Their is only one issue in the coming New Brunswick election. That issue is Mr. Irving.
There is no point even discussing the policies of either the Liberal or the Conservative Party. Whichever of them wins, the government will be Mr. Irving. His advisors will set the budget for the minister of finance. Mr. Irving will decide who will pay taxes, and how much. He will decide how tax money will be spent.
Most New Brunswickers will get only the news he wants them to get through his control of all the daily papers in the province.
In all of this he will serve only his own interests - as he always has. Oh, yes, I have heard all about his philantropy. How good of him!
Of course, it's easy to be phiantropic when you don't pay much in taxes. Then you can take a tiny, tiny fraction of that money you should have paid in taxes, give to a cause like education (when it is really being given to make the schools into something you make money out of) and - bingo - you are a phil-an-tro-pist, and you get to have a dinner and an award for being an outstanding citizen - with full coverage by all rtoadie newspapers.
The last time we elected a government, Mr. Irving announced in his newspapers that he was a member of it. He hadn't run. He certainly wasn't elected. But he just decided he was a member. Try that some day. See what happens to you.
Then he called a meeting of all his flunkies (including the university presidents) to plan the economic future of NB. Now, in a democracy, that is what we elect a government to do. In a democracy, those clowns had no business in planning OUR future. In a democracy, WE who will do that.
Then, to rub the point home, he appointed his boys as official advisors to the minister of finance. And those limp fish we elected allowed him to do it.
This is all counter to our constitution, contrary to the meaning of democracy - and it is bloody arrogant. Indeed, the arrogance shows up in his common speech.
How often have we heard him and his buddies in big business say they are in "partnership" with government. We common people are not. We are subjects of the government. But Mr. Irving is not a common subject. He's not like us peasants. No. He is in "partnership".
This is an arrogance that should have been slapped down long ago. Mr. Irving, a man of no great learning that I have ever seen any sign of, makes the decisions on subjects he knows nothing about - and makes them for all of us.
He know nothing about taxation (except how to avoid it). He knows nothing about news media (except to exclude most of the news). He knows nothing about the administration of social programmes (except to run them as branch offices of Irving Industries.) Yet this is the man who makes the decisions that shape the lives and futures of all of us.
Of course, people leave New Brunswick. They'd be damn fools not to.
Mr. Irving is the issue in the next election. Yes, I know there are some decent and honest people in the Liberal and Conservative Parties. But they won't - and never have had - any significant influence on major party policies. They simply won't matter in any government formed by either of those parties. In the end, a vote for even these decent people is a vote for Irving.
The issue is democracy, control by us. The issue is taking democracy back from those who have stolen it. If we don't deal with that issue, we will not have dealt with anything.
The whole western world is going through a crisis that is not just economic. It is also social and political. So far - and this has happened before - governments have refused to mend their ways, matters have worsened, governments have responded with repressive laws such as domestic spying, and unconstitutional powers such as assassination or imprisonment without trial.
That, inevitably, creates even greater violence, a violence that too often takes us down the worst path - to the fascisms of the 1930s, for example.
New Brunswickers have to decide in this election. Either we deal with Mr. Irving now - either we make him understand that he is a citizen with the same rights and duties of all citizens - or it will probably be too late for any solution at all.
Vote either Liberal or Conservative - and Mr. Irving has won. It will be a very short win because his way of running a society has never worked, and the results are usually very messy, indeed.
We need to be governed by responsibiity and morality. I see no evidence that either of these is something that Mr. Irving has ever thought of.
Mr. Irving, the candidate who never announces that he is a candidate, has to be stopped. Now.
But we also have to be prepared to think of what we want. What do we want New Brunswick to be like? I don't mean what policies do we want. Policies come later. First, we have to decided what moral principles we want to operate in this province. What kind of a society to we want. What will be our guilelines in is deciding what policies to advocate. The greatest weakness of Mr. Irving is that seems to have no principle except a desire for profits.
But principiles are the foundation of any successful society. I'll talk about those in a later post.
There is no point even discussing the policies of either the Liberal or the Conservative Party. Whichever of them wins, the government will be Mr. Irving. His advisors will set the budget for the minister of finance. Mr. Irving will decide who will pay taxes, and how much. He will decide how tax money will be spent.
Most New Brunswickers will get only the news he wants them to get through his control of all the daily papers in the province.
In all of this he will serve only his own interests - as he always has. Oh, yes, I have heard all about his philantropy. How good of him!
Of course, it's easy to be phiantropic when you don't pay much in taxes. Then you can take a tiny, tiny fraction of that money you should have paid in taxes, give to a cause like education (when it is really being given to make the schools into something you make money out of) and - bingo - you are a phil-an-tro-pist, and you get to have a dinner and an award for being an outstanding citizen - with full coverage by all rtoadie newspapers.
The last time we elected a government, Mr. Irving announced in his newspapers that he was a member of it. He hadn't run. He certainly wasn't elected. But he just decided he was a member. Try that some day. See what happens to you.
Then he called a meeting of all his flunkies (including the university presidents) to plan the economic future of NB. Now, in a democracy, that is what we elect a government to do. In a democracy, those clowns had no business in planning OUR future. In a democracy, WE who will do that.
Then, to rub the point home, he appointed his boys as official advisors to the minister of finance. And those limp fish we elected allowed him to do it.
This is all counter to our constitution, contrary to the meaning of democracy - and it is bloody arrogant. Indeed, the arrogance shows up in his common speech.
How often have we heard him and his buddies in big business say they are in "partnership" with government. We common people are not. We are subjects of the government. But Mr. Irving is not a common subject. He's not like us peasants. No. He is in "partnership".
This is an arrogance that should have been slapped down long ago. Mr. Irving, a man of no great learning that I have ever seen any sign of, makes the decisions on subjects he knows nothing about - and makes them for all of us.
He know nothing about taxation (except how to avoid it). He knows nothing about news media (except to exclude most of the news). He knows nothing about the administration of social programmes (except to run them as branch offices of Irving Industries.) Yet this is the man who makes the decisions that shape the lives and futures of all of us.
Of course, people leave New Brunswick. They'd be damn fools not to.
Mr. Irving is the issue in the next election. Yes, I know there are some decent and honest people in the Liberal and Conservative Parties. But they won't - and never have had - any significant influence on major party policies. They simply won't matter in any government formed by either of those parties. In the end, a vote for even these decent people is a vote for Irving.
The issue is democracy, control by us. The issue is taking democracy back from those who have stolen it. If we don't deal with that issue, we will not have dealt with anything.
The whole western world is going through a crisis that is not just economic. It is also social and political. So far - and this has happened before - governments have refused to mend their ways, matters have worsened, governments have responded with repressive laws such as domestic spying, and unconstitutional powers such as assassination or imprisonment without trial.
That, inevitably, creates even greater violence, a violence that too often takes us down the worst path - to the fascisms of the 1930s, for example.
New Brunswickers have to decide in this election. Either we deal with Mr. Irving now - either we make him understand that he is a citizen with the same rights and duties of all citizens - or it will probably be too late for any solution at all.
Vote either Liberal or Conservative - and Mr. Irving has won. It will be a very short win because his way of running a society has never worked, and the results are usually very messy, indeed.
We need to be governed by responsibiity and morality. I see no evidence that either of these is something that Mr. Irving has ever thought of.
Mr. Irving, the candidate who never announces that he is a candidate, has to be stopped. Now.
But we also have to be prepared to think of what we want. What do we want New Brunswick to be like? I don't mean what policies do we want. Policies come later. First, we have to decided what moral principles we want to operate in this province. What kind of a society to we want. What will be our guilelines in is deciding what policies to advocate. The greatest weakness of Mr. Irving is that seems to have no principle except a desire for profits.
But principiles are the foundation of any successful society. I'll talk about those in a later post.
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