4 ms·

I'm not going to get into the fascism vs. not-at-all-fascism debate. But there is something like nationalism at work here. You have the self-appointed champion

by slurry 13y ago

I'm not going to get into the fascism vs. not-at-all-fascism debate. But there is something like nationalism at work here. You have the self-appointed champions of "real Canada" (Harper's base in the landlocked provinces) systematically undermining the knowledge and cultural capital of the Alien Other (the "weird" provinces that touch salt water, which for various reasons are all not quite "real Canada). It's probably not fascism. But it's more than just bad policy. It's bad policy that consistently works out to the detriment of non-favored geographic, linguistic, and yes sometimes ethnic groups.

cstross 13y ago
Yes, this. It's the equivalent of red state/blue state culture war politics in the USA, turned up to 8 or 9 (if not 11). It's also destroying research libraries that provide exhaustive raw data going back decades or centuries on the natural environment. If you view Harper's constituents as the resource extraction industries, the destruction of this information is useful to them insofar as it deprives their opponents (the science-backed environmental lobby) of ammunition with which to oppose environment-degrading policies. With these libraries gone, much information is forever lost that could otherwise be used to build a coherent policy case opposing, e.g. tar sand extraction or other resource extraction businesses on environmental grounds. Note that Stephen Harper is a member of an evangelical fundamentalist church that opposes environmentalism and denies anthropogenic climate change: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/03/26/Harper-Evangelical-Mission/ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/03/26/Harper-Evangelical-Miss... Whether what's at work is misguided tribalism, business-centric anti-environmentalism, religious fundamentalism, or something else, I hope everyone on HN can agree that destroying research libraries isn't a good foundation for evidence-based policy making in governance.

by slurry 13y ago

cstross 13y ago

Yes, this. It's the equivalent of red state/blue state culture war politics in the USA, turned up to 8 or 9 (if not 11). It's also destroying research libraries that provide exhaustive raw data going back decades or centuries on the natural environment. If you view Harper's constituents as the resource extraction industries, the destruction of this information is useful to them insofar as it deprives their opponents (the science-backed environmental lobby) of ammunition with which to oppose environment-degrading policies. With these libraries gone, much information is forever lost that could otherwise be used to build a coherent policy case opposing, e.g. tar sand extraction or other resource extraction businesses on environmental grounds. Note that Stephen Harper is a member of an evangelical fundamentalist church that opposes environmentalism and denies anthropogenic climate change: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/03/26/Harper-Evangelical-Mission/ http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2012/03/26/Harper-Evangelical-Miss... Whether what's at work is misguided tribalism, business-centric anti-environmentalism, religious fundamentalism, or something else, I hope everyone on HN can agree that destroying research libraries isn't a good foundation for evidence-based policy making in governance.