Oh, No, Canada!
The Liberal government of Canada, headed by the impeccably corrupt Paul Martin, has been subjected to a “no confidence” vote and will be forced to face an election soon, within a month or three. The pseudo scandals surrounding George Bush are nothing compared to the real, legitimate corruption that has covered Martin in slime.
I’m not optimistic about any changes occurring – the votes of nervous Members of Parliament, concerned about their electoral fate, don’t necessarily coincide with the votes of a fat and happy public, greedy for more social benefits. Moreover, the alleged conservatives in Canada aren’t anything of the sort we’d recognize here in the U.S., except for their fratricidal urges, and for the Alliance folks from Western Canada, who do a pretty good impression of conservative christian libertarian types of the sort you might find in Idaho or rural Georgia. Making things really interesting, the conservatives have managed to derail Martin’s government only by including in their coalition the Bloc Quebecois, the left leaning Quebec separatist party. It’s hard to say whether this coalition – eastern country club Conservatives, western Christian / leave me alone conservatives, and cranky French liberals, will hold together long enough to dethrone Martin.
Interestingly, C-SPAN radio carried Martin’s resignation speech / campaign opener. Aside from the first impression, which was that Mr. Martin is a smug, petulant little bastard, I was most struck by his collossal arrogance. He declared repeatedly that Canada was the conscience of the world.
The arrogance. The hubris. No nation or person with a legitimate claim of this nature, a claim to be a global moral authority of some sort, would ever voice such a claim. Mother Theresa, conscience of the world? Maybe. Bob Geldoff? No way, but nice try. Pope John Paul? Yeah, possibly. The nation of Canada? Please. Moreover, the former would be wayyyy too modest to stand up and claim moral authority over the world. The conscience of the world? More like the conscience of my ass.
The next time you see an article about Canadian media or political criticism of the “arrogant cowboy” in the White House, please, don’t bother forwarding it to me. Canada, at least its liberals, wouldn’t know arrogant if arrogant bit them in the ass then danced around them in circles wearing a sandwich board saying “Hey Everybody! I’m a Thoroughly Arrogant Fuckstick!” As far as I’m concerned, anybody other than God who claims to be the world’s moral authority is utterly full of shit, and if “Canada = World’s Moral Authority” is the official government line, than Canada can no longer be taken seriously, it’s as delusional as a late stages Alzheimer’s patient. Pretty sad, for a nice country that I love, that used to punch a couple classes above its weight in military, economic and world political matters. I love Canada, I like many Canadians, and I have visited that lovely country frequently in the past. I still think warmly of the country, but frankly, I’d just as soon not think about it for a while if Martin’s sentiments are shared by the majority of Canadian folks. It seems to be a more dangerous delusion than the wishful thinking that causes the U.S. to try to gift democracy to Afghans and Iraqis.
- Entries
Maybe they are the guilty conscience, although I though the Jews had that pretty well wrapped up.
Maybe they are the clear conscience, this would be purely because no-one has bothered to point out their mistakes.
Maybe they are the environmental conscience, which would be easy because the place is nearly empty, so per acre there aren't enough people to do any real damage.
Or maybe there was a typo by the speechwriters and the autocorrect in MSWord has garbled the message, maybe he meant, consequence of the world. Consequence as in outflow, by-product, effluent.
Who really knows, maybe they are just more arrogant than the French.
As for Martin... he is French Canadian and he made the claims whilst speaking English. Maybe that explains it.
The galling thing about all this, is that there is a big investigation of corruption within the government ongoing, yet the canadian press (and bloggers) were forbidden by Paul Martin from writing about it. This naked power grab, had it occurred in the U.S. or Oz, would have had quiet, ordinary folks out in the streets rioting. The quiet Canadians, however, seem to be taking it in stride somehow. I can't help but think there must be a lot of seething resentment about this, not that we'd hear about it since it's supposed to be under a news embargo, in spite of some intrepid bloggers spilling the beans. It's all very 1984-ish, not in the mullets and blue tuxedos sense, but in the Orwell sense.
Martin strikes me as a guy who is very much out of step with most of the Canadians I know, who are basically very nice straight up folks, kind of like Minnesotans but with less funny accents.
The Liberals essentially feel they are Canada.
I find him to be a national embarassment, but then I'm one of those western Canadian libertarianish Christian conservatives.
Liberals: socialists, cronists; include most of the media/industrial upper crust, hence can crush most rivals through raw cash/influence. Would still be in power if they stopped being so smug and learned to keep appearances up. We're aware you're stealing but at least don't rub it in, you know?
Bloc Quebecois: socialists, supposedly separatists; really just using it to scare the rest of the country into giving Quebec money. Remains a force because Quebec is 1/5 of Canada and we're not stupid -- if we can get freebies we will.
New Democratic Party: communists, though they say they are just Left-leaning. Would like nothing more than create a perfect nanny state, with themselves as the head nannies. Still in the fight because a lot of people like being on the government's dole.
Conservative Party: with a name like that you'd expect Republicans, but really they are closer to the center-left. Which is still too right-wing for most Canadians, who are scared shitless that they might have to do without their precious social safety net. Probably our best hope right now, but really, they need to pull that stick out of their asses: guys, nobody cares if two dudes want to get married, alright? As long as the national budget is balanced, taxes are lowered, and the Canadian army gets a budget for once, we'll deal with the social values ourselves, 'kay?
I have no idea what will happen in January, but it should be interesting.