Margaret Atwood slams Harper

Slam!

"Every budding dictatorship begins by muzzling the artists, because they're a mouthy lot and they don't line up and salute very easily. Of course, you can always get some tame artists to design the uniforms and flags and the documentary about you, and so forth - the only kind of art you might need - but individual voices must be silenced, because there shall be only One Voice: Our Master's Voice. Maybe that's why Mr. Harper began by shutting down funding for our artists abroad. He didn't like the competition for media space."

and ...

"Mr. Harper's idea of an ordinary person is that of an envious hater without a scrap of artistic talent or creativity or curiosity, and no appreciation for anything that's attractive or beautiful,"

I look forward to reading this: Atwood on the Election

Generalize Much, Steve?

If you have any awareness of the arts world, you will know just how badly Harper mischaracterized the arts community yesterday:

the Conservative Leader draped himself in populism and said he sided with regular folks who aren't troubled that his policies rile fat-cat artists or people “in ivory towers.”

Mr. Harper would not, however, repeat in French his criticisms of artists, for outrage at his party's culture platform is most outspoken in Quebec.

It's the kind of generalizations Harper makes that show us his thinking is extremely limited. His world is all black and white. The arts world - which is so often about 'the show' - is far from wealthy. Artists are ordinary Canadians. Look around your community, and how many volunteer theatre companies run on shoestring budgets - barely able to pay any staff salaries for the routine business of keeping things going.

How many people sitting in offices or working at Starbucks are writers, sculptors or other forms of artist who haven't come anywhere near 'the big time'?

The rest of us are in one form or another consumers of the output of the arts. Whether you attend a play or two a year, or you are a passionate devotee of literature.

The problem with Harper's recent cuts to the arts is not their scale, but rather the way in which he has gone about it. Rather than putting it forward as part of the government's budget, and making it part of the larger financial discussion for the government. Instead, Harper did the changes under the rules of Order In Council, a tool primarily intended to enable Her Majesty's Government to continue the day to day operations of government while Parliament is not sitting.

The issue is this - like Ralph Klein in Alberta, Harper is doing as much as he thinks he can get away with outside of the open forum of Parliament. When he does have to use Parliamentary process, Harper tries to make everything a confidence motion, and further abuses both the concepts of democracy and parliamentary politics.

It's Not Ideology?

Horsefeathers:

But Mr. Harper flatly denied any ideological underpinnings, saying the cuts were made through a series of analyses, the bulk of which “the Department [of Canadian Heritage] itself” carried out.

For those who haven't spent time in Ralphberta, home roost for Harper and his band of thieving neoCons, Harper's hostility towards arts funding, equality rights and so on is simply typical extreme neoCon dogma. The attitude is based on a blithe supposition that the 'free market reigns supreme'. To hell with anyone who doesn't have huge bags of money to back them - more or less.

Particularly laughable is this little gem:

“I've always been torn on music and piano in a way because I actually get a great deal of satisfaction out of when I do it, but I get so wrapped up in it. I've always had that problem with the artistic things I've enjoyed doing – I've played piano, I've sung a bit, I used to write poetry – I've always found with these kinds of things that they draw me in and I can't let them go. I find it difficult to do it just on the side, a little bit here and now,” he said.

Don't even try to make yourself look 'warm and fuzzy', Harper - you aren't, and you won't ever be publicly. What this looks like to me is the classic line used by the religious right towards GLBT people - "But I've got friends who are ..." - it's condescending, pretentious and disrespectful to those that you've just kicked in the face.

And it's not just a $45 million dollar cut - because you started hacking at such things back in 2006 when your government went on its lovely little hack-and-slash campaign of $1 BILLION. Which you've subsequently spent goodness knows how many times over on short term leases to conduct your most excellent adventure in junior empire building.