Friday, March 5, 2010

Defeat Them and Get It Over With

So, during his holiday, stephen harper thought up the brilliant idea to turn the issue of the Afghan detainee documents over to retired judge Frank Iacobucci? What drivel! Do we have responsible government or not? Is this a democracy or isn't it? Do we believe that there should be oversight in how our governments conduct their wars or do we believe that our executive branch has a carte blanche to do whatever it pleases in a war zone?

stephen harper, baby, ... turn over the fucking documents and cut the crap with the "national security" bullshit! If it means that you end up going to prison, along with Rick "shit-head" Hillier and Peter "fuck-face" MacKay, so be it. You're a useless excuse of a prime minister anyway.

What sort of government is this? Homophobe (or pathetic closet-case, take your pick) Jason Kenney as immigration minister expunged references to homosexual rights in the latest citizenship guide. What's next pud? Eliminate references to women winning the right to vote? Deleting any mention of the existence of the First Nations? Face it putz, there was a struggle for human rights and the good side won, okay? These human beings have rights, they've recently been won, and it's an important part of who we are as a country. The fact that you're (for reasons we can only speculate about) all twisted up in knots about this shows that you haven't yet brought yourself into the 20th Century (let alone the 21st!).

And Jim Flaherty! And his stupid budget! There was a picture in yesterday's Globe & Mail of Flaherty and Harper grinning and giving the thumbs up on their way into the Commons Chamber before he presented his budget. Harper looked like the cynical psychopathic monster that he is, while Flaherty was grinning like the simple-minded idiot that he is. If Flaherty was a leftist, he'd be the guy spouting incoherent snippets of Marxist jargon, doing the leg-work for his local party leadership, handing out pamphlets he can barely read to striking workers who can't understand what he's saying. Luckily for Flaherty, he's absorbed the cliches and delusions of the status-quo, to such an extent that his right-wing dogmas serve established power and the dunce has managed to rise to the level of finance minister. As such, he's a very dangerous man, because his 19th-Century ideas about investment and the role of government simply have nothing to do with economic reality. He's out of his depth. Under his reign of error in Ontario, living standards for the majority plummeted, public services deteriorated, and economic activity and investment shrank to the extent that the province was well on its way to join the ranks of the "have-nots" requiring equalization payments for the first time in its history.

That's called failure. And it's the best that a deluded knuckle-head like Flaherty is capable of.

The problem with all of this is that the opposition can't get its act together. Since Michael Ignatieff pulled the plug on the coalition, we've all just been spinning around playing games. The NDP was content to vote against the harpercons when it didn't matter. Then, when Ignatieff came out of nowhere last August, petulantly huffing that he wasn't going to take being pushed-around anymore, it seems that the NDP has been more concerned with thwarting the Liberals than with dealing with the political crisis. BOTH parties have to work together to convince the people of Canada that it is, and has always been, harper's fault that parliament isn't working. It's been harper's brinkmanship that has poisoned the atmosphere. And now, it is harper's blatant contempt for democracy that HAS produced a constitutional crisis.

Don't talk about how this budget is shit and harper is pissing all over democracy but "Canadians don't want an election." How difficult is it to comprehend? If harper is making it impossible to work with him, then you can't work with him! If it doesn't look like the electorate trusts any party with a majority, then come to an arrangement with each other to take power away from the psychopath's hands.

If the opposition consents to allowing harper to circumvent parliamentary supremacy by waiting on retired justice Iacobucci's word, then we've fully entered US-American political garbage land. Next we'll allow the harpercons to blatantly steal elections and invade other countries on obvious lies. And Canadian "progressives" will impotently wring their hands waiting for the opposition to grow a spine.

3 comments:

Kim said...

Your comment are so true. I wrote my MP last night asking him to please bring down this government for contempt of Parliament.

no_blah_blah_blah said...

There are new allegations that the documents relating to the Afghan detainees show that the government intentionally transferred detainees to be tortured (for "intelligence" purposes... like the U.S.).

If true, it would explain why the Conservatives are so steadfast in their refusal to hand over the documents to Parliament...

And yes, I would like the opposition parties to collectively grow spines.

thwap said...

Kim,

I sent a strongly worded letter to my MP as well. I hope it means something in the long run.

No Blah,

I wonder why he didn't provide any more details, or why the newspapers didn't ask him.

Still, I think it's effectively knocked this Iacobucci diversion out of the running.