Six organizations support Harper's anti-choice initiative, chastise choice activists

I think there's a major difference between what Di Novo did and Nancy Ruth's statement yesterday. Di Novo took a position on an issue -- actually, if you add in those Facebook exchanges, she took positions of substance on several issues. Speaking only for myself, I'd have to disagree with every position of substance she took, and I'd observe moreover that during the Facebook exchange she was expressing open hostility to some left activists, notably feminists (and on that score she was factually wrong).

Nancy Ruth spoke of nothing except tactics, and she wasn't expressing hostility to the activists she spoke to. We know she's a rock on all women's and LGBT issues -- except yes, I agree that tactics are never entirely divorced from convictions or substance. For most feminists, backing down from a bully is more than a questionable tactic; it's a real issue. If that's how we interpret her warning, then yes, I disagree with her.

But maybe that's not exactly how she was thinking of her warning. She's an insider; as she said, she sits in caucus and she knows what Steve might be prepared to do. That doesn't really make a difference to me -- it's no newsflash to me that Harper is pissy and vengeful. She seems to have thought, though, that it was worth signalling to us that things are worse than we think. I still don't see why that should shut us up, but I'm glad public attention has been caught. For once, it's not just committed lefties and feminists who are wandering around wondering "What did she mean? What can it mean?"

So the Liberals want to treat this crisis (that they helped to create) as a fundraising opportunity for themselves:

[url=http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/liberals-ho... hope to profit from Tory profanity on abortion[/url]

[url=http://transformingpower.ca/en/blog/its-not-first-time-feminists-have-be...'s not the first time feminists have been told to "shut the fuck up." If we had listened women would still be in the kitchen[/url]

"Some women in this discussion express a fear that abortion could become an election issue.  Harper knows as well as I do that the vast majority of Canadians are pro-choice.  If abortion is an election issue, he will lose the election.  So to that I say, bring it on." — Judy Rebick

Well if the honeys think I'm stuck up, I tell them shut the fuck up

"... since coming to work at Oxfam, I've discovered that he did this entirely without consultation with groups who are providing these services. And that the status quo about funding for abortion/contraception was basically don't-ask-don't-tell, which is apologist bullshit for sure, but it was also the best we were going to get with this government. It was an issue that was off of the radar. What Ignatieff did was shine a spotlight on this stuff and put a lot of groups funding in jeopardy. Which literally puts the lives of majority world women in jeopardy." — Audra Williams

Susan Delacourt confirms Liberals' inept opportunism:

[url=http://thestar.blogs.com/politics/2010/05/shutting-up-or-not.html]Shutting up — or not[/url]: And one more note about shutting up -- the Liberals' status of women critic, Anita Neville, was initially quite charitable about Senator Ruth's intervention at the aid-experts' meeting yesterday. She was in the room and prefaced her remarks about her fondness for Nancy Ruth. But by late in the day, Neville was quoted in a Liberal news release condemning the "bullying."  Why the change of heart? I'm discouraged to report that it's because the Liberals saw a chance to score some points, even if it meant twisting Neville's more nuanced understanding of what happened yesterday.

The most disturbing part (IMHO) of Ruth's comments are not the "profanity", but rather this portion from the [url=http://media.thestar.topscms.com/audio/b6/d6/9b36437f457c9859618858cf233... clip in the Star story[/url] originally quoted by Michelle:

Senator Nancy Ruth wrote:

This is now a political football. This is not about women's health in this country. And Madame's comments about the Conservative agenda that can be taken up in other worlds - that may be so - but that's not where Canada is. Canada is still a country with free and accessible abortion. Leave it there. Don't make it an election issue.

writer wrote:

Belinda Stronach: [url=http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/article/803083--don-t-le... Up![/url]

Quite the article by Ms Stronach, where is a puking icon when you need one?

"the gift of generations" my ass....WTF!

Astonishingly wealthy people have so much to say about us regular folk shutting up when it comes to the fate of the extremely poor. Only millionaires can truly understand the plight of the impoverished, it seems.

It's true. I haven't flown to Africa and held a malaria net in my own manicured hands on that soil. In fact, I haven't flown anywhere for a long time. Nor have I ever had a manicure.

Yeah, writer, I was kind of thinking that $7500 to Nancy Ruth (Jackman) must be sort of like $7.50 to you and me.

But I don't hold people's family fortunes against them, as long as they take good stands on issues of principle [i]at the right time and place[/i]. Today - at this moment in time - and in this country of ours - anyone who suggests that Harper is doing a good thing for the women of the world, and we mustn't fuck it up for fear of ruining the good thing we've got going in Canada, has to be questioned - from the rooftops, as N.Beltov so graphically suggested.

Laugh? Cry? Laugh? Cry? I don't know. It's so hard to choose!

[url=http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/05/04/ottawa-match-internatio...'s aid group loses federal funding[/url]

Harper should fire her if that's even possible. Foul mouthed politicians aren't fit to hold office. We need representatives who can muster a degree of civility.

If protestors want to carry on like baboons, thats fine. Our elected representatives though need act in a civil manner.

[url=http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2010/05/06/13847546.html]3 [Ontario] NDP MPPs protest Harper government's women's health plans[/url]

(... One of the three happens to be the party's leader.)

Let's see more of this. Across the country.

Having read the letter in the OP, I am reminded of Make Poverty History, and any number of lofty goals that are put forward with great fanfare by NGOs and signed into 'statements" by smarmy politicians before being quickly forgotten.

The NGOs that signed the above statement don't tell us what it is these women, and their children, are dying from that takes only dimes. But we know what they are dying from: lack of health care, lack of food, lack of clean water, treatable disease, war, violence, drought, displacement, ecological degradation.

But, in fact, we have the food, the medicine, the doctors, the technology, to house, feed, treat, and give these women and their children lives with dignity. The problem is these women don't have the money to pay for it. In terms of displacement, Colombia sports the largest internally displaced population in the world except, possibly, for Iraq. And that displacement is caused, in part, by Canadian mining companies and other global corporations supported by a murderous regime the Harperites, and the Liberals, wish to reward with "free trade". In terms of drought, violence, and war, our country not only refuses to act on climate change, the Harperites worked tirelessly to ensure Copenhagen would be a failure.

Harperism is ideologically opposed to assisting the poor and are ideological proponents of the global system of exploitation that uproots people from their homes and rapes their land.

Let us understand clearly why Harper put the issue of women's health on the agenda: The cynical, hateful, small minded fuckers who advise him believed it would be a means for Harper, without much controversy, to garner support among women while actually delivering sweet fuck all. It is nothing more than a cynical political maneuver that backfired because Conservative contempt for women and women's issues just can't be concealed.

The NGOs who wrote that letter, I suspect, did so because they think the money cut from organizations actually devoted to women's health may be directed to padding their administrative accounts if they just nose up to the Harperites and lick their toes.

Disgusting.

Spinach make-up?! Cosmeceuticals!

And the Ottawa Senators, of course.

http://www.nationalpost.com/related/topics/story.html?id=2714072

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/bvf_eugene-melnyk-divests...

http://www.dec-ced.gc.ca/eng/media-room/news-releases/2009/06/2015.html

Someone wrote earlier that there was a feeling of a wife speaking to children, telling them to STFP or the husband would come and *really* kick the shit out of them.  The desperate complicity of a mother to an abusive husband.  A dreadful analogy, and it seems terrible that Nancy Ruth has to be the mouthpiece for Harper's politics.  Are all the MPs in Harper's cabinet really so terrified of him?  Can none of them take a principled stance in their own party?

Re, Belinda Stronach et al article on how 'this is our chance to help'.
If you really wanted to help then you wouldn't gut the funding of organisations like KAIROS and Match who have been doing maternal and child health for more than thirty years.  It's absolute nonsense.

Quote:

Susan Delacourt confirms Liberals' inept opportunism:

And Kady O'Malley from CBC takes it in a whole new direction. 

ATTENTION ANONYMITY-SEEKING LIBERALS: Heed the advice of Adam Smith at your peril.

Quote:

  (Lib fundraising letter) PS. Political donations under $200 annually are reported to Elections Canada anonymously. If Harper's intimidation tactics make it difficult for you to publicly oppose him, you can still show your solidarity with those who don't have that option.

Quote:

(O'Malley) The problem, of course, is that the threshold in question would appear to be $20, not $200 --which means that anyone who takes Adam Smith up on his offer, and sends off a donation of, say, $50, will indeed show up in the party's quarterly report, thereby exposing themselves -- very possibly against their wishes and without their knowledge -- to the very same "intimidation tactics" that the Liberals are so keen to denounce. 

Really, with a friend like that Adam Smith fellow, who needs enemies?

ETA from O'Malley:

Quote:

 UPDATE: Yikes: it turns out that Adam Smith was absolutely right, and I was thoroughly wrong, at least on the mandatory disclosure and publication of donations under $200. I still think using the word "anonymous" is a bit disingenuous, since the party has to know who you are -- the limit for truly anonymous donations is, in fact, $20 -- but your name only has to be reported to Elections Canada once the amount goes over $200. (That's cumulative, by the way, which means that if you made five "anonymous" donations of $50 each throughout the year, they'd all show up in the annual report.) My apologies to the Liberals for getting it wrong!

Nancy Ruth and "Backlash"

Nancy Ruth, who willingly joined Harper's Conservative Senate Caucas in 2006, is "warning-not-threatening" there will be a "backlash" by her Reformist Government if citizens do not "shut the F*** up". 
Aside from the obvious observation that: "with "feminists" like Ruth, who needs Harper theocons", the use of the word "backlash" is telling.
Ruth's demand for citizens silence from democratic dissent or else her party will flex its power to punish women further (that is the only meaning for "backlash" in this context) is outrageous but certainly not out of character with this government.
Ruth, of course, is not in the position to make  unauthorized "warning" statements on behalf of her party but  she has certainly captured its mentality.

Here is some comment on "backlash" from Wikipedia which seems appropriate:

Quote:

Backlash can also refer to 'blaming the victim', which occurs when people in the surrounding environment shift blame, from the criminals, to their victims; and/or, further, blame those victims for subsequent controversies and conflicts....The victim may also be accused of attention-seeking, ... when reporting a crime. Various "old-school" attitudes pressurise victims into either "keeping their mouths shut" about certain crimes, or suffering further consequences..

Edited to Add:

Another "radical" group that must be warned to "Shut the F... Up"

Quote:

Lancet: Tories’ abortion stand ‘hypocritical and unjust’
Published On Fri May 07 2010

OTTAWA—A top British medical journal is chiding the Harper government for refusing to put abortion funding on Canada’s G8 agenda.

An editorial in The Lancet says it’s “hypocritical and unjust” that Canada get in the way of abortions abroad when Canadian women can have them at home.

“This stance must change,” the journal says.

“Seventy thousand women die from unsafe abortions worldwide every year. The Canadian government does not deprive women living in Canada from access to safe abortions; it is therefore hypocritical and unjust that it tries to do so abroad.”...

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/806016--lancet-tories-abortio...

In addition to the general ability of politicians to lie, this lying also flows directly from the Straussian ideology shared by Harper and his closest henchmen. Lying is noble. Lying is necessary - especially to ordinary people and "the rabble" - and so on.

I'm not kidding. This is what they believe.

Michelle wrote:

No it doesn't.  That's ridiculous.

What's ridiculous. If children are brought up to be polite and civil and not use foul language in everyday discourse, they are not likely to  become adult potty mouths either.

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/safe-abortion/sign.html#se

I hope I'm one of the earlier signatures - not so many thus far.