Can you talk from both sides of your mouth at the same time?

            Can you talk from both sides of your mouth at once? The Harper (neo-)cons can!

            Now that the election is underway, they - like the other parties - are positively bending over backwards to gain the "ethnic" vote. And, be it admitted, they seem to be doing a better job at it than the aenemic Liberals. In these troubled and troubling times, the Harperites populist / reactionary rhetoric finds traction in immigrant communities still rooted in traditional value systems..

              Yet what one fails to observe is that these same Harperites were, not so long ago, vigorously slashing funding to immigrant groups, particularly in hated Toronto (read: appeal to redneck sentiment across the country..)

http:rewindthecuts.ca/letters-and-statements-of-support/non-political-sources/ 

              What we find galling: the programs being cut were functioning, even functioning  well by all acounts. By assisting immigrants to integrate, their subsidies were, most likely, more than "paying for themselves" in increased taxes (from better integrated / higher salaried new Canadians), and reduced Welfare, Social Services, Health Care and prison costs. Thus, once again, our "good governement", "responsible government", "law and order" Harperites have sacrificed good and responsible governance to short term political expedience. Shame on you all!

Transparency: the veteran issue

       Hairy chested individualist gun-totin' conservatives love war 'n fightin' 'n all that manly stuff. But funny, when it comes to dealing with the physical and psychological aftereffects of combat, our vets get stiffed. So says former Veteran Affairs ombudsman, Pat Stogran, himself a retired officer.

 http://www.vancouversun.com/news/decision-Canada/Embattled+ombudsman+Stogran+makes+last+stand+Canada+veterans/3790825/story.html

      This is what comes with an obsessional fixation on "budget cuting" and "small government" so the boomers can ride around in their big gas guzzling SUV toys: the little guys - and gals - from the working classes who actually lay their lives on the lines get sucker punched when they are down and need help..

Transparency: a prophecy

        The political noise machines are really being cranked up to full steam as election day approaches!

         But what is being said of real importance?

         Perhaps more importantly from the perspective of political transparency, what is NOT being said? What issues that should be on the front burner aren't even on the stove yet?

         We believe that the two issues of greatest importance are not even being discussed (or, at best, are given pious lip service):

(1) Peak Oil: the exhaustion of cheap, easy to extract and refine oil reservoirs. This is the most immediate challenge our society faces today.

(2) The "Environmental Issue": everything from climate change to habitat destruction, species extinction and the destabilization of vital planetary ecosystem services (clean water, air and soil; the capacity for natural soil regeneration..)

A PROPHECY

         We predict that these two issues, completely off the political agendas of the major parties, will become major social, economic and (geo-)political issues over the next, say, 2 to 10 years (and probably no more than 5).

         Now, these predictions are not really rocket science. The first, Peak Oil, is in fact already here. More and more economists, of late, are conceding that peak oil price hikes in spring / summer 2008 and not the subprime mortgage scam (autumn 2008) were the immediate, effective cause of the current world recession. Now, it does not take a rocket scientist  to figure out that, as economies "recover" from the recession and 3rd world economies grow, demand will once again push "tight supply" oil prices through the ceiling again. The only question is when: summer 2011? fall?..  spring 2012, winter equinox 2012?.. (were the Mayans right after all..)

         As for the "environmental thing", we wager that this cluster of crises will be the wild card for the first half of the 21st century. One salient point to consider while assessing future climate change possibilities: the experts and their computer models inevitably err on the side of conservatism (as indeed they should - if they are doing good science and not, say, astrology..) They consistently underestimate the velocity of the ongoing changes: ice cap or glacial meltdown for example.

         At present, the rising tide of political instability in the Mideast is due, in part, to food price hikes caused by extreme weather crop damage over the last growing season (Russia, prairie Canada, Pakistan..) If global warming / climate change are, in fact, real - as we posit they are - then the tide of geopolitical instability can only be expected to rise in the years to come..

        Yet, paradoxically, none of these "clear and present dangers" is front and center on the political stage (not to date, anyway..) Why this curious silence? And does this lack of contact with reality have anything to do with apathy of young voters who instinctively recognize, perhaps, that the system is not addressing the problems they will soon have to deal with? One can only speculate..

PM Steven Harper goes green

         Steven Harper seems to have caught the green bug. Electioneering makes for strange - really strange - bedfellows, it seems.

"Speaking at an event in Halifax on Thursday, Harper said developing hydroelectric power generation in Newfoundland and Labrador would help promote green energy across the East Coast.
"This has the potential to be a very important part of our efforts to fight climate change in Canada," Harper told supporters."

         http://edmonton.ctv.ca/servlet/an/local/CTVNews/20110331/election-main-110331/20110331?hub=EdmontonHome

          But Thursday, March 31, that was April Fool's eve..

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2007/01/30/harper-kyoto.html

          He had us! Il nous a eu!

Transparency and Hard Ball Immigrant Services Games

       Harper's Conservatives are out to gut community organizations helping to integrate immigrants into Canadian life. 

http://www.thestar.com/iphone/news/investigations/immigration/article/923349--settlement-agencies-shocked-by-gag-order?bn=1

        The logic of such a move leaves much to be desired: why say Canada "welcomes" immigrants and then kill the grassroots organizations which are so efficient in carrying out that work? Don't make sense to me..

        But there's worse - as there usually is:

"Immigrant service agencies were horrified when they got a government email last week banning them from discussing recent federal funding cuts that may kill some of them"

           Thus while preaching a platform of "transparency", "grassroots values", and "responsible government", the Feds cut funding to those who were actually actively engaged in the grassroots integration (="responsibilisation") of new Canadians.  Further, the Feds even want to muzzle discussion about the cuts...

           I'm flabbergastered. I admit I don't get it.. What happened to the promised "transparency", "grassroots values" and "responsibility". We are simply at a loss for words before such blatant hypocrisy (?cynicism?), of the consistent failure of this government to put in practice the platitudinous, populist values they preach. Instead, they descend to the level of American style attack ads on their opponents - a sure sign that your government is playing dirty! They want to divert your attention from real problems, solutions and choices to strawmen set up for the mob to attack.We're in big trouble folks. Just look what's happening south of the border to see where we're going.

Internal Contradictions of Neo-Conservative Ideology

         Québecois author, Christian Nadeau, is a prof of philosophy who studies conservatism in the N. American context. Here is a google search result, en français, of his work:

http://www.google.ca/search?as_q=conservatisme+harper&hl=fr&num=10&btnG=Recherche+Google&as_epq=christian+nadeau&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&cr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images

          Nadeau uncovers what we consider to be the fundamental flaw of neo-conservative ideology: it claims to prioritize "individual liberties" (thus continuing the Revolutionary movements of the Enlightenment: French and American Revolutions) but, in practice, destroys the means to attain or defend those very liberties.

         This fundamental contradiction is seen in the Harper government's attempt to emasculate the national census by rendering the long form voluntary. This is done in the name of "individual liberties" but has for its practical effect the reduction of the information flows the federal government requires for targeting and monitoring programs which "level the playing field" for disadvantaged Canadians. These citizens thus find themselves with de facto reduced opportunies (and the freedom of action which derives from opportunity).

         Such behavior, Nadeau believes is explainable on the grounds of an obsessional - ideological - commitment to an American-style "the less government, the better" vision of society and the world. The pernicious outcomes of such behavior are simply ignored..

         Reactionaries love "tradition" (a loaded word if ever there was one!) and oppose all forms of "moral relativism". This language often is a cover for ethnocentrism and racism, of course, and too often masks an excessive love of "authority" and "strong man" figures: one thinks of the machisme of a Mussolini or a Hitler.. This excessive, fear-driven, need for "authority" leads to abberations such as the perversion of religious symbols, myths and terminology to prop up, rationalize or justify reactionary policies. American "conservative christians" argue that ecological and climatological crises are signs of the "end times" prophesized by the Book of Revelations. Ecologists and those struggling for social and ecological justice are portrayed as "defying God's Will" and "serving God's Enemy, Satan" - no less! 

            The reactionary perversion of thought extends even into places one would not expect: science. We see this trend in the puzzling rise of such pseudo-scientific curiosities as "intelligent design" which, we imagine, functions to reinforce "religious" authority (bible, charismatic interpreters..) and to generally suppress the cultivation of critical thinking especially among the young.

strip searches: authoritarian shift in police culture?

       According to an article on this morning's "The Current" (CBC radio), police in this country might be resorting to psychologically intimidating / denigrating strip searchs on one third to one half of all arrests, at least in large urban centers.

http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/episode/2010/12/13/strip-searches/

        Such practices continue despite Supreme Court rulings that strip searches be conducted only out of necessity, that they are "inherently degrading" and that they require the permission of a supervisor:

http://mymuskoka.blogspot.com/2010/12/policing-in-ontario.html

        Why are such practices tolerated in a society which considers itself "democratic" and "liberal". Such practices are more in line with the philosophy and psychology of totalitarian societies were police brutality is used as a means of suppressing public dissent..