UPDATED: Harper's Reign Of Terror - Part 2

Yesterday I wrote a post on the war being conducted by Stephen Harper and his cadre against dissent in Canada. Specifically, the Prime Minister is diverting CRA resources and taxpayer monies to investigate those non-profits not on board with his agenda. Environmental groups have been especially hard hit.

Today comes word that the scope of Harper repression is expanding. As reported in The Toronto Star, the knock at the door has happened at PEN Canada.

The Canada Revenue Agency has launched a political-activities audit of PEN Canada, a small charity promoting freedom of expression that has criticized the Harper government in the past.

Two tax auditors showed up Monday morning at the tiny Toronto offices of PEN Canada, asking to see a wide range of internal documents.

If you visit their website, you will see the following principles advocated by PEN:

PEN Canada envisions a world where
writers are free to write,
readers are free to read,
and freedom of expression prevails

That the organization advocates for freedoms that are synonymous with healthy societies, of course, makes them the perfect target for Harper retribution, given Dear Leader's demonstrated disdain for such principles.

And a visit to the news section of PEN's website will make abundantly clear why the Harper cabal has sicced the CRA on them:

Privacy Could Vanish if Cyber-Bullying Act Became Law

Groups Seek Human Rights Protections in Canada-Honduras Free Trade Agreement

How Transparent are Canada’s ISPs?

Stephen Harper Must Address Online Surveillance in Canada, says PEN Canada

One can only hope that Pen International will take up the cause. Presumably it is beyond the reach of the cowardly intimidation tactics of our national government.

UPDATE: PEN and its supporters do not intend to go quietly 'into that good night.'

When Israel Says It Isn't Out To Punish Innocent Palestinians, It's Lying - And We Don't Care

Actions speak so much louder than words, especially when it comes to Israel attacking Palestinians.

The current invasion of Gaza demonstrates that Israel’s claims to be targeting Hamas but not the Gaza Palestinian population is an outright lie. That much is blatant from the weapons used.

What weapons? Try water. When you’re targeting the civilian population of an already water-stressed locale the simplest way to turn the screws is to attack their water and sewage infrastructure. Once you deprive them of fresh water and compound that with a collapse of their sewage system, nature will take care of the rest. Every bloodthirsty bastard who laid siege to a medieval castle or town knew that.

Gaza is a lot like one of those medieval towns. Its land borders are sealed by Israel and Egypt. At sea, the Israeli navy maintains an effective blockade. With the exception of a few tunnels, if you’re in Gaza you’re not going anywhere. You might as well be trapped behind stone walls and a portcullis.

But what about the water? Years ago Israel constructed what are known as "trap wells" along the border with Gaza. These wells intercepted the natural flow of groundwater that Gazans relied upon. Worse yet, without that fresh water flow, sea water entered the Gazans groundwater supply leaving it heavily contaminated. As more sea water continues to enter the Gazan water resource it’s only a matter of time.

In the preliminary air strikes that preceded Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza, Israeli air force jets bombed Gaza’s water and sewage plants. That has rendered about 90% of Gaza’s already dwindling water supply unfit for human consumption.

Israel understands the power of the water weapon and its punitive effect on civilian populations. During its ill-fated invasion of southern Lebanon to attack Hezbollah, Israeli jets took out the water and sewage pumping plants of Beiruit, far removed from Hezbollah territory. That wasn’t targeted at Hezbollah. It was targeted at the Lebanese civilian population in a city largely opposed to Hezbollah. Israel likewise attacked and destroyed three Lebanese hospitals and on its way out of the country instituted a 72-hour cluster bomb barrage of the south ensuring a massive supply of bomblets for cattle and farmers and kids to stumble across for years to come.

If there was ever any doubt that Trudeau the Lesser is all Margaret and no Pierre, the proof came through in the Liberals’ stomach-churning praise of Israel for its “commitment to peace.” I really don’t know how you Liberals live with yourselves and that party or the pandering opportunist who trades on what once was a great name.

In a place like Gaza, taking down the water and sewage plants is a form of biological warfare. It’s just a matter of time until cholera sets in. Yeah, Justin, that’s some commitment to peace all right.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib

No Words Needed Here

H/t The Globe and Mail

UPDATED: On Harper's Reign of Terror

Last week, Owen wrote a post he entitled Corrupting Civil Society, a reflection on the Harper war on non-profits that stand in opposition to any of his regime's agenda. I recommend reading it for a good overview of the situation.

In yesterday's Star, three letters articulated three excellent perspectives on this shameful war:

Tories intimidate charities into silence. Who's next? Opinion July 16

One way to deal with the Harperites’ bullying of charities might be for all charitable organizations to renounce their charitable status. Personally, I make most of my donations to non-charities. I figure they are doing the most-needed advocacy work. The deduction I get on my income tax for charitable donations is hardly enough to bother.

Of course, for multi-millionaire Stephen Harper supporters, this would be anathema. They like donating a chunk of money, getting a massive tax rebate from you and me, and having their names in lights on some university or hospital.

It’s time this type of selfish “philanthropy” is stopped. It costs taxpayers huge sums of money, while allowing the 1 per cent to dictate how that money is spent. Let’s end this distortion, and return to real charity. And let’s make the 1 per cent pay their fair share of taxes, while we’re at it.

Kate Chung, Toronto

The Harper government suddenly detects rampant subversion of the charitable tax exemption. Oddly, the concern appears to be less about the extravagant lifestyle of religious charlatans or about politicians siphoning tax free dollars into their campaign chests than about organizations whose good works are not aligned with the government’s agenda. This, according to the government, is illegal political activity.

Wake up Stephen Harper! All charity is 100 per cent political. Charity is voluntary action by citizens to correct the failings of our society. Charities support the needy and disabled at home, fight disease and starvation abroad and work to free political prisoners precisely because government policy is not to act on these urgent social problems.

It is time to acknowledge that charities provide an immeasurable service by patching the policy holes in our social safety net which the government so cheerfully cuts.

Paul Collier, Toronto

Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay trots out the old warhorse of “good stewardship over taxpayer dollars” to excuse the government’s latest crackdown on advocacy by charitable groups. “The CRA has a legal responsibility to ensure that charitable dollars, donated by charitable Canadians, are used for charitable purposes,” she says.

Whether we identify as “taxpayers” or “charitable Canadians” — and probably most of us are both — we can all figure out that it makes more economic sense to address the causes of poverty and injustice than to try to remedy the effects.

Susan Warden, Scarborough

As well, a Star editorial applauds the fact that the NDP is finally speaking up about this misuse of the CRA:

The New Democratic Party, worried that voluntary agencies are being silenced, sent a sharply-worded letter to Revenue Minister Kerry-Lynne Findlay this past week. “This program has the appearance of blatantly abusing CRA (Canada Revenue Agency) resources to target those who do not agree with government and compromises the very integrity of CRA,” wrote NDP revenue critic Murray Rankin and environment critic Megan Leslie.

They called for an independent, external review to determine whether the government is using the muscle of the tax department to crack down on human rights advocates, environmentalists and anti-poverty activists.

While this demand is likely to be met with the Harper cabal's usual disdainful disregard of opposing views, it is at least heartening that with both the press and some politicians speaking up, more of the general public will learn of the profoundly anti-democratic and cowardly nature of their national government.

UPDATE: For a very comprehensive discussion of the problem, check out this post at Desmog Canada, which explores a new analysis by former journalist and graduate student Gareth Kirkby.

Richard Dawkins Says "Mild Pedophilia" Does No Harm

Scientist and atheist campaigner, Richard Dawkins, says it was “no harm, no foul” when a school master pulled young Dawkins onto his lap, shoved his hands down the boy’s pants and fondled him.

“Richard Dawkins attempted to defend what he called ‘mild pedophilia,’ which, he says, he personally experienced as a young child and does not believe causes ‘lasting harm.’

“Dawkins went on to say that one of his former school masters ‘pulled me on his knee and put his hand inside my shorts,’ and that to condemn this ‘mild touching up’ as sexual abuse today would somehow be unfair.

“’I am very conscious that you can’t condemn people of an earlier era by the standards of ours. Just as we don’t look back at the 18th and 19th centuries and condemn people for racism in the same way as we would condemn a modern person for racism. I look back a few decades to my childhood and see things like caning, like mild pedophilia, and can’t find it in me to condemn it by the same standards as I or anyone would today,’ he said.

“Plus, he added, though his other classmates also experienced abuse at the hands of this teacher, ‘I don’t think he did any of us lasting harm.’”


MoS, the Disaffected Lib

A True Critical Thinker

For many decades Noam Chomsky has been fearlessly fighting for truth. His capacity for incisive critical thinking and unwillingness to submit to the bluster of the right is much in evidence in this excerpt from a 1969 edition of William Buckley's Firing Line. Would that today's progressives were as tenacious.

Enjoy:



h/t The Knowledge Movement

A Conspiracy Of One

It’s not uncommon for an RCMP Commissioner to jump through hoops at Stephen Harper’s bequest.

We saw that when Zaccardelli gave Harper a leg up to victory by conjuring up an empty scandal about Ralph Goodale in mid-election campaign. Ominously for a country based on the rule of law, Zac refused to explain his actions afterwards, defying the demands of Parliament for answers.

Now we have Commish Paulson who seized the Duffy-Wright-Harper scandal at the outset with an iron fist. Paulson’s leaked e-mail in which he absolutely forbade his senior officers from having contact with opposition parliamentarians without his express prior consent pretty much established that the investigation and any eventual prosecutions were going to be decided from the top, no questions asked.

Then the circus began. First, RCMP investigators opined that the $90,000 ‘gifted’ by Nigel Wright to Mike Duffy was a bribe. Then they announced that Nigel Wright, who put up the money for the bribe, would not be charged. Then, after a suitable interval and in the middle of the summer recess (Stephen Harper’s preferred time for doing these things), it was announced that, while Wright was still off the hook, Mike Duffy would be charged with accepting a bribe.

Paulson hasn’t explained how he jumped through that hoop. It’s been left to others to speculate that investigators could not conclude that Wright had given Duffy the money with a “corrupt intent” but were satisfied that Duffy accepted the gift with a “corrupt intent.”

Wait a minute. On what possible basis did the Royal Conservative Mounted Police absolve Nigel Wright of any corrupt intent? They had to have done it by isolating all the surrounding circumstances. They excluded the other elements of the “deal” from the cash payment. We know what that deal was because Duffy was foolish enough to put it all in an e-mail to his confidantes. It was that e-mail, leaked to a reporter, that triggered the scandal. We know what that deal was because the elements of the deal Duffy described all came to pass.

Wright didn’t just hand Duffy $90,000. The money came with strings attached, bundled into a deal. Duffy was ordered to keep his mouth shut and to refuse to cooperate with the auditors appointed by the Senate to report on expense irregularities. There’s the corruption the RCMP doesn’t want to acknowledge. But wait, there’s more. Duffy wasn’t just getting cash. The guys who conjured up what the cops say, in respect of Duffy was a bribe, also promised to see to it that the Senate audit report on Duffy would be laundered. They did and it was. There’s the corruption that the RCMP has to do backflips to ignore. The bribe was the whole deal.

That Nigel Wright wrote a cheque on his personal account is irrelevant. The PMO gang tried to get the money elsewhere – from the Conservative Party’s cache - and they almost succeeded. Only when that fell through did Wright step in with his own cheque after clearing the deal with Stephen Harper. Would it have been a bribe if the cash came from CPC funds but not when Wright had to step in with his own money?

By looking at Wright’s cheque in isolation, the Royal Conservative Mounted Police are blatantly whitewashing the involvement and culpability of everyone except Stephen Harper’s target, Mike Duffy. No wonder Paulson put his senior officers under a gag order.

This deal oozes corruption throughout the PMO to the prime minister to the Tory Senate leadership to the Senate audit committee to the Conservative Party. The measure of the integrity of the RCMP lies in its ability to sweep all of that under the carpet even after the facts are out in the public.

We know better. We know this prosecution has been tailored to take Nigel Wright, Benjamin Perrin, Stephen Harper, Senators Gerstein, LeBreton, Tkachuk and Stewart-Olsen, and Arthur Hamilton off the hook. This is the doing of the prime minister’s partisan state police apparatus and it harkens back to another time on another continent.

If it was valid to jettison the Canadian Airborne Regiment after the Somalia scandal (and, for the record, I’m not convinced it was), then this sorry affair surely warrants dismantling the RCMP. There’s no place in a democracy for a partisan political state police agency. From the barn burnings in Quebec in the 60s to this I’ve certainly had my fill of these rogue operators.

MoS, the Disaffected Lib