Happy Days is Screwed: Season 2 Episode 13

In this series, I attempt to demonstrate that the show Happy Days follows the concept of the fantasy world of the 1950's United States, and is full of pro-US ideology and rife with heavy handed statements about morality. Happy days was made from Season 1 starting in 1974. Oh yeah, and so you don't miss anything, the clips are played at 1/3rd speed, and so are screwed, as in the technique used by DJ Screw to acquire a unique style and feel. He was called DJ Screw (RIP 2000) because he used a screw to modify the speed on his turntable. I love his hip hop mixes, and I love things slowed down. What follows is the summary of:

SEASON 2 EPISODE 13: Fonzie's Getting Married

In this episode the Fonz makes a big announcement; he, the teenage Fonz (they are never clear on his age but he is in the same grade as Potsie and Richie and Ralph, who are in high school) is getting married. The gang has a huddle with him in his office:

Yeah, that's right, the Fonz thinks that men should only marry virgins. This becomes a point of contention when, uh-oh, turns out Howard (AKA "Chips" Cunningham) saw her strip at a hardware convention. If this doesn't sound like something a family man like Howard would do, you don't know Howard very well. To find out for sure if it is her, he will recognize her laugh:

Is Howard actually joking, or just explaining what he thinks about bums? Well now Howard's worst fears have been confirmed.  He has to tell Richie:

Eventually they tell Fonzie, who naturally doesn't believe them. They go to the "strippers", 1950's style, to scope out the action:

We never find out what happened to them when he caught up to her. Howard sizes up The Lone Stripper and runs for it:

Fonz drinks in the reality of the situation, man's up and gets over it. Richie has other things on his mind:

And Howard is also busy:

At least Marion knows how to have a good time.

Are Guns N Roses still relevant?

Sometimes, I feel like the last person alive under 40 who likes Guns N Roses. Maybe it's just the nostalgia, good memories hanging out in my friends basement with Use Your Illusions on repeat. Or eleven years old getting on the full school bus awkwardly looking for an available seat while Axl Rose screamingly inquires: Do you know where you are?

Yes Axl, yes I do know where I am.  I'm in the jungle, I'm a small child, I'm going to die.

I grew up in a redneck-y tourist trap of a town, where my peers had aspirations of making good money at local Lumber Yard so they can afford to drive around big trucks and do massive amounts of cocaine. A noble calling, but my stick-in-the-ass type religious upbringing told me that was all kinds of wrong - combined with my dislike of the smallness of the area's mentality (I learned later there are many many places that are exactly the same - this is the world we live in). I left that place and never wanted to go back, but I never stopped liking Guns N Roses. I've been revisting them, as I do periodically, but with so much video footage compiled, I could see lots of different performances of their songs live, and interviews at different points of their career - mostly with Slash, I think Axl pulled permission on a lot of his personal footage, or never allowed it in the first place.

Chinese Democracy has some songs I do quite enjoy, but obviously lacks the visceral feel of the riffs in Appetite and the Use Your Illusions. Obviously the earlier life stuff is great, and much more enjoyable compared to more recent shows (2013), which is too processed and has no viscera, but doesn't sound bad at all. Since the band broke up, and Chinese Democracy took a very long time indeed, most people have forgotten about Guns N Roses.  Even my friend who was a huge fan has not even given Chinese Democracy a test listen. Without Slash, the band is nothing to him. While they left most of their fanbase heartbroken, they are still interesting to check out, and the songs I used to like still sound great to me.

I've been paying special attention, first, to Axl's dance moves - he sings about being super tough through the stories of his life and being on the streets, all the while wearing more ambiguously tough clothing (black wifebeater, leather pants, bandana). With all these signs, symbols, mannerisms of a badass, he still somehow manages to happily bop about the stage, wiggling like the bait bucket at a fishing derby, chirping in a friendly manner to the audience about something that happened to him recently, or someone he dislikes, and sometimes just general words of encouragement and camaraderie - like any good host. His on stage presence doesn't quite match up, but that was a good thing.  He was "your" (the audience's) buddy, at least for the time he was up there. Sure he trash talked people on stage, but he hated on "that guy" who doesn't get down with the likes of us. Then he would wiggle some more and kick a cowboy boot heel at you to let you know he was having a good time.

Something else remarkable, and worth you and I knowing: apparently the scene in Los Angeles was so competitive for bands playing in the area, that the clubs would not hire you - instead you had to raise enough money to buy the entire roll of tickets for your show ($500) and sell as many as you could so you could recoup the money. They had to bust their asses promoting themselves enough to sell out the tickets, by flyering, postering, and probably a whole lot of selling to people they knew.  This is on top of writing songs and playing really tightly, consistently well. Schmoozing and self promoting meant their 24/7 party lifestyle was work of a sort, at least in that critical period before they made it big.  They needed to play those shows to prove what they could do, and their show got big enough with the LA music scene crowd that when the record execs put feet on the ground to find out what was going to be the next thing, they were pretty much already in.

Another key factor to their huge appeal stated over and over was their authenticity. They sang about partying as hard as a human could party, but at the same time completely different from another famous partier Hunter S. Thompson - Never anywhere do interviewers ever verbally make a connection there, but their lifestyle influenced their creative and commercial work in some similar ways. Axl's lyrics on Appetite sounded like they could have been written on a napkin, hiding out at a diner in the early morning to make sure whatever fallout from the night before had blown over. There was, and is, always an introspective aspect to it I like, while not particularly glorifying drugs (but still singing about them because they were such a big part of their lives), and simultaneously celebrating while also hating on women. It has an emotional charge, is all very believable and sound very much like their lives.  This, it has been said, is what lead to their broad appeal and gave them a more fantastic sound than other bands of the time, where they are spilling their heart and guts out to you, not only on the album, but every single time they performed. They are a rags-to-riches rockstar American story tale.

Guns N Roses has a lot in common with Michael Jackson.  Their super fast, super huge rise to fame and massive audiences, with a huge marketing campaign and promotional war machine. While they had a don't ask don't tell policy regarding drugs, and I'm sure they dressed themselves, the promoters controlled all the other aspects of promoting, tours, stage setups and keeping the hype up. The way they were run between the two sets of artists worked pretty much the same way.

Michael Jackson drew on a lot of the style and bad boy imagery, having slash-style guitar solos, taking bits of the scene and aesthetic following Guns N Roses Hollywood strip cultural scene when they got signed. MJ took it in his own direction, incorporating it with other elements he liked as well as the dancing and performance elements, instead taking it to the level of sterile art form. His look and visual style are captivating, but also belong in the "History" museum he created for himself, even as you were hearing it for the first time. Guns n Roses differed in the sense that they seemed to express themselves in a singular sense where they were distinct individuals who seemed to know who they are, while Michael seemed to flow quickly from one fad to the next, dipping in to so many spheres of influence, the constant sense of change seemed to be the only singular defining factor throughout his career.

Still, by the time the Use Your Illusions albums were created, conflict as well as differences emerging between what band members wanted had begun to disrupt their sound. Without the unifying street influence defining themselves and their music, Axl wrote about more abstract concepts about his life that had been caused by fame, wealth and unimaginable influence. The sound was good, but very different, and I think a certain amount of change is reasonable for any band to stay relevant past a few years. However, when you think about what the large part of their fanbase was, it isn't hard to imagine them being disenchanted with something that forced them to think complicated thoughts. Use Your Illusions still had enough talent put in to it by really hard working band members, but according to the history of the time, the differences had fractured the band enough to be irrepairable. Although fans wouldn't learn until years later what had been going on, insiders say you can hear the sounds of the band breaking up in those albums.  There are a lot of melodic, sad, or at least introspective songs, again what they were actually going through. They had put everything in to those albums, and they were not able to follow it up. I think even if they had tried to make another appetite, nobody would have liked it.  Unless they had all forsaken their vast wealth and gone back to living on the streets in L.A. There's no substitute for authenticity.

It's also difficult to measure by today's yardstick, considering how little longevity modern artists have in terms of popularity. Guns N Roses can still draw large crowds (at least internationally) by name recognition alone, but will the next big rock band have such an fascinating rise and blowout? It is the stuff of myths and legends.

Dario Argento vs Hitchcock

You can't read anything about Dario Argento without someone spouting the rhetoric that he is the "Italian Hitchcock".  While both of these directors made an impressive number of films and broke new ground in filming techniques and visual aesthetic, if you really sit down and compare their careers side by side, you'll see it isn't good comparison or even an adequate comparison.  I was prompted to look deeper in to Argento's career when I decided to watch Dracula 3D, an unbearable budgeted badly made scary movie.  Previous to that I had seen Suspiria and Inferno, definitely 2 of his best films.  Bigger than those old films with strong contrasting colors and delicate, luxurious imagery that fills your eyes to the brim with texture and color.  D3D had some of that, but lacked more noticably in aspects where Argento had a previously bad track record in like plot, character development, and the ability to act.

As the movie went on, it became very apparent that Suspiria and Inferno were not an indication of where he had taken his career.  Generally great directors are only given larger and larger budget as even their very name draws ticket sales.  But this movie, Dracula's green screened castle was flat and brightly lit and monster transformations would look scarier if they were a hand puppet.  No money to even afford an aesthetic, his hallmark and what made him famous.  If you sum up his career in a scatter plot based on production budget and box office earnings, you get shapes like this:

The blue line is the quickly cresting and dipping budgets, while the slouching red L is the money his movies took in over the years.  Not at all flattering.  Compare that to hitchcock, who made movie studios ungodly amounts of cash, with the ridiculously peaking Psycho making inflation adjusted earnings of $476,516,129, that's almost half a billion dollars.

The graph for Hitchcock STARTS with one extra zero on the first number of the Y-axis. 

Next take a look at scores based on Rotten Tomatoes scoring.  Again, pay attention to the trend lines that give voice to each man's career.  In both sets of graphs Argento is red & blue and Hitchcock greys.

At the Whim of Movie Execs: The Rise and Fall in Horror Movies

The graph below shows the number of horror movies made in the US as a proportion of all movies made worldwide.  The horror movies (blue line) may not be completely accurate because it was just my physical count off of Wikipedia, but it is still useful to measure yearly changes.  After the great surge in all movies made worldwide in 1981-1982, the trend is a slow, steady increase.  Horror movies stay most consistently around the 30 movie mark, even before the 1980's.  The relative proportions show the peak in Horror movies made in the US in 1987 and the much more enormous movie explosion in 2008 - 2009.  Interestingly, the latter happened right during the subprime mortgage crisis, which you can visibly see by the dip in movies made worldwide.  This also shows the rise in the torture porn subgenre of horror movies, initiated by Saw (2004) but kicking off a massive surge in horror movie making.  This surge is the 5-6 times as large as the horror movie average!  Even Scream (1996), the largest grossing slasher film of all time, did not kick off any kind of significant increase in movie production in this genre.  I would guess when one movie is successful enough, it draws attention and they try to pounce on the trend to make more money, but this is not always the case.  So why did Saw cause a renaissance in horror movie making in this instance, but Scream did not? 

Shortly thereafter it looks like this money making could be sustained ( as the market was saturated), audiences tired and moved on.  In 2013 actually the lowest number of horror movies were made in the US since 1979.  Most of those movies are really terrible anyway, but I'd like to think that through sheer numbers the chances of an unintentionally good movie was increased.  In 2008-09 I liked Cloverfield, Pontypool and Drag Me to Hell, and that's about it.

The other spike in 1987 represents the peak and subsequent exhaustion in the popularity of slasher movies.  Another important landmark and also resulting in audience boredom as the movies get worse and worse.  Perhaps Scream was seen as an exception to the slasher genre since they could not return to making more pointless slasher movies, but a one-time (read: 4 movies and counting) self reflective critique and rejuvination of slashers was acceptable, but could not be capitalized on outside of that series.  I wonder if someone will eventually come out with a similar satirical look at torture porn similar to what Scream did with slashers.

Looking at the LOG function of the data looks pretty interesting as well.  For total movies made, it shows a steady rate that movies are generally being made at since 1981-1982.  The log total horror movies made, however, is too complex for me to really comment on.  The spikes in 1987, 2008, 2009 are still obvious, but all I can say at this point is that the rate that the US makes horror movies fluctuates pretty wildly, and I have no idea why.  Obviously budgetary concerns in funding are based on a combination of "good" scripts combined with the greed of the production companies for where they think they can make money.

So let's take a look at some top grossing horror films in the past few years.  We are trying to figure out why the dramatic drop in horror movies in 2013.  That year was actually pretty good for horror movies, with the Conjuring made a ridiculous $318 million dollars.  Contrast this with Scream ($173 million) and Saw ($103 million).  So what prompted the cut in horror movie production?  It doesn't seem immediately obvious by looking at 2012 numbers.  Prometheus made over $400 million dollars, but had a huge production cost ($130 million) and was part of the Alien series, possibly the most profitable of Sci-Fi series'.  Also while it is technically horror, you could argue that the fact that it was horror was not a factor in the draw of audience. 

 

Pair that with the 2nd most profitable horror movie of 2012 (Paranormal activity 4, $142 million) and you could see that may not add up to being useful.  I actually don't fully know the film cycle, and someone in the industry could correct me, but I imagine there is a 1 or 2 year window generally in movie production.  If we look further back to 2011 things start to fit together a bit better.  Paranormal Activity 3 grossed $105 million, but if you discount it due to the fact it is a series, the next movie Insidious (positively reviewed and considered a success, I haven't seen it) grossed $54 million, a huge step down even from 1990's standards.  If movies on average have a 2 year cycle from green light to theatre release, then the numbers seem to fit.

What the fuck is Obama doing?

Ever since the State of the Union address I have seen a lot of hate for Obama.  From the US it is hitting him from every direction in the States, but I am under the impression no one outside the US seems to care much.  If I were to sum up every article I read on the topic, it's that people are disappointed that there has been no real substantial change which I guess people think was his main promise and not just a campaign slogan or catch phrase.  You, the American that voted for him, thought he actually would do something besides maintain the status quo, but that is not something he is able to do, because he is not calling the shots, really.  People were so severely disappointed in Obama's health plan thing, it almost seems like it was purposely done badly to put people off of the idea of affordable healthcare.  Pharmaceutical companies are in the business of making as much money as possible, and they have a powerful lobby in government.  What the fuck is with the lobby system?  It seems to me like it doesn't matter who is in presidency because they are just supposed to do the dirty work of telling people they are fucked and there is nothing anybody can do whups.

However, in a true effort to understand Obama's position and arguments I have to go to the heart of Democrat sentiment: Jon Stuart's Daily show.  I will watch ALL of this weeks (January 27-30 2014) episodes and see what I can learn.  Ok, wish me luck.

Hi ok I'm back, The Daily Show was not very helpful, unfortunately, but should not be a surprise, they just said a bunch of nice things about Obama and that everyone else is just upset because he tried to work with congress and got shut down and now he is evoking Executive Order to get things done because he just don't give a fuck anymore.  When interviewed, Nancy Pelosi could not explain why they could not get a proper health care website set up.

I guess it sums up what I already said.  They just have no explanation, and just nothing, nothing to say about it.  Nobody has answers and a plan to deal with problems effectively, isn't that the main problem with government?

Collaborative Leadership and Proportional Representation

It seems to me that people are sick of Canada's government as it stands today, and not just because of the Conservative Party of Canada.  While there has been more unrest  about the government than there has been since the Conservatives took power.  While people acknowledge the Conservatives are governing horribly in almost every measure imaginable, the other major 2 parties aren't trusted either, for legitimate reasons (previous scandals, lack of experience).  Still there is little talk of changing the underlying system of government we currently use.  Alternatives have existed with successful present day examples of governing democratically, without any one party having total control.  I suppose there are still a lot of big unanswered questions when it comes to proportional representation as a legitimate form of government.  Questions like, why do coalitions have a bad reputation in Canada?  Why are majority governments seen as a good thing?  What would collaborative leadership look like?

Proportional representation is an extension of the parliamentary government system originating in Britain in 1707 which is used by many countries today, particularly those of the British commonwealth.  In this government system MPs are elected in proportion to the percentage of votes that a political party receives, resulting in several political parties working together to form a government, because no party can form a majority on their own, and encourages many small instead of consolidated to big parties that don't really know where they stand on most issues.  The government lasts until the next election or until the parties can no longer work together and the government collapses.  At this point a new coalition must be formed or a new election commences.   This makes for better, balanced laws because no one party can ram through legislation without serious debate and revisions, so people must reach consensus, more closely matching what the countries' citizens actually want and expect from their government. 

In fact, the vast majority of countries that use the British parliament system actually now use coalition governments, including the majority of European and Asian countries, many more than use the winner-take-all dominant party system that is in use by Canada and the U.S.  And in fact in Canada a coalition was actually used back in 1864, so it's not like Canada has never employed this system before.  It is strange though that now in the collective thought, coalition is seen by many as bad.

The main criticism of coalition is that the government seems self destructive and ineffective, unable to carry out their responsibilities of passing legislation and keeping the country functioning.  But we know from our own experience that our supposed "sound, stable majority" has done nothing in the past year but ram through an omnibus bill that no sane person would normally have passed without debate and revision.  Not only has the Canadian Conservative government shut down democratic dialogue by using their heavy handed majority to ram through legislation, but since they have been accused of wrongdoing and scandal, they have blocked and prevented efforts to answer questions about what was really going on regarding the scandal, and they are shutting out the media and other political parties, even to the point of proroguing parliament 3 different times since they have been in power.  There are also many things the government has done that most people are not even aware of, such as the 2013 FIPA agreement, containing guarantees that Chinese buyers would have the legal right to sue Canada in private settlement of inhibition to its activities by that government (including provincial or municipal for whom the federal government would be liable).  Does that seem like a more effective government to you?  The main obstacle is the parties need to learn to work together, but is that a bad thing?

Although I don't know the answer for certain, it seems like many Canadians are opposed to a coalition government because they don't want to think about and deal with government and politics as little as possible, and keep it out of their day to day life.   With coalitions they would expect things to be more uncertain, and politics would be more in your face.  This is the only reason I can think of, other than that Conservative ads may have just beaten their opinion in to the collective consciousness of Canadians. 

What we should want from our government, any government, is that they follow through with promises they make during the election, to research, discuss, debate critical issues and current events to improve the functioning of our country.  We obviously want our governments to be transparent and accountable, and what better to hold people to account than the other parties who at least share in more power, when their hands are not tied and they are able to access the resources they need to answer questions and solve problems as they arise such as the senate scandal.  Imagine how differently that would have played out if all three political parties took a share in power and were able to properly conduct inquiries and come to a consensus on what the problem is and how best to approach and solve those problems.  Shutting down parliament solves no problems only kicks the can down the road when the issue has then snowballed further.  The senate scandal would not have got to the point where people are writing cheques to cover incorrect expenses, because the audit would be conducted sooner and senators held to public scrutiny sooner.  The problem with majority governments is that it only serves one group - the political party that holds the power.  We need to move power away from parties, because they do not truly represent the will of Canadians, just one aspect of it, and twists away from doing the will of Canadians to serving their own interests.  Political majorities do not work effectively because the government essentially becomes the political party ideology, and no one persons beliefs are completely in line 100% with a political parties ideology.  Only by having the parties hold each other in check and to account can you be sure that what they are doing is on the level and serves the public benefit.

Coalition government falls under the greater umbrella of an emerging management concept in business - collaborative leadership.  For example, Valve software has no management hierarchy, and what does that do?  It decentralizes power, encourages creative thought so people are more likely to experiment.  The ultimate form of collaborative leadership is to the point where power has been distributed to voter participation.  With massive amounts of technological power already being in the hands of the average person in smartphones and computing, the next logical step is to increase voter participation.  With an established, secure system of ensuring one vote per registered citizen, online referenda where people can at least voice their opinion to MPs and at most actually vote on issues, similar to Swiss voting system of direct democracy.  Done via smart phone and streamlined to accommodate constant verified voting on all issues, the current technology can minimize costs and our billion dollar spy agency can provide counter intelligence to prevent hacking, and include CSIS involvement in doing something actually useful.

In 2011 CPC was found in contempt of parliament, and the government fell, but were then re elected to a majority government.  Why did this happen?  This is an important question and needs to be addressed first before we can begin to mend 

Canada: The Political Situation 2013

It seems to be a problem that the Canadian Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) does not live up to their own ideology.  In this essay I want to go through their party platform and beliefs of the CPC and see how and what they have been doing since they took office in 2006, to see how their actions compare to the words and rhetoric.

According to Wikipedia, it is very difficult to nail down the beliefs the CPC holds.  For starters, they want to more closely match US foreign policy - sort of - except we know when the US intervened in Syria and Libya, Canada allied with the Americans only as cheerleaders - didn't actually do much of anything.  They foster strong ties to China and are aggressively pursuing trade agreements with Europe and other countries around the world.  Although the actual benefits of these trade agreements and why they benefit Canada are not talked about specifically, we are told repeatedly that it is good for Canada's economy and we will benefit more as a result in some way.

The Conservatives also mention in their platform that they are in favour of abolishing the Senate, but in actuality they advised to appoint Michael Fortier to the Senate in 2006, and filled all 18 seats that were vacant in 2008.  Every Canadian with a television, radio or internet connection knows how that is working out for them at the moment.  Still in the midst of the Senate Scandal, they are refusing to call an inquiry, declining options to have people connected to the scandal testify, and generally trying to act like it is all going to go away on its own, when their own rise to power happened as a result of the Liberal Sponsorship Scandal in the early 2000's. That idea of SCANDAL, how to deal with one and how to avoid one, should have been the first lesson they had learned before taking power, yes?  Nigel Wright, one of the 4 people whom the conservatives condemned as the ONLY people involved in the scandal, even he has not testified .  In fact, I could not come up with much of anything he has said or done since writing the $90,000 cheque of his own money.  Apparently he is a shrewd, intelligent, rich guy who actually recruited Steve Harper when the current party was being formed.  Harper conversely promoted Nigel to the party Chief of Staff after winning party leadership.  This guy is not an idiot, and he is very well connected by his past to the current Prime Minister.  The fact that he is not saying anything speaks volumes to me: this guy wants to avoid the limelight at all costs, so he can do whatever it is he does innocuously in the background.  It is very difficult to pin his activities down, but he doesn't seem to concerned about having his name dragged through the mud in this case.  Obviously there is still quite a bit going on, and he seems very capable of avoiding any sort of news reports.

Next I want to mention one huge campaign promise the CPC had was at the time of the Sponsorship scandal and wanted to implement measures to hold government to account, including the parliamentary budget office.  Instead of the PBO being an aggressive watchdog, nipping at the heels of government and keeping things in line it seems like some sort of sad pathetic inbred toothless cur, with a failing liver and weak ankles and probably also crossed eyes.

Another big campaign promise conservatives like to toot their little tug boats about is lower taxes.  As it turns out, the government decided to tax income trusts in fall of 2006, effectively breaking one of their election promises.  The government did lower taxes federally, but announced that the growth of future health and social transfers to the provinces are tied to economic growth.  This forces the provinces to raise their own taxes via methods such as the HST, and doesn't really solve any of the problems associated with lowering taxes.

Conservatives like to use the phrase stewards of the economy - this branding seems pretty effective because anybody I talk to who admits to voting conservative seems to think that they are fiscally confident and wise managers of wealth.  They also think that any other political party will destroy Canada's economy, but there is no actual basis to think that way.  I can say that Auditor General Michael Ferguson was unable to find 3.1 billion dollars in antiterrorism spending between 2001 and 2009.  THEY LOST 3.1 BILLION DOLLARS.  The conservatives can also take full ownership of the fact that they misrepresented the costs of the f-35 jets, which as it turns out would end up costing $25 billion plus maintenance.

On another topic conservatives can be heard bleating about is making a smaller government - Since in power Harper has actually increased the size of cabinet to 39 ministers.  Combine that will expansions of the senate, the addition of the PBO, and the bloating of the deficit by funding government stimulus, the government has only gotten larger during their period in office.

I cannot argue the Conservatives have perused related to their platform is the promotion of traditional religious and cultural values .  Harper has firmly taken the "progressive" out of conservative, by making a huge stink about the royal wedding, queen's jubilee, re-re-naming the Royal Canadian Air Force and Navy...because we want to go back to remind ourselves we are a British colony?  Exporting our resources on behalf of a country whose only gifts to the world are banks, stock exchanges and pharmaceuticals.  Canada is now choosing to define itself by the past in a way that is probably not at all flattering to First Nations, some of whom are getting a flashback of colonial times in the process of protesting shale gas exploration on the East Coast.  By and large many Canadians seem to be enjoying this retro-ification of Canada's culture, possibly because it is the only few things that really are associated with Canada.  They certainly can't tout environmentalism or peacemaker stereotypes that previously defined Canada (although I'm not sure exactly when this was - maybe in the 70's and early 80's?).  It would be interesting to talk to young Canadians to see how they define themselves within the context of their country's culture, because that is a mighty big black box to me.

One 'victory' conservatives like to talk about is their fulfilment to reduce gun controls and scrap the long gun registry.  This one will not be put to rest easily, in part because Quebec and the CPC don't quite get along, but also within the historical context of the Polytechnique shooting in December 1989.  That province is still fighting the gun registry abolishment in court, and trying to hang on to the records that they have already collected.  While the issue seems to have passed in the rest of Canada, Quebec seems willing to fight tooth and nail to hang on to these records in any way or court possible, and if they can establish even a small foothold in keeping those records the Conservatives will find it very hard to shake it by 2015.

Another campaign promise Harper has done with his whole heart is in the promotion of the energy and gas sectors.  When I found out the Canadian government  was spying on Brazil and reporting the information to oil companies, it became very evident to me who Stephen Harper's bosses are.  Wouldn't a genuine conservative want to "conserve" their environmental resources and protect it from outside influence, rather than selling them off and destroying our other resources in the process?

On the promise of enhancing crime and law enforcement,  the senate scandal has made one thing clear: the CPC are doing everything in their power to hinder justice and obscure the truth - criminals in this case are given a blind eye, and they don't see anything wrong with that, no need to call an inquiry, no need for people involved to testify and find out what is actually going on.  Of course conservatives will push for higher sentences for blue collar crimes such as drug possession, shoplifting and vandalism, while the less visible but much more costly white collar crimes such as industrial espionage, environmental regulations, manipulations of the stock market, property and construction, tax evasion, and crimes by politicians have got no such attention, no new bills passed, no tightening of loopholes to bring the rich and powerful to the conservative party perception of justice.  Those super-prisons they were bragging about starting in 2009 will not be housing Rob Ford or other powerful individuals or corporate decision makers who profited in the 2008 market collapse and job destruction.  Instead they will hold petty thieves, small time drug dealers and the mentally ill while the owners of the prisons profit from the influx of criminality.

Internet surveillance is finally becoming a reality as the release of documents by Snowden revealed the extent of collection and analysis of users' internet usage both in the United States and Canada (and presumably most or all other countries with internet access).  For a long time surveillance of all kinds has been getting a hard push, under the pretence of terrorism.  Whether or not the loss of all privacy is "worth it" in the long run is an issue that will only grow as the surveillance becomes more elaborate and more intensive.  I'm sure all sorts of dirt will be found on who is sleeping with who, who is using which drugs, and other (mostly) victimless crimes are brought to light and a perverse sense of justice, as the number of criminals increase and another excuse given to fill up super-prisons, I'm not sure what point has to be reached before a serious debate begins on if this is the direction people generally want to be headed in.

As I've already mentioned, there is still a stalwart base that will vote conservative regardless of the obvious criminal activity and lack of transparency on the part of the CPC in their time running the Canadian government.  The few conservatives I have spoken with and comments I have read express that they feel the CPC is their only choice in Canada's electoral system, that other parties will "ruin Canada worse" or squander Canada's resources more so than what is already happening now.  I can't say with any certainty that the Liberals or the NDP would manage spending and the economy any better than the Conservatives have, but nobody with any fairness can say they will manage things any worse, either, since they actually haven't been given an opportunity to.  Overall the Liberals had a VERY good spending record during their long period running the country, and the NDP have yet to have been given a chance FEDERALLY.  Being as scrutinized as they would be, it seems to me like an NDP minority would ensure a very responsible spending policy, since it is such a contentious issue constantly being parroted by the conservatives as the holy grail of government responsibilities.  I would argue that until they have been given a chance, you can't know with any certainty how good or badly they would perform the task.  And given that the CPC has squandered every opportunity to create a transparent, responsible, accountable government, we can't collectively sit on our hands and say "well we can't hope for anything better", because we CAN do something better: what needs to happen is that our very fundamental system of government is the problem, and by changing the way the government works in a more broad sense external of which political party is in office, we are capable of bringing a new concept of government in to the world, a system where people can make their voice heard and actually bring back democratic values to a system that is obsolete, broken, and thoroughly corrupt.  In future posts I hope to discuss ideas for Canada's political future in more depth.