Common Cause Anarchist Group Formed in Ontario

On September 29th in Toronto a new Ontario anarchist-communist organization, Common Cause, held our founding conference. Preparation for this founding conference had taken place over several months culminating in a speaking tour of six Ontario cities under the title 'Building a Popular Anarchism'. --- The conference agreed a basic policy document (below), a constitution, a structure for the specific conditions of Northern Ontario, affiliation with Anarkismo.net and a basic publication plan both online in terms of a website and a free printed newspaper which will be distributed in large numbers. The name 'Common Cause' was selected for the new organization and individual officers were elected to fill various administrative tasks.

In advance of the founding conference a statement of intent had been circulated which included "Our intention is not to build yet another small group of a dozen or so people but to begin the process of building an organization of thousands that will have a presence in every town, workplace and neighborhood across the province."

By the time of the founding conference we were still a long way from this eventual goal but dozens of people in ten Ontario cities have become involved with developing Locals in Hamilton, Toronto, Ottawa, Sudbury, Windsor and Kitchener-Waterloo as well as other members around Ontario. It is our hope this will greatly expand in the days, months and years to come. We hope you will unite and struggle with us to build a world free from exploitation, oppression, ignorance and war.

To continue story go to http://www.ainfos.ca/en/ainfos19943.html

INDIGENOUS ANARCHISM IN BOLIVIA

An Interview with Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui by Andalusia Knoll:

AK. Could you talk about some of the things that you have uncovered in your research about anarchism in Bolivia as related to the struggles of the Aymara and Quecha people?

Silvia Rivera Cusicanqui: We started as an Aymara collective that basically wanted to uncover the Aymara and Quechua struggles and we discovered that there were many links with urban Aymara communities that had organizations linked both to the indigenous communities and to the union movement, which in the 20’s was basically anarchist. What happened in Bolivia is that there have been two official histories: the official history written by the [Revolutionary] Nationalist Party—MNR—that basically denies all the agency of both workers and peasants and indigenous peoples; and the official history of the left that forgets about anything that was not Marxist, thus eclipsing or distorting the autonomous history of anarchist unions,

It's the links between the anarchists and the indigenous people that gave them another nuance, because their communities are self-sustained entities and they basically are places where anti-authoritarian type of organization can take roots. They don’t need this leadership that is like permanent leadership. The communities have leaders, but as a rotational thing that is a service to the community. It’s kind of a burden to be a leader for a community, you know? It’s something you do once in a lifetime and you do because you ought to do, and that the community says its your turn or the turn of your family. So, that creates a totally different relationship with power structures and, in a way, it decolonizes power and to a certain extent gives it back to the people.

That is what fascinated us most about the communities and, on the other hand, it led us to discover that communities were not only rural but also urban and worked with [1920s anarchist] Luis Cusicanqui and other anarchist leaders because they had such an affinity between the way they saw struggle, autonomy, domination, and oppression.

Continued at http://www.ainfos.ca/en/ainfos19906.html

I AM NOT A CROOK!

Álvaro Uribe , President of Colombia seems to be trying to emulate Tricky Dick at the time of Watergate. It has long been known that the Colombian right-wing is composed of death squad-organizing narcotrafficantes and the progressive movements believe that Uribe is one of them. Nor is this limited to “the left”, for the Defense Intelligence Agency, also feels the same way. To make things worse, Pablo Escobar's mistress has come out with a book detailing Uribe (and Uribe's father's) deep involvement in the “illegal” drug trade. The Prez denies all vociferously and talks of lawsuits. The New York Times has an article on this

See here.

For background information on the paramilitary-narcotrafficante right-wing see

http://www.narconews.com/Issue47/article2807.html

We should not be surprised in the least if Uribe is involved, for the War on Drugs is a scam. The people who benefit most from the drug trade are not the gangsters but the people at the top; the politicians and financial interests.

See this blog, July 19, 2005 THE SYSTEM IS A SCAM PART 1, The Illegal Drugs Fraud http://porkupineblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_archive.html

Ayn Rand on Native Land Theft

They didn't have any rights to the land, and there was no reason for anyone to grant them rights which they had not conceived and were not using . . . . What was it that they were fighting for, when they opposed white men on this continent? For their wish to continue a primitive existence, their 'right' to keep part of the earth untouched, unused and not even as property, but just keep everybody out so that you will live practically like an animal, or a few caves above it. Any white person who brings the element of civilization has the right to take over this continent.

So much for Rand's “libertarianism”, not to mention respect for property rights. Property rights are for “white” folks it seems.

Thanks to Red Jenny http://redjenny.blogspot.com/2007/09/why-i-am-not-objectivist-2311.html

CAPITALISM DIDN'T INVENT ANYTHING

This was written back in July 2005, but the issue came up recently in a posting in Renegade Eye Blog, so I am running it again...

Apologists for capitalism like to lay claim for all the good things developed during the last 200 years. Wouldn't have happened without capitalist entrepreneurs, they say. And this is the reason that these entrepreneurs must be rewarded with colossal salaries and patent monopolies.

Trouble is, with this happy scenario, is inventors don't invent to become fabulously wealthy. There are legions of garage and basement-based inventors, and none of them are rich. Some like Edison and Ford do become rich, but in the beginning they weren't and yet they still invented. Inventing is their art, and like artists they will do so whether they are financially rewarded or not.

While financially successful inventors become capitalists as a matter of course, few inventors are themselves capitalists to begin with. The most common source of invention in the 19th and early 20th Century was the skilled worker. Edison and the Wright Brothers are the prime examples. Morse, Fulton, and Ericsson were artists. Watt an instrument maker. Edison a railway telegrapher. Kelvin, DeForest, (radio) Farnsworth, (TV) Bell, Faraday, Davie were scientists. Eastman (camera) an office clerk. Ford, and Howe (sewing machine) were machinists. Cyrus McCormack was a farmer.

Note that all great inventions are connected with a person's name. Inventions are made by individuals (Or two brothers as with the Wright Brothers and les freres Lumiere) and not by corporations. Corporate capitalism invents nothing. It might buy out someone's idea, or adapt an existing concept, but produces nothing new. Corporations develop ideas, but in a bureaucratic fashion. This explains the poor quality and impracticality of so much contemporary design. (1)The old inventors were practical people trying to find the simplest and most workable solution to a problem. The bureaucrats are merely looking for a marketing angle or a way of cheapening the cost, to which they will cheerfully sacrifice design.

Capitalism, and this is well known, suppresses inventions if they harm profits. Way back in the 1830's steam powered buses were running across England. The coaching industry and railways crushed the steam coaches by getting Parliament to enact the infamous "red flag law".(2.) Nicola Tesla found a way to transmit electricity without wires, his backer, J.P. Morgan, pulled the plug on him and a campaign of slander against Tesla was launched in the newspapers. A tacit agreement among the Big Three auto manufacturers in the US put the revolutionary Tucker car out of business.

Apologists for the corporate system claim that capital's promotion through advertising and large scale production brings new improved goods to the masses and as a result brings the price down. But people know a good thing when they see it and don't need to be propagandized into buying something. No mass advertising was necessary to switch from flint and steel to matches, or candles to coal oil lamps and then to electricity. Advertising is mostly a way of getting people to buy what they don't need or to get a larger share of the market for a product that is in no way different from that of the so-called competition. (Think of Coke vs. Pepsi)

While it is true that an economy of scale is needed to produce complex goods like aircraft, automobiles and large ships, it really doesn't apply to most items and services. Does the world really need and benefit from multinational corporations frying hamburgers, brewing beer, baking bread, manufacturing cheese, bottling soft drinks, or providing janitorial services? I think not. The quality of these goods and services is usually much better when delivered by small or local firms. If you want good beer you buy from a microbrewery not Molsons or Coors. Good bread is only found at local bakeries, mass production bread is only fit for pigs. MacDo burgers are crap and Kraft cheese has no taste.

1. Things have gotten insanely and unnecessarily complex. Why should you need a manual to operate your car radio-CD player? Why did they abolish the on-off switch for cell phones and pagers? Why are "help menus" so unhelpful?
2. The law by which any "horseless carriage" had to be preceded by a man bearing a red flag. This law, which wasn't killed until 1896, effectively gave France and Germany a big head start in the auto industry.

To All Survivors of "Indian Residential Schools"

Public Announcement

To all survivors of "Indian Residential Schools" and "Indian Hospitals", and their families and descendents:

An Invitation to make History

The time has come for the full truth of the crimes of the residential schools to be shared before the world, so that those responsible can be brought to justice, and the spirits of the departed can be laid to a final rest.

Commencing on September 5, 2007, a travelling human rights Tribunal will visit many indigenous nations across Canada to hold public and private sessions where you can share your story and other evidence regarding what actually went on in the residential schools and hospitals - and how these crimes against our people are continuing today.

Convened under the land law jurisdictions of the Anishinabe, Cree and Metis Nations, this Tribunal has a simple mandate: to gather the proof that genocide of indigenous people occured and is occuring across Canada.

One of the primary aims of the Tribunal is to identify the fate and buried location of the more than 50,000 children who died in residential schools and hospitals, and arrange the repatriation of their remains to their traditional territories for a proper burial.

The Tribunal will open in Port Alberni, British Columbia, on September 5, 2007, and will travel eastward over the following three months. It will include international human rights observers from indigenous nations around the world, local tribal elders, and members of the media.

Before the end of this year, we plan to present our findings to the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York City.

We, the founding elders of the International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), personally invite you to to welcome us onto your territory and to fully participate in our work and sessions. We need to hear your stories and gather the evidence that will make justice a reality.

We ask you to circulate this notice to your friends and families, and to encourage your own elders to welcome us and participate in our work. Please contact us at the numbers below if you can help us.

We look forward to working with you to end the suffering and bring a true and lasting healing to all our peoples. The truth shall set us all free.

With warmest regards and in the spirit of our Creator,

Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind, Elder, Anishinabe Nation

Jeremiah Jourdain, Elder, Metis-Cree Nation

Co-convenors,

The International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC)

c/o 260 Kennedy St.

Nanaimo, B.C. Canada V9R 2H8

ph: 250-753-3345

(after September 4, leave a message at 1-888-265-1007 or email us at these addresses: genocidetribunal@yahoo.ca

hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.ca)

Our website is: http://www.hiddenfromhistory.org

Issued under the authority of our Hereditary Land Law Jurisdiction from unceded Coast Salish Territory, Turtle Island, 23 August, 2007

Prosperity Partnership Summit Denounced In Nanaimo

At 7;30 this morning at least 30 of us were strung in several lines along the Pearson Bridge in Nanaimo. There may have been more as some workers stopped to participate for half an hour or so before heading to their jobs. We bore signs denouncing the Prosperity Partnership (sic) Summit, that latest act of corporate state graft and empire building. A great many people driving to work waved or beeped their horns in support. I saw only one negative response. Most people took the leaflets. Participants involved included the Green Party, the Canadian Action Party, the NDP, Council of Canadians and the Popular Participation Movement (a radical youth movement) Since this demo was organized word of mouth and Nanaimo is relatively a small town, I think it was a success.