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Bush the butcher not welcome in Ottawa

by Judi McLeod, Canadafreepress.com

November 25, 2004

Rabble rousers, heading for Ottawa to boo Bush in a fever pitch, should be handed a world map.

They are touting their November 30-December 1 mass protest against Bush’s state visit to Canada as "his first international trip since his re-election."

Latin america’s Chile and Colombia are countries where a re-elected Bush was visiting when activists were getting ready to converge on Ottawa.

"Emergency" meetings have been called, paint pots and cardboard being dragged out as artists against War, the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War and the Canadian Peace alliance prepare for mass anti-Bush rallies on Parliament Hill.

"Bush the butcher isn’t welcome here," says radical social activist Judy Rebick, a former president of the National action Committee on the Status of Women.

Rebick, a frequent contributor to a number of Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) Newsworld programs, is the self-touted "volunteer" publisher of rabble.ca, an interactive online magazine, associated with Oneworld online, "dedicated to harnessing the democratic potential of the internet to promote human rights and sustainable development." Make that a $350,000/year bankrolled by unions, NGOs, and non-profits, volunteer publisher.

Judy and gang will travel from Toronto to Ottawa in chartered highway coaches, equipped with TV/VCR on "unionized buses".

"Because this will be Bush’s first trip outside the U.S. since his re-election, it will be important for us to build the biggest possible mobilisation (sic) to show our opposition in Canada," Rebick says in a rabble.ca email.

"We want to send a message of support to the people of Iraq and all oppressed people around the world: we stand in solidarity with you. and to our sisters and brothers in the american anti-war movement: the world will always say no to the Bush agenda," Rebick rants in her SOS to the rent-a-mob set.

The Toronto Coalition to Stop the War called an emergency meeting at Metro Hall yesterday to begin making placards and to begin work on "a giant unwelcome mat" for protesters to roll out in Ottawa for Bush.

Rebick, currently the Canadian auto Workers (CaW) Sam Gindin chair in social justice at Ryerson University, who turns up at all World Trade Organization protests, has her own play on american election numbers.

"Only 28 percent of voting-age americans voted for Bush while 98 million americans didn’t vote at all."

Rabble-rousers won’t be able to count on the support of their anti-american hero New Democrat Party (NDP) MP Svend Robinson this time out. Robinson, who heckled former President Ronald Reagan during his 1987 visit to Canadian Parliament, caught pinching an expensive ring at an estate auction last year, left public office in disgrace.

But other NDP MPs, whose leader Jack Layton, says he has no objection to them joining placard-waving protesters on the hill, will join them.

Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com


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