Wednesday, February 12, 2014

New Model Country, New Model Army

I want to add something to the outstanding series of posts from Dave this week. Harper wants to change Canada into some kind of theocratic fascist petro-state, complete with dead coasts and rivers, impoverished workers, and rigged elections. This much is clear when we look at the indicators and EVERYTHING he and his party do should be viewed through this lens. The man is at war with his own country.

To do this, to reform Canada, Harper must destroy everything Canada is and this includes best of what Canadians do and think about themselves. He has broken the back of parliamentary accountability, public science, now Elections Canada, environmental assessment, the census. Destroying elements of responsible government allows his party total political control over the practice of government. This is a systematic and strategic strangling so that no public entity may say or do anything that goes against the wishes or potential wishes of the Conservative Party.

This includes veterans and the serving Canadian Forces. Anyone who has served will understand the selflessness and professionalism that the finest of Canadian service members have to offer. Ours is not a military that will readily serve a corporatist god-bothering oil fiefdom, at least once this reality grows undeniable.

Harper and his ilk must break the Canadian Forces and its veterans and reform it into something more subservient and to their liking. How would he do this? Destroy their security and well-being, break their morale, divide them, the same way he's attacked every other public service he needs to control and the public itself. Show them their years of service and sacrifice count for nought. The smart ones will understand this and Harper might hope they will protest to no avail or be bought off, and then fade away like so many silent government scientists. The smart ones understand that the professions of soldiering, sailoring, or flying aren't dependent on the aesthetics of a particular uniform or badge, but on tradecraft. That's why the military continued to function and perform after unification and throughout more recent dark periods. When push comes to shove, the craft is what counts and it this pride that drives protests against Harper and his little Fantino. Harper needs to break this. 

At the same time, lest this protest movement from the veterans spread, he needs to something to produce the kind of soldiers suitable for teh Harper Army. The return to preunification ranks fit with this. Playing on an ancient sore scores points with with certain elements. The return to preunification nomenclature and symbolism divides the military and veterans between those who are easily distracted by nostalgia and baubles and those who understand that warriors are defined by their cohesive fighting ability and would fight in pink leotard if that's what was issued. The latter type of person doesn't have an home in the Forces that Harper needs. It wouldn't be surprising to learn that Fantino was deliberately late to that meeting with veterans to ensure they knew who was boss - not that it ultimately went that way.

If Harper manages to buy off the angry veterans or they fade away, he stands gain a split between the public and the military which would only serve his interests when it comes to using the armed forces against the public when we protest. He's already enlisted the spies.

Fail to address PTSD and suicides, buy basic things like military pattern trucks, split the military and veterans, destroy morale and cohesion, and something like a conscript army will emerge. Wreck Canadian labour and living standards and there's a ready source of recruits. Conscript forces full of people who either don't want to be there or see little option for themselves led by budding war criminals are the only kind that serve fascist thugs. These sorts of militaries spend lots of time marching past reviewing stands...

7 comments:

gingersnap said...

I see Harper differently.
CNR sold to the U.S. Evil Campbell thieving and selling the BCR to the CNR.

Harper encouraging Canadians to shop across the border. Even making it so, people could bring back, even more goods.

Obama hammering out a Medical plan, similar to Canada's.

Flaherty bringing Canada's cost of living in line with the U.S.

Big business pushing for the NAU.

Harper having all of his ducks in a row, to cheat the next election too.

The 3 Amigo's having another meeting? I smell the NAU, just around the corner.

Danneau said...

I would go a tad beyond in suggesting that, with the CETA and TPP, NAU is no longer an issue. Rather, there is a plan afoot to remake the planet and anything else that can be roped off into a sandbox for corporate misdeeds. I suspect that Obama has his strings pulled by the same lot that drive Harper, amp bell, Redford, Wall and the like to subvert broad citizen participation and control in aid of complete commercial control. The Joke will be on all of us, the winners included, when the big die-off begins and the whole planet becomes essentially uninhabitable, thereby closing a short but sorry chapter in the history of this little corner of the universe. Frightening, yes, but plausible, and stupid on the part of all participants n this little drama.

e.a.f. said...

Canadians voted Harper into office and now they can live or in some cases die with it. It is to be hoped people remember what the Cons are doing to Canada and Canadians. If they re-elected harper and his cons, they will deserve what they get. Of course there is the small problem for those of us who don't want what Harper is creating, maybe time for a move.

It has been interesting while the Os are on regular CBC, CBC 24 hr. news has run some interesting documentaries about Putin and politics. Its quite educational to watch what Putin does to opposition political parties. Then if you take out your history books and go back to the 1930's and look at hitler's rise to power, you get a very good idea of what harper is up to, within the restrictions of our current society. he once said we wouldn't recognize Canada when he was finished with it, well we ought to have paid more attention. Each piece of leg. he passes brings us closer to the fascist state he wants. We then can look forward to 31 yrs. of rule by China and its corporations.

Anonymous said...

On the whole that was a great comment but I have to disagree with the fascist thing. Harper has an authoritarian bent no doubt, but he isn't fomenting a popular movement to enforce his goals. In fact he is pissing off veterans, pissing off scientists, pissing off the public service, pissing off women etc. And he is actively trying to turn people off of politics and to despise the system.
This piece by Valerie Deacon made me think about how I categorised Harper.
http://activehistory.ca/2014/01/love-it-or-hate-it-stephen-harpers-government-is-not-fascist/

Moon Rattled said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Moon Rattled said...

"Give me ten years' time - and you
would not recognize Germany anymore!"
- Adolf Hitler, 29 January 1933.

"You won't recognize Canada when I get
through with it."
- Stephen Harper May 5, 2006

"It is not truth that matters, but victory."
~Adolf Hitler

When Harper said Canada wouldn't be recognizable when he got through with, no one asked him why, or how come, or how so, or what's wrong. No one asked him what he would change.

"Unrecognizable" means a complete makeover. So why didn't anyone ask him what was wrong with Canada that it needed to be dismantled and reconstructed.

And if you recall, in 2006, Cons promised they were moderates and reasonable people. They had no "hidden agenda."

But I don't recall Harper mentioning in any of his election campaigns plans to spy illegally on Canadians, deny pensions to poor seniors for two years, fire hundreds of top scientists and burn 20 years of public science research, gut data services, deny veterans pensions and disability benefits, gut the laws that protected Canada's water bodies for 100 years, rewrite the elections act to make voting harder for disenfranchised groups... He didn't mention any of these plans. These are extreme changes, not moderate changes.

"But nobody seemed to notice and nobody seemed to care..." as George Carlin said.

Steve said...

Cant wait till Harper tells people to watch Sixty Minutes extoll the F35.
http://thinkingaboot.blogspot.ca/2014/02/60-minutes-bought-sold-and-paid-for.html