Looking for something? Search this site and archives.

Part One of Robin Mathews' review of The Arrogant Autocrat: Stephen Harper's Takeover of Canada

Conservative Party Crimes.  Mel Hurtig Writes. 
For All Canadians.

The Arrogant Autocrat by Mel Hurtig – book review by Robin Mathews, June 2015

PART ONE

The book is small.  Compact.  Readable.  Important.  Read it.  Hand it on to your friends.  Above all … hand it on to friends who voted Conservative in the last election.

Mel Hurtig calls his new book The Arrogant Autocrat: Stephen Harper's Takeover of Canada.  ‘Chapter and verse,’ it itemizes Harper Conservative crimes against the people of Canada, against their laws, their trust in Parliament, their institutions, their economy, their special protections as a free people….

‘Chapter and verse,’ Mel Hurtig looks at crimes against the Democratic System, the environment, science and scientists, public knowledge and information, freely assembling community organizations, and – NEWS TO MANY – he points to the lies and frauds and “unfacts” and – you name it – by the Conservative government to falsify its gross mismanagement of the economy.  A growing loss of jobs.  A growing loss of living wages.  A growing loss of Canadian ownership.  A growing loss of Canadian industrial activity – not just sold but packed up and shipped out.  Hugely growing national indebtedness… and more.

The Conservative lying has been so persistent that many Canadians don’t know the painful truth about Harper Conservative destruction of the Canadian economy. Read The Arrogant Autocrat.  Find out how Canadians, dollar for dollar, are much poorer than they were ten years ago – as a result of deliberate Conservative Party policy.

I wrote, above, that readers should hand on The Arrogant Autocrat to friends who voted Conservative in the last election. “Oh,” you might say, repeating Conservative Party and Media lies, “Canadians don’t change their voting pattern.”  Tell a lie often enough, and it begins to sound like truth.

Most Canadians want a decent Canada – among them, most Conservative Canadians. (Not the super-rich, the One Per Cent.  They are different, whatever they claim to be politically.)  We know, just recently, the so-called “hardest-core Conservative province” (which, living there for a time, I never believed) – ALBERTA… swung….  How hard did it swing?

One third of “hard-core” Wild Rose Party voters (nearest to Stephen Harper’s position) switched their vote – and went for change.  One third of Progressive Conservative voters switched their vote – and went for change.  The NDP increased its vote, with those changes and a few others, by 400%.

Canadians want a decent Canada, whether they usually vote Conservative, Liberal, NDP, Bloc, Green, CPCML (Communist Party)… or other.  It is in the interest of the Harper corporate Falsifiers to say Canadians don’t change their voting patterns; especially that so-called “core-Right voters don’t change their vote.” 

Are our memories that short?

In 1993, the Progressive Conservative government of Brian Mulroney (somewhat less dishonest than Stephen Harper) plunged (with a quickly found ‘sacrificial lamb’ prime minister) from a 151seat majority to 2 seats.  But – as we are told – core Conservatives don’t change their vote.

The message from the neat, compact book – Mel Hurtig’s The Arrogant Autocrat - is “look at the truth of Conservative Party rule led by Stephen Harper – look at the   …/ ugly, criminal truth.  Then push aside the lies, the lies,
the lies flooding from Conservative Party headquarters.”

After that… hand the book to a friend, if possible to a friend who voted Conservative in the last federal election.  Even hard-core Conservative voters don’t like being lied to, cheated, robbed, treated as criminals, de-frauded of ‘national’ honesty, tricked out of deserved social care and key information about the country’s operation, its health, its prosperity.

Get the book.  Tell your local bookstore to order a bundle.  Or you, yourself, can order a copy (copies) directly from Chapters.ca or Amazon.ca.

Mel Hurtig has been fighting for Canadian self-respect and independence for more than fifty years – writing eight books on the subject in that time.

This, he says, is his most important book.  Maybe it is – because it’s not about a dumb, inadequate, inefficient, colonial-minded government doing silly, sell-out things.  It’s about what many of us believe is a flagrantly criminal government actively destroying Canada on behalf of insane, super-wealthy, greed-driven corporations, nut-case fundamentalists, and cabals of the One Per Cent wanting global power at the expense of decent people everywhere.

The members of the Conservative government of Canada – are drugged, whipped, coerced, and threatened into stupid, vicious, (and many believe) criminal conformity to neo-liberal, neo-fascist behaviour.  They must be removed, replaced, relieved of all power.  They must be defeated massively.

Get Mel Hurtig’s small, compact, readable, very important book, The Arrogant Autocrat.  It will help you see clearly the task ahead.

The Arrogant Autocrat: Stephen Harper's
Takeover of Canada -
by Mel Hurtig
Mel Hurtig Publishing, April 30, 2015
Dimensions:  154 pages, 8.5 × 5.5 × 0.36 in
ISBN - 10: 0994090102

See Part Two


Return to the Dialogue Home Page

What is Dialogue Magazine?

THE AUTUMN 2024 EDITION OF DIALOGUE, V. 38-1, was mailed to subscribers in early October 2024.
* * * *
The next issue is planned for December 2024

* * * *

To subscribe or send a Gift Subscription, please contact us:
250-758-9877

dialogue(at)dialogue.ca
6227 Groveland Dr.
Nanaimo, BC Canada

$30 CDN within Canada, for 4-6 issues per year.
$10 SINGLE ISSUE; Please add $5.00usd per issue for mailing of International orders.
In addition to the printed magazine, subscribers receive a pdf copy with active links.

*  *  *

New Issues are not currently being posted online, but many prior issues up can be viewed online by
 scrolling down, or at Recent Editions, left.

* * *

SCROLL DOWN FOR ARTICLES THAT WERE POSTED TO THIS WEBSITE FROM FEBRUARY 7th to 23rd, 2022

*  *  *

Subscribe or order a Gift Subscription

Please send comments, inquiries or letters / essays / poetry / art  to dialogue(at)dialogue.ca
MAIL: 6227 Groveland Dr., Nanaimo, BC V9V 1B1 CANADA. Or use the Submission Page
* * *

Links to earlier issues can be accessed here.

You can order a copy of the printed magazine!

* * *

QUOTES

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."
-
George Orwell

* * *

"The civilized have created the wretched, quite coldly and deliberately, and do not intend to change the status quo; are responsible for their slaughter and enslavement; rain down bombs on defenseless children whenever and wherever they decide that their "vital interests" are menaced, and think nothing of torturing a man to death: these people are not to be taken seriously when they speak of the 'sanctity' of human life, or the 'conscience' of the civilized world." - James Baldwin, Source: page 489 of COLLECTED ESSAYS (1998), from chapter one of "The Devil Finds Work" (orig. pub. 1976)

"Since world war two we've managed to create history's first truly global empire. This has been done by the corporatocracy, which are a few men and women who run our major corporations and in doing so also run the U.S. government and many other governments around the world." - John Perkins, 2005, author of the book titled 'Confessions of and Economic Hit Man' 

In the struggle of Good against Evil, it's always the people who get killed. - Eduardo Galeano  

"It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of personkind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely." - Leo Buscaglia, author and university professor (1924-1998) 

The above quotes are from ICH on Dec. 18-19, 2015: InformationClearingHouse

* * *

Add comments or new items in Your Submissions