Don’t like the fact that the Olympic torch relay was disrupted throughout the day in various neighbourhoods throughout the city, including the Lower Eastside? Wish law enforcement would just be given the legal authority to arrest those responsible for disrupting the torch relay to spare everyone the headache of having to put up with their ‘nonsense’?

Welcome to the end of the line.

How is it that the basis of our freedoms can be so easily disparaged? In one breath many reference sacrifices made in the past to protect our freedoms while condemning one of the most crucial elements of any free society – dissent. For if we are not permitted that right, if ordinary citizens begin to view it as a fringe phenomenon, then what comes next?

A free society is nothing without the ability to openly, and without fear of persecution, dissent within the parameters of the law – and even then, in some cases beyond it. Without dissent, the democratic experiment on this continent would never have occurred.

There was a time, not too long ago, that African Americans in parts of the United States were forced to use segregated public facilities despite the fact that the Constitution ensured their equal rights under the law. After centuries of oppression, African Americans would finally confront that injustice by dissenting. Had they not, and had countless others not rallied to that cause, one wonders how much longer African Americans would have endured the segregation policies of numerous States.

Dissent changed that, not wishful thinking.

You might not agree with the agenda of those protesting the Olympics, but you absolutely must agree with their right to dissent openly and publicly without the fear of authoritative repression. Because if you don’t, then you both don’t believe in the importance of a free society, nor wish to live in one. And if you don’t wish to live in one, then what is it that you do want?

February 12, 2010

As Goodman says during the broadcast…

“I felt completely violated, I mean, personally and professionally. You know, and for journalism overall. Because this is not only a violation of freedom of the press, you know, the idea that, you know, the state is going into your papers, your documents, your sources, everything—but also a violation of the public’s right to know. Because if journalists feel there are things they can’t report on, that they’ll be detained, that they’ll be arrested, or they’ll be questioned, they’ll be interrogated; this is a threat to the free flow of information. And that’s the public’s loss, that’s democracy’s loss.”

During the broadcast she also interviews Dave Eby and UBC Professor Chris Shaw about the reality of dissent and the upcoming Olympics in Vancouver.

Here are a few important quotes from the above interviews…

Dave Eby: We’ve been on the defensive basically for the last year, defending rights and freedoms here in Vancouver, from Olympic related initiatives. We got a new provincial law that allows the police to arrest the homeless the do not report to the nearest homeless shelter when they issue such a demand to them. We of the police department investing secretly in new equipment that we find out only accidentally, like LRADs, this is the device we saw used on protestors in Pittsburg at the G20 there. A billion dollars are being spent on various pieces of equipment and personnel and we have no idea what is being purchased in terms of rubber bullets, tear gas, that kind of equipment. In addition, we have new city bylaws think pass that restrict the content of people’s signs and a large area of the downtown core, dictating that signs either be licensed or the content of the sign be celebratory, and celebratory is actually a defined term in the bylaws, which is a sign that increases the positive feelings or festive spirit around the Olympic games.

And…

Professor Chris Shaw: Well, the coalition is opposed to the games across a broad spectrum of issues. The first is the enormous cost, the costs have been really rather extraordinary. They are probably topping $6 billion dollars now, it could go much higher, and we were promised it would be much lower. This is not the a-typical Olympic games, they tend to go much higher. Chicago is actually really lucky they dodged the bullet because there would be on the hook for something probably like $15 billion-$20 billion when everything was said and done So we unfortunately didn’t dodge the bullet. So vast costs, as David mentioned, there’s the impact on the poor and the homeless, there have been concerted efforts to move the homeless along, get them out of the way of television cameras in the advance of the games. Massive environmental destruction in various places around Vancouver leading up the games. Something like 100,000 trees cut down, much of it old growth. 3.5 megatons of carbon dioxide associated with games activities and habitat destruction. Lack of transparency across the board, its almost impossible to find out what the various levels of government and the organizing committee are actually up to, how they are spending the money, how they are making their decisions.
And there’s a real lack of democracy. You’re up here in Canada for the show, or at least with David and me being on, and you might call it democracy sometimes, democracy sometimes works in Canada and sometimes it doesn’t. And the civil liberties really becomes the final piece of the equation because civil liberties usually take a hit for the Olympic games, the Olympic organizers have become increasingly terrified of protests or anything that would disturb the IOC. So, as David mentioned, the city has attempted to pass a major bylaw to the city charter that would allow them to essentially stifle dissent in the city, unless you’re going to celebrate you’re certainly not going to dissent.”

December 1, 2009

Dissent. It’s one of those things that people claim crucial but rarely endeavor to participate in. It’s one thing to write about something like – say – the invasion and occupation of Iraq (yes, I am pointing at myself) and another thing altogether to actually stand up and make a significant statement.

Is George W. Bush a murder? Most would say that he isn’t because he’s never killed anyone. But as President of the United States he did illegally and preemptively invade a nation that has since resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the displacement of millions. He, along with members of his administration, peddled speculation passed off as fact to convince the people of the United States and their representatives that it was something that had to be undertaken. In the end, every one of the justifications given by the Bush Administration turned out to be fallacies. The regime of Saddam Hussein did not possess WMD’s, nor could any evidence be found that it was even capable of producing them. What was found in Iraq was nothing more than the rusted leftovers from its war with Iran and the realization that Saddam Hussein had done something that the Bush Administration’s illustrious thinkers never imagined him capable of – he faked it. That said, he faked it so badly that the UN could have proved him a liar had they been given the opportunity to finish the job. After all, what was Hussein going to do, back down? He wasn’t in a position to, as dictators never are as it pertains to sustaining a level of fear to keep people in line.

So the Bush Administration cut Hans Blix off at the knees and went to war. Thinking it a cake walk, The Pentagon seriously underestimated the Iraqi public’s response to an occupational force, drew up plans that lacked any foresight as to what would occur after the US military reached Baghdad, and subsequently created all of the elements required for an insurgency to take root. The CIA’s Baghdad Station Chief at the time sent aardwolves back to Langley that so infuriated the Administration that he was replaced rather than listen to. In the end his concerns proved to be accurate. By the fall of 2003 the insurgency had started to seriously find its feet and the world’s foremost military couldn’t even hold a stretch of road from the airport to the Green Zone only seven and a half miles in length. In fact, it would take the US military longer to secure that road than it did for them to defeat the Germans after the continental invasion of Europe.

But there was never any admission of wrongdoing, only changes of focus. What had been sold the American people as a military action required to protect the United States was replaced by a plethora of convenient secondary justifications – the crimes of the Hussein regime (all of which occurred while Hussein was a US ally), human rights, and, of course, the instillation of democracy.

After all, a free people are a happy people.

Unless, of course, they lack the most basic of services, the infrastructure of their country has been completely destroyed, sectarian factions within the country are engaged in a civil war, foreign terrorists have been drawn to the country in hopes of killing Americans – and anyone else that disagrees with them for that matter – millions are forced to leave their homes and flee to other parts of the country or to foreign countries, the country itself is considered the most dangerous in the world, the state of medical affairs is in the toilet, you have to wait in line for three days to get gas for your car in a country that has some of the richest oil reserves in the world, there are madmen suddenly blowing themselves up in markets where terrorist attacks had never occurred prior to the occupation, American forces are lighting up cars at checkpoints, and on and on.

The truth is that the likes of Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld believed an exit strategy was unnecessary because they never planned for US forces to leave. Iraq would, in essence, become another South Korea. And from Iraq the US would then work towards the destabilization of Iran and in one fell swoop lock up the majority of the world’s oil resources. After all, Americans (and Canadians) like big trucks and they need gas to keep all those Hemi’s happy.

Saddam Hussein was hung, purple fingers covered the front pages of American newspapers, images of flag draped coffins were banned, the military found itself so stretch to the limit that National Guard Reservists suddenly found themselves on the front lines and in many cases returned home only to be sent back because of a legal loophole, the state of the nation’s Veterans hospitals were found to be in shambles, the number of soldiers suffering from post traumatic stress disorder shot through the roof, suicides increased – and all of it played out in front of a massive video screen on which an entirely staged toppling of a statue in Baghdad played on a loop.

A free people are a happy people – if they, themselves, strive for and ultimately secure that freedom. Everything besides is a cautionary tale of history.

And so – dissent. A journalist who had watched his country come apart removed his shoes and threw them at the man whose administration was responsible for it all. In the Muslim world to do so is considered a grave insult. For having the balls to do it he was beaten and held incommunicado by the authorities of a supposedly ‘free’ nation. After months of waiting for his day in court, today Muntadar al-Zaidi was sentenced to three years in prison.

There are those that probably consider that a rather light sentence. After all, his target was the President of the United States. How dare he.

Some years ago on Prince Edward Island an activist named Evan Wade Brown shoved a pie in the face of then Prime Minister Jean Chretien. Brown didn’t throw the pie from a distance, he literally assaulted the leader of this country.

So what do you think Brown got for his act of dissention? A whopping thirty days. In the end, he would only serve eight of them.

After all, a free people are a happy people.

March 12, 2009 18 Comments

President Bush gave a speech today at Monticello, once the home of Thomas Jefferson. As he began speaking, dissenters in the audience became vocal, as is their Constitutional right. Ironically, as the first of them was being dragged away by the Secret Service, the President had the audacity to claim that that was the great thing about America – that Americans have the right to free speech…

…and after about 20 or seconds of it they get dragged away and turned over to local authorities.

You don’t get a free pass if you’re the President. If you speak in public, citizens have every right to make themselves heard, even if it interrupts you. They have the right to protest and the right to dissent. The Constitution, which Mr. Bush swore to uphold and defend, guarantees those rights.

But, as is often the case when Mr. Bush dares to speak to anyone other than members of the military or a pre-screened crowd, those that dared to stand up today and make themselves heard were swiftly and conveniently ushered away.

Ain’t that America. Home of the free.

July 4, 2008 48 Comments