A Guest Post From ThinkingManNeil

A frequent contributor of commentary, ThinkingManNeil, responding to my post earlier today, left an insightful and incisive analysis of Andrea Horwath. In order to provide wider readership than is usually the case with readers' comments, I am presenting it as a separate entry. As well, at the end I am providing a link to someone else who also has some interesting thoughts on the ambitious Andrea.

Not only do we of the poor and working classes not have electoral presence in the eyes of most ambitious pols, some of us can look kinda icky next to a designer togged prospective premier who may be earning $200K+ a year.

Oh, she'll most assuredly come a-courting us, kissing babies and showing up at run down schools in the Junction and trying to rally autoworkers and shut out Hamilton steelworkers for support, but then come the invites from the Granite Club, the Chamber of Commerce, and the CCCE to give hour long talks over expensive catered lunches on why the tax burden needs to be lifted from the (upper) middle class, Business, and those poor, downtrodden, misunderstood and under appreciated Job Creators.

She'll harken to the neo-liberal siren song of the Drummond Report (a report written by a wealthy, TD bank economist who drives a nice car and lives in a big, comfy, pricey house that tells poor and disabled people in Ontario how they should live on even less than they do now and be damned grateful they get anything, the lazy bums...), and go ahead with the evisceration of Ontario's social safety net, education, healthcare - Harris the Horrible's Common Sense Revolution with an orange NDP glow.

And when OCAP shows up on her Queen's Park doorstep, pleading for the lessers, she'll see to it that the black BDU'd OPP veterans of the G20 protests give them a respectful bum's rush off of her neatly manicured lawn.

Oh, Tommy, Ed, and Stephen, where are you when we need you?!?

And here is the link I promised.

The Conservatives' Contempt For Truth

If Canada feels different, it’s because it is. Under Harper, we have become strangers to ourselves, a foreign country run by an angry and hostile regime. The world has noticed, but is too preoccupied with its own problems to do anything more than fret.

The above is a brief excerpt from Christopher Hume's analysis of the Harper Tories' contempt for, and relentless efforts to suppress, scientific truths that interfere with their ideological agenda.

Well-worth reading for anyone who wants government policy to be based on sound data rather than demagogic sound bites.

The Remaking of Canada in the Neo-Conservative Image

In the world of unfettered capitalism, everything has a price and nothing is sacred. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, the neocon knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing. I was reminded of that this morning as I read Christopher Hume's latest column in the Star entitled The great public sell-off continues, in which he explores the consequences of trying to commercialize our public assets.

It begins, From sidewalks and schools to the CBC, the public realm is under siege at every turn.

He later offers the following observation about the consequences of the frantic effort to make money off of our public intstitutions :

But once that happens, it no longer belongs to us. Organizational needs will be served, but not those of the user. And as institutions are forced to turn themselves into businesses, our connection to them becomes a variation on the relationship between consumers and corporations. They act on their own behalf, not ours.

Federally, under the Harper regime we bear witness to the gradual and probably irreversible dismantling of the Canada that we have known for so long. In other jurisdictions, both provincial and municipal, the same process is apace.

If any of this concerns you, I hope you will spare a couple of minutes to read the rest of Hume's thoughts on the matter.

Christopher Hume's Withering Assessment of Rob Ford and His Enablers

That Ford can still find five members of council willing to do his bidding, no matter how transparently shabby it may be, also speaks volumes about the sorry state of Toronto politics. The members of this odious quintet — TTC commissioners Norm Kelly, Denzil Minnan-Wong, Frank Di Giorgio, Cesar Palacio and Vincent Crisanti — shame all Torontonians, including the mayor.

And that's only a small excerpt from an excellent analysis.

Does It Run In Their Genes?

I guess the ideological apple doesn't fall far from the tree. While contempt for democracy is egregiously evident in the behaviour and pronouncements of Stephen Harper and his minions, it seems that young Tim Hudak, the Ontario Conservative leader, has also become infected.

In his latest column, Christopher Hume observes the essentially anti-democratic nature of the conservative mentality, using the example of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's assertion that the city council vote to defeat his transit vision is 'irrelevant.'

He adds:

Within hours of Ford’s dismissal of council’s decision, Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Tim Hudak and one of his legislative bright lights, Peter Shurman, were adding their voices to the din.

Council, they argued, should simply be ignored. Like Ford, they believe it is irrelevant, a body that can be forgotten.

Though Hudak’s anti-democratic sentiments come as no surprise, it isn’t often we are treated to the spectacle of a senior leader of a mainstream political party so openly displaying his contempt for civic democracy.

Is there a common source of the water or the kool-aid that the right-wing true believers are drinking from?

Doug Ford Rarely Disappoints

The Star's Christopher Hume has an amusing column on the other (better?) half of that dynamic duo known as the Mayors of Toronto. For those who enjoy their political theatre broad and farcical, the brothers Ford have been working overtime since their election, and Hume gives a great deal of the credit to Doug Ford. Enjoy!

Christopher Hume On Ignorance

As usual, The Toronto Star seems replete with thought-provoking articles and ideas. In a column by Christopher Hume entitled, If ignorance is no excuse, how do leaders manage to get elected? published yesterday, Hume reflects on the current crop of politicians for whom ignorance of facts and disdain for expert analysis is endemic.

He observes that Rick Perry, a serious contender for the Republican presidential nomination "responded to devastating forest fires in his state by asking everyone to pray."

In a similar vein Michelle Bachmann muses "about whether America’s recent spate of natural disasters wasn’t really a sign from God of His great displeasure."

No matter what your view may be on the power of petitionary prayer, one does hope for something a little more from politicians than an infantile view of God as either a cosmic Santa Claus or a cosmic smiter.

Hume's piece, well-worth reading in its entirety, does not spare our Prime Minister from his withering analysis, describing him as one who "has made great strides pushing aside the facts to pander to Canadians’ lowest instincts and greatest fears." Hence the elimination of the mandatory long-form census with its hard data, the commitment to spend billions on prisons we don't need, and the gutting of environmental oversight when it is most needed.

Both Tim Hudak (he "won the race to the bottom long ago")and the Mayor of Toronto and his brother("Toronto’s great contribution to political vacuity") also come under Hume's scrutiny.

I hope people will find the time to read the entire column.

Please sign this petition urging Prime Minister Harper to stop threatening Michaela Keyserlingk and to stop exporting asbestos.

Christopher Hume's Modest Proposal To The Ford Brothers

Although my right-wing friends seem to have neither an understanding nor an appreciation of irony (I'm lying - I don't have any right-wing friends), more centered people will enjoy The Star's Christopher Hume who, in today's paper, has a modest proposal for Toronto's mayor and his brother to raise revenue for the allegedly cash-starved world-class city.

Enjoy.