Wednesday, February 16, 2011

In Denial About harper

Dale over at Hill Queeries reports on parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page's response to the harpercons denying budget forecasts to the opposition:
Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page appeared before the Commons finance committee yesterday and said that in his 25 years in the public service, no government has used the umbrella of “cabinet confidence” to hide tax data or justice legislation costs, and reiterated that this lack of data means that Parliamentarians are losing their control over the finances of the nation. And by the way, this is HUGE. The underlying premise of parliamentary democracy is that parliament grants a government supply (money) to carry out their agenda. If parliament can’t scrutinise a government’s legislative platform and how much it will cost, how can they adequately grant supply? They can’t. And that’s why this abuse of cabinet confidences is a fundamental attack on our very system of government, and why Scott Brison has brought forward a motion that the government is breaching parliamentary privilege with all of this secrecy.
So, this is the latest insult to Parliament from harper. But Canadians in general continue to be in denial about the threat that this creature poses to our democracy. Now, before anyone says something, I am not a starry-eyed naif about the extent of Canadian democracy. Our democracy is dominated by big business, and both of the traditional governing parties have engaged in elitist, secretive, violations of the spirit and the system of Canadian parliamentary democracy. But harper is a serial violator of our system and its rules and its principles.

He prorogued parliament to avoid a confidence vote brought on by his own ham-handed bullying right after an unnecessary election which gave him another minority.

He called that election in clear violation of the intention of his fixed-elections law.

He prorogued parliament again after he was unable to shut-down investigation into his possible complicity in the war crime of torture in Afghanistan.

He has hypocritically labelled parliamentary coalitions "coups" and has stirred-up regional animosities.

He and his ministers have brazenly violated Access to Information laws and lied to parliament on several occasions.

His defense minister stared like a stubborn mule when asked what he was going to do about the leaking of ministry documents to friends of the government, when those same documents were being withheld from parliament on the bogus claims of "national security."

He has ordered his underlings not to testify to parliamentary committees and has ordered summonses from these committees.

His oafish colleagues show up unannounced at the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs demanding to be heard out of schedule, braying like jackasses that they can't get time off work for their scheduled appearance.

Speaking of parliamentary committees, way back when, when this villain first came to power, word leaked that they'd concocted a handbook for harpercon committee chairs on how to stymie committee work to make sure they were ineffective.

Their bullies, warmongers, and academic hacks bullied Rémy Beauregard to his death and eviscerated the noble Canadian institution "Rights and Democracy."

But some commentators still talk about this dangerous thug's policies and election strategies as if he's a legitimate political actor leading a legitimate political party. Opposition politicians still make noises about "working with" this piece of shit.

No. Get your heads out of your asses. Stop denying what's going on right before your very eyes. The man is a psychotic and he is abusing our democracy. Defeat him. Deny him. Destroy his power. Resist him in everything. He cannot redeem himself. He has lowered himself too far for that.

6 comments:

trevorus said...

i never voted for the cunt.

trevorus said...

..to be honest i don't anybody that did...but i guess that's way it works.

trevorus said...

know

Nadine Lumley said...

Facts don’t cure misinformation

snip snip: He was reporting on research at the University of Michigan, which found when misinformed people, particularly political partisans, were exposed to corrected facts in new stories, they rarely changed their minds.

In fact, they often became even more strongly set in their beliefs. Facts were not curing misinformation. “Like an underpowered antibiotic, facts could actually make misinformation even stronger.”

http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/facts_we_dont_need_your_stinking_facts_why_rightwing/


Suffice it to say that, while “most of us like to believe that our opinions have been formed over time by careful, rational consideration of facts and ideas and that the decisions based on those opinions, therefore, have the ring of soundness and intelligence,”

…the research found that actually “we often base our opinions on our beliefs ... and rather than facts driving beliefs, our beliefs can dictate the facts we chose to accept. They can cause us to twist facts so they fit better with our preconceived notions.”



What’s even worse is that the most misinformed people (the most gullible, the most fanatical, perhaps) are the ones who vote the most reliably. The Creationists. The people making $40,000 a year who support tax cuts for billionaires to the detriment of their own lives and their kids’ schools. People with no healthcare who protest against it at Tea-party rallies. An entire voting bloc of people who do not believe in what others would deem objective reality. THAT, dear readers, is at base, what we are dealing with in America today and it’s a problem that’s here to stay. You might say it’s the red, white and blue brontosaurus in the room that no one wants to talk about: The willful ignorance of America’s right.

Nadine Lumley said...

Nobody voted for Harper. We vote for a party via the MP when we vote. Then the neocons voted Harper as their leader. What a bunch of morons.

LanKwaiFong said...

Well Nadine you've certainly never let facts get in the way of your bleating.