April Reign

Speak your mind even if your voice shakes

job loss

‘Tis the Season of the Pharisees

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Just like many other Canadians this holiday season my family will be ‘making do’. For us the war on Christmas is not the inclusiveness of the many celebrations that take place at this time of year. It is not a choice of Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays on a sign or Christmas card. Heck I have Christmas cards that I received as a child back in the sixties that say Happy Holidays. It is not nativity scenes being kept off public property. The real war on Christmas is declared by the corporatists and right wingers. Corporations continue to move jobs off shore while at the same time advertising tells us we are somehow lacking without the latest and greatest new thing we should go into debt for. Right wingers and their ideologue political choices continue to filter money to their corporatist friends while gutting programs that help those in need.

How many children will wonder why Santa bypassed their homes this year? How many families will recall Christmas’s with son’s, daughters, mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles , aunts, civilians and soldiers alike now dead because of war? How many families will spend Christmas wondering if the New Year will include employment or knowing it won’t? Wondering if they will even have a home next Christmas. How many are waiting for the political will to ensure there are jobs instead of rhetoric about people needing to tighten their belt or accept service positions that won’t cover the bills?

The war is on the people and it is year round. It relies on mean spirited, selfish motivations. It relies on those willing to spout a philosophy they cannot live. Those who spend the year advocating against relief programs then professing to protect the legacy of one who was born homeless and into poverty to young single mother.

Conservatives Artfully Dodging Reality

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Conservatives and the art of deception
Conservatives and the art of deception
In the Globe and Mail Margret Atwood writes on the Harper Conservatives™ cuts to the arts. She explains how this is not in truth about targeting “elites” but is in reality about targeting Canadians of any socio-economic status or political persuasion.

The Conference Board estimates Canada’s cultural sector generated $46-billion, or 3.8 per cent of Canada’s GDP, in 2007. And, according to the Canada Council, in 2003-2004, the sector accounted for an “estimated 600,000 jobs (roughly the same as agriculture, forestry, fishing, mining, oil & gas and utilities combined).”

Perhaps Mr. Harper feels there are far too many Canadians employed in Canada and therefore jobs are expendable.

This sums up my thoughts about Harper and his neo-con co-oped Conservative party perfectly;

What’s the idea here? That arts jobs should not exist because artists are naughty and might not vote for Mr. Harper? That Canadians ought not to make money from the wicked arts, but only from virtuous oil? That artists don’t all live in one constituency, so who cares? Or is it that the majority of those arts jobs are located in Ontario and Quebec, and Mr. Harper is peeved at those provinces, and wants to increase his ongoing gutting of Ontario – $20-billion a year of Ontario taxpayers’ money going out, a dribble grudgingly allowed back in – and spank Quebec for being so disobedient as not to appreciate his magnificence? He likes punishing, so maybe the arts-squashing is part of that: Whack the Heartland.

Or is it even worse? Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they’re a mouthy lot and they don’t line up and salute very easily. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you, and so forth – the only kind of art you might need – but individual voices must be silenced, because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master’s Voice. Maybe that’s why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for our artists abroad. He didn’t like the competition for media space.

Read the full article here

h/t skdadl @breadnroses

Harper Smoked in Welland

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Harper offered further proof of his inability to care about or understand the needs of the average Canadian on his recent stop in Welland.

Welland recently hit by the loss of manufacturing jobs and a likely severe “downturn” in the local economy was treated to a promise by Harper that he would get tough on ‘kiddie’ smokes. I’m sure that was a great comfort to Welland residents. It will do wonders to provide jobs, income security, stave off mortgage foreclosures and…… well Harper thinks everyone should just get over it;

A local reporter pressed the prime minister about his party’s plans to deal with staggering job losses. Harper replied: “I know it’s tough for some people, but it’s not all doom and gloom. We have to stay the course.”

The Spec

Take note Harper thinks that a part time job making minium wage is just as good as a job that lets you feed AND shelter your family at the same time. After all if stats can prove there is work that is all Harper cares about.

Canada Harper has dedicated this song to you,;

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