If you haven't read this article by Michael Harris, read it. It is very interesting. Besides the partisan talk of Nathen Cullen, whom he quotes at length, there is something significant in what Harris is saying, and it is a sentiment with which I heartily agree. China could very well be what brings Harperland down to a heap of ashes and rubble. And the more one looks at the facts, the more bizarre Haper's infatuation with China becomes. (I can't help but wonder if there is something untoward in the relationship). For years Harper and the conservatives never tired of telling us how terrible the regime in China was, and now he has signed a deal so secretive and so dangerously unpatriotic that it borders on treason. Meanwhile Haper has spend a huge amount of his political capital on the idea of a pipeline that will cross the province of BC (which is almost universally hostile to it) and which will pump oil continuously to China. It seems clear now that there is a looming fight between the people of BC and the Harpercons which could end in a very ugly and dirty way, and which could possibly ignite a very real separatist movement in on the West Coast.
Harper has lost Quebec (and for all intents and purposes disregarded it), he is very quickly losing BC (and by the time of the next federal election that loss could be complete, Ontario is really feeling the pinch and a possible victory of the Tories in the next election there will, I predict, generation increasing hatred for the Conservative Brand, his support in the Maritimes is shallow at best, and Harper is certainly not making any new friends in the prairies. Harper has invested all of his political capital on what amounts to a new NEP despite the fact that the Conservatives told us all for years that the Federal government should butt out of energy policy and leave it to the provinces, and that new NEP is looking more and more like a wholesale selloff of Canada to China with no regard for our future economic, social, and environmental health.
Napoleon's Waterloo was really found in the fact that he could never be satisfied with being the leader of the French nation as a nation among others in Europe. Napoleon was driven by an almost psychotic hatred of England and his desire for France to rise above all others in its status and power. From a nationalistic point of view, it was a noble, if misguided, aspiration. Harper's Waterloo is strangely petty and bizarrely twisted in comparison. Harper's aspiration seems to amount to little more than turning Canada into a single raw commodity exporter in the interest of a foreign tyrannical power with no regard for anyone in Canada save a handful of very wealthy oil executives. But the coming fall from grace that Harper is facing will make the real Waterloo look like a graceful defeat.
After Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo, the British government held him on the ship HMS Bellerophon at Portsmouth before he was finally imprisoned on St. Helena. Where will the people of Canada hold Mr. Haper after they have taken dragged him from the office from which he tried to destroy Canada?
Katalog Dapur Aqiqah
8 months ago
15 comments:
Sell out?. Perhaps. A man with secrets?. Certainly. Indeed, besides being Canada's most secretive Prime Minister, Harper is possibly one of the most spied-on individuals in all of North America, and with the type of effort that China most surely has brought to the game, a lot of info, both personal and private, about our PM, his cabinet and most importantly that which we know so very little of ourselves, is probably in their possession. What that may be, who knows?. Yet, we have been warned, by our neighbours, allies and even our own security services, about this threat and the type of extortion that may be applied. So why the coyness and dismissive attitude of this government -fear?- concerning this huge problem and the unbelievable apostasy of Harper regarding China, which seems to have ushered in a de facto invasion of our territory?. Selling out?, perhaps. Beyond that, we may not find out until its to late and unfortunately for Canada, it will told by those who have everything to gain, by its loss.
The Waterloo comparison is instructive, Kirby. Napoleon certainly did not foresee his demise. Neither does Stephen Harper.
Beijing?
Thanks for the comment Stew. That is the kind of thing I was hinting at when I said that there seems to be something "untoward" in the relationship.
Why does it have to be something complex? China has lots of money. We have lots of things China would like to buy.
Harper isn't the first PM to solicit the Chinese. Trudeau beat Nixon to China. Chretien was in China all the time (indeed, the current trade agreement began negotiation under Chretien).
Well, Anonymous, the reason that it seems odd is because a) Harper spent the entire first part of his career condemning China and anyone who had dealings with him, b) In his well known critiques of the NEP the primary issue was supposedly the fact that the Federal government should not be involved in promoting an energy strategy that it perceived to be for "the good" of the "whole nation," and yet that is exactly the argument that the Cons now use to justify oil production and sales to China above all other economic efforts, and c) the nature of the new agreement between China and the Hapercons is unprecedented in the power and influence that it gives to China outside of its own borders. This is not anything like the kinds of associations that Trudeau or Nixon established in the 70s.
In BC we saw the danger of Red China long ago. Gordon Campbell, Harper's favorite henchman, shipped BC mills to China, along with our raw logs. What kind of an idiot, gives jobs to a Communist country, instead of their own damned people? China was also sending their people to school, to learn English, way back in Campbell's time. We posted and yelled about that, no-one would listen. There are now, 2000 miners on their way to BC, to take our mining jobs. They have all learned English by now, right?
CSIS also warned. Communist China was making huge inroads into Canada. BC was specifically named. No-one listened again. Did people need to be hit over the head, to see what was going on, or what?
Harper has already sold huge chunks of the tar pits to Red China. Harper permitted China to bring their own cheap labor. In fact, all company's are permitted to use cheap Chinese labor to exploit. Harper even said. China can bring swarms over, to build the Enbridge pipeline. No Canadians don't get the refining jobs. Harper gave those to Red China too. What kind of an idiot P.M. gives his own country's peoples jobs, to a Communist country?
Putin on his visit to China, has signed a deal with them. Russia will give Red China all the oil they want. China is now the lead in oil sales. Oil will be sold by the Chinese yaun, instead of the dollar. China expects to have the world currency with in ten years.
China gets to pump all of the cheap oil from the tar pits. Refine it cheaply with Chinese labor, sell it for a very nice profit, off our stupidity.
Communist China has hacked into other country's secret files. They sold infected electronic components to other country's. U.S. missiles and other weapons had, infected component purchased from Red China.
Other country's are kicking China out of their territories. Harper brings that country, right onto our own country's damned soil.
And, no-one saw it. Well, BC sure in the hell did. Campbell thieved and sold everything of value in BC. China owns our most important resources, and the jobs.
Some of had already said, quite some time ago. Get BC the hell out of Harper's Canada. Of course, everyone jumps down your neck for saying it.
Every province except Alberta of course, should get the hell away from Harper and Ottawa, as far and fast as they can get.
No Canadian is obligated, to obey a Traitor, committing High Treason, against their country. We want nothing to do with Red China, what-so-ever.
Maybe Harper considers the Chinese government and its repression and Chinese government controlled businesses to be different things. One he likes and one he doesn't like.
Canadians can dislike Harper while at the same time like the CBC because they are quite disconnected. How disconnected Chinese businesses are from Communist Party is a legitimate question.
it is, indeed, a legitimate question doconnor. However, the agreements that Harper has made are with the Chinese government and they are designed to protect and promote Chinese interests. And when we consider the near slave-like conditions that exist in much of China, and the kinds of objections that Harper and his ilk make against other countries not half as bad as China, the picture doesn't look good for Harper in my opinion.
We already have significant trade with China. What makes the trade going on today 'okay', but the trade which happens on November 1 'treason'?
Anonymous, look at the agreement (or at least that part of it which is available to the public) and you surely wouldn't ask that question.
The difference between China's human rights violations and the USA's human rights violations is becoming increasingly smaller.
We trade with the USA. Why not China?
Reconciling harper's earlier condemnations of China and Canadian politicians who pander to the dictatorship requires acknowledging just one fact:
harper's concern for human rights, democracy and the rule of law was bullshit. Just like Chretien slobbered all over the mass-murderer Suharto, harper slobbers over China.
This deal is troubling however. I don't like it. But I suspect it will be a precedent for other trade deals with other countries, including the USA.
As much as I dislike the US and its many unjust actions at home and abroad, I think your comparison of China and the US is surely overstated. Though the futre may bring these two countries increasingly closer in this regard, at the moment I just don't think it is a just comparison.
Be that as it may, the agreement in question is frightening and deeply problematic.
I think the USA has killed more people in Iraq, Afghanistan, Colombia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Palestine, etc., etc., ... it jails more people proportionate to its population than does China. (Although China executes more.)
It's sort of an important question and I'm not saying I'm 100% certain that I'm right.
But it's importance lies in whether harper's behaviour is unusual for a Canadian comprador politician or par for the course.
I know what you are saying thwap, and I sympathise with you basic position, particularly when we consider the events in Iraq, Indo-China, etc. I think what strikes me here is the significance of near slave-like economy at home and its growing economic imperialism abroad. (And, of course, the particular nature of the trade agreement at hand here) Contrasted with the quite simple (but not insignificant) fact that the US still has actual labour laws (though they are being quickly watered-down), and I think that there are still important issues. In other words China is now what the US is quickly becoming.
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