Month: April 2010

When Will Enough Be Enough?

Today’s episode (part 1) of CBC’s The Current has to be heard to be believed;

“Anna Maria Tremonti talks to Patrick Wall, a former Catholic Priest and Benedictine Monk. For several years, he was what’s known as a “Fixer” in the Catholic Church. He was parachuted into parishes where the former Priest had been caught up in a sexual abuse scandal. He eventually quit the church and now he works as a legal consultant for the victims of sexual abuse…”

The history of sexual abuse within in the Catholic Church is just “sitting on the shelves” of the Vatican awaiting to be read? And the only problem is “it’s all in Latin?” Did I hear that right?

When will enough be enough?

Absolutely Sickening!

There is very little, of value anyway, I could add to most of today’s Democracy Now’s broadcast [1] [2], so I’ll simply cite a bunch of words Glenn Greenwald, constitutional law attorney and political and legal blogger for Salon.com, spoke in said episode;

“My concern with the discussions that have been triggered, though, is that there seems to be the suggestion, in many circles […] that this is some sort of extreme event, or this is some sort of aberration, and that’s the reason why we’re all talking about it and are horrified about it. In fact, it’s anything but rare. The only thing that’s rare about this is that we happen to know about it and are seeing it take place on video. This is something that takes place on a virtually daily basis in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places where we invade and bomb and occupy. And the reason why there are hundreds of thousands of dead in Iraq and thousands of dead in Afghanistan is because this is what happens constantly when we are engaged in warfare in those countries. […] This is what war is. This is what the United States does in these countries. And that, I think, is the crucial point to note, along with the fact that the military fought tooth and nail to prevent this video from surfacing, precisely because they knew that it would shed light on what their actual behavior is during war, and instead of the propaganda to which we’re typically subjected…”

The reality of war and what is asked of those who carry it out, by a certain breed of psychopath, is absolutely sickening!

Precisely One Year Ago Today

Get a load of this, it would seem the RCMP is finally owning up to something, I’ve written about here a couple times previously (I believe). In fact, the last time I visited this story was precisely a year ago today (again, to the best of my recollection). That being the death of “of Polish visitor Robert Dziekanski, who died in October 2007 after RCMP subdued (read: murdered) him with a (read: more than a single) Taser (shock).”

With the facts being what they are, only one fact remains, in my eyes. Gary Bass, the RCMP deputy commissioner for the Pacific region, chose today, of all days, to “apologize.” While still keep themselves at a distance — stopping short of “acknowledging that the RCMP was to blame for Dzeikanzki’s death,” which calls into question what Bass was actually apologizing for, but… — the fact that today was chosen to offer Zofia Cisowski, Robert’s mother, a thinly veiled apology — and some cash — is much more than mere coincidence. Or, at least, that’s how I’m looking at it.

So with that said, I’ll just wish RCMP, and you, the happiest of April Fools Day’s, and leave it there…