tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post8280258013432310045..comments2023-06-22T07:32:28.491-04:00Comments on Dred Tory: Stephen Harper: Doing Fuck-All, on Your DimeSir Francishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comBlogger19125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-58649346735096948792009-12-23T12:48:12.779-05:002009-12-23T12:48:12.779-05:00So THAT's why I haven't seen _The Walrus_ ...So THAT's why I haven't seen _The Walrus_ around the house for months!<br /><br />Lady Francis does appreciate having her sensibilities protected. It's one of the reasons she married Sir Francis.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-79603077415161588312009-12-22T10:40:35.256-05:002009-12-22T10:40:35.256-05:00They've really laid their fingers upon a stran...<i>They've really laid their fingers upon a strange facet of Canadian governmental history: generally speaking, more attention has been paid to the region that contains almost 60% of Canada's population than to any other. What the fuck kind of democracy is that? Remember, we're ruled by a "government" ushered in with the assent of about 22% of eligible voters. Now that's Tomm's kind of democracy.</i><br /><br />I've made that point before (along with the other one, that; the whole point of a federation is to allow hinterland areas to govern themselves in ways they see fit), but for some reason, Albertans think there's some issue involving retributive justice that makes this OK (NEP and bilingualism, no doubt). But I think deep down, it's the conceit and arrogance of them to think the country doesn't have the look and feel of "The West," by which they mean God's Country, Alberta, of course.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-17033419155974599082009-12-21T22:47:42.008-05:002009-12-21T22:47:42.008-05:00You've got to hand it to Tomm and his ilk, tho...You've got to hand it to Tomm and his ilk, though. They've really laid their fingers upon a strange facet of Canadian governmental history: generally speaking, more attention has been paid to the region that contains almost 60% of Canada's population than to any other. What the fuck kind of democracy is that? Remember, we're ruled by a "government" ushered in with the assent of about 22% of eligible voters. Now <i>that's</i> Tomm's kind of democracy.<br /><br />As for Tomm's poor, neglected "hinterlands", you'll never trip over any evidence that he could give a damn about the vastly ignored Maritimes and Native communities, because (of course) it just serves the pogey-pulling, fire-water sodden wretches right. If they really had anything valuable to say, God would have blessed them with an underground ocean of oil.<br /><br />For Tomm, our government's ethical responses should reflect those of a wily cathouse <i>mama-san</i>: bow and scrape before the tumescent punters with the big cash, and bolt the door against the earnest, bleeding-heart dullards who occasionally stop by in order to convince your girls to go back to the homes they ran away from. Good intentions are fine in the abstract, but they don't put food on the table nor giant plasma screens in the rec room, beside the hot tub.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-61502674608267453702009-12-21T20:46:33.876-05:002009-12-21T20:46:33.876-05:00did you peruse the comments, though?
No. But tha...<i>did you peruse the comments, though?</i><br /><br />No. But thanks for drawing my attention to Tomm's bloody-minded idiocy. That's always fun. This bit is par for the course:<br /><br /><i>The second is the well described piece about Liberal history and how it conforms to the national balance between Quebec and Ontario. The build up clearly implies a "bigger" Canada is about to be described, but the entire piece never returns to this, instead appearing to accept and acknowledge that the Canadian hinterlands are still beyond Liberal understanding.</i><br /><br />After all, it's always about him, his sparsely-populated Albertan wasteland and his never-ending persecution complex.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-63366929644494304112009-12-21T18:38:14.741-05:002009-12-21T18:38:14.741-05:00Ti:
Thanks for the link. I haven't looked at ...Ti:<br /><br />Thanks for the link. I haven't looked at <i>The Walrus</i> in a while.<br /><br />I've yet to read the article fully; did you peruse the comments, though? Anyone look familiar? Here's a clue: the commenter cudgels the author for his "fawning" pro-Ignatieff piece and then mocks the Liberals for being led by a "blue blood academic from Harvard". Yeah, it's him.<br /><br />I wonder if Tomm <i>subscribes</i> to the magazine. I cannot now remember, from when I subscribed on-line a few years ago, whether <i>The Walrus</i> gives one the option of having issues delivered in discreet brown wrappers. <br /><br />Naturally, too, Tomm would need to retrieve each issue from his post-box before the <i>chatelaine</i> got to it, as it's really not fit reading for ladies.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-40975666391824026682009-12-21T18:21:37.002-05:002009-12-21T18:21:37.002-05:00I sure wish we could all agree that doing nothing ...<i> I sure wish we could all agree that doing nothing is the worst possible strategy.</i><br /><br />That's a complicated question. It has always been axiomatic for authentic conservatives that the key task of government is not to multiply laws and regulations but to prosecute properly such laws that perpetuate the public good as already exist while shearing away the malignant (or redundant) ones.<br /><br />The power of that axiom has been fading for some time, as "Movement Conservatism"--the ersatz "culture-war" conservatism the Reform/Alliance imported from the States—is actually quite comfortable with a massive state and a dense regulatory regime, as long as they do their jobs--protecting the property "rights" of the trans-national plutocracy and fostering a capital market environment that produces an economic growth neither statistically nor empirically relevant to meaningful quality-of-life criteria.<br /><br />Very few media have bothered to report that the Harper government is actually larger, significantly larger, than Paul Martin's. Our prime minister, a notorious anti-Dominion and anti-Confederation fanatic, has actually swelled the federal government in order to make it <i>less</i> of a presence in our lives. And the guy is still taken seriously. Astonishing.<br /><br />We might say that the Bush Era down south and our current Harper Era demonstrate two conservative traditions undergoing full-blown senescence. That's true only if we understand that there never really <i>was</i> a conservative tradition in the United States and that Harper comes from a Prairie populist tradition that has always been ideologically promiscuous rather than authentically conservative.<br /><br />The real senescence is in our inability to recognise real conservatism when we see and hear it. And that's not just a problem for Tories like me. Given the <i>verso</i> of the problem--that we've lost the ability to recognise real liberalism and real socialism when we see them--it's a problem for us all.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-42746946991637512142009-12-21T15:15:39.706-05:002009-12-21T15:15:39.706-05:00Anyway, Liberal haters: here's an article from...Anyway, Liberal haters: <a href="http://www.walrusmagazine.com/articles/2010.01-politics-the-stranger-within/" rel="nofollow">here's</a> an article from <i>The Walrus</i> that features the type of analysis we're sorely lacking in this country when it comes to discussing the Liberal Party.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-67588949459346193062009-12-21T10:49:32.057-05:002009-12-21T10:49:32.057-05:00It is so nice to have you actively writing for us ...It is so nice to have you actively writing for us again. I know there's a freedom that comes from writing under a pseudonym, but I'd sure like to know if you're also publishing for fully deserved personal credit.<br /><br />Anyway, this makes a logical bookend to Wells' recent piece in Maclean's. It's not just a government doing fuck all, it's that they see it as a form of accomplishment. Somehow, negating or avoiding what *might* have happened under Liberal governance has become a point of pride.<br /><br />Like the feckless teenager refusing to take out the garbage or mow the lawn, Harper seems consumed by rebelling against 'the man'. Which is positively insane in that he is 'the man'. <br /><br />With any luck, most angry young men eventually learn that negativity is ultimately a dead end. That proving 'nobody is the boss of me' isn't the same thing as doing something with your life. Harper's getting a bit old for that lesson to have escaped him.<br /><br />I'll even go so far as to favourably consider the Harris regime in Ontario. I hated what they did to my province, but at least they did something. There was a debate to be engaged in, and there was a sense that the collective had decisions to make and a course to chart.<br /><br />Without getting into what particular form or direction this nation ought to take, I sure wish we could all agree that doing nothing is the worst possible strategy.SeanStokhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03037341614959536678noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-49801082722167170332009-12-19T16:54:32.583-05:002009-12-19T16:54:32.583-05:00and I'm sure that my bias for the former optio...<i>and I'm sure that my bias for the former option is generated to some extent by my need to feel like I'm not really part of what’s warping the world so terribly at present.</i><br /><br />I'm convinced that's what it is. We live in crappy, intellectually barren World, but it's the only one there is. One can engage that one and try to at least understand it (which does have its own intellectual reward) even if one doesn't have the energy to change it or one can focus on the type of World in which you know the integrity of motivation will <i>eventually</i> be rewarded. But possibly not for a while yet, if in one's lifetime at all.<br /><br />I kind of meander between both, although, as I said in a comment to a previous post, I haven't read a work of fiction or seen a decent film in years.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-85168148015422160212009-12-19T15:38:06.569-05:002009-12-19T15:38:06.569-05:00Ti:
You make a powerful argument for the pragmati...Ti:<br /><br />You make a powerful argument for the pragmatic usefulness--even necessity--of a party like the Liberals, and it's one that, as a Gen-Xer born and bred on Montréal's West Island, I have had graven into my soul for years.<br /><br />I suppose the tension between pragmatism (which too easily becomes cynicism) and idealism is becoming harder for me to negotiate dispassionately as I age--perhaps because I feel that the global stakes are becoming higher every year.<br /><br />Which brings us to an interesting question: when the stakes are at their highest, is it best to pursue a kind of ideological/philosophical purity in the belief that the possibly disastrous consequences will be redeemed by the integrity of our motivations, or to proceed according to a mundane, compromised, and somewhat shabby trajectory that will at least prevent (or defer) a crisis? <br /><br />I'm torn on the question, and I'm sure that my bias for the former option is generated to some extent by my need to feel like I'm not really part of what’s warping the world so terribly at present. I'm sure many progressives are driven by much the same need--a need which need not be seen as a bad thing, in my view.<br /><br />For the record, much of what I feel for the CPC and Liberals I feel also for the NDP--a party hardly immune to cynicism. I was crestfallen when they chose Layton over Blaikie last time around. I was actually getting ready to buy my membership and get in touch with the local riding association during the leadership convention. I just assumed that a thoughtful guy with a sterling ethos like Blaikie had it in the bag. The party went for glib Toronto flash, though, and I was totally disgusted. Still am. The NDP pretty much kissed the West and the urban working-class goodbye when they told Blaikie to fuck off. That's a shame.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-68854513213337373092009-12-19T12:44:16.086-05:002009-12-19T12:44:16.086-05:00It is Stephen Harper's personal turpitude and ...<i>It is Stephen Harper's personal turpitude and the degree to which that has infected the CPC that has rendered his party vastly more repugnant than Ignatieff's to me. Both parties, though, seem to be irrecoverably degenerate. I see nothing in either of them worthy of loyalty or respect.</i><br /><br />Don't you think the average Liberal supporter (and I'm not talking just about people who write blogs or clapped-out operatives like Warren Kinsella) provides some hope for the Party being redeemable in your view? Although Stephen Harper remains, for me, a convenient focus for everything I despise about that Party, its rank-and-file, <i>to a person</i> (and I know quite a few in real life...all sour, resentful, cynical and dumb...those who are <i>conscious</i>, that is), is the real source of my revulsion and that won't change anytime soon. I don't think that about the NDP, the Greens or even the Bloc.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-49810815783097833192009-12-19T12:29:33.361-05:002009-12-19T12:29:33.361-05:00Thwap, you sound like a nutcase when you start tal...Thwap, you sound like a nutcase when you start talking about me and the Liberals.<br /><br />I've said elsewhere that there's no bigger critic of them than I (and all the Liberals I know) when they're in power (which is the only time they're really doing anything of consequence). Governance is something that plays out, in the real world, in the here and now, not something to be reviewed solely in retrospect to muse about how wonderful or disappointing it was.<br /><br />I don't know what *you* were doing in the 90's, but I was able to observe what was happening at a distance and fairly objectively. I was grateful that we had a government that a) had pan-Canadian appeal b) put discipline back into the country's finances b) Kept the country together c) Weakened but at least didn't destroy significant social democratic institutions (we maintained health care, progressive taxation, a degree of wealth transfer and relatively healthy levels of unionisation) d) restrained the financial system. e) Was not terribly interested in social conservatism.<br /><br />I really don't know what more could have been expected, given that the only likely alternatives were Reagan-Thatcher-Harris brand Conservatism. By the beginning of the millennium, things looked pretty good for Canada.<br /><br />Something happened after the Iraq invasion, however, the entire story of which is yet to come out, but is likely the result of the Liberals' corporate allies' decision to punish them. Unfortunately, the period of disarray for the Liberals between 2003 and 2005 is all people remember.<br /><br />Liberal collusion with corporate power is <i>distasteful</i> to me, but I've yet to see any alternative that can manage it better. When the socialists are in power, the Right (which is entirely about corporate power) becomes so insane that when it comes to their turn (and it inevitably does), they act like barbarians who've come to sack Rome. In any case, I've maintained my allegiance to Liberalism to promote political diversity in the face of two other entities (we can ignore the Bloc with is not a federal party) which would much rather prefer a narrower spectrum of political choices, like that which exists in the US or Britain and to avoid their cycles of power-abuse and revenge.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-40241979396053016002009-12-19T03:34:30.546-05:002009-12-19T03:34:30.546-05:00...i don't think that Sir Francis took my comm...<i>...i don't think that Sir Francis took my comment as a typical harpercon "b-bu-but the L-Li-Librulls!" comment. </i><br /><br />I am not favourably disposed to the notion that the Liberal and CPC machines have meaningfully different objectives or enabling assumptions. Given the <i>führerprinzip</i> that obtains in our political culture, the personality and priorities of party leaders are the ideologically determinative factors—not the roots and traditions of the parties in question. It is Stephen Harper's <i>personal</i> turpitude and the degree to which that has infected the CPC that has rendered his party vastly more repugnant than Ignatieff's to me. Both parties, though, seem to be irrecoverably degenerate. I see nothing in either of them worthy of loyalty or respect.<br /><br /><i>You don't have to think the NDP is our last, best hope...</i><br /><br />Heh. I can <i>dream</i>, but I'm not sure I can manage hope.<br /><br />The people I would vote for are all dead. I wish I could summon the ghosts of the Canadian Expeditionary Force and have them march on Ottawa and install the ghost of Tommy Douglas in the PMO and that of Georges Vanier in Rideau Hall. Really--even their <i>corpses</i>, propped up by makeshift braces, would provide better executive stewardship than Harper and his curs have given us.Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-36173255510169466652009-12-19T01:22:44.075-05:002009-12-19T01:22:44.075-05:00Ti-Guy,
OOh! Youse and meece have become enemies...Ti-Guy,<br /><br />OOh! Youse and meece have become enemies 'ave wee?<br /><br />The honest truth is that i don't think that Sir Francis took my comment as a typical harpercon "b-bu-but the L-Li-Librulls!" comment.<br /><br />I think he took it as agreement with the proposition that these economistic, soulless entities are almost all the same.<br /><br />Which was my point all along. And it's pretty well undeniable. And it makes your hard-on for them all the more inexplicable.<br /><br />You don't have to think the NDP is our last, best hope (as i do). You just don't have to be an APOLOGIST for the Liberals.thwaphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15399550285738440669noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-79110064948806192872009-12-18T20:41:50.974-05:002009-12-18T20:41:50.974-05:00Your Epilogue answer's the age old question; &...Your Epilogue answer's the age old question; "Is Nothing Sacred?" and the answer appears to be yes. For now.liberal supporterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01129945625510633921noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-41187379654886652862009-12-18T13:55:57.035-05:002009-12-18T13:55:57.035-05:00Bonus fuck-allitude has just been added--at no ext...Bonus fuck-allitude has just been added--at no extra cost to you, the consumer!Sir Francishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15052750849770350973noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-19491405081184996812009-12-18T12:56:25.239-05:002009-12-18T12:56:25.239-05:00Well, this is a great post as usual; unfortunately...Well, this is a great post as usual; unfortunately the mood was ruined by thwap's useless partisan contribution. Talk about a "fuck all decade."<br /><br />I shall try to overlook it.Ti-Guyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06620550471437012866noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-61610553104536404342009-12-18T10:58:49.887-05:002009-12-18T10:58:49.887-05:00Your Epilogue is brilliant. A must-read. Well done...Your Epilogue is brilliant. A must-read. Well done SF.CanuckRoverhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11105956206764325265noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3260545195755894149.post-51416319278531410672009-12-18T07:10:30.350-05:002009-12-18T07:10:30.350-05:00And wait til he gets a majority and tries to do so...And wait til he gets a majority and tries to do something. ugh.<br /><br />I note that Paul Martin was also amazing about doing nothing but dithering when in power.<br /><br />That's the thing with neo-liberals: aside from wringing-out the taxpayers for the elite's profit, they have no understanding about what we can do as a collective.thwaphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15399550285738440669noreply@blogger.com