Stephen Harper Declares War

Stephen Harper Declares that War Has Been Declared on Canada

(Scroll to the end if you like; the point of this message is that our Prime Minister should not be stirring up hate, but rather acting prime ministerial and urging all Canadians, as always, to respect and help one another; he clearly hasn't had a Bible handy lately.) 

You can just tell how upset he was by his hands in his pockets, his open-button, gut-over verbal stumbling, his casual waves, his downbeat reference to France, his dropped-down voice when it refers to specifics of Canada’s response to events in the Middle East and/or countries he can’t quite bring to mind.

He says that the attack in France represented an attack on something Canadians “cherish”—but meanwhile he won’t answer questions himself.  Many media outlets in Canada agreed to pull his comments—

 http://globalnews.ca/news/1762877/watch-prime-minister-stephen-harper-makes-announcement-in-delta-b-c/

 when it appeared he wasn’t getting his message across—to his liking.

The Government of Canada even agreed to shut its own self down, after Harper dictates:

http://pm.gc.ca/eng/news/2015/01/08/livestream-watch-pm-harper-deliver-remarks-live-delta-british-columbia-thursday

Media--and government--sources shut down at Harper's request--Putin only dreams of such subservience.  And CSIS on the job 24/7 to make sure it's maintained.

Here is a cut up and edited version of what electors elected (for as long as it lasts):

 http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2015/01/08/jihadists_have_declared_war_stephen_harper_says_after_paris_attack.html

Make no mistake—Harper unbuttoned was still Harper calculating.  His words to the base were transparent—we’re at war, here, so you’ve got to support me.  No-one disses a war PM (the longer I’m Prime Minister). 

But even the Delta kids behind him looked quizzical as he assured them of the threat—that it wasn’t going to go away, that it was here to stay. As for that--

--Freedom of the press: Harper’s cutting of the CBC, a national broadcaster that most developed Commonwealth countries cherish for relative impartiality—and trust; Harper’s attempts to enfranchise far-right media and refusal to speak with anything but media that support his agenda.

--“We will not be intimidated by jihadist terrorists.”  Harper used to accuse others of cutting and running, but eventually, as this blog observed, when he realized he’d sent dozens of Canadians to their deaths, he backed up and realized the war wasn’t winnable.  I’m sure that his “thoughts and prayers” are with the families of his comfy sweater-vest actions.  Do a Prime Minister’s wife and kids have access to a Prime Minister’s tweeted “thoughts and prayers”?  (I guess not; only Prime Ministers have deepest condolences and thoughts and prayers; silly me.)

When you observe his speech, you see that Harper is actually most comfortable amongst schoolchildren, whom he thinks he can sway or preach to.  Most kids aren’t that dumb.  Justin Trudeau probably learned that long ago, when he had a real job, unlike Harper.  You see the kids standing behind Harper, as props, stone-faced, while Harper thinks he’s regaling them.  In fact, they are probably thinking, “look, I don't have to hate my friend, this is a fairly tolerant country, and I don’t buy your “incessant war” theory. What’s your problem?”  It’s clearly old-man s**t to them. 

But Harper’s louche enthusiasm for endless war isn’t that hard to explain, even if one discounts his fundamentalist Christian beliefs.  He points out emphatically that the war will never end (and as long as he’s Prime Minister, and can lyingly stop and start elections with his septuagenarian pal Davey Johnston’s addled approval and he’ll keep pretending he’s at war—not actually sending any troops or doing anything definitive, but boldly supporting Israel, and so on).  More guns, too, if possible; if the ones that slaughtered people in Calgary (http://www.edmontonsun.com/2015/01/02/killarney-shooting-victim-abdullahi-ahmed-previously-convicted-on-drugs-assault) and Edmonton (http://www.edmontonsun.com/2014/12/30/strathcona-county-mounties-probing-suspicious-death-on-edmonton-outskirts) stir up the base and keep our streets unsafe for unConservatives.  He already pulled a little insider action (Duffy, Wallin, anyone?) to get one Conservative candidate police chief, Rick Hanson, to get on board with wild murders that support their own careers with rich entitlements: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/tories-hand-pick-police-to-serve-on-federal-gun-panel/article9648887/.  It's not really about income-splitting, people; it's about splitting the people who are allowed to have guns and kill people, from those who aren't allowed to have guns and people.  This much the PM understands and mandates.  And the more guns, for Hanson and Harper, the merrier.  Of course, Hanson oversaw a "gun amnesty" by which the Calgary Police Service collected firearms and then resold them to collectors and gun shops--just Hanson's way of making sure that as many illegal and unregistered firearms could get into as many hands as possible--hopefully so as to create crime and mayhem that could further his career and that of his new boss, Jim ("T-Bird") Prentice.

To be fair, as the following article (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-police-officer-pleads-guilty-to-firearms-offence-1.853499) makes clear, key new gun collection practices were supposed to come into effect some years ago:

"Insp. Ken Marchant said that in the future, officers would not be sent out to collect guns for amnesty programs — participants would have to bring them to police."

"Participants."  I like that.  I'd like to show up at a police station in Calgary and say "HI!, I'm a participant!!"

(In other words, instead of being forced to give up guns for future resale and collectors auctions at cop gunpoint, gun owners would be allowed to bring them in, of their own free volition, to have them collected and redistibuted, for profit and/or private investment, by the Calgary Police Service under Chief Rick Hanson.)  As for the practice of keeping cop gun resellers on pay but without actually working or doing any kind of job (unlike normal law-abiding citizens and taxpayers), but rather, just getting paid lavishly with huge pensions to do nothing--Chief Hanson declined to offer comment.
 

By declaring that war has been declared (on Canada, which it hasn’t been), Stephen Harper, a fundamentalist Christian, is trying to foment hatred and war amongst Canadians.  He’s using his usual divide and conquer tactics, which politically and partisanly always look good after whoever uses them is dead (Harp’s one of those “short-term” legacy guys).  Harper has kids, and they're going to have to go on living, and they're going to have to go on believing that the world is really as simple as their father thought it was.  Harper's kids will be sheltered from reality by their income-splitted wealth, but the kids of most Canadians will not be; those kids will have to figure out a way to get along with others.  They will be the true Canadian patriots.
 

[And since we’re talking about it, and since I’ve used the term “fundamentalist Christians,” it’s worth pointing out that Islam today is only replicating in many ways what happened during the Crusades.  In other words, it was Islam, not Christianity, which accepted wayward souls or infidels, in days gone by.  I surely don’t defend anything going on now, and may have more words to type, but for Christians to regard as shocking what Muslims are doing now is just silly.  A Christian in Yemen today probably has a lot better hope than a Muslim in pre-early modern Europe.  A little perspective, please.]

 Harper has clearly sized up his Ontario seats and Muslim votes, and in the most cynical way possible, determined that he would come out against Muslim Canadians—despite whatever canny Kenney can do (talk about mining the ground for leadership contenders). 

But we shouldn’t look at it this way.  No-one and no-state or even handful of twitterers has really declared war on Canada.  Our very own Prime Minister, who ought to be sober and stable, has jumped up and amped up the rhetoric like a hi-school teen and told us we’re all under threat—forever.

 No, we aren’t.  Despite Stephen Harper's long-mulled political strategies and his fundamentalist Manichean view of the world, no, we’re not.  We’re Canadians.  We’re made of tougher stuff—we came from all over and we figured out how to survive from the people who were already here, and we’re determined to re-enact that—and we will never, ever give in to cheap gun-crazy paranoid fundamentalists who want to tell us what our “values” are when they’ve never had to actually earn some themselves.
 

 --zr