War... What is it good for?...Absolutely boatloads of money

The Globe and Mail has a four page excerpt from Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine :

"In December, 2006, the bipartisan Iraq Study Group fronted by James Baker issued its long-awaited report. It called for the U.S. to “assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise” and to “encourage investment in Iraq's oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.”

The Bush administration immediately pushed ahead by helping to draft a radical new oil law for Iraq, which would allow companies like Shell and BP to sign 30-year contracts in which they could keep a large share of Iraq's oil profits, amounting to tens or even hundreds of billions of dollars – unheard of in countries with as much easily accessible oil as Iraq, and a sentence to perpetual poverty in a country where 95 per cent of government revenues come from oil."

"Explaining why it was justified for such a large percentage of the profits to leave Iraq, the oil companies cited the security risks. In other words, it was the disaster that made the radical proposed law possible."

Naomi Klein's husband, Avi Lewis, interviewed James Baker for his CBC show On The Map. Only one in twenty Iraq MPs saw that oil law before it was passed. And then there are the profits to be made from the privatization of war. Klein :

"Associated Press put the number of contractors in Iraq at 120,000, almost equivalent to the number of U.S. troops. In scale, this kind of privatized warfare has already overshadowed the United Nations. The UN's budget for peacekeeping in 2006-2007 was $5.25-billion – that's less than a quarter of the $20-billion Halliburton got in Iraq contracts, and the latest estimates are that the mercenary industry alone is worth $4-billion."

In a book interview on CBC's TheCurrent this week, Klein remains obstinately hopeful. Canadians have been fighting "disaster capitalism" for decades, she says, with their continued support for public infrastructure and medicare. The best insurance against being "shocked" into accepting any colonialist corporate agenda is to be ready for it by being informed. Go, Naomi.

Immediately following Klein's CBC interview, Greg Palast and Aurel Braun from Trinity College heatedly discuss the book. Aurel Braun gets the phrase 'conspiracy theory' out a couple of times before Palast puts the ideological boots to him. It must really bite Brown's ass that Palast, who actually studied under Milton Friedman and the Chicago boys, can so easily one-up a Friedman apologist like Braun, who didn't.

Go on - treat yourself.

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SPP : Avi Lewis and Amy Goodman

on Democracy Now : Audio and transcript

Excerpts :
Avi on SPP and Maher Arar :
"The connection between the SPP and Maher Arar is a really deep one. Two weeks after 9/11, the head of the business lobby in Canada, a guy named Tom d’Aquino, called immediately for deep harmonization and integration of US and Canadian policies in order to keep the border open and the trade flowing. Two months later, without any debate or without any legislative debate or really public involvement, they announced this “smart border” initiative for harmonizing the border. And, well, you know, it was a piece of spin, the “smart border” initiative. Nine months later, they announced that they had synchronized and harmonized Canada and the US's approach to passenger screening of international passengers. And one year after 9/11, based on that precise harmonization, Maher Arar was taken and subjected to extraordinary rendition and began his yearlong odyssey in hell in a Syrian prison. So the connection between this mobilization that’s going on in ten days in Quebec around the SPP and the situation of Maher Arar is one that won't be made broadly in Canadian or US media. But for people who care about sovereignty of nations and civil liberties, it's at the heart of it all."

Avi on Conrad Black and media consolidation :
"we need to make the connection between the ideological interest of media barons and how they play out in our public discourse, if these -- in the same way that Enron needed to be seen as a policy and political phenomenon and not just a scandal. If we see them as just corruption trials, then all of a sudden they don't have political consequences. So we have to make those connections."

On The Map : It's called a 'coup'

Whatever we may think of Hamas, their armed aggression, and their refusal to recognize Israel, they did win a decisive victory in a democratic election in Palestine a year and a half ago. This prompted Peter MacKay to fall all over himself in his rush to clock in before the US and officially nominate Canada to be the first country outside Israel not to recognize the new government. Condemnations were issued and aid was cut off.

Last week, in response to Hamas' taking of Gaza, President Abbas fired Prime Minister Haniyeh and his Hamas cabinet and replaced them with an appointed more western-friendly "emergency government".

Bush and Israeli PM Olmert responded with statements of support for Abbas and the promise to resume aid. Bush said he would keep fighting for democracy in the region because it is the only way to prevent extremists from gaining a foothold.

Screw democracy when it doesn't come out the way you want, eh?

Last night I was pleased to hear Avi Lewis on On The Map name last week's events in Palestine for what they actually were - a coup d'etat.

UPDATE : Avi called it on Tuesday and now via a link at Buckdog:

An oped in Wednesday's New York Times from now ex-Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's political advisor Ahmed Yousef : What Hamas Wants

"The events in Gaza over the last few days have been described in the West as a coup. In essence, they have been the opposite. Eighteen months ago, our Hamas Party won the Palestinian parliamentary elections and entered office under Prime Minister Ismail Haniya but never received the handover of real power from Fatah, the losing party. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has now tried to replace the winning Hamas government with one of his own, returning Fatah to power while many of our elected members of Parliament languish in Israeli jails. That is the real coup."

Continued at NYT. where Yousef lays out the Hamas position here.

Feeding SUVs

"Filling up an SUV represents the caloric equivalent of one person's food intake for an entire year," says Helmut Burkhardt, Professor of Physics Emeritus at Ryerson University.

You can read his statistical breakdown of how this works here.

Dr. Burkhardt was responding to Tuesday's On The Map segment on ethanol and bio-fuels :

"American farmers have planted the biggest corn crop in U.S. history. Almost 30% will be used to make fuel, not food. Corn needs three-times the fertilizer of any other crop. And fertilizers are a major source of greenhouse gases.
In both Canada and the U.S., billions of dollars in biofuel subsidies are being doled out mostly to the pockets of agri-business giants."

I think this is where we came in...

Steve and Sandra Go to the G8 : Something or other about 2050

Some previous G8 something or others :
At the G8 Gleneagles Summit in 2005, world leaders promised Africa debt relief, drugs for AIDS and double the annual aid within five years.
Just one year later, total aid from G8 countries actually dropped. Canada's aid fell by 9%; the US by 20%.

Another previous G8 promise : to write off the debts of the 18 poorest African countries.
This year's debt in interest alone? A billion and half dollars. Or, more than those countries saved from the debt relief they got in the first place.

If you don't count Bush's nostalgia for the good old days of the arms race in Europe, you can at least say that this year the G8's aren't making any promises they can't keep.

On The Map with Avi Lewis
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Dana : Harper on the International Stage

Avi Lewis : On The Map

Avi Lewis is back with "On The Map", a 30 minute take on the big news stories of the day airing nightly Monday to Thursday on CBC Newsworld from June 4 to June 28 at 4:30 and 11:30pm PST.
All episodes will be available at cbc.ca/onthemap following broadcast.

Avi's previous TV show, "The Big Picture", kicked some serious ass - ripping into the melange of official media stories with his trademark very sharp backtalk and rigorous research.

On The Map preview : Avi interviews US neo-con asshat ambassor to the UN John Bolton on the proposed Iraq Oil Law. Go, Avi!

H/T Hello Cool World
(Cross-posted at The Galloping Beaver)