The Holy Grail Has Arrived. My Election Manual

After reading about former NDP leader David Lewis and The Committee for an Independent Canada, who had a huge impact on the 1972 election, by campaigning against Corporate Welfare Bums, I was on a mission.

I tracked down Mr. Lewis's book, that started it all. Louder Voices: The Corporate Welfare Bums, finding a copy on Ebay. It's four decades old but the problems then are the same as now. The loudest voices are the corporations, who refuse to even slide over an inch as they feed off the public trough. Once in a while if we're lucky, we can catch a few crumbs that fall out of their mouths, but don't let them see you, or you'll be tackled to the ground.

In Canada, as in the United States, this has reached catastrophic levels, and if we don't turn this around, taxpayers will never have any voice at all.

From the preface:

For many years, democratic socialists have recognized that despite Canada's enormous wealth and the native compassion of its people, gross inequities have continued to exist in our social and economic structure. We have laboured to make Canadians aware of these inequities. We have voiced them in Parliament; we have fought for legislation to correct them; we have knocked on doors to tell the people, and we have worked with other concerned organizations in the struggle to make our message understood, so that Canadians would take action to bring an end to these inequities.

Our message is not new. It is one of commitment to social and economic justice that others have shared for centuries. Perhaps the new element about our message is that we have found a way to help people understand. We have given them the information, the precise and irrefutable evidence they need to comprehend fully the extent of injustice in this great country.

It has been a difficult undertaking, but the rewards have been many. We know now that people are listening, becoming aware, judging. And this is the first step in the struggle to eliminate those injustices that no humane society will knowingly tolerate.

Months of research have gone into compiling the evidence on which we base our case against free-enterprise governments and their corporate allies. I cannot adequately express my gratitude to the many dedicated people who have contributed so much time and effort ...

DAVID LEWIS
Toronto September 24, 1972

I think Mr. Lewis would be quite surprised to learn that things in Canada are now worse than they were when he wrote those words. Our current government ascribes to the political-economic theory of Socialism for the Rich and Capitalism for the Poor, whereby corporations get to keep all the profit, while taxpayers assume all the losses.

His book arrived today and I think it was a sign because it's the same day that I read John Ibbitson's column in the Globe: Corporate tax cuts could bring down government. Michael Ignatieff has already said that we cannot afford them, taking his message to the business community, and the NDP is on the fence.

But what makes me boiling mad about all of this, is the fact that the taxpayers, the us's were left out of the equation.

Harper and Flaherty claim that they have it on good advice (from the corporate sector) that more tax cuts for the rich will be good for us. But when in the hell did this government ever take advice from anyone? They were advised not to cut the GST and did it anyway. They were advised not to scrap the mandatory long-form census, and did it anyway. The list goes on.

The ones that they should be listening to is us dammit.

... polls have shown huge public opposition to the tax cuts. A Leger Marketing poll commissioned by QMI News reported Sunday that only one Canadian in 10 favoured lower corporate taxes, while four in 10 wanted to see those taxes go up.

And yet Ibbitson goes right to the political. He says that Harper is gambling that his supporters, who don't want the wealthy to be given more of our money, will still vote for him,

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

90% of Canadians DO NOT WANT MORE CORPORATE TAX CUTS!!!! Those are the only voices anyone should be listening to, because that money belongs to us.

I don't give a flying fig who is going to get political leverage with this, although If Layton goes along with these tax cuts, it will be the end of the NDP, and both David Lewis and Tommy Douglas will be turning in their graves.

Because it means that their "commitment to social and economic justice" will all have been for nothing.