In these dark days of deceit and disaster, not to mention death, destruction, and doom, in this land where the president and his closest confidantes seem to feel they can stonewall any investigation into an outrageous and objectively pro-Saddam violation of the law by two of their number, in leaking to at least six journalists that the wife of former Ambassador Joe Wilson was an undercover CIA operative, perhaps as a shot across the bows of anyone else who might, like Wilson, use heretickal facts to deny the Gospel of Bush...In such times as these, I say, when the American right exposes itself as some kind of venomous cross between a serpent, a tapeworm, and a sport utility vehicle, poisoning the very bowels of our nation's political life while getting very little mileage...In such times as these, I say that I say once again, it may perhaps brighten Yankee hearts to look once more to the neighbourly north, and behold Canada, from which a great and brilliant light shines forth like a great shiny forth-shining light shining forthfully, where the national right is but a twisted and deformed little toad, croaking feebly upon the pavement before it is crushed beneath the wheels of the 1956 Cadillac Eldorado of History on a taco run...
'Unite the Right' talks between the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance have, in point of fact, broken down inconclusively, with each party blaming the other, and some rather bitter things being said all around. The PCs seem to think the Alliance would've just gobbled them up, and used their larger membership to pack the new party with Alliance figures and positions. This is because that is exactly what the Alliance would have done. The Alliance rather snippily replies that not uniting will hurt the Tories more than the Alliance; their House Leader made what I consider some profoundly shocking and awesome comments to CTV's Question Time, claiming that the next election now is liable to see the Alliance hang on to 40 to 50 seats, while the Tories are utterly annihilated. (That would actually involve both the Tories and the Alliance losing about the same number of seats.) Not even the Right itself thinks it has any remote shot at power. Together, they might possibly have been able to become a stronger opposition, perhaps at the expense of the NDP; a united right might scare leftist voters enough that they vote Liberal just to make sure a conservative doesn't get in, even if deep down they like the NDP more (and who doesn't? It was founded avowedly socialist!). Separately, they're going to be hit by a figurative and allegorical bus, and will be so beaten and chafed and raw they'll have to unite in the end anyhow or bleed to death. There's even speculation in the Star that the Alliance could lose its standing as the official opposition to the NDP in a meltdown of truly dialectical proportions.
That probably won't happen, it's true. Just yet. In time, though...? Just think of it! Within a decade, it is entirely possible that the dominant political dialectic in Canada will be of Center versus Left. And that is just as it should be. (As opposed to America now, where it is either Center versus Right or Right versus Ultimate Timeless Evil, depending on how charitable I feel.)
Until the Left eventually triumphs utterly and we enter into a bold new age of socialist utopia. Of course.
Oh, and as a bit of icing on the cake, the Tories are about to suffer a massive, humiliating defeat in the Ontario provincial elections. Polls have the Liberals with 47.5% of the vote, the Tories with only 31%, and the NDP with 17%. Perhaps this is because the Tory budget proposal is a crock of proverbial shit. Of course, Tory Premier Ernie Eves is still chanting 'I've had worse' and 'Just a flesh wound' as his political limbs are hacked off...
Bask in the warm, non-conservative glow.
Posted by aloysius at September 29, 2003 08:35 PM | TrackBack |