The Antisocial Socialist

I've never been a drug dealer and, admittedly, know very little about dealing drugs. I don't even do drugs these days. I have two beers and suddenly I am on the flood declaring my love for everyone in the room and also the floor and for cats in general. Drugs and I are just not a thing with my middle-aged metabolism. So basically I don't have a dog in the legalized-weed race, and I am perfectly happy buying my beer in the government-regulated and unionized LCBO for more than $1, unlike I guess many voters in the province of Ontario who felt that cheap beer and weed were more important than healthcare, their kids' education, or the environment.

I am given to understand, however, that in most places where they've legalized weed, it's been quite a profitable enterprise. People like their weed. Canadians in particular, really really like weed.

You'd think perhaps the one job that Doug Ford, previously a mid-level hash dealer in Etobicoke, would actually be qualified for—unlike running every other facet of the province—would be presiding over the legalization of weed.

Nope! He full-on lost money at it.

Good thing the deficit was only half of what he said it was.

Maybe now he can hire back some of the teachers he fired? No? You mean that none of this is about fiscal responsibility? I am shocked!

 So as of midnight last night, cannabis is legal in Canada. I mean, it's still going to be heavily restricted in ways that benefit private companies over the public good, and you're not going to be able to get it legally because CUPW, the postal workers' union, is going on strike (perfect timing, solidarity 5ever) but, you know. Legal. Second country in the world and all that.

Do I give a shit? Not really; I barely have time to drink alcohol. What I do care about is what will happen to the people currently in jail for drug offences, the people whose lives have been destroyed, who've lost freedom and livelihoods to prohibition, people who are primarily poor, black, indigenous, or POC, people who can't cough up $600 to have their records expunged, and so on. I wonder what's going to happen to the already exploited migrant farmworkers in Leamington, Ontario, as their bosses switch from labour-intensive tomatoes and fruit to more profitable cannabis cultivation. Will they get deported, discarded as trash by our country yet again? What should their compensation be?

While I believe that all drugs should be legal and addiction treated as a health issue, not a moral/criminal one, I find it very hard to care about this unless the people most adversely affected by prohibition get some measure of justice out of it.

Meet the Honourable Wife-Beater's latest addition to the campaign team: a dude from Trailer Park Boys and Ben Johnson, disgraced Olympic athlete.

He is really courting the stoner vote, isn't he? I'd respect that a bit more if he approved of safe injection sites. Stoners be warned: This guy is not actually on your side. There is one law for most drug users, and another for Ford.

There's more than I can post about in the short time I have to post, and I'm slightly consumed with watching Jon Stewart discuss the Honourable Wife-Beater, which is fucking amazing. I know I say it a lot, but I still can't quite believe that this is a thing that is happening.

Here's a handy guide to the 97 allegations against Ford. Conveniently divided into categories: Abusing staff, Misuse of taxpayer money, Questionable meetings, St. Patrick's Day, Substance abuse, Drinking and urinating in public places, and Bits and bites.

Bless. The Star, unlike the CBC, is not playing softball. Yes, they're focusing more on the drugs and cunnilingus than the murder—or the murderous policies—but they are at least linking it back to his politics and exposing his lies about saving money.

Today, Ford showed up at a middle school. No one was impressed.

You know you're complete shit when even George fucking Bush is making fun of you.

A few days ago, a friend of mine, who worked in harm reduction, had some insightful things to say about the narrative around Ford's addition problems. Some of us begged him to post them publicly so that we could share what I think is a really vital discussion with others, so he did. If you read one Ford-related article today, read this one.

Meanwhile, Ford's buddy Harper is taking heat as the RCMP investigates the Senate scandal. To distract from the fact that Canada's Conservatives are finally facing the music for their many, many crimes, LOOK HARPER GOT A CHINCHILLA. That I'm sure he won't eat. I mean, he named it and everything.

I think he looks hungry.

Just watch it. There is no description that could possibly give it justice. But if you need one: Rob and Doug got into a screaming match with protesters at City Hall and then Rob basically went barrelling through the crowd and knocked over tiny Councillor Pam McConnell and everything is just crazy.

He also blew a kiss at Councillor Adam Vaughan. Why? I don't know.

City Council voted today to strip him of all powers, so he is mayor in name only. But! That still means that he gets to show up and fucking assault the elected representatives of the people, because apparently there is one law for everyone in Toronto and a different one for the Honourable Wife-Beating, Crack-Smoking, Drug-Dealer-Killing, Bird-Flipping, Drunk-Driving Mayor of the city.



He has offered $5000 of taxpayers' money for any staffer who stays on. In other news, Mr. Stop the Gravy Train makes $167,770 a year, though in fairness, that's probably a bargain for the level of entertainment we're getting out of the whole thing.

We really ought to be harping more on his shitty policy and outright lies rather than his continued outrageous behaviour, as entertaining as the latter is. The other day, the_axel and I were in a cab and naturally started talking about Ford with the driver. After about 10 minutes of "LOL CRACK" discussion, the driver said, "But he saved money. He said he'd stop the gravy train, and he doesn't grease palms and that's why they hate him. I don't care if he smokes crack, as long as we save money." Ford Nation right there (and not a guy well-served by Ford's actual policies or political beliefs, incidentally). The average person on the street doesn't know that fiscal conservatism makes everything more, not less, expensive, and a soundbyte like "stop the gravy train" is still getting taken by many at face value.

If I were embroiled in a drug scandal, among the things I probably wouldn't be doing is selling bobble-head dolls of myself.

They proved popular, unsurprisingly. If I didn't have to work tomorrow, I'd sell tiny crack pipes at the demo at City Hall.

In related Honourable Wife-Beater merchandise news, the wonderful and talented Stacey Case is selling #inadrunkenstupor t-shirts. I'd buy one (the money goes to a better cause—fuck the United Way, I'd rather support Stacey) but I think one Rob Ford t-shirt is enough for me.

The internets, and my little corner of it, are full of big-hearted liberals professing concern for the health and welfare of our Honourable Wife-Beating, Crack-Smoking, I-Did-It-In-A-Drunken-Stupor Mayor. Yes, there's a fair amount of schadenfreude among my friends and to some degree among the media, but the heartfelt pleas for him to "get the help he needs" and all the bleeding-heart sympathy for his addiction problems actually do seem to predominate. Maybe that's why he's had a bump in the polls (as opposed to his usual bumps of coke); people feel sorry for his teary addict routine. At the heart of this loud-mouthed, sexist, racist, homophobic, austerity-pushing pig-rapist is a broken man. Pity him.

I don't.

And let me be clear: I believe that drug addiction is a health issue, not a criminal issue. I believe in the decriminalization of all drugs, including crack. I do not believe that addiction is a choice per se.

However, I also believe that the addict has agency, and that addiction can spiral well beyond the life of the individual afflicted and destroy the lives of others, and to that extent, an addict must be responsible for him or herself. Addiction isn't an excuse. Plenty of addicts live lives of quiet desperation, damaging only themselves; the ones who use their sickness as a bludgeon against others, against their consent, bear some responsibility.

Amidst all the public concern for the Laughable Bumblefuck on the part of the chattering class, I hear little concern for his wife and kids, and their physical and emotional safety. We know he's assaulted his wife. I can't imagine that his kids will grow up undamaged. Where's the sympathy for them?

Amidst all the wishes that he would get the help he needs, where are those volunteering to help addicts who are less white, less rich, less famous? The ones that Ford blocked harm-reduction initiatives for, the ones he suggested dry out in a jail cell, the ones he wanted to run out of town? When are they going to get the help they need?

What about the city? The kids in Scarborough who, because he's run the city for the past three years in a drunken stupor, are still cut off from educational, work, and recreational possibilities because he blocked the expansion of a functional transit system? The working poor who need affordable housing, the destitute who need shelters? Where's the sympathy for all the ordinary people he's fucked over?

Addiction's a tough ride no matter who you are, but Ford is a man who's had literally every possible privilege handed to him and every chance to get clean. He's insanely rich, politically connected, white, male, and heterosexual. If a guy like that can't get his shit together and check into a rehab, fuck him. Even if he did, fuck him anyway. Sobering up is unlikely to make him less of a jizzbag. I work with people who came to this country with nothing, who've had to scramble up to barely surviving and get shat on by the SUN for doing so, and the most out-of-control violent gangbangers I've ever met have destroyed fewer lives than this piece of shit.

At the risk of getting personal, I've been at the receiving end of someone else's drug addiction. Multiple times, actually. It's not pretty. It's not a victimless crime. I see my own experience writ large and ugly and all the guilty mushy liberals praying for his recovery.

All of Toronto is Ford's battered spouse, begging him to get help when we should be booting him in the ass. Let him dry out in a jail cell. Let him beg for change in a cardboard box. We owe every single junkie and dealer and petty thug in Toronto our sympathy and aid before we throw one iota of it in Ford's direction.

Let him destroy himself. The world will be a better place.

The Honourable Wife-Beater is in Texas at the moment (sorry, Texans; we know you guys have your share of loathsome politicians but could you maybe keep these ones too) but his troubles are hardly over. His buddy, occasional driver, and reported dealer got busted in a raid.

Now, the charges sound minor (other than the conspiracy), and let's face it, well-to-do white guys who pal around with mayors do not get busted for pot. So the cops were looking for something else in the raids. CP24 reported the presence of a homicide detective at the scene. Most interesting is this:

The Toronto Star previously reported that Lisi had been searching for a video that allegedly showed the mayor smoking what appeared to be crack cocaine.

This could get exciting again! I still very much believe that a copy of the crack video exists, and it can't stay buried forever.

One of the men who tried to sell the Rob Ford crack video was arrested as part of the Project Traveller raids in north Etobicoke.

I suspect that Toronto's finest actually knew that he was the video guy and I also have suspicions around him being attacked and stabbed while in jail. I think now that his name is out, however, there's a better chance of him staying alive long enough for us to find out more.

Warren Kinsella, who is not the world's most reliable source or even close to it, is claiming that lawyers for the Crown and Siad have the video. Take this with a grain of salt but it's not beyond the realm of possibility.

Police launched a massive raid in the neighbourhood at the centre of the Rob Ford crack video scandal, arresting 43 people, of which the Honourable Wife-Beating, Drunk-Driving, Bird-Flipping, Crack-Smoking Mayor was, sadly, not one. The house featured in the crack video was one of the ones they raided. They seized 40 guns and $3 million in drugs, and missed the boat by calling it "Project Traveller" instead of "Operation Gravy Train."

Yet another stark example of how, if you're a young black guy involved in the drug trade and the police find out, you'll go to jail. If you're a white millionaire who becomes mayor, the police will help you cover your tracks. Oh yeah, Toronto police knew about the crack video for weeks before the Gawker story broke.

The laughable bumblefuck, meanwhile, claims ignorance because his cable was out. It's almost as if he doesn't carry around a little device capable of accessing the largest collection of information accumulated in human history. I hear these devices can also make phone calls, like to his buddies in the police department. (Note: If this device did exist, you should not use it while driving.)

That's law enforcement in Toronto for you.

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Apropos of nothing but I didn't feel like making a separate post: If you're having a bad day, I suggest you watch this video of Turkish protesters singing "Do You Hear the People Sing?" Hell, even if you're having a good day, check it out 'cause it's awesome.