This story just goes to show how ridiculous things have become in terms of security, right to protest and the right to state your opinion about how things are being handled by those who think they know best.
They stage a fight, they pepper-spray themselves and then they get dragged away all while pretending to create a level of animosity that just wasn’t there.
And now, ‘activists’ are being labelled as ‘anarchists’.
It’s a tragedy that Melissa Fung, the CBC reporter, was kidnapped in Afghanistan nearly a month ago on October 12, 2008 .
It’s a blessing and testament to the tight security and actions taken to save her life and ensure that no harm came to her.
And I’m bothered by the nagging questions in my mind concerning the circumstances because I should just be happy that another innocent Canadian will be coming home from this mess alive.
But I still can’t shake my questions. What’s the historical precedent for this kind of a situation? Have we always approached these scenarios with the same kind of secrecy?
If Ms. Fung’s kidnapping was made more public would the Canadian outrage have been a little more intense during the Canadian election, which occurred just two days after her kidnapping?
Would her misfortune also have spelled the misfortune for the Conservatives, because Canadians may have collectively seriously put in question the miserable failure of the mission in Afghanistan?
Post your comments below. I’ll repeat: I’m bothered by the circumstances, but I’m open to your views on the subject.
This story is loaded with all kinds of issues that need to be addressed. SOON.
First, there is the question concerning the state of the Robert Dziekanski investigation. Virtually nothing has happened.
Second, the officers who were on duty are still, apparently, on duty.
Third, those that are on duty are clearly having issues with the outcome of the Robert Dziekanski situation. The story quoted refers to one of the officers leaving the scene of an accident, raising questions about the moral and ethical compass of at least this one officer.
Democratic Media did a survey of all major Canadian political parties, asking about a range of issues related to media, including net neutrality and the CBC. The Conservatives refused to respond.
Really. What the hell are the Conservatives afraid of that they can’t even spend 10 minutes to fill in a basic questionnaire?
Why are the Conservatives so silent on these kind of things? Who the hell would vote for a bunch of goons that won’t even talk to representatives of the Canadian public?
OK. I apologize that I’m letting my frustration show, but I’m mad now and it’s not because I dislike the Conservatives. It’s because I dislike the mockery that the Conservatives are making of the last vestiges of our democracy.
I shouldn’t even be writing this, but it really annoys me that there are several million people out there that think that Stephen Harper is actually the right guy to run this country. What are they thinking? If you’re voting for Conservatives, please tell me: what are you thinking?
Steve thought he’d pull a fast one on the Canadian public and launched his illegal election campaign with the sweater-vest fire-side chats.
Unfortunately, Canadians seem to be falling for it. That, or the polls are full of ‘unusual anomolies’. Something smells.
Anyways, I think I’ve mentioned this before, but I have some suggestions for the other leaders that they should at least consider if they’re going to have half a chance of beating Steve at his own game. Here they are, in no particular order (readers are asked to submit their suggestions here as well or submit them as comments with the number of anti-Steve pages that exist on Facebook):
Anyways, I know I’m talking a lot of BS now as well. It seems like everywhere you read, Dion and Layton are incapable of pushing the wrong buttons.
Consider this story in context with this video . Insert "John McCain" with "Laureen Harper" and you should get the idea. Stephen Harper is afraid of ‘the arts’ because he knows that people in this community will call him out for what he is: a wet rag in a blue sweater vest.
And Steve: I’m an ordinary person. You’re not. I’m actually OK with you spending taxpayer money on arts and the events that support them. Meet Tony Bennett. Sing along to a love song. Relax a little. Stop being such a cod.
I’m not OK with you spending taxpayer money on killing innocents in Afghanistan or spending tens of billions of dollars on new defense contracts.
Across Canada, people are lobbying for "Anything But Conservative", hoping that we will come to our collective senses and ensure that the Conservatives do not run this country any longer.
However, every day, we are pushing them closer to a majority because we all have different views on who the strongest party should be. LIiberals? NDP? Greens? The Marijuana Party?
Our muddled structures devoted to democracy are preventing us from actually having democracy. It’d be OK if we had proportional representation (a platform of the Greens and occasionally for the NDP) and then we could vote as we pleased, knowing that our party of preference would still have a voice in the Canadian House of Parliament. But we don’t.
As it stands, we are about to hand a majority to the Conservatives because the progressive vote is too interested in pursuing individual seats for individual parties and not interested in collectively abolishing the federal Conservatives.
With that in mind, I’d like to go on record and suggest that we start considering some fairly radical strategies.
The main one that comes to my mind: get relatively ‘weak’ candidates in split ridings to withdraw from the election.
It’s grossly undemocratic, but then, so are the Conservatives.
The strategy would have to be something similar to vote-swapping, but it’d be more like candidate swapping. Here’s a theoretical example (I didn’t bother to make numbers add to 100%):
| Riding | Con | Lib | NDP | Green |
| A | 25 | 23 | 15 | 12 |
| B | 25 | 12 | 10 | 18 |
| C | 25 | 15 | 18 | 12 |
Each riding has an obvious winner in the progressive camp, but because we split the vote, the results will look like this:
Riding A: Winner = Conservative
Riding B: Winner = Conservative
Riding C: Winner = Conservative
Now, in Riding A, the NDP and Green candidates withdraw with the Liberal and NDP withdrawing from Riding B. Similarly, in riding C, the Liberal and Green candidates withdraw. Here’s what the results might (in theory) look like:
| Riding | Con | Lib | NDP | Green |
| A | 25 | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| B | 25 | 0 | 0 | 40 |
| C | 25 | 0 | 45 | 0 |
Riding A: Winner = Liberal
Riding B: Winner = Green
Riding C: Winner = NDP
Losers: Conservatives in all ridings.
So many questions:
1. Is this legal?
2. How do we orchestrate this for immediate ‘consumption’ of the public?
3. How do we expand the concept by marketing / PR etc?
I know it’s undemocratic, but in each riding, the progressive candidate that should have won actually wins , so we all get what we’re after: The Conservatives are pushed out.
Danny Williams has officially launched his "Anything But Conservative" web site, a promotional piece designed to help Canadians understand the mistake in voting for the Conservative party of Canada.
The site is anythingbutconservative.ca .
The full text of Danny Williams’ speech at the Newfoundland Board of Trade can be found here:
http://anythingbutconservative.ca/dw.htm
Enjoy it. If the Harper Admin wins, it’ll likely be the last time any of us have a sense of ‘free speech’.
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Hello DoC Friends and Supporters,
Below is everything you need to know to put a dent in the massive advertising advantage the Conservatives have gained through superior fundraising. We need an impassioned grassroots movement to create a wave of counter-arguments to the Stephen Harper is a nice guy who wears sweaters and feeds kids Cheerios message being disseminated through traditional media.
If the Obama campaign has taught us anything, it is that the internet and YouTube videos can be a powerful and legitimate force in an election campaign. Use your imagination, use your intellect, and remember funny is far more likely to go viral. Just ask Tina Fey.
Michael Wheeler
Central Coordinator
Department of Culture
departmentofculture.ca
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GONE IN 30 SECONDS
Speak up. Speak out. Speak fast.
The Department Of Culture wants you to get involved! Show Canada in 30 seconds how you feel about the Conservative government’s dramatic dismantling of arts, cultural and social programs since 2006.
These submissions will be entered into a national online contest. Celebrity judges will pick the winning entries, which will be showcased at the DoC’s huge This Is Not A Conservative Party concert, Oct. 9th at the Phoenix Concert Hall in Toronto.
DEADLINE: 9 a.m. EST, Wednesday, October 1, 2008
For entry details visit departmentofculture.ca/30seconds
Do you want to make a 30 second video for the DoC but don’t have the gear? Trinity Square Video wants to help!
TSV & DoC’s SPEAKER’S CORNER
Drop by for 10 minutes at the TSV office (Richmond and Spadina). TSV staff will help you shoot and up-load your clip to YouTube. Leave with your Gone in 30 Seconds video complete!
Tuesday, September 22 to Friday, September 26
10am to 5pm
Trinity Square Video
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 376
Toronto, ON
(416) 593-1332
It just got easier to:
Speak up. Speak out. Speak fast.
Trinity Square Video is a not-for-profit centre that provides artists, activists and community organizations with video production/post-production support and services at accessible rates. Since 1971 TSV has been committed to providing a broad spectrum of services related to video: workshops, screenings, gallery exhibitions, artist residencies, festival sponsorships and community partnerships
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Keep in touch!
You can always stay on top of what the Department of Culture is up to by visiting our website at departmentofculture.ca
Enter our video contest: details at departmentofculture.ca/30seconds
Department of Culture | 1087 Queen St. W | Toronto | Ontario | M4Y 1B5 | Canada
The financial meltdown is incomplete. Yay. We should expect to see several more ‘institutions’ on Wall Street dissolve like a poorly built castle on a beach on a stormy day.
Moving to the Canadian election: what underpins this instability is a once-inflated housing market that has been deflating for years in the US.
Stephen Harper wants to create a similar level of house price ecstasy in Canada by pushing new home building here, based on his latest string of promises geared towards breeders and builders.
How sadly out of touch this is. This man can’t even keep up with today’s headlines, let alone the general direction of the interests of Canadians.
Our economy is hanging by a thread because of Republican & Conservative neglect. He points to national figures saying that things are going well, yet fails to acknowledge the wake of disaster that laissez-faire policies have left for Canada.
More is being spent on defense in both the US and Canada than ever before, billions are being dumped into the pockets of well, billionaires, and nothing is being done to salvage our manufacturing economy.
In times like these, governments are supposed to open the budgets to people and go into deficit. We are not corporations and quarterly reports should not dictate the future stability of this country.
We are a country of people that need leadership rather than casual comments about not worrying about the state of the market.