This link was sent to me by a reliable source.UPDATE: Originally the concert was planned for Toronto, but now it has been relocated to Burlington, Ontario. The venue information is:

Formac Billiards, 1400 Plains Rd. E., Burlington, ON, L7R 3P8

Phone  (905) 333-0305

https://maps.google.ca/maps?ie=UTF8&cid=13519480741944799385&q=Formac+Billiards&iwloc=A&gl=CA&hl=en

The email address of the organizer is: od_36@hotmail.com

Instead of adding my own commentary, here are some highlights from the article.

A concert slated for Toronto, featuring Condemned 84 (England), supported by the likes of Légitime Violence (Quebec), threatens to flood the area with fascist lowlife and their passive supporters on the night of Saturday, June 22.

Clearly, Condemned 84 and bands in their orbit are interested in playing to the extreme right, as well as the apolitical crowd. Just as they try to obscure the fact that they play for organized neo-Nazis to sidestep criticism from the non-political clientele, they also try to manage perceptions for the benefit of their neo-Nazi clientele.

The main support for Condemned 84 on the show that’s been announced for Toronto is Légitime Violence, an ultra-nationalist RAC band connected with the right wing skinhead crews, Quebec Stompers (Quebec City) and Coup de Masse (Montreal). LV are venomously anti-left wing (hippies and other soft targets only, please), while at the same time cowering behind the ‘apolitical’ label. The band’s imagery displays an obsession with portraying steroid junked-up skinheads preying on the smallest and weakest of the stereotypical ‘left-wing activist’. Proudly sporting “anti-antifa” T-shirts all over Facebook (anti-antifa means anti-anti-fascist, and is a slogan/psuedo-movement started by neo-nazi s in Europe), they’ve been fairly open about their political leanings. Arguably, their hatred of anti-fascists is somewhat justified. Quebec Stompers and Coup de Masse has been kicked around a fair bit by anti-fascists, although evidently, not hard enough.

…

This isn’t about being “PC,” and this isn’t just about one dodgy band either – it’s about a disturbing agenda being pushed by the fence-sitters and closet-fascists who, under the deceptive banner of “no politics” want to make our scene a safe zone for nazi bullshit. This isn’t a coincidence – it’s been a conscious strategy of the nazis after being forced underground in previous decades: infiltrate the “apolitical” fold and recruit amongst the fence-sitters; after all, if you already listening to nazi bands and claim “anti-antifa,” how much farther do you have to go?  The fascists smell easy pickings.

To read the rest, see: http://condemned84.wordpress.com/

●          “People have got to know whether or not their President is a crook. Well, I’m not a crook.” – disgraced American president Richard Nixon

●          “I don’t recall. I don’t recall that.” - disgraced American president Ronald Reagan

●          “A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It’s a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it’s because it’s proven.”  - disgraced Canadian prime minister Jean Chretien

●          “Anyways, like I said this morning, these allegations are ridiculous …”  – disgraced Toronto mayor Rob Ford

●          “… my actions regarding expenses do not merit criticism.”” – disgraced Canadian senator Mike Duffy

 ●          “Let me be clear …” – disgraced Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, clearly the worst prime minister that Canada has ever had

Things that lying, corrupt, arrogant, privileged, rich, white, middle-aged, male, elitist, pro-corporate politicians say when they are caught in scandals.

This song is dedicated to them, and all the others like them (including Brian Mulroney). It’s “Liar” by The Damned.

This morning I saw a few minutes of a CBC Newsworld political panel and again concluded that Canada must abolish its senate immediately. Abolish it now! There is no time for messing about.

The dishonourable, fraud-committing senate serves no legitimate purpose in this day and age, and it’s debatable whether it ever did. The unelected, patronage-appointed, archaic institution is an insult to democracy; costs us an obscene amount of tax money; and provides a bad example to young Canadians that crime does pay. It is nothing but a den of Liberal and Conservative crooks and liars living high on the hog at our expense.

In fact, we should take it one step further. Make it an offence under the Criminal Code to be a Canadian senator. Make it a criminal offence to appoint a Canadian senator. Apply the penalties retroactively. No statute of limitations.

Charge them, convict them, sentence them to prison and seize their assets — including the estates of dead slimeballs like the cold and stiff Con senator Doug Finley, who Stephen Harper appointed in 2009 as a gift for organizing the illegal “In and Out” funding scam in the 2006 federal election.

Finley is survived by his Con MP wife Diane, the fuckhead who is responsible for accelerating the replacement of Canadian workers with underpaid “temporary” foreign workers, cutting programs and funding to help Canadians get jobs, and screwing laid-off Canadians out of their Employment Insurance benefits (which is insurance they paid for, not a charity handout).

The recently-croaked filthy senator was also apparently a friend and role model of a certain Sun Media spin artist and right-wing Liberal Party dirty-tricks operative, as well as an idol of another infamous right-wing, pro-Liberal, anti-progressive blogger. Birds of a feather…

Enough is enough! Canadians deserve better!

Canada’s annual protest against women’s rights was held at Parliament Hill on May 9, 2013, drawing thousands of right-wing busybodies who can’t keep their authoritarianism in their pants.

The name of the yearly “March For Life” is misleading, because most of the religious fanatics who attend these events are very selective about their concern for life. They almost exclusively focus on unborn fetuses, and spare almost no thought for actual human beings who have left the womb. Causes of premature death such as war, capital punishment, poverty, pollution, depression and unsafe working conditions are barely on their radar, if at all. Many of them also have a disturbing level of tolerance for bomb attacks against women’s health clinics and assassinations of people who work at them.

Typical conservatives, they are control freaks who tell other people how to live their lives, harass them mercilessly, and want to take away their freedoms. The anti-choice folks are fiercely determined to force women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term, as well as prevent terminally ill people from accessing the option of safe, pain-free assisted suicide.

Instead of spending their time, energy and money on improving the lives of people who are already here, these extremists wring their hands over an imaginary problem – that supposedly not enough babies are being born. The cold, hard truth is that planet Earth is massively overpopulated, and there is not enough food, water, clean air and other natural resources to support the population we have already!

Every day, thousands of humans die from starvation and hunger-related diseases. Many of those unfortunate victims are children, including babies. Of the children who do survive, an alarmingly large number end up in orphanages, foster care or homelessness. Go to any major city and look around. There are shortages of many things in this world, but people are not one of them. Conflicts over scarce resources have led to tension, crime, wars and terrorism.

We desperately need to reduce the world population, not encourage its irresponsible growth.

Sex education, birth control and safe abortion should be easily available, at no cost, to anyone who wants it. I mean real sex education, not failed “abstinence-only” programs that inevitably lead to increases in sexually transmitted diseases and unwanted pregnancies. And another thing: not a single penny of tax money should be spent on reproductive drugs and technologies for people who cannot have children naturally. If they cannot bear to adopt a needy child, they should have to pay the full cost of the artificial procedures out of their own pockets.

Take the religious and political garbage out of the picture and leave these matters to the medical experts, the trained educators, and – most importantly – to the women whose bodies belong to themselves, not to anyone else.

—————————————————————————————————

Note: I watched the attached George Carlin video after I had already written my rant. Any similarities are mere coincidence.

I just saw that today, May 5, is the birthday of Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883), the German economist, historian, journalist and philosopher. I post this video in honour of the occasion. It’s a bit silly, and I’m not sure of the intentions of the creators, but I’ve been waiting for an appropriate occasion to share it.

I haven’t read any Marx in a very long time, other than passages that other people quote, but his writings are certainly still relevant today, especially in this era of economic collapse, ongoing exploitation of workers, growing inequality and top-down austerity measures.

Marx wasn’t perfect, and he was a product of his time (including its customs and prejudices), but there is no denying that he led an interesting life and was right about a lot of things, especially the nature and reality of capitalism and class. If you have never read anything by Marx, apparently the best one to check out is Das Kapital. Go ahead, you might just like it.

Here’s my final photo from the International Workers Day rally in downtown Toronto on May 1, 2013. I couldn’t resist snapping a pic of this “Bourgeois” tour bus parked near the starting point of the Mayday march. Obviously I wasn’t the only one who saw the dry humour in this, because someone else posted a photo of that bus here: http://toronto.mediacoop.ca/story/mayday-toronto-2013/17365

Toronto Mayday 2013 - Photo set 4

These two photos from the 2013 International Workers Day march in Toronto are of the front and back of a Rebel Time Records “United Colours of Antifa” T-shirt — the black flag of anarchism and the red flag of socialism united against fascism.

You can probably get your own at http://www.rebeltimerecords.com

Toronto Mayday 2013 - Photo set 3

These are various photos of the International Workers Day march in downtown Toronto during the evening of May 1, 2013. A wide range of groups, individuals, causes and ideologies were represented — under the common banner of working class power.

Toronto Mayday 2013 - Photo set 2

Two current issues that were emphasized at the 2013 International Workers Day rally in Toronto were the deaths of hundreds of garment workers in a recent factory collapse in Bangladesh (and the continuing systematic exploitation of all sweatshop workers in that country) and the Porter Airlines fueller strike, which has been going on since January 10.

One company that has a contract with the Bangladeshi factory that collapsed is Joe Fresh, which is owned by Loblaw, which is owned by the Weston family, which is one of the richest families in the world. Normal people with morals would be sickened if they knew they were partially responsible for the deaths of more than 500 people, but the Westons are not normal people. Don’t be fooled by the touchy-feely “progressive” act in their marketing.

The Porter Airlines fuellers have been on strike because of poor safety conditions and low pay. The Porter execs pretend the airline can’t afford proper safety standards and decent wages, yet they somehow have enough money to purchase a new fleet of jets without knowing where, or even if, they will be allowed to fly. They also want special approval to extend the runway of the Toronto Island airport by paving onto Lake Ontario (not beside it, on the lake!) by the size of about two football fields. Porter has already gotten many big favours from governments and regulators since the company was founded in 2006.

Further information:

http://www.laborrights.org

http://dontflyporter.com

Toronto Mayday 2013 - Photo set 1

These pictures are from the starting point of the International Workers Day rally in downtown Toronto in the early evening of May 1, 2013. The trees and sunlight in these five photos highlight the other, much older, aspect of Mayday: nature, rebirth and the arrival of spring. It was a great night with warm weather and no trouble (as far as I know). Fortunately the police behaved themselves, unlike in Montreal and some other cities.