Zerbisias vs. Malkin

I don't have time to write anything profound today. So I'm going to spout off about something I know very little about.

Apparently Antonia Zerbisias made a joke about Dick Cheney taking a shot at Michelle Malkin. The right-wing is all in a rage while the left-wing is saying it was a joke and how come the right-wing has forgotten all of its widespread calls for assasination emanating from dreck like Ann Coulter and the "smalldeadanimals" crowd (who once lamented that Palestinian rockets missed Louise Arbour when she was visiting Israel).

I haven't read the actual "joke" and I don't intend to. If it really did call for someone to take a shot at Malkin, then it went too far. If her words have been twisted from something purely nonsensical and harmless, then that only compounds the gigantic hypocrisy of vermin like Blogging Tories host and Preston Manning sychophant Stephen Taylor.

I'm sorry, but there have been incidents of verbal violence and eliminationist rhetoric coming from the right-wing over the years that are too numerous to mention. This is an inarguable fact. If you disagree, then tell me (as I asked a while back) where are the leftist snipers and bombers? Where (in North America) has a leftist gone to a place where right-wingers are suspected of congregating, and shot the place up? Where are the buildings they've blown up? Where are the cops they've shot dead?

Off the top of my head, there's the Unabomber and the FLQ. One guy, living alone in a cabin somewhere and a radical separatist movement from forty years ago.

If I'm wrong about this, then please provide me with the evidence.

My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

For some reason or other, the KKK's Best Blogger (KKKate MakkkMillan) chose to link to my post about state violence in Iran and Canada. (Yeez kin find the link to KKKate's link in that post.) That produced a big jump in hits for my blog, though truth be told, I think I had more hits when Mark Steyn's website linked to a post of mine where I trashed his book. The inundation of trolls was about the same size perhaps.

For reasons unfathomable (there might be some logical sense to it but given the source I kinda doubt it) she chose to characterize my post as "Eric Margolis, Is That You?". I don't read Eric Margolis enough to get the connection. He's an anti-communist who hasn't been taken in by bush II's idiotic "war on terror" but my post wasn't really about the "war on terror."

My post was about how Iran's security forces can torture and kill with a fair degree of impunity and even official support and how if the RCMP manages to get away with killing Robert Dziekanski (and lying about it) then we're taking a big step down the slippery slope to being like Iran or other countries where human dignity and human life are treated as privileges, not rights.

I really don't know what these morons found so objectionable about that. I was pretty careful about not drawing the parallels too closely together. I wasn't claiming an identity between Canada and Iran. I was saying that unaccountable police or other security forces are dangerous and that we Canadians have to be careful.

You could try to read their comments here and at KKKate's blog to see if you can tease out why they thought my post was silly. Let's try:

What foolishness. Comparing Iran and Canada all because some cops tasered someone in Vancouver.Listen fools, there is NO connection between Iran and Canada. Visit Iran and see for yourselves.

wow, you're retarded

thwap,You've reached the "big time". This post has been linked by the
4-time winner of the Best Canadian Blog and 2009 Best Conservative blog. You've
been "sda-lanched".Of course, now that we've visited, all we can say is that
there's nothing intelligent to see here. But hey, thanks for the unintended
chuckles.

I will be brief and to the point here. If you think there is ANY resemblance between Canada and Iran or any other country over there I would like to know what bloody planet you are from.

ThwapThe insipidities you have elucidated are to be honored. Absolute asininity is a skill.Syncro

Allegedly , at some point in the past , these idiots were referred to as useful .......

I'm not sure what the hell that dude is trying to say.
I don't feel like wasting 2 minutes of my life reading it again. Hey, I feel just like I do after I read Margolis....

hmmm..same style and loose attempt at analogy as we read in Iggy's book.And same lack of sense or real connection to Canadians.And he missed Joanne (BLY) and Kathy.The guy still has a lot to learn.
Kevin...Margolis is best to be avoided in occasional Sun Media print.He always sounds like he'd be much happier living under Chavez,Castro, or the in the middle east.Wonder what holds him back.Oh...perhaps the so-called freedom of the press.My guess on why he went ahead with the last paragraph: the internet in general and bloggers in particular are getting under the skin of the likes of Margolis.
Joanne,
Kathy,Kate, Connie and Mark, and Darcy...keep it!!Don't stop until they feel the rug moving out from under their feet too!

a) I'm mad I didn't get mentioned
b) What's he talking about exactly?

A couple of commentors simply voiced their agreement with the comment of one "Birdy." Here's what "Birdy" had to say:

What you describe and rail against is 'statism'. That is a hobby horse of the far left and fascist governments where they exist. The urge to have conformity is a collectivist view. That is far left. The police state of Nazi Germany came from the statist desire for control and conformity. Hitlers socialist party wanted everyone to be an obedient Arian.The conformity in the former Soviet Union and of China and North Korea are all of the Statist variety that comes from far left collectivist thinking.

That is what Obama is working toward in the USA.Only individualism and free enterprise can protect us from this sort of hell. That is the what SDA and the other blogs you mention are working for. More freedom and self-reliance, more individuality in our society.

You must not being actually reading those blogs, but insist you understand their nature. That is what millions of uninformed Americans do to Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly.You are confused and do not understand whose who and what's what on planet earth at this time.Please do some reading and education yourself. Your teachers and university profs were lying to you.Learn the meaning of freedom and forget about the false security of the entitlement culture.

That didn't help. I didn't expect it to. I was trying to make a point. This tends to be what passes for debate I find. Even after I tried to explain myself, these were the responses:

Thwap, on behalf of my fellow "mouth-breathing imbeciles" I'd like to thank you so much for dropping by and enlightening us all with your superior "nose-breathing" intellect.I think we're all straightened out now, so we won't need your superior insight any more. So consider your job here as done, and go back to your fellow superior nose-breathing friends at Rabble.Thanks again.

What an incredible disconnect from reality this man has. Liberalism is a mental disorder.

The part that amazes me - why do no reasonable lefts come along and refute these types, because it stains them all. There are some reasonable ones out there ? Isn't there ? No ? John Cross, call home ?

Count me in as one of the 30%. Moral relativism at it's most thoughtless. Who is that guy?

I've admitted that there are the occasional intelligent "conservatives" or whatever. At times (when I've had the time) I've even honestly debated with them. But you can see for yourselves if there was ever any attempt from most of those people to ask question to try to understand what was obviously inexplicable to them. Nope. Instead, some empty attempts at humour and zero effort to engage. Which probably explains their presence at KKKate's blog and their other political choices.

That's enough for today.

Bye K-K-Kate!!

On Comparing Canada and Iran

In Tuesday's post about how most all the representative of all the states in the United Nations are hypocritical scum-bags, I made reference to the Iranian regime's rape, torture and murder of Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi, and how the Iranian government refused to allow justice to be done. Basically, the Iranian government had Ms. Kazemi arrested for photographing a protest and three weeks later she was dead. At first the Iranian government said she had suffered a stroke during her interrogation, but then it charged a guard with "accidentally" striking the back of her head. Much later, the coroner who examined her was able to flee to Canada where he said the Ms. Kazemi had been the victim of cruel and sustained torture. When the Canadian government demanded answers on these charges the Iranian government simply ignored us.

This morning, for some reason, the case of the RCMP's killing of Polish immigrant Robert Dziekanski came into my mind as being similar to the Iranian prison system's treatment of Zahra Kazemi. In both cases we have security forces being responsible for the death of an innocent person and in both cases we have official protection for the killers. In both cases we have official stories widely at variance with the evidence. In both cases there appears to be a culture of impunity as politicians and bureaucrats tell the most brazen lies and work to ensure that nothing is done.

What are the differences? There are some important ones. Ms. Kazemi was arrested for documenting a political protest which might be held to threaten the powerful in Iran. Mr. Dziekanski was killed because some lazy bullies wanted to quickly incapacitate a man who was causing a public disturbance. The source of his causing that disturbance was his frustration at the incredibly stupid behaviour of everyone at the Vancouver airport. A more precise parallel for Ms. Kazemi's being targetted would be the protestors who were assaulted at Vancouver's APEC Summit or the police brutality against anti-Harris protestors in Ontario.

Another difference is that Mr. Dziekanski was not subjected to the same level of prolonged sadism that Ms. Kazemi suffered. Again, a big part of that was that Dziekanski's killers were simply lazy bullies with no regard for the rights of other human beings but who had no real animosities towards him. Ms. Kazemi's murderers were professional sadists, employed for a brutal, misogynist, theocratic (obscurantist) regime who probably hate and fear everyone who protest against them, especially women. But there's something else here; Canada is not Iran and state officials could not get away with treating a Canadian citizen the same way that Iran treated Kazemi (who was also Iranian).

The reason that (say) the RCMP cannot get away with such behaviour has more to do with public oversight and the rule of law than it has to do with the inherent humanity and decency of the RCMP. From watching the Braidwood Inquiry we see that these goons and the institution that they belong to and the state which it serves are all more than happy to insult the intelligence of the entire country with the most stupid lies, in some twisted attempt to "tough it out" and hope that they can get through this Kabuki theatre piece with their careers intact. It will be a very dangerous thing for this country if these idiots succeed in their quest though. Because if they see that they can kill with impunity, what will stop them from descending into the same depths of depravity as the Iranian government? Their inherent humanity and respect for human rights? Please. We've already seen that they don't give a damn for those things. The absence of sadistic tendencies? Not likely. The men who order the torture are generally not sadists themselves. Very often, torturers are not sadists. Sadists can lose control and kill their victims. Institutions that torture will attract brainless, amoral thugs and goons, to whom the brutalization of another human being is about as consequential as a night at home channel-surfing.

For no apparent reason I'm starting another paragraph. Finally, the political and social climate of Canada will begin to transform into that of Iran if the RCMP gets away with this. What keeps the Iranian regime solvent? Hatred and fear. Hatred of people who step out of line. Hatred of people who don't conform to the most "conservative" standards of their society. Hatred of "traitors" who protest against the government while the country is surrounded on all sides by ruthless, vicious enemies. Hatred of those who would "abuse" their rights in order to "attack" the society that raised them. All those hatreds are felt by a sizeable minority in every country. In the USA it was the 30% that supported bush II through all his crimes and blundering. In Canada its the "small dead animals," "Free Dominion," "dust my broom" crowd and the much larger group of mindless, deluded harpercon voters. For everyone else, there's fear. Fear of poverty. Fear of prison. Fear of torture. Fear of death. Fear of the unaccountable goons who roam about enforcing compliance to a hateful, failed system. As the system fails it becomes more paranoid, more violent.

Bah! Suffice it to say that there have to be consequences for the killing of Robert Dziekanski. Our country and our way of life depends upon it.

ETA: Somehow this post got linked to at KKKate MakkkMillan's "smalldeadanimals." Here's a belated treat for anyone who gets here from there, ... links to earlier posts wherein I commented on the gigantic levels of stupidity on display at SDA and elsewhere:

SDA'rs belittling the deaths in Afghanistan I & II

SDA'rs yapping about imaginary insults to the idiotic John McCain

SDA'rs inability to argue sensibly about anything.

The stunningy hypocrisy at "Dust My Broom"

More Bad News From Haiti

Tip of the hat to "Ya-Ya Canada": "Haitians Overwhelmingly Reject Electoral Sham"

The jist is that Aristide's party "Fanmi Lavalas" was barred from participation in the by-elections for the Haitian senate. As a result:

"We organized our census primarily through town hall meetings, where organizers spoke to people in groups and individually. From this we tallied the opinions of what we estimated to be 65,000 from an eight million population." From this sampling, a 5% participation rate was calculated.

Wow. That's a lotta "bandits."

An End to Hypocrisy Please

Today's post is about the European Union diplomats walking out on Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at the UN Anti-Racism Conference in Geneva. I didn't really follow the crisis about the Anti-Racism Conference in Durban last year, my response being that a bunch of dictators and racists from around the world were criticizing Israel and Israel was responding with the usual self-pitying whining, running to hide behind the legs of the hypocritical brutish United States, making the whole thing an exercise in hypocrisy all around. All these UN things are hypocrisy because pretty much all states behave abominably. I'm kind of glad that harpercon Canada boycotted the Geneva conference this year because it means that I won't have to listen to anymore self-important, hypocritical blatherings from whatever moron stephen harpercon plucked from obscurity to attend.

Iran is a repulsive, oppressive theocracy. It is a regime of misanthropes, misogynists, closet-cases and morons, propped-up by an army of rapist thugs. (I still recall their sickening treatment of Canadian photographer Zahra Kazemi and their callous disregard for justice on the matter.) Also, Ahmadinejad is a buffoon and a creep. For him to talk about the mistreatment of any other people given Iran's record on the Kurds, women, dissenters, is repulsive.

All that having been said, Iran has been directly targeted by the United States of America and Israel for years now. It has been subjected to an intense intimidation campaign which itself is also a stunning exercise in titanic hypocrisy. In a world awash in nuclear weapons and with a rogue "super-power" invading enemies and rivals almost at will, Iran is being targeted for a nuclear weapons program that could be seen as an insurance policy against a US invasion. I say "could be seen" because it appears that this nuclear weapons program doesn't exist.

EU diplomats, for the most part, come from countries complicit in this US intimidation campaign, as well as in other imperialist adventures, most notably Iraq and Afghanistan which are on Iran's borders. Furthermore, they're probably all racist scum-bags with past histories of imperialism and racist exploitation themselves.

Israel ought to remember the children's saying: "Sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me." The very thought that these EU diplomats are standing beside Israel as it faces a barrage of mere words from Ahmadinejad when Israel has just recently been engaged in crimes against humanity in Gaza, deliberately targetting innocent civilians with bombs as well as a sickeningly cruel blockade of humanitarian aid is repulsive.

Why we should give a shit that the great-grandchildren of the victims of the Holocaust are offended by Ajmadinejad when they themselves (or the state they support) is starving and murdering children is beyond me.

And the USA's recent and ongoing brutality and crimes in the Middle East are such common knowledge that real justice would compel any sane president to simply shut his fucking mouth about the subject.

Finally, Canada treats its own First Nations much like the Israelis treat their Palestinians. Given the tiny size and dense population of Israel and the Occupied Territories and the intensity with which many Israelis see Israel as the stronghold for the long-persecuted Jewish People, I believe they have a bit more of a right to be paranoid, violent chauvanists regarding the Palestinians than Canada's racists have to hate the First Nations. Canada is a huge, sparsely populated country and the settlers have taken 99.9999% of it. The First Nations comprise some 4.5 percent of the population, much less than the comparative numbers of the Palestinians and the Israelis. And yet, Canada's racist right-wing descends into such intense paroxysms of rage whenever First Nations activists step out of line. It beggars belief.

Giving Al Qaeda our playbook ...

Of all the sickening and stupid arguments against Obama's releasing of the torture memos and the likelihood of prosecuting those who were complicit in these war crimes is the imbecilic notion that US national security was compromised because the release of those memos "gave Al Qaeda our playbook."

First of all, ... maybe (as one "ephemeral" said) it's a good thing for the USA if Al Qaeda knows about how bad the US treats its prisoners. Isn't punishment supposed to also serve as a deterrent?

For me though, what is so monumentally stupid, childish, incoherent, insane is the idea that somehow Al Qaeda can become a more effective fighting force by knowing the USA's torture techniques. Let's leave aside that VP Dick Cheney himself gave a pretty strong indication that he supported the practice of "water-boarding." (Perhaps Cheney hates America and wants it to lose by divulging this important information?) Let's leave aside that the "School of the Americas" had its torture-textbook leaked to the media years ago. Let's leave aside that all of these practices (sleep deprivation, stress positions, humiliation, exposure to noise, lights, heat, cold, etc.,) have been known for years. Let's pretend that Al Qaeda had never heard about any of these things until Obama released the memos. How the hell does that give Al Qaeda any sort of combat edge over the forces arrayed against it?

"When are we going to put the bomb on the subway?"

"Well, we were going to wait for Friday, but now that we know that we might be forced to stand in stress positions for 12 hours while being doused with freezing cold water, we KNOW that the best time to plant the bomb is Wednesday!"

"God is great!!!"

Seriously, ... the craziness, the absurdity of this argument is becoming more evident with each passing second. Am I missing something here, or are these political and media elites really such puerile nincompoops?

Brain-transplant Survivor Jack Cafferty ...

Of "The Cafferty File" on CNN, referred to Barack Obama shaking the hand of "South American dictator, Hugo Chavez" at the OAS conference.

Cafferty hasn't had a brain transplant so far as I know. And Chavez isn't a dictator.

End of story.

Jack, ... if you're having difficulties, there's always "Google."

Dumbass.

Friday Already

But still swamped.

So a quick riddle regarding the recent news stories about Obama releasing the torture memos and Canada's Braidwood Inquiry:

What's the difference between the USA where Obama is promising that CIA torturers won't be prosecuted and Canada where it looks like the four RCMP goons won't be prosecuted for killing Robert Dziekanski?

The USian officials were worried about the legal consequences of their actions. The Canadian RCMP behaved (and continue to behave) as if they knew that such questions would never arise.

"Oh Canada ....!"

Not-Quite Wednesday Night Muzeek Vadeeo's

Winding-down now. Know I'll be 2 bz for ne-thing else tomorrow, so here's some videos I encourage you to see and listen 2, if onlee for a lil' bit.

First, a fan-made video for Mindless Self-Indulgence's "Mastermind." It's a freaky video for a funky number. Note: The young lady getting hit on the back of the head, ... that was from a joke/play-acted video-ette ... saw it a couple yearzago. She's s'poosed to be excessively perky. But watch to the end for delivery-room scene! Intense!




Next we have two misunderstandings between myself and Motorhead ...

In this, the 1irst one (1 plus first, sounds like thirst) ...??? ... Is "Dr. Rock." But first thyme i herd it, ... i wuz thinking Spider-Man's Doctor Ock, ... Doctor Octopus. [okay, another film title could be Dr. Ackula! DrrrrAcula!!!]. Here it is (live) ... don't haff 2 lissin 2 hole thing ...




Next toon iz Lemmy Kilminster's celebration of British terror-bombing in WW2 "Bomber." But the way he says "It's a bomber!" makes me think it could've been a song for Obama's prezidential campaign: "It's Obama!" (thatzull u haf to lissen 4).



Finally, here's two intents seens frum "bloo-velvet" combined into one!

The Mounties

CBC reports that BC Attorney General Wally Oppal is saying they might re-visit the question of laying charges against the four RCMP officers who killed Robert Dziekanski at the Vancouver Airport in October 2007.

Alison at Creekside is already on top of the story, stating that Oppal has just realized an election is coming up and that's the source of his hints about actually seeing that justice is done. Furthermore, these "hints" are actually pretty empty statements. Oppal claims that he's only speculating about theoretical possibilities because there's nothing in the Inquiry that hasn't built upon the discrepancies between the RCMP's initial lies and the citizen video recording, which in Oppals' twisted worldview, weren't enough to justify laying charges.

I'm not sure how clueless Oppal is. It's possible that (as Alison says) he didn't think that there'd be a political cost for covering up for this example of the RCMP's thuggishness and now the reaction to the Braidwood Inquiry has opened his eyes. Is Oppal really so fucking stupid that he thought Canadians were so enraptured with the "Musical Ride," "Dudley Do-Right," "Due South" and "Nelson Eddie" that they would give the RCMP a pass on inflicting torture and death on a distraught man who came as a guest to this country?

I guess Oppal is that fucking clueless and stupid. Given that he imagines his half-assed blatherings might calm an enraged electorate.

Those four goons should be fired and prosecuted.

And here's what I have to say about them. I don't like the present institution of police forces in our society, but I recognize there's a need for some sort of professional law enforcement. The police we have didn't create the system that we all live with and they're not all thugs. But there has to be a realization that the more the police get it into their heads that they're a "thin blue line" saving a corrupt and contemptible humanity from itself, the more they'll behave like a pack of bullies who the public fears and hates.

I don't think that cowardice was the motivating factor in what Robinson, Millington, Rundel and Bentley did that fateful day. I think it was mostly laziness. Here's a big guy, obviously in a bad mood, let's electrocute him, turn him into compliant jelly and get him handcuffed and the hell out of here. Negotiation? Too hard. Physically escorting him from the building? Too hard. Simpler just to torture him into submission.

I've said it before. I'd be perfectly willing to debate my position with any four of the constables in question. Should tempers become heated I'm prepared to get physical. My only proviso is that I get body armour and three similarly armoured friends, and we all have tasers. And constables Robinson, Millington, Rundel and Bentley have to face us all alone, and unprotected. It seemed fair to them in a different set of circumstances.

Still Drowning

I'm putting together a nice, light demolition of some paranoid racist's gibbering about the great "Clash of Civilizations" but it's a busy week, so it'll be a piece at a time and posted later.

In order to keep my 10 weekly visitors happy and to fulfill my obligations to post everyday, ... um, ... here's a link to Glenn Greenwald describing the outrage against Barack Obama's claims for executive branch powers.

Personally, I don't understand Obama. He doesn't look or act like a complete idiot. He doesn't strike you as somebody who would be the most detestable hypocrite imaginable.

But he's conniving with Wall Street losers to absolve them of any obligations in return for bailing them out of their own predicament caused by their total shit-headedness, A-N-D he's shitting all over his country's Constitution either to placate the amoral zombies in US "intelligence" agencies who tortured innocent people in good faith and are now afraid of legal action, or because Barack Obama really does believe that the best thing for the USA is to have a chain of torture sites where people can be held indefinitely, without charges and with absolutely no human rights.

Let me again say that I've long felt the US political system to be beyond help, but even I am, shall we say, disappointed with much of what Barack Obama is doing.

(There! That was six minutes well spent!)

Diana Krall and old "Wonder-Bra" Commercials

I'm too freaking busy to type anything today.

So I'll embed this Diana Krall YouTube because I liked it.



And I'll embed this old "Wonder-Bra" commercial because that jingle got into my head when I was a wee tyke and I decided to search it out this morning at long last.

What I'm Reading

In the absence of any inspiration for today's post, I'll provide links for two books that I'm reading:

Paul J. Dosal's Comandante Che (2004) ... Che's image is everywhere. I read a really slim biography about him that I've got upstairs (think the author's last name was "Sinclair") and I reviewed the biopic "Motorcycle Diaries" here at the schoolyard. Anyway, this book is pretty good. Details about the practical realities of the Cuban revolution and Che's ideas about guerrilla warfare and the Tri-Continental. I'd like to read his remarks to the OAS about Kennedy's "Alliance For Progress" sometime.

M. J. Akbar's Nehru: The Making of India (1990) ... I'm enjoying it because it's nicely written and it's going into detail about the philosophical and political differences that went into the formation of the Congress Party and the Muslim League which eventually led to the partition of India and Pakistan.

Name the Leftist Killers ...

I was reading Eric Boehlert's "Media Matters" article about Crazy Glenn Beck and his supporters, and at one point he started talking about murderously deluded sad sack of shit Jim Adkisson who's brain was fried from reading Michael Savage, Sean Hannity, etc., (pukes).

Anyway, ... has there been a genuinely left-wing political killer in Canada or the United States over the past 10 years? 20? If so, how do our numbers stand up against the Adkissons and the Poplawskis?

Rogues Gallery: "fergusrush"

As always, I'd like to type things more substantial but life keeps getting in the way. So, in the absence of the time to discuss anything substantial, I thought I'd type about the insubstantial intellectual abilities of internet troll "fergusrush" who has been grinding my gears at Dr. Dawg's blog lately.

The Afghan Wife-Rape Law

Brian over at The Canada-Afghanistan Blog must be getting a little tetchy. He has the unmitigated gall to refer to Dr. Dawg as an "idiot" when he's more than willing to accept praise from the sputtering, cowardly gas-bag Terry Glavin.

The fact of the matter is, I don't think Brian is an idiot for supporting his cause. (I do think he's willfully deluded himself in order to ignore the absolute scuzziness of the Western powers which undermines the whole notion of this being a benevolent policy.) I certainly don't think Dr. Dawg deserves to be called an idiot for the nature of his criticisms of the Afghan occupation.

Brian does bring up an interesting point about the significance of this wife-rape law:

As far as I'm aware, a law with the consequences outlined above would not be constitutional nor would it comply with the international treaties signed by the government. Let's keep shedding light on this matter, but hold off on the cries of 'betrayal'.
If there is such a law, it will be struck down. If it is struck down, it will be a tribute to what we're fighting for: universal human rights backed up by the rule of law.

Let's see if he called that one correctly.

And Brian, try to stay a bit more classy. H'okay?

Couple of Things in the Works

But right now I'm swamped.

So a quick observation. Apparently, Barack Obama is shutting down the torture base at Guantanamo Bay. HOOORAY!! But he says that the prisoners at Bagram in Afghanistan have no rights. So, "Moved to a Different Location."

And he's a servant of Wall Street and his economic advisors are all Wall Street cronies, attempting to use taxpayer dollars to prop-up their failed investments.

While all this is going on, the right-wing shithead brigade (typified now by "Crazy Glenn Beck") are shrieking conspiracy rants about the "socialism" threat that Obama represents.

Don't get me started about the fucking pukes governing Canada.

Okay. Bye.

Good Johann Hari Editorial

I've got a few minutes to post something and I wanted to say something BIG. Because I'm so disgusted with the times we live in. With the deluded capitalist politicians of the G-20 meeting in London to yammer about a crisis they don't understand attempting to prescribe more of what has brought us to this point. I'm disgusted with the serial atrocities of the harpercon minority government, and the dismal disgusting behaviour of the RCMP at the Braidwood Inquiry.

The very first article at www.commondreams.org was from Johann Hari and it was exactly what I was hoping for. Something BIG that I could recommend for your perusal.

Why We Should Listen to the Protestors:

Many commentators seemed bemused that the protesters focused on the climate crunch as much as the credit crunch. What's it got to do with a G20 meeting on reviving the global economy? Why wave banners saying 'Nature Doesn't Do Bail-Outs' today? Because both crises have their roots in the same ideology - and both have the same solution.

We are facing a collapsed economy and a rapidly warming world because an extreme ideology has dominated world affairs for decades. It is the belief that markets aren't just a useful tool in certain circumstances; they are an infallible mechanism for running human affairs. If the economy ebbs, the market will put itself right by punishing wrong-doers. If the climate begins to unravel, business will rectify its own behaviour voluntarily. Now we know how well this market fundamentalism works.

Indeed.

I'm really not interested in the science of ecology. It's a failing of mine. I suck at math. Bureaucratic forms put me to sleep. All the while I'm tortured with the full realization of the importance of math, science and keeping all my pieces of paper neat and tidy so that I can do my taxes and pay my bills. I'm just not mentally equipped to really appreciate the science.

But any idiot can tell you that we're on a trajectory towards suicide. The accumulations of pollution and chemical alterations of the planet, the mass-extinctions that are just beyond the next hill, ... you'd have to be deliberately deluded to pretend otherwise.

And that's why we need to seize this moment. The system has failed even by its own measuring stick. It is a sick, inhuman system that, as a system of political-economy, is supposed to support human life, and which has failed.

We can do anything we want to. So far, the people in charge are shallow greedheads, mental incompetents, power-hungry maniacs, and this revolting mess is what they have produced. We need a system of political-economy that serves everybody and which doesn't treat the planet as an "externality."

The capitalists have been allowed to follow their delusions long enough. It's time for them to step aside and let the rest of humanity take control.

Politics is a Full-Time Job

Heck. I don't necessarily want to lobby politicians. Wine them and dine them and get their support for things that will benefit me.

I'd just like to have the time to work on a serious article. Or throw a rock through the window of an MP whose party is gleefully leaving a fellow citizen stranded in the Sudan. Or get people to sign a petition demanding an inquiry into accounts of child rape by the Afghan security forces. Or to keep an eye on genuine lobbyists and their attempts to game the political process.

Alas, alack. There's 3 things that didn't get attended to today. And I don't want to sacrifice family for politics. Then there's groceries, dinner and dishes. And then there's the fact that I'm a weak man who needs lots of bed rest.

Corporate Canada has well compensated hucksters and promoters. And they pay for 'em with our money. It comes out of what they over charge us for goods and services. Bank fees and the like.

Have a nice day.

More Reading on the G-20 Summit

A couple of days ago I was moved to write something caustic about the upcoming G-20 summit and the idea that our deluded political elites could come up with anything substantial to deal with the economic crisis.

Since that time, I've read Walden Bello and Marc Lee on the subject. Neither of them are optimistic either.

Bello:

The Group of 20 (G20) is making a big show of getting together to come to grips with the global economic crisis. But here's the problem with the upcoming summit in London on April 2: It's all show. What the show masks is a very deep worry and fear among the global elite that it really doesn't know the direction in which the world economy is heading and the measures needed to stabilize it.

Lee:

A draft of the final G-20 communiqué leaked to Financial Times reinforces my view that the consensus agreement will fall short of what is needed given the seriousness of the economic crisis.
...
The major shortcoming of this G-20 meeting will almost certainly be the lack of commitment to an aggressive and coordinated approach to fiscal stimulus. It doesn’t look like the IMF 2% of GDP target will be part of the agreement. Most major industrialized countries including Canada have fallen short of the target. Canada is singled out by the OECD as one of the countries that can afford to do more, but is unlikely to do so.
The inadequate international fiscal stimulus response to date misreads the seriousness of the crisis. The priority now is for Governments to act together immediately to aggressively pursue expansionary monetary and fiscal policies.