I can't remember a more gloomy New Year's eve, grey, strangely warm, and eerily ominous. Last year, on the final day of 2010, I wrote this:
It was the worst of years. The year when the crazed tyrant Stephen Harper ripped a giant hole in the fabric of Canada, chewed on its heart and its liver, and lied through his bloody teeth.
So what could I possibly write about the even more horrible year of 2011? The year when a morally degenerate ideologue, and his band of American-style RepubliCons, seized control of the country I love and began screwing it into submission.
For who could ever forget this image, of one of those ghastly Cons firing imaginary bullets into the legacy of murdered women, and the bleeding side of the helpless opposition?
Well at least we know one thing eh? When Rob Ford called 911 because he felt threatened by the comedian Marg Delahunty. And then used the F-word when talking to a dispatcher, because police didn't come quickly enough.
It wasn't because they didn't know where he lived.
According to numerous police and emergency service sources, 911 calls to the mayor’s Edenbridge Dr. home are a reality for the South Etobicoke division. Exactly how many calls have been made is unknown.
Now I don't give a damn what goes on in the Ford household. In fact I'd rather not think about it.
You don't have to be a weatherman, or an economist, to know that a cold wind is blowing in Harperland, and that a recession could be just around the corner.
So what are the Cons doing? Answer: Planning to cut corporate taxes even more, and taxing our paycheques.
Canadians will see the biggest increase in payroll taxes in a decade next year, according to a Canadian Taxpayers Federation analysis of how many of your dollars will go to federal government coffers.The combined net increase of 4.84 per cent is the highest since 2002.
Even though businesses are just sitting on their money, instead of creating jobs. And if you miraculously manage to qualify for employment insurance, good luck collecting any benefits.
I was trying to think about something to blog about on this cold, wet miserable night. Then I read about the death of Joe Bodolai, the American who nurtured so many great young comedians in Canada.
Who killed himself the other day by drinking a mixture of Gatorade and anti-freeze, but not before writing this last post.
And it stopped me in my tracks. Because what puny words could I write about anything compared to something so honest and so powerful that moved me so much?
Jumping Jiminy Cricket. I must have had too much booze soaked plum pudding eh? But when I saw that Pierre Karl Péladeau says his war on the CBC isn't a vendetta, I couldn't help thinking that his nose must be growing.
The media magnate insists that his crusade to force the CBC and its French-language arm Radio-Canada to release confidential data about their operations – including the salaries of Peter Mansbridge and other network stars – is not about politics or ideology. It is about taxpayer dollars, and how they impact Quebecor’s bottom line.
Because while it may be true that he's not political, he just wants to be the Citizen Kane Citoyen Péladeau of Quebec. And he doesn't care whether those who work for him are Cons, separatists, or former FLQ terrorists.
Surely he can't complain about taxpayer dollars, when his ruthless media octopus gobbles up so many. And surely he can't deny that his tacky little news network's main purpose in life is to destroy the CBC.
I wrote this post two years ago, and although so much has happened since then, and we now live in the darkness of Harper's Canada, I see no reason to change it. So here we go again.
It's Christmas Eve, and once again I have to explain to my friends, that although I'm an atheist, and believe that our beautiful planet is our heaven and our hell.
And although I hate the shopping and the greed.
And although I know that it can be a lonely time for many, including all those gay people who have been rejected by their families.
I do love this time of the year. The lights, the colours, the snow, the food.
And all those sweet little stories that moved me when I was a child.
Like the one whose happy ending made me cry when I was nine-years-old, and was spending Christmas in hospital recovering from meningitis.
The story of the poor little old donkey and his friend, who was ordered by his father to sell him. But the only one who wanted him was a tanner... for his hide.
Oh boy. It was such a lovely evening. The setting sun glowed golden. And for the first time this winter it was cold enough to imagine it was almost Christmas in Canada.
But sadly that golden glow didn't last long.
For when I went home and put on the TV, I was quickly reminded that it was only almost Christmas in Harperland.
OMG. I don't know what was more scary. When he tried to smile by opening his mouth and baring his teeth. Or when he promised to "keep promoting the things that unite us as Canadians."
But it wasn't until I read Jane Taber, that I really started screaming.
If they ever make a Canadian version of the classic movie Chicken Run, they're definitely going to have to give the lead role to Fox News North's Brian Lilley.
Because not only does he look the part, with an absurd pompadour instead of a cockscomb, but he's as cowardly as they come.
A few months ago when he was going on about how Nycole Turmel was a "separatist" and the CBC was the root of all evil, Martin Patriquin made him look like an idiot.
I visited St James Park the other day, about a month after the Occupy Toronto campsite was torn down. And not even the Christmas lights on the old gazebo, could brighten up the bleakness.
I much preferred it when it was full of gentle dreamers, talking about changing the world.
For long after this horrible year is history, I will always remember how after the horror of Stephen Harper's majority, and the tragedy of Jack Layton's passing, the birth of the Occupy movement made me feel alive again.
In the Great Darkness of Harperland, where so many look on helplessly as a sinister regime sets out to turn us into a prison state, privatize medicare, and sabotage all efforts to try to save the planet, it revived my will to RESIST.
Oh sure, like any other baby movement Occupy Canada has made many mistakes. Like when it tried to close down the port of Vancouver recently, and alienated some of its good friends in the union movement.
But its heart is in the right place. It's right to want to save the world. It's encouraging many young people to get involved in politics.
And in a country suffocating with apathy, this picture still haunts me.
If nothing else, Occupy Toronto has created an infrastructure for resistance at a time when resistance is as necessary as breathing.
And of course I agree with Stephen Lewis.
“We will not recognize the Canada that exists in 2020,” he said, exhorting progressives to do what he suggested Occupy has done: “Grit your teeth and go after these neanderthals and philistines.”
So I decided to put together a little video, with some pictures and videos I took, some pictures from others across the country, and some music from the Canadian folk group The Travellers.
To say thank you to Occupy Canada. For keeping my hopes for a kinder, gentler, better world alive. For saying Harperland is not Canada. This land is OUR land.
Well I have to hand it to the Cons at Sun News, because if it wasn't for them I'd never know that a brutal War on Christmas was raging.
Although so far most of the reports flowing in from the front seem depressingly familiar.
More like scary Lezra, and the never ending War on David Suzuki.
Although the hairy hoary windbag Charles Adler has tried to escalate the situation, by spouting off ad nauseam about "self loathing white liberals." trying to crucify Christmas.
Well I suppose it was too real to be tolerated. A poster of the Virgin Mary receiving a pregnancy test.
So a religious fanatic attacked it with a pair of scissors.
"This is Satanic, this is the ultimate Satanic attack, when Lucifer attacks his worst enemy, the Blessed Virgin.
"This particular church - so called - is run by a gay, feminist-type lobby. They claim to be Christian and yet they put up a blasphemous image of the Blessed Virgin, attacking her virginity and the fact that she was the mother of Christ, the God-Man."
Even though the poster's message was gentle and human.
Lordy. Isn't life unfair? Great Ugly Leader makes destroying the Liberal Party his singularly depraved obsession. And gets rewarded with a juicy majority.
“We’ve done tens of millions of dials through our call centre and there’s never been any complaint launched against us,” Kouvalis said. “We’re in the business of getting Conservatives elected and ending Liberal careers. We’re good at it.”
Has to go on TV and insist that he's no reprehensible dirty trickster.
Oh. My. Monkey. It looks like Chiquita Banana is giving Canada's oil sands the cold shoulder.
The Canadian oil sands industry is facing an unlikely adversary in Chiquita Brands International, the banana company.
The Ohio-based company said it will work with environmental organization ForestEthics to eliminate shipping of Chiquita bananas with fuel from refineries that use Canada’s oil sands.
Which of course had Great Banana Republic Leader stewing in his own fumes.
What perfect timing. Just as the U.S. ends its war in Iraq, not with a bang but a whimper. Bye bye Big Lie. Bye bye Shock and Awe. Bye bye mass murder. Bye bye Abu Ghraib.
In a junkyard near Baghdad, somebody came across the true horror of Haditha.
The 400 pages of interrogations, once closely guarded as secrets of war, were supposed to have been destroyed as the last American troops prepare to leave Iraq. Instead, they were discovered along with reams of other classified documents, including military maps showing helicopter routes and radar capabilities, by a reporter for The New York Times at a junkyard outside Baghdad. An attendant was burning them as fuel to cook a dinner of smoked carp.
The documents — many marked secret — form part of the military’s internal investigation, and confirm much of what happened at Haditha, a Euphrates River town where Marines killed 24 Iraqis, including a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair, women and children, some just toddlers.
To remind us that not ONE of the U.S. soldiers responsible has been convicted. And that just like the war criminals Bush, Cheney, and Blair they all got away.
Golly Sherlock can you believe this? The polling company behind those phony calls in Irwin Cotler's riding is feeling a little heat.
A trade association that represents Canadian marketing and polling firms says it is looking into complaints about controversial phone calls into Liberal MP Irwin Cotler’s Montreal riding made by one of its members.
So what does Nick Kouvalis the company's principal partner have to say about that?
“We’ve done tens of millions of dials through our call centre and there’s never been any complaint launched against us,” Kouvalis said. “We’re in the business of getting Conservatives elected and ending Liberal careers. We’re good at it.”
I see that Parliament has adjourned with the Cons gnashing their teeth flapping their wings over what Justin Trudeau said yesterday.
“Bullshit!” he cried, his fury dramatically framed by flowing locks and sharply drawn facial hair.
“You piece of shit!” he added in Mr. Kent’s general direction.
But I thought Justin was quite restrained considering the circumstances. If I was him I would have added this...
Because Peter Kent deserves every stinky word aimed in his general direction. And if we're talking about contempt of Parliament, I thought this was definitely worse:
When I look at a picture of our beautiful little blue planet, and I think of what the Cons have done, I feel so angry and so ashamed to be aCanadian.
We're a rich, advanced country that should be a leader. Yet we've failed the world on climate change. We let our aboriginal peoples live in tents with sick children in the middle of winter. We send cancer-causing asbestos to developing nations. What's wrong with us?
Especially since, as John Ibbitson points out, the Cons may have done the dirty deed, but in a way we're all responsible for the Kyoto debacle.
“Global warming peaked as an issue when Al Gore won his Academy Award in 2007, and has basically declined since,” he said Monday. “And when the economy went up the hit parade, the environment went down precipitously.”
To a degree I can understand why so many Canadians feel this way. Thanks to the Cons we've come to believe that our prosperity depends on dirty oil. And in a cold country like Canada the day of reckoning seems so far off.
But what if it wasn't? What if bubbles like these are already heralding the beginning of the Apocalypse?
I could run this old video of Peter Kent introducing a documentary where he calls global warming “the greatest threat to life on the planet” and warns that the devastating effects of climate change “will be seen in our children’s lifetime.
Or I could run this picture of him returning from the Durban conference yesterday, like some shabby Neville Chamberlain declaring "There will be peace grease in our time...
Claiming that we would have to pull every car off the road, or pay $14 billion to stay in the treaty. Which is totally absurd. But even if it was true would be less than we are going to pay for our shiny new prisons.
They promised they wouldn't go after medicare. But that was then and this is now.
The Conservative government is putting the provinces on notice that Ottawa plans to shrink the rate of growth in health transfers.
As Finance Minister Jim Flaherty prepares to meet his provincial and territorial counterparts Monday in Victoria, signals continue to pile up that Ottawa will not keep increasing transfers by 6 per cent a year beyond the 2015-16 fiscal year.
And what does Stephen Harper have to say about this?
“We have committed to the 6 per cent for a few more years. Over the long term I think all governments recognize – federal government, provincial governments – that the cost of the health care system cannot continue to rise more quickly than our revenue. And that's a problem and that's a challenge we will all be dealing with in the next few years to come as we discuss the future of our health care system,” he said.
OK. So I'm not a big fan of religion, and I'm not a big fan of the burqa or the niqab. But then as you know I'm not a big fan of Jason Kenney either.
So I find his new war on the veil totally ridiculous.
It seems unlikely that a woman would go to the trouble of applying for citizenship, taking the test and paying the fee without a genuine desire to be classed as a Canadian citizen — just so she could secretly get away with not saying the oath.
And not just for all those excellent reasons, but also because even if nobody was wearing a veil at one of those mass swearing in ceremonies, how would we know that anyone in the room was REALLY reciting the Citizenship Oath?
And so it came to pass that the ghastly Con scribbler Krusty Blatchford was strolling trolling through the streets the other day, when she came across a group of young boys hugging each other. Farted loudly.
I know men have feelings too. I just don’t need to know much more than that. On any list of The 25 Things Every Man And Boy Should Know How To Do, hugging is not one of them. Killing bugs is. Whacking bullies is. Kissing is. Farting on cue is. Making the sound of a train in a tunnel is. Shooting a puck is. Hugging is not.
I've been taking a little heat recently, from some of my gay friends, for not having written anything about Rick Perry's grotesque little video.
But as I explain to those fools, if I wrote a post every time some Christianist bigot in Amerika opened and closed his or her filthy pie hole, I'd never have the time to write about anything else. Or fetch the beer.
Besides what more could I say eh? When his video is already one of the most disliked videos in YouTube history.
The federal government has bought 15 modular homes for the remote first-nations community of Attawapiskat, but Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan is holding out the possibility that the impoverished reserve may ultimately pay the bill.
Sometimes it's the small things that can tell you a lot about the country we are becoming under the sinister Harper regime. And how The Great Darkness is becoming The Great Silence.
We know about the big things. How the Cons have paralyzed the civil service with fear. How they're trying to muzzle the Auditor General.
We know how they're stifling debate on their insane Omnibus Crime Bill. We know how trying to obtain information from them is like extracting bloody water from a stone.
As they mock our democracy, and the rule of law, to try to turn us into a Banana Republic.
The instances of abuse of power multiply. “They’ll stop at nothing”, Liberal John McKay said yesterday. “It’s an elected dictatorship.”
But has anybody noticed how Lord Harper is going to new lengths to try to muzzle his own?
OMG. I don't know whether I should tell you, because you'll NEVER believe me. But I went to Stephen Harper's Con Christmas party last night. And boy was it SCARY.
Suspicious Conservatives are vetting guests to their annual caucus Christmas party in Ottawa Wednesday night, ensuring there are no spies or interlopers in the crowd. Anyone, who is not a bona fide member of Stephen Harper’s team (lobbyists and journalists, for example) must be in a committed relationship with one in order to gain entry.
The invitation is very clear about who is – and who is not – allowed to come and tip a glass of Christmas cheer: “If you choose to bring a guest,” it reads, “please ensure that he or she is a close personal acquaintance, unless he or she is your partner, is not a lobbyist, consultant, or journalist, or employed in a similar capacity, and is not there is any commercial capacity.”
So it wasn't exactly "It's a Wonderful Life." More like "The Nightmare Before Christmas." But then who should be surprised eh?
For more than five years, in my humble way, I tried to illustrate what the horror of a HarperCon majority would mean for Canada. I made this photoshop three years ago.
But they got their preciousssssss majority, and now like a pack of hungry zombies, they are totally out of control.
They are tearing the flesh off our parliamentary democracy, they are trying to turn us into an insane prison state. They are torching the planet in the name of Big Oil.
And of course, I've tried to illustrate that too...
Don't you just love crazy religion? They are always attacking each other, claiming that only their god is the real one. Spewing gibberish and hate out of every orifice, or blowing up their rivals.
But nothing can bring them together as quickly as a chance to attack gay kids.
Christian, Jewish and Muslim representatives say they agree school bullies must be stopped, but they can't condone a requirement under the legislation proposed to deal with it that schools promote sexual tolerance through gay clubs.
"To force, especially Christian classrooms or schools, to have homosexual clubs would of course be an affront to their family values," Charles McVety, of the Institute for Canadian Values, told a joint news conference.
I'm glad the Harper Cons weren't invited to this sad ceremony on Parliament Hill.
For how could those grotesque Cons mourn those murdered women? When they are greasing up their guns to murder their legacy.
“Even as we mourn the 14 women killed at l’École Polytechnique, this government is taking the last remaining safeguard off the very weapon that murdered these women,” Ms. Turmel said. “The Conservatives are recklessly dismantling the only positive thing to come out of the tragic events of Dec. 6.”
Spitting on their graves, and shattering the lives of those who loved them, and along with so many others worked so hard for 22 years to make Canada a safer place.
Woohoo. Excellent. I see the Con Injun Agent has been kicked out of Attawapiskat.
Attawapiskat band councillors kicked out a federal appointee in charge of overseeing the troubled band’s finances on Monday when he showed up in the remote Northern Ontario reserve.
Good for that little community. First the Cons reduce them to misery. Then they try to humiliate them
“It is incredible that the Harper government’s decision is that, instead of offering aid and assistance to Canada’s first peoples, their solution is to blame the victim and that the community is guilty and deserving of their fate,” Spence and her band council said in a statement last week.
After first trying to claim that they didn't know what was happening. Or trying to blame Charlie Angus.
Only to look like fools, and be exposed as LIARS. Again.
Attawapiskat "was always a problem," said Strahl.
"It was not good when I was there, and I don't think it's appreciably or any better now. That was well known, everybody knew it was a very difficult community for a bunch of reasons."
And Chucky should know eh? Because when he was in charge he couldn't even build them a school.
Uh oh. I mean oink oink. I see the unrepentant capitalist pig just can't help itself. Stuffing itself with human misery. While the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer.
A new report finds that the gap between the rich and the poor just keeps getting wider in Canada.
So much for the Con plan to cut government jobs, drive down wages, reduce benefits by attacking unions, while giving the rich juicy tax breaks.
What world is this that playgrounds have become killing grounds? The murder of hope, love, creativity, passion, ingenuity, individually. This goes unpunished. Unnoticed. Why? When these die, our very person dies.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s when people don’t care about bullying. I hate when people say, “It’s no big deal” because it is. I hate when people say you won’t get affected because everyone is and I hate when people say it’ll get better because it won’t.
Or you can just watch this video...
And of course my message remains the same:
Things will get better. In schools, workplaces, senior homes, or anywhere and everywhere.
I have been so busy denouncing Stephen Harper's foul Omnibus Crime Bill, that would destroy internet freedom, handcuff judges, and turn us into a prison state. Even as the crime rate plummets to record lows, and Canadians have never felt safer.
That I haven't had a chance to say anything about Great Big Brother Leader's crazed War on Marijuana.
He says he's going to jail even more Canadians for smoking or sharing or selling small amounts of the drug, because he wants to fight organized crime, and protect us from the demon weed.
Here's a question that I believe requires an urgent answer. If you lived in a country where a sinister, authoritarian leader had reduced civil servants to a state of fear and paralysis.
Nobody gets in trouble for keeping their mouths shut, but people in government are really afraid — like, really afraid — of Harper, and they are right to be. He has shown repeatedly that he will end the careers of public servants who contradict his message.
Michele Bachmann believes that gays should be able to get married as long as they marry somebody of the opposite sex.
Jane Schmidt, a student at Waverly High School, in Waverly, Iowa, recently asked Michele Bachmann, “Why can’t same-sex couples get married?”
“They can get married,” Bachmann responded, “but they abide by the same law as everyone else. They can marry a man if they’re a woman. Or they can marry a woman if they’re a man.”
Well if you remember, when we last left Peter Dumbo Mackay he was happily buzzing over Newfoundland, on his way back from a fishing trip, and claiming he was late for a military demonstration.
But wait. What's this alarming new development?
MacKay ---- Air Tax Payer to tower...Mayday...Mayday.
Tower ------Tower to Air Tax Payer. What's the problem?
MacKay ----- Uh...remember when I told you that fishy story? Well it was a whopper.
Golly. I can only imagine the panic that must have ensued in the PMO after Nycole Turmel demanded that Stephen Harper spend a night in Attawaspiskat.
"You should sleep in a shack with a sleeping bag, you will see the sleeping bags provided by the Red Cross are not enough. We need better, we need action. Where is the leadership?"
With the flunkies from the Con Ministry of Propaganda and Disinformation screaming that not even Leni Riefenstahl could turn that miserable village into a heroic photo-op.
To appease the old white people in their rabid base, who believe in moral certainty, love punishment for its own sake. And would strangle the young in their cradle. Or have them arrested for daring to complain.
I see that Kalle Lasn, one of the Canadian instigators of the Occupy Wall Street movement, laments the way things turned out in Canada.
While protesters from Halifax to Vancouver emulated their global counterparts by pitching tents in public spaces and brainstorming ways to challenge the status quo, Lasn said the efforts he witnessed lacked some of the passion that characterized rallies in the United States.
I don't question Lasn's good intentions, but it all sounds a bit hollow. Firstly, since he only visited the campsite in Vancouver his views of the Canadian movement are obviously extremely limited. Secondly, since he came up with the idea of occupying campsites, and providing free food and shelter, in cities full of homeless people, street kids, drug abusers, and the mentally ill, like Vancouver, he should take some blame for what happened.
Oh no. I don't want to frighten you eh? But has anybody noticed that the Con regime is turning into a real horror show?
Not only have they started calling anybody who disagrees with them a traitor.
But there was the rabid wingnut Rob Anders the other day, claiming that the only reason he nodded off in Parliament was because he was hit by a monster truck.
It was an image that shocked the world. An image that should shock everybody. Right?
But not Bill O'Reilly and the Fox News bimbo Megyn Kelly, who shrugged it off as just a "food product."
"I agree [the tape] looks bad," Kelly says. It's just that the protesters were sitting in a place where they weren't allowed to sit, so it's kind of their own fault! And in any event what right do we have to judge a cop for spraying a simple food product on the faces of a bunch of liberal college kids doing something criminal? You know? Maybe he was just trying to feed them?
Twenty four hours after this little campsite was demolished, I see that Margaret Wente couldn't restrain herself from going down to St James Park, squatting on all fours, and delivering this dreary dump.
Despite the current circumstances, every single protester in North America is pretty well guaranteed a comfortable middle-class existence – so long as he or she can manage to finish school, show up for work and avoid excessive substance abuse – in a functioning democracy with the rule of law.
Right. Just remember which end of her it came from eh?
But of course she wasn't the only one. Who can forget the Progressive Bloggers who called the occupiers "degenerates" and "rabid animals?" Or all those other angry old people who screamed that the baby movement should be strangled in its cradle.
