A Face for the Cause

One year ago today, we Toronto folk first became acquainted with the above image upon learning of this young lady meeting a premature demise in the crossfire of a gunfight. In the months hence, her death fueled cries for tougher legislation against those who brandish weapons - the ones without badges, anyway. The name Jane Creba is now etched in our collective memory. She has attained immortality.

In the year since the world lost Jane, I can't begin to count the number of people just like her were taken from us by acts of violence. How many children have been claimed by violent acts this year? How many dead children in Darfur? or in Iraq? Afghanistan? Somalia? or anywhere else, for that matter? Where is the attention for these unfortunate souls? They, too, were caught in the crossfire of "gang warfare", if you will, and, like Jane, they were loved by family and friends. While we lay memorials for Jane, in a war zone, the public is in a perpetual state of grief, as not a day goes by without someone you know being killed.

In the wake of such tragedy, we call for the heads of the perpetrators. We feel a sense of security knowing we can throw people in jail, yet we don't see crime disappearing. The same people who start these wars to which I alluded earlier start the wars in our own backyard. The neoliberal world is one hustle after the next. It's a war out there, both overseas and at home. Much like our men and women in uniform, for many, violence is a means for survival, for advancement in the game of capital. More will suffer the same fate as Jane if we continue to dismiss the idea of a gun being a source of income.

The next time you look to scapegoat guns or impoverished Black youth or video games or violence on television, ask yourselves the following: who controls what you see on your television sets? who wants you to buy the video games? who makes and sells the guns?

Jane, may you one day rest in peace.

Merry Christmas to all...?

Permit me to begin by highlighting what this holiday meant to Henry Miller:

"Since attaining manhood I had never known a good Christmas. No matter how I fought against it, Christmas Day always found me in the bosom of the family - the melancholy knight wrapped in his black armor, forced like every other idiot in Christendom to stuff his belly and listen to the utterly empty babble of his kin ... if only it were the celebration of the birth of a free spirit!"

And now, a chronicle of the tidings brought forth to "free spirits" the world over:

Five killed in Haiti slum raid

Ethiopia pushes deeper into Somalia

Darfur in crisis, still

Japan executes four prisoners by hanging

Series of bombings in Iraq kills at least fifteen

Battle over control of village kills fourteen Colombian national soldiers

...and, to top it all off...

Goldman Sachs boss gets $53.4 million dollar Christmas bonus

So, ladies and gentlemen, if you find yourselves to be the "melancholy knight wrapped in black armor" at the table again, here are but a few of the many discussion pieces you can use to break the monotony of the "utterly empty babble" of your kin. Let's see how much "Peace on Earth" really matters to our loved ones.

The World of Man

Accused in Ipswich prostitute killings appears in court

Duke lacrosse rape charges dropped

What can I say about the sociopathic behaviour exhibited by men towards women that hasn't already been said? Is it not bad enough that these women depend on sexual servitude to pay the bills and put food on the table? Do you think young women aspire to have men leer, grope and fuck them for money? Does it not matter that these women come from homes broken by poverty and/or abuse, or, because I'm the paying customer, I don't have to give a shit, that I have full dominion over her body?

Is it any wonder that these atrocities continue to happen? How many of us men, after seeing an aesthetically pleasing woman, haven't thought how we'd like to bend her over and fuck the shit out of her? or how much we'd enjoy ejaculating all over her face? How many of us men, when in the company of our bretheren, haven't cracked wise about the idea of gang-banging so-and-so? How many of us see the connection? Will our trusted purveyors of information show us, or will they continue to try to negate history in the name of a sensational story?

Jail will not resurrect these five Ipswich women, nor will it undo the abuse brought forth to this young woman in North Carolina because throwing these men into cages and patting ourselves on the back for a job well done does not begin to address the issue. If you were to catch a rapist or serial murderer, why on Earth would you not psychoanalyze the person? Why would you not want to understand, piece by piece, why this man - yes, rapists and serial murderers are usually men... and White men, no less! - felt compelled to negate the rights a woman has over her own body to scratch his itch? or are you afraid that, as he reveals himself to you, you will see yourself in him?

The Age of Empires

I stumbled across the election results from Iran over the wire as I had just finished digesting this on the symposium on the Holocaust brought upon the Jewish population of Europe under Fascist rule during the 1930s and 1940s, hosted by Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, most beknownst to us Western folk for harbouring contempt for the State of Israel. Many of the major players of the International Community are crying foul, that he is encouraging hostility towards the Jewish people.

First, on the election - yes, "they" do have elections; much like with most of us, it's religion that remains unquestioned - it pleases me to see some semblance of rationality in the parties elected to the various ecclesiastic and tribal councils, as I hopeful they will be helpful in holding Mr. Ahmadinejad's power in check. Then again, you know how I feel about how much our "democracy" has accomplished.

On the conference itself, regardless of how you feel about this fellow, you cannot deny, at the very least, that, for whatever reason you feel, the Holocaust triggered a chain of events shaping the current geopolitical landscape. A professor of political science at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, one Dr. Shiraz Dossa, received a verbal flogging for attending the conference that played host to the likes of David Duke, a conference at which he had hoped to discuss the very point I raised at the beginning of this paragraph. So what if David Duke happened to be there as well? He's a rich old Republican bigot. He, too, had hopes for this shindig, I'll bet.

If it is not already obvious to you, I wish to make perfectly clear Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, if he really enjoys being President, will not dare launch any assault on Israel, the likes of which were seen over the summer in Beirut. If you have an issue with his playing arms dealer to Hamas and Hezbollah, welcome to your high-artillery reality, where all the big players, regardless of flag pattern, supply weapons to the rest of the world. Who would want to disrupt an already good thing, save for a party already on the aggressive?

Getting down to brass tacks, one would argue that the wanton slaughter of European Jews provided the catalyst for the region's current geopolitical landscape. Some might say much of elite Europe was granted its wish in 1948, given the history of persecution seen by said people in the years leading up to World War I - coincidentally enough, the White Man had redrawn the region's borders after its victory over the Ottoman.

It seems the State of Israel, comprised of militaristic opportunists and wealthy American-bred Nationalists, enjoys using the Holocaust as a playing card in the grand game of Risk whenever faced with criticism over its foreign policy. It is a shame that the State is allowed to speak for the Jewish people, who are being killed along with the Muslims. It is a shame that criticism of the State of Israel constitues slander against the Jewish people, that politics and other forms of fear-mongering are preventing Christian and Jew and Muslim from coexisting in the region, that a mere whisper of the word "Holocaust" in a manner unapproving of Israel is akin to denial of its occurrence. What about the Holocaust brought upon the indigenous peoples of the world? You can't turn your head without finding an apologist for the oppressors. These crimes aren't even worthy of a fucking nod from the U.N.!

Welcome to the Age of Empires, where history is written by the conqueror, which is why you are not likely to read or hear of Nixon installing Pinochet as Leader of Chile, or of the high praise for Mussolini during the prosperous 1920s by America's major media, business elite and KKK-led Government. Mr. Ahmadinejad is but another player at the high-stakes table. It's too bad we always have to be the chips.

Charity begins with Truth

As you may already be aware, Conservatives give more to charity than Liberals. I'm not surprised to see so many Republicans giving charitably. I wonder if this study included the Church as a "charity"...

Enough about that. I'm not interested in getting caught up in any partisan pissing contest. I wanted to focus my thoughts on what jumped out at me from this story:

"One wonders what has happened to charity in wealthy coastal states like California, New York and Connecticut -- which, for the record, still donate large absolute sums of money. Residents of these states simply do not donate as large a share of their income as the nice and modest folk in flyover-land cities like Topeka, Kansas, or Sioux Falls, S.D."

It seems the poorer folk, per dollar income, donate more than the wealthy. Lest we forget a significant contribution to the Republican voter base comes from pious working poor who hail from the rural "heartland". Like you and me, these people look out for one another. They know the value of an honest day's work. They want only the best for their loved ones. It's a shame the Church and the State have their meathooks firmly wrapped around their collective heart, for if only they knew that, year after year, they were electing the conditions necessitating charity, that their leaders were keeping the poor poor to allow the rich to become richer, that most of this relief money gets channeled through non-governmental organizations (NGOs) into the coffers of bureaucrats and businessfolk.

This story reminded me why we so-called compassionate "Lefties" are failing: we are not reaching out to these humble folk, despite the fact that these are the very individuals who need convincing. I am not ashamed to say I have developed a fondness for Jesus Christ because, after a childhood immersed in religious dogma, I finally understand the point of it all. I've learned to see past the imagery and into the soul of this figure.

He was a worker, a son, a friend. He wished only for peace among everyone and everything, and, for that, he was murdered, by the very people who purvey his image, the very people who tell us he died for our sins. He died for our sins because it is our sins we allowed to kill him, and, by allowing our brothers and sisters to be swayed by these false messengers of what they consider to be "God", we are killing Jesus all over again.

But I digress. My suggestion is to reach them by using the knowledge they hold dearest to them to tear down the icons that have their attention. These teachings were intended to promote love and understanding, despite the hatred and fear religion has fostered since time immemorial. Regardless of how we, as people, feel about religion, we cannot simply abandon it entirely. Even if you have little or no understanding of religious text, the message should be loud and clear.

The Conservative pundits can hoot and holler all they want about their victory over Liberals in yet another pissing contest. You can do your part for charity all you want, but only when the perpetrators responsible for this socio-economic chasm are brought to justice will the need for said charity disappear.

Chile's 9/11

At this point, I wish to state that my knowledge of Chilean history is very limited, so I'm bound to get a few things wrong. I welcome any and all input, even if it's to tell me to go to Hell.

It was brought to my attention that yesterday - coincidentally enough, it had been International Human Rights Day, according to the United Nations - Augusto Pinochet died at the age of ninety-one. Not too long ago, he had been deemed mentally fit to stand trial for numerous human rights offenses against many of his political opponents during his reign as ruler of Chile from 1973 to 1990.

It was on the eleventh of September 1973 that General Pinochet seized the presidency from socialist Salvador Allende through what I've been told was a rather bloody coup d'état. This was not to be the last of the bloodshed during his seventeen-year reign, as it has been said that over 3,000 political dissidents were executed on the orders of the General.

Of course, the man was not without his supporters. After his liberalization of the economy, exposed to the mercy of the market, many Chileans thrived. I imagine many were thrilled to have their land returned to them. Even the foreign Chilean landowners. Hell, someone has to keep the free world swimming in copper wire.

Washington was losing the firm foothold on Latin American resources it had for decades to the "red" influence, if you will. Salvador Allende, a socialist, was elected President of Chile on 4 September 1970. It seemed it didn't require a Castro to bring socialism by force; it was being elected. It had been elected in Guatemala in 1950 only to be toppled four years hence. If it ain't broke...

A CIA-trained, American-taxpayer-funded militia, led by General Pinochet, seized control over the State and all of its resources, so that it may sell them off to the highest low bidder. With any new government comes a desire to rid itself of the past, including supporters of the previous government, which would lead one to assume that the 3,000 or so known victims seems to me a plausible estimate.

So what about the recently departed?

I'm not surprised the old fucker lived such a lengthy life, for they always seem to do so. For fuck's sake, Ronald Reagan lived to see ninety-three! - although many suspect whether or not he actually "saw" anything after seventy. Nixon, was eighty-two, wasn't he? Ford is ninety-something and still hanging around. I hope there's a valid reason for all of this.

It's a shame that this man lived to see over ninety-one years of life while his political adversaries and their loved ones did not as a result of his orders. It's a shame he will not be alive to see justice brought to him and the families and friends of the people he had murdered. It's a shame that he is being hailed because of his servitude to the free market economy. My hope is that he, as well as the rest of the old vultures, used their extra time to count up the years they took away. I hope they thought long and hard on them.

I am a firm believer of Heaven and Hell within the Self, thus I hope their attonement came from within during their final days. I hope they truly saw the light of God, as it shone on their sins as their brains slowly died. That is what eternity means to me, Mister Pinochet; the last you see on Earth will be yourself.

Happy Human Rights Day.

International Human Rights Day

December 10 has been designated "International Human Rights Day" by the United Nations. I wanted to comment on the matter, but I'm having trouble finding the right words to use, so here goes.

For the rich to remain rich, the poor have to stay poor. The amount of capital available is finite, and a select group of people aim to maintain control over as much of it as it can, leaving the vast majority in a scramble for the table scraps. The United Nations tells us eliminating poverty is "a matter of obligation, not charity". The way I see it, unless this means an obligation to the truth, the battle is already lost.

Hardly any of us question why the poor folk are still poor while corporations make a killing from the land on which they live. Hardly any of us wish to discuss how this free market economy has left the door open for pillaging and plundering in an effort to grab as much as one can while one can. The only way human rights will cease being an issue is through justice, and that begins with truth. Human rights remains a problem because the private interests behind each of our media streams aim to keep the good times rolling. The problem is, when we're all dying, there'll be fewer and fewer bodies to operate the machinery.

Keeping in the spirit of things, might I recommend watching Matewan.

The Other Side of the Wall

Jimmy Carter says Canada's withholding funds from Palestinians 'criminal'

You can question Jimmy Carter's actions in the past as he ascended the political ladder. You can question Jimmy Carter's rhetoric on the subject matter, or, if you wish, even his character. However, the fact remains that the Palestinian people are getting the short end of our long stick because the Palestinian people elected Hamas to its government. Instead of acknowledging their practicing "democracy", we punish them for choosing a government we don't like. We allowed their civil servants to work without pay because we can't come to grips with seeing "terrorists" voted into office.

I wanted to draw attention to a remark appearing in the article:

Carter's latest book has drawn stern rebukes from current Democratic leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Democratic National Committee Chair Howard Dean.

"With all due respect to former president Carter, he does not speak for the Democratic party on Israel," Pelosi said in a statement.

For those of you looking to the recent House-Senate sweep by the Democrats as a sign of hope for the future, with statements like these, forget it, for, as long as both major political parties choose standing shoulder-to-shoulder with their White imperialist comrades who comprise the cabal that is the State of Israel, along with those Christian rulers of Lebanon, over acting as mediator in an attempt to bring calm to both sides, expect the situation to deteriorate further.

As I have said before, the refusal of Hamas and its allies to recognize the State of Israel is interpreted by me as a rejection of White imperialism in the region. Let me make clear that I reject the notion that Israeli citizens rooted in the region should pack up and leave, as that would justify their government's razing of Muslim communities in favour of Jewish settlements. I'm saying the governments of Israel, America and their allies need to get their collective act together if they truly want the bloodshed to cease - and, frankly, I'm not so sure this is in their interests.

Sometimes, it's important to imagine how they feel on the other side of the wall.

In the news up north...

MPs defeate bid to reopen same-sex marriage

Canadians getting wealthier - and more in debt

People in highly taxed countries "better off", says report

Lest We Forget...

On this day in 1989, fourteen women were shot to death at École Polytechnique in Montreal before the gunman ended his own life.

Our partiarchical society, always priding itself on violence as a justifiable means, allowed fourteen women to have their lives cut short by a man alleging to be "anti-feminist", for whatever reason I will likely never know. I'm not here to pass judgement on this individual, but rather to ask why one ever feels the need to dehumanize others by opening fire on them, and why gun control became more important than justice for women, and everyone else, for that matter.

When you pay your homage, think not of these fourteen souls, but also of those who were and are raped and abused in Iraq, in Thailand, in Rwanda, in our own backyard. Think of yourself having your body violated for someone else's gain.

The Hustle

I'm not one to pontificate on this matter, seeing as how I have a home and the homeless don't, but, as far as I'm concerned, these folk need as many voices as they can get, so here goes.

What do most of us do about the homeless?

We ridicule and insult them for who they are, what they are,
and how they ended up where they are.
We tell them to pull themselves together,
then expect them to stumble upon
a shower, razor, suit, paper and print for a résumé,
and an address to stamp onto it before
we allow them to set foot through the door.

Where do they get the cash to cover all of that?

Those who don't beg you for mercy
will lie, cheat and hustle it from you.
Theirs is a different ladder they climb.
There are more ways than one to ascend to the top.
Their dream will be your nightmare.
Your dream has been theirs.

What's wrong with this picture?

The Intergalactic Empire

U.S. plans permanent base on the Moon

Leave it to America to fortify natural resources for itself on foreign territory. We're showing the world to whom those minerals on the Moon belong!

Army vs. Navy

The Army and the Navy.
The Privates and the Seamen.
Are these names but a mere masculine joke?
Or is this assertion of their being America's cock and balls?

I wonder if she was awarded to the victors in 1936.

Powering Our Future

While I support these initiatives to utilize renewable energy sources to support our consumptive needs, I can't help but ponder how much easier this could be if we generated our power locally and consumed less. Wind power plants are well and good, but think of how much renewable energy would be at our disposal with a solar panel on every rooftop. Why do we have to sit around and wait for wind turbines to be erected while we suck down finite resources when each of us can do so much more on the ground level?

Here's why.

If each household generated its own power, electricity would cease being a market commodity. The establishment who sells us our power would no longer be able to hold it for ransom. By focusing on large-scale power plants, this establishment remains in control of the flow of electricity, such as it does the flow of oil, gas and other commodities. It would much rather preserve its profit margin than stabilize our communities by allowing us end users access to the means to convert energy for ourselves.

I doubt any energy executives are reading this humble civilian's log, but if, perchance, any of you have stumbled upon this, I urge you to step back and examine your approach to this pursuit of "green energy", for, as it stands now, it will not keep up with our demands and time will run out; and when time does run out, your profit margins will mean nothing.

What does "the Environment" mean to you?

This weekend, the circus has rolled into Montreal. The national Liberal party is choosing its Master Ass to lead its way into battle against the Master of Asses himself, Mr. Stephen Harper. One of the candidates, a Stéphane Dion, stressed that "the environment" mattered more than anything. He was right in more ways than he could have ever thought.

A slum is an environment.
A sweatshop is an environment.
A broken home - how many of any are fixed? - is an environment.
A schoolyard full of bullies is an environment.
A war zone is an environment.

"The environment" does not simply mean the ecosystem. For all of us, "the environment" in which we live bombards us with images of the ideals to which we should conform. "The environment" is making us ill because we have made it ill, and it's high time we did things differently.

Finally. A politician said something right, even if he wasn't aware of doing so.