Monday, November 14, 2011

More on Iran's 'Nuclear Program'

Yesterday I wrote a post linking to an article by Gwynne Dyer that suggests the rush to judgement about Iran's alleged nuclear-weapons' program needs to include the facts and not just recycled data and hysteria.

In a similar vein, I recommend a piece called Another nuclear shell game, written by Ramesh Thakur, the director of the Centre for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament at Australian National University. Published in today's Toronto Star, like Dyer, Thakur warns that there is no new evidence of nuclear-weapons development in Iraq, despite what the International Atomic Energy Agency is warning.

Says Thakur:

The new report lists efforts by Iran’s military to procure nuclear-related and dual-use material and equipment; to develop ways and means of producing undeclared nuclear material; to tap into clandestine networks for obtaining weapons-related information and documentation; and to work on an indigenous nuclear weapons design.

Importantly, however, all these activities took place before 2003. There is no fresh revelation. Even the pre-2003 assessment referred to weapons-relevant research by Iranian scientists, not to constructing a bomb factory. Hence the startlingly wimpish conclusion: There are “indications that some activities relevant to the development of a nuclear explosive device continued after 2003, and that some may still be ongoing.”


Of special significance for the critical thinker trying to objectively analyse the information is the fact that the leadership of the International Atomic Energy Agency has changed. Despite the fact that it is supposed to be a neutral agency, as it was under the leadership of Mohamed ElBaradei and chief weapons inspector Hans Blix who, you may recall during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction there, the agency is now run by Yukio Amano, described in the article as Washington’s choice because he was “solidly in the U.S. court” on Iran, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable.

As if demonstrating his allegiance to his political master, Amano adds that there is no conclusive proof that Iran’s nuclear program is peaceful and he “has serious concerns regarding possible military dimensions to Iran’s nuclear program.”

How do you prove a negative? For U.S. and Israeli forces, the answer is a convenient, "You can't."

Sunday, November 13, 2011

A Timely Warning From Gwynne Dyer

Author, historian and journalist Gwynne Dyer is offering a timely warning as the world seems to be going down the same uncritical path to bombing Iran as it did with Iraq and its non-existent weapons of mass destruction.

Says Dyer, in an article entitled Iran: Here We Go Again?

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. The same intelligence agencies are producing the same sort of reports about Iran that we heard eight years ago about Iraq’s nuclear ambitions, and interpreting the information in the same highly prejudiced way.

Critical thinking is possible only with extensive access to information and the willingness to digest that information, something the popular media either refuse to do or are incapable of. I recommend a perusal of Dyer's article to those who want more than propaganda to guide their thinking.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

The Occupy Movement and Christianity's Core Message

Gene Robinson, the ninth bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of New Hampshire and a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, addresses the relationship between the Occupy Movement and the central message of Christianity:

Friday, November 11, 2011

A Blow Against Public Morality

Despite the conviction of the Conservative Party of Canada for the illegal financing of its 2006 campaign that brought it to power, a blow has been struck against, not for, public morality.

As reported in The Star, the sophisticated in-and-out scheme, masterminded by the likes of now-Senator Doug Findley, saw the Conservatives shifting "national advertising money, through wire transfers into and immediately out of local riding campaign accounts, in order to claim national ad spending as local." This illegal tactic allowed the party to far exceed legal limits on campaign spending, probably a factor in its electoral victory.

The public immorality resides not just in the act, but also in the punishment, the reason for the punishment, and the spin being placed on that sanction by Conservative Party operatives.

First, the punishment - a mere $52,000 fine.

The reason for that paltry punishment, which made no effort to hold the architects of the fraud, Doug Finley and Irving Gerstein, then-party director Michael Donison, and then-chief financial officer Susan Kehoe. criminally responsible, was explained by Crown attorney Richard Roy. He suggested to Judge CĂ©lynne Dorval that it was in the “public interest” to strike the deal that withdrew charges against them. The judge agreed, saying that an expected six-month trial “would not have made any difference” even if there had been convictions because the fines amounted to the maximum penalties that could have been imposed.

Legally, what the judge said may be true, but that failure to prosecute the perpetrators of the crime allows for the following, the spin being placed on the results by the Conservative Party apparatus, who call it a “big victory.”

“Every single Conservative accused of wrongdoing has been cleared today,” said spokesman Fred DeLorey, in a written statement afterwards.


Conservative party lawyer Mark Sandler said the party’s guilty plea is only an admission of “inadvertent negligence” and not an outright or deliberate attempt to flout the law.

The hubris of the Conservatives is such that even this judicial slap on the wrist is contentious as the Conservative party and the Crown still disagree on the exact amount that was involved. The Crown says the national party failed to report $1.24 million spent, while the Conservatives admit only to $680,000.

The biggest victim in all of this sordid mess is the Canadian public, once more being shown by example that immorality and illegality aren't really immorality and illegality, as long as you remain truculent and defiant in legal defeat.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Are Canadians as Fed Up as the People in Ohio?

This past Tuesday, the voters in Ohio told their state legislature that they have had enough. In response to a law enacted with the help of the wealthy Koch Brothers that essentially stripped all collective bargaining rights from public-sector workers, and despite efforts by the wealthy right to suppress their voice, citizens got busy collecting signatures to put [that law] to the test of the ballot box. On Tuesday night, the people defeated the anti-worker law, Senate Bill 5, by a resounding 61 percent majority.

You can read the full story here, but the question I can't help asking myself is whether or not Canadians would have been so vigorous in their defense of workers' rights here. We seem to place as our highest priority our own convenience, and when labour disruptions loom, as they did last summer with the the postal workers and more recently with Air Canada flight attendants, there is nary a word of protest from the general public when the government acts unethically by either imposing a settlement, as it did with the posties, or prevents the attendants from striking a private company by referring the dispute to the Industrial Relations Board (on the flimsy pretext of health and safety concerns) that ultimately led to a binding arbitration contract, the same contract, by the way, that the attendants had already rejected.

Given the ability of our own government to stir up envy and resentment amongst those who are struggling, I don't doubt that we will see a broadening of the definition of 'essential service' in the future.

And that, despite the demagogic rhetoric of our government, will ultimately serve the interests of only a very narrow band of Canadians.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

The Trial of Goldman Sachs

Even if you only have time to watch the opening statements by Chris Hedges and philosopher, activist and professor Cornell West, this video, a mock trial of Goldman Sachs by members of Occupy Wall Street, is well-worth watching. The array of 'crimes' committed by the investment banker and the absence of any meaningful penalty for those crimes are an ample illustration of the core truth being promoted by the Occupy Movement.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Why the Occupy Movement Has Relevance in Canada

Thee are many who assert that the Occupy Movement has no relevance in Canada because we have a social safety net and other measures that provide a modicum of protection to the most vulnerable. They also argue for the superiority of our banking system, which required no government bailouts because it is more tightly regulated than in the United States and other jurisdictions. However, those espousing this perspective ignore a larger truth about the relationship between the powerful wealthy and government policy:

As long as provincial governments and the federal government continue to lower corporate tax rates despite the fact that current rates are more than competitive with those in the U.S. and despite the fact that we have a growing national debt;

As long as government tells its citizens that some hard choices are going to have to be made (i.e., health care spending, federal transfers to the provinces, etc.) because of that debt and deficit;

As long as the poor are made to pay by living on benefits that keep them well below the poverty line;

As long as government refuses to even consider increasing taxes on the ultra wealthy;

And as long as the working and middle classes are made to subsidize the lifestyle of the power elite while suffering a steady decline in their own standard of living, job and retirement prospects, there will be a need for an Occupy Movement that attempts to speak for those who have lost their voice.