Home > Bush the butcher not welcome in Ottawa
by Judi McLeod
abble rousers, heading for Ottawa to boo Bush in a fever pitch, should be handed a world map.
They are touting their November 30-December 1 mass protest against Bush’s state visit to Canada as "his first international trip since his re-election."
Latin America’s Chile and Colombia are countries where a re-elected Bush was visiting when activists were getting ready to converge on Ottawa.
"Emergency" meetings have been called, paint pots and cardboard being dragged out as Artists Against War, the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War and the Canadian Peace Alliance prepare for mass anti-Bush rallies on Parliament Hill.
"Bush the butcher isn’t welcome here," says radical social activist Judy Rebick, a former president of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women.
Rebick, a frequent contributor to a number of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Newsworld programs, is the self-touted "volunteer" publisher of rabble.ca, an interactive online magazine, associated with Oneworld online, "dedicated to harnessing the democratic potential of the internet to promote human rights and sustainable development." Make that a $350,000/year bankrolled by unions, NGOs, and non-profits, volunteer publisher.
Judy and gang will travel from Toronto to Ottawa in chartered highway coaches, equipped with TV/VCR on "unionized buses".
"Because this will be Bush’s first trip outside the U.S. since his re-election, it will be important for us to build the biggest possible mobilisation (sic) to show our opposition in Canada," Rebick says in a rabble.ca email.
"We want to send a message of support to the people of Iraq and all oppressed people around the world: we stand in solidarity with you. And to our sisters and brothers in the American anti-war movement: the world will always say no to the Bush agenda," Rebick rants in her SOS to the rent-a-mob set.
The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War called an emergency meeting at Metro Hall yesterday to begin making placards and to begin work on "a giant unwelcome mat" for protesters to roll out in Ottawa for Bush.
Rebick, currently the Canadian Auto Workers (CAW) Sam Gindin chair in social justice at Ryerson University, who turns up at all World Trade Organization protests, has her own play on American election numbers.
"Only 28 percent of voting-age Americans voted for Bush while 98 million Americans didn’t vote at all."
Rabble-rousers won’t be able to count on the support of their anti-American hero New Democrat Party (NDP) MP Svend Robinson this time out. Robinson, who heckled former President Ronald Reagan during his 1987 visit to Canadian Parliament, caught pinching an expensive ring at an estate auction last year, left public office in disgrace.
But other NDP MPs, whose leader Jack Layton, says he has no objection to them joining placard-waving protesters on the hill, will join them.
Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the media. A former Toronto Sun and Kingston Whig Standard columnist, she has also appeared on Newsmax.com, the Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and World Net Daily. Judi can be reached at:
letters@canadafreepress.com
Forum posts
26 November 2004, 15:09
I’m glad the Canadian will greet that criminal Bush with protest. I’m sure the American media will not cover the protest though they (The US Media) are spineless and are at the point of being worthless. What I really wish would happen is that the Canadian Leadership would bar this War Criminal or better yet charge him with war crimes. I really wonder what the diehard Bush supporters have to say about their dear leader being protested in every country he steps foot in, that should really tell them something about this guy.
26 November 2004, 15:29
Bush is one step of ahead, always. He already made sure that he could murder innocent people and get away with it. Just ask Gonzalez, bush’s newest appointment.
Oh yeah, as long as torture does not happen in the US(guatanamo), and as long as prisoners are called enemy combatants, he could put a bullet in your head in front of the entire world and he would be protected according to the laws he created.
Isn’t that a neat trick? We’re on the wrong side. I want to kill, while people cheer me on, where do I sign up?
Oh, right here:
www.rnc.org or maybe here www.dnc.org and if all else fails, they’re looking to fill body bags over here:
www.goarmy.com
27 November 2004, 05:29
Does a war criminal ever have diplomatic immunity? The American disgrace, aka ’girlie Bush’ war criminal, ostensibly requested and received diplomatic immunity before traveling to Chile. Maybe the RCMP will ignore war criminal immunity and do the entire world a favor by arresting the creep!
28 November 2004, 21:39
We in Canada, cannot wait to greet BUSH! It’s going to be great! Educated Canadians realize that the bias American media will distort facts. They will never present the honest images of the events organized by Canadian citizens that are awaiting BUSH (massive protests).
I wonder if the Texan idiot will be able to fully understand the reality of how much citizens located in peaceful nation truly detest, disrespect and despise his imperialist dictatorship!
It would be best for him and his wife to depart from our soil in a hurry.
He will never be hailed on CANADIAN SOIL! So it would be best for him and his missiles to remain on the other side of the “once friendly” border!
29 November 2004, 05:33
Well said. Too bad our lapdog Prime Minister Martin doesn’t have an original thought. He’s bought and paid for by Bushco. Martin DOES NOT represent most Canadians’ values re: Star Wars and the U.S. War-Machine Idiots.
30 November 2004, 11:58
I wish I can shake Bush’ hand and express my gratitude to the man that does noble things despite the chorus of idiots like yourself critisizing him.
30 November 2004, 12:16
Its alright calling him ’Bush the butcher’ but he’s not even worthy of that title -He has no stomach for a fight -let alone butchery. Remember he dodged his military service. He gets poor teenage boys with no future to do his butchery. Even when he was governor of Texas he was too squeamish to visit the death chamber where he assigned people to die, all he could do was mimic the last pleadings of Karla Faye Tucker he sentenced to death. He thought her pleadings were really funny and mocked her to a colleague, even though he has ’christianity’ on his resume that she had also embraced
30 November 2004, 16:15
You are ignorant when it comes to the judicial system in the US. The governor of Texas doesn’t assign people to die. There was a trial. The prosecutor might find your case merits the death penalty. If you are found guilty and the death penalty is applied then the governor signs the warrant and that’s it. The governor usually doesn’t pardon because the governor as part of the executive branch shouldn’t interfere with the workings of the judicial branch. Most people wouldn’t like it if the governor pardons because it is seen as interference and obstruction.
5 December 2004, 08:03
What you say is true, but it did not stop Bush from relishing his executions while govenor of Texas. He reportedly laughed when he was told of the gory details of the convicted murderer Ms. Tucker, he laughed....what does that say about the kind of man (?) Bush is? No matter what Ms. Tucker had done, no matter how wrongly she lived her life, what decent human would revel in the gory details of another human’s bungled execution, she was not known to Bush, he is just a boold thirsty animal.
He probably laughs his ass off at the gory pictures of the Iraqi citizens whose innocent men, women, and children have been blown to shreds, whose lives have been destroyed, and whose futures are ruined by his bloody war.
30 November 2004, 19:27
It is a sad day for Canada to invite the most despised of a person living and sharing the planet with us. Recent reports suggest that chemical wepons were used in Falluja as recently as last week. Saddam Hussain was wrong but the action of the American forces does not make it right.
When Hitlar went on the rampage the rest of the world had to stop the blood letting. I do not see any difference in the actions of the Leader and Commander of the most powerful nation on earth killing innocent people. We thought Hitlar will never raise his head again. Now we have one and it is time to deal with him before it is too late.