Social Just Is

Ron Paul is dead.

2007-12-24T00:14:00.000-08:00

OK, OK I lied. He’s not dead. But there are speculators, conspiracy theorists if you want, igniting rumours of a possible assassination attempt on Republican candidate, Dr. Ron Paul.

Investigative reporter, Daniel Estulin, revealed a Neocon plot to assassinate Dr. Paul on The Alex Jones Show a week ago. According to Estulin, the plot is in the early stages and concerns the ‘inner core within the inner core’. So he says.

What’s freaky but basically just coincidental is Dr. Paul’s appearance on The Glenn Beck Show. While Beck was interviewing Dr. Paul, the CNN scroll at the bottom read ‘Paul is dead, Paul is dead, Paul is dead’. Chalk it up to coincidence, right?

But what’s a little disturbing about all this is that during the ‘Paul is dead’ scroll, Dr. Paul was actually discussing domestic threats. Do we dismiss this as pure coincidence?

In all likelihood, yes, this is one big coincidence. Or maybe we’re on to them. What if, what if.

Iraq's Sovereignty Violated, Once Again

2007-12-24T00:13:00.000-08:00

Before the Bush regime, Clinton and his democrats dropped bombs. With the Bush regime, Corporate America won the support for invasion. The military-industrial-complex lives on. But just what will happen post Bush regime?

Maybe we’ll see evacuation measures taken by the White House under a new administration. But with a strong corporate attachment to Iraq, just exactly who will be allowed to evacuate? Protection - politically and militarily speaking - will be needed to sustain corporate interests of Iraq

Or we could see a larger war blossom from the US occupation and now Turkish incursions. That’s right, the sovereignty of the Iraqi people is being violated yet again. Cross-border attacks against Kurdish rebels has outraged the Iraqi government. But if the Americans can do it, why not the Turks?

The Iraqi people have been murdered; their land, ravaged. So, if the first obligation of a nation is to protect its citizens - thereby, sovereignty - should the Iraqi military begin to move north and protect the border with Turkey? Or is the responsibility of the regional Kurdish government? Prime Minister, Nuri al- Maliki, commented on Kurdish flags in government buildings. He remarked, that ‘the Iraqi flag is the only flag that should be raised over any square inch of Iraq.’

The Kurds have maintained autonomy ever since 1971 when the Iraqi government and Kurdish parties agreed on a peace accord. The accord recognized Kurdish as an official language and the constitution was amended to include that ‘the Iraqi people is made up of two nationalities, the Arab nationality and the Kurdish nationality.‘

So who protects who and who is responsible to who for doing what to who and does why even matter? The US is in Iraq. Turkey is invading the Kurdish north or Iraq. Iran has shelled Iraqi Kurdistan.

Over one million Iraqis have been killed because of all the sanctions and invasions. In a region full of spoils, what is more important: humanity or oil? Life or profit?

P.S. I have decided not to scroll up and figure out if any of this makes sense. Then again, not much of what I read about Iraq or the Middle East seems to make much sense.

Is big media en route to swallow up local media across the US? [the remix]

2007-12-24T00:12:00.002-08:00

The F.C.C. voted 3-2 to unleash a new wave of media consolidation over America.

To manipulate media diversity is cause for alarm.

Congress can nullify the decision. But will they?

And, President Bush has threatened to veto any nullification to protect the decision by the F.C.C.

Lawyers Stepping Up

2007-12-24T00:12:00.001-08:00

by Katrina vanden Heuvel

www.thenation.com

We are lawyers in the United States of America. As such, we have all taken an oath obligating us to defend the Constitution and the rule of law…. We believe the Bush administration has committed numerous offenses against the Constitution and may have violated federal laws…. Moreover, the administration has blatantly defied congressional subpoenas, obstructing constitutional oversight …. Thus, we call on House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy to launch hearings into the possibility that crimes have been committed by this administration in violation of the Constitution…. We call for the investigations to go where they must, including into the offices of the President and the Vice President. — American Lawyers Defending the Constitution

Over one thousand lawyers – including former Governor Mario Cuomo and former Reagan administration official Bruce Fein – have signed onto the above statement demanding wide-ranging investigative hearings into unconstitutional and potentially criminal activity by the Bush administration.

In a conference call with reporters yesterday, Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and winner of the 2007 Puffin/Nation Prize for Creative Citizenship, said: “The majority of lawyers in this country understand that the Bush administration has really gone off the page of constitutional rights and off the page of fundamental rights, and is willing to push the Congress to restore those rights.” Ratner said he was “dismayed” that a Democratic majority has failed “to push on key illegalities… the torture program, and now the destruction of the tapes involving the torture program; the warrantless wiretapping, the denial of habeas corpus, the secret sites/rendition program, special trials, and of course what we now know is the firing of US Attorneys scandal…. The minimal that absolutely is needed to get us back on the page of law is to have serious investigative hearings that go up the chain of command and figure out who is responsible for what.”

Ratner noted that even with regard to the US attorney’s investigations, where Congressional committees held Harriet Miers, Josh Bolten, and Karl Rove in contempt, leadership has failed to enforce these actions by bringing the resolutions to a vote. “Just announcing that investigations will be held and subpoenas will be issued is terribly insufficient unless Congress is willing to enforce the subpoenas by issuing contempt citations,” Ratner said. “Congress has a constitutional duty to oversee the activities of the executive branch and our entire system of government is threatened when Congress simply folds before an obstinate executive. Issuing contempt citations against Bolten, Miers, and Rove should be Congress’s first order of business in 2008.”

Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, discussed the administration’s torture program violating three US-ratified treaties and the US torture statute; the illegal War in Iraq violating the US-ratified UN Charter as a war of aggression; and Attorney General Michael Mukasey’s conflict of interest in overseeing investigations into the torture program and the destruction of the CIA interrogations tapes.

Also speaking with reporters was Jesselyn Raddack, a former Justice Department ethics lawyer who served as an advisor during the interrogation of John Walker Lindh (the “American Taliban”). Raddack said, “My e-mails documented my advice against interrogating Lindh without a lawyer, and concluded that the FBI committed an ethics violation when it did so anyway. Both the CIA videotapes and my e-mails were destroyed, in part, because officials were concerned that they documented controversial interrogation methods that could put agency officials in legal jeopardy…. ” Raddack pointed to the Department of Justice’s investigations of Enron and Arthur Anderson for obstruction of justice and destruction of evidence, and the need for the same aggressive oversight and legal proceedings in these scandals.

This is a vital effort by those charged with defending our constitution, as Ratner said, “This lawyers’ letter and the growing number of signatures we’ll have on it, and prominent people – it’s a way of saying to Congress, ‘You need some backbone. You need to have a serious investigation, wherever it might go, on these issues that really have taken the United States out of the mainstream of human rights.’ It’s absolutely critical… We’ve opened up the door to illegality…. Unless we have accountability on those illegalities, we’re going to be facing a very bleak future in which fundamental rights will not really be obeyed.”

Iran meddling of US meddling in Iraq

2007-12-21T14:09:00.000-08:00

The talk of the town [Washington] since the illegal invasion by the US into Iraq and the subsequent occupation [illegal] is that Iran has meddled in Iraqi affairs. Iran is meddling? Really?

Meddling is rhetoric penned by Washington [hawks], western media, lobby groups and of course Corporate America. Shhure, there’s other people and groups who blame Iran [largely] for the instability in Iraq, especially the south. But the four horsemen I mentioned are determined to wreak havoc in the Middle East at the expense of Iran - and at the expense of their own population.

The double-speak. The unspeak. The rhetoric. Words are weapons, remember. So it’s a matter of being careful how we read. What we read. And at the end, of what we do with the words we’ve read. We can turn them from word to action, it could get dangerous.

al Qaeda in Iraq [the remix]

2007-12-21T14:08:00.000-08:00

Rhetorically I said ‘here’s what I don’t get.’ Oh yeah, but I forgot all about the whole double standards, geopolitical, we want Eurasia and all the oil angle.

Foreign policy in the US can, when scrutinized on an individual basis, screams inconsistency; incoherency. A broader scope of policy bellowed from the White House is more defined. Almost articulate. Eurasia is the goal. The resources, control of a population - that if united, would spell disaster for the Neocons of Washington.

Iraq seemed to be the most logical step in the direction of Eurasia. It was a weakened nation. War torn. Psychologically fucked. Now, Iraq is a Un-united State of America. A freakish love-child of Corporate America and the Military-Industrial-Complex. A punching bag. And, there are more nations with a vested interest in Iraq now more than ever.

Maybe I don’t get it yet. But I know it’s way too fucked up in the Middle East for the US to attempt a conquest of Eurasia. Logically, Iraq is a part of that conquest. An impossible, no chance in hell, kind of conquest.

al Qaeda in Iraq

2007-12-21T14:07:00.000-08:00

Here’s what I don’t get. The US is allied with Saudi Arabia, right? Last year, Libya was removed from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism. Yet a new study released by the US Army’s West Point military academy accusing Saudi Arabia and Libya of producing 60 per cent of the al Qaeda fighers in Iraq.

You will remember that of the 19 hijackers, 16 of them were Saudi nationals. As for Libya, Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie should ring a bell. To put it into words, both governments have been complicit of terrorism. And, continue to foster a relationship with the White House exactly as the West Point study is released - it just seems awkward is all I’m saying.

I can only assume that the US is following the adage to keep your friends close, and your enemies even closer.

Is big media en route to swallow up local media across the US?

2007-12-17T20:49:00.000-08:00

Earlier today, Free Press issued a release concerning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) vote tomorrow - 18 December 2007 - that may allow the largest companies to swallow [infect] more local media outlets across the United States. For obvious reasons, there has been a public outcry over the planned vote - initiated by FCC chairman Kevin Martin.

I’m not a citizen of the US, but this is still a pretty big deal. Corporate America has been eating away at the soul of the US Constitution and this would be one more bite.

Control of the media has become a weapon for Corporate America and the means of information has thus become narrow and tightly controlled. The well-oiled machine [Corporate America] directed the US military into Iraq because of information control and distribution. The mass population never did receive the whole story. That’s how and why the White House became so caught up in its web of lies - it was coaxed into a war that was not meant to be.

So do yourself a favour - do your country a favour - and check out what is going on with the media in the US. It is not as free as you’d think.

Where do you fit on the political map?

2007-12-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

A quick [painless?] quiz to measure your political leaning.

Left? Right? Upside down maybe?

Try it here.

Buy Nothing Christmas

2007-12-14T23:14:00.000-08:00

As soon as we finish giving thanks to the First Nations for giving us their land a few centuries ago, we begin our journey toward Christmas. We are inundated with deals, ideas, sales, offers and just about as much advertising as our minds can handle. The€
concept of Buy Nothing Christmas is a spin off from Buy Nothing Day - October 23rd this year - otherwise known as Black Friday, the busiest shopping day of the year where malls are crammed with anxious shoppers eager to horde in on Christmas sales. Ah, the joys of Christmas shopping. Long lines, trying to find that last parking spot, the credit card debt buildup, the stress of figuring out what to get the ones you love [the disappointment?].

Buy Nothing Christmas is not about buying nothing - excuse the name. It’s about spending more time with the ones you love instead of lining up in big box stores and falling victim to the marketing ploys.

But if that’s not enough, why not do a little less shopping in an effort to save the planet. Ready for a rant? Now, I’m not really that guy who has joined Al Gore’s flock. But if have bought into his gimmick [hell, he could even be right!] then why not drive a little less, stop that car running so long just to heat you up [in the cold obviously] and think of how much of the environment goes into the presents under your tree.

'Not us. We're not going.'

2007-12-14T11:59:00.000-08:00

I was surfing Antiwar.com and came across the headline: Soldiers in 2nd Platoon, Charlie 1-26 stage a ‘mutiny’ that pulls the unit apart - I was immediately intrigued. I read feverishly, ate away at my apple, pulled a blanket over my head and the wind howled outside. I read how one of the main characters narrowly escaped the evil beast known as terrorism and rode atop a fighter jet…wait, wait…I’m confusing myself with Bastian Balthazar Bux - he became part of the story, the neverending story. Agonizingly, the Iraq war is becoming a neverending story.

But the article, I wanted to get inside the story more - to understand what these guys were trying to come to grip with: the fear and loathing; vengeance and madness; separation and belongingness. I wanted to understand their happiness at the end of it all [was there any?].

I never forgot about the Iraqi citizens. They’ve suffered terribly while their country is being liberated and democratized. Is it all in vein? What is it that they want? Has the West bothered to ask this?

No, I didn’t forgot about them and the psychological trauma that has taken hold of them since ‘03. Another generation born in Iraq. Another war. What a mind-fuck! For everyone.

These soldiers in this article though. ‘At mental health, guys had told the therapist, “I’m going to murder someone.”’ That’s pretty messed up, no? They were afraid their anger would get the best [worst?] of them and they would incite a massacre.

I get it, these soldiers are following orders and doing their duty. I get how Iraqi’s are upset at what we’re now seeing: an occupation; a neverending story. But really, I just don’t fucking get it.

Have the courage to do nothing about our climate

2007-12-11T21:43:00.000-08:00

Congrats humanity, we’re not the bad guy. Neither is CO2 according to a new peer reviewed study on climate change. The study contends that climate warming is naturally caused and shows no human influence. Scientists observed temperature changes over the last thirty years and have come to a conclusion that climate change can be best explained by natural causes such as solar variability. That being said, greenhouse gases such as CO2 are now said to have less of an affect on climate change than Al Gore would have us believe.

At the same time, scientists gathered in Bali to urge the world to have the courage to do nothing in response to United Nations demands. It gets better. The following quotation was delivered by Lord Christopher Monckton, a UK climate researcher:

Climate change is a non-problem. The right answer to a non problem is to have the courage to do nothing. The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change).

Now I’m not saying to go around pollute-toot-tootin’ but I’ve felt that climate change has become a political grandstand; a platform to gain public opinion. I figure the Earth has more mechanisms to counter our hazardous ways than we know today. A sort of homeostasis.

At the end of the day, it’s probably best that we continue to strive for environmentally sound ways to live our lives. I mean, it’s safe to say that the natural resources we require to foster our consumerist ways will vanish. And so, research and development is the key to benefit humanity and our environment and not overtly spending on the climate control mass hysteria.

Brutality: Thy Name is Corporate America

2007-12-10T23:50:00.000-08:00

Physically. Emotionally. Broken.

Jamie Leigh Jones worked in Iraq. Not the ideal setting I suppose due to the intense war ravaging the country. Conceivably, one would feel a little more at ease within the company of one’s own country[wo]men. Conceivably.

Jamie Leigh Jones was raped. In a foreign country. She was locked up by her employer for twenty-four hours. No food and no water. Jones was then warned that if she left Iraq for medical treatment she would be out of a job. Let go. Dismissed. Sacked. Relieved. Discharged. Fired.

Unthoughtful loopholes place contractors in Iraq beyond the reach of US law and so Jones does not have the opportunity to seek justice. Is justice blind in this case? Ignorant? Or held hostage by Corporate America? Oh, all of the above you say.

Corporate America has done its part to wreak havoc in Iraq. Halliburton and Kellogg, Brown and Root (KBR) are so implicated with creating instability in Iraq. They have blood on their hands. And they are complicit to the rape of Jamie Leigh Jones.

Pledge allegiance to the United States of Corporations.

Is resistance legal? A moral right?

2007-12-10T00:39:00.000-08:00

A few hundred meters downhill from Ariel, an Israeli settlement, lives Sadeq al-Khuffash. He is the mayor of Marda and has this to say about the Israeli occupation of Palestine:

This is our home and resistance is a legal right. If there is no respect for agreements and international law, things will go on like this, with violence.

So, I got to thinking: is resistance legal? If that’s not enough, I began to grapple with the morality of resistance.

I know nothing else of Sadeq al-Khuffash, yet I do wish him good luck.

Unspeakable Truths

2007-12-06T18:37:00.001-08:00

Media watch out! The leftist, defeatist types are determined to plague the news with imaginative stories if they get their way. Tales of inside jobs can be as tall as towers. To quote Gore Vidal (conspirator?):

Conspiracy stuff is now shorthand for unspeakable truth

The filthy rich [oligarchy] of the West dominate the media. They dominate Hollywood and the banks too. And so it is. They will continue to dominate these facets of everyday life and will, at every chance, turn unspeakable truths into conspiracies propagated by leftists.

Confessions of a Covert Agent

2007-12-06T18:29:00.000-08:00

I’ve seen the worst things imaginable, hell on earth. Had friends die in my arms. Seen piles of rotten corpses. Seen men, women and children tortured. I’ve seen the eyes of terrified and confused children being sold into a vicious life of slavery and an early death.

Do you think they really give a shit about Iraqi freedom? We worked hard to make you believe that, but c’mon, they don’t give a shit about the Iraqi people. They’ve killed about a MILLION of them! And that’s NOT an exaggeration! They sure as hell give a shit about Iraqi oil though.

If you look at the history of covert special operations, it’s all about securing a piece of land that has some valuable resource. Once the resource is identified, special ops figures out the most efficient way to suppress or extinguish the population that is unfortunate enough to live near it. Then the big companies come in, from the United Fruit Company to the Bechtels and Halliburtons of the world.

Read in full.

Har Homa

2007-12-05T19:27:00.000-08:00

It began in ’68. The green light was given in ’96 and a year later it was ready to begin. But it would be frozen shortly thereafter. That is until now. Situations get fucked up.

What began in 1968 was the concluding phase of an Israeli housing plan for Jerusalem. Har Homa is an area of 468 acres. After a lengthy court appeal – tied up in Israeli courts – Shimon Peres made the decision to go ahead with construction. It mattered nothing that the Oslo Accords were meant to be in progress.

The announcement to build 6,500 Jewish [not Israeli?] homes for 40,000 settlers came in 1997. The obvious happened. Riots ensued. Oslo crumbled under the weight of it all. Heavy pressure by international actors froze the construction. That is until now. Situations get fucked up.

So now we have Annapolis: a photo op and ceremonial lunch for Bush on his final stretch. And now too we have Israel, approving of plans to build over 300 homes to expand Jewish settlement in east Jerusalem. What is now to become of the Annapolis Conference?

History looks destined to repeat itself. Situations really do get fucked up.

Ahmadinejad & Bush

2007-11-30T07:12:00.000-08:00

One president comments on the success of the Annapolis conference, while another president comments on its failure. One believes that a two-state solution is practical in a 14-month time frame. The other, well, he believes that a two-state solution is unpractical because Israel is doomed to ‘collapse’.

So what are the flock to think of all this?

Well, think what you want.

Just remember that the Annapolis conference is part of a much broader picture. Until leaders with credibility - Abbas, Bush and Olmert are politically weak - are ready to pro-actively discuss the issues, any attempt at peace will fail. Retroactive solutions, like that of a junkie receiving methadone from a clinic, are destined to be a band-aid for the sixty years of violence in the holy land.

In the words of Ahmadinejad:

It is impossible that the Zionist regime will survive. Collapse is in the nature of this regime because it has been created on aggression, lying, oppression and crime.

Buy Nothing Christmas

2007-11-29T22:27:00.000-08:00

How is it that we allow consumerism to enslave us?

Has consumerism become the motivating factor for the holidays?

When was it that corporatism took control of our holidays?

Can we be more environmentally conscious this consuming season?

Participate by limiting your participating. Buy Nothing Christmas.

Buy Nothing Day

2007-11-29T22:24:00.000-08:00

Is it necessary to consume at the voracious pace we are?

Why is it so imperative that we spend more money than we have?

What will happen if we continue to live beyond our means?

Will our Earth recover from our extreme patterns of consumption?

Participate by not participating. Buy Nothing Day.

American backdoor antics (or keep it Canadian)

2007-11-29T22:12:00.000-08:00

It is being reported that CanWest president Leonard Asper and Goldman Sachs managing director Gerry Cardinale issued a firm assurance that control of broadcasting decisions would remain in Canadian hands. This assurance is meant to give CanWest a majority of voting shares albeit in a minority position with a 36 per cent share in equity in the entity; meanwhile, 100-36=64 per cent majority position for the foreign investment bank, hooray!

While Goldman Sachs cannot cause CanWest to do anything, the foreign based partner has the ability to restrain CanWest from certain decisions and remains a role in strategic broadcasting decisions. Criticisms by the national actor’s union, ACTRA, in a recent statement have denounced the deal as foreign ownership of Canadian media through the back door. Union president Richard Hardacre believes ‘this deal effectively gives the US company control over a Canadian broadcaster, which is a violation of the Broadcasting Act and Canadian public policy.

Apocalypse Now

2007-11-29T20:46:00.000-08:00

Melbourne neuroscientist Dr John Reid says he is skeptical about science’s ability to rescue humanity from over-population. According to research conducted by the Global Footprint Network in 2001, humanity’s ecological footprint had exceeded the Earth’s biological capacity by about 20 per cent. In 2006, the WWF Living Planet Report put the figure at 25 per cent. Dr Reid asserts that planet Earth cannot support the present human population and humanity must not delude itself with science fiction. Accepting the calculations and data by the Global Footprint Network and the WWF leads Dr Reid to one inescapable conclusion: to quickly reduce Earth’s population to five billion and then to further reduce that to two or three billion.

About Us

2007-11-29T19:18:00.000-08:00

We are a small network of friends, writers, academics, and humanity who look to the future, with the past sharp in our minds. We want to advance a new social movement in the information age.

Our aims are to disrupt the inequalities and injustices perpetrated by the power structures in existence today and to promote positive social change.

Social Just Is offers insight to today’s issues ranging from politics and international relations to concerns of social inequalities and economic divide, here in Canada and across the universe.

At the end of the day, Social Just Is is dedicated to examining the changing human condition in the dynamic environment we live in. More than anything, we want a society of peace and harmony where economies and peoples strive for balance. Encouraging others to become involved in active debate and participate positively is of the utmost importance. Let’s not become disenfranchised; instead, let’s act.