- Harpers Favourite Jersey is a Maple Leaf Jersey
- Harper Grew up in Toronto and his family are Toronto fans
- TSN has footage of Harper cheering for the leafs during an Ottawa/Toronto game from earlier in the season.
Harper still won't simply say "I am a Toronto fan".. What the fuck? Just say it man. Does he think we're all idiots? How can I trust this guy? How can you claim to be passionate about anything if you don't have the balls to say the name of your favourite hockey team?
With a completely different scenario everybody's pal George Stroumboulopoulos got pissed off at Harper (I think the clip is from June '06), again for treating Canadians like idiots. This little snippet reminded me of Bush for some reason so alongside Stroumbo's video is an article from the Tyee circa 2005 about how Harper and Bush share the same Strauss philosophy.
Harper, Bush Share Roots in Controversial Philosophy - Tyee
Nov 2005
What do close advisors to Stephen Harper and George W. Bush have in common? They reflect the disturbing teachings of Leo Strauss, the German-Jewish émigré who spawned the neoconservative movement.
Strauss, who died in 1973, believed in the inherent inequality of humanity. Most people, he famously taught, are too stupid to make informed decisions about their political affairs. Elite philosophers must decide on affairs of state for us.
In Washington, Straussians exert powerful influence from within the inner circle of the White House. In Canada, they roost, for now, in the so-called Calgary School, guiding Harper in framing his election strategies. What preoccupies Straussians in both places is the question of "regime change."
Strauss defined a regime as a set of governing ideas, institutions and traditions. The neoconservatives in the Bush administration, who secretly conspired to make the invasion of Iraq a certainty, had a precise plan for regime change. They weren't out to merely replace Saddam with an American puppet. They planned to make the system more like the U.S., with an electoral process that can be manipulated by the elites, corporate control over the levers of power and socially conservative values.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 1)
1. The imposition of a "power elite" to govern the masses is as old as recorded history and will never leave us. Moreover, "power elites" have imposed their will on the people from a variety of politcal perspectives, from Communism to the oligarchical right wing elites of Latin America (which, if you have noticed, are quickly becoming South American dinasours).
To me, the US Constitution's Bill of Rights, in particular, is the greatest defense against elitist control in America. There are however, two common concepts that are most at danger of destroying the beauty of the Constitution. The first is the concept of "activist judges" which in reality simply means any judge you disagree with as she or he construes our laws. The second idea is that higher education exclusively belongs to those who can afford it or are willing to become indentured servants to an enormous student loan.
Today's socio-economic beliefs, both liberal and conservative, grossly underestimate the intelligence of the American people. Some of the smartest, most practical, people I have ever met have a GED. Since I have lived in almost all economic conditions from dirt poor in the ghetto to being in the top 5% of American wage earners. If you want to learn about the concept of sharing, the best university is to spend significant time with the economic poor. For them, sharing is not only an economic necessity, but also a highly touted cultural norm.
While conservative pundits appear to believe that higher education is essentially an indoctrination course in liberalism, my own life experience has proved to be different. My Constitutional law professor for instance, employed by the University of California (the same system that operates the Berkely campus) was EXTREMELY conservative. In addition, the vast proliferation of conservative pundits, all with higher education, proves that our campuses as breeding grounds for "liberal indoctrination" is simply false.
When we give all our youth the chance for a free college education as high up as their achievement will take them, we open the door for the analytical abilities of ALL Americans to develop. Elitism is the anti-thesis of democracy, and the gift of higher education to only a fraction of our population DOES give some basis for arguments for elitist control. Opening the doors of our universities to ALL academically qualified students would once and for all eliminate the concept of elitist political control in America.
Eliminating the proletariat's (ie middle and poor America's) roadblocks to higher education and increased analytical abilities will fulfill the dream of democracy.
Phil at 10:50AM on Jun 1st 2007