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Today's
Stories
April 26,2006
Gary
Leupp
Wilkerson Speaks Out About the Coming War on Iran
April
25, 2006
Paul
Craig Roberts
The World is Uniting Against the Bush Imperium
Linda
S. Heard
Is the US Waging Israel's Wars?: the Prophecy of Oded Yinon
Ralph
Nader
Political Science: Gingrich, "Futurism" and the Abolition
of the OTA
Mike
Whitney
Preparing for the Economic Typhoon
Michael
Donnelly
Lutherans Betray Michigan's Loon Lake Wetlands for Pieces of Silver
Sharon
Smith
Breathing New Life Into May Day
Website
of the Day
SDS Ver. 2
April
24, 2006
Tim
Wise
What Kind of Card is Race?
John
Stanton
Strike Iran, Watch Pakistan and Turkey Fall
Dave
Lindorff
Dangerous Times Ahead
Steve
Shore
Berlusconi Defeated: The Long Wait is Over ... Or Is It?
Amadou
Deme
Hotel Rwanda: Setting the Record Straight
Mickey
Z.
15 Minutes of Radical Fame: America Meets Bill Blum and Ward Churchill
Ralph Nader
Lee
Raymond's Unconscionable Platinum Parachute
Alexander
Cockburn
Obama's Game
Website
of the Day
Too Stupid to Be President?
April
22/23, 2006
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The General, GM and the Stryker
Jeff
Halper
SUMUD vs. Apartheid: the Elections in Palestine and Israel
Jeff
Klein
How to Manufacture a War Criminal: Saddam and Me, a True Story
Thomas
P. Healy
Out Now: an Interview with Anthony Arnove
David
Underhill
Stuck in Mobile with the Rev. Graham Blues Again
Lee
Sustar
"We are Going to Keep Marching": an Interview with Immigrant
Rights Organizer Martín Unzueta
Deb
Reich
The Little Mermaid on Highway Six: Rooting for Ordinary Israelis
to Wake Up
John
Chuckman
America's Gulag: Purge at the CIA
Fred
Gardner
More Suppression of Marijuana Research
Julian
Edney
Can Our Economy Run Without Fear?
Seth
Sandronsky
The GOP and California's Levees
Brynne
Keith-Jennings
The Meddlesome Ambassador Trivelli: Undermining Democracy in Nicaragua
Dave
Lindorff
Where are the Frogs?
Catherine
Ann Cullen and Harry Browne
Springsteen Polishes His Roots: First Impressions of "We Shall
Overcome"
Bill
Pahnelas
Bush Passes the Buck on Soaring Gas Prices
Jim
French
Time to Overhaul US Farm Policy
Ron
Jacobs
"I Know I'm Not Dreaming, Because I Can't Sleep Any More"
David
Krieger
The Courage of Sophie Scholl: Resisting Hitler
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets'
Basement
Buknatski, Engel and Ford
Website
of the Weekend
Eye of the Storm
April
21, 2006
Jonathan
Cook
The Sinister Meaning of Olmert's "Hitkansut":
Deporting Hamas MPs
Lawrence
R. Velvel
Physical Courage, Moral Courage and American
Generals
Evelyn
Pringle
How to Out a CIA Agent
Christopher
Brauchli
The Rich are Different
Pratyush
Chandra
Pure-and-Simple Revolutions in Nepal and Venezuela
Michael
George Smith
This is What a Movement Looks Like
Missy
Comley Beattie
Serving at the Decider's Pleasure
Sarah
Hines
The Bracero Program: 1942-1964
Website
of the Day
Hunger Strike at U. of Miami
April 20, 2006
Chris
Kutalik
As Crisis Deepens, Is Labor Finally
Showing Signs of a Comeback?
Gary Leupp
Cheney, the Neocons and China
Joshua
Frank
Stop the War! Dump the Democrats!
Diane Christian
The Authority to Kill
William
S. Lind
Sweeping Up: the Real Problem Wasn't
the Execution of the War, But the Enterprise Itself
Ramzy
Baroud
A Case for the Palestinan Government
Justin
E.H. Smith
Doctors and Lethal Injection
April 19, 2006
P. Sainath
More Kids? Pay More for Your Water
Norman
Solomon
When Diplomacy Means War: Bait-and-Switch
on Iran
Anthony Papa
When Justice Isn't Blind: Double Standards
for the Rich and Poor in New York
Mike
Ferner
Movement Blues
Stanley Heller
The Massacre at Qana, 10 Years Later:
Still No Justice
Rifundazione
"We Defeated Berlusconi"
Christopher
Reed
Secrets of the Garden of Bliss
Alexander
Cockburn
The Pulitzer Farce
Website of
the Day
Bunker
Busters: the Movie
April 18, 2006
Paul Craig Roberts
How Safe is Your Job?
Eric
Wingerter
Washington Post vs. Venezuela
Juan Santos
What Immigrants Need to Learn from
the Black Civil Rights Movement
Greg
Weiher
The Zarqawi Gambit Revisited
Sam Bahour
Is Hamas Being Forced to Collapse?
Behzad
Yaghmaian
In the Gaze of New Orleans
Website of
the Day
The
FBI and the Jack Anderson Files
April 17, 2006
Kevin Zeese
An Interview with the First Arab-American
Senator: Jim Abourezk on Bush's Lies and the Dems' Complicity
Uri Avnery
Olmert the Fox
Norman Solomon
Why Won't Moveon.Org Oppose the Bombing
of Iran?
John Ross
A Real Day Without Mexicans?
Laila al-Haddad
The Earth is Closing in on Us: Dispatch
from Gaza
Jeffrey Blankfort
A Tale of Two Members of Congress
and the Capitol Hill Police
Website of the Day
Dixie
Chicks: Not Ready to Back Down
April
15 / 16, 2006
Jeffrey
St. Clair
How Star Wars Came to the Arctic
Ralph
Nader
Remembering Rev. William Sloan Coffin
Thaddeus
Hoffmeister
The Ghost of Shinseki: the General Who Was Sent Out to Pasture for
Being Right
Kevin Prosen
/ Dave Zirin
Privilege Meets Protest at Duke
Thomas
P. Healy
Taking Care of What We've Been Given: a Conversation with Wendell
Berry
Kristoffer
Larsson
Are 40 Percent of All Swedes Anti-Semitic?: Anatomy of a Statistical
Flim-Flam
Fred
Gardner
Continuing Medical (Marijuana) Education
Edwin Krales
New York's Katrina: the Hidden Toll of AIDS Among Blacks and the
Poor
Brian
Cloughley
Don't Blitz Iran: Risking the Ultimate Blowback
John Holt
Walking Off Vietnam with Edward Abbey's Surrogate Son
Seth
Sandronsky
What Billionaires Mean By Education Reform: Oprah, Bill Gates and
the Privatization of Public Schools
Rafael Renteria
Making It Plain About New Orleans
Michael
Ortiz Hill
In the Ashes of Lament: an Easter Meditation
William A.
Cook
An Israel Accountability Act
Gideon
Levy
Shooting Nasarin: a Story About a Little Girl
Andrew Wimmer
Stopping the Bush Juggernaut: a New Citizens Campaign
Madis
Senner
Talking Points for Easter Weekend: Jesus Didn't Lie, Mr. Bush
Michael Kuehl
The Sex Police State: Women as "Rapists" and "Pedophiles"?
Mark
Scaramella
When Even God Can't Follow His Own Commandments: the Timeless Scarcasm
of Mark Twain
Nate Mezmer
187 Proof: Living and Dying Hip-Hop
Jesse
Walker
Playlist
Poets' Basement
Engel, Laymon and Subiet
Website
of the Weekend
Pink Serenades Bush
April
14, 2006
Col.
Dan Smith
Candor or Career?: Why Few Top Military Officials
Resign on Principle
Saul Landau
Ho Chi Minh City Moves On Without Regrets
Stan
Cox
The Real Death Tax
Kevin Zeese
Hersh vs. Bush on Iran: Who Would You Believe?
Brian
McKinlay
Bad Times for Bush's Buddies
Howard Meyers
Dwarves, Knives and Freedom: Bush, Jr. is No LBJ
Ishmael
Reed
The Colored Mind Doubles: How the Media Uses Blacks
to Chastize Blacks
Website of
the Day
Asshole: a Film Strip
April
13, 2006
CounterPunch
News Service
Powell's "Bitch"?
Norman
Solomon
The Lobby and the Bulldozer
Stanley Heller
Time to Shake Up the Peace Movement
Jeff
Birkenstein
Bush and Freedom of Speech
Evelyn J.
Pringle
Not So Fast, Mr. Powell
Michael
Donnelly
The Week the Bush Administration Fell Apart
Kamran Matin
Synergism of the Neo-Cons: What's Going On In Iran?
Website
of the Day
"Don't Be Afraid of the Neo-Cons"
April
12, 2006
Vijay Prashad
Resisting Fences
Alan
Maass
The Suicide of Anthony Soltero
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Insane First Strike Policy: If You Don't Want to Get Whacked,
You'd Better Get Your Nation a Nuke ... Fast
Ron
Jacobs
Resistance: the Remedy for Fear
Ramzy Baroud
The Imminent Decline of the American Empire?
Randall
Dodd
How a Wal-Mart Bank will Harm Consumers
Missy Comley
Beattie
The Boy President Who Cried "Wolf!"
P. Sainath
The Corporate Hijack of India's Water
Website of
the Day
"The System is Irretrievably Corrupt"
April
11, 2006
Al
Krebs
Corporate Agriculture's Dirty Little Secret: Immigration
and a History of Greed
Lawrence
R. Velvel
The Gang That Couldn't Leak Straight
Sonia Nettinin
Palestinian Health Care Conditions Under Israeli Occupation
Willliam
S. Lind
The Fourth Plague Hits the Pentagon: Generals as Private Contractors
Robert Ovetz
Endangered Species in a Can: the Disappearance of Big Fish
Pratyush
Chandra
Nepalis Say, "Ya Basta!"
Grant F.
Smith
The Bush Administration's Final Surprise?
Laray
Polk
Loud, Soft, Hard, Quiet: Marching Through Dallas for Immigrant Rights
Francis Boyle
O'Reilly and the Law of the Jungle: How to Beat a Bully on His Home
Turf
José
Pertierra
A Glimpse into the Mindset of Terrorists: Posada Carriles, Orlando
Bosch and the Downing of Cubana Flight 455
Website of
the Day
The Dead Emcee Scrolls
April
10, 2006
Ralph
Nader
Tinhorn Caesar and the Spineless Democrats
Heather Gray
Atlanta and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Uri
Avnery
The Big Wink
Joshua Frank
Big Greens and Beltway Politics: Betting on Losers
Seth
Sandronsky
Immigration and Occupations
Michael Leonardi
The Italian Elections: "Reality is No Longer Important"
Evelyn
Pringle
Did Bush Pull a Fast One on Fitzgerald?
Tom Kerr
FoxNews Does Ward Churchill
Lucinda
Marshall
The Lynching of Cynthia McKinney
Website of
the Day
Brown Berets
April
7 -9, 2006
Alexander
Cockburn
If Only They'd Hissed Barack Obama
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Saga of Magnequench: Outsourcing US Missile
Technology to China
Patrick
Cockburn
The War Gets Grimmer Every Day
David Vest
The Rebuking and Scorning of Cynthia McKinney
Dave
Lindorff
The Impeachment Clock Just Clicked Forward
Gary Leupp
"Ideologies of Hatred:" What Did Condi Mean?
Elaine
Cassel
The Moussaoui Trial: What Kind of Justice is This?
Saul Landau
Vietnam Diary: Hue Without Rules
James
Ridgeway
"This is Betty Ong Calling": a Short Film
Ron Jacobs
Why Iran was Right to Refuse US Money
John
Walsh
Kerry Advocates Iraqization: Too Little, Too Late
Ramzy Baroud
The US Attitude Toward Hamas: Disturbing Parallels with Nicaragua
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush Finds Democracy Has Its Limits
Todd Chretien
What the Pentagon Budget Could Buy for America
Jonathan
Scott
Javelins at the Head of the Monolith
John Bomar
What They're Saying About Bush in Arkansas
Michele
Brand
Iran, the US and the EU
Ronan Sheehan
Remember When the Irish First Met the Chinese?
Mickey
Z.
Let Us Now Praise OIL
Don Monkerud
March of the Bunglers
Michael
Dickinson
The Rich Young Man: a Miracle Play
Website
of the Weekend
The Case Against Israel and Munich: Compare and Contrast
| April
26, 2006
She Stayed Creative Till the
End
The Rich Life of
Jane Jacobs
By ROBIN PHILPOT
Jane
Jacobs died on Tuesday, April 25, in Toronto at the age of 89. The
following article is based on one of the last interviews she granted
on May 2, 2005. She agreed to the interview because it was to deal
with the toughest question in Canadian politics, namely the future
of the French-speaking province of Québec.
Jane
Jacobs has been described has “one of the few true originals
living among us” and as “the matchless analyst of all
things urban” whose seemingly “wildly eccentric ideas
on cities have been vindicated so many times, and in so many ways”
(The New Yorker, 2004). Ever since the publication in 1961 of “The
Death and Life of Great American Cities”, Jane Jacobs has
continued to shape our understanding of a broad range of issues
thanks to her informed, straight-forward, and empirical approach
to the world. Never one to shy away from difficult but essential
political subjects, when she moved to Toronto in 1968, she did not
hesitate to grapple with the thorniest issue in Canada, the future
of the French-speaking province of Quebec. When CBC asked her in
1979 to do the Massey Lectures – other Massey lecturers have
included Martin Luther King, Willy Brandt, Carlos Fuentes –
Jane Jacobs chose the subject of “Canadian Cities and Sovereignty-Association”,
just a few months before the 1980 referendum on the separation of
Quebec. And she supported the separation of Québec.
Discussions
on the political status of French-speaking people in North America,
based primarily in Quebec, and their relationship with Canada and
the United States go to the heart of what North America is all about.
This is neither a merely Canadian issue, nor something for neighboring
states and provinces to dispose of. It is the crisis of nationalities
taking place in North America, similar to what is passionately discussed
in Europe, Asia, Africa and elsewhere. As Jane Jacobs said in 1979,
it has an old story that began when imperial Britain defeated imperial
France at Quebec City during the Seven Years’ War. Britain
thereby took over some 70,000 French-speaking inhabitants living
mainly along the St. Lawrence River valley, but with pockets of
traders, explorers and colonists living almost everywhere across
the continent.
Jane
Jacobs mainly wanted to talk about Quebec’s new story that
began around 1960 with Quebec’s “Quiet Revolution”.
The new story tells of daring but contested legislation to protect
the French language and referendums on separation in 1980 and the
virtual tie in 1995, when the separatist option was defeated by
a razor-thin margin, 50.6 to 49.4 percent. At the time, the Clinton
administration came out very strongly against separation. With recent
political developments in Canada, another referendum is a serious
possibility in coming years.
As
the most important story of nations in North America continues to
be written, one of the continent’s most imaginative and original
thinkers had ideas on how that story could be written and the problem
solved in a simple and principled manner. But nobody ever wanted
to hear her on that subject.
This
absence of interest prompted Jane Jacobs to grant me an interview
in May 2005. I
wanted
to know how her ideas had evolved over the past 25 years. She had
refused interview requests for years because, though she was 89,
she had two book projects underway and did not like being distracted.
I first asked her how people had reacted to her lectures on Quebec
separatism and to the book that followed entitled The Question of
Separatism: Quebec and the Struggle over Sovereignty-Association
published in New York by Random House. She answered: “There
was practically no reaction. The media practically never asks me
about Quebec. You’re the first one”.
In
1979 and 1980, Jane Jacobs reached the conclusion that Quebec sovereignty
was necessary because of her understanding of how cities emerge
and how they influence the development of nations. She looked specifically
at Montreal and Toronto and foresaw the regionalization of Montreal,
making it into a sort of feeder for Toronto as regional airports
are to a hub. “In sum,” she wrote, “Montreal cannot
afford to behave like other Canadian regional cities without doing
great damage to the economic well-being of the Quebecois. It must
instead become a creative economic centre in its own right…
Yet there is probably no chance of this happening if Quebec remains
a province.”
As
an example for people to follow, be they in Quebec, Canada or the
United States, she also carefully reviewed how Norway peacefully
separated from Sweden 100 years ago in 1905. People forget that
before becoming independent Norway was part of Denmark from 1537
to 1814 and then part of Sweden until 1905. That separation probably
helped both Sweden and Norway politically and economically and it
was skillfully resolved, even though the conflict could have degenerated
into war since tensions were high.
Have
things changed in the past twenty-five years? Can nations separate
peacefully and maintain prosperity, even in North America? Jane
Jacobs insisted that what she wrote then has been borne out.
“English-speaking
people didn’t react to my lectures and book because of fear.
They would prefer not even to think about Quebec separation. The
fear is that if Quebec were to separate, Canada would disintegrate,
and there would be no more Canadian identity. That’s foolish,
because there are so many examples of separatism, and nothing has
disintegrated, unless they went to war. There are so many cases.
Without counting those in Central Asia, there have been over thirty
such cases in recent times since the issue was raised in Quebec.
So we have to ask ‘what’s going on here?’ I don’t
think it’s pure coincidence. It’s a widespread and deeply
felt phenomenon. And there are so many different reasons explaining
why people want to separate. But what do they have in common? The
world is usually not like this. Here’s how I see it based
feedback from the world. What they have in common is that larger
units are not satisfying people, they feel that these are out of
control. What they’re happy about when they get it, and they
calm down, which they do if they’re not taken to war, is the
satisfaction at last of having their own sovereignty.
“You
have to take examples. All except the would-be controlling states
are very happy about this outcome. In the Balkans for instance,
take the whole break-up of Yugoslavia. The only people who are unhappy
about it are the Serbs and they’re unhappy because they’re
not in control of all these others any more. But the Slovenes, the
Croatians the rest of them are very glad to be independent.”
Having
lived half of her adult life in Canada and half in the United States,
she has closely observed the relationship between the two countries.
“People in Canada who are frightened may be right to the extent
the United States will try to take advantage of this and aggrandize
and maybe scare Canadians into falling in with their plans. After
all the United States is irked with Canada these days because it
hasn’t fallen in with its war in Iraq. But that is not an
inevitability. United States will only succeed if Canada is so scared
and docile that it allows it.”
She
developed the idea of smaller sovereignties in her recent book Dark
Age Ahead. In it she explains how early medieval cities helped pull
Europe out of the Dark Age because of subsidiarity, the principle
that government works best when it is closest to the people it serves
and the needs it addresses, and fiscal accountability, the principle
that institutions collecting and disbursing taxes work most responsibly
when they are transparent to those providing money. Both of these
principles have almost disappeared from the modern world. The separation
of Quebec would be an excellent way to restore them, argued Jane
Jacobs.
Citing,
as an example, the political corruption scandal that rocked Canada
since 2003 and was rooted in the near victory of separatism in 1995,
she pointed out how the inability to solve the Quebec-Canada conflict
in a civilized way, and thereby respect subsidiarity and fiscal
accountability, has corrupted the whole country.
“One
way frightened English Canadian authorities have operated in Quebec
and tried to put this whole thing to rest and say it’s all
settled, which it obviously isn’t, has been to try to buy
off Quebec. That seems the most promising, more than the use of
force. Pierre Trudeau managed it quite well saying essentially ‘forget
about sovereignty, your economic interest is elsewhere’. That’s
largely a matter of buying off Quebec. But when you buy people,
particularly trying to change their deep principles by buying them,
it becomes very corrupt, automatically, by the very nature of the
transaction. However, that has been the Canadian Liberal Party’s
policy, they’ll continue to do it, it’s all they know
how to do.”
When
she proposed the example of Norway and Sweden and basically invited
all concerned to be as civilized as those two Scandinavian countries,
she noted that to Sweden’s great credit, it never attempted
to suppress Norwegian democracy, censor debate, interfere with communications
with the Norwegian people, or poison political life with spies and
secret police or corrupt it with bribes. She does not give Canada
the same high marks. “You simply cannot say that about Canada.
English Canada has always wanted to control French Canada. English
Canada conquered French Canada.
Let’s
face the fact that Canada is a conquered country, and conquered
countries often never forget what happened to them. Neither the
conquered not the conqueror ever really forget. Any indication of
revolt on the part of Quebec was either bought off, with a good
deal of corruption or suppressed in some other way. Very often it
was done by trying to, and succeeding, in undermining the self-confidence
of Quebecers. That’s exactly what Pierre Trudeau did.
Unfortunately
the Quebec leader René Lévesque had so little self
confidence in Quebec and in the people themselves that he fell for
that and believed it be ruinous economically.”
As
a supporter of Quebec national sovereignty and a Quebec currency
– mainly because cities swing currencies and in this case
Toronto swings Canada’s currency to the detriment of Montreal
and all of Quebec – Jane Jacobs is not terribly impressed
by the blurring of national sovereignties and currencies in Europe.
“I think it’s a mistake for all these Western European
countries to blot out so many currencies in favor of who knows which
one will win out, maybe Frankfurt. It will not favor all those countries.
Europe had something really wonderful going for it with the different
currencies. Look at all the development in Europe over so many centuries.
They did get into those wars and pretty well ruined it. But they
also had an awful lot of relationships which didn’t involve
fighting each other, but involved learning from each other, and
building on each others’ successes.”
Cities
must relate to each other and flourish as equals according to Jane
Jacobs. That explains why European cities like Paris, Copenhagen,
Stockholm, and Berlin have all had important roles, because of their
independence and their equal stages of development. When cities
trade with each other, they require this kind of independence or
else one becomes a supplier of the other and the relationship takes
on some of the terrible aspects of empire, supply cities being bound
to trade exclusively with the metropolitan city. That, she adds,
is the logic that governs the relationship between Toronto and Montreal.
That can change if Quebec separates and Montreal gains greater independence.
Done constructively, it would become a win-win situation, because
trade could improve for both, and healthy trade is always a win-win
situation. On the other hand, “when people get their jollies
in life by fighting with other people and trying to dominate, they
are very poor traders and cannot find ways for everybody to benefit.”
The
need for smaller sovereignties has not changed because of some imperial
discourse about “globalization”, a term Jane Jacobs
says some economists and politicians bandy about. They try to make
people think things have changed and avoid having to explain their
mistakes. “People ignore the common threads that run through
economic life. Globalization is one of the first things that ever
showed up. Way back when trade began to revive after the dark ages,
it was very international. Globalization has gone on since around
1200 or so. It went on in classical times, before the Dark Age.”
Jane
Jacobs saw one prime downside of globalization: “it has more
and more come to involve domination, which is an economic lose-lose
situation. It simply does not work and so the imperial power, which
is now the United States, collapses.”
What’s
more, Jane Jacobs foresaw that collapse and predicted it would start
out as a very banal thing. “These
investing entrepreneurs want to keep doing the same thing they’ve
always been doing. At one point, for example, there aren’t
enough customers for the condominiums.”
As
she wrote in the conclusion in Dark Age Ahead: “Societies
(including our own) that were great cultural winners in the past
are in special peril of failing to adapt successfully in the face
of new realities. This is because nothing succeeds like success.
Formerly vigorous cultures typically fall prey to the arrogant self-deception
for which the Greeks had the word hubris, that we still use.”
When
I read these words before I met Jane Jacobs, I wondered whether
the “new realities” included Quebec’s separation
from Canada. I came out convinced that it was.
Now
that she has left us, I wonder whether political and economic leaders
in Canada and the United States will know how to adapt to such realities
or whether they will succumb to that arrogant self-deception. In
any case, one of the best ways to avoid that self-destructive trap
is to read and digest the seminal works of the late Jane Jacobs.
We miss her already.
Robin
Philpot is a Montreal writer. His most recent book in French
entitled “Le referendum vole” (Les Intouchables) contains
a long interview with Jane Jacobs. He can be reached at rphilpot@sympatico.ca
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