Friday, December 15, 2017

Stephen Harper, Pierre Poilievre, and the Great Terrorist Scam



It's easy to forget the past, in the age of Trump, when the truth is so easily buried under a daily avalanche of excrement and insanity.

But two years ago, at this same dark time of the year, a desperate Stephen Harper was about to launch his Great War on Terror.

It had just been a few months since a gunman had stormed Parliament Hill, Harper thought he could use the fear card to scare Canadians into giving him another Glorious Majority.



And he wasn't about to let facts get in the way, or take no for an answer.

So when Justin Trudeau suggested we should examine the root causes of terrorism, Harper ridiculed him and accused Trudeau of "committing sociology." 

While his yapping minion Pierre Poilievre continued to proudly proclaim that the root cause of terrorism is TERRORISTS!!!!



And as hilarious as that might seem now, at the time it seemed to me like something Big Brother might say, or in Poilievre's case, Little Brother.

And it only reinforced my belief that if him and his filthy Cons were re-elected, we'd end up living in a police state.

So I'm glad to see that not only were Harper and Polivievre booted out of power, but have also been exposed as frauds or Con artists. 

Now that a study commissioned by the Harper Regime itself, has revealed that root causes are important in the fight against terrorism.

And they KNEW it. 



Despite rhetoric refusing to understand the “so-called root causes of radicalization,” internal documents show Stephen Harper’s senior bureaucrats actually believed mental health issues are “often” one of its underlying causes.

Canadians will find nary a peep about social policy or anything relating to mental health issues in the Harper government’s 2012 counter-terrorism strategy or either their 2013 and 2014 reports on “the terrorist threat to Canada.” 


Yet the secret documents list several “examples of intervention programming around the world” that do exactly that, including programs in the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden and Australia.


But still Harper would put his brutish ideology before the security of Canadians.

From the safety of his bunker...



Or whatever.

And what's even more scandalous about all of this, is that the Cons are doing it again. 

Trying to scare Canadians for crass political purposes.



Demanding that anyone suspected of having fought for ISIS not be allowed back, even though in this country we have a right of return.

Demanding that all suspects be put on trial even if there is no evidence to convict them. Which in most cases there isn't.

Rejecting de-radicalization even though it has been shown to work.

International and regional conflicts will continue to shape and mould the nature of terrorist threats to Canada. But in order to address the issue of violent extremist groups, counter-terrorism ought not to revolve solely around military action. There must also be a comprehensive approach that incorporates education, policing, community, health, culture and democracy. 

Academic research suggests that terrorism could be significantly diminished via several approaches: Crime prevention, community engagement and public health policies.

And only proving Justin Trudeau right again...



Despite the sensitivity of the issue, especially when the safety and security of Canadian citizens are at stake, Trudeau’s approach could therefore be deemed the most effective and efficient. 

The Conservative approach, meantime, not only indicates a “once a terrorist, always a terrorist” mindset, it also capitalizes on fear and stigmatization of Muslims, and does little to resolve the issue of homegrown radicals.

While crushing Andrew Scheer under the weight of his own baloney...



Or the weight of Harper's bovine excrement...



Those were weird and scary times, and we really dodged a bullet.

Who knows what might have happened if the Cons had won the last election?

What dark nightmare world might we be living in now?

And thank goodness for Justin Trudeau... 



25 comments:

Anonymous said...

The cons are foul liars but at what point do we hold the people who believe this garbage to account and call them what they are, idiots who would love to live in an authoritarian fascist regime like Russia.

Anonymous said...

Grrr the Con stooge Jason Kenney just overwhelmingly won a seat in Alberta.

Steve said...

Who is the real terrorist, ISIS or the CIA? Yet another mistake, like letting the core of ISIS leave Raqqua with weapons.

Unknown said...

By the "Cons", I have to think that you're talking about the group of people I call "PoliCons", political Conservatives. In the US, all PoliCons are Republicans. As I've explained many times over the past few years to my fellow Americans, PoliConism and Authoritarian-types of governments like Fascist regimes have ALWAYS been linked....I didn't write that for shock value....I wrote it because it's the truth. Fascism is a political construct (and a pretty bad one, at that) that favors a few and screws over everyone else. PoliCons hate to be called Authoritarians/Fascists, but, until they stop ACTING like Fascists and adhering to Fascist principles, I and others are going to keep correctly pointing out that they're Fascists.
Canadians were smart in electing Trudeau as Prime Minister; in this country, thanks to an antiquated Electoral College system, only 18% of the total population and 28% of the country's voters put in the jackass in the White House as President. One of the philosophies of PoliConism is the PoliCons ruling as a minority. But, in order for that to happen, many people have to be fooled into thinking that, when they vote for PoliCons, they're not supporting a Fascist/Authoritarian regime. That's where the defining characteristic of Fascism known as "control of the mass media" comes in. In the US, PoliCons own the 50 large media corporations that, in turn, own 98% of the media. Instead of the truth and facts, we get Fascist bullshit and propaganda from those guys, including the false equivalency narrative, the bogus notion that the two top political parties are "the same".
Kudos to our neighbors up north for realizing that the PoliCons are evil people who truly give no fucks about anyone but themselves. With what happened in this country in Virginia, New Jersey and, a few days ago, Alabama, it appears we're starting to catch up to you.

Jackie Blue said...

It not only stigmatizes Muslims, but stigmatizes people with mental health disorders to paint a broad brush of everyone as violent, ticking time bombs in the making. Compassionate intervention and counter-messaging is key, which Trudeau understands and admits while fear-mongers like Harper and Trump obviously do not (and refuse to -- never let a crisis go to waste). As I mentioned here previously, Simon, there is a progressive psychologist who is courting controversy for her initiative to include something called Religious Trauma Syndrome in the next edition of the DSM.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/12/religious-trauma-syndrome-how-some-organized-religion-leads-to-mental-health-problems-2/

The important thing to understand, though, is that counter-terrorism programs shouldn't just be limited to ISIS or other scary-sounding "foreign" boogeymen, or even "religion" per se. Canada, the U.S., and Europe face the threat of far-right nationalist movements ostensibly masquerading as "Christian"-oriented, and which have gotten hold of mainstream political parties and won seats in legislatures (not to mention carrying their frothing-mad rage all the way to the White House). These countries need to take off their blinders about the homegrown threat and stop treating their own with a double standard. ISIS is a crisis, but we also need to #BanTheKlan and #MuteLaMeute.

Japan dealt with Aum Shinrikyo after the 1995 sarin attacks on the Tokyo subway. Pierre Trudeau famously stared down the F.L.Q. in 1970, and Justin Trudeau in turn must include La Meute of Québec, the Three Percent of Alberta, and their ideological cohorts (many of which are written about in great detail on the Anti-Racist Canada blog) in any counter-terrorism intervention program operated by the Canadian government. But 1970 was a long time ago, when even cable television didn't exist, let alone the Internet. The program for the 21st century must also include preventive measures for self-radicalized "fans" or lone-wolves-in-the-making who get their marching orders and poison mindsets from Facebook groups, Reddit subforums, and YouTube channels. Everyone -- including especially the Internet platforms where these groups' hate propaganda continues to thrive, under the guise of "free speech" or "data packets" -- needs to acknowledge and address the threat of the decentralized "alt-right," which arguably poses a greater peril to the health and security of nations because it is a fifth column operating from within.

That would, of course, mean treating Ezra Levant as the hate preacher and heir apparent to Ernst Zündel that he is, Rebel Media no differently than Stormfront or ISIS training videos -- and Andrew Scheer as the de facto leader of the political wing of Maple ISIS, with Hamish Marshall as his "Baghdad Bob" or Junior Goebbels. The ayatollah with a smile. But even the Deplorebel Party pales in comparison to the bigliest and most dangerous terrorist leader in the entire world, who is not Abu Baghdadi or some random 24th cousin of Osama bin Laden roaming somewhere out in a remote goat-herding village of Afghanistan. His name, of course, is Donald J. Trump. Many, many people on all sides of a very, very yuge border, believe me...

Anonymous said...

Pierre's deep thinking was on full display with that bonehead remark which he probably worked on for hours. I also remember the many jokes that went around and added to his foolishness. "The root causes of root causes is root causes", "the root causes of cookies is cooks", "The root causes of methane are Pierre's brain farts".
And leave it to our ex tin pot dictator Harper to hide the truth that JT was right after all. Another reason why the worst PM in the history of the world was kicked to the curb and is probably still licking his wounds as Ray tries to console him. "There there Steve, your Ray of light will make it better,"
Thanks for the reminder Simon. It will make the holidays that much more special knowing these Con clowns aren't destroying our country any more than they did during Canada's darkest days, the Harper years.
JD

e.a.f. said...

The last time I checked here in B.C. we were being killed by distracted and drunk drivers, not "terrorists". of course there is still the fentenayl crisis, which kills over a thousand a year here in B.C. So am I worried about "terrorists", not so much.

There is a scathing report regarding the case of the two people arrested by the RCMP in a "sting" for "terrorism" in Victoria. The people had mental and drug issues. The RCMP created the situation, they didn't respond to it. The used millions of dollars and a lot of officers to create this "problem", complements of Poulson for the Harper regime.

In the U.S.A. we have Trump and his ilk going on about terrorists, but the mass killings we really see on a regular basis are killings by white men who were born and raised in the U.S.A. or have they forgotten about Timothy McVey, the shooter in Vegas, the shooter in Texas, etc. Terrorists aren't the big threat in North America, its citizens who drink and drive and drive while distracted.

Steve said...

The absolute horror of what is happening south of the border should be upermost in our minds. The Democrats have been Orwellian positioning Trump as a Russian agent of change. This is total nonsense. There is not a single credible bit of evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians or that the Russians acting alone worked to get him elected.

Is Trump a insert the worst adjective ever and it would describe the tremendous windbag. However what he has done is expose the deep state in
a way the brains of Kennedy rolling along the trunk in the wrong direction
for a Oswald shot never did.

The Deep State has recovered, they have offered him eternal life or permission to sleep with his daughter or both, but we should all realize
the Russian Collusion Epic was a novel in which everyone was played.

Anonymous said...

The Con media have made a hero out of Poilievre for the violent and vulgar way he has attacked Justin Trudeau and Bill Morneau, even though Poilievre was one of the most disgusting members of the Harper regime. He tried to suppress the vote, he used national security to try to muzzle the opposition, so giving the man a bully pulpit is absolutely disgraceful.

Jackie Blue said...

They're worse than liars and idiots. Rebel Media and the like are themselves white-supremacist terrorism recruitment outlets. The mosque shooter in Québec practically binge-watched the whole channel before doing Canada's version of the Charleston AME attack. Sandy Hook 5th anniversary was yesterday. Alex Jones' insane audience has gone on record of harassing grieving mothers as "tools of the deep state" who are part of some Obama/Soros NWO Illuminati plot to take yer jerbz and gunz. All because their trucker-speed prophet said that the mass shooting death of 25 kindergarten children was a "false flag." They absolutely need to be held accountable, if not in a court of law then in the court of public opinion. Google needs to stop playing neutral referee and purge this garbage from their servers. It's a blatant double standard to label ISIS videos as terrorism while giving a free pass to Levant, Jones, Molyneux, the rape-advocate Cernovich and the rest of the two-minute-hate alt-right Pizzagate cult.

This goes beyond mere "civil debate." This is radicalization for domestic terrorism, masquerading as sensationalist "infotainment." Even Vince McMahon had to call off the rah-rah anti-Canadian jingoism during the first days of the Iraq War, when venues in Canada threatened a boycott and his own Canadian wrestlers threatened to quit if he didn't knock it off. All because WWE's rabid fans who can't tell fantasy from reality started harassing and threatening Canadian wrestlers and Canadian fans, and then showing up at hockey games to boo "O Canada," chant "Canada sucks! USA! USA! USA!" and hurl objects at the Canadian team's players. The Harperreich/Levantine cons and their clones below the 49th can't get away with calling it kayfabe forever. It's all fun and games until someone loses their life.

Steve said...

I would never shove someone off the subway platfrom. If it was Pierre there my mouth woudld be bloody from biting my tongue. How How the fuck do itiots like him keep getting elected. Is everyone in his riding
a stepford wife or wha?>

Steve said...

Islam is a stupid religion like Scientolgy and people who need swords and weapons of death in their religion are likely not the people we need to rule.

The fact is all religions are false. Accept the fact that if there
is a God he does not recognize you, your planet, your solar system and not even you galaxy.

So we should teach the children well. We are all just passengers on a great airplane we call earth. We can never land, and there is no
God team thats going to come if we destroy our place.

I am not a belieber in GIA the great planet like Avatar. However if you know anything about HVAC the earth is a prepetural motion machine.

Jackie Blue said...

Hi Andrew, as a fellow American admirer of Canada stuck on the wrong side of the orange curtain myself, I want to thank you for your comment. On the subject of the authoritarian personality among "PolitiCons," you might be interested in an e-book that's actually called The Authoritarians, written by a psychology professor at U of Manitoba named Bob Altemeyer. The original was published in 2006 amid the worst of the Bush era. A series of appendices and addenda have since appeared: one for the Obama/McCain election in 2008 and the rabidity of religious evangelicals who dialed up the racial hysteria to insanity levels after Obama won; the next, about the Tea Party phenomenon of the 2010 midterms and what was largely seen as a backlash against Obama; and a third, published in July of 2016 and visible from the home page, cautioning against the election of then-candidate Trump as president and sending the USA -- and the world -- into a tail spin cyclone, circling the drain like a toilet flushed into the murky abyss.

It remains to be seen whether Professor Altemeyer will publish an additional appendix covering the Trump era and its aftermath. But he seems to have captured the essence of what you also correctly identify as this authoritarian personality, and the scary embrace of fascism whether its supporters realize it or not.

The Authoritarians can be found in full as both PDF and a series of blog articles on Professor Altemeyer's website, at TheAuthoritarians.org. A free public service and an essential bit of reading that ought to be talked about and recognized more and more, believe me.

Simon said...

hi anon 8:05...I think that since Trump's rise to power the Cons in this country have come under his spell, and will never again truly be a Canadian party. Which is why I also believe we must fight them harder than ever, and by whatever means necessary. For we are no longer fighting just for the right to govern this country, we're fighting for the country itself...

Simon said...

hi Steve...I don't believe that conspiracy theory, I think the only reason ISIS got American weapons is because at the start of their big offensive they seized an enormous amount of military material from the Iraqi army which had been supplied by the Americans...

Simon said...

Hi Andrew...well I agree with you completely. When I was a teenager I was always predicting that fascism would come to America, but nobody believed me and I began to doubt myself. Now like you I feel vindicated for I haven't the slightest doubt that what we are witnessing in your country are attempts to set up a fascist regime. When I heard Trump yesterday talking about how he was going to "rebuild" the FBI, and no doubt try to turn it into his own private police force, that became only too obvious. And all I can say is we're going to have to get a two-way underground railroad up and running again...

Simon said...

hi Jackie...I agree, we have gone far beyond civil debate, and the Rebel Media like Breitbart are simply inflaming the crazy and setting the stage for a massive outbreak of domestic terrorism. I find the police in this country treat some dangerous right-wing groups far too gently and that's going to have to change. The extreme right must be taken down in the same manner that ISIS has been tamed, for both are terrorists, and both can lead us to disaster...

Simon said...

hi anon...well that's not much of a surprise, Alberta is Alberta, and Kenney didn't have much competition. Hopefully now that he's in the legislature he can be attacked like he deserves to be attacked, and all the baggage he brings with him can be laid out for all to see...

Simon said...

hi Jackie...I too am concerned by La Meute. I don't know much about them, and if I was back in Quebec I'd check them out myself. But from what I've seen on TV they look like the kind of people who could very easily become domestic terrorists. Their black jackets, and that wolf's paw on their backs, is the uniform of fascists. And I only hope the police are keeping a very close watch on them. And of course you're, the man who has breathed life into all these disgusting groups is Trump himself.
Bring him and his core group of deplorables down, and all the other groups will disappear like a rising fog. The left has been too soft in the past, and we need to be able to meet fire with fire....

Simon said...

hi Steve...please don't single out individual religions for criticism. I'm an atheist who believes that all religions are tainted to some degree or another. But there are decent people in all religions, and I should point out that Christians have killed way more people than Muslims so they're in no position to lord it over anyone....

Simon said...

hi JD...I also remember the many jokes Poilievre's asinine remarks provoked. But I also remember thinking that it was one of the most fascist remarks I had ever heard in Canada. And isn't it typical that they knew they were wrong, but kept lying about it anyway? Those Cons have no morals, and no decency. They think they can lie about everything, and get away with it, but they are wrong. The only reason they got away with it for so long is because we had never seen anything like it before. Like a body needs to study a virus to know how to fight it, we too shall learn from our encounters with those fascist degenerates. And when we're ready, we're going to teach them a lesson they will never forget...

Simon said...

hi e.a.f...we are going to have to live with terrorist threat for a long time. Especially since not enough resources are been put into things like mental health services, and de-radicalization centres. And yes, sadly I know all too well what drinking and driving can do and I only wish people, especially kids, could spend some time in an ER on a busy weekend, for I guarantee you they would never drive the same way again...

Simon said...

hi Steve...if you don't mind I think I'll wait to see what Robert Mueller comes up with before jumping to any conclusions. I don't think the Russians determined the election result, but they did try to influence the outcome, and that's bad enough. And then there's the financial corruption. For when you get the Trump mob working with the Russian mob goodness knows what high crimes might ensue...

Simon said...

hi anon 3:43 pm...yes, that's one of the things that annoys me the most. The way many in the MSM have been praising Poilievre for his bullying of Morneau. As if Poilievre had the moral authority to criticize anybody. As I said in my post thank goodness the Liberals nipped that little demagogue in the bud, or he would be strutting around making our lives miserable...

Simon said...

hi Steve... I wouldn't contemplate violence even if I came face to face with him on the street. But I might say a few things, politely of course, to let him know exactly how I feel about him...