The Xbox we didn't get...
Our pre-Xmas present from the politicians (in Canada) was news of a "surprise" January election, due to a vote of non-confidence in the present government. Thanks guys. Elections cost money too. You seem to forget that WE voted them in, not that long ago (ie. 18 months), for better or worse. Worse would be a Conservative win by default, when Duceppe sweeps Quebec, as he will. Does Harper really expect us to replace what he deems a "corrupt government" (the Liberals) with one which only promises MORE of the same- in other words, his own dreaded Conservatives. The thought makes me sicker than a New Year's hangover, and if I wake up in bed with THEM in charge of this nation, I swear...
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE- DON'T VOTE CONSERVATIVE!!!
Think the Liberals are corrupt and into cronyism? Try voting in the Harper gang... and watch our natural resources sold down river, literally (ie. States side), the health care system erode, privatisation expand, more Canadian troops die in places like Afghanistan and the national deficit return to levels last seen when the conservatives were in power. Specifically, a $41 BILLION DOLLAR DEFICIT left by the last Conservative (Mulroney) government!!!
On the other hand, the Liberals did pay down more than $60 BILLION on the national debt with 8 surplus budgets. A debt created by the prior Conservative government's fiscal mismanagement. Things are not great, but better than they were. Unemployment is down, the Canadian dollar is up. My family's lot hasn't improved, but somebody's , somewhere, must have.
Come on- we can't be as stupid as the Americans, who voted out the Democrats in spite of their excellent fiscal track record, merely on the basis of Clinton's personal marital indiscretion. Look where they are now. Soaring deficit. Iraq. Afghanistan. Guantanamo. Abu Ghraib. Teetering on the brink of a global Holy War they single handedly created. Any credibility America possessed long vanquished.
A Liberal minority with a strong NDP opposition would be our best solution. (Sorry Green party- but you're really not ready.) Banish the Conservatives to the netherworlds they ideologically inhabit.
posted by Dawn One at 3:43 pm
4 Comments:
Of course we should not vote. No one who wants change should vote in this election. It is better for everyone to get together and form another political party. One that is really dedicated to changing the system. Just catalogue the complaints of peole and a political platform will follow.
All the parties in this election are misdirecting the Canadian people.
They are all rest are power elites that have allied themselves with corporate power. The government serves the multinational corporations and the multinationals serve themselves.
If there is any doubt about this just check out which political party is now promising to change the sytem. None of them are. In fact they carry on with distracting issues only promising to manipulate the existing system. That is because they all want to take a share for themselves. They don't want to change. The weird and frightening thing is how they carry on as if the Corporate World did not even exist!
Check out even that none of the parties promises to investigate the Liberals corruption. By investigate, I mean a legal seizure of all bank records and individual financial records by the police. This would be done for any common criminals such as drug dealers. If they did that we would recover all the money and many politicanas would be in the slammer. But no party wants to promise this because they are all dirty and they don't want the same standard of honesty applied to themselves. They think of themselves as an untouchable ruling class and they all can hardly wait to get their own turn at the bank.
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The corporations own the law, and the politicans and the media. Of their ownership I could and probably will cite case after case, most inmpotantly is how the Justices gave the corporations ownership of life itself, how the coporations exploit the third world and how whistleblowers are persecuted and discouraged by the justice system.
But the media is the critical point, they own all the newspapers and TV and Radio. Freedom of speech is rather meaningless when all the reporters work for corporate power. An individual citizen might get a letter to the editor published on page 7 once a year. The last recourse of possible freedom is here on the internet.
Ownership of media means "socialization" which means that people have learned to think against themselves. The solutions to our society's prolems are obvious but everyone has been trained to psychologically defend the very people and processes that repress them.
So this is the social environment of the modern first world. A population under the control of lies, deception, dishonesty, repression, expolitation and manipulation.
The people are given the impression in the media that they have a free and unrepresssed life, but the experience of all individuals in the system is the complete opposite of this.
Everything in the public consciousness is misdirected.
Free yourselves people!!! Tell the established parties that you don't want them! Build a new party free that will make the corporations work for Canadians instead of ruling us!!!
I can understand the source of your apathy towards the existing parties… nevertheless, not voting in the coming election will not solve anything. By all means, start a new party which represents values and goals which mean something to you. But this all takes time- years- and meanwhile we cannot risk the changes which will be brought about if the conservatives take hold of power. It could happen as quickly as it did for the Americans, who found themselves embroiled in a war and economic down turn within months of the republican win.
I hate compromise too, but we need to deal with this pending election NOW. So we do need to vote.
The Canadian Greens, for example, have been at it for years and are still in no position to govern this country. They can't even decide amongst themselves which policies they stand for, even on the issue of seal hunting. I've witnessed the level of debate from the inside, so to suggest not voting and "start a new party" strikes me as somewhat glib, and at best, naive.
I personally wish the NDP would sweep the country and win a majority- but it won't happen. On paper at least, their values most closely reflect my own. The Liberals are a distant third. Second would be the Bloc, minus sovereignty. I've been living in Quebec, where economically things are a bit better than the 80s, but not by much. Quebec has a dire problem in terms of underemployment, where many people are forced into minimum wage part-time positions which offer no short term, let alone long term security. If I could change one thing in this area, it would be to ban businesses from hiring several part time staff where a full time position can be created; force them to accept responsibility towards their employees and help foster a sense of job security for workers. It is the cause of a deep malaise amongst the youth of Quebec, and this problem extends to all of Canada.
Quebec also has a pitiful educational system. They keep wondering why there is such a high drop out rate- examine how many kids, especially boys, get suspended and expelled on a regular basis from Quebec schools. It is time for the school system to recognize that as much as childish, disruptive behaviour is time consuming, it is also part of human nature. You can't put young people in an intellectually stunted, repressive environment without expecting a reaction. The solution is not to kick out those who don't conform, as chances are these are the inventive, free thinkers necessary to promote progression in a healthy society. The ones they expel and push from school to school lose a sense of community and have a hard time building deep-rooted friendships. They end up unsocialized and alienated. If they don't have a solid family to fall back upon, they are lost and become negative statistics. Important programs such as music, art and sports have been removed from Quebec school programs, citing a lack of funding. These are all necessary outlets to balance out the frustrations of the traditional school curriculum. They need to be reinstated immediately for all students- not only the ones whose parents can afford to pay the annual supplemental fee in order to have them. In Quebec, we have to pay annual fees to attend public primary schools which offer art, music or computer programs. Some fees amount to hundreds of dollars per child. This is a disgrace and is an impossible burden on single parent and low income families. It the school suspects you can't afford it, your child is not admitted, so the "policy" of absolving the poor from paying the fees is a fallacy and cover-up. I am certain that many behavioural problems would diminish if these programs were freely available to all.
You know, you can't ever make corporations work "for us". They exist because they are built upon a creed of excessive gain for the few and the denial of individual freedoms. They require dismantling. The media also needs to be freed of the monopolies which own them. The "media" is being dictated to by individuals, who control though their media empires what is being conveyed to us as news. If I could change this, it would be a return to individual ownership and a ban on media monopolies. It is not the journalists who are to blame for the misinformation. They are losing control of their own words and images, which are being farmed out to an ever expanding web of companies, with no appreciable return. If the journalists refuse to comply, they are simply not hired again. They are another group with no job security. I know from experience.
That's just propaganda for the corporations, Dawn By voting you are legitimatizing the current oligarchical rule by the corporations. All the parties are owned by owing favours to the corporations. They all receive funding by the corporations. It is not an election determined by the people . It is a war between the corporations to see which group will rule us.
Do not believe any propaganda that you need to vote!
Do not legitimize the current system.
It doesn't matter what happens in the election, we already have lost our freedomn iothing can be done in the current system. the masses are manipulated pawns of the corporate owned media. Peeople can only break free by denoucing the enitire system. If we have to be enslaved let it not be as willing. Let us live what we have left with some dignity!!
Dear max-
I completely understand what you are saying and agree with your assessment regarding corporate control of political parties. It is nevertheless the, albeit flawed, system we have in place, and people are not responsible or ethical enough to live outside of the yoke. I don't think that you can convince enough people to either break free, or know how to deal with that freedom properly, should they ever possess it. Your faith in humanity is greater than mine. People are primarily self-centered, self-serving, largely ignorant by choice or lack thereof, and cowardly. They like rattling their chains on occasion, just to create noise to break the din, but cannot ultimately escape from that which they cannot recognize. Have you ever seen the Devil card in the tarot? http://www.dawnone.com/tarotpan.html The slaves are often depicted in ankle irons, which are in fact loose enough to slip. Yet there they remain. It is symbolic of the human condition on so many spheres- personal and political merge. and are one.
Speaking of shackles-
2 years at least of Harper. (Uggghhh)
You may not respect the alternatives either, but any one of them would have been preferable to this. I can't believe he pulled it off. He learned well from his mentor, Bush, whose campaigns and political persona were closely examined by the Conservatives. I hope the opposition manages to reign him in.
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