The Week That Was

I took some time off this week. I could say I was being productive, well sort of. I read, I shopped for Xmas. and I got caught up in playing an online multiplayer role playing game; Fallen Sword.

In other words besides being busy at work I goofed off instead of blogging. Mind you that does not mean I did not pay attention to the wonderful world of politics this week. And so I will do a little update here of the week that was. Or at least my interpretation of it.

LIARS CLUB

Well after hearing Karlheinz Schrieber tell his side of the cash for Thiesen weapons systems story, apparently paying off Brian Mulroney after he left office but making the deal while he was in office. It got all very complicated. Before the Star Chamber of the Ethics Committee of Parliament Schrieber insisted that the Liberals had been wrong all along. As had Stevie Cameron. It had nothing to do with Air Bus. Nope it was all about Thiesen and their Light Armoured Vehicles that they wanted to manufacture in the Maritimes. It was about weapons. And Mulroney took cold hard cash to promote weapons. A weapons system that he himself kaboshed when it turned out that it would cost taxpayers a 100 million dollars.

So this week BM showed up before the Star Chamber and contradicted Schrieber. He didn't get $300,000 in thousand dollar bills, he got $225,000. And he kept $75,000, the initial retainer, in a safety deposit box. But he did eventually declare and pay taxes on $300,000. He did meet Schrieber twice while in office, once for coffee at 24 Sussex Drive and once at his PM get away cabin. But shucks that was just a social call, anyone of us could have visited him.

The whole thing showed that both these characters are liars and scoundrels. It just so happens that one of them was once the PM. The other a gun runner.

Now anywhere else in the world a gun runner putting a PM of a country on a retainer to sell weapons would raise an eyebrow or two.

But not in Canada. And it wasn't about Airbus. At least they both agreed on that. Nope it was about Theisen and promoting LAV's. And the deal was cooked up while Mulroney was still in office but concluded once he left. And with cold hard cash there is no paper trail.

Now lets not forget that this was the same Brian Mulroney who got appointed a director of Archer Daniel Midlands, and that company was plagued with a price fixing scandal at the time. And low and behold if ADM didn't buy out Robin Hood Mills of Canada, thanks to Mulroney's FTA with Reagan.

Thats the kind of guy Mulroney is and was. So we should be shocked that he would be a gunzel for a gunrunner?

CTV YOUR BIAS IS SHOWING

For weeks prior to and finally the week of the Star Chamber revelations of Karl and Brian, Craig Oliver of CTV Question Period and Mike Duffy sounded like Conservative hacks. First they complained this was all old news. Then as revelations were made by Karl, Mike dismissed them. Both of them characterized the hearings as a clown show. In fact they insisted, despite facts proving it was anything but, on reporting it as such. Now what got their knickers in a twist?

Surprising and shocking revelations that came from Karl as reported on all the other channels became irrelevant ramblings according Mike. He spent more time dismissing Karl than the Conservatives did.

SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Wednesday the Taser report on the RCMP was released but it was lost in all the news coverage of the 'Waiting For Brian' Story. On Thursday as the Mulroney Royal Entourage came before the Star Chamber, the Conservatives finally released their Pavier Report on Polling.

Remember that. Well this could be why they delayed the report and then released it on the day Brian was testifying. Tories spend more on polling now than Liberals did
Meanwhile Stockwell Day was nowhere to be found on Parliament Hill. Neither Wednesday when the damning Taser Report came out, calling it a lethal weapon.

RCMP watchdog demands tougher rules on Tasers
Canadians 10 times more likely to be Tasered to Death by Police then Americans

Nor was he around on Friday when the RCMP Investigation Report came out.

Task force says RCMP should be 'separate entity'


RCMP JUST ANOTHER PUBLIC SERVICE

The Task Force revealed that the RCMP is just another group of public sector workers. Yes there was the usual media and pundit comments about the iconic nature of the RCMP, blah, blah. But when you look closely at the report you see that the RCMP is no different than any other public sector workers. They are over worked, putting in unpaid overtime. The force has allocated for increased staffing but never hired personnel. RCMP officers are doing data entry that should have been done by data entry clerks, but of curse those positions were never filled. Working Alone is dangerous for most workers, and many provinces have Working Alone legislation. Of course the RCMP deaths recently in the North shows that these workers share something in common with their civilian counterparts. Due to cost savings, the bottom line, they are put in the way of danger that has ended up with fatalities. Cost cutting, cutbacks, unfilled positions are all the legacy of the neo-con attack on the public sector in the nineties. And the RCMP are public sector workers just like their civilian counterparts. The report talks about the need for civilian oversight, for making the RCMP autonomous and giving them access to the the oversight commission for complaints. What it failed to recommend was a real grievance procedure and an authentic new form of staff relations, that is they failed to recommend unionization of the RCMP.

CSIS BEAT THEM TO IT

The revelation that the CIA destroyed waterboarding torture tapes reminded me that CSIS did the same thing with its wire tapping of the Air India conspirators twenty years ago. Nice to know Canada leads the way. Of course the CIA says it did it to protect the identities of its agents. Did CSIS do it for the same reason?

HYUK, HYUK, IT'S HUCKABEE

As your faithful wag predicted here Huckabee has come from the second tier to be a real threat to the leading Republican Presidential Candidates. That's because they believed their own press. While Huckabee appeals directly to the base of the party. He is one of them. And while he is he is also a Red Tory. A socially liberal politician in right wing garb. The Republican establishment hates him and have begun attacking him, as have media pundits like MSNBC Chris Matthews, that reminds us Huckabee endorses the Second Amendment because folks need guns to protect themselves from the Government. Watch for more smears as Huckabee support rallies in Iowa.

On the Sunday Talk Shows south of the Border the has been McCain who polls below Paul sometimes and is neck and neck with Thompson for falling out of the top tier, is being lauded as the guy who will win New Hampshire. Don't count on it. I predict given New Hampshire's libertarian bent that Paul will surprise folks more than any McCain comeback. After all he raised $3 million dollars online, in one day. A record for any politician. And that money makes him richer than McCain. As for Thompson, glad he didn't give up his acting career.

As for Democrats, Iowa will go to the guy who looks like JFK and talks like RFK. No not Obama, John Edwards. He has the machine in the state, and is everyone's number two choice. In Iowa being number two makes you number one in the caucus's and he has the organization to pull it off. Look for an upset.

PATRIARCHY KILLS

The death of teenage girl in Toronto made headlines. Her father allegedly killed her for being, well a Canadian teenager. You see she rejected her 'religious' faith. Or at least the symbol of womens oppression in that faith.The headscarf. No she wasn't Amish. She was a Muslim. Heck she could have been Christian or Jewish, or a Hindu. It matters not. These are all patriarchal religions who believe in the Father God, and God is the Father. Hence women and children and animals remain chattel to the husband. Secular, pluralist society is being besieged by the identity politics of the oppressors. Thousands of years of religious oppression led to the enlightenment and the revolutionary modernism. Today the forces of humanism face a determined opposition from those who would proclaim their backwards anti-human morality as justified in the name of cultural understanding and inclusiveness. Religion is Political, and always has been, and the battle for freedom is about freedom from religion, not just freedom for religion. Those who would claim that it is only Islam that is intolerant should look to their own holy books, to the divisions between men and women in their synagogues, temples, and churches that exist today. This could have happened to any teenage girl in Canada whose parents are religious zealots. In fact it is the reason we also have young girls and women having babies while denying they are pregnant, which has often ended in tragedy.


There we go a week of rants in one day.




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An Open Mind

Is a dangerous thing. Can you spot the contradiction?

Calgary's Catholic School Board is pulling "The Golden Compass" from school shelves -- a children's fantasy novel that criticizes strict religious dogma and encourages readers to keep an open mind.

SEE:

Nitwits

More Silly Censorship


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Bali Why

Why am I not surprised?

Blogging from Bali: The Other Canada

It does not seem that the Canadian government is playing a very constructive role at this conference thus far. Here are two examples. First, Canada refuses to commit to binding targets unless all major emitters accept binding targets - a position which goes against the principle underlying the UNFCCC, which is criticized by development economists, which has attracted opposition from China and which may lead to a negotiating impasse. Second, in sessions of the compliance committee, Canada has proposed that the countries who appoint representatives to lead enquiries regarding non-compliance should be responsible for their own travel and accommodation costs. Considering that Canada is likely to be the subject of such an enquiry, this position does not appear to be anything but defensive and self-interested.

Now that Australia has signed on to the Kyoto Accord it just leaves Steve and George to do their No Kyoto Bali Roadshow; that began at the Australian APEC meeting and ended last week in Africa at the Commonwealth meeting.














Which of course is a road to nowhere.

From Friday's Globe and Mail

December 7, 2007 at 4:31 AM EST

NUSA DUA, INDONESIA and OTTAWA — Canadian Environment Minister John Baird is urging delegates to the Bali climate change meetings to avoid "the same mistakes" made at Kyoto when large emitters like China and India weren't given binding targets to reduce carbon.

Mr. Baird, who left for the conference yesterday, said that the U.S. decision not to ratify Kyoto stemmed from the fact that large developing countries weren't obliged to sign on to targets.

"Many said that one of the big reasons Kyoto wasn't ratified is that there weren't binding targets on China and India," Mr. Baird said. "Ten years later, let's not make the same mistakes we made 10 years ago."

Yesterday, Canadian delegates to the United Nations conference were reported to have called for a "comprehensive review" of the fundamental "architecture" of the Kyoto treaty, provoking new questions about its commitment to the battle against global warming.

The wide-ranging review of Kyoto should assess its structure, its architecture, its "adequacy" in achieving its goals, and its key principles, such as the idea of differentiated responsibilities for different countries, a senior federal official said yesterday.

The official made the comments at a closed-door session at the conference in Bali. No news media were allowed at the session, but his comments were verified by environmental activists who attended.

The comments were made at a session where countries were assessing Kyoto's performance. But while some countries have called for a reconsideration of the accord, the Canadian delegation seemed to be calling for a much more far-reaching review than anything contemplated by other nations, the environmentalists said.

They said a sweeping re-examination of Kyoto could be a serious distraction at a time when the world is trying to hammer out a new climate-change agreement within the next two years to replace Kyoto when it expires in 2012.

Mr. Harper Goes to Bali

..."It's clear that Canada and Japan are talking to each other and using the same language. And Japan seems completely averse to doing anything without the United States."

Another environmentalist, Steven Guilbeault of the Équiterre group, said the Canadian position has been poorly received by most other countries. "It's a poison pill, and it makes a lot of countries very nervous," he said. "Canada is saying it wants to do less. Everyone is disappointed and appalled by it."

Japan and Canada have dominated the "Fossil of the Day awards" – sarcastic prizes given every day by environmentalists to the worst-performing nation at the Bali conference.

Mr. Guilbeault, who has been attending climate-change conferences for the past 12 years, says there is widespread suspicion among other countries that Canada may be trying to derail an agreement at Bali.

"The level of distrust toward Canada is at an all-time high," he said. "In 12 years, I've never seen such distrust.".

Canada accused of undermining climate talks

Canada is taking heat from activists at the Bali climate change conference, who are accusing it of undermining negotiations.

Climate Action Network Canada claims to have a document showing that Canada's negotiators have been instructed to demand that poorer nations accept the same binding, absolute reduction targets as developed nations.

"Canada is trying to rewrite history by putting the burden of emissions reductions on poorer countries," said spokesman Steven Guilbeault on Saturday in Bali, Indonesia.

However, Environment Minister John Baird -- who arrived in Bali on Saturday -- has said this past week that any new climate change agreement must include all the world's major carbon polluters and set binding targets.

CTV's Steve Chao, reporting from Bali, told Newsnet that a top UN official said earlier this week that Canada's government is a skeptic and that it doesn't want to do anything on climate change.

The activists say that the Kyoto Protocol is built on the recognition that industrialized countries are largely responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions that are causing climate change and must lead the reduction fight.

While emerging economies like China and India must slow their emissions growth, the activists say that they should not be subject to the same absolute reduction targets as developed countries.

Canada -- which has 0.4 per cent of the world's population yet produces two per cent of greenhouse gas emissions -- the United States and Australia are the world's biggest per capita emitters. Canada and the U.S. emitted about 20 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per capita in 2004.

In comparison, China emitted 3.8 tonnes and India 1.2 tonnes.

Canadians should be embarrassed by the actions of our PM and his Enviro-Flunky; John Baird, not the actions of those attending the Bali conference to give voice to Canadians real views, and paying for it out of their own pockets since the Conservatives have put the kabosh on anyone but their handpicked cronies going as the official delegation.

The Stephen Harper Party on the other hand spins it this way;

Mr. Heinbecker said he didn't think it was "proper" that Mr. Dion will be in Bali and could raise a stink about the Harper government's position. "The reality is the government is the government," he said, "and the position they take is the Canadian position until such time as a different Canadian government takes a different position." (Embassy, December 5, 2007)

Once again forgetting that they are a MINORITY government representing a minority of Canadians and their politics are those of an even smaller minority.

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Right Wing Nationalism

The man who proclaimed his support for Alberta Separatism with Firewall Alberta has again shown Quebec that he can embrace their 'nationalism' for his cause of decentralizing federal power in Canada. Just as he can embrace the concept of provincial rights for Alberta.

After all the pure laine nationalism of the Quebecois, as exemplified by the ADQ, has the same reactionary base as the right wing separatism of the Reform/Alliance coalition that is the Stephen Harper Party today. It shares a common political economic ideology of the petite bourgeois middle class and rural farmers. And in Quebec it embraces the idea of racialism and the exsitance of a 'French' race which is of course the White Race. Just as it's counter parts in Alberta share the idea of the White British Race. This is the same base that made up it's historic predecessors of the twentieth century; the fascist movement.

And what we have in Stephen Harper is an ideologue with the absolutist power of the PMO to reshape Canada in his image just as Trudeau had done before him. His agenda is to stay in power, and to recreate the Canadian State according to the vision of his pals in the Calgary School. The party is irrelevant, except as a vehicle for him to maintain his power as autarch.

Harper in Quebec to woo ADQ supporters

He also said his move to recognize the Québécois as a nation within a united Canada has proved critics who said the motion would endanger national unity wrong. “The philosophy of this government is the very antithesis of the centralizing philosophy of the successive Liberal regimes of [Pierre] Trudeau through to his successor, [Stéphane] Dion,” Mr. Harper told the gathering.

Nationalism -- A Political Religion
Rudolph Rocker


That modern nationalism in its extreme fanaticism for the state has no use for liberal ideas is readily understandable. Less clear is the assertion of its leaders that the modern state is thoroughly infected with liberal ideas and has for this reason lost its former political significance. The fact is that the political development of the last hundred and fifty years was not along the lines that liberalism had hoped for. The idea of reducing the functions of the state as much as possible and of limiting its sphere to a minimum has not been realised. The state's field of activity was not laid fallow; on the contrary, it was mightily extended and multiplied, and the so-called "liberal parties," which gradually got deeper and deeper into the current of democracy, have contributed abundantly to this end.

In reality the state has not become liberalised but only democratised Its influence on the personal life of man has not been reduced; on the contrary it has steadily grown. There was a time when one could hold the opinion that the "sovereignty of the nation" was quite different from the sovereignty of the hereditary monarch and that, therefore, the power of the state would be awakened. While democracy was still fighting for recognition, such an opinion might have had a certain justification. But that time is long past; nothing has so confirmed the internal and external security of the state as the religious belief in the sovereignty of the nation, confirmed and sanctioned by the universal franchise. That this is also a religious concept of political nature is undeniable.

Mussolini's liberal clamour stopped immediately as soon as the dictator had the state power in Italy firmly in his hands. Viewing Mussolini's rapid change of opinion about the meaning of the state one involuntarily remembers the expression of the youthful Marx: "No man fights against freedom; at the most he fights against the freedom of others. Every kind of freedom has, therefore, always existed; sometimes as special privilege, at other times as general right."

SEE

Bernard Lord And Two Solitudes

White Multiculturalism

Denis Lebel Nationalist

Canada and Quebec Two Tory Solitudes

Bouchard's Bankrupt Nationalism

Conservatives Orwellian Language Politics

The Tories Two Solitudes

Corruption, nationalism and capitalism

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Tora, Tora, Tora

Today is the day that America used to celebrate as the Day of Infamy. Since 9/11 it has fallen into second place. To commemorate the occasion, I highly recommend watching Tora, Tora, Tora the unique American Japanese co production that is one of the best war movies ever made and the best on the attack on Pearl Harbour.

"Tora" means "tiger" in Japanese

It was denounced by the U.S. as an unprovoked preventive attack. Today it has been adopted by the U.S. as official policy of the Bush administration and is known as the right to preemptive attack.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Day of Infamy" Speech

To the Congress of the United States:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that Nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to the Secretary of State of form reply to a recent American message. While this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government had deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. Very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.

Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.

Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.

Last night the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation.

As Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

I believe I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces -- with the unbounded determination of our people -- we will gain the inevitable triumph -- so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December seventh, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

The White House, December 8, 1941

Excerpt from the 'Day of Infamy' Radio Address

• WAV Format, Windows (528K)

SEE:

Not MacArthurs Republican Party

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Bernard Lord And Two Solitudes

Bernard Lord has been appointed language Czar for the Harpocrites. What is this all about you ask? Is Canada facing a language crisis? Not really but the Conservatives are. You see they don't believe in Bilingualism and Bi-Culturalism that is after all Trudeau Liberalism. So they are going to rewrite Canada's languages policies. Not based on two founding peoples but rather on recognition of Minority Rights. Which is not what Bilingualism is about. It recognizes two 'official' languages in Canada. Neither of which is a Minority language. Minority languages are those that are not French of English.

"His findings will help the government ... provide language programs and services that serve the unique needs of minority communities," Harper said

Of course in English Canada French is a minority language as English is in Quebec. However the only reason English is a minority language in Quebec it due to its provincial language laws. So what does this all mean? Well the Tories will respect French in Quebec and English in the rest of Canada. Meaning they will try and change the nature of the Official languages act to end Federal Bilingualism. That has always been a bug a boo in the bonnet of their right wing base.

Another one of their hidden agenda's coming to light.

SEE

One Free World

White Multiculturalism


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Sex, Religion and Violence

I love that as a header. In Alberta yet. It comes from this CP wire story that ran over the weekend. And it's all about right wing homophobe Craig Chandler.

An ugly internal dispute over sex, religion and violence erupted within the Alberta Conservative party Saturday, ending up with a candidate being ousted and Premier Ed Stelmach saying the reasons for the "difficult" decision must remain confidential.

Where was the violence in all this? He was denied the right to be a candidate.Sex and Religion sure I can see but 'violence'? Where's the violence? Except in over active imaginations of reporters. This was a bloodless purge of 'fightin' Craig Chandler the pugilistc politician.


Edmonton Journal Leg reporter Graham Thompson equates poor Craig Chandler with being bashed like a poor baby seal on the weekend. Well actually he equates it with the Sopranos.

It was like a Mafia hit gone wrong.

What should have been done quickly and bloodlessly months ago ended up being done messily with a baseball bat last weekend.

Officials with the Alberta Progressive Conservatives bludgeoned to death the political career of Craig Chandler in a meeting room of a Red Deer Hotel on Saturday. It took 21/2 hours for the officials to bash away at Chandler's history and credibility before rejecting him as a candidate for Calgary-Egmont.

By the time they were done, there was so much blood on the carpet it's a wonder someone didn't think to put down a plastic sheet beforehand.

Don't any of these guys watch The Sopranos?

What's so puzzling about all this isn't that the Conservatives whacked Chandler but that they took so long to do it. And I don't mean the 21/2 hours of brass knuckles behind closed doors on Saturday.

The Tories could have saved themselves and Chandler a lot of grief if months ago they had taken him aside and warned him off. They could have simply told him that he wasn't welcome because while he might be a "conservative" they didn't think there was much "progressive" about him. Furthermore, if he managed to win the nomination, Premier Ed Stelmach wasn't going to sign his papers.

Chandler says he would have appreciated the warning.

"Someone could have taken me aside and told me," he said in an e-mail exchange on Monday.

It's not as if Chandler was a stranger to the PCs. He has a long and loud history of involvement with right-wing political movements including the federal Reform party and the Alberta Alliance. He is a social conservative, at times belligerently so.

More to the point, he has a long history of making inflammatory comments, often against homosexuality. He got in trouble with the Canadian Human Rights Commission and earlier this year posted an apology on his radio program's website agreeing to "cease and desist" from saying homosexuals are "sick, diseased or mentally ill" or that they are "wicked or dangerous."

It was brought on by his stacking and winning the nomination in Calgary Egmont, but the nail in his political coffin was this Human Rights Ruling last week.

An Alberta man who has pressed for five years to get an anti-gay letter branded as hate literature won a victory Friday with a human rights commission ruling that said it broke provincial law and may even have played a role in the beating of a gay teenager.

The letter, written by Stephen Boissoin and published in the Red Deer Advocate in 2002, carried the headline "Homosexual agenda wicked" and suggested gays were as immoral as pedophiles, drug dealers and pimps.

Darren Lund, a high school teacher in Red Deer at the time, complained to the Alberta Human Rights Commission after the teenager was beaten in the city two weeks after the letter was published.

In Friday's ruling, commission panel chairwoman Lori Andreachuk said both Boissoin and the Concerned Christian Coalition to which he belonged broke provincial human rights law by likely exposing gays to hatred and contempt.

During the panel's hearing earlier this year, Boissoin testified that Craig Chandler - a former CEO of the coalition who recently won a provincial Progressive Conservative nomination in Calgary - was aware of and supported what he was doing.

Chandler posted a formal apology on the coalition's website about the letter last January after a separate complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Tory officials are scheduled to review Chandler's nomination on Saturday.

The implication in the news reporters and pundits comments was that this was the Night of the Long Knives for the Social Conservative Right Wing in the PC's. Unlikely or they would have gotten rid of Oberfuerher Ted Morton.


Some bloggers say this shows how undemocratic the internal politics of the PC political apparatus is. In fact Craig Chandler sold more memberships, and stacked the nomination meeting with his supporters. Which is far more 'undemocratic' then ousting him cause he does not meet Uncle Ed's 'progressive' standards.

The fact is he should never have been allowed to run if they were going to deny him his nomination, and that has raised the hew and cry from bloggers left and right. But what did they expect why are they surprised at this apparent anti-democratic action by a Party that has ruled this One Party State for thirty six years.

Well because Uncle Ed blundered badly. Unlike King Ralph and his advisors, who pulled folks aside in the back rooms and told them whether they could run or not, Uncle Ed made this public. He wants to send a message that the Party is for All Albertans not just the radical right. Which does not explain his making Morton a Cabinet Minister, since he too represents the radical right. And Morton has campaigned long and hard against Gay Rights, just as Chandler has.

Like I said it is being equated with a Night of the Long Knives for the radical right in the PC's. But is it?

This is all for show, Chandler is an easy target, Morton isn't. There is going to be less fall out from kicking Chandler out than there would have been if Morton hadn't been given a Cabinet position. And considering how Morton is blundering, and dependent on the next election, he may not be in cabinet next time around.

Why is everyone surprised? This is typical of political parties that dominate power in other One Party States. Just look at Putin's election victory in newly 'democratic' Russia over the weekend.


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Gay Old Communists

I found this terrific graphic at one of my anarchist pal's blogs; Kehlkopfmikrofon . It visually reveals the sinister link between the Gay Agenda and the Communist Agenda to undermine faith, family and the American way. Say it ain't so.

Russians in love.

"Thank you comrade for rescuing me from Nazism."





















And don't forget them commies were once America's friends during WWII.



















Which of course was an embarrassment at the end of the war so they created a witch hunt to purge commies from America.

After all as we all know in Uncle Joe's Russia then and still today, just like in Bonapartist Iran, there are no gays just happy peasants and the Glorious Soldiers of the Red Army.

Just like there were no Gay men or women in America until they were discovered after WWII.

Before Joseph McCarthy began his witch hunt began against commies in the U.S. State department he began with a witch hunt on homosexuals.

And of course homosexuals did not exist in America before they were publicly outed post WWII by McCarthy's HUAC. Because his witch hunt began before Kinsey published his studies on American Sexuality.

In fact thanks to HUAC's witch hunts the commies were some of the folks who then were active in creating the first Male Homosexual Society to fight for their rights; The Mattachine Society.

Like dear departed Harry Hay. Who was not only a communist but a Wobbly and a Pagan.

You can't hardly separate homosexuals from subversives ... A man of low morality is a menace to the government, whatever he is, and they are all tied up together. —Senator Wherry in New York Post, 1950 It may come as a surprise that the gay movement not only began in the 1950s, but that its founders were former communists and radicals. Harry Hay, who wrote the first call for a gay movement in 1948, had been a party member for 20 years, active in labor organizing and cultural work. The fact that these organizers had already spent most of their lives outside the mainstream no doubt prepared them for the risks involved in forming a gay organization. The modern gay movement in America began in Los Angeles, a city that symbolized the mobile, affluent lifestyle of Americans after the War. The Mattachine Foundation (to be distinguished from the post-1953 Mattachine Society) was formed in the winter of 1950 by a group of seven gay men gathered together by Hay. The name refers to the medieval Mattachines, troupes of men who traveled from village to village, taking up the cause of social justice in their ballads and dramas. By sharing and analyzing their personal experience as gay men, the Mattachine founders radically redefined the meaning of being gay and devised a comprehensive program for cultural and political liberation.

In 1951, Mattachine began sponsoring discussion groups. Years before women's “consciousness-raising groups,” Mattachine provided lesbians and gay men a similar opportunity to share openly, for the first time, their feelings and experiences.

So in effect the so called 'Gay Agenda' would never had come about if it weren't for Americas Uncle Joe, and his rabid anti-commie aide, Roy Cohn who was gay. Proving again that homophobia is created by self hate and denial. The Right Wing created the modern gay movement thanks to their need to repress freedom. Ironic eh?

Cohn confers with Senator McCarthy at the Army-McCarthy Hearings

In 1952 Joseph McCarthy appointed Roy Cohn as the chief counsel to the Government Committee on Operations of the Senate. Cohn had been recommended by Edgar Hoover, who had been impressed by his involvement in the prosecution of the Rosenburgs. Soon after Cohn was appointed, he recruited his best friend, David Schine, to become his chief consultant.

For some time opponents of McCarthy had been accumulating evidence concerning his homosexual relationships. Rumours began to circulate that Cohn and David Schine were having a sexual relationship. Although well-known by political journalists, it did not become public until Hank Greenspun published an article in the Las Vagas Sun in 25th October, 1952.

And of course these folks who fought for Gay Rights in those dark days coincidentally came from the Left Coast, home to the Beats and the rising Youth Culture that would create a new American 'Counter Culture' in the Sixties. Influenced as they were by Kinsey and the rediscovery of earlier American Radicalism that the post war social amnesia of the Witch Hunts had failed to suppress.

The Daughters of Bilitis /bɪ’li:tis/ (DOB), considered to be the first lesbian rights organization in the United States, was formed in San Francisco, California in 1955. The group was conceived as a social alternative to lesbian bars, which were considered illegal and thus subject to raids and police harassment. It lasted for fourteen years and became a tool of education for lesbians, gay men, researchers, and mental health professionals.

As the DOB gained members, their focus shifted to providing support to women who were afraid to come out, by educating them about their rights and their history. Historian Lillian Faderman declared, "Its very establishment in the midst of witch-hunts and police harassment was an act of courage, since members always had to fear that they were under attack, not because of what they did, but merely because of who they were."

Daughters of Bilitis (D.O.B.) was founded in San Francisco, California in 1955. The name of the group comes from the book Song of Bilitis by French author Pierre Louy, which contains love poems between women. In 1955, the group only had eight members. In the years to come, the group grew considerably. D.O.B. provided a place for lesbians to meet outside the bars, documented their lives, and promoted civil rights. One of their most significant achievements was a national newsletter for lesbians, titled The Ladder. They soon started other U.S. chapters, and even one in Australia. D.O.B. held their first national convention in San Francisco in 1960.

For a time, Daughters of Bilitis and The Mattachine Society joined together in "Common Cause". Some women even wrote for Mattachine's ONE Magazine. As the women's movement began to grow in the U.S., it became apparent that the men of Mattachine showed little desire to champion women's issues. At the same time, the women's movement was not particularly welcoming. The National Organization for Women (N.O.W.) was afraid that lesbian involvement would only bring further hostility from the media and a male dominated world. They called lesbians "the lavender menace" and sought to eject them from the movement.

Revisionist history continues today in America in Tom Brokaw's new book on the Sixties that overlooks the importance of the Mattachine Society and the Lesbian; Daughters of Bilitis Society and the rise of the Gay Rights Movement. .

BOOM! Voices of the Sixties: Personal Reflections on the '60s and Today shares Brokaw's perspectives and personal accounts of 1960s issues including Vietnam and the civil rights movement.

One glaring Boomer-era omission, however, was the gay rights movement. Brokaw, on a recent CNN appearance, says that the gay rights movement "came later," and he didn't intend to slight the movement by not including it.

While the impact of the movement was marked notably in the late 1960s by the Stonewall riots, its momentum and progress were due in no small part to the work of Dr. Frank Kameny, who has written a letter to Brokaw and representatives of Random House Publishing Group.

"I write with no little indignation at the total absence of any slightest allusion to the gay movement for civil equality in your book 'Boom! Voices of the Sixties'. Your book simply deletes the momentous events of that decade which led to the vastly altered and improved status of gays in our culture today."

Ralph, a man approaching his eighties and one of my regulars at the Café, had a good chuckle when I told him about my research for this story. He said "I can answer that easily. The way we met in the old days was the three B’s: Balconies, Bushes and Baths; those are all gone now." Ralph stumbled into the gay scene in the ’50s by accident; he loved watching movies, especially John Wayne westerns. He was surprised by the number of people that would congregate in the dark balconies of the theaters. Then, when someone sat right next to him in an empty row he caught on. After that, Ralph became an avid moviegoer since that was the easiest way for him to meet other men.

Camille, in his 80s, spoke about the baths in New York City. He has a fondness for that era in the mid-’60s because "it provided a sanctuary where we could truly be ourselves. It was more than a place for sex, it was our entire social outlet. We could talk openly there but we couldn’t associate with one another in the real world. It was also a pure time, before AIDS entered the gay scene and changed everything."

Some men, especially those who grew up in rural areas, also spoke about "the bushes." Tom, a colleague in the Boston Gay Men’s Chorus, described growing up queer in Ohio in the early sixties as "not fun and very lonely." He heard rumors about the city park and that became the only means he could connect with other gay men. He said it was very dangerous and he was assaulted there once.

Clearly not all men met through sexual encounters back then. Some, like Jim, 74, sought out a socio-political gathering of gay men known as the Mattachine Society. He felt that finding the courage to attend that meeting was the only way to meet other men like himself.

The next generation of men I spoke with, the men who came out in the ’70s and ’80s, had new means available: personal ads and the bars. Although gay bars have been in existence for ages, people felt safer to venture out and frequent them, given the end of police raids thanks to Stonewall and the emerging gay rights movement.

Even today America hides the truth about the history of the Gay Rights movement because it is not just the history of the counter culture but reveals that mass movements are the direct result of the Right Wing Political Agenda to suppress freedom. This is the dialectic in action. As Michael Focualt points out in his History of Sexuality; suppress human rights around sexuality and you create movements for human rights for sexual freedom.

Foucault argues that we generally read the history of sexuality since the 18th century in terms of what Foucault calls the "repressive hypothesis." The repressive hypothesis supposes that since the rise of the bourgeoisie, any expenditure of energy on purely pleasurable activities has been frowned upon. As a result, sex has been treated as a private, practical affair that only properly takes place between a husband and a wife. Sex outside these confines is not simply prohibited, but repressed. That is, there is not simply an effort to prevent extra-marital sex, but also an effort to make it unspeakable and unthinkable. Discourse on sexuality is confined to marriage.

That repression is something the right wing in Canada, America, Israel, Russia and Iran share in common to this day. And the fight for freedom is always counter to that agenda. Which is why the fight for gay rights is the fight for human rights.

The history of the world is none other than
the progress of the consciousness of freedom.
-George Hegel, 1821

SEE

War On Satan the Sodomite

Out Of The Hogwarts Broom Closet

Ezra Says Gay Bashers Are Muslims

Outing BP

Procreation To Save The White Race

Marx on Bigamy

Polygamy is NOT Polyamoury

The Sanctity of Marriage Debate

Whose Family Values?

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witch hunt, Joseph McCarthy, Harry Hay, Mattachine Society, HUAC, gay rights, the sixties, Russia, Daughters of Bilitis, homosexual agenda, communist agenda, gay, homosexuality, Tom Brokaw

B-Day

I got a reminder notice today from the nice folks at Blog.ca.

Happy Birthday plawiuk,

today is your birthday and we wish you a day filled with your favourite things, with sunshine and laughter and lots of good cheer.

How about writing something about your birthday in your blog? Your friends and the blog.ca community will certainly be glad to hear about how you have experienced this special day.

Just log in http://www.blog.ca/login.php to write a post on your blog to your friends or to the whole blog.ca community .

We wish you all the best and are looking forward to seeing you again soon.

Your blog.ca-team

As if I would forget. And since they asked me to post about my birthday well shucks who could resist. Here is my post..... from last year; Today In History.

Modest ain't I.


And here are two versions of Beatles doing Happy Birthday. I like the second one best. Both are rockin'. The original Happy Birthday song was called Good Morning To You.


Happy Birthday - The Beatles






Birthday by the Beatles
From The White Album

,


Unfortunately these guys forgot about me;

December 1 Birthdays in History - December 1 Deaths - December 1 Events

And I didn't make the news like these folks.

Today in 1982 Michael Jackson released his autobiographical video;
" I am not like other guys' Narrated by the great Vincent Price. It created the culture of mass music videos.

And of course Birthdays are a pagan celebration.

Birthday

It is thought the large-scale celebration of birthdays in Europe began with the cult of Mithras, which originated in Persia but was spread by soldiers throughout the Roman Empire. Such celebrations were uncommon previously so practices from other contexts such as the Saturnalia were adapted for birthdays. Because many Roman soldiers took to Mithraism, it had a wide distribution and influence throughout the empire until it was supplanted by Christianity. The Jewish perspective on birthday celebrations is disputed by various rabbis.

Celebration of birthdays is not universal. Some people prefer name day celebrations, and Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate either, considering their origins to be pagan festivals along with Christmas and Easter

And I have that statue of Mithras at home...coincidence? I think not.

Also 'coincidentally' Mithras shares the same birthday as Jesus, as does Krishna and Horus. Since it is the Sun's Birthday.

They are after all Sun Gods.



And don't forget today is World AIDS Day. I noticed a lot of Harpocrites were not wearing their red ribbons this week neither in the house or while doing interviews on Mike Duffy.

Hmmm.....I guess for them it is still a Gay Disease,

despite evidence to the contrary.

Harper also can focus more attention on AIDS in Canada, where more than 62,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS. New infections are often among young people, especially girls 15 to 19 years old.

But at least one Cabinet Minister was wearing his Red Ribbon...why am I not surprised?




Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Eugene Plawiuk, December 1, December 1, 1954,12/01/54,born today, today in history, Sagittarius, horse in Chinese Astrology