In one of my last posts I ran this photoshop creation I made, to represent what many millions of Canadians would probably love to see happen to Donald Trump. Especially after the deranged bully threatened to escalate his insane trade war on Canada and Canadians. Escalating his attack on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, U.S. President Donald Trump is now pledging to punish “the people of Canada” economically because of the post-G7 news conference in which Trudeau criticized Trump’s tariffs.
And it seems that the Montreal Gazette's Terry Mosher had the same idea.
Two days ago a small group of anti-fascists or antifa attacked a larger crowd of right-wing demonstrators in Berkeley, California. And triggered that old question again: is it OK to punch a Nazi? And now Martin Patriquin, after seeing that and what happened in Quebec City recently. Jumps into the fray with this answer:
Donald Trump has had many bad Twitter moments, that have demeaned him and his country, and shocked the world. But that usually end up with Trump staring into a pool of excrement and liking what he sees. But his trip to Europe and the Middle East exhausted him. The idea that James Comey is coming back to haunt him, must be giving him bad dreams
And the volley of tweets he released in the last 48 hours may well mark the beginning of the end of his presidency.
For a moment, a very brief moment, I thought that Kellyanne Conway might be able to teach Donald Trump how to pretend to be a president. Or at least behave like one. Especially now that they both know that many more Americans voted for Hillary Clinton than voted for the orange oaf. But then on Sunday Trump started to get agitated...
In one of my last posts I suggested that Donald Trump's decision to appoint the retired general Michael Flynn to be his national security adviser was a really bad idea. For Flynn is as deranged as Trump and right out of Dr Strangelove. And instead of helping to restrain him might only encourage him to do crazy things. Like start the Third World War. But if you thought that was as bad as it could get, sadly you would be wrong. Because this is the man he's thinking of making his secretary of defence.
I can hardly wait to row out to a dark place on the lake tomorrow night, to watch the supermoon rising. For at a time when the darkness of fascism is descending on America, threatening to turn that country into a police state, or the Mad State of Trump.
At a time when so many of our neighbours are so stunned, so full of despair, and so angry. I think that big old moon couldn't be a more hopeful symbol of what is about to happen.
It sure is dark out there. The darkness of Trumpland is truly upon us. On a day when we honour our Canadian soldiers who died fighting the fascists. On a day when we mourn the death of the great Leonard Cohen. And must now face the horror of this fascist clown.
It's been almost a year since the Occupy Wall Street movement was born, and in this very gloomy article Gerald Caplan wonders where it went.
It flashed through our lives like a comet in the sky, illuminating the most insidious development of our time. Then just as suddenly it flamed out and died. Or at least disappeared. Having made headlines around the world, having made the phenomenon of unprecedented inequality a major issue, having popularized the concept of the 1 per cent versus the 99 per cent – after all these triumphs, the Occupy Movement is playing no perceptible role in any of the big events that now affect our lives.
But when I saw the pictures on TV at work, and I saw how the Occupy movement is spreading.
I knew that I was right when I said the other day that this is a movement that could change the world, and save it from destruction.
Then tonight on my way home I went to the park and the mood was electric...
A large group of demonstrators had just finished a noisy march around the block, escorted by a contingent of cops on bicycles.
And in the dark park, a wild drumming party was in progress...
But what struck me was the incredible level of organization. Food, water, and other supplies were pouring into the park, and a logistics committee was running around barking out orders with almost military precision.
Don't be fooled by appearances. These people are serious, and they won't be easily moved.
And the dumbos in the MSM shouldn't be confused by their seemingly disparate demands. Because as far as I can see most of them have one thing in common. They are all complaints about a decaying economic system.
Companies, Roubini said, are motivated to minimize costs, save money and stockpile cash, but this leads to less money in the hands of employees, which means they have less money to spend and flow back to companies -- [thus] weakening the capitalist system.
Now, in the current financial crisis, consumers, in addition to having less money to spend, are also motivated to minimize costs -- to save, to stockpile cash and to pay down debt -- thus magnifying the effect of less money flowing back to companies.
They can fix the banking system in Europe, but it won't bring the good jobs back. Without those jobs, and with high levels of debt, consumers can't keep consuming.
So far governments have responded to the renewed crisis of capitalism by frantically seeking to invoke the old magic again, to start the engine of creative destruction once more. The means to do so no longer exist. Even if they did, they would only delay and enlarge the underlying problems.
But now, in the wake of the English riots and faced with possible collapse, we are at last beginning to talk about the issues ignored while the illusion persisted: equality, exclusion, the feral rich and the discarded poor and, in WH Auden's words, about "what the god had wrought / To please her son, the strong / Iron-hearted man-slaying Achilles / Who would not live long."
It will DIE. It's really that simple.
Yup. The conditions for a movement like OWS to grow have never been more favorable.
I see that New York's monkey police are threatening to crackdown on Occupy Wall Street.
A possible confrontation between New York police and hundreds of Occupy Wall Street protestors loomed Thursday after a Canadian company requested police help while cleaning up three weeks' worth of garbage at the movement's base in Zuccotti Park.
And that a Canadian company is to blame. Just in case anyone still thought that corporate Canada was different.
Or that the Canadian hogs weren't getting fatter and fatter. Or that it couldn't happen here.
How can the Occupy movement not touch a chord? Put plainly, there is something completely screwy about a society in which, to take a current Canadian example, airline attendants, some of whom barely make $50,000 a year, are being challenged on their legitimate right to strike while, as Toronto Life magazine recently reports in its hot-off-the-press Who Earns What issue, certain fund managers in Toronto raked in salaries up to $34-million last year.
Now they know better.
Just like those corporate hogs should know that we are not afraid. They can't stop a movement that has the survival of the planet as its banner. They can't arrest or kill an idea.
They don't stand a chance against this kind of call to action.
There are no excuses left. Either you join the revolt taking place on Wall Street and in the financial districts of other cities across the country or you stand on the wrong side of history. Either you obstruct, in the only form left to us, which is civil disobedience, the plundering by the criminal class on Wall Street and accelerated destruction of the ecosystem that sustains the human species, or become the passive enabler of a monstrous evil. Either you taste, feel and smell the intoxication of freedom and revolt or sink into the miasma of despair and apathy. Either you are a rebel or a slave.
It's a depressing sight. The tyrant on the hill in the throbbing throes of his majority rapture. Canada burning below him. And out of the smoke slowly emerging, the shape of things to come.
A prison state, no more freedom, no more information. And a Supreme Court in his pocket.
His miserable minions in the corporate media are already going after medicare.
His religious rattlers are already preparing a bill to restrict abortions.
And his Blogging Whories are running around like horny hyenas calling for the CBC to be defunded.
And the sooner the better...
It is a depressing sight. But as I watched the rain come down today, I realized that it is also a great opportunity.
An opportunity to show how much we love this country.
For too long we have taken its institutions and its precious values for granted. We have sat on our apathetic asses, or quarrelled with others who share those values, instead of uniting to fight the common enemy.
Now we have no choice. If we want to save our country we must take our fight to the streets. We must march, we must protest, we must light bonfires from coast to coast to coast. We must use every creative way we can think of to send the tyrant a message.
We are the REAL majority. This is OUR country. And we want it BACK.
I can't think of a more exciting and fun challenge. Or a better cure for despair. Young and old, NDP, Liberal, Green or whatever joining together in common cause. And by so doing laying the foundations of a united progressive movement or party that will destroy the Cons one day.
Golly. I'm going to have to buy a new drum eh?
Here's a thought for a rainy weekend. The present may be dark and ominous.
I wanted to go out and stencil President Puppet's picture all over the downtown area after reading this story.
Halfway through the 2011 campaign, a Conservative war room operative sat down in an Ottawa pub to discuss the party’s entire strategy against Ignatieff.
“They say that we try to portray Ignatieff in our ads and so on as a weak and flailing professor,” the war room staffer said. “No, that’s how we portrayed Dion. Dion was weak, you know, Dion was ‘not a leader.’ We’ve never said Michael Ignatieff isn’t a leader. We’ve never called him weak. And we’ve never called him a flip-flopper. Even when he changes his mind, we don’t say he’s a flip-flopper. Michael Ignatieff, in our narrative, is a political opportunist who is calculating, who will do and say anything to get elected.
“He’s a schemer. When he says one thing and then he changes his mind the next week, it’s not because he’s indecisive and a flip-flopper. It’s because he’s an opportunist who will say different things to different people. I don’t think we’ve even used the phrase, even internally, ‘He’s a malicious human being.’ But that’s kind of the sentiment we’re getting at. With Dion, we were trying to portray him as weak. You can’t trust him to lead us out of the economic recovery because he’s a weak man. With Ignatieff, it’s ‘He’s a bad man,’ right? He’s someone you don’t want your daughter to marry, right?”
Because that's who the Cons are eh? The kind of perverts my parents warned me about. And I want to make it really clear that soiled puppet will NEVER be my President.
I also wanted to say something about what Maude Barlow wrote about here.
The Harper Conservatives do not have the support of the majority of Canadians. Almost 40% of eligible Canadian voters did not cast a ballot in the election and of those who did, fully 60% voted for parties other than the Conservatives. This means that over two-thirds of Canadians who were eligible to vote did not cast a vote for the Harper agenda.
In other words, this country and its values still belongs to the people. As our director of development, Jamian Logue, says, "Neither our democratic responsibilities nor our democratic opportunities ended on May 2. Democracy is a 24/7 pursuit. We have the right and responsibility to act beyond the ballot box."
Because she's so right. With sixty percent on our side, we can attack the Cons like they've never been attacked, stage mass protests everywhere, and make this country ungovernable.
Well it's Saturday night at Simon's Saloon and Martini French Fries Emporium.
And since we welcome people of all ages...as long as they're not Cons.
And I love this song.
Ladies and gentlemen...
Please give a big hand for Mr John Roby...
Steve Steve itʼs time to leave
Time to go screw something else
Time to put your crown on the shelf
Time to go and prorogue yourself
Steve itʼs time to leave
Oh YES. Play it again John !!!
You know... when I see all those talented Canadians...young and old... doing their part to help bring down the Harper Regime.
I wish I was more talented myself eh? Damn. #!#@!!&!
