The Killer of the RCMP Officers in Moncton

What was up with Justin Bourque? I saw his facebook page and it's obvious he's a symptom of Canada's infection from the right-wing disease and garbage epidemic in the USA. Pictures of Sarah Palin and rants against "liberals" and gun-worshiping. There was also a bizarre condemnation of social inequality and professions of anti-authoritarianism. Which is the big tragedy of these sorts of simpletons. Sarah Palin was the VP candidate for a party that is totally about perpetuating and increasing social inequality. For all their drooling idiocy about "elites," right-wing populists don't know their asses from a hole in the ground. They attack the progressives, who, by raising the lowest in society, hope to raise everyone. Right-wing populists can only process that the minorities who they despise are receiving benefits and that they aren't. The Nazis rode this train to power and how did that work out for people? The Nazi Party became an all-powerful, unaccountable elite. The traditional power-structure remained under them and profited. Lower-level party functionaries became local swaggering bullies. Everyone's individuality was subsumed to the "national will" which became Hitler's nation-destroying delusions.

That's what I saw on Bourque's facebook page: fascism incubating.

We Do Nothing

That's the most frustrating thing about Canadian progressives. Our nothingness. I suppose if there was some progressive version of a money-making, self-interested progressive machine, we could get ourselves some of that wingnut welfare and actually influence policy or form astroturf groups that had an actual impact on our world, but since making money is primarily a capitalist undertaking, we're reduced to bloviating on the intertubes.

Montreal Simon, Dr Dawg, .... Now What?

Montreal Simon, riffing off a post of Dr. Dawg's. The Doctor provides the following:

And now we learn—surely this takes the mouldy cake—that all federal departments have been ordered to track and monitor every single demonstration taking place anywhere in Canada. This will be coordinated by a mysterious outfit called the Government Operations Centre, which will feed the information to its “partners,” whoever they happen to be. One shudders to guess.
Obviously this further develops the politicization of the public service, which has been proceeding for some time. It violates, as one astute Tweeter pointed out, most of the Treasury Board Values and Ethics Code, and, as the seasoned intelligence specialist Wesley Wark notes, it’s illegal, too. But since when has that ever stopped the Harperium, with its high-level parade of perps?
Our democratic right to demonstrate our disagreement with the Harper regime will now be more closely monitored than ever. Most Canadians, of course, do not “dissent,” in the sense of dragging themselves to a demonstration or a rally, or even writing a letter to an MP. With this latest revelation, though, how can any of us maintain our blissful state of denial, lulled by pundits and assured that it can’t happen here? Indeed it can. Indeed it is. Take the red pill, folks. Surely the time has come.

Simon provides some quotes from the links Dawg provided:

The federal government is expanding its surveillance of public activities to include all known demonstrations across the country, a move that collects information even on the most mundane of protests by Canadians.

The email requesting such information was sent out Tuesday by the Government Operations Centre in Ottawa to all federal departments. “The Government Operations Centre is seeking your assistance in compiling a comprehensive listing of all known demonstrations which will occur either in your geographical area or that may touch on your mandate,” noted the email, leaked to the Citizen.
Wesley Wark, an intelligence specialist at the University of Ottawa, said such an order is illegal. “The very nature of the blanket request and its unlimited scope I think puts it way over the line in terms of lawful activity,” said Wark. “I think it’s a clear breach of our Charter rights.”

Wark said the only lawful way a Canadian government agency, with the appropriate mandate, would have to monitor a demonstration would be if that agency could establish that the protest would constitute some kind of threat to civil order. “But it has to be specific and it has to be justifiable in law to mount such surveillance,” he added.

My question is simple: Now what? Yes, yes, yes. harper is an anti-democratic menace. he's a vile, evil, destructive threat to our standard of living and our way of life. But what do you propose we do about it? What are the concrete steps that you, we, somebody else with more resources, should take to stop him?

That's the big question isn't it? Flash mobs to "raise awareness"? A protest in Ottawa one afternoon? Coordinated rallies in communities across Canada on the same day? Going to the polls in 2015 and hoping that Liberal-NDP vote-splitting doesn't give harper another government? Or that his "Rigged Elections Act" and his talent at election fraud gives him another majority? Throw a brick through a window while wearing a black mask?

Our pundits have actually done a fairly good job of calling out harper for what he is, by the way. It hasn't mattered. Lawrence Martin, Carol Goar, Paul Wells, Andrew Coyne, Murray Dobbin, Michael Harris; just to name a few, have all sounded the alarms about the significance of harper's behaviour. Informing people who read about politics that harper is a menace isn't sufficient to bring the man down. It will take something else. I've put something forward. Perhaps you people can come up with something better?

(For the record, as with Murray Dobbin, I've tried to contact harper critic Michael Harris, to discuss a movement to bring down harper and redeem Canadian democracy. Unlike Dobbin, who told me he was too busy, ... watching the paint dry I suppose, ... Harris hasn't even bothered to respond.)

Limit the Amount of Times People Have the Power of Life or Death Over You (Plus Prostitution)

Seems reasonable no? The power of employers over their workers in an increasingly neoliberal economic order is one such intolerable situation. "Workers as Citizens" is the most efficient way I know of for bringing that state of affairs to an end.

Say! I know what else I can write about!

The harper regime says that its new prostitution law mirrors the new "Nordic Model" of prostitution legislation. In the Nordic Model, prostitution is seen as institutionalized sexual violence, with the prostitutes as the victims. To combat it, the laws only target the users of the prostitutes' services; the "Johns."

Prostitutes, or "sex workers," say that the Nordic Model doesn't work. That it makes Johns more furtive and therefore more dangerous. Prostitutes are unable to screen their clients adequately. I'd have to see some statistics on this before I render any judgment.

Personally, I do not have an objection to a straight trade of sex for money. However, only a fool would deny that most of the prostitutes who ever worked were not there by choice or that they were victimized. It could also be argued thought that the legal regimes in place to discourage prostitution often re-victimized these victims. The Nordic Model is different in only targeting the clients. If it turns out that it hasn't appreciably improved things for prostitutes (I'm surprised there'd still be any prostitution in the Nordic social democracies where men can be criminalized for trying to buy sexual services.)

I think the best way to avoid the victimization of this "industry" is to address the supply. (Something that I believe the Nordic democracies are also doing.) Some women make very good incomes as escorts. They can choose their clients. It's when someone feels compelled to dangerous and degrading situations out of economic necessity that the victimization aspect enters into it. Provide services, housing, mental health and addictions counseling, a guaranteed annual income, etc., ... so that nobody is faced with a choice between prostitution and homelessness. So that vile people cannot take advantage of people with addictions.

Another option would be to change the attitudes of men about sex to those attitudes among women (to the extent that this is possible) which sees a much lower tendency (practically zero?) of women buying sexual services.

How much of that is caused by the greater economic alternatives to prostitution when it comes to men? How much of that is caused by the social conditioning that make men think it too shameful or beneath them to supply such services? How much of that is caused by the physical reality that its harder to fake an erection than submit to penetration? (Of course, men could provide oral services to their clients!)

To what extent this phenomenon is the result of the repression and shaming of female sexuality and to what extent it involves a better appreciation of the dignity and autonomy of others and the absence of unjustified sexual entitlement, I'm not sure. To the extent that its healthy, men should try to emulate it. On the other hand, to the extent that, if done properly, prostitution could provide sexual gratification to lonely people, or just as a straight transaction between consenting adults, I'm opposed to its total demonization and elimination.

Elections are S-O-O-O-O Depressing

That's when you realize that most of your neighbours are so ignorant or debased that they actually vote Lieberal or Constupe-ative.

Then again, there are progressives who still like the monstrous Obama.

Destroying Information and Blowing Bubbles

The United States of America is having a terrible time economically. The Wall Street crash did much more of a number on their economy than it did on ours. But we're coming up on our own disaster. Here's why:

1. Successive presidential administrations doctored the collecting of economic statistics so that the it became increasingly difficult to know what exactly is going on in the economy.

2. As more and more people fell off the radar, the economy hollowed out and this was covered over with technology bubbles, real estate bubbles and massive transfers as wealth.

So now harper has turned Statistics Canada into a shadow of its former self. his government uses kijiji for its economic statistics. Our economy is dependent upon the unsustainable (because it is both ecologically catastrophic and economically unfeasible) tar sands project and on real estate bubbles in our major cities.

I predict that harper is going to drag things along until he's forced to call an election in 2015. Then he can beat a Trudeau and retire. But, given how horrible the harpercons are becoming, it's possible that even with Putrescent Pierre Poilieverre's "Stealing Elections Act" in place, the harpercons will lose. Then a "hope n' change" blank slate of a Liberal can tell us we have no choice but to swallow the austerity that is supposedly necessary to clean up the mess.

Neither Racism nor Sexism Exist

It must be REALLY strange to inhabit the mind of a right-winger. Despite all the evidence, racism doesn't exist. (Unless it's "reverse racism" for some reason.) And, in the wake of the Isla Vista shooting, it turns out that sexism doesn't exist either. (Unless it's the misandryst hatred of radical lesbian feminists.) This is the world of the "Awesome Canadian." (Or the "Awesome American.")

In this topsy-turvy funhouse of a society, men and women encounter each other as equals. They are different, with their own prescribed roles, but equal. It's only when twisted, man-hating feminists and their pussy-whipped left-wing male sycophants try to stir up trouble by reciting imaginary grievances, that things go wrong. There is no racism. Our society welcomes everyone with open arms and gives everyone the chance to reach their highest potential. Sure, there's a "white, male, Christian power-structure" but it's a benevolent one that doesn't really exist, except in those strange moments when loofah sponges transmorgrify into falafels. It's only when cynical, power-hungry leftist totalitarians exploit the ambition and greed of lazy blacks and First Nations, ... or when Jihad-minded Muslim radicals take advantage of our leftist-imposed human rights legislation, that the grim spectre of race intrudes upon our colour-blind utopia.

There's no need for "gay pride." There's no "straight pride" why do they need a "gay pride"? Especially since we're all basically heterosexual (as God intended us to be). I suppose though, that right-wingers perceive better than I do, that all women could easily become tit-sucking carpet munchers and that all men are tempted by the idea of a rock-hard dick and submitting to the penetration of their greased-up back-doors. Sure, we're ALL tempted. But God will burn us in Hell forever more if we give into these temptations planted by Satan. Only the despicably weak give themselves over to these desires. (And, inexplicably, despite the fact that we're all wired for heterosexuality, many of these weak, damned fools give themselves over EXCLUSIVELY to their inversions! "I know mom and dad would prefer me to be porking dames, but I refuse to stop smoking pole, just because!") Who knows why these perverts do what they do? Right-wingers only know that they don't hate them because they have many friends, often close friends, who are weak, vile deviants.

But, anyway, there's no such thing as sexism. Women still get paid less than men simply because they do different work. Work that isn't valued as highly as men's work. Because men's work is more important because. And, anyway, women on average have been getting higher pay raises than men in recent years. This isn't making up for past inequalities. It's mainly because thuggish unions of lazy public sector workers, run by lazy, greedy, man-hating feminist ideologues are trying to fleece taxpayers and emasculate men and right-wingers hate them, hate them, HATE THEM, in this, our colour-blind, gender equalized, God-fearing society.

Sure, women didn't have the vote for hundreds of years. But they didn't want it or need it really. Men do so many things for women. Like "hunt the mammoth" and dying in wars. Did you know that more men have died as soldiers than have women? (Sure, uncounted women might have been raped and killed in the field of human conflict over millennia, but who's counting?) So, supposedly, men die in wars for women. The War of 1812 was fought to make American women .... well you see, the British were stopping American ships and therefore women, .... um, okay. But World War I was fought because Austria-Hungary wanted to teach Serbia a lesson because then women could, .... um. Well you see, Genghis Khan wanted women to have ... um. Rome and Carthage fought because their women, ... um. Well, anyways, men would go to war to DEFEND their women against other men who attacked them for reasons that had something to do with making things better for their own women, and that's the ONLY reason they fought. That's ALL they were trying to defend. Their WOMEN. And so women should fall to their knees and thank their men. And then make them a sandwich. Ha-ha!

And, anyway, they've got the vote now. So what are they complaining about?

I can't continue with this line of stupidity any longer. People who actually believe this shit are fucked-up.