Canadian Democracy has Declined under PM Harper, say Bourrie, Harris
"Democracy has suffered under Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s
government, say two prominent political authors who compared the effect
of the Conservative regime over the past nine years to a 'fibrous
tumour.'
The criticism came at a Broadbent Institute Progress Summit panel
discussion headlined 'The Great Unravelling: Why it Matters How Canada
has become Less Democratic.'
Mark Bourrie, author of Kill the Messengers, and Michael Harris, author of Party of One,
focused on aspects of Mr. Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) governing
style that they exposed in their research and writing—the
centralization of power in the PMO, Mr. Harper’s extreme-discipline
manner of exercising power, the way Mr. Harper has held sway over his
MPs as well as the public service and the iron grip he has put on
government information and its dissemination."
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Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label democracy. Show all posts
From Elections to Mass Movements: How Wealthy Elites Are Hijacking Democracy All Over the World
Mass street protests are usually seen as a hallmark of democratic
aspirations. And elections are meant to be a culmination of such
aspirations, affording people the opportunity to choose their own
leaders and system of government. But in country after country these
days, the hallmarks of democracy are being dangerously subverted and
co-opted by powerful elites. The question is, are we recognizing what is
happening under our noses? Three examples unfolding right now are
indicators of this trend: Thailand, Ukraine and Egypt.
Thailand has just witnessed its 19th coup in 82 years. Although coup leader Gen. Prayuth Chan-Ocha has promised “genuine democracy,” he has given no timetable for an end to martial law. The U.S. State Department initially refused to call the takeover a coup, insisting that martial law is consistent with Thailand’s constitution. It then changed its tune to issue a strongly worded condemnation.
Read on...
Thailand has just witnessed its 19th coup in 82 years. Although coup leader Gen. Prayuth Chan-Ocha has promised “genuine democracy,” he has given no timetable for an end to martial law. The U.S. State Department initially refused to call the takeover a coup, insisting that martial law is consistent with Thailand’s constitution. It then changed its tune to issue a strongly worded condemnation.
Read on...
How the Government Targeted Occupy
Freedom of conscience is one of the most fundamental human freedoms.
This freedom is not merely about one’s ability to choose to believe or
not believe in religion or a particular philosophy. In a democracy,
freedom of conscience is about the ability to be critical of government
and corporations, and to be free from the chilling fear that being
critical will subject you to government surveillance.
Freedom of conscience is not fully realized in isolation. Without the ability to share one’s thoughts, to speak out about injustice, or to join with others in peaceably assembling to petition for redress of grievances, this core freedom is not truly free. Americans should be able to exercise these most sacred rights in free society without worry of being monitored by the government.
In our new report, “Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street,” written by Center for Media and Democracy contributor and DBA Press publisher Beau Hodai, we detail several ways in which our tax dollars are being squandered on law enforcement—or so-called “homeland security”personnel monitoring Americans who dare to voice dissent against the extraordinary influence that some of the world's most powerful corporations have on on our elected officials.
Read on....
Freedom of conscience is not fully realized in isolation. Without the ability to share one’s thoughts, to speak out about injustice, or to join with others in peaceably assembling to petition for redress of grievances, this core freedom is not truly free. Americans should be able to exercise these most sacred rights in free society without worry of being monitored by the government.
In our new report, “Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, in Partnership with Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street,” written by Center for Media and Democracy contributor and DBA Press publisher Beau Hodai, we detail several ways in which our tax dollars are being squandered on law enforcement—or so-called “homeland security”personnel monitoring Americans who dare to voice dissent against the extraordinary influence that some of the world's most powerful corporations have on on our elected officials.
Read on....
Who Should Resist, and Who Will Become Serfs?
By Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted April 7, 2009.
If we don't stop the rapacious looting of the public treasury, we'll be left with trillions in debts and a robust police state.
America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite's rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs.
We have been in a steady economic decline for decades. The Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul detailed this decline in his 1992 book "Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West." David Cay Johnston exposed the mirage and rot of American capitalism in "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)," and David C. Korten, in "When Corporations Rule the World" and "Agenda for a New Economy," laid out corporate malfeasance and abuse. But our universities and mass media, entranced by power and naively believing that global capitalism was an unstoppable force of nature, rarely asked the right questions or gave a prominent voice to those who did. Our elites hid their incompetence and loss of control behind an arrogant facade of specialized jargon and obscure economic theories.
Read on...
If we don't stop the rapacious looting of the public treasury, we'll be left with trillions in debts and a robust police state.
America is devolving into a third-world nation. And if we do not immediately halt our elite's rapacious looting of the public treasury we will be left with trillions in debts, which can never be repaid, and widespread human misery which we will be helpless to ameliorate. Our anemic democracy will be replaced with a robust national police state. The elite will withdraw into heavily guarded gated communities where they will have access to security, goods and services that cannot be afforded by the rest of us. Tens of millions of people, brutally controlled, will live in perpetual poverty. This is the inevitable result of unchecked corporate capitalism. The stimulus and bailout plans are not about saving us. They are about saving them. We can resist, which means street protests, disruptions of the system and demonstrations, or become serfs.
We have been in a steady economic decline for decades. The Canadian political philosopher John Ralston Saul detailed this decline in his 1992 book "Voltaire's Bastards: The Dictatorship of Reason in the West." David Cay Johnston exposed the mirage and rot of American capitalism in "Free Lunch: How the Wealthiest Americans Enrich Themselves at Government Expense (and Stick You With the Bill)," and David C. Korten, in "When Corporations Rule the World" and "Agenda for a New Economy," laid out corporate malfeasance and abuse. But our universities and mass media, entranced by power and naively believing that global capitalism was an unstoppable force of nature, rarely asked the right questions or gave a prominent voice to those who did. Our elites hid their incompetence and loss of control behind an arrogant facade of specialized jargon and obscure economic theories.
Read on...
The Bailout: How Capitalism Killed Democracy
By David Sirota, AlterNet. Posted October 4, 2008.
We now face market forces uninhibited by democratic governance. The bailout is an aggressive attempt to trade democracy for autocracy.
The marriage of American capitalism and democracy has always been a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee affair -- stormy and erratic since its hasty wedding. But during the debate over a Wall Street bailout this week, we watched that matrimonial knot unwind into a tangled tale of terror.
As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vaguely socialist bailout). Only, unlike a typical horror story, the dead body wasn't hidden, it was dumped in the nation's public square.
The fiasco started, like most, with unreasonable demands. Under threat of financial meltdown, capitalism's corporate lobbyists asked our democracy to forsake its usual deliberations and hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money in less than a week.
Read on...
Last week was historic...but life seemed to go on as normal. The sheeple gave Wall Street their bailout. Is this article alarmist, or prophetic? Tom
We now face market forces uninhibited by democratic governance. The bailout is an aggressive attempt to trade democracy for autocracy.
The marriage of American capitalism and democracy has always been a Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee affair -- stormy and erratic since its hasty wedding. But during the debate over a Wall Street bailout this week, we watched that matrimonial knot unwind into a tangled tale of terror.
As a financial crisis became a political panic, capitalism murdered democracy (ironically, while pursuing a vaguely socialist bailout). Only, unlike a typical horror story, the dead body wasn't hidden, it was dumped in the nation's public square.
The fiasco started, like most, with unreasonable demands. Under threat of financial meltdown, capitalism's corporate lobbyists asked our democracy to forsake its usual deliberations and hand over $700 billion of taxpayer money in less than a week.
Read on...
Last week was historic...but life seemed to go on as normal. The sheeple gave Wall Street their bailout. Is this article alarmist, or prophetic? Tom
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