Thursday, June 21, 2012

All power to the Central Committee!

A particularly obnoxious troll was recently celebrating Bill-38 as being "efficient." Here's what Michael Harris has to say about that (hat-tip to Dr. Dawg):
As everybody knows, the vast majority of C-38 has nothing to do with the finances of the country. That makes it a legislative stealth attack, a fraud upon the democratic system. Yet those in the indentured press are already rhapsodizing about the PM’s political acuity. For passing C-38? That’s like praising a firing squad for getting the job done — after all, the target is blindfolded, tied down, and unarmed.
Yes, the PM managed to stuff into one bogus piece of legislation 40 per cent of the annual legislative output of Parliament. A couple of force feedings like that and the House of Commons will only need to meet four weeks a year. It could be called Democracy Month, synchronized with the Tulip Festival and offered to tourists as an Ottawa novelty. 
Lot's of people are making hay out of harper's demonstrated hypocrisy on C-38 after his having condemned the Liberals omnibus legislation in 1994 and 2005 when he was in the opposition. Relatedly, the harpercons have also been yammering about 1994 and 2005, except to justify their madnesss. It's another refrain in their tiresome "B-but the LIBERALS!!!" routine that they employ whenever it's convenient. Even in these instances, their comparisons are bullshit, but even if they weren't, justifying your own contempt for democracy with someone else's contempt for democracy is still contempt for democracy.

That's what this is, in the end. Breaking down legislation and assigning it to the respective committees of the people's representatives, so that the actions of the government can be scrutinized and understood. harper knows that his fuck-headed servility to the oil industry couldn't stand scrutiny, so that's why he rams it through in such a draconian fashion. He has some dimly felt sense that his servility is right and everyone else is wrong, but Stalin felt that way a lot of the time too.

2 comments:

Owen Gray said...

For a man who claims to be a strong leader, Harper knows how to take orders from others.

thwap said...

harper is so devoted to his masters' causes that he doesn't even notice his strings.

Perhaps that gives him the inflated sense of power that he so clearly possesses.