i won’t bother with the obvious comparative study of the isolated “violence” of a handful of protestors versus the overwhelming violence practiced day in and day out at the expense of millions upon millions of human lives by national states the world over in order to secure their geopolitical interests. too easy. too obvious. too fundamental.

i will however, point out that unless you’ve been in the situation of being a direct, physical and psychological target of overwhelming and belligerent street-level force FUNDED BY YOUR OWN TAX DOLLARS, it can be hard to understand the frustration and rage that can build over the course of an afternoon let alone over the course of a lifetime.

hell, you don’t even have to have experienced it directly. just sitting on our couches in our homes, cursing the stinking system, we all know that the state has a monopoly on ultimate violence and total control. otherwise it wouldn’t exist as it does, right? things would be different, cause we would have gotten up off our couches and changed it if we were operating on a level playing field. but their is no level playing field between the state and its subjects. citizens plainly have insufficient institutional power to derail the sociopathic behaviour of the prevailing order. frustration and rage is the predictable result.

that frustration and rage is exacerbated when you’re pitted face to face against a wall of riot cops who are alternately corralling and intentionally provoking your otherwise peaceful demonstration into a corner, firing rubber bullets at you, detaining and searching you with no cause, hitting you with batons, singling out and abducting organizers, impersonating protesters, firing gas canisters intentionally at head level, exploding sound grenades by your ears, permanently damaging your body with exposure to chemical bombs (all based on personal experience by the way) and then having it all portrayed in the media as if it were YOU that needs to be restrained and punished rather than the megalomaniacs on the other side of the fence that continue to plunder and pillage the planet at these obnoxious publicly-funded private-parties of the global elite.

in these situations, there is only so much futility a person can take before their rage can get the best of them and a burning cop car or a smashed bank window starts to look pretty appealing. yes, these are futile acts, but what do we expect people to do when they are treated like shit and the justice system does nothing to intervene on their behalf?

sure, ideally we could all rise above it and aim for a perfect, superhuman state of restraint. sure. and yes, ideally i too would prefer the demonstrations were strictly peaceful (for strategic reasons mainly) and that other, more polarizing means of demonstration and protest and disruption occurred outside of these public gatherings (where they would be more effective).

but the people who manage the security state won’t let that happen anyways. they WANT violence. they provoke it. why? it justifies their absurd budgets. it lets them test and refine (and demonstrate to the rest of the population) their methods of population control in a managed setting, preparing for the day that the shit really hits the fan and the police state finally gets to give up any pretense of democracy. why else would they have the summit in fucking downtown toronto, where spirited protest was absolutely certain to occur, rather than on some cruise-ship in the atlantic where it could all be completely avoided? these are essentially war-games being staged on our nickel. and we, the people, are the enemy.

so let’s just try to keep things in perspective when corporate media habitually fails to hold concentrations of global power to any sliver of account and instead chooses to replay footage of a stupid burning cop car on a loop for hours on end as their marquee story.

there are plenty of examples of independent video footage of cops provoking and mistreating people at the G20 summit surfacing on the net. do yourself a favour and check them out and ask yourself how you would feel if you were on the receiving end of it. or if it were a member of your family.

that’s all i got to say.

And what’s up with people crying on camera about birds soaked in oil? When did people suddenly start caring about birds? They’re kidding right? I mean, if people really cared about birds suffering prolonged and horrid deaths, they would have long ago stopped financially supporting the animal-exploitation industry every time they sit down to a meal, right?

So, haha, that was a good one guys! You almost had me there! Man, those tears looked almost real!

What’s that old saying? “Those who would make peaceful protest impossible will make violent revolution inevitable”?

When Jordy-Boy isn’t busy dodging bullets over on Toronto Street, we continue to dig deep down here in the lab, seeking new ways to pound, pummel and otherwise titillate the Propagandhi listening public.

In other news, you know that when Gary Coleman going to the hospital or the Canadian debut of the colossally stupid iPad are much bigger matters of public interest than, say, this or this or this, it’s all over. You know that right? It’s all over.

doot-doot-doodle-oodle oot doot do doo! doot-doot-doodle-oodle oot doot do doo! DOOT-doodle-do-doo! DOOT-doodle-do-doo! doodle-doodle-doodle-doodle-do-do-do-doo!

Let’s hope our pal Chris Pastor (aka Jamaica Plain) has better luck with his Ship to Gaza Project.

Canadians are amongst the last people on earth who should be crying about “foreigners bringing their problems over here with them”. Forget for a moment that the protesters blocking the Gardiner Expresway have family and friends facing death back home and that we’d all do the exact same thing if we were in their position. Forget that. Does the name Afghanistan ring any bells to Canadians? You know, that place where Canadians are foreigners and continue to make life rather inconvenient for Afghans?

Don’t believe me? Why not ask a member of the Afghan Parliament, (who incidentally has about 150 less civilian constituents (including infants) to represent these days since NATO blew them all of the face of the earth last month)?

Oh well, I guess as long as patriotic morons wasting resources driving back and forth between their useless jobs and their meaningless lives in front of their stupid T.V.’s aren’t put out, that’s what’s really important!

They haven’t run enough of those lately. I’m in danger of not feeling bad for them.

ps. recording has begun in earnest here in Winnipeg. Stay tuned!

I hear you have federal election coming up? Hey, us too! Someday we should have a contest to see whose federal elections are more stilted and vapid. We could get Russia in on it too. It’d be fun!

I also hear you crazy Americans have something called a “Constitution” that actually grants you the right to vote for the candidate of your choice! That’s amazing! We have that here too but i find it takes way too much effort to figure stuff out so i usually just go with whoever won last time. It makes me feel like a winner.

People say it’s irresponsible for me to vote for a party whose platform doesn’t reflect my values, but i don’t care. It’s not the right time for me to cast votes based on my values! I need to feel like a winner NOW!

In other news, here is the world’s shortest resource list for the upcoming US Presidential Elections:

green party

ralph nader

how the whole farce operates

Have a great day you S.M.F.’s!

ps. to my ears the new record seems like it will resemble a nuclear-powered space-age composite of Potemkin City Limits, Less Talk More Rock, Giant Son’s “Anthology” and a carefully measured dose of Today’s Empires Tomorrow’s Ashes!

Apologies to fans of How to Clean Everything. There is nothing for you this year. Making it 16 years in a row now that you’ve stamped your feet and sniveled and whined and pooped your pants in disappointment. Which is unendingly funny to us. Oh, and by “pants”, i mean those giant nofx shorts from 1992. haha

Aug 31, 2008 By Yves Engler

The mainstream media’s hypocrisy during the Olympics would have been funny if it weren’t so ignorance-producing.

So many words written or spoken about human rights violations, lip-synching, suppression of Tibet, taped fireworks, Communist dictatorship, evil Chinese nationalism and yet what about context? Or what about how Canada might seem to them?

Has any media discussed Canada’s decades-long support of British imperialism in China? Opium War anyone? Dividing the country up among European powers?

How about Canadian business, missionary and diplomatic support for Japan’s brutal invasion of China in the 1930s? What about the weapons and $60 million Ottawa sent to aid Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang fighting Mao’s forces after World War II? Certainly one of the outraged Canadian columnists could have found room to mention Ottawa’s refusal to recognize the Chinese Communist government for 21 years?

For many years this refusal to recognize the new government was justified by citing Chinese “aggression” in the Korean War that left four million dead. During that war Canada sent 27,000 troops halfway across the world, partly in response to China’s revolution the previous year. China, on the other hand, only intervened after 500,000 hostile troops approached its border with northern Korea.

From historical amnesia concerning Canada-China relations through Tibet and Sudan the media’s double standard is glaring.

Does anyone believe that prior to Vancouver’s 2010 Olympics we will see a media barrage about the British Columbia land stolen from First Nations? Interviews on all the TV networks with spiritual leaders of the Lil’wat, Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh? Does it take a graduate degree in history to see the parallels between the actions of the Chinese government in Tibet and the European settlement of Canada?

Or, how about comparing Canada’s role in the Congo to China’s role in Sudan?

A few days ago Liberal MP Irwin Cotler complained to the Montr? Gazette: “China is Sudan’s largest trading partner. It buys Sudanese oil, Sudan uses the revenue to buy Chinese arms, and the arms are then used to kill Darfuris … this complicity risks turning the Beijing Olympics in to the ‘Genocide Olympics.’”

By UN estimates, there have been 300,000 killed in Darfur since 2003, while in the Congo The International Rescue Committee estimates there have been 5.4 million killed since 1998. In the latter conflict Canadian mining companies, diplomacy and military all played a role.

Yet in what mainstream media did you see the following reported?

With the end of the Cold War and weakening of Russian influence, Washington decided it would no longer allow the French to dominate large parts of Africa. Rwanda was viewed as an important staging ground for control over central Africa’s big prize: the Congo’s mineral resources.

Ottawa, with many French-speaking individuals at its disposal, played its part in bringing the formerly Francophone-dominated Rwanda into the U.S. orbit. The Canadian government helped Paul Kagame’s Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) take power in 1994 after they invaded Rwanda from neighbouring Uganda in 1990 (Kagame, who was head of intelligence for the Ugandan ruling party, was trained by the U.S. military at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas).

Taking direction from Washington, Canadian General [now Senator] Romeo Dallaire commanded the UN military force for Rwanda. According to numerous accounts, including his civilian commander on the UN mission, Jacques-Roger Boohbooh, Dallaire aided the RPF. In his book, Le Patron de Dallaire Parle, Boohbooh claims that Dallaire probably provided the RPF with military intelligence and turned a blind eye to their weapons coming in from Uganda.

Dallaire, Boohbooh concludes, “abandoned his role as head of the military to play a political role: he violated the neutrality principle of MINUAR [UN mission to Rwanda] by becoming an objective ally of one of the parties in the conflict.”

In his own book, Shake Hands with the Devil, Dallaire writes, “It had been amazing to see Kagame with his guard down for a couple of hours, to glimpse the passion that drove this extraordinary man.” This was published six years after Kagame unleashed a horror in the Congo.

Dallaire was not supporting the RPF on some personal whim. During the worst of the Rwandan conflict, Canadian military aircraft continued to fly into Rwanda from neighboring Uganda, the country that sponsored the RPF. Were they bringing weapons?

The book Tested Mettle notes: “A sizable contingent of JTF II [Canadian special forces] had been deployed into Africa. To provide additional ‘security’ for the UN mission in Rwanda, MacLean and his team had set up an ‘advanced operational base’ in Uganda. From there they would launch long-range, covert intelligence patrols deep into Rwandan territory.”

After the Canadian-backed RPF took power they helped launch a rebel attack led by Joseph Kabila into Zaire, now the Congo. In early 1997, a few months after launching his invasion from neighbouring Uganda and Rwanda, “Kabila sent a representative to Toronto to speak to mining companies about ‘investment opportunities.’ According to Dale Grant, editor of “Defence Policy Review,” this trip “may have raised as much as $50 million to support Kabila’s march on the capital of Kinshasa.”

A number of Canadian companies signed deals with Kabila before he took power. First Quantum Minerals, with former Prime Minister Joe Clark as its Special Advisor on Africa Affairs, signed three contracts worth nearly $1 billion. With Brian Mulroney and George Bush on its board, Barrick signed a gold concession in northeast Congo with Kabila’s forces. Heritage Oil also made an agreement with Kabila over a concession in the east of the country that Kabila’s army didn’t yet control.

The Canadian military gave substantial support to Kabila’s incursion into the Congo. Ottawa organized a short-lived UN force into eastern Zaire that was opposed by that country and welcomed by Uganda, Rwanda and Kabila’s rebels. Much to the dismay of the government of Zaire, General Maurice Baril, the Canadian multinational force commander, met Laurent Desire Kabila in eastern Zaire during the guerrilla war.

The book Nous ?ons invincibles provides a harrowing account of a JTF II operation to bring Baril to meet Kabila. Their convoy came under attack and was only bailed out when U.S. Apache and Blackhawk helicopters attacked the Congolese. Some thirty Congolese were killed by a combination of helicopter and JTF2 fire.

After successfully taking control of the Congo in mid-1997 Kabila demanded his Rwandese allies leave the country. This prompted a full-scale invasion by Rwanda, which unleashed an eight-nation war. To this day, Canada provides assistance and diplomatic support to the RPF despite the millions killed in the Congo and a terrible domestic human rights record. RPF proxies continue to fight in the Congo.

Canadian companies also continue to feed the fighting, largely based upon securing the Congo’s immense natural resources. There are more than a dozen Canadian mining companies active in the Congo today. In 2004 Anvil Mining was accused of providing logistics to troops that massacred between 70 and 100.

Ten Canadian companies were implicated in a UN report titled “Report on the Illegal Exploitation of Natural Resources and other Forms of Wealth in the Congo,” published in 2002. Ottawa responded to the report by defending the Canadian companies cited for complicity in Congolese human rights violations.

Let’s hold Canada to the same standards that we set for China.

—-

Yves Engler is currently finishing a book on Canadian foreign policy tentatively titled Uncle Sam’s nephew: tales of Canadian imperialism. He is the author of two books: Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority (with Anthony Fenton) and Playing Left Wing: From Rink Rat to Student Radical.

Long live Poland.

Fat Mike (of NOFX) in Calgary, AB May 5th after being hit with a shoe: “i come to your city and you throw your sweatshop shoe at me, i’m telling Chris Hannah he’s gonna be very upset about this.”

hahaha

well, back to my mattress!