Assorted Links: Easter 2008

Listening to Tommy Douglas on Your iPod

An activity we here at GCH would advise against, though one which Mr. Jack Layton, formerly a resident of Toronto, Ontario, is fond of engaging in.  Mr. Layton, known to his friends as Jack! and to his critics as Taliban Jack, is the current leader of the New Democratic Party.  The party's founder, Mr. Tommy Douglas, was a noted orator, premier of Saskatchewan and "father of Medicare."  Mr. Layton, as the below piece notes, is fond of exercising on his stationary bike - the jokes are too obvious, especially for a socialist - while listening to Mr. Douglas.  The piece goes to some length in describing the criticisms from the party's Left that the NDP has gone too mainstream, trying to become a second Liberal Party.  In losing its ideological core it has lost its ability to influence policy. 

This is a debate familiar to many conservatives annoyed by Mr. Harper's drift to the center.  To the casual political observer both the NDP and the Conservative face the same dilemma, move to the center and perhaps win but lose your soul in the process.  This is not the case.  The NDP's drift to the Right is due to electoral considerations, but the electorate's hesitation in crossing over the socialist Jordan rests on simple practical considerations.  NDP governments have lead to economic stagnation in Saskatchewan, fiscal ruin in Ontario and both in British Columbia.  What about Conservative governments?  Mike Harris revived a moribund provincial economy and by extension that of the whole Dominion.  Lucien Bouchard, a traitor but one with some economic sense, brought a resemblance of fiscal order to our most statist province.  Glen Campbell has done similar feats in Lotus Land, leaving aside his recent tryst with the Greenistas. 

The Harris government, famously, was followed by the more cautious regime of his one-time Minister of Finance, Ernie Eves.  Bernard Landry promptly moved the PQ back to the Left and promptly lost to Jean Charest.  The secret to these electoral mysteries lies in Jack Layton's iPod.  Had Tommy Douglas gotten his way, had his vision of Canada and the world triumphed in the early 1980s, poor Jack would be exercising to vinyl recordings of the Father of Medicare's denunciations of the evils of Capitalism.  The electorate, if only partially, has begun to recognized this and kept the NDP out of power or forced its leaders toward the political Right.  Sadly many Conservative Party strategists have not reached the same conclusion. 

During his regular workouts on a stationary bike, Jack Layton will occasionally listen to Tommy Douglas speeches on his iPod.

But with national support for the party of Mr. Douglas stagnating, some on the Canadian left want Mr. Layton to do more than listen: They want him to start speaking the language of traditional New Democrats.

Since his election in 2003 as the New Democratic Party's sixth leader, the media-savvy Torontonian has moved it to the centre and shaved off its more controversial policies.

The goal was as simple as it was lofty: Replace the Liberals as the alternative government to the Conservatives. However, some are now wondering whether the NDP has lost its way.

Poll numbers for the party are consistently lower than the 17.5-per-cent support in 2006 in the last federal election. This week's by-election results showed NDP support dropping in three of the four ridings.

“People don't need another Liberal Party, and that's my criticism,” said Murray Weppler, who was the top aide to NDP leaders David Lewis and Ed Broadbent.

“We're not talking about any of the serious issues that affect the average Canadian any more. We're talking about ATM fees,” he said, blaming part of the problem on what he sees as the news media's lack of interest in social issues such as homelessness.

It's not that people are uninterested in homelessness - which is really a problem of tending to those too mentally ill or addicted to drugs and alcohol to fend for themselves - but too uninterested in throwing more money at the problem.  Many Canadians, probably most, when asked privately don't think government is all that effective at coping with social problems, that private organizations like the United Way and the Salvation Army have better track records.  The problem is that they are too afraid of saying as much in public.  These are conservatives that dare not speak its name.

Right, Royal and Loyal

If you're not reading The Monarchist - where I post under yet another nomdeblog, Kipling (yes, I have thing for obscurity) - then you don't know what you're missing.  Reading The Monarchist is like entering an Edwardian Gentlemen's Club during the era of Swinging London, the hippie rabble bangs at the door demanding entrance; the members simply order the cellist to play forte and continue with the debate and the port.  Case in point is a recent series of posts by the blog's impresario, Beaverbrook.  Focusing on political systems through history he has so far posted on Classic Imperialist (probably better termed Traditional Despotism) and Revolutionary.  Please read my comments on the latter post, and Beaverbrook's reply, where I quibble over the use of terms Enlightenment, rationalism and the legacy of John Locke, the intellectual godfather of Classical Liberalism.  There is also a post linking a recent vote in the Canadian House of Commons with a Commons resolution passed in the reign of Queen Anne.  Nor is Beaverbrook alone in his efforts, The Monarchist is very much a group blog, calling upon the efforts of many able writers from the farthest reaches of the Commonwealth (though unfortunately most of these are from the Old Settlement Colonies).  Though there are the expected lamentations at the latest Republican Heresies, there is also plenty of material on contemporary political issues, all with a keen sense of historical context.  Simply no show like it.

The Crucifixion:  Brought to You by Coca-Cola

Commercialism meets fanaticism in the Philippines.

This Holy Week, the thousands of guilt stricken or pious worshippers who will flay the skin off their backs, and the handful who will crucify themselves, are encouraged to get a tetanus shot first and be sure to use a clean whip or nails.

The city government’s website trumpets the preparations.

“The City Health Office (CHO) autoclaved all the nails to be used and will administer anti-tetanus vaccine to all the “Cristos” to ensure their protection from possible infection,” it points out. City officials will conduct an inspection of the Golgothas on Thursday.

The festival is sponsored by Coca-cola and a company called Smart Telecommunications.

In a break from the original tradition, penitents are encouraged to “bring enough drinking water for the whole course of the pilgrimage to avoid dehydration, rather than buy bottled drinking water from unfamiliar sources.”

When I speak of the differences between Christianity as practiced in modern North America and elsewhere, this is about as clear a case in point as one can find.  Mortification of the flesh is something this-worldly American Christians leave to the saints.  They like their religion practical, morally instructive and over before brunch.  A culture that would support a theocracy is one that would tolerate and even encourage, if perhaps only tacitly, the type of behaviour evident in the above article.  A culture where chocolate Easter bunnies proliferate unchecked is not ready for an Ayatollah. 

The God-Fearing Communist

Speaking of religious belief, as we often do in this infidel space, we note the coming out of the closet of a Russian Orthodox Christian, former Secretary General of the Party, Mikhail Gorbachev (had only WFB lived a few weeks longer!).  Those who believe history is shaped by impersonal forces confront men like Gorbachev with unease.  Reagan, as the article notes, came to suspect Gorby was a closet Christian, and both men were, as the term now goes, "conviction politicians."

The irony of Marxism - a philosophy of impersonal forces par excellent - being undermined by two men who believed ideas mattered, is noted.  Gorby's faith is also suggestive of a conundrum that confronts secularists:  Why exactly do people still believe in God?  Post Newton Deism was highly plausible.  Post Darwin, God must be dead, the chaps are all preaching in vain, wasting so many glorious summer Sunday mornings.  Yet they persist, not simply the ill-educated and those lacking in intellectual acuity, the bright and able, even the very bright and able (case in point, the recently past and missed WFB), go down on their knees and talk to themselves.  The madness has a method.  The image of the leader of a militantly atheistical state praying is a powerful one, a reminder that communism was not simply economically sterile but spiritually sterile.  In a scene in The Fountainhead one of the minor characters, a guilt ridden millionaire, asks the hero Howard Roark to built a Temple of the Human Spirit.  The atheist Roark initially refuses the offer on grounds of his infidelity.  The millionaire replies:  "That doesn't matter.  You're a profoundly religious man, Mr. Roark - in your own way.  I can see that in your buildings.' 'That's true," said Roark.  It was almost a whisper. (Part Two, Chapter 10)"  What Communism sought to destroy was not God or religion, but something deeper from whence these forces spring, the idea of God, the notion of man as something more than an animal with opposable thumbs and highly developed linguistic capabilities. 

Accompanied by his daughter Irina, Mr Gorbachev spent half an hour on his knees in silent prayer at the tomb.

His arrival in Assisi was described as "spiritual perestroika" by La Stampa, the Italian newspaper.

"St Francis is, for me, the alter Christus, the other Christ," said Mr Gorbachev. "His story fascinates me and has played a fundamental role in my life," he added.

Mr Gorbachev's surprise visit confirmed decades of rumours that, although he was forced to publicly pronounce himself an atheist, he was in fact a Christian, and casts a meeting with Pope John Paul II in 1989 in a new light.

Mr Gorbachev, 77, was baptised into the Russian Orthodox Church and his parents were Christians.

In addition, the parents of his wife Raisa were deeply religious and were killed during the Second World War for having religious icons in their home.

No Longer Brain Dead

Mrs Thatcher famously observed that the facts of life are conservative.  Something even that most profane of playwrights - an accomplishment of sorts in these days - David Mamet, has come to appreciate:

The play, while being a laugh a minute, is, when it's at home, a disputation between reason and faith, or perhaps between the conservative (or tragic) view and the liberal (or perfectionist) view. The conservative president in the piece holds that people are each out to make a living, and the best way for government to facilitate that is to stay out of the way, as the inevitable abuses and failures of this system (free-market economics) are less than those of government intervention.

I took the liberal view for many decades, but I believe I have changed my mind.

As a child of the '60s, I accepted as an article of faith that government is corrupt, that business is exploitative, and that people are generally good at heart.

Unfortunately Mamet's malevolent sense of life can see conservatism's value only as cynical concession to "human nature."  Compare this attitude with Roger Scruton's piece on why he became a conservative. 

Hillary's Hundred Year War

After all, sixty years later there are still American troops in Japan and Germany.

This had not been achieved, she declared, citing the continued absence of legislation on distributing oil revenues, basic services for citizens or a date for provincial elections.

“Let’s be clear: withdrawal is not defeat,” she said. “Defeat is keeping troops in Iraq for 100 years, defeat is straining our alliances and losing our standing in the world, defeat is draining our resources and diverting attention from our key interests.”

Mr McCain, who held talks yesterday with Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, said that Mrs Clinton “does not understand or appreciate the progress that has been made on the ground . . . the surge is working”.

Retreat is not surrender.  Socialized health care is bringing choice to Americans.  What Henry Higgins said about Eliza Doolittle better applies to Hilary Clinton, the cold blooded murder of the English tongue.