new eyes to see the neocons
[[[ Aaah.
]]]The Great Canadian NeoCon
Hat-TrickNew eyes, new eyes to see Canada.
(I ride the Metro here in Montréal, and I look at all these people, and
sometimes I think to myself "and these too are my people," very unsure as to
what this all means.) Got the glasses, new Alain Miklis, to better see that
wolf. In sheep's clothing. That wolf, Prime Minister Harper, in the sheep's
clothing of the archetypal sheep, as a "neoconservative" Christian
fundamentalist, which usually spells two economic-political strategies: a) the
cutting of social programs (but not only "social" or "programs") and b) a rise
in expenditure for the military (but not only the military). Should I feign
surprise at 66 budget cuts by PM Harper's government? (66.
What an... interesting number.) In any case, 66 cuts in a year of surpluses, low
unemployment and overall great national health. Right at the turning point, when
Canada could have redefined the "social welfare state" in the 21C. Why, you may
ask? But surely there is economic justification? Well, Warren Jestin, Bank of
Novia Scotia economist, laid it out in this article: to make good on Conservative
promises of tax cuts -- mainly to corporations and lowering the GST to 6% --
"other programs inevitably will have to be cut back substantially." The neocons
have brought it on themselves, which is to say, on us all -- or that "all" that
makes up the bulk of the population not in the top wealthy 10%. It's kind of
like a hat-trick on your own goalie-- when he's
down.GONZO
ALERT GONZO ALERT Warning, my
international readers, WARNING.The current Canadian Government -- oh, heavens,
where is my mind, as the administration
insists,
"the New Government of Canada" (a BC scientist was
fired for
questioning
this phrase) -- is going the way of a conservative Australia. The New Government
of Canada holds some rather Old prejudices: they are on the record as holding some rather narrow
views of homosexuality, abortion and immigration. By "narrow," I mean that they
object to homosexuality, abortion and immigration on predominantly religious
grounds & on predominantly "moral" or even "political" grounds that are,
upon further inspection, grounded in a
theosophy
which constructs for itself the heritage of a theocratic power "natural" to the
colonial structure of this country. It is not necessarily the values of
Christ
expressed in the Conservatives that are at issue (let us keep a distinction of
faith from
religion),
but rather the power structure of theocratic rule which always calls for the
purity and sanctity of borders & boundaries -- whether they be territorial
or of the body. And each time, this purity and sanctity in the history of the
West privileges phallogocentric bodies and systems. All kinds of discourses of
security, the homeland, national defence, individualism (without collectivity),
business (without community), self-responsibility (without the other), the
market, economy, militarism, growth, "common sense," the "family" etc. are
interwoven in this attempt at theocracy. At the same time, and not surprisingly
given their theosophy, the Canadian Conservatives are (and not without some
controversy) attempting to establish the ideology of a "strong Canada" through
our now highly funded military (for those who don't
know, Canada is engaged in full-fledged warfare in Afghanistan).
Well, I blogged about the theocratic & unsavoury
tendencies of Harper awhile back. But this country & its media are caught in
some kind of collective amnesia concerning who and what Harper is. Two elections
past, in which Harper showed his true colours, he lost. This past election, he
just did a good job keeping his silence on what the media and politicians
classically call the "true agenda."I
sympathize with Werner Patels who writes that "Pretty soon this
country will have been altered to a dangerous extent." And who can blame the
faith-based neocons for making the most of the opportunity? Cutting Canada into
an autocratic theocracy is pretty easy when most of its citizens appear in a
coma, and those who are the most engaged -- and here I speak to Québec --
are still
caught up in the aging question of petty nationalism, a question that has served
as a convenient distraction from what is happening to the Confederation as a
whole. At this point, who wouldn't blame Quebec for getting the hell out, though
it baffles me how the highest opposition to Harper is in Quebec and yet, at the
same time, la belle
province offers the greatest opportunity for
Conservative expansion.There is nothing
funny about Harper, just bitter ironies. His wife, Laureen Harper, promotes literacy while her husband
cuts funding to literacy programs (we all know that an illiterate
populace -- primarily non-English speaking immigrants who wish to learn the
language -- is more easily demonized if they aren't able to read & write the
dominant language). And the real digs on the rise in military expenditure?
Well, certainly not for veterans, wherein
serviceperson's pensions are no longer inheritable by late-marrying
spouses.What else is cut?
Ah... cut.
Axed.There are no reasons for these
budget cuts that were not generated by
Conservative policy. What I mean by this is that
the Conservatives generated their own
necessity of spending cuts because of their own
tax cuts. These tax cuts?
Lowering the Canadian Goods and Services Tax
(GST) by 1% (the most ridiculous move -- has this
really
helped
anyone
save for the wealthy in purchasing big ticket items?) and other primarily
corporate and high-income tax cuts.Let's
see what's cut, one big paragraph of frustration in no particular order: funding
for Fisheries & Oceans, Statistics Canada, workplace skills in Human
Resources (i.e. job hunting -- which seems to have worked given our low
unemployment rate -- ah well, we need more unemployed slave labour), Foreign
Affairs (less funds for public
diplomacy-- sound familiar to our Southern
neighbours? : more bombs less talk!), the youth internship program in Foreign
Affairs, funds to cut down on native smoking, Health Canada policy research cuts
(hmm--related I wonder?), eliminating the
court challenges program (which means our courts
will now only be the providence of the wealthy!), eliminating the entire
Law Commission of
Canada, cuts to Public Safety including our
gun
registry (the RCMP, for all their faults, is
against this ridiculous cut to appease a rural constituency), eliminating
medical marijuana research, cutting the Parks Canada incentive fund for
commercial park partnerships (parks? what parks? aren't those oilfields
already?), reducing advisory groups to our
agricultural safety and health (hello mad cow
disease & beaver fever spinach!),
40% cut of climate change program
funding (yes: Canada, it appears, has
backed out of Kyoto...), the GST Visitor Rebate Program (furriners! no more GST
back for you! HAH! we don't need your money! now piss off!), half a billion dollars from post-secondary
education (the educated don't vote
conservative -- we already know that from Stats Canada, but Stats Canada will be
cut soon too, so we won't need to worry about that figure anymore), cuts to topographical
maps (that's right: if you are a mountaineer, living in the bush,
drilling for oil, whatever -- you can no longer get a proper, topographical map
of the area -- this is CANADA folks... we need maps.. PDF versions don't work
too well up on Baffin Island...) ...
I'd like to repeat that last one -- cuts
to topographical maps -- for even when taking into consideration the necessity
of the gun registry and its planned scrapping, cuts to climate change and
environmental spending, disastrous economic cuts to beneficial foreign
investment stimulators like visitor GST rebates, even cuts to the nation's
research pool and knowledge base by cutting into post-secondary education,
though on par with cuts to literacy spending, cutting the simple resource of
topographical maps demonstrates everything that is so petty and yet so
frightening about the Harper Government:
for such cuts contribute to rendering us
unaware of our surroundings and unable to inquire about
them. No
maps, no reading, no education; no ability to improve; no compassion, no
collective help, no equity, no hospitality. No knowledge. Or at least, nothing
save for those who can fork it out. Sell an organ or two to get an education --
that kind of thing.Well,
here's my predictions if the
Conservatives remain unchecked:Why
not.By the time Harper leaves, we will
see:
• a nation in debt or on the verge of debt;
• a higher split between the wealthy and the
poor with more resources and wealth consolidated in the upper 5%;
• more multinational ownership of previously
national resources;
• no real action on the environment or
climate change;
• involvement in an increasingly intractable
and prolonged war, in Afghanistan and/or elsewhere;
• challenges to medical marijuana, safe
injection sites and gay marriage;
• the scrapping of the gun registry with an
increase in power of secret police measures;
• a decrease in tourist revenue due to
"increased" security (from both sides of the border) and no GST rebate;
• more congested cities, more pollution, more
water problems (Native or otherwise);
• a still unfinished or contested mining and
oil agreement for the (Native) Territories (when one was completed and ready to
sign under the previous Liberals);
• more advertising for joining the Armed
Forces;
• an appeasement to Quebec that distracts the
nation from a pending environmental crisis with an attempt to turn
la belle
province Conservative;
• the potential of a major terrorist act on
Canadian soil due to our military presence in the Middle East and Harper's lack
of diplomacy and sympathy with the Arab World;
• the potential -- like the UK, Australia and
the US -- of race riots and public discrimination against women, people of
colour (hell, immigrants in general, lefties, anybody who asks a question,
journalists, academics, etc.) and "deviant" sexuality as the Harper Government's
positions, like those of John Howard, become more openly expressed;
• no pay equity between the sexes (women on
the bottom, men on top, of course);
• a weakened post-secondary education system
including higher tuition, loss of fellowship funding and targeted increases only
to support industrial, corporate and/or military research;
• and the inability to get a decent
topographical map that doesn't drip in the rain or cost less than
$60.
Crimminy.
Take
this as it is: a bit of gonzo, a bit of thought (this has been rewritten 4
times), but never -- never -- a hint of fear. Unlike Conrad Black and his 2006
October speech at the Empire Club in Toronto I don't see it as
inevitable
that Canada will collapse to a two-party system, nor is it
inevitable
that Canada will come to dismiss the NDP as "irrelevant" or that the Bloc
Québecois will collapse as a kind of political-performative contradiction
(sitting in the Parliament of a country they wish to separate from). I don't see
Canada
necessarily
turning to what Black calls "the right." These are all
possibilities,
but by placing such possibilities in the discourse of the
inevitable,
Black merely reveals what he must have done (and probably still does) with the
media empire he owned for years: attempted to manufacture consent and the
control of the future.
Is it, perhaps,
something of a law that all systems with authoritarian tendencies think in terms
of the
inevitable,
the grand
telos?
[amended
Friday the 13th, 2006 & again the 18th
September & once again the 26th
October]
./././././././..
GONZO
ALERT GONZO ALERT
posted. Sat
- October 14, 2006 @ 01:44 PM
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..ziP:
./them.hallucinates./.
.this blog sketches patterning / [tV] -- everything here is in-progress, often a mess of thoughts and poorly edited grammar.
2005.projekts
- [ NYE] in MTL.
- [11.1o-14.o5] SLSA Chicago.
- [11.o3.o5] Upgrade! Montreal @ SAT
- [1o.13.o5] control.to.chaos djing @ Saphir w/ Fishead et Level 4 Productions.
- [o0.26.o5] Beat Research, Boston. [dj set].
- [o9.24/25.o5] Upgrade International Gathering, NYC @ Eyebeam.
- [o9.22.o5] The Upgrade! Montreal, @ SAT, 18h00-24h00, DONATION. Benefit for Critical Art Ensemble & Robert Ferrell with Artivistic & [CRTL] conferences.
-[o9.21.o5] Where's the Beat, CKUT 90.3FM, Montreal.
- [o9.o1.o5] Cabanon Artivistic Fundraiser / controltochaos.ca w/ FISHEAD dj set + others. | MTL, 2025 St. Laurent.
- [o8.26.o5] (()) : a series of live micro-amplified electronic performances in local studios. live set w/ tomas phillips, john phillips. contact for invite.
- [08.18.05] : FullPleineMoon Party w/ DJ Fishead.
- [o7.28.o5] The Upgrade! Montreal, @ SAT, 18h00-22h00, FREE. Featuring in & out of the studio conference artists.
- [o6.23.o5] The Upgrade! Montreal, @ SAT, 18h00-22h00, FREE.
- [o6.21.o5] Full Moon Party [MTL] w/ Jon Vaughn + Carrie Gates (SK). e for invite.
- [o5.18.o5] Doublethink - Orwell/Huxley NFB Happening [MTL]: performance of the Punishment Intensive SoundSystem (PISS) with Fishead and Black Market LIVE. Performance art, Bioteknica, Hate Orgies, competition debating. e for details.
- [o5.o7-o8.o5] THE SINUES OF THE PRESENT: GENEALOGIES OF BIOPOLITICS @ Universite de Montreal. Plenary speakers: Brian Massumi, Natalie Jeremijenko, Bioteknica. On a panel w/ Nick Dyer-Witheford. Should be interesting.
- [o5.o5.o5] mix_Sessions MDCN: mobile music @ SAT, 22h00-24h00, djing with colin the mole & VJ Beewoo.
- [o5.o5.o5] The Upgrade! Montreal, @ SAT, 18h00-22h00, FREE. With SonicScene / MDCN artists.
- [o5.o5-o8.o5] MDCN Symposium @ SAT.
- [o4.19.o5] The Upgrade! Montreal, @ SAT, 18h00-22h00, FREE. w/ Alain Thibault, Elektra.
- [o3.17.o5] The Upgrade! Montreal, @ SAT, 18h00-22h00, FREE.
- [o2.17.o5] The Upgrade! Montreal, @ SAT, 18h00-22h00, FREE.
- [01.20.05] The Upgrade! Montreal, @ SAT, 18h30-23h00, FREE.
- [12.31.04/05] NYE. email me for details.. djing [vancouver]. [maybe?].
archival.projekts: 1994-2004
.. @rchives //
XML/RSS feed.me //
numbers that mean little:
absolut numerosity..:
...puplished 0n: Oct 26, 2006 04:30 PM
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