A Wide Range of Whistleblowers Prove That RBC is Just the Tip of the Iceberg in Canada's TFW Scandal

The dam of silence has burst. Three days ago there was one leaky Dave Moreau talking to the CBC, in the next couple of days a few other folks in the same situation started telling their stories publicly. Overnight and today whistleblowers from every sector of Canada's economy are talking. The Temporary Foreign Worker Program scandal is not about RBC anymore or about whether they broke the rules. It's about the TFW program as an obvious sop to business and how it is destroying jobs and opportunities for a generation of young Canadians.

This scandal has been going on for years in industries ranging from the hated Tar Sands to the beloved Tim Hortons. RBC, and now the not-so-beloved other banks, just got caught because whistleblower Dave came out on a weekend - when the full RBC PR machinery was off and when the HD mining corporation's hiring of 200 TFWs from China had already primed Canadians to pay attention.

Successive governments, both Conservative and Liberal, have been willfully ignoring and even excusing this practice for years by saying that we need more skilled workers. Well we have a million and a half unemployed workers yet there were 300,000 temporary foreign workers in Canada last year. As Karl Flecker of the Canadian Labour Congress said, "Ottawa’s policy to allow employers to pay foreign temp workers 15 per cent less than the prevailing wage simply offers an incentive for employers to replace Canadian workers." For instance there are tons of construction job postings in Alberta and Saskatchewan's newspapers at ridiculously low wages. Few Canadians ever apply because they can't make a living at those low wage levels given the high cost of living now in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

Profits are the real issue, the program is a direct attack on Canadian workers by driving down wages. A wage race to the bottom ensues when companies of any size or in any sector have one that is using cheaper TFWs.and the other isn't. Today on the 'Boycott RBC facebook page there are numerous reports that RBC is intimidating their IT workers all over Canada about the info that is being leaked onto the page. Jenny, who started and maintains the page says, "I want everyone to know that I will protect you at all costs - even if that means going to jail." One whistleblower says, "Today I show up for work and we staff have received a letter from Gord Nixon [RBC's CEO] explicitly telling staff to have no opinion, to be aware and say this is happening in all major banks and corporations." Going on to add, " Clients should know we have all been provided with scripted answers and told to comply and not to respond to individual inquiries."

My solution would be to eliminate the Temporary Foreign Worker Program immediately. Force companies who operate in Canada to hire Canadians, if they can't find capable workers, let 'em train them. Let them pay fair wages that are high enough for Canadians to live modestly and raise a family on. If companies can't compete with others who can exist while paying fair wages let 'em hit the road, who needs 'em. Further Canadians, who would then be earning a fair wage, would be able to afford TimBits that cost a few cents more, they'd be able to pay taxes instead of collecting UIC and welfare, they'd be able to afford an education for their kids, they'd not be forced to keep quiet for fear of being fired, they'd be able to stand up strait and proud and we'd all be better off for it. All of us that is except the profiteers and their politician lackeys.

Thousands of Outraged Canadians Join RBC Boycott Over Foreign Worker Outsourcing

The Royal Bank of Canada is in full damage control mode as thousands of angry Canadians from coast to coast to coast join the protests and begin moving their money in response to learning about RBC's outsourcing deal that will see some of its staff lose their jobs to foreign workers. The new Facebook site is exploding with 'likes' and comments from folks who have joined the boycott by either closing their accounts completely or being in the process of it.

The story hit a few days ago when Dave Moreau, an RBC IT systems support employee, went public by contacting the CBC. Moreau told the CBC that dozens of employees at Canada’s largest bank are losing their jobs to temporary foreign workers who are in Canada to take over the work of their department. Moreau, one of the axed employees said, "The new people are in our offices and we are training them to do our jobs."

RBC is the most profitable bank in Canada making almost $8 billion last year and another $1.9 billion in the last quarter alone. RBC, like every corporation serves only one master - its shareholders. This move, which could end up being the dumbest in Canadian banking history, shows both just how short-sighted and stupid that type of business model is and also empirically proves how little they care about their employees or their customers.

If this style of business offends you, as it does me, and you are a customer of RBC, there are concrete actions we can take to put a crimp in RBC's profits. Moving your money to a local Credit Union is one. You can find a Credit Union near you by using this Credit Union Locator, give 'em a call, you might have to make an appointment because they'll probably be real busy in the next while. Credit Unions are owned by their members and by investing locally they benefit the local community economically.

Next, why not send off a few emails. Here's a few address to start with:
RBC's board of directors : https://www.rbc.com/governance/contactus.html
RBC's public affairs manager: Mark.Hamill@rbc.com
Human Resource Minister: diane.finley@parl.gc.ca

Then check out the 'Boycott Royal Bank of Canada' Facebook page and sign the AVAAZ 'Canadians should have priority for jobs' petition.

To be fair, RBC isn't the only culprit, every one of Canada's big 6 banks has some type of outsourcing scheme underway, the only real difference is that RBC got caught first. In fact, Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker Program is full of loopholes big enough to drive any sized corporation's greed driven agenda through. Hopefully this stupid move by RBC will serve as an anti-corporate bankster tipping point and one day we'll all look back and realize how important today is.

The US Bubble Economy and the Entire Global Capitalist Pyramid Scheme Set to Collapse

According to Richard Duncan, formerly of the World Bank, the capitalist pyramid scheme is in a death spiral. Going on to say, "What's really disturbing about these findings is that the pattern isn't limited to our economy, it's the same catastrophic pattern in our energy, food, and water systems as well." If he's right then why is the Dow hitting record highs? Why are Wall St. bonuses soaring? Because, as Ellen Brown explains, the US is bubble economy who's vampire like life depends totally on the Fed's printing presses. The $3 trillion the fed has printed in the last few years has propped up the stock market and it kept the banks temporarily out of bankruptcy but in the end, when the bubble pops, it will take down the worldwide capitalist pyramid scheme.

In explaining the international debt pyramid scheme, world renown economic adviser Dr. Kent Moors says, "Most frightening of all is how this exact same pattern keeps appearing in virtually every system critical to our society and way of life. It's a pattern that's hard to see unless you understand the way a catastrophe like this gains traction," Dr. Moors says. "At first, it's almost impossible to perceive. Everything looks fine, just like in every pyramid scheme. Yet the insidious growth of the virus keeps doubling in size, over and over again - in shorter and shorter periods of time - until it hits unsustainable levels. And it collapses the system."

Roger Baker's latest series 'Terminal Capitalism' gives an excellent, concise, explanation of how interest on debt, both sovereign and personal, has snowballed to the point where the inequity of wealth distribution around the world means that either financial collapse or revolution are the only conceivable outcomes. This inconvenient truth isn't a secret, every government, every banker, everybody who pulls back the curtain and sees the little old man pulling the levers, knows that one day soon the collapse of the dreaded and unfunded 'credit default swap' flimflam will cascade through the world, the bubble will burst and, as always, the shit will flow downhill.

Despite it's current $1trillion yearly deficit, the US spends $4,000+ per capita every year on the military and untold more on it's uber-secret security programs not because it's afraid of crazy leaders in tiny North Korea, not because it fears Iran's Ayatollahs, not because it fears the Chinese threat, or the Jihadists, or the Latin American socialists. The banksters, the corporate fascists and their puppets in every government including the EU, China, Russia and the US know the collapse coming and they  fear YOU.

The Mountain Pine Beetle Isn't an Ecological Disaster, It's Part of Nature's Immune System

NASA satellite image of Mountain Pine Beetle damage. {Larger, interactive version available here}

Last night's documentary on David Suzuki's 'The Nature of Things' was, as usual, beautifully shot and thought provoking but unfortunately also a bit misleading. Even its catchy title, 'The Beetles Are Coming', is misleading because the Mountain Pine Beetle [MPB] isn't an invasive species. As the documentary and the website say,  "It has lived with and co-evolved with the Lodgepole Pine for millennia." MPBs also inhabit and have co-evolved with ponderosa, whitebark, Scotch, and limber pine trees along the Rocky Mountain's forested flanks ranging from Mexico to the Yukon for at least 100,000 years.

Don't get me wrong, my kids and i have watched, loved and learned from Suzuki's Nature of Things for decades. This episode though comes off as a bit lopsided in that it so obviously is focused on only one of the many factors at work in the MPB's recent population explosion - climate change.

Although climate change is a big factor in the MPB epidemic other factors both human and natural play at least as big of a role. In the show an entomologist mentions fire suppression saying, "There is currently an over abundance of mature lodgepole pine, which is the host tree for the mountain pine beetle, creating an unnatural manmade situation. This is driven by social policy, and maintained by society's view that fires need to be put out." The cold-blooded MPB has a genetic resistance to cold temperatures, but clearly not to fire. Fires also naturally remove the host species, creating a mosaic of age classes and tree types.

Fire suppression is done to protect homes and lives but it's also done to protect the financial value of the timber. In addition there are other financial reasons beyond fire suppression why our interior forests contain an over abundance of similarly aged mature trees that the doc. doesn't mention including the massive clear cutting that has dominated our forests since the colonial capitalists took over. In the early days those clear cuts were naturally re-seeded, which at least created a partially mixed forest. In the last few decades they have been replanted mostly as lodgepole pine mono-cultures - tree farms. In both cases though the rssults are trees of a uniform age, a perfect habitat for all kinds of natural levelers - including the Mountain Pine Beetle

Normally, these insects play an important role in the life of a forest, attacking old or weakened trees, and speeding development of a younger forest. Unfortunately the short-sighted human 'profit' myopia has resulted what may be the largest forest insect blight ever seen in North America. The show beautifully shows that the MPB is now munching it's way into the Boreal forest in Alberta and is headed across the continent compromising both one of the world's great oxygen producers and it's capacity to sequester greenhouse gases as it goes.

BC's panic driven response in the last two decades has been to turn loose the lumber industry allowing it to mow down everything in sight in every huger clear cuts which of course will end up regrowing an over abundance of similarly aged trees. Apparently BC's leaders haven't learned that a 'forest' is an interwoven, integrated, interdependent ecosystem, that real forests have a great diversity of trees and other species that work together to keep themselves in balance. The Mountain Pine Beetle isn't an ecological disaster it's part of Mother Nature's immune system which is working to rid itself of the rogue primate who's technologies are the ecological disaster.

Confiscation of Savings in Canada Has Always Been Legal Because IT'S NOT YOUR MONEY

Stories about Cyprus-style forced depositor haircuts have been in the news lately because buried on page 145 of the latest Canadian Budget is the paragraph : The Government proposes to implement a bail-in regime for systemically important banks. This regime will be designed to ensure that, in the unlikely event that a systemically important bank depletes its capital, the bank can be recapitalized and returned to viability through the very rapid conversion of certain bank liabilities into regulatory capital. In case you aren't familiar with bankster jargon, deposits are not “assets” they are “liabilities”. A plan that would turn “certain bank liabilities” into regulatory capital is a plan to confiscate deposits.

Financial analyst Martin Weiss warns troubled Cypriot banks are canaries in the coal mine. Despite the fact that depositors didn't create the problem, speculators, and bankers created it, they/we will pay instead of the banks shareholders. The policy of depositor confiscation having been accepted in Cyprus with barely a whimper from folks outside that country means it could now show up anywhere.

Toady's article in the Terrace Daily titled 'A Short Commentary on Banking and Money' by Divid Ealing, explains why its not our money, it's theirs. As much as is needed can be seized, anyone's life savings can be wiped out and there’s no place to hide.

Here's a few paragraph's from Divid's excellent piece. Please read them because, as the old saying says, forewarned is forearmed:

There's a reason the government can take your money and give it to the banks. The truth is, IT'S NOT YOUR MONEY! Let me say that again, it's not your money!

To help you get used to this idea think about it in this way. If you borrowed a tool, let's say a rake from your neighbour, you never own the rake. Your neighbour has just granted the use of it to you. When your neighbour wants it back he or she just asks for its return and it must be returned. Now let's say another neighbour needed a rake for a short time and you allowed that person to use it. If the owner wanted it back he or she would be able to go to the second borrower and claim it back. The ownership of any borrowed item is never in doubt. The owner always has legal claim to it.

The same principle applies to borrowed money. Look at any Canadian bank note and you'll see the owners name clearly stamped on it. It reads, BANK OF CANADA – BANQUE DU CANADA. At any time the Bank of Canada can instruct the government to claim its property and to place that property wherever they wish. The Bank of Canada has the same right as any property owner. The right to its property.

Raymond Robinson Ready Die in Protest Over Amendments to FN Funding Agreements

Grand Elder Raymond Robinson says he is ready to die for his cause and that he will not stop unless Steven Harper removes a series of amendments that were quietly, and recently, added to the First Nations Comprehensive Funding Agreements and agrees to a meaningful Nation to Nation dialogue with First Nations. As his facebook page says, Grand Elder Raymond Robinson grew up on the Cross Lake First Nation in Northern Manitoba. He is a residential school survivor, a spiritual leader and an outspoken advocate for the many injustices facing First Nation communities. He is a pipe carrier and Sweat Lodge Keeper.

Mr. Robinson began this historic hunger strike this morning at 9AM EST and he has vowed to abstain from all food and water until his demands are met. This afternoon at 4PM EST Concordia University will be hosting Mr. Robinson in the Hall Building 7th floor, CSU lounge where he will lead a debate on the issue of the First Nation's treaty rights that are supposed to be constitutionally protected under section 35(1).  Instead, the Harper government is illegally utilizing the Comprehensive Funding Agreements to manufacture First Nations consent to minimize those treaty rights.

Raymond Robinson was in the news a few months ago when he and Theresa Spence conducted a hunger fast in an attempt to bring attention to FN's issues especially those surrounding natural resource protection. Harper's amendments would force First Nations to give up their protected right to sue the government over natural resource issues in exchange for funding.

Raymond Robinson has the support of lottsa folks, aboriginal and non-aboriginal alike, including me. Hopefully today he'll explain more fully the amendments to First Nations Comprehensive Funding Agreements that are reason behind his hunger strike. We all need to understand these issues more clearly...and very quickly.

Why, Overall, Dogs Are The Best People I've Ever Known

Rocky, the hero who dove into the frigid North Saskatchewan River and saved a little girl when his human asked him to.

Adam Shaw and his best friend Rocky are being hailed as heroes after jumping into the icy water of the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton Sunday to rescue two young girls, aged 9 and 10, who'd fallen through the ice at the river's edge while tobogganing. The . Fort Saskatchewan oil worker credits adrenalin and his trusting dog for saving their lives. Rocky's been a fictional hero for decades, but in Edmonton, Alberta, today there's a four legged 8 year old hero named Rocky who is definitely real.

It'd be the feel good story of the year except that everyday somewhere numerous dogs rise to the moment in the selfless service of their human pack. A few days ago it was an eight-year-old Chilliwack girl named Jenna Desrochers who's life was saved by her tiny chihuahua Honey who came to the rescue when Jenna was attacked by a pit bull 10 times Honey's size. The chihuahua raced in barking causing pit bull to let go of the little girl and refocus its attach on Honey long enough for Jenna to reach safety. Jenna's mom Leslie said the two have “always been buddies.” Later Jenna said she wasn’t surprised that help came from her tiny companion. “I thought that she would help me and she did,” she said.

Honey and his buddy Jenna who's life he saved.

Our best friends have shared their lives with our lives since long before we became 'modern' humans. A scientific analysis of the DNA evidence points to a very remote break between wolves and dogs, certainly no later than a hundred thousand years ago, around the time of the out-migration of Homo Sapiens from Africa. The earliest archaeological evidence about dogs and humans is in the Chauvet cave, in southern France: a set of twinned footprints, twenty-six thousand years old, of an eight-year-old child walking side by side, deep into the cave, with some kind of hound. Evidently our Neanderthal cousins shared their fires and food with them too.

Nobody can actually know exactly how our two species first teamed up. Humans almost always turn out to be the star.of their own story, so too for this one. Our behavioral scientists believe it's most likely that the in earliest encounters our best friend's ancestors figured out it was easier to get a meal from us than by hunting for themselves so they hung around our fires. They speculate that as time went by the cavemen adopted a cute, perhaps abandoned, pup or two and that the acute senses of the dogs served the cavemen well as early warning of impending trouble from other predators.

It's a feasible story from a totally anthropocentric point of view. We can't yet enter a dog's mind but perhaps one day we'll learn a different version from our best friends that's been handed down from mother to pup, a far different caninopocentric story. Perhaps we'll learn that the earliest dogs stumbled upon a group of stinking half starved savages huddled and choking in a smoke filled cave and decieded to take pity on them. Then taught them how to hunt successfully as a team, taught them the value of community and by their actions showed our ancestors the value of empathy. Perhaps it was the dogs that taught us how to be noble and civilized us.

This scenario is at least as feasible as the other especially considering the fact that i've witnessed, all these thousands of years later, my best friends as they've risen to the occasion so often through the decades it's impossible to remember them all. They've faced down huge bears, defended my wife against an attack from a group of drunken teens, chased off coyotes...taught me how be and showed me the meaning of unconditional love.

Mayflower, Arkansas Knows Dilbit Doesn't Small Like Oil But the Industry PR Smells Like Bullshit

The 20-inch 'Pegasus' pipeline that ruptured late Friday in the middle of a subdivision near Mayflower,Arkansas and Lake Conway, a popular recreational and fishing area, was carrying dilbit - a mixture of tar sands crud and solvents needed to make the crap pump-able. Exxon itself estimated today that the spill over 10,000 barrels [420,000 gallons] and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is categorizing as a 'major spill'.

The Exxon Pegasus pipeline was built for normal crude oil, not for bitumen.  Bitumen is not crude oil. It is a mix of bitumen, (think asphalt) extracted from tar sands and solvents to make it sufficiently liquid to flow. The huge difference in pressure and heat required  to force bitumen through pipelines means it's only a matter of time before they are worn away by the sand, rocks and grit embedded in the mixture. The mixture files grooves into the pipe metal or other material. When one section bursts and eventually that section is replaced, there are near and distant sections ready to burst as soon as the flow and pressure is resumed. Dilbit has no business going through a pipeline built for crude oil.

Dilbit doesn't small like oil and it definitely it doesn't clean up like oil as the 2010 spill in Kalamazoo, Michigan showed. Immediately upon contact with air the solvents that dilute the bitumen (the diluants) evaporate off much of the dilbit leaving the heavy goo to sink. After 2 years of work and almost $1,000,000,000, the mess still isn't cleaned up. Though hundreds of emergency workers are doing everything they can in Arkansas 24/7 to keep Conway Lake safe we all know shit runs downhill and 422,000 gallons is a lotta shit.

The heavy tar sands crud is a huge long-term danger to aquatic life and water safety but the approximately 30% that is 'dilutent' posses and even greater immediate threat to every living thing as it evaporates. The silence about the ingredients of the diluent is no mystery. The oil industry says the formulas are a trade secret but sources, including crudemoniter.ca, offer a dangerous and deadly list of the most common components of every solvent the industry likes to not talk about. There's the aromatics toluene, benzene, xylenes, ethylbenzenecy, clohexane and other naphthenes all known carcenogens. There's hydrogen sulfide (H2S) and thiols, traditionally also called mercaptans, all very toxic as well. Plus others not publicly published by science researchers.

Twenty-two homes were immediately evacuated in the subdivision near Mayflower not because of the crud itself but because of the dangerous evaporating diluents in the air. By today Exxon and Enbridge have almost as many Public Relations propaganda artists spinning this story as Arkansas has cleanup workers on the job. Hopefully folks will see through the smokescreen of industry bullshit, but if the past is any predictor of the future...

Thousands at WSF in Tunis Sing, Dance and Speak Out to Show Us How Another World is Possible

This year's World Social Forum wrapped up today in Tunis, Tunisia. Once again this year thousands of people came from every corner of the globe to celebrate and that 'Another World is Possible'.  The food sovereignty group La Via Campesina, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year, was among thousands of groups at the WSF.

More and more people around the world have converted to organic and sustainable practices - the 'People's Solution' - because they work. Ibrahima Coulibaly of Mali, part of La Via Campesina network, said at a news conference, "Agribusiness and transnational corporations are a major threat to the world. They control the best land, and are grabbing even more land everywhere. Instead of producing food for people, they produce crops for export markets– bio-fuels for cars or animal feed for industrial meat factories. But farmers are also uniting globally."

An excellent example of how another world is possible comes from two stories in the news here in BC yesterday. The first, prominent on every lamestream media outlet around Vancouver, was about the thousands of Canadian cars lined up for at least 2 hours at all the Canada/US border crossings. They, the brain-dead consumer class, in their thousands, still are the majority for sure. They still live their lives searching in vain for the right stuff. The second story was about a successful hemp growing and processing industry in 100 Mile House area and how it appears to be just what the economy of that area needs.

Organic. bio-diverse. agriculture works everywhere, including my front yard. Not only does it work to build living soil and produce healthy food but as Vandana Shiva, a fixture at the WSF says, "Biodiversity and soils rich in organic matter are the best strategy for climate resilience and climate adaptation. Forty per cent of all greenhouse gas emissions, which are responsible for climate change, come from the use of fossil fuels and chemical-intensive industrial globalised system of agriculture."

The World Social Forum shows us all that another world, a better world, is possible.

Legendary musician Gilberto Gil, a leader of Brazil’s tropicália musical movement of the 1960s,.sings a Reggae version of 'Imagine' at WSF yesterday.

Canada is Now a Rogue Nation Ruled by Harper's Petro State Politics and Evangelical Delusions

Canada, once considered an enlightened and progressive country, was one of the first countries to sign the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification 1994. Two days ago it became the first to walk away, Canada is now the only UN member country, 193 to 1, not part of the treaty.

Head of the Council of Canadians and world renown water expert Maude Barlow condemned Harpo's decision to withdraw from the UNCCD saying, “Anything that they’re involved in that can lead to more evidence that we’re a planet in crisis environmentally they don’t want to be part of. They simply do not want this information coming forward."

David Suzuki says in his blog, "Canada is becoming increasingly isolated on the world stage, especially when it comes to environmental issues For our government to stop working with the rest of the world to resolve some of the most serious issues we face is a betrayal of Canadian values."

Barlow and Suzuki correctly focus on the upcoming scientific UNCCD meeting that will undoubtedly define AGW as the principle cause of the planet's accelerating desertification as the reason for Harpo's new policy. Others point to statements by Harpo and his henchman John Baird about only 18% of the UNCCD's budget going directly to remedial work as simply a smokescreen to evade the fact that most of the budget goes into the accredited scientific research they so desperately want to discredit. The UN's researchers will conclude that dirty fossil fuels like coal, tar sands crud, and fugitive methane released by fracking - industries that pay the Conservatives bills - are the primary causes of desertification, an anathema to Harpo and his ilk.

Like their Tea Party Republican counterparts in the U.S., Harpo's conservatives are opposed to science as a matter of faith. They truly believe that their imaginary being - "God" - is sovereign over creation and therefore humans can do no real damage. Harpo belongs to the Christian and Missionary Alliance, an evangelical Protestant church with two million members. Alberta's petro state is one of its great strongholds on the continent. The church believes that the free market is divinely inspired and that non-believers are "lost."

Deluded religious fundamentalists like Harpo and the Tea Partiers are, IMO, the greatest danger humanity faces. They believe, like Dispensationalist Christian James Watt said when discussing his method of environmental management after being chosen Secretary of the Interior by Ronald Reagan, that, “We don't have to protect the environment because the Second Coming is at hand."

Stunning Documentary 'River of No Return', a Calling to Remember What We've Forgotten

Last night my best friend Pancho and i were treated to a rare glimpse into the relatively untouched and protected part of Idaho named the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness when we watched the PBS-Nature documentary 'River of No Return'. The documentary is shot and narrated by wolf biologist Isaac Babcock and his new wife Bjornen. It's about the year they spent there on their unconventional honeymoon.

At 2.5 million acres the federally protected area is part of the largest road less area left in the lower 48 states It's mountains, rivers and plateaus are home to otters, elk, deer and coyotes, blue birds, Chinook salmon and bighorn sheep and countless others including 9 newly-restored wolf populations who roam freely raising their young and hunting together. Isaac Babcock spent 13 years prior to marrying Bjornen working with the Nez Perce Tribe in Central Idaho in the wolf reintroduction program in the area so he knows it and its residents well. The two document their adventure as they go through the seasons. Near its end Bjornen, an incredible woman as you'll learn if you ever get the chance to see this stunningly beautiful documentary, says, "I found something I didn't know I'd lost".

It's encouraging that areas like this are allowed to exist, encouraging that the remnants of our wild past are in some small way protected from us. Important and beautiful it is, but wilderness it isn't. As the documentary mentions every year hundreds of forest service workers build and maintain the many miles of trails used by horse excursions, adventurous hikers and scientists like Isaac and Bjornen. In addition some ranches that existed before 1980 when the US government protected the area still exist there.

Wilderness, where the flora, fauna, microbes, minerals, forces and faeries live in their interconnected, interdependent oneness, is very rare today on this small blue planet overrun by a species of rogue primates. The dichotomy between human materialistic growth demands and the deeper Gaian reality has created a situation where places that preserve some of the ancient wilderness's genetic inheritance, like the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, is probably the best we can hope for. Its important to remember that this situation is temporary  It's important not to forget that unless we humans learn to live in harmony with our Gaian cousins we will, sooner or later, be reduced to a thin shiny line in the sedimentary record.

My best friend Pancho is seldom interested in TV but last night every time the wolves howled her ears stood up and she jumped to attention. It occurred to me that she remembered some of what we've forgotten.

Do Your Investments and Pensions Fund Fossil Fuels, Tobacco, Weapons, Land Grabs, Banks etc.?

If you, like the vast majority of folks, have a Defined Contribution pension plan the answer, to quote Queen Sarah of the North, is, "You Betcha". A few decades ago Defined Contribution {DC] plans were almost non-existent then came the huge increase in interest rates of the late 70s and early 80s which rattled everyone, especially workers of all types who thought they were seeing their future dreams dive while at the same time the investor class was seeing theirs skyrocket. Within a few years the old reliable Defined Benefit [DB] plans were being rolled over much to the delight of the investment fund industry.

Investment Fund Managers around the world saw their business explode as public and private pensions switched horses in mid-stream. All investment managers go to the same school - the school of MORE - not the long-term sustainable MORE, the short term now type. Funds earn income from fees, managers earn bonuses based on their fund's profits, fees are generated mostly when investments are rolled over [bought and sold] creating a huge incentive for quick in and out investments. Winning is good but turnover is better in a fund managers mind.

It's the same story whether you live and work in Cyprus, America or here in BC. In fact the inconvenient truth is that pensioners, mutual fund owners, term deposit owners etc. in BC's Lotus Land are at least as heavily invested in unethical industries as anybody because they are often legally mandated to invest heavily in Canada's energy resource heavy economy. None has more stringent investment regulations the BC's Public Employee Pension Fund.

B.C.’s public-sector pensions invest billions in Enbridge, other oil company stocks. They own huge amounts of  IPP shares, of the Peace River area's current Shale Gas fiasco, of the log exporting and coastal first growth logging industry, of...well of everything that many of their union member contributors protest against. Everywhere union and non-union pension and investment funds finance corporate land grabs that contribute to the hunger of the local populations when those lands are converted to bio-fuel crops. Investment funds own a majority of the manufacture, sale and distribution by gun and ammo companies. They own the majority of the tobacco industry's shares. Basically the only investment a fund manager considers as unethical are those that are expressly illegal - like land mine manufacturing.

Banks and other fund managers can be misleading about the fees their funds charge. For instance, as Financial consultant Preet Banerjee explains, “If you have a fund that has an MER of 2.5 per cent, that’s going to consume almost 50 per cent of the potential value of the portfolio over 25 years. When you frame it that way, it becomes very clear that fees are a big deal.” Add to that the chicanery and outright bribery [that's commonly called it's the KBF -kickback factor- by the in-crowd] swirling when the decision is being made as to which firm will manage those huge pension funds with their mandated monthly contributions to be invested [for a fee each time of course] and the fact that 'markets' go both up and down, it ends up that folks would be better off avoiding the whole shady industry and investing any extra money they have in their homes, their kids education or maybe the local organic food co-op.

All this remains invisible to most folks because...well because comforting lies trump inconvenient truths in naked ape psychology every time. But, as those folks in Cyprus are learning when the bubble bursts it's most often them that gets covered in crap.

Cyprus's International Accounts Have Been Drained, Only the Ordinary Folks Will Lose

Thousands of Cypriots marched today in Nicosia calling for the "Troika to Get Out!"

While Cyprus's banks have been closed for the last 12 days and Cypriots have lined up to withdraw a maximum of €100 per day branch offices of the two largest banks, Laiki and Bank of Cyprus, have remained open in the UK and Russia with no limits on withdrawals or transfers. According to Reuters, the bulk of Russian cash has already fled Cyprus and no one knows exactly how much money has left Cyprus' banks lately.

With credit card transactions stopped for ordinary Cypriots the smart money used an array of techniques to access their money either withdrawing it, transferring it to another casino bank system [Latvia's banks are taking in billions apparently] or simply swapping their deposits into multiple smaller untouchable sized accounts. The 'restructured' banks are supposed to reopen on Thursday and certainly chaos will ensue whenever they do. Large bank deposits in Cyprus are set to lose as much as 40 per cent of their money under a new bailout plan but it appears only the small businesses, pension plans and local savings accounts will still have money to be confiscated.

The teachers, taxi drivers, nurses, etc  that have worked for all of their lives will see their pensions wiped significantly out. The small to medium sized businesses who've always needed to have large accounts, like the grocery stores and shipping companies, to service ongoing transactions will take huge losses. The already high unemployment rates will soar. Everyone will pay for the bad bets of the banksters, everybody except the corporations and the rich who raked in the unearned profits while Cyprus's banking casino was in full swing that is. The Brussels' deal, sealed under pressure from European paymaster Germany, is destined to be the template for future banking crises across Europe. Look for Slovenia, already tottering on the brink, to be the next domino to fall followed by Malta, Luxembourg, Estonia and probably Latvia as soon as their casino implodes.

The only way out for Cyprus, and the others, is to get out of the Dutch, Austrian and German controlled Euro. Then to re-establish, and be in control of, their own currency even if it means a period of functioning on local currencies, barter and Bitcoin for international transfers.

It's important to remember how all these countries and their banks got themselves into all this quicksand. European banks and their fund managers, like greedy capitalist pigs everywhere, believed the comforting lie that the derivative investments - bundled up un-repayable, bubble priced, real estate loans -  being peddled by the Wall St. flim-flamers were sure to rake in lottsa dough. They then turned around and sold bonds to other brain dead investors based on the imagined worth of their derivative holdings. By the time those bonds came due the issuers had already realized their derivatives were worthless so they pleaded to their home countries to save them from their own ignorance and greed. The Eurozone countries then issued sovereign debt bonds to cover their bankster's debts. The national governments', being themselves corrupted by the banksters, announced that despite the world's nosediving international economy - as a result of the US's economic implosion - their country's future unending 'growth' would cover the principle and interest on these bonds. Of course things just got worse and now the only folks with any 'real' capital are the folks who have actually worked to produce something, folks like the workers, farmers, small businesses and pensioners who are now going to pay.

Ain't capitalism grand?

Why Today's Middle Class Mistakenly believes They Have a Stake in the Fate of Their 'Masters'

Malcolm X later recanted the framing of famous his 1963 speech 'The House Negro and The Field Negro' as he did many others in the final months before his assassination because he realized that it incorrectly focused on racism not on the class struggle itself. It's easy to forgive Malcolm X and so many other African American political and religious visionaries because their ancestors were brought to the New World in chains and, though legally free, they remained immersed in a racist society. Nonetheless his eloquent speech [above] is an excellent example of the real class divisions that have long existed in the service of the 'masters'.

What Malcolm X came to realize was that there is 'No War But The Class War'. That the 'masters' strategy of divide and conquer is older than history. That as the Roman Caesars knew, divide et impera, by dividing what otherwise would be an overwhelming force along otherwise insignificant lines of difference they could rule. The success of 'divide and conquer' has created a world focused on and divided by differences in religion, race, gender, sexual preference, language...just about anything that diverts the people's attention away from the only division that really matters - wealth and class.

No War But The Class War (NWBTCW) is a phrase widely used by diverse groups as a means of underlining the priority of class struggle above other political aims in their opposition to capitalism. The Occupy movement tried recently to refocus the political discourse on the class struggle with their 1% vs. 99% meme. Occupy was so successful that it had to be crushed quickly by the 'masters', and it was.

Occupy was crushed by the same type of internal division within an oppressed group that Malcolm X refers to as the field/house negro division. In his speech he talks about how the house Negroes were given certain limited privileges that allowed them to feel superior to their field negro brethren - to eat the same foods, wear the same clothes, even get a rudimentary education - and how by getting those crumbs the house Negroes mistakenly believed they had a stake in the fates of their 'masters'. The folks in the FBI and the local police forces they coordinated, like the house Negroes, mistakenly believed they had a stake in the fate of their 'masters' - the 1%.

Further, not just those folks who work in the state security apparatus have been successfully programmed into believing they have a stake in the fate of their 1% masters but the almost the entire middle class has too. By allowing themselves to accept the comforting lie that the crumbs they scurry for falling from their 'masters table sets them apart from the poor and gives them a stake in the extractive capitalist economy they become active tools of oppression just like those house Negroes Malcolm X referred to.

Untied we stand. Divided we fall. Falling nearly conquered we are because so many of us choose to believe the comforting lies our capitalist 'masters' have learned to use to divide then sub-divide us instead of allowing ourselves to see the inconvenient truth.

Who Gets Saved Out When Corporate Banks Get Bailed Out? The Shareholders.and Bondholders

Protesters demand the resignation of the government in Reykjavík, Iceland, on November 15, 2008.

Perhaps the best advice about the Cyprus bank bailout fiasco so far was published earlier today at Waging Non-Violence in an article by George Lakey a Professor at Swarthmore College titled 'People of Cyprus: Follow the Vikings!' In it he explains clearly who owns private banks, who benefits from bailouts and, most importantly, how other countries have successfully rejected the pressure of the international banking cartel when their privately owned banks demanded bailouts. After making his case Lakey concludes that "it's time for Cyprus to join Iceland in treating the bullies like, well, bullies."

Again today the corporate owned and 1% dominated lamestream media unanimously continues their hand wringing, fear filled, propaganda campaign designed to keep the investor class mollified and the rest of us hoodwinked. Many of their articles today center on the Cypriot government's latest attempt to save the investor class, this time by instituting a 25 per cent levy on big bank deposits. For sure it's a bit better than their earlier versions but only a bit. In the end all of these contortions, and all of those by the other countries who been victims of the Troika's blackmail, have one thing in common - they are designed to save the bacon of the various bank's shareholders and bondholders.

Lakey's article reminds us that there are other solutions, that other countries like Sweden, Norway and Iceland have faced similar situations in the last few years and didn't genuflect to the mafia. In Sweden, 90 percent of the banking sector experienced massive losses. The Social Democratic Party there decided against bailouts. Instead they nationalized two of the banks and allowed the rest to go bankrupt. Stockholders were left empty-handed. When Norway’s banks did the same, the Labor government seized the three biggest banks, fired the senior management and made sure the shareholders didn’t get a krone.

Iceland though offers the best parallel.  In 2008 when Iceland suffered one of the worst banking collapses in modern history. As the Icelandic economy began collapsing Icelandic activists surrounded the parliament building, banging pots and pans to disrupt the meetings inside - the 'Kitchenware Revolution'. The protesters demanded, and won, the resignation of the government and the governing board of the Central Bank. The new government who represented the working class pledged that there would be no bailouts and the three largest banks failed. Next they devalued the currency in order to support Iceland’s export market. Finally they repudiated the billions of dollars of debt [bonds] their private banks had rung up to international investors.

The results are that 5 years later all 3 countries have healthy happy people with healthy prosperous economies that are the envy of all the genuflectors. In all three cases the shareholders of the private banks and the bondholders who'd bought their bonds got exactly what they deserved - nothing. Shareholders and bondholders are gamblers. The difference is that Las Vegas casino patrons are true capitalists, they gamble their money and they know that if they win they win if they lose they lose. Bank shareholders and bondholders, who are often pension plans and other mutual funds as well as rich individuals, seem to think that capitalism is great when they win, but somebody should bail them out when they lose. What all of 'em need is a good dose of tough Viking love.

Cyproits Appear Ready to Revolt Against the International Banking Mafia and Disaster Capitalism

Cypriots seem to be on the verge of  telling the Troika to eat shit. As their political class continues to squirm as their EU masters keep turning up the FEAR dial higher and higher the Cypriot people appear ready to revolt against the international banking system which is increasingly seen a quasi-criminal racketeering organization.

As Ray Pensador of the Daily Kos says, "We're talking about fraudulent financial instruments sold to unsuspecting investors around the world (including pension funds), paid-off rating agencies with financial incentives to lie about the worthiness of those fraudulent investments, and an entire political system on the take, complicit in the looting of what is essentially the people's money--the country's treasury."

The bankster's curtain falling open, it's becoming more obvious by the day that behind all the bellowing fear filled rhetoric coming outta Brussels there's a buncha old crooks pulling the levers. The banking crisis in Cyprus has little to do with the island economy itself but is fallout from the Greek banking system in which Cypriot banks hold assets. In the current turmoil, Cyprus is caught between the rock of the Troika and the hard place of Russian interests. Both are playing hardball to get their hands on Cyprus's assets (including gas and oil). As Naomi Klein's 'The Shock Doctrine' explains, the financial Mafia's racket is really about privatizing national assets, dismantling regulation and cutting state spending.

Up until a few about a week ago when the EU mafia overplayed their hand in Cyprus by demanding the confiscation of the private property of depositors 'the people' of Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Italy had accepted Brussels' bullshit, but now things have changed, Dorthy has arrived in the Emerald City. Her arrival isn't actually the end of banksterism but it could well be the beginning of the end. Cypriots are fortunate that they grow much of their own food which gives them freedom to act independently. The danger is if either the international banksters or the Russian oligarchs allow Cyprus to do so because then military intervention could easily follow.

But then what? Albert Einstein once said "Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I am not sure about the universe." But perhaps he overlooked the fact that once the genie of truth is out of the bottle it won't be put back in.

Salish Sea Inhabitants Cheer as the 'Namgis Nation Opens Canada's First Land Based Salmon Farm

On March 18th, fish entered the 'Namgis First Nation’s Closed Containment Salmon Farm

Whether they walk, crawl or swim Salish Sea inhabitants know that net-pen aquaculture threatens not only the wild salmon but every member of our interconnected biosphere. Consequently, up and down the food chain, from the tiny microbes to the huge orcas, strange cheery sounds can be heard gurgling up from the deep. They are cheers of hope and cheers of praise for The K’udas project created by the ‘Namgis First Nation - The People of the Salmon - whose 4,000-year-old traditions are tied to the Pacific salmon of the Nimpkish River near Port McNeill on northern Vancouver Island.

The ‘Namgis have seen the open-net-pen fish farms proliferate in the nearby Broughton Archipelago, they've protested with Alexandra Morton and know that diseases and pollution from the farms are killing wild runs of salmon and damaging every member of the ecosphere of their Sacred Salish Sea. “The open net farms are so much a danger to our wild stocks. It affects the herring and everything else around the area. The clams are not healthy. They are a dark colour and smell because of the excrement.” said ‘Namgis Chief Bill Cranmer.

Though the open net fish farming industry has fought tooth and nail for years in the courts and the press to deny it, science has long known what the corporate accountants and lawyers deny - open net fish farms are only profitable because of the costs of waste disposal are avoided, externalized. Like almost every corporate capitalist industry, if the true costs of production were accounted for, especially the long term environmental costs, either the present day salmon farming industry wouldn't exist or their product would cost $1000 a pound.

But as a recent study by Dr. Andrew Wright titled 'Technologies for Viable Salmon Aquaculture' points out profits can be achieved when waste is used as a feedstock for a secondary product, such as lettuce. Another article titled 'Closed containment is affordable' by the David Suzuki Foundation about the success of the AquaSeed operation of a closed containment farm to raise coho salmon in Washington State shows that this new approach is already working well there.

The 'Namgis website describing the details of the 'Namgis Closed Containment Salmon Farm explains the recycled water system developed by the Freshwater Institute they use [see the video below]. The 'Namgis Nation has suffered greatly from the loss of their centuries old wild salmon based lifestyle and culture. No one deserves more credit than them for their energy and patience in developing this project which will when complete play a large part in the re-establishment of an intact ecosphere in the Salish Sea. The Mud Report salutes them and adds its small muddy voice to the cheery sounds being heard gurgling up from the deep.

Harper's Closing of the ELA is an Example of Christian Fundamentalism's War on Science

The remote Experimental Lakes Area in northwestern Ontario.

Marguerite A. Xenopoulos of Trent University's Department of Biology wrote a letter to the DFO recently that's been widely published saying in part, "I hope you [DFO] also appreciate that my group at Trent is working diligently to improve Canada's environmental protection." For the Trent University group, which was awarded an $800,000 federal research grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada in 2011, the closure is devastating. .“This decision is totally unnecessary,” she said, “We have our own research funding. I don’t know what they’re thinking.”

A University of Regina biogeochemist, Britt Hall, who is a director of a group dedicated to saving the ELA, said, “The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has declared that the Experimental Lakes Area will be mothballed on March 31st. Scientists won’t even be able to visit the facility, and only a site manager will be on location after that date." But a leaked letter sent from the DFO to the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources showed that the Memorandum of Understanding to operate the Experimental Lakes Area won’t come to an end until September 2013.

The Harper government says the decision to close the facility, part of last year’s budget cuts, will save it about $2 million a year, although sources say the actual operating cost of the facility is about $600,000 annually, of which a third comes back in user fees. The Conservative war on science knows no bounds. With logging companies revving up their chainsaws, the ELA could be transformed from a unique space for scientific experiments to a clear cut.

Stephen Harper, like any good Christian Fundamentalist, doesn't need the advice of scientists because he already knows 'The Truth'. He knows that the imaginary being he calls God is sovereign over creation and therefore humans can do no permanent damage. Harper gets all the advice he needs from the Cornwall Alliance, a coalition of right-wing scholars, economists and evangelicals. The Alliance church informs him that the free market is divinely inspired and that non-believers are "lost." Harper knows that as The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship says environmentalist's and scientists are evil.

A book published by the Alliance called Resisting the Green Dragon: Dominion not Death even portrays environmental groups as "one of the greatest threats to society and the church today." One passage in it reads, "The Green Dragon must die... [There] is no excuse to become befuddled by the noxious Green odors and doctrines emanating from the foul beast..."

Harper and his Christian Fundamentalist ilk believe the Bible is without error. They, like other religion's fundamentalist fanatics, are the greatest danger our species faces today because they cannot be reasoned with, no new information can sway them because any deviation from their church's teachings would, in their minds, condemn them to an eternity in hell. What Canadians, and others everywhere, face is nothing less than a philosophical war for the future of the planet.

Cypriot Politicians Vote to Reject EU Terms for Bailout of Banksters and Bond Holders

Protesters in the capital, Nicosia, chanted, "Thieves, thieves!" outside Parliament.

Cypriot's politicians have voted to reject the European Union and the European Central Bank and the IMF's demand that they confiscate the private property of bank account holders as a condition of the terms in a bailout package with 36 MPs voting against bailout, 19 abstaining. Bank accounts are not bonds or stocks or some other form of investments, they are private property like your house or your car. This matters to everyone everywhere because it's the thin edge of the wedge. If it's allowed happen in Cyprus, it can happen elsewhere in Europe or...anywhere. If everyone everywhere were to read up on bonds, banks and bailouts many mattresses would become lumpier worldwide.

As things become curiouser and curiouser in Nicosia. RT is reporting that Russia's Gazprom, the largest extractor of natural gas and one of the largest companies in the world, is ready to offer Cyprus a private bailout package in exchange for exclusive rights to gas exploration in the island nation. Meanwhile the Germans are demanding that Cyprus not negotiate a bailout with anyone else but the EU at the same time as Cyprus officials are in Russia doing just that.

Once upon a time desperate people robbed the banks, now desperate banks are robbing the people. The desperate people used guns, the desperate banks use computers. Of course almost all of the corporate owned MSM are calling this proposed robbery a bank tax when in reality a bank tax would/should tax the corporate bank profits before dividends are paid out. Just the opposite is true here, this robbery would be to bailout the bond holders who bought Cyprus's bonds because, as all dangerous investments do, they offered high interest. Now the gamblers are losing so they are crying.

Cyprus has a long convoluted history due to its geographical position and the natural resource wealth bequeathed by its geological history. Consequently Cypriot's have had to figure out how to shrug off the shackles of empires for millennia. The revolving empires often dominated Cyprus militarily but never in spirit. Hopefully history will repeat itself in the upcoming days and Cyprus will begin again to live freely and happily within its means.

Cypriots the Latest Victims of the Unfair Advantage Created by Germany’s Undervalued Currency

The rumors began to swirl on Saturday that their bank accounts were about to be raided under orders from EU's elites as the condition for a bailout of the banks and government. Cypriots reacted rationally by immediately lining up to withdraw as much money as possible which very quickly emptied the cashpoints [bank machines] across the island nation. Others folks living in Europe's 'troubled' economies, and beyond, are today lining up to withdraw their savings while looking on in horror as they realize that it's now official, from this day forward no bank account in the Eurozone (or anywhere really) is safe.

The bank runs underway are in reaction to the abandonment the previous Eurozone policy of protecting depositors in its efforts to address the EU's debt crisis. The bankster's spin is that Cyprus was unable to stabilize its banks, which had amassed €22 billion of Greek private sector debt and were disproportionately hit by the haircut taken by all Greek creditors. In reality as Michael Hewson, senior market analyst at CMC Markets says, “If European policy makers were looking for a way to undermine the public trust that underpins the foundation of any banking system they could not have done a better job.”  Of course bond holders, who made the profits originally, (the 1%) are not asked to take a haircut, only the depositors (the 99%).

The bankster's spin on Cyprus' current economic crisis mirrors their spin on the previous Greek, Spanish, Italian, Irish, Portuguese problems, they blame the victims and impose Shock Doctrine type 'austerity' measures which result first in massive unemployment then in the sale of commonly owned national assets to private corporations to raise the cash necessary to make the payments on the bailouts.

What the banksters and their shareholders refuse to talk about is that this recent European disaster is a product of a huge unfair advantage which Austria, the Netherlands and especially Germany are exploiting.  Austria, the Netherlands and Germany are in a currency union with far weaker economies.  If monetary union had not taken place, if Greece and Germany had retained their own currencies, then the drachma would have devalued perhaps thirty or forty percent against the D-Mark in this century. In other words, Germany is benefiting from a currency that is (perhaps) 20% under-valued for Germany, with all the export advantages this brings.  This is the flip-side of the position of the Greeks and others .  For them, theis currencies are over-valued, which is the reason why they’re being screwed. So when Germany brags about its superior performance, remember its unfair advantage.

In other times, before the globalization of debt, before the IMF and Whirled Bank countries simply devalued their currency to become more competitive. That's what happened in the Great Depression. But the Eurozone countries cannot take a page from the Depression playbook and devalue their own currency, they no longer have one.

The vast majority of folks in Cyprus and the others know all this and that's why unelected governments have been imposed. In Cyprus and the others the 1% would take the haircut if their country told the EU to shove it. A devaluation would impoverish them relative to other 1%ers where as it wouldn't really hurt the 99% much beyond them no longer being able to buy imported foreign goods. On the flip side a devaluation would make Cyprus, and the others, very attractive to tourists, and would make their exports relatively cheaper which would rapidly increase employment.

The governments and banksters in Cyprus and the others refuse to acknowledge that Argentina told the IMF to shove it about 12 years ago and despite all the dire predictions are now one of the fastest growing economies in the world. Argentinians now enjoy nearly full employment, a very livable per capita income and didn't sell off their commonly owned utilities and national treasures. hopefully tomorrow the Cypriot minority government dominated by 1%ers will be forced by the smaller parties to tell the EU to shove it too. If that happens, in the long run, the 1% will get what it deserves and 99% of the Cypriots will party.