I was one of the lucky ones. I had professor Allison Dube for a class. He's leaving the University of Calgary. Please read his good by letter originally published in the gauntlet.
Lifting up mine eyes--finally
Dr. Allison Dube
Seasoned Sessional
April 17, 2008
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Previously, I argued that though we sessional instructors give great service and commitment to the University of Calgary, the unfairness of our working conditions has grown to a situation that is now laughable. Every experience is an opportunity to learn, however, and though sessional issues may remain a subtext here, the purpose is to tell my students and their colleagues some things I feel I have learned from this one.
A Seven Year Experiment
In Fire With Water, I argued that a rift in approaches to life had widened in my generation. Building on Jean Baker Miller's analysis of gender roles, traits traditionally assigned to subordinated women were losing a battle to the characteristics generally inherited by dominant men. Behaviours, such as participating in the development of others and truly valuing connections to them, were losing credence to pursuing self-oriented goals and to proclaiming "I did it my way."
Seven years here have confirmed two hypotheses. First, as Baker Miller states, "the characteristics... perhaps most essential to human beings are the very characteristics that are specifically dysfunctional for success in the world as it is." That, in spite of fostering the development of others through their teaching, sessional instructors receive neither a livable salary nor security shows this endeavor is indeed "specifically dysfunctional" for success--certainly at the U of C.
Second, traits such as self-enhancement have flourished. Worse, an overt concern for appearances over reality has clouded our ability to see this. To quote myself (as I ask my students, is there a more pretentious phrase on earth than "I quote myself?"), now it is "only the appearance of women's strengths that is permitted and it is only because these capacities have the blessing of a profit that even this appearance is rendered acceptable." Two parts of this relate to academe. Research is increasingly about the self, specifically career advancement. Also, as an institution fosters these aspects and thus serves itself above all, it increasingly invokes a covering facade of "we do it all for you," the students.
Some Publish, Many Perish
The equation of academic success with self-enhancement may seem unfair. The myth is instructors balance teaching and research--indeed some actually do! More, students understand that individuals pursuing knowledge make a contribution to the common stock of wisdom. For several reasons, students should look closely at the research that is often their instructors' priority.
As Frank Furedi has noted, what academics produce for advancement is usually not "scholarship," but "research." Camille Paglia explains, "A scholar's real audience is not yet born." But why take years to write something reflective, lasting and profound when you need to publish now to get a promotion? Thus "the profession is addicted to the present, to contemporary figures, contemporary terminology, contemporary concerns." Students should be warned also that as new instructors are recruited, they especially must so "produce" to secure positions.
Secondly, often the "professional" elements of academe do not solve problems, but ride on them. Louise Armstrong's afterword for a later edition of her work on incest, Kiss Daddy Goodnight, illustrates. She saw an "incest industry" form at her first academic convention. "You could hear the gears of specialization grinding, the carving-up of victim populations, the negotiations for turf, the vying for funding, for prestige, for place... the sound of people professionalizing." After 10 years of this she concludes, "I hate to say we [survivors and those truly caring] made things worse. I guess we didn't, but I think things are worse."
Another problem is just which "contemporary concerns" take up the researcher's time are increasingly determined by, simply, who pays. Our own Professor John Mueller has argued that as "universities have become dependent on federal grants, academics find their promotion and merit reviews depend on buying into the predefined areas of research." The funded "cause de jour" may well be a fashion, or fashionable support for systems in place only. If this is the case for "arm's length" funding--wait until you see the effects of money from private sources such as corporations!
Thus, much "research" is less idealistic, more mercenary, more self-enhancing in terms of career and more serving of interests that students cannot see than is generally understood. Real learning would often oppose the very interests served by the research; and at times the research itself capitalizes on or exacerbates the problems students would wish to solve. These problems are not new; thousands of years ago, variants of them caused Lao Tzu to write "exterminate the sage, discard the wise," and to equate the works that result from self-enhancing pontification to "useless excrescences."
Students do benefit from the scholarship of faculty members, but they have excellent reasons not to automatically accept a sacrifice of instructor time to the gods of research. Students in classes of 300, who have not yet been greeted by name by an instructor, may be surprised that the first core principle in the U of C's Academic plan heralds this as a "learning-centred university," where "the programs and experience we offer must be appropriate to the needs, aspirations, and futures of our students." As above, whatever the actual practice, the language covering it is beautifully nurturing!
"Not a Partnership"
In Mar. 2007, On Campus reported that Shell Canada announced it would invest $1.15 million with the U of C. On first blush this seems generous. After all, with oil barely up to a measly $110 a barrel, energy companies are clearly having a tough time making ends meet. The money is to support "enhanced learning opportunities for students," and...oh yeah, to "develop future workforce capacity and advance research innovation critical to industry success." Quoth President Harvey Weingarten, "this type of relationship is a win-win for schools and industry. Our students get access to industry and real-world experience, while Shell benefits from top-notch research and the best and the brightest that universities have to offer."
Yet the article contains clues as to who is winning the most. The President of Shell Canada remarks, "we're working to promote technical education, research and innovation--it is at the heart of what we need as a company, as an industry and as a society." It can be no surprise if the technical education fostered is good for the company and industry. After all, the goal of most of the money is "to develop a more effective in situ recovery process to extract oilsands deposits that are too deep to be mined from the surface." But just as "what's good for General Motors is good for America," this result is also now deemed what is needed most for society. As Dr. Weingarten has proudly proclaimed, we are offering up our "best and the brightest" to serve this cause.
This story echoes a common theme in U of C press releases: the partnership between business and the school. On a profound level it illustrates, as one of the truly brilliant people I know (my massage therapist, Lola) asserts, "it's not a partnership, it's a codependent relationship." The relationship between corporations and the U of C has become symbiotic, with negative behaviours of each realm exchanged and reinforced.
What corporations get is the artificial credibility that comes with an academic aura. Plato wrote about the "creature who has proved his cleverness in some mechanical craft," who "is glad to break out of the prison of his paltry trade and take sanctuary in the shrine of philosophy." They get something far more practical, though. As well as having tax benefits, offloading research and development to the shrine of philosophy truly makes it look like the endeavors served should be at the helm of academic and societal concern.
The university would not want to stay aloof from the real world. Some students benefit from the training they receive while all this is going on, but it becomes clear that the U of C is now a place where (as the President of Shell Canada remarks) "technical education" is king. A look at the U of C's "priority" areas confirms this: as here, engineering and resource development, and elsewhere, the likes of the business faculty.
The result of all this is of questionable value. The point of an education worthy of the adjective derived from Plato's Academy is to learn how to question the priorities of the business world, not to receive on-the-job training for it and such "technical" training is often shortsighted. For corporate funding--and the corporate vision itself--often serve only presently perceived needs and are destined to produce cogs, not leaders.
Proust notes that often people engaged in practical affairs laugh at those learning non-practical things. The "disinterested culture" of, for example, a real liberal education "seems to them a comic pastime of idle people." But ironically, it is so often the very knowledge they dismissed which "brings to the fore men who may not be better judges or administrators than themselves, but before whose rapid advancement they bow their heads, saying: 'It appears he's extremely well-read, a most distinguished individual.'"
Learning the wrong corporate games
One might think that being so intimate with the business world, the U of C might learn how to treat employees or the prime consumers (students) with respect, but often it is the worst elements of business the school has absorbed: a sense of entitlement, a cult of the executive, mistreatment of staff, a tendency to forget that the customer--the student--if not always right, at least deserves to be heard and honoured and a reliance on spin to cover things that are wrong.
This school's treatment of the quarter of its academic staff who are sessionals is not up to the minimum standards a corporation downtown could get away with and from my experience, whether the student consumer is heard at all is an open question.
That the students who organized the "Save Dube" campaign were told that their concerns--not just about a particular instructor but sessionals in general--were off limits to discussion as it was a "personnel issue" was true to form. Through the years, many of my students have written to administrators here. What is disconcerting is not that such letters had no real effect, but that as far as I know, not one has ever been answered.
Students are often shocked that teaching and commitment to them--at least from sessionals--means nothing to the administration. It gets worse. In spite of good student survey results, four SU Teaching Excellence Awards, and an SU Presidential Citation in recent years, how often has an administrator commended me spontaneously for good work? Beyond a rare comment in the hall, encouraging words have come only as reactions to SU awards. Once, I even got a letter of congratulation from the "Executive Suite." (I kid you not; that was on the address. I still think "I quote myself" wins, but it is a contender!)
More students are questioning the juxtaposition of, on the one hand, the barrage of "we do it all for you" signs and shining happy reports in On Campus and, on the other, utterly dismal results for the school in surveys of student engagement and an experience so isolating that a quarter drop out after one year.
Instead of actually taking obvious steps to improve the student experience such as reducing class size, the administration's answers are to hire another vice-president and to make students buy "clickers" to give instant survey results in classes--thus providing the appearance their views count, almost as if adding another layer of technology to students' lives would reduce their sense of alienation.
Then there is the spin. In a Sep. 2006 Gauntlet article, the U of C's vice president external wrote that "a student who graduated from the U of C even two years ago would be unaware of the 40 student spaces now opening on campus." Speaking as a student who graduated in 1974, I delight in telling my students just how many of those "new" spaces I happily hung around in avoiding classes before they were born.
Once one sees how much of the rhetoric is a kind of spin echoing the worst of the corporate world, everything makes sense. You know those entry "scholarships" you got from the U of C for good marks in high school? Teaser rates for a sub-prime education.
"Representation"
Students are not alone in being told that the word of great service provision may be taken for the deed--what one might call the Harold Skimpole theory of management. Many have asked: "aren't sessionals represented by a union?" The answer depends on what one means by "represented." We are members of the Faculty Association; we pay dues for the privilege and are told people are working on "incremental progress" for us.
An illustration will serve here. Prior to the last collective agreement, we were all sent forms inviting input on issues at stake. There were eleven pages for comment on things, from salary and merit increases to leaves and sabbaticals. On the last page "for sessionals only," there was an invitation to comment on our salary rates and "other," with half a page to "explain as fully as you can." Sessionals constitute a quarter of the membership, yet about 90 per cent of the document concerned things we have little or no part in. The tenor was "how many more thousands of dollars can we award to the best roosters--and oh, as an afterthought, should we increase the prize for best duck from $5 to $6?"
The results of the bargaining confirmed this picture. One reason I had held on as a sessional was I believed the new collective agreement might improve things enough so I could afford to stay. No dice. I hasten to add that I truly admire the officers of the Faculty Association, but as to whether sessionals have been "represented" by the Association in total--as Mr. Spock might say, "it's representation Jim, but not as we know it."
A Great Opportunity to Learn
On Apr. 2, I got a call asking me to donate money to the U of C. My first reaction was that the universe was out of kilter--a day late for April Fools'. Why would I donate to support a system that has treated us as I have described? Why would anyone? I feel now the universe, like all of us, just got screwed up a bit more by the time change this year and is unfolding as it should. That call was a punctuating mark in time. Before, it made sense to essentially pay to work here to give heart and soul to my students. The mark itself reminded me that after doing a decent job for years, far from getting a golden, or bronze handshake, or even the time of day as I leave, I could not be mentioned by name as students found when they tried to speak about me to administrators. After, it became clear that the best way to change the world was to eliminate the high-priced middleman--the school. I will continue to love and support my students, but the U of C has now become as much a part of the problems they face as it is of any solutions.
One might think that my conclusion to all of this would have a negative tone--not so. Lifting up mine eyes has entailed looking at those at the top. This university has, as it claims, assumed a leadership role, but too often what it leads in are negative things. Outside, the same problems noted within the institution pervade the world: a devaluation of good human qualities and glorification of self-serving ones, a growing codependent relationship between institutions--universities or governments--and corporations, and an increasing provision of an appearance of good things over their reality. The tenured versus sessional gap echoes a widening division between rich and poor and--as for how well the bottom quarter of the world's people are represented by those who are responsible for them--well, we lead the way there, too.
Just as I hope I have learned something here, I guarantee my students have and if anyone out there feels that all these developments are appropriate, I have some advice for you: enjoy them while you can. My students are simply not going to put up with this situation. They are too good to think that all these trends and conditions are right; they are too bright not to see through the corporate rhetoric that supports them and they are too politically savvy to be stopped as they begin to make changes--in our country, in our world and even in the university.
Source: http://gauntlet.ucalgary.ca/story/12438
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Tim Wise on Whiteness
Tim Wise ~ The Pathology of Privilege: Racism, White Denial, and the
Costs of Inequality
Costs of Inequality
Saturday, April 19, 2008
School Made Him Square And Brown Inside (Poem)
He always wanted to explain things, but no-one cared.
So he drew.
Sometimes he would just draw and it wasn’t anything.
He wanted to carve it in stone or write it in the sky.
He would lie out on the grass and look up in the sky and it would only
be the sky and the things inside him that needed saying.
And it was after that that he drew the picture.
It was a beautiful picture. He kept it under his pillow and would let no-one see it.
And he would look at it every night and think about it.
And when it was dark and his eyes were closed he could see it still.
And it was all of him and he loved it.
When he started school he brought it with him.
Not to show anyone, but just to have it with him like a friend.
It was funny about school.
He sat in a square brown desk like all the other square brown desks
and he thought it would be red.
And his room was a square brown room, like all the other rooms.
And it was tight and close. And stiff.
He hated to hold the pencil and chalk, with his arm stiff and his feet
flat on the floor, stiff, with the teacher watching and watching.
The teacher came and spoke to him.
She told him to wear a tie like all the other boys.
He said he didn’t like them and she it didn’t matter.
After that they drew. And he drew all yellow and it was the way he felt about
morning. And it was beautiful.
The teacher came and smiled at him. What’s this? She said.
"Why don’t you draw something like Ken’s drawing?
Isn’t it beautiful?"
After that his mother bought him a tie and he always drew airplanes
and rocket ships like everyone else.
And he threw the old picture away.
And when he lay out alone looking at the sky, it was big and blue;
and all of everything, but he wasn’t anymore.
He was square and brown inside and his hands were stiff.
And he was like everyone else. All the things inside him that needed
saying didn’t need it anymore.
I had stopped pushing. It was crushed.
Stiff.
Like everything else.
Author: Written by an English schoolboy, sent in by Klaas van Dalen.
Source: Raphael House Newsletter Aug 1986
He always wanted to explain things, but no-one cared.
So he drew.
Sometimes he would just draw and it wasn’t anything.
He wanted to carve it in stone or write it in the sky.
He would lie out on the grass and look up in the sky and it would only
be the sky and the things inside him that needed saying.
And it was after that that he drew the picture.
It was a beautiful picture. He kept it under his pillow and would let no-one see it.
And he would look at it every night and think about it.
And when it was dark and his eyes were closed he could see it still.
And it was all of him and he loved it.
When he started school he brought it with him.
Not to show anyone, but just to have it with him like a friend.
It was funny about school.
He sat in a square brown desk like all the other square brown desks
and he thought it would be red.
And his room was a square brown room, like all the other rooms.
And it was tight and close. And stiff.
He hated to hold the pencil and chalk, with his arm stiff and his feet
flat on the floor, stiff, with the teacher watching and watching.
The teacher came and spoke to him.
She told him to wear a tie like all the other boys.
He said he didn’t like them and she it didn’t matter.
After that they drew. And he drew all yellow and it was the way he felt about
morning. And it was beautiful.
The teacher came and smiled at him. What’s this? She said.
"Why don’t you draw something like Ken’s drawing?
Isn’t it beautiful?"
After that his mother bought him a tie and he always drew airplanes
and rocket ships like everyone else.
And he threw the old picture away.
And when he lay out alone looking at the sky, it was big and blue;
and all of everything, but he wasn’t anymore.
He was square and brown inside and his hands were stiff.
And he was like everyone else. All the things inside him that needed
saying didn’t need it anymore.
I had stopped pushing. It was crushed.
Stiff.
Like everything else.
Author: Written by an English schoolboy, sent in by Klaas van Dalen.
Source: Raphael House Newsletter Aug 1986
Friday, April 18, 2008
China and America: The Tibet Human Rights PsyOp
Oh the "China Threat." Don't be afraid people, that's how they getcha. I've always had a problem with the negative connotations regarding Chinese politics and human rights, and the subsequent fallout, a "China Threat" portrayed by the media. Chinese exercises what is called soft power. Chinese policies don't fit the bill, prescribed to us by the media.
"Free Tibet" seems the same as saying Free Quebec, or Free Alberta.
Here's an indepth look at what's been happening recently.
China and America: The Tibet Human Rights PsyOp
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, April 13, 2008
The human rights issue has become the centerfold of media disinformation.
China is no model of human rights but neither are the US and its indefectible British ally, responsible for extensive war crimes and human rights violations in Iraq and around the World. The US and its allies, which uphold the practice of torture, political assassinations and the establishment of secret detention camps, continue to be presented to public opinion as a model of Western democracy to be emulated by developing countries, in contrast to Russia, Iran, North Korea and the People's Republic of China.
Human Rights "Double Standards"
While China's alleged human rights violations in relation to Tibet are highlighted, the recent wave of killings in Iraq and Palestine are not mentioned. The Western media has barely acknowledged the Fifth "anniversary" of Iraq's "Liberation" and the balance sheet of the US sponsored killings and atrocities perpetrated against an entire population, in the name of a "global war on terrorism".
There are more than 1.2 million Iraqi civilian deaths, 3 million wounded. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) indicates a figure of 2.2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled their country and 2.4 million "internally displaced persons":
"Iraq’s population at the time of the US invasion in March 2003 was roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23 million. Elementary arithmetic indicates that currently over half the population of Iraq are either refugees, in need of emergency aid, wounded, or dead." (Dahr Jamail, Global Research, December 2007)
The Geopolitical Chessboard
There are deep-seated geopolitical objectives behind the campaign against the Chinese leadership.
US-NATO-Israeli war plans in relation to Iran are at an advanced state of readiness. China has economic ties as well as a far-reaching bilateral military cooperation agreement with Iran. Moreover, China is also an ally of Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the context of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Since 2005, Iran has an observer member status within the SCO.
In turn, the SCO has ties to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), an overlapping military cooperation agreement between Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan.
In October of last year the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, laying the foundations for military cooperation between the two organizations. This SCO-CSTO agreement, barely mentioned by the Western media, involves the creation of a full-fledged military alliance between China, Russia and the member states of SCO/CSTO. It is worth noting that the SCTO and the SCO held joint military exercises in 2006, which coincided with those conducted by Iran. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games in Response to US Threats, Global Research, August 2006)
In the context of US war plans directed against Iran, the US is also intent upon weakening Iran's allies, namely Russia and China. In the case of China, Washington is seaking to disrupt Beijing's bilateral ties with Tehran as well as Iran's rapprochement with the SCO, which has its headquarters in Beijing.
China is an ally of Iran. Washington's intention is to use Beijing's alleged human rights violations as a pretext to target China, an ally of Iran.
In this regard, a military operation directed against Iran can only succeed if the structure of military alliances which link Iran to China and Russia is disrupted. This is something which German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck understood in relation to the structure of competing military alliances prevalent prior to World War I. The Triple Alliance was an agreement between Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy formed in 1882. In 1907, an Anglo-Russian agreement paved the way for the formation of the Triple Entente made up of France, the U.K. and Russia.
The Triple Alliance ultimately came to an end in 1914, when Italy withdrew from the alliance and declared its neutrality, thereby paving the way for the outbreak of World War I.
History points to the importance of competing military alliances. In the present context, the US and its NATO partners are seaking to undermine the formation of a cohesive Eurasian SCO-CSTO military alliance, which could effectively challenge and contain US-NATO military expansionism in Eurasia, combining the military capabilities not only of Russia and China, but also those of several former Soviet republics including Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic.
Encircling China
With the exception of its Northern frontier which borders on the Russian Federation, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, China is surrounded by US military bases.
The Eurasian Corridor
Since the 2001 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the US has a military presence on China's Western frontier, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. is intent upon establishing permanent military bases in Afghanistan, which occupies a strategic position bordering on the former Soviet republics, China and Iran.
Moreover, the US and NATO have also established since 1996, military ties with several former Soviet republics under GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldava). In the post 9/11 era, Washington has used the pretext of the "global war against terrorism" to further develop a U.S. military presence in GUUAM countries. Uzbekistan withdrew from GUUAM in 2002.(The organization is now referred to as GUAM).
China has oil interests in Eurasia as well as in sub-Saharan Africa, which encroach upon Anglo-American oil interests.
What is at stake is the geopolitical control over the Eurasian corridor.
In March 1999, the U.S. Congress adopted the Silk Road Strategy Act, which defined America’s broad economic and strategic interests in a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia. The Silk Road Strategy (SRS) outlines a framework for the development of America’s business empire along an extensive geographical corridor.
The successful implementation of the SRS requires the concurrent "militarization" of the entire Eurasian corridor as a means to securing control over extensive oil and gas reserves, as well as "protecting" pipeline routes and trading corridors. This militarization is largely directed against China, Russia and Iran.
The militarization of the South China Sea and of the Taiwan Straits is also an integral part of this strategy which, in the post 9/11 era, consists in deploying "on several fronts".
Moreover, China remains in the post-Cold War era a target for a first strike nuclear attack by the US.
In the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), China and Russia are identified along with a list of "rogue States" as potential targets for a pre-emptive nuclear attack by the US. China is listed in the NPR as "a country that could be involved in an immediate or potential contingency". Specifically, the Nuclear Posture Review lists a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan as one of the scenarios that could lead Washington to use nuclear weapons against China.
China has been encircled: The U.S. military is present in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straights, in the Korean Peninsula and the Sea of Japan, as well as in the heartland of Central Asia and on the Western border of China’s Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region. Moreover, as part of the encirclement of China, "Japan has gradually been amalgamating and harmonizing its military policies with those of the U.S. and NATO." (See Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Military Alliance: Encircling Russia and China, Global Research, 10 May 2007)
Weakening China from within: Covert Support to Secessionist Movements
Consistent with its policy of weakening and ultimately fracturing the People's Republic of China, Washington supports secessionist movements both in Tibet as wall as in the Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region which borders onto North Eastern Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In Xinjiang-Uigur, Pakistani intelligence (ISI), acting in liaison with the CIA, supports several Islamist organizations. The latter include the Islamic Reformist Party, the East Turkestan National Unity Alliance, the Uigur Liberation Organization and the Central Asian Uigur Jihad Party. Several of these Islamic organizations have received support and training from Al Qaeda, which is a US sponsored intelligence asset. The declared objective of these Chinese-based Islamic organizations is the "establishment of an Islamic caliphate in the region" (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America's War on Terrorism, Global Research, Montreal, 2005, Chapter 2).
The caliphate would integrate Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan (West Turkestan) and the Uigur autonomous region of China (East Turkestan) into a single political entity.
The "caliphate project" encroaches upon Chinese territorial sovereignty. Supported by various Wahabi "foundations" from the Gulf States, secessionism on China’s Western frontier is, once again, consistent with U.S. strategic interests in Central Asia. Meanwhile, a powerful U.S.-based lobby is channeling support to separatist forces in Tibet.
By tacitly promoting the secession of the Xinjiang-Uigur region (using Pakistan’s ISI as a "go-between"), Washington is attempting to trigger a broader process of political destabilization and fracturing of the People’s Republic of China. In addition to these various covert operations, the U.S. has established military bases in Afghanistan and in several of the former Soviet republics, directly on China’s Western border.
The militarization of the South China Sea and of the Taiwan Straits is also an integral part of this strategy.(Ibid)
PsyOp: Discrediting the Chinese Leadership
The short-term objective is to discredit the Chinese leadership in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympic games, while also using the Tibet campaign to divert public opinion from the Middle East war and the war crimes committed by the US, NATO and Israel.
China's alleged human rights violations are highlighted as a distraction, to provide a human face to the US led war in the Middle East.
The US sponsored war plans directed against Iran are now acknowledged and justified due to Tehran's noncompliance with the demands of the "international community".
With Tibet making the headlines, the real humanitarian crisis in the Middle East is not front page news.
More generally, the issue of human rights is distorted: realities are turned upside down, the extensive crimes committed by the US and its coalition partners are either concealed or justified as a means to protecting society against terrorists.
A "double standards" in the assessment of human rights violations has been instated. In the Middle East, the killing of civilians is categorized as collateral damage. It is justified as part of the "global war on terrorism". The victims are said to be responsible for their own deaths.
The Olympic Torch
Carefully timed demonstrations on China's human rights violations in Western capitals have been set in motion.
A partial boycott of the Olympic games seems to be underway. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (a strong protagonist of US interests who has a relationship to the Bilderbergs), has called for a boycott of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Kouchner said the idea should be discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers
The Olympic torch was lit at a ceremony in Greece, which was disrupted by "pro-Tibet activists". The event was sponsored by "Reporters Without Borders", an organization known to have links to US intelligence. (See, Diana Barahona, Reporters Without Borders Unmasked, May 2005). "Reporters Without Borders" also receives support for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
The Olympic Torch is symbolic. The Psychological operation (PsyOp) consists in targeting the Olympic torch in the months leading up the Beijing Olympic games.
At each phase of this process, the Chinese leadership is denigrated by the Western media.
Global Economic Implications
The Tibet campaign directed against the Chinese leadership could backlash.
We are at the crossroads of the most serious economic and financial crisis of modern history. The unfolding economic crisis bears a direct relationship to the US sponsored military adventure in the Middle East and Central Asia.
China plays a strategic role with regard to US military expansionism. So far it has not exercised its veto power in the United Nations Security Council in relation to the several US sponsored UNSC resolutions directed against Iran.
China also plays a central role in the global economy and financial system.
Resulting from an accumulated trade surplus with the US, China's now holds 1.5 trillion dollars worth of US debt instruments (including US Treasury bills). It has the ability to significantly disrupt international currency markets. The US dollar would plunge to even lower levels, were China to sell off its dollar denominated debt holdings.(For further details see: F. William Engdahl, op cit)
Moreover, China is the largest producer of a wide range of manufactured goods which constitute, for the West, a significant share of monthly household consumption. Western retail giants rely on the continued and uninterrupted flow of cheap labor industrial commodities from China.
For the Western countries, China's insertion into the structures of global trade, investment, finance and intellectual property rights under the World Trade Organization (WTO) is absolutely crucial. Were Beijing to decide to curtail its "Made in China" manufacturing exports to the US, America's fragile and declining manufacturing base would not be able to fill the gap, at least in the short run.
Moreover, the US and its coalition partners including the UK, Germany, France and Japan have important investment interests in China. In 2001, the US and China signed a bilateral trading agreement prior to the accession of China to the WTO. This agreement allows US investors, including the major Wall Street financial institutions, to position themselves in Shanghai's financial and trading system as well as in China's domestic banking market.
While China is, in some regards, the West's "cheap labor industrial colony", China's relationship to the global trading system is by no means cast in steel.
China's relationship to global capitalism has its roots in the "Open Door Policy" initially formulated in 1979. (Michel Chossudovsky, Towards Capitalist Restoration. Chinese Socialism after Mao, Macmillian, London, 1986, chapters 7 and 8)
Since the 1980s, China has become the main supplier of industrial goods to Western markets. Any threat against China and/or military venture directed against China's Eurasian allies including Iran could potentially disrupt China's extensive trade in manufactured goods.
China's export oriented industrial base is the source of tremendous wealth formation in the advanced capitalist economies. Where does the wealth of the Walton family, owners of WalMart, originate? WalMart does produce anything. It imports cheap labor commodities "Made in China" and resells them in the US retail market at up to ten times their factory price.
This process of "import led development" has allowed the Western "industrialised" countries to close down a large part of their manufacturing outlets. In turn, China's industrial sweat shops serve to generate multibillion dollar profits for Western corporations, including the retail giants, which purchase and/or outsource their production to China.
Any threat of a military nature directed against China could have devastating economic consequences, far beyond the familiar upward spiral in the price of crude oil.
Michel Chossudovsky is Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is the author of several international best-sellers including The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, 2003 and America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, 2005. He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Michel Chossudovsky is also the author of the first comprehensive study on the restoration of capitalism in China, published more than twenty years ago. Michel Chossudovsky, Towards Capitalist Restoration. Chinese Socialism after Mao, Macmillian, London, 1986. He has recently returned from a visit to China. He was in Shanghai and Beijing in March 2008.
"Free Tibet" seems the same as saying Free Quebec, or Free Alberta.
Here's an indepth look at what's been happening recently.
China and America: The Tibet Human Rights PsyOp
by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, April 13, 2008
The human rights issue has become the centerfold of media disinformation.
China is no model of human rights but neither are the US and its indefectible British ally, responsible for extensive war crimes and human rights violations in Iraq and around the World. The US and its allies, which uphold the practice of torture, political assassinations and the establishment of secret detention camps, continue to be presented to public opinion as a model of Western democracy to be emulated by developing countries, in contrast to Russia, Iran, North Korea and the People's Republic of China.
Human Rights "Double Standards"
While China's alleged human rights violations in relation to Tibet are highlighted, the recent wave of killings in Iraq and Palestine are not mentioned. The Western media has barely acknowledged the Fifth "anniversary" of Iraq's "Liberation" and the balance sheet of the US sponsored killings and atrocities perpetrated against an entire population, in the name of a "global war on terrorism".
There are more than 1.2 million Iraqi civilian deaths, 3 million wounded. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) indicates a figure of 2.2 million Iraqi refugees who have fled their country and 2.4 million "internally displaced persons":
"Iraq’s population at the time of the US invasion in March 2003 was roughly 27 million, and today it is approximately 23 million. Elementary arithmetic indicates that currently over half the population of Iraq are either refugees, in need of emergency aid, wounded, or dead." (Dahr Jamail, Global Research, December 2007)
The Geopolitical Chessboard
There are deep-seated geopolitical objectives behind the campaign against the Chinese leadership.
US-NATO-Israeli war plans in relation to Iran are at an advanced state of readiness. China has economic ties as well as a far-reaching bilateral military cooperation agreement with Iran. Moreover, China is also an ally of Russia, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan in the context of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Since 2005, Iran has an observer member status within the SCO.
In turn, the SCO has ties to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), an overlapping military cooperation agreement between Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan.
In October of last year the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) signed a Memorandum of Understanding, laying the foundations for military cooperation between the two organizations. This SCO-CSTO agreement, barely mentioned by the Western media, involves the creation of a full-fledged military alliance between China, Russia and the member states of SCO/CSTO. It is worth noting that the SCTO and the SCO held joint military exercises in 2006, which coincided with those conducted by Iran. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Russia and Central Asian Allies Conduct War Games in Response to US Threats, Global Research, August 2006)
In the context of US war plans directed against Iran, the US is also intent upon weakening Iran's allies, namely Russia and China. In the case of China, Washington is seaking to disrupt Beijing's bilateral ties with Tehran as well as Iran's rapprochement with the SCO, which has its headquarters in Beijing.
China is an ally of Iran. Washington's intention is to use Beijing's alleged human rights violations as a pretext to target China, an ally of Iran.
In this regard, a military operation directed against Iran can only succeed if the structure of military alliances which link Iran to China and Russia is disrupted. This is something which German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck understood in relation to the structure of competing military alliances prevalent prior to World War I. The Triple Alliance was an agreement between Germany, the Austro-Hungarian Empire and Italy formed in 1882. In 1907, an Anglo-Russian agreement paved the way for the formation of the Triple Entente made up of France, the U.K. and Russia.
The Triple Alliance ultimately came to an end in 1914, when Italy withdrew from the alliance and declared its neutrality, thereby paving the way for the outbreak of World War I.
History points to the importance of competing military alliances. In the present context, the US and its NATO partners are seaking to undermine the formation of a cohesive Eurasian SCO-CSTO military alliance, which could effectively challenge and contain US-NATO military expansionism in Eurasia, combining the military capabilities not only of Russia and China, but also those of several former Soviet republics including Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan Uzbekistan and the Kyrgyz Republic.
Encircling China
With the exception of its Northern frontier which borders on the Russian Federation, Mongolia and Kazakhstan, China is surrounded by US military bases.
The Eurasian Corridor
Since the 2001 invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, the US has a military presence on China's Western frontier, in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The U.S. is intent upon establishing permanent military bases in Afghanistan, which occupies a strategic position bordering on the former Soviet republics, China and Iran.
Moreover, the US and NATO have also established since 1996, military ties with several former Soviet republics under GUUAM (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldava). In the post 9/11 era, Washington has used the pretext of the "global war against terrorism" to further develop a U.S. military presence in GUUAM countries. Uzbekistan withdrew from GUUAM in 2002.(The organization is now referred to as GUAM).
China has oil interests in Eurasia as well as in sub-Saharan Africa, which encroach upon Anglo-American oil interests.
What is at stake is the geopolitical control over the Eurasian corridor.
In March 1999, the U.S. Congress adopted the Silk Road Strategy Act, which defined America’s broad economic and strategic interests in a region extending from the Eastern Mediterranean to Central Asia. The Silk Road Strategy (SRS) outlines a framework for the development of America’s business empire along an extensive geographical corridor.
The successful implementation of the SRS requires the concurrent "militarization" of the entire Eurasian corridor as a means to securing control over extensive oil and gas reserves, as well as "protecting" pipeline routes and trading corridors. This militarization is largely directed against China, Russia and Iran.
The militarization of the South China Sea and of the Taiwan Straits is also an integral part of this strategy which, in the post 9/11 era, consists in deploying "on several fronts".
Moreover, China remains in the post-Cold War era a target for a first strike nuclear attack by the US.
In the 2002 Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), China and Russia are identified along with a list of "rogue States" as potential targets for a pre-emptive nuclear attack by the US. China is listed in the NPR as "a country that could be involved in an immediate or potential contingency". Specifically, the Nuclear Posture Review lists a military confrontation over the status of Taiwan as one of the scenarios that could lead Washington to use nuclear weapons against China.
China has been encircled: The U.S. military is present in the South China Sea and the Taiwan Straights, in the Korean Peninsula and the Sea of Japan, as well as in the heartland of Central Asia and on the Western border of China’s Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region. Moreover, as part of the encirclement of China, "Japan has gradually been amalgamating and harmonizing its military policies with those of the U.S. and NATO." (See Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, Global Military Alliance: Encircling Russia and China, Global Research, 10 May 2007)
Weakening China from within: Covert Support to Secessionist Movements
Consistent with its policy of weakening and ultimately fracturing the People's Republic of China, Washington supports secessionist movements both in Tibet as wall as in the Xinjiang-Uigur autonomous region which borders onto North Eastern Pakistan and Afghanistan.
In Xinjiang-Uigur, Pakistani intelligence (ISI), acting in liaison with the CIA, supports several Islamist organizations. The latter include the Islamic Reformist Party, the East Turkestan National Unity Alliance, the Uigur Liberation Organization and the Central Asian Uigur Jihad Party. Several of these Islamic organizations have received support and training from Al Qaeda, which is a US sponsored intelligence asset. The declared objective of these Chinese-based Islamic organizations is the "establishment of an Islamic caliphate in the region" (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, America's War on Terrorism, Global Research, Montreal, 2005, Chapter 2).
The caliphate would integrate Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan (West Turkestan) and the Uigur autonomous region of China (East Turkestan) into a single political entity.
The "caliphate project" encroaches upon Chinese territorial sovereignty. Supported by various Wahabi "foundations" from the Gulf States, secessionism on China’s Western frontier is, once again, consistent with U.S. strategic interests in Central Asia. Meanwhile, a powerful U.S.-based lobby is channeling support to separatist forces in Tibet.
By tacitly promoting the secession of the Xinjiang-Uigur region (using Pakistan’s ISI as a "go-between"), Washington is attempting to trigger a broader process of political destabilization and fracturing of the People’s Republic of China. In addition to these various covert operations, the U.S. has established military bases in Afghanistan and in several of the former Soviet republics, directly on China’s Western border.
The militarization of the South China Sea and of the Taiwan Straits is also an integral part of this strategy.(Ibid)
PsyOp: Discrediting the Chinese Leadership
The short-term objective is to discredit the Chinese leadership in the months leading up to the Beijing Olympic games, while also using the Tibet campaign to divert public opinion from the Middle East war and the war crimes committed by the US, NATO and Israel.
China's alleged human rights violations are highlighted as a distraction, to provide a human face to the US led war in the Middle East.
The US sponsored war plans directed against Iran are now acknowledged and justified due to Tehran's noncompliance with the demands of the "international community".
With Tibet making the headlines, the real humanitarian crisis in the Middle East is not front page news.
More generally, the issue of human rights is distorted: realities are turned upside down, the extensive crimes committed by the US and its coalition partners are either concealed or justified as a means to protecting society against terrorists.
A "double standards" in the assessment of human rights violations has been instated. In the Middle East, the killing of civilians is categorized as collateral damage. It is justified as part of the "global war on terrorism". The victims are said to be responsible for their own deaths.
The Olympic Torch
Carefully timed demonstrations on China's human rights violations in Western capitals have been set in motion.
A partial boycott of the Olympic games seems to be underway. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner (a strong protagonist of US interests who has a relationship to the Bilderbergs), has called for a boycott of the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Kouchner said the idea should be discussed at a meeting of EU foreign ministers
The Olympic torch was lit at a ceremony in Greece, which was disrupted by "pro-Tibet activists". The event was sponsored by "Reporters Without Borders", an organization known to have links to US intelligence. (See, Diana Barahona, Reporters Without Borders Unmasked, May 2005). "Reporters Without Borders" also receives support for the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
The Olympic Torch is symbolic. The Psychological operation (PsyOp) consists in targeting the Olympic torch in the months leading up the Beijing Olympic games.
At each phase of this process, the Chinese leadership is denigrated by the Western media.
Global Economic Implications
The Tibet campaign directed against the Chinese leadership could backlash.
We are at the crossroads of the most serious economic and financial crisis of modern history. The unfolding economic crisis bears a direct relationship to the US sponsored military adventure in the Middle East and Central Asia.
China plays a strategic role with regard to US military expansionism. So far it has not exercised its veto power in the United Nations Security Council in relation to the several US sponsored UNSC resolutions directed against Iran.
China also plays a central role in the global economy and financial system.
Resulting from an accumulated trade surplus with the US, China's now holds 1.5 trillion dollars worth of US debt instruments (including US Treasury bills). It has the ability to significantly disrupt international currency markets. The US dollar would plunge to even lower levels, were China to sell off its dollar denominated debt holdings.(For further details see: F. William Engdahl, op cit)
Moreover, China is the largest producer of a wide range of manufactured goods which constitute, for the West, a significant share of monthly household consumption. Western retail giants rely on the continued and uninterrupted flow of cheap labor industrial commodities from China.
For the Western countries, China's insertion into the structures of global trade, investment, finance and intellectual property rights under the World Trade Organization (WTO) is absolutely crucial. Were Beijing to decide to curtail its "Made in China" manufacturing exports to the US, America's fragile and declining manufacturing base would not be able to fill the gap, at least in the short run.
Moreover, the US and its coalition partners including the UK, Germany, France and Japan have important investment interests in China. In 2001, the US and China signed a bilateral trading agreement prior to the accession of China to the WTO. This agreement allows US investors, including the major Wall Street financial institutions, to position themselves in Shanghai's financial and trading system as well as in China's domestic banking market.
While China is, in some regards, the West's "cheap labor industrial colony", China's relationship to the global trading system is by no means cast in steel.
China's relationship to global capitalism has its roots in the "Open Door Policy" initially formulated in 1979. (Michel Chossudovsky, Towards Capitalist Restoration. Chinese Socialism after Mao, Macmillian, London, 1986, chapters 7 and 8)
Since the 1980s, China has become the main supplier of industrial goods to Western markets. Any threat against China and/or military venture directed against China's Eurasian allies including Iran could potentially disrupt China's extensive trade in manufactured goods.
China's export oriented industrial base is the source of tremendous wealth formation in the advanced capitalist economies. Where does the wealth of the Walton family, owners of WalMart, originate? WalMart does produce anything. It imports cheap labor commodities "Made in China" and resells them in the US retail market at up to ten times their factory price.
This process of "import led development" has allowed the Western "industrialised" countries to close down a large part of their manufacturing outlets. In turn, China's industrial sweat shops serve to generate multibillion dollar profits for Western corporations, including the retail giants, which purchase and/or outsource their production to China.
Any threat of a military nature directed against China could have devastating economic consequences, far beyond the familiar upward spiral in the price of crude oil.
Michel Chossudovsky is Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is the author of several international best-sellers including The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Global Research, 2003 and America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, 2005. He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.
Michel Chossudovsky is also the author of the first comprehensive study on the restoration of capitalism in China, published more than twenty years ago. Michel Chossudovsky, Towards Capitalist Restoration. Chinese Socialism after Mao, Macmillian, London, 1986. He has recently returned from a visit to China. He was in Shanghai and Beijing in March 2008.
Monday, April 07, 2008
Nasal Irrigation
I've had one helluva head cold the last few days. Slept 9 hours last night after the junos, went to class, came home and slept another 5 hours. Crazy.
Yesterday Patrick was telling me I should try this nasal rinse stuff, which reminded me of something my dad tried. Well after doing a little reading, a neti pot is the way to go. I tried it with a turkey baster just to see what it's like. My nose has never felt so empty and clean. Here's a vid for your viewing pleasure.
Yesterday Patrick was telling me I should try this nasal rinse stuff, which reminded me of something my dad tried. Well after doing a little reading, a neti pot is the way to go. I tried it with a turkey baster just to see what it's like. My nose has never felt so empty and clean. Here's a vid for your viewing pleasure.
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