Intimidation, Stifling Dissent and Police State Tactics

Whooee! Well, friends an' foes, the past day or so I seen a few news items that really got my goat. Seems like our home and native land is slidin' down the slippery slope to totalitarianism. The G20 thing gave the slip-slide a bigass shove an' the situation's deterioratin', no two ways.

One thing I seen that made my blood start simmerin' was when the cops arrested a guy for the crime of discussing politics in a university forum. The chickenshits waited until after the event and arrested him at his dad's house. According to the event organizer, Judy Rebick, who had invited the young man to participate in the Ryerson panel discussion,

"It was a meeting, a calm, peaceful discussion of issues on people’s minds.”
“It’s an outrage that he was arrested for discussing issues, an outrage.”

Dang right!

Then, I seen an article where a guy out Calgary way got arrested for posting criticism of the RCMP on a website. Libel is generally a civil matter but I guess when the cops is the ones who think they're bein' libeled, they can slap the cuffs on and drag the accused libeler off to jail.

RCMP Supt. Randy McGinnis said the charges are very rare.

"In my 29 years, I've never heard of an individual being charged under the criminal code for libel charges, defamation of character," McGinnis said during the news conference.

Not rare enough, sez I. BTW, the guy's website is still up and (allegedly) libelin'. Rabble's got a good piece on this.

The third thing I seen and this one really hits home is where the OPP is payin' visits to people who are opposed to Bruce Power's plans to ship radioactive waste through the Great Lakes and up the St. Lawrence Seaway and over to Sweden... and back again.

Ontario Provincial Police officers are making the rounds in Grey Bruce, speaking to opponents of Bruce Power's plans to ship 16 decommissioned steam generators from Owen Sound Harbour through the Great Lakes to Sweden.

Two officers — Calum Rankin and Ian George — from the force's western regional headquarters called Sharen Skelly, a spokeswoman for the group Citizens Against Radioactive Generators in Owen Sound (CARGOS), on Tuesday afternoon and met with her that evening, Skelly said Friday.

"I wasn't expecting it," Skelly said of the call.

Rankin called her again on Friday to say he was willing to speak with anyone about the issue, she said. "He said they wanted to be open and transparent about it."

However, George would not answer questions from The Sun Times about who the officers where visiting or how they were chosen.

Does the OPP work for Bruce Power or for the citizens of Ontario? This looks like intimidation, pure and simple. A group of mayors of municipalities bordering the Great lakes has also voiced opposition to the shipments. Is the OPP calling on them, too?

Maybe the OPP will be calling on me next. I signed Sharen Skelly's petition and I've been outspoken about stopping the Great Lakes from being used as a transportation route for nuclear waste. I bumped heads with Bruce Power last year when they were trying to build a new nuke plant here in Nanticoke. I'm pretty sure they got a dossier on me. Will they send their OPP minions to knock on my door. If so, I'll be all the more inspired to protest those shipments. Count on it.

JimBobby