How the System Works

Two First Nations north of Kingston is currently occupying land where a proposed uranium mine is to be dug (after clear cutting the forest above it). Members of the Ardoch Algonquin and Shabot Obaadjiwan Nations have been on the site since June 29. They are calling for negotiations to settle their land claim and quite rightly they don't want anyone to start building mines on their land. Until it's settled it's their land.

But watching the proceedings you get an insight into how these "negotiations" proceed:

1) Provincial and federal governments refuse to deal with outstanding land claims for centuries. In most cases they engage in genocidal practices (spreading disease, residential schools etc).

2) Eventually First Nations act to put pressure on governments after a corporation attempts to build homes, mines or bulldoze forests on their land.

3) First Nations are accused of being violent and extra-legal. The public is manipulated into believing this is actually the case despite centuries of violence flowing the other way.

4) Police or army surround "protesters" despite the fact that they have not engaged in violence. No one questions this provocative act.

5) Called by the corporation in question, the Canadian courts are asked to make a decision on ownership (despite the facts that these courts only really have jurisdiction over the Canadian government and Canadian corporations--not the First Nations who are a separate nation).

6) The court issues a decision which demands the "protesters" leave the site peacefully and puts off the land decision until a later date. Occasionally the corporation in question is barred from accessing the land in the interim.

7a) At a later date if the "protesters" have left the blockade, the court rules in favour of the corporation and, almost instantaneously, the police or military secure the land and prevent the re-erection of the blockade and facilitate the extraction of the desired resource.

7b) If the "protesters" do not leave the site, the court may forestall its decision in favour of the corporation and continue to issue injunctions. The decision in favour of the corporation however is a foregone conclusion; how could it be otherwise? Military options are pursued as in Ipperwash (never considered violence) or else the blockade remains in place forever as in Caledonia. The hope apparently is that the First Nations will become bored, disheartened and leave or that the public will embrace violence as a solution given the "protesters" unwillingness to talk (never mentioning the previous centuries of silence on the part of governments).

And if you're insane, this makes perfect sense.

Who's Really Sad?

It's very interesting that a rally of several thousand demonstrators is dismissed as "sad" by our benevolent Prime Minister, while a similar rally is hailed as massive. Harper's exact words in dismissing the opposition to the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) were "I've heard it's nothing. A couple hundred? It's sad."

Then yesterday the CBC hailed a massive rally in support of Canadian troops fighting for "our interests" in Afghanistan. How massive you might wonder? A few hundred people.

So one is sad while one is massive. Do you know when to cheer and when to boo yet? Don't worry someone will tell you.

The truth is that the support our troops rally is actually sad. In a city of 3 million they could only gather a few hundred people to support this war. That's pretty pathetic and demonstrates how much faith Canadians actually have in this war as more and more troops come home in body bags.

Compare the turnout in Toronto with fences, security cordons, road checkpoints and the truly massive police presence in Montebello. Far from sad, the concerned citizens that traveled to Quebec from all across the country despite these restrictions are anything but sad; they are committed and believe in their cause. In spite of the corporate-state media and the corporate-state Prime Minister, well done.

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And in regards to the admission that the Surete de Quebec planted agent provocateurs in the crowd in Montebello, that's really sad. Just don't expect our dear leader to utter such words. It's selective you see. Figured out who to cheer for yet?

Wheat's Next?

So after news of the rising price of corn hitting the poorest in the stomach, we have now moved on to wheat.

There's an interesting connection beyond both being edible though: the private automobile. Corn prices, it has been decided, must rise to fuel our addiction to cars, trucks and SUVs; oil is peaking and is only accessible in "evil" places. Therefore it's more important to drive it seems than to feed people.

Similarly with rising wheat prices, our vehicles are largely behind it. The rise in wheat prices, and therefore bread prices, is due to lower crop yields in wheat producers like Canada. These drops are due to crazy weather, including droughts, searing temperatures and floods. And what's the cause: global warming. All those tailpipes are having an impact now even in our rich, middle class stomachs.

But there's no suggestion anywhere that we abandon our cars in order to eat. They have become essentials much like food and shelter. Pretty screwy civilization we've got here.

And do I have to point out that this is another sign that this population is insupportable and that the past 100 years were an abberation?

Concrete and Broken Glass

I scrambled up the hill. They weren't far behind me, I could hear them shouting to one another. The voices were hungry.

I had to hang on. This was my country too. Or so I used to believe.

So I kept going. Up and up and up. We were all tired, hunters and prey; nights slept in the cold of autumn under the stars. No direction or goals, not that we ever did have them. And without the usual bounty of civilization, we were malnourished. Enough to get by, but just. So this rush up the escarpment couldn't last for one of us. Who would run out of energy first?

They had caught me scavenging in the lower city. I didn't like to come to the city much but for centuries, cities were where elaborate, globalized food systems ended. You could still find a few things there. If you were lucky. And that day I was.

I pulled myself up a large outcropping of rock, helped by drooping branches. It was an amazing effort and I felt it in my muscles. I shook it off; there were more of them--keep moving. And if they caught me they would tear me apart, not for what I carried but for who I was. Foreign. Unwelcome anymore. The reason that it all fell apart. It has always been so easy to blame someone who looks different from you. It rarely matters how he speaks or how he acts. Just different, physical, base.

Little did they know what I had found down in the city. Even if they did know, they wouldn't care. They would just toss them aside and lose them forever in the cold winter to come. But for me, they were a kind of birthright. Reminding me of burning pickles and my father's food. The essence of who I was, in a way.

Well if the mob close on my heels was going to reject me, then I needed something to hold on to. With that I surged ahead. I could tell they were tiring by the way the voices fell back. While I was climbing, scrambling for my life, they were only in this for a little sport. It wasn't a religious duty to destroy all minorities, yet.

I had found the seeds in an unlikely place: a parking kiosk. They were in a little plastic bag on the floor. The plastic had become a bit soggy but thankfully it had protected the small package inside from the ravages of dampness. The bag was full of seed pouches, like the kind that people used to pay for. The parking attendant must have bought them to take home and grow in his or her garden; or perhaps it was a balcony. But when the lights went out forever, he or she must have left them behind in a mixture of bewilderment and terror, as he or she commuted for the last time.

Imagine paying for the ability to grow your own food. What a strange concept? But that was the way things were done. You just accepted that you had no right to control how you were fed and handed away your power to organizations that really only wanted two things: obedience and your money.

I remembered reading something about not being able to eat money as I reached the top. I hunched behind a bush and watched them down the hill. They had gathered and were yelling at one another. I assumed the fittest demanded they keep going but were scared to continue the pursuit with depleted numbers. If they saw me now they might continue on. So I ducked my head and listened. The voices started to move down the hill, back to their hunting grounds amidst the concrete and broken glass.

Fuck them. I wasn't going back anyway; they'd never catch me. I handled the pouches and thought of the open lands to the south. I had to find a place to last the winter before the promise of spring. I knew nothing about farming beyond keeping the harvest well watered and weeded. Perhaps that was enough and besides no one was around to judge you.

I put them all down and picked up the prize: hot chillies in a rainbow of colours. A little taste of the world that I had known. I would watch over you above all the other crops. Keep you safe and save your spicy seeds to plant again and again.

I just wish I wasn't alone.

What's Next?

Anyone got any ideas for new magnet ribbons? This one really takes the cake.

When, oh When

I wonder at which point one finally recognizes that there isn't even a drop of goodness left in the rotten heart of civilization. Will that day come when even the seagulls and pigeons are extinct? Perhaps when snow and ice are memories, lest they be found in freezers? Maybe when we can no longer walk under the sun? Or when cancer is guaranteed at birth?

I haven't reached that point it seems. I must be pretty thick, or scared.

Perhaps the problem is that these experiences accumulate too slowly to really motivate people to stand up and fight. Then we get caught in this constructed world. So we never get up and make a mess in a blindingly messy world. My only hope is an eviction from my home, starvation while others feast, or some other structural violence done to myself or my family. Maybe then I'll do what I should and carve cracks in this bloated carcass called civilization.

In the meantime, I slouch and soldier on. Monday is the National Day of Action against the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). This new North American Union is a bad idea. Read about it and write our dear Prime Minister and your MP and let them know what you think. Is it any wonder the House of Commons is out of session? Amazingly even the dreary Liberals have concerns, though, if they were the government, they'd be lining up to sign on.

I guess it's all coming down either way but in the interim, let's make some noise.

Stranger Than Fiction

"Men and their works have been a disease on the surface of their planets before now. Nature tends to compensate for diseases, to remove or encapsulate them, to incorporate them into a system in her own way. "

"You cannot go on forever stealing what you need without regard to those who come after."


Dune by Frank Herbert.

The Elephant

The more and more I think about it, there is a single issue that impacts all the topics that I discuss on this blog. If humanity (can you speak of it as a single entity and if we are even capable) is serious about dealing with global warming, saving the earth's wonderful biodiversity, reversing the pollution of the earth's water and air, halting the siege of the ozone layer, stopping the mowing down of the world's forests, slowing the depletion of the earth's oil reserves and more then this issue needs to be pushed to the top of the global agenda. And that issue is:

OVERPOPULATION

All humans need family planning in a bad way. Especially if we all want to be resource pigs like North Americans. Dare I say it but perhaps we need an international one child policy. We need to give out condoms like business cards. We need to embrace and celebrate our sexuality and put procreation and guilt on the back burner. Far from expanding them, we need to shrink our populations and fast. Instead of piling billions of dollars into elitist talking shops let's be supportive and make it simple to have a small family, or better yet no family at all.

A new child of parents with North American lifestyle aspirations is destined to take a big bite out of the world's resources and contribute to all the ills mentioned above. That child will need to eat meat three times a day and have access to out of season fruit all year round. She'll need air conditioning and heating. She'll need a new private vehicle ever few years. She'll need malls, designer clothes produced a world away, cheap Chinese imports with excessive packaging, cell phones and Ipods. Her ecological footprint will be massive. Therefore the fewer of these children the better.

But tell all this to the Pope. Or your parents, who anxiously await the next grandchild. Or the economist warning the government that a population drop will devastate the economy much like taking action on climate change. Or anyone who has had the nuclear family ideal detonated inside their skull.

Didn't you hear? I can already hear some of these people say. God gave us this earth and told us to be fruitful and multiply. We can't go against the word of God (or for the economist, the word of the market). We've always done it this way.

End of story.

But I still say we ignore overpopulation at our peril. For some interesting and rigorous research into the earth's ideal human carrying capacity by state and more relevant information check out the Optimum Population Trust.