NOT a “threat to national security”

The Conservative government is out of control. The Guardian UK newspaper confirms what environmentalists have already suspected (since the Conservatives have openly accused them previously): This Conservative government regards environmentalists as a threat to national security. It’s offensive, absurd, and an extreme step into authoritarian police-state behaviour.

-(UofR image, to keep this blog post from appearing boring.)

“We’re aware of this” said Greenpeace Canada’s executive director Bruce Cox, who met the head of the RCMP last year. “We’re an outspoken voice for non-violence and this was made clear to the RCMP,” Cox said.

He said there was real anger among Canadians about the degradation of the natural environment by oil, gas and other extractive industries and governments working for those industries and not in the public interest. Security forces should see Greenpeace as a “plus”, a non-violent outlet for this anger, he argued. “It is governments and fossil fuel industry who are the extremists, threatening the prosperity of future generations.”

Has there been a report of Greenpeace violence lately? Ever? How about the RCMP, how’s their record for violence lately? Rape. Taser death. Etc.

The reason the Conservatives view environmentalists as a threat to national security, is because Harper thinks he is the nation, and his secure grasp on power is threatened by peaceful protests that spread the truth about his support of environmental and economic collapse for the crude gain of his wealthy backers.

In a Canadian Senate committee on national security and defence meeting Monday Feb 11 Richard Fadden, the director of CSIS said they are more worried about domestic terrorism, acknowledging that the vast majority of its spying is done within Canada. Fadden said they are “following a number of cases where we think people might be inclined to acts of terrorism”.

I’m someone who was once under investigation by CSIS, in order to get a job I had a while ago. It was like an advanced CRCheck, except by our national spies instead of local police. I don’t say this in jest, and my family and friends will confirm it if you ask them. I was (obviously) deemed no threat to Canadian national security, because I’m a loyal Canadian, and a peaceful person. I am also an environmentalist. I am not a terrorist. I care deeply about our country and its people. I have no good way to tell if I’m presently under targeted state observation, but assume I am. This does not make me paranoid, it makes me aware of my surroundings and news reports, and does not significantly change how I go about my life.

If CSIS, the RCMP, and the Cons had announced that since they were aware of “a number of cases” where Christians they were monitoring had been threatening violence, they’d since begun monitoring all Christian groups as possible threats to national security, can you imagine the wailing and gnashing of teeth then? How is that different from monitoring all environmental groups because some violent people happen to support protecting natural ecosystems (and apparently not people)?

The Conservatives are literally making you pay for spies and police to monitor grandmothers and children who attend peaceful gatherings, in order to eliminate them as potential threats to Canada. That’s pretty messed up, and it describes what has been going on. Are you going to put stopping it at a lower priority than other things you care about next time you vote?

Judges Don’t Need To Be Fair

…They just need connections.

“Deep law and order background.”
[link added]
Oh, is that what you have when convicted of an election crime? Maybe Martin is referring to Toews deep psychosis, referring to Canadians standing against him as “child pornographers“. Sounds like a perfectly fair judge, eh?

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Chaulkupy is getting arrested for free speech. Cities are claiming they have to clean up water soluble chalk. Hello, the rain washes it off?

Authoritarian, baby-sitter impregnaters like Toews are making a world where hopscotch is literally illegal.

The Clowns in Quebec are Crying

Actually, the clowns are in public office. First they make it so police can claim a group that is assembled peacefully is illegal (which is a clear violation of Charter rights). Now Loi 78 and the City of Montreal is going after mask wearers at public gatherings celebrating political events. Au revoir, Bonhomme! I always knew he was a shifty character out to cause mischief.

Will ballgames where a couple fans out of tens of thousands throw something at authorities, be declared illegal assemblies? The other night a fan threw something at an ump. Was tear gas fired back, and the SkyDome crowd told to disperse by police? Yes, that’s an extreme comparison, but you should ask yourself why sports fans have more civil rights than people walking on the street for a better education system.

Bank of America Takes Rolling Stone Pounding

Holy crap! Rolling Stone tears limbs from the zombie Bank of America. You probably won’t read a more blistering, or researched condemnation of the 1% “Royalty” that literally has the state paying billions for the crimes of a few men it refuses to send to jail. BoA is one big reason why Occupy Wall Street exists, and must succeed in bringing about charges against the criminals who’ve absolutely imperiled the global economy with their greed and incompetence.

It’s an absolute tragedy that the WikiLeaks files on BoA are presumed stolen and lost by DDB who betrayed the journalistic organization to start his own “Open Leaks” website. We can only hope that the original leakers of the destroyed documents, maintained access or a copy of their leaks, and are willing to try again.

Occupy Oakland Lowered Crime Rate

Amid all the poo flung at both sides of the Occupy vs. Police lines, it turns out a little benefit came from the Oakland occupation. The crime rate went down. The City was saying crime was unmanageable during the Occupation, but the opposite was true.

When Jordan received an update that crime was actually down 19 percent in the last week of October, he wrote an email to one of Mayor Jean Quan’s advisers.

“Not sure how you want to share this good news,” he wrote. “It may be counter to our statement that the Occupy movement is negatively impacting crime in Oakland.”

Police and the city said Occupy has had an ongoing impact on their ability to respond to crime.

In all of the emails there was not a single one written by Quan.

Her office told KTVU she prefers face-to-face communication.

I’m pretty sure that Occupy Regina had a similar effect on Victoria Park, if not Regina as a whole.

Cattle Starved for Globalization & to Preserve Self

A few weeks ago, my friend Seong (he’s from Korea), told me about the effects of Globalization on South Korean farmers. With cheap beef flooding into the country, farmers have been unable to sell their cattle, and unable to pay for feed. Cattle could be heard crying as they starved to death. This naturally destroyed a lot of farmers’ spirits as well.

Here is a section of an academic essay he’s written, as a proposal to study the textbooks of Korea for bias toward Globalization and its underlying political ideology. I’m going to highlight some passages I found particularly striking. People in the Occupy Movement may especially find this interesting.

Lazy Loitering Louts

In light of the Occupy movements, younger people will find this vintage video from Vancouver, very vivid. You have to wait until the very end too for a killer video joke. The mayor, pictured in 1968, passed away yesterday at age 85. His vision lives on in the 1%.

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TD Bank made record profits again recently (they almost always do manage that), and here’s a part of why/how. I didn’t use my line of credit very much, always paying it off entirely very quickly when I did use it. Last year though I decided to borrow a little from it, to pay for my wedding. Expecting to pay it off sometime next year, I had a rather reasonable ~7% interest rate. I got a letter in the mail the other day from TD, however, stating that I was having my interest variance rate reviewed, and it was being upped by 1.25%! I phoned today to complain, and the call taker said that many people are calling, unhappy with up to 4% interest rate changes! Yet another reason to consider quickly switching more completely to credit unions instead, eh?

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Here’s where I saw the Vancouver mayor clip. It was on the Big Oily Questions for MPs page. Our lazy, loitering, louts in the House of Commons for the most part won’t give you a straight answer to these tough questions. I can answer them though. The answer is beneath the questions, as it’s the same answer for all of them.

1. Why aren’t some oil sands revenues being set aside for future Canadians?

2. Are we harming our democracy?

3. Are you aware of ‘Dutch Disease,’ and if so, how do we prevent it from eroding vital parts of Canada’s economy?

4. Have you examined the geopolitical risks of tying our fate to China as superpower?

5. Are we boarding an economic roller-coaster that could crash?

6. Why aren’t we taking a strategy that would directly shore up our own energy security?

7. Why raise fears about charities whose foreign funding is a tiny percentage of what China invests in Canada’s economy and politics?

8. Does becoming more oil rich mean we also will become more militarized?

9. Have we abandoned commitments to lower carbon emissions to help prevent catastrophic climate change?

10. Why not refine it here, creating jobs and lowering risks?

11. Were you elected to hasten pollution and increase cancer risks for Canadians?

Answer (in my best Harper voice):
In these challenging economic times, we have to remember that Iran frightens me. Therefore we must diversify our markets, and focus on the economy. I don’t see a recession coming, but these foreign special interests are trying to stop our ethical oil production and exports which must now be allowed to falter. The most dangerous thing in the world is Iran, not cancer. Don’t let the hippies turn Canada into a giant National Park for our American friends.

Chantal Hebert – liveblog at UofRegina

Intro by Mitch D.
Then Rick Kleer
Last time she was here was 2004 when Martin won PM.

Journalists drank Regina out of white wine.

She broke a rib and got to cover an election from the ground, where most voters are anyway, giving her a better perspective.
Our new tools have built better silos. Sharing isn’t routine.
Background info from the govt is treated as FYEO (For Your Eyes Only).

140 char delivery is not delivering enough details to people. 30 seconds means 12 in radio. She’s had to edit some people down a bit so they sound effective, and to save her 8 seconds.

Rene Levesque was explaining a policy in detail once she recalls, and politicians don’t do that often anymore.

Layton didn’t produce a lot of memorable quotes prior to his deathbed letter filled with them.

Form response from government gives us “cones of silence”. A human can’t make themselves give detail-free form responses five or six times, but computers give us boring responses that people tune out.

She’s talking about media tech during Meech Lake. The TV was the best place to learn about a national debate. There was no great advantage to being in Manitoba or Newfoundland with only the politicians meeting there.

Ignatieff speaking at a rally in Quebec, talked about Harper barring attendees from his rallies. Some man told Hebert he wanted to hear about something the audience there cared about.
Twitter as a window into what people are interested in, is a distorted mirror.
“People on Twitter are junkies”.

People need to take to the streets still to finish the change started in cyberspace, like in Egypt for instance.

Not totally kidding, couldn’t use “prorogation” in news because it was too long.

Long form census scandal in July was surprising.

Nenshi in Calgary started at 1% in the polls. (Phone corrected Calgary to Calgarygrit – I must be a blogger.)

“Disconnected chattering class” is part of the problem.

Questions start. It’s unlikely that I will ask one this year.

Hebert likes a spin free environment. Know when they are going on holiday and ask them things when they have nothing going on. Know what they sound like when they are telling the truth. Each MP thinks what they are doing is in the public good.

Most politicians sound smarter when they are not in politics anymore. Party line is often a problem.

Twitter used to bounce stories off of it.

Election night publication law.
Elections Can may sue a lot of ordinary people. Voting isn’t like First Communion. BC might want to undo the damage done by voters in the East.

Municipal election lacks entertainment, except Toronto might object. She has a low interest in municipal politics these days.

Coverage of Ford is interesting in part because the cities are bigger than they once were, and many people vote for a mayor, as opposed for an MPP.

The nonConservative voters don’t have an easy way to win now that the Conservative party is united.

The Liberals and NDP are struggling for the same voters. Bruce Anderson argues the Liberals may come back as the spare wheel of Canadian politics. Minority govt is likely.
NDP and Liberals fight for the voters that Harper doesn’t want.

“We vote, and you don’t” is why govt talks about old age pensions instead of childcare.

Dan B. asks a question and starts out by mentioning that he isn’t a journalist. “Good” she said. (Too much competition in a field makes it harder to stay in a job anyway.)
Need healthy debate for healthy politics.
She votes as a citizen. Does a doctor like cancer more than cardiac arrest?
Vote as a parent to show your kids it is important.

ADDED:
Toward the end of the questions, someone wondered why OWS gets less coverage than he feels it deserves. She said OWS has unclear objectives, and doesn’t see the value in occupying public space. I found that odd, since earlier she praised youth in Egypt for taking their protest into the real world off of MySpace and Twitter. She thinks the ballot box is the way to make change happen, but also knows that her generation is more likely to continue to win, since it votes.

Another questioner was also disappointed by the answer they got regarding electoral reform. Hebert said voters and politicians don’t bring it up, so journalists shouldn’t. She neglected to mention that every political party uses methods other than FPTP to elect their party leader and/or executive. She did say that there is no voter appetite for PR or electoral reform. She thinks PR would work well federally though.

Dark Orwellian Future: Top Secret America

Julian Assange isn’t the only person concerned that Facebook is the greatest spy machine ever created. There are lesser known surveillance nets and data mining underway. Did you know that most text messages sent on 9/11 were captured by a secret system, and later leaked to WikiLeaks?

NSA employee: “A vicious campaign against whistle blowers started under Bush, and has come to full fruition under Obama”.

He sees America turning into East Germany, which he used to observe at the end of the Cold War. The sort of free Republic thought of by most Americans, and the pervasive spy-state, are not compatible ideas.

Canadian Banks Made Millions from Illegal Secret Fed Loan

The other day I saw a video of Dennis Kucinich, an American Congressman, reviewing a scandal which I thought was years old. It was actually breaking news with important new information. Just when you thought Wall Street’s scandals couldn’t get much worse, details have come to light this week thanks to persistent investigative journalists who’ve revealed that the Federal Reserve gave $7.7 T R I L L I O N (Trillion, with a ‘t’) dollars to banks since 2008, interest free, to bail them out, on top of the TARP money of $800 Billion. If your mind, and sense of rage haven’t both blown up, you’ve either run out of steam or haven’t yet realized how much this has hurt you.

Occupy Wall Street exists in large part due to the people who cooked up this secret Fed loan (which has since been repaid, at no profit to the public, but with plenty of profit to private bankers estimated at $13 Billion). Canadian banks snuggled up to the secret trough too, even though they like to claim they never needed any bailout money. TD Canada Trust, Royal, Scotia, and many other banks all made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit from the American public’s money, in secret, revealed only due to investigative journalism. Congress was deceived (and if it was not, and was secretly in on the scam, then the public has a lot more to worry about).

Americans may be furious that Canadian and world banks made billions from their money, while there are literally millions of Americans living without healthcare that the rest of us take for granted. I expect people to go to jail for this kind of deception. Given what I’ve seen so far, I don’t expect even trials for the criminals who perpetrated this fraud that makes Bernie Madoff look like a schoolyard bully.