Republican Party of Canada?

Should they really be thought of as the Conservative Party of Canada? I don't think so. Let's inject a little bit of honesty into the political arena because it is otherwise so strikingly absent.

What we have here is the Republican Party of Canada.

A few things that make this so...

• Complete disregard for environmental issues.
• Secretive and my-way-or-the-highway administration.
• Antipathy towards First Nations -- otherness, immigrants, etc.
• Electoral shenanigans involving voter disrespect.
• Policy lip-lock with US Republican playbook.
• Despicable shills such as Ezra in the "Rush Limbaugh" role.
• Media influence and outright funding threats.

As we've seen in the USA lately the conservative movement is getting a little bit off the rails (otherwise known as bat-shit crazy). Something for us to look forward to as this administration continues to season itself with power.

What we need is a system of proportional representation that does not eliminate the concept of local ridings. Seriously, that we have to be lead around by a group with the support of a clear minority of the public is a major flaw.

A democracy is not about minority rule. What we have here is the Republican Party of Canada ruling in an undemocratic environment.

When I think about it I am at a loss for words.

Political War on Words

I think that progressives need to wake up.

You see, the conservatives have been at war with us for decades now. It isn't simply that they prefer slightly different policies than us. They want to dismantle all of the positive work done over the last few generations and put in place a system, a state, that reflects exactly their own beliefs.

Yes, it's true.

The reason the general public doesn't know this is the war on words that is going on. And, sadly, they are winning.

The age old term for this is spin -- but that term doesn't do the incredible effort that is taking place justice.

The word play hides their beliefs and often their intent behind mild sounding phrases that the general public can sleep through.

A few examples? Climate change instead of global warming. Picking winners and losers instead of fiscal policies. Income redistribution instead of having higher earners pay their fair share.
It's time to define an attack. We need to hit them where they live.

To get the ball started here are a few thoughts aimed at the center of their ability to grab the attention of voters and pull them from progressive ideals:

• Religion and Faith:
  Central to the right is their faith. However, it is clear to see they don't actually adhere to it. To have faith suggests one should trust in God. However, the right does not do so. They don't trust God to punish the sinful, they feel it is necessary for them to do so -- when their own religion admonishes them not to do so (judge not). So, we get laws that reflect their particular morals.
• Evangelicals:
  This group is very clever about defining their preferred version of the bible as inspired by God. This means it is perfect and absolutely correct, according to them. This is also bullshit. It was written by men. The flaws of men were clearly in operation when it was written and it is clearly open to interpretation.

You may ask why this is important. You may think this is a waste of time. You are wrong.

These two areas taken together provide an apparently unassailable base from which the conservatives have been sallying-forth to kill progressive ideals. The undying belief that the are doing Gods bidding makes it very difficult for anyone else to reach their ears. Reach them we must.

Don't believe me? Where do you think the abortion shenanigans (and the mandatory trans-vaginal ultrasound) come from? Where do you think creationism (and an anti-science viewpoint) comes from? Where do you think marriage laws and denial of gay rights comes from? Where do you think the concept that we are free to rape and plunder the earth comes from (unregulated capitalism)?

This is the wellspring from which all the low-minded actions of the right receive their justification and support. This is the place that is used to wipe away the words of progressives by simply declaring it wrong in God's view -- as if they have any more of a relationship with God than anyone else.

Believe in God or not. Choose not to believe that they are united around a belief system that provides the same strength of conviction that drives fundamentalists of all types and you will underestimate the amount of vitriol driving them and the goals that they have.

We aren't talking about the mainstream person here... but a large, unified, political movement with big funding and low ideals. Wake up or feel the boot of their beliefs on your neck unless you are exactly like them.

Don't see it? Please, take some time, look at what is going on. Then, sit back, and find ways to speak their language -- erode their base's strengths -- or watch all our hard won progress be undone.

They are not doing God's work. They are not good stewards of what has been given to us -- God will be pissed if we destroy the gift we were given (Earth). Just because one is given the keys to the car doesn't mean one should drive it off a cliff.

Finally, if we were created, then we were given brains for a reason. It is just possible that God would intend us to actually use them. Otherwise, why forgive us for eating from the tree of knowledge at all? Unfortunately, for the right, using our brains means ending up with progressive ideals.

Hence the war on science and education (and competent media).

NOTE: I didn't intend to get into so much religious mumbo-jumbo. However, it forms a core base from which the right gathers support and launches their attacks on reality (so to speak).

A Temporary Coalition?

I've been thinking about the state of affairs in Canadian politics. In case you haven't noticed we have a single conservative party winning majorities while getting a minority of the vote. This isn't a good thing for Canada and we need to do something about it.

Ideas that come to mind include some type of proportional representation. However, this will never happen while the conservatives are in power -- as they know they would immediately lose the ability to govern. At the same time we face an inability to enact proportional representation until we kick them out of office.

The solution, a coalition of the left. Now, everyone is scared of this for some reason, as if coalition is a bad word. Of course, it's the same bad word that has been winning the conservatives control of the government.

We need to pool our votes, take office, enact proportional representation, and only then go back to voting for whatever flavor of progressives we prefer. Realistically, this is the fastest and surest path to undoing the damage that the conservatives are doing to our long term prospects.

We can do this. We can do this without having to give up our individual parties that we prefer. We just have to be smart about it. We have to put this action on the agenda, be clear about it, and then follow through when the election gives us back the house of commons.

Who's with me?

Still Alive

Yes, I'm still alive. I haven't been shut down because I solicited leaks or anything silly like that.

Online Anonymity with Tor

I doubt many people in the general public have inspected their browser request headers recently. An edited version of a request from my own browser is below:

HTTP_HOST: ...
HTTP_CONNECTION: ...
[snip]

SERVER_SOFTWARE: ...
SERVER_NAME: ...
SERVER_ADDR: ...
SERVER_PORT: ...
REMOTE_HOST: redacted.cable.rogers.com
REMOTE_ADDR: ...
REMOTE_PORT: ...
SERVER_PROTOCOL: ...
REQUEST_METHOD: ...
REQUEST_URI: ...
REQUEST_TIME: ...

See the line "redacted.cable.rogers.net" in the list? The redacted portion is a unique identifier that would allow a remote site to ask Roger's which subscriber initiated a certain request. Depending on which ISP you have it is quite likely that you provide identifying information to every single page you request.

However, doing the same with the Tor Browser Bundle installed and active yields the following:

HTTP_HOST: ...
HTTP_CONNECTION: ...
[snip]

SERVER_SOFTWARE: ...
SERVER_NAME: ...
SERVER_ADDR: ...
SERVER_PORT: ...
REMOTE_HOST: torland1-this.is.a.tor.exit.server.torland.me
REMOTE_ADDR: ...
REMOTE_PORT: ...
SERVER_PROTOCOL: ...
REQUEST_METHOD: ...
REQUEST_URI: ...
REQUEST_TIME: ...

For all the details you'll have to read the Tor site on your own. Here is the the download page for the Tor Browser Bundle.

Why am I telling you this? Because, as a recent post highlighted, I'm soliciting leaks from the Harper government. I want you to know that if I do receive something I should be able to keep my identity very hard to trace by using Tor at a variety of public WiFi sites.

Similarly, if our recent Vikileaks30 account had of been using Tor the IP address returned would not have identified the user as coming from the House of Commons.

Soliciting Harper Government Leaks

This post serves two purposes. First, I'm willing to collect leaked information in a way that does not directly reveal either my identity or the identity of the revealing party. Second, this outline serves as a relatively private manner of information exchange for anyone to use.

Leak to Canada II

You have information you would like to leak. You would like to be anonymous. I would like to receive said information without you learning my identity either.

• I can’t guarantee to leak all material received.
• I can’t specify in advance how any leaked material may be distributed.

Instructions: Tor and Hushmail

First, you will want to install Tor, as discussed in this post, so that web sites you visit will not be given your IP address or other identifying information.

Then, set up a free Hushmail account while using Tor. When you create a free Hushmail address you do not need to provide identifying information. However, the first thing you should do when you set up your account is to use the preferences -> reading option to disable loading of images, colors and formatting (just in case you access Hushmail without using Tor).

This will allow you to set up a Hushmail account and leave an anonymous comment in my blog without letting Google or I know anything about you. Later, when I moderate your comment I will delete your message so that your Hushmail account is not revealed. I will then email you from my Hushmail account (assuming you left a hushmail account address) and we can exchange information in a reasonably secure manner.

Security Thoughts

In the event that a serious investigation was undertaken you would want to consider the issue of who would have access to the information to be leaked. This can often help identify the leaking party. 

You would also need to consider whether or not the material would be important enough to have the affected parties entice Google or Hushmail to trace back our activities (in the event that my own identity was eventually compromised).

Update: Removed alternate leak methodology and added use of Tor when using Hushmail.

OilGate: Selling our Sovereignty

Harper's government is guilty of projection if nothing else.

Yesterday's article in the Ottawa Citizen clearly points out how foreign interests have taken ownership of the oilsands from the inside:

Defenceless: Canada has no idea what foreign activity...
But what Harper and Oliver inadvertently opened up was a nasty and troubling question that nobody in Ottawa is particularly happy to hear people asking. Just what legally constitutes a foreign activity in Canada that is detrimental to this country's national security interests these days, anyway?

As it turns out, Canada is practically incapable of answering that question with any enforceable coherence. When it comes to the recent and rapid-succession manoeuvres that have given Chinese state-owned entities the spigot key at critical flow points in Canada's oil and gas industry, mysteries abound. But it is now clear that slowly but surely, Canada's regulatory defences have been almost completely hollowed out.

However, I'd argue that there are worse things than projection when it comes to the issue of foreign interests. Much worse indeed.

I'd like to believe that our government was only inept, but I can't.

As the article above noted it was only recently that the Harper government was bemoaning foreign ownership of a mining company. This same group then allowed ministers to exercise their own discretion when making a determination of what was in the national interest. This is a recipe for disaster.

Our government is not inept. Our government is criminally complicit and has gone out of its way to court a relationship with China and Sinopec. We have our government declaring ordinary citizens "radical" and "enemies of the state." This is simply unconscionable and in all likelihood represents more projection on behalf of our ruling junta.

My concern is why the 180 degree turnaround?

There are two things that I can easily imagine given the nature of international intrigue. We are either looking at enough financial incentive to overcome personal ethics or we are looking at enticement, threat or blackmail. I suppose one could consider it ideology -- but ideology rarely does a 180, does it? No, far more likely a country desperate for access to oil, such as China, to make it impossible for our government's ethically challenged high level bumpkins to not give them what they want one way or another.

Regardless of your ability to follow me on my route to conjecture I think you should agree that selling control  of our oil, our national treasure, to a foreign entity directly controlled by a communist country, represents an action by "enemies of the state."

What are CSIS and the RCMP doing?

If they aren't trying to look after our national interests, to determine what influences have caused such a massive turn around in policy and foreign control of vital resources, then they aren't doing their jobs. I can guarantee you that the USA and in particular the CIA is all over their national security interests surrounding access to Canadian oil.

If our own government doesn't find a way to get itself on the right side of this issue we'll end up a surrogate battlefield for US and Chinese oil interests.

What kind of government puts Canada into such a position? One that has been compromised.

Addendum

I realize I do not have anything approaching definitive proof. I also am not an investigative journalist or an organization that has the capability, or the need, to be able to answer the questions I ask.  It's the raising of the questions that is the key...

Hacks and Douchebags

Well, well, well. It gets more interesting all the time.

Here we have a hack writing an opinion article who's real purpose is to blame unions for the ills facing our economy in terms of the Caterpillar situation.

Nasty As Caterpiller May Be
Sid Ryan, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour, vowed to mobilize workers from across the province to help the CAW stop “scabs” from crossing their picket lines. There was the usual handwringing in the press that the dispute could become “volatile,” journalistic code for violence. All of this was discussed as if it were the most normal thing in the world, in the 21st century, to be resolving disputes by the use of hundreds of big heavy men to prevent or intimidate others from going about their lawful business: physical force, in other words.

Now, I don't call him a hack because I'm necessarily pro-union. I think there are other issues at work that are very worthy of discussion if you wish to pretend to offer an economic analysis:

• A strong Canadian currency hurts us.
• Desperate levels of incentives from US quarters hurts us.
• And yes, higher wages do certainly hurt us.

Blaming the unions for all our problems, or government efforts to compete with US subsidization, is the problem I have with all this.

As if this isn't bad enough we have douchebag economists making appearances for some back patting on this trite little article.

I think I see something here. We are having partisan viewpoints being spun, or at least positively commented on, from both the educational and media arenas.

We're being invaded by hacks and douchebags. Lucky us.

Joe Oliver: Confirmed Denier

It's time to pick a side. Joe Oliver is a denier.

In case you live under a rock here is the basis of the issue at hand.

Do you believe?
Mr. Speaker, we really do have a minister for the 19th century because the Minister of Natural Resources fails to understand the impact of Conservative inaction on jobs, on the environment and on future generations. Instead, he attacks people who actually care about the environment. It makes me wonder if the minister actually believes in climate change. Is the minister a believer or a denier?

Now, Mr. I-can't-be-bothered-to-answer referred to theology when asked this question. What does all this mean? It means nobody has any gonads.

Joe Oliver isn't man enough to state his ridiculous stance.

The media isn't brave enough to state outright that this ignoramus is a denier.

Let's take a look at what happens if we brand Joe as a denier. Either he gets upset and corrects the concept or he does not. If he doesn't, and he believes in climate change and subsequent damage to economy and species, then he has zero ethics and deserves to be anywhere but in a leadership position. Or he stands up and says he is not a denier. Then he either has to address climate change issues or he has zero ethics and deserves to be anywhere but in a leadership position.

Somebody grow some 'nads and stick a fork in this asshole, he's cooked.

The alternative is for media cowardice to allow this idiot to play both sides of the issue and avoid having to stake a claim.

Addendum

In case you can't see it already. Joe is caught between a rock and a hard place. To embrace his denier stance he must face ridicule by serious science worldwide and embarrass Canada. To embrace science he must shame his base and promote policies based on science.  Neither is a winning position.

If Joe is too much of a coward to represent his opinions, or the opinion Harper wishes him to express, then he needs to be stuck in a stance fitting with his behavior. He is a denier. He refers to climate change as a matter of ideology.

Now, for you media participants out there, get out there and drive this home.