Canadian Democracy & Its Conservative Discontents

The word democracy conjures up many warm feelings for me. For as flawed a system as it obviously is, all of the alternatives give me serious shivers. So it was with interest that I noted in a recent Toronto Star article that Canadians are feeling more cynicism than ever about the state of democracy in our country.

Well over a century and a half ago, Alexis de Tocqueville expressed serious concerns about democracy in America when he opined that American commoners were going to be too busy figuring out how to survive. This was a problem because they would not have the time nor the inclination to figure out their best political interests and who to vote for. (Think about the decreasing voter turnout in the vast majority of elections in both Canada and the United States.)

A century after de Tocqueville, Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World described a society in which the commoners would become so immersed in a world of entertainment and spectacle that they would not even be interested in having a say in how their society should function.  (Think about the current fascination with celebrity culture.) 

Not long after that, George Orwell warned of the nefarious strategy of manipulating language to further entrench power for the elites, suggesting that this would be enough to keep the masses from understanding what is in their own best interests. (Think of the tax cuts for the wealthy and trickle-down economics discourse.)

It is clear that all three social commentators were onto something. Democracy in all western nations, especially the English-speaking ones, is susceptible to the forces described by these thinkers. And democracy in all of these nations, with few exceptions, is on the wane.

But nary a one could have predicted what is happening in Canada today. The governing Conservatives led by Stephen Harper are a much bigger threat to democracy in Canada than the forces described by de Tocqueville, Huxley and Orwell. Because support for the Conservatives has not decreased very much from the 39% they received during the last election in May 2011, one has to conclude that conservative voters have very little respect for democracy either.

Let’s go over some of the anti-democratic actions the Harper Conservatives have been up to since they first came to power almost seven years ago.

The prorogation of Parliament. I did not know of one person who had ever even heard of the word "prorogation" before Harper pulled it out of his hat back in the fall of 2008. Why did he shut down Parliament? Because the Liberals and the NDP were going to form a coalition and topple the Harper Conservative minority government. The coalition idea was legitimate. Proroguing Parliament was not.

And then about 18 months later Canadians heard the term once again – Harper shut down Parliament for a second time in an attempt to stop an inquiry into his government's complicity in the torture of Afghani prisoners. That’s two illegitimate prorogations of Parliament in less than two years!

Watching Harper’s success with this prorogation strategy, a domino effect swept across the land. In Newfoundland, the Conservatives shut down their Legislature for seven months and governed without any opposition. In the late summer months of this year, the tired BC Liberal government called off the fall session of the BC Legislature for fear of getting further pummeled in the polls before the upcoming spring election. And a little over a month ago, Ontario Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty simultaneously announced his resignation and closed the Ontario Legislature until his party could pick a new leader and premier-designate. I guess we should not be surprised – after all, these three premiers saw Harper get away with shutting down Parliament not once but twice!

Should Canadians simply accept their governments shutting down their respective legislative houses anytime they feel like it? I do not think so. For one thing it is the antithesis of a healthy democracy.

But maybe de Tocqueville is right. Maybe the vast majority of Canadians are too busy simply trying to make ends meet and this is why resistance to Harper’s prorogation strategy barely registered. I will wager, however, that the growing cynicism toward Canadian democracy has much to do with the violations committed by our current federal government.

What are some other anti-democratic strategies employed by the Harper Conservatives since they first formed government in 2006?

The list is long. Here is only a partial sampling. (As you read these Conservative violations, just consider the overall effect on Canadian democracy.)

In 2007, the press came across a secret handbook made by the Prime Minister's Office that explained to Conservative MPs how to obstruct and manipulate any Commons committees they happened to be on. One of the strategies explained to the MP that if the committee looked like it was about to rule on something not in the interests of the Conservative agenda that they simply walk out of the meeting and shut down the entire process.

Even worse than that egregious strategy, the Harper Conservatives have attempted to muzzle the entire civil service by firing anyone who says anything perceived as anti-Conservative. Who can remember any of these high profile firings? The head of Statistics Canada over the long form census. The diplomat in Afghanistan who blew the whistle on the Harper Cons handing over prisoners to be tortured. The head scientist of the Chalk River nuclear facility claiming Harper’s information on isotopes was incorrect. And the list is a lot longer than that. (If you would like to find out more, just check into how the Harper Conservatives have shut down any scientist claiming that development of the Alberta Bitumen Sands is damaging the planet’s climate systems.)

Let’s keep going.

The Harper Conservatives ran a campaign leading up to the May 2011 election claiming that Canada was going to buy some stealth F-35 jets that would cost taxpayers $14 billion. After the election, it was revealed that the Conservatives knew that the price would be almost double that. A Commons committee was struck to investigate the F-35 jets contract, only to have the Conservative government recently shut it down as the committee closed in on which Conservatives knew about the big lie to taxpayers, to voters, to citizens.

And what about the robocall fiasco from the May 2011 election? It seems strange to me that not one member of the media has asked the Prime Minister to say something about this travesty of democratic justice. And for any Harper supporter wishing to claim Conservative innocence, I want to ask what you think of the Harper Conservatives trying (unsuccessfully thus far) to close down any investigation into the robocalls.

(I think every Canadian should thank the Council of Canadians for continuing their efforts to get the robocall case heard in court in the face of massive obstacles put up by the Harper Conservatives.)

Even the most fervent Conservative supporter has got to agree that the optics look terrible for the governing Conservatives as they continue to block the investigation. And every conservative supporter must agree that it really does seem strange that the media continues to give Harper a free ride by not asking him why he is so intent on shutting down the court case.

Some conservatives claim that Canada’s media has a strong liberal bias. What a joke that is!

What is even more pathetic than that claim is the Harper Conservatives winning the dubious distinction of being the first government in Canadian history to be found in contempt of Parliament itself. This is a serious breach of our democracy. (This led to the May 2011 election that gave the Harper Conservatives their first majority, making me consider that the atheists might be right after all.)

What did Canadians think about the $1 Billion dollars spent by the Harper Conservatives to host the G20 meetings in Toronto in 2010? What did Canadians think of the intense G20 police state created so that the leaders of these 20 nations could discuss plans to attack public pension plans? I am quite certain that the peaceful protesters and even the bystanders who were locked away for the better part of the day, some of them beaten badly, were not very impressed with Harper's plans.

All of these Conservative plans are clearly anti-democratic. But it even gets worse!

In late September, the Harper Conservatives made a very sly and sleazy deal with the Chinese government referred to as the Canada-China Investment Deal (with the acronym FIPPA). Canadians need to know that once China buys Canadian natural resources, the hands of the Canadian government will be tied. Harper has agreed to let China sue Canada outside of Canadian courts and behind closed doors! This commitment to secrecy goes against the long standing policy of our federal governments.

To be honest, I am quite surprised that Harper’s base of social conservatives are not objecting to the Conservatives wheeling and dealing with the totalitarian regime of China. This economic giant practices authoritarian capitalism. It is also a nation that does not respect human rights.

This post is getting long, so the next set of Conservative anti-democratic initiatives will be mentioned in short fashion. Or at least I hope they will.

Bill C-377, which has been championed by Conservative MP Russ Hiebert, is an attack on unions by thwarting their revenue streams and reversing the long standing Rand Formula around union dues. (There will be a future post on the Harper Conservatives’ relentless attack on unions and the collective bargaining rights of Canadian workers.)

This particular post is focused on the Conservative attack on Canadian democracy. As such, I simply have to mention the two massive omnibus bills the Harper Conservatives have placed before Parliament. Last spring, the 425 pages in Bill C-38 changed 74 laws. Even though it was ostensibly a budget bill, some Canadians found out that Bill C-38 virtually wiped out environmental assessment and regulation. And a few learned that Harper is allowing foreign police to come into Canada and arrest Canadian citizens. Many of the other bits of legislation are equally disconcerting.

Harper has now put a second massive omnibus bill before Parliament. Bill C-45 affects 64 laws and regulations. There is virtually no time for the opposition to put up a fight or try to educate Canadians on what is included in these massive bills.

Was Harper always anti-democratic? Well, perhaps. But we would not know this from what he used to say. Almost 20 years ago, back when our Prime Minister was a rookie Reform Party MP, Harper spoke quite eloquently about a 21-page Liberal omnibus bill. Here is what the future Prime Minister said:

“Mr. Speaker, I would argue that the subject matter of the bill is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles.”

“…Second, in the interest of democracy I ask: How can members represent their constituents on these various areas when they are forced to vote in a block on such legislation and on such concerns? We can agree with some of the measures but oppose others. How do we express our views and the views of our constituents when the matters are so diverse? Dividing the bill into several components would allow members to represent views of their constituents on each of the different components in the bill.” (Hansard, March 25, 1994)

Harper the young MP did not like the 21-page Liberal omnibus bill because it was anti-democratic. Harper the Prime Minister, however, has no qualms about forcing through omnibus bills 25 times bigger than what the Liberals ever put through! Clearly, Harper has changed his tune on omnibus bills since his portrayal as a principled conservative back in 1994. And just as clearly, it demonstrates an extreme disdain for our democratic traditions.

It is too difficult a task to ascertain which of these strategies employed by the Harper Conservatives are the worst violations of our democratic traditions. I know many people would say it’s the robocall fiasco and Harper’s attempts to kill the court case. Others make a strong case that it was the prorogation of Parliament. Last spring I considered the massive omnibus budget bill that gutted so much regulation of industry. At this point, however, I am leaning toward Harper’s investment deal with Communist China as being the biggest violation of our sovereignty and our democracy.

(If readers would like to weigh in on what they think is the biggest affront to Canadian democracy, feel free to leave a comment.)

I would gladly accept the last Conservative Prime Minister over the current one. I never thought I would say what I am about to say, but here goes anyway: Brian Mulroney, please come back and lead the Conservative Party. Even though you stole $2 million of our tax dollars, I would gladly take your style of leadership over that of Stephen Harper’s.

At least Canadian democracy was not threatened nearly so much under Mulroney. (Remember that the list of Conservative violations I gave is only a partial list.)

It is obvious that de Tocqueville, Huxley and Orwell could see that democracy was a fragile entity in need of constant protection. But even these prominent democrats would not have been able to foresee what the Harper Conservatives could do to a more or less functioning democracy.

Democracy is the best system to give voice to as many people as possible. When functioning properly, it is also the best system to distribute power. Given what is happening to our democracy over the past seven years, it is obvious that the Harper Conservatives are not interested in strengthening our democracy; indeed, they want to weaken it.

One can make the argument that these Conservative politicians are weakening democracy in an attempt to hold onto power. As awful as that rationale is, I think there may be something more sinister behind it. Modern conservatism in the North American context is highly correlated to authoritarian inclinations. Bearing this in mind, it may not be too much of a stretch to assume that some conservatives really do not care for democracy all that much.

This is an especially frightening proposition, and one that advocates for civil society need to take seriously.

It really is too bad that Canadians do not have the same passion to stand up to obsequious power that the Quebec students demonstrated last spring. After all, the students won! I believe that Canadians would also win if enough of us stood together to stop the Harper Conservatives and their flagrant disregard of our democracy.

Note #1: Almost every week another Conservative violation of our democracy comes to light. The day after I wrote this post, I woke up to learn that a recent investigation into Conservative pollster Nick Kouvalis found him guilty of lying to the citizens in a Montreal riding by claiming that its Liberal MP Irwin Cotler was retiring. (Yeah, this is the same Kouvalis who told enough lies to help get that Rob Ford guy elected as Toronto mayor two long years ago.) As disgusting as this violation is, however, it really is small potatoes compared to other Conservative strategies to weaken our democracy.

Note #2: A reader asked about a source regarding that Conservative Handbook on how to disrupt the important work of Commons Committees. Please see this article:

http://www.thestar.com/news/article/215532---obstruction-handbook-leaked

Note #3: For more information about what is happening to Canada's fragile democracy, please go to: http://DemocracyWatch.ca

Note #4: For an excellent and illuminating article about Environment Minister Peter Kent's muzzling of scientists working for the government, read
http://www.ipolitics.ca/2012/12/05/should-peter-kent-still-be-in-the-broadcasters-hall-of-fame/
It really does show how badly the Harper Cons want to block any scientist claiming that the environment is being threatened. The mainstream media is letting them get away with this!

Amnesia & the Conservative American Commoner

By now the entire world knows that American voters have given Barack Obama a second mandate as President of the United States. Since the election a fortnight ago, news watchers have witnessed many American conservatives across the land in a state of extreme shock and awe over the results (with a solid dose of extreme anger thrown in for good measure). Just last week, in fact, Mitt Romney claimed that Obama won the election because he bribed college students, women, immigrants, and gays to get their vote.

I disagree with Romney’s "analysis." I disagree with the post-election analysis of any conservative who claims that the only reason Obama won was because of the support of people who are not the real Americans. They seem to have forgotten the real reasons as to why a majority of voters shunned the pro-corporate Republican ticket of Romney and Ryan.

Conservative commoners need reminding as to why Obama is still the President. I am going to try to cut through their amnesia to explain why Obama won despite the billions of dollars spent by many of the wealthiest Americans for anti-Obama attack ads. They should be given an answer as to why non-conservative people said “thanks but no thanks.”

Most Democratic voters simply did not agree with the Republican vision of gutting social programs, turning healthcare for seniors into a voucher system, and giving the wealthy even further tax cuts. 

For one thing, it has only been a year since the massive Occupy Wall Street movement made Americans hyper aware that the top 1% owned a grotesque and growing amount of wealth during this era of job layoffs and home foreclosures.

Conservatives should likely have considered that it was not the best time to promote the silver-spooned Romney, CEO of the ultra-predatory Bain Capital and a member of the 1%, as the Republican presidential candidate. As shown in that infamous video, spouting off to a room filled with other one per centers that almost half of the American population is filled with parasites who do not pay taxes and want the government to provide healthcare and housing was likely a major reason why Romney did not win the election. (By the way, I have to wonder how many of the "$50 grand platers" who listened to Mitt have their income in the banks of strange places like the Cayman Islands to avoid paying taxes. My sense is that this group is not very concerned about American civil society.) 

Conservatives likely forgot about Occupy, even though it was just a year ago, and this is perhaps partially why they nominated Romney as their candidate. What else has their collective amnesia caused them to forget?

Well, I think they forgot Romney’s disparaging remarks made in 2008 that Obama’s bail out of the auto industry would lead to the end of the American auto industry. This was offensive to working families as well as completely wrong.

Why can’t American conservatives who tried to blame Obama for the dire economic situation recall that the economy collapsed under the last Republican president, that George W Bush fellow? In fact, Bush Jr did the first massive bailout of the financial industry and left Obama to do the second one a few days after he took office. This was not long ago at all – why can’t conservatives remember these things?

I think they did not take into account that the candidate for Vice President, Paul Ryan, portrayed himself as a devout and pious Christian as well as a serious fan of the famous atheist Ayn Rand. They did not seem to remember that despite Rand’s libertarian ideology of getting the government out of the economic lives of citizens, she was quite happy to accept social security checks from the government. Such ridiculous hypocrisy does not play well with non-conservative voters. Nor should it play well with conservative commoners.

Conservatives must have forgotten that another one of Rand’s devotees, former Chair of the Federal Reserve Alan Greenspan, pushed for deregulation of the financial industry which, in turn, led to the collapse of the American economy back in 2007. A strong case can be made that if one person is to blame for the economic calamity that occurred under Bush's watch, Greenspan is that person.

Speaking of the economic philosophy of Rand, Ryan, Greenspan and the Tea Partiers, the Congressional Research Service has found absolutely no evidence to support the corporate mantra that cutting taxes on rich people leads to a stronger economy. Conservatives from middle- and working-class backgrounds need to accept this as reality before their entire civil society is dismantled. (See http://graphics8.nytimes.com/news/business/0915taxesandeconomy.pdf)

Conservatives cannot seem to remember that when Bill Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy during his first term, the economy actually took off and resulted in years of surplus budgets. What’s with that? Why can’t they remember? It was not that long ago.

Why do they forget that creating stronger healthcare programs (like Republican president Nixon did in the 1970s with Medicaid) does not lead to a communist state. Nor does regulating the financial industry lead to a communist takeover of the nation, as some recent pro-Republican ads suggested.

Some conservatives are claiming that a social safety net for the neediest Americans will lead to a government that controls all aspects of society. They claim this even though the US has had a social safety net ever since FDR enacted the New Deal back in the 1930s. Has the New Deal cost Americans their cherished freedoms? Hardly. So why have they forgotten this?

Why did they forget that Bush Jr also helped cause the economy to collapse because of those costly US-led invasions? Why can’t they recall Bush telling them that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction when he didn’t have any? (Well, Rumsfeld gave Saddam some biochemical weapons to use on the Kurds back in 1985, but apparently that was not the kind of WMD that Bush and Cheney were looking for.)

Why did conservatives recently try to portray Romney as the tough guy who would once again make America a feared nation across the planet when it was this very same man who back in 2007 said it was not worth trying to go after Osama bin Laden for the 9/11 attacks? Did they forget?

Why do American conservatives forget that the last two summers were devastatingly hotter than in previous years? Ask any Texan about that. Why can they not remember the past to comprehend that climate change is really and truly happening?

Why do American conservatives forget that sometimes rape leads to pregnancy? (I will chalk this one up to the push for American schools to replace science courses with "intelligent" design.)

Back in 2007 and 2008, some religious conservatives claimed that if Obama became the President then the Pledge of Allegiance would be gone, that it would be the end of the Boy Scouts, that abortion would be accessible to anyone anytime, that all private guns would be seized, and that pornography would be on display at all gas stations. But Obama has been president for four years and none of these things came to be! So why did we hear more of these pathetic claims during the last campaign? Why can't conservatives remember that they tried this fear mongering last time to no avail?

What is keeping the typical American conservative from remembering any of these things? Is their collective amnesia merely a symptom of what John Kenneth Galbraith calls their “search for a superior moral justification for selfishness”?? This might explain the position of the wealthy patrons at Romney's fundraiser dinner in September. But it certainly does not really get at those conservatives who have trouble paying for the gas needed to run their vehicles.

It boggles the progressive mind as to why they would put all of their support behind a predatory capitalist like Mitt Romney and a hammer-the-working-class Tea Bagger like Paul Ryan?

Not very long ago, conservative pundit Ann Coulter stated emphatically that she wished the vote would be taken away from women so that the US would always have a Republican president. Is Coulter the one conservative who remembers something almost resembling a fact? That most American women eschew mean-spirited conservative agendas?

No, even the “devout & pious” Coulter suffers from amnesia - she recently tried to tell Americans that their military bombed Egypt under Obama’s directive. They didn’t bomb Egypt, of course, but we can forgive Coulter. After all, she is an avowed and proud American conservative and they all seem to be suffering from a major case of collective amnesia. 

For progressives, Obama is still the American President despite this amazingly widespread case of amnesia among conservatives.

But the actual popular vote was close. Yes, some conservatives are likely perturbed by the President's racial background. And to be sure, the billions spent on anti-Obama attack ads also must have been a factor in how close the vote actually was.

But there still must be millions of American commoners who legitimately believe that the Romney-Ryan ticket was somehow going to make life better for them.

The question that must be asked is this: What is it that leads these contemporary American conservatives to forget all of the things mentioned above?

* * * * *

Note #1: I do not wish to imply that Canadian conservatives have better memories than their ideological counterparts in the US. I live in Saskatchewan, a province where conservatism is now so entrenched that it would seem people here have completely forgotten what Tommy Douglas and the CCF and NDP provincial governments did for them. But the memory of the Canadian conservative is for a future post.

Note #2: I think American conservatives would do well to push for more likeable media pundits for their movement. Let's consider the following list of famous American media people who want their voice to be seen as representing "true" conservatism: there is the aforementioned Anne Coulter, of course, but lest we forget others such as Bill O'Reilly, Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Donald Trump! Let's face it, there is not a baby or toddler in the land that wouldn't shriek in absolute abject terror if any of these conservatives were to approach them, even if they were offering the child's favourite candy. (Actually, many adults I know would behave similarly if any of these infamous conservatives were walking towards them.) I think it is past time for American conservatives to get some new people to speak for them on their TV and radio media sources, and hand these five angry people their walking papers.

Musings About This American Presidential Election

These are the sociopolitical musings of a Canadian who really and truly cares about civil society in the United States of America.

Some of my friends, all of them progressives to varying degrees and all of them intelligent, would like to see Mitt Romney win the US Presidential election next week. They want to see this Romney-Ryan ticket take the White House so that the economic chaos that will undoubtedly ensue wakes up all but the most myopic and narrow minded conservative. This economic calamity, so their thinking goes, will convince Americans to rebel, throw out the Republicans once and for all, and get back to working on creating a civil society.

I disagree with them! The main reason I disagree is that I am worried that one more term of a Republican presidency, especially in this era of Tea Party Madness, will take their once proud and mighty country over the edge and into the abyss! (If pressed about what I mean by the “abyss,” I may have trouble answering. But somehow the success of the NRA comes to mind as being an influential aspect of what I am calling the abyss.)

No, I am a typical Canadian on this front: six out of seven of us want to see Obama win a second term. Call me naïve, but I really do think that given a second term with no chance at a third, Barack Obama will show progressive Americans and others that the inspiration he offered back in 2008 was for real, that he will realize that he needs to do more, especially around economic issues. Let’s face it, the Occupy Movement of 2011 was surprisingly massive, but it would have been even much larger in scope had there not been such a likeable figure as Obama in the White House. If the gap between the Top 1% and everyone else continues to unabatedly grow, the next social movement is unlikely to be so peaceful.

I believe that Obama understands this.

But let’s move the discussion away from Obama’s assumed political consciousness and over to what seems to be a false political consciousness among many American voters. And I use this phrase with confidence because outside of Warren Buffet and a few others, most of the 1% want to see the Republicans back in the White House, what with that party’s penchant for giving the wealthiest citizens large tax cuts.

If the polls are to be believed that it really is a close race, then I think it is fair to say that there are a lot of regular American commoners who are also supporting Romney and Ryan. This is where I want to spend the rest of this space for my sociopolitical musings.

More specifically, I want to look at the possible economic reasons as to why so many members of the 99% might vote for the man known as Mitt.

(As a brief aside, I realize that many conservative commoners vote solely for social reasons, but I just cannot bring myself to even discuss the recent Republican obsession with rape and the control of women. For those of you interested in this topic, check out this article in the UK's Guardian newspaper:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/oct/25/real-republican-party-rape-platform?fb=optOut       Nor am I going to address the fact that the Democratic candidate is a Black man. For this space, let’s keep the discussion on the economic side of things.)

In early September, as most of you will recall, the Mittster was caught on videotape telling a group of one per centers (who paid $50 grand just to hear the guy) that 47% of Americans feel the government should help them get housing, food, education and healthcare, and that he has nothing to offer this group except creating conditions to get them to feel a sense of responsibility to take care of themselves. Predictably, the polls showed a profound disgust for Romney telling it like it really is among corporate conservatives – Obama built up a seemingly insurmountable 10 to 12 point lead!

I really do want to thank Mitt Romney for so clearly demonstrating just how conservatism has evolved since the 1970s. Yes, for a long time conservatives in all western nations (including the U.S. and Canada) have called for a stable group of privileged people to lead their respective countries, to maintain tradition and social hierarchies based on race, gender and especially class. But the old conservatives would think about how best to move things along so that all of society, in their view at least, would benefit. (Yes, I do see problems with this theory, but they thought they were taking care of everyone.)

The Romney 47% Speech demonstrated what many of us had already figured out, namely, that contemporary wealthy conservatives no longer want to consider the whole of society. They are now completely concerned with entrenching their own power and increasing their bank accounts, even if it means the dismantling of the entire social welfare state and civil society.

So considering this, how the heck did Romney come back from 10-points down to bring the election polls to a virtual tie??

Apparently, Obama put in a poor performance during the first debate. Okay, sure. But could that possibly be the reason why so many Americans forgave Romney for the disparaging remarks about almost half the American population? Hardly. This is even more suspicious when one realizes that the vast majority of people who watch presidential debates are politically conscious people who have already made up their minds no matter what happens in the debates.

Methinks that the media coverage had something to do with the quick obliteration of Obama’s commanding lead.

But I do not want to dwell on the obvious fact that corporate media have corporate interests. I want to speculate on the political consciousness of those American commoners who will support the Republican ticket on November 6^th.

Let’s do a quick recap. The American economy went into a serious recession in late 2007 and 2008, with many Americans losing their jobs and their homes. Most economists rightly point to the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans passed by Republican George W Bush (remember him?) and those two unbelievably expensive wars for the huge economic crisis. (I would like to add the corporate desire for deregulation as a major factor, as well, but then we are also bringing Democrat Bill Clinton into the story. Both parties deregulated the financial industry to the point that the subprime mortgage debacle was a tragedy waiting to happen.)

So in 2008 Obama was elected on a message of hope, and now after four years a possible majority of Americans want to bring the Republicans back into power?? I mean, what gives??

A little more recap. Out of the ashes of the 2007-2009 economic recession arose a group calling themselves the Tea Party. They presented as a populist grassroots movement, but a quick study showed them to be nothing more than an astroturf  movement. How else can it be explained that Tea Party rallies and their successful election campaigns were entirely paid for by the billionaire Koch Brothers and groups the Koch Boys created like Americans for Prosperity? (Yes, this is the same group that sent thugs to break up Obama’s town hall meetings about his healthcare plans.)

All of a sudden political watchers heard a lot of loud and angry shouts for the economic system to be made even more brutal for the victims of the recession! We were shocked to see so much support for policies that would result in even more wealth being transferred from the 99% to the 1%!! I mean, seriously? Let's make sure the wealthy get an even greater percentage of the money??

The U.S. is currently experiencing the worst poverty rates since the Great Depression. Its environment is stressed beyond anything ever before. Its citizens are being incarcerated at higher rates than in any other country. Its public education system is falling behind most other western nations. And any young American from a regular background wishing to pursue a post-secondary education can expect a life of indentured servitude because of overwhelming student debt.

And still Romney might win the election? Maybe we should take a quick look at this guy and how he got to be so rich. Yes, he was born with a silver spoon, but some people still think he has a savvy business acumen to be able to get the American economy up and running much faster than what Obama has accomplished.

But does Romney really have an outstanding business acumen?

When I think of incredible business savvy and innovation I think of Henry Ford and the Model-T. I think of Walt Disney and his cartoons. Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak and the apple computer. So what is it about Romney and the way he made his fortunes that irks me?

Well, we have learned that Mitt was the CEO of some sort of venture capitalist operation called Bain Capital. We now know that Bain Capital is an outfit that looks for wounded companies, buys them up, guts what is useable and moves it out, leaving a shell of a company, many unemployed workers, and a string of bankruptcies. In short, Romney is what is known as a predatory capitalist. Is this really the kind of guy that a majority of American voters want to see in the White House?

I sure hope no one is going to trot out that pathetic trickle-down nonsense. We have been forced to listen to that discourse ever since the 1980s with the Reagan-Thatcher-Mulroney Triumvirate! All we have experienced from it is an incredible transfer of wealth to the wealthiest among us. Research has clearly shown that trickle-down economics is a hollow shell game, just like what Romney’s Bain Capital is all about. It does absolutely nothing to help civil society.

In this context, will Romney actually win the election next week?

If he does, we can only assume that there are myriad forces working against civil society. On this point, I would also like to highlight the influence of policies such as Citizens United, Super PACs, the role of fundamentalist churches, and strategies like destabilizing voter registration lists among groups who traditionally vote for the Democrats as reasons why the Republicans might come roaring back into power. Lest we forget, it has only been four short years since the complete and total disaster of the Bush-Cheney years.

But I would also like to highlight the incredible degree to which a false political consciousness has colonized the minds of far too many regular Americans. And for this we can thank a few select powerful conservatives.

The Koch Brothers. Remember them. And remember Rupert Murdoch and his nefarious minions at Fox News. They are the true enemies of American civil society.

There are many others, to be sure - some of them have the surname Walton. But I think it wise to focus on what Murdoch and the Koch Bros are up to behind the scenes.

I recall the old song by The Who with its angry chorus, “We Won’t Get Fooled Again!!” We can only hope that they were right, for the sake of American commoners, and for the sake of commoners the world over.

These are the sociopolitical musings of a Canadian who really and truly cares about civil society in the United States of America.

Go Obama !! Go Elizabeth Warren !!