FILM / David McReynolds : 'Never Cry Wolf'

Profoundly mystic:
Carroll Bellard's Never Cry Wolf

By David McReynolds / The Rag Blog / February 10, 2010

We each have our own habits, and one of mine is tracking down films that had been well received in their time, but which I had missed -- for which purpose Netflix is a great resource. I recently got a copy of Never Cry Wolf, made in 1983. (Somewhat ironically, since it is neither animated, nor a "family film," it was a Walt Disney Production.)

The film is an adaptation of Farley Mowat's autobiography. Directed by Carroll Ballard, it stars Charles Martin Smith, Brian Dennehy, and Zachary Ittimangnaq. The music, haunting enough to merit special mention, is by Mark Isham, and the cinematography is by Hiro Narita. Narita's work is magical, his effects achieved without computers, the closeups of wolves -- and their interaction with Smith -- so remarkable as to be nearly incredible.

The premise of the film is that the Arctic caribou are dying off as a result of being preyed on by wolves. A young government biologist, Tyler (Charles Martin Smith), is sent to the Arctic wilderness of Northern Canada to gather proof than the savage wolves are the reason the caribou herds are dying. Tyler is flown there, to a totally isolated area, and begins his study. He is a survival expert -- and indeed, he needs to be, in this situation!

What the young biologist quickly learns is that the wolves are not renegade killers, but smart, courageous, very caring of their families. In the course of the film (just short of two hours) we meet an Inuit family and realize that, like the caribou, they are at risk from contact with "civilization" (represented here by Brian Dennehy).

When the film ended I realized I was weeping. Why, I'm not sure. There was no moment of tragedy. The young biologist survives. (But it is left open as to whether he returns or remains in the wilderness.)

Smith devoted nearly three years to Never Cry Wolf and said he found the process difficult, that "during much of the two-year shooting schedule in Canada's Yukon and in Nome, Alaska, I was the only actor present. It was the loneliest film I've ever worked on."

Perhaps what affected me was the encounter with the vast, empty, yet vitally alive landscape of the Arctic.

An American composer, John Luther Adams -- who had moved toward his own form of contemporary music after discovering the works of Edgar Varese, John Cage, Morton Feldman, and Harry Partch -- eventually left a Southern California he found overdeveloped and moved to Alaska, which since 1978 has been his home (his work received a respectful review in the New Yorker). His music (and I'm listening to a CD of his, In the White Silence) reflects his adopted landscape.

As my email friend, Hunter Gray, will understand, better I think than most, what seems empty is full, what seems silent has a sound many have lost the ability to hear.

I found, in the 24 hours after mentioning Never Cry Wolf to a few friends, that they had seen it, and had much the same reaction I had. A strange film. Very real, and like so much that is very real, profoundly mystic.

[David McReynolds worked on the staff of the War Resisters League for 39 years, retired in 1999, and lives with two cats on Manhattan's Lower East Side. He has been active in the socialist movement, being the Socialist Party's candidate for President in 1980 and 2000.]

• Rent Never Cry Wolf at Netflix.
• Find Never Cry Wolf on DVD at Amazon.com.
• Find Never Cry Wolf : Amazing True Story of Life Among Arctic Wolves by Farley Mowat at Amazon.com.

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Songbird Kate McGarrigle : Heart Like a Wheel

Kate McGarrigle. Photo from BeatCrave courtesy McGarrigles.com
Kate McGarrigle:
The fading art of singing together

“Some say the heart is just like a wheel, once you bend it, you just can’t mend it...”

By Carl R. Hultberg / The Rag Blog / January 23, 2010

See Video of Kate and Anna McGarrigle singing 'Heart Like a Wheel,' Below.

Growing up with music in the home is a lost tradition. Not kids with iPods at the dinner table, but whole families singing together. No one will ever know how much we have lost not singing in the home. We’re not singing weekly at church much either. Wouldn’t we get worried if the birds stopped singing? Maybe the canary in the coal mine is us.

One family that never had that problem was the Canadian McGarrigles. Living 50 miles north of Montreal, Frank liked the old parlor songs, Stephen Foster, the mid 19th century folk/pop tradition leading up to ragtime. “Oh Susannah,” “Jimmy Crack Corn,” “Old Black Joe.” Plantation music delivered by music publishers, eventually Tin Pan Alley in New York city. Frank’s wife Gaby played organ in the church and old French Canadian songs at home. And of course they all sang together at regular family gatherings.

As the 1960s ground down into the 1970s, the singer songwriter phenomenon was upon us. Folks like James Taylor (of the singing Taylor family), Joni Mitchell, Laura Nyro, Carole King and many others used elements of folk, rock, show music, soul to create “personal statements.” The me “decade(s)” were here and the narcissistic singer songwriters were either its most benign aspect or a just another part of the overall problem.

One of the artists whose singer songwriter contributions never veered far from the pure folk Americana roots yet who still managed to reach a large audience with her deep personal statements would have to be Kate McGarrigle, sister singer with Anna McGarrigle in the McGarrigle Sisters. Obviously the children of Frank and Gaby who lived north of Montreal. Their first release, “Kate and Anna McGarrigle” (1976) was a welcome breath of northern fresh air in a punk- and discoed-out dismal period for music. Over the decades more sweet music followed.

Kate’s soul searching compositions and the sisters’ warm yet ghostly harmonies brought back memories of the phenomenal Boswell Sisters from the early 1930s. The Boswells were a wonderful singing trio from New Orleans who mixed old folk harmonies with incredibly clever jazz scat arrangements, largely the creative work of arranger/lead singer Connie Boswell.

The Boswell Sisters.
Saying the McGarrigle Sisters were reminiscent of the Boswell Sisters is high praise indeed. There is an intuitive quality to true native sibling harmony that predates everything else humanity has ever come up with. Kate and Anna’s songs breathe with the life of sentiment and sincerity, like music from an age when those words had deep human meanings. Like Stephen Foster.

Success in the pop/folk world can be a mixed blessing. For Kate, marriage to ultra clever American singer songwriter Loudon Wainwright III ended in divorce after they produced two offspring. Mr. Wainwright must have thought he was being extremely clever when he released a song about his breast feeding son: “Rufus is a Tit Man.” Rufus Wainwright grew up to defy his dad on that score (as clever children often do), by becoming perhaps the premier U.S. gay singer hearthrob. Daughter Martha Wainwright has also courted scandal occasionally in her quest for fame as a singer. Many people may know Kate McGarrigle nowadays as the mom of her notorious kids, Rufus and Martha.

But of course, that’s just today’s news. Yesterday’s news is often far more interesting, and believe it or not, can also be much more relevant. The McGarrigle Sisters won’t be making any more new music together in this realm because this week Kate passed away at age 63. But one extremely persuasive theory has it that music is eternal. Certainly the music Kate McGarrigle tapped into with her sister was of that variety. Listen now and you’re sure to hear one of their sweet plaintive songs:

“Some say the heart is just like a wheel, once you bend it, you just can’t mend it...”

[Carl R. Hultberg's grandfather, Rudi Blesh, was a noted jazz critic and music historian, and Carl was raised in that tradition. After spending many years as a music archivist and social activist in New York's Greenwich Village, he now lives in an old abandoned foundry in Danbury, New Hampshire, where he runs the Ragtime Society.]


Kate and Anna McGarrigle: Heart Like a Wheel


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Guadalajara : The Three Amigos Summit

The Three Amigos: President Barack Obama, Mexico's President Felipe Calderon, center, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in Guadalajara, Mexico on August 10. Photo by Alex Brandon / AP.
The Three Amigos Summit:
Sleepwalking through the minefield

By John Ross / The Rag Blog / August 17, 2009

MEXICO CITY -- Last week's "Three Amigos" Summit of North American heads of state in Guadalajara offered all the hair-raising excitement of watching Barack Obama and rightists Stephen Harper (Canada) and host Felipe Calderon sleepwalk through a minefield.

The fifth trilateral huddle of the presidents and/or prime ministers of Canada, U.S. and Mexico was held under the aegius of the North American Security & Prosperity Partnership (SPP or ASPAN in Spanish) that proposes to integrate energy and security mechanisms in the three NAFTA nations.

Appropriately, the Three Amigos Summit came at a moment when both North American prosperity and security are gravely challenged by the deepest economic slide in the region since the Great Depression and cross-border security has been undermined by Calderon's reckless war on Mexican drug cartels that has taken 12,000 lives in the past three years and now threatens to spill over into the United States.

Indeed, the drug war was at the top of the Guadalajara pow-wow's agenda - the "War On Terror" which had dominated these séances during the Bush regime was markedly missing from the protocols. One subtext of the drug war colloquy was Mexico's chronic failure to stem human rights abuses by its military and police that now imperils $1.4 billion of Washington's Merida Initiative funding to bolster security forces south of the border.

Under terms of the 2007 Initiative negotiated by George Bush and Felipe Calderon in Merida, Yucatan, the U.S. congress must certify that Mexico is taking steps to mitigate the thousands of complaints of drug war abuses filed by citizens with the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) and verified by international human rights organizations. Failure to take corrective action would result in forfeiting 15% of the funding, a stipulation that Mexican president Calderon has been reluctant to comply with, insisting that all alleged abuses have been addressed by a military justice system that has no civilian oversight.

The certification clause was embedded in the Merida Initiative after the Calderon government failed to resolve the murder of U.S. independent journalist Brad Will during 2006 civil unrest in the southern state of Oaxaca. Despite front page photographs of five plainly identified Oaxaca police officers firing on Will, Calderon's federal prosecutor and local officials under the thumb of Governor Ulysis Ruiz have refused to issue arrest warrants for the cops, instead accusing members of the Oaxaca Peoples Popular Assembly (APPO) of responsibility for Will's death.

Although forensic investigations by the CNDH and the Boston-based NGO Physicians for Human Rights (which was asked by the Will family to conduct an independent probe) established that the reporter was gunned down from 35 to 50 meters away presumably by the same police shown in the newspaper photographs, Calderon's federal prosecutor Eduardo Medina Mora and local authorities contend that Will was shot at close range by activists with whom he was standing during the October 27th 2006 confrontation.

APPO member Juan Manuel Martinez has been imprisoned for nearly a year after being fingered by two alleged eyewitnesses, both of whom concede they did not actually see Martinez fire the fatal shot -- international NGOs such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and the Committee To Protect Journalists decry Martinez's arrest as a frame up.

This July 29th, ten days before the Three Amigos Summit was gaveled to order in Guadalajara, the Federal Prosecutor's Office (PGR) sought to reaffirm its case against Juan Manuel Martinez and blunt the threatened loss of Merida moneys by publishing the results of an investigation purportedly undertaken by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police that corroborated the Mexican government's disputed finding of APPO culpability in the shooting of the U.S. reporter.

But the RCMP conclusions proved to be little more than a shabby fiction -- the three supposed Mounties were in fact contractors-for-hire who were no longer employed by the Canadian police. Their investigation was replete with factual errors (the ex-Dudley Do-Rights reportedly did not read or speak Spanish) and was debunked by Will's parents. Nonetheless, the ploy met with limited success: the incarceration of Juan Manuel Martinez appears to have softened any lingering doubts the U.S. State Department may have entertained about the dubious quality of Mexican justice and Brad Will's murder was never mentioned in Guadalajara.

Signing up fake Mounties to corroborate the Martinez frame-up comes at a low point in Mexico-Canada bilateral relations. Protests by Mexican farmers and Indians at widespread environmental damage caused by Canadian mining corporations have surged here in the past months. To further agitate the waters, Steven Harper's conservative government, citing thousands of Mexicans who arrive in Canada each month to petition for political asylum, clamped a visa requirement on visitors from the south this summer, bollixing the vacation plans of hundreds of families whose vehement protests outside the Canadian embassy here provoked stringent policing.

Despite Calderon's personal appeal to Harper at the Guadalajara head-to-head, the Canadian prime minister refused to back down on the visa requirements. Instead, in the spirit of the Security & Prosperity Partnership, Harper offered a $15 million Royal Canadian Mounted Police program to train Mexican police chiefs.

During the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign, Barack Obama barnstormed the rust belt pledging to revise NAFTA chapters that are squeezing U.S. workers -- but reopening the 15 year-old trade agreement was not on the Guadalajara agenda. (Obama's chief of staff Rahm Emanuel had previously warned Canadian officials not to take his boss's campaign promises seriously.) Although workers and farmers in the three NAFTA nations demand revision, opening up the free trade treaty is a non-starter for the three amigos in these economically perilous times.

In fact, the U.S. congress has unilaterally reneged on a NAFTA provision that would allow Mexican long haul drivers to operate on U.S. highways. In retaliation, Mexico slapped $6.2 billion USD in potential tariffs on 89 U.S. products, including dog food and Christmas trees. No progress in resolving the trade dispute was registered at the Guadalajara summit.

With security at red alert levels, Obama flew into Guadalajara, the financial center for Mexico's six major drug cartels, aboard Air Force One escorted by five helicopter gunships. Drug war paranoia was palpable and 5,000 police and army troops were mobilized to protect the three amigos during their brief stay in Mexico's second city.

The drama mounted when an operator for the Pacific Cartel in Sinaloa was captured after cops got wind of an alleged plot to assassinate Calderon at the Summit. Even as the three heads of state gathered in Guadalajara, Silvia Raquenel Villanueva, a legendary lawyer who made her bones defending drug kingpins, was gunned down at a posh Monterrey mall by unknowns -- Raquenel, whose life is celebrated in popular narco-corridos, had survived four previous assassination attempts.

Obama's 20-hour visit was his second as U.S. president -- last April, he traveled to Mexico City just as the swine flu epidemic detonated here although he was kept in the dark of the dangers of contagion by Calderon -- an anthropologist who accompanied Obama on a tour of the National Anthropological Museum subsequently died of respiratory failure and a Secret Service agent was stricken. This time around, El Baracko came equipped with a full medical team.

The U.S. president was also accompanied by his just-designated ambassador to Mexico, Carlos Pascual. The scion of a well-connected Cuban family who fled the island in the first years of the revolution, Pascual is the highest-ranking Gusano on the Obama payroll but his anti-Castro roots will not sooth perpetually stressed Cuban-Mexican relations. A Brookings Institute fellow, Pascual is said to be an expert on "failed states" -- a recent U.S. Joint Chief of Staff analysis (JOE 2008) posits that Mexico is at risk of becoming a "failed state."

While the drug war dominated the Guadalajara tête–à–tête, the coming swine flu season was much on the minds of the three amigos. Last spring's outbreak in Mexico which is thought to have germinated in a U.S.-owned hog farm in Veracruz, spread north rapidly, triggering threats of quarantine and the scapegoating of Mexicans around the world.

Also troubling the Guadalajara agenda: what to do about pesky Manuel Zelaya, the constitutional president of Honduras who was dislodged by a military coup at the end of June. While the events herald unwelcome destabilization in Central America as oligarchs and their cronies in the military take heart from Zelaya's overthrow, both Obama and Harper waffled on support for the Honduran president's reinstatement as mandated by the Organization of American States, and the first Afro-American president of the U.S. bristled at allegations that his government was not doing its part to facilitate Mel Zelaya's return to power, arguing that the same leftists who demand the Yanquis get out of Latin America insist that Washington increase pressure on the Honduran coup-makers.

Just days before the Guadalajara summit, the deposed Zelaya flew to Mexico to lobby Felipe Calderon and members of congress into supporting his return to Honduras. But the Honduran earned his Mexican counterpart's scorn when he spoke favorably of leftist Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO) who continues to maintain that he beat Calderon in the fraud-marred 2006 presidential election here. In retribution, Calderon's elite presidential guard prevented Zelaya from talking to the press when he exited the country.

The North American Security & Prosperity Partnership is the brainchild of Obama's predecessor George Bush and was designed to assure Washington of a secure oil flow from both Canada and Mexico that together comprise nearly a third of the U.S. energy basket. Increased integration of security forces envisions the deployment of U.S. troops on Mexican soil to safeguard vital Caribbean oil fields from international terrorism -- Washington and Mexico participated in war games that simulated terrorist attacks in the Gulf of Mexico at the end of July.

The U.S.'s renewed "outreach" to its southern neighbors forms one leg of a strategy to refocus Washington's attentions on Latin America after years of marginalizing the continent during which the anti-neoliberal pendulum swung decisively to the left.

Other outcroppings of the renewed Yanqui strategy: the mobilization of the U.S. Fourth Fleet to patrol the Atlantic and Caribbean theaters and the establishment of seven U.S. air and naval bases in Colombia, one of Washington's few allies in the region, which, not surprisingly, has stirred alarm on the Latin American Left.

Meeting in Quito on the very days that the three amigos were connudling in Guadalajara, the 12-nation UNASUR ("Union of Nations of South America"), a Bolivarian mutual defense system, exhorted Obama to support the return of Mel Zelaya to Honduras and robustly condemned the latest U.S.-Colombian adventure.

Ironically, the SPP-ASPAN with its implications of a new Pax Americana in Latin America, has become a red flag for right-wing gringo conspiracy buffs who most recently have been obsessed by Barack Obama's birth certificate(s.) For the "birthers" and the "tea party patriots," the SPP-ASPAN is a subversive plot to overthrow the United States, nullify U.S. laws, and coin a new currency that will displace the Yanqui dollar. Waving small American flags, an angry gaggle of "patriots" showed up in Guadalajara to denounce the conspiracy.

But the most pertinent gringo invasion of Mexico came post-Three Amigos when the U.S. soccer team stormed Mexico City to face off against Mexico's faltering national team in a do-or-die qualification match for the 2010 World Cup. In 23 previous outings at the gargantuan (105,000) Azteca stadium, the Americanos had never won a game and the August 12th contest was no exception with the Mexicans grinding out a narrow one-goal victory -- the U.S. star Landon Donovan was subsequently bedded with Swine Flu.

The win over the hated Yanquis was perhaps the only positive result of the Three Amigos Summit for this distant neighbor nation.

[John Ross is back in the maw of the Monstruo. His monstrous chronicle, "El Monstruo -- Dread & Redemption in Mexico City" will be published by Nation Books this November. If you have further info write johnross@igc.org.]

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'Socialized' Medicine : It Works all Over the World

British Conservative leader David Cameron, certainly no "socialist," calls the National Health Service (NHS), "one of the wonderful things about living in (England)."

[The Republicans have] told so many lies about the government health care in other countries, that some of those countries are starting to get angry.

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / August 16, 2009

As the health care reform debate heats up, we've heard all sorts of ridiculous things from the Republicans and right-wingers about "socialized medicine" -- the name they give to the government-run health care systems adopted by almost all industrialized countries. They call it "evil" and tell all kind of horror stories about how bad it is.

In fact, they've told so many lies about the government health care in other countries, that some of those countries are starting to get angry. When the right-wing put Canadian Shana Holmes on American TV to lie about the Canadian system, tens of thousands of Canadians were incensed, and let it be known they don't appreciate Americans lying and spreading falsehoods about their system.

The English are starting to react also. They have started a Twitter group expressing pride in their National Health System (NHS), and tens of thousands of people have expressed their support for the NHS. Prime Minister Gordon Brown even joined the fray, twittering, "PM: NHS often makes the difference between pain and comfort, despair and hope, life and death. Thanks for always being there." His wife then added, "#welovetheNHS -- more than words can say."

An American business magazine recently said under the British system, scientist Stephen Hawking would be dead. Evidently they didn't know he was born and lived all his life in Great Britain. Hawking himself says, "I wouldn't be here today if it were not for the NHS. I have received a large amount of high-quality treatment without which I would not have survived."

You might say those are the liberal views, but what do the conservatives think? Well, here's what Conservative Party leader David Cameron has to say, "Millions of people are grateful for the care they have received from the NHS -- including my own family. One of the wonderful things about living in this country is that the moment you're injured or fall ill -- no matter who you are, where you are from, or how much money you've got -- you know that the NHS will look after you."

In Canada, Great Britain, France, Sweden and most other industrialized nations, the people like their "socialist" health care that gives all citizens decent health care. Some politicians might like to tweak the system to make it even better, but none would dare suggest doing away with it and going to a system like ours. If they did, they'd be voted out of power in a heartbeat (and they know it).

That poses a question. Since all of these countries love their government-run systems that covers all their citizens, and most Americans agree that our own system is badly broken, why is health care reform so difficult in America? Why are we so sure none of the systems used by other nations would not work here? And why are we so terrified of the word "socialism" -- especially since most Americans don't even know what it is?

MediCare is socialist, and it has done a pretty good job of providing health care for our elderly. The fact is that there are some things government can do better than private industry (regardless of what Republicans may tell you).

Would you want the police or military to be private and only work for those who can pay? How about the fire department -- should they let your house burn because you can't meet their profit expectations? The same is true of health care. The government can eliminate the profit and the overhead and provide cheaper and better health insurance. That's a fact even the private companies recognize (which is why they're fighting it so hard).

Government-run health insurance is not evil. It's just the fairest and least expensive way to give all citizens decent health care. And that's what we should be trying to do.

[Rag Blog contributor Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger, an excellent Texas political blog.]

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Demonizing Canadian Health Care

Cartoon by John Janik.
Health care reform and the lies about the Canadian system

When you put the two systems side by side, it is easy to see why no Canadian would even consider changing their system for ours (even conservative Canadians). In Canada, they consider decent health care to be a right of every citizen regardless of wealth or class.

By Ted McLaughlin / The Rag Blog / August 10, 2009

We've been hearing a lot recently from the Republicans about the Canadian health care system. If you listen to them, you would believe the Canadians have a terrible system, with rationing that is a death sentence for the elderly and possibly others, who have to wait endlessly for life-saving treatment from a government doctor.

Of course, these are all lies. But with our own system so badly broken it is indefensible, how could the Republicans possibly justify wanting to keep the current system? There was only one way. Accuse the Democrats of trying to institute a system like the Canadian system, and then tell so many lies and half-truths that the Canadian system would be so demonized that our own terrible system would look good by comparison.

They are able to get away with demonizing the Canadian health care, because very few Americans actually understand what that system entails. They just have heard that it is a government-run system, and therefore must be socialist (and Americans have been taught that anything connected to the word socialism must be bad).

A good example of this attempt to demonize Canadian health care is a TV ad paid for by an ultra-right-wing group called the Americans for Prosperity Foundation. They created and funded an organization called Patients United Now, that they were hoping gullible Americans would think was a grassroots patients organization. It isn't. It's a shadow organization created by the wealthy who want to keep our current badly broken health care system.

The TV ad they are running shows a Canadian woman named Shana Holmes who says she had a fast-growing and life-threatening brain tumor, but she would have had to wait six months in Canada for treatment. She claimed she would have died waiting for treatment in Canada, so she went to Arizona and was saved by the American health care system where she didn't have to wait.

That sounds like a horrible indictment of the Canadian system. The only problem is that it is NOT TRUE! She did not have a brain tumor, and her life was not at stake. Even if she had to wait the full six months (and that is doubtful), she would not have died. What she had was a cyst, which she had since birth. It was beginning to press on her optic nerve and needed to be removed, but a short wait would have caused her no harm.

Another thing she fails to mention in the ad is that she ran up a huge medical bill by coming to America for her operation -- a bill that is too large for her to pay. She is currently suing the Canadian government in an attempt to make them pay for it.

After all the lies and falsehoods being told about Canadian health care, I thought it would be good to actually compare their system to the American system. Can it be as bad as the Republicans would have us believe? If it is, why aren't the Canadians flocking to America for treatment (and they are not, regardless of what right-wingers want us to believe)?

Here is the truth about both systems:

• Canada has only one health insurance provider -- the government. There is no need for the system to make a profit.

The United States has hundreds of private insurance companies, all trying to maximize their profits and curb the amount they pay for medical care.

• All of Canada's citizens have health insurance coverage.

At least 46 million Americans (and possibly many more) do not have any health insurance at all, and currently 14,000 people a week are losing their coverage in our poor economy.

• Canadians have their choice of any doctor or hospital they want to use.

Americans must choose their doctor and hospital from a list provided by their private insurance company.

• No Canadian can be denied insurance coverage for a pre-existing condition or because their required treatment is very expensive.

American insurance companies routinely deny coverage for pre-existing conditions, and have been known to cancel policies when treatment gets expensive.

• Many times Canadians must wait weeks or months for elective surgery, because those with life-threatening illnesses are treated first.

Americans do not have to wait for elective surgery if they have the money to pay for it. But the insurance will pay for little or none of it. The poor and uninsured cannot get this surgery at all.

• The Canadian system puts an emphasis on preventive care, and Canadians see their doctor more often.

The uninsured and underinsured in the U.S. get no preventive care at all.

• Canadians live an average of three years longer than Americans.


• The Canadian infant mortality rate is 20% lower than in the U.S.

Well, there it is. When you put the two systems side by side, it is easy to see why no Canadian would even consider changing their system for ours (even conservative Canadians). In Canada, they consider decent health care to be a right of every citizen regardless of wealth or class.

Our current system does not recognize a right to decent health care. Instead, health care is a commodity to be sold to those who can afford it. The rich get top-notch care, while the middle class struggles to get adequate care (about a million a year go bankrupt trying to pay for health care). The poor and working classes get inadequate or no health care. This is not a system worth defending. That is why the Republicans must demonize the Canadian system in order to keep our current system intact.

The truth is that none of the plans introduced by the Democrats would impose anything like the Canadian system. Even those plans with a public insurance option fall far short of the Canadian system. I wish our politicians had the political courage to propose something similar to what the Canadians have, but they don't. The best we can hope for at this point is that the reform will contain a public option, which can be enhanced in the future when Americans come to their senses.

Don't believe the Republican right-wing lies. Demand a public option be included in any reform.

(There is an Source excellent article in the Los Angeles Times written by a Canadian doctor. I urge you to read it.)

Also see Exposing Lies About Canadian Health Care by Victoria Foe / The Rag Blog / August 5, 2009

[Rag Blog contributor Ted McLaughlin also posts at jobsanger, an excellent Texas political blog.]

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Exposing Lies About Canadian Health Care

Common Myths About the Canadian Health Care System Exposed

By Victoria Foe / The Rag Blog / August 5, 2009

I am a dual U.S./Canadian citizen. I am American by birth. I became a naturalized Canadian in my early forties and Canada was my primary residence for eight of my 63 years. Though I now live and work in the U.S., I still return yearly to Canada. I currently have medical insurance through my employer here in the U.S., and in the past, when self-employed, I purchased health care insurance as an individual.

I have first hand experience with Canada’s single-payer health care insurance program, to which I continue to subscribe. For-profit health insurance companies here are intentionally spreading misinformation about the Canadian system to frighten people away from a not-for-profit, government-administered insurance plan being added to the insurance options available to Americans. Here I correct five lies about Canada’s medical insurance program.

Lie #1. Canada has socialized medicine, putting the federal government, rather than doctors, in charge of medical decisions.

In fact the Canadian federal government plays only two roles: 1) it provides an eight page document -- the Canada Health Act -- outlining the attributes that Canadian medical insurance must meet (coverage of all "insured persons," for all "medically necessary" hospital and physician services, without co-payments, transportable throughout Canada, and stipulates that the insurance program must be administered on a not-for-profit basis by the provinces) and 2) it transfers federal tax dollars to provinces whose medical insurance coverage meets these standards.

Except for complying with the Canadian Health Act, each province has autonomy in administering and delivering health care services and in determining how to finance its share of the cost of its health insurance plan. Financing can be through the payment of premiums (as is the case in Alberta and British Columbia), payroll taxes, sales taxes, other provincial or territorial revenues, or by a combination of methods.

In British Columbia I pay a premium of 640 Canadian dollars per year. In 2007 the total annual medical insurance cost, including provincial plus federal contributions, was $3,895 USD per Canadian, and everyone was covered; this contrasts with $7,290 per year in the US, while still leaving 44 million Americans uninsured (OECD Health Data, 2009; the World Health Organization data for 2006 shows a similar Canada/US health expenditure ratio).

Whereas the provinces manage the insurance component on a not-for-profit basis, and fund major facilities such as hospitals, healthcare itself is provided by physicians, most of whom are in private practice. Canadian doctors generally work on a fee-for-service basis, as in the U.S., but instead of sending the bills to one of hundreds of insurance companies, they send it to their provincial government.

Medical peer review (not the government) establishes best medical practice. Specifically, in each province a College of Physicians and Surgeons prescribes the diagnostic procedures and treatments shown to have the best outcome, provides advice on emerging diseases, preventative care etc.

Contrary to propaganda here, Canada’s version of national medical insurance is characterized by provincial control, physician autonomy and consumer choice. It is not the practice of medicine, but the business of insurance, that has been socialized in Canada, and the change from for-profit to non-profit insurance, plus low administrative overhead, has resulted in enormous cost savings in Canada.

In summary, Canadian medical insurance distributes risk over the entire population, is administered on a not-for-profit basis by the provinces, with oversight as regards fairness by the federal government, but with the actual medical services largely provided by private entities and with medical peer review prescribing best care practice.

Lie #2. Canadians have no choice of doctor and medical care is rationed.

In Canada the majority of physicians are in primary care practice. Canadians can go to any primary practice doctor who has an opening, in any Canadian province, whenever and wherever they need to.

It is true that before we can go to a specialist we need a referral from our primary care doctor, but many private insurance companies in the U.S. require the same. And here again, in Canada we can choose from among the relevant specialists, seek second opinions, and change doctors etc. The average number of physician visits per capita per year is about 6.0 in Canada, vs. 3.8 in the United States -- hardly evidence of rationing and inverse to the yearly cost per person.

When in Canada this June I went to one of the three doctors who live and work on the island I used to live on, seeking a physician's perspective on Canada’s medical insurance system. I asked how often the government had intervened in his practice. He was surprised by the question, and said “never." He also claimed he has never been denied reimbursement for tests or treatments he prescribed, and his only complaint was that the wait time for diagnostic MRI is longer than he would like.

I asked what percentage of his time was spent on paperwork. He initially misunderstood my question to mean time spent documenting the medical needs and care of his patients in their charts. When I clarified my question to mean dealing with insurance coverage and payment, he snorted dismissively and said he did not spend any time at all on that, that billing was a small routine job his receptionist performed for him and for the two other doctors with whom he currently shares a clinic. I asked whether he felt cheated having to practice in Canada given that he could make more money in the U.S. He denied any envy and went on to opine that better medicine was practiced in Canada than in the U.S.

Lie #3. Public-funding of health insurance leads to second-rate medicine.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating thereof and World Health Organization analyses show that Canada consistently, and significantly, outperforms the United States in life expectancy, years of disability-free life, and infant mortality.

One might attribute this to the high number of uninsured Americans dragging down the national average. However, a systematic review comparing health outcomes in the United States and Canada among patients treated for similar underlying medical conditions (including cancer, coronary artery disease, and various chronic illnesses and surgical procedures) found that Canadian outcomes were more often superior to U.S. outcomes than the reverse.

Of course, there are outstanding and mediocre doctors everywhere, and of course, errors or malpractice by individual doctors can have tragic consequences anywhere. But there is no evidence that the 87% higher per-capita expenditures on health care in the United States systematically buys superior outcomes for the sick, or better preventative care.

Lie #4. Long wait times for medical care in Canada are routine.

In Canada, I have never needed to wait more than a day or two to see a primary care physician; in the U.S. I have never gotten to one that quickly. In Canadian cities, walk-in clinics supplement primary care doctors by attending to non-catastrophic urgent care that in the U.S. clogs emergency rooms. Life-threatening illness gets Priority 1 attention throughout the system.

Of course, Canadian doctors, like doctors everywhere, have preferences about where to live and raise their families. So, in the vast sparsely-populated country that is Canada, there are under-served communities, just as there are in the U.S.

The one common complaint I do hear from Canadians is that wait times are too long for diagnostic MRI and for those surgical procedures that the provincial Colleges of Physicians & Surgeons have designated non-urgent. Most complaints concern hip and knee replacements (in BC the median wait time for knee replacement is currently 13 weeks and 10 weeks for hip replacement).

Rather than add facilities that will be under-utilized, patients are queued, and patients needing emergency surgery and those in most urgent need of elective surgeries are moved to the head of the line. This practice annoys those waiting in line, but it has helped Canada hold per capita health care costs to just a little above 50% of what Americans pay for medical insurance, while still covering everyone, including for elective surgeries, long-term care and all hospitalization.

However, one consequence of having heath care administered by a government is that it becomes responsive to voter satisfaction. Reducing wait times is currently politically urgent in Canada, new funds have been targeted to increasing operating room capacity and MRI machines, and wait times are now shorter than a few years ago. (Wait list information by year is posted by each of the provincial Ministries of Health Services; e.g. www.health.gov.bc.ca/cpa/mediasite/waitlist/median.html).

One feature of Canadian health care that I think would amaze and delight Americans is the utter absence of paperwork for the user. When I go to my doctor, or for a test, or to a hospital I show my BC health card and that is the beginning and end of my part of the paperwork!

Lie #5. Given a choice, Canadians would choose the American system of medical insurance.

Access to good medical care as a universal right is a value that unifies the geographically vast and ethnically heterogenous country that is Canada, allowing citizens to move or change jobs while retaining health care coverage. Canadians are justifiably proud of their medical insurance program and value it so highly that Tommy Douglas (the colorful Baptist minister, premier of the prairie province of Saskatchewan and father of Canada’s universal health Insurance program) was voted "the greatest Canadian of all time" in a 2004 CBC poll.

Debates on how best to afford new medical technologies and the increasing medical cost of an aging population are ongoing north of the 48th parallel, just as they are here. But, as Saskatchewan physician E.W. Barootes, originally an opponent of universal health care, put it, "today a politician in Saskatchewan or in Canada is more likely to get away with canceling Christmas than... with canceling Canada’s health insurance program."

President Obama’s Public Health Insurance Option vs. Universal Single-Payer Insurance.

Americans generally know little about the superior insurance programs other modern democracies give their citizens. And conservatives here have assiduously promoted distrust in, and disdain for, governmental programs. Thus, I think the Obama proposal of offering a not-for-profit government-administered insurance plan as an option, on a trial basis as it were, is a smart way forward. But, unless people rise up in huge numbers to support it, even that is going to be blocked by the for-profit insurance companies.

Friends, if good and affordable health care insurance is something that matters to you, we have August to make our opinions known, in every way we can. By the way, check out, add to, and pass along stories.barackobama.com/healthcare/.

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Singin' on Sunday - Craig Cardiff

Craig Cardiff / Thanks for Your Ears

Thanks to Deva Wood / The Rag Blog

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Canadian Mayors: Don't Get Mad, Get Even

Canadian mayors pass anti-'Buy American' resolution
June 6, 2009

In response to the 'Buy American' provisions of the U.S. stimulus package, Canada's mayors narrowly passed a resolution Saturday that could potentially block U.S. companies from bidding on city contracts.

The resolution was passed at the Federation of Canadian Municipalities conference in Whistler, B.C., by a vote of 189-175.

The resolution says the federation should support cities that adopt policies that allow them to buy only from companies whose home countries do not impose trade restrictions against Canadian goods.

"Today, Canada's cities and communities joined the federal and provincial governments in a common front to try and stop American protectionism," Jean Perrault, FCM president and mayor of Sherbrooke, Que., said in a statement.

"We stand united in the belief that fair trade and an even playing field are in the best interest of our country, our communities and our citizens."

The resolution wouldn't take effect for four months, giving the Canadian government time to lobby the Obama administration.

"This U.S. protectionist policy is hurting Canadian firms, costing Canadian jobs and damaging Canadian efforts to grow our economy in the midst of a worldwide recession," Perrault said.

Some mayors argued the resolution could make it hard for cities to get the best deal on contracts.

But Susan Fennell, the mayor of Brampton, Ont., stressed the resolution is not protectionism, but a message that Canadian municipalities are concerned across the country.

"It's Canadians saying on behalf of Canadians that the fair and free trade that's been in existence for so many years is the way to remain," she said.

Some Canadian companies have complained they are already being affected by the "Buy American" provision, which gives priority to U.S. iron, steel and other manufactured goods for use in public works and building projects funded with recovery money.

The resolution was initiated by the Ontario community of Halton Hills, where two local companies have lost contracts they previously had in the U.S.

Source / CBC News

Thanks to Deva Wood / The Rag Blog

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Socialized Medicine? Canadian Health Care Saved my Father's Life

The following anecdote about Canadian health care, about which we here in the South hear much negativity, came to me from a friend whose reliability I respect. Due to the intimate nature of the report, identifying information was removed to protect the author's privacy.

Nonetheless, it presents a picture very different from that seen in U.S. mainstream media, and definitely more encouraging about the quality of "socialized medicine." and the details are quite convincing. We've chosen to credit the author as "A Canadian Friend."

Mariann G. Wizard / The Rag Blog / May 30, 2009

My father was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer. After quality treatment and an emergency operation, he was completely cured. The tab: $113 for a rental tv.

By A Canadian Friend / The Rag Blog / May 30, 2009

Due to the confusion and inconsistencies I have seen (especially lately) concerning the Canadian health care system, I feel I must convey my experience this last year with everyone…

My father was a healthy man. Mid-sixties, about 30-40 lbs overweight, but in general overall good health. Non-smoker (except the odd stogie), recreational drinker. In December 2008 he went in for his annual physical and was given a clean bill of health. In fact the doctor said he was extremely healthy –- everything was good.

Fast forward to February 2009. One week-end we noticed his eyes and the area around his eyes were turning yellow. The coming Monday my mother took him to the emergency room as it gradually worsened over the next day or so. Dad was taken in immediately –- no waiting whatsoever. They quickly determined he had a blockage in his lower intestine that was affecting his liver –- he was turning jaundiced and his blood was slowly poisoning him. This quickly turned into a serious situation.

He was immediately given an appointment to see a specialist in London, Ontario, two days later, the Wednesday. They did a scope and determined that there was a blockage coming from the head of his Pancreas –- no need to say anything further –- we all knew what that meant...

The initial diagnosis was pancreatic cancer –- he had approximately 2-3 months to live. Needless to say, this was quite a shock considering the results from his recent physical and just the fact that he has always been very healthy. The cancer was likely going to spread to his liver, lungs, etc and the prognosis was terminal. The doctors stressed this was just an initial diagnosis and more tests would be done to see if anything could be done, i.e. surgery, chemo, etc.

This is when a certain surgeon entered our lives, and literally saved my father’s life. He decided that there was only one option: a surgery called the “Whipple Procedure." Basically this is one of the harshest surgeriess, save for an organ transplant, the body can handle. Per Wikipedia:

It consists of removal of the distal half of the stomach (antrectomy), the gall bladder (cholecystectomy), the distal portion of the common bile duct (choledochectomy), the head of the pancreas, duodenum, proximal jejunum, and regional lymph nodes. Reconstruction consists of attaching the pancreas to the jejunum (pancreaticojejunostomy) and attaching the common bile duct to the jejunum (choledochojejunostomy) to allow digestive juices and bile to flow into the gastrointestinal tract and attaching the stomach to the jejunum (gastrojejunostomy) to allow food to pass through.

Yeah –- we couldn’t believe an operation like this was possible either... it is an eight and a half hour surgery.

Fast forward three weeks. This was the earliest they could do the operation due to the fact that dad needed to prepare his body, get stronger and flush a lot of toxins out. They took him at the first available spot they could. He went in on a Monday morning, 7:00 a.m. with the operation scheduled to begin at 8:00 a.m. The surgeon came to us before he began and stated the following, “This is an eight to nine hour surgery. If you see me before six hours is up, it’s bad news. Either he expired or we found too much cancer and it would not be feasible to operate." I was astounded by honesty and compassion. He stated he HAD to tell us this so we knew all the risks associated. This was an amazing man and I felt lucky dad had him doing the operation.

After staring at the clock for six hours, you could feel the anxiety lift as the clock slowly turned past 2:00 p.m. then 3:00 p.m. and then finally around 5:00 p.m. the good surgeon came out and gave us the good news. He got all the cancer and the operation was a complete success. Unbelievably, we were able to see dad that night around 8:00 p.m. when he woke up –- in surprisingly good spirits. We were not out of the woods yet though…

He had numerous internal stitches that needed to heal. He had an incision from his hips to his chest that took 52 staples to close. The next few days were critical. He was put in a semi-private room called a step down room. This is where they send patients who just went through something as major as this procedure, with the purpose of "round the clock" observation.

For the first two days, the nurses NEVER left his side. He constantly had a nurse at his bedside, taking care of his every need and whim. That blew me away. The care and concern these nurses showed was unbelievable. I consider them to be lifesavers as well. Also the good surgeon checked on him many times per day and even the day of the operation he came and checked on him at 10:30 p.m. that night. Think about that –- he had to be up before 6:00 a.m. to get ready –- worked on dad from 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and still was at the hospital at 10:30 p.m. to check on my dad. This was an amazing man.

We’re going on three weeks post-op. Dad came home 11 days after the surgery with 15 days being the average stay. He is starting to gain weight and his colour has returned. As an atheist, I hate the word, "miracle" but I have no problem stating that the surgeon and nurse who looked after my dad were and are "miracle workers." They can never be compensated or thanked enough for what they did for our family. These are the true heroes in society.

How much did this cost my family? $113.00. And that was to rent a TV for dad’s room for a week. That is it. What would this have cost in the U.S.? Since my parents are of meager means, it was an absolute lifesaver that they did not need to worry about being financially ruined over this. Here’s a kicker as well... the cost of all the trips my parents and I had to make to go the hospital for appointments, etc. is tax deductible. So we will see most of that TV rental money back anyway. You gotta love it.

In closing this is just one story that illustrates what I believe to be the average experience that we lucky Canadians are privileged enough to enjoy with our health care system. Is it perfect? No, it is not. I would like to see more preventive procedures being free, such as routine eye appointments, but that was just recently taken away by our provincial government –- I can see that coming back in the future. And yes, before the freepers start to chime in, it isn’t technically "free," as we pay very high taxes, but I’d rather see that money go to health care than world domination and endless oil wars.

Canadians are known as passive and very docile and the perception exists that we will just roll over and take whatever is pushed on us. But I know one thing for sure –- take away our healthcare system or try to "Americanize" it and you will see blood pouring in the streets. Revolution. This is one issue I believe all Canadians can agree on. It is a fundamental human right to have access to the best health care possible –- how anyone can see it different than this is mind-boggling.

Source /

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Canada's Penchant for Peace Initiatives

It would be nice if we saw this sort of thing in the US more often. In Canada, it's almost an annual tradition to introduce these sorts of bills into Parliament for consideration. Maybe someday, legislators world-wide will become enlightened enough to actually pass these into law.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

B.C. MP tables 'peace tax' bill
May 24, 2009

A private member's bill proposed by a B.C. MP would see income tax paid by Canadians who oppose war be put into a special account not to be used by the military.

Burnaby-Douglas New Democrat MP Bill Siksay said he wants conscientious objectors to be able to register with the Canada Revenue Agency so their taxes can be diverted to a special peace tax account.

If Bill C-390 passes, the government would be able to access the account for anything except military spending.

"The reality is this would be a symbolic measure because the government still collects ... tax dollars from everybody and the government will still decide how they are spent," Siksay said.

"But it makes a point about some people who believe that the government shouldn't be spending money on making war or buying armament."

Siksay acknowledged the bill has little chance of passing, but said that's not the point.

"You know, you table private member's bills and motions to make a point and to try to stimulate discussion on issues and to provide a specific tool for lobbying and promoting change, and that's what this particular private member's bill about the peace tax is all about," he said.

In 1983, the first private member's bill calling for a National Peace Tax Fund was introduced into the House of Commons.

The bill has been reintroduced over a dozen times since.

Source / CBC News

Many thanks to Deva Wood / The Rag Blog

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Land of the Fearful, Home of the Almost Brave

Starting June 1, 2009 anyone crossing into the United States from Canada will require a passport or a special document approved by the U.S. government. Photo: Craig Glover/Toronto Star.
Smile! The U.S. sees you coming
By Tonda MacCharles / May 23, 2009

DETROIT – About 15 metres before a car from Canada reaches the border inspection booth, the screenings begin.

A camera snaps your licence plate.

An electronic card reader mounted on a yellow post scans your car for the presence of any radio-frequency ID cards inside. If there is an enhanced driver's licence embedded with biometric information, its unique PIN number is read without you offering it.

The Customs and Border Protection computer connects with your province's database and in less than a second – .56 to be exact – your personal information is uploaded to a screen in the booth. A second camera snaps the driver's face.

Welcome to the United States of America.

If Canadians were under the impression that the Canada-loving U.S. President Barack Obama would heed pleas to loosen border controls to ease trade and traffic, there should no longer be any confusion. He has not.

Beginning June 1, you'd better have that passport ready. Or if you have an enhanced driver's licence from British Columbia, Manitoba or Quebec, make sure it's in your wallet, ready to show. (Ontario is now processing applications for the cards.)

Some Canadian MPs, border state lawmakers and Detroit-Windsor area businesses expect the worst when the new controls kick in.

"Either it's going to cause a massive backup, or it's going to cause a dramatic decrease in travellers across the border, or it's going to cause both," says Melissa Roy of the Detroit Regional Chamber, the largest chamber of commerce organization in the U.S. "It's an absolute nightmare."

Obama's top officials – Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – signed off long ago on the June 1 deadline for the infamous Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. That's the George W. Bush-era policy that Congress pushed through under the 9/11 intelligence reform bill, which requires every person entering the United States by air, sea or land to carry a passport or U.S. government-approved secure identity document.

An inscription inside the Peace Arch Monument. Surrey, BC, Canada/Blaine, Washington, USA. Photo: Wikimedia Commons user Buchanan-Hermit.

Napolitano says Canadians had better get used to it. "The future is that there will be a real border," she told a trade group last month.

This is what that border already looks like:

A post-mounted scanner screens your vehicle for radioactive material that could be used to build a "dirty bomb" – a probe so sensitive it will detect if you've recently had a medical test that used isotopes.

As you pull up to the booth, a computer monitor may be filling with information about you, even before the guard asks, "Where are you coming from? What's your citizenship? Where are you headed? Why?"

If a border lookout, arrest warrant or criminal record pops up on the guard's screen, or if something doesn't quite add up – maybe you're sweating bullets on a cold day – expect to get hauled over for a secondary inspection.

The port of entry at the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit – the busiest commercial land crossing in North America, through which a quarter of all Canada-U.S. trade passes – has strict controls, as does the Detroit-Windsor tunnel.

Border agents, packing pepper spray, collapsible batons and 9-mm automatic pistols, are the first point of contact for people and cargo alike. Sometimes their supervisors order vehicle sweeps at random. Then for 30 minutes, agents will pop every trunk, just for a look-see.

Down below the 80-year-old bridge, dozens of long-haul transport trailers are queued up to go through the same checks, and possibly pass through a giant gamma-ray screening facility that peers inside suspicious 18-wheelers.

Between the legal crossing points, all along the Canada-U.S. border, there's a new reality.

While the U.S. is not constructing an 1,100-kilometre fence between itself and Canada, as it is doing along its southern border with Mexico, the makings of a virtual fence are in place along what was once known as the world's longest undefended border.

High in the sky over North Dakota, an unmanned Predator drone is on patrol, equipped with an infrared security camera that looks forward 24 kilometres.

The drone is not authorized to fly in Canadian airspace, but it can peer across into Manitoba. Another one is to be stationed near Detroit next year to scan the Michigan- Ontario boundary.

More daytime and nighttime infrared camera, radar surveillance towers and remote motion sensors are being erected across the northern U.S. border with Canada.

And there are more boots on the ground than ever. Before 9/11, the U.S. had 340 Border Patrol agents along its Canadian border. By next year, there will be more than 2,000.

The Detroit—Port Huron—Sault Ste. Marie regional border patrol operation boasts a fleet of prop planes, small helicopters, a bigger Black Hawk helicopter, speedboats, Coast Guard vessels, even a small Cessna Citation jet.

In Windsor, it makes MPs like the NDP's Brian Masse nervous about "the militarization of the border."

He points to the helicopters and drones, and Canada's willingness to accept U.S. Coast Guard training exercises on the Great Lakes, where boats are equipped with machine guns that fire more than 600 bullets a minute.

It's all "really changed the nature of the border itself," Masse says.

Edward Alden, a Canadian journalist and senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, wrote The Closing of the American Border, which documented the toll of overzealous border policies on the U.S. economy.

He argues "the biggest mistake of the post-9/11 period" was the decision to blur the lines between the fight against terrorism and the fight against illegal immigration.

Alden does not see any evidence of change under Obama. Democrats don't want to be seen as soft on homeland security, and have been "hawkish since Day One." But they also are under pressure by a strong Hispanic voting bloc to treat the southern and northern border with what Napolitano calls "parity."

Chief Ron Smith, public affairs liaison for Customs and Border Protection in Detroit, concedes that when it comes to the northern border, "A lot of people overstate the security threat. If somebody's trying to sneak into the United States along the northern border, it doesn't mean they are a terrorist. We get people trying to sneak across the northern border for the same reasons people try to sneak across the southern border."

Source / Toronto Star

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Canada Convicts Rwandan War Criminal

If this can happen, then surely we can also bring people such as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney to justice. Genocide in Rwanda or genocide in Iraq are of equal weight - both are heinous crimes under international law and should be dealt with accordingly.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

Retired general Romeo Dallaire is seen in a court sketch before judge Andre Denis and crown attorney Alexis Gauthier, standing, during his testimony at the war crimes trial of Desire Munyaneza, Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2007 in Montreal. Munyaneza, a former Toronto resident, was accused and is now convicted of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes for leading a militia gang that allegedly killed and raped civilians during the Rwanda genocide in 1994. Graphic: Source.
Canadian Judge Convicts Rwandan in Genocide
By Ian Austen / May 22, 2009

OTTAWA — A Rwandan who entered Canada more than a decade ago claiming to be a refugee was convicted Friday in a Montreal court on seven charges related to the 1994 genocide.

The conviction was the first under a Canadian war crimes law introduced nine years ago and followed an unusually complex two-year trial that involved hearings in Africa and in Europe.

The Rwandan, Désiré Munyaneza, 42, a Hutu and a son of a prominent businessman, was accused of mass murders, rape and pillaging in the Butare region of the small central African nation.

Justice André Denis of Quebec Superior Court found him guilty of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide in a nonjury trial.

“The accused’s criminal intent was demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt, as was his culpable violence,” he wrote in his decision, which ran more than 200 pages and was published in English and French.

“The educated son of an important bourgeois family in Butare, Désiré Munyaneza was at the forefront of the genocidal movement.”

The judge added that while he found prosecution witnesses, many testifying anonymously and in private for their security, to be generally credible, he had a hard time believing most of the defense witnesses.

Lawyers for Mr. Munyaneza said outside the courthouse that they would appeal the verdict.

The bloodshed in Rwanda began in April 1994 when extremists among the majority Hutu population organized mass killings of Tutsis and moderate Hutus. The passage of time as well as the extent of the massacres — which took an estimated 800,000 lives — has made prosecutions difficult.

Many witnesses offered harrowing accounts of Mr. Munyaneza’s role in the genocide. One witness passed out after testifying that she and several other women had been raped repeatedly over several days by a group led by Mr. Munyaneza.

Another witness, identified only as RCW-11, described his participation in a daylong killing tour led by Mr. Munyaneza. It began at a mosque where Tutsis were removed from their hiding place in a ceiling and killed.

From there, the killers moved to a Roman Catholic church where, according to other witnesses, about 500 Tutsis had sought shelter. After initially assuring the Tutsis that they would be taken to a safer place, the killers spent the next five hours removing them in small numbers and killing them. The day concluded with the killing of Tutsis hiding in an Adventist church.

RCW-11 himself was convicted in Rwanda of taking part in the genocide.

News of the conviction was received positively by many in Kigali, Rwanda’s capital.

“Maybe it’s a beginning that many of them will be brought to justice,” said Raphael Mipali, a musician. “The priority first for me is to bring these people to Rwanda, because this is where genocide was committed. But if there is no way for them to come to Rwanda, they should be brought to the book somewhere else.”

An international tribunal in Tanzania, established to supplement Rwanda’s justice system, has convicted about 30 people and acquitted 6.

The Montreal case was aided by a continuing tribunal case, in which six other people were being tried for massacres in Butare. Mr. Munyaneza was described in his trial as a militia leader who had worked with them.

Mr. Munyaneza arrived in Toronto in 1997 and sought refugee status, which was ultimately denied. Late that year a complaint to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police from a Rwandan in Canada prompted an inquiry. After investigators traveled to Rwanda six times to gather evidence, Mr. Munyaneza was arrested in 2005.

Under the war crimes law, which allows Canada to prosecute residents for acts they committed in other countries, Mr. Munyaneza, who has two children, faces life in prison when he is sentenced Sept. 9.

Switzerland and Belgium have also convicted Rwandans for crimes related to the genocide.

[Josh Kron contributed reporting from Kigali, Rwanda.]

Source / New York Times

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Singin' on Thursday: Leonard Cohen, Poetic Master

Thank You Leonard Cohen
By Joel Hirschhorn / May 14, 2009

The other night I went to a Leonard Cohen concert. I have never seen a huge audience over a very broad age spectrum so completely enraptured, impassioned and wild over an entertainer, especially one that has never in a very long career been embraced by the mainstream music industry. At age 75 Cohen is absolutely remarkable in his stubborn individualism, his refusal to do anything but his own poetry and visions about love, hate, humankind and society. He still has unbounded charisma and sings with total commitment to his music and lyrics.

In the 1960s and 1970s I satisfied myself with every poem, novel and song by Cohen. He was for me, and I think millions of others, a profound influence on my intellectual development, personality and commitment to stay true to my own values and visions. He was pure genius. He remains so.

He always seemed a tortured soul working hard to find love and beauty in a very disappointing world. Maybe that is why so many of us have related to his music and words for over half a century. When you listen to his songs you want to savor every word. You often may want to cry because he is saying something that cuts to the very heart and soul of human existence.

If you have an opportunity you definitely should see him in concert, or at least get his DVD Leonard Cohen: Live in which pretty much is what I expect every one of his concerts is like these days. To see and hear this 75-year old legend work hard for several hours should give all of us the courage and will to stay enthusiastically alive for a long time. Among his many, many albums you can choose do not overlook Leonard Cohen: Ten New Songs, a number of which he performs in current concert tour. What is so impressive is that he has the talent to write great new songs.

What also struck me about Cohen in his older years is his humility and his gracious appreciation for his fans and supporters, as well as his repeated praise for the musicians and singers that accompany him. Like him, they are remarkable. He seems a little amazed that so many of us have stayed with him over so many decades and even that younger people have come to appreciate his individualistic genius. One thing is for sure, Leonard Cohen will live on forever through his songs, as he should. Everybody knows.

As Cohen sings, there ain't no cure for love, and certainly not for the enduring love of his fans that still find his unique style both joyous and meaningful. He has always shared his personal emotions, thoughts and agony with us in ways few entertainers are able to do. For that we must all be eternally grateful.



Source / Search Warp

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Canadian Parliament Defies Prime Minister and Votes to Allow US War Resisters to Stay

War resisters spoke in conversation with Andy Barrie, CBC radio host and Vietnam war resister, at a public forum at the University of Toronto on May 21, 2008. Photo: Source.
I'll have a 'Draught Dodger!' Canadian Parliament votes again to let U.S. war resisters stay
By Mike Ferner / April 4, 2009

For the second time in 10 months, Canada’s House of Commons told Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government, including Immigration Minister, Jason Kenney, to stop deporting U.S. soldiers resisting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The vote united the three opposition parties, the Liberals, the Bloc Quebecois and the New Democratic Party in a close 129-125 vote.

Last week, the War Resisters Support Campaign rallied for former Army soldier, Kimberly Rivera, the first female U.S. soldier to go to Canada. Nearly 100 people filled the chairs and lined the aisles at the Steelworkers hall in Toronto for Rivera, her husband and three children, the youngest born in Canada six months ago.

The morning after the March 25 rally, Rivera was due to be deported back to the U.S. to face an Army court martial, but Federal Judge James Russell agreed with Rivera’s argument that resisters who speak out against the war publicly in Canada receive harsher sentences, and granted her a temporary stay.

“This was the fifth time that the court ruled that Iraq war resisters face harsher punishment if they’re sent back to the U.S.,” said Michelle Robidoux, spokesperson for the Toronto-based support campaign. “The courts have spoken, Parliament has spoken and Canadians have made their views clear. These conscientious objectors should not be sent back to the United States to face jail time for opposing the Iraq War.”

Several other resisters were at the Steelworkers hall to support Rivera and her family, including Jeremy Hinzman, the first U.S. serviceperson to go to Canada during this war, Phil McDowell and his wife Jamine, Chuck Wylie, Dale Landry, Ryan Johnson and three others who did not want their names mentioned.

At that rally, MP Olivia Chow, NDP Immigration Critic, announced that the following day she would introduce a resolution in the House of Commons restating Parliament’s position from last June. That measure as well as the most recent one, are non-binding resolutions the Harper government does not have to legally obey. However, to give an idea how much public support is behind letting war resisters stay in Canada, campaign organizers feared Chow’s surprise announcement might lose the votes of some Liberal MPs who did not appreciate the NDP grabbing the limelight on the issue.

In a poll conducted last year gained by Angus Reid Strategies, 64% of all Canadians said resisters should be allowed to stay. The poll results were reported in the same issue of the Truro Daily News that carried a story on Dick Cotterill, who enlisted in the Marine Corps, decided he was opposed to the Viet Nam war and went to Nova Scotia in 1972.

Cotterill now owns his own business and has a son in the Canadian Air Force. When asked how he felt about the current generation of young war resisters, he said, “Every soldier has the responsibility to refuse to obey orders that are illegal, unjust and immoral.”

That sentiment was echoed several times at the rally for Rivera last week. Two local clergy members spoke in support, saying resisters have a right to refuse to serve in an illegal war. One even said he welcomed these young men and women and called them, “the kind of people Canada needs.”

The morning after the rally, when Rivera would have been deported, save for Judge Russell’s reprieve, Robidoux let a late-morning breakfast go cold as she furiously called fellow campaigners and texted Members of Parliament on the floor of the House debating Chow’s motion. Not long after the resolution’s introduction, Conservatives moved to end discussion which would effectively kill the measure.

Reading one incoming text message, she exclaimed, “Ha! This is the new Tory line: ‘We don’t need this legislation, Obama will save them (resisters).’”

Commenting on the non-binding nature of the resolution, Robidoux said, “I think we’re going to win or lose the fight in the next six months. Unless there is a change in the government we’ll not win the political solution. We need a change in the regulations. The Conservative government can be pushed on a case-by-case basis, (to let resisters stay) but that’s a real long shot.”

Asked why this issue is so important to Canadians that they would make a significant effort to organize support, Robidoux replied, “The history we had during the Vietnam War is the foundation of today’s War Resisters Support Campaign. People my age had contact with draft resisters. I remember when I was eight years old and there were a few of them living in the house next door. I thought they were cool.”

She described how sheltering resisters during that war became part of the Canadian culture.

“The announcer of the most popular radio program on CBC came here during that war. There’s a well-known beer in British Columbia called ‘Draught Dodger.’ The president of the Steelworkers local here was a resister. Artists, activists, the co-founder of Greenpeace…nobody wants to lose that history and those contributions. It’s more than just being against war. It’s the right to conscience. What’s happened now is that the Tories are sick of that history; they don’t want to hear any more about it.”

A second reason, Robidoux said, is the Iraq War itself.

“It’s simple. It’s wrong. You don’t need a political science degree to understand that. Opposition to it has increased every year.” Illustrating her point, she noted that on February 15, 2003, as part of protests around the globe to oppose the invasion of Iraq, Canadians turned out in massive numbers. “There were 80,000 people in the streets of Toronto, 250,000 in Montreal, many thousands in Quebec…even 7,000 in the little city of Victoria (BC).”

She finally paused and took a deep breath. “Since May of ’08 there’s been no down time. I’m not exaggerating…it’s just running flat out.” After that momentary pause, Robidoux returned to how the current sanctuary movement for resisters came about.

“It’s important Americans learn of our relationship with the U.S. peace movement. If it wasn’t for MFSO (Military Families Speak Out), we probably wouldn’t have gotten off the ground. We met Nancy (Lessin) and Charlie (Richardson) (cofounders of MFSO), at an early demonstration in Washington. I noticed this couple wearing Steelworkers’ jackets and went up to talk with them. We had them come to Toronto in February ’04 to speak and I had seen an article on Jeremy Hinzman, the first U.S. soldier to come to Canada. Nancy and Charlie knew he was staying with some Quakers, so we were able to find him. Then Brandon Hughes came two or three months later via the Quakers, and we decided in May ’04 to launch the War Resisters Support Campaign.”

The wiry 47 year-old refuted the argument that U.S. soldiers are no longer drafted and therefore don’t qualify for sanctuary in Canada.

“There’s the whole ‘compulsion’ argument. You’ve got ‘Stop-Loss’ which the military uses to keep soldiers on active duty, the ‘Individual Ready Reserve’ that reactivates them any time during an eight year period even if they’ve served their four year contract, also the early National Guard call-ups and that’s not even talking about the economy.”

Robidoux said the campaign will now concentrate on getting a “Private Member’s” bill introduced that, if it passes, will have the force of law to stop deportation of resisters. “Of course these Tories could still decide to ignore it, which they have with other legislation that has been passed,” she said ruefully.

Recognizing the substantial number of calls to Canadian officials U.S. peace activists have made to support the resolutions and urge compliance, Robidoux said the most important thing people south of the border can do is “build links with resisters who are here, maybe ‘adopting’ a resister, and helping to build awareness of their situation among Americans and American media. It will be up to us in Canada to win it here among our politicians.”

[Ferner (www.mikeferner.org) is the author of “Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq,” and is president of VFP.]

Source / Information Clearing House

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Counteracting the Backlash Against Clean Energy

What I think we miss is that probably less than a quarter of the population of the planet have heard of global warming, and of those left who have, at least half of them are in denial. And sadly, the deniers have plenty of backup from scientists. Although this is largely a factual argument, there is plenty of grassroots talking to be done to convince those who are in denial that this is an urgent issue. I don't know about you, but I really worry about my grandkids.

Richard Jehn / The Rag Blog

Barrie Maguire/NEWSART.
The fierce urgency of now
By Bill McKibben / March 25, 2009

Yes, windmills and dams deface the landscape but the climate crisis demands immediate action

Don't be too "Canadian" about the backlash – this is no time for Mr. Nice Guy

Watching the backlash against clean energy projects build in Canada has moved me to think about what Americans have learned from facing this same problem. I have been thinking and writing for several years about overcoming conflict-avoidance and the importance of standing up for "Big Truths" even at the price of criticizing fellow environmentalists.

It's not that I've developed a mean streak. It's that the environmental movement has reached an important point of division, between those who truly get global warming, and those who don't.

By get, I don't mean understanding the chemistry of carbon dioxide, or the importance of the Kyoto Protocol, or those kinds of things – pretty much everyone who thinks of themselves as an environmentalist has reached that point. By get, I mean understanding that the question is of transcending urgency, that it represents the one overarching global civilizational challenge that humans have ever faced.

In the U.S., there are all manner of fights to stop or delay every imaginable low-carbon technology. Wind, solar, run-of-river hydro – these are precisely the kinds of renewable energy that every Earth Day speech since 1970 has trumpeted. But now they are finally here – now that we're talking about particular projects in particular places – people aren't so keen.

Opponents of renewable energy projects point out (correctly) that they have impacts – there are (overstated) risks to birds from wind turbines, to fish from run-of-river hydro, that the projects mean "development" somewhere there was none and transmission lines where there were none before.

They point out (again correctly) that the developers are private interests, rushing to develop a resource that, in fact, they do not own, and without waiting for the government to come up with a set of rules and processes for siting such installations.

The critics also insist that there's a "better" site somewhere – and again they're probably right. There's almost always a better site for anything. The whole business is messy, imperfect.

If we had decades to burn, then perhaps the opponents would be right that there's a better site, and a nicer developer. There's always a better site and a nicer developer. But in the real world, we have at most 10 years to reverse the fossil fuel economy. Which means we have to do everything quickly – conservation and plug-in cars and solar panels and compact fluorescents and 100-mile food and tree planting. And windmills, windmills everywhere there is wind, just like off the shores of Europe.

Whatever natural endowments a region is blessed to have, these are the basis for your green economy: solar in the deserts, wind where it's windy, hydro where water's falling, geothermal if you've got it. Do it all, and do it quickly.

In the ideal world, we'd do everything slowly and carefully – but this planet is rapidly becoming the worst of all possible worlds, a place that before my daughter dies may well see temperatures exceeding anything since before the dawn of primate evolution. A planet facing hundreds of millions of environmental refugees as a result of rising seas, with heat waves like the one that killed 35,000 in Europe becoming commonplace occurrences.

The evidence gets worse by the day: already whole nations are evacuating, the Arctic is melting and we have begun to release the massive storehouse of carbon trapped under the polar ice. Scientists figure the "safe" level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is about 350 parts per million. This is the most important number in the world. Go beyond it for very long and we will trigger "feedbacks" that will result in runaway warming spiralling out of any human control and resulting in a largely inhospitable planet.

We are already well beyond 350 and accelerating rapidly in the wrong direction.

So when local efforts to delay or stop low-carbon energy projects come into conflict with the imperative to act urgently on global warming, they have to take second place. Because even if we win every other battle, if we lose 350, it won't make any difference at all. You can "keep" every river and bay and lake and mountain and wilderness, but if the temperature goes up 3 degrees globally, it won't matter. The fish that live there won't be able to survive, the trees that anchor the landscape will die, the coral reefs will bleach and crumble. Whatever the particular part of the world that we're each working on, it's still a part of the world. Global warming is the whole thing.

Believe me that I understand how difficult this is. I have spent a lifetime loving and fighting for the Adirondacks and other treasured areas. Perhaps you've spent your life fighting for birds, and I understand how wrenching it must be to acknowledge that "some birds may die from this wind farm." But what 350 forces us to say is: every bird, every fish, and everything else that we know, is fundamentally at risk in the next few decades.

In the name of birds, I want that windmill on my ridge. In the name of rivers, I want run-of-river hydro. In the name of wild beauty, I want that windmill out my window.

350 means it is too late to be arguing for theories or cool ideas. In the real world, the one where CO2 inconveniently traps solar radiation, you don't get to argue for perfection.

You can say, as opponents of clean energy projects have said, that we'd do more to fight global warming by improving gas mileage in our cars. You can say that we should insulate our homes and build better refrigerators. You can say that we should plant more trees and have fewer kids.

And you would be right, just as every Earth Day speech is "right." I've given my share of Earth Day speeches. And if we're to have any chance of heading off catastrophic temperature increase, we have to do everything we can imagine, all at once. Hybrid cars and planting trees, windmills, energy conservation, carbon taxes, emissions caps, closing the coal plants and pressuring our leaders.

I understand the opposition to clean energy projects. And I would have supported the opponents years ago – before climate science became clear. I live in the mountains above Lake Champlain, where the wind blows strong along the ridgelines. I'll battle to keep windmills out of designated wilderness if that ever comes up, but right now I'm joining those who are battling to get them built on the ridgeline nearest our home. And battling to see them not as industrial eyesores, but as part of a new aesthetic. The wind made visible.

The slow, steady turning that blows us into a future less hopeless than the future we're steaming toward now.

[Bill McKibben is co-founder of >350.org, a global grassroots organizing campaign on climate change, and a guest blogger on www.zerocarboncanada.ca.]

Source / Toronto Star

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