Sunday, December 04, 2011

Stephen Harper and the Big Brother State













Here's a question that I believe requires an urgent answer. If you lived in a country where a sinister, authoritarian leader had reduced civil servants to a state of fear and paralysis.

Nobody gets in trouble for keeping their mouths shut, but people in government are really afraid — like, really afraid — of Harper, and they are right to be. He has shown repeatedly that he will end the careers of public servants who contradict his message.

The result of this fear is paralysis and silence.

A country where the state is everywhere. 

Conservatism, as practised by team Harper, is more akin to an Orwellian opposite. State controls are now at a highpoint in our modern history. There is every indication they will extend further.

The propaganda machine has become mammoth and unrelenting. The parliamentary newspaper The Hill Times recently found there are now no fewer than 1,500 communications staffers on the governing payroll.

And you knew that some of these communications operatives were not just there to control the message, but to try to suppress dissent in the MSM and the blogosphere.

Would you think those shadowy operatives might find this Big Brother bill really convenient? 

Under legislation that the Conservatives will soon be introducing, the police could order your Internet service provider to hand over your personal information so that they could have a talk with you.

“There is not even a requirement for the commission of a crime to justify access to personal information – real names, home address, unlisted numbers, e-mail addresses, IP addresses and much more – without a warrant.”

I would. In fact I would go even further. I would suggest that if this Big Brother bill is not amended or scrapped, we will soon find ourselves living in a police state.

And unless we create enough of a fuss, take to the streets, and sign petitions like this one.

We will wake up sooner than we could ever have imagined in a country we don't recognize. And in the darkness of Harper's Canada, even as we sleep.

He will be watching...

2 comments:

Anonymous said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Simon said...

hi anonymous...look as I've explained before I understand your anger at the Harper regime, and it's one I share. But I can't have you or anyone calling Stephen Harper a neo-Nazi. He may have been a member of the racist Northern Alliance, and there may have been neo-nazis in that disgusting movement. But there is no evidence he was a neo-Nazi,and to call him one debases the horror of the word. There is more than enough to criticize in his present actions. I don't like censoring comments, or libelling people, so please be a little gentler in your choice of words...