A Year-end Review of Civil Liberties

Here's what's happened to our neighbours to the south:

http://original.antiwar.com/jwhitehead/2011/12/28/2011-the-year-in-civil-liberties/

Anybody think that things are any different in Canada?

The truth about Iraq

Here's what happened in Iraq:

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2199-war-without-end-amen-the-reality-of-americas-aggression-against-iraq-.html

Afghanistan is no different.

How can anyone feel proud of Canada's involvement in these episodes?

More about our controllers

Some more thoughts regarding the role of corporations in controlling our society:

http://www.truth-out.org/restoring-government-and-people/1323271080

Of particular interest is the historical discussion of how corporations originally arose and how soon thereafter they were turned against the society that created them. Again ... and ... again ... and ... again.

It is time to retake control of our beasts.

For more history on this subject:

http://www.hightowerlowdown.org/node/664

Why the bad guys win

Stalin is alleged to have inferred that democracies are controlled by whoever count the ballots, not the people who cast the votes. In a similar manner, criminal punishment is more a matter of choosing which laws are to be enforced rather than the magnitude of the crime.

This means that important people rarely get investigated for the crimes they commit.

This fact is destroying our culture, in my opinion.

Consider the article by David Sirota:

http://www.salon.com/2011/12/06/why_no_ones_investigating_wall_street/

See, Al Capone just didn't have friends in the right places!

Our neighbour's values

Here's something to think about when admiring the government of our nearest, dearest, neighbour:

http://www.truth-out.org/final-indignity-last-insult-real-america/1323396756

Things aren't as pleasant as they are portrayed in our corporate media, or by our fawning government spokespersons.

Violence in our society

Just a reminder of the status of our 'freedoms':

http://www.salon.com/2011/11/20/the_roots_of_the_uc_davis_pepper_spraying/singleton/

Bullying is still bullying, even when the state does it, and its effects are anathema to the well-being of our culture (well, the culture I grew up in and accepted, - it might not be yours).

Here's another example of what's happening:

http://bicyclebarricade.wordpress.com/2011/11/19/open-letter-to-chancellor-linda-p-b-katehi/

Not very encouraging ...

Are we entering a new 'Dark Ages'

The Dark Ages were a period prior to the Renaissance when the European world imploded into brutish ignorance, losing any knowledge of the cultures and technological accomplishments of the Greeks, Romans, Chinese, Egyptians, and many other civilizations of the ancient world. 'Might makes right' was the operating mode of the time and not much else other than this head-banging feudalism happened for centuries.

Consider this article by Justin Raimondo, and ask yourself whether our culture is headed down the same path to warrior-based stupidity:

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/10/23/the-return-of-barbarism/

Another Ho-Hum moment in Pax Americana ...

American citizenship is beginning to appear a little less desirable, if you thought it would afford you the "protections' mentioned in the American justice system. Consider this recent incident in the ongoing effort to protect " 'mericuns":

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/2176-family-values-the-roman-rigor-of-obamas-death-squad.html

For those of you with an interest in technology, drones of this sort are being developed all around the world, even by people who don't like the US and its activities.

Makes you wonder if the golden rule is going to followed by those foreign developers when they are ready to do test flights.

Glenn Greenwald also writes about this process and incident with startling clarity:

http://www.salon.com/2011/10/20/the_killing_of_awlakis_16_year_old_son/singleton/

Some basic constitutional concepts

This article frames the basic notion of the relation of the state versus its citizens quite well:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anthony-gregory/obama-al-awlaki_b_998546.html

Note that in a traditional western democracy the state is constrained by its creators, the citizens. In dictatorships, the state constrains citizens. Which idea do you fall in line with?

Perhaps you might wish to re-think the situation surrounding the Awlaki murder to see where it fits in these paradigms.

Speaking of Death Panels, check this out!

How low can we go? The US seems to be going for a new record:

http://news.antiwar.com/2011/10/05/white-house-secret-panel-can-order-americans-assassinated/

Anyone still think that Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, Mao, Clifford Olson et al are the only bad guys out there?

Be very afraid. Given recent history, how long before Canada decides it also has to have a similar 'panel' to advise the PM?

A Lesson on Morality

There is a difference between 'legal' and 'moral'.

If you don't understand the jist of this article:

http://original.antiwar.com/charles-davis/2011/10/03/when-it-comes-to-state-sanctioned-murder-morality-matters-most/

you cannot claim to understand the difference between right and wrong.

Speaking of crimes, how about murder?

The Awlaki death needs discussing.

Here's what Chris Floyd has to say about things, as a starting point:

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2169-absence-of-evidence-the-progressive-policy-of-imperial-murder.html

I find this event very troubling because the defenders of the American killing of these men have manipulated the legal and moral discussion in so perverse a manner that it is now impossible to describe a situation in which anybody could not be subjected to a similar death sentence from America.

Basically, if the Americans think they are worried about you, you are dead. No trial, no notice, no charges, no evidence, no nothing! I cannot imagine the mafia allowing this sort of 'killing on a whim' to exist within their organizations. Why do we, the so-called free western democratic countries, allow this to happen?

As Floyd says at the end of his article:

" ... this is not just moral blindness: it is active, open, undeniable complicity with evil. "

Priorities on crime - Harper Style

Here's an interesting overview of what our esteemed Prime Minister is pulling with his 'crime' bill that is now being forced onto Canadians, sans meaningful debate (as is his style):

http://www.care2.com/causes/potheads-fare-worse-than-child-rapists-in-canadian-crime-bill.html

Why don't the Conservatives just change their name to the Frightened Little Boys Club?

Hubris at work

Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com, had this interesting thought regarding the situation unfolding in Libya:

"The “responsibility to protect” doctrine, the banner unfolded as we went into the Libyan battle, represents the complete descent of the ruling elites of the West into madness. If insanity requires a certain unselfconsciousness, an inability as well as an unwillingness to see one’s actions objectively, then surely this describes the Western mindset as we hail Libya’s chaotic “liberation.” To look at what is happening in that country and declare it a “success” – or, indeed, anything other than a catastrophe – is clear evidence of mental disability. The blinding madness of our ruling elites has them lurching from one disaster to the next, and proclaiming it a great success – without any awareness of how close the whole imperialist project is to collapse."

Canadian politician and self-proclaimed foreign policy guru Lloyd Axworthy was very much involved with the development of the 'responsibility to protect' doctrine. It's interesting to see how well that concept is working when applied in the real non-western world.

Maybe we should demand that our governments stay home and just let those who feel the need to intervene in other people's business to do so with all their own resources, rather than allowing them to usurp taxpayer's moneys to pursue their dreams of glory in foreign lands.

Cynical old me, however, thinks that all of these disasters are driven by the corporate kleptocracy that is looking to steal the resources of places such as Iraq, Libya etc. These guys always manage to hide behind patriotic, religious or do-gooding pretences to get governments to do their dirty work.

Further to the '"9/11 Roundup of Results" post

For those interested, here is what Osama bin Laden said about what he wanted to happen as a result of the 9/11 event:

As Osama bin Laden put it in a videotaped message broadcast by al-Jazeera on November 1, 2004:

“All that we have to do is to send two Mujahedin to the farthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al-Qa’ida in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human economic and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note.… So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.”

The late terrorist leader went on to point out that

“Al-Qa’ida spent $500,000 on the [9/11 attacks], while America in the incident and its aftermath lost – according to the lowest estimates – more than 500 billion dollars, meaning that every dollar of al-Qa’ida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah besides the loss of a huge number of jobs. As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record, astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars. And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahedin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan with Allah’s permission.”

and

“So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah is willing and nothing is too great for Allah. That being said, those who say that al-Qa’ida has won against the administration in the White House or that the administration has lost in this war have not been precise because when one scrutinizes the results, one cannot say that Al-Qa’ida is the sole factor in achieving these spectacular gains. Rather, the policy of the White House that demands the opening of war fronts to keep busy their various corporations – whether they be working in the field of arms or oil or reconstruction – has helped al-Qa’ida to achieve those enormous results.”

So, I guess the smart government just keeps dancing to Osama's tune, eh? That approach has been so effective in achieving Osama's goals so far, why stop now?

Things could have been so different ...

Here is an interesting scenario for the post 9/11 world if our governments had not bought into the blood lust exploited so effectively by the military/industrial complex:

http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/09/2011910115157366771.html

Imagine, using our laws to solve our disputes! Quel concept!

... ... but then we wouldn't have had all that neat torturing, groping, spying, assassinating, bombing of civilians, and religious nuttiness to entertain us, would we?

... and who needs habeus corpus anyway? All government/police types are just cuddly good time folks out there to protect us from ... .... ... what?

9/11 roundup of results

Glenn Greenwald again has it correct:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/09/06/war/index.html

bin Laden will be seen as one of the effective purveyors of violence of all time. For his modest financial and human investment, he essentially has destroyed the United States and much of the western world as examples of liberal democracies flourishing under the rule of constitutional law and human rights.

In case you missed it, we are now living in a fascist, corporate-controlled thugocracy with no interest in the well being if its citizens except as sources of cannon fodder, slave labour and tax revenue to support the armies and police.

... but we are "secure" ...

Rah rah rah!

What is a Bilderberger?... , and why it matters

Taylor Caldwell wrote a novel called Captains and The Kings back in the 70s that dealt with history as made by a cabal of the rich and powerful. Its a good read.

Here is an article describing exactly how this theme is operating in today's world and the effects it has had and will have on our lives:

http://www.truth-out.org/standard-poors-and-bilderbergers-all-part-plan/1313765245

Note that the Canada meeting mentioned in the article happened at the newly opened Brookside Hotel in Kanata. Gee, doesn't that make one proud!

More on surveilance/ privacy issues

Here's Glenn Greenwald summing up the state of the art in government snooping on and persecution of its citizens:

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/08/19/surveillance/index.html

Big Brother is watching and arresting transgressors.

Subservience ueber alles!!

Where have all the Dollars Gone

Study this chart:



This comes from The Grey Matter Blog.

Q: How can our politicians allow this to exist?
A: Those who donate money to politicians call the agenda, not voters. If fact, attempts to redistribute wealth, (ie change things from the actual current situation) are not even allowed to be discussed openly by our politicians, unless the goal is to provide more wealth for the richest in our society, such as has occurred during the last 30 years.

Where the money is being held

This article points out the extent to which corporations are holding onto the cash that governments wanted spent on job creation, mortgage relief, small business loans, etc., etc.

http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2011/07/18/271513/29-companies-more-cash-than-treasury/

It's amazing that this situation isn't more widely talked about. People don't seem to realize that the cash has been vacuumed out of the economy straight into corporate bank accounts and it is not being spent on things of benefit to the economy which continues to be sucked dry of cash.

On another note, the price of gold reached a new record yesterday of over $1600 per ounce. Maybe people are starting to realize that government money is not as valuable as it once was.

Time to feature the dudes!

D'Arcy just looks too worried about things sometimes -


Can you believe that Keegan was considered 'unhomeable' by the first vet who saw him after Anna rescued him from his feral colony? Look at this wild guy -

PaiKwa is very attentive to certain generous people at the dinner table -

Wylie, constantly on the alert for something to investigate -

Ka-Bloom!!

Anna's garden responded to the sun and rain and is now officially struttin' its stuff!


The walkgarden is pushing its way up around the flagstones.


And here's the butterfly bait in full bloom ...


Now we wait for butterflies.

Banks & Governments & Wars linked

Here's a very interesting theory put forward by Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com that seems to be vindicated by the behaviour of our world in the last ten years:

http://original.antiwar.com/justin/2011/07/14/the-banksters-and-american-foreign-policy/

I find the thesis compelling because it rang true as I read through the article. It certainly means I have to re-evaluate some of the long-standing credos that have been drummed into our little heads since childhood.

Just who are the good guys nowadays?

I wonder what the price of gold is today ...

Just as I was descending into chronic cynicism ...

... along comes this article in the Guardian (UK) to reaffirm the existence of people who give a damn about civilization and basic morality. It deals with the behaviour of the American government and its lapdogs (read Canada) over the last ten years, and actually recommends trials for some political leaders, for a change. Read the details:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/12/george-w-bush-torture

We can only hope.

Too bad Spain is in such deep financial doo-doo that it has to curry favour with US banks and the IMF. They were the one country to go after and secure a conviction against Pinochet for torture etc., after all.

A soldier to admire

In this article in Glenn Greenwald's blog, we get a welcome glimpse into the mindset of one of the soldiers who participated in the infamous "Collateral Murder" video that was released by Wikileaks. It is instructive to compare the soldier's comments with the 'official' reactions to this video's release.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/07/11/manning/index.html

Once again, governments and established media are revealed as propaganda sources, whose prime efforts are devoted to keeping the public ignorant of the actions of those with the power to disperse taxpayers' dollars.

Good News ... for a change

Check out this article regarding the soon to arrive glut of aging hippies:

http://www.care2.com/causes/aging-artists-engaged-productive-and-far-from-retirement.html

So it's not too late to take it on the road! Yahoooo!

Now I just need some kid to carry the stuff.

Tom Englehardt State of the Union essay

This pretty well sums up Osama's victory:

http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2011/05/30/welcome-to-post-legal-america/

The America we thought we knew has been destroyed, and it is also happening to Canada, thanks to the efforts of our recent governments.

Some old Randolph Bourne thoughts ...

I ran across these ideas at Justin Raimondo's Antiwar site. A feast for thought one might say:

“War is the health of the State,” Randolph Bourne wrote in that discarded essay, which he probably died believing would never see print, “and it is during war that one best understands the nature of that institution.” For

it cannot be too firmly realized that war is … the chief function of States. … War cannot exist without a military establishment, and a military establishment cannot exist without a State organization. War has an immemorial tradition and heredity only because the State has a long tradition and heredity. But they are inseparably and functionally joined.

Moreover, Bourne argued,

it is not too much to say that the normal relation of States is war. Diplomacy is a disguised war, in which States seek to gain by barter and intrigue, by the cleverness of wits, the objectives which they would have to gain more clumsily by means of war. Diplomacy is used while the States are recuperating from conflicts in which they have exhausted themselves. It is the wheedling and the bargaining of the worn-out bullies as they rise from the ground and slowly restore their strength to begin fighting again.

Randolph Bourne believed that informed citizens needed to realize the implications of what he was saying. For

if the State’s chief function is war, then the State must suck out of the nation a large part of its energy for its purely sterile purposes of defense and aggression. It devotes to waste or to actual destruction as much as it can of the vitality of the nation. No one will deny that war is a vast complex of life-destroying and life-crippling forces. If the State’s chief function is war, then it is chiefly concerned with coordinating and developing the powers and techniques which make for destruction. And this means not only the actual and potential destruction of the enemy, but of the nation at home as well. For the … calling away of energy into military pursuits means a crippling of the productive and life-enhancing processes of the national life.

Randolph Bourne believed that “we cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State. And we cannot expect … to end war, unless at the same time we take measures to end the State in its traditional form.” Bourne had reason to be wary when writing sentences like those in 1918. People were being imprisoned and, in some cases, deported for writing things like that. There was a particular prejudice against anarchists and against people who sounded as though they might be anarchists. Perhaps this is why Bourne added the following caveat to his call for ending the State: “The State is not the nation, and the State can be modified and even abolished in its present form, without harming the nation. On the contrary, with the passing of the dominance of the State, the genuine life-enhancing forces of the nation will be liberated.”

More on your government's contempt for your privacy

This is worth a read:

http://blog.buzzflash.com/node/12715

Just make sure nobody's watching you.

Now, this is interesting: Gold as cash!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/23/utah-gold-standard-silver-currency/

There has been a lot of talk about buying gold bullion as a hedge against inflation. That a state government would alter its laws to permit this is astounding.

What this does is repudiate the current practice of governments paying off their debts by printing more paper money backed by nothing tangible. This effectively forces those at the bottom of the economic chain (that's you & me) to pay for government excess by accepting the new lower value dollars as our wages.

Keep an eye on this to see if Utah is allowed to get away with it.

Remember when your daughter getting groped by some goon at a high school dance...

... was something you worried about ? Now the school board hires the groper!

http://www.kob.com/article/stories/S2122102.shtml

Something about a society that tolerates this is profoundly obscene! Not just the groping, but the official sanctioning of the groping as a valid function of government.

Remember, the government is only doing this for your own good.

... and then they came for me ...

Here's an article describing the latest freedom to be destroyed in America:

http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/kentucky-v-king/

I just think that you should all know these things, as you curl up in a safe, secure little ball in the corner of your now-public living room.

Where have all the dollars gone ....

If you like crime stories, here's a great one for you:

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-people-vs-goldman-sachs-20110511

Al Capone was small change compared to these guys.

Of course, the much-vaunted rule of law will soon be applied to the perpetrators by the very government that they have bought and for which they have paid, n'est-çe pas?

Don't hold your breath waiting for justice.

Privacy discussion

Why you need to be able to hide your "nothing to hide" stuff from all the nosy government geeks busy collecting your life's activities:

http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/

The current surveillance situation

Here's a bit of sustenance for your paranoia addiction:

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/05/23/110523fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all

Remember, the government is your friend. ... really ... it is ... really ...

Only those who value privacy have anything to worry about.

The shape of things to come

Here's an interesting approach to funding government: take all the money going into pension funds and spend it!

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/05/16/u-s-hits-debt-limit-starts-dipping-into-pensions/

I predict that our new improved Harper government will copy this idea with great enthusiasm, just as it has done with so many of the brilliant ideas that America has tried in the last decade.

Almost reminds one of an empire in decline.

Emulating Justin Beiber's road to stardom ...

... I thought to post a couple of YouTube videos of Standing Room Only from a recent gig:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-88qVxNbFU

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-gEt_BAMG4 (... "formadible trombone player??!!!)

The technology available to us peasants these days is phenomenal!

After reading Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" ...

... this little analysis starts to make a lot of sense:

http://original.antiwar.com/kevin-carson/2011/05/09/libya-hifter-bankers/

How dare the Libyans attempt to repudiate the American Dollar as the medium of exchange!

Bass-playin' Bob sent this along

THIS IS A NONPARTISAN JOKE THAT CAN BE ENJOYED BY All PARTIES!
NOT ONLY THAT-- it is POLITICALLY CORRECT!!

While walking down the street one day a "Member of Parliament" is tragically hit by a truck and dies.

His soul arrives in heaven and is met by St. Peter at the entrance.

'Welcome to heaven,' says St. Peter. 'Before you settle in, it seems there is a problem. We seldom see a high official around these parts, you see, so we're not sure what to do with you.'

'No problem, just let me in,' says the man.

'Well, I'd like to, but I have orders from higher up. What we'll do is have you spend one day in hell and one in heaven. Then you can choose where to spend eternity.'

'Really, I've made up my mind. I want to be in heaven,' says the MP.

'I'm sorry, but we have our rules.'

And with that, St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell. The doors open and he finds himself in the middle of a green golf course. In the distance is a clubhouse and standing in front of it are all his friends and other politicians who had worked with him.

Everyone is very happy and in evening dress. They run to greet him, shake his hand, and reminisce about the good times they had while getting rich at the expense of the people.

They play a friendly game of golf and then dine on lobster, caviar and champagne.

Also present is the devil, who really is a very friendly & nice guy who has a good time dancing and telling jokes. They are having such a good time that before he realizes it, it is time to go.

Everyone gives him a hearty farewell and waves while the elevator rises....

The elevator goes up, up, up and the door reopens on heaven where St. Peter is waiting for him.

'Now it's time to visit heaven.'

So, 24 hours pass with the MP joining a group of contented souls moving from cloud to cloud, playing the harp and singing. They have a good time and, before he realizes it, the 24 hours have gone by and St. Peter returns.

'Well, then, you've spent a day in hell and another in heaven. Now choose your eternity.'

The MP reflects for a minute, then he answers: 'Well, I would never have said it before, I mean heaven has been delightful, but I think I would be better off in hell.'

So St. Peter escorts him to the elevator and he goes down, down, down to hell.

Now the doors of the elevator open and he's in the middle of a barren land covered with waste and garbage.

He sees all his friends, dressed in rags, picking up the trash and putting it in black bags as more trash falls from above.

The devil comes over to him and puts his arm around his shoulder. 'I don't understand,' stammers the MP. 'Yesterday I was here and there was a golf course and clubhouse, and we ate lobster and caviar, drank champagne, and danced and had a great time. Now there's just a wasteland full of garbage and my friends look miserable.

What happened?'

The devil looks at him, smiles and says, 'Yesterday we were campaigning.. ...

It's fun to see how Canada appears to outsiders

Check out this analysis of recent Canadian political issues leading up to the election.

http://truthout.org/canadian-parliamentary-election-know-your-abcs-anyone-conservatives/1304113375

You have to wonder why these issues are rarely discussed within Canada.

Do you suppose it might have something to do with all the news media being controlled by for-profit corporations?

Harper as US lapdog ...

If it were not for the US right wing A-holes, I don't think Harper would have a clue of what to try next. Consider this revelatory stuff from Wikileaks:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110428/15020614073/latest-wikileaks-release-shows-how-us-completely-drove-canadian-copyright-reform-efforts.shtml

An Alberta Senator writes on the good government he has seen...

You might want to think about this article when deciding how to vote next week;

Subject: A Commonwealth issue - a Press Release

PRESS RELEASE to the British Press

"A Challenge to the Governor General of Canada "

This Press Release concerns an unprecedented constitutional situation in the Canadian Parliament. It may indeed be unprecedented in the Commonwealth, and so should be of interest to the people of Britain and other Commonwealth countries.

A Canadian federal election is underway, which was triggered by a vote in the House of Commons in Ottawa that found the Government in contempt of Parliament. This Press Release is in the form of an open letter that is being widely circulated today by a Citizens' Group that is concerned about the responsibility of the Crown to maintain our democratic values in the operations of our British system of parliamentary government. The letter was delivered to His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston on Saturday, 23 April, 2011.

---

Senator Tommy Banks Speaks Out

by Mark Eisenman

on Friday, April 15, 2011 at 12:03pm

A letter from Tom Banks

It's worth noting that Tom was a conservative when he was appointed to the Senate. If you agree with this food for thought please feel free to send it to your friends of whatever political stripe. The bigger message here is how we want our government to behave, no matter who forms that government. Here's Tom's missive:

"There is only one thing about the outcome of the May 2nd election on which Mr. Ignatieff and Mr. Harper agree. It is that one of them will be the Prime Minister of Canada. Mr. Layton, Mr. Duceppe and Ms. May are not in the running to form a government. They can't. It will be either Mr. Ignatieff or Mr. Harper.

That is the choice, and it is a very clear – in fact, stark choice. We will choose between openness or secrecy. Between listening or refusing to listen. Between someone who respects Parliament or someone who disdains it. Between things we can and will do now or things that, (provided of course that everything goes well), we might do in five or six years. Between someone who answers all questions from Canadians, or someone who won't accept any.

Between Mr. Harper who said “It’s past time the feds scrapped the Canada Health Act”, or Mr. Ignatieff who said “ . . . we don't want user fees. We want universal, accessible, free-at-the-point-of-service health care, paid out of general revenue. That’s just bottom line. Otherwise we get two-tiered”.

Between buying jets or helping vets. Between real early childhood learning and care or Saturday-night babysitting. Between respect for our great institutions or contempt for them. Between helping families or helping big corporations. Between the Canada that we think we have, or the way in which Mr. Harper has already changed it.

Over the past few years Mr. Harper’s government has quietly engineered so many changes that there are some ways in which our country is barely recognizable. Many of us don't yet realize the extent of those changes, because many of them have been brought about very carefully and gradually – almost imperceptibly in some cases.

This is diabolically clever. If these things had all been done at once, there would have been loud protests and reactions. But moving just one little brick at a time doesn't cause much fuss – until you realize that the whole house has been renovated. And we've hardly noticed.

These are changes that are at the very heart of who and what Canadians are. They are changes to the protections that used to exist against the tyranny of the majority – or against a single-minded my-way-or-the-highway autocrat. These changes are losses to our very Canadian-ness. Let me remind you of some of them:

The Law Commission of Canada was created by an Act of Parliament in 1997. It worked very well. It kept an eye in a sort-of avuncular way, on necessary reforms of the law, including election law. The Commission couldn't actually change law; but it was very good at letting governments and everybody else know when changes needed to be made and why. It was our legal Jiminy Cricket, and it performed a valuable service for Canada . The Commission was created by an Act of Parliament, and any government wanting to shut it down should have been up-front about it. It should have come to Parliament with a Bill to rescind The Law Commission of Canada Act. That’s what any of our 21 previous Prime Ministers would have done.

But to Mr. Harper, Parliament is an inconvenience. Somebody might ask “Why are you doing this?” But he didn't want to go through all that Parliamentary trouble; so, rather than proposing the abolition of the Commission (a proposal about which there would have been pretty fierce debate on all sides), they just eliminated all funding for it in the federal budget. Governments can do that. Poof – no Law Commission.

Nice and quiet. Just one little brick. Hardly noticed.

Then there was the Court Challenges Programme, set up in 1994, which was the means by which a bit of legal help could be provided to a private individual or small organization who didn't have a lot of money, and who was taking on, or being taken on by, the Government of Canada. It leveled the legal playing field a bit. It was a perfect example of fundamental Canadian fairness.

By convincing a tough panel of judges of the reasonableness of your cause, you could get a little help in paying for some lawyers to go up against the phalanx of legal beagles that could always, and forever, and at public expense, be brought to bear against you by the State. In other words, if you weren't rich, and if you were taking on or being taken on by the Feds, you might have had a chance. But Mr. Harper doesn't like being questioned, let alone challenged. It’s so inconvenient! Solution? Quietly announce that the Court Challenges Programme is being, er, discontinued. Poof – no Court Challenges Programme – no court challenges.

Hardly noticed.

The Coordination of Access to Information Request System (CAIRS) was created (by a Progressive-Conservative government) in 1989 so that departments of government could harmonize their responses to access-to-information requests that might need multi-departmental responses. It was efficient; it made sure that in most cases the left hand knew what the right hand was doing, or at least what they were saying; and it helped keep government open and accountable. Well, if you’re running a closed-door government, that’s not a good idea, is it? So, as a Treasury Board official explained to the Canadian Press, CAIRS was killed by the Harper government because “extensive” consultations showed it wasn't valued by government departments. I guess that means that the extensive consultations were all with government departments.

Wait! Wasn't there anybody else with whom to extensively consult? Wasn't there some other purpose and use for CAIRS? Didn't it have something to do with openness and accountability? I guess not. Robert Makichuk, speaking for Mr. Harper’s government, explained that “valuable resources currently being used to maintain CAIRS would be better used in the collection and analysis of improved statistical reporting”.

Right. In other words, CAIRS was an inconvenience to the government. So poof – it’s disappeared. And, except for investigative reporters and other people who might (horrors!) ask questions, its loss is hardly noticed.

And the bridge too far for me: Cutting the already-utterly-inadequate funding for the exposure of Canadian art and artists in other countries. That funding was, by any comparison, already laughably minuscule. Mr. Harper says that “ordinary” Canadians don't support the arts. He’s wrong. And his is now the only government of any significant country in the world that clearly just doesn't get it.

All these changes were done quietly, cleverly, and under the radar. No fuss. No outcry. Just one little brick at a time. But in these and other ways, our Canadian house is no longer the kind of place it once was. Nobody minds good renovations. Nobody even minds tearing something down, as long as we put up something better in its place. That’s not what has happened.

Mr. Harper fired the head of the Canadian Wheat Board because he was doing his job properly. He removed the head of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission because she wanted to make sure that the Chalk River nuclear reactor was safe.

Hardly noticed.

There are many more things that were hardly noticed: Cuts to funding for the Status of Women, Adult Learning and Literacy, Environmental Programs, museums funding, and more. All quietly, just one brick at a time.

Hardly noticed.

As to campaign promises, everybody in sight on every side is guilty of breaking those. Except the Federal NDP of course, who haven't yet had the opportunity. (It’s very easy to make promises that you know you will not likely have to keep).

But the government promised to end wait times in health care. They didn't. They promised to end, once and for all, the whining of some provinces about the non-existent “fiscal imbalance”. They didn't. They said they had brought final resolution to the softwood lumber problem with the U.S. They haven't. They promised to create thousands of new child-care spaces in Canada . They haven't. They promised not to tax income trusts (“We will NEVER do that!” they said). They taxed them. They promised to lower your income tax.

They raised it.

They said they had a good “made-in-Canada” plan to meet our obligations on climate change. They don't. Mr. Harper has said plainly that whatever the Americans do is what we'll do too.

They campaign on a platform of transparency and accountability; but they’re now trying to discredit the Parliamentary Budget Officer that they created, because he’s trying to do the job that they gave him. Mr. Harper said that our form of government, evolved over centuries from the 900-year-old British Westminster tradition, was all wrong. We had to have fixed election dates, because otherwise, democratic principles would be trampled. ”Fixed election dates”, he said, “stop leaders from trying to manipulate the calendar. They level the playing field for all parties”.

So Parliament (remember them?) at Mr. Harper’s insistence, passed a law requiring fixed election dates, which Mr. Harper promptly broke.

Somebody once said that we get the kind of government we deserve. What did we do to deserve Mr. Harper? He once said that we should all “Stand Up for Canada ”. Well, let’s do that. We just have to decide whether the present version of Canada is the one that we'll stand up for. Or stand for.

Thank you
Tommy Banks (an Alberta Senator)

Are you really paranoid if ...

... they really are out to get you?

Be careful who gets access to your digital devices. Consider this tidbit:

http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/michigan-police-being-questioned-for-extracting-smartphone-data/

How long before these extracting thingys are for sale at Future Shop? How long before they are for sale at "security" conventions? My guess at the answers, respectively, is 'never' and 'already happened'.

... and, by the way, why exactly did Apple put all that geo-tracking capability into their toys without telling users how to delete the data? Did any of you iPhone- and iPad-lovers dream that such a feature needed to be included in your device?

A thought to ponder ...

Suppose you get on an elevator and the following is revealed as the doors close:




This from the very active mind of artist Tim Nugent. Check out his work.