“I believe Earth is our home and we are its stewards. While citizens of Canada, we are also neighbours to everyone who shares this planet. We must be good neighbours. That should be the underlying premise of Canada´s foreign policy. This book is aimed at people who share this basic political viewpoint and who also believe that democracy requires citizens to keep themselves informed about what their country is doing. Canadians have a right and a responsibility to know, debate and ultimately shape what is being done in our name around the world.”
When Read more [...] Engler, Yves. The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. 2009. Fernwood Publishing & RED Publishing. Canada.
“I believe Earth is our home and we are its stewards. While citizens of Canada, we are also neighbours to everyone who shares this planet. We must be good neighbours. That should be the underlying premise of Canada´s foreign policy. This book is aimed at people who share this basic political viewpoint and who also believe that democracy requires citizens to keep themselves informed about what their country is doing. Canadians have a right and a responsibility to know, debate and ultimately shape what is being done in our name around the world.”
When Read more [...] Comments Off on Engler, Yves. The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. 2009. Fernwood Publishing & RED Publishing. Canada.
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Engler, Yves. Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid. 2010. RED Publishing, B.C. and Fernwood Publishing, N.S. Canada.
“Thousands of books describe various aspects of the Palestinian/Israeli conflict. Only a handful detail Canada´s ties to the dispute and most do from a pro–Israel perspective. This is the first book to focus on Canadian support for the dispossession of Palestinians, for a state based on one religion, and for the last major European colonial project.”
Canadian progressives and activists are distressingly like the right–wing elite in one way; we tend to get our information and analysis from the USA, not Canada. So Yves Engler´s books Read more [...] Comments Off on Engler, Yves. Canada and Israel: Building Apartheid. 2010. RED Publishing, B.C. and Fernwood Publishing, N.S. Canada.
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Engels, Mary-Louise. Rosalie Bertell: Scientist, Eco-Feminist, Visionary. 2005. Women’s Press, Women Who Rock series, Toronto, CANADA.
Rosalie Bertell has been a hero of mine for many years so I was pleased to learn that a much needed biography of her was in the making. I was even more pleased to be asked to contribute some thoughts and a photo of Rosalie to Engels’ work.
The scholarship, courage, determination and foresight of this remarkable woman deserve to be known to all activists seeking sources of inspiration and wisdom.
Frail from birth, Rosalie was a serious student encouraged in her talent for mathematics and music by caring parents. Her Canadian mother was Read more [...]
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Elmessiri, A.M., editor. The Palestinian Wedding: A Bilingual Anthology of Contemporary Palestinian Resistance Poetry. 2011. Lynne Rienner Publishers Inc. Colorado, USA & London, UK.
“The seed sprouts even within the heart of the dead./ Morning busts forth from darkness.” Fadwa Tuqan
Mourid Barghouti, Palestinian poet in exile, has said, “literature is also resistance” The current poetry of resistance is important as part of a greater history and cultural resistance of Palestine and its Arab neighbours, all of whom have resisted European, Ottoman and the present Zionist invasions and occupations. The poems in this intense collection are an expression of the beauty of life and the horrors of injustice, compressed into Read more [...]
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Eichler, Maya. Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription and War in Post–Soviet Russia. 2012. Stanford University Press, USA.
“Men are not naturally militaristic, they become militarized…If men are not willing to serve and their mothers or female partners do not want them to join the military, the state is less able to wage war or legitimate its rule on the basis of militarized patriotism.”
“Militarized masculinity is part of the foundation of the contemporary international system.”
From this dry sounding title of an academic work – the book is based on a PhD dissertation – comes a fascinating story of militarization of men as the very basis of modern Read more [...] Comments Off on Eichler, Maya. Militarizing Men: Gender, Conscription and War in Post–Soviet Russia. 2012. Stanford University Press, USA.
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Edwards, David. Free to be Human: Intellectual Self-Defence in an Age of illusions. Resurgence Books, Totnes, Devon, UK. 2000.
This UK environmental writer draws on Chomsky, Fromm and other writers to explain how we can free ourselves from the destructive and unthinking acceptance of corporate capitalism and all its trappings.
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Ebadi, Shirin with Azadeh Moaveni. IRAN AWAKENING. 2006. Alfred A. Knopf. Canada
“The price of transforming Iran peacefully, I have long known but these days feel more acutely, is sacrifice of the highest order.”
As the USA rattles its bombs and boycotts at Iran, I found 2 books that helped me understand that country and its recent past; it all started in 1953 when the CIA overthrew the democratic and nationalist leader of Iran, Mossadegh, and installed the Shah to do the USA’s bidding. Ebadi’s memoir is the story of a society and its resistance, not just of one woman.
Shirin Ebadi started life as a privileged Read more [...] Comments Off on Ebadi, Shirin with Azadeh Moaveni. IRAN AWAKENING. 2006. Alfred A. Knopf. Canada
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Dressel, Holly. WHO KILLED THE QUEEN? The Story of a Community Hospital and How to Fix Public Health Care. 2008. McGill—Queen’s University Press. Montreal & Kingston. Canada
“These facts lead to only one conclusion: public health, with its integral conception of ultimate social equality is the key to health in general.”
This book might also have been subtitled: Who really runs Canada? Dressel, a respected historian, was funded to investigate the closing of an excellent hospital, the Queen Elizabeth with a long tradition of successful patient care when it was forced to close along with many other hospitals in Montréal and the rest of Canada in the mid-1990s.
Dressel starts with the local — the history Read more [...]
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Drache, Daniel. Borders Matter: Homeland Security and the Search for North America. 2004. Fernwood Publishing, Halifax, NS.
Our border with the USA is both the symbol and the geographic reality of our nearness and our similarities to - and our differences from - the culture of that large and looming giant that 80% of us live within shopping distance of. In spite of recent efforts to integrate Canada, militarily and economically into the USA, we have a unique society and many values worth preserving. That is the crux of Drache’s optimistic presentation.
Integration seemed to be an assured downhill slide after NAFTA was signed seven years ago, but Drache says Read more [...]
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Dorfman, Ariel & Armand Mattelart. HOW TO READ DONALD DUCK: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic. Introduction & translation from Spanish by David Kunzle. English text: International General. USA 1975.
“Mr. Disney, we are returning your Duck. Feathers plucked and well–roasted. Look inside, you can see the handwriting on the wall, our hands still writing on the wall: Donald, Go Home!” From the authors’ introduction.
A friend just entrusted me with a treasured photocopy of this little gem which I had never heard of; the analysis is witty, serious, and important Fortunately it is still available second hand; it is completely relevant today, 30 years later.
When I was in Porto Alegre for the World Social Forum I bought a T–shirt with Read more [...] Comments Off on Dorfman, Ariel & Armand Mattelart. HOW TO READ DONALD DUCK: Imperialist Ideology in the Disney Comic. Introduction & translation from Spanish by David Kunzle. English text: International General. USA 1975.
Filed under Ariel Dorfman, Armand Mattelart, Book Reviews
Docena, Herbert. ‘At the Door of all the East’: The Philippines in United State Military Strategy Focus on the Global South. The Philippines. 2007.
“The Philippines gives us a base at the door of all the East.” U.S. Senator Alfred J. Beveridge, 1900
Herbert Docena´s excellent research reports are on the cutting edge of modern documentation. Much more useful than whole books with long publication time lines and limited availability, these reports are available in print and many electronic forms soon after completion and are readily accessible. This is the latest of his reports from the respected group Focus on the Global South which is an integral part of the social movements in the Read more [...] Comments Off on Docena, Herbert. ‘At the Door of all the East’: The Philippines in United State Military Strategy Focus on the Global South. The Philippines. 2007.
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Docena, Herbert. UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE: Are US Special Forces engaged in an ‘offensive war’ in the Philippines? 2007. Focus on the Global South. Quezon City, Philippines.
Canada shares with the Philippines the dubious distinction of not having foreign military bases. But Canadians know that, from Nanoose Bay on the Pacific to Cold Lake Alberta, to Goose Bay in Labrador, the USA and other NATO countries military make regular, frequent and lengthy use of so-called Canadian bases.
In the Philippines, foreign bases were closed by the post-Marcos constitution and the presence of foreign troops was to be limited to so-called training exercises. Things are not quite so simple and Docena has prepared this report Read more [...] Comments Off on Docena, Herbert. UNCONVENTIONAL WARFARE: Are US Special Forces engaged in an ‘offensive war’ in the Philippines? 2007. Focus on the Global South. Quezon City, Philippines.
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