"There were only four of us, and he had a stapler."

The defence rests.

Exactly

Mark Weisbrot via Znet: Holocaust Denial, American Style

Of course, acknowledging the holocaust in Iraq might change the debate over the war. While Iraqi lives do not count for much in US politics, recognizing that a mass slaughter of this magnitude is taking place could lead to more questions about how this horrible situation came to be.

...

In fact, there is considerable evidence that the occupation itself - including the strategy of the occupying forces - has played a large role in escalating the violence to holocaust proportions. It is in the nature of such an occupation, where the vast majority of the people are opposed to theoccupation and according to polls believe it is right to try and kill the occupiers, to pit one ethnic group against another. ... It has become even more obvious in recent months as the United States is now arming both sides of the civil war, including Sunni militias in Anbar province as well as the Shiite government militias.

Nazi references are considered gauche, but when reality presents something like so strong a parallel, one has to wonder. At least the Germans could argue that they were living under a genuine dictatorship.

But most Canadians remain happily ignorant of our brutalities in Haiti, and willfully deluded about our work in Afghanistan. NATO has killed as many Afghans this year as the Taliban. Our soldiers apparently hand teenaged prisoners to the rapists and torturers in the Afghan prison system.

British Leave, Violence Drops

Haven't seen much mention of this, from firedoglake.com.

About the only real reason to keep US troops in Iraq has been the understandable worry that, as bad as things are right now, withdrawing our troops will only make things worse for the Iraqi people.

Well, the Brits have had their troops out of Basra for two and a half months now — and guess what? The violence level’s dropped by 90%. That’s right, Ninety Friggin’ Percent:

There's also a story about mainstream cable-news pundit Chris Matthews and how he's an idiot. I don't watch much of any television news, let along USian news. I only know about Chris Matthews from what I see on crooksandliars.com. But Matthews appears to be a supremely vapid personality, and the epitome of the sort of telegenic airhead that the corporate propaganda system promotes. Matthews doesn't have to censor himself, or reign-in his critical faculties and isolated radical beliefs. Matthews doesn't have any critical faculties or isolated bits of ideological purity. Matthews can pontificate at length and never threaten anybody of substance in the system because such ideas never occur to him. That's why he can condemn the war in Iraq while at the same time mock anti-war protestors and work himself up to an erection about bush II's manliness.

Working on a Bigger Article

It's gonna take me a couple of days. In the meantime, I'll share this with you. When I want to work and drown-out the world with ambient sounds, I listen to somafm.

"Don't Tase Me Bro" - Vancouver International Airport Edition

Well, I'm actually pretty angry at how Canada's international reputation has been further disgraced. And I'm angry reading about right-wing assholes who rationalize or excuse that monstrous police action and who have blamed the victim.

But as the days have gone by and I haven't had a spare hour to devote to blogging about this incident, my attitude about its causes has changed.

I started out thinking that it was this new attitude of impunity of our forces of "law and order" in these increasingly authoritarian times that was responsible for those RCMP thugs killing that man at the Vancouver International Airport.

Remember the security goons tasering that Muslim kid at his college library, shouting: "Here's your violation of civil liberities!!"

Now, when dissent is marked as treason, anyone standing up and shouting what's on their mind transforms into the image of Osama bin Laden and harmless loudmouths at a microphone are now dragged-off to arrest and electrocuted if they refuse to comply.

But while this new attitude might be part of the problem, as I reflect upon the historic traditions of attacking dissenters (weren't we all "useful idiots," "fellow travellers," "paid agents" of the USSR during the Cold War?) in the USA and Canada during the union struggles of the 1930s and 1940s, and on campuses and at rallies since the 1960s, I can't really bring myself to believe that police today are that much different from police in the past. What is a "Charter-free zone" after all? And notice that it didn't take 9-11 for that Mountie to feel the need to justify his unilateral creation of a "Charter-free zone" at the APEC Conference in Vancouver.

Maybe things have changed a little, since the "Reagan revolution" in the USA, and the attending coarsening of political debate he brought about. Things have changed a little since 9-11-01, but not that much.

I think the lion's share of the blame rests with the technology. Tasers give police the groundless belief that they have an EASY, NON-LETHAL means of quickly subduing a threat, real or imagined, and they all-too-quickly resort to it. And now, all-too-often, people die.

Checking in on "The Cylinder"

Linking to good stuff: For example

Favourite Line of the Day ...

"... and that Cheetos blenderized with Mountain Dew Game Fuel tastes like TOUCHING THE FACE OF GOD!!!"

Hit the link for the rest of it!