Sister Sage's Musings

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I can’t say this is surprising. I knew that Jean Charest would jump at the chance to attempt to buy himself some love again from the Quebec voters.  Yesterday, he committed 180 million dollars for this project in addition to what Quebec City mayor, Regis Lebeaume has already committed. In all, 400 million dollars is necessary. Since this is Quebec, where our infrastructure projects are known to be finished way over deadline and way over budget, count on it going above and beyond 400 million smackers.

That’s just great! I mean, Charest got himself in trouble with his last budget , implementing user fees and a nasty zombie; the health care contribution which starts this year. Those super hospitals that were supposed to be long built are still empty lots.

Our public schools are suffering. For Gawd’s sake, did you know that parents are obliged to send their kids to their public schools with their own toilet paper? That’s right, kids. Kim Fraser on CJAD did a whole segment on her show about how much parents have to cough up these days just to send their kids to public schools and all the supplies they have to purchase. Amongst that long shopping list, was toilet paper.  Pathetic!

But, golly gee, Charest, who finds himself mired in scandals, which honestly, if they didn’t exist, they would had to have been invented–that’s just the way it goes in Quebec. When French Quebec generally deems the Liberals have been in power for too long, a ‘crisis’ pops up like magic! Trust me, my readers from the province of Quebec know exactly what I’m talking about.  The Parti-Quebecois ain’t so squeaky clean,neither. Particularly, not that shrew Pauline Marois when she held various ministries under Lucien Bouchard and Bernard Landry.

It’s been a rough spring and summer for Charest and the death of  MNA Claude Bechard  of  Temiscouata-Kamouraska, no doubt,  would be the straw that broke the camel’s back. But really, Jean, a hockey arena? For an NHL team that doesn’t even exist?  NHL commissioner Gary Bettman certainly hasn’t committed to anything. From what I understand, he’s saying, build the arena and we’ll see.

I’m surprised Charest is pledging this tax payer money, though. I never would have imagined him doing such a thing as a fed  under the old Progressive Conservatives years ago. I thought he would be smart enough to know that this arena won’t curry favor with him. Gilles Duceppe and the separatists will use the hypothetical Nordiques Part deux to promote sovereignty as Kelly McParland explained not long ago.

“That’s right! If we were independent, we’d have a great big arena in Quebec and our team would only speak French and we’d win the Stanley Cup eight times out of 10, because when you’re independent, you win the Stanley Cup.”)

As silly as that sounds, McParland is correct, that is exactly how the separatists will paint this. Remember, the separatists had used the Quebec Olympic athletes’ performances to promote sovereignty as well; the precedent certainly exists.  Thus, Charest would not be seen as having been the savior of Quebec hockey. In fact, those scandals which he faces will still remain front and center and he will continue to wear his last budget.

As I’ve pointed out in previous posts and on other comment boards, after fifteen years, we’re due for another referendum on sovereignty and this one better count; Quebec’s place within or without Canada needs to be resolved one way or the other.  Sorry, Premier Charest, you’re the big loser here; you should have taken the high road; either way, your days are numbered; the least you can do is just say “No!” to paying for that new arena. After all,  John Molson didn’t use tax payer dollars to build the Molson Center (now the Bell Center); neither did any other Canadian jurisdiction. The precident simply isn’t there. The very least you can do with whatever time you have left in the Premier’s chair is to try fix public health care and education, seriously! If the schools can’t supply even the cheapest of toilet paper, there is a serious problem here.

It was argued over the week-end by Norman Spector that Pierre-Karl Peladeau was working feverishly hard to fight the CRTC to get his Harpercon infomercial channel on a “must carry” license so he can lobby Master Steve for the bucks to pay for the majority of that new white elephant.  Here’s a thought, if Peladeau is the billionaire, why doesn’t he foot the bill for this arena the same way Molson did in Montreal for the Habs?    I had provided examples of Juinior’s business past that may indicate that Peladeau may not have quite the midas touch in business Big Daddy Peladeau had.

After some Harpercon puppets were seen sporting old Nordiques jerseys about town, it seems to be more likely that Stevie spiteful will be engaging in some of his trademark pork barrel politics in Quebec City.  As Don Martin pointed out, his puppets would not be running around like cheerleaders in the Nordiques jerseys without orders from the Master hisself.   So Stevie spiteful, in not only a desperate attempt to keep his existing Quebec seats, but perhaps an attempt to buy more, is also trying to buy himself some Quebecois lovin’ with this bloody arena. Jean-Pierre Blackburn has said that federal funding cannot be accomplished without some kind of private partnership.   Not to mention, if Stevie spiteful coughs up the dough to buy that Quebecois lovin’, it could cause a backlash in the rest of the country for him, especially from places like Edmonton and Hamilton who seek to either build or upgrade existing arenas in their own cities.

And so, the elements are converging to create a political squeeze play pitting West against East, fiscal prudence against profligacy, vote buying in Quebec against voter backlash everywhere else.

Waiting and watching from the sidelines are NHL owners in Calgary and Edmonton who occupy the league’s sixth and second oldest rinks respectively, eyeing this as a funding precedent which the Conservatives will have a hard time ignoring in their Alberta fortress.

Just wait until Regina demands federal help for a domed football stadium or Ottawa extends its palm for a stadium handout to refurbish its inner city park. And if Quebec gets a returning NHL franchise while Jet-less Winnipeg waits in vain, well, what a mess

A mess? Now, that’s putting it mildly.  However, like the Quebec Liberals tend to take for granted that Anglophones will always vote for them, thus they tend to ignore them  & they pander more to Francophones, I suspect that Steve may feel the same way about the west, namely, Alberta. Look at every poll, consistantly, the Harpercons poll above 50%,  many times, over 60% in Alberta; thus,  perhaps, like Charest with the Anglophones, Steve may well take Alberta for granted. Another problem is that old myth that Alberta and Alberta alone supports Quebec and the have not provinces.   If federal money is awarded for this arena while Edmonton may go without, won’t go over well.

In addition to potentially losing in the rest of Canada, there is no guarantee he will win more seats in Quebec or even keep the ones he already has. Remember, Duceppe has been lobbying Steve for awhile now. If Steve does decide to kick in the rest of the cash for this white elephant, one can be sure that Duceppe will be sure to be front and center, in front of the microphones and cameras taking credit for all of this, and let’s face it, when it comes right down to it, Duceppe has more credibility in Quebec than Stevie Spiteful ever will.

So no, I, for one, don’t want the tax payers funding a new arena in Quebec City. I just wished that many of my fellow Quebecers felt the same way and had bigger fish to fry like health care and education, rather than to worry about arenas for non-existant teams.   There is no precedent for this as pointed out earlier. Sports stadiums and hockey arenas are privately funded solely.  Peladeau wants an NHL franchise so badly, let him build the arena on his own dime.  We hear governments at all levels saying we must cut back; there’s no money for health care and education and other programs and such, then it stands to reason, there is no money for white elephants.

Wouldn’t it be a kick in the pants if after the all 3 levels of gov’t committed the funding for this arena, and it got built, only for Bettman to say “no” to Quebec City, either because the arena took too long to build (like most of our infrastructure projects as mentioned above) or whatever other reason.  A further outrage to the tax payers, but oh the irony!

Pierre-Karl Peladeau and Gilles Duceppe, as well as the mayor of Quebec City, Regis Lebeaume, all have one common goal; to bring an NHL franchise back to Quebec City. In order to accomplish this, NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman has made clear to Lebeaume that a new arena is essential before he can even consider a new team for Quebec City, a deal needs to be in the works for the construction of a new arena. La Colisee is old and falling apart; same problem that existed when the Nordiques left in 1995 for Colorado.   They all want and need federal dollars to build this new arena. Furthermore, they argue that this new arena would help them in yet another bid for the winter Olympic games in 2022. Yeesh! When will they ever learn?  Sweater vest Steve has not committed either way to this project.

Last night, I read an interesting column from Norman Spector. Now, normally, he writes insipid drivel, but this one offers an interesting theory as to why Pierre Karl Peladeau is so gung-ho about getting his Fox News North out on the airwaves in spite of the fact many critics wonder if such a conservative outfit can even get the sponsors and even make money. Spector, basically, seems to think that Peladeau’s 24 hour Harpercon brown nosing channel will get the federal dollars to pay for this arena.  Furthermore, He gives a precedent where this kind of journalistic brown nosing helped Asper.

What’s been missing from the discussion of an additional all-news network in Canada is the quid pro quo: what does Pierre Karl Péladeau get out of this? Surely, this is not just about getting the right to introduce another cable network in Canada, which, even if it succeeds – a big if – will not make megabucks. And, while everyone would like to have the influence that comes from having your own media horn to toot – which, in Mr. Péladeau’s case, includes tooting back at Paul Desmarais and his family – there must be something more to it.

There is.

For the Asper family, ownership of the Conservative-friendly National Post was the ticket to government funding for a human-rights museum in Winnipeg. (Who knows what other funding would have flowed had Izzy lived longer?) Mr. Péladeau’s personal priority is pedestrian: the return of hockey to Quebec City. The price of his support for the Conservatives is a new arena in that city, which is the NHL’s price of admission for the franchise Mr. Péladeau would like to own and converge with his media properties.

Ok, fine, it’s also not the first time we’ve heard Junior expressing interest in bring hockey back to Quebec City, as well as Gilles Duceppe and the Mayor Regis Lebeaume. I’m sure many fans want the same thing. However, is this all simply a romantic notion and very little to do with business smarts? Let’s take a trip down memory lane and get a reminder as to why the Nordiques ended leaving for Colorado in the first place, shall we?

For the 1994–95 season, Marc Crawford was hired as the new head coach, and Forsberg was deemed ready to finally join the team, but first there was the problem of a lockout. In the shortened season of 48 games, the Nordiques played well and finished with the best record in the Eastern Conference. However, the team faltered in the post season and was eliminated in the first round by the defending Stanley Cup champion New York Rangers.

The playoff loss proved to be the Nordiques’ swan song in the NHL as the team’s financial troubles increasingly took centre stage, even in the face of renewed fan support over the previous three years. The league’s Canadian teams (with the exception of Montreal, Toronto, and to a lesser extent, Vancouver) found it difficult to compete in a new age of rising player salaries, which was made even more difficult by a weakening Canadian dollar (the Canadian teams’ revenues are earned in Canadian dollars, but player salaries are paid in US dollars). Quebec City was also by far the smallest market in the league, and the second-smallest market in North America to support a major-league team (behind only Green Bay, Wisconsin). Additionally, Quebec City is a virtually monolingual francophone city. Unlike in Montreal, nearly all public address announcements were only given in French. Then as now, there were no privately-owned English-language radio stations, and only one privately-owned English language television station. The only English-language newspaper was a weekly. These factors severely limited the Nordiques’ marketability in the anglophone market even in their best years. While the Nordiques had a fairly loyal fan base, it was not enough for them to be viable in the new environment.

Aubut asked for a bailout from Quebec’s provincial government, but the request was turned down, as few were willing to be seen as subsidizing a hockey club that paid multi million-dollar salaries. In May 1995, shortly after the Nordiques were eliminated from the playoffs, Aubut explained that he had no other choice but to sell the team to a group of investors in Denver, Colorado.

Well, don’t most of these issues mentioned above, still exist today?  New arena or La Colisee?  Public relations specialist and former aid to Marcel Aubut, Luc Ouellet believes the market in Quebec City is just too small for an NHL team in Quebec City and that folks just won’t pay 100$ for the admissions.

So, to get this straight, Peladeau is insistent on having a Fox News North which would be a 24/7 infomercial for the Harpercons which many believe will not get the subscribers, nor the sponsors necessary to be profitable just so he can get the federal government to cough up the dough needed to build a new arena so he can have a new NHL team in Quebec City, which would also more than likely, not make money?  More evidence that perhaps Junior is not the savvy businessman many would lead us to believe he is. And he really isn’t, you know.

Junior did have to declare bankruptcy in his first year of business with the old man’s premier asset, the printing company, Quebecor World. Ok, fine, the printing industry is dying due to the changing technology toward an electronic world.  However, was running that printing empire into the ground deliberate on his part? When I was in training in estimation and management for the printing industry, my estimation instructor knew old man Peladeau quite well, or so he told us.  The instructor,  much like the Peladeaus, was an anti-union, anti-labor law, Mario Dumont cheerleader wingnut who spoke fondly of the old man, but never had much use for Junior.  Every so often in class, he would express disappointment at how Junior for his mishandling of Quebecor World.

Also, Fagstein briefly goes over some of Junior’s business failings in his posting from May 14, 2009.  Click the link, it’s worth the read.

Is this a case of simply a spoiled brat wanting his toys at any cost?  That seems to make the most sense to me.

And what a hypocrite he is!  Forget that he wants every cable and satellite subscriber to pay for his Fox News; not very conservative or libertarian of him. Never mind that obviously typical Conservative hypocrisy of demanding tax payers to fork over millions of dollars to build something as frivolous as an arena (I mean, really, Junior, didn’t Daddy teach you the free markets were supposed to take care of that?).  But how about that failed bid to buy the Montreal Canadiens in 2009? That anti-union boss who has kept Journal de Montreal writers locked out and by-passed Quebec’s anti-scab laws to keep the paper going, was being supported by none other than the Fonds de Solidarite of the FTQ - FTQ  one of Quebec’s biggest labour unions! Needless to say, that bid didn’t go over well with many factions. No matter, the Molson brothers entered the bidding war late and won.

This leads me to my next question. Had Peladeau’s bid for the Habs been successful, would he even be interested in purchasing some financially insolvent NHL team from the southern United States to bring to Quebec City? Would he be pushing so hard to put his televised blogging supposiTories on the airwaves?

And for another angle, what if the Liberals were in power? In an elaborate effort to suck up for federal dollars for his arena, would Junior be pushing a channel that was Liberal-friendly?

But there is another player. Gilles Duceppe also wants an NHL team back in Quebec City and is also pressuring the Harpercons to fork over federal dough to build this arena. But for him, the motivations are more tranparent than those of Junior Peladeau. It’s all about Quebec Nationalist Pride.  One must question, how badly does he want this? How does this serve him? The NattyPo’s Kelly McParland seems to think that Gilles Duceppe wins whether master Steve forks over the dough for this arena or not.

The guy can’t lose. He gets to march around his home province, the only one he cares about, railing about how Quebec gets shafted because it doesn’t have an arena in the National Capital (that being Quebec City) because the filthy federalists are too busy spending their simulus money (argent stimulusse) in parts of the country where they speak some foreign language like English. Everyone listening to Radio-Canada nods and agrees: “That’s right! If we were independent, we’d have a great big arena in Quebec and our team would only speak French and we’d win the Stanley Cup eight times out of 10, because when you’re independent, you win the Stanley Cup.”)

That’s good for Duceppe. It’s also good for Duceppe if Harper says no, pointing out, for instance, that Edmonton would also like a new arena but is doing its best to find a way to pay for it without begging Ottawa to play sugar daddy. And when Winnipeg decided it needed a new arena in hopes it might lure the NHL back to town, it just went ahead and built one.

For a conservative non-Quebecer, McParland seems to get the workings of a separatist mind some of the time. It’s true that they think that if we were independent, our hockey teams would not only be solvent, but win every Stanley Cup. Hell, didn’t the separatists use the performances of Quebec athletes at the Vancouver Olympics as another argument for sovereignty? They even managed to turn the Harpercons’ promoting of federal parks to eighth graders into a federalist plot.

Yes, for Duceppe it is win-win.  I think that Steve will agree to footing the bulk of the 400 million dollar bill, courtesy of the beleaguered tax payers, yet again as pork barreling is what Master Steve does best. Most of his Quebec seats are in and around the Quebec City area. As McParland points out, Duceppe can take full credit and make new friends. I might also add that if Steve says no to the project, that honestly, I hope he does (Sorry Hockey fans, the Nordiques weren’t solvent before; the market wasn’t there before; I don’t see anything that has changed that. We’re in a recession. I can think of better ways for the tax payers to spend 400 million dollars. If Peladeau wants that arena bad enough, then he should get a consortium together and bankroll it himself, like a good con should),  Duceppe still wins. He has more ammunition to fuel his sovereignty cause and, dare I say it, perhaps even be able to unseat some of those Harpercon  Greater Quebec City area seats in the next federal election?

But is it that simple? If Stevie Spiteful oks this pork barreling, which I’m sure he will, what will it cost Duceppe?  In spite of the fact that this funding would pretty much ensure that he keeps his Quebec City seats, he would surely demand something of Duceppe. Would Duceppe prop up the Harpercons’ poison pills until the spring when the predicted date of a federal election would take place?  If an election were held sooner rather than later? What if the Liberals won?  Would Iggy,  agree to spending 400 million dollars on an arena in Quebec City? Whether or not the Liberals would go for that would depend largely in part whether or not the NDP would support it or not. I’m not so sure that they would.  We can pretty much guess that a Liberal government would let the chips fall where they may with the CRTC regarding whether or not Fox News North comes to light or not.

As I’ve mentioned above, I hope that tax-payers are not left footing the bill for this arena. Bidding for the winter olympics is a bad idea.  We only finished paying off the Montreal summer games a few years ago.  Our stadium still continues to be a safety hazard and many (myself included)  are now advocating for blowing the damned thing up.

The good citizens of Vancouver will have many years to pay off their six billion dollar winter olympic boondoggle and they can’t seem to sell off their Olympic Village condos in an attempt to recoup some of their losses.  Not to mention, Vancouver’s most vulnerable ended up suffering the most.

Why do we want this?

Sidenote: I wonder if any of the new Quebec Tea-baggers; the Reseau Liberte Quebecois will question Kory at their inaugural luncheon in Quebec City the true Libertarian-ness/conservativeness of his boss demanding the tax payers foot the bill for this frivolous arena? Or better still, will one of them have the balls to throw Junior’s former partnership with the Fonds de Solidarite de FTQ when they were bidding for the Habs in his face?

It ain’t a political party…yet! But, when one of the six founders is, get ready…Blogging SupposiTory, the Rancid Dr. Jabba the Roy, hisself! And he’s just all ga ga giddy over it!  I guess the Lucides movement was just too Progressive Conservativise-ish/not enough soCon-ish tea-baggy enough, was it?  What a circus! Here’s the site if you dare! If Jabba the Roy is involved, as well as the .ca, the Reseau Liberte Quebecois – Quebec Freedom Network. Now don’t that just sound Tea-baggish?

I remember Jean Lapierre telling Andrew Carter quite often on CJAD that there is now a vaccuum in Quebec politics and he believed that this one would get filled, however, he has his doubts this particular far-right movement will warm the hearts of Quebecers. I believe that he’s correct, but then, I never thought that Canada, east of Manitoba, would embrace Steve’s sharp right socon tea-bagging bull-shit. Lapierre,  too, believed that any new party that may have come to light would be a more centered party. 

What’s even more bizarre is that Lucien Bouchard of that clear eyed movement is endorsing this motley gang of misfits which touts among other tea-bagging goodies, climato-skepticism. Hmm, wasn’t Bouchard an environment minister in Brian Mulroney’s cabinet before going off to form the Bloc Quebecois? But then, Bouchard has proven, over the years, to be a walking self-contradiction.

Prepare for shale gas exploration, I mean, don’t let facts and truthiness like  pesky reports, warning of environmental concerns like  carbon-dioxide emissions, encroach on wildlife habitat and sap freshwater resources get in the way of that tea-bag agenda, now.

They’re going to “redefine nationalism”. I would tell you what they mean, but, frankly, that is indicated on their site, that it is “to come”. I wonder if they even know?  If Jabba the Roy is involved, the pro-monarchist, with his love of titles like “HM PM” (what a brown nose!), count on it pushing for Quebec to be beaten to submission by Steve and the Harpercons.  Insidious ways of decimating the Bloc Quebecois would definitely be on the menu.  After all, if  King Steve can’t win Quebec even by pork barreling,  they’ll find other ways to cheat, right?

Jabba the Roy is involved with five others: Andre Pratte of La Presse, a Harpercon friendly writer; Ian Senechal (please note, I had site translated via yahoo Babelfish, so language would leave something to be desired); Joanne Marcotte, who Radio Canada’s Simon Durivage referred to as Quebec’s Sarah Palin; Gerad Laliberte and Eric Duhaime; who worked as an advisor to the now near-decimated Action Democratique Party of  Mario Dumont and in a previous life, worked under ol’ Stock Day when he was leader of the Canadian Alliance.

As much of a monarchy suck up as Jabba the Roy is and I will guess that, like most French Quebecers, his partners in crime are anti-monarchy; as well as other differences to come, I’m sure, I wonder when this will collapse like a house of cards?

Another part of their mandate? To “defy the media establishment”; yes, they must do something to  get Quebec media to work in their favor; it’s too slanted to the left for their tea-bagging sensitivities;   not to mention, their aversion to things like balanced journalism and actually facts and data.

Perhaps like Steve, they would like a media monopoly a la Pierre Karl Peladeau? A French version of Fox North? They will be holding a shindig  come October in Quebec City and the keynote speaker will be none other than Kory Teneycke hisself! I wonder if he speaks joal?

“It is a great pleasure for me of collaborating with the team of the Freedom-Quebec Network”, affirmed Mr. Teneycke, who intends to explain to the audience the importance of the project that it sets up at present at English Canada. “A fall of the Canadian audience of news televised uninterrupted, a mentality of herd among the journalists and a frankly skewed cover of the topicality explain well that the Canadians are badly served by the media “mainstream”, he adds. “It is time to offer an alternative and it is what we intend to do with SUN TV News.”

Getting cocky, aren’t we, Kory?  There might be a little snag with your mentor’s appointment of Luc Lavoie. Once again, a little problem with legalities here. Details.

Here, of course, are  more of the their tea-bagging goals:

“We all agree on one common ground — the fact that the state needs to be smaller in many many ways,” Duhaime said.

“Some of us are going to push on health-care reforms, some others are going to talk about tax reforms.”

Well, tea-baggers, no matter what language they speak or where they live; they’re nothing, if not predictable.

Yes, for about 25$ or 35$ you can get in to watch Kory lead the clown car brigade at it. I wonder though; what does one get for 10$ more? Poutine? The peas are unfrozen? The rubber chicken is actually cooked? Or one gets to not get touched by Jabba the Roy?  Scary that we would want to be led by idiots who look like their mommies dress them every morning.

Each of the six founders, apparently, coughed up 500$ to start up this little tea-bagging cult.

And folks, if you’re in the Quebec City area and if you wish to crash the party, it is being held at Hotel Gouverneur de Ste-Foye on October 23. Their site is here, but in French. No, they don’t have an English version. Funny, given that Jabba the Roy is one of those idiots who shriek about English rights in Quebec.

I wouldn’t be too surprised if these clowns actually actually made it easier for Duceppe to promote sovereignty in Quebec. As mentioned before, Quebecers are center. Some, particularly in rural areas may even be socons to some degree. However, most of them are elderly and do remember living through the hell that was the Periode Noirceur of Maurice Duplessis. I’m sure they don’t want to live through that again and they certainly wouldn’t wish it on their children and grandchildren.

Another great find from Montreal Simon today.  Paul Wells writes an article about the census, in part, referring to Stephen Taylor’s  blog post from July 22; it mirrors his article in the Natty Po dated July 26.  Yes, that very article, where Mr Taylor confirms what we already knew about Master Steve; his intent to dismantle our social programs being the main reason to gut the census. 

Paul Wells asks the question whether or not the whole census debacle matters:

I’ve been mystified by Stephen Harper’s willingness to squander so much political capital on an issue as trivial as the long-form census. Only slightly less so by the media’s piling on, treating this as a matter of great national importance, and by the level of emotional investment so many apparently attach to census-gathering.

The opposition? They’re just reveling in the unexpected bounty of low-hanging political fruit, and Tory self-inflicted injury.

I don’t get it. It’s just not that big a deal – either way.

— Charles W. Moore, New Brunswick Telegraph Journal, today

And he uses a quote from Taylor’s July article:

Stephen Harper seeks to diminish or destroy the Liberal Party to replace them with the Conservatives as Canada’s default choice for government. His greatest challenge is to dismantle the modern welfare state. If it can’t be measured, future governments can’t pander.

— Blogger Stephen Taylor, July 22.

Wells further goes on to suggest that according to Taylor’s tweets and his blog posts of late that Taylor seems to have somewhat detracted from those earlier statements and joined the ” I don’t care club” like Charles Moore, indicated above.  From Twitter, I had observed the same thing from him; that whole ‘…Media blowing the census thing out of proportion again schpiel’.  

Is Taylor trying to put Pandorra back in her box?

According to his rebuttle to Wells’ article today, if he is, he isn’t being successful, is he? Though he claims even today that he stands by what he wrote about  Stevie Spiteful  dismantling of the welfare state, he certainly is pushing the whole “It’s much ado about nothing” agenda much further. In so doing,  he also seems to compare the census debacle to that of the anti-prorogation movement last winter. By the by, Steve, the Christopher White’s Facebook Anti-prorogation group had over 200, 000 members at the time, not a mere 20,000 as you suggest. Just sayin’. 

Anyhow, he seems to think that  anti-prorogation was a passing fad. Yes and no: yes, Steve bounced back because of Canadians’ shallowness and their love of shiny things like olympic hockey gold medals, but at the same time, no one has forgotten; folks are still talking about prorogation; it’s still mentioned in corporate media from time to time.

The census ain’t goin’ away any time soon. I agree with Wells; the census changes certainly do matter; they matter, most of all to Master Steve. As Wells points out, he was willing to he has burned two useful ministers  idiots, Tony Clement and Stock Day, rather badly in advancing this little project. The master tactician, of course, as we would see, was also willing to alienate much of his own base; many of whom probably even funded the Harpercon war chest in the past in pursuit of this project. Master Steve is certainly reminding of a mad man about to lose it.  Oh, this isn’t going away anytime soon. And it seems the more Clement and Stock open their mouths or try to tweak something, the more disastrous the effects. I mean, moving questions from the new voluntary long form to the compulsory short form??

While I agree with Wells and Taylor that the main objective for the scrapping of the manditory long form census is indeed to scrap our social programs, a few commenters over at Taylor’s blog and at Wells’ article seem to disagree, pointing out that our welfare state was built without census data and that future governments could rebuild the welfare state without the census data again. Perhaps. But as the top commenter at Wells’ page, Stephen Gordon points out, the programs were built rather inefficiently and more costly without reliable data to rely upon.

Another thought, Mr. Taylor, I had no idea that something as big as the dismantling of our universal social programs; something that took years to build; something that all Canadians, including yourself and your loved ones, I’m sure, have come to rely upon at some point in our lives or  another was something to be so easily dismissed.  Didn’t realize it wasn’t supposed to be a big deal.

No sirree, Steve, you can’t put Pandorra back in her box; Steve let her out a long time ago; just many either ignored or forgot about her.  Whether or not you had a good talking to or  some kind of verbal thrashing from somewhere for bringing her back to the forefront  ain’t gonna change that.  As I said, most of us already knew a long time ago that this was Master Stevie’s intent. All one had to to was read his quotes from back in his glory days at NCC and Reform to find out the true blue colours of  Master Stevie Spiteful.

Oh yeah! I asked some rhetorical questions of Mr Taylor in my previous post, responding to his article in the Natty Po on July 26:

I would like to know if Stephen Taylor still uses his OHIP card to see the doctor? There are private clinics he can use and pay with his credit card in his area if he bothered to look.  If he has kids, did his wife benefit from maternity leave? If she doesn’t work; did he benefit from any kind of parental leave?  Do his parents (or grandparents if they’re still alive) receive CPP or the old age pension? If they were war vets; do they receive veterans services? Has he ever filed a claim with workman’s compensation for getting hurt or sick on the job? If he or any of his family members were unfortunate enough to lose their jobs, have they ever applied for Employment Insurance? Do his kids go to public school?

Again, I can’t oblige Taylor or his cheerleaders to answer these questions. I have tried to ask them, particulary those regarding health care; never get a straight answer from them. Just that tired old “it’s illegal for me to go to private clinics”; Bull-shit, those clinics exist legally under the nose of the federal government. Then I hear the whole tax Bull-shit; again, once that is gone, we’re still going to pay higher taxes (someone has to foot the bill to line the pockets of Steve’s fat cat Christian and oil and banker friends; bible translators and Christian Colleges, F-35 bombers, G20 boondoggle, all those disastrous changes to the census, etc).  But anyhooo, since Taylor is the one who wrote that article in the NattyPo, telling all those readers just how gung-ho tally-ho he is about the dismantling of the welfare state, pushing to those same readers just how fabulous it would be for all Canadians, perhaps he owes his readers the answers to my questions above. Does he lead the pure  conservative/libertarian lifestyle? He really should put his money where his mouth is before he preaches to others. I have a feeling that if Stevie Spiteful succeeds with this hideous project, Taylor and his compatriots will be the first to bitch & whine when they realize that a credit card will be asked for at the hospital or clinic rather than his OHIP card; that when retirement age comes, there will be no CPP or old age pension; that if he hurts himself on the job, tough luck, Charlie! And so on…

Just came back from Montreal Simon’s post,  Stephen Harper and Daddy Knows Best in response to Lawrence Martin’s latest effort regarding sweater vest Stevie and his backward puritanical wet dreams of how Canada should look in his view.   I agree with Simon, this really isn’t one of Martin’s best efforts, in fact it’s one of his worst I’ve ever read. For one, I have to ask Martin if he’s only figuring this out now?  The evidence has been around for some time now. If Steve, himself ain’t pushing it, then certainly his MPs or cheerleaders have. Cheerleaders like Kory Klan’s pride & Joy, Lorrie Goldstein check Jymn’s comment at the bottom of this post).  I’m surprised Martin hadn’t noticed the pattern with Steve on so many issues.

Tough on crime comes to mind.  Harpercon flunkies attempt to push their big-assed super prisons while crime stats go down. I mean, before ol’ Stock nearly gave himself a nosebleed, coming up with the brainstorm about all that ‘unreported’ crime. Columnists like Goldstein, pundits and MPs were saying that our crime rates were still much higher than those prior to the 60s.

Then there is the appointment of David Johnston, someone who stepped right out of  ”The Man In The Grey Flannel Suit”, a novel and movie starring Gregory Peck.

Not to mention,  blogging Suppositories like FrmGrl (I mean, how much more backward can you get with a title like Chasing Apple Pie?), Hunter, or from those too insane to be a Blogging SupposiTory like Wendy “Girl on the Wrong” Sullivan all longing for days when women and other visible minorities ‘knew their place’ and no one dared to speak against their government.

Yes, many want things the way they were during the era of “Leave it To Beaver” or “Petticoat Junction”. Why is Lawrence Martin only catching on to this now?  More importantly, why would Martin say that the 50s were a ‘better era‘? One almost gets the feeling after reading that column that Martin feels nostalgic longing for the “good ol’ days”; that Steve could easily sell it if he weren’t executing such bullying tactics.

Martin also points out a few inaccuracies: Steve would be the most intrusive government (Bill C-42, airport underwear scans or G20 police State Toronto anyone?) and yes, Stevie spiteful will raise taxes, particularly on the middle/working class; not his rich friends.  At the end of the day, somebody has to pay for his communications, F-35s, G20 costs, pork barrelling, and undoing everything previous governments and generations had built.

Mr. Harper’s priorities bring back images of a 1950s Canada. There’s a big focus on family values, pride in the armed forces, the monarchy, the Arctic, law and order, hockey, unintrusive government, low taxes. The vision is the true north strong and free and – with respect to its supreme ruler – on bended knee.

Martin did, however, confirm something most Canadians already knew though, through a Harpercon flunkie.

I was talking to one of his former close advisers recently and, reflecting the Prime Minister’s view, he launched into a tirade about how good Canada used to be until Pierre Trudeau came along with all that “hippie bullshit.” He spoke of how Mr. Harper was in fact a very old-fashioned type and how he had immense pride in the country. This is hard to square with some of his derisive remarks about the place, but many of those did come while Canada was under Liberal rule.

The above statement also confirms why Steve wanted to be Prime Minister in the first place; to undo all that “damage”  Trudeau, Tommy Douglas (introduction of medicare) and others did to move Canada forward. Things like legalizing homosexuality and the beginnings of legalized abortion. Social programs like universal health care. All those terrible things that tend to get Stevie spiteful’s intestinal tract tied like a pretzel.  We also read and hear of those bitching about how Trudeau spent money on those social programs; just ruined the country; just ruined it, I tell you! Ah, the hypocrisy! They benefit from programs like medicare and other progressive measures Trudeau and other subsequent policians put into place.  As I’ve pointed out on several occasions, unleash Steve with a majority and he will undo all and those Harpercon cheerleaders will be the first to whine and bitch when they’re no longer there for them to access when they need them.

And guess who these con idiots blame this dastardly progress and advance on?  Yes, boys and girls, Quebec; la belle province.  That dastardly Quiet Revolution under the evul Jean Lesage.  Quebec, in Steve’s view, it would seem, started that trend of  turning Canada into the “European welfare state of the worst kind…” Quebec is stopping Steve from bringing Canada back to Maurice Duplessis’s Periode Noirceur. Perhaps Steve is channelling Duplessis these days. Love how Quebec becomes a convenient scapegoat.

What’s happened this past decade is that Quebec has lost its long-time leverage. No one cares much about its priorities now that the separatist blackmail threat, the sword of Damocles, has been removed.

A telling statement, really.  It further confirms that Steve doesn’t care as much to keep Quebec within Canada as much as his predecessors did. I daresay, after reading many comment boards and the blogging SupposiTories, that quite possibly, Steve would boot Quebec out of Canada if given his majority so he can continue pushing  his “Back To The Future” agenda. Yikes!

I agree with Simon, Stevie spiteful is more like the Godfather than “Father Knows Best” or Ward Cleever.  We must get Steve out of office, or at the very least, shrink his minority significantly before we end up in 1950s hell. No, wait! Never mind that; think Depression Era 30s hell or better still, back in the days of dinosaurs, just the way ol’ Stock likes it.  Stevie Spiteful ain’t no right on Daddy-O.

Yes, the latest group to get pissed with ol’ sweater vest Steve is, apparently, the business community.  Businesses, too, rely on the data compiled by StatsCan from the Mandatory long census forms to effectively conduct business. And no, they say, a voluntary form just won’t cut it.

For Ms. Pickard’s clients, and for hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs across Canada, the census is both a direct and indirect source of reliable information, and helps to form a road map for where they want to go. Now, the small and medium-sized businesses who lack the marketing muscle to conduct their own private surveys stand to be among those most affected by the plan to drop the mandatory long-form census.

Alternatives to the census are more costly, more time-consuming and will result in poorer information, says Ms. Pickard, whose firm, Pickard & Laws, is based in Mississauga, Ont. “The picture of life in Canada will be fragmented,” she said. With a voluntary survey, her company “won’t be able to provide the same level of service and quality of information as we’ve been able to do over many years.”

The list of those who want to keep the mandatory long form census is indeed a long one; far longer than those who don’t. Speaking of which, the latter is the usual suspects, you know, Fraser  Institute, Ezzy IrreLevant, Lorne Gunter.  Click the above link for the complete lists.  Of course, they’re not all “special interest” groups as Steve may like to put it.

Well, Steve, Tony…the evangelicals, Jewish groups,  seniors (who do show up to vote for you), economists, who are supposted to be your friends and now businesses want you to keep the census. What will it take for you to relent?

In the Globe & Mail article I linked to earlier, a commenter asks a very interesting question we should all be asking ourselves.  Here’s commenter Trillian Rand @11:52:31AM this morning:

This article would have more impact if our Conservative government was interested in gathering votes from businesspeople and business owners, but it should now be obvious that it is not. Its core lays elsewhere, certainly not in the boardrooms that vote to give funds to Conservative coffers.

Perhaps the single most important and unasked question in making the long form census voluntary is: why? It is obviously not popular and a government as strategically savvy as Mr Harper’s should have seen this before announcing the change. It bothers not only ‘leftie loons’, but many who undoubtedly contribute to the Conservative war chest.

So why? What group has such leverage that it can make Mr Harper do something so outrageous that it endangers a source of income? And, let us not forget, makes one of his ministers look the fool. Who benefits?

The very fact that many on the right, who normally vote and/or even contribute to the Harpercon war chest, are just as displeased with Steve’s decision and stubbornness to not change his mind regarding the banning of the mandatory long form census, is evident that this is about much more than Stephen Taylor’s prophecies of removing the social safety net, as for the most part, much of the right would like to see, at the very least, some of the welfare state trimmed, anyway.  Otherwise, why wouldn’t Steve simply relent and maintain the mandatory long census to appease his own base and attempt to find other hideous ways of stripping the welfare state? Being the master tactician that he is, I’m sure that is mere child’s play for the Master, hisself. And another good question that poster asks; why is it so worth it for Tony Clement to continue to look like an absolute buffoon drives his clown car backwards at every turn?

By the by, the long list of those who want to keep the mandatory long form census  includes Harpercon MP from the riding of Edmonton-Leduc, James Rajotte.  Oh dear, he may have hell to pay for not following Master Steve’s party lines, so anyone who dares to speak against master Steve gets  my attention and respect. I only hope he hasn’t wavered for having the wrath of “gawd” in his face as of late.  I haven’t found any recent news of him one way or the other.  Remember how Fern Hill and JJ were musing about whether or not it is possible for the left and the right  to find common ground and work together on certain issues?  Well, keeping the mandatory long form census issue would definitely qualify. In fact, I would say that it is more important than ever at this point to find a way to work with the right to make Steve relent.  We must also get to the bottom of the truth, because, one thing is certain,  Steve & Tony working this hard and sacrificing their constituents, basically just to scrap the mandatory long census; bet that there are definitely more sinister forces at work here.

Yes,  for not only those on the fence centrists and those who think Steve has left his Reform and NCC thinking behind and  willing to entertain a Sweater vest Steve majority, but also those progressives who are still willing to believe that a few years of a Stevie majority wouldn’t be so terrible or weren’t so willing to believe that Stevie Spiteful would remove all social safety nets if given the kingdom, in spite of  all recorded statements (available here, here and here, to refresh your memory)  he made over the years in his hay day of Reform Party and NCC,  Blogging SupposiTory founder, Stephen Taylor puts all that to rest in the Natty Po last night.

I particularly found the accompanying photo rather sinister with Master Steve and two other cowboy outfit clad fools by a plunger of some kind.   The first thing that came to my mind was when Steve said that we would no longer recognize Canada once he got through with it. Between his stripping of the social safety net and his new war toys as well as the abolition of the mandatory long form census, I can’t help wonder if the pic of Steve and his two stooges hovering over the plunger was of them annihilating Canada and starting their sick Evangelical/libertarian utopic society (remember, much the way the tea bagger hit parade is in the US, it would seem that the new Libertarianism very much includes Christian reconstructionism. I’m sure there is a method to this madness. Perhaps Steve is consulting wingnuts like Sharron Angle). See photo here.

Watch Taylor go all ga ga giddy here:

Indeed in this country, there are two groups of people. In fact, some would call these groups the haves and the have-nots. This is an not inaccurate way of describing it, but those that would might have the two switched. Canadians form two groups: those that receive from the government and those that pay to the government. Those who form — or are constituent to — organizations dependent on government policy (and spending) are firmly against the changes to the census.

Nice.  Cold. Icey.

Let’s go over  Canada without a welfare state, shall we?  It’s pretty obvious to me that many toy with this idea as it is a novelty.

So Taylor is ga ga giddy along with his disciples at the Blogging SupposiTories about having absolutely no welfare state. They must be all having a collective orgasm over this.

I would like to know if Stephen Taylor still uses his OHIP card to see the doctor? There are private clinics he can use and pay with his credit card in his area if he bothered to look.  If he has kids, did his wife benefit from maternity leave? If she doesn’t work; did he benefit from any kind of parental leave?  Do his parents (or grandparents if they’re still alive) receive CPP or the old age pension? If they were war vets; do they receive veterans services? Has he ever filed a claim with workman’s compensation for getting hurt or sick on the job? Do his kids go to public school?

I know I probably sounded like census long form in this battery of questions, but these questions are, naturally, rhetorical and naturally, I’m not expecting Taylor or any of his Disciples to come answer these questions in my comments section or my email. I had already asked many of them these questions on various occasions at their blogs and they have mastered the fine art of evasion and if they don’t, they ban me, which is their right; their sites. I simply want to point out their own hypocrisy; that they would more than likely be the first ones to shriek and pass out whenever they would need to access a program, and let’s face it, all of us sooner or later have, do or would need to access a government service at least a few times in their lifetimes, when they realize there are no social safety nets left. The proof is in their non responsiveness to questions like ‘why don’ t you cut up your gov’t health insurance card and use the private facilities’? And they would soon realize that watching the evul lefties suffer wouldn’t be worth their own sufferings.

The point is, Taylor’s above argument is flawed simply because between those two groups Taylor mentions; those that pay to the government and those that receive from the government is that most if not all Canadians have switched from one group to the other all their lives or they’re in both camps.

Many seniors who do tend to vote  Harpercon for law and order stuff are already turned off at the banning of the long form census. I would venture to guess that they would be even more turned off at the very idea of their CPP and their old age pension as well as their other programs being stripped from them.

I know that veterans are not going to like having their programs taken away after fighting for their countries. Oh yeah! Remember that ol’ Harpercon mantra of “Support the Troops!”?  Here is how Steve wishes to repay them.

Yes, Taylor has finally confirmed to/reminded us  in black and white  what we already knew about Stevie Spiteful’s not so hidden agenda. The real reason why Sweater vest Steve is so adament about scrapping the long form census:

If Stephen Harper succeeds in moving in this direction, he will be in the initial stages of dealing a huge blow to the welfare state.

Opposition parties, I hope you’re taking notes; all of you! Because Taylor’s column convinces me more than ever that Stevie  Spiteful will use the census as a confidence motion come the fall to have his election.  If we go to an election on this one, given how many more groups and individuals; including Stevie’s constituents like Jewish & Evangelical groups as well as all the seniors’ groups (remember, most seniors tend to vote con; but they also like to keep their pensions, medicare; they can’t afford memberships at places like MedCan or Copeman;  and of course their other programs and won’t vote for a gov’t that will take them away) as well as so many others; I would say that the best Stevie spiteful could hope for is a reduced minority where he would need the support of two or more parties to get anything done instead of just one.  That, already, would be significantly clipping Steve’s wings.

And opposition, remember, if  Steve lays out that old jail trap again, don’t get spooked by it;  either face it with some humour and throw their insipid tough on crime bills in their faces or simply remind Canadians that the short form would still be mandatory and there would still be hefty fines and/or jail time associated with that.  As for those shrieking tea-baggers, the opposition should remind them that the removal of our social safety net would be a far more dire consequence than jail time or a fine for non-compliance.  It also bares reminding those same tea-baggers that they voluntarily surrender more intimate detailed personal info on their facebook, twitter, blogs and other social networking sites than they ever did on a census long form.

The Jurist and Greg are  right: Stephen Taylor just handed you, opposition, the beginnings of a gift; I suggest you take it and run with it.

What is with that magic year 1962 when it comes to comparing crime statistics in Canada? Better still, what is with this longing for the so-called ‘good ol’ days’?  I mean, with anything; be it crime rates; be it women’s issues; gay rights; immigration; etc.

Oh someone is sucking up to his new boss these days.  And Goldstein ain’t alone.  Apparently, it is now in vogue, among other things for wingnut columnists to write about how Canada is a dangerous place to be and how Canadians are just very bad people.  And they are all a comin’ out a swingin’ for Master Steve’s very expensive tough on Crime bills. And they all like to play amateur statistician to boot.  The rancid Dr jabba the Roy has so proudly compiled a few of them today. However, Lorrie Goldstein had to have come up with THE dumbest conclusion and comparison at the end of his already abysmal column. Besides, he’s long overdue for one of my bitch slapping rants.

Well, lowering crime rates are probably one aspect as to why Sweater vest Steve has zero respect for Statistics Canada. And these wingnut columnists playing amateur statistician with their confusing math as to raise the blood pressure of any math teacher must be oh so pleasing to the master.  Yet, they seem to enjoy harping on one common thread; our crime rates are still oh so much higher than they were in 1962. Ok, let’s look at this, shall we?

Since 1962, unwed women and girls, and only them were blamed for unwanted pregnancies no matter the circumstances; whether the sex that resulted in these pregnancies was consensual or not. The man/boy never ever shouldered the blame or very little of it.  Especially in the case of girls and young college aged women, they were whisked off to special homes for unwed mothers, generally convents, where they were forced to have their babies and put them up for adoption in a hush hush manner, while their families back home can pretend all was right in their world; that their daughters were simply away at college or visiting relatives across the country while they still kept up with the Jones’s. We have evolved since then. Pre-marital sex is no longer the taboo it once was.

Many of those pregnancies were also the result of rape and/or incest. Again, the victims were blamed; a very high stigma attached. No one, but no one reported those crimes. It didn’t mean they didn’t happen more or less. In fact, we hear more of adult survivors reporting their suffering either at the hands of their family members, clergy, teachers, aboriginals who had survived the horrors of  residential schools, etc.

I really don’t have to bring up abortion in 1962. Back alley flop houses done by non-medically trained crooks with unsanitary tools in filthy conditions.  Or old wives abortion methods such as knitting needles and wire hangers.

What about the men? Boys were raised at that time (many still are) that they didn’t cry and that they were to be tough; to be a man and fight back. Reporting a crime such as a mugging would certainly have gone against their male pride.

What about other crimes?  Surely being the victim of other crimes prior to 1962 must have had a stigma attached to them, thus preventing them from reporting them.

So, when I read the dumb argument from idiots like Goldstein saying the reason for the crime rates in Canada going down is that fewer people are reporting them, wouldn’t it stand to reason that perhaps many didn’t report crimes prior to 1962?

And what is the deal with these cons longing for the good ol’ days? And I’m not talking only about crime rates neither.

Our new Governor General is someone who stepped out of the era of “The Man in The Grey Flannel Suit”

We have columnists like Babs Kay who devotes her columns to lamenting the invention of  Birth Control and the sexual revolution and in an effort to spread her own misery, tries to force down the throats that not only was the sexual revolution and legalized abortions are immoral, but continues to try in vain to continue to convince readers that they too should be unhappy about this and feebly attempt her readers into longing for the good ol’ days’.

Back in the ‘good ol’ days, women weren’t on the work force as much and the fields of work women took on were more limited as were their post secondary education opportunities.  I remember Diane Finley making some offensive statement awhile back basically saying that two income households were not a necessity but a choice. I remember thinking that she was hinting at wishing for more to stay home.

Those are just some major differences between prior to 1962 and 2010. I didn’t touch on evolving technology.

My point is that in comparing crime statistics or anything else to 1962 or prior to that against today is comparing apples and oranges. The results would be flawed, no matter how hard they try as they might to skew it in their favour.

Back to Goldstein’s idiotic argument in favour of Master Steve’s tax payer paid big-assed prisons. It is a goody, indeed:

…the knee-jerk argument from the hug-a-thug crowd that a (slightly) lower annual crime rate automatically means we don’t need as many police or prisons, is akin to arguing a lower mortality rate automatically means we don’t need as many doctors or hospitals.

In other words, it’s painfully simplistic and dumb.

No, Lorrie, you’re painfully simplistic and dumb-assed. I have one word to respond to that idiotic quote: Huh?

Of course we need more doctors and hospitals because they are needed to heal the sick so people could live longer.  Doctors (in principle, anyway) not only treat the illness and the patient, but they do much research in an effort to find out what causes these illnesses as to be better able to prevent them in the future in addition to finding cures for them. If doctors can successfully prevent more illnesses, then maybe eventually, they would need fewer hospitals.

The same goes for crime.  Look at crime as a sickness. Try to find the causes so as to better prevent them to begin with.  We know of some of the obvious culprits; poverty and unemployment.  Why don’t we try to find the causes of poverty and unemployment (well, I think most of us know that too, but you get the idea) and try to fix that? Create jobs. Create better training programs. Find ways of getting to those who are most vulnerable to slipping through the cracks and offer programs to help them get on their feet like vocational training.  Educational programs for children at risk.  And yes, better community relations between law enforcement and its’ inhabitants because right now, especially in more impoverished neighbourhoods, distrust is strong.  These ideas are just crazy enough to actually work! If we were to implement just half of these ideas, then I think we would see crime rates slide even faster and there really wouldn’t be any need for those big-assed prisons; not that there was any need to begin with.

But of course, this is Stevie Spiteful, Vic Toews, the Colonel Sanders look-a-like and their wingnutty columnists like Lorrie Goldstein who for whatever reason, seem to get their kicks from watching people suffer, while their fat cat ‘friends’ continue to get fatter.

Also, let’s not forget, these are people that, if they had their way, we would go far back in time, using Maurice Duplessis’s Periode Noirceur as a model for their utopic Canada.  No, never mind that,  Duplessis was probably too liberal for them.

Well, Iggy,  not only does ol’ sweater vest Steve not smell quite right; well, actually he smells exactly right; far far right; but, we all know what I mean; nothing else around him does neither. Particularly that whole G20 debacle. 

There is someting else weird about this whole Canada’s most wanted thing.  What is the banking industry doing with facial recognition software instead of law enforcement? Go and read more at Pogge’s.

Furthermore, Canadian Civil Liberties Association says it is untested.

“The concern of Canadian Civil Liberties Association is the lack of experience of the judicial system with facial recognition software and the danger of many people being arrested based on a technology that has not been fully explored and tested in our legal system,” said CCLA general counsel Nathalie Des Rosiers.

Yes, I would say we’re guinea pigs in some other sick experiment.

We are watching a vast experiment. It has many tentacles. This is one of them.

I know I sound deranged, and I’m sorry to sound deranged, but really, there’s too much evidence around that the “authorities” simply refuse to address.

No Skdadl, you ain’t deranged. You do well to be concerned. Everyone should be. In fact, I would question the sanity of those who weren’t. Folks, what will it take before you get it!  We can no longer afford to not question authority!

But…but…capitalism is just so fabulous, ain’t it? 

General Augusto Pinochet murdered in the name of free markets. How far is sweater vest Steve willing to go? Perhaps Iggy didn’t mean to compare Steve to satan, but I sure do.

Again, if you’re in the Montreal area Saturday afternoon, please attend the demonstration at 13:00 at Philips Square. We’re still demanding a proper inquiry into what really happened (not some kangaroo court) at g20; we’re asking that the charges be dropped and that the remaining 13 detainees be freed.

Because we’re just running around in circles over this whole Black Bloc business.

The Reverend Paperboy’s last piece over at The Woodshed and The Galloping Beaver is the last such piece I came across. The first thing that came to my mind was; even if he were a sympathizer who condoned such behavior, he owes no one an explanation. It certainly wouldn’t change who he was or what he stood for in life. It’s not the first time I’m reading such pieces and tweets over on Twitter, and frankly, with some of them (not all), I get more the impression some are trying too hard to feign indignation (to be clear; I believe Rev Paperboy is sincere; I just don’t think he owes anyone an explanation; ). A tip? Sometimes the harder you try, the less you convince. They’re (Harpercon cheerleaders, mainly) only attempting to deflect from the real, more serious issues at hand. Nothing more; nothing less.

Commenter Fillibluster gives a good argument over at The Galloping Beaver:

I don’t really see why it’s so necessary to offer disclaimers about condemning vandalism — in a normal world that would go without saying. But in this Kaftkaesque world we live in now, we already anticipate accusations that if you don’t condemn them, then you support them, which the same utter bullshit Blair used when he accused perfectly peaceful people of harbouring criminals.

We’re tripping all over ourselves, refuting accusations of either being sympathizers of the Black Bloc, being a part of them or simply condoning them. It’ time to put a stop to it. It’s a colossal waste of time, and let’s face it, they did suit the agenda for many. No, I will not really be dwelling on the Agent provocateur angle too much with this post; nor will I really dwell too much with how they (Black Bloc) may or may not have fulfilled the Harpercon agenda.

I’m about to piss off many on the left again, but, the truth hurts don’t it? But it must be faced if we expect to get anywhere.

Let’s put the question this way; what if there were no Black Bloc or any equivalent group of them for that matter?  What if all the protesters were on the Sunday behavior; all week-end long ?   Fact is, we’ll probably never know; but, I think if we’re honest with ourselves, we can make an educated guess. So let’s play pretend for a few moments, for the sake of this post, shall we?

Let’s rewind to the Friday afternoon when the eight ‘wise men’ were off to the real Muskoka by the real lake, shall we?  Below is a video from Montreal Simon;  watch the parts with the protesters, if you will.  Go here to read his accompanying post; before there was even any hint of Black Blocs or anarchists of any kind.

Simon took creative license with regards to the end of his video, but admits in his post that all ended well that day. Only about 2000 protesters showed up that Friday and appeared to be fewer in numbers than police in riot gear. Anyone seeing that in pictures or youtube videos (only place, pretty much to catch Friday afternoon, June 25  protest action; cause let’s face it, not too many tv cameras from the corporate media would have picked it up for their 6;00 or other news programs; it’s not sensational enough; might have picked it up for a slight guffaw; but nothing more; the corporate newspapers, nor News/talk radio would really have touched it; just wasn’t sexy enough).

Now, imagine that mood continued all week-end with no incident or precious little incident? Many on the left argue that that would have been the most effective way to get their voices out. Really? It’s a start and only because of social media.  About 20 years ago; even 10 years ago; highly unlikely. You and your organization would be lucky if you had a small blurb in on any page subsequent to front page of the newspaper or a blurb near the end of the 6 o’clock news.  Again, just not sexy enough for corporate media. Certainly not enough to take precedence over taking pictures of Steve and his merry band of G8/G20 thieves. It’s a sad reality, but most realities are and must be faced, unless, somebody, somehow managed to get over a fence and into the summit, but again, that would have required some sort of violent act.

Case in point;  the Cross country CAPP rallies last January. Everyone was on their best behavior. To my knowledge, while all of the venues would have had police presence, none would have been in riot gear. In fact, in Montreal, they never even left their police cars. All took place without or very little incident.  The rallies proved to be a lot of fun. It brought a lot of folks together. We got the musical stylings of the Raging Grannies.  They also got little press coverage except to discredit the movement for being a hyper partisan Harper hating fest with very low turn out; nothing more, sadly.

Just yesterday, at the Facebook group,  many were lamenting over the lack of media coverage at the lack of press coverage at their respective protests. Montreal had coverage, but there were a few minor skirmishes as well (no property damage, but there was someone from a father’s rights group who was thrown out of the march as well as an agent provocateur asking too many questions).

Commenter Croghan27 over a The Woodshed put it best:

I am not so quick to condemn the Black Bloc members.

I can see without them a very condescending pat on the head for the well behaved protesters – who are then studiously ignored.

“Now that you have done your protest thing, we can get back to the important matters at hand.”

Yes, it does show a certain incompetence on the part of police – they knew something like that would happen and they either allowed it or could not handle the reality of it – but I think what they did is important.

It does distract the MSM into reporting on the (when all is said and done) the trivial actions of a few and ignore the more profound violence being done to people by the G20 leaders – but that would happen anyway.

Indeed.

Most of the protesters were indeed well behaved; most wouldn’t go destroy property because they know better. We’re basically law abiding citizens.  What would be the most honest wish of a protester  before going out? I think it’s that while we will most certainly behave within the limits of the law (because, contrary to what most think, most of us actually do have jobs and families to think of before breaking the law). However, I don’t think everyone is as disgusted with some ruffians damaging property as they would like the rest of the world to believe. Does it make us bad people. I don’t think so. It makes us human.

Instead of putting our energies into blaming the Black Bloc for everything and tying ourselves into knots denouncing them, whether some or all of them turn out to be agents provocateurs for the police, McGuinty and/or Harpercons or all of the above;  ask what happened with the police. Why did they not nip this miscreant activity in the bud? This story, from  a Conservative paper, no less.

Every Canadian Tax payer should ask why their Billion plus dollars of tax money bought police corruption  instead of protection.

Because, who were the Toronto police protecting anyway? Not the inside of the G20 summit; that was guarded by the RCMP. The world leaders themselves? They all travel with their own security detail. I’m sure these security details even taste their food for them. Hell, I don’t think Obama goes to the washroom without the secret service far behind.  No, those leaders were safe.

The truth is The Black Bloc turned out to be everyone’s best friend and worst enemy at the same time that fateful Saturday afternoon.