December 6, 22nd Anniversary of the Polytechnique Massacre–With Every Passing Year, We Seem To Keep Going Backward

Here we are again, boys ‘n’ girls, another somber December 6; another year has come and gone and it is time again to commemorate the Polytechnique Massacre when fourteen young women’s lives were lost at the hands of a deranged misogynist. For the two plus years since I’ve started Sister Sage’s Musings, I’ve commemorated it with posts here and here. I’ve been reading other blogs since last night about this years commemorations. Many of which angered and/or upset me, quite frankly. Some about groups and people either bordering on or surpassing the hateful and the insanity. Honestly, I was trying to figure out how I would sort out all this in this year’s post.  How do I provide commentary and respect the memory of these fourteen young women at the same time, without snark or colourful language? How do I post this without being too confrontational with those who seek nothing but to denegrate the memory or simply to push their own agenda? There is no way.  The victims, their families and the survivors certainly deserve better.  For that, I apologize in advance for this post.   I will be reviewing bits and pieces from both of those posts as I believe they are pertinent this year, given what I have been reading and observing this year. This post also will be more commentary than memorial.   Much of it, disturbing to say the least.   Not only are twisted agendas being pushed and myths being promoted as fact, despite having been long since debunked, but this year, what has really angered me, is that a peaceful candlelight vigil is likely to be hijacked by a group known for, well, violence and bigotry.  Adorable.  While all that goes on, I have to wonder what goes through the minds of Suzanne Laplante Edward, Heidi Rathjen, Nathalie Provost (shot four times, upon trying to reason with Marc Lepine. Was interviewed 2 years ago for 20th anniversary) and the other survivors and family members of the victims of the Polytechnique massacre as they continue trying to make their voices heard for stronger gun controls and eliminating violence against women, which is really the point of these annual memorials.  I can’t help but think that with every passing year, the more backwards we go.  I find that quite infuriating, frightening and depressing. For the risk of this post turning into one big primal scream, off we go!

Gun Totin’ Rednecks and Their Disdain for the “Grief Industry”

“Grief Industry”. They outta choose their words very carefully as this could  well come back to bite them in the ass, as it should.  If anything,  the Harpercons and their cheerleaders have mastered the so-called “grief industry” with their dumb on crime omnibus bill, c-10.

I got pretty pissed last night when I caught that redneck lobbyist, Tony Bernardo in The Hill Times last night.  Yes, he does have an agenda to push–to make sure that long gun registry, as well as gun control in Canada, for that matter is killed.   Worse, Bernardo actually had the balls to say what he said yesterday.

“That’s a terrible thing, it’s a terrible, terrible thing to use these beautiful young women as a pawn in a game to advance a political agenda,” Tony Bernardo, spokesman for the Canadian Sports Shooting Association, told The Hill Times Monday. “I know that’s what they are doing, okay, this is all about a political agenda, the grief industry kicks into full gear and it uses these victims to advance their agendas.”

Ain’t he adorable?  My skin crawled and I wanted to take ten showers after reading that last night.  How dare he! The least he coulda done was kept his mouth shut for a few days.

Oh, and  Bernardo fancies himself an expert on public safety now, boys ‘n’ girls.  Oh goody!  That provides comforting thoughts at night before I lay me down to sleep at night.  Heidi Rathjen appears quite impressed as well:

“Who are they to talk about public safety? Collecting guns does not make you a safety expert, any more than smoking makes one a public health expert.”

Ms Rathjen is correct. Remember my post two years ago? The one where commenters from the Grope & Fail actually thought it would be a better idea if students were packing their own guns to school and thus, solving the problems of school shootings.   And this is Canada, folks, not even Arizona or Texas. Shocking, innit?

And by the by, the ruger mini 14 semi-automatic, the gun Marc Lepine used on his rampage, will be one of those long guns that will no longer need to be registered when c-19, the bill to scrap the long gun registry along with all its’ data.   And no, that gun is not needed to hunt for ducks, unless they’re wearing body armour.  It was also the weapon favoured by none other than Anders Behring Breivik in his massacre of  a  Labour Party Youth camp on Utoya Island, Norway last summer.   More on the lovely ruger mini 14 semi-automatic here.

Oh, and returning to that ol’  “grieving industry” meme,  I think Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu has cornered the market on that when he traded in advocacy work and his soul for a senate seat, six-figure salary and kool-aid serving and swilling. The perfect salesman for Stevie Spiteful’s dumb on crime agenda. Or should I say, the revenge and punishment agenda?

Only Harpercons  Know How to Spin “Bad Victims and Survivors” and “Good Victims and Survivors”

Well, the Harpercons are good at their divide and conquer games. I mean, how else does someone like Stevie Spiteful remain in power for so long.  Urban v rural,  ‘bad’ immigrants v ‘good’ immigrants; you get the idea. So why not have ‘good’ and ‘bad’ survivors and victims?

Survivors and family members of the Polytechnique massacre,  like Suzanne Laplante-Edward and Heidi Rathjen, as well as others  like the parents of Anastasia De Souza, who was killed in the Dawson shootings of 2006,  is they’re not looking for revenge. They are seeking a safer society in the hopes of preventing such tragedies from happening again.

And once again, let me remind you that given that both Heidi Rathjen and Nathalie Provost both married and have children, they’re not the man hating feminazis some of these so-called men’s rights groups are portraying the survivors and victims as.  In fact, I have never detected a hint of  anything resembling an across the board hatred toward men in everything I have ever read from Heidi Rathjen and the other survivors. I dare anyone to find something. However, let’s call these men for what they really are: misogynists. There is certainly far more evidence of that.

I met Heidi Rathjen briefly at an Occupy Montreal march last October. Needless to say, she is not a fan of  Bill c-10, the so-called Safe Streets omnibus bill.   Basically, she says that prevention is key and that gun control plays an important role in that prevention. We both agreed that the Harpercon logic of scrapping an element of gun control while at the same time building mega-prisons was, to say the least, mind boggling.   If there was more time, I would’ve liked to have chatted with her further.

People like Heidi Rathjen, the parents of Anastasia De Souza and Suzanne Laplante-Edward are what would be known, of course, in Harpercon circles, as “bad victims and survivors”.

The “good ones” in the land of Harpercon would be those like relatively newly minted Senator Pierre-Hugues Boivenu, who I mentioned, sold his soul for a senate seat, six-figure salary and all the perks that went with it.  Sound harsh? Perhaps. Perhaps not harsh enough.

To be fair, Boisvenu once upon a time actually did respectable things like the founding of a women’s shelter in Val d’Or and a camp for under privileged youth in the Eastern Townships, in addition to being the founding president of the Murdered or Missing Persons’ Families’ Association. But all of that is tainted now. I seriously doubt he’s even read Bill C-10 before spinning it to the public at large. He certainly doesn’t sound like he has.

Another example of that so-called ‘good’ victim would be anyone who testified before parliamentary committees in support of that ridiculous bill.  Or how about Line Lacasse? The mother of Sebastien Lacasse, the one who got a law named after him, tweaking the Young Offenders’ Act, that is.  She has never made it any secret that she is in full support of this bill.  Again, has she read it? Again, probably not.   She is more than likely motivated by revenge rather than the aspirations of a safer and saner society.

In short,  Stevie Spiteful,  Candy ‘getchergun’ Hoeppner and of course, ol’ Vic ‘lock ‘em up’ Toews  may only give any veracity to whatever survivors and/or family members of victims of crime have to say if it suits their agenda. Otherwise, they have no clue what they’re talking about and have no business in the conversation.

Any Occasion is a Good Time for a Mooslim Hatefest

Again, I brought this up two years ago.  It bears bringing up again this year, because, after reading Big City Lib’s post earlier today, the Jewish Defense League  (yep, they are a delightful bunch), who had decided to arrogantly hijack the annual Women Won’t Forget candlelight vigil on the grounds of University of Toronto.  Their aim is not to remember the fourteen women killed 22 years ago today; it’s to promote their anti-Islamic agenda.

You see,  the JDL, like many Islamophobes are using the fact that Marc Lepine’s father was Algerian and Muslim (a non-practicing one), thus their theory being that Lepine influenced by him. Though, his father left the family when young Lepine was 6 years old and he and his sister was raised by their non-practicing Catholic mother. Though, it doesn’t seem to matter to them. They can always say and believe that Lepine was genetically predisposed to killing all those women.  Funny, how Marc Lepine’s family tree was never an issue before 2001.  I find nothing as twisted as using the crime due to a man’s hatred of women to promote the hatred of a religion and culture.

In fact, they (JDL and other anti-Islam groups and people) are of the continued mistaken notion that only Muslim men are capable of violence against women.  As a survivor of conjugal violence, there isn’t much that insults me more as I personally continue to struggle with these demons of my past.  I am really sick of it. As long as there is this growing self fulfilling prophecy, how are we supposed to effectively fight against violence against women? For the record, my ex was a pure laine Quebecois.

Do check out the email exchanges between University of Toronto’s Steven Bailey and JDL’s Meir Weinstein.  I hate to think how that turned out. Or did the JDL do the unexpectedly decent thing and stay away?

Sidenote: Anyone needing to know just a tad about the JDL, they’re an extremist group, who, among other of their batshit crazy things,  liken  lesbians and gays to Nazis (I’m not kidding, go read) and latch themselves to the Neo-Nazi English Defense League.

No More Memorials!! They’re Evul Soshalism!!

Yes, socialism again.  C’mon boys ‘n’ girls, you knew that was coming, right?  After all, it appears that socialism is every right wingnut and bigot’s favourite word in the English language.  It would be fun if they’d at least take the time to look up their favourite word in the dictionary now would it?  And once again, no, it doesn’t mean anything they don’t like.  In the case of the Polytechnique massacre memorials, here’s how one managed to fit socialism into it.

I was in Vancouver 3 years ago. Outside the central train station there is a park, & in the park is a rotunda of larger-than-average stone plinths. At the base of each is an inscription of one of the names of the women ‘murdered at Ecole Polytechnique’ etc etc. When I saw it I wanted to vomit in disgust.

Such social Marxism is destroying the West, slowly but surely.

Ain’t he adorable?

Enough With the Strawmen and The Myths!

It’s really time to stop trying to either justify or try to find other reasons for why Marc Lepine stormed through the Polytechnique on a rampage. It was not because of daddy issues of  a non-existant non-practicing daddy issue, or mommy issues or anything remotely close. It was what it was.  He separated the women from the men before shooting these women.  He called them feminists, as if it were a derogatory tone.  He even left a suicide note, explaining his twisted evil actions. This was a man of many failures which he blamed on women.  Nothing more, nothing less.  It is really high time to stop giving Marc Lepine all of this attention trying to figure out his motives, he really doesn’t deserve it. Hell, I even talked more about him than I wanted to.

All in All, We’re Going Backwards With Every Passing Year

That is the truly sad and frightening thing about what I’ve been finding every December 6 that comes and goes in recent years. It seems that folks are learning and understanding less and less what these memorials are all about, which is to end violence–not only against women, but to all, as well as to end the hatred that Marc Lepine so obviously had toward women.

We have a federal government that cares more about punishment and revenge than about prevention, education and rehabilitation. They care more about gun lobbyists like Tony Bernardo than about victims of conjugal violence.  I will never forget Marlene Jennings’ question to ol’ Vic ‘lock ‘em up ‘ Toews in Question Period last year:

“So if the crime’s committed in the home, then I guess that’s okay?”

We seem to go in the opposite direction, with more hatred toward more groups and we’re gravitating toward a society of intolerance, ignorance and violence.  Those fourteen young women, and their surviving classmates and their family members certainly deserve better. We all deserve better.

Dr Dawg put what our goals should be best:

But misogyny isn’t an essence, it’s a practice. By making ourselves aware of it, by confronting it, all of us, men and women, make alternatives possible. We men are not being asked to feel guilty for an act of horror that most of us couldn’t commit. We are being asked to do something about the society in which we live, to help make it better, safer and saner for everyone.

Exactly. Someone who gets it.

I posted the video below last year.  Somehow, I think it’s appropriate to post it again this year.   The song in this video, “Dust in the Wind”, by Kansas, was the last song  CHOM FM’s then morning man, Terry Dimonte played on his show the morning following the massacre.