Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2012 10:56 AM
The following articles, columns, and/or editorials are published in today’s LA Times (print edition) or NY Times (web edition). One or more provide an opportunity to write a letter to the editor to enunciate our message of peace.
LA Times: three items today:
· Article on A4 Israel, U.S. agree on Iran Clinton says http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-clinton-israel-20120717,0,5075152.story Reports on Secretary Clinton’s meetings with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Nothing new. Urged Israel to make peace with Palestinians and renewed pledge to stop Iran’s nuclear program.
· Article on web Gazans allowed to visit kin held in Israel for first time in five years http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/07/gazans-allowed-visiting-sons-in-israeli-jails-for-first-time-in-five-years.html Reports permission for the visits was granted as part of a deal Israel made with the prisoners in May to end a mass hunger strike. Children of prisoners were not allowed to visit and that visitors were not allowed to deliver gifts or food.
· Article from Sunday’s web; on A3 of Monday’s paper Israeli sets himself on fire at protest http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/07/israeli-man-set-himself-on-fire-at-social-protest-rally-in-tel-aviv.html Reports that during an attempted renewal of last year’s social justice protests a 57 year old Israeli man set himself on fire saying, "The state of Israel stole from me and robbed me. It left me helpless."
NY Times: four items today:
· BREAKING NEWS Unity Government in Israel Disbanding Over Dispute on Draft http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/18/world/middleeast/unity-government-in-israel-disbanding-over-dispute-on-draft.html Reports the two-month old Israeli national unity government unraveled when Shaul Mofaz announced he was withdrawing the Kadima Party from the coalition because of intractable differences with PM Netanyahu and his Likud Party over a proposed universal draft law.
· Peace Talks Must Resume, Clinton Says in Israel Visit http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/world/middleeast/hillary-clinton-sees-opportunity-in-middle-east.html Reports focuses on Clinton’s remarks about the Israeli-Palestinian issue with comments that it was prompted by the coming U.S. election.
· Israeli’s Act of Despair Disheartens a Movement http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/world/middleeast/israel-protesters-somber-after-self-immolation.html Reports status of movement after man sets himself on fire.
· World Briefing Gaza Relatives Visit Prisoners http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-relatives-visit-prisoners.html Reports same content as LA Times article, above.
Email your letters to the LA Times letters@LATimes.com , and/or the NY Times letters@NYTimes.com , and please send a bcc to me.
Please pass this letter-to-the-editor prompt on to others who might be interested, and invite them to contact me to be added to this mailing list.
best jeff
Jeff Warner
LA Jews for Peace www.LAJewsforPeace.org
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LETTER TO LA TIMES
RE: “Israel, U.S. agree on Iran Clinton says” July 17 [for LA Times]
Secretary Clinton complains that Iran “has yet to make a strategic decision to address the international community’s concerns” over their nuclear program. But the U.S. has said that it will not reduce sanctions. I thought sanctions are designed to force Iran capitulate, but the U.S., at Israeli insistence, says it will not reduce sanctions even if Iran curtails its nuclear program. That does not make sense; it is not negotiation. Rather it seems the U.S. and Israel are using sanctions as the opening of another useless war in the Middle East
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Not your ordinary revolution
- Published on July 14, 2012
- Lana Payne, President of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour.
- Published on July 14, 2012
Scientists. Doctors. Nuclear engineers. Academics. Researchers. Stephen Harper has a big problem.
He has ticked them all off. And they are not suffering their grievances or concerns for informed, fact-based public policy and decision-making, the environment, the health of Canada’s most vulnerable citizens and the safety of all of us in silence.
No. Instead they are protesting, marching, disrupting government news conferences. They are mobilizing.
Last week, hundreds of scientists marched on Parliament Hill, condemning the Harper government’s cuts to science and environmental programs and regulations or what they described as the death to “evidence.”
Their website notes that the only specific evidence “Mr. Harper wants the public to know about is that which supports his political objectives and ideology. That’s not science, that’s propaganda.”
Doctors, not your usual demonstrators, have continued to protest cuts to Canada’s refugee health care program by interrupting news conferences and confronting federal cabinet members.
One of those doctors protesting last week was Dr. Philip Berger, chief of family medicine at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto. Dr. Berger was reported as saying that Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has cut health care for almost all categories of refugees, including medication for those who suffer heart attacks, or pregnant women. Dr. Berger said Conservatives should expect the actions by doctors to continue until the cuts are reversed.
Folks, this is not your ordinary revolution.
There were indications that Mr. Harper was indiscriminate with his agenda for the country last year when his government received unprecedented backlash (and from across the political spectrum) over the end of the mandatory, long-form census.
Academics. Public policy experts. Economists. Provincial governments. Almost anyone with a brain opposed the end of the mandatory long-form census, citing the loss of important data. Data needed for informed public policy decisions. All to no avail.
This is no surprise given how much this government has held facts and science in such contempt. In fact, not only are the facts dismissed, but the government is now purging the very programs and people who helped government with informed decision-making.
There is a growing list of Canadians who are denouncing the direction Prime Minister Stephen Harper is taking the country. It’s not just unions, federal workers, or progressive civil society organizations raising the alarm.
Rather the list of those discontent, unhappy, horrified, saddened, appalled, mobilized into action is growing in size and diversity. Like doctors and scientists.
Even seniors, many of whom have historically supported the Conservatives, are questioning the government’s actions especially since it decided to raise the age of eligibility for Old Age Security to 67.
A lesser nation
Dr. Jeff Turnbull, the former president of the Canadian Medical Association, in a thoughtful column
last week for The Ottawa Citizen, shared his growing concern for the nation.
With the planned cuts to OAS, refugee health care and employment insurance, to name a few, Dr. Turnbull said he now feared that “our collective legacy will be that of a lesser nation with an absence of strong, unifying core values.”
Dr. Turnbull, reflecting on the legacy we will leave future generations, wrote: “I realize that my good fortune is a product of the vision and sacrifice of those who came before. It was their legacy to us. I can only hope that we, as the current custodians of our collective identity, have the vision, courage and leadership to make those who will follow us proud of our enduring legacy to them.”
Dr. Turnbull is not alone in his anxieties. In fact, the polls tell us that the vast majority of Canadians, including 84 per cent of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, reject the Harper government.
Some pundits say this is merely a hangover from 2008, when Premier Danny Williams led the ABC campaign.
Those who say this under-
estimate Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. They have also failed to understand the core values that hold the people of our province together.
They are very similar to the values Dr. Turnbull referred to in his eloquent lament for our nation. Values like caring and sharing, compassion, fairness and equity. The very values that are under attack today.
But this is a prime minister and a government who have mobilized Canadians to take action, to protest, march and speak out. Canadians who would not normally do so. Canadians who care about the country, who care about how we treat the most vulnerable among us: the poor, the elderly. Who care about facts.
In two weeks, Canada’s premiers will meet in Halifax. Their agenda will be full. The economy, energy, federal cuts, health care, employment insurance, the Temporary Foreign Worker Program. A big list.
But perhaps one of their biggest challenges will be how, or if, the premiers as a collective can mobilize against Mr. Harper in some fashion. Until now, Mr. Harper has, for the most part, ignored premiers and provinces.
But the provinces have power. The premiers just need to figure out how they want to use it and whether they can agree among themselves how best to do so. This won’t be easy, but it is not impossible.
It will require courage and leadership and an understanding that Canada is truly great when we are more than the sum of our parts.
It’s time for the premiers to start fighting back. And when they do, Canadians, the vast majority of us, will be with them.
Lana Payne is president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Federation of Labour. She can be reached by email at lanapayne@nl.rogers.com.
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