"more accountant than caregiver": how canada supports its troops

I am fond of saying that the difference between the US and Canada is often not one of substance, but of degree. There's little doubt that the degree makes a huge difference in many people's lives. But "it's worse in the US" is not good enough. The comparison sets the bar far too low.

The war in Afghanistan is not as horrific as the invasion and occupation of Iraq, but both are wrong, and useless. Both are resource wars, not missions of human rights or global security.

In the US, the war dead are hidden from view. Those lucky enough to return home are not cared for properly, and promptly forgotten.

In Canada, when a soldier dies in Afghanistan - as one US soldier did today - it's front-page news. But what happens next?

For Remembrance Day, the Globe and Mail ran a story about one Canadian soldier's struggle. Mark Campbell, a 43-year-old major from Alberta, lost both his legs after kneeling on a land mine in southern Afghanistan.

The transition from hospital to home and back to what he calls "the Land of Many-Legged People" has been difficult. Calling his wife his "rock," he admits his injury is straining their 19-year marriage. "I hope in time it will bond us as a couple, but truth be told, I'm not sure yet. Because we had our two kids, and we thought we were done. And now I'm like a third child in terms of needs," he said, as he held his wife's hand tightly.

He said all of this is aggravated by the fact that his family is constantly fighting bureaucratic red tape and delays to get necessary equipment such as a wheelchair van and wheelchair stair glides. "I had great treatment," he said, his frustration audible. "But they sent me home and I still didn't have half of my kit."

He's had to lobby military officials to get things such as a power wheelchair because only manual wheelchairs were being offered. Major Campbell recently won a fight to have the army pay for the move to a new wheelchair-accessible house his family is building with part of the $500,000 tax-free settlement he received from the government. "I shouldn't have to pay for my service-related disability, but I have to fight for everything."

Major Campbell, who attends outpatient programs at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton with a view to walking again with artificial limbs, said the military should better anticipate what wounded soldiers will need to get on with their lives. Shortly after Major Campbell was hurt, his wife asked the military for a spreadsheet detailing what services and equipment he'd need, but was told a document like that didn't exist. "You are constantly asking for things; it's almost begging. And you shouldn't have to. You have enough stress in your life already," Ms. Campbell said.

Major Campbell said meeting federal government regulations, which require all public servants, including wounded soldiers, to seek multiple vendor bids for items such as stair lifts for wheelchairs, is time-consuming and frustrating. "We spend millions of dollars a day on the war in Afghanistan, yet when it comes to injured soldiers, we are still in the habit of penny-pinching and asking 'Why? Why do you need this?'" he said.

Because of the length of his military experience, Major Campbell knows his way around the system and isn't afraid to ask for things, but he's concerned younger wounded soldiers may get lost in the cracks. Not since the Korean War has the Canadian military had to deal with so many wounded soldiers.

Major Campbell has received assurances that all the system's current shortcomings are being addressed, but he plans to remain vigilant to make sure promises are kept. He intends to stay in the Canadian Forces as long as he can remain useful. "I'm not just going to collect a paycheque and fill a uniform with the legs rolled up."

He's already trying to persuade military brass to allow wounded soldiers to participate in “decompression” with their peers. When military rotations end in Afghanistan, all soldiers returning to Canada spend time relaxing in Cyprus together. Major Campbell had received permission to travel to Cyprus in September to meet his former comrades and officially end the tour with them, but at the last minute the trip was cancelled. Major Campbell said he was told there were "medical concerns" that the returning soldiers might not be able to "decompress if confronted with visible reminders of the effects of war."

A Senate committee released a report earlier this year that investigated how well wounded Canadian soldiers are being cared for. Liberal Senator Colin Kenny said the system needs to become more flexible and responsive to all wounded soldiers, including reservists. He said that in many cases government bureaucrats are simply following the rules when it comes to delivering benefits and services, and it might be time for lawmakers to step in and address the problem. "It's not that these people aren't efficient or caring," he said. "But the culture seems to be one that's more an accountant than a caregiver."

I have no doubt that Mark Campbell will re-gain independence and re-join civilian society. It's fully possible to do - I hope he knows he won't always be "a third child" - but he needs and deserves a lot of support.

We have an obligation to give Campbell and all disabled veterans every possible resource to help their return.

And we have an obligation to create as few disabled veterans as possible.

three passings

On my iGoogle home page, I keep a gadget with obituaries from the New York Times. Today was a rare day that I recognized all three names.

Mitch Mitchell, one of the great rock and roll drummers, died at age 62. Mitchell was best known as the drummer for The Jimi Hendrix Experience. His drumming style was heavily influenced by jazz musicians, and was lighter - swingier - than most drummers in a power trio.

Mr. Mitchell did not expect much from the job. "I'll give it a crack," he later remembered telling Mr. Chandler, who became one of Hendrix's managers. "I'll have a go for two weeks."

But led by Hendrix's explosive and rhapsodic style, the group revolutionized rock music and became an archetypal power trio. Its style was built around Hendrix's improvisations, with Mr. Redding's steady bass lines acting as an anchor and Mr. Mitchell — who was influenced by jazz players like Elvin Jones — playing a lighter, looser counterpoint to the guitar.

The group also developed a signature look that embodied the dandyish flamboyance of the British psychedelic era. The members sought out bell-bottoms and vintage clothes in British shops and teased out their hair. "For Noel, the curly Afro came naturally," wrote Charles R. Cross in his 2005 Hendrix biography, "Room Full of Mirrors." "Mitch had to get a permanent to achieve the same result."

The Jimi Hendrix Experience released three albums: "Are You Experienced" (1967), "Axis: Bold as Love" (1967) and "Electric Ladyland" (1968). Mr. Mitchell continued to play with Hendrix until his death in 1970, and later played in the band Ramatam.

Herb Score, who died at age 75, was a baseball player, a pitcher most famous for a terrifying incident: he was hit in the face with a line drive.

Score was the American League rookie of the year in 1955, when he had a 16-10 record, 2.85 earned run average and 245 strikeouts, tops in the major leagues and a record for a rookie that stood for 29 years. He went 20-9 in 1956 with a 2.53 E.R.A. and was again the strikeout leader with 263.

But on the night of May 7, 1957, Score was felled in a searing and long remembered instant.

Score was pitching against the Yankees at Cleveland's Municipal Stadium. The second batter to face him, shortstop Gil McDougald, drilled a low pitch on a line right back at him. The baseball struck Score in the face, knocking him down and sending blood streaming from his right eye, nose and mouth.

Score never lost consciousness but had severe hemorrhaging in the eye and a swollen retina as well as a broken nose. He was carried off the field and spent three weeks in a hospital. His plight brought 10,000 letters with good wishes. People in his hometown, Lake Worth, Fla., sent him a 125-foot-long get-well telegram with 4,000 names, and a California man offered to donate an eye to him.

Score was sidelined for the rest of the season, his vision fuzzy and his depth perception impaired. Although his vision returned, he won only 17 games over the next five years before retiring.

"He would have been probably one of the greatest, if not the greatest, left-handed pitchers who ever lived," Feller said Tuesday on the Indians' Web site. Feller, who was near the end of his career when Score arrived, likened him to Sandy Koufax, the Dodgers Hall of Famer.

Finally, there was Abraham Woods, who died at the age of 80. Of these three, I'm guessing Woods is the least known by name, but his work helped changed the world. Here's the entire obit here. I hope you'll read it.

The Rev. Abraham L. Woods Jr., a civil rights campaigner who in the days of crowd-throttling fire-hosings and snarling police dogs led the first lunch-counter sit-ins in Birmingham, Ala., and three decades later played a pivotal role confronting racial discrimination by country clubs, died last Friday in Birmingham, his hometown.He was 80.

The cause was cancer, his son Abraham Woods 3rd said.

Mr. Woods, a Baptist minister who had been friends with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. since their days together at Morehouse College in Atlanta, was one of the civil rights leaders standing behind him when Dr. King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech on Aug. 28, 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Less than a month later, on Sept. 15, Mr. Woods raced from his church in Birmingham, St. Joseph Baptist, to the 16th Street Baptist Church minutes after a dynamite explosion there had killed four young black girls.

"People were searching through the rubble," he told The New York Times in 1997. "They found shoes. Finally they found bodies. You could smell the human flesh."

"Even the Klan, as bad as they are," he continued, "you didn't think they would go as far as to bomb a church on Sunday with little children in Sunday school."

Mr. Woods was interviewed 34 years after the church bombing, a seminal civil rights event, because he had played a leading role in spurring the federal government to re-investigate it. Only one man, Robert E. Chambliss, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, had been convicted, in 1977. The new investigation led to the conviction of two other Klansmen, Thomas Blanton Jr. and Bobby Frank Cherry.

In 1990, Mr. Woods, then president of the Birmingham chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, led protests against the Shoal Creek Golf and Country Club, just outside the city. The club, which had no black members, had been chosen as the site of that year's P.G.A. Championship, and its founder, Hall Thompson, defended it by saying, "We don't discriminate in every other area except the blacks."

The protests prompted major corporations, including I.B.M., to withdraw their advertising from ABC's television coverage of the tournament. In response, the club announced that it would accept black members.

David B. Fay, executive director of the United States Golf Association, said at the time that the events at Shoal Creek had changed the face of golf. "I find it highly unlikely that you will see any championships held at all-white clubs anymore," Mr. Fay said. "The change is inevitable."

Abraham Lincoln Woods Jr. was born in Birmingham on Oct. 7, 1928, one of 11 children of the Rev. Abraham Woods Sr. and the former Maggie Wallace.

Mr. Woods attended Morehouse with Dr. King in the late 1940s. He later received a bachelor's degree in theology from Birmingham Baptist College; a bachelor's in sociology from Miles College, in Birmingham; and a master's in American history from the University of Alabama.

In the 1950s, he helped organize voter registration drives in Alabama. Then, in the spring of 1963, he led the first black demonstration at a whites-only lunch counter, at Newberry's department store in downtown Birmingham. During the demonstrations that followed, Dr. King arrived in the city to confront the tactics of its public safety commissioner, Bull Connor, who had turned dogs and fire hoses on protesters. Dr. King, Mr. Woods, other civil rights leaders and hundreds of additional protesters were arrested.

Responding to appeals from liberal white Southern clergymen to stop the demonstrations, Dr. King wrote his landmark "Letter From Birmingham Jail," in which he said not only that civil disobedience was justified in the face of unjust laws but also that "one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws."

Mr. Woods retired as president of the Birmingham chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 2006 but remained pastor of St. Joseph Baptist Church until his death.

Besides his son Abraham, he is survived by his wife of 60 years, the former Marian Dowdell-Levette; four brothers, Roy, Calvin, Franklin and Dwight; four sisters, Lottie Hall, Lois Woods, Shirley Patterson and Cathy Gray; another son, John; five daughters, Yvonne Bell, Anita McGhee, Ruth Williams, Sharon Woods-Woodruff and Alice Woods; 18 grandchildren; and 10 great-grandchildren.

One granddaughter, Marian Bell, said Mr. Woods followed the presidential campaign this year with mounting hopes, 45 years after Birmingham.

On election night last week, in his hospital room, Ms. Bell asked him what he was thinking about the results. He said, "If I could wake up Martin, Coretta, Rosa," along with other leaders of the struggle, "I would tell them that my son Barack made it."

"new" pyramid discovered in egypt

Egyptian archaeologists have discovered a pyramid buried in the desert and thought to belong to the mother of a pharaoh who ruled more than 4,000 years ago, Egypt's antiquities chief said on Tuesday.

The pyramid, found about two months ago in the sand south of Cairo, probably housed the remains of Queen Sesheshet, the mother of King Teti, who ruled from 2323 to 2291 BC and founded Egypt's Sixth Dynasty, Zahi Hawass told reporters.

"The only queen whose pyramid is missing is Shesheshet, which is why I am sure it belonged to her," Hawass said. "This will enrich our knowledge about the Old Kingdom."

The Sixth Dynasty, a time of conflict in Egypt's royal family and erosion of centralized power, is considered to be the last dynasty of the Old Kingdom, after which Egypt descended into famine and social upheaval.

Archaeologists had previously discovered pyramids belonging to two of the king's wives nearby, but had never found a tomb belonging to Sesheshet.

The headless, five-meter (16-foot) high pyramid originally reached about 14 meters, with sides 22 meters long, Hawass said.

The pyramid, which Hawass said was the 118th found in Egypt, was uncovered near the world's oldest pyramid at Saqqara, a burial ground for the rulers of ancient Egypt.

"This may be the most complete subsidiary pyramid ever found at Saqqara," Hawass said.

The monument was originally covered in a casing of white limestone brought from quarries at nearby Tura, Hawass said.

Archaeologists plan to enter the pyramid's burial chamber within two weeks, although most of its contents are likely to have been taken by thieves, Hawass said.

Artifacts including a wooden statue of the ancient Egyptian god Anubis and funerary figurines dating from a later period indicate that the cemetery had been reused through Roman times, Hawass said.

Wow! It's amazing that pieces of the ancient world are still being uncovered. One of most exciting parts of our trip to Peru, the Moche graves at Sipan, was discovered only in 1987. That just blew me away.

Allan will be glad to know that this story revives my strong desire to go to Egypt. I need a better job, so we can travel more.

"let's not get organized by barack obama"

You may recall that last week I was interviewed by "The Daily Show" and a few other media outlets, asking the bizarre question, "Now that Obama has been elected, will you move back to the US?" The question itself was so off-target and puzzling to me that I had some trouble articulating an answer. I figured they wanted something beyond, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Some attempts at an answer from both me and Allan are in comments here, with more here, including links to other people's answers.

Here's another answer, which arrived by email, from my friend Tom Kertes. I met Kertes (he goes by his last name) through the War Resisters Support Campaign, and we discovered we had both been interviewed on the same radio show. He's a labour organizer, a peace and human rights activist, an educator, and an all-around great person. He emigrated to Canada with his partner, moving to Toronto from Seattle.

Kertes gave me permission to post his recent email here.

The week of the US election a reporter from the Seattle PI and a researcher from the Daily Show called to find out if Americans who recently moved to Canada were planning on moving back. They wanted to know if the word "change" on a campaign sign was a enough to bring me back. Below is the Seattle PI article. I don't know what the Daily Show will be doing... but it sure would be fun to mocked (a little, hopefully) on the show.

Note: The reporter got some of the facts wrong. I live in Toronto, not Vancouver. Also I am not a Canadian Citizen. And I left the US largely because of its stance on human rights, including gay and lesbian rights, torture and poverty, not only gay rights as the article states.

They wanted to know if the word "change" on a campaign sign was enough to bring me back. I wish I'd thought of that!

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer story is here. Take a peek, but even better, read this essay by Tom Kertes.

Barack Obama and I share one thing in common. I am a community organizer. And so was Barack Obama. From this, I imagine, we've witnessed many of the same injustices, heard similar stories of people being beaten down and being taken advantage of, and have studied the same strategies and tactics for how to build power for the powerless.

Given this, why did Barack Obama stop community organizing? Does he believe that in the past eight years power has dramatically shifted from the once powerless in order to bring about the radical changes required to put the stories he'd heard of poverty and hunger to rest? Did he think it was finally time for the community to take over, ready to exercise its power gained through decades of effective organizing, leadership development and development of community-based institutions focused on human rights, social justice and economic fairness? Or, it is that Barack Obama never was a community organizer, but rather an organizer of the Democratic Party, building a base for himself within his party by going out to the community in order build a winning narrative that starts with "when I was with the common folk" and ends with "and now that I am President."?

I can't know Barack Obama's motives, but I can watch what he does. First, I can see that he is a Democrat. He is now the leader of the same coalition that "ended welfare as we know it" in 1996, that largely supported the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and that recently bailed out Wall Street bankers. Barack Obama and the party he now leads supports the expansion of government surveillance, the expansion of American forces in Central Asia and is without a plan or even a promise to de-privatise health care by creating a single payer system that's universally available to all.

. . . .

Now that the election is over, it's time for us to go back to making history ourselves. The stakes are high. Had community organizers in the 1960's allowed themselves to be co-opted by John Kennedy, Barack Obama might not have been allowed even to vote, let alone to lead the Democratic Party as President of the United States. Let's not get organized by Barack Obama because if we don't organize ourselves now, then poverty will not be ended, human rights will not be secured, oppression will not be beaten down. [More here.]

what i'm watching: body of war

I wept my way through this movie at the Bloor Cinema last night, and I'm sure I'm not the only one. "Body of War" is a powerful film - moving, provocative, truth-telling. Through the story of one wounded veteran who becomes a peace activist, you get a glimpse into the US peace movement, the realities of paraplegia and the US government who made it all possible.

"Body of War" is a must-see for anyone who still thinks the Republicans are responsible for the invasion of Iraq. They couldn't have done it without their willing partners. I don't want to give too much away, so I'll just say that this part of the movie was especially well done.

As you know, I was very concerned with the disability aspect of this movie, how Tomas Young's paralysis and recovery would be portrayed.

I often say that when you see someone who uses a wheelchair, you might think their only issue is that they can't walk - that they are merely sitting down. Spinal cord injury, especially a traumatic injury like a gunshot, is much more complicated. The film does an excellent and unsparing job at showing what it means to be paralyzed.

On the other hand, using a wheelchair doesn't mean a life of dependency, depression and lack of purpose. In the movie, Young is still finding his independence and his life's meaning, much of which comes from the veteran peace movement. In one excellent scene, Young meets Bobby Muller, a peace activist and a long-time advocate for disabled veterans. Muller has used a wheelchair since his Vietnam War injury, and is, obviously, an independent and integrated person with a disability. I was very grateful for the inclusion of that.

Muller tells Young that he's been grievously shortchanged on his rehab. It's revealed that Muller was in a rehab hospital for a full year, then did outpatient work for many months after that. Young was in the hospital for three months.

In fact, this is what I repeatedly heard in my recent research for the new edition of Spinal Network. Private insurance in the US now covers only the tiniest basics of rehab. People with new, life-changing disabilities are leaving rehab barely healed and completely unprepared. This is horrible - for anyone. For a person paralyzed in a useless, political, profit-soaked war, it's horrible taken to another level of magnitude.

One of the heroes of "Body of War" is Young's mother. She's a fierce, smart woman who knows the truth about the war - the truth about her government - and through her injured son, she becomes active in the peace movement. On a peace march, with Military Families Speak Out and Gold Star Families For Peace, Young's mother notices that people who have lost children in the war want to speak to Tomas, want to touch him. In a heartbreaking scene (one of many), a woman holding a sign reading "President Bush, you killed my son," tells Tomas she is grateful that he made it home alive.

Another poignant scene is Young's meeting with Senator Robert Byrd, a senior US Senator, who tried in vain to stop Congress from authorizing unlimited war powers to Bush. Byrd's attempts to slow the mad rush to invasion is an indelible memory for me. I remember circulating his speech. I remember how angry we were, how powerless we felt. He is one of the heroes of this movie.

* * * *

If you live in the GTA and weren't able to come to last night's screening, the War Resisters Support Campaign is hoping to hold two more showings of "Body of War". All proceeds will go towards our legal fight to keep US war resisters in Canada.

We did well last night, thanks in large part to Andrew Arrigo, who organized the event, and key members of Iraq Veterans Against the War and other war resisters.

But fighting the Government on a case-by-case basis is draining our resources, which of course is the point. So while we fight in court to keep every US war resister in Canada, we must continue to work for a political solution. When Parliament reconvenes next week, please make sure your MP knows this is important to you.

* * * *

Interview with Tomas Young and Eddie Vedder; Bill Moyers interviews Tomas Young.

11.11

Honour the dead by working for peace.

In Toronto, please join us for the special screening of the film "Body of War". Details here.

short pause

I can't write anything today and tomorrow because of some work I'm doing for the Campaign. Nothing's wrong, just a lot of sudden work, and then catching up on my own stuff. See you all soon.

comment policy reminder

Wmtc comment policy:

1. Please do not post long blocks of text from other blogs or websites. Instead, post a sample with a link where interested readers can find more.

2. Discussions in comments frequently roam off the original topic, and that's fine when it happens organically. However, please do not take it upon yourself to redirect the topic of a post in non-sequitur fashion. For that, I respectfully ask you to use your own blog.

3. Please do not correct other commenters' grammar, usage or spelling.

The following types of comments will always be deleted:

1. Insults or verbal attacks.

2. Sexist, homophobic, racist or other offensive comments.

3. Religious proselytizing of any sort.

4. Comments with the primary purpose of driving traffic to another website.

5. Opinions that are deeply offensive to me, such as anti-abortion rights or pro-death penalty.

See original post for details.

This policy was written before troll activity forced me to use comment moderation, so now it's not "delete" as much as "reject". But whether or not your comments are put through, these rules still apply.

Thanks in advance for your cooperation.

studs terkel, edward rothstein and howard zinn

After the death of Studs Terkel, the great journalist and chronicler of oral history, Edward Rothstein wrote an "appraisal" in the New York Times.

Rothstein makes two main points.

One, he denigrates Terkel's work because, supposedly, Terkel gave the impression that all he did was share other people's words, but really, he shaped those words with his own perspective.

But after hearing that Studs Terkel had died on Friday, I thought about his WFMT radio shows, which I had heard during my years in graduate school in Chicago. He seemed to be without pretense and compassionate but not terribly revealing or comforting. He had some terrific guests, but he rarely stood aside.

"He rarely stood aside." Rothstein goes on to show us how "if you look closely at these oral histories, you can never forget who has shaped them and to what end".

Now, every historian, every journalist, every interviewer shapes her material. No one transcribes "the truth" from some omniscient but neutral perspective. There's no such thing as neutral history - that's why we need multiple perspectives to get a fuller picture. I'm willing to bet that Edward Rothstein knows that.

But once again we see how the mainstream perspective is considered neutral, while bringing a more progressive view to the table is seen as biased. The "support our troops" decal is neutral; the peace sign is political. The military jet flyover at a civilian sporting event is neutral; parents who oppose military recruiting in their children's school are politicizing the school system. The textbook history is neutral; the "revisionist" history is dangerous. No matter that in 30 years, the revisionist history will be the textbook. Don't bother me with those details.

"...if you look closely at these oral histories, you can never forget who has shaped them and to what end".

"To what end" is Rothstein's second point. Not only did Terkel have a perspective, but it's a perspective of which we should be "wary". Rothstein fears that the public sees Terkel as a benign liberal. But, Rothstein shows, Terkel wasn't a liberal, he was a. . . a. . . radical!!

Yes, a radical! Be afraid! Run away! The man wanted more than scraps of incremental change - he had a vision of a new world! Stop up your ears, lock up the children!

Rothstein claims that Terkel's "vision of work...is an obvious translation of a traditional Marxist view of the alienation of labor". There it is. Rothstein lets the evil M-word out of the bag. And Terkel's not just a Marxist, he's a Marxist by stealth: "This is not something often recognized about these books."

I'm pretty sure Terkel's progressive perspective was widely recognized, but if it wasn't, perhaps that was because, for most people, it didn't need to be. Terkel's readers and listeners identified with the stories he presented. The stories resonated for them, made them reflect on their own lives, and helped them enter the lives of others with compassion and empathy. Most people who flocked to Terkel's work didn't care about any underlying theoretical framework. They didn't need to.

At the same time, mainstream media and history always de-claw popular figures to make them more palatable to a wider audience. That's why Martin Luther King, Jr., a radical if ever there was one, is re-imagined as a man who said little more than "why can't we all just get along". Eleanor Roosevelt, another radical, is thought of as a kind of friendly visiting nurse to social ills. If the mainstream thinks of Studs Terkel as an avuncular transcriber of people's thoughts, that's not because Terkel was hiding his true motives.

Rothstein is so alarmed by Terkel's radicalism that he even throws in a completely gratuitous reference to terrorism.

Part of Mr. Terkel's wide appeal was that he seemed to be a scrappy liberal in his choice of causes and concerns, but look more closely and it becomes less clear where his liberalism slips into radicalism. Though Mr. Terkel was not a theorist, nearly every one of the positions approvingly intimated by him seem to fit models shaped by Marxist theory; he even wore something red every day to affirm his attachment to the working class.

Mr. Terkel also provided a blurb for the memoirs of William Ayers, the Weatherman bomber whose connection with Barack Obama has been a point of controversy. "A deeply moving elegy to all those young dreamers who tried to live decently in an indecent world," Mr. Terkel wrote. "Ayers provides a tribute to those better angels of ourselves."

Mr. Terkel presented himself as an avuncular angel with close contact with the salt of the earth, a populist with a humane vision of the world. There are times such gifts are evident, but there are also times when such dreamers should make us wary.

Does it occur to Rothstein that one can be a radical, a Marxist, yet have "a humane vision of the world"? What, do liberals own the rights to that?

I was so disgusted by this piece that I couldn't even dash off a letter to the editor, and I knew by the time I cooled off, it would be too late. So lucky for me - lucky for all of us - that Howard Zinn responded.

Howard Zinn Defends Studs Terkel from Red-Baiting in the Times
By Howard Zinn, November 6, 2008

Reading Edward Rothstein's sour commentary on Studs Terkel in the New York Times on November 2 I was surprised that Rothstein, presumably a sophisticated thinker, seems to believe one can separate one’s political views from a historical narrative, even from oral history.

"It is, in fact, impossible to separate Mr. Terkel's political vision from the contours of his oral history," he wrote.

It turns out that Rothstein is not complaining about Studs's intrusion of his "political vision" into his oral histories. I doubt, knowing Studs pretty well, that he would deny that. Indeed, I suspect he would embrace it.

Would he be proud of attempting (yes, attempting, because it cannot really be done) to be a neutral conduit of his interviewees' thoughts?

No, what Rothstein resents is the specific character of this intrusion — that is, Studs's political beliefs.

On Studs's oral history: "You grow cautious as you keep reading," Rothstein wrote. I'm inclined to think that Rothstein did not "grow" cautious, but that he started out being cautious, on the alert for radical ideas, or worse, anything that might suggest Marxism.

Rothstein is disappointed in Studs, because "he seemed to be a scrappy liberal...but look more closely and it becomes less clear where his liberalism slips into radicalism."

Rothstein is evidently a proud liberal, possibly scrappy. I suspect Terkel, were he still alive, would have approved what Norman Mailer wrote once to Playboy magazine: "I don't care if people call me a radical, a rebel, a red, a revolutionary, an outsider, an outlaw, a Bolshevik, an anarchist, a nihilist, or even a left conservative, but please don't ever call me a liberal."

Rothstein gives examples of Studs's "radicalism." These are positions, which are so reasonable that they would give a good name to "radicalism," just as McCain's worry that Obama is "socialist" because he wants to redistribute wealth divests socialism of its worst connotations and makes it quite attractive.

For instance, Rothstein objects to Terkel comparing FDR's reaction to the Depression to Reagan's reaction to economic distress, wherein Terkel says that FDR "recognized a need and lent a hand" while Reagan "lends a smile".

Rothstein doesn't like the quote marks around Studs's "The Good War" because "the emphasis, again and again, is on World War II's shadows and injustices."

But would any reasonable — yes, "balanced" — assessment of that war not emphasize (precisely because that has been missing in the general romanticization of the "good war") the "shadows and injustices": Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki, the imprisonment of Japanese-Americans, the segregation in the armed forces?

Rothstein finds that "nearly every one of the positions approvingly intimated by him seem to fit models shaped by Marxist theory."

Should we be alarmed?

I can understand why J. Edgar Hoover would be alarmed. But someone as well educated as Edward Rothstein?

Looking at the state of the world, observing capitalism self-destruct to the point where even the Wall Street Journal questions its viability, it would seem that it may be time to take a second look at "models shaped by Marxist theory."

"The difficulty is for readers who presume they are being presented history without perspective, just a series of oral histories," Rothstein writes.

Is Rothstein one of those readers? Does he believe, does anyone believe, who has given some thought to the myth of "objective" history, that one can present history "without perspective"?

Indeed, would that be desirable? Do we want from history, even oral history, to be "just" a series of statements that suggest no perspective?

Rothstein worries that with Studs's oral histories "one is no longer sure what is being omitted and how much is being fully seen." Surely, he must understand – unless he possesses a naiveté we would never suspect in a New York Times writer – that one is never sure what is being omitted, and therefore we must always look beyond the words set before us.

And no phenomenon is "fully seen" so we try to see as much as we can, and add to the universe of knowledge, as Studs Terkel did so brilliantly, our little piece of truth.

I love that quote from Norman Mailer. I think of Phil Ochs's definition of a liberal: "Ten degrees to the left of center in good times. Ten degrees to the right of center if it affects them personally." I can just hear Edward Rothstein singing, "...love me, love me, love me, I'm a liberal..."

subject line: bless you!

Dearest One,

My name is Mrs. Susan Schultz, I am 69 years old and I was diagnosed for cancer for about 2 years ago, i am a dying woman and I have decided to donate the sum of $6.4 million dollars to you in the hope that you will use it for charity.

Contact my lawyer with this email, he will explain better to you:

Name: Peter Crumley
Email: petercrumly2001@aol.com

Tell him that I have WILLED $6.4M to you by quoting my personal reference number NOMA/ekl/1024/1.618. I have also notified him that I am WILLING that amount to you for charity and a nominated cancer foundation of your choosing.

Please use the funds judiciously.

Thanks and remain blessed.

Regards,

Mrs. Susan Schultz

In the words of Ralph Kramden: I'm rich! Thank you, Mrs. Schultz!

finally!

By Patrick Moberg.

Used without permission, so Patrick, if you'd rather I not post it, just ask!

the onion: voting machines elect one of their own

You've probably already seen this, but just in case... It's great.

aclu's "actions for restoring america" plan

At our Campaign meeting this week, there was some talk about the Obama presidency and the opportunity it may bring to the peace movement. No one had any illusions about Obama being an anti-war president - that would be absurd - but when it comes to Iraq and Guantanamo, someone used the expression, "We have to take him at his word". That doesn't mean "trust him, he'll do the right thing". It means apply pressure: "You said you would do this, now do it."

In this vein, the ACLU has drawn up a plan they call "Actions for Restoring America - How to Begin Repairing the Damage to Freedom in America after Bush.

Historically, erosions of civil liberties that occurs during times of national emergency are never reversed. They become the new normal. In this case, however, the damage was so extreme - the Constitution so utterly trashed and dismembered - that perhaps there is some hope for repairing at least the worst excesses. No matter what the outcome, I'm grateful the ACLU is on the case, and I want to do what little I can to support their work.

The Plan is divided into three segments. Reading through them is a gut-wrenching reminder of how much has been lost, and how blatant and overt it's all become.

Day One: Stop Torture, Close Guantanamo, End Extraordinary Renditions.

First 100 Days: Warrantless spying, Watch lists, Freedom of Information - Ashcroft Doctrine, Monitoring of activists, DOJ's Civil Rights Division, Real ID Act, Abortion gag rule, Ban all workplace discrimination against sexual minorities by the federal government and its contractors, Death penalty, "Faith-based initiatives". Each is explained and linked here.

First Year Recommendations: this is a much longer list, and worth reading:

Torture and Abuse
Guantanamo
Extraordinary Rendition
Spying on Americans
Monitoring of activists
Real ID Act
Watch lists
Financial watch lists
Employee databases
Secure Flight
Harmonize privacy rules
Civil Liberties Oversight Board
DNA databases
Freedom of Information
FOIA ombudsman
Scientific freedom
Signing statements
Presidential documents
Federal websites
DOJ politicization
Overclassification
Death penalty
Human rights treaties
Mutual Legal Assistance Treaties
'Special Administrative Measures' for prisoners
Prisoner communications
Crack/Powder Sentencing
Medical marijuana
Discrimination against sexual minorities with federal dollars
The Civil Rights Division
Other Agencies' Civil Rights Enforcement
Federal Racial Profiling
Affirmative action
Rights of the disabled
School harassment based on sexual orientation and gender identity
Benefit plans covering domestic partners
Same-sex couples under Medicaid
Discrimination against sexual minorities in adoption and foster care
Discrimination By the Federal Government and Federal Contractors Against People with HIV
Political protest
Media Consolidation
Network neutrality
Online censorship of soldiers
Fleeting expletives
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)
The faith-based initiative
Broaden the mandate of the Special Counsel for Religious Discrimination
Local immigration enforcement
Immigration raids
ID theft prosecutions
Deportation to nations that torture
Detention standards
Expedited removal
Board of Immigration Appeals
Single-sex education
Fair housing for domestic violence victims
Discrimination remedies
Home health care workers
Global gag rule on abortion
Abortion restrictions
Emergency contraceptives
Regulations on birth control and religious refusals
Abortion clinic violence
Affordable birth control
The shackling of pregnant prisoners

Anthony Romero, ACLU Executive Director, explains the origins and meaning of the list.

President-elect Barack Obama will become chief executive of a nation that has been greatly weakened — in particular, our freedoms, our values, and our international reputation have been significantly undermined by the policies of the past eight years. Presidents have enormous power not only to set the legislative agenda, but also to establish policy by executive order, federal regulation, or simply by refocusing the efforts and emphases of the executive agencies. President-elect Obama must use all of these tools to restore our freedoms and move the country forward.

In preparation for the transition to a new presidential administration next year, I asked my staff to look at what a new president could do to begin to reverse the damage that has been done in the past 8 years to this great nation. What I got back — from experts on a wide variety of subjects from throughout the ACLU — was very revealing. And it brought home just how off-track our presidential campaigns have become.

As you can see here, some of the items were self evident for us: stop torture, close Guantanamo, shut down the military commissions, end "extraordinary renditions" in which suspects are kidnapped by the CIA and sent to countries where they are tortured. All of these practices are abominations — violations of our nation’s dearest principles and a blotch on America's good name. Those are actions the next president, whoever he turns out to be, should take on his first day in office.

Our other priorities are nearly as clear: steps such as ending warrantless spying on Americans, fixing the nation’s broken watch list system, banning discrimination against sexual minorities in federal employment, stopping the monitoring of peaceful political activists, and restoring the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division as a meaningful body.

But what is really striking is when you move down to the next level. I received dozens and dozens of action items from throughout our broad, multi-issue organization — issues that are never going to make the front page of the newspaper, but which can have a dramatic effect on the lives of Americans.

Let me give you just one example. Until recently, residents of public housing were to be evicted from their homes whenever criminal activity took place in those units — without exception. But one result of this "get tough" law was that women who were victims of domestic violence were being evicted from their units because of the crime that took place there — the domestic violence — even though they were the victim of the crime!

Congress fixed this absurdity in the 2005 Violence Against Women Act (VAWA). But today, more than two years after enactment, the Bush Administration has still not acted to implement the fix. The Department of Housing and Urban Development has not issued regulations interpreting and explaining the law, and has distributed inaccurate information about how it applies. As a result, many public housing authorities remain unaware of the new law and have not trained their staff on the new protections.

It's a fair bet you're never going to see that issue raised in a presidential debate, or read about it on a bumper sticker, or on the front page of your newspaper. Probably not in the back pages either. I worry that even the "big" issues like closing Guantánamo, shutting down the military commissions, and prohibiting torture and rendition will literally be thrown under the bus in a new administration. As I read over the list of requests our staff has compiled, it is striking how many issues are like this — vital, important issues that affect many lives, but which we have a dim hope of ever setting directly before the American people.

The country’s civil liberties "to do" list really brings home just how sweeping the power of the president of the United States is. The often obscure actions of various deputy assistant secretaries will together probably make as much difference to Americans as the new president’s actions on the headline issues of our times. We need leadership at the top. And President Obama ought to act swiftly on day one by picking up his pen and signing executive orders that shut down Guantánamo and the military commissions and ban torture and rendition. Once he crosses those off of his "to do" list, we can pick up on the many other things that need to get done. But leadership needs to start on day one.

Right now I'm still hoping Obama will have the chance to act, but assuming there is a peaceful transfer of power, this is an excellent agenda.

off the beaten (subway) track

I have a great little book to tell you about: Off the Beaten (Subway) Track - New York City's Best Unusual Attractions, by Suzanne Reisman.

Suzanne and I knew each other briefly through the Haven Coalition, the abortion "underground railroad" network, although she was coming in while I was on my way out. She's a travel writer and editor, and I can see by her book that she's someone who knows New York intimately.

Although I've lived in Canada for three years - and although we chose to live in the suburbs here - there is a part of me that will always be a New Yorker. I wouldn't look twice at a standard New York City guidebook. They're usually geared towards the least adventurous tourists, often highlighting attractions that I would never recommend. But Off the Beaten (Subway) Track made me wistful and homesick, and that's a tribute to what a real "inside New York" book it is.

Some of the sights Suzanne highlights are small museums, like the Skyscraper Museum, the Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art, and the Ukrainian Museum. Others are little freebies tucked away in larger or commercial settings, like the United Nations Sculpture Garden, the Corning Gallery at Steuben Glass, or the Steinway Piano Factory tour.

She includes the bizarre (a Troll Museum), the unheralded (Museum of Art and Origins), and a few that even most diehard New Yorkers probably don't know (the Poppenhusen Institute). And she includes a few that sights that are, for me, mainstays, like the New York City Panorama in the Queens Museum of Art.

The book is organized geographically, and includes tips on what else you might want to see while you're in the neighbourhood. The section on Upper Manhattan, where I lived for 15 years, is particularly good.

The book is written in a light, breezy style, sprinkled with the writer's personal thoughts and musings as she explored each attraction. She's an excellent tour guide, telling you just enough to get you intrigued.

I was pleased to note that I've been to a fair number of the attractions in the book, because I loved exploring the City, especially the smaller attractions. When I started this blog, I wrote a series of posts called "a year to say goodbye". My goal was to visit all the places on the "New York to-do" list I had compiled over the years.

My project was underway when a huge, well-paid, but high-pressure writing assignment landed in my lap, turning my final months in New York into a pressure cooker (but later allowing us a month off when we first arrived, so we enjoyed settling in without looking for work, an amazing luxury). So my plans got a bit derailed and scattered. Perhaps that was inevitable.

Many of the sights from my "year to say goodbye" list are in Off the Beaten (Subway) Track, like the Louis Armstrong House (my post here), and Socrates Sculpture Park.

But I was also pleased that the book lists many sights I haven't been to, and a few I had never heard of, reminding me there is always more New York City to explore.
Book website here.

chris hedges: only nader is right on the issues

After the fact, but great reading nonetheless. Thank you to Chris Hedges, quickly becoming one of my writing heroes.

Only Nader Is Right on the Issues
Posted on Nov 3, 2008

By Chris Hedges

Tomorrow I will go to a polling station in Princeton, N.J., and vote for Ralph Nader. I know the tired arguments against a Nader vote. He can't win. A vote for Nader is a vote for McCain. He threw the election to George W. Bush in 2000. He is an egomaniac.

There is little disagreement among liberals and progressives about the Nader and Obama campaign issues. Nader would win among us in a landslide if this was based on issues. Sen. Barack Obama's vote to renew the Patriot Act, his votes to continue to fund the Iraq war, his backing of the FISA Reform Act, his craven courting of the Israeli lobby, his support of the death penalty, his refusal to champion universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans, his call to increase troop levels and expand the war in Afghanistan, his failure to call for a reduction in the bloated and wasteful defense spending and his lobbying for the huge taxpayer swindle known as the bailout are repugnant to most of us on the left. Nader stands on the other side of all those issues.

So if the argument is not about issues what is it about?

Those on the left who back Obama, although they disagree with much of what he promotes, believe they are choosing the practical over the moral. They see themselves as political realists. They fear John McCain and the Republicans. They believe Obama is better for the country. They are right. Obama is better. He is not John McCain. There will be under Obama marginal improvements for some Americans although the corporate state, as Obama knows, will remain our shadow government and the working class will continue to descend into poverty. Democratic administrations have, at least until Bill Clinton, been more receptive to social programs that provide benefits, better working conditions and higher wages. An Obama presidency, however, will make no difference to those in the Middle East.

I can't join the practical. I spent two decades of my life witnessing the suffering of those on the receiving end of American power. I have stood over the rows of bodies, including women and children, butchered by Ronald Reagan's Contra forces in Nicaragua. I have inspected the mutilated corpses dumped in pits outside San Salvador by the death squads. I have crouched in a concrete hovel as American-made F-16 fighter jets, piloted by Israelis, dropped 500- and 1,000-pound iron-fragmentation bombs on Gaza City.

I can't join the practical because I do not see myself exclusively as an American. The narrow, provincial and national lines that divide cultures and races blurred and evaporated during the years I spent in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, Europe and the Balkans. I built friendships around a shared morality, not a common language, religion, history or tradition. I cannot support any candidate who does not call for immediate withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan and an end to Israeli abuse of Palestinians. We have no moral or legal right to debate the terms of the occupation. And we will recover our sanity as a nation only when our troops have left Iraq and our president flies to Baghdad, kneels before a monument to the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi war dead and asks for forgiveness.

We dismiss the suffering of others because it is not our suffering. There are between 600,000 and perhaps a million dead in Iraq. They died because we invaded and occupied their country. At least three Afghan civilians have died at the hands of the occupation forces for every foreign soldier killed this year. The dead Afghans include the 95 people, 60 of them children, killed by an air assault in Azizabad in August and the 47 wedding guests butchered in July during a bombardment in Nangarhar. The Palestinians are forgotten. Obama and McCain, courting the Israeli lobby, do not mention them. The 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza live in a vast open-air prison. Supplies and food dribble through the Israeli blockade. Ninety-five percent of local industries have shut down. Unemployment is rampant. Childhood malnutrition has skyrocketed. A staggering 80 percent of families in Gaza are dependent on international food aid to survive.

It is bad enough that I pay taxes, although I will stop paying taxes if we go to war with Iran. It is bad enough that I have retreated into a safe, privileged corner of the globe, a product of industrialized wealth and militarism. These are enough moral concessions, indeed moral failings. I will not accept that the unlawful use of American military power be politely debated among us like the subtle pros and cons of tort law.

George Bush has shredded, violated or absented America from its obligations under international law. He has refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol, backed out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, tried to kill the International Criminal Court, walked out on negotiations on chemical and biological weapons and defied the Geneva Conventions and human rights law in the treatment of detainees in our offshore penal colonies. Most egregiously, he launched an illegal war in Iraq based on fabricated evidence we now know had been discredited even before it was made public. The president is guilty, in short, of what in legal circles is known as the "crime of aggression."

The legacy of the Bush administration may be the codification of a world without treaties, statutes and laws. Bush may have bequeathed to us a world where any nation, from a rogue nuclear state to a great imperial power, will be able to invoke its domestic laws to annul its obligations to others. This new order will undo five decades of international cooperation—largely put in place by the United States — and thrust us into a Hobbesian nightmare. The exercise of power without law is tyranny.

If we demolish the fragile and delicate international order, if we do not restore a world where diplomacy, broad cooperation and the law are respected, we will see our moral and political authority disintegrate. We will erode the possibility of cooperation between nation-states, including our closest allies, and see visited upon us the evils we visit on others. Obama, like McCain, may tinker with this new world, but neither says they will dismantle it. Nader would.

Practical men and women do not stand up against injustice. The practical remain silent. A voice, even one voice, which speaks the truth and denounces injustice is never useless. It is not impractical. It reminds us of what we should strive to become. It defies moral concession after moral concession that leaves us chanting empty slogans.

When I sat on the summit of Mount Igman in my armored jeep, the engine idling, before nervously running the gantlet of Serb gunfire that raked the dirt road into the besieged city of Sarajevo, I never asked myself if what I was doing was practical. Forty-five foreign correspondents died in the city along with some 12,000 Bosnians, including 2,000 children. Some 50,000 people were wounded. Of the dead and wounded 85 percent were civilians. I drove down the slope into Sarajevo, which was being hit by 2,000 shells a day and under constant sniper fire, because what was happening there was a crime. I drove down because I had friends in the city. I did not want them to be alone. Their stories had become mine.

War, with all its euphemisms about surges and the escalation of troops and collateral damage, is not an abstraction to me. I am haunted by hundreds of memories of violence and trauma. I have abandoned, because I no longer cover these conflicts, many I care about. They live in Gaza, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Beirut, Kabul and Tehran. They cannot vote in our election. They will, however, bear the consequences of our decision. Some, if the wars continue, may be injured or killed. The quest for justice is not about being practical. It is required by the bonds we share. They would do no less for me.

Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer prize-winning journalist who has covered many wars around the world. His column appears Mondays on Truthdig.

update on fundraising coming soon

Many wmtc readers have asked me what happened to Cathy and Tim Baskin, the good folks from North Carolina for whom we were raising money to buy a used car. (Story here.)

Here's great news. Ten days ago, they received a check from Fundable, and yesterday they bought a car! I will have a detailed update from them shortly within a few days, so we'll save our discussion for then. Yay!

reminder: november 11: body of war

If you're in the Toronto area, this Remembrance Day, honour those who have died in war by working for peace.

Join us for a special screening of "Body of War", a film by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, featuring music by Eddie Vedder. Proceeds go to the Toronto chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War. The local IVAW chapter has generously offered to give those funds to the War Resisters Support Campaign, to help fund the ongoing legal fight to keep war resisters in Canada.

Film screening

Tuesday, November 11
7:00 p.m.
Bloor Cinema
506 Bloor Street West

TTC: Bathurst

Advance tickets: $11 (limited number still available)
At the door: $15

Tickets are also available at the following locations:

Queen Video
480 Bloor Street West

Rotate This!
801 Queen Street West

Soundscapes
572 College Street (Little Italy)

Toronto Women's Book Store
73 Harbord Street

About the film:

Body of War is an intimate and transformational feature documentary about the true face of war today. Meet Tomas Young, 25 years old, paralyzed from a bullet to his spine - wounded after serving in Iraq for less than a week. Body of War is Tomas' coming home story as he evolves into a new person, coming to terms with his disability and finding his own unique and passionate voice against the war.

The film is produced and directed by Phil Donahue and Ellen Spiro, and features two original songs by Eddie Vedder. Body of War is a naked and honest portrayal of what it's like inside the body, heart and soul of this extraordinary and heroic young man.

Solidarity

This is a solidarity event with all proceeds going to Iraq Veterans Against the War. Proceeds from the Toronto screening will support the legal cases of Iraq War resisters seeking refuge in Canada.

As you know, historically, Canada has provided sanctuary to war resisters, but the Harper Government has broken with this proud tradition. We are fighting a legal and political battle to keep the resisters in Canada. If deported, they face jail time and irreparable harm to their lives and the lives of their families, for the "crime" of not wanting to kill innocent people.

Please join us on Tuesday. The War Resisters Support Campaign desperately needs the money, and from what I've heard, it's an unforgettable film.

For more information and to reserve tickets, visit Body of War Toronto.

citizenship update

Our applications for Canadian citizenship are in the mail! And may I say:

WHOO-HOOOO!!!!

In my last post about our status in Canada, I said:

The only potentially tricky part is the number of days you have actually been physically present in Canada.

To be eligible for Canadian citizenship, you must have lived in Canada for at least three years (1,095 days) out of the four years (1,460 days) preceding your application. Please note that you cannot meet the residence requirements for citizenship without a minimum of two (2) years as a permanent resident.

The counter takes in the last four years, so those of you who moved to Canada before becoming Permanent Residents, a full year of that time counts.

You also deduct any time spent outside of Canada. Day trips don't count, so we don't deduct time for picking up friends at the Buffalo airport or picking up Tala in western New York State. But our little trips to New York and Vermont, our US Thanksgiving in New Jersey, vacation in Peru, my trip to Southern California - all that gets deducted.

The CIC site has a very useful and user-friendly online calculator, where you can input all your info, and it tells you exactly when you're eligible to apply for citizenship. You can save it online, and you can also print your results to submit it with your application.

After deducting our various trips out of Canada, we determined we can submit our applications on November 1. Only two months away, not bad! Allan is eligible sooner than me, but we'll submit our applications when we're both ready.

I was out of the country 65 days in the last 3 years; Allan had 49 days. We had forgotten a wedding in Vermont, so my eligibility date came out to November 3.

This week we had our pictures taken in the back of a video and novelty store, one of the zillion citizenship-photo places in Mississauga, where the man taking your picture is a new Canadian himself. We checked everything twice, paid $400 online and printed a receipt, and sent off the whole shebang.

The CIC website says the current processing times for routine citizenship applications is 12-15 months. I hope it comes through while Hazel McCallion is still Mayor of Mississauga, because I want to be sworn in by her on Canada Day. I don't know if that's possible at this point, but I'm hoping.

imagining obama

Excellent letter in today's Globe and Mail!

Your editorial board expresses guarded admiration for Barack Obama and his promises for "change."

Now, imagine a political candidate who voted to renew the Patriot Act and fund the Iraq war, backed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Reform Act, courted the Israeli lobby, supported the death penalty, refused to champion universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans, called to increase troop levels and expand the war in Afghanistan, failed to call for a reduction in defence spending, and lobbied (and voted for) the taxpayer swindle known as the Wall Street bailout.

This candidate sabre-rattled at Iran, promised to roll back "Russian aggression" and to extend treaty protection to a Georgian regime that cluster-bombed its own people, advocated for military strikes in Pakistan, opposed same-sex marriage, and favoured extending the death penalty.

The candidate's name and party? Not John McCain, not Republican, but Barack Obama and Democrat. So, what exactly does Mr. Obama mean when he talks of "change"?

Chris Stolz
Vancouver

Once again, I'm thrilled the Republicans were not able to engineer the election for McCain, I'm thrilled a person of colour is finally President of the US. But this stuff is all true.

It was the same for Bill Clinton, and John F. Kennedy. The world flocked to these US Presidents, as they will to Obama, attracted to the beautiful oratory of inclusion, justice, moving forward, making change - attracted to their youth and good looks and liberal words. Liberal words are not liberal deeds.

what else happened in the u.s. this election day?

US voters elected Barack Obama, and many Democrat senators, congresspeople and governors. What else did they do?

Voters in Arizona banned same-sex marriage.

Voters in Arkansas prohibited unmarried couples from adopting or providing foster homes for children. Since same-sex couples are not allowed to marry, this is a de facto ban on same-sex couples adopting.

Voters in California banned same-sex marriage.

Voters in Florida added a ban of same-sex marriage, already illegal in Florida, to their state constitution.

To be fair to the many good people in each of those states, at least 38% of voters tried to defeat those measures. All the laws will be challenged, but the message is clear: gays and lesbians are still second-class citizens in the US.

Now please, no more questions about whether anyone wants to "move back". My friends Tom at Canadian Hope and Nick at Life Without Borders address that question. At best, it's silly and uninformed; at worst, it's downright offensive. We didn't come here for a vacation. We're putting down roots. We're becoming Canadian.

* * * *

Good people are also celebrating the defeat of a bill that would have banned all abortions except in the most extreme circumstances. After fetus lovers in South Dakota tried to ban all abortions in 2006, only to see voters reject that bill, they tried again with a similar idea, this time including narrow exceptions - the kind that amount to a tiny percentage of all abortions.

Voters rejected that, too.