Justin Podur

Israel's policy towards Gaza has been in place for some time. It was in place before Israel arrested some 20 members of the Palestinian elected government on June 28 and some 40 other Palestinians throughout the territory it occupies.

Identity is most simply membership in a community or group. Like the boundaries of community, identification happens in two ways. One's own consciousness is important.

For several months ZNet, an activist website, has been exploring the possibility of converting to free software and so joining the 'free software movement', a movement that advocates for certain fundamental freedoms for computer users.

On Thursday April 20, Hazel Hill, one of the Six Nations Kanienkehaka (Mohawk) leaders on the blockade at the Douglas Creek Estates near Caledonia, told me about her beating at the hands of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) hours before.

On January 23, 2006, Canada's Conservative Party won national power. 2006 is an important year for elections in the Americas. Two have already occurred. In Bolivia, Evo Morales became the first indigenous President in a country that is majority indigenous.

I came to Haiti on a short trip to study a country that doesn't really understand its place in the world or in the Americas. A country whose people feel too much pride and not enough responsibility for what has been done, what is being done, by their government and elites.

Jesse Jackson and Bruce Gordon are just two of many high-profile Black leaders who have expressed indignation at the description of those displaced by Hurricane Katrina as 'refugees'. 'It is just wrong', Jackson said, 'they are citizens displaced by a disaster'.

Any category or concept is going to leave important things out. It's the nature of abstraction. Using the term 'Black' to describe a group of people can obscure more than it reveals. As a biological category it is meaningless, as is the concept of race generally.

To the NDP youth group I made a point of discussing how party politics has a seductive way of inducing people to undermine their decent intentions and betray their vulnerable constituencies with power, or usually just the illusion of power.

America has had more low points than Israel has had, and they have been lower.

At the time of writing (6am), the preliminary results of the Venezuelan referendum are in, courtesy of the National Electoral Council (CNE) of Venezuela.

A friend from the International Solidarity Movement had come back from the Occupied Territories and was giving his report. Others offered some analysis of the situation there. It was well attended. I was the moderator.

What is happening in Bolivia?

It seems that defeat, destruction, surrender of the enemy isn't enough to stop the killing. Is there anything that can? The slogan of the antiwar movement was 'Justice, not Revenge'.