Carol Goar wrote in theToronto Star that Stephen Harper is "at risk of sneering himself into irrelevance." Boston has its suspected terrorists. So does Canada. And Canadians are troubled:
[Harper's] comments on terrorism in the last three weeks have left Canadians shaking their heads, hoping he doesn’t really mean what he says and looking elsewhere for answers. They want to know how young men amid them, going to the same schools as their kids, turn into mass killers. Who is radicalizing them? How does this metamorphosis happen in plain view of their unsuspecting parents, friends, teachers and imams?
The Prime Minister's response is, "Don't think. Act." And his not-so-brilliant mouthpiece, Pierre Poilievre tells us -- twice -- that "the root cause of terrorism is terrorists."
Never mind that the rhetoric runs contrary to government policy:
Less than two years ago, on the anniversary of the 1985 Air India disaster — Canada’s first brush with global terrorism — Harper announced a five-year, $10-million initiative to “better understand what terrorism means in the Canadian context, how that is changing over time and what we can do to support effective policies and programs to counter terrorism and violent extremism in Canada.”
No, this is all about Justin Trudeau. Harper hated the father. Now he is faced with the spectre of the son. Despite Justin's claim that Stephen Harper isn't afraid of him, the truth is that Justin is Harper's worst nightmare. And today's Decima poll suggests that Mr. Harper may not be sleeping well.
8 comments:
as one retired English teacher to another, Owen, let us hope that Mr. Harper will continue "to lack the season of all natures, sleep."
Somehow, quoting from Macbeth seems appropriate when contemplating the Prime Minister and his regime.
Who knows, Lorne. Perhaps young Trudeau will prove to be Harper's Macduff.
it is difficult to figure out how 3 young men wound up as "terrorists" while living in the middle of Canada. You see their pictures and you wonder, you really do. They look like the kids next door. Harper doesn't get it. he thinks "terrorists" are evil, come from some place else, etc. When reflecting on "terrorits" I think back to the 60s and 70s and all the "religious cults", "communes", etc. Maybe its just this decades version of whatever leads young people to do what they do, so unexpected of them. Part of it may lie simply in the undeveloped brain, the lack of finding a place in society, of "fitting in". We don't really know, but we might want to give it some consideration. Some times young people just get carried away. Families are very different than they were 30 yrs ago and the demands upon families is much more intense. People send so little time with their children, their other family members, it is simply quite easy to no longer really know them.
As to Stevie slime being a little concerned about young Trudeau, good. Stephen Harper has done more damage to Canada than most politicians and its time for him to go.
It's easy for kids to get lost, e.a.f. I taught high school in small town. It was easy for kids to get lost on Main Street -- and getting lost had nothing to do with geography.
Now the world is a click of a mouse away. It's certainly easy to get lost on the internet.
As for Harper, he was born an old man. I'm not sure he ever had a childhood.
Justin is no threat to Harper.
A threat to Harper has to be threatening. There has to be some possibility of existential danger for Harper.
Justin's a nice guy. He believes in good things. Threat and danger aren't words that apply.
Harper is beyond his capacity to fight because he doesn't think he's in a fight. He thinks he's in a contest.
We already know how stupid, passive and uninvolved most of the population is.
So Harper will feed them some concocted babble about Justin or Sophie or the kids or the LPC or Pierre or Maggie or who knows what that they'll swallow whole.
Game, set and match.
That's certainly his game plan, Dana. But. as Hebert suggests, perhaps the Liberals rise in the polls has less to do with Justin than it has to do with Harper.
There came a time when Brian Mulroney -- the man who won the largest majority in Canadian history -- became as popular as the plague.
It could be that Canadians are beginning to think that Harper personifies what is wrong with the country.
Owen, you continue to assume, as I suppose a life long educator must, that the population of Canada possesses qualities that we have no justifiable reasons to assume they actually do possess.
I think you're dreaming quite frankly.
What the fook is this for example?
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/48709/three-in-five-canadians-would-bring-back-death-penalty/
You and I and most everyone I know have to begin re-thinking what we have believed about the citizenship and country we were born into I think.
I don't know anymore where the delusions lie.
I understand your cynicism, Dana. I'm an educator. But I'm also an admirer of Mark Twain who -- certainly by the end of his life -- despaired for what he called "the damn'd human race."
Given the evidence, mankind may be damned. But I return to what Lorne over at Politics And Its Discontents wrote some time ago about Steinbeck's concept of Manself.
Hope springs eternal -- even in the face of despair. Lorne is also a retired English teacher. Perhaps its an occupational disease.
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