Haperites utterly wrong on Warming

Stephen Harper, the only leader in the western world who doesn't want to believe in man made climate-change because it would piss off his bosses in the oil patch,and force him to act, could not be more wrong about man's role in global warming.

Lack of Common Sense Reactionaries

It's an inner cabinet of Mike Harris' thugs, and an environmental dud of yet another do nothing minister. O joy. The dullards are still clanking around in charge of ensuring as little as possible is achieved.

Eco disaster hasn't gone away

And just in case those 37.6 % of Canadians think that by voting for Harper and burying their heads in the sand they've escaped the pending environmental meltdown...

Harper's Republican spin doctor

Interesting take on the election here.

Politics is moot court

Perhaps that's why so many practitioners are lawyers: they've been trained to debate moot points in public. Our schools from Kindergarden on should teach moot point debating so that all Canadians will equally understand how to defend common law in the name of Commonwealth, from school yards to Parliament. (Blessings on the first generation of teachers who will be challenged both personally and institutionally by an empowered first generation of moot point debating graduates.)

Redistribution of Wealth

So far in Canada, not even someone on the right like Harper can get away with saying that you should avoid voting for an opponent because they want to redistribute wealth like McCain does daily. Many of the worlds problems are caused by the inequal distribution of wealth, but seemingly only in America can you still get poor people to vote for you by complaining that the Democrats want to give money to the poor by taking it from the rich. I've been poor most of my life, but it appears I have never been a dumb cracker.

Cons battered Democracy

If you believe this Angus Reid Poll Harper's attack ads produced the poorest turnout in the history of Canadian elections. Well done Stephen, thank your republican friends for me will ya.

Liberalism ?

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms is the culmination of 350 years of commonwealth constitutional evolution. Despised by Tories because it places the people above the House of Commons, it was nonetheless a revolutionary act signed by the Queen and Trudeau, which brought the three groups of Cromwell's age - the gentry, the levelers and the diggers onto an equal footing before the law. Tories like Mike Harris and Stephen Harper embrace the Cromwellian union of gentry and levelers, but like Cromwell, have no intention of letting the poor (the diggers) into the commonwealth, which is why Harris waged war on the poor, and Harper appeals to gentry and levelers but not to the poor. The liberals need to use the charter to distinguish themselves from the Tories, who are Disraeli conservatives: ie let the servants vote because they will think that their best interests are served by supporting their masters best interests.

Dion Supporters Fight on

They have created an online petition to demand the Party retain Dion despite the murmurings and mutterings of anonymous Liberals. (including the defrocked Stephen LeDrew who bad-mouthed Dion in the midst of the campaign and continues to serve as a CTV anti-Dion stooge despite having next to no stature in the Lib Party anymore.)

Dion

Becoming one of only two Liberal leaders to not become PM, he joins a company formerly consisting of Edward Blake. but since Blake was a man of considerable intelligence and insight, it's not bad company either.

Neo-Liberalism

Unfortunately for the liberals, they have been trapped by the demands of renewal between two conservative ideologies, one, neo-liberalism, which never was liberal, but was applied to the faux libertarian corporate agenda of Reagan and co, and which is actually neo-corporatism, which is the second, ie the revival of corporate socialism, in which the state surrenders most of its power to big business. Even the concept of re-branding belies the difficulties of renewal Liberalism, since branding is a marketing term that has nothing to do with intelligent discourse on political philosophy and everything to do with thinking like Big Business. The reality is that the business that government most resembles is a credit union. The NDP cannot escape it's own shadow corporatism because the only reason for labour unions is the corporate economy. Otherwise, the concept of cooperative commonwealth is the place to which they would go. My guess is only the Greens can philosophically go where corporatism isn't, which would be to free enterprise from the corporate economy, by supporting cooperative commonwealth. The tragic flaw in the corporate thought is that as legal entities they have "no conscience to bind them." which is why they can't sign affidavits in court. They should be chartered-challenged out of existence. The corporate economy cannot be liberalized. despite all the efforts of liberals since the New Deal. It can't be done. Capitalism requires exploitation, winners and losers, just like Harper said in the middle of the economic collapse, there are great deals to be had in disintegrating stock market. Unfortunately the deals aren't available to anyone but the rapacious. Capitalism has led inevitably to corporate socialism, and the answer isn't state socialism, the answer is enterprise freed from entities falsely known as corporate citizens, and government that treats its citizens, not like clients, but like member owners. Until then we go living in a Dilbert cartoon, where management has no answers.

Francophonie Neo-Corporatist Agenda Passes

The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Seems like the leaders of the French speaking nations of the world have decided corporate capitalism isn't broken just because it's exploitative, unfair and predatorial. Someone has to lose and this time its Africa. Thousands and thousands of years ago it all began in Africa, so like all innovators they had it good there for awhile, kind of like the Alberta of ancient man.
It's the fatal flaw of corporate capitalism, it has no conscience to bind it to moral law or the pursuit of anything but profit, kind of like Harper's thinking on profiteering off the stock market crashes of late. There are good deals to be had in poor countries in the midst of global recessions.

Powell endorses Obama

It's official, citing the Republican drift to the right and McCain's excesses in the campaign, former Republican Secretary of State Colin Powell - the main who had to deliver Bush's lies about weapons of mass destruction to the American people before resigning in silence - has endorsed Barak Obama.

Canadian youth will change next election

Their parents and grandparents may have been frozen by fear over economic issues and so voted for Harper in this election, but Canada's youth just realized that if they don't want to have a future that involves choking to death while paying corporations for food and water priced for the highest bidders, then they are going to have to take over politics, take over the agenda, and ensure that the government goes to someone who does more than pose with children for photos to show what a warm and fuzzy dad he is. Harper's own children will be among those suffering what's to come. Well done grandparents of Canada, seldom before have adults failed the future so badly.

World Wildlfe Fund and Copenhagen

The WWF has a full page ad in Sat's Globe urging parliament to find all party unity on a common Canadian front for the environmental conference in Copenhagen in a year and a half. Nice gesture, but since the PM doesn't believe climate change is real and won't do anything to alienate his party's funding core in the Alberta oiligarcy, such unity will have to exclude the ruling party, which of course represents the minority of Canadians who don't believe in it either. The majority will lose again, but because environmental degradation is real whether Harper and his minority supporters believe in it or not, all Canadians for all time will suffer because of Harper's obstructionism. It's cold comfort to know that 'harpering' will become a verb for doing nothing in the face of an emergency.

Clinton praises Canadian banking

The former president praised the regulatory system underlying the Canadian banking system. A system which would not exist if the Tories had been in power when Chretien resisted Tory demands to deregulate the system. A fact which did not stop Stockwell Day from taking credit, despite the fact that he was the reformatory leader who had been pushing for deregulation.

Green Party infighting

The anger aimed at Elizabeth May for sending mixed messages about strategic voting is coming home to roost. My take on it is that the green movement is more important than the Green Party. If the Liberals, in a post Dion, right wing Liberal government of say Frank McKenna come to the next election pulling back from Dion's radical shift of the party across the green divide, then the green movement and the Green Party will become more closely one-and-the-same-thing and they will defeat Liberals and others and win seats. If the Liberals stay green, the Greens may suffer in the next election because whenever it happens, environmental degradation will be manifestly more obvious as events will have escalated beyond the tipping point of complete disaster. For now, the movement and the party are distinct. May was right to put the green movement ahead of the Green Party.

Harper will destroy himself

Because he is essentially a reactionary - ie because he has no vision beyond a tightly constructed ideology that ignores everything from climate science to the almost unanimous support from Canadian economists over a carbon tax, or from supporting a Bush League war because he defines himself as a conservative republican, to ignoring the suffering being felt by Canadians in the economic meltdown, Harper reacts to events, rather than responds to them. It's not native caution or pragmatism, it's the fact that he doesn't know what's going on in the world because he lives in a ideological bubble. A weakness that will cause him to destroy himself. He is not a leader, he's a follower, and not even a follower of circumstance, but of the chain of faulty ideas that underlie his thought. He thinks he's right, but mostly he proves to have been wrong. That's what will destroy him.

Powell to endorse Obama

Looks like Colin Powell is about to sink the SS McCain,

Dion does not have to go at all

As evidenced at Steve Valeriote's Far And Wide blog, there is an almost let-Elizabeth-May-into-the-debates movement rising up among Dion Liberals who are incensed at the party power brokers who hobbled Dion and undermined him every step of the way. The idea that an intelligent, decent man is being trashed by backroom wheelers and dealers who are leftovers from the broken Chretien-Martin factions, is particularly embittering for them. Chantal Hebert predicts that when Dion emerges from Stornaway there will be no one to guard his back, my guess is she's wrong. Dion has friends on the ground and in the blogosphere, and they're ready for a fight with those who betrayed Dion from the beginning of his leadership to now.

Harper fiddles with Senate while the planet burns

Always several steps behind, Harper wants to play with senate reform while the planet careens towards environmental meltdown.

Lowest Voter Turnout Ever

We need to seriously reconsider democracy is this country. With less than 60% of the electorate bothering to vote, and with the Tories and the Bloc winning a disproportionate number of seats relative to their share of the popular vote, it's no wonder people don't vote: their vote doesn't really count.

The Battle Begins Anew

The right wing in Canada was opposed by 62% of the electorate and we lost. Hard to fathom how this is called democracy. It's not, but it will be, because we will fight them every step of the way as surely as Canadians fought in the vanguard of the 8th Army and drove the fascists out of Italy. They are nestled in Alberta, oozing oil money, while capitalism collapses and the rise of neo-corporatism creates a union of state and corporate socialism, but it remains on the wrong side of history. And we will drive it from Canada one day.

905 turns on poor

905 just betrayed the poor again by supporting another Mike Harris.

Fascism wins again

the new fascism is taking control of Canada, goodbye environment.

The Majority loses again/

democracy takes another hit.

Voters turn against future

Looks like we'll have to wait to prevent our children from choking to death.

Nova Central supports MacKay

Elizabeth May has lost to the man who destroyed Progressive Conservativism.

boring news

like walking into a party already in motion.

Testimonial From Steven Harper

"I didn't think selling my soul was a good idea at first, but then Dr. Faustus promised me he and his friends would make me PM. They kept their word and now I don't have to keep mine."
This message paid for by Sell Your Soul Inc. It's easy, it's effective, it's forever. Sell Your Soul Inc. Just cry out, we'll hear you.

Bikers For Bernier

Vote for Harper, now !!!!

$350 million and counting

Oh what a sound and prudent guy Harper is, it only cost the Canadian taxpayers $350 million plus the costs of the canceled by-election to bring us back to where we were, what a wise and beneficent ruler. Can we take it out of his salary since he broke his own election law ?

Canada Votes, or not

My guess is that if you're reading this you're probably a political junkie and fully intend on voting, but if for some reason you just happened to stray onto this post wondering whether to vote or not, then let me encourage you to do so. Tens of thousands of Canadians fought the corporatist agendas of Mussolini and Hitler and company to ensure you have a chance to vote, neo-corporatism has become much more warm and fuzzy for people like you and me (though not so warm and fuzzy for those in the Third World where they actively steal the water, land and lives of the poor.) We saw what neo-corporatism has done to America in the last eight years, it is quietly doing them same here, but again wearing cosy blue sweaters. The future depends on you standing up. Vote as if our children's lives depend on it, because they do. The ability of the planet to support human life has been damaged by humans and we need to fix that, sooner than later, vote for the environment. Or not.

Green Strategic versus Tactical Voting

Green Party supporters have always voted strategically, their long term goal was to keep voting Green, keep building the Party, election after election: that was and is and will be their strategy for winning the war on behalf of the environment. Environmental progressives, who might think of themselves as green while not necessarily voting Green in the last several decades have voted tactically in every election: "what's the best outcome I can get today." It might mean voting Green, Liberal or NDP. The only ones who just don't "get" the importance of doing something about the environment are the Tories, in part because they are financed by oil companies, pharmaceuticals, agribusiness and other corporatists. Their strategy is to remain the ruling class by empowering corporations over individuals, while espousing libertarian values as a kind of mask for Everyman. A strategy is a big picture plan, a tactic is a decision taken to live to fight another day.

Thanksgiving Dinner Political Talk Factor

Because this election is so important to the future of Canada's young people, whose parents will either vote for the future of their children, by voting for a green option or they will vote against their children's future by ignoring the pending ecological disaster and so vote Tory, in either case, this election may come down to how passionately Canada's young people will have argued with their parents about the need to act now, before it's too late.

Time for a Coup

So by Nik Nano's numbers Stephen Harper just wasted multi-millions of dollars for an election that may have proven un-necessary, leading to another Con minority, to another stalemated parliament while environmental degradation proceeds unchecked.
If it comes to that result - and I'm still not convinced it will - what we need is for the majority of parliamentarians representing the majority of Canadians to propose and pass a law restoring the custom of the Governor General, after the defeat of the government in a confidence motion, handing the government (cabinet posts and committee chairs)over to the leader of the opposition, and then to anyone else who might be able to form a government who can maintain the confidence of the House, and so have the four year law term serve the majority of Canadians. Once the majority passes a private member's bill to that end, Harper should be defeated in the first confidence motion, and then let his party tear him to pieces for his arrogance, bullying, and general incompetence.

Harper: the Confidence Man.

In a Toronto Sun interview they wrote "Harper, who is an economist, said it's tough to predict how long or how hard the global economic meltdown will impact Canadians, but he's "confident" he can guarantee the country won't slide into recession under his watch." Funny, he was also confident that joining the Bush League in Iraq was the right decision, confident that the War in Afghanistan could be won, confident that Canadians were just worried about the stock market and not about their homes and savings, confident that the rest of the economists in the country are wrong about the value of a carbon tax, confident that climate change science was a socialist plot. Oh he's a confident guy alright, the only problem is he is also wrong more often than not.

Flaherty a Lack Of Common Sense Hypocrite

Earlier this year the finance minister broke his own rules to hire a Harris hack.

Real Science is Opposed to Harper

VICTORIA – Three senior Canadian members of the 2007 Nobel Prize
winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are calling
on Elizabeth May to lead Greens to make the difference in more than 50
close ridings where the Conservatives are set to win with a fraction
of the expected Green Party vote. The leading Canadian climate
scientists making the call are Dr. Andrew Weaver from the University
of Victoria, Dr. William Peltier from the University of Toronto and
Dr. John Stone from Carleton University.

Of course CTVGlobeMedia endorsed Harper

They're Conservative partisans, they're not journalists. There's no objectivity there, never was. Which would be fine, if they explicitly stated their biases at the beginning of the campaign, we'd know they were nothing more than party organs. It's the pretense of real journalism that is offensive.

Let's Vote for this guy

"Harper, the son of a former Imperial Oil executive, once described the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gases as “a socialist scheme to suck money out of wealth-producing nations”. The Conservatives, like their Republican counterparts in the U.S., have refused to cap greenhouse-gas emissions to curb climate change. "

Harper says "Our responsibility is to make sure that all government spending is effective and gets value for taxpayers' money..." Does that include the many millions of dollars spent on this election that may well end up nowhere but where we were when we began ? What about the millions wasted debating and creating a four year term law that you violated ? What about the multi-millions wasted on the canceled by-elections ? Or the waste of federal court time costs while you prevent Elections Canada from examining the financial scam you used to win the last election ? Or the waste of RCMP resources you use to keep the unwashed from getting anywhere near you ?

Harper=Harris

The Lack of Common Sense Revolutionaries are in fact conservative republicans, led by a man who was wrong about Iraq, wrong about the economy and utterly and singularly wrong about the environment, he lied about the Chuck Cadman case, a case he will lose in court, he lied about the 'in and out scam' - a case he will also lose in court. He lied about his four year term law. The man has no integrity, he is a known bully, and his only principle is that he should be PM. Elect him and disaster will follow, because he lives on the wrong side of history. Wake up Canada.

They're going to kill Obama

Palin and McCain have so stoked the fires of hatred against Obama that there is little doubt in my mind that some Republican nutbar is going to murder Obama, and when they do the country is going to erupt into civil war that will make the aftermath of the Rodney King Affair seem like a community barbeque. America is about to degenerate into barbarism. And Canada is going to get sucked down into the vortex with them. The War Against Terror will turn into the Fear Wars that will pit neighbour against neighbour.

Ontario getting ready to screw the poor again

The Ontario middle class is about to betray the poor once again by voting for the Lack Of Common Sense Revolution Part 2. They just can't help themselves, when the going gets tough they trample the hopes of the underclasses. A vote for Harper is a vote against hope, a vote against the environment that will damn their own children to dying in their own wastes, a vote for a bully, a vote for Alberta-style corporate socialism. This is one on the meanest spirited, smallest minded, hardest-hearted creepy little men to ever lead a federal party.

Part time work at all time high

The employment rate just climbed, which would be really good news except the vast majority, or about 97,000 of the jobs are part time. which means 97,000 people have no benefits, and are earning less than the wage they would earn if they had full time jobs and got paid a full timer's hourly rate. It's Walmart economy, brought you by Stephen Harper.

O my God Dion is human !

So he entered one of those exhausted moments where the brain doesn't even know if a correctly spelled word is spelled correctly or not, we all do it. He just happened to do it front of cameras in the worst place, CTV: the Conservative Television Network. In issues of substance, Dion remains heads and shoulders about the Canadian spokesman for the Bush League, Harper, who spent two whole debates staring dumbly into space with a smirk on his face thinking about ways he would get back at all the other leaders and their supporters.

Sick of McCain's War Stories

He was the spoiled son and grandson of Admirals who crashed four jets, all them while hotdogging to impress his friends. Even when he was shot down in Vietnam he was on a civilian bombing raid. Some hero. He's not a maverick, he's rich brat who has turned into a doddering old men jonesing on his own war stories. His running mate is waiting for him to die so she can folksy her way into the white house and turn America into the laughing stock of the world. And Stephen Harper regards himself as one of the conservative republicans she represents. God help us all.

Harper says costs of Afghan mission not unknown

But if they were known to be at least 18 billion dollars why did he keep saying they were 8 billion unless he is a habitual liar and just can't help himself ?

Harper does a Mulroney

When in trouble bring out your Mom. Lyin' Brian did it back in the '80's when people were worried he would cut pensions. It's the family values thing I guess.

Harper's not so hidden agenda

While America had its eyes on the 700 billion bailout, 640 billion dollars was also channeled to Dick Cheney's friends in the military industrial complex. While Canadians slept in the middle of a June night this year, Harper made 20 year plans to spend $490 billion for this country's arms dealers and war speculators.

230 Canadian economists support carbon tax

Somehow this seems like a large news item that has dropped out the news cycle when it should remain as news.

Scientists weigh in Against Tories

So not only do most of the economists in Canada disagree with the Tories, so do Canada's climate scientists. Bad day for endorsements. I'm sure the Society for Jailing Minors will endorse Harper soon though.

Carbon Tax

Apparently Stephen Harper really is one of the only economists in Canada who thinks the carbon tax is a bad idea, must be one of those mavericks we hear so much about in the States.

It's Because the Blogosphere made TV

I suspect that Canadians started realizing that television wasn't telling them the whole story when news story after news story started being aired about events that happened because of activities in the blogosphere. I think Canadians went online in this election, and discovered that television wasn't telling them the whole truth.
And then they saw the truth for themselves in the debates. And now, the story is an increasingly internet savvy electorate.

Wiesel MacKay speaks

At one time he insisted that the Tories would not have "direct discussions with terrorists. We won't, will not, that will not change," A comment he made back on May 4.
Sort of like his deal with David Orchard. But now...

Suburban Tories

Since Canadian suburbs are really just outposts of Anywhere North America, & serve as bastions of the continental "Me" generation who value their own security above that of others, it is not surprising that Harper's corporate socialist policies resound there far more than they do for urbanites, who have a much deeper sense of their symbiotic relations to their communities. It's why artists flee the banality of suburbs and settle city cores, because life is deeper & richer than it is in an environment defined by TV reality. Unfortunately for the suburbs, TV reality isn't real, & economic & environmental catastrophes have a way of wiping out self-obsessed security measures. That won't stop them from burying their heads in the sand this election and voting for corporate socialism.

Harper Wrong Again

He was wrong about Iraq, and he's wrong about the economy and the scale of the slide that's about to engulf us. So hey, let's make him PM so he can have the power to make wrong decisions that we will have to live with.

What hidden agenda cons ask

Again and again the Con bloggers insist there's no agenda except the desire to move Canada to the right and for Harper to rule as beneficently as only he can. The problem is, there remains the underlying fact that ideas put into practice become reality. That little move Canada to the right means something:just look at Alberta, it's a one party state wholly owned by American oil companies. The people of Alberta have become like the Farm Rabbits in Watership Down, fattened and well looked after. They talk a good line about freedom, but they live a corporate socialist existence of which I want no part.

Warren on Why Harper will win

It's a well written Kinsellan bout of melancholic nostalgia. An Albertan, & a Liberal, Warren Kinsella seems determined to fulfill the Reform Con desire to "let the eastern bastards freeze in the dark" as he meditates in his family's cold cabin. His views on Harper being the Everyman in this election & what a thoughtful man Stephen is reminds me of taking my son to the advance poll during the Guelph by-election & my pride in watching him vote for the first time in his life only to have his vote pissed on by Harper who canceled the by-elections because the Cons were going to lose. Sorry Warren, nice writing, sorry about your mother, and it's swell that Harper was nice to you after she died, but he deserves to go down hard and fast as far as I'm concerned.

Debate thoughts

Several days later, these are my thoughts. Loser: Global pollsters for promoting poll results done on only half the debate and released as 'who won' pronouncements. Winner: Elizabeth May, for pricking the hot air balloon sitting to her right whenever the smirking one made some fatuous remark. Winner: Stephane Dion, for blowing holes in Harper's phony portrait of him, and for articulating a clear and genuine alternative, despite all the Tory bloggers who pretended he couldn't speak English. Winner: Jack Layton for the funniest line: "Where's your platform, under your sweater ?" And for tormenting Harper with such doggedness. Winner: Steve Paikin who did a great job of moderating.

Scandalpedia Revisited

Went back to visit the Grit site dedicated to Conservative scandals. Always a good read.

American whack jobs

Those people south of the border have no sense of reality, John McCain and his near lunatic VP think they can make Obama out to be elitist, despite the fact that McCain is married to an heiress and Obama grew up on food stamps. No wonder they think reality TV is real.

Will the middle class betray the poor again ?

With less than two weeks to go, the question remains, will the middle classes side with their own security and once again betray the poor, or will they dump Harper and his neocorporatist agenda and choose a new future, a more inclusive future. My guess is they will betray us again, because that's what they've done since 1645. They just love those Cromwellian ruling classes, the levellers want in, and they will always put the boots to the poor to ensure they themselves get in and stay in.

An Accounting

On behalf of the majority who voted against Mr. Harper last time I would like to thank the table of opposition leaders who applied fire to the feet of the PM.