White Phosphorus Does Not Belong in Gaza City

I am furious with the Israelis now. They have GPS coordinates for the NGO agencies in Gaza City, they have knowledge of where NOT to fire, yet the fired white phosphorus on the United Nations Rights and Works Agency buildings, setting it afire. This means medicines sent by international governments, international donations are now burning.

Don’t even think of trying to convince me this is even possibly an accident! It cannot be, because the UN has been in constant telephone and internet contact with the Israeli government, it’s military forces, and above all, has given both the Palestinian and Israeli forces complete and detailed information.

This action infuriates me. The medicine is for the innocent kids who get injured, the women who flee bullets and get hit, and certainly the food and other goods are NOT, in any way, a threat to Israel.

Damnit! The Red Crescent  has also had their buildings hit. The only forces with white phosphorus arms are the Israelis, and the bombs that hit the Red Crescent buildings came from Israeli guns. Neither of these agencies have buildings that are unknown to anyone in this mess, yet both are hit!

John Ging has said, ” It is damn lucky that our staff did not get hurt, did not get killed or burned by white phosphorus bombs!”

There is absolutely NO excuse for using white phosphorus in civilian areas, especially those with extremely dense populations!

The international agencies in Gaza City are trying, desperately, to help with the crisis and the misery in that city, yet they are being targeted by the Israelis! This shows an utter contempt for any humanitarian aid, an utter contempt for international donors who give as much as possible to alleviate the misery and suffering. In short, the Israelis are telling the international community that they have NO regard for our donations, our own compassion, and are showing a huge lack of compassion themselves.

The Israeli representatives say there were Hamas firing from there, but that, like the attack on the Red Crescent/Red Cross building is pure fallacy. No-one from Hamas or any other fighters were even close to the building, and there has been a concerted effort to try to blame anyone else but the Israeli tanks and bombs for this. Phooey! This was a deliberate action to make sure any humanitarian help was blown, literally, away from the Palestinian people.

The Israeli forces just blew up our tax dollars, our humanitarian aid, and now they are trying to blame Hamas?  This is pure garbage.

The U.N. is demanding a complete investigation and prosecution of those who did this, and I completely agree.

I also think it is time foreign countries put sanctions on any humanitarian aid or funds for Israel until this is done.

Damn! This is totally unforgivable, even in “war”!

Modern Slavery in Canada Still Exists

With all the economic news I did some research into the existing poverty levels in Canada, and found a very disturbing series of facts.

Did you know that if you are on welfare (assistance in some provinces) and you get some temporary work, you do not keep a dime of the money, and to add insult, any costs regarding transportation is up to you?

So, for example, a person works for 2 weeks part-time and gets a cheque for $350, that money is taken off the next cheque, all of it. Basically you end up working for nothing at all. Some incentive that is! If you finally find a place to live, and there is a deposit required, that money is demanded back from your welfare cheque too!

If you used the bus to get there, which costs $5 per day, you end up in the hole for $50! Yeah, good incentive to get a job, NOT!

If you are a single parent, you must also cover part of the costs of daycare, so that comes out of your income too. Going further into a financial hole to get some kind of work experience.

If you do have kids or even one child, any support money the other parent pays goes to the government, not the child, which means the children are paying for being poor again! If the child needs to join in any school activities or trips with the rest of the daycare children, they are out of luck because the government will take any funds away again.

The various provinces all will take any tax refunds, child or alimony support payments, and wages from those living in poverty, making the people who do work basically slaves! This is in one of the very richest countries in the world. Sad, ugly, and yes, disturbing. What is even more astounding is that birthday gifts of money or goods is also repayable, so if a parent gets some money to buy anything for the children, that money is required to be reported, then is deducted from the next month income.  What happens here is that the children are penalized twice, once from living on basically less than families got 10 years ago and having any support from a parent never seen, gone, with no benefit to the children at all.

In the US there are several states that force welfare recipients to work, but they get little or none of the money they earn. Food stamps amount to around $3 per day to feed an adult. What on earth do people expect the poor to eat on that? So, there are basically some American people working as slaves for their governments too!

There are provinces in Canada that have the most millionaires, yet those are the ones that have HUGE numbers of people living in poverty, and those same provinces are the ones with the HIGHEST number of children living in poverty. Keeping people in what amounts to socialized slavery is probably the best hidden secret in North America.

Bashing the poor, especially children who do have responsible parents who support the children as best as possible, is making a very harsh example for those children. After all, the message is that Mom or Dad going to work is going to put less food on the table, make things much harder, and the value of the work is nothing, worthless, because there is NOT ONE DIME more for anything.

This is deliberate, make no mistake. Some states and provinces scream out “welfare fraud!” when the statistics on any fraud is less than 2% of all people getting support, yet those same statistics are used to make these very harsh policies. Talk about damning all because of a very very few!

There are seniors living in cars, families living in tents or car wrecks, all looking to find somethings just decent, yet the states or provinces make it virtually impossible to get one single dime ahead. Some provinces insist that people who have nothing  go looking for work for a minimum of 6 weeks and show they did go around looking for work before they are even allowed to apply for support! Question here. How on earth do you go out looking for work when you don’t have a dime, have no address, have no phone number that prospective employers could call, and have no clothes to go out for an interview?

Actually, in some provinces, that 6 week rule applies to anyone looking for any support. Which means that single moms who are trying to leave an abusive situation must leave their children somewhere to go out to look, which basically can force them to leave those children with the abusive person. Lovely, friggin’ lovely.

As long as the work people do is deemed worthless, and the support for children is seized by governments, and any chance of getting ahead are thwarted, there will be more problems for all of us.

Look at this from a child’s point of view. They need new shoes, sorry, no. They are invited to go out with the daycare, sorry, no. They want to have a Christmas gift for Mom, sorry, no. The child need a new coat and boots, sorry, no. Any possibility of going to the local zoo, swimming pool, movies, or any other outing is gone. Their lives become so narrowed, so lacking in any enjoyment, it become pretty bleak.

This research made me wonder, about those who make these policies, about our society which demeans and belittles these people, and about our own idea of society at all.

The provinces with the worst support are, ironically, those with the most millionaires in them, Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. The rates for welfare in those provinces have actually gone down in the last ten years, making the support cheques worth less than those issued 10 years ago.

The golden rule says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” or  “Do NOT do to others what you DON’T want done to you”

Guess some people forgot, or maybe we all JUST DO NOT GIVE A DAMN!

Harper, Dion, Canadian Politics IS Actually Interesting Now.

Well, no, this is not a sex scandal,(Drat! no pics or innuendo!) not an issue of money wasted,(they do that all the time, definitely NOT news), none of that. Instead, our politics are now more interesting because our  Prime Minister made some stupid choices and lost the confidence of the House of Commons.  Some are calling this a constitutional crisis, I call it amusing.

First we have a Prime Minister who decided to take all the public funding from all parties and essentially deliberately try to cripple any oppositional resources. Dumb, really dumb! But, this seems to be the Harper way, to make decisions that are arrogant, and very often self-serving.

Then he backed down, and tried to say he was being conciliatory by asking the Opposition to give him ideas. This is leadership? Actually it is giving me opportunity to laugh, shake my head and just sigh.

The Opposition parties got together, drew up an agreement between two of them, with the Bloc Quebecois agreeing to back the two and refrain from using a veto on measures without discussion. Basically, they have more votes from the election in October than the minority party which has the Prime Minister.

Oh Oh! This means that they have enough seats, enough votes from Canadians to actually move into the governmental seats, and with Harper making dumb choices, they chose to use their votes in the House of Commons. I heard this and started to chuckle. Yep, seems the arrogance in politics is getting a smack upside the head, and none of the parties will even think of being quite so arrogant again, as far as I can see.

Oh, boy, then Harper makes another dumb move! He tries to use the Bloc Quebecois to make a case against the coalition. Dumb, really really dumb! If he had been at least consistent in his description of the Bloc as either sovreignist, or separatist, then maybe it would not appear so ludicrous, but he used separatist in his English speeches, sovereignist in French. Yep, the people of Quebec noticed! Imagine that! If I can notice it, I have no trouble believing they would. Geez.

So, our Governor General, who was overseas on official journeys, had to cut her trip short and return to Canada. Why? Well, this is her job. When there is a vote of “non-confidence”, the Prime Minister has to talk to the Governor General. Right now he wants to delay the vote of “non-confidence” until January, which means he has no plans to deal with governing or making any fiscal plans until then. If our economy is the “issue stupid” then we all have to sit and wait on him. This makes me shake my head. Where is the leadership? Apparently it went with our Governor General on a trip, but somehow got mislaid.

The coalition can ask the Governor General to make the government, if Harper cannot make his case to delay the vote until January. This is becoming a very sad parody of the Three Stooges.

Ironically, with Quebec going to a provincial election, the statements by Harper are going to light a good fire under those who want Quebec to become sovereign or even separate, given the disparaging remarks Harper made of the Bloc and it’s role in Canada. The Bloc Quebecois was, at one time, the official opposition. Remember that? Now, according to Harper, they are going to usurp the House of Commons to get the separation that a minority of Quebecois want. This is a threat now? Give me a break! The two main parties in this, the Liberals and New Democrats are the ones who will be the governing parties, and the role of the Bloc is as a support. Where on earth does the idea that including the Bloc in this become a threat to national unity? Good grief, here I go again, chuckling. Somehow the Bloc is honourable enough to be the official opposition, yet NOT honourable enough to back decisions from two parties? Someone needs to make up their minds.

Well done, dumb-dumb! Personally I know that the coalition could work, politically, and even be far more efficient and make some decisions for all Canadians. But, and here is the but that jumps. the two parties need to use intelligence, a larger view and certainly some skill to get the decisions through.

Harper sounded like a whiny little boy in his speech today, and definitely not a leader or someone with confidence.  “Aww, how could they do this to ME?” Umm hello? They did not do it to you, they don’t trust you to keep your word, do what is necessary for Canadians, and get your party to face the need for economic planning.

Then he tried the “they did not vote for them” trick. Wrong! Every member of parliament WAS and IS voted for, otherwise they would not be a member of parliament. We voted for our individual candidates, right? They were elected, right?  Until the votes were counted, there was no party in power, right?

Well, at least there is now fodder for blogs, and opinions all over. Amazing considering after the votes were tallied, the turnout was paltry. Hmmm, this makes me chuckle because there is more emotion now over a perfectly legal means to change the party in government than there was in the election itself. Oh the irony!

All of this while the world economy is taking a nose dive and a huge void is obvious in the leaderships of both the US and Canada. Weird timing, I have to admit.

Mumbai Death and Disaster Totals Rise

Another Canadian has been confirmed dead in Mumbai, which makes two families here grieve along with the staff at a Montreal medical center. There are other families who lost family relations there, and they are grieving too.

The loss of life is often seen with road accidents, murders, and natural causes, but when there is a huge sense of hopelessness attached to deaths by gunmen in a foreign country the questions of “why them? why Canadians when the gunmen were looking for British and American citizens? who would do this?” all seem to ring louder.

The Doctor from Montreal was originally from Great Britain, but lived and worked here to heal, to help, to make other lives just a bit better. The same goes for the Jewish family all killed in the Chabad. When people who chose to make our lives better are killed, it takes more from all of us than just a name or personality, it takes a tiny bit of the goodness and humanity too.

There are hundreds of people who worked in the two hotels, the train station, the Chabad area, and in the restaurant that worked with skill and grace, making lives just that much better too. There are some of the people in the hotels, the Chabad, and the train station that performed well beyond their ordinary roles in life, blocking bullets, taking others out of harm then being shot themselves, and making the situation just a bit more tolerable during the very long waits.

I hope the hotels, the employers of all these marvelous people remember this. Maybe we can send funds to help out families who now have the breadwinners gone, maybe we can just think of them as more than just numbers in a death tally.

The political blame game is about to start in ernest, and with all that grandstanding, maybe we all should make a point of reminding those who want to make political points that those points just may come from deaths. Phooey, I have no tolerance for anyone trying to make political hay from disasterous situations when those points are based on the deaths of people who went well beyond any expectations of humanity and service.

The international terrorist blame game is started, too. Some desperately want to make even the most tenuous connections to groups like Al Quaida, etc. Get a grip! Just because someone is Muslim and is from that area does NOT mean they are even remotely connected with Al Quaida! Yes, the gunmen were cold, calculating, definitely capable of making some gruesome choices, but this means that there is more to this story. This action to me is far more than some petty political statement, far more than just a gruesome joy ride, but there is an underlying reason why these gunmen did this, something that motivated them very strongly, otherwise they would have given over after 12 hours, maybe less. THAT is what international specialists need to find out, the motivation that kept these gunmen going, and as of this hour, still going. It must be something very powerful!

The Pakistani Government is trying to work with the Indian Government, so this time, let them. Work this out without all the petty political crap. Unless there is some kind of communication, some kind of working together to find out WHY this happened, we all lose. We lose lives, we lose trust, we lose international friends, we learn hopeless and a sense of powerlessness.

Governments and people who have a sense of hopelessness, powerlessness, and inferiority often are the very ones who go to war, make far more misery for everyone. This is the time to stop that path and make a bridge, an international bridge!

Melissa Fung, Welcome Back!

There may not be a lot of people who have watched CBC internationally, but I often watch to get at least a balance in the news of the day.

The abduction of Melissa was kept out of the news for a very good reason by CBC and I do understand it. Part of me wants to know about any reporter, international aid personnel, or NGO person so I can at the very least think of them, put them into my mind for the energy to send them in peace.

Melissa apparently reappeared and seemed to keep her sense of humour intact, a tough thing to do in a country where often human life is  seen a cheap.  I will put her aid in my thoughts for as long as it takes to get that person back. The Afghanis have endured far more than most of us can even begin to comprehend, let alone understand, and I have kept those who just want a better life for themselves always in my thoughts.

Now that Melissa is out of Afghanistan, I can say this. Melissa when you get home to your parents, expect rain, and the blackberries are all done. But I can bet you will feel great joy getting soaked!

Welcome back Melissa.