Politics: Harperite Endgame?

[dewline]

A couple of friendlisters have noted elsewhere on the web the existence of an essay for the Ottawa Citizen - shall we rename that newspaper "Postmedia Ottawa" and be done, by the by? - by Andrew Potter on what Stephen Harper's real intentions behind many of his actions as Prime Minister might well have been. Take a look for yourselves. I'm not entirely sure that Mr. Potter's wrong in his analysis, whatever I think of his other writings.

Comments

Weirdly inept

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

Harper’s agenda was to a large extent about simply being in power.

There's a lot of good analysis in the piece, but Potter blows it with his introductory point. Harper's agenda wasn't about being in power, it was about reducing the role of government and making that reduction permanent.

Whether or not he ever actually said, "You won't recognize this country when I'm through with it," that was the intent.

Harper's signature policies were almost entirely destructive, in the sense that they destroyed the federal government's ability to act.

• Accurate information? Bye-bye Cencus, hello cuts to science and research (muzzling working scientists was just a step towards the end point);



• Independent judiciary? Here are a thousand partisan and under-qualified judgeships to start working their way through the ranks;



• Environment? Let's redefine "navigable waterways" to include maybe seven rivers and lake systems (I work from memory, but I'm in the ball-park);



• Freedom of speech and thought? Basic Citizenship rights? Say hello to C-51, C-24 and S-7;

Christ that's just a tithe. How about turning this into the only country in the civilized world without a serious post-office? Or turning the CBC into an underfunded State Broadcaster. Or, or, or ...

Point being, Potter seemed to have a pretty good handle on the data but he missed the actual target. Harper, like neo-cons everywhere have one primary goal: a libertarian intention to reduce the role of the state to war, and policing.