One Man's Freedom-fighter. . . . .

Perhaps the greatest irony of the Harpercon regime (and there are literally dozens to choose from) is the difference in attitude that they take toward the people who suffer under the yoke of the Syrian government and those that suffer under the yoke of the Israeli Government. Both governments have a profound democratic deficit and both nations are repressing millions of people with systematic violence. Yet for the Harpercons, the people of Syria are allowed (even encouraged) to defend themselves, while the Palestinians are afforded no such privilege and when they do attempt (in any small way that they can) to assert their rights, the Harpercons consider them to be nothing more than terrorists to be punished.

John Baird and Stephen Harper are buffoons who are attached to some strange dispensationalism which compels them to promote the expansion of Israel into all the land of the Palestinians. Meanwhile, the Israeli government has actively pursued a strategy of stalling any talk of peace while they gradually take all the land until the whole notion of peace talks will make no sense since their will be no land left in the region that is not entirely settled by the Israelis.

Until the people of Israel truly embrace the principles of democracy and commit themselves either to a viable Palestinian state or a shared state that is democratic and equal, there will be no peace. And as long as they oppose the whole world in blind, quasi-religious support for Israel, the Harpercons will be on the wrong side of history. But then conservatives have always been on the wrong side of history, while the progressives have dragged the human race into a better future despite the regressive attitudes of the rightwing.

Political Deception and the Ford/Harper Nation. . .

The fundamental thrust of the contemporary rightwing ideology in our country, whether found in the form of the Ford Brothers or the Harper cabal, is multifold. While the overarching narrative of this movement is an entirely deceptive notion of "working for the people," (an ideological sleight of hand that variously uses the facade of populism or the 'sober,' steady-hand on the economic tiller), behind this illusory notion of public interest lies a sinister agenda of systematically reorganizing society and the economy away from all notions of political, economic, and social equality which grew largely out of the trade union movement in the first half of the 20th century. What is arguably most disturbing about this shift is not the drive toward greater inequality that emerges from the corporatist agenda per se, but the degree of blatant deception involved at every level of this effort.

The Ford phenomenon in Toronto involves the typically deceptive practices of much of populist politics from the Peróns in Argentina to much of the European fascism of the 1930s. Such practices almost always involve some appeal to "cleaning up politics," undercutting some vague and never specified "leftist" conspiracy, and a claim for the need to return to some kind of fiscal sanity in the face of a supposed history of left-wing waste and over indulgence. Inevitably, these claims are almost always universally false and don't stand up to even the most superficial factual exploration. However, the falseness of the rightwing, populist claims almost never disuades their practitioners from maintaining the charade. Perhaps the most blatant example of this in modern times has been the Reagan phenomenon. Despite the fact that by the time it had left office the Reagan administration had radically increased the size of government, increased overall taxes, exclusively delivered deficit budgets, and significantly increased the US's debt to GNP ratio, Reagan supporters continue to this day to blatantly lie about what Reagan achieved and what the administration's goals really were.

In the case of the Ford brothers in Toronto, these boorish slobs have sought to gain public support with continual appeals to a non-existant 'gravy-train' and fiscal irresponsibility of the previous (more left-leaning administration), while the real goals hidden behind these claims have always been (beside the obvious self-glorification) to both centralize power around a pro-corporate cabal and to gut the very notion of government as a meaningful provider of service.

This idea of a retreat from government as a provider has been central to almost all the efforts of the Harpercon regime. By gutting government services the Harpercons hope to create the illusion that government is essentially incapable (whether at a simple fiscal level or a more fundamentally ideological level) from contributing to making meaningful improvements to people's lives. While attempting to universalize this falsehood, the Harpercons have quietly shifted the tax burden away from  corporations and the rich and placed it squarely on the shoulders of the middle and working-class.

But besides the shift to a corporatist ideology, the rightwing (whether of the falsely-populist type of the Ford brothers or the more blatantly elitist type of the Harper regime) have used this political phenomenon which relies on a systematic appeal to a political style of deception, scapegoating, marginalizing, extreme secrecy, denial, trickery, information control, a lack of transparency, and just plain lying. And men like Ford and Harper rely profoundly on fear, public ignorance, a sympathetic corporate media, and the gradual breakdown of education standards. As the rise of fascism once demonstrated, an ill-informed, fearful public can be easily appealed to by strategies of scapegoating and lying.

Inevitably, most deceptive politicians eventually fall to their own dishonesty and hubris. The Ford conviction is a very typical example of such a fall. It was not simply the fact that he acted improperly in using his office to solicit funds (such malfeasance could easily have been overlooking in this case), rather it was the culture of denial and deception that really created the problem. He extended his initial mistake into a systematic refusal to face up to the problem and correct it. And this is a telling event for the rightwing in this country as a whole. When one relies heavily on deception and information control, the web of malfeasance usually becomes ever more complex until it comes crashing down on your head.

Mayor Ford, Michael Coren, and Political Hypocrisy. . . .

I am very seldom shocked by the hubris and hypocrisy of the rightwing. That is not to say that the left is never guilty of hubris or hypocrisy, but that often shocks me because at the heart of the leftwing commitment should be a principled stance of honesty and democracy. The only real universal commitment of the rightwing, on the other hand, is greed and self-interest. Be that as it may, suffice it to say that given these dubious principles, it would be foolish to be shocked by very much of the rightwing malfeasance.

Thus, it certainly cannot be a shock to most people when the rightwing sycophants were appalled by the ouster of Mayor Ford of Toronto. Perhaps the most blatant expression of hypocrisy regarding the guilty verdict against Ford can be found in a Twitter post by rightwing pundit Michael Coren. Coren had this to say - "Democracy dies as leftists, union thugs, political judges remove a man who got almost half the vote."

The first thing that is striking about this Twitter post is found in the fact that Coren seems to imply here that receiving a large portion of the popular vote in an election somehow should excuse a person from obeying the law. I can't help but wonder if Mr. Coren has some cut off point in mind concerning insulation from legal proceeding. Perhaps Mr. Coren thinks that if one receives more than, say, 40.3% of the vote then you can just do whatever you want? Or maybe the standard is a little lower.

I don't know about Mr. Coren, but last time I looked, no one, not even people who received 100% of the vote are above the law. And that is exactly what we are really talking about here because not only was it clear (pretty much as clear as any court-case can get in this country) that Mayor Ford was guilty of a conflict of interest. But what seemed to be as equally important to the judge in the case was the fact that Mayor Ford repeatedly ignored demands to pay back the funds in the case.

But this is the rightwing all over. They talk about being tough on crime, but anytime one of their own is found guilty of anything it must be the result of a leftist conspiracy or a judge overstepping his or her mandate. The rightwing, at every level of government in Canada, seems to believe that it is above the law. And this belief has been repeatedly expressed by men like Mayor Ford. Now there may come a time when the rightwing in this country has so much control over the courts that it will be able to ignore the laws whenever they please. But for now, Mayor Ford's actions are as much restricted by the law as the rest of us. The fact is, that putting aside Mayor Ford's abrasive, bigoted, childish, lying, boorish, and ill-considered behavior at every level, he, like his federal friends and counterparts, has no regard for the rule of law when it comes to his own actions. Unfortunately, being mean-spirited doesn't prevent you from holding public office, but continually ignoring the law often does.

I understand Michael Coren's disappointment that one of the people with which he has a great deal of political sympathy has been pulled from office, but it was in NO way the fault of leftists, union thugs (this claim is simply mystifying to me), or political judges (except to the degree that any judicial position is, by its nature, political). No, Mr. Coren, every little thing about this case was the fault of one man - Mayor Ford; a mean-spirited, rightwing man who also happens to believe the law doesn't apply to him. And, Mr. Coren, even if the case against Ford was politically motivated, it is the height of hypocrisy for the rightwing in this country, which has adopted wholesale the political style of Karl Rove and will stop at nothing (and I mean NOTHING) to marginalize and oust anyone on the left, to suddenly feign some bizarre sense of righteousness concerning what they claim is political honesty. The rightwing is the faction that set the standard for personal attacks in this country, but they are the first to bulk if they reep what they sew.

Democracy, Corporatism, and the RIghtwing agenda. . . .

Public discourse is finally beginning to wake up to the fact that democracy is now in retreat all over the world. Despite the supposed democratization of many former dictatorships that took place in the 1990s and the more recent Arab Spring, everywhere you look the rich and powerful (and those that represent the growing corporate agenda) are formulating techniques to narrow political debate, to create a very small window of 'acceptable' policies, and wherever possible suppress the vote itself. Governments are getting large but also significantly less accountable, more powerful but with a specific corporate agenda.

The problem with democracy for those with a corporatist agenda is that it always has the potential of putting limits on corporate power. If 'the people' can decide to create public policies, those policies might not be entirely friendly to a society in which corporations are free to pollute all they want, can exploit people with no let or hinderance, pay no taxes, and offer no social safety net in the form of pensions and social welfare. From the corporatist point of view, democracy must be suppressed and curtailed at all cost, through trickery, control, and even illegal activity.

But to understand what is really going on, I think we need to have some sense of how the rightwing has changed and what the modern corporatist turn in rightwing politics is really about. With this in mind, I have jotted down a few thoughts on the subject of corporatism and the right. It is necessarily a truncated set of ideas but I think it offers some brief outline on the issues and gives some idea why democracy has become the enemy of the rich and powerful.

Understanding the nature of rightwing politics has, I think, become very confusing for many people in recent years. The right talks about smaller government but consistently expands the size and reach of government. They talk about lower taxes but in reality that idea seems to only be applied to large corporations and the very rich. They talk about more freedoms but they continually suppress democracy and extend the ability of government to wield arbitrary power in many areas of society. They seem to pay lip-service to libertarian principle but never seem to have any real notion of applying such principles.

What is going on here?

Well, I believe that the only way to really understand modern rightwing ideology is to understand the basic changes that have taken place in capitalism over the past century or so. The movement of capitalist ideology has been a movement from individualism to corporatism. And it is this change which is essential to the understanding of rightwing ideology in modern times.

But we are getting ahead of ourselves. What must be understood, first and foremost, is that rightwing ideology has, at its core, a basic belief in social Darwinism. Now I am careful to stress the word “social” in that phrase because capitalists are not now, nor have they ever been, real Darwinists. Let’s face it, a guy like Mitt Romney wouldn’t last five minutes in a Mad Max, post apocalyptic world where the notion of survival of the strongest really applied. Capitalists have always believed that competition must be managed, not allowed to expand in a “natural” way. Adam Smith understood this very clearly. That is why Smith was at pains to make it clear that there was an important distinction between “Capitalism” and the “Market.” The market is an exchange of goods and services. Capitalism, on the other hand, is system in which the government regulates the system in order to protect existing wealth and set the terms for the creation of wealth. In other words, Capitalists have never believed in the so-called “free-market,” nor have they believed in a real system of competition. If you doubt the idea that the rightwing doesn't really believe in the 'free-market,' ask your self why they don't advocate for your individual right to  practice as a doctor without the proper training, or you are prohibited from selling food without complying with a host of  regulations.

Thus we can say that capitalists advocate an ideology of social Darwinism – a system of regulated competition in which those who already have wealth or are willing to comply with certain rules of the game can maintain their power and money. Policies such as welfare or collective bargaining, therefore are seen by the right as fundamentally to be resisted because they encourage equality (of both opportunity and living) and this is the very opposite to what capitalists want. But, of course, in so-called democratic societies the rightwing has continually been forced to temper these beliefs in social Darwinism because the public advocacy of such beliefs doesn’t win elections.

However, the process of successful social Darwinism has changed as capitalism changed and developed. As time passed, capitalism has gradually moved away from the single capitalist unit of entrepreneurship to the limited liability company and the corporation. As this process has happened, the corporation becomes the central focus of Capitalists and the rightwing in general. The corporation is the focal point for those social Darwinists who seek avenues to unhindered possibilities of wealth and power. Labor laws, increased union power, and technological advancements all made capitalist enterprise gradually more the purview of large corporations. Thus, if capitalists want to maintain the best possible atmosphere for their social Darwinist ideology they must make the corporation the central focus of all politics and social and economic policy. They continually attempt to legitimize the power of corporations by promoting the twisted notion that "corporations are people."

For these reasons, modern rightwing ideology should be called corporatism rather than conservatism. This change has been made more clear in recent years as so-called conservatives have, in most Western democracies, moved away from their traditional social issues. Rather, those who we have traditionally called conservatives have focused their entire attention on shifting the body politic toward servicing corporations and their interests. In this context democracy, and legislative bodies become a bothersome impediment to the maintenance and increase in corporate power. Stephen Harper’s hatred of the House of Commons and the processes of democracy are not simply coincidental quirks of his pathological personality. Rather, these are specific strategies toward finding ways of increasing corporate wealth and power. Similarly, attacks on unions and the principles of collective bargaining are about shifting social power in favor of corporations.

On the ideological front, the right continually harps at entirely false notions of so-called “fiscal responsibility” as they attempt to convince people that despite greater social wealth than ever before, we can’t afford as a society to pay people good wages and have decent salaries. As corporatism begins to colonize every part of society, people begin to entirely abandon Kant’s categorical imperative as people become nothing more than lifeless pawns in the service of corporate profits. And as people become increasingly dehumanized, they adopt the ideology of their oppressors and actually begin to act like the automatons that they have been treated as. 

So it is this shift toward a corporatist ideology that makes a concerted attack by the rightwing on the process of democracy an essential element of rightwing ideology. The rightwing wants to create a society in which the pursuit of wealth and power is the only conceivable social good and corporations are the vehicle for that pursuit. Thus they want to manifest the notion of politicians simply as administrators of a society of corporation interests rather than a group of public policy makers. In this context, the very idea of democracy must be severely limited and, wherever necessary, suppressed altogether. The less people think of government as a body that helps to create an educated, fulfilled, population that lives in a society with high degree of social, economic, and political equality, and the more people can be convinced that the purpose of government is only to 'administer' a corporate economy, the less important the very notion of democracy becomes and the more pointed the conditions of social Darwinism become for those who hunger to live a life of exploitation and power.

As I said, these thoughts are truncated, but I think the idea is outlined fairly clearly. Democracy will continue to be in retreat as long as people let the rightwing pursue its corporate agenda. As long as we let people like Stephen Harper suppress democracy, information, and public interest in meaningful politics, the more we will move away from a society of relative equality and meaningful prosperity.  

One Man's Terrorist is another's Freedom Fighter. . .

I was listening to News Radio 1010 in Toronto yesterday night and one of their many mindless, rightwing drones was rambling on about the situation in Gaza. As though the State of Israel dosen't have enough blind and ignorant support, this yahoo was lamenting that people aren't supportive enough of Israel's right to do anything it wants. He actually said this - "Imagine if Mexico were lobbing missils into El Paso! No one would question the right of the US to defend itself militarily would they?"

This is the kind of specious, misleading, and woefully incomplete comparison that is so aggravating about the conflict in the Middle East. It is just amazing, and entirely mystifying, to me that people are so wilfully ignorant and bigoted about this on-going tragedy. Of course people have the right to defend themselves. But why is it that so many people in North America seem to believe that the only people in the world who have no right to defend themselves are those who oppose Israel and US interestes??

For a complete picture, let me complete the comparison that the rightwing radio host so misleadingly left incomplete. Imagine that the US used its superior military might to systematically take over large parts of northern Mexico to build walled and gated communities for the exclusive use by US citizens. Let us imagine that the US took over much of Mexico's territory this way - in a slow process of illegal theft and that they pushed the rest of the Mexican population into smaller and smaller enclaves. Now lets imagine that what was left of Mexico was walled in and controlled with a debilitating embargo. Now let us say that the remaining Mexicans, living in appalling poverty and in what was de facto the largest prison in the world, had the gall to fight back by using the very limited and not systematically threatening use of out-dated missiles against the greatest military might in the world. Would we be saying "How dare those Mexican terrorists fight back from their enforced prison to assert their right to take back their own country!!" The very idea seems absurd but that is exactly what is going on in Palestine.

Most of the Palestinian land has now been taken over by daily acts of war by the hugely powerful Israeli State. These acts of war, in the form of illegal Israeli settlements, as well as the theft of Palestine's natural resources, have been going on for nearly two generations. It is the Palestinians who are defending themselves against a militaristic, expansionist state that seeks to take all the land and resources for themselves. This is not a religious issue, and the effort to portray it as one is simply a classic diversionary tactic. It is a political issue. It is the issue of one state with remarkable military might given to them by the worlds largest military power illegally taking the land of another people and then claiming that those people's effort to fight back is "terrorism" in an effort to further justify their expansionist efforts.

The map speaks for itself.

The UN agreement that created Israel promised a state for the Palestinian people. Instead of getting a state, what little land they have is being systematically stolen. The Palestinians are still waiting.


PS. I think an interesting contemporary post-script to this story is the recent remake of the terrible 80s movie Red Dawn. In that story a group of American youth organize a military effort to fight back against a foreign invasion. Apparently Americans civilians who take up arms against foreign invasion are heroes but anyone from any other country that does the same is a terrorist. In the Red Dawn story teenagers actually kill foreign soldiers. But when Omar Khadr did the same thing he wasn't a hero but a terrorist. What's good for the goose is, apparently, not good for the gander.

Will We Have a Haircut for a PM?

Today's new poll concerning the possible fate of the Liberal Party in the next election (if Trudeau were elected leader), demonstrates at the very least that recent talk of the death of the Liberal Party were greatly exaggerated. I have said for a while now that the Liberal Party under Trudeau could form the next government, and this poll confirms that many people feel this way. The unfortunate thing is that, despite Harper's pathological hatred for them, the Liberal Party really is not that different from the Conservative Party. Of course, part of the potential popularity for Trudeau is, I think, that people perceive him to be more "left" than the last few leaders. That, of course, means little since a) Trudeau's political goals are not clear yet, and b) Liberals are now famous for campaigning far left of where they end up governing. However, if Trudeau did end up leading the party more to the left (and given the contemporary political climate, how far right they have gone already, and the way Harper has positioned his party in public perception at least, it seems impossible that Trudeau could go anywhere but left, at least a little bit) it would probably be a good thing for many centrists in Canada who feel, (wrongly of course) that there has been no political home for them. For leftists, on the other hand, a renewed Liberal Party would be bad news since a new Liberal Government would mean status quo in terms of the real problems of economic inequality etc.

There is, however, one bright spot in this news for all of us who despise Stephen Harper. Few things would be as satisfying than seeing Harper defeated by the very party that he thought he had destroyed. And to give the occasion even more rich with narrative irony a greater satisfaction would be Harper being defeated by a guy with Trudeau as a last name. Of course, make no mistake, If Trudeau did get elected leader of the Liberal Party and Trudeau began to look unbeatable (despite the relentless, ruthless, and surely dishonest attack against him that the Cons would mount) there is NO WAY Harper would subject himself to that kind of defeat. He would either take drastic steps (and we all know the kinds of things of which he is capable) or he would resign. So despite it all, I doubt we will ever see Trudeau beat Harper in an election, alas.

Regardless of what happens my real hope is that the next government, whether it is Liberal or NDP, will actually bring some accountability to the House of Commons, that it will not continue the dangerously anti-democratic turn that has occurred under Harper, and that it will take a serious look at real, legal investigations into the many laws that the Harpercons have broken.

Idle Thoughts . . . .

Just Wondering . . . .

- The Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party consists of seven men. There are more than a billion people, don't you think they could have found a couple of women?

-How long to we have to listen to people suggest that Jason Kenney is a good model of the GOP to follow? I mean a) the guy is blatantly racist and sexist, b) the movement of recent immigrants toward the Conservative Party has been way over exaggerated, and c) Romney won a much larger portion of the vote in general than the Conservative Party did.

- How long do we have to listen to the myth that conservatives are the best money managers? First of all, over all, the NDP in Canada have delivered the most balanced budgets. Conservative Governments consistently run deficits, expand the size of governments, and only ever cut taxes selectively in ways that increase the financial burden on average people. If Harper told us that his cabinet ministers can fly, would the media believe that too??

- How long are people going to believe that the State of Israel is a poor defenceless  victim? Besides having one of the strongest militaries in the world and being the recipient of the majority of US foreign aid (particularly military aid), every time that Israel builds a house in the occupied territory (against international law and UN General Assembly directives, by the way) it is an act of war! Thus the claim that Israel is simply defending itself while it is actually engaged in a systematic and militaristic expansionist program on stolen land is wearing a bit thin.

- How long are people going to be stupid enough to believe that conservatives and capitalists desire generalized prosperity?? In a globalized economy, for example, in which we could never compete with countries like China for labour costs, the only way to greater prosperity for countries in the West is through significant technological innovation. And the way to achieve this is very simple, free universal post-secondary education and a significant shift in government resources toward new technologies. But most Western nations are doing neither of these things because the rich generally want more poverty at home because it means cheaper labour and a larger piece of the pie for them. Open a bloody history book once in a while.

- Why is Wayne Brady waisting his significant comic talents hosting "Let's Make a Deal" ??

- Why are the books that are nominated for the Giller Prize always simpering, bourgeoise, melodramas written in a hopelessly antiquated, 19th century style?

- Now that Hostess is going out of business, what will a world without Twinkies be like? Considerably less yummy I would think.

The Sad Liberal Spectacle. .. . . .

As expected, Martha Hall Finley announced her candidacy for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada. And, I am sorry to say, it was another sad, pathetic, spectacle of Liberal Bullsh*t and denial. Ms. Finley claimed that the Liberals need to attack Mulcair and the NDP where they are "weakest," on the economy. Another sad example of Liberal spin, and just plain wrong. The fact is that where Mulcair and the NDP are the strongest is precisely on the economy! And here is why -

The Liberals, very sadly, continue to fail to see that though we are indeed in a recession, there is something much bigger and more significant going on. Capitalism is at a crossroads and the problems need to be addressed. Furthermore, the Liberal Party continues to live in complete denial that it is, in large part, their policies that created the problem. Oh yes, the Conservatives are terrible, but the real underlying problems of the economy are largely brought to you by Jean Chretien and Paul Martin. (The problems go back, of course, further than this but it is the Liberal Party of the 90s that entrenched the structural difficulties.)

Liberals and Conservatives can argue all they want about the short-term solutions to bring the Canadian economy out of recession. But they refuse utterly to address the structural issues. Capitalism as an economic system will collapse completely unless we radically expand the social, economic, and political power which has contracted so much in the past 25 years. Power and incomes must be significantly redistributed in Western nations, and unless that happens this recession will simply be the tip of the iceberg of economic collapse.

Neither the Liberal nor the Conservative Parties even admit that we have a fundamental problem, let alone have any actual policies to address the issue. You can claim, Ms. Finley, that Mulcair is weakest on the issue of the economy but at least economic and social equality is on his radar. You and your Liberal cohorts, on the other hand have your eyes wide shut to the fact that it is precisely YOU who brought us here and you are not addressing the problem in any way, shape, or form! The Liberals can elect a new leader and then go happily on pretending that if you are a slight improvement on the political style fo Harper then you will happily come back to power. But this just won't do Ms. Finley! More and more money and power is gathering in fewer and fewer hands and only a significant reduction in corporate power and ruling-class wealth (relative to the rest of us) will save capitalism. Ignore this very simple issue at your own peril but what is going on here is exactly what every revolution in history is made of. Inequality is the downfall of a nation and the neither Martha Hall Finley nor the Liberal Party are coming to grips with the gathering storm. Reep the whirlwind Ms. Finley and wallow in your blindness, ignorance, and denial!

Testament to Incompetence. . . .

If anyone is a testament to the utter incompetence and mean-spiritedness of the Harpercon government it is this man -

I might even say that Jim Flaherty's power and worldly 'success' is ample evidence that if there is a God, she plays no part the daily order of our lives.

While he was the finance minister in Harris' and Eves' era in Ontario Flaherty left a 5Billion dollar deficit in a time of prosperity which he desperately attempted to hide from the voters. Figuring that such incompetence was a qualification to handle an even larger budget, Harper gave him the same post at a federal level. Now he has overseen the largest deficit in Canadian history while simultaneously cutting pensions, public servants, and important social services.

Jim Flaherty is a world-class fool and Tory times are hard times - ALWAYS.

America Died. . . .

One time Saturday Night Live cast-member, and well-known half-wit, Victoria Jackson took her desperation out on her twitter followers as she watched the Romney presidential bid slowly go up in smoke. It seems that the comedian, who has garnered public attention for her anti-gay rants, was beside herself with grief at the thought of another four years of Obama. (Though unlike that other well-known wacko, Donald Trump, she didn't suddenly become an advocate for a rightwing insurrection.)

"I can't stop crying," Jackson wrote in one tweet.

"America died," she wrote in another.

And yet despite her shocking stupidity and always ill-considered political remarks, there is a very real sense in which the comedian is right in her assessment. America has died (or at least is quickly headed to the grave.) But the America that is dying is a specific America. It is the Main Street, predominantly white, male dominated America that is dying. It is the neo-colonialist, blindly corporatist, evangelical, bigoted America that is dying. It is the old time religion, racist, Norman Rockwell dream-land America that is dying. It is also the neo-conservative America that was hatched by Ronald Reagan and his supporters that is slowly coming to an end.

The jig is up. People are slowly waking up to the radical inequalities of corporatism and the racist white men who propagate this bankrupt ideology. The pendulum swings. Fortuna's wheel spins again. And the last gasp of traditional capitalism, and the bigoted men in suits that attempted to take us back to 19th century are finally in their death throes. The process won't happen over night, but it is on its way. The asking of questions is the first important step. "Why are the rich getting so much richer, while I am getting poorer?" "Why is there more wealth than any other time in history, and yet the rightwing is telling me we can't afford pensions or healthcare?" "Why does the rightwing continue to pursue an oil/arms economy when we are on the bink of environmental disaster?" "Why do rich, white, self-absorbed men like Stephen Harper and Mitt Romney live so distantly from the real experience of the vast majority of people." "Why do conservatives talk about freedom, smaller government, and fiscal responsibility while centralizing and expanding government power, running huge deficits, and making everyday life more difficult and expensive for average people?"

Your America is indeed dead Ms. Jackson. And I say good-by to bad rubbish! Time to move on toward a less corporatist future, an economy in which people matter, and remember - corporations are NOT people.  

Message for the RIghtwing. . .

A moment of frivolity -

My message for the Rightwing in the US today -

A moment of seriousness -

My message to the Rightwing in Canada tomorrow -

And this is when -