So much excellent writing about the contemptible Harper Government

As we limp our way toward another Harper minority government (or, may the gods forbid, a Harper majority), there is so much to read by some truly great bloggers.

James Laxer:

Ten compelling reasons to vote for Stephen Harper:

Stephen Harper - Sans moi, le deluge

Stephen Harper: Now He’s The Champion of National Unity

David Climenhaga and his Alberta diary.

Neil Kitson

Canada's 2011 Federal Election

Harper's government has been found in contempt of parliament, the first time that it has happened in any country with the parliamentary system. Stephen Harper and his merry band of loyal acolytes have tried to make it appear that the whole thing is about a budget, another blatant lie.

In the last election, people who had posted lawn signs for a Liberal candidate in London, Toronto and the Niagara Region of Ontario had the break lines cut on their cars. In the last couple of days, cars have been vandalized and houses spray- painted with graffiti, e.g. "Lie-beral scum". Liberal and NDP signs have been defaced or destroyed. One Liberal candidate in the riding west of Ottawa had one hundred of his signs spray-painted with the crosshairs of a gunsight, just like the unlovely Sarah Palin's tactics. These are not the tactics of the centrist or left-of-centre parties. Why would they deface their own signs? Some Con supporters suggest it's done to elicit sympathy for themselves.

Harper has made my skin crawl since I first saw him. With each following lie, dirty deal, corrupt official, attack ad and his blatant ignorance (if I'm being charitable) or breaking of our laws, he has become more nauseating and frightening.

Robert Kennedy Jr. blasts Harper

Some days the news is so depressing, the hypocrisy so thick and motives are so murky that it is hard work to see any light on the horizon at all.

And then this inspired piece from Robert Kennedy Jr. made me smile for one of the few times in the last five years when I consider the state of this country under Prime Minister Stephen Harper's malign influence.

Kennedy sees what we have running the place and isn't afraid to say it.

"...[C}anada['s] regulators announced last week they would reject efforts by Canada's right wing Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, to repeal a law that forbids lying on broadcast news."

There is already considerable leeway on "ads" during election campaigns. Basically, you're allowed to libel and slander to your heart's content. The HarperCons have taken it to new heights. They've launched attack ads without any official announcement of an election, delicately circumventing the financing rules and probably using taxpayer money to do it. But if they aren't election ads, then the Cons should be prosecuted under libel laws.

In my dreams...

But Robert Kennedy Jr. comes to the rescue again:

"...[H]arper, often referred to as 'George W. Bush's Mini Me,' is known for having mounted a Bush like war on government scientists, data collectors, transparency, and enlightenment in general. He is a wizard of all the familiar tools of demagoguery; false patriotism, bigotry, fear, selfishness and belligerent religiosity.

Harper's attempts to make lying legal on Canadian television is a stark admission that right wing political ideology can only dominate national debate through dishonest propaganda..."

Music to my ears, heard as a long gloomy winter is finally coming to an end...maybe. Weather gurus are forecasting a colder than usual spring.

Jonathan Livingston Buffalo

The sweet voice - although a little testy, and why not? - of reason from Neil Kitson on the prospect of yet another election in Canada.

You’d like to think that some buffalo at the back of the herd, following all those thundering bulls with balls, Jonathan Livingston Buffalo maybe, is thinking, in response to the shrieking of crazed humans: "Wait a minute…"

OK, so we’re having elections up here in Canada like we’re rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. We’re trying to decide which minority government is least obnoxious.

He points out something that nobody ever spends any time on at all, the complete vacuum that surrounds discussion of the war in Afghanistan from any party at all in this. Even the NDP are largely missing in action on this one.

The endless parade of military and civilian casualties, the pumping up of ex-generals like Rick Hillier and the absence of much discussion about the families of dead soldiers or the physcial and mental wounds of injured soldiers, the endless war spending without even a question or discussion about it - the Memory Hole has opened in Canada and people are being thrown into it.

Jeff Huber, retired US Naval Commander at Pen and Sword muses on endless war and endless spending this way:

It would be nice to think our woebegone wars will die of natural causes when we can no longer afford them, but when it comes to the federal budget, war is like Jell-O: there’s always room for it.

Note that General Petraeus, hereinafter to be known as King David, is wearing the Calgary Stampede Special white hat presented to him this year in Alberta.

Speaking of generals and their life after combat, I remember that one of the few times Rick Hillier was anwhere near danger in Afghanistan, the minute the bomb went off somewhere in the vicinity, he was scooped up and bustled off like a piece of precious china. Now he sits on boards and rakes in the bucks.

Dr. Kitson is not very impressed with either offering for the new "leader" of this lovely, mismanaged country, but saves the most withering disapproval for Stephen Harper.

"Stephen Harper, who seems to have a primordial, completely un-Canadian dream of converting the world into a disciplined unit that will do whatever he says, which always involves more punishment and less imagination. Show me something – anything – that Harper has done in his life that has contributed – remotely – to the well-being of Canadians. Show me that he’s produced anything at all."

Neil Kitson has hit the nail squarely on the head. Stephen Harper doesn't have particularly advanced academic qualifications in anything, does not have a trade or a skill, has never run a business or met a payroll - nothing, nothing, nothing. And yet his contempt for people who have is so palpable that you could cut it with a knife.

As for Michael Ignatieff, he reminds me of any empty vessel which every passing breeze can make sing a different tune.

Next time you're in Kandahar...

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...say "Hi!" to Britney for me.

Leave it to the Aussies to get the story out. From Paul McGeough at The Age:

Britney Spears votes in Afghanistan

"...[E]xperts laugh at claims by Afghan officialdom that all 17 million names on the electoral roll are legitimate
An election official confided to the Dutch analyst Martine van Bijlert, of the respected Afghanistan Analysts Network, that up to 3 million of the names were fake....''Britney Jamilia Spears'' is on the roll in the former Taliban stronghold of Kandahar, where voting is to take place in just three of 17 districts."

But who cares? No matter what, the White House will surge forward, said its press secretary.

Gibbs: Afghan election outcome won't change policy

"But [Gibbs] said reports of a light turnout would not alter "our policy going forward in our aggressive goals..."

Cue Céline Dion (sorry!) and the Titanic theme, with Obama at the front of the ship (excuse my unnautical terminology) arms outflung, bellowing at the top of his lungs.

"My war will go oooooooonnnnnnnnnnnn!"
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Scuzz 'R Us - Harperites install the governments they want and you thought you voted for

Didn't get the government you wanted? Didn't get the candidate you thought you voted for?

Look no further than the New (neo)Conservative government's interference in municipal elections and thoroughtly scuzzy financing practices. You want to see the whole country go down the drain? Vote these guys into a majority and sit back and watch it happen.

Political interference charges dog Conservatives

Under investigation: allegations of meddling in municipal politics, and inflated rebates through in-and-out campaign financing.

"Charges are still before the courts that O'Brien tried to bribe his political rival Terry Kilrea into dropping out of the 2006 mayoral race. Part of the deal may have included an appointment facilitated by Baird. Kilrea has charged in a court affidavit that in July, O'Brien offered to help Kilrea secure a job on the National Parole Board and to give him $30,000 for campaign expenses if he dropped from the race."

"...Then the candidates claimed public funding for these advertising payments, which they claimed to be local spending. Public funding is given to local riding associations on the basis of actual campaign expenses, so these in-an-out transfers were used to inflate the size of local campaign budgets and, as a result, the size of federal rebates. Through the exchange of cheques, the Conservatives claimed millions in tax subsidies for their campaign."

"..Shortly after this news surfaced in September, Stephen Harper launched the Muslim veil controversy, which, with the excitement over the by-election, has deflected attention from in-and-out financing, at least until the Chief Electoral Officer reports again."