@JKennethY

My grandfather fought in WWI, my mother and father in WWII Stevie [Harper] has never gone to war except for from the war room in Ottawa, do you have any idea how many children he has killed through his bombing rage? Libya and Afghanistan? We never gave him that permission to throw bombs on Innocent children he has stolen that power from us.

He needsd to go….

Between 1918 and 1920, the fledgling workers’ state in Soviet Russia was engaged in a life and death struggle against a series of counter-revolutionary “White” armies backed by expeditionary forces marshalled by fourteen states that had fought as part of the British-French-US-led “Allies” in the First World War and which landed forces in Baku, Murmansk, Archangel and Vladivostok. Among the belligerents was Canada.

Historian Benjamin Isitt’s From Victoria to Vladivostok documents the history of the Canadian Expeditionary Force Siberia (CEFS), its deployment to Vladivostok as part of the attempted Allied overthrow of the revolutionary Bolshevik government under Lenin and Trotsky, its eventual defeat, and demobilization. The book also describes the working class internationalism that was prevalent during this period, and how worker solidarity ultimately derailed the expedition.

The book’s centrepiece, the 1918 Victoria, British Columbia mutiny, embodied many of these social processes. The CEFS’ enlisted ranks, mostly workers, were concentrated on Canada’s west coast in preparation for their trans-Pacific deployment. There they gravitated towards British Columbia’s fledgling labour parties and socialist organizations, whose message of international worker solidarity and aggressive anti-war agitation found fertile ground. This nascent, and from the standpoint of the ruling class dangerous, worker-soldier solidarity, resulted in the mutiny. While the officer corps quickly restored discipline, the mutiny eroded morale and heralded the expedition’s ultimate defeat. In short, the book documents a forgotten but important historical episode, when masses of workers armed with a socialist and internationalist perspective consciously struggled against capitalism…

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jun2012/isit-j30.shtml

Harper only cares about Harper and, his own selfish goals of power and greed. His outlandish behavior, is getting worse by the day. It is impossible to rationalize someone, who isn’t rational.

I agree with the button, Harper hates me. Harper hates everything Canadian, including the people.

Stringing the Embridge pipeline, with the lethal Bitumen across BC, is insane.

Bringing massive dirty tar tankers, into one of the most treacherous seas in the world, is brain dead.

Harper never learns the lessons of oil spills. He is far too arrogant and stubborn, to listen to anyone. Other country’s say the same thing, struggling to deal with Harper. They are fed up with Harper’s bullying, and his hissy fits, when he doesn’t get his own way. Except for Europe, who told Harper to go to hell. Good for Europe.

Well it certainly was good enough for Jack Layton, so why not for Mulcair, hmmm? For all the Libs faults over the past decade they at least stayed consistent in calling out Harper for what he truly was. I’ve always blamed the NDP/Layton for Harper’s rise in no small part because without their adding their credibility and unity against Harper to the Libs the Libs were going to be seen as using empty rhetoric, especially in the post Sponsorship scandal reality. I’ve said since the past election happened that Layton’s political epitaph properly is that he won the battle to lose the war, because in opposing the Libs, a party much closer to them in not just rhetoric but reality they allowed the most anti-Canadian, anti-progressive leader and party to first become a minority PM and then despite his constant showing of his colours as a snake out to destroy core progressive Canadian foundations still pretended that Liberal Tory same old story had any connection to the truth/reality. What really sickened me though is that the NDP prior to Layton’s leadership would never have made this choice, Layton clearly made gaining increased power and seats for his party as more important than upholding NDP core values, principles, and policies, something that the pre-Layton NDP were trusted for and trusted because they had put their money where their mouth was and earned that trust for doing so by most Canadians. Which is of course why when those same Canadians didn’t hear Layton backing the Libs up about Harper and the dangers of having him be PM, especially a majority PM they assumed he couldn’t be that bad.

Yes, I know I’ve ranted this before, but I really find it infuriating listening now to Dippers gloat about their success in the polls and how Mulcair will fix everything once he wins in the next election. Leaving aside the question of making such an assumption about whether Mulcair becomes PM, even if he does, even with a majority he will not be able to undo much of what Harper has been doing. Which is what I kept warning about, too many things that we have taken for granted as cast in stone/concrete is not, and worse thanks to various treaties if we ever give them up we can not restore them afterwards. The Wheat Board is an excellent example of that, since our trade treaties prevent us from recreating such. Same with increasing the limits on resource sales as another. Then there is the reducing/devolution of powers, once you do that trying to regain those powers afterwards tends to be a virtual impossibility too. These were all things I spent years warning about, and since I am not so arrogant as to think myself more perceptive of this than people that make their livings this way (aka NDP brain trust) who had access to even more data on Harper than I in Halifax did they and Layton CHOSE to place beating Libs as the higher priority of importance.

Now they have elected Mulcair leader I see no change in their basic behaviour where the Libs are concerned, indeed their clear hatred of the Libs is as strong as ever, so believing that Mulcair places keeping the Libs down ahead of defeating the Harper regime is not only a scary thought to me, it is describing reality as it has been for some time now. As much as many Libs dislike the NDP, traditionally there was also some respect there too. However, the actions of Layton and now Mulcair clearly have poisoned that well, Mulcair has made his opinion on any sort of joint action or even merger clear enough to all, so how is it anything other than his placing the Libs as the greater threat to the NDP and the Harper CPC. What really sucks is from a narrow partisan viewpoint that is a fair way to look at it, at least if your only concern is your ranking as a national party. If the NDP with the continued support of the Harper CPC keep the Libs as effectively out of the game and make it a binary decision option then they know they will be government eventually, and it is the Libs who represent the main seat competitor for the NDP, not the CPC, while conversely the Libs compete with both the center left they share with the NDP and the center right which the Harper CPC manage to co-opt. Yet to hear Dippers, Layton and Mulcair speak they still claim to be a different kind of party, one where principles still matter more than political expediency, well I say in rebuttal that I believe my lying eyes and their actions over their words.

In the aftermath of the Sponsorship scandal it was the NDP that retained the credibility to call out the Harper CPC for what it was and prevent the disaster we now live with from happening. They clearly placed their expediency ahead of their principles instead, and this is what we have now because of it. Why should you be at all surprised or even considering that Mulcair has any other plans than to continue this behaviour I do not understand ck. I’ve seen you to be a very bright and perceptive woman ck, you must see that Mulcair and the NDP have fundamentally changed from being a party of principles to just another party of expediency out to surplant the Libs for the sake of power. For all the Libs faults they never pretended not to be this way, while the hypocrisy of the NDP and far too many of its supporters rankles my nose in the same way and almost the same degree as the Catholics claiming their church and priests are not the monsters their actions have proven then to be (I use this in part because of the closeness of the comparison, but also because I grew up RC, spent a decade as an altarboy, and found the hypocrisy within the Church massively offensive when it came out and they kept denying it, I’ve never forgotten the Papal Bull early on where the Pope, at the urging of the now current Pope I might add that they forgave the children of the sin of tempting the priests into their actions, that is a level of hypocrisy hard to top or even meet, yet I find the NDP coming far too close over the past few years), which is in part why I don’t let this go, the rest being that I refuse to allow the NDP to sweep their role in the current hell under the rug.

Next to Harper himself the next greatest creator of our current political reality is Jack Layton, and his successor Mulcair appears to be cut from the same cloth, indeed even more so, at least I believed Layton embraced expediency for power so as to advance his NDP agenda (failing of course to see that his actions corroded that very agenda’s chances from coming about, but at least his motives were there, Mulcair I am not so convinced this is true of), he embraced expediency in the pursuit of noble ends, something still wrong but at least can be given some respect as opposed to the empty power hunger seen in far too many political leaders when they embrace such expediency as their norm.

Canada Day for me has become a very somber time, as I see the Canada I grew up in and lived in being destroyed in ways hard to recover from if ever possible, and too many not only fail to understand this but still care more about their narrow partisan aims than seeing the reality of what is happening, and how we got here, let alone what we need ot be doing to actually limit the damage going forward. It is a very sad time for me ck, and your rant as powerful and good as it is, is still a pale shadow of the rage I feel towards the current reality. I stopped blogging about it because my health could no longer withstand the emotions generated and I am left with only occasional commenting such as this. It is nice to see though those out there that see reality and able to call it for what it is, I wish more people we willing to do so, almost as much as I wish I still had the health and stamina to be doing it myself. Alas too many years being Cassandra took its toll.

Take care and be well ck.

There is no doubt, Harper is a dictator. He is obsessed with control, as all dictators have to be. The number one, first to control is the media, then they grab control of everything they can get their hands on. Some ministers aren’t very happy with that control. They are not permitted to say or do anything, everything has to go through Harper first. Some ministers don’t like the omnibus bill.

People from BC did post about, the robo-call cheat election fraud, right after the election. A site called, presscore.ca, was the first time I read about the robo-call scam, they said, Harper cheated to win. It took an, entire year before anyone listened.

We were all warned, what would happen to Canada if Harper wins, his so called majority…..we could kiss Canada goodbye. However, no-one listened to that either. I wonder if Canadians now believe, Harper is merging Canada in with Communist China?

You are right. The opposition sat on their collective arses, and still are, while this country was forced into a dictatorship. There are very few politicians in Canada, worth the powder to blow them to hell. Canada is now, a cesspool of corruption, and the opposition sits, with their fingers up their noses, while our country is being decimated by Harper and his henchmen.

Still, a nice sunny day in Southern Ontario, although too muggy for my taste. I hope our tory MP got his military moustache all wet sitting in the shiny convertible in the parade downtown, waving at his subjects. Hope he got booed by the peasants.