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Top Of The List! Canadians for Canada Coalition (CCC) - United Left, if you will - but bottom of the line - Get Rid of Corporate Government in Canada - 2004 Federal Election may be your last chance - act NOW PLEASE!! The Debt Conspiracy Theory Fact - do you believe people who email you from Africa wanting to give you 10 million bucks? No? Well WHY DO YOU BELIEVE THE NATIONAL DEBT IS LEGITIMATE?!?!? (Sorry - I get excited about this...) 911 - as important as the debt scam - ask yourself why you are so afraid to admit the truth here, even when it's been kicking you in the face almost since it happened? When the world you live in is operating under a lie this big and obvious and monstrous, you have no security whatsoever. |
RM 030525 Hey - is this Kansas? Lead Here
Speech on Canada - U.S. Relations is a recent talk by Mel Hurtig, one of the GREAT Canadians of the era - I say "GREAT" because he is a Canadian who cares about this country and the people of this country, and he believes in them/us - believes that we can and should be a great country on our own, not a suckass of the US, as a small but influential (read rich) group of people who live here and misleadingly call themselves Canadians loudly promote through their corporate media such as the National Pispot. (I'd be speaking about people like Tom D'Aquino, Brian Mulroney (the Canadian version of Benedict Arnold - I can't think of anyone else who betrayed this country so badly), Conrad Black, etc and etc - if you want a longer list, call up the Sun or NP papers and check out the columnists - there are a couple or three who aren't bad, but most would evidently rather be living in the US - why they just don't move there is beyond me - but then I have always had a problem understanding the baser, money-driven emotions). Anyway, back to Mel - you really ought to take 10 minutes and read this - it's what the people in our government should have been saying to this Celluci guy, the US "Ambassador" to Canada (forgive the quotes - but I'm not sure he would fit the dictionary definition of "Ambassador", when he seems to feel his main role is to lecture and scold the Canadian government for not being sufficiently servile to Washington - he does really need a good telling-off, as Mel gives him here. There's an idea - MEL FOR PM!!! - I'd sure as hell vote for him. - back to the quotes - one of the main tricks of these people is that they rewrite the language a lot, as Orwell predicted - so when they say one word, like Ambassador, it means one thing to you and me and Webster and Oxford and like that - but they sneakily have another meaning in their minds as they use it - i.e. Ambassador - they really mean Proconsul or something - a person sent by the Empire Government to some other country to give them "suggestions-read-orders" in how to behave so they don't upset the Emperor who will smite with a mighty fucking blow (a lot of them, actually, from 50,000 feet) if he gets upset - they don't want to actually say that yet, because then a lot of people would get upset, and they're not quite ready to deal with that yet from we supposed "friends" (more brackets - means asslicker in this case) - but they're getting us used to the idea with this kind of word games. You may have noticed other things lately - Bush and his handlers are a veritable goldmine of such things - no, don't wait for me to tell you everything - figure some out yourself. I gotta get on to something else.)
This, I fear, may get a bit lengthy, so let's get at it. A story in one of last week's Pispots by Stephen Harper, leader of the so-called "Alliance Party" (sorry, I still have trouble saying that without puking - these people all ought to send back their Canadian passports and emigrate to the US, that they seem to love so much, and leave us poor socialists up here in the great white north alone - we'd all be happier, they with their dog-eat-dog bullet-proof-vest money-is-god enclaves, we with our somewhat more let's-look-after-each-other-a-bit-rather-than-shoot-each-other ideas - seriously, Stephen - if you hate what we are so much, what we want to be, what we fought for for all of our existence as a country, what poll after poll indicates most of us approve of and want more of - why do you stay?). Anyways - it just occurred to me as I was working on this - maybe there is a purpose (from their perspective) for Harper and these guys - most of us normal Canadians listen to their crazy talk and turn with relief to the Liberals - but the Liberals are so far right of where we really want a governing party, so far right of Trudeau's Just Society (Mulroney said once, rather famously, that he would never have even dared try some of the things Chretien and Martin have been up to), for instance, that without that far-right whacko Alliance threatening to take our country and truly make it a dog-eat-dog, American style "healthcare" (i.e. what you can afford, baby - let's see your Visa card), cops-and-jails society like they already have in that great fascist state to the south of us that NONE of us want - hell, if that "Alliance" threat wasn't staring us in the face, we wouldn't vote for the current Libs either! - I don't really know if these guys are clever enough to think that deeply - but, as I say, it occurred to me - and some of their handlers do have university degrees, or there's a rumor. I've heard stranger stories. Anyway - last week Mr. Harper himself made a speech to some rightist sort of group, which can be found here A departure from neutrality or here (RM onsite copy)). It's worth a read (kind of like Mein Kampf or something - most grownups know better, but a view into the extremist mind can give useful insights, if your own mind is strong enough to withstand the simplistic temptations they offer) - anyway, this speech tells a lot about what these people think and want for us, and the way they think. Let's have a look. Remember now - as Repugnanticans North, the Alliance firmly supports everything that consummate puppet simpleton Mad George Bush does - including the recent invasion of Iraq - they were slavering about that, actually, very pissed that our Canadian troops (no damn wussy "Peacekeepers" in any Alliance country, boy!!) weren't over there shooting up the women and kids with the Americans, getting their dibs on some of that oil, open season on uncooperative journalists (I expect they loved that one), and stuff. But to start - after accusing the Libs of hypocracy before and after the invasion, he says: Unprecedented street rallies were held in support of our traditional allies. Average Canadians expressed absolutely no sympathy for the plight of Saddam Hussein. I don't actually recall reading about any rallies in Canada supporting this invasion - they had trouble finding people for such things in the States for god's sake, even with Clear Channel on them every day - but even if there were, there were not many people attending - perhaps, in the rather twisted way these people have with words, he left out a word or two, and meant "..unprecedentedly low-turnout rallies ..." or something - even if there were, however, they were rather obviously dwarfed in size and number by the anti-war rallies, which he somehow forgets to mention here - but then political leaders with an agenda to push have no obligation to speak truthfully, as we know, which is one of the really great things about modern western democracy - the Bush Cabal are making it quite official - their slogan ought to be "Lies 'R' Us!". But I digress, once again. His second statement about support for Saddam may have been true - I don't know of anybody outside of Saddam's palace who actually walked around saying what a great guy he is/was - but it ignores the much more important fact that most Canadians also had no sympathy at all for the US's unprecedented invasion of Iraq, the fish-in-a-barrel slaughter by the world's acknowledged most powerful military machine against a tiny, feeble third-world country already greatly weakened and depleted by 12 years of sanctions, with any serious weapons destroyed by the UN disarmament team - what amazing cowardice on the part of the US - undoubtedly to go down in the history books as one of the greatest acts of military brutality and cowardice in history (that's who you want us to align with, Stephen, and who most of us, along with the other civilized people in the world, shun). That's another problem these people have - their world is pretty much black and white, whereas the real world is composed of a whole lot of grey, where most things happen - just because people are against the US invasion does not mean they support Saddam, as these sad simplistic people try to make it out (in their rather constrained little minds) - it just means that two wrongs have never made a right. And that is the kind of dishonesty that they bring to the political and social discourse in our country. It is not helpful. Mentor George's famous little statement about "If you're not with us you're against us," was something these guys could relate to well, you get the feeling - but outside of an 8th grade schoolyard, it doesn't, and didn't, have much resonance with the rest of the world, most of which is run by grown-ups who recognize that there are more shades of black and white in the world than in your tiny mind, Horatio Harper. (Sorry, Stevie - that's a Hamlet takeoff - did you get to that in school?) - Black and white - I suppose that could be related to the inability of these people to see the Rainbow Flags that are flying all over the world except in the US and Canada - stands for unity against aggression - and the main object of their message is the US military machine. I tell you, Stephen, you're sucking up to the wrong bully here. Mr. Harper continues, a bit later (man, it would take a small book to go into every detail of his talk - as I said, it was a veritable compendium of elitist fantasies (i.e. lies, misdirection, propaganda) from the last decade - so, unfortunately, I will have to skip parts of it) - "A series of events since 9/11 has laid bare the failure of the Liberals to uphold Canada's values and interests in the world... For this failure, Canadians have suffered not necessarily an immediate economic loss, but a reminder of our growing irrelevance on the world stage. We are losing, as a consequence, our ability to exert influence on the events and the allies that will shape our future... In the Liberal view, for Canada to be influential on the world stage, it must distance itself from the United States. We should, for example, increase trade with Europe and Asia in order to defy the United States at less cost. Further North American economic integration must be slowed so as not to undermine the government's scope for industrial planning... These views are dangerously outmoded. " Well, this is a central point of the whole talk of Mr. Harper - any moves Canada makes to assert any independence from the US are "dangerously outmoded". In other words, his and his party's view for the future of Canada is just the opposite - increased dependence on, and subservience to, the US (surely to god he doesn't seriously think that we could engage in any meaningful partnership with that mad, berserking behemoth - if so, that is the very dangerous kind of fantasy world we most emphatically do NOT need a Canadian leader occupying). His wording is telling, and inflammatory - increasing trade with other countries would not be done for any other reason than simply to "defy" the United States. Really, Stephen, get your head out of And as far as "...growing irrelevance on the world stage.." - well, you are right there (no pun intended), but for the wrong reasons - I can't say for sure if you are intentionally dissembling here, but our "...growing irrelevance on the world stage.." is not because of too loose connections with the US, or not enough giving in sufficiently to their demands to make them like us more (more schoolyard philosophy, really kind of embarrassing in a debate between nations), as you imply/state, but the exact reverse - we have lost a great deal of the respect we once had on the world stage because more and more, dating back to the FTA and NAFTA and Mulroney's absolutely shameful and disgraceful sucking up to that Reagan thing (god, words fail, sorry), we are increasingly seen as little more than an American puppet state, with no desire or ability to make independent policy decisions of our own, for the overall benefit of our country, the international community and the peoples of the world, and when push comes to shove, the rest of the more advanced and civilized countries in the world can no longer look to us for support against the American berserker, but is starting to sadly accept that we have become nothing more than another satellite in the American Empire. This is not a good thing, for most of us or for the rest of the world - although those traitors in this country who have been strongly advocating this transition have been well-enough rewarded. (What'd your suit cost there, Stephen? Who funded your "Canadian" Taxpayers Federation? - just asking!) - and again - he says that being buddy-buddy with the US and supporting them would give us a voice in decisions they made - excuse the french, but fuck, what has HE been smoking?!?! - the US, and especially this Bush cabal, lets NOBODY outside of the chosen circle into the decisions, and for Harper to think that, by appeasing this growing monster, Canada will gain some access to the inner decision-making circle, is the worst kind of dangerous fantasy thinking (he might ask Tony Blair how, after shamelessly selling out his country to the Bush regime for as yet unseen rewards, exactly how many times Tony was consulted about the invasion he committed his country to - one wouldn't need to be able to count very high, I expect - can we all say "ZERO!!!"?). And on he goes - "Canada now relies on what is essentially a "weak nation strategy" -- multilateral participation to conceal and deny dependency on its key ally." - more of the same, and escalating again into those realms of pure fantasy he seems to prefer in political discourse - Harper appears to feel that multilateral agreements between many nations are a sign of weakness - the big dogs stand on their own, he appears to be saying, and say fuck y'all, and that's the way the world is, and the best "strategy" is to make sure you suck up big time to the big dog so he don't git mad at yuh (and, of course, since Stephen's Canada is just one of them "little weak nations - why, we gotta be good friends with the big dog!). Well, in case Stephen hasn't noticed, pretty much every other modern, civilized country in the world thinks that's a pretty lousy idea. It leads to big trouble, inevitably (do the words "appeasement, Munich, 1939, Hitler, Chamberlain - big trouble" ring a bell, there, Stephen?). And in case he missed the schoolyard bullies in whatever fancy school he went to, eventually the little guys (that would be your "weak nations") get together and do something about the bully. The allegory is, of course, imperfect - in American's case, there are a lot of people in that country who are pretty unhappy with the insane leaders of their country, and their comeuppance may well come from within as much as without. Wherever it comes from, any sane person would not want to be on the receiving end of it (Mussolini didn't have a lot of good years left after joining up with Herr Adolf, we might recall) - but of course, those whose primary concern is short-term profit have never been that good at long-term pictures, and as corporate-driven governments, that is what we are seeing in both the US and Canada today. And all of us are and will pay the price - although our fearless leaders are taking care of themselves with gold-plated pension plans of one kind or another first. I expect their parting words (they in the lifeboats to we in the Titanic) will be of the classic "HaHa see ya suckers!" variety. And what about morally speaking - in case Stephen - who is supposed to be a religious sort, although the people he associates with tend to use religion more to try to coerce other people rather than taking it too seriously themselves, if it inconveniences their ambitions too much - missed it, bullying and aggression and not standing up for what is right are NOT favored in any non-satanic religious text, or moral order - bullies and their sycophants are always relegated to whatever passes for "the bad place" in such texts - but Stephen would have this country ally with the world's biggest current bully, increasingly rampaging lawlessly around the world. Bad move, Stephen, really bad move - you do as you like with your own life, but don't be draggin the rest of us down with you, pal. Real adults, and a real country, stand up to the bullies around them, not cave in to them. And on he goes - "The fundamental flaw for Canadians in Martin's new G-20 multilateralism is the same flaw in Jean Chrétien's old multilateralism -- it's all about thwarting the United States, not about advancing the interests and values of Canada..." - I'm not sure (always hard to tell with these people) what part of Harper's brain pan can't accommodate these two things together - he seems, however, unable to deal with the idea that NOT doing exactly what the US wants just might be in our interests, both short and long-term, or that, just conceivably, we might make decisions based on the good of the country, considering many factors besides whether or not the US approves (man, isn't that a radical idea - making decisions independently?!?!) - i.e., in the case at hand, the Canadian government decided independently that tagging along on the US turkeyshoot-cum-invasion-cum-slaughter-cum-testing-our-brand-new-shiny-expensive-weapons-on-people-who-can't-fight-back-ain't-this-fun!!! in Iraq was not, either legally or morally, a good policy - as did most of the rest of the world - but Stephen, had he been our After carrying on at length with how proud he is of his desire to have Canada become the chief US bootlicker - replacing Tony Blair in this endeavor, I suppose, who has done such a fantastic job he's probably about ready to retire (evidently most of his country wants him too, anyway, feeling much as we do here at RM about being US "We need more flexible and aggressive methods to promote our underlying interests and values in the world... Generally speaking, those values should be clear -- democracy and the rule of law; free markets, enterprise and trade; the alleviation of poverty, pollution and disease; and individual freedom and human rights, with a particular understanding of the importance of the rights of women in healthy development of all aspects of society." Great stuff eh (with one exception we'll get at in a moment) - the problem is (the main one, at any rate), the rather spectacular gap between the fantasy vision he elucidates here and the on-the-ground reality of what the US - and by extension Alliance - really want, as interpreted by their actual actions rather than their words (never forget - the entire US political structure is now based on the slogan Lies'R'Us! - so take ANYTHING they say with lots of salt and some of that good ol' on-the-ground thinking) - and also never forget that Stephen thinks Canada's ultimate and best and highly desirable destiny is as a US puppet - and he can't have it both ways - if we are a US puppet, we won't be making many independent decisions (hell, that's the last thing he'd want anyway, according to the above), and about the very LAST thing we'll be doing is waltzing around the world promoting anything a normally intelligent person would call "democracy" - just look at the US record over the last 50 years, and count the brutal dictators they have supported and installed in place of truly elected people's governments of one type or another - and now - c'mon, I dare you - make a list of countries where the US has REALLY helped install a better, more democratic government - c'mon - having trouble? As above, you won't need many fingers. (dare I mention Brian 's frequent Or what about the great right-wing elitist untouchable UR-GOD of FREE MARKETS AND FREE TRADE?? - verily, to dare speak against these things is the very height of blasphemy!!! - oh well, I've been called worse, and so far the great lightning bolts from the sky have been missing. Really, people - at what point do any of us have unlimited freedom, as they claim for these markets and trade? Sure we're **pretty** free in Canada - but you're still gonna get in trouble if you start shooting people, or driving your car or whatever in an irresponsible manner, right? That's because a lot of people out there are just a little inclined to abuse their freedoms - so we have some laws and regulations and stuff like that to make the country a little safer for us all - protect us from the possible ravages of certain people with a somewhat savage bent. And, my friends, it should come as no surprise that we require such protection as much if not more in the market place, to protect us from people who would do bad things one way or another. And that is exactly the kind of protection (for us, against them) these people have been fighting to get rid of for years, with such things as the FTA, NAFTA and WTO - sure they blabber a lot about level playing fields and how they really, really just want to provide us with the best products at the cheapest prices - but it's all spin, from the best paid spin doctors in the world, and you believe shit like that at your own peril. When we see the crazy guy with the assault rifle heading up the sidewalk to his estranged wife's house, and she's screaming inside - do we believe his little innocent-eyed tale about giving her a great new present for her birthday? - or do we take him to the station and check his story out a bit more? Well - why would we believe the very people who have the most to gain from these so-called trade agreements and "free" markets - when so many others are screaming out in terror at what these people and their agreements have already wrought on their countries, and now want the rest, or to do the same to any other country they have not yet gotten to? Sure - trade is good - but only when all parties want it, and benefit from it. When "trade" - especially "trade" enforced by some multi-national agreement - acts to destroy the livelihoods of thousands or millions of small farmers or craftspeople, and causes entire countries to become indebted at impossible levels to international banks or IFIs, it is most emphatically NOT a good thing for most people, and really does need to be seriously regulated. The modern, civilized idea is Fair Trade - not "free" trade. What Stephen and his ilk in Washington and the CCCE etc have not yet caught on to, is that they have no right to go around the world enriching themselves at the expense of millions of other lives, and the destruction of other economies and the earth's environment. And a whole hell of a lot of people in the world have about had it with their elitist ways. And a whole lot of people in western countries are starting to see how very wrong it is as well, and voices like Harper's are less and less welcome in both the national and international debates. Which has never stopped people like him before - they shill for the people who give them money, always have, and always will. And he carries on about the alleviation of poverty - it's difficult to believe he could be oblivious to the fact that his great idol the US is pretty much at the bottom of the list of western countries in terms of the number of its citizens living in abject poverty, with no health care, and with Bush's "economic" plan of hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts for the wealthy, this situation is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better. And the very policies Harper espouses, free trade and markets, are the recipe for a race to the bottom all over the world, with growing numbers of poor, falling standards of living, and so on - as we have seen big time in Canada over the last 15 years since the NAFTA was passed. Ah well, the hour grows late and the writing repetitious - it has all been said before, and it is a sign of their insecurity, a sign that they know well that most people in the country view the kinds of things Harper is saying with growing scepticism, that they have to repeat it ad nauseum in an apparent attempt to get people to at least stop protesting or something - and of course the National Pispot can simply refuse to print any of the massive amount of contradictory evidence and opinion from both within Canada and around the world, and pretend that things are rosy with "free trade" etc. But the people around the world (most of whom have a much better media than the US - and Canada's has lost a lot of credibility in the last 15 years as well) know well the effects of these policies - and it is another reason that support for and admiration of the US has fallen so sharply during this same period - they can control their own people through a corporate press, but it is not so easy to do in the many countries where Freedom is something else besides another word for nothin left to lose (man, thanks Kris - what a great ending!) Well - gettin late again, and dearie got into the suds a bit herself tonight and wants a bit of lookin after - so happy trails, Roy - 'til we meet again (hope I'm not mixin stories there - ain't got time to check). Write if ya want. |
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: With thanks to the Editors of the Toronto Star, Globe and Mail, Ottawa Citizen, Ch'town Guardian, Vancouver Sun, and others I cannot think of at the moment, for their refusal to print my letters over the last few years on various issues of national import - had I even a hope of being printed occasionally in these fora and my voice acknowledged in the national debate, I would undoubtedly have not bothered putting all this together. Cheers!