for harriet nahanee, murdered for the olympics

Treaty 8 Tribal Association and the Site C Dam

Face to Face with Jack Etkin: #45 - The Treaty 8 Tribal Association discuss the Site C Dam from ICTV Victoria on Vimeo.

Chilean Miners: the next day

from Carlos

After the reality show - disguised as a rescue operation - is over.
After all the entertainment industry - disguised as news agencies - leaves town.
After the cunning and opportunistic politicians remove their impeccable coveralls and shinny hard hats.
After the apathetic public ceases to be interested and switches channels to watch another "Reality Show" and after this long and slender, God forsaken country ceases to be in the news, the miners will have to deal with the reality of their miserable lives....again.

Nothing have changed the day after, in the land of unfettered capitalism, perennial usury and endless profits, where the road is not paved with yellow bricks gold, but with red copper bars extracted by Canadian, Australian, American and Chilean consortium who enjoyed their ROYALTY FREE peaceful existence for the benefit of their own wealthy elites.

During their subterranean ordeal, these miners have received the medical aid and monitoring normally denied to them due to their inability to pay for those services.

Their minds, bodies and every possible health index have been examined and measured to ensure their well being: that will not happen again.....unless they can pay for those services: in the land of privatized health, if you have money you live , if you don't, you die.



Their voices - normally silenced by the mine owners, the government, and the police or by all of them combined - have been heard by millions around the world, but not for long, their return to anonymity is imminent.

Their weather beaten, common and regular humble faces have been shown to the world, in contrast with the faces of the "other" Chile, the one that drives expensive cars, travels to Miami for holidays and wear Gucci watches purchased with the money generated by the miners.

Their women folks - normally ignored and treated with scorn by the educated, lighter skinned, fragrant, well dressed well-to-do matrons - are now back to the anonymity of the poor working class: their 15 minutes of fame is over.

Has anyone asked why this accident did happen?
Why the miner's Union representatives were not allowed to be in the camp with their comrades?
Why is the Chilean Labour Code not enforced by the authorities?
Why the mining safety code is being ignored?
Why the precarious working conditions in an industry that generates so much wealth? [for the Canadian, Australian, USA and the Chilean elites]

The miners will come back to their normal routine soon and....yes, they will be forced by circumstances to work under the same conditions [or worse] just to feed their families and to full fill their assigned role in the international economy that demands cheap raw materials .....and perhaps, in a short distant future, there will be another reality show, this time in Guatemala, Indonesia, El Salvador or in other country that will have the misfortune of receiving the foreign investment curse.

Workers do not and cannot expect redemption from those who rob them of their very existence and who profit from their suffering and want. Their liberation will be the result of their own organized efforts and sacrifice to obtain the justice that has been denied for so long.

Yesterday was a day of survival and victory.
Tomorrow is a day of organizing and struggle for liberation…..

Carlos F.

happy thanksgiving, please pass the hamlet

my first introduction to shakespeare's 'hamlet' was in high school. we had to memorize the 'to be or not to be' soliloquy, including all the punctuation, for a written exam and i aced it. i didn't really understand much about the play, except that particular act had something to do with hamlet contemplating suicide.

since then, through a college liberal arts degree and an english degree, i've learned that particular bit of poetry, and all the rest of it in fact, can be interpreted in many different ways. hamlet, for example, might have been pondering whether or not it's worth murdering claudius (who he believes has killed his father and married his mother). over the years i've examined and scrutinized and philosophized over and written about the play many many times. today i watched a newish interpretation from the bbc, with patrick stewart as claudius and the ghost, and david tennant (doctor who) portraying perhaps the most afflicted royal son ever. i spotted the dvd on the shelves at yo video (the best video store in the world, if not the universe) and thought ..... every time i see or read this play (probably 2,315 times by now at least) i find something new that i didn't see before. there's no way, i thought, i could possibly glean any more useful tidbits about human behaviour. i've written papers, exams, i've studied the play inside out. i've thought about it from all possible angles.

ten minutes into the film i had it, something i'd never considered before.

what if claudius, after or perhaps even before committing the murder, realized that the dane would figure it out and so plotted to make hamlet (and everyone else) think he'd lost his mind. hamlet is, after, next in line for the throne and if he could prove what claudius had done he might succeed in having him dethroned. so claudius might have hired the sentinels, barnardo and marcellus, to pretend they'd seen the ghost of hamlet's father. they might have also convinced horatio (hamlet's best buddy, who i don't think would ever betray him) that the ghost was real. claudius might have brought hamlet's mom gertrude in on the deal. they might have plotted together to kill the king, then decided that having hamlet claim to have seen a ghost who told him how he'd been done in might be enough to discredit him forever so he'd never take the throne.

it's possible. i listened, rather than watched, a lot of the play as i prepared thanksgiving lunch (fresh farm veggies and polenta casserole, apple crisp with coconut dream for dessert) for my folks, so i can't say with great confidence whether there's a lot in this interpretation of the play to support this particular thesis. i heard a couple of lines that might support it, though, and the idea of having the same actor portray both claudius and hamlet's father's ghost is what gave me the idea.

you just never know what old bill shakespeare intended. one of the things i love most about him is his lack of stage direction. you often never really know for sure who's listening in on what conversations, who sees what, where everybody is, all that sort of thing. and certainly this play was among his finest works. even after all these years i can still find something new to think about. i'd always wondered about that ghost, the rest of the play being so grounded in reality, it didn't seem logical to pin the entire story on something so obscure.

luther and nelly, the little cuddly poodles i'm currently employed to love and protect, were disappointed at the lack of canine influence over the play, but appreciated that at least some dirt was dug up in the graveyard scene.

global climate change, or not global climate change?

a horrible infestation ....

poop power