Separatists Hold Canada Inches From Evil

Bushist neocon Stephen Harper and his so-called "Conservative" Party emerged from Canada's federal election Tuesday with another minority government, but in a stronger position than before the election. A record number of Canadians slept through the festivities.

The Conservatives now hold 143 seats, up 16 from their previous 127, but still 12 short of the 155 they would need to ram their evil agenda through the 308-seat Parliament. In other words, a similar gain in the next election would be the end of democracy in Canada -- not that it seems to matter much to the Canadian voting public.

Harper's agenda, which the Conservatives have tried very hard to keep secret, surely includes allowing Canada to be swallowed up by the United States in a North American Union. It's a far cry from the nationalist conservative philosophy which most Canadians think of when they see the "Conservative" banners waving. This discrepancy speaks volumes about the American-style militarization of the Canadian "news" media.

The primary opposition party, Stephane Dion's Liberals, lost 19 seats to fall to 76. The Liberals have been standing firm against some of Harper's policies, but caving in on others. It's difficult to imagine that a stronger Conservative government and a weaker Liberal opposition could lead to anything other than an increasingly Bush-style government, with Harper and his henchmen railroading more and more unpopular policies through a mostly stunned Parliament, even though they only have a minority.

And yet, in the few minutes of Canadian television coverage I managed to catch, I heard a pundit wondering, "whether Harper will now change his approach to Parliament, which some critics have described as bullying".

It's "news" American-style: They don't get it. They don't get it on purpose. They're paid to not get it.

Of the remaining 89 seats -- just 12 of which would spill Canada over the neocon brink -- 50 were won by the Bloc Quebecois, led by Gilles Duceppe, which represents the nationalist-separatist sentiments of mostly-rural French-speaking Quebec. It is altogether fitting and proper that people who don't even want to be part of Canada should stand in the way of Canada becoming part of the US.

Two of the remaining 39 seats were won by independents, and the other 37 were taken by the New Democratic Party, which opposes virtually everything the Conservatives stand for, most notably Canada's participation in the war crime in Afghanistan. For all their strenuous opposition, the NDP gained only seven seats -- a pittance in light of the Liberal losses.

Given Harper's record over the past few years, it is impossible to look at these results -- with the Liberals declining, the NDP not gaining much, and the Conservatives gaining more seats than any other party -- especially in view of the record low turnout -- without wondering, "What is wrong with the Canadian people?"

But the answers are quite obvious, and they're just about the same as the answers to the question I ask myself much more often, namely: "What is wrong with the American people?"

• Too much propaganda and not enough education
• Too much trivia and not enough reality
• Too much pro sports, and pro religion, and sports as religion, and religion as education, and not enough civics, or politics, or foreign news, or domestic news
• Too much short-term self-interest and not enough concern for the rest of the world or the future
• Too much blind trust in the government and established media, and too little time or respect for the people who are actually telling the truth
• And both the electoral system and the system of "governance" are all screwed up
  

But other than that, they're fine.

Really.

Go, Leafs, Go!

Amen.

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Split Indecision: Canada Surges In Multiple Directions Simultaneously

There's a federal election coming in Canada, and the anti-war "third parties" (New Democrats [NDP] and Greens) are gaining ground fast on the pro-war "major parties" (Liberals and Conservatives), according to a recent survey quoted in the Toronto Star's "NDP surge in cities as Liberals languish: Poll".

The Star spins it in a different way, of course, never mentioning that the Conservatives are languishing too, remaining silent on the obvious point that the war in Afghanistan is the major difference between the parties that are surging and the others, and casting the surge of support for the anti-war parties as a threat to the Liberals and a boon to the Conservatives.

To read it in the Star, it's as if too much support for the Greens and the NDP would necessarily lead to a Conservative victory, rather than a Conservative defeat (or, what's more likely, a heavily fragmented minority government).

That's almost the same way they spin it in the US, although in this case it comes with a northern accent.

But the anti-war surge, led by outspoken NDP leader Jack Layton [photo], comes against the backdrop of a long-term American-inflected surge in government militarization, somewhat similar to the English version which was recently described by John Pilger and highlighted by Chris Floyd.

The transformation of Canada has been almost American in style, complete with transparent propaganda from a minority government openly in contempt of the press, the other parties, and the rule of law, presenting a huge increase in military spending as urgently needed for national defense -- against the will and contrary to the needs of the people, who must be propagandized as thoroughly as possible, of course -- and in true American military style, the whole thing is done with the backroom collaboration of the "opposition".

Most recently, the Canadian government announced plans to rent and purchase attack helicopters and drones -- weapons which the government says are necessary for the defense of the country. The drones will defend Canada by flying around Afghanistan. The helicopters will defend Canada by moving Canadian troops around inside Afghanistan.

Never mind that Afghanistan poses no threat to Canada. Never mind that Canada requires no defense against Afghanistan.

And never mind, especially, that the war in Afghanistan would be entirely unjustified, even if the official story of 9/11 were true, which it obviously isn't.

Forget all that. This is the post-9/11 world, which means when our governments say "defense", they really mean "attack". Telling the truth, calling a spade a spade: that's September 10th thinking. We're past that now.

The purchase and rental agreements are part of a massive new spending package sneakily announced in June. Details of the package were made public by virtue of being posted on the government's website late one Thursday night.

The spending package budgets $490 billion to be spent over the next 20 years -- and it was put together by a government that wasn't destined to last three more months in power.

In February, it was announced that the helicopters and drones were essential to the continuation of the Canadian "mission" in Afghanistan.

In true American style, this imperial mission had been criticized "from the left" as being done "on the cheap", so the inevitable commission was set up and it reached the most predictable conclusion: Canada must either spend a lot more money to do it "right" or else abandon the war crime they call a "mission" altogether.

So the Canadian Prime Minister, neocon Bushist Stephen Harper, announced that he would no longer approve an Afghan mission being run "on the cheap", and the "opposition" forced a "compromise" by which the war crime would be continued, but at a much greater burden to the taxpayers.

This was reminiscent of the means by which the most recent bill funding the war crime in Iraq was passed by a supposedly opposition US congress. Bush threatened to veto an increase in funding for medical care for veterans, but the Democrats insisted, and eventually the "two sides" reached a "compromise" under which the war crime would be continued indefinitely with no restrictions on the president but at a greater cost to the taxpayers than previously.

Just as in the USA, there's a level beyond which Canadian national politics is (worse than) a farce, made especially tragic when it's left to "the two party system". So, in many ways, the Canadian election is not about the Conservatives against the Liberals with the third parties in the background. It's about the Conservatives and the Liberals against the third parties.

But the major media are all Conservative with Faux Liberals in pocket, so they will never present an analysis of national politics that runs this way, even though the fault lines are clearly visible. So the voters have to figure it out for themselves.

And therefore, from a foreign policy point of view (and in many other ways) this election will boil down to whether the Canadian people are smart enough to reject the Bush-Harper, Conservative-Liberal, Star-Globe-National Post propaganda surge with sufficient force.

Which surge will win? The stakes are huge and I'm not optimistic.

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