The Politics of Obscurantism: Anti-Intellectualism

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

In restricting knowledge to an élite ruling class of “the few”, obscurantism is fundamentally anti-democratic, because its component anti-intellectualism and elitism exclude the people as intellectually unworthy of knowing the facts and truth about the government ... (1)

The late Dalton Camp, formerly president of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, was not an alarmist. He was intelligent and a well respected columnist and author.

So when he began warning Canadians of the dangers of the Reform Movement, almost two decades ago, we should have listened. He understood their ideology and was concerned with the Republicans they had aligned themselves with. The same people who are now destroying American politics, as card carrying members of the Religious Right and the Tea Party gang.

In the introduction to his book; Whose Country is This Anyway?, Camp quotes Friedrich Nietzsche from The Will to Power: "The great majority of men have no right to existence, but are a misfortune to higher men."

This is a codicil for the comfortable, the affluent, and the obscenely rich in our time, as it was the inspiration for fascism earlier in our century. The new order is not without its coterie of apologists and intellectual dandies. Indeed, it even has a political party of its own, called—irony of ironies—the "Reform" Party. (2)

Germany under Hitler was fascist, because it was run by industrialists, who profited from war and the build up of the country's military. The German people, while manipulated with propaganda, were nothing more than "a misfortune to higher men."

The notion of anti-intellectualism can mean simply that Stephen Harper has always opposed public education, referring to it as "union run schools", and bragging that "Universality has been severely reduced: it is virtually dead as a concept in most areas of public policy... These achievements are due in part to the Reform Party..." (3)

It can also refer to his attacks on the well educated who challenge his policies, dismissing them as "university types" ... "elites".

But in the theory of Obscurantism, it's something much more profound. It's a deliberate attempt to paint themselves as being part of the anti-intellectual crowd, despite the fact that many in the movement have university degrees, including several PhDs. And they do this to convince the populace that they are just "ordinary folk", who see danger in listening to intellectuals who don't have their best interests at heart.

A deliberate obscuring of the facts.

Betty Plewes recently wrote a column for the Mark News, the topic of which was Canada's abandonment of the Non-Profit sector. She mentions a speech given by Lawrence Cannon in Krakow, to the Working Group on Enabling and Protecting Civil Society. She found the speech enlightening and articulate, but was surprised that "a transcript of the speech was not posted on the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) website and is very difficult to obtain." (4)

She contributed that to the fact that Stephen Harper has no interest in charitable pursuits, but while that is true, there is another reason for this. Cannon's speech would contradict their image of "folks" and their notion that intellectuals are the scourge of society.

The Edmonton Journal recently asked: What would Harper Fellowship look like a decade after his departure? They suggested:

Some criteria for evaluating the body of work put forward for recognition might include:
- -Best description and "proof" of a national social problem without the use of statistical analysis;
- -Best policy proposal for the betterment of Canadian society based solely on anecdotal "evidence";
-Best application of the concept of "truthiness" to future Canadian policy directions. (5)

What would a Harper fellowship look like, when his political strategy is anti-intellectualism? Having his party play dumb to appear dumb? Only their leader has any smarts and that's why he has to exert so much control over them.

When the Reform Party had their first real electoral success in 1993, the media dismissed them, often asking "who are these yokels and who voted for them?" The Sun referred to them as a " ribald bunch of dung kicking rednecks", and Preston Manning with his squeaky voice was compared to a country preacher.

And yet Manning is a brilliant physicist and many in the party's hierarchy (now called the Conservative Party of Canada) have university degrees. So why did they not defend themselves against this belief? In a word: Obscurantism. If they appear to be country bumpkins, how could we possibly fear them?

And if anyone points this out, they become "elites", and are immediately silenced, to the cheers of their supporters.

Stephen Harper is a Straussian, and Leo Strauss a follower of the belief in the necessity of obscuring facts. And Strauss's beliefs came from the methods used by the Nazi party to earn and hold onto power. He escaped Germany, but several of his family members died in Concentration camps. As a result he felt that an authoritarian style government was the only solution to stave off a recurrence of Nazism. The ignorant masses only had to be controlled, in a large part by keeping secrets and obscuring the truth.

When political philosopher, and colleague of Strauss, Hannah Arendt, attended the trial of Adolf Eichmann at Nuremberg, she was surprised at how "Unimaginative, ordinary and unthinking" he was.

Others may have hoped to see Bluebeard in the dock, she wrote, but for her, the horror lay in the fact that "there were so many like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic ... [but] terribly and terrifyingly normal." (6)

She was one of the first to refute the "monster theory" of less-than-human Nazis. She called them "banal". But as Erna Paris, author of Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History, points out. Many Nazis were well educated, and several had doctorate degrees.

So what would have made her think that they were banal?

Maybe their chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels, himself a PhD, explains it best.

"It would have been very unwise if we had given exact explanations to the Jews, prior to the Seizure of Power, of what we intended to do with them.... It was quite good that [they] did not take the National-Socialist movement quite as seriously as it actually deserved. . . ." (7)

We did not take the Reform "movement quite as seriously as it actually deserved." And while they are not planning a domestic genocide, they do have an aggressive foreign policy agenda, from a prime minster that Lawrence Martin claims sees the world as a "clash of civilizations" rather than as "one big family". (8)

Dalton Camp did not suggest that the Reform Party was stupid, but called them "intellectual dandies". He did however, suggest that they were dangerous, in part because of the company they kept. American Straussians.

Sources:

1. Obscurantism - Wikipedia

2. Whose Country is This Anyway? By Dalton Camp, Douglas & McIntyre, 1995, ISBN: 1-55054-467-5, Pg. 18

3. Stephen Harper, speech to the Colin Brown Memorial Dinner, National Citizens Coalition, 1994

4. In Search of Canada's Non-Profit Policy, By Betty Plewes Former President and CEO of the Canadian Council for International Cooperation; member of the McLeod Group, The Mark News, October 18, 2010

5. What would Harper Fellowship look like a decade after his departure? By The Edmonton Journal, October 4, 2010

6. Long Shadows: Truth, Lies and History, By Erna Paris, Alfred A. Knopf, 2000, ISBN: 0-676-97251-9, Pg. 318

7. June 1944 speech at Nuremberg.

8. Harperland:The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2

The Politics of Obscurantism: Then You Control the Press

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.” - Joseph Goebbels

Stephen Harper's manipulation of the Press is legendary, and I've posted on it often.

But when viewed through the lens of Obscurantism, something a friend suggested I examine, everything becomes much clearer.

It ties Leo Strauss, neoconservatism and the Harper government together quite nicely.

Obscurantism is the art of obscuring the facts. It's deliberate and reaches to the emotions of the populace, rather than their intellect.

A normal political tool, but under Harper it has become an art form.

And to achieve this state, all messaging had to be controlled. But not to worry. They say it's for our own good.

A Crime to Practice Journalism

He held in his thin, knob-knuckled hands last week a new National Press Law making it a crime to practice journalism in Germany except as a licensed member of a nationwide closed shop. The law covers "all persons who take a share in forming the mental contents of any newspaper or political periodical through the written word or pictures." (1)

Harper's silencing of the press was not done with a National Press Law, but through a steady erosion of access. It started with the practice of not announcing cabinet meetings to avoid media scrums.

Harper never liked the tradition of holding media scrums after cabinet meetings. He started concealing the times of those meetings to keep his ministers away from the microphones. Cabinet and caucus members, with few exceptions, were instructed to avoid talking to the media without prior approval. At press conferences, Harper's office also wanted to control who asked questions. The press conferences were limited to specific issues as Harper did away with the wide-open meetings with the media, which had been a long-time custom ... (2)

Time magazine covered these "secret" cabinet meetings, and while legally the government had to announce them, Harper would wait until the meeting was well underway before meeting his legal obligations. And in describing one of those announcements:

...the veiled wording of the advisory--"There will be a Government media availability, today in the foyer of the House of Commons"--was almost Soviet in its stiff obfuscation ... Canadians should be worried when they see the government trying to exert such an unprecedented level of control." (3)

They also quoted Alasdair Roberts, a Syracuse University public-policy professor, who asked, "How can the average Canadian make a judgment about whether their government is being well run if they don't have access to the information?" (3)

Setting an Example

Walter Schwertfeger was a well-known Berlin journalist. When Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda, announced the new rules to the German media, Schwertfeger went public, venting with the foreign press.

For this he was charged with treason against the State and given a life sentence.

The case.. has been something of a sensation both in German and foreign newspaper circles, as well as diplomatic quarters in Berlin, because Walter Schwertfeger was understood to have been arrested for supplying foreign correspondents and diplomats with some confidential instructions isued to the German press by Dr. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Popular Enlightenment and Propaganda ... Schwertfeger's sentence is the seventh passed thus far on Germans charged with the crime of supplying foreigners with any kind of information.

It is in line with the steady extension of the treason laws and practice of the People's Tribunal, designed to make the whole German nation a "community of oath-bound men" tightly shut off from prying 'foreign eyes, not only in respect to military affairs, but to all others as well. Particularly it may be assumed to represent a warning to all Germans not to give foreigners any kind of information, in order to shut off foreign observers here from their independent sources of information and restrict them to their official propaganda agencies. (4)

Stephen Harper began with warnings and then became more aggressive with the media if they dared to challenge him. When two journalists were held hostage on a plane (5), one of them David Aken, justified it by saying:

Harper's detractors may think we should just give the metaphorical finger to such directives from the PMO but, at one photo opp while we were here, a reporter who did just that and asked a question at a photo opp, despite warnings not to, was immediately warned that, if she continued, reporters would no longer be allowed to attend such photo opps. That would not be good for our access would be curtailed even further.

PMO staff also made veiled threats that that individual's organization might suffer further sanction -- all because of the impertinence of asking a question. If you are a media organization in Ottawa, these are no small consequences. (6)

And then there's those large RCMP bodyguards who make sure that reporters do as they're told. This video used to show Bob Fife being knocked to the ground, but was later edited, removing that part. More obstruction.



During the G-20, the media was targeted, beaten and arrested. Even Steve Paikin, one of the more conservative in the media was shocked. And he was not alone.

Reporters covering the G20 summit in Toronto say they were the target of police violence overnight, as riots blamed on anarchist groups left four police cars burning in the financial district and resulted in the arrests of some 150 people. "A newspaper photographer was shot with a plastic bullet in the backside, while another had an officer point a gun in his face despite identifying himself as a member of the media," reported the Canadian Press news agency. The agency did not say if it was its own reporters who were targeted.

The Huffington Post showed Brandon Jourdan being thrown to the ground and beaten by police while shooting video, and female journalists were threatened with rape.

And despite all this, the message was that Harper and his riot squad did a good job. The burning police cars were evidence that the one billion for security was money well spent. This even after the police admitted that they were told to stand down, and let the vandals do their job. Other video shows the police walking away from the carnage.

Who made the decision for police to stand down despite the fact the city was under attack? And why? Was it a police decision or political? These should be the cornerstone questions of an external review surrounding the chaos of the G20. After all, police officers were trained to stop the Black Bloc anarchists, were appropriately equipped and massively manned.

As downtown Toronto witnessed burning police cars and a small group of thugs on a rampage, a police source tells me the only thing that stopped the officers from doing that was an order telling them not to. They tell me they could have rounded up all, or most of them, in no time. I have had several frontline police officers tell me they were told not to get involved. But even before that decision was made, says one insider, there was mass confusion and indecision. (7)

All part of Obscurantism. Twisting the message by manipulating and then distorting the facts, while putting the media in it's place.

And Stephen Harper has not made one single statement to explain himself.

But then, he doesn't have to. We are the commoners who are "unworthy of knowing the facts".

Previous:

The Politics of Obscurantism: First You Obstruct

The Politics of Obscurantism: Next You Control the Message

Sources:

1. Foreign News: Consecrated Press, Time Magazine, October 16, 1933

2. Harperland: The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 63-65

3. Controlling The Message, By Steven Frank, Time Magazine, April 03, 2006

4. REICH JOURNALIST GETS A LIFE TERM: Walter Schwertfeger Accused of Revealing Confidential Press Orders to Foreigners. Sentence Seen as Move to Bar Correspondents' Independent Sources of Information,
The New York Times, July 22, 1936.

5. Media have no flight plan on PM's plane, By James Fitz-Morris, January 29, 2010

6. Harper and the press gallery hit the road: 3 nights, 3 1/2 questions, By David Akin , January 29, 2010

7. Cops had hands 'cuffed, By Joe Warmington, Toronto Sun, June 30, 2010

The Politics of Obscurantism: Next You Control the Message

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

"His full conquest of the masses came only after [he] had silenced oppositional opinion and had acquired total control of the media." Konrad Heiden (1)

The next component of Obscurantism, a concept that a friend suggested I explore, is message control. I've covered most of these things before but was amazed at how well they fit with this definition. So if you feel uncomfortable calling Stephen Harper a Fascist, call him an Obscurantist. Both fit.

In the pragmatic exposé of Stephen Harper, in his new book Harperland, Lawrence Martin devotes a chapter to Harper's "control fixation". But control is a key element of neoconservatism, as espoused by Leo Strauss.

According to Martin:

The PMO was in the course of putting in place a message-control system, a vetting operation unlike anything ever seen in the capital. No other government had even come close to such a system of oversight.

The new regimen called for all public pronouncements by civil servants, diplomats, the military, cabinet members, and Conservative MPs to be approved by the Prime Minister's Office or its bureaucratic arm, the Privy Council Office (PCO). The vetting was by no means a quick rubber-stamping procedure. If a government official or a caucus member wanted to say something publicly, he or she would first have to fill out a Message Event Proposal (MEP) and submit it to central command. This form had sections with such titles as Desired Headline, Strategic Objective, Desired Sound Bite, and the like. It also had areas for supplying details on the speaking backdrop, the ideal event photograph, and even the speaker's wardrobe.

Once submitted, the MEP was studied by PMO and PCO officials, often bouncing back and forth between apparatchiks before getting final approval. Some MEPs required less vetting than others, but the massive centralization caused logjams, delays, and in some cases, cancellation of planned events because the requester never heard back in time. Keith Beardsley recalled even events for cabinet ministers being derailed. "Every communications director for every minister was trying to get stuff through. Their ministers wanted to do things," he said. But "because of the backlog [sometimes an event] got delayed and delayed and it was cancelled." In the past, while there was sonic vetting, departments produced their own news releases and scheduled events for ministers independently. Under Harper, such freedom was not allowed. (2)　

Time Magazine 1936:

Because Adolf Hitler's speeches may be used to prove almost anything, the Nazi Commission of Inspection of Nazi Literature announced that Hitler's speeches may not be quoted in print hereafter without the Commission's express permission. Hearing that the rebellious pastors of the German Evangelical [Lutheran] Church plan to print and circulate privately their unanswered protest to the Reichsführer against practically everything going on in Nazi Germany, the Gestapo (secret police) raided Confessional Synod offices, lugged off typewriters, mimeograph and printing machines. (3)

"Such freedom was not allowed".

The German version of the "Message Event proposal" was handled by Philipp Bouhler, who was "the Chairman of the Official Party Inspection Commission for the Protection of National Socialist Literature, which determined what writings were suitable for Nazi society, and which were not." (4)

Before you can even hope to set up a system of obscuring the message, you have to be able to control the message. And Stephen Harper incrementally created a system whereby he controls every word that comes out of the mouths of not only his caucus, especially his ministers, but the public service as well.

And the media has become so conditioned to this, that they rarely question it. Matthew Brett wrote recently for Global Research:

Not surprisingly, the Globe and Mail and other news organizations ran a press release from the PMO's office verbatim, with no critical commentary, analysis or insight. The state of media today is such that copy-pasting a press release from the PMO and slapping it on the front page of a national daily newspaper is accepted practice. Indeed, Conservative strategist Tom Flanagan writes that “compared to most countries with which I have any familiarity, the Conservatives in Canada actually have friendly media to work with.” The ‘Propaganda Model’ is more than alive and well, but sometimes without even bothering to ‘filter’ news content. (5)

The Conservatives in Canada have friendly media to work with, or just lazy media. Either way they should be ashamed. And this certainly contradicts their stance that the media is out to get them.

But besides just writing their own copy, the Conservatives now also take their own photos. After an image was published and incorrectly labelled as an actual event, Steven Chase wrote:

Since the spring [of 2009], the PMO has effectively set up its own picture service, e-mailing photos to Canadian media almost daily in an effort to find a market for publicity shots of Mr. Harper's activities. It's a service that ultimately competes with the work of photojournalists, but one, they argue, that should not be relied upon as a record of events. (6)

And they didn't stop at providing photos, but now also provide videos.

Taxpayers are being asked to pay an extra $1.7-million this fiscal year to help bolster Stephen Harper's communications support services – just as the Prime Minister's Office begins distributing government videos of Harper to the news media. Supplementary estimates tabled last month by the Privy Council Office, the Prime Minister's bureaucratic back office, boosted internal operational spending by almost $7.3-million for 2009-10. That's on top of existing budgets. (7)

By doing things in small steps, the public remains mostly unaware that everything they see and hear from our government, as reported by the press, is staged for our amusement. But when you look at the big picture, that's when it becomes frightening.

Sometimes the media, and pundits, must feel the hairs on the back of their necks stand up, so they will dismiss it by suggesting that other prime ministers have done this. But as Lawrence Martin says, it's: "... a vetting operation unlike anything ever seen in the capital. No other government had even come close to such a system of oversight."

"No other government had even come close." Worth repeating.

By dismissing this, journalists and columnists are only creating an enabling condition that further threatens our democracy, which is already hanging on by a thread.

Previous:

The Politics of Obscurantism: First You Obstruct

Sources:

1. Der Fhehrer, Hitler's Rise to Power, By: Konrad Heiden, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1944

2. Harperland:The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 58

3. GERMANY: Tyranny, Time Magazine, August 03, 1936

4. Philipp Bouhler - Wikipedia

5. Canadian Politics: The Newly Benevolent Stephen Harper, By Matthew Brett, Global Research, March 14, 2010

6. Is Stephen Harper going too far in trying to control his image? By Steven Chase, Globe and Mail, November 06, 2009

7. Taxpayers on hook for $1.7-million as PMO rolls out video, By Bruce Cheadle, The Canadian Press, December 08, 2009

The Politics of Obscurantism: First You Obstruct

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

A friend sent me a link to a page on the political concept of Obscurantism, which is characterized by deliberate vagueness in an attempt to obscure the facts. He felt that this best described the Harper government's methods and he's absolutely right.

But it also describes the techniques used by Republican strategists. The same Republican strategists who taught Stephen Harper everything he knows.

And as many people are aware, much of this comes from the mastermind, Leo Strauss, who is said to be the father of the Neoconservative movement. Now and then those in the media will hint at Harper being a Straussian, but when Rick Salutin came right out and said it in a column for the Globe and Mail, he was fired.

Which actually adds further proof that this government is engaged in the art of obstruction and obscurantism. All governments do that to a certain extent, but none before in Canada, had it down to a science.

And in understanding Leo Strauss and his political ideas, while they may originate with Plato's 'Noble Lie', they are actually found in the rise and prolonged success of the Nazi Party. A blueprint for fascism. The definitive Obscurantism.

But I'm not talking about the war or the Holocaust, but simply how the Nazi Party was able to achieve such ultimate control of a nation. And they did it with a minority government.

If you read newspaper or magazine accounts of Adolf Hitler throughout the 1920's and early '30's, they are mostly unflattering and dismissive. They mock Hitler and his thugs. They were not called Nazi's but 'Hitler's Fascist Brown Shirts'.

In fact the term Nazi was not an abbreviation of their name: National Socialist German Workers Party, but a term coined by journalist Konrad Heiden, who followed Hitler for 23 years. He gave them the name when he would march with them in a loose infiltration to get his story. 'Nazi' he said was a Bavarian slang term meaning "country bumpkin" (1).

Time magazine began writing of them as early as 1923, yet they did not use 'Nazi' until 1935. They were simply the 'Fascist Brown Shirts'. And when they first entered the Reichstag, they did everything in their power to 'obstruct' as a means to 'obscure'.

In one parallel, Elizabeth May in her book Losing Confidence, describes some of the obstructive actions of the Harper caucus.

In one memorable Question Period, the question was about the safety of pet food in response to the tragic incident of poisoned pet food from China. The Conservative backbenchers started barking, "Woof, woof. Bow-wow" ... Heckling has also taken a crueler tone. Sexist taunts are more common*. Government MPs have even taken to loud booing of certain Liberal MPs they most dislike, even before a question can be asked. This is particularly the case for women MPs. For a while, whenever Judy Sgro rose to speak, the Conservatives would chant "pizza" in reference to the allegations from a campaign worker that she had violated elections laws by accepting free pizza for her volunteers. Although she was cleared by Elections Canada, chanting "pizza" seems to entertain the Conservatives. (2)

Now from Time Magazine and the behaviour of the Brown Shirts at the Reichstag (Parliament) in 1930.

At women's names the Brown Shirts crowed. "Kikeriki! Kikeriki! Kikeriki!" —German equivalent to Cockadoodle-doo! (Fascists both German and Italian, hold that women are respectworthy as hens, jeerworthy when by entering politics they try to be roosters.) On the first day of the Reichstag session absolutely nothing was done except to call and jeer the roll. (3)

A calculated attempt to obstruct.

And the Harper government continued this obstruction, even creating a manual on how to make sure that Parliamentary committees can't function properly. (4)

I think we need to grow up and start realizing that Neoconservatism is Fascism in it's political strategies. Leo Strauss was a product of this era. He feared Communism and hated Liberalism. As a young boy he became aware of the cruel aspects of Communist Russia when his parents offered safe haven to a group of Russian Jews, escaping a pogrom. They told horrible tales, which as a young Jewish boy, left him wondering if that could happen to him (5). His first brush with anti-Semitism.

As an adolescent he joined the Zionist youth movement, and became a member of the Blau-Weiss. Strauss would refer to it as "pagan-fascism", (6) and their leader, Walter Moses, liked to imitate Mussolini. It was here that Strauss claimed to have nurtured his authoritarianism, and the concept of a clique**, led by a dictatorial style leader.

He had an intellectual relationship with Nazi Carl Schmitt, and in fact it was Schmitt who got Strauss out of Germany before the worst took place. Strauss colleague Hannah Arendt once said that he tried to join the Nazi Party but was turned away because he was Jewish.

If we continue to squirm every time the Harper government is referred to as Fascists, we will never understand what is happening to our country. They are not Conservatives. They are not Tories. They are Straussian Fascists, and one of the documented strategies to gain and hold onto power, is to obscure and obstruct. Because Strauss believed that the people (us) are "intellectually unworthy of knowing the facts and truth about the government."

Footnotes:

*They even heckled Carolyn Bennett when she was discussing H1N1.

** Writer Paul Berman called neoconservatism ‘a clique with a style that is marked by ruthlessness.’ He saw in neoconservatism a dangerous ‘romance of the ruthless,’

Sources:

1. Master of the Masses, Time Magazine, February 07, 1944

2. Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and Crisis in Canadians Democracy, By Elizabeth May, McClelland & Stewart, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7710-5760-1, Pg. 71-72

3. GERMANY: Br, Time Magazine, October 27, 1930

4. Tories blasted for handbook on paralyzing Parliament, Canadian Press, May. 18, 2007

5. Why We Remain Jews," Lecture delivered by Strauss at the Hillel House, University of Chicago, 1962

6. Leo Strauss's 1923 celebration of "pagan-fascism" , By Alan Gilbert, Democratic Individuality, January 8, 2010

The Politics of Religious Nationalism: Taking us Down a Dangerous Path

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

'War is always at the most unrestrained when religion vests it with holy purpose.' Michael Ignatieff - Warrior's Honour

In light of our recent rejection by the United Nations, it's time to revisit Harper's foreign policy from his ideological perspective.

I'm doing a separate posting on those who influenced his early political thought. People like Peter Brimelow, Paul Fromm, Donovan Carter, Stan Waters, Peter Worthington, etc., all militantly anti-Communist, which made them viscerally anti-Liberalism.

But while the UN snub is bad for Canada's image, it might play right into Stephen Harper's hands. He will no longer have to pretend to support this international body, and can now focus on his long term plans, as dictated by the Religious Right.

Author Marci MacDonald had sat in on a meeting of the Civitas Society where Stephen Harper gave a speech:

... he outlined plans for a broad new party coalition that would ensure a lasting hold on power. The only route, he argued, was to focus not on the tired wish list of economic conservatives or “neo-cons,” as they’d become known, but on what he called “theo-cons”—those social conservatives who care passionately about hot-button issues that turn on family, crime, and defence ... Arguing that the party had to come up with tough, principled stands on everything from parents’ right to spank their children to putting “hard power” behind the country’s foreign-policy commitments ..." (1)

"Hard power" behind our "foreign-policy commitments".

Funny. I don't remember him campaigning on that.

In Alfred Rosenberg's book, "Mythology of the Twentieth Century", he also outlines a plan to combine religion with fierce nationalism and foreign policy (from above newspaper clipping, May 30, 1938).

"The religion of Jesus was undoubtedly the preaching of love, but a German religious movement which wishes to develop into a people's church must declare that it unconditionally subordinates the ideal of neighborly love to the idea of national honor."

and

"The essential condition of all German instruction is the acknowledgment of the fact that Christianity did not bring us civilization but that Christianity owes its enduring values to the German character."

The official "philosophy," as the Times points out, if it means anything means that the millions of Nazi soldiers, the millions of workers in the "Labor Front" are now having their minds made over, after a thousand years of painful history, to accommodate a special Nazi religion.

A broad coalition vested with a holy purpose.

And before you think this is hyperbole, as Lawrence Martin points out in new book Harperland:

His devotion to the war effort and the revitalization of the armed forces were part of an effort to shape a Tory patriotism, one predicated on symbols and traditions .... He had progressed since the days of his Alberta-centric regional thinking. Now he was sounding like he wanted to build a firewall around the entire country.

And that's what he's been doing. Isolating Canada, while attempting to build a nationalistic, militaristic nation, not unlike the vision outlined for Germany, by Alfred Rosenberg in 1938.

And as Martin reminds us, Stephen Harper does not like the "soft power" we've become, but views our foreign policy as a "clash of civilizations", rather than as "one big family" living peacefully. And the Religious Right, Armageddon crowd have given him their full support, because they cannot feel the rapture until the world is rid of Communism once and for all.

You can hear their guru, Tim Lehaye, describe it to Rachel Maddow. In fact this entire segment sounds like our current government. But she explains how communism is a battle cry to the Religious Right. And Stephen Harper is allowing them to dictate our "clash of civilizations".




And back to the 1938 newspaper article:

It seems to be definitely anti-Christian in principle. But it is more. Stripped of non-essentials, what Herr Rosenberg means by substituting "neighborly love" with "national honor" is the displacement of civilized orderliness by an aggressive fanaticism. There is something rather childish in these attempts to deliberately divert the stream of historic culture. But when adults in power indulge in it, the farcial side of it is overshadowed by the tragic and the dangerous.

Pay attention people.

There are some very good columns on Canada' fall from grace since Stephen Harper decided to put "hard power" into our foreign policy to appease the theocons. He once wanted to build a firewall around Alberta, and now he is building that"wall" around us.

1. Harper's U.N. debacle shows how his disrespect for foreign affairs was noticed, By Yves Engler, October 18, 2010

In a stunning international rebuke, Stephen Harper's government lost its bid for a U.N. Security Council seat last week. The vote in New York was the world's response to a Canadian foreign policy designed to please the most reactionary, short-sighted sectors of the Conservative Party's base -- evangelical Christian Zionists, extreme right-wing Jews, Islamophobes, the military-industrial-academic-complex, mining and oil executives and old Cold-Warriors.

2. With the glory days of Pearson’s internationalist foreign policy behind us, Canada needs a new brand, By Daryl Copeland Adjunct Professor and Senior Fellow, Munk School of Global Affairs, U of T, Mark News, October 16, 2010

Policy? Capacity? Leadership? Any way you cut it, this is a signal moment for Canada, and a full assessment will take time and require concerted analytical attention. In that respect, it is unfortunate that the dramatic resolution of the Chilean mining disaster came on the same day as the UN elections. In Canada, that human interest mega-tale immediately bumped the Security Council story from top place in the news cycle on Oct. 12. As coverage this week of the rescue’s aftermath has continued to dominate the media, attention to the implications for Canada of its repudiated candidacy has waned. That’s too bad, because there remains much to consider and reflect upon. It seems to me that a larger and longer-term consequence of the defeat may reside in the impact on Canada’s image and reputation, expressed in terms of both how others see us and how we see ourselves.

Copeland also cites the unprecedented control on communications, as knee capping any serious bid.

3. Why the World Doesn't Like Canada's New image: Harper’s aggressive foreign policy is the reason Canada was denied a UNSC seat, By Saeed Rahnema Professor, political science, York University; media commentator on the Middle East, The Mark News, October 15, 2010

Despite significant lobbying efforts to get a seat on the powerful UN Security Council, Canada failed to receive the backing of two-thirds of the UN General Assembly. Canada withdrew its bid after coming behind Portugal in the second ballot. It was disappointing, but perhaps not surprising, that Minister of Foreign Affairs Laurence Cannon blamed this failure on Michael Ignatieff’s lack of support. In reality, Stephen Harper’s government has no one to blame but itself and its misguided foreign policy.

Canada has never been an aggressive nation, and I'm pretty sure that had Stephen Harper campaigned on a "clash of civilizations", he would never have been elected.

Previous:

The Politics of Contempt: The Nixon-Harper Ticket

The Politics of Hate: Where Will it Lead?

The Politics of Conceit: "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"

The Politics of Opportunity: Election Tampering

The Politics of Jabberwocky: As Canada Plummets Down the Rabbit Hole

The Politics of Ballyhoo: David Emerson and the Soft on Sovereignty Trade Deal

Sources:

1. Stephen Harper and the Theo-cons: The rising clout of Canada’s religious right, Walrus Magazine, October 2006)

The Politics of Ballyhoo: David Emerson and the Soft on Sovereignty Trade Deal

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

When the RCMP boss Giuliano Zaccardelli, interfered in the 2006 election campaign, there was an immediate drop in Liberal support. They had been clearly headed toward victory, but plummeted as a result of his questionable actions.

Recognizing that they were in trouble, Paul Martin fought hard to keep some of his strongest MPs from going down in defeat. And one he threw himself and his party behind, was David Emerson, whose narrow victory in 2004, suggested he could be in trouble.

Liberal campaign workers .. were being pulled out of races across the Lower Mainland - from ridings in Vancouver, the North Shore, the Tri-Cities and elsewhere - and ordered to Vancouver-Kingsway, where cabinet minister David Emerson was desperately fighting to hold his seat. Whatever the fate of the Martin government, whatever the outcome of nearly a dozen close races in B.C., the Liberals were anxious to save Emerson, their west coast star. The efforts of those many Liberal volunteers were rewarded on January 23 as Emerson won re-election. (1)

Which made his defection (2) all the more troubling. All of those volunteers who worked so hard on his behalf must have been devastated.

Just as all of those party workers and volunteers had trekked across the Lower Mainland to Vancouver-Kingsway in January - to work the phones, to knock on doors, to pound signs into the ground, to scrutineer on election day, to drive voters to the polls - surely Emerson would now be happy to return the favour, to toil on their behalf, to make a personal sacrifice for a year or two ... (1)

It was suggested that he broke ranks because he was lured by the perks of a cabinet post, but I don't think so. Emerson had been an executive at the lumber giant Cancor. He could afford the good life, and the extra $ 70,000 in salary would have been a drop in the bucket.

I think there was something else that lured this robber baron. Stephen Harper's views on trade that heavily favoured the corporate sector.

As successive Liberal and Conservative governments have opened the doors too wide, allowing the takeover of our country's resources, there was always at least a pretence of protecting Canadian sovereignty. Maude Barlow in her book Too Close for Comfort, speaks of the 2004 rivalry for the Tar Sands between China and the U.S.

Paul Martin cautioned that the federal government may have to step in, since this could be deemed a threat to national security. And David Emerson agreed. "The government thinks it should be concerned about the overall position of our natural resources and the degree to which we want to lose control of our natural resource base." (3) (Of course Alberta's premier Ralph Klein blew a gasket, seeing it as more interference from Ottawa.)

And yet after betraying those who voted for him, and those who had worked so hard to get him elected, Emerson would do another 180. When he was hammering out the Softwood Lumber Deal, he lashed out at those who criticized it, as being "anti-American".

Softwood Lumber and Conservative Ballyhoo

I was a bit disappointed in Lawrence Martin's view of the Emerson defection and the Softwood lumber issue, in his new book Harperland. I like the book and found that he did a pretty good job of keeping balance. And yet he used Conservative talking points on this issue. Very odd.

With their defeat, the Liberals also left behind the long-running softwood lumber dispute with the United States. Harper assigned the trade portfolio to his newest Tory, David Emerson, who had worked on the file as a Grit, to prove that the Conservatives could get an agreement their opponents could not. The dispute had intensified in 2002, when the U.S., alleging that Canada unfairly subsidized producers, imposed 27 percent duties on the lumber.

Under the terms of the Free Trade Agreement, a joint trade panel was to settle the problem. All the rulings went Canada's way, but Washington, to the consternation of Canadian negotiators, was not prepared to let those verdicts stand and insisted instead on a negotiated settlement. Having run the Canfor Corporation, B.C.'s giant forestry company, Emerson knew the file well. He had come very close to getting a settlement for the Liberals, which may well have helped them do better in B.C. in the 2006 election*. "But the problem," recalled Emerson, "was that there was an element in the agreement that would have required higher tariffs on western B.C. producers than on eastern producers." That, he said, would have caused too much discord. Under the Tories, however, he engineered his way around that obstacle and secured the deal. The new bilateral accord required the U.S. to pay back about $4 billion of the more than $5 billion it had collected on lumber imports. The missing billion prompted some complaints, but the consensus was that a flawed deal was better than none at all. Harper was pleased. His much-derided floor-crosser got the job done. (4)

Unfortunately "his much derided floor-crosser" only got the job done in favour of the U.S., but the deal was devastating for Canadians, because it once again tied our hands in terms of what we can and cannot do for the industry. The U.S. resented the fact that our lumber sector was subsidized, meaning that we could lower our price when the markets demanded it. This new deal put an end to that, and it was tested in 2007, when Quebec and Ontario introduced aid packages to benefit their forest industries. (5) U.S. officials complained and it went to arbitration.

Paul Martin in his book Hell or High Water, describes what really took place.

George Bush had been after him for a settlement, but Martin explained to him that much of the Canadian timber used for our lumber industry is on crown land. Therefore, all Canadians are in partnership with them. The U.S. counterparts, on the other hand, are mostly private concerns. He spoke of this at a meeting.

Afterwards, Bush came up to me and thanked me for my remarks. I took the opportunity to make a point. "Lookit, I am out there making the case for free trade – something that you want – and yet you aren't respecting that principle with your NAFTA partner in the face of judgment after judgment against you on softwood at international tribunals. How can you be credible on free trade of the Americas when you won't respect the deals you've already signed?" It was the first time I felt the message really penetrated. (6)

And they were very close to reaching a deal, though they were adamant that all of the money the Americans had collected in tariffs, the full 5 billion, had to be returned. Then the election writ was dropped.

When the Harper government picked up the thread of our negotiations in the spring, they yielded on this point, settling for an agreement that returned a billion dollars less than what had been improperly collected, and inexplicably allowing half a billion dollars to flow directly Into the pockets of our American competitors. This was blood money the Americans had won through a policy of harassment.

The Harper government said there was no alternative. But there was – even if the negotiations fell through. The American policy on softwood lumber did not even conform to domestic American law, and ultimately we could have taken the matter to court in the United States. We would have won, and won in a way no U.S. administration could ignore. (6)

But can you imagine Stephen Harper saying no to George Bush, or George Bush saying no to his corporate sector?

During the 2008 election campaign, Jack Layton vowed to scrap the deal:

Layton said the agreement -- hammered out in 2007 under the carriage of former International Trade Minister David Emerson -- was a betrayal of Canadian lumber producers. The "softwood lumber sell-out to the U.S. gave up on years of trade rulings in Canada's favour," Layton said in Kenora, Ont., putting the blame squarely on Conservative Leader Stephen Harper. After the deal was arranged, Layton said, "Harper then broke his promise to provide loan guarantees for struggling producers, and to find ways to help support forestry communities." He added: "Instead, he gave a $50-billion tax gift to profitable banks and oil companies that don't need the help." (7)

This brings us to a more recent issue from South of the border, that is becoming an election issue in their upcoming mid-terms. With the housing market in the U.S. drying up, Canadians have had to look elsewhere for trade, and have found a lucrative market in China. But the Americans are protesting because of our increase in output, which is lowering the price and making competition tougher, as they also tap into the Chinese market. (8)

This was something that Paul Martin wanted included in the deal, because at times accelerated production was necessary, when pine-beetle infestations prompted immediate harvesting. We are supposed to be allowed to compensate for that, but now the Americans are suggesting that we are "cheating", and only using it as an excuse to dominate Chinese trade.

More arbitration. (9)

We should not have signed this deal that has meant the loss of jobs and the loss of our ability to protect our citizens. But in true fashion, Harper bullied everyone into doing his bidding.

The Harper government's excuse was that the Canadian companies couldn't hang on any longer. They had to settle quickly. Of course they had to settle, but that was because David Emerson as a Conservative minister accepted a deal he had rejected as a Liberal minister! His new prime minister in essence threatened a very reluctant Canadian industry: "Knuckle under, because you won't get any help from us if you don't." (6)

So What Was behind All the Ballyhoo?

While the Conservative line remained that Emerson did with them, what he wasn't able to do with the Liberals, there is another story here. There always is, isn't there?

In March of 2006, during the summit in Cancun Mexico, when the media was distracted with the shiny zipper on Harper's hunting vest (something that would never have been part of his wardrobe), a trilateral working group was formed, called the North American Competitiveness Council, another deal giving corporations more power over everything from "trade laws, economies, defense, (and with that foreign policy), emergency response, education, transportation, immigration, health and environmental regulations, resources, energy, law enforcement, intelligence gathering ..." (10)

Signatories to this included Michael Chertoff and Condoleezza Rice, who let it be known that the softwood lumber issue "was a sour spot for them". Stockwell Day, Maxime Bernier, Peter Mackay and David Emerson (who also represented the Canadian Council of Chief Executives) endorsed the deal, so the push was on.

Can you imagine if the headlines in our papers read "Stephen Harper enters into agreement with Michael Chertoff and Condoleezza Rice", both part of the Bush administration. So instead Harper took one for the team and the headline was "Harper's big game hunter look a fashion faux pas, expert says." That's how far our media has fallen. That was the news.

The editors must have weighed the stories: Aggressive deal that hands our country over to American and multi-national corporate interests, or our doofus PM in a hunting vest? And Fashion Faux Pas won the day.

According to author Andrew G. Marshall:

The idea is that they want to move this process of integration so far along without public knowledge that by the time the public becomes aware .. it will be far too late for the public to oppose it, as it will have already become a reality. (10)

And I think it may already be a reality with the Buy American/Sell Canada deal that Harper signed during his two and a half month prorogue vacation. The media meant to warn us of that, but Rhona Ambrose just bought a new pair of shoes, and you know, they had to prioritize.

It just makes me so damn mad.

Footnotes:

*Lawrence is wrong. He did better because of the extra efforts of volunteers who were moved from other constituencies to make sure that he did better. A poll held prior to the election showed less than 20 per cent of residents in the riding knew Emerson by name. (See above)

Sources:

1. Emerson: The Power and the Tory. His betrayal, his perks and some context for the outrage, By Will McMartin, The Tyee, February 9, 2006

2. Former Liberal David Emerson defects to Tories, By CTV News Staff, February 6, 2006

3. Too Close for Comfort: Canada's Future Within Fortress North America, By Maude Barlow, McClelland & Stewart Ltd., 2005, ISBN: 0-7710-1088-5, Pg. 200

4. Harperland: The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 49-50

5. U.S.-Canada Trade Dispute: 1982 to present, Random Lengths, May 5, 2010.

6. Hell or High Water: My Life in and Out of Politics, By Paul Martin, McClelland & Stewart, 2008, ISBN: 978-0-7710-5692-5 5, Pg. 381-383

7. Layton would cancel Tories' softwood lumber deal, CTV News, September 24 2008

8. Chinese lumber demand fueling B.C. industry improvements, By Autumn MacDonald - Quesnel Cariboo Observer, October 12, 2010

9. U.S. trade officials take step toward reopeining softwood lumber dispute, By Derrick Penner, Vancouver Sun, October 8, 2010

10. Tyrants and Traitors: The “Evolution by Stealth” of a North American Union, By: Andrew G. Marshall, August 7, 2007

The Politics of Jabberwocky: As Canada Plummets Down the Rabbit Hole

A CULTURE OF DEFIANCE: History of the Reform-Conservative Party of Canada

Watching Question Period, something I no longer do, is like stepping into a parallel universe, since the Harper government came to power. They perform like they are in opposition.

But even more than that, their performances are unusual. Almost frightening, as if something has possessed them. It's like a really bad play, that while it offends and leaves you embarrassed for the actors, also keeps you spellbound. Can this really be this bad? Will the plot finally be revealed that explains their actions? Will Canadians stand up and cheer when it reaches it's climax, or simply demand their money back?

In Lawrence Martin's new book Harperland, he explains why during Question Period, everything appears both robotic and chaotic at the same time. The performances of the Conservative MPs are pre-scripted and they actually hold "dress rehearsals" before the big show.

[Says adviser Keith Beardsley] "I'd throw the question out and the PM would be sitting there watching. And if the minister wasn't prepared, Harper knew it." The ministers had their own briefing books with preset answers. "But the last thing they wanted to do was to be frantically looking through their books with the prime minister staring at them.' When an iffy answer was given, Beardsley would look over at Harper with raised eyebrows, as if to say, "What do you think?" And Harper, he recalled, "would just shake his head like 'That's no damn good."' (1)

And according to David Emerson the Liberal MP who crossed the floor immediately after winning his seat as a Liberal:

"You'd go through a dry run as to what was going to be said, and the prime minister himself would intervene regularly to shape someone's response to an issue. And the discipline was amazing." So were the results. The prep session was remarkably accurate in forecasting what would be asked during Question Period. "You'd probably capture 90 percent of what was coming..."(1)

Now this would be admirable if the script dealt with the issue, but it does not. It only provides ammunition for an attack on the person asking the question.

It was clear from the start .. that all the prepping was not intended to produce candid answers to opposition queries. The strategy was not to reveal information but to shield it and counterattack ... Harper's cabinet had documented Liberal failures on every conceivable issue. On some days, the Tories turned almost all of the Opposition queries into a counterblast. All governments had used this tactic, but it soon became apparent that this government would exceed all others. The Conservatives didn't mind looking evasive. They didn't mind if it looked intellectually infantile to defend their own inadequacies by pointing to the inadequacies of others. (1)

I'm reminded of an incident when my children were younger. After calling his sister "stupid", my daughter responded to my son, with "well at least I'm not as stupid as you are". To which my brilliant boy fired back "You are so".

During the first year of Harper's government, one of their favourite responses to any question was the inclusion of "for the past thirteen years", referring to the length of unbroken Liberal reign.

But they got a little carried away, allowing it to exceed it's best before date, until NDP Pat Martin reminded them that they were now part of that "thirteen years". They never used it again.

I wonder how future historians will view this period, and what their impressions will be of the Harper government, after reading the transcripts? They will no doubt determine that this was a group who was functionally illiterate, intellectually depraved and categorically insane. How else could you explain it?

Wait! I know.

It's Pure Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky was the name of a poem of pure nonsense, included in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass. I used to think that the Conservatives behaviour was like 'Lil Abner meets the Muppets', but then after reading Elizabeth May's description of their antics, that poem immediately came to mind.

You need a special dictionary to translate what the Harperites are trying to say. Some call it Orwellian, but I think that's too deep. Nope. It's pure Jabberwocky.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

Brillig is simply 4 o'clock, 'slithy' is 'lithe and slimy' 'Toves' are "something like badgers, something like lizards, and something like corkscrews" (undefinable creatures), while "gyre and gimble," means to "rotate and bore". Mimsy is 'flimsy and miserable' 'borogove' a thin shabby-looking bird, 'Mome' means to seem 'grave' and 'outgrabe' is something between bellowing and whistling. So the translation:

’Twas 4 o'clock and the undefinable creatures
Did rotate and bore on their thistle;
So flimsy and miserable were these shabby birds,
That they gravely began to bellow and whistle.

Or as Elizabeth May says:

Heckling has become much more common over the last two decades or so ... [but] it has now become far worse. One unpleasant aspect to the current heckling is the willingness of the government front benches to engage in rude shouting across the floor. Bad behaviour used to be reserved for backbenchers who tended to remain rather anonymous in their interruptions. Even when such opposition heckling was notorious, as in the case of the famous Liberal "Rat Pack," it was by a scattering of MPs, not by an entire caucus and rarely, if ever, by government ministers. Under the current government, a number of ministers will initiate heckling across the floor. The prime minister himself does not stoop to it, although it is clear that he encourages a pit bull approach from his ministers on certain files. (2)

See. Jabberwocky. "Outgrabe" - bellowing and whistling.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!”

Jabberwock is "offspring". The Jubjub is "a desperate bird that lives in perpetual passion". Frumious is a combination of "fuming" and "furious", and Bandersnatch, "a swift moving creature with snapping jaws".

“Beware the horrible offspring, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that snare!
Beware the desperation, and shun
The snapping jaws of little Pierre!"

A perfect description of Pierre Poilievre. The little man-boy who struts around in perpetual passion, with jaws flapping and snapping. A perfect Bandersnatch. Belligerent and aggressive, Harper pulls him out when the questions get tough and they have no script.

He's been known to flip the bird, use profanity, and once even did a little pixie dance when the Speaker of the House was asking his caucus to settle down.

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought—

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

Vorpal is "verbal" and "gospel", manxome "manly" and "buxom". Are you seeing Jason Kenney? I know the manly is debatable, but remember when he denied removing the protection of gays and lesbians from the citizenship guide, then ran out the door in tears? He was later forced to admit to his dirty deed, but running away with his buxom chest extended is his modus operandi.

"He took his Bible on tape in hand:
Looked into the mirror, the foe he sought—
Then rested he by the Tumtum tree,
In hopes that his nonsense they had bought!"

Jason Kenney to a tee.

And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!

Uffish means "when the voice is gruffish, the manner roughish, and the temper huffish". Jabberwock another offspring. Tulgey is "thick, dense, dark". Burbled is "a mixture of the three verbs 'bleat', 'murmer', and 'warble'".

I know ... John Baird, right?

Grouph, rough and in a huff he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through thick, dense and dark,
Bleating and warbling as he came!

It is so much easier to understand what the Harper government is saying when you realize that it is Jabberwocky.

Like when Stephane Dion, then leader of the Opposition asked for information about press reports of the ill treatment of Afghan prisoners. Instead of answering the question, Stephen Harper responded in typical fashion.

Stephen Harper attacked Dion and questioned why he cared more about the Taliban than our own soldiers. [March 21, 2007]. I actually felt the air being squashed from my lungs, so deep was my shock at this answer from the prime minister: "I can understand the passion that the Leader of the Opposition and members of his party feel for Taliban prisoners. I just wish occasionally they would show the same passion for Canadian soldiers." (2)

"T'was late in March when the slithy tove,
Did gyre and gimble in the House;
And mimsy were his arguments,
His outgrabe that of a louse."

It's easy really. Jaberwocky. It doesn't have to make sense, and clearly it never does.

But maybe Alice says it best: 'It seems very pretty, but it's rather hard to understand! Somehow it seems to fill my head with ideas— only I don't exactly know what they are! However, somebody killed something: that's clear, at any rate.'

Previous:

The Politics of Contempt: The Nixon-Harper Ticket

The Politics of Hate: Where Will it Lead?

The Politics of Conceit: "Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better"

The Politics of Opportunity: Election Tampering


Sources:

1. Harperland:The Politics of Control, By Lawrence Martin, Viking Press, 2010, ISBN: 978-0-670-06517-2, Pg. 44-45

2. Losing Confidence: Power, Politics and Crisis in Canadians Democracy, By Elizabeth May, McClelland & Stewart, 2009, ISBN: 978-0-7710-5760-1, Pg. 70

3. It's time to ask: Is Poilievre fit to hold public office? By Randall Denley, The Ottawa Citizen, June 15, 2008