darth head by Eric Froman
By: Maven Cade Leary
Stephen Joseph Harper was born under suspicious circumstances, first off, in Toronto, and second, the son of an Imperial Oil accountant. Then, he was on a Canadian television quiz show, some insane thing called “Reach for the Top”. And as if that wasn’t enough, he dropped out of University and found a job truly more worthy of his actual skills, in the mail room of Imperial Oil. A job no doubt only obtained as a favour to his father, and where, in a world with a better sense of justice, he would still be slaving away at today.
Somewhere along the line, he lost his real personality and became this mechanical looking freak with a dead fish glare in his eyes. But just before that, he realized that people are gullible, and that while they are quick to judge people they disliked, the general public has a really hard time reading a true poker face. Keep that weird ugly mask on, leave people unsure of what exactly is going on, slightly confused by the lack of any apparent soul, and you can really get ahead in life, despite a mounting pile of evidence supporting claims of your corruption.
He got himself a business degree from Calgary University, a part of the world where they realized a long time ago you can make a shit-load of money by raping and pillaging the lands, taking from nature everything she has to offer, leave nothing in return, and as long as you pay your redneck crew enough to drown in drugs and booze, you can do it with only a few petitions and small campaigns mounted in an attempt to halt your progress.
Of course, these half-baked plots to halt the economy are cast aside with the same impunity as any humanitarian organization by wealthy corporations the world over. The laws back these rabid rat bastards. It says in the Canadian Constitution very clearly that a province is entitled to make profit from even non-renewable natural resources, and this simply to reduce the rate of decline of an ever increasing debt. Now, the provinces are not directly reaping the benefits, but the big corporations pay them some money to keep their mouths shut, and this qualifies as the profit to the province constitutionally justifying the whole mess.
Basically, the health and property of all the future humans for a few dollars in some rich asshole’s suit pockets and up some oil worker’s nose today… But I have seriously deviated there, so let’s go back to the problem at hand.
Although the deviation isn’t that great. In short, Harper’s greatest academic achievement is a master’s degree in economics, which isn’t that bad for an individual in business. But he is the first Prime Minister of Canada since 1980 to not have a Law Degree. He was never one of the good guys. He never even pretended to care about the law, let alone justice. He was always very clearly one of the exploiters, one of the corrupt, the plague upon our world. He was in effect born into big oil, his first meal paid for by the raping and pillaging of our lands, his first toy funded by the same elitist, selfish, self-loathing pack of hyenas he is now leading into the corridors of our nation’s political system.
His first two attempts to join politics were halted by his disdain for the National Energy Program. What kind of an evil plan would go so far against his moral character as to make him flee in shame you ask?
From Wikipedia : “The NEP was designed to promote oil self-sufficiency for Canada, maintain the oil supply, particularly for the industrial base in eastern Canada, promote Canadian ownership of the energy industry, promote lower prices, promote exploration for oil in Canada, promote alternative energy sources, and increase government revenues from oil sales through a variety of taxes and agreements.”
Yeah, I can see how that would go against his values of mercantile exploitation of humans and nature.
At some point between his stints in politics, he led a lobbyist group supporting the exploitation of humans and the abuse of human rights, environmental atrocities, and the abolition of restrictions by the governments on all of the above, and third-party advertisements.
How someone with no moral integrity, with the imagination of a shark, and the brain of a sea urchin can climb the political food chain to find himself ruling the sheeple is beyond me, something that if I think about to long or too hard can make me lose some serious sleep.
I try and remember that one day you can be running the whole show, the next day chased in the streets like a stray dog with rabies. Such has happened in the past many times. But in this case, I suspect that rat has properly hedged his bets. He’s gonna make it out of the public light before we realize just how royally he bent us over a barrel and really pounded away at us.
We will be one sore country when we wake up with a hangover, hurting all over, not quite enough change in our pockets for a coffee, unsure how things could have degenerated so fast, and with more holes in our memories than a frat brat who intentionally rooffies himself.
The Harper Government has demonstrated a glorification of the military, a blatant disdain for human rights and freedom of expression, a clear penchant towards unrestricted commerce, controlled mass media, a tendency to attempt to rally support by using scapegoats as unifying agents for questionable policy implementations, and a very real obsession with crime and punishment.
“Well, I voted for that bastard”, said one wealthy Canadian diplomat I eagerly pleaded with to explain to me how we re-elected that insidious swine despite our clear understanding of everything he stood for. “Fact is, he will protect our money.”
And then it dawned on me. It wasn’t the politician’s fault. It wasn’t even the fault of the crooked industries, or the new world order. The fault was our own. We have been reduced to hapless sheep willing to trade away the remainder of our humanity for some security, some job stability, and the false inflation of our wealth by an out of control real-estate market. Our economy has been inflated with water-weight, much like a steroid user’s muscles, and while on paper, in digital accounts floating around in cyberspace, people who were born dirt poor, who once upon a time barely had enough for groceries (and often still struggle to make ends meet), are now, due to a little land claim or an investment portfolio reaping the benefits of the destruction of our environment, worth from the hundreds of thousands of dollars, to maybe a few million.
Now, as any true high-roller in the economic world knows, a million on paper isn’t worth much at all. By giving an appearance of wealth to these poor SOBs who once had integrity, they remove the will to stand up and change things, to put everything into jeopardy.
Once upon a time, we followed the Scandinavian countries’ example. Canadians were known the globe over as peace-keepers and forerunners in the social revolution meant to bring equality and justice to the world of politics. And then we got sidetracked, perhaps infiltrated, and suddenly, we were following the United States’ example, privatizing health care and prisons, augmenting prison sentences, selling out our economy and our environment to foreign interest groups, and allowing our troops to go stick their noses where it does not belong, pulled in tow by our new partners in crimes against humanity.
Hell, things might have gone south fast for us, but really, who else do we have to blame but ourselves? Even if some swine bastards are playing some bigger game, some fucked up version of Risk where our territory is merely a part of the map to be conquered, the responsibility to stand up for ourselves, for our environments, our children and the children of the entire planet’s future, that responsibility and burden is ours alone.
You cannot blame a carnivore for eating its prey any more than you can blame Harper for his actions. Such is simply the nature of our world. The strong and determined eat the weak and docile. If we have been tricked into submission, if we have lost the basic survival instincts required to realize when a trap has been sprung and we should start struggling, perhaps we deserve what we get.
Still, I am saddened that this is the lineage we risk leaving for future generations, one hell of a mess that can only end in one of three ways. Our mass extinction by some biological and/or nuclear weapons exchange, our subjugation of the entire galaxy as a Harper/Cheney hybrid Borg race, or miracles of miracles, our reversal of the current trends into an age of wisdom, reason, justice, peace, and prosperity.
While I hope for the latter, if I was a betting man, I would find something with better odds to waste my money on.
M.C. Leary