Monday, June 04, 2007

Food For Thought from Canada

- Following last month’s story of the Korean immigrant who went Blind for the sake of $1300 in dental bills, comes the harrowing account of a single mother, made destitute after the Boxing Day tsunami, who sold one of her kidneys for $1350.”I’m struggling for a livelihood the same way today as I did before I sold my kidney” states the mother (Toronto Star 27 May, 2007). According to the business pages, India is in the middle of an unprecedented wealth boom. Go figure!

- Then there’s the case of the New Zealander, relying on a machine to maintain her life, who was cut off by the electricity company for non-payment of a bill and died, as mentioned on the WSM forum.

- In Canada, especially Ontario, there is much handwringing over the loss of manufacturing jobs and foreign take-overs of Canadian companies, as if the two were linked. 52 000 jobs were lost in that sector recently, as plants close down, and rallies in Windsor, where they have been hard hit by the contraction of the North American auto industry, and in Ottawa, to galvanize the federal government ‘to do something’. Of course, the government can do nothing about global capital trends to cheaper labour markets and, are, in fact, compliant in it. Once again, the workers must suffer the consequences, while capital continues its merry way to higher profits, as it must. What many do not understand is that Canadian owners will be just as fast to transfer operations and capital to cheaper facilities as anyone else. It is not the nationality of the capitalist that counts, it’s the domination of capital of the workers on a world-wide scale, and that’s what must end to make a difference.

- Meanwhile, the auto industry is creating jobs. On CBC radio’s “The Age of Persuasion”, Terry O’Reilly (No, not the Boston Bruin’s hockey star of yesteryear) tells us that Mercedes Benz has created a whole department to get the sound of the door closing just right, giving the impression of high quality engineering(!?).

- Another protest movement is brewing over high gas prices, but I read the answer – the expectation of lower reserves for the summer. Of course, if lower reserves don’t materialize, then we have been paying high for nothing. Sounds like common sense to me! The rentiers are hovering again.

- Here’s another one to make you shake your head. Haroon Siddiqui political columnist for the Toronto Star, thinks an anti-cluster bomb campaign is a natural for Canada to lead, as we helped forge the anti-land mines treaty in 1997. According to Haroon, cluster bombs are inaccurate, have a “dud” rate of 25%, don’t distinguish between military and civilian targets (as if any weapon does), and leave fields of deadly bomblets behind. Israel dropped about 4 million in the short Lebanese war, and about one million were left behind accounting for 30 fatalities so far. UN agencies and human rights groups condemned the practice. Presumably, leaving behind perhaps a quarter of a million bombs and 10 fatalities would be more acceptable. Don’t any of these apparently intelligent people think to withdraw support from such an insane system?

- In a similar vein, Toronto experienced its first in-school shooting last week. With sympathies to the family of the deceased 15 year old, we have to wonder why so many weapons are readily available despite all the laws and promises of programs for youth. Isn’t a simple solution to stop making weapons? Same thing at the world level. If the five countries charged with the security of the World – Britain, US, China, Russia, France- would stop making and selling weapons, the world might be a safer place. Sort of like asking the fox to abandon the hen house.

- from the June newsletter of the Socialist Party of Canada.

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