One of the better exposes of just how lousy our present form of corrupt...if you want to call it government, is. Bad to the bone.

As I understand it, the Conservatives returned to power with only a 40% plurality of votes, the progressive 60% majority of Canadians having divided their votes between the Liberals and the NDP. Either Canadians are going to have to work fast to switch to instant-runoff voting or proportional representation,* or the Liberals and NDP are going to have to get their act together and run one common candidate per riding in the next federal elections. Either way, something has to be done so that the thoroughly unrepresentative, corporatist, plutocratic Conservatives and their Calgary School dogma get the stomping the majority of Canadians would like to see them get.

*It's interesting that the most neoliberal, economically unequal countries in the developed world -- the US, the UK, and Canada -- all use first-past-the-post voting, and that with each election their major parties seem to ratchet ever-further to the right.

You're right about that. I know here in America, we got the supposedly center-left Democrats (who are actually to the right of most center-right parties in Europe) and the far-right Republicans. Because of FPTP, people in this country don't have a real choice. Whether it's the Democrats or Republicans, you're getting neoliberalism and imperialism

Oddly enough, I just posted the following which is associative with the "bureaucracy" concern this article rightfully contends.
" When have you ever seen a ceo, corp. board member or a soldier in a lab coat doing any kind of "good" scientifically or technologically? And having said that; how is it that the public does not demand that, so-called professionals in science, engineering, chemistry et al, be held individually and personally responsible for their contributive work on products, systems etc that are demonstrably harmful to people and the planet? As self-identified "professionals" they, by definition, know of the harms their work perpetrates. Also, it should be much, much easier to hold them accountable by law than deep-pocketed and politically connected corps. Just thought I'd offer a way rather then a whine. ~A "
And as long as I'm posting: I may owe an apology to TruthOut insofar as my "eyeballs dragged to the site by the likes of Hedges et al via the use of comments to merely vent steam as opposed to action." I did not mean that that is TO's only or even prime purpose but simply to point out a common function of comment posting. ~A

What is a "Canada", eh?
Ooo! Woo!- Koo!- Koo!- Koo!- Koo!- Koo!- Koo! (Great White North)
Beauty, eh? ; )

Take off you hoser. You're so loaded, ... it's a Can-of-Duff, not -duh. Duh! But no worries, I forgive and in the morning forget. Once upon a time back when I was living in Detroit, I too was loaded from an all-night game of Beer Hunter and somehow ended up in the Great White North by driving south (to buy some smokes) (B.C. Bud) And another thing... They show boobies on Canadian TV...Don't blow it Canada!!!! You are also American, but please don't become "American".

Is it possible that generally Canadians really do not understand all that's transpired in the last seven years? Most people's daily lives in Canada probably have gone on pretty much in the same manner, except for those suffering in Alberta. More of us in the US have finally awoke to the slow walk austerity and authoritarianism of the Neo-liberals and Neo-conservatives that's taken place slowly and often imperceptibly over 30 years and more than one generation. It's my fear Canadians cannot see the whole picture of what's happening there. If they could, they'd probably be more resentful and protest more vigorously than Americans have (which is to say hardly at all.)

We do not presently have a Democracy in Canada, we have a Kakocracy: Rule by the Worse.

I think Harper learned his techniques from Rove.
http://mikewatkins.ca/2006/...

It's scary watching Canadians succumb to the usual pugnacious, omnipresent, Orwellian, hubris-ridden corporate fascism, to become an illegitimate and unrepresentative corporate state like the United States. All this unnatural influence and money projected into the tar sands pipeline and other murderous industrial development by the fossil fuel Hellions - if it had been focused on conservation, alternative energy, water resource development and protection, sustainable agriculture and more urban planning would be a phenomenal benefit for the quality of life of Canadians. Harper, apparently, is some kind of pig.

"the Orwellian notion of doublethink, or holding together (without any measure of cognitive dissonance), two contradictory thoughts"

The word "integrity" refers to wholeness (as in the plane crash-landed but maintained its integrity). Or the absence of duplicity (i.e. dishonesty). We have been trained by propaganda not to take it seriously, but it is indispensable to a truly free society, and deserves a great deal more of our attention.

"public prerogatives often tend to be superseded by private corporate interests"

(Well regulated) corporations have a legitimate purpose and are (like human nature) not necessarily evil, but power tends to corrupt, be it that of private individuals, governments, or other organizations. The "ecologies" of democracies may vary, but decay without some scheme of pervasive balance. Governments that help to empower the disadvantaged (universal suffrage being only one example) further democracy and social justice and those that protect and further capture of political power by a powerful minority are tyrannies. They too come in many varieties (nominally left wing, right wing, whatever) but share in common exploitation and dis-empowerment of the governed.

Not necessarily the autocrats, but bureaucrats are always with us:

Letter from the Duke of Wellington replying to complaints that he wasn't keeping track of petty cash:

This brings me to my present purpose, which is to request elucidation of my
instructions from His Majesty's Government, so that I may better understand why
I am dragging an army over these barren plains. I construe that perforce it must
be one of two alternative duties, as given below. I shall pursue one with the
best of my ability but I cannot do both.

1. To train an army of uniformed British clerks in Spain for the benefit of
the accountants and copy-boys in London, or perchance

2. To see to it that the forces of Napoleon are driven out of Spain.