test blog 8

  I've said it before and I'll say it again: Donald Trump is the single greatest gift the Democratic Party could ever hope to receive.  The Democrats have finally achieved their most sought-after position: every thinking person must now vote Democrat, no matter what. They can now run whoever they want with whatever consequences that will have, because the alternative is an existential threat to the country itself. Both parties, of course, have always been an existential threat to other countries, but this time every person living in the Empire is up against it. And this will be the gift that keeps on giving for as long as the party exists. All hope of organizing and building an alternative has ended, certainly for as long as can be forecast.  All the Democrats have to do is overcome the vote suppression, election fraud, threats of violence, actual violence, and the Electoral College , and they're safe from democracy and progressive thought forever. It's no small task, ...

How To Be An Antiracist is an important, powerful, thought-provoking book. With unflinching precision, Ibram X. Kendi defines the roots of racism and explains how we can work to eliminate it. The structure of the book is disarming: the explanatory chapters are interwoven with the story of Kendi's personal journey from racist thinking to antiracist thinking. Yes, the author is Black, and he has had racist thoughts, and has engaged in racist behaviours.  He spares no mercy for himself as he looks back, cringing at his beliefs -- although understanding the tradition that they grew from. I hope Kendi's openness and his willingness to publicly criticize himself helps more readers approach his ideas with an open mind and less defensiveness. Kendi believes that our typical conception of racism as a product of fear and ignorance is wrong, and he makes a very strong case for that belief. He shows that racist policies are made by racist people in order to further their own interests. Ra...

Here are some facts about US elections. There are mountains of evidence to support each of these. If you have doubts, do some homework. This is merely a summary of facts. 1. The Electoral College. Up to 50% of votes in any state are wiped out. Canada has first-past-the-post voting based on ridings (Parliamentary seats), but imagine if all of Ontario was one riding -- 51% and winner take all. 2. Partisan oversight. Elections are governed on the state level, and the person in charge of them represents a political party. There is no equivalent of Elections Canada. Imagine, for example, if Jason Kenney's party ran elections in Alberta, and oversaw vote-counting and potential recounts. 3. Voter suppression. This takes place on a dozen different fronts. In many states, registration is complex and very limited. There are onerous ID requirements. Voters can be and are disqualified based on any number of arcane laws. Voter list are "purged" -- hundreds of thousands of voters dro...

The freak show that is the Donald Trump presidency gives us so many things to lament, and mourn, and goggle at. But for one organization, it is a singular gift, valuable beyond all measure: that is the Democratic National Committee. For me, the worst part of the Trump presidency is not Trump. It is the enormous setback to -- maybe the death of, in my lifetime -- building a progressive alternative in the United States. Four decades of deindustrialization, job loss, corporate welfare, and ever-widening income inequality has brought progressive economic ideas to the forefront in the US, and has rejuvenated the appetite for making them a reality. The evidence is plentiful , from the fight for a $15/hour minimum wage to the jubilant crowds that greeted Bernie Sanders at every campaign stop. People are hungry for change, and many people are hungry for change from the left. Fill in the blanks. A vote for ____ is a vote for ____. And now we have Trump. Hillary Clinton supporters -- and of cour...

Since I'm making an effort to put more of my thoughts here, I'm gathering up a bunch of my Facebook posts and responses. If we know each other on Facebook, apologies for the repetition. I find much of the analysis and commentary I've seen about the recent US election to be quite strange. Donald Trump has been elected President of the United States. That happened. Here's what didn't happen. 1. "The United States is a democracy. The people chose Trump, end of story." 60,467,601 US voters chose Hillary Clinton. 60,072,551 US voters chose Donald Trump. More than 100,000,000 Americans eligible to vote did not vote. More than 5 million Americans cannot vote because they are either incarcerated or have been incarcerated, and thus have been disenfranchised. There has been rampant voter suppression and vote fraud in both the primaries and the general election. The United States is also a democracy if you close your eyes and stop up your ears. Some views on winn...

I trust by now you've all heard about Stephen Harper's latest plan to undermine democracy in Canada, his electoral reform bill that the chief electoral officer of the country has called an affront to democracy. Chief Electoral Officer Marc Mayrand told CBC: "My reading of the act is that I can no longer speak about democracy in this country." Now, as per usual, the Harpercrats want to pass the bill before it can be properly debated. It was just introduced a few days ago, but could be adopted by the House of Commons as early as today or tomorrow. The so-called Fair Elections Act would: - make it more difficult for people to vote, - would disproportionately impact students and youth, Indigenous people, seniors, people on low-incomes, and people who didn’t vote Conservative in previous elections, - do nothing to bring to justice the people behind the widespread election fraud in 2011, and - would actually make it harder to catch perpetrators of election fraud. The Counc...

This week, pollster Nik Nanos revealed that 51.5% of Canadian voters would not consider voting for the Conservative party, compared to 36.4% only seven months ago. I don't play the national pastime - election prediction - so I won't speculate about if or how this poll will translate on the ground. Whether we'll have to wait until 2015 to get rid of this corrupt, fraudulent, anti-democracy, anti-human, anti-labour, anti-environment, corporate government - and whether Canadian voters will be hoodwinked by another party with almost identical policies but a friendlier face (and famous last name) - remains to be seen. Meanwhile, all we can do is educate and mobilize. In Egypt yesterday, nearly as many people as live in our entire country were in the streets , demanding the "president" resign. In Brazil, people who live in the vast favelas (shantytowns) joined the massive, ongoing protests  that overshadowed the football tournament. Compared to these inspiring example...

While everyone's been glued to Rob Ford's crack and Mike Duffy's featherbedding, something even more important happened: the Federal Court confirmed that there was election fraud in the 2011 federal election. Not just "robocalls" - that diminutive buzzword that the media clings to - but election fraud : a deliberate, targeted attempt at voter suppression. The conservative media has framed the ruling as a victory for the Harper Government TM , because the court stopped short of nullifying the election results. But the ruling was very clear . Judge Richard Mosley wrote: I find that electoral fraud occurred during the 41st General Election. Some important and potentially damning details still have not been revealed. Who had access to the Conservative Party's database? Who orchestrated and authorized the election fraud? Let's join the Council of Canadians in demanding the Conservative Party answer those questions. They won't do it, of course. But let'...

Linda McQuaig recently wrote an excellent column about the blatantly false portrayal of the late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez in the Western mainstream media. Chavez should be a hero to anyone who cares about social justice, but if your primary news sources are anywhere from CNN to the CBC to the New York Times , you might wonder why millions of Latin Americans mourned Chavez's passing rather than celebrating. You might imagine they were in the thrall of a charismatic tyrant. I found the mainstream media's description of Chavez as a "dictator" particularly rich, given the US endured at least two fraudulent elections in recent times. Toronto activist Judy Rebick had this excellent letter in the Globe and Mail : Your front-page article on the death of Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez (Death Of A Revolutionary – March 6), calls him “a polarizing dictator.” He was certainly polarizing, as is our own Prime Minister, but Mr. Chavez was never a dictator. Mr. Chavez wa...

A family that was ordered to leave Canada by Jason Kenney's IRB was - as they predicted - separated and detained, and the father was tortured by Libyan authorities. The Benhmuda family lived in Canada for eight years, and included two children born in this country. As horrific as this is, the implications are even more important: the Federal Court of Canada has ordered Immigration Canada to review the Benhmuda family's case, because the case was not heard and decided fairly. In a scathing decision late last month, Judge Mary Gleason ruled that visa officials at Canada's embassy in Rome were biased in their assessment of the family's application to return to Canada and had placed erroneous information on their file. She ordered that the information be expunged and that the case be sent to another visa post for reassessment within 90 days. "It really highlights some of the rogue nature of what goes on at visa posts around the world," said Andrew Brouwer, the fam...

I spent the summer and fall of 2004 working on a Get Out The Vote campaign for the Democrats, not because they were my party of choice, but because I was angry at the prospect of another stolen election, and I wanted to make a difference in the popular vote numbers. After that election was stolen, too , I stopped voting in the US. Now, in 2012, voter suppression has reached new depths . If I still lived in the US, I don't know if I'd vote Green or not at all. Voting Green can be seen as a protest against the duopoly, and it shows support for a progressive agenda. Voting for any candidate can be seen as an endorsement of the rigged system. I am entitled to vote in the US election by absentee ballot, but I choose not to engage in that pointless bit of theatre . One problem with voting is the widely held assumption, seldom questioned, that voting is engagement with the political system - that it's a form of activism. Voting (when the system is fair and not rigged) is certai...

In case you haven't heard, a date has been set in Federal Court for hearings on the Conservative Party's vote suppression during the 2011 federal election. The hearing will begin on December 10. The Cons have done everything in their power to scuttle this case, putting forth motion after motion to have evidence - and the entire case - thrown out. They've stalled and sidetracked and invented obstacles, but the court have taken seriously this threat to democracy. So on December 10, the citizens represented by the Council of Canadians will begin to be heard in federal court. The most recent Conservative roadblock was a motion to require each side to put up a $250,000 security deposit against the other side's legal costs. (Meaning, the losing party will pay the other party's legal fees, and this $250,000 is proof that they can do so.) This crazy motion will be heard in about a month, on September 18. The Council of Canadians is funding this challenge through donations f...

In a recent post , I summarized the Conservatives' arguments in Federal Court, as they attempted to have the case against their illegal election practices dismissed before any evidence had been heard. I was just paraphrasing, of course. But now I have a real quote, thanks to an email sent today by the Council of Canadians. "Voter suppression is as old as the hills". -- Arthur Hamilton, CPC lawyer Hey, fraudulent elections, voter intimidation, and dictatorships are the norm all over the world. Why should Canada be any different?

In Federal Court:* Council of Canadians: There was vote supression in the 2011 election. Conservative Party of Canada: Maude Barlow hates us. Council of Canadians: There was vote supression in the 2011 election. Conservative Party of Canada: Maude Barlow is a radical. Council of Canadians: There was vote supression in the 2011 election. Conservative Party of Canada: They filed their motion too late. Council of Canadians: There was vote supression in the 2011 election. Conservative Party of Canada: There's no proof that people didn't vote because of these phone calls. Council of Canadians: There was vote supression in the 2011 election. Conservative Party of Canada: This is a frivolous lawsuit. Council of Canadians: There was vote supression in the 2011 election. * Not actual transcript

The 2011 federal election results for Etobicoke Centre have been thrown out . Yes! We're still waiting to hear the details. and Unions and students are standing united against Charest's attempts to punish them and shut them down. Quebec students are fighting for all of us. If only the students of Ontario learn from them and rise up in similar fashion.

From National Stop Harper Day: Traditionally, July 1st is a day known as "Canada Day" by Canadians across the country. This year however, that all changes, In most cities across Canada July 1st 2012 will now be known as National Stop Harper Day . One only needs to mention Steven Harper in public and his unpopularity with Canadians becomes very apparent. Harper's general dislike isn't without merit, in fact the list of reasons is too large to fit in a regular conversation and expands daily. The "in and out" scandal, lying about voter suppression, the F-35 debacle, muzzling scientists, opposition to environmental groups, union breaking, the tar sands... the list goes on and on. Sadly, most Canadians are only now beginning to realize that this is just the tip of the iceberg for the "Harper Government", formally known as the Canadian government. One of his largest recent human-rights offences is the attempted implementation of Bill C-10, the Omnibus c...

Canadians, what do you think should be done about vote suppression and potential election fraud by the Conservative Party? If there is clear evidence that the party in power is responsible for, or complicit in, systematic election fraud, what should be done? ___ The individuals directly responsible should face criminal charges. ___ There should be criminal charges AND by-elections just in ridings that were affected. ___ There should be criminal charges AND the governor general should dissolve parliament - we should have a completely new election. Cast your vote here!

In case you haven't seen it yet, the Council of Canadians' investigation into election fraud has uncovered yet more damning evidence that the Harper Government TM did not win its so-called majority government through democratic or legitimate means. The Council of Canadians today released two of the documents it intends to present as evidence in support of applications by individual citizens seeking to overturn federal election results in seven ridings. “Contrary to claims by the Conservative lawyer that our legal challenge is ‘frivolous’ and a ‘publicity stunt,’ this evidence shows that voters were deliberately misled,” says Garry Neil, Executive Director of the Council of Canadians. “We believe that Canadians were wrongfully denied their right to vote, and this affected the outcome of the election in these seven ridings. That is why we are asking the Court to throw out these election results.” The first document is a sworn affidavit from Annette Desgagné, a former Responsive ...

I know I'm not the only Canadian who is frustrated by the media's constant use of the phrase "robocall scandal," as if we're all fired up over a few unwanted phone calls. (Dr. Dawg has an excellent post about this fuzzy thinking .) Come on, people, we're talking about election fraud . Vote suppression. A deliberate attempt to mislead citizens in order to prevent them from voting. We're talking about a polarizing government that won majority status by squeezing past the post in some very tight races - in which there are now serious questions about the legitimacy of the vote! Robocalls are not the problem! And I know I'm not the only one who seriously doubts we've seen the worst of this yet, the rotten core of this corrupt, hypocritical, arrogant, anti-democratic Harper Government. Here's one lie exposed. If you're disturbed by the connection between the Cons up north and the Reps to our south, don't miss this essential post by Alison at...