Mother Jones: Lie by lie

Here's an interesting chronicle of lies by the Bush administration as detailed by Mother Jones, a publication that promises "smart, fearless journalism."

According to the MJ website, MJ is produced by Foundation for National Progress.

"The mission of the Foundation for National Progress (FNP) is to produce revelatory journalism that in its power and reach seeks to inform and inspire a more just and democratic world.

"The Foundation for National Progress (FNP) was established in 1975. The FNP publishes Mother Jones magazine, MotherJones.com, and directs the Mother Jones Investigative Reporting Internship."

I wish I knew more about Mother Jones, if anyone does, please send in your comments.

Anyone who drops by this blog or Write Passages, knows I periodically post humorous articles from the Onion.

Here is a link to a 2003 Onion article on the Iraq War from Mother Jones: Is the Onion Smarter Than the Entire Foreign Policy Establishment?

Enjoy!

Colleen

The Amnesty meeting

I met with two of the leads from Amnesty International yesterday. It was a purposeful, productive and positive meeting -- two things you can't always say about meetings.

First, I should explain how AI is set up here in NS/NB.

There is one regional coordinator who is paid for two days a week. She, as you may have guessed, logs many more hours as a volunteer. As a matter of fact, she volunteered full-time for some years before AI was able to fund her position part-time. This is the only paid position to take care of two provinces. The coordinator's right-hand is a volunteer who has been working many long hours for AI for six years (and counting.)

The organisation relies very heavily on volunteers. As many of these are university and college students, you can get a sense of what membership turnover is like.

From a communication perspective, we have decided to focus on three areas over the next year.

1. Image building: AI gets little media coverage and is known as the organization with the people who stand on street corners asking people to sign things. Not a great position. We need to change that.
2. Creating stellar media and public awareness campaigns for 3 to 4 key events during the year to generate an image of professionalism of AI among the media and to highlight key dates. (The Nov. 25 to Dec. 10 corridor is important. Beginning with the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and ending with International Human Rights Day, there are key opportunities to generate media and public interest.)
3. Creating templates or samples of various media and promotional items to help local groups do a better job of promoting their events.

In addition, I have emphasized my desire to be involved in Native issues. AI has taken on land claims as one of their key areas of concern, so there may be opportunities there for me to do something.

Before I sign off, here's a stat for you. Did you know that anyone can be part of an urgent action network that saves men and women unfairly imprisoned? The way it works is that AI sends emails to folks on the network telling them when, how and where to send letters requesting the release of a person who is being tortured, etc. The success rate is about 52 percent. That means that 52 out of every 100 people are released -- just from letter writing!

That amazes me. That 100s or 1000s of letters or postcards landing on a desk can actually have the power to release someone from prison.

Picture some guy sitting there ordering someone to be tortured, letters arrive and he says, what? "Holy shit. The world is watching. We better stop this."

Amazing.

If you're interested in reading some of these good news stories, you can click here.

Today, AI is concerned about the safety of the members of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó in Columbia, whose leader was murdered 11 days ago. If you'd like to help by sending a letter today, go here.

Who was it who said the pen is mightier than the sword?

All the best,
Colleen

Amnesty International: If we don't do it, who will?

As anyone who reads this blog knows, I am very interested in First Nations issues and have attempted to offer my communications services to various groups -- all to no avail. Apparently, the while girl isn't welcome. And I get that. But I'm not giving up; I will continue to try to find a way in.

I am meeting with the regional coordinator for Amnesty International (AI) this afternoon to discuss pulling together a communication plan for Nova Scotia/New Brunswick. The central issues for AI include Indigenous land issues and action on violence against women. Since Canada is not a country where AI volunteers are at risk, Canadians are able to work on Canadian issues. (In many other countries, AI volunteers focus on issues outside their borders for their own security.)

Maybe I have found my backdoor.

AI's Mission is as follows:

• Protect physical and mental integrity: Every person has a human right to physical and mental integrity: the safety and well-being of one’s body, mind and whole person.
• Freedom from discrimination: The right to enjoy human rights without discrimination - Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights - is one of the most fundamental principles underlying international human rights law.
• Justice for all -- end impunity: The failure to bring to justice those responsible for human rights violations is called “impunity” - and it’s one of the greatest obstacles to stopping human rights abuses today.
• Fair trials for political prisoners: Amnesty International calls for fair and prompt trials for all political prisoners - or else their release from prison. Amnesty does not work for fair trials in most criminal cases, unless the accusation of having committed an “ordinary” crime is an excuse for political imprisonment.
• Protect refugees: There are many different circumstances that lead people to seek refuge. Amnesty International’s refugee work is focused on people who are escaping human rights violations associated with our mission.
• Abolish the death penalty: Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception.
• End political killings: Political killings are extrajudicial executions - that is, killings outside the official legal system. They are unlawful and deliberate.
• End disappearances: The term “disappearance” is used when a person is detained or kidnapped by government agents, and where the authorities then deny they are detaining the person or know of their whereabouts. “Disappeared” individuals are often tortured or killed.
• Stop torture: Amnesty International condemns torture in all cases. One of our key goals is to see torture abolished.

One of Amnesty's missions in Canada is at Grassy Narrows (Reference was made to this issue in a comment by fellow-blogger Katou here.)

From the IA website:

"The flooding of their lands. The poisoning of their waters. And now the clear cutting of their traditional hunting and trapping territories.

"The people of Grassy Narrows — an Anishnabe community in northwest Ontario, Canada — have repeatedly suffered the impact of government decisions made without their consent, or even adequate consultation.

"In 2002, community members launched a blockade to stop logging in the area. The blockade, which still stands, is now one of the longest running Indigenous land protests in Canadian history.

"In January, 2007, the community called for a moratorium on further logging or granting of licenses in the area"

You can read about Grassy Narrows here including a historical perspective.

I'll be blogging about my activities with AI over the coming months and seeking a way to work on the issues closest to my heart.

Colleen

The Ambassador of the St. Lawrence

I made the rare decision to watch the national news on CBC tonight and wanted to share this story with you.

On the surface, it's the story of one of the 46 survivors of three US ships thrown off course in a deadly storm and wrecked off the coast of Newfoundland in 1942. It's a tale of bravery and compassion of the residents who risked their lives to save these men, but most of all, it's a story that tells us how racism impacts those who face bigotry.

Lanier Phillips was the grandson of slaves and was raised in Georgia in 1923, in a town ruled by the Klan. Mr. Phillips saw Klansmen ride through his town once a week firing off their pistols and terrorizing people in their homes. In 1929, the Klan burned down the only school for black children.

To escape this life, Phillips joined the Navy, but attitudes there wasn't much different. The Navy was still segregated and African American sailors were only allowed to be messmen, carrying out duties too menial for white sailors.

But that's just to give a bit of background. Here's where the story starts to get interesting.

Phillips was was stationed aboard USS Truxton which along with two other Navy ships ran aground in the storm. One ship was re-floated, but the Truxton and the other ship were broken apart.

"We were about two-hundred yards from shore," he is quoted as saying in an article by Jeff Edwards. "The waves would pick the ship up and slam it down into the rocks. It just broke in two, like you would take a pencil and snap it in half. Crude oil was everywhere. Everybody was covered in oil. It was twenty below zero, and the oil just jelled. It was like tar."

The men didn't know where they were and supposed they might be off the coast of Iceland. The black sailors where warned not to put to shore as they would certainly be lynched if they did.

Phillips decided to take his chances in the last life boat. The other black sailors stayed with the boat and died.

When the survivors reached the shore, they found themselves at the base of a steep cliff covered with ice. One man had the strength to reach the top where he went for help and the villagers of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland rappelled down the sides of the cliff to bring the men to safety.

As was the case with all the white sailors, Phillips was taken into a home and cared for by the women there. White women. As one washed the oil from his skin, she said that she couldn't get the oil from his pores.

"That's my skin," he tried to tell her realizing that she had never seen a black person before.

What was astounding to Phillips what that here he was being cared for with kindness in the home of a white family. Laying in a white family's bed. Eating soup made for him by white hands.

And something changed in him.

For the first time, he realized that he was a person of value. His perspective of himself and his potential were lifted.

Seventeen years after his ordeal, he fought the Navy to demand training. He become the first black sonar technician. He marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and, as a civilian technician worked with underwater submersibles. He continues to travel extensively telling people about his experience and his epiphany. And he tells them about the kind people in the small village of St. Lawrence.

A new destroyer was just launched, named for the Truxton, and Phillips was there. At his insistence so were some of the people from St. Lawrence including the mayor who spoke at the ceremony.

To the people of St. Lawrence, Phillips is their Ambassador to the world.

To me, Phillips' story reminds me of what happens when people believe they have no worth -- like kids in inner city schools who believe they can't succeed, or Native kids who are born from a generation of people who were the victims of the residential school that told them they were nothing good.

We carry our personal truths with us. They impact everything we do -- for better or worse.

Phillips story reminds me how important it is to speak out when we see injustice and to rally against educational systems that tell our young people that they aren't good enough. Like Phillips, people can do wonderful things when they believe they can.

Maybe this isn't a new story, but it's one worth remembering whenever we find ourselves in a situation when we may judge without knowing what truth someone carries with them.

You can watch a clip of the Phillips here.

Colleen

Sympathies to Professor EagleWoman

Wambdi WasteWin:
Hou koda. Toked yaun he? Uabida. Çia wowiyuBkiâ niye.
Colleen
(I apologize in advance for the crudity of my message.)

I would like to express my sincere sympathies to Professor Angelique EagleWoman whose mother passed away unexpectedly.

The following poem was written about the death of a brother, but I hope its message is appropriate and meaningful.


WHAT I HAVE TRIED TO SAY TO YOU

That there are ways to love the life you haven't had,
ways to forgive the one you have.
That while your brother wasn't killed
to test anyone,
his death is, somehow, allowed by the mystery
requiring our lives to have this
permanent pull at the middle.
Our lives are what they have been:
unrevisable, changed only in our responses,
if we are still ready, somehow, for the next day,
the next person, poem, chance, even prepared,
however unready, for the next death.
Can we permanently grieve the boy
without hating what has become of him?
What has become of him?
He has returned to mystery,
the same one that is our life,
mine and yours this morning,
the continuing shapes we never see
up there, this afternoon, tomorrow:
so he is already, ahead of time,
in everything we do. I feel it, often,
that I am living my life in part for him,
not permanently dead in us, but telling
how we'd rather he had lived than not.
Remember our game of listening in the park
to hear the woods fill up with sounds,
birds, mostly, from farther and farther away
the longer we listened. He seems now
especially to have listened,
raptly, eyes closed, as if to singing,
as if he were entering the song,
and like the way he usually walked
far ahead of us or far behind -
already gone to his own music.
When I think how long it is
since he has entered all silence,
it takes me by the heart to think
those sounds like light have stayed
in whatever we are left to be.
That songs we heard those days
are from the place he's gone away to,
a singing in the mysteries connecting us,
if we can stop and be quiet and listen.
(Easy, LSU Press, 1999)

Canada's Arctic

Prime Minister Harper -- I love using his name, because whenever I do someone from the House of Commons logs in to see what I've written about the man -- today announced "the construction of up to eight Polar Class 5 Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships and the establishment of a deep water port in the far North."

The reason is simple. the U.S. doesn't acknowledge Canada's sovereignty in the Far North. Every now and then, the U.S. sends a ship up there and we have to complain to get them to leave.

I guess moving all those Inuit families to remote locations with nothing to do, no economy, no wildlife, etc. didn't do the trick.

Maybe spending approximately $7.5 billion on ships, a port and maintenance

will.

Seriously, President Bush, do you really need all that ice and snow for a new military base? I know you want it, but do you NEED it?

If you'd like to find out about Inuit relocation, I've included a few links.

Sovereignty and suffering

Relocation anniversary

If you'd like to read the news release, I've included it below as it isn't posted on the PM's site yet.

PRIME MINISTER STEPHEN HARPER ANNOUNCES NEW ARCTIC OFFSHORE PATROL SHIPS

Canada’s New Government to move forward with deep water port in the Arctic

July 9, 2007

ESQUIMALT, BRITISH COLUMBIA

Prime Minister Stephen Harper today announced the construction of up to eight Polar Class 5 Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships and the establishment of a deep water port in the far North.

“Canada has a choice when it comes to defending our sovereignty over the Arctic. We either use it or lose it. And make no mistake, this Government intends to use it. Because Canada’s Arctic is central to our national identity as a northern nation. It is part of our history. And it represents the tremendous potential of our future,” said Prime Minister Harper.

These new Polar Class 5 Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships will be custom-designed and built in Canada, and will be amongst the heaviest, most versatile armed naval vessels capable of sustained operations in ice. With steel-reinforced hulls, they will be capable of operating in ice up to one metre thick, and each vessel will also be equipped with a helicopter landing pad. They will be able to patrol the length of the Northwest Passage during the summer navigable season and its approaches year-round, and will also be capable of full operations on the East and West Coasts throughout the year.

To conduct sea-borne surveillance operations in the Arctic, a deep water port will be constructed to allow the patrol ships to re-supply and re-fuel.

“In defending our nation’s sovereignty, nothing is as fundamental as protecting Canada’s territorial integrity; our borders, our airspace and our waters,” said the Prime Minister. “More and more, as global commerce routes chart a path to Canada’s North and as the oil, gas and minerals of this frontier become more valuable, northern resource development will grow ever more critical to our country.”

The estimated cost of acquiring the Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships is $3.1 billion, with approximately $4.3 billion provided for operations and maintenance over their 25-year lifespan.
The procurement strategy will conform to the Canadian Shipbuilding Policy Framework, which requires the federal government to procure, repair and refit vessels in Canada.

The Mounties have a new boss

Well, government has finally done it -- it has placed a civilian at the helm of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Canada's Top Cop -- as the position has often been termed -- is no longer a cop.
Why? you might ask.

Because the federal government says the RCMP is broken.

Further, the government seems to be placing the blame for the break in this august institution at the feet of former Commissioner Guiliano Zachardelli, or Zack to anyone who knew him.

Here's what I know.

From 1995 to 2000, I worked at RCMP HQ. I created the Communication Services Branch and became the Officer-in-Charge. As a civilian, I had rank equivalency as an Inspector.

The individual nearest to me in job description was given a rank higher although he was only a unit head and I was OIC of a branch. Sometimes, anatomy can do that for you. When I asked why, I was told by the good folks at HR, "Sometimes we make exceptions." My lower rank allowed me to collect overtime, which the higher rank did not, so financially I was ahead and didn't fight the glaring inequity.

But this isn't a rant about gender issues.

It's about a Force I once loved.

I was the speechwriter for the Commissioner and -- although I had already left the Force -- marched in the first-ever civilian troop to be allowed to participate in the change-of-guard ceremony when Zack took the reins from former Commissioner Murray.

It was Zack, by the way, who broke with tradition and permitted civilians to march. (We weren't pretty, marching in formation is tougher than it looks, but we tried.)

In the position I held, I participated in morning prayers -- the national morning briefing for the Commissioner and senior ranks. It is so-called because HQ happens to be housed in what was a monastery. I was involved in many, many meetings during a time when government cut-backs where hitting the Force and causing more-than-a-little pain.

Government didn't seem to understand that a police force isn't just another government department. The RCMP didn't understand how to deal with government bureaucracy.

The prevailing attitude in government was so bad we were well aware if we needed money to do something, we'd be told no before we ever walked our proposal through the door. The purse-string holders didn't want to hear from the Mounties, regardless.

I travelled some while I was with the Force and whenever I did, I always ponied up at the end of my work day to do a ride-along. You know, spend eight hours in a patrol car chatting with someone on the front line.

I was also consulted by other divisions (provinces) on communication issues and heard of the impacts of cut-backs on them.

Cops who had to go to wrecker's yards for "new" tires.

Patrol cars used in their crumpled states after accidents because there was no money to fix them.

Airplanes used for off-shore air patrols that where grounded.

Cuts to training including one graduating class that, when told they may not have jobs once they graduated, (previously unheard of) where asked whether they wanted the Force to find them jobs with other police agencies. They all said no and, in the end, were able to stay with the Mounties.

When the federal government froze employees' salaries for seven years as a result of fiscal restraint, the Force's salaries were frozen as well. The RCMP saw the salaries of their colleagues in every other police force increase and the RCMP was no longer the premier employer in terms of salary. Were they cops or were they bureaucrats?

These salary cuts hurt. One of the areas the RCMP police is around Vancouver, a city with a very hot real estate market. Our new graduates earned so little, I heard of those who had to drive up to two hours into work because they couldn't afford housing any closer to their detachment. (They worked 12-hour shifts, BTW.)

Government viewed the RCMP as simply another drain on the federal budget rather than a necessary value.

When 5,000 employees of the Force (regular, civilian and public servants) participated in an exercise to create mission, vision and values statements for the Force, the feds hit the roof. There was a statement in the mission that said the Force would look for new policing business.

The RCMP is a pretty unique institution. It is at once a federal force (akin to the FBI, the DEA, and scores of other federal enforcement agencies in the U.S.) while also being the provincial police in eight of ten provinces and all territories, and holds more than 200 contracts with municipalities across the country to be the local cops as well.

It is in this last role when tied with the statement in the Force's mission that caused the uproar because of a funding formula in municipal policing.

In communities of less than 5,000, the feds ante in 20 percent of the budget. (I hope I've got the number right, it's been a while. Also, this formula has probably changed since I was there.) The 80/20 split is done so that, if there is ever a requirement -- say like a large-scale disaster -- cops can be pulled from across the country to help out.

Obtaining more policing contracts, then, costs the feds more money. Eek!

It seemed to me, when I worked there, that this disconnect between the government and the Force was terribly devastating to Force morale and required senior management to be more concerned with breaching the divide than focusing on policing.

More and more civilians were hired in senior ranks to help bridge the gap. people who would "understand government and navigate through bureaucratic quagmires."

I'm not saying that hiring civilians is the wrong thing to do. I was one, for heavens sake. But I do think that in a policing environment, an environment not instantly understood by outsiders, it behooves senior managers to make an effort to understand their people and the jobs they do.

I do not know of an instance when this was done.

The federal government wasn't the only problem facing the Force and its front-line.

By the very nature of a paramilitary organization, those who rise through the ranks gain more distance from the front-line. By the time one reaches the rank of say assistant commissioner, ones policing days are maybe a decade or more in the past.

The issues I cited earlier -- such as the police patrol planes being grounded due to lack of cash --were vehemently denied at HQ. If they said they were flying then they were flying. Of course, it's not like it's really great strategy to let smugglers know you aren't patrolling, is it? So, it was denied.

Sometimes, the lack of knowledge about the realities of front-line policing was comical. As the OIC Communications Services, I tried to come up with ways to provide and receive information from the front-line in the days before we were all connected via Internet. Could we use our radio to provide Force news at the tops of each hour? No. Could we tape information and send it to detachments so police officers could listen to the news in their cars? Yes, I was told by my boss and senior cop. This might be possible.

Shortly after, I went on my first ride-along.

"Where's your tape player?" I asked hitting the hard plastic surface where the tape slot should have been.

"Are you crazy? We don't have those in our cars. We haven't even had air conditioning for that long. They didn't want us to be too comfortable."

Imagine what the scorn HQ would have faced if I had sent out the first recordings!

So, from my point-of-view, Zack isn't the problem. A symptom, maybe, but not the cause. The Force has been in trouble for a long time from forces within and without.

I only hope that putting a civilian at the helm won't crush what is left of Mountie pride and I wish the new commissioner luck.

I really hope this turns out well.

Colleen