Orwell's Bastard

Thursday, June 30, 2011

The capacity for critical thought - how do we build it?

Just as we wind down the first half of 2011 in preparation for Canada Day, three disparate blog posts are jumping out at me:

At Sixth Estate, Government of Canada Issues Statement Opposing the Alphabet
At Politics and its Discontents, Sun News Network – Full of Sound And Fury, Signifying Nothing
At Porcupine Blog, The Hegemony of Authoritarian Ideology and the Vancouver Hockey Riot

#RCMP complaints body says it's playing ball with @cancivlib | #G20

Something about the Tumblr / Tweeter interface is not working ... (mumbling obscenities under my breath ... )

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

I'm sorry, @TorontoPolice Tweeter guy - perhaps I'm being a little harsh | #G20redux

On reflection, maybe I ought to cut you a little slack. Maybe you really are committed to fixing the organizational and occupational culture.

Maybe you really do want to fix the bridges between the police and the community they're sworn to serve and protect.

@TorontoPolice Tweeter guy: Is this your idea of building relations? | #G20

Don't know what this guy was doing ...

... but even if we grant for the moment that the apprehension was lawful and justified, can you explain why the Toronto Police officers effecting the arrest decided they had to grind his face into the concrete while one of them put a knee on his head? Right around the 40-second mark.

"Confession is not betrayal. What you say or do doesn't matter: only feelings matter. If they could make me stop loving you—that would be the real betrayal."
She thought it over. "They can't do that," she said finally. "It's the one thing they can't do. They can't make you believe it. They can't get inside you."
"No," he said a little more hopefully, "no; that's quite true. They can't get inside you. If you can feel that staying human is worth while, even when it can't have any result whatever, you've beaten them."

George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Chapter 7

Related posts:

Monday, June 27, 2011

#G20 anniversary: Queen & Spadina, one year later

Hundreds of citizens arrested on bullshit pretexts.

Detained arbitrarily in conditions that were gross violations of human rights.

Subjected to racist, sexist, misogynistic and homophobic slurs and harassment.

Assaulted indiscriminately.

Beaten, tear-gassed, shot with rubber bullets, and paraded naked.

And after all this time, no public inquiry, the Blue Wall endures and only two cops charged.

Tell us again how the system is working, @TorontoPolice Tweeter guy.