This entry is part 1 in a series of entries exploring monetary systems with regards to public knowledge and awareness in the United States and Canada, its origins and history, and present day status. What better place to begin than with a video from George Carlin, about the state of affairs today... More »

They stroll the streets and alleys adorned in their bright yellow security jackets – but they’re not Police Officers, they’re members of a private security firm hired to patrol the neighbourhood. Despite their mandate from the local business association that hired them, they have absolutely no legal authority, cannot lawfully touch another person, ask them questions, ask them for identification, or ask them to ‘move along’ when on public property. But you see, around here the law might as well be written on wet toilet ...More »

New contributor David Eby is a Vancouver lawyer that works full time for the legal advocacy group the Pivot Legal Society on Pivot’s Housing and Policing Campaigns. The author of The Arrest Handbook: A Guide to Your Rights, and co-lead author of Pivot’s report Cracks in the Foundation: Solving the Low-Income Housing Crisis in Canada’s Poorest Neighbourhood, David’s advocacy work with Pivot has contributed to the biggest provincial social housing investment in Vancouver in over 10 years. We here at matthewgood.org are delighted to have him ...More »

Life is getting better. Our people on the ground see it every day, according to the likes of the Foreign Affairs Minister and our military’s top General. Our mission in Afghanistan is, according to them, of paramount importance. Of course, there is a schism between the two realities – helping reconstitute a nation or representing the third largest active combat force in the country that has suffered, in comparison to their counterparts, significantly more fatalities when the size of each force is taken into account. This ...More »

Every so often someone speaks a little truth to power and pulls the crimson velvet curtain from the Kabuki Theater that passes itself off as United States foreign policy. The recently elected president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, has done just that. Correa has proclaimed that the United States may renew their lease of Eloy Alfaro Air Force Base in Ecuador on one condition... that Ecuador be allowed to open a military base in Miami... I'm quite sure that friendly and generous proposition brought down the house ...More »

More Blackwater developments. According to an unnamed senior US military official… “Blackwater security guards involved in a Baghdad shootout last month that left up to 17 Iraqi civilians dead were "obviously wrong," a senior US military official was reported as saying. The unnamed official told the Washington Post newspaper that the US military reports from the scene of the September 16 incident suggested the US private security firm was to blame for the deaths, and that its employees in Iraq were trigger-happy. "It was obviously excessive, it was ...More »

Henry Waxma's opening at the Blackwater hearing today. Watch it. With Blackwater in front of a Congressional Committee answering questions today, a new fifteen page House Oversight and Government Reform Committee report has lambasted the security company, claiming it ‘out of control’… “Blackwater USA is an out-of-control outfit indifferent to Iraqi civilian casualties, according to a critical report released Monday by a key congressional committee. Among the most serious charges against the prominent security firm is that Blackwater contractors sought to cover up a June ...More »

There is a price tag on everything, that is something that should never be overlooked when it comes to the realities of foreign aid and economic agreements. While we are able to point to the world’s richest nations as being the most prolific when it comes to humanitarian aid, including the bolstering of medical initiatives to help fight, for example, the AIDS epidemic in Africa, such practices do not, nor have they ever, come without a price. One of the best examples of how Western ...More »

When the fine people at RandomHouse contacted me last week and asked me if I would make mention of Naomi Klein’s new book and short film The Shock Doctrine, I was more than happy to oblige. In my view, Klein is one of the most important voices of my generation, so it’s a privilege to help promote this work in any way I can. In the days to come, a YouTube video will also be posted here on the site. Here’s a little background information… Film Description In ...More »

I want to clarify that the focus of this entry is the practice of counter-intelligence and the very real historical ramifications that it has had with regards to Latin America. John Pilger’s entry posted today on the The Guardian’s Comment Is Free blog entitled “The old Iran-Contra death squad gang is desperate to discredit Chavez” is an interesting read. In it, Pilger confronts some of Latin America’s harsh realities and, having also made a documentary entitled The War On Democracy, which “shows that the principles of ...More »