Rob Ford’s War on Toronto

[marmar]

from NOW Toronto:





Rob Ford’s War on Toronto
The means of stopping Rob Ford’s radical deconstruction of Toronto are in our hands

By Michael Hollett


Schoolyard bullies try to make their victims feel hopeless, like resistance is futile so you may as well hand over your lunch money and get ready for a smack.

The undynamic duo, mayors Rob and Doug Ford, are bullies trying to divide and defeat citizens in the course of making over a once-great city as a right-wing science experiment.

And you’d better not complain, because “there’s more where that came from.” Rob Ford said as much Monday when, in announcing proposed cuts that make a lie of almost all his campaign promises, he warned, “This is just scraping the surface right now.”

Get it? Shut your mouth or you’ll really see what he can do. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.nowtoronto.com/news/story.cfm?content=182698

[SpiralHawk]

1. Republicon Family Values (Great White North version)

...no doubt his rich cronies are sopping up gravy...eh?

[PDJane]

2. And the provincial head of the Conservatives

is using the same kind of platform as the US reich wing. If you really want to get a further idea, see it at http://www.ontariopc.com/changebook/.
-create work gangs for provincial inmates
-make high-risk offenders wear GPS bracelets
-put Ontario's sex offender registry on line.
Oh, yeah, and work for change.

I don't want the change he's
bringing.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

3. Ford is a jerk-off but an important lesson too, progressives can run amuck

He wasn't elected in a vacuum, he was elected in a vicious backlash to a city government that had come to cater only to its own largess and to a handful of urban hipsters and their esoteric "progressive" issues to the exclusion of all others.

[snagglepuss]

4. Utter bullocks. Care to support that with even one fact?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

6. If you knew anything of David Miller et-al you wouldn't have to ask.

You can start with the "War on Cars" which was really fucking popular in a city of commuters, an organized campaign of harassment against motorists. Maybe you think harassing motorists is a noble pursuit but the voters didn't like it. This was complimented with a ridiculous public transit plan that nobody wanted and even most public transit advocates were skeptical of or hostile to. Basically running trams at street level through the worst congestion anywhere instead of investing in the subway system.

Then there was the special treatment enjoyed by certain constituencies such as the squatters in the Toronto Islands. The people of Toronto hate these guys but when they say jump (or start a war with the federal government over the airport on Lake Ontario) he said "How high?" and Sure! As an encore performance because he just didn't get pelted with enough garbage he took the war to a popular entertainment venue on the waterfront because the squatters didn't like the noise. The squatters are just a bunch of hippies who scammed sweetheart leases ($1/Day) on property in the Toronto Islands. If there was a referendum on the subject a write-in "Bulldoze them into Lake Ontario" would win.

This could go on for pages, it was one unwanted or alienating initiative after another that was usually green or diverse or whatever but wanted by nobody.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

5. Pretty bold statement there...

What is there in the way of backup?

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

7. David Miller's tenure as mayor.

There was a status quo candidate George Smitherman and there was Rob Ford. Ford beat Smitherman by almost 100,000 votes. Ford was simply the only other serious candidate in an election that became a referendum on status quo.

[SidDithers]

8. Heard on the radio this morning that only 27% would vote to re-elect Ford...

if an election were held today.

Unfortunately, we're 3 years away from another Municipal election.

Sid