The story below is not by me. It's a copy of an e mail I received. And it comes before the blog because my computer says it does. This is also a repaired version. I hope it works. After losing in court, a giant mining corporation is bullying a indigenous Peruvian farmer in a fight to turn her land into an open-pit gold mine.
Máxima is strong and leading her community’s fight. But she needs our help to win against the company's aggressive attacks. Tell Newmont Mining to stop its attacks against Máxima!
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The world's second biggest gold mining corporation is at war with an indigenous Peruvian farmer.
Máxima Acuña de Chaupe has been fighting for years to save her land and her community. Newmont Mining is determined to destroy both for a massive, open-pit gold mine -- which would drain four mountain lakes in an arid farming region.
Newmont Mining has already lost in court to Máxima, and her land should be safe.
But now Newmont-backed security officers have invaded Máxima's house
and destroyed part of it.
Máxima is strong, but she needs our support to win against Newmont's
aggressive bullying tactics. If hundreds of thousands of us speak out now and tell the mining giant that we are watching Máxima's back, the corporate bully may finally
back off. Will you send a message to ensure Máxima's safety?
Tell Newmont to stop its attacks against this indigenous female farmer and
respect the court's ruling.
This isn't an isolated incident with this corporate bully. With operations on five continents,Newmont been accused of polluting the environment, damaging natural habitats, impacting the health of local communities, corruption, and bribery in locations around the world from Nevada to Indonesia.
These unethical business practices can’t continue. The courts have already called
for an end to this harassment, and by standing behind Máxima we can finally make Newmont listen. We are teaming up with our friends at Earthworks to speak out
against this corporate bully. This strategy has worked before -- together with Earthworks, we convinced another multinational mining company, Rio Tinto,
to drop its investment in what would have been the biggest gold mine on earth -- a mine that would have destroyed half of the world's sockeye salmon population.
Máxima has been fighting against this corporate bully for months. Let's speak out
now to let her know that she is not alone in this fight.
Sign the petition to Newmont Mining, demanding that the corporation leave
Máxima and her neighbors in peace!
Thanks for all that you do,
Taren, Angus, Ledys, and the team at SumOfUs
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More information:
Update: Peruvian farmer harassed after lawsuit win against Newmont, Earthworks,
4 February 2015
Police officials of mining company destroy home of Máxima Acuña Chaupe, Peru
This Week, 4 February 2015
This story is typical of the behaviour of mining companies in Latin America. And
many,
many of their stockholders and owners are Canadian.
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Skip the headline story "Tories accuse Liberals of running "hack-and-slash"
government". Hack and slash doesn't really mean anything. Anyway, neither
party has any concept of a philosophy of government. Both simply do what the boss
tells them to.
Big thrill on A4. It's a suitable for framing photo of Robert K Irving who has been
named honorary chair of a fundraiser for military and RCMP families in need, particularly those families of veterans who suffered wounds that still cause them suffering.,. What's an honorary chair? An honorary chair is the one who doesn't
actually do anything. Mr. Irving says he feels humbled. And well he might.
The story is a long one of pure gush. But to any thoughtful reader, it surely raises a
question. With all that talk about what we owe our military and RCMP for their sacrifices, why the hell do our military and RCMP who need help because of those sacrifices have to get it from volunteer charities? If they're so keen on helping, why don't they use their positions to talk to Harper about the responsibility of all of us to
care for that need?. And then Robert Irving could set an example by volunteering to
pay higher taxes to cover it.
As usual in these social circles, the first fund-raiser will be a dinner at $175 a pop.
The dinner will, of course, be a fine one - so not a whole lot of that $175 will ever
enter the home of a needy veteran. ...And then there's the cost of new dresses
for the wives of the rich. I mean, they can't possibly wear something that people
have seen them in before.
The last paragraph of this boot-licking story tells us that JDIrving Ltd is a private company, etc. And that Brunswick News is a separate company owned by J.K.
Irving. What does that have to do with the story?
Oh, and Robert Irving is pro-chief executive officer of J.D.Irving Ltd. So he must be
read hard-working, a man who pulled himself up by his own bootstraps, unlike the
rest of us stupid and lazy people who expect the government to support us. I wonder - does Does Robert Irving had any mining shares? In, say, Latin America?Robert Irving
The editorial is equally annoying. It's a smarmy and shallow sermonette on the holiness of Easter. Yes, yes, it says, reach out to your neighbours. This comes from a news paper which has done more than its share of preaching fear and hatred of Muslims and Russians and whoever else the flavour of the week is. This is a newspaper owned by people whose only gospel is to make money, whatever that might do to others. And
to hold on to their money, whatever the needs of their neighbours might be.
Norbert's column is about the budget. As usual, it shows not the slightest knowledge
of or interest in what the people of the province need. It's all just dollar signs and, at that, it's shallow and, of course, makes no mention of the role of corporations in
causing this financial crisis, and no responsibility for ending it.. So much for reaching out to
your neighbout.
Cole Hobson has a very long commentary in which, if you can stay awake to the end, he he says nothing about the restaurant business in Moncton.
Fortunately, the page also has a column by David Suzuki about the water crisis which has largely gone unnoticed in our news media - though it has made large areas of the US southwest into desert - with worse to come. That has two warning for us.
1. It may not be a great idea to dump the waste from fracking and from oil fields into
our water.
2. The situation in California -and some other states - is so serious that huge areas
are unproductive ( which means serious food shortages) and becoming
uninhabitable. So what will the US do? It will ask Canada to sell it water. And when
that creates a crisis for us, and we want to stop selling it or to sell less, the US will
say we're no being good neighbours. And then it will say we're terrorists.
No. That's not an exaggeration. That is what the US has done and is still doing today
all over the world. Never kid yourself about that. If the Irvings, who live here, don't
care about us, why would you think all the American Irvings would care?
Alec Bruce has an excellent column the value to society of pre-schooling and child
care. So far, our New Brunswick governments have thought only of cutting education
budgets. There are things that are better to do - for both social and
economic reasons. All it requires is politicians who have some philosophy of what government is about - and some brains.
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Canada&World. After the story yesterday that Trans-Canada Pipelines will not be building an oil export terminal in Quebec, but will extend to St. John, we get two
stories that say much the same thing. And, again, both stories are told from the point
of view of the pipeline builders.
We don't get a word about the reason for the decision - the potential destruction of Beluga whales. Is this concern just one of those silly ones that environmental
terrorists always have? Or is there some solid reasoning behind it? And if the port would damage the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence, why is it safe to locate a
similar export terminal at St. John? Is the water at St. John different?
Oh, one of the headlines for this story is "Fallout over pipeline delay to impact
economic projections". Somebody please tell editors at the Irving press that "impact"
is not a verb. It is a noun.
There's a whole range of problems with fossil fuels. One is damage to our lands and waters. Another is climate change. Another is the killing we do to control the supply of fossil fuels. That's why at least a couple of million have been killed in the Middle East with many more to come. That's why so many of its people live in misery and terror. That's the reason Canadians are there to bomb. That's why the whole region could
very soon blow up, and trigger a world war.Shale gas and oil come at a price, a very high price.
So how come Harper hasn't lifted a finger to cut down on our dependence on them?
And how come Robert Irving isn't honorary chairman of a group studying the matter?
B4 has a brief report at the bottom of the page, It's really an old story about Irving and friends paying $76 million settlement to the families of 47 killed in Lac-Megantic by a trainload of Irving oil.
That's very generous. Obviously, it's all the engineer's fault because he went to bed
after driving a train, alone, all day. If he had just stayed in the cab, and stayed awake
all night, this would not have happened.
Anyway, he's in jail. And the Irvings aren't.
On B6, the Irving press announces that the US has reached a deal with Iran. It has still not told us what this fuss was all about in the first place.
It has told us that Iran was developing nuclear weapons. That's now just a mistake. It's
a lie. It has been known before all this started that Iran was not developing nuclear weapons. We know that from statements by the CIA and by Israeli intelligence and by UN inspectors. So why is Obama lying? And why are Republicans all foaming at the mouth?
Obama needed an excuse to negotiate with Iran. He was worried about Iran
developing oil trade ties with Russia and China. He was, and is, worried about the widespread attempt to displace the US dollar as the standard of international trade.
The fact that there is any difficulty with Iran is entirely the fault of Britain and the US or, more accurately, the fault of British and US oil billionaires who were annoyed that the democratically elected government of Iran actually thought the oil belonged to the people of Iran. So they overthrew the government, and installed a brutal dictator.
That was some 65 years ago. And that is what drove Muslims closer to their
religious leadership. It was made worse when the US paid Saddam Hussein to
invade Iran in a very bloody war.
That is what created an Iran government based on Islamic thought. It was a reaction
to God bless America Christian slaughter and greed.
And signing a treaty to discontinue a programme that did not exist, anyway, is not
going to solve anything. Israel and Saudi Arabia both want a war with Iran. They claim that Iran is a threat to them. It isn't. Even if it wanted to be a threat to them, it couldn't
be.
What Israel and Saudi Arabia both want is military dominance in the Middle East. It is now quite possible that Israel will bomb Iran - and that Saudi Arabia will, too.
The other thing to watch for is a country that is really likely to be looking for nuclear bombs - Saudi Arabia. After all, both Saudi Arabia and Israel want dominance in the region. And Israel already has nuclear bombs.
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My, this was a long one. I have one last item that didn't make our Irving-approved
news.
Remember Ferguson, Missouri, where a white policeman killed an unarmed
teenager who was black? Well, it seems that Ferguson has something like 16,000 arrest warrants outstanding. That's in a population of just 21,000. And they have nothing to do with rioting.
Ferguson, like many American cities, now uses its police to collect funds for the city. They do it by making all kinds of little things illegal, and with fines attached to them. It happens even in the schools. A boy was arrested and found guilty of writing on his desk. A girl of 12 was fined for smelling of perfume in school.
In Ferguson, as in most American cities, the police are white. But the victims who get fined tend to be black - though the police also give special attention to poor whites.
Of course, the poor often can't pay the fine, usually $150 or so. So they go to jail -
which is okay because many of the jails are owned by private capitalists who also
rent the prisoners out for cheap labour (a rent which the jail owner keeps). When the villains get out of jail, it's tough to get jobs because they now have criminal records.
And they still owe the fines - at high interest. A woman who couldn't pay $150 at
her trial was jailed. After release, she made regular payments to a total of $500, but
still owes $500 more.
Well, it spares the very rich from paying taxes.
A majority of American cities now make it a crime to sit down or to lie down in public.
And, in many, it's a crime to beg for food or money. So, among other things, what happens to the many homeless in the US?
Additionally, the army has been conducting exercises by invading towns and cities to practice for urban uprisings and other unrest.
Funny how the Irving press missed all this.
What we are watching is a nation and a society in terrible decline, a society torn by fears and hatreds and racism, a society in which democracy has ceased to exist, a society of dreadful exploitation - This is what the fall of a nation, an empire and an economic system look like. And it's next door.
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