I'm Trying to Ignore the Republicans
As our own election is bearing down apace, foisted on us by a Prime Minister pro tempore who repeatedly said Canadians didn't want early elections, or snap elections, or anything but fixed-dates ... But we'll deal with the fundamental dishonesty Harper is bringing to the table in another post.
I'm swamped with elections--federal and civic, for starters. And I can't say I'm thrilled about either, more on the which some other time.
But Margaret Wente is thrilled:
[T]hat's precisely why I'm loving this election. It reminds me why I'm so grateful to live here in Canada, where most of our disputes are small ones. In Canada, abortion is not a ballot question. Creationism is not taught in schools, teachers don't pack guns and politicians aren't required to publicly declare their personal relationship to God. Our politics are not defined by culture wars. Our deepest cultural divide is between people who like Starbucks and the ones who like Tim Hortons.Good points, all of them. read the piece.
But wrong. There is a serious gulf between people who genuinely want this country to lead the way into the future, and those who would vote for the Conservative Party of Canada.
Wente also reveals something I didn't know before, that Harper's in touch with his fruit self. Which may mean that his recent softening isn't his campaign trying to paste a human face on their droid.
It may simply mean he's overripe.
Labels: Arguments, Corruption, Creative Aquisitions Dept., Funny, General, Heroes, panoptica, Picanthropii, Politics, Power, Psychology, Random, the art of the blog
posted by Metro @ 10:23 am
6 Comments:
Keep your early elections, and snap elections, and votes of no confidence.Then you won't be saddled with a Shrub overly-long by fixed date elections. Please, learn from our mistakes.
A few years ago, I never would have believed that Mr. Harper could ever be Prime Minister of Canada. And, if you told me that he would be selling himself as a moderate, I would have laughed. I wouldn't have been surprised, though, if you told me he would adopt a strategy of demonizing his opponents and their policies. I heard him speak on the television the other day, and the message was that we could kiss good-bye to life on this planet as we know it if the Liberal Party was elected to power. Fortunately, countries are resilient. We've even survived Mr. Harper's Prime Ministership - although perhaps only because he had too small a minority to do any serious damage.
@silverstar:
Welcome once again--if this keeps up I may have to send you the Avid Fan decoder ring ...
It's worse than you think. Harper railed against all sorts of non-fixed elections, accusing the Liberal government of the day of tailoring election timing to the polls. He promised he would fix election dates, but seems to think that "fixed" meant "set a date, with the option to call it early." In which case one can only ask--What the hell was the point of fixing election dates if what you really want to do is fix elections?
@mister anchovy:
Good to see you back here. Harper with a majority? Judas smeggin' Priest ... didja have to do that to me just after breakfast?
We might as well have elected the Reform Party at that point.
Harper is under suspicion of having a radical rightwing agenda, and every time he bridles against his authoritarian self being circumscribed by the parliamentary process, he proves it to me.
The boy's a hair to the left of, say, Goebbels, with about half the charisma.
He's also a damn liar, and I intend to make that clear as soon as I have time to post again (wedding, out-of-town).
I have no freakin' idea who these people are but they sound quite interesting...
@pugs:
Well, silverstar blogs over at The Old Gray Mare, or as we say in Soviet Canookiestan "The Old Grey Mare".
Mister anchovy has a cat/accordion/Canadiana-centred (or as you might say "cat/accordion/Canadiana-centered) blog.
silver, mister a, meet pugs ...
That answer your question?
You couldn't mean Harper. Canadian politicians are rarely interesting, and most of the good ones were annoying or crazy or both. Harper is so far from madness that he's actually coming at it from the opposite direction (because the universe curves, as you know).
He's tried so hard to suppress his crazy, hypocritical, nut-job Bush-sympathizing power-hungry self that he seems to have been left with no personality whatsoever.
Which is why his campaign has him babbling on about family in a soft, fuzzy blue sweater, in between attacking the Liberal Party leader with a bunch of hooey so as to avoid having to actually talk about his policies and projects for when he gets into office.
Because he knows Canadians would kick his tubby ass into the street if they heard his intentions, come a Conservative Party majority.
Oops--sorry, mister anchovy, I had meant my earlier comment to link to your interesting blog, "mister anchovy," but I did something wrong.
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