Enemy of the People of BC

I don't usually copy (or almost copy) the title of posts by my fellow bloggers, but there is no other way to think of the once proud paper of record for our Province the Vancouver Sun. Colleague Grant known as the Powell River Persuader took the unsigned piece of crap editorial from Friday's Sun to task in Vancouver Sun - Enemy of British Columbia. It may be a little over the top to call the Sun "Public Enemy Number One" with so many other media vying for the title of Gordon Campbell's biggest ass kisser. With CKNW, CeeTeeVee and Glow Ball, not to mention the Times-Colonist and the Province so busy carrying water for the Campbell Crime Family we hardly need to pay the 200-300 creeps of the Public Affairs Bureau with the "private" sector doing their work for free, or in return for advertising dollars from the government. But for the Big Lie strategy to work, it is necessary to repeat the LIES as often as possible, eventually the sheeple will just assume the lies are true, after all it's like a never ending chorus of ongoing fiction.

The unsigned editorial, or collection of untruths and mis-leading statements, that caught Grant and my attention on Friday was Vander Zalm's recall campaigns serve no useful purpose. Whenever the facts aren't on your side, a bit of personal attack goes a long way like:

Bill Vander Zalm is having the time of his life. And doesn't he look good?

Posing in shorts for a magazine cover, he appears to be two decades younger than his 76 years.

But no one should forget that when he was two decades younger, he was a disgraced man, driven from the premier's office for intransigence, arrogance and self-dealing.

It is difficult to read the paragraph above without the image of the white-haired, prevaricating, intransient, arrogant and self dealing Gordon Muir Campbell coming to mind and inducing vomit in the throat. Apparently those qualities are the sign of good government nowadays and concern about self-dealing and arrogance are so eighties or nineties. I will admit that the anon-o-mice of the Sun Editorial board go on to gently chide their hero Gordo for making us all wait a whole year for the so-called $30 million dollar exercise in non-binding referendum on the HST. Of course the Gord has claimed he will follow the wishes of 50% of the voters plus one which might mean something coming from somebody who wasn't a notorious habitual liaR. I couldn't believe Campbell if I was soaking wet and he told me it was raining!

Of course the delay means that the pro-HST crowd, the Campbell government and their beneficiaries, BIG BUSINESS, have 12 months to innudate us with millions of reasons why the HST is the best possible thing that could happen for, or to, us all. The facts of the matter or the slimey way it was imposed on the folks are and will be completely irrelevant and get used to a steady stream of articles and TeeVee features on the wonders of the HST and how we will all wind up young, beautiful and rich because of Gordo's wisdom in letting us take over the tax burden from his comporate welfare bum friends.

Today, for those people too lazy to turn pages, or too practical to pay almost two bucks for bird cage liner that offends my budgie, today's paean in praise of the HST garnered FRONT PAGE prominence at the Sun, squeezing gang land slayings and such to the inner pages for a change. Today it was Craig McInnes turn to come to the plate for the HST crowd with HST may not be costing you as much as you think. Craig tries to pull the wool over the eyes of the poor and middle class by pointing how how terribly hard the HST will be on those poor, poor RICH FOLKS.

For example, I don't expect any sympathy for my complaint about now having to pay seven per cent more on my annual yacht club fees.

Wealthier British Columbians tend to hire gardeners, to dine out more often, to do more dry cleaning and pay for housecleaning services.

Thanks Craig for making it clear which team you're on with your complaints about YOUR yacht club fees. Can I expect sympathy from you for my increased hit on school supplies, ice time for my hockey playing kid or clothes for my child that used to get to eat a rich enough diet to move into adult sizes at the age of 12 or 13.

Craig goes on to pretend to cry for those that might lose their rebates.

About 1.1 million British Columbians are eligible for HST rebates of up to $230 a year.

So, we should be thrilled that a tax shift onto consumers of $2 Billion will be just fine because the poorest families will be receiving a rebate totalling just over $250 million. This is laughable when one considers the fact that the math shows on average the HST will cost every man, woman and child $500 in increased costs, and in many families of four ($2000) only one of the adults will be receiving the magnanimous rebate of $230. The last time I checked kids weren't getting rebate checks in the mail.

Then Craig goes on to whine about how the costs of abandoning the HST at this late stage will be so costly and those revenues will have to be made up, plus the Feds will have to be repaid the $1.6 Billion bribe. Well I have news for you Craig, by the government's own statements the HST itself is REVENUE NEUTRAL (look it up if necessary) and according to the briefing papers addressed to Colon Hansen, that he refused to read (apparently) it will actually cause a loss in revenues of $400 million the first year. Oh yeah, and that $1.6 Billion that we would have to pay back to Gord's Uncle Steve, last I heard the province is doing so well these days that the economic wizards of the BC liaR Party have only so far needed to collect a quarter or third of this and are deferring payment to future years for the rest of the swag.

But get used to it folks, the lying has been going on steady since 2001 and will only intensify as the people of BC wake up and decide that the biggest problem this province has is Gordon Campbell and his co-dependent fence posts with hair.

So really Craig and your anonymous editorial collegues, the recall campaigns aren't so useless - and don't forget there are other ways to create a vacancy in a riding. I would prefer to use the recall legislation in place, as challenging as it may be, because the other ways of creating an empty seat in the House and forcing a bye-election are much less civilized - though very effective.

I would recommend that readers click onto Big Lies – Pay Big Dividends in the Columbia Journal for a discussion of how the BC liaRs have taken Gobbels' principles to new heights of effective manipulation of public opinion.

There's no lie like a Big Lie. And as happens so often in politics in this country, the big lies -- those repeated over and over again -- pay big dividends. This has seldom been more true than the current election and the fact that the BC Liberal's whole campaign rests on the lie that 1) they inherited a huge deficit from the NDP and 2) that through tax cuts and excellent economic management Gordon Campbell turned things around and saved the province.

First, the foundation for all of the Liberal's propaganda: the NDP deficit myth. Rather than hand the Liberals a huge deficit requiring severe cuts to public services, the NDP in its last year in office, 2000-2001, racked up the largest surplus in BC history to that date - a total of $1.56 billion. The previous year, the NDP had a surplus of $150 million.

When he won in 2001, Gordon Campbell faced a problem: that pesky surplus would put pressure on him to spend on social programs. Better, in the odd logic of right-wing neo-liberals, to face a fiscal crisis, a deficit crisis. What better way to rationalize the most vicious cuts to social spending and environmental protection the province had ever seen?

How do you create a fiscal crisis? Simple. Take over $2 billion dollars of government revenue and burn it - or, even better, give it away in tax cuts to your friends. BC's largest corporations got a huge whack of tax cuts and so did BC's wealthiest residents.

This is just the opening salvo of a worthwhile read from May of 2005 accesible by following the link above.