Most discussions of l'affaire Galloway have failed to see its beneficial properties. Allow me to scrape off the medicinal residue from this absurd fiasco. Let us take this case--wherein a middle-aged British Parliamentarian who has visited Canada and America many times without incident has been barred and declared a national security threat--and distil a healing tincture from its sopping dregs.
Of course, there is much to deplore here. For instance, it seems Jason Kenney's Immigration Ministry had its paws all over this case, inappropriately: members of Kenney's staff were apparently aware that the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) was preparing a pre-emptive refusal to Galloway's entry request. Kenney claims that he had nothing to do with the decision (rightly, as the CBSA reports to the Ministry of Public Safety, not to Immigration), yet his staff were au courant with the latest developments and knew of the refusal even before Galloway did.
Deplorable also is the decision's rationale: apparently, delivering food and medicine to people living in a nightmarish no-man's land is a "terrorist" act if the people in need have elected a politically incorrect leadership.
We must not be seduced by mere appearances, though. If we strain to peer through the superficial turpitude, we'll find something we've never before seen from the Harperoid horde: the twitching of a fledgling political conscience. What seems to be wretched hypocrisy is nothing less than a sublimated but profound and devastating self-critique. In rebuking Galloway, the CPC condemns itself.
For if a man be infamous for risking his life in the personal delivery of food and medicine to people living under the grip of Hamas, how much more infamous would be those who, from the safety of their Parliament Hill offices, impersonally deliver missiles, bombs and artillery shells onto civilians on behalf of the squalid satraps of a corrupt, Islamist, narco-state?
If it be odious for one insignificant man to deliver food and medicine into the hands of a democratically elected "terrorist" government, how much more odious would it be for the most influential oligarchs of the world's most powerful nation to deliver millions of dollars worth of weapons into the hands of a tyrannical terrorist regime?
If it be odious for a "terrorist sympathiser" to enter Canada, how much more odious would it be for a terrorist sympathiser to administer Canada's immigration laws and presume to personify patriotic vigilance?
The CPC's moral faculties, long in embryo, have grown, have developed, and now begin to stir. They feel their own vileness but can yet experience it only as something outside of themselves--in a Galloway, for instance. Their ethical sense, still primitive, expresses itself in a kind of voodoo; through this occult magic, the CPC torments itself through attacks on others: it sticks pins in dolls fashioned after its own likeness.
Now, will the party ever evolve beyond this stage of infantile, pre-historic enchantment? Will it ever gain the power of authentic self-questioning? Will it ever establish itself on a set of dignified, ethically consistent standards of governance?
The answer is another question: Will Stephen Harper ever resign?
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Excellent post. Always enjoyable :)
Now, will the party ever evolve beyond this stage of infantile, pre-historic enchantment? Will it ever gain the power of authentic self-questioning? Will it ever establish itself on a set of dignified, ethically consistent standards of governance?
I don't see how, since it perfectly represents its base of supporters, who are themselves burdened by moral imbecility and are, by now, beyond remediation.
...its base of supporters...are themselves...beyond remediation.
Is there then no hope? I, too, am staring into the deep dark pit, but I'm not yet prepared to declare it a bottomless one.
As someone who sees life as a finite chain of survivable catastrophes (cf. Trois Couleurs: Rouge), I tend to see the CPC as a disaster but a survivable one.
Or so I need to believe, if my conservatism is to remain a happy, hopeful, constructive one.
Sadly, the summons of the shadows--where the ghost of Mishima weeps--is dangerously seductive.
Or so I need to believe, if my conservatism is to remain a happy, hopeful, constructive one.
This is called having faith! Though the idea is now corrupted by religious zealots, having faith simply means hoping things will improve despite little hard evidence at the present time.
I offer two situations from which one might derive some hope: First, consider Nazi Germany. A lot of truly evil people were involved in the Holocaust, but there were a lot more people involved or at least giving "moral" support, who were simply foolish imbeciles led by a leader they found charismatic. Once he was gone, those people reverted to a semblance of normalcy.
Second, consider the US Vietnam vets heroin problem. It was believed there would be a huge problem of returning vets being heroin addicts. Some were, but once removed from the toxic environment they were in, most reverted to a semblance of normalcy.
So it could be with the otherwise normal people who have chosen to support the CPC, once the CPC are out of power and no longer a threat to the fabric of the nation.
Is there then no hope?
I really don't know anymore.
...once the CPC are out of power and no longer a threat to the fabric of the nation.
Obviously, such a thing is devoutly to be wished for--from a partisan Liberal point of view. For me, that would be only a consolation prize.
Since the CPC has effectively institutionalised itself as the political vehicle for Canadian conservatism, my deeper hope is for an inner transformation of the party itself--a restoration, as it were.
Historically, weak or treacherous Canadian conservatism has always tended to heighten the continentalist threat to truly dangerous levels. With the nation's commitment to social democracy sagging (witness plummeting NDP support), a healthy Toryism remains the only philosophically consistent barrier to further continental ingtegration.
As long as our current diseased "Toryism" remains fully in lockstep with the old élite Liberal/liberal NAFTA-driven consensus--which sees Canada as merely a soulless, contractually devised fiduciary instrument (to quote myself)--the substance of Canada's nationhood will continue to be ground into dust.
As long as our current diseased "Toryism"
Diseased? It's dead. Dead, dead, dead.
For God's sakes, I'm missing Mulroney and he's the one killed it.
It's dead. Dead, dead, dead...
Well, I am very much alive, as are ATY and Dylan, as are David Orchard and Danny Williams and the millions of Canadians who voted for Clark the last time they had an opportunity to do so.
The Lord was willing to spare Sodom if ten righteous men could be found therein. Surely, Canadian Toryism deserves the same courtesy, 'stie...!
Not while our national media continues to publish the bilious rants of a degenerate ponce.
I'm really rather taken with the phrase "squalid satrap", darling.
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