Posts tagged: Democracy
It’s as simple as this: if we don’t stand up for our civil rights now, there won’t be any for our children.
If you don’t understand what the Quebec Student Strike is all about, or why Quebec’s Bill78 and the federal C-309 are unconstitutional, or that the Omnibudget will irrevocably change the face of Canada, you should read this, and go out for it.
translatingtheprintempserable:
Robert Dutrisac June 13, 2012
Original French Text: http://www.ledevoir.com/politique/quebec/352130/nous-on-sait
Consult the list of the letter’s signatories: http://www.ledevoir.com/documents/pdf/lettre_ministre_finale_signatures.pdf
Irate, some 2600 key players in Quebec’s cultural milieu, in an unprecedented revolt, demanded a public apology on behalf of the minister of Culture and Communications, Christine St-Pierre, for her comments linking all those who wear the red square with violence. The minister refused to offer an apology yesterday.
In a public letter published on the Devoir’s website, these thousands of artists, actors, directors, filmmakers, writers, CEGEP and university professors, cultural journalists, and other members of the artistic community are outraged by Christine St-Pierre’s “demagogic comments” following Fred Pellerin’s refusal to receive the title of Knight of the National Order of Quebec last Friday. In a letter sent to the institution, the storyteller had invoked the current social crisis to justify his decision. The minister then affirmed that the storyteller had the right to wear the red square, “but us, we know what the red square means, it means intimidation, violence”.
visual laurel
http://laurelrusswurm.tumblr.com/
is Blacked Out today,
JUNE 4th
to protest Bill C-38
in defense of
NATURE and DEMOCRACY
Our land, water and climate are threatened by the federal budget; proposed changes will weaken environmental laws and silence the Voices of those who seek to defend the Environment. SILENCE IS NOT AN OPTION. Stand up for Democracy CANADA must protect our ENVIRONMENT and our DEMOCRACY
Remember when they said SOPA would be back? Well this is it, people!
Here’s more Information about CISPA : An Open Letter From Academics and Engineers to the U.S. Congress About Cybersecurity
money for bail is needed pretty desparately.donate here
if you’re doing jail support, were jailed, or are just involved with the shit going down in oakland: <3 <3 <3 i love yall so much
Shit is dire, please pass this on!
Stay strong Oakland. Boost it, followers. There some great people there who need your support.
I remember when we felt superior to countries where governments made citizens disappear.
Above is a picture of Omar Khadr, abducted at 15, now 25 years old, he has spent a third of his life at Guantánamo Bay for a crime he never committed.
“Khadr is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier in 2002 and conspiring with Al Qaeda. There is no credible evidence to substantiate the charges, some of which date to when he was 11 years old. Charges were not even brought against him until 2007. If convicted, the Obama administration will seek a life sentence for Khadr, prosecutor David Iglesias indicated.
Army Col. Pat Parrish, the tribunal’s presiding judge, on Monday denied defense appeals to bar confessions Khadr made under torture. In hearings held in May an unnamed U.S. military officer admitted that his interrogation unit threatened to gang rape and kill Khadr if he did not cooperate with an interrogation session at Afghanistan’s notorious Bagram air base in 2002.
A U.S. military psychiatrist has said that Khadr, who has now spent a third of his life at Guantánamo, is under extreme psychological stress after years of living through torture, abuse and appalling conditions. He has been subjected to stress positions, beatings, humiliations—including being used as a “human mop” to clean up urine, threatened attack with dogs, long periods of extreme isolation and sensory as well as sleep deprivation. (Read more here)How come we barely hear about cases like these in the news? If it happend to a white christian male, we would constantly hear about it, but when it happens to a muslim from Afghanistan, silence.
Omar Khadr has himself said:
Khadr wrote to his Canadian attorney Dennis Edney, on May 27. “And if the world doesn’t see all this, to what world am I being released to? A world of hate … and discrimination.”
Lt. Col. Frakt has said:
“It is appalling that the Obama administration is allowing charges to go forward in the military commissions against Omar Khadr. Clearly, Omar Khadr, as a juvenile of 15 at the time of his alleged offences, could not be tried as an adult in federal court, so they are allowing him to be tried as an adult in the military commissions, potentially making him the first child soldier to be tried and convicted as a war criminal in world history.” (Read more here)
The news media is in the entertainment business now.
We don’t hear about it because the media can no longer be trusted to report the news. As Jay Rosen said, “The watchdog press is dead.”
This is why the Internet is so important. This is why SOPA and PIPA are so dangerous; and possibly even *more* important than the NDAA.
As a Canadian, I am horrified at my country’s complicity in the dreadful treatment of Omar Khadr.
hot to handle
The first time I beheld a green pepper was in a home economics in the ninth grade. I thought they were cute; but smelled bad and tasted awful. I have never understood why people like to eat hot peppers, but clearly they do.
One year I grew hot peppers which won first prize in a local fair. I dried some, and canned some as gifts. But the thing I wasn’t prepared for was that just handling them puts the oil on your hands. I learned the importance of thoroughly washing your hands after I made the mistake of picking jalapeño peppers and then rubbing my eyes. It only happened once, and it hurt. I remember the pain very well. Never again.
But it didn’t kill me.
So like most people, I had no idea that pepper spray could be lethal.
It is especially hard on people with asthma because it is an inflammatory agent, and Wikipedia tells us that it can cause “…uncontrollable coughing making it difficult to breathe or speak for between 3 to 15 minutes.”
When I was a child, I didn’t know a soul with asthma. As an adult, they are everywhere. So it seems to me that pepper spraying people is playing with fire.
In other parts of the world, citizens are allowed to carry cannisters of pepper spray on their person for self defence.
Not in Canada; here pepper spray is a prohibited weapon. Unless you’re in law enforcement, then you are allowed to spray it for “crowd control” Pepper spray was lobbed at Toronto’s G20 protesters last year.
This weekend’s inappropriate police pepper spraying of peaceful protesters at California’s UC Davis campus has triggered outrage around the world this weekend.
Pepper spray is increasingly used, not as self defence, but as a means of physically punishing peaceful protesters.
Deborah Blum’s Speakeasy Science article looks at the history, use and effects of pepper spray. It is not a pretty picture.
Pepper spray is banned for use in war by Article I.5 of the Chemical Weapons Convention which bans the use of all riot control agents in warfare whether lethal or less-than-lethal.[18] In the US, when pepper spray is used in the workplace, OSHA requires a pepper sprayMSDS be available to all employees.[citation needed]
— Wikipedia: Pepper Spray: LegalityIf pepper spray is too terrible to use in war, why are authorities using it on peaceful protesters?
Pepper spray is never appropriate.
[reblogged from my personal blog on Wordpress]
All original photographs & artwork by laurelrusswurm are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. This website uses the NOTATIONS theme by Ben Delaney, and is powered by TUMBLR.
