For Harper and His Corporate Puppeteers Control is the Objective and Fear is the Tool.

Today's NYT op-ed 'The Closing of the Canadian Mind' is a powerful and accurate condemnation of the tactics employed the Harper regeme. It focuses Harper authoritarian style of interacting with the press by pointing out that:"His relationship to the press is one of outright hostility. At his notoriously brief news conferences, his handlers vet every journalist, picking and choosing who can ask questions." It talks about Harper's war against science, about the Orwellian named 'Fair Elections Act' ..."which not only needlessly tightens the requirements for voting but also has restricted the chief executive of Elections Canada from promoting the act of voting".

It's a very good piece and interesting not only for its content but also for its candor. i've often noticed how hard hitting MSM can be when focusing on issues outside the borders of their own country. It cuts both ways, the CBC becomes and flag waving virtuoso when an issue like SARS or Mad Cow Disease threatens the capitalists in Canada but, like the NYT can be very hard hitting about issues that don't effect the Canadian corporate elite directly. So too at the NYT who swallow the Banker and Billionaires Club 'media lines' perfectly in their own country. So, i guess the best way to get the real story on your own country's dirty laundry is to read what those outside the control of your country's corporate owners.

Harper has learned one of the oldest lessons in the politicians handbook - Fear is a tool of control. For sure it works better on some folks than others, but in every society, every culture, every country there is a large percentage who are very susceptable to being controlled and manipulated by having certain fear buttons pushed.

It's not like Harper, or even politicians generally, have learned some new trick. Humans since the dawn of time have been controlled by fear, more accurately by those who figure out a way to use their fear against them. A great book by Robert Wright titled 'The Evolution of God' explains the phenomena starting with the early hunter gatherer's fear of the unknown and unknowable forces that dominated their world. Their fear of these unkown and uncontrolable forces were paralysing, along came someone who said they understood these unknowns and could mediate with them...if they were well compensated for the effort. Some were lucky ormade such broad claims as to be always somewhat accurate, either way...Viola, the Shaman was born. Wright's book is fanatastic, perhaps the best education on fear as a tool of control in the religious field ever written, but it also translates perfectly to the political as well.

Since the dawn of time, since humans evolved the ability to foresee events, since that ability awakened our ancestors to their inevitable fate, the fear of death has ridden on human shoulders and haunted human minds. Fear of death is the ultimate fear of the unknown. Long ago the powerful, learned that claiming to possess the answer to that fear was the ultimate tool of control. Over time the cheifs usurped some of that contrl by partnering with the Shaman.

Fear works, especially fear of the unknown, the psychological darkness of fear can transform what should be free and independent people into pawns of the powerful. Free and independent humans are wickedly difficult to control. Does Harper, does the US Tea Party who's policies and methods Harper emulates, actually believe the dominionist bullshit? Who knows what another really thinks. Does it matter either way? Not really, authoritarians seek power through control and fear works so it's irrelvent whether the control believe their own bullshit or not. And Harper's regular attendance at the Alliance Church whose adherence to The Cornwall Declaration on Environmental Stewardship which says environmentalist's and scientists are evil and holds to four foundational convictions based on the belief the Bible is without error and their Rapture dogma is proof enough to the fearful and religiously delusional that he's one of 'em.

What does matter here in Canada is that somewhere around 25% of the adult population believe that Chistian fundamenalism, dominionism is the both the truth and the salvation from fear of the big unknown - death. These 25% are Harper's voting base, just as the same group are the Tea Party's base. These Evangelical Christians and their Zionist allies are useful idiots to the corporate interests, and the governments they own. The powerful who seek greater profits for themselves regardless of the long term damage done understand that their objectives are best achieved where there are very few voices of dissent, where the population is controlled and therefore predictable, where laws and regulations are harmonized to suit them and where they own and control a compliant media. Control is the objective and fear is the tool.