Archive for the 'DICK ARMEY' Tag
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: ARTICLE ABOUT "FOREVER CAMPAIGNS" RAISES THE ISSUE OF AMERICAN PLUTOCRACY REPLACING CANADA'S DEMOCRACY – AND ONLY STEPHEN HARPER IS RESPONSIBLE Leave a comment
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE IN THE NATIONAL POST
The article is technically well done, but it seems to me there is such an important set of facts understated in, or missing from, the article that, taken as a whole, it becomes inaccurate and misleading.
I might call it polished propaganda.
There is only one source for the election phenomenon we see now in Canada, and that source is Stephen Harper. It has little to do with "competition run amok."
Harper is on record for admiring the American system, a system which is so dominated by big money that many astute and knowledgeable observers have said America is no longer a democracy but a plutocratic oligarchy.
Harper is also on record as hating many of Canada's traditions in politics. His past assertions are so unpleasant and "Canadian self-hating" one wonders why he did not long ago seek a career in the United States. His total set of views and attitudes would have done him well in a place like Texas. They are in perfect keeping with politicians of the quality of Dick Armey or Phil Gramm or Tom Delay.
His major obsession in his entire political career has been to destroy the Liberal Party, the institution he holds largely responsible for the Canada he dislikes so intensely.
His basic method has been simple. Remove as much government funding as possible. Remove as much quasi-judicial oversight and rules as possible. Bend national policy in the direction big contributors want to see. Collect as much money from these special interests as possible. Lengthen the election period so that you can spend more than ever under laws you yourself have created.
Added to those structural changes are changes in practice completely learned from America's example. Throw lots of dirt through advertising, knowing that if you throw enough, some will stick. Use third-party organizations to fund these whenever possible. Avoid direct contacts with press and interviewers as much as possible, and never answer a question in an honest and straightforward way. Use any costly frat-boy trick – such as robo-calls to misdirect voters – which might make gains for you in a swing area. Afterward, sandbag government officials investigating such matters. These approaches take full advantage of having a treasure chest full of private funds with which to play.
It is a formula guaranteed over time to badly damage Canadian democracy, and it is a formula favored by no other party.
Tagged with AMERICAN PLUOCRACY STEPHEN HARPER'S GOAL, CANADA'S LIBERAL PARTY, CANADIAN DEMOCRACY IN DANGER, CANADIAN POLITICS, COMPETITION RUN AMOK, DICK ARMEY, HARPER HATES CANADA, HARPER'S CANADIAN SELF-HATRED, HARPER'S STREATEGY, HARPER'S STRUCTURAL CHANGES TO CANADA'S ELECTIONS, HARPER'S TACTICS, JOHN CHUCKMAN, PHIL GRAMM, POLISHED PROPAGANDA, SELLING POLICY TO SPECIAL INTERESTS, STEPHEN HARPER, TOM DELAY
JOHN CHUCKMAN COMMENT: PROPAGANDA PIECE ATTEMPTS TO COVER THE IDIOTIC ANTICS OF CANADA'S JOHN BAIRD IN EAST JERUSALEM – WHAT PEACE MEANS – ISRAEL'S COMPLETE LACK OF INTEREST IN WHAT MOST CALL PEACE – BUYING POLICY Leave a comment
EXPANDED FROM A POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY EINAT WILF AND NOAH SLEPKOV IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL
This piece is a set of words strung together almost without meaning and certainly without logic. Its only intention is to plant certain suggestions in readers' minds, one of the key purposes of any propaganda. According to the authors, John Baird, Canada's current foreign minister, was not guilty of provocation in blundering into East Jerusalem as a guest of Israeli politicians, rather he was being "brave" in the cause of peace.
Brave? John Baird?
Baird has always been a coward because only a coward acts aggressively towards the weak, as he does regularly in both domestic politics and in trips abroad, and certainly the Palestinians are weak, living at the mercy of Israel's brutal and dishonest behavior.
The leaders of Israel do not want what any normal person calls peace. Their behaviors over decades make that abundantly clear to all but biased observers.
Israel has always followed the policy advocated by early Zionists called "the iron wall" in its attitude towards the Palestinians.
How much better would have been a policy of generosity towards its neighbors, but no, generosity in Israel's attitude has never received the slightest consideration. The one prime minister who came just a little closer to altering the county's brutal policies was assassinated, as it happened by an Israeli.
Israel holds all the cards – armaments, economic power, American influence, and absolute rule over millions of people – but it has never made a truly honest effort for genuine peace. Words, words, and more words combined with arrogant and impossible preconditions set even for discussions.
What we see is a garrison state, armed to the teeth, threatening its neighbors constantly, ready at the smallest provocation to kill thousands, and we see that state rule over 4.5 million conquered people with a heavy-handed system of apartheid, a system recognized as apartheid by every sensible and decent observer in the world from Nelson Mandela and Bishop Tutu to Jimmy Carter.
And, week by week, Israel slowly steals the land on which those 4.5 million people live, stealing it through all kinds of cynical and dishonest laws – an ongoing, slow-motion practice of ethnic-cleansing in every sense of the term.
What other state could accurately claim as its national symbol a D-9 armored bulldozer used to destroy the homes of others and sometimes simply to crush opponents?
Canada's arrogant and ill-informed foreign minister, John Baird – and Canadians all know that he is arrogant and ill-informed owing to his everyday behavior at home – steps in to validate Israel's ghastly behavior in East Jerusalem, never once saying anything about human or democratic rights.
And why does John Baird choose to behave in this obtuse fashion?
Because he is a creature of the Harper government which has as its goal, by its leader's own admission, the elimination of the Liberal Party in Canada, a party which was always been even-handed in the Middle East, reflecting the attitude of a majority of Canadians.
Harper's strategy includes having ended state support for political parties, using every disagreeable parliamentary dodge he can think of, being an enemy of transparency in government, suppressing the voices of experts in the civil service, and actively seeking a new and substantial flow of private financing, as it happens, from apologists for Israel eager to fund a turn in Canada's historic and fair-minded policies.
In the United States, this pattern of funding is now an integral part of its foreign affairs. In just one example – and there are countless examples – the unpleasant Newt Gingrich received the best part of $20 million from just one wealthy American heavily involved in Israel's affairs to run his presidential bid.
The price for that money? Newt's peppering his speeches with ignorant assertions like "There's no such thing as a Palestinian." In another notorious example, Dick Armey, former House Majority Leader, once openly suggested that Israel just go ahead and run all the Palestinians out of the occupied territories – surely the kind of assertion that does not come naturally from an ultra-conservative economics major for whom property rights are virtually religious dogma.
And just so, John Baird's bull-in-a-china-shop behavior in East Jerusalem and at the UN or Peter Kent's sudden outbursts, almost like someone given to speaking in tongues, about Canada defending Israel or Harper's regular speeches claiming credit as a warrior against (virtually non-existent) anti-Semitism and deliberately conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
In the normal world, we know peace in any violent disagreement is often only obtained by outside intervention and patient talks and mutual respect, but somehow when it comes to Israel, this common understanding just disappears. Israel is never pressured to treat its neighbors with respect, and it is never pressured to talk to them without arrogant preconditions. Never.
No one dares say a word about the decades of abusing 4.5 million people, of Israel's endless torture and assassinations. Nor do the "brave" John Bairds of this world raise their voices when Israel kills 400 children as it did in its invasion of Gaza or when it commits piracy on the high seas or when it murders a Canadian officer serving as a UN observer or when it drops a million hideous cluster bombs on civilians as it did in Lebanon. No condemnation over the theft of farms and homes is ever heard. Not a word about endless illegal arrests and the imprisonment of thousands. Nor a word about the seizure of taxes and foreign aid moneys from their rightful owners.
Of course, there is never a word about the Six Day War so many decades ago, the very event which put all those people at Israel's mercy, a war which Israel cynically started knowing it could win, aiming ultimately to create what is known as Greater Israel. Nor was a word said about Israel's attacking a well-marked American intelligence ship, of which they had been advised in advance, during that war to silence signals informing Washington that Israel was turning around its armor to seize all of what it controls today. And there was not a word about the mass murder of hundreds of Egyptian prisoners in the Sinai to expedite that turnaround.
Does anyone in his right mind believe peace is obtained the way Israel has claimed to pursue it? Only if your definition of peace is Israel's taking all the additional land it covets without any of the people who own it and live there, which is pretty much what the concept of Greater Israel involves. I suppose that is a kind of peace, the kind of peace brutal American soldiers achieved in My Lai, Vietnam, or in Fallujah, Iraq.
Posted April 18, 2013 by JOHN CHUCKMAN in Uncategorized
Tagged with AMERICAN POLITICS AND ISRAEL, APOLOGISTS FOR ISRAEL, BLACK OPS, BRIEF SUMMATION OF ISRAEL'S POLICY, BUYING FOREIGN POLICY, CANADA'S TRADITIONAL FAIRNESS IN FOREIGN POLICY, CONFLATING LEGITIMATE CRITICISM OF ISRAEL WITH ANTI-SEMITISM, DEMOCRATIC AND HUMAN RIGHTS, DESTROYING LIBERAL PARTY, DICK ARMEY, EAST JERUSALEM, EINAT WILF, FINANCING POLITICS, HARPER AND KILLING LIBERAL PARTY, INJUSTICE, ISRAEL'S APARTHEID, ISRAEL'S ATROCITIES, ISRAEL'S KILLING PRISONERS OF WAR, JOHN BAIRD, JOHN CHUCKMAN, NEWT GINGRICH, NOAH SLEPKOV, NONEXISTENT ANTI-SEMITISM, PETER KENT AS A PUBLIC IDIOT, PROPERTY RIGHTS, SIX DAY WAR, SPECIAL INTEREST CAMPAIGN FUNDS, STEPHEN HARPER, STEPHEN HARPER'S DISHONESTY, USS LIBERTY, UTTERING NONSENSE FOR CAMPAIGN FUNDS, WAR AS A DELIBERATE POLICY