It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
NDP MP Blake Desjarlais (Edmonton Griesbach) made the following statement:
“On November 16th 1885, 139 years ago today, the Canadian government executed Métis Leader, the Honourable Louis Riel. He was the founder of Manitoba, a father of the Confederation, and a brave defender and steward of Métis rights and self-determination. Riel was unjustly executed for opposing colonial polices that forcefully displaced Métis people.
Riel stood for the rights of Métis people and for minority French language rights in Canada. Generations of people to follow would pick up the torch left by President Riel and would go on to fight for greater respect and rights of Métis people. Today we recognize this pain felt by Métis people and commit to truth, justice, and reconciliation by recognizing this profound injustice and commit to a future of Metis dignity and pride, one that Riel would be proud of.
Today, New Democrats, along with Canadians across the country gather to pay their respects to the Honourable Louis Riel and recommit to continuing his legacy by fighting for justice and rights for all."
A poem and introduction written by Louis Riel for his jailer about three weeks before Riel was hanged for treason: Robert Gordon! I beg your pardon for so having kept you waiting after some poor verses of mine. You know, my English is not fine. I speak it; but only very imperfectly.
The snow,
Which renders the ground all white,
From heaven, comes here below:
Its pine frozen drops invite us all
To white -- keep our thoughts and our acts,
So that when our bodies do fall,
Our merits, before God, be facts.
How many who, with good desires,
Have died and lost their souls to fires?
Good desires kept unpractic'd
Stand, before God, unnotic'd.
O Robert, let us be fond
Of virtue! Virtues abound
In every sort of good,
Let virtue be our soul's food. Louis (David) Riel Oct. 27, 1885 Regina Jail
‘Jeopardy!’ clue draws backlash: Canadian actress Devery Jacobs knocks ‘harmful misinformation’ about RCMP
A clue on the gameshow left out the controversial history of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Abhya Adlakha ·Editor, Yahoo News Canada Tue, January 17, 2023
Indigenous Canadian actress and writer Kawennáhere Devery Jacobs, known professionally as Devery Jacobs, called out the American game show Jeopardy! for spreading misinformation on Monday.
A clue on the game show claimed that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was created to clean up whiskey traders from the United States.
(FORT WHOOP UP US SOVERIGN TERRITORY IN LETHBRIDGE ALBERTA; BLACKFOOT NATION) However, Devery Jacobs called out the show and said that the RCMP was actually created to "control and assert sovereignty over Indigenous people" instead of protecting communities.
In fact, both reasons are true.
According to Britannica, the RCMP, formerly known as the North West Mounted Police at its time of creation, was created for both reasons—to deal with the whiskey traders from the United States and to "pacify" Indigenous Peoples and maintain order in the new Canadian Northwest Territories.
"The original force of 300 men was sent to deal with traders from the United States, who were creating havoc among (Indigenous Peoples) by trading cheap whiskey for buffalo hides," the webpage reads.
However, it is also true that the Canadian paramilitary police force was established to maintain order following the transfer in 1870 of Rupert's Land and Northwestern Territory to Canada from the Hudson's Bay Company.
Following the purchase, Canada's first Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald, established the Mounties to resemble the Royal Irish Constabulary, a paramilitary police force the British created to keep the Irish under control
In an interview with the Global News, history lecturer Steve Hewitt said that the job of the Mounties was to "clear the plains, the Prairies, of Indigenous People" and to displace Indigenous people.
The mounted police's approach has often be characterized by historians as "benevolent despotism" to "legal tyranny". The police—sometimes forcefully—tried to apply Canadian law to First Nations.
Indigenous People who resisted were starved onto reserves. The federal government brought in the Indian Act and used Mounties to forcibly remove Indigenous children from their homes, sparking a residential school crisis that has been called Canada's "genocide", leaving generations of trauma.
On the second anniversary of the storming of the US Capitol, a first-hand account recalls the carnage of the day Donald Trump’s supporters tried to seize power
Thousands of people were already moving up the National Mall, advancing over the long lawn slowly but steadily, as if pulled by a current. A few Trump supporters shouted out encouragements, but mostly there was an eerie sense of inexorability mixed with apprehensive hesitation. The mood was quiet and subdued. It reminded me of certain combat situations: the slightly stunned, almost bashful moment when bravado, expectation and fantasy crash against reality.
I’d left the Washington Monument a little before one o’clock. At roughly the same time, two pipe bombs were discovered outside the Democratic and Republican National Committee headquarters, a few blocks from the Capitol. While searching the area, officers found a pickup truck containing 11 Molotov cocktails, a semi-automatic rifle with a scope, a shotgun, three handguns, several high-capacity magazines, a crossbow, machetes, a Taser, smoke devices, hundreds of rounds of ammunition, and a piece of paper with a handwritten quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln: “We the people are the rightful masters of both the Congress and the courts, not to overthrow the Constitution but to overthrow the men who pervert the Constitution.”
As officers pulled weapons from the truck, and explosive ordnance technicians disabled the pipe bombs, and Ted Cruz and his colleagues settled into the House of Representatives for a historic joint session of Congress, a couple of hundred Proud Boys fell in with a crowd of Trump supporters on the west side of the Capitol. Steel barricades cordoned off the grass. A few police stood nearby. Cell phone footage documents the ensuing confrontation. “Back the fuck off!” one man tells the officers; another removes his denim jacket, turns his red MAGA hat backward, and begins pushing and pulling the barricades as officers on the other side struggle to keep them upright. A female officer falls, hits her head, and suffers a concussion; the Trump supporters plough over her peers.
How is it possible that the perimeter of the US Capitol, on this day, could be so poorly defended and breached with such shocking speed and ease? Where was the militarised and vastly disproportionate force that had been marshalled to “dominate” racial-justice protesters in Minneapolis and Portland? Around 1,200 officers were on duty. After the pipe bombs were discovered, many of them were moved from their posts to help evacuate nearby congressional buildings. During Senate testimony, Steven Sund, who resigned as Capitol Police chief after January 6, would speculate that the purpose of the explosives had been “to draw resources away,” and that it was no accident that the Proud Boys assaulted the perimeter while his officers “were not at full strength.” Sund would add: “I think there was significant coordination with this attack.”
It’s an interesting theory. But like many interesting theories, it distracts from an essential truth: after months of cracking down on antifascists and Black Lives Matter protesters, no federal or local authority viewed the Patriots as dangerous.
On the west side of the Capitol, where presidential inauguration ceremonies had been held since 1981, two broad flights of marble steps descended from an outdoor terrace, on the third floor, to the National Mall. In anticipation of Joe Biden’s swearing-in, huge bleachers had been erected over the steps and a 10,000-square-foot platform constructed between them. After the officers at the outer perimeter were overrun, they retreated to these bleachers, where they formed a back line with colleagues in riot gear and members of the Metropolitan Police Department.
Trump supporters gain access to the US Capitol Building in a bid to overturn the result of the 2020 US presidential election. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty
“We need some reinforcements up here now,” one officer told dispatch, in an audio recording made public during Trump’s impeachment hearing. “They’re starting to pull the gates down. They’re throwing metal poles at us.” Another officer reported “multiple law enforcement injuries.” As I approached the melee, I could hear the dull thud of stun grenades and see their bright flashes. “It’s us versus the cops!” a man in camouflage yelled. Someone let out what sounded like a rebel yell. A makeshift gallows stood near a statue of Ulysses S Grant. People paused to climb the structure’s wooden steps and take pictures of the Capitol framed within an oval noose.
“We the people make the law!” a man shouted. “Trump won!” Beside the gallows, a woman held a sign that read: the storm is here. Paramedics rushed by, pushing a stretcher loaded with equipment. A limping man was helped towards an ambulance. Scattered groups wavered, debating whether to join the confrontation. “We lost the Senate – we need to make a stand now,” a bookish-looking woman in a down coat and glasses appealed to her friend. “This is it.”
The bleachers had been wrapped in ripstop tarpaulin, creating a solid monolith that functioned as a kind of rampart. Trump supporters were using barricades as ladders to scale the balustrades and cutting through the fabric with knives. Officers blocked an opening at the bottom of the bleachers, but they were outnumbered and obviously intimidated as the mob pressed against them, screaming threats and insults, pelting them with cans and bottles. Some people shoved and punched individual officers; others linked arms and rammed their backs into the row of riot shields, eyes squeezed shut against blasts of pepper spray. A few Trump supporters countered with their own chemical agents. A man in a cowboy hat lifted his jacket to reveal a revolver tucked into his waistband. The stone slabs underfoot were smeared with blood. “To protect the Constitution of the United States against all enemies – foreign and domestic!” someone yelled.
At 1.49pm, about 10 minutes after I arrived at the base of the Capitol steps, Chief Steven Sund called General William Walker, the commander of the DC National Guard, and asked him for assistance. While each state’s National Guard is controlled by its governor, units in DC answer to the White House. Typically, their activation is approved or denied by the secretary of the army and the secretary of defence, who do so on behalf of the president. Thousands of National Guard troops were mobilised in DC after George Floyd was killed. In December, Mayor Muriel Bowser had submitted a written request to General Walker for support with crowd control on January 6, in downtown areas beyond the Capitol Police’s jurisdiction. Walker had sought approval from the secretary of the army, Ryan McCarthy, who agreed to make the troops available but imposed two caveats: there would be no quick-reaction force, or QRF – in this case, an element of soldiers equipped with riot gear, trained and organised to quell violent unrest – and if at any point Walker wished to move personnel from one location to another, McCarthy must first sign off on it. In a Senate hearing in March, Walker would call both of these requirements “unusual.” He would also describe the “frantic call” that he received on January 6 at 1.49: “Chief Sund, his voice cracking with emotion, indicated that there was a dire emergency on Capitol Hill, and he requested the immediate assistance of as many Guardsmen as I could muster.” After getting off the phone, General Walker immediately contacted the Pentagon and asked for permission to send troops to the riot. He would receive the green light more than three hours later.
While Sund was appealing to Walker, a man using a bullhorn plastered with Infowars stickers made his way along the police line. “You’re a bunch of oath breakers!” he barked. “You’re traitors to the country!” Following behind him were half a dozen Proud Boys. Seconds after they passed me, the mob overwhelmed the officers at the opening in the tarpaulin, and everyone flooded into the understructure of the bleachers.
“Storm!” people yelled as they scrambled through the scaffolding’s metal braces and up the granite steps. Towards the top, a temporary security wall contained three doors, one of which was instantly breached. Dozens of police stood behind the wall, using shields, nightsticks and chemical munitions to prevent the mob from crossing the threshold. Other officers took up positions on the planks above us, firing a steady barrage of pepper balls into the horde. As rounds tinked off metal and a caustic miasma filled the space like the inside of a fumigation tent, more and more Trump supporters crammed into the bleachers, crushing those towards the front against the wall. A few people baulked: “We need to retreat and assault another point!” But most remained resolute.
“Keep pushing!” they screamed. “Shoot the politicians!”
“Push forward! We’re winning!”
Martial bagpipes blared through portable speakers. I was tightly pinned, unable to move. Each time the mob heaved, it lifted me off my feet. One of the people I was pressed against wore a helmet, a gas mask, and an army combat uniform with a patch that read “armor of god”.
I looked behind me. Tens of thousands of Trump supporters filled Pennsylvania Avenue, stretching as far back as I could see. Although the people at the rear had no way of knowing what was happening here, from my vantage point they all bled together, comprising a single entity animated by one purpose. In the video I recorded at this moment, individual features become progressively more distinct as they approach the foreground. A man with meticulously coiffed silver hair, in a military dress coat adorned with medals; a man wearing swimming goggles and a motorcycle helmet printed with a skull and crossbones; a man in wire-frame bifocals, clothed from head to foot in animal pelts; and then, a couple of feet away, leaning all his weight into the bodies directly beside me, a corpulent and goateed man whose black baseball hat is embroidered with the letters “TAT”.
The meaning of the acronym – “Take Action Today” – had changed somewhat dramatically since Jason Howland first started wearing the hat as a marketing gimmick for the Jason Howland Corporation. In one promotional video, three years before he co-founded the American Patriot Council, Howland had averred: “I want to be an example of Christ for people in business, show people that you can become a master in your market space through honesty and integrity and doing the right thing every time.” I now watched that would-be example of Christ drop his head, plant his feet, and add his considerable mass to the human thing churning over the Capitol Police. Balanced on a crossbeam above Howland was his partner, Ryan Kelley, who, in June, had thanked law enforcement “for standing up for our communities” and insisted: “We are here demanding peace.” A cell phone video would capture Kelley yelling at rioters: “This is war, baby!”
While I was under the bleachers, Lauren Boebert, the newly elected congresswoman from Colorado, rose to deliver the first speech of her career in the House of Representatives. The lawmakers had broken off from the joint session after Ted Cruz objected to the votes from Arizona, the third state in the certification process, which proceeds alphabetically. Both chambers were now debating independently, after which they would reunite and continue to Arkansas. “The members who stand here today and accept the results of this concentrated, coordinated, partisan effort by Democrats, where every fraudulent vote cancels out the vote of an honest American, has sided with the extremist left,” Boebert warned her fellow Republicans. But she also had a message for Nancy Pelosi: “Madam Speaker, I have constituents outside this building right now.”
It was dark and lights were glowing in the windows of the rotunda when, at 5.40pm, three hours and 19 minutes after the Capitol Police requested their assistance, 154 National Guard soldiers arrived. By then, with the help of officers from Maryland and Virginia, the building had been secured. I linked up with the photographers Balazs Gardi and Victor Blue. Balazs and I had walked together up the National Mall from the Washington Monument but were separated in the chaos under the bleachers. He had entered the Capitol on the same level as I but ended up in a space beneath the rotunda known as the Crypt. Victor had gone to the Capitol earlier that morning. He had witnessed the Proud Boys overpower the officers on the outer perimeter, and had been with the mob that tried to break into the Speaker’s Lobby. While I was following the crowd into the Senate chamber, Victor was taking pictures of Ashli Babbitt as she died.
Four years earlier, when Trump defeated Clinton, Victor and I had been in Mosul, where the immediacy of the civil war raging around us seemed to dwarf the significance of the American election. That felt like a long time ago now.
Protester Richard Barnett sits inside the office of US speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on January 6, 2021. Barnett’s trial begins on January 9. Photo: Saul Loeb/Getty
Mayor Bowser had imposed a curfew, and as the three of us headed back towards our hotel, downtown DC was quiet. Scattered bands of Trump supporters roamed the streets. We were walking up the middle of Pennsylvania Avenue, talking about where we had been and what we had seen, when a young man ahead of us stopped and turned around. I think we all expected some kind of confrontation. The man, however, only wanted to share something with us. “Check this out,” he said excitedly, holding forth a black cube with a plastic lens. Balazs, Victor, and I leaned over to inspect the object. It appeared to be a body camera.
“I took it off a cop,” the man said.
We stood there mutely staring at the thing. I was aware that I should be asking questions. I knew the questions that I was supposed to ask. Who was he? Where, when, and how had he done it? Why? But I did not want to hear his answers. I didn’t care. After a while, our failure to congratulate the man seemed to make him regret showing us his prize. He shoved it back in his coat pocket. A cold wind was gusting down the avenue. The man shrugged and continued on his way. We watched him disappear into the empty city.
Abridged from The Storm is Here: America on the Brink by Luke Mogelson, published by Riverrun.
Sunday, September 11, 2022
Opinion: Reconciliation in Edmonton should begin on the Rossdale Flats
Phillip Coutu Publishing date: Sep 03, 2022
Artist Ken Lum created The Buffalo and the Buffalo Fur Trader Bronze sculpture intended to be installed beside the new Walterdale Bridge in Edmonton. The city has decided not to install the art work. The Buffalo and the Buffalo Fur Trader features two 13-foot bronze sculptures intended to highlight the history and impact of the fur trade in Edmonton. The City's decision rests on the potential for the artwork to be misinterpreted as a celebration of colonization. PHOTO BY SUPPLIED /City of Edmonton
THE CURRENT MEMORIAL ON THE SACRED GROUNDS
From 2000 to 2005, a small group of descendants of Fort Edmonton played an integral role in the preservation of the Fort Edmonton burial grounds.
It was a good start on a long road to reconciliation with Aboriginal peoples, but we were discarded in favour of a Wicihitowin process which was primarily led by Mr. Lewis Cardinal. Despite a lot of unfinished business, nothing has happened since that time. Consultations with a privileged few while avoiding the most knowledgeable, simply has not worked. As a Metis who has lived and worked with Indigenous people my whole life, I wish to say that reconciliation needs to be seen to be done and the Rossdale Flats is an ideal location to reimagine our relationship with First Peoples.
It begins with allowing Cree, Metis and others in the plains culture to talk to each other in a consultation process that honours its oratory nature. I am very saddened by the recent art installation debacle which featured a buffalo fur trader and a buffalo but excluded any acknowledgement that the Metis existed here for 100 years. Worse, it confuses our history. We are the children of the fur trade who hunted buffalo and viewed them as a gift from the creator. This art did not reflect our history. It reflected American history where buffalo herds were slaughtered for their pelts and their carcasses left to rot on the plains.
I believe the bronze buffalo belongs at the entrance of the burial grounds so all who drive down River Valley Road would be reminded of the power of our buffalo culture. The Metis often say we are like the buffalo, who stand to face the cold north winds. I believe other descendants would support this idea as this buffalo, like us, has been discarded from the flats.
A beautiful act of real reconciliation would be to create another bronze statue of a real fur trader being greeted by perhaps his Indigenous wife, holding their child and standing next to her father. The north end of the bridge is a very special place for us Metis. It is the historic landing where after months of travel with the brigade, voyageurs were reunited with their loved ones. This was the rendezvous — a celebration of culture.
A second step to reconciliation is to define the sacred grounds — our burial grounds. If not, the gondola debacle shows us that if it is all sacred, nothing becomes sacred and the flats will remain as abandoned lands. Hudson’s Bay Company diagrams and a documented history of desecrations confirm burials extended into the transformer yard but not much further. It must be removed as Epcor’s persistent repairs using a hydro-vac methods to dig, sends our ancestor’s remains to the sewer system. Spiritually, the above situation brings disharmony to us all and is an affront to our dignity.
A third step to reconciliation is to return the nearby baseball field to First Nation peoples to use for cultural purposes. These were their ancient sundance grounds which were taken from them to create a horse track and later the exhibition grounds. It’s time for the city to return what is not theirs.
A fourth step which might be considered is to use the large brick building as a venue to display large black and white pictures of the First Nation peoples and their trauma in the residential schools. Edmonton cannot be a great city until it finds the courage to embrace its past. It begins with allowing the Rossdale Flats to return to its rightful place as a great gathering place of all cultures.
Phillip Coutu is a retired psychologist, author and direct descendent of Marie Anne Gaboury and Jean Baptiste Lagimodiere who lived on the Rossdale site from 1808 to 1811. They are the grandparents of Louis Riel.
HISTORICAL REVISIONISM Culture minister bashes 'Laurentian elites' as Alberta celebrates birthday holiday
EDMONTON — Alberta celebrated its inaugural birthday party holiday with Culture Minister Ron Orr bashing the prime minster and “Laurentian elites” while asserting the province has received the short end of the stick in the federation for more than a century.
RON ORR, JASOM KENNEY
“The family compact of Laurentian elites have always skewed the deal in their favour,” Orr told assembled dignitaries, including Premier Jason Kenney, Indigenous leaders and Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani, on a sunny morning Thursday near the legislature grounds.
“There are many in our province who are frustrated … that Alberta has never really been granted that full fair deal with the federal government that was promised.”
Orr said Alberta has been treated unfairly from the start, noting it wasn’t granted provincial status until Sept. 1, 1905, almost 40 years after Confederation.
He said the unfairness continued with Alberta not gaining control of its natural resources until the 1930s, then facing a federal challenge to those resources in the national energy program of the 1980s, followed to this day with other policies deemed detrimental to the province’s golden goose industry.
“The attacks of our recent (Justin) Trudeau government on our energy, our resources, our wealth, our freedom — there are just so many ways that Albertans have struggled to achieve our full and our fair place in this Confederation," Orr said. "But you know what? Albertans will succeed."
He said Alberta has become one of Canada's economic powerhouses "and we truly are the envy of the world in so many respects."
“Happy Birthday, Alberta. That is what today is about," Orr said.
Earlier this week, the province announced it is projecting to take in a record $28.4 billion in non-renewable resource revenues this year, delivering a $13.2-billion surplus for a province of 4.5 million people.
Kenney, who is stepping down as premier early next month once his party selects a new leader, recently announced the creation of Alberta Day, which is not a statutory holiday, to celebrate the province’s heritage and culture.
Events, concerts, activities and fireworks are scheduled throughout the province over the weekend.
Thursday’s kickoff saluted Alberta’s Indigenous history, with speakers and First Nations musical performers.
Kenney told the audience, “In expressing gratitude for those who have gone before us, we of course must start with the people who first inhabited these lands, the Indigenous people … who created the first communities, who were the first entrepreneurs, who were the first custodians of this magnificent natural habitat.”
Kenney added that it's time to celebrate a province that has “unique culture, history and geography, but is also proudly part of the great Canadian federation.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 1, 2022.
Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press
WOULD THE LAURENTIAN ELITE INCLUDE THE CONSERVATIVE OPPOSITION PARTY IN OTTAWA OF WHICH ALL BUT ONE OF ALBERTA'S MPS BELONG TO, ALONG WITH THE TORIES IN THE SENATE?
ASKING FOR A FRIEND
Danielle Smith says premier, Alberta Lt.-Gov. wrong to comment on sovereignty act
CBC/Radio-Canada - Yesterday
United Conservative Party leadership candidate Danielle Smith called it "inappropriate" for both Alberta Lt.-Gov. Salma Lakhani and outgoing Premier Jason Kenney to criticize her proposed Alberta Sovereignty Act.
UCP leadership candidate Danielle Smith says it's inappropriate for Premier Jason Kenney to criticize her top priority legislation, the Alberta Sovereignty Act, before he has seen the bill.
Smith made the remarks in a video posted to social media Friday and in an accompanying news release.
A day earlier, Lakhani said she would consult with legal experts before giving royal assent to a potentially unconstitutional piece of legislation.
Lakhani said her constitutional role is the most important part of her job and that Alberta must follow the rule of law.
The act, as described by Smith, would give Alberta the ability to ignore federal laws that aren't in the province's best interest.
Smith called on Lakhani to retract her statements.
The former Wildrose leader also took issue with Kenney's comments on 630 CHED Friday morning.
Kenney told host Shaye Ganam that Smith's act would put the lieutenant-governor in a very "awkward" position and hurt investor confidence in Alberta.
"This is unprecedented and entirely inappropriate political interference in our democratic processes," she said in a news release sent Friday.
In the video, Smith accused the premier of trying to tip the scales in favour of his "preferred" leadership candidate Travis Toews, who served as finance minister in Kenney's cabinet before stepping down at the end of May.
"You want to talk about creating a constitutional crisis," Smith says in the video.
"Having a caretaker premier in the position where he is acting the way he is is what's creating a constitutional crisis.
"I would ask him to stop. I would ask him to stop weighing in on this contest. And if he wants to continue in the position of being a caretaker, in the meantime, that's exactly what he should do."
Smith's supporters have criticized Lakhani for her comments on the sovereignty act. Peter Guthrie, the UCP MLA for Airdrie-Cochrane, claimed that the federal Liberals were influencing Lakhani. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau named Lakhani to serve as Alberta's lieutenant-governor in August 2020.
"It appears the Ottawa elites through Trudeau's appointed representative are interfering in the UCP leadership race on a piece of legislation that hasn't yet been written or debated in Alberta's legislature," he said on Twitter. "If Trudeau is against, it must be right."
Lakhani said she needs to see a bill first before deciding what action to take. She plans to raise the question of how to handle a potentially unconstitutional piece of legislation with her counterparts at vice-regal conference in Newfoundland next month.
Smith and Toews are among the seven candidates running to replace Kenney as UCP leader.
Kenney plans to step down as soon as a winner is announced on Oct. 6.
Surviving today’s toxic brew of doomsday moralism, criminality and derangement
Civilization (especially democracies) depends on explicit procedures, transparency and balance to determine truth, if not justice. Otherwise, all bets are off.
You don’t have to be an English major to appreciate that style reveals as much as content when assessing persona, character and vision. A hundred years hence, literate folks may not care whether (hopefully) the Trump Deviance was a parade of unabashed chutzpah, brazen criminality, or deranged mass hysteria – whether a direction-shifter or simply the dark terror of the American soul made visible. Significant, widespread religious “awakenings” (all perturbed with secular reality) have pockmarked our history: this episode, an amalgam of grievance, fear-mongering, and apocalypse, defines the latest in anti-enlightenment backlash.
Until receding back to the shadows, this 21st Century Extremist Lurch presses us to fully explain how such radical extremism took over a national party that at least respected election results and resisted insurrection. Though Reaganism fathered income inequality and rejection of government, no GOP leader before had ever intimated, let alone orchestrated a violent Capitol election coup, then never stopped lying about it. Even Reaganism was above such a crass low blow. Frankly, and lost in the mayhem is this simple truth: the middle and left haven’t substantially changed how they talk politics, values, and life missions. Despite that, what shakes the foundation is demonizing “the other side” as enemies of the state, if not destroyers of America, not just opponents.
1) Doomsday moralism (addicted to good vs. evil, right vs. wrong) invokes harsh Biblical language, dishing out blunt judgments that boast superiority over wicked “sinners.” Fixated moralists manufacture all sorts of “evil schemes,” thus endlessly phony conspiracies, let alone slippery slopes. Unless the righteous rule like strict, Old Testament authorities, what’s already bad will get worse – and collapse looms (unless Armageddon saves the day). Violating rational categories is par for the course. Since everyone understands theft, propaganda rants about a “stolen national election.” Inflating still further, Trump calls 2020 “the crime of the century,” as if epochal time frames enhance the ever Bigger Lie. Thus are routine, secular, certified elections transformed into cosmic battlegrounds, blasphemy against higher powers. To accept Biden is to oppose divine will, as if any well-intentioned divinity welcomes violent overthrows.
Fire and brimstone
Hyperbole abounds, with garden-variety vaccine mandates demonized as Nazi-like persecution. No surprise, considering how the Trump Inaugural introduced terms of mass destruction new to inaugurals: carnage, bleed, depletion, stolen, disrepair, stealing, ripped, tombstones, trapped, sprawl, and unstoppable. By their diction ye shall know them.
Updated this week, GOP pollster Frank Luntz made an illuminating comparison between hustling, rightwing nationalists. England’s Prime Minister
Boris Johnson has written more books than Donald Trump has read. Boris . . . gets the historic context. He can wax poetically about 2,000 years ago, 200 years ago and two years ago. Trump could not do that.
Trump captured the anger and the desire for revenge; that is not Boris at all. Think about it: Boris is amusing whereas Trump was vitriolic and mean; Boris is compelling whereas Trump was insulting. There’s a big difference. Boris is more likable, more approachable, more human than Trump was. Trump is more the middle finger; Boris was the kind of guy that you wanted to hang out with at the pub.
That summary captures corrosive Trumpism: ignorant, judgmental, vitriolic, mean-spirited and vengeful. What’s more mindlessly judgmental (in someone older than ten) than the chronic middle finger salute, cheering on militant, white supremacists. “Lock ‘em up” is the howl of moralistic fascism, with tar and feathers replacing trials against demonic forces out to “steal our country”? Even seeming Trump “tolerance” corrupts, praising violent racists as “good people, too.” The least religious of modern presidents presided over a theocratic, then later an electoral mugging.
2) Criminality defines an action that transgresses explicit rules and limits that have formalized moral and cultural values. The glory of law, if not justice, are mandated procedures: allegation, investigation, evidence, indictment and jury of peers (with judicial oversight). Trumpers fabricate non-stop election allegations but no proof, so zero levers for procedural reversal. That leaves criminals with only criminal responses: manipulate, break the law, use violence, then the leverage of office to commit election fraud, amplified by sedition and insurrection. There is method to the madness, from the Criminal-in-chief previously capable of obstruction of justice, conflict of interest, illegal emoluments, campaign finance fraud, sexual predation, coercion/bribery of a foreign leader, and bank/insurance fraud. Thus was the post-election crime spree the inevitable outcome of Trumpist contempt for law. What’s inexplicably puzzling is why serial criminality has not filled to the brim federal (and state) court houses. Justice delayed is justice defanged.
In opposition, rational, skeptical, educated folks talk the language and spirit of the law: insurrectionists are not so much morally repugnant but agents of chaos, system-breakers who must be held to account, tried and with punishments to fit the crimes. Sedition is a missile against democracy, undermining the very formal processes by which law must operate. Though criminals forever yell of persecution and scapegoating, the legally-minded temper their biases and impulses by honoring procedure. Thus does civilization defeat barbarism and reason holds sway over glorying your gut when abusing the Constitution and statutes.
3) Our third deviation, derangement (as in denial, delusion, narcissism, and instability) calls on the language of psychology to find logical, descriptive categories to explain irrational beliefs (Biden is illegitimate; Democrats kill children, eat human flesh; fundamentals know how God votes) and self-destructive behavior (refusing the science of vaccination, thus amplifying your own and everyone else’s disease and death). Being irrational is not strictly criminal but blatant rejection of public health (in the phony name of individual rights) is parallel to the anti-reality tantrum against certified elections. While one stands in awe at how much malarkey Trump and enablers believe, the recalcitrant Republican death cult drips with unhinged power-madness. Derangement adds to fixated moralism plus contempt for law – defining a cancer capable of devouring critical linkages that define community. It is a package deal, by design or outcome.
Moralism and derangement: double-edged swords
Suspicious of forcing moralistic or psychological terms onto politicians, I resist calling them evil or crazy, even when bad faith intentions and erratic behavior predominate. Do we project wickedness or craziness on a white shark hunting its lunch? In the end politics comes down to impacts on people and the planet, good and bad. We may vote for honesty, trustworthiness and good intentions but it was not FDR’s moral purity that made him arguably our most important president. Nixon, second in criminality and instability to Trump, approved the EPA, eased Cold War tensions with nuclear agreements and made useful, diplomatic breakthroughs with China.
One-third of this primitive country constitute shrill Trumpers, cheering on his middle finger salute towards menacing elites, bureaucrats, opponents and government itself. “Rugged individualism” informs its own reality-denying, perverse religious mania. The delusion of phony individualism (except for hermits) is as deranged as Trumpism in a modern world rife with interconnectedness, whether viruses, communication, transport, supply chains, or getting your own slice of reality from cable TV. the internet or psychic messages from invisible spirits.
Moral judgments instantly boomerang in political exchanges: if their guy or movement is immoral or deranged, why not our champion and our value system, hardly without contradictions or flaws? But criminality is different, and law offers tested (if imperfect) procedures to determine reality, as with bias-free science and first-class scholarship. Civilization (especially democracies) depends on explicit procedures, transparency and balance to determine truth, if not justice. Otherwise, all bets are off. If Trump’s was a criminal presidency, banking on using office to escape indictments, that must be settled and his brew of toxins neutralized, however long it takes. If Trump finally turns out to be what many conclude – an immoral, incorrigible, malignant narcissist oblivious to the damage he causes – history will verify that in spades. I just hope Armageddon doesn’t come first and ruin all the fun.
Thursday, October 14, 2021
Supported by Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA, Free Alberta Strategy released
Wed., October 13, 2021
Published September 28, the Free Alberta Strategy is a policy paper written by Airdrie MLA and lawyer, Rob Anderson, University of Calgary political scientist, Barry Cooper, and constitutional lawyer, Derek From, in cooperation with the Alberta Institute.
The paper has two key objectives, which include establishing provincial sovereignty within Canada, and the end of equalization payments to have-not provinces.
“We believe that Alberta needs to declare itself a sovereign jurisdiction within Canada,” said Anderson. “Part of that is to pass a piece of legislation called the Alberta Sovereignty Act, which specifically states that the province of Alberta will not enforce federal laws that are unfair, that unfairly attack the province of Alberta, or that are outside of the jurisdiction of the federal jurisdiction of Ottawa. An example of that would be the carbon tax. If the legislature feels that the carbon taxes are an unconstitutional attack on Alberta and on our jurisdictional rights as a province, then we would simply say, under the Alberta Sovereignty Act, that he will not be enforcing that law within the boundaries of Alberta.”
The paper does not advocate for complete separation from Canada, points out Anderson, who believes that separatism is another option Albertans are tired of hearing of as the proposed only alternative to doing nothing about what is outlined in the strategy.
“The main issues that I'm hearing is, first of all, the lack of resource movement, is the fact that that Albertans are the best in the world at taking risk and safely extracting oil and gas are unable to get work unable to get work at the pay they used to, or they have to go hundreds of miles away to find work, and all the time the demand for oil and gas is increasing. So that would be the main one,” said Drew Barnes, MLA for Cypress-Medicine Hat. “Secondly, the fact that Alberta is such a cash cow to the rest of Canada, large parts of that through equalization, and the fact that equalization, and this money transfer is unfair in terms of giving some provinces, you know, sovereign funds as big as Alberta's. It's given them cheaper services. And it has created a problem where some provinces have not tried to increase their revenues or develop their resources, because they want to continue to collect equalization. It's an unfair system that hasn't worked well for anyone.”
Barnes noted a strong frustration in his constituency in the wake of the federal election, and said that “people are frustrated that elections are decided, you know, before we even finished counting our votes here.” Barnes said that seeing legacy parties adopt strategies to “keep Quebec and Ontario happy rather than protect the individual Alberta” definitely fanned the flames in the area.
“It starts with the fact that in Cypress-Medicine Hat, too many, too many of us are not able to work in the oil and gas industry, because of the fact that, you know, Ottawa has blocked pipelines, and that needs to change. Secondly, you know, the fact that, you know, taxes are so high in Canada, and the federal government does so little for us. People realize that there has to be a better system and opportunity for hardworking people and hardworking families to keep more of their own money. So they have more choices,” said Barnes.
There is confidence that with this sovereignty, Alberta would be fine operating on a much more individual scale, said Anderson.
“I will put my belief in Alberta, governing itself over Ottawa governing Alberta any day of the week,” said Anderson. “Obviously, there's going to be times when the government of Alberta doesn't do a great job. But that is a rare occurrence in comparison to the absolute gong show. That is the federal government in Ottawa and specifically, as it relates to Ottawa to Ottawa is consistent attacks on Alberta's energy and agricultural sectors. It's been unrelenting for the last 50 years. It doesn't stop. And so, you know, if there are from time to time, obviously provincial governments are going to screw up but at least at the very least, they have Alberta's best interests at heart. You cannot say that about Ottawa.”
Anderson believes that Alberta would not look much different in terms of healthcare or social programs, save for the improvement made by more of the revenue generated in the province being re-invested into the province itself.
“We'd have more resources under the free Alberta strategy,” said Anderson. “They contemplate the stopping equalization and, and net transfers out of the province, we've sent more than six over the last 60 years, we've spent more than a cent more than $600 billion to Ottawa, more than we've got back and in federal spending, and that 600 billion is largely gone to Quebec as well as as well as the Maritimes for vote buying schemes in those areas, by generally federal liberal governments, but also by conservative federal conservative governments as well, just to a lesser extent. but this with the strategy contemplates putting an end to that. And so that means more resources for Alberta, which means more healthcare dollars, more education, dollars, more social spending, and also fewer taxes.”
Anderson specifically notes that the money could be used to increase ICU capacity during this pandemic, and said that money being sent to Ottawa may be the cause of the lack of healthcare resources in the province.
“We’re sitting here with 300 ICU beds in the middle of a pandemic, well, of course there's gonna be problems when you run your health system like that,” said Anderson. “When you don't have enough resources. So that's why we're losing doctors and nurses to neighboring provinces right now. And we're not going to get them back so long as we continue to have our resources sucked dry by Ottawa.”
Anna Smith, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Prairie Post East
ALBERTA SEPERATISM IS AMERICAN DECSENDENTS IN ALBERTA, AND SOME AMERICAN SECOND GENERATION WHO PROPOSE THESE LETS SEPERATE AND JOIN AMERICA SCHEMES
IN THE PAST WE HAVE HAD NUMEROUS SEPERATIST PARTIES OF THE RIGHT SINCE PETER LOUGHEED FOUGHT OFF THE WESTERN CANADA CONCEPT (WCC) WHICH AROSE OUT OF THE COLLAPSED SOCIAL CREDIT PARTY/GIVERNMENT
IT AROSE IN SOUTHERN ALBERTA AS ALL THESE MOVEMENTS OF THE RIGHT DO.
CALGARY IS THE LARGEST AMERICAN CITY IN CANADA
RIGHT WING MORMONS PROMOTE ANTI TAX CAMPAIGNS AS THEY PAY THROUGH THEIR CHURCH TITHES INSTEAD.
DUTCH REFORM CHURCH RIGHT WING ACTIVISTS CAME HERE FROM SOUTH AFRICA
AND PROMOTE THEIR NEO CALVANISM THROUGH GROUPS LIKE THE FAKE UNION CLAC AND THE CHRISTIAN FARMERS ASSOC OF CANADA WHO FOUNDED AND SUPPORTED THE REFORM PARTY
It was a good start on a long road to reconciliation with Aboriginal peoples, but we were discarded in favour of a Wicihitowin process which was primarily led by Mr. Lewis Cardinal. Despite a lot of unfinished business, nothing has happened since that time. Consultations with a privileged few while avoiding the most knowledgeable, simply has not worked. As a Metis who has lived and worked with Indigenous people my whole life, I wish to say that reconciliation needs to be seen to be done and the Rossdale Flats is an ideal location to reimagine our relationship with First Peoples.
