I try to keep up with politics everywhere so follow political junkies from several different countries.
What I've discovered, in this mostly conservative sphere, is that the top news stories, no matter where they originate, are eerily similar. In fact, I often have to rely on the media source to assign it to a nation.
One headline that's popping up everywhere, contains the phrase "million jobs".
In the last Ontario election, Conservative candidate Tim Hudak, gave the term a life of its own, when he presented his Million Jobs plan, worked out on an abacus that was missing a few beads.
I think we can all agree that Tim Hudak is a few beads short of an abacus, but he did give us a new slogan "Hudak Math", that replaces things like "defies logic", "utterly senseless" and "you stupid moron".
One headline, while a bit older, comes from the UK Guardian, asking if British Prime Minister David Cameron and his coalition 'really created one million private sector jobs?' Clearly something they had boasted of.
But when the numbers were crunched, and the analysis scrutinized, the million jobs was only true if you used the Hudakian theory of mathematics. You just make stuff up.
Stephen Harper uses the theory, when he boasts that his government has created a million jobs. Remove the Hudakian component from the computation, and the results are staggeringly different, as graphs from Press Progress reveal.
We are actually down 638,810 jobs. Harper must have thrown a bit of Rob Ford Haze into the mix, a dangerous and potentially lethal combination.
Another Conservative, Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbot, believes that Cameron and Harper are amateurs. Why stop at one million, when you can promise to double that? After all, it doesn't have to be true. You just have to sell it with conviction.
Before being elected, under the headline: Fact checker: Can Tony Abbott create two million jobs in a decade? we learn that there is a whole lot of wishful thinking wrapped up in conservative bluster, but it seems to have worked.
However, doesn't his election promise sound a lot like that of Hudak's? Freaky.
Of course American Conservatives can't let any of them show up their nonsense. Under an L.A Times headline in response to Obama's employment strategy, they promised to create five million jobs. No time frame though for their Million Jobs Plan.
We know that Tim Hudak visited members of the U.S. Tea Party for insight, so would it be a stretch to imagine that Cameron, Abbot and Harper sat down for a spot of the brew?
Although, actually, I see them all in a cave, sacrificing a liberal on an altar, while dancing around a pot of steaming crude and rusty nails, chanting:
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble
Fire burn and cauldron bubble
Give us a slogan, the best selection
To fool them all in the next election.
I think they need a new potion, because this one is just making us ill.
Outgoing Russian Ambassador Georgiy Mame, spoke before his departure, lamenting our government's undiplomatic posturing with his country, including Stephen Harper's suggestion that Putin was the next Hitler.
He accused the Harper government of isolating itself from its allies over Ukraine and hinted broadly that the Conservatives are likely playing to a domestic audience of 1.2 million Ukrainian-Canadians.
“My whole history as a diplomat, during Cold War, after Cold War was: the higher the risk, the more active the discussion,” he said. “The only exception to this rule is the last seven months I spent in Ottawa.”
There is no longer any diplomacy in our foreign policy. It's all chest thumping and hot air, in an attempt to secure Conservative votes, riding by riding.
However, what's more troubling is that the Harper government has also been basing our foreign policy on Religious Doctrine.
... he [Harper] outlined plans for a broad new party coalition that would ensure a lasting hold on power. The only route, he argued, was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives or “neo-cons,” as they’d become known, but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence ... Arguing that the party had to come up with tough, principled stands on everything from parents’ right to spank their children to putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments ..." (Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right, Walrus Magazine, October 2006)
This platform is obvious when we see his ridiculous "devotion" to Israel, refusing to accept that they are not always right. They don't need our protection. They have nuclear weapons. They do however, need to be reined in at times.
As Prime Minister Stephen Harper was pouring vitriol and sanctions on Russia for months over the Crimea and Ukraine crisis, he did not seem to have expected much of a serious slap-back from President Vladimir Putin.
While Ottawa joined other allies to punish Russia, using sanctions, criticism and even a modest arms buildup in eastern Europe, Harper’s team always appeared the most determined to “tweak the Bear."
We know from Wikileaks that Americans view Harper a fool, and while they have taken a firm stand against Putin, they still seek diplomatic solutions.
Not so our "Theo-Con" cowboys; and our military; while on high alert, are finding this very troubling.
Just as many feared, Canadian F-18s are yet again being sent screaming towards our northern airspace to see off large Russian Tu-95 heavy bombers testing our borders. Russian military planes, seen here during the Victory Day parade in Moscow's Red Square, have tested the sovereign borders of the U.S. and Canada in recent months.
... The word in official circles is that this is “strategic messaging from Moscow” in retaliation for our constant criticism, as well as Canada’s actions to bolster Ukraine, which has just signed an historic trade pact with the European Union that Putin has fought against. The fly-overs have certainly shaken complacency.
This will not be a David and Goliath moment. Clearly Harper is over his head and having the bombastic John Baird as foreign minister is not helping.
Will There be a New World Order?
In the past decade and a half, America's international reputation has taken a beating. The clownish George Bush and his senseless wars, and the rise of the Tea Party within the GOP, have shown what poor governance looks like.
The American Congress is dysfunctional and their Republican dominated Supreme Court, is leading the country toward a dangerous theocracy. Like Harper, U.S. conservatives have turned to the Religious Right for political support.
The world is watching and Putin is taking advantage of this compromised position, though not necessarily to assert his own control, but to create 'multiple centres of power'. Says Russia’s deputy security chief, Evgeny Lukyanov, 'US hegemony in world has ended’.
“The United States has an impression that the breakup of the Soviet Union was the only result of the Cold War. This is arguable, and this is possible. But no one has attempted to analyze the results or make any conclusions from the situation. The unipolar world headed by Americans simply appeared,” ...
“However, this status quo was not built to last. New power centers have appeared on the international arena, including the BRICS nations, and Russia itself has managed to regain its stance. Nations openly declare their interests and demand respect to their basic rights. This is how the US hegemony on the international arena has ended and of course Washington officials cannot agree with this."
No one but the Tea Party and it's Canadian supporters, see a nuclear war as a good thing, so it's time stop the nonsense.
The BRIC countries of Brazil, Russia, India and China, are gaining momentum, and some economists believe that could overtake the G7 by 2027. Said Kishore Mahbubani , Dean and Professor of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore:
"In 2013, China’s economy will grow by 7.8%, India’s by 5.6% and Brazil’s by 2.5%. In response, Western media headlines have begun screaming that the emerging-market story is over. Oh dear, here comes Western wishful thinking again."
The American dollar is no longer the Holy Grail, and the U.S. military weakened by bad press, not against soldiers or veterans, but against a government that has used them as pawns for the oil industry, and the military-industrial complex.
If Harper is counting on the United States to get him out of the mess he's created, he could be in trouble. They have their own problems. Sanctions against Russia have hurt American companies and the EU is softening on these retaliatory actions.
I think in the end, diplomacy will prevail and Harper will have to take his slingshot and retreat with his tail between his legs.
During the 2010 U.S. mid-term election campaign, a group of "discontents" emerged, calling themselves Latinos for Reform.
President Obama had secured most of the Latino vote in 2008, so the group's message was that Obama had let them down. Given the Republican's anti-immigration policies, LFR knew that voting GOP was not an option, so instead they encouraged Latino voters not to cast a ballot for anyone.
The founder of this group, Robert de Posada, was the Republican National Committee's director of Hispanic affairs and worked for the Bush administration and a group founded by Tea Party leader Dick Armey.
We learn this week that in the run up to the Ontario election, a group of "discontents" has emerged. Calling themselves the None of the Above, encouraging those weary of the top three, to choose them instead, thereby nullifying their ballot.
A longtime supporter of Mike Harris who he knew from his home town, in 1989 Greg worked to change the Party Constitution from a delegated convention to a one person one vote process. This change was key to Mike Harris winning the Leadership in 1990.
So what is really behind this? Did Mike Harris have a little chat with his home town buddy, knowing that Tim Hudak could be in trouble? Is that why Vezina is putting up Green Party signs to help split the vote?
“Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now."
There are three rules in the Neoconservative Handbook on running elections:
1. If you think you can't win - Cheat!
2. If you only have a good chance of winning - Cheat!
Indiana- Louise Cohoon was at home when her 80-year-old mother called in a panic from Terre Haute: The $97 monthly Medicaid payment she relied on to supplement her $600-a-month income had been cut without warning by a private company that had taken over the state's welfare system. (1)
Hold that thought.
The Globe and Mail has recently revealed that after losing the last election, Tim Hudak visited members of the American far-right to help prepare his current platform.
We already knew that his mathematically challenged Million Jobs plan, was created with the help of Republican Benjamin Zycher, king of offensive Tea Party rants, like:
“Now, let me be blunt: Michelle Obama, the product of lifelong affirmative-action coddling, is an intellectual lightweight who fancies herself a serious thinker. Just read her Princeton senior thesis, an intermittently coherent stream-of-consciousness pile of leftist jargon, campus pseudo-seriousness, and racial-identity babble. Can there be any doubt that the Princeton administrators accepted it only because of her skin color?”(The National Review, August 17, 2009)
or
“And so I have a question for my legal-beagle colleagues: Are whites not entitled to equivalent treatment under the 14th Amendment? If so, does that mean that education about the history of slavery would become illegal, as it would depict whites negatively? Would it be illegal to point out that most modern-day terrorist acts are perpetrated by Muslims? Anything about black crime, illegal immigration by Hispanics, ad infinitum? Can air brushing of photos be far behind?”(National Review, April 24, 2006)
That's why the Tea Party loves him, but why Tim Hudak? Because he is with the American Enterprise Institute, and that's always been enough for Canada's Neoconservatives, but more on that later.
Tim Hudak claims that he wants to model Ontario after Indiana under former governor, Mitch Daniels, the man who supposedly saved his state from rack and ruin.
Before he arrived, Indiana had a deficit and after he left, a surplus. Sounds good, right? That's what was said about Mike Harris, except that he only left us with more debt and a 5.6 billion deficit. The only reason Harris looked good on paper was because of increased U.S. exports as a result of NAFTA and a devalued Canadian dollar.
To help balance the books, Mitch Daniels leased the Indiana toll road through 2081, which meant a short term gain but seventy-five years of lost revenue.
Mike Harris leased Ontario's toll road for 100 years, and it sickens me when I think of the money Ontarians have lost. But like Daniels, Harris needed to balance the books before an upcoming election, and a huge lump sum payment did just that.
According to the Washington Post:
“I think that it’s going to turn out to be a bit of smoke and mirrors for Indiana over the longer haul. I feel like he’s been very skilled at selling Hoosiers -- and quite frankly the country -- a bill of goods, and it’s really disappointing,” said Betty Cockrum, the president and chief executive officer of Planned Parenthood of Indiana who clashed with Daniels in 2011 after he signed a law cutting off public funds to the organization because it provides abortions.
Cockrum, who ran the state budget for former Democratic Gov. Frank O’Bannon, said Daniels relied on tricks to make the state’s books look good just like any other governor, but he rarely gets called on it because of his national reputation.
And as it turned out she was right. Daniels lost track of $556 million in tax money, borrowed $2 billion to shore up Indiana's bankrupt unemployment insurance fund and took billions in federal relief money, while denouncing the practice. He also left many of his key projects unfunded.
But the rich got richer and his friends a bit friendlier. Further to the story of the 80-year-old woman who lost her Medicaid:
Cohoon's mother, now suffering from Alzheimer's disease, was one of thousands of Indiana residents who abruptly and erroneously lost their welfare, Medicaid or food stamp benefits after Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels privatized the state's public assistance program — the result of an efficiency plan that went awry from the very beginning, the state now admits.
Though the $1.37-billion project proved disastrous for many of the state's poor, elderly and disabled, it was a financial bonanza for a handful of firms with ties to Daniels and his political allies, which landed state contracts worth millions.(2)
Harris also made a complete mess of things when his government tried to privatize many aspects of our welfare system. It ended up costing taxpayers 4 to 1, what it would have cost had they just left well enough alone.
Hudak wants to privatize Ontario's public service, with the same goal in mind. More money in the pockets of those already having trouble keeping their pants up.
If It's Good Enough For Stephen Harper
In the Globe abd Mail article, they list the people and institutions that Hudak visited during his Tea Party romp, most with affilation to the Harper government.
Grover Norquist - Jason Kenney headed up the Canadian Taxpayers Fedeartion, the Canadian spin-off of Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform.
Cato Institute - Part of the network of think tanks that helped to define the Reform movement and boost the fortunes of Stephen Harper.
Heritage Foundation - Worked with Stephen Harper and the National Citizens Coalition. The late Paul Weyrich, when he headed up the HF, helped Stephen Harper in 2006, by instructing the American Right not to talk to Canadian reporters, for fear they would scare off Canadian voters.
David Frum - Not only a former speechwriter of George W. Bush, but was activly involved with the Unite the Right campaign's hostile takeover of Canada's legitimate Progressive Conservatives. He also introduced Stephen Harper to Rupert Murdoch, enabling him to bring his version of Fox News to Canada. His sister, Linda, is one of Harper's senators.
So as Canadians sleepwalk toward the next federal election, no doubt unaware of just how much the American far-right has taken over our country, Ontarians need to lead way.
Mike Harris allowed them to write his Common Sense Revolution and now Hudak has allowed them to write his Million Jobs Plan. We need to say enough is enough. The Tea Party in the United States is slowly losing momentum. We have to stop ours before it destroys us, in the same way that they have destroyed politics in the United States.
Oh and by the way, Mitch Daniels' job creation plan? Wrought with mathematical errors and mostly just made up stuff.
Sources:
1.Indiana a Changed State After Mitch Daliel's 8 Years, Washington Post, January 2, 2013
2. Indiana's bumpy road to privatization,Los Angeles Times, June 24, 2011
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.
On February 15, 1983, the New York Times ran a headline: Reagan Misstatements Getting Less Attention.
Ronald Reagan was not only the first American President to bring the Religious Right into his administration, but he also launched an era of stupid in politics.
The man dubbed "The Great Communicator" could barely string two coherent sentences together, and after spending three years trying to make some sense of his ramblings, the media had clearly given up.
I have to laugh at how the Right have now canonized him, but during his tenure he was never that popular. I think his highest polling was right after he was shot.
Unfortunately "idiots" is now a term often used to describe the Republicans, as they've capitalized on incomprehension, and it hasn't hurt them one bit.
Their esoteric boys club has learned that there is a fortune to be made in the mining of ignorance.
Glenn Beck is not a moron, he just played one on TV.
When Stephen Harper's Reform Party had its first real political success in 1993, we were shell shocked with their constant firing of racial slurs and half witticisms. The Toronto Sun called them "a bunch of dung kicking rednecks". Now the Sun is among their strongest supporters, pitching the dung they once hoped to duck.
And they have cleverly made the reaction to stupidity, the story, instead of the actual stupidity.
Sun TV often runs a banner reading "We're on your side". Those "leftist elitist pinkos" don't understand you, but we do. Then they run to their own elitist friends and say "watch the puppets dance". Both groups come away with a feeling of superiority.
Neoconservatism 101.
Which brings us to Toronto mayor Rob Ford. When he first appeared on the scene he created quite a sensation. Acting as though he would be more comfortable in Animal House than City Hall, he became the favourite of Canadian conservatives. The more we "lefties" sounded the alarm, the more popular he was.
From Jim Flaherty to Tim Hudak, they couldn't wait to have their photo taken with this new iconic symbol of absurdity. Stephen Harper touted him around the campaign trail, and the two are now BFFs.
However, they may have a problem.
It would appear that Torontonians have awakened to the fact that there is a reason why you don't elect someone like Rob Ford to run the largest city in Canada. His foolishness was not an act. He's really a fool.
His political honeymoon long over, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford has lost the public’s confidence. And now, he’s about to lose council’s as well. The Ford revolution may be aborted before it takes root.
Torontonians are not impressed with Ford’s confrontational style, his lone-wolf approach to leadership and his threats to gut city services after guaranteeing during the election that he’d cut the “gravy” and not cut a single service.
His poll numbers are slipping fast, and in the middle of a provincial election, where Toronto is key, will this hurt Tim Hudak? Memories of Mike Harris's slash and burn policies, and broken promises, are already proving to be a hindrance.
And Hudak has been playing the stupid card with his "chain gang" musings and attacks on "foreigners".
If you've been following the Republican debates, you would have to think that they have finally hit bottom. Cheers when contender Rick Perry stated with pride, the number of people he sent to death, and refrains of "let him die", when a scenario was presented to Ron Paul of a young man in a coma with no health insurance.
Has Canada's new conservative movement finally hit bottom with Ford?
I'd like to think so, but I'm not so sure. There is now an arrogance in the ignorance that is driving this movement. They could never handle bliss. They're just too damned angry. An anger fuelled by the New Right.
"A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." Saul Bellow (Canadian-born writer and winner of both the Pulitzer and Nobel prizes)
The Neocons South of the border, are in a flap ... again.
Not satisfied with bringing their country to the brink of collapse with their silly posturing over raising the debt ceiling, they are now attacking Obama for riding in a bus.
Maybe it's just that he refuses to sit at the back.
The Secret Service has ordered two custom made buses from the Quebec-based manufacturer Prevost (Go Canada), at a cost of 1.6 million per.
This is an outrage that the taxpayers of this country would have to foot the bill so that the campaigner-in-chief can run around in his Canadian bus and act as if he is interested in creating jobs in our country,” the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, said Tuesday.
Other conservatives were snarkier. Wrote Dana Loesch, a “tea party” activist and CNN contributor, on Twitter on Tuesday, “Nothing says 'Let's tour America and talk about jobs!' than a big, black, hearse mobile of doom.”
As usual, they failed to do their homework (or go to school), because in 2004, George W. Bush also rode around in a bus, made by the same manufacturer.
The late Dalton Camp, former president of the now defunct federal Progressive Conservative Party, tells a story in his book: Whose Country is This Anyway, of a group of young conservatives who had disrupted a speech by Jean Charest.
Charest at the time, was leader of the federal PCs.
The loudest among them, accused him of being a Communist. He was, this bombastic young man claimed: "Saying Communist things, expressing Communist sentiments and generally sounding like a Pinko". (p. 27)
What brought on this accusation, was Charest's concern for the homeless and unemployed. That's all it took. "Pinko" notions for sure.
Camp only mentions that the man was 25 and an officer with the Conservative Youth. I've often wondered if it was John Baird, because he fit the description, being just that age when the event took place. Baird had already been arrested in Kingston for disrupting a campaign stop by former Liberal premier of Ontario, David Peterson.
Baird went on to win a seat under Mike Harris, helping to make sure that no "Pinko" ideas prevailed. In fact, the Harris government created the most homeless people in the history of the province, and John Baird gutted social services with the help of Enron's accounting firm.
But I digress.
Brian Lilley of Fox News North is seeing "red" these days, literally. In an attempt to create a bit of "controlled controversy", he accused members of the Ottawa Press Gallery of having a "soft spot" for communists.
It began with his "outing" of Nycole Turmel, the interim NDP leader, as not only being a member of the Bloc, but also of the Quebec Solidaire, a Communist party, according to Lilley, made up of Marxists, Trotskyites and "radical feminists".
He's got the lingo down anyway.
Quebec Solidaire is a Quebec separatist party, but they are hardly communists. They are social democrats concerned with the environment, women's issues and globalization.
Lilley was hoping to generate rage from the reporters on Parliament Hill, but instead only invoked laughter. He made a complete ass of himself.
And remember, Lilley refers to the Toronto Star, as the 'Red Star'.
Just another right-wing voice for Rupert Murdoch's media empire. Lilley's sister station, Fox News, is accusing Newsweek and other "Pinkos" in the media, of hating Michelle Bachmann.
There is nothing the left fears more than a conservative, pro-life, pro-family, pro-gun woman. Throw in the fact that she’s intelligent and attractive, and sorry excuses for men, like Bill Maher, will be hurling vulgarities at her in no time.
The problem with Michelle Bachmann, is that she gives women a bad name. She wants to be the President of the United States, but is ignorant of its constitution and has publicly stated that her husband "commanded her" to become a tax lawyer.
What will he "command her" to do if she heads up the most powerful country in the world? I shudder to think.
But this kind of nonsense resonates with Fox viewers on both sides of the border.
However, I think I saw Susan Delacourt Talking to Mr. Snuffleupagus
I posted before on U.S. Conservative personality Ben Shapiro, and his new book: Primetime Propaganda: The True Hollywood Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV
In it he claims that Sesame Street promotes multi-culturalism, collectivism (sharing) and other "pinko" notions.
I always knew there was something more to Big Bird's relationship with his no eared furry friend. I mean what kind of name is Aloysius Snuffleupagus? A commie for sure.
I'll bet he lost those ears during an interrogation.
However, we can't just dismiss Shapiro as another right-wing nut. I mean he is, but he's a well financed right-wing nut.
His book was published by Broadside Books, which is owned by News Corporation, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch.
Murdoch of course, is the man behind Fox News, and it was he who helped Stephen Harper to launch Fox News North.
Brian Lilley closes his segment by saying that his accusations of Communist leanings had hit a nerve with the Ottawa media, who were "touchy" on the subject. He didn't hit a nerve, so much as a funny bone, but we do have to take this "commie" stuff seriously, because there are people out there who believe it.
Remember, Anders Breivik, though he railed against Islam, went after politicians and affiliates of the Labour Party in Norway. Killing children before they grew up to be "lefties".
He also saw a "conspiracy among the media and political elite" to silence his views.
The women's movement hit a snag in the early 1900s, when their leaders were accused of being engaged in Communism. This made it difficult for them to find work or be published.
A list of Americans suspected of Communism, include: Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, New Deal Liberals, Democrats, Critics of McCarthy and McCarthyism, American Civil Liberties Union and Civil Libertarians, Rock and Roll musicians, Gay activists and gays and lesbians, Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, Librarians and Library patrons, Union leaders, Film stars and Hollywood writers, University Professors and public school teachers, scientists, some Artists and Painters, Feminists and leaders of the women's movement, Peace Groups, The Girl Scouts, American Writers and Playwrights, etc., etc.
And those targeted by Joseph McCarthy were not laughing.
I'd like to think that Canadians are smarter than this, but then I thought we were too smart to elect Reformer Harper, and we will have had at least a decade of the neocon before he will be voted out (I hope).
(Do you think the neoconservatives are "breeding like rabbits"?)
So is Brian Lilley really the next Joe McCarthy? Hardly.
I see him as more of a Charlie McCarthy. A funny little puppet who makes us laugh.
But if you see Big Bird and Mr. Snuffleupagus lurking about, be on your guard. Who knows what they're cooking up.
Ronald Reagan incurred more debt than all previous presidents combined, and was forced to raise the debt ceiling 17 times. No trumpets blared.
George H.W. Bush, inherited this massive debt and was forced to raise the debt ceiling 7 times. No beating of drums.
Bill Clinton inherited this massive debt, raised the debt ceiling 4 times, but raised taxes on the top 2%, and balanced the books.
George W. Bush cut taxes on the rich and waged wars on the credit card, leaving Obama with the biggest mess of all. Yet the first time he wants to raise the debt ceiling, so that the Nation can conduct business, the Tea Party Republicans pitch a childish fit.
What are they hoping will happen here? That they will be deemed to be the party worried that their country is going into debt, hoping that people will forget who got the U.S. into this mess?
If you think keeping track of the myriad of think tanks and AstroTurf groups that prop up the neoconservative movement, is a challenge; try unravelling their Religious Right infrastructure.
Just when you think you've nailed down the Republican, Conservative, funding connections, dozens of new groups appear on the horizon, so you say a Hail Mary and go for another long shot.
The latest to rear its ugly head, is the FAMILY LEADER, started by a former Mike Huckabee campaign chair, Bob Vander Plaats, and while they focus on the same old, same old: abortion, gay rights and the free market, they have a twist.
FAMILY LEADER (they capitalize it) suggests that slavery was actually good for the black family.
“Slavery had a disastrous impact on African-American families, yet sadly a child born into slavery in 1860 was more likely to be raised by his mother and father in a two-parent household than was an African-American baby born after the election of the USA’s first African-American President.”
And there it is. The "Roots" of the Religious Right and their problem with Obama. He's black. And apparently, black marriages only began to break up when he was elected president.
Paul Weyrich, one of the founders of the Religious Right/Moral Majority (and yet another American who has done so much for Stephen Harper's career) laid out their agenda at a Washington conference in 1990. Randall Balmer was there and reported:
In the course of one of the sessions, Weyrich tried to make a point to his Religious Right brethren (no women attended the conference, as I recall). Let's remember, he said animatedly, "that the Religious Right did not come together in response to the Roe decision." No, Weyrich insisted, "what got us going as a political movement was the attempt on the part of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to rescind the tax-exempt status of Bob Jones University because of its racially discriminatory policies. ”
Bob Jones University had policies that refused black students enrollment until 1971, admitted only married blacks from 1971 to 1975, and prohibited interracial dating and marriage between 1975 and 2000.
Weyrich also worked on the campaign of Ronald Reagan, when he campaigned against the Civil Rights movement.
"With [Ronald] Reagan's outspoken opposition to the Civil Rights Act in 1964, Republican strategists knew that they would have to write off the black vote. But although 90 per cent of black voters cast their ballots for the democrats, only 30 percent of eligible black Americans voted. Republican ... strategist Paul Weyrich* stated "I don't want everyone to vote ... our leverage in the election quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down. We have no moral responsibility to turn out our opposition." (1)
Presidential hopeful Michelle Bachman has signed FAMILY LEADER's pledge to uphold their agenda and Sarah Palin promises to uphold "white" values.
If it's Good Enough for the Republicans
As with everything else, "white" supremacy is beginning to creep into the lingo of Canada's right-wing media.
Toronto mayor Rob Ford is said to represent the "angry white males". Fox News North calls the Caledonia land claim protests, a struggle between "Indians and white people", and Sun media congratulated Stephen Harper for appointing a "white guy" to act as Governor General.
Harper's Reformers were known for their racism, or what former MP Jan Brown called "the rampant racism of the 'God Squad'".
Just because he now keeps his 'God Squad' silenced, doesn't mean that they don't hold the same views. So unable to voice them publicly, they allow Fox News North to do it for them.
I know that hindsight is 20/20 but I think our election was held a few months too early. The U.S. is just starting to shift back, as Obama is enjoying a spike in popularity.
And we're stuck with at least four years in political hell.
South Carolina Republican Governor Nikki Haley, was brought to power with the help of the Tea Party. As reward, she proposed a Tea Party Coalition in her state, using grassroots activism, to promote their agenda.
The crowning glory for this coalition, would be a rally, featuring Donald Trump. But when Trump backed out of the presidential race, he also backed away from the Tea Party, resulting in perhaps the poorest showing of the AstroTurf group for some time.
Philip Stanley came to Thursday’s rally from Asheville, N.C., in hopes of seeing Trump but said he was pleased to learn Haley would headline the event instead. Stanley said he respected Trump for directly questioning President Barack Obama about his birth certificate without fear of being labeled with “the R word” for racist .... “I never thought he was serious,” Stanley said of Trump. “He’s a promoter. Then, I heard Nikki Haley was here. That’s almost as good.”
But apparently not "almost as good" for most people, as the event was attended by only a handful of the faithful.
Are the Americans now backing away from the crazies? Obama's approval rating is at 60% and the birther movement, has been aborted, now that he produced the document they all claimed would prove he wasn't American born.
What will this mean for our crazy people? The ones who have contributed so much to the career of Stephen Harper, with the promise that they would be listened to.
He held them off when he was in a minority, but with a majority, they will not sit quiet, especially since many of them are in his caucus.
They'll applaud his destruction of the welfare state, that is until they realize that they are also victims, but they will also demand the right to bear arms (something Harper himself wrote into Reform Party policy), the abandonment of gay rights, women's rights and the rights of minorities, and the end of a woman's right to choose.
However, if Harper gives them all of these things, will they go away quietly, or emboldened, simply become more demanding?
With Harper lying through Dimitri Soudas' teeth, about not reopening the abortion issue, Bev Oda has confirmed that if Canadians are stupid enough to re-elect her government, she will restore funding if they promise to take away a woman's right to choose.
How noble.
International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda issued a statement Thursday suggesting that if Planned Parenthood applied for funding and did not request cash for abortions, it would receive money. “If Planned Parenthood submits an application that falls within the government’s parameters for the G8 Muskoka Initiative, there will be funding,” she said in the statement.
But Paul Bell, a spokesman with the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), said for the organization did ask for funding that did not including money for abortion and still hasn’t heard anything. For the first time in 40 years, it looked like Canada will not help fund the organization’s work, Bell told Postmedia News from London.
"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)
Gloria Steinem was on Bill Maher this week and they were discussing rightwing/Tea Party ideology.
Their latest protests centre on the abortion issue, and the recent drive to force those considering abortion to have a sonogram first. The idea of course is the belief that once a pregnant woman or girl hears her baby's heartbeat, she will change her mind.
The Tea Party/conservative movement is nothing if not a lesson in paradox, because while they demand that the government stays out of their lives, they are forcing government intervention on the lives of women.
They are even holding public rallies with a pregnant woman on stage hooked up to a sonogram, and a voice over of the baby talking to the crowd.
But Steinem made a very compelling statement, when it comes to the rightwing and the abortion issue. She said that for them "life begins at conception and ends at birth". That's it in a nutshell. Because the new 'right' philosophy is all about ending social programs. They don't care about poverty. In their judgement if you're poor it's because you're lazy.
They just want those babies born.
In 2006 Michael Ignatieff wrote a piece for MacLeans magazine in which he said, in part:
Canadians have created a distinctly progressive political culture in North America. We believe in universal rights of access to publicly funded health care; we believe in the protection of group rights to language; in group rights to self-determination for Aboriginal peoples; we believe in the equality rights of all citizens, regardless of sexual orientation, including rights to marriage. Strong majorities of Canadians believe that while abortion should be rare, it should be a protected right for all women. (1)
Few challenged his statements because they were a fair representation of who we are as Canadians. And our views have not really changed, as a recent survey suggests. What has changed is a politicians ability to express those views.
When Ignatieff suggested that Canada's maternal health initiative should include safe abortions, he was accused of promoting eugenics, suggesting that he was trying to decrease the black African population, forgetting that unsafe abortions are doing just that. It has been established that 36,000 women die annually from unsafe abortions in Africa. Good child bearing women, something tea party logic should be fighting against happening.
Make no mistake, these semantic changes represent fundamental shifts to Canadian foreign policy. Each of the banned or altered terms carry with it significant policy implications, most related to the international human rights agenda. For example, when speaking of the war in the DRC, where upwards of 3 million people have been killed, and rape is widely used as a tool of war, the terms "impunity" and "justice" can no longer be used when calling for an end to, and punishment for, sexual violence.
And the Harper government has also reduced foreign aid to Africa, so again, their interest in a woman's reproductive rights, end at birth.
The abortion issue discussed on Bill Maher, included the Tea Party/conservatives attack on Planned Parenthood. And while only 2% of PP's mandate includes abortion, it is estimated that if it is dismantled, abortions would actually increase by about 40,00 a year.
In Canada, Stephen Harper and Stockwell Day have already eliminated funding to this organization. In 2006, they received $1,285,674 in federal grants, while in 2009, only $9,381.
Furthermore, Conservative Brad Trost circulated a petition to go after the International Planned Parenthood Federation in November of 2009 and in 2010:
One of the world’s biggest health-care providers for vulnerable women appears to have fallen victim to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s zero tolerance policy on abortion. In London, International Planned Parenthood Federation is waiting for a call from Canada that will preserve life-saving programs that help 31 million women and children.
Again this is very short sighted, and yet another case where ideology trumps factual information.
So if the Tea Party/conservative movement was serious about tackling the abortion issue, they would promote safe sex, the eradication of child poverty and income disparity.
And if you think that in 2006, Michael Ignatieff was only saying what he thought we wanted to hear to get elected, this is what he wrote of poverty in 2000, just three years after Stephen Harper boasted that he was a rare public figure who wasn't afraid to speak out against public money going to fight child poverty.
.... abundant societies that could actually solve the problem of poverty seem to care less about doing so than societies of scarcity that can't. This paradox may help to explain why the rights revolution of the past forty years has made inequalities of gender, race, and sexual orientation visible, while the older inequalities of class and income have dropped out of the registers of indignation. Abundance has awakened us to denials of self while blinding us to poverty. We idly suppose that the poor have disappeared. They haven't. They've merely become invisible. (2)
Another fundamental difference between Stephen Harper and Michael Ignatieff.
Sources:
1. Michael Ignatieff: what I would do if I were the Prime Minister: From Afghanistan to Quebec, education to the environment, Ignatieff lays out his bold, progressive vision for Canada. A Maclean's exclusive, September 01, 2006
2. The Rights Revolution: CBC Massey Lectures, By Michael Ignatieff, Anansi Books, 2000, ISBN: 978-0-88784-762-2, Pg. 92
Rob Ford is announcing another Canadian right-wing AstroTurf "Taxpayer" advocacy group. Ho hum.
He's calling it the first of it's kind and suggesting that it will represent centre-right issues. The Tea Party and all of these similar groups have three things in common:
1. They promote privatization so are always funded by corporations.
2. They represent far-right causes and the only thing 'centre' about them is the centre of the last donut Ford ate, and the centre of the Republican Party who usually writes their policies.
3. They are not new but part of a major network of right-wing AstroTurf groups posing as populism.
ProudToBeCanadian (mostly old Reformers and Ann Coulter) You'll have a hard time finding anything Canadian about this group. They even sport an American flag and the Tea Party
In Kingston, Ontario, the Conservative candidate, Alicia Gordon, is presenting herself as a moderate conservative, even suggesting that she will be running on a campaign of strengthening social services. (stop laughing dammit. Every time I say that, the earth shakes from so many belly laughs.)
But Ford reminds Canadians that Harper's party is more tea party, than any kind of conservatism we've ever had in Canada before. It is rumoured that Don Cherry will be promoting Gordon. Don Cherry of "left-wing pinko" fame.
Ford is also suggesting that left wingers include environmental groups. Since when has protecting the environment been a left wing issue?
Ford's Tea party will campaign against everything that is important to Canadians. At a time of record debt and deficit, tax reduction should not be made a priority. Proper use of tax money is a much better initiative.
I hope his tea party is loud and proud. It will be like taking candy from a baby.
Stephen Harper is in mourning today. His dreams of a Fox News North have been crushed. And the person to deliver this heart warming news, is Robert Kennedy Jr. I am on cloud nine.
As America's middle class battles for its survival on the Wisconsin barricades -- against various Koch Oil surrogates and the corporate toadies at Fox News -- fans of enlightenment, democracy and justice can take comfort from a significant victory north of Wisconsin border. Fox News will not be moving into Canada after all! The reason: Canada regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news.
This is definitely cause for celebration. And Kennedy didn't hold back.
Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," is known for having mounted a Bush like war on government scientists, data collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.
Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television is a stark admission that right wing political ideology can only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public.
It's great that this is going to an American audience, because I don't think they understand that our government is more Tea Party than many of their Republicans.
The wonderful Reverend Curt Anderson of Wisconsin has an op-ed piece in the Huffington Post, that should put all members of the Religious Right/Conservative/Tea Party group to shame.
Because they have joined the ranks of the corporate world, labelling workers as "greedy" and the unemployed as "lazy", when they should go back to the roots of their faith and remember that the Bible and other religious texts, are critical of the wealthy and business elite who wear their riches and power as a cloak of privilege.
Reverend Anderson explains why he is in support of the workers in Wisconsin, because it's what the Bible tells him to do.
My name is Curt Anderson. I am the Senior Minister at First Congregational United Church of Christ in Madison, Wisconsin; and I am on the Board of the Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice of South Central Wisconsin. There is one theme that is constant throughout the Bible. In Deuteronomy, we read: "You shall not withhold the wages of poor and needy laborers, whether your own people or aliens who reside in your land." In Jeremiah: "Woe to him who makes his neighbors work and does not give them their wages."
There is nothing fair about the governor of Wisconsin's proposal to virtually eliminate collective bargaining for public workers and unilaterally force public employees to start paying for health insurance and contributing to their pensions. This has been proposed without consultation, without bargaining, without even any concept of shared sacrifice.
There are no provisions to close tax loopholes that benefit corporations. There are no proposals to consider even minor tax increases for the wealthiest members of our state. There are no proposals to restructure Wisconsin's income tax system, where the wealthiest sometimes pay a lower percentage of their income in taxes than middle-class working families.
Interfaith groups like KAIROS, Anderson's group, Interfaith Coalition for Worker Justice, and others, demand social justice. The Religious Right that Stephen Harper has camped out on Parliament Hill represent the very worst in religion, and the reason why so many end up rejecting the Church. They advocate for greed and you don't have to be religious to know that that is just wrong.
Jim Flaherty recently announced that he will be spending $6.5 million to advertise his government's tax policies as helping Canadians. What won't be included in this taxpayer funded blitz, is the fact that taxes only went down for the wealthy, while Canada's working class have seen an increase.
And in Indiana where the Republican government is also trying to push through a union busting agenda, the Democrats have left the state, to avoid having it passed. This is the people fighting back and it's about damn time.
Let's hope we can inspire the same kind of movement in Canada. Where religious organizations, unions, advocacy groups and all Canadians not in support of the Corporate Welfare State, will march together. We are in a unique situation now with an election on the horizon.
For all of the hype about the Wisconsin protests being teabagged, the protesters ended up outnumbering the teabaggers 35 to 1. That's what they get for letting Sarah Palin drive the bus. Poor dear is still out there looking for the place, getting directions from Michele Bachmann. They'll never make it.
"The reason that we are here is because it's important that labor sticks together. There was a message from the governor's office to conquer and divide...collective bargaining is not just for us, police and fire, it's good for all involved. It's a middle-class upbringing."
"When firefighters see an emergency, one thing we do is respond. And we see an emergency in the house of labor, so that's why we're here."
"Every day, if you notice, we lead the AFSCME employees, the SEIU employees, all the public sector employees into the building, because we are here to fight with them."
"Collective bargaining is not about union rights; it's about rights of workers...We ask Gov. Walker to come back and negotiate with the people, negotiate with the state workers' unions, and get things worked out, as opposed to just putting out this bill and we don't hear from him again."
"Us as firefighters, we have been exempted from this bill...There's a 5.8 percent pay into the pension, there's a 12.4 percent pay into the health care premium benefits...For the betterment of the government, for the betterment of the state, we don't mind helping to pay for that. We don't want to price ourselves out of a job. Ever. What we want to do is have a fair and equitable treatment among our members."
And another nice thing happened with these protests, perhaps inspired by the firefighters. The two sides put down their (metaphorical) weapons and talked to each other. Can you imagine political discourse without all the yelling? Be still my heart.
When the two sides in Wisconsin's bitter battle over the future of the state's unionized public employees converged on the Capitol on Saturday for dueling rallies, the fear was trouble would break out. Instead, the day was marked by a surprising civility when the shouting stopped and the one-on-one conversations began.
My favourite photo though, was tweeted from Egypt.
And on that note, it's time to get on your feet again and walk like an Egyptian (and a Wisconsin(ite?)
