Author: Kate

Reader Tips

Tafelmusik – literally “table music” – is a light and airy style of classical music that was originally played at banquets and feasts. It’s also suitable, as it turns out, for post-rioting decompression. In the interests of relieving some of the pain, suffering and post-traumatic stress caused by having an officer raise his voice to you, or look at you the wrong way, or tell you that he doesn’t care what you think, tonight’s selection features a bit of soothing and peaceful tafelmusik written by 18th century Baroque composer Georg Philipp Telemann. Here are Reinhard Goebel and Musica Antiqua Köln playing the Sonata for oboe and continuo in G minor. Let the healing begin.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.

Paper Marxists

The Black Bloc in better times;

I have been involved in a wide array of coalitions on various issues over the past half-decade, and never have I witnessed cross-movement solidarity like I have in the anti-Olympics campaign. […] A strong example of that solidarity was on display during the February 12th “Take Back Our City” march. That march saw upwards of 2000 people march on BC Place during the Opening Ceremony of the Olympic Games. That march was lead by Indigenous women. When the march reached the police line outside of BC Place that night, the cops started pushing and shoving the front line of the stalled march. Indigenous women called for the Black Bloc to move to the front to hold the line. When the elders amongst that leadership group decided that the crush from the police was too much, the Black Bloc made space for them to move to the back of the crowd.

Emphasis mine.
You know, I can’t be the only one who finds the notion of a bunch of paper marxists whining about a police state ironic in the extreme.

It’s the closest they’ll ever come to experiencing the world they’re marching for – and still they’re not satisfied.

No, it’s not. It’s an idiot on a bicycle, carrying a cardboard sign.
Related: “Can’t they see I’m just a regular guy?”
I once had my car pulled over and searched 8 times in three hours by the RCMP.
We had a name for that, back when I was in high school. It was called “Saturday night”. The Carlyle RCMP detachment had 21 officers – for a town of 1200. They had to keep busy doing something when they weren’t up at White Bear or scraping bodies from Hwy 13. We got over it. In fact, I hate to break it to you, but policing in 2010 is far less arbitrary than it was in our parents’ day.
Still, could someone please tell me how police are supposed to track down young men matching the description of black bloc anarchists without actually stopping and searching people who fit the description?
I’m disappointed in you. When it’s middle class men educated in Pakistani madrassas near a high security zone, you’re all in for profiling.
But when it’s middle class men educated in Canadian universities near a high security zone, the rules become different.
A little consistency, please.

Reader Tips

Tonight’s amusement en route to the Reader Tips is a video showing that a cop who is doing the right thing – arresting a drunk driver, in this case – may also be abusing her powers in an extrajudicial, although not strictly illegal, manner: here’s the infamous dash-cam recording of Deputy Sergeant Clementine Johnson making a series of increasingly unreasonable and unfair demands on a suspected drunk driver during a field sobriety test.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.

Now Is The Time At SDA When We Juxtapose!

Globe&Mail, June 25thCanada’s outspoken spy chief has unleashed a political furor by saying that a number of politicians are influenced by foreign states, comments that left his critics wondering whether he will survive as head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
New York Daily News, June 28thTen people have been arrested for allegedly serving as secret agents of the Russian government in the United States, the Justice Department said Monday. Eight of 10 were arrested Sunday for allegedly carrying out long-term, deep cover assignments in the United States on behalf of Russia.
h/t Stephen J.

“Then we heard that a cop car was on fire at King and Bay…”

“This first approach was fairly tentative—largely nonviolent protesters dipping their toes into the water. Initially, the protesters were outnumbered by the cops, but then as more and more of them converged, they eventually outnumbered the police and started drawing closer and closer to the line: taking pictures, chanting, singing, screaming invective. “

More at The Torontoist (h/t subversible).
Not so related; “Sir, I’m going to ask you to move along. There’s really nothing to see here.” I’m staying off that particular bandwagon, but then again, I don’t pull over at the side of the road to rubberneck at accidents, either. In short, what appears to have started out as a police request to “move along” rapidly escalates into mockery and a overwhelming show of police non-violence.

“But civilian photographers will be rebuffed with a force in equal contradistinction to that not being applied to the rioters themselves.”

Except, you know, there was no force. They stuck around for 5 minutes and left under their own steam.
(By the way – who the hell picks a G20 weekend to hold their pro-Israel rally? I thought Jews were the smart ones?)

Is There Nothing That Obama Can’t Do?

I love it when a plan comes together.

Up to 1,000 jobs at Bucyrus International Inc. and its suppliers could be in jeopardy as the result of a decision by the U.S. Export-Import Bank, funded by Congress, to deny several hundred million dollars in loan guarantees to a coal-fired power plant and mine in India.
About 300 of those jobs are at the Bucyrus plant in South Milwaukee, where the company has 1,410 employees and its headquarters. The remaining jobs are spread across 13 states, including Illinois, Minnesota and Indiana.
On Thursday, the Export-Import Bank denied financing for Reliance Power Ltd., an Indian power plant company, effectively wiping out about $600 million in coal mining equipment sales for Bucyrus, chief executive Tim Sullivan said.
The fossil fuel project was the first to come before the government-run bank since it adopted a climate-change policy to settle a lawsuit and to meet Obama administration directives.
“President Obama has made clear his administration’s commitment to transition away from high-carbon investments and toward a cleaner-energy future,” Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg said in a statement. “After careful deliberation, the Export-Import Bank board voted not to proceed with this project because of the projected adverse environmental impact.”

They say people get the government they deserve. And I’d say they’re getting it, good and hard.

Reader Tips

I’m going to kick off tonight’s Reader Tips thread with a video of recent speech delivered by the United States’ new top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, honouring the brave men and women who have served in uniform over the years.
Excerpt:

They form an unbroken chain of heroes, who generation after generation have answered the call to serve, a long purple line characterized by courage, commitment and sacrifice. All of them know personally and deeply the terrible grind of constant combat. They persevered through long hard days of fighting, enduring crushing heat and withering cold; they suffered through the loss of their comrades in arms, the brother and sisters alongside whom they fought day after day and night after night, and they experienced what it is to lie in pain in a foxhole, atop a ridge, along a city street, bruised, bleeding, or broken as a result of their service to our country. So to all those who have demonstrated the courage, and made the sacrifice that the purple heart signifies, and to the families who supported them along the way, thank you – thank you – for what you did for our country, as you earned the badge of honour that is sought by none, but is respected by all.

You can see the integrity in the man’s face as he speaks. Here’s US General David Petraeus Honoring Purple Heart Veterans.
The comments are open for your Reader Tips.

Canadian Conservatives: Not Rioting Enough!

Now is the time at SDA when we juxtapose!
Toronto Sun, June 25thThe latest disturbing development in McGuinty’s Ontario is the same unit of the Ontario Provincial Police charged with minimizing violence by highway-blockading native protesters and anti-G8/G20 radicals, is now phoning up and showing up at the homes of law-abiding, middle-aged rural folks opposed to wind factories.
Globe&Mail, June 26th“Police maintained tight lines around the summit site, but largely did not intervene as marchers destroyed property.”
More here (link fixed) – ” It has been confirmed that Mike Crawley called up the OPP to initiate an investigation into a “possible” protest because he was “alarmed” at mounting opposition. Mike Crawley, the CEO of International Power Canada, also happens to be the recently resigned President of the Federal Liberal Party”
h/t Paul Sepe

Navigation