And Speaking Of Closet Cowards

The following is also thanks to a link from Skeena's page:

An Invitation From Skeena

I recently received an invitation from Skeena Sage Williamson, pursuant to my Harper Naming Contest (which, by the way, is still running), to embed her Facebook page carrying the Harper closet cowardice meme. Continuing to grow, the page deserves to be visited regularly, especially now that we are in an election year.

You can access it here.

Below are just two examples of the delights that await you there:

The Harper Contest Continues

Lots of good observations and suggestions coming in. The above picture of The Blue Meanie was offered by Peter Leslie in the Facebook group Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper (C.R.U.S.H.) It seems a most apt rendering of Dear Leader, and that very fashionable blue is sure to appeal to his acolytes.

Also on Facebook, Skeena has compiled a series of memes inspired by Michelle Rempel's bedroom selfie.

Here are two of them that do real justice to the Cowardly Lion residing at 24 Sussex:





Enjoy, and I hope these pictures inspire more submissions.

A Harper Naming Contest

Although there is no official prize, except possibly the profound gratitude of all those who aspire to rid our country of the Harper regime, a response by Scotian to a previous post about the cowardly lion who now 'leads' us got me thinking about a contest with which we might have some fun.

First, here is what Scotian said:

I normally do not use pejorative nicknames for politicians, hell, I don't generally use nicknames at all, but this requires one, and I am torn between Captain Closet or The Closet Commando. I'm leaning towards the former, because it resonates to the image of Captain Canada which Harper loves to portray him as, and as much as I hate to say it, when I say it I hear in the back of my head that old Hanna Barbara cartoon Character "Captain CAVEman!" shout as well, and I hope that also might resonate in the older voting crowd.

I believe it is important to get this into common use as much as possible as soon as possible to combat the revisionism Harper has been doing on this subject, because this moment in his life showed his true character, as moments of crisis will do in the heat with human beings. Given his bellicosity on the international stage, given his branding himself as a strong domestic leader the fact that his first instinct was the abandon his closest people and hide by his own choice needs not to be forgotten!

While I very much like both of Scotian's suggestions, I want to extend naming rights for the 'illustrious one' to all Canadians.

Assuming there is some interest in this idea, the best suggestions will be reprinted in a separate post in the near future.

He May Have Hidden In A Closet .....

But that likely isn't stopping Stephen Harper from manipulating the narrative surrounding the Parliament Hill tragedy to his own political advantage.

At least, that is the speculation of Stephen Maher.

Crack addict Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, who killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and who was then himself killed in a barrage of shots within Parliament, is really not understood any better today than he was when the tragedy occurred on October 22. However, one thing is quite clear:

The shooting heralded the end of Trudeau’s long honeymoon, bringing him down within polling range of Stephen Harper for the first time since he became leader of his party.

But it is not a lack of data that prevents our understanding of those terrible events; two videos exist, one of which would either confirm or refute the narrative about Kevin Vickers, the sergeant-at-arms, who, we are told, finished Zehaf-Bibeau’s rampage by heroically diving, James-Bond-style, to shoot him dead.

The problem, as Maher reports, is that

... we don‘t know where that story comes from. On the day of the shooting — when the world desperately needed a story — anonymous sources told TV journalists that that’s what happened. We later learned that the shooter had been shot several times by a number of people.

The second video is one that Zehaf-Bibeau recorded to explain himself.

Unfortunately, neither video is being released to the public, despite the fact that

a week after the shooting, RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson told reporters that he wanted Canadians to see it [the second video] “as soon as possible.”

In December, he took that back, and said that he might not be able to ever release it because of the “intensity of the investigation,” whatever that means.

Maher sees nothing good in this:

It’s possible that between October and December, Paulson’s political masters let him know that he should not release the video.

It suits the government to behave as if the RCMP is independent, but Paulson appears to be more like a deputy minister than a police chief.

And Harper wants to portray this attack as an example of why we must be led by him, not Trudeau or Tom Mulcair, who are too soft-headed or weak-willed to protect us from terrorists.

But of course, this kind of secrecy and the speculation it engenders is par for a government that has shown consistent, pervasisve and egregious contempt for almost everything that a healthy and thriving democracy demands.

Perhaps the larger question is, do enough Canadians care?

You Can Never Be Too Careful

...I guess.


H/t Toronto Star

Was Nathan Cirillo A Hero? - Part 2

Yesterday's post revolved around a column by The Hamilton Spectator's Andrew Dreschel in which he questioned whether the circumstances of Nathan Cirollo's death qualified him as a hero. I predicted that he would likely be subject to a barrage of criticism, given that the young man's death was so recent, and a state funeral had essentially been accorded him.

Today's piece by editor-in-chief Paul Berton confirmed this. While some comments were supportive, others were not so complimentary:

An online petition urged The Spectator to have Dreschel fired. Others wanted us to remove the column, which was apparently "going viral" on social media, from thespec.com.

Another said,

"How can you print one day that he's a hero and the next day that he is not?"

I was glad, however, to see that Berton is standing his ground:

I acknowledge the timing of the column may have been premature and insensitive, and I take full responsibility for that. But a newspaper should not refuse to print opinions simply because they may offend.

As devastated — and as proud — as so many of us were in Hamilton this week, does wondering what it all means in the modern scheme of things take away from that?

He goes on to say:

But isn't that the nature of any good newspaper — to reflect all opinions, no matter how popular or unpopular?

Isn't that the nature of a democratic community? To make sure we can learn from all events?

The funeral brought this community together — and enlightened us. Might not a frank conversation do the same?

I wonder if the irony is lost on all those thousands who lauded Cirillo for his protection of our freedoms who now seem, through their intolerance, to value it so little?

Was Nathan Cirillo A Hero?

As I noted on this blog previously, it is always a tragedy when a young person loses his or her life, whether to accident, disease, or mayhem. The lost potential is incalculable. Like me, however, I suspect many found the mythologizing of Nathan Cirillo's murder, his passage on the Highway of Heroes, and what amounted to a state funeral, attended by an array of dignitaries, including the Prime Minister, a little much. And as a cynical observer of the political landscape, I cannot escape the notion that all of the ceremony will prove to be of great benefit to the Harper regime's propaganda machine and its ongoing efforts to reduce our civil liberties.

This morning, a friend of mine alerted me to a piece by the Hamilton Spectator's Andrew Dreschel. It is a frank and honest assessment of this past week's spectacle. It is also brave, as I suspect it will earn him a barrage of hate mail.

While in no way detracting from the loss of this young man, Dreschel offers an unsentimental assessment of what happened:

The 24-year-old Hamilton reservist was murdered in cold blood by a homeless crack addict with terrorist notions while he was ceremonially guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa.

Cirillo's death was tragic and senseless, but in no way was it heroic.

Dreschel then goes on to talk about what constitutes heroism: those who display remarkable courage,

by performing brave deeds and daring feats — risking or sacrificing your life to save others, valiantly defending a position, boldly destroying the enemy.

But Cirillo never got the chance to show the stuff of which he was made:

He died unprepared and unarmed, the unlucky victim of a seemingly deranged killer who was himself gunned down after storming Parliament.

All of the subsequent coverage gave this tragedy a life of its own, culminating in what the writer describes as secular canonization.

Dreschel ends on this note:

Through no action of his own, the accidental victim had become an accidental hero. But sadly, like all accident victims, he just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

Unsentimental and accurate, the column raises some disturbing issues that we should all be honest enough and brave enough to confront. Of course, it is right to feel grief and empathy in tragic situations; obviously it is part of what makes us human. But we should also be keenly aware that those very human responses can work to our detriment if they are not leavened by the knowledge that those in positions of trust with far darker motives may try to exploit them to their own advantage.

As a Canadian, You Can't Help But Feel Proud Here

Let's hope this kind of integrity and decency is enough to combat the fears that the Harper regime is trying to stoke after last week's tragic events.

Too Good To Resist

H/t Don Gravelle

Tragedy Must Bring Out The Best In All Of Us

That is the sentiment expressed by Craig Wellington of Brampton in this fine lead letter from this morning's Star:

Let’s tone down the hate rhetoric. A tragedy occurred Wednesday and a good man, Cpl. Nathan Cirillo lost his life. Let us use that as a catalyst to illuminate the best, not the worst of us.

Much of the U.S. media and political pundits have shamelessly exploited this tragedy to use as a launchpad for a stream of bigoted, vicious, rhetoric based on innuendo to feed an ongoing narrative of hate. Their apparent delight at this tragedy is disturbing.

CNN and FoxNews have filled their round-the-clock coverage with conjecture and inflammatory innuendo. Bill Maher continued his tireless “us against the Muslims” crusade by tweeting: “Turns out the attacker was Islamic — what are the odds, huh?” Sadly, this type of knee-jerk bigotry, posing as considered, intellectual punditry is far too common. And the public is increasingly unable to discern the difference between considered journalism (disappearing faster than the northern white rhino) and reckless conjecture.

In April of this year, Ft. Hood Army Base in the U.S. was attacked by an armed gunman and multiple servicemen lost their lives. What religion was the shooter? In the mass shooting at Sandy Hook school in which 20 children and six teachers lost their lives, what religion was the shooter? When congressman Gabby Gifford was shot, what religion was the shooter? What about the shooter who fired an assault weapon in a U.S. movie theatre in 2012, killing over 20 people? Timothy McVeigh?

Armed gunmen attacked Capitol Hill in 1998 (killing two police officers) and 2008. What religion were they? What religion was the man who shot Ronald Reagan? Some 84 U.S. policemen have been killed in the line of duty thus far this year. What was the religion of the perpetrators? We don’t know. It wasn’t relevant. The only thing we do know, is they werent Muslim, because if they were, it would have been the headline.

Canada has recently agreed to join the U.S. in a war in the Middle East, a region now rife with sectarian conflict. There is blame all around for that. It’s no coincidence that the epicentre, Iraq, is the country in which the U.S., under the pretense of non-existent weapons of mass destruction, removed Saddam Hussein (a former ally of the U.S. who was armed and funded by them) who was keeping these sectarian forces in check.

Years later, with over 500,000 Iraqis and thousands of U.S. servicemen killed, the area is far more of a global threat than it ever was under Saddam. That has nothing to do with a religion. That’s a convenient excuse and criminal obfuscation.

At the time of the Iraq invasion, Canada refused the U.S.’s call to join them because we did not think it was wise and did not believe the allegations of WMDs and the link to 9/11. Now after the poop has hit the fan, Canada is being asked to help the U.S. clean up their mess. But we are there and not turning back now.

There are potential ramifications to Canada’s joining this war, for Canadian citizens. When England and Germany were at war, both nations anticipated rightly that their heads of state would be assassination targets for agents or sympathizers of the other. That evil is a consequence of war. You send bombs to kill people, some of them are likely to respond.

The Canadian Harper Prime Minister has been asked numerous times in the house to outline the extent of what we have committed to, the duration, the objective of the mission, and the implications in terms of security for Canadians. He has refused to do so.

Clearly there are consequences in terms of our security, especially for Canadians traveling to certain regions, and clearly for our government officials. Wednesday’s incident outlines that not enough steps have been taken to ensure such protection is in place. That needs to change and the Prime Minister needs to have an honest dialogue with Canadians.
But what cannot change is that Canadians cannot devolve from the tolerant, socially progressive nation to a segregated society rife with paranoia, bigotry, finger pointing and hatred as is fast becoming the U.S.’s brand.

Let us honour our fallen soldier by honouring what he served and fought for — a free, open and tolerant society. #Canada

Some Much-Needed Perspective

Although this will probably get lost in the jingoistic rhetoric sure to follow yesterday's tragedy, this story from the Vancouver Sun is well-worth reading:

"His behaviour was not normal," said David Ali, vice-president of the Masjid Al-Salaam mosque, adding Zehaf-Bibeau used to trip the mosque's fire alarms by trying to enter through the wrong doors. "We try to be open to everyone. But people on drugs don't behave normally."

A Very Impressive Lady

Every time I hear Elizabeth May speak, I am struck by the balance and wisdom of her words. A very impressive lady, she clearly has real leadership qualities:

Something We Should All Keep In Mind

H/t Michael Nabert

Thursday Morning

H/t Toronto Star

The events of yesterday were undeniably tragic. A young man, Nathan Cirillo, died. As I noticed on a Facebook posting by my cousin's wife, Nathan was a friend of their son with whom he played organized hockey. Six degrees of separation and all that, I guess.

Nonetheless, I have to confess that when I heard the news on CBC radio, my first thoughts were twofold: how these events could work to Harper's electoral advantage (I could immediately envisage the attack ads juxtaposing Harper's "strong leadership and stand against terrorism" against Trudeau's talk about searching for the "root causes" of terrorism), and how this could very well provide a pretext for further erosion of our civil liberties. Like frightened mice, many people aid and abet anyone or anything to ensure the comforting illusion of security.

Fortunately, I found a measure of balance in two Star columnists this morning, Martin Regg Cohn and Thomas Walkom.

Cohn's words bring some much-needed perspective to terrorism:

For terrorists, killing people is merely a means to an end. By far the bigger objective for terrorists is to terrorize — not just their immediate victims, but an entire population.

A soldier lost his life Wednesday. And parliamentarians lost their innocence.

But the nation must not lose its nerve.

Public shootouts or bombings are carefully choreographed publicity stunts that require audience participation to succeed: If the public gives in to fear, and the state succumbs to hysteria, then the shootings or bombings have hit their mark. If the audience tunes out the sickening violence, the tragic melodrama is reduced to pointlessness.

And he quickly gets to what, for me, is the heart of the matter:

The risk is that we will overreact with security clampdowns and lockdowns that are difficult to roll back when the threat subsides.

Terrorists will never be an existential threat — our Parliament and our parliamentarians are too deeply rooted to crumble in the face of a few bullets or bombs. The greater risk is that we will hunker down with over-the-top security precautions that pose a more insidious menace to our open society.

Thomas Walkom, while acknowledging that events such as yesterday's have a very unsettling effect, reminds us that Canada is not exactly in virgin territory here:

In 1966, a Toronto man blew himself up in a washroom just outside the Commons chamber. He had been preparing to take out the entire government front bench with dynamite. But it exploded too early.

Other legislatures have had their share of trouble, most notably Quebec’s national assembly, which was attacked in 1984 by a disgruntled Canadian Forces corporal.

He shot and killed three as well as wounding another 13 before giving himself up.

In 1988, another man was shot after he opened fire with a rifle in the Alberta Legislature building.

And no one who is of a certain age can ever forget the FLQ crisis of 1970 which led to Pierre Trudeau imposing The War Measures Act, which effectively suspended civil liberties across the country, a measure that was widely embraced at the time.

Walkom ends his piece on an appropriately ominous note:

We seem headed for another of those moments of panic. The fact that the gunman attacked Parliament has, understandably, spooked the MPs who pass our laws.

It has also spooked the media and, I suspect, much of the country.

The government wants to give its security agencies more power over citizens. The government wants to rally public support for its war in Iraq.

On both counts, this attack can only help it along.

If we are not very careful and vigilant, the real threat will come, not from terrorist attacks, but from our putative political leaders.