A poem for Gaza

Israeli and Greek Communist Parties Condemn Assault on Gaza

Israel: Demonstrations against deadly military operation in Gaza

Communist Party of Israel - Thursday Nov 15, 2012  

Hundreds gathered in protest outside Defense Minister Ehud Barak's Tel Aviv apartment complex on Wednesday night, following the Israeli deadly operation in Gaza. Another demonstration was held in Jerusalem, near the Prime minister's house. The activists among them several Hadash (the Democratic Front for Peace and Equality – Communist Party of Israel) members chanted slogans such as: "Israel, Palestine, two states for two peoples," "Money for welfare, not war," "No war for tycoons," and "Defense minister, defense minister, how many kids did you kill today?" One of the placards waved at the protest referred to Barak as Israel's "No. 1 terrorist," while others called for an immediate cease-fire and an end to the Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip.

 
Amit Ashkenazi, a spokesman for Hadash's election campaign who participated in the demonstration, accused the government of taking a cynical step to raise support for the right wing ahead of the January 22 election. "This will only bring death to Palestinians and Israelis, and we call on everybody who is able to come stand by our side and fight against this step before civilians and soldiers on both sides are killed," he told the press. More protests were planned for Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa on Thursday, the Hadash spokesman said. On Wednesday, MK Dov Khenin (Hadash), strongly condemned the operation "The Netanyahu administration insists on not learning from experience," he said. "Assassinating leaders is never a solution. Leaders were assassinated in the past, and others came to replace them, and in the meantime a new round of blood and fire just began." He called for "serious negotiations" with Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas, alongside "a genuine, two-sided ceasefire agreement in the south."

Communist Party of Israel website (English):

http://maki.org.il/en/index.php

The Murderous Operations of Israel in The Gaza Strip 

Communist Party of Greece (KKE) - Thursday Nov 15, 2012

The KKE condemns the murderous military operations of Israel in the Gaza Strip. Operations, which are related to the effort to generalise the imperialist intervention and war at the expense of Syria and Iran, which the staffs of the USA, NATO, the EU and Israel have drawn up and are promoting, with the active assistance of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar.  

The KKE supports the struggle of the Palestinian people against the Israeli occupation. For an independent, viable, sovereign Palestinian state in the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital. We still demand: The cessation of the settlements and the withdrawal of all the settlers who reside beyond the borders of 1967. The tearing down of the unacceptable wall. The right of return of all the Palestinian refugees to their homes, based on the related UN decisions. The lifting of every blockade of the Palestinians, on the West Bank and the Gaza strip. The immediate release of all the Palestinians and other political prisoners who are being held in Israeli gaols. The withdrawal of the Israeli army from all the occupied territories of 1967, including the Golan Heights and the Shebaa region in Southern Lebanon. 

 The KKE demands that the Greek government immediately cancel the military cooperation of our country with Israel. That the base at Suda close and more generally that the territory, ports and airspace of Greece not be provided for a war against Syria and Iran, which will lead to a great deal of bloodshed and destruction for the people of Greece and the other peoples of our region. 
The press office of the KKE CC



*Bolding of text by RY blog editors

Kinder Morgan Pipeline Exposé

Click on the read-more button to watch this fifteen minute video with important information about the pipeline project.

Power Shift points to corporate power as main danger to environment

Over a thousand youth, students and young workers gathered at the University of Ottawa at the end of October for a busy weekend of presentations, workshops, seminars, and protests about climate change and social issues, under the banner of “Power Shift 2012.”

The conference aimed to bring together “a broad, diverse movement to tackle the root causes of climate and change a fundamentally unsustainable economic system based on corporate greed and perpetual growth.” Attendance was so high that the keynote speeches on Saturday night overflowed into three separate large university auditoriums and had to be simultaneously linked by video stream.

Power Shift billed itself as coming at a key moment in history where “the reality of climate change is one of the central challenges of our time, showing the problem of corporate power and the urgent need for alternatives.” Conference organizers said that “economic and climate crises we are facing have the same roots — the relentless drive to put short-term economic profits over the interests of our communities and the environment.”

The participant’s mood was upbeat and inspired by the major youth mobilizations of the past year with the Occupy movement, the Quebec student uprising, and also the powerful show of opposition to the expansion of tar sands pipelines and tankers along the west coast with the rally of 5,000 people at the BC provincial legislature last month.

“I think this is the first time I’ve been at an environmental conference that is actually talking about the system, not just the symptoms,” keynote speaker Naomi Klein told participants. “For a very long time the climate change movement has behaved as if it were the one issue that didn’t have an enemy, and we’re all in this together,” she said.

“You are coming of age in a society at war with your future” Klein said to loud cheers, pointing to reactionary governments, big corporations, war and especially the energy industry as the culprits.

Former co-spokesperson of the CLASSE, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, was equally frank. "The problem is not consumption, it is our economy and production. Our system is broken on a systemic level. The destruction of our environment is a natural and inevitable result" he told the conference, blaming the capitalist system.

"We will not get a second chance. Without radical change we will be faced with extinction. Resistance in these times is not an option, it is a duty", Nadeau-Dubois said.

Several speakers came from Quebec to talk about the student strike as an example of the power of mass popular mobilization in the streets, and also the less-well known victory against Hydraulic Fracturing or Fracking used to extract shale gas.

The new Parti Québécois government of Pauline Marois has indicated serious concerns over the safety and environmental impact of hydraulic fracturing with the environment minister talking about a full and permanent ban.  Currently, fracking is partially banned in Quebec pending on the results of two environmental studies.  The energy company Talisman suspended all shale gas exploration in October.

A number of delegations, presenters and speakers also came from First Nations communities.  “We have one thing that industry and government will never have, and that’s the truth” Crystal Lameman with the Alberta-based Indigenous Environmental Network told delegates on the Saturday night session.

“My children have the right and … the government has a fiduciary [Treaty] responsibility to give us clean drinking water. And it's not okay that … when I walk past [the boarder between municipalities], our drinking water is different than others” said Lameman, who is a member of the Beaver Lake Cree First Nation, about the impact of the Tar Sands on her community and environmental racism.

“It’s not okay that my 14-year-old niece have an asthma attack, that my son got a bleeding nose - that’s not okay. And that’s what we’re living every single day. It doesn’t matter if you’re indigenous or not - it’s not okay. This is what our future looks like, because they have desecrated a site the size of Switzerland - and they want to expand it ten times,” she said.

The Power Shift conferences were first organized in Australia, New Zealand, Britain and Canada after a US conference kicked-off the initiative around 2009. Future meetings are planned for India, Africa and Japan.
From the beginning, Power Shift has drawn a very broad range of voices speaking out against climate change. The US conferences have featured speakers like former US Vice-President Al Gore on the one hand, and journalist and activist Bill McKibben on the other hand.

McKibben (founder of the group 360.org which uses social media to coordinate climate change protests globally) also spoke at Power Shift 2012 in Ottawa. He called upon young people not to fear getting arrested in non-violent civil disobedience in order to halt plans like the Enbridge Northern Gateway or Keystone XL pipelines and spoke of his arrest last August outside the Whitehouse in Washington, along with about 70 other activists protesting Keystone XL.

Outside of the presentations from big-name speakers, an almost overwhelming series of workshops dealt with activist training lead by campus, community and labour activists. Many local student unions as well as the Canadian Federation of Students sent delegates and trainers. While the contribution of the labour movement to Power Shift was smaller, a number of young workers came from unions including the CAW and CEP.

Training sessions addressed anti-oppression and environmental justice, explained climate change issues, policy and science, and discussed questions like indigenous people’s perspectives and working together in local action.  There was also discussion of direct action as well as lobbying, perhaps reflecting a certain lack of consensus around a common strategy and way forward beyond discussion.

Future preparations are now focusing on the international climate negotiations, continuing building links with social justice issues, and further campus and community training to draw more young people into the environmental movement.

Quebec news and updates

Labour opposes Harper’s EI reforms
The major trade union centrals of Quebec and the MASSE coalition, a group formed in solidarity with the unemployed, held a series of mass rallies with the biggest one in the town of Thetford Mines in late October. Over 3,000 people from about twelve towns and cities from across Quebec marched to the offices of Christian Paradis, MP for Mégantic-L'Érable (and Stephen Harper's Quebec lieutenant).  Coordinator of MASSE Marie-Hélène Arruda told the rally that "The Conservatives, with their ideology [...] will define by regulation what is a decent job, that is to say a position that an unemployed person cannot refuse for fear of losing their benefits.”

Student legal struggle continues
Drawing attention to the hundreds of students still facing charges from the Quebec student uprising last fall, former spokesperson of the CLASSE, Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, was convicted November 1 of contempt of court because he publicly criticized a court injunction ordering picket-lines to disperse during the student strike. The judge (who has been linked as a donor to the former Charest Liberal government) based his ruling on a 1972 court decision which tried to smash the Common Front of public sector unions. A support campaign has been launched at www.appelatous.org to fundraise for an appeal.  Meanwhile, the PQ government have announced an education summit to take place in mid-February, with preparatory meetings and consultations starting at the end of November, about the question of post-secondary education funding.

Corruption inquiry exposes P3s
More revelations have been coming forward at the Charbonneau Commission, especially the testimony of ex-construction boss Lino Zambito which has implicated the Liberal party, as well as their political machines on the municipal level and construction firms, into a web of graft with the Mafia.  Media headlines have focused on Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay’s resignation, the implosion of his Union Montreal party, and now the Mayor of Laval quitting. But the Montreal Gazette has also said that Zambito reported “Public-private partnerships, the sort that are blooming in Quebec to yield hospitals, roads and cultural facilities, are fertile ground for corruption and collusion” because, once big consortiums are ‘awarded’ the contract, the only risk is held by the public sector. One of the biggest P3 projects in Quebec, the McGill University Health Centre, has long been a target of criticism by labour and is currently under police investigation.

QS co-spokesperson steps down
The long standing co-spokesperson of the left-wing political party Quebec Solidaire has stepped down. Amir Khadir was the first “Solidaire” elected to the Quebec National Assembly and the founding leader of the predecessor of QS, the Union of Progressive Forces – which was formed as a federation of left groups including the Communist Party of Quebec.  Khadir will maintain his seat in the National Assembly. Québec solidaire's constitution requires two national spokespersons: one from the legislature and a second from outside it, called a "porte-parole extra-parlementaire", who is not an MNA. The latter also assumes the role of president of the party. A young person is expected to be chosen.

YCL Canada sends delegate to Ecuador

The Young Communist League of Canada is sending a delegate to attend the initial planning discussions for the next World Festival of Youth and Students, which is expected to be held in Ecuador. The meeting is taking place in Quito, Ecuador. 

In a press release meeting organizers said that "issues such as the role of student movements in the social transformation, capitalism in crisis and the post-capitalist alternative, organizational experiences of struggle and resistance, as well as youth, State and Revolution, will be discussed.

"Other issues to discuss are youth solidarity and commitment for world peace, people's self-determination and the Citizen Revolution in Ecuador, as well as the creation of an anti-imperialist platform."

Below are photos by YCL delegate Drew Garvie showing, in order, the Communist Party of Ecuador building, a member of the Rafael Correa government addressing the meeting, Mountains in the region which boarders close to the headwaters of the Amazon, a view of Quito and the Presidential palace. Rebel Youth will carry a full report when Drew returns.

CBC Radio One airs: "The Spanish Crucible"

An incredible story is being aired on CBC Radio One over the next few days and is now available online.

In the mid-to-late 1930s, about 1600 Canadian men and women left for Spain, to fight against the Fascist coup led by General Francisco Franco against the democratically elected Popular Front government.

Why did they go? How did they fight? How did they die? And when the survivors came home why were they harassed and spied on? These questions and more are addressed by the CBC interviews.

While Britian and the US declared 'neutrality' and quitely supported the fascists, the Soviet Union and countries like Mexico supported the Popular Front. Many forces were represented in the Popular Front government, and the disorganization of the army (including trying to organize units along the abstract principals of anarchism) helped contribute to the fascists making a rapid advance.

Although only a small part in the Popular Front government, the Communist Party of Spain worked together with the international communist movement to form a well organized and disciplined army of volunteers from around the world, know as the intentional brigades. The Communists and their allies earned tremendous respect.

The Canadian government of the day, however, made it illegal for any Canadian to join the war. Despite this, the Communist Party of Canada and the Young Communist League, grass-roots members of the CCF, progressive organizations, and Canadian trade unions facilitated the movement of hundreds of Canadian fighters to join the tens of thousands of international volunteers to fight in a civil-war that helped shape the entirety of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Many of them travelled officially as tourists to France and then made the hard trek through the mountains. Eventually so many Canadians arrived they formed their own battalion and named it after the leaders of the democratic uprising against British colonial domination in 1837, William Lyon Mackenzie and Louis-Joseph Papineau.

The first Canadian to die in Spain was a member of the Toronto YCL. While that young man's name is forgotten, history has remembered Dr. Norman Bethune who invented the MASH unit or mobile blood transfusion unit.

The MacPaps fought heroically but after several years of hard fighting the forces of fascism won -- with the help of fascist Italy and Germany. Germany sent the entire Condor Legion to Spain and spent over two hundred million US dollars (in 1939 currency) while Italy sent over 700 air planes, over a hundred tanks, four destroyers, submarines and put 90 additional naval ships into the ocean around Spain in a blockade.

Coming home, the battalion received a heros welcome in some parts of Canada, while fascist-sympathizers attacked them in other places. When war broke out with fascist Germany, many were interned in concentration camps as dangerous radicals and communists.

Never recognized officially as veterans of the just war to defend democracy in Spain, the Mac Paps sacrifice wakened millions of people to the danger of appeasement to fascism. This was perhaps epitomized by the 1938 non-aggression treaty between Chamberlain and Hitler (signed right after the Munich deal).

Years later, Jouranlist Mac Reynolds travelled Canada in 1964 and 1965, looking for Mac-Pap vets, and recording as many as he could. He made over 50 interviews and recorded 150 hours of tape. Reynolds himself had been a supporter of the cause at that time, in Britain and Canada, and a friend of the CPC.


CBC archives contain a letter from Reynolds to the legendary producer and CBC executive Robert Weaver, asking about airtime. But there was no reply on file, nor any evidence that the material had ever aired. Instead the tapes were mothballed.

A campaign in the late 1990s saw some small plaques erected for the Mac Paps in places like Victoria, Ottawa and Toronto. Several books, including by veterans, have been written about the Mac Paps although the total literature is relatively small.

In Spain, however, the Mac Paps are heros and have been awarded many honors -- even honorary citizenship.


As to the tapes, no one but the CBC archivists knew the material was there, or had paid it any mind, until CBC producer Steve Wadhams recently rediscovered the files. “Forty-plus years of doing radio, and I have never stumbled into a treasure trove like this,” Wadhams told the Globe and Mail newspaper.

The CBC Radio programme "Living Out Loud" aired these accounts in a two-part documentary titled " The Spanish Crucible".

These interviews are already available online - http://www.cbc.ca/livingoutloud/

This article combines reports, sources and articles by Kate Taylor, F. Ahmed, Joe Fiorito and D. Rankin

On rememberance day, one Canadian MP remembers it is actually about peace

... We remember the overwhelming, countless loss of civilians who didn’t choose to die. We remember how easy it is to begin a war but not to end it. There is no such thing as a short war–the effects of violence remain long after the last shot is fired. We remember the sacrifice of those who work for peace and to end violence. We remember that violence does not happen just between nations but contaminates our entire society and our way of thinking. On November 11th we remember, with gratitude. On November 11th, we remember and pray that war will be no more.

Elizabeth May, Green Party of Canada