Torture in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.
8. The extraordinary rendition to Syria and torture of Maher Arar, among others.
9. The development of new nuclear weapons.
10. Opposition to climate change.
11. The tight loop between government jobs and lobbying positions for the military industry.
12. The cowardly appeal to "support the troops" and "be patriotic" rather than actually responding to criticism of immoral military ventures.
Each of the things in the list above, a list which is hardly exhaustive, could be expounded (and have been expounded by other people) in to volumes of evidence, analysis and information.
There is nothing "knee-jerk" about concluding that American foreign policy is immoral and that I don't want Canada's foreign policy to go the same way. This is a thoroughly considered position, a position I would gladly debate with anyone, and there is nothing "knee-jerk" about it.
In fact, the only thing that seems to be "knee-jerk" and poorly thought out is the thoughtless, instantaneous accusation of "knee-jerk anti-Americanism". If you have an argument, present it. Name calling will get you nowhere.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
Ministry of National Killing People
Classic Hillier Quote
General Rick Hillier certainly has some exciting opinions on the purpose of the Canadian military. Here I was, foolishly believing that the purpose of the Department of National Defence was to defend Canadians.
Not so, apparently.
"We're not the public service of Canada," he said. "We're not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people."
Really? First of all, the military actually is part of the public service of Canada. We the people tell you what you can and can't do. At least that's how it should work.
Second, your job is to defend Canada from military attack. Your job is not "to be able to kill people". Yes, protecting us may involve killing people. We don't like it and we really wish you wouldn't be so gleeful about it, but we all understand that it may be necessary.
Maybe it's time to circulate a petition. Let's rename the Defence department the "Department of National Killing People". I guess that makes Peter McKay the Minister of Killing People.
General Rick Hillier certainly has some exciting opinions on the purpose of the Canadian military. Here I was, foolishly believing that the purpose of the Department of National Defence was to defend Canadians.
Not so, apparently.
"We're not the public service of Canada," he said. "We're not just another department. We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people."
Really? First of all, the military actually is part of the public service of Canada. We the people tell you what you can and can't do. At least that's how it should work.
Second, your job is to defend Canada from military attack. Your job is not "to be able to kill people". Yes, protecting us may involve killing people. We don't like it and we really wish you wouldn't be so gleeful about it, but we all understand that it may be necessary.
Maybe it's time to circulate a petition. Let's rename the Defence department the "Department of National Killing People". I guess that makes Peter McKay the Minister of Killing People.
DTK: Flaherty and McGuinty
It’s getting difficult to see any value in our federal government these days.
They’re in Afghanistan and don’t want to leave. They throw up a veneer of “patriotism” to cover the mayhem and misery they’re using our military to create. They certainly appear to have committed war crimes in the handing over of prisoners to Afghan authorities who are – quite clearly – not signatories to the Geneva conventions.
They walk in lock step with the Bush administration: denouncing elected governments that we don’t like (and damn democracy to hell when it gives the “wrong” results).
Now they want to follow American-style super-destructive Bush economics. Namely this: reduce corporate taxes. The goal of reducing corporate taxes is to starve the government of cash so that it can’t provide services for the people. A government high in debt is at the mercy of the banks. A government high in debt can’t take care of its people. The people gradually learn to expect less and less and eventually the rich people can encourage more and more tax breaks until our entire social system falls apart. Once they make your schools and hospitals suck, they can shrug and say, “See, we might as well privatize them!”
Of course, that’s not how they sell it. They sell corporate tax breaks as a way to improve things. Don’t worry, they’ll say, we’re just lowering services like health care and education *temporarily*. After a little austerity, these corporate tax breaks will stimulate the economy like crazy and there will be so much money going around that even the reduced tax rates will yield oodles of money for everything!
This is a lie. It is a lie for which there is no evidence, not even circumstantial. It is a lie which they repeat, and the media echoes, until everyone sighs and believes it.
Well, not quite everyone.
The federal finance minister, in what I have to imagine is a very unique and rude kind of meddling, “challenged” the province of Ontario to lower its corporate tax rate, lest Ontario become a “have not” province. And, yea, we were quaking in our boots.
The Liberals didn’t budge. Yes, they said, we’re in a slowdown and we’re losing manufacturing jobs. So what we’ll do is increase spending on education, “re-skill” the laid off workers with grant money, and get things started again. The only problem with this sort of plan – educating people – is that it actually works. It will form a good example for other provinces to emulate.
And let me tell you something about the neo-conservatives in the White House and in the Canadian Conservative Party – they absolutely *hate* people setting good examples. That’s why they went so hard after Venezuela. That’s why we (with the French and Americans) invaded Haiti and overthrew its democratic government. That’s why the socialist government in Nicaragua was declared a terrorist regime and then terrorized by the Reagan Administration in to destruction.
These people *hate* good examples. Look for them to bring the hammer down on Ontario in any way they can.
They’re in Afghanistan and don’t want to leave. They throw up a veneer of “patriotism” to cover the mayhem and misery they’re using our military to create. They certainly appear to have committed war crimes in the handing over of prisoners to Afghan authorities who are – quite clearly – not signatories to the Geneva conventions.
They walk in lock step with the Bush administration: denouncing elected governments that we don’t like (and damn democracy to hell when it gives the “wrong” results).
Now they want to follow American-style super-destructive Bush economics. Namely this: reduce corporate taxes. The goal of reducing corporate taxes is to starve the government of cash so that it can’t provide services for the people. A government high in debt is at the mercy of the banks. A government high in debt can’t take care of its people. The people gradually learn to expect less and less and eventually the rich people can encourage more and more tax breaks until our entire social system falls apart. Once they make your schools and hospitals suck, they can shrug and say, “See, we might as well privatize them!”
Of course, that’s not how they sell it. They sell corporate tax breaks as a way to improve things. Don’t worry, they’ll say, we’re just lowering services like health care and education *temporarily*. After a little austerity, these corporate tax breaks will stimulate the economy like crazy and there will be so much money going around that even the reduced tax rates will yield oodles of money for everything!
This is a lie. It is a lie for which there is no evidence, not even circumstantial. It is a lie which they repeat, and the media echoes, until everyone sighs and believes it.
Well, not quite everyone.
The federal finance minister, in what I have to imagine is a very unique and rude kind of meddling, “challenged” the province of Ontario to lower its corporate tax rate, lest Ontario become a “have not” province. And, yea, we were quaking in our boots.
The Liberals didn’t budge. Yes, they said, we’re in a slowdown and we’re losing manufacturing jobs. So what we’ll do is increase spending on education, “re-skill” the laid off workers with grant money, and get things started again. The only problem with this sort of plan – educating people – is that it actually works. It will form a good example for other provinces to emulate.
And let me tell you something about the neo-conservatives in the White House and in the Canadian Conservative Party – they absolutely *hate* people setting good examples. That’s why they went so hard after Venezuela. That’s why we (with the French and Americans) invaded Haiti and overthrew its democratic government. That’s why the socialist government in Nicaragua was declared a terrorist regime and then terrorized by the Reagan Administration in to destruction.
These people *hate* good examples. Look for them to bring the hammer down on Ontario in any way they can.
DTK: Original Sin
Once upon a time, I was a Christian. At least I think I was. It’s a very difficult thing to prove one way or the other. Someone’s bound to argue that, because I eventually turned atheist, I can’t have been a real Christian. I don’t see the point in arguing. I went to church, I sang the songs, said the words. I prayed when I was alone. I think I believed, but it’s hard to remember, and impossible to prove.
Later, I started looking at the religion frankly and discovered things I didn’t care for; things I found pretty nasty actually. I found things that, even if the bible were true and accurate, would cause me to avoid worshiping this deity.
One of those things is the idea of original sin.
The next time a Christian knocks on your door, ask him about original sin. Ask him if he thinks it is fair or just. The concept is thus:
“God, in the garden of Eden, places the tree of knowledge. God instructs Adam and Eve not to eat its fruit, warning that they shall die on the day they do. Along comes the snake, telling Eve that the fruit won’t kill them, but make them wise. Wanting to be wise, she eats the fruit and gives it to her mate as well. This is a sin and the sin of disobediently desiring wisdom is genetically passed down to all human beings.”
It should be noted, perhaps on the side, that Adam and Eve did not die on the day they ate the fruit, so score one for the snake and zero for God on the truth-o-meter.
In the end, God becomes very angry (and somewhat fearful) and casts them out of the garden of Eden. Their sin, you see, was in wanting to be wise and learn things. This is apparently bad. They were supposed to be obedient, submissive and – most of all – ignorant. Now not only was their desire for wisdom evil, it was so evil that their actions placed what the Catholic Church calls a “hereditary stain” (go ahead, look it up) on the rest of the human race. This hereditary stain declares all of us, regardless of our own actions, to be sinful from birth and deserving of eternal torment in hell.
So, in summary: your goal as a human being is to be ignorant and submissive; anyone who wants knowledge is automatically evil. Also, you are *already* automatically evil because you carry the stain of Adam and Eve’s curiosity anyway.
It should be obvious, then, that the various Christian churches are an impediment to both our enjoyment of life and the advancement of scientific knowledge.
If I wanted a short lifespan, with much of it spent killing cats, I suppose I could accept the Christian doctrine of original sin. Since I like the products of scientific experimentation; since I like learning things; since I don’t care for mindless obedience to tyranny or killing cats … well, I think I’ll just stick with atheism, thanks.
Later, I started looking at the religion frankly and discovered things I didn’t care for; things I found pretty nasty actually. I found things that, even if the bible were true and accurate, would cause me to avoid worshiping this deity.
One of those things is the idea of original sin.
The next time a Christian knocks on your door, ask him about original sin. Ask him if he thinks it is fair or just. The concept is thus:
“God, in the garden of Eden, places the tree of knowledge. God instructs Adam and Eve not to eat its fruit, warning that they shall die on the day they do. Along comes the snake, telling Eve that the fruit won’t kill them, but make them wise. Wanting to be wise, she eats the fruit and gives it to her mate as well. This is a sin and the sin of disobediently desiring wisdom is genetically passed down to all human beings.”
It should be noted, perhaps on the side, that Adam and Eve did not die on the day they ate the fruit, so score one for the snake and zero for God on the truth-o-meter.
In the end, God becomes very angry (and somewhat fearful) and casts them out of the garden of Eden. Their sin, you see, was in wanting to be wise and learn things. This is apparently bad. They were supposed to be obedient, submissive and – most of all – ignorant. Now not only was their desire for wisdom evil, it was so evil that their actions placed what the Catholic Church calls a “hereditary stain” (go ahead, look it up) on the rest of the human race. This hereditary stain declares all of us, regardless of our own actions, to be sinful from birth and deserving of eternal torment in hell.
So, in summary: your goal as a human being is to be ignorant and submissive; anyone who wants knowledge is automatically evil. Also, you are *already* automatically evil because you carry the stain of Adam and Eve’s curiosity anyway.
It should be obvious, then, that the various Christian churches are an impediment to both our enjoyment of life and the advancement of scientific knowledge.
If I wanted a short lifespan, with much of it spent killing cats, I suppose I could accept the Christian doctrine of original sin. Since I like the products of scientific experimentation; since I like learning things; since I don’t care for mindless obedience to tyranny or killing cats … well, I think I’ll just stick with atheism, thanks.
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