On March 19, 2008, Stephen Harper posed for a photo-op at London's Electro-Motive plant to showcase a $5-million federal tax break given to Caterpillar, the American buyers of the Canadian company.
When Caterpillar, famous for union busting in the United States, amid record profits, wanted the employees to take a 50% pay cut and surrender their benefits, amazingly no new Harper photo-op.
However, in an interview from inside the bubble, one of Harper's many royal messengers, trumpeted the royal decree: “A low tax environment is the best way to ensure job creators come to Canada and stay in Canada, as proven by the nearly 600,000 jobs created in Canada since July 2009.”
Fortunately, when you live inside that bubble you are protected from an army of facts. Safe within its walls, you can blanket yourself in terms like "job creators" and "tax relief".
And if the army of facts come knocking, reminding you that the Washington Post has proven that the "job creators" did not create jobs, or that Canada lost almost 300,000 good full time positions, replaced with part-time - BOING! They just bounce right off.
When it turned out that our "tax relief" was only for the wealthy and that the average Canadian worker is paying more in taxes - BOING! Look out!
Cost of living has risen by 9% since Harper took office while wages have become stagnant - BOING!
The number of low income families has increased in Canada since 2008 - BOING!
Since 2006, fresh vegetables are up 18%, bread up 37% and dental care up 14%, just as examples - BOING!
Since 2006, the debt Canadian families carry relative to their disposable income has risen by 20% and Canadian households now hold the highest debt amoung the top 20 advanced countries in the OECD - BOING!
Since 2005, gas prices have risen more than 20% - BOING!
Since Harper took power personal bankruptcies have risen by 33% - BOING!
The cost of running the government has risen by 21% in the past five years - BOING!
I could go on but I'm getting tired of bouncing off that impenetrable bubble.
Caterpillar should have to give that $5 million break they got from us as "job creators" back, now that they are simply "job destroyers".
In 2006, Time magazine raised the alarm over Stephen Harper's control of the media, which included his unprecedented secrecy of what goes on in cabinet meetings.
However, if you want some idea of what they might sound like, watch the Republican debates and listen to their candidates. They all speak the same language.
This week Rick Perry is touting the "flat tax" as an innovative way to restructure the tax system, and it will be even flatter than Herman Cain's 9-9-9. The only thing flatter will be their heads.
This is not a new idea but one that has been flogged for decades. "Reduce government so you can drown it in a bathtub", Grover Norquist, and his Americans For Tax Reform, have been promoting this for twenty-five years.
Canadian Kevin Avram, attended a conference in Austin, Texas where he met a representative of the “Association of Concerned Taxpayers”, then headed up by Norquist. He came home and created the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, once headed up by Jason Kenney.
In 1998, the CTF invited Stockwell Day, then head of the Alberta Treasury, to a briefing on how this tax plan to make the wealthy even wealthier, works.
Mike Harris and Preston Manning wrote a paper Building Prosperity in a Canada Strong and Free, in which they not only tout the "flat tax" but also want to end Capital gains taxes.
When Stephen Harper spoke at the Frontier Institute, another vehicle of the corporate sector, there were protests against the Institutes policies, including, yes, the "flat tax". He snuck out the back door, his Modus Operandi.
All of these neocons sound like parrots on crack. "Perry wants a flat tax", "Flaherty wants a flat tax", "Harper wants a flat tax", "Norquist wants a flat tax", Tea Party wants a flat tax" ...."
As Joe Holley reminds us:
Perry is hoping to capitalize on universal frustration with the current system, draw attention away from Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 flat tax proposal and create a clear distinction between himself and Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor has been critical of a flat-tax system in the past, arguing that a tax structure that was too flat would hurt the middle class.
A flat tax would indeed be more regressive than the current complicated system. It would reduce the percentage that high-income earners pay, while increasing the burden on lower-income groups. That’s fine with some conservatives, who believe that wealthier earners shouldn’t be shouldering so much of the tax burden.
That's it in a nutshell. Creating a tax system that further widens the gap between rich and poor. Just what we need.
That seems like a lot of money. Could we put it toward helping seniors who are living in poverty? Building homeless shelters? Improving healthcare? Fighting hunger?
Or are those goals too lofty and would $500 million be enough?
OK. How about 6 billion dollars? What could that do to alleviate the suffering of Canadians?
I know you're waiting for me to say that's how much money the Conservatives are wasting on prisons and pork. You would be right about the waste but wrong on where I'm heading.
Because that is how much money the Canadian taxpayer gives to the American treasury every year. A gift with nothing in return, because we ask for nothing in return.
Under Article XXIV of the Canada-U.S. tax treaty, any U.S. citizen, resident or company earning income in Canada is subject to U.S. tax, with a credit for Canadian tax paid or accrued.
This means that our lower corporate tax rate is not an incentive for American companies to invest in Canada, because there is no net benefit. Any savings here are paid there.
A rough estimate concludes that there is a "$500-million annual tax transfer from Canada to the U.S. for every point reduction in the Canadian tax rate."
Their corporate tax rate is 34.2% and Harper and Flaherty are attempting to reduce ours to 15%, roughly half. And under the current agreement, the difference goes directly to the American treasury. $500 million annually for every point difference.
The Conservatives and their think tanks are suggesting that our public healthcare system is no longer sustainable. But it could be, if we kept some of that money here.
Erin Weir of the Progressive Economic Forum, has estimated 'that Jim Flaherty’s target of a 25% combined federal-provincial corporate tax rate would transfer between $4 billion and $6 billion annually from Canadian governments to the U.S. treasury."
4 to 6 billion annually. Absorb that for just a moment. Now absorb this.
Under Stephen Harper Canada has gone from sixth to 24th place in infant mortality, out of 26 nations. In a country with our wealth, our infants are dying at a faster rate than many poorer nations. What could 4 to 6 billion annually do to reverse that?
We have seniors living in poverty and Baby Boomers aging into poverty. What could 4 to 6 billion annually do toward changing that?
One in ten Canadian children live in poverty. This increases with aboriginal children, where one in four are growing up poor. What could 4 to 6 billion annually do toward changing that?
According to a new report: Hunger on the rise in Canada. What could 4 to 6 billion annually do toward changing that?
Neoconservatives, like Stephen Harper and Jim Flaherty, believe that if we just work hard, we too can become rich. But that's not true. Generational poverty, unemployment, underemployment and precarious employment, keep too many living day to day. Paycheque to paycheque. Pension to pension.
Where the economic roots of poverty show up in low levels literacy, skills and educational attainment – all of which impede productivity and the ability to earn income – growing up poor can, in turn, deprive children not only of the nourishment, health and family resources than enable learning, but of the sense of self-esteem needed to succeed in school. Layered on top of these family-based roots of poverty are a variety of systemic and institutional obstacles that help to keep many people poor.
And the "The remedial costs of poverty related to health care and crime are substantial."
Yet the Conservatives law and order agenda, provides nothing to fight poverty, one of the root causes of crime. And nothing to tackle illiteracy, one of the root causes of poverty.
Ontarians were not surprised. When he was with the Mike Harris government, he tried to write into our welfare program, a clause that would disallow benefits for those who were unable to read or write. It was so outrageous that it made the New York Times.
The notion of corporate taxes having a trickle down affect is not new. It was tried in Canada before Harper. At the time it was thought of as plausible, now it is only laughable.
There is no trickle down, only a gusher upward to the wealthiest citizens.
And corporations do not reinvest the money to create jobs. They hoard it. And they use it to buy our media, with a gaggle of "journalists" (?) who try to sell us on the notion that this fairy tale is real.
And in the case of Canada, the money not hoarded or used to manipulate public opinion, is flowing South.
So the next time someone tells you that corporate tax cuts create jobs and expand our economy, you need to take them by the arm and lead them to the nearest rehab.
But on the way, vote and vote wisely.
Because I can think of so many better ways to spend 4-6 billion annually, can't you?
On May 8th, 2005, then leader of the Opposition, Stephen Harper, made a bold announcement. He promised that if he was elected Prime Minister of Canada, one of the first things on his agenda would be to privatize the Canadian Healthcare System. (1)
This was just a week after he gave a lecture at the Fraser Institute, where he was in fact introduced as Canada's next PM.
He doesn't speak about that now, but then he doesn't really speak about anything of substance. Have his views changed since 2005? Hardly. On a visit to the United States during the debates over Obama's healthcare plan, he was asked by CBS about Canada's healthcare system, which is the envy of many other nations. He told the reporter that he really didn't know much about it, because it was a provincial issue.
The CANADA Health Act and the country's leader claimed not to know much about it? Given that he once headed up the National Citizens Coalition, a group founded to abolish public healthcare in this country, I contend that he probably knows the Canada Health Act better than most.
Then and Now
In the Spring of 2005, many were worried about the direction of our medicare. Preston Manning and Mike Harris had just released a Fraser Institute report calling for more healthcare privatization. The report said that those who could afford it, should have the "freedom" to choose their own healthcare – whether it is for-profit or non-profit.
The report failed to recognize the demise of the non-profit healthcare system for everyone, once for-profit health care is allowed to escalate.
Why should we care? I can give you an example.
When Mike Harris was premier of Ontario he began to introduce user fees. My daughter, who is disabled and on the Ontario Disability Support Program, injured her knee when at a soccer tournament for the Special Olympics. The injury required surgery, and the surgeon recommended physical therapy, during the healing process. But there was a catch. We were told that if she wanted to use the public healthcare system, she would have to go on a waiting list, and it could be months before she was called.
Or, she could attend a private clinic, partially subsidized, which would cost her $15.00 per visit. I know that doesn't sound like much, but the doctor recommended three visits a week. ODSP wouldn't cover it since there was a public option available.
$45.00 per week for someone on a pension, or who is a member of the "working poor", is a fortune. It means roughly $200.00 out of the monthly budget. She couldn't afford it so we paid for her therapy sessions. I was later told by her worker that if we gave her money for this, she was supposed to claim it, to be deducted from her benefit.
I don't think that worker ever recovered from the strip I tore off her. I was livid. She never pursued it further. (they have since laxed the rules but only slightly) Of course what this means, is that only the wealthy will get top rate care, while everyone else is at the mercy of what will eventually be a virtually bankrupt public system.
And in the spring of 2005, the hot topic at Canadian water coolers was the future of something, that we by then took for granted (2). That the letter and spirit of the Canada Health Act guaranteed the same level of medicare for everyone, and that this was now being threatened.
It didn't help the Neocons that the Alberta premier at the time, Ralph Klein, was traversing about praising the fact that there would be lots of money to be made in the industry (3). And now Stephen Harper had come out publicly with his pledge. And while Harper retracted his statement six years ago, what has he done since becoming prime minister to strengthen, or at least not further weaken, our medicare?
Our health minister has snubbed important medical conferences, prompting the question: "Does Canada still have a federal health minister? And, more important, does it have a government with the slightest interest in maintaining the national health-insurance program called medicare? For all practical purposes, the answer to both of those questions is a resounding “No.”
Erroll Mendes, lawyer, author and Professor of law at the University of Ottawa, was interviewed recently about the Contempt of Parliament charges against the Harper government, and he brought up another important point. Renegotiation with the provinces and the Canada Health Act, is scheduled for 2014.
With Stephen Harper refusing to provide the costs of big ticket items like the fighter jets, corporate tax cuts and his new law and order agenda, how will Parliamentarians know whether or not there is any money to sustain medicare?
Which brings us to another concern. Instead of allowing Parliament to examine the issue, Harper has handed it over to the unelected senate. A senate that he now controls.
Healthcare vs Sickcare
Another issue with the corporate sector taking over the industry, is that the focus will be on what Liberal health critic, Carolyn Bennett, calls "sickcare". An auto mechanic doesn't care what kind of car you buy or its gas mileage. Their only interest is fixing it when it breaks down.
With health becoming a for-profit industry, again the focus will only be on fixing you when you break down. We will be reduced to a series of pay scales, based on the plan that we or our employer has purchased. There will be free plans for the poor, but what quality of care will they receive?
But healthcare is about more than just tending the sick. It's also about prevention of illness, and under corporate care, prevention is a word to avoid at all costs.
Those in the medical profession understand the need to eat healthy and maintain a healthy lifestyle. But poverty is one of the root causes of illness. So healthcare must also address feeding and housing the poor, if we want to keep everyone as healthy as possible.
The working poor or those engaged in precarious employment, often have no sick leave plan, so they go to work when they shouldn't, not able to lose even a day's pay. Under a corporate system none of these things will be factored in. The more sick people, the more profit.
Healthcare should not only be an election issue, but it should be the election issue. And remember, just because Stephen Harper no longer discusses it, does not mean that he has changed his plans.
We need to start listening to what's not being said.
Sources: 1. Stephen Harper Promises To Privatize Canadian Healthcare, Lilith News, May 17th 2005 2. What separates a wrestling match from a health care, Globe and Mail, April 28, 2005 3. "Tories to Klein: keep your mouth shut", cupe.ca, April 28, 2005
I watched the season opener of Bill Maher last night and it was almost surreal, especially when the talks became about Canada.
But early on he quoted from American economist Robert Reich, who broke down the neoconservative philosophy quite succinctly. "The public is being sold a big lie, that our problems are due to unions and the size of government and not to deregulation and the vast concentration of wealth."
Reich also said that Obama must frame the narrative. It's tough because he's facing the same corporate sponsored AstroTurfing, as Canada's opposition. Every argument they make gets twisted into "not supporting the troops", being "tax and spend liberals", "careless". And before long some "grassroots" group starts up, which more often than not gets traced back to a Corporate Party of Canada staffer. This creates the same toxic political climate as the Republicans have in the U.S.
But Americans may actually be waking up. Sarah Palin is at her lowest point in popularity and the Tea Party is being debunked. I think the tide may be turning.
James Travers had a very good column this week discussing how Stephen Harper and his right-wing echo chamber, has been able to control the conversation, taking us away from important issues like healthcare, an aging population and a record debt. Instead we debate war, crime, guns, and now Harper is even tossing around the idea of bringing back the death penalty. (a defelection from his support for corporate greed?)
When I first read this as part of his Reform Party policy back in the day, I thought that Canadians would never ever bring it back. Now I have no idea how much Canadians will bear of this man's regressive agenda. It's seems like pretty much anything.
But as many in the media, including Travers, like to lay the blame at the Opposition's doorstep, they need to also look at themselves. I like Travers and he is certainly one of the more progressive thinkers, but he has constantly belittled the opposition and then wondered why they are not stronger. And he has resorted to that this time around, despite the fact that both Layton and Ignatieff are trying to frame a different message.
Layton is discussing our role in Afghanistan and Ignatieff the preservation of healthcare and relief for families caring for an aging family member. He even went so far as to tell the business community that we can't afford more corporate tax cuts. Not just using rhetoric for headlines, but going to the source of the problem.
Because as Maher stated last night, these are not "tax cuts". They are an enormous transfer of funds from those who need it to those who don't. And it has been going on for far too long.
Martin Short: Long on Memory, Short on Awareness
One of the guests last night, was Canadian actor Martin Short. Maher asked him how Canada got it so right. We had public healthcare, gun control and a stable economy. Short and others on the panel said that it was because we were more cautious, which is why our banks didn't need to be bailed out.
Flaherty and Harper have taken the approach that if they said it enough times, people would start to believe it. But we very much did bail out our banks, to the tune of 125 billion dollars. And Canadian economist Ellen Russel believes that since it was done so swiftly and apparently secretly, this will make our banks more careless in the future.
So I would ask our media, why they are blaming the Opposition, when they are the ones who allowed this to go unreported. Because it is now not only part of the Canadian psyche, but apparently the American one as well.
And not only did our banks get 125 billion dollars of OUR money, but they also got another 111 billion from the American taxpayers, through their U.S. branches. Quite a haul for our "good banks".
Short also stated that he was a conservative, to which most on the panel and Maher himself, stated that yes, but a Canadian conservative was much different from an American conservative. In Canada they were more like a social democrat. Short has clearly been away from Canada too long, because our current right-wing party is more toxic Republican than traditional Tory.
There was one man on the panel who could have corrected them, however. A little blast from the past. Republican strategist Mike Murphy, who engineered Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolution. But he stayed quiet, not getting involved in that part of the argument. A good neocon knows that you never challenge a lie that is working in your favour.
But with so much misinformation out there, and a media unable or unwilling to get to the root of it all, maybe the only ones who can really change the narrative is us.
According to Bloombergs, Stephen Harper and the Corporate Party of Canada, is going on tour to try and sell the notion that giving more tax cuts to the rich, will help struggling Canadians.
The good news, if you believe that, is that you can still get free psychiatric help.
The bad news is that more corporate tax cuts will make our public healthcare unsustainable, so you'll have to act quick.
According to progressive thinker Michael Lerner, on the societal drain of these tax cuts:
That [is] precisely what the richest members of our society did when they supported legislation to cut their own taxes under President Bush, and before him under his father and President Reagan? The fact that the wealthy benefited disproportionately from those tax cuts is hardly a secret. The consequences have already been felt in the decline of funding for federal and state programs that benefit the poor and the powerless. (1)
There is no job creation. We've been fed those lies for years.
Next election will be about the choice between Corporations or Canadians, because we're getting tired of having to take a back seat to Harper's wealthy buddies. Enough is enough. If they can't make it in business without handouts from taxpayers, then maybe they need to get a real job.
Sources:
1. The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country From the Religious Right, By: Michael Lerner, Harper-Collins, 2006, ISBN: 978-0-06084247-5, Pg. 68
I posted over a year ago on the Harper government's secret plans to end voter subsidies. Secret because few in the media reported on it. But MP Steve Fletcher granted an interview to the Winnipeg Free Press, in which he revealed that he would be attempting to add more seats in rural areas and Alberta, hoping to create a neoconservative dynasty. And that he would be putting an end to voter subsidies.
Voter subsidies were put in place by Jean Chretien, to replace corporate donations, as a result of protest, that the country's business elite was having far too much control over the politicians they financed. This amounts to less than two dollars for every vote cast, that went to the chosen party, enabling them to continue to operate.
The Conservatives don't need this, because corporate money flows to them through business financed think tanks and AstroTurf groups, like the Fraser Institute, the National Citizens Coalition and the Manning Centre for Democracy (started with a ten million dollar donation from one individual), and countless others.
In an interview with Postmedia News, Harper revealed that he would make ending the subsidies a key part of the Conservatives’ campaign platform. “A subsidy where parties make no effort to raise money is not acceptable, I don’t think, to Canadian taxpayers,” said the Prime Minister. Opponents to the subsidy cut say Harper is hampering other parties’ ability to raise funds outside of the private sector, giving the Tories a big advantage because of their ties to big business.
"Ties to big business"? Heck, they are big business. The only thing grassroots about them now is the grass they get on their expensive Italian leather shoes, when they leave the posh resorts where they are wined and dined for lucrative contracts.
Harper's former chief of staff, Guy Giorno was the top lobbyist for the oil industry. His new chief of staff, Nigel Wright, is a lobbyist for Lockheed Martin, who is sticking us with those damn F-35s, because no one else wants them.
They are being nicknamed the "flying brick" or "Thud” (the sound the plane made when it hit the ground after failing to clear a runway, a rather common occurrence), comparing them to similar used in Vietnam.
And Harper is saying that tax payers object to the few million that our democratic votes provide to our chosen parties. Where was he when we were objecting to his $60 billion in corporate tax cuts?
There was an excellent letter in the North Shore News, which said in part:
Harper wants to undo this, and it's obvious why. Reverting to a reliance on private donors is clearly most helpful to parties who serve the interests of wealthy individuals and organizations. The Tories certainly fit that description. Harper's plan has nothing to do with fairness to taxpayers and everything to do with giving his party an edge. It should be rejected.
This campaign strategy could backfire, because Harper has clearly set his party up as the best friend the corporate elite ever had. And his policies that have favoured Canada's wealthiest citizens, have been to the detriment of the average Canadian, including the 125 billion dollar bank bailout with no strings attached.
The Conservatives have all the money and are using it to act in our worst interests. And that will be the choice next election. Corporations or Canadians.
Obviously I don't want anyone jumping out the window. The question is only symbolic, but it's one we should be asking ourselves.
My parents lived through the Depression and anytime I discussed it, especially with my mother, I would always hear how the wealthy people, who had lost their fortunes, were jumping out of windows. They had gambled and lost and had no idea how to get their fortunes back.
But instead of jumping out of windows, the wealthy came to us and said that they were too big to fail. So we patted them on the back and gave them our money, with the reassuring words of "there, there now. It will be alright". Because we believed that everyone was suffering and sharing the burden of the collapse.
There was an understanding that the wealthy would step back. That corporations would suspend bonuses to their executives. That they would sell their private jets and art collections. That they would cancel lavish vacations and retreats. But that never happened.
Instead they used our money to reward themselves for their failure. Not a tear fell into the Perrier. Not a second of remorse. Not a window even opened a crack.
And as we watched our deficit and debt escalate because of it, we were constantly being told that so many things we took for granted may be lost. Things like healthcare, education and old age security.
And instead of adjusting Canada Pension so that many of our seniors can get out of poverty, Jim Flaherty is going to privatize it, giving the wealthy even more of our money to gamble with.
And as they gamble away not only our future but the futures of our children and grandchildren, Stephen Harper is determined to give the wealthy even more of our money.
More corporate tax cuts. UNFUNDED tax cuts. They are not being paid out of a surplus of money because they have done so much to improve our lot. WE will have to BORROW the money to give to THEM.
Will someone please tell me that this is a bad dream and I will wake up and be reassured that there are adults holding the public purse. Adults with math skills. Adults who give a damn about us.
I read a bit of a posting on the Heritage Foundation website, something I do occasionally. Visit neocon websites to try and figure out how they could possibly be so wrong. And in an attempt to justify taxcuts, they mention the roaring 20's.
The tax cuts of the 1920s: Tax rates were slashed dramatically during the 1920s, dropping from over 70 percent to less than 25 percent. What happened? Personal income tax revenues increased substantially during the 1920s, despite the reduction in rates. Revenues rose from $719 million in 1921 to $1164 million in 1928, an increase of more than 61 percent.
According to then-Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon: The history of taxation shows that taxes which are inherently excessive are not paid. The high rates inevitably put pressure upon the taxpayer to withdraw his capital from productive business and invest it in tax-exempt securities or to find other lawful methods of avoiding the realization of taxable income. The result is that the sources of taxation are drying up; wealth is failing to carry its share of the tax burden; and capital is being diverted into channels which yield neither revenue to the Government nor profit to the people.
The logic is that if taxes are too high, people will simply find more ways to avoid paying them. The author also fails to mention that incomes between 1921 and 1928 for the upper echelon, were abnormally high.
But even if we give them that. If we lower taxes more people will pay them. The exact opposite is happening today. The wealthy, despite our generosity, continue to find ways to avoid paying taxes. It's what they do. It's the game they play.
The Religious Right who is providing much of the oxygen for the Harper government, constantly suggest that homosexuality is destroying the moral fabric of our country and risking "the family".
But the "sin" that threatens us the most is not homosexuality (which is only a sin because they say so). It's GREED. Greed that has become so raw, it's now pornographic. You feel like you should be looking away.
Maybe published photos of corporate executives should come with the customary black band over their eyes now, so they can't be identified.
And what I would like to know is, if our money has given the wealthy a soft place to land, who's holding our safety net?
"The test of serious moral commitment to the family is a willingness to spend public money. Effective child protection, universal access to health care, affordable child care, first-rate primary and secondary education - these are the building blocks of the protective arch that society must raise over its families. This institutional arch doesn't come cheap, but those exponents of family values who won't stump up for it are just engaging in cheap talk." - Michael Ignatieff (1)
In Michael Ignatieff's year end interview, he claimed that his Party would be focusing their attention on the middle class. Some in the media are suggesting that Rob Ford, Toronto's new neoconservative mayor, is representing the middle class, which is pure nonsense.
Because to me the middle class were never mean, at least not collectively. Rob Ford represents millionaires who want all services privatized so they can make more money, by destroying the unions there to protect public servants. People who have been able to make their way to the middle because of fair wages and benefits.
The problem with Canada since Brian Mulroney, and the United States since Ronald Reagan, is that the middle is now being ignored, while all focus is on improving the lot of the wealthy, with some ridiculous notion that those wealthy will look after the poor.
That isn't happening and as one Conservative Christian said recently "we cannot foodbank our way out of poverty." We need government intervention to protect all citizens, because it's the right thing to do.
I've come down hard on Jack Layton and the NDP recently, after learning that they will be propping up the Harper government in January, and supporting future corporate tax cuts. Canada will not survive if they move to the right. We need a good strong party governing the centre, with good strong voices from the left making sure that the needs of citizens are being met. The NDP need to get back to the values of people like Tommy Douglas, Ed Broadbent and David Lewis, who took on corporations, not bowed down to them.
And the Liberals need to get back to the values of Pierre Trudeau and Lester Pearson, and even John Diefenbaker, now that his party has been wiped out.
Because when these guys were around, Canada worked. We were envied and admired. I never even heard the word "homeless" until neoconservative Mike Harris ran Ontario. There were vagabonds and tramps, but their lives were romanticized, because many chose that free lifestyle.
But no one chooses to be homeless. And families should not be living in their cars.
Today's Billionaires Do NOT Earn Their keep
The neoconservative principle of everyone being free to make as much money as possible, and then everyone will be taken care of through the trickling down; may be the biggest fraud since the pyramid scheme.
Canadian and American society has had it's classes, and most of the wealthy got that way through hard work, or inheritance from someone else, who worked hard to get rich. There were exceptions, but for the most part you could trace names back to an invention or the improvement of an invention.
I read the story of Henry Ford, a few years back, and when he was working on his ideas, his wife was there tinkering with him (literally, not a euphemism). She told of how she would have to remove engines from the kitchen sink before she could use it, and wipe motor oil off the counters. And eventually through hard work and innovation, they gave us the modern automobile. And the auto industry provided good union jobs and swelled the ranks of the middle class. The Fords got rich and everyone benefited.
Gerber baby foods also started with an idea. The Gerber family was struggling with the canning industry, almost bankrupt, when Mrs. Gerber first suggested that they try making baby food. Initially, her husband rejected the notion, so she left him to feed their baby, attempting to mash the food fine enough for consumption. He relented and turned a small portion of the plant into canning for infants. It went so well that within a short time, a prosperous baby food company and industry was born. The Gerbers got rich and everyone prospered.
Howard Johnson first made flavoured icecream when a boy, peddling it in his wagon. The radio, the television, movies. All started with someones idea and hard work to sell that idea.
But how are many of today's millionaires and billionaires making their fortunes? Some like Bill Gates, with an idea, but too many others with a scam.
And one of the biggest scams of late is the sub-prime mortgage industry.
In their new book: The Trouble With Billionaires, Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, tell the story of John Paulson and Goldman-Sachs, who cashed in big on the misery of others.
Paulson didn't invent sub-prime mortgages, only took them to unheard levels, after reading a newsletter by an aging, little-known economic consultant named Gary Shilling. While everyone else was painting a rosy picture of continued growth and prosperity, Shilling predicted a crash.
It was now up to Paulson to find a way to exploit this.
Paulson had been looking for an opportunity to bet that the housing bubble would burst. There was enough information around about the shoddy nature of many of the subprime mortgage deals—with clients who had little in the way of assets, income, or employment—that a number of close observers realized a lot of "homeowners" would soon be in dire straits, unable to meet their monthly payments. In the betting parlours of Wall Street, this represented a chance to make some serious money.
The best vehicle for betting against the housing market, as Paulson and a few other Wall Streeters had figured out, was to take out "insurance" on packages of mortgages that had been bundled together and sold as a stock. This was an odd concept that twisted the conventional notion of insurance .... What was unusual here was that the Wall Street types were taking out insurance on something they had no personal stake in, on something that involved other people's assets. It was like buying insurance on a car owned by a stranger, in the hopes of collecting money if the stranger's car crashed. (2)
It was gambling on the misfortune of others. But the problem was that the needed risks were not there. Still too much caution, and you can't make money with this scheme if people are too cautious.
So Paulson decided to take a more pro-active approach. What if he worked through a lending institution, to convince the most vulnerable to buy houses they couldn't afford? That way when they lost those homes, as they almost always did, his insurance policy "against" those foreclosures, would kick in.
This "insurance"—known as a credit default swap (CDS)—was simply a bet. One frustration for Paulson was that there just weren't enough of these stocks, known as collateral debt obligations (CDO), to bet against. So he decided to become proactive. He approached a number of investment banks with the request that they create more CDOs to sell to clients, so that he could then take out insurance betting these would fail. The arrangement Paulson had in mind was rife with potential conflicts of interest. He clearly wanted to help pick the mortgages that would make up the new CDOs. And he would obviously favour particularly risky subprime mortgages, thereby increasing the likelihood that the CDOs would become worthless and he would be able to collect on the "insurance" he had taken out.
Bear Stearns, the giant investment bank where Paulson had once served as managing director, said no to his scheme. But Goldman Sachs agreed to the arrangement, providing Paulson with his dream opportunity: a chance to bet on toxic CDOs worth about $5 billion.(2)
And when the bubble burst and $5 billion dollars worth of mortgages were deemed worthless, Paulson pocketed $1 billion in "insurance." And as his gambling continued to pay off, his net gain was $3.7 billion.
He did not earn this money, he stole it, and yet he was heralded as a hero on Wall Street. The triumph of an underdog. The Greatest Trade Ever, became the name of a book of his exploits, written by Wall Street Journal reporter, Gregory Zuckerman. How can this be?
Certainly, the Paulson—Goldman scheme set off a series of events with extremely negative repercussions. Investors purchasing the toxic CDOs lost billions of dollars, unaware that they were buying faulty merchandise. Furthermore, the scheme exacerbated the impact of the housing collapse and the near-bankruptcy of insurance giant AIG, which had sold some $64 billion of CDS "insurance" on CDOs related to subprime mortgages. AIG was unable to pay out the money it owed to those, like Paulson, who had bought insurance on now-worthless mortgage-related CDOs.
... But it gets worse. Insisting that AIG's bankruptcy would devastate credit markets, the U.S. government stepped in to prop up the giant insurance conglomerate. In a deal overseen by then Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson [no relation],' Washington bailed out AIG with $170 billion. Out of that huge pool of taxpayer money, AIG paid Goldman $14 billion to make good on the insurance Goldman had bought on its CDOs.' Similarly, it paid Paulson $1 billion.
This means that a billion dollars of taxpayer money went to ensure that Paulson was able to collect his gambling jackpot. ... So Paulson not only helped spark the financial collapse—with its ruinous repercussions for millions around the world—but he made off with $1 billion of the public's money for his role in what appears to be a crooked gambling scheme. (2)
These are the new heroes. Antiheroes who are able to garner admiration for destroying countless lives. And who we are being told we must give more of our money to, if we hope to survive. Pull out that public trough and gather the wealthy. Slurp, slurp, slurp.
It reminds me of the Irish genocide, dubbed the "potato famine". While people were starving, eight shiploads of produce a day, was leaving the island in export. The hungry masses would gather while the ships were being loaded, hoping to grab a few carrots or ears of corn that fell from the overloaded carts. But if they were caught, they were beaten or sometimes imprisoned.
That is exactly where our society is headed if we don't smarten up.
But What Does John Paulson Have to do With Us?
In 2006, while Paulson was cooking up his scheme, peddling subprime mortgages to unsophisticated would-be homeowners, on a notion that every American had the "right" to own a home, Jim Flaherty was also rubbing his hands together and frothing at the mouth, over his scheme that he said would “result in greater choice and innovation in the market for mortgage insurance, benefiting consumers and promoting home ownership...”
But an investigation by the Globe and Mail revealed:
... as the subprime mortgage crisis was exploding in the United States, a contagion of U.S.-style lending practices quietly crossed the border and infected Canada's previously prudent mortgage regime. New mortgage borrowers signed up for an estimated $56-billion of risky 40-year mortgages, more than half of the total new mortgages approved by banks, trust companies and other lenders during that time, according to banking and insurance sources. Those sources estimated that 10 per cent of the mortgages, worth about $10-billion, were taken out with no money down.
The mushrooming of a Canadian version of subprime mortgages has gone largely unnoticed. The Conservative government finally banned the practice last summer, after repeated warnings from frustrated senior officials and bankers that the country's financial system was being exposed to far too much risk as the housing market weakened. Just yesterday, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty repeated the mantra that the government acted early to get rid of risky mortgages. What he and Prime Minister Stephen Harper do not explain, however, is that the expansion of zero-down, 40-year mortgages began with measures contained in the first Conservative budget in May of 2006. (3)
And like Paulson and his ilk in the United States, there were legions of the unscrupulous, targeting the vulnerable in this country.
"The subprime lenders trashed the market. They were doing loans that no one else would do and people were shaking their heads saying, 'What are these guys doing?' " The data also revealed that scores of wealthy individuals dabbled in subprime lending at a time when many believed the real estate market was on a never-ending ride. Doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers and former bankers offered high-interest-rate mortgages to debt-laden homeowners, many of whom are now facing foreclosure proceedings." (4)
And it could very well hit us in the same way, as the Globe again revealed in 2009:
Since the subprime mortgage meltdown in the United States, Canadian leaders have assured the public that a similar tidal wave of foreclosures can't hit here. They have cited the prudence and market dominance of Canada's five most prominent banks, the conservatism of Canadian consumers and the tiny, 7-per-cent market share of subprime lenders, which is much lower than their 22-per-cent market share in the United States. Just four days ago in a speech, Prime Minister Harper said: "We have avoided the extreme of the unregulated, or barely regulated, financial and mortgage industries that has caused such grief around the world."
However, The Globe's investigation shows that while Canada's real estate sector hasn't suffered as much as its counterpart in the United States, the Prime Minister and others have grossly underestimated the impact of that small portion of subprime lenders.
... The number of subprime lenders who have initiated foreclosure proceedings isn't a surprise to anyone in the business, said Kap Hiroti, the owner of Foreclosurelist.ca, one of the companies that tracks foreclosures and supplied data for this story. "It was almost as if the lenders didn't see the big picture".... (4)
Or were they like Paulson, and did see the big picture? Flaherty allowed AIG (3) to insure our mortgages. Is there a Canadian John Paulson out there, now stuffing their pockets with our money, seeing as how the Canadian taxpayer was forced to bail out the banks when the crisis first hit?
Of course there are. In fact, many I would imagine. These people are not earning their money. They are con-artists and Canadians are being robbed at both ends.
We need to get back to our middle. During the post-war years the middle class began to thrive, often due to good paying union jobs. The rich still got richer, but we were OK with that, unless they got rich by stealing or trickery, and then they went to jail.
People bought homes and raised families, and governments could focus on issues that improved society. Public schools, healthcare, women's rights, equal rights ... All of the things that moved us toward a Just Society.
By suggesting that people like Rob Ford represent the middle class, suggests that the middle class don't care about the environment or poverty, only making a buck. How out of touch the media are.
Many lost good paying union jobs, and are now forced to work two or three part-time jobs, at minimum wage just to make ends meet. This keeps them from their families longer, and for young couples, they put off starting a family until they can afford it, which may be never.
Neoconservatives want to abolish unions altogether, instead allowing corporations to determine wages and employee standards. Many will boast that they are the children of factory workers and labourers who have made it on their own, forgetting that those factory workers were unionized, and their wages and benefits helped to keep them off the streets. And public healthcare and public education gave them the hand up they needed.
No one is really "self-made". We all had a hand in it.
The "Revolt of the Rich" is over. It's time for a revolt of the middle. But even when we vote out the neocons, we can't stop fighting.
And we have to remember that no political party and no politician has all the answers. What we need is a government that never stops questioning, and an informed public that does the same.
THINK!
Sources:
1. The Rights Revolution: CBC Massey Lectures, By Michael Ignatieff, Anansi, 2000, ISBN: 978-0-88784-762-2, pg. 111
2. The Trouble With Billionaires, By Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks, Viking Canada, 2010, ISBN: 978-670-06419-9, Pg. 93-99
A report detailing the effects of deregulation in the telecommunications industry finds Canada's three largest telephone companies have benefited at the expense of consumers.
... Its author, Michael Janigan, told CBC News that four years after deregulation, Bell, Telus and Rogers are making "super-normal profits," while consumers are paying too much and getting too little in terms of service.
"We still have three big players with over 90 per cent of the market, and they're pretty fat and happy," Janigan said in an interview with CBC News. "We're still seeing the incredible clout of the big telcos in relation to their ability to swing competition in their favour." The report points to a policy decision in December 2006 by then Industry Minister Maxime Bernier that ordered the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to use market forces to the maximum extent possible ...
Don't fret over all those profits though. They are getting another huge tax break. Whew. That was close. They almost had to give us some of our money back.
Higher taxes, higher gas prices, higher telephone bills. Good job Harper. Remind me again why neoconservatism is good for us.
Now that the NDP are backing billions more in tax cuts for the wealthy, the richest Canadians are being assured another nice chunk of our money, bringing those gifts to about 60 billion dollars, since Harper took office.
But on the flip side, those lucky enough to still have jobs, are lucky enough to have their taxes go up. Yeah!
... nearly all Canadian workers will pay more income and payroll taxes in 2011 ... The Canadian Taxpayers Federation released its annual tax calculations Tuesday and projected an average increase of 2 per cent in 2011 over 2010. The federation said Ontario residents will see the sharpest payroll tax hike, with British Columbia and Nova Scotia right behind them. While those three provinces will be particularly hard hit, the federation’s report said the working poor – regardless of region – will be seriously affected.
So the working poor will be forced to pay more, so that the idle rich can pay less. Don't you just love Neoconservatism?
And the government's response is typical.
“[The] Harper government has not increased taxes, we believe in lower taxes and we have the record to prove it – cutting over 100 taxes and lowering taxes $3,000 for an average family,” Mr. Pothier wrote in an e-mail. He added the Conservative government has kept EI premiums low with rate freezes. Minister of Finance Jim Flaherty released a statement Tuesday mentioning tax relief, though it only addressed a reduction in the corporate income tax rate.
"Tax relief". He took the words right out of George Bush's mouth.
And the Bush Administration knew how to sell tax cuts for the wealthy, by making it appear as though everyone enjoyed this so-called "relief". And by suggesting that the wealthy would use their tax cuts to create jobs. And when jobs continued to be lost, there was a simple remedy. Give the rich more "tax relief".
So how did Bush deal with this proven failure? Like the character in Chicago who said, "You going to believe what you see or what I tell you?," Bush in 2003 brazenly attacked the problem head-on. "That six percent [jobless] number should say loud and clear to members of both political parties in the U.S. Congress, we need robust tax relief so our fellow citizens can find jobs"—even though four-fifths of the job losses followed his 2001 tax relief. So when press secretary Ari Fleischer said in mid-2003 that "tax cuts have helped create jobs and to promote growth in the economy," he must have had the economy of the Cayman Islands in mind. (1)
And while constantly suggesting that the average American was paying less taxes, the opposite was true.
The President also kept heralding the statistic that the "average" family would get back $1,083 from his proposed 2003 cuts. This combination of populist rhetoric and actual data would be more appealing, however, if it were true. But based on data from the Tax Policy Center, 80 percent of Americans will get three-fourths less than W.'s claim of an "average" tax cut of $1,083. Filers in the middle quintile of the income spectrum—the "median" household—would receive only $227, and that before increased local and state taxes due to federal cutbacks are subtracted. And the 42 percent of taxpayers who are neither married nor have children would get a "little bitty" $50 on average, according to Citizens for Tax justice. By including in his "average" the $20,762 each of the top 1 percent of all tax filers would receive and the $89,509 returned to those 0.2 percent earning a million or more annually, Bush's figure perfectly fit Mark Twain's definition of a "stretcher"—literally true but misleading. (1)
And the Harper government has their own "stretchers" when it comes to this so-called $3000 "tax relief" that all Canadians are supposed to have enjoyed.
Are we really paying less taxes? They lowered the GST by 2% but then shoved the HST down our throats, even having the audacity to use our tax dollars as bribe money. And yes the GST portion of the HST is lower, but it has been put on things that we never paid GST on before. There is no net benefit.
THINK!
Just because they say it, doesn't make it true. You just have to learn to speak Neocon. It's a bit Orwellian but a lot more complex. But to crack the code, remember that all language used is "framed" and wrapped in calculated ambiguity.
THINK!
"Tax relief" translates to "please give me the shirt off your back so my chauffeur can use it to clean my Mercedes." Only they never say please.
"If Ottawa giveth, then Ottawa can taketh away." - Stephen Harper
Sources:
1. The Book on Bush: How George W. (mis) Leads America, By Eric Alterman and Mark Green, Penguin Books, 2004, ISBN: 0-670-03273-5, Pg. 39-40
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
The late Irving Kristol (d. 2009) was a self-proclaimed Straussian and by his own labelling, the "Godfather of Neoconversation". He wrote a series of essays and books that became the basis for the movement.
In one he discusses "welfare" or "relief" and why he finds the concept absurd. I would like to challenge Mr. Kristol, because I find his arguments absurd.
Leo Strauss often had "conversations" with Plato, or at least at times his challenges and insights read like conversations, so I would like to converse with and challenge Irving Kristol.
I realize that he was an intellectual and certainly out of my league, but I'm going to invoke Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition. "What I propose, therefore, is very simple: it is nothing more than to think what we are doing."
There is too much compliance to what we are told is good for us, and not enough thinking. Because when you break it down, it's pretty simple.
We are continually transferring huge amounts of money to a government who is supposed to be using that money for the betterment of all citizens, and instead are using the money for the betterment of a chosen few.
And that is something, I "think" about often.
Essay on Pauperism
"In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance. " - Stephen Harper (1)
Irving Kristol begins his musings on welfare by invoking Alexis de Tocqueville's, 1835 Essay on Pauperism.Tocqueville asks why, in the most "opulent" nation in the world [England], was there such an extraordinary problem of "pauperism". (The "problem" of pauperism, not necessarily a solution to.)
Concluding that too much public assistance can create idleness, he and Kristol also see a problem with the definition of poverty or pauperism. To the peasant, the ultimate goal was to have enough to eat. There was no desire to accumulate wealth. The only concern was survival.
However, in a modern city, the standards were different.
... in an "opulent" society, the idea of poverty itself undergoes a continual redefinition. The poor experience not only the need for a guaranteed minimum; they also suffer from what a modern sociologist would call "relative deprivation." Tocqueville puts the matter this way: "Among civilized peoples, the lack of a multitude of things causes poverty... In a country where the majority is ill-clothed, ill-housed, ill-fed, who thinks of giving clean clothes, healthy food, comfortable quarters to the poor? The majority of the English, having all these things, regard their absence as a frightful misfortune; society believes itself bound to come to the aid of those who lack them.... In England, the average standard of living a man can hope for in the course of his life is higher than in any other country of the world. This greatly facilitates the extension of pauperism in that kingdom." (2)
So the definition of poverty in the city, is different than that in the country.
The reasons for that, at least when this was written almost two centuries ago, was first off that those living in poverty in the city, had no land to work for food. But also their impoverishment was visible to those who took so much for granted.
How can you live conscience free, in a society with so much disparity?
The Welfare Explosion
The next body of work that Kristol critiqued was Regulating the Poor: The Function of Public Welfare by Frances Fox Piven and Richard A. Cloward. He calls their book "simpleminded", and "so crude in a quasi-Marxist way, that one is embarrassed to summarize it."
He scoffs at the notion from Piven and Cloward, that "Relief arrangements [under capitalism] are not shaped by the impulse to charity ... [they are] created and sustained to help deal with the malfunctions inherent in market economies."
Poverty in a modern society is often created by unemployment, and unemployment is often created when the "market economy" is in turmoil. The first to be cut by the corporate sector, during hard times, is the labour force, which creates a downward spiral.
The misguided notion that by giving more money to the corporate sector, jobs will be saved or created, has been proven over and over to be a myth. When companies were bailed out at the beginning of the latest "downturn", much of the money was used to give bonuses to executives and to buy up other companies that had gone bust.
Unemployment is still high, yet headlines in financial sections of newspapers, repeatedly include the words "record profits".
Piven and Cloward also wrote:
Relief arrangements are usually initiated or expanded in response to the political disorders that sometimes follow from the sharp economic downturns or dislocations that periodically beset market systems. The purpose of relief-giving at such times is not to ease hunger and want but to deal with civil disorder among the unemployed. (2)
Revolutions are often ignited by the lack of bread, real and metaphorical. And since Canada's crime rate is now at the lowest in our history, could this be why Stephen Harper is so intent on building more prisons?
"Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?" - Ebenezer Scrooge
So My Dear Mr. Kristol. This is What I "Think"
“These proposals included cries for billions of new money for social assistance in the name of “child poverty” and for more business subsidies in the name of “cultural identity”. In both cases I was sought out as a rare public figure to oppose such projects.” - Stephen Harper, (The Bulldog, National Citizens Coalition, February 1997)
Tocqueville also wrote that "There are two incentives to work: the need to live and the desire to improve the conditions of life." The basis of Neoconservatism or Libertarianism, is that everyone should look after themselves. But how can you find work when you have no clothing to wear, no food to eat, or no roof over your head?
Maybe if we take care of the first incentive, the second one will have a better chance of prevailing. We can always find money to give to Big Business or war, so there is no excuse not to channel a bit to our nation's disadvantaged, who might actually want to get out of the cycle of poverty.
Apparently the NDP and Conservatives are negotiating terms for the acceptance of the January budget. NDP finance critic, Thomas Mulcair, wants "future corporate cuts to be more targeted to ensure companies are investing in jobs and productivity."
"Future corporate tax cuts"? What happened to the NDP? Those terms should have been compulsory 50 billion dollars ago. From the day that Stephen Harper invited his corporate backers to slurp from the public trough. That is our money and we don't want "corporate tax cuts" that promise so much and give so little.
That money could have gone, and should be going, to actual job creation. If the NDP buy into this, they are going to lose most of their base.
The massive upward flow of income has largely been invisible to the public, even though it may well amount to the most significant change in Canadian society in decades. The impact on Canada's social fabric is huge and likely to grow. Recent research -- particularly the work of British epidemiologists Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett -- shows that less equal societies almost always have more violence, more disease, more mental health problems, higher infant mortality rates, reduced life expectancies, as well as less social cohesion. The effects are most pronounced at the bottom, but are evident throughout the society.
Or John Grace's review of the new book, Spirit Level, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, that he wrote for the UK Guardian.
They say, it's not just the deprived underclass that loses out in an unequal society: everyone does, even the better off. Because it's not absolute levels of poverty that create the social problems, but the differentials in income between rich and poor.
That is the only issue that the NDP should be raising. Not what to do with "future corporate tax cuts".
Irving Kristol speaks of the fact that welfare payments were based on the poverty level, which means that they are at the same as the lowest wage earner's income. But the problem is not the amount of "relief" but the fact that wages are so low. There's no reason for it.
And if he felt that this meant that people wouldn't work, as a result, he might want to think about a national childcare plan, because often those on assistance are single parents, who can't work for poverty level wages, and pay someone else to look after their children while they work.
He also felt that welfare took away a man's masculinity: "... welfare robs the head of the household of his economic function, and tends to make of him a "superfluous man." And he suggests that if single mothers are paid to raise their children, they will stay single or get rid of their male partner.
Notwithstanding the inequality of that notion, the problem again relates not only to unemployment, but the ability of people to work. Food, healthcare, clothing, shelter and childcare. Those needs must first be met.
And jobs paying higher than the poverty level, provide revenue from income tax, that can go to helping others to abandon their pauperism.
Yes, there will always be cheats, just as there will always be Big Business demanding more and more of our tax dollars, in some perverse sense of entitlement.
So my dear Mr. Kristol. Neoconservatism is failing society, but thanks for playing. And to my dear Mr. Mulcair. Give your head a shake.
"Courage, my friends; 'tis not too late to build a better world." - Tommy Douglas
It was always there. We saw it. A strong connection with George Bush that was often dismissed as hyperbole when mentioned, and playing the Bush card became akin to playing the Hitler card.
And yet as we scrambled to figure out who Stephen Harper was, and what he wanted with us; what we may not have realized was that south of the border, others experienced the same confusion when G.W. first hit the scene.
I picked up The Book on Bush, by Eric Alterman and Mark Green, at a library sale and started reading it last night, and I had such a lightbulb moment, it almost blinded me.
Alterman and Green start out by saying that during the 2000 campaign, most Americans, including many Democrats, saw Bush as non-threatening, and while they preferred Gore, would not have been too upset if Bush beat him.
When George W. Bush ran for president in 2000 he was presented to the nation by his campaign handlers and a sympathetic media as a nice-enough fellow who didn't take himself or much of anything else—save perhaps his family and religion—too seriously. Though polls consistently showed that a majority of voters held views closer to those of Democratic candidate Al Gore—and, indeed, a 52 percent majority did end up voting for Al Gore or Ralph Nader—even most of Bush's opponents did not see his presidency as much of a threat to their beliefs. (1)
With Stephen Harper it was a little different. During the 2004 election campaign, Canadians were a little frightened of him. He looked mad all the time and had emerged from those Reform Party nuts. So Harper's challenge was to re-invent himself into something less intimidating. And he did. And Canadians fell for it, hook, line and sinker. Polls even showed that he was the most trusted of the political leaders. Quite an accomplishment for a man that few really knew anything about.
The authors of the Book on Bush stated that after elected, G.W. pulled the old bait and switch. With Harper is wasn't quite as obvious, because he wasn't guaranteed four years. With only a minority, he wasn't even guaranteed four months.
But the similarities are still striking.
A "belief that America's forty-third president would govern from the happy middle of the partisan divide." "Bush is an incrementalist." And yet he "proceeded to embark on the most radical presidency in modern times."
All of this has a familiar ring. But hold on to your hat. You ain't seen nothin' yet.
Similarly, we remember the early Bush-Harper connections, but "tend to forget" the frequency, or perhaps more importantly, fail to understand, just how fundamental the similarities actually are. Alterman and Green write of Bush:
... his hard-right agenda strikes out in so many directions simultaneously that it's nearly impossible for the average citizen to keep up. In his first term as president, Bush has sought to explode precedents in almost every area of governance, whether the policy in question be foreign or domestic, popular or unpopular, old or new, effective or not. He has done so in contempt of the opinions of not only his opponents but also many of the corps of professional experts who are charged with nonpartisan evaluation of government programs purely from a standpoint of efficacy. (1)
A paragraph like that is one written often now, when referring to the Harper government. They act contra to the wishes of Canadians or the advice of experts. "Conclusions produce "facts" rather that "facts' helping to draw conclusions" (1)
And while their "hard-right agenda strikes out in so many directions simultaneously", that is not an accident. I see it as order hidden behind a cloak of disorder. It appears scattered but is not.
Neoconservatism is a political theology. Nothing is random. Nothing organic.
A Few Compelling Revelations from the Book on Bush
All of these are only from the introduction, which I read over a few times, I found them so shocking. These are my top ten:
1. Bush reduced press conferences by 75% and only answered questions presented in advance. "By the fall of his third year, the father Bush had held sixty-one press conferences; his son by the same time, nine."
2. Bushed ignored the polls and editorials that expressed the wishes of Americans, and instead began "...any policy consideration with three fundamental questions: What does the religious right want? What does big business want? What do the neocons want?"
3. "Karl Rove [suggested] that the way to a second term is to "activate the base"... to satisfy his core conservative constituencies. And if facts clash with the established orthodoxy, he'll stick with his base, not the facts."
4. "... it's traditional for presidents to be observant, to regularly invoke God and attend church. Difficulties can arise, however, if either a public official appears indebted to religious zealots or bases policy significantly on his particular religious beliefs ... Karl Rove would likely rather risk an international holy war than a drop in Bush's support among Christian conservatives."
5. "... the marriage of big business and politics isn't just the world that Bush grew up in; from oil to the Texas Rangers to fund-raising, it's all he's ever known. Ralph Nader teased in 2000 that "George Bush is a corporation running for president disguised as a person" ... "Mr. Bush is a business school graduate who has stuffed his administration with multimillionaire chief executives. There can be no doubt where his sympathies lie." "
6. "By the time the two authors of this work set down to examine Bush policies in major areas of domestic and foreign policy, it was everywhere evident that they were not simply ad hoc reactions to problems as they arose. Rather, they were conscious attempts to reorder the priorities of the U.S. government both at home and abroad and permanently alter Americans' relationship with their government, with one another, and with the rest of the world ... Others have noted that his foreign policies have caused the United States to be reviled across the world as never before, without in any way appreciably increasing our security."
7. "Still others focus on Bush's favoring of the wealthy over the poor, and the contempt, rhetoric notwithstanding, with which his administration treats average Americans."
8. "Sometimes the president seems to think that vagueness, non sequiturs, and tautology are enough to explain away his political problems ... Another frequent maneuver is to talk left/govern right to the point that Bush seems to think he can get away with anything if he declares its opposite.
9. "... of Bush's program of tax cuts for the wealthiest few. Almost no one with even a college degree in economics really expects them to offer a cure for the myriad problems that ail the economy, and in many respects they are the problem itself. But all of this is hard to prove in the face of Bush's repeated assertions about his "jobs and growth" package. Bush, meanwhile, speaks as if the future will fall into line with his beliefs once it recognizes his personal resolve."
10. "President Bush is actively seeking "to roll back the twentieth century." The draining of the public treasury to benefit the very rich is just the start of an effort designed to reduce government to a size where, as close Bush ally and conservative political organizer Grover Norquist has so memorably said, you can finally "drown it in the bathtub." "
The way in which Eric Alterman and Mark Green, sum up George W. Bush, they could have easily been writing about Stephen Harper.
We aim to demonstrate, based on the evidence presented by expert analyses, the likely consequences of an environmental policy run for the benefit of the energy industry; an economic policy that beggars the poor, comforts the rich, and destroys the basis of fiscal solvency for the nation; an education policy that "leaves behind" those most in need; a science policy that flatters the prejudices of theological fundamentalists; and a foreign policy that creates hatred and terror where none existed before, undermining our alliances and threatening our security. In each of these cases, the Bush modus operandi has been to say one thing and do another, whether promising tax saving for everyone but giving the lion's share to the wealthy few or vowing to protect America from threats while inflating nonexistent ones and ignoring those against which we can be defended.
How does he do it? There are a variety of methods that add up to what playwright Arthur Miller terms Bush's "power of audacity." (1)
According to Bloombergs
