Tuesday, April 14, 2015

Why Does Stephen Harper Want to Turn Us Into Bloody Amerika?



I try not to watch too much American TV news, because what's happening in this diseased Harperland is crazy enough.

And because every time I do watch it these days, it seems another black man is being killed by a white police officer for no sane reason.

And when I see someone handcuff a human being after shooting him six times in the back, as the South Carolina police officer Michael Slager did to Walter Scott, makes me almost physically ill... 



Because as I've said before, my heroes are healers not killers.

And this too could only happen in cruel, crazy, blood soaked Amerika. 

Robert Bates was a volunteer deputy who'd never led an arrest for the Tulsa County Sheriff's Office. So how did the 73-year-old insurance company CEO end up joining a sting operation this month that ended when he pulled out his handgun and killed suspect Eric Harris instead of stunning him with a Taser?

A lawyer representing the Harris family says the answer is simple. Bates paid big money to play a cop in his spare time, attorney Daniel Smolen says, but he didn't have the training to handle the job.


Where rich people like Robert Bates get to pay to play cops, by buying thousands of dollars worth of equipment and vehicles for the police department. And chairing the Sherriff's re-election campaign, as Bates did in 2012.

So he could have the pleasure, at the age of 73, of hunting other humans...



And only in Amerika could a police officer tell the dying Eric Harris, as he struggled to breathe, to "fuck his breath." So sick is that country.

But of course every case is different, it isn't just madness, and there are some very simple reasons this is happening.

Starting with, as Scott Gilmore explains, the simplest one of all: there are just too many guns

There are more guns per capita in the United States than in any other country in the world. Estimates vary from 270 million to 310 million legal and illegal guns in circulation. This provides almost one gun for every man, woman and child.

Which changes the way police approach their jobs.

With so many civilians carrying guns, is it surprising that the police shoot first and ask questions later? In fact, American police are at relatively more peril than their counterparts elsewhere.This has, understandably, created a police culture that is both defensive and aggressive.

And Gilmore is also right when he points out there is too much racism, which poisons everything. And too much hero worship, and glorification of violence. 

The third uniquely American factor is the embattled-hero mythology that surrounds the police. In no country are the cops as lionized as they are in the United States. Not even Canadians, who place the “Mounties” at the centre of their national identity, elevate the police to such heights. 

From The Lone Ranger to Hill Street Blues and CSI: Miami, American culture has constructed a pervasive narrative of the imperilled but noble police officer, courageously risking his life every day on the thin blue line between civilization and murderous chaos.

But what Gilmore and others in the MSM always fail to point out, is that thanks to Stephen Harper that American exceptionalism isn't so exceptional. And their nightmare is rapidly becoming OUR nightmare.

Because no Canadian Prime Minister has ever encouraged the cult of gun worship as much as he has..



For crass political reasons.

By scrapping the gun registry he deprived police officers of a tool that allowed them to know whether the home they were called to had any weapons, which has made them more jumpy and ready to use their own.

His Great War on Crime also portrays the control of criminal behaviour as an apocalyptic battle between civilization and chaos. Even though the crime rate has never been lower. While ignoring the far more mundane root causes, and our own racism.

And from the moment he came to power he has degraded our proud peacekeeping tradition, and tried to militarize our history, and make us a more war-like nation.

So sooner or later the bloody demons that are now loose in America will become OUR bloody nightmare...



You know, we really should have learned our lesson thirty-six years ago when so many women were murdered on a snowy day in Montreal at the École Polytechnique, by an angry misogynist with a gun...



But we didn't. We allowed Harper and his criminal Con regime to bury their precious legacy.

And in the process of killing so much that was good and beautiful in this country, kill my dreams of a less violent Canada.

So now all I can hope for is that in the next election Canadians can choose a Prime Minister who respects our values and our traditions.

So we can take back our peaceful country...



And bury this American monster...



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14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bullshit! It can happen at any time in Toronto too! Ask Sammy Yazim how your philosophy worked out for him (with apology to Mr. Yazim if I got his name wrong). Nobody in their right minds considers cops as anything but hired corporate guns these days. Time to wake up and grow up little Simon. amerika is already here. It happened when your whiney fucking friends stayed home and abstained from voting AGAIN. You/they voted for harper with their inaction and now his diseased pathology is making itself known in how the police treat people everywhere in Canada. See "Vancouver" or G20" if you're still not convinced I'm right.

Anonymous said...

So because of stupid shit 25 years ago, people's property should always be at risk? Get with program Simon, only grey-haired Quebecers and lefties even care about that business so long ago. The rest of us have moved on and consigned it to the history books.

It's high time you accepted that those people died for nothing, their deaths were utterly meaningless. It was an empty tragedy, nothing more

Simon said...

hi anon...please try to mind your manners, and don't insult people you don't know. All my friends are decent not whiney, and we all voted in the last election. Secondly, not all police officers are hired corporate guns, I know because I work with some of them so don't generalize without knowing again what you are talking about. But yes the shooting of Sammy Yazim was a police execution, I have written extensively about that horrible incident and await the day of justice. The G20 which happened in my neighbourhood was a gross abuse of police power, and I narrowly avoided being arrested myself. But no we are not yet Amerika, although we are definitely heading in that direction. May I suggest that you pick your targets more carefully in future because spraying gunfire in all directions only undermines our case, and makes you look ridiculous...

mizdarlin said...

As someone who was born and raised in the States, and is just as horrified as you are, Simon, about what America is becoming, I can only say that there is little chance of it happening here..
I live on the West Coast, so I certainly cannot speak for Toronto, etc. but there seems to be no gun culture here..it's a totally different concept down there...
I am a senior, and even in the 50's-60's when I was growing up, guns were pervasive in my home..my father, no legitimate hunter, had several handguns, all loaded, all around the house in various drawers, closets, etc. If you had asked him why, he would have thought you were the crazy one...
Being surrounded by middle class homes full of gun owners was not the exception, it was the norm..but there was almost no cop on suspect violence that was 'permanent' like now.
Much may have changed, but much is the same...the difference being that the media has become the public, and vice versa..we all share in the responsibility to report this ugliness whenever we can, and the advent of the 'smart' phone has changed policing forever..thankfully.
Unfortunately, the horrors perpetrated on persons of colour in the States are continuing, seemingly unabated..I thank my stars every day that I came to Canada, and that I stayed..but I do worry about Harper's terrible influence as being seemingly semi-permanent.

Anonymous said...

By scrapping the gun registry he deprived police officers of a tool that allowed them to know whether the home they were called to had any weapons, which has made them more jumpy and ready to use their own.,

I guess pistols, handguns aren't weapons now? Because ya know... I guess the police could just check that registry that's existed since the 1930's. Unless of course they happen to be dealing with a criminal who have this nasty habit of not complying with laws. Like that one that says you have to register your restricted firearms. I guess the magical registry is going capture that data through pixie-dust. Or some such.

When did America become the enemy? I thought Canada and America were friends. Pity we don't treat our *actual* enemies with the same contempt with which we treat Americans.

e.a.f. said...

Well Quebec isn't forgetting any of it. The recent court decision which says Steve doesn't have to turn over records to help Quebec start their own registry hasn't done much for him in Quebec. He'll loose votes there. Even if the Bloc picks up the votes, it will be o.k. as long as the Cons don't get them.

Part of the "gun culture" is to make people afraid. That is what Stevie is doing. Making Canadians afraid. Stevie is afraid, he is currently attacking the United Steel workers for their charity work. Upp another audit. Stevie is going after one charity group after another. He wants everybody to be afraid, afraid of him and his Con, afraid of each other, afraid the person next door will get something you don't. The terrorism b.s. stevie pedals is more about making people afraid of their neighbours and people who don't look like them.

well we can only hope stevie becomes afraid, when he is turfed out of office. just think what the incoming party will find, if not everything gets shredded in time.

Simon said...

hi anon...well that's your opinion, and needless to say I don't share it. As someone who has seen the results of gun violence all I ask is that when you take your sexy gun to bed, and make love to it passionately, please make sure it's NOT loaded...

Simon said...

hi mizdarlin...no we don't have the same gun culture in Canada as they have in the U.S., but no thanks to Harper and his Cons. They have made guns almost impossible to track, made the lives of police officers and paramedics more dangerous, and are still hugely responsible for monstrous acts of domestic violence, and for far too many suicides. I recognize they are needed in rural areas, but for those who worship them like deadly toys I have absolutely no respect. Let them clean up chunks of human brain sliding down a wall...

Simon said...

hi anon...Canadians and Americans are friends, and in my case family. But we don't want our country to become an armed camp like yours, where every passing day seems to bring another atrocity. And while you and the Harperites focus on criminals, you forget all the ways guns are used by law abiding citizens to kill those around them, and kill themselves...

Simon said...

hi e.a.f...yes my views on gun control are shaped by having grown up in Quebec, and the callous decision to destroy the records despite the views of Quebecers will cost the Cons in the next election, for it was nothing but fascist vandalism.
And the hypocrisy of the Cons, and the stupidity of the gun nuts knows no bounds. They would complain about their rights being infringed, and then support Bill C 51 which would turn us into a police state...

Anonymous said...

Canadians and Americans are friends

The way you write, you had me completely fooled on that one!

But we don't want our country to become an armed camp like yours, where every passing day seems to bring another atrocity.

So you call them our friends, but in the very next sentence, you slander and deride them. You could write that way, justifiably I think, about the so-called Islamic State. As such, I think you just made my point, better than I could.

you forget all the ways guns are used by law abiding citizens to kill those around them, and kill themselves...

First of all, the vast majority of American firearms related homicides and murders aren't committed by law-abiding people. Granted, some are, but they've always been in the minority. America has a gang problem, not a gun problem. For a guy who claims to love science and statistics, you are staggeringly ignorant of them.

http://pjmedia.com/blog/im-glad-that-i-dont-have-canadian-murder-rates-where-i-live/

Anonymous said...

@Anon 6:23 AM did you miss your morning meds? If you have followed this blog you will see Simon asks people to go out and vote. He seems like a kind gentle person to me but you sound like a raging asshole, excuse me? Please go to Siberia and leave the rest of us alone you con troll or better yet the polluted city of Beijing China your master Steve Joe Harper is so fond of. Either way fuck off....

https://www.google.ca/#q=beijing+china+pollution+pictures

Steve your boss wants to turn beautiful Canada into that for the pleasure of his corporate masters you are not welcome in Canada or Simon's blog sorry for the wake-up call little one.

Simon and Sebastien I sowed you a real cool flag. It has every color of the rainbow seven in correct order as you have on the right side of your blog. A rainbow! Its my learning curve and I dedicate to you. I had gay male and female friends and enjoyed them immensely. They were funny they were creative they were fun to hang with. Got my drift big guy? Since my Tibial Plateau injury a red neck bestowed upon me. I was practicing for "The Trans Rockies Mountain Race" It runs from Fernie BC to Canmore AB one year and then from Canmore Alberta to Fernie British Columbia the next and vice a versa. It crosses the continental divide it was based on the Trans Alps Bike Race in Europe. I was so looking forward to it I practiced every second day in the mountains around Fernie BC rain or shine 50 kilometers. Then the tenth anniversary was coming in 2010 in August that is my birthday month. I was so looking forward to it. I was looking so forward to it not to win but to participate. I'm a Leo I'm a lion that is why he did not murder me I'm to tough but fuck Simon he wounded me and I still remain so wounded I do not think I can participate in the "Trans Rockies" ever again fuck it sucks...+

And some read-neck asshole took that choice away from me.

Moglio

Anonymous said...

Ohhhh touch a nerve with you eh? Poor little fella, try not to lose your shit now and go all Marc Lapine on us.

Anonymous said...

shrekt son