Relax, People--Everything Is Under Control: Part One (Canada Day Edition)

Well, here we are, celebrating Canada Day, the fifth of the Harper era, a day that has miraculously avoided federal "Conservative" Party proscription for being anti-American; I can only surmise that the bashful sobriety with which we tend to imbue the annual feast of our nationhood has so far failed to ignite the always-latent "Conservative" fear that Canadians think too highly of themselves.

Stephen Harper must have suffered a few worrying moments, though, as he sat beside Queen Elizabeth and listened to her flattering words of praise:

At 84, the Queen said she has witnessed more than half of Canada's national history and praised what Canada stands for.

"This nation has dedicated itself to being a caring home for its own, a sanctuary for others and an example to the world," she said...The Queen also praised the commitment of the Canadian Forces, and said Canada has reason for optimism, even in trying times.

That was dangerous. Nothing turns a "conservative" stomach quite as sourly as the absurd notion that Canada is culturally worthwhile and serves as a global example of social development and civility. To wit, Stephen Harper has made absolutely clear what he thinks of Canada and what he thinks serves as the planetary paragon of everything that is good and true and pure:

Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth[sic], a standard of living substantially lower than yours[sic], a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country[sic], and double the unemployment rate of the United States[sic]...Your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world.

Harper must have been rendered speechless by the Queen's ingratiating intemperance, as reports of the event lack any evidence that he responded with words of his own, suggesting that he violated the tradition according to which prime ministers are expected to mumble a few platitudinous words on Canada Day. Of course, reporters may have simply guessed (accurately) that nobody would care to hear what Harper had to say and thus left his limping vacuities unrecorded. More likely, Harper has been drained, over the past four holidays, of the shallow pool of vestigial Canadianism he brought with him into office and cannot now utter a pro-Canadian sentiment, however tepid, without self-inducing a grand mal seizure.

That's a shame. Fortunately, Harper has many friends who can speak on his behalf and utter the fascinating perspectives that he, languishing under the discipline of power, is no longer free to claim as his own. Take for example Ann Coulter, darling of Canada's self-loathing right. Ms. Coulter recently slimed her vile way across our fair land as the special guest of Ezra Levant, rabid Harper supporter, former Reform/Alliance Party operative, and the generous soul who stepped aside so that Harper, newly-minted as party leader, could gain a seat in the House of Commons.

What is it about Coulter's world-view that would lead one of Harper's intimate ideological allies to drag that skeletal shrew across our (unfortunately) undefended border and inflict her Canada-hating diatribes on the country? Is it her view that "only the worst people move to Canada"? Is it her assertion that Canadians "should feel lucky that Americans don't just roll over and crush them"?




Is it her wish to see Calgary become the 51st American state (as if it isn't already), which drew a huge cheer from 900 folks in Harper's hometown? Whatever the reason, Coulter's degrading blitherings, and the "Conservative" Party's sponsorship of them, are depressingly revealing of the "conservative" attitude to the nation of which Harper and his Harperoids claim to be passionate defenders.

For Canada-hating slightly more articulate than Coulter's, we may turn to Mr. Leon Craig, a laughable Alberta separatist whose anti-Canadian rantings were accorded a standing ovation at the 2006 Calgary Conference by the likes of CPC Member of Parliament Jason Kenney and two of Stephen Harper's key mentors, Preston Manning and Dr. Barry Cooper. Here is Jason Kenney bringing the assembly greetings from "Canada's New Government":

The content of Craig's presentation may be gauged by his website, a deliriously gauche monument to paranoid ressentiment that features an on-line store wherefrom one may purchase a T-shirt depicting former Prime Minister Paul Martin as a rat. Here is Mr. Craig receiving a token of gratitude from a beaming Link Byfield, Albertan "senator-elect" and one of the country's most strident Harper apologists:

Yes, indeed: Harper-friendly "conservatives" are the go-to folks for true patriot love. And if you believe otherwise, you're a Taliban-sympathising traitor who clearly doesn't understand how lucky you are that America hasn't yet felt it necessary to crush you.

Now, wipe that smug, self-satisfied smile off your face and go have yourself a wonderful Northern European, second-rate socialistic Canada Day!

Mélange Adultère: Part Two

The older I get, the more tolerant I become with those who believe they can smell the aftershave on each of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The darkly glittering treasure hoard of human depravity seems, each day, to be newly enriched by gems more resplendently base than anything seen before, carried in the jaws of dragons to which we feed what is best in us, about us, and among us. To wit:



War, Disorder and Bad Government: The Canadian Way--Harper Style!

What does a boorish, lead-hearted partisan hack of a prime minister do? Abide by the carefully deliberated findings of a Canadian federal court on a matter that strikes at the core of our fundamental values, or prolong a disgraceful miscarriage of justice and deepen a young man's agony in order to pander to the worst, xenophobic instincts of the most verminous elements of his quadruped base?

You guessed it.



America Elects A President Who Knows How To Pronounce "Nuclear"; World Still In Deep Shit!

Don't get me wrong; there are many reasons to be worried at the sight of the Taliban patrolling Pakistani territory only sixty miles from the nation's capital as if they own the place (because they do own the place), eight long years after the invasion of Afghanistan.

I'm just saying that the main reason might be that Pakistan has an arsenal of deliverable nuclear weapons, gifted to them by the folks who hate to see violent Islamist regimes make nukes with their own money but who gladly invite violent Islamist regimes to make nukes with crisp U.S. greenbacks.



Mission As Accomplished As It Ever Will Be

So, let's see: Iraq's current "stability" consists of a religiously segregated, deeply corrupt society devoid of meaningful institutions and functioning infrastructure, scarred by daily suicide bombings and routine sectarian assassinations. After six years of occupation, Baghdad can hardly keep the lights on.

Thus, thousands of American dead and tens of thousands of Iraqi dead have fertilised the flowering of another Lebanon. I'm not sure this is what Wilson had in mind.



Canadian Values: They Suck, But They're Good Enough For Immigrants

Jason Kenney apparently wants immigrants to be more deeply imbued with "Canadian values" upon their entry to their new country. He failed to say whether this policy would apply to American emigrants, whose values Kenney clearly considers so much better than ours.

Really, being lectured on "Canadian" values by a senior member of one of our two officially Canada-hating parties is a bit like being yelled at by the madam of a dilapidated whorehouse for entering the vestibule with our shoes on: it's embarrassing, degrading, and symptomatic of something profoundly wrong about our lives.

Kenney seems comfortable expecting immigrants to know more about their new nation than their hosts care to know. One cannot expect a political and moral castrato to challenge Canadians on their own cultural ignorance and champion the kinds of radical institutional changes that would (finally) fully immerse us in our civic heritage. No. All Kenney can manage on his empty nutsack is a pathetic innuendo about the mongrelising influence of dark-skinned exotics on a people ruled by a clique of continentalist deracinés who take their cultural orientation from daily viewings of South Park.

As mascot for this imbecility, please take Susan Boyd. She was one of the prime agitators against principal Erik Millett after he decided to suspend the singing of "O, Canada" at Belleisle Elementary School in New Brunswick.

This CBC documentary on the controversy is fascinating. It includes an interview with Boyd, who lost a nephew in Afghanistan. Go to 4:10 in the documentary, and be amazed. Boyd says, "the Lord’s Prayer is gone, the Pledge of Allegiance is gone... because we don’t want to offend the minority, but what about the majority? Now our anthem is disappearing".

The Pledge of Allegiance is gone! This woman--not obviously an idiot by any means--believes that the Canadian majority mourns the loss of the Pledge of Allegiance. I've rarely seen a sadder, more lurid spectacle of cultural senility.

While it is inconceivable that a French woman would pine for the old days when class would begin with a stirring rendition of "Das Deutschlandlied", while one would not dream that a Swede would ever wonder why children are no longer required to start their school day with "La Marseillaise", we Canadians have learned to tolerate and even expect the absurd surreality this woman represents.

Boyd is in the heart of "Conservative" country (her M.P. is Greg Thompson, Harper's Minister of Veterans' Affairs), yet she's not sure what country she's in. She's precisely the kind of vain, vapid, pseudo-Canadian who thinks she needs protection from the alien, valueless "minorities" that Kenny seeks to "civilise". Kenny strokes her vanity: he keeps his power; she keeps her ignorance.

These "conservatives"--the Kenneys and Boyds--strain so hard for patriotism; they're like superannuated sopranos with laryngitis, attempting arias and emitting only rusty croaks. They've got the "Support the Troops" bumper stickers and the Maple Leaf lapel pins, but they're incapable of understanding how thoroughly compromised and worm-eaten their Canadianness has become. Their citizenship is a corpse in full rigor mortis that the "Conservatives" have embalmed and propped up against a wall in order to make it "stand up for Canada".



I Guess You’ll Not Be Needing Those Firewalls

Alberta Premier Ed Stelmach seems to have decided that Ottawa can meddle in Alberta's affairs if it wants--as long as the "meddling" consists of a huge gift of 700 million dollars. The millions Alberta already receives through the Western Diversification Fund just aren't enough to buy baby his new shoes, apparently. It was inevitable that Alberta--that pious inculcator of fiscal thrift and high priest of anti-Ottawa individualism--would eventually find itself panhandling on Parliament Hill without a shred of shame.

Fatuously, Stelmach complained that Alberta "can't carry the country" through the recession, in a risible bid to sustain Albertans' painfully swollen self-concept during what must be a humiliating period for them. For the record, when Alberta's GDP grows beyond being a mere third of Ontario's, we shall talk about it "carrying the country". Right now, the only thing they're carrying is an ego full of helium and a bladder full of gall.

Of Galloway and CPC Gall

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?