Mike McGregor's blog

Reposted from HERE

We are a group of activists, advocates and service providers that do
in-reach into women's jails and prisons in Ontario. We think prisons
should be abolished. We oppose the G20, and all the police super powers
that went along with it. We are appalled at how G20 detainees and
prisoners have been treated at the hands of police and correctional
workers, and yet we see the same shit and worse, happening to people on
the margins in Canada day after day, year after year. We are concerned
about the split between how 'protesters' and 'criminals' are seen and
treated differently. Today we write to urge you to continue to make the
links between protester rights and prisoner rights, and more broadly,
between prisoner rights and human rights.

Recently, we have heard many of our friends and fellow activists
share in the collective trauma that erupted out of police violence and
brutality. Each of us felt encouraged to see the energy and awareness
our activist communities brought to issues regarding Canada's
oppressive criminal injustice system. As we move forward, we ask that
you also consider the conditions for other(ed) prisoners who were not
G20 protesters. The following points are based on our own observations,
conversations with the women we support inside, prison staff, community
and government reports, and personal/practice experience.

DID YOU KNOW?

- Some G20 activists were brutalized because they were in the 'wrong
place at the wrong time'. Every day, sex workers, drug users, people
with mental health issues, Indigenous people and people of colour,
trans folks, some queer people, and poor people are harassed, profiled,
brutalized, and falsely charged just for being alive and living life.
Multiple aspects of marginalization increase this brutality.

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I'm just going to say it because I need to get it off my chest. I'm really disappointed with their conduct Saturday. I'm angry and disappointed. I'm just at a loss as to how we can realistically continue to defend these tactics after I observed them for my self.

Images from the march 

Some points:  read more »

The next time you about to bill your die-in as "a creative and powerful statement of resistance" against whatever, consider:

• CBC News: Thai protesters pour blood in Bangkok

I'm not saying folks need to emulate this, but die-ins have been done... well, to death.  

After the Afghan Detainee Abuse Scandal story broke late last year, I felt compelled to send my MP a brief email urging him to stand up in parliament and demand a full public inquiry into the allegations that the Canadian Forces and the current government had knowledge of the torture of detainees at the hands of our Afghan allies and continued to hand over prisoners anyway:

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Of the many harms that are associated with illicit drug use, one has been overshadowing the rest in its deadly impact on London's drug-using community. Over the past several months, London has seen a rash of opiate related overdose deaths.  Although most of these fatalities go unnoticed by the wider community, for those of us working in shelters, social service agencies and on the streets with people who use drugs, and indeed for those who themselves use drugs, it seems that not a week goes by without  the sad news of yet another death of someone we know.  read more »

http://streetwithaview.com/

I stumbled upon this project by following a link from a story on CBC about a Saskatoon man who used Google Street View to promote his band.

From the Street With a View Site:

Street With A View introduces fiction, both subtle and spectacular, into the doppelganger world of Google Street View.

On May 3rd 2008, artists Robin Hewlett and Ben Kinsley
invited the Google Inc. Street View team and residents of Pittsburgh’s
Northside to collaborate on a series of tableaux along Sampsonia Way.
Neighbors, and other participants from around the city, staged scenes
ranging from a parade and a marathon, to a garage band practice, a
seventeenth century sword fight, a heroic rescue and much more...   read more »

Thanks to Trev (McNaughton the Younger, the dark hand behind the Commons), ReCAPTCHA is working again. If you already have an account, all this means for you is the return of short-lived spam posts that will quickly be eradicated by your trusty moderators. For those of you that have been waiting for this moment for the past several weeks, now is your chance to sign up and finally join in to the most profound and insightful discussions on the net.

You can sign up for a new account HERE. Please note that we do require your Real Name be used as your username (something like 'Firstname Lastname', 'Fristname L.', 'F. Lastname' or something along those lines would be acceptable).

This message is brought to you by the shadowy figures of the LC Cabal.  read more »

I love the onion...

• Economist warn anti-Bush merchandise market is close to collapse.

-30-
Mike.
"Born helpless, nude and unable to provide for himself, Michael C. McGregor overcame these handicaps to sell at the hight of the 'Anti-Bush bubble'."
-=There is no Cabal, Long live the Cabal=-
My Photos

If you've been involved with activism in London, You've probably met Steve D'Arcy or at least know who he is.

Any way, I recently had a response to a response to one of his articles pop up on my facebook feed. I found the response interesting enough to warrant a quick google search for Steve's article entitled The Politics of Self-Emancipation and I liked what I read.  read more »

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