A bit presumptuous of Reimer to think anyone might be interested in reading his past "letters to the editor", right? Well, I agonized over that, especially since letters written in response to current news stories are often of limited and/or short-term relevance. However, it's my opinion that "letters to the editor" often speak volumes about an individual's (and especially a society's) point of view. I often look to this section of the newspaper in order to ascertain widespread public opinion. Unfortunately, mainstream media has compromised and spoiled even this last bastion of public opinion. Through the simple expedient of selectively culling letters, mainstream newspapers maintain the corporate agenda. We have to stop this!
So here's a smattering of my (mostly unpublished) letters expressing my point of view on a variety of topics.
January 3, 2003.Letters Editor - Ottawa Citizen
Re: "Can torture be justified?"
Note: The Ottawa Citizen issued an editorial accepting torture, in limited amounts, as being inescapable, and therefore tolerable. This letter was in response.
A brief denial of painkillers to Abu Zubaydah may seem justifiable, may even meet with public approval, especially when it garners significant results. It is still, however, torture, and therefore contrary to the Geneva Convention. If the U.S.A. wish to reassert their lame charade that these particular prisoners aren't entitled to Geneva Convention protections, so be it. I hope that the Canadian government and media distance themselves from this nonsensical propaganda.
Torture is the deliberate infliction of physical or psychological suffering. To split hairs over the degree of suffering required is to admit the thin edge of a very sinister wedge. If a prisoner's physical or emotional state is deliberately altered to elicit information the prisoner is not legally obliged to give, that is an inhumane practice. Such a practice may, as your editorial says, threaten the humanity of the U.S.A., but it threatens a lot more where Mr. Zubaydah is concerned.
Low-level tortures and other demoralizing and dehumanizing tactics have been the stock-in-trade of bullies since time immemorial. One need only examine the treatment of John Walker Lindh or your photograph of prisoners in transport (November 12, 2002) to see how the world's super-bully has honed this art to perfection.
If we allow our rules of civility to lapse, we not only lower ourselves to the level of those we are fighting, we stoop below them. We add hypocrisy to our sins.
Your companion editorial concerning marijuana laws was right on!
Yours truly,Rick Reimer
February 21, 2002.
Ottawa Citizen - Letters Editor
Re: "…Medical Marijuana…"
Note: This letter appeared in the Ottawa Citizen, accompanied by a large photograph of "Murphy Brown" smoking a joint on a television show. It seems an inescapable (and not necessarily unfortunate) truism of the marijuana movement that it will always come with a grain of humour!
Health Canada had formulated no criteria (no staff had even been assigned) presumably expecting none would have the temerity to apply and thereby admit criminal behaviour. What looked like a perfect Liberal Catch-22 was thwarted when medicinal marijuana users charged out of the closet.
Facing court and media challenges, the government issued some 300 exemptions on an ad hoc basis, containing ludicrous conditions. For example, I was required to grow my own year-round supply (no other legal source then existed) yet never possess more than one week's supply even immediately after harvest. I and other medicinal users have daily violated such conditions in order to permit common sense to prevail over government doublespeak.
In response to a deadline set by the Ontario Court of Appeal, the government enacted a new set of regulations and procedures effective July 31, 2001. While a number of medicinal users offered help to the government in crafting this new regime, our help was largely ignored in favour of the opinions of Health Canada staff who must disavow even the slightest knowledge of marijuana in order to maintain their security clearance and employment. Not surprisingly, the result is a hypocritical and untenable system which is an insult to Canadians generally, and to medicinal marijuana users in particular. The nonsensical and propaganda-driven details of the new scheme are legion, and would require far too much space to delineate here.
Although my marijuana consumption has benefited me immensely and harmed no-one, I am likely to lose my exemption soon due to inability to meet the new requirements. My disease has not improved nor will it. Yet, soon my marijuana use will again be a "crime". Instead of conferring a medicinal benefit at a cost which I am fully prepared to bear on my own, it will again become a "social problem" which all Canadians will vainly throw money at.
Perhaps the current wave of public support will finally convince a Canadian government that prohibition of marijuana is not only wrong, but also impossible. The clear solution is to decriminalize cannabis generally, not just for medicinal use. Marijuana is, after all, far less dangerous than many intoxicants which have no medicinal benefits, and are permitted without question. If a law is disobeyed by 5% of the populace (a conservative estimate of marijuana users) and their disobedience is countenanced by a majority, then by simple application of democratic principles that law must be wrong!
Yours truly,Rick Reimer
January 12, 2002.
Letters to the Editor - Ottawa Citizen
Re: "'Worst of the worst' captives arrive in Cuba"
Note: This letter was in response to an article including a photograph you can see in the PHOTO ARCHIVE, showing detainees from Afghanistan being "shipped" to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, under the most deplorable and inhumane conditions.
Since mid-day on September 11, President Bush has declared this a "War on Terrorism" (emphasis added). The Al-Qaeda "detainees" are clearly prisoners. So why, Mr. Rumsfeld, do they not qualify under the Geneva Convention as prisoners of war? What, exactly, is an "unlawful combatant"?
American treatment of these prisoners has clearly been calculated to demoralize and dehumanize, presumably with a view to quickly seducing information about the "Evil One". This intention is demonstrated by:
a) the shipment of prisoners half-way around the world - surely the Americans could gain control of some real estate in or near the middle East;
b) housing them in accomodations that sound, for all the world, like dog kennels;
c) shaving their beards off? What possible justification is there for this?
d) putting hoods on them. Is this so they don't know where they're going or so the public doesn't know who they are? Either way it's cowardly and ineffective;
e) sedating them in addition to shackling them, because these people would "...gnaw through hydraulic lines..." to bring down an aircraft. Well, if you don't feel you can do the job with shackles, don't put your detainees on an airplane;
f) making it abundantly clear that the detention is likely to be long-term by announcing the construction of a 2,000 bed (mat?) prison in the "next few months".
I suspect a litany of other human rights abuses will be inflicted on these "combatants" away from public scrutiny in the confines of "Camp X-ray" (even the name is crafted to intimidate), and these abuses are unlikely to ever come to the public's attention.
I am ashamed that the government of my Country is doing nothing to protest this barbarism.
Yours truly, Rick Reimer
April 1, 2003.
Letters Editor - Ottawa Citizen
Re: Soldiers accused of perfidy - April 1, 2003
Note: The PNAC crew had again announced Iraqis were guilty of unfair warfare for fighting against the Americans without proper uniforms and equipment.
Yours truly, Rick Reimer
December 21, 2001.
Letters Editor - Ottawa Citizen
Re: "Charity gave nuclear secrets..." - December 21, 2001.
Pointing out this (all-too-common) mispronunciation might be perceived as nit-picking, but it signals not only that the man himself has not yet learned a word which, one would think, is relatively important to the leader of the world's greatest nuclear power.
It also tells us that those with whom George W. Bush has chosen to surround himself with are either:
a) themselves unanimously unfamiliar with correct usage of the English language (unlikely), or
b) (more likely and eminently more frightening) introducing us to the new game of the "Emperor's New Lexicon"
"Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote."
Samuel Johnson.
Yours truly, Rick Reimer
April 4, 2003
Letters Editor - Ottawa Citizen
Re: Harper's war on the home front - April 4, 2003.
Note: When it was discovered that some 30 Canadian soldiers were fighting in Iraq as part of regular exchanges with American Units, the Ottawa Citizen suggested there wasn't any real need to pull them out. I didn't agree. If I were an Iraqi, I wouldn't count the numbers. I'd think Canada was part of the War!
Ms Riley worries that withdrawing our troops might "further and needlessly, provoke the Americans." Whatever the political fallout (from the U.S.) of our decision might be, it will not be significantly augmented by a small logistical move, to accord with the larger political decision. I am far more concerned with the perception of Iraqis and the remainder of the world than I am with how this will play in Peoria. In any event, the Americans are far too focussed on their own navels (those at home and those embedded in the desert) to take much cognizance of us.
Small hypocrisies are still, nonetheless, hypocrisies.
Yours truly, Rick Reimer
February 24, 2003.
Letters Editor - Ottawa Citizen
Re: "Museum boss wants to keep Marbles"
"Politicians accuse U.S. of meddling in affairs"
Note: England refuses to return statues to Greece, and the U.S.A. refuses to stop fighting it's stupid WAR ON DRUGS in Columbia. La plus c'a change...
The former story recounts Greece's justified effort to retrieve ancient and historic statues taken from the Parthenon by a British explorer (read: plunderer). Britain's response is essentially that the theft is too old to re-open, and then it heaps insult upon injury by offering the Greeks a holograph of what the statues would look like in their original settings, had they not been stolen!
The latter story reports unwelcome yet undeterred U.S. Military troops in Colombia to "rescue" kidnapped American hostages. Colombia could ask for American military assistance, but hasn't. The U.S. Government blithely asserts its right to infiltrate a sovereign nation, and then heaps insult upon injury by refusing to disclose the number of American troops on Colombian soil!
The British might some day sell Stonehenge's famous rocks to Disneyworld, but until then they would certainly never allow Greek thieves to keep them. Imagine the U.S. reaction if armed troops should invade from any one of the many nations who might want to "rescue" one of their own citizens from indeterminate American kidnapping in Guantanamo Bay.
It is too late to undo much of the damage done to the world by the colonial mentality. It doesn't matter whether the damage was unintentional (remember Central America's decimation by Spanish influenza?) or calculated (remember slavery?) Erstwhile colonists should make whatever reparations are just and plausible (like returning Greece's statues) and avoid further conflict by respecting international law and boundaries.
Every child intuitively senses the hypocrisy (and ultimate futility) of the "do as I say, not as I do" mentality. Until the Golden Rule becomes a reality in world politics, and not just a fuzzy fairy tale for children, international tensions will continue to escalate. Un monde juste, seul chemin vers le paix!
Yours truly, Rick Reimer
March 18, 2003.
Ottawa Citizen
Re: The Iraq Dillema - March 18, 2003.
Note: WAR, WAR, WAR!
David Warren, riding upon his customary moral high-horse, tells us that war in Iraq is not only right, but inevitable, as anyone as smart as Mr. Warren has known for over a year. Because he is polite to old ladies, George W. Bush can be trusted to lead us into war, and his only fault is having dallied so long pandering to peacemongers. Apparently, Bush is just as smart as Warren is, just not quite as quick. No room for a second opinion appears to exist in his column, so please permit me to state mine here. Warren's definition of Bush as "not un cowboy" lacks only a hyphen.
The Citizen's Editorial Board appropriately chastises the Liberal government for its waffling and delay in taking a firm stand, but then suggests that, rather than actually making our own decision, Canada's position on war should be dictated by our "traditional allies". After parroting the (now tired) cliché that those who support peace are "anti-U.S." your editorial then naively suggests those U.N. Security Council members supporting war are voting their consciences rather than bowing to U.S. political and economic pressure. You then warn us of the newest unholy triumvirate, the "cynical alliance of Russia, China and France". How on earth will we find time to be afraid of so many enemies?!
This Editorial typifies recent Citizen policy on the proposed war. Perhaps this explains the paper's decision to juxtapose David Warren's opinion articles with ostensibly unbiased news, to give his views some bogus semblance of impartiality. For myself, it only places the Citizen among other mainstream media that cannot be trusted to report facts accurately.
While not expressing an opinion on war, columnist Barbara Yaffe paints Saddam as a hatemonger because his website makes arguably true but hurtful statements about the West and its leaders. If we bombed everyone who joined Saddam in expressing the opinion that the U.S. is "the most hated country in the world" we'd soon run out of munitions. Can anyone honestly quarrel with Saddam's "hateful" statement that the U.S. promotes a double standard for possession of weapons of mass destruction? Saddam urges the Arab world to cut oil production in order to get the attention of the Western world. Sounds perfectly sensible - the kind of thing Walmart might do without being accused of hating customers or competition. Saddam urges his countrymen to repel an invasion with whatever means possible - again perfectly sensible absent a surrender. His promises of victory over the U.S.A.'s coalition may be grossly optimistic, but they are understandable of a leader and hardly a statement of "hatred" towards those who might invade. In fact, the only statement in Saddam's website close to being hateful or disrespectful appears to be his description of George W. as "Little Bush". The kind of description that would be easily excused if uttered by a Western journalist, an American Democrat or a Canadian Member of Parliament.
On behalf of the ever-meticulous British, Lord Peter Goldsmith explains how the proposed war is legal, as if that mattered! Even if his reasoning were sound, which many would dispute, it begs the question of whether a war is necessary or appropriate. Again, any army instructed to invade every nation which has violated U.N. resolutions would be very busy indeed.
Mario Cuomo, who was Governor of New York for 12 years, predicts dire consequences for both the U.S.A. generally and George W. Bush particularly if this war proceeds, regardless of victory or defeat. What Mr. Cuomo doesn't comment upon is how disastrous the war will be if it ends in a Vietnam-style stalemate. The world will be too well-informed in this C.N.N. war to tolerate the kind of misinformation, American military casualties, and civilian enemy casualties that were for so long the great tragic secrets of the Vietnam conflict.
Charles Gordon's opinion column was a reflective, non-partisan look at the issues. Along with his own cogent arguments, Mr. Gordon cited the many unexpected voices which oppose war. His conclusion, against war, accords with Mr. Cuomo's and the majority of world opinion. Yet this opinion, which is by definition "correct" according to democratic principles, is being ignored and disrespected, as Mr. Gordon laments. Certainly no respect for contrary opinions is evident in your Editorial or David Warren's column. Peace protesters are accused of being ill-informed or "anti-U.S." or even "pro-Saddam". Perhaps this demonstrates a lack of sincere, plausible arguments against the peace movement.
So long as Iraq is surrounded by American-led forces and no immediate threat is offered by Saddam, U.N. weapons inspections should continue and war isn't necessary. Peace upon all our houses.
Yours truly, Rick Reimer
Ottawa Citizen
Re: "DRUG SQUADS SNIFF OUT MARIJUANA CROPS" - January 12, 2004
Note: An Ottawa Citizen photograph suggested a shotgun booby-trap was rigged by a marijuana grower, when in fact it was rigged by POLICE! They refused to correct this in spite of my letter.
Sgt. Greg Brown hit the nail on the head when he said the market was being "…fuelled by supply and demand factors." The demand exists now, and will continue. That demand is created not by organized crime nor by wealthy hippies, but by Canadians in all walks of life. The Cauchon "decriminalization" bill (now awaiting revival by the Martin government) is no legitimate reform at all, but that's an entirely different matter. The public perception of decriminalization is bound to increase demand. To simultaneously constrict supply by "cracking down" on producers is ludicrous. It has never worked with any commodity in history, and certainly won't work to defeat the high demand (pardon the pun) for marijuana. It will only create a market blacker than any we've seen yet!
The myriad "dangers" of indoor marijuana cultivation that police routinely trot out (hydro theft, noxious chemicals, fire risk, etc.) will diminish only when prohibition is significantly relaxed. Decriminalizing possession means admitting (albeit begrudgingly) that if Canadians are going to possess marijuana, it has to come from somewhere! When we can visit our own garden (or our Uncle Charlie's basement) to obtain marijuana, there will be no significant profit in its distribution, and "organized crime" will desert the herb for greener pastures (pardon the pun again, please). Also, if people don't have to hide their marijuana cultivation, they won't be tempted to hide their hydro use (a phenomenon far less common than the police would have us believe). More marijuana will be grown outdoors, where the plant thrives.
Ironically, such legal relaxation would also serve to dispel the false notion that marijuana is a "gateway drug". Propagandists have loved this argument since "Reefer Madness" days, because it is the easiest to fudge with bogus statistics: If 80% of cocaine users have first tried marijuana, that makes pot a "gateway drug", right? What if 95% of cocaine users have first tried caffeine? Ought we then to outlaw coffee? The only way in which marijuana even remotely acts as a "gateway drug" will end only when the laws are relaxed, and in the meantime works as follows: If you severely criminalize marijuana distribution, then only those with the bravado to challenge the law (ie: really tough criminals) will distribute it. Those people, naturally, deal in other types of contraband at the same time. In for a penny, in for a pound. Uncle Charlie, on the other hand, is unlikely to offer you or your teenaged daughter any heroin or handguns.
Yours truly, Rick Reimer
October 27, 2002
Letters Editor - Ottawa Citizen
Re: "Tories agog as Harris snubs Eves…" - October 27, 2002
Note: Politicians, as usual, thinking about themselves to the exclusion of all others.
When asked to outline specific policies on important issues such as health care, education and the environment, Ernie Eves said: "I don't know of any decent quarterback that hands the opposition their playbook three, four, six months before they play the game."
When will our politicians learn that government is not a "game" to be won or lost by their party, but the serious business of making decisions based, so far as possible, upon the democratic process? This process not only permits, but requires candour as to specific future plans, so that debate may be as thorough and informed as possible.
If Premier Eves can't tolerate the thought he might be giving the "enemy" opposition a leg up, perhaps he might consider that the people who elected him are entitled to know his plans for them.
Yours truly, Rick Reimer
November 5, 2002.
Letters Editor - Ottawa Citizen
Re: "Crack down on growers of marijuana: Runciman" - November 4, 2002
"Decriminalize marijuana: Runciman" - November 5, 2002
Note: Mainstream media love the propaganda fed to them by police about MARIJUANA GROW-OPS! The busts look flashy, they get to spout statistics (HOW MANY PLANTS!? - A STREET VALUE OF WHAT!?) and it has the semblance of danger for the police.
If Canadian society is finally prepared to accept cannabis for the relatively harmless (and often medicinally beneficial) intoxicant it is, then continuing (or escalating) prohibition of production is not only palpably and embarrassingly hypocritical, but also contrary to the expressed goal of taking marijuana out of the hands of organized crime.
Decriminalization of simple possession will immediately result in more people looking to acquire marijuana as the potential legal and social stigma of that possession are softened. "Cracking down" on growers will result in fewer people being willing to grow. The laws of supply and demand will, of course, turn that combination into a black market far more dark, dangerous, lucrative and powerful than any which currently exists. Who will operate that market? Organized crime, of course!
On the other hand, if penalties for growing cannabis are lessened the lovely cannabis plant, which does remarkably well in the Canadian climate, will become far more prevalent. Those who want marijuana but choose not to grow their own will have more varied, reasonably priced, non-dangerous options open to them (e.g.: "Let's call Uncle Carl!"). Few will pay black market prices (currently approximately $200.00 an ounce - about a one-month supply for the average user) when they can grow their own supply or comfortably beg, borrow or buy from a friend or neighbour.
Organized crime will, of course, find some new contraband to promote and sell, but none will rival marijuana in profitability and ease of production. Our laws have drawn the criminal element into this market for long enough. It's time to stop. How long did organized crime continue to supply liquor after alcohol prohibition was repealed? How serious a law-and-order problem is bootleg alcohol now?
A reduction in penalties for cultivation will follow inevitably (through societal pressure) from decriminalization of possession, but that progress will be confused and retarded by the enactment of conflicting laws. Canadians deserve more legislative honesty and fewer mixed messages.
Will relaxation of marijuana laws generally result in increased accessibility to youth? Possibly. The experience of The Netherlands has been to the contrary. Remember, however, that Uncle Carl's response to young Johnny's request for marijuana is more likely to be based on morality than that of a stranger whose only consideration is profit. Remember also that marijuana is now easily available to every Canadian youth with enough money. In any event, our youth are constantly exposed to legal and readily available intoxicants. We oughtn't to mete out the most serious punishments to youth who choose the least harmful of the paths to intoxication open to them. It is the responsibility of each individual, not the state, to monitor and safeguard their liquor cabinets, cigarette boxes, prescription medicines and, in my opinion, marijuana supplies.
If, as Runciman fears, our neighbourhoods have been jeopardized by homes converted to hydro-stealing firetraps, that jeopardy will be lessened. Our relations with the U.S.A. will indeed suffer but this will result from decriminalization of possession, regardless of our stance towards growers. Most importantly, we will through our laws demonstrate an insight and candour which is bound to impress and empower the rest of the world. As the Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs recently pointed out, while countries such as The Netherlands have stopped enforcing their prohibition laws, few have actually enacted laws to accept cannabis. Canada took an important first step with its medicinal marijuana laws, but has an obligation to lead the world further. The views of the U.S.A. deserve nothing more than consideration (and in my opinion, little of that).
Mr. Runciman has, I am sure, caused some consternation and head-scratching in Washington. For the delight of picturing that, I thank him.
Yours truly, Rick Reimer
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