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.

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?

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.

Rumsfeld is Toast

Bush is announcing, as I type, that Donald Rumsfeld- architect of evil; bitter, mean-spirited, lying, smirking fucker- is stepping down. Nice knowing ya and hope you burn in hell, you senile war pig.

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.

Condie Spewing More Manure

This chick has a lot of gall and balls, spreading her lispy fear-mongering, war groupie crap up here. Especially, after her administration ignored warnings that lead to thousands of innocent deaths in the U.S., which in turn sowed the seeds that have blossomed into gardens of death in other parts of the world.

What Condie said today: The campaign in Afghanistan will succeed (just after the Canadian military, who is on the ground there, said it won't).

Hmmm. When you say will succeed do you mean like, democracy will succeed in Iraq?

Or, we will succeed at finding WMDs in Iraq?

Or, we will succeed at capturing Bin Laden dead or alive?

Or, the war on drugs will succeed?

Well, here is some confidential policy advice Dr. Condie: shut the fuck up and return from whence you came- the fiery stupid pits of stupid hellish stupidity that is D.C., stupid.

Disclaimer: This is one in a long line of lazy, stream of conscious K-posts. The confidential policy advice offered above is not intended to mimic real-life, serious, adult-like advice, but the sentiment is sincere.

5 Years of Repair

At this time 5 years ago, I was rushing around in a panic preparing to propose to my girlfriend for life (what I called my current wife at the time). We had a flight booked for September 26th, which would whisk us away us to my favourite old haunt - the calming, inspirational and aura-drenched city of Amsterdam. As the day approached, I withstood waves of anxiety and excitement intermittently and carried on my day to day business with my feet barely touching the ground. I even bought a ring.

Then came that Tuesday morning. By the time I got to work at around 8:55 am, everyone was gathered around the nerve centre of my office at the time- the TV. Over the course of the next few hours, I stood with the others wide-mouthed as buildings fell, thousands died and the Pentagon was attacked. We were there, if only as impotent spectators. All planes headed to America were diverted- many of which were rerouted to Canadian airports. My colleagues and I scanned the azure skies as we smoked cigarettes and imagined planes dropping from out of the the blue all over our city, because clearly North America was under attack. Who knew how many would-be assassins were now going to take out whomever they could since their US targets were now unreachable?

Needless to say, I spent the next two weeks before our flight to Amsterdam in constant anxiety. Many people we knew were cancelling their flight plans. Musing with my friends about the philosophical similarities between getting married and going down in a fiery wreck did little to ease my heavy mind. However, despite our trepidation, in a small act of bravery, we got on that plane two weeks after 9-11. This all happened notwithstanding the fact that our carrier- Air Transat had experienced a complete loss of engine power and crash-landed one of their planes on a similar trans-Atlantic flight just before 9-11. Talk about stress: The emotional rollercoaster of getting engaged; mass panic about the possibility of further suicide attacks using commercial airliners; and flying a carrier that had experienced a recent extremely serious mid-air mishap. The sheer weight of what had transpired back in North America hung over our European trip on a daily basis. Though the actual proposition - with the aid of a great dinner, several strong Belgian brews in Brussels and a beautiful woman and partner- was picturesque.

We flew into New York City four months later. There we visited a dear Japanese friend, who worked close to the towers, who we had called numerous times on the day of the attacks to make sure she was safe. Obviously, she was. I recall the profoundly eerie calm we experienced walking slowly towards ground zero, as hawkers sold pictures and T-shirts bearing the fiery images of burning skyscrapers on the streets of lower Manhattan- just mere blocks from that gaping grave in the ground. Testimonials, prayers and pictures of loved ones plastered the long wall that lined the street from the church to where the towers once stood. As I watched from the side of the road, staring at workers still clearing tons of rubble, there were no politics, religion or hate on my mind. I felt like crying but I couldn't. It just seemed too insignificant to do so at that moment, while I stared something greater than I could comprehend in its ugly, anonymous face.

For months following, every time I emerged from the subway in the morning I half-expected the CN Tower, which unfailingly looms over Toronto's trees and buildings, to be cut in half or simply to not be there. Or at my desk, every time I heard sirens, there was that spector in my head saying "could this be our turn". These things still happen every so often. One might think that the survivors in New York, or anyone touched by the event around the world may forever be sentenced to fear and painful memories of the dark past. While my memories may not be as painful by degree as those of others, I believe one thing is certain: human souls repair themselves. If not completely here and now, then in a next life.

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.

They Want You As a New Recruit!

Apparently, the Canadian military is running out of bodies and plans to relax background security checks on recruits to bolster its ranks. They just can't understand why more young people aren't flocking to sign up for all-expenses paid trips to Afghanistan, where all they have to do is scrape Canadian body parts off the landscape to keep the country clean.

In a related story, there are whispers that several prominent Canadian figures are suddenly considering military careers. The rumoured list includes: Chuck Guite; Conrad Black; David Emerson; Ben Johnson; Rona Ambrose; Tom Jacobek; Alan Eagleson; Alfonso Gagliano; and Wanda Liczyk.

9-11 Tapes: Why Right Now?

Why are these "tapes" being released now? Why weren't they released in March? A year ago? Two years ago? Next year? It was the New York Times that went to court (ostensibly on behalf of the families of victims, who, indeed, did deserve to gain access) to get the original tapes released. But recently the FDNY, citing poor internal management, coincidentally found a bunch of new ones that weren't released in the original batch in March. There is a foul smell about this.

The timing is suspect, amidst tenuous support for the so-called war on terror and while events in the Middle East and a heightened terror watch, as a result of arrests in Britain and Canada, have constructed the perfect setting for a dramatic rollout. A cynic might even postulate that it was a communications strategy engineered by dark shadow backroom string-pullers to play down inadequate EMR resources needed to respond to the attack.

One thing is for sure. It's sad that our lazy, tabloid-era North American media is lapping up this "news" with no critical comment. Print and TV yesterday were flooded with the extremely private vain cries for help from human beings on the brink of death. In the background, a locust cloud of Bush bites are swarming, preaching Armagaeddon if the forces of good do not triumph over evil, despite this.

Doesn't anyone care why this stuff happens? Wake the fuck up MSM and North America. Pull that cheeseburger from your thick sweaty jowls, let go of the joystick and wake up.

Droning On and On and On...

What's all this about Canada needing more drones in the military? I'm confused. Is that a proposal to send MPs into battle? Are they talking about embedding CBC teat-swilling slugs like Don Newman in Afghanistan? Or do they mean we should be sending autoworkers overseas? I just don't get it. Can anyone clarify this for me? Am I stoned? Do you know where I put my socks? Ha ha ha. Socks! I said socks. If you say socks a bunch of times it loses all meaning. I wonder if god wears socks. What do you think? What were we talking about?

Neo-Content News Round-Up

What a glorious long weekend for those of the more insane right wing persuasion. On the heels of the Pope blessing the frozen pants of the nation, there is news of an Alberta MP's Private Members Bill that tries to advance the rights of the animate, thinking fetus argument. Next thing you know, those nutty pro-lifers will be suggesting we tax fetuses, since they are, in theory, old enough to vote- and as informed as the average voter at that.

The next juicy item for you salivating neo-cons was news that 50 "suspected" Taliban insurgents were slaughtered in a southern Afghan village. No body count on charred babies and women yet, but I suspect we won't be seeing those numbers for some time.

Blood, death, sexual schitzophrenia and mean-spirited politicization of female reproductive systems...it's pure poetry. Breath easy and sleep well fuckers, cuz everything is right in dreamy, repressed 1950's polite-on-the-surface, monstrous-under-the-thin-facade right wing Canada.

And today, shake hands with your children in a stern, business-like fashion, give 'em an extra soda pop and thank god Alberta, or any other province, isn't teeming with muslims or feminist uteruses- or whatever it is that scares you into further intolerance.

Friday Quickie: Iggy Swallowed

Ignatieff really did it this time. Following the Afghanistan vote, Harper slithered up to him like a snake hunting an injured rat and choked him down with a peristaltic handshake. Now, Iggy is nothing more than Mel Lastman, with sweaty Hells Angels palms. Poor little quivering rodent. He didn't see it coming until it was too late. Now, does that fit the epistemological parameters of your meta-methodological construct of torture Iggy?

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K

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.

Troops As Pawns

The federal Conservatives' strangely-timed proposal to extend our presence in Afghanistan, when the current mission does not expire until next year, is an attempt to bolster their tough guy image and solidify support from their hawkish constituency. It is cynical, self-serving and just more evidence that they don't give a shit less about soldiers dying, the costs incurred to the country or the dissemination of democratic principles around the world. They care about their own shallow, thread-clinging hold on political power- just like George Bush and his retarded band of withered old men with tiny penises (and that includes Condoleeza Rice).

At the same time, we hear about more environmental programs being cut. I guess the secret plan is to kill soldiers quickly and the rest of us real slow-like. Just my opinion of course.

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.