(As at 2024-02-06)
This began as a submission to the Commission of Inquiry into the Invocation of the Emergency Act in Canada, in February 2022.
The Act itself requires an Inquiry be held within 60 days. This writing began as a submission to the Inquiry; a copy of acknowledgement from the Commission is at the end. I have added more context and made other edits.
I watched all the proceedings, live-streamed, of the Commission’s proceedings.
WE WILL DO BETTER . . . NEXT TIME say the Police
1. THE VOCABULARY
IF YOU DO NOT KNOW THE VOCABULARY FOR THE DISCOURSE, can you be clear about your decisions?
What am I classified as, in the data banks? . . . a protestor? An activist? – – insurrectionist? – – dissident? revolutionary – – subversive – – an insurgent – – or warrior? – – I certainly hope I’m categorized as being against fascism – – I’m a resistor of tyranny? Yes, I’ll swear to that – – A rebel – – an old lady? . . .
How are YOU categorized?
(The Government said that I am fringe minority, misogynist, racist, . . . It brings me great merriment to think of all the things I am!)
Prononouncement: There will be more and larger mass demonstrations
2. CHARACTERISTIC A bit about myself
3. TIPPING POINTS
4. CITIZEN ACTION DOES NOT SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST OUT OF THIN AIR
Please do not confuse “The Problem” with what is a “PREDICTABLE OUTCOME”.
SO: There will be more and larger mass demonstrations . . . ?
On October 18 and 19th, 2022, the Commission into the Invocation of the Emergency Act in Canada heard from Police: we will do better next time.
On CBC radio the next day (Oct 20), an “authority” pronounced: There will be more and larger mass demonstrations.
– – – – – –
Without some CONTEXT, and without the VOCABULARY for processing the information, it is more likely that YES, there WILL BE more and larger mass demonstrations. And
when the Police “DO BETTER”, it will be WORSE for Canadians and democracy.
If thwarted above ground, aggrieved people go underground (elaboration below under “CONTEXT”).
– – – – – – – – – –
WHAT IS MISSING in the pronouncement by “the authority” (more and larger demonstrations)?
There was no mention of the Unimaginable Numbers of people worldwide who are pitching in to help Canadians (and each other) fight the erasure of Rights.
Are we going to continue the fight against the wrongs that were done during the “covid” years, and that continue to be done? Is the Government going to come to the Table, or are they going to out-source their job to the Police?
The determination that our Rights will not be taken from us is shared around the globe. We stand by each other in this resolve. Today, Feb 18, 2023, I watched footage from Oxford, UK, home of Oxford University, not known to be a hotbed of radicals! The city of Oxford appears to have become that very thing. Masses of people in the streets, sharing information and supporting a united community.
There are much larger masses in other cities, in the UK and elsewhere. I include Oxford because it caught me by surprise.
Another “missing” in the UNIMAGINABLE NUMBERS of protesting people is the Millennials.
Brief Digression:
A. 1992: “SYSTEMS OF SURVIVAL, A Dialogue on the Moral Foundations of Commerce and Politics” by Jane Jacobs, is helpful to the discourse and contains a cautionary note about our conditioned interpretations of “what’s happenin’”; I think of baby-boomer stereotypes of “protestors”, for example.
B. 2023: The science and logic are changed. I am not controlled primarily by genetics; epigenetics play a much greater role in determining the contributions I will make to my world. “Environment” turns on the switches in cells in my body and all their potential.
DR BRUCE LIPTON is one of many scientists in the field of epigenetics. He is good at explaining things in language I can mostly understand. And he is hopeful:
Large numbers of “millennials” have NO “investment” in today’s world, nor in the projected future. They want “a better world”; they are creative; and more than baby boomers, they have “agency”.
LIPTON https://youtu.be/3-rF0OHY7NI (approx. an hour)
C. 1923: Kahlil Gibran A sobering dose of reality:
Your children are not your children. their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams!
What good news. – – Death dilutes the influence of the status quo; there is HOPE that a better world CAN be created!
CHARACTERISTIC – A BIT ABOUT MYSELF
I am 73-years-old (2022), born 4 years after the end of WW2.
I am from The Prairies (Luseland, SK), small town rural, distant from the city, of a different time. My Grandfathers and Dad were, by the quirks of fate, prevented from going to war. They were not directly exposed to the environment of killing. In my family, there was no broken down drunkenness returned from the war. Women and children are respected.
I have a decades-long interest in the building (and conversely the destruction) of strong, healthy communities.
Which is tied to unending curiosity: how ever could Germany have descended into nazism (fascism)? The standard responses have never been fully satisfying to me. I don’t understand it viscerally. Except now, through the covid experience I begin to see, to observe the process in action.
I am enamoured of freedom with its attendant responsibilities.
I have been twice to the Museum of Non-Violent Resistance at Checkpoint Charlie on the Wall that divided West from East in Berlin, Germany, during the Cold War. The first time was in 1999 on a day when we were busy dropping bombs on Kosovo (not far from Berlin if you measure distance as it is on The Prairies).
I view healthy communities and de-centralized governance as
the best defence against corruption and mass subjugation.
I was an elected member of the University of Saskatchewan Senate for 6 years in the 2000’s. The Senate is the “voice of the community” in the tri-cameral governance structure of Saskatchewan Universities. Activists from south and north got themselves elected to the Senate to challenge the commandeering of a public institution (“theft”) to serve corporate entities and enrichment. At the expense of the public good.
– – – – – – – – – – –
INFORMED PUBLIC DISCOURSE IS MISSING IN ACTION
What am I classified as, in the data banks? . . . a protestor? An activist? – – insurrectionist? – – dissident? revolutionary – – subversive – – an insurgent – – or warrior? – – I certainly hope I’m categorized as being against fascism – – I’m a resistor of tyranny? Yes, I’ll swear to that – – A rebel – – an old lady? . . .
How are YOU categorized?
(The Government said that I am fringe minority, misogynist, racist, . . . It brings me great merriment to think of all the things I am!)
. . it is hard to imagine any insurgency meeting its goals without undermining aspects of the legitimacy or power of the government . . . . subversion includes measures short of violence, which still serve the purposes of insurgents.
Ironically, myself and tonnes of others have worked for a very long time, and still work, to STOP the takeovers of our Governments. We have lost regulatory power. Our sovereignty has been given away. Now we have a frontal attack on Rights.
Citizens do not hear or learn the proper vocabulary for this discussion
because it is seldom used in public, in Canada. Not in reference to ourselves.
The meaning of the vocabulary is dependent on “who controls the cargo”. If you are the Ogoni of the oil-rich Niger Delta (Nigeria) and you wish that your people did not live in poverty while foreign interests corrupt, pollute your nation and make off with the riches, in the news you are a dirty “insurrectionist”; you get killed. Look around. Better you be on the side of the exploiters – – alive!
The Trucker Convoy and its supporters are freedom fighters, n’est-ce pas?
BUT insurgents are not us, may the Gods forbid! “Insurgents” are foreign and to be feared. They are scary people.
. . . Whereas, in my experience they are the best candidates for political office in Canada because they understand HOW the perversion of governance comes about. It is in their lived experience.
The Trucker relationship with the Police – – with the Police because the Government won’t meet with the Truckers – – will be rocky because the word “protest” and its alternatives have been successfully stigmatized, IF we don’t fiercely exercise our rights to free speech and to assemble. That is our rebellion. In my view, too many Canadians do not understand the vulnerability of our current situation.
I value the conversation I had with an underground “insurgent” from Central America who fought the usurpers of his country, for years. The battle was not won in his time; he managed to escape to Canada as the nets were tightening, before he could be apprehended by Police of the regime. He would not have survived police custody. Death is an ordinary due of freedom fighters.
In Canada and internationally we are fighting side-by-side, hard as we can, against corrupted governance – – Big Government working with Big Pharma. Most of my colleagues understand that the definition of fascism is a marriage of Government and Corporate entities.
The refusal of the Government to come to a table to even hear, let alone fix, the WHY’s – – – – WHY would these people travel these thousands of kilometers, and camp outside in Canadian winter – – WHAT is SO important to them that they voluntarily stepped forward to carry a message that was visibly supported by untold numbers in the world, and stifled by propaganda, manipulation, coercion and worse?
If the Governments, Big Pharma and their Collaborators are allowed to remove the autonomy we have over our own bodies, rule our everyday movements, freeze bank accounts & credit cards without independent adjudication, to imprison without charge, . . . if this is not stopped, Canadians will learn soon enough what IS important enough.
The Invocation of the Emergency Act. What is that? . . . How would you classify it, if not as an act of counter-insurgency to the Truckers and their Supporters, the insurgency? What else fits? CAN it be discussed fairly and intelligently, if we don’t know the right words for the Government actions?
If the trend of more and larger mass demonstrations cannot be reversed by citizens, i.e. if we are not successful in establishing civil Government, especially in a high-surveillance state, then a police or corporate (fascist) state is ensconced in Canada. The flagrant irrelevance of Rule by Law (think of Jody Wilson-Raybould) is a shout-out warning.
Many have concluded that big business is running the show. Corporatocracy, not democracy is an accurate portrayal. On this one, I don’t care what you call it, so long as the word “democracy” as a stand-alone is not accepted because that’s not what we have. “Remnant democracy” maybe.
If the reality is a corporatized state, there has been a coup d’état by stealth in Canada (and in the U.S.)
“Military historian Edward Luttwak says, “A coup consists of the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder. . . ”
Quislings in Canada have and continue to play, a significant role.
Excerpt from the posting: 2010-09-13 RCMP identify coup d’etat as threat to Canada, article, Ottawa Citizen. (posted 13 years ago, but still relevant).
The RCMP have put the risk of a coup d’état on the list of four threats to Canada.
. . . armed force (either military or paramilitary) is not a defining feature of a coup d’état.”
I’d say that coup d’états happen when the powers-that-be want more power and control than they already have. Or, they feel a threat to their power and agenda.
What would threaten them, in today’s world? . . . Why did the RCMP list coup état? . . . Answer one of the questions, you’ve answered both.
Growing dissatisfaction among growing numbers of “peasants” would be a threat to the powers-that-be. Sufficient dissatisfaction, large enough numbers, intention . . . but that would be called a “revolution”, not a coup d’état.
So let’s see. The RCMP say the threat of a coup d’état exists. Earlier, I and others have said that we have corporatocracy, not democracy in Canada. Which means that the coup d’état has ALREADY TAKEN PLACE (“the infiltration of a small, but critical, segment of the state apparatus, which is then used to displace the government from its control of the remainder”).
What does the RCMP statement mean then? Does it mean that there is a threat of EVEN MORE coup d’état-ing?
To answer that, put yourself into the shoes of the powers-that-be (the ones doing the coups). What do THEY see? . . . I see coup d’état . . . they see revolution. We are viewing the same world, but through a different set of eyes. A power struggle between us and them.
I was astounded to hear “coup d’etat” used in the media (the Ottawa Citizen), quoting the RCMP. . . . But why the surprise? I have been saying that the success of the opposition to the terrible polluting in the tar sands, the success in protection of water, etc., threatens the corporate agenda. That “revolution” threatens the corporate agenda. When I stop to think, as a population moves toward revolution, yes, that is when coup d’états happen. The population wakes up to what has been happening, they stop being sheeple, the powers whose interests are threatened must resort to military/police (violence) to impose their will.
In this network we have documented the growing military/police state in Canada. What is that other than the signs of a coup d’état? But is that the coup d’état that the RCMP are thinking of?
So is there evidence of dissatisfaction and unrest, IN LARGE ENOUGH NUMBERS to trigger pre-emptive (that’s what it would be), MORE coup état-ing by large corporations working with their quislings?
Another question: if the RCMP see potential coup d’état, where does that leave THEM?
We’re all in this together. I think we need to understand the situation and share it. Otherwise we, as Canadians, can’t solve it.
Back to Coup d’état / Revolution:
LARGE ENOUGH NUMBERS? .. . . don’t need to address that one. “They” would see large enough numbers, enabled, empowered and connected by the ability to exchange information by email, the net, and phone technology.
This is part of a short series of postings, one of which talks about the movie “Sounds like a Revolution” http://www.soundslikearevolution.com/ . I recommend the movie. It is very helpful to understanding today’s political affairs.
Pinch myself: I wrote the preceding page in 2010!
Back to today:
The tools for reclaiming the levers of Government evolve with the times and technology.
The patient, Canadian democracy, may not survive without even greater mobilizations of its defenders. Maybe the “authority” I heard on the radio will be proven right. More and larger mass demonstrations are a necessity?
The characteristics of a police and surveillance state, clear disdain for the Rule of Law, knowledge of people who have left Canada because the writing is on the wall, recorded during the covid years . . . Time will tell.
“Do not go gentle into that good night.”
INSERT: 2008-11-09 Encana Dawson Creek: Reply from RCMP Anti-Terrorist Squad. Rule of law?
Corporatocracy or Democracy or Administrative State or WHAT?, Why we flounder or do not flounder
BACKGROUND:
– An anti-terrorist RCMP squad was sent to Dawson Creek because of “incidents” on the Encana pipeline.
– I emailed the RCMP (2008-11-06 Letter to RCMP anti-terrorism squad): the underlying CAUSES of the incidents at the pipeline need to be addressed. The actions (the “incidents”) on the pipeline draw attention to a problem. They are not the actions of terrorists.
If the underlying causes are not addressed it is predictable that there will be more incidents. They will occur in the Tar Sands, too. The industry is slowly killing local people through the poisons dumped into the environment. One example: locals witness the lethality of “Sour gas” through still-born livestock and the miscarriages of their women.
The Government turns a blind eye. The GOVERNMENT is the creator of the incidents, through its failure to regulate effectively and through its failure to enforce regulations. The Government is the only institution in our society that has this function. If they don’t perform their role, it doesn’t get done.
The RCMP Superintendent, Lloyde, replied to my email. And I am grateful to him. I responded.
INSERT: I continued to send very occasional emails to the Superintendent until his retirement. Maybe the emails were just deleted. I don’t care. It’s important in a democracy to have conversations.
- My letter to the RCMP is at 2008-11-06 Letter to RCMP anti-terrorism squad, with links to the related correspondence.
RELATED: 2009-08-31 Letter to the anti-terrorist squad, RCMP: Government and University are creating the “home-grown” terrorists. Am I one of them?
– – – – – – –
RETURNING TO 2023: “WE WILL DO BETTER . . . NEXT TIME” say the Police
- The discourse isn’t great, if you don’t know the vocabulary for the discussion. It’s like trying to converse in a language you don’t speak.
- THERE IS A VOID IN THE DISCOURSE
-
- The Inquiry into the Invocation of the Emergency Act AND
- The National Citizen’s Inquiry into Covid
BOTH orient the discussion to the present and the future. For example:
Tell us how your ideas might apply in the future. . . How would they apply to different protest activities about other matters?
The VOID I wish to address: What about the past? What about CONTEXT?
I am guessing that few Canadians who are younger than 40 will know about the massive mobilizations in the USA in 1999. Thousands of Canadians crossed the border to join them. A film was made about the nation-wide (USA) insurrection, “Battle in Seattle”. Woody Harrelson was one of the actors.
CITIZEN ACTION DOES NOT SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST OUT OF THIN AIR
The “Battles to Protect the Commons” are decades-long and arduous. “The Commons” is comprised of components upon which creation and human society are dependent for survival and health. Big Pharma is not on the list of components.
SO – – – – WHAT IS THE CONTEXT, INCLUDING THE PAST, for
THE TRUCKERS CONVOY (A.K.A. THE FREEDOM CONVOY?)
Non-violent Resistance to the erasure of Rights
makes the Truckers, Farmers (Coutts, Alberta) and Supporters into protestors or Insurgents (or other words) and
Government response is Counter-Insurgent. (Government goes to any end to be the Dictator – fund state media; roll out the propaganda machine; take political prisoners, trample Rights, freeze people’s money, property; prosecute, fine and put protesters in jail; invoke the Emergency Act; tell lies.)
IF THWARTED ABOVE GROUND, AGGRIEVED PEOPLE GO UNDERGROUND.
I did not know to what depth resentment descends. A couple of experiences made it palpable.
https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=19166
- We were 15 years in Nova Scotia. I followed the Acadians from N.S. to Louisiana. There, a new (1999) lovely little Acadian museum describes the “genocide” by the English. The Brits removed the French from N.S.. The memory of injustice is strong enough 250-years later to drive community construction of this place. 250 years later! They want their children to know and remember.
- 150 year memory. Their sons were killed in the U.S. Civil War that started in 1865. On a tour of the historic section of Atlanta, GA, the telling of the stories was truly as though the injustice of dead sons had happened maybe 40 years ago. It was 150 years ago.
- Think of the Middle East, the Balkans, . . .
- Women Who Run With the Wolves, Excerpt below.
(the preceding is from 2002-11-21 (2 of 3), on Non-violent resistance (https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=4804)
The CONTEXT for The Trucker Convoys across Canada, 2022, includes the Battle in Seattle, also MONTEBELLO, 2007.
2008-11-28 Follow-up on Montebello, Police provoke Violence at SPP protest (2007) https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=747
Three police officers from the Quebec Sureté were trained to be provocateurs – – turn peaceful protest violent. The protest was Legitimate – – heads of corporations and top Government officials (the USA, Canada and Mexico) meeting behind closed doors to make policy decisions that belong in the House of Commons.
As I say, Police officers were trained, deployed, disguised as protestors to turn the protest violent. Their Police-issue boots gave them away. Protestors pulled down their bandanas, others video’d their faces. A short documentary was made, with the head of the Quebec Sureté later explaining at a press conference, “The police were doing their job”. The media nor anyone else ever called them to account, in spite of all the attempts to do so.
In the 15 years since 2007, “the corporate guys” have made great strides. We were looking at 3 countries and numerous big corporations in 2007. In 2022, the covid template was rolled out around the world. 2007 looks like Mary Poppins in comparison.
Violence, the weapon of choice. Don’t fix the problem. Look at CONTEXT – –
- The Oka Crisis (1990)
- Ipperwash (1995)
. . . I don’t see it said that the Stony Plain people had been trying . . . FOR FIFTY YEARS. The blockade at Ipperwash was after 50 years of lawyers and mediators and Government officials getting big salaries and perks to resolve the problem. With ZERO accomplishment. An unarmed Dudley George was shot dead by police, with provocation from Ontario then-Premier Mike Harris.
Justice Linden did not take long to determine that “Ipperwash” belonged to the Chippewa. Something that all those lawyers and politicians and “officials” and mediators could not accomplish in 50 years. It took a dead man AND another two decades after that, for the land to be returned, as set out in the Agreement with the Canadian Armed Forces, that the land would be returned – – it was on temporary loan for use during WW2. Ipperwash is a nice place with a lake; instead of being returned to its owners after the War, it fell into the hands of not-Indian cottagers.
CONTEXT:
- (1980) The Constitution Express (trains with a thousand Indians on-board descend on Ottawa. Ref. “Unsettling Canada”, 2015, by Arthur Manuel.)
- (1999) Battle in Seattle. Canadians part of it.
- (2007) Montebello
- (2007-08) Mainstreet reactions to Wallstreet-induced severe worldwide economic crisis. Canadians did “Occupy”, too.
- (2010) G20 Summit, Toronto
- (2012) Idle No More started in Saskatchewan
- (2013) Black Lives Matter started. Followed by All Lives Matter
- (2022) Trucker’s Convoy cross-Canada
That’s a fraction of the action by Canadian citizens to assert what’s right.
No one was killed during the Freedom Convoys in 2022 and the invocation of the Emergency Act, thanks to the leadership of the Truckers, and some (many) among the Police.
Given what is known, Did the Government WANT the conflict over covid settled?
The announcement by the head of the (World Economic Forum) WEF, Klaus Schwab, that the WEF has “Trudeau and half the Canadian cabinet” in its pocket – – ?
Chrystia Freeland was on the WEF Board for a number of years. (Update Jan. 2024: the WEF website no longer lists Freeland as a board member.)
Freeland entered the Canadian political scene in 2013 under the Liberals. I was alarmed by her connection to Larry Summers, to the point of documenting it in 2017. Bringing that magnitude of corruption into the Canadian political system, as financial advisors no less, will scuttle any ship-of-state. McKinsey also hit the radar screen at that time.
The alarm was warranted. The track record of the Trudeau Jr Government is well-known. Just one egregious example: political interference in the decisions of the office of the Attorney-General of Canada (Jody Wilson-Raybould) to prosecute SNC-Lavalin. Not bad enough, the Cabinet got rid of the AG . . . There’s the Wi Fund-raising scandal; Canadians know the litany. God help us to remember at Election Time.
In my view, CORRUPTION is the single most important threat to peace, order and good governance in Canada. Corruption is the inevitable outcome of public-private-partnerships.
Reference: 2006-04-12 Real-life experience. PPP’s and corruption in action. Government-University-Chemical Biotech.
– – –
Women Who Run With the Wolves, 1992 by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
Excerpt from https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=2348
(The “young woman” is the naive in all of us, men and women. Read this as “gender-inclusive”.)
“.. though the young woman attempts to follow the orders of the predator, and agrees to be ignorant about the secret in the cellar, she can only comply for so long. Finally she puts the key, the question, to the door and finds the shocking carnage … And that key, that tiny symbol of her life, suddenly will not cease its bleeding, will not cease to give the cry that something is wrong. A woman may try to hide from the devastations of her life, but the bleeding, the loss of life’s energy, will continue UNTIL SHE RECOGNIZES THE PREDATOR FOR WHAT IT IS and CONTAINS IT.
When (women or men) open the doors of their own lives and survey the carnage there, in those out-of-the way places, they most often find they have BEEN ALLOWING SUMMARY ASSASSINATIONS of their most crucial dreams, goals, and hopes. …
… when such a gruesome discovery is made… we can be sure the natural predator … has been at work methodically destroying a woman’s most cherished desires, concerns, and aspirations.
In fairy tales, the animal groom character is a common motif that can be understood to represent a MALEVOLENT THING DISGUISED AS A BENEVOLENT THING. This or some proximate characterization is always present when a woman carries naive presentiments about something or someone. When a woman is attempting to avoid the facts of her own devastation, her night dreams are likely to shout warnings to her, warnings and exhortations to wake up! or get help! or flee! or go for the kill!”
TIPPING POINTS
You say – – but Canada is not East Germany before the fall of the Berlin wall.
Nor is it apartheid South Africa, Robben Island where Nelson Mandela spent 18 of his 27-year imprisonment. I went there, too, to try and figure out a bit of what and how things happen.
My hypothesis: TIPPING POINTS are a factor. In a dynamic system (Governance in this case), given feedback that the system is failing, there has to be a mobilization by citizens to correct their system of governance.
If the system is to be returned to civil government there are two requirements:
- The Mobilization has to be TIMELY (corrections have to be implemented PRIOR TO arrival at a tipping point after which the system is beyond retrieval).
- The corrections have to fix the ACTUAL CAUSES of the failings. Otherwise the system will continue into collapse.
If mainstream Canadian Media was doing its job, Canadians would know that imprisonment without charge, terms of bail that mock democracy, and other outrages are pushing us dangerously and ever closer to a Tipping Point.
- North America has its own monumental struggles. The Truckers Convoy, a.k.a. the Freedom Convoy, was sparked most directly after two years of futile petitioning by citizens. To me the Convoy was a novel, high-risk initiative of very uncertain outcome coming from a place that was predicted by NO ONE. . . . Truckers?!
(From The Museum of Non-Violent Resistance)
“… nonviolent resistance as a political force is still young, its possibilities not yet well enough known, and is thus seldom an incitement to the masses and is seldom encouraged by the media.
For all that, those striving for human rights are dependent on our solidarity and the feeling is growing of an ever increasing threat through the power of dictatorships, the armaments race and the immobility of bureaucrats. (I photographed these words in 1999)
Gandhi presented the principles of nonviolent resistance to the world, but the methods – corresponding to the various hierarchies – have to be very different, should they lead to success.
Through the multiplicity of nonviolent resistance, so rich in ideas, (INSERT: a Convoy of Truckers?!) it can be demonstrated that the most powerful effective opposing forces can be mobilized against every form of violence …“
The following poem, also from the Museum of Non-violent Resistance, describes exactly the happiness and joy I experienced in concert with an estimated 14,000 – 15,000 people, January 29th, 2022 at ONE of the protest locations on Vancouver Island. The mainstream media blacked it out, as we had come to expect would happen. The strategy back-fired. We understood the importance of being responsible for communicating with everyone we knew. January 29th was a day like no other. Exciting and fun while serious and sad.
From the Museum of Non-Violent Resistance, the pen of an unknown East German:
“The red-painted tyranny was not
The worst about our tyrants
The worst thereby were we ourselves
All our cowardice and servility
And that we also were the evil ourselves
Just that is the chance and our luck
You see: It works! We also take back
The everlasting human right ourselves
Now we breathe again, we cry and we laugh
the stale sadness out of the breast
man, we are stronger than rats and dragons
– and had forgotten it and always knew.”
Spread over a number of years,
- coup d’état – corporatocray infiltrates democracy, takes over the reins of government by stealth using money, revolving doors, quislings and other means
- revolution or insurgency – (the words carry innuendo of “bad guys”) Citizens come to see: business interests and values are appropriate in the commercial sphere. They are horribly corrupting in the sphere of governance.
- counter insurgency – corporatocracy wants to hold onto power and control. They mobilize “a counterinsurgency force” against the forces fighting to restore democracy.
In Canada the counter insurgency, some links (you may add your own examples – there are lots more to choose from!):
- 2008-11-28 Follow-up on Montebello, Police provoke Violence at SPP protest (2007) (recorded on video. No doubts.)
- 2012-06-10 G-20 Summit, Toronto. And kettling, a tactic of police.
- 2010-06-24 G20: Canada’s billion-dollar summit mystery, Toronto Star
- Battle in Seattle, WTO, SPP.
The Police tactics at Montebello and the G-20 Summit in Toronto were extensions of the counter insurgency against citizen mobilizations over the World Trade Organization (WTO) which is the Corporatocracy, the SPP, in different garb.
When I try to see what is happening in my own country, it is more difficult because of the built-in bias. But after working with our network for more than 20 years, battle after battle, what becomes obvious is the corporate power behind-the-scenes with the accompanying corruption of governance and values. The values said to be our values are NOT our values. Corporatocracy’s coup d’état over democracy, insurgency and counter insurgency, are the right words to describe the Canadian (and American) situation.
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Our ability to focus on one thing by simultaneously excluding “large-as-life” activity that crosses our field-of-vision. A mind-blowing old video:
Perception, an illustration of our fallibility and our gullibility. Dan Simons. Basketball. https://sandrafinley.ca/blog/?p=6190
– – – – – – – – – – – –
Masks … Masks … Masks A bit of irony!
In October 2011, Blake introduced Private Member’s Bill C-309 in the House of Commons. The bill if passed would make it a new Criminal Code offence to wear a mask or to otherwise conceal one’s identity during a riot or an unlawful assembly. The bill has garnered the support of police chiefs in major Canadian cities, including Calgary, Toronto, Vancouver and Victoria.
Dear Blake Richards, . . .
EVENT: SPP meetings in Montebello, Quebec. Peaceful protest.
DATE: 2007
The only protesters who wore masks were POLICE OFFICERS. They were trained and assigned the role of turning the protest violent.
It is all on video, along with the later statement by the head of Quebec Police (Sureté ) that yes, the “protesters” were actually police officers.
Peaceful protesters (unmasked, no need to hide their identity) tried to stop these “violent protesters” from using rocks against the line of uniformed police officers who were holding shields and wearing riot gear.
An observant person noticed that the “violent protesters” were wearing police boots and shouted it out. The legitimate protesters then reached in and yanked down the masks so that others could catch the revealed faces on video.
Through video footage, the officers were later identified by civilians. The head of the Quebec police was then forced to make a public statement, admitting that the masked “violent” protesters were police officers. He excused their actions. . . . They were doing their job.
Links to the video of the Montebello footage and the Police response are at http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=747
For at least 15 months, demands for a public inquiry went unheeded. An inquiry was eventually announced. As far as I know, it was never held. No one was ever held to account.
It is illegal to incite violence. When it is masked police officers who are doing it, under the direction and blessing of their superiors, then implicitly sanctioned by the Government (no action to correct), we have descended to a police state.
The movie, Battle in Seattle, (huge protests against the WTO) makes it clear that in some cases it is a police (National Guard) strategy to ALLOW violence to get out-of-hand BEFORE they step in with tear gas and rubber bullets. (Violence discredits the protesters AND makes citizens reluctant to protest). Montebello is ample evidence that in some cases it is the police themselves who instigate the violence, who are the provocateurs. Was it provocateurs at work in Seattle?
OFFICIALS LEARN:
Governments and Police officials took lessons from “The Battle in Seattle”. (It took place in the U.S. but remember that Canadian and U.S. military and police are now “integrated” and have “compatible doctrine”. Also note: The WTO, the SPP and the SPP successor organization have a common base: transnational corporate interests.)
It seems to me that the Officials took two things away from Montebello:
- Disguised police officers planted in a crowd must not wear police boots OR, maybe it is safer to CONTRACT OUT such work.
- They can do whatever they want: Canadians are dumb, uninformed and without backbone. Canadians won’t stand up for ANYTHING. The talk about defending what the veterans fought and died for in World War Two (democracy) is meaningless rhetoric.
Another brief point: Media portray “the Quebec protests” as student protests over tuition hikes. They fail to note that the largest protests in Quebec happened on Earth Day and are about the failure of Governments to protect the Environment. http://sandrafinley.ca/?p=5143
Failed protection of the environment, the SPP and its successor organization, corporate influence in Universities, failing democracy, widening income gaps – – the ROOT is the same: large corporate interests being served by Governments and public institutions.
In CONCLUSION:
- Protests will continue to escalate because NOTHING is being done to address the root cause: the Government, Police Officials and Universities have become tools to serve corporate interests.
- Montebello is misleading VIEWED IN ISOLATION. The mistake of “officials” is to add insult upon insult. Growing protest tells me that Canadians know the dangers; they are standing up – with much more to come, unless Government officials start to aggressively defend and serve the public interest.
I think of supporting your call, Blake Richards, to make it illegal to wear masks at protests (unmask the police).
HOWEVER,
- it should also be illegal for officials to contract out their Police work (they will do that if they are “unmasked”).
- there also needs to be extremely strong whistle-blower protection for police officers.
/Sandra Finley
ADDED, 2023-11-24, copied from “For Your Selection, Oct 2023:
. . . I don’t know Rachel Maddow’s political views. I heard an interview about her new book. Given the topic, I expected to hear the name of Thomas Watson at some point. As far as I know, it was never mentioned. 2023-10-17 To CBC, Rachel Maddow’s new book addresses Influential American fascists in lead-up to WW2. Thomas Watson (President of IBM) is not on the list??
Everyone should be catching on by now! Look at Mussolini’s Italy. You put together the STATE plus the WEALTHY INFLUENTIAL BUSINESS PEOPLE, what do you get? It’s called FASCISM or NAZISM. It parades as CORRUPTION. Sometimes I call it CORPORATOCRACY. Today you will see it referred to as ADMINISTRATIVE STATE.
Changing times, change names. But at root they are the same phenomenon?
But oh my God! . . I think that makes me a dreaded supporter of Antifa!
Antifa (/ænˈtiːfə, ˈænti(ˌ)fə/) is a left-wing anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement in the United States. It consists of a highly decentralized array of autonomous groups that use nonviolent direct action, incivility, and violence to achieve their aims.[1][2] Most antifa political activism is nonviolent, involving poster and flyer campaigns, mutual aid, speeches, protest marches, and community organizing.[3][4][5] However, some who identify as antifa also use tactics involving digital activism, doxing, harassment, physical violence, and property damage. Members of antifa aim to combat far-right extremists, including neo-Nazis and white supremacists.[6] (With thanks to Wikipedia)
Sandra Finley
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Hannah Arendt explores the institutions and operations of totalitarian movements, focusing on the two genuine forms of totalitarian government in our time—Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia—which she adroitly recognizes were two sides of the same coin, rather than opposing philosophies of Right and Left.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF RECEIPT, Submission to Public Inquiry
From: Perspectives (POEC/CEDU) [mailto:Perspectives@poec-cedu.gc.ca]
Sent: December 20, 2022 10:39 AM
To: Sandra Finley <xcorp@shaw.ca>
Subject: RE: Public Order Emergency Commission, Submission, Finley
Good day Ms. Finley,
We have received your detailed submission and we thank you for taking the time to provide us with your comments and observations. Public input is an important part of the Public Order Emergency Commission’s investigation.
If more details are needed from you, the Commission will contact you directly.
Again, thank you,
Twitter: @POECommission
Facebook: Public Order Emergency Commission – Home | Facebook
From: Sandra Finley
Sent: Saturday, October 29, 2022 3:00 AM (3-hour time difference, B.C. – Ottawa. I made the midnite deadline!)
To: Perspectives (POEC/CEDU) <Perspectives@poec-cedu.gc.ca>
Subject: Public Order Emergency Commission, Submission, Finley
October 28, 2022
TO: Public Order Emergency Commission EMAIL: perspectives@poec-cedu.gc.ca
FROM: Sandra Finley
I am in your system
Please accept the attached Submission.
It does not conform to the guidelines. I regret but my mind does not work like (most?) other minds?
It is as though I have been preparing for this for a long time. I did not realize.
I think I have 1 minute before the deadline to submit!
Bless you all.
/Sandra Finley