When things go wrong we ask ourselves why. The answer all too often is a failure of accountability. This is especially so in the realm of politics where we have opposing parties. The very essence of our parliamentary system is that the governing party is opposed or held accountable by the opposition party or parties. When accountability fails democracy also fails.
If we want to look at two catastrophic failures of accountability we have to go no further than 9/11 and the Wall Street crash of 2008. The two events are monumental indictments of governmental failures of accountability and inaction. Both were predictable well before the actual event. Both were a failure to exercise due diligence and while the latter event has yet to play itself out, like 9/11 before it, the right conclusions and remedies will most likely never be drawn.
To read about 9/11 there were strong indications such an attack was going to happen years before the actual event. As it got closer to
To read about the Wall Street crash of 2008 the pattern is the same. Many economists and observers were warning of just such a crash. Far from arriving out of the blue there were warning signs as the crisis started to unfold as early as 2007. Like 9/11, the Wall Street crash is a litany of indifference on the part of politicians and government administrators, regulators that didn’t regulate, regulations subverted, banks that took unconscionable risks, risk managers that didn’t manage and the wizards of Wall Street constructing deals that were so intricate and mystifying they defy explanation even by experts.
Both are acts of terrorism; the first by foreign terrorists attacking the symbols of capitalism: the second an act of home grown economic terrorism by home town boys destroying the capitalist system under the less than watchful eyes of rattlebrained custodians.
In his book, The 5 Unanswered Questions About 9/11,
American Author James Ridgeway states:
Again, it is not necessary to search for hidden conspiracies because the conspiracy is right in front of us and all around us; the conspirators are running the country. Those in power, in government and business, share a tacit agreement that the system will be preserved at all costs, and institutions such as the 9/11 Commission, by their very existence sign on to this agreement.
In other words what Ridgeway is saying there is a very powerful status quo that will not be held accountable. As he states elsewhere in the book these “conspirators” are more than willing to sacrifice the public good in the maintenance of this status quo; this anti-democratic oligarchy.
The reason President-elect Barack Obama faces such a daunting task is that there has been a chronic lack of accountability in American politics. His own party, the Democrats, have contributed to it by their willingness to be co-opted and not provide the essential opposition to the criminal behavior of the Bush administration.
The question on everybody’s mind is: Can Obama bring about real change or is he going to be consumed by the conspirators and simply signed on to the “tacit agreement?” By the appointments he is making to key positions there is a likelihood he has signed on to the “tacit agreement” and little will change. The public good will continue to be sacrificed on the alter of the corporate welfare state and the global economic crisis will only deepen.
StephenHarper: failed leader and political pariah
Harper’s actions, against the advice of both his staff and MPs, precipitated a constitutional crisis as the opposition parties rightly saw this as a flagrant abuse of power, especially so in a time of crisis, and coalesced to bring down the government on a confidence vote. This was democracy in action and accountability as it should be. Harper dodged the bullet for now by being granted a stay of execution by the Governor General- but his political execution must be forthcoming.
Polls show that Canadians see Harper’s conservative party most trusted to deal with the economic crisis. This is a brutal irony as Harper has already betrayed that trust by attempting to use the crisis for partisan and ideological gains. For him the public interest, the public good does not exist. He wants nothing more than raw power.
Leaving his party to deal with this crisis is like asking the arsonist to put out the fire. For Harper’s conservatives are devotees of the very laissez-faire economics that precipitated this economic crisis. The idea that right wing governments are the most capable managers of the economy is a myth. It is the right wing/neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatization and vilification of government that have brought about this global economic crisis. It is not only an economic crisis but a crisis of political leadership.
Polls showing Canadians prefer the conservatives to handle the economic crisis are actually an expression of naiveté and desperation.
Harper called the last election for no other reason than to gain a majority. Not content to work in a minority situation he sought a majority only to be granted yet another minority. His poor political judgment cost Canadians another quarter billion dollars. After being granted the stingiest minority government in Canadian history in 2006, running against a divided left, he has persisted as leader when it was clearly time to pass the mantle to a successor. Harper has refused to accept that his close association with both Reform and
The central issue in the last election was the economy by the government’s choice. When the Wall street crash did occur in the midst of the election campaign, Harper was caught flat-footed. Had he been paying attention he would have realized the true significance of the event. It was not just a cyclical downturn of the market. His first response was that this was a good time to buy stock. But this was bad advice as even then it was clear that the market had not bottomed out and this was a full-blown economic crash worse than 1929. Then and now he has given inappropriate responses to the economic crisis. Where he claims the coalition is ill-prepared to deal with the crisis his government is no better prepared.
Harper, like Mulroney before him, is a vindictive partisan. Neither has any regard for the national interest,
Mulroney was in fact, through his failed constitutional machinations the founder of the Bloc Quebecois- When it was apparent Mulroney could not deliver on the seditious Meech Lake Accord his friend and fellow conspirator Lucien Bouchard charged out of the Commons and formed the Bloc Quebecois –ergo- thanks to Mulroney we have a separatist party sitting in Parliament.
Mulroney’s real motivation behind initiating the Meech Lake Accord was to lock up the
Years later, Harper tries a similar ploy by granting
After the coalition so rightly called his bluff he screams in his political desperation that the coalition has gone into partnership with separatists. Such is his astounding hypocrisy as his own Alliance Party once conspired to overthrow the Liberals in league with BQ. His own government has pandered to separatism, and he has quite irresponsibly opened the old wounds in national unity to save his political skin.
Harper, like Mulroney before him, is a failed leader drowning in his contemptuous machinations and failed leadership at great cost to the country.
Both leaders have been more than willing to use constitutional issues for partisan gain and any country that allows this, that does not hold them to account, does not deserve to exist.
The fact that Harper’s party has only 38% of the popular and this is his second minority government is in fact a stunning repudiation of his leadership. After the election he ignored the tenuous mandate granted him and decided to play a stupid and juvenile game of brinksmanship with the Opposition parties.
During the election campaign he said he would be willing to water his wine if granted a majority. Here in lies his absurd contradiction: He is constitutionally incapable of watering his wine in a minority situation. Why would he even think of doing it with a majority? Granted a majority his alcoholic addiction to power and his corrupted ideology would suck the country dry in minutes.
Harper is a politician entirely unsuited to working in a minority situation and this for the foreseeable future will be the style of government in this country. Canadians are understandably wary of majority governments and hopefully we now realize the urgency of an effective system of proportionate representation. PR requires politicians to work in a collegial, consensus building, essentially non-partisan way addressing the national interest and the common good-the egalitarian society. Harper clearly lacks the skills and aptitude for this style of government and for this reason alone he must be removed.
New Beginnings:
In these tumultuous times it is hard to know which way to turn: Where does accountability begin? What is the essential first step?
Canadians and Americans have much in common. We share a common crisis that is both economic and political and the two are inextricably bound together. The economic crisis will not be dealt with effectively until the political crisis is first dealt with-the crisis of leadership.
Americans have a huge investment in the success or failure of the Obama presidency. They are in the process of installing their crisis leadership team and its success or failure will have global repercussions as the
As a second step our political elites must adapt themselves to working in a coalition/ minority situation where the national interest and progressive solutions prevails over partisanship and the excessive and ruinous demands of the corporate welfare state.
Canadians in turn must educate ourselves on the issues and hold the mainstream media’s feet to the fire; for they are part of the problem as they (in both countries) have made a major contribution to the crisis in their willingness to be cheerleaders to a ruinous status quo.
The objective as James Ridgeway suggests must be to shatter the “tacit agreement” between government and business, to restore accountability, something that resembles an egalitarian society, and real democracy.
The principle of accountability has been reduced to a skeletal figure in both Canadian and American politics. What we have seen so far is only the beginning of the further emaciation of the cornerstone of democratic values.
Where accountability is lacking we live in a world turned inside out; where incompetence is rewarded, greed and corruption go unabated, democracy is suspended, and ultimately- anarchy reigns supreme.
Robert Billyard
Stumble It!
Minimal government is still a desirable goal. Obviously, some aspects of government are more essential than others. Regulating industry and defending citizens' lives and property? Good. Politically-correct brainwashing and paying for Avi Lewis' junkets? Bad.
"Polls show that Canadians see Harper?s conservative party most trusted to deal with the economic crisis"
That trust is justified. Put the Liberals, whose idea of industrial policy is greasing their cronies, and the New Democrats, who simply want to stick it to business, in charge, and the economy will go even further into the ground.
"For him the public interest, the public good does not exist."
And he is correct. There are individual interests, some of which are shared by groupings of individuals. But there is no monolithic "public good". There is only balancing of divergent interests. That's what government does. If there was truly a "common good", governing would be a whole lot easier.
"He wants nothing more than raw power."
Why then does he want to move power from the level of government he currently dominates to one over which he has no control (the provinces)?
"Harper has refused to accept that his close association with both Reform and Alliance leave him as only a transitional leader whose time is long past."
Canada would have been well-served by a Reform or Alliance government, instead of the corruption of Chretien's regime and the incompetence of Martin's.
"Harper, like Mulroney before him, is a vindictive partisan."
And Jean Chretien wasn't? Or are we all supposed to be like Bob Rae, changing our parties and convictions whenever it's expedient.
"Harper, like Mulroney before him, is a failed leader drowning in his contemptuous machinations and failed leadership at great cost to the country."
The real failure was Pierre Trudeau. He failed to turn Canada into Cuba North, which was his greatest desire. And the statist nonsense he shoved down our throats was easily undone, and not just by Conservatives.
As for Harper, he's won this battle, and may end up winning the war. I look forward to reading the articles on Vive once we have a Conservative majority government.
Here, read something sensible:
http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article/2359 ... -in-canada
"Wealth can not be created only taken from other sectors, the environment and the future"
When we ask any of these phonies how they would like to drive on a road system where the "individualists", which means the large and armoured vehicles would be permitted to push others off the road in good old "Road Warrior" style, they're horrified, as "law abiding citizens", who demand the punishment of criminals.'
Yet, these pimps are propagandizing and buying governments to permit a class of international criminals to come in, take over, destroy and destitute anybody who comes in their way, because any defence of human and individual property rights would be "left wing" and "socialist".
With A Reform/CRAPP government there wouldn't be a Canada today, as there won't be with a Harper majority.
But we would be "competitive", with imported Mexican slave labour working on the sale of our country and resource capital to the corporate mafia, because, according to Reform/CRAPP policies, "Canadian workers priced themselves out of the marketplace", while paying $1,000 monthly rents and more in grocery bills, that go up every week, to feed their families.
Of course, all in the name of "freedom and individualism", not realizing with their narrow minds that "freedom and individualism" can only exist when protected by strong laws, rules and regulations preventing the criminal class from taking over.
As we can witness it right now. This is why they want "small government" to permit the crooks to rule, steal, rape and murder in good old Soviet fashion, their ideological brethren in collectivization, control and dictatorship.
Ed Deak.