Here's an interesting footnote. Canada's most populous province, Ontario, got taken over about 8 or 9 years ago by the neo-conservative movement under Mike Harris. Their program was called the "Common Sense Revolution" (ha ha), and was anything but. They succeeded in getting elected by appealing to people's sense of greed (with promises of big tax cuts), their zenophobia (by demonizing the most powerless members of society), and their hatred of "big government" (a handy thing to pin on incumbents whom you hope to kick out of office). It worked. Enough people were fooled that they got elected twice in Ontario.

(They didn't talk about God much, cos that angle doesn't work nearly as well in Canada as it does in the USA.)

Now, their stated aim was to "balance the budget" and restore fiscal responsibility. Their gimmick is to pretend that all other parties are less fiscally responsible than the Conservatives (which is an outright lie, by the way, but their hardcore supporters believe it like it was gospel...). What they actually do is privatize formerly public contracts, handing them out like plums to their rich pals who fund their campaigns. Those fellas then cut the staff by 50% and cut everything else they can, so as to maximize their profits, AND raise the price of things at the same time!!! What a gravytrain for private enterprise. (and there vanished your tax cut, people...) Everything deteriorates, and everything costs more.

So, the damage these guys did to schools, hospitals, roads, municipalities, etc in Ontario became so catastrophic that people finally got totally disgusted and kicked the bastards out in our recent election. The "Common Sense Revolution" is deader than Clinton Hammond's skunk.

It has been shown for the fraud it really was.

And guess what? It seems that the Conservatives cooked the books when they said that they had balanced the budget all those years. It now appears that far from balancing the budget, they created record deficits while the rich got richer and everyone else got poorer.

Gosh, WHAT a surprise.... (sarcasm)

That won't stop the jerks from coming back again with the same old phony mantra of "tax cuts" that turn out to be a flimsy smokescreen over a robbery of epic proportions. The scary thing is, I think most of them actually believe their own rhetoric, and they no doubt figure that the rich are rich because God loves them and is rewarding them.

Want to get elected in North America? Here's your platform:

I will cut taxes!
I will reduce spending!
I will improve your social services!
I will fight crime on our streets!
I will clamp down on welfare cheats and crack users!
I will defend our institutions of freedom at home and abroad!

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. But it sounds marvelous, doesn't it?

- LH