Sister Sage's Musings

Posts Tagged ‘neo-cons’

I don’t live in Toronto and this shouldn’t concern me all that much. However, my entire family does live there,  and I’m concerned about how life for them in that city would be, particularly with a wingnut like Rob Ford.  What I find absolutely mind boggling is how does a supposedly progressive city like Toronto even entertain the idea of voting this cantankerous evil twin of the Pilsbury Doughboy?  If any of  my Toronto readers from the Prog bloggers care to shed some light on this one, please do so…I’m at a loss here. I asked my mom why. She hasn’t a clue neither, nor do my brother or his girlfriend for that matter.  Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Cut the waste at city hall. Seems to appeal to so many.

So, let’s check the appeal of Rob Ford, shall we? Fern Hill has done the heavy lifting and compiled a rather impressive resume of the esteemed Mr. Rob Ford.

Rob Ford on AIDS prevention…

“(AIDS) is very preventable, if you are not doing needles and you are not gay, you wouldn’t get AIDS probably, that’s bottom line.” With respect to the increasing rates of women contracting the disease, Ford said; “How are women getting it? Maybe they are sleeping with bisexual men.”

Rob Ford on bike lanes…

“I can’t support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”

Rob Ford on why oriental people are taking over…

“Those Oriental people work like dogs. They work their hearts out. They are workers non-stop. They sleep beside their machines. That’s why they’re successful in life. I went to Seoul, South Korea, I went to Taipei, Taiwan. I went to Tokyo, Japan. That’s why these people are so hard workers (sic). I’m telling you, the Oriental people, they’re slowly taking over.”

Rob Ford on G20 summit police brutality…

“I think the police were too nice. I would have had a zero tolerance approach.”

Don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to see what Rob Ford considers an adequate amount of police brutality.

Some more choice ‘colourful’ comments from an excellent round-up at the Globe:

April 17, 2002: During a council debate on whether there should be homeless shelters across the city, rather than only downtown, Mr. Ford says: “This is an insult to my constituents to even think about having a homeless shelter in their ward. And you want me to have a public meeting to discuss this? Why don’t we have a public lynching?”

(There’s video at the link.)

Yesterday, he called himself a ‘family man’ in a apparent swipe at married-with-child-but-gay George Smitherman.

Yeah, he’s a family man all right (from Globe link).

March 26, 2008: After Mr. Ford’s wife, Renata, calls police to their home, Mr. Ford is arrested and charged with assaulting her and uttering a death threat. A month later, prosecutors drop the charges because inconsistencies in Ms. Ford’s accounts make a conviction unlikely. “It’s the happiest time in my life when my family’s all together. … That’s all I wanted from the very beginning and that’s what I have now,” Mr. Ford tells reporters.

He also has truthiness and anger issues (Globe again):

April 15, 2006: Security guards remove a drunken and belligerent Mr. Ford from a Maple Leafs game after he shouts insults at an out-of-town couple. The attacks began after the man asks Mr. Ford to be quiet. Mr. Ford responds: “Who the fuck do you think you are? Are you a fucking teacher?” Failing to get a response, he turns his attention to the man’s wife: “Do you want your little wife to go over to Iran and get raped and shot?” The couple realizes the angry man’s identity after Mr. Ford leaves behind a business card. When reporters confront Mr. Ford with the couple’s complaint, he denies being at the hockey game. A day later, he comes clean, saying he lied because he felt “embarrassed and humiliated.” He also says: “I had one too many beers and I sincerely apologize.” Mr. Ford later e-mails the couple an apology, writing: “My complete lack of manners were unprofessional, immature, and do not in any way reflect my usual behaviour in public.”

Ford very recently also called for a cap on new immigrants in Toronto.

Ain’t he charming? After reading that and listening to my family after having visited them a few weeks ago, I have to cringe every time I hear or read about how Super Ford will just clean up that wasteful spending. Why do I get the feeling that in the wonderful world according to Rob Ford that the city of Toronto and its’ inhabitants are a waste? In fact, like Steve hates Canada, and handles it by ignoring facts to change it to his whims; Ford seems to hate Toronto to the point he wants to change it with total disregard for facts and realities.

All this Toronto municipal election talk is bringing me back to the Montreal municipal election campaign in November of last year with the rather odd assortment of candidates running. Let’s take a trip down memory lane, shall we? Trust me, after the depressing stories of Rob Ford and the abysmal candidates running against him in Toronto, I think you may find amusement in last year’s Montreal’s municipal campaign.

We have Louise Harel, a separatist who was instrumental in that whole forced  merger of Montreal debacle and will more than likely cut services. Her former right hand man, Benoit Labonte was caught lying about his relationship with a business man who was awarded some municipal contracts. He resigned in disgrace. He later told Radio-Canada that City Hall was run like the Mafia.

She claims she will ‘broom’ city-hall. All well and good, but as I mentioned above, she doesn’t have clean hands.

Next:

Our incumbent, Gerald Tremblay, mired in so much scandal who said he would raise property taxes come January in order to maintain services. The highlight  of  Maclean’s the past week:
“Montreal is a corrupt, crumbling, Mob-ridden disgrace.”

And, I’ve saved the best for last. The third place candidate, Richard Bergeron.

Enter our third candidate and would probably be the most fun: Richard Bergeron, a quirky sort and an Islam convert who had all kinds of conspiracy theories like George W Bush and 9/11:

“…terrorists might not have been behind 9/11. He said “two of the four crashes are particularly suspicious. Photos of the Pentagon and Pennsylvania crash sites never show debris of downed planes, he said. He speculated the Bush administration carried out the attacks as an “act of state banditry of titanic proportions” – that is, it used them as a pretext for invading Iraq and controlling its oil reserves.”


Here is how he justifies his smoking to La Presse: he smokes to stay healthy because, he said, it reduces his lung capacity and keeps him from injuring himself when he runs marathons too fast.

Read full details here.

You know something?  The unhappy (or happy; depending how you look at it) dysfunctional family that is Montreal City Hall suddenly look very sane to me. I am so appreciative of our scandal-ridden mayor with our construction contractors and their alleged ties to organized crime (unreported of course; watch Super Vic’s mustache turn up to a handle bar now) nowadays with his merry band of councillors and borough mayors, as well as the colourful opposition.

Mom, Dad, if Ford the bad fat assed wingnut becomes the next mayor of Toronto, come back home to Montreal where my extended dysfunctional family from city hall and I will give you a warm welcome.

Tasha Kheiridin’s columns as of late really shows her off to be a wannabe, using terms that no longer exist, like small c conservative. No such thing anymore.  And no Tasha, the Harpercons are not right of center; they’re to the far right.  Right of center would have been the Progressive conservatives of days past such as lyin’ Brian Mulroney or Joe Who? Clark, and they look like rabid Marxists next to Stevie spiteful.

 Dear Tasha, why do you misrepresent yourself in many of your columns where you claim to be a small-c conservative. Especially after one gets to know your politics and values through reading your politics. Like many of the Harpercon cheerleaders, you are a Big, Hard C con like the rest of them.  But, she is not alone. How many short bios of Harpercon cheerleaders and Blogging SupposiTories who call themselves small-c conservatives, yet they come off as some of the biggest tea-bagger types ever.  Tasha may not be that tea-bagg-ish, but she’s certainly getting there, especially when she implies that Iggy could be capable of shaking babies, when expressing indignance over Iggy’s sulphur remark when he chastised her “dreamy” Steve. It’s ok for her colleagues to burn him with the voters and the media though.

Gawd. I mean, clearly, you’re against gun control and stand up for those too stupid and /or too lazy to fill out a simple form to register a weapon, real tea-baggy of you!  More evidence of  the neo-con movement which includes ignorance.  Sounds like tales from the NRA. Sarah Palin would be proud!

She now despairs, though, as Steve is planning some pork barrelling in Miramichi in order to make up for some of the lost jobs should Mullet-head Hoeppner’s little anti-gun control bill pass. Come to think of it, Tasha has a mullet too. What is it with these neo-cons and mullets? Anyway,  Stevie is pretty cocky there, putting the cart before the horse.  I understand that NDP Joe Comartin is at work trying to get the caucus to vote against the bill, although still no word on whether or not Jack Layton will be whipping his caucus into voting against it. Iggy is still planning to whip his caucus.  It may well not go through; bye-bye Mullet heads!

You push for the Americanization of health care; complete with discriminating practises based on socio-economic class and pre-existing conditions.  Wealth care for billionaires. Yessirreee Bob! Just one question I ask of all Canadians who advocate the Americanization of health care here in Canada. Have you burned your OHIP card? Like the tea-bagger hit parade, you whine about Canadians not having any choice regarding health care. Living in the GTA, you’ve got the Cleveland clinic and MedCan; two private for profit clinics with hefty membership fees to boot.  Are you a member, Tasha? Such clinics exist across Canada, legally, under the nose of the federal government.  Facts that punch holes in your little article, dear. Hell, I even did your homework for you. That’s how charitable some of us lefties are.  So, you gonna put your money where your mouth is and take the scissors to your OHIP card and start using the private for profit?

One of her latest efforts? And it’s a doozy, indeedy.   Bigotted, bloated, cantankerous, wingnutty Toronto mayoral candidate, Rob Ford is now likened to super hero status to this columnist. Yes, boys ‘n’ girls, dear Tasha’s latest, she compares the bloated pasty white Pilsbury doughboy’s evil twin to Barak Obama.  Think about this, kids,  This bigotted, evil tempered, uncompassionate, destructive, pompous ass is being compared to Barak Obama! Go read Fern Hill for  a complete synopsis of  who Tasha’s latest crush appears to be.  This clown’s idea of ‘cutting the waste’ is essentially destroying Toronto.  Like Canada, the way it is, is a waste on Stevie spiteful; Toronto, as it is now, for  Redneck Rob Ford, is a waste, period!

Moving right along.

Yes, Tasha, you’re  a Hard, capital C. A wannabe member of tea-bagger north; with zero compassion for your fellow man and probably couldn’t write for any other paper besides, perhaps Kory Klan papers.  You may bitch about sweater vest Steve’s acts in your columns, but, at the end of the day, we know you’ll still vote for him and come election time, which I hope is sooner, rather than later, you’ll probably be telling your readers to vote for dreamy Steve.

By the by,  the former small-c conservatives are now Blue grits who reluctantly vote liberal as they haven’t the stomach for Stevie spiteful and realize that Progressive Conservative Party they once supported are now extinct.  Hence, one of the main reasons why the mythical coalition Stevie spiteful is still milking, will never happen or work. While Blue grits (former red tories/small c)  may advocate for fiscal conservatism and capitalist enthusiasts, they still have a sense of  humanity to them. Tasha, you obviously, much like the shrieking tea-baggers, do not.

From Dave at The Galloping Beaver:

Dimitri Soudas

is a coward.

He is a chickenshit, cowering piece of quivering liver. He cries for his mother when things don’t go his way.

He is a conservative.

He let’s other people fight his battles.

We have put the defence and the security of this country in the hands of the likes of him. Isn’t that reassuring?

Look what a piece of cowardly crap your vote got you.

Want a piece of me Dimitri? No problem, you cowardly turd. Single combat. Look it up.

They’re all that evil. Brother Steve, every Harpercon and their cheerleaders. There is nothing remotely redeemable about them.   A culture of greed.   Greed is supposed to lead to where?

They also seem to immensely enjoy to see much suffering.  When they sound happy, I have to wonder which poor family lost their child or pet or both, or which one of their elder relatives got shoved into a nursing home, suffering elder abuse.

Yes, they’re indeed dumb when we hear comments of eliminating the opposition permanently, or whining about Liberals not including Harpercons in their future plans or how about let’s fry Graham James but forgive the pedophile priests, and yes, even protect them from our judicial system at all costs. Priests get different rules from civilians.

Harpercon doctors witholding services until our health care system is good and Americanized. Who knew the hippocratic oath meant only heal the elite? Wealth care for billionaires and cause even more harm to the rest of the mere mortals. That ‘mature’ discussion about health care really means for the poor and not so healthy to suffer and go without so that the rich can get Hilton hotel styled care, simply because they’re rich.

A society that only worships rich people for being rich. What the hell did they ever accomplish besides that? Poorer folks more often than not, work much harder than the rich.

A growing society that worships money and Christian evangelicals. Contrary to popular belief, they do go hand and hand: one only needs to look at the PTL,  Jerry Falwell, and Billy Graham ministries.

Yet, oddly, they don’t get the entire blame for what’s happening these days. I blame us (progressives/left of center) mostly for allowing such evil to grow and fester.  No, not the political parties, but us, mere mortal civilians.  We don’t stand as one. We’re not unified.  The Harpercons and their cheerleaders are in complete lock step with each other.  Many have actually sacrificed some of their individual principles to be in lock step with them (ie: if they’re pro-choice, they’re going to fight the fetus fetish cause: if they’re Atheist; they will embrace Christian evangelical subculture), and will continue to do so.

Maybe it’s time for us to start compromising certain things on our wish lists in order to prevent a Harpercon majority. Sorry, but waiting for that party leader to jump through hoops on some white horse to save the day from Harpercon just ain’t happening.

It is up to us to prevent this.

Someone mentioned that it didn’t make sense for 30% representing the evangelicals and such to represent the actual majority. Well, I beg to differ here, if we continue to not vote or vote for fringe parties such as the Greens and yes, even ballot spoiling, we are part of the problem; not the solution. All of that helps Steve’s cause. That’s why he loves the Greens and other fringe parties; they never get seats, but get enough votes to keep him in power .

Here are the two choices: the status quo with all our divisiveness and utopic wish lists like parliamentary reform or parties with no coporate backing being held fast which gets us nowhere  or we just get together with a common goal; to prevent Harpercon majority and if possible, even unseat him and we do anything to achieve that end; even if it’s to vote Liberal while we hold our noses, if need be. That is the only way to fend off a Harpercon majority.

Yes, this is about picking the lesser of the two evils; no such thing as an ideal political party or leader.  Not when we allow corporations to own  campaigns.

Iggy is not going anywhere.  So he doesn’t perform carnaval tricks. And bitching about him isn’t going to get him out.  Are we really willing to entertain a Harpercon majority simply due to hatred for Iggy or making sure they pay for that choice in leader?

Any amount of pundits or bloggers sticking our 2 cents in, discussing coalition or no coalition and/or who would be a great leader for Liberal party is all academic.

But, I’m realistic enough to know that will never happen and that is why  Steve’s chances of a majority continue to grow.

Otherwise, we allow such evil to run our lives and we have only ourselves to blame.

Dave’s quote above applied to Dmitri Soudas, but really, we could insert any name of any Harpercon or their cheerleader or blogging tory. The exact same would apply.

Speaking of evil, irredeemable neo-cons:  still waiting for my subpoena….c’mon, tough guy(s)! Get your  big Daddy’s money and sue the working class bitch. C’mon! Ya know ya wanna!

Ok, Ex-Lax Max, are you done trying to suck up to Steve to get back into cabinet? Or are you planning to take his job?  You both suck equally.  

Since you don’t allow me to comment on your blog, I will do it here. What kind of verbal diarrhea was that? And how are corporate tax breaks supposed to help society?  What Max really means, like any good Connie mantra is that the rich should get richer and the poor should be well, stomped on. 

Ex-Lax Max, please allow progressive blogger Bill Longstaff explain why your ideas are stupid and are not helpful for the working class.  Clearly, as Mr. Longstaff points out, smaller government doesn’t mean power to the people.

However, reducing the size of government, which according to the poll is the tea partiers major goal, will not solve their problem. It won’t reduce the influence of the plutocrats. Indeed, it will probably increase it. When power is taken away from government, unfortunately it doesn’t always equitably redistribute itself among the citizenry. If it did, even socialists might support downsizing government. What tends to happen is something quite different. For example, when successive American governments reduced their power over the financial industry, with less regulation and weaker regulators, that power did not seep out into the general public. To the contrary, it was absorbed by those best-situated to grab it — the bankers and financiers. And with diminished government oversight, they exploited and trashed the system.

Bill was writing more for the tea-baggers state side, but what he says can be applied to Canadian politics as well, since politicians like Steve, Jimbo Flaherty and Ex-Lax Max are more and more like GW Bush Americana everyday and getting the Timmy’s crowd in an uproar. Read Mr. Longstaff’s post, it will be worth your while.

Oh and Max, did you try my challenge? Did you ask Steve for that nomination in a coveted Alberta riding you would so desire? If so, what was his reaction?

When the scandals broke out yet again about priests sexually abusing childen and subsequent cover ups by Catholic Church officials, my mother mused, wondering if my maternal grandmother were still alive, what would she have thought of those scandals? How would she have handled them? I never answered, that is, until now.

My maternal grandmother was a devout Catholic who strictly adhered to Catholic church doctrine. She went to church every Sunday, she was a member of the ladies’ auxiliary, she sent my mom to an all girls  parochial school,  she didn’t serve meat on Fridays, she never even thought of even looking at another man  following the death of my grandfather.  She was  from that old generation where they believed the teachings of the Catholic church were never to be deviated from and they never questioned it.  To them, people who didn’t follow church doctrine well…as such, they lived in denial, that is, until the baby boomers came along; my mom’s generation.  Leading that kind of submissive life also put them in a permanent state of denial.

So, to answer my mother’s question, my grandmother would never want to hear about those children being abused at the hands of priests and nuns. I seriously doubt she even spoke of the children of Duplessis during the grande noirceur. She would be in denial of the situation.

My grandmother, of course, back then, would have been in denial over illegal abortions; do it yourself knitting needle, wire hanger specials.  Non-professional vultures too lazy to get real jobs  performing abortions with unsterilized equipment in flop houses in back alleys most gangsters would be scared to show their faces. Desperation is a concept many of those too wrapped up  in their own religious beliefs wouldn’t understand.

It appears that Cardinal Marc Ouellette’s latest comments about the need to recriminalize abortion including to those who were victims of rape and incest:

There is always the scene from the first part of the three vignette movie, “If These Walls Can Talk” featuring Demi Moore as a widow and a nurse who had an affair and got pregnant and was desperate for an abortion in 1952. She ended up paying 400$ of hard earned (or borrowed) cash to pay some non-medical ass-hole to perform the procedure on her kitchen table with non-sterilized instruments. We see her humped in a corner in the kitchen in her own pool of blood. I’m sure that vignette was based on a combination of horror stories living in that time period. I was reminded again of that vignette when I came across this blog from an American grandmother on Twitter last night.

It’s a story of this woman went and had an illegal abortion performed by a very courageous doctor who ended up paying for it with his license to practice medicine. I think it’s fair to say that, compared to what Demi Moore’s character went through in “If These Walls Can Talk”, this grandmother was one of the lucky ones. Click on the above link; it is a must read.

The year was 1962. This was just before the birth control pill was widely available, and of course, as since time began, women got pregnant who didn’t want to be. I was a sophomore in college, the first one in my in my family to ever go to college. Being pregnant would have been a huge embarrassment. The other alternatives of keeping the baby and getting married, or giving the baby up for adoption did not appeal to me in the least.

We tried all the old wives tales remedies first; drinking quinine, going horseback riding, taking hot baths. It was not easy to find a doctor to perform an abortion. The heat was on in New York and most doctors were refraining from doing them. We had a list, passed around from college girls, but we got many doors slammed in our faces until we got to Dr. Levy.

Surely, she was not alone. There were many other stories that led to the victory of Roe v Wade. Many of those same stories led to legalized abortion here in Canada. Stories like this must be brought to the forefront as in both the U.S. and in Canada with the help of conservative media (hello, Brian Lilley), of course are pushing for all out regression. Yes, while they all cry out for ‘freedom’, they also cry to take away the freedom of women to choose.

When I hear stories of insipid bills being passed in various U.S. states in an attempt to circumvent Roe v Wade, or equally useless bill proposals like that of Rod Bruinooge,  like many men and women, I get scared.  One of the reasons is that these bills won’t cut back on abortions, but  rather, we will see the desperate actions that do nothing but endanger many lives.  When we hear of  moves to criminalize abortion like the so-called ‘good ol’ days’, we should perhaps remember stories like that of the above blogger or the vignette in “If These Walls Can Talk”.

A very famous Canadian politician (I don’t want to use this name because that would sound like bragging) once told me he never more than glanced at the news media. (Okay. It was Pierre Trudeau.)

I thought it was because he didn’t trust them. And that would be reasonable because the news media lie constantly, and they simply don’t report what their bosses don’t want reported. For example, when a Baltimore paper discovered about 1980 that the US army had a torture manual, and had been issuing it for years, nobody picked up the story. On March 10, 1999, President Clinton publicly apologized for American government involvement in the murder of over 200,000 Guatemala native people. The apology only made page twelve in the New York Times. Almost all other media in North America completely ignored it. But that wasn’t Trudeau’s reason for ignoring the media.

It was because he had a pretty solid knowledge from observation and from history of how people and governments behave. Once you have that, you can understand the day’s news with nothing more than a quick glance.

You want to know what’s going on in Afghanistan? Forget the news. Go to Youtube and search for the video clip on Singapore, 1942. That was the place and the time that marked the end of the Western Empire. It marked it as clearly as the sacking of Rome in 410 marked the end of another empire.

The Western Empire began in 1492. It was made possible with the development of ships capable of long voyages and large cargoes; and it was made possible by advances in navigation so that a course could be maintained and duplicated no matter how far from land.

That made the empire possible. What made it necessary in 1492 was a Europe with too many aristocrats and knights for the available land, and the lack of enough serfs to work it. And it was made necessary by kings who needed wealth to make themselves more powerful. That, more than the spices that the history books chatter about, was what Columbus was all about.

Spain and Portugal gave birth to the western empire immediately Columbus returned. They learned that even tiny armies, sometimes barely over a hundred men, could bring down whole nations into slavery to toil on uncountable acres of fine land. As for the kings, well, that tiny investment in ships and men returned a thousand thousand times its cost with the gold and silver looted from South America. That is where the King of Spain found the wealth to build his great armada.

Navigation and sea going ships made it possible for England and France to expand – to North America, to India, to China. The invasions were cheap and quick. Clive took India’s 50 million people and their land with an army of two thousands British soldiers. It was relatively tiny British, French and American armies that alternately slaughtered, enslaved, and then penned up the native peoples of North America. It was cheap; and it was immensely profitable.

British capitalists converted huge estates in India to growing poppies with cheap, Indian labour. It was soon obvious that the best market for the opium they could produce was China. But opium was forbidden by the Chinese government. It took two wars in the mid-nineteenth century and fifteen thousand soldiers to change its mind. But that was a small price to pay for a market of 200,000,000 people – and a guarantee that if the Chinese did not buy enough opium each year, the Chinese government would have to pay for any surplus left to the estate owners.

The dominance of the western empire shifted over the years – from Spain to France to Britain to the United States. But there was room even for the smallest western powers, as The Netherlands scooped up Indonesia, and tiny Belgium got approval to plunder the Congo at a cost of millions of African lives, a plunder that still goes on after more than a century with help from, among others, Canadians. The dominance shifted. But the base was always the same – west European nations (and their American offspring), with superior ability to move troops and goods over long distances.

As important as navigation and shipbuilding was a superior western understanding of how to go to war. The Europeans were always fewer than the conquered, but far superior in the crafts of war – strategy, tactics, logistics, concentration of power, discipline, transport. So it was that on the eve of World War Two, the Western Empire either owned or controlled the greater part of the world.

Transport, navigation, and military superiority….that’s where the wealth came from to industrialize the west, even to the building of the railways of Canada. Keeping others poor gave us ever cheaper goods and ever more powerful weapons. That is, it did until 1942.

On New Year’s day of 1942, Singapore was the economic and military symbol of British power in the world. Just weeks later, it collapsed into humiliation. It was taken by the Japanese, one of the “lesser breeds” as Kipling called them. The Japanese took Singapore even though its British, Australian and Indian Army defenders actually outnumbered them. That was the beginning of the end not only for the British Empire, but for the whole Western Empire.

From that day on, wars against the lesser breeds became longer, harder, stunningly expensive, and usually losers. Britain was the first to realize it was over. It began withdrawing from empire in 1945, and completed the job within a generation. France lost long and brutal wars in North Africa and Vietnam. The Dutch were forced out of Indonesia, and the Belgians out of Congo. The Americans lost in South Vietnam. Even the base of the American portion of the Western Empire, Latin America, was shaken when Castro established himself in Cuba – and got away with it. Castro was a turning point. Since then, the idea of liberation from the Western Empire has flared across the continent.

The wars are are losers, and very expensive losers, too. The US became a debtor nation in the Vietnam war, and has plunged deeper ever since. The once despised lesser breeds have not only caught up to western principles of war; they have improved on them so that guerillas in sandals can defeat the most expensive and advanced weaponry in the world.

There’s no need to read the newspapers to understand what’s going on in Afghanistan. At a cost of hundreds of billions of dollars, thousands of dead on our side and nobody knows how many dead in Afghanistan and Pakistan, we are losing to a relatively small and poorly armed opposition in one of the world’s most primitive countries.

The empire that began in 1492 is over. There are only two questions left.

Will we adjust to the new reality?

Or will we, as outlined in the neoconservative “Project for the New American Century”, go on making unimaginably destructive (for everyone) and losing attempts to bring back the world of Rudyard Kipling?

While you’re thinking what the choice will be, consider these points. The current leader of the Western Empire is the United States. It’s most popular news service is Fox TV. Among the most popular leaders of public opinion are people like Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, and Pat Robertson. Congress is pretty much owned by banks, oil companies, and the health and defence industries.

And few of those have ever even heard of the fall of Singapore.

And yes, that would include you too Jabba the Roy and Ricky P. Your BMI is a goin’ to cost ya more.

Oh yes, Redneck Ryan must be green with envy now as he was touting this kind of idea on his show. Tax those who need more health care services. I believe he said, it would get him to the gym in short order or something along those lines. I did email or tweet him subsequently mentioning that not all sick people had it coming due to a less than healthy life style. I gave as examples: kids born with cystic fibrosis and/or other disabilities and chronic conditions. How about that cancer patient or kidney dialysis patient who go to hospitals regularly in order to receive treatment? Of course, Redneck Ryan never answered.

Well, Ryan, dear, this one’s for you!!

The Charest Government just brought down it’s provincial budget. We all knew it could be painful. No big surprises really: upping the Quebec Sales Tax over the next few years, hike in gas prices, hikes in, of course, hydro fees. The usual right of center type of budget that so rarely helps the working class.

However, what was a bit surprising, was the new health care ‘contributions’: 25$ for 2010; 100$ for 2011; 200$ for 2012 per person. It is a tax, but while petty whiny wankers like CJAD’s Ricky P: apparently semantics are important. Not for me. Bigger fish to fry than to dwell on the wording of service fees we will be paying in a service everyone of us has to use at some point, or another. Those fees mentioned above don’t really bother me all that much. Even that 200$ come 2012 is still much MUCH cheaper than private health insurance our neighbours to the south must pay for, in addition to their co-pays, deductibles and their ‘coverage ceilings’. If Gawd forbid I have chest pains again or get hit by a truck, I can still go to the nearest ER and be treated without worrying about being booted out. Also, lower income families will be exempted from this fee.

However, they also talked of something I don’t understand, so anyone who caught today’s Quebec budget who can explain this, please do so in comments or email me. They mentioned (the way I understand it) that in addition, we would be penalized the more often we go to the hospital? What exactly do they mean? Does that include walk in clinic visits? Visits to the specialist? Visits to a family doctor?  Patients undergoing regular chemo or radiation treatments for cancer or Kidney patients going through dialysis? What about a person with Cerebral Palsy or another disability?  They didn’t get that way from eating badly or smoking.  Again, please, if someone can explain this to me…

That was exactly the problem I had with Redneck Ryan’s proposal on a show he did not long ago about issuing higher taxes for the most health care services used and required. The same problem I have with the fees that I”m not clear on in the  last paragraph above. Those kind of fees are what set a dangerous precedent. Discrimination based on pre-existing conditions, just like in the U.S. I am terrified as to what path this leads us on.

As for wankers like Ricky P who is whining at the idea of being charged health care fees and more paperwork to fill out come tax return season, (assuming he, like most Conservatives support private for profit health care a la United States; If not, then as you were),  why do they complain about the government user fees but these very same cons advocate and even lobby for private for profit, which clearly, would still be a hell of a lot more expensive, surely far less regulated and yes, still a lot of small print?  Oh! I  bet I know!! Because the gov’t health care system can’t be traded on the stock exchange the way private for profit health insurance companies do, as well as private facilities.

Update:  one of my questions was answered, regarding that whole  the more you use it; the more you pay for it thang. That is not part of the Quebec Budget right now per se,  but at the end of the year when you fill out your tax return form, that is when they will probably insert a questionaire asking questions like how often we see the doctor over the past year and such and they would use this info to pass a bill to charge penalties to those who use the health care system often. Nice!

I can’t help but wonder if this is an underhanded way to drum up more business for the private for profit facilities in Quebec? Yes, stupid, as it would (for now anyway) still  be more expensive than the tax bill. However, more and more folks are dumb enough to think that they will still have more money in their pockets if they’re not paying user fees;  wankettes such as more than likely Kim Fraser and Trudy Mason.

Second Update: Well, not really an update, more like something I forgot to update. 

If I were a betting woman, I would have been able to retire yesterday! Well, ok, not really, but you get the idea. The Gang of 4 on CJAD are soooo bloody predictable. How should I call them? Tea-bagger lite? James Mennie who replaced Tommy Schnurmacher, would have done Tommy oh so proud.

Yes, I predicted the Wank Fest would be whining about the budget and they did not fail to disappoint.

Oh Trudy, you’re so priceless! Stop shopping at Oppen’s and start shopping at Zellers! Sell your bourgeois house on West Island and take a duplex in Verdun or Lasalle. Also, your hubby, Kevin? Get him off his whiny duff to get a real job. Perhaps take Iggy’s cue and have him dig ditches!

Other than the Americanizing of health care experiment, which I sincerely hope doesn’t see the light of day, and after hearing the shriekfest over at CJAD, I’m starting re examine the high lights of Quebec’s new budget.

More to come in another post I’m working on. Should be out soon.

You all remember commenter Mary T?  You  know, that same Mary T who was whining and screeching about how the opposition should be eliminated so her hero Stevie can have a clear reign to that totalitarian regime he so salivates for? Well, she strikes back with yet another doozy over at Hunter’s page, this time.

I wonder how many of those students are there on their own dime, without any loans or parent’s help. Bet not many, so, until they pay their own bills, and go to a university funded without taxpayers help, they have no rights to decide who can or can’t speak. What if we taxpayers decided they didn’t have a right to attend said university. What if we taxpayers told them they had to shut up, and couldn’t speak. Hey, it is our institution, expel them all.
Use their tactics against them.
I would like the names of all those idiots, and when they apply for another student loan, DENIED.
When they apply for a job with the UofO on their resume, DENIED.
Maybe they could join iggy’s ditch digging brigade.

But…But Mary T and Hunter! Why must you be so hard on those student protesters? After all, weren’t they excercising their freedom of expression that fateful night too?

I did attempt to leave that same comment in rebuttle over at Hunter’s but it seems that Southern Quebec may well be the last “leftard” to have that honor. No matter. It’s one of the reasons I have my own place.

Funny, how they use words like Facism and shit. Because between Mary T’s idiotic comment at McNair’s and the latest over at Hunter’s: it seems to me that a Stephen Harper facist regime  is exactly what she wants.

Mary, Hunter and other cons who hate dissent. Got a question for ya: Was General Augusto Pinochet your hero? Silly question? Perhaps, but in light of Steve’s recent acts and statements, one has to wonder.

Here is a video I have posted before here, but I feel it needs to be posted again. I will also give the brief translation.

Loose translation: Here is the slogan of the Conservative Party: “Action, no elections”: That is a dictator’s slogan. Take a good look at this.  He wants nothing to change: what do you think of that?  Then he goes on to talk about the November by election in Hochelaga (east end of Montreal for those who don’t know).

Progressives who are determined to not give the Liberals a chance or are even entertaining the idea of allowing Stevie loose with a Majority come this fall; you may want to take note of what was said about  that video.

Remember, when we don’t do anything and take what we have in Canada for granted, anything is possible for Steve. I do mean anything. Yes, Mary T’s rants are a hint of what she would like for the future of Canada.

Thanks CC!

After reading Jennifer Smith’s theory at Runesmith’s, I thought, oh good! Someone else who’s on the same track as I am. Conspiracy theorists for the post part on either side of the Political spectrum are generally not well received. However, it doesn’t mean that some of these conspiracy theories and/or predictions aren’t correct.

Jennifer, as am I, are of the opinion this whole University of Ottawa–Ann Coulter debacle was deliberately all set up as a Public Relations Stunt  from start to rather noisy finish last night.

I knew that it was odd that a speaking engagement for Coulter at the University of Ottawa was odd.  Hell, I thought, given her hatred for Canada, the very fact that she would set foot north of the border was strange.  However, if she felt absolutely compelled to darken our doorstep; why Ottawa? Why the University of Ottawa? That’s almost the same as booking her at Concordia University here in Montreal or University of Toronto. Even University of Western Ontario was a bit of a stretch, although, could somewhat be more sympathetic to folks like Ezzy, or Kathy Shaidle or Coulter.

Let’s start putting this together, shall we? We must remember that long before those protests last night, Coulter had been planning a Complaint against the Human Rights Commission for the persecution of Conservatives  due to the email University of Ottawa VP, Francois Houle  sent to her. Here is a copy of the email.  One question: how on Gawd’s green earth would she know about the Human Rights Commissions in Canada unless someone (could it be….EZZY!)  filled her bleached mind with it? Personally, I thought the email was a reasonable and polite request on his part. I also believe that before he decided to email Coulter, he was probably bombarded by requests from students, faculty,  alumni and their respective groups with petitions or formal written requests on hand to cancel Coulter’s speech or to not even allow her on campus at all. As a responsible administrator, he probably preferred to try to find some middle ground; some compromise, perhaps. He’ll let her on campus to speak, after all, the idea is to promote freedom of expression (no matter how hateful or dangerous it may be), it would seem while at the same time, trying to politely convince her to tone down the Fox News language.

Also, I can’t believe no one is stopping to wonder how this email got out in public in the first place.  If the good U of O Provost was naive to think his email to Coulter would have remained private….that email was going to somehow get out. When you have media whores like Ezzy Levant who earn their living  battling Human Rights commissions and Shrilly Shrews like Kathy “five feet of fecal matter” Shaidle, who couldn’t get a real job if her life depended on it, needs this shit in her life to eke out a living organizing events for hateful wingnutz like Coulter, it would be naive to think nothing would happen. Hint: even See Sawah Run and GW Bush don’t have the likes of Ezzy and Kathy organizing their speaking engagements in Canada.  Case in point: that email wasn’t leaked to any old media outfit: it was leaked to none other than the Fox News of Canada itself: the National Pest.  A rag that Ezzy, himself  ’writes’ for sometimes as do many of his friends.

That email appeared to be the only game in town for corporate media as well as the blogosphere all day yesterday. Yes,  Ezzy and Annie and their nasty friends all capitalized on it.  That’s when They surely took painstaking care that the corporate media got that. Although, they must have figured it was not enough.

Noisy protesters are found later at the U of O campus. The place must of been a mob scene. Again, no doubt creating more for this motley crew of neo-cons  to capitalize on. The fire alarm is even set off. The police are called in for crowd control.

It was the “organizers” (no doubt being Ezzy and Kathy and fiends themselves) who cancelled, fearing security issues.  The university administration did not.

Calgary would certainly be a great fit for her and it is also Ezzy Levant’s home town.  Nothing but neo-con cheerleaders hanging on to her every word. Nothing really newsworthy to report there.

Annie, like any typical tea-bagging American,  is never happy unless there is turmoil in her life; in fact, her ability to earn millions depends on her to have nothing but trouble. Ezzy would probably be on the unemployment line if there were no Human Rights’ Commissions for his nuissance suits.  As mentioned, Kathy Shaidle would be a burdon on Mr Kathy Shaidle (or perhaps…dreaded welfare?) for her livelihood as she is unemployable in the real world.

Sidenote: for those who are outraged about last night; where was your outrage when anti-war, Palestininian sympathesizer British MP George Galloway was banned from even entering Canada? What I am not getting is shy talk radio interviewers talking to Ezzy are failing to mention George Galloway and everything Ezzy spewed against him? In Ezzy’s world, free speech is only for him and not anybody else. Hell, Kathy  Shaidle doesn’t even accept comments on her blogs. Why does no one throw this back at them?

So, Jennifer, no, I am also of the belief that this was an elaborate Public Relations stunt.