Support the troops...by getting rid of those bloody yellow ribbons

As the militarization of our society continues apace, yellow ribbons are blooming all over municipal vehicles like toadstools after rain. Yellow ribbons mean supporting the Harper Conservatives and their neverending War in Afghanistan, a branch plant of War on Everything (U.S.). As if the recent revelations about the RCMP and the Sureté Québec aren't bad enough, we are now seeing the military solution as the only solution to everything, including domestic policing.

So, what happens now? Like the Toronto Police Union campaign to sell window stickers to show support for them, one wonders what happens if you don't buy one. More tickets? Less action if the car should be stolen? No help if the police see a motorist in trouble who doesn't carry a sticker?

Transfer that into people who don't sport yellow ribbons, wear red on Fridays (my favourite colour, by the way, and I'm intensely angry that it has been co-opted by the shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later brigade), or other knee-jerk (with emphasis on the "jerk") reactions to pronouncements from Our Glorious Leader.

From the Coucil of Canadians:

There is a growing trend among municipal and local governments across Canada to endorse the “Support our Troops” campaign by placing decals on ambulances, fire trucks, police cars and other municipal vehicles, or by supporting “Wear red Fridays” and other similar actions. At our latest count, 18 local councils have either passed resolutions, had city management allow the decals—usually yellow ribbons that say “Support our Troops”—on government-owned vehicles, or are considering allowing them.

This is disturbing considering that the “Support our Troops” message is a political statement of explicit support for the current mission in Afghanistan – support that isn’t shared by a majority of Canadians.

The Council of Canadians opposes the “Support our Troops” decals because it is unacceptable for public vehicles to carry any political message, let alone one that promotes the views of the governing party. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has said that “Support our Troops” implies support for the current mission in Afghanistan. In other words, the campaign excludes people, like the Council, who support our troops by demanding that they be brought home immediately.

...[T]he Council of Canadians is also deeply concerned that the use of public resources to endorse the war in Afghanistan represents a militarization of our society. Propaganda expert and University of Carleton professor Randal Marlin told The Hill Times recently that the overall impact of the “Support our Troops” message is “the suppression of dissent… and encouraging military solutions to problems.”

Write now and let your majority voice be heard. No more U.S. wars, no more punching above our weight, no more of this crap. Stop it now, get our soldiers back where they belong so they can protect us if we need them, not in some desert somewhere learning how to be good snipers.

There were more protesters at the SPP meeting

Red Friday Rally in support of Canadian troops attracts 1,000 to the CNE

Even with a captive audience at the CNE, there were only 1,000 at the rally. I guess that just means Canadians don't respond to jingoistic propaganda.

There were even words of "wisdom" from the Rick Hillier.

Among the dignitaries in attendance was Canada's Chief of Defence Staff, General Rick Hillier, who delighted the crowd before his speech when he removed the top of his camouflage suit to reveal a bright red T-shirt underneath.

“From the soldiers' perspective, we do not believe a group of people who will whip women for wearing heels that click on pavement should be allowed to reassume control of their country and the lives of those people in it,” Gen. Hillier said in an interview.

They even put two of the badly injured soldiers on stage. What an awful thing to do. It might have inspired pity, horror or sorrow, but it won't stir up any support for the war. And we all know that this is what it's all about. There was never an question of support for the military in Canada. We hired them and we'll take care of them, but we don't support sending them somewhere where they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of winning, even if we knew exactly what form "winning" would take.

I wonder if Stephen Harper turned his nose up at the spectacle and called it "...sad".

Just when you think the Harpercrits can't get any worse...

Not only do they act like a bunch of scuzzballs, Harper's federal (neo)Conservative government members (one synonym for a rather cruder description) have a playbook describing how they should act.

Why doesn't that surprise me?

[T]he handbook, obtained by National Post columnist Don Martin, reportedly advises chairs on how to promote the government's agenda, select witnesses friendly to the Conservative party and coach them to give favourable testimony. It also reportedly instructs them on how to filibuster and otherwise disrupt committee proceedings and, if all else fails, how to shut committees down entirely.

...[G]oodale said the manual also demonstrates that the government is in the grip of an "obsessive, manipulative mania," run by a prime minister who has "a kind of control fetish" in which there can't be "one comma or one sentence or one word uttered without his personal approval."

I think another way of saying that is that Harper is an anal-retentive control freak. Mr. Goodale is much more polite that I would have been.

With friends like this...

Hugh Segal, long-time "red" Tory and Conservative party loyalist, even thought the Conservative party just ain't what it used to be, who was appointed to the Senate by the outgoing Liberal Prime Minister Paul Martin, has been booted out of a job.

"Privately, Liberals speculated that Segal had been on the outs with the Conservative leadership over different positions he had taken. For example, Segal's committee put out a highly critical report last week on the government's aid strategy in Africa.

He also recently urged his government to investigate the treatment and the demands of terror suspects being held at Millhaven penitentiary in Kingston, Ont. And during debate on the Federal Accountability Act, Harper's marquee legislation, Segal voted against the government on one of the measures."

It couldn't possibly be because Segal disagrees with some of Our Great Leaders policies, could it? Nooooo...surely not. Harper isn't a petty, vindictive, control freak.

Hold on a minute.

Oh, yeah - he is.

Harper's Real Agenda

Not fooled by Harper's sudden lurch toward the center? You're not alone. Have a look at this article linked from the rabble.ca website, Manifest destiny will have to wait for majority by Scott Piatkowski.

Once saying in a voice dripping with contempt that climate change was a myth (he based his fund-raising efforts on it), Harper is now greener than Kermit the Frog. (Sorry, Kermit.)

If Stephen Harper and his "we march in lock-step and speak with one voice" (neo)Conservatives make you nervous now, you ain't seen nothin' yet.

Meanwhile, the Conservative MP for Lanark, Frontenac, Lennox and Addington sends this notice out to his constituents :

"Scott Reid will vote 'Yes' to scrapping the gun registry - but he needs to know your opinion." (The text in bold font appeared in the original notice.)

There follows a request for your name, street number and e-mail address.

Well, Mr. Reid, you've already made up your mind, so why do you need input from the constituents you won't be listening to anyway? More sinister still - why do you need their street addresses?

Mr. Reid followed exactly the same procedure before he voted to reopen the debate on gay marriage, which made Canada look like bigoted, regressive fools. That, I'm happy to say, was roundly defeated.

Hugh Segal, former Progressive Conservative agitator and now a Senator appointed by the last Liberal prime minister (it didn't stop him taking the appointment, though) said in a late 2006 interview with Alan Gregg on TVO that the (neo)Conservatives had trouble with what they called the "yahoo" section at first, the extreme right wing of the Reform/Alliance types that make up the bulk of the party. They had the habit of inconveniently expressing their ignorance and bigotry again and again in public for television cameras and reporters. They have been firmly sat upon now. No one is allowed to express an independent opinion.

I prefer to call them the "God and Guns" crowd. They have nothing to fear from me, but I wish I could feel the same way about them. Holding beliefs in imaginary beings and being armed to the teeth at the same time is a frightening combination.