[Correction: Thanks to an observant commenter who noted that Hitler was misquoted in an earlier version of this post the regina mom posts this version with proper attribution.]
That the HarperCons might in any way be surprised by the public response to Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ introduction of the “Snoop and Spy” Bill C-30 made the regina mom laugh! . The public responses to the HarperCons over the past while have been strong:
- The lack of action on Attawapiskat and the near-futility of the Crown First Nations Gathering;
- Stephen Harper’s announcement of changes to Old Age Pension during a speech in Davos, Switzerland;
- the closed doors on Committee meetings in the House of Commons;
- Joe Oliver’s attack on opponents of the Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline; and
- the Omnibus Crime bill,
to name a few. And, when placed against a backdrop of Canada as a Collossal Fossil at international climate talks, job loss such as that created by the Caterpillar plant closure in London, Ontario and the general outrage as evidenced in the unparliamentary language Liberal MP Justin Trudeau hurled across the aisle at Environment Minister Peter Kent, to name a few — how can anyone really be surprised?
Minister Toews must have felt significant pressure to ensure passage of the bill when he framed opposition to it as standing with the child pornographers. Oh, my yes, think of the children, a tactic recommended by another fascist:
The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the people. —Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of liberty and almost any deprivation. –Rabbi Daniel Lapin, Hitler Writes from the Grave
Oops! Was that a failure of impression managers in the Minister’s office? Did someone really fail to see the tipping point approaching?
From where trm sits, on the once-cold Canadian Prairies, something’s surely tipped. In the middle of February on the northern Great Plains the temperature hovers around 0 degrees Celsius and have for a while now. It’s a very early spring and the recently-revised digital revolution arrived in Canada, thanks to the Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews.
Three digital phenomena, the Twitter user @vikileaks30 (mirrored here), the hashtags #TellVicEverything and #DontToewsMeBro and the “hacktivist” group, Anonymous, brought international attention to the Snoop and Spy bill. @vikileaks30 sent tweets (140-character messages) excerpted from public documents about Vic Toews rather seedy divorce proceedings, his spending habits as an MP and Cabinet Minister and challenged the Minister to open his browser history for all the world to see.
The hashtagging (assigning a label to a message) by Twitter users received notice world-wide for a moment and remained one of the most discussed topics on Twitter in Canada for several hours. In the Twitterverse (world of Twitter) that’s a long time. The Minister has asked the Speaker to investigate the vikileaks account, based on very bad computer sleuthing by the Ottawa Citizen.
Follow that up with Anonymous demanding the withdraw of B-30 and the resignation of Minister Toews with the promise to release additional information about him if he doesn’t has led to an interesting point. The Minister now hides between a real (imagined?) cloak as a victim of public attack, and apparently, the recipient of threats on his family and his life after admitting he did not read Bill C-30 before presenting it to Parliament.
Yes, trm might go into hiding, too, if she’d presumed such arrogance, made a huge fool of herself and yet again muddied the idea of democracy. It seems, though, that the PMO is trying to clean up the mess. Good luck with that! Canadians found Twitter and, apparently, know how to use it.
the regina mom 
k'in
/ February 20, 2012If there’s one thing that bring’s hope to the future of humanity, it’s the aversion to hyprocrisy that most intelligent/decent people exhibit.
Toews had no business beaking off about child pornographers when his own pious ‘family values’ self had dallied with the babysitter.
Witch hunts are very bad and need to be stopped. People are entitled to their private lives. But, when hypocrites have the power to enact ‘do as I say, not as I do’ laws, they ‘re kind of sticking their necks out.
Beijing York
/ February 20, 2012Hear, hear! In any government in the past, Vic Toew’s head would be on the chopping block. He definitely should be forced to resign.
Jon
/ February 21, 2012That Hitler quote is the sort of thing a fascist would say, but there’s no evidence that Hitler ever said that. It became popular during an Internet censorship campaign in Australia, and while the first sentence IS something Hitler wrote, the second is a bit of creative writing.
Anyways, the campaign against the online spying bill can’t stop until the bill is dead. The Conservatives are still steamrolling ahead even while the house isn’t in session, for all their talk about amendments. The carefully crafted reassurance by the nice Mr. Vancouver Police Officer covered by our wonderful trusted news networks did a lot to damage public awareness on C-30. The effect is something like “Go back to sleep, everything’s fine, listen to the authority. You can trust us. It was sure uncomfortable before when you were scared and worried that the government might act like a fascist police state and you weren’t sure what to do, but now you can just relax and forget about the whole thing…”
During the officer’s speech, he even said “let me be clear” right before launching into possibly the biggest whopper during the whole thing. Who else’s speeches are written like that and with that language? Hmm.
thereginamom
/ February 21, 2012I’m not convinced that trotting out anyone from the Vancouver Police Department is wise these days. The boondoggle of Pickton, a former billionaire board member holding a sex worker against her will, and the porn-rich computers of some officers leaves it low in the respect department. Nothing they say is gonna stick. Not seeing it on Twitter, anyway.
The misquote bothers me, however. Thanks for pointing it out. I’ve found the first part in Mein Kampf and the second part is attributed to Rabbi Daniel Lapin. I’ll fix the post to clarify that.
G.J.W.
/ February 22, 2012The very nice police officers in Vancouver….Well, 15 of them were caught looking at porn, on the computers in the detachment. They are supposed to be punished, I will believe that when I see it. That’s all we need is, to give the police access to more porn.
Toews is just another of Harper’s fanatical henchmen. Not even reading the bill, before he called us pedophiles, a true henchman that is permitted to lie to the people, as he chooses. With Harper’s blessing, he is no different. Harper would have let that pass, if there wasn’t a huge anger over that lunatic Toews. All of this crap going on, is because of our fascist leader Harper. He is solely to blame. He has several more henchmen. Toews, Oliver, Boessenkool, Flaherty, Baird and his favorite henchman, Gordon Campbell. Campbell has the dirtiest, most corrupt and foul political record in Canadian history. He was rewarded, the High Commissioner to England post, for doing Harper’s dirty work for him. Mind you, BC is the most corrupt province in all of Canada.
Over 80% of the BC people are supporting the F.N….To stop the atrocities of the Enbridge pipeline and the dirty tar oil tankers from China, coming into BC. We won’t be surprised, if Harper turns the army or the police on us. All the people Harper had the police beat up at the G-8 summit. They even knocked a man down, with a prosthetic leg. The police dragged him, without his leg to their gulag, behind a fenced yard. He was an older man, who was just watching. Another young guy, was seriously injured, he sued. The police, even set one of their old cruisers on fire, and the protesters were blamed. There are always police, with covered faces, trying to start trouble in peaceful protests. They certainly scrambled, when they were asked to take of their face coverings.
Hitler always used the same dirty tactics. Blaming the evil onto others, and saying, I vant peace, I vant a piece of Czechoslovakia. While he is busy overrunning the weaker country’s and slaughtering their people.
Six members of my family, were in WW11. My one brother could mimic Hitler’s insane speeches, and kept us in stitches. He also could mimic Churchill, to a T. That grand old man must be turning in his grave, over Harper’s treachery against the Canadian people…Who fought for England, fed England, died to carry shiploads of food, war machinery, and our young Canadian boys, died for England fighting the, evil Nazi Hitler insanity.
Talk to some of our old Veterans. They will tell you exactly what Harper is, and it isn’t much. Just another Nazi gangster, as Churchill would call Harper.