Tag Archives: Canadian politics

Cultural commentary, Economic commentary, Let's make this an election issue, Political commentary, Social commentary

Harper’s Tories: Bad for Business, Bad for Canada

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Rob Ford, recently seen delivering a speech concerning the state of Canada’s economy.

For the first time in my life, I can say that I support Toronto Mayor Rob Ford.

This is by no means a universal endorsement, just a simple show of support for what could have been a good idea, struck down prematurely by Canada’s idiotic federal government.


Recognize the power of the lord, …sucka!

Avowed Harperite and Heritage Minister-in-absentia James Moore, seen here in his pre-government days as a Southern Revivalist preacher, decided to kill two birds with the single proverbial stone. Rob Ford’s dream for a universal exposition in Toronto in 2025 is apparently over. And it isn’t even his fault.

And how you may ask? By cutting funding to the program? By refusing to partner with the city and province? No. By refusing to pay the $30,000 annual membership fee to the Bureau Internationale des Expositions. That’s right. The annual salary of a basic labourer is all it costs to be part of a prestigious international organization that plans and executes mass demonstrations of humanity’s greatest potential. It’s too expensive for Canada, despite Harper’s insistence our economy is robust. The organization that brought Vancouver and Montréal into near instantaneous global significance is not one we can afford to be a part of anymore, despite record-breaking national and individual wealth.

And Moore’s our heritage minister.

You likely won’t be surprised to find out that Canada hasn’t participated much in international expositions since Harper took power. Though we had a minor presence at the 2010 Shanghai Expo, we were absent from Zaragoza 2008, Yeosu 2012 (both environmentally-themed) and won’t be attending Milan 2015 either. How could we? We haven’t paid our dues.

You know who did? Kazakhstan, a leading candidate for 2017 (Astana has bid for a future energy systems expo).

Edmonton wanted to host the 2017 expo, and likely could have won given the city and province’s wealth, wide open spaces ripe for development, and the fact that we’d be celebrating the nation’s sesquicentennial, in addition to Expo 67’s 50th anniversary. But no, no, no time for all that. Harper needs to cut back on ‘frivolous government waste’.

Why is it that culture and an academically-correct, non-political national heritage always seem to be the first to get the axe?

Perhaps it’s because $30,000 can buy one two-hundredth of a tank?

Now to be fair it doesn’t seem as though planning had advanced much on Expo 2025, though it was apparently a big deal for Mr. Ford. Perhaps he visited Expo 86 in Vancouver when he was younger and it left an impression, perhaps he has a secret fascination with Expo 67 and wishes to be his city’s Drapeau. Who knows? All I know is that, if done right, a universal exposition could have been immensely beneficial for the city of Toronto, and Rob Ford clearly knows this too. If the economic gain, via increased tourism and deals signed at the fair, was even half as much as it was for Montréal, it would guarantee at least a decade of economic development post-2025, maybe more. Expo 67 and Expo 86 were both successful primarily because they left legacies, gave the respective city’s an air of worldly sophistication, significance, saw massive infrastructure and urban development. Business was done, and the people profited in the long term. They were moments of national importance, and helped bring this country together while bringing it out onto the world stage.

Harper and his Tories think all this is mere frivolity, ultimately worthless. They can’t see the gains, the long-term benefits, the potential. I don’t know what Ford was planning, but I sure as hell am glad at least he saw the potential of major event of this calibre. You can imagine I want another Expo here in Montréal, and if I were mayor I’d do whatever had to be done to fix this embarrassing decision, up to and including paying the fee myself.

Can Harper and Moore not see how this could benefit the nation’s biggest city, in its biggest province, and one of their staunchest supporters? There was no definite commitment necessary, and the amount is so minute compared to what the government is willing to spend on G8 summits and bombing runs out in Libya. What’s the deal?

I fear there may be darker issues at play, as of course it is well known the Harper clique has been busy rebranding Canada along the fabricated notions we’re a ‘warrior society’. We’re no such thing, it’s a ridiculous farce, but it strokes the short and curly egos of the Nickleback Douchebag caliphate now officially deemed the standard of Canadian identity. It’s sick and twisted. It’s patently false – such as the over-glamourized and anachronistic depictions of a chesty and youthful Laura Secord in those god-awful 1812 infomercials. They ignore our Charter and Constitution, the significance of Confederation, the creation story of a profoundly Métis society, all to finance more guns and ammo, be it on the battlefield or in history books. The Charter, Expo, the Canadian Museum of Civilization – it’s all about our place as a sovereign nation in the world.

James Moore and Stephen Harper believe we’re just a colony, subservient to a foreign monarch that supposedly reigns supreme by the grace of god.

I don’t know what more proof we need Harper and the CPC is not just bad for business, but bad for Canada as well, and I’m curious to see Ford’s reaction. How is it that Harper and his cronies are still in power after all the scandals, cost-overruns, unpopular decisions and cynical political posturing is quite beyond me. We’re either the most patient people in the world or we’re god-damned fools.

Cultural commentary, History and Culture, Political commentary, Québec sovereignty, Social commentary, Sovereign Socialist, Sovereign Socialist featured article

My Country Isn’t An Accident

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I wrote this a couple weeks ago for Forget the Box, an excellent local blog you should definitely check out.

I was asked to write a piece on the significance of Pauline Marois’ decision to remove the Canadian flag from her cabinet’s swearing-in ceremony. I see no significance in the decision, other than something I’ve grown accustomed to seeing in this province for all the many years I’ve lived here, for all the epochs and eras of our collective history I’ve studied.

What significance? It’s posturing. It’s theatre. It’s about as much as the péquistes can do at the moment to distance themselves from Canada. That may be significant in itself, but I can’t help but feel it’s little more than noise.

We forget that this was not a permanent move (apparently the flag was returned the next day), it’s been done before by other péquiste governments in the past, and they still had to swear allegiance to the Queen with hand set upon the Bible.

It’s these last two that struck me as odd, as somewhat scandal-worthy.

Haven’t we evolved past this? What was 1982 all about if the apparently secular and sovereign Premier of Québec still has to swear allegiance to an old woman in a foreign country, by placing her hand on an at best incomplete and heavily politicized book of history and moral judgments mixed in with outright nonsense?

I’m a federalist to the core and I wouldn’t do either. But I wouldn’t do either because I’m a federalist to the core. The Constitution and Charter of Canada and the political theory that led to their creation grant me greater freedoms than any other political theory developed in this country’s history, and the fault of those other theories lay chiefly in their incompatibility with the profoundly Canadian values of restraint, complexity and individual sovereignty.

A federalist has no need for a foreign monarch, let alone one for whom allegiance must be sworn. I have nothing in common with royalty, and as a Canadian I have the individual sovereignty necessary to reject allegiance to anyone, especially foreign monarchs. Why? Because Canada is a collection of sovereign individuals entered into a social contract that seeks to support and sustain our collective sovereignty. That’s what 1982 was all about…

Moreover, my Charter Rights protect my right to exist in a default secular society, where government is the great equalizer because it refrains from any particular religious orientation. I refuse to acknowledge any deity as proof of my ability to govern and conduct myself appropriately. This ability lies within me. Official state secularism is the only way to go. Québec was once leading the pack in this respect, but in this neo-evangelical era of ours, we too have fallen victim of tying culture too closely to an absurd notion of ‘oppressed Christianity’. In a superhuman effort of logical gymnastics, the new saviour of Québec’s culture endeavours to create a secular state not by promoting the advantages of atheism, but once again by lashing out at minority groups in such a manner so as to prevent better societal integration. How many orthodox Jews or Muslims do you see working at the SAQ, SAAQ or the Revenue Québec office? Do you think they’ll feel more or less welcome to apply for such jobs when an ‘officially secular’ province decides a yarmulke or hijab is an affront to our collective values?

But an illuminated Roman-era torture device atop a mountain in our country’s second-to-none city that can be programmed to flash bleu, blanc et rouge during the playoffs? Well – that’s just a part of our heritage…

The symbols of the most oppressive and destructive forces in our province, nation and country’s history – British Imperialism and the Catholic Church – are the very emblems that Pauline Marois still feels obliged to supplicate herself before. They are, apparently, those with which we cannot do without.

I can do without them, and so can you.

Let’s not forget who else in Canada has been pushing an antiquated and historically inaccurate vision of our collective heritage. The Tories have been taking down great oeuvres of Canadian folk art and replacing them with photographs of the Queen throughout our federal buildings for some time. We close down embassies and consulates in places where they’re needed most, but re-decorate those in the upscale neighbourhoods of our richest allies with the symbols of an empire that no longer exists in any tangible sense. We adorn our foreign service with the symbols of something we’re not; as if to prove our legitimacy by resurrecting the notion we’re an extension of Old Europe. And recent news is out that Canada and the United Kingdom will have joint embassies, ostensibly to save money. Are we soon to share a common military and foreign policy? This is federal sovereignty? Moreover, Stephen Harper hasn’t delivered on a single major military acquisition promised during various election campaigns, but he made damn sure to resurrect the royal prefix of our armed services! And while we continue scratching our heads over the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Libyan Mission, Harper and his crew of Bay Street marketing gurus shamelessly over-embellish the significance of the War of 1812 in a thoroughly misguided effort to establish Canada’s ‘warrior-society’ street cred.

Its all so manipulative and cynical, inappropriately Republican-esque, an awful homage to the most profane depths of American populist politics. Marois and Harper, unlikely peas in a pod, both taking lessons from the Tea Party in an albeit slightly more nuanced fashion. Both pushers of a twisted and delusional pop-nationalism where societal sovereignty is tied to imported notions of legitimacy. How pathetically unpatriotic.

I refuse to believe, for even a fraction of a second, that my country is an accident. That our society and culture are mere imports of something broken from beyond. That we must supplicate ourselves before foreign and antiquated means of social and economic control that appeal to our basest instincts as a society. We forget that monarchy and religion are intimately associated, that nobility is demagoguery, and that though both played a role in our creation, we also decided to reject them. Our rejection of that which created us, in favour of homegrown solutions, marked the first step in our evolution.

We are a Métis society. We are the integration of the Americas, Imperial Europe and the shared socio-democratic value that is openness to immigration that has characterized the nation since its inception. Our country has Founding Fathers, and many of their ideas, their values, form the backbone of Canadian social-liberalism today. Our nation has been evolving for one hundred forty-five years, and neither Pauline Marois nor Stephen Harper wishes to acknowledge it. They both fear the socio-political identity that developed out of the ashes of the Rebellions of 1837 and led quite directly to Confederation, and then for another hundred thirty-five or so years after that. They turn their back on our own symbols of strength through unity for the preference of symbols of dominion-from-afar and spiritual bondage.

It seems as though the evolution of my people, my nation, has been on hiatus ever since Stephen Harper took office. He, much like Pauline Marois, is blind to the truth that is Canada, to the greatness we could achieve as a more unified nation. Each wants to further decentralize and marginalize the legacy of Canadian federalism, and each are going about it in their own way. Harper hacks away at the budgets and scope of the census, scientific and ecological research and the national archives, while Marois proceeds to govern by decree without any debate. Neither care much for Canadian democracy, they view it as an inconvenience to accomplishing their own myopic goals.

And we let them get away with it, because we falsely believe we are nothing but an accident.

A modest proposal, Cultural commentary, History and Culture, Let's make this an election issue, Political commentary, Social commentary, Sovereign Socialist

Destroying the Evidence

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Let me be perfectly blunt, I believe that the Conservative Party of Canada is engaged in a project to dismantle our academic national identity.

It started with the 2011 Census, continued with the sudden desire to recast our image as a vibrant extension of the British Empire and then manifested itself in the development of the ‘Warrior Society’ branding initiative that came on the heels of the bicentennial ‘celebrations’ of the War of 1812. If the Tories can manage to do anything right, it’s market their vision of the country as if it were legitimately a consensus understanding of who we are. It is anything but.

We once praised our collective intellect – our great universities and public education system, the immense arm of the federal government dedicated to recording and promoting Canadian culture and social values. Today we call that ‘big government’ and pronounce the efforts of Prime Ministers St-Laurent, Pearson, Trudeau, Chretien and to a lesser extent Martin and even Mulroney to have been in vain. Today’s Conservative-Corporate national identity is composed of Royal Canadian Air Force fly-overs of Grey Cup games while Nickleback churns out over amplified power-pop to reinforce an overly simplistic concept of national pride. This is not what I signed up for. The efforts of our politicians over the better part of nation’s history, to build a Canadian society and shared Canadian liberal social values, has not been in vain. The Tories will tell you a federal plan for national identity is doomed to failure – we’re too diverse, too accidental, and better as a loose federation with no real sense of where we come from nor where we’re going. Inasmuch as we lose our identity we lose any hope of deciding where we go, where we’ll grow.

You can imagine my disgust when I discovered that as part of massive government cuts to just about everything that isn’t the military or their salaries, Library and Archives Canada is facing major budget cuts, despite the fact that it has been chronically underfunded for close to a decade. This is the federal agency tasked with preserving Canada’s social and cultural identity, and it’s being sold off piece by piece to private interests, many of whom aren’t even Canadian. We have billions available for unproven and under-equipped knock-off fighter jets but can’t seem to find ten or twenty million to support the institutional and societal memory of the entire nation. This nation’s government is corrupt to the core.

It’s no secret that the Tories have a particular vision of Canada they wish to promote. It’s militaristic, a loving member of the British Empire, pseudo-Aboriginal (though only to reinforce the notion of warrior traits being somehow absorbed via a non-existant proximity to nature, itself a heavily romanticized vision of our people as being a collection of rugged outdoorsmen), and increasingly Christian supremacist. In my opinion and experience, this reflects but a minority of the people who actually live here.

And yet so it goes, and far more significant and non-violent celebrations – such as the thirtieth anniversary of the Charter and Constitution – go completely unmentioned by ‘Canada’s Conservative Government.’ The single most important document of reference which has inspired the design of constitutions and bills of basic human rights the world over, more important than the American Constitution and Bill of Rights, and our ‘benevolent dictator’ of a Prime Minister decides to stick it to a dead man by denying the moment its due.

But the real damage isn’t created by the lack of celebration, it’s coming from simple budget cuts such as these that are quickly and methodically destroying evidence of Canada’s own culture, our own history and all the evidence of heritage. Folk art and manuscripts and clay pots and correspondence may not be as exciting as battle recreations and military parades, but when they point to the development of a unique society and culture, and establish a history and heritage quite unlike what we see in Europe or the Americas, we’d be wise to preserve and promote it.

Take a look in any illustrated Canadian history textbook and you’ll see what I mean. Chances are the document or object in the photograph will be part of a foreign museum’s collection or else be in private hands.

And all this at a time in which the country desperately needs to be pulled together. All the positive and universally accessible elements of our common culture – those that relate most to the simple matter of living in our country – cast aside as irrelevant. How shamelessly reckless.

The Tories view Canada as an accident, and thus what we’ve created and the study of who we are as a people, is apparently of no significance. If anything, the evidence that suggests Canada is deliberate and purposely complex impedes their efforts to rebrand Canada in their image and according to their minority viewpoint. As far as they’re concerned our culture and history are merely marketing tools to be employed sparingly for manipulative political purposes. And there’s a helluvalot of danger in having your identity dictated to you by a federal government which has been very busy destroying or selling off the evidence that your individual socio-political heritage is anathema to everything the Tories stand for.

I am a sovereign Canadian, and I don’t want this care-taker government to destroy the historical record of my sovereignty.

There’s a petition – check this link to Boing Boing for more details.

And always you, can write the dishonourable Minister Moore.

Remember, any Canadian can send a letter to any Parliamentarian without postage.

Think about what full access to the collective consciousness and history of Canada and all its peoples could teach us. Consider what fully funded government agencies could do with such knowledge and how it could be used to find academic solutions to our contemporary societal problems. One day we will awake and recognize that which truly bonds us together, and try to undo the damage caused by this most cavalier and corrupt federal government.

A modest proposal, Cultural commentary, Economic commentary, History and Culture, Let's make this an election issue, Political commentary, Social commentary, Sovereign Socialist, Sovereign Socialist featured article

What is a Nation Without Goals?

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Maybe it’s me, but he’s always struck me as a somewhat lethargic individual…

This article was originally posted to the blog of the Association for Canadian Studies, and can be accessed back there where you see the hyperlink.

***

When will Canada build a bullet-train network?

Will the first sesquicentenarian be Canadian?

Will Canada solve global warming?

Will Canada prevent the next genocide?

Isn’t Canada a more suitable nation to host the UN General Assembly than the United States?

When will Canada develop its own independent space launch capability?

When will we finally fully ratify the Constitution?

And when will we finally get down to business and enter into negotiations for the acquisition (or voluntary integration) of the Turks & Caicos?

None of these have to be national goals, there just examples of things we’ve pondered, issues we’re concerned about and various initiatives that we’re once considered but in which there’s been no follow through. We’re remarkably good at dreaming, but of late haven’t been great at creating. One without the other is rather pointless isn’t it? But really, would it kill us to start thinking, sincerely, about who we’re going to be and we’ll be doing twenty, forty, sixty years from now?

We have no goals, and I sincerely feel this may be our ultimate undoing. A nation without any definable goals is a listless one, and this is inherently unstable.

To say we have no goals doesn’t mean we haven’t been working – all of us, as individuals, have certainly been diligently performing our duties. Our economy is strong, our resource sector is booming, as is the value of our dollar. Canadian banks and corporations are doing well despite myriad potential threats to their stability. All in all, though there is a high level of popular discontent amongst certain key demographics (namely youth, creative & intellectual capitalists and primary cultural minorities), the vast majority of Canadians are still relatively content and appropriately compensated. None of us are overwhelmingly rich, and, for the moment, too few of us are sufficiently poor so as to effect broad societal change.

That being the case, why not utilize the general social stability to further stabilize the economy of the future? Why not secure a booming resource-based economy with a new foundation of major infrastructure projects to further unite the nation? Why not capitalize on security by thinking big and implementing long-term nation-building projects?

It’s what we’ve done historically, and we know that it works.

From the construction of the Canadian Pacific in 1885 to the construction of the Saint Lawrence Seaway in the 1950s, Canada has always been a nation of great national projects. The Canadarm, the Arrow, Alouette I, Medicare, Peacekeeping, the Charter – we have done so many great things it’s ridiculous to try and list them in a single blog post – the point is ultimately that national aspirations are a worthwhile endeavour, as it gives all of us, in no uncertain terms, something which we know we all can work towards, regardless of whatever function we happen to have. It’s the dream which pulls you out from your specific task and insists that you are actively contributing to a project greater than every individual, simply by going above and beyond every day. in order to produce a hyper effective, efficient workforce, we need dreams with just this much reach.

Without a driving force, we’ll invariably wind up circling the drain. Nothing exists uniquely in stasis – we must have social propulsion, drive, movement.

Today there is discontent in Canada – it’s palpable. Yet we also have security and, perhaps for the first time, real immediate wealth. We can’t afford to squander it. Let us find balance between these poles and seek to define what we want for the future and how we can better utilize our relative current riches into multi-generational, self-perpetuating wealth. We need to craft a wish-list to determine exactly what kind of future nation we want, now. And if we can go a step further, and identify key investments we wish to characterize as having a particular Canadian accent, then we can position ourselves to be, conceptually, the nation at the state of its respective arts. Whether it’s the best transportation network, the highest quality of life, the finest schools or global leadership in terms of eradicating poverty, disease, war or exploring outer space, whatever we choose as our national dreams, let it ultimately reflect who we wish to become.

The single greatest tool for economic stability and real growth is a society committed to achieving national goals for the greater good. As long as there’s a national dream that is driven by the wants and needs of the people themselves, and the people understand that these goals go to benefit the whole inasmuch as the individual, they’ll work harder, work better and save to live peacefully in the future ideal they wish to create.

And the best thing about living in the 21st century? Not only is this doable, but we have the communications technologies and media techniques to keep everyone focused on whatever goals we come up with. Heck, we could turn it into a very real, very addictive, game. Hard work can be infectiously enjoyable.

A modest proposal, Economic commentary, History and Culture, Let's make this an election issue, Political commentary, Social commentary, Sovereign Socialist, Unrealized development projects, What were they thinking?, Worth reconsidering

Resurrect the Arrow: A made-in Canada solution to the F-35 problem.

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The photo above is of two examples of the CF-105 Arrow, also known as the Avro Arrow, a supersonic jet fighter designed, built and tested here in Canada in the mid-late 1950s. It was a milestone in Canadian aviation and a great success for our high-technology industrial sector. The project was abruptly terminated in the late-1950s by the Progressive Conservative government of John Diefenbaker, who saw the project as emblematic of Liberal ‘big-government’ spending. Moreover, with the advent of long-range ballistic missiles and the launching of Sputnik (and subsequent Space Race) at the end of the 1950s, there was a widespread belief that ground and space based missiles would determine the strategic balance of the future. Thus the Arrow, the Iroquois engine and Velvet Glove missile system programs were all scrapped (literally, the aircraft were cut to pieces, engines smashed, blueprints burned in bonfires).

Avro Canada Ltd would go belly-up by 1962 as they had thrown almost all their efforts behind the project. Efforts to sell the Arrow or elements of the design to foreign nations were in fact prevented by Diefenbaker’s government (a Tory gov’t preventing free-market capitalism and over-regulating our high-tech and defence sector industries, funny) and many of the chief engineers would find work throughout the United States and Europe working for other major defence consortiums. Among others, former Avro employees would help design fighter aircraft in the UK, France and the United States, in addition to designing the Apollo Command and Service module. Indeed, as you can see from this Wikipedia entry Avro was involved in myriad state of the art technologies and were global aviation leaders.

A long time has passed since the Arrow program was cancelled. In its wake Avro would be sold to Hawker Siddeley (a British corporation), Canada acquired inferior American-built interceptors two years later (which employed nuclear weapons, not a popular move in Canada) and later, Canadair would take over construction and testing of Canadian-built versions of American-designed fighter models, including the Hornets we use today. It has been more than fifty years since we were so bold to dare develop our high-technologies sector by direct government investment and support as we once tried with the Arrow program.

And today, an opportunity has presented itself, one we seem to be very interested in squandering outright.

I don’t need to tell you about the multiple inter-related controversies surrounding the Harper government’s intention to procure 65 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters (check this out for all you need to know), but I will mention this; the plan currently involves leasing engines and weapons, providing service and maintenance contracts to non-military (perhaps non-Canadian) contractors and is already significantly over-budget given how few aircraft we’re to receive. Trudeau’s defence department ordered 138 Hornets between 1982 and 1988, and most of these aircraft subsequently underwent a total overhaul, update and modernization program about five years ago, leaving us with approximately one-hundred serviceable and still lethal aircraft. Furthermore, Canada has always used twin-engine, long-range fighters to defend our territorial sovereignty. The F-18 provided additional benefits, given that it was aircraft-carrier capable (meaning Canadian pilots could deploy from American carriers in time of war) and could fulfill multiple roles, such as interception, strike, close-support, reconnaissance etc.

The F-35 is an inferior aircraft to the F-18 in many ways, and what’s most maddening is that the F-35, at best, could only be a tactical alternative to F-18 (ergo, we deploy F-35s to bomb Libya and leave the F-18s to defend our airspace). Back during the Cold War this is typically how we operated, using two-types of multi-role aircraft, one for tactical missions and the other being used for more strategic defence roles. While the F-18s will need to be replaced by the end of the decade, replacing them with an unproven, still largely experimental and expensive fighter is obscenely irresponsible. Now while Canada has been involved in the F-35 project for some time, we have no legal responsibility to procure them, and it just so happens a more modern version of our current aircraft (The Super Hornet) is available, proven and could even be built here (given Canadair/Bombardier’s previous involvement in aircraft construction). That, or we could be bold and build precisely what we need in large enough numbers we can then re-coup production and R&D costs by selling surplus aircraft to friendly foreign nations.

What I don’t understand, however, is why a Conservative and apparent patriot like Stephen Harper isn’t chomping at the bit to realize a new Arrow. Frankly, you’d think this is stuff his wet dreams are made of.

What a hero he’d be for Canadian industry! What a great Canadian, correcting a terrible mistake from his party’s past. If only his head was in the game. What’s generally accepted is that the Arrow was the ideal fighter for Canada, and Canada is still just as involved protecting its airspace and conducting, and so we still require an aircraft with similar capabilities.

The recent discovery of a set of two Arrow ejection seats in the UK has re-ignited the persistent rumour that an intact Arrow may have been smuggled out of Canada and flown to the UK, possibly with Hawker Siddeley’s acquisition of Avro Ltd. In the years since the project’s cancellation, bits and pieces of Avro’s projects have turned up across Canada, including the Avro Car, the Avro jet-powered truck and many pieces belonging to the Arrow and Orenda Iroqouis engine projects. Enthusiasts have been trying to generate enough funds to re-assemble a working Arrow with the engines for years now, but without significant capital it is unlikely said enthusiasts will go much further than scaled-down wooden mock-ups. Stage props really.

Even if we don’t build new versions of the Arrow, at least give us the chance to build something for ourselves, to demonstrate our expertise and innovation. Our nation needs to be given goals, and the citizens must feel a tangible pride for what their nation accomplishes. Failure to involve yourself in the affairs of the People in this manner is negligent. So again I ask is it wise to allow our nation to procure the F-35? And would we rather deal with the consequences of that purchase, or create our own solution?

At the end of the day, you can’t assume you’ll get much vision from free-market enterprise. Someone must instigate a nation’s dreams.

Political commentary, Sovereign Socialist, What were they thinking?

Ignorant Antagonisms and Petty Aggression: Stephen Harper’s Naive Condemnation of Kim Jong-il

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The Dear Leader had died; rejoice. The man who best typifies the modern-day super-villain is no more. Another in a long line of recently departed ruthless dictators. What a year it’s been!

I am happy this man is no longer breathing, he was a cancerous growth preventing the integration of a small, impoverished nation. He was a kleptocrat. We must shed ourselves of such people if our species is to have any hope for continued evolution.

But to his people, to the North Koreans, he was a living God-King. A contemporary Pharaoh. He, like is father before him, exercised absolute control over a small and nearly completely closed society. Existing in total isolation, the North Koreans are prisoners of their own peversely manipulated minds. They should not be condemned to suffer for the crimes of those who ruled them mercilessly.

This is why I am shocked with Canada Chairman & CEO Stephen Harper and his ‘tough-guy’ comments regarding Kim Jong-il’s death. They are the comments of a foolish individual pretending to understand the significance of this seminal event.

Generalissimo Kim’s death may lead to a new period of détente between the Korean halves, especially considering Kim Jong-un’s youth and European education (he may be legitimately interested in pursuing a reformist agenda, but not if we continue to demonize his father and grandfather). Yet Harper, demonstrating his near total lack of comprehension of the plight of the North Korean people, decided the best approach would be to remind the North Koreans it is their responsibility to choose a new and better alternative to the despotic regime they toil under.

It is not a choice, Mr. Harper.

And, what’s more, the North Koreans cannot hear you. Their media is thoroughly controlled by their government, and we are very, very low on the list of concerns and priorities of the DPRK. So if they aren’t paying any attention to us, why rattle some sabres?

It is the perennial Canadian inferiority complex, manifested by individuals hell-bent on restoring the apparently missing machismo of Canada. Perhaps its because we’ve never started a war for fun and profit, perhaps because our nation was not born of blood and savagery between men on battlefields at home and abroad. Either way, we, unlike many other prominent world leaders, decided not even to suggest that this was a situation worth monitoring, or, that it provides an opportunity for renewed diplomatic efforts. No, quite the contrary, Harper used typical corporate newspeak to describe the ‘moving forward process’ that’s ‘in the hands of the North Korean people’, as a PR hack might in the same fashion after a senior executive is charged for insider trading.

What Harper fails to realize is that the People of North Korea have no choices. Yes, they are slaves. So why condemn them to some awful fate as a result of the decisions made by the kleptocratic oligarchy created by the cartoon character above and his equally unstable father?

And why didn’t a well-respected nation such as our own extend our condolences to the clearly bereaved North Korean People? Whether we agree with their bereavement or not is immaterial, a good chunk of their population can be assumed to be legitimately upset by his passing. And if we want change in the Korean Peninsula, why not open a new door to dialogue with the inexperienced Kim Jong-un?

We know who Kim Jong-il was, the people of the DPRK do not.

For me, this is not that different from Rick Perry’s now infamous Kim John II gaffe.

We should demand a higher awareness from our elected officials, and at least a modicum of decency, diplomacy and above all else sympathy for a mislead people.