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:

Video Of The Week: Ice Cube

If you were to categorize the best rappers of all time, chances are Tupac Shakur's in your top-3; he's in mine as well. Eminem has taken himself out of contention because his most recent material doesn't match the quality of his previous output - say, anything until the 8 Mile soundtrack; it seems he's been trying to re-do Lose Yourself all the time since then, except perhaps for Berzerk. Ice Cube, the king of squared, 4/4 rap, also makes my cut, and the third spot is a toss-up between Busta Rhymes, Mos Def and a few members of the Wu-Tang Clan, particularly Raekwon and Ghostface Killah.

In terms of rap lyricists, my #1 pick would be Public Enemy's Chuck D, who's always stayed on point regardless of how long he's been in the game, his words always current, carrying the political weight of truth. I'd probably go with Everlast (House Of Pain, Warpon Industries) in second place and, again, Ice Cube in third. KRS-One misses by just a bit, as does Tupac.

My favourite current-day rapper just might be Donald Glover, though - a.k.a. Childish Gambino: smart, incisive, good flow, diverse subject mater, equally at ease  rapping about toys from the 1980s as he is politics.

Which makes Cube the rapper I find to be most important. And, as I've mentioned here before, he's kept his output quality at a high level throughout the decades - ok, maybe his records aren't all killer and there are fillers, but his records' high points are always consistent.

For Good Cop Bad Cop, which will appear on the 25th Anniversary Edition of his seminal Death Certificate album, he tackles the subject of racism and police brutality in a post-Black Lives Mater world, and his conclusion is fairly simple: we are no better off today than in 1988 when his group N.W.A. sang "Fuck The Police".
Good Cop Bad Cop (Official Video, Explicit) by Ice Cube on VEVO.
The video was directed by Gabriel Hart.

Video Of The Week: Tonnes

Sure, these are disturbing times, and as we sacrifice Liberty for Security and Bureaucracy, we are losing our Humanity. Franz Kafka wrote about this in Der Process (The Trial) in 1915, and published it in 1925, between the (first) two World Wars.

History has, of course, proven him correct time and time again. As bureaucracies get bigger and bigger, the "Big Picture" and "Greater Good" start constantly getting cited as the reason for doing and acting in certain conventional ways, except most people are at best only 90-95% conventional, meaning we're all exceptions in certain cases, and as soon as a government, State or otherwise leadership group looks into one of our behaviours, we are all likely to fall in some of the system's cracks at some point and be judged unfairly. Because at the end of the day, The System is unfair, rigidity is unrealistic, and we are all outsiders to some exent.

And so, Montréal indie rock "supergroup" Tonnes have enlisted director Giuliano Bossa (also the band's bassist) to set this reality into our own timeline, in this military-police-led present day - and the results don't even shock anymore, as we've seen these kinds of scenes happen on TV - and not just in fiction - and in film so often in the past two decades. The song is called In Trouble and, yes, we are.

TONNES - In Trouble from Giuliano Bossa on Vimeo.

Video Of The Week: Joey Bada$$

Some young fellas get into rap dreaming of jewels, cars and being surrounded by promiscuous women, and those are usually the type who get airplay and have the bumping songs that play in clubs and cars with their windows open; once in a while, though, one of them has a message that needs to be heard, and early this year, that rapper is Joey Bada$$, a 22-year-old from Brooklyn.

He's still young and impulsive, still "reps his crew" Pro Era and claims to be signed to an independent label - which may have been true at the time of his signing, but in the present day fails to acknowledge that Cinematic Records is now distributed by Sony...

Still, his All-Amerikkkan Bada$$ record, which (finally) came out on Thursday after having been announced for last August, seems to be an impactful record, and the current single, Land Of The Free, packs a nice punch in the heart of one of the two issues currently affecting the United States, racial tension.

The video, co-directed by Nathan R. Smith and Bada$$ himself, keeps the focus on the message instead of the packaging, showing him teaching history to children and facing police extremism (we're way past "brutality" when murder's involved):

He still has to perfect his skills (the introductory pre-song statement says "You know" twice in less than ten words), but his mind is clear and delivery is extremely efficient.

Video Of The Week: Beyoncé

So Beyoncé was given what amounts to a cameo appearance in a Super Bowl half-time show though she's a thousand times the artist and performer Coldplay and Bruno Mars are, and, well... America lost its fucking mind.

Her performance of Formation scared the living shit out of white people who somehow still don't understand the anger coming from the racial violence that comes with cops killing unarmed citizens of one skin tone and not even getting prosecuted for it.

Good.

Common sense and history have seemingly both failed at educating the American masses, and they need the culture shock to arrive in 2016 and either wake up and behave like their Constitution wants them to (We The People, All men are created equal, etc.) or blow the whole fucking thing up and start from scratch.

Black folks are no longer slaves in the U.S., but having started out poor and at the bottom of the pile, the fact that the system's rigged to prevent the poor from reaching a better life disproportionately affects those who got their"equality" later in the game; and these days, brown people have it worst yet, with threats of deporting Latinos and the illegal way Middle Easterners are targeted as poential terror threats - and that's saying nothing of the legal enslaving of whoever makes the technology we use, the clothes we wear, the coffee we drink, and the jewels we give each other, but since that happens overseas, many are turning a blind eye to it.

All while corporations poison our water, our food, bankrupt us to death, kill off our education system and profit from jails.

But Beyoncé's the problem, right? Wrong. She's the messenger of a quarter of the population who is standing up for itself; we had that here in Québec three years ago, but like sheep we went back to our pasture quietly after we almost changed our corrupt leaders' ways and instead got stuck with corruption at all levels of government. I hope the Black community in the U.S. doesn't fall for that shit as well. As Public Enemy said: United we stand, divided we fall, and love conquers all. The African-American community should try to bring all levels of the population back up in the same footing - as equals - and not just accept one piece of candy to shut up and go back to their lives. If the largest democracy can finally get its act together, perhaps it'll inspire others abroad.

After all, B's Super Bowl performance had allusions to the Black Panthers, a political movement that came about in the 1960s as a voice for the voiceless and primarily African-Americans, sure, but whose main message was always to be treated as humans, as equals, to not be subjected to useless, mindless police brutality (ring a bell?) and, though they weren't afraid to use force in defense of their ideals, ultimately, they had leftist ideals of equality and educating young people of all races and creeds.

Here is the video she dropped some 24 hours beforehand, which is "just as Black" but without the BP garb:



It was directed by Melina Matsoukas, a Beyoncé (Green Light, Kitty Kat, Sugar Mama, Upgrade U, Diva, Sweet Dreams, Put It In A Love Song, Why Don't You Love Me, Move Your Body, Pretty Hurts, RUN and a Target ad) and Rihanna (Rude Boy, Rockstar 101, S&M, We Found Love, and You Da One) regular.

Video Of The Week: Kendrick Lamar

I understand those who don't like this song, Alright, by Kendrick Lamar. It's not full of catchy hooks and big, thumping radio beats. And some people aren't even into hip hop; that's fine. Musical taste can hardly be argued (though I argue it on here all the time).

But the black-and-white video by Colin Tilley is no doubt a work of art. Possibly the nest video of the past five years, or at least in that conversation if I'm forgetting some. Sure, it deals with gritty issues such as racism and police brutality (well, police murdering people, which is beyond just brutality) that seem like they belong more in a documentary than in something stylistic, but this video is in the same vein as Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List in terms of depicting awfulness beautifully. And, yes, this is the same Colin Tilley who directed Nicki Minaj's Anaconda video; he's fast becoming the go-to director for high-quality, high-profile cinematography in short clips.

''Fuck Your Breath'' As Nominee For Worst Sentence Uttered This Week

This is how bad shit has gotten in terms of police violence in the U.S.: we're happy that when one deputy murders a man with overwhelming evidence, he's at least getting charged with manslaughter and will have to face the justice system.

And this is how bad it's gotten for me, personally: I'm more outraged at the cop who responds to Eric Courtney Harris' plea of ''I'm losing my breath'' with ''Fuck your breath'' - you can see it at the end of this one-minute clip:



That's the guy who should be facing the harshest punishment, in my opinion.

The deputy was a 73-year-old former cop who paid his way into basically tagging along on joyrides and made a fatal mistake. That's involuntary manslaughter. It's bad, for sure; on a ''humanity needs to improve'' scale, it probably ranks a 7/10, but as a scale of a bad person, it scores pretty low.

The other cop, however, is heard justifying the shooting by saying ''you ran'', excusing a fatal gunshot by means of placing blame on the victim, then adding insult to injury with the order to tie his hands behind his back when he's clearly already incapacitated. On a scale of police corruption, it scores at least an 8/10, and hides a character that could possibly be a 10. Adding the famous last words ranks a 10/10 on the asshole scale.

At the very least, this guy should have internal affairs on his ass for two years, making sure he stays in line. He is the symptom and the reason why all citizens now have a low opinion towards those who are supposed to serve and protect us. If they find anything, he should be stripped of his badge, fired and tried.

The only way to change the culture of the locker-room... is to change the culture of the locker-room. You get rid of the bad seeds, you promote the good guys, and you remember to Hold The Line, 'cause love isn't always on time.

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.

Bad Cops, Bad Cops, Whatcha Gonna Do?

Here is a list of recent ''awful cop stories'' excluding those involving them killing someone.

They came to light after this video was leaked:



Again, I come from a family of - I hope -presumably good cops, including one who arrests other cops. I know the ''guy culture'', and I understand some might feel underpaid for the shit they have to go through.

But police committing crimes should be subjected to twice the penalty a citizen would, on one hand. And there should be no level of tolerance of minimizing crimes they might have to deal with.

I'm as appalled in this video by the cops' talk of ''turning a blind eye'' as I am of the rape ''joke'', as a principle, but this is exactly what people refer to as us living in a ''rape culture''. If you can't trust the police to take you seriously, when they are merely the first step on a long and arduous ladder of justice, then the case is hopeless from the start.

That's why a lot of sex crimes go unreported. Events like this one, precisely. As much as news stories about rapist cops, maybe more so because it occurs more often.

You want to make jokes? Grab a microphone and get on a stage. When you're paid and wearing your uniform, take your job seriously. Or quit. Or volunteer to get raped yourself.

Go Texas, eh?

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.

Florida Mayor Arrested for Dealing Oxycodone

When articles begin with a punchline - and you're the butt of it - you've sunken pretty low. Except in this case, I'm not sure of it's just Rob Ford or the whole city of Toronto who are ridiculed:

Hey, Toronto, we see your crack-smoking mayor with a coke-snorting congressman, and raise you a hillbilly heroin-dealing mayor. (...)

Upon announcing the arrest, the local sheriff couldn't help but take a shot at Rob Ford, either.

"This isn't Toronto. We will not tolerate illegal drug activity, in my jurisdiction, by anyone, to include our elected officials," Polk County Sheriff Gordon Smith said in a news release posted on his department's Facebook page.

So thank you, Barry Layne Moore, mayor of Hampton, Florida, for entertaining the masses while Ford's in rehab... and for looking the part, too:

Right out of Grand Theft Auto V.

R.I.P. Alain Magloire

If I had a hammer,
They'd shoot me in the morning
They'd shoot me in the evening
Despite being seven cops against one man

Yep, the Montréal cops killed another person earlier this month.

(Alain) Magloire had only recently ended up on the streets as a result of mental illness.

Magloire was the father of two daughters, and friends and family contacted by CBC News described him as charismatic and well-educated.

(He) had previously been employed in the field of molecular biology research and also worked for ten years as a monitor at Camp Papillon — a camp for disabled children.

A career criminal, obviously.

Officers shot Magloire on Monday after responding to reports of a man wielding a hammer and acting aggressively in the vicinity of Montreal's central bus station on Berri Street.

'' Kill first, defend your position later'' seems to be their motto, more so than ''To serve and protect'', for sure. One (admittedly distraught) guy with a hammer, versus seven trained professionals. They could have attacked three at a time and possibly not even had been hit once with the hammer - and subdued him with barely scratch marks for anyone involved -or shot him in the legs, or the hammer-wielding arm. (Officers with tasers could not make it to the scene on time)

I wish I could say something along the lines of ''you will be remembered and missed'', but the more people these fascists murder, the harder it is to remember them all. ''Missed'', though, yes, for sure.

There are calls for civilian oversight boards to investigate police shootings and, sure, that could be a step in some general direction. But I suggest each time a police officer badly injures (broken limbs, loss of an eye) or kills someone, they should be detained and tried in court, the same as civilians, no matter what the investigation says or does, so the incident is recorded in the public domain. And I stand by my life-long position that cops and politicians should be liable to twice the penalty for crimes compared to civilians because theirs also involve a breach of public trust that has to be accounted for.

If You Can't Steal Their Hearts...

Do you remember this guy, who had a thing for stealing women's underwear as they were out to dry?

Well, if you forget his added bonus of taking pictures of himself wearing them and depositing them on the porches of his (now-doubly) victims, he had nothing on this guy, who pleaded guilty to stealing 850 pairs of undies at the Victoria's Secret store:

Daniel Espinoa, 18, and a 17-year-old accomplice were arrested after their third theft, with a total retail value of over $15,000 (but possibly manufacturing value under a grand, because low-paid workers in third-world countries, yada-yada-yada).

The poor sap, now an adult, is looking at, uh, hard time while his accomplice will likely, uh, get off easily.

Cop Kills Kid, Part 75

''To serve and protect.'' A motto dating back to the black-and-white days of yore, Pleasantville-type Utopian pasts of ''the way things were'', where the most rampant crime was underage smoking or forgetting to pay for your sundae at the drive-in diner.

Then again, there were less laws to even break back then, as cars didn't even have seat belts.

''Law enforcement'' has sure come  along way since then.

Wikipedia describes their job thusly:

Law enforcement broadly refers to any system by which some members of society act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering and punishing persons who violate the rules and norms governing that society. Although the term may encompass entities such as courts and prisons, it is most frequently applied to those who directly engage in patrols or surveillance to dissuade and discover criminal activity, and those who investigate crimes and apprehend offenders.^[1] Furthermore, although law enforcement may be most concerned with the prevention and punishment of crimes, organizations exist to discourage a wide variety of non-criminal violations of rules and norms, effected through the imposition of less severe consequences.

But in the past 10 years or so, what is most commonly referred to as ''the police'' have resorted more to the ''force'' part of the word ''enforcement'', using military tactics, weapons, vehicles and excuses to become what many conspiracy theorists once warned we were headed towards: a police state.

From the mass brutal beatings of tens of thousands of kids who thought a tuition hike was too high, to repeatedly sodomizing people they arrest even when under media scrutiny (a fact that happens way too often in itself, but it seems New Mexico cops in particular now have developed a taste for it), to having a double-standard regarding aboriginal women in Canada, to selling information to organized crime, to killing innocent civilians - perhaps the saddest, disturbing, recurring situation of all.

It seems to go over people's heads when it's an alleged criminal receiving the bullet, and things are usually forgiving when it's the result of intermediary force - for example the result of getting tasered (and we're lucky that in instances where Tasers are used on 80-year-olds they aren't always fatal) - but there are clear instances where death should simply have never occurred under any circumstance, and today's example is the strongest in a long time: a man wanted to teach his son a lesson after taking his truck without authorization, so he did what anyone born prior to 1980 would do: he called the cops, thinking they'd bring the boy home, he'd have a scare, and he'd have learned his lesson and be good to get on with his life.

But that's not how cops work nowadays. They have a licence to kill and use it, they shoot first and ask questions never, they seem to no longer have to nor have the training for using submissive and/or non-lethal force first and whenever possible. And they no longer shoot to maim or stop - they shoot to kill, period. Sometimes even on clearly homeless folks, a story found everywhere from Santa Clara (aged 22) to Montréal (aged 40, also dead: a 36-year-old innocent bystander).

Tyler Comstock, though, was a bright 19-year-old kid  on his way to getting his GED.

Ames Police Officer Adam McPherson eventually fired six shots into the truck, two of which struck Tyler who was later pronounced dead.

The official report claims the action was necessary in order "to stop the ongoing threat to the public and the officers."

Tyler's dad says he was unarmed at the time.

The saddest and most common part of that story?

McPherson is currently on paid leave pending the results of his department's investigation.

Of course he is. His friends and co-workers are investigating him and the tactics he used, which are the exact same ones they use all the time. How in hell are they going to bring the whole thing down by saying he did anything wrong? And from that point on, how are any of those murderers with badges ever going to be tried in a court of law like the rest of us mere mortals or, rather, the target practice we seem to be to them.

And there is a kicker:

An unidentified person on the Ames police radio dispatch twice suggested that police back off their pursuit of a teen who allegedly stole a pickup truck from the work site he and his father were working at on Monday.

Sounds a lot like what George Zimmerman was told when he shot and killed an unarmed teen. I wonder how that turned out.

Lost Then Found: Police Need Your Help

Ontario Provincial Police need your help!

They feel there may be a link to the theft of garden gnomes in the past year to the 56 that were found at a water treatment plant in Parry Sound...

Small-town problems...

And yet:

As the investigation continues, police are seeking the public’s assistance to find the person(s) responsible. Anyone with information relating to these gnomes is asked to contact OPP at 1-888-310-1122.

These now-victimless crimes (assuming these are the stolen gnomes now found) are in need of some good ol' fashioned Justice. Hopefully there'll also be a telethon.

And In The Weird Crime Section

Montréal police are looking for an unusual type of criminal these days... a man who, uh, specializes in the theft of women's underwear.

He steals them when they're hanging to dry and, more often than not, goes back to the crime scene and deposits an envelope containing explicit pictures of him and the stolen lingerie. He seems to have a preference for women in their fifties or sixties - or takes what he can get in his comfort zone, comprised of Jeanne-Mance, Saint-Urbain, Legendre and the Metropolitan.

He has that kind of familiar face, like one of my friends (sorry, Kevin), or one of those cheesy French-language comedians, be it Billy Tellier or another of his generation that I can never differentiate either by their looks or their content. I guess if you have any information, you could call the cops at 514-393-1133...

R.I.P. Dennis Farina

As fate would have it, within hours of Kate Middleton, Duchess Of Cambridge giving birth to England's newest member of the Freeloader Family (and owner of Canada), the (rest of the) world lost one of the acting world's most precious actors, Dennis Farina.

The irony wasn't lost on me, as the very first thing that came into my mind upon learning this news was this clip from Snatch:



Farina died of a blood clot in the lung, at age 69. If you wonder why he was so good at playing cops, detectives, or hardened criminal bosses, he spent 18 years as a police officer in Chicago, of all places.

Good actor deaths often come in threes. First James Gandolfini (heart attack), now Dennis Farina. The following actors who specialize in ''tough guy'' roles should check into a hospital immediately for a preemptive check-up: Harvey Keitel, Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, Laurence Fishburne, Michael Madsen, Clint Eastwood, Steve Buscemi, Mickey Rourke, Danny Trejo, Sam Elliott, Jean Reno, Robert Forster and Christopher Walken.

Video Of The Week: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band

In the wake of the George Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin debacle, one can't help but think back to 1999 Amadou Diallo murder. If you don't remember, here's a quick Wikipedia quote:

Amadou Bailo Diallo (September 2, 1975 – February 4, 1999) was a 23-year-old immigrant from Guinea who was shot and killed in New York City on February 4, 1999 by four New York City Police Department plain-clothed officers: Sean Carroll, Richard Murphy, Edward McMellon and Kenneth Boss, who fired a combined total of 41 shots, 19 of which struck Diallo, outside his apartment at 1157 Wheeler Avenue in the Soundview section of The Bronx. The four were part of the now-defunct Street Crimes Unit. All four officers were acquitted at trial in Albany, New York.^[1]

Diallo was unarmed at the time of the shooting, and a firestorm of controversy erupted subsequent to the event as the circumstances of the shooting prompted outrage both within and outside New York City. Issues such as police brutality, racial profiling, and contagious shooting were central to the ensuing controversy.

Outrage ensued, of course, and many artists spoke out, first against the shooting, then the verdict. Among the most vocal singers who recorded songs in response were Wyclef Jean (Diallo, featuring Youssou N'Dour), Le Tigre (Bang! Bang!) and Bruce Springsteen, who gets the honors this week.

The video was filmed during the E Street Band's 10-night run at Madison Square Garden by filmmaker Jonathan Demme (The Silence Of The Lambs), which also spawned a DVD.

Springsteen's intensity is best appreciated through live performances - you want to see his face struggling, his neck veins nearly exploding, his fist clenched when hearing the songs. You also get a better feel for his backing band, capable both of balls-out rock and incredible subtlety.

Killer Promotion

There is a huge difference between the American Justice system and the Canadian one, particularly in Québec, which has a large part of its law book inspired by the French. And there are tons of differences between the George Zimmerman killing of Trayvon Martin in Florida and Constable Jean-Loup Lapointe killing Fredy Villanueva in Montréal nearly five years ago (and whose case has yet to result in a ruling).

But there are also tons of similarities: both were unarmed teenagers from visible minorities, murdered by people who were under the impression that they were unpunishable representatives of The Law.

I don't know what the future holds for Zimmerman, though I'm fairly confident that if he is tried in a civil case, he will receive tons of donations from right-wing bigots, racists and Fox News viewers; I do know, however, that Lapointe will now be a member of Montréal's SWAT team, where he'll have more leeway into firing his weapon.

We're talking about a man who took all of 57 seconds to exit his vehicle, wrestle a kid (Dany Villanueva, Fredy's younger brother) to the ground to handcuff him, tell him to stop squirming, shoot three bullets into the deceased and two more in two other teens. All while his partner, Stéphanie Pilotte, never once felt the need to pull out her gun. Can you say ''trigger-happy''?

The article appeared in this morning's Montréal Gazette, and while it mostly goes into listing facts and does its best to not take sides, two passages struck me as journalist Sue Montgomery subtly denouncing the prevailing situation in these cases:

“This squad is called on more often to use their guns because they’re involved in high-risk interventions,” said Alain Arsenault, whose client was injured by one of Lapointe’s bullets. “I think it was a bad decision on the part of police force management (to give Lapointe the job).”

Montreal police spokesman Ian Lafrenière said that Lapointe applied for the highly sought-after job, and got it after undergoing rigorous tests. (...)

“He has never been found guilty of anything, so it would be hard for us to keep him in an office or something like that,” he said. “And we’re not going to say don’t take that officer on the SWAT team because some people might think it doesn’t look good.”

The spokesman's quote is particularly revealing in this first passage, because it brings light to the fact that cops get investigated by other cops who almost always clear them of any wrongdoing, and even in the rare cases where they are taken to court, they get off Scott free. And then they have the audacity to brag about their so-called ''clean'' records...

Then there's this:

SWAT, or technical response officers, intervene in special police operations such as hostage-takings, bomb defusings or disappearances under water, which require them to have diving skills. Montreal’s SWAT team was present during the student demonstrations last year.

Reading between the lines, it comes down to this: if discontent people get together to mass-protest - like in the mass-strikes part of the student movement last Spring - there will be more (actual) killers present to stop you than last year, and now they've perfected their kettle technique, so there'll be no escape...

Video Of The Week: The Mahones

This is the second time I'll have featured The Mahones, this time with their most political video thus far.

To quote the band themselves:

In summer of 2012, The Mahones recorded their 11th album, Angels & Devils, in our hometown of Montreal. At the time, Montreal students came together to protest the proposed tuition hikes, and on March 22nd, 2012, over 300,000 students and supporters united to exercise their right to peaceful assembly.

Sadly, the Quebec government responded by passing bill 78, an emergency bill restricting freedom of assembly, protest, or picketing on or near university grounds, and anywhere in Quebec without prior police approval. It was entirely unconstitutional, and a direct violation of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, which guarantees the right to peaceful assembly. It has brought shame to the province of Quebec, and it escalated the student protests from an issue affecting those seeking an education (which is a right, not a privilege), to an issue affecting Canadian society as a whole.

The Mahones stand united with the 500,000 students, supporters, and citizens who protested to end this violation of fundamental rights, and took to the streets to fight back against austerity. Never stop pushing back!

This song is for you.

The Mahones have been touring relentlessly of late, and may have missed out on the recent happenings in our fair town, so let me update you on the situation: after the provincial passed Law 78, when it looked like it was going to be overturned - it was - Montréal passed By-law P6, which essentially carries the same rules, but adds the power of police to arrest, detain and fine participants prior to actually assembling, for any group of over 3 people who would not have given the cops their itinerary 24 hours in advance; not just that, the police also have the right to refuse your itinerary altogether. Also, if you do provide one, you are considered the de facto ''event organizer'' and can/will be held responsible for any crime or illegal action committed during the rally, even if done by a complete stranger at the other end of it.

Needless to say, this will neither stand the test of time nor the judicial system, but in the meantime,  participants are fined $637 every time. The cops, when they aren't busy charging protesters for no reason and perfecting the art of police brutality, kettle all present, whether they're participating or not, even journalists, and it looks like this (and is illegal in most civilized countries, including England, which technically owns Canada):

The Montréal police's spokesperson even famously declared:

The Charter [of rights and freedoms] protects the right to freedom of expression, but there is no right to protest.

You can understand why most folks just don't know what to do as the rights they thought they had are proven time and time again to be mere illusions. As one guy who often has an opinion on most topics said:

What do we do [now]? We can’t accept our city becoming a police state. We can’t accept P-6 and provide a route for spontaneous demonstrations. But we also can’t keep getting hurt, kettled and arbitrarily arrested.

If you have any ideas, please share them. I’m kinda stumped.

And that's pretty much where we're at now.

I wanted to make a video like this myself, for my recording of the Skip James classic Hard Times Killing Floor Blues, which should be ready in a couple of weeks. The Mahones have beaten me to it, and I'm really glad they did. Their voice rings loud and they make our town proud, here and abroad. I have a feeling it may require international pressure to hand us back our freedom, because right now, probably because of Canada's great reputation in pushing for human rights in the rest of the world for the past 100 years, the international eyes watching are merely befuddled by the situation, probably unaware that an entire generation of Quebecers is suffering broken bones, loss of limbs, concussions, harassment, profiling - for merely standing up for what they believe in.