This Is the Speech That Should Trouble You

So Harper’s speechwriter plagiarized some passages from a John Howard rant five years ago, so what? Harper didn’t create his far-right ideology, he merely embraced it and he’s been a talking head for his cause ever since. Big deal.

There is one Harper speech that bothers me, one from the days before he shaped his words for political advantage; a speech that conveys the true Stephen Harper and how he sees our country and our people.

This speech goes back to a time when Harper was, as veep of the National Citizens Coalition, free to speak his mind and free to denounce Canada and gleefully malign Canadians before a meeting of the ultra-secretive, ultra-right Republican elitist group, the Council for National Policy. This reveals the true Harp of Darkness:

“…it’s legendary that if you’re like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.”

“Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

“Some people point out that there is a small element of clergy in the NDP. Yes, this is true. but these are clergy who, while very committed to the church, believe that it made a historic error in adopting Christian theology.”

“…before the Reform Party really became a force in the late ’80s, early ’90s, the leadership of the Conservative Party was running the largest deficits in Canadian history. They were in favour of gay rights officially, officially for abortion on demand. Officially – what else can I say about them? Officially for the entrenchment of our universal, collectivized, health-care system and multicultural policies in the constitution of the country.”

Harper’s soul ingrained worship for all things Republican may seem comical today. Castigating Canadians for their social values and tying them to near-biblical plagues of low growth, diminished standards of living and high unemployment.

Steve would have liked Canada to have the same sort of political, social and economic model that’s been let loose upon America these past three decades, the rightwing horde who’ve driven their country, its economy and its people straight into the ditch where it remains so mired today.

And this sphincter has the gall to mock us and our institutions and our values? That speech showed the real face of Stephen Harper. That speech is the one we all ought to be angry about.

 

A Gaffe Big Enough To Drive a Truck Through

Canadian prime minister Stephen “McSame” Harper says fear not, the Canadian economy is “strong.”

“Today, we see more volatility in the financial markets due to the crisis in the United States. Remember, Canada is not the United States. The fundamentals of the Canadian economy are sound.”

Harper is right, in part. We’re not the United States, not that he can claim a lot of credit for that. Harper’s outspoken support for deep integration with the United States is on record and it speaks for itself.

Here’s one fundamental of the Canadian economy that’s anything but sound – our unhealthy reliance on trade with the United States. In trade, we’ve been putting almost all of our eggs in one basket, the one with all the stars and stripes painted on it.

It’s the United States of America that creates our terrific balance of trade surpluses. It’s the United States that generates our balance of payment surpluses.

The rest of the world, those countries that Harper has so often shown a cold shoulder? You don’t find Canada enjoying a lot of balance of trade surpluses with them. In fact we’re running a serious balance of trade deficit beyond the U.S.

So Harp needs a sharp one up alongside his goofy head. Our hull may not be leaking but when you’re the rowboat tied fast to the Titanic, you’ve got a problem, one that you need to acknowledge and address and resolve.

The guy at the wheel of the Tory clown car doesn’t want to talk about this. Harper is afraid that simply talking about what’s in store for us could upset his plans when he’s so close to an election win. Shouldn’t we be afraid of a guy who acts like this?

So, Mister Dion, it’s time to act like the leader of the Liberal Party. The Globe reports that a group of Toronto Libs are urging Dion to appoint a panel of prominent Liberals to, “…to study the situation and suggest ways Canadians can keep their life savings and deal with the Wall Street crisis.”
They’re touting names like Paul Martin, Frank McKenna, John Manley and Don Johnston – men whose financial talents are unheard of in the Tory ranks.

“We believe this task force idea would help Dion recover at the 11th hour, because at the very least, it would remind Canadians of the stellar Chrétien/Martin record on the economy,” one of the Toronto Liberals said. “Desperate times call for desperate measures, perhaps. This is not a desperate measure but a smart one.”

Harper has taken his stand. The economy is sound, nothing to see here, move on. It’s a position that defies reality and would leave Canadians at severe risk to an American meltdown. Harper hasn’t given Mr. Dion many opportunities as good as this and Mr. Dion can’t afford to pass on this one.

 

Harper’s Petro-Whopper

Yeah, right. Is this like fixed election dates, or accountability, or transparency in government?

Our Furious Leader has – get this – said that, “…if elected in October, the Conservatives will prohibit oil sands companies from shipping bitumen from Canada’s oil sands to countries that do not have equivalent emission reduction targets.” (National Spot).

So, let’s see. I guess that rules out China. Australia is definitely out. Remind me how much of Alberta’s bitumen they’re getting anyway.

Oh yeah, but what about the States? Well, you see, that’s where the hoax part comes in. What did he really say? If they have “equivalent emission reduction targets” they can have all the tar sludge they want. Nobody ever said anything about actual equivalent emission reductions. You just have to announce a “target” that sounds nice.

And, if you don’t announce a nice-sounding target, why we’ll always be happy to refine the damned stuff here. Harp will make damned sure that Canada’s targets leave lots of room for bitumen upgrading plants galore.

One thing we know about Harpo is that he doesn’t let things like his word stand in his way when he wants something and he wants the mantle of Energy Superpower so bad he’d say anything. So, given his impressive record of lying his ass off, this assurance is bound to be as empty as Harper’s integrity.

Hey Steve, wasn’t the election supposed to be next year?

 

Saboteurs, They’re Everywhere

Now, let me get this right. Steve wants Canadians to give him a majority so that the opposition parties don’t sabotage his government’s ability to deal with the coming economic crisis.

Sabotage? This, of course, coming from the guy who ensured that every member of his caucus had a manual on how to subvert parliament, especially parliamentary committees. A manual. A how-to-sabotage-government handbook. And this arrogant clown, without offering the slightest evidence, claims the opposition parties would do what only his party has done to date. What a sphincter!

So, no evidence of sabotage plans beyond Steve’s word and he’s shown us all we need to know about what his word is worth. He’s not quite John McCain yet but he could get there.

But, better yet, why doesn’t Steve tell us what his government plans to do about this looming economic crisis? He’s had the reins of power these past two years, he’s got all the experts working for him. He ought to be coming to the voters with a concrete plan. So where is it?

Nowhere to be seen, that’s where it is. If a plan exists, he’s not going to share it with the electorate. But, if he wins, he’ll puff himself up and claim he’s got a mandate to effect measures he wouldn’t disclose to the voters during the campaign.

A sphincter, the guy’s a sphincter.

 

How Long Can a Country Run On Stupid?

I read an article recently speculating that the American people were in the grip of some sort of mass insanity – actual lunacy. You have to wonder.

What lies behind madness like the Dot.Com bubble or the subprime mortgage fiasco or the Iraq war?

Now greed has played a significant role in America’s succession of bubbles but even the greedy don’t have to be stupid. Imagine a startup company with a dozen employees that had never turned a dime in profit selling for millions upon millions of dollars. Imagine investing your life savings in that sort of “new economy” industry. You would have to be stupid.

The Enron/WorldCom fiasco was somewhat different. That was fraud effected through dodgy accounting.

The Housing Bubble, however, that in turn spawned the subprime mortgage disaster and the derivative meltdown was perhaps the most powerful example of greed blended with stupidity – at all levels of American society.

Homeowners actually believed the value of their properties would soar indefinitely, transforming the family home into a real life goose that laid the golden egg. Want a holiday? Refinance. New trucks and a fancy car? Refinance. Money was all but free anyway and, in the US, mortgage interest is tax deductible.

Free money, free money, free money. Who thinks that way? A lot of people, apparently. Now, of course, greed played a big role in it but there had to be a huge amount of stupidity fueling it too.

The banks rolled the same dice only they played in derivatives – asset backed commercial paper – bundled chunks of a mess of mortgages. So mixed up, in fact, that they weren’t sure just who owned what. When that paper began to turn bad they couldn’t even tell who was in how much trouble. Stupid, stupid and stupid.

And then there was the government, the people paid to govern the country, to keep its people safe and protect their prosperity. What did they do? Nothing. They were afraid to upset the apple cart. They were riding high on a country whose people had the appearance of comfort and prosperity from an economy dominated by people selling their homes to each other.

You know, when you’re the ground crew of a hot air balloon and the balloon gets swept away in a gust you don’t want to be the last guy holding on to the ropes and, if you are, you want to make sure you too let go before it takes you too far off the ground. In America, everyone was hanging onto the rope, leaving the ground (reality) further and further behind. Go on the internet and you can find videos of what eventually happens to people that stupid.

But it’s not just in the stock market and housing market that Americans have been running flat out on stupid. Cheap foreign money has allowed Americans to literally wallow in debt. From the federal government down to the lowly taxpayer they’ve been steadily stumbling deeper and deeper into debt.

Imagine running deficits and then deciding you can wage an enormously expensive foreign war on borrowed money and create massive tax cuts for the rich. The clue is war on borrowed money. If you have to borrow money to kill people on the other side of the planet that means you’ll also have to borrow money to cover the revenues lost by those tax cuts. How astonishingly stupid is that?

Then, as the US Comptroller General pointed out in a speech last year, there’s the federal government’s unfunded liabilities, IOUs if you like, that add $440,000 in debt to the average American household. By now that could be half a million. How do they get away with it? Simple, they haven’t sent the bills out yet. Out of sight, out of mind.

Would you get into a car with a driver who was so drunk he couldn’t stand up? If you would, find something else to read. If you wouldn’t, though, apply all of this stupidity to the issue of continental integration – the deal that Harper is pursuing very quietly with the Americans.

Would you want to buy your way into a junior partnership where the majority partner is on the verge of bankruptcy or beset by an uncontrollable gambling addiction or is just plain stupid? No, there are better deals to be had and now’s a good time to start casting about.

We’ve become much too economically dependent on the United States and that’s a real vulnerability. We need to look elsewhere, to revitalize our trading relationships with Europe, Asia and South America. We can’t save our American cousins from themselves but we can sure get dragged down with them if we’re not diligent about protecting our own interests.

Now, if you ever needed a reason not to vote for Steve Harper, there it is. You see, he’s hoping to get us running on stupid too.

 

Lyin’ His Ass Off Steve

Why does Steve Harper lie so damned much?

Steve knows that lying is the new political currency. It pays off big time with his committed supporters, who take pretty much everything he says as gospel, and with those just too dumb or lazy to see through him. Harper, as a student of his American Idols, Bush & Cheney, knows that lies work, if you tell them enough and get them in the media.

Politicians who rely on lies rather than sound policies and the persuasion of leadership are essentially undemocratic. They seek to win by manipulating voters, reaching through to their fears and prejudices and greed. That pretty much describes the schoolyard bully types like our own Steve Harper.

Now I don’t expect Steve to come out admitting he’s an absolute control freak with a blistering bad temper but his TV spots depicting him as just a humble, placid, regular guy are stomach churning. It’s not as though he even wants to be that sort of man, anything but. Talk about putting lipstick on a pig!

The uber-right have embraced this idea that it’s okay to pull the wool over the voters’ eyes at every turn, in every way. Is it really that much different if you get a vote by lying than if you just straight out buy it? Surely one currency is the same as the other.

 

Harper "Authoritarian"? Who Knew?

Furious Steve says that whether he’s an authoritarian thug is completely irrelevant to his defamation suit against the Libs. From the Toronto Star:

Harper’s lawyers will argue in Ontario Superior Court on Friday that the opinion of political scientist Peter Russell is irrelevant to the prime minister’s $3.5-million defamation suit against the Liberals.

Russell, a professor at the University of Toronto, argued the give and take of the Commons, and related arenas, is part of the cut and thrust of free political debate.

“This use of legal action to silence the opposition is characteristic of authoritarian governments,” he said.

A spokesperson for the Conservative party has already dismissed Russell’s affidavit as simply an opinion from an academic.

Relevant or not, I think any Canadian court can take judicial notice of the fact that our Furious Leader is decidedly authoritarian.

 

Canada’s Troubles in Afghanistan Start at the Top

Here are a few home truths to keep in the back of your mind while weighing our progress in this maniacal war without end on terror:

1. An otherwise winnable war can be lost by bad military leadership.

2. An otherwise winnable war can be lost by bad political leadership.

3. Wars are rarely lost at the 11th hour. The groundwork for failure is often laid early in the game.

4. Wars are usually lost long before the losing side realizes it has failed. The outcome of a war may be conclusively decided long before the losing side has sustained enough damage to acknowledge the fact.

5. Superior technology and firepower are a poor substitute for competent political and military leadership.

6. Time is a precious and limited commodity in warfare. Fatigue sets in quickly and can be fatal.

7. Rarely are wars fought for the reasons fed to the public.

Pretty much each of these truths comes to bear on the way in which we perceive the war in Afghanistan. Our military leadership has been haphazard – at best. Read General Petraeus’ counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24. This eye opener essentially digests the experiences and lessons of asymmetrical warfare since the days of the Romans. The players change, their weapons change, but the core principles survive. Then, having read that enlightening work, apply its recommendations to what we’ve been doing in Afghanistan. Sorry, I can ‘t do that for you, there’s far too much material involved. Just, please, don’t tell me we have the slightest hope of “winning” in Afghanistan until you’ve at least read the manual (which is, by the way, available, at no charge, in PDF format on the internet).

You don’t need to take some measly 4-star American combat general’s word for it. Read Caesar, read T.E. Lawrence or so many others. You’ll find it all there. But – don’t argue Afghanistan with me until you’re able to discuss the salient aspects of guerrilla warfare.

By Petraeus’ own writings, we’re making every mistake in the book (including FM 3-24) in Afghanistan. I so wish the ghost of Colonel Lawrence had been around to whisper a bit of this reality to General Hillier before he cajoled his way through Paul Martin’s office and on into Kandahar. Which leads me to bad political leadership.

I fully accept that Paul Martin fell for a song and dance act on Afghanistan. If, as Martin aides claim, he only approved it on Hillier’s assurance that the forces could take it on and take on another major mission at the same time, what was Hillier doing giving this assurance? Either Hillier was smart enough to know that wasn’t true – or he wasn’t smart enough to know whether it was true. No matter which end you approach this from, it was lousy military leadership.

Then, as the enemy grew in strength and the mission took on burdens far beyond the worst-case scenario given Martin – Hillier did nothing to see that the Canadian force was appropriately reinforced.

Look at it this way. Hillier got the PM to sign on – and openly told Canadian TV cameras – that the 2.500-strong force was sufficient because we were going into that large province but only to kill “a few dozen …scumbags.” Given the history of Afghanistan, all its troubles and associated circumstances and perils, how could anyone say that? You don’t take on missions – voluntarily, even beggingly – unless you’re absolutely certain that the force you take will be able to cope with a worst-case situation. And then, when that worst-case situation emerges and catches you shorthanded, you do nothing to increase your numbers to the size of the force you ought to have taken in there when you first outlined the mission?

Imagine a Canadian general going to the prime minister of the day and coming out with approval for a war that will utterly exhaust our armed forces and leave them much less able to deal with any other threat anywhere, including Canada itself, that may emerge – and for years, possibly generations. Imagine that. Yet, somehow, that’s precisely what’s staring us in the face right now. If Hillier didn’t warn Paul Martin off this godawful predicament, he ought to come out and explain why not? The Canadian people need an answer from The Big Cod on that one.

Sorry, ladies and gents, but winding up where we are right now , given all the clues and indicators, was foreseeable as at least “possible” if not straight out “probable.” Why did this seem to come as such an unimagineable surprise by our military leaders?

Our political leadership failed – and continues to fail us. I don’t believe you need to have much expertise in military history to see this coming down the line. Somehow Paul Martin accepted some pretty baseless assurances when he and his organization ought to have known better. But if benign gullibility is Martin’s crime, his successor’s has been far more culpable. Harper wants to be one of the boys, to stand shoulder to shoulder with the leaders of the other English-speaking democracies, the good old white boys.

Harper’s leadership on Afghanistan is entirely politically-driven. That’s bad news for the troops because it means their mission is compromised by a political agenda. The best trained, best equipped and most capable and motivated troops cannot overcome weak political and military leadership.

The Afghanistan war, or at least our chapter of it, began in 2001. Now we’re in the bottom half of 2008. In the course of those seven years a lot has changed, not much of it for the good.

Afghanistan remains a failed state. Why? One reason is the destabilizing role of the insurgency, a problem compounded by the chaos in neighbouring Pakistan. That, however, is only one reason and there are others. Another key reason is that a strong Afghan state with a powerful central government is not in the interests of some very key players, among them the warlords (to whom we’ve handed over most of the country) and the drug barons.

It’s no accident that Hamid Karzai remains the mayor of Kabul. He exercises only those powers the warlords are willing to give him and we’re not doing a damned thing about that. Why? Because that would risk bringing us into conflict not only with a Pashtun insurgency but also with the Hazara, Turkmen, Tajik and Uzbek leadership. We’d be at war with everybody.

Time is a precious commodity in warfare and seven years is an almost unbelievable amount of time for a war and yet, as Milne noted in the previous piece from the Guardian, we’ve not achieved a single objective we had for invading and occupying Afghanistan.

There’s no faulting our troops in this. They’re not responsible for the abject failure of their leadership, political and military. The soldiers at the sharp end are doing a terrific job. They’re well trained, committed and very capable but they can’t overcome their shortage in numbers or the fundamental flaws inherent in “the mission” that will deny their efforts any meaningful victory.

It was stunning to read last week that the National Post itself has clued in to the fact that we’re woefully understrength in Afghanistan. Wow, and it only took them seven years to notice! Even the Spot understands that we can’t win in Afghanistan with the paltry forces we’ve deployed to Kandahar. Maybe if the Spot can figure that out there’s hope yet that our politicians and generals may also reach that same state of belated enlightenment.

 

Half of Nothing Is Still Nothing

It seems someone is trying to con us every day. Watching television, reading a magazine or even answering the phone, we’re barraged by people trying to con us with half truths, outright lies and hollow promises.

By now we ought to know better. We ought to know that the “free cruise” is just a scam, that no power exists to turn back the clock on 40-years of aging, and that the fine print is just a confession of deceit, and yet these people just don’t quit. Why? Because they know we can be hustled, we can be conned. They know we’re gullible or at least enough of us are to make the con worthwhile.

The last time Stephen Harper was honest about global warming and climate change he dismissed it as a “socialist plot.” I’m not saying he was right, I’m saying that Harpo was telling us what he actually believed. An honest mistake.

Over the past couple of years, the True North’s own Mustapha Mond has done an eardrum shattering, 180 on global warming. Now, he tells us, he “gets it.” Now he proclaims it to be the greatest threat to mankind, a real emergency. Now he’s really conning us.

The heel-dragging International Panel on Climate Change (“IPCC”) has finally reached the point of declaring that human activity was “very likely” the main culprit behind global warming and that we’re in for centuries of higher temperatures and rising sea levels, regardless of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In other words, we’re hooped.

A lot of people think the IPCC is radical but any fair examination of their reports over the past several years reveals the panel has consistently understated the time and severity dimensions of the threat. Time and again the latest research and observed changes have far outpaced the IPCC forecasts. That’s because the denialists have a presence among the IPCC scientists and operate as something of a sea anchor on its “consensus” reports. In other words, you can take the IPCC scenarios as “best case” predictions that have repeatedly been shown to be unduly optimistic.

But we also must understand that the understated IPCC findings are routinely compounded by the under-committed political responses they evoke. Put another way, even if the IPCC’s best case scenarios were accurate it wouldn’t matter because our politicians are treating the problem more as a hoax than a threat. Of course they can’t admit that so they openly proclaim the Great Danger and then give us nothing but vague promises they or some future government will actually do something about greenhouse gas emissions.

Enter the CCCC, Consummate Canadian Conservative Conman, Big Oil’s own Stephen Harper. His response to the IPCC report acknowledges that climate change is an “enormous” problem but then adds that it’s “fantasy” to think greenhouse-gas emissions can be cut overnight. Karl Rove could’ve written that line, maybe he did. Yes we acknowledge a base reality, then bury it under a totally irrelevant and erroneous presumption to create a diversion. “Climate change is an enormous problem” – the base reality. “It’s fantasy to think greenhouse-gas emissions can be cut overnight” – the con, the irrelevant diversion.

Memo to Steve and anyone stupid enough to listen to this jackass: NO ONE THINKS GREENHOUSE-GAS EMISSIONS CAN BE CUT OVERNIGHT!

That’s right, Steve. No one thinks greenhouse-gas emissions can be cut overnight. Even David Suzuki knows that and says that. But, then again, you know that full well, don’t you Steve? You’re just throwing up a Straw Man to distract the plebs and defuse their demands for action. You’re messing with their minds, Steve, and Big Oil couldn’t be happier or more grateful. Are you so stupid that you honestly believe anyone thinks that? You damn well know that no one thinks that but that doesn’t mean a deliberate diversion won’t let you slip away yet again.

Change the argument from “what are we going to do” to “can’t be done overnight” and you’ve substituted an irrelevant question for a meaningful enquiry. Neat trick – very Rovian, very Republican, very Cheneyist (and of course very Stalinist at heart). You can leverage relatively significant proportions of public naivety, ignorance, and those simply wanting to hear what they want to hear, and thereby undercut the demand for action or accountability.

And this little intellectual rot isn’t just confined to Harper, it’s permeated throughout his cabinet. Look at this and you’ll see what I mean:

Environment Canada came out with a climate change warning today and Harper’s Health Minister Tony Clement was prompt to stomp on it, using the “bait and switch” approach of his boss.

The Health Canada report warned Canadians of the new risks they’re already going to have to face and the need for immediate, drastic action on man-made global warming if we’re not to be confronted with far worse, likely deadly problems. Health Canada, relying on the IPCC’s latest, far understated findings, warned that we face, at a minimum, spikes in heat-related deaths, an increase in respiratory and cardiovascular problems, and the spread and emergence of diseases.

Clement, as a good drone of the boss, came out and deflected the bullet. From CBC News:

“Milder winters, heat waves and summer droughts could affect mosquito and tick populations, triggering the spread of West Nile virus and Lyme disease, the report says.

“Climate change could tip the ecological balance and trigger outbreaks of disease previously rare or unknown in Canada,” the report states.

The report also says that communities in Canada’s North are most vulnerable to climate change. Avalanches and landslides are projected to be more frequent. Northern communities will also have to contend with food shortages and less clean drinking water.

“This report makes it clear that Milder winters, heat waves and summer droughts could affect mosquito and tick populations, triggering the spread of West Nile virus and Lyme disease, the report says.

“Climate change could tip the ecological balance and trigger outbreaks of disease previously rare or unknown in Canada,” the report states.

The report also says that communities in Canada’s North are most vulnerable to climate change. Avalanches and landslides are projected to be more frequent. Northern communities will also have to contend with food shortages and less clean drinking water.

Speaking to reporters at the Conservative caucus retreat in the rural Quebec town of Levis, Health Minister Tony Clement said Canadians will “have to get used to” the gloomy scenario laid out in the report.

“This report makes it clear that if you have bad health outcomes now, you’re likely to be more impacted by extreme weather events than if you’re at the top of the health ladder,” he said.

There it was in all it’s glory. Appear to acknowledge the severe implications of the report and then tell Canadians, “they will have to get used to” it. The guy even goes on to blame the most susceptible. “This report makes it clear that if you have bad health outcomes now, you’re likely to be more impacted by extreme weather events than if you’re at the top of the health ladder,” is Greaseball Tony’s way to suggest that most of those who lose their lives are at least partially to blame for allowing themselves to become more vulnerable to these environmental predations.

It’s subtle, sort of, but it’s there for anyone who wishes to see. They’re acknowledging the problems but then, instead of honestly embracing the problems and proposing meaningful action, they veer far off track with distracting nonsense. “Fantasy” to really do anything right now about it. “Top of the Health Ladder” argument to diminish concern by holding up a certain segment of the inevitable victims as somehow responsible for their fate and thereby avoiding having to embrace the problem and advocate the appropriate emissions response.

In any real democracy, the leader’s first responsibility is to do everything necessary to safeguard his/her citizens. Failing to do everything necessary to safeguard Canadians against any avoidable consequences of climate change is a complete violation of that responsibility. Shirking that responsibility and using these sorts of diversions demonstrates that there’s nothing inadvertant about this affront. It’s entirely deliberate. It’s not just neglecting the safety and welfare of the Canadian people, it’s wilfully putting the interests of certain powerful governments and wealthy companies ahead, and in direct detriment to, the safety and welfare of the Canadian people.

Think about that. 1. Global warming presents this truly urgent, existential threat to humanity. 2. Some countries must, by example, lead and even cajole other nations to embrace action. Those countries most able to afford setting that example have to lead if the rest are to follow. There’s no other way. It’s essential that a few, advantaged countries can lead so as to establish a norm for others to achieve at subsequent intervals. Only by leading by example can the most advantaged countries wield both the carrot and the stick to get other nations to follow. 3. Without common action, individual or bloc action has no probable hope of avoiding the worst consequences.

If you can accept those three simple statements of fact, you must then judge the actions of our prime minister and his health and environmental ministers accordingly. If they’re using logic diversions as smokescreens to deflect popular demands for responsible action, measures that would, in turn, be adverse to the interests of certain governments and companies, there’s a message in that. Diversion = Deliberate. It demonstrates culpability. What of a government that culpably acts to the detriment of the safety and welfare of its people for the sole benefit of the elite, advantaged and powerful?

Government is service. We elect our governments to serve our interests, our welfare. Surely that principle defines our relationship more than any other. Surely we hand to them the power to govern us, to make even life and death decisions upon us and our families, in exchange for their implicit, but often unacknoweldged, promise to govern so as to achieve our greatest security and welfare.

Is it not virtually, if not legally, treasonous to abuse one’s powers to refuse to act on an existential threat and then distract public attention from it by misleading or confusing diversions? You decide.

 

Harper’s Hot Air on Climate Change

If there’s one lesson Harper has learned from his Big Brother in the White House, it’s that talk is cheap. He’s also learned the value of saying anything and doing something else.

Jeffrey Simpson points out in the Globe & Mail that Harper’s performance at the G8 summit was just another load of Harper horseshit:

“Some time in mid-2009, the Americans will be ready to talk seriously inside the United Nations negotiations format. The talks are supposed to culminate in an international agreement at a conference in Copenhagen that December, but no one will be surprised if that date slips into 2010.

…This is just as well for Canada, whose federal government has advanced a position in the international arena that cannot be achieved, as everyone in that arena following climate change knows. Extra time will be needed for Canada to bring some credibility to its incoherent position. Otherwise, it will be accurately labelled as a climate-change miscreant, just as it was in the years after it ratified Kyoto, when it compiled the worst climate-change record of any signatory.

Canada’s problem is that the Harper government’s target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions cannot be achieved. It is arithmetically impossible for Canada to reduce its emissions by 20 per cent by 2020, as the government proposes, while Alberta’s emissions are set to rise by 20 per cent. Nor will it be possible to achieve a 50-per-cent reduction target by 2050, as Mr. Harper pretends, if Alberta remains wedded to a policy calling for a mere 14-per-cent reduction by then.

The Harper government knows this. So do other countries’ negotiators. They can see through the veneer of Canada’s position. But the government is unwilling to publicly state this self-evident proposition in case it irritates people in Alberta, its political base.

Mr. Harper can claim that the G8 summit inched toward a stronger common commitment to attack global warming. But if pressed by knowledgeable people, he could not plausibly claim that Canada is inching toward a common federal-provincial position to allow this country to meet Mr. Harper’s own target.”

We’ve seen this before from Harper. For example, when he pushed through the extension of Canada’s military mission to Afghanistan until 2011, he did absolutely nothing to make it remotely possible for us to leave by that deadline. That would have required negotiating with NATO and Washington – exchanging the extension for a binding commitment from Brussels and Washington to come up with a replacement force to take our place when the mandate expires.

Harper assures Canadians that 2011 is it while he knows that the very measures needed to allow us to leave will not be taken, certainly not by him and, therefore, not by NATO or the US either.

So there’s no reason to be surprised that Harper would crow about the G8 agreement as a “breakthrough” in the fight against global warming. It’s a crock and he knows it.