Eminem (& The World) Vs Trump

By now, you've probably heard Eminem's cypher (freestyle rap devoid of music or even straight beats), but in case you haven't, here it is:

That was first released during the BET Awards, which have made a tradition of releasing some throughout the years. This was Eminem's third or fourth such cypher for the event in the past decade.

What I mostly came to post about was the amount of support Em received by doing so:

Canadian Elections 2015: The Fix Is In

In years past, I would have followed the 78-day campaign on an almost daily basis, commented on it, shared my ideas, work towards change. Good change. Decent change. So many ''progressive'' website clamoring for change, working towards ousting Stephen Harper from his position as Prime Minister, and The Man obviously seeing His opportunity to take the power back... and leave the common man out in the cold again.

This is what LeadNow had to show people where the main five parties stood on key issues:

Even through this simplistic graph, you can tell the so-called Liberals are still the closest to the Conservatives on what they stand and promises they're making- and that's pre-election, when their motto is usually ''run on the left, govern on the right''.

The Liberals also usually have the press on their side, because half of their campaign money comes from the media, from Power Corporation (La Presse) to the big Ontario papers to the CBC. Their leader, Justin Trudeau, voted with Harper (despite his and his party's votes not actually counting because, as a majority, the Cons could get all their projects in anyway) a stunning 73% of the time. Which means they agree on 73% of issues at heart, and not for the least:

- C51 is a law that allows the government to spy on its people without warrants (and makes the Patriot Act look tame in comparison)
- the TPP stands to make us lose potentially all our jobs to overseas markets while sending all our (dirty) oil away, while ending regulations in many sectors of industry and farming
- they want to continue to push Canada away from peace-keeping military missions and instead send soldiers to actual war
- they give their friends cozy jobs and pensions and cut down on legislation in the sectors they tell them not to have any

Essentially, it's ''meet the new guy, same as the last guy''.

The other party thought to have a ghost of a chance at the beginning of the process was the New Democratic Party, who had formed the official opposition these past four years. Well, the NDP as a whole didn't do much at all. Ruth Ellen Brosseau took every opportunity to stand up and voice her opinion at the Chamber, despite it being for naught, and leader Thomas Mulcair tried to act as the voice of reason, every day, on TV, taking light stabs at both Harper and Trudeau. Hélène Laverdière did a nice job in the streets of downtown Montréal, but her impact in Ottawa was even more limited than Brosseau's. None of their other MPs had been ready to take on their job, and they all crashed and burned early in the campaign. They were a disaster waiting to happen, and it did.

While we're on the topic of ''same as the old guy'', I'd like to point out Mulcair's previous political record. On the provincial scene, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he'd been the lawyer for activist group Alliance Québec, nutjobs who compared the francophone provincial government to the Nazi regime on an almost daily basis.

Later, he became the environmental minister in Jean Charest's Liberal government (yep, he's of that school as well, and Charest was a former Conservative party leader at the federal level...), and while he can be praised for stepping down from his position in protest when the government tried to sell a protected mountain to condo entrepreneurs, he also oversaw the dumping of raw sewage by the city of Longueuil into the St. Lawrence river, an issue that came reflected in this election with Montreal having to do the same for a week while it underwent emergency repairs to its infrastructures.

Among the rest, two stand out the most. The Bloc Québécois once had an impact, and formed the official opposition a lifetime ago, in the 1990s. Unfortunately, they used to be the party that was most to the left and have now become a coalition of all sorts for people hoping for Québec to secede from Canada at pretty much all costs, including the one that comes with abandoning your social-democratic roots and moving towards the right on the wrong issues.

Look at that graph again, you'll notice they're still on the right side of most issues; but the xenophobic element that is a small minority of what they need to get their message across has become too loud a voice to ignore (à la Tea Party for the Republicans in the U.S. circa 2008), not realizing they need to include people of all creeds and origins and walks of life to make their dream of starting anew on a land where all are equal a reality. So, honestly, at this point, fuck them.

The Green Party may seem like the party who has Canadians' interests most at heart, but they'll be lucky to get five people elected. Why? Because although their leader, Elizabeth May, is absolutely delightful with her Maritime charm and honest-to-goodness good values that would make her the best grandma in the world, they don't have a platform, just pipe dreams.

GREEN! TREES! NO FOSSIL FUELS! PEACE AND HARMONY! - it's all fine and dandy, but no plans on foreign policy. No plans on defense - not even abolishing it. No plans on getting the economy back on its feet after Harper took a tar sands-sized shit all over it and deregulated the banks.

Which leaves us with a grand total of zero good candidates.

The lesser evil would still be Mulcair, because he's such a careerist that he'd have to listen to the will of the people when they protested his bullshit.

But no. The fix is in. The media have been on it since the very first week, shoving our ''choice'' down our throat: it's Baby Justin, or Evil Harper. Even though they're the exact same fucking right-wing sell-out puppet 73% of the time (that's not entirely true: Harper actually believes he's doing the right thing; Trudeau gets to that conclusion by thinking it's the ''lesser evil'').

They told us on TV, they told us on their front pages. They bought ads online and on billboards.

They gave us a face we didn't mind looking at, they gave us a name that still rings in English-speaking Canada. They even gave us Brian Mulroney's - a former Conservative Prime Minister - fucking endorsement.

And Canadians ate it up, all that chocolate-flavoured soft-serve bullshit dripping on their fucking chins.

And now I know why I've never felt entirely at home in that stupid, insane fucking country. Why I supported independence when it made sense. Why I moved to NYC. Why I always feel so damn alone.

The fix is in. It'll be a landslide. And it'll fuck us good.

Video Of The Week: Public Enemy

This week marks the 25th anniversary of one of my favourite rap albums of all time, Public Enemy's Fear Of A Black Planet. It was groundbreaking in its social commentary for kids of my generation (the funk movement had previously done the same for those 10 years older than myself) in regards to the racial tensions still prevalent in the U.S. of the late 1980s and early 1990s - and which are still present today, believe it or not less in the day-to-day activities and behaviours but still ingrained in a systemic bias against minorities and poor people in general, and by extension Black people in particular, who remain 10 times more likely to get arrested and then jailed for minor offenses than White people regardless of income bracket, and the statistic's way worse when wealth is factored in.

Of all the songs on Fear Of A Black Planet, few resonate more with inequality as 911 Is A Joke, a catchy, groovy, incredibly smart Flavor Flav number on how what passes as an emergency service pretty much does its best to avoid servicing inner cities and therefore directly puts Black lives at stake. It's 2015, and the slogan Black Lives Matter is still prevalent in American streets. There has been little progress in how the institutions (schools, police, justice system, hospitals) treat the human beings it is responsible for, this despite individuals' behaviours changing drastically in the past 25 years. People mingle, shop at the same stores at the same time, everyone under 35 has ''a Black friend'', which was a running gag as recently as in 1992, and yet the system is the same, even with an African-American in the White House - in his second term, no less - and another one in charge of the Justice system.

And the biggest problem with that is that American Culture is widely exported and prevalent in most of the Western World; yes, most people can make the difference between their own country's situation and the United States' (and few of them have a spotless race-related record themselves), but there's the inevitable mixing up of the common histories that makes their problem everyone's problem.

Sometimes I like to turn my brain off, but most times, I prefer my entertainment saddled up with a healthy dose of the truth, and this song just might be one of the main reasons why.

The Canadian Environment

There's yet a another petition making the rounds in Canada, asking Prime Minister Stephen Harper to not go overboard in allowing the complete destruction of our environment. It's a weekly occurrence, it seems.

He does not see the small picture, let alone the big one.

Whether (or not) federal elected officials prefer to support big businesses instead of the people who elected them and whom they represent is irrelevant.

The bottom line remains: if they allow anyone or anything to compromise our environment, we are all screwed. And not just Canadians. Pollution and devastation knows no borders, no boundaries.

Even the businesses who pillage nature to sell it back to us need it to not be a finite resource. That's in addition to biodiversity proving everyone its actual food sources. Basing decisions we know are wrong on some half-assed biased research is worse than just a skewed lack of vision, it's step-by-step suicide.

I mean, shit, right, the companies have proven for a long time that their profit-driven ways go in just one direction with blinders on, and always need us to protect them from themselves - not help them fuck the rest of us up more.

This is a fast way to get to a post-apocalyptic world, when ''I told you so'' won't mean anything anymore.

Darren Aronofsky and Leonardo DiCaprio took a trip to the Albertan tar sands earlier this year and came back with a troubling report. Once pioneers in progress and progressive views, and formerly the voice of reason on the international scene, Canada has become the laughingstock of the international community, particularly on environmental and scientific issues.

Ironic that the country who wouldn't let the U.S. back out of the Kyoto protocol now won't even come close to meeting its own objectives on the matter.

Soccer To Me

I haven't watched a single second of World Cup play this year. I'm not bragging, nor complaining; I just didn't care. Unlike the vast majority of the planet, I can no longer get passionate about sports played with round balls - be they soccer/football, basketball, baseball, golf... Tennis I can sort of get into once in a while, but never a whole week, and just the women's game, because most of them play a well-rounded game, not just based on one or two skills they dominate with mixed with obvious weaknesses the way the men's game has become.

When it comes to world-class sports, I also have huge problems with the games-behind-the-games, the corruption and politicking that goes on, and the constant exceptions to / breaking of laws, be it temporarily, in the name of someone making billions of dollars. FIFA and the Olympics fit in this, as does Formula 1.

And perhaps it can be blamed on not having my own nation to root for, but I also have a thing against rooting for countries and nations representing man-made borders, usually delimited after useless wars. In hockey, I usually root for Slovakia - a country which attained independence through peace in 1993. I wouldn't be against rooting for their former invaders, the Czechs, if only because they too know what it's like to be owned by others, in their case the Russians. I'd also root for Ireland and Chechnya, I guess, to root for the underdog, but the only country I really feel a bond to is Slovakia, and they usually get eliminated pretty quickly in most competitions.

In any event, I learned that the World Cup final would pit Argentina against Germany, two countries that at this point in history probably house the same number of former Nazis within its borders - which I would estimate as half that of the U.S.

I heard that a couple of weeks ago, one guy bit another guy, and will be suspended for years, but even that didn't put a dent in my spirit; this, however, I may have tuned to watch:

I have no idea what's going on, and I'm guessing Schweinsteiger is German, which would make the other guy Argentinian. But if that's how they break ties nowadays after 100 minutes of tied-game play, I wonder how many turns will be needed until a winner is declared.

And then I assume the camera turns to fans like this one, celebrating:

Fucking SPVM Cops

At first I thought it was a joke, a photoshop job that made the rounds on social media...

But no, it seems this picture, of an on-duty cop with a nubile young woman on his lap grinding back and forth (he may not have been protecting, but he seemed of service), is real:

Real enough that his employers have taken notice, have told the population (via Twitter!) that an inquiry is underway, and there may (meaning won't) be consequences:

It reads:

We are looking into the matter. We ask witnesses to contact us at our media relations email (so we can try to diffuse the situation).

The person who took the picture actually took a few more which add credence to their story that both on-duty cops took two (allegedly) underage drunk girls in their car, even letting them drive a bit, then had some sexy time in the car before proceeding to enter the young ladies' residence and have more sex there, while being paid by our tax dollars:

So, we thought cops were just standing around looking the other way (or beating kids nearly to death) while our government was fucking us over; turns out, the cops are also fucking us - in the more classic sense. Well, fucking our girls, then fucking us over by not doing it on their own time.

And - again, allegedly - with underage jail bait. Although we all know cops don't go to jail (or even get fired) for even the worst crimes; but these girls'd be jail bait to us normal folk.

I wonder where all the cynicism comes from.

1132 Years A Slav

I've avoided writing about Ukraine thus far, but too many people have chimed in with wild theories - and too many of those with no facts to back their points of view up - that I had to at least mention it...

The city of Kiev was officially founded in 482. That's not a typo. Founded mostly by Slavs, the settlement was also inhabited by Finnics (ancestors to modern-day Finns, among others), and Khazars (think Turks, Kazakhs, Tatars and Bulgars) very early on.

The first agglomeration to consider Kiev as its capital was Kievan Rus', circa 882-1283 (that's where I start considering it the capital of a 'country', hence the title of this post). Mostly Slavic, modern-day Belarus, Ukraine and Russia all claim to descend from that federation.

With wars and power struggles a constant in Europe, Kievan Rus' made way for the kingdom of Galicia-Volhynia (a.k.a. Kingdom Of Rus). Like J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth, the Kingdom wasn't a united country per se, more like autonomous provinces each with their own capitals within a loose border; Kiev was not a capital, but three other now-Ukrainian cities were: Volodymyr-Volynsky, Halych, and Lviv.

By 1283, the Grand Duchy of Moscow had come into effect, and though its leaders and official name came to change many times (Tsardom of Russia in 1547, Russian Empire in 1721, the USSR in 1922 after a few turbulent years of the 1917 Revolution, The Russian Federation of Independent States in 1991 and the current-day incarnation since 1993), was essentially the beginning of what is now Russia. Russians share the British taste for imperialism, as well as the ''father knows best'' mentality of many Eastern cultures. They like owning a large plot of land (currently occupying an eighth of the world's land mass though they are barely 2% of its population at 145 million people), and they really dislike opposition.

And so, Ukraine has shared countries, ownership or administrations (or been under the influence of) with Russia for over 1000 years. They only declared their actual independence in 1918, and though they tried to refrain Russians from formally entering and claiming ownership from then on by themselves being a socialist state (kind of like Canada signing on NAFTA with the U.S. in 1992), Russians took advantage of the turmoil caused by World War II (and a deal with Germany) to invade Ukraine in 1939, made easier by World War I-era territorial delimitations where the Ukraine was basically split in three.

There was another, short-lived declaration of independence in 1941 when the Soviet troops went back home, but the Nazis made sure to render that useless by jailing, torturing and killing the government in place, and when Germany fell to the Russians, the movement became nothing but a footnote in History.

When the USSR collapsed and became the Russian Federation, most Eastern European subject-states decided to assert their independence, and a lot were allowed to do so. Some chose to remain part of the Russian whole, others were forced to (see: Chechnya). Ukraine chose to proclaim its independence, if only for political reasons: the Russian version of communism/socialism/sovietism  was collapsing, and it was going to change political systems; Ukraine wanted to remain communist, so in an effort for self-preservation, decided to opt for a referendum asking its population if they wanted out of the union. 82% of the population voted, and 90% voted in favour of seceding.

Ironically, Canada was the first country to recognize Ukraine as an independent state, the minute the votes were in. Russian President Boris Yeltsin did the same in the evening, proving there were no hard feelings.

Fast-forward to 2014.

Ukraine was offered to enter the European Union - or at least enter into economic accords with them first, with a promise of future consideration - though many of its constituents (Spain, The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium especially) took issue with that, mostly for political reasons (how it treats its political prisoners chief among them). As a means of negotiation, some of the terms of the deal weren't as advantageous as those of other countries, with the underlying message being ''if you play nice, we'll be nicer with you later''.

President Viktor Yanukovych, rightly, refused to sign the deal because it wasn't advantageous for his country. He then signed a trades agreement with Russia, mostly for natural gas purchases, which could have worked in addition to a deal with the EU. Protests started as people demanded closer ties to the rest of Europe and European integration, and like scared leaders do (and like we saw here in Québec in 2012), the government passed anti-protest laws, which just fueled the violence.

Also, like here in Québec, the protests soon included anger towards the perception (and fact) of widespread corruption. Ironically, though, in Ukraine, a lot of that can be traced back to Yanukovych's opponent in the last election, the country's former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, who is among the imprisoned that the EU is demanding better treatment for; Tymoshenko owns a bunch of gas companies, which made her one of the richest people in her country (Forbes ranked her as the third most powerful woman in the world). And though her arrest and eventual mistreatment when she was found guilty were undoubtedly politically-motivated by a direct adversary, the fact remains that she was convicted of embezzlement and abuse of power, two facts that point to the sense that she at least participated in the corruption of the State.

And as the protests gained traction and Yanukovych resigned and political pressure mounted, she was released from prison - but she wasn't acquitted or even pardoned: the actions she was found guilty of were instead decriminalized. That's a big fucking difference, folks.

That is to say that all is neither all black nor white.

Except that Russia didn't have to send troops in Crimea, though it claimed it hadn't at first but eventually will/did. (of note, under international treaties, if an elected official asks another country for military help, that country is allowed to step in and intervene on a local level, which is what Russia claims Yanukovych has asked.) And while I'm not one to blindly trust Vladimir Putin, I will contend a point Jon Stewart hammers on daily since first reporting on the story a month after it had started, to wit: Putin claims the groups in place are local militias (or ''self-defense forces''), ''but they speak Russian, support Russia and have Russian weapons - so they have to be Russian''.

Dear Jon,

pretty much everyone in the area speak Russian, and they have for over 1000 years. Also, most Finns speak Swedish, a shitload of European countries have German as a first or second language, and most Quebecers understand English; surrounded by imperialists and conquerors, borders change, wars are started, people are annexed and/or assimilated. Until they no longer are... until they are again. Anglo-Saxons and Russians are expansionists and imperialists; one day they wake up and feel the need to own other people and/or their land and/or their toys and/or their food; it's what they do, whether it's to feel like Kings or to spread their ''superior'' culture (or race). Or to sell their sub-par fast-food culture. Or to ''spread democracy'' (still laughing at that one more than a decade later, by the way).

As for the Russian weapons, weren't those all for sale at discount stores in 1991? Doesn't the Russian mob own more nukes than the Russian Army? Why wouldn't a bunch of people buy some AK-47s and military garb, don't you guys have a right to purchase M-16s even with a criminal record and mental health issues, and can't you buy military clothes at both Army Surplus stores and The Salvation Army? And if you can, why shouldn't they?

'Cause to me, equating people who kind of wear military uniforms with no specific designation with the official military kind of makes it seem like your Bible-belt gun nuts and anti-Obama armed militias would then be a representation of your Army, and I guess that would make the Tea Party an actual political party, not just a fringe unrepresentative proportion of your political debate.

Thanks.

Seb

As I said, neither black nor white.

The whole world is going to shits, because the worst people have been in power for so long that they have instituted corruption as a rule rather than an exception. And those who lose their elections (or get ousted by the population) are only replaced by equally-minded career white-collar criminals, so the wheel keeps turning and, in doing so, always finds newer and better ways to keep its rhythm going.

Money needs out of politics. It needs out completely in everything, but especially in politics. And leaders need to feel they are liable for their crimes; I've long proposed their sentences be double those of civilians' when found guilty of crimes, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, because those fuckers are usually so well connected that they rarely even get prosecuted. They only lose their friends in high places when the shit has completely hit the fan and there is no longer a way for them to hide and melt back into the general population with their golden toilets and billions of dollars. They are but a small minority.

But, uh, yeah, Ukraine. How that turned into a battle of wits between Putin and Barack Obama is beyond me (and further proof that Americans don't view their own imperialism as such), I will never truly get it, but here's a novel idea: why don't we let the people of Ukraine decide for themselves? It worked in Iceland (where was Fox then, by the way?) recently, though there is something to be said both for and against how they made it impossible for foreigners to withdraw money out of the country (for: promotes re-investing within the country, which even foreigners can take advantage of, i.e. you cant leave with your millions but you can buy millions' worth of stuff; against: detracts foreign investors from coming in to invest for profits that would leave the country - theoretically, though, what it is meant to do is keep the economy rolling and increasing).

Thief-In-Chief

The more things change...

Ladies and gentlemen, the new mayor of Montréal, Denis Coderre, whose team incorporated all the leftovers from the previous deposed administration, on the grounds of corruption. They all jumped on his bandwagon because no one else would take their soiled asses, and who better to forgive (and help hide) than a man who was once associated with his own corrupt political party, on the federal (national) level...

Oh, the company we keep. Birds of a feather flock together - as do the tainted and easily corrupted.

Worse still, Michel Bissonnet received 72% of the vote to remain as burrough mayor of St-Leonard, despite his name being mentioned in thousands of court documents and hearings as part of a vast web of corruption, most notably in the construction industry but also illegal campaign financing.

And look at Coderre's wink-and-smile, he knows the fix is in and has been from the start:

Kind of makes you wish you could have voted for Peter Griffin instead...

Of course, everyone knew it was going to happen, and two-thirds of the city are almost happy that Coderre won with ''merely'' 32% of the vote, when polls were giving him a larger lead, perhaps even a majority. And that's why I almost made the following song my Video Of The Week yesterday (it's Catatonia's I Am The Mob):



And there is even more defeat in defeat: Luc Ferrandez was re-elected as burrough mayor for the Plateau - with a higher percentage than the first time around - which means the War On Noise (i.e. making downtown Montréal into a quiet suburb-like environment for condo dwellers while shutting down music venues and art galleries and fucking with every other remaining businesses' permit statuses in the heart of the city's cultural center) is still on.

Humans really are stupid creatures.

At least it'll be entertaining. With the Party that gave us 3 deposed mayors in less than 6 months still in power, office pools have already started about how high-up the first arrest will go, and what type of corruption it'll entail (electoral fraud, City contract assignment, over-charging for services to take a higher commission fee, no-bid contract at double the street price, etc). Kinda makes you wish all your mayor was doing wrong was smoking crack.

Crackhead Mayor

I've been relatively quiet here for the past week, which means I've also missed out on writing about Toronto mayor Rob Ford, the ultra-conservative genius who once said that people who use bikes and bike baths instead of cars and buses were ''two steps left of Joseph Stalin'', and his alleged crack cocaine usage.

Now that Gawker can't seem to find the guys who were selling the evidence, Ford has come out of hiding and officially denied the claim, but it looks more like ''now that's it's safe and those guys are afraid of getting caught, I think I can get away with it''.

Taking a week off from the controversy - some say he went into a quick rehab, came out for the press conference then back into rehab - only fueled the fire, as it gave the Globe And Mail time to research what became an 8-page story on the Ford siblings' history with drug trafficking.

The heat is on. Soon, the pig will be cooked.

On Government Funding One Side Of The Bullshit

This is why they separated Church and fucking State in the first place: because of stupid partisan assholes who want freebies so much they can't see past their own schemes:

Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Watson, says she had no idea that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s overhaul of the state’s educational system might mean taxpayer support of Muslim schools.

“I actually support funding for teaching the fundamentals of America’s Founding Fathers’ religion, which is Christianity, in public schools or private schools,” the District 64 Representative said Monday.

The Friendly Atheist pretty much says everything I could write about this, especially in his conclusion:

Rep. Hodges made the mistake of saying out loud what most conservative Christians only say to themselves to private: When they say they want “religious freedom,” they’re only referring to their own faith. Everyone else can fend for themselves.

But I'd like to add this:

Separation of Church and State is but one of the fail-safe ideas protecting the modern democracy. It is made to ensure that those in power keep preserving the interests of The People above all else, whether the elected officials do it out of evilness or stupidity.

Every time one of them overreaches the boundaries for his side's personal gain, for lobbies or self, to favour one kind of folk over another, they will always open the door to abuse on the other side. ALWAYS. Just because you don't feel like others could doesn't mean a fresh set of eyes won't see opportunities.

That's why quickly-spun-together, half-assed emergency laws should never pass. We have an example here in Montréal, a law written just after 9/11 about ''making believe a terror act is happening'', that the ministers who passed it at the time said was subject to ''common sense'' in its application, is being used for the first time ever, on four teenagers who allegedly released ''smoke bombs'' in the subway that were dissipated in less than a minute.

It's also why the conspiracy theorists and fear freaks go out of their minds when the government starts acting ''like fascists'' and restrict free speech, or sustain the right to imprisonment without the right to a lawyer or trial and start their ''Hitler'' comparisons: because 30, 50, or 100 years ago, society decided even one step in that direction should never be allowed, and yet loking back, we're more than halfway there.

''But we would NEVER''.

Uh huh.

One way to ensure that, is to just... NEVER go in that direction. Keep our safeguards in place. Treat everyone equally. Protect the innocent, the majority. Take care of the poor and unlucky.

Daniel Weinstock's Open Letter (To English-Canadians)

I don't know this Daniel Weinstock character, but his Open Letter To English-Canadians on Facebook is pretty much right on the money, for the most part:

An open letter to my English-Canadian friends. Please circulate in your networks as you see fit.
You may have heard that there has been some turmoil in Quebec in recent weeks. There have been demonstrations in the streets of Montreal every night for almost a month now, and a massive demonstration will be happening tomorrow, which I will be attending, along with my wife, Elizabeth Elbourne, and my eldest daughter Emma.

Reading the Anglo-Canadian press, it strikes me that you have been getting a very fragmented and biased picture of what is going on. Given the gulf that has already emerged between Quebec and the rest of Canada in the wake of the 2011 election, it is important that the issues under discussion here at least be represented clearly. You may decide at the end of the day that we are crazy, but at least you should reach that decision on the basis of the facts, rather than of the distortions that have been served up by the G&M and other outlets.

First, the matter of the tuition hikes, which touched off this mess. The rest of the country seems to have reached the conclusion that the students are spoiled, selfish brats, who would still be paying the lowest tuition fees even if the whole of the proposed increase went through.

The first thing to say is that this is an odd conception of selfishness. Students have been sticking with the strikes even knowing that they may suffer deleterious consequences, both financial and academic. They have been marching every night despite the threat of beatings, tear-gas, rubber bullets, and arrests. It is, of course, easier for the right-wing media to dismiss them if they can be portrayed as selfish kids to whom no -one has ever said "no". But there is clearly an issue of principle here.

OK, then. But maybe the principle is the wrong one. Free tuition may just be a pie-in-the sky idea that mature people give up on when they put away childish things. And besides, why should other people pay for the students' "free" tuition? There is no such thing as "free" education. Someone, somewhere, has to pay. And the students, the criticism continues, are simply refusing to pay their "fair share".

Why is that criticism simplistic? Because the students' claim has never been that they should not pay for education. The question is whether they should do so up front, before they have income, or later, as taxpayers in a progressive taxation scheme. Another question has to do with the degree to which Universities should be funded by everyone, or primarily by those who attend them. So the issue of how to fund Universities justly is complicated. We have to figure out at what point in people's lives they should be paying for their education, and we also have to figure out how much of the bill should be footed by those who do not attend, but who benefit from a University-educated work force of doctors, lawyers, etc. The students' answer to this question may not be the best, but then it does not strike me that the government's is all that thought out either.

And at least the students have been trying to make ARGUMENTS and to engage the government and the rest of society in debate, whereas the government's attitude, other than to invoke the in-this-context-meaningless "everyone pays their faire share" argument like a mantra, has been to say "Shut up, and obey".

What strikes the balance in the students' favour in the Quebec context is that the ideal of no up-front financial hurdles to University access is enshrined in some of the most foundational documents of Quebec's Quiet Revolution, in particular the Parent Commission Report, which wrested control of schools from the Church and created the modern Quebec education system, a cornerstone of the kind of society that many Quebeckers see themselves as aspiring to. Now, it could be that that ideal is no longer viable, or that we may no longer want to subscribe to it. But moving away from it, as Charest's measures have done, at least requires a debate, analogous to the debate that would have to be had if the Feds proposed to scrap the Canada Health Act. It is clearly not just an administrative measure. It is political through and through. Indeed it strikes at fundamental questions about the kind of society we want to live in. If this isn't the sort of thing that requires democratic debate, I don't know what is.

The government has met the very reasonable request that this issue, and broader issues of University governance, be at least addressed in some suitably open and democratic manner with silence, then derision, then injunctions, and now, with the most odious "law" that I have seen voted by the Quebec National Assembly in my adult memory. It places the right of all Quebec citizens to assemble, but also to talk and discuss about these issues, under severe limitations. It includes that most odious of categories: crimes of omission, as in, you can get fined for omitting to attempt to prevent someone from taking part in an act judged illegal by the law. In principle, the simple wearing of the by-now iconic red square can be subject to a fine. The government has also made the student leaders absurdly and ruinously responsible for any action that is ostensibly carried out under the banners of their organizations. The students groups can be fined $125000 whenever someone claiming to be "part" of the movement throws a rock through a window. And so on. It is truly a thing to behold.

The government is clearly aware that this "law" would not withstand a millisecond of Charter scrutiny. It actually expires in July 2013, well before challenges could actually wind their way through the Courts. The intention is thus clearly just to bring down the hammer on this particular movement by using methods that the government knows to be contrary to basic liberal-democratic rule-of-law principles. The cynicism is jaw-dropping. It is beneath contempt for the government to play fast and loose with our civil rights and liberties in order to deal with the results of its own abject failure to govern.

So that is why tomorrow I will be taking a walk in downtown Montreal with (hopefully!) hundreds of thousands of my fellow citizens. Again, you are all free to disagree, but at least don't let it be because of the completely distorted picture of what is going on here that you have been getting from media outlets, including some from which we might have expected more.

Daniel

It would be nice if he'd added the list of scandals Jean Charest and his Liberal Party has been associated with, but a good start deserves to be noticed.

Oh, Captain, My Captain!

“Doesn't matter what the press says. Doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say.Doesn't matter if the whole country decides that something wrong is something right.


This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the odds or the consequences.

When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth, and tell the whole world -- "No, YOU move.”

Now, MY nation wasn't founded on that principle, at all, but my country/countries like(s) to borrow from the U.S.' worst traits and never the right ones, and we have a shot - just a tiny one - at taking some of the good, for once, and for that we must stand tall and not surrender.

The student strike against a tuition hike is now in its 13th week. The government have replaced their puppet Education Minister with another one who will not be going up for re-election, meaning they threw the old one under the bus to save their asses and hired a temp with nothing to lose to keep the Party's hardline against the future generations.


They need their regime of corruption to continue, as do their mob friends and their family members in the energy and mines industries, who they literally gave our resources to (see how Pétrolia found oil in Anticosti and now owns it); they need to look like they've won this, stood up to the greedy kids and ''kept society safe'', before they move on to another sphere of citizens and take their rights away. And steal their money - more than they already do.


Our education system, by the way, is self-sufficient and was set up to keep paying for itself forever, but as multiple governments took away from its profits/allocated taxes, bit by bit they replaced ''free'' with loans and, over time, by incorporating the private sector into it and cutting into services, made it a money-guzzling pit of corruption and greed - just like everything else they touch.


Just like in the United States (hello, Fox News), they have the loudest media on their side, of course, because huge corporations benefit from gifts while the public media get shat on their budgets cut for not following Party lines.


If we lose here, we will lose everywhere. If we win, we may motivate others to keep up the fight - I'm looking at you, Occupy.

Death Of A Democracy?

By now, chances are you've heard about last Summer/Fall's Occupy movement, and probably this Spring's two-month-strong student protests/strikes. If not, look it up, it's a fine read, students refusing a hike in education costs, defying (provincial) Prime Minister Jean Charest daily, kind of helping us forget how corrupt his government has been - but kind of not, at the same time.

Well, the Québec governing party, the Québec Liberal Party (which, technically, on a left-to-right, liberal-to-conservative scale ironically falls strongly on the Conservative side - picture Mitt Romney leading a Workers' Party) was holding its general council in Victoriaville, far from the rumbling streets of Montréal, comfortably, in the countryside, in a town usually so peaceful they don't even have a jail there...

Well, tons of anti-Charest protesters made the trip, including - but not limited to - busloads of students. Well, as may have been expected, shit did, indeed, hit the fan, and a riot ensued. My crystal ball is hazy from the all the smoke and pepper gas used in the picture gracing this post alone, but I can't wait to see how the media will spin this and how it'll affect public opinion. It can go either way: they may convince people that students are to blame for this and have to be forced back into class right away - or they could realize just how many folks are dissatisfied with this sham of a government.

The cops are close to being in over their heads, stopping and arresting at least 3 buses full of university students on their way back to Montréal - on the highway! - most of whom will likely be accused of ''participating in an illegal demonstration'', which they will eventually be found innocent of, but will spend the night in Victo and will have to go back to stand trial; minor yet irritating inconveniences, worse for foreign students and those depending on financial aid. But they will have to go back for sure, because a non-appearance in court is equivalent to pleading guilty in the eyes of the law.

Amnesty International has already condemned our police force of mishandling the situation - how worse will they look on the international scene? How will this affect tourism in our city this summer? Will we warn tourists to stay in their hotel rooms after 8PM?

One kid lost an eye early in the conflict from a noise grenade to the face, another one did so tonight from rubber bullets, another girl got shot in the face with rubber bullets and had her jaw broken and lost teeth, one kid is in the coma. Half a dozen cops and a dozen protesters are hospitalized, many more were injured but returned home or treated on-site (one paramedic says he treated at least 20 on-site).

This government has lost its legitimacy a long time ago, this is just added, useless bonuses. The student thing? Over a few million bucks, less than the Liberals have handed out to their mafia friends and fundraisers since the beginning of the year. How much more violence do we need before we kick those fuckers out of office? Do we need a cop or a kid to die? Chicago 68? Los Angeles 92?

History will not be kind to you, motherfucker, if you let this fester any longer.

George Carlin, Psychic

Word for fucking word, three years and one President after he died, we all got proof that he was 150% right last week.

George Carlin was voted second on Comedy Central's list of 100 best stand-up comedians of all time (ahead of Lenny Bruce, behind Richard Pryor), in which all members of the top-3 were not only hilarious but also very important voices in Social Change - and justice and rights.

But only Bill Hicks came close in predicting the future, and even he was off; Carlin was dead-on. Bleak, negative, almost apocalyptic - but dead-on.

All Bankers Are Vampires

Bankers. These fuckers lie so much for a living, they make lawyers seem righteous. They walk crooked with their legs forming an ellipse because they are genetically incapable of doing anything that has to do with either definition of the word ''right''. It becomes problematic when they get into their cars, because doing nothing but left turns empowers them, makes them feel like NASCAR drivers, and so they speed in school districts and buy off the cops when the time comes for tickets or prison time.

They only work half days, close shop at 3, because they don't want anybody with a job near a computer or a camera to know what's going on inside their establishments, while they bleed their customers dry and suck out their life force. Literally. And that's the point of this whole thing - they are modern-day vampires, only instead of looking like Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, they are decrepit bald men that only come out after sunset. They let the barely younger overweight mothers of five to deal directly with customers as long as they can sustain paying for the bank's front, but as soon as their accounts are dry, they are taken to the back room where they're hung at the ceiling by their heads and their blood sucked from above through metal straws by the bankers on the floor above them.

It is a savage sight to see, and they figured I was too overweight to run away, but they didn't count on my brute force to knock them out one by one and find my way back home to expose their dirty little secret. But it's not really a secret, is it? It's just that the metaphors we used are, in fact, not images but the actual truth of what happens behind the appearances of legitimate business.

Retribution is a word they only understand during tax season. But we're smack-dab right in the middle of it, aren't we? The vultures need to maintain the erection tax season gives them... they need fresh blood. They'll get restless and reckless soon enough.

Ending Access To The Internet

After allowing Bell to throttle wholesale internet providers' customers, the CRTC now allows them to limit those same customers' bandwidth and cap their monthly usage.

I repeat: Bell can now cap internet users who aren't even their own clients. And charge them. Negating the fact that these people likely aren't already Bell subscribers because they choose not to adhere to their policies.

And the one organism in charge of protecting people's rights is, again, for the third obvious time since the Conservatives have been in power, siding with the Great Satan rather than the Common Good.

Fuck them, and fuck Bell too.

Bulgarian Lotto Feeling Lucky

In these times of rampant corruption (see my recent piece about Van Halen's manager and most of the entries regarding my City's administration), it's nice to see transparency like this...

Maybe you've heard, likely not, but in Bulgaria, the same 6 lottery numbers came out as winners twice in a row, a likelyhood of 4,000,000 to 1. Four million. To one. You know, Vegas odds!

An investigation was called by Sports Minister Svilen Neikov, and no wrongdoing was found. Those who conducted it are the same people who run it, so it's fair to say they're trustworthy, I guess - or they would have asked someone else. Right?

I'm so happy we have the internet at weird times like these, so at least we can let the news fly around the world to make us more cynical, rather than just ignorant.

Now back to news about Megan Fox...