We live in the age of Joeseph Goebbels

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

Joseph Goebbels

This is the modus operandi of Harper and his Conservative government.

Since WW2, the big lie is the main tactic of ruling governments and those in power will do anything to remain in power.

Democracy and the freedom of speech, the forms that our politicians and their mainstream media henchmen preach almost daily just do not exist in this country.

@# Grumpy

Democracy in the USA? Democracy in Canada? Democracy anywhere? "The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie."

P.T. Barnum said it, "You can fool all of the people some of the time..." But when you control the media and say over and over again, that same mantra? "Thou shalt not disagree with Harper".. "Thou shalt not disagree with Harper".. "Thou shalt not disagree with Harper"..

The evidence that Harper is so ready to kill, comes from the same source as the evidence that proves his fundamentalist, "creationist" religious theories are completely wrong.

Stephen Harper is about as far right as any Christian fundamentalist can go. That is a fact that is not said enough, over and over and over again by the Harper friendly media.

What surprises me is that

What surprises me is that anybody is surprised over Harper's actions. The man is a visible mental case and walking disaster area, born without conscience.

I've been writing for many tears that I have seen those expressionless, brutal eyes under Totenkopf and Red Star caps.

The cosy relationship between the leaders of our "conservative" capitalists and the communists in China, conspiring to supply them with resources to take over the world is the best example of their brotherhood and what the world can expect from them.

Ed Deak.

Actually it was Abe Lincoln who said...........

............"You can fool all of the people some of the time..."

P. T. Barnum said; "There is a sucker born every minute."

It is my firm belief that anyone that people belonging to organized religion should be declared unfit for public office.

a reminder : this is want Canadians want

Canada 2011

Conservative 166
New Democratic 103
Liberal 34
Bloc Québécois 4
Green 1

BC 2011

Conservative 21
New Democratic 12
Liberal 2
Green 1

You don't need facts in heaven.

Or hell.

This is not what Canadians voted for

Peasant43: More than 60% of Canadians voted for something different than what we got in the last federal election. Virtually all of that 60% voted for something to the left of what we got. So, no, the Conservative government is not a representative government, thanks to our electoral system.

Ideologies are also forms of

Ideologies are also forms of religions, divorced from realities, as shown by some of our friends on this list.

Monetary economics are bona fide religious theories based on "faith", with the so called "economists" acting as the Priesthood of the Money God who keeps promising "prosperity", but delivers poverty, disguised as "austerity", while increasing the powers of special interests that used to be called "aristocracies, chosen by God".

There's nothing new in history, all this has happened, under various guises, for thousands of years and the suckers are still falling for the same faith based garbage.

Ed Deak

What surprises me, Fiat lux

... is that there is a nation full of folks who believe that perhaps some other Party leader would behave significantly different than Harper if put in to the prearranged seat of power.

But, then again, 'belief is the death of intelligence'. ;)

Facts and Beliefs

At home, believe what you want. In the restof the world however, your decisions should be based on evidence and facts. Prime Mistake Harper is a believer in the Pentecostal Missionary Alliance way of thinking about the world and it dismisses the evidence of science. As his buddy republican Senator Inhofe of Oklahoma repeats continuously, God makes all the climate change and global warming decisions for the earthlings, humans have nothing to do with it. Thanks Prime Mistake and Senator Inhofe for your beliefs but please keep them at home and let us make decisions about the real world with real evidence.

since all non-believers are destined for hell

there can be no sin in rounding them up and exterminating them. God wills it.

seriously sick body politic

Harper is not the first, just the latest and worst symptom of our seriously sick body politic. He is an evil man, and I don't mean in the theological sense, but in the psychological sense as used by Philip Zimbardo.

The very system itself is corrupt. Politicians and bureaucrats like to consider themselves public servants, but they serve their corporate masters and themselves first, taking the very best portions of the public wealth and serving the crumbs to the poorest citizens to whom that wealth actually belongs.

The poor can only be 'eaten' for so long before they turn the table and begin 'eating' the rich.

As ignorant as Harper

Grumpy's commenta that "anyone in organized religion. "fundamentalist theories" and banning "religious people" from elected office are among the most ignorant comments imaginable. Such mindless irrational fanaticism is worse than anything the Harper Tories could hit us with. Grab a brain, Grumpy. Fight fire with fire, not stupidity.

stevebailey why should myth

stevebailey why should myth and superstition be involved in running the country? people who believe in something that is not real are mentally ill.

Works both ways

Works both ways folks, I see it all the time. The Tyee is actually worse than Harper by a long shot. they just don't happen to be our present dictator.

Fiat Lux

All interesting comments so far.
Although FL, to agree with you I'd have to believe you. Since you are not logically debating a situation, you are promoting a belief. You are therefore now one of them.

Its a stretch. A fun one for the acerbic among us. I agree that to have all play the same economic game demands a reliance on conformance to a principle, but that is still not religion. That is just a handy way to identify oneself as part of some class war.

But I like the argument anyway, as it points out the fact to me that our ecosystem doesn't give a rat's petooty what economic theories we have all agreed upon. They are meaningless rules when we have exhausted the ability for this ecosystem to allow our survival to continue.

Ideologies may not have value, and don't need to have value to be, but being unreal doesn't necessarily make them religions.

But religion in a true sense can be a handy method of forming public opinion, and so rejecting the data upon which our long term survival depends for short term gain. It helps that the people in control of our resources actually believe in the religion...probably...maybe...you think? I don't think it is mandatory.

Anyway, I guess I get your point.

Fascism

What we are witnessing is the successful suppression of democracy, the usurpation of citizen power by corporations, and the rise of fascism in Canada.

MSM

Here is an idea. Do not buy MSM newspapers or magazines, do not tune in to MSM channels. Completely ignore MSM. MSM means any company that owns more than one newspaper and/or station in more than one town.
Go to the internet for your news and information.
By reading or watching MSM you are paying for Harper's propaganda with your after tax income.

David.....Ideologies are

David.....Ideologies are pseudo religions and I have lived under every one, including the governments of Hitler, Stalin, Attlee and Churchill, just to name some big names. In other words, I have seen them all.

I used to have a custom furniture shop on Powell nr.Victoria when Mao's Little Red Book was the craze. I was working high up on a ladder on the front of the shop, fixing something, when a young guy came slowly walking down the street, reading the Red Book.

He walked under my ladder, without apparently noticing it and as he was past, he knelt down on the sidewalk and kept reading the book.

When you see some of the political rallies, the mass behavour, the hysteria is the carbon copy of any fundamentalist religious rally.

Faith conquers all, especially logical thought, which includes some university courses, like neoclassical economics.

Ed Deak.

peasant 43

"What luck for rulers that men do not think”
- Adolf Hitler

The people are absolved from any further obedience

"Native Americans’ resistance to the westward expansion of Europeans took two forms. One was violence. The other was accommodation. Neither worked. Their land was stolen, their communities were decimated, their women and children were gunned down and the environment was ravaged. There was no legal recourse. There was no justice. There never is for the oppressed. And as we face similar forces of predatory, unchecked corporate power intent on ruthless exploitation and stripping us of legal and physical protection, we must confront how we will respond.

...

“Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power,” wrote the philosopher John Locke, “they put themselves into a state of war with the people who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/156204/time_to_get_crazy%3A_what_we_can_learn_from_native_american_resistance_to_colonists%27_greed

Triablism in Canadian politics

Many of us are guilty of tribalism and until we can get beyond this, we will continue to have this dichotomy of left and right. I you haven't already, have a listen to this TED address.
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

Follow the Money

Every political and economic situation that over-rides environment, people, our ability to thrive, everything, can be evaluated in the long run, just follow the money to the very top, and I certainly don't mean the Canadian PM.

Logical influence

With Harper ensuring corporate oil and gas investment will be met in Canada with financial and legislative support, along with all the new secretive legislation and spending, one can only wonder how much these flunkies are receiving in "extra" funds, also known as "graff, payola, bribes".

In reality, Canada is not the only country with these woes - for example, recently, the LA Times online has repeatedly reported political payoff scandals that are destroying the state.

To say it is not happening in Canada is foolish and naive. Our police should be monitoring the con and BC mobs all the time - I am convinced many would be arrested very quickly.

boondoggle

Hitler...don't buy it for a second. They're thinking clearly.

Canadians may be passive aggressive compared with Yanks. They'll wave a green flag in public, but they want their FPP electoral system, minivans, McMansions, and RRSPs.

The worse it gets environmentally/economically the more Harpers there are going to be...better get used to it.

Science?

Why were only biologists represented? I assume that they are all "wildlife" biologists rather than those working on DNA sequencing or working on transforming the environment for the production of animals and plants for human use (also called agriculture) or cell theory or genetics. How about researchers working in the fields of chemistry or physics? How about engineers who use the monitoring data to design and build infrastructure? So, the demonstration was mainly by wildlife biologists trying to protect their grants, except for maybe those trying to save the ELA.

hg: MSM

hg wants everyone to ignore the mainstream media and get their information off the internet. I assume he/she is kidding since the main stream media owns most of the news sites on the internet and The Tyee took this article from the main stream media.

Censoring evidence is suicidal insanity

Hey, Ed, I never walked under your ladder, but there were some good ideas in Mao's little red book, amidst all the rubbish.

Uninspected frames of reference often determine the blind zeal of the group.

Like any orthodoxy, political, religious or economic, one must critically cherry pick the worthwhile stuff and heave the rest.

Some notions need to be kept in a skeptical limbo until deeper analysis and verification can legitimately place them on the quality stack or the trash pile.

Scientists, despite some of their foibles, including arrogance and inflexibility, as they practice sometimes quasi-religiously in their ivory towers, are still our best qualified individuals to rely on unbiased evidence to determine what's really happening amidst all the contradictory cacophony.

Some evidence is open to interpretation, mostly because the research is incomplete, but other evidence is much more straightforward, unless the frame of reference is lacking.

A killing bolt of lightning could be interpreted as the wrath of God, but if that were the case, only our worst would be struck. Evidence does not support this.

Neo-classical economics has some value, but it is not based on solid, long-term evidence. Adam Smith would roll over in his grave to see how it evolved.

Remove good quality evidence and any unsupported statement, such as the need for harsher Canadian laws are needed to reduce the increasing criminal activity now occuring. Without opposing evidence, even more sheep would believe it.

The game is now to falsify good evidence, such is propaganda. Jewish skulls were inferior to German ones, although anyone growing up together knew it to be untrue. Let's dump pollutants in waterways because marine life there has little or no value. Climate change is a myth, nothing to do with humans.

Both sides present evidence, some more reliable than other. If uncertain, place it in that limbo category, don't throw it all out without scrutiny.

That's not what's happening now in Canada. It's the worst of Tea Party style evidential censorship, much worse than even under the W Bush regime, a true form of suicidal insanity.

Ernest:

the people you want monitored OWN the police.

Evidence Base

Wouldn't it be nice if everyone thought like us: the scientists, researchers, the ever-vigilant protectors of the facts? Here's a fact: as a profession we continually and collectively FAIL at getting our message across to main-stream media. Why is that? Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't dare over- generalize... there are some who are good at both. Our own 1%...

If we are being honest & fighting to protect the factual domain, how many conferences have you attended where one of the topics Wasn't 'knowledge translation', or whatever terminology was in favor that year. We hold evidence in the highest esteem; love logical, well-reasoned arguments and think of ourselves as always open to having our assertions proven false. We congratulate each other on groundbreaking work- while the rest of Canada goes on with life. It's damn frustrating! However....

... the Ottawa rally. AMAZING!! Everyone who participated, from the speakers to the last person to show up - you were perfect! THIS is what can happen when we stop being so focused on our own obsession.. *ahem, I mean work for more than two minutes, look around us and say 'THIS IS WRONG', we have to be the protectors of evidence and we CAN'T stand by and watch.

The comments about people bing shocked, how the 'scientist's revolt' was so out of character that it could not be ignored.. But we they shocked because of a lack of awareness of the issue or because of their image of a 'scientist'. Because we are one hell of a passionate group - our work happily occupies our thoughts day and night. Research is not just a job or a way of earning a living, it represents the very core of our values and beliefs! You don't work an entire career on a subject without feeling it in your bones.

I think that the shock came a bit from both directions, but I worry more about the awareness. That is what made this rally so perfect: awareness raised! If politicians can have a 'supporter' base, why shouldn't we create our own 'evidence' base?

I was and still am so proud of the scientific community, coming together to defend reason, logic and evidence.

Next time it will be 4000...and I'll be there.

Owl.....We can find merits in

Owl.....We can find merits in the theories of the craziest. When Hitler took over starving, depression ridden Germany in 1933 the country was booming and the envy of Europe within months, but this doesn't excuse his later crimes.

Albeit some of our politicians could find out what he did and how?

One of the biggest frauds going now is the use of Adam Smith's "ìnvisible hand" theory to justify the biggest crime wave in history, just as the communists have been and are using Marx as the excuse for their crimes.

All Adam Smith wrote was that investments in "domestick" industries will bring the investors unforeseen benefits.

Now the "domestick" investments are going to China, but Smith's "invisible hand" is still praised for them.

The list of similar frauds enslaving and mass murdering people is endless, yet most of them may have originated with some innocent and even good ideas used by crooks as weapons.

Ed Deak.

Agenda of Rapture

"Stephen Caligula Harper will fall, our Emperor wears no clothes, there will be no reasoning, Harper and Harperism will not pause, no second thoughts, a straight path towards some distorted oil-soaked rapture, like a pit bull shaking and crushing the neck of a poodle, where even the owner of the pit bull can`t stop its own dog, where calls and demands to cease fall on deaf ears, only a bullet will stop the pit bull, Harper too will not stop, you can`t reason with one led by a god, even if that god is Satan. The only question is how much permanent damage will be done before sanity is returned to Ottawa"

http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.ca/2012/06/silence-of-lambs.html

Bible Belt Stevie

Canada is currently in the grip of a secretive evangelical cult that denies all science and research.
We are also in big trouble, as we continue to fall behind the rest of the world in R&D, which creates a gap that can never be regained.

Harper "knows" that the world

Harper "knows" that the world was created in 7 days , 7,000 years ago and all the apparently old fossils and rocks were only put there to test our faith.

As Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, James Watt said it: " When the last tree is cut the Lord will return"

....and then we can see the true faithful, like Harper, shed their clothes and fly to heaven with Rapture.

What a beautiful sight that will be.....

Ed Deak.