Continue reading »]]> This is an interesting conversation on AJE about the growing militarization of the police. Of interest to people in Toronto because the G20 is part of the conversation.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has granted $34 billion over the last 10 years to state and local police departments to combat terrorist threats and drug trafficking. But critics say the advanced military-level training and weapons for police aren’t being used against Al Qaeda. Instead they are being utilised for crowd control in protests.

No one should be surprised. Societies usually emerge from wars more heavily militarized than they were going in. The techniques learned and used in anti-insurgency efforts abroad are usually deployed at home. Some people even see these wars as staging grounds. Whether or not they’re intended as such, they very often act as such.

War is more domestic policy than foreign policy.

Things will be getting worse.

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I never turn down an opportunity to travel to the suburbs. While quite a few of my urban cohorts view the regions outside Toronto with disdain, I see them as exotic foreign climes. Perhaps because, unlike a lot of people in Toronto, I’ve never been native to one. I grew up in a village and moved to the city.

The suburbs seem post-geographical. When in one, you could be in any one. They have the same strip malls with the same shops, surrounded by the same houses. Whatever may be unique in the region is polished away. In this, they seem, somehow, more modern and advanced than the cities.

Indeed, the cities seem to be undergoing a process of suburbification; existing not as cultural laboratories and engines of enlightenment but mainly as playgrounds and shopping centers for the people who live around them; providing jobs only in serving and entertaining these people.  The differences between the two regions is ever shrinking – becoming one of quantity rather than quality. What is Dundas Square except a huge strip mall, complete with a parking lot to hang out in? It is the suburbs perfected.

And the functions of the city, the creation of sub and counter cultures, experimental forms of commerce and cosmopolitanism , have moved online where they are accessible to anyone with an internet connection. Yet even here, through Apples, Facebook and Google, the suburban ethic and aesthetic encroaches.

Facebook is an online cubicle, a cubicle is a miniature suburban home a suburban home is an investment – the worth of which is determined more by property values, commute (load) times and security rather than the sentiments of hearth and home. You sell it when you can make a profit because, well, you can buy the same one somewhere else anyway.

It’s not as if you built the thing.

And the decorating was done with goods from the same box stores you can find anywhere. Just life apps bought and downloaded into your home.

So when I was invited to the launch party of a shop in Woodbridge, I took the opportunity to attend. I’ve never been to Woodbridge before, yet I have been to Woodbridge before.  And there, I was confronted by a lovely metaphor for Toronto. A tent, containing a fashion show, in a strip mall parking lot.

The models on the runway might as well have strutting their stuff down Queen West. The exotic dancers were a PG version of Club Paradise. The drummers straight out of Trinity Bellwoods Park and the fellow who pretended to play the guitar was like so people who pretend to be musicians in pubs.

Our culture is lit up air guitar.

And I enjoyed the show. Not so much for the clothing –it’s not the sort of clothing I know anything about– but because it was actually a show. There was fire. I like fire. Fire makes everything better. It sets me to looking for exits and wondering who I can push out of the way to reach them.

Mapping a route to the exit.

It was like a bizarro club district. Rather than the suburbanites coming downtown to express their particular sense of mayhem on our streets, downtown traveled to the suburbs and briefly colonized a strip mall parking lot. Concerned suburbanites stood around the tent, gawking like it was an alien landing craft from mothership Toronto and wondering if any communication was possible. Did we come in peace? Need they fear for their women-folk? Was it possible to copulate with ours?

Would the dread homosexuals finally convert them?

In these times of renewed hostilities between Toronto and its suburbs, when de-amalgamation seems like the only sensible course, when the suburban mayor and  his cronies deride downtown as being full of pinko elitists and these pinko elitists regard the surrounding regions as being populated by barbarians, when every policy seems designed to make the city more suburban, it seemed an interesting maneuver to reverse the trend and take downtown into the burbs.

I could be shilling anywhere.

While I have no problem with the suburbs when they’re in the suburbs, imagining them in the foggy and idealized images of any hash-addled orientalist, I view their cancerous  self-replication through every facet of culture as personally dangerous. I’m not actually sure I can survive in a mono-culture, especially not one controlled from the top.

In my experience, any sort of top-down organization, regardless of ideology, tends to squash me. I require a certain degree of liberty and diversity just to make a living and find the things that make living worthwhile. Even in the thriving eco-system of a city, these things can be rare. In a suburb, I fear my habitat is destroyed. That leaves me like a spotted owl.

A rare bird, going extinct.

Perhaps its time to reverse the trend of suburbification. To travel to their neighborhoods and make them as dangerous for dim children as they try to make ours friendly to the stroller classes; to ship our fashionistas out there just as they shipped their hobos to us, even as they self-righteously cut off our ability to raise the funds to help them; to hand out free books in the Tim Hortons; to explain that while many of us might be pinkos, calling us elitist – us, who make our living serving the moneyed classes from surburbia before returning to our rented hovels on foot or bicycle– is as fucking daft as calling your butler uppity; time to show these people that the amalgamation of the city with the suburbs was a horrific move that only dis-empowered the urban workers and that they who did it will, like us, have to pay for that by having us in their parking lots, behind velvet ropes, trying to convert, exclude and civilize them on Monday nights in the same manner that they, on Friday nights, are lined up in our streets, vomiting, smashing windows and punching each other in the face.

That if we have to live with them, they will have to live with us. That they too may know the dread of the other.

And while this event had nothing to do with any of that (it was about selling shoes or jackets or something and therefore part of the problem – as am I, as are you) it should point to a possible way forward for the interested anarcho-dandy. It’s possible that we’ve thoughtlessly accepted that the the suburbs are always allowed to come to us but we’re never allowed to go to them.  I wonder what would happen if that were to change. If the shoe was on the other foot.

I suspect they’d call the army.

It is, I suppose, theirs to call.

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Is Rob Ford a fat fuck or is he just fucking fat?

Rob Ford squints at the world through little swine eyes while wearing novelty ties.  In a panicked, squealing falsetto, he says things like:  ”I can’t support bike lanes. Roads are built for buses, cars, and trucks. My heart bleeds when someone gets killed, but it’s their own fault at the end of the day.”  He thinks “orientals” are “slowly taking over.” He gets so drunk and shouts so many insults that he stands out at the hockey game.  He gets charged with assaulting and making death threats against his wife.  Most recently, it turns out he was caught with a joint in Florida and has just said about immigrants: “Right now we can’t even deal with the 2.5 million people in this city. I think it is more important to take care of people now before we start bringing in more people.”  He stands a decent chance at being Toronto’s next mayor.

It’s hardly surprising.

A lot of people say those sorts of things and some of them actually believe them.

The good news is that you’ll never hear Rob Ford say: “Let them eat cake.”  You will, however, hear him say, “I have no idea where the cake went.  Really you left it there?  Nope, never saw it.”  And then he’ll wipe some icing off his chins.

"My dinner was this big."

Though often portrayed as being a right winger, Rob Ford is not any sort of winger.  Wings require flapping and flapping is a lot  like exercise.  Rather, he is a radical populist and a demagogue.  He panders to the bigotries of the common man and pretends such pandering is policy.  He presents no conservative theory of government or economics and his appetite for bon-bons is best described as liberal.

His comment “I think it is more important to take care of people now before we start bringing in more people” is about as far away from any genuine conservatism as you can get.  He seems to think the government should be taking care of people.  That it should be in charge of bringing people in.  That it should act as a brutal nanny enforcing the prejudices of the populace while rewarding its worst instincts.  Probably with ice-cream cake.  If there’s any left.

Mr Ford’s comments would make more sense if they were about the food on his table.  “I think it’s important that we take care of this steak before we bring in seconds and dessert” would be a sensible policy.  It’s probably not one he has ever believed in.

He explains his remarks and describes his perfect world thus: “I’m going to play the cards that I’m dealt and you know what? More people will come. But in a perfect world, what I’m saying is that I would like to deal with the 2.5 million first.” His goal is not smaller government but a government that deals with each of its citizens just like he deals with each of his fries.

I do not want to deal with the government.  I wish it did not deal with me. Like Rob Ford, the government is a fat fuck.

I’m married to an immigrant from America who brought herself in.  We do not need the government to take care of us.  We need it it to get out of our way and allow us to build our life together.   We just want to make some money and buy some shit.  Right now, our greatest obstacle to doing either is the government.  If someone wants to work and can get a job, they should be allowed to.  This does not steal jobs – it makes them.  The free movement of people and goods does not damage the economy – it is the economy.

Unlike Mr. Ford, whose job is paid for by my tax dollars, we do not intend to suck at the government’s teat.  From the looks of him, that milk is fattening, from the sound of him, it addles the senses.  Frankly, I hope the man is hit by a car.  Or I would, if the collision would not do so much damage to the car.  In the meantime, he should just sit the fuck down and shut the fuck up.

That is, if he can find a chair large enough to support him.

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As I take people like Oscar Wilde, Cicero and Friedrich Reck-Malleczenwen as my models of political dissent, I think it’s important to remember that even in horrible times, especially then, beauty, dignity and basic human decency are of paramount importance.  Although they are the first things to become improbable, you must never allow your better parts to become impossible.  So, as counterpoint to the barbarity of the weekend, I’m collecting some images of myself in some nice bloody suits.  Because this is an image heavy post, there’s a jump.  So, if you want to see more, jump!

Friday Around the Fence: These Pics by Danielle of Final Fashion

Saturday at the Park: Pictures By My Beautiful Wife

Thursday Picnic at the Anti-Police March

Continue reading »]]> It’s Canada Day and I usually like to mark the occasion with some flag vandalism, a rant against the nation state in general and this one in particular, and then spend the next six months sifting through a selection of insults, threats and various other comments.  I’m not in the mood this year.

Usually, my Canada Day post is a visceral  reaction to the idiotic, nationalistic exceptionalism that most Canadians feel.  They think this country is so much better, so much more free and so much more egalitarian than any other place on earth. Just like people do on any other place on earth.

This year, in Toronto at least, where white folks got a tiny taste of how Canada treats so many other people both here and abroad, not many people are feeling like that.

They want to.  I can sense this.  And I’m not one to kick my enemy when he’s down.  Not unless he’s trying to get back up.

So let me just slip one to the ribs here.

I’ll be attending today’s protest to have an independent inquiry into the events of the weekend (hopefully by Amnesty International) and I fully expect to hear the protesters singing the national anthem.  It’s not a practice I’m ever comfortable with but now, after that nation spent a drunken weekend chasing people about with sticks and on a day when our taxes are being raised, it now seems especially ludicrous to gather together and sing its praises.  But people will.

They want their rudely shattered delusion back in place.
These post-summit protests are an exercise in reassurance.  Many seem to feel heartbroken about the events of the weekend.  They feel like their boyfriend has broken up with them and now they don’t know what to do.  Mainly, they want everything back to normal.  This urge for a return to status quo is called reactionaryism.  They’re not terribly concerned that it was the status quo that created this situation in the first place.  They simply think: If you just stop drinking, everything can be like it was before! They want the police chief to resign.  A scapegoat.

As if any other police chef on the the planet would have handled things differently.

I can’t really blame them.  Change and loneliness is a frightening situation, especially for those who are dependent on the state for their livelihood.  The people are much like a battered housewife.  They want the husband to stop beating them, desire a return to a happier time and, lacking any self-esteem, are now eager to believe any Sunday morning apology they might get.  Yet it’s a dysfunctional relationship.  We saw an expression of that dysfunction –not its cause– over the weekend.  Our hubby, the state, might promise to quit drinking but can we believe him?  Has he earned our belief?

I don’t believe he has.

And yet, while I will not condemn black bloc tactics as their violence is nothing when measured against that of nations, I cannot ever endorse anyone ever purposely breaking something they cannot rebuild.  If you cannot install a window, you have no business breaking one.  Smashing is the easiest and most meaningless aspect of anarchism.  If we are ever going to leave the state behind, we must do the hard work and form better systems.  We must make ourselves less dependent on it so that we can leave.  Conflict will then arise, to be sure, but it will be on our home turf, not theirs, and we will have something to protect.  We need to be independent.

The first step, I suppose, is admitting that you have a problem.

That you might be suffering from a carefully cultivated Stockholm Syndrome.

I know the bulk of this city will accept the flowers and apology, then talk itself back into the lie, probably within the month, but I also know that some of you won’t.  I would urge those ones not to turn to the smashing of things but to the building of them.  We are hostages and breaking the dishes, while satisfying in the short-term, will accomplish nothing.  We need an escape plan and place to go to.  That is where we need to direct our energy.  Not towards politics but towards removing them from our lives.

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The guardians of the state.

On the twitter, I’ve recently heard many people declare that “Toronto has become a police state.”  If you’ve said something along those lines, you need to take a deep breath.  You are only experiencing clarity.  It will pass.

Canada has been a police state for years.  Over the weekend, we just saw how a police state handles protest.  In other words, the police state on a bad day.  The only reason the police did not use live ammunition is because they didn’t need to.   Had there been half a million people in the street, if there had of been a real threat, the police would have used real bullets.  They did not because they were never threatened enough to risk the optics.  As their overreaction and their indiscriminate application of power proved, they are not interested in any sort of fair fight.  and when you looked up, you saw snipers.  Just what do you think those people are for?  They’re for you and me.  To shoot us with bullets we paid for.

Did you ever think our government would act any differently than the Iranian regime if too many people took to the street?  When power is threatened, life is cheap.

The only difference between Canada and any other police state is that Canadians are remarkably compliant.  Why shouldn’t they be?  They are the benefactors of this sort of behavior and much worse all over the world.  For the most part, they enjoy the police state.  Love it even.  Some, like Albert Speer, simply prefer to avoid looking too hard at it.  Most Canadians will never face up to what this country truly is: they will not acknowledge its wars, it genocides and its oppressions.  It easier to believe in the lie.

From cradle to grave, we’ve all been lied to.  We’ve been told things like Alexander Graham Bell was a Canadian, that we are a nation of peacekeepers and that we are, always and without doubt, the good guys.  It’s not true.  We’re not.  Here is where we see the delusion conflicting with the reality.  And the reality wins.

The police state is not what happened on the weekend.  It is what allowed that weekend to happen in the first place.  It is what you’re returning to this Monday.  Maybe you enjoy living in a totalitarian regime – many people have– and perhaps you even actively endorse it – many have done that too.  Everyone who doesn’t, however, needs to take a deep breath.  You are only experiencing clarity.  It will pass.  A meaningless report will be made, perhaps a futile inquiry will be drag into boredom and increase our tolerance for the images that now shock us, a few reporters will be upset that their rights were violated and you will get your crumb from the table.

You will be returned to your regular programming.  A celebrity will do something and your pleasant fog will be back in no time.