World Refugee Day :Down with borders!!

World Refugee Day, sponsored by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, is today and is a time to reflect upon the very comfortable and stable lifestyle that most people able to see this are blessed to have in comparison to those on the run, and more importantly to focus on the pain, suffering and injustice which plagues the world and creates at least 30 million refugees (and millions upon millions more internally displaced). Give what you can, even if it is just a few dollars, pounds, yen, rupee whatever...

Most are very careful to separate immigration from refugees, if only to spare refugees the kind of stigma that some immigrants face upon arrival in their new home. Refugees are protected under international law, although determining who is under those protections often seems to quite difficult for receiving countries. Meanwhile economic migrants face extreme hardship if they are without the proper documentation, forced to live in fear, scapegoated by society for any social or economic woe.

The only real solution of course is a fundamental transformation of the way that human beings organise themselves and their economy. Under a democratically planned economy, there would be enough to satisfy the needs of all, and there would be no economic pressure to move from richer to poorer countries, it would simply be a case of personal preference where one lives. National borders only divide the working class and help distract us from our true enemy: the capitalists and politicians who run the world. So NO to immigration controls, NO to the small confines of the nation state, and N0 to the victimisation of migrants, whatever their status.

Libellés : Droits, Pauvreté et développement

par Borges à 10:05

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Muslims removed from Obama rally

Obama campaigners in Detroit earlier this week were so worried about their candidates image that they escorted two female Muslims (wearing head scarves) away from behind M. Obama so that he would not be photographed with Muslims in the background. That's not RELIGIOUS TRANSCENDENCE... and so they have apologised. Still...

So it's a smear to call Barak Obama a Muslim (because what could be worse right?) and now it's damaging to him and his campaign to even be seen NEAR Muslims (despite the fact that his family is part-Muslim). I have no illusions about Americans, I know that there are some that would not vote for him if he was Muslim, however, there are plenty that won't vote for him just being Black (biracial if you'd like to be correct) so where is the moral high ground?

Leading Obamite John Aravosis, responds:

We live in a country that just removed a tv commercial because the
famous tv chef, rachel ray, was wearing a "terrorist scarf."  She was
wear a keffayih (or however you write it).  Unfortunately, that  
picture of Obama would have probably ended his shot at the  
presidency.[my emphasis]  Is it right?  No.
But do I want to hand the Republicans
a photo to put John McCain in office? No

What I want to know is if these two women are still big Obama supporters

Libellés : Politique, États-Unis

par Borges à 08:44

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Liberal Party of Canada must orient itself towards workers

In reading about the Marxist intervention in the Oshawa General Motors strike, it was interesting to see the militancy of the workers there reflected in a serious distaste towards the Liberal Party of Canada:

At one point during the day, John McCallum, former Liberal Finance Minister, arrived at the blockade to try to paint the Liberal Party a pro-worker opposition to the Harper Tories. He was immediately surrounded by angry workers, who had not forgotten the Liberal's record. "We're not the government," was McCallum's talking-point response to demands for political action to save the plants slated for closure. One member of the bargaining committee interrupted McCallum, "You were the government, and we know what you did then: Nothing!" At one point, the only thing protecting the right honourable gentleman from his would-be constituents was the ring of journalists and cameramen that had formed around the ex-minister. [IDOM, 13.6.08]

Indeed, the party is not in government, and that can hold serious credibility in certain cases, however there is something to be said about being a proactive, or at least active, Official Opposition. The Liberal Party needs to show the workers of Canada that they exist for them, because it the workers who make up the nation. The Liberal deputies have been tactically spineless, and there is something to be said about knowing when to back down, however that must be tempered with a sense of purpose and determination.

Libellés : Libéraux, Politique, ROC

par Borges à 10:14

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Obama: Your saviour and mine

Americans are so lucky to have Barak Obama there to save them from themselves (and even global warming!). Obama's victory speech:

I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment - this was the time - when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals. Thank you, God Bless you, and may God Bless the United States of America.

Yes God bless us all indeed. And God Bless Goldman-Sachs and Morgan Stanley, and God Bless crack-downs on immigrants, and the capitalist system which you so whole-heartedly support and God bless the people who are so blinded by hope for change that they give their all for a man who is basically the same as George W. Bush, that is, a pawn of capital and industry. That's not to say that the American working class is at fault for their disillusion with the status quo and their deep desire to cling onto something different to the last 8 years of reaction. However what must be remembered is that these 8 years of reaction are only a continuation of 200+ years of bourgeois domination of politics and the economy. Republican, Democrat, neither have the answers, neither have the ability to affect the true transformations needed.

Libellés : Politique, États-Unis

par Borges à 10:26

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