From Italy to Canada to Great Britain and everywhere in between, our brothers and sisters who live in these nations are extremely tired of their governments who support BushCo in their war crimes and crimes against humanity. Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy recently paid the price for his support of BushCo's policies by being uninvited back to his position. I knew he was going to be defeated by just traveling around Italy and hearing and feeling the frustration and the fear for their democracy, which Berlusconi's neo-Fascist rule was destroying.
By many accounts, Stephen Harper was put in place as leader of Canada by the collapse of weak coalitions and scandals that led to this man now leading a minority government there. He is wildly unpopular from coast to coast up north, and there is a growing sense of unease about his emulation of a very unpopular person in the USA but even more in Canada: George Bush.
Canadians have to be the healthiest looking and most polite citizenry that I have encountered in my travels. The British people that I have met are very polite but have nowhere near the graciousness of Canadians. Canadians are truly civil, and they mean it. Canadians have been proud of their country's role of world peacekeeper and as the beacon of peace and hope and refuge for us Americans who feel that our country's aggressive militarism endangers us and harms our reputations and souls. Now Canadians need to wake up to the fact that their new minority, disliked government is leading them down this same slippery slope to the fascistic militarism of their immediate neighbors to the south.
The first day that I was in Canada, their defense minister, Gordon O'Connor, signed the extension of the NORAD Treaty with the Bush Regime without any debate or votes in Parliament. The citizenry was outraged in their courteous way. Not so coincidentally, Gordy just so happens to be a former defense industry lobbyist who has been using his position to promote the "Canada First" position which ultimately removes Canada, once and for all, from its world-peacekeeping role. With Canada's support of the Haitian government's overthrow and support of BushCo's travesty in Afghanistan, Canada was already heading down this path of destruction.
Canadians are distressed that defense spending rose by 5.3 billions of dollars (roughly what the US spends for 2 weeks in Iraq) while the preschool budget is being cut and college tuition is rising. This increase in military spending coincidentally correlates with a push to recruit thousands more soldiers who are still being told by the Canadian recruiters that their country only does peacekeeping missions. This manipulation of facts and the exploitation of fear and false patriotism is being fueled by the Canadian media, who seem to be turning, for the most part, into propaganda tools of their government à la our right-wing 4th estate.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051306Y.shtml
[Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on May 15, 2006]
Note: http://www.truthout.org...
Oh No, Canada! By Cindy Sheehan
Posted on Sunday, May 14 at 15:27 by DiogenesContributed By
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In general, I've always believed that people who haven't actually been in combat have zero rights to order others into something they know nothing about.
Bush was a no show most of his duty in the Air National Guard.
Cheney had a recurring case of deferments, and stayed home as well.
Both avoded duty in Vietnam, and are more than happy sending others out to die doing something they were too damned cowardly to do themselves.
Our fearless leader Stephen Harper has as much military experience as my pet hamster Goliath.
That he seems so confident sending others to die is something I find chilling to behold.
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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"
"The Weapon" - Rush
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How's this for chilling?<br />
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<a href="http://www.ddsi.info/forums/index.php/topic,993.0.html">http://www.ddsi.info/forums/index.php/topic,993.0.html</a><br />
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End the Curriculum of Killing: Canadian High School Students Now Earn Credits Learning to Shoot Machine Guns<br />
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The federal government of Stephen Harper, along with school boards across the country, are sending teenagers a decidedly mixed message these days. On the one hand, kids are told to stay away from guns in their communities, a warning that's backed by a law-and-order agenda of prison, prison, and more prison for any kid who screws up.<br />
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However, if you DO like guns and want to learn how to kill people in communities half a world away, you can actually earn not only high school credits, you can also get paid for it. Increasingly, through the auspices of high school co-op placement programs, 16-year-olds can sign up with the Canadian Forces, an outfit whose big boss, General Rick Hillier, makes no bones about goals and benchmarks: "We are the Canadian Forces, and our job is to be able to kill people."<br />
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Bored with school in, say, Southern Ontario's Cayuga Secondary School? Check out the Cooperative Education program, where students can snore through the coop with Ontario Hydro and learn about some old guy named Adam Beck, or they can live out the fantasies portrayed to them through the fast-action Canadian Forces war propaganda ads they now see on TV and film screens by signing up with "Army Coop."<br />
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"Army training will teach you basic skills - marching, and saluting; rank structure; military law; how to wear your uniform and conduct yourself; and first aid," the website for the school program states. "You will then progress to field training. You will learn how to safely operate and maintain your C-7 service rifle, and the C-9 light machine gun. You will fire all these weapons with blank (practice) and live ammunition. You will also learn how to live for extended periods in the field. During the course, you will spend about two weeks on the ranges and in the field, for which you are paid about $1,400."<br />
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Shooting machine guns? Handling grenades? And getting paid for it? How awesome can that be when you're a teenager?<br />
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Check out any co-op program in high schools across the country and you are likely to find an existing or prospective placement program with the Canadian Armed Forces. The Toronto District School Board, Canada's largest, has a program with the Canadian military, and it is quite likely wherever you are, a similar program exists.<br />
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At a time when the issue of school violence continues to grab headlines, why are schools reaching out to and embracing the very institution which, more than any other, represents the use of violence and killing as a means of conflict resolution? And at a time when Canada's armed forces are desperate to sign up young people, why are school boards offering up tender 16-year-olds as fresh bait for indoctrination in the ways of war?<br />
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I absolutely disagree with the armed forces being used for high school coop programs. How does everybody else feel about this?<p>---<br>The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.... : Albert Einstein
In one of the elementry schools where I lived there was an arsenal where they had FNC's in storage and the cadets used them as part of their excercises every summer.
But as you said Dio, it's different when it's embedded in a curriculum.
If we had a more progressive and nuetral government, like let's say Sweden or Switzerland, I would have no problem with it, especially since as far as I recall military service is compulsory in those countries. If I am incorrect in this, I would like to know.
Anyways, Harper wants fodder for his budding war machine, and what better place to begin than with kids.
Dio, I do have a question for you here:
In your research, did you happen to find out if any private schools, with the obvious exception of military schools etc, have any such programs?
I'd like to know if the rich and affluent are targetted with the same zeal as middle class or lower economic classes.
Also, do these school programs have any racial profiling as regarding the people who live where the freshly recruited fodder will serve?
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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"
"The Weapon" - Rush
Well, American men are OK. Especially politicians and the CEOs of multinationals. And, of course, when a woman's name is Condi Rice. If she calls Mike Wilson and gives him an order, we'll jump to attention. But that's different,,,,,,,,,,
Ed Deak.
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"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music." Friedrich Nietzsche