Political realities and political mistakes.

I have made it clear how I feel about the idea of a coalition government. It is not only constitutional but beneficial. The Conservative government is little more than a criminal organization full of thugs and bullies.
Having said that, I believe that Dion and Layton made a political blunder almost as significant as that made by the Prime Minister last week. If the Coalition partners really wanted to oust the government and bring in an alternative they should have kept that entirely quiet until they had defeated Harper in a normal house vote. In the mean time they could have sent their letter to the Governor-General and probably gained the outcome they were hoping for. However, now with all the hype they have given the Harper government all the ammunition they could want to discredit the Coalition forces and undermine democracy. They will run radio ads and maybe even television ads trying to portray the coalition effort as a coup and they will most likely succeed. And they will succeed in large part because Canadians don’t understand their own form of government. They think that the people elect the government in Canada, when in fact in the British parliamentary system, the people have never elected the government. Rather the people elect a set of representatives and whoever has the confidence of the majority of those representatives elects the government. You may not like it. You may think the system needs reform but that is the system as it exists and has for hundreds of years. Before this system worked in Canada it worked in England. By all means reform the system but make no mistake, the Conservatives are just wrong when they say this is a coup. People forget that Winston Churchill himself, often considered one of the great leaders of any parliament at any time, was elected not by the people but by a majority of the representatives in the House, many of them in the party he opposed, to lead a coalition government. But now, because of the prematurity of the coalition partners, we will now have to watch the Harper bullies and thugs misrepresent the very nature of our political system as well as the opposition parties.

And one last thing – I wish the Tories would stop suggesting that the Bloc somehow has no right to be in parliament and represent the people who elected them! Many people may not like the Bloc and may disagree with their political program. However, they have as much right to be elected and represent their electors as anyone in the house.

Coalition Government

I am amazed that people have been belly-aching for years about the need for our representatives in the House of Commons to cooperate and now suggest that it is undemocratic and undignified when they actually do it. Rex Murphy, who proves time and time again that he has absolutely no serious abilities for political analysis, said yesterday on CBC that these events prove that Canadian politics are nothing more that partisan politics. What a beautifully Orwellian moment! Three major parties making an agreement to work together proves that they are overly partisan!? Double-speak in spades. Sorry Rex, as always, you are completely wrong. This is an attempt to step beyond partisanship. Granted the three parties are cooperating against another party. But only because the Conservatives presently are the most overtly partisan, ideological, and anti-democratic party in living memory. Finally some sanity returns to parliament and Rex Murphy, the Conservatives and many others, are trying to portray it as undemocratic, shame on all of them! This is why I am a cynical and jaded man.

Of course, I believe that Harper would do almost anything to avoid losing power. He is Machiavellian in his lust for control. The Conservatives are arrogant, boastful, fascistic, and completely and utterly partisan. They are so afraid of losing power that it has shaken them to the very core, you can see it on their faces. Harper will, if the GG lets him pirogue parliament. And if not I wouldn’t even be surprised if he declared marshal law. More than anything Harper wants to have and keep power. And the Conservative’s claim that a coalition would constitute a coup is the real attack on the constitution. Desperate men do desperate things. Let’s hope that nothing untoward occurs, but have no doubt, Harper is a dangerous man and the Economic Update just displayed his meanness and lack of judgement. Let’s hope it doesn’t continue.

And my advise to the Governor-General; remember that your primary duty is to the general will of parliament, clear and simple. In the English parliamentary system, elections don’t elect governments, the House of Commons does. You have a letter in you hands Ms. Jean, which demonstrates the will of the majority of the House. Your constitutional duty is to listen to that majority.

Harper's Will to Power

National Post Correspondent Don Martin, a fairly conservative columnist, said this week that Harper showed his mean-streak this week by trying to stop subsidies to political parties. He said that the problem with Harper is that he is the type of guy that when he sees the opportunity for a ‘sucker-punch,’ he just can’t resist. Meanwhile the Globe and Mail said that Harper’s desire to destroy the Liberal Party verges on the ‘pathological.’ Finally it is becoming clear what Harper really is: to wit, an ego-maniacal, power-hungry fanatic who not only lusts for power but, perhaps more disturbingly, he is driven by pure cruelty to destroy all of his political opponents at any cost. He is a vicious machine who is worse than pathological; he is a psychotic marauder bent on destruction. Harper supporters have tried to suggest that he is a cautious moderate who has taken a carefully considered middle position. But if he cannot resist an taking an intensely partisan and ideological position in an economic update while he is in a minority government, what would he do if he had a majority? Harper is a politician in the mould of Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, a man so blinded by his viciousness and ideological drives that he cannot even imagine what it means to compromise and work cooperatively. This is why he is so disgusted and repelled by the idea of a coalition government, because to Harper is about absolute power and one man’s ability to wield it.

Time for change

Well the Tories economic statement has made it clear that Harper’s government is completely unfit to rule and the opposition parties must, by any means necessary, stop this fiasco. Here are the highlights (or should I say lowlights?) – 1. The elimination of public funding for political parties. This is another in a long line of deeply anti-democratic moves. All major democracies have some form of public support for parties in order to ensure that smaller parties, particularly ones that represent the working-class and minority groups have a voice in the political process. This is just another mean-spirited and partisan effort on the part of the government to undermine opposition in all its forms. 2. The elimination of the right to strike for public sector workers. This is just a typically fascist move that strikes at the very heart of basic human rights. 3. The multi-billion dollar sell off of government assets to avoid a deficit that a. won’t be avoided anyway, and b. would not have been a threat if Harper’s government had not given away the store in tax breaks to the rich. Selling off government assets now while the market is at a low point is a shameless effort of the government to practically give away what belongs to the people and put it in the hands of the rich. And all of this while the government denied during the election that there was any serious economic problem and still seems to be ignoring the depth of the situation.

It is time for real solutions. Serious investment in infrastructure, a huge commitment in alternative energy, a commitment to national childcare, the return of the Kelowna accord, serious electoral reform, a real commitment to transparency and freedom of information.

It is time for the opposition parties to work together in a coalition for the sake of these vital policies and reforms! The NDP, the Liberals, and the Bloc should make at least a one year commitment to a government of national unity – treating the situation like a national emergency. After these reforms are set in place it will be clear to Canadians just how incompetent the Harper government is and how bankrupt the conservative ideology has become.

Remembrance Day

Remembrance/Veterans Day, has always been a holiday that has deeply troubled me. My feelings of unease stem largely from the fact that I believe the vast majority of wars have been entirely unnecessary and they have been instigated by a ruling elite for the primary reasons of increasing their wealth and power. These elites have consistently convinced average people that the military cause is, for one reason or another, noble and altruistic. So average people pay for the wars and fight the wars, while the rich and powerful seldom fight and make huge profits. Remembrance day continues to pay tribute to soldiers who died supposedly protecting some noble cause, but they actually died to pad the pockets of people who never do the fighting or dying. The First World War is the greatest case in point. WWI was really nothing short of a conflict for colonial power between the ruling-classes of various European nations and yet we celebrate it as though it were divinely inspired.

I have seen hundreds of war memorials over the years in a number of countries but I don’t remember seeing a single one that honours the millions of innocent people that have been killed who couldn’t or wouldn’t fight and have been the real victims of war. This is because, whether we want to admit it or not, our culture, like most cultures, is enamoured by the whole idea of military conflict. We think there is something inherently beautiful, romantic, and splendid about being a soldier and we celebrate war constantly. Organized sports, so prevalent in our society, is really just a glorification of military conflict in a more palatable and acceptable form. The uniformed soldiers of sports are like battalions in war who train like soldiers are organized like soldiers and go into ‘sudden death’ if there is no clear winner. Civilizations like the Romans understood this and made no pretence about the nature of organized sport. No one wants to remember the civilians and non-combatants with memorials even though these people didn’t volunteer and have been, by far, the largest group that have suffered in war. I honour those few veterans who actually want to remember war only so that we don’t make the same mistakes again. But I have seen very few veterans, particularly in Canada, who have been activists against war. Most of them seem to say that they abhor war but are the first ones to rally around the flag in the cause of another, usually neo-colonial, military effort.

Today I call on everyone to remember the millions of innocent people, many of them children, who have died because most men can’t grow-up and still want to play soldier and are willing to kill for the benefit of men like Dick Cheney who are multimillionaires because they start wars with no regard for suffering of others. For those of us who really oppose war, let us reclaim Remembrance day for the real victims of war and mourn our aggressive nature that allows us to be led by A-type men who, though they would never admit it publicly, secretly love war.

Alan Greenspan and capitalism

So Alan Greenspan was “shocked” by the failure of his ideology! How about that folks??? He was shocked that people all acting in their own interested resulted in an economic disaster. The great stalwart of modern capitalist ideology was surprised by this??!! Of course if he had paid attention to even the simplest games theorists like John Nash or Garret Hardin, then he would have known what was coming. The game theory called ‘the tragedy of the commons’ tells you all you need to know. Capitalism, if it is to work at all, must not let the self interest of individuals go unchecked but there must be mechanisms to protect us from the excesses that lead from people’s self interest. It is not very complicated and the fact that Alan Greenspan who was chairman of the Fed for all those years didn’t understand this shows that either he was irretrievably stupid or that capitalism is a hopelessly blind ideology. Well I think in this case it both factors came into play. Now, I am a socialist and an idealist and I can live with the idea of a mixed economy for now, perhaps that is all that the human psyche is prepared for at this moment in history. But it is finally time for people to wake up and understand that certain elements of society simply don’t function if left to the self-interest of individuals or corporations, period! Time to wake up from the dream Stephen Harper and see what so many of us have know for ages, capitalism is on its way out.

A message to Capitalist...

A message from the socialists to the capitalists......WE TOLD YOU SO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!