See www.londonresisters.ca for updates on how to support Matt and other war resisters. U.S. War Resister Matt Lowell, currently living and working in London, Ontario was facing possible deportation back to the U.S. on October 28 for following his conscience and refusing to fight in an unjust war. He was granted a temporary stay of deportation by the Federal Court on October 27

Unless you have been stuck in a cave somewhere over the past few weeks, you have no doubt heard about the financial crisis south of the border. You have also likely heard Canadian officials and business people claim that the Canadian economy is doing just fine and is immune from the US turmoil. We can hardly expect them to say other wise, not least during an election. But in fact there is more than a good chance that Canada will follow the US into a major economic crisis.

If this does happen it will not be just because financial deregulation has allowed the banks to risk our savings on the crisis-ridden financial markets. It will also not be just because investors have created new and high-risk ways to play the global financial casino. It will not even be just because the US market, where most of Canada’s exports go, will have closed shop. For sure, financial deregulation and so-called “free trade” shoulder a lot of the blame for this mess. But the fundamental source of the problem goes beyond these policies. We are about to reach the limits of the economic model that has been imposed on us for the past 30 years.

This model can be called the “low wage/high debt” economic model. Beginning in the early 1980s it has come to replace the old “high wage/high production” model. Under the old model, companies sought to turn big wage gains made by workers’ struggles into profits by: a) demanding a faster pace of work (higher productivity) and b) by encouraging a culture of consumerism so that workers would use their high wages to buy the vast amount of goods being produced. This came to be know as the productivity deal.

At the end of the 1970s workers began to break this cycle by demanding and winning both higher wages and social services (a higher social wage) while refusing to increase the pace of work which had already reached super-human speeds. Thus companies found their profits under attack as the better quality of life for workers came to clash with the needs of bosses to make a profit.

In response governments all over the world and of all political stripes began to attack the wage and social services gains made by workers. In Canada this began with the Mulroney government and has continued to this day regardless of which party has been in power. And this attack has largely been successful. A recent study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives shows that real wages today (that is when inflation is taken into account) are at the same level as the 1970s. At the same time, spending on social services has been drastically cut. Hence the “low-wage” part of the new economic model.

But low wages present a major problem for profits. If wages are too low than workers cannot afford to buy the increasing number of goods being produced. The misery that this means for workers is not the problem from the point of view of business. The problem is that if goods cannot be sold then profits are not made. This is a classic problem of overproduction. The low-wage model is thus inherently unsustainable.

One way that big business and big government have tried to get around this problem is by pushing through free trade policies like NAFTA and the upcoming Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) that let companies sell their goods all over the globe. In this way, companies can reduce their dependence on the wages or consumption power of their Canadian workers. However this has not really solved the problem of overproduction since the wages of all workers everywhere have been under attack. In the case of Canada, the wages of the American worker, our biggest export market, have been reduced even more than Canadian workers. At best, free trade only delays the day of reckoning.

Another strategy is to lower the price of goods consumed by one group of workers by reducing the wages of another group of workers. This is the true meaning of Wal-Mart. By super-exploiting workers in China and other countries, companies can lower their prices to a point where workers in Canada can afford them despite their lower wages. In this way the sweat and blood of workers overseas is used to build a thin and tattered safety net for Canadian workers. But this strategy is also unsustainable.

For one, super-exploited workers always resist, driving up wages. For example, China is brimming with workers struggles (the China Labour Bulletin reports tens of thousands of strikes and other workplace stoppages per year). These have recently forced the Chinese government to pass a new labour law that contains some gains for workers. Further, the prices of key goods cannot be reduced in this way. Goods such as houses, cars, education and others require such high levels of work and technology that no matter how low wages get, they will always costs thousands of dollars. If workers cannot afford to buy these goods in large quantities, profits cannot be realized and crisis follows. But this has not yet happened. Why?

This brings us to the second part of the “low wage/high debt” economic model. The availability of cheap credit has allowed workers to borrow large sums of money and consume way past their means. This reason, more than any other, explains why the low-wage economy has not yet come to a grinding halt. Low mortgage interest rates, zero-percent car financing, credit cards in every wallet and a “pay day” loan shop at every corner have allowed high levels of consumption to continue even as wages are reduced. For companies this is the best of both worlds. Low wages combined with high sales mean astronomical profits. For workers this has meant insecurity at work and anxiety over soaring debts. None of this is a problem for business as long as it continues. But you don’t need a PhD in economics to figure out that eventually people will not be able to make payments on their loans with decreasing wages and rising interest rates.

This is precisely what is happening now in the US housing market where millions of Americans have had their homes taken away as they are unable to pay their mortgages. The fact that banks and investors turned these loans into stocks and gambled with them on the financial markets, losing trillions in the process, is a serious issue. But in the long run it is not as serious as the fact that millions of workers in the US are defaulting on their debts. In addition to housing, credit card debt in the US totals nearly 1 trillion dollars and auto financing debt is also in the hundreds of billions. (Globe and Mail, September 27, B1) No taxpayer bailout, no matter how big, will solve this problem (not that the bailouts of Wall Street investors is meant to help anyone but rich investors).

In other words, the “low wage/high debt” US economy is imploding. And Canadians, according to a recent report by investment firm Merill Lynch, are only slightly less in debt as the average American. (The Hamilton Spectator, September 24) What are the chances that Canadians will also start defaulting on their mortgages, credit cards, student debts, auto financing and a myriad of other debts which we have been forced to take on because our wages do not stretch far enough? Even without increasing food and oil prices, it is very likely that what we are seeing in the US today is only a frightening preview of things to come.

The US also provides a sneak peek into what is likely to happen if we leave the solution to the same people who got us into this mess: trillion dollar bailouts for the rich and increased repression for the rest of us. If we self-organize and struggle for a better alternative, the outcome may be different, perhaps radically so.

BY PETRE MARIN                               linchpin.ca

While there are those who would like to dismiss war resisters as “cowards,” the reality is that it takes exceptional courage to resist unjust, illegal, and/or immoral orders. For many resisters, it was their first-hand experiences as occupation troops that compelled them to take a stand. For others, “doing the right thing” and acting out of conscience began to outweigh their military training in obedience. Tens of thousands of service members have resisted illegal war and occupation in a number of different ways—by going AWOL, seeking conscientious objector status and/or a discharge, asserting the right to speak out against injustice from within the military, and for a relative few, publicly refusing to fight.

Matt Lowell went AWOL from the US Army at Fort Lewis, Washington. He is currently living in London, where he works in computer technology support while resisting Iraq deployment. “I can still look myself in the mirror. I didn’t have to shoot (an Iraqi) who’s doing exactly what I joined the military to do, to defend their country.”
Matt fled to Ontario three years ago, and could face seven years in prison for charges of desertion.

“What made me change my mind was a letter that a friend sent home from a friend who joined the military at the same time I did. He went to Iraq first.”
“In one of the letters he sent home, he was telling his mom he had to shoot a little kid because the kid picked up a gun,” Lowell recalled. “Then (after) everything on the news and finding out that Iraq had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11, no involvement with Al Qaeda at the time and absolutely no weapons of mass destruction, then I started to question what the military actually stood for.”

Now Lowell says he feels disillusioned. “In my mind the military is supposed to protect its people and protect its country. And what’s going on in Iraq is basically enforcing their will on another nation.”
“The decision that I got on the initial hearing – the illegality or legality of the war – was not going to be allowed into the evidence because it had no basis on our claim,” Lowell said. “I was in the process of getting kicked out when the stop loss turned into a charge of desertion.”
“What (that) means is due to a shortage of personnel, anybody who was in the process of getting out of the military, their contracts have now been extended.”

War resisters want nothing more than to work hard, and live in peace. They only ask that you give them a chance, the same chance that was given to the Vietnam generation. If you agree that it is wrong to persecute someone for having the courage to stand up and say no to fighting in an illegal war, then please support our cause, sign our petitions, contact the prime minister, and join our rallying cry: LET THEM STAY!

londonresisters@yahoo.ca

What can one say about a country where a public family event can feature an exhibit in which children can don camouflage and learn to throw grenades at the ‘enemy’. . . You have to weep for this country.
The Afghan mission started in early 2002, shortly after the U.S.-led invasion that toppled the Taliban government, although some Canadian soldiers on exchange with the American military were in Afghanistan months earlier.  To date, 98 Canadians, including one diplomat, have lost their lives serving in the conflict.
The economic ramifications are rarely included in debate over the war.

The Rideau Institute said in a study entitled The Cost of the War and the End of Peacekeeping, that the total cost to date of Canada’s mission has been $17.2 billion. The institute said Canadians can expect another $11.1 billion to be spent between now and our 2011 pullout.
The report goes on to say that the Canada has reduced its United Nations peacekeeping contributions by more than 80 per cent since the Afghan mission began, because “the cost of the war in Afghanistan has essentially resulted in the abandonment of Canada’s 50-year commitment to UN peacekeeping.”
Then the Iraq war hit Wall Street, and has contributed to an economic earthquake that threatens us all. The cost of the Iraq war is nearing $1TrillionUS. The drag placed on the domestic economy is staggering.  We are waging war that our grandchildren will be paying for.
The money to pull out of this situation is definitely there. Budget deficits can be eliminated by halting gratuitous wars and cutting extravagent military budgets.

One can only imagine the amount of good that could come from a budget like these. In schools, child care, housing, health care, tuition fees, and a host of other causes in need of funding. This expensive war is not in my interests, but instead serves the needs of Washington.

“Canada should be a refuge from militarism” –Pierre Trudeau

“Militarism“: “is the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests.” (New Oxford American),
2. “Glorification of the ideas of a professional military class” and “Predominance of the armed forces in the administration or policy of the state.” (American Heritage)

“Conscientious Objector“:  is an individual who, on religious, moral or ethical grounds, refuses to participate as a combatant in war or, in some cases, to take any role that would support a combatant organization armed forces.

Some objectors to the Iraq War chose Canada as a place of refuge, in part because of the closeness of the Canada–United States border, as well as an historical precedence set during the 1960s, when draft dodgers were allowed into Canada without prosecution during the Vietnam War.

“Military-industrial complex“: “is a concept commonly used to refer to policy relationships between governments, national armed forces, and industrial support they obtain from the commercial sector in political approval for research, development, production, use, and support for military training, weapons, equipment, and facilities within the national defense and security policy. It is a type of iron triangle” (wikipedia.org)

One can see this in London with General Dynamics building light armoured vehicles for the Canadian and U.S. militaries, while UWO conducts their research into metal alloys. This is essential to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Most people have a rough idea what the term “military-industrial complex” means when they come across it in a newspaper or hear a politician mention it. Eisenhower introduced the idea to the public in his farewell address of Jan 1961. “Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime,” he said, “or indeed by the fighting men of World War II and Korea… We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions… We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications… We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

“Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes… What we don’t know keeps the contracts alive and moving” -RATM from ‘Bulls on Parade’

Iraq War Resister Sergeant Patrick Hart and his family were informed this week that they must voluntarily leave Canada or face deportation to the United States on October 30. The Hart’s refugee application was rejected by the Canadian Immigration Refugee Board. It is estimated that there are at least 200 war resisters living in Canada. In July of this year the Canadian parliament passed a non binding motion in support of Iraq War resisters being allowed to stay in Canada. Despite this, Canada Border Services Agency, continues to routinely effect deportation orders of US-Iraq war resisters.

How could a policy with a name like “Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America” be bad? If this policy name were repeated enough maybe it would be ingrained into our heads that this policy is good. But it’s not in our heads probably because the policy is not supposed to be known- a least for now. For years the SPP has been worked over and refined behind closed doors at the highest levels of government guided by the most powerful corporations of North America. Of course, word gets out every once in a while but hopefully most people have skimmed over this policy title in the past seeing no threatening, ironic or odd words that would make them stop and read it over again. Lets take the word ‘Prosperity’. I wouldn’t mind some of that! But in this case it makes me think too much of the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere’ policy which according to Alan Farmer was “merely a cloak for imperial expansion” of the Japanese Empire during WW2. If that was true what does that mean for us today? Well, in this case the empire is obviously the United States government and its corporate backers while the actual people of Mexico, Canada and the US are the subordinates. These are the people who will pay the price for corporate and government prosperity, not to mention the rest of the world who will continue to take orders by the US and deal with their imposed terror.

‘Competition’ is what governments and corporations proclaim is the ultimate goal and the ultimate good for all countries – so they say. But what does it really mean to have a society run on competition? Cost cutting seems to be what corporations are best at. Currently, the elites of the world are claiming that global competition is the best for everyone. But what happens when cost is cut? How does one cut cost? Mainly it is letting some one else deal with the ‘cut’. For instance, if Canada wants to sell cheap oil to the United States, the production of oil must become cheap to make the sale of oil profitable and to attract US buyers. But as we know that oil production is messy. Actually, it has been called the most destructive process known to earth. So where does the mess (cost) go? Who will pay for it? Well mostly the earth, native people, future Canadians etc. What the SPP is designed to do is make everything more competitive. But not really competitive, for the corporations who have designed this policy are working out the deals directly with the government behind closed doors; they are getting direct access to these deals merely because of the fact that they are the largest and richest corporations in North America. They are competing for your resources and enslavement.

The SPP is a veiled attack on labour, national sovereignty, the earth, the third world etc.

Some main points of the SPP are:

-    A key element to SPP is the formation and implementation of the North American Union. A unified region set on boundary that will encompass and integrate Canada, Mexico and the United States. This means that Canadian and Mexican currency will be changed to the ‘Amero’ similar to the ‘Euro’ plus much more.
-     The union will ‘deeply integrate’ many things such as the US and Canadian military.   This is intended to further integrate Canada into the US ‘military industrial complex’ which can already be seen via General Dynamics with the production of the ‘striker’ military vehicle and its contracted design from the University of Western Ontario here in London.
-     Homogenization of regulation and trade are on the agenda. Environmental, safety, subsidization laws will be ‘integrated’ (meaning mainly, amalgamated into current US law). Massive privatization of resources including water, healthcare, minerals, and military are planned.

For more information on the SPP see the Council of Canadians’ website at: http://www.canadians.org/integratethis/