breed-specific insanity continues in ontario; tea partiers support animal abuse in missouri

Breed-specific insanity continues in Ontario, under the radar of the media and most of the public, but inflicting lifelong pain on the families it tears apart.

Someone claims your dog is a banned breed, and it's up to you to prove she's not. And how do you prove such a thing? You can't. So your dog is taken from your home, and killed. Now, with a later amendment to the law, the dog can now be re-homed out of the province. But what will happen to the dog? And what of your family?

This almost happened to me, a week after we moved to Canada. In the story below, note the day the law went into effect: August 29, 2005. That's the day before we landed. Two days earlier, and we would have been safe. As it was, we were at the mercy of a kind Animal Services person, who may have showed leniency because we had just moved to the country.

Without this, I can't imagine what we would have done. We spent years healing Buster from the tortures he endured, and nursing him through his many chronic illnesses. To think our life with him could have been ended just days after we moved to Canada...! It's too terrible to contemplate.

A family in Cobourg, Ontario, is suffering this way right now. The dog Chaos (pictured above) has caused no trouble. He is not aggressive. He's not even a banned breed! But if you read the story carefully, you might discover what is really going on. The dog is barking. And someone found a way to fix the problem.

Stop K9 Profiling - End BSL (here on Facebook) is asking people to contact Ross Barth at Animal Services at 905.885.7808 and politely ask that Chaos be released.

Those of us who oppose breed-specific dog laws are asking for only one thing: that all dogs be treated equally. It's illegal to arrest people and lock them up because they might do something wrong in the future. (It happens, but it's still illegal.) Why can we do this to dogs?

Dog lovers protest breed ban after pet seized
By Pete Fisher, Northumberland Today

COBOURG/PORT HOPE - Punish the deed, not the breed: that was the message of a protest Saturday in front of the Northumberland County courthouse in Cobourg.

Tracey Van Slyke organized the protest after Animal Control officer Ross Barth and four Port Hope Police officers served a warrant at her home on Wednesday, March 9, and subsequently seized her 11-month-old dog, Chaos.

Officers said Chaos appears to be a pit bull, and therefore falls under banned breed legislation which states that no pit bulls are to be born after the legislation was enacted in August 2005.

"So, we've got an 11-month-old dog that shouldn't be here based on what I determined as to be a pit bull-type dog," said Barth, who was acting as a result of a complaint he received.

Though the dog wasn't at the home, it was later seized at a Cobourg residence.

"I don't believe I ever had an illegal dog," Van Slyke said at Saturday's protest.

Approximately 30 people from Cambridge to Kingston took part in the rally to call for changes to the Dog Owner's Liability Act.

As of Aug. 29, 2005, that restricts ownership of American pit bull terriers, American Staffordshire terriers, Staffordshire bull terriers and any dog that is deemed to be substantially similar can be seized.

All pit bulls born before August 2005 were to have been sterilized, tagged and registered. Any dog born after can be seized and destroyed or sent to a research facility for animal testing.

Van Slyke said she has two dogs and is doing her best as a "responsible dog owner," but has also been informed her dogs are "interrupting the enjoyment of other tenants" with their barking.

"My dogs occasionally bark," she said. "I've been working with them to get them to stop.

"I have contacted the legal clinic and they are going to assist me in my eviction notice.

"We need our dog back," she said.

"He's never done anything aggressively other than bark and we've been working on behavioral management with him. He doesn't deserve to die just because someone doesn't think he should be where he is."

. . .

Barth said he has to act under the law when a complaint is made, and if the owners can prove the animal is not a pit bull it would be released back to them.

"I can't say whether I agree with the law or not," he said. "That's not for me to decide. The law is in place and I have to enforce the law."

Barth said nobody involved in this incident wants to see the dog destroyed, "but we know if the court decides we have no option."

Chaos is currently being housed at the Shelter of Hope on Theatre Road in Hamilton Township because Barth couldn't find another place to keep the dog.

Some shelters are shipping the dogs like this to Quebec because that province has no ban on the breed.

Barth is an animal lover himself said it's a disturbing case for all involved.

"It's breaking my heart. I had the dog in my lap. I watched the police officers doing their job and I don't think anyone of us want to see the dog taken away from its owners."

Elsewhere, anti-government freaks will bring suffering and death to countless puppies and dogs, because even the most basic, bare-bones animal protection laws are really just "government meddling" in citizens' lives.

I wrote about this back in October, when tea-party activists were trying to block legislation that would limit some of the most egregious abuses of puppy mills in the state of Missouri. Despite those efforts, that legislation passed. And now they're trying to get it repealed.

For years, Missouri earned the dubious distinction as the nation’s “puppy mill capital” because its lax humane regulations and enforcement allowed dog breeders to raise puppies at low costs in terrible, overcrowded conditions. Last fall, Missouri voters approved a referendum to finally solve this problem — the Puppy Mill Cruelty Prevention Act — which mandates regular veterinarian inspections of breeding facilities and ensures a basic level of treatment for dogs, such keeping temperatures between 45 and 85 degrees. Tea party groups stridently opposed the referendum, arguing it was “just another example of big government meddling in people’s lives.” Now, capitalizing on the big gains they made in November, Republicans in the state legislature are poised to repeal the regulations Missouri’s voters enacted. . . .

The bill still has to make it through the state House, and Gov. Jay Nixon (D) has not yet said whether he would sign or veto the bill. Editorializing against the state Senate vote, the Kansas City Star wrote that the “senators showed an arrogant disrespect for Missourians” who voted for better treatment of the animals. “The state legislature, held hostage to interests that regard dogs as just another form of livestock, has ignored the problems for years,” the paper added.

By this light, we should be well on our way to repealing child labour laws, fire codes and minimum wage laws (a cruel joke in most US states anyway).

For more on puppy mills, go here. "Overcrowding" doesn't begin to describe the tortures these dogs are subjected to.

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sexism in the child-care debate: it's worse than i thought

A few weeks ago, when Human Resources Minister Diane Finley made some horribly offensive comments about working parents, I noted:

I find it shocking how this discussion in Canada focuses almost exclusively on working mothers. I was so accustomed to hearing "working parents" in the US that when I moved here, I was really taken aback by the difference. To me, this is akin to seeing the choice of "Miss" on Canadian forms, or "Dear Sir or Madam" instead of "To whom it may concern". But those phrases, although important, are largely symbolic. The unquestioned assumption that women choose between staying home or earning income, while men do not make similar choices, should have been retired at least 30 years ago.

Little did I know, these assumptions about gender and child care are actually written into Canadian law! Perhaps Canadian readers already know this, but when I inadvertently discovered it a few weeks ago, I was shocked.

In my Research Methods class, we had a guest lecture by Melissa Fritz, a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto. Fritz is examining the language used in government policy documents, specifically child care policy. Her talk described her methods of analyzing Hansard transcripts, but I got stuck on the content of her research.

Fritz pointed us to Canada Revenue Agency and the Universal Child Care Benefit:

The Universal Child Care Benefit is designed to help Canadian families, as they try to balance work and family life, by supporting their child care choices through direct financial support. The UCCB is for children under the age of 6 years and is paid in instalments of $100 per month per child.

Leaving aside that these are taxable benefits, that the benefit amount ($100 per month) is totally inadequate for child care, and that the tax benefit does nothing to create quality child care for so many families that need it - leaving all that aside - the UCCB is actually sexist by design, stemming from the sexist assumptions embedded in the Income Tax Act.

On the application for the UCCB, Canada Revenue explains:

...there is a presumption that when both a male and female parent live in the same home as the child, the female parent is considered to be primarily responsible (see the definition on page two of this information sheet) for the child and should apply. However, if the male parent is primarily responsible, he can apply if a signed note from the female parent is attached to the application...

Primarily responsible for the care and upbringing of a child means that you are responsible for such things as supervising the child's daily activities and needs, making sure the child's medical needs are met, and arranging for child care when necessary. If there is a female parent who lives with the child, we usually consider her to be this person. However, it could be the father, a grandparent or a guardian. [See Income Tax Act, Section 122.6(f)]

This floors me. In the 21st Century, an antiquated, gendered division of labour is actually written into federal policy. And it's not like the present government wrote this. It dates back at least as far the 1970s. Although tax codes are constantly evolving, this has never been changed.

Obviously this blatant sexism offends me, but beyond that, it doesn't reflect the realities of contemporary life. Families with equally shared parenting responsibilities have to pretend otherwise to receive their $1,200. Stay-at-home fathers need a note from Primary Earner Mom before their responsibilities can be legally recognized. And same-sex parents... well, good luck with that. They have to convince Canada Revenue Agency that one of them - but not both of them! - is raising a child.

And it's not only the presumption of the mother as primary caregiver; if you look a little deeper, there are all kinds of assumptions going on. If the female parent is assumed to be the primary caregiver, then the male parent is assumed to be the primary income earner, which in turn assumes the female parent earns less than her male partner. Those are some pretty ridiculous assumptions to make these days.

According to Fritz, as recently as 1993, some women's organizations argued in favour of continuing the gendered presumption of care, feeling it protected women's benefits after divorce. Honourable ends, but ridiculous means.

In 2005, former MP Dave Chatters, a Conservative from Alberta, tabled a private member's bill to amend the Income Tax Act to remove the female presumption of child care. Chatters had a constituent who was a single father with full custody of his two children. At some point, the man's female partner - not the children's mother - moved in with him. She did not legally adopt the children, yet the child-care benefit was automatically paid to her! The man tried to fight it, without success. Canada Revenue would only pay the benefit to the man's girlfriend! Chatters sought to change the law on this man's behalf, but the private member's bill went the way of most, dying when an election was called. Chatters, a Conservative, has since retired.

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disunion: when they say states' rights, you say slavery

I spent a fair amount of Reading Week reading, but not a word of it was for school. I did not achieve my goal of getting caught up to the current post of Disunion, but I did start at the beginning and make it through early January.

But it doesn't matter how far I got, because now I am totally hooked. I can't believe I got myself into another long-term reading commitment, with at least two years of overlap between the Pepys Diary and Disunion! But it's too late to turn back now. I am absolutely loving Disunion. If you enjoy reading and thinking about history, you can't do much better than this.

Did you know there was almost a state called Franklin? Did you know that the state of West Virginia was created when people in the western end of Virginia chose not to secede with the rest of their state? (They weren't anti-slavery, but were more economically tied to the North.) Allan and I have come to the conclusion that we were taught just about nothing.

Perhaps that's why so many people in the southern US still believe myths and lies about the Civil War. Or perhaps there's another reason.

December 20, 2010 marked 150 years since South Carolina seceded from the United States of America, the first state to do so. Some white South Carolinians celebrated with antebellum-style balls, while others, mostly African Americas, protested outside.

Naturally, Confederacy-lovers claim that their celebration has nothing to do with slavery. Indeed, they claim that the southern states' secession and the bloodiest war in US history were not about slavery. According to them, it was all about states' rights. States' rights, states' rights, states' rights. Limiting the power of the federal government to tell local governments what to do. This is the mantra.

I don't know whether the people who cling to this talking point are actually ignorant of the truth, or if they know they are lying. Given the train wreck that is public education in the US, my guess is that a fair percentage of them believe this lie to be true. But about this there is no question: it's a lie.

Secession was not about states' rights, plural. It was about one state "right": the "right" to own human property and control a supply of forced, free labour.

Edward Ball is the author of the book Slaves in the Family, which chronicles his journey to find and meet the people who are descendants from the slaves owned by his own ancestors. (Great interview with Ball here.) On the anniversary of South Carolina's secession, he wrote an essay, "Gone With The Myths" for the New York Times. Here's an excerpt.

I can testify about the South under oath. I was born and raised there, and 12 men in my family fought for the Confederacy; two of them were killed. And since I was a boy, the answer I’ve heard to this question, from Virginia to Louisiana (from whites, never from blacks), is this: “The War Between the States was about states’ rights. It was not about slavery.”

I’ve heard it from women and from men, from sober people and from people liquored up on anti-Washington talk. The North wouldn’t let us govern ourselves, they say, and Congress laid on tariffs that hurt the South. So we rebelled. Secession and the Civil War, in other words, were about small government, limited federal powers and states’ rights.

But a look through the declaration of causes written by South Carolina and four of the 10 states that followed it out of the Union — which, taken together, paint a kind of self-portrait of the Confederacy — reveals a different story. From Georgia to Texas, each state said the reason it was getting out was that the awful Northern states were threatening to do away with slavery.

South Carolina: “The non-slaveholding states ... have denounced as sinful the institution of slavery” and “have encouraged and assisted thousands of our slaves to leave their homes.”

Mississippi: “Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. ... There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union.”

Georgia: “A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia.”

Several states single out a special culprit, Abraham Lincoln, “an obscure and illiterate man” whose “opinions and purposes are hostile to slavery.” Lincoln’s election to the White House meant, for South Carolina, that “the public mind must rest in the belief that slavery is in the course of ultimate extinction.”

In other words, the only state right the Confederate founders were interested in was the rich man’s “right” to own slaves.

It’s peculiar, because “states’ rights” has become a popular refrain in Republican circles lately. Last year Gov. Rick Perry of Texas wondered aloud whether secession was his state’s right in the aftermath of laws out of Congress that he disliked.

In part because of this renewed rhetoric, in the coming remembrances we will likely hear more from folks who cling to the whitewash explanation for secession and the Civil War. But you have only to look at the honest words of the secessionists to see why all those men put on uniforms.

This Disunion entry, "Dancing Around History", also puts the lie to the states' rights myth, and counters the usual rationalizations in more detail.

The citizenry, poised to tear a nation apart, was planning a grand party. The following afternoon, Palmer and other delegates who had assembled in the South Carolina city voted 169 to 0 for secession. That evening thousands flocked to Institute Hall in downtown Charleston to witness the formal signing of the “Ordinance of Secession.” Afterward “cannon were fired,” reported the Charleston Mercury, “and bright triumph was depicted on every countenance.”

On Monday, exactly 150 years later, Confederate enthusiasts sought to relive the festivities with an elaborate Secession Gala. Three hundred celebrants—dozens decked out like cavalier planters and Lady South Carolina—packed Charleston’s Gaillard Auditorium to celebrate the fateful vote. One could almost be forgiven for thinking the whole town had gone back in time.

Outside the ball, though, more than a hundred people staged a downtown march, capping off an afternoon of protest that included police-guarded demonstrations at local hotels and a candlelight vigil. The protesters, mostly black, carried signs reading “Don’t Celebrate Slavery and Terrorism” and “It’s not About Heritage.” “Slavery is what you defend when you have a party, a celebration, get drunk, holler loud, act like a rebel, and talk about how you’re celebrating your heritage,” said NAACP leader Reverend Nelson B. Rivers III. “No matter how you dress it up, it is still slavery.” As darkness fell around Gaillard Auditorium, they lit candles and sang “We Shall Overcome.”

Inside, the white gala attendees, nearly half of whom were dressed in period costume, belted out a rousing rendition of Dixie. The mood was festive and defiant. Slavery, many insisted, had nothing to do with their decision to buy the $100 ticket to attend the ball. “We’re not celebrating slavery,” maintained Sons of Confederate Veterans Commander-in-Chief Michael Givens. “We’re looking at the bravery and tenacity of the people who rose up.” When pressed, he and others admitted that the institution was an abomination. But they also took pains to emphasize that secession was about high tariffs or states’ rights. Anything but slavery.

Attendees at Monday’s ball would like to believe that the unanimity of slaveowners and non-slaveowners during the crisis proves that slavery wasn’t the driving issue behind secession. But a closer study of the contentious debate over secession in late 1860 shows how “fire-eaters” used fear of emancipation to coerce and persuade whites of all classes into ultimately supporting secession. (Needless to say, the state’s black majority likely didn’t support secession either—though no one bothered to ask them.) [Read more here.]

Also: Creative Loafing: It's the slavery, stupid.

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in case you missed it: historic bill supporting rights of transgendered people passes second reading

From the definitely better late than never department, I neglected to mention a historic victory in the Canadian House of Commons. Bill C-389, Bill Siksay's private member's bill that would give transgendered people explicit rights under both the Human Rights Act and the hate-crimes provision of the Criminal Code, passed second reading in the House of Commons.

Nearly all opposition members stood up to cheer and applaud when the results were announced. While the entire NDP and Bloc caucuses voted for the bill, five Liberals abstained and seven voted against. Six Conservatives voted for the bill, including four cabinet ministers, while one minister abstained.

Most of us watching this bill were pretty surprised to see six Conservative MPs - John Baird, Lawrence Cannon, Shelly Glover, Gerald Keddy, John Moore and Lisa Raitt - vote in favour. While everyone points out that Baird is an openly closeted gay man, I'm not sure that's ever caused him to do the right thing before.

Some observers speculate that individual Conservative MPs now feel more free to vote their consciences, because nothing progressive will get through the Conservative-controlled Senate. This may be so, but the passage of Bill C-389 through the House of Commons is historic nonetheless. I believe it signals that the rights of transgendered people will eventually be written into Canada's law, whether or not it happens through this particular bill.

From Xtra:

“When I first ran in 1993, I ran on the issue of LGBT rights,” [MP Hedy] Fry says. “We just got sexual orientation in the Human Rights Act [back then], and now that ‘T’ that I said was missing got put in.”

Fry says she is proud to have been in the House for votes on issues of sexual orientation, same-sex marriage and now trans rights, which she hopes will get swift passage in the Senate.

“Hopefully we’ll see things change in society,” Fry says. “When something becomes normalized and legal in a country, society begins to change its attitude toward those persons, and hopefully we’ll see some of those suicide rates dropping for transgendered persons.”

Bloc MP Nicole Demers, who spoke in support of the bill during second reading, expressed a mixture of joy and disappointment after the vote.

“I’m always shocked when I see people getting up and voting against human rights,” Demers says. “That shocks me. That angers me – I don’t know how, in 2011, we still have to teach people about those things, and when I see people from Quebec, like Christian Paradis and Jacques Gourde, getting up and voting against that – I’m saying to myself, my God, where have we gone wrong?”

I must mention that Bill Siksay, the bill's sponsor, is also personal and political supporter of US war resisters in Canada. He's one of the MPs that make me proud of Canada and of the NDP.

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jim crow and resistance in olde new york

I will try not to overdo the Disunion posts, but I can't promise anything. This entry is worthy of Howard Zinn: "Jim Crow on West Broadway". There was always resistance! Meet Charles Sanders and Elizabeth Jennings, 19th Century forerunners of Rosa Parks, along with the organizing efforts of black New Yorkers, and a Georgia man who refused to chop wood, declaring that since Lincoln had been elected, he was now free.

Go read. Try not to get distracted by that house for sale on West 9th Street. At one time that would have topped my lottery list.

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a kinder, gentler huck finn and the sound of samuel clemens spinning in his grave

I suppose you've heard that there is a new, bowdlerized edition of Mark Twain's classic novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Alan Gribben, an editor with the temerity to call himself "a Twain scholar" - although Judas or Jack the Ripper might be more appropriate - has removed every instance of the words "nigger" and "Injun," and replaced them with the word "slave".

I find this anti-intellectual wallpapering sad and discouraging beyond measure. As if purging a classic of an offensive word will somehow reduce the incidence of racism in the world. As if anyone has the moral right to rewrite an author's - any author's - work!

I don't have time to write about this as fully as I'd like right now, but will expand on it at a (much) later date. For now, a few other good pieces can stand in for me.

From a discussion in The Atlantic, Jamelle Bouie:

Taking the History Out of 'Huck Finn'

. . . Maybe I spend too much time in the political blogosphere, but this reminds me of Rich Lowry's most recent column for the National Review, where he channels his preschool self to brag about America's complete and undiminished greatness. The similarity comes in the mutual urge to purge the ugliness from American history. Jim Crow and neo-slavery makes Lowry uncomfortable, so he glosses over it as he spells out America's unadulterated raditude. Likewise, "nigger" makes people feel bad, so it must go, according to NewSouth and Alan Gribben.

But erasing "nigger" from Huckleberry Finn — or ignoring our failures — doesn't change anything. It doesn't provide racial enlightenment, or justice, and it won't shield anyone from the legacy of slavery and racial discrimination. All it does is feed the American aversion to history and reflection. Which is a shame. If there's anything great about this country, it's in our ability to account for and overcome our mistakes. Peddling whitewashed ignorance diminishes America as much as it does our intellect.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, also in The Atlantic, responds:

I'm obviously not Mark Twain, but having written a book, I can only imagine how hard Twain worked. I would be incensed if someone went through my book and took out all the "niggers" or "bitches" or "motherfuckers." It's really just a hair short of some stranger, in their preening ignorance, putting their hands on your kid.

To me that's the worst part; surely we are, as Jamelle says, peddling whitewashed ignorance, but much worse we're actually peddling it at Twain's expense. I think the worse part of censoring Twain, is that it's a shocking act of disrespect toward the writer, executed by people who claim to hold up his legacy.

I am remembered to the historian Elizabeth Brown Pryor, who aptly noted that when people whitewash Robert E. Lee, and claim he was anti-slavery, what they are implicitly claiming is that the actual Robert E. Lee — one of the greatest generals of the past two centuries — isn't good enough.

This is actually much worse, because the invocation of nigger by Twain is not a moral failing. But because of our needs, Twain isn't good enough. Because we can't handle the story of who we were, and evidently who we are, Twain must be summoned up from the dead and, all against himself, submitted before the edits of amateurs. This is our system of fast-food education laid bare: Children are roaming the halls singing "Sexy Bitch," while their neo-Confederate parents are plotting to chop the penis off Michelangelo's David, and clamoring for Gatsby and Daisy to be reunited.

Let us all live in a world of warm snugglies. Let the air-conditioning anesthesia sprawl free. May the flowers of happiness multiply out. May Mark Twain's ghost haunt us all.

Globe and Mail:

To delete the word “nigger” from its 200-plus appearances in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, and replace it with “slave,” is to evade the problem of education. It is to falsify a world as a precondition for teaching about it.

. . . .

The problem of education is to teach impressionable and sensitive young people about a sometimes harsh world. The world as it is, in other words. And very much the world of Huck Finn.

That world is rendered in Huck’s vernacular that has preserved, for all times, the inner truth of the antebellum South. “Nigger,” used so frequently, reveals a reflexive, unthinking degradation of black people. In counterpoint is Huck’s own slow-emerging recognition that Jim is a human being worthy of respect. Huck is a creature of his time and place. His transformation is the subversive moral core of the book. If he spoke like a civil-rights activist, the essence would be lost.

Words wound, words enlighten. Satire often features a kind of bravura cruelty. It doesn’t flinch from exposing how stupid and horrible people can be. (People are exceptionally stupid and horrible in Huck Finn.) Readers do flinch; and so they should, if the satire is sharp enough.

Huck Finn is just that sharp, and touches on the sorest spot in United States life: race. “It is a book that puts on the table the very questions the culture so often tries to bury, a book that opens out into the complex history that shaped it,” an English professor in Texas wrote. Are high school teachers up to the challenge? If not, it makes more sense to strengthen them than to weaken the book.

To tame Huck Finn, to soften its voice, does no favours to young people.

Robert Hirst, the curator of the Mark Twain Project at the University of California, Berkeley, via Gothamist:

When Pat Finn, in his drunken tirade about meeting a “nigger” who could vote and was educated, the whole strength of that depends on feeling how bigoted Pat Finn is. If you soften his words, you’re not helping the point. I teach Twain once a year and I tell my students, I’m not going to euphemize this word. I’m not going to say N-word. You’ve totally destroyed the music of it and the point of it. [Twain] is well aware of the uneasiness this would cause. He lets Huck use this word exclusively. The uniformity of it shows you that he doesn’t want the pressure to be let up.

Gothamist himself announces an even newer edition: The Hipster Huck Finn, in which satirist Richard Grayson writes "an edition of Huck Finn that New Yorkers from Bushwick to the Lower East Side can all enjoy". Gothamist predicts a future edition which will "replace the word 'devil' with 'Wal-Mart'."

But the appearance of this book leaves me in little mood for joking.

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"no more shikata ga nai": frank emi, japanese-american war resister

One of the most shameful episodes in both US and Canadian history is known in the US as Executive Order 9066: the treatment of citizens of Japanese descent during World War II. Innocent citizens, with no recourse to due process, were rounded up, forced into concentration camps where they lived in barracks, surrounded by barbed wires and armed guards, their homes and property confiscated. Executive Order 9066 is a chilling story of scapegoating and a cautionary tale of how easily democracy can be smashed in the name of security. And this while the country was at war, supposedly to defend democracy!

Heaping insult onto injury, young Japanese-American and Japanese-Canadian men were drafted into the war while their families were still being held in the camps. The majority rushed to join the war effort to prove their patriotism. But some did not. Some resisted.

Frank Emi was one such resister. He was also an organizer: he helped others to resist, too. He and others formed a committee to protest the draft, saying they would serve only after their rights had been fully restored. More than 300 detainees in the 10 concentration camps joined. Later in his life, Emi would say, "We could either tuck our tails between our legs like a beaten dog or stand up like free men and fight for justice."

They had little support from their own community, and certainly no sympathy from the larger culture. Emi was sentenced to four years in federal penitentiary for "conspiracy to counsel draft evasion"; he served 18 months.

Researching this post, I discovered a documentary chronicling this Japanese-American draft resistance, screened on PBS, called Conscience and the Constitution. The companion website, where you can read much more about Frank Emi and the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee, is here at Resisters.com (not to be confused with our own Resisters.ca).

Frank Emi died this past December at the age of 94. Here is his obituary from the New York Times; many thanks to Mike from VFP for sending it to me. I have a few Canadian friends whose lives were affected by this - one whose husband (now deceased) was interned, and two whose parents were in the camps. Janet, Kim and "Malory," this is for you.

For nearly four years, through scorching summer heat, dust storms and frigid winters, 11,000 residents of the United States were forced to live in barracks, surrounded by barbed-wire fences, guard towers and searchlights at the Heart Mountain Relocation Center in the northwest Wyoming desert.

They were among more than 110,000 Japanese-Americans, most from the West Coast, who were herded from their homes to inland detention centers after President Franklin D. Roosevelt, within three months of the attack on Pearl Harbor, issued Executive Order 9066, deeming them threats to national security.

“The military escorted us to the camp with their guns and bayonets, so there really wasn’t much thought about standing up for your rights at that time,” one internee, Frank Emi, later told the Japanese-American oral history project at California State University, Fullerton.

The phrase he heard among the detainees was “Shikata ga nai” — it can’t be helped.

That would change two years later, after the government had begun drafting detainees into the military. Ordered to fight for the country that had imprisoned them, many were defiant, Mr. Emi (pronounced EH-me) among them. At Heart Mountain they formed a committee to organize a protest, arguing that they would serve only after their rights had been fully restored. More than 300 detainees in all 10 detention camps joined their cause.

For Mr. Emi, the mantra became “No more shikata ga nai.”

Mr. Emi, the last surviving leader of the committee, died on Dec. 1 in West Covina, Calif., said his daughter Kathleen Ito. He was 94 and lived in San Gabriel, Calif.

Not all Japanese-Americans were opposed to serving in the military. After the War Department, at the urging of Japanese-American leaders, decided in 1943 to allow detainees to volunteer for an all-Japanese-American unit, many signed up. Their unit, the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, went to Europe under the rallying cry “Go for broke.” The 442nd would become one of the most highly decorated regiments in United States history, earning 9,486 Purple Hearts and 21 Medals of Honor.

But when the government decided to start drafting Japanese-Americans in January 1944, scores of internees saw it as the last straw.

“Many of the internees took the reopening of the draft as an unwarranted test of their patriotism,” Eric Muller, a professor of constitutional law at the University of North Carolina and the author of “Free to Die for Their Country” (2001), said in an interview. “Some young men decided they had had enough. Why should they and their families, who had lost all of their rights and privileges of citizenship, be asked to shoulder its greatest burden?”

Mr. Emi and six other internees at Heart Mountain formed the Fair Play Committee. They held meetings in mess halls, distributed fliers throughout all the camps and sought to initiate a court case to re-establish their rights as citizens.

To those who believed that they were doing harm to Japanese-Americans over all, the resisters became known as the “no-no boys.” Some, particularly those so proud of the volunteers in the 442nd Regiment, called them cowards and traitors. But as far as Mr. Emi was concerned, he told The Los Angeles Times in 1993, “We could either tuck our tails between our legs like a beaten dog or stand up like free men and fight for justice.”

Charged with draft evasion, all of the more than 300 resisters were sentenced to prison terms of approximately three years.

In separate indictments, Mr. Emi and six other leaders of the Fair Play Committee were charged with conspiracy to counsel draft evasion. Four, including Mr. Emi, were sentenced to four years; two received two-year sentences, and the seventh was acquitted. They were sent to the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., where they were surrounded by hardened criminals.

“Frank was a black-belt judo expert,” Professor Muller said. “The first thing they did at Leavenworth was stage a judo exhibition in which the little guys threw the big guys. After that nobody bothered them.”

Three months after the war, the convictions of the committee leaders were overturned by a federal appeals court; they were released after serving 18 months. The 300 charged as draft resisters lost their appeal, but on Christmas Eve 1947, President Harry S. Truman pardoned them all.

Frank Seishi Emi was born in Los Angeles on Sept. 23, 1916. His parents owned a food market. When his father was injured in a car accident, Mr. Emi dropped out of college to run the business.

He was married and had one child when Executive Order 9066 was issued. The business and the family home were never recovered after the war. He later worked as a postal clerk.

Besides his daughter, Mr. Emi is survived by his second wife, Itsuko; another daughter, Eileen Tabuchi; a stepdaughter, Rie Nishikawa; a sister, Kaoru Sugita; nine grandchildren; and four great-grandchildren.

For decades, Mr. Emi and other draft resisters faced disapproval from other Japanese-Americans. During the war, the Japanese American Citizens League had called for them to be charged with sedition. But in 2000, at its national convention in Monterey, Calif., the league formally apologized.

And two years later, at a league ceremony honoring the resisters, Senator Daniel K. Inouye, a veteran of the 442nd Regiment and a Medal of Honor recipient, addressed the crowd in a videotaped message.

"Some young men answered the call to military service," Mr. Inouye said, "and they did so with honor and with great courage. Some young men chose to make their point by resisting the government's order to report for the draft. They too were honorable and courageous."

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nixon, war resisters, and anti-semitism both real and imagined

Students of US political history know that Richard Nixon was a virulent racist and antisemite. Nixon famously hated a lot of people, but there was a special place in Nixonian Hell for Blacks and Jews. But who knew there'd be a war resister connection mixed in the bigotry?

New tapes released this week by the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum show that one reason Nixon vehemently opposed any sort of amnesty for Vietnam War resisters was because so many of them were Jewish.

Nixon also strongly hinted that his reluctance to even consider amnesty for young Americans who went to Canada to avoid being drafted during the Vietnam War was because, he told Mr. Colson, so many of them were Jewish.

"I didn't notice many Jewish names coming back from Vietnam on any of those lists; I don't know how the hell they avoid it," he said, adding: "If you look at the Canadian-Swedish contingent, they were very disproportionately Jewish. The deserters."

If you're wondering where these tapes came from, they came from Nixon himself. Nixon had a secret recording system installed in the White House. It now provides a fascinating and rare window into the paranoid, obsessive, megalomaniac White House of a pre-digital era. Here's another nice bit.

An indication of Nixon’s complex relationship with Jews came the afternoon Golda Meir, the Israeli prime minister, came to visit on March 1, 1973. The tapes capture Meir offering warm and effusive thanks to Nixon for the way he had treated her and Israel.

But moments after she left, Nixon and Mr. Kissinger were brutally dismissive in response to requests that the United States press the Soviet Union to permit Jews to emigrate and escape persecution there.

“The emigration of Jews from the Soviet Union is not an objective of American foreign policy,” Mr. Kissinger said. “And if they put Jews into gas chambers in the Soviet Union, it is not an American concern. Maybe a humanitarian concern.”

“I know,” Nixon responded. “We can’t blow up the world because of it.” [Ed. note: Kissinger suggested using nuclear weapons in Southeast Asia. Apparently there were some things worth blowing up the world for!]

In his discussion with Ms. Woods, Nixon laid down clear rules about who would be permitted to attend the state dinner for Meir — he called it “the Jewish dinner” — after learning that the White House was being besieged with requests to attend.

“I don’t want any Jew at that dinner who didn’t support us in that campaign,” he said. “Is that clear? No Jew who did not support us.”

Nixon didn't hate all Jews: Israeli Jews were okay, American Jews were not. He might even have praised today's Jewish bigots from the "who is a Jew" crowd. They believe anyone who criticizes Israeli government policies cannot be considered Jewish. Antisemitism, jingoism... they actually have a lot in common with Nixon.

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pew research: "the decline of marriage and rise of new families"

Via Andrew Sullivan, Chart Of The Day: What is a family?, from the Pew Research Center.

A majority of respondents don't consider my family a family. Although I actually don't care, because I know we are a family. (Which may make you wonder why I posted this.)

Even more interesting, 18% of respondents judged an unmarried male-female couple with children as not a family. And 12% thought a single parent with children is not a family! How do we wrap our heads around that one? It may be bigotry, but it also may be a failure of the imagination. People cannot imagine a type of family other than the kind in which they were raised. Their minds are very small.

Another interesting chart: percentage of people who think the changes in marriage and family types are a good thing, a bad thing or neither.

The summary of the report is very interesting: here. I'd like to see future surveys include polyamorous, multiple-adult households - just to piss off the bigots.

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world aids day

Today is World AIDS Day.

Reflect.

Remember.

End prejudice against HIV-positive people.

Give.

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george galloway speaks out against canada's new mccarthyism

George Galloway, currently on a cross-country speaking tour in Canada, has pledged the proceeds of his lawsuit against the Canadian government to the Canadian peace movement. He's been announcing this in local and national Canadian media all over the country, and the news has been rocketing through the anti-war movement. Galloway's generosity and strength of commitment is so energizing for all of us who work for peace.

On the tour, Galloway has also been addressing the recent conference of the misnamed "Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism," more properly called The Return of McCarthyism. In an excellent post, Paul S. Graham quoted Galloway:

Well, it’s all very mysterious. That’s the first point. The Canadian taxpayer paid a pretty penny for this conference, even though they were entirely locked out of it. No media were permitted in it. We have no proper record of who was there. The attendance list even has not been published despite the taxpayer funding the whole thing. And it’s all very mysterious – what it’s all about. And when we’ll see its impact on Canadian public life. But it would be a fair inference that its impact will be malign and that the current assault on free expression on this issue in Canada is going to be intensified as a result of these protocols.

I don’t think that this kind of secret conclave, coming up with – until now — secret protocols – is going to combat any antisemitism in Canada. As a matter of fact, it’s quite likely to generate greater feelings of enmity, which of course, I would deplore.

Antisemitism exists. It is a racist phenomenon that has long existed in Christian countries for many, many centuries. Like all forms of racism it must be combated, and combated in the correct way which successfully, hopefully, one day, extinguishes it.

But the answer to antisemitism is not to stop beating up the Jews and start beating up the Muslims. Instead, the answer is to conduct oneself in an unrelenting campaign against all forms of racism, bigotry and hatred – and that’s what I have done all of my life.

Insofar as I’ve seen anything from this secret conclave, it attempts something unique in the world – to make Israel the collective Jew. And this, itself, is a racist and therefore antisemitic idea. Israel is not the collective Jew. There is no collective Jew.

There are huge numbers of Jews who don’t want anything to do with Israel either from religious or secular, progressive standpoints. The population of Israel is not Jewish. There are at least 25 per cent of the population which is not Jewish and no one has the right to collectivize them as Jewish – to do what Lieberman is demanding they do themselves – to sign an oath effectively liquidating their place in the state as first class citizens.

And of course there are well over two and a half million – in fact, getting on for three million Christians and Muslims living under illegal occupation within the de facto borders of Israel today. And they too cannot be collectivized as Jews by the whim of a secret conclave in Ottawa. So I think it’s all rather disturbing.

But it raises what we used to call the $64,000 question, which is: Why is Canada doing this? Why has Canada become this monomaniacal supporter of the most extreme forms of support for Israel? Why has Canada allowed itself to become effectively an embassy for Netanyahu in the world?

It’s certainly not in Canada’s interest. I don’t believe it’s in the interests of the Jews of the world. And I don’t even believe it’s in the interests of the State of Israel. And it goes without saying it’s certainly not in the interests of the region as a whole and peace in the world.

Independent Jewish Voices (Canada) also has an excellent response to this dangerous trend.

Newcomers to wmtc may want to read this older post: "a simple lesson: how to tell the difference between hatred of a people and criticism of a nation's policies".

Today, George Galloway's second Toronto appearance is sold out, but you can catch him tomorrow in Hamilton, then in Vancouver, Calgary, Yellowknife, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Ottawa. Calgary is going to be fun. Tour dates and ticket info here.

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racist bus ad in mississauga: make your voice heard

My friend and comrade Peter alerted me (and many others) to this hideous ad.

Paul Fromm, a mayoral candidate in the recent Mississauga municipal election, is known for his fascist views. A former teacher, Fromm lost his job when he refused to end his association with white supremacist groups. He has written for Stormfront, and has had a series of human rights complaints against him.

Mississauga, the sixth largest city in Canada, would barely exist if it weren't for immigration. Our city is a living, breathing example of the vibrancy of multiculturalism, and proof that Canadian multiculturalism works. Therefore I have no doubt that some residents of Mississauga - perhaps some of those who lived here when it was a white, rural enclave (before it was called Mississauga) - object to our beautiful mosaic. Of course, those folks are all descendants of immigrants, too, but they conveniently forget that fact when blaming their bitter lives on their brown neighbours.

Fromm received 917 votes in the recent election, good enough for ninth place. While he's clearly no threat to Mayor Hazel McCallion, the fact that 900 of my neighbours would vote for this man is disturbing.

From the Mississauga News:

The election is over, but a campaign advertisement that appeared on Mississauga Transit buses – and was still running as late as last week – is firing up residents.

The outsized ad, placed prominently on the back of the vehicles and touting mayoralty candidate Paul Fromm, read: "Fight Gridlock: Freeze Immigration."

Fromm is no stranger to controversy. A former Peel District School Board teacher, he was fired in 1997 after he ignored warnings from administrators to stop associating with known racists and white supremacists. The B’Nai Brith and other organizations had complained about his conduct at a series of right-wing political rallies.

Peter Votsch was so offended by Fromm’s sign, he filed a formal complaint with Mississauga Transit.

“It attempts to link immigration to gridlock, topics which have no apparent relation. This ad appears to be an attack on immigration and immigrant communities, bizarrely blaming immigrants to Canada/Mississauga for heavy traffic on our roads. It is a racist ad that attempts to create anti-immigrant sentiment during our municipal election,” he wrote in his complaint.

Votsch wanted to know why such a “blatantly anti-immigrant message” would appear on public transit. He also wants measures taken to prevent such ads from appearing in all public spaces.

. . .

Fromm insists he was not targeting any particular sector.

“Definitely, I oppose all immigration at this time,” he said. “With 8.4 per cent unemployment, Canada should accept no more immigration until we get Canadians back to work. My ads attacked no community. The ads refer to future intake and cast no aspersions on people who are presently here.”

Contacted by The News, Mississauga Transit director Geoff Marinoff said the City of Mississauga is having the ad removed as the contracted period is over.

“CBS Outdoor is the City’s on-board bus and shelter advertising contractor. The terms of the contract require CBS Outdoor to review the advertising creative for an ad both against the City of Mississauga’s advertising policy and the national Canadian Code of Advertising Standards,” said Marinoff.

He noted that if CBS Outdoor views an ad as questionable, it refers it back to City staff.

“The ad was reviewed by staff and placed on buses...as it met both the policy criteria and the advertising standards,” he said.

Peter responds:

My aim in all of this is to question why the City is outsourcing to a private corporation (CBS Outdoor) to decide what is and isn't to be posted on public space, especially when that corporation has an economic incentive NOT to refuse ads. It seems the Human Rights Code has been privatised in Mississauga.

The City of Mississauga, in turn, responds that not enough people have complained for it to make a difference.

Thanks to Peter's activist network, that may soon be changing. If you would like to add your voice, contact:

Julie Lavertu, Legislative Coordinator
City of Mississauga
Legislative Services Division, Office of the City Clerk
905.615.3200, ext. 5471
Julie.Lavertu@mississauga.ca

For my part, I'm grateful for this ad. It's an opportunity to see this man Fromm for what he really is, and to speak out against him. I do, however, agree that an advertising media company should not be - must not be - the arbiter of what ads appear in public spaces. These are usually the companies that refuse pro-choice or queer-themed ads, while accepting bigoted filth like this.

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it gets better highlights: muslims, orthodox jews, and madonna

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how to better it gets better

When I posted some videos from It Gets Better, there was a brief discussion in comments about some criticisms of the whole It Gets Better project. I didn't have time or patience to respond to those complaints, but directed readers to this post by msjacks of The Bitter Buffalo.

Now Impudent Strumpet has written a comprehensive and compassionate response to the critics of It Gets Better: "Building a better It Gets Better". If you're interested in this discussion, this is highly recommended reading.

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ode to privilege: "things i don’t have to think about today"

John Scalzi, of Whatever:

Today I don’t have to think about those who hear “terrorist” when I speak my faith.
Today I don’t have to think about men who don’t believe no means no.
Today I don’t have to think about how the world is made for people who move differently than I do.
Today I don’t have to think about whether I’m married, depending on what state I’m in.
Today I don’t have to think about how I’m going to hail a cab past midnight.

Today I don’t have to think about whether store security is tailing me.
Today I don’t have to think about the look on the face of the person about to sit next to me on a plane.
Today I don’t have to think about eyes going to my chest first.
Today I don’t have to think about what people might think if they knew the medicines I took.
Today I don’t have to think about getting kicked out of a mall when I kiss my beloved hello.

Read the whole thing. Many thanks to James for sending this great post.

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protesting veterans, we support you. please lose the bigotry.

I was very encouraged and impressed to see Canadian veterans demanding better treatment from the country they served. Those red circles on MPs lapels mean as much as a "support our troops" car magnet - nothing - unless they're backed up by action. When Colonel Pat Stogran, the veterans ombudsman, spoke up about the raw deal being foisted on Canadian veterans, the Harper government did what they always do: they fired him.

I was afraid the issue might die there, but veterans themselves aren't letting that happen. I was saddened, though, to see the veterans protest information refer ungenerously to others in need.

It is shameful to think that the Constitution of Canada and the Canadian Bill of Rights guarantees "refugees" and other illegal aliens into this country, more right and privileges without application than a serving or retired member of of the Canadian Forces, RCMP or the Merchant Seamen/women. [Emphasis in original, not added.]

Why include this? The veterans deserve fair treatment, period. Why pit their rights against the needs of others?

Why the inflammatory quotes? This implies the writer doubts there is such a thing as a refugee. One would think that a veteran, who perhaps has seen countries devastated by war, famine and oppression, knows why refugees exist. And I reject the use of the phrase "illegal aliens," as if an immigrant without documentation is not human.

Why lie? Refugees and undocumented immigrants to Canada do not have more rights and privileges than Canadian veterans. Refugee claimants have some basic rights while in the refugee process. Undocumented immigrants have none. And no one has any rights "without application". Refugee claimants go through a formal process. Undocumented immigrants have no rights or privileges whatsoever. They certainly don't have more benefits than veterans. Where in the "Constitution of Canada and the Canadian Bill of Rights" does it say this?

Canadian Veterans are right to protest, and I fully support their demands for better and more comprehensive benefits. The Canada that they served - the Canada that's worth defending - isn't a country that turns its back on needy refugees, despite the political fashion of the day. It's a country that recognizes itself as a nation of immigrants from the very beginning - starting with the British and French who came here without invitation. Unless they're native peoples, every Canadian veteran is a descendant of immigrants of one kind or another. To the people who were already here, those ancestors were aliens, too.

I am saddened by the protest organizers' narrowness of vision. I hope it doesn't reflect the feelings of the majority of veterans who are protesting.

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george takei calls out anti-gay douchebag

After the umpteenth person sent me this or posted it on Facebook, I thought I should post it as well. There's always someone who sees things first here on wmtc. Enjoy.

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the end of dadt: unit cohesion does not appear to be compromised

So Don't Ask Don't Tell is supposedly history.

Naturally, I support the right of queer Americans to serve in the US military, because I believe in the equality of all people, and the right of all people to self-determination.

But I find it difficult to celebrate this as a victory.

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it gets better: dan savage, sarah silverman and my friend nick

I'm thinking most wmtc readers have seen this by now, but if even one of you hasn't, it's worth posting.

There has been a rash of suicides of of gay teens in the US. All of the young people were bullied in high school, because they were gay.

Columnist Dan Savage and his partner Terry Miller made this video in response.



Nick is the first friend I met through wmtc. He's Canadian now, having left the US for a better life in Toronto. Here's his contribution to "It Gets Better".



Sarah Silverman puts the bullying and the suicides in context. This is short; please be sure to watch it.



Bullying isn't limited to queer kids, nor is teen suicide. The deaths of those six young people is not a "gay problem". It's our problem - all of us. It's up to each of us to create a safe world where each and every one of us can be ourselves, and can live without fear.

We have a long way to go.

"When you're sure you've had enough of this life... hang on."



My heart breaks for those boys and their families. I've known what it feels like to wonder if death might be the way to stop the pain. I've also known the pain that suicide leaves behind. It's so important to know that there is a way out, that there may a better world on the other side. Thank you to everyone who is a part of "It Gets Better". Pass it on.

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in u.s., raids on peace activists; in canada, raids on... who?

In case you didn't hear elsewhere, the FBI raided and vandalized the home of peace activists in Minnesota, claiming they had links to terrorist organizations. This wouldn't be big news if not for the current so-called anti-terrorism laws - under which these peace activists could be imprisoned indefinitely without charges. Local coverage:

The homes of six Twin Cities activists, including three prominent leaders of the Twin Cities antiwar movement, were raided Friday by the FBI in what an agency spokesman described as an investigation into activities concerning the material support of terrorism."

An FBI spokesman Steve Warfield confirmed that six Minneapolis homes were raided this morning.

Among the homes raided were the apartments of Jessica Sundin, who was a principal leader of the mass antiwar march of 10,000 on the opening day of the Republican National Convention two years ago, and Mick Kelly, who was prominent in that protest and among those who announced plans to march on the Democratic National Convention in Minneapolis, if the city is selected to host it in 2012. Neither has been arrested.

Kelly said in an interview this morning he had "absolutely not" been involved in illegal activities.

A raid was also in progress at the home of Meredith Aby, another local antiwar leader who was frequently the spokeswoman for the march on the GOP convention. Sundin and another source said that a fourth raid took place at the home of Tracy Molm, a leading activist in Students for a Democratic Society, an organization at the University of Minnesota.

The source said raids occurred at the addresses of two other activists whose names he did not disclose.

Supporters of Sundin, Kelly and Aby had gathered on the sidewalks outside each of the residences.

Ted Dooley, an attorney, said he had reviewed the search warrant issued in the raid on Kelly's apartment. "It's a probe into the political beliefs of American citizens and to any organization anywhere that opposes the American imperial design," he said.

Kelly said he was the subject of a similar early raid.

“They broke down a door, smashed a fish tank, and went through my books and papers,” Kelly said.

Kelly described himself as a 40-year veteran of the peace movement . . .

Lest you think this is only a US issue, and could never happen in Canada, please read this important post by Alison, writing at Dawg's Blawg.

On the same day the nation was preoccupied with the national Lib/Con competition for votes to preserve/kill the long gun registry, the Libs and Cons combined forces to slip the Combating Terrorism Act through second reading in the House - 220 votes to 84 in a classic Lib/Con vs NDP/Bloc split -just ten minutes before the long gun vote.

The Libs and Cons may disagree on whether it is either useful or an egregious invasion of privacy and civil liberties that Canadians should have to spend a few minutes registering a long gun online, but when it comes to locking Canadians up for 12 months without a warrant or compelling them to appear before a court based on some anonymous tip, they're both just fine with that.

The right to remain silent, the right not to be jailed without charge, the right to know what the charges are against you - pfft!

In reintroducing Bill C-17 for the third time on Monday to reinstate provisions from the Anti-terrorism Act of 2001, Justice Minister Rob Nicholson emphasized a fabulous new feature:

"The key here is that the person required to attend an investigative hearing is treated as a witness, not someone who is accused of a crime."

True, as long as your definition of "witness" includes being arrested if you don't comply and being detained for up to 72 hours if you do.

But what if you are also suspected of being likely to commit a terrorist crime some time in the future. Over to you, Mr. Nicholson :

"a judge can order the person's detention for up to 12 months."

Go to the original for more plus full linkage.

As you may recall, I don't care very much about the long-gun registry. I think gun registration is a good idea, but I also know it does very little to reduce crime. I view the whole kerfuffle as a lot of overheated political grandstanding on both sides, and misplaced enthusiasm on the part of many activists. So while many people were behaving as if the gun registry is the ultimate determinant of Canadian civilization, the Liberal-Conservative coalition continued to support the deterioration of your basic human rights and civil liberties.

Progressive bloggers flogged Jack Layton for not toeing their party line on the gun registry, but only the NDP was standing up against "slipperysloping into 12thC pre-Magna Carta sensibilities" (Alison). Why was that?

By Wednesday Libby Davies wondered aloud in the House why there were hundreds of articles in newspapers across the country dealing with the gun registry but no mention of the debate on the Combating Terrorism Act.

Good question, Libby.

Gee, do you think it has anything to do with who is affected by the so-called anti-terrorism laws? Hmmm.

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