The Conservative Dictatorship

Conservative blogger and a founding member of the Blogging Tories, Stephen Taylor has called a spade a spade, he says of the Harpocrite Regime in Ottawa ; the evolving tradition of the Conservative Party's consultatively autarchic approach to PMO power.

For those of you that don't know here is the definition of autarchic.

autarchic

ADJECTIVE:

Having and exercising complete political power and control: absolute, absolutistic, arbitrary, autarchical, autocratic, autocratical, despotic, dictatorial, monocratic, totalitarian, tyrannic, tyrannical, tyrannous. See OVER, POLITICS.

Autarchy

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Autarchy, in American English can refer either to a form of self-government, or to the absolute rule of an individual. The word comes from the Greek autarkhos (απολυταρχία), "auto" meaning self and "arkhos" meaning "ruler".

Traditionally, autarchy refers to a system of absolutism (see also: autocracy, despotism, dictatorship, monocracy, tyranny). It also implies a state enjoying absolute sovereignty.

In its self-government meaning, autarchy refers to a libertarian idea, championed by Robert LeFevre, of stateless self-governance, distinct from anarchism (a system which many associate, rightly or wrongly, with violence).

However, in British English Autarchy is the same as the American equivalent, Autarky, meaning a national economic policy that aims at achieving self-sufficiency and eliminating the need for imports (by imposing tariffs, for example). Such a goal may be difficult, if not impossible, for a small country. Countries that take protectionist measures and try to prevent free trade are sometimes described as autarchical.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autarchy"

Category: Forms of government

And there is nothing conslutative about it, unless you mean that the Supreme Leader 'lets' people give him opinions which he may or may not listen to.

Which is what Temp PM Stephen Harpocrite has been doing. So the New PMO is no different than the Chretien one; whom Jeffery Simpson called the "Friendly Dictator" .

Like all autarch's the Harper has already purged his office of those who disagree with his bunker mentality. Harper fires spokesperson after early PR stumbles

Harper loses aide over Emerson row

William Stairs, the Prime Minister's director of communications, left Mr. Harper's office after what sources said were problems putting out the fire over Mr. Emerson's decision to leave the Liberals and join the Conservative Party.

The sources said Mr. Stairs departed after arguing 10 days ago that the PMO and the Prime Minister needed to deal more forcefully with the Emerson problem. The Prime Minister had kept mostly silent on the difficulties surrounding Mr. Emerson despite the urgings of Mr. Stairs and a number of other individuals within the government.

Mr. Stairs had been assigned the communications job after doing similar duties during the successful election campaign. But sources said the veteran Hill staffer, who had previously worked for Progressive Conservatives in the Senate and has been a long-time PC, ran into similar difficulties as those experienced by his predecessors. Mr. Stairs's departure makes him the third communications director to leave the job within the past 18 months or so, after James Armour and Geoff Norquay.

Now I hope that clears everything up and makes you all feel better, as I have said before this is Alberta Politics on the national stage.

The only difference between these two autarch's is the moustache. And notice how all autachs use the finger.















And for those of you who think that I am being harsh in comparing these two, just remember that in Russia Stalin is considered the hero of the Conservatives in that country. Those who support a strong state, family values, etc. etc.

This month is the Fiftieth Anniversary of Krushcheva's release of the Secret Testimony on Stalin that shook the CPC USSR to its foundation and laid the basis for its slow death which ended in that autarchies final burial in 1989.

The day Khrushchev buried Stalin

By Nina L. Khrushcheva, Nina L. Khrushcheva teaches international affairs at New School University in New York. Her latest book, "Visiting Nabokov," is forthcoming from Yale University Press.

It was only later, when I got older, that I learned about the "secret speech" my great-grandfather gave 50 years ago this week, in which he denounced the crimes committed by Stalin and the "cult of personality" that developed around him. The story of the speech is not a straightforward tale of good versus bad, of a benevolent, democratic leader replacing a tyrant. It is far more nuanced than that. Khrushchev, after all, had been one of Stalin's trusted lieutenants, who by his own admission "did what others did" — participating in the purges and repressions of the 1930s and 1940s, convinced that the total "annihilation of the enemy" had to be a communist's uppermost priority in order to ensure the shining future of international communism.

The most liberating events — Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign of 1956, or Boris Yeltsin's privatization of 1991 — generally end up in disillusion or disarray, suggesting that Russian society is never fast enough to digest modernization or patient enough to see the liberal changes through.

Instead, Russians look back fondly on their great victories and parades and, eventually, after short periods of thaw or perestroika, find themselves wanting their "strong" rulers back — the rulers who by inspiring fear provide a sense of orderly life, whose "firm hand" is associated with stability. Stalin's order was unbreakable while he lived; Vladimir Putin now promises a new order in the form of his "dictatorship of law."

Why Russia Still Loves Stalin
By Nina L. Khrushcheva

This is why the country rallies behind President Vladimir Putin. Putin promotes himself as a new Russian "democrat." Indeed, Russians view him less like the godlike "father of all nations" that Stalin was, and more like a Russian everyman -- a sign of at least partial democratization. Putin often notes that Russia is developing "its own brand of democracy." Translation: His modern autocracy has discovered that it no longer needs mass purges like Stalin's to protect itself from the people. Dislike of freedom makes us his eager backers. How readily we have come to admire his firm hand: Rather than holding him responsible for the horrors of Chechnya, we agree with his "democratic" appointment of leaders for that ill-fated land. We cheer his "unmasking of Western spies," support his jailing of "dishonest" oligarchs and his promotion of a "dictatorship of order" rather than a government of transparent laws.

Sacrificing Stalin

By Boris Kagarlitsky

Soviet society was never entirely monolithic. The proof of this can be found in the novels of Alexander Solzhenitsyn as well as in the Soviet archives. There was, however, a strong sense of a common fate and a common cause that united not just the working class and the bureaucratic elite, but even gulag inmates and their captors. The Stalinist regime was directly linked to the history of the Revolution. It was a sort of communist Bonapartism. It combined totalitarianism with democratic principles, fear and repression with enthusiasm and sincerity. This blend made the 20th Party Congress possible.

Outrage at revision of Stalin's legacy

After a number of delays, the "Stalin Museum" dedicated to the once-venerated Father of the People is due to be opened at the end of March in Volgograd, the World War II "hero city" once known as Stalingrad.

The project is being privately financed by local businessmen but will controversially enjoy pride of place in the official complex that commemorates the epic Battle of Stalingrad.

The museum will boast a writing set owned by the dictator, copies of his historic musings, a mock-up of his Kremlin office, a Madame Tussauds-style wax representation of him and medals, photographs and busts.

Svetlana Argatseva, the museum's future curator, told Ogonyok magazine she felt the project was justified.

"In France people regard Napoleon and indeed the rest of their history with respect. We need to look at our history in the same way."

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Little America

In the words of Michael Ignatieff; if Ukraine is just Little Russia to the Greater Russia Empire than Canada under Temp PM Stephen Harpocrite is Little America.

Not satisfied with creating a cabinet ala the U.S. cabinet, by appointment of non elected Ministers and floor crossers, nor by saying God Bless Canada during the election, now our Temp PM Stephen Harpocrite is carrying forth with yet another non campaign promise; Opening the appointment of judges to parliamentary review mirrors the system now in place in the United States. Yep what's good fer America is good for Canada.

This controversial, rushed change to the way the Supreme Court is appointed threatens to undermine an institution that is universally respected for its professionalism, integrity and independence. Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin very properly raised concern in 2003 about any process that appoints judges "in a manner that gives more weight to partisan politics." Just this month she reiterated her plea to "avoid politicizing" a process that has given us a superb judiciary.The Canadian Bar Association shares that view. "The CBA strongly opposes any system that would publicly expose judges to partisan criticism of their judgments or cross-examination of their personal beliefs or preferences," bar president Brian Tabor warned yesterday.

And it's damn well about time says the mouth of the south, southern Alberta that is......"All I can see in the Supreme Court are nine lawyers in red dresses, who need very badly to be taken down a peg." Ted Byfield, Calgary Sun.

Damn them activist judges....making the State obey it's own laws like the Constitution.Toews and Harper have both been vocal critics of "activist" judges that they contend overstep the role of the judiciary in interpreting the laws made by elected officials.

And being effette latte liberals in dresses, not a manly man amongst them.

But while some Conservatives will embrace this Republican lite approach by Harper,I have to ask real conservatives how they stand on such a challenge to her majesty's parlimentary system,one that truly allowed for an independent judiciary, regardless of the political party that put them in power. Or have all the Conservatives in Canada embraced a strange mix of Reaganism and Blairism forgetting their good old English Tory traditions. And how can real conservatives support such an Americanization of the Canadian State? Where are the Monarchists now?!

Ah the confusion and conundrum that this will put them into is delicious. As the Conservatives claim one thing and do another; • A belief in loyalty to a sovereign and united Canada governed in accordance with the Constitution of Canada, the supremacy of democratic parliamentary institutions and the rule of law; Founding Principles

Opps there is that little contradiciton tucked away there; the 'supremacy of democratic parilimentary institutions', which I guess does not include the Supreme Court. Nor the Senate. The next non-campaign promise to come is of course Senate Reform. Another non-issue in Canada except in Alberta.

Finally this is the first move in the Conservatives attempt to change the nature of the Canadian state to suit their Republican Lite agenda, one that is all tactics while waiting for a majority government to make their strategy clear.

Harper plan draws fire

"It really gives the appearance that the judges have to answer to the politicians, and our democracy is set up very clearly to ensure the judiciary is independent from the executive branch," said former CBA president Susan McGrath.

"We can't afford to compromise our system of government that has served the Canadian people so well since 1867."

NDP justice critic Joe Comartin agreed it will lead to the "circus-style" grilling observed in the U.S.

Comartin said candidates should instead be screened in closed-door interviews with clear boundaries on the line of questioning.

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The Limits of Freedom

When we go to hang the last Aristocrat it will be the capitalist who sells us the rope. V.I. Lenin

"Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one." A. J. Liebling.

"Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace. I simply do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night," Rep. Tom Lantos, the ranking Democrat on a House International Relations subcommittee on human rights. Lantos' California district includes Silicon Valley.U.S. Congress Grills Internet Execs On China Policies

The computer search engine corporations are under attack for wanting to do business with China. Wal-Mart isn't of course, nor is Pepsi. Nor is Nike or Adidas put under scrutiny for the forced labour used to make their products in China or Vietnam. And China is now a member of the WTO, what's with that?

LABOUR-VIETNAM:
Wildcat Strikes Pay Off
Aaron Glantz and Ngoc Nguyen
HO CHI MINH CITY , Jan 17 (IPS) - More than a dozen strikes by more than 40,000 workers in Ho Chi Minh City's export processing zones have forced the Vietnamese government to raise the country's minimum wage by nearly 40 percent .

It appears that America expects to have corporations function by two different sets of rules when it comes to China and other state capitalist regimes in the region such as Vietnam. Human Rights when its convenient for some and not others. Its downright Orwellian.Big corporations making $32 billion a year from sweatshops

The Internet coporations are held to a different level of morality as businesses, because the Internet is seen as the ultimate function of the American First Amendment. It is the new press, the new means of communications, the new media. So to rephrase A.J.Liebling, the Freedom of the Internet belongs to those who own it.

And it is the U.S. and it's corporations over all that own it, despite efforts this past year to internationalize that ownership. And it is U.S. corporations that are trying to expand their ownership into countries like China that have sovereign Internets. Just as they have they have their own TV stations, Media and newspapers.


But the U.S. Congress is all upset that Google,Yahoo, Cisco Systems and Microsoft are censoring internet access at the demand of the Chinese state. Yet these American High Tech businesses give the same excuses as given by the Bush Administration and by the big corporations for doing business with China,they all see China as a huge consumer market; "by being there and doing business we will bring freedom."

Tear down China's `Great Firewall'

Published February 19, 2006

WASHINGTON -- Not a moment too soon, Congress is turning up the heat on the cozy relationship that Internet giants Google, Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems conduct with China's cyber-police. Top executives from the four firms testified last week before a House subcommittee. The most intriguing questions concerned morality. The spokesmen said that although their companies don't like China's censorship of the Web, censored information is better than none. Besides, they argued, companies have to comply with the laws of the countries in which they operate.

That's true companies have to abide by the laws of the countries they operate in. And the United States and European Union countries demand that these same companies give them access to confidential and private user information do so because they want to stop terrorism, or halt access to child porn, or some other hot button issue that is a red herring.

The State, any State, even the most democratic state still wants to punish free speech because it is an affront to the morality of the state; law and order. Ironically while human rights activists have complained about China and the U.S. Congress is investigating the Chinese censorship of the Internet, the Chinese throw these very reasons back in their faces.

To the Chinese State the Falun Gong cult are considered a terrorist anti-State organization, the Tibetan resistance equates with the Puerto Rican nationalists who spent thirty years in jail in the U.S. ( a country that like China claims it too has no political prisoners) and of course every state justifies censorship through the ultimate bugaboo; child porn on the net.

In a rare public statement this week about Internet filtering, Liu Zhengrong, who supervises Internet affairs for the information office of China's State Council, asserted that China blocks only a "tiny percentage" of Web sites that are available abroad. At a briefing reported by the New York Times, he said that regulating the Web is designed to protect children and that his government's efforts differ little from the controls of other nations, including the United States.

Before the doubting Thomases or in this case the doubting Lantos can sputter that American censorship is different, let's remember that only weeks ago the U.S. government used child porn as an excuse to attempt to gain unprecedented access to Googles internal records. Using the U.S. Patriot act will be next.

Only because the U.S. has the First Amendment was Google able to thwart the state. But the state still used 'child porn' as its excuse for its suspicious and nefarious attempt to look at all of Googles records. Crime is always the excuse the state uses to end freedom of speech, it is the criminalization of dissent. America does it so does China.

But the real reason that the Americans are concerned is not about Freedom of Speech for oppressed Chinese citizens, not with millions of them accessing the net everyday now. Nope it comes down to good old capitalist competition. China wants technology, and access to technology, and one of the best ways of doing that is hacking. Cyberwarfare. Underneath the U.S. concern for human rights is its concern for maintaining its technological and military secrets.

The big high tech companies want to know how China builds it's firewalls and internet security systems, and China wants to export that security abroad. Its good old capitalist competition in the realm of high tech.

At least three dozen governments around the world try hard to control the online environment. Many of the most extensive efforts are found in regimes in the Middle East, in places like Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates, according to the OpenNet Initiative. Asian regimes, like Uzbekistan, Burma and Vietnam also filter the Internet. But no state approaches the censorship-and-surveillance apparatus of China. It's therefore not surprising that censorship has become a popular Chinese export. Techniques and software for Internet control, developed in China, are now being applied in countries like Vietnam and Iran.

China has also proved that censorship pays: it has developed a successful model for how government and business can collaborate to censor a nation's Internet activities. This model could be applied in any country. If we're not careful, we may wake up one day to discover that what a person can see and do on the Web will be radically different depending on which country he or she lives in: the Internet will become "The Internets." And U.S. tech firms won't have much of value left to sell if the Internet ceases to be the wonderful, world-connecting thing it is today. They must find a way to make their money in China without checking their values at the border. Morality aside, the long-term survival of their industry depends on it.

Rebecca MacKinnon is a fellow and John Palfrey is clinical professor of law and executive director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard Law School. Opinion: Censorship Inc. Newsweek

And the U.S. government and its military industrial complex wants this information too. The better to spy on its own citizens. But what really concerns them is that if the Chinese can build such effective software applications that can monitor search engines and sweep the web. What is stopping them from using their hacks and hackers through these same search engines as backdoors to snoop on the U.S. and steal the technological and military secrets it needs. That is the real story here, not Human Rights. Its all a matter of cyberwarfare and intellectual property rights, not Human Rights.

China focus of Pentagon security study

The Daily Yomiuri, Japan - 4 Feb 2006

In connection with the third point, the QDR said the choices made by China, India and Russia "will be key factors in determining the international security environment of the 21st century."

Most of the 92-page review focused on China. The QDR expressed concerns about the rapidly developing nation, saying, "China continues to invest heavily in its military, particularly in its strategic arsenal and capabilities designed to improve its ability to project power beyond its borders."

The review went on to criticize the secrecy surrounding China's military buildup, stating, "The outside world has little knowledge of Chinese motivations and decision-making, or of key capabilities supporting its military modernization."

It also pointed out that China has been focusing on developing nonconventional military capabilities, such as those related to electronic and cyberwarfare. It expressed concerns about this, saying they were "disruptive military technologies that could, over time, offset traditional U.S. military advantages."

At a press briefing following the release of the QDR, Ryan Henry, U.S. principal deputy defense undersecretary for policy, expressed the Pentagon's strong concern over China's increasing influence in the East Asian and Pacific regions. "We think China should have a military capability sufficient to meet its genuine security needs," Henry told reporters.

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You and Climate Change

Download the experiment | Help/FAQ | My details | During the experiment | User map Climate change homepage Help/FAQ Report a problem

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Black Herstory Month: Lucy Parsons

Forgotten in the pages of Black History is the unique voice of the 19th Century Afro-American, Immigrant, Native, Womens, Workers Struggle in the United States. I am speaking of the Anarchist and Wobbly Lucy Parsons, wife of the Haymarket Martyr Albert Parsons. An excellent article on her importance to modern day struggles for social justice is; Lucy was her name and a lifetime struggle was her game Nice to see someone else remembers Lucy.

I posted this at my bloglines site last year:

February is Black History Month and March is Womens History Month. While March 8 is International Womens Day.

To celebrate I give you one of the greatest overlooked African American Women: Lucy Parsons.

Wife of Haymarket Anarchist, Albert Parsons, Lucy went on to be a founding member of the IWW.

"Lucy Parsons was an African, Native and Mexican-American revolutionary anarchist labor activist from the late nineteenth and 20th century America. Emerging out of the Chicago Haymarket affair of 1886, in which eight anarchists were imprisoned or hung for their beliefs, Lucy Parsons led tens of thousands of workers into the streets in mass protests across the country. Defying both racial and gender discrimination, she was at the forefront of movements for social justice her entire life. She sparked rebellion and discontent among poor and exploited workers wherever she spoke, and her fiery, powerful orations invoked fear in authority nationwide."

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More Hack Attacks on Windows

PC World is reporting that once again the wonderful world of Bill Gates is under attack, which hurts you and me...not his bottom line of course. If you build it the hackers will come....why can't you get a good set of blinds for windows?

Windows Flaw Makes Surfing Riskier Also: Hackers may use Outlook e-mail messages to take over your computer.

Two examples of computer code that exploit a flaw in Windows Media Player have become available only days after Microsoft released a patch to fix the bug.

Windows Media Player Worm Set To Strike

An exploit against the Windows Media Player vulnerability disclosed by Microsoft two days ago may be only hours away from hitting unpatched users, a security company said Thursday.

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Stephen Mulroney Brian Harper

So who is our new PM? Stephen Mulroney it appears, or is it Brian Harper? Mulroneyites are calling the shots in the backrooms of the new government as I have pointed out here much to the chagrin of all the young neo-cons who are Blogging Tories.

Insiders say the two men appreciate that each offers a quality lacking in the other. Harper is the studious policy wonk, Mulroney the crafty old-school politician.

And it makes perfect sense, despite the Reform/Alliance origins of the Conservatives, the old boys that sought to regain power, those not Progressives/Red Tories of the Clark variety, rallied around the McKay merger.

The could smell the blood in the water after Adscam. It was they who ran both McKay and Stronach against Harper, sending him a message that this was no longer Presto's party.

The message was hammered home after the Harperites failed to get elected in 2004, their new Conservative alliance held their first Consvention in 2005 and the writing was on the wall. The social conservatives were not as powerful as they thought. Abortion was off the table. The only sop they got was over Same Sex Marriage. Most other Convention issues, including bi-lingualism, long time bugaboo of the Reform/Alliance unilingual English first types, were also accepted despite the right wing Reformers. The party moved to the centre, thanks to the pull of the backroom boys. The Mulronites.

Then their crowning moment came last summer when Harper failed to bring down the government. His authoritarian leadership challenged by Stronach crossing the floor, left the Harperites with egg on their face and with no plan to appeal to the centre, which spelled sure defeat in any upcoming election.

The night of the long knives happened and over the summer Harper purged his inner circle and embraced Mulroney and his back room boys for advice.

Having been out of power so long and knowning full well that the Manning style of Reform/Alliance politics may sell in the West they didn't in the rest of Canada, especially Quebec, Harper needed the Mulronite machine to win. As a result he made a deal with devil. And the rest is history. We have gone back to the future, forward to the past.

Until there is another election expect that Mulroney will be the eminence de gris in the Harper Government. His Cardinal Richelau. For without him Harper cannot govern. For the Reformers/Alliance have always been a populist opposition party not fit to govern, nor prepared to.

Nor should we expect the Mulroneyites to give up power, now that they have achieved it again. Harper may be his own man for now, but Mulroney is the ultimate political animal, and he will make sure that his puppet government dances as he wants it too. He will do it with a smile and a kinfe behind his back, as Joe Clark can testify to. Harper will be given leeway to think he is doing things his way, but in the backrooms where the real power lies, it is now in the hands of BM.

Harper has made a deal with the devil and sold his soul for power. Principles, well those went out the door January 24.


Also see:

Not Your Daddies Conservative Party, well maybe...

Derek Burney Voice of America

The Tories First Scandal

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