A Post-Easter Trinity Post

The fundamentalists are on the march again. It's not surprising, times of crisis invevitably bring about an upsurge in wackos as the true believers emerge from their caves to reveal the secrets revealed to them and only them. The coming week will bear witness to a triptych of delusion, a true masterpiece that deserves to be hung alongside Bosch's Garden of Earthly Delights in the Prado. For those of us on the flipside of delusion however, where reality rules supreme instead of royalty, theocracy or right-wingnuttery, the scenes out of London, the Vatican and Ottawa serve to remind us of how easily the masses are convinced to continue down the path of self-destruction.

Another crisis, another royal wedding. The parallels between today and 1981 are striking. Another conservative government pushing through a right-wing agenda provided with the perfect diversion with which to distract its population of Daily Mail readers. Kate Middleton will wed Prince William Friday in a choreographed ceremony of pomp and circumstance to rival that fairy tale marriage between Diana Spencer and Prince Charles nearly thirty years ago. Panem et circenses serving once again as cover as the ideologues in power push through an agenda to cure the nation's economic woes by doubling down on the same policies that caused the crisis to begin with.

The main difference to be found is in the rhetoric employed by Margaret Thatcher then and David Cameron today in order to justify implementing policies to further shift the wealth of the nation towards the top. While Thatcher may have referenced Francis of Assisi when she moved into 10 Downing Street, "Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is error, may we bring truth. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring hope", she generally took on a confrontational tone with those who opposed her. Cameron on the other hand, due to the nature of his coalition government with the Lib Dems, employs a much more subtle divide and conquer strategy.

While Thatcher thrived on confrontation, Cameron's PR spin doctors (courtesy of the Murdoch empire) have him cloying on about a fictitious Big Society. Whether or not you believe that Thatcherism sowed the seeds of the UK's current economic distress, her policies failed to decrease the size of government while shifting the tax burden down the income scale, setting the scene for the explosion of income inequality seen today. Cameron and his Eton buddy-turned chancellor of the exchequer George Osbourne are proposing to build on this while shifting ever more wealth into the hands of the corporations and other elite. Of course, you won't hear this from their mouths in the UK, however, their minions will tell potential investors on the other side of the pond exactly what they are planning - We are making cuts that Margaret Thatcher, back in the 1980s, could only have dreamed of.



Whoops, where was I? Right, wedding. Royal. Buck-toothed balding guy and his commoner bride-to-be. Why does the public still eat up this pablum? Who cares what it costs when the working shmoes can get an eleven day holiday by simply taking three vacation days thanks to the magic of the calendar. Besides, won't the expense be offset by the benefit provided to the economy from all the tourists who plan on flocking to the British capital to take in the event? Well, in a word, no. The firm, or royal family as they are known, cost the public about £38.2 million a year, or 62p a person to defray expenses but the wedding will cost the public an awful lot more than that. Extra policing and overtime alone is estimated at more than $35 million. Add in the cost of all that extra holiday time and the costs begin to skyrocket, economists are "suggesting that it could knock something like a quarter percent off growth." That translates into a potential loss to the economy of about $50 billion.

But it's worth it right? After all, instead of watching depressing stories of British missiles raining down death on Libyans or Taliban terrorists escaping from prisons in the graveyard of empires, we get to see a princess crowned. Another aspirational lesson in which we learn that if we just believe enough, we too can have the fairy tale ending. Or not. Guess what Britons? There's only one royal family and you're not part of it, nor will you ever be. Kate will become your sixth Queen Catherine carrying on a tradition that should have died centuries ago but somehow didn't. She'll hopefully avoid the fate of Catherine Howard and probably won't have the impact of Henry VIII's first queen, Catherine of Aragon. After a 24-year marriage cursed by the stillbirths and early deaths of several sons, Henry was so desperate to have the marriage annulled that when the Pope refused to give his consent he broke away from Rome and founded the Church of England.

Ah, that church thing, the Brits are still sticking it to the Vatican, this time the royal wedding is stealing the thunder of the beatification of John Paul II. There doesn't seem to be a problem with the fact the church waved the manadatory five-year waiting period for JPII's beatification, or that maybe he shouldn't be beatified at all, no, the problem is that the Holy See's big event isn't selling enough tickets. When the date was announced in January the royal wedding date had already been set for months yet Cardinal José Saraiva Martins, former head of the Vatican's saint-making department, said he expected more than two million faithful to show up for the event. Based on that prediction, Vatican and Italian tour operators booked entire hotels in Rome and its surroundings. Enthusiasm has been tempered a bit since then, predictions have fallen to the 150,000 range despite the Vaticans best efforts to make the event go viral by setting up a beatification website, Facebook page and Twitter account.

In typical unthinking fashion, Santo subito! - Sainthood now! is the chant today just as it was then on St. Peter's Square in 2005 during JPII's funeral. Granted, he was an extraordinary man and a decent enough pope in many ways. More than a moral and symbolic force again totalitarianism, he toured his homeland giving Poles the courage to resist Soviet domination. Even after the collapse of communism, he offered a prescient warning about capitalism, "The excessive hoarding of riches by some denies them to the majority and thus the very wealth that is accumulated generates poverty." The first non-Italian pope since the renaissance, the former actor and factory worker was a skiing cardinal, a mountain-climbing poet, a kayaking philosopher, a singing author. By capturing the world's imagination he was in a position to not only influence the world outside the walls of the church but that within as well and that is where he sadly failed.

Imagine if Grima Wormtongue who whispered counsel into the ear of King Théoden to poison his soul in The Lord of the Rings coveted little boys instead of the kings niece Eowyn. Such a character would most properly be based on the Rev. Marcial Degollado, the founder of the Legion of Christ, who was formally accused of pedophilia in a Vatican proceeding yet remained John Paul’s pet. Despite nine different people accusing him of abusing them as children, the soon-to-be-blessed refused to investigate thus allowing the church's wound that is peodophilia to continue to fester and ooze pus to this day. Instead of reform and healing we get the former bishop of Bruges serenely admitting to abusing his nephews on TV and rationalizing his atrocities, "I had the strong impression that my nephew didn’t mind at all," 74-year-old Roger Vangheluwe said, smiling. "On the contrary. It was not brutal sex. I never used bodily, physical violence." He said he abused the second boy for "merely over a year".

Revalations of the game of hide the pedo-priest from parish to parish or the effects of the regressive stance taken on social issues and the part played in the spreading of AIDS particulary in Africa are slow evolving stories and exactly the reason for the five year waiting period before beatification. Calm rationality replaces emotional passion and allows us to weight decision properly instead of making rash choices. Instead, Pope Benedict chose to speed up the process, the third of four steps in cannonization, the path to sainthood. It was JPII himself who cheapened the whole process, beatifying almost 1,400 people, more than the total of all his predecessors since Pope Sixtus V (1585–1590).

The final panel in our tryptich features the creepiest image of all, that of a democratic nation lulled to sleep by an egomaniacal authoritarian bent on turning his country into the mirror image of their southern neighbour. I mean, it's not even the government of Canada anymore, it's the Harper government. Canada, my birthplace, has enjoyed a reputation surpassed by few nations. In fact, to those not paying attention, the word Canada still brings to mind an image of unspoiled wilderness and friendly, peace-loving people. This has been slowly eroded over the past five years by the Harper minority-government yet many seem prepared to give him and his party a free pass based on the fact that they are the only choice to ensure a stable government conducive to economic growth. The main selling point seems to be that under his stewardship, Canada was able to sail through the financial crisis relatively unscathed. This is of course a joke, a monkey could have (and would have) done a better job, being capable of giving a green light to the exploitation of resources to be ripped and burned out of the earth in order to satifsy the insatiable appetite to the south while ironically benefiting from the sound foundation provided by the financial regulations that Harper's corporate puppet-masters will have him tear down in the event of a Conservative majority. Meanwhile, the world is beginning to pay attention, sharply rebuking Canada for it's Afghanistan atrocities by denying her a UN security council seat (which of course Harper blamed on the Liberal party!) and naming the Great White North the worst environmental offender in the world.

A closer look reveals the self-destructiveness of his evil mix of policies, neocon on the social side and neoliberal on the economic, all sold to the public through lies, deceipt and cover-ups. Oh, by the way, that's why there's even an election at all, Harper's became the first government in Canadian history to be found in contempt of parliament. While Mr. Harper likes to tell Canadians what they care about, this little detail should be enough to reveal the undemocratic nature of the man, especially when combined with his unprecedented usage of an obsure parliamentary trick, proroguing government, not once, but twice. On both occasions Harper requested and was granted permission from the governor general, the Queen of England's representative in Canada (she is after the true head of the Canadian government), to shut down parliament as he was set to lose confidence votes. Yep, sounds like a democracy to me, one where if you don't like the possible outcome, you just change the game.

The financial press lauds Harper's economic program because it consists of lowering taxes on their corporate masters and shifting the tax burden to the people. Meanwhile the illusion of fiscal responsibility is nearly maintained by lowering environmental standards and subsidizing the oil giants to rape and pillage the ecosystem in a mad scramble to burn up the planet as quickly as possible. Following the American lead, the sheeple are being sold the same old bill of sale, lowering taxes on the corporations and the rich while gutting regulation will lead to economic prosperity. If people would just take the time to read the fine print they'd realize their wealth is simply being handed over to the wealthiest 1%. Canada will have cut corporate taxes virtually in half over the past 10 years once the current program is complete. The super-rich in Canada have enjoyed a decline in their tax rate of 11 percentage points while 95 per cent of Canadians averaged a decrease of 1 percentage point. In a bid to improve Canada's competitiveness, or what should be called trying to win the race to the bottom, Harper wants to lower the already-reduced corporate tax rate from 18% to 15% at a time when Canada is sporting a record $56 billion deficit. We're not competing with the US, where the rate is 35%, we're trying to compete with already broke and IMF controlled Ireland, Albania and Uzbekistan. Oh, and this tax break won't apply to 95% of the 2.2 million businesses in Canada, only the big boys on Bay Street.

Social policies? Let's see. Cut funding to the arts. Check. Cut funding to women's shelters. Check. Watch as your country falls from 6th to 24th in child mortality. Check. Spend like drunken sailors to build prisons for all the folks who fall on hard times and through the growing holes in the social safety net. Check. Add the US style get tough on crime costs to the nearly $30 billion for a bunch of F-35s without engines and then act surprised that more cuts are necessary to plug the budget deficit especially while cutting revenue earned on corporate taxes. Check. Ignore abuses of the health care system to encourage the development of an American style for profit game of life and death. Check. Orwellian surveillance laws to ensure the populations docility? Check. This seems to be what many people want as they continue, Candide style to believe that all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds, somehow nothing can go wrong following the US down it's suicidal path of destruction.

Truth is far stranger than fiction, yet none of this surprises anymore. How could it be surprising that billions of people would be interested in a wedding that has nothing to do with them or pilgrims are fainting like school girls at a Justin Bieber concert over the sight of a vile of a dead Pole's blood - it all explains how people could vote for the likes of Stephen "I'm not quite as bad as Robert Mugage" Harper. The fundamentalists are still firmly in control driving us ever faster towards judgment day.

Pwned by the Podium

The Olympic Games are competitions between athletes in individual or team events and not between countries

-International Olympic Committee

I don't like it one bit, it makes me feel somehow, I dunno ... unclean. Just as the Macbeths needed more than water to remove the blood from their hands, Monday's shower couldn't remove the stink from my hangover. The blood was symbolic of the stain left on the conscience of those royal usurpers by unchecked ambition while the stench of nationalism hangs in the air thanks to an all-out pursuit of medals and glory. I admit it, I'm proud that Canada won the most gold medals at this year's Winter Olympics; so why does it make me want to puke? Easy, as most foreign journalists have observed over the past couple of weeks it's just not Canadian, this kind of jingoistic flag-waving belongs to our neighbours to the south.

"Own the Podium". The program sponsored by the Canadian federal government at a cost of C$117 million is what got under the skin of most people. Seems that us canucks were fed up with coming in fourth place and seeing that as host nation, this would be Canada's chance to shine in the world's spotlight, funding was directed towards those events where we deemed our chances of winning to be greatest. Based on the results from the two previous times Canada hosted the Olympics, perhaps you can't really blame the Canadian Olympic organizers for wanting to improve on their past performance. You see, Canada failed to win a single gold in either Montreal in 1976 or Calgary in 1988, the only host nation in history who can claim such a dubious record. OK, Montreal was the summer Olympics, but Calgary? We couldn't even muster a gold in the winter games!

So, this time it would be different. Thanks to a $66 million infusion from the country's taxpayers, along with $51 million in sponsorship funds, the program offered Canadians who took home gold $20,000 apiece in a stated goal to take the overall medals title. While we may not have reached it, you can't argue with the result that was achieved as Canadians took home the most golds, 14. But hold on, it seems there is no agreed upon way of measuring who 'owned' the podium. Europeans generally tend to rank the countries by total golds won, while ironically North Americans usually rank by total medals. Both methods have their inherent weaknesses. Is a bronze really as valuable as a gold? Conversely, if a team wins only one gold while another country garners, say nine, but all of them silver and bronze, can you say the gold winners had a better Olympics? Such was the case in Turin in 2006 as the Japanese with a solitary medal, golden, were ranked ahead of the Fins with six silvers and three bronzes according to some tables.

But here's the rub: should it even matter? After all, the trappings of podiums and flag-raisings were not even part of the rebirth of the Olympics in the modern era. 1956 and Soviet domination brought it about as rivaling ideologies jockeyed for superiority any way they could. Those Italian Winter Games saw the Soviets come out ahead with seven gold and a total of 16 medals, but it wasn't until the Melbourne Summer Games that the world noticed politics taking over the event. The Hungarian Uprising and the Suez War combined to see multiple nations pull out of the games: Lichtenstein, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden boycotted due to the Soviet presence while Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon did likewise in response to the Israeli invasion of Egypt. The age of political boycotts was initiated, up to then no one had made such a political statement, not even of the Nazi games of 1936. Of course the fall of the Berlin Wall has brought with it the end of the age of politics, ushering in the age of economics which coincidentally hasn't seen a single boycott in the pursuit of the almighty dollar.

Sadly, 'Own the Podium' didn't begin and end with solely helping Canadians; it also hindered everyone else as non-Canadian athletes found their access to practice sites was strictly limited. It started last winter when speedskaters from several countries were denied access to the Richmond Olympic Oval. The benefits of familiarity vary by sport. It may be irrelevant for some sports, after all, an oval is an oval, but it is particularly important on one-of-a-kind new sites like the alpine skiing runs or the track for luge, bobsled and skeleton. At the Whistler downhill course, unfamiliar to most of the world’s best skiers, several medal contenders were left watching over a fence as the Canadian team trained. Meanwhile a gentlemen's agreement between the luge teams of the United States and Canada was ignored, cutting practice runs. Canadian athletes had hundreds of trips down what is widely considered the world’s most treacherous course while foreign athletes had a few dozen. Some have gone so far as to say that lack of access to the luge run was a factor in the death of Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili.

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But really, who won? Just as in Beijing, where the Chinese led in golds while the US led in total medals, the US repeated the overall medal victory while again losing in gold, this time to Canada in Vancouver. So depending on your view, optimists may see it as two winners, while pessimists may see none. It's all academic anyway as even winning 'only' nine golds in Vancouver, the Norwegians continued there medal per capita dominance at the Winter Olympics. In fact the nation of 4.7 million has won more medals than any other country at the Quadrennial Cold Weather Athletic Competition (thanks Stephen Colbert). Norway has 290 total medals to the USA's measly 237, with Canada lagging well back in 7th with 127. Well, at least the success of "Own the Podium" allowed the canucks to move past the Swedes who are now back in 8th and in fact if measured by gold, Canada is now tied with Finland for 6th with 42.

Yes, the maple leaf was in your face at these games, but that's the idea for the home team isn't it? To show the rest of the world you kick ass, like they did in Sydney and more recently at the Beijing coming out party for the aspiring G2 superpower. Every country that is awarded the Olympics immediately prioritizes the winning of more medals than ever to inflate its national ego and help justify the enormous expenditure and effort. China was guilty two years ago of favouring the home team and don't forget their Project 119, named for the number of additional gold medals it might contend for by focusing on medal intensive sports. Yes, I guess what's ok in China is ok in Canada. And don't forget Salt Lake City in 2002 which saw a nation desperate to prove to the world that it was still the world's superpower and therefore needn't fear anyone. What's a few maple leafs jerseys when the stars and stripes were just as ubiquitous eight years ago? Oh yeah, that was the fringe benefit to these Olympics for the host nation's government, it distracted the people's attention from that little political fiasco that saw democracy shut down for over three months in the true north strong and free. Canada's national fascist rag admitted as much and even claimed the strategy a success. Yeah, that's right, it's ok to torture, or it least be complicit to torture, like the Americans too.

So, unfortunately for Canada, it seems it's alright that they have a leader determined to turn their once distinct nation into a watered-down version of their southern neighbour so long as he's a hockey fan. Somehow Harper has missed who's winning the global race these days, but he better wake up quick as the thin-skinned response of the Canadian media to comparisons between 1936 Berlin and 2010 Vancouver won't be in evidence at the site of the next winter Olympics, Socchi, Russia in 2014. I'm sure they'll choose more dramatic nationalistic maneuvers, anyone remember the Arctic? Medvedev has already demanded officials responsible for Russia's abysmal medal performance step down so we know that one of the stories of 2014 will again be the home nation's drive to top the podium. As China has raced to lock up resources around the world to feed their growing economy, Canada (and the US, Denmark and Norway) better watch the Russians close. After all, they did take advantage of the distraction that the opening ceremonies in Beijing afforded them in 2008 as the Georgian conflict kicked off. Guess we'll have to wait and see what they have in store for the world.

And then there's hockey. Without the gold medal victory Sunday night against the American squad, the Canadian Olympics would've been deemed a bust by most no matter the other results. Again, I must admit that my nationalism gene was activated as I walked into my local bar here in Poznan and in my Polish-English garble inquired whether the game would be on TV there. After a moment of confusion the owner/bartender broke into a smile and said "Oh, your friends!" And so it was, as my Canadian brethren took the ice, I was settled in comfortably on a bar stool, beer in hand enjoying 'The Game' on the other side of the world. The win wrapped up Canada's 14th gold from 17 days of competition, moving them past the Norwegian team's 2002 performance for most ever. The glow of victory remained Monday as everyone seemed to have seen the game as well and made sure to tell me what a good game we played, on the street or in school. But when the hangover finally cleared on Tuesday, this dirty feeling crept back, nagging me, demanding to know: what comes next for Canada?

The first week of the Vancouver Olympics threatened to turn the games into the worst ever, but by the end of day 17, the city and Canadians had managed to turn this perception on its head. The city seems to have come out a big winner, but I fear it'll turn into a loss for the country. Politically rudderless, a wasteland with no credible opposition and a megalomaniacal leader intent on burning the Reichstag; economically dependent on her sickly neighbour to the south and the biggest environmental disaster in the world (which coincidentally just welcomed billions in investment from, you guessed it, China); and morally corrupt, where the Olympics sponsors can snow the public with a green campaign while being the dirtiest corporations on the planet (and no, I won't go into the irony of trucking in snow to a Winter Olympic site bereft of snow thanks to trucking). My hangover has passed, the world seems less foggy. Now that the Olympics are over, Canada gets to have a functioning government once again. I think I can deal with the new Canadian attitude so long as the energy from Own the Podium gets turned into Own Your Government.

Waiting For Him To Die

I swear I didn't mean to turn it into a competition, but somehow that's how it was construed by two of the nastiest leaders in the world. My comparison of Stephen Harper to Robert Mugabe at the end of 2008 was meant to be a friendly reminder to Canadians of the dangers of the sheep in wolf's clothing yet both leaders have enthusiastically taken on the challenge to see who can destroy their nation the fastest. Both seem to support torture of enemies while doing nothing to free their citizens from illegal imprisonment, both are intent on ruining their country's international reputation and both use every means at their disposal to cling to power.

Most of the past year has seen Mugabe laying low in an effort to lull the world into a false sense of security that the power sharing agreement struck with Morgan Tsvangirai over a year ago was indeed working. Meanwhile, Harper has been taking bold risks in an effort to wrestle the title and had taken a slight lead in the competition in the past year. Well folks, we should have known better than to underestimate the Zimbabwean zilch as he has struck a decisive blow in his quest for the title of world's worst leader. In case you missed it, Robert Mugabe is celebrating the 10 year anniversary of the start of the destruction of the the agriculture industry through the seizure of white owned farms by implementing a law to do the same thing to the rest of the economy.

Mugabe's latest move goes by the ominous name of the Indigenisation and Economic Empowerment Regulations 2010. By quietly publishing the law last week, which was actually passed in 2008, the government has officially given all businesses worth over $500,000 notice that they will have to be 51% indigenous-owned. An indigenous Zimbabwean is "any person who, before the 18th of April 1980, was disadvantaged by unfair discrimination on the grounds of his or her race, and any descendant of such person, and includes any company, association, syndicate or partnership of which indigenous Zimbabweans form the majority of the members or hold the controlling interest". By April 15th, all firms, whether foreign or domestic, must submit completed official forms describing the business and showing its plan for ensuring that, within five years, indigenous Zimbabweans will own at least 51 percent of the shares. Judging by the success of such a strategy in the agriculture sector, Mugabe has essentially guaranteed the completion of the destruction of his nation.

Pity poor Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition MDC and Prime Minister for exactly a year last Thursday. Just a week ago he was in Davos schmoozing with the banking elite, extolling the investment opportunities in the new and improved Zimbabwe. He argued in speeches and interviews there that western nations should be easing sanctions on his country as a reward for the progress made and that they were on an "irreversible path to change". Of Mugabe's latest gambit on his return to Zimbabwe later in the week he stated, "I am in charge of all policy formation in cabinet and neither myself nor the cabinet were shown these regulations before they were gazetted. They were published without due process as detailed in the constitution and are therefore null and void." His words haven't had any effect on the imprisonment and torture of Roy Bennett, his nominee for minister of agriculture, during the past year either.

Even worse, imagine being finance minister Tendai Biti, also of the MDC, trying to convince foreign investors to put money into Zimbabwe. The sales pitch might go something like this: "OK, so although every $100 you put into our country instantly turns into $49, just imagine how many zeroes you'll be able to add to it once you convert into Zimbabwean dollars. Based on our inflation rate you'll be a trillionaire in no time!".

And who will be the winners of Mugabe's latest power grab? The people, as Youth Development, Indigenisation and Empowerment Minister Saviour Kasukuwere (really, that's his name and title) claimed, "It is in the interest of the people of Zimbabwe to become shareholders"? Ha! Just as in the farm seizures, the benefits will be carefully divvied up amongst Mugabe's cronies, like his cousin here. With a new constitution and election on the horizon next year Mugabe once again needs some carrots to dangle in front of his thugs who he'll need out in force during the polls to guarantee a result that will keep him president.

While the elite gorge themselves on a new source of wealth, the people have to deal with the reality of today's Zimbabwe:

• a 70% fall in agricultural production since 2000
• over 90% unemployment as well as the world’s highest inflation - an unfathomable ninety sextillion percent
• a maternal mortality ratio which quadrupled from 283 per 100,000 in 1994 to 1,100 per 100,000 in 2005
• an infant mortality rate which rose from 52 per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 68 per 1,000 in 2006
• an adult mortality rate (the probability that a 15-year-old person will die before reaching 60) which sky-rocketed from 286 per 1,000 in 1990 to 751 per 1,000 in 2006
• life expectancy at birth which fell dramatically from 62 years for both sexes in 1990 to 36 years in 2006

Also at Davos, deputy prime minister Arthur Mutambara told reporters, "What we need to do as a government, what we needed to do as a people is to improve the investment climate in our country, we need to make sure we guarantee security of tenure, we guarantee property rights that business investments are protected  in our country." In reality, what they need to do as a government and a people is remove Robert Mugabe instead of simply waiting for him to die. Time is running out as this latest move will do to the rest of the economy what was done to farming. Once the breadbasket of Africa that even supplied markets in Europe, Zimbabweans now rely on international handouts to eke out survival. Come to think of it, the worst job would theoretically be a white minister of mining. Based on the Bennett prison beatings for the scrapings of what's left of the agricultural revenue and the the relative wealth underground in Zimbabwe to pay for the underground henchmen, it's almost lucky Mugabe has his own man there. Together, along with the ambassador to China, they'll secure Robert and Grace's diamond jubilee.

Corpocracy and the Seven

When a legislator no longer represents our beliefs, we can vote them out of office; likewise, when presidents screw up, the people can kick them out the next time they go to the polls (or they can even be impeached by the legislators); but what do we do when the third branch of government messes things up by issuing rulings that will ultimately steer the nation in the wrong direction? Well, if you're Pat Robertson (yes, he of the Haitian deal with the devil quote), you can have a chat with your god to get things changed; if your the Ecuadorian Congress, you can just replace the whole lot; maybe you'll get lucky and they'll be convicted of, "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" deemed serious enough by Congress to constitute impeachment; but most likely all we can do is wait until they retire or die. Almost no matter how bad they mess up, they've got jobs for life.

While this job security is supposed to insulate them from the temporary passions of the public, it has also had the effect of allowing them to assert their ideological beliefs in making decisions which have had disastrous results. Perhaps the most infamous case was that of Dred Scott in which the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS from here on) ruled that people of African descent imported into the United States and held as slaves, or their descendants, whether or not they were slaves, were not protected by the Constitution and could never be citizens of the United States. The decision written by Chief Justice Roger B. Taney is regarded as the single worst decision in the history of the court, ruining the reputation of the Chief Justice and leading the nation to the Civil War. As recently as 2000 SCOTUS decided to put an idiot king in the White House, with the same predictable result, war. Ironically, that 2000 decision may have been motivated by soon to be retiring Sandra Day O'Connor wanting to have her replacement named by a Republican president, thus maintaining the conservative composition of the court we still have today. Now that's powerful, better than 4 out of 5 dentist recommend testimonial propaganda! Chief Justice Taney died a vilified, penniless and broken man for his role in keeping the Republic under the control of slaveholders and bitterly dividing the nation; only time will tell if today's Chief Justice, John Roberts Jr. will also go down in infamy as the man who completed the transformation of his nation into a corpocracy.

In a 5-4 decision the court ruled in favor of Citizen United and overturned a variety of campaign finance laws enacted over the past century. For example, it nullifies part of a century-old statute known as the Tillman Act (1907), which barred corporations from using treasury funds to engage in the political process. It also vitiated similar prohibitions imposed on unions after World War II. Moreover, the decision invalidates part of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain-Feingold) that prohibited certain types of ads within 60 days of a general election and 30 days from a primary. (Supreme Court Opinion). Bottom line: Both corporations and labor unions may now use their general treasury funds to pay for unlimited independent expenditures, including advertisements, for or against candidates at any time. Free speechers cheered while civil liberty advocates jeered. The reason that those happy with the ruling are so rests on three premises, all of which we can intuit or show to be false.

One: Corporations are people and are therefore entitled to free speech protection. An odd  transfer propaganda technique but still easy to argue away, both intuitively (duh, um, people die, love, shit, breathe, have a conscience and compassion; corporations, not so much) and legally. The legal basis rests on a ruling made by the SCOTUS in the case of Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company in 1886. While the court's actual ruling in the case was uncontroversial, (something about fences along train tracks - seriously) the court reporter added his own thoughts to the headnote. Wackiness, begin your work:

Headnotes are a short summary of the opinions, facts and arguments of each case the court rules on that precede the United States Reports (the books that tell the legal community about the courts decisions). These headnotes are "not the work of the Court, but are simply the work of the Reporter, giving his understanding of the decision, prepared for the convenience of the profession". The court reporter that day, J.C. Bancroft Davis, a former railway president (hellooo? conflict of interest anyone!) wrote in part: "The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does." Voila, while the court specifically didn't want to make a ruling on the 14th amendment, any mention of which is absent from the ruling itself, corporations have enjoyed the same rights as people under the 14th ever since. Not being a constitutional scholar maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like a pretty flimsy thin basis for corporate personhood.

Two: Money is speech. Really? Do I have to tell you why it isn't? OK, here goes. It should be enough that it sounds like something an amphetamine junkie like Ayn Rand would say but it goes deeper and unfortunately once again turns on a constitutional SCOTUS ruling. It was 1976 and this time it was Buckley v. Valeo in which the SCOTUS upheld a federal law which set limits on campaign contributions, but ruled that spending money to influence elections is a form of constitutionally protected free speech, and struck down portions of the law. The court also stated candidates can give unlimited amounts of money to their own campaigns (thus your Ross Perots, Michael Bloombergs, Mitt Romneys and their ilk). The suit arose after the first serious attempt by Congress to regulate campaign contributions and spending after the Nixon impeachment passed  despite a Ford veto. The plaintiffs claimed the legislation was in violation of the 1st and 5th Amendment rights to freedom of expression and due process, respectively. The court agreed. Again, easy to show how this is wrong on so many levels.

To those ideologues who would champion this decision as protecting the free speech I can only ask: "What can possibly be the purpose of the First Amendment other than to allow all voices to be heard in the marketplace of ideas?" With their vast resources, corporations will now be able to dominate that marketplace, ensuring that theirs is the loudest voice, effectively silencing opposing voices - precisely what the First Amendment was designed to foil. Even more egregiously, when we're not talking about corporations or the rich the court has no problem limiting speech. In the last few decades, the conservative justices dominating the court have limited speech rights for demonstrators, students, and whistle blowers; you still famously can't scream Rush is a fat, latinboyOxyContinlovingprick in a crowded theater, or fire; while they may be more annoying than political ads, Hare Krishnas had their right to distribute leaflets taken away. Try to exercise your right to speech in America without spending dollars and you'll often times find yourself behind bars. Repeatedly, the court has told us that some speech is more important than others.

Three: In their ruling, the majority somehow clung to the emperor's new clothes contention that corporate campaign cash has had no pernicious impact on public policy. "Independent (political) expenditures, including those made by corporations, do not give rise to corruption or the appearance of corruption," Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority in the recent ruling. Alice in Wonderland had nothing on this corporations are just plain folks propagandist thinking. While the delusional will argue to the contrary, the evidence clearly indicates that money influences the way elected officials vote, so by giving those with more money the ability to 'speak' in unlimited amounts, they are ipso facto being given a more powerful vote than the poor.

Maybe they didn't notice the whole Wall Street bailout, it was pretty easy when "they [the banks] frankly own the place [congress]". House members who voted for the $700 billion bank bailout received 54 percent more campaign contributions from banks and securities firms than House members voting against the bailout. That is an average of $231,877 in bank contributions received by each House member voting "Yes", $150,982 for each member voting "No." Is there any wonder that big oil is already one step ahead of any sustainable energy project? Want to keep the National Weather Service from sharing the weather forecasts with the people? It'll cost about $7,750 to get a senator to introduce a bill to end "socialized weather" so that private firms like Accuweather can repackage government data and sell it to the public. Wanna influence the health care bill? It's pretty cheap and easy jedi reverse-Reagan name-calling propaganda, with the Cadillac name change from welfare queen to insurance plan. Well, that or about $400 million over the first 9 months of last year would buy you as much influence as the health care lobby. If only we could visually see the influence of 'speech' on the outcome of legislation? Or perhaps we tire of health care, cough, telecom immunity, where House Democrats who flipped their positions to favor immunity for telecom firms received an average of 68 percent more money from ATT's, Verizon's and Sprint's political action committees, compared with Democrats who remained opposed to immunity. That's $4,987 to each Democrat who opposed immunity and $8,359 to each Democrat who flipped positions to favor telecom firms. The brainwashed are sold that this latest ruling will encourage 'transparency' and 'leveling the playing field', some wishful card stacking propaganda, as if by some luck the market will distribute the money to candidates and lawmakers equitably. Or, maybe the Supremes have an ulterior motive: they want to show the world what happens in the extreme case by opening the floodgates to the highest bidder wins in order to how evil it is in order to justify the coming end of business buying government through a constitutional amendment. Yeah, and I've got some real estate in Florida to sell you.


Learn more here and here and here, then raise your voice "NO"

It truly makes one wonder what the effect of 30 years of the Reagan revolution has had on the brain of most conservatives who are lauding this decision as a victory for free speech. It was a Republican president, Teddy Roosevelt, who was so worried about the power of the trusts (yes, corporations were mere trusts of states then) that he called for public financing of elections and told Congress, "All contributions by corporations to any political committee or for any political purpose should be forbidden by law." He didn't get all he wanted but he did get the Tillman Act which has now been gutted. Founder and fourth Chief Justice John Marshall once referred to the corporation as an "artificial being, invisible, intangible"; and Thomas Jefferson, warned almost two centuries ago that America must "crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations, which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength and bid defiance to the laws of our country."

In order to catch a glimpse of the Pandora's Box that this ruling has opened, one need look no further than the connections to the case; the people who brought it to the court and what they have done in the past:


And a taste of a couple of the adds these men have made offer a sneak peak of what's to come this November:


Or, this one. Um, I guess we'll call that the fear of our propaganda septet.

So, as we enter the age where we'll no longer have the senator from Iowa or the congressman from North Dakota, but the senator from Wal-Mart and the congressman from Goldman Sachs, a couple more small details. No limits exist to prevent foreign corporations from contributing to the kitty, nothing to prevent one of Osama bin Laden's relatives running any anti-energy self-sufficiency ad they want, as long as it's clearly labeled brought to you by Freemont Group. Lastly, and most ominous of all, what I see happening is that more often than not, corporations won't even have to spend a penny, as the mere threat of launching attack ads will be enough to influence members of Congress to behave like the good patsies they have been paid for to be, legalization of what will in fact become weapons of blackmail and bribery in the hands of the lobbyists of the greedy and powerful. Oh, and before we in the rest of the world begin to feel too smug about the superiority and cleanliness of our democratic systems, a couple of caveats. The Prime Minister of Canada, the one who can't really be as creepy as he appears, Stephen Harper, tried himself to loosen the financial restrictions for political campaigns in the true north strong and free just a few years ago. The rest of us, well, we shouldn't forget that for the past few decades, instead of looking inwards at what's wrong with the country, the US usually looks for scapegoats (usually using the bandwagon propaganda technique to drum up support) and decide that they don't like us practicing our own kind of government. (Sorry, look at me using the glittering generality and seventh technique)

If you made it all the way here, pssst, here's where I got the Dred Scott idea, from where else, duh?

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Prorogue 2: Electric Boogaloo

Yes, I know, I used the theme for a previous post title, but this time it's so much more fitting; the most ridiculous movie title ever together with the most ridiculous "democratic" trick ever. Maybe "Prorocracy" would be better? Doesn't really work as a snappy title, does it? Whatever, kinda proves a point though, as the words prorogue and democracy don't go together. Democrogue? Nope, neither. Except of course if you live in the Great White North where that wonderful leader who isn't at all creepy, Stephen Harper, has once again decided that the country works a lot better without all those elected people around trying to run the government. Yes, Prime Minister Harper has progrogued Parliament for the second time in two years.

What's a prorogue? Well, I guess you missed it a little over a year ago when Harper prorogued Parliament to avoid losing power and I wrote a post where I compared the Prime Minister to Robert Mugabe. Well it seems I was being a little harsh on Robert, at least he's pretending to get along with the 'unity' government. Canada, will once again be without any kind for a couple of months as Harper has suspended the parliamentary session. Sure, the prorogue has been used in the past when the legislative work of the session has been completed and everyone wants a little more holiday time. However, this move comes at a time when only half the work is done and much that had been begun will have to be restarted. Obviously, if you are Stephen Harper, King Charles I, Napoleon, Victoriano Huerta, Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco or Augusto Pinochet, you've probably got a more devious motive than simple vacation time. A year ago, Harper did it to maintain power; a truly Machiavellian ideal. This year it seems so much more mundane, he simply wants to hide the truth from the people and above all avoid embarrassing questions while the world's spotlight is on Canada for the Olympics. Oh, and stack the senate while he's got a bit of extra time.

Once again, it's all about torture, this time in Afghanistan. When will we learn not to mess with that place? The strange part about the story is that it's not about Canadians torturing, it's simply about ignoring the facts and choosing not to do anything about it, eventually putting yourself in a position of being forced to either lie or shut the voices off. The key to Harper's move is that this procedure will also shut down parliamentary committees, from which a few questions are sure to be raised about Canadian troops handing over detainees to Afghan officials to be tortured. In late November diplomat Richard Colvin made the accusation, which was followed by the predictable shoot the messenger playbook - the old 'this guy is crazy or a terrorist or worse yet a liberal trying to get in the elected governments way'. Unfortunately for Harper and the rest of his theocratic leadership, Richard Colvin turns out to be one of those guys we should all admire. I mean heres a diplomatic staffer who volunteered to go into Afghanistan as a civilian representative with Canada's Provincial Reconstruction Team in Kandahar after the previous worker had been killed by a suicide car bomber. Instead of retreating under a barrage of personal attacks from the government, he responded with a 16-page letter discrediting claims that the politburo hadn't known anything about the situation one by one. So, what's the deal, why not just fess up, wash their hands, fix the oversight error and move on?

Herein lies the heart of darkness or some alternate reality Three's Company plot. Yes, it could be as simple as non-competence which led to mistakes that have spun out of control to the point where they fear being embarrassed under the international spotlight during the Olympics. Yes, the Olympics, the timing of the announcement of prorogation even smells of Olympic fever. Not only did Harper hope that no one would be paying attention between Christmas and New Year, he made the announcement on the day when the Canadian national Olympic hockey team was announced. For all the non-Canadian readers, this is slightly more important than the announcement of the Nobel peace prize, the English World Cup squad and the Academy Award nominations all rolled into one, so Harper knew which story would lead the news that night.

Yet, still the campaign of misinformation along with the flood of talking points from "support our troops" to needing an elected senate (which we do need) and now the stalling tactics of the prorogation taken all together smell of something more insidious. Ranging from the banal - simply knowing the lemming-like, 'lead us to economic growth', apathetic populace will have forgotten everything come March, to the truly disturbing - that the maple leaf is being used as a tool to promote hatred in the Muslim world to help ensure the global "war on terror" (how do you have a war against an idea?) will continue indefinitely. Voters are more likely to care that a psychic has foretold a Conservative majority this year than the fact that the government is turning a blind eye to the Canadian contribution to the perpetual war on terror. In Mr. Colvin's own words, "Instead of winning hearts and minds, we caused Kandaharis to fear the foreigners. Canada's detainee practices alienated us from the population and strengthened the insurgency." Imagine being an Afghani, knowing that if you run into a maple leaf you may wind up being turned over to be tortured and, unfortunately, the Canadians did a lot of torture delivery for the Afghans - six times the British and twenty times the Dutch (yeah, not exactly high value targets: "They were picked up ... during routine military operations, and on the basis typically not of intelligence [reports] but suspicion or unproven denunciation."). What would your feeling be toward the occupying soldiers from the nation turning you over to be tortured? What would your friends and family think? The district...the nation. Once you begin thinking this way, maybe then you can begin to understand how not fixing this problem is but a small cog in the machine that ensures this "war on terror" continues forever (well, that or someone gets their hands on a bomb, or the west financially implodes - Osama's plan all along).

But when added to the Maher Arar story you don't need to be an Amnesty International worker to worry about how far we fallen so fast. Similar story, smaller scale but it demonstrates the shift in morals that has occurred over the past decade - the acceptance of torture. Oh, yeah, Maher Arar, you may have forgotten the Canadian citizen that the RCMP set  up to be sent to be tortured for over a year, yawn, didn't a US federal appeals court just rule that he had no rights? oh, but Omar Khadr, zzzzzz, the others? The population has become desensitized to the topic to the point they've simply turned off, at least while it's only brown people being tortured. In the 'war on terror' the question's no longer whether or not it's acceptable, which it hasn't been since everyone signed the Geneva Conventions, but where is the line, or who's doing it.

Who would have thought ten years ago that democratic nations would even be discussing their role in torture? It's truly frightening to see the moral decay that has eaten away at our core values, debating the semantics of torture; is this torture or that? is it our fault if we were only complicit in knowing about it? when can it be justified? there's more important things to worry about, like saving banks and growing the economy. While the Canadian electorate has been sleeping, their government has mutated into a truly Cheney-esque monstrosity. Sabotaging progress on climate change negotiations while creating the largest man-made ecological disaster in the world, moving to eliminate the national gun registry implemented to prevent massacres like this, an anti-drug strategy aiming at a US style prison culture, a new citizenship guide that rebrands Canada away from peacekeeping and diversity toward intolerance and hate. No, no and no.

Canada's situation is perhaps even more perilous than  it's southern neighbour's. Imagine if the tea party fringe of the conservative party were in charge, yeah, you get the picture. Still spending like drunken soldiers on important things like killing brown people, but also shaving taxes. Now, by the time Parliament sits again in March, yes, after the Olympics, Harper will have had time to pass Michaëlle Jean the names of five new senators, giving the Tories a majority in the upper house of the unelected senate, meaning the gestapo will be in full control. Actually, seeing as Harper only needed to call Jean to suspend democracy, maybe the senate choices will be posted on Jean's Facebook wall, after all it's the only forum poor Canadians seem to have these days. This will give the Conservatives the elusive majority in the upper house and thus a majority on the newly formed Senate committees and greater control for passing their own legislation, which means Harper won't have any roadblocks to implementing his agenda, yippee! If it weren't so predictably sad and dangerous it would be funny. It's almost hard not to feel sorry for my Canuck brethren, they don't really have a choice. Last time Harper prorogued, he did it because he feared the opposition taking power, this time he can do it because he doesn't fear them, there is no credible opposition to challenge him in the next election.

The country has become some kind of alternate reality version of America without the Barack Obama show to help them at least pretend that they're good guys, not meaning to hurt anyone. Ain't no thing, we're just less than halfway through our workload for the parliamentary session, it's best if we shut things down and get the Crown speech and budget ready, everybody go home, or more likely, stay in Arizona, California or your Mexico whatever it may be. Yeah, blame Canada, and France and the US and Poland and you name it, just consider us lucky that at least reporters can tell us what's really happening above the 49th...oh yeah, forgot about that Amy Goodman detention at the Peace Arch a month ago, even made MSNBC apparently:

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I wouldn't worry though, it seems to be just the Olympics they're worried about, so as long as you're not coming to ask about the quality of the ice or question the hockey team selection you should be OK. Careful though, I dunno where they draw the line on issues surrounding the games, environmental destruction around Whistler, development on indigenous land? Canada's going into lock down for the Winter Games, only the right kind of people or stories are wanted. It makes perfect sense that it's all about the Olympics, after all the games capture the holy trinity of the right wing mantra - greed, fear and prejudice. Again, all I can say is: Canada! Canada! Canada!

D'Oh! Canada!

Can't resist urge... too tempting a target... must say it... Stephen Harper seems to be doing his best Robert Mugabe imitation. How could it happen you may ask, that a western democracy could sink to the level of an African dictatorship which also feigns democratic practices now and then. Well, watching the news from back home just seems to get more and more surreal. In October, it was the federal election in Canada, as the lemming hoard was lulled into repeating the same mistake they made on the previous trip to the ballot box and brought back a minority Conservative government. In times of economic turbulence such as these, most rational people would vote for change, but in the frozen tundra, the rules of logic don't seem to apply. Suddenly, a man who received a mandate from barely 20% of the eligible voting population has the means to effectively shut down parliament in order to maintain his grip on power.
Democracy in Canada is even stranger than the two-party farce known to their southern neighbours. It is best described as a Constitutional Monarchy where the highest ranking official in the land is an unelected hereditary monarch from a foreign power. Living so far away from her subjects, she (or he) is represented in the country by someone called the governor-general. While this monarch holds full executive powers in theory, the Prime Minister of this over-sized frozen land actually wields the real power. The PM is not directly voted for either; he or she is traditionally an elected representative of the party that has the most seats in the House of Commons, governing is a simple enough matter when this party holds a majority, but things get messy with a minority government...
OK, thanks for the Canadian electoral process lesson Shane, but didn't you say something about Mugabe and Harper being alike? Damn straight, here's what happened in Canada last week. The three opposition parties decided that enough was enough, had a meeting and decided to band together to form a coalition government by forcing a vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons. Since together they hold more than half the seats, Harper quickly got out his calculator and determined that they would succeed in removing him from power. After consultation with the nearest dictionary, he came up with a powerful new word, prorogue. What happens is he calls up the governor general and tells her that he's having some trouble with the view of the majority and needs a little time for his propaganda machine to convince the country that he is in the right. She is cowed, agrees, and in effect government is shut down for several weeks in order for him to avoid losing his office. Here's where the Mugabe/Harper comparisons start, alongside the seven forms of propaganda.
Robert Mugabe received 43.2% of the vote in the presidential election (the first this year, not the joke of a run-off where he received over 85%) whereas Stephen Harper's party garnered the support of 37.65% of the voters. While more people voted against them than for, both men claim to have the backing of the populace and therefore act as dictators. Both men don't play well with others. Witness Mugabe's inability to reach a real power sharing agreement with Tsvangirai's MDC and Harper's inability to compromise with the other parties. Here both men fall back on the glittering generality propaganda technique to lend credence to their cause; using slogans and catchphrases that no one can argue against, 'virtue words' that have different positive meaning for individual subjects, but are linked to highly valued concepts. "Canada's government will use every legal means to protect our democracy, to protect our economy" says Stephen, "We will never allow an event like an election to reverse our independence, our sovereignty, our sweat and all that we fought for ...... all that our comrades died fighting for" says Robert.
Another common and effective form of propaganda is name calling. As the name implies, this one is nasty, but effective in forming a connection between negative thoughts and your enemy, creating fear and arousing prejudice. The Nazi's were pretty good at this technique (and maybe some will point the finger at me for using it here...). Harper is and will continue to play on the western Canadian fear of separatists as he links the mere idea of a coalition government to the separatists. The support of the Bloc Quebecois is needed to carry a majority in parliament, which explains why Harper used the word 'separatists' four times in a five-minute speech to Canadians last week, as in, "This is no time for backroom deals with the separatists". Funny how in his attempt to whip up fear in the west Stephen forgets that the tacit support of the Bloc has been necessary for the government to function for the last couple years; or worse his memory loss as to a similar plot hatched between the right and the bloc back in 2000. At a time when the Prime Minister and the governor general may have created a mechanism that future prime ministers will be able to use to bypass the legislature when it seems convenient, the Conservatives claim that the actions of the majority elected to parliament are "as close to treason and sedition as I can imagine". Mugabe's version, well, instead of villainizing the French and the elected majority, he prefers to blame all his country's problems on the west, "Countries such as the U.S. and Britain have taken it upon themselves to decide for us in the developing world, even to interfere in our domestic affairs and to bring about what they call regime change".
Next comes card stacking. Here the propagandist tries to make the best possible case for his argument and worst for the alternative by only using the facts that support his side. While most of the facts presented are true, the danger lies in the omissions. While Harper's Conservative party has used this technique to do a lot of damage, perhaps none is greater than that done to the environment, Mugabe has lead his nation to the brink of starvation and epidemic; it's almost cholera versus oil sands. Back in 1998, Canada became one of the first countries to sign the Kyoto Protocol, it was ratified a little more than four years later. However, the fprevious election of a minority Conservative government in 2006 brought Canada's participation into question as part of the right's platform was to abandon Kyoto and come up with a 'made in Canada' solution'. This was necessary to satisfy their western voting base in Alberta, the province sitting on the biggest environmental disaster in the world, the tar (oil) sands. The costs of Kyoto to the nation's economic output were played up, the costs the environment of the tar sands, played down. When they tabled their first budget, the Washington Post wrote "The government's environmental plan -- one paragraph in a budget document replacing 25 pages in the previous government's budget". Zimbabwe was once Africa's breadbasket, but through careful manipulation, Mugabe has reduced her to a food importer, and one who can't afford the costs. His campaign to get rid of the white farmers through land redistribution was presented as one which would bring benefits to the people, without mentioning the fact that efficient farmers were to be replaced by army and party loyalists with no idea how to work the land. The situation in Zimbabwe has been worsening daily, as inflation has reached unfathomable levels (1.6 sextillion percent) with no slow down in sight. To make matters worse, cholera has made a dramatic return. In Canada, Harper stacks the cards against any opposition (do look at this excellent page), in Zimbabwe they're stacked against his own people.
Bandwagon and plain folks propaganda techniques can be seen working together. As the names imply the bandwagon technique seeks to convince people to do as the rest are and ensure those on board stay, while plain folks tries to make the user look like an ordinary Joe, one of us. In an effort to ensure everyone stays on board during these troubled times, part of Harper's government's economic update a couple weeks ago included a pledge to eliminate federal civil employees right to strike over the next couple of years!!?! As to being an everyman, well, the New York Times recently described Stephen like this, "Mr. Harper is not charismatic and often appears irritated, particularly when he is challenged", sounds like the perfect conservative. Harper's tricks are a little more subtle than Mugabe's methods of forced loyalty (including killing, raping and general marauding of opponents), but he does let you know how to join his team, "Those who seek unity must not be our enemies. No, we say no to them, they must first repent…. They must first be together with us, speak the same language with us, act like us, walk alike and dream alike". Speaking of teams, Bob leaves little doubt as to which one he plays for and often attempts to sound like a man's man, for example when speaking of Tony Blair's government, "I have people who are married in my cabinet. He has homosexuals, and they make John marry Joseph and let Mary get married to Rosemary. We are saying they do not know biology because even dogs and pigs know biology."
Last but not least, the testimonial and transfer propaganda techniques are quite similar and often confused. While testimonials involve the classic celebrity or authority figure lending his or her endorsement to a product or cause, transfer is more about tying symbols to one's cause. Harper seemed to understand the power of symbols in the unity debate in Canada and deftly defused much of the tension by turning the nationalist symbols of Quebec Canadian. He neutralized Quebec's argument that Canada was trying to negate Quebec's distinct identity by endorsing a resolution that recognized it. He then used the occasion of the 400th anniversary of the Quebec City to celebrate the birth of Canada. As to testimonials, what better way to show who would support Stephen than the short list of leaders who have prorogued in the past:

• 1629 King Charles I in England
• 1799 Napoleon in France
• 1913 Victoriano Huerta in Mexico
• 1933 Adolf Hitler in Germany
• 1936 Francisco Franco in Spain
• 1939 Benito Mussolini in Italy
• 1973 Augusto Pinochet in Chile
• 2008 Stephen Harper in Canada

Yes, Mr. Harper, you've become part of an elite group, congratulations. Robert Mugabe has some neat tricks too, particularly transferring negative feelings and images to his political opponents, in this case the rival MDC, "We cannot discuss with allies of the West. The devil is the devil and we have no idea of supping with the devil", or speaking about Desmond Tutu, "He is an angry, evil and embittered little bishop", or even the PM of Australia John Howard, "They tell me he is one of those genetically modified because of the criminal ancestry he derives from". While it may be hard to find Mugabe supporters, everyone's favourite invisible friend is on his side, "Only God who appointed me will remove me - not the MDC, not the British". In case that's not a strong enough testimony, there's always Adolf, "This Hitler has only one objective: justice for his people, sovereignty for his people, recognition of the independence of his people and their rights over their resources… If that is Hitler, then let me be a Hitler tenfold".
Reading some of the sites from Canada this morning, one would expect to see that public opinion had galvanized against a leader who has gone to such an extreme measure to hold onto power. Sadly, propaganda is a powerful tool, money talks and shit walks as they say, the opposition doesn't even have the resources to properly produce a video message (bumbling fools, truly funny stuff). Yet, one of the measures Harper tried to push through was the elimination of a subsidy to political parties, which would have disproportionately affected the opposition as the rich tend to support Harper's conservatives with their contributions. The idea of completely destroying the opposition was one step too far after eliminating much of the government's support for the arts, eroding women’s rights for equal pay for work of equal value, and on and on. While Harper may not yet seem on a par with Mugabe, keep in mind that there is a slippery slope that we're on here. Both men have chosen to ignore the voice of the majority of voters in order to hold onto power; as Mugabe said, "We are not going to give up our country because of a mere X" (on a ballot). Once upon a time Mugabe was viewed by the world as a hero, it's taken nearly 30 years for the world to realize the extent of his evil; let's hope Canadians don't give Harper that much time.