A Demonstration I'll Join
Terence Corcoran on the
nonsense on Toronto's streets.
Let it be known that a new pro-capitalist organization plans to take to the streets of Toronto to protest the threat of Obamaism to Canada’s market economy. To get our message across, Canadians Harnessed Against Obama Socialism (CHAOS) will soon stage a mass rally at King and Bay.
CHAOS will seize control of the crossroads of Canadian capitalism until Stephen Harper agrees to tell Barack Obama to stop interfering in the global free market system and stop the Buy American policies that are killing Canadian jobs.
We will keep King and Bay shut, along with adjacent roadways, whether it takes days or weeks.
...
Certainly CHAOS also plans to count on the support of David Miller. The Mayor says the Tamils “have an absolute right to make [their] concerns known and to protest.” Remember those words: “An absolute right.” This from a Mayor who would deny people the right to bottled water, dandelion-free lawns, competitive mass transit, and hundreds of other things.
Labels: demonstration, Millerbabble, Tamils
Thank You, Metro Morning - Tamils and Radio Reception
Metro Morning is one of Toronto's drive-to-work talk shows. I normally find it too orthodoxly full of "Canadian values" and generally just find it annoying, especially when hosted by Andie Barrie.
But let me thank it and Andy for two things this morning.
a) The information that, in fact, CBLA is doing maintenance on its transmission tower; I was about to devote the better part of my morning, I suspect, trying to figure out why my reception was so frustratingly poor. This information saved me a lot of time and annoyance. Moreover, he even got in what seemed a pretty spontaneous witticism, "we are maintaining the transmission tower; no, that makes it sound like a kept tower - we're doing maintenance on it".
b) Air time granted to a prominent Tamil-Canadian - you can hear Ignasious Selliah
here - who is even more offended than I am by references to the current demonstrators as "representative of the Tamil Community"; his view, like mine, and he surely knows better, is that these protests are pawns in the hands of the Tamil Tigers, a thuggish and murderous organization. One need only look at all the Tiger flags, and he was able to add as well that the crowd chants are Tiger chants, not generic Tamil chants. His recommendation was that Canada should request a Sri Lankan cease-fire only accompanied by a requirement that the Tigers stop holding the civilian population hostage as human shields (a tactic they have used, apparently, from their inception).
So when I read
this:
Inside the legislature, Premier Dalton McGuinty is encouraging the UN Security Council to find a way for Canada and other countries to help civilians affected by the fighting in Sri Lanka.
McGuinty says he understands why people in Toronto are unhappy about protests, including one that shut down a major highway Sunday, but adds it's important to speak out in the face of a significant breach of human rights.
He says thousands of civilians are being killed in northern Sri Lanka and people here need to recognize that the protests are rooted in real concerns.
McGuinty says this is not a time for the international community to be silent and is favour of the UN Security Council bringing countries together to help.
He also commended the federal government for providing more aid to the region in recent days and says the province will continue to push Ottawa to do more.
...I find it clear that McGuinty (our provincial premier) KNOWS Canada is already doing everything that is the purported request of the protesters. And if he knows it, why is he kow-towing to a gang of thugs? It seems to me one of the key purposes of the state is to protect civil life from exactly this sort of thuggery. The only encouraging thing in the article was the news that police are out in force in riot gear. Of course the Tiger organizer would love their use, but in the end this has to be cut off somewhere.
Labels: Tamils
Will They Sit Back Again and Allow This Nonsense?
Tamils
are threatening Toronto tomorrow with further chaos by blocking some major traffic artery.
Last Sunday they closed the major east-west artery for several hours by breaking a police line and racing up a ramp onto the Gardiner Expressway. I was stunned that the police did not take what I consider to be their job, clearing the roadway, but understood better after hearing the police chief describe the logistics problems, and major dangers, as a crowd, including children, was parked up 40 feet above ground with low fences. WIth a lot less justification the police also permitted the demonstrators to close one of the main streets in town for several days.
I'll have a harder time understanding another failure of will to start arresting these clowns. There certainly won't be the excuse of surprise, and I will wager any popular sympathy for the people involved is fading fast. Canada has essentially nothing to do with the conflict in Sri Lanka, and I doubt these demonstrations are building popular support in Toronto for the idea that our Prime Minister should devote his energies in other than working through the UN via normal channels trying to provide humanitarian aid. Which I will wager we already have people doing.
There is a real reason for distress among local Tamils in general, but my own guess (and it is a guess) is that the
Tamil Tigers (the protesters fly Tamil Tiger flags prominently in every gathering) organization is clearly pretty close to being finished. This is not an organization we really ought to be sorry to go. The main thing they have brought into the world is the suicide vest.
I am pretty sure occupying a major highway is a crime in Ontario. It will be interesting to see whether any of our levels of government decides to enforce that one for a change.
Labels: lawbreaking, Tamils
