Cuts for Cash: Think about how absolutely appalling and hypocritical this tactic is

Cuts for cash: it can only spur mangers to propose even deeper cuts. Only a nasty neoliberal would use the profit motive to conduct what is supposed to be a rational, considered appraisal of departmental services and staffing needs in the Public Service. And how much is the per diem fee for the consulting firm? $90,000, as I recall.  Think about how smugly hypocrtical this exercise really is too:  who cut the GST by 2%, obviating a simple source of tax revenue, who blew the Liberal surplus, and who ran up the PS by 33,000 employees and wages by $5 billion since 2006? 


So now that we know who's really responsible for this mess and who's going to pay for it - us - consider the real, economic  context for the cuts for cash program: the fact, for instance,  that even many neoclassical economists are now saying - with the EU on the brink of disaster and the world economy slipping - that  this is not the moment for austerity measures but for initiating reasonable stimulus combined with moderate debt reduction. And, finally, ask yourself who benefits from a program that reduces the federal deficit? Certainly not ordinary Canadians, several thousands of whom will now be added to the ranks of the unemployed,  and certainly not the general, industrial economy, which really requires job initiating strategies from government.  That's right - only the financial sector with whom the Harper Regime, like the Obama and Cameron administrations, is in bed ideologically.


We can look forward, it would seem, to prolonging the recession in which we are still enmeshed despite the spin out there that we're not, and if the Canadian housing  market  explodes, as some outside Canada are predicting for 2012, we may have much more than a recession.


Yes, it might be the end of the world in 2012.

The Liberals, NDP, and Greens Should Unite to Form a New Party

On the basis of this week alone, progressives are in for either four or, some have said, twenty years of soulful weeping. It's downright despairing.  I mean what's the use of following the House of Commons' deliberations when the outcomes will always be forgone conclusions arrived at by the Harper Regime's autocratic, mean, and twisted thinking?

What's to be done? Well there is always grassroots organization and massive protests about particular issues - letter writing, tweeting, blogging, marching, etc - but such a strategy while it is cathartic and may attract the media and therefore public attention will not sway this fascistic government one bit. Get real, eh? Besides, the conventional rhetoric of protest as a strategy has in general lost its edge because it has become so predictable and so commonplace.  It no longer startles.  Protest smotest says the general public and the government says even less.

There is always genuine guerrilla revolution - and it may actually come to that if the effects of global warming become  increasingly manifest  here in Canada - but for the moment that would seem a very drastic albeit not necessarily a totally undo-able choice under extreme circumstances.

So what could be done that is practicable and practical?  Well, this may sound a bit crazy, but the Liberals, NDP, and Green Party could get together to form a new party of progressives.  True, there is a significant conservative element in each of these parties and that's a good thing as a check - some conservative principles in and of themselves have value - but the progressive elements in all three parties far outweigh that conservative component. Of course each party would like to preserve its respective brand, and of course there would be hard negotiation and unpalatable compromises. But if things continue as they are this week, all three of these parties, I predict,  will feel themselves becoming increasingly frustrated and trapped, as will the 60% or so that did not vote for the Harper Regime.  This possibility may very well present itself in such a strained context.

In the meantime, perhaps we in the grassroots ought to begin lobbying each party in an effort to bring them together to initiate at least discussions of the possibility. It may be, under our current institutional system of government, the only way to get our country back.