If you think Stephen Harper has left the stage and relinguished control of the conservative agenda, Antonia Zerbisias suggests that you think again:
Since he quit Parliament, Harper has spoken at an event at U.S. President Donald Trump's Florida resort Mar-a-Lago, visited the White House, showed up at an Israeli college's $1,000-a-plate fundraiser, participated in the 2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's political retreat in Utah and guested on the right-wing Fox News.
In his lucrative tour of the rubber-chicken circuit, Harper did let slip during a speech at Stanford University that, "I could have turned the party into essentially a personal political vehicle if I'd wanted…"
Harper is everywhere these days. He basks in a right wing glow:
The most visible clue to Harper's retaining remote control is his chairing the ironically named International Democratic Union (IDU). It's the Munich-based alliance of the world's centre-right to right-wing political parties, including the Republicans south of the border and the Conservative Party of Canada here, the reigning Likud Party in Israel and Hungary's anti-immigrant Fidesz.
Think of it as the anti-UN. Among the IDU's stated goals is to "protect our people from those who preach hate and plan to destroy our way of life." Which is their way of fending off the climate and economic migrant waves now and to come.
We saw this in their vociferous rejection of last year's Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), an idealistic UN document which binds no nation to anything more than having in view the human upheavals expected as the Earth bakes.
No surprise that Scheer unleashed an almost daily stream of tweets with full-on outrage and half-baked half-truths attacking the pact as if it would allow hordes of foreigners to land on our pristine shores. But it wouldn't, no matter how often Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu, Hungary's Viktor Orbán, and other Eastern European leaders threatened it would.
And Doug Ford follows him around:
For example, just last month, Ford basked in Harper's good graces, sharing a stage with him when the Canada India Foundation presented the former prime minister with an award. Clearly they remain focused on the same goal.
Stephen's ghost still haunts us. It's behind Andrew Scheer's vacant smile. And it's behind every word Doug Ford spouts.
Image: HuffPost Canada
6 comments:
Owen, your post reminded me of the old "one world government" Utopian dream. Harper appears to be actively pushing for world control but his Utopia would be our nightmare.
I agree, Toby. His utopia would be run by dictators. Some utopia!
We, the plebs, are finished. With Harper & Co., the Koch's, those with money and power, holding all the cards, it's hard to see where any real grassroots/groundswell resistance can come from. And what Utopian society of our own would we create in any case, which were not elitist?
Perhaps the Illuminati are right - we are useless eaters.
I will try to stake out my tiny little bit of reality with enough shekels stored away & some clean water in jugs...... to withstand the coming onslaught, not to mention the solar minimum. Good luck to all.
Anonymous-A
I have to admit, Anon-A, that things look pretty bleak. But I keep hoping that my perception is wrong.
.. the stench of Stephen Harper is always there.. as is the stench of his faux 'conservative' party.. and the lost evangelical Harper Crusaders.. What do we have ? Some 170 or so remaining protected inland bodies of water ? Out of the tens of thousands we had before Harper/Novak got busy.. to 'cut red tape' ...
Can someone poke me when Harper or Kenney or Arthur Hamilton mention the word 'remediation' ! No, its despoil rhe land air and waters lickedy split before The Rapture. Strip the land, dump the toxic waters into our waterways and water tables, flush it to the arctic.. What exactly did Harper get from his annual hiding out in the arctic on one of our Coast Guard vessels.. did he foresee it as a great dumping ground ? A place free of those meany polar bears and stolid Innuit ? A harvest of mineral wealth to rip n strip.. or just discover what the Innuit had been telling us since forever.. exactly where Franklin's ships and sailors who resorted to cannibalism lay.. they told John Rea .. (Fatal Passage - book and film) and the price he paid for carrying the tale.. was ridiculous.. from the fawning but malicious court of the British King.. Time passed.. Harper et al played to the media.. the 'grateful Prime Minister' there during the great discovery.. and media aboard.. Its to laugh, the posturing and ego of that thug in his Canada sweatshirt
His legacy is Election Fraud, live and robo calling, vast tailings ponds, subsidies for Big Energy, .. the guy should be told to vacate Canada.. and take his politics with him.. a classic manipulator.. a totally dishonorable & despicable man that we made wealthy.. as always.. turns on us with zero concern.. after all.. he's the smartest guy in the room sez he..
From my perspective, sal, your evaluation of Harper is spot on. That's why it's so depressing to see that he has the ear of both federal and provincial Conservatives.
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