Thursday, April 05, 2012

We Were Warned



Now that the Auditor General has confirmed the figures which Kevin Page made public over a year ago, and now that Elections Canada has confirmed that it has received reports of election fraud in 200 of this country's 308 ridings, it might be worthwhile recalling that the roots of Stephen Harper's party go back much further than Preston Manning or Bible Bill Aberhart.

The real spiritual godfather of the Reform Party was Frederich Nietzsche, who wrote in The Will To Power: "The great majority of men have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher men."

In his book, Whose Country Is It, Anyway?  Dalton Camp wrote that Nietzsche's axiom

is a codicil for the comfortable, for the affluent and the obscenely rich in our time, as it was the inspiration for fascism earlier in the century. The new order is not without its coterie of apologists and intellectual dandies. Indeed, it even has a political party of its own, called -- irony of ironies -- the "Reform" Party.

Back in 2004, Joe Clark warned that The Harper Party was, "a dangerous choice for voters." And two months before the last election, Robert Kennedy, Jr wrote that:

Harper, often referred to as "George W. Bush's Mini Me," is known for having mounted a Bush like war on government scientists, data collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.

Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television is a stark admission that right wing political ideology can only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda. Since corporate profit-taking is not an attractive vessel for populism, a political party or broadcast network that makes itself the tool of corporate and financial elites must lie to make its agenda popular with the public.

When Stephen Harper was found in contempt of Parliament -- and Canadians had a chance to do something about it -- they chose to give him a majority government. As the man said, "Cheat me once, you're stupid. Cheat me twice. . ." Well, you know the rest.

8 comments:

thwap said...

Owen,

To our great good credit, it might be that we DIDN'T give him a majority.

To our great, undeniable discredit, we DID give him a minority.

But Layton would have dispensed with that toot-sweet and harper would probably be talking to his defense lawyers about all sorts of things by now.

And this fraud will not stand.

Owen Gray said...

I have to admit, thwap, that I'd feel better if Elections Canada proved that Harper's majority is illegitimate.

I'd feel much better if the people behind that fraud went to jail.

I'd feel ecstatic if Harper's support tumbled.

But -- to be honest -- I'm beginning to feel that too many Canadians enjoy being fleeced.

thwap said...

Owen,

I don't think it's so much they like being fleeced.

A lot of Canadians would gladly see harper go. Like you and I they don't really know how it's possible. Unlike you and I, that's where they stop. But were someone to show them a way, I think a lot of people would support it.

Then there are people like your neighbours, or the veterans who complained when Rob Anders fell asleep on them and then accused them of being NDP hacks. Those vets revealed that they were card-carrying Conservatives.

Neither they nor your neighbours actually support Peter MacKay's sense of entitlement or our gov't tossing tens of billions of dollars at a failed fighter-jet.

They just don't like to admit that they're wrong about their party of choice and so cling stupidly to it.

Then there's the large number of totally apathetic Canadians. Were harper to be toppled in a violent coup, they'd barely register it being reported on the news and would shrug their shoulders if asked about it two days later.

They're irrelevant to the conversation. They're not fired-up about contempt for Parliament, war crimes, or stolen elections, but they wouldn't care if harper was overthrown either.

Owen Gray said...

The real problem, thwap, is with apathetic Canadians. I still believe that if they were motivated to vote, they wouldn't vote for Harper.

But as long as they don't care, Harper will be able to play them for fools.

The Mound of Sound said...

Harper's electoral scams were reinforced today with the Auditor General's unequivocal claim that Harper and his cabinet knew the real price of the F-35 well before the last election. Like BC's Gordon Campbell, Harper & Co. went into the last election lying through their teeth. DND didn't mislead Harper on the costs, Harper misled the Canadian voting public. That's why no heads are rolling because the first head would have to be Harper's own.

Had Harper's lies been exposed in mid-campaign Harper wouldn't have a majority government today, he wouldn't even have a minority government. Like Gordon Campbell he filched an election by carefully concealed and deliberate lies.

So why has no one in the Harper government over all these years run afoul of the law? When the mafia runs the government no one goes to jail unless they want him there.

They corrupted the RCMP to steal an election from Paul Martin and now they've corrupted the DND to lie to Parliament. The Harper government is beginning to look a bit like Karzai's.

Owen Gray said...

That's the long and the short of it, Mound. I just read Ferguson's comments.

There are two truth tellers in this story -- Ferguson and Paige.

Now the question is, faced with the truth, what do Canadians do?

Anonymous said...

Harper is the great dictator, he is above the law...and so is the law, above the law. The media is merely a propaganda machine for the government. Harper is every bit as hateful as Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini were. Harper is a Reformer of, his Northern Foundation Party, of 1989. They said, the skinheads organized Harper's more than shady party.

We could have a revolution, pitchforks against AK-47's and rocket launchers. AND, don't think Harper wouldn't do that either. He is a total monster.

I firmly believe, Harper was responsible for the election fraud and the robo-calls. There were records posted that proved the Conservatives were guilty. Well over half of Canadians did not want Harper as P.M....and he damned well knew it. So, he lied and cheated to win, as we all knew he did. Harper also campaigned over a Calgary radio station, right on election day. That too is election fraud.

Both Harper and MacKay, should be thrown out of Canada, or, thrown into one of Herr Harper's stalags.

Owen Gray said...

If more Canadians saw through Harper -- the way you do, Anon -- he wouldn't be Prime Minister of Canada.