Question of the Day. . . . .

Exactly how much corruption can this Harper Cabal be guilty of before Canadians start paying attention?????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????


One more scandal that Harper supporters don't care about. Did Harper orchestrate the election in an attempt to get through an election before this came to our attention? Tories cared about what Shelia Fraser had to say when they were in opposition but when they are in government she is is part of a Liberal bias in the Civil Service. In fact she was once their hero. From hero to zero in one government.

And you thought corruption had gone out of style! Harper and his regime have brought a whole new Chic to nefarious government wrongdoing. Shame on anyone who votes Conservative in this election.

The Terrorist Police. . . .

I have never really bought the prevailing definition of terrorism because it seems slippery and self-interested on the part of those who generally use it. It seems to me that people who represent the establishment refer to almost anything that doesn't have state sanction and questions that establishment as 'terrorism.' At the very least people think that the realm of violence is solely legitimate when it is sanctioned by the state and all other politically motivated violence is 'terrorism.' The problem with this definition is, of course, that if a state carpet bombs a country like, say, Vietnam, that is the legitimate violence; but if people in that country defend themselves with any form of violence once their state apparatus has failed suddenly they are terrorists. Thus by the standard definition, George Washington and Nelson Mandela were both terrorists and Arthur 'Bomber' Harris and Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer were both noble soldiers. Anyone who doesn't have a problem with this should reexamine their ethical framework.

(This definition of terrorism is really about power. It is like trying distinguish between legitimate 'religions' and so-called 'cults.' Cults become religions as soon as they have a large enough following and enough money to be called a religion.)

Now, the G20 and the primary countries of that institution have long pursued policies which have knowingly caused terrible suffering, starvation, and environmental disaster. Everything from the so-called EU Common Agriculture Policy which involved food dumping in Africa to Trade Policies which have specifically aimed at maintaining the advantage over less-developed nations have resulted in continued suffering and starvation in the "third world." Meanwhile countries like the US have pursued military efforts in countries like Iraq which have resulted in literally hundreds of thousands of civilian deaths.

Other people define terrorism more simply  as the use of violence to gain a political end. I think this is a better, and certainly more functional definition because it does not fall victim to the dubious question of  the state having the sole legitimacy in the use of violence.

Meanwhile, democracy is slowly being eroded in our own country and elsewhere in the Western world  and our so-called leaders increasingly gain and maintain their power through the undue influence of money and an elite controlled media. And the recent events in Toronto demonstrate that they seek to further legitimize and maintain their power through indiscriminate violence perpetrated by para-military police units. These para-military units knowingly and willfully attacked peaceful, middle-class folks who did nothing but sit on the grass and calmly voice their concern over the kinds of policies that the G20 pursue. It takes little imagination to understand why they did this; to foster fear and terror among the general population and squash political dissent. Many people define terrorism as the indiscriminate use of violence to spread fear in the population to for a particular political purpose. By this definition the police units operating at Toronto were simply terrorists. Their goal was to intimidate people from questioning the legitimacy and morality of the G20, the policies they pursue, and the elites who call the shots.


I have said it before and it needs reiterating; if democracy survives and flourishes it is those that have actively opposed the G20 who will be the historical heroes and the police who will be cast in the role of historical villains much like the Swiss Grenadiers who guarded the Bastille from the Paris Peasants.

Do They Really Hate Violence?

I must say that I am tired of talking heads on television and even some rather ignorant bloggers who suddenly decide that they are apologists for the system, telling me how much they abhor violence and condemning the so-called 'thugs' and black-bloc, etc etc. Here's a little secret - THEY DON'T ABHOR VIOLENCE, THEY ACTIVELY SUPPORT IT. The G20 is by its very nature, violence. The elites of Capitalist nations have been getting together for years to pursue unified trade policies, market policies, environmental policies, food policies, etc, the aim of which has been to enrich the Western nations, largely at the cost of less-developed nations. That is violence; violence, the cost of which is beyond description. Of course they pay lip-service to various development and humanitarian issues, but unless you've been living under a rock you know that this has very little to do with improving the living conditions in the poorer nations. For one thing most of the promised money never materializes, and for another much of the money is always meant to further enrich Western providers of goods and services. If you know anything about the subject of (so-called) international development, you know that aid money is targeted to help Western Corporations in various ways, and when you talk to the people in a more intimate setting who have been involved for a long time in the requisition and movement of such aid, they readily admit this simple fact. And when economic and aid policies cannot achieve their aims, the Western nations pursue their aims with armed conflict in which hundreds of thousands of people die. The G20 is systemic and institutionalized violence on a grand and historic scale. And to defend their systemic violence they put thousands of police on the street in riot gear brandishing clubs and teargas to extend their violence into the streets of their own nations. They don't hate violence, they love it because it feeds their machismo and affirms to them that they are men of power and substance, and they are happy to use violence to pursue their aims. And yet while they do unspeakable violence to the planet, to the poor in the third world, giving subsidies to big oil and weapons  producers,  they have the unmitigated gall to condemn a handful of young people who break some windows. Don't tell me they hate violence; violence is their modus operandi, it is the heart of their system and the expression of everything they are.

A Dark Future for Canada. . . . . ..

Though I am not a Liberal it has in recent months become very notable what advantage a Liberal Government has over a Conservative one in this country. When the last Liberal Government was faced with a scandal of a significant partisan nature they called a public inquiry into the issue. Now we have a government mired in numerous issues of huge public significance a number of which should be publicly investigated by an arm's length body. These include the Afghan detainee issue, the In and Out Scandal, the isotope issue and the part played by Minister Lisa Raitt as well as the firing of the watchdog, the Maxime Bernier affair, the Jaffer/Guergis affair, and now the G20 fiasco. But this Government would not call a public inquiry into their own conduct even if we had video of John Baird and the Prime Minister meeting with high-level Montreal underworld figures. This Government's strategy; lie, stall, stonewall, deny, spin, turn the page, prorogue parliament, fire staffers, anything but face a process of accountability. Personally I even think that the Government's conduct surrounding the former coalition should be investigated by a public inquiry because we had a Prime Minister of  Canada publicly lying about the constitution and John Baird publicly suggesting that they would not abide by the GG's ruling if it went against them. This is called treason.


The message to future Governments of Canada? Dishonesty works! Do anything to manipulate the system to your advantage. And of course, future politicians will learn from all this and operate the same way. The future of Democracy and Government in Canada is dark indeed.

G20 Boondoggles and the rule of fear. . . . .

Does anyone else have a nagging and troubling suspicion that Harper's Government may have somehow been involved in the fire-bombing of the Royal Bank in Ottawa recently. The scenario would look something like this: realizing that they had engaged in outrageously imprudent fiscal mismanagement in their on going effort to control absolutely everything, dark forces in the Harper regime might have looked around in a panic for how they might justify their billion dollar boondoggle. Having a bit too much to drink while brainstorming, these dark forces could have found their way out to commit an act of perceived terrorism that required no more than a Coke bottle and a liter of gasoline. And WHAM! Instant justification for spending hundreds of millions of dollars that everyone knows didn't need to be spent but was only another demonstration of their fiscal irresponsibility and tyrannical drive to control everything. Only a short ride from their offices on the Hill, the Royal Bank in the Glebe was a perfect target for their drunken panic. And of course such an event would be entirely in line with the overarching Conservative strategy, which is foster fear and hate as much as possible.

To all those government lawyers out there, this is, of course, simply a fanciful and speculative jest. To all of those naive folks who think such things never happen; OPEN A HISTORY BOOK!

Hello to the Working-Class

People tend to think that class is no longer an issue in Western Capitalism. This is in part a result of the gradual disappearance of large-scale industrial jobs in which lots of people are gathered together on a factory floor where they naturally create a solidarity that leads to what they used to call ‘working-class consciousness.’ But ‘working-class’ should not be confused with ‘middle-class.’ This distinction comes from an old notion of the ‘Bourgeoisie’ being different class. But this ancient distinction is really no longer very meaningful. Arguably, there is as large a percentage of ‘working-class’ people as there ever was. The majority of people still have very little control over what kind of work they do, they age highly dependent upon a large corporation or a small business which they do not own and, though they are more comfortable in their daily lives, they are still just as much pawns in a economic system over which they have little or no influence. But more importantly government and business in the West is still just as actively undermining the power and influence of working people, trying to make sure that workers are not empowered to significantly influence the systems of power and production.

 

If you doubt this just look at the pattern of the bailout packages in the US. For many years the government and business has been attempting to reduce the influence of Unions and in particular the auto-workers union which has been one of the few realms of continuing union influence. Now look at the auto-industry bailout: it has been relatively small compared to the other US bailouts and has come with specific strings about reducing the wages and pensions of the auto-workers. And when they were perceived as not doing enough Barack Obama fired the CEO of GM. On the other hand the bailouts for Wall St, (Banks, Traders, and Insurers) has been HUGE in comparison and came with almost NO strings attached! With the exception of the AIG situation (which only become an issue because of a couple of news stories), big bonuses continue to be paid out (without public attention) to the wealthy and their lifestyle is being carefully guarded by the government of Obama. While auto-workers will end up with significantly reduced wages and a weakened bargaining position for the coming generation, with reduced pensions and compromised health and futures, the power of Wall Street will go merrily on and the wealthy who control it will use billions of tax dollars (mostly paid by working people) and they will enrich their lives and their futures.

Meanwhile there is a real irony going on in London at the G20. The supposed right-wing governments of Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, are actually trying to bring more regulation to the banking, trading, and insurance system, while Obama and Gordon Brown, (who are supposed to be more ‘Liberal’) are arguing for only modest regulation and lots more bailout money, much of which will end up in the hands of the rich. Anyone who thought Obama was going to represent real reform now must surely see that he represents Wall Street more than the Working people. And anyone who thinks Class is no longer meaningful is not paying attention.