So needing a break from other tasks, I sat down to regain some of my youth.  The song I chose was Phil Ochs’ Here’s to the State of Richard Nixon, itself Ochs’ own rework of his original Here’s to the State of Mississippi.  My lyricist heart got little satisfaction or really any exercise in the end.  I was amazed at how little needed to be changed from a song about Richard Nixon to make it a song about Stephan Harper.   My political soul soared though.  This little exercise in a very few minutes brought home to me the reasons for my nagging discomfort with the Harper government.  I had watched it all unfold before:  The lies, the religious fakery, laws changed quietly, almost secretly through Order in Council.

How many thought after Watergate that government would never be able to get away with such shenanigans again with the watchful eye of the media ready to pounce at the first sign of government subversion and abuse of power.  Yet here we are, thirty-seven years after Nixon’s ignoble resignation.  Is it because of our delusion that Canada is somehow more moral than the United States?  Or is it just because the media we trusted to raise the warning is now owned by a handful of men who create our leaders for us?

Whatever the cause it seems so little changes.  Like lemmings we blindly we run merrily to our demise again and again.  So here it is.  The words are all Phil Ochs except for the name and a few minor adjustments to make it fit more snugly to Stephan ‘Milhous’ Harper.

Here’s to the State of Stephan Harper

Here’s to the state of Stephan Harper.

Where underneath his borders

The Devil draws no lines.

If you drag his putrid tar sands

Nameless toxins you will find

And the fat trees of the forest

Have hid a thousand crimes,

And the calendar is lying

When it reads the present time.

[Chorus]

Oh here’s to the land you’ve torn out the heart of.

Stephan Harper: find yourself another country to be part of.

And here’s to the schools of Stephan Harper.

Where they’re teaching all the children

That they don’t have to care,

All the rudiments of hatred

Are present everywhere,

And every single classroom

Is a factory of despair.

There’s nobody learning

Such a foreign word as “fair.”

[Chorus]

And here’s to the laws of Stephan Harper.

Where the laws are set in secret,

Proroguing every day.

He punishes with income tax

That he don’t have to pay,

And he’s tapping his own brother

Just to hear what he would say.

But corruption can be classic

In the Stephan Harper way.

[Chorus]

And here’s to the churches of Stephan Harper (and Billy Graham).

Where the cross once made of silver

Now is caked with rust,

And the Sunday morning sermons

Pander to their lust,

And the fallen face of Jesus

Is choking in the dust,

And Heaven only knows

In which God they can trust.

[Chorus]

And here’s to the government of Stephan Harper.

In the swamp of their bureaucracy

They’re always bogging down,

And criminals are posing

As advisors to the crown,

And they hope that no one sees the sights

And no one hears the sounds,

And the speeches of the prime minister

Are the ravings of a clown.

[Chorus]

Make it happen Canada!