Harpergeddon. Is this really what you want?

Is this really what you want? Really? I'm not the first to say that people get the government they deserve. And maybe it's true. Maybe you deserve this. You haven't been paying attention. You haven't seen the evidence before your eyes, or you have pretended what you have seen isn't important. Or maybe you have willfully ignored it.

To start to grasp what Harper is doing to our economy, read Joseph Stiglitz in this month's Vanity Fair, (or read his book Freefall) explaining how in America, one percent that the inequality in America right now is on par with the inequality evident in Russia where oligarchs rule, and in Iran where unrest is at the boiling point. This is where Conservative economic policies are taking us in Canada. Among the biggest threats to democracy is the growing gap between the rich and the poor. The rich will do everything they can to widen that gap and set policy that is in their own interests. The top one percent don't need our social programs. The rich don't need to fund medicare; they can pay for the best medicine available themselves. And they don't want to increase taxes to fund it for the likes of us, the dwindling middle class, the working class and the poor.

Harpergeddon offers another threat to democracy: the erosion of human rights. The richest one percent don't need to care about human rights. They have enough wealth to mitigate any problems they may run into and they set policy so that nothing can threaten their power. But the rest of us aren't in that position. Rolling back reproductive rights is a big part of chipping away at human rights. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If I do not have the right to control my own body, I am no better than a slave. I am simply not free. If I don't have the right to my own body, what other right really matters? If I'm willing to let that go, those who try to exert power over me know I'll let anything go.

And although health care might not be officially a human right (maybe it should be), in Canada universal health care is certainly something we value. What will happen to health care? Read this. Without public health care, we are all one serious illness away from financial ruin. For source material, read Murray Dobbin on what will happen to health care. He's been studying Harper since the beginning, and Harper is not about to change his ways.

Do you really want the most intolerant, the most self-serving, the most entitled group of people in Canada to be the boss of you? Really?

Harpergeddon. I don't think you deserve this.