health care

Our Glorious Dead

11/27/2007 by Debra

In times of war we are called upon to honour our glorious dead.

Indeed the memory of the fallen is used to raise our collective patriotic ire at anyone who does not support any military action. This has become known colloquially as “not supporting the troops.”

It does not matter if the cause they were fighting is just. If the people they killed were innocent. If the war they fought a sham. Honour must be paid.

Compare this to the all too common occurrence of women being killed by partners or strangers. Too often in both courts of justice and courts of opinion these women’s memories are not honoured but desecrated.

Excuses are made, she provoked him, she was dressed or acted provocatively or was a sex worker, she was out alone at night, she was the violent one. [Read more…] about Our Glorious Dead

Yet another death at the hands of police

11/24/2007 by Debra

Robert Knipstrom, 36, died early Saturday in hospital, four days after two officers used pepper spray, a taser and their batons on the Chilliwack, B.C., resident, who reportedly was acting erratically in a Chilliwack rental store.

{the Globe}

My family and I along with other activists from Bread and Roses attended the rally to remember Robert Dziekanski and to demand an investigation into his death.

As was stated at the rally this is no longer just about 4 officers, or TASER™’s this is about a culture and climate of political change which has allowed and encouraged the police to see the general public as an enemy to be subdued.

This fits very well with the right wing cultish approach to politics. Creating a society of sheeple ready to agree without question to the demands of their leader. {as an aside I wonder how right wing foetus fetishers will react to the first case of a pregnant woman who gets TASERED™?)

Those in attendance at todays rally were for the most part ‘older’, ‘well-dressed’, and well-heeled. The sort of Canadian that cons might see as the average “don’t have time for protesting” sort.

Perhaps Harper et al will find it surprising that Rush Limbaugh politics don’t play well in Canada (Free Dominion a distasteful exception.) most of us though are not surprised that the average Canadian does not want to fear the police. Many Canadians, in fact, came to this country to escape that very type of culture.

So yes we demand an immediate halt to any further use of TASER™, but we also demand an end to the use of our police forces as execution squads.

The Smoking Gun

11/23/2007 by Debra

Taser™ is using any and all despicable tactics to threaten, intimidate and otherwise try to warn off those who would bring the potentially deadly outcomes of their product to light.

Into the fray walks Pam Schreiner,

… who worked for the Arizona-based maker of the electric-shock weapons in 2004, says she was threatened and intimidated, including her home being shot at, after she saw company officials intentionally shredding Taser injury reports during a legal proceeding, according to court documents.
“Since leaving Taser International, I have lived in fear of what Taser International will do to me. The company has enormous resources and connections through law enforcement,” Ms. Schreiner says in an affidavit sworn this summer and filed in a court in Georgia.
Taser International says it “aggressively defends our products in all litigation brought against the company.”
“I have been verbally threatened by people hired by Taser to harass and intimidate me. I was told by the two Chandler [Arizona] police officers that they had conducted surveillance of my residence, followed me around and gone through my garbage,” her affidavit says.
“I was confronted at the grocery store by someone I had never met and told that it would not be a good idea for me to be testifying against Taser. In the summer of 2005, shortly before giving my deposition in [a previous case against Taser], a window was shot out of my residence.” {read the rest of this article}

Hmm.. lawsuits, threatening, intimidation, suppression of facts….. Where have we seen this before?

h/t Allison@Creekside

“Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.”

11/18/2007 by Debra

Robert Dziekanski, like Joe Hill was executed by the state on false pretences.

Joe Hill famously intoned; “Don’t waste any time in mourning. Organize.”

Let us organize on behalf of Robert Dziekanski and attend one of the following rallies, or organize one in your area.

Vancouver: Protest against RCMP using excessive force on Robert!
Host: Facebook Group – “Petition against RCMP officers involved in YVR Tazer Death”

Date: Saturday, November 24, 2007
Time: 12:00pm – 3:00pm
Location: Downtown Vancouver, Art Gallery (Georgia Street side)
City/Town: Vancouver, BC

Description:
A protest against the brutality shown in the video, which resulted in the death of new immigrant Robert Dziekanski, 40. Please express your interest by showing up next Saturday November 24th, downtown at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Georgia Street side. Rally will commence 12pm. Please try to wear the red/white colors of the deceased’s Polish heritage, in his memory. Remember, this is about awareness of the tragedy and a protest against the excessive use of tasers, _NOT_ an anti-police rally. THIS WILL BE A PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION!

More info on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=8636840125

VICTORIA: Solidarity and Justice for Robert Dziekanski.
Express your outrage and show supprt for his family through a peaceful demonstration

Host: Facebook Group – “Petition against RCMP officers involved in YVR Tazer Death”

Date: Saturday, November 24, 2007
Time: 12:00pm – 3:00pm
Location: Legislative Assembly of British Columbia
City/Town: Victoria, BC

Description: PEACEFUL DEMONSTRATION – come along and express your outrage and your disgust at the recent events resulting in the unlawful killing of Robert Dziekanski. Show Solidarity for the Dziekanski family and demand Justice so that this kind of thing NEVER happens again

More info on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=6187158110

TORONTO: Defend Robert Dziekanski Toronto Queen’s Park Protest Nov 24
Protesting Unreasonable Force/Showing Solidarity with Vancouver BC Protest Nov 24

Host: Facebook Group – “Protesting the use of Excessive force on Robert Dziekanski”

Date: Saturday, November 24, 2007
Time: 12:00pm – 2:00pm
Location: Queen’s Park
Street: University Avenue
City/Town: Toronto, ON

Description: This Protest is designed to continue raising media awareness about the mistreatment of Robert Dziekanski and protest the unreasonable use of force. We want the government to know that Canadians, regardless of their location in Canada are disgusted and heartbroken by the handling of Robert Dziekanski at Vancouver Airport. This situation involves issues of race, nationalism, violence and most significantly ethical human behaviour of kindness, patience and compassion.

More info on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6407280731

Official Protest site: http://nototasers.pbwiki.com/

My will is easy to decide
For there is nothing to divide
My kin don’t need to fuss and moan
“Moss does not cling to a rolling stone.”
My body? – Oh. – If I could choose
I would to ashes it reduce
And let the merry breezes blow
My dust to where some flowers grow

Perhaps some fading flower then
Would come to life and bloom again

This is my Last and final Will
Good Luck to All of you

Joe Hill

see Getting it Right, bastard.logic and pogge

Uniform Murder

11/15/2007 by Debra

Let’s start with a definition.

Murder:

To kill (another human) unlawfully.
To kill brutally or inhumanly.

Which we will follow up with a ~~snuff film~~… er video of an incident. {opens Windows Media Player}

Nothing less than the word murder applies to what appears in that video. This was not a life or death action on behalf of the RCMP. This was not an armed and dangerous offender bent on cop killing.

What on earth prevented the simple act of phoning for an interpreter from entering their minds? What was the rush to take down in such a violent fashion and then heap further abuse upon a downed, hand cuffed, unarmed, visitor to our country?

Had this film shown a similar number of young persons, most particularly of colour, engaging in a similar act of aggression resulting in death there would be no end of calls for justice, for lack of mercy, for lifelong imprisonment.

The act of donning a uniform, seems these days to give one carte blanche to engage in whatever thuggery one chooses in the name of the ‘greater good’. Yet no good seems to be coming from it.

This was a pointless and senseless death. It is a tragedy for the family and a wake up call for Canadians.
We have the right to expect more from those given the privilege of serving their communities. Those who make and keep the laws must never be allowed to be above them.

Murder does not cease to be a crime simply because it was committed by someone sporting a uniform.

UPDATE: Please visit this site and take action.

“Well, you’re not going to solve the problem if you even refuse to say what it is.”

11/04/2007 by Debra

The Star carried this article yesterday about The War on Women: Elly Armour, Jane Hursham, and Criminal Domestic Violence in Canadian Homes, by Brian Vallée.

Stephen Lewis wrote an impassioned foreword for the book, urging the creation of a fully funded United Nations international agency for women that would provide “a tremendous force for advocacy and intervention” and would “inevitably move toward the recognition that domestic violence is its own holocaust….We’re not just fighting for women’s human rights; we’re fighting for women’s lives.”