A golden opportunity for Ignatieff. If he seizes it.

Now's the day, and now's the hour;

See the front o' battle lower;

See approach proud Edward's power--

Chains and slaverie

The front of our battle for democracy is indeed lowering.  And in it lies a propitious moment for Ignatieff.  He has wanted to prove himself worthy of the Prime Ministership of this great country since he came back in 2005.  Here is his chance.  Lead the resistance to this travesty.  Convince the NDP and Bloc that they must work with him to prevent this.  Does he have enough of the royal jelly necessary for the job?

Wha will be a traitor knave?

Wha can fill a coward's grave?

Wha sae base as be a slave?

Let him turn and flee!

There are obviously risks involved.  If he fails he had best return to Harvard. If he doesn't want to take the risk, then he must step aside for someone who will.

By Oppression's woes and pains!

By your sons in servile chains!

We will drain our dearest veins,

But they shall be free!

 

Lay the proud usurpers low!

Tyrants fall in every foe!

Liberty's in every blow!

Let us do or die!

Full poem here.
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SteveV nails it

I revved up the blog to work on a New Year's Day post and wandered over to the Far and Wide comments section. In it I read Steve V's musings on what other Beatle tunes Harper might have considered for his video opp.

He suggested "Back in the U.S.S.R.".

LOL. As the kids say.

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Canadians may not be noticing

But the World has recognized our diminishment under Harper.  Conservatives often rail against what they see as the uselessness of the Liberals "Middle Power" approach.  Harper has tried a faux muscular foreign policy.  Time to check and see where it has gotten us.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper was left off the guest list for an emergency meeting of world leaders that included U.S. President Barack Obama in the final hours of the Copenhagen climate talks.

Obama arrived in the Danish capital Friday morning in the hopes his influence could sway the 193 countries here to get a deal done. Shortly after arriving, the American president headed into a special meeting with 19 other leaders.

Among the attendees were Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei, Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.

The list, provided by the White House, did not include Harper.

Oops.  Well at least they are handling things on the home front well (snerk).
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Has the media reached a "Tipping Point" regarding Harper?

As a politically conscious Canadian I could identify the cancerous nature of Stephen Harper from the get-go. I have long despaired that the electorate will ever see through the PMO spin and media bias in favour of the Conservatives and recognize just how antithetical to all things Canadian Harper and his cronies are. You would think that the Isotope Crisis, the Listeriosis Crisis, the Deficit Crisis, the Prorogation Crisis and on and on would, except for the 20% or so of hard core conservatives, lead to a collapse in their support. It will happen eventually. Let us hope it doesn't happen too late.

There is a glimpse of the sun on the horizon as another member of the Rip van Media wakes up and doesn't recognize the "democracy" Canadians left in the care of Harper.

As Malcolm Gladwell laid out in "The Tipping Point", there comes a point in which the "momentum for change becomes unstoppable". It may be that this point will be reached with the electorate when The Fourth Estate reaches it's own Tipping Point. Perhaps, with the Afghan Crisis there is a Stickiness Factor in the malevolent incompetence of the Conservatives. Finally.

Whether they are Connectors, Mavens or Information Specialists is up to debate. But the fact that Riley has joined Travers and Martin in voicing strong concern about the direction of our country there is evidence that the pundits have woken up.

My only request to Ms. Riley et al. is to remember these very worrisome aspects of Harper the next time there is a crisis and the Cons rev up the spin machine. I expect they will be put to the test very early in the new year.

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Criticism of Harper Globe and Mail style - How do you like it so far?

Lawrence Martin lays into Harper in "Democracy Canadian Style - How do you like it so far?". I won't post any juicy quotes since there are so many it would defeat the point of linking to it.

The only quibble I have is: Most of the behaviours deleterious to our democracy cited in your op-ed were fully displayed prior to the last election. Did Mr. Martin dissent from the Globe's endorsement of Harper? I don't recall such an article.

What is done is done. Amends can be made by maintaining the resistance against Harper's march towards authoritarianism.

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A distinction with a difference

Robert Jago is correct. Some of the photos submitted to liberal.ca contest are ignorant.  As a member of the Liberal Party I believe the only correct thing to do is cancel the contest and apologize unreservedly for the unintentional and unexpected insult caused.

But there is one thing to remember.  These immature images were not generated by the OLO.  They were submitted to a contest.  Unlike the pigeon poop ads or the photo of Dion framed by bullet holes, they were not the product of the vicious mindset fostered by the Party's Leader.  That is a big difference.

Two wrongs don't make a right.  One wrong and a half wrong don't either.  The assaults on Dion remain the hallmark of the petty vindictive mind of Harper and his emotionally stunted followers.  The Liberal fault was not recognizing that the Internet will always be a great venue to demonstrate the Law of Unintended Consequences.

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Just as it foolish and weird to expect priests to not have a libido

It is crazy to maintain the fiction that editorialists don't have a political preference. I am o.k. with it. I just think that they should have to declare it in a banner at the top of their byline.Recommend this Post

An antecedent for unruly Conservative behaviour

Back when I first started thinking about beginning to blog, one of the first subjects I wanted to tackle was the Conservatives handbook on how to disrupt House of Commons committees. As a concrete example of this strategy, who could forget Art Hanger's manufactured tantrum to avoid a Justice Committee vote on the Cadman affair. It was so bad, even Don Martin couldn't help but notice. I wanted to bring up a historical precedent for this that I had not seen mentioned. There were so many toxic aspects to conservatism that this slipped off the agenda.

This topic bubbled to the surface over the past week after Impolitical and Warren Kinsella noted some similar behaviour in the Ontario legislature.

There is a precedent for a party that sought to collapse the authority of the government from within:

They did everything possible to discredit and paralyze the existing government and to undermine the republican legal and political system, while the tried to use the democratic constitution and electoral process to win control over that very same system of government.

...

Inside parliament, they used obstructionist tactics to hamper the governmental process. ...deputies disprupted parliamentary sessions with catcalls and unnecessary debates on points of order and they opposed every attempt at serious legislation. ... At one point, the .. entire delegation marched out ... and began a boycott against the parliament.

Full excerpt may be found here. Perhaps the disruption is innocent. The similarity is coincidental. Maybe codifying this behaviour is a subconscious mimicry. But the fact remains that Conservatives; whether in power or out, whether federal or provincial, are using the same tactics as Nazis.

I will stop compare Conservatives to Nazis when they stop behaving like Nazis.

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Canada's (at the) back (of the line)

Even with a Democrat in the White House, this must sting the very large segment of the HarperCons who would, truth be known, love to see Canada swallowed up by the U.S. Being relegated to Joe Biden's speed dial is a very public spanking for Mr. Angry and, by extension, all Canadians. We have shrunken in American estimation. Big time.

And as for our image across The Pond, check out this headline.

It appears that some of my posts get read by those outside of Canada. If you are one of these people and you know any Canadians, please do me a favour and get in touch with them. Spread the word back to the Great White North about how our standing in the world has been diminished in the last 4 years.Recommend this Post