It is incorrect to call the Conservatives “Nazis” since they do not have racial purity as part of their platform, but it might be fair to call them fascists.
Benito Mussolini (fascist dictator of Italy during the Second World War, so he should know) defined fascism as “the merger of the corporations and the state.” On the level of interests, that pretty well nails the Conservative agenda.
Other fascist symptoms include: disdain for human rights (Conservative indifference to Omar Khadr and all U.S. military and legal atrocities), exalting the military ($30 billion on new war planes, two wars of aggression going on right now), disdain for intellectuals and the arts (attack ad content, defunding), obsession with crime and punishment (billions on new prisons and longer sentences for more crimes when the crime rate is actually going down), and contempt for democracy (held in contempt of parliament, wanting to remove public funding for political parties).
In regards to jobs being of prime importance, new jobs should help Canada in the direction of sustainability, not towards an industrial wasteland. Congratulations to Conservative candidate Stephen Hill for personally creating over 30 new jobs, but that’s not what I want from my MP. Alex Atamanenko has, amongst many other things, challenged the genetically modified food insanity in Parliament, shown corporate tax cuts do not help our economy, and highlighted the failed “tough on crime” strategies Conservatives wish to import from the U.S. This is the kind of action I want.
As for the economy being the most important or only real issue, about 2,000 years ago a non-unionized carpenter famously asked, “For what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul?” The Conservatives seem to be energetically exploring this question, and I wish some one would tell them it was rhetorical. The obvious answer is “nothing.”
Keith Newberry, Slocan