On the passing of Jim Flaherty

I intended to say nothing out of
respect for his family. But.....

As my Dad used to say, "if you can't say something good about somebody, then say nothing at all". Good advice for the most part that I've admittedly ditched in my mad rantings about the evils of Stephen Harper's Reform-a-Cons in this blog. But when one of the enemies of the state pass, it's only good etiquette to suspend the vitriolic volleys out of respect for the family of the deceased. 

So with that in mind, I had resolved to say nothing at all regarding the late Jim Flaherty. I didn't like the man in life, but the passing of any human being is a tragedy of mammoth proportions to the family of the deceased. I know this from personal experience. So do most people my age. So I suspended my twitter attacks on the Harpercondriacs for a good 24 hours out of respect, not for the passing of the man himself, but out of respect for his grieving family. 

The Opposition parties were suitably solemn as one would expect them to be when any of their colleagues buy's the farm. Hell, even Harper himself was positively magnanimous about the departure of the late Jack Layton, offering to allow him a state funeral. But knowing what a cold hearted heel Harper is, this was probably not as much out of respect,  but thanks for the surge in Laytons NDP in 2011 that may well have helped Harper win his fraudulent majority government. 

But now the undeserved accolades for Flaherty are pouring in. Mostly from the

Jim Flaherty, Friend of the 1%.

mainstream media who hypocritically seem intent on canonizing the very man they routinely lambasted (and rightly so) in their columns. It is one thing for Citizen Stephen to heap adoration on his co-conspirator, calling him a "great Canadian". One would expect that. But for the supposedly unbiased news media, this is absolutely intolerable. 

 The Ottawa Citizen said that Flaherty was: "a steady hand on the tiller", a phrase taken directly from the "Harper spin-doctor" play-book. The Halifax Chronicle Herald claimed that Flaherty had:  "...a reputation at home and abroad as a capable minister" (I'm sure the Euro Zone won't much miss ol Jim's finger pointing and vacuous lecturing).  The Globe And Mail even went so far as to say that: "Jim Flaherty helped save the world from economic meltdown". Puleeeeze!

All old Jimbo did, was to take credit for the work Paul Martin did in stabilizing our economy and regulating our banks against just the sort of meltdown that did occur in 2008. If you'll remember, Jimmy denied the very existence of the recession at first. And even prior to the 2008 crisis, he had already squandered the $16 billion dollar surplus he had inherited from Martin on tax cuts that every expert in the field had advised against.  And when Mark Carney left the Bank Of Canada for England, Flaherty seemed absolutely lost.  

Put the fucking homeless in JAIL!

I can go on ad nauseum as to why Mr. F was nothing like the "Great Canadian" he is being made out to have been today. But think Austerity (ever notice that Flaherty and austerity rhyme?). Think vindictive cuts to the CBC. Think about the attack on the jobless via EI. Think about the attacks on the CPP and universal health care. Think about those mammoth, undemocratic, Omnibus-budget bills of his. And Think about the man who wanted to jail the homeless as Jimmy wanted to do when he was a Harrisite in Ontario. And while we're on the subject of Ontario, I'm sure there are thousands of families in Walkerton who will never forget nor forgive what Flaherty, Harris and Clement did to them. 

For more detail on Flaherty's record, see what the good folks at Progressive Press had to say when Uncle Jimmy stepped down as Finance Minister last month: What's With All The Praise For Jim Flaherty's Record

Well I've done a fine job of not heeding my father's advice once again. I didn't wish to speak ill of Jimmy at this time. It goes against the grain for me. So can't we just get by with saying Jim was "a good family man with a sense of humour" and leave it at that? Do we need to get all hypocritical and, well, LIE about the man? He was a career public servant, yes. But there are many, many, many Canadians today who wish he hadn't been. So lets just be respectful of the family and drop the Bull Shit. Ok?

The man who said "there's no such thing
as a bad job" never worked at a "McJob",
harvested tobacco, or slaved in a factory.

Stephen Harper and the Ministry of Truth.

Bafflegab -Language whose purpose is to obscure, confuse, or mislead.

Doublethink -The act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct, often in distinct social contexts. It is related to, but differs from, hypocrisy and neutrality. Somewhat related is cognitive dissonance, where the two beliefs cause conflict in one's mind.

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We all know that Stephen Harper is an adherent of the Orwellian arts. 

For example, we know that whenever a member of the Government of Harper uses the phrase "finding efficiencies", we know he or she is talking about firing people, nailing doors shut and pulling funding. (Bafflegab). It usually involves killing programs that don't meet Harper's ideological agenda such as the Experimental Lakes Area who's research could be used to undermine the progress of the Tar Sands and points to Harper's abysmal record on the environment. 

We know that between 2008 when the Parliamentary crisis occurred through to the 2011 election, Harper and his bobble-heads repeated the phrase "coalition governments are undemocratic" so many times that it became an accepted truth (Doublethink) even though a good number of the world's  democracies are coalitions and are far more representative of the will of the people than Harper's fraudulent majority government of today. 

During that same Parliamentary crisis of 2008, Harper went on ad nauseam about Stephan Dion jumping into bed with the "Separatists and the Socialists" even though just a few scant years before, he was prepared to do the exact same thing in order to topple Paul Martin's minority government. 

While leader of the opposition, Harper lambasted the Liberal Government for implementing Omnibus Bills that may have been 50 or so pages in length, yet when he attained his much coveted majority, he rammed through not one, not two, but three giant Omnibus Bills (C-10, C-38, C-45) that could match Tolstoy's "War and Peace" for they're verbosity and complexity. 

While in the United States recently to make a sales pitch on behalf of the big oil companies who's mandate it is to scour every last bit of tar from Canada's pristine wilderness, Harper spoke of Canada's policy of  "responsible resource development" and it's exemplary record on the environment. These comments were of course, bold-faced lies, but here was the Prime Minister, saying these things with a straight face and in calm and even tones, with all the conviction of a Sunday preacher delivering the Gospel.  

These are just a very few examples of Harper's use of "Doublethink" . The list of course, goes on and on. What he said yesterday or the day before never happened. It's what he says today that counts. We know full well what he did and said yesterday, we saw it, we heard it. But through his use of language and distortion of the facts, not to mention his use of pom-pom waving back-benchers who applaud his every word and his multi-million dollar ad campaigns, the truth gets twisted, distorted and turned on it's head. Up is down, black is white and night is day. 

But this is not Nineteen Eighty Four and Harper doesn't have Winston Smith working for him in the Ministry of Truth rewriting history. Though we have to wonder, with his announcement that he is launching an all out review of Canadian history, if Mr. Harper hasn't finally found where Winston has been hiding all these years.

There is ample documentation and proof of all that Mr. Harper has said and done in the past. He has used the arts of Bafflegab and Doublethink to obscure these facts and to make us forget about them. He has lied on such a bold and grand scale as to actually sound believable. But the historical records remain. 

The recent surfacing of this video on YouTube is living proof of his thoughts and feelings while Leader of the Opposition on the scandal that rocked the Liberal Government. In it, he very succinctly states that "...if I were Prime Minister, I don't understand how I could not expect to have to resign the very next day". He goes on to state: "...he (Paul Martin) is a leader and as a leader, he is responsible for the actions of the people he leads. If he had a right or honourable bone in his body, he'd admit that and resign immediately". 

Of course, Mr. Harper is now embroiled in numerous scandals of his own. The "misplacing" of 3.1 billion dollars and no accounting for it's where abouts whatsoever. The recent Federal Court ruling that there was a systematic campaign of electoral fraud in the 2011 election that favoured the Conservatives and of course, Duffy-gate and it's ties to Harper's own office. All of these things that, taken together, make the Sponsorship scandal look like a couple of kiddies who got caught with their hands in the cookie jar. 

But suddenly, Mr. Harper's damning indictment of Paul Martin doesn't apply to himself. To Harper, these major ethical imbroglios aren't damning indictments of his leadership. They are "distractions" and he knew nothing about them. Therefore he is innocent of all wrong doing. Never mind his 2006 comment about Martin being a leader and being responsible for the people he leads.

But this is not just mere hypocrisy on the part of the Prime Minister. This behaviour is far more sinister. It points to his systemic use of "Doublethink". Even though there is ample proof of his words and deeds when he was responding to a previous government, his actions and words of today would have us believe history as we know it never occurred. And if he continues to have his way unabated, Canadians won't know their own history by the time Mr. Harper is done changing it.