The next political error?

As has consistently been the case, in good times or bad Harper and his conservative bullies have never been able to resist any chance they have to be hyper-partisan and to stick it to their opponents in the House. They obsessively hate the fact that other parties exist and they are particularly angry that, because they are forced to work with a minority, the opposition has the ability to set certain terms in the legislative process. After all, nothing bothers a tyrant more than checks on his tyranny. 

So given their history of 'bill in mouth' disease, what will they come up with in the throne speech, which we will hear soon, to further poison the already toxic atmosphere that they have worked so hard to create in Ottawa. We know there will be something. One of the greatest moments of political irony I have ever witnessed was the one where Stephen Harper told the country that the opposition was intransigent and was unwilling to make Parliament work and therefore he was 'forced' to call an election. Harper is desperate to destroy democratic processes in any way that he can in pursuit of his elusive majority and the highest weapon in his arsenal is the creation of a toxic atmosphere that alienates a large segment of the population from the political process completely, thus leaving himself with a core of right-wing voters, making his political demise much less likely. 

Just over a year ago Harper's proposed poison pill was the elimination of the dollar seventy-five per vote funding that political parties receive for each vote they get. This was a blatant attempt to undermine political diversity in the country. This would have happened because the more MPs a party has, the more financial incentives they get to do their work in and out of parliament as well as receiving the greatest incentive, and the one that is in a sense priceless, which is the built in advertising that they get from having a high profile in the House. Even its strongest advocates agree that the First Past the Post system has some problems and the largest of these is that it can leave huge portions of the population completely unrepresented in the Legislative process. The per vote grant is a very small way of trying to correct this problem because a party that receives, say, ten percent of the vote but no representatives can still do some of the work necessary for a political party to continue to contribute to the political agenda of the country. There is talk that Harper may attempt to revisit this poison pill one more time in the next Throne Speech. 

But Harper definitely has something of a dilemma. And that dilemma is that he has done so many small things to undermine democracy and stick it to the opposition that he has very little left to do that would not be so obviously provocative and anti-democratic that it would not bring down serious voter anger upon his head. The last stupid move that Harper made was the prorogation of parliament which created something of a political storm. 

But I am sure that Harper will come up with something to further poison the political atmosphere in Ottawa. The irony is that most of Harper's anti-democratic moves have been small, quiet, behind the scenes moves that few people notice and even fewer understand. Because of this, it has always been Harper's big, public, stupid mistakes that have continued to mire him in a minority position. And any real conservative would understand that not only is he not really a Conservative (only an opportunist), but that if Harper cannot deliver a majority when his had the sponsorship scandal and Dion as opposition leader, he probably will never be able to deliver one. However as a tyrant, Harper was smart enough to completely gut the Conservative Party of any decent potential replacements which makes it nearly impossible for the Conservatives to get rid of him without placing themselves back into the proverbial political wilderness. 

But they will come up with something, either an intentional poison pill or an ill-considered stupid, bull in a china shop sort of move that will send us once again into a political fire-storm. What will it be? 

Olympic protests and the Black Block. . .

Many people have been very upset by the so-called Black Block protesters at the Olympics. These self identified young 'anarchists' show up many of these international events, often wreaking havoc with their militant and sometimes violent tactics. They are a very loose affiliation of activists who have some very basic, gut-reaction objections to the inequities of modern capitalism and the power of what they consider to be an international ruling capitalist class that effectively controls much of thee agenda through a rather strong strangle-hold on the media. Thus they often target international meetings which they see as a reflection of this elitist control of democracy, media, and resources. Their basic strategy is fairly simple: create a certain degree of chaos on the street through mildly violent action, thus attracting media attention which, despite a large degree of corporate control still reports on these actions. 

Of course one can largely agree with the analysis of these people concerning the injustices of the international relations of  production and distribution without agreeing with their tactics. But the argument is not at all as clear as one would like it to be. Those who opposes such actions contend that they fail to progress the cause of greater international justice and democracy because they alienate many of the people who could be converted to the cause. ON the other hand, many of these anarchists would argue that without such actions there would be little or no coverage of the opposition to these international events, leading people to believe that these is no real problems with the international bodies such as the G20, the IMF, the World Bank etc. 

To a certain degree both these arguments are correct. In the face of a media controlled almost everywhere by a small group of corporations which, naturally, pursue a certain narrow corporatist agenda, it is near impossible to proliferate the debate concerning the corporate roots of global inequities and injustices. However, there are many who, if they really knew what was going on, would be profoundly opposed to much of what is really happening in the pursuit of international profit. But many of these people are just turned off by the sight of youths dressed in black breaking storefront windows and fighting with police. 

However one feels about these people and their actions, it would be folly not to take what they have to say seriously. There is an ever growing opposition to the inequities of the international economic system. These people are informed, often well educated, energetic, and committed. This is exactly the constituency of many of the worlds great revolutions. They are struggling for the same things that inspired those who fought the French revolution in thee 1789 and in many ways the goals of their cause are becoming ever more popular. In the years preceding the Revolution in France there was a tendency among the ruling class to ride in ever larger and more extravagant coaches as the desrepenciee in wealth become more pronounced in French culture. Today the differences between rich and poor are steadily growing, and the ultra-wealthy drive ever more extravagant vehicles and Wall St. and Bay St. Bankers and investors are making money that normal people can hardly imagine. 

And perhaps even more importantly many average people are feeling alienated by a system that is supposed to be democratic but is increasingly rarified and controlled by a political and economic elite. The very institutions that were supposed to guarantee the voice of the people are becoming more or less the 'playthings' of the rich and powerful who are able to manipulate them in their interests. This tendency causes a vague feeling of unease among people which, though they cannot necessarily express it in clear and rational discourse, slowly undermines the system's legitimacy. I believe the fairly strong reaction to the recent prorogation of parliament is a small example of this unease. The people in the so-called Black Block are just one of the most obvious expressions of this sentiment. But just as Parkinson's disease may begin with a very small tremor in the hand, social movements which lead to major social upheavals begin with a ragtag group of malcontents. Disregard them or condemn them if you will but you do so at your folly. 

Another Open letter to my MP, Poillievre. . . .

Merriam-Webster defines Hypocrisy as: a feigning to what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially: the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion.

 

Tell me, Mr. Poillievre, have you ever actually looked at a dictionary? Excuse my disparaging tone, but I am beginning to find it difficult to understand how you can function in such a wildly hypocritical manner and, going on the assumption that one should never attribute to malice what can adequately be explained by ignorance, I compelled to assume that you must simply be ignorant of the most basic facts and tenets of socially acceptable behavior. Thus I provide you with the above definition incase it has somehow missed your notice.

I mean, after all, your party was elected, albeit by a minority of Canadians, on a platform of more accountability and less power in the hands of the Prime Minister. And we must keep in mind that this issue of accountability was not simply a small side line of the Conservative stated agenda but was the cornerstone of the platform; something on which your leader and the entire Party constantly harped on as though the future of our political institutions depended upon increases in accountability.

Now, since I can’t assume that you are so blind or stupid that you cannot see that accountability under your government has decreased and the power of the Prime Minister has increased, I can only assume that you have entirely abandoned these principles or were never actually in favor of them in the first place.

And even if you and your Party were hypocritical in the assertion of these beliefs in the first place, this hypocrisy has reached epic proportions in your public statements regarding the prorogation of the House and the Afghan issue in general. You know, YOU KNOW, that if you were in opposition and the same things happened you would be condemning the prorogation and insisting that it is your responsibility to investigate the issue of Afghan detainees. YOU KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE! Thus you are in a constant state of hypocritical action by your statements. If you were in opposition you and your Party would be vitriolic in your condemnation of any action which undermines the power of the House and the issue of Ministerial accountability. But in government you do nothing but deny, divert, obfuscate, and sometimes downright lie about these issues. But not only do you do these things, you actually have the gall to use your energy to attack the opposition parties as being irresponsible and even soft on terrorists for upholding the very same principles that your party was supposedly elected to maintain.  This is the very definition of hypocrisy.

 Furthermore, you use every means at your disposal to manipulate the media and public opinion simply to retain and enhance the centralizing power of your government. You are at the very forefront of a movement to make politics not about actual issues but an exercise in public image and opinion. I have no doubt that past governments and parties have made movements in this direction but your government has pushed this further than ever before while at the same time claiming to stand for the opposite. Future generation of all political stripes will deeply regret these lamentable movements away from substance.

I am still an optimist Mr. Poillievre and imagine that people will see through the hypocrisy and crude political manipulation which you and your Party are constantly displaying. Because you simply cannot fool enough of the people all of the time. Many of those who supported you have already seen through the hypocrisy and more will in the future. Eventually you will lose the battle to centralize all power in the PMO and this country will deeply regret this period of profound hypocrisy the same way that Americans regretted their support of Nixon or Italians regretted their support of Mussolini. This is because efforts to centralize and maintain absolute power in contemporary society are inevitably undermined by the ubiquity of information and the tendency of tyrants to push too far.

I see that you can live with your hypocrisy but the Canadian public will not do so forever. Unfortunately, part of the Reform/Conservative hypocrisy was their abandonment of their stance on MPs pensions and since you have recently qualified for yours none of this really matters to you because you will be able to comfortably retire on the public system that you so hypocritically condemn. But life will eventually catch up with you and judgment will come to you as it does to all of us. Hypocrisy develops its own punishments.

 

Kirby

 

The Threat of Prorogation. . . . .

Most people in the media and even in the blogosphere are putting the prorogation of parliament in its proper perspective and they see it for what it is; a blatant and ruthless attempt to avoid accountability by a Prime Minister who hates democracy and sees the majority of our elected representatives as a bothersome restriction on what he thinks is his God-given right to govern. I have, however, seen the occasional article suggesting that the prorogation is not a threat to democracy. One in particular I read in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday which attempted to make a point by point argument about why prorogation was no big deal. The problem is that no matter how extensively one argues the details concerning the role of Parliament, the Prime Minister, and the Governor General, you cannot overcome the most basic problem. The fact is that when the Prime Minister, or any government executive, has the right to shut down the legislative branch of government on whim simply to avoid pressing questions, democracy is at threat. This is particularly true when we understand democracy not as a fixed state of affairs but as an ideal toward which we are always working. When we see democracy in this light it is easy to see that any action that undermines the movement toward this ideal is, a priori, a threat to democracy. 

There is no question that under any conditions prorogation is a threat to democracy, and this threat is even more pronounced when the prorogation is undertaken by a Prime Minster who is feeling the heat and just wants to avoid political questions and further his political ambitions. To lesson the threat to democracy the power of the executive over the legislative branch of government must be curtailed and dates of legislative sittings should be fixed and only alterable by the general will of the house (preferably a two thirds majority). These are the kinds of things which would push us further toward democratic accountability and away from the arbitrary power of the executive. 

If you don't think that prorogation is a threat to democracy then you just aren't paying attention and you don't understand democracy. This is not to suggest that tomorrow we will find ourselves in a complete dictatorship. But democracy is always delicate and vulnerable, our gains must be diligently protected and we must always work for greater levels of justice, accountability, and participation. We clearly have a Prime Minister and Government who are desperately working to reverse the gains toward democracy that we have made and which, in John Baird's words, is looking to "replace accountability with corruption." There is no question that democracy is being threatened, the question is how will Canadians respond?  

Prorogation is just a symptom of a larger disease.. . .

I think the most interesting thing about recent political events is the fact that people are waking up to the fact that there is something seriously wrong with out political institutions as they now exist. The fact is that even though convention says that the Prime Minister shouldn't be doing many of the things he has done, the system allows him to do these things. Not only has he ignored the will of the House of Commons, he has denigrated the civil service and undermined the basic accountability of government. And with a prorogation undertaken in Machiavellian self-interest, people are starting to get upset at what Harper is doing. Many people (including myself) have suggested that Harper is undermining democracy, and in a way he is. However, in another way Harper is doing exactly what the institutions of our political system allow him to do. Harper is deeply wrong. But then, by association so is our political system. The lesson here for Canadians should be that our political institutions desperately need reform. Sure recent events might eventually destroy Harper's government and result in the changing of who holds the office of Prime Minister. But unless we change the system the next Prime Minister can do the same kinds of things, only with the experience of Harper on the books which will allow him or her to  even more effectively undermine the will of the house. And even more to the point, if Harper had a majority right now he would be able to be even more abusive than he has been and many of the issues that have come forward would never have seen the light of day. 

Reform is essential. A more representative voting system, less power in the hands of the Executive, properly written rules for the functioning of the House, institutionally fixed processes of accountability that will not let the government hide behind the institutions, etc. The Prorogation is just a symptom of a disease, and the disease demands to be treated.