L’etat, c’est lui.

That Stephen Harper is the undisputed leader in Canadian politics — that he utterly dominates the landscape, in a way no one else does — is a fact. It is also a blessing and a curse for the Conservative Party of Canada.

It is a blessing in the sense that Harper, more than any other person, is responsible for all of his party’s successes. It has been a long time in the making. About a decade ago, Harper commenced working on a three-step plan to transform Canada.

First, he brought together the warring factions of the right. He convinced Reformers and Progressive Conservatives that, unless they came together as a single conservative force, the Liberals would continue to beat them.

Second, Harper set to work on destroying the brand of the most successful political machine in western democracy, the Liberal party.

Harper knew his principal rival was, and remains, the Grits. Over a decade, Harper has methodically deconstructed the Liberals, to the point where the once Natural Governing Party is a rump in the House of Commons.

Finally, Harper has moved his party to the centre, and shed much of the racism and extremism that once was synonymous with the Reform Party. He now has the most ethnically diverse caucus in the House of Commons, and he has purged most of the rednecked mouth-breathers who dominated his caucus. Just a few weeks ago, he mercilessly put down a social conservative attempt to reopen the abortion debate.

His successes are myriad. So, too, his adversaries. Their corpses — Dion, Ignatieff, Rae and others — litter the political landscape.

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Big tough judo guy, scared of a punk grrrl band called Pussy Riot. Chickenshit. We’ll be raising money for their defence at our Ottawa show. You can donate directly here.

These women terrify the leader of Russia.

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Oh my Lord, his new LP – Rebirth – is amazing. It was produced with Rancid’s Tim Armstrong, and the record is already one of the year’s best. Incredible. Get it. (Here’s One More.)

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In a business dominated by hucksters, charlatans and snake oil sellers, Christy Clark stands apart. In a field populated by hypocrites and phonies, the erstwhile B.C. premier takes duplicity — and recklessness — to an entirely new level.
Meet Christy Clark, nation-wrecker.

She’s a Liberal, but she pretended to be a conservative. Nobody in B.C. believed it. She ran for the B.C. Liberal leadership claiming to be an “outsider,” even though she had previously been deputy premier. Nobody believed that, either. She promised to lead the B.C. Liberals back to government, but she instead piloted the party into last, or nearly last, place. Nobody thinks she’s going to win the next election.

But now, finally, Clark — consistently rated by pollsters as one of the most unpopular premiers in the country — has seized upon an issue that may resuscitate a political career that for the past year or so had been deader than disco. Now, Clark has seen the path to political salvation.

And if it rewrites the rules of Confederation, if it sets off an inter-provincial trade war, costs jobs and destabilizes the country — well, that’s apparently fine with Christy Clark.

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Busby’s on the case!

Meanwhile, PPG continues to be, well, gullible!

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Mr. Latvis mustn’t be enjoying all the publicity very much.  That makes me very sad.  Here’s his pithy note to me, just received:

Jon Latvis wrote:
It’s not a swastika on my arm you fucking idiot! It’s a Cross of Thunder, our
God of War that our people have used for thousands of years! Learn some European
history, ASSHOLE! I’ll be suing your ass for slander real soon if you don’t shut
the fuck up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Website:
IP: 84.237.181.134

My goodness! Sorry about the swear words. Jon seems upset.

I immediately wrote back, and said I would be happy to correct the record about the swastika thing, if he simply told me what the “Cross of Thunder” was, in his own words. No response.

So, I entered the phrase in this helpful Google thing, and this is what I got:

Perhaps Rob Ford could meet with him, and they could discuss the etymology of words, and transit and stuff.

Oh, wait.

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For the life of me, I cannot understand why the hedonistic Olympics brass refuse to permit a moment of silence for the Israeli athletes murdered at their Olympics in 1972.  Among other things, it is a total disgrace.

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Rob Ford did. That’s what his staff are claiming, in any event.  As I said to a Globe reporter yesterday:  “If a guy wearing a white hard hat, with a German accent and looking a lot like Ernst Zundel showed up at your political event, claimed to be John Smith, and said he was interested in discussing health care, wouldn’t you be a bit wary?”

Anyway, yesterday’s post attracted a fair bit of attention. Ford is a 24/7 human gong show, and this is just one more episode in a series. You can read up on it here and here and here and here and here.  There’s more here, too.

Latvis, seen below with Rahowa (to the right of lead singer George Burdi, centre), has been unsurprisingly unavailable for comment. I presume that is because Latvis stated on Facebook what he discussed with Ford was “the Latvian Home Guard.” Along with his stormtrooper-ish mien, that should have set off alarm bells, too. The Latvian Guard actively participated in the Holocaust, and murdered tens of thousands of Jews, a fact that could have been readily ascertained by Ford’s staff, had they spent a few moments on the Internet.  Examples are here and here and here and here.

So, too, Latvis himself. His past involvement in the world’s biggest neo-Nazi rock band in recent history was no secret.  He was proud of it, in fact. It is all over the Internet, along with Latvis’ enthusiasm for white supremacy and anti-Semitism.

Here he is with Rahowa. Took me three seconds to find it on Google.  As I told that Globe reporter yesterday, the job of staff is to ensure these types of incidents don’t happen. Someone should lose their job over this.

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