Canada: Prime Minister must commit to the full and effective participation of Indigenous peoples in all decisions affecting them

Amnesty International Canada: Petition

http://ht.ly/gFx5P

Send a message to Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking him to demonstrate a clear commitment to upholding the rights of Indigenous peoples affirmed in Treaties, and articulated in both domestic and international law.

Internet shifts rape stigma to perpetrators

From the Boston Globe:

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/01/08/steubenville-anonymous-shifts-stigma/51qIm00KxkbfJyW2BoS54K/story.html

“LAST WEEKEND, more than 1,000 people gathered in Steubenville, Ohio, a small town with a history of high school football glory, to support the victim of an alleged rape. These kinds of rallies happen from time to time, largely on college campuses. What made this one striking was the fact that many protesters were wearing Guy Fawkes masks.

Those masks are a trademark of Anonymous, the shadowy collective of hackers that has taken on Steubenville as a vigilante cause. In terms of criminal justice, this is far from ideal. But for our culture at large, it represents an unlikely glimmer of hope.

The Steubenville story began with old power dynamics, the ones that stem from a mix of athletic glory, power, and sex. At a series of parties last August, according to news reports, a 16-year-old girl, unconscious due to alcohol or drugs, was allegedly gang-raped by at least two members of the beloved Steubenville High School football team. The girl learned about the attacks the next day, the press reported, after various boys posted photos and mocking tweets — which they later deleted — on social media.”….

Read full article: 

http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2013/01/08/steubenville-anonymous-shifts-stigma/51qIm00KxkbfJyW2BoS54K/story.html

Federal Court ruling: Metis and non-status Indians are Indians

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1311936–federal-court-ruling-metis-and-non-status-indians-are-indians

ACTION ALERT: Shale gas in Ontario? No fracking way!

ACTION ALERT: Shale gas in Ontario? No fracking way!.

Toronto: Mapuche Solidarity Event. Guest Speakers Directly from Six Nations & Kanahus Pelkey, Alaina Tom of NYM

STOLEN LAND!!

For the Continental Unity & Sovereignty of Our Indigenous Nations!!

With Lemun and Catrileo in Revival with Wisdom and Strength for the Reconstruction of the Mapuche Nation.

In Chile, Native Men, Women, & Youth are Killed, Tortured, Raided & Jailed under the Fascist Policies and Set-Ups Conducted by the Michelle Bachelet Government.

Night of Solidarity in Support of the Mapuche Arauco Malleco Communities in Conflict -Wallmapu- in so-called southern Chile.

Directly from Coast Salish, St’at’imc & Secwepemc territory:

**Kanahus Pelkey and Alaina Tom**

of the Native Youth Movement

**Representatives Directly from Six Nations of the Grand River Territory**

**Sharon Sanchez**

Political Science Specialist (University of Toronto), Member of the WCCC on the Mapuche Struggle

Live Music, Poetry, Dance and Documentary

Screenings!

THE CAT’S EYE

150 Charles Street West, TORONTO

(Just East of Museum Station)

FRIDAY, AUGUST 7th @

8 PM

Organized by:

The Women’s Coordinating Committee Chile-Canada

NO OLYMPICS ON STOLEN NATIVE LAND!

Tomgram: Michael Schwartz, Twenty-First-Century Colonialism in Iraq

July 9, 2009
Tomgram: Michael Schwartz, Twenty-First-Century Colonialism in Iraq

One of the earliest metaphors President George W. Bush and some of his top officials wielded in their post-invasion salad days in Iraq involved bicycles. The question was: Should we take the “training wheels” off the Iraqi bike (of democracy)? Then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for example, commented smugly on the way getting Iraq “straightened out” was like teaching your kid to ride a bike:

“They’re learning, and you’re running down the street holding on to the back of the seat. You know that if you take your hand off they could fall, so you take a finger off and then two fingers, and pretty soon you’re just barely touching it. You can’t know when you’re running down the street how many steps you’re going to have to take. We can’t know that, but we’re off to a good start.”

That image (about as patronizingly colonial as they come) of the little pedaling Iraqi child with an American parent running close behind, was abandoned when around the first corner, as it turned out, was an insurgent with an rocket-propelled grenade. Many years and many disasters later, though, Americans, whether in the Obama administration, the Washington punditocracy, or the media are still almost incapable of being patronizing when it comes to Iraq. Take a typical recent piece of “news analysis” in the New York Times by a perfectly sharp journalist, Alissa J. Rubin. It was headlined in print “America’s New Role in Iraq Prompts a Search for Means of Influence” and focused, in part, on Vice President Joe Biden’s recent trip there supposedly to “assuage” Iraqi feelings that they are being “moved to the bottom shelf.”

Rubin writes (and this sort of thing has been written countless times before) that the Americans are now in search of a “new tone” for their dealings in that country. (In the Bush years, this was often called — in another strange imperial metaphor — “putting an Iraqi face” on things.) “They have,” she comments, “a reputation for being heavy-handed, for telling Iraqis what to do rather than asking what they want.” But of course, as the piece makes clear, whatever his tone, Biden arrived in Iraq to tell Iraqis what they should do — or as she puts it, to try to “solve” the “troubles… that stymied three previous ambassadors and President George W. Bush”: continuing sectarian animosities, the passage of an Iraqi oil law, and the Kurdish problem.

These, it seems, are still our burden and we really can’t imagine it any other way. As the Iraqis quoted in Rubin’s piece make clear, the dominant role played by the U.S. is resented by the occupied — especially the elite — who have contempt for the occupiers, even if they find it hard to imagine life without them.

I mention this only because the tone of American writing and thought on Iraq has always been tinged with what Michael Schwartz, TomDispatch regular and author of a superb study, War Without End: The Iraq War in Context, says is a deeper colonial urge, one that unfortunately may not be fading, even as discussion of a U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq grows. (Catch a TomDispatch audio interview with Schwartz by clicking here.) Tom

Colonizing Iraq
The Obama Doctrine?
By Michael Schwartz

Click here to read more of this dispatch.

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Urgent Galloway update!

March 27, 2009

For Immediate Release

Urgent Galloway update

Minister of Censorship Jason Kenney’s decision to ban British MP George Galloway from speaking in Canada has ignited a firestorm of protest across the country. Kenney’s office ­ and the entire Conservative caucus ­ has been bombarded with thousands of e-mails, phone calls and messages of protest. A legal challenge has been launched by Galloway’s legal counsel in Canada, and the media is reporting new developments every day.

The movement to reverse the ban on Galloway is big, and is growing by the minute.

We can defeat Jason Kenney’s ban, but we need your help over the next few days. Please read below and forward this message everywhere!

Here’s how you can help:

1. Promote the Defend Free Speech website: www.defendfreespeech.ca.

This site is the clearinghouse for all update about the campaign and includes documents from the legal challenge, breaking news, ticket information, and action items. Please upload a link of this site to your website, upload it to all Galloway groups on facebook and on your profile, and forward it to all your friends. If you have any news or updates for the website, email info@nowar.ca.

2. Join our next organizing meeting in Toronto.

If you’re not in Toronto, get active with local groups in the Palestine Solidarity movement or the anti-war movement. The Toronto meeting is as follows: Friday, March 27 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm at Trinity-St. Paul’s Centre, 427 Bloor Street West, Toronto (TTC: Spadina). The Toronto meeting will provide updates, distribute new materials, and make plans for weekend actions.

3. Picket Conservative MPs’ offices on Saturday and Sunday.

This weekend, we need to make sure we keep the pressure up. Organize pickets at your local Conservative MP’s office to say you want Jason Kenney to reverse the ban on Galloway. Ask passers-by to sign the petition, distribute leaflets to them, and display free speech placards. All materials ­ petition, leaflets, and placards ­ can be downloaded from www.defendfreespeech.ca. When you’ve filled out the petitions, fax them to Kenney’s offices: 613-992-1920 (Ottawa office) and 403-225-3504 (Calgary office). A picket in Mississauga is already organized for Saturday, March 28 at 2:00pm at the office of Conservative MP Bob Dechert (Mississauga ­ Erindale), 1270 Central Parkway West, Suite 101, Mississauga.

4. Come to federal court on Sunday in Toronto to hear the legal challenge to Jason Kenney¹s ban.

Galloway’s legal team was informed that the hearing will be open to the public, so we need to pack out the courtroom to show how much opposition there is to Kenney’s attacks on free speech. The hearing will take place on Sunday, March 29 at 11:00am at the federal courthouse at 180 Queen Street West, Toronto (TTC: Osgoode). This is where we’ll find out if Kenney’s ban on Galloway is overturned. Seating is limited, so show up early! In addition, Toronto organizers will hold a free speech rally outside the courthouse at 10:30am. Bring your flags and banners! And bring lots of people!

5. Keep e-mailing and phoning Jason Kenney’s office.

If you’ve contacted him already, do it again. Tell them you won’t stop until Kenney reverses the ban. Tell them you want a formal response in writing, explaining why Kenney has banned Galloway. If you phone and there’s only voicemail, leave a long message asking that they call you back. Don’t let up the pressure now. Keep phoning, e-mailing, faxing, etc. Kenney’s e-mail addresses are: kennej@parl.gc.ca; kennej7@parl.gc.ca; minister@cic.gc.ca; harpes@parl.gc.ca. His phone numbers are: 613-992-2235 (Ottawa office) and 403-225-3480 (Calgary office). And don’t stop e-mailing the entire Conservative caucus. You can find all their e-mail addresses in one block at www.defendfreespeech.ca.

6. Keep buying tickets.

George Galloway has personally committed to deliver a live, original, interactive speech to each of the four cities where he’s scheduled to speak ­ either live in person or live via broadcast. We want to make sure that he can see how many of us have come to hear his speech and to stand up for our right to hear it. Every empty seat or unsold ticket is a defeat for free speech and a victory for the Minister of Censorship. Buy your tickets now and help us sell out the event. Ticket information for all four events is available at www.defendfreespeech.ca.

7. Broadcast Galloway’s live speech in your town or city.

If you live in a city where Galloway is not scheduled to speak (if you’re not in Toronto, Mississauga, Montreal or Ottawa) but would still like to hear his speech, let us know. We are organizing now to broadcast his Toronto speech on Monday, March 30 to locations all over the country where he is not scheduled to speak. Book a room now that can accommodate large numbers of people, start promoting your event, and get a laptop/LCD projector so you can broadcast his speech live. We’ll send you a private URL to log onto the Toronto broadcast. To get the private URL, please e-mail info@nowar.ca.

8. Join the ban-busting caravan to meet Galloway at the Canada-US border.

Organizers in Montreal are organizing a caravan of MPs, lawyers, anti-war activists and supporters to meet Galloway at the Canada-US border on the day he is scheduled to enter Canada. If we reverse the ban, we’ll bring him across. If we don’t reverse the ban, we’ll hold a solidarity rally on the Canadian side while a delegation of MPs and lawyers meet Galloway in the US. Galloway will address the Canadian rally by phone (with sound amplification).

Here’s the call-out from Montreal organizers:

On Monday, March 30, Montreal organizers for the Galloway speaking tour (SPHR) are
calling for a mass presence at the Canadian-US border in Lacolle, Quebec to support Canadian and Quebec MPs and MNAs who plan to escort Galloway into Canada, if the ban is reversed.

A solidarity caravan will leave from Montreal on Monday morning. Please show up by 9:30am at Carre Cabot, on Ste. Catherine and Atwater, corner of rue Lambert Closse (across from the Pepsi Forum). There will be buses. If you have a car, we need you to help caravan people there to arrive by 12:00pm (noon).

If you have a car, please let us know how many people you can take. If you need a ride, please let us know how many seats you need. E-mail us at Galloway.Canada@gmail.com.

9. Don¹t let Kenney silence anti-war voices! Demonstrate on April 4.

The Canadian Peace Alliance and Le Collectif Échec à la guerre have called a pan-Canadian day of action for Saturday, April 4 to protest the 60th anniversary of NATO and to bring Canadian troops home from Afghanistan. Now that Kenney has expanded his attacks to the peace movement and our right to free speech, it’s even more important to be in the streets. Tell Kenney that we won’t be silenced! If Kenney doesn’t overturn his ban on Galloway, join us on April 4 to demand that Kenney be fired from his job. For more information, please visit www.acp-cpa.ca.