Women’s Party Meeting Reminder

Sept. 14^th,  7pm

We are asking women interested in attending the next Women’s Party Meeting on Sept. 14 at 7pm to register with Gail at:  gcotter@shaw.ca by Sept. 7^th if possible.  We need your replies in order to decide where to have the meeting but whatever is decided will definitely be easy to get to by bus or car.  So email Gail by Sept. 7 to register and we will see you on September 14^th at 7pm.  With your ideas, hopes and dreams for a more equal and happy society.  Betty K

To Females of all Ages, Sizes, Races and Sexual Orientation Everywhere!  Women’s Party Meeting Notice! Sept. 14^th at 7pm in Vancouver! Please email Gail at: gcotter@shaw.ca  for address of meeting place and to advise of your plans to attend.

Men, it isn’t that we don’t love you, but we want a women’s only space to organize and solidify our thoughts around what we envision for a women’s party.  We believe the old male dominated thinking of organizing around hierarchies and “winner take all” is killing our planet.  And us along with it, including our children.  We believe that women are capable of halting this mad race to the cliff, but in order to do this, we must first come together and agree on how to push many of the male imposed structures of society off the cliff first.  

We must confront a banking system that is privately held, corrupt, and leading us all to the poor house.  We need to confront Prime Minister Harper who believes that military acquisitions are a priority instead of the health and education of children, (or for that matter, even the repair of bridges and tunnels in Quebec.) We must devise means to confront a Prime Minister who believes that corporate enrichment is the god to be worshiped (while he is personally waiting for the Rapture) and the environment be dammed (oil sands and Asbestos.) We must also confront religious structures, Christianity, Judaism and Islam, as well as all patriarchal religions that deem women to be inferior because their gods say so. And they all do. More prisons?  Prisons only work for corporations.  And corrupt governments. We believe that if we take care of our people there will be no, or few, prisons.

As a Women’s Party we will want to look closely at how our court systems work.  We want to study and refute how the Supreme Court of Canada supports environmental degradation by upholding the bogus claims of logging and mining industries over the rights of citizens, including First Nations, to lead healthy lives.  And we most certainly will be looking at and considering action against the right of private corporations to hold patents on the essence of life itself; the private patents on plants, fish, and other animals, described as Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO’s.) We believe that as long as women are absent in the most important decision making bodies in the world we will have war, disease, both physical and mental, along with premature death accompanied by environmental destruction.

Sisters, if any of the above interests you, and you would like to be involved, please notify Gail through the email (gcotter@shaw.ca) to indicate that you wish to join us on Sept. 14^th in Vancouver and receive the street address.   One caveat…f you   are a news reporter, please don’t attend as a reporter.  Come as a woman who understands the perils we are all facing and the need to confront old ways, old means, old beliefs, and to help devise new ways and means of living lives of equality, of health, nourishment, and peace for all.  Mark your calendars.  Action is the mother of hope.   See you there.  Betty Krawczyk

TIME TO RETHINK PRIVATE PROPERTY

With our economy tanking in tandem with the US, and the Canadian environment turning to slush, I suggest, without shame or reservation, that we take a good look at where reverence for private property  has led us, and is leading us.

     I’m not talking about private homes, family farms, cars, trailers, boats, vacation places, small businesses or private money in the bank.  I’m talking about the right of large multinational corporations to own and destroy large swaths of our physical environment at will, even if this destruction affects hundreds, thousands, even millions of other people and other species.  Logging companies do this by clear cutting large tracts of forests, both public and private. 

These forests can include watersheds that feed into lakes and rivers and reservoirs, waterways that can flood valleys below during the rainy season following the clear cutting of forests above.  A classic example of this is a final report that was delivered (August 16) to the Comox Valley Regional District by Northwest Hydraulic Consultants.  This report concerned the serious flooding in Courtenay the past few years involving the Tsolum River.

The Comox Valley Record reported on the Courtney council receiving the report  (August 19) but didn’t mention that TimberWest Forest Corporation paid for the investigation, in part, into how their logging practices may have contributed to the flooding in the valley for the past two years.  Isn’t that interesting?  We have a situation where a logging company under suspicion funds, in part, the investigation of Courtenay flooding and the main local paper neglects to mention this. At least the Comox Valley Echo mentioned that TimberWest owns two thirds of the Tsolum River’s watershed and that the assessment itself was based on information particularly given by TimberWest.

Heavens to Betsy!   Do they think we are all as dumb as sticks?  They must.  But what is wrong with us that we stand for such nonsense?  TimberWest has one of the worst environment logging records on the books.  They clear cut to the bone.  And they are heavily into raw logs.  And I don’t think I have to tell you where our raw logs are going.  You’re right.  To China.  Why China?  Well, it isn’t just because the US housing market has slowed to a tear drop.  It’s because China forbids clear cutting in its own country.

That’s right.  Since the massive floods in 1998 that killed 3,000 people and destroyed 22 million acres of farmland China has rethought the practice of clear cutting.  And banned it everywhere in China.  And, would you believe…there is no longer any cutting of any kind in China’s old growth forests.

 China has stopped clear cutting her own forests, because she can effectively clear cut ours. And in the process also provide her people with employment by milling our raw logs over there.   China learned her lesson from the massive flooding of 1998 and the lesson was this…go clear cut somebody else’s forests.  Pick out a corporate ridden country like Canada that obviously doesn’t care about their forests, their wild animals, about flooding, about their people. And China would be right.  Our governments don’t care.  And because they don’t care, they shouldn’t be in charge of our forests. And large private logging corporations shouldn’t be in charge of anything.  They shouldn’t exist.  Not even on private land. 

 

Oh, yes.  The report filed by Northwest Hydraulic Consultants that was paid, in part, by TimberWest and based on information particularly from TimberWest, said that heavier rain was the cause of the Courtenay flooding, not TimberWest clear cutting. Surprised?

 (photo:Comox Valley Echo)