Self-Inflicted Wounds

Greetings, Stand-On Guardians!

In the past I've railed against the current crop of Conservative creeps currently culling our Canadian culture.  Wow, try saying that five times real quick...

But after researching this C 38 Omnibus Budget Bill, I need to ask anyone who voted for Harper in the last election to just go ahead and punch themselves right in the junk.  Or let one of the other 60% of reasonably well-informed Canadian citizens who didn't vote Conservative to do it for you.

Don't know anything about Bill C 38?  Okay, here's a l'il sampler...

• Bill C-38 is set to repeal The Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act, a twenty seven year old regulation that forces federal construction contractors to pay decent wages and overtime to workers whether or not they're unionized.  If this crap passes (and it looks like it will) greedy employers will be able to offer $10.00 an hour labor jobs that are free of costly benefits and overtime.  When Canadian workers justifiably turn up their nose at such table scraps, these shady taskmasters will be free to seek council from international brokers (a.k.a. 'labour pimps') to bring in desperate foreign laborers will happily toil away under such Dickensian conditions. P.S. This same bill also puts pay equity for women in serious jeopardy.  Seriously, why would a government do this unless they wanted to assault the already-besieged middle class?  Or convince half of the population that we're still living in the Dark Ages?    
• Despite strong evidence to the contrary, Harper and his cronies keep predicting doom for Old Age pensions.  Personally, I think they're trying to force every Canadian to sink or swim based on increasingly scarce work-related pensions or volatile personal investments.  As such, the Reform...er, Conservatives are all hot n' horny to raise the mandatory retirement age from 65 to 67, which will end up costing folks on a fixed income a decent amount of cheddar.  That's right, folks, yet another giant "F#ck You!" from the Baby Boomers to people my age and younger.  
• Aboriginal suicide rates in this country are over ten times higher then the national average.  Instead of trying to figure out why and how to fix it, Harper and company are looking to gut the Aboriginal Youth Suicide Prevention Strategy and cut back on a slew of Native-specific health resources.  If we're to believe Gandhi when he said "A nation's greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members", what does that say about our nation?  
• Bill C 38 is set to kick the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and Kyoto right in the collective cubes.  Removing environmental restrictions dovetails nicely with Harper's wish that the United States keeps mainlining our tar sands oil.  Not only will Bill C 38 make it easier to construct oil pipelines in protected tracts of wilderness, our dismantled employment restrictions means that we can thrash the environment on the cheap!   Plus, it'll also make big oil totally Teflon when the warranty expires on these things and they start rupturing like party balloons filled with battery acid.  
• Sighents iz fer nurds!  In addition to slashing the budgets of laboratories and research facilities, funding will be dolled out now in direct proportion to how commercial the research appears to be.  Even before this Trojan Horse of a bill got hatched, things were already trending in this direction.  Right here in Halifax, it was recently announced that our R.C.M.P. crime lab will be shutting down.  This has many local prosecutors and forensics experts worried that the evidence-processing turnaround time will become so slow that it may actually result in procedural acquittals.  Can someone please explain to me how this clearly-needed resource is suddenly not sustainable after almost forty years of operation?  
• Y'know how we get to lord our superior food production and inspection regulations over Americans?  Yeah, well, not anymore folks!  If this shit-storm passes you can say goodbye to our high food safety standards.  Enjoy those salmonella burgers, dumb-asses! 
• Speaking of our friendly neighbors down south, what about the idea of letting American police arrest Canadian citizens on our own turf?  Well, if C-38 goes through "the 'Shiprider' program ...will make it permanently legal for U.S. agents to be certified as police in Canadian waters."  Wow, I'm sure that won't be abused...     
• Employment Insurance "reforms" will force recipients to commute in excess of an hour and accept work that pays 70 to 90% less then their previous salaries.  In an era when more and more careers are vanishing in lieu of crappy part time jobs, this appears to be Harper's most convenient solve.  
• The Security Intelligence Review Committee, one of the departments designed to keep CSIS in check will be eliminated.  Which begs the question: Who's Gonna Be Watchin' The Watchmen?
• In addition to undermining environmental restrictions, Bill C-38 will limit the protection of fish habitats in lieu of industrial development.  To make matters worse, the bill will de-fang the "Species At Risk Act", which limits industrial activity in the habitats of endangered and threatened wildlife.  Under the new process, Environment Minister and part-time used car salesman Peter Kent could make exemptions to this at will.  Sorry, but considering our current environmental record, I've really don't have a good feeling about this.  

Honestly, there are about a zillion other things in this gargantuan document that scares the crap out of me.  This is supposed to be a budget bill, yet scads of unrelated riders have been attached to it.  Harper did this knowing that the NDP and the Liberals wouldn't throw the budget baby out with the rank bathwater and risk yet another vote splitting election.  It's like he's holding the Opposition (not to mention the rest of the country) hostage in order to bring Canada in line with his own twisted Ayn Rand-ian / Objectivist  / Neo-Conservative ideals.

The funny thing is, Harper threw a hissy fit back in 2005 when the Liberals attached a few riders to their one-hundred-and-twenty-page budget bill.  Here's what Fibby McTwoface said at the time:

"How can members represent their constituents on these various areas when they are forced to vote on a block of such legislation?"  

But now, with Harper's majority firmly entrenched like a tick, suddenly it's okay to table this four-hundred-and-fifty-two page mercantile monolith which has been back-loaded with no less then one-hundred-and-seventy-pages worth of unrelated, decidedly partisan sneak-thievery?  

We have to stop looking at stuff like this and thinking: "Oh, those wacky politicians.  They're always goofing up or acting crooked."

Let me crystal clear right now: Bill C-38 has nothing to do with incompetence or personal gain.  It's a major salvo in Harper's campaign to strip our country of its "socialist" safety nets, allow the rich to get richer off the backs of a shrinking middle class and host a fire sale on our valuable natural resources.  

Please, for the love of everything holy, stop supporting the Conservatives because "yer Daddy always did".  Stop supporting the Conservatives because you consider yourself to be fiscally responsible. Stop supporting the Conservatives because they've tricked you into believing that Canada's economy is in reasonably good shape because of something they did (when, in truth, they probably would have Merrily deregulated our banks had they been in power at the time).  

Remember, just a year before Harper railed against that Liberal budget back in 2005, he wasn't even a Conservative.    

EPIC LINKS  Get informed about Bill C-38 here, here and here! 

FAIL  Green Party MP Elizabeth May schools Conservatives over their own bewilderingly mammoth budget bill.  

    

He's Evil, I Tells Ya! EEEEEEE-Vil!

 
Greetings, Pugnacious Political Pundits!

Have you ever felt like the guy that designed the Titanic?  When that fateful iceberg scraped the starboard side of the great vessel the dude that built the thing knew right away that all of the compartments were compromised.  Instantly he just knew the ship was gonna sink.  When he went about breaking this news to folks, they reacted in different ways.  A small segment of people were paralyzed like well-attired deer in headlights.  Another tiny group immediately panicked.  But the lion's share of those passengers wrote the warning off as the ravings of an alarmist asshole and then went right back to smoking cigars and sipping brandy.

Well, politically here in Canada, I fear that there's a big ole' iceberg "roit ahead" and only a few people can see it let alone grasp its ramifications (pun intended).  But I'm convinced that if we hit this frosty behemoth we're all gonna go down faster then a groupie at a Buckcherry concert.

Of course I'm referring to the May 2'nd election.  Now, if challenged, I would normally confess that this farce we're all going to engage in will likely have all the societal impact of an episode of Blue's Clues but this time out I really do believe that electing the lesser of several evils is particularly clutch.

Now, before I go any further, a few disclaimers are in order.  First, this isn't a blatantly partisan political diatribe.  I'm very inclined towards independent research.  I've checked out everything I'm about to present and, frankly, I don't want people to arbitrarily believe these claims without doing some of their own digging.  In fact I'm begging you to prove me wrong!

Also please know that I've voted for every political party under the sun and I'm definitely not slavishly devoted to any of them.  The American concept of a "registered voter" is repugnant to me.  In fact, if didn't think it was as unlikely as Carlos Mencia writing an original joke, I'd spend this entire blog post trying to convince people that we should all vote for independent candidates.  But, hey, I'm a realist.

In fact, as soon as I had the legal capacity to vote, the first ballot I ever cast was for Brian Mulrooney's Progressive Conservatives.  Why?  Because prior to that I'd been brainwashed by all my teachers that FREE TRADE IS GOOD.  Plus I was also kind of a stupid, know-everything, conservative d-bag back then who was iffy on gay rights, supported the notion of capitol punishment and humored the completely ludicrous concept that the state can control what women can do with their own bodies.  But then I went to university, read stuff and became passably intelligent.

I'm hoping that confession is a truism for everyone.  When confronted with new information, will it give you pause for thought and re-consideration? Or will you vote the same old way you always have just because yer daddy, grand-daddy and grand-pappy were always "true blue"?

So, yes, there you go, in the past I've voted for an asshat like Brian Mulrooney.  I wish I could take it back, but I can't.  See what happens when you're young, stupid and uninformed?  Hell, in retrospect, I think I was better advised when I cast a protest vote for the Yogic Flier Party in 1993 (Google it, kiddies!).

Because we seem to have absolutely no muck-raking, Lois Lane style old skool nosy independent journalists left in North America anymore (not to mention a head of state that refuses to answer more than four questions per photo op), we've entered into a very dark time in politics.  Never in my worst nightmares did I ever expect to see political chicanery this cheap north of the 49'th parallel.

Look at what we've stooped to: tasteless attack ads, partisan divides, finger-pointing, white washing of real issues, fear, censorship, doublespeak, and outright lies have all infiltrated our political process.  Now, I'm not saying Canadian politics has always smelled daisy-fresh, but in my lifetime I've seen these extreme and decidedly American tendencies continue to infiltrate our landscape.

Any why?  I believe it's mainly because one slick, subtle and unquestionably devious politician is positively terrified that if we get so much as a lingering glance into his closet we'll find more bones then what's currently housed in the Catacombs of Paris.

If the mainstream media hadn't been systematically gutted and defanged (particularly over the past ten years or so), I'm confident that we'd be more informed about such things.  So, since we can't rely on the real watchdogs to wake up and start barking, I feel I must do my duty, however penny ante, to drag the carcasses out of the closets and rub our collective noses in a dose of reality.
       
Seriously, would you actually vote for a guy who...

(1) Actually said something so patently offensive regarding the supposed "sanctity of marriage"?

(2)   Has such a shameful record of women's rights?

http://rabble.ca/columnists/2010/02/harper-runs-roughshod-over-womens-rights



(3)  Keeps insisting that he'll preserve a woman's right to choose, but his actions speak louder then words?

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadavotes2011/story/2011/04/20/cv-election-planned-parenthood.html

(4) Harbors some pretty wingnutty, George Bush-esque  religious beliefs? 

http://communities.canada.com/vancouversun/blogs/thesearch/archive/2008/09/10/why-stephen-harper-keeps-his-evangelicalism-very-private.aspx

(5) Flip-flops and then then doesn't share his real, duplicitous reasons for keeping Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan?



Not to mention the shameful stuff he does to veterans?



(6)  Displays utter contempt for Parliament? 

Not to mention contempt for the people he supposedly represents?



Or just tries to shut it down when tough questions start to fly (such as what happens to Afghan detainees?)

(7) Has such woefully inadequate environmental practices?



Or offers huge subsidies for big oil to inefficiently strip-mine parts of Alberta?

http://sowhatdidimiss.blogspot.com/2011/04/no-34-harpers-subsidies-to-tar-sands.html

(8)  Is okay with such batshit insane spending that you can't help to think about ulterior motives?



Wants to build more American-style mega-prisons even all they seem to do is make criminals more hardened?



(9) Is able to sleep at night by convincing himself that big corporations will share it's generous tax breaks with it's workers? A guy who seems to believe that trickle-down economics actually works?

(10) A guy who would employ a clown like John "Cujo" Baird:



(11) Or the seemingly oblivious Bev Ota?



(12) A guy who's done the single scariest thing any Canadian Prime Minister has ever done: arrest and illegally detain a thousand peaceful protesters during the G20 summit?

(13) Who doles out taxpayer money to preferential ridings only to surreptitiously write it off as G8 "improvements":

(14)  Who keeps referring to his administration as THE HARPER GOVERNMENT.  Actually, no, it's still the Canadian government, you tin-plated ego-maniacal f#@$-knuckle. 

One of Rick Mercer's trademark rants perfectly encapsulated this one for me:



A man who doesn't mind stocking the lobby of the House of Commons with grandiose and gratuitous self-portraiture:

http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=9c6b53f6-f0a2-4eca-93bb-559023144731

Or usurps honors normally reserved for the Queen and the Governor General?



(15) Knows that the first step to a dictatorship is to muzzle the media?



(16) Adopts joltingly tasteless American-style attack ads? Here's the Conservative's already in-born ironic attack ad they used against Paul Martin in 2006:



And here's the same ad humorously re-tooled and feeling just as relevant:



(17) Bars people from events and rallies just because they were in a photo with a political rival?

(18) Who was proud to say: "Ordinary folks don't care about the arts."  Spoken by a clearly unimaginative, culturally bankrupt yahoo who's only idea of "the arts" is criminally mangling Beatles songs in public.

 http://www.thestar.com/FederalElection/article/504811

(19)  Who has little regard for some of his fellow Canadians?  Does anyone remember this Harper?

"There's unfortunately a view of too many people in Atlantic Canada that it's only through government favours that there's going to be economic progress." (Stephen Harper, Toronto Sun, May 31, 2002)

Like that?  Here are a few more dillies:  http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/canada/Stephen-Harper.html

(20)  Who takes creative license with election spending?  http://www2.macleans.ca/2011/03/01/federal-court-sides-with-elections-canada-in-dispute-with-conservatives/

Seriously?  It only took one hyped up Liberal scandal to serve as Stephen Harper's Reichstag fire.  He used that to fuse his unpalatable Reform Party together with what was left of Mulrooney's devastated Conservatives to claw his way into power.  What will it take to sour the nation on these jackanapes? 

Yes, I've voted PC before, but Harper's Conservatives aren't PC!  They're Alliance/Reform, which is the closest Canada has ever had to a friggin' fascist party!  Anybody remember those clowns?  Anyone remember how out-to-lunch Preston Manning and Stockwell Day seemed at the time?  Well, I hate to break it to ya, folks, but Harper has managed to hold onto his job not because he's that different from those two idiots, but because he's better at concealing his true, reptillian nature!

Is there anyone left in the United States left who would be willing to claim that George W. Bush did a bang-up job?  No?  Well, honestly, if you scratch away at that "methinks thou dost protest too much" Canadian pin Harper is always wearing, you begin to realize that he's the closest we've ever come to installing a Neo-Con in office.  The fact that this country is poised to hand this freak a majority (despite most of the country voting against him) just terrifies the bejesus out of me.  



Look, folks, I didn't want to do this entry and tell you who to vote for, I just wanted to give you some real food for thought as to why you shouldn't vote for THAT GUY.  I have no vested interest in whether he wins or looses.  But I know that most people are very, very busy with such things as day to day survival: trudging through fifty hour work weeks, trying to balance kids, bills and responsibilities.  I know that a lot of you have grown very jaded and apathetic about politics because you never see any positive change regardless of what organ donor is in office.

But I've been very vigilant.  I've been doing my research.  I've been keeping a close eye on this motley crew in power right now.

And frankly I think Rick Mercer summed it up best when he said "I have a hard time trusting a man who has the eyes of an alaskan malamute."

 Just think about it...

EPIC  I'm tellin' ya, this guy is evil, Palpatine-style evil!




EPIC LIST OF FAIL:

http://rabble.ca/news/2011/01/ten-reasons-oppose-harper-candidate-your-riding

EPIC SITE Which partially inspired this entry...

http://shitharperdid.ca/

PHOTOGRAPHIC PHAILS:  "The horror, the horror..."