Rick Salutin, well-respected columnist for The Globe and Mail, and rabble.ca has published a criticism of the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against the state of Israel.[1] Below is one of the responses posted to his column when it appeared on rabble.[2] • It is not credible for Rick Salutin to paint all boycott campaigns with the same brush. U.S. sanctions against Cuba are an attack by an imperialist country on a small oppressed nation. U.N. sanctions against Iraq in the 1990s cost hundreds of thousands of lives and were the preliminary act in the horror that became the…
Comments closedCategory: Blog
Writings from December 2007 to the present.
Ninety years ago today, May 15 1919, at 11 a.m., the Winnipeg General Strike began. Until the Quebec General Strike of 1972, the 1919 strike stood as the most profound class confrontation in Canadian history. The article here is based on a talk delivered 10 years ago, on the 80th anniversary of the strike. • Workers’ power – the working class of the world sweeping away the corporate directors, the financiers and the back room boys of the state apparatus – workers running the world without the bosses. It is an inspiring vision. And when we examine a page of…
Comments closedMay 3, close to 200 people crowded into Glendon Hall in Toronto to pay tribute to the life and work of Norman Penner, who sadly passed away April 16 at the age of 88.[1] There could not have been a more appropriate month for such an event. May is after all, the month where every year we celebrate May 1, International Workers’ Day. It is also the month where the great Winnipeg General Strike began, 90 years ago, a strike that remains the defining moment of the Canadian working class movement, and a strike which was brought back to life…
Comments closedThe war in Gaza is a completely unequal contest. Israel – receiving billions of dollars in military aid every year from the United States – has one of the most sophisticated killing machines in the world. Gaza is an open-air prison, whose only outlet to the outside world for months has been through tunnels dug deep beneath the border with Egypt. Rockets fired from Gaza have killed a handful of Israelis. Israel’s offensive has killed more than 600 – including the slaughter of 40 at a U.N. school.[1] Yet in spite of these facts, the NDP official statement on the…
Comments closedDecember 6, on the second day of the biennial (every two years) convention of the Canadian Peace Alliance, 100 or so delegates and observers gathered in the bitter cold on the sidewalk outside the student centre at Ryerson University in Toronto. Behind a massive banner and carrying dozens of placards saying “Troops Out of Afghanistan” we marched to join the 3,000 strong anti-Harper rally taking place that day at City Hall. We took the streets, and as our little contingent turned the last corner before arriving at City Hall, we took up the chant, “Harper Out of Ottawa, Canada Out…
Comments closedDECEMBER 9, 2008 – Amir Khadir, one of the two spokespersons for Québec solidaire (QS), has won a seat in the Quebec National Assembly. Among the many excellent aspects of the Québec solidaire platform, is a call for the Quebec government to pass a motion opposing “any Canadian imperialist intervention in Afghanistan.”[1] The QS success represents an important advance for the social justice and anti-war movements in both Quebec and English Canada. Khadir’s victory was not just the victory of one individual. In his riding of Mercier, QS won 8,861 votes, 38.06% of votes cast, defeating Daniel Turp, a star…
2 CommentsDECEMBER 5, 2008 – Stephen Harper won a seven week reprieve December 4, the Governor-General granting his request to prorogue Parliament until January 26. But the events of the past week have pushed him into a corner and he is fighting for his political life. The fight has revealed something many people already knew. Behind the fuzzy sweater donned during the last election, behind the “fireside chat” chumminess that he was trying to cultivate, behind this façade of polite civilized behaviour, there resides the same man who was cadre for the Reform Party and Canadian Alliance. That political formation built…
2 Comments“The spirit of Palestine will be in every theatre in Toronto.” With these words, Rafeef Ziadah introduced “Salt of This Sea,” first offering in the first ever Toronto Palestine Film Festival. With more than 800 in attendance, the opening was a smash success. Through eight days of screenings, more than 4,000 people attended 36 films. As well as a cultural success, politically the film festival was testament to the growing support for Palestine solidarity in the city of Toronto. The timing of the event was not accidental. 2008 is the 60th anniversary of the Nakba – the catastrophe of ethnic…
Comments closedMass mobilizations of indigenous peasants and workers, in conjunction with actions taken by the government of Evo Morales, have won a decisive victory against a right-wing plot to destabilize the country. The events are as significant for the movement in Latin America as the April 2002 defeat of a right-wing coup attempt against Hugo Chávez in Venezuela. Frederico Fuentes has provided a gripping account of these events, summarized below.[1] Morales’ won a decisive victory in an August 10 referendum – gaining 67.4 percent of the vote nationally. Even in the “half moon” area of Bolivia – the eastern departments of…
Comments closed
Is there space for peace?
Published December 24, 2008 by Paul Kellogg
Letter to host of “Q,” submitted to CBC, Dec. 24, 2008 • You opened your Christmas Eve show with a flashback to 1968, the Apollo 8 flight, and the astronauts reading selections from Genesis, the first book of the Bible, while floating in space. “Peace on earth” you speculate could be brought a wee bit closer if we told the Apollo 8 story every Christmas, helping us to see our earth in green and blue perspective. Many of us remember that flight like it was yesterday. Many of us, as children, were enthralled by the space program, by NASA, and…