Hell Bent in Ontario

Hard to lose an election when nothing is running against you.

So, Doug the Thug has called the election. It seems at this point that he will almost wipe out the opposition parties. This, despite most Ontarians being strongly opposed to his agenda.

People are also offended by his blatant criminality. That is, those who are sufficiently aware of it. The “Ford Nation” propaganda machine has a lot of people locked up in its information bubble.

Long ago, when I was still working out my basic political ideas, I pondered as to why, when most people’s basic beliefs are left/progressive, we keep getting right wing government. I remember working on telephone surveys for political parties, and gauging people’s basic attitudes. I did this in Alberta, and some time later in Ontario as well.

The effect was most pronounced in Alberta. Most people identified themselves as conservative, but were fundamentally socialist. They seemed afraid to even admit it to themselves.

People want public health care, public transportation, public education, and public everything else. They are okay with rent controls. They would even support rationing certain commodities, to prevent the situation where those with money got all they wanted, and wasted, while the poor went without.

Yet they were very timid about it. Their effect was like; “we would prefer things to be that way, if its okay with you…” I found I did have to make clear it was okay with me, before they would really open up about it.

People with a true ‘right’ wing frame of mind were, and of course are, a definite minority. But they are loud and demanding about it. They would dare you to contradict them about their ideas, shout over you, call you “Communist”, slam the receiver down on you.

In this is a simple and profound lesson about how societies really work. People with ideologically right wing ideas and attitudes are generally more stupid than the rest. However, they are very aggressive.

In a well ordered, well lead society, they get nowhere. They are on the margins where they belong. When a society is not well governed, they will inevitably take over.

A certain old philosopher of the wig head era had a theory about that. Actually, he came along at the end of that era, the eighteenth century, the “age of reason”, drawing a line under it. Some of his best ideas are not paid sufficient attention today.

I was impressed by Hegel’s “Lordship and Bondage” essay. He asked why it is that the feudal Prussian lords were able to rule over old Prussia when most of them were so stupid. His answer was that it was exactly because they were so incompetent, as well as aggressive and lacking empathy.

Other political philosophers have made observations which align with this. Societies with loose government organizations tend to go in cycles. The loud, stupid people take over for awhile, then they self destruct, causing great harm, then more sensible people are in control for awhile, there is some progress, but the assholes are never really suppressed, they keep disrupting society so as to regain control, and so the cycle keeps repeating.

You know where we presently are in this cycle. This is not a good way to run things. We need to develop stronger institutions which insure excellence at the top, and the permanent marginalization of the loudmouths and bullies.

A few modern societies seem to have achieved this, or are on the way to doing so. They are mostly in Asia. This concept is somewhat contradictory to western culture and civilization, which most notably moves in these cycles.

However, we are now clearly in the Asian century. Western culture is in a period of decline. It needs to take in some new ideas from other cultures.

Canada is planted in the middle of the Atlantisphere, the zone of western culture and civilization. We are the ultimate settler colonial society. We did relatively well through the last century but will have a distinctly hard time adjusting to this one.

Canadians are said to be very polite and ‘reasonable’ people. Contrarily, we are also famed for our ‘passive aggressive’ tendencies. Many have trouble understanding that the passive aggressiveness of some leads to others believing they have to be very ‘polite’ to get by.

This tendency in our society leads to the type of elections we have. Contrary to the clowns of Fair Vote Canada, changing the electoral system will not change this. Changing the underlying political economy will, given time.

But while we are getting to a point of being able to deal with that challenge, we remain stuck with a certain kind of politics, leading to a certain kind of elections. We are seeing it in Ontario. We will soon see it nationally.

That is, a result is imposed before the election is even called. The new wave of right wing screwheads have learned new ways to rig the election process. I believe they first developed these techniques in Alberta.

I had a close look at this when I lived there. I examined why people who most of the public found contemptible, nonetheless kept winning elections with huge majorities. It was very simple; they suppressed all opposition.

Their basic techniques are being exported to the rest of Canada. It is allowing the screwheads to keep winning votes they should never be able to win. What has saved us so far is that they are very bad at governing, and soon self destruct.

However, parties which replace them are usually just as corrupt. Or, they are utterly hapless, afraid to fight for anything. So, the damage the screwheads cause is not reversed.

These methods are now exported world wide by the International Democratic Union (IDU), originally created in Alberta by our very own Steve Harper. It is something from Canada the world needs much less of. However, where there is a will, people have learned how to counter these methods.

I will describe these neoFascist methods, and counters to them, below. However, I do not think we will see serious resistance in Canada in the near future. We are going to go through a very destructive time until we do learn how to counter neoFascism.

When I say neoFascists, that is exactly what I mean. They are successors to the old style Fascists, with the same origins, motives, and with methods evolved from these earlier models. They are somewhat different from Nazis, who developed in a different way.

There is still this old fight between industrial and financial capitalists. Fascists are the militant arm of industrial capitalism. They want to exploit the population like a cattle herd, to extract maximum profit. Financialists just want rents and think the human herd needs to be greatly reduced.

This is what the overt political fight between Conservatives and Liberals is really about. Fascists/Conservatives were defeated and subordinated after the world war. They have been gradually gaining control in the west since about 1980.

The Liberals/subliminal Nazis have almost lost the fight. We are looking at a new attempt by Fascists to govern and make their delusional ideas work. This will lead to grim times for normal people in western societies.

Looking for a revitalized liberalism to save us all from the Fascists is pathetic. Liberals are also malevolent to society. Their system no longer works as it must compete with countries organized according to socialist principles.

Socialism is the third side in this conflict. That is, the organization of the political economy to meet human needs. Such political economies are usually very efficient producers, impossible for the capitalists to compete with.

That is what the international conflict between the Atlanticist and Eurasianist powers, or west versus east, is all about. But domestically, in western countries such as Canada, socialism has been thoroughly suppressed. There is no serious socialist party to vote for.

The New Democrat Party (NDP) is definitely no option. Traditionally, the Liberal/Nazi/ Financial Capitalists/Globalists have used the Deepers as the sounding board, to determine the minimal level of reforms necessary to buy off serious unrest. These days, it is the repository for all the more extreme adherents of modern ‘woke’ ideologies.

These ideas have nothing to do with a ‘left’, or to any resistance to the establishment. It is being noticed that many people with these ideas can be switched into Nazis very quickly. Thus, the NDP is a ridiculous party.

NDP cannot win power in Ontario because it must adhere to the ’woke’ ideas of its extreme supporters. These ideas are generally offensive to ordinary people. NDP has some traction in a few provinces where more pragmatic people still have influence within it.

However, in office they are afraid to take on powerful interests. They distance themselves from socialism. They end up acting much like Liberals.

Thus, throughout the spectrum, there is no serious opposition to the neofascists. No political party is capable of offering any solutions to the urgent problems people are facing. Thus, the neoFascist types have achieved the first part of their strategy by shutting down all potential opposition.

The next step, of course, was to take over or shut down all other media. When Harper was in office, he started this off by allowing American media conglomerates to take over Canadian media. He planted his agents in CBC and the Liberals were too dense to purge them when they returned to office.

Now the neoFascists are starting to be able to really break up the public institutions which are in the way of their total control. The public no longer seems to have any idea of how to resist this. Mostly, they do not understand what is happening or why.

Certain types of phony left radicals declaim that there is no electoral solution. A revolution is required. This is partly true but is bad advice.

It is clear that the problems will not be solved by voting. The problem with any electoral system has long been known. It is a model for an oligarchy, not a democracy. People do not know what they are voting for, or what they actually want. What they really want or need is usually not on the menu.

Of course, if the ruling oligarchy will not allow the intelligent part of the public to create political movements without suppression, then the electoral route is closed. A transformation government will have to shoot its way into office. Otherwise, the transformation process will need to involve elections at some point.

This is not to say that electoralism is any way to run things. A real democracy is not run through elections. They have usually worked through sortition and popular assemblies.

I cannot get into democratic reform here. However, there are no conditions for a functioning democracy at present. A socialist movement will have to follow a “one person, one vote, once” procedure.

Of course, the public must understand that this is what is being voted on. It is the responsibility of the transformation movement to explain why this is necessary, and bring people around to it. That requires real leadership, meaning a collective leadership.

This type of leadership has to be developed. So does the mass movement behind it. A clear narrative must be developed, of a way out of the crisis, which a normal person can come to reasonably support.

So, the political party comes at the end of the process of building an opposition. It comes after all the hard organizing work has been done. It should not contest an election until it is sure it can win. A serious transformation movement cannot allow itself to become an “opposition”.

There are two really important elements which a movement against neoFascism must develop, besides a coherent narrative. One is an effective media for communicating the narrative. The other is an effective protection force which police, hired thugs, and right wing mobs do not dare to challenge.

This is the era we are arriving in. The neofascists have almost achieved their checkmate against civil society. They expect to be in government in both Ottawa and Ontario. As well, they control a majority of the provinces.

The Liberals in Ottawa, the Deepers at Queen’s Park, will have to pull off something really inspired to prevent this. However, since they are incapable of offering any real change, they can only delay the inevitable. Unless some new political force quickly develops in the country, the neoFascists will get what they want.

So, people may ask if there is any point in voting in these two upcoming elections. Depending on what candidates are running, there may be. While conventional political parties are useless, it is beneficial to have a good member of parliament or provincial legislature.

Thus, if you have a good incumbent or a promising newcomer, you should try to get him or her into office. They can be a vital resource for impoverished communities. They can even be of help in getting transformational movements established.

However, if you really have no one worthy of your vote, there is no reason to give any support to a party which accepts oligarchic government. Do not simply stay home. Cast a blank ballot if you can do nothing else.

If you can, and can find fit people to work with, do what you can to discredit the present system. Try to build the demand for real political reform. Point out that we need a process which does not allow gangsters and extremists to form alliances and take over the government.

To conclude, I draw attention to the feature image for this article, and to the phrase; “hell bent for election”. It means, to be over eager to get elected. Especially, to use discreditable means to do so. Or, to pursue anything too intensely, or with too much ardor.

This gets to the problem of choosing public officials through elections. You do not get the best people. You are likely to get exactly the wrong kind of people.

Anyone who is so eager to get power that they will put themselves through such humiliation, needs to be questioned as to why they want this job so much. If they are being funded to run for office, it needs to be asked who these funders are, and what they want in return. As a rule, anyone pushing, or being pushed, for a particular position should not get it.

This is contradictory to ideas in western civilization. People become committed to adversarial processes and think that is the way to do things. But that is not the right way to do things.

In any kind of properly set up government or other organization, the key people are selected for their suitability and kept under a system of monitoring. Hornblowing should disqualify anyone. Log rolling behavior must be detected and result in banning the perpetrators from further participation.

Thus, the movement I talk about above needs to find the way to choose leaders by merit. People trying to choose themselves as leaders need to be eliminated. Once the movement achieves power, it must work to set up government on these same principles.

It cannot be repeated too often, that we live in an oligarchy, not a democracy. An oligarchy works through elections. A democracy works by selection, sortition, and general assemblies. We need to develop a real democracy.

“Hell Bent for Election” is also the title of an old political cartoon from the United States, produced during world war two, and for the presidential election of November of 1944. It was intended as propaganda for completing the war effort, and to denounce the opposition to the Roosevelt administration. It is revealing about what has changed, and what is the same, then and now.

What was distinct about the Roosevelt government was that he was not tied to either financial or industrial capitalism. He was an advocate of social development. He introduced social welfare and economic planning in the United States.

Most opposition to him was from industrial capitalism. The financial capitalists had their wings clipped at that time. Their attempted coup had been exposed by General Butler. They were seen as responsible for the 1929 crash and depression, and to have helped Hitler’s rise.

The short animation argues strongly, really strongly, for the New Deal, and to “win the war”. It goes after the Republican candidate, Dewey, intensely. It made explicit that it was not going to accept a repeat of the mistake of the “off year” elections of 1942. The New Dealers took their vote for granted, and the Republicans regained control of congress and obstructed the war effort.

The rhetoric of the 1944 Republicans was remarkably similar to present right wing arguments against almost any social or antifascist initiative. The war was costing too much, it was interfering with “freedom”, the country needed to “get back to normal”. Some of them actually wanted to negotiate with the Axis.

The film strongly claims that Dewey and his Republican faction were really Fascists. They had supported Fascism before the war. They tried to limit war mobilization in every way possible.

The film does exaggerate things. Dewey himself was not as bad as that. He was one of the more moderate Republicans.

However, one of the problems with political parties is that you get all of it, not just the less obnoxious parts of it. You do not know which faction will come out on top, further down the road. To reiterate, fascists in congress were able to interfere with the war on Fascism and Nazism.

The film is a study of how counter propaganda against Fascist and Nazi tendencies is done. You do not make polite arguments against them. You call them out for what they are.

However, the old “New Deal” Democrats ultimately failed. The whole effort of world war two was squandered. Because Fascism was opposed within constitutional rules, rather than eliminated, eighty years later we are doing it all over again.

So let us do it right, this time. First of all, to oppose neoFascism, a more compelling alternative narrative must be developed. You cannot expect to win, talking all this “woke” and “climate” nonsense which is designed to antagonize or demoralize most people.

If we do not want to live in a Fascist hell, we need to get hell bent on forcing the likes of Ford and Poilievre out of office, with or without elections. More importantly, we need to make sure the organizations behind them are dismantled and never reconstituted.

Eliminating them could be harder this time around. The neofascists are smarter than the old time Fascists. So, we do not want to have to do this a third time.