I’m sure many of you have read The Book Thief, Markus Zusak’s youth novel about a German girl and her (non-biological) family during World War II. If you haven’t yet read it, I recommend it. I had little interest in reading this book. I picked it up for professional reasons:
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Montreal Simon: Stephen Harper and the Great Warrior Leader Delusion
It's scary enough that the wonky nerd Stephen Harper should see himself as a Great Warrior Leader, a strategic genius on a par with Napoleon. Or that he is both an avid student of Stalin AND an ardent believer in The Rapture.Who is presently trying to trigger a superpower confrontation in
Continue readingwmtc: military propaganda at sports events reaches new extremes: continuous recruitment ads at baseball games
I’ve recently returned from a lovely trip to Boston, filled with so many of my favourite things: friends, family, books, and baseball. I love Fenway Park, and I’m always happy to be there. On this trip, we saw three great games, two of them wins, so I was thrilled. The
Continue readingwmtc: march 19, 2003: don’t call it a failure. it was a huge success for so many.
Eleven years ago today, the US invaded Iraq. This unprovoked invasion of another country that had not threatened the United States was justified by the pretense of finding weapons of mass destruction (which the US knew did not exist), and as payback for 9/11 (which the US knew Iraq had
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Ukraine Crisis: The Harper Conservatives Are NOT Canada
by: Obert Madondo Last week’s “Canadian delegation” to Ukraine wasn’t a Canadian delegation. It was an all-Conservative outfit. The opposition was completely shut out. The shut out reminds me of how Third World tyrants do politics. How they exploit global crises to score cheap domestic political points. The shut out makes
Continue readingwmtc: support-the-troops hypocrisy continues; angry veterans call for fantino’s resignation
I am posting this article mainly so the commenter called “conservatives are lying scum” can repost his or her comments here. (You can currently read them on this old post: harper’s support for veterans: wear a poppy. do nothing else.) Veterans who were in Ottawa to lobby against the closing
Continue readingwmtc: "in the midst of madness, one soldier has refused to participate": let them stay week, revolutionary thought of the day, and other coincidences
Don’t you love it when everything comes together? It’s Let Them Stay Week 2014, I’m thinking about the US war resisters in Canada, and about war resistance in general. And I’m reading a terrific youth novel, Flight, by Sherman Alexie, both fast-paced and rich with insight and meaning. And I come
Continue readingwmtc: let them stay week day 2: letter to the editor
Let Them Stay Week 2014 kicked off yesterday with a flutter on social media. Today we get underway in earnest by writing letters to the editors of local newspapers. Three ideas for letters are here on the War Resisters Support Campaign website. An excellent list of email address, along with
Continue readingwmtc: january 12-19: let them stay week 2014: stop the deportations!
This month marks the 10th anniversary of the arrival in Canada of Jeremy Hinzman, the first US Iraq War resister to seek asylum here after refusing to participate in an illegal and immoral war. Yet 10 years on, Jeremy and his family, and many other U.S. war resisters, are still
Continue readingwmtc: government destruction of environmental archives: the harper govt’s war on facts marches on
At year’s end, The Tyee reported that a memo – marked “secret” and first reported on OCanada.com – cast grave doubts on the Harper Government’s claim that environmental archives were destroyed only after they had been preserved digitally. In other words, the memo proves what progressive and concerned Canadians have long
Continue readingwmtc: today is chelsea manning’s fourth birthday behind bars
Private Chelsea Manning (formerly Bradley Manning), who risked her freedom and her life so that people would see the truth about the US occupation of Iraq, is spending another birthday in prison. This is Manning’s fourth birthday behind bars. She was held in solitary confinement (a recognized form of torture)
Continue readingwmtc: rtod
Revolutionary thought of the day: …something is significantly wrong with a creature that sacrifices its children’s lives to settle its differences. Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay
Continue readingwmtc: war resister kimberly rivera released from prison in u.s.
At long last, Iraq War resister Kim Rivera is out of prison and reunited with her family. This is great news, the best news. I should be thrilled, but the whole situation makes me so sad that I can’t muster much joy.
Continue readingwmtc: update on kimberly rivera and how you can help
Three days ago, Iraq War resister Kimberly Rivera gave birth to a son, Matthew Kaden, in a military hospital in San Diego. As soon as her hospital stay ends (which may have already happened), Kim will be taken back to prison. Her newborn baby will stay with his father and
Continue readingwmtc: the war continues to kill: the wounded survivors, and those killed by their own conscience
Here are two excellent, heartbreaking stories about what happens to those who survive and don’t survive war. The first, excerpted from Ann Jones’ book They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America’s Wars — the Untold Story: An older Army officer calls me over and gestures toward the empty
Continue readingwmtc: justin doolittle in salon: stop thanking the troops for your freedom. they didn’t give it to you.
Justin Doolittle, writing in Salon, takes down the military lovefest currently enveloping professional sports in North America: “Stop thanking the troops for me: No, they don’t “protect our freedoms!”“ Doolittle makes the point – extremely important and almost always overlooked – that we do not owe our present “freedom” (whatever
Continue readingwmtc: 11.11: lest we forget, let’s not forget: there is no glory in war.
For Canadians who fear and distrust the steadily growing militarism suffusing the culture of our country, two recent books are indispensable: What We Talk About When We Talk About War, by Noah Richler, and Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety by Ian McKay and Jamie Swift. Richler’s
Continue readingwmtc: noah richler on the language of war propaganda, and the dishonesty of present ideology
From Noah Richler’s What We Talk About When We Talk About War: We have a duty to be honest and rigorous, with ourselves and with others, and to be able to brook contradiction and argument in our discussions of past wars and the present one in Afghanistan. But instead, in today’s
Continue readingwmtc: noah richler: canada was shaped by discussion and compromise, not through war
[The over-emphasis on Canadian military history] distorts and downplays the significant roles that Canadian politicians, diplomats, jurists and a variety of other civilians (such as artists) have had in shaping not just the domestic Canadian polity but abstract, universal ideas about statehood that have served as examples internationally – in
Continue readingThe Canadian Progressive: Canada must arrest Dick Cheney for torture, war crimes: Lawyers
A group of lawyers has asked Canada to arrest former US Vice President Dick Cheney for torture and war crimes when he visits Toronto later this week. The post Canada must arrest Dick Cheney for torture, war crimes: Lawyers appeared first on The Canadian Progressive.
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