Do we still have a right not to have confessions beaten out of us?

Seriously, because if we don't have right to have a non-police witness of some kind present at our interrogation by the police, then in practice the cops pretty much have carte blanche to do whatever they want to people. Without a right to a lawyer during interrogation, who knows how many people will "fall down the stairs" while in custody.
I just moved back to Canada from Japan and while I love the Japanese culture and people and all my friends there, civil liberties in Japan are something of a bad joke. The court system has a conviction rate of nearly 100% for a couple of reasons. First, many criminals turn themselves in due to the shame-based nature of the social contract in Japanese culture. Second, there is no real presumption of innocence in the legal system. Third, the police can arrest and hold people without charge for days and the people being held have no right to a lawyer during interrogation.
In theory, this allows the police to avoid those cases where some crook gets off on a "technicality" because he wasn't read his rights or because he lawyered up and was told to act in his own best interest instead of the best interest of the state. In practice it means that when a crime is committed and the culprit isn't giftwrapped and waiting for them, the police in Japan can pick up anyone they consider undesirable, hold them incommunicado for a couple of days pending charges and give them the phone-book-and-rubber-hose treatment until they decide to confess. Usually, it doesn't even take any physical abuse. Three or four days without sleep, a complete ignorance of the rules the game is being played by and constant browbeating is usually enough to get the average homeless person or teen slacker to confess to whatever petty crime the police want them to in Japan. For more serious cases, the police can hold someone for a few weeks. After a couple of weeks, most people would be willing to confess to the McKinley assasination. And any accusations of mistreatment invariably boil down to "who are you going to believe - us, the sworn officers of the law who protect you while you sleep, or this whining criminal scumbag?"
The supreme court ruling sends us down the path to exactly that reality.


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Like it or not, Capt. Semrau must be punished

I'm not sure I'm the guy to take this on and as usual these days I'm busy juggling flaming chainsaws on the job search and family fronts (ain't transPacific relocation a hoot!), but I have to say I'm getting a bit tired of all the letters to the editor I'm seeing about how the high command and "the system" has failed Capt. Semrau and how he deserves a medal.
I don't for a moment think the guy is some kind of bloodthirsty scofflaw, but rules are rules and exist for a very good reason. Do we want soldiers on the battlefield deciding which among the wounded may or may not be successfully treated and simply shooting the ones they think won't make it at their own discretion? Would those who want to pin a medal on Capt. Semrau like to see Canadian soldiers treated by such a standard?
I think the military judge showed the wisdom of Solomon and exercised considerable leniency in dismissing the captain from the military without giving him a dishonorable discharge or a prison sentence. He may well have acted from the highest motives - or the lowest, there really isn't any way of reading his mind - but he acted in clear violation of all the rules of the Canadian Forces and the Geneva Convention, so obviously - at the very least - he had to be punished as an example.
Semrau has been portrayed as an exemplary soldier and commander and he probably was until he stepped over this important line. His men defended his actions and his defence has been that what he did was a mercy killing.
That may be, but it was still an unlawful killing. What he did was withhold medical treatment from a wounded prisoner and then murder that prisoner. Whatever the motive, whether he acted out of brazen cruelty, a secret desire for revenge, or (most likely) compassion for someone in pain he didn't think would survive, what he did was still a war crime and has to be treated as such.  His motives and intentions, noble though they may be, don't really matter in the end. Whether international law needs to be revisited to allow for such actions is an entirely separate minefield and one I don't suggest we should enter.
Semrau must be punished not only for his concrete actions, but for what they represent - a commissioned officer willfully and knowingly violating the rules of war, the regulations of the Canadian Armed Forces and the Geneva Convention. Such conduct, no matter the reason, must carry consequences, otherwise military discipline is seriously undermined. Let us not forget that while the Canadian military defends our democracy and all those other egalitarian principles we hold dear, it is not and cannot be a democracy itself. Structure, chain-of-command and top-down leadership are all essential to the military functioning properly. Soldiers must follow orders and regulations or they are nothing more than a well-armed mob. I'm sorry that Semrau has sacrificed his military career, but his actions cannot be ignored - he is fortunate not to be in prison.

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That's my daughter

She's had an eventful summer and autumn: Moving from Japan to Canada, turning 8 years old, mastering the two-wheeler, learning to do more than dogpaddle, starting at a new school and now she's become an award-winning artist.

Excuse me, I think I have something in my eye....

Don't be a Sucker

This bit of film was produced in 1947 by that notorious gang of liberal pinkos, the United States War Department. Does any of it sound familiar?



Let me be perfectly clear -- this is exactly where wedge issue politics leads. It is all part of a divide-and-conquer strategy to make sure we are too occupied with fighting our fellow citizens and neighbours to notice that the wealthy and powerful are bleeding us dry and making the lives of millions more difficult so that they can enrich themselves. The income gap between the top and bottom of the economic ladder is larger than it has ever been in North America and poverty is at an all time high in the United States as the middle class is being systematically eroded by debt and economic mobility is being stifled by the high cost of health care and education. But any suggestion that the rich are mercilessly exploiting the poor is greeted with pearl-clutching about "class war" and accusations of socialism by the people controlling public discourse.
We are treated to the latest tawdry escapades of people like Paris Hilton and reassured that the system works and is fair when she gets arrested for possession of cocaine, but ask yourself whether a 30-year-old hispanic hotel chambermaid with a couple of prior convictions would have gotten off as lightly in the era of zero tolerance? And while we are fed scapegoats ranging from Muslims to Mexicans, from "Cadillac-driving welfare queens" and "secular liberals who want to take your guns" to "ivory tower intellectuals" and "crooked unions" --we very rarely hear about the new robber barons like the Koch brothers, and when we do, the pushback in the media is massive and immediate. 

We are being played for suckers.

Regressive Conservatives

I'm so glad I moved back to Canada in time to vote against these jerks. I said when they passed this law that it was bad idea and poorly thought out. Now that I'm dealing with the realities of applying for confirmation of citizenship for my two kids born in Tokyo and applying for permanent resident status for my wife, I think it was an even worse idea that was not thought through at all. But I suppose the Conservatives consider anyone who has been further away from home than spending a weekend shopping at the outlet malls near Plattsburgh or a golf holiday in Florida to be an "elite." Remember, getting too much of that fancy egghead book-learning just makes you want to live in a big city with other elites or - god forbid - among foreigners. The only Real Canadians (tm) are those who stay on the farm, clinging to their bibles, guns and Conservative Party of Canada membership cards. Maybe Stephen can figure out a way to revoke citizenship for those that leave the country -- he certainly seems to be working on it.

This week's headdesk moments

...and btw, has anyone managed to get a comment from loud and proud anti-elitist populist John "Foghorn of the People" Baird on Stephen Harper's appointment of a Harvard-educated Bay Street banker and former Mulroney aide as the head of the PMO?

Autumn

A little mood music...



...and a special thanks to Theo for the seasonal postcard painting & poem.

Today's "headdesk" moment

Today's headdesk moment comes to us courtesy of The General, who recently came to the attention of some genius at CounterPunch, who apparently is just as conversant with the broader world of the internet and all its conventions as Prince Shannon.  I love The General, though strictly in a gruff, manly,  biblically-approved, hetrosexual way - don't believe a word of what that drunken lying preevert Cletus says!

Oh, and in case you missed it -- Sadly No presents last week's headdesk moment.

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me"

For starters, they are much bigger crybabies. Michael O'Hare delivers the initial scolding and Brad Delong administers the much needed spanking with the paddle of factual reality. This is exactly the kind of thing that Paul Krugman is talking about in this week's column.

This week in shadenfruede, hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance

First, conservative propagandist Kory Teneycke finds someone has placed a pistol with a single round on his desk at  voluntarily steps down from Quebecor Media for the good of the team. Thankfully, Rupert Murdoch-wannabe Pierre Karl Peladeau was able to find someone without any obvious political bias to replace Kory. How very fair and balanced of him.
The week got even better when PKP's  Sun chain of "newspapers for people who can't read" found out there's no one "Better than Ezra" at getting them waist-deep in the big muddy of legal quicksand. I should probably start a betting pool on how long it takes for Ezra to complain that this is censorship and just another example of antiSemitism on the part of the radical left.
My personal favorite though, was lifelong professional politician John Baird, a graduate of Queens University (Canada's Yale) who has never had a job outside of politics either at Queens Park or Parliament Hill, blaming the failure of the Conservative government to get rid of the gun registry on "Toronto elites".
Uh, yeah, right, you just keep digging John. You really have to admire the balls of a secular, gay, vegetarian graduate of an elite university who grew up in the Ottawa suburbs and who has never had a real job, trying to make a what he thinks is a populist appeal to the perceived base of his party - angry, rural, religious, uneducated, blue collar, Toronto-hating Preston Manning fans from Alberta. Not that there is anything wrong with being any of those things, but Baird sort of reminds me of Alan Keyes and Ted Haggart.
Not to be outbrassed, Stephen Harper's office this week rapped the knuckles of the Parti Quebecois for criticizing the Montreal Canadiens over their lack of French-Canadian players and claiming the team was a tool of federalism.

"No political party should play wedge politics with the Montreal Canadiens," Dimitri Soudas, Mr. Harper's director of communications, said in an email.

It is only natural that Dimiti Soudas and Stephen Harper would object to anyone else playing wedge politics. After all, no one likes to see their monopoly threatened. Also, I'm curious as to why only the National Toast Post seems to think this story is major news and has had an endless stream of stories about the "controversey", while most other media outlets seem to be treating it as the silly-season one-day story that it is.

Not the stupidest thing I've ever heard, but close

If this is the biggest complaint the Parti Quebecois has, then I think we can safely start throwing soil on the coffin of the notion of an independent Republic of Quebec. I suppose the PQ also thinks les muffins Anglais are also a Federalist plot. I don't recall the Nordiques coming in for the same criticism, though I think it would be hilarious to see pro sports try to adopt a "locals only" rule for players.

And speaking of FOX News...

A Bit of Fry & Laurie

It would be nice if the staff at FOX News would cut it out, too.

Pretending to be reporters, that is.
The new head of the Ontario Provincial Police says it is against policy for officers to pose as journalists to collect information on suspects, but he won't rule out the tactic.
If I pretended to be a police officer to get information, I'd go to jail and rightfully so - you can't have people running around pretending to be police officers or the real cops would never have any credibility.  But by pretending to be reporters, the police are not just making the jobs of real journalists more difficult, they are putting journalists in considerable danger. As the linked story mentions, an OPP officer posed as a reporter to gather information at a Mohawk rally, a tactic I'm sure seemed brilliant to the OPP at the time. Except that now every single time a reporter shows up at a rally or protest or incident involving  First Nations' people, it is going to be in the back of everyone's mind that the reporter just might be a cop.
Few enough people trust the media as it is (thank a bunch Geraldo Rivera, Maury Povich and Bill O'Reilly) but we are still at least perceived as more or less neutral in confrontations between citizens and police. In fact, reporters can often go places the police can't go safely, simply because they aren't perceived by their subjects as "the enemy" in the way a police officer might be. Thanks to the irresponsible actions of the OPP and other police forces, that may not be the case much longer.
As a young reporter in southwestern Ontario and later in eastern Ontario, I often had contact with motorcycle gang members and various shady characters. Sometimes it was in the course of my job, sometimes it was just because the only bar in town catered to a rough crowd.  I was (and still am) a big white guy with a mustache and shortish hair and tended to be dressed in the "business casual" style typical to reporters at parties or in bars where a shirt with a collar and pants without holes were considered formal wear. Reporters like to ask questions and when I was a rookie I worked so many hours it became my default conversational style to interview virtually everyone I met. As any good narc knows, this is not a good or safe combination around people who live outside the law and have a sincere antipathy toward the police.  I can recall several instances where being able to prove I was reporter and not an undercover police officer probably saved me a couple of serious beatings.
The police probably find it easier to gather information on potentially violent activists by posing as reporters than as activists. The average OPP officer may have trouble infiltrating a First Nations Warrior Society or Islamic radical group due to ethnic or language barriers - but the flip side is that the next time there is an Oka-style standoff or a violent demonstration by the Black Bloc anarchists or White Supremacists or radical chartered accountants demanding better standardization of depreciation rules on capital investments or whomever, the reporters who are there taking pictures and trying to interview people are going to be seen as potentially hostile cops instead of neutral observers.
By posing as members of the fifth estate, the police are pinning a target on real journalists and making it more difficult and more dangerous for reporters to do a job that is essential to a functioning free democracy.

A message from the top

Video by Pale over at ACR with some assistance from fellow Galloping Beaver inkstained wretch Alison of Creekside. Needless to say, I won't be quitting the day job I'm looking for to become a professional voice actor anytime soon.

Aren't there more important things to write about?

Don't the White House press corp have more important things to write about? Like the two wars America is involved in or the ongoing economic disaster or the oil spill in the gulf -- isn't there at least a Sarah Palin tweet to decipher or something?

From the Washington Post:

Republicans question whether President Obama deserves a vacation



Really Republicans? You really want to go there?

Obama has embarked on nine "vacations" since taking office, bringing his total days off to 48. Some of those trips lasted a day and some, like his Christmas holiday in Hawaii, more than a week.

By comparison, Bush had visited his ranch in Crawford, Tex., 14 times at this point in his administration and spent 115 days there.

And file this bit under The First Rule of Holes:

The Republican National Committee has taken to calling Obama "the Clark Griswold president," a mocking reference to the Chevy Chase character in National Lampoon's "Vacation" movies. With unemployment claims climbing again, the GOP was hoping its criticism would have a certain national resonance. 

The Secret Service code name for the Qualye family was "The Griswalds" for what I trust are obvious reasons.

Kanadian Kulture Korner

One of my favorite poems by one of my favorite poets re-enacted by one of my favorite rock singers.



I met Al Purdy a couple of times when I was a newspaper editor near his home on the Bay of Quinte. He came in to ask my advice (!!!) after being announced by the receptionist as "there's some older guy out front to see you, he looks kinda seedy." He had been comissioned to write one of those "My Canada" type of pieces for a magazine sponsored by Imperial Oil and wanted my suggestions for some scenic spots around The County to send  the photographer. Needless to say, I was at a loss for copies of his books to have him sign at the time, but rattled off a list of picturesque spots in the area. About a year later, I was called on to introduce him at a local literary festival and we agreed we'd have to have a beer together sometime, but unfortunately for all concerned, the Quinte Hotel burned down, I got fired from the newspaper and moved to Japan, and the celebrated poet passed on before such an meeting could be convened.

I miss my ukulele

We've come a long way baby

35 years ago, this was comedic exaggeration, now it's pretty much par for the course on any cable news program and is restrained compared to the rhetoric on the blogosphere or at Tea Party rallies.

Keystone Kops

Make that the kilo-stoned kops. Via Cathy from Canada we get another example of the boys in blue burnishing their reputation for trustworthiness and honesty.  Guys like these dirtbags must just give good cops conniptions, though apparently not enough so that they are lining up to turn the bad cops in. Personally, I think we need a little more serving and protecting and a lot less brotherhood of the badge.

the eagl...er...the beaver has landed

We've all arrived safe and sound at our new home on and native land at an undisclosed location in Southern Ontario. And most of our twelve pieces of luggage arrived with us, except for that one bag that arrived a day late with external hard drive that holds the family photo archives missing along with a few other odds and ends that I presume fell out while the hard drive was being stolen. Thank Jebus the friendly, honest and not-at-all-corrupt-and-drunk-with-power people at the airline, TSA and Fatherland Security were able to X-ray and open that bag with no supervision or legal liability and just help themselves to whatever they wanted, otherwise I'd have all these hundreds of pictures of my kids as infants to share with my parents and friends, and who needs that hassle, right?

So, now that I'm no longer and expatriate journalist in Tokyo, what the heck am I? For the moment, I guess I'm just another unemployed Canuck appalled by my own government and worried about making  ends meet. I'm living off my savings and my parents for the moment and as painful and shameful and humbling as that is when you are twentysomething, try it in your mid forties if you really want to plumb the depths. As Cthulu is my witness, this will be temporary, even if it involves me wearing a paper hat and saying "would like fries with that?" to get out of this situation sooner rather than later.

Just like a real blogger, I'm actually writing this post in my pyjamas from my parents' basement, where we will be living while I obsessively seek employment in a stagnant job market. Suffice to say my parents and I do not see eye to eye politically. My mother, who should know better, has already chided me for criticizing Stephen Harper, who she thinks is "doing a pretty good job." When we went to check into how to get health care coverage, my father was making noises about all the "losers with the arse out of their pants who have three cell phones" downtown and how if we were from "Jamaica or Pakistan we'd be able to get health care right away" instead of having to wait three months. Blogging will be light for the foreseeable future, frustration, tongue-biting and teeth-grinding will not.
Protestations of light blogging notwithstanding, I will blog at length sometime this week to describe the agony and the ecstasy of my final days in Tokyo, but that is for another day. Right now I have citizenship papers to file for the kids and jobs to apply for and more pressing stuff to do.