I must say I greatly enjoyed the sight today of an angry Michael Ignatieff.
Ignatieff mocked the latest round of Conservative ads, including a spot featuring Harper working late in his office.
The ads, Ignatieff said, offer a contrast between "leadership that listens and leadership that wants to impose an ideology Canadians just aren't comfortable with."
Because it's about time. Progressives in this country are angry, over the way the Cons are stealing our country.
The new conservative way is seen in the manner in which politics is now played in Canada. The permanent campaign mode, the politics of aggression and intimidation employed by Mr. Harper, a Prime Minister who doesn’t know what the high road looks like, has been a staple of the hard right of the Republican Party. We had seen elements of this in Canada, but not to the degree employed by today’s Conservatives. So far, the PM has gotten away with his anti-democratic impulses, the emphasis being on “so far.”
Angry at the way they are perverting our values, and corrupting our youth.
Angry at the way they are turning so many Canadians into greedy beasts, who can be bribed by a $100 cheque every month, into killing a national daycare program.
In cancelling the child-care program upon taking office and replacing it with a $100-a-month payment to parents of young children, Harper was throwing a tasty bone to conservatives who believe a woman’s place is in the home.
Angry at the way our progressive leaders can't seem to reflect that anger, and keep rolling over.
The real story of the past five years isn’t Harper’s success — his poll numbers have hovered below 40 per cent — but the timidity of the opposition in mounting a spirited case for progressive policies that would have sparked wide public support, particularly after the 2008 financial crash exposed the fallacies of neo-conservative tax-cutting and deregulation.
Harper should be getting pummeled for his pro-corporate, anti-people agenda. Instead, he’s strutting about arrogantly accusing his opponents of being disrespectful, even as he heads a government that is the most disrespectful —to the vast majority of Canadians — in our history.
Or fighting each other, while our country BURNS.
Oh boy. It can't be said enough. The next election will be the most important election in Canadian history.
Well it sure has been a scary week. Who needs Halloween when we got Rob Ford?
Because now reality is setting in. And all over the Greater Toronto Area you can hear them screaming: Oh. My. Fordzilla. What have we done !!!! AAAAAAAAAH !!!!
Although I see the Toronto Sun managed to find somebody to put a positive spin on those low expectations.
Dismissed by opponents as unpolished at best, short on policy and often wrong on the numbers, Ford now enters office without the burden of high expectations, veteran fundraiser and campaign organizer John Capobianco said.
“(People think) he’s a buffoon, he doesn’t know his stuff, he can’t get anything through council,” the source said. “Expectations are low. We’re in a good spot.”
Great eh? Does that mean if the Fordzilla stays sober for three days, he'll EXCEED my expectations?
But it isn't all bad news.You know those downtown latte-sipping elites that the right-wing media has been turning into The Enemy, just like Stephen Harper does?
To chalk up widespread disapproval of the message he and his supporters sent – that streetcar tracks should be torn up, that downtown voters are objects of ridicule, that a Toronto mayor should endorse the view that gay marriage erodes democracy, that the inability or unwillingness to explain one’s beliefs to voters doesn’t matter – as nothing more than condescending elitism is to almost completely fail to grasp not just “urban sophisticates” but an entire cohort of Canadians...
Most of the country’s supposedly clueless urban elites are not disconnected from the “real” world. They are from it...For one reason or another, they choose a different life.
There are any number of reasons. Some are attracted to urban living, where everything is within range of transit or bicycle. Some want careers that can only be pursued in cities. Some are gay and have bad experiences. Some realize their world views don’t quite mesh with those of all the Rob Fords they know.
Which is sort of how I feel eh?
I choose to live downtown, not because I'm an elitist.
But because it's the only place I can feel free to be MYSELF...
And sadly even some progressives seemed to have succumbed to post-election guilt.
“We urban-dwellers need to get our asses out of the downtown core from time to time and listen to what people are saying in the suburbs.”
But not me eh? The only thing I regret is that we lost. Because the fact is the election of Rob Ford is a disaster for this city. And the guy is a reactionary jackass.
Rob Ford: You know, I'm the only one that can go down there [Inaudible, then, yelling:] Just go get changed! Go! Out! And get changed! Don't worry about the water right now. [Pause.] Sorry.
Carol Off: Well you know that your campaign has been compared to Mike Harris's Common Sense Revolution, to the Tea Party movement, do you see those comparisons?
Rob Ford: I don't see [inaudible] comparisons [inaudible] what, I don't care [laughs]. I just, I just know, know the taxpayers, uh, want, uh, you know, the gravy train to come to an end, and that, uh, Rob Ford's the guy to do it, and uh [inaudible]—
That's a Mayor of Toronto? Gimme a break.
A man whose victory was fueled by racism and homophobia. A swaggering bully who has put down people with AIDS. A callous freak who says if cyclists are killed by cars it's THEIR fault. A grotesque windbag who is always apologizing for being drunk.
A man who has attacked the homeless.
Who in case the right-wing media don't know, also live downtown. And DON'T drink lattes.
Nah. I've got a better idea. Instead of deluding ourselves into thinking it could be a good thing. Or apologizing to suburbanites who want to work and play downtown, but don't want to pay for it. I say we RESIST.
I say we ask progressive Councillors to block every bad thing Ford plans to do. Let's make Mayor Idiot look like Mayor GRIDLOCK. Until he surrenders.... or explodes with frustration. And looks like even more of a jackass.
I say we join city workers in the streets during the strikes and protests that are sure to come. I say we stage mass bike rallies and let Ford know exactly what we think of him, by bringing lots of these.
It just seems so appropriate eh?
And above all I say we try to get progressive residents of the downtown and the suburbs to unite and form one mighty coalition to drive Ford and his Con rabble from power.
