TELL PARLIAMENT – DEFEAT POLICE STATE BILL C-51 from Central Executive, Communist Party of Canada

TELL PARLIAMENT – DEFEAT POLICE STATE BILL C-51

Issued by the Central Executive,
Communist Party of Canada
February 4, 2015
Across Canada, alarms are being raised against Bill C-51, the so-called “Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015” which gives the Canadian state sweeping new powers to further criminalize public dissent. In the first place, it targets those critical of the corporate agenda of austerity, environmental destruction, and imperialist war. This dangerous Tory legislation would help further transform CSIS into a secret police force beyond the control of the public or even Parliament. The Communist Party of Canada warns that Bill C-51 cannot be “amended” or “improved”; it must be rejected by Parliament, and CSIS itself should be dismantled, not expanded.

This Bill constitutes perhaps the most serious threat to free speech and civil liberties in Canada since the era of the War Measures Act, which was proclaimed by governments several times from World War One to the 1970s to suspend democratic rights, including mass incarcerations of targeted ethnic groups, Communists, trade union leaders and a broad range of democratic forces in Quebec, until it was finally repealed by Parliament in response to massive public pressure.

Bill C-51’s alleged purpose is to protect Canadians from “terrorism”, but its true aim is to help the Conservative Party use fear and intimidation tactics to extend its political base in advance of the 2015 federal election. The underlying purpose is to limit civil, labour and democratic rights of all Canadian citizens and residents, and to expand the powers of an increasingly authoritarian state.

Making racist speeches which single out mosques for special attention, the Prime Minister has openly signalled that entire sections of the population are being placed into a category of potential terrorists, considered “guilty until proven innocent.” Even the Globe and Mail has warned that “the fearmongering of a campaigning Prime Minister” is being used to turn CSIS into “something that looks disturbingly like a secret police force.”

Under this legislation, CSIS agents will be allowed to act against any perceived “threat to the security of Canada,” without a judicial warrant if they claim that their activities do not contravene Charter rights or the law. CSIS would be permitted to disrupt vaguely defined “radical websites”, and to apply for court orders to remove “terrorist propaganda” from the Internet. The Bill lowers the legal threshold to detain people without criminal charges, and expands the reach of the “no-fly list”.

CSIS agents will be allowed to break into homes and offices, seize documents, remove whatever they find, install monitoring devices, or carry out any “dirty tricks” or disruptive activities which a judge agrees is “reasonable”.

Since the government has declared that Canada is at war, there is every reason to believe that any judicial limits on these police powers will be minimal at best, and that these activities will be integrated with the CIA’s “black operations” around the world. Just as ominous, there will be no mechanism for Canadians to even monitor CSIS, leaving only the PMO and a tiny clique of powerless and complicit government officials with knowledge of its actions.

Section 16 of C-51 prohibits “advocating and promoting terrorism”, raising a wide range of unanswered questions. For example, Public Safety Minister Blaney has refused to give a direct response in Parliament or to the media regarding non-violent civil disobedience protests against the extraction and export of tar sands bitumen. The clear implication of Minister Blaney’s comments is that any protests directed against the energy industry are by definition potentially dangerous, and could fall under the general umbrella of “terrorist” activity. Similarly, Conservative cabinet ministers repeatedly slander the broadly-supported movements which oppose Israel’s apartheid-style occupation of Palestinian territories – such as the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions campaign – in effect branding these movements as targets of CSIS actions.

Since coming to power in 2006, the Harper government has engaged in massive surveillance against indigenous people’s movements, and has frequently used back-to-work legislation against unions under federal jurisdiction, claiming that strikes at Air Canada, Canada Post, and elsewhere constituted a threat to the economy. Now, Bill C-51 will criminalize actions which “interfere with the ability of the Canadian government to maintain economic or fiscal stability”, an obvious threat against both the labour movement and the right to strike, and indeed any movement which resists the agenda of the banks and corporations. Trade unions and Aboriginal peoples will be a major focus of the beefed-up CSIS, just as the RCMP was used for decades by federal and provincial governments to break strikes and target Aboriginal activists.

In other words, the Harper Conservatives are providing CSIS with powers going far beyond those which were stripped from the RCMP over 30 years ago as a result of its illegal activities such as barn-burning in Quebec and spying on CUPW – and at the same time the Tories are implicitly setting the political agenda for this new secret police operation.

A growing chorus of criticism is emerging, including by some media outlets and civil liberties groups. The Green Party leader, MP Elizabeth May, has condemned C-51 as so “overbroad” that it “could apply to anything”. The NDP, Liberals and Bloc Quebecois have raised some questions about the lack of public oversight of CSIS, but unfortunately these opposition parties have so far failed to take a principled stand to block C-51 in Parliament.

The Communist Party will do everything in our power to help defeat Bill C-51. We urge the labour and democratic movements, environmental groups, Aboriginal peoples, the Palestine solidarity and anti-war movements, civil liberties groups, and all those who care about civil, labour and democratic rights, to help build a powerful, mass, united campaign against this police state legislation. Such a broad-based fight can win, by mobilizing public opposition right across the country!

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For more information, please contact CPC leader Miguel Figueroa at 416-469-2446 or figueroa@cpc-pcc.ca.

Will Obama Cave to the Establishment’s War Lust? James Carden 4 feb 15

Why sending weapons to Ukraine is a reckless idea.
James Carden

source: http://www.thenation.com/article/197097/will-obama-cave-establishments-war-lust#

As the one year anniversary of the Maidan coup approaches, eastern Ukraine remains enveloped in tragedy. On January 13th 12 people were killed when a passenger bus was shelled near the Ukrainian town of Volnovakha. This was followed by a rocket attack on Mariupol that killed 30 on January 24th. Human Rights Watch has condemned both sides for their use of unguided rockets in populated areas. According to HRW’s latest report, at least 341 people were killed in the Donetsk region in January alone. All in all, the death toll in eastern Ukraine is now, according to the UN, fast approaching 5,400.

Meanwhile reports that Kiev’s forces are close to capitulating in and around the town of Debaltseve continue to circulate. And into this volatile mix comes word that NATO Supreme Allied Commander Philip M. Breedlove now supports sending arms to Kiev. That the New York Times report carrying this news appeared just as the Super Bowl was getting underway seems to indicate that the administration, using NATO as its proxy, wanted to avoid too much public scrutiny of the proposed change in policy. And a change in policy it would be; the question is: why now?

After all, President Obama has been reticent to wade deeper into the Ukrainian morass. One answer may be that he is finally buckling under to the pressure generated by the Washington foreign policy establishment’s media blitz that has been calling for the US to become a party to the conflict in eastern Ukraine.

This well-coordinated campaign to convince the President to intervene began last week when a series of reports and op-ed pieces calling for the US to arm Kiev began to appear in major American and British newspapers. In the January 27th edition of the Financial Times, former US Ambassador to NATO Ivo Daalder proclaimed that “now is the time to provide lethal military aid to Ukraine.” This was followed shortly, on the 29th, by a joint op-ed in the Washington Postby former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and former US Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer which urged the administration to give “the Ukrainian military sufficient means to make further aggression so costly that Putin and the Russian army are deterred from escalating the fight.”

On Sunday, February 1st, the conservative-leaning Wall Street Journal and the liberal-leaning Guardian each published op-eds urging the West to arm Kiev. And on Sunday night came the aforementioned report in the New York Times, which also made note of “an independent report” that was about to be issued “by eight former senior American officials” urging “the United States to send $3 billion in defensive arms and equipment to Ukraine, including anti-armor missiles, reconnaissance drones, armored Humvees and radars…”

And if the establishment’s media campaign to pressure the White House can be said to have a piece de resistance, it is this report, entitled Preserving Ukraine's Independence, Resisting Russian Aggression: What the United States and NATO Must Do.

Published under the auspices of the the Atlantic Council, the Brookings Institution (of which Strobe Talbott is President), and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs (of which Ivo Daalder is President) the report calls for the US to become Kiev’s principal arms supplier.

In addition to calling for the US to send $3 billion in “defensive arms and equipment” to Ukraine, the report also calls for the administration to “immediately change its policy from prohibiting lethal assistance to allowing provision of defensive military assistance” including “light anti-armor missiles.” Further, the report urges the US to “approach Poland, the Baltic States, Canada and Britain regarding their readiness to provide lethal military assistance.”

The report’s recommendations are entirely objectionable and rest on two thoroughly questionable assumptions: that Mr. Putin is solely to blame for the unfolding catastrophe in the Donbas and that only American arms can stop him. Yet it is not at all hard to imagine that—if implemented—the report’s recommendations would represent a serious provocation to the Kremlin.

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Further, the report’s findings are largely based on a so-called “fact finding” mission by the “eight former senior American officials” to Kiev and Brussels. One cannot help but wonder what kind of ‘facts’ the delegation expected to get from meetings with American militarists like Breedlove, in Brussels, or with the likes of Major General Aleksandr Sirskiy, the commander of the “Anti-Terror Operation,” in Kiev.

And then there is the matter of involving NATO in the first place. Ukraine, after all, is not a member of NATO. Nor is it—despite the best efforts of the hawks on Capitol Hill—even a “major non-NATO ally.” What possible justification could there be then for NATO intervention, besides the phantom threat Russia allegedly poses to the Baltic states?

We also need to register a moral objection to sending arms to Kiev by asking: Does sending more missiles into a war zone make it more or less likely that an even greater number of civilians will be killed? The answer is self-evident.

More worrying still is the fact that the authors of the report are members-in-good-standing of the Democratic foreign policy establishment. Should Hillary Clinton gain the Oval Office in 2016, Talbott would likely be the frontrunner for Secretary of State while another of the report’s co-authors, Michele Flournoy, would be a leading candidate for Secretary of Defense. Since there is really no tangible difference between the recommendations of these (largely) Democratic party stalwarts and those being bandied about by hardline Republican in the Senate, Russia policy has truly become “bipartisan” in the very worst sense.

Will Obama give them the war they all so desperately seem to want? That now may depend on whether the no doubt large, though heretofore silent, numbers of peaceable minded citizens will at last speak up and tell their elected representatives to resist the siren song of war—and say no to any measures that would further militarize the conflict in Ukraine.

Is Ukraine a proxy NATO-Russia war? U.S. weighs arming Kiev as violence soars, feb 03 15

source: http://newcoldwar.org/ukraine-proxy-nato-russia-war-u-s-weighs-arming-kiev-violence-soars/

Interview with Professor Stephen Cohen, on Democracy Now Feb. 3, 2015.

Introduction by Democracy Now!–The United Nations has raised the death toll from fighting in eastern Ukraine to more than 5,300 people since last April following the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych one year ago this month. Another 1.5 million people have been displaced. As fighting intensifies, the Obama administration is now considering directly arming Ukrainian forces against Russian-backed rebels.

Washington already supplies nonlethal military equipment to Ukraine, but top officials are reportedly leaning toward sending arms, from rifles to anti-tank weapons. The role of the U.S. and European allies in Ukraine has prompted former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev to accuse the West of dragging Russia into a new Cold War. We are joined by Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. Enclosed is the transcript of the interview. To view the interview, go to the weblink above.

AARON MATÉ (Democracy Now! co-host): The United Nations has raised the death toll from fighting in eastern Ukraine to over 5,300 people since last April, following the ouster of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych one year ago this month. Another 1.5 million people have been displaced. According to Russian-backed rebels in Donetsk, shelling in eastern Ukraine has killed at least eight people and wounded 22 others in the past day. Ukraine says five more of its soldiers have died.

This comes as the White House now considers arming Ukraine in its fight against Russian-backed separatists. Washington already supplies nonlethal military equipment to Ukraine, but there is a growing push to send arms, from rifles to anti-tank weapons. On Monday, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki was asked about U.S. policy.

MATTHEW LEE: There are a whole plethora of reports out this morning that the administration is reconsidering providing lethal assistance to the Ukrainian government. Would you care to address those?

JEN PSAKI: Well, Matt, we are constantly assessing our policies on Ukraine to ensure they’re responsive, appropriated and calibrated to achieve our objectives. We are particularly concerned about recent escalating separatist violence and separatist attempts to expand the territory they currently control further, beyond the ceasefire line agreed to in Minsk, as well as the increasing toll of civilian and military casualties.

MATTHEW LEE: OK, so it sounds like you’re not saying, no, that these reports are wrong. Is it accurate then to say that this kind of assistance is now part of the conversation?

JEN PSAKI: Well, we haven’t taken options on or off the table, Matt. It’s an ongoing discussion. Obviously we have take into account events on the ground. But I don’t have anything to lay out for you in terms of internal deliberations.

REPORTER: Why would the president want to get into a proxy war with Russia?

JEN PSAKI: Well, I don’t think anybody wants to get into a proxy war with Russia. And that is not the objective. Our objective here is to change the behavior of Russia. That’s the reason that we’ve put the sanctions in place. We certainly want to help Ukraine, a sovereign government, thrive and go through this transition period. No decisions have been made. I’m talking about the fact that we of course preserve the right to consider a range of options.

AARON MATÉ: That’s State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki. On Thursday, Secretary of State John Kerry will travel to Kiev to meet with Ukrainian leaders.

AMY GOODMAN (Democracy Now! co-host): Last week, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev accused the West of dragging Russia into a new Cold War. He said, quote, “If we call a spade a spade, America has pulled us into a new Cold War, trying to openly implement its general idea of triumphalism. Where will it take us all? The Cold War is already on. What’s next? Unfortunately, I cannot say firmly that the Cold War will not lead to the hot one. I’m afraid that they might take the risk,” he said.

On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the conflict cannot be solved militarily.

CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL: [translated] Germany will not support Ukraine with weapons. I am firmly convinced that this conflict cannot be solved militarily, and therefore we insist that, on the one hand, we will impose sanctions, if necessary—we have done that jointly in Europe—and, on the other hand, we will use all diplomatic means to resolve this conflict through talks, or at least alleviate it.

AMY GOODMAN: To talk more about the crisis in Ukraine, we’re joined by Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. His most recent book, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, is out in paperback. Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Cohen.

STEPHEN COHEN: Thank you.

AMY GOODMAN: What’s happening in Ukraine?

STEPHEN COHEN: What’s happening in Ukraine? Gorbachev had it right. We’re in a new Cold War with Russia. The epicenter of the new Cold War is not in Berlin, like the last one, but it’s right on Russia’s borders, so it’s much more dangerous. You and I have talked about this since February. What I foresaw in February has played out, I regret to say: A political dispute in Ukraine became a Ukrainian civil war. Russia backed one side; the United States and NATO, the other. So it’s not only a new Cold War, it’s a proxy war. We’re arming Kiev. Russians are arming the eastern fighters. And I think, though I don’t want to spoil anybody’s day—I said to you in February this had the potential to become a new Cuban missile-style confrontation with the risk of war. That’s where we are now. And I think Gorbachev was right.

AARON MATÉ: There was a ceasefire reached in September. What’s happened since then?

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, it was never honored in full. And the primary problem was—I mean, there were many provisions of the ceasefire, which was supposed to stop the fighting in the east and lead to direct negotiations between the rebel government, or fighters—we call them “separatists.” They weren’t separatists when all this began, but now they’re separatists: They don’t want to live with Kiev any longer. But it was supposed to lead to negotiations. The main thing that happened was, is it required both sides to pull back their artillery, primarily Kiev, because Kiev was bombarding the capital cities of eastern Ukraine—Luhansk and Donetsk. That artillery was never pulled back. It was supposed to be 30 kilometers. How far back they pulled them, I don’t know. But as you know, in the last week, those cities have been bombarded again. So the ceasefire was honored kind of marginally in the breach for a couple months, but about a week ago, 10 days ago, the fighting escalated.*

Now, there is a dispute, because it eliminated the possibility of negotiations again: Who began the escalation? The State Department, you heard Psaki say it was Russia and Russian agents. Russia and the rebels say it was Kiev. But we’re in a fog of war. That expression comes from World War One, I think, when there was so much misinformation—we didn’t have email then, and it traveled more slowly—that the perception of what was going on was distorted, corrupted by news. And it led to war. The fog of war today derives from this, and it’s worse because it moves so fast, on social media news, is that you’ve got all this misinformation coming out of Kiev, out of Moscow, out of Washington. And for the three of us to sit here and say who threw the first punch ten days ago is almost impossible.

AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, three prominent U.S. think tanks—the Brookings Institution, the Atlantic Council and the Chicago Council on Global Affairs—issued a joint report urging the United States to provide Ukraine $3 billion in military assistance over the next three years. Former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott co-wrote the report. He’s now president of Brookings.

STROBE TALBOTT: In the context of what is happening in Ukraine today, the right way to characterize it is an act of war on the part of the Russian Federation. This means that there is going on in Ukraine today a literal invasion, not by—it’s not a proxy war. It’s a literal invasion by the Russian armed forces. It’s a literal occupation of large parts, well beyond Crimea, of eastern Ukraine. And it is a virtual annexation of a lot of territory other than just the Crimea. And in that respect, this is a major threat to the peace of Europe, to the peace of Eurasia, and therefore a threat to the interests of the United States and, I would say, a threat to the chances of a peaceful 21st century.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s former Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, now president of Brookings. Your response?

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, he’s much more than that. People need to drop their masks and say what their personal stake in this is. Strobe Talbott, whom I’ve known for years, was the architect of the American policy that led to this crisis. He was “the Russia hand,” as he called his memoir, under President Clinton, when the expansion of NATO toward Russia began.

Understand what he said—and the rollout of this report has been coming. If you look at the signatures, these are the leaders of the American war party, the people who literally want a military showdown with Russia. Stop and think what that means. Stop and think what that means, as though Russia is going to back off. But the people who signed this report—and they’ve been bringing it out for days—are saying—he literally just said this—the future of the 21st century is at stake in Ukraine. Stop and think what that means. Then he went on to say things that are fundamentally untrue, that Russia has invaded and annexed eastern Ukraine. I mean, when the State Department was asked a few weeks ago, “Can you confirm the presence of Russian troops in eastern Ukraine?” the State Department, which misleads about this story all the time, said, “No, we cannot.” So this is what I’m talking about, the fog of war, where we’re being told Russia has annexed eastern Ukraine, the future of the world is at stake here, and basically they’re calling for war with Russia.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to continue this discussion in a minute. We’re talking with Professor Stephen Cohen, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. We’ll be back with him in a minute.
[break]

AMY GOODMAN: Our guest is professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University, Stephen Cohen. His latest book, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War. Aaron?

AARON MATÉ: Yes, so, on this issue of Russian involvement in Ukraine, and NATO’s expansion, I presume you acknowledge that Putin is destabilizing Ukraine—he sent in weapons, he sent in tanks, he sent in some troops in some form. Is the point then that he’s acting not to revive the Soviet empire, but to stop NATO encroachment? Is that your point?

STEPHEN COHEN: That’s my short point. But let me ask you a question. Five million people, approximately, live in this area of eastern Ukraine. They’ve lived there for centuries. Their grandfathers, their parents are buried there. Their children go to school there. That is their home. Do they have no humanity or agency? We’ve taken—not I, but the main press in this country is referring to them as “Putin’s thugs.” Where is the humanity of these people who are dying, now nearly 6,000 of them? A million have been turned into refugees. These are people there.

Who’s doing the fighting? Primarily, the folks, the adults, of these people. Have they had Russian assistance? Absolutely. Has Kiev had Western assistance? Billions of dollars. General Hodges—I don’t know exactly what he does, but he’s an American NATO officer—publicly announces he’s in Ukraine to train the National Guard. Both sides are involved militarily. But make no mistake: If there was not an indigenous rebellion in eastern Ukraine, there would not be a Ukrainian civil war. Is Putin abetting the east? Yes. Are we abetting the west and Kiev? Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to Hodges for a minute. Last month, U.S. soldiers from the 2nd Cavalry traveled to the Soviet state of Latvia for a military exercise, dubbed Atlantic Resolve, to train soldiers from Latvia, other Baltic countries and Poland. In addition, the U.S. brought more than 50 units of military equipment, including 17 armored vehicles—Strykers—that will stay in Europe. Ben Hodges, who you’re referring to, is the commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe.

GEN. BEN HODGES: The decision was made last year to leave the equipment to stay in Europe. So, more than 200 tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, the decision has not been made yet where they will stay. For sure, some will stay in Germany at an American base, but we are looking at options to put some of them in Latvia or Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s Ben Hodges, the commanding general of the U.S. Army in Europe. So, bringing in former Soviet state Latvia and the others, what does this mean?

STEPHEN COHEN: What? His presence in Latvia? Well, he’s in Ukraine now. What it means is we’re on the move militarily—”we,” I mean NATO, but the United States runs NATO. You heard what Strobe Talbott said: We’ve got to do everything now to defend Ukraine. By the way, he doesn’t mention there are two Ukraines. What about the people in the east I just mentioned? Have they no humanity? But we are on the verge of war with Russia.

Now, you referred to me as emeritus. That means old. That means I remember things. And I remember that when we hit these kind of Cold War extremes back during the last Cold War, people spoke out in opposition in this country, not only folks like the three of us, ordinary folks, but I’m talking about senators, members of Congress—even the administration was divided—The New York Times, The Washington Post. We have the silence of the hawks now. The American war party is on the march. You can see how close we are to, literally, a military confrontation with Russia. And there is not one word of establishment, mainstream opposition in this country.

So, is this good or bad? Do we go to war? Did we have a debate before we invaded Iraq? We did. And those of us who opposed it lost the debate. But we had a debate. That “democracy now” is not today, not in the United States. There is no debate whatsoever. So, the danger is great. There is no opposition. All these people you’re showing—Strobe Talbott, General Hodges, anybody else you put on the screen, because only they speak to the American people—they’re on the march.

AARON MATÉ: What is driving this policy on the part of the U.S.? Many people who took part in the Cold War are no longer in power. Are they seeking to revive that era? Is it a matter of expanding NATO, or confronting Putin because they don’t like him? What is the driving force here?

STEPHEN COHEN: All of the above, I think. I don’t know. I’m not smart enough to tell you. Historians will look back—assuming there are historians to look back, because both sides are now mobilizing their nuclear weapons, as well. Russia has already said that if it is faced with overwhelming force on its borders, it will use tactical nuclear weapons. They’re nuclear small, but they’re nuclear weapons. When is the last time you heard a great power say that? We say—Obama, our president, says, “We’re modernizing our nuclear weapons.” What does that mean? We’re redeploying them, pointing them even more at Russia. Why is this happening in the United States? I don’t know. I think there’s a lot of factors mixed in, a kind of ideological hangover from the old Cold War. But the demonization of Putin has become so extreme in this country, I do not recall—and I entered this field back in the ’60s—the United States ever demonizing a Soviet communist leader the way our leaders do—Obama, Mrs. Clinton referring to him as a Hitler. Look, if Putin is Hitler, clearly we have to go to war. That’s the logic, is it not? Is it not? And where are the voices that say this is crazy? He may be a Russian nationalist. He may be threatening. But Hitler?

AMY GOODMAN: During an interview on CNN that aired Sunday, President Obama acknowledged the United States played a role in the ouster of Ukraine’s elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, last February.

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA: Mr. Putin made this decision around Crimea and Ukraine, not because of some grand strategy, but essentially because he was caught off balance by the protests in the Maidan, and Yanukovych then fleeing after we had brokered a deal to transition power in Ukraine.

AMY GOODMAN: President Obama’s comments made headlines in Russia. This is Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

SERGEY LAVROV: [translated] I have two comments which are important. There has been confirmation that the United States was directly involved, from the very beginning, in this anti-government coup d’état. And President Obama literally called it “the transition of power.” Secondly, I would like to note that Obama’s rhetoric shows Washington’s intention to continue doing everything possible to unconditionally support Ukraine’s authorities, who have apparently taken a course toward a military solution to the conflict.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s the Russian foreign minister and, before that, President Obama.

STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, President Obama said something that undoubtably he was later told he shouldn’t have said, because he wasn’t clear what he was referring to. Many people have argued that the United States organized a coup in February to overthrow the president of Ukraine and bring to power of this new pro-American, pro-Western government. I do not know if that’s true. But what Obama said leads people to think that’s what he was acknowledging. He wasn’t.

Here’s what happened. And he’s right about Crimea. He just let the cat out of the bag here. An agreement was brokered in February. Everybody think back. It’s only one year ago. Foreign ministers of Europe, as violence raged in the streets of Kiev, rushed to Kiev and brokered a deal between the sitting president and the opposition leaders—Yanukovych—that he would form a coalition government and call new elections in December. And everybody thought, “Wow, violence averted. We’re back on a democratic track.” And what happened? The next day, mobs took to the streets, stormed the presidential palace; Yanukovych, the president, fled to Russia.

But we now know that when that deal was struck by the European ministers, Putin and Obama spoke on the phone, and Putin said to Obama, “Are you behind this?” And Obama says, “I am. Let’s get back on peaceful track.” And then he asks Putin, “Are you behind it?” And Putin said, “A hundred percent.” And the next day, this happened. So, something happened overnight. Obama lost control of the situation. He didn’t know what was going on. But when he says that they negotiated a peaceful transition to power, he’s not referring to the overthrow of Yanukovych; he’s referring to the deal he signed onto to keep the Ukrainian president in office for another eight or nine months until national elections.

So, he has now confirmed the Russia dark suspicions that the CIA or somebody carried out a coup. I’m sure he regrets having said that. But it is completely unclear to me—I voted for him twice—whether President Obama understands what’s going on in Ukraine, because he said a number of things that are so divergent from the historical record that either he’s getting bad advice or he’s not paying attention. I don’t know which.

AARON MATÉ: Can you sketch out for us the fighting that has taken place since April? The U.N. now says the death toll is over 5,300. Samantha Power, the U.S. ambassador to the U.N., has praised Kiev’s response and said that they practiced “remarkable, almost unimaginable, restraint” in their attacks on the separatists.

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, it makes me ashamed to be an American citizen. Let’s remember that when Ambassador Power was not Ambassador Power, she was the great architect and ideologue of the responsibility to protect civilians. Correct? Everybody is familiar with that.

AMY GOODMAN: Explain it briefly.

STEPHEN COHEN: Well, you explain it.

AMY GOODMAN: You explain it.

STEPHEN COHEN: You’ve done it on your show. Well, it means the United States is obliged to do everything it can to prevent a humanitarian disaster resulting either from natural or warlike measures. And that’s been American official policy since Clinton. Now, whether it’s a wise policy or not, I don’t know. But the architect of it now says what’s going on in eastern Ukraine—and there are a lot more than 5,000 dead; even the U.N. has said we really don’t know, but let’s say 5,300. There’s also a million and a half refugees, most of them to Russia, but some to other parts of Ukraine. And the United States is saying—and the State Department and the White House and in the U.N., with Samantha Power—Kiev has been restrained.

All right, back up. What has Kiev called since April its military operation in the east? An anti-terrorist operation. Literally, those are the words. If I declare that you are a terrorist—not a rebel, not a political opponent, but you are a terrorist—I don’t talk to you, I kill you. And that is what Kiev has been doing, with American support. It’s been destroying the civilian centers of eastern Ukraine. Have the rebels fought back? Have they killed Ukrainian army members? Absolutely. But what in the world are we doing supporting a government that’s bombing civilians? And, by the way, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, many other organizations have now said these are war crimes. And yet, the American government sees no evil.

AMY GOODMAN: So we just played Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, earlier. She said Germany will not support Ukraine with weapons. She supports sanctions. She says there’s only a diplomatic answer. What is the solution? And what do you feel about sanctions, as the front page of The New York Times talks about the arming of—U.S. arming Ukraine?

STEPHEN COHEN: Amy, what are you doing to me? You’re trotting out every person who has behaved unwisely in a role of leadership and asked me what I think of them.

AMY GOODMAN: Yes.

STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah. What I think of them, we need some leaders. Now, I thought, when I first visited you in February or January, that the solution was the chancellor of Germany, Merkel. Why? Because Germany is the powerhouse of Europe. Because Merkel speaks Russian and German, and Putin speaks Russian and German. They can talk, like you and I talk, and they understand nuances. Merkel has said, all along, this cannot be resolved by military means, there must be negotiations. And yet, politically, she supported every escalation of the crisis. Why has she done that? She was, and maybe she still could be, the key figure here.

AMY GOODMAN: And she’s coming to the White House Monday.

STEPHEN COHEN: Yeah, but she’s been in Ukraine. She’s been everywhere. She moves. There’s distance between the White House and Berlin, no question. Merkel could end this, or she could go a long way. She could put her foot down: no more sanctions, no more NATO involvement. Stop and think who she is. The only solvent country in Europe. And look what’s going on in Greece. I mean, they may leave the EU. By the way, if the U.K. leaves the EU in May, when there’s the referendum, who will run Europe? Germany. And Germany’s attitudes toward Russia and China are fundamentally different than Washington’s attitude. So we may be observing here, below the radar, not only the split of Europe, but the drift of Germany, and the part of Europe that follows Germany, away from the United States. Everything is at stake in this civil war.

How to get out of it? It’s the same solution we talked about here on this broadcast months ago: a ceasefire; withdrawal of artillery so the cities of Donetsk, where the rebels are, are not being bombarded; Kiev’s willingness to sit down, at a table about this size, under the auspices of the great powers, and talk to the rebels. What home rule will they be given? Some kind of federalism, some kind of devolution of authority. The governors of the regions of Ukraine are appointed in Kiev. Our governors aren’t appointed in Washington; we elect them. There’s no federalism there. Everybody says federalism means a Russian takeover. But Germany has a federal system, Canada has a federal system, we have a federal system. They are hard, but it can be done.

But you know how you get this? You get it through leadership. Where’s the leadership? Where’s President Obama? Where’s Chancellor Merkel? And the leadership in Ukraine—I mean, Poroshenko, he’s the president of the country. He has no power. He has no power. He’s not the leader. The power is with the people in Ukraine who control the fighting battalions and what’s left of the army. So, we don’t even know what kind of regime or leadership is possible in Kiev now.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Professor Stephen Cohen, we will continue to cover this. We thank you very much for being with us, professor emeritus of Russian studies and politics at New York University and Princeton University. His most recent book, Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War, is out in paperback. And we’ll link to your recent writings on Ukraine at The Nation.
 - - - - - - - - -

* We do not agree with this description by Professor Cohen of the rupture of the September 2014 ceasefire that was negotiated in Minsk, Belarus. He says the ceasefire broke down because “fighting escalated”, a phrase which implies that both sides were responsible. But elsewhere in the interview, he explains, quite accurately, that after September, the Ukraine armed force and militias never ceased their shellings of towns and cities in eastern Ukraine as well as other war crimes they were perpetrating. The definitive ending of the ceasefire took place in mid-January 2015 when, after months of preparation, Kyiv launched a new military offensive, including an effort to seize control of the airport at Donetsk city. That offensive is now facing defeat, including the encirclement of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers in and around the small city of Debaltseve in Donetsk region.–New Cold War.org editors.

Venezuela: a Coup in Real Time by Eva Golinger Feb 02, 2015

There is a coup underway in Venezuela. The pieces are all falling into place like a bad CIA movie. At every turn a new traitor is revealed, a betrayal is born, full of promises to reveal the smoking gun that will justify the unjustifiable. Infiltrations are rampant, rumors spread like wildfire, and the panic mentality threatens to overcome logic. Headlines scream danger, crisis and imminent demise, while the usual suspects declare covert war on a people whose only crime is being gatekeeper to the largest pot of black gold in the world.

This week, as the New York Times showcased an editorial degrading and ridiculing Venezuelan President Maduro, labeling him “erratic and despotic” (“Mr. Maduro in his Labyrinth”, NYT January 26, 2015), another newspaper across the Atlantic headlined a hack piece accusing the President of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, and the most powerful political figure in the country after Maduro, of being a narcotics kingpin (“The head of security of the number two Chavista defects to the U.S. and accuses him of drug trafficking”, ABC, January 27, 2015). The accusations stem from a former Venezuelan presidential guard officer, Leasmy Salazar, who served under President Chavez and was recruited by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), now becoming the new “golden child” in Washington’s war on Venezuela.

Two days later, the New York Times ran a front-page piece shaming the Venezuelan economy and oil industry, and predicting its downfall (“Oil Cash Waning, Venezuelan Shelves Lie Bare”, Jan. 29, 2015, NYT). Blaring omissions from the article include mention of the hundreds of tons of food and other consumer products that have been hoarded or sold as contraband by private distributors and businesses in order to create shortages, panic, discontent with the government and justify outrageous price hikes. Further, multiple ongoing measures taken by the government to overcome the economic difficulties were barely mentioned and completed disregarded.

Simultaneously, an absurdly sensationalist and misleading headline ran in several U.S. papers, in print and online, linking Venezuela to nuclear weapons and a plan to bomb New York City (“U.S. Scientist Jailed for Trying to Help Venezuela Build Bombs”, Jan. 30, 2015, NPR). While the headline leads readers to believe Venezuela was directly involved in a terrorist plan against the U.S., the actual text of the article makes clear that no Venezuelans were involved at all. The whole charade was an entrapment set up by the FBI, whose officers posed as Venezuelan officials to capture a disgruntled nuclear physicist who once worked at Los Alamos and had no Venezuela connection.

That same day, State Department spokeswoman Jan Psaki condemned the alleged “criminalization of political dissent” in Venezuela, when asked by a reporter about fugitive Venezuelan general Antonio Rivero’s arrival in New York to plea for support from the United Nations Working Committee on Arbitrary Detention. Rivero fled an arrest warrant in Venezuela after his involvement in violent anti-government protests that lead to the deaths of over 40 people, mainly government supporters and state security forces, last February. His arrival in the U.S. coincided with Salazar’s, evidencing a coordinated effort to debilitate Venezuela’s Armed Forces by publicly showcasing two high profile military officers – both former Chavez loyalists – that have been turned against their government and are actively seeking foreign intervention against their own country.

These examples are just a snapshot of increasing, systematic negative and distorted coverage of Venezuelan affairs in U.S. media, painting an exaggeratedly dismal picture of the country’s current situation and portraying the government as incompetent, dictatorial and criminal. While this type of coordinated media campaign against Venezuela is not new – media consistently portrayed former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, elected president four times by overwhelming majorities, as a tyrannical dictator destroying the country – it is clearly intensifying at a rapid, and concerning, pace.

The New York Times has a shameful history when it comes to Venezuela. The Editorial Board blissfully applauded the violent coup d’etat in April 2002 that ousted President Chavez and resulted in the death of over 100 civilians. When Chavez was returned to power by his millions of supporters and loyal Armed Forces two days later, the Times didn’t recant it’s previous blunder, rather it arrogantly implored Chavez to “govern responsibly”, claiming he had brought the coup on himself. But the fact that the Times has now begun a persistent, direct campaign against the Venezuelan government with one-sided, distorted and clearly aggressive articles – editorials, blogs, opinion, and news – indicates that Washington has placed Venezuela on the regime change fast track.

The timing of Leamsy Salazar’s arrival in Washington as an alleged DEA collaborator, and his public exposure, is not coincidental. This February marks one year since anti-government protests violently tried to force President Maduro’s resignation, and opposition groups are currently trying to gain momentum to reignite demonstrations. The leaders of the protests, Leopoldo López and María Corina Machado, have both been lauded by The New York Times and other ‘respected’ outlets as “freedom fighters”, “true democrats”, and as the Times recently referred to Machado, “an inspiring challenger”. Even President Obama called for Lopez’s release from prison (he was detained and is on trial for his role in the violent uprisings) during a speech last September at an event in the United Nations. These influential voices willfully omit Lopez’s and Machado’s involvement and leadership of violent, undemocratic and even criminal acts. Both were involved in the 2002 coup against Chavez. Both have illegally received foreign funding for political activities slated to overthrow their government, and both led the lethal protests against Maduro last year, publicly calling for his ouster through illegal means.

The utilization of a figure such as Salazar who was known to anyone close to Chavez as one of his loyal guards, as a force to discredit and attack the government and its leaders is an old-school intelligence tactic, and a very effective one. Infiltrate, recruit, and neutralize the adversary from within or by one of its own – a painful, shocking betrayal that creates distrust and fear amongst the ranks. While no evidence has surfaced to back Salazar’s outrageous claims against Diosdado Cabello, the headline makes for a sensational story and another mark against Venezuela in public opinion. It also caused a stir within the Venezuelan military and may result in further betrayals from officers who could support a coup against the government. Salazar’s unsubstantiated allegations also aim at neutralizing one of Venezuela’s most powerful political figures, and attempt to create internal divisions, intrigue and distrust.

The most effective tactics the FBI used against the Black Panther Party and other radical movements for change in the United States were infiltration, coercion and psychological warfare. By inserting agents into these organizations, or recruiting from within, that were able to gain access and trust at the highest levels, the FBI was able to destroy these movements from the inside, breaking them down psychologically and

Harper’s “anti-terrorism” legislation promises to increase repression, Brendan Campisi, Feb 2, 2015

source: http://rebelyouth-magazine.blogspot.ca/2015/02/harpers-anti-terrorism-legislation.html



On Friday, the Harper government announced a wave of “anti-terrorism” legislation

which will dramatically increase the power of the country's repressive forces.

Supposedly justified by the shootings on Parliament Hill last year, the new laws will

give CSIS the power to “intervene and disrupt threats to national security at home and

abroad”, restrict the movements of suspected 'terrorists', stop them from boarding a

flight, disrupt money transfers or electronic communications, allow government

agencies to share information like passport applications with intelligence agencies,

increase the amount of time suspected 'terrorists' can be detained without charge,

and allow courts to order the removal of material deemed “terrorist propaganda” from

websites registered in Canada. It will also create a new offence, 'promoting terrorism',

which will not require the advocacy of any particular act.

Although the Ottawa shootings have provided the pretext for this legislation, it has to

be understood as part of a wider effort by the Canadian state to suppress dissent that

in many ways has very little to do with the alleged threat of 'Islamist terrorism.' It's

not hard to see how the provision on 'promoting terrorism' could be used to criminalize

any expression of support for official enemies, including liberation movements called

terrorists by the Canadian government (whose list of 'Terrorist Entities' includes

Palestinian resistance groups like the PFLP and anti-imperialist forces like the FARC

in Colombia). But this new legislation will also be used against domestic dissent. In

the past few years, we've seen the Canadian government spying on moderate

Indigenous rights advocates, infiltrating activist groups and inventing a 'conspiracy'

around the G20 protests, and declaring environmentalist groups and others opposed to

the tar sands and pipelines to be 'eco-terrorists.' The Harper government has already

deployed the rhetoric of 'terrorism' against any group that questions or poses an

obstacle to its policies.


Canada's police and intelligence forces have always been used to repress those who

challenged the entrenched inequality and injustices of Canadian capitalist society.

The RCMP was created in the 1870s as the strong arm of colonialism in the West. Its

authority was extended across the country in the 1920s in response to the growing

militancy of the working class, and devoted much of its energy and resources from the

1920s onward to persecuting the communist movement. By the 1970s, the RCMP had

files on 700,000 people. When even right-wing politicians had to admit that the

Mounties' repressive measures got out of hand in the 1980s, CSIS was created to

formally separate intelligence and policing. Granting police-like powers to CSIS, as

this new legislation does, reverses this, but is also simply another instance in the

long history of repression by the Canadian state. This history also shows that

democratic rights were won through struggle. There is an immediate need to mobilize

to block these dangerous changes.

Attack in Paris a Direct Result of Western Imperialism, T.J. Petrowski. 08 01 15

Attack in Paris a Direct Result of Western Imperialism

by T.J. Petrowski / January 8th, 2015

The tragic shooting in Paris of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, which published caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in 2011, that left 12 people dead is a direct consequence of Western imperialism’s interventions in the Middle East.

The U.S. and its Western imperialist allies have continuously violated the national sovereignty and the right to self-determination of every country in the Middle East and North Africa in the last 50 years. Attacks such as the shooting in Paris, the September 11th attacks on New York (if we are to believe the dubious official story of the U.S. government), the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the attempted attack on the Eiffel Tower by Algerian hijackers in 1994, the London bombings of 2005, the Sydney Hostage Crisis, all are an inevitable consequence of the Western imperialism’s policies towards the people of the Greater Middle East and North Africa. From the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, the overthrow of Iran’s democratic leadership in 1953, to more recently supporting some of the world’s most reactionary and undemocratic monarchies and funding Islamic paramilitaries in Syria and Libya, the people of the Greater Middle East and North Africa have had their human and political rights subordinated to the interests of Western imperialism for decades.

According to various mainstream news sources the attack on the Paris magazine was carried out by men that had returned from Syria, hence their military training, where the U.S., Israel, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf states have been actively supporting reactionary Islamic paramilitaries to overthrow the Syrian government. The U.S. and its allies earlier supported similar violent elements in Libya that murdered the Libyan leader Muammar al-Gaddafi, and in the 1970s and 1980s the U.S. and its allies, namely Saudi Arabia, the Persian Gulf States, and Pakistan, supported and trained violent Islamic paramilitaries to overthrow the socialist government in Afghanistan. These mujahideen that former U.S. President Ronald Reagan referred to a “freedom fighters” would later form the nucleus of al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Haqqani network that the

U.S. and NATO have been at war with for over a decade now.

The tragic shooting in Paris will undoubtedly be used as a pretext for further restrictions of civil liberties and more violent imperialist interventions abroad. In Canada, an anti-terrorism bill that provides for greater surveillance of Canadians, lowers the threshold for preventative arrests, and allows for the Canadian security apparatus to conduct foreign espionage activities was immediately sent to Parliament following the shooting in Ottawa and the murder of a police officer in Quebec. But as we have seen in the U.S., where FBI counterterrorism operations have specifically targeted environmental, labour, and peace activists, such laws do not serve to protect the citizens of the West, rather they serve to suppress opposition to the capitalist system. It is quite ironic that civil liberties are being suppressed in order to protect ourselves from those that allegedly hate us for our freedoms.

The shooting will also serve as justification to continue the “war on terror” abroad. If readers recall, the September 11th attacks were used as a pretext for the illegal occupation of Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the attacks on New York and in fact opposed radical Islamists. The recent attacks in Canada and Australia have been used to rationalize both Canadian and Australian participation in the bombing of Iraq and the war on the Islamic State, the latest international boogyman. Already France has been embroiled in the conflict in Mali since 2013 in the name of the “war on terror”, in this case to defeat al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, which Western imperialism supported in its war against Gaddafi in Libya, and the shooting will inevitably be used as justification for more violent foreign interventions abroad under the “war on terror” banner.

As tragic as it is the shooting in Paris is a direct reaction to Western imperialism’s destructive interventions abroad, and working people, instead of supporting the continued erosion of their civil liberties and even more violent military foreign interventions, should support the self-determination of all people and an end to imperialist interventions.


T.J. Petrowski is a Central Committee member of the Young Communist League of Canada. You can read more of his articles on his website, tjpetrowski.com.

ON THE EXPANDING WAR ON TERROR: CEC Communist Party Canada

Unite to defend democracy, peace and equality!
Statement of the Central Executive, Communist Party of Canada, January 21, 2015


Since the terrible events of January 7 and beyond in Paris, politicians and the corporate media in the NATO countries, including Canada, are thundering that “we must all unite” in response to a so‑called “declaration of war” by religious extremist groups. But under the cover of “safeguarding our freedom from terrorism”, the Harper and other Western governments are moving to escalate militarism and aggression abroad, and further erode democratic liberties - especially the right to dissent - at home.

To be clear, the Communist Party of Canada categorically condemns all terrorist acts, whether committed by individuals, movements or imperialist states. As we stated immediately after the 9/11 events, “acts of terrorism undermine the struggle for progressive change; they sideline and neutralize the mass movement, create fear and disorientation in the broad people’s fightback, and provide imperialism and reaction with a powerful pretext to intensify repression.”

That said, the most serious threats to peace and security, and to democratic rights and freedoms, are posed by the policies and actions of Western governments themselves, not by a small number of violent criminals who seek to provoke repression in hopes of winning support for their own narrow fundamentalist agenda.
Working people today are being told to “pick sides” in the confrontation between the major imperialist powers and reactionary religious movements. This false choice ignores the reality that the NATO powers, including Canada, bear the responsibility for creating conditions which encouraged the emergence of fundamentalist groups. In many cases, Western intelligence agencies had a direct hand in their formation.

During the 1980s, for example, the United States armed the opponents of Afghanistan’s progressive government, with the geopolitical aim of destabilizing the USSR. The US and other imperialist powers have intervened in Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria, Yugoslavia and many other countries, always seeking to undermine progressive forces and to seize control of oil and other natural resources. Israel, the closest ally of US and Canadian imperialism, has likewise continued to occupy Palestinian lands during this period.
Millions of people have died as a result of these imperialist wars and occupations, and the imposition of western‑backed neoliberal economic and social policies. This has generated enormous resentment among the peoples of these affected countries, with predictable results. It has also fed the growth of dangerous fascist and anti‑immigrant forces across Europe and North America.

We defend the right to free speech, including the right to criticize religious beliefs, but we also note that the contents of Charlie Hebdo often contributed to the deadly growth of bigotry and xenophobia across Europe. The only way out of this downward spiral of hatred and violence is to promote the common action of working people of all national origins and religious beliefs, against the domination and exploitation of the transnational corporations, and to defend national sovereignty.

The fact is that both the imperialist powers and reactionary extremist groups stand for narrow interests which are utterly hostile to working people. The false “clash of civilizations” theory divides and weakens working people, by turning us against each other on the basis of religious outlook or national origin. Instead, the real alternative is to build unity around a genuine people’s agenda and a strategy to roll back austerity, end imperialist wars of occupation, and defend the environment. Rather than killing each other, the working class of all countries needs to join together for full employment, access to health care, education and social programs, a healthy environment, and peaceful economic development.

The Communist Party of Canada urges the labour and people’s movements to defend civil rights and liberties, and to resist the escalating attacks which target Muslims, Arabs, religious minorities, and racialized communities. In particular, we condemn PM Stephen Harper’s plan to introduce new legislation which would allow “pre-emptive arrests” of anyone considered a potential “threat”. This legislation is reminiscent of the War Measures Act, adopted during the First World War to criminalize sections of Canada’s immigrant population as “enemy aliens” and to ban left‑wing and anti-war literature.

The true intention of this and other ’national security’ laws is to stifle free speech and to silence critics of right‑wing policies and governments. Harper’s real strategy is to turn back the clock, to allow governments the authority to crack down on trade unions, indigenous resistance movements, immigrants, environmentalists, defenders of civil rights, political radicals and others who oppose the corporate agenda of “free trade”, neoliberal austerity and militarism.

The Communist Party demands an end to Canada’s participation in the wars of aggression, including in Iraq and Syria, which can only lead to further violence. We urge the labour and democratic movements to condemn the drive by the Harper government (with the support of the other parliamentary parties) to scrap civil liberties, labour rights and other democratic freedoms in the name of waging war against Islam and even against citizens of our own country.

Instead, we demand: Canada out of NATO, and out of Syria and Iraq! Elect a government which will adopt an independent foreign policy of peace and disarmament. Don’t send young Canadians to war - fund job creation and social programs, not militarism. Protect minorities and expand social, civil and labour and democratic rights, at home and abroad. Curb the power of the Canadian and international corporations.

Scrap the “free trade deals”, and protect and restore the sovereignty of Canada and all other countries.
In today’s volatile situation, Canadians need to reject attempts to manipulate public opinion through fear, police state surveillance, racism and intimidation. The Communist Party urges all who support peace, civil rights and democratic freedoms to speak out - in the streets, in the social media, and at the ballot box - against the escalating state repression which is trying to stifle our collective resistance. It is not too late, but the time to defend democracy is today!


(The above article is from the February 1-14, 2015 issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading socialist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 706 Clark Drive, Vancouver, BC, V5L 3J1.)