Friday, September 11, 2015

The Desperate Stephen Harper and the Ghastly Bigot of Oz



It couldn't be more desperate or more absurd or more obscene. And the timing couldn't be worse. 

Just as Stephen Harper seems to be bowing to public pressure, and preparing to finally do something to help desperate Syrian refugees. 

The Conservatives, after continued criticism they are not doing enough to address the Syrian refugee crisis, are expected to announce within days some new ways Canada could help.

After claiming for days that they were too dangerous to allow into Canada...


Garnotte/Le Devoir

We find out, a day after he bounced Jenni Byrne off the bus, that his campaign is being managed by the man known as the Wizard of Oz.

Stephen Harper’s struggling Conservatives are employing the services of a controversial Australian campaign fixer who is credited with helping David Cameron confound the polls and secure a majority victory in last May’s U.K. election.

A party source says Lynton Crosby has been giving advice — primarily analyzing polling data — since March.


Or the Bigot of Oz...




During the 2001 campaign, Howard ministers falsely claimed that a ship full of would-be refugees had thrown children overboard in a ploy to secure asylum in Australia. 

The false story played to the Howard campaign’s hard line on migrants, with the slogan: “We will decide who comes to this country and the circumstances in which they come.”

The sleazy master of dog-whistle politics who is anti-refugee, anti-gay, and anti-Muslim. 

The man David Cameron has picked to head his Election campaign once launched a foul-mouthed rant against Muslims. Outspoken Australian ‘fixer’ Lynton Crosby used the phrase ‘f****** Muslims’ in a diatribe while working for London Mayor Boris Johnson.

He tried to convince David Cameron not to promise to legalize gay marriage. He has never hesitated to plumb the depths of depravity for crass political purposes.

Which can only make more Canadians wonder where this desperate Con campaign is going...



And how much lower Lynton Crosby might take them. If that's possible.

As for Harper, he can't be trusted to keep any promises, when as Haroon Siddiqui points out, he has demonized refugees for years to pleasure his rabid base. 

You are Stephen Harper. Your government spends years demonizing asylum seekers as “bogus refugees.” It denies them health care. It takes pride in detaining and deporting many of them.


Given that record, how do you now welcome with open arms Muslim Syrian refugees, who having waited years to be rescued have crashed into Europe and moved the world, including Canadians who are demanding urgent action from Ottawa?


You try and emote sympathy, talking about little Alan Kurdi...But you can’t go too far without upsetting the constituencies you have so systematically cultivated over the years.

His hollow promise to save desperate refugees is only too obviously a desperate attempt to save himself...


And the good news is it almost certainly won't save him or his campaign. 

By dragging his heels, and inventing ridiculous reasons for doing nothing, he has revealed himself to be a cruel, heartless leader. A callous monster who had to be forced to do the right and Canadian thing.

So even if he does something for the refugees, which would be good, he won't win many brownie point from decent Canadians. But he will annoy his rabid base, and that could cost him votes he can't afford to lose.

Which will only prove once again that he is no political genius or wizard ...



Just a nasty little man, too small and too ugly to be allowed to pose as a Canadian Prime Minister.

And who will now have to explain why a Great Strong Leader and his "Canada Strong" Cons are having their campaign managed by a political hit man from Australia?

Which certainly won't improve their image.

Or for that matter improve Jenni Byrne's state of mind...



Which as you can imagine won't help the state of the Con campaign. It's in disarray, with factions fighting each other. Or sulking. And still going nowhere.

Shuffling a campaign at this stage is a risky proposition.

So with a little bit of luck this hideous horror story.

Will have a happy ending...



Please click here to recommend this post at Progressive Bloggers.

28 comments:

Steve said...

Harper cant go to the dark side, he is already there

Anonymous said...

from an anon on another site:

"Just Great!

Steve goes and gets himself another Temporary Foreign Worker to replace a hard working Canadian.

We decide who gets in this country! Indeed."

Anonymous said...

Can't crosby be refused entry into Canada as an undesirable criminal element? We need somebody with a lot more credibility like Larry Flynt's investigators or Anonymous to look into this guy's background and let us know exactly who we are dealing with!

Marmalade said...

If Lynton Crosby helped David Cameron get re-elected in the UK, then Canadians had better WAKE-Up SOON!

Anonymous said...

Time is short but they have already started trying to move the media away from the refugee crisis to safer ground by launching a "close the illegal ( medical) marijuana outlets" and enlisting the help of their RCMP buddies. Along with that they will probably make some token statement on helping the refugees along with a planted cobbled up story a few days later demonstrating how treacherous some of these refugees actually are. Then its back to the use of the code words that they spent millions of taxpayer dollars on to elicit positive responses when used. "marijuana" cobbles up visions of a degenerate society with Trudeau peddling drugs to our youth, "Economy" means balanced budgets, tax breaks, Action Plans, a glorious prosperous Canada as per the millions spent in taxpayer ads. The Opposition and the media desperately need to keep the true issues in focus for the next four weeks and not be baited into putting the Marijuana BS and other distraction ploys on center stage. Just refer to Provincial responsibility / Supreme Court rulings and move back to the true issues.
RT

Anonymous said...

There's certainly lots of negative press written about this guy in the British media.Certainly enough to give Canadian's more than a few clues he lacks credibility.Nothing more than a opportunist who will do and say anything for money and power.Just like Harper and his reformacons.Jenni Byrne and Kory Teneycke are lightweight's compared to this Crosbie character..He is merely a hired political hitman who has major money and tax issues.Scraping the bottom of the barrel to win at all costs is the new reformacon strategy for the next few weeks.
More on him here

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/generalelection/firm-run-by-david-camerons-election-guru-lynton-crosby-lost-1-million-in-two-years-as-pressure-mounts-on-unanswered-tax-questions-10184013.html

and this

https://twitter.com/OdysseusCA/status/642193550004887552



Anonymous said...

As an outsider, what does Stephen Harper really think of the human race?

A Political Junkie said...

Unfortunately for Steve, he is quickly learning that he is neither omnipotent or omniscient. Sadly for him, he was unable to anticipate that a child would die on the beaches of Turkey and take the attention of Canada's mainstream media away from his precious talking points.

Anonymous said...

Desperate people do desperate things. And Steve is desperate now. If this Aussie guy is as dirty in his methods as people say he is, hopefully we can catch him breaking the law. And then we can hear Steve protest once again that he had no idea what this guy was doing or he would have stopped him. Maybe we can finally get the evidence we need to put Steve in jail, with this Aussie too. Double bunk them.

M@ said...

And now you know why the conservatives needed that extra election spending money... so that they could put your taxpayer donations towards paying the most expensive campaign strategist in. the. world.

Don't worry... It should trickle down, right?

Anonymous said...

http://www.winnipegsun.com/videos/featured/featured-win/1213592867001/election-explainer-why-the-party-leaders-are-wrong-about-who-gets-to-govern/4475815699001

Here is how Harper is going to stay in power.
it is a procedural tactic along the lines of proroguing the house.
And it is all legal!

Anonymous said...

I thought stray dogs weren't allowed in Canada. Especially ones that shit on carpets and bite their masters hand.

e.a.f. said...

expect the campaign to get very dirty. New t.v. ads will be out shortly and it will paint a very ugly picture of Muslims in other countries and suggest that is what Mulcair and Trudeau want to bring to Canada. The Con ads will describe the Muslim refugees as no better than jackals who will try to turn Canada into a muslim country. this "fixer" they have brought it will do what it takes. this election is far from over. we know the cons "cheated" in previous elections and they'll do it again. just watch. don't be surprised if Steve crowns himself king of canada for only he and Jason know the way. steve being of course one of those who believes the second coming is imminent and the bible inerrant. what a clown.

Simon said...

hi Steve...that may be so, but he can take us all into a darkness even more ghastly than what we have already experienced. For there are no limits to how low he can go...

Simon said...

hi anon...yes he is using a temporary foreign worker, and from what I hear quite a few Cons in the Death Machine are extremely annoyed at being pushed aside like those workers at Tim Hortons and so many other places. It is after all a slap in the face, and a clear sign that Lord Harp doesn't think much of his own faithful stooges...

Simon said...

hi anon...we can't keep him out of the country, but we can question why he is allowed to manage the ruling party's campaign, when it seems to me the law couldn't be clearer. But as i said in my post, one way or the other we can use him to bludgeon the Cons...

Simon said...

hi Kathleen...I followed the British campaign closely and I saw what he did. And although he did get the Cameron Cons a majority, it was the incompetence of the Labour Party, and the record of the Liberal Democrats that sealed their fate. He also tried to pit the English against the Scots, which allowed the Scottish National Party to sweep Scotland. So with enemies like that who needs friends.. ;)

Simon said...

hi RT...yes we do need to focus on the issues that play to our advantage and not be distracted by the games the Cons play. I read how Boris Johnson, the ghastly Con Mayor of London, said Crosby likes to "throw a dead cat on the table" so everybody talks about that and not about the issues that matter. We are going to have to be very very smart to beat the Cons, but as they say necessity is the mother of invention...

Simon said...

hi anon...thanks for the links. I've done a little research myself, and basically the guy has a talent for mining micro data and coming up with a simple message that registers at an almost subconscious level. Which is of course something our parties should be doing. In the cluttered and distracted world we live in, if you can't come up with a simple and powerful message it will not move many people to vote for you. But as I said above, his success in the British election was largely due to the incompetence of his opponents. So he is clever in a twisted way, but like the original Wizard of Oz he is not omnipotent...

Simon said...

hi anon...I don't think Harper thinks very much about other humans. I honestly believe he is a clinical psychopath with narcissist tendencies. And as he once said he doesn't care much about the judgement of humans, only the judgement of his god. Which is just as well, because the judgement of history will be brutal....

Simon said...

hi political junkie....yes he has been hit by one unfortunate after the other, and his talking points campaign has taken quite a beating. As the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan is alleged to have said when he was asked what he most feared "Events dear boy events..." I think Harper can relate to that... ;)

Simon said...

hi anon...I don't think he will be caught breaking the law, apart from the one that says he shouldn't have been allowed to be doing what he is doing. But what he will do is make the Cons look more foreign and more desperate, and hopefully that will only add fuel to the already enormous desire for change. At this stage dirty tricks can only work against the Cons, make them look even more disgusting, and make even more people want to get rid of them...

Simon said...

hi M@....yes I'm sure Crosby chargesan arm and a leg. I read how a Green Party supporter once said he should advise them, and his answer was "you couldn't afford me..." And yes, I wouldn't hold my breath for any of that money to trickle down, unless you live in Australia... ;)

Simon said...

hi anon...I've read quite a few stories about how Harper might react in the event that he manages to squeak out a minority government. And they are alarming because they raise the spectre of a constitutional crisis. But then as I have said before, that's only more reason to get out the vote, vote as smartly as possible, and make sure we bury him and his Cons...

Simon said...

hi anon...you mean stray flying monkeys? Yes, I don't know how that one got through our secure borders. But a net or a tennis racquet should bring it down...

Simon said...

hi e.a.f...the problem for the Cons is that if they use that, we will now know where it's coming from. And that will dilute its impact and could actually hurt the Cons. I'm predicting that the main wedge issue Stephen Harper will use is one involving Quebec, where at about 11% in the polls he has nothing to lose. But yes it will be ugly and we must be prepared to respond with full force. I'm afraid we're in for a hell of a ride before this nightmare is over...

Anonymous said...

"couldn't be clearer"? Ha ha ha! You're deluding yourself, big time.

What does "induce" mean? As long as the hired gun doesn't talk into a microphone, write op-ed pieces in newspapers, or hang up electoral signs, he should be in the clear, and you don't even need a low-life lawyer to understand that.

Furthermore, what are the potential consequences?

495(3) Every person who wilfully contravenes section 331 (inducement by foreigners) is guilty of an offence.

500(2) Every person who is guilty of an offence under any of [...] subsections 495(2) and (3), [...] is liable on summary conviction to a fine of not more than $5,000 or to imprisonment for a term of not more than six months, or to both.


BIG DEAL! What's that bloke's daily rate in any case?

And if it ever came to a trial, with a threat of imprisonment, Mr. Crosby would, as a white, anglo-saxon, subject of the Queen, and not being a refugee, be entitled to the full due process. That could take some time, and he would have ample opportunity to abscond.

I don't see any penalty which could apply to anyone else but the actual foreigner.

And I'm sure that the Harper bunch will rustle up some dirt lest anyone dares formally challenge them on this. If you define C. function as "pollster", then you quite certainly won't have trouble finding equivalents elsewhere.

Anonymous said...

Re. participation/intervention/mere observation by foreigners:

Why did the Harper government tell diplomats to butt out of the election?