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The Horror of our Failure

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I realize I’m writing this with therapeutic intentions; today’s shocking, horrifying news is only now starting to really sink in and I feel compelled to write as a way to process yet another senseless act of mass murder in North America.

In an odd way I’m reassured that I still have the ability to feel real sadness thinking about the awful events which transpired earlier today in Connecticut, but it’s very quickly overpowered by a deep sense of helplessness as well. This in turn compels to write, as it serves to numb the deep feeling of shock and terror. Despite all I’ve seen on the Internet, despite all the crazy shit this world manages to produce, and despite all the death anyone who watches the news witnesses on a weekly, if not daily basis, I had an emotional response. I feel it’s a bit of a rarity, perhaps an increasing rarity, as I feel I’m otherwise permanently numbed by exposure.

I processed this trag and I don’t think I’m alone. I remember checking the news earlier in the day and the headline didn’t initially register – for whatever reason, perhaps because the story wasn’t the lead story on the site (I suppose it would have just broken at around that time, and details would have been fuzzy) I supposed that a weapon had been found and a school evacuated, but not a mass shooting such as this.

A little later it became very clear what had actually occurred, and yet I continued on with my work – what else was there to do? My instinctual reaction was, ‘it didn’t happen here, no one you know is implicated, move along – you can’t get tripped up by every crazy thing happening in this world because you’ll likely get depressed’. This is what I thought. I had to stay focused on the task at hand.

Later during my lunch break, more details, and not surprisingly the inevitable deluge of debates from the opinion-slingers populating the social mediasphere. Had it not registered for them either? Are we all the cynical and emotionally numb?

Or is it that all any of us can do is blast opinion into the ether hoping our thoughts are appreciated by others, because we’re fundamentally emotionally incapable of real grieving, and forming a real reaction to this inexcusable action?

I think this might be the case. It didn’t take long for progressive and contrarian alike to take to the great media apparatus and strike up an orgy of vitriolic debate. It seems this happens every time there’s a particularly savage crime or mass shooting. And in case you already forgot, there was a mall shooting in Portland Oregon not three days ago.

Between the time the story broke and my afternoon coffee this depraved act of savage brutality had doubtless spawned millions of comments, tweets, updates and debates – all in our effort to stave off actually having to recognize what ought to shake every one of us to our very cores, as if Sandy Hook Elementary School were located up the street from where you live. When this happens it is a societal failure, one we’re all responsible for. That tragedies like these should happen so frequently, and to such devastating effect, should be indication enough a real problem exists.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a sizeable number of people who must feel compelled to exorcise whatever feelings they have by supporting the notion no such problem exists and anyone arguing in favour of gun control, at a time such as this, is out of line.

I thought interviewing the kids and parents was pretty out of line, but that’s not the point. It seems as if we’re in a race to argue about something related to this tragedy than to allow ourselves to come to terms with it.

It was because of the ensuing, related, debate that I discovered there was another school attack today, this time in China where a 36 year-old man slashed and stabbed 22 children aged 6-11 outside a school. No deaths occurred, thankfully, but what’s troubling is that this is but one in a series of such attacks in China. It was brought up as a reason why gun control won’t prevent a mentally disturbed individual from carrying out their intended crimes.

Perhaps it is indeed the Chinese equivalent to American spree shootings; gun ownership is virtually non-existant in China and so I guess, in a sick way, it makes sense that there’d be mass stabbings. Fewer people killed, incidentally. I saw a stat floating around earlier today that said whereas 20 Chinese children have died in slashing or stabbing attacks, over 200 American children have died in school shootings in the last six years.

Which in turn reminds me that media outlets were busy organizing information so as to be used in ‘conversational debating’ – HuffPost just tweeted a ‘gun control stats cheat sheet’, anticipating the little debates we’ll carry around with us over the next little while, at the dinner table, the water cooler etc.

It’s incredible how much time and effort will doubtless be devoted to the ensuing debate, and nothing productive will come of it. And why should anything come of it – social change is hard, acquiescing and accepting these spree killings as an inevitability much easier.

Just pray it doesn’t happen to you.

And so I guess that’s what we’ll do until Christmas. Talk about gun control. Debate gun control. Argue gun control. News programs will invite ‘passionate defenders’ of whatever side they represent, and we’ll collectively poor over and create copious amounts of ethereal digital thought and opinion. and be told, over and over again, to pray.

***

We don’t need prayer.

I’d argue the Americans don’t need gun control either; they must eliminate individual gun ownership altogether and take broad measures to eliminate existing weapons. Further still, penalties associated with simply having a firearm in your possession would have to be incredibly stiff (in China, as an example, an individual caught illegally transporting firearms for the purpose of sale, could conceivably be put to death) and the vast lobbying organization designed to prop up the American firearms industry would have to be very publicly dismantled as well.

In my eyes there’s simply no other way. There are too many easily accessible firearms in the United States, and too little in terms of a social safety net – tragedies such as these will assuredly happen again in the future unless massive changes are made in a short period of time.

Evil did not visit a small town in Connecticut today. A man fell off the edge, probably some time ago, and went on a killing spree, taking many innocent people away from their loved ones forever. Evil is not a tangible object or force, it is not a presence, and it can’t be wished away.

If, as a society, we absolve ourselves of our collective responsibility and entertain the notion nothing could be done to avoid it, that the spree shootings are random occurrences we have no control over, then it implies not only could anyone be a potential victim, but could be a potential perpetrator as well. If, by contrast, we accept collective responsibility to do whatever can be done to avoid such a tragedy from happening again, then we will simply pay the requisite amount of tax-revenue for the implementation of all the policies, programs and plans designed to do so.

And we could do it too, if only we weren’t so easily distracted by the endless soothing debates we engage in in-lieu of working to prevent future disasters. America’s gun problem isn’t a new issue – it’s been a clear and present danger to contemporary world society for quite some time now.

But we keep choosing not to come together; we keep choosing to hack away at the social safety net, we keep choosing to omit and ignore. We quite literally drown out the noise by burying our heads in the sand.

Is it any wonder we never see the market dropping out from underneath us? Can never manage but to be caught off-guard by a hurricane?

We’ll one day soon have to learn we can’t pray or wish our problems away.

My heart goes out to all the grieving families; the loss of a single child is unbearable, this is simply beyond words.

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Fortune Favours the Bold

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Belmont School demolition – 1978 (Rue Guy & Wrexham)

Recent statements by PQ education minister Marie Malavoy concerning the elimination of basic English language instruction and the introduction of ‘Sovereignist education’ are cause for concern. It is yet another example of the PQ’s reckless handling of the public education system and a threat to social stability of the Francophone community. What the PQ is proposing is a twisted blend of propaganda, revisionist history and enforced monolingualism. They are proposing entrenched, self-perpetuating racial tension, inter-ethnic conflict and general ignorance.

Québec has a high dropout rate. There’s no denying it. Among Francophone males, the rate is nearly 40%, one of the highest rates in the developed world. This is a self-perpetuating national tragedy, one that no doubt plays a central role in our province’s declining fortunes and the increasing influence of criminal gangs and organized crime. Broad, inter-generational ignorance is a social pathology, and it is a perpetual failure of our province’s many governments that this situation isn’t under control, to say nothing of eliminating it outright. How can we dare to be so lackadaisical?

How are we to compete on an international level, perhaps even as an independent country, when 30% of province’s early twenty-somethings are without a secondary education? What future do they have in an information and intellectual-capital economy?

Malavoy’s desire to use the public school system as a political tool to teach a highly-inaccurate revisionist history will go over the heads of young male students like a lead balloon, to say nothing of the well-documented and excessive punishments handed down on students in the French schools caught speaking English. It’s idiotic to think overt anti-intellectualism, such as this is, will stimulate interest in academic pursuits. This is purposely divisive and out of touch with our contemporary needs.

Policies such as these only serve to perpetuate the following negative trends: Francophones of the middle and upper classes continue moving their children into private schools (where their children will likely learn both languages and be exposed to many cultures) while the poor are left with overcrowded schools with government-sponsored monolingualism and nationalist propaganda. I attended a conference on inter-culturalism back in March where one of the speakers, a local journalist and head of a non-profit organization, gave a talk on the issue of increasingly racial intolerance in Francophone public schools. No kidding! Immigrant kids are being told a) not to speak English and b) that Franco-Québécois society and culture is threatened by immigration, foreigners and people who don’t speak French as a primary language. Is it any wonder the dropout rate is so high?

As though limiting CEGEP access for Francophones and Allophones wasn’t ridiculous enough, now this. Sometimes I really wonder what these apparent ‘leaders’ are thinking. How the hell does this help anything?

It saddens me that the PQ cannot evolve past a Balkan mentality concerning cultural and national interests. It is an unnecessary siege mentality, one designed for short-term electoral gains while leaving long-term uncertainty and instability. It’s dangerous.

This does not affect the Anglophone community of Québec, but it may be very wise to use the opportunity for a potential gain. So that the PQ is hoisted by its own petard.

What if Québec’s Anglophone school boards united (in a sense) and decided that all students would henceforth graduate as fully bilingual? A simple extension of existing French-immersion programs to the entirety of the system; a requirement, a badge of honour, for the children of the Anglo-Québécois community.

If we did so, would this not mean Francophone and Allophone students would be able to attend ‘Anglophone’ schools? If a program were created to ensure 100% fluency in two languages for all students, surely many Francophone parents would be free to send their children to ‘Anglo’ schools – Anglo would, in the future, be a misnomer.

It is entirely possible to teach both English and French beginning at a very early age, and the earlier we start, the higher the likelihood of total fluency in adulthood. The more a child is presented with opportunities to speak both, the more they will. Bilingualism broadens horizons and sews the seeds of self-criticality – imagine the potential of a future generation of school children fluent in English and French? When every Québécois could choose to be a translator as a ‘fallback’ job post-graduation? Imagine the economic potential of a province educated to that degree?

It can be done, and our community can help make it happen.

If we demonstrate that we can achieve full bilingualism within our own community, we may be able to relieve the French school boards of one of their more pressing problems – overcrowding. Further, it would serve to help re-populate Anglophone schools on the verge of collapse due to low enrolment, while further potentially luring more middle and upper-class students back into the public system.

But a project such as this is a big undertaking and requires a concerted effort to realize it. It would require bravery and determination from our community. It would necessitate we speak up.

Our community’s future in Québec is dependent on cultural integration. We must show that we can survive and prosper as a community of bilingual or multi-lingual, multi-cultural “Anglophones”, and as such we demonstrate how cultural integration is an essential element of our province’s well-being and progress. We must prove beyond a doubt to the Francophone majority that dual-language fluency (with a social and cultural preference for French) is the best way to improve our economic potential and secure the status of the French language forevermore.

Integration is the key, the core of our being, and we must stand united and demand ever greater degrees of integration amongst the many diverse peoples of this province. We must ensure that our shared values are translatable, relatable, beyond mere ethno-nationalism.

It’s for this reason that we have a responsibility to try and resist and/or mitigate the potential damage done by Ms. Malavoy’s unsettling plan.

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Shit,

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My New Year is off to a phenomenal start.

Above is yet another great recent viral video coming out of my favourite goddam city. It features a municipal worker diligently clearing snow from a Villeray sidewalk. Except there’s no snow. Clearly our city’s efforts cut back on waste are getting off on the right foot.

Maisonneuve Magazine has popped the lid off a scandal we all assumed was going on, but dared not speak of. Perhaps people are fed-up, but it seems as though the snow-clearance operations of our already corrupt construction industry has been involved in significant bid-rigging for some time. Moreover, contractors and companies that don’t play ball face significant penalties, including intimidation, physical violence, fire-bombings and deliberate acts of sabotage. Click here for more; it’s an excellent if somewhat depressing read.

Another fantastic local viral video I’ve seen recently features local twit Jonathan Montalvo drunkenly trying to convince a gaggle of kids outside a bar how rich his dad is. He’s apparently getting into the club promotion scene, has t-shirts being printed and the like (he’s also got an agent, in case you’re interested in having this snot parade in front of your establishment accosting patrons and telling them how much better he is than them, a surefire way to attract the very finest locals). Unfortunately Mr. Popularity must have gotten cold feet of late, since just about video of the incident has been pulled from YouTube. I always find it adorable when memes get bashful.

Is this all it takes to secure $1,500 club appearance fees? Act like a gigantic dick?

Sometimes I don’t want to live on this planet anymore.

And the shame parade continues. I know I’m not ordinarily pessimistic, and on the whole I think I’m still optimistic in general for the New Year. I can’t expect to ever live a year without dealing with some kind of malaise, so it may as well coincide with this so-called seasonal affective disorder we’ve conveniently dreamed up to account for being miserable. How quaint – the disorder’s acronym is sad.

Above is footage from a massive fist-fight and dish/bottle/table/chair tossing mele at the New Dynasty Restaurant in Old Chinatown on New Year’s Eve. After watching this video a few times I can only say it’s doesn’t look to be so cut and dry Black vs. Chinese, and the SPVM has no idea what provoked the incident; no one’s talking, so it was probably some really dumb-as-shit argument between a small number of people that degenerated into a free-for-all. People don’t talk much when they’re ashamed of themselves – not much intervening going on as you can see.

Yesterday a 34 year-old man, homeless, possibly mentally-ill and apparently incapable of speaking French was shot and killed by the SPVM as he had apparently failed to stop and identify himself at the officer’s request. What his initial offense was is unclear, but the man, identified as Farshad Mohammadi did attack one of the intervening constables with a ‘sharp-edged weapon’ leaving superficial wounds on one officer. Mohammadi was fatally shot at the station but died later in hospital. I’m not saying the constable acted irresponsibly, but I wonder what drew their suspicions and why the SPVM isn’t encouraged to use ‘non-lethal’ suppression devices first and foremost. Unfortunately, the incident is being investigated by the Sureté du Québec, as is our foolish custom.

And then, to wrap up our little shit storm, tonight’s boneheaded protest of the hiring of Randy Cunneyworth. The Movement Québec francais demonstration in front of the Bell Centre drew a crowd of 300 out-to-lunch locals who would like the NHL, somehow, to accord the Canadiens more Francophone, Québecois players, and further to insist the Canadiens fire Cunneyworth, replace him with x and further eliminate English language music and announcements. If there’s one place government doesn’t need to stick its nose, it has to be the internationally successful modern game of ice-hockey and it’s hands-down finest professional team. The Canadiens may be in a bad slump, but it has nothing to do with Cunneyworth’s linguistic short-comings. Language and culture has absolutely nothing to do with how the Canadiens play, nor how the modern game of hockey is played at the professional level. Yet the demonstrators would like you to believe that a predominantly Québecois team would in fact do better. How, or why that would be the case, was not an issue the demonstrators were capable of illustrating.

There is a broader issue here – we need a winning sports team to keep our morale up, and we’ve been lucky, the Habs have had some exciting seasons recently. Moreover, the Bell Centre is consistently sold-out for Habs games, even live broadcasts of games played elsewhere. So while it sucks that our playoff chances are extremely slim, we need to get real here, it has nothing to do with Randy Cunneyworth’s inability to speak French.

It would have been nice to see those three-hundred people show up at Place du Peuple and support something worthwhile, by the way. Just another indicator what remains of the Indépendentiste movement is old and out of sync with the real problems of our world.

A discouraging start to the year. Here’s to better days ahead.

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Tramway Considerations for Montréal’s Birthday

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So it looks like Richard Bergeron has his own ideas concerning our city’s 375th Anniversary, and has proposed 37.5 km of new tram routes ready-to-go by 2017. Apparently, a finance working group has been established, though precisely what this means is anyone’s guess. I would normally be more optimistic, but there’s a new cynic growing somewheres deep down inside me.

Bergeron has earned himself (somehow) a reputation as being something of a ‘tram nut’ (this is how he’s been reduced before – modern media can suck in its efforts to be overly personable). Back in the day, a more optimistic Bergeron was keen on a 250km, $20 billion tram system to cover most of the densely packed urban core of Montréal. If this seems like a lot of tramways, consider that as recently as 1959 we had about 378km worth of tram line throughout the city and some first and second ring suburbs. This was unceremoniously dismantled in `59 largely out of pressure from the American automobile industry (see Great American Streetcar Scandal).

Another recent proposal came about as part of a larger metropolitan transit plan, this time in 2008-2009, when Mayor Tremblay announced a far less ambitious plan of three lines of 20km. That plan was supposed to be complete by 2013.

Something tells me we’re not going to meet that deadline.

That said, Bergeron is persistent and (hopefully) involved in the new plan, though I wonder why not shoot for something far more complete, such as 375 kilometer’s worth. I suppose 37.5km will cause enough traffic headaches for the next six years, especially given how slowly and inefficiently we build these days. But no matter which way you cut it, this is something we desperately, definitely need.

Projet Montréal tram design proposal
Tram design proposal, Projet Montréal

That said, there are some key considerations we need to discuss.

For one, trams or trolleys? Are steel wheels on rails necessarily the better way to go? Or can rubber tyres provide a sensible alternative, better able to climb steep gradients? Rails will undeniably work better insofar as the tram lane is segregated from regular traffic, especially on long straight streets, such as Boul. René-Lévesque. However, climbing up Cote-des-Neiges road or Atwater might be better handled by a rubber tyre alternative. And consider as well that there are models that feature both steel wheels and rubber tyres, and can switch between.

Second, who will run this new transit system? Ideally, the STM runs the tram network as well as the buses and Métro, and as Bergeron has planned, the proposal is designed to intersect with existing Métro stations. A common fare and transfer system seems like a no-brainer, but this needs to be planned from the outset. The last thing we want is an expensive tram that requires a separate fare. This could be enough to kill the system entirely.

Third, will installing the system be enough to get people to give up on using their cars? Probably not without an expensive and effective mass media campaign and municipal bylaws regulating when cars can enter the city (however the city decides to define this is really up to them). In effect, this system may prove itself far more useful, if not overtly desired by the citizens, if we go so far so as to actually employ measures to keep people from driving their cars. Offering excellent service and clean trams is one way, convincing the citizenry they have a fundamental responsibility to each other to use public transit is an entirely different measure.

Fourth, and related to the aforementioned points, it may be wise to install trams on streets we intend to be new pedestrian axes – such as Ste-Catherine’s. Though business associations perpetually live in fear of street closures, road work and any other threat to the overwhelming predominance of motor vehicles on our city streets, the fact is that cities larger than our own have been able to mitigate environmental damage from mass automobile use by offering excellent public transit, with trams playing a vital role ferrying people quickly between the urban core and the first ring suburbs. I would not use Toronto as a model, incidentally, when there are so many European and other American examples to go by.

Point is if City Hall wants to really make this work, they have to provide an alternative they can enforce to the point where few will question the logic. That anyone today can feel justified in arguing against capital investment in new public transit initiatives is, in my honest opinion, a measure of our stubborn regressiveness. We need to exercise this demon from our collective conscience.

We simply can no longer afford not spending money on massive public transit projects. Furthermore, we need to grow some local government sack and start finding ways of compelling people to give up on the selfish act of using a car when cheaper, cleaner alternatives exist.

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Enigmatic Zeitgeist: A Reflection on the Occupy Movement

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This is not law enforcement. This is swine hiding behind a badge, and an abuse of basic human dignity.

Originally published by the Forget the Box

I feel we’re not that different you and I, at least I hope not.

We’re both here, so there must be something that unites us.

And even if it is difficult to pinpoint what precisely brought us here, perhaps that’s only an indication of just how grave the situation truly is. A uniting force we can’t yet properly define is braiding together diverse yet inter-related interests into a solid bond. And yet, all I can see for the moment are individual fibres, weak, limp, useless by themselves.

I’ve been reflecting. Haven’t come up with much – nothing but an endless series of questions whose answers elude me.

I’m writing this having spent several days in mock isolation watching countless videos of police brutality. We’ve all seen the videos I’m referring to. The incident at UC Davis, crackdowns in Syria, Tahrir Square – it’s all starting to look alike.

I’ve spent parts of the last few days engaged in an endless argument with an individual purporting to be a representative of the interests of the Occupy Movement. I’m perturbed not only by the images of police brutality, but also the lackadaisical and highly individualistic responses of people caught in the melee.

The individual with whom I’ve been arguing was advocating that the Occupy Movement must remain a peaceful one (which of course cannot be debated) and was cautioning readers against pursuing anything but complete non-violent protest. But does this mean we can’t take measures to defend ourselves against brutality? And what do the many egregious cases of police brutality say about the Occupy Movement in the first place?

Time and time again (and this has subsequently been reinforced through leaked NYPD internal memos and the fact that the Department of Homeland Security orchestrated a nation-wide simultaneous crackdown in the US) I see so-called law enforcement working together, presenting a solid and united front, acting as a team. They are trained to do so. Perhaps you may feel they do so blindly, and certainly, for all those speaking out against those lambasting all police for the actions of a few, I can understand the desire not to paint the aggressor with a wide brush. But on the flip-side, it is also clear the police are not using the same restraint exhibited by the demonstrators. They are the source of aggression, they are clearly to blame for all instances of violence.

Despite this, the police are getting away with it. Why? Because, as far as their portrayal in the Mainstream Media is concerned, the police look like they’re working together. The same cannot be said about demonstrators, who more often than not appear either to be willing to submit to brutality or, when confronted with brutality, work independently and achieve nothing. How do you think this translates through the media’s biased lens?

I’m not advocating to use of violence to achieve political goals. However, we can defend each other non-violently. Every time I see an abusive cop grab a helpless protestor, I wonder why all the other protestors don’t pull that person back, don’t put themselves between the victim and the cop. We have the mass, we have the advantage in numbers, we have all the reason in the world to demonstrate and protest – we are in the right, our world has been fucked by the elites who rule over us.

The very tenets of our democracy are threatened, perhaps more now than ever in the history of Canada or the United States, and similarly, like no time in our past, the foundation of our progressive society is being hacked-away at by the apparently representative governments of our nations. Yet despite the motivation behind the movement, in no way is the movement coming across as a united front that will not rest until change has been affected.

As long as we operate like individuals our cause is hopeless. True solidarity can only be created when individual men and women decide to shed their individualism for the sake of society. Solidarity occurs when you are willing to put yourself in between naked aggression and your fellow man, to defend a stranger as though they were your brother or sister.

When this happens, the media will show something very different to the viewing public – they will show the progressive microcosm, standing together to prevent the destruction of our society. Then, and only then, when we conduct ourselves as brothers and sisters united in a struggle, will we be able to effectively communicate our wants and desires. Until then, the protestors will be subject to abuse and near-total misrepresentation by media.

Perhaps it is time to back off and re-group. The problems we’re dealing with are not going to disappear between now and the spring, but we need to face an unfortunate climatic and geographic reality. For whatever reason, political and economic power in the US and Canada is concentrated in areas subject to the adverse temperatures of winter, and we can’t sustain large-scale occupations without building proper shelters, not to mention using stoves, which are in turn considered a fire hazard.

Moreover, there is additional problem that the Occupy sites have attracted drug addicts and homeless in nearly every major city. The Occupy Movement is in no position to deal with this reality, and the homeless and drug-addled have more a right to protest their condition and the failures of society than someone sporting the latest in high-tech camping gear.

Communications has been spotty and, again, lacks unity (both internally and between cities). The media can prey on stoned protestors for sound bytes inasmuch as the police can prey on unsuspecting victims to serve as a release valve for pent-up First World frustrations. Our lack of organization is no benefit to our cause, though I can understand the appeal of wanting to completely stand against the grain. The point is, if we wish to demonstrate effectively, we need organization, because societies are voluntarily organized out of solidarity.

Final point. Consider this; in the States, next year is a federal election year. If the Occupy Movement were to stand-down (disappear from the media’s radar completely) and spend the next few months organizing, we could return in the spring with larger numbers, more effective protest, and perhaps even play a role in determining not only the outcome in said election, but perhaps even steer the conversation and shape the dialogue from the outset.

The GOP has spent thirty years pushing the centreline of American politics off into the netherworld of populist, theocratic and fundamentally dishonest conservatism – it’s time for the pendulum to swing back to reality. Now, in my humble and honest opinion, is the ideal time to plan, to organize and to ensure, moving forward, we will be listened to and abuse against the people will stop.

The Spring of 2011 belonged to our Arab brothers and sisters, the Spring of 2012 could belong to us.

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Grabbing the Bull by the Horns

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Remember, Steve Harper is an evangelical Christian, just like Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell and Mel Gibson

We are becoming the bad guys, and this individual has a lot to do with it.

We have turned our backs on the non-aligned, or Third World, nations we once lead. We have secured unpopular and aggressive allies, some of them threats to world peace and global economic stability, while turning away from the peacekeeping initiatives we were once internationally lauded for. Because of a mass inferiority complex, we’ve decided to support killing as opposed to making lives better, worth living. And we call the poor who die for our national vanity heroes, or worse, warriors. Stephen Harper and the Tories want you to be proud of your warriors, your heroes – proud of what is all I can ask.

We have a federal government that claims a majority and ‘mandate to govern’ though it was elected by scarcely 24% of the eligible voters. We have a government that rejects facts and empirical research for its ‘gut’ instincts and faith in faith alone operating procedure. We elect ‘conservatives’ who conserve nothing, and waste as though it was their right to do so by birth. Our elected ‘leaders’ lack vision, lack leadership, lack competence. We prioritize engine-less fighters designed to fight someone else’s wars over preventing hunger, disease and unemployment. We call ourselves a developed nation, yet refuse to take an active role in development. We reward criminals for screwing the People, and give them life-long Senate appointments. Worse still, because we are lazy, because we refuse to be responsible for ourselves, we live lives of peace and tranquility at the cost of other people’s happiness. We deny others what we take for granted, and for the most part, we have the gall to ask them why they don’t get their shit together? Our pride is a dangerous self-delusion.

And perhaps the less said about human rights, civil liberties and the right to exercise one’s freedom of speech and assembly, the better. The Harper Administration’s brutal repression of dissent since 2006 is shameful for a nation founded on social-democratic principles, such as our own lest Mr. Harper forgot about that. Never before have our fundamental human rights been so consistently violated as they’ve been for the past few years. Police and security forces have been given carte-blanche to abuse while the appointed care-taker federal government introduces bill after bill designed to repress Canadian progressivism and sew greater divisions between the diverse elements of Canadian society. They must be stopped at all costs. How much longer can we afford to be governed by such myopic and self-indulgent swine as this?

I thought the title was apt given its multiple uses. For one, we need to get a grip on the bullshit machine in Ottawa, Toronto and Montréal which has been pumping out regressive, repressive propaganda on behalf of the Tories (and in the name of media balance, which is a whole other steaming pile of BS anyways), inasmuch as we need to grab our economy by the horns and reign it in. We’re far too dependent on foreign investment and non-renewable resource extraction because its a quick buck, but it leaves nothing for ourselves, nor for future generations. Where is our industry? Where are the infrastructure mega projects? These tend not to happen under Tory governments, because they don’t want the responsibility of actually creating and developing a strong, planned economy. No, no – they’d prefer it was dictated by greed, apathy and foreign resource speculation. Well excuse me if I’m not convinced this is the best way to go. No nation has evolved with this as their economic foundation, not at all. Instead, nations like this inevitably fail, with kleptocrats flying high on the taxpayer’s buck before a popular revolution throws them out of power. Is this the path we’d like to go down? I fear we may have gone too far down this road already, as cabinet ministers were rewarded with lucrative government contracts (see Tony Clement’s cash-grab during the 2010 G8/G20 Summit in his Muskoka riding), and defence ministers use search-and-rescue helicopters to pick them up from their vacations.

We’ve dropped the ball and allowed the bottom-feeders into the halls of power. They must be removed, we must take control of our nation, to ensure our future prosperity, to eliminate corruption and graft and to ensure our nation is renown internationally for the good deeds it does. Accepting anything less is frankly unpatriotic, I dare say perhaps even treasonous.

Perhaps it will be the grand moment of self-realization and awakening we are looking for, but Canada’s youth have a responsibility, to themselves and for posterity, to ensure an autocrat like Stephen Harper never has a chance to mis-manage our nation’s affairs again. We deserve better and must demand more from ourselves. Let this be our clarion call.