Wolverine PM Eager To Fight

Unfortunately, not only himself, but millions and the whole country will pay a very high price for the actions of this ideologically brainwashed, totally irresponsible, borderline nutcase, junior Mulroney.

If there's any Canada left by the time he finishes with us ?

Ed Deak.

Today, watching Harper in Quebec, I was struck by the body language of
contempt which the man portrayed.

Quebeckers are sensitive to these things. Surely they'll see it, and reject
his equally contemptuous message.

<blockquote>it’s his nature to be contemptuous of other humans</blockquote> He is an economist. We've been used to lawyers being PM for the last few decades, not an economist. Though oth hold the hoi polloi in contempt, lawyers are slick and slippery. Economists deal with the "dismal science" and think they deal in black-and-white. Kind of explains it all...... <p>As to wolverine/porcupine analogy, I am afraid Harper is enough of a politician that he can get we the people to suffer the quills, even though it is he doing the attacking........</p><p>---<br>RickW<br />
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"The purpose of economic competition is to eliminate competition"...." - John Kenneth Galbraith

Is Harper any more arrogant or contemptuous of those who disagreed with him than Jean Chretien was? The difference is that Harper isn't simply a caretaker PM who felt entitled to the job because he was a previous PM's lackey for so long. Harper actually has ideas of his own (unlike another recent Liberal PM, he doesn't have to get them from Bono), and if these ideas that were more like yours, none of you would take issue with his personality or his ego. His real crime in your eyes is that he's not a Liberal.

Harper has no monopoly on thinking he's smarter than everyone else. Haven't you ever listened to Al Gore or Allan Rock? Frankly, I don't know how someone could run for the leadership of a large country without having a bloated ego? What non-egotist could pursue such a job without continually asking himself "Who the hell am I to tell all these people what to do?" I like that he is focused more on telling the caucus and bureaucracy what to do than on bossing *us* around, which one again makes a delightful contrast with the Liberal regimes that preceded him.

In his article, Dobbin describes what he considers Harper's contempt for what Canada became in the post-war world. Finally, a left-winger who is clear on the nature of these "Canadian values" that conservatives like Harper and I apparently do not share.

Canada is a young country, but the ideas that so many people here cling to and regard as fundamental to the Canadian identity (the nanny/social engineer state) are in fact much younger yet. These collectivist/egalitarian notions are rooted more in the 1960's than the 1860's. A person cannot be labelled un-Canadian or anti-Canadian for not subscribing to ideas that have been in vogue for less than half of the overall life of this country.

I think we've had enough glad-handing, back-slapping "people-person" types in power over the years. I find it kind of refreshing to have an introverted thinker who doesn't suffer fools gladly in there for once, especially after Paul Martin, who seemed to want more to be well-liked than an effective leader.

"Harper actually has ideas of his own"

Now that's funny!

Please, elucidate on these "original" thoughts.

LOL

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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

You will ntice that is easy to SAY "He has ideas of his own". It is much , much harder to actually elucidate these "ideas".............

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RickW

"The purpose of economic competition is to eliminate competition"...." - John Kenneth Galbraith

Well, perhaps only a very few thoughts out there are truly "original", as we are all influenced by others, but perhaps I could rephrase to say that Harper governs based on his own convictions and powers of reason. He is not devoid of ideas, as Chretien was, nor is he willing to uncritically absorb the ideas of anyone he talks to (including creepy pop singers), as Martin seemed to be.

Your nitpicking aside, it may not be original, but it is certainly novel in the Canadian context, for a Prime Minister to propose that the federal government concentrate on those responsibilties actually given to it in the constitution, and stop meddling in matters of provincial jurisdiction. It's also quite novel to say that the government is going to prioritize its activities and spending, rather than just spreading the money around evenly based on the structure of the bureaucracy.

He wasn't the first to come up with those ideas, that's true. But he's the first to be in a position to do something with them.

The ball (as they say) is in your court. You have made some statements....now it's time for you to back them up. I see Harper as nothing more than a whinging and devious politician, absolutely no different than what has come before. Is there any way at all you can demonstrate that what he is doing is of some benefit to the country, more so than the promises and action (or inactions) of those PM's who have come previously? Has he (for instance) done anything at all about the INCREASE in the border tax for softwood, even while "negotiations" are ongoing, and the loss of 3,000 MORE jobs in BC through "soft market" conditions, even while more and more raw logs are being shipped out of the country in spite of this "soft" market? Remember that he has publicly announced a solution to the Softwood Dispute is "good for Canadians".<br />
<a href="http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060612/softwoodlumber_snag_060612?s_name=&no_ads">http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060612/softwoodlumber_snag_060612?s_name=&no_ads</a>=<br />
Can you (or anyone) show me just how it is good for Canadians?<br />
<br />
Or is he so hung up on his newly discovered "terrorist threat" that he (like Bush) is willing to run the country into the ditch............?<p>---<br>RickW<br />
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"The purpose of economic competition is to eliminate competition"...." - John Kenneth Galbraith

Some points here have been made before so this is
more of a recap. Neo-cons are not conservatives at all but just a kind of right-wing liberalism. Political equality does not mean people are actually equal in the sense of similiarity. I understand that, old tories understand that, but the "new" liberalism apparently does not. Harper unlike conservatives of the past actively panders to the lowest common denominator while his buddies whine about "moral relativism". So the feeling of "same old stuff" in parliament shouldn't be surprising. The views of David Orchard and past tories like Dalton Camp are viewed as much in the camp of the "enemy" by Harper and the Calgary School as the Liberal party or New Democrats. They're merely competitors for power (although I think in the case of the NDP more of a joke). Harper hates the word and idea of "toryism" because of as he calls it , "elitism". That is the real meaning of the difference between "old" and "new". Old tories believe in some measure of restraint on the part of the "establishment" if not so much out of real sympathy at least as an expression of "good manners". Actually I think we could use more of that kind of thinking ... in moderation of course.

The neolib/neocon/neoclassical economic theory is the worst freedom robber, collectivizer system in existence today and the biggest crime wave in history.

I always have to laugh when our friend above calls himself an "individualist", while preaching for total colonization and expropriation rights for a self appointed ruling class.

The communists also used to call it "freedom", while these crooks call it "free enterprise", that empowers them to walk over anything and anybody.

Harper is an economist, as was pointed out, and a totally brainwashed psychopathic ideologue, who has long lost touch with any form of human realities. Just because his predecessors, Mulroney, Chretien and Martin were of the same globalizing mindset doesn't excuse his, or the braindead words and actions of either.

So, let's hear....how is BC better off now, after the publicly owned BC Gas was privatized, then sold to a Texas company and now to Carlyle, the biggest arms merchants on Earth?

I would like to hear some "individualist" reasonings
on how BC is better off with BC Rail now, or the future of BC Ferries in American hands?

How is Canada better off under NAFTA, or how will we be better off under the GATS, with all services sold to multinationals and taken from under any public control and slave labour imported to remove our citizens from their jobs, as "cost saving measures"?

Why have costs and prices gone up 3 to 500% and wages hardly anything, since 1989, when the phoney FTA kicked in?

Let's hear the facts and figures and propositions from the supporters of these criminal treaties !

Ed Deak.

Old-style toryism *is* about elitism and condescending "noblesse oblige". Traditional Tories were about protecting old, established, *inherited* wealth from upstarts who earned their way to positions of prominence.

The nationalist left in Canada (which includes Red Tories) manages to cling simultaneously to socialist economic egalitarianism and feudal social elitism, without seeing any contradiction between the two.

They prefer people who inherit wealth over those who earn it, probably because the inheritors tend to feel guilty about their fortunate circumstances of birth, and thus are more sympathetic to the call of the redistributionists. Those who earned the money on their own are less willing to part with it.

There is a general nostalgia on the part of the nationalist left for the pre-industrial age. Deak pines for the days of the cottage industry. Others wish to return to a barter system of exchange or the kind of communal systems that don't scale beyond the small village.

The idea of earned wealth is anathema both to those who think one's wealth is a matter of luck and to those who think it a reward for proper breeding. The proponents of fixed classes and those of a classless society have a common enemy - the class mobility of free market individualism. That's why Red Tories and New Democrats sound so much like one another.

Individualist:

"but perhaps I could rephrase to say that Harper governs based on HIS own convictions and powers of reason."

the "HIS" was capitalized by me for emphesis

Harper has NOTHING of his own. No ideas, no credibility, and no discernable ethics beyond a myopic world view that begins and ends in a dollar sign. Specifically, US dollar sign.

He is bought and paid for puppet, and that is a known FACT.

His alligiance is to his backers, and NOT to Canada.



"The idea of earned wealth is anathema both to those who think one's wealth is a matter of luck and to those who think it a reward for proper breeding."

Individualist, that is utter bullsh*t. Earned wealth is one thing; and I have no problem with it whatsoever.

HOWEVER, the idea of STOLEN wealth really bothers me. Wealth acquired by shafting one's own countrymen by shipping their jobs overseas to be done by poor people so desperate to survive they'd willing die at work bothers me.

The idea of wealth "generated" by degradation of labor laws so that corporate expenses are minimized by such trivialities as "workplace safety" bothers me.

Wealth "earned" by weaseling out of paying taxes bothers me.

Wealth "earned" by using sleazy legal manuevers and creative book-keeping to steal the pensions of workers who paid into them bothers me.

However, wealth created by the fruits of one's own labours, ideas, and efforts does NOT bother me, so long as nobody gets shafted in the process.

As usual, your slavish devotion to a narrow minded and essentially corrupt methodology does you in.



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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

Not that your ideology is any better, in fact I'll go so far as to say that is the ideology of a very petty individual who's world view is so closed in upon himself that the thought of anyone actually being treated fairly is, using YOUR own wording an "anathema" to you.

You claim to be an "Individualist", in truth you are little more than an insignificant sheep.

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"and the knowledge they fear is a weapon to be used against them"

"The Weapon" - Rush

The neo-cons are no less elitist than the old tories but the latter at least can not be blamed for the anti-intellectualism so prominent within the United States (and spreading in this country ). "New money" thugs remind me of marxists in their ideological evasiveness while the old money types are/were merely annoying. Of course, neo-cons for all their bullshit about individualism are entirely in favour of an expanded state apparatus as long as that power serves the interest of empire ( just like the marxists and their "peoples' state" ). In the nineteenth century, and the heyday of the British, this situation was labelled "mercantilism". The rhetoric about "white man's burden, etc." as disgusting as it appears to us, was still relatively honest in its wording, compared to the gibberish about "democratic capitalism" or the " they hate us for our values" junk.