Even the BLOC showed up

Yeah, that party Harper claims is illegitimate, except when it isn't, whose vote doesn't count, except when it does because the CONs happen to need it.  Sorry, will update with the MP's name, I was engaged when he was presented, but his speech was good as were those of Layton, Dewar, Lizzie May and Ignatieff.

Over 3, 400 on the Hill and their signs showed they understood what the rally was about.

Excellent speech by a retired military fellow who told us to thank Harper for the good whether since Stevo was bound to take credit for it.

PSAC also gave a terrific, powerful speech.  I was hoping they'd repeat it in English, but no go.  Sierra club kept theirs short, to the point, and very relevant to the rally.

The crowd behaved, remained engaged until the end.

Fun with sing-a-longs lead by the wonderful Raging Grannies.

Lots of Canadian flags!

Some good music by the Arrogant Worms (they played the beaver song!) and they did the "just Prorogue" the one performed by Rae.

A couple of ladies made a terrific effigy of Stevo, complete with the cheap Burger King crown, kitty, and long pinnochio nose.

My co-pilots took lots of pictures and when I wrestle them away, I will post some here.

We froze our feet and warmed our hearts.

Good going, Ottawa!  And you were just one of 65 rallies.  Heard T.O. had over 7,000 attend, but while the numbers are nice, it is that this happened at all that is amazing and encouraging.

It was especially heartening to hear so many of the speakers say this is a beginning, and that we will continue.

Carried our tired asses back several blocks to our vehicles, holding our signs high as we walked, and people off the Hill the whole way smiled, waved, gave thumbs up, and honked.

Massive thank you to those who organized here in Ottawa, and those who coordinated the rallies across Canada and in other countries.

So, Harper...can you hear us now?

Holy South Park, Batman!

Like a really, really annoying Cartman episode -

Seriously.  How many pictures of Harper on the phone do we have to pay for to stay informed?  How many staged shots of Stevie must come out of our tax dollars in his endless quest for a majority so that he can completely destroy our democracy and force his narrow, atavistic ideology into all aspects of our lives.

How many more.  How, how many more?

Meanwhile, as Steve is gettin' the job dun doing real important shit and making sure we see him in all his glory and many variations of The Phone Call, news average Canadians don't give a shit about -

Transport Canada says no new incidents or intelligence information prompted its security branch to send a "vigilance" notice to airlines, airports and the federal agency in charge of airport screening a week ago—contradicting statements by Transport Minister John Baird and Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan. 

So, as I said a few days ago, these terrorist scares are bull shit, most likely spewed out by Baird and The Mouth Van Loan at Steve's orders to divert attention from what monumentally, undemocratic, lying fuck-ups they and their entire party are, and to shove through appalling changes to security that violate our rights and freedoms.

And just in case any of you are about to scream about those Liberal appointed public servants at Transport Canada just trying to give those poor Conservatives a hard time by making this story up -

The statements from the two ministers, claiming the government was of aware of new information about potential terrorist activity, appear also to have diverged from security assessments at the time by the Transportation Security Administration in the United States.

And if the Americans are saying that Baird and Van Loan are lying sacks of shit, it must be so.

In  case Johnny and Petey try to say they simply both, through sheer coincidence miss-spoke, take noote that during interviews held days later, both confirmed what they had said earlier.

Dewar and Holland had a few words to say, explaining that the government needs to be honest about security risks, they owe it to Canadians, and that by exaggerating risks for political reasons, people won't know what to believe when a real security risk is announced.

Really.  Considering the many, many cases of misinformation and outright falsehoods Steve & Co. have prompted, we should just assume everything they tell us is a lie.

Oh. My. Effing. Dog.

This may take awhile, so grab a coffee. Better make that something with a kick to it. I’ll wait...

...OK. The dividing line between sanity and insanity is not clear or precise. Most insane people permanently cross that final zone between reality and massive delusion gradually. They may have at one time questioned their own rhetoric, wondered, when comparing themselves to others, if they were normal, noticed odd little differences such as others having something called a conscience. But let a borderline case sit long enough listening to nothing but the echoes of his own disturbed ideas, well, you can end up with this:

Harper was asked if Canada's reputation as a stable democracy will suffer from his prorogation of Parliament. Harper said there was "zero risk" of that. In fact, he said it's when Parliament is sitting that Canada's stability comes into question.

I know. Read it again. Take your time. I’ll wait...

That is our Prime Minister, folks. The guy who is supposed to lead our country through Parliament, the guy who is supposed to help guard our democracy and promote Canada internationally. And he is saying that Canada is more stable when the democratic process of elected representatives acting on behalf of voters is by-passed, suspended.

He of course blames the instability of a sitting Parliament on the fact that he has a minority government, and somehow, this just isn’t fair, or workable, and if it is dysfunctional, it simply isn’t his fault. We Canadians just aren’t doing our part in giving him a majority, and the opposition MPs are, well, behaving like opposition MPs.

"As soon as Parliament comes back, we're in a minority Parliament situation and the first thing that happens is a vote of confidence and there will be votes of confidence and election speculation for every single week after that for the rest of the year," he said. “That's the kind of instability I think that markets are actually worried about.”

Yes, Steve, that’s what it means to have a minority. You either work with the opposition (which collectively represents the majority of Canadians who did not vote for your party) and develop legislation accordingly, or you quit and let someone who really grasps and respects that fundamental concept of a democratic Parliament do the job.

When I read this article today, I decided that yes, Steve has finally permanently crossed that line into insanity. He finds nothing wrong with making such statements, finds them in fact so reasonable that he thinks the majority of Canadians will find them truthful, brilliant, and just the very reason to give him a majority.

It is Steve’s failure to grasp how appalling his reasoning is that shows him to be mad.

He sees nothing wrong with stating that it is better to suspend Parliament than to have to deal with the 2/3 of Parliamentarians representing 2/3 of Canadians voters. He sees nothing wrong in praising the virtues of proroguing as a means of avoiding democratic votes in the House, votes made on behalf of those we elect.

And somehow, after telling us through these crazy words that 2/3 of Canadians aren’t worth listening to, that 2/3 of Canadians’ rights don’t mean shit, he thinks those very Canadians will see the wisdom of having their rights ignored, and will give him a majority so that he can crush even more of those rights with even fewer barriers.

That’s insanity. That’s sight so turned inward that it can do nothing but invent its own version of reality in a mind so isolated from normal people that it begins to believe the craziness it has made up.

And that, Steve, is the kind of instability of mind that prevents you from convincing more Canadians to vote for you.

Steve seems to think he is Special. The Chosen One. The saviour just waiting to be anointed. There have been others like him, people who have started out with a sense of entitlement, believing that they were born special, and that rules did not apply to them. They believed they were meant to make the rules for those lesser beings, the mindless masses.

Kim Jong-il   Caligula   L. Ron Hubbard

Leaders who ignore the public and create their own rule of law to suit their personal objectives are not leaders. They are despots.

No bounds to their arrogance and dismissal of the public’s will.

The Conservatives appear unfazed by the criticism (over prorogation), however, with Industry Minister Tony Clement saying Monday that ordinary Canadians don't consider prorogation to be a big issue.
"It may not be what the chattering classes want, but we're not here to govern on behalf of the chattering classes," he said.

So according tho Clement, people who engage in political discourse and exercise their democratic right to voice their opinions are chattering classes, just annoying background noise.

They are also, according to sides-with-angels-Tony, elites.  Definition: the best in a particular society or organization.  Gee, thanks, Tony!  If the chattering classes are really the best, maybe you should side with them just a little.

Conservatives: working hard at re-defining Canada and Canadians in their dumbed-down image.

Harper and Co. doing more real important shit.

So good of Steve to keep us up-to-date on what Canadians really care about: more pictures of Steve.

                      
An’ check eet out, mang!  A 13 second video, with no sound! (just creeeepy) (original, without sound)



How fucking cool is that?

We can set the video on a loop, sit back, and just imagine what VERY IMPORTANT words the Big Man is sharing with his VERY IMPORTANT Ministers of VERY IMPORTANT shit.

Might as well imagine what’s being said since this is obviously a staged shot of a fake meeting meant to deceive what the CONs think of as a very stupid public into thinking Steve & Co. are hard at work.

Canadians don’t really care about what is actually said in meetings so why not just hold fake ones?  Why bother telling Canadians tiresome little details about changes in security measures that could affect us in our travels, in our daily lives?  Why even bother making information reasonably available to those radical few who might actually want to be informed? 

We just want those shiny photos of Steve doing...stuff.

This photo and video, like most from the PMO, do provide us simple-minded, average Canadians with a little direction.  Just a nudge in the right-wing direction.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper receives a national security briefing from Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon, National Defence Minister Peter MacKay, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Rob Nicholson. 

And golly-gee!  What a coincidence that we are fed this sudden bull shit diversion security alert.

So here we see Steve receiving a briefing by making the others shut the fuck up and listen, because...well, get real, guys.  We have MacKay thinking, “Man!  I can’t believe I let this S.O.B. screw me out of the leadership.”  Nicholson is wondering if he should use his position as Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada to have Steve declared legally insane or if he should just go down with the sinking ship.  Cannon is thinking his French is better than Harper’s and his hair more natural looking, so if he keeps his mouth shut, lets MacKay and Steve talk, he can let them drown in their own idiocy and snap up the leadership.  The Mouth Van Loan is waiting in his bus-boy suit to see if Harper actually wants coffee in his prop cup - note the cashing in on the Beatles thing.  (h/t BCL) 

‘Cause even when our PM is hard at werk protectin’ avrige Canajuns, the chattering classes,  and the elite  who aren’t that interested in Parliament or what it does, he is just the coolest dude evah!  Why, he’s so cool he can make Canada more stable without a Parliament!

For you idiots out there who have been commenting on articles relating to this VERY IMPORTANT meeting and saying things like “good to see our PM hard at work!” “Finally, a PM we can be proud of!”  and “We are so lucky to have a PM who gets things done instead of wasting time in Parliament debating,” rub your two brain cells together, wait for that tiny flash, and think - fast - before the light goes out: if it’s a briefing on security, where are the folks who actually, in real life that is, do such briefings with Ministers?  That would be the specialists from various departments: Deputy Ministers and reps from DFAIT, the RCMP, DND, and Transport. (more on this here with The Jurist)

Speaking of which, where is John Baird, how dumb is he, and why, oh why does he hate Canadians?  As Minister of Transport, shouldn’t he be at a national security briefing that came up as a result of concerns over transportation security?

Oh, I see...he’s busy shaking down elderly women and keeping Canada safe from grannies.

Meanwhile, in news that average Canadians don’t give a shit about:


The country's budget watchdog and some of Canada's leading economists are contradicting Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, saying he cannot balance the books without raising taxes or slashing spending.  Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page warned Monday Canada could be headed back to the financial bad old days of the 1970s and 1980s when the country was crippled by public debt. 

Who needs Second Life to escape to when we have Steve Harper creating an imaginary environment for us?

Harper doing real important shit

Our Prime Poseur (phrase thanks to Mentarch) provides us with some very important information on how he is spending our money during his time away from the Hill.  At the PMO site where we are assured we will be informed of everything average Canadians need to know (because we don't care about a hell of a lot, anyway), we are privy to these critical updates in what Stevie has been doing:

Those trifty Conservatives!  Spending our money well.

Too cute - the photographer's name is Jill Propp. 

Meanwhile, what boring shit that Canadians don't care about has been going on these past few days?

5300 jobs lost in Ottawa

Canada Jobs Unexpectedly Fall 2600, Led by Transport

Canadian Jobs Lost

Canada sees surprise drop in employment in December

December job losses reality check

Global job woes erect roadblocks to recovery

Sure, we don't need a functional Parliament at this time when there are such important photos to be taken!

The dumbest opinion piece by a journalist I’ve read in a long time

Alec Bruce, Moncton-based journalist and columnist of The Bruce Report   tells us all - journalists and other Canadians, that we should get on the same page.

That page, it's pretty obvious, comes right out of CON speaking notes.

This opinion piece is so ridiculous and self-contradictory that it’s difficult to know where to start.

To read sundry editorials in recent days is to be treated to a cacophony of chicken-little squawking, as marvellously exemplified by a front-page screed in the Globe and Mail last Thursday.

He is referring to the media coverage of Harper’s latest adventures in dodging accountability and snubbing his nose at democracy by proroguing Parliament.

...But ask "average" Canucks -- those who are more concerned about their jobs or, for that matter, the winter Olympics, than the prime minister's machinations -- and the response is wholly different. You're more likely to hear "don't care," "business as usual" and "what does prorogation mean?"

Is Bruce suggesting journalists should ignore their knowledge of Parliamentary procedures, their insights into democratic systems, their trained ability to connect events and project possible consequences?  Is he saying they should just forget all that and write whatever “average” Canadians - whatever the hell he means by that - are saying?  And are average Canadians really more concerned about the Olympics - which few can even afford to attend - than, say, making sure they will actually have jobs in March?

Why bother with journalists at all, if that is the case?  Just let “average” Canadians write to each other.

It is, by now, abundantly clear that many, if not all, major news organizations in the country simply don't like Harper and his confederates, who they depict as cold, uncommunicative, dismissive, and occasionally nasty.

Gee, Bruce, could it be at all possible - now dig down deep for any dregs of journalistic impartiality for a moment - is it at all possible that Harper may actually be cold, uncommunicative, dismissive, occasionally nasty?  Is it possible that stating there are opportunities to be had by some as the economy crashes for the majority could be perceived as a rather cold comment?  Can you consider that maybe, just maybe Harper’s avoidance of the press could be construed as non-communicative on his part?  How about ignoring Supreme Court rulings?  Is that, perhaps, dismissive?  And nasty - might it not be a little nasty of him to bash artists, label them as elitists?  Or how about the endless personal attacks on Dion?

No, I guess many news organizations just decided one morning to dislike Harper.  He’s probably a real peach of a guy.  Just all warmth, openness, and willing to talk to Canadians without having to control minute aspects of every media appearance.

It is equally obvious that the rest of Canadians, by and large, are either dismissive of or indifferent to the federal political system. After all, if the Afghan detainee debacle has failed to light a fire under their rumps, what's the likelihood that a point of parliamentary protocol will now provoke popular outrage?

So what are you saying, Bruce?  If the public doesn’t seem to be interested, journalists should not bother informing it?  Is that what journalism is all about?  I thought that was prime time TV - like reality tv shows, crappy marketing, you know, entertainment as opposed to informed journalism.

Part of the problem, in this recent circumstance, is that the loudest media voices fallaciously equate "prorogation" with "undemocratic."

No they don’t.  They largely acknowledge that Harper is allowed to prorogue, but that doing so for poor reasons, over and over to dodge accountability is in spirit undemocratic and threatens our democracy.

The procedure may not be open, transparent and accountable -- especially as how Harper has deployed it over the past year -- but neither is it, strictly speaking, an autocratic device.

Really?  He decides, all on his own, despite the majority of elected members of Parliament being opposed, and not even being asked for their input, even though they are there to represent those who elected them.

It is just another widget in the constitutional toolbox. And to suggest that even its imprudent or cynical use undermines the very foundation of our commonwealth is to confess that, at some level, we can never fully trust our system of government.

Well yes.  Exactly.  That’s what many of us are saying.  This present system allows cynical abuse of prorogation, showing we can’t trust our system of government - in the hands of a self-serving, cynical, dismissive autocrat.  We need to make changes, but that isn't likely under Harper since prorogation is one of his favourite democracy dismantling widgets.

Now, Bruce’s first contradiction:

Lamentably, many Canadians already believe this (reference to previous paragraph), which explains their reaction to Harper's latest fandango. And, herein, lays the real peril.

I thought you said Canadians don’t really care, Bruce.  Thought you were whining on about how media is not on the same page as Canadians.  But let’s look at this peril you speak of:

There comes a point in every tired democracy when its defenders lose the ear of the people, when no amount of virtuous rabble-rousing, no degree of righteous eloquence, compel the majority to stand up and take back their plurality from those who have squandered their responsibilities. Canada is steadily heading towards this point, to a place where it will find itself impaled on the horns of its own ambivalence.

To reverse this course, the mainstream media (as long as one exists) must do a far better job than it has of educating citizens about the real, quotidian offenses to democracy in Canada -- the ones that go unreported and, therefore, unrecognized simply because they don't inspire front-page treatment.
       
Hmmm.  I thought that is what they have been doing in this case- interviewing specialist on democracy, stating the process in layman’s terms, getting informed opinions on if and how Harper’s moves violate or endanger democracy.  What say you, Bruce?

The daily function of an unelected, and easily manipulated, Senate is an abomination. Parliamentary committees stacked with partisans and power-mongers insult common sense and injure egalitarian principles.

An abomination.  Oh, yes.  Certainly that.  Which is why Harper (who is not cold, dismissive, un-communicative, nasty) (nor a blatant liar who violates his own promises) is stacking the Senate with unelected Conservative partisan hacks. 

And committees.  Right.  Huge problem with committees.  Those damn opposition members and their dirty tricks handbook, their refusal to show up at committees, their reluctance to produce documentation or allow witnesses to speak.  Oh, wait, it’s the CPC committee members who do that.   

But I get your point.  That’s some real serious shit, not trivia like blocking climate change talks at international summits, the economy tanking as the CONs deny there is even a problem, gagging public servants, firing them for doing their jobs too well, burying reports, and proroguing Parliament to avoid accountability.

Let's read more about these systemic threats to liberty and political participation from the country's ink-stained wretches, and less about perfectly democratic, if indisputably disingenuous, tactics executed by not just this government, but every government that waddles into Ottawa armed with an agenda.

Yes, lets’s, Bruce, you ink-stained wretch with your political participation.  You, and dishonest journalists like you who show the same contempt for your readers as does the Harper government are a systemic threat to our freedoms.  You go for the lowest denominator - not even the lowest common one - and pompously, self-righteously demand that responsible journalists dive into that mire, embrace it, and spew out the crap they ingest.  And then call it journalism.

Your pathetic little whines of it’s not fair!  Why are you always picking on him!  Canadians don’t know a damn thing, but hey, look, let’s report just as they would! fortunately don’t resound with readers who actually read past the headline.  As for the rest, well, you had them at I’m a CPC partisan hack.

Canadians and their mainstream media should, in the end, be on the same page.

Isn’t that called indoctrination, if the media is asked to tow Harper’s line, as you are demanding they do?

Pecking order

As the Big Cock, Steve makes the rulz.  And his rule - cluck and run.

Steve wants to focus on the Olympics?

Sure.  I'll help.  I'll post everyone of his damn photo ops, and his lackeys'.

As people struggle financially after Christmas and worry how they'll get through the year, they can see our politicians hard at work.  Enjoying the Olympics.  With tickets most of us can't afford.  With paid time off that few of us have.

And all on our dollar.

Take lots and lots of pics, Steve.

This is the song that never ends...

The CONs have repeatedly stated - with no little indignation - that they never, ever received direct warnings about the torture of detainees.

It seems they...lied. Yes, folks, and we have names. MacKay, O’Connor, and Day.

Three federal cabinet ministers and a senior government official met the head of the International Red Cross in the fall of 2006 as the humanitarian organization tried to focus Canada's attention on alleged abuses in Afghan prisons, The Canadian Press has learned.

...While the details of the meeting are secret, enough was said about Afghanistan to generate a report from MacKay's office a month later which flagged the Red Cross president's concerns.

The contents of the report, one of thousands of documents filed in the Military Police Complaints Commission investigation of torture allegations, are censored. The email was titled: Re: meeting with ICRC president re detention issues.

Harper and Co., you can prorogue but you cannot hide.

Our Chickenshit PM

Others have already written about this so I really only want to add my voice.
    
More at The Galloping Beaver and Canadian Cynic

Rumours swirling around Ottawa suggest the Conservative government is thinking of shutting down Parliament until after the Olympics, killing some of its own bills but also ending the discussion of Afghan detainees that is nibbling away at Tory popularity.  The rumours suggest that Parliament would return in March, when the Games are over, with a new budget that could be used to provoke an election.

Here we go again.  Parliament shut down to save Steve’s ass until he can get together enough fuzzy, shiny, happy photo ops to climb up in the polls then deliberately spark another election.  What the fuck happened to “Stay the course,” Stevo?  Oh yeah, caught with your dick hanging out happened.     Caught with it hanging out on your precious international stage happened. 

So, Cut-and-Run cowardly Steve, that proponent of transparency, wants to shut down government while we are still reeling from a recession.  Does he think we will all just forget about the torture allegations until March?  No, this was what he considered his Titanic, remember?

But opposition members of the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan have asked to hold special meetings before the session resumes. Among other high-profile witnesses, they want Defence Minister Peter MacKay and his predecessor, Gordon O'Connor, to return for more interrogation about what they knew of the torture allegations. The committee could not sit during prorogation.

With memos like this coming out -

"The Canadian provost marshal in Kandahar has told ISAF that he would be pleased to provide the information but that he has received explicit instructions from National Defence Headquarters ... not to do so," Mr. Colvin's memo says.  
   (h/t Impolitical )

- Steve will not want MacKay or O’Connor going before the committee.

There is no justification for Harper to prorogue Parliament.  To do so does not serve the country.  It serves only him and his flunkeys.  It costs all of us as we pay our MPs regradless of whether they sit or not.  It costs us since any Bills now on the table are dead and the whole expensive process has to be repeated.

The most critical piece of legislation before the Senate is the bill that enriches the employment insurance program.

Sure.  Because Harper really, really cares about ordinary Canadians, right?

It also costs us because these undemocratic tactics become easier and easier to pull off each time since the commonplace becomes more acceptable.  That costs us the integrity of our democratic system.

Maybe Harper will be able to pull this off again.  But if we sit back without raising our voices, without writing letters and e-mails, then we might just as well buy him a lovely dictator’s uniform for Christmas and be prepared to thank him as we kiss his boots.