Demand Peter MacKay Resign (Already!)

I JUST RECEIVED NOTICE OF THIS CAMPAIGN by the Canadian Peace Alliance, posted below. The detainee scandal is the best chance in a while to seriously damage the Harper government. The truth is, Harper has only looked unassailable because of the weakness of the Opposition. In reality, he is bumbling from one stupidity to the next - whether it is on the economic stimulus, his earlier attacks on the nuclear watchdog, his laughable scolding in China, his cro-magnon stupidity over climate change, and now the detainee scandal. 

If enough people focus some effort on pushing MacKay over, it could help to blow the Tories off course. And once off course, it will be difficult for them to recover. Already, their obstinacy around releasing information, firing the watchdog and defending the deeply compromised MacKay is making them looking like the wannabe dictators that they are.

Call, fax and e-mail the Prime Minister to demand Peter MacKay resign

Today we learned that not only did the Canadian government know about torture of Afghan detainees but that they actually defended their torturer in Kandahar.


And although the government insists that the detainee transfer agreement stopped the abuse of Afghans, this appears to be another smokescreen.


The Harper government needs to hear from you. Call to demand that Harper:
* Fire Peter MacKay
* Call a full public inquiry
* Bring the troops home now (not in 2011)

Contact the Prime Minister (and his chief of staff):
* pm@pm.gc.ca, Phone: 613-992-4211, Fax: 613-941-6900
* Guy Giorno, Stephen Harper's Chief of Staff, Phone: 613-992-4211 x11

Please let us know how they respond by sending us an e-mail or by posting a report on the wall of the "Peter MacKay Must Resign" facebook group.

For more background information please see.  

All Air Show All The Time

I Hate The Air Show

I'm sitting here in my home office, trying to get work done and some assholes in fighter jets are buzzing over my house every ten minutes. As if there weren't enough reasons to hate imperialism.

Let's just put this into perspective. Over in Afghanistan, the daily experience of farmers and city dwellers alike is to experience low flying jets disrupting their lives as well. Unfortunately for them, it doesn't just make it difficult to get work done, they live in fear that the next airplane will drop a bomb on their wedding or on their house.

Back home, here in Canada, the jets are supposed to provide entertainment to us and our children (?!). We look at them up in the sky and they are proof of what a great nation we are - and how great are the nations of other key military powers, particularly the USA and Britain. The awe and pride with which we are meant to be filled by the sight of these multi-billion dollar monstrosities, evidence of how low on the evolutionary ladder we still are, are to most people on the planet a source of fear.

Whether they are in Somalia, the Sudan, Iraq or Afghanistan - the sight of F-series jets mean that children will soon be dead.

Frankly, spectacles of militarism like the air show deserve to be picketed and shut down. The money spent to fly these airborne thugs around the world should be spent on building hospitals, schools and providing food.

It's particularly odious that they use Labour Day weekend as an opportunity to promote nationalism of the worst, most violent kind. This is the opposite of international solidarity. The union movement is responsible for a significant amount of money going into CNE coffers every Labour Day, as their members march into the CNE grounds. Perhaps it's utopian but I'd love nothing more than to see the union movement demand an end to the Air Show or they will take their 20,000 members elsewhere.

In the meantime, I wish these asshole would stop buzzing my house - using my tax dollars!

How 70,000 became 300

If you read some media, you’d think that Canadians are supporting our war against Afghanistan in growing numbers. Just all the nauseating hullabaloo about the “Red Friday” rally in support of the troops that happened at the CNE last week was enough to make you lose your lunch. It was going to be massive, they promised. They had the ruling Conservatives building the rally. They had the military. They had major media figures like perennial asshole Don Cherry and pre-publicity in the Toronto Sun and other outlets. This is gonna be big, they told us. Big like that “Save Canada” invasion of Quebec prior to the last referendum (that actually swung votes in favour of a “yes”).
“Organizers are hoping tens of thousands of people will gather to support our troops in a mass Red Friday Rally at the CNE grounds,” the Toronto Sun reported.
“Organizers are anticipating Friday's rally could bring thousands of red-clad supporters to the CNE. ‘If we can beat Ottawa (10,000 demonstrated in 2006), that's good news for me,’ Capt. Wayne Johnston told CTV News on Friday.”
On the Tuesday prior to the Friday rally the Toronto Scum had a headline, which screamed: “Organizers of this Friday's Support Our Troops rally at the CNE are hoping to see red. 70,000 are expected.”
Sorry guys. As you can see from the photo, they only got about 300 people. Coverage of the event said hundreds. Even the looming presence of leopard tanks couldn’t fill up the space they booked. Not too worry though, if you believe the movie of the same name, since it only took 300 Spartans in meat suits to turn the tide against those obscurantist Persians.
The utter failure of that rally shouldn’t be any surprise. The war in Afghanistan is remarkably unpopular, no matter what the government does to promote it. According to a July Strategic Counsel survey, 59% oppose sending troops to Afghanistan, as opposed to the 36% who support the policy. Between May 2006 and June 2007 the numbers of people who thought that the “price to be paid was too high” vs those who felt “that is the price that must be paid” did an absolute reversal. From 36% and 59% respectively the numbers switched to 60% thinking it was too high a price and 36% accepting it was the price to be paid. And is it any wonder, according to an Angus Reid poll, 49% of Canadians consider the mission a failure. Only 22% think the mission is a success. That’s only a little bit higher than the increase in this year’s opium crop in Afghanistan – at 17%. Of course the absolute decline of support would be anything but clear if you were to just follow the media. In fact, it would get downright confusing. For instance two articles, almost exactly the same word for word posted on canada.com on Friday. With the same information the headlines are totally different, with the first being "Canadians split on Afghan mission, poll shows" and the other headlined "Support for Afghan war effort stable, poll reveals." Somebody give Chomsky a call.
And for some reason the wonks, the politicos and the professional commentariat can't figure out why people aren't throwing themselves whole-heartedly into this Afghanistan thing. I guess we must just be stupid. “Mario Canseco, director of global studies for Angus Reid Strategies, said the numbers reflect a lack of understanding about the mission…”
It seems to me that Canadians understand things all too clearly.