Bill C-51 – frustratedboomers

The Long Road From Normal

A long, long time ago, I used to play chess. Not very well, to be honest; I was probably a better backgammon player if anything. Or maybe I wasn’t all that great at either.

But here’s the thing .. I’ve played neither of those games in… gotta be nearly three decades. First, it was computers … when I fell under their spell, that was it for spare time. I was enthralled, seduced by DOS and data bases. I tend to get pretty intense when I dive into a new interest.

And then I got into politics – headfirst and totally submerged. It’s hard to believe that I’ve only been following politics seriously for about the last six years, but, you see .. I didn’t really need to before that. Things were ticking along pretty well – we didn’t get too far forward, but we also didn’t fall too far behind. Business as usual, really. And I was busy.

But then there was Harper. Oh, he’d been around for a while before he really started getting up my nose, but there came a point when I realized that his political trajectory was going to take Canada to places that most of those I consider friends and family, really didn’t want him to visit.

As things heated up towards the 2015 federal election, there were more and more issues in which Harper’s ultra-conservative bent seemed contrary to real growth for Canadians. Austerity measures in Canada worked against future prosperity, and his government’s penchant for secrecy and overreach of government powers of surveillance, especially in the drafting of Bill C51, felt way too much like a Big Brother usurpation of civil liberties.

Harper represented an old guard that was terrified of losing power, and determined to hold on, by force if necessary. Trudeau seemed a breath of fresh air, a loosening of your grandfather’s prohibitive rules, and a step into a better Canada.

And then along came Trump, and the world was never the same again. And probably will never be the same again, in my lifetime.

Now, the weird thing is, I knew, right away, from the day Trump swept down that escalator with Melanoma, like Boris and Natasha, that he was going to be the worst, most disturbing, and most damaging person, to ever happen to America.

For a while I had recapped his reality show, Celebrity Apprentice, and so this cast of characters were mildly familiar to me. This crew of misfit toys believed that they were the equivalent of American royalty, and displayed the same sort of quasi lèse majesté /insanity so often found from that mix of inbreeding and narcissism. The Trump family were petty tyrants – and they hadn’t even begun to tyrant.

Once inaugurated, I knew he and his family of damaged goods were going to rape America, pillage it’s treasures, and then burn it to the ground, before salting the earth, to prevent further generations from bringing it back to life.

But as bad as I thought he might be – he’s worse.

For at least the first year of Trump’s tenure, myself and a very large crop of ‘resisters’ lived on high alert, watching an administration filled with the worst appointees in history, picked solely for their ability to bring down every supporting pillar of democracy and justice, set to the destruction of America in as short a time as possible.

And, oh my .. wasn’t there a lot to see!

Amy Siskind‘s The List: A Week-by-Week Reckoning of Trump’s First Year, compiled a list of actions taken by the Trump regime that posed a threat to our democratic norms. Under the headline “Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember,” Siskind’s Weekly List began as a project she shared with friends, but soon went viral. (Amazon)

Dr Stuart Shapiro, a teacher of macroenomics at Rutgers Bloustein School of Public Policy, kept a diary of his own Facebook comments, titled, Not Normal: A Progressive’s Diary of the Year After Trump’s Election

In it, he chronicled his reactions to the incidents, tweets and policy proposals instigated by the new administration in it’s first year. His palpable exhaustion as the nation lurched from surprise to surprise, and outrage to outrage is a helpful reminder that no other presidency in recorded history ever dominated the news cycles as thoroughly and unceasingly as this one has.

And then there was my favourite guilty pleasure … The Resistance by Keith Olbermann

Truthfully, within a year of Trump’s reign, the general definition of ‘normal’ was no more – crushed under the weight of executive orders and a display of greed, arrogance, and corruption so vivid and intense that it often threatened to blind me.

Oh, sure, the Old Guard flailed about, and those bipartisan lawmakers remaining managed to get the Robert Mueller investigation into play, but the Republican party stood firm that their Dear Leader and his demented whims were how those once United States would now be run.

Every time Trump or any of his minions were caught for wrong doing, they immediately cried victim. But really, it is Jane and Joe American and their kids who have paid the price for this poor presidential pick.

Most of the time, I don’t really blame Jane and Joe for falling under the spell of a politician. When you’re trying to raise a family and make a living, a lot gets put aside, to be dealt with sometime later .. maybe after the kids go to bed. It’s all part of a life cycle; someone’s gotta be keeping those home centres and toy companies in business. I can totally understand why the average person – say from 30 to 50 years of age – absorbs no more than the loudest or most eye-catching information that goes on around them.

It just becomes really difficult to keep on giving the Trump Cult that benefit of a doubt as the evidence piles up against their idol and his feet of clay, and still, his approval numbers stay in the mid 40s. These days, the nation is just too damn tired and jumpy to even raise much of a fuss when Trump sets fire to another couple of million dollars on a weekend getaway, or increases the debt ceiling by another trillion dollars or so.

Most of us following the Trump debacle had just assumed that the Mueller Report would be wrapped up, by now, and that Trump’s crimes would be exposed, and another can of presidents opened in time for dinner.

But nope … apparently there’s still a lot more rabbit hole to fall down.

There is hope, though. This week has turned out to be one of the wildest chapters in the book of Donald’s really terrible, horrible, no good, weeks. As the current White House resident met for a second time with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, desperately trying to shake off some of the stink of that fake ‘national emergency’ he’d declared just before taking a long vacation weekend, former personal lawyer and broken nosed ‘fixer’ Michael Cohen testified publicly about the Trump Foundation’s many quasi legal and often very illegal business workarounds while calling Trump a “a racist,” “a con man,” and “a cheat” before Congress, right as the New York Times released a new report detailing how Jared Kushner‘s security clearance had come about .. and it wasn’t nearly as secure as either the Donald or the daughter of POTUS had promised. Nope .. not at all.

Oh yes, a very bad week indeed.

Kim Jung Un got Trump to buy him dinner, give him a place on the world stage, enable Kim’s propaganda, choose Russia/North Korea‘s words over America’s own intel, excuse horrific and ongoing human rights violations, and walk away from taking the blame for Otto Warmbier’s brutal beating death, in a country where nothing is done without Kim’s explicit permission.

In exchange, the North Korean dictator produced a “White Paper on Human Rights Violations in the U.S. in 2017,.” where the tiny tyrant accused the Trump Administration of being a billionaires’ club, that harbors a “policy of racism” while exacerbating social inequalities and denying freedom of the press and health coverage to citizens.”

Oh me oh my and ouchy! Something tells me that the days of sweet, sweet love letters in giant envelopes arriving at the White House from his loving Kim are far behind us now …

I also suspect that a lot of that ‘locker room talk’ in the 2 hour 20 minute CPAC rally rant had much to do with the POTUS feeling increasingly cornered. It’s not surprising the mask would begin to fall off, and a little bit of the crude ‘pussy grabber‘ re-emerge. Thankfully, this time, only an American flag was molested.

Strange days indeed, mama. Or, as Daniel Dale tweeted, “Folks, these are the rantings of a sundowning old man whose brains are leaking out of his ears live on stage.”

Can someone please point me the way back to ‘Normal’?

Think of the Children!

I ‘get away’ so rarely that I hadn’t realized how proscribed most lives have become – when you only leave your house for short jaunts into civilization, interact with a select few, and then hurry back home on the last bus, people-watching changes from being a relaxing pastime to a zoological behavioral study.

It was fun to leave our stuffy bungalow for a jaunt up to Musselman’s Lake, in the Stouffville area. Our daughter recently bought a trailer, which is parked in the Cedar Beach resort.

The resort has been run by the same family since 1929, and generations of holidaying campers have enjoyed the lake and beach, along with other amenities. It’s a great place to bring a precocious 7 year old like my granddaughter, as the resort is like a small village, with 520 long-term trailer sites, most of which are as cared for as primary residences.

The casual atmosphere, highly regulated, and self-policed by the families themselves, allows kids to run freely, to play in the many playgrounds, and simply behave like kids did before the last twenty or thirty years of increasing parental paranoia.

You don’t realize just how controlled kids’ lives have become until you find yourself, as my husband did, panicking over the sight of a pair of 4 and 5 year old girls calmly walking a doll stroller on a one-way lane. “Anyone could snatch up those two, throw them in the back of a van, and speed away!” he said.

Good lord – is that what we’ve come to? That, even in a small space where entry is carefully controlled, where the speed limit is 10 kph, and most of those present are long-standing renters, in a space that is rife with parents, aunts, siblings and grandparents … even in a space this sheltered, we have to live in constant fear that our most vulnerable and precious could be snatched away at any time?

How has life become so seemingly perilous, even to we who have never known armed combat on our land? Are we now to live under constant fear, and the feeling that we could be attacked at any moment – by our neighbours, by a stranger, by a predator, always potentially lurking in the shadows? Are we now to live in constant dread of ‘what could happen?’ No wonder people in America are so protective of their right to own guns.

But the bigger question is – when did we develop this persistent fear, and why? In a civilization where anything can be deemed too harmful to be legal, (fireworks, lawn darts, unpasteurized cheese … even KinderEggs!) how have we gone from subconsciously knowing the possibility of a rare instance of unforeseen harm into a state of constant vigilance against possible marauders?

Certainly, there are now more people living on the planet than at any other time in history, and we feel that claustrophobia even in our suburbs and towns. But proportionately, rates of kidnaps, rapes and murders haven’t really risen. In fact, the instances of kidnapping of children in the U.S. by non-parental or family members intent on harming the child is about 115 per year … out of 340 million inhabitants.

To put that figure into perspective – during the Vietnam War, every American personally knew at least one of the 10,000 soldiers per year who had died in the conflict. But almost no one personally knows a child that was taken with criminal intent.

So who’s ramping up this fear? Well … it’s astounding how much of U.S. law enforcement is influenced not just by mass media coverage, but by the hysterics of tabloid media, who thrive on rehashing grisly incidents for as long as they can drag out the gory details. Police and politicians have their feet held to the fire to account for the panic brought on by those who profit from tragedy.

Statistics can be, and often are, manipulated by private interests and organizations, in an attempt to boost profits, be they donations to causes meant to comfort sufferers, or by the marketing of items meant to increase private citizens’ feeling of being protected.

A fearful society tends to prefer the status quo, allowing governments to stay in power for perhaps longer than they should be. They will look to the loud and the bombastic, because the posturings of the aggressive allow the frightened to shelter in place.

And it’s certainly no stretch of the imagination to realize that a country in a state of fear and panic is easily manipulated by governments with agendas that might have seemed too radical in times of peace. Look to America’s overly militarized Homeland Security, or Canada’s Bill C-51, an over-reaching bill designed to capitalize on the fear instilled in us, that trumps our free speech with a plan to capture – and indefinitely retain – all of our private phone calls and internet data.

The ripple of fear that circled the globe after the 9/11 attacks on the Twin Towers has never really subsided. Horrifying acts, including brutal torture and murders, were committed on suspects, whether innocent or guilty of crimes, and the attack on Iraq, which had long been a possibility for unrelated reasons, was used as an excuse to punish the masterminds wrongly believed to be behind the tragedy.

There must be a villain, there must be a reason, and so the net is cast further and further, vilifying those who are not exactly like us, the ‘others’ that we scapegoat to try and calm our jangled nerves. Something must be done! we cry … and done now! Save us from the unknown, no matter if it is ultimately we that are harmed in the process.

A fearful society will often turn to religion, and a reliance on a supernatural power to ensure that, even should they themselves be injured or killed, there will be a reward, post-mortem, from the deity of their choice. They will blame and reject progressive ideas and ideology, preferring to trust the writings of the ancients over the possibility that a science they can’t quite understand could hold a solution to their terrors.

A fearful society wraps it’s most vulnerable in emotional cotton batting and bubble wrap, too frightened to allow children to explore their world and learn both the good and bad of their environment, and to experience the emotions and understandings inherent in living in their social order. A fearful society looks with suspicion on anyone who’s not in their personal tribe, and passes that crippling fear on to their children.

Whenever changes meant to move our culture forward progressively are proposed, the rallying cry from those who are afraid of alterations to their reality is “Think of the children!” That plea, originally referring to children’s rights, and real dangers, such as child labour, has now become a plea for pity, and an appeal to emotion. It is a logical fallacy that substitutes emotion for reason, and indicates a culture in moral panic and relentless distress. It is, in fact, the antithesis of what children need – a feeling of security and of being protected.

And in believing that it is only by insulating children from all contact with ‘others’ and other ideas, it is a pious attempt to stop progress by effectively robbing children of their right to childhood. It seems a very high price to pay.

Our terror of the unknown, and our concern for the well-being of our children, must not be the justification of our need to inflict upon them a very real ‘nanny state’ created by our own neurotic anxiety.

Bad Week for Sore Losers

When those charged with guiding and arbitrating the people become inured to the peoples’ actual needs and opinions, it’s time for them to go. When entitlement and arrogance override justice for ALL, not just the chosen few, it’s time to reassess the entire system.

“Fair play,” the belief that all battles should be fought with an eye to respect, ethics and consideration, has been summarily dismissed of late, to be replaced by public figures that do not take defeat well, and who use failure as a platform for endless carping, whining, condescension, and threats of revenge.

This lack of character, as shown by those we’re told deserve respect, affects every aspect of our lives, taints how we feel about our culture, and disrespects what ‘the rule of law’ means to our society.

As a vocal majority of Americans cheered the lowering of the Confederate flag, and the raising of the Rainbow, the squealing of sore losers filled the media. Sour grapes do not a good wine make, even if they may give sore losers an opportunity to have a good whine.

Removing the Confederate flag is, in itself, a sort of ‘false flag,’ in that the flag represents a very tiny part of a larger problem of systemic racism in America. Despite being shown absolute proof that the flag had been used by proponents of slavery and the KKK, some in the South continue to insist that flying it is a matter of heritage.

In fact, just yesterday, Brittany “Bree” Newsome climbed the 30-foot flagpole on the grounds of the South Carolina state Capitol where the battle flag still flew, to remove the banner. She was immediately arrested, and the flag raised again, just in time for a pro-flag rally to take place at the monument.

In the two weeks since the slaying in South Carolina, mourners and citizens have had to walk and drive past a flag flown at full mast, a flag idolized by a 21 year old man so driven by ideology that he felt the need to shoot and kill, in cold blood, nine black worshipers in an historic church.

And yet, there remain some who want the flag to stay. Or, as Gawker put it, “Racist Idiots Hold Pro-Confederate Flag Rallies Across t he South.”

Bad week for sore losers. Obamacare, aka the Affordable Care Act, was finally entrenched as the law of the land by the Supreme Court‘s ruling, leaving no room for a theoretical future Republican president to undo major pillars of the law.

Republicans, having made 50 – fifty! – previous attempts at dismantling the Act were furious, but defiant. The battle wasn’t over, fumed it’s opponents, and FOX News talking heads, who have never been very good at keeping up with change to their conservative ideology.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio aimed his anger at the Supreme Court. “As we look ahead, it must be a priority of the next president to nominate judges and justices committed to applying the Constitution as written and originally understood.”

Marco … put down that water and tell me … Why would that be? Are we living in 1776 or 2015? The forefathers are long gone, and the Constitution is a living thing, subject to conversation and amendments, not the iron grip of a dictator installing ‘yes men’ to do his will.

Justice Clarence Thomas of the Supreme Court had a bad week too. On Thursday, Thomas came down against the Supreme Court saving the Fair Housing Act of 1986 (to protect against housing discrimination based on race, sex, religion, and origin,) saying that “racial imbalances do not always disfavor minorities.” He was referring to black pro sports teams.

Because, you know. .. those NBA players are mostly black, and they do very well for themselves.

He then joined Justices Samuel Alito and Antonin Scalia in dissenting to uphold Obamacare subsidies, though it was passed 6-3.

And to cap off his week of blind ignorance and entitlement, he and three other Justices voted against removing state bans on same-sex marriages. This time, he took exception with the concepts of “liberty” and “dignity.”

“The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.”

You’ve come a long way, baby, and I mean that disrespectfully. Are you sure you’d have the dignity and respect you receive as a Supreme Court judge had you been born in the days when you would have been enslaved at/by birth? Your own interracial marriage to a white woman named Virginia, (irony alert!) would have seen you arrested and prosecuted prior to the Supreme Court’s 1967 ruling on Loving v. Virginia, which required every state to recognize interracial marriage. You and your life represent two clear instances where the government did indeed bestow dignity. Why would you deny that to others?

Republican candidate Mike Huckabee had to add his own strange thoughts to the ruling. “The Supreme Court has spoken with a very divided voice on something only the Supreme Being can do — redefine marriage. I will not acquiesce to an imperial court any more than our Founders acquiesced to an imperial British monarch. We must resist and reject judicial tyranny, not retreat.”

Arrogance. Entitlement. “Do as I say, not as I do.” One law for the masses, another for those who make the laws. If the laws don’t fit your own views, keep hammering away at them until they do. The will of the people be damned.

Not that we’re without our own Canadian sore losers and bigots. In 2004, Premier Ralph Klein of Alberta said “Gays won’t be getting married in Alberta, we’re not going to do it.”

For ten years, Ralph Klein, Stephen Harper, Pat O’Brien, Randy White and Tom Wappell fought against every single gay rights initiative. And yet, the law was passed in 2005, and so far – no sky has fallen.

Sore losers and entitled arrogance is as alive in Canadian politics as in the U.S. Last week, convicted ex-MP Dean Del Mastro sneered his way through his sentencing, certain that Prime Minister Stephen Harper would pull his irons out of the fire at the last minute. After all, he’d been a loyal servant, whom Harper had kept by his side despite the evidence of his guilt.

Del Mastro’s never apologized for breaking the rules in his 2008 campaign, of overspending on the campaign, breaking his personal campaign contribution limit or of filing a false return with Elections Canada to conceal the overspending. Instead, his defence was to whine to the court about how difficult the prosecution and trial has been on his family, and that the incident has taken a financial, physical and emotional toll. All of these burdens came from his own bad judgment, but we’re not to speak of that.

When the verdict was reached, Del Mastro burst into tears, and begged the judge not to send him to prison. He was told he’d be spending a month in jail, down from the 9 to 12 months originally recommended by the Court in October. And, indeed, he spent just 16 hours in jail before being released on bail.

After all, why would Del Mastro worry about actual consequences? In October, 2014, he was found guilty of three out of four charges of election fraud. And yet, he remained defiant, saying he had no plans to step down as an MP, only to step down voluntarily in November, just before he was to be suspended from the House of Commons. He then whined about how much money he was losing by having to leave his position, a job he’d gained by fraud, and lost by getting caught.

Del Mastro walked away from his nearly nine years in federal politics with a pension worth $44,000 a year, which he becomes eligible for at the age of 55.

In a final, delicious irony, Canadians, through a fundraiser organized by his riding association that allowed them to provide tax receipts to contributors, subsidized the legal fees of Del Mastro. “Organized by his riding association” .. in a riding he might not have won had he not cheated in the election.

Harper himself has not commented on Del Mastro’s sentencing, nor has he addressed the fact that his government has far more than the usual share of corruption and shameful conduct. Among the Harper government’s scandals are the illegal “robocalls” in the 2011 election, fraudulent expense claims by Tory senators, and of course, nearly ten years of placing the needs of corporate Canada above it’s citizens’ rights, leading to the tainted meat scandals that followed the gutting of Canada’s food-inspection agency, and an environmental record on pollution and climate change that defines new depths in a race to the bottom. And that’s even before Bill C-51, the greatest threat to free expression in Canada, or Bill C-59, which allows the government to retroactively alter history in the government’s favour.

Given his poor record, Harper could at least give Canadians some comfort by making it clear that he won’t defend cheaters in the future. Instead, he keeps the media at arm’s length, behind his security team that costs the nation over $20 million a year (2013 figure,) his only hope, a capitalization on the fear he’s whipped up around terrorism.

Based on a visible lack of ethics, and political appointments bestowed less on political ability and more on the incumbent’s willingness to mindlessly obey orders in the Harper Government, along with shady moves to retain power during the last three elections, and the introduction of a U.S. style “super pac” to ensure a win in the coming election, there is good reason to be nervous about Harper and his party’s conduct in the run up to the vote.

How the election and it’s outcome proceeds will speak volumes. True class and character are shown in how one responds to losing, or even the prospect of a loss. What separates the winners from the losers is how a person reacts when things don’t go their way.

How each of us conducts ourselves during and after the election, regardless of it’s outcome, will say much about our own selves, and the mood of the country. Sore losers aren’t realists … they’re fantasists who can’t fathom a life that doesn’t revolve around their own needs and beliefs.

Civil discourse and disagreement requires only three things: Don’t make it personal. Avoid put-downs. And, above all, stay calm.

What this week has shown us is public servants who have abdicated responsibility to those they serve, choosing instead an endless pursuit of personal vindication. We can all do better than that.

(originally published June 28/15 – https://bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2015/06/28/roxanne-tellier-bad-week-for-sore-losers/)

If You’re Canadian – It’s Hard to Laugh

It used to be so easy to mock the North American political process. Comedians had a field day, lampooning gaffes or silly political correctness amongst candidates and politicians seeking or in office. Most pols can be counted on to screw up at some point. The joker outing the naked Emperor poked fun without fear of reprisal.

That all changed for Canada, yesterday. Bill C-51 – the so called “Anti Terrorist Act,” was overwhelmingly approved by the Senate, despite vocal opposition from everyone from Margaret Atwood to Ralph Nader .

Over nearly a decade, Canadians have seen Canada’s world image plunge from a once lofty high the envy of the free world, to a race to the bottom. Since 2006, the Harper government has governed with an iron-fist, hidden public information and political subterfuge in cumbersome omnibus bills or simple denials, and has become the most secretive administration in Canadian history.

How do you find anything funny about an increasingly militaristic and confrontational police presence that ‘serves and protects’ only those steely, unsmiling, hand-picked minions to the Prime Minister?

Where’s the laughs when our scientists have been muzzled, and precious and irreplaceable environmental books and documents have been trashed? Where’s the irony in watching the Boreal Forest, which represents more than half of Canada’s landmass, and which plays a critical role in mitigating global climate change, be threatened by logging, hydrodams, mining and the tar sands? (Industrial development and forest fires in Canada’s tar sands region has cleared or degraded 775,500 hectares (almost two million acres) of boreal forest since the year 2000.)

Aboriginal Affairs Minister Bernard Valcourt remained seated, silent, and cross armed while others broke out in a standing ovation at the conclusion of the six year study of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to address the “cultural genocide” of Aboriginal peoples through Canada’s residential school system. The commission pushed for a national inquiry and adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and requested 94 wide-ranging recommendations.

“Federal Conservatives have suggested they will reject calls from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) for both a public inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women and Canada’s implementation of a landmark United Nations document on First Nations’ rights.” (Huffington Post)

It’s very hard to find something even vaguely funny about such overt contempt.

As people become more concerned about the very food they eat, the Conservative Party continues to support genetically modified foods and Monsanto, fighting tooth and nail against every citizen action requesting even so much as the labelling of foods. (Canada and the United States are the only two nations in the Free World that do not require GMO labelling.)

And then there’s Bill C-51 itself, an act so heinous that everyone from former prime ministers, to constitutional lawyers – and hundreds of thousands of Canadians – have begged, cajoled and screamed for it’s demise.

The Bill allows the police to ignore Canadians’ rights, and rides roughshod over civil liberties. It eviscerates the Charter of Canadian Rights and Freedoms, and inherently stomps on Canadians’ constitutional rights.

It defines ‘terrorism’ as “activity that undermines the security of Canada.” Those activities include advocacy, legal protests, threats to “public safety” and the “economic or financial stability of Canada.” It also creates a new speech-related criminal offence of “promoting” or “advocating” terrorism.

And it allows information sharing across very broad areas, from the Department of Immigration, to the financial sector, from the Department of Transport to your own doctor and Public Health, besides the usual suspects (the police, RCMP, CSIS, or Border Control.) Bill C-51 effectively neuters the core protections found in the Privacy Act, and also permits additional use and disclosure of information “in accordance with the law…to any person, for any purpose.”

Let me put this even plainer. If, for some reason, a conversation you have – in person, by email, or on social media – triggers the interest of ANY government official … or even a spurned lover or a miffed colleague with a grudge … you could be arrested and detained for up to seven days without charges on mere suspicion of future criminal activity.

“Bill C-51’s gives powers of “preventive detention,” which means jail time for individuals even when there isn’t any suspicion criminal activity has taken place.”

So, I’m finding it a little hard to laugh, or even smile. In what dystopia would these dictatorial and fascistic measures call for a chuckle?

Oh, sure, we’ve got Rick Mercer’s weekly jabs and rants, but honestly – how do you poke fun at a Canadian government blindly led by an evangelistic dictator set on destroying the country he rules with an iron fist?

Our only hope for a re-discovery of our political comedy mojo under such an oppressive regime is a resounding “NO!” to Stephen Harper and the Conservative Government in the coming election.

Put On Your Dancing Shoes!

Jennie is a party. Jennie will brook no voyeurs on the voyage. You must be involved, you must eat, you must drink, you must dance! You must participate, because “fun doesn’t just happen! You have to make it happen!“ Jennie turns the world on with her smile.

I love Jennie. I met her last night at the Rally, where Pat Blythe and I had gone to see the sold out Beatles’ tribute, “Yeah Yeah Yeah.” The place was packed, the dance floor jammed. Everyone sang along to the timeless songs at the top of their lungs.

Like Jennie, everyone was there to make fun happen. And much fun did indeed ensue, as we danced the Swim, the Frug, and countless other dance variations until our feet ached.

The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are Frank Russel on drums, Kevin Rolston on bass, Bruce Nasmith on keys and guitar, and Don Maclean and Frank Zirone, also on guitar. Everyone sings. Everyone is a top-notch, well respected musician. And clearly, every one of them loves classic Beatles music.

Their tribute, complete with screen presentations, appeals to a wide age range, but skews mainly to the boomer base. Although the group has performed only infrequently in the past year, every outing is a sold out success. And at each event they gather more fans who can be counted on to spread the word, and anticipate their next appearance.

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Five years after releasing his third CD, “I Tried,” David Celia is back with another eclectic mix of country folk, pop pedal steel, and reggae infused whimsy. The new CD “Double Mind” is a wander through a poet’s thoughts; by turns gleeful, introspective, determined or questioning, but always with Celia’s patented quip in the tale.

Following a successful European tour, David kept a low profile, with limited exposure, prior to Thursday’s CD release at the Great Hall. What a beautiful venue! The room lives up to it’s name, with a soaring ceiling ringed by a second story walk around balcony.

The musicians for this showcase gig were the venerable Cleave Anderson on drums, Tim Jackson on bass, Jay Swinnerton on keys/vocals and Burke Carrol on pedal steel. Ariana Gillis joined the group briefly, contributing vocals to the title track, as on the album.

I’ll be honest; I prefer hearing David’s songs in a more intimate room. His songs are thoughtful and intelligent, and beg to be front and center, not background music. Listen to the whole CD at http://exclaim.ca/music/article/david_celia-double_mind_album_stream

The Grind, from “Double Mind.”

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I’d been looking forward to Xprime’s CD release gig for months, particularly after the sneak preview we’d had just before CMW. And as always, the boys didn’t let me down.

I can hardly believe how far the group’s writing has come in just a year or two. The new songs on PM reflect a maturity and craftsmanship that is both of the moment, and yet timeless. You’ll wonder where you heard earworms like “All to Myself,” or “I Can’t Take No More” before, but it’s all new baby, and it’s infectious pop at it’s best.

Don’t take it from me – stream the whole CD at http://xprime.ca/

Gab Sid, Neil Carson, Steph Mercier, and Phil Taylor are all lead singers, but skilfully work together to create distinctive harmonies within each song. Live, you can’t take your eyes off the stage, as they bounce and pogo and careen in a controlled frenzy. An Xprime gig is not just a concert, it’s a well-oiled Rube Goldberg impossibility machine.

So I was already smiling before even arriving at the Rivoli, where we ran into Neil and Phil on the patio pre-show. They were heading off to grab a bite … hey, they’re growing boys! … whilst Pat, Bob Segarini and I were in pursuit of adult beverages.

We’d barely had a chance to grab a bevvy and snag a place to park our gear before the guys bounded on stage, and hit their marks in an explosion of energy and aural goodness. They pounded the maddened crowd into submission with great tuneage and an inexorable visual onslaught. I couldn’t stop grinning and singing along as Pat slunk through the crowd, taking photos of the group in action. (She’ll have those photos for you on Wednesday.)

And, inevitably, Pat and I braved the standing crowd to bust some moves. I’ll never understand why Toronto audiences refuse to dance. You’ll see the toes tapping, and the hips swaying, but apparently actually dancing to your favourite band strikes fear into the hearts of those too frightened to blow their cool by giving in to the beat.

It’s like Jennie said. “fun doesn’t just happen! You have to make it happen!“ Xprime opened the fun door and laid down the boogie, and a few brave souls followed that funky music. Toronto, you’ve got nothing to lose but your dignity and a little shoe leather. It will be worth it.

By set’s end, I was a little breathless, but exhilarated and clutching an Xprime tee shirt. The boys will be criss-crossing Ontario through the next month, with stops in Kingston, Peterborough, Sarnia, Windsor and London. Grab any chance you get to see them. Catch them at your local venue before they’re a big ticket experience. This is a band on the move, ripe for the plucking by some impresario who can pair them up with a major headlining act. It would be criminal not to get Xprime’s music and energy in front of international audiences.

And when you do go to see them … dance, for gawd’s sake!

(originally published http://bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2015/06/07/roxanne-tellier-put-on-your-dancing-shoes-toronto/

Fighting For The Right To Protest

One week ends and another begins. It’s been a tough couple of weeks for many, even more so than other weeks. After a bitterly cold and seemingly unending winter, Toronto’s spring has yet to settle in, as it jumps from sweltering daytime highs to overnight lows that wreak havoc on wardrobe choices and spark terror in the hearts of gardeners. Yesterday’s cold rain came and went in great sweeps and gusts, ripped my umbrella inside out, and left me soaked and miserable as I waited for that most elusive of creatures – the dreaded Lawrence Bus. It’s a hard rain, baby.

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xq1q9k_bob-dylan-a-hard-rain-s-a-gonna-fall-1964_music

I had intended to join the thousands protesting Bill C-51 at Queen’s Park, but the downpour, a lack of bus fare, and a husband increasingly concerned by possible repercussions due to my outspoken opposition to our government, kept me home.

For those who think that opposition to the Bill is melodramatic and all conspiracy theorish, ask yourselves; is your concern that the protesters will be beset by terrorists? Or that the protesters will be stealthily added to a police file, arrested for attending a rally, audited mercilessly, or simply have their characters assassinated, and their passports taken away?

Think I’m exaggerating? A new law became effective on Friday. “The Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration says it would revoke citizenship for anyone found guilty of terrorism, treason and high treason, and spying for a foreign government.” And bear in mind, terrorism as defined by the bill includes “activity that undermines the sovereignty, security or territorial integrity of Canada” that includes “terrorism,” “interference with critical infrastructure” and “interference with the capability of the Government in relation to … the economic or financial stability of Canada.”

Which means that protesting the Pipeline, or even Monsanto, is loosely covered under the bill, as terrorist acts interfering with Canadian economics.

“There will, if this law is not blocked, be no checks left on state power. State Security will operate outside the law. Citizens will be convicted on secret evidence in secret courts. Citizens will be subject to arbitrary searches and arrests. Due process will be eradicated. Internal security organs will serve as judge, jury and executioner. The outward forms of democratic participation — voting, competing political parties, judicial oversight and legislation — will remain, but become meaningless forms of political theater.” Chris Hedges on Bill C-51.

The Canadian arm of Amnesty International indicated that the anti-terrorism bill could be used to target environmental activists and aboriginal protesters, or any other form of protest without an official permit or court order.

Bill C-51 “opens the door to collecting, analyzing and potentially keeping forever the personal information of all Canadians,” including every instant of “a person’s tax information and details about a person’s business and vacation travel.”

It’s pretty ironic that Canada is set to ramp up security, just as America’s NSA has been told to stop collecting citizens’ private information.

“So basically it all boils down to a Senate debate between those who say we must give up some liberty to keep us safe, even though it doesn’t, and those who believe we must protect our liberties, even though they won’t.” — Jon Stewart

Yep. And same thing here. In a matter of days, the Senate will vote on whether to accept the Bill or not. Ergo the protests across Canada, as 67% of Canadians do NOT want the bill passed. At this stage, official word is that “A Senate committee is offering to conduct a review of Canada’s new anti-terrorism powers five years after Parliament adopts Bill C-51, and is calling on the government to quickly adopt new measures to fight terrorism and improve its existing counter-terrorism operations.”

And that’s very daunting. And a real blow to Freedom of Speech and Canadian democracy.

But don’t take my word for it … ask the Raging Grannies of Ottawa.

They’re game, these Grannies, if a little distracted. And brave.

Or ask Cathy Cook, who wrote and performed this blues, empathizing with victims of Stephen Harper’s contempt of aboriginals, women, environmentalists, and veterans.

Or the Ontario based singer/songwriter Terry Tufts, who’s written several songs on our messed up government, and lack of choice in the upcoming election.

Dirty Little War – Written And Performed By Terry Tufts

If nothing else, it seems like we’re finally getting new Canadian protest songs. What is concerning, however, is that the new protesters all seem to skew to the higher end of the age spectrum. Like Dennis Jones, a musician and songwriter based in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, who’s been playing guitar and singing for 48 years.

Or Ian Patton, a 5-string banjo player/composer from Edmonton.

Or Halifax based Mike Chandler and Margaret Anne McHugh of SolidariGLEE

I find it interesting that the songwriters protesting this Bill are middle-aged and older. People of all ages are attending rallies for this and other protests, so there are certainly younger voices available. I’m not sure if the lack of participation is due to apathy, a dread of the folk music scene, or a lack of information. Maybe it’s a mix of all three.

Let’s close out with Stevie and the ConserviCats singing the praises of the new Secret Police Bill C-51.

Right then, enough with the politics … How’s about some new music?

This moody ballad is from Vintage Trouble’s first album. Their next release, 1 Hopeful Rd., is due to drop August 14^th. Currently, the band is opening for AC/DC in Europe. Live, these guys are monsters, as several of us here at DBAWIS can attest.

Quirky singer/songwriter David Celia has a record release party set for June 4 at the Great Hall. Here’s a taste of the new CD.

Rats! I missed Food Revolution Day, Jamie Oliver’s global campaign to put compulsory practical food education on the school curriculum, on May 15^th!

At least we can watch the video. Here’s Jamie with Ed Sheeran, Paul McCartney, Jazzie B, Professor Green, Alesha Dixon, Jamie Cullum, Mr Hudson, Hugh Jackman, Us the Duo, George The Poet, Che’nelle, DJ MK and The London Youth Choir

And of course, don’t forget that Xprime will be playing their new album at their CD release party at the Rivoli on June 4^th. See you there!

(originally published at bobsegarini.wordpress.com/2015/05/31/roxanne-tellier-fighting-for-the-right-to-protest/)

An Open Letter to the Canadian Senate on Bill C-51

There are few moments in time so pivotal to a nation’s ongoing health and democracy. Such a moment is facing you, as you decide how you will cast your vote on Bill C-51. The question is: will Canadians continue to live in freedom and peace, or bow to a largely non-existent threat that calls for national paranoia, fear and the silence of her citizens?

Those of you who will make this decision, those of you who hold Canada’s future in your hands, have an enormous weight on your shoulders. Do you abide by partisan lines, obeying your country’s Prime Minister and his directives, no matter how potentially dangerous they may be? Or do you rise to this occasion and tell the truth – that Bill C-51 is a travesty, a declaration of war not on terrorism, but rather an assault on Canada that fundamentally contravenes rights and freedoms that are guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms? (image, Stephen Lautens)

Bill C-51 would label those few who still care enough about their country to demand change and accountability from what is increasingly seen to be a battle for corporate wealth over Canada’s health, as terrorists. It would do the same to Natives who demonstrate peacefully against their own ceded lands being ruined or stolen from them in the name of economic growth. It would stop people from speaking out against justice being perverted by the wealthy and the corrupt. It would allow democracy to be eaten away by the demands for unlimited corporate expansion at the expense of the lower and middle class.

“This bill disproportionately targets indigenous communities, environmental activists, dissidents, and Muslims, many of whom are already subjected to questionable and overreaching powers by security officials. This bill will make it easier and ostensibly lawful for government to continue infringing upon the rights of peaceful people.” (http://stopc51.ca/about-c51)

It would change our very souls as we became afraid to speak out against any wrongdoing or injustice. It would end our precious Freedom of Speech. Perhaps you remember when world leaders gathered In France in support of the Charlie Hebdo journalists rights to free speech? How quickly we revert from courage to cowardice when the cameras are turned off.

We are a nation of peace keepers – or at least, we used to be. Bill C-51 throws down the gauntlet, daring terrorists to do their worse, in spite of the fact that the only terrorist attacks in this country were not ideologically based, but the ravings of shattered, mentally ill men who should have received treatment for their illnesses, but instead, were preyed upon by the very police this bill is asking us to trust.

So I beg you, those of you who stand poised to yea or nay the most important bill of this century, to think long and hard about where you really stand. Are you truly the “sober second thought” that Canadians have been led to believe? Or are you entangled in a game of partisan one-upmanship, a veritable race to the bottom, and dragging 35 million Canadians down that rabbit hole with you?

We are watching you. The whole world is watching you. A vote to approve this bill, despite all of the input you’ve received on this subject from everyone from former Prime Ministers of Canada, to international economists, political experts, and Canadian citizens, will send a clear message to Canadians and the world that Canadian democracy is on life support, with a callous “Do Not Resuscitate” sign hanging over the death bed.

Less than 33% of Canadians are in favor of the bill
virtually all of Canada’s national newspaper editorials have spoken out against it along with, the Green Party, the NDP, 4 former prime ministers, civil liberties advocates, Canada’s privacy commissioners, former supreme court justices, Former attorney generals, 60 Canadian Business Leaders Sign Letter Against Bill C-51, The Canadian bar association representing over 36,000 lawyers, the people behind Mozilla’s Firefox Internet browser, 100 Quebec organizations, Seven leading Canadian Human rights groups, The Union representing over 51,000 Canada Post workers, The Electronic Frontier Foundation, and over 100 organizations, hundreds of constitutional lawyers, Native Chiefs across the nations, former CSIS agents, NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden, Conrad Black, Rex Murphy, Ralph Nader

Tell Your Senator to Stop Bill C-51

The government’s controversial “secret police” Bill C-51 has made its way to the Senate. We have to stop it now. Find out below if your Senator wants to #RejectFear and #StopC51.

https://stopc51.ca/

Don’t Amend Bill C-51- Kill It

The Conservative Party would have you believe that anyone opposing the proposed Bill C-51 is a ‘conspiracy theorist.’ Most boomers believe that the Bill will never make it through Canada’s Supreme Court, chock full as it is with civil right offenses, so we should all just calm down.

Staunch Con allies, such as the Ottawa Sun, are playing the label game to, inferring that “Commies oppose anti-terror bill” in response to Canada wide marches by people who massed to protest a threat to their civil rights.
(And just to make one thing perfectly clear – The Communist Party of Canada (CPC) is a legal entity, and has “in the past been elected to the federal Parliament, the Ontario Legislature, the Manitoba Legislature, and various municipal governments. The party has also contributed significantly to trade union organizing and labour history in Canada, peace and anti-war activism, and many other social movements.” (Wikipedia)

Those who speak out against governmental overreach are used to being maligned. In 2012, the government killed its Internet snooping bill, C-30, after an online backlash and when it couldn’t recover from then public safety minister Vic Toews comparing opponents of C-30 as being friends of child pornographers.

The Liberal Party under leader Justin Trudeau has backed the legislation, which may well be the decision that nips his political career in the bud.

From the first moment I got wind of Stephen Harper’s proposed Bill C-51, I have been openly criticizing its very existence. Many other people agree, including some allies of the Harper government, the National Firearms Associate, Tory MP Michael Chong, The Canadian Bar Association, Leader of the Opposition NDP’s Thomas Mulcair, aboriginal groups, and Green Party Leader Elizabeth May.

Greenpeace Canada Executive Director Joanna Kerr wrote in an iPolitics post last week. “More than 100 legal experts have written to parliamentarians to say that this legislation is dangerous—that it will make it harder to effectively fight terrorism while introducing unprecedented infringements on our rights and privacy. Their concerns have been echoed by four former prime ministers, five former Supreme Court judges, the federal Privacy Commissioner, Amnesty International, the Assembly of First Nations, and a host of other organizations. Are they all terrorists?”

As the meetings and debates drag on in Parliament (on your tax dollar,) key legal voices blocked from C-51 committee debate include the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Daniel Therrien, the Criminal Lawyers Association, Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, former CSIS Inspector General Eva Plunkett, chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee Deborah Gray and former SIRC chair Chuck Strahl.

The Mozilla project, the open-source software community behind the Firefox browser, has issued a statement urging the federal government not to go ahead with Bill C-51.

“C-51 is sweeping in scope, including granting Canadian intelligence agencies CSIS and CSE new authority for offensive online attacks, as well as allowing these agencies to obtain significant amounts of information held by the Canadian government. The open-ended internal information-sharing exceptions contained in the bill erode the relationship between individuals and their government by removing the compartmentalization that allows Canadians to provide the government some of their most private information (for census, tax compliance, health services, and a range of other purposes) and trust that that information will be used for only its original purposes. This compartmentalization, currently a requirement of the Privacy Act, will not exist after Bill C-51 comes into force.

“The Bill further empowers CSIS to take unspecified and open-ended ‘measures,’ which may include the overt takedown of websites, attacks on Internet infrastructure, introduction of malware, and more all without any judicial oversight. These kinds of attacks on the integrity and availability of the web make us all less secure.”

The opponents are concerned about a lack of parliamentary oversight of intelligence agencies under the bill, as well as numerous privacy and civil liberties issues. The Canadian Bar Association has argued that it contains “ill-considered” measures that erode Canadians’ civil liberties without making them safer.

The bill’s “vague and overly broad” language means it could be used to harass protesters and put a chill on legitimate dissent, the group said. The broad nature of information-sharing between government agencies would erode trust in government, and the Association described the Canadian bill as “even more concerning” than the controversial CISA bill making its way through the U.S. Congress.

From Canada’s Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien::” “This is really about big data, which relies on massive amounts of information that can be analyzed algorithmically to spot trends, predict behaviours and make connections.”

Canada’s foremost Internet law expert Michael Geist: “”The scope of sharing is exceptionally broad, covering 17 government institutions with government granting itself the right to expand sharing to other departments. In fact, the bill even permits further disclosure “to any person, for any purpose.” In other words, there are few limits on how information the government collects can be shared internally, with other governments, or with any entity it sees fit.”

Steve Anderson, national coordinator for internet freedom advocate OpenMedia, also brought a 100,000-person petition against C-51 and said he felt Canadians were actually well informed on the topic and should be encouraged to enter debates over it rather than be “disrespected.”

Anonymous also got into the action with its members posting a video to Vimeo and creating an anti C-51 website. (http://www.opc51.gq/)

Actually, even writing this blog has likely landed me on the ever growing list of people the Conservatives want to silence.

How bad could Bill C-51 be for Canada? Well, it’s even broader in scope than the United States’ Patriot Act, which was put into place after the events of 9/11, and has remained in place through the last 14 years and two presidents.

The bottom line of course, is that once put into place, it will stay there. It will replace the civil rights of Canadians with tyrannical surveillance.

With that in mind, we can look to what has happened in America during those 14 years. This video of an episode of VICE News discusses the impact of state-wide surveillance.

From Youtube: “Glenn Greenwald is an American journalist and author who’s best known for reporting on the leaks of classified National Security Agency documents by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Before he was a journalist, Greenwald was a constitutional law and civil rights litigator, and until 2012 he was a contributing writer at Salon. He has authored four books: How Would a Patriot Act, Tragic Legacy, Great American Hypocrites, and With Liberty and Justice for Some. For 14 months Greenwald was a columnist at the Guardian, where he broke the first NSA story in June of 2013.”

VICE Meets Glenn Greenwald: Snowden’s Journalist of Choice

Although the entire episode is interesting and through provoking, if you skip forward to the9.50 mark, Mr Greenwald specifically discusses what the Patriot Act has done to American civil rights.

He discusses the first report that he published of Snowden’s information about a top secret order issued by the foreign intelligence surveillance court, which forced Verizon to give the FBI metadata from millions of American’s phone calls. (Metadata is not so much communication, as it is data ABOUT communication – who you are in contact with, how often, your location, and your emails – both to and from. This supplies much more information than just eavesdropping on your actual phone calls.)

As he says, you may feel you have ‘nothing to hide,’ but if asked to give someone all of your social media and email passwords, so that that person might troll through the information, and publish whatever they found, you’d be justifiably upset.

In the U.S. the NSA has access to the central servers of nine major internet companies, including Google, Yahoo, Apple, and Facebook. The NSA wants ALL data to be public.

People who are in favour of Bill C-51, like the citizens of America, want ‘bad’ people to be watched. But most of the spying done by the NSA has nothing to do with crime or terrorism; it has to do with economic espionage and people monitoring. So much so that the government is having to build giant storage facilities to house the collected data. Uncovering any information in this giant pile of data is more akin to finding a needle in a haystack – it’s unnecessary, and it’s contrary to the stated need of anticipating terrorist activity.

What it is doing, however, is causing people to submit to authority in the name of love of country.

In relation to the Patriot Act, those who said it was “a radical piece of legislation, really dangerous, and an abandonment of all values,” didn’t anticipate that this gathering of data would affect everyone, not just terrorists. Even those painting the grimmest picture of what the act could lead to were warning that it had lowered the standard too much, from probable cause to just relevance, so that it would enable to government to target people too easily.

“But everybody assumed, even the most ardent opponents of the Patriot Act, that it was still going to be targeted investigation. Nobody ever thought the act would be distorted and misinterpreted to authorize and justify bulk, indiscriminate, suspicion less collection of the communication data of every single American Citizen. As it has been.”

“If you are somebody who exercises power, and you can know everything that everybody is doing – what they say, what they read, what they think, what they plan, with whom they’re interacting – and at the same time, build a wall of secrecy around what you’re doing, so that nobody can actually see or know what it is that you are choosing, the power imbalance becomes amazingly acute. Which is why all tyrannies instinctively use surveillance as one of their principle weapons.”

“Because the more you know about the world, and about other people, the more you can manipulate and control it. The less the world knows about you, the less leverage they have over you.

So it’s really, at it’s core, about increasing the power of the U.S. government vis a vis it’s own population and people around the world.“

When asked if America is becoming a tyranny: “I think labels are sometimes unhelpful, just because words like that are so inflammatory, and I think people are inculcated, are sort of trained to believe, that tyranny is something that happens in places like Iran and Russia, and not in nice place like America. So the minute you apply that label, people react instinctively, as though you’ve said something radical on their brain charts.

“What I can say for sure is that there are patterns that are the hallmark of tyranny, one of which is mass, indiscriminate, suspicion less surveillance, that the U.S. government is increasingly relying upon, to maintain control, and to shield itself from legitimate challenge. I mean, whether someone wants to call that tyranny or not, I’ll leave that semantic debate to others. But that power is clearly tyrannical in nature.”

It would be hard to read the above, and not ask ourselves why Canadians should open themselves to this kind of governance. But that is what our Prime Minister is trying to rush through the courts.

Can we not learn from the United States` progressively more paranoid and oppressive surveillance laws? Must Canadians learn these lessons for themselves, and repeat a failed experiment that will destroy the freedoms and civil rights they treasured?

Harper has parlayed one mentally ill drug addict’s suicidal attack on Parliament into a terrorist threat, and now wants to impose the beginnings of a Canadian police state in Bill C-51. He`ll even take Canada into a war against the Islamic States, simply to enhance the fear he`s ramped up over terrorism, despite the fact that doing so could actually make Canada a primary target.

Bill C-51 oversteps all reason. There`s no room to tinker with this flawed and dangerous bill. It has to be stopped immediately. The people have spoken, but Harper and his cabinet of trained seals couldn`t care less. They are intent on shoving this bill into law, against the express wishes of the majority of Canadians. We cannot allow this to happen.