How many times do you think you deserve to be kneed in the back while you’re already subdued by police on the sidewalk, face-down? Vancouver Police gratuitous brutality from May 1, 2014. Once? Twice? Does it make any difference if you’re a minor? Or if you were documenting police actions
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The Ranting Canadian: Photo Gallery: May Day 2014 in Toronto The theme of the 2014…
Photo Gallery: May Day 2014 in Toronto The theme of the 2014 Toronto May Day (International Workers Day) event was Honour Communities: Fight Capitalism. The chilly evening rally started at Alan Gardens, transformed into a march west on Carlton/College, and concluded at Queen’s Park with a few more speeches. Toronto’s
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Sammy Yatim’s Accused Killer Back On The Job
While the presumption of innocence is fundamental to our justice system, common sense and public sensibilities are always unspoken elements of the equation. This is clearly seen, for example, in jury selection, a good part of which is designed to ferret out and exclude from participation those with prejudgments that
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Toronto Police Are At It Again
This is what happens when you have a ‘blue wall’ culture, facilitated by a police chief who often seems more politician than top cop. Sure, it is unfair and inaccurate to portray all police as abusers of their authority, but when it happens again and again, with little consequence, people
Continue readingMelissa Fong: Black boys deserve our tears: On White privilege & police brutality
Sometimes I cry when reading the news. I cry because so many horrendous things happen to people and I can’t possibly understand why this world is SUCH a horrible place. There are countless stories about the negative stereotypes and police brutality that Black men must endure… but this really broke
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM - A Blog by Donna Thomson: Could Gilberto Powell Have Been Your Son, Mister President?
Nearly every day I see stories in the media of people with disabilities being abused. (For example, the case of Ethan Saylor, the young man with Down Syndrome who was killed by police when he went to the cinema). But I normally don’t blog about them because I am not
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Virtues Of Restraint
I suspect if teachers were to be completely completely honest, almost all would admit that at some point in their careers they felt like lashing out, either verbally or physically, at a student or two. That was certainly my experience a few times during my 30 years in the classroom,
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Do Police Have The ‘Right Stuff’?
Given the killing of people like Sammy Yatim and Steve Mesic and the taser takedown of Iole Pasquale, it would seem a legitimate question to ask, as Star readers offer their views: SIU ruling on Tasered senior yet another shock, Oct. 11 Maybe Toronto Police Service just needs to hire
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: I Guess This Is What Resisting Police Looks Like
No doubt, the SIU would have given this one another pass had it happened in Canada. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: For Those Who Don’t Know Their Place
What do you do when citizens believe that democratic rights should be more than an illusion? Call in the authorities to remind them of their true place in the foodchain. On a related topic, The Star’s Rosie DiManno has an excoriating assessment of yet another free pass given by the
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Police Surveillance
For those interested in the best way of ensuring police behave themselves, the following is a timely reminder of what our rights are when filming them: For more information, check out Canadian Privacy Law Blog. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: The Power Of Pictures
‘Nuff said. Recommend this Post
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: Your Morning Jolt
Most people get their morning jolt from their breakfast cup(s) of coffee. As I wrote earlier this week, an 80-year-old woman, now identified as Iole Pasquale and suffering from dementia, got her jolts at 3:30 a.m. from two police taserings while walking along a road in Mississauga with a bread
Continue readingPolitics and its Discontents: So Many Stories, So Little Time
Most days that I post a blog entry, I choose my topic based on my reaction to news stories. Today, two disparate pieces seem particularly noteworthy, one that confirms what all but the profoundly naive know about government, the other about yet again another police incident that, thanks to the
Continue readingCowichan Conversations: Police Brutality in Canada! Is This Democracy?
Richard Hughes Political Blogger Make no mistake folks the genie is out of the bottle and fascism is staring us right in the face. Many people do not want to hear that or deal with that unwelcome reality but it is undeniably the reality of Canada today. This video is
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: "Ah yeah, sure I know. It’s a free country. You know you…
“Ah yeah, sure I know. It’s a free country. You know you got the right. But I got a badge, what do you got?” That line from West Side Story sums up the attitude of many – if not most – cops, especially in Toronto. They are confident that their
Continue readingdrive-by planet: As Turkey explodes Erdogan claims he is not ‘a dictator’ – rather a ‘servant of the people’
Turkish PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan claims he is not a dictator… not even a master… but rather “a servant of the people.” Not many Turkish citizens are convinced because following the Gezi Park protest, the treatment meted out to demonstrators by Turkish police has been a total horror show. It
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: With all the stories across Canada of police brutality…
With all the stories across Canada of police brutality (including killings), harassment, rights violations, discrimination, perjury, political bias, corruption (e.g. bribes, smuggling, extortion, drug-dealing) – and seeing almost no consequences for the crimes committed by police officers – it’s extremely difficult to resist the A.C.A.B. (All Cops Are Bastards) attitude.
Continue readingThe Ranting Canadian: Young woman arrested for posting photo of graffitti online
Young woman arrested for posting photo of graffitti online: According to CBC News: A 20-year-old woman has been accused of criminal harassment and intimidation against a high-ranking Montreal police officer after she posted a photo of anti-police graffiti online. … Pawluck insists that she’s done nothing wrong and the actions
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