Yes, I Want Them Humiliated

So what do we do with our alleged war criminals in government?

That's what they are. The evidence from Richard Colvin and quotes from General Hillier himself indicate that officials high in our government were well aware of the treatment of Afghan prisoners. Of course, they’ve taken the black magic marker to the documents and then violated the will of the people in not releasing those documents unredacted. Then, when it got too hot, they shut down Parliament.

At least the Liberals had the courage to face their crimes, face the investigation and take their punishment.

But not the Conservatives. They’re cowards.

And let’s be clear on this. I want the politicians who are responsible to be humiliated. Because, you see, all the Liberals ever did was steal my money and, from the looks of the thing, it was a small subset of the party that did the stealing. But the Conservatives? This came from high up. They were incompetent or malicious in disregard for the treatment of prisoners and the honour of our nation.

They pissed on my flag. They pissed on our honour and our international reputation.

I still believe in the Canada that was the renowned peacekeeper of the world.

And I see these Conservative cowards, out to change Canada in to the United States, to change it in to a war monger, to destroy the honour we had in exchange for military action of dubious glory and morality. I see an Afghan prisoner afraid to tell Canadians what happened to him for fear that they would send him for more torture.

I want these people humiliated. If I could put them in stocks and parade them up and down Sussex Drive on a horse cart, I would. I would see them shamed in front of their spouses and children and grandchildren. I would see them paraded in front of every wannabe politician in the country, as if to say, “We will do this to you, too, if you ever shame us as these have shamed us.”

And, no, I don’t consider that shallow at all.

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The Emperor Has Dissolved The Parliament

Regional Governors now have direct control of their systems.

Fear will keep the opposition in line. Fear of ... of ... of ...

I don't know what we're afraid of. Terrorists maybe. Or the gays.

Apparently having our government turn in to a dictatorship of a minority isn't one of the things that inspires fear though.

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Mealy-mouthed Traitor

That's the only phrase I can think of to describe our Prime Minister.

“The allegations are not being made – I hope – against Canadian soldiers,” Mr. Harper said in a year-end interview with the French-language television network TVA. “… Our diplomats reformed the transfer system. We are speaking here of a problem among Afghans. It's not a problem between Canadians and Afghans. We're speaking of problems between the government of Afghanistan and the situation in Afghanistan. We are trying to do what's possible to improve that situation, but it's not in our control.”

First of all, no one is accusing the soldiers of anything. That apparently can't be said enough times to sink in to the thick skulls of our leading cabinet ministers. The suspicions and accusations are against the cabinet ministers for giving immoral and illegal orders.

Second, what a cowardly way to approach to the issue.

A "problem among Afghans".

Let me tell you, Mr. Harper, how this works. I shove someone at the top of a flight of stairs. As a consequence, he falls down the whole flight and breaks both his legs. Guess what? I'm legally responsible for his broken legs. You know why? Because physical damage is a reasonably predictable consequence of shoving him down those stairs. If I went before a judge and said, "All I did was shove him near the top. The rest of the problem is between him and the stairs", the judge would either laugh at me or declare me psychotic and have me institutionalized.

Of course, the difference between me and you, Mr. Harper, is that I can't violate the law and put black magic marker over all of the evidence. Boy, that must be convenient.

No, Mr. Harper, we don't accept your latest ignorant argument. We've seen the reports from Amnesty, the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and from Richard Colvin. We've heard that soldiers had actually photographed it happening. We - the entire nation - are slowly becoming aware that you knew what was going on.

And regardless of the evidence, you kept our nation in the immoral position of handing over more prisoners to be tortured.

If those reports were available to you, and it certainly looks like they were, torture was a reasonably predictable consequence of the actions take by your government. And that would make the bunch of you war criminals.

Best of luck at the trial.

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What Torture Really Means to Canada

Occasionally, in the middle of all of the politicking and nonsense that goes on, one person makes a simple statement. There aren't often big words in this statement. It's rarely meant to be taken as some grand pronouncement.

But somehow, it sums up exactly what the problem is.

Today, I found that statement. It was in a letter written by Richard Colvin, the much abused diplomat who blew the whistle on the government's mishandling of prisoners detained by Canada.

It's not a Colvin quote, though. It's Colvin quoting someone else.

One detainee told Canadian monitors that at first, he did not want to tell them about having been tortured because Canadians had been responsible for his detention and therefore he did not trust them.

Remember the good old days? Remember when we thought of ourselves as the world's peacekeepers? Remembered when we were well thought of throughout the world? Remember those days?

Those days are gone. Now people who are being tortured are afraid to run to us for fear that they will be tortured even more.

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Freedom of Speech vs. Bullying

This decision sounds wrong.

One student made a youtube video denouncing another girl as a spoiled brat and a slut.

The victim, crying, complained to a teacher. The school took it up and had the offender suspended for two days.

The case was brought to a judge, who wrote the following:

“To allow the school to cast this wide a net and suspend a student simply because another student takes offense to their speech, without any evidence that such speech caused a substantial disruption of the school’s activities, runs afoul [of the law],’’ judge Stephen V. Wilson wrote in a 60-page opinion.

“The court cannot uphold school discipline of student speech simply because young persons are unpredictable or immature, or because, in general, teenagers are emotionally fragile and may often fight over hurtful comments,’’ he wrote.

That sounds well and good. But this isn't merely "taking offense" by one student. This is meant to attack and humiliate another student. And no one is preventing the bullying classmate from posting more screeds on the Internet. What the school is doing is making a decision regarding how students are to treat one another. Stepping outside those bounds is grounds for suspension.

I'm going to guess the judge has never been a teacher. Keeping discipline in the classroom can be difficult. The school has a right and a responsibility to keep the classroom an open and peaceful forum where every student feels welcome. This judge has now decided that schools don't have that right. In other words, even if the school knows that cruel bullying is going on, the school can't do anything about it because that would be infringing on the bully's right to be cruel.

I've said it before and I know I'll say it again: the rules are designed to protect bullies. That's because bullies are the ones with the aggressive natures that get them in to the position where they can make rules.

This situation is no different from many others throughout schools in North America.

h/t to Freddy Stubbs democratic underground.

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Presumption of Guilt

You know what, Mr. Harper? Mr McKay? Mr. O'Connor?

I'm going to go right ahead and assume you're guilty; that you're all war criminals. That's right. I'll say it. I'm going to right ahead and assume that you're lying, untrustworthy crooks guilty of heinous crimes and deserving of jail time.

I know what you're saying: innocent until proven guilty. That's the letter of the law, right? That's how things work in this country.

Well, apparently things have changed.

You see, there's this 15 year old kid that got arrested in Afghanistan. He's been in jail for most of a decade now without a trial. You haven't even tried to repatriate him. You just went and ahead and assumed he was guilty.

Then there was that lady, I think she was in Kenya, trying to get back to Canada. You assumed that she was an impostor and forced her to prove she was innocent. You didn't assume her innocence.

There was another guy that you let the Sudanese torture. He had to get holed up in our embassy in Sudan for months before you let him come home, even after the Sudanese had tortured him and determined - under torture - that he wasn't guilty of anything. What more could a guy do?

So you know what? If you're doing away with the presumption of innocence for other Canadians, I don't see why we should presume you're innocent.

Especially since you're hiding something. Absence of evidence is, after all, absence of evidence. I'm sure you'd agree if, say, the Liberals had tried to put black magic marker over all kinds of documents related to something like the sponsorship scandal.

And that brings me to my last point. Because the Liberals were crooked too. I won't even argue. The Liberals stole my nation's money, and that made me angry.

But you, you sons of bitches, you've stolen my nation's honour. And that makes me furious.

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You're Way Too Fat

Just thought I'd throw that out there.

Kind of offensive, isn't it?

What if I sat next to you in a cafeteria, presuming us to be previously acquainted, and told you that you were too fat, that you were eating too much unhealthy food? What if I told you that the sight of you was so revolting that you should immediately lay off the bacon and the salad dressing? What if I started counting the rolls of fat on your stomach or the number of your chins? What if wrinkled my nose at you and told you to get some exercise?

I think we could all agree that every one of those statements would be considered offensive in our society. For whatever reason, much like the 1970s era taboo against telling smokers to frak off, we’re supposed to dance around fat people as if there’s nothing wrong with them.

But not skinny people.

You can say whatever you want about skinny people, especially children, especially if you’re related to them. Try these out for size.

“You’re too skinny. Eat more food.”
“Oh my goodness! You poor thing. Do they feed you at home? You look sick. Eat some more.”
“Look at you! I can count your ribs.”
“He’s so tiny. Have you taken him to the doctor?”
“Someone should pour fertilizer in your shoes, little guy.”

Not nearly as taboo, are they? Why is it you can ‘count my ribs’ but not your own rolls of fat? Where do we get this assumption that fat people have fragile egos and we need to dance around them? Where do we get this idea that skinny kids are expected to suck up all of the insults and destruction of their self esteem? Oh, don’t let the fat, unhealthy people have negative self images, but let’s all go to town on the healthy, skinny kid. You can trash his emotions all you want. Drive him right in to the ground.

You know what? The next person who insults a skinny kid is getting an earful from me.

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