THE MONTEBELLO FIASCO

Never a hurricane, in this case Dean, was so aptly used to hide in the obscurity the deals proposed and discussed between the three amigos and the 30 oligarchs, or rather, investors and CEOS from Canada, Mexico and the States. With their ill-acquired millions, those 30 fat cats rented the ears of the three North American political skunks for a few hours. By Tuesday at noon, hurricane Dean came in handy to quickly dismiss the meeting. Nothing was clarified about the future of this fair land.
And the journalists! How mistreated and patronized were they! Sit up. Stand up. Don't move. Don't ask. Remain seated. The final documents were given well after the so-called press conference that closed the gathering took place. There was the vociferous man from Texas at the podium, speaking with infinite arrogance on behalf of ordinary Afghanis. There was Barney from Ottawa, unwilling to tell Canadians what he was really discussing with the international stomper (water access?, shared no-fly lists? further military engagements?) Calderón, the eager exporter of his own compatriots was there too, trying to convince Bush to take in more Mexicans instead of trying to solve the profound economic inequalities in his country. How come many Mexicans are forced to leave their country in order to get a decent income when, at the same time, the richest man on the planet, Carlos Slim, lives in Mexico and makes his money off Mexicans and other Latin Americans? (On August 8, 2007, Fortune magazine reported that Carlos Slim had overtaken Bill Gates as the world's richest man. Carlos Slim's estimated fortune soared to US$59 billion, based on the value of his public holdings at the end of July.)
Of course, not a single word about us Polar bears or our environment, besides that verbal fencing between George W. Butcher and Steven Barney about ownership of the Arctic. (Actually, it belongs to us bears, we live here and we were here long before maps of this region were drawn).

THIS BEAR WAKES UP AT THE FURY IN MONTEBELLO

I went for a nap, and seven months have passed since my last entry. The sound of the fury woke me up. The young, the concerned are going to rattle the police lines in Montebello in the next few days. You don't have to have the brains of an Einstein to understand that nothing good is coming for us bears from that meeting in Montebello. Just look who's going to be there, an American president whose brains seem to be smaller than of a penguin, sending kids without papers or chance to go to college to die in Irak, so the Cheney posse can sleep well over their ill-acquired millions, a Mexican president that stole an election and a crusty Canadian Prime Minister, eager to sacrifice our own kids in Afghanistan to please Bush and manipulate the democratic process in the way.
What are they going to discuss? Whatever it is, it will benefit mostly that crust of 30 fats cats, the "private sector", the "investors", those people that know the price of everything but not the value of one single Polar Bear. As long as the business elite in North America doesn't assume its social responsabilities, all of us will have to endure more pollution and more environmental damage. So, I went to sleep, I wake up and I see that things are getting pretty tough in my melting homeland.