Well as we all know, Stephen Harper has been going to extraordinary lengths to put a fresh face on his government, and a lot of lipstick on HIMSELF.
But of course, he has no choice. He has to tart himself up.
He's been around for too long. Canadians know him too well.
And as Tim Harper points out, the desire for change is his greatest threat.
For Stephen Harper, it will be a battle against a traditional best-before date, a bold effort to enter a second decade in power, to bust a barrier that has proved to be a trip wire for many before him.
He also seeks to avoid becoming the first prime minister in 36 years to go to Canadians with a majority of his own making and concede defeat on election night.
He must make himself look new and different if he is to avoid defeat and humiliation.
And with his monstrous personality, and his horrifying record, that won't be easy...
Whether it is the Harper autocracy, his environmental record, his demonizing of opponents, Supreme Court spats, omnibus bills, back-of-the-hand treatment of natives, dictatorial treatment of the premiers, ethical stumbles, treatment of veterans or an unyielding lack of collaboration, the list of grievances against a government verging on 10 years in power adds up.
But as Tim Harper also points out, Great Bestial Leader does have one thing that must keep his hopes alive, or on life support.
The hope that the progressive parties will SPLIT the vote:
Harper lives in a narrow political lane of 10 percentage points, the 30-40 per cent vortex. At 30 per cent support he fails — anywhere close to 40 and he can replicate his 2011 majority, as long as the New Democrats and Liberals essentially split the anti-Harper vote.
So he can win another bloody majority with the support of less than 40 per cent of Canadians. And leave this country in ruins...
And when I think of that situation, I think of the words of that Star reader, that Lorne at Politics and its Discontents wrote about here.
Time for the opposition parties — Liberal, New Democrat and Greens to put differences aside and amalgamate. Time for their leaders to put aside personal egos and begin to work for what is best for Canada. Time for them to hammer out a common, left-of-centre platform and form a new party called perhaps, the Liberal Democrats.
If these three groups have the resolve and the drive they can rid us of the Harper scourge and begin to remake our country into a fairer and more egalitarian place in which to live.
Because I too share that dream of a united progressive party, which wouldn't just defeat the Cons. It would DESTROY them.
That's why I've always supported a coalition, because I love it when progressives work together.
And it disappoints me greatly that the same fear of change that I wrote about in my last post is thwarting that dream. Or delaying it at least, because it WILL happen one day, it's just a matter of time.
Or we will live forever in the shadow of a possible Con victory. And to me that seems like INSANITY.
Because to put it in the simplest way possible, and I mean the SIMPLEST.
Why would be content to play the role of a puppy trying to evict a cat from its bed?
When we could be a pitbull...
And chew the Cons to bits.
Oh well. It's too late to unite the parties now. Not when an election call could come as soon as next month.
Now we must concentrate on making Great Kinder Gentler Prettier Leader look like something that escaped from a museum...
And must be returned to that musty shelf in the Fraser Institute, or dumped in the garbage can of history, as soon as is humanly possible.
But let's still work to create a Great Stop Harper movement, that includes members of all progressive parties, so we can learn to work together...
And hopefully hasten the day, when we are all united.
So we can destroy the Cons, for at least a generation.
And take OUR Canada back...
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11 comments:
You know Montreal and Sebastian what my biggest fear is? I am 60 and have seen allot my biggest fear is that Stephen will yank at any excuse and not have an election and seize permanent power. His trained seals con MP's will clap like crazy. Steve abandoned America and embraced Red China. We are in for some shitty weather because Steve knows like the rest of us he can not and will not win in a fair election. I am afraid we are hooped but at the same time i 'hope' i am wrong.
Hey Simon,
I keep asking for your support on this issue, do you think you could write a blog article about it?
I've filed a Charter Challenge against clauses in the Criminal Code that violate the Charter and allow the Cons to use incitement towards genocide and institutionalized racism as a political tool.
paradigmslip.ca/Charter_Challenge_318-3_319-6_320-7.pdf
Uniting the Left behind the idea that we can fix the law to better follow the Charter, removing this additional right for the Attorney General and the PMO that's been entrenched in the Criminal Code for decades.
I've got a Thunderclap setup to try to raise awareness: thndr.it/1t6cJO6
And the Petition which you've already seen: change.org/p/intlcrimcourt-arrest-harper-for-inciting-genocide-against-muslims
And the original charges which were dismissed because of these clauses: http://paradigmslip.ca/Charges.pdf
I've been trying to get all this done by myself, but things would happen much faster if there was some grassroots support.
If you write a blog article about what's going on I'll tweet the Hell out of it. If we can unite the Left, the Vets, the Birdwatchers, the Scientists, and the IdleNoMore movement behind a single push for justice and we can see these monsters brought to justice sooner rather than later.
The Thunderclap launches on the 25th at 6:00PM Newfoundland time.
Parliament re-opens on the 26th.
Del Mastro gets sentenced on the 27th.
The first court hearing for the Charter Challenge is set for January 28th at 9:15AM in Corner Brook.
I hope to have your support on this matter.
-Andrew
The real horror is that the lipstick on this pig is fooling the electorate, as Harper's approval ratings are up right now.
I don't understand how Canadians can be so appallingly ignorant and easily swayed.
good thing trudeau is blocking the unification eh?
" While NDP leader Thomas Mulcair and Green Party leader Elizabeth May have indicated their openness to some form of inter-party cooperation, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau has categorically rebuffed and dismissed the concept. " http://www.libdemo.ca/cooperation.htm
you can only guess what deal or personal advantage he is gaining
by thwarting the will of most of the left
but know for sure
he appears to be willing to sell you, me, and canada at large to get it
infantile inability to play well with others....nice on his resume
There is no con science.
Then there is Harper's sneak deal with China. This was such a Harper secret, he met China in Russia, to plot their dastardly behind our backs as usual. And, this is locked in for, a minimum of 31 years. So yes, who in their right minds, could ever support a monster such as Harper? Do people not see the ramafications, of Harper selling Canada to Communist China?
However, that has always been a problem with Canadians? Many are pathetically uninformed about this monster of a Harper.
the deal with China wasn't that well advertised. It is up to all of us to ensure it does, whether that is by letters to the editor of local newspapers, or taking out ads, at our own expense, it is information which needs to get out there. while harper "bad mouths" Putin and all his actions, especially in the Ukraine, what is so different about Russia from China? Its a question which needs to be asked of all con M.P.s Why is "communist" Russia so bad and communist China so good? Its a real easy question. The cons may compare Putin to a dictator, but really what is the Communist Party of China? a democracy? not so much.
Now as to lip stick on a pig, lets not be mean to the pigs. They are smart animals, much smarter I would suggest than some of those Cons.
As to "uniting the left", not going to happen. Too many egos, too much at stake. Personally I'd settle for the Liberals and NDP to simply stop snipping at each other and show a little unity in getting rid of the Cons. Of course Elizabeth May, Green Party has been the most adult person as far as party leaders go.
Hi Simon. I'm like mogs, my biggest fear is that he will seek power through completely deceptive means.The more I read and understand the truth about this dishonest and thoroughly corrupt man the more fearful I become.
On my good days, I think Trudeau will win a minority.
If only people could see past Harper Hatred and see that the left is united within the NDP, and that the Liberals are more rightwing then Harper is especially on actually implimented economic policies. The cuts during the last Liberal Government was were vastly worse then any Harper made and for much of the minority years there was a defacto coalition, between the Tories and Liberals with the Liberals supporting countless rightwing Tory policies and the Tories continueing many of the rightwing Liberal policies.
Its time to wake up and join the NDP in fighting the Liberal-Tory coalition.
And remember Trudeau himself has admitted he shares the Tories values.
So lets avoid the horrors that happened during the last Liberal Majority government and vote NDP
Justin is not much better than Harper. He's not part of the left, he's moderate right wing libertarian.
The Greens are the best choice for critically thinking left-leaning voters but that's not to say they are a left wing party, they're not, but they have priorities more attractive to leftists.
The NDP are firm centrists. An NDP-Green coalition could be pretty attractive, a "Greendeepee" vote.
I'm not sure which would be worse - Harper winning again or Trudeau winning. Not much would change under Trudeau, he supports the Cons more than opposes, he's just a lot more charismatic, so we'd be stuck with Con policies remaining in place for much longer than we may otherwise.
At the same time the thought of more Harper makes my skin crawl and blood boil.
Simon:
And THIS is why Harper's best friend is the hardcore Dipper! One of the things I find the most infuriating is when anyone claims the Libs are as bad, or as this person does worse/more right-wing than the Harper CPC, despite the factual record of Harper and his party being the most extremist government in our history by a massive margin!
Lib Tory same old story, it is not a fact but a matter of faith for Dippers like this one, and it is also a large part of why you aren't seeing much willingness for cooperation on the Lib side. Besides, as I have repeatedly noted our voting record shows that the ONLY party that has any realistic chance of replacing Harper is the Libs, it is after all one of the reasons May has in the past supported them in past elections since the rise of Harper. But not for Dippers like this one and lungta in this thread, nope it is more important to continue their war on Libs for seats than it is to remove Harper, and to falsely smear the Libs as equally horrific despite the historical record proving that Canada actually did evolve into a progressive nation primarily under Lib government, and this idea that somehow the NDP is the only reason for it despite never being government, come on, influences I'll give them that but primary /only reason for it? Seriously?
This is in part Simon why I get so pissed at Dippers, even now they still either cannot see reality as it is or worse continue to lie about it because it is in their electoral interests to do so. Say what you will about the Libs, at least they never stopped seeing Harper as the real threat to us all, to the point they were ridiculed for it many times over.
Got to love how the blame for any lack of cooperation in these minds is all on Trudeau and the Libs, the actions of the NDP leadership over the past decade, especially as recently as last fall, to shiv the Libs and Trudeau of course have nothing to do with it for such folks. I've said it many times over the years, I am being driven to the Libs by the lack of choice offered by the other parties, the only other party these days where I could vote is Green (yet a dozen years ago I had a choice of four parties, I hate this lack of choice environment), and if these were normal times I well could but as I have been saying for over a decade now stopping Harper is an "at all costs" priority for the health and indeed very survival of this nation.
I will close on this note as well, it is telling that the only hyper-partisan comments in this thread came from Dippers placing their memes and interests ahead of the point of your post, not Libs, and it underscores yet again why I say that the real problem to stopping unity of purpose/cooperation/coalition comes more out of the Dipper side than the Lib side. The Libs might have been willing to work with an NDP that showed it could be worked with/trusted not to knife them in the back, but the last decade and last fall especially kind of made that a hard premise to swallow now didn't it. Dippers love to blame everyone but themselves for the rise and dominance of Harper, just as they love to argue the Libs are as bad or worse than Harper to justify their campaign against them instead of being ABC in their approach, because the ABC approach brings the Libs back ahead of the NDP nationally and they know it. THAT is why you see no cooperation more than any other reason I believe, and why the main amount of grit in the gears on the idea comes more form the NDP than the Libs (again, not saying the Libs have none in this, but that they are clearly not the greater sinner based on all evidence out there, that is clearly the NDP as I have gone into at great length over the years).
I know this is a reply to a comment, but this is mainly for you Simon, I just used the reply to underscore/illustrate what I'm talking about why I've taken the path I have as the only one I see really able to work in stopping Harper, which as always has been my primary focus for more than a decade now.
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