Americans Fear Their Election Could End up Like Canada's. I Can Help

In the upcoming election, Barack Obama will not be challenged by the Republicans, who frankly have given up on even pretending to be politicians serving the public, but by the Super PACs.  Political Action Committees financed by wealthy corporations,  who are tired of democracy getting in their way.

Remember that leaked 2006 CitiGroup memo that they have worked so hard to suppress?

The World is dividing into two blocs - the Plutonomy and the rest. The U.S., UK, and Canada are the key Plutonomies - economies powered by the wealthy. Continental Europe (ex-Italy) and Japan are in the egalitarian bloc.

They warned that voters could try to change the idea of governing only for the wealthy.

We can see a number of potential challenges to plutonomy. The first, and probably most potent, is through a labor backlash. Outsourcing, offshoring or insourcing of cheap labor is done to undercut current labor costs .... Low-end developed market labor might not have much economic power, but it does have equal voting power with the rich .... the third threat comes from the potential social backlash.

It's like they predicted the Occupy Movement, that could be successful given that the "low-end", without "much economic power" has "equal voting power with the rich".  (Capitalism, a Love Story)

However, Super PACs are setting out to wrong that right.

And the way they are going to do that is with lots of money and telemarketers.  They can't garner more votes, so will instead try to suppress them.  The Koch Brothers are putting up $200 million for this venture, determined to oust Obama. 
 
I don't know how much Stephen Harper cost them, but they are already reaping rewards.  And if we wonder why the Harper government is so committed to outsourcing Canadian jobs, remember that CitiGroup memo.  It's all about cheap labour.  Which is why during the worst of the economic crisis, when Canadians were losing their jobs at record speed, Jason Kenney accelerated the use of migrant workers.
 
Money, Money, Money

Chris Matthews reminded us last week, of where those millions will be going.  To telemarketers who will work like mad to make sure that Democratic voters don't exercise their democratic rights.
 
The last Canadian federal election could serve as a guide to the Super Pacs, as Canadians were telemarketed to the point of madness.
 
In Kingston, Ontario, there were so many such phone calls, that we were ready to leave the country just to escape them.  And while Do Not Call Lists keep the cheap crap purveyors at bay, the rules do not apply to politics.  One call I received was supposedly on behalf of our Liberal candidate, Ted Hsu (now our MP), asking if we wanted a lawn sign.  The caller was so rude, that had I not been suspicious, I might have fallen for it.
 
Soon after, Hsu's office called asking for support and I informed them of the bogus call that I had received.  Others complained of the same thing.  Looking at the Conservative candidate Alicia Gordon's Elections Canada financial records, I learned that she paid Campaign Research more than $25,000 to annoy the hell out of us.  Remember those guys?  Think Rob Ford (but take a valium first)
 
Ironically when our Speaker of the House, Andrew Scheer was asked to investigate the damage done to Irwin Cotler by Campaign Research, it was learned that he himself had used them to assure his re-election.  He should have declared a conflict of interest.  Instead he gave them a free pass.
 
Another example is Joe Volpe, who was telemarketed out of seat.  Joe Oliver paid Campaign Research $12,159.33
 

An investment banker, he has now joined the Koch team to force feed us their XL-Pipeline, contributing to Canada's reputation as a Jingoistic Petro-State, calling environmentalists "radicals" and "terrorists".

 

If the American people want to preserve their democracy and not end up like Canada, with another stolen election, I have some advice.  If you receive one of these calls, you could just tell the caller that you will be voting so "get a life", or maybe "let me speak to David Koch" or "Am I being punked?". 

 

Although I think the best response might be "Where in the hell do you think you are ?  Canada???!!!"

When is "Foreign" Money and Influence, Not "Foreign" Money and Influence?

The Harper government has tried a new strategy in pushing through the Gateway Pipeline.  Apparently, we are now under attack by "foreigners".  "Foreign" money is driving the debate.  "Foreign" radicals are trying to stop progress.

And yet "foreign" ownership of the Tar Sands has accelerated since they took power.  Our new Natural Resources minister is in fact an investment banker.  He sees our natural resources not as something that need to be protected, but something that can be exploited.

Foreign corporations, some controlled by national governments, have been using their economic clout to buy into Alberta's oil sands and take control of our natural resources.  U.S., French, British, Chinese, Thai, Korean and Norwegian interests have all bought stakes in oil-sands projects. According to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), international companies have invested nearly $20 billion in the last three years through mergers, partnerships and outright purchases of projects.

This increased foreign investment raises questions. Who has the right to develop our natural resources? Who sets the rules for how these resources are developed? Who controls where the resources are processed and sold?

For Harper to use the "foreign" argument is hypocrisy at its worst.
 
Not only is he selling off all of our industry to global interests, but he used "foreign" influence to gain power.  Top Republican pollster, John McLaughlin takes credit for Harper's career. 

Within the past year, John McLaughlin has helped elect Iain Duncan Smith, the leader of the Conservative Party (United Kingdom); Stephen Harper, the leader of the Canadian Alliance Party (Canada); Virginia Attorney General Jerry Kilgore; and a historic 30-seat Republican majority in the Virginia House of Delegates.

The American NRA is writing our gun laws. Frank Luntz and the Americans, including Dick Cheney, helped to write our environmental policy (summarized as "screw the environment, we're going drilling") and Religious Right leader James Dobson poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into Stephen Harper's anti same-sex marriage campaign.

Mike Robinson has an excellent piece in the Edmonton Journal today:  History repeats itself with Gateway debate:  Old questions linger about wisdom of project.
 
He wonders why the Harper government is working so hard to push this pipeline through.  Mr. Robinson knows the dangers because he was involved in similar debates decades ago.  The only difference was that many public meetings took place with First Nation communities, where the environmental impact would be felt the most. 

Looking back, I was glad the B.C. offshore play never happened, be-cause at the local information sessions we heard too many seasoned fishing boat skippers talk about 80-foot waves, high tidal energy, howling southeasters in Hecate Strait and the growing fragility of the marine ecosystem.


I also heard scores of First Nations speakers decry putting their home-lands and food chains at risk for the sake of oil. I also remember having a few beers with technical members of the company's public-information team. Privately, especially after a raucous community meeting, they would confide to me that high wave and wind action would hamper and disrupt oil spill boom placement and slick-licker deployment, and a major blowout or spill near a tidal estuary would likely be very difficult to contain.

Another concern of mine is something not getting a lot of media attention.  The secret deal signed in Texas, that allows the U.S. to send its troops to Canada in the case of a "civil emergency".  Stuart Trew, a researcher with the Council of Canadians, rightfully said:

... there is potential for the agreement to militarize civilian responses to emergency incidents. He noted that work is also underway for the two nations to put in place a joint plan to protect common infrastructure such as roadways and oil pipelines.  “Are we going to see (U.S.) troops on our soil for minor potential threats to a pipeline or a road?”

A license to invade?

The threat to the pipeline would of course be a threat to Stephen Harper's benefactors, like:

Thailand's state-owned PTTEP who bought a 40-per-cent stake in Statoil's Kai Kos Dehseh project for $2.3 billion.  "Statoil is a Norwegian company whose largest owner is the government of Norway, with 67 per cent of the shares. Under the terms of the deal, Statoil remained the majority owner and operator of the project, which ends up being a Norwegian-Thai, public-private enterprise developing Albertan energy resources."

Korean National Oil Company that took over Calgary's Harvest Energy Trust for $4.1 billion ($1.8 billion in cash and $2.3 billion in assumed debt). The deal allowed the Korean state-run company to grab an estimated oil production of 50,000 barrels per day (b/d) and 154 million barrels of oil-equivalent reserves.  "In 2006, the Korean firm set up an office in Calgary and purchased the Black Gold Oil Sands leases near Conklin. These leases gave the company 10,000 b/d of bitumen for about 25 years."

PetroChina now owns 60-per-cent share of Athabasca Oil Sands Corp.'s giving them a majority share in a company with access to more than five million barrels of oil.

Chinese company Sinopec, a majority-owned subsidiary of a national company, paid $4.65 billion for Houston-based ConocoPhillips' stake in Syncrude. What makes this deal significant is that under the terms of the deal, the state-controlled Sinopec has a veto on the critical decision of whether the company should upgrade bitumen here or export it in raw form overseas.

In January 2011, Enbridge announced Sinopec's funding of the $5.5-billion Northern Gateway Pipeline.

And what do Canadians get out of all this?  The bill for cleanup, the threat of an American invasion and the joy of listening to our prime minister warn of "foreign" involvement in a Canadian (??!!?) pipeline.