Monday, December 19, 2011

Fascism, a Liberal Party Legacy. . .

There is no question that the Harper government is a de facto fascist organization. I refer you to this excellent outline of what constitutes fascism in case you are so hopelessly naive or blindly partisan that you don't know what is going on. However, as bad as this government is, and it is worse than even most of its vociferous detractors suspect, the seeds for this fascism were planted by successive Liberal Governments who benefited from the undue power of the PMO and the various short-comings of our British Parliamentary system. The Liberals could, at any point, have embraced electoral and parliamentary reforms that would have ensured that our present fascist government could not systematically take control of every element of our nation and run roughshod over rights, ignore the law, and gerrymander the system to their advantage. For years the LPC didn't care about our lack of democracy, lack of transparency, or our lack of accountability, because they were the ones benefiting from it. There is no doubt that the present government is much worse in this regard than previous ones and that it is led by a group of men that is clearly mentally ill and models of dictatorship. But we are just seeing the result of decades of neglect on the part of the Liberal Party which, as long as it was in power, had no regard for our democratic short-comings.  When you neglect your democracy, that neglect comes back to haunt you. The Liberals were like abusive parents who have nurtured an abusive child and is now seeing the results. And it looks as though things will now get considerably worse as the present government is abusive of democracy to a whole new degree and its leaders are mentally disturbed, paranoid, insulated, whack-jobs who seem to be entirely out of control in their thirst for power.

And despite all of this, amid the LPC big hype for "renewal," they have entirely failed to own up to their terrible legacy of mistakes and power-hungry abuses. They still don't get it. They are out of power and because of their abuses of democracy there is a good chance we have lost our democracy permanently. But are they calling for real electoral and parliamentary reform? Not in the slightest. They still live under the delusion that they will return to power and be able to enjoy their traditional abuses of that power, and with the more corrupted system that the present fascist government leaves them they are hoping to rain down an unprecedented revenge on their opponents. And like the Liberals before them, the  present government is wholly ignoring the prospect that they will eventually become victims of the very abuse and hatred that they are now peddling. This points to something worse than a cycle of abuse, rather it points to a downward spiral that will end in the destruction of everything we hold dear.

So my message to the Liberals is - next time you go out of your way to criticize our present fascist government, remember, your laid the groundwork for this failure and you are showing no signs of changing the system of failure to which you gave birth. Our present government is twisted, immoral, fascist, and dangerous. But it is the child of the LPC and that parent company is still its old self with no signs of regret or reform.

9 comments:

doconnor said...

Not just when the Liberals where in government. The Liberals provided unconditional support for the Conservatives during most of their time in a minority.

The Mound of Sound said...

@doconnor - yes the Libs did just that - at least until they didn't. Whenever they stopped, Jack Layton was there in a flash to prop up Harper. And let's not forget that, whenever an election rolled around, it was Layton who served as Harper's faithful handmaiden and assured his re-election.

Omar said...

And yet, all I hear about from the Liberals and the NDP is the economy, the economy, the economy. I have received several fund raising emails from Nycole Turmel of late and they have all been alarmist regarding the economy and the plight of Canadian families under it. With everything the Harper government is doing to undermine the Canadian way of life, I am sick to death of hearing about the goddamn economy. Harper is getting away with societal murder under this fog of excessive worrying over the economy and it needs to stop. I absolutely agree with you that Harper's regime is a fascist one and the political party that begins attacking on that front is the party that will have my support.

Kirbycairo said...

Mound - as usual, your facts are wrong, and your analysis is specious.

Kirbycairo said...

Well said Omar.

doconnor said...

It be specific the NDP only supported the Conservatives once in exchange for a billion dollars or so in employment insurance benefits. The Liberals never got anything substantial for their support.

There where a bunch of time there where rumors that the NDP would support the government, but it turned out they didn't because the Liberals caved. People seem to confuse the rumors with what actually happened. I even saw the Toronto Star claim the NDP had supported the government when, at the time, it hadn't once.

Kirbycairo said...

Thanks doconnor, it gets tiring struggling against the constant flow of misinformation. I harbor no illusions about the NDP under Jack Layton, and I was critical of his actions on many occasions. However, the NDP cannot be compared to the LPC in their constant support of the CPC and, more importantly, their closeness to the Conservatives on so many policy issues.

Anonymous said...

Ah, that lovely emotive word. Orwell: "the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else."

http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc

Kirbycairo said...

Anonymous,, all words, particularly important and powerful ones are burdened with ambiguity. One the other hand, we cannot let tyrants hide behind the ambiguity of language. Thus, in the interest of a certain degree of clarity, I offered the link concerning the question of fascism as a political ideology and praxis. It seems, no matter how often people tell us that the word has been rendered meaningless, and no matter how carelessly people throw the word around, it points to a pretty specific kind of political strategy that is connected to an effort to undermine the rule of law, the rules of the legislative body, the connection between government and corporatism, and significant assault on democracy. I won't let the tyrant hide behind an ambiguity.