Canadian Scientist Continue to be Muzzled

Top federal bureaucrats stayed mum during discussion about silencing of scientists

What the Canadian “Environment” Minister [read>oil shil] Peter Kent calls “communications management” the rest of us would call #censorship and #propaganda, two of the handmaidens of a full-fledged burgeoning fascist regime, which, sad to say, many believe has already arrived. Certainly #corporatocracy - corporations and government in bed together goin’ at it 24/7 - has fully established itself with a particular emphasis on oil and mining interests. Slimy traces are on the government body everywhere as carcinogenic cigarette smoke wafts in the air after each consummating act polluting the very air we all breath and destroying the body politic from within.

Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada

Warrior Nation: Rebranding Canada in an Age of Anxiety [Book Trailer] (by BTLbooks) And you thought things were a bit frightening in Canada. Take a good look if you really want to be traumatized with fear as we continue our descent into a potentially full-fledged fascist regime - we already have corporatocracy - with skilfully tempered support for one of its essential institutions, the military. Remember, the Canadian military may be acquiring weapons capable drones soon, and you might want to recall too that we have set up a series - seven so far, I think - of military bases around the world. I won't even mention the F-35s.

Fourteen Defining Characteristics Of Fascism (This would be a good elementary English assignment in a first-year expository writing class in college or university. Compare the Harper Regime to...)

Addendum: Take a look too at the revealing reactionary comments on the Youtube page. I can only imagine what Canadian military historians might have said already or will say. You can pretty well be assured it will be hair-splitting if not dismissive.

Are Canadians resigned to the current repressive methods of the Harper Regime?

“Fascism creeps; and one of its hallmarks is that by the time you realize you're in it, it's too late to do anything about it.” We see where things are going, but it’s like watching a train wreck -- “that slow-motion horror in your head, the disbelief, the sense that nobody can hear you screaming, and the sickening knowledge that there's nothing you can do to stop what you know is coming.” (Sara Robinson )

There’s a considerable degree of credibility in this scenario since, given the utter failure of our representative political system, the now absolute division between power and politics in that system, we have become completely powerless to change things in time. Our government  clearly serves corporate Canada, in particular the financial sector and big oil, not the people of Canada. (This abject condition  is merely a watered down, subtler version of the U.S. government’s relation to corporate America.*)  Despite all our protests, letters to the editor, petitions, teach-ins, marches, tweets, blog posts, sit-ins, and occupy efforts, we remain powerless since our only  real leverage in such a tyranny is the ballot box.  But by the time the next election rolls around, even if we mange to engage the mainstream in a recognition of the danger, the utter destruction of both democracy and the environment  in Canada may be irreversible.

* I would argue that we are significantly more powerless than the Americans because parliamentary procedure has allowed the Regime to exercise pathological, serial abusive power on bill after bill - most obviously with omnibus bills and closure. Congress, as dysfunctional as it is, gives more power in its discursive formats to individual representatives than our whipped MPs, and dissenting voices are frequently heard on both the left and the right.

The Response to Toews' List Should be one of Absolute Outrage

http://goo.gl/qswg The response from both the media and politicos to Toews' list seems remarkably tepid to me.  Shouldn't an appropriate response be one of absolute outrage? I certainly consider this threat to progressives to be the most heinous, the most openly articulated, the widest assault yet perpetrated by the Harper Regime against those who would democratically exercise free speech and their rights to speak out against what has now clearly become a repressive regime: we're all positioned in these remarks as fundamentally terrorists, as "enemies of the state." Look closely at this text from Toews and tell me it isn't worrisome: vigilance will be exercised against "domestic extremism" - a euphemism for "domestic terrorism" - “based on grievances – real or perceived – revolving around the promotion of various causes such as animal rights, white supremacy, environmentalism and anticapitalism.”  Who determines what extremism is? Why of course the state. And Toews thinks of course he's being rhetorically clever dropping in "white supremacy," and note the weasel phrase "real or perceived." Even if your grievance against, say, Gateway pipeline is only a "perceived", not a "real," one, you're still an enemy of the state. And who determines what is real or perceived? Why of course the state, but the difference doesn't matter: you're screwed either way. Members of the occupy movement better look out too since they would clearly appear to be enemies of the state in their anti-capitalist, anti-neoliberal protests. Someone might want to phone Pamela Anderson as well.

It's way too early to invoke Godwin's Law, so I'll just say instead that I don't care whether the buses run on time. This is pure, unadulterated fascism.