rabble.ca Canadian federal election blog

The Harper Party & Ancient History

by Bernadette L. Wagner

One of the best resources I’ve discovered, thanks to a conversation with a local playwright and media personality in Regina some 12 years ago, is Barbara Walker’s, The Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets. It’s a veritable tome of women’s history (herstory) to which I turn time and time again.

Last week, when I opened said tome to research a poem, a paper fell out and fluttered to the floor. On the scrap of paper was a quote I had written out.  I often do that with quotes that capture my attention. I wasn’t surprised then, when the quote came to me last night after the English language leaders’ debate. From Gregory of Nanzianzus (329-389):

A little jargon is all that is necessary to impose upon the people.  The less they comprehend, the more they admire.  Our forefathers and doctors have often said, not what they thought, but what circumstances and necessity dictated.

[in Doane, T. W. Bible Myths and Their Parallels in Other Religions, Truth Seeker: 1882, as cited in Walker, Barbara G. Women’s Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, HarperCollins: 1983, p. 211.]

In prefacing this quote from St. Gregory, Doane said, It was a common thing among the early Christian Fathers and saints to lie and deceive, if their lies and deceits helped the cause of their Christ.”

Apparently, it is also common hundreds of years later to help the cause of the Stephen Harper Party.

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Crossposted at the regina mom

Revisiting our roots

by Bernadette Wagner

The current crisis facing global capital and Naomi Klein’s recent lecture to a an 800+ crowd in Regina has me thinking that we in Canada need to elect a government that will prevent economic shock therapy on us when capital’s crisis hits Canada.  We certainly cannot trust Mr. Harper and the Cons to help us out.

So, I’m thinking that now might be a good time to revisit the roots of a broad movement for change that originated in my home province of Saskatchewan and proceeded to create progressive change throughout Canada.

The Regina Manifesto

by CCF First National Convention 1933, Regina, Sask

(Programme of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, adopted at First National Convention held at Regina, Sask., July, 1933)

The C.C.F. is a federation of organizations whose purpose is the establishment in Canada, of a Co-operative Commonwealth in which the principle regulating production, distribution and exchange will be the supplying of human needs and not the making of profits.
We aim to replace the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government, based upon economic equality will be possible.

The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profits is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man’s normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and the principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people.
The new social order at which we aim is not one in which individuality will be crushed out by a system of regimentation.

Nor shall we interfere with cultural rights of racial or religious minorities. What we seek is a proper collective organization of our economic resources such as will make possible a much greater degree of leisure and a much richer individual life for every citizen.

This social and economic transformation can be brought about by political action, through the election of a government inspired by the ideal of a Co-operative Commonwealth and supported by a majority of the people. We do note believe in change by violence.

We consider that both the old parties in Canada are the instruments of capitalist interests and cannot serve as agents of social reconstruction, and that whatever the superficial difference between them, they are bound to carry on government in accordance with the dictates of the big business interests who finance them.

The C.C.F. aims at political power in order to put an end to this capitalist domination of our political life. It is a democratic movement, a federation of farmers, labour and socialist organizations, financed by its own members and seeking to achieve its ends solely by constitutional methods. It appeals for support from all who believe that the time has come for a far-reaching reconstruction of our economic and political institutions and who are willing to work together for the carrying out of the following policies:

Read the full document.

Yes it is an old document.  But by and large it seems very relevant today.  And it is certainly a place where Canadians can begin again to talk about stopping capital’s abuse of the planet and all beings on it.