April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

khadr

Notes from Away

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Well ok I haven’t really been away just so immersed in web design it feels like I’ve been away.

Catching up it seems Harper is still hell bent on being an accessory to war crimes and in giving Canada a reputation as the only country who welcomes the torture of it’s own.

Canada’s Supreme Court has ruled that the discredited Guantanamo military tribunal process under George Bush “constituted a clear violation of fundamental human rights.” Indeed, that’s what the United States Supreme Court found.

U.S. President Barack Obama wants Guantanamo shut down.

And last week Mr. Justice James O’Reilly of Federal Court issued a strong and welcome ruling ordering Ottawa to seek Khadr’s return.

[snip]

Harper’s stonewall response has been to shrug off the order and ponder an appeal.

THE STAR

Harper having previously and continuing to side with war criminals should be grounds for his immediate dismissal as PM.

Locally and ironically commencing during Earth Week, the Tim Horton’s on the corner was torn down to be rebuilt as a drive through. Because if there is one this area needs more of it is cars and the pollution of idling cars. No longer having any indoor seating the new design will not cater to pedestrians in any way thereby making the sidewalks and corners even more treacherous.

The collapse of capitalism is creating some interesting fallout as workers are being asked to scale back wages and benefits while CEOs continue to rake it in, taxpayers money is being given to corporations while taxpayers are being told there is no money to save their pensions or allow them to collect the money they paid into IE or strengthen existing social programs let alone create new ones. Apparently as long as socialism comes from the bottom up it isn’t so bad after all.

Add to this the fact that Ontario women are being fired for becoming pregnant.

What’s especially stunning, they say, is how brazen some bosses are, almost 50 years after Ontario enacted the Human Rights Code to prevent such discrimination.

“We actually have an e-mail from one employer saying, `Sorry, but with your little bundle, I don’t think we’ll be able to (re)hire you. We want a permanent solution,'” says Consuelo Rubio, manager of client services for Ontario’s Human Rights Legal Support Centre, an independent agency funded by the province to provide free legal services to people experiencing discrimination.

The firings are in all sectors: “It’s happening to women in senior positions and women in minimum-wage jobs,” says Katherine Laird, executive director of the centre, who says she hasn’t seen this level of discrimination through two previous recessions and 30 years in the human rights field.

THE SPEC
Hey here’s a great opportunity for the anti choice gang. They can have an adopt a pregnant fired worker campaign and make up the money these women are losing. Michael Coern is still an idiot. Coren supports the troops by denigrating the work of our female soldiers, at least the young attractive ones, presumably the rest are on their own.

Does it ever occur to Coren that in most places in the world women are just as involved in the wars as the soldiers male or female, but they have the added disadvantage of having no weaponry?

Coren says “So Canada sacrifices another victim on the altar of equality.” His piece shows that he and the Sun are willing to sacrifice decency and journalistic integrity on the alter of sensationalism and sexist insensibility.

The viral nature of the Susan Boyle video brought to the fore the nasty realization that many have incorporated the attitude that starvation diets, boob jobs and make equal talent. So an average looking woman has an outstanding talent and the world is taken aback. What a sad commentary on the world.

O Canada We Hardly Knew Ye

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I’m having a hard time blogging these days. Not because there isn’t plenty to be outraged about. Too much in fact!

It is more that I see so many of my fellow Canadians falling for the bullying, obfuscation and downright deceitful practises of the Right Wing Coalition Party. Rove/Cheney politics is alive and well and living in Canada. While Obama may be no saviour in the United States, Ignatieff is even less so in Canada.

Fed on a diet of Faux “News” and Amercian “reality” tv we end up with such ignoble quips as this
“First we lost saying the Lord’s Prayer in school, then the Pledge of Allegiance, and now the singing of O Canada…”
See Alison at the Galloping Beaver

And while “Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon will not even return phone calls from lawyers for Canadian Omar Khadr, the last Western detainee in Guantanamo Bay.” the Right Wing Coaltion Party does have time to decide that elementary school students should be required to be indoctrinated with jingoism patriotism through the forced listening of canned O Canada music because

“We have soldiers in Afghanistan on a continuous basis rotating in and out and the least we can do is show pride for our country and our flag,”

Yes it is the absolute least we can do. No doubt they want the kids to be rabidly partisan..er patriotic so they can support a war that most of their parents [and the rest of the country] don’t. Gotchya
[Helps to have rabid jingoist when you need cannon fodder.]

When Canadians are losing their jobs, 129,000 in January alone, calls for changes to EI and other social safety nets are met with “We do not want to make it lucrative for them to stay home and get paid for it” However, there is no problem using taxpayers dollars, the same soon to be jobless taxpayers, to make it lucrative for their corporate buddies to keep cutting jobs and moving plants offshore.

Harper Still Ill Informed & Not a Leader

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child_soldier

If anyone still needed proof of Harper’s lack of understanding of the realities of war, disregard for human rights and general inability to empathize with those of us who are not robots, Harper has just provided that proof.

“My understanding of international law is, to be a child soldier, you have to be in an army,” he said in the pre-taped interview.

Well obviously Mr. Harper’s understanding of international law is sorely lacking.

The international Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers and UNICEF have broader definitions than Harper does of what it means to be a child soldier.

The coalition acknowledges on its website there is no “precise definition.”

The international group, however, considers a child soldier to be anyone under 18 “who is a member of, or attached to, government armed forces or any other regular or irregular armed force or armed political group, whether or not an armed conflict exists.”

UNICEF also defines a child soldier as anyone under 18 “who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity,” including cooks, porters, messengers, and minors forced into marriage or recruited for forced sexual purposes.

The disregard that Harper shows for this young man who has already served 7 years for a crime he has not even been proven to have committed is shameful and chilling and should serve as a warning to us all.

Source

Free Khadr

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From the CBC;

A U.S. soldier at the battle said in sworn testimony that two al-Qaeda fighters were alive after the fatal grenade attack.

The unidentified soldier says he killed the first al-Qaeda fighter before spotting Khadr, whom he said was wounded, on his knees and facing away from him. For reasons he does not go into, he says he shot him in the back twice.

The Pentagon says American soldiers fired on Khadr in self-defence after he tried to attack them.

Khadr’s military lawyer Lt.-Cmdr. Bill Kuebler suggests that the U.S. military may have been involved in a coverup.

“The U.S. government had a problem on its hands when it found that it had a 15-year-old Canadian on its hands with two gaping bullet holes in his back that had been facing away from the fight,” said Kuebler.

{emphasis mine}

So here we have a 15 year old shot in the back, imprisoned, tortured, denied basic human rights and dignities and Harper can’t take Bush’s dick out of his mouth long enough to demand Khadr’s immediate release and return?

Harper is not a leader. He is a school yard bully who got left in charge in of the class, and it is time the class pulled their heads out of their books and got a teacher back in charge.

I’d leave off by asking that Harper look deep inside and do the right thing. But he already has his head as far up his ass as it will go.

Khadr Lawyer Harrassed

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An article in the Star reports that Omar Khadr’s Canadian lawyer was harassed by U.S. customs officials. He was requested to turn over all papers related to Khadr’s case and had all his personal effects searched as well.

It seems to be standard procedure for guards to violate attorney client privilege by reading defence lawyers notes however, this would appear to be the first time customs officials have become involved.

Omar Khadr is the last western prisoner to be held in Guantanamo and Peter Mackay of Canada’s New Government™ has no plans to activate for his release.

The lack of awareness and concern for human rights is only one of the burdens of shame this government carries.

It makes their rhetoric about being in Afghanistan to promote human rights and democracy a little hard to swallow. Much like the same from Bush makes one choke.