#G20 aftermath, Robert Dziekanski, and police accountability

Because of the recent, er, unpleasantness, I've started a backup site over at Tumblr.

(OK, OK, I wanted another excuse to geek out. Like I don't have enough already.)

Anyway, a couple of items about police being held to account for their excesses stood out, so I wrote about them over there. Here's the link. 

Thanks as well to Fiat Justicia for this:

Related posts:

• Fire up the Blue PR machine again!
• Hey, RCMP? How's that kicky, tasery, shooty thing workin' out for ya?
• The Blue BS machine
• Care for a chaw, S-Supt. McGuire?
• Robert Dziekanski, the RCMP, and an anniversary

Blogger back from the dead?

 

Now what the hell was that?

Is the Facebook / Google smackdown getting underway, and if so, why didn't anyone tell me?  Geez.

Some stuff may have to be rebuilt, and some stuff may have been lost.  In particular, a thoughtful and inspiring comment from Margarita del Norte, which said very succinctly what I'd been thinking for a few days, but better than I could have put it.  Because of the recent ... unpleasantness, I couldn't publish it, and now it's gone from Blogger.  Please honour me by sending it again, dear lady of the north.

(If it helps, I've still got it in my gmail, but it's only authentic if you submit it as a comment.  Reproducing it from there and appending it on my own would just look cheap. Email me if you need to.)

Ruth Ellen Brosseau and the corporate-media cowards

You remember those nasty, sadistic little pricks who used to burn ants with magnifying glasses? And then in school they used to get their kicks ganging up on younger kids? Seems they grew up, in a manner of speaking, and got jobs with newspapers.

I don't live in the Annex ...

... but I'd be willing to part with some serious coin for a lapel button reading "Flippant Annex Secularist."

#Cdnpoli: Have I got this all wrong?

Is it possible?

I don't know where this doubt is coming from, but I've been having second thoughts about a lot of what I've been saying. Maybe all the sniping and backbiting and recrimination's been more disheartening than I originally realized. Or maybe it's just a little Sunday-evening angst for my inner drama queen.

Working against a permanent Conservative majority

This originated as a comment over at Thwap's place, but perhaps I should expand on it a bit.

Call me a hair-splitter if you must, but while certain individual Liberal activists might be open to some new electoral thinking, I wouldn't be so sanguine about the Liberal Party itself.
I understand that they need some time to grieve, to heal and to come to terms with their third-party status, and I'm willing to grant them that time. But I'm not willing to put the hard work we need to do on hold while they do that.
We're facing four years of war, to be fought on many fronts and on many battlefields. If they want to spend their time and energy gazing at their navels and trying to revive a decrepit institution that's past its shelf life, that's up to them, but I've got more important things to do. And that goes for anyone else who's not comfortable with the idea of a permanent Conservative majority.

Initially I wasn't sure I wanted to come across all harsh and everything, but in all honesty, I don't know how I can be any more emphatic about the need for opposition activists, of whatever stripe, to stop flinging poo at each other and focus on the main task. Some of the language I've encountered from  fellow progressive bloggers, many of whom I've respected until now, is simply mind-boggling. You know who you are.

Things fall apart, the centre cannot hold

  


My friends, there's no denying the impact of the past couple of days. The way it stands now, we're going to have to live with a Harper majority for the next four or five years.

And while it's nice to fantasize about the Conservatives doing themselves in by getting too comfortable, or too arrogant, or taking the muzzles off their backbench whackjobs and throwing some red meat to their so-con base, we can't count on that. How we organize to fight this is going to be the subject of several blog posts, and perhaps the strategic focus behind worthwhile Canadian initiatives such as the one currently being organized over at Sixth Estate. Check it out when you can.

But getting organized is also going to mean facing some uncomfortable truths: about the polarization of Canadian politics, about the role of the media, and about the role of the Liberal Party.