Blogging Tory "The Canadian Sentinel" apparently doesn't think his own nation is good enough to be accorded much promotional space on his blog. The place is a virtual mens-room wall of non-Canadian graffiti. We've got "pro-Israeli" (i.e. Arab-hating) links and banners; we've got belligerent Right-wing American propaganda (WorldNetDaily, "VigilantFreedom", etc.); and we've even got U.S. government links (Homeland Security, Central Command, etc). The place is a virtual extension of the U.S. Embassy, if it were run by Ohio militiamen.
Amid all of this febrile celebration of foreign allegiances, Canada is accorded a single link, to the Canadian Forces--and don't for a minute think that this guy would condescend to include even this meagre afterthought were our Forces not currently sepoys carrying out American initiatives in Afghanistan.
And that, friends, is the complexion of Canadian "conservatism" today: it is the self-loathing, obsequious champion of our bitterest and most ruthless economic and cultural competitor. With "conservatives" like this, we don't need any anarchists.
Then we have "The Canadian Republic". This "conservative" passionately espouses a political system and cultural history utterly alien to those of his own nation. His blog might as well be called "Canadian Sultanate", frankly--yet he feebly pleads his loyalty and conservative bona fides by arguing that he loves "freedom" and simply seeks to take Canada from under the "yoke" of British oppression.
Apart from offering my outraged sympathy if, indeed, the Redcoats have been behaving as badly in this man's neighbourhood as his sentiments would suggest, I would argue that a "yoke" that has produced one of the freest, most orderly and most prosperous nations in the world has been a light one indeed and that ludicrous hyperbole is a poor excuse for a political philosophy.
Clear Grit republicanism was silly enough in the Nineteenth Century, when it at least wore its own shabby rags. It's even sillier in Tory drag.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
5 comments:
Unfortunately, the only friends of traditional conservativism left are those bloody socialists with their "independent Canada" and "patriotism". The nerve.
George Grant wouldn't have been surprised much by that, however.
;)
And you wonder why I left the Party in the early 1990's ....
Does anyone recall the Motto for the Province of Ontario?
"Loyal She Began, Loyal She Remains."
My Three Great Uncles who lay buried in Flanders and Artois believed in this stuff.
They DIED for it.
You overlooked his “Never Forget… God Bless America” banner. (Just in case 9/11 and TERRA had slipped the viewer's mind...) I definitely thought that one was worthy of mention. Heh.
The symbology employed by many so-called “conservatives” pretty clearly links them to their spiritual/ideological roots which run directly south of the border and are deeply entwined with the Republican Party and various aspects of its extensive “right-wing noise machine” (to use David Brock’s lovely expression).
Part of the enormous “popularity” of Kate McMillan and her “Small (Brain)Dead Animals” site is the fact that she’s extremely well connected with a number of influential right-wing blogs in the USA. For them, she’s their “northern outpost” as it were. And why not? She echoes all of their talking points, rides the same hobby-horses and supports all of the same causes that they do, almost without exception.
All of which makes it pretty laughable when these asinine twats recoil in mock indignation when the CPoC and its online coterie of slavish hacks are accused of being largely fungible with their Republican counterparts. Gee, I wonder why people might get THAT impression?
Red:
She echoes all of their talking points, rides the same hobby-horses and supports all of the same causes that they do, almost without exception.
That which is void of essence is always driven to replicate itself.
The inauthentic always feels the need to multiply itself, since only through endless repetition will it be provided with the substance it lacks. This is a key fact in the mechanics of propaganda, for an obvious example.
I think this rule governs the way Canadians appropriate American neo-con rhetoric. Such discourse does not admit of local adaptation because it is always aware of its own total lack of authenticity. It is thus constantly (and fruitlessly) attempting to affirm a substance through endless repetition: it must always repeat identical versions of itself. It can allow no nuance, modification, or inner tension.
Canadians who become the vehicles of this discourse thus must reduce themselves to ventriloquists' dummies; they essentially self-alienate--intellectually, emotionally, and culturally. The spectacle this process provides is degrading--for victim and for viewer.
Hmmm. I’m not sure about the “void of essence” part of that statement. That doesn’t ring entirely true, but I can’t quite put my finger on the reason why. “Essence” is a rather problematic, subjective term.
However, as you correctly point out, endless repetition is an essential component of amplifying and perpetuating “the Big Lie” to the point where it becomes accepted “truth” for all intents and purposes in the collective consciousness. The right-wing in the U.S. has clearly taken Goebbels’ dictum to heart and have been masterful in the employment of this propaganda technique. Any montage of the outright, now clearly ludicrous fabrications leading up to the war in Iraq offers a chilling demonstration of its verity. Of course, even on a lower, vastly more innocuous level, it also hold true, as anyone involved in the fields of advertising or public relations will confirm.
I think Canadians appropriate “neo-con rhetoric” by osmosis as much as anything else. In part, this is because there’s a tragic void in our political dialog. At least in the televised version of it. What do political junkies have on offer? C-PAC? Well, that’s only for the truly hardcore contingent. At last count, maybe a few hundred or a couple of thousand people — mostly shut-ins, I suspect. Or perhaps their remote controls are broken. Aside from that, there are the dueling shows on NewsNet and CBC (“Mike Duffy Live” and “Politics”) which air in the afternoon when almost nobody is watching and also cancel each other out. Aside from that, there’s practically nothing at all. The “At Issue” panel once a week on CBC’s “The National” and “Question Period” that airs at some obscure time on Sunday afternoon. Compare this to the endless, 24/7/365 stream of political coverage from America via CNN (and Headline News) and in some markets, MSNBC and FOX News. How lame is our coverage? When parliament goes on one of their many, lengthy sojourns, the media gladly checks out for the interim too! Un-fucking-believable.
Post a Comment