Sovereign America: May 2007

Finally, proof of something I have suspected for quite awhile, that the liberals are in bed with the terrorist to further their own agenda. The Socialist err... Democratic party is selling its soul to the special interest groups and in turn the special interest groups are in bed with the terrorist. Why the MSM is not all over this I'll never know. Oh wait, they are liberal too. Never mind the right-wing conspiracy the left-wing one is going to get us all killed. The liberal MSM is waging a disinformation war against the American people in order to break our will to fight the enemy. But what's more appalling is the fact that if they win the Islamist are going to cut their throats first! One would think they would be lining up behind us to help defeat the greatest threat since Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini. This website is a must read for any American who still considers themselves a patriot.

I started this post with the idea I was going to talk about the Marxist festival titled MARXISM 2007 A Festival of Resistance.

This little get together included the who's who of the socialist movement of Canada as well as some folks who lean toward the terrorist point of view. What really amazed me is how embedded the socialist are in Canada's higher education system. It blows my mind that despite all their years of education they still can see how crappy socialism is. Have they not learned anything from Stalin, or Mao? Or do they think the murdering of millions is a great idea? Stalin's purges killed millions in Russia and Mao's Great leap forward was straight off a cliff because is systematically starved millions to death. BUT WAIT!!! there's more!!! Take the time and read through the list of classes and more importantly the list of speakers! This would be funny stuff if we weren't involved in a war. They actually highlight a guy who met MAO! Like it was a great thing. These people are seriously twisted and need to be rounded up and place in interment camps because unlike the Japanese these people have earned it.

Speakers:

Alex Adams is a trans activist living and working in Ottawa, Ontario, and a member of the Gatineau-Ottawa International Socialists.

Zainab Amadahy is an urban, mixed race indigenous writer, activist and community worker. She has contributed to the anthology Strong Women’s Stories: Native Vision and Community Activism, co-edited by Bonita Lawrence and Kim Anderson (2004, Sumach Press) and is the author of "Moons of Palmares" (1998, Sister Vision Press). She is a founding member of the Coalition in Support of Indigenous Sovereignty, member of the Board of the Association of Native Development in the Performing and Visual Arts and the Executive Director of Community Arts Ontario.

Sedef Arat-Koc is Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University in Toronto. Her numerous articles include, "The Disciplinary Boundaries of Canadian Identity After 9/11: Civilizational Identity, Multiculturalism and the Challenge of Anti-Imperialist Feminism" in Social Justice: A Journal of Crime, Conflict and World Order, Special Issue: Race, Racism and Empire: Reflections on Canada.

Abbie Bakan is Professor of Political Studies at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario and Editor of Marxism: A Socialist Annual.

Zafar Bangash is the Director of the Institute for Contemporary Islamic Thought in Toronto.

John Boyd is a former member of the Communist Party of Canada from 1930-68. Over this time, he was the editor of the Young Worker, attended party training schools led by Stanley Ryerson and Tim Buck, and met Mao Tse-Tung and Chou Enl-Lai in China. He visited Moscow in the USSR, as well as the Ukraine, Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia while under the rule of Stalinism. From 1958 to 1967, he was the editor of the Canadian Tribune. In Prague, Czechoslovakia, in 1967, John broke with the Communist Party as a result of the Soviet military invasion and repression of the workers’ democracy movement. He has retained to this day his commitment to socialism. See A Noble Cause Betrayed ... but Hope Lives On Pages from a Political Life by John Boyd

James Clark is a founding member of the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War and a leading member of the International Socialists. He is co-author of Islamophobia: What it is and how to fight it.

Janet Conway is Associate Professor of Policy Studies at Ryerson University. Among her numerous publications is Identity, Place, Knowledge: Social Movements Contesting Globalization. She is the former Program Director at the Social Planning Council of Metro Toronto, a founding member of the Toronto-based Metro Network for Social Justice and a convenor of the Toronto Social Forum.

Françoise David is a spokesperson and candidate in the 2007 Quebec election for the new party, Québec Solidaire. She is former president of the Fédération des Femmes du Québec (Quebec Federation of Women), and was a central organizer for the 1995 March of Women Against Poverty.

Brian Donnelly is a professor of design at Sheridan College in Oakville, and joined the I.S. in 1981, just as Solidarnosc in Poland was proving the bankruptcy of state capitalism, while Reagan and Thatcher were proving the utter ruthlessness of global imperialism.

Leslie Doucet is an Aboriginal rights activist, a member of the International Socialists, and a graduate student in the Department of Sociology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

Carolyn Egan came to Canada from the US as part of the wave of draft resisters opposed to the war in Vietnam. She is President of the United Steelworkers Toronto Area Council.

Dr. Mohamed Elmasry is Chair of the Board and President of the Canadian Islamic Congress. He is also Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Waterloo.

Pam Frache is a longstanding social justice activist in the labour, student and solidarity movements.

Grace-Edward Galabuzi is Assistant Professor at Ryerson University in the Department of Politics and Public Administration, and author of Canada's Economic Apartheid: The Social Exclusion of Racialized Groups in the New Century.

Sam Gindin is the Packer Chair in Social Justice in the Department of Political Science at York University, and former research director for the Canadian Auto Workers. His numerous publications include The Canadian Auto Workers: The Birth and Transformation of a Union.

Ted Glick is the National Coordinator of the Independent Progressive Politics Network and author of Future Hope: A Winning Strategy for a Just Society.

Adam Hanieh is a member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid and a board member of Palestine House. He is co-authour of Stolen Youth: The Politics of Israel's Detention of Palestinian Children (Pluto Press, 2004).

Joel Davison Harden is a trade union researcher and former leader of the Canadian Federation of Students (Ontario, 1998-2000). He was part of an activist delegation who visited Venezuela during the recent Presidential elections in December 2006.

Jen Hassum is President of the University of Toronto Student Administrative Council (SAC), and President-elect of the Canadian Federation of Students. She is also former co-chair of the U of T NDP Club.

Andrew Hodge is a teacher and social justice activist in Toronto. He is a longstanding member of the International Socialists.

Jonathon Hodge is a member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid in Toronto. He is author of "The Holocaust: A Marxist Assessment", published in Marxism 2005, and a member of the editorial board of Socialist Worker, where he writes regularly on Middle East issues.

Kelly Holloway is a doctoral candidate at York University, studying women’s health care. She is a member of the International Socialists and active in the student, anti-war, and pro-choice movements.

Matt Jones is a writer and activist living in Montréal. He is an active member of the Mercier branch of Québec Solidaire and the anti-war collective Échec à la guerre. He is also on the editorial board of Résistance!

Paul Kellogg is a writer and editor specializing in political economy. His articles include "Kari Levitt and the Long Detour of Canadian Political Economy" (Studies in Political Economy, 76, Autumn, 2005).

Joe Kelly is a graduate student at the University of Toronto specializing in the politics of racism and resistance.

Shaila Kibria is a former Vice-president (Equity) of the University of Toronto Students' Union.

Sid Lacombe is Campaign Organizer with the Canadian Peace Alliance.

Nikolai Lanine is a former soldier in the Russian military in Afghanistan. A citizen of the former USSR, he was drafted at the age of 18 and deployed to Afghanistan between 1987 and 1989. He is now an anti-war activist living in Victoria, BC. An interview is available at Socialist Worker Online.

Valerie Lannon is longstanding peace and social activist in Victoria, BC.

Peter Leibovitch is a millwright who formerly worked at Stelco's Lake Erie plant near Port Dover, Ont. He was elected President of United Steelworkers of America, Local 8782 three times and is now serving as a leading activist in the union nationally. He served as an advisor to Ontario NDP leader Howard Hampton in 1997 and 1998, was the campaign manager for Windsor NDP MP Joe Comartin, and is currently a member of the NDP Federal Council.

Ausma Malik is Vice-president (Equity) of the University of Toronto Students' Union.

Ali Mallah is the Vice-President, CUPE Toronto District Council, and a member of the CUPE Ontario District International Solidarity Committee. He is also Vice-President of the Canadian Arab Federation. on the Steering Committee of the Canadian Peace Alliance, the Executive Board of the Centre for Social Justice, the Coordinating Committee of the Muslim Unity Group, and a member of the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid.

Ian MacDonald is completing a doctorate in Political Science at York University in Toronto. He was in Mexico during the autumn, 2006 uprising.

Jesse McLaren joined the International Socialists during the 2001 campaign against pharmaceutical patents. He works as a physician in Montreal, Québec, and is a member of Québec Solidaire, Médecins pour l'accès à la santé, and Canadian Doctors for Medicare.

Nauman Mir has been active in anti-racist movements in Halifax and Toronto. He is author of "Afghanistan: The Myth of Liberation" in Marxism 2006.

Matthew Morgan is a graduate student at the Institute of Political Economy at Carleton University in Ottawa. Delegate to the 2006 World Social Forum in Caracas, Venezuela. His interests lie primarily in the developing neo-Gramsican school of International Relations theory and well as the development and the political orientation of mass social movements post-9/11.

Doug Nesbitt is a history student at Carleton University. He will be attending graduate school at Trent University, where his research will focus on the formation of working class consciousness in Canada during the 19th century.

Farid Omar is an expert on African history and politics. He came to Canada in 1993 as a refugee from the civil wars in Somalia. He is a founder of the Pan-African Student Network (PASNET) at the University of Toronto, and of the Horn of Africa Relief Society.

Sherene Razack is Professor of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. Her numerous publications include Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affair, Peacekeeping and the New Imperialism.

Judy Rebick is the CAW-Sam Gindin Chair is Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University in Toronto, and the publisher of rabble.ca. She is the author of several books including Imagine Democracy, and a columnist for the Globe and Mail and Maclean's magazine. She is also former President of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and currently a board member of Alternatives, a Quebec-based NGO, and the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Benoit Renaud is the coordinator of the Outaouais regional association of Québec Solidaire, one of the editors of Résistance!, and a member of the collective of À Bâbord! magazine.

John Riddell is editor of the six volume series, The Communist International in Lenin’s Time, and co-editor of Socialist Voice. The fifth volume in the series is: To See the Dawn: Baku, 1920, First Congress of the Peoples of the East.

Virginia Rodino is an anti-war activist and socialist from Baltimore, Maryland. She is a past steering committee member of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), and is a co-convenor of the International Committee of United for Peace and Justice.

Jean Saint-Vil is a spokesperson, activist and journalist with the Canada Haiti Action Network, and author of Viv Bondye! Aba Relijyon!

Jessica Squires is a graduate student in the Department of History at Carleton University. She is President of CUPE Local 4600 and, was a candidate for Québec Solidaire in the recent Quebec provincial election.

Laurel Smith is a theatre director, playwright and producer with an MA in Drama (The Drama Centre, University of Toronto), a BA in music and opera performance (Wilfrid Laurier University), and an MBA in Arts and Media Administration (York University.) Currently, Laurel is Artistic Producer of Burning Passions Theatre, which is developing two of her newest plays, "The Crush of Beauty" and "The Reluctant Dragon", and which will be producing G.B. Shaw's play, "Mrs. Warren's Profession" at the Toronto Fringe this July. Burning Passions Theatre was formed in 1998 as a woman-positive theatre company devoted to telling the stories of women and youth, and to the issues of social justice. Laurel is a founding member of Toronto Action for Social Change (TASC), Homes not Bombs and St. Clare¹s Multifaith Housing Society, and is a Councillor of Canadian Actors' Equity Association.

Chantal Sundaram is Editor of the monthly French language socialist news publication, Résistance!. She is co-author of Islamophobia: What it is and how to fight it.

Terry Theakston is a member of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, and a longstanding solidarity activist.

Wahida Valiante is National Vice-president of the Canadian Islamic Congress.

Suzanne Weiss is a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust, born in France during the period of Nazi occupation. She is a regular contributor to Socialist Voice, and active in Not in Our Name (NION): Jewish Voices Against Israel’s Wars, the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, and solidarity work against imperialist interventions in Haiti and Venezuela.

Shawn Whitney is a founder of Artists Against War and Lost Carnival Theatre in Toronto. His plays include Death’s Diner and WAR: The Musical.

Rafeef Ziadah is a graduate student in the Department of Political Science at York University and a member of CUPE. She is active in the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid and Sumoud Political Prisoner Solidarity Group.

...and many more!

The classes:

Imperialism and Resistance

Iran: explaining the conflict - Sid Lacombe H Imperialism

and the new Middle East - Mohamed Elmasry, Ahmed

Habib, James Clark H Somalia: the new scramble for

Africa - Ali Awali H Hizbullah: lessons from Lebanon -

Faline Bobier

Peacekeeping: Myth and Reality

Crisis in Darfur: can peacekeepers bring peace? -

Charlotte Ireland H From Suez to Afghanistan: the

legacy of Canadian peacekeeping - Sherene Razack,

Jean St-Vil, Michelle Robidoux

Indigenous Resistance

Aboriginal identity and Canadian imperialism -

Leslie Doucet, Terry Theakston H Indigenism: building

solidarity with Indigenous peoples - Zainab Amadahy

H Palestine and the right of return - Rafeef Ziadah,

Jonathon Hodge

Islam and the Left

Islam and women’s liberation - Sedef Arat-Koc, Shaila

Kibria, Kelly Holloway H Can people of faith be

Marxists? - Chantal Sundaram

The Americas in Revolt

Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution - Joel Harden H

Mexico in revolt - Ian MacDonald H Latin America rising -

Michelle Robidoux

Climate Change

Deniers, liars and the politics of climate change -

Brian Champ H What would a green economy look

like? - Pam Frache

Workers Rising

Working class or multitude: who can change

the world? - Ritch Whyman H The fight for a living

wage - Andrea Calver, James Wardlaw, Marva Burnett,

UNITE HERE worker, Carolyn Egan

Economies of the 21st Century

Why is Africa poor? From colonialism to neo-liberalism

- Sid Lacombe, Farid Omar H India and China: the

new superpowers? - Paul Kellogg H The future of the

American empire - Sam Gindin, Paul Kellogg

Disability Politics

The fight for disability liberation: activists speak out -

Ravi Malhotra, Sandra Carpenter, Erin George H War,

trauma and bodies - Stephanie Teske, Julie Devaney H

Another P3? Parkdale, poverty and psychiatric survivor

history - Geoffrey Reaume, Jiji Voronka, Paul Denison

Life Under Capitalism

Healthcare and the market - Jesse McLaren H

Another science is possible - Bradley Hughes H

Commodity fetishism: why we love to shop - Shawn

Whitney

A Rebel’s Guide to Marxism

Lenin on state and revolution - Brian Donnelly,

Ken Golden H Marx on alienation - Sara Marlowe H

Trotsky on the united front - Matt Morgan

Marxist Ideas: Theoretically Speaking

Antonio Gramsci: Marxist, postmodernist or both? - Abbie

Bakan H Race and class: from W.E.B. Dubois to C.L.R.

James - Grace-Edward Galabuzi, Nauman Mir H Lenin’s

Marxism in the 21st century - Ritch Whyman H Third World

Marxism: from Che to Fanon - Joe Kelly, Andrew Hodge

Gender and Sexuality

Trans identity and post-identity politics - Alex Adams,

Maureen Aslin H After same-sex marriage: are we

equal now? - Christine Beckermann H Sexism and

the rise of raunch culture - Pam Johnson

Québec Libre

Québec solidaire and the new left - Françoise David,

Benoit Renaud H Quebec’s history of anti-imperialism

- Matt Jones

People’s History of Canada

Making of the pan-canadian working class - Doug

Nesbitt H Guantanamo North and civil liberties -

Ahmad Jaballah, Jessica Squires

The Russian Revolution: 90 Years On

Victor Serge: eyewitness to revolution - Valerie Lannon H

Revolutionary Russia: when socialists and Muslims

defeated imperialism - John Riddell H Is the Russian

Revolution relevant today? - John Boyd, Chantal Sundaram

The Cultural Front

Believe half of what you see: image as ideology -

Kathryn Palmateer H Bohemians or workers: organizing

artists to change the world - Giles Hodge, Laurel

Smith H Hip-hop and anti-capitalism - Belladonna,

Ali Aumeer

Strategies for Changing the World

NGOs and imperialism: is there a connection? - Pam

Frache H Israel, the US and Zionism: who’s really in

charge? - Suzanne Weiss, Abbie Bakan H What’s

radical? Building a united anti-imperialist movement -

Jessica Squires, Jen Hassum, Adam Hanieh

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