April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Archives for February 2008

Corporate courts

by

Guest post by Croghan27

Back story;

The bands involved, Shabot Obaadjiwan and Ardoch Algonquin First Nations had taken considerable trouble in trying to achieve a political/negotiated settlement appealing repeatedly to the Premier and ‘Aboriginal Affairs Minister, Michael Bryant for some negotiations about this incursion into their territory. They were not deemed worthy of a response by either of the honourable gentlemen.

Said their lawyer, Chris Reid:

….. Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Bryant never responded to the Ardoch Algonquin proposals.

“They instructed their lawyers to sit in court this week and say nothing while the lawyers for the mining company asked for six-month jail terms and punitive fines. The fact that Mr. Lovelace is in jail today is one hundred per cent the fault of Mr. McGuinty and Mr. Bryant.

Has nothing been leaned from the Dudley George incident at Ipperwash? (I suspect that the OPP’s reluctance to get involved in another shit storm such as ensued from that had more to do with people not getting hurt than any actions by McGuinty & Co.)

When established authorities, political and corporate, begin to use the courts and criminal system as a method to impose their will rather than those pesky and messy negotiations – it serves no one well: not (in this case) the band members, not the government leaders and certainly not the people of Canada.
[Read more…] about Corporate courts

Code and Colours and Crying; Oh My!

by

breadnrosesscreenshot.jpg

Spent a busy weekend updating Bread and Roses.

We now have updated software and whole new look. In fact 3 whole new looks as there are 3 styles to choose from.

Some minor tweaking still being done.

Total hours slept….maybe 10.

I want to thank our Techno God Steve for going above and beyond in helping with this install.

In other news April Reign has squeaked by into the finals at the F-word Awards.

Final vote is Feb 22-23 go support your favourite radical!

Thank You!

by

Thank you to those who nominated me over at the F-Word Awards (Best Blogs Awards EVER!)

By way of thank you I give you one of my all time favourite songs, Thank You by Led Zeppelin

If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.
When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.

Kind woman, I give you my heart, Kind woman, nothing more.

Little drops of rain whisper of the pain, tears of loves lost in the days gone by.
My love is strong, with you there is no wrong,
together we shall go until we die. My, my, my.
An inspiration is what you are to me, inspiration, look… see.

And so today, my world it smiles, your hand in mine, we walk the miles,
Thanks to you it will be done, for you to me are the only one.
Happiness, no more be sad, happiness….I’m glad.
If the sun refused to shine, I would still be loving you.
When mountains crumble to the sea, there will still be you and me.

One Body. One Person. One Count.

by

There is currently before the House a private members bill that “would amend the Criminal Code to allow separate homicide charges to be laid in the death of a foetus when a pregnant woman is attacked.”

This in effect suggests that a foetus be defined as a separate “person” from the mother. This definition of ‘personhood’ would immediately open the door to criminalizing abortion and those having/performing them.

This bill is being brought forward by a special interest group.

Ken Epp is a member of the Campaign Life Coalition.

As Raymond Gravel, a Bloc MP and a priest said;

the member putting it forward is part of a pro-life group, the Campaign Life Coalition, which in my view is a rather extreme fanatical group, when it comes to life.”

I for one do not wish extreme fanatics dictating my choices. Such action leads to fascism.

For more information on this bill and to take action please visit Birth Pangs.

Anti-Choice Fascism

by

“The fetus is the property of the entire society… anyone who avoids having children is a deserter who abandons the laws of national continuity.” Romanian dictator Nicolai Ceausescu

A 1966 campaign to increase the population by banning abortion, divorce and birth control (the latter to be physically verified monthly by gynecologists) went horribly wrong after a doubling of the birth rate was not accompanied by any basic medical improvements. Babies sickened and died for lack of medical care, food, and maternity beds. Desperate women braved machine guns to flee to Hungary, leaving a legacy of millions of hungry orphans, many of them seriously retarded through neglect. In the 1980’s, the country succumbed to an AIDS epidemic of staggering proportions thanks to Ceausescu’s refusal to admit the problem existed.

History House [Read more…] about Anti-Choice Fascism

Harper is not a leader

by

But he is a whiner and a bully.

Support us on Afghanistan or we’ll call an election. Support this bill or we’ll call an election.

Call me dear leader or I’ll call an election.

A leader doesn’t need to bully, threaten and carry on. A bully though…

Justice Minister Rob Nicholson told the Senate committee on legal affairs that it should pass the bill in February. If that doesn’t happen, he said he would tell Prime Minister Stephen Harper that the bill is a confidence measure and let him deal with it appropriately.

“We say to Liberal senators, and we say to (Liberal Leader) Stephane Dion, tell your Liberal colleagues to push this through,” said Day.

Day called on the public to contact senators to push the bill through.

But senators counter that they don’t understand the government’s rush all of a sudden. They said they are constitutionally required to consider the bill fully and they won’t be strong-armed into speeding up their decision to fit a government-imposed schedule.

Manitoba Senator Sharon Carstairs told Mike Duffy Live that the Tory government is trying to bully the Senate.

“Unfortunately, for Mr. Harper, senators can’t be bullied,” she said.

“We want to hear from the public … particularly on two issues. I am very concerned about the impact of this (bill) on Aboriginal people. Reverse onus bail conditions, for example.”

Reverse onus would require people accused of violent crimes to state why they should receive bail, rather than put the onus on prosecutors to prove why the accused should be kept in jail.

“We do have Charter rights and one of them is to be silent, but you can’t be silent if you have to, in fact, prove reverse onus,” said Carstairs.

CTV