April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

Politics

Anger, Resentment & Politics

by

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

by

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 )

Revolution

by

And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?

You may have noticed my blog tagline, one of the great quotes from George Orwell: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.

This same premise is highlighted in the story of Mouseland, made famous by Tommy Douglas. When the mouse posits, “Why don’t we elect a government made up of mice?” “Oh,” they said, “he’s a Bolshevik. Lock him up!” So they put him in jail.”

Truth incites revolution. Truth is in fact the enemy of the ruling class. Truth should set you free but in all likelihood will get you arrested.

With the current swing to the right governments of all stripes are promising tax cuts. It plays well with the populace,yet taxes are what keeps us running as a society.

Look around your community. Your roads, government services, water, hospital, doctors, parks are all a result of taxation. The health card in your wallet that allows you free health care is a result of taxation. That health care is becoming more and more tenuous and why is that? It is not as some would have you believe because public health care is unsustainable, it is not because people are fatter and it is not because the sky is blue.

It is because the burden of taxation has been almost entirely lifted off of corporations and placed squarely on the shoulders of the citizenry. These tax cuts were promoted to us as necessary to keep and create jobs and wealth. Yet more and more jobs are being moved off shore and jobs which are being created are those in the service industry which require a household to secure employment with two or three employers just to keep the basic necessities.

Growing Gap.ca shows very clearly that truth is being subverted.

Canadian families are putting in more work time, yet most — 80% of them — are getting a smaller share of Canada’s growing economy

The rate of unemployment in Canada is lower than it has been in more than a generation.

Despite these changes — all of which were supposed to ensure greater prosperity for every Canadian — the reports continue to come in indicating the gap between the rich and the poor is greater than it was 20 years ago.

There is growing consensus that Canadian provinces must do more to bring the minimum wage up to a living wage (above the Low-Income Cut Off, or LICO).

As Jacobs writes, “We need to move faster. This is not new terrain; we’ve been here before. In the 1970s workers earning the minimum wage received a rate that was roughly equivalent to $9 an hour today. Thirty years later the Canadian economy is producing much higher levels of wealth and profit, but paying its most vulnerable workers less.”

A CBC headline states that Homelessness ‘chronic’ in Canada. Yet a story in today’s news reports,

Homeless people in Canada have more mental health problems than the rest of the population

people who are homeless tend to report higher stress, lower self-worth, less social support and different coping strategies, factors that are associated with depressive symptoms, substance abuse, suicidal behaviours and poor self-rated health.”

Well you could knock me over with a feather at these results. Higher stress, lower self worth, depression amazing. Interesting is it not, that after reporting on how homelessness is ‘chronic’ the story is followed up by one which attempts to place the blame on the moral or psychological deficits of the homeless themselves. Thereby mislaying the blame and misleading readers from the truth.

In cost cutting efforts the Harris government cut new affordable housing, reduced welfare to unsustainable amounts, closed a number of group homes that allowed the functionally disabled and those with diagnosed “mental health issues” to live in dignity.
Now those cuts and closures are coming home to roost.

If we continue to allow our truths to be substituted with bigotry, prejudice, half truths and downright lies, we allow ourselves to just follow orders. We allow ourselves to see our fellow human being as less worthy, as less important and as less. We trade our humanity for the crumbs that fall from the masters table and the dangled suggestion that one day we may sup there.

Now is the time for truth. Now is the time for revolution.

Lyrics from Pink Floyd Wish you were here.
Youtube Video

Democracy? Fuck that shit

by

Title shamelessly stolen from Mike in a comment at Unrepentant Old Hippie

Anyone who still believes Canada’s New Government™ has any concept of democracy, decency or shame, must surely be disabused of that notion by this from Blogging a Dead Horse;

“Three days ago, Dick Harris, the Conservative MP for Cariboo-Prince George announced that the Conservatives have named their local candidate Sharon Smith the “Skeena-Bulkley Valley liason to the federal government.

That’s right, seems that after only 20 months of trying it, the Conservatives have decided that listening to MPs – particularly those from other parties – is way too onerous and distracting. The solution is obvious really: replace them with compliant and agreeable people who look like MPs, pretend to be MPs, but have absolutely no legitimacy.”

Many parties with a minority government have thought of ways to have more members elected next time round. None have dared to dispense with the electoral process and simply install members as they see fit.

This is not simple partisan politics. This is a reshaping of the very foundations on which our government, our country is built.

Harper’s Government™ must hear loudly and clearly that this heinous assault on our democratic process will not be tolerated.

This just in….

by

Norman Spector calls NDP principled!!

Norman Spector, a former diplomat and chief of staff to Brian Mulroney, said the political dynamic of the current minority Parliament doesn’t favour a statesmanlike, non-partisan approach. He believes, however, that Harper has no choice but to strike a deal with at least one opposition party if he wants to preserve some semblance of his Afghan policy.

The challenge is to “reconfigure” the mission in a way that both sides can live with, said Spector. The NDP likely could never be convinced to drop its outright opposition to the troop deployment, but the Liberals and Bloc could be more amenable.

from CTV

NetRoots

by

NetRootsNow that there are a number of politicians recognizing the importance of reaching out to the online activist community, I thought it would be a great thing to have them all in one place.

A politicians only aggregator.

From the NetRoots about page

NetRoots provides an opportunity for the savvy blogging public to interact with candidates to become more familiar both with the candidates and the issues.

NetRoots also provides information for the political activist to help every Canadian exercise their right to vote.

By bringing together bloggers of all stripes NetRoots strives to provide Canadians with a unique space in which bloggers, activists, politicians and others can discuss, educate, learn and ultimately vote!

If you have a link to site or a resource that would help inform voters, or activist resources for people to help those often marginalized from the voting process, or that provides polls, please send it on.

Also if you are or know of a blogging politician and would like to join, please use the form on the Contact page at the site.

Politicians from all parties and independents are all welcome.