Monday, January 21, 2008

A Little About Canada's Reform-A-Tories

So let's review what these wolves-in-sheep's clothing, neo-Con, Reform-a-Tories are all about...

We all know about the Cons' climate change denial - it's been a political reality for them for years. They constantly talked about not believing in the "science of climate change", and the "science of Kyoto". Later - once needing a majority became important - their position became one of bashing a former government for not doing enough (while continuing to do nothing - nay, even fighting solutions - themselves). They also started to vocalize for a "solution" which put any efforts into the distant future - much more distant than anything Kyoto offered - and also a much lesser effort (practically going backwards from gains already made).

War-mongering... What can we say about that? Well, in typical Conservative fashion, the Reformers/Alliance MPs supported the US's illegal (war crimes anyone?) invasion of Iraq. Instead of the right solution: taking the Saudis to task on 9/11, and taking out Afghan's Taliban Regime (well that partly succeeded) and their Pakistani supporters, they supported the trillion dollar (FROM the gov'ts TO the defense industry) light show known as Iraq II. Now, almost 500,000 civilian casualties later (all Iraqi), the neo-Con chicken-hawks are admitting it was an abject failure. Sorry - let me correct that last line: the chicken-hawks NOT earning anything from sitting on defense contractor boards, or future/past lobbyist roles are admitting failure.

Sexist bent has always existed in conservative movements. It is part and parcel of the definition of "conservative". One who believes strongly in the male-dominated "old ways", and wishes for a return to the "good old days". Current federal Conservative policy is geared to keeping women at home. In a very real effort to get all "old school biblical" on Canadian Society, Harper's thugs have unleashed legislation to support stay-at-home moms (nothing wrong with that), at the expense of programs that helped poor mothers and single moms (something really wrong with that).

In the past day or two we've learned that the federal Conservatives support torture (seemingly so, based on their tossing aside of internal documents indicating the certain allies' use of torture). The Foreign Affairs Dept. had a pretty detailed document expressing concern of the use of torture in allied countries (including our Southern neighbor). On Saturday Maxime Bernier decided to ignore this report to prevent any "bad pub" for these allies. The statement has angered Amnesty International's Canadian Secretary General. It has also infuriated Maher Arar's lawyer - Lorne Waldman, as well as human rights advocates everywhere.

What scares me... and I've started to accept the potential inevitable conclusion, is that these right wing ideologues may successfully hide their true feelings from the Canadian public until they are successfully ensconced in a majority. As a party WE need to get our act together. We need to go on the attack. We need to express our thoughts on the issues CLEARLY. We need to voice the liberal opinion - which is the MODERATE, center-of-the-road Canadian way. We need to speak to voters on the benefits of liberal ideology. We can't let platform politics stunt voter education. When voters have nothing to look at but a platform, a "current" election promise-list, and the latest 7 second news clip of our leader trying to get an idea out, we miss our mark.

I believe - as Liberals - we need to clearly post our ideals on the FIRST page of our website. A clear statement of worldwide liberal ideology - which won't change, no matter whom we chose to lead us, or what the current "issues" are during an election. This manifesto of ideas should become public knowledge so voters know exactly WHO WE ARE, and what our GUIDING PRINCIPLES are. When Canadians see clearly who we are, they will, once again, begin to see us as the only truly moderate choice in Canadian politics.

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