Harper's "hidden agenda" is now obvious

[Bragi]

Seriously folks, this Throne Speech marked a significant shift to the right by Harper, and we should not think otherwise.

He has totally adopted trickle-down, de-regulation Reaganomics to appeal to the business class, opened up telecommunications to foreign ownership (hello, Rupert Murdoch!) and he has embedded in the Speech all kinds of weird little edgy-wedgey issues designed to divide communities to his electoral benefit.

The stuff about opening up social programs to charities is an open invitation to the evangelicals to line up for cash, just as they were able to do under Bush. His intentions with respect to reducing the deficit will gut the federal government (that he leads but hates!) in ways Canadians cannot even imagine. Through budget cuts, administrative changes, and appointing ideologues to federal bodies there will be very little left of our national government when he is through, which is as he has always wanted it.

The media analysis that this Speech was business as usual, and didn't justify prorogation, is lame and lazy. Yes prorogation matters, it matters a lot, but analysing yesterdays Speech through a prorogation lens misses the point entirely. As for Iggy's response to the Speech, it is to weep.

With such a weak Opposition leader, with a Speaker who hasn't lifted a finger to protect the rights of MPs, with a GG who is a constitutional disaster, with a complacent corporate media corps, with a clever PM with a radical right-wing agenda (supported by about 20 per cent of the population) we are at serious risk of having this country stolen.

Me, I'm almost 60 years old, I've observed Canadian politics closely my entire life, I've participated in politics and I've read Canadian history, but I've never seen these kind of factors line up all at once. This is really bad stuff. We need an election, and we absolutely need strategic, non-partisan voting if we are to stop Harper who will otherwise get re-elected.

If Canadians do re-elect this guy either deliberately or because we can't figure out how to marshal our votes to defeat his candidates, then frankly, Canadians will deserve the government they will get, and one that none will ever forget.

On the upside, we know that 6 in 10 Canadians actually oppose Harper, and we also now have CAPP. As slender as this thread may be, 225 thousand Canadians have joined that group. That is about the most important and positive counter-point we now have to block Harper. I urge everyone who hasn't to go there now and join CAPP.

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=260348091419&ref=nf

[HeresyLives]

1. Patriotism, law and order, and some distractions like

the anthem stuff, all conservative values.

No vision, no plan, no effort, just enshrined mediocrity. With 500,000 out of work and the biggest deficit in our history.

[glarius]

2. Perhaps I'm naive but I really believe that if the Canadian public

saw a video of him when he was opposition leader, during Chretien's time and he went on Fox TV and apologized for Canada not joining in the war on Iraq. Also he spoke before right-wing American groups making fun of Canada...calling us a failed socialist state. Surely someone in the opposition parties can get these tapes and show them to the Canadian public. I honestly believe that Canadians would fall away from him in droves in the next election if this were done. It puzzles me why nobody in opposition has done this yet.
I agree...he is a dangerous man...intent on remaking Canada!

[sixstrings75]

3. What about the war hawk Ignatieff???

Don't you see? We have no options!!! They all want the same:

http://www.novak.com/weblog/stories/2004/03/17/michaelIgnatieffOnIraq.html

Here's some quotes:

"The discovery that Hussein didn't have weapons after all surprises me, but it doesn't change my view of the essential issue. I never thought the key question was what weapons he actually possessed but rather what intentions he had."

Sorry, but to me, that sounds like it came of a neo-cons mouth. Not a "liberal".

"I still do not believe that American or British leaders misrepresented Hussein's intentions or lied about the weapons they believed he possessed. In his new memoirs, Hans Blix makes it clear that he and his fellow U.N. inspectors thought Hussein was hiding something, and every intelligence service they consulted thought so too. But if lying was not the problem, exaggeration was, and no one who supported the war is happy about how ''a grave and gathering danger'' -- as Bush carefully characterized the Hussein regime in his speech at the U.N. in September 2002 -- slowly morphed into an ''imminent'' threat. The honest case for war was ''preventive'' -- to stop a tyrant with malignant intentions from acquiring lethal capabilities or transferring those capabilities to other enemies. The case we actually heard was ''pre-emptive'' -- to stop a tyrant who already possessed weapons and posed an imminent danger. "

How outraged would people be if a con said this?

"So I supported an administration whose intentions I didn't trust, believing that the consequences would repay the gamble. Now I realize that intentions do shape consequences. An administration that cared more genuinely about human rights would have understood that you can't have human rights without order and that you can't have order once victory is won if planning for an invasion is divorced from planning for an occupation. The administration failed to grasp that from the first moment an American tank column took a town, there had to be military police and civilian administrators following behind to guard museums, hospitals, water-pumping stations and electricity generators and to stop looting, revenge killings and crime. Securing order would have meant putting 250,000 troops into the invasion as opposed to 130,000. It would have meant immediately retaining and retraining the Iraqi Army and police, instead of disbanding them. The administration, which never tires of telling us that hope is not a plan, had only hope for a plan in Iraq. "

Scary quotes. Shows how truly screwed we are in this country.

[HeresyLives]

4. Well you need something more up-to-date than 2004,

and in context. A professor at Harvard can hold quite a different opinion years later in Canada, as can we all.

Ignatieff has long since evolved, while Harper holds the same opinions he always did.

[sixstrings75]

7. What year did Harper go on Fox and defend the Iraq war?

It was 2003.

Double standards?

Nah, not in our shitty, partisan BS political system...:eyes:

Let's hold ALL politicians to the same standard - maybe we'll get somewhere then...

[HeresyLives]

8. I said nothing about Harp and Iraq.

[glarius]

5. My feeling is that Ignatieff has changed some of his opinions and

besides that....he is NOT bent on remaking Canada in his image....as is the arrogant, control-freak Harper.
Since he has been P.M....for the last four years....and with only a minority government, he has controlled his ministers with an iron fist. All decisions are his. Nobody says anything unless he allows it. He has managed to sneak changes through because he has used the fact that nobody wanted to bring down the government. His popping up all over Vancouver at the Olympic venues was in hopes of winning over the public. If he ever gets a majority he will remake this country into something we don't want....but it will be too late. He scares the shit out of me.

[Bragi]

6. Great idea

Let's stand divided over what Ignatieff said in 2004 and watch Harper get re-elected.

[CHIMO]

9. Yes

And it has been obvious for a long time to those that have been concerned.

However, if one takes the direction that Harper wishes to achieve and then continues that result it may end in something completely different.

We are ruled by the actions of those south of us and they are now ruled by corporations. Harper and those agree. But what they don't see or think about is the result after that.

Ever since Dalton Camp died, it seems no one else has risen to the challenge nor has one emerged with enough moxy to present a different option to our future course.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/obit/camp_dalton/