Socialism, we dare not speak its name

Every fall as municipal elections draw nigh, I dutifully read the election statements of the candidates seeking positions on the council of the city where I spend most of my time and treasure.  Yes they are all in favor of better communications, efficiency and accountability and they all have their pet projects such as affordable housing, daycare and zoning issues etc. but none of them so far are campaigning on privatizing any of the many goods and services that the city delivers to it citizens.  Therefore I conclude that they are all a bunch of socialists.

All municipal governments are essentially socialist.  That is, their primary responsibility is to deliver goods and services to their citizens through an infrastructure that is owned by the municipal government.

The list is a long one.  Streets, sidewalks, parks, recreational facilities, fire departments, libraries, water and sewer treatment plants, garbage disposal sites as well as transit buses are all owned and managed by the city state.  Schools, hospitals, nursing homes and subsidized housing are publicly owned but generally governed by separate boards.  My city buys electricity from a socialist Power Corporation and delivers it through socialist power lines to city residences and businesses..

We all benefit from other socialist programs as well.  Police, Medicare and social services for example are paid for through taxation and delivered by either our provincial or federal government.

I would be surprised if any of Canada’s many city councilors or mayors would describe themselves as being socialists.  Frankly I would be surprised if any of them that think of themselves as socialists would openly declare that they are socialists.

Think of it for a moment.  Most of the things in life that we hold nearest and dearest are provided through socialism.  We can send our children to school or go to visit our doctor and no one sends us a bill. We are also guaranteed a minimum standard of living and it is all paid for though taxes.  And yet, socialism, we dare not speak its name.

Socialism of course depends on our ability and willingness to pay taxes. And yet the good name of taxes is being sullied unmercifully by those who benefit the most from having them lowered.  “Get governments out of our face,” they say, “the less government the better because I can spend my money better than the government can.”

One of the problems with tax cuts is that the government has no control over how the tax saving is spent.  How is a tax cut going to build a highway or reduce health care waiting time for example?  The second problem is that the wealthy benefit the most from tax cuts and the poor (who often don’t pay taxes) get very little of the benefit.

So our governments reduce taxes and social spending and the gap between the wealthy and the rest of us gets wider and wider.

Ask For A Radwanski

April 10 2006

George Radwanski will be remembered as the Privacy Commissioner who “outraged and saddened” Auditor-General Sheila Fraser by his abuse of power, reign of terror, lavish unjustafiable expenses and cronyism. However the favors handed him by Revenue Canada has not generated as much publicity.

A few days before he got his plush government appointment he was allowed to clear $557,000 in back taxes with a lump-sum payment of $62,726 —a bit more than 11c for every dollar that he owed.

Next spring when income tax time roles around, I think we should all ask for a “Radwanski.”  That is we’ll pay 11% of the amount owing and promise to remit the rest when Radwanski pays his.  After all, what’s fair for one is fair for all don’t you think?

Message To The NDP

July 10 2004

The message from the NDP is, “Canadians voted for change.  Millions voted NDP for change that puts working Canadians at the front of the line.”  The very opposite is true. The soft Liberal vote went to the NDP to defeat Conservatives and give the Liberals a chance to stay in power or to keep the Conservatives from winning a majority. In other words the fickle Liberal vote went to the NDP to prevent change. This can hardly be reassuring for the NDP.

Jack Layton missed a great opportunity to clearly set his party apart from both the Liberals and the Conservatives and give the NDP a real chance to be the official opposition after the next general election.

Jack gave the same response to every question.  He asked us to give him more seats in the House of Commons so he could squeeze more goodies out of whomever we elect. “Park your vote with us just this one time because the Liberals need a time out,” he said.   What will his slogan be in the next election?  Vote for the Liberals, they’ve learned their lesson?

In the first English debate each leader was asked how he saw Canada fifty years from now. Jack, like the other leaders, answered with platitudes.  There must have been thousands of progressive viewers sitting on the edge of their chairs, as I was, waiting for Jack to say we are not going to have a country twenty years from now if things keep going the way they are.   There is tremendous pressure on Canada to harmonize our economy with the US economy but this was never seen as a major issue by the NDP.  Oh sure, Jack threw out the line from time to time that he was not going to follow the George Bush agenda.  He pointed out his opposition to the invasion of Iraq and to putting weapons in space, but I never heard him expand on it.   Even so, the point is, these two issues don’t set him apart from the Liberals.

Another big issue that would have staked out territory in bold relief from both the Liberals and the Conservatives is Canada’s illegal invasions of Haiti and Afghanistan. NDP foreign affairs critic Alexa McDonough voiced her opposition to both these misadventures in the House of Commons.  Why was it important enough to rise in the House where it got little notice or media coverage but not important enough to make it an election issue? It is hard to believe that Canada (with France and the USA) overthrew a democratic government in Feb., 2004 and the NDP did not make it a major issue in the election.  Many times during the election Paul Martin said he was going to have an independent foreign policy. Jack never challenged him to explain how he could say that and still justify his role in the overthrow of the legitimate government of Haiti.

How would Harper have responded? We will never know.

There has been a conspiracy of silence by the Canadian news media to keep Canadians from being outraged by what Canada is doing in Haiti.  Jack could have exposed the duplicity of Martin and his zeal for helping the USA make the world safe for dictatorships, but he never did. The Liberal government was applauded more than once for not sending troops to Iraq. And yet, here we are sending more Canadians to Afghanistan which will have the effect of freeing up American troops to go to Iraq.  If the NDP is not willing to expose the hypocrisy of the Martin government, who will?

The NDP still has a chance to turn things around.  It can raise these issues every day in the House of Commons and across the land.   It must fight to make Canada a free and independent country.  It must demand that Canadian troops be withdrawn from Haiti and Afghanistan.  Public opinion would be solidly behind it if the NDP were to take the lead.     We can’t wait until more body bags show up on Canada’s shore.

Anything less and the NDP will soon be remembered as a feckless experiment in the misty past.

July 10 2004

The message from the NDP is, “Canadians voted for change.  Millions voted NDP for change that puts working Canadians at the front of the line.”  The very opposite is true. The soft Liberal vote went to the NDP to defeat Conservatives and give the Liberals a chance to stay in power or to keep the Conservatives from winning a majority. In other words the fickle Liberal vote went to the NDP to prevent change. This can hardly be reassuring for the NDP.

Jack Layton missed a great opportunity to clearly set his party apart from both the Liberals and the Conservatives and give the NDP a real chance to be the official opposition after the next general election.

Jack gave the same response to every question.  He asked us to give him more seats in the House of Commons so he could squeeze more goodies out of whomever we elect. “Park your vote with us just this one time because the Liberals need a time out,” he said.   What will his slogan be in the next election?  Vote for the Liberals, they’ve learned their lesson?

In the first English debate each leader was asked how he saw Canada fifty years from now. Jack, like the other leaders, answered with platitudes.  There must have been thousands of progressive viewers sitting on the edge of their chairs, as I was, waiting for Jack to say we are not going to have a country twenty years from now if things keep going the way they are.   There is tremendous pressure on Canada to harmonize our economy with the US economy but this was never seen as a major issue by the NDP.  Oh sure, Jack threw out the line from time to time that he was not going to follow the George Bush agenda.  He pointed out his opposition to the invasion of Iraq and to putting weapons in space, but I never heard him expand on it.   Even so, the point is, these two issues don’t set him apart from the Liberals.

Another big issue that would have staked out territory in bold relief from both the Liberals and the Conservatives is Canada’s illegal invasions of Haiti and Afghanistan. NDP foreign affairs critic Alexa McDonough voiced her opposition to both these misadventures in the House of Commons.  Why was it important enough to rise in the House where it got little notice or media coverage but not important enough to make it an election issue? It is hard to believe that Canada (with France and the USA) overthrew a democratic government in Feb., 2004 and the NDP did not make it a major issue in the election.  Many times during the election Paul Martin said he was going to have an independent foreign policy. Jack never challenged him to explain how he could say that and still justify his role in the overthrow of the legitimate government of Haiti.

How would Harper have responded? We will never know.

There has been a conspiracy of silence by the Canadian news media to keep Canadians from being outraged by what Canada is doing in Haiti.  Jack could have exposed the duplicity of Martin and his zeal for helping the USA make the world safe for dictatorships, but he never did. The Liberal government was applauded more than once for not sending troops to Iraq. And yet, here we are sending more Canadians to Afghanistan which will have the effect of freeing up American troops to go to Iraq.  If the NDP is not willing to expose the hypocrisy of the Martin government, who will?

The NDP still has a chance to turn things around.  It can raise these issues every day in the House of Commons and across the land.   It must fight to make Canada a free and independent country.  It must demand that Canadian troops be withdrawn from Haiti and Afghanistan.  Public opinion would be solidly behind it if the NDP were to take the lead.     We can’t wait until more body bags show up on Canada’s shore.

Anything less and the NDP will soon be remembered as a feckless experiment in the misty past.

Ignatieff Is Scary

October 6 2006

Michael Ignatieff is scary and I know why.  If he had been Prime Minister in the spring of 2003, Canadian soldiers would be dying in Iraq today.

I didn’t support going to Iraq because I knew a lot of things Ignatieff didn’t seem to know.

I knew these same neocons that now inhabit the White House had plans to invade Iraq to secure its oil reserves long before the 9/11 attack.  I knew because they said so in a document called The Project for the New American Century.

I knew that Hans Blix, the United Nations head weapons inspector, said he had discovered no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq but would need a few more months to know for sure.

I knew retired weapons inspector Scott Ritter said that 95% of the weapons had been destroyed and the rest, if there were any, would have deteriorated over time or have been destroyed by the Operation Desert Fox bombing of Iraq.

I knew that in 1982 President Reagan removed Iraq from the list of states that sponsor terrorism.

I knew that when Saddam Hussein was at his bloody worst, the U.S. was supplying him with chemical weapons.

I knew because the U.S. senate Riegle Report said so.

I knew as well that Donald Rumsfeld was in Iraq in 1983, just after Saddam Hussein had gassed the Iranians, presenting him with a set of golden spurs from Ronald Reagan.

Why did I know all these things and Michael Ignatieff didn’t?  There is one other possible explanation.  Maybe he did know all these things and wanted to invade Iraq anyway.

Now that’s really scary.