editorial cartoons from hereI have made it clear that I don't like Harper - perhaps too clear, as I have taken liberties with photoshop, and with word play with his name That has provoked at least one commentator from Calgary - who incidentally, was much more vituperative than I - in alluding to Obama as a "nigger", and Dion as a "frog". That is unacceptable here. many franks pointed out that it was all getting over the top, and distracting from the issues at hand, and I agreed. I will do my best to keep my own dispeptic ranting under more control, because this is not about my feelings on Harper, it is about the futures of us all.
Harper's 1997 speech to the Council for National Policy, a right-wing U.S. think tank, while vice-president of the National Citizens' Coalition (opens up a Google page with many links).
A few choice lines from that speech;
...your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world... like most Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians. (Is he talking about the same Canada that we live in?)Isn't that a nice thing to say about Canada, and Canadians, by a future Canadian Prime Minister? He said that it was humour. OK, and Gerry Ritz was being funny when he talked about 'dying of a thousand cold-cuts' (in reference to the listeriosis outbreak, which has killed at least 17 people, and is arguably a result of the de-regulation of food inspection last April), and said that he hoped that it was Liberal Wayne Easter who had died of it in PEI.
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Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. (Does he think that Canada is in Northern Europe?)
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In terms of the unemployed...don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance. (I really enjoyed my times of unemployment, how about you? That 60% cut in income made me really happy.)
Out of the mouths of babes and fools, wot? Shucks, can't you take a joke?
Harper will open up a Free Trade Agreement with the European Union Not a good thing in my view. NAFTA is not a good deal for us, and this would be worse. It is also another increment in the movement to a World Government.
Described as a negotiation of deep economic integration, “the proposed pact would far exceed the scope of older agreements such as NAFTA by encompassing not only unrestricted trade in goods, services and investment and the removal of tariffs, but also the free movement of skilled people and an open market in government services and procurement – which would require that Canadian governments allow European companies to bid as equals on government contracts for both goods and services and end the favouring of local or national providers of public-sector services.”Read; Health Care, Education, Correctional Services, etc., etc. - the privatisation of our institutions. Do you want such a thing? Have you even heard of this plan?
Read The Harper Index, and get a good synopsis of who this guy is, and what he is doing. Read up on The Security and Prosperity Partnership too. To be fair, Paul Martin signed the first part of the agreement, but Harper signed the second part in the spring - which allows American troops, Black Water, etc., to take command and control of you and me 'in the event of an emergency'. Guess who will be on the streets of Vancouver, and all points between here and Pemberton for at least a few months before, during, and after the Olympics.
Leaders of Canada, the US, and Mexico have been meeting to secretly expand the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) with “deep integration” of a more militarized tri-national Homeland Security force. Taking shape under the radar of the respective governments and without public knowledge or consideration, the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)—headquartered in Washington—aims to integrate the three nations into a single political, economic, and security bloc.
The SPP was launched (by) Presidents George W. Bush and Vicente Fox, and Prime Minister Paul Martin, in Waco, Texas...The SPP is not a law, or a treaty, or even a signed agreement. All these would require public debate...Canada’s...Department of National Defence;...on board as well. They’re committed to ramping up the nation’s military spending and linking with America’s “war on terror.” (All of Harper's military spending - a half trillion dollars- is to enjoin us in the never ending war on terror, drugs, and your human rights.)
The SPP created the North American Competitiveness Council (NACC)...composed of representatives of thirty giant North American companies, including General Electric, Ford Motors, General Motors, Wal-Mart, Lockheed-Martin, Merck, and Chevron. (That is how Lockheed-Martin got the contract for the Canadian Census)
Elizabeth May on Harper and Health Care We know the horror stories on American Health Care. Do you want that for your family?
On Harper's assertion that the Liberal Green Shift would lead to a recession
...Harper never produced any research to support this assertion,...Harper has made attacking this levy a cornerstone of his election campaign, warning it would tip Canada into recession by raising fuel prices.So, besides the lie that government was dysfunctional, a cornerstone of his campaign is also a lie!
"It [would] wreak havoc on Canada's economy, destroy jobs, weaken business at a time of global uncertainty," Mr. Harper told a Montreal crowd during the first week of the campaign.
But University of Calgary tax economist Jack Mintz, whose expertise the Harper government has previously praised, says he can't see the Liberal plan leading to a recession.
Ottawa Citizen/Harvard economist on the carbon tax
Stephen Harper says the Liberal "green shift" proposal -- a carbon tax on most forms of energy with matching cuts to income, corporate and other taxes -- could do "catastrophic" damage to the economy. He is proposing instead to cut the federal tax on diesel, which will, he says, reduce shipping costs and the costs of goods in stores. (this is really meaningless - a half-cent/litre cut per year over 4 years...)"Harper a threat to democracy"
But Gregory Mankiw suggested something considerably different when I called him at his Harvard office. Gas should be taxed much more, he said. So should lots of other energy-related products. But be sure to off-set those taxes with cuts to income and other taxes.
A former Conservative candidate who was sidelined by the party after he refused to participate in a controversial in-and-out financial transfer in the last election, is warning that a Conservative majority government could pose a threat to democracy in Canada.He has written a book about the In and Out Scam here.
In a sharply critical attack on the party he once supported, David Marler, says he has come to realize that candidates who stand up for their ideas and speak their mind are not welcome in Prime Minister Stephen Harper's party.
"The pattern emerging from the Harper Conservatives' control of the selection of the candidates makes one wonder if Mr. Harper would not prefer to be the top guy in a presidential republic," Marler writes in a book he has self-published on his website. (Another Conservative candidate had stolen this man's name, and when you tried to go to his website, you ended up on another Conservative website. That has been remedied in the past few days. Marler is running as an Independent.)
There is so much to write (for me), and so much to read (for you - here, and in the links), and I must stop here. I have been burning the candle at both ends doing this, and it is taking a toll on me. I just ask you, please, if you are thinking of voting Conservative, make sure that you know what you are voting for (and that goes for any other party too). Both the Cons and Libs have us down a road to the SPP, and I am dreadfully afraid that there is little we can do about that now. These Conservatives are not the Progressive Conservatives of your Grandparents, nor the ones that I have voted for more than once in the distant past. This is an overwhelming lot of information, but you still have a bit less than three weeks to read.
I am going to scale this back a bit now, and get back to RE and economics, and such. I have been so busy gathering links, and writing, that a war could have broken out, and I wouldn't even know about it. I am going to post more links, and try to keep it brief, but this should give you an idea of who Harper is.
Take care of yourselves and your families, and get some sleep. Thanks for reading.
Steve Harper - before he became Stephen Harper.Steve's wikipedia page
On Elizabeth May (compliments of saskboy). There is a little video clip of her. I like her, myself.
8 comments:
And the Cadman thing too. It is alleged that the Cons offered a million bucks to Mr.Cadman to vote the Liberals out. That is a criminal offence. I've heard the tape, and so have millions, but it is down the memory hole.
So, we have a secretive government that has just about a scandal a month for the last 2.5 years, they lie about what will happen if we have a carbon tax, classified documents left at the home of a woman with known associations to bike gangs - who flew around with Bernier meeting Presifents, and such, tainted meat, and then the minister responsible making jokes about those who died, a Health Minister who joked about it at the Democratic Convention, that agrees to a deal that will permit private security firms who operate in Iraq, Afghanistan, New Orleans, and who knows where, to police us, we have "extraordinary rendition" of Maher Arar, and nobody has been held responsible, we have a Canadian citizen held in Guantanamo (I don't care how odious his family, he was 15, and we have signed conventions on "child soldiers") and neither the Liberals, or Cons have lifted a finger to help him, the woman in prison in Mexico who was left to rot until the media rang the bell and we watched her fall apart on the news for weeks, and on, and on.
There is a pattern here.
Meher Arar was on Liberal Minister Bill Graham's watch. But nice try.
Cadman tape with some visual assist. There's yet more laws Harper broke, according to the audio. I wonder why the RCMP doesn't support the Rule of Law?
Yes, Maher Arar was on Liberal watch, and there has been no inquiry, or investigation of any responsibility since.
What is such a "nice try" about that?
The point that you are missing, is that our government - no matter whether LIB, or Con, is not helping, or protecting Canadians.
Did anyone else catch the big to-do about cutting funding to the "rich gala all subsidized by taxpayers claiming their subsidies aren't high enough when they know those subsidies have actually gone up" (thanks for that, Harper)? The CBC had a follow-up interview with James Moore that was classic, terrifying double-speak. It seems to me that the Cons are trying to cause divisions between Canadians with aggressive, stereotyping, cynical attacks, then somehow expect both halves to vote Conservative.
It was telling that Harper refused to translate his comments into French, which would've gotten him slaughtered.
Dion's appallingly uncharismatic, but would make the best PM of the lot. The silver lining on the recent NDP gaffes is that the Libs will suffer from less vote splitting as a result.
saskboy has a good take on that divide-and-conquer elite-gala crap here.
References to Bev Oda and her limosine use, Vic Toews, Harper, Tom Flanagan, etc.
Well worth the read.
There is good commentary over at the pope's place than here.
Well, the pope did get the best local blog award. Sigh, pope envy for me.
Good Lord, what are we North Americans to do?
There's no way Obama is going to win in the US, and it looks like there's no way Harper is going to lose here. If liberals can't put up candidates that can win against these incumbents, then we've both become one party countries.
Make that a one-party COUNTRY.
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