Canadian Activist Arrested in China

Chinese agents have arrested and detained 3 Canadian activists within the past 24 hours in the lead up to the official Olympics countdown ceremony. God forbid the fancy photo op party be soiled by the ugly truth of oppression. The latest victim is Canadian Lhadon Tethong, who is a leading figure in the fight to free Tibet from the brutal fist of CCP control.

Other activists have also been detained, no doubt, to prevent them from exposing China's continued terrorizing and persecution of innocent people. The Chinese government has provided no explanation to Canadian authorities.

Why does the world look the other way as China continues to abuse human rights and choke opposition to its policies? What a terrible fucking shame: And it's all about the dollar bills.

For updates on Tethong's fate, check her blog- currently being administered by a colleague-@ Beijing Wide Open

BREAKING NEWS update: CTV NEWsNet Canada is reporting that Tethong and other activists have been deported and are on a plane to Hong Kong as I type. At least they are safe!

So Damn Insane

George Bush said last night that if the US were to withdraw its troops now, the Iraqi government would fall and there would be mass killings. Um, correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that exactly what happened when the US invaded Iraq? They've not only drilled a whole in the dike, now their fucking thumbs are stuck in it.

Not to mention, aren't there already MASS KILLINGS going on there? Mass kilings every day of the year? How worse can it get? The sooner you leave Iraq, the sooner whoever wins at killing more people than you already have will put the country back together in some form and a new dictator will take over. Either way, whoever succeeds Saddam couldn't be a bigger Dick-tator than Bush.

And by the way, wasn't Rumsfeld fired? If so, why does the legacy of stupid still speak through his rubber stamp.

A Maritime Cowboy in Asia

In another highly publicized Rumsfeldesque stunt, Peter "John Wayne" MacKay was in Kandahar yesterday. And once more, Canada's noble military tradition as neutral peacekeeper was stomped down another notch.

MacKay was mugging for the cameras and the cowboys back home, talking about how he was going to give Pakistan an earful on what it should be doing to help Canadians defeat the Taliban. The Toronto Star had this to say:

For all the upbeat talk about the pace of reconstruction in Kandahar's cities and villages – and there was a great deal of such talk by MacKay and by others – the harsh truth is that most of Canada's community development projects here are likely doomed to fail unless the security situation improves. "There are practical challenges we face," MacKay agreed. "We need a greater security perimeter in southern Kandahar.

My question: Do you think the brainiacs over at Foreign Affairs might have thought of picking up the phone and calling Russia to ask the government what they thought of the prospects of bringing peace to country with a history of a resilient, fierce insurgency? Do you think that they would have asked the Russians casually "hey guys, what do you think of our chances of bringing peace to an area peppered with skilled, experienced Taliban guerillas with a measly contingency of only 2-3,000 Canadian soldiers"?

But to be fair to the Foreign Affairs minister, foreign affairs is not really about understanding the tactical situation in other countries is it? Wait a second, maybe that was domestic affairs? No domestic affairs is all about goon hockey players having sex with daughters of billionaires...oh nevermind.

Political Cannon Fodder

Yesterday, the Bloc and Harper played a game of political chicken over supporting "the troops" versus suppporting "the war" (READ). It's the same bullshit game of spin that is played over and over in the U.S. between the Republicans and Democrats. It is designed to manipulate the emotions of the electorate. No one wants to be seen as not supporting "the troops". No, that would be...what? Principled?

Why doesn't anyone say what they really think? What half-intelligent, sane adult supports troops but not a war? Supporting troops that you knowingly send into pointless dangerous missions is not "supporting troops": It's supporting putting other people's lives in jeopardy for your own selfish ideology or idealism. You will never be able to support "the troops" unless you are out there taking a bullet in your gut for them or are tenderly holding their heads as they gurgle and choke to death on their own blood.

Give up the charade you straw men. You are politicians, they are walking lead slug targets. Sitting on your fat asses in Ottawa lecturing about supporting our boys 'n girls will never be good enough. You are making the decisions and they are dying. Granted, that's their job. But the troops are dying because of your decisions. You might as well be holding the smoking guns that kill them.

That's the real deal, you cowardly insects. Stop mind-fucking stupid Canadians with spineless spin. Be real men and say what you really think, if you have any remnant of pride or conscience.

Supporting troops- PFFFFT. How about supporting life?

Laughing Stockwell Day...

...fucks up again (READ). The best thing is he actually put in print his utter ignorance of and insensitivity to foreign affairs. Day published a factually barren column, completely misstating the political, historical and social situation of Mexico- a country he just visited as a representative of the government and people of Canada. What's more, he spelled the name of the Mexican president, whose inauguration he recently attended, incorrectly.

In Day's defense, his briefing before the trip consisted of this:


I can't wait until jackass-brained, beef-jerkey chewin' droolin' goobers like Day are once again banished to the backwoods of Shit-Fuck, B.C., where they can breed, read their bibles and shoot their guns with relatively low risk to the rest of civilized society.

War Stories and Faded Glories

I remember, when I was child, asking my grandfather to tell me war stories. To an assuming young neighbourhood kid who loved playing "guns" and "army" with the other boys, the fact that my grandfather had survived the First World War was about as cool as if he were Guy Lafleur. At times, I'd be sitting on his knee, asking eagerly "Did you ever kill anyone?".

He told me about how, in 1914, he had lied to recruiters in Canada about his age, so he could travel to Europe and fight. He was only 14 at the time and full of piss and vinegar and a naive spirit of adventure. He told me about wiping his ass with German money in the woods of France. He told me about the faded tattoo on his forearm that read "Winnie", who, according to him, was his cousin. He told me about the time he bayonetted a giant German, right between the ribs, only to be shot in the head and sent back to England. It was there, in the infirmary, that King George had chatted with him and presented him with a token medal. He had named his first daughter Victoria Patricia in George's honour.

By the time I had grown into early adolescence, it occurred to me that I should record some of the conversations I had with my granddad. And it is in those recordings that I found out the truth about what he felt about war. I had asked my grandfather to recount stories, by then well-known to me, about his youth and travels.

Sure, I loved the one about how he sang in a Vaudeville group called the Dumbbells and entertained audiences across the country as a female impersonator. Or the time he sang in Saint Paul's Cathedral in a choir as a young boy. Or how he trapped rattlesnakes with his hands, way up north in Buckhorn, with his Dad and shipped them to a firm in Toronto that paid for their skins.

But inevitably, in one section of the tape, I returned to my favourite question about the war. I prompted him by asking "So granddad, you were in the war, right?". "Yep", he replied in a stern voice I'd never heard before in such conversations. "Yep", "but, ahhhh, that doesn't mean anything". And thus, unglamorously had ended my journalistic foray into his military past. He had refused to read into the record the stories of death, or German brutality or wiping his ass with the Kaiser.

And now I realize why my grandfather always spurned my repeated requests for him to march in the veterans parade every November 11th. I was proud, but he wasn't. While they called it Remembrance Day, to him it was a day of sadness and regret. To me, the old world naive bravado that fuelled those celebrations and were the reason for his regret should have died with him in 1984.

So, why now can't we let those things die? Why must we continue letting our sons and daughters kill and be killed in the name of foreign interests? Political, nationalistic or macho explanations are just not good enough for me. They surely weren't enough for my grandfather in the end, when he finally grew up and gave up the illusion that war is noble.

House of Cards Falls

I wonder if Stephen Harper saw his future pass before his eyes as he watched hawkish girders fall from the house of cards last night on CNN? Yes, Stevie, like Americans, we are all fatigued- but not in the way you and your soda-pop swilling, armchair Rambos would dress us.

Take heart though. One day, you and GWB will be playing paint ball at a Christian dude ranch in Texas somewhere, having a laugh over sasparilla and some meaty BBQ about all the girls and boys you helped kill. Good times. And even though you won't have your soft, uncalloused exquisitely-moisturized hands all over the purse strings that strangle others, you'll always have Kandahar and video games.

So yeehaww- shoot 'em up Tex! While y'all still got all them taxpayers' bullits at yer disposal!

The Needs of Strangers

Today was different. This morning, I walked to the subway, along a street torn apart to make way for a new streetcar right-of-way that has been hotly contested over the past few years. Amidst the smashed concrete slabs, coffee-slurping orange-vested dusty throngs of city workers and whining machinery, I had one of those recurring movie-like vignettes.

In a historically vibrant moment, a lone, scarred streetpost popped out of the secenery and commanded my attention. The post had one leaflet left on it- they are regularly removed by city workers. The leaflet stood out as a bold, lone survivor amidst the skeletal staple graveyard of wasted efforts. The headline on the small piece of paper said "BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW" and beckoned people to attend a "Pan-Canadian Day of Action" on Oct., 28 to call for Canada's withdrawal from Afghanistan. I know I've written about this subject a hell of a lot in recent months, but it was at that moment that it truly hit me: We are at war. Granted, that statement means nothing unless measured by the yardstick of one's experience in life.

I'm 38 years old. In the 80s, my youth was intellectually tormented by angst about the coming nuclear holocaust that we would all surely be experiencing. Mine was a generation that was acutely aware of the concepts of M.A.D. and the circles I travelled in read social philosophy and pondered regularly questions of global security relating to the Soviet and US spheres of influence over some modern jazz and hash.

But we, as Canada was, were always bystanders to the cynical, destructive games that the evil superpowers played around the world. The comfort of our armchair position and the warmth and wisdom with which we regarded all cultures and civilizations was a badge we wore with pride. How naive we were - or maybe just too high?

One of the guys I was impressed with back then was this incredibly erudite and sensitive son of an exiled Russian noble named Michael Ignatieff. I don't know- maybe it was my fondness for Solzhenitzyn or my own Slavic descent that made me identify with Ignatieff. I remember a treatise that he wrote called "The Needs of Strangers". In others' words , that book talked about "a wide-spread failure on the part of humanity to provide the passionate sense of community "in which our need for belonging can be met." The implications of this kind of compassionate thinking were not lost on us. Russians could love Americans and the world could be safe from extinction one day. Hey, if Woodrow Wilson- an American- had thought so at some point, then why shouldn't we be optimistic?

Looking at that anti-war pamphlet now and the black marker scrawling on the plastic cover of the Toronto Star box below it, which read "Fuck Ignatieff", really hammered home two things that I had not consciously connected before this morning. One is that the country I love has lost its way and found itself in the middle of a game of spheres of influence being perpetrated by higher powers. Second, is that possibly - just possibly- Michael Ignatieff, that sensitive philosopher who believed in compassion, could be the only man able to pull us back on track.

RepubliCanadian Revelations

Right now, I'm watching that gutless talking head Peter Mackay sermon about how we are saving the world from Satan and Revelations by being in Afghanistan. It makes me sick to my stomach. And once again he is playing the cynical RepubliCanadian (tm) support-our-troops or burn in hell card.

I have to ask you all this question: What the fuck do Afghanistan, or Israel for that matter, have to do with the sovereignty and integral national priorities of Canada? Instead of rolling out fake 40 year plans for the reduction of greenhouse gas emmisions which aren't worth the breath taken to utter them, why not focus on important things like transfer payment reform?

While I'm at it, what the hell are the Liberal leaders doing haggling over questions about Israel? is that really the biggest threat to world peace now? What about China, Korea and the US? When did Israel take precedence in foreign policy in this country? Israel is no more important than any country where people's lives are put at risk because of politics or religion.

Get a grip Canada. Know why? Because we are being plunged into a morass of civil disagreement unseen before in our history. You thought abortion or same sex marriage were big wedge issues? Forget 'em. Wait till this American-style hate propagating takes root during the lead-up to the next election. That's exactly what Harper's boys are gunning for. Unfortunately, the Jewish and Muslim communities are going to be tossed into this propaganda cock-fight, while smirking idiots on both sides of the house remain unscathed, counting their fortunes.

After the rage, I truly feel sad for our country right now. I don't give a shit who is right. We have to move on, quickly.

Dead Canadians - so what?

It's very interesting that Stephen Harper and his retarded band of merry faux-bankers cum cowboys love paying for bullets and guns, yet won't ensure that the funds are there to fulfill the key objective of our presence in Afghanistan- namely, rebuilding the country. (Read the latest HERE).

No, no, no. They'd rather sit on their lilly white, uncalloused oily hands, sipping sasparilla and talking tough behind monkey man Bush, while almost every day another few of our brethren are blown to fucking meaty bits by hostile natives dedicated to their demise.

CIDA and those neo-cocksuckers should be forking that cash over now, so my precious tax payer dollars are not wasted on any more flying hearses, coffins or surplusses providing political padding for their forthcoming vain attempt at re-election.

News Flash: Harper An Idiot

Scientific tests have confirmed: Stephen Harper is a fucking idiot.

When Harper called "virtually all of the candidates in the Liberal leadership" race "anti-Israeli" he disgraced the job title he currently holds. The Toronto Star called his comments "highly partisan", which really is a gross understatement. I'd like to add a few adjectives: facile; opportunistic; insipid; misinformed; childish.

Harper's comments display a Bush-like ignorance about world affairs and make him look like an empty-headed American lap dog. For our Prime Minister to be throwing around serious accusations that play on fear, hatred and racist undertones is sick. The guy should not only apologize, but resign.

Furthermore, Bernie Farber and the Canadian Jewish Congress should step up and castigate this idiot for trivializing anti-semitism.

Happy Friday the 13th you sweet 'n sassy l'il sexies!

Bullets, Bodies and Bullshit

It is becoming apparent that those brave young souls getting mowed down in the hills of that distant land will not have gone in vain -- but not for the reasons you might expect. It is not enemy bullets that are responsible for filling the red and white decorated coffins, it is paperwork and policy. The pile of dead now significantly exceeds mole hill status and the corpses of the fallen are unwittingly creating a giant barrier right in the middle of Stephen Harper's road to success. As always, Chantal Hebert said it best today (here).

The father of a dead soldier who said last week that it was disgraceful for Bob Rae to call for withdrawal was under duress. That kind of emotional aggression is entirely understandable under the circumstances. But Rae is right. Only until the blue meanies can provide one good example of how such deaths have positively impacted a third world nation anywhere in the past will I ever support this abstract, distant, meaningless and destructive exercise motivated by pro-American political groupie-ism.

And when I say "positive impact" I mean giving tangible power, food, education and health care to the people, not the same old archaic, windbag bravado inherent in the idealism that the West is the sole gatekeeper and disseminator of world democracy. Democracy: Like that's a fucking reason to jump up and down for some parentless child on either side of the ocean.

Where will Harper be when his extension lapses and the bullets stop flying at innocent Canadians? Will he be advocating pouring the needed billions in aid into that country to help the people? Irrespective of the fact that his political shelf life may have expired long before 2009, I seriously doubt it.

Lewis Deserves Nobel Prize

Has anyone seen this online petition to have Stephen Lewis nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize? I think it's a fab idea. He has long been a remarkable Canadian and I, for one, think he deserves to be recognized in a big way for his efforts in Africa.

Go sign it if you agree!

Poll: Liberals Vote on Afghanistan

A K-Dough Poll: Do you think it was politically intelligent for a few prominent Liberal leadership candidates to vote to extend the Afghanistan mission? I mean it was a free vote and all, but holy fucking duhhhhhhhh!!! I hate to say it, because I love the fact that he is an intellectual, but if I was voting at the convention in the fall, Ignatieff would be searching for my X up his ass.

I'm starting to believe there is no room for higher thinking (read: academia) in politics, because in the interest of seeming objective it appears to short-circuit common sense.

Puffing Out the War Chest

I really can't believe the bad taste these Tories are displaying by dropping in on the war in Afghanistan- unnanounced. It's downright rude. Poor Afghanis have no time to clean up, let alone pile the corpses in the closet and under the bed. The latest bonehead to show up is Peter Mackay. Sending that thin-lipped pasty white altar boy into a war is like sending Beaver Clever into a biker club on a Saturday Night dressed in an assless Big Bird suit. He couldn't even handle Hurricane Belinda: But a rocket-propelled Talibashing? No problem for Mr. Crawl Back in Tears to My Parents' Farm-boy.

So what next? Oh, I know. Next week, Stockwell Day will be jet skiing across the Arabian Sea, in an armoured Speedo, while frantic underpaid CBC camera men chase him in a rusty Chinook. He'd be sure to have his Crest white strips on the night before that one.