Democracy gone Astray: Monday, February 04, 2013

Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.

This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, February 04, 2013

US will not scale back drone warfare – Panetta

The US is engaged in a global war on terror, and drone strikes are an effective tool to eliminate Al-Qaeda militants planning terror attacks on America, US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta told AFP, adding that drone operations should stay covert.

The US will not curtail its extrajudicial assassinations in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen, Panetta said in a farewell interview: “We are in a war. We're in a war on terrorism and we've been in that war since 9/11.”

LaPierre Reveals True Purpose Behind Assault Weapons

Following last week's high-profile Senate Judiciary hearing in response to the tragedy at Newtown, the media paid extensive attention to National Rifle Association CEO Wayne LaPierre's flip-flop on the issue of closing the Gun Show Loophole and witness Gayle Trotter's ridiculous assertion that "guns make women safer."

Armando Cruz tied a noose around his neck and hanged himself from the ceiling of his prison cell. He left a note that ended in two chilling words.

“Remember me.”

His mother Yolanda, who was shown the note after her son's death, wants to make sure no one forgets.

Feb 4 (Reuters) - Federal and state prosecutors intend to bring civil charges against Standard & Poor's for wrongdoing in its rating of mortgage bonds prior to the 2008 financial crisis, The Wall Street Journal said on Monday, citing people familiar with the matter.

Allegations against the McGraw-Hill Cos unit will center on the model used to rate the bonds and will be made in lawsuits to be filed as soon as this week, the newspaper said, citing the people.

An ex-BP worker is accusing his former employer of manipulating gas prices.

Drew Sickinger, BP’s former head of gas liquids trading, is suing the gas giant, claiming that the company fired him so that it could manipulate the market and gouge prices, according to Bloomberg. The suit doesn’t specify how BP allegedly manipulated prices, only noting that the company tried to establish a dominant and controlling position in the market.

Let us happily bid a not-so-fond farewell—is good riddance too strong a term?—to Hillary Clinton, who for the past four years has represented the hawkish end of the Obama administration.

Latest evidence: The New York Times post-Clinton evaluation of her tenure that reveals, for the first time, that Clinton joined former CIA Director David Petraeus is a proposal to get the United States directly involved in arming and training the Syrian rebels.

To me, there are few more comforting sights on a farm or in a garden than a frog hopping about amid the crops. Frogs and other amphibians don't just look and sound cool—they also feast upon the insects that feast upon the plants we eat. These bug-scarfing creatures are a free source of what is known as biological pest control.

But modern industrial agriculture doesn't have much use for them. It leans on chemistry, not biology, to control pests—and in doing so, it's probably contributing to the catastrophic global decline of amphibians, a natural ally to farmers for millennia. The irony is stark: In industrial agriculture's zeal to wipe out pests, it is helping to wipe out those pests' natural predators. The latest evidence: a new study showing that exposure to common pesticides at levels used in farm fields can kill frogs rapidly.

A few weeks ago, the Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity, the Koch-backed conservative advocacy group, held a "citizen watchdog training" in a suburb of Detroit. The training was billed as a workshop for regular folks to learn "the best tools and techniques in investigative journalism, social media, and opposition research." Featured speakers—including local activists, conservative state legislators, and Scott Hagerstrom, AFP-Michigan's director—would also speak about efforts to "reform" Michigan's schools.

VANCOUVER - The contention that federal voting laws requiring all people to present identification at the ballot box could deny society's most vulnerable people from ticking their preferred candidate will be put to the test for a second time, Monday in British Columbia's highest court.

Two anti-poverty activists and a visually impaired woman who couldn't find the proper ID to vote in the last federal election are appealing a B.C. Supreme Court ruling that found the current law only presents a "minor inconvenience" for most.

PRINCE RUPERT, B.C. - Coastal First Nations have left the federal review of the Northern Gateway pipeline plan, saying they've run out of money and patience.

Executive director Art Sterritt has told the panel the group representing nine aboriginal bands from the B.C. coast and Haida Gwaii has spent more than three times the amount of funding allotted by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency four years ago.

TORONTO - Royal Bank (TSX:RY) chief executive Gord Nixon received a pay increase last year after taking a million-dollar pay cut in 2011.

The CEO earned $12.6 million in 2012, marking a raise from $10.1 million in 2011, according to the bank's annual disclosure released Monday.

Last year, as the F-35 fighter procurement process began to fall apart, troubling questions emerged concerning how good a job the military was doing keeping its civilian masters in-the-know. Now, a new report has raised that troubling question again. Our civilian leaders can’t run the military if they don’t understand what’s going on inside it. And there’s reason to question whether they do.

Our military is impressive, but small. Most Canadians will never serve in it, will have no relatives in the military and will have no close friends in uniform. The military remains a vital part of Canadian society in some parts of the country (near bases, mainly). But most of us don’t know much about it, and that includes politicians.

Reducing violent crimes against children and strengthening the rights of victims in the justice system will be the priorities for the Harper government's criminal justice agenda in the coming months, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said today.

Victims' rights advocate Sheldon Kennedy and Ontario Provincial Police deputy commissioner Vince Hawkes joined Nicholson for a roundtable in Toronto to promote the government's next steps, which appear focused on several familiar themes.

It was mid-morning in the village of Datta Khel, in Pakistan’s remote North Waziristan, when tribal leader Daud Khan arrived to chair a town-hall meeting on a local mining dispute.

He was joined by about 50 leaders from nearby communities, seated in the bus terminal they had chosen as a safe place — so open it would be ignored by the deadly drones that buzzed overhead in pursuit of local Al Qaeda militants.

WASHINGTON—Of the many faces of Barack Obama, none is more sobering than that of the Assassin-in-Chief, commander of the deadly drones.

Obama did not start the War On Terror, nor does his administration even use the phrase anymore. But under his watch, the shadowy campaign to decapitate Al Qaeda anywhere, anytime, with unmanned aerial robots has grown exponentially.

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath’s call to slash auto insurance premiums by 15 per cent by year end was met with scorn by the Ontario insurance industry.

“The NDP’s math has always been wonky to begin with,” Pete Karageorgos, manager of consumer and industry relations for the Insurance Bureau of Canada (Ontario), told the Star.

He said a hit of 15 per cent could means layoffs in an industry that employs about 77,000 in Ontario.

Like many advocates of financial reform, I was a bit disappointed in the bill that finally emerged. Dodd-Frank gave regulators the power to rein in many financial excesses; but it was and is less clear that future regulators will use that power. As history shows, the financial industry’s wealth and influence can all too easily turn those who are supposed to serve as watchdogs into lap dogs instead.

There was, however, one piece of the reform that was a shining example of how to do it right: the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, a stand-alone agency with its own funding, charged with protecting consumers against financial fraud and abuse. And sure enough, Senate Republicans are going all out in an attempt to kill that bureau.

DAMASCUS, Syria -- A top Iranian official visiting Damascus on Monday said Israel will regret its "latest aggression" on Syria and said the entire Muslim world should be ready to defend the Syrian people.

Saeed Jalili, the head of Iran's National Security Council, also said Iran supports any initiative for dialogue between President Bashar Assad and his opponents to end the civil war in Syria, but insisted that any talks be held in the Syrian capital, Damascus.

Qualified miners passed over; union

VANCOUVER -- A mining company that was granted permits to bring 201 temporary foreign workers from China rejected multiple Canadian applicants who had exemplary qualifications, including one person with 30 years experience, say two trades unions after reviewing hundreds of refused resumés.

The unions have been fighting HD Mining in court over the firm's insistence there was never a supply of qualified or interested Canadians in doing the work at the Murray River coal project near Tumbler Ridge, in northern British Columbia.

A bronze statue of Chen Yi, China’s former foreign minister and ex-Mayor of Shanghai, gazes down the Bund, along the city’s bustling waterfront.

Tourists, probably mistaking Chen for Mao-Tse Tung, capture the old Communist’s likeness, against the backdrop of Pudong, the brash city of sky-scrapers across the Huangpu river.

Canada isn't living up to its potential or its reputation when it comes to societal issues like poverty, government and inequality, according to the Conference Board of Canada.

The group gave Canada a 'B', good for a 7th place ranking out of 17 developed countries, but it said the "middle-of-the-pack" ranking leaves room for improvement.

Getting an 'A' at the top of the rankings were the Scandinavian nations (Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland) as well as the Netherlands and Austria. At the bottom were Japan and the U.S., both getting a 'D' ranking.

Canada’s autopilot political culture

It’s time to get real about what we expect from our democracy and ourselves.

Canada isn’t a democracy — not in the sense that many of us think it is. While we expect a system built for immediate response to our whims and full attention to our fickle demands, our democracy isn’t designed that way. Thus, when our political attention is temporarily piqued and we bother to engage in civic life, our imaginations get ahead of our political system, running wild with dreams of participatory democracy, instant change, and responsive and productive dialogue.

Nowadays, it’s common to be told ten times a day that there is a “must-read” which turns out to have been decidedly optional.

But for anyone interested in Canada’s fiscal and economic future, this piece published in iPolitics last week is worth reading and re-reading.

Not just because of the content, but because of the pedigree of the authors. Scott Clark and Pete DeVries were long-time senior finance department officials, serving under both Michael Wilson and Paul Martin.

OTTAWA -- Conservative senator Patrick Brazeau is a colourful character.

He tends to speak his mind and almost as often as not, he speaks with one foot jammed into his mouth.

But his past skirmishes, including having to temporarily close his Twitter account last year after he called a parliamentary reporter a bitch in a tweet, seem inconsequential compared to the latest one. Last week, at a fundraising event in Ottawa for a local provincial Tory politician, Brazeau was recorded discussing the Idle No More movement and the hunger strike/fast/liquid diet protest of Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence.

Harper and the Senate: Without a plan

Stephen Harper’s decision to send a long list of questions on Senate reform to the Supreme Court of Canada — all the stories say six questions, but two are multiple-choice, so I count 14 — reflects an advanced state of uncertainty about how to handle Parliament’s upper house.

Since Harper campaigned for his job seven years ago on a promise to elect senators, and since he has had his majority for nearly two years but is only now asking the top court questions that must surely have preoccupied Justice Department lawyers since at least 2006, his decision indicates he is still improvising on a non-trivial constitutional file.

When it comes to playing the media, Stephen Harper is cheekier than Rob Ford in a thong.

Last week the PM made “news” with a series of tweets featuring the Harper cat, the pet chinchilla, the government limo, the drive to work and the office meeting.

Normally, tweeting does not require a production team. But these tweets were more like a promotional video than the spontaneous one-offs most tweeters produce (the distorted picture, the banal text, the lame joke).

The Conservative government has in the past two or three years forced the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to shift funding away from long-established development partners such as the Mennonite Central Committee and the Catholic Organization for Development and Peace. CIDA money has instead began to flow to Canadian corporations, particularly to mining companies active in the global South. Julian Fantino, the minister in charge of CIDA, thinks that’s a great idea but his agenda may actually be a kiss of death for those non-government organizations (NGOs) who have become involved in joint projects with the mining industry. The Toronto Star reports that many loyal donors to those NGOs are upset and they are keeping their wallets in their pockets.

In mid-summer, almost four months after the Quebec student strike of 2012 had entered uncharted territory as the longest in the province's history, Premier Jean Charest played his final card. With CEGEP students prepared to renew strike mandates despite threats of a lost semester, and the Special Law lying in shreds under the feet of a hundred thousand illegal demonstrators, Charest called a provincial election, over a year before his term was set to expire. On September 4, Quebec residents will enter voting booths.

There are two versions of recent events in Mali, which have emerged in recent weeks, each suggesting that the explanation for the takeover of the country's north by Islamist groups is terribly simple.

We wouldn't be in this mess, runs the first argument, if it weren't for the huge numbers of weapons that came into Mali after the west brought down the Gaddafi regime in neighbouring Libya; and if the US military advisers had not trained some of those who defected to the Islamist cause; and if the west was not secretly just interested in Mali's resources. In other words, it's the west's neocolonialism that is to blame.

Do France's objectives for Operation Serval, its military intervention in Mali, make sense? This question matters to everyone, not least to the countries from which France is seeking assistance. As the world learned in Afghanistan, to name just the most obvious recent example, if expectations are unrealistic foreign troops tend to remain long after any conceivable justification exists.

French President Francois Hollande seems to have learned no lessons at all from past experience. Mr. Hollande initiated the French military mission ostensibly to stop Islamist insurgents from moving south towards Mali's capital, Bamako. It took almost no time for mission creep to take hold.

A Brampton father has won a partial exemption from religious studies for his son but may still take a Catholic school board to court to win a full pass, as other parents across the province fight for a basic right outlined in the Education Act.

Oliver Erazo has been battling the Dufferin-Peel Catholic District School Board since last spring to obtain a full exemption from religious courses and programs for his son Jonathan, a Grade 10 student at Notre Dame Catholic Secondary School.

Canada gets an uninspiring ‘B’ on a new report card measuring social performance among a group of major developed countries, a ranking the think tank says means the country is “not living up to its reputation or its potential.”

Overall, Canada placed 7th among the 17 countries examined in the Conference Board of Canada's latest Society Report Card, placing it in the middle of the pack.

It may look good, but the F-35 Lightning II has some serious issues, and it has a long way to go before it can be rolled out for combat missions.

It's gone through 20,000 tests of its systems, but has about 40,000 more to go.

Despite this, it's not likely that the F-35 will ever be scrapped. As we reported back in November, there are simply too many countries that have invested time and money into the program.

Brazeau accused of using his heritage as an excuse to criticize first nations

OTTAWA — An area Algonquin chief says Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau should stop using his aboriginal heritage as a free pass to “tirade” against First Nations.

Chief Gilbert Whiteduck of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg First Nation, near Maniwaki, Que., said he will no longer remain silent as Brazeau unleashes a “parody of ridicule ... against all First Nation citizens,” most recently against Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence and the Idle No More movement.

He said Brazeau’s “reformist views” show a “total lack of understanding of the challenges facing First Nations” and that the “unelected senator” does not represent Algonquin people or Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, the community of which Brazeau is a member.

In an interview with CBC News last June, then associate defence minister Julian Fantino denied Canada's 17 new Hercules military transport planes are infected with fake Chinese parts, like the kind found on the same type of aircraft in the U.S. Air Force.

Fantino wasn't telling the truth — but he wasn't lying either.

Can world-class arts and culture offer hope to struggling communities, and incubate tomorrow's creators?

This year's Talking Stick Festival hopes to prove it from Feb. 19 to March 3, showcasing some of the country's best aboriginal dramatists, playwrights, musicians and dancers on a common stage.

One of the best-known acts this year is Sagkeeng's Finest, the three-teenager dance troupe from Manitoba who won top prize on Canada's Got Talent last year. Their community's fast-paced, traditional Red River Jig, is now a household name across the country.

[Dr. Warren Bell, a medical doctor in Salmon Arm, B.C., gave this testimony on Jan. 28 before the Kelowna Joint Review Panel hearings on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline.]

I am a family physician, in clinical practice for just over 36 years in rural B.C. As a professional reflex, I have a sensitivity towards the behaviour of others, and towards the impact of my own conduct.

While still in medical school, I learned that many of the most important influences on a person's health derive not just from what doctors do, or even from the choices made by patients themselves, but from broad trends in the community -- from the immediate neighbourhood right up to the planetary environment.

When I began my practice, however, the term "ecosystem" was unknown, and the term "environment" referred almost exclusively to a person's immediate social or physical situation.

The Parliamentary Budget Office’s high profile and level of transparency is deterring government MPs from seeking out the office’s expertise, leaving it at the disposal of opposition parties and contributing to its “very uneasy” relationship with the government, says a government backbencher.

“The office has strayed from its intended mandate which was to provide non-partisan, independent advice. The perception, rightly or wrongly, is that the office has become part of the opposition’s research branch. I don’t think that was the intent, but it just evolved,” said Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber (Edmonton-St. Alberta, Alta.).

The government says it has improved the lives of Canada’s First Nations peoples, but opposition MPs, who vow to keep up political pressure in the House, say the relationship between aboriginal peoples and the federal government is reaching a “dangerous tipping point” and that gaps in economic, health, and social indicators need to be addressed in a non-partisan way, starting with strong commitments in the upcoming federal budget.

Canada’s natural resources, are expected to be worth $600-billion over the next decade, and oil, banking, and mining were the top three industry associations to meet with designated public office holders, holding a total of 543 meetings last year between officials and politicians.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers was the busiest lobby group in 2012, meeting 217 times with designated public office holders from ministers and politicians to bureaucratic officials, according to the monthly communications records of the lobbyist registry.

The act designed to bring accountability to the RCMP in the face of sexual harassment allegations and a class action lawsuit involving more than 200 female officers, who accuse the Force of fostering a toxic working environment, will do little to improve the situation for women in the RCMP, says Robin Kers, national representative of the Union of Solicitor General Employees.

“It’s safe to say that the assessment from the public servants is that changes in C-42 won’t make a hill of beans of difference in the handling of harassment, sexual harassment, or many other issues at the RCMP,” said Mr. Kers at the House Status of Women Committee Jan. 29. Mr. Kers represents RCMP employees west and north of Ontario. The union has 15,000 members who work in the federal public safety and justice sectors.

There are nearly eight million words spoken in the House of Commons in a year, but they may not mean anything if Parliament is no longer relevant to Canadians, says a new report on democracy.

“A far more serious threat to Parliament than declining decorum is simply that the over eight million words accumulated over a year of debate may not really matter because Parliament itself doesn’t really matter,” says a report by democracy think tank Samara, called Lost in Translation or Just Lost?: Canadians’ Priorities and the House of Commons.

Ontario’s cash-strapped health-care system paid for two of Dr. Chris Mazza’s ski trips.

In a three-week period during the winter of 2010, the ORNGE founder visited two top western ski resorts at an estimated cost to taxpayers of $15,000, including airfare, hotel, lift tickets, registration at medical courses and a $700-a-day “stipend.”

AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas Gov. Rick Perry said emphatically Saturday that the Boy Scouts of America shouldn't soften its strict no-gays membership policy, and dismissed the idea of bending the organization to the whims of "popular culture."

Perry is an Eagle Scout and in 2008 he authored the book "On My Honor: Why the American Values of the Boy Scouts Are Worth Fighting For." It detailed the governor's deep love for the organization and explained why it should continue to embrace traditional, conservative values – including excluding openly gay members and Scout leaders.

At one point in Chuck Hagel’s bitter confirmation hearing, on Thursday, Joe Manchin, of West Virginia—a Democrat who admitted to admiring Hagel—asked how he had ended up in Vietnam. Hagel joined the infantry in 1967, when that was a dangerous thing to do, but had been assigned to a select and secret team that was trained to use shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles and was about to be sent to Germany. “And I just decided, if I was going to be in the military, it didn’t make much sense to go to Germany,” Hagel said. So he asked to be sent to Vietnam:

The office was a bit quiet. They put me in a holding room. They brought priests, rabbis, ministers, psychiatrists. All came in to examine me, thinking that I was—something was wrong, I was running away from something or I had killed somebody. After two days of testing me to see if I was O.K., they held me, which I scrubbed barracks for five days before they could cut new orders.

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- Online activists in Saudi Arabia are calling for harsher punishments for child abuse after reports that a prominent cleric received only a light sentence after confessing to the beating death of his 5-year-old daughter.

The social media campaign gaining momentum Sunday is the latest attempt to use the Internet to pressure the kingdom's ultraconservative rulers.

Saudi media reports say Fayhan al-Ghamdi, a frequent guest on Islamic TV programs, was arrested in November on charges of killing the girl. The reports said he questioned the child's virginity.

Saudi media say he was freed last week after serving a short prison term and agreeing to pay $50,000 in "blood money" to avoid a possible death sentence.

The money was presumably offered to the girl's mother or other relatives.

Original Article
Source: huffingtonpost.com
Author: AP

Mounties snooped on Occupy protesters in nation's capital: documents

OTTAWA - The Mounties compiled a dossier on the Occupy Ottawa movement, scouring social media sites and even quizzing campus security after protesters held planning sessions at a university, newly released documents show.

Meeting notes show there were also plans to monitor the Confederation Park protest site using a camera mounted to the nearby offices of the National Capital Commission.

And the attacks on our abortion rights continue

the regina mom is getting rather sick and tired of the anti-abortion crowd's attacks on women's reproductive rights. They don't have a leg to stand on, and they know it, so they come out with backdoor attempts, overloaded with emotion, to restrict our access to a basic medical procedure.

This from MPs Vellacott, Benoit and Lizon, which really digs into the glurge, is the latest attempt. The Sixth Estate takes it down quite handily. Vellacott's attack follows a long string of attacks including the recently defeated Motion 312, the oft-introduced, many-named and always-defeated Bill C-537 as well as the also-defeated Bill C-484, to name a few, from the "pro-life" extremists recent years.

PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA—Loudspeakers blare choral hymns while plumes of incense smoke twist into the blinding afternoon sky. Under the ever-watchful eyes of the four-faced spire crowning the Royal Palace’s opulent throne hall, saffron-robed monks, white-clad nuns and mourners all pray for the soul of his late majesty, King-Father Norodom Sihanouk.

“He only thought about his country,” says Doung Samneang, 59, with tears in her eyes. Upon hearing of Sihanouk’s death on Oct. 15, Samneang travelled more than 300 kilometres to the capital, where she has been keeping a vigil in front of the palace.

Born on Feb. 4, 1913, today would have been Rosa Parks’ 100th birthday. On Dec. 1, 1955, Parks refused to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus in Montgomery, Alabama. Her act of resistance led to a 13-month boycott of the Montgomery bus system that would help spark the civil rights movement. Today we spend the hour looking at Rosa Parks’ life with historian Jeanne Theoharis, author of the new book, "The Rebellious Life of Mrs. Rosa Parks." Often described as a tired seamstress, no troublemaker, Parks was in fact a dedicated civil-rights activist involved with the movement long before and after her historic action on the Montgomery bus. "Here we have, in many ways, one of the most famous Americans of the 20th century, and yet treated as children’s book hero," Theoharis says. "We diminish her legacy making it about a single day, a single act, as opposed to the rich and lifelong history of resistance that was actually who Rosa Parks was."

Video
Source: Democracy Now!
Author: -