Canadian Right Takes Half-Assed Aim at Canadian Health Care (Again)

Canada's right blog-"oh god we're all going to die-o"sphere is taking the occasion of vigorous health care debate in the US as an opportunity to aim their cherished Ronnie RayGun, Grenada Island collectible pea-shooters at our Canadian medical system. You know, the one Canadian's are overwhelmingly supportive of.

But, take heart, oh progressives. The whole developed world has gone, or is going, to public health care! The global market has provided the answer, just not the one your friendly neighbourhood wingnut wanted to hear.

One Party System

In my station here, frugally trolling the streets around the private golf club waiting in vain for a threesome to invite me to play along for free, I'm often overcome with dismay - as I step over the no tresspassing signs on some fucker's fence - that my vote, both provincially and federally, is almost always wasted on the NDP. But then, I think, - pissing on that same fucker's lawn - that I'd rather waste my vote on an incompetent progressive party who couldn't get elected in my riding if Pol Pot was their only competition, than be an American and have to suffer the serial-buggaring saved for progressive Democrats.

30 years of Democrat supported neo-liberalism and neoconservatism, unending acquiescence to the mother corporations, the continual tacking to the right under the banner of triangulation, and now, with the all those right wing ideals in shambles, you've got the Dems unable (at least so far) to deliver health care reforms for a system that spends twice as much per-capita than any other western health care system only to achieve the same (sometimes worse) results.

I wonder how many people there are like me in the US, people who will abandon the Democrats forever if they can't come through this time?

At least I have Jack's moustache to cheer on, neatly trimmed and wagging away in the House, ineffectual as an old porn star who's lost his Viagra.

Harper, Fungus and Indefinite Detention

So the Portobello mushroom that leads this country, Stephen Harper, has his fungal fingers all over this decision to Deny Omar Khadr due process and keep him festering forever in a foreign prison for nothing. At least, nothing proven, and that used to be the rub.

The sad thing is that this would be happening even if Iggy were in charge. The encroachment of the conservative wet-dream of a jackboot-state is unmistakable. Another attack and, "Free No More.

Bang?
Whimper?
Who cares?

In the US, the supposed lefty, Obama, provides the proof, riding right alongside Bush on the range. The horse of civil liberties is out of the barn, replaced in its shit stained stall by a two big steads named Surveillance and Torture.

Thanks for the Memories

I was thinking how Harper's reign has been like a series of Bob Hope Specials - on three or four times a year, always from overseas, and brought to us by oil companies.

Did you know the Western Standard still exists?

Like Quakers, glaciers, and tuberculosis, the Western Standard still exists!





I know. I stumbled, by mistake, across its barely breathing cyber-hulk yesterday on my way somewhere relevant. Of course, I popped in to have a gander, because with most of my time learning about climate change, economic collapse, and all the wars being lost and people being killed, I felt I should see how we were doing with the truly transformational issues of the day - the ChiCom's taking over the world; gays slaughtering straight families in their sleep; and all the machinations of the Nanny 911 state.



I found I couldn't stay very long. Everything was dark and crestfallen. The place reeked of stairwells and urine. The blog was being updated at the rate of your average conservative's logical thought (OK, maybe not that slow.)

The big issue -Manitoba Premier Gary Doer is proposing a provincially run education TV channel. As the blogger put it:

Will you feel comfortable with government programmed TV influencing your kids under the guise of education?

And I think he's right. Because, you know, provincial governments currently have no other way of influencing our children - except for that whole public education system thing.

Our Lefty Conservatives

It never fails to amaze when Canadian market-nuts like Diane Francis spout the (paraphrasing, here) "well I'm a conservative Canadian which means I'm to the left of the Democrats in the US," meme.



Yes, as the predictably disappearing public health care option in the US attests, the Dems are almost equally store-bought by corporations, but this argument made by Francis (on Toronto radio Tuesday) and many other over the years is a bugged-out lie designed to FOOL the public. They say this lie for one reason - to wedge out some legitimacy with the centre to centre-left Canadian public that they don't deserve.

Now Francis is most often thoughtful, measured and honest in her opinions and I actually respect much of her work (while often disagreeing). However, if she's to the left of Al Franken and Russ Feingold (among countless others in congress) then I'm the biological product of a pickle and tall stack of Pringles.

This generalization is always an attempt to label him/herself as some sort of Canadian progressive, which, most certainly, the never are.

Lest We Forget

No, it's not yet November 11.

But let us all remember with every death past and future that our current PM would have had us there:

Baghdad - "At least 95 people were killed and 563 wounded..."

Maybe you know someone who's alive because Jean Chretien was in office? If you do, give them a hug today.