Macdonald J E Stainsby 10:57pm Jan 18
Not a statement, but a thought on the denial of the Keystone XL permit. This was not Obama “getting it right”– this was Obama afraid of people power. As a result of the long term struggles of many groups– in particular the first nations being killed off in actual fact by tar sands developments and all of the infrastructure from gas lines that feed to pipelines that supply and refineries that develop in Ontario, the US and elsewhere– but also the real fear of an administration that has seen people in city after city and across the US *in the streets*, taking back their power in numbers not seen in decades, the real heroes are all of you who have participated in building resistance to KXL, climate change, tar sands and corporate plunder and even capitalism itself. You– not Obama– are to be congratulated today, for it is only a reflection of power wielded at the grassroots level in this moment in history– the great awakening of peoples struggles across North America/Turtle Island– that made this possible.
Do not be so humble you forsake yourself and instead lavish praise on a President who is mostly worried about re-election, who has destroyed American civil liberties and waged wars on the poor at home, for oil abroad and on the climate everywhere since day one. It was the people who got there.
But even more important is that today we celebrate and tomorrow we struggle. We fight because now the even more pro oil administration of Canada will now try to destroy first nations land and oceans across British Columbia, sell the tar sands oil to China and California (people forget that this bitumen could be shipped there via tanker and get into Texas refineries anyhow) and this puts more economic pressure on making that disaster a set of dirty tricks to come. A system built on colonialism and sustained on an oil-fueled profit motive is the final target, the only target that we can win against and breathe easy for more than a day. This battle wins a little precious time, but makes our struggles elsewhere harder and more important than ever.
So celebrate tonight, fight harder tomorrow. It is all you can do– if we are serious and want to win, not little battles but the entire battles for the planet.
We can do it. We just must believe it. They said we could not win this one. They were wrong. They say we can’t shut down the tar sands. They are wrong.
Wikipedia and other mega websites are doing a 24 hour blackout to protest SOPA. I’m gonna give you my thoughts on that in a second… But it ain’t gonna be pretty! If you really don’t care about my personal political opinions, then that’s great…
I don’t mind… Instead, check out this lesson from Derryl – its a sweet way to get started with shifting patterns:
Let me start by telling you that I do not think like most normal people, at least when it comes to politics. I was aware 20 years ago of the corrupt nature of government bureaucrats and trap of the 2 party system in America. I never voted for a republican OR democrat presidential candidate in my life. I’ve always voted Libertarian!
SOPA isn’t even really the issue. It’s just another in a long line of heavy-handed government solutions that do more harm than good. It threatens freedom of press and expression.
But, if you want to see real harm — look up the NDAA… It basically destroys our bill of rights as Americans. You can be dragged off in secret by the government, with no charges, and no trial… legally. This would have been unthinkable 20 years ago. “Not here in America” people would say.
Yet, through incremental chipping away at our freedoms, it happened. Obama signed it into law, quietly on New Years Eve.
This is outrageous!! Listen, I really, really DON’T like get political with my guitar newsletter. It’s not good for business.
But enough is enough… I’ve got to take a stand. If all sit in silence and fear… we fail.
All it takes for evil men to succeed is that good men do nothing.
At the risk of alienating you, I want to share a website that has opened my eyes to a lot of things… It’s one of the most controversial websites in the world. I’m not saying that I agree 100% with everything they publish. But, check it out, because I feel that they decode a lot of the mysteries of why the world is the way it is…
I think that by sharing this, its the most powerful thing I can do to take a stand for liberty. It’s about left vs. right, or dem vs repub.. It’s about us as a human race coming together for liberty. It’s about winning the information war to spread awareness of the truth to benefit all beings.
As US President Barack Obama rejects the Keystone Excel Pipeline as proposed by Trans Canada Corp. today, the focus is on Canada’s Northern Gateway Proposal. Thankfully, die urwüchsige Nation scheint aufgerüttelt und für eine echte und öffentliche Debatte:
The former Minister for the Status of Women launches a 1.3 million dollar law suit against the Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt and more under allegations of conspiracy and defamation.
31 pages on how Prime Minister Steven Harper, some assistants and entourage bullied the promising Minister for the Status of Women outta there. I’m getting the popcorn ready. Looks like a can of bad assets rebuttal. Just hoping the Crown’s gonna get a handle on the documentation before the Cons delete it all. They do seem to be able to press buttons …
I would wish some judicial consequences, for a head of government, but also for everybody else who was not hesitant to throw a lot of dirt on a public servant. Her reputation was trashed on accusations (delivered 2 Stevie from a bankrupt private investigator owing two million dollars in taxes who now testified he had no proof of wrongdoing whatsoever) that would have no public interest (where I would be willing 2 discuss the mind altering effects of cocaine) if this country was to apply some science on the law-making and governing. The only thing of public interest here is, what the federal Ethics Commissioner found.
Wikipedia states:
“On May 20, 2010 Federal Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson fined Guergis $100 for failing to report details of a $800,000 mortgage liability within the 30 day time limit. Guergis had purchased the Ottawa house with her husband Rahim Jaffer in November 2009. Guergis said “I simply forgot and I accept responsibility for this oversight, I have already made arrangements to pay the fine — within the 30 days I was provided to do so.”[45][46]
In July 2011 Mary Dawson further found Guergis contravened 2 sections of the MP conflict of interest code by writing a letter of support for a company to a local municipal politician. Rahim Jaffer, Guergis’s husband was seeking lobbying business from the same company at the time.[47] >> (please see sources on Wikipedia page)
The lobbying commissioner ruled the pair violated the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct. Check this article on iPolitics.ca for more info:
“In a 53-page report, Karen Shepherd found that even though Jaffer and Glémaud failed to obtain the $178 million in federal funding they were seeking, they should have registered as lobbyists. Shepherd ruled they also had to register even if they weren’t explicitly hired as lobbyists.
Shepherd investigated 10 allegations against Jaffer and Glémaud and concluded that five breached the lobbyists code.”
Oh and just btw, Jaffer’s company was developing a photovoltaic power plant for Brockville as well as a device called a BioDryer waste disposal system, a waterless garbage processor. Totally unrelated? You tell me.
And:
The RCMP (!) called in on Harper’s own request, cleared Helena Guergis of all the other charges. She was never sentenced or found guilty in any court of law. Her husband, Rahim Jaffer, pleaded guilty to careless driving, charges against him for drunk driving and cocaine possession did not hold up and were dropped as well.
Why did the gang around Harpo bully and publicly discredit her? Well, looking @ her style or some unfortunate, perfectly legal events in her entourage, she seems to have a tendency to rock the boat here and there, but Conservatives are not exactly known for any particular elegance around here.
Thinking about it, consider a renaming into the “Cowboy Party of Canada” – oil is civilization for us.
This I can only hold up while apologizing to all brave cattle herds out there with big shoulders and long … legs who are embarrassed that Harpo is also from Alberta.
What I find remarkable is, that Helena Guirgis was anything but on partyline in her political career, and seemed very dedicated to her constituents. Again I quote from Wikipedia
<< When running for provincial office in 2003 in the socially liberal riding of Trinity-Spadina, Guergis said that she would vote in favour of same-sex marriage if given the opportunity. Responding to a question on same-sex marriage at an all-candidates debate, she said, "I believe in the right to choose, so I would be voting in favour of it."[8]
Campaigning the following year in the socially conservative riding of Simcoe-Grey, Guergis said that she would vote against the federal government's proposed legalization of same-sex marriage. She argued that the majority of her constituents opposed the initiative, and that she was committed to supporting their views. Guergis did in fact vote against Bill C-38, which granted legal sanction to same-sex marriage, in 2005. In the same year, she tabled a private member's bill restricting MPs from crossing parties after their election.[9]
Guergis was re-elected with 49.8% of the vote in the 2006 election, substantially increasing her margin of victory as the Conservatives won a minority government nationally. On February 7, 2006, she was named by Prime Minister Stephen Harper as parliamentary secretary to David Emerson, the Minister of International Trade and the Minister for the Pacific Gateway and the Vancouver-Whistler Olympics.
Guergis's appointment was somewhat controversial, in that Emerson had crossed the floor from the Liberal Party on the same day that he received his cabinet position. One day prior to her appointment, Guergis informed the media that she would issue a press release indicating her continued support for anti-floor crossing legislation. The release never appeared.[10] >> (please see Wikipedia entry for sources)
Let me wage a guess: that was a little bit too grass roots for your taste?
Now we gonna see the tables turned. I doubt we will see all the evidence, but it will certainly be entertaining.
Wait, what was the word you campaigned on? right. ACCOUNTABILITY.
General Assembly? A tedious, all engulfing, wonderfully connected experience, where r all voices present r heard, until consent is reached, bettering ideas and shaping the planned application while coming up with the solution that all can live with. Una Spenser describes the form of democracy that makes people happy in Daily Kos. What a great article, what great accuracy with the words – thank u, and right on!
Workin’ on it as I am typing, u can tune in from 11 am EST/17h MEZ via live stream here – anybody heard ’bout the protests on Wall Street in New York? Apparently somebody photoshopped a google earth pic 2 make the crowd look bigger – there is an interesting discussion about that right here. Just click the word “here”!
4 me, this is the most interesting comment, close 2 the 1 question everybody assessing the truthfulness of any publication should ask:
Who is profiting from the notion that the publications evokes? Who is the real author?
This is the comment (left by Jordan October 3, 2011 at 2:46 am)
“I think the real question for this community to get to the bottom of at this point is who is Jason Wettstein and did he even make this image at all? It looks like he stole the image from Scott Lickstein per @Terrence McNally’s comment, and then added his own clownish text commentary on top of it. The difference in writing styles b/w Scott and Jason are like night and day, and the all-caps, mangled grammar of the photo that went viral are clearly Jason’s voice and not Scott’s. Scott has a nice explanation of his work on his site that is not intended to deceive but rather to consciously provoke thought, as any good artist should. The difference in voice and professionalism (for lack of a better word) implies that the original thought provoking work is indeed Scott’s, and that Jason came along after and saw an opportunity to steal the work and create a troll-style image to go viral and provoke people in an unsophisticated, deceitful way.
The remaining question would be who is Jason Wettstein, is he real or a right-winger trying to discredit the movement, and what does Scott think about this? (and why hasn’t anybody – Scott of otherwise – tried to put out a version of the image w/ a different text that is true to the original intent?”
Update March 28 2011 6.23h pm
I got to double check the map and had to correct direction of marching protesters from “north north east” to ” north north west”. To illustrate that better, I embedded said map into this post below.
Slowly there’s the footage of Saturday’s Solidarity-For-Bahrain-demonstration surfacing: March 22 2011 3.05h am
http:// www.youtube.com/ watch?v=vL-ev0J57DY two space bars make the link address visible in this post
now here u see exactly, how the protest moves north north west on Sussex Drive, with the US embassy on the right, and the Ottawa river up Sussex in the viewer’s back, approaching the second stop after parliament, the Saudi-Arabian embassy. The movie ends, with images shortly before the crowd crosses onto the river side of Sussex Drive, just at the curve to the East where that road has 2 follow the river for a while, if I interpret that correctly – what do you see?
I have spoken with Claire Brownell who handed my call 2 David Wrigley @ The Ottawa Cititzen. That conversation I recorded. U can listen 2 it right here:
where David Wrigley from the Ottawa Citizen admits 2 not checking the info coming from police and naively claims, “there is no political agenda”, never having researched any of what was just published.
After I voiced my concerns about the false statements on the website of The Ottawa Citizen from the 19. March, the mistake was hastily corrected, obviously without any additional research or double checking on the content on my input, and remained wrong, as The Saudi-Embassy is on Sussex Drive over looking the Ottawa River, not in the Byward Market, as I explained while on the phone with David Wrigley.
Also, still no word about the protest against the security forces sent into Bahrain by the United Arab Emirates.
Most troubling to me here is the fact that the reader is led 2 believe, that there is actual reporter staff on site when really, info originating within the police makes it into the headlines without any professional editor reviewing and fool proofing that info.
BY CLAIRE BROWNELL, OTTAWA CITIZEN MARCH 21, 2011 2:40 PM
OTTAWA – Police have closed Boteler Street between Dalhousie Street and King Edward Avenue for a demonstration in front of the Saudi Arabian Embassy Saturday afternoon.
Police said about 450 people took part in the demonstration, which started on Parliament Hill and then marched, late Saturday afternoon, to the Saudi Embassy in the ByWard Market. Police said the demonstration is peaceful and the road closures are in place to ensure public safety.
Bahrain does not have an embassy in Canada.
Recent pro-democracy protests in Bahrain have been violently repressed by the government.
I joined a group of protesters Saturday afternoon at about 4.30h pm EST on Sussex Drive/US embassy and would like 2 note the following observations – March 20th, 4.31 am EST:
A.
First of all, a very basic check (asked different protesters if they knew where the Bahraini embassy in Ottawa were with all of them declining any knowledge, then google with a listing in Washington, DC) seems 2 indicate that Canadian-Bahraini affairs are dealt with over only two North American diplomatic missions of the Island Kingdom, one to the US in the capital of Washington, the other to the Unites Nations in New York. No diplomatic mission of Bahrain to Canada, according to the web site of the government of Bahrain:
B.
Boteler Street was closed off and so was Sussex Drive, yet that safety measure was taken by what appeared a well present but considerate and relaxed police, mostly it seemed, not 2 interfere with car traffic of which there was hardly any on Boteler Street. At 125 Boteler Street located, however, is the Embassy Of The United Arab Emirates to Canada (1), in front of which protesters chanted their protest to King Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan (2), the president of the UAE, allegedly having authorized the deploy of security troops 2 take down pro-democracy protests in Manama, the Bahraini capital, which a press release from the web site of the UAE embassy to Canada confirms (2), as well as holding a prayer for killed protesters at home in a later phase of the demonstration. At the same place, a quarter of the assembled Ottawa-protesters also condemned Bahraini King, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa for calling in Saudi and Emirate troops to suppress and fight his own people. These chants were translated 2 me by a participating Canadian grandmother born in Syria as well as Canadian girls in their twenties from Bahraini parents on different occasions. The manifestation with many young families thus moved around the Saudi Embassy from Sussex Drive, where
C.
the peaceful crowd initially had expressed their opposition to what protesters called “an invasion” of Bahrain by 2000 troops from Saudi-Arabia, in front of the Saudi-embassy, a very modern built overlooking the Ottawa River, where many participants and their posters with shot and tortured victims of the reportedly peaceful protests were seen by frequent car traffic passing on Sussex Drive. Traffic on Sussex was stopped to let protesters cross the street onto the riverside, where grass covered green space offered more room for the demonstration than the narrow sidewalk of the east side walk of Sussex Drive.
D.
My estimate is it might have been around thousand people, a videotaping man in suit in his mid-fifties claimed 2,000 when I asked him how many protesters had participated according to his estimate.
E.
So far, I found three major news outlets reporting on a none existing embassy, completely ignoring the two real targets of the protest, the monarchs of Saudi-Arabia and The United Arab Emirates:
Bahrain protest forces road closure
By SCOTT TAYLOR, OTTAWA SUN
Last Updated: March 19, 2011 5:52pm
A demonstration outside the Bahraini embassy has prompted road closures in downtown Ottawa Saturday afternoon.
Police say about 450 people are involved in what they describe as a peaceful rally.
Boteler St. is closed from Dalhousie St. to King Edward Ave. As of 5:45 p.m. police didn’ t know how long the closures will last.
Protest at Bahraini Embassy forces downtown road closures
Updated: Sat Mar. 19 2011 6:48:03 PM ctvottawa.ca
A crowd of 450 protestors marched in front of the Bahraini Embassy in downtown Ottawa Saturday, forcing police to close several roads.
Boteler Street between Dalhousie Street and King Edward Avenue was closed for several hours. They re-opened shortly before 7 p.m. Police said the demonstration was peaceful but the closures were necessary to ensure public safety in the area.
The crowd was protesting against a recent crackdown from the Bahraini regime on anti-government protestors in the island nation, located just off the coast of Saudi Arabia.
Protestors have been demonstrating against the government there since February as part of the larger pro-democracy movement sweeping across the Middle East.
BY CLAIRE BROWNELL, OTTAWA CITIZEN MARCH 19, 2011
OTTAWA – Police have closed Boteler Street between Dalhousie Street and King Edward Avenue for a demonstration in front of the Bahraini Embassy Saturday afternoon.
Police said about 450 people took part in the demonstration, which started on Parliament Hill and called for an end to the Libyan regime of Moammar Gadhafi, and then marched, late Saturday afternoon, to the Embassy of Bahrain in the ByWard Market. Police said the demonstration is peaceful and the road closures are in place to ensure public safety.
Recent pro-democracy protests in Bahrain have been violently repressed by the government.
Those reports corroborate exactly the info I heard from a female African American officer who answered me, she had heard, 450 people participated in the protests.
Ever since I joined protesters on Sussex when passing the US embassy, I have not seen, met or spoken with either one of those seeming to report on the demonstration. I saw one camera team, no channel fonts or logos or the like, though, and none of their reporters spoke to me nor did I have a chance to enquire about their coverage. No recent footage on You Tube either tonight.
I would like to find out:
1. was there any representative of the listed media really in communication with participating protestors? when and where?
2. where does the quote “Bahraini Embassy in Ottawa/Byward Market” originate? where is that embassy, svp?
3. do media professionals now simply quote what the police tells them happened while reporters do not have time nor ressources to witness demonstrations unfold for themselves, first hand, that is, nor do the simplest of fact-checking before they put their news together?
As to the copyright of concerned outlets, it’s kinda crucial 2 document these grave mistakes on reporting in the same place, greater good and all, but also, who knows if those racing reporters might not remove those pages altogether.
(1)
from the website of the United Arab Emirates Embassy to Canada (http://www.uae-embassy.ae/Embassies/ca/news/2011/03/18/225)
quote start:
UAE sends security troops to Bahrain
Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Dr Anwar Mohammed Gergash stated that the United Arab Emirates, in response to a request from the sisterly Kingdom of Bahrain for assistance in and contribution to establishing security and domestic stability, has decided to dispatch a security force to take part in preserving order and security in Bahrain. “The United Arab Emirates affirms that this step represents a lively embodiment of its commitment to brothers in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). It is also evidently expresses that the regional security and stability at this time requires us all to unite our ranks to protect achievements, keep sectarian strife away as well as to lay foundations for the future,” Gergash added. “This is based on the United Arab Emirates’ belief in the solid historic relations, fraternal ties, kinship and common destiny that the Arab GCC member states share. It also comes in light of the sublime principles which the GCC charter established, affirms the commitment of GCC member states to close ranks against any dangers facing them and considers the stability and security of GCC member states as one indivisible whole and also as a commitment to conventions and defence and security treaties,” he further said. Gergash also noted that the United Arab Emirates follows with concern the developments in Bahrain, in particular the national dialogue initiative launched by His Royal Highness Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa, Crown Prince of Bahrain and Deputy Supreme Commander. “The UAE calls on all the Bahraini people to respond positively and without prior conditions to this invitation to contribute to the reduction of tension, end the current crisis and find suitable solutions that would preserve the achievements of the brotherly Bahraini people,” Gergash noted.
In November 2011 it's been 3 years that "BarKanada' has been airing every month. For your following I thank u very much!
"BarKanada" ist schon seit 3 Jahren auf Sendung, jeden Monat! Für Eure Unterstützung und Treue bedanke ich mich herzlich!
Ça fait 3 ans que "BarKanada" soit diffusé sur les ondes de tonkuhle.de. Merci pour votre fidèle appui!
