The George and Bill Show comes to Surrey

[updated below]

And hey, you could win a CBSA cash reward!

George W. Bush in Surrey 

Thursday Oct. 20

Tickets - $599 per head. No media allowed.


Thursday, October 20, 11:00 am

Gather at the parking lot outside the Bay, Guildford Mall, SW corner of 152 St. & 104 Ave.
If you are coming from Occupy Vancouver at the Vancouver Art Gallery, Amnesty International is organizing a contingent leaving from there at 9:15am at taking the Skytrain to Surrey.

Transit :Take the Expo Line to Gateway Station in Surrey, then the 332 bus to Guildford, exit 104 Ave and 150 St. , walk to 152 St.


But remember what CBSA says : Don't try to make the arrest yourself. That's the RCMP's job. 
#Arrestbush

Update : 
Via Stephen Hui at the Georgia Straight : the Surrey Regional Economic Summit's proud corporate sponsors at left. Click pic to read.

Brigette DePape spoke to the 200 or so demonstrators outside.


Glob showed vid of Occupy Vancouver folks arriving.


Inside : BC premier Christy Clark attended, Kevin Falcon's former flackman was one of the organizers, and honorary chair of the summit Surrey mayor Diane Watts was interviewed about torture.








Matt Eisenbrandt in Embassy Mag : The case for Canadian prosecution of George W. Bush

"The government has recently taken a very public position that Canada should not be a safe haven for alleged torturers and war criminals. To open its doors yet again to Mr. Bush sets a disturbing double standard."

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Arab Spring activists applaud Brigette DePape from Cairo

Canadian journalists blew off Senate page Brigette DePape's silent 20-second Stop Harper protest during the Throne Speech as a "stunt" undeserving of even its requisite 15 minutes of fame. Five days later  those ... same ... journos ...  are ... still ... writing ... about her in the national press.

Having pretty well exhausted the 'disrespectful to Parliament' angle on the first couple of days, some of them have now moved on to characterizing her call for "a Canadian version of the Arab Spring, an Arab Spring for Canada" as 'disrespectful to the Arab Spring'.
Apparently she shouldn't have mentioned the Arab Spring without first setting herself on fire or something. Way to reach, guys.

So above, just for them, are some Arab Spring activists in Egypt applauding Brigette DePape from Cairo.

"If you are inspired by our Arab revolutions, do as we did. You need one; I know you need one. It's not just an Arab Spring; it's a World Spring."

Update : SunMedia still whining about Brigette on Day 8 of her 15 minutes of fame.
Natty Post on Day 9 : "Her 15 minutes are up."

Brigette Speaks at Anti Harper Rally in Ottawa
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Stop Harper action interrupted by long dull dreary throne speech

In subsequent interviews to her brilliant Stop Harper protest during the Speech from the Throne, the now-former Senate page Brigette DePape repeatedly mentioned climate change and inaction on the environment as a motivating factor for her own action. Notable because the Throne Speech mentions neither.

Yesterday SunMedia's David Akin joined the alarming number of politicians and their media fluffers - who are apparently aghast and appalled that a woman would stand silently holding up a piece of cardboard for twenty seconds - with this long dull dreary post :
Memo to Brigette : There are no shortcuts in politics. It takes long, dull, dreary work.

According to Akin, working the inside political corridors completely precludes ever protesting against that same self-serving self-perpetuating hegemony and Brigette DePape broke that most solemn of all Fight Club rules. Oh, boo.
He also apparently did not hear Brigette's interviews on CBC and CTV in which she said she didn't think just holding up a sign would affect anything all by itself but hoped to inspire others to action because politics and democracy is not just about elections.

Seriously, Akin, how the fuck long do you think it will take to get the environment mentioned in a Harper majority Thone Speech the "long dull dreary" way?

Antonia Zerbisias on climate change : Time for a Climate of Change (italics mine)

"Well-known American environmentalist and activist Bill McKibben founded the grass-roots group 350.org, which attempts to get people all over the world agitating for laws, regulations and policy aimed at reducing GHG (greenhouse gas emissions) reductions.

“We need to do (civil disobedience) on a mass scale," McKibben, author of many books including Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet, tells me. “We need to do it in a way that makes one thing clear to all onlookers: in this fight, we are the conservatives. The radicals are the people who want to alter the composition of the atmosphere.”

“Non-violent civil disobedience is justified when there is a history of long-standing harm or violation of people's fundamental rights; when legal and policy means have failed to reduce the harms and violations; and when there is little time remaining to address the problems,” University of New England professor John Lemons and Penn State’s Donald Brown wrote in last month’s Journal of Science and Environmental Politics."

“Simply put, people do not have the right to harm others who have not given their consent to be harmed "

All the important social movements of the last century - rights for minorities, women, LGBT, children, POWs, FN, workers, differently abled, the environment - all of them were or continue to be actively suppressed by our governments, who only jump into the front of the parade after a whole lot of outside protest.

From CathiefromCanada : About Protest - the proof that protest works

Post title shamelessly ripped from a great post by Your Heart's on the Left : Harper stunt interrupts Canadian statement delivered by DePape
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Gutsy Senate page's "Stop Harper" protest

                                                                                                 Photo : Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press

Senate page Brigette Marcelle DePape, 21, stood silently holding up a Stop Harper stop sign for 20 seconds during the Speech from the Throne today before being ejected from the Senate Chamber and fired.

Here she explains the reasons for her gutsy protest to CBC's Evan Solomon :



Shorter Solomon : Why didn't you choose some other venue for your protest that nobody would have paid any attention to?

Liberal MP Carolyn Bennett called the protest by a security-cleared employee "an abuse of parliamentary privilege."  "There's lots of room for that out on the lawn, or whatever," she said.

Lots more stuffy tut tutting all round in the media and from other MPs, including Elizabeth May, about "respecting our heritage" and "protesting appropriately".

They can all just stuff it. Because Brigitte's 20-second silent protest doesn't even begin to approach the level of contempt both Harper and our chamber of sober second thought has been dishing out to Canada lately.

Saturday Update : Boris nails it.
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