Stop The Presses

I am done with the mainstream press. It’s as simple as that. I will no longer allow puppets to set the agenda for my life. Amid the intricate cogs required to keep the wheels of democracy turning, the one labeled Fifth Estate is seized. It’s FUBAR. A free, independent press is the cornerstone of democracy – without it, the rest crumbles to ashes. Well, look around you. That ship has sailed, and in large part that is due to the fact that the press was nothing more than a cheap whore standing on the corner, wearing a short leather skirt and letting her boobs hang out, reminding politicians and the corporate elite that absolutely anything, even cornerstones and democracy, are up for grabs. It is this fact, and this fact alone, that has destroyed democracy, and is to blame for the loss of countless thousands of lives.

Gone are the principled, tenacious Woodwards and Bernsteins who, despite being ordered to back off, could smell the blood in the water and demanded of themselves to find out where the bodies really were. Of course, having done that and discovering that there was a bigger payoff in movie and book residuals... These two men were my idols growing up. They did what was right. It was an unrepeatable event, I know – that thing that happens only once in a lifetime, but I am so very thankful that I saw it at least once in my lifetime. I am not so sure that my children will ever see something like that in their lifetimes.

Now our mainstream media is nothing more than the paid propaganda machine, the Joseph Goebbels of our time, telling us what they want us to hear. They aren’t totally to blame. We have made the choice to listen, despite knowing that what they are saying isn’t totally accurate, or that the main part of the story is neatly tucked away where we’ll never find it. We have Brian Williams admitting to lying about a story, and perpetrating that lie for years. We have Amanda Lang keeping secret a massive conflict of interest, and allowing that to skew the true story. We have CNN and, well, every other media outlet, looking for the best, catchiest, cutest title for whatever story they have decided will own the day, and they will cover nothing else but that story. We have Peter Mansbridge selling his soul to ask the most ridiculous, softball questions of a crooked Prime Minister, and challenging absolutely none of the blatant lies he is offered in response. We have Fox... well, let’s not even go there; this is about news media, and anyone who does not or will not see what Fox is doing then deserves the crap that will befall them. Even Sarah Palin readily accepts and states that Fox is – ‘a quasi or assumed Conservative outlet’. The press is not doing its job when it can be labeled as supporting one side; you know, it’s that pesky unbiased, fair thing that catches them up in this regard.

We have a lot of problems in this world. Funny thing, though, is that all of them work to the advantage of the corporate elite. All of it makes money for them – the war on terror in particular. Listen to politicians and the media talk about this. They work overtime to inflame the situation, daily widening the chasm between two groups of people. Ask yourself who benefits from all of this. It’s the people who make the weapons. The more they can stir up shit, the more weapons they sell, and they stack the deck, because they arm both sides. Where did ISIS get their weapons? When are we going to learn? In every conflict the same shit happens, and we sit on our sofas and allow this BS to spew forth from our sets, lapping it up and fearing the Russian, Cuban, Columbian, Mexican, North Korean, Muslim – you pick – hoards. The biggest winner in the Gulf Wars was Haliburton. There is no question there. Look back on other conflicts and see where the weapons came from. I’ll give you a hint – there will only be a few names that pop up.

Canada just signed a deal to give more military supplies to Saudi Arabia. We have a law here that says we are not to sell arms or supplies to countries that will use those arms or supplies against their own people. I guess that only applies when the people are women – then it’s open season. I guess those laws also don’t apply when we know that Saudi Arabia is passing some of those supplies on to our own enemies, either directly or through back door deals. War is guaranteed income. If we don’t fight, there is no more money to be made. That means, to the puppet masters, war is essential because people like the Bush family will never have enough money.

The other benefit though, is that while we are being inundated with looped video of beheadings, the stories we should be hearing are ignored. We’re too busy fearing that ISIS is going to knock down our door and cart us away. We’re too busy giving up our freedom to speak, to write, to think. We’re too busy allowing the government to have access to everything we do, without cause or oversight. The governments are doing this because to them, there is nothing more important than being in power. They love it. Hey have to be there because no one else could do it as good as they do, and because there are definite financial benefits to paving the roads for the beautiful people to drive on. Voters? Who needs them? Democratic elections are nothing more than fraud now. The gerrymandering, the money raising, the robocalling... none of this would be accepted in a democratic, free world.

The politicians, though, aren’t controlling the string. The media has been bought out, and has sold us out, pretty much across the board. Why don’t they cover the slaughter in Nigeria? Because there is no economic plus to it for the people selling weapons. Why, at the time of every school shooting, are people not asking about the guns? Well, you know why. You know the way to solve the problem, but instead it’s just so much easier to allow the NRA and fear screw with your judgment. Why are we hearing every day about Christianity being threatened? Because it’s how you make war. Say what you will about religion, it is sure to always and forever be a money maker for fear mongers and arms sellers. Why are there still people debating the science of climate change? Because it’s not convenient to those who want to make the money from war and oil. Why are people like Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee still given air time? Because they are morons and easily led, despite the absolute utter hypocrisy of their words and ideals: they are fear mongers of the finest kind, and critical to keeping the rest of us cowering and looking in the wrong direction. Why are we being told to panic about the economy right now? Because it’s all designed to make us believe that the only way to salvation is pipelines, pipelines that will do nothing for us. It’s a bit of a Hail Mary pass on the part of the oil companies, but put the value of a barrel of oil into freefall, watch currency fall, watch jobs disappear, and watch the people come running begging for a damned pipeline, giving the oil companies everything they want and more.

The media isn’t the pawn in this game, though. They aren’t being moved around on a whim. They are controlled from within, and are now masters of prestidigitation, their sleight of hand never better as they dazzle us with Snowmagedons or Shock and Awe. It's about stacking the deck against us, against the small business, the upstart, the working man. It's about keeping us in our place, and the best way to do that is to keep us distracted, poor, and working our asses off so we're too tired to notice. We listen to the rote answers, repeated dozens of time, word for word, in an attempt to make us not question, or not think, reminding us that we’re really nothing more than petulant puppies and that whacking us with a newspaper enough times will get the

message through to us. The truly criminal part of all of this, though, is that we’ve let them. The only chink in the armor, for the last 80 years, has been the exposure of Watergate. It’s the one thing that we should remember, daily, because the press did what it was supposed to. It hasn’t happened since. I suspect it never will, at least not in the mainstream media. Mission accomplished? Oh yeah, a lot of missions accomplished, just not the ones the rest of us were privy to, and certainly not ones that are intended to help us. They play us well. 

Harper’s Bizarre: The Litany Continues

DATELINE: TAKING OUT MY PEN AND WRITING A LETTER: I recently posted a list of Prime Minister Harper’s Scandals. It’s hard to imagine that it could have grown at all in such a short time, but each day we hear more about his abuse of power, his unaccountability of our money, his complete disregard for laws. Just when you think it can’t get worse, that he has to have sunk to his lowest level, he surprises you. There is apparently nothing he will not stoop to in order to maintain his hold on the big seat.

Case in point... it recently has been revealed that he has been ‘rewriting’ history, changing or deleting what he doesn’t like or what doesn’t suit his purpose. In a way, I was glad to hear this, because I was sure I was losing my mind when I accused him of this three years ago. I had been researching information regarding the Vietnam war for a book I was writing. The Vietnam War, you say? Well, yes, because while we were not officially involved, there were tens of thousands of men, Canadian men, young men, who went down to the United States to enlist, because they thought they were doing the right thing. They were labelled as mercenaries up here (seriously, considering what the military here and in the US are paid, this is either laughable or pathetic... I’m not sure which) but they had the power of their convictions and the desire to help others, so they joined up. There were more Canadians who went down to help in Vietnam than there were Americans who came up here to avoid the draft. Chew on that fact for awhile.

These men, if they were hurt or killed in action, were disavowed by BOTH governments, and they still are to this day. There are no health benefits, no assistance plans. Neither the US government nor the Canadian government recognizes their sacrifices. Those Canadians who perished in Vietnam were denied any proper burial, because they were pariahs. Finally, though, there was some headway being made to help these men. I know. I read about them in the Canadian government archives on the internet, on the official Canadian Government website. There was information about the numbers of men who went to the US to enlist, and what happened to them. There was information about the money that was made by Canadian entities who, while not supporting the war and remaining completely neutral, lined their pockets with the blood of other men.

Today that page no longer exists on the government website. It’s not convenient. It might mean that perhaps a crack could have been closed, some help could have been arranged for those men and their families, that some recognition and assistance might be forthcoming, but god forbid that happen in Stephen Harper’s Canada. Today it is the story of our boys who fought in Vietnam; tomorrow will they erase the history of my uncle who fought in Dieppe? Where does he stop? How much of our history will be destroyed, how many lives complete disregarded and disrespected, in his efforts to pave the way to political supremacy? We are waiting, sure that the trickle-down dregs of the 1% will boost the rest of us. Beyond that, and his attempts (however illegal or immoral) to maintain power, nothing else matters. The world revolves around the Harper Government and his ability to keep a stranglehold on it. That is much easier to accomplish with a poor, underfed, undereducated and uninformed population. He is taking great strides to ensure that. To this end, I present the updated (at least as of this morning... God only knows what else has happened today, but if it involves this government, it can’t be good) litany of Harper’s scandals. When you have read it, perhaps you will join me in writing to the Governor General, requesting that he do what he is mandated to do -- dissolving this Parliament and calling a new election, before Harper is so out of control, there is no turning back. Each day we wait, more of our history, and our future, is being systematically and systemically destroyed.

Archives ‘cleansing’ – The Harper government is working through the Canadian Archives, destroying things that don’t quite agree with their position, effectively politically rewriting our history.
Consultation -- $2.4Billion spent on unspecified, undescribed, unaccounted for ‘consultation’.
Lost money -- $3.1Billion ‘lost’ dollars designated for National Security.
Illegal contributions – this time from those receiving patronage appointments (ie IE directors) who are legally forbidden from making political contributions, but who made $37,000 of them anyway.
Duffy-Dipping Affair – It was first revealed that Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy, Senators appointed by Harper, were filing false claims for expenses, stemming from being ‘unsure’ about the definition of ‘primary’ residence. Then it was revealed that Duffy had claimed $90,000 in expenses as both Senate costs, billed to the Canadian Taxpayer, AND Conservative Party campaigning costs, double dipping for twice the pay. Then it was revealed that the Prime Ministers Chief of Staff cut a cheque for the full amount, effectively paying back Duffy’s owings, thereby preventing another audit AND attempting to stop a criminal investigation into the matter. Then it was revealed that the deal regarding the payment of the money was fine-tuned by special counsel to the Prime Minister, constituting yet ANOTHER conflict of interest.
CBC Control – The Harper government announced that they will be taking over the appointing of staff to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, effectively taking control over the news and the way it is presented to the public, providing them with more political spin at public expense.
Temporary Foreign Workers Scandal with Royal Bank and other large corporations for the importing of foreign workers to replace Canadian workers.
Bail-In Provision snuck through to allow government access to personal savings accounts to settle government debts (2013)
Long Gun Registry – stopped then reinstated (April 2013) with increased registration fees for restricted weapons and the yearly renewing of licence for long guns
Robocalls (2012) – issuing fake, misleading calls to actively interfere with voting public
Canada Action Plan ad campaign Part 1 -- $26M taxpayer dollars over 3 months for programs already ended in order to promote conservative party
Canada Action Plan ad campaign Part 2 – while unemployment, particularly student unemployment, rises steadily, Harper continues his Canada Action Plan ads at high-cost events, for no purpose other than pre-campaigning.
ETS Scandal – An IT contract was unfairly awarded to CGI, a known association of Michael Fortier, the then PWGSC Minister in a clear conflict of interest. No fairness monitor was appointed to oversee the process, reported scores by evaluators did not coincide with what they had issued, the evaluation team was advised to destroy all records relating to the evaluation, the government refused to debrief companies that had lost the award, the Canadian International Trade Tribunal ruled against the government, and the government’s response was angry denial and to appoint a new federal crown prosecutor (a former Conservative candidate) to charge the unsuccessful companies involved in the bid process with big-rigging – a charge still unproven but the case continues four years after the fact.
CFIA (2012) – food inspection services cut, listeriosis outbreak, Minister Gerry Ritz’s tasteless jokes about deaths from outbreak.
Prorogation – Part 1 (to avoid contempt of parliament fallout)
Prorogation – Part 2 (to avoid NDP/Liberal coalition government)
Shoe Store Project (2007) – plans for a $2M gov’t controlled media center, run by the PMO to replace the National Press Gallery, run by the national press.
Julie Couillard Scandal (2007) – Maxime Bernier leaves sensitive NATO documents at ex-girlfriend’s house, a woman with known ties to the Hells Angels
In and Out (2007) – Circumnavigation of election finance rules in 2006 election. $230,000 in fines issued for violating spending laws
Plagiarizing – Part 1 (2007) plagiarizes Australia’s John Howard’s speech about Iraq
Plagiarizing – Part 2 (2008) from Ontario Mike Harris’speech
Repatriation scandal – issues orders that military personnel killed in combat would not receive repatriation attention or coverage and no flags would be at half-mast
Scrums – all media scrums forbidden. Press statements will be issued when the government feels they are necessary
Chuck Cadman scandal – bribe for the vote in parliament, then lied under oath about it and the tape evidence of the bribe
Senior Federal Scientists Gagged – not allowed to speak to media without government permission... still in effect in 2012
Long-form Census stopped, cutting access to valuable statistics
Suspended Federal civil servants’ right to strike
Limiting access of press to PM during election – misusing RCMP to restrict access at private events
Created a program to monitor and respond to online communications on internet bulletin boards, chatrooms and blog posts
Omnibus bill to pass non-financial bills with budget, making it impossible to reject pieces of the overall bill, thereby circumventing parliamentary process in the passing on individual bills.
Stopping debate on bills in legislature
Removed from UN Security Council seat for first time.
Afghan Detainees Scandal
Withheld financial information from parliament and parliamentary committees about costs of military planes
Neglected the bid process in awarding of a contract on fighter plane procurement.
Whistleblower scandal – Christiane Ouimet, integrity commissioner, turned down investigations into 227 whistleblower allegations. She was quietly dismissed with a $500,000 exit payment and gag order.
Rebranding Canadian Government as Harper Government on communications documents
Interference in the 2008 US Presidential election
$54,000 taxpayer money spent on 2-day oil lobby retreat in UK (2011)
Withdrawal from Kyoto
G8/G20 Fake Lake Scandal
Ordering striking unions back to work: Canada Post, Air Canada,
Broke his own new set election date law
Over 1700 patronage appointments
Pulls Canada out of UN anti-drought initiative
Contempt of Parliament – refused to turn over documents on Afghan detainee affair and later refused to submit to a parliamentary request regarding costing of his programs
Issued a 200-page handbook to committee heads advising them on how to disrupt their committees.
Reneged on promise to allow parliamentary committees to select their own chairs.
Dictated an order that staffers to cabinet ministers do not have to testify before committees
Ordered all government communications to be vetted by his office or the Privy Council Office
Impeded access to information systems, including the elimination of data base CAIRS, delaying responses to requests, imposing prohibitive fees on requests, putting pressure on bureaucrats to keep sensitive information hidden.
Redacted/blacked out excessive amounts of information.
Putting Conservative party logos on stimulus funding cheques that were paid out of the public purse.
Had party affiliates write on-line posts, using false names, to attack journalists.
In Charlottetown in 2007, he had the police remove reporters from a hotel lobby where a party caucus meeting was being held
Attempted to tar the reputation of diplomat Richard Colvin for contradicting their position on the afghan detainees situation.
Defence Minister Gordon O’Connor mislead the House regarding the afghan detainees situation, had to apologize and later resigned
Terminated Peter Tinsley, the Military Police Complaints Commissioner, when he started to investigate the afghan detainee situation.
He tried to withhold documents requested by Parliament regarding the afghan detainee situation
Before his leadership, personal attack ads were used, relatively sparingly, only during election season instead of every day regardless of election cycle.
Fossil of the Day awards (x3) were awards to John Baird, as minister of the environment, at the UN Cancun climate conference (Dec 2010) awarded by more than 400 leading organizations, to the countries that do the most to disrupt or undermine UN climate talks, citing that Baird and the Canadian government were ‘working against progressive legislation to address climate change” by “cancelling support for clean energy and for failing to have any plan to meet its very weak target for reducing Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions.”

In a variety of punitive ways, Harper moved against NGOs, independent agencies, watchdog groups, and tribunals who showed signs of differing with his intent. In some cases he fired their directors or stacked their boards with partisans. In others, he sued them or cut their funding. The targets of such tactics included the Rights and Democracy group, Elections Canada, Veterans’ Ombudsman Pat Stogran, Budget Officer Kevin Page and many more. His party’s smear tactics included labelling the Liberal party anti-Israel, calling Dalton McGuinty the small man of Confederation, trying to link Liberal MP Navdeep Bains to terrorism, and calling for reprisals against academics such as the University Ottawa’s Michael Behiels for questioning their policies.
Ministers, MPs, Staff
Bev Oda – misleading Parliament, mishandled CIDA requests for KAIROS group, overspending (has paid back $4,025.26 to taxpayers)
Maxime Bernier – 2 ethics investigations for conflict of interest
Peter Penashue – election overspending, ineligible donations
John Duncan – improperly lobbied a tax judge
Bruce Carson – violating lobbying regulations/influence peddling
Dimitri Soudas – Communications Director for PM questioned over kickback scandal involving Montreal Port Authority
Jim Flaherty – Finance Minister improperly interfered with CRTC regarding the issuing of a broadcast licence
Dean Del Mastro – Elections Canada investigation of overspending, etc.
Arthur Porter – Harper appointee as Canada spy agency watchdog wanted for $1.3B fraud
Lisa Raitt – left sensitive documents in public AND made the‘cancer is sexy’ comment
Jason Kenney – used MP stationery for party fundraising
Rahim Jaffer and Helene Guergis – aids writing letters to papers pretending to be citizens, influence peddling (him), letting her husband use her office, mortgage transgressions, and the Charlottetown Airport meltdown
Peter MacKay – using military transportation for personal use
Vic Towes – abusive language and ‘you’re either with us or against us with child pornography’ statement
Sebastien Togneri, Agop Evereklian, Giulio Maturi, Dale Saip and Kasra Nejatian all involved in ethics transgressions
Rona Ambrose – told a parliamentary committee that Canada had paid its debt under the Kyoto Protocol but it was later pointed out that it was still unpaid. She refused to add spotted owls, of which there were only 17, needed no special protection. As Minister responsible for the Status of Women, voted for a motion to revisit the Canadian Criminal Code regarding abortion.
John Baird – Used his cabinet post to interfere with the 2006 Ottawa city mayoral election and the light rail transit system in that city.

Senators
Mike Duffy – improperly collecting housing allowances
Patrick Brazeau – improperly collecting housing allowances and facing assault and sexual assault charges
Pamela Wallin – travel and other expenses being audited for irregularities
58 senate appointments, 100% from the conservative party

Daily News - February 27, 2012

DATELINE: HANGING WITH CHAD ON CANADIAN ELECTION DAY: You remember that whole US / Bush / Florida / Hanging Chad crap twelve years ago? You remember how we all stood around shaking our heads in disgust that what amounted to possible election fraud happened right on our doorstep? So what the fuck do we do now that it is in our country, that it is not ‘possible fraud’ but plain outright criminal fraud, and that it was committed by the party in charge?

Yes, Harper, in typically fashion, found the guy who happened to be at the bottom of the downhill shit express and offered him up as a sacrificial lamb, and has now declared that the issue is solved, that there is no reason to look any further into the matter. How fucking convenient. Yes, the sacrificed lamb was young, and patently stupid, but he did not have the ability to do this fraud alone. This was a crime that spanned, at last count, 39 national ridings, all across the country. It was a fraud that started out during the campaign as people, falsely representing themselves as members of the Liberal, Green and NDP parties, phoned and harassed voters in an attempt to turn them against those parties. They went so far as to phone known Jewish families during Sabbath, in their attempts to garner favor for their own party while lying, pretending to be from one of the other three parties. This alone was unconscionable.

But then came election day. Yes, our sacrificial lamb went to the University of Guelph and tried to steal a ballot box, claiming that the voting station was illegal, but there was no way he orchestrated the calls that went out all throughout the country in yet another attempt to defraud Canadians. These calls, represented as being from Elections Canada, the Liberal Party and the NDP party, told the voter that their polling booth had changed, sent them across town, confused the voting public, all in an attempt to get them to either go to the wrong place or not bother voting at all. Funny thing, but there are none of these calls made to registered Conservative party members and there have been, so far, no indications that these calls were made to any voters in ridings that were undisputable conservative.

To suggest that Harper was unaware of this whole operation is absolutely insulting to the Canadian public. Harper: Mr. Megalomaniac himself? Captain Control-Freak? Master micro-manager extraordinaire? For the love of all that is fucking holy, do not even try that crap. It’s tired, and we are getting really rather sick of the schoolyard bully tactics that the Conservative Party embraces so much. They are nothing more than urban thugs, gang members in Armani suits, but the mentality is the same – do whatever you have to do to maintain power and line your pockets. This country is a democracy. Men died to preserve for all of us the right to vote, and the Harper conservatives have completely desecrated the sacrifice of these men, as well as their own fucking office. We get told that if we don’t agree to unwarranted searches and tracing of our internet communications, we are child pornographers. We get slighted, insulted, abused on a daily fucking basis, and this has to stop. I realize that the other national parties, every fucking one of them, is in leadership disarray right now, but a god damned capuchin monkey with an ‘anything but Harper’ button on could make a better showing for Canada, and would treat the people who pay his fucking salary a hell of a lot better than the dickhead sitting in the big house on Sussex Drive right now. What does it say about a party that KNOWS the only chance they have to obtain or maintain their power is to lie, cheat and steal to get it?