Despite the allegations of sexual misconduct, Herman Cain continues to poll high with Republicans.
And yet they wasted millions of tax dollars in an attempt to impeach President Bill Clinton, because of a sex scandal. Clinton's was consensual. Cain's appear to have been uninvited assaults.
When it was discovered that "family values" czar, Vic Toews, had fathered a child with a young staffer, destroying his marriage, there was barely a murmur from the Right. In fact with mounting scandals, they continue to defend the Harper government, blaming the media and liberals.
David Kuo, a former member of the Bush (G.W.) administration wrote a book, Tempting Faith: An Inside Story of Political Seduction. He also speaks of this phenomenon. Despite the horrendous things that George Bush did, the Christian Right stuck with him. He said it was because Bush was considered to be a "brother in Christ". A "born again" Christian who might slip up once in a while, and it was their duty to be there when he did.
He did a lot of slipping. They must have been exhausted.
Kuo broke through the holier than thou image, and while still a devout Christian, is no longer a member of the political movement. He saw too many things that tested his faith, not the least of which was the fact that the Bush team referred to Kuo and his colleagues, as "the F---ing faith based group".
They were an annoying distraction.
As further proof of their hypocrisy, Newt Gingrich is beginning to "surge". A womanizer, who cheated on two of his wives, one while she was dying of cancer.
I hope they come out with a sinner's guide book soon, because I'm confused.
In 1911, the United States Supreme Court broke up Standard Oil, then the largest multinational corporation, because it was simply becoming too big and powerful. The company's battles with former president Teddy Roosevelt were legendary, as depicted in this 1906 Punch cartoon.
Standard Oil New Jersey has since grown to become Exxon, so unfortunately the action did not stop the continued threat of corporations becoming more powerful than government.
The XL pipeline that Harper plans to build for the Koch Brothers, that will send bitumen to the U.S. for refining, is causing concern on both sides of the border.
However, while the pipeline is an important area for discussion, we should also be looking closely at the company that our government is doing business with.
Not only have the Koch Brothers waged a war against President Obama, but they are also engaged in some troubling international escapades.
They revealed that the company had been bribing foreign government officials to secure contracts.
When that story first broke, Koch went into damage mode, firing many who were simply following orders. Also fired typically was the whistle blower.
However, more troubling was the fact that they were supplying Iran with chemicals, through their foreign subsidiaries, side stepping the sanctions against the country that George Bush included in his "axis of evil". (A term coined by his former speechwriter, David Frum)
Internal company records show that Koch Industries used its foreign subsidiary to sidestep a U.S. trade ban barring American companies from selling materials to Iran. Koch-Glitsch offices in Germany and Italy continued selling to Iran until as recently as 2007, the records show. The company’s products helped build a methanol plant for Zagros Petrochemical Co., a unit of Iran’s state-owned National Iranian Petrochemical Co., the documents show. The facility, in the coastal city of Bandar Assaluyeh, is now the largest methanol plant in the world, according to IHS Inc., an Englewood, Colorado-based provider of chemicals, energy and economic data.
So while funding the Tea Party, who claim to be the only true patriots, Koch is unpatriotically doing business with a deemed enemy, providing them with sensitive materials.
This used to be called treason. Now it's called the Free Market.
Of course this is business as usual for the corporate sector. IBM created a punch card system for the Nazis that helped to categorize all German and European Jews and other minorities. According to Andrew Marshall in Financing Fascism: The Military-Industrial Complex and the Rise of Neo-Conservatism
The punch card machines would punch in specific numbers, which would have different meanings, for example, one number would identify the person to whom it is being assigned as a Jew or a Gypsy or a Communist, and so on. Another number would determine the person’s fate, assigning specific numbers to mean slave labour, to be shot or what was termed ‘the special treatment’; gas chambers. These numbers were then tattooed onto the arms of each person interned in concentration camps. When Allied troops entered concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, there inside the camps, they found the punch card machines clearly showing the proud corporate logo of IBM. There are even photos of the CEO of IBM sitting down at a table with Hitler in the early 1930s.
IBM was not the only corporation to profit from the Holocaust. According to Marshall, GM manufactured many of the vehicles Hitler used in his military campaign, and through their German subsidiary company, Opel helped to build leaded gasoline plants for the dictator.
Other companies profiting from Nazi aggression included Ford, Standard Oil of New Jersey (now Exxon), Chase Manhattan Bank (now J.P Morgan Chase), DuPont, Dow Chemical - the list goes on.
However, there was another Nazi war profiteer that should give us pause. Prescott Bush, grandfather of George Bush. He was the director and Vice President of the Union Banking Corporation, that helped to finance many Nazi pursuits. Another of his business ventures, the Silesian-American Corporation, profited from slave labour at Auschwitz concentration camp. (2)
When it was discovered that Bush was conducting business with the Nazis, he had his assets frozen, but after the war was compensated by the U.S. government to the tune of $1.5 million. That was how he started the Bush family fortune. Prescott Bush would go on to become a U.S. Senator, and both his son and grandson, Presidents. Who said that crime doesn't pay?
With Harper and company posturing over Iran, why are they getting into bed with those supplying chemical to the "enemy"? "The biggest threat to the world?"
And they wonder why the necessity of the Occupy Wall Street movement.
The closest my father ever got to a cuss word was "cripes", but that word packed a wallup. So CRIPES why are we allowing corporations to get so big that they can not only push us into war but profit by supplying the other side?
As the military’s senior logistician in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, I saw the impact of our oil addition in the Iraq combat zone. Our appetite for fuel wastes billions of taxpayer dollars, transfers $1 billion daily in our wealth to the Middle East, and puts our soldiers at risk. The fuel trucks we depend upon provide hundreds of convenient rolling targets for our enemy. My experiences in Iraq convinced me that the greatest threat to our security is our over-reliance on oil and that Americans must immediately take steps to cut our petro-addiction before it’s too late.
The Keystone XL pipeline doesn’t help. This pipeline would move dirty oil from Canada to refineries in Texas and would set back our renewable energy efforts for at least two decades, much to our enemies’ delight. It would ensure we maintain our oil addiction and delay making the tough decisions regarding energy production, management and conservation that we need to start making today.
The $7 billion that Harper is sinking into this project could be better spent
Sources:
1. “IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America’s Most Powerful Corporation”, By Edwin Black, Crown Publishers, New York, 2001
2. "How Bush’s grandfather helped Hitler’s rise to power", By Ben Aris and Campbell Duncan, The Guardian, September 25, 2004.
It's interesting looking back to George W. Bush and when he first came to office. Many were then concerned with their loss of democracy, in light of the fact that Bush had stolen the election.
The theft of our election by Harper, wasn't apparent until later.
Cheating with the "In and Out" scandal, when candidates scammed tax payers out of almost $800,000.00, getting rebates they weren't entitled to. And the party spending more than a million dollars over and above the legal limit.
Dirty tricks.
They used the RCMP to discredit the Liberals in the middle of the election. The entire thing turned out to be a setup.
Dirty tricks.
And one of the leading members of the American Religious Right, Paul Weyrich, instructed his members to not talk to our media, because Harper didn't want Canadians to know how deeply he was involved in the American movement.
Dirty tricks.
And as Michael Moore reminds us, the United States before George Bush was a different place.
Pardon me if I was dreaming, but weren't things looking up ...? Weren't we supposed to be living through the "largest economic expansion in history"? Hadn't the government ended fifty-five years of operating in the red and finally boasted a "cash surplus" large enough to fix every road, bridge, and tooth in America?
Air and water pollution were at their lowest levels in decades, crime was at a record low, teen pregnancies had dropped out of sight, and more kids were graduating from high school and college than ever before. Old people lived longer ... Palestinians broke bread with Israelis, Catholics shared a pint with Protestants in Northern Ireland. Yes, life was getting a whole lot better—and we all felt it. People were friendlier, strangers on the street would give you the time of day, and Regis made the questions easier so we could have more millionaires.
By mid-2001, thirty-seven countries were at war around the world. The United Nations kicked us off their Human Rights Commission, and the European Union attacked us for unilaterally violating the ABM treaty by reintroducing "Star Wars." ... In short, all of a sudden everything sucked. Whether it's the shaky economy, depleted energy supplies, elusive world peace, no job security, no health care, or the simple unusable ballot we were given to pick a President, it has become maddeningly clear to most Americans that nothing seems to work.
And the so-called global economic melt down, was caused by further deregulation, under Bush.
Before Harper, we were sitting on a surplus, our debt had been substantially paid down and though we were in Afghanistan, after four years, we had only lost 11 soldiers. I don't like to really use the word "only" when it comes to deaths, but compared with the 143 under Harper's watch, it's worth noting. And that's because, according to Rick Hillier, our prime minister made the decision to put our troops in the most dangerous areas of conflict. And why? To impress George Bush.
And we have also been rebuked by the United Nations because of our aggressive foreign policy and our many attempts to sabotage action aimed at slowing down Global Warming.
And the Harper government had spent through our surplus long before the economic crisis. Bush took eight years to destroy his country. Harper did it in five. We are now sitting on a record debt and deficit, women's rights have been diminished, gay rights are non-existent, and the tone of our political discourse is ugly and toxic.
It was one of those rare times politicians from all parties on Parliament Hill agreed. They concluded that Canadians’ right to know demanded significant enhancements to the Access to Information Act based on the premise that democracy thrives best in the light of day. But Justice Minister Rob Nicholson dismissed the October 2009 recommendations from the Commons committee — in direct contrast to the Conservatives’ 2006 promise to be the picture of openness and accountability.
And though Brennan brings up the Liberal record, everyone agrees that government secrecy has NEVER been this bad. A common statement is that they've "never seen anything like this".
The Harperites are pointing to their Accountability Act, which turned out not to be worth the paper it was written on. The office they refer to was opened only to say that it was there. By 2009, it was still just a room:
The government should scrap the Federal Public Appointments Commission because it still doesn't have a promised patronage watchdog and has spent $1-million since 2006, says NDP MP Pat Martin.
Canadian taxpayers have shelled out more than $1 million for a federal appointments commission that has no commissioners and hasn’t overseen a single appointment in four years. In fact, it isn’t even supposed to exist. Stephen Harper created the commission in 2006, and promptly scrapped it in a huff. Yet the spending continues, and indeed the commission lives on, despite serving no apparent use.
His accountability is non-existent and our democracy has disappeared. But everything he's done, he learned from George W. Bush. Spend, lie, cheat and destroy.
Sources:
1. Stupid White Men: And Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Union, By: Michael Moore, Regan Books, 2001, ISBN: 0-06-039245-2, Introduction
"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
With income disparity being the hot topic topic today, there are many of us questioning how the wealthiest citizens, have been able to convince the poorest, that they should be on their side. If conventional wisdom is to soothe the huddled masses, to avoid civic unrest, I don't think it will work in the long term. Eventually growling stomachs will drown out the burps of the well fed.
I actually blogged on this before, questioning the phenomenon, and while I still haven't figured it out completely, I'm getting closer to understanding the tactics used to create this perverse logic.
The wealthy speak the language of their "peasants". It's despicable, but brilliant.
George Bush belongs to one of the wealthiest families in America. His grandfather, Preston Bush, made a fortune financing the Nazis. And the Bush Administration was by far the best friends that Wall Street ever had. And yet much of his support came from Americans with little help of acquiring much wealth.
Karl Rove insisted that when President Bush had "a choice between Wall Street and Main Street," he came on down on the side of "the little guy." And yet the exact opposite was true. Elitism masquerading as populism:
A president who believes in "preventive" military wars certainly understands the value of preventive rhetoric in political wars. At the start of the 2003 battle over his "jobs and growth plan," while talking to reporters at his Crawford, Texas, ranch on January 2, Bush said, "I understand the politics of economic stimulus—that some would like to turn this into class warfare. That's not how I think."
What should it be called, then, when a father and his son attacked rival Michael Dukakis for representing the "Harvard boutique"? Or when Bush Id AP reporter Scott Lindlaw—during a month long vacation at his ranch said--Most Americans don't sit in Martha's Vineyard swilling white wine." Or when W., telling how a teacher and a fireman had difficulty finding a doctor during a pregnancy, blasted high medical malpractice rates, concluding with "What we want is quality healthcare, not rich trial lawyers"? Writing in the Washington Post, E. J. Dionne observed that "if setting up a teacher and a firelighter against 'rich trial lawyers' is not class warfare, then Karl Marx is the current editor of the Wall Street Journal's editorial page."
In George W. Bush we have a president who's a fourth-generation business heir, a man who never really pounded the pavement but accumulated his wealth through family contacts and favors. As president, he moves aggressively and successfully to enact a fiscal program that (a) reduces taxes on the "investor class" more in percentage terms than on the middle class, b) abolishes the "dead billionaires' tax" (estate tax), (c) shifts the burden of taxes to "earned" income and away from "unearned income" (dividends and capital gains), and, for good measure, (d) changes IRS practice so fewer multimillionaires are audited and more poor people are. (The number of civil fraud penalties against corporations plunged two-thirds, from 555 in 1993 to 159 in 2002.) Given that tax cuts for the top I percent equal all the cuts to the bottom 90 percent—and given the trillions of dollars quietly shifting from the accounts of labor and future generations to today's investor class—George W. Bush is redistributing wealth far more than George McGovern or Huey Long ever dreamed possible. (1)
And Bush's tactics are not his alone, but part of the neoconservative strategy.
In Ontario, Neocon Mike Harris used this tactic with NDP leader Bob Rae, often referring to him as "The Professor", because he was a Rhodes Scholar. He also feigned empathy with those struggling due to his policies, by suggesting that he knew what it was like to have to live on beans and bologna, something his parents were quick to refute. Harris never ate those things out of necessity, if ever. He grew up in an affluent home.
Stephen Harper, also grew up never knowing hunger, and yet he tries to paint himself as a man of the people. Opposing those who live in "Ivory Towers", to justify his cuts to the Arts and the Draconian crime bills. And like Bush, who criticized rival Michael Dukakis for representing the "Harvard boutique", Harper is constantly using "Harvard" terms to discredit Michael Ignatieff, who not only got his PhD from there, but also taught at Harvard for about five years.
And let's not forget during the last debates, when Harper pretended to understand how the unemployed felt, by saying that he himself had been unemployed for several months. Yet when reporters later asked him about it, he admitted that he was sitting at home waiting for an election, while his wife ran a lucrative printing business. Her biggest client was the Reform Party that he would be running for. That's not unemployed, it's lazy.
And then there's Rob Ford, another millionaire trying to speak "peasant". And he brings on board yet another millionaire spokesperson for the "little guy", Don Cherry.
We have got to start breaking down the Neocon language. Corporations are funnelling huge amounts of money to think tanks and foundations, all attempting to convince citizens that extreme wealth held by a few is good for us. THINK!
Does that make any sense to you? THINK!
Are the seniors (Baby Boomers) really at fault? THINK!
Is Stephen Harper really a Tory? THINK!
Should Canadians go further into debt to give corporations another huge gift? THINK!
And when you're done thinking, VOTE!
It's time to take this country back, because the only ones feeding from the public trough are the gluttons, and the Harper government is spoon feeding them.
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, 54-55
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
"I notice one provision of this bill; it's the only new provision, and this is dangerous. Some of you who have been around this House for a while will know this, and some in the cabinet must be concerned. The new provision eliminates the policy and priorities board of cabinet, effectively giving more control of government decision-making to the Premier's office. Well, we know who that means. That means Guy Giorno's got more power ...." James Bradly MPP St. Catherines, 1998 (1)
I started reading the book Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, and it was like getting hit between the eyes with a brick.
Where had I heard this story before?
Well of course. They were describing Guy Giorno and Mike Harris. The criticisms that Americans had about the Rove-Bush duo were the same ones that were heard about the Giorno-Harris duo. But even more alarming, they are now the same criticisms of the Giorno-Harper duo. The only difference is that up until a few weeks ago, we didn't realize how much power Guy Giorno had.
Stephen Harper may not be a dictator after all. He's a cardboard cutout made to look prime ministerial. That's why he doesn't talk to us because if you got too close, you'd realize there's nothing there. He's an illusion.
And all this time, the media has been calling him a brilliant strategist, which never really fit. He's always been more an attack dog, than a thinker. Just like Mike Harris.
And reading a bit of the official transcripts from that session of the Ontario legislature, was like deja vu. How did we miss this? Giorno is not centralizing power for Stephen Harper. He's centralizing it for himself.
We need to be concerned about this, because he is not an elected official, and all of his actions are not based on what's good for the country, but how to get his cardboard cutout reelected. Next election we have to make sure that Canadians know who they are really voting for. A corporate attorney, who has been in more executive washrooms than Heidi Fleiss.
So no more lurking in the shadows. We need to make his, the most visible face in the country.
That Session of the Ontario Legislature Reveals Even More
What was being debated when Bradley realized that it meant Giorno would have even more power, was Bill 25, "An Act to reduce red tape by amending or repealing certain Acts and by enacting two new Acts."
This was the birth of the "Red Tape Commission" that really meant no more bothersome inspections. And the end of those bothersome inspections, resulted in the Walkerton Water Tragedy.
This is a story about fanaticism and death. The dead are buried in fresh graves in the cemeteries of Walkerton, Ontario. The fanatics are very much alive, going about their daily business in the Premier's office and the cabinet room in Queen's Park ... Investigators are still working to determine exactly how deadly E. coli 0157 bacteria found their way into Walkerton's water in May, causing at least seven and perhaps 11 deaths, and leaving hundreds seriously ill. The story of the Walkerton tragedy is not, however, primarily a story about Walkerton at all. This was no unforeseen accident. It was the predictable - and predicted - result of deliberate policy decisions which gravely compromised the safety of Ontario's drinking water. The broader story of Walkerton is the story of repeated warnings, from many different experts, officials, and agencies, that the Harris government's environmental cutbacks were putting public health in jeopardy. And it is the story of how those warnings were dismissed ... (2)
And guess what was in the last budget? Yep. Canada now has a "Red Tape Commission". It will be like playing Russian Roulette every time you eat or drink anything.
Drawing inspiration from the way British Columbia and Ontario streamlined regulations, Flaherty announced the creation of a new Red Tape Reduction Commission, with a mandate to reduce the paper burden of complying with federal rules on small business in particular. Less regulation and freer trade are both well within Flaherty’s comfort zone. (3)
Now back to Ontario in 1998 (following emphasis mine):
The policy and priorities board of cabinet is the most important committee of cabinet. It is the committee that deals with the priorities for the government and the general policymaking for the government. Now that's taken out of the hands of the cabinet and I think that's going into the hands of Guy Giorno and the whiz kids in the back rooms of the Conservative Party ...
... Of course those who are still hopeful of getting into cabinet interject in favour of Guy Giorno and that crew, because they know that Guy is going to be checking off checkmarks for who's getting into cabinet ... I tell my friend from Brampton that if he wants to get into the cabinet, like his colleague, he should be good to Guy Giorno and Deb Hutton*. Deb's now been with the Tory caucus 10 years; celebrating her 33rd birthday in mid-August. She has all kinds of power.
All these people advise, so what I'm saying to the members of the Conservative caucus who want into the cabinet is, yes, be nice to Mike, laugh very loudly at the jokes, lead the applause when Mike speaks and gives an answer that zaps the opposition, but the most important thing is to ingratiate yourself with Guy Giorno and the whiz kids, because they will be advising the Premier on who goes into the cabinet, who gets shuffled one way or another ... you all thought he was being honest with you, being true to you, and now you find out that Guy Giorno is going to have even more power and all those people, the whiz kids in the back room, are going to have even more power. Some of them get elevated to the cabinet. I see that my friend Tony Clement, the member for Brampton South, has less power now that he's in the cabinet than he had when he was a whiz kid ... (1)
The bill passed and among the 'ayes' were Jim Flaherty, John Baird and Tony Clement, while those "Whiz Kids" continued to whiz all over Ontario for a few more years. We're still trying to scrub off the stains.
Footnotes:
*Deb Hutton is married to Tim Hudak, the new Ontario neoconservative leader, who's being groomed by Mike Harris.
Bush is the product. Rove is the marketer. One cannot succeed without the other .... The inherent danger in an arrangement where the political advisor also drives policy is that the consultant is deciding what is best for the next election cycle and his political party while the president needs to be considering what best serves the country beyond election day. These two interests are frequently divergent and in conflict.
The end result is obvious: Karl Rove thinks it, and George W. Bush does it. That's the way it works. And it works well. Rove's political strategies are steering administration decisions on domestic issues and foreign policy. Karl Rove's political calculations have proved more often right than wrong and, for a president interested in reelection, a formula that sways a constituency or adds electoral votes is something he cannot afford to ignore. (1)
This relationship left Rove's biographers to point out: Karl Rove has posed a new and disturbing question for American voters and their republic. Who really runs this country? (2)
When Guy Giorno, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, made a rare public appearance recently to testify before a House committee looking into government secrecy, even some veteran Parliament Hill news photographers needed to have him pointed out so they would know which way to aim their lenses. Giorno’s spotlight-shy style makes him an unfamiliar figure, but the issues he’s intimately caught up in couldn’t be more conspicuous. In the past, critics inside the Conservative party have grumbled that his bad advice led to missteps by Stephen Harper—sparking a public backlash when the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament in January, and bringing the Tories to the brink of defeat in late 2008 when the opposition formed a coalition over the threat of losing their federal subsidies.
On the other hand, senior Tories credit Giorno as a key architect of last year’s budget, and the aggressive marketing of it as “Canada’s Economic Action Plan”—a springboard for the Conservatives’ bounce in the polls this spring ... “People can pick apart and second-guess individual tactical decisions that impact the Ottawa news cycle ... but Giorno has gotten the big things right.”
Sometimes, however, predicting when this week’s tactical decision might turn into next month’s unwelcome big thing is not easy. As a devout Catholic whose faith has never been far from the centre of his politics, Giorno is assumed to have played a role in the government’s decision to ban foreign aid funding for abortions. It was controversial from the outset, but the move has grown to cast a huge shadow over Harper’s bid to make “maternal and child health” in developing countries his signature cause when he hosts the G8 and G20 summits in Huntsville, Ont., and Toronto next month.
Perhaps more than any issue that’s arisen in Giorno’s nearly two years as Harper’s top adviser, outlawing overseas abortion funding threatens to drag him unwillingly toward the centre of media attention. Montreal’s Le Devoir reported a few days ago that an unhappy Harper wants the matter defused before world leaders, many of whom disagree with his stance, arrive in Ontario for the summits. But Giorno is reportedly worried about how Conservative supporters would react to any retreat and is urging Harper to “protect the base.” (3)
"Urging Harper to protect his base"? The job of a Canadian prime minister is not to "protect his base". The job of a Canadian prime minister is to do what's best for Canadians. And to do what is expected from Canadians, not a backroom operative. And yet that's what's happening here.
Guy Girono made the decision to end voter subsidies.
Guy Giorno made the decision to prorogue Parliament.
Guy Giorno was the architect of the budget.
Guy Giorno made the decision to spend millions (and millions, and millions) on campaign style advertising at our expense.
Guy Giorno made the decision to ban foreign aid funding for abortions.
Which begs the question: Who really runs this country?
Sources:
1. Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Made George W. Bush Presidential, By James Moore and Wayne Slater, John Wiley & Sons, 2003, ISBN: 0-471-42327-0, Pg. 11
2. Moore and Slater, 2003, Pg. 17
3. Guy Giorno: national man of mystery: PM’s chief of staff target for blame, but insiders say he gets big things right, by John Geddes, May 31, 2010
A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada
"Why should you have the slightest difficulty in adjusting the trend of what you write to the interests of the State? It is possible that the Government may sometimes be mistaken—as to individual measures—but it is absurd to suggest that anything superior to the Government might take its place. What is the use therefore of editorial skepticism? It only makes people uneasy." Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment, Nazi Germany(1)
It would appear, dare I hope, that the Canadian media is finally waking up, and fighting back against Harper's attempt to not only silence the press but manipulate public opinion.
A few weeks ago, many journalists nodded knowingly at this Tweet by Canadian Press reporter Jennifer Ditchburn. "My Friday giggle... a spokesperson who emails me 'on background' and then says: I can't answer your question." It's a bit of gallows humour about a problem that began as a minor annoyance for reporters working on Parliament Hill in Ottawa and has grown into a genuine and widespread threat to the public's right to know. (2)
From Time Magazine 1933 concerning Joseph Goebbels: He held in his thin, knob-knuckled hands last week a new National Press Law making it a crime to practice journalism in Germany except as a licensed member of a nationwide closed shop. The law covers "all persons who take a share in forming the mental contents of any newspaper or political periodical through the written word or pictures." (1)
From the Ottawa Press Gallery:
Under Prime Minister Stephen Harper, the flow of information out of Ottawa has slowed to a trickle. Cabinet ministers and civil servants are muzzled. Access to Information requests are stalled and stymied by political interference. Genuine transparency is replaced by slick propaganda and spin designed to manipulate public opinion. The result is a citizenry with limited insight into the workings of their government and a diminished ability to hold it accountable. As journalists, we fear this will mean more government waste, more misuse of taxpayer dollars, more scandals Canadians won't know about until it's too late.
It's been four years since Harper muzzled his cabinet ministers and forced reporters to put their names on a list during rare press conferences in hopes of being selected to ask the prime minster a question. It's not uncommon for reporters to be blackballed, barred from posing questions on behalf of Canadians. More recently, information control has reached new heights. Access to public events is now restricted. (2)
From Time Magazine 1936:
Because Adolf Hitler's speeches may be used to prove almost anything, the Nazi Commission of Inspection of Nazi Literature announced that Hitler's speeches may not be quoted in print hereafter without the Commission's express permission. Hearing that the rebellious pastors of the German Evangelical [Lutheran] Church plan to print and circulate privately their unanswered protest to the Reichsführer against practically everything going on in Nazi Germany, the Gestapo (secret police) raided Confessional Synod offices, lugged off typewriters, mimeograph and printing machines. (3)
We are now one "lugged off typewriter" away from the Gestapo:
Photographers and videographers have been replaced by hand-out photos and footage shot by the prime minister's press office and blitzed out to newsrooms across Canada. It's getting tougher to find an independent eye recording history, a witness seeing things how they really happened -- not how politicians wish they'd happened. .. Those hand-out shots are, unfortunately, widely used by media outlets, often without the caveat that they are not real journalism. In the end, that means Canadians only get a sanitized and staged version of history -- not the real history. (2)
From 1934 Time Magazine:
Perhaps Germany's Minister of Propaganda & Public Enlightenment, Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, compelled the publication of a report in Berlin newspapers last week that a Nazi anatomist had discovered the precise cause of cancer. At least that is what scientists who respect Wilhelm von Bremer of Berlin's State Biological Institute would like to believe ... When he read the Berlin news, Professor Francis Carter Wood, director of Columbia University's Institute for Cancer Research and editor of the American Journal of Cancer sneered: "This is all rot. There's nothing to it. Plenty of this sort of stuff is coming out of Germany just now." (4)
From the Ottawa Press Gallery:
Meanwhile, the quality of factual information provided to the public has declined steadily. Civil servants -- scientists, doctors, regulators, auditors and policy experts, those who draft public policy and can explain it best to the population -- cannot speak to the media. Instead, reporters have to deal with an armada of press officers who know very little or nothing at all about a reporter's topic and who answer tough questions with vague talking points vetted by layers of political staff and delivered by email only. (2)
The point is that Canadians really have no idea who or what this government is. We have no idea what they are really doing and we have no idea who Stephen Harper is:
Adolf Hitler in repose can look as flaccid as a circus fat lady, but so far as the German people know he never rests from his heroic labors, dashes constantly up and down the Fatherland in multi-motored planes, never smokes and subsists wholly on fruit, vegetables, nuts, and dairy products... In unlacing this straitjacket of a national inferiority complex no Nazi has helped Adolf Hitler so much as the taut, vivid, sometimes hysterical, little man whom all Germany knows as "The Doctor," famed Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbels, now Minister of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. To an amazing degree Herr Hitler and Dr. Goebbels possess in common the trick of talking to grown Germans as if they were children ... (5)
We are not children and Stephen Harper is certainly not our father. We need to see him in repose .. in a natural light that will allow us to pass judgement based on information, not manipulation and spin. Because for the record, Adolf Hitler was NOT a vegetarian (6). He hate mounds of sausages and the only time he went off them was when his doctor would say "Adolf you are eating too many mounds of sausages". But Germans never knew that. "Journalists aren't looking to judge the policies of the Conservative government. Rather, we want to ensure the public has enough information to judge for themselves." (2)
One time girlfriend of Leo Strauss (who is deemed to be the father of the neoconservative movement), Hannah Arendt, herself a respected political philosopher, once questioned whether Nazi Germany was in fact a full totalitarian dictatorship, since it depended so heavily on a "certain societal consensus". Their success depended on directing and exploiting public opinion, and they did it masterfully. (7)
So is Harper a dictator or simply a master of directing and exploiting public opinion?
But not everything Harper does is based on Goebbel's brilliance. There is another master of manipulation that we are all familiar with.
The Bush White House's media operation was top flight. His handlers often arranged for him to strike heroic-looking poses. The trip to the USS Lincoln was one of their well-plotted attempts at image enhancement. When Bush delivered a speech at Ellis Island on the first anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the White House rented three barges of giant lights and floated them in the New York Harbor, so the Statue of Liberty, appearing behind Bush, would be illuminated just right. When tornadoes struck the Midwest in May 2003, Bush stood stoically in the Missouri rain—without an umbrella—and expressed his concern. With water running down his face, he also defiantly vowed to bring to justice the terrorists that had recently blown up several compounds for Westerners in Saudi Arabia and killed eight Americans. "They understand the visual as well as anybody ever has," Michael Deaver, Ronald Reagan's chief image man, told the New York Times. (8)
2. How to Lift the PM's Muzzle: Under Stephen Harper citizens' right to know has been smothered. Journalists must take a stand. By Helene Buzzetti and Press gallery colleagues, The Tyee, June 11, 2010
The Globe and Mail has published an excellent article about how Stephen Harper finely crafted the messaging of Canada at war, with unprecedented media control.
The Globe and the Star have actually been fairly good at attempting to sound the alarm but few people really wanted to believe it, so for the most part they simply went along.
As a result, Canada was the only country with no independent media, only embedded journalists who wrote what they were told to write.
The Harper government used a pervasive message-control tool to persuade Canadians their foremost purpose in Afghanistan was building schools and fostering democracy rather than waging a war that was turning bloodier by the day.
An investigation by The Canadian Press shows the Conservatives systematically drafted “Message Event Proposals” as part of a quiet campaign to persuade Canadians their country was primarily engaged in development work to rebuild a shattered nation rather than hunting down and killing an emboldened insurgency. The government used MEPs literally to script the words it wanted to hear from the mouths of its top diplomats, aid workers and cabinet ministers in 2007-2008 to divert public attention from the soaring double-digit death toll of Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan.
Harper's claim that he never got the memos about Detainee torture becomes even more suspect, because he controlled every aspect of this mission.
When Canadian soldiers brought in the usually hooded and tightly bound detainee, our military police on the spot would first inform the colonels and generals in the Kandahar mission control centre.But instead of alerting the Red Cross right away, like the Dutch and British, these commanders, following orders, sent the information to CEFCOM, the Canadian Expeditionary Force Command in Ottawa. This information would then be passed over to Defence Headquarters and to Foreign Affairs.
There have been alarms about this several times in the past but again ignored:
"What we're seeing here is a degree of control within the government, within the caucus ... that we haven't seen for a very long time .... That control extends to every corner of government.
And that whole yellow ribbon campaign was stolen from Desert Storm. Our defense minister at the time, Gordon O'Connor, came straight from the PR firm, Hill & Knowlton, to run our defense department:
Hill & Knowlton's yellow ribbon campaign to whip up support for "our" troops, which followed their orchestration of Nayirah's phony "incubator" testimony, was a public relations masterpiece. The claim that satellite photos revealed that Iraq had troops poised to strike Saudi Arabia was also fabricated by the PR firm. Hill & Knowlton was paid between $12 million (as reported two years later on "60 Minutes") and $20 million (as reported on "20/20") for "services rendered." The group fronting the money? Citizens for a Free Kuwait, a phony "human rights agency" set up and funded entirely by Kuwait's emirocracy to promote its interests in the U.S.
Be sure to read the entire Globe piece, though long. If we had learned of this years ago it might have saved lives.
Stephen Harper has had a pattern of running away and I think he would have liked to have given up on the War in Afghanistan long ago, if it weren't for having to keep up appearances.
When he was first elected in 2006, he had a buddy. And to show his buddy that he could play, he put Canadian soldiers in the worst places, where the fighting was the fiercest. George Bush said that he wasn't going to follow the Geneva Convention, and Harper said what Geneva Convention?
And with the mission supposedly winding down, and despite all of his bluster, things are worse in Afghanistan than they were when we first invaded.
THE DRASTIC developments in Afghanistan in recent days have certainly left the self-proclaimed "pro-mission" lobby spinning in all directions.What they propose now is to end the "combat" phase of the operation, but to continue providing as many as 1,000 troops to act as trainers for the Afghan security forces.
Their main selling point is that after sacrificing so much in both blood and gold, that it would be a national shame if Canada were to cut and run just as the NATO chefs are putting the icing on the victory cake.
The NATO mission in Afghanistan will not be successful without a credible partner leading the Afghan government, says a former UN envoy to the country, who called the campaign "a waste of resources" if soldiers are unable to do their jobs.
I thought all that money was going to create a credible partner. Training the Afghan police and military. Harper threw billions of dollars into that 'mission'.
Unfortunately, he spent far too much money in training our media, so to learn of the protests against us from the people of Afghanistan, we have to read U.S. papers or the U.K. Guardian
KABUL -- Afghan protesters torched NATO supply vehicles in eastern Afghanistan on Sunday, hours after allegations emerged that U.S. and Afghan troops had killed three civilians, including two brothers, in their home.
The demonstration occurred in Logar province after a nighttime joint patrol of U.S. Special Operations forces and Afghan soldiers fatally shot three people and arrested two others. NATO officials said the men were insurgents who had displayed "hostile intent." One of those captured was a low-level Taliban Commander who planned suicide bombings, they said.
"Hostile intent"? What the hell are we displaying?
One of Canada's first experiments into neoconservatism, was the Mike Harris government (1995-2002) in Ontario. And it was an experiment that failed and failed badly, on many levels.
But one of the most devastating failures resulted in the deaths of 11 people in a place called Walkerton.
And the cause of their deaths can be attributed in a large part to something called the "Red Tape Commission."
Look Out For Neocons Running With Scissors
When Jim Flaherty, a former Mike Harris cabinet minister, brought down his latest budget; he mentioned that his government was looking to cut down on some of the bureaucracy by establishing a "Red Tape Commission." This was presented as a cost cutting measure, but in fact it has little to do with saving money and even less to do with public interest.
It's just a nice sounding term for deregulation.
And for a government that has already deregulated this country to the point where many Canadians are now just "future victims", we need to start paying attention.
Like Stephen Harper and his free marketeers, Mike Harris and his inner circle believed that the private sector knew more than the bureaucrats and " ... anything that interfered with the private sector - environmental regulations enforced by busy-body inspectors, for example - is nonsense and needs to be dismantled. You don't need public input or so-called "expert" advice to figure that out." (1)
As a result, environmental programs and agencies were attacked with a vengeance and the Ministry of the Environment lost 42% of its budget.
Front-line staff, charged with monitoring, testing, inspection, enforcement, and research, are decimated: 900 of 2,400 front-line staff are laid off. Regional offices are closed. Environmental agencies set up over the years to respond to complex environmental problems are dismantled in days. What remains of the Ministry is in total disarray. Similar cuts hit other ministries, including Natural Resources and Agriculture. A number of industries formerly regulated by the government are told they can now regulate their own environmental performance. (1)
And despite repeated warnings that the cutbacks were compromising the safety of Ontario's drinking water, the priority was business and for Harris it was business as usual.
Until tragedy struck, when a deadly E. coli bacteria found it's way into Walkerton's water, killing eleven people and leaving hundreds more seriously ill.
And in a case of "Deja Vu all over again", the Harper government is also moving toward doing away with environmental assessments.
OTTAWA - Environmental groups and opposition politicians say the federal Conservatives are trying to gut environmental assessment laws by sneaking in new rules in budget legislation."This is a big step backward about 20 years," John Bennett of the Sierra Club said Wednesday.
A big step backward indeed. Right back to the dark days of Mike Harris, that included not only Jim Flaherty, but John Baird, Tony Clement and Peter Van Loan.
Can You Count the Jelly Beans in the Jar Not Laced with PCBs? In 2007, Stephen Harper met with then U.S. President George Bush and Mexican President Felipe Calderon in Montibello, Quebec; to discuss the product standards of the three nations, and how to remove them. That wasn't officially how the meeting was sold to the public, but it was the end result of intense bargaining.
Well not really intense bargaining so much as Bush saying these are our regulations and you two must match them, end of. And since Bush had reduced government regulations to the point where they could fit on the head of pin, this meant that Canada was forced to pretty much dismantle our own safety standards, to meet those of the U.S. President.
So too did Mexico, and many believe that this was the cause of H1N1, now dubbed the "NAFTA Flu."
But while these connivers were inside scheming, a large group of protesters had gathered outside, well aware that Canadian sovereignty was on the line. So to silence the crowd, Harper appeared with his cohorts to put them at ease. Looking a little tipsy (Watch at about 45 seconds and 1:25 of this video .... I'm just saying), he asked the humble masses: “Is the sovereignty of Canada going to fall apart if we standardize the jelly bean?”
'Jelly Bean' must have been some kind of cute word association (wink, wink), for something they called "risk management."
"At the heart of both systems is a reliance on industry reporting and monitoring, rather than independent government testing, and an emphasis on cleaning up the mess (to the environment or human lives) caused by bad products after the fact. They call this “risk management,” an about-face from the “precautionary principle” of better safe than sorry." (2)
On April 1, 2008; the Harper government began putting their new "risk management' plan into place, beginning with meat-processing companies who were no longer required to alert Canada's food safety agency about listeria-tainted meat.
This resulted in the death of 22 Canadians, but Maple Leaf foods kept up their end of the bargain, by launching a series of "Maple Leaf, we care" ads.
See how this works?
And ironically, it is now the U.S., under a different president, who is demanding that Canada cleans up it's act.
But look on the bright side. It gave agricultural minister, Gerry Ritz, a fall back career in stand-up comedy, if the whole politics thing doesn't work out for him.
So please join Canadians Rallying to Unseat Stephen Harper, and help us get rid of this destructive force. Because jelly beans should only rot your teeth; not take your life.
This morning one of the Canwest reporters, Andrew Mayeda (:@amayeda), travelling with Stephen Harper on his visit to Haiti, tweeted this: As reported, PM Harper's second day in #Haiti mostly a photo op. No questions from reporters ...
Was there really a need for a late breaking announcement, that our prime minister was once again exploiting a situation for photo-ops?
Maybe there should have been an interruption of regular programming to bring us this important announcement:
Stephen Harper's walls in the House of Commons no longer have room for new snapshots. An emergency meeting of Parliament has convened to discuss the construction of a special gallery that will better showcase the daily life of a self-image egomaniac.
From the very beginning, Stephen Harper has used this crisis for political brownie points. Initially, the Olympics were going to dig him out of his hole, but that was a bust, so back to Haiti.
A Little Recap:
Why is Haiti so Poor? When the news first broke of the devastating earthquake, every story described Haiti as one of the poorest nations in the world? Why is that?
As grim accounts of the earthquake in Haiti came in, the accounts in U.S.- controlled state media all carried the same descriptive sentence: "Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere..."Gee, I wonder how that happened? You'd think Haiti would be loaded. After all, it made a lot of people rich.
Gerald Caplan wrote a piece for the Globe; The betrayal of Haiti, just prior to the Montreal conference.
What a grand old party it's going to be Monday when all those countries and financial institutions that have forever plundered, exploited and impoverished Haiti will gather in Montreal at the invitation of the government of Canada to decide its future ... But mostly this meeting is promoted by those who like to call themselves, and whom the media will call, the donor countries. What is important to note about most donor countries, including Canada, is that they have always extracted far more from the poor recipient countries than they've contributed. Poor countries, in reality, have been net donors to us rich folks.
It is very easy for us to now play the role of the benevolent uncle, while forgetting that we helped to steal all the family wealth.
Was Our Response Commendable or Suspect?
Almost from the beginning, first response teams began to report that the so-called humanitarian relief efforts, looked more like an invasion and occupation. Some tried to justify this by suggesting that soldiers were needed to prevent looting and restore order.
What the hell? Looting? Are you kidding me?
Survival was the priority and if people had to 'steal' to survive, it is not 'looting'. This suggests that our priorities were protecting corporate interests and not saving lives. Indeed, the fact that the planes of Doctors Without Borders, loaded with medical supplies, were turned away, makes you wonder.
The Canadian Peace Alliance (CPA) urges its member organizations and supporters to give generously to the relief efforts responding to the catastrophic disaster in Haiti following last week's massive earthquake. The CPA also wishes to express its deep concern about the deployment of up to an additional 1,000 Canadian Forces to Haiti, announced Sunday by Defence Minister Peter MacKay, in collaboration with a U.S. mission of over 10,000 troops.
Al-Jazeera news reported on the weekend that the U.S. military, which now controls the airport in Port-au-Prince, turned away several planes carrying physicians and supplies from Doctors Without Borders. A CARICOM aid flight and other humanitarian deliveries have also been turned away, with deadly results for the Haitian people ....
Soon after learning that Stephen Harper and his Reformers had rewritten our foreign policy, to exclude aid workers from protecting women and children from sexual exploitation, another element was brought into the picture.
PORT-AU-PRINCE–Kidnapped children. Multiple rapes. Gang violence. A burgeoning black market. And the unknown whereabouts of 4,000 criminals. These are but a few of the problems overwhelming police and peacekeepers tasked with maintaining order in a post-apocalyptic Haiti. On Wednesday, the Star watched as a hungry mob turned violent when the World Food Program tried to dole out 1,266 bags of rice to the masses. Friday, the Star revisited the site and found some of those bags being sold at a marked up value of $40 a bag.
THEY are orphaned, terrified and hungry - a lost generation facing fresh peril last night as hell-on-earth became a PARADISE for child predators. Babies and toddlers were among dazed kiddies being plucked by brutes from the rubble of earthquake-devastated Haiti.
Even those praying for sanctuary at medical centres set up in the stricken Caribbean nation were not safe - as aid workers warned child-trafficking gangs had sprung up across the shattered capital. Fifteen being treated were revealed to have been snatched by men later found not to be relatives ....
This is why the House should have been sitting. Harper made this a one man show, instead of using all members of Parliament to create a relief mission that focused on human aid, human rights and the protection of the most vulnerable.
After all, it was on Michael Ignatieff's suggestion, that the government matched funds donated by the Canadian people. Justin Trudeau spent almost every waking hour with Haitian-Canadians in Montreal. Jack Layton and the NDP used their website and contacts to raise money for Doctors Without Borders, The Humanitarian Coalition, the International Red Cross and UNICEF. Gilles Duceppe also rallied for funds and encouraged the Reformers to loosen the immigration policies to allow refugees to join their families.
See this isn't all about photo-ops. Sometimes you've got to roll up your sleeves, put partisan politics aside, and act like a Canadian. Stephen Harper has yet to learn that, and I doubt he ever will.
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More Postings on Haiti and Harper's Underwhelming Response
