Stephen Harper and the Creeping Militarization of Canada

In my last post I showed you yet another example of how Stephen Harper is trying to militarize our culture.

By having such gentle and iconic Canadian traditions like the RCMP Musical Ride, compete in the same arena with a sinister SWAT show...



Complete with armoured cars, explosions, and even a prisoner to carry off in handcuffs.

And yesterday's Canada Day show on Parliament Hill was more of the same. With more soldiers and police officers than you could count. A twenty-one gun salute.

And this thundering message from Great Warrior Leader. 

Prime Minister Stephen Harper paid tribute to members of the Canadian Armed Forces on Wednesday during a rainy Canada Day celebration on Parliament Hill. 

“As we saw right here in our Parliament, this threat is everywhere today,” said Harper, who took in the festivities with his wife Laureen and two children. “But we have faced great threats many times before, and we have overcome them. And we shall overcome them once more. So, let’s hear it for the brave men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces.”

Be very, very afraid, the terrorists are everywhere. And only I and MY police and MY army can save you. 

Save you from those who would behead you in your beds, or drown you in your bathtubs...



And of course keep us strong, proud, and FREE!!! 

The slogan that flashes almost subliminally at the end of every Porky Economic Action Plan. And is in all his speeches, and all over his sicko propaganda.

And what I find even more disturbing is that all this militaristic brainwashing seems to be seeping like poison into the population. 

For when this couple was interviewed by the CBC yesterday and asked what Canada Day meant to them... 



This is what they said:

It means we are free and proud and Canadian and that we are not afraid.

Which made me wonder where is this word FREE coming from? 

Since when do children in this country wear it on their t-shirts?



To conform with the sayings of Great Leader...



And how dare Stephen Harper use that word ? When he is trying to turn us into a police state, terrorize us into voting for him.

And that insane disconnect is only making him sound even more like a maniac.

Or even more like Big Brother...



For as Orwell also wrote in 1984:

“Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.”

So it is scary stuff.

But the good news is that Stephen Harper is now living in his own twisted fantasy world. And as Andrew Coyne points out, he couldn't be more isolated. 

The Conservative Party in its current incarnation was in many ways Harper’s creation. The government he leads exists more or less as an extension of his index finger. But recent months have left the impression of a prime minister who is increasingly isolated, cut off not only from the public he rarely sees and the media he will not talk to, but from his own party.

The undying loyalists, the ones whose careers he promoted on just this basis — the Pierre Poilievres, the Chris Alexanders — will stick with him to the end. But that is pretty much all that remains, a dwindling palace guard of zealous staffers and the callower ministers. “The Harper government” used to be a branding exercise. It is now an almost literal description.

Or more desperate...



The leader on whom the Tories are betting their campaign has an approval rating, according to the EKOS polling firm, of just 32 per cent, versus a disapproval rating of 62 per cent. This is by far the worst of any party leader.

His government is falling apart like a decomposing corpse, he's going nowhere, and neither is his party.

Averaging the polls together, the ThreeHundredEight.com poll-tracking website shows the Tories sliding steadily all through the last two months, from a pallid 32 per cent at the beginning of May to a dismal 29 per cent at the end of June. 

Worse, only about five to seven per cent of non-Conservative voters would consider them as their second choice. 60 per cent of voters tell EKOS the government is moving in the wrong direction, versus just 32 per cent for the contrary.

Which is great, except for one thing. That desperation, coupled with that isolation from reality, can only make him even more dangerous.

Which is why I keep urging progressives to unite in the face of that growing threat. For Coyne says he is looking tired, but I think he is looking crazy, or crazier.

And I haven't the slightest doubt that if he is not stopped he will find any excuse to subvert the election.

And he will turn us into a police state...



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