My article in the Huffington Post: Recently, work took me to Istanbul to meet with the Syrian resistance. We discussed options for the international community to help bring an end to the Syrian war, by destroying the financial networks that enable the Assad regime to purchase weapons and finance assaults against civilians.
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Hugo Chavez died of cancer on March 5, 2013. He represented an ideological pushback against neoliberal globalization. He pursued a progressive hemispheric trade agenda. He raised oil royalties dramatically to improve the social capacity of people in and around Venezuela. He revolutionized and democratized Venezuela’s constitution. He attracted the ire of American imperialists who supported an amateurish, botched coup. And while we never saw the formation of Cubazuela or some kind of socio-economic cooperation that would elevate Haiti out of its status of hemispheric whipping boy, though that may be on its way, his legacy begins this week. Thanks (Read more…) The Canadian Progressive: Harper Government should consider options for Sea King replacement: ReportBy Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives | Feb. 11, 2013: OTTAWA – A major, deep-reaching report about the maritime helicopter procurement has just been released by the Rideau Institute and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. “The worst procurement in the history of Canada”: Solving the maritime helicopter crisis (PDF) was written by University of British Columbia political READ MORE 
 Advocacy, Canada, canadian centre for policy alternatives, Canadian Forces, Canadian Navy, Featured, Guest Blog, Harper government, International Relations, Maritime Helicopter Project, Paul Martin, Press release, Research And Study, Rideau Institute, Sea King Helicopter, think tanks, war and peace Close your eyes, and conjure up a mental image of the stereotype of the Ugly American. Loud. Large. Willfully ignorant of customs and countries that lie beyond the border of the US -of- A. Rabidly proselytizing the gospel of liberty, freedom and patriotism bestowed unto their nation via God and gun. A walking caricature of the values espoused by those who align themselves with political movements like the Tea Party, if you will. By virtue of social media, internet and television, the world has the increased opportunity to observe Ugly Americans in captivity, under a microscope. One such opportunity arose . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: America the Not-So-Beautiful: God Shat His Grace On Thee
A Better World is Needed, Alex Jones, anti-world government, CNN, conspiracy theory, Constitutionalism, democracy, Economics, gun control, Hitler, International Relations, Neo-Conservatism, new world order, patriotism, Petition to Deport, Piers Morgan, politics, Second Amendment, Society, switzerland, Tea Party, USA Twitter / suzhawkins: As settlers… #idlenomore …. York University’s Suzanne Hawkins is my hero today for showing us all this amazing poster that succinctly describes how us non-indigenous settler folk can stand alongside with the world’s indigenous people seeking redress for generations of racism and discrimination. Solidarity matters! Dialogue matters! Let’s make 2013 a year of reconciliation!
#idlenomore, A Better World is Needed, Activism, attawapiskat, Canada, Class War, Colonialism, conservative party of canada, Culture, democracy, environment, Equality, Family, Feminism, First Nations, Gaza, Gender Issues, Identity, Imperialism, International Relations, Natural Resources, Neoliberal Economics, Racism, Society, tarsands, Voluntary Simplicity
Early political engagement is a hot button topic for a number of us here at Politics ReSpun. As parents and/or political animals, we spend a lot of time contemplating methods of public engagement that would draw youth into political culture, and foster both interest and comprehension of sociopolitical events. Apathy and disinterest are rampant in our culture, and the prevailing trend of co-mingling pop culture and celebrity in corporate controlled news media is daunting. Is political engagement and activism a product of nature or nurture? Are those of us who prefer to spend our afternoons yelling at CPAC or . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Encouraging Early Political Engagement: I Have the Right to Be a Child
A Better World is Needed, Activism, Alain Serres, Aurelia Fronty, book, democracy, early engagement, Education, Equality, Family, Gender Issues, Health, I Have the Right to Be a Child, Identity, International Relations, media, Parenting tools, politics, population, Society, Talking politics with children, United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child, Youth Can you smell the indignation? Note the lack of commentary from the prime minister or foreign affairs minister. October 8, 2012 – The Honourable Diane Ablonczy, Minister of State of Foreign Affairs (Americas and Consular Affairs), today issued the following statement: “Canada notes the orderly conduct of Venezuela’s presidential election. “Yesterday’s vote demonstrates the commitment of the Venezuelan people to democracy. “Canada will continue to work with Venezuelans and our partners throughout the region to promote our shared values in order to create a more secure and prosperous hemisphere.” via Minister Ablonczy Statement on Venezuela’s Presidential Election.
No Related The provincial government has finally relented in its dignity-crushing stance of continuing to allow a developer to pursue building condos on top of a Musqueam burial ground. And while this change of provincial policy does not extend to a solution of land ownership, this is a critical first step to see the provincial government is not blatantly racist. I guess that’s a kind of win for them too. Though, a sad one. News of this change of heart came out around 4pm today. A Friday. And any Aaron Sorkin devotee knows that’s when the government takes out the trash: releases . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Musqueam Burial Ground Win Makes the Developer Look Brutally Ignorant What Has Changed Since September 11, 2001? W2 Media Cafe and Siraat invite you to a public forum on Monday, September 10, 2012, looking at Canada’s racist legacy, as we mark 11 years after the events of September 11, 2001. 7pm at 111 West Hastings Street, Vancouver. Invited Panellists: Kat Norris, Jasmin Zine, Abdhullah Almalki, Alnoor Gova and Imtiaz Popat Moderated by Charlie Smith, Editor of the Georgia Straight Kat Norris: Founder of Indigenous Action Movement. A survivor of the residential schools, she has been organizing against police abuses including the Frank Paul Inquiry. Jasmin Zine: Associate Professor at . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: What Has Changed Since September 11, 2001? “Before my father died, he said the worst thing about growing old was that other men stop seeing you as dangerous….Dangerousness was sacred.” Last night I watched Act of Valor. I liveblogged it so you don’t have to watch it. You’re welcome. First there was The Lottery, a dystopic tale of social gruesomeness that I encountered in high school English. It got me thinking. Then there was The Running Man and now the Hunger Games. Now we have UFC and reality TV and their bastard child: Act of Valor, designed to both decry a life filled with . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Act of Valor, Redux Last weekend at FooCamp, I co-hosted a session titled “The End of the World: Will the Internet Destroy the State, or Will the State Destroy the Internet?” What follows are the ideas I opened with during my intro to the session and some additional thoughts I’ve had. To avoid some confusion, I’d also like to clarify a) I don’t claim that these questions have never been raised before, I mostly hope that this framing can generate useful thought and debate; and b) that I don’t believe these are the only two or three possible outcomes; it was just a . . . → Read More: eaves.ca: The End of the World: The State vs. the Internet We have decided that “GroupThink ReSpun” will be the name of the process whereby various of the Politics, Re-Spun crew collaborate on editorializing about a current event. Enjoy the poetry of the term! So apparently, the RCMP wants to ease into allowing US agents to operate freely in Canada: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/rcmp-ease-canadians-idea-u-agents-canada-201905380.html 1. Do you want to be American? Discuss. Amputating one of my limbs with a nail clipper and then sewing it to my forehead sounds more appealing, really. I don’t make a very good American. Clinging to my sacred socialist cows and such. – Tia First . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: GroupThink ReSpun: On US Police Forces Operating in Canada Translation and contextual information by Konstantin Kilibarda Montenegro has been ruled by the same political party, the Democratic Party of Socialist (DPS), for the past 23 years. Along with the government of Belarus, Montenegro has the dubious distinction of being the only country in Europe that hasn’t seen a change in government since 1989. In the past several months an unprecedented wave of protests has hit the country, with workers, students, NGOs and citizens mobilizing against the government. The growing movement has called for the government to resign by 15 May 2012 or the organizers plan to escalate their campaign of . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Balkan Voices: Anti-Austerity Protests in Montenegro Heat Up Aung San Suu Kyi appears in public after her release on November 14, 2010 Coming out in the heels of Aung San Suu Kyi recent electoral breakthrough of her National League for Democracy, The Lady, an epic feature film directed by Luc Besson, about the Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Michelle Yeoh’s true to life depiction of Suu Kyi’s political life as the Uniter of the Burmese peoples’ democratic aspirations gives us a very accurate understanding of the events that led to her pro-longed house arrest. She was no Iron Lady but Suu Kyi . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: No Iron Lady, But the Lady is a True Orchid of Steel Hi, I’m Geoff Campbell and this is my website. It’s designed to be a simple online resume, blog, portfolio of work samples. I used to write this blog but have since moved on for the most part. For more information on me see the about page. Onto my first post: In twelve days, I’ll be graduating with a B.A. with an Honours in International Relations from Mount Allison University, the top-ranked undergraduate university in Canada. It has been quite the amazing, challenging, life-changing four years. While I wish I could take my friends with me when I leave, I’m . . . → Read More: Geoff Campbell: Graduating from Mount Allison University The F-35 is in the news again, or at least the Harper regime’s complete bungling of the acquisition and the subsequent complete misleading of Parliament on the costs of the jets and guns. The Conservatives have a line of spin that’s been sticking – and that really frustrates me. Laurie Hawn, for example, the caustic Parliamentary Secretary for the Minister of Defence, has said that when it comes to budgeting the costs of the jets, it’s not right to include “oil and gas and parts” and things like that — and he then likened buying the jet to buying a . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: On this F35 v. Buying A Car Analogy Spin
Last week, our favourite sweatervest hoarding Prime Minister made the world’s laziest Nazi/Hitler invocation during Question Period. This is the latest in a string of Hitler references made by sundry politicos in Ottawa during 2012, and we’re not even half way through the year. His gaffe brought jeers and tears of laughter to denizens of the House and online. For your viewing pleasure, witness the exchange between Mulcair the Bearded Sandwich Explainer and Stevie Soulless Eyes HERE. After I was done laughing and wiping tears of hilarity from my eyes, I went back to the Politics Respun crew, and . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Springtime for Hitler in Ottawa It’s very interesting to see the work that has gone into a possible compromise to deal with the competing demands around the Musqueam midden burial site. See below. Several weeks ago there was quite a contentious debate about what to do with the site from the Musqueam perspective and from the perspective of the family that “owned” the land slated for condo development. This really brings up the issue of what does “ownership” of land means in a province like BC which has about 95% of its land as unceded first nations territory. I’m encouraged to see where this dialogue . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Musqueam Midden Burial Site Compromise The audible “umph” heard across Canada last night was the sound of the Federal budget dropping. With all the subtlety of a Bison taking a dumb in your morning cereal, the Harper administration took another concerted effort at making Canada that much worse of a place. Suffice it to say, concerned citizens have already taken to the interwebs to voice their displeasure. As the government’s latest round of pillaging of the country’s public services takes its sinister form, the most egregiously over-funded department remains largely untouched. I speak, of course, of the Canadian Forces. As a PhD student . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: The Case Against Canada’s Armed Forces Nathan Cullen has my vote. Let me begin by saying that we are at an historical moment in Canadian history. We are being besieged by an increasingly draconian corporatist, neo-conservative and neoliberal Conservative Party government which is far worse than Mulroney’s free trade corporatist “Progressive” Conservatives from a generation ago. This government is an ecological criminal in foreign affairs, obsessed with domestic surveillance and mongers war. We are at a time of heightened awareness of the illegitimacy of the first-past-the-post electoral system that has allowed such extremist doctrine to have a majority of power in the country with less than . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Why I’m Voting for Nathan Cullen
A Better World is Needed, Activism, Canada, Class War, Colonialism, conservative party of canada, Culture, democracy, environment, Equality, Executive Overdrive, First Nations, Identity, International Relations, Israel, Liberal Party of Canada, NDP, Neo-Conservatism, Neoliberal Economics, Society, Soft Fascism What kind of racist government issues a permit for a condo developer to bulldoze a Musqueum burial site? BC’s government. I visited c̓əsnaʔəm, the 1338 SW Marine Drive site this morning and had a chance to talk with some of the demonstrators. I learned a number of important points in this issue, below. But first, here are some links to previous coverage of this issue. STOP the destruction of the village and midden site of c̓əsnaʔəm (Marpole) Musqueam Block Destruction of Ancient Burial Site Project on burial site sparks protest Protesters block Vancouver building project Musqueam First Nation members protest . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Stop the Condo Development on the Musqueam Burial Site Politics, Re-Spun is on The Rational on Coop Radio on Monday, March 12, 2012 from 6pm to 7pm with an intriguing lineup! Listen live online or at 102.7fm in the Vancouver area. Here’s the lineup: 1. Dylan Penner will talk with Stephen Elliott-Buckley about the Canadian Boat for Gaza: why, what happened, what’s happening now and what’s in store for the future? 2. Greg Felton will talk with Alnoor Gova about the NDP and Israel. 3. The first of 3 parts of a conversation between Stephen Elliott-Buckley and Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council President Cliff Atleo. Topics orbit around the . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Politics, Re-Spun on The Rational on Co-op Radio, March 12 Lineup Reviewed by Konstantin Kilibarda Independent Vancouver-based filmmaker Boris Malagursky’s The Weight of Chains is the latest in a long line of misguided attempts to give an ‘alternative’ account to the wars in the former Yugoslavia during the 1990s. This review seeks to directly address some of the more flawed accounts of the Yugoslav wars by first providing a critical analysis of Malagursky’s film and then examining the broader tendency by some progressives to simply invert dominant media portrayals of regimes targeted for Western intervention (a tendency again seen in debates over Libya and Syria). I’m very familiar with this terrain . . . → Read More: Politics, Re-Spun: Undermining Solidarity in the Balkans: Reviewing Boris Malagursky’s “The Weight of Chains” Today’s NDP leadership debate lands in Quebec. I’m using 14 criteria to evaluate who I’ll be voting for. Let me know if you have suggestions for improved criteria. 2012.02.12 NDP Leaders Debate February 2, 2012 — NDP Leaders, By the Numbers and the Intangibles (0) August 27, 2011 — Liveblog of Jack Layton’s Funeral (0) October 1, 2011 — Qualities of the Next NDP Leader (6) September 1, 2011 — 17 Federal NDP Leadership Possibilities (2)
A Better World is Needed, Activism, Canada, Class War, Colonialism, Community, Corporations, Culture, democracy, Ecology, Economics, Education, energy, environment, Equality, First Nations, Identity, International Relations, jack layton, leadership, Morality, Mulcair, Natural Resources, NDP, Neo-Conservatism, Neoliberal Economics, Orange Crush, politics, Society, tarsands, Topp, unions As Prime Minister Stephen Harper leads a high-powered Team Corporate Canada to China, there’s justifiable speculation that the PM will not question China’s appalling human rights record. At least not publicly. Once, powerful western …Read More |
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