In memory of Hugo Chavez: Canadian Network on Cuba

The Canadian Network on Cuba on behalf of all its member organizations expresses its heartfelt condolences to the people of Venezuela on the loss their beloved president and leader Hugo Chávez Frías. Hugo Chávez was a steadfast fighter for self-determination, social justice and independence. His vision and politics went beyond the boundaries of Venezuela to encompass the struggle for dignity not only in Latin America and the Caribbean but for the entire world.  Hugo Chavez may have passed on but the ideals that his life embodied live on.

We express our deepest sympathy to his family, friends, comrades and loved ones. As the peoples of Venezuela and the world absorb this hard blow, this immense loss, we are confident that they will able to meet any challenge on the path to create a country and world as envisioned by Hugo Chávez a nation and planet fit for humanity.

Long Live the Memory of Hugo Chávez

On behalf of the Canadian Network On Cuba

Save Canada Post!

People's Voice Editorial

The latest sign of the drive to privatize anything that moves is the impending service cuts at Canada Post. According to the big business media, the crown corporation operates at a loss, so the only solution is to close more outlets, reduce deliveries (possibly to just three days a week), consolidate sorting centres, and fire thousands of employees. The public will be the big loser through this process, but it's also hard to imagine how the postal system could survive such a body blow.

Anyone who pays attention to postal workers and their union will realize that Canada Post management and the Tories are blowing plenty of smoke about the state of this vital service. These rumours and proposals come not long before the current collective bargaining agreement expires, conveniently just in time to try to bulldoze the workers who actually deliver our mail into submission. "They're cutting the link with the public and the citizens of the country," as CUPW national president Denis Lemelin warns.

The union points out that prior to its recent expensive "postal transformation," Canada Post made big profits for some 18 consecutive years. Was the "transformation" plan a scam to help the Harper government sell off Canada Post? And if that happens, does anyone really believe that UPS and FedEx will get packages delivered more efficiently and cheaper? In fact, these private operators already use Canada Post to ship items to smaller centres, because they lack the infrastructure to do it themselves. Just imagine the skyrocketing price increases if these transnationals take over the postal system.

To save our reasonably affordable and timely way to send mail across the country, we need to mobilize quickly against this threat.

Book review: So many reds, so many beds...

The Fruit Machine, used by the RCMP until 1969

Reprinted from Geist magazine
By Daneil Francis

During the 1950s the RCMP security service employed a machine to root out homosexuals working for the federal government. Individuals suspected of being gay were hooked up to this bogus device, the so-called “fruit machine,” and exposed to pornographic images. Their physiological responses were assessed and a sexual identity conferred. Once identified, homosexuals were purged from the public service.

Ostensibly it was the Mounties’ job to look for Communist spies, but since homosexuals were vulnerable to blackmail because of their illicit lifestyle, they too represented a risk to the security of the state, or so the argument went. More than one hundred civil servants lost their jobs because of the “gay squad,” which expanded its efforts beyond the civil service by opening files on thousands of gays across the country.

Clearly it was homosexuality that was being policed, not subversion.

In their new book Secret Service: Political Policing in Canada from the Fenians to Fortress America (University of Toronto Press), the historians Reg Whitaker, Gregory Kealey and Andrew Parnaby describe the fruit machine as “the single looniest venture” in the history of the security service. But they had a lot to choose from. What their book reveals is that any Canadian who has ever held unorthodox political views or even led what might be considered an unorthodox lifestyle could take it for granted that the government was watching.

(Link to a CBC story about the Fruit Machine - RY eds)

The origins of this intrusive surveillance go all the way back to Confederation, when John A. Macdonald placed Gilbert McMicken in charge of a force of special agents to keep a watchful eye on the activities of Fenian sympathizers along the Canada–US border. But the surveillance state really got organized at the end of World War I, when the Royal North West Mounted Police was remodelled as an internal security force—the modern RCMP—and deployed to spy on labour leaders and left-wing agitators who the government believed were plotting a Bolshevik revolution in Canada.

In the 1930s the security service was asked to fulfill Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s promise that he would grind Communism under “the heel of ruthlessness.” It was “open season on Communists and suspected Communists,” write Whitaker et al., as the political police rounded up hundreds of radicals and even deported a number who were recent immigrants. “They simply came and took him away,” said the wife of one of the men. “They had no right to do such a thing.”

Picking up the story two decades later, our authors call the 1950s “the deepest Ice Age of the Cold War.” It was not just homosexuals that the RCMP singled out for persecution; they also encouraged purges of the National Film Board, the foreign service, labour unions and universities. In a variety of ways, write Whitaker et al., public policy was made hostage to “Cold War fantasies.” Worse, they present a portrait of a country “honeycombed with secret informers,” people who were not attached to the secret service but gladly helped spy on their friends and associates on its behalf.

“What is quite extraordinary about the vast collection of dossiers on Canadians and Canadian organizations… is the amount of complicity shown by large numbers of people in police surveillance of their own associations and activities.” To a disturbing extent, we had become a nation of spies, and by the early 1980s the security service had compiled files on ten thousand suspected subversives and had made plans to round up and incarcerate them in the event of an unspecified “national emergency.” The authors do not go so far, but the picture of Cold War Canada that emerges from the pages of their book seems every bit as sinister as East Germany under the Stasi.

This is the hidden history of the RCMP, which until 1984 had responsibility for secret policing. Much of the story is already known, though Secret Service brings it together in a convenient and compelling synthesis. But it is hidden in the sense that it contradicts so much of what the public is asked to believe about the Mounties: that they are the stalwart defenders of law and justice; that they are respecting our rights, not undermining them; that they make the country a safer place. This version of the Mountie has been purveyed for years in movies, histories, tourist brochures, comic books and novels.

Famously, the force even hired out its image-making to the Disney Corporation. The result of all this massaging and spin-doctoring has left Canadians thinking that our souvenir police force was on our side. Yet behind the scenes, which is where Secret Service takes its readers, the RCMP’s agents have been violating the rights of Canadians from the very beginning of the force.

It was in Quebec where the RCMP security service finally came a cropper. During the 1960s and ’70s, agents engaged in a series of “dirty tricks” aimed at sovereigntists in that province. They broke into journalists’ offices to steal documents; they opened mail; they stockpiled dynamite to use in furtive operations to discredit separatists; they stole records from the Parti Québécois, a perfectly legitimate political party [sic]; they fabricated communiqués from the Front de Libération du Québec; and so on.

All this illegal, clandestine activity eventually led to a Royal Commission, which in turn persuaded the federal government to transfer responsibility for national security policing from a discredited RCMP to a new agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), in 1984. Which didn’t end the RCMP’s problematic involvement in terrorism matters. In 2002, when the Americans kidnapped Maher Arar, a Canadian computer engineer, and sent him to Syria to be tortured, it turned out to have been the RCMP that provided the dubious “evidence” on which the Americans had acted. (Arar was later exonerated and received an apology from the Canadian government, along with $10.5 million.)

CSIS has had its own problems, of course. Whitaker et al. call the cock-up over the 1985 Air India bombing “the worst intelligence failure in Canadian history.” But Secret Service is not simply a chronicle of police scandals and mistakes. As befits academics, the authors are extremely judicious in their treatment of individual incidents, and the result is a thorough, even-handed catalogue of most of the major security-related cases in Canada down to the present post-9/11 world. Few would argue—certainly Whitaker and his colleagues do not—that there is no role for security policing to protect Canadians from foreign espionage and terrorist violence. However, what the history shows is that as often as not, it is the police who have been the subversives, violating the rights of innocent individuals and legitimate organizations whose only “crime” was to challenge the status quo.

“What about migrant worker families?” ask activists from Guelph

Protest outside Diane Finley`s offices. (From the Simcoe Reformer)

Peter Miller


On Friday, February 22, Fuerza/Puwersa, Justicia for Migrant Workers, and community members from Simcoe, Ontario organized a rally in front of Federal Conservative Minister Diane Finley’s constituency office.

Finley is the Federal Minister of Human Resources & Skills Development. Last December, she announced the withdrawal of EI benefits for migrant workers.

Migrant workers have been paying into
 Employment Insurance since 1966, but just recently became aware
that they were eligible for E.I. special benefits in 2002. It is estimated that they pay 400 million dollars into E.I. each year.

Migrant workers have used E.I. maternal and paternal
 benefits to provide much needed support for their newborn children, Justicia For Migrant Workers explained in a recent press release. Migrant Workers could also apply to use the special E.I. Benefits to provide support for ailing spouses.



Tzazna Miranda Leal, a member of Justicia for Migrant Workers (J4MW)
argues in J4MV’s recent press release that “these benefits meant families could stay healthy, and in
some cases have kept children alive. We are calling on the Federal
Government to restore them immediately.”

 At the rally, protesters chanted and held banners. One large banner was also a giant petition that said “Restore E.I. Parental Benefits for Migrant Workers.”

 An estimated 30,000 migrant workers come to Canada to work in agriculture and other industries. Many migrant workers work for the agricultural industry in Simcoe County.

The thousands of foreign workers that come through the SAWP to Canada face many issues while on the job. They are often placed in rural communities which are extremely isolating. Workers can face up to 9 months away from their families in various countries where they come from the Caribbean, and South and Central America.

They work in some of the most dangerous industries. Agricultural labourers face exposure to pesticides, other chemical and organic additives, and prolonged work hours under extreme temperatures. They do not have the right to form unions or collectively bargain. Moreover, they get paid lower wages than Canadian workers, often working 12 to 15 hour days, six days a week.

In June of 2012 the Federal Government passed law that allows employers to pay temporary high-skilled foreign workers up to 15 per cent less than local wages. The new law also allows employers to pay low-skilled foreign workers 5 per cent less than local wages. Migrant rights activists say that this policy is highly discriminatory.

Labour leaders like Ontario Federation of Labour President Sid Ryan agree, and also point out that the policy will cause wages for Canadian workers to lower as well.

Activists plan to organize more actions against the cut to E.I. for migrant workers. They also have noted the importance of recognizing that this action so far was organized by friends and allies of migrant workers, and that as those working as migrant workers begin to return to Canada in the next few months, actions will be led by their voices and opinions on the taking away of their rights and benefits. One a member of Fuerza/Puwersa Guelph told Rebel Youth:

“In understanding this action, and understanding our continued work around this campaign, the most important consideration is that as more migrant farm worker community members start returning in the next couple of months, their voices and opinions around the taking away of their EI benefits will come forward, will take the lead, and be supported. Diane Finley cowardly announced the taking away of EI benefits during the farming off-season, while most of the migrating farm workers we work with are in their home countries, demonstrating how the government continues to disrespect and exclude them, it becomes so crucial not to perpetuate this, and to recognize that we work as allies, and support the recognition and confrontation of attacks on migrant workers, but they can speak for themselves”.

According to Fuerza/Puwersa it is important to recognize the continued risk  migrant workers face in speaking out, perpetuated by their lack of employment security and precarious status. Migrant workers are taking the risk as well as being strategic and coming up with ways to protect themselves while also having their concerns heard.

The Guelph-based activist group is looking toward the Justicia campaign where workers wrote their thoughts around the EI cuts on posters, taking pictures holding these posters while covering their faces. During the rally participants were holding these posters that were written by workers, and shared their messages in their absence.

“This is money migrant workers and their employers paid into the
system, now Finley has decided to be a miser and steal it all away,”
added migrant justice activist Amar Bathia. “Norfolk County’s
agricultural industry would not survive without migrant workers. They
have been subsidizing Canada’s EI system for almost half a century. Is
 this how we re-pay that debt?”


Fuerza/Puwersa stands for "strength" in Spanish and Tagalog. The group of community members in Guelph is dedicated to working as allies to migrant communities, and building awareness of the injustices faced by migrant workers in Canada. They believe that “all beings deserve dignity, agency, and the ability to both “move” and “stay” wherever on earth we choose, according to our basic and self-determined needs.”

The group’s activities include working as allies to those under migrant worker programs, including the Seasonal Agricultural Worker’s (SAWP) program, as well as the Live-in Caregiver program (LCP), and  raising critical awareness about issues these individuals raise.

On Valentines - solidarity with missing and murdered Aboriginal women

Rebel Youth has received this commentary about the crisis of missing and murdered Aboriginal women in Canada. We are reprinting it also in the context of the build-up to International Women's Day 2013.

By Darrel Rankin, CPC Manitoba

On this day of action for murdered and missing Aboriginal women in Canada, we are circulating yesterday's report from Human Rights Watch on the issue (read the report summary here).

It focuses on B.C., but the brutal racist and sexist realities are no different in this part of Canada, reported and unreported. (For example, see this "Letter from a Grandmother" we ran in the past - RY eds.)

This is a systemic problem, connected to the oppression of both women and Aboriginal nations in Canada by the dominant, English-speaking nation and Quebec, a nation which itself is in an unequal union with the non-Aboriginal "rest of Canada." Like war, the inequality of nations is an inherent part of capitalism in its late stage of development.

Solving the problem will require fundamental social change, curbing and ultimately ending the immense power of the corporate elite who benefit from all forms of discrimination and inequality, dividing working people and creating pools of super-exploited labour that drag all wages down.

(Extra: Read the YCL solidarity statement on the Sisters in Spirt campaign from 2011)

In serious denial, the largest oppressor nation (or its political, corporate class) doesn't have a name for itself, because it refuses to recognize the genocidal crimes it continues to commit. It calls itself "Canada," claiming we have a "multi-cultural" society with no other real nations, except Quebec which Harper recognized because it is an equal opportunity oppressor of Aboriginal nations. Je me souviens Oka.

Human Rights Watch is playing a useful role by helping expose the crude police state Aboriginal peoples are resisting in Canada, although I disagree with the role it has played in other parts of the world. (About HRW's role elsewhere, see for example here or here.)

The Aboriginal rights struggle requires the full solidarity of Labour and other popular movements. May Aboriginal nations win full rights and equality, and soon.



Links and related reports (with thanks to Eagle Watch):

• Full report
• Press release re-printed on Rebel Youth
• BBC report - RCMP 'discriminates against and abuses' First Nations women 
• Harper brushes off calls for inquiry into violence against Aboriginal women
• Documents show Attawapiskat gets 0.5% share of annual diamond revenues

Canada: Abusive Policing, Neglect Along "Highway of Tears"

Media report on the Highway of Tears

Human Rights Watch yesterday joined calls for the establishment of a Cross-Canada inquiry into the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls. Their full release is below. Rebel Youth reprints this also as part of a series of articles we are running in the lead-up to International Women's Day.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in northern British Columbia has failed to protect indigenous women and girls from violence, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Women and girls Human Rights Watch interviewed also described abusive treatment by police officers, including excessive use of force, and physical and sexual assault.

Who are the richest 1%?

Rebel Youth

In our last print issue we published a special discussion about the strategy and tactics of youth and student struggle and the Occupy movement by Drew Garvie.

Since that time the Occupy movement has not gone away but its biggest impact remains its slogans of solidarity and class struggle, about the 1% and the 99%. Some of our readers asked for more information about who, exactly, are we talking about when we speak of the 1%?

Helpfully, the labour publication BC Federationist put out a quick summary of a new study from a group of University of British Columbia economics professors.

What the report doesn't conclude is, of course, key in our analysis here at Rebel Youth: that the real 1% are a class because of their relationship to economy or (more precisely, the mode of production) not percentages of income.

As the saying goes -- their are those who work, and those who work them.  As such the power and influence isn’t just from having loads of money (which can also be obscured from census collectors and the tax man) but as a class. Moreover, monopoly capitalists don't make a wage. Instead, they make profits which come from  -- like vampires sucking on workers wages.

Still, the information is useful and striking.

According to the BC Federationist the UBC researchers found, broadly speaking, that income distribution has not been this uneven in Canada since “the dark days of the Great Depression.” “The ratcheting-up of inequality in Canada is real,” the 43-page paper says.

In Canada, about 8 per cent of the country’s total income was concentrated in the hands of 1 per cent of the population back in the late 1970s. In recent years, that almost doubled to 14 per cent, the UBC paper said, which is based in part on details from the 2006 long-form census.  Reasons for the growing chasm vary.

The wage gap between those with a university degree and those with just high school is widening. Younger workers are facing worse earnings prospects than a generation ago. Outsourcing, declining unionization rates and technological change may also be playing a role.

Here are some more of the findings from the study, entitled “Canadian Inequality: Recent Development and Policy Options”:

• The top 1 per cent of earners amount to 275,000 individuals.

• You need an annual income of at least $230,000 to be part of the top 1 per cent; the average income in this group is $450,000, compared to only $36,000 for the whole Canadian population.  

• One could safely call this a brotherhood — 83 per cent of those in the top 1 per cent are men.   

• Just 10 per cent of people in the top 1 per cent work in the finance and insurance industry (despite garnering most of the public’s wrath). Senior managers and CEOs are over-represented in the top group, but still only account for 14 per cent of top earners. The only other large group of top income earners? Physicians, dentists and veterinarians who comprise almost 10 per cent of top earners, despite representing less than 1 per cent of the workforce.

The paper was jointly written by UBC’s Nicole Fortin, David Green, Thomas Lemieux, Kevin Milligan and Craig Riddell for the Canadian Labour Market and Skills Researcher Network.

Fire Kevin O'Leary campaign hits News Talk 1010

Click above for a video of Rebel Youth spokesperson Drew Garvie calling out Kevin O'Leary and his agenda of 'Greed is good' from the CBC.

Fire Kevin O'Leary campaign hits TV

By J. Boyden 

Rebel Youth magazine's campaign called Fire Kevin O'Leary got a boost today from an surprising source. As the campaign approached 800 signatures on Friday night, the right-wing TV channel Sun News picked up the story as segment on its programme Byline. You can watch the show in the You Tube above.

With the major snowstorm hitting Toronto, I wound-up being the spokesperson for the campaign. Still, facing blizzard conditions a half-hour bus ride to Sun TV Montreal took closer to an hour. Things weren't made easier by the fact that, as far as I could tell, Sun News Montreal studio doesn't really exist -- apart from a TV camera and a fancy backdrop in an unmarked and tiny closet-sized like studio, all on the tenth floor of a major private broadcaster's building, TVA.

The trip to the media outlet may have been full of delays, but the interview went by fast.

Byline is a show that, in traditional Sun TV style, mixes far-right commentary with a few distorted facts that could be called stories -- or so its online detractors basically say. My conclusions and judgement were just based on what came first on the show.

I saw an 'exposure' of the Ontario SPCA for being 'infiltrated' by groups like PETA and not respecting animal-owners rights to privacy. I hear an amazing discussion about the CETA or the Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (called by some 'NAFTA on crack') and why it doesn't go far enough (Canada should just 'unilaterally' move to Free Trade, regardless of cultural content or jobs).

And then there was a discussion of the New York Times (NYT) vs. the New York Post where the host and guest talked about 'Media snobs', how the NYT 'hates Jewish people', the NYT is pretentious because it prints on large paper, women like the NYT -- and then the interview lifted-off with a sexist and homophobic rant that ended with a defense of the Sun Newspapers 'Page Three Girls' (now no longer on page three).

Here is a quote from the guest:

"I read the times because my wife is a women and they love that newspaper... They [presumably NYT readers, Media snobs in general or perhaps all women] live in a hoity-toity, elbow-patch, blazer-wearing world where women are not attractive. Why not have a man there? I don't know, have you ever seen males nude? Their not attractive, okay? Women are called the fairest sex for a reason, but they live in denial of that. They are just so determined to go against 40 thousand years of evolution that they make fools of themselves and all they care about is diversity mongering, and multiculturalism involving people they don't know, they don't live with, and they don't send their kids to school with!"

We will post that clip another time with some commentary -- your thoughts are welcome.

Seriously, however, if O'Leary's friends continue in charge of the CBC maybe this is what the public broadcaster will become?

Of course, the interview segment rushed by and it is too bad I wasn't able to hammer more of the basic points of the campaign -- especially better development on why "fighting unions with evil" is a type of hate-speak and provocation, inciting violence against working people for just organizing and demanding their rights.

Is "evil" a good way to describe the Postal workers being legislated back-to-work, the Caterpillar lock-out where the boss demanded a 55% wage cut, or Ontario's Bill 115 against teachers and students?

And consider the fact that, in Columbia for example, about 200 trade unionists are killed every single year. The exact time O'Leary was making his "unions are pure evil and must be fought with evil remarks," Canada was signing a free trade agreement with Columbia.

The full video is above, courtesy of YCLtube, or link directly to full screen here. As the campaign grows we will keep posting updates! To everyone who has signed, thank you for your support and excellent comments!

Official Trailer for Israeli Apartheid Week 2013

Featuring Rafeef Ziadah, Naomi Klein, Abir Kopty Salim Vally and Mbuyiseni Ndlozi
Visit: http://www.apartheidweek.org for the full international schedule.
The song is dark tunnels phil monsour.

Fire Kevin Campaign hits 500+ signatures in five days

The cold hard truth, Mr. O'Leary, is
that is people's needs come before
corporate greed!

Rebel Youth magazine is very happy to announce that in five days our petition to the CBC "Fire Kevin O'Leary" has achieved over 500 signatures from like-minded people across the country.

Although a modest success by some measures in the world of social media, for a small and basically volunteer-driven publication like ours, it is a big achievement. It suggests there is probably a strong current of public opinion critical of Mr. O'Leary and what he represents.

You can sign the petition here.

Together with the signatures, people have been sharing their perspective on why Kevin should be shown the door. For us, these comments are more rewarding than the volume of signatures.

"I love CBC and listen to and watch many programs, both on the radio and on TV. However, I am very disappointed that CBC keeps Mr OLeary on their airwaves. He is arrogant, rude and belligerent. I refuse to watch any show that includes him," says one commentator.

Another person added: "This guy is so offensive and so ignorant, it disturbs me greatly that CBC is featuring him in not one but two programs. I have stopped watching CBC television because of him. He is a national embarrassment and I expect better from my public broadcaster."

These sentiments are not uncommon.


You can read more at the petition site, but we've gone through the hundreds of comments and positive feedback we have received so far and chosen one or two quotes from each part of the country.

I am proud union member who is the voice for the people who cant stand up for themselves. I wouldnt be able to stand up for people without my union because if I go against the employer as an advocate I would be fired. Unions bring working people both union and non union workers up to a decent wage. Mr OLeary need to be fired for his attack on working people and unions
Terry Archibald  VANDERHOOF, BC

Great campaign to WAKE US UP. O'Leary is not "cute" or irrelevant.
Douglas Meggison EDMONTON, ALBERTA

Kevin O'Leary does not speak for the Canadian majority. He speaks for the 1% and continues to endorse the slash and burn mentality that profit over anything including human rights. He should have no place on my television.

Diane Taylor  SASKATOON, SASKATCHEWAN

Chief spokesperson for the vicious agenda of "money‑over‑everything" and "greed is good. THE KEYWORD is GREED.
Kerry Williams  WINNIPEG, MANITOBA

Working people have had their standard of living attacked and lowered over the last thirty years and Unions have been a part of that anti-worker mentality. The purpose of this? Reduce labour costs and increase profits for a few obscenely wealthy individuals and corporations. I especially resent even one cent of my tax money contributing towards paying Kevin O'Leary at CBC--a publicly funded media outlet. Get rid of him NOW! It's time to take out the trash.

Wanda Brown TORONTO, ONTARIO

Because we need less ignorance about socialism.
Ed Belk KINGSTON, ONTARIO

I had a draft to send to CBC. Your petition comes at the right time. I also hate the way he treats women on the panel and guests.
Louise Jarret MONTRÉAL, QUÉBEC

"Flambe the rich" was a button I use to wear when younger but Mr O'Leary with his rude comments etc. want me to look for it and wear it once again in his presence. This rude and ignorant union-hating bastard MUST be silenced NOW. Thank you.
Al Arsenault  SAINT JOHN, NEW BRUNSWICK

Hi is an idiot and disrespectful to everyone!!!
Doug Gaetz  LAKE LOOK, NOVA SCOTIA

His anti-union spiel shows a complete lack of information. he is a hate monger of groups who have strived to make the working class more comfortable and safe.
John O'Rourke  ST. JOHN'S, NEWFOUNDLAND

Sign the petition today! Click here.

Two types of corporate media produced by the ruling class: for the working class, and for itself

These two charts display the claimed viewer and reader demographics for the ultra-right Sun News TV station, which is currently trying to win approval for "mandatory distribution" from the Canadian Radio-Television Commission, and Canada's "national" English-language newspaper, the Globe and Mail. (Web capture done on February 5th 2013.)

Feature essay on youth culture and war

Peter Miller and Daniel Lyder

Tommy Smith and John Carlos

An oft-repeated opinion in the sports media is that sports and politics should absolutely never mix. If an athlete chooses to use his or her spotlight to voice or display a social or political opinion sports journalists, sports owners, and sports executives will often voice their disapproval.

One of the most famous examples of this is Tommy Smith and John Carlos. The two African American athletes at the 1968 Games were stripped of their medals for their famous Black Power raised fist salute, wearing black-gloves in civil rights solidarity.

More recently, at the summer Olympics in London, Damien Hooper, an aboriginal boxer from Australia, was threatened with expulsion by the Australian Olympic Committee for wearing a black T-shirt with a picture of an Aboriginal flag, while warming up in the ring before a fight. Hooper had broken the Olympic games policy preventing athletes from representing flags unapproved by corporate sponsors.

Fidel and Camilo Cienfuegos play baseball
as the team "Bearded ones"

Shut up and play

Yet there is an immense self-serving irony contained in the ‘shut up and play’ culture perpetuated by the media.  Sports are constantly used by right-wing corporate forces and the military to promote their own pro-war, aggressively nationalist and repressive agendas. Therefore, the truth is that sports journalists, owners, and sports executives actually believe that sports and progressive politics should absolutely never mix.

Iconic ESPN host “Big Game” Brent Musburger famously analyzed Smith and Carlos’ demonstration by saying at the time "Perhaps it's time twenty year-old athletes quit passing themselves off as social philosophers."

Musburger has never apologized for his remarks.  And the attitude hasn’t changed much since then.

Consider the incredible backlash against Miami Marlins manager Ozzie Guillen last year for simply admitting that he ‘liked’ Fidel Castro. Guillen was forced to recant at length or lose his job and was suspended for five games.

NFL 'salute to serive'

Military cheerleading

Yet anyone who’s watched an NFL game or the recient Super Bowl could easily attest to the open and unquestioned platform for pro-military viewpoints: from troop displays during the national anthem, to fighter jets buzzing over the stadium, to the bizarre statements and subsequent “USA” chants throughout stadiums announcing the killing of Osama Bin Laden and his family.  Their official website proclaims that "supporting the military is part of the fabric of the NFL."

In fact, capitalist countries like Canada and the USA actively use the sports "business" to promote the military and imperialism.

Canadian professional sports franchises openly promote war in conjunction with the mass media and the government. While the old Winnipeg Jet's logos (from 1972–1996) featured a civilian airliner, the True North Inc. new design explicitly pays "homage" to the Air Force with a fighter jet.

The federal and Manitoba provincial governments contributed over 11 million dollars to the construction of a new arena for the Jets to play in, quite a unique form of advertising.

Cherry signing bombs

Don Cherry

Perhaps the most infamous hockey ‘analyst’ in Canada is Don Cherry who makes a $700 000 salary, paid from public money, and uses his airtime to promote xenophobia, anti-Quebec nationalism and war during Hockey Night in Canada on CBC. In 2010 Cherry signed bombs and went as far as actually firing a shell when he visited occupied Afghanistan.  He later received an honorary degree from the Royal Military college (although not without protest) for his work supporting the war.

Unlike what the Harper Conservative government and Don Cherry would have us believe, however, the war in Afghanistan is not about justice or women’s rights. As Yves Engler points out in his latest book, The Ugly Canadian, the president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, has supported decrees from religious leaders in the country stating that women must be subordinate to men, and cannot be in public without their male partner or family member by their side.

This war, like all wars undertaken by the military industrial complex, has generated enormous profits for ‘defence’ corporations in Canada from the public purse.

The new Winnipeg Jets Logos

Case study: the war in Libya

Canada was ranked 6th in foreign military sales in 2009, according to the Federation of American Scientists Arms Sales Monitoring Project.

Perhaps then it is no surprise that the Winnipeg Jets’ new logo is a blue circle with a metallic grey silhouette of a McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet Fighter Jet above a red maple leaf.

This is the same plane used by the Canadian Forces to bomb Iraq, Yugoslavia, and Libya. In fact, the Winnipeg Jets military logo was revealed during Canada’s war in Libya.

Despite claims of humanitarian intervention or "Responsibility to Protect" (R2P) which is often heard during the military cheerleading at sports events, the Libyan War was pursued for the benefit of big corporations and oil wealth. NATO simply used the Arab Spring to intervene and interfere with another country’s sovereignty.

Libya had bigger than average royalties on oil corporations. Its nationalized oil company interfered with profits for companies like Suncor, Canada’s largest energy corporation.  And the Libyan regime was an inconsistent ally of imperialism.

The US-led NATO alliance thus saw an opportunity to influence Libya’s uprising and actively supported the "Transitional National Council" to further increase profits, secure a geo-strategic military foothold in Africa and the Mediterranean, and push-back against the inroads of Chinese capital into Africa.

Canadian Lieutenant General Charles Bouchard, officially commanded the NATO campaign signing off on every pre-selected bombing target.  15 Canadian Aircraft went on 15,000 missions and dropped at least 700 bombs.  On one occasion, a strike from NATO is alleged to have killed 47 civilians, and the total civilian death toll is estimated to be much higher.

Doctors Without Borders ended up pulling out of Libya, refusing to be complicit in the NATO mission and noting that they were actually treating many captured pro-Gaddafi soldiers who were tortured by rebels. (Gaddafi repeatedly called for a ceasefire, yet the NATO-backed rebels refused.)

Meanwhile, Don Cherry was busy praising the new Winnipeg Jet's logo.  "How could you do better than to honour the people who lay their lives down for us?" he told Sun News.

Canadian Forces Appreciation Night

Raptors Canadian Forces Night

Military cheerleading in Canada reaches beyond hockey and into sports like basketball as well.  On Saturday January 26 the Toronto Raptors held their 6th Canadian Forces Night at the Air Canada Centre. The Team and cheerleaders wore camouflage jerseys while pro-military programming aired during breaks throughout the game.

After the game, Raptors players, the coaching staff, and cheerleaders posed for a group picture with Canadian soldiers. Raptors and Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment described the camouflage jersey and Canadian Forces Night as a “natural extension of the Raptors and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment’s long-standing support of Canada’s military”.

The Canadian Forces Night was used by the Canadian Military to advertise it’s growing "brand." The Canadian Government spent 353.6 million dollars on public relations for the military in 2010-2011.

Advertising the military targets Canadian youth with commercials on television, ads on campuses across Canada, as well as recruitment displays at sports and public events. When sports franchises further help promote the Canadian Military with nights like the Canadian Forces night, Canadian youth are pushed to fall into a trap, join the military and become cannon-fodder for imperialist wars.

Positively, groups like "Hockey Fans For Peace" are taking on commentators like Don Cherry and calling on the anti-war movement to become more active and visible on sports issues, and in general.

Maybe it is time to flyer future Raptors games that have Canadian Force Programming and tell sports fans of the working class why it is wrong to support war and militarism.

Make hockey not war

Canadian Imperialism Flexing its Military Muscle

The Raptors game and the militarization of sports is taking place at a time when the Harper Conservative government seems to be constantly flexing Canada's military muscle. Canadian troops are still on the ground in Afghanistan. The Canadian government is also getting involved in the French-led and US-backed occupation of Mali.

Canadians are also faced with the threat of our country following NATO to go to war in Syria and Iran. While Canadian-based corporations do not officially have any direct investments in the country, Iran has a tremendous amount of oil wealth.

American and Canadian imperialist interests do not like that Iran provides oil for China. Canada’s government is basically lying about nuclear weapons in Iran to try to sway public opinion and start another war allied beside Israel, America, and NATO.

Despite claims of a 'peace dividend' after the overturn of the Soviet Union and socialist countries, military spending is 2.3 times higher in Canada now than during the peak of the Cold war. The Harper Conservatives ever-increasing military budget is being prioritized over public healthcare, public education, affordable housing, universal childcare, and other important social services like publicly funded recreation and, perhaps ironically, non-commercial sports, culture and physical activities.

Cuba's womens national volleyball team

Sports for a world at peace

While the Canadian Government is setting up military bases around the world, it’s the youth who are faced with a future that, for the first time in generations, is predicted to be worse materially than our parents.

Let us show fellow sports fans that the future does not have to be this way. Instead of joining the armed forces, let us convince the youth to join social movements. Together we can stop another greedy war by hitting the streets!

Progressive-minded and peace-loving people must not shy away from pushing back against the pro-military agenda on the sports field, arena, or court. Sports are part of popular culture and it is important to use this venue to get anti-war and socially positive messages across.

An important beginning is to recognize when anti-establishment political opinions are voiced by athletes, and to support those to the best of our ability. It doesn’t help that some of the most powerful examples of this is given no attention in the media or quickly drowned out..

Together, we can also promote a radically different sports culture.

Speaking at the United Nations on resolutions in support of sports for peace and development, socialist Cuba said that sports should "undoubtedly strengthen solidarity and friendship among peoples" and that for Cuba, after the Cuban Revolution, "sports ceased to be exclusive and became a right for all the people."

International Association of Red Sports
and Gymnastics Associations, c. 1928

Cuba has also condemned "athleticism that was purely motivated by financial gains," and "the theft of sport talent from developing countries."  "Let us invest in projects for the sake of education, sport and health”, instead of on weapons Cuba has said.

Officially, much of the past rhetoric of international sports and the Olympics also opposed war, like the "Olympic Truce."  The World Festival of Youth and Students traditionally holds an anti-imperialist soccer match at each gathering.

It is time that sports in Canada promote fair play and cooperation, as well as friendship, internationalism, and solidarity -- not militarism, elitism, or crude consumerism. Recreation, leisure time, and democratic culture like sports culture are rights and not privileges. Its time to stand up, together, for these rights and sports for peace!

Funny video rips up Harper

The British Columbia Federation of Labour Youth Committee have released this video featuring "Stephen" Harper tells us a story of a Canada without unions. Check it out!

Palestinian Communists say: Independence Now!

Independence now is the direct goal following the recognition of the state of Palestine as an observer at the UN.

December 30, 2012

The Palestinian People's Party Central Committee held its regular meeting which discussed in details the entire developments affecting the Palestinian cause at the present phase. The Central Committee also reviewed the changes in the region and their ramifications on the Palestinian cause; in addition, it discussed the step that should come after the "non-member state" status of Palestine at the UN.

   The meeting discussed the latest Israeli aggression on Gaza Strip which led to the martyrdom of 200 citizens, including dozens of women and children, and the injury of hundreds of citizens, and the destruction of dozens of homes and installations. The Central Committee extended a salute to the martyrs of the Palestinian people and wished fast recovery to the injured, and freedom to the heroic prisoners inside the occupation prisons. The Central Committee expressed pride in the steadfastness of our people who confronted the aggression, and praised the magnificent popular unity and solidarity of our people who continue to cling to their legitimate rights and reject all schemes that aim to divide our people.

   The Central Committee saluted our people in the Diaspora refugee camps, especially the camps in Syria, calling for more efforts to keep them away from the atrocities of the conflict in Syria and stressing on the need to protect them and provide them with relief supplies.

   The Central Committee extended congratulations to the Palestinian people on Christmas and New Year celebrations and the anniversary of the Palestinian revolution. The Central Committee discussed the ongoing preparations to hold the fifth conference of the party and decided on a series of organizational measures to this effect.

   At the conclusion of its meeting, the Palestinian People's Party Central Committee issued the following statement:

FIRST

The Palestinian People's Party Central Committee believes that the step at the UN to achieve the member status for the state of Palestine or attain the non-member status, and the Palestinian position rejecting to resume negotiations without halt of settlements and compliance to the UN resolutions, aimed to cause a core change in the rules of the political process and its framework; it also aimed to improve the Palestinian position in light of the current balance of powers and the peace process which was exploited by the Israeli occupation to consolidate occupation and settlements.

   The current Palestinian position aims to reach a new unified Palestinian strategy towards achieving the legitimate and inalienable rights of our people in self-determination and the establishment of the independent Palestinian state with al-Quds as its capital and ensuring the rights of the Palestinian refugees, mainly the right of return according to Resolution 194.

   The Central Committee pointed out that the success in mobilizing international support towards the recognition of the state of Palestine as non-member state at the UN aimed to achieve the following:

1- To stress on the role of the international community, mainly the UN, and its responsibility for implementing its decisions and achieving peace in the region, especially in light of Israel's rejection of any UN role and its insistence to reproduce the negotiations process according to the same old formula and framework which led to its failure in the past, and in light of the Israeli attempts to exploit the peace process to execute more settlement expansion and impose new facts on the ground.

2- To stress on the terms of reference that pertain to the negotiations issues in accordance with the UN resolutions and the international will, mainly to define the borders of the Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with al-Quds as its capital, according to the borders of June 4 th , 1967. Such an approach would block the Israeli attempts to consider the changes on the ground as basis for any negotiations process and the claim that these territories are disputed lands. In this context, the Central Committee believes that the UN and its organizations have to regain their role in any future political process. The resolutions of the UN General Assembly and the Security Council have to be the terms of reference, including the end of the occupation on the Palestinian state territories as recognized by the UN and recognizing the borders of the Palestinian state and its capital and to reject settlements in all their forms on the Palestinian state territories.

3- To reiterate the goal of establishing the Palestinian state and the unity of its territories amid the attempts to detach and isolate Gaza Strip from the West Bank, especially since the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from Gaza Strip, and through the intensification of settlement activities in the West Bank. There is also the Israeli scheme to Judaize Jerusalem and the siege imposed on Gaza Strip. All this is happening while there is internal split between Gaza Strip and the West Bank, thus endangering the project of the Palestinian state and regression of international support to it.

4- To reinforce the UN resolutions and invest their benefits in improving the legal, political and diplomatic capacity to struggle against the Israeli occupation. This can be done through developing bilateral relations and recognitions of the state of Palestine and upgrading the level of diplomatic representation, and through joining international agreements and treaties and in the UN organizations. Such efforts can reinforce international recognition in the state of Palestine and the rights of the Palestinian people; they also provide a chance to track down Israel for its continuous violations to the International Law and the international Humanitarian Law.

5- To refuse the attempts that aim to transform the Palestinian Authority, which was established as a temporary interim authority, into a permanent authority under occupation. On the contrary, efforts must be exerted to achieve the goal of establishing the Palestinian state and garner international recognition towards Palestine full membership at the UN, and end the occupation on its land, which is an urgent task of the Palestinian state. There is also a need to reconsider the agreements and commitments of the PA with Israel, and this must come to protect the Palestinian achievements in building the PA institutions on the path to build the independent state.

SECOND 

The Central Committee stressed that achieving the above-mentioned issues means that the direct central task of the national movement is the immediate end of the occupation and the independence of the Palestinian state which was recognized by the UN; all this must go in line with the struggle to realize the right of return for the Palestinian refugees in accordance with Resolution 194; therefore, the motto of the current phase is Independence Now and we have to mobilize all efforts of the Palestinian people in order to achieve this and we need also to work towards finding the Arab and international solidarity elements; this can be done through:

At the Palestinian level:

1- To start organizing large-scale centralized popular moves that can begin with mass protests and sit-ins until they reach massive demonstrations in all the Occupied Palestinian Territories. It must be a growing process that can create a comprehensive movement of popular resistance against the occupation under the slogan of "Ending the Occupation and Realizing the Palestinian State". It is important that Gaza Strip and Jerusalem are included in these moves in order to portray and reflect the unity of the Palestinian people around the goal of establishing the state. In order to do so, we have to unify the bodies of popular resistance and build a unified front for popular resistance from all the forces; we need also to form a central command for this front that assumes the responsibility of leading and organizing and guiding these popular moves at the central level. Poplar committees and bodies need to be established also in the districts; we can also gain from the rich experience of our people in the struggle and make use of the morale that followed the Gaza battle and the voting at the UN. This requires also mobilizing support to the Palestinian people inside the homeland and in the Diaspora, as the conditions allow in each area.

2- To accelerate work and end the internal split and build national unity on the basis of a joint struggle program and implement what has been agreed upon in Cairo and use it as basis to deal with all developments; to make use of the positive atmosphere that emerged following the aggression on Gaza and the voting at the UN.

In this context, the Palestinian People's Party calls for:

* To accelerate steps and hold the command meeting in order to activate the PLO; this meeting includes the general secretaries of the factions and the Executive Committee and the Speaker of the Palestinian National Council and some independent figures; at the conclusion of this meeting, the participants must announce the steps that aim to end the internal split.

* To form an establishing council for the Palestinian state on a temporary basis (it might be for one year). This council includes the members of the PLO Central Council and the Palestinian Legislative Council and national figures. This should be an interim phase until holding the Palestinian National Council and legislative elections and presidential elections.

* To form a national reconciliation government on the basis of the new situation, including the possibility of reducing the size of the government, taking into consideration the former decision of the Central Council regarding the Palestinian state government.

* To interact with all Palestinian people and communities and mobilize the potentials of the Palestinian people and activate the PLO role, including activating and holding elections in its unions and bodies.

3- At the Palestinian Authority level:

* To reconsider the commitments of the PA with Israel, especially in the security and economic fields, and in all other matters, including services, and start work to implement this according to a well defined plan.

* The PA has to focus its priorities on supporting the popular movement as mentioned above and support the steadfastness of the people when confronting the increasing occupation measures and offer them basic services in the health and education fields and amend the PA priorities and plan on this basis.

* To adopt an emergency financial budget in order to confront the situation and its priorities and recruit funds externally and internally and link the whole process of spending with the requirements and priorities of the above-mentioned plan and program.

* The elements of this plan are based on the following: collective responsibility for the financial burden and this means that the lower-income employees must not bear the burden alone; to support the health, social and education services and secure the minimum level of financial resources; to guide the legitimate popular moves against the occupation steps of stealing the PA funds; this must be a step and part of the struggle to end the occupation; to discuss all legal moves to hold Israel accountable at the international level; to achieve consensus on this plan with the popular sectors and this should be part of the current efforts to hold a socio-economic conference.

4- To start making changes in the PA institutions in a manner that matches the new status of the state of Palestine.

THIRD

At the Arab and international level

- To interact and communicate with the Arab brotherly peoples and their democratic forces and make use of the current transformations in the Arab world in order to garner support to the struggle of the Palestinian people.

- To focus the Palestinian efforts on boycotting Israel and imposing sanctions on it because of the continuous occupation, the aggression, the ethnic cleansing and racial discrimination.

- To interact with the international solidarity forces and the boycott movements and form a unified committee that can work with them in order to organize a centralized international solidarity campaign based on boycott and the decision of The Hague.

- To interact with the representatives of the Arab parties and forces and coordinate with them to this effect.

FOURTH

At the level of international agreements and organizations and diplomatic struggle:

- To work with the UN in order to end the occupation and cling to this demand and push towards imposing sanctions on Israel which violates the international law and denies all UN resolutions.

- To start work towards joining the international agreements that assist in exposing the occupation and holding it accountable for violating human rights and war crimes and for attacking civilians, mainly Geneva Third and Fourth Conventions and Rome Charter and other agreements.

- To join all international organizations and UN bodies, mainly the committees and commissions that work to support our struggle against occupation, such as the ICC; this work should be part of an integrated agreed upon plan.

- To activate cases and special meetings of the UN organizations, mainly to head towards the Security Council on the issue of settlements. To call for the resumption of the conference of the high contracting parties to the Geneva Convention. To call on the UN General Assembly to assume its responsibilities in the context of (Uniting for Peace) and other steps that demand from the UN to use its role and charter towards the end of the occupation on the Palestinian state lands and achieve the rights of the Palestinian people.

- To activate all causes and potential efforts to impose sanctions on Israel because it continues to violate the international charters.

FIFTH

The negotiations:

* The Central Committee warned of the attempts to push the Palestinian side to return to negotiations; this might undermine the success that has been achieved at the UN; the Central Committee calls for linking any such call with the halt of settlements and to abide by the international resolutions and secure that the UN sponsor any future negotiations on the basis of negotiations between two states with the aim of ending the occupation of the lands of the Palestinian state and resolve the issue of the refugees on the basis of Resolution 194.