Friday, June 15, 2012

Start Writing Your Wish-List [Updated!]

Well, to no one's surprise, despite the symbolic, peaceful protests, the harpercons' Bill C-38 passed the House of Commons. Canadians are a busy people. Just because our present inhabitants of government power won their majority with a mere 6,000 votes after a campaign of massive, centralized electoral fraud, it doesn't mean we don't want to see stuff getting done!

That's why our leadership (the increasingly compromised and evidently incompetent Elections Canada), the Liberal Party of Canada (which started us on our way to one-man government under Trudeau and Chretien, which mocked and cynically exploited our hatred of the GST, which helped orchestrate the overthrow of the democratically- elected Bertrand Aristide and install a government of torturers and thieves in Haiti, which signed NAFTA after vowing to re-negotiate it, which dragged us into Afghanistan, which acquiesced to the cover-up of war crimes in Afghanistan, which colluded with the harpercons to block the testimony of Colombian victims of corporate criminals and right-wing death-squad governments) and the NDP (which is no doubt dreaming of the day when it can ignore the laws and abuse the people "for their own good" itself one day) are all playing along as if this is a legitimate government and allowing them to have Parliament operate in secret and ram-through vast omnibus-type legislation.

What's that you say? What about the attempted filibuster? Sorry. But the NDP, the Liberals, the Bloc Quebecois and the Greens have all been acting as if this is a legitimate majority government. Bill C-38 might be a horrendous, undemocratic abuse of power, but they're treating it as if the foundation of that power is valid. It is not. The government's majority rests upon fraud. As such, harper really doesn't have the power to do anything. Furthermore (and this has become lost in the mists of time) but I have ALWAYS asserted that harper has no legitimacy in any case. Even before it turned out that his majority is bogus, it's a documented fact that harper has no respect for the basis of his own power. He took the unprecedented step of proroguing Parliament to avoid a vote of non-confidence, and then he refused to give Parliament (that is, the people of Canada, through their representatives) the cost estimates of his policies (his prison-building fantasies and the F-35 fighter-jet purchases) telling us (through our representatives) that we'd just have to trust the numbers he was given. In stephen harper's blinkered view of democracy, we, the people of Canada, must simply TRUST the government's statements at face value. (It has since turned out, after his having stolen the last election, that harper was lying through his teeth when he was telling us the likely costs of the fighter-jets and asking us to trust him.) All of this, ALL OF IT, is demonstrated, thorough-going, utter contempt for both the forms and the spirit of the laws that supposedly govern us.

Oh! Mustn't forget the media! Truth be told, our media (the print media anyway) has done a decent job of exposing and condemning the anti-democratic tendencies of the harpercons. I only want to focus on one important shortcoming. Andrew Coyne, who is as big a promoter of bankrupt neo-liberal policies as Canada can produce, also showed himself to be a genuine upholder of the rights of Parliament and the limits of executive branch power. He castigated and condemned harper's serial abuses of Parliament's rights. But then, instead of taking his analysis of the nature of stephen harper and the cabal of goons that he leads in the House of Commons to its logical conclusions, he goes on to consider the various policies these anti-Parliament, anti-rule of law, anti-democracy vermin bring out on their own merits. Coyne's shortcoming is the shortcoming of every other political analyst who has accused harper of tearing out the heart and soul of Canadian democracy but who then continues to write as if its business as usual. Those pundits who have the security and the resources, should use their positions to advocate for those measures that will be necessary to remove the usurpers from power and restore legitimate government to this country.

It is NOT business as usual. This government is illegitimate. Democracy, Canadian pseudo-Democracy, has been suspended. Or, more accurately, it has been usurped. And thus we find ourselves where we are today. Last night. after the oppositions' attempted filibuster was sliced down to a manageable 24-hours by the contemptible lackey, Speaker of the House of Commons Scheer, Bill C-38 has passed Third Reading in the House of Commons. Bill C-38:
1. Bill C-38 guts environmental legislation and 'streamlines' the environmental review process

2. Various aspects of Bill C-38, including changes to the environmental assessment review process, violate the federal government's obligation to consult with First Nations and accommodate First Nation Treaty and Aboriginal rights.

3. Bill C-38 amends the Coasting Trade Act to allow increased off-shore seismic testing and drilling.

4. Bill C-38 implements new rules that will require most unemployed EI claimants to accept job offers at hourly wages significantly lower than their previous employment.

5. Bill C-38 will also make changes to the Temporary Foreign Workers Program, Old Age Security, and will repeal of the Fair Wages and Hours of Labour Act

6. Bill C-38 makes changes to meat inspection regulations and cuts funding to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, weakening our protection from diseases like listeria, mad cow, rabies, and toxic poisoning.

7. Bill C-38 undermines food sovereignty by amending the Seeds Act and Plant Breeder Rights, eliminating enforcement of the Product of Canada label, and prioritizing trade deals that benefit multinational corporations instead of local farmers.

8. Bill C-38 officially withdraws Canada from the Kyoto Protocol reducing the federal government's obligations to report on climate change policies.

9. Bill C-38 dedicates millions of dollars to attack environmental groups and charities through audits on foreign funding.  


10. Bill C-38 includes amendments to the Employment Equity Act which eliminate the requirement that federal contractors apply employment equity provisions put in place to protect groups that have experienced discrimination, including women, Aboriginal peoples, visible minorities and persons with disabilities.
In short, it is another "omnibus" bill. Right-wing thugs like omnibus bills. First of all, because they're lazy and stupid. Second of all, because they're thugs. These omnibus bills are in the spirit of the shit-for-brains hypocrite Milton Friedman's call for the right-wing, "free market" gang to hit their welfare state, liberal opponents hard, all at once, everywhere. He advocated this "shock and awe" politics in his book The Tyranny of the Status-Quo. Between 1900 and 1970, he argued, progressives and liberals and Marxists and the great unwashed in general, had built up an enormous welfare state system, and it would take far too long to dismantle it piecemeal. No, no, no! If they were ever to implement the neo-liberal economic agenda that had already failed in Chile under the right-wing torturing scum-bag Augusto Pinochet (whose torturing dictatorship Friedman the "libertarian" enthusiasticly supported) and would eventually produce the decline of the incomes of the majority in the west and bring on the biggest economic crisis since the 1930s by 2008, it would be necessary to launch wholesale massive attacks on the welfare state edifice, and leave its various supporters confused and reeling and unable to mount a coherent defense. 

Friedman's tactics worked incredibly well. (Having the capitalists and their political cats-paws on your side in a capitalist democracy helps!) The people with money and power attacked and attacked and used their control of the media to lie and spin. And there was wealth aplenty for people in the right place at the right time. As trillions of dollars flowed from the pockets of hundreds of millions of ordinary people, some of it would pool and congeal to be lapped-up by dogs like Sean Hannity or Ezra Levant or Jack Abramoff.

Well, I say that we do to them what they do to us. Attack them Attack them everywhere. Attack them constantly. Attack on all fronts. Especially when we regain power. We will mete out the measure and more than the measure that they have meted out to us.

We will destroy them as a movement. We will destroy their bases of power. We will destroy their protections. We will destroy their revenue streams We will destroy them. We will destroy them and thereby save the world and save humanity.

And to do that, we will have to move beyond empty, symbolic protests of the already converted. People have been trained to ignore politics. We must stop talking to ourselves and start talking to the unconverted. While the print media has had enough commentators rightfully calling the harpercons for the undemocratic scum that they are, the majority of reporting (especially the television kin) has been vapid, business-as-usual, he-said she-said garbage and it always will be. We have to make a genuine grass-roots educational movement, door-to-door, small groups, and when we do that, we have to propose genuine SOLUTIONS and tactics that actually achieve them. We must abandon, now and forever, for gods' sake! the traditional leftist drivel of pleading with our masters that they grant our wishes. We must focus on taking power so that we can use it ourselves.

I have already started At the last symbolic, formulaic protest against Bill C-38, I got the contact info of my fellow protesters. I am going to be speaking to the groups that they belong to and I will be making the case for a pro-democracy, a pro-rule of law insurgency. A mass movement is going to be built, meeting by meeting, door-step by door-step, mail-box by mail-box. And the difference is going to be that instead of mouthing the words "Organize! Educate! Resist!" and meaning: "Give money to the NDP! Show up for a meaningless rally!" it will mean actually doing something to achieve a specific goal after having planned what is necessary to achieve that goal, assembling the resources needed to achieve that goal, achieving that specific goal, and moving on to the next step that is necessary to achieve the wider project.

It means that a movement must be built that is dedicated to something other than wandering around in confusion chanting meaningless slogans.

So, produce your wish-lists. What part of the neo-liberal, capitalist-corporate agenda do you want to see destroyed? What environmental laws, cultural laws, whatever laws, do you want to see enacted. Dream 'em up! Write 'em up! 

Let's do this!

[Update! Speaking of the media, what's the big story on the CBC the morning after the passage of a 400-page monster bill that attacks EI, immigrant's wages, women's equity, environmental assessments and the freedoms of environmentalist NGOs by a government installed via fraud? "3 armoured-car workers killed in shooting at University of Alberta."

Um. While I won't deny that that's a big story, ... um, ... you know, aside from the families of the victims and whoever's money was stolen, ... there REALLY ISN'T much there that affects most Canadians. I mean, YOUR TOP STORY???? Please professional journalists, ... it's true that we need you. Investigating stuff and keeping on top of events is a full-time job and there is something to be said for your training. I mean that. So, you know professional journalists, ... you have every right to deride those among your critics who say you can all be replaced by "citizen journalists" entirely. But when you work for institutions that blare headlines about a fucking armoured car robbery when an illegitimate regime has taken over the country and has just rammed-through a bill that undoes DECADES of regulation AND contributes to the DISASTROUS WARMING OF THE PLANET THEREBY THREATENING CIVILIZATION, ... expect to be mocked and scorned yourselves!!!!!]

22 comments:

Owen Gray said...

Something tells me people will be energized after yesterday, thwap. The threat of hanging concentrates the mind.

thwap said...

We have to do the road-work first. Most people had no idea, absolutely no idea what was going on Wednesday. Some people (teenagers mostly) asked me what my "No to C-38" sign was about.

They were all opposed to gutting our environmental regulations and therefore against the law, but they were completely in the dark about what was happening.

NBDUDE said...

Remember after the budget was introduced the big news on th cbc all day was the penny.

thwap said...

NBDUDE,

The CBC is hopeless. Check out this saga of Timbits over Torture ...

http://thwapschoolyard.blogspot.ca/2008/07/media-complicity.html

karen said...

My experience in our local rallies was the same, Thwap. The cons were "smart" to put all this shit in one huge, hard-to-read place. Have you tried to read it? I take a copy of it to the rallies, to my interviews, to various meetings, and I explain what I know is in it, and then I say, everything in these 400+ pages relates to another Act of legislation. That means to understand the context of anything in this bill, I have to find those other Acts and read THEM, too. How many Canadians have time for that? We depend on our elected officials to tell us what they are doing, and they have not. I have my doubts, honestly, as to whether my own Con MP has read it. I cannot believe that any thinking person could know exactly what is in it and approve of the whole thing.

Beijing York said...

It's become impossible to defend the CBC (I'll exclude Radio Canada because my Franco buddies tell me that their reportage continues to be spot on). But hell if I won't fight the Harper Regime on selling that Canadian owned and paid infrastructure to their private sector buddies.

I like your energy and approach. I would add to your list of tactics, make your MP work and work hard, especially those place holder Harper MPs.

Even though Joyce Bateman and her staff have been ignoring my weekly correspondence after I suggested that she should come clean about her close win in our riding (electoral fraud), I will be sending her an e-mail asking her to list or direct me to a list of each and every amendment first submitted to Scheer (some 900) and to explain how it was determined which ones were to be dropped (down to some 100). I suggest others ask for this too. It would make for a good start of wish list legislation.

thwap said...

karen,

Oh, of course they haven't read it. A lot of the harpercon caucus can't read anything. They can barely spell their own names.

There was once a time when people would have followed politics and would have been enraged that things are being rammed-through so fast that it's impossible to follow them.

It matters not. The harpercons are done for.

thwap said...

Beijing York,

I think I'll start doing that. Getting the harpercon place-servers to DO THEIR FUCKING JOB. What a concept for these lazy, entitled "conservative" slugs.

With regards to public broadcasting, ... oh yeah, ... keep it and improve it, don't give things over to Global and CTV.

Beijing York said...

Here's the text for the note I just fired off:

I would like further information regarding Bill C-38. Unlike you and your fellow MPs, I am not paid to attend any Parliamentary sessions, including this recent voting marathon, and I did not watch CPAC to hear each and every proposed amendment.

None of the media seems to have actually captured what the proposed 800+ amendments were. I am very curious to know what our Opposition Parties proposed as improvements to this bulk legislation. Could you provide me a list describing all of these rejected amendments? Also, I would appreciate a point-by-point assessment as to why you voted each one down.

I’m not a fan of US-styled omnibus legislation because I don’t have enough time to read over 400 pages of dense information. It’s unfortunate that the Speaker of the House ruled against breaking the Bill up as requested by Elizabeth May because it would have offered citizens like myself the opportunity to carefully review smaller, more focused pieces of legislation. Without that opportunity, I hope you can help me by providing the information requested.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.


I copies all the opposition party leaders.

double nickel said...

@BY..brilliant!

thwap said...

Edited comment from Mogs:

"Listen all,
& thwap,

I have been mellow in my responses to what and all about bill C-38, because I believed that some back benching cons would topple the harper regime, but apparently I am wrong, they are sluts for the pension they will get we can not even dream about.

So now it is war!

Stephen Harper you have never had a real job in your life!

And you make more than most of us by falling in alignment with the global elitists, how is that so?

Do you think you come from a privileged class?

Steve you are a [... sexist, vaguely homophobic slur deleted ... (see here] of some of the most detrimental pukes on the planet and I am your worst nightmare steve, ... [threat deleted]!

Along with the 164 who turned Canada into a industrial/military wasteland.

A message 'you will all die soon' by the toxic shit you allow!

Environmental nerd's and stupids?

Hello? Steve it is war "

Mogs said...

Thwap I was a bit over in my rant here but I want to clarify for the record,

Steve you are a loser (no real world job experience) true.

Steve does have very questionable abilities/realities true.

Threat unveiled: Steve is a political animal and as such can be eliminated from the voters realm through a massive PR campaign and thwap I am merely stating for the record I will do anything legal and moral to unseat the tyrant Harper, it is like jousting and or war politically!

Knock him off his high one world government oil rules horse, that's all!

"[... sexist, vaguely homophobic slur deleted ... (see here]" your spin that's all. Thwap we have to unite to get rid of this uh what can I legally call a guy who has never really got a legal job outside of a mail room boy at an oil company his dad got him. And now he is worth $5,000,000.00 all from political gains.

"Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party, with a net worth of $5 million. Stephen Harper has earned his net worth through his years in politics..."

From: http://www.celebritynetworth.com/richest-politicians/stephen-harper-net-worth/

He is a vampire now can we get on with picking the con glory boys and girls apart one at a time?

Wilks in mine his political head is on the chopping block!

"For a brief, shining moment last week, David Wilks stood poised to become the West Coast Bill Casey. The little-known B.C. Conservative MP was going to stand up to the prime minister, the Tory party and the hydra-headed beast that is the omnibus budget bill.

But he blew it."

From article link above, now Dave is mine all mine I will not let him rest, the rest of you do the same in your riding find their political weak spot and run with it.

I would not trust him to be a life guard at the local pool let alone run the country!

In closing Harper knows who he is and in his own words he is a "...benign dictator..." and he knows it and is prepared to take you and me back to the day of the serf's and the privileged class.


Then let us rebuild Canada, the one we grew up in not the one Harper's mind wants to inflict on us.

I for one will have a celebration of hope when he is defeated.

Benign dictator essay speech here:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/51938443/Stephen-Harper-and-Tom-Flanagan-Our-Benign-Dictatorship-Next-City-Winter-1996-97

Basically thwap he knows he's got us by the short and curly until the next election and I mirror many Canadians fears that he will somehow or another 'outlaw' the next election.

So in closing I know I will do every thing i can to defeat "David ex-mayor Wilkes" of Sparwood BC in my riding.

And that all we can collectively do in the next less than three years is collect dirt and skeletons in the red chinese collective closet oh I'm sorry thwap I meant so called conservative harper-cons like so:

This is the man I will rally to defeat in my riding:

http://thechronicleherald.ca/opinion/101093-leger-the-tory-who-could-have-been-a-somebody-but-folded

He gives me the political ammo to defeat him how dumb is that? Now the rest of you following this blog unseat your con one world oil Hench man with similar truths about their own allegiance to Harper and enemy of Canadian people.

Nuff said?

double nickel said...

I'm going to crib some of BY's letter, add to it and send it to my useless Reformacon MP, Merv Tweed.

thwap said...

Beijing York,

You're a star! Any action at your blog lately??

thwap said...

Mogs,

I understand your rage. I'm there myself.

With regards to some of your choice of words, ...

I like sluts and I wouldn't use it as a slur.

I like cocksuckers and I wouldn't use that as a slur.

I've been very grateful to the odd slutty cocksucker in my time.

It's been gay and feminist friends who showed me why they were silly to be used as derogatory terms.

Mogs said...

thwap,

I'm old enough to be your grandad, no teasing and in the old days when we said this stuff it was not meant to be reality it was simply a check on reality, IE who is this simpleton Tory? Loser? Stephen Harper from Ontario claiming to be Albertan? A fraud, that's all!

He was born and bred in the big TO and pretends he is an Albertan, he is not he is a liar, this is documented!

Mogs said...

when some one deserves.....

IT IS CRITICAL

Beijing York said...

Thanks thwap and double nickel. I'll let you know if I hear a response and share the content.

In fact, perhaps the letter with responses will make for a good post to re-animate my dormant Resettle This! blog.

double nickel said...

June 17, 2012

Dear Mr. Tweed


As a constituent, I would like further information regarding Bill C-38. I am unable (due to geography) to attend any Parliamentary sessions, including the recent voting marathon, and due to work and family commitments I did not watch CPAC to hear each and every proposed amendment.

None of the media seem to have actually captured the details of the 800+ proposed amendments to this bill. I am very curious to know the details that our Opposition Parties proposed as improvements to this bulk legislation. Could you provide me a list describing all of these rejected amendments? Also, I would appreciate your point-by-point assessment as to why you voted each one down.

I’m not a fan of US-styled omnibus legislation because I don’t have enough time to read over 400 pages of dense information. It’s unfortunate that the Speaker of the House ruled against breaking the Bill up as requested by many patriotic Canadians, because that would have offered citizens like myself the opportunity to carefully review smaller, more focused pieces of legislation. Without that opportunity, I hope you can help me by providing the information requested.

Thank you in advance for your assistance.

Yours Sincerely,


J S

Brandon, Manitoba

Beijing York said...

Nice one double nickle.

It's a race to see who hears first from their MP:-)

double nickel said...

Here's the non-response I received today:

Thank you for your letter regarding Economic Action Plan 2012. This budget sets out a comprehensive agenda to bolster Canada’s fundamental strengths and address the important challenges confronting the economy over the long term.



The issues included in this year’s budget and the subsequent Budget Implementation Act represent nothing new or groundbreaking. It has been common practice to include various measures in a budget, as what constitutes a budgetary item is traditionally very broad. In 2005, the previous Liberal government’s last Budget Implementation Bill amended dozens of different pieces of legislation varying from the Canadian Environmental Protection Act to the Broadcasting Act and the Employment Insurance Act.



Our government has allowed a significant time for debate over this bill. In fact this will be the longest debate on the budget in two decades. It is time that we bring this important bill to vote so that Canadians can see the benefits of Canada’s Economic Action Plan 2012.



Bill C-38 successfully completed its third reading in the House of Commons on June 18, 2012 and is currently undergoing its final assessment in the Senate of Canada. I encourage you to visit our Governments Website to address any other budgetary concerns you may have and to track its progress. Please find the link below.



http://www.budget.gc.ca/2012/home-accueil-eng.html







Thanks for Writing,



Sig-Merv Tweed2

Merv Tweed, M.P

Brandon-Souris

thwap said...

double-nickel,

One shouldn't be surprised that they treat their constituents with contempt one-by-one after they've repeatedly demonstrated their contempt for all of us collectively in Parliament.

This:

"Our government has allowed a significant time for debate over this bill. In fact this will be the longest debate on the budget in two decades."

is complete bullshit.