April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Debra

Democracy takes another hit

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Bene Diction Blogs On writes today on how parliament has managed to disinfranchise 4.4% of Canadian voters.

Voters now need a residential address with a street name and number before casting a ballot, because of an amendment to the Canada Elections Act that Parliament enacted four months ago.

But more than one million rural Canadians have no proper residential or civic address. Many of them use post office boxes, and on some native reserves residents only use the name of their community. (CTV)

Perhaps when we finally lose our right to have a say voters will sit up and take notice.

Anger, Resentment & Politics

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The world needs anger. The world often continues to allow evil because it isn’t angry enough. ~Bede Jarrett

Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight. ~Phyllis Diller

In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer. ~Mark Twain

Life has intervened lately on my ability to read and/or blog as often as I would like. However, I have reached a state of anger and resentment of the whole political process that I simply must vent.

It would appear that the concept of democracy has all but been lost.

The current Harper Government™ seems to have confused being elected by a modest number of people with absolute right to mob rule. Further evidence of the need to reframe our current process. The lack of will shown by the other parties to partake in any form of fight against this Bush wannabe is an outrage. They are all, as modern day Nero’s, fiddling while all our hard won rights and cherished freedoms burn.

Speaking frankly as a voter, a citizen, a woman, A CANADIAN, I really don’t give a rat’s furry ass how your poll numbers look. Want better poll showings? DO SOMETHING! SAY SOMETHING!

Prove you are there to do more than warm seats and gather pensions.

Please Try to Remember the First of Octember

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If you are, or were, a Dr. Suess fan you may remember this book. Written about the glorious things you could do on the First of Octember such as stay up all night to drink “66 six packs of Doodle Delight.”

October is Women’s History month. A current look at the SWC site shows this statement from our Prime Minister;

“forthcoming”

Mid way through October Canada’s New Government™ has yet to issue a statement. Perhaps the script from Gwen was delayed….indefinitely?

One imagines that Harper et al would far rather Women’s History month, and indeed all matters pertaining to women’s equality, be relegated to the First of Octember.

Think of the glorious things he could do like ignore the child care issue, roll back programs that most especially help women, place tax cuts above health care, child poverty, employment issues….mmm seems he is already doing that.

Perhaps our ignoble PM lives in the land of Octember.

October 18th is Person’s Day. This is a day to commemorate the Person’s Case.

On October 18, 1929, the five Lords of the Judicial Committee came to the unanimous conclusion that “the word ‘persons’ in Section 24 includes both the male and female sex.…” According to them, the exclusion of women from public office was “a relic of days more barbarous than ours.

It is a sad and sobering thought that there are those who would joyously lead us back to those “barbaric” times. Those who see women not as persons in their own right but simply as wombs from which issue the cannon fodder needed to perpetuate war. War against other countries and war against the marginalized.

As we reflect upon Women’s History let us not forget the struggles that we are free not to face. The struggle for education, for our own name, for our own property, to not be included as property, the right to be paid a decent wage, to fight against sexual impropriety in the workplace, the right to control our reproduction, the right to say no in marriage and so much more.

Our fight to keep our rights, to move forward in our struggle, to ensure our daughters’ never have to fight to be recognized as persons in their own right, is one that must not be relegated to the First of Octember.

( cross posted @ Rose’s Place )

8 years for torture

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For nothing is fixed, forever and forever and forever, it is not fixed; the earth is always shifting, the light is always changing, the sea does not cease to grind down rock. Generations do not cease to be born, and we are responsible to them because we are the only witnesses they have. The sea rises, the light fails, lovers cling to each other, and children cling to us. The moment we cease to hold each other, the sea engulfs us and the light goes out. James Baldwin

8 years for the torture of a 4 year old hardly seems appropriate. The abuser showed no remorse, no understanding of the heinous nature of his activities and I predict will re-offend in the future.

Bannert showed no emotion as the judge read his sentence, which was reduced to five years and eight months in prison because of the 14 months he spent in pre-trial custody. The Crown was seeking a much harsher sentence of 15 years.

The court heard she was denied liquids to a point where she had to drink urine from the toilet and plant water. Graphic details of her sexual abuse also emerged from the trial. She described how sex in a bathtub with “daddy” was a common occurrence.

A victim impact statement written by a social worker said the girl is so traumatized she cannot learn or form normal emotional relationships. About to turn six next month, the girl is on medication for post-traumatic stress syndrome. She now lives in a foster home.

Her mother was earlier convicted and sentenced for her part in this crime.

Apparently the defense tried to argue this off as discipline. Locking a four year old in the basement, handcuffing her, denying her water, forcing her to watch pornography and dance in a suggestive fashion, raping her in the bathtub…..what part of that could in anyone’s twisted mind be considered discipline?

I wish you peace sweet daughter.



news sources:

CTV
CBC

Canada’s New Government™ Official Announcement

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AR Media with an exclusive announcement from Stephen Harper.

OTTAWA- In an hastily scheduled press interview today Harper announced that funding previously funnelled through SWC and intended for advocacy groups will now be spent encouraging women’s empowerment through music.

“Women have always had an interest in music. We feel that this new program will inspire women to achieve their full feminine potential.”

To kick start this new program, known so far only as F.U.C.K. Y.O.U., Harper passed around copies of this YouTube video which, “exemplifies the positive attitude we would like to see Canadian women embody.”

As many others have blogged the passing of NAWL and other programs related to the equality and empowerment of women is a shame this government carries.

Harper has a long history of grievance against the things that most Canadians hold as cornerstones of our identity. Health care, social programs, personal rights and freedoms and equal rights.

The highjacking of our government by special interest groups intent on forcing their narrow minded, narrow viewed, religious and idealogical doctrines upon the country as whole is a travesty that must be opposed.

We have only to look south of the border to see the havoc wrecked upon a society catering to the lowest common denominator.

Some feel that this is not their fight. They would do well to remember these words;

In Germany, they came first for the Communists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist;

And then they came for the trade unionists, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist;

And then they came for the Jews, And I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew;

And then . . . they came for me . . . And by that time there was no one left to speak up.”

Flying Southwest? Bring your burqa

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In a stunning move that may well have saved humanity from the evils of a womans legs, Southwest airlines employee “Keith” ensured the safety of “family passengers” by forcing Kyla Ebbert to cover up.

Unfortunately Southwest is currently BYOB (bring your own burqa) so Ms. Ebbert had to improvise by using a blanket to cover up with. Did I mention it was over 100F that day?

Fly Southwest–unless you happen to be a young attractive woman!

Good story and picture of downfall of society outfit here