[Plura-list] Ontario's drug-dealer premier is shockingly bad at distributing vaccines

[Cory Doctorow]

Today's links

* Ontario's drug-dealer premier is shockingly bad at distributing
vaccines: How is it that Doug Ford was so good at slinging hash, and is
so bad at vaccinating?

* This day in history: 2016, 2020

* Colophon: Recent publications, upcoming/recent appearances, current
writing projects, current reading

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🧑🏾‍🔧 Ontario's drug-dealer premier is shockingly bad at distributing
vaccines

Ontario politics are a wild ride, but they rarely escape the province,
or, at most, the nation. Which is weird, because Ontario has been a
leading indicator of neoliberalism's cruelty, paranoia, and surrealism
since (at least) the mid-nineties.

Start with the 1995 election of Conservative Premier Mike Harris, a
bland, dead-eyed sociopath whose "Common Sense Revolution" slashed
Ontario's excellent public services and implemented a forced-labor
program for poor people, AKA "workfare."

Harris was a Romneyish sort of fellow: a personality-free,
interchangeable suit who didn't raise anyone's pulse but excelled at
administration. His major achievement was the amalgamation of Toronto: a
forced merger of the City of Toronto with its heretofore separate suburbs.

This was an incredible power-move. The old City of Toronto is the
province's economic engine and the seat of its parliament. It is far,
far to the left of the suburbs, and has entirely different priorities
from them.

Dissolving the City of Toronto let Harris depose the popular
left-leaning Mayor Barbara Hall. The election that followed saw the
clownish crook Mel Lastman - who long ruled over my birth-suburb of
North York - promoted to the big league, as the megacity's first mayor.

Lastman was a shitshow. He was known for his discount appliance store TV
ads and for a string of scandals, from fathering and abandoning a secret
child with one of his employees to covering up his wife's shoplifting
arrest by threatening to murder a reporter.

He also pioneered a lot of the performative, own-the-libs culture-war
bullshit that dominates our politics today, with idiotic stunts like
ordering the free weekly Now Magazine removed from City Hall over its
personal ads.

When the residents of old Toronto had Lastman forced on them by their
suburban neighbours, it set the tone for Toronto/Ontario politics for
decades, as Harris's masterstroke of disenfranchisement ensured
Torontonians would never again get a say in their governance.

In electoral map after electoral map, you can see mayors and premiers
coming to office despite the overwhelming disapproval of City of Toronto
voters. This 2010 map by Torontoist's Marc Lostracco is pretty typical.

https://torontoist.com/2010/10/which_wards_voted_for_who_for_mayor/

Amazingly, Mel Lastman was the *least* clownish champion of Toronto's
suburban voters. These voters quickly converged on the uh, colourful
Ford brothers, Doug and Rob.

You remember Rob, right? The crack-smoking mayor who brought sex workers
to City Hall, engaged in routine public racism and homophobia, and made
demeaning cunnilingus jokes when asked about his marital infidelity?

He and his (marginally smarter) brother Doug ended up in city government
thanks to their father - Doug Sr, a Tory MPP who made a fortune with his
label-printing business - and their Rush Limbaugh-style talk radio show.

This was the show that featured their paid stooges, who'd call up
pretending to be outraged Ontarians who'd rail at socialism or whatever
and praise the Fords for their excellence.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/rob-ford-s-friend-dave-made-calls-to-mayor-s-radio-show-1.1405251

But that revelation did nothing to cool suburban Toronto's ardour for
the failsons of a label-making kingpin. For these low-information
voters, a steady output of xenophobia, cruelty, and racism trumped any
scandal. And I do mean ANY scandal.

In 2013, the Globe and Mail's Shannon Kari and Greg McArthur broke a
*huge* Ford story, detailing Doug's career as a major hashish dealer and
his brother Randy's involvement in a drug-related kidnapping.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/globe-investigation-the-ford-familys-history-with-drug-dealing/article12153014/

And then there was his sister Kathy and her circle of violent racist
cronies. Kathy was once shot in the face by a hash dealer, who remained
in the Fords' good books, appearing with his family in videos and
pictures, hanging out with Doug at an election-night party.

But nothing stuck. After Rob Ford died of cancer, Doug Ford - incredibly
- became leader of the Ontario Conservative Party and won an election
through the most laughable, corrupt politics imaginable.

For example, he refused most press interviews, and instead hired a
"journalist" to ask him softball questions for his own Youtube channel
(ladies and gentlemen, I give you the 'personal responsibility' movement!).

https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2018/05/06/doug-ford-evades-real-scrutiny-by-hiring-his-own-reporter.html

The Fords were Canada's Trumps, and Doug's 2018 election campaign
shamelessly stole from the Trump playbook, right down to the paid actors
going nuts at his rallies:

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2018/05/08/doug-ford-campaign-confirms-actors-were-hired-to-play-the-part-of-pc-supporters-at-mondays-debate-rally.html

Despite all this, the suburban voters continued to support him, even
after Rob Ford's widow accused Doug of stealing her children's
inheritance, misappropriating millions of dollars from Rob's estate:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/doug-ford-faces-multimillion-dollar-lawsuit-1.4691378

Doug Ford really proved that millions of selfish assholes will vote for
rotting roadkill if it promises them $0.25 off their tax bill, blended
with gratuitous cruelty. Doug's GOOD at cruelty, vicious stuff like
eliminating sedation for colonoscopies:

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/04/04/exclusive-changes-proposed-to-ohip-coverage/

But Doug is a Trump, not a Romney. He is good at performative
culture-war bullshit, but he sucks at making deep structural changes.
When the national government levied a carbon tax on gas, Ford ordered
stickers on every pump decrying the tax.

But in you-can't-make-this-up failson fashion, these labels - ordered by
the son of Ontario's most successful label-making kingpin - all fell off
the pumps thanks to their defective adhesive.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/anit-carbon-tax-stickers-falling-off-1.5287869

Of course, none of this matters to the roadkill-and-tax-cuts Ford base
who continued to support him through a series of blunders...until the
pandemic. Turns out you can't defeat a public health scourge with racist
jokes and paeans to personal responsibility.

Toronto is heading back into lockdown (again). From nursing homes to
First Nations reservations, the province has been scoured by covid on
Ford's watch. And Ontario's vaccinations are an utter shitshow.

https://www.thestar.com/news/city_hall/2021/03/30/tight-lockdown-coming-for-toronto-predicts-member-of-ontarios-science-advisory-table.html

As ever, this crisis has awakened the best in political satirists,
notably The Beaverton's Luke Gordon Field, whose "Drug dealer shockingly
bad at getting people drugs" deserves a place in the gallows humour hall
of fame.

https://www.thebeaverton.com/2021/03/drug-dealer-shockingly-bad-at-getting-people-drugs/

> “Electing a guy whose only work experience was ‘drug dealing’,
‘running the family business into ground’ and ‘doing a weight loss
challenge with his more popular brother’ was always going to be a risk,”
said Political analyst Keith Burns. “But we thought the one thing he is
well-suited for would be distributing powerful drugs in an efficient and
organized manner.”

> Ford denied that he was failing his “customers. I mean taxpayers. I
mean citizens.” He made it clear that if anyone has any issues, the
fault lay entirely with his supplier JT.

For a more serious - and ongoing - take on Doug Ford, tune into
@Canadaland's excellent "Wag the Doug" podcast, wherein Jonathan
Goldsbie and Allison Smith document the rampant bumblefuckery of the
Ford regime.

https://www.canadaland.com/shows/wag-the-doug/

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🧑🏾‍🔧 This day in history

#5yrsago Among a Thousand Fireflies: children’s book shows the sweet,
alien love stories unfolding in our own backyards
https://memex.craphound.com/2016/04/01/among-a-thousand-fireflies-childrens-book-shows-the-sweet-alien-love-stories-unfolding-in-our-own-backyards/

#1yrago Snowden’s Box: the incredible, illuminating story of the journey
of Snowden’s hard drive
https://memex.craphound.com/2020/03/31/snowdens-box-the-incredible-illuminating-story-of-the-journey-of-snowdens-hard-drive/

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🧑🏾‍🔧 Colophon

Today's top sources: Emily Hurson (https://twitter.com/limeshy).

Currently writing:

* A cyberpunk noir thriller novel, "Red Team Blues." Yesterday's
progress: 1079 words (34191 total).

Currently reading: Analogia by George Dyson.

Latest podcast: Past Performance is Not Indicative of Future Results
https://craphound.com/news/2021/03/28/past-performance-is-not-indicative-of-future-results/

Upcoming appearances:

* All the Teachable Things I Know About Writing, Apr 13,
https://www.changinghands.com/event/april2021/virtual-writing-workshop-cory-doctorow-all-teachable-things-i-know-about-writing

* Interop: Self-Determination vs Dystopia (FITC), Apr 19-21,
https://fitc.ca/presentation/interop/

Recent appearances:

* The Right to Repair Movement, Monopolies, and Solarpunk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmosdDCrL-4

* The surveillance state, digital monopolies, and why we should be
worried (Podsongs)
https://anchor.fm/podsongs/episodes/Cory-Doctorow-on-the-Surveillance-State--digital-monopolies--and-why-we-should-be-worried-eso43k

* Conspiracy Theories (Utopian Horizons):
https://soundcloud.com/utopianhorizons/conspiracy-theory-w-cory-doctorow

Latest book:

* "Attack Surface": The third Little Brother novel, a standalone
technothriller for adults. The *Washington Post* called it "a political
cyberthriller, vigorous, bold and savvy about the limits of revolution
and resistance." Order signed, personalized copies from Dark Delicacies
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Available_Now%3A_Attack_Surface.html

* "How to Destroy Surveillance Capitalism": an anti-monopoly pamphlet
analyzing the true harms of surveillance capitalism and proposing a
solution.
https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59
(print edition:
https://bookshop.org/books/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism/9781736205907)
(signed copies:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p2024/Available_Now%3A__How_to_Destroy_Surveillance_Capitalism.html)

* "Little Brother/Homeland": A reissue omnibus edition with a new
introduction by Edward Snowden:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583; personalized/signed copies
here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1750/July%3A__Little_Brother_%26_Homeland.html

* "Poesy the Monster Slayer" a picture book about monsters, bedtime,
gender, and kicking ass. Order here:
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627. Get a personalized, signed
copy here:
https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1562/_Poesy_the_Monster_Slayer.html.

Upcoming books:

* The Shakedown, with Rebecca Giblin, nonfiction/business/politics,
Beacon Press 2022

This work licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.
That means you can use it any way you like, including commercially,
provided that you attribute it to me, Cory Doctorow, and include a link
to pluralistic.net.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Quotations and images are not included in this license; they are
included either under a limitation or exception to copyright, or on the
basis of a separate license. Please exercise caution.

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"*When life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla*" -Joey "Accordion
Guy" DeVilla


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