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.
![[Blue Ribbon Campaign icon]](http://br.eff.org/br.gif)
Welllllll - what about a Candle of Freedom - or the Black Dot Campaign?!?
random quotes
Einstein -- "The tyranny of the ignoramuses is insurmountable and assured for all time"
George Santayana -- "Perhaps the universe is nothing but an equilibrium of idiocies."
Lead
(for those too young to remember, that's the cute little dog (named Nipper of all things - oh well, remember, this was the 50s, or maybe even 40s, a time when years had 19-- in front of them. Naahhhh!!?? No really!!! you mean the universe is more than 2 years old?!?! rilly!?!? Why don't they tell us that on the tv then?!?! or school huhnh??) somewhere nearby where you're reading - alerting the public to either radio or old 78 RPM phonograph records) came into my head while I was going over the news stories we're encouraged to be thinking about today - long ago that was, also in the earliest days of tv, at least in Canada, with the old CBC Indian head on every night just before the Outer Limits whitenoise crash - ah, as the song says, those were the days - certainly seem like some kind of twilight zone, now, anyway. The advertisers-cum-propagandists-cum brainwashers were in their very infancy then, at least as far as tv went, and you could actually watch a bit of that new medium at times without fearing for your sanity, or that of your children - most evenings, indeed, were still spent at community halls or otherwise visiting with your family or neighbours - small town Canada was still reality, not dream - man, there was no way you'd get kids in those days stuck inside the house watching tv while there was still light enough to play and run and be free outside (but Rude - you KNOW we can't let the children out to play now - why there are monsters EVERYwhere - they HAVE to stay in - mmmhmmm - and inside what shall they do, darling dearie? why watch tv all day, my little one... - oh, we will definitely come back to this one some day - see where you get when you ask questions? All kinds of places they don't want you 'poking around' as the Ma used to say!). A couple shows a week were it - Bonanza for me, Front Page Challenge for the dad, maybe a hockey game some Saturday nights in the winter when it got dark and cold early, Don Messer's Jubilee, Tommy Hunter specials - none of the modern insanity of planning your whole week and life around your favorite mind-controllers several hours every friggin day! The Invasion of the Mind Snatchers had begun, with that little brown box, that little tiny screen, those fuzzy pictures - and we did not know, did not realise it then (man - I should be writing fiction - naaahhh - truth is far stranger....)But I wander - maybe my life is flashing before my eyes before the great sky being comes for me (hahaha - little joke there PP - you'll not be rid of us that easily!! - and one would worry less about the great sky being than the lizard monsters, anyway - the PP would know all about that... anybody heard Paul Wellstone criticising Bush lately...??)
Anyway - what occurred to me was that, in a much bigger sense than the citizens flatlining every day in front of that now-very-sophisticated not-so-little box, that little dog Nipper is just a super-deluxe dandy image for all the Canadian neocon hanger-ons, all the pathetic little editors and columnists and politicians and third-level businesspeople and "academics" and "think"-tankers shilling for the people who want to destroy this country, turn back the clocks a few decades or centuries, destroy the caring society that previous generations tried to build and replace it with an American elitist laissez-faire model, a dog-eat-dog, he-who-has-the-most-bucks-wins fuck-the-poor model, a place where it is perfectly acceptable for large segments of the population to live in extreme poverty, with no health care, no chance for a decent education, almost no hope for the future; a society where the privileged few have great wealth and power, and the rest make out as best they can, with lots of prisons and Nazi-trained cops to take care of anyone who tries to step out of line, or does not pay sufficient attention to their Master's Voice on the tv every day.
Something like that anyway - for rather obvious, I think, reasons, the modern little Nippers never fully or truthfully articulate their dystopic "vision" for the country - their dismantling of our society is always couched in dissembling terms - "Of COURSE we want a great health care system for Canada and all our great people!!! - But...... it's really unfortunate, but since we have this huge national debt, we really just can't, you know, actually afford it right now - BUTBUTBUT!!!! .... that one got a little tired after a few years, when there was no more money left to cut, and they found a new one - YOU HAVE TO CUT ALL OUR TAXES!! - we have to do that to compete with the Americans!! and when we don't have to pay any taxes, why, we'll be so rich that we will give great jobs to everyone TRUST US HAHAHAHAHA - and when the government collects far less taxes it will actually have more money too you believe us don't you HAHAHAH (don't look at me like that - I know it's Grade A BS, but that's (part of) the neocon line - goes hand in hand with Trickle Down - as we note here from time to time, the loonies are running the nuthouse, and you can't expect normal standards of reason from them - the argument of the day depends on the story they're trying to sell, and often black will be black one day and white the next, and something out of Wonderland the next (black? oh yes - such a pretty sound...surely suggests tax cuts, don't you agree??) depending on the point they're trying to make - as here), and just for awhile we have to cut back quite a lot (code for slash) on things like health care and education and infrastructure spending - and when we have the debt under control (effectively never, according to what they feel appropriate to pay on it each year, but they sure as hell aren't going to tell you that, and it's all a scam anyway, as you could check out elsewhere on the page) but they don't actually talk about that), and aren't paying any taxes any more - why - Santa will come and the Easter Bunny and all your health care needs will be met!! - sorry, getting carried away - they don't actually say Santa and the Easter Bunny, but just that everything will be wonderful in their Brave New Corporate World (which, to the open-eyed, shares much resonance with those older fairy tales), as long as they don't have to pay taxes.
Anyway, what's that got to do with the cute little dog? Well - no thinking person could believe that BS we just sort of outlined quickly above, or would actually, through a process of independent idea-formation arrive at, so that so many of these politicians and pundits manage to spout forth such tidings en masse indicates that they are probably taking instructions from some common source - something like The Master's Voice - it's more likely email today, but the allegory is ok - although they might update it someday to have Little Nipper (that'd be Big Nipper's offspring, I guess) sitting in front of a tv with big vacant eyes and the Alpha waves emanating from his poor little head flatlining - wow, there's an appropriate image for the last half of the 20th century! Not to imply the sycophantic class are brainwashed themselves - not at all, they are just soul-sellers - for whatever reason, they have determined that their own personal karmas lie somewhere without the society of normal people - traitors, in other words, to their fellow wo/men (yes, lots of traitorous females out there too); they believe, for whatever reason, that they belong with the elite rather than the common folk, and for this reason undertake such activities as they can to please the elite - and nothing pleases the elite better than keeping the common folk underfoot where they belong and not bothering the elite at their games - quietly underfoot. For this, a rather large managerial class is required, who are rewarded for their efforts somewhat above the pittances allowed the commoners. Thus it is and has always been so, although it is somewhat moreso in the modern world, with the modern toys and modern population numbers. The agenda of the neocons is established at various fora such as the Trilateral Commission, the Foreign Relations Council, the BCNI/CCCE (although the Canadian guys are little leaguers), and so on, and disseminated through their "think" tanks, media, etc. Like the PP - not the leaders, but the middle managers. And if you're thinking "man whacko conspiracy theorist for sure" - well - turn off the tv and think for awhile, read for awhile, and when your alpha waves are restored to sort of pre-tv levels, maybe we can talk again.
So what things are the little scribes in the Canadian media receiving from The Mysterious Master's Voice this day to pass on to their segments, great or large, of the people they are helping manage? What magical words are entrancing the propagandists at the Fraser, and the CD Howe, and the Pispot, and the Suns and Citizens and Provinces????? - let's have a look at a couple (they're not hard to find, although, like all things hidden right in front of your nose, you have to actually be aware that they are there, and know what to look for - once you do they're all over the place, like germs - it's like a game, a reality kind of game, where if you don't catch on sometime, they steal your soul and you don't even know it's gone..... vampires - oh wait, we're on the dog today, faithful little Nipper ...
As you may be aware (if you ever contact alternative media at all, like readers of this kind of stuff probably do, but those who depend on the PP probably do not), there has been a growing demand for some kind of Proportional Representation (PR) in the electoral system here, to make things a bit more fair and balanced in the Houses of government (oh that understatement again!! - there is currently NO fairness or balance in the Houses of the anything-but-commons the last 20 years - ANY friggin fairness and balance at all would be a big step up). This is NOT something the neocons favor (scared as hell of it would be more accurate) - the old FPTP (first past the post) system is MUCH more to their liking, where they can buy the major parties and otherwise manipulate the vote and voters (when was the last time you read about some "unite the right" movement in Canada? and when the last time you read about some "unite the left" movement? Do you suppose that is just coincidental? And does that then make you a "Coincidence Theorist? (a much more dangerous, less in touch with reality group, than the so-called "conspiracy theory" group, I assure you...)) to ensure that (one of) their bought-and-paid-for parties wins most of the seats in an election. Manipulation - as we talked about the last time, there are few "big sell" campaigns like the Free Trade campaign of the 1988 election - most of it is just ongoing maintenance of things you have been told are the "right" (pun I guess) things to believe. Such as that PR is NO GOOD!!!! - sure you've read that - only politically crazy countries like Italy or Israel have PR, and they have dozens of parties and wild coalitions and never get anything done, the government is in permanent deadlock, etc and etc, right!?? Not, actually - part of the lies game - they don't want you thinking about PR, so they give you bad stories (they want you thinking about, for instance, PPP, so they give you good stories - and if good/bad stories as required are not readily available (they usually aren't - since neocon programs are designed for their benefit alone and to the detriment of the rest of us, stories proving they actually benefit the rest of us aren't usually to be found) - why, the PP is ever-ready with lies, or stories that refer to actual events but totally twisted out of shape, such as the recent story that George Bush and his buds NEVER said WMD were the reason for invading Iraq - that, actually, is their job...
Well - in non-PP circles, there has been quite a lot of talk recently about PR - and, to be sure, a growing Canadian sense that maybe this would be better than this ongoing nonsense of political parties opposed by a majority of the voters getting a majority of seats (both the FTA and NAFTA were inflicted on this country by such governments, and almost everything else that is taking this country away from us) - so the PP is duly beginning to step up the presentation of "NO PR" pieces. Here, for instance, we have a guy named Claire Hoy, a long time listener to The Master's Voice, with Don't blame the system for voter apathy {RM copy here} (one Big Lie technique is to go for the kill right off the bat, before anyone sees it coming - poll after poll (the reliable ones, not PP ones) has found that "the system" is, indeed, the reason for voter apathy in Canada - Canadians do not trust anything about it, from the way it is structured so that parties getting 25-30% of the vote get solid majorities of seats and are then dictators for 4-5 years, to the way politicians lie during elections but cannot be challenged on their lies, to the way that the system allows and even encourages Big Money to run things, and the hell with the voters, etc and etc - to say the system is NOT the reason voters aren't voting is a heads-on nonsense at best.
Hoy recognises that our current system results in often ridiculous outcomes (pretty hard not to - the figures are well known (although contradicting that which is well known is never a problem with these people - but here Hoy is trying to be a good writer-type with a catchy leadin, one might suppose - or perhaps the bully challenge to the timid - I'm gonna look you right in the eye and say black is white - are you gonna call me a liar, pipsqueak?? - few accept the challenge in the schoolyard - and as an adult - well, you know the saying - old habits die hard) -
... In 2000, for example, the PEI Tories got 58% of the popular vote but won all but one of the 27 seats. In B.C., the Liberals won 77 of the 79 seats in May 2001 with just under 60% of the vote. In Ottawa, Jean Chrétien won his third consecutive "majority," winning 57% of the Commons' seats with just 38% of the total vote. And so it goes.
It seems to me, and many others, that this kind of thing is just outrageous and crazy - but Hoy seems to think it is just fine - or at least far preferable to any kind of system where those who do NOT get any representation of the kind they want with their votes might get such representation. Well, that's not far out of line with elitist thought - who the hell cares what happens at the election anyway - they're just for show, as we all know - the elite will run things, and who really cares what the rest of you/us think?
Furthermore, the steadily decreasing voter turnout is just the way we've always been -
Anyway, low turnouts are not new. Canadians have consistently fallen below international averages. Between 1945 and 1997, Canada ranked 20th among the world's 29 most industrialised countries, yet many of the countries ahead of us have a system similar to ours.... -
- well, on that stat we can't use the lie word, since we can't determine just where he got it - but at best, it is dissembling, since of what we might call modern, western democracies, only 3 of them still use the FPTP system - Canada, the US and Great Britain - so it isn't actually true to say that "many" of the countries ahead of us have a similar system - the US is notorious for low voter turnout, with more and more people understanding that it makes little difference who wins there - or, after the 2000 Supreme Court Coup, even who they vote for if they do vote - but we're SUPPOSED to be a little more progressive than that in Canada (although the PP is doing their best, along with the other Listeners of the Master's Voice, to roll that back as far and fast as possible).
Hoy's final line here sums up his position pretty well - he says
"...Yes, our system has flaws, but it's a lot better than guaranteed gridlock and endless electioneering, just so a group of malcontents can impose their views on the rest of us..."
- Hoy probably doesn't realise the great irony of his words - the substantial majorities who did NOT vote for either the Mulroney government in 1988 or the Liberal government the last couple of times are indeed pretty sick of a small group of malcontents imposing their views on the rest of us - what else, really, could you call the BCNI/CCCE and their "newspapers" and "think tanks" and lackey pols but a smallish group of malcontents who do not like the democratic, progressive Canadian society created by all of the Canadian people and their politicians prior to Mulroney - and have worked long and hard to take over our political system and buy our politicians and spread lies and disinformation through our tragically betrayed country, gathering a certain number of malcontents under its banner of lies and anti-government propaganda for that very reason - to impose their views and American style of doing things, which we do NOT want, on the rest of us? And what a difference PR would make to their plans! They have managed to divide up the vote of the majority who oppose them, and see it wasted with this FPTP system (he says the MPs who are elected 'represent" **ALL of their constituents equally, not just the ones who voted for them - and I suppose he has a point, since they don't actually represent anyone except the BCNI/CCCE anymore anyway), so they can keep their paper-majorities and advance their neocon agenda in the face of the popular resistance, claiming legitimacy with their 25-30% "majority" governments (Chretien, at the moment, for instance, with only a 60% voter turnout last time, and 38% of that vote, has a majority in the House of (not-so) Commons with less than 23% of the support of eligible Canadian voters. (when was the last time the PP pointed out that particular stat to you in some inflammatory editorial demanding change because it was so non-democratic???) So with PR, the majority of Canadians who do NOT want more and more "free trade" a la the FTAA, or who do NOT want lower corporate taxes and a continually diminishing health-care system and infrastructure, would actually be represented in the House of (more) commons, and be able to stop these things - and that, by golly, is why the PP and the tame tattlers are hearing things from The Master's Voice about stopping this talk about PR.
((NOTE: Useful link for those who want more on PR and other initiatives like this in Canada - Fair Vote Canada )) - or google it - tons of stuff on (where else!) the net.
Well - let's carry on and have a brief look at another recent PP editorial - The NAFTA debate -- 10 years later - or The RM archive copy wherein the PP editorial staff carry on with their ongoing revisionism and rewriting of history (we'll just forego the obvious 1984 reference today, but the PP is undoubtedly bucking to be the official propaganda organ of the Ministry of Truth, which is coming, if the neocons maintain their hold on the country, as surely as George the Crazy and the Crazed Cabinet is right at this instant plotting the bombing of some other innocent country), telling all and sundry that those who made dire predictions about NAFTA or the prior FTA have all been proven wrong, because - well, just look around, at what a fabulous state the Canadian economy is in today! (Call me crazy if you will (but not late for dinner no siree! (yeah well old guys do old jokes)), but I seem to recall any number of stories over the short but nonetheless much too long lifespan of this very PP telling us all what dismal shape the Canadian economy was in, because of our terrible socialist government, or our WAAAAAYYYYY TOOOOOOO HIGH TAXES (really, I KNOW I've seen that one more than once!), or our terribly inefficient public health care system trying to look after all them damn poor people, who should be allowed the freedom to not have any health insurance at all like that great land of the free south of us, or the horrible awful brain drain to that Golden Land to the south (nono - their idea, not RMs - we think of the land to the south in more, shall we say, Mordor-like terms), or regulatory agencies that won't let Canadian businesses free to compete, etc and etc - but I guess if you write stuff for the PP, where "truth" is just another word for Lies'R'US and another tool to sell the product of the day, you can swing things the way you like, depending on what message you want to give any particular day - that's one of the great things about neocon philosophy - as with children making stories for their elders to convince them of something, there is no need to let any small things like consistency mar your maunderings - especially when you own or control all the media and nobody is going to ask any hard questions (I mean, we don't have to print any letters with hard questions, right? Isn't that one of our rights when we own the newspapers?)). Anyway - they have a wonderful way of just ignoring reality and rearranging facts and selectively choosing a few things that appear to bolster their position whilst ignoring the great reams of material that make nonsense of their position - it would be rather endearing, one supposes, in limited doses, in a 5-year old overindulged child, but is somewhat less so in what is supposed to be a responsible journal of record in a modern state. (I wonder if they've heard of the New York Times?)
- for instance - a quote -
....Among the most vocal of NAFTA's opponents was Maude Barlow, leader of the Council of Canadians. In 1992, she predicted the United States would exploit NAFTA to drain Canada of our "industry, high technology, resources and political will." Our Parliament, she said, would become meaningless, as Washington would "force Canada to fully consult the U.S. before Canadian laws and regulations are made or changed."
note - "...drain Canada of politician will.." and "...force Canada to fully consult the U.S. before Canadian laws and regulations are made or changed..."..- now, they just come out with this like it was obviously untrue or something and get on to the next lie, without bothering to say anything to point out why it is so - but in reality, what Maude predicted has in fact come to pass, in spades - have the PP people forgotten about a small thing called Metalclad, for instance - our government was not only forced to retract a law it had passed, based on solid scientific evidence, to protect the health of Canadians, but, absolutely disgracefully, was then forced to LIE and say in public that, actually, there was no scientific evidence at all saying the banned chemical was harmful!!!! - what the hell is this exactly if not the bully getting you on the ground, and forcing you to eat dirt? How disgusting!!!! - the PP, of course, either forgot about this, or thinks it appropriate. Or what about the planned and promised Ontario Public Auto Insurance legislation of Bob Rae - how they were forced to back off of this idea because of NAFTA, and BIIIIIGGGGG threats from the US auto insurers (not fighting this was one of the things that cost the NDP a lot of credibility in the country, that they have not yet regained)? Does that sound like a "...draining of political will...?" - well, maybe, yeah, just a little tiny bit.... How about the constant demands that Canada reduce its taxes so Canadians can "compete" - does this have anything to do with the political will of the Canadian parliament (damn it upsets these people a lot that there is any lingering vestige of resistance at all to The Master's Voice in the Canadian Parliament or public - but they shouldn't worry - what little there is is fast fading). There are dozens of examples of how the NAFTA has taken control of our economy and seriously compromised the ability of our parliament to act in favor of Canada and Canadians, if the PP would ever care to publicly debate this, in their pages or ours here at RM.... HAHAHAHAHA - just a little humour there, we were starting to get too serious - the Pispot NEVER deals with provable/disprovable "facts" in a public debate when lies in a controlled forum will serve the purpose....) - they praise our doubling of trade in the last 15 years (actually, doubling anything economic in 15 years is slow growth - it probably would have doubled sooner without NAFTA), they seem to overlook the role of the low Canadian dollar in our economic successes vis-a-vis the US (85 cents in 1988, low 60s today!! - wow! how could they forget something that important!!), they don't care to mention that most of the increased 'trade" with the US is intra-company, and a lot of that is for transfer-pricing schemes to keep profits in the US (boy that's sure good for Canadians!), etc and etc. Let's talk in public about this some day PP!!!! (any odds you want that they refuse...)
Or one more (that'll have to do - we just don't have time to dissect the whole thing) - they compare the arguments against the NAFTA and FTA with current arguments against the FTAA and globalisation -
.... We write all this not to mock these false prophets, but to put modern doomsday predictions in context ...... all the discredited arguments Ms. Barlow et al trotted out 15 years ago. It's true what they say: Nothing dies as hard as a bad idea....
- as with Hoy above, the PP continues to absolutely refuse to see the way things are in Canada, but only the way they dream of them being - mindlessly parroting, as it were, the words of The Master's Voice, rather than sticking their heads out of their 98th-story Bay Street windows sometimes for a look at the way things really are, things that have deteriorated greatly in the 15 years since Mulroney's 44% "majority" government implemented the FTA (33% of eligible voters and our FPTP voting system and the refusal of the NDP and Liberals at that time to work together to stop Mulroney (some ideals take a back seat to personal ambition, it seems, and one should always, always, always take the declared "ideals" of ANY politician with some sort of strong emetic, to get such things out of your brain quickly) gave Canada the FTA - as Gandhi said - Western democracy? Good idea! We should try it sometime...), and then Chretien implemented the NAFTA, his first major broken promise to the voters of Canada, after PROMISING to "renegotiate or abrogate!!" it - yet another promise that lasted approximately until the last voting station closed. Indeed it is true - nothing dies as hard as a bad idea - and the bad idea in this case is the neocon idea of a laissez-faire world, where the only "rules" are there to keep the small people chained and on the business end of a propaganda taser held by the elite, where the wealthy playboys are allowed to run roughshod over everyone else, and pretend that because they are having a great time that the universe is thus unfolding as it should - it was a bad idea in Dickensian England and the original sweatshops, it was a bad idea in Sinclair's Chicago, and it's a bad idea now. But like cockroaches in an apartment, you can't hardly get rid of them in one room before they show up coming in some other door. Or facial acne... - hell, enough already.
The Master's Voice-inspired PP and many others frequently accuse writers such as RM and the people they go after in this editorial of being "Luddites", wanting to return to some former period because they are afraid of the future or something - as with so many of their lies, this one is again just ass-backwards, accusing others of what they themselves are doing - the progressive people in this country (and many others) were striding boldly and confidently forward into the future for most of the last century, making this country a better place for ALL of the citizens - it was the corporate reactionary revolution of the 1970s that opened the new Luddite movement - the corporate masters trying to revoke all of the noteworthy gains these people had made, and turn back the clocks a couple of hundred years to the darkest days of the British Industrial Revolution, where the workers had no rights or security, and the new corporate masters of the time lived in luxury. This is the society the New Luddites wish to reinstate in the modern world, and this is the society the truly progressive people in our country are fighting to prevent.
Were the PP editorialists et al. to stop listening to The Master's Voice for awhile (do you think the analogy of "Master's Voice" is better than "head up the ass"? I like the image of the latter, for some reason - just seems more accurate or something with these people - I mean, Nipper is sort of cute - trolls from Mordor or lizard monsters aren't - and we are not dealing with "cute" people here, in any sense of the term....), and take a look around at how life is for average Canadians, they just might be forced to at least address a few hard questions, rather than strut around bragging about how great life is for themselves, and not worrying about everyone else. A rather apt historical analogy that comes to mind is Napoleon's Josephine and her infamous "Why - let them eat cake!" comment upon being told of the starving peasants, having no idea in her tiny elite brain about the misery her life of luxury - her and the elite of her time - was forcing on the mass of the common people - such as is the situation in Canada today, where there are twice as many poor people in this country as there were 15 years ago, the Canadian government finding it more appropriate, apparently, to devise various ways to transfer huge amounts of money to wealthy corps and banks than to the poor of the country, whose plight they have actually increased considerably with their program slashing - the unemployment rate is twice what it was, and unemployment benefits for those so affected barely half of what they were then; where there are hundreds of thousands of more Canadian fucking CITIZENS forced to rely on food banks to feed their families because of the NAFTA-inspired cutbacks to every social program in the country, and job losses and downsizing as a result of that same NAFTA; where the great majority of new jobs that are created are of the minimum-wage, no-security-or-benefits types; where tens of thousands of university students are graduating with tens of thousands of dollars of debt, and tens of thousands more who just cannot afford to go; where people die in ambulances and hospital emergency rooms because there are not enough doctors and nurses to take care of them - due, again, to NAFTA inspired cutbacks; where more and more of our businesses and industries are being taken over by American owners, and the profits and head office jobs and R&D labs leaving Canada for the US - because NAFTA encourages this - well, we could go on - and on - and on - and on - and on and onandonandonandon. (If you want a great breakdown of these things, check out Mel Hurtig's new book, The Vanishing Country).
What the lizard monster scribes at the PP seem oblivious to when they talk about how "great" Canada is doing now (well, they're actually oblivious to almost everything that matters to the rest of us - if it isn't surrounded by lots of $$$$$ signs, these people figure it's not worth much, it seems) - wait now, they're probably not that oblivious, but they want their readers to be, so forward ho with the revisionary head-up-the-ass editorials - is that the takeover of Canada is not quite like a corporate takeover, with a big bid, and money changing hands, and CEOs getting their smiling face on the cover of the rolling stock or whatever and lots of financial columnist groupies but sadly no wise guru (idiot 15-minute sound-bite gurus abound, unfortunately, but they don't help a lot, in terms of enlightenment, which generally means starting to understand that your big bucks are not the most important thing in the universe), that just happens quickly when the paper is signed, but a much slower process - and that we do still have a country does NOT mean that those who fear for our future are wrong - the fearless captain, for instance, could laugh and mock the cabin boy warning of the impending berg until a second before impact - and through such laughter deter others from trying to change the course as well. That's probably too sophisticated of an analogy for the PP people - but give it a thought, anyone else. It's very appropriate in these times, and as a response to the kind of lies put forth in this editorial. None, as the saying goes, are so blind as they who refuse to see - the PP sycophants are apparently fixed in their ways - but you - you can turn that damned tv off and start thinking a bit. It ain't, as Casey said, over 'til it's over (or the fat lady sings, whatever) - and until we have hit that damned berg, there is a chance we are not too late to change course. TO THE YARDARMS SAILOR!!
Here, however, given that the people orchestrating the whole thing do NOT want to let people in on what they are doing, the signs are much less obvious - because, of course, most of the media in the country that Canadians depend on for information is run by people who are engaged on a sneak takeover of the country, and don't care to advertise that around or get people worked up (asking hard questions) - I mean, that is - I don't recall the whole story of Benedict Arnold's supposed betrayal of his country, but (please do correct me if I'm wrong) I rather suspect he didn't stand up on some high public place shouting out things like "My fellow citizens!!! I am engaged in monstrous treachery and am trying to betray you all by selling out our country to the British!! And what, pray tell, do ye all think of this, and of me?" - well, cynicism doesn't become me, I know - but really - these people do nothing but advocate turning Canada over to the US and the sooner the better, and here in this editorial they are trying to disparage those who are still fighting them by saying that Canada is stronger than ever. I suppose Benedict Arnold was pretty strong too, until somebody found out what he was up to - there will come a time in this country, assuming the Good Guys do eventually prevail (if I didn't believe there was a chance of that, you wouldn't be reading any of this stuff here) when the likes of Mulroney and Chretien and the PP will assume the same despised role in the True History of Canada as Mr. Arnold has in the US histories.
(A lot of us have that opinion already, of course, obviously, but we do not have the money to be writing and printing history books. Yet.)
Well - to tie up these threads - The Master's Voice coming from the big speaker into Nipper's eager little ear is not the Canadian citizen or taxpayer, but the voice of Corporate America.
Nipper's poor wee brain has been taken over by the bad guys and some bad data - maybe a virus. Maybe someday soon we can reprogram him to bite Master. Or find a new 78 disc for that record player, wherein The Master's Voice is the collective voice of the citizens of Canada, as it should be.
It's instructive to think upon some things following from the above (you didn't think I went through all that with no goal, did you?) - for instance, when the elite want something like "free trade" or "tax cuts" or privatisation of the health care system or anything else, it's blasted out from the media for months or years on end, until they manage to convince enough people that maybe it's ok, and it happens. When the elite does NOT want something - like PR, or a united non-right-whacko party - the media silence is, as they say, deafening - and when something is not on the public radar, when it is not on the news every day, either print or tv - well, most people just assume that it's not that important - for we have been trained (and well trained) to follow along rather meekly behind the authorities and talking heads, who TELL us what is important - what they are less anxious to tell you, of course, is that it is important to them for their reasons, regardless (like "free trade") of how bad it's going to be for everyone else. And also, without a media that is responsive to the public's wants - how, in the modern age, are the people supposed to get together and create a broadbased public movement, that will have some chance of exerting a serious influence in an election? Without the money and venues to push a policy idea day after day after year after year, it is extremely difficult - and when someone of this sort does start to make even a TINY sort of wave on the public consciousness - why one or another of the tame Nippers are there to take a run at them, to let the public know that these people are not to be taken seriously.
How democratic is it, really, when those with great amounts of money are allowed to set and dominate the public debate by buying up all or most of the media in the country, and keeping those things they want in the spotlight, and other things, that many more people, but with a lot less dollars, may want, on the back burners, as it were? - the old saying "Out of sight out of mind" does have a lot of truth. We know, from dozens of polls the last few years (by reputable polling agencies, not the fixed things the PP etc come up with), that Canadians don't really give a rat's ass about lowering the taxes of the big corps in this country, but care very much that the health care system is given the money it needs to provide good care for all Canadians - but what do we see in the papers day after day after endless friggin day? TAX CUTS!!! and all these stories about the wonders of privatisation - and virtually nothing on how privatisation is starting to look acceptable to some people ONLY because the huge cuts in healthcare funding the last few years have starved the once world-class Canadian health care system for money until it is forced to cut back as much as possible - resulting in things like the very quick overload of the Toronto system when SARS hit recently, the Walkerton situation, people dying in ambulances or emergency rooms for lack of hospital space or staff, many doctors and nurses moving to the US (BRAIN DRAIN screams the PP - but nary a word about how the people are leaving not because of taxes but because they can't find jobs), etc, etc, etc, etc and etc.
How democratic can a country be, really, when faced with things like a voting system that allows things like majority governments with well under 25 or 30% of the support of eligible voters which then radically change the direction and public policy of a country, even though a true majority of citizens oppose that shift, and a media dominated by a neocon movement that supports that kind of system because that is the only way they can maintain their control of the parliament?
Things moving in on the radar screen (the RMRS)....
Iran arrests anti-government activists; Bush says protesters yearn for freedom - about a bunch of "freedom-loving Iran students and/or repressive Iranian government" .... ah, the little things that make life interesting. I suppose it's only us paranoid amerika-haters who see things like this and think - Wow!! - not a word about Iran for months, maybe years, except recently, in some circles, about how the US just might be planning on going after Iran next - and here we have a story about the US disapproving of the Iran government!! (Any ideas from the Coincidence-theorists on this one?!?!) - anyway, watch for more on this thread, guaranteed (we're already hearing rumbles about how Iran is developing nuclear (that'd be nukular for amerikans) weapons and is harbouring Al Quaeda agents - does anybody see a pattern here? I suppose not, if the PP doesn't mention it first (RM prediction - they won't) - there's another serious irony or something here - we have seen similar scenes (government police beating back demonstrators) all across the "free" world for years, from Seattle to Quebec and many, many other places in Europe and America - but in THOSE scenes, the corporate press has basically the opposite explanation - when this happens in Iran (or some country we don't like) the police are freedom-repressing communist terrorist scum and the protestors freedom-loving democracy-hungry citizens to be supported - when it happens in Amerika or Kanada - why the POLICE are freedom-loving wonderful cops protecting our great free democracy FROM.... (drum roll, wait for it...) - the PROTESTERS, who are some kind of commie terrorist scum. And the few of us who see this fall into that same category, I guess, according the American media. Lies'R'US. A normal person, at this kind of thing, even after a beer or two (maybe even more likely after a beer or two) would sense something a bit amiss, might sit up and say something like "Wait just a fucking minute chief!" - a person in front of the tv says - well - usually, nothing. "wooowww - they must hate freedom - i bet george is gonna bomb 'em!"
And as long as the people watching tv do so with their brains turned to "absorb unquestioningly" (as the tv demands) rather than some better setting like "THINK ABOUT IT!!!!" - well - fascism marches boldly forward - as some philosopher noted for pithy sayings once observed - all it takes for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. I suppose we would have to add women in the modern world - but the message remains.
- we really don't care that much for American politics, except as they impact on Canada (I know I know that's quite a lot) but one cannot ignore what goes on down there - the creatures of the whole forest ignore the rabied marauding wolves at their own peril - it does seem obvious at the moment, however, that if the American public had half a brain (I know - as a collectivity, that's a pretty long shot, so don't bet the family farm just yet, Horace), the Republican Party would be destined for the same fate as our PCs after Mulroney in 1993, after the last 10 years of debacle in that country (over 20, if you want to go back to Hollywood Raygun Ronnie (the Republican presidents of the last few years are going to get equal billing with the last inbred crazed Roman emperors, at some time, in some real history books - Ronald Caligula Reagan, George W. Nero Bush anyone?) - first the years-long fixation with Clinton's extra-marital sex and the Whitewater stuff, all of which ultimately proved nothing at all except that the Republicans had (and have) an iron hold on the nation's media who will print any old lies they want for as long as they want, but did make the US something of a laughingstock to the civilised world (that powerful men engage in that kind of thing is about as noteworthy or important as the fact that there are women who accept their advances - both Kennedy and Johnson were notorious for it, but the press at that time was just a little less under the domination of the neocons, who had not yet seriously begun their reactionary movement - although Kennedy was far from the New Arthur he was made out to be, whatever he did or did not do as president of the US was not influenced by his dallyings with whoever by the White House swimming pool, and apparently the press of the day understood that), and the great Whitewater scandal, after years of investigation, proved the Clintons completely free of illegal activity), and now the Bush-fronted cabal that has done essentially nothing but lie and trash the economy since it stole the election in 2000 being given a free-pass by the same media (okok - a little bit of activity lately - maybe, just maybe, somebody found some balls to play with - or, more likely, someone has decided either Bush has served his purpose and can be abandoned, or has served his purpose and is getting out of control) - but if these people are allowed, by the American public, to carry on as if nothing had happened, it will be decades before the world's countries ever again have any respect for them, outside of a certain necessary and prudent deference to its military might - and as we well know from history (but they probably do not - people with the apparent intellectual capacity of this group rarely know any history, thinking they are the first and the mightiest and history of no value - their fall will be far and well deserved, but they usually manage to drag a lot of innocents along with them and create a lot of mayhem on the way, as this bunch has already), the mighty but hated do not have long or secure futures.
Oh, there's so much more. Another day.
HEADLINES WE'D LIKE TO SEE IN **CANADIAN** MEDIA (anything true (of some importance) would be nice, actually)
- Pispot caught shilling for American corporate interests again; sulkily deny it, claiming 'America good Canada bad...'
- National (sic) Pispot caught once again in blatant lies in pursuit of neocon agenda; Izzy led away by Truth Police raving "TAX CUTS BRAIN DRAIN TAX CUTS TAX CUTS..."
- Conrad leaves Canada in hissy fit - Canadians celebrate en masse; "Izzy next! Izzy next!" "Hope he left his bloody passport at the border!"
- Canadian Parliament passes law requiring at least some verifiable truth in anything identified as a "news" story - National (sic) Pispot incensed, threatens court action (in US Supreme Court and/or secret NAFTA tribunal, claiming NAFTA protection for Freedom to Lie in the Media) "We'll print what we damn well please, and call it what we damn well please, " screeched Pispot owner Asper, drooling, "Haven't you people learned who's the boss yet...? You believe what I tell you!! - I'll fire ALL CANADIANS!! I CAN DO IT!!!!"
- CBC says politicians will no longer be allowed to speak in "sound bites" but will have to offer solid reasoning for whatever they want to say; Alliance Leader Stephen Harper vows once again to have CBC declared un-Canadian; "That's promotion of hatred against Alliance members, who can't keep more than one thought in their heads at one time.... where was I...?"
- European Union approaches Rude Macedon about replacing the entire Canadian Parliament - claims they have seen more common sense in one RM
Write if ya want.
So much left to say, so little time to say it in - probably only a year or so to the next federal election - do you want to try to save Canada in that frantic four weeks when big Paul drops the writ and EVERY friggin advantage is his - or would you like to start now, when we have some sort of outside chance? Canada for Canadians Coalition - get involved.