Thousands attend 'Wear Red Friday' rally on Parliament Hill

[CHIMO]

Thousands attend 'Wear Red Friday' rally on Parliament Hill
Last Updated: Friday, September 22, 2006 | 4:34 PM ET
CBC News

Canadians owe their freedom to soldiers like those fighting in Afghanistan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper told a rally on Parliament Hill in support of Canada's troops.

"All of our freedoms were created by the men and women who in our history were prepared to lay down their lives for those freedoms," he said to cheers from the crowd of about 10,000 sporting flashes of red clothing as a sign of solidarity with the soldiers.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2006/09/22/wear-red-rally.html

Trial of Louis Riel


The Trial of Louis Riel was arguably the most famous trial in the history of Canada. In 1885 Louis Riel had been a leader of a resistance movement by the Métis and First Nations people of western Canada against the Canadian government in what is now the modern province of Saskatchewan. Known as the North-West Rebellion, this resistance was suppressed by the Canadian military, which led to Riel's capture and trial for treason. The trial, which took place in July 1885 and lasted only 5 days, resulted in a guilty verdict. Riel was subsequently executed by hanging, an outcome which has had a lasting impact on relations between and Francophone and Anglophone Canadians.

Riel was indicted by Judge Hugh Richardson on six counts of treason on July 20. The six charges were in reality three repeated twice, one set for a subject of the queen and one set for the trial of an alien (Riel was an American citizen), neither of which the court proved Riel to be. Riel asked for his American citizenship papers, part of the documents that were confiscated from his person upon his detainment, but the magistrate would not comply. Critics say that the repeated charges are major clues as to the bias of the government, as this obvious misconduct should have warranted a second trial at the very least. Riel's counsel immediately challenged the court's jurisdiction, but these motions were denied. Riel then pleaded not guilty to all charges. Riel's lawyers argued for a delay for the defence to obtain witnesses. It was granted and the trial began on July 28, 1885. Tellingly, of the 36 people receiving jury duty summons, only one spoke French – and he was in any case unable to attend. Moreover, the only Roman Catholic (An Irish) in the jury pool was challenged by the prosecution for not being of British stock and excluded. In the event, Riel was tried before a jury of six composed entirely of English and Scottish protestants, all from the area immediately surrounding Regina.

The defence appealed to higher authorities, and MacDonald was flooded with letters and petitions from sympathetic Québécois, who saw in Riel the French Catholic minority being oppressed by English Protestants. MacDonald was only too happy to see to Riel's death, saying that Riel would hang "...though every dog in Quebec shall bark."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Louis_Riel

[MrPrax]

1. Peace, Order and Good Government...

and other high-minded obsessions of power are also being defended.

Good reminder...

I almost feel sorry for these patriots in search of a nation to be patriotic about...they get so much of the militarist propaganda from their American tuned TVs, that they feel out of place all the time.

This country had no civil wars, no real insurrections, never any threat to the family compacts, never a hint of disloyality as a colony to Britain...the wars we fought have NEVER threaten Canada in anyway shape or form and has NEVER inspired a single fucker to ever enhance rights, introduce more democracy, and never succeeded in catapulting Canada on the international stage.

OUR success as a nation and our international standing comes from peacekeeping and the UN and these people HATE that and HATE Canada.

They constantly use the 'fascist' kneejerk imperial patriotism of Amerika as a strawman because they hate this country's 'liberal' traditions...talk about traitors -- a class of people who are MORE than happy to sell out this country economically to shift the power around, simply because they despise 'liberals and liberalism' and haven't been successful enough to do it at the polling booth, even after nearly a century of wearing poppies and saying stupid shit like, 'I support the troops'.

(BTW -- why do I keep hearing on the Canuck MSM that Harper is apparently quite smart...I never really thought about it, but I don't think he is that bright...is it being done to counter to any suggestion that Harper is like Bush...do they want us to think that comparison is absurd because Harper is much smarter or something?)

[Bragi]

3. You wrote:

This country had no civil wars, no real insurrections, never any threat to the family compacts, never a hint of disloyality as a colony to Britain...the wars we fought have NEVER threaten Canada in anyway shape or form and has NEVER inspired a single fucker to ever enhance rights, introduce more democracy, and never succeeded in catapulting Canada on the international stage.

The above is so absolutely fucking true is that it makes me wanna stare off vacantly into space. The neocons HATE the fact that we are not only a moderate people, unwilling to throw in our lot with the latest Dominionist frenzy, but we aren't at all militarist in our cultural orientation. We are, in fact, decidedly non-militarist historically, and every other way.

This really pisses off neocon historian shills -- like the Granatsteins and Bercussins et al -- who insist against all odds that Canada was defined by our military exploits, when it is obvious to anyone with eyes that this is a silly interpretation of Canadian history. Modern Canada wasn't created because our troops had the misfortune of being sent into the slaughter at Dieppe. Not at all is this true. Our country was built by people who got up every day and slogged off into the farms, forests and mines of our collective marginal existence.

Thank you and good night.

- B

[IntravenousDemilo]

6. I like to think of Canada as a "post-military" society...

...as in, we've evolved past militarism, which has always struck me as rather primitive. I remember being a teenager looking at the Countries section of the People's Almanac and World Almanac, and noting that places like the Arab world and certain military dictatorships (not to mention the US) were spending unbelievably high percentages of their GNP on the military, while we were spending roughly 1.5 per cent. I was so proud of that fact, and I should really hate to see us turning into war-mongers.

[daleo]

2. This didn't sound like it was a very big crowd in the Globe's article

The Globe just called it "thousands", so I have my doubts about the CBC's count. Mind you, the DND and other government departments could have "advised" people to go on their lunch hour.

The CBC picture is a pretty tight crowd shot, so it is hard to get a sense of the crowd size from that.

[Bragi]

4. You note...

The CBC picture is a pretty tight crowd shot, so it is hard to get a sense of the crowd size from that.

The wideshot photo below from the Government's Hill Cam gives a sense of the size of the crowd. It was taken at 12:45 PM Friday, when the crowd was pretty well at its max.



- B

[tuvor]

8. Wow, that's almost as impressive as when they knocked over Saddam's statue

Thanks for the pic!

[CHIMO]

9. Your Catch

Must have made Steve angry.

Look at what has happened to the cam. Mid-afternoon.



2006-09-24 02:43:40 EST

This image is being transmitted via a video camera installed across the street from Parliament Hill. You will have to use your browser's Refresh or Reload option to display the most recent version.

http://www.parliamenthill.gc.ca/text/hillcam_e.html

[daleo]

11. I guess I would estimate that crowd to be about two thousand or so

That is not a crowd of ten thousand by any stretch of the imagination. It was a nice catch. There is no substitute for seeing something with your own eyes.

[Swede]

5. Nice to see support for our men and women in uniform.

Some people cannot seperate this support of troops from support for the government. There is a big difference.

[tuvor]

7. Not supporting your school board's curriculum...

...doesn't mean you don't support the teachers.

That's the best parallel I can come up with.

[daleo]

10. I support our soldiers

By not wanting to have them killed in a shabby little civil war, ten thousand miles from home.

Saturday's Globe had a story about the real Operation Medusa, which is well worth reading. Essentially the local people had risen up against the petty corruption and thievery of the current government. NATO troops were told they were fighting Taliban, but it wasn't true for the most part. They were just supporting one side of a particularly shabby civil war.

[tuvor]

12. Does the Wear Red Fridays campaign have a website?

I can't seem to find anything.

[Bragi]

13. Some backstory on Red Fridays

Looks like Wear Red Fridays was originally started by the neocon-funded MoveOff.net which was set up to oppose the antiwar activities of MoveOn.org See http://redfridays.us/

It was apparently imported into Canada by a few military families at Petawawa up in the Ottawa Valley, who were running the campaign locally. The campaign was then picked up and promoted by CFRA, Ottawa's (very) right-wing talk radio station.

See http://cfra.com/headlines/index.asp?nid=42522&cat=1

My presumption is that CFRA then worked with PMO (and I guess the US PR firm handling the Karzai visit) to stage the Red Friday rally to coincide with Karzai's visit to Ottawa.

Because of the way in which Harper himself has now embraced the campaign -- and vice versa -- the one positive thing to come out of Friday's rally is that they can no longer plausibly claim to be a non-partisan, politically-neutral group.

Up to Friday they were falsely claiming this to be neutral, but I presume they will now have to abandon this lie, since Harper et al played to event straight-up for what it was -- an unambiguously pro-war rally.

- B

[tuvor]

14. Thank you for the link. Interesting stuff.