What The Harper Oil Enthusiasts Don't Want You To Think About

This and this:

Dear, Dear, Dear, Dear Me

Lordy, I see young Tim Hudak is hurling those sticks and stones again. Won't that boy ever try acting like a grown man?

And Speaking Of Contempt For Democracy ...

Does anyone remember this gem from 2011 when Mr. Harper essentially said that parliamentary democracy is of absolutely no consequence?





H/t Citizens Rallying To Unseat Harper

David Suzuki On Harper's Contempt For Democracy

David Suzuki has a thought-provoking essay in today's Globe and Mail that also serves as an excellent precis of some of the things the Harper government would like us to forget, including its promotion of ignorance/contempt for factual data, its demonization of environmentalists, its arrant hypocrisy, and its general contempt for voices that express disagreement with its ideology.

I hope you will read it and disseminate it widely; constant reminders of this cabal's war on democracy and informed discussion will be, I think, crucial, if we are to have a chance of ousting it in 2015.

Who Will Give Us Hope?

I recently wrote a post on the ailing Nelson Mandela and why he is so important a world figure. Last Friday Gerald Caplan wrote a piece in the Globe entitled The world will be poorer without Nelson Mandela. I hope you will take the time to read his thoughts on the importance of this iconic figure, a man of whom I think it would be appropriate to borrow Hamlet's tribute to his father and say, I shall not look upon his like again.

Caplan's last paragraph, which I am reproducing below for your consideration, sums up for me both the hope Mandela inspires and the despair over the realization that it is unlikely someone of his singular moral force will ever again grace our fractured landscapes:

I suppose it’s too much to hope there can ever be another Mandela. But could we not come just a little bit closer? Is there not one prepared to dedicate her or his life to the eternal struggle for social justice and equality? Is it too much to ask whether some, or even a few, or maybe just one, of today’s leaders might not look at this man and wonder what could be learned from his singular life? Or maybe the truth is that, revere him as we do, we won’t really know how much we have lost until we have to face the world without him.

Summertime, And The Livin is Easy (For Some)

H/t The Toronto Star

Is Our Freedom More Illusion Than Reality?

That is a question you may be prompted to ask yourself after reading this piece by Kevin Logan and watching the video below. Described therein are the measures and efforts designed to realize what I suspect is Mr. Harper's fondest dream: a compliant, unquestioning, 'disciplined' and very passive populace, not surprisingly the same goal of the corporate agenda.