Obfuscation

This is a copy of a Facebook post belonging to a friend of a friend. Re-posted with permission.


"So a number of you have asked that I momentarily come out of my self-imposed Facebook exile to comment on the current Canadian election campaign. I’ve politely denied these requests as my reasons for leaving FB are still very valid, but then I started to notice a disturbing trend:

Canadians are turning into a bunch of racist a**holes.

Let me put it plainly…

If you believe that the current controversy regarding the wearing of the Niqāb by Muslim women at the Canadian Citizenship Ceremony is anything other than a desperate, cynical attempt by the Harper re-election machine to distract the populace from what is arguably the worst job performance by any Prime Minister in our young country’s history then please do us and your children’s children a favour and step away from the adult’s table; go play in the corner with all the other victims of the Conservatives' glaringly obvious attempts at obfuscation and misdirection and talk about whatever ridiculous conspiracy theories you’ve been parroting on their behalf over the last 8 years. Please step away from the rest of us who aren’t fooled by Harper’s desperate – but sadly effective – machinations and while you’re doing that please do us one last favour:

Don’t vote.

Please don’t vote because if you do we’ll not only be the last generation to fully remember the dream that was Canada but we’ll also be the generation responsible for killing it.

Don’t believe me? Here’s a name I want you to Google: Lynton Crosby.

This is the guy Harper’s just hired to ‘advise’ his campaign. Crosby is a monster. He’s been called Australia’s Karl Rove and is a master at negative campaigning and ‘wedge’ issues, specifically race politics. The Niqāb policy and the current ‘Old Stock Canadian’ comments are rife with his handwriting. He’s a master of dark, divisive politics and the fact that Harper’s even talked to him should alone be a reason not to vote Conservative, let alone the fact he’s now essentially a member of staff.

The Muslims aren’t coming to get us; never were, never will. The fact is, countries in the Middle East have always had far more to fear from us than we have from them. ISIL didn’t spring out of some evil impulse mysteriously lying at the core of Islam, it sprang out of the inevitable blow-back which results after a poor region is subjected to over 5 decades of the most cynical interventions of rich regions; from the 1953 Iranian coup d'état to the Iraq War, the West’s hands are covered in blood. Don’t get me wrong: ISIL are no more than a gang of near-illiterate thugs who probably should all be shot; on this point no one – not the West, not the vast majority of the Middle East – disagrees. The point however, is that while most people in the Middle East understand where the aggression comes from, very few people in the West do…

…and this is what Harper is counting on.

I’ve gone through the citizenship process and if the Canadian one is anything like the British (which it is, I’ve checked) then what everyone needs to really know is that by the time you get to the ceremony bit of the process – which is truly just that: ceremonial – you’ve been interviewed, vetted, checked and re-checked dozens of times over a period of about 5 years. To think that someone can just show up on the day of the ceremony with his or her face covered, be handed the certificate and then go “fooled you!” is madness.

If you honestly believe this is even remotely possible then congratulations because a): you’re as exactly gullible as Stephen Harper needs you to be, and b): you’ve successfully wasted a tremendous amount of time and brain power on an imaginary non-issue which could’ve been better spent on the actual horrors Harper has foisted upon the Canadian public - chief among these being a complete contempt for those organizations promoting the rights and equality of women. From canceling the nascent national child care program to closing 12 of the 16 Status of Women offices to his immobility on pay equity to his cozy (and secret) $15 billion arms deal with the notoriously anti-female government of Saudi Arabia, Harper has shown he has far more in common with those he claims to protect us against than he has with the majority of the Canadian public…

…that is, if the Canadian public is the same one I used to be part of and on that I’m growing increasingly unsure.

I hope ordinary Canadians will come ‘round. That’s the trouble with Facebook though is that everyone ends up speaking to the converted. Those of you who’ve gotten this far in my little diatribe probably were on my side of the fence to begin with. It’s very frustrating because Canada’s always been more or less immune to this type of U.S. style horses***. Maybe it’s ‘our side’ who are really the gullible ones, believing Canadians were better than the Americans, British, Australians and numerous others this has already fooled - because fear seems to be working for Harper. Not even the fact that he’s had the worst economic record of any Prime Minister since the war seems enough to overpower this carefully cultivated manipulation.

Harper has destroyed - or is in the middle of destroying - virtually every institution that stood Canada apart and above every other Western nation. I write this as someone who’s had his right to vote stripped away. The most basic tenet of democracy has been denied me and 1.4 million other Canadians but all everyone can talk about is whether an immigrant who has spent thousands of dollars and endured years of bureaucracy to become Canadian should be allowed to wear a bit of cloth on her face.

Well, at least she’ll get to vote.

Thanks for reading, I’ll be back in FB exile until after the election but feel free to cross post all of this as you see fit.

P.S.
…on the not-so-off-chance that a CSIS agent is reading this, please be aware that although the above could now legally be considered terrorist literature under bill C-51 (not kidding here, look it up), I am most definitely not a terrorist. I’m just a grumpy old white man telling kids to get off my lawn. (Really, please don’t arrest me. I’ll take it all back if I have to.)

P.P.S.
…and on the very, very, very, very off chance that this post somehow finds its way into Wayne Gretzky’s inbox:

Please go f*** yourself. You were a God on the ice but are clearly a simpering idiot when it comes to politics. I don’t know what they call it in the States when someone endorses a candidate who’s taken away their right to vote but in Canada we call it lunacy. Please retreat back inside your mansion and leave the rest of us to the business of saving the country you abandoned.