Lazy leftie takes advantage of the hard work of others

Not so fast, stereotype lovers: That would be me, linking to good posts from other progressive bloggers.

Stageleft:: The Clearest Statement of Conservative Philosophy You Will Ever Read

What matters is that we are going to ram through a bad and unpopular decision that lines up nicely with My Party's Ideology, justified by my lies. 

And you fucking idiots will sleep right through it.

Beautifully succinct, and perhaps it even picks up on Salutin's suggestion about the influence of  Leo Strauss on the Harpoonians. But maybe I'm just still in mourning.

DAMMIT JANET:: Did the good guys just win one?

No juice and egg on their face. Not quite the hog's trough banquet they were expecting. 

Let the market decide. And I'm betting this venture is falling flat on its eggy face.

What the hey. Karma doesn't always have to be a bitch ...

I'm sorry, you were saying something about privacy?

That was part of the rationale for the Harperites' assault on the census, wasn't it?

For your consideration: Sean Bruyea. A vocal critic of Veterans Affairs whose personal medical and financial records seem to have been xeroxed and used for paper airplanes by hundreds of bureaucrats and used to brief former minister Greg Thompson. Details of his pension, his mental condition, his chronic fatigue, his tension headaches, even suicidal thoughts, all collected as a weapon to be used against him.

One expert in privacy law called it the worst breach of privacy he'd ever seen.

This is what happens to critics of this government.

This is what this gang of thugs will stoop to.

I'm sorry, were they saying something about the long-form census being intrusive?



(H/t Susan Delacourt.)

Update: Chet has more.

Upperdate:  As does pogge.

Harper's Pravda, the absent opposition, and a little late-summer serendipity

How does the bus even move, with so many people underneath?

Can't remember where I saw this gem* earlier this week.  It was a reference to a noxious habit we've been observing from the PMO: demonize, smear, fire and/or squeeze out people who go off-message. Even if they're professional public servants whose careers have been devoted to impartiality. (Perhaps not "even," but "especially.")

Writing in Thursday's Globe, Lawrence Martin suggests that the latest official in the Harper gunsights is CRTC chairman Konrad von Finckenstein. Something to do with the CRTC not moving quickly enough to grant the kind of broadcasting licence being sought by Sun Media for its new "Fox News North" network. We all know, by now, who's behind that.

This shouldn't, of course, come as a surprise to anyone familiar with the Harper modus operandi. It's not as if he's demonstrated much tolerance for opposing viewpoints, or for people who don't jump fast enough when he snaps. But as one of Martin's sources argues, do we really want a society in which the ruling party gets to decide who gets broadcasting licences? As one observer suggested, this is Maurice Duplessis stuff.

I'd like to think that on top of the G20 clusterfuck, the self-inflicted wounds over the census, the idiocy over Homegrown, and the lies about the coalition, this might be the tipping point, but I'm not going to hold my breath. Least of all because in the current political landscape, I'm not sure what the tipping point is, or whether there even is such a thing any more. It's not as if Harper's drooling base is going to walk over any of these things.

The only thing that gives one pause about Martin's column is his observation that Harper

must have been pleasantly surprised that the developments at the Sun chain caused barely a ripple of opposition from other Canadian media.

Really, why would the rest of the corporate media say anything? So another conglomerate wants to set itself up with a broadcast operation? It's not as if we're going to start hearing new voices and new perspectives that the owners and managers don't want us to hear. The whole script about the "liberal media" ought to be evident as the transparent Rove/Ailes contrivance that it is. 

But back to the tipping point, if there is one. A few days ago Silver Donald Cameron, in a column that will no doubt be caricatured, misrepresented and misinterpreted because of its reference to the Nazis, wondered when Canadians would start to worry about the Harper government's ruthless manipulation, arbitrary proroguing of Parliament, contempt for the Supreme Court, and systematic assaults on the infrastructure of democratic institutions.   

Authoritarian, vindictive, contemptuous, ideologically driven and arbitrary. Not to mention how stupid they clearly think we are. So what can we do? 

The answer clearly isn't in Parliament. The Liberals vote with the government whenever it matters. Collectively, the opposition parties don't have the courage or the organizational wherewithal to force a non-confidence vote (Um, Iggy? You know this is a minority parliament, right?), and in the unlikely event that they actually develop spines (or discover e-mail), Harper can just prorogue again. It's painfully clear how easily he can get away with it.

Back to Mr. Cameron, who suggests, quite reasonably, that the opposition must come from outside parliament. Not sure how easy that's going to be, given that dissent seems to be bringing jackboots on the stairs in the middle of the night or riot-squad gorillas, but it's a start. And yes, he's probably right about how effective signing a petition is going to be, but perhaps he's also onto something when he wonders whether the latest series of embarrassments might nudge more Canadians out of their apathy. As he puts it, 

This is an odd point to be drawing a line in the sand, but if that’s where the push-back begins, so be it.

A critical mass? A coalescence of opposition? A collective realization, finally, of just how dangerous this gang of thugs is?

A guy can dream ...

(Update: tip of the hat to Chet for the Pravda reference, and to *Cameron for the bus analogy.)

(Update 2: reworded to more accurately reflect relationship between Quebecor and Sun Media. Hat tip to Antonia.)

Harpokon hatred and the lessons of history

Further to Wednesday's post, Chet Scoville made an excellent point yesterday about the moral and political myopia infecting the Harpokons.

That they're motivated by spite and malice isn't really in dispute. It's the target and the historical focus of their bile that makes this consideration worthwhile;  as Chet argues, they seem convinced that all the bad things they've come to hate – progressive legislation, a social safety net, expansion of the body politic beyond the subset of white men who own property – started with Pierre Trudeau in the Sixties.

Any objective and reasonably comprehensive survey of Canadian history should reveal, however, that that just isn't the case. For a worldview like that to make sense, you'd have to believe, in essence, that the years before the Trudeau era were the Golden Age of feudalism. Men were men, serfs were serfs, women and peasants knew their place, and the advent of industrialization did nothing to alter the fundamental class order of society.

But to believe that you'd have to ignore the Industrial Revolution, the French Revolution, the Progressive movement, the New Deal, and probably even the Protestant Reformation for that matter. (Hey, I'm a big admirer of the Protestant work ethic. I also like those little finger sandwiches ... ) And as Paul Wells argues, much of what we've seen over the decades suggests that 

major social change happens incrementally and through stealth, rather than through the kind of romantic Thatcherite Big Fight for which some of my colleagues are so often nostalgic.

He goes on to suggest that that's what's really motivating Harper's assault on the census. It's not really about intrusiveness – after all, this is the same government that's installing full-body scanners in airports – so much as it is about removing the factual and statistical basis for much of the debate that precedes and surrounds policy initiatives.

A valid argument, so far as it goes, and it's not the first time it's been made. When you combine and consider the suggestions cited above, though, a number of observations arise.

Firstly, Paul is onto something when he contrasts policy advanced through electoral politics with policy advanced through things like the Court Challenges Program. Things like that have always been red meat to the Harpokon base; naturally, Birkenstock-wearing-tofu-eating-gay-Muslim urban elitists can't win at the polls, so they use our tax dollars to get what they want from activist judges, yargle bargle bleghh ...

The thrust of Paul's argument, however, is that the census kerfuffle reveals Harper's readiness to employ  exactly the same tactics that he was always ready to condemn the Liberals for using. If you can't advance your agenda through the political arena, you use "back channels" like the courts program, or simply emasculate and silence whatever sectors of the public service or NGO sector provide aid, comfort or factual backup to your opposition. Perhaps the ultimate goal may indeed be the dismantlement of the welfare state as we know it.

If that's the calculation behind the assault on the census, however, it's based not only on a misreading of history, but also of the Liberal Party's role in advancing the developments the Harpokons and their base have come to hate. As Chet argues, the Liberal Party didn't spearhead those developments; it reacted to popular sentiment, it co-opted initiatives from more progressive sectors, and it built its electoral success on aligning itself with fundamental Canadian values as they emerged and developed over the decades.  In his own words:

In none of these important cases did the Liberal Party make us who we are. On the contrary, they stayed in power for decades at a time by usually following our lead, and by reflecting (always imperfectly) the centre of the overall values of Canadians as we saw ourselves in the larger world. When they failed to follow our lead, they typically suffered at the ballot box, and then rebuilt by reconnecting with the electorate. In other words, the values that Harper's base mistake for Liberal ideology are no such thing.

Also, as Paul humourously suggests, the policy mechanisms associated with the hated "welfare state" can prove quite useful to governments of various ideological bent. Perhaps, once the census is rendered statistically and politically useless, future Harpokon governments can begin arranging 

the realignment of massive state action to serve the electoral interests of the Conservative Party. If one day we have no idea how many rock-ribbed family-values farmers and small tradesmen of Icelandic, Ukrainian, Scottish and Irish descent there are between Kenora and Kelowna, it will be easy enough for Tony Clement and Stockwell Day to claim there are 147 million of them and every one needs a tool-belt tax credit and a little something extra to help raise the kids.

So, what to take from this? It goes beyond Harper's hypocrisy, and certainly he's not the first politician guilty of talking out of both sides of his mouth, and occasionally out of his ass. Ultimately, though, if he's out to rewrite fundamental Canadian character, he's in for a disappointment. What we have to worry about, more than anything else, is how much damage he's going to do the social fabric in the attempt.

A fight you don't have to pick sides in

Wow.  The RCMP's senior command is in meltdown, open revolt against the Commissioner.

So on one side we have the senior leadership and collective organizational/cultural memory of a closed, tribal, hierarchical organization that's been described as "horribly broken."

On the other hand we have a longtime bureaucrat and current Harper political appointee, with Harper's personal mandate to fix that organization, who's being described as arrogant, abusive, closed-minded and impossible to work with.

Sometimes ... life is kind.

UPDATE:  Sorry, tonight's all about trashy entertainment and junk food.  You want intellectual content, go check out what Chet Scoville's got to say.  It's a tall cool drink of reason.

Ok, this census thing is getting out of hand

Two of my favourite progressive observers have noted the speed and suddenness with which the flying monkeys of the right have swung into line behind the Harpokons' inexplicable attack on the long-form census. As Chet Scoville notes at The Vanity Press, a couple of weeks ago nobody was even talking about it, but now it's tapping into long-held beliefs and long-suppressed rage and resentment of Condescending Urban Elitist Big Government Socialism. The fact that even Tom Flanagan's baffled by it is beside the point.

And note as well the all-or-nothing nature of some of the anti-census commentary. As Cathie from Canada notes, there's no nuance, no grey, nothing – it's all wrapped up in one big ball of string. If we let them collect census data, the next thing we know they'll be coming for our guns and forcing us to marry gay Muslims.

Another manifestation of the toxic right-wing tropes the Harpokons seem determined to import from their teabagging friends to the south. As we've seen in the case of the birthers, facts don't matter to these people. And when the facts get in the way of the narrative or the ideology, guess what gets thrown out the window?

That's the thing about manufactured controversies. For decades, nobody's gotten their knickers in a twist about the census, but out of nowhere, there's this huge groundswell of organized opposition to it? A grassroots movement of resentment that's been building for years? Can anyone say astroturf?

Zane Caplansky: Still king of the deli

Sunday afternoon at the Wychwood Barns.  Caplansky's, Goldin's and The Stockyards. Not optimum conditions, I grant you, but this is where we separate the delimeisters from the dilettantes.  This is where you get to show us what you've got.

Gentlemen ... start your smokers

For all his Zen-inspired approach to the competition, Caplansky still rules -- in this observer's view at least.  Tender, moist, fatty ... melts in your mouth.

Goldin's might be worth a couple more tries, though.  A little chewier than Caplansky's.  Leaves an interesting afterburn from the spice.  Not unpleasant. Until recently they didn't do retail but apparently they're now supplying the Free Times Cafe.

Naturally, the scientific method requires rigorous analysis and a devotion to the most rational and comprehensive forms of data collection.  Proof, yet again, of why any effort to do away with the long-form approach is misguided.  This is very demanding research, after all.

A little foam with your census form, sir?

Well-meaning piece in the Globe this morning talks about the many ways the data from the long-form census is important.

Only thing is, who's the first guy they cite?  A guy who crunches demographic numbers for, er ... Starbucks.

Wouldn't be surprising to see a revival of the phony Starbucks / Tim Hortons dichotomy.  Because, as everyone knows, only sneering, Volvo-driving, Birkenstock-wearing urban elitists drink Starbucks.  Authentic Real Canadians^(TM) don't have any truck with fancy-shmancy lattes and such; they head to Tim's for double-doubles.

If only it were as harmless as Hogan's Heroes ...

It's not a bad analogy. Steven Chase writes in the Globe's Ottawa Notebook that the Harpokons (I won't dignify them by calling them Tories, or even Conservatives – those are terms with honourable connotations) have decided to make their stand on the census kerfuffle with the Hogan's Heroes defence. (In fairness, lest anyone think they're all alone, they can take some comfort in the support they're getting from random flying monkeys.)

Good for a laugh, but it leaves me with the same uneasy feeling I get after watching Jon Stewart. Like the people Stewart skewers so effectively, the Harpokons just shrug it off and persist with their stolid disregard, even contempt, for differing viewpoints, critical engagement, and independent thought for that matter. They've been sticking to their guns on this despite a virtual avalanche of concern and opposition to their plans to neuter the census. Not just from the “socialists” and “elitists” they like to deride, but from virtually every sector – even those that normally align with them.

While the census kerfuffle may leave them with some temporary embarrassment, it's not as if they're going to sustain any serious political damage. And that's the worrisome part.

It's not as if they're going to pay for turning the jackbooted bullyboys loose on us during the G20.

It's not as if they've had to pay for their continuing campaign to intimidate and silence critics and undermine the entire notion of an impartial and professional public service. (Richard Colvin?  Name ring a bell?)

It's not as if anyone's held their feet to the fire over their sustained and multipronged assault on the "foundational infrastructure of democratic accountability” or their systematic undermining of democratic institutions and practices.

Not content with their attempt to dismantle the foundation of all good public policy via their assault on the census, now they're going after employment equity, because, as we all know, white men face such numerous systemic and institutional barriers in our society. Although apparently Jason Kenney's been trying to reassure critics that affirmative action isn't being targeted. Dog whistle? Ya think?

The most stomach-turning thing about all of this is listening to otherwise well-intentioned observers who caution us about the Harpokons and warn us that we can't afford to give them a majority. Well, here's a question: can someone please explain how this is any different from what we'd see under a Harper majority? Because I really want to know ...

Citizenship, politics and the census

Stephen Harper's contrived excuses for doing away with the long-form census may just come around to bite him in the ass.

On the surface, we have something that looks like a shallow decision meant to appeal to our inherent desire for privacy. It's red meat to Harper's ignorant, knuckle-dragging, big-goverment-hating base. Who wants nosy bureaucrats poking around our lives? Why does Ottawa need to know how many people live in my house? None of their goddamn business how many bathrooms I have. An easy two points.

(This line of argument, if I can call it that, can have unfortunate consequences. Remember Michele Bachmann railing against the U.S. Census and saying the information might be used to put people in internment camps? A census worker in Kentucky was found hanged from a tree with the word “Fed” scrawled on his body. It wouldn't be the first time that a political crime was inspired by political hate speech.)

Unfortunately, it's also going to have the effect of making government programs and public decisions less effective. All kinds of things influence our daily lives and the shape of our communities:

• urban planning decisions (affordable housing, economic policy tools aimed at job creation)
• resource allocation and service delivery to target populations
• identification of disadvantaged neighbourhoods
• planning of services and outreach programs to immigrant communities (where Harper, incidentally, wants to build his support)
• private business decisions based on projections of population and economic growth

all rely on the data collected by the long-form census. And the record shows that the very people who are most affected by these decisions are the ones least likely to complete it. And incomplete data means you don't have what you need to make informed decisions.

One can't help but discern an ideological component to this. It certainly wouldn't be the first effort to reduce the efficacy of public services to the point where people are so fed up with government's incompetence and inability to accomplish anything that they're willing to see public agencies drastically reduced or even dismantled. We've seen this in the United States, most spectacularly in the Bush Administration's feckless response to Hurricane Katrina. The strategy is straightforward enough, even if its callousness and hypocrisy make you want to retch: slash the funding and narrow the mandate of public agencies to ribbons, staff them with incompetent managers, and then shit all over them when they can't respond meaningfully.

This, of course, feeds into the pernicious narrative about government being useless and incompetent generally, and the argument that its functions should be left to the private sector because the profit motive creates an incentive to do things more efficiently. Grover Norquist once talked about wanting to shrink the U.S. federal government to the point where he could drown it in the bathtub. And how convenient for corporate interests whose main motive is to maximize short-term profits and do away with public oversight.

We've all seen how well that's worked out in the Gulf of Mexico.

So yes, it goes beyond pandering to idiots like Michele Bachmann.

The attack on the long-form census needs to be seen for what it is: a calculated tactical initiative from a Prime Minister less interested in governing effectively than in politicking 24/7 and destroying all opposition, both in Parliament and in the streets. He knows the gormless opposition parties aren't going to bring down his minority, and that people aren't going to take to the streets over the long-form census. (Given the way the cops went wilding at the G20, fewer people are likely to take to the streets in any event. Not that that would have been part of the calculation, of course.)

No, it's not voluntary. Yes, it's a pain in the ass. It might even take a few minutes out of your day. Tough shit. Citizenship carries responsibilities, and this is one of them.