The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Thursday Night - William Shatner

CINOs Among Us

Ezra Levant has begun popularizing the term CINO: Conservative in Name Only. This is a borrowing of the old American term RINO: Republican in Name Only. Speaking of CINOs:

And the record of Stephen Harper's government doesn't look much like the beliefs of Stephen Harper.

Record spending increases. Surpluses turned into structural deficits. Bureaucratic bloat. Vote-buying tax policies that make economists pull their hair out. Hyper-centralization of power. Slush funds. Pork-barrel politics. Cronyism and patronage that would make a Liberal blush. A plan to fix the budget as credible as Greek bonds.

 

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

Church and Gould Street

Quebec's Game

La belle province changes its mind:

On that score, the polls that show that one in two Quebecers still declares himself or herself a sovereignist are as misleading as the census numbers that recurrently report that a majority of the province’s population is Catholic.

Just because one decides to stop attending a given church does not mean one is looking for a different religion. Nor does the occasional well-attended nationalist celebration amount to a lasting renewal of faith. To this day, lapsed Catholics routinely return to church for baptisms, weddings and funerals.

Perhaps they really are distinct. The Anglo-Saxon mind works by slow degrees. It is halting and empirical, becoming determined only after long exhaustion. Swinging from alternating militant extremes is anathema. The French clearly like the extremes. It certainly makes them interesting. If you're interested in living in interesting places and times. There is also something to be said about being boring in public affairs. 

Another view of the Quiet Revolution is that it was exchanging one faith for another. A secular creed being adopted to replace a supernatural one that had grown unfashionable. The new creed had certain advantages over the old. The latter told you what not to do. A very long list. The former told you what you could do, a somewhat shorter list. Most of which could now be done at public expense. License is far more fun than restriction.

The creed of state sponsor fun and ease was not just confined to Quebec. The Rest of Canada joined in the frivolities. That is until the whole country nearly went broke in the mid-1990s. What gave the fun and games its moral uplift in Quebec was nationalism. It wasn't just about free stuff from the government. It was about defending a uniquely Quebecois way of life. Certainly the ancien regime had never thought of granting rights to health care or university education. The Church dominated Quebec of decades past was, however, quite paternalistic. After the Quiet Revolution it was just a new form of paternalism with a secular god as rationale: the nation of Quebec.

It was a god that failed. It failed demographically because the Quebecois have not reproduced themselves. Two or three generations hence they will be a minority in their own province. A privileged but irrelevant class of the wider multi-ethinc nation state of Canada. It failed financially as Quebec is today less economically viable as an independent state than Newfoundland.  It failed, ultimately, because it was an angry god.

The premise of modern Quebec nationalism was part revanchism against les anglais and part cultural revitalization. Until the immediate post-war era Francophone Quebec was much poorer than its English speaking counterparts, both in and outside the province. The gap had been narrowing quickly in the years leading up to the 1960s, and has arguably been widening since the Quiet Revolution. This economic inferiority breed a psychological inferiority, compensated by a fervent Catholicism. Once modern communications made it clear to les habitant just how backward they were, a process of reformation began in earnest after the war.

Like any religion the one of Quebec nationalism needed a good devil. The English were a perfect fit. They were the conquerors of New France and so every sin was to be laid upon them. That previous generations of Quebecois had been content, even grateful under British rule was ignored. Their crimes were exaggerated and the self-inflicted isolationism of the Quebecois downplayed. The new Quebec was to be a brave and enlightened place. Like all utopias it failed.

It seems that at last the Quebecois have realized how unrealistic independence was and is. Perhaps in time they will come to understand its pointlessness as well. It was a half-century long temper tantrum against their own feelings of inferiority. It wasn't about Quebec relating to the ROC. It was about Quebec fighting its own past. We simply got caught in the cross fire.

In time the passion subsided and what was left was a cynical racket. Threatening to leave unless this or that demand was meet. In 1995 the bluff was nearly called. The rapid decline in support for sovereignty after the referendum was proof of the movement's lack of seriousness. The convoluted nature of the ballot question, on both occasions, was a signal of fear by the movement's leaders. They knew that victory was impossible with a fair and open question. The whole process was seen by the province's electorate as a mixture of catharsis and bargaining tactic. Kick the anglais and get more money. Two decades of effectively absenting themselves from the federal cabinet accomplished nothing. The mood in the ROC was growing impatient with more demands. The game was over by May 2nd, 2011.

There is faint hope now that, after many moons, Quebec will at last become a normal province. Not a clone of its anglophone counterparts, simply a place were politics is governed by ideas not tribal loyalties. The sweep of the province by the NDP is a good sign, all things considered. Let us see if it holds.

Wednesday Night - Raymond Massey

Life Under Jerry

TLS:

Riding firmly rejects the Gaullist myth that during the Occupation everybody, apart from “a handful of scoundrels and unworthy wretches”, resisted. Neither does he subscribe to the view which gained currency after the death of de Gaulle in 1970 that “almost everyone collaborated”. His study is built on the premiss that intellectuals have special responsibilities, especially in difficult times, and he skilfully engages with the complexities of the period by asking, for example, if working during the Occupation necessarily constituted collaboration, or if it was right, after the Liberation, for writers to be sanctioned for their opinions.

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

Lakeshore Blvd and Woodbine Avenue

A Vain Old Man

So how's that incrementalism working for you?

Blacks in Canada need to unite, rise up and address the deep racism in this country that keeps them out of positions of power, a Conservative senator says.

“What will it take for our collective Afro-Canadian family to unite — to rise up and claim our rightful place in Canadian society?” Conservative Sen. Don Oliver recently asked in keynote speech to black professionals.

Despite being the fourth largest visible minority group in Canada, blacks continue to be victims of racism and are under-represented in high-level positions including on Parliament Hill, Oliver said Monday, Canadian Multiculturalism Day.

He's a grandstanding fool. No one much cares what Senators have to say. Playing the race card gets you some decent headlines. What follows is such a stream of stale nonsense you'd be surprised to get it from the typical Dipper activist. He was a Mulroney appointee.

Yes, of course, there is racism in Canada. As there is where ever different racial groups are present. Some portion of the humanity will always insist on thinking in tribal terms. Of all the countries in the world where such attitudes are least persistent it is in Canada. Senator Oliver then goes onto make this utterly absurd statement:

Oliver blames Canada’s experience with slavery for much of the black community’s inability to support each other and for the stereotypes old-stock Canadians continue to show.

“It really flows from the days of slavery . . . because of the slave mentality,” he explained, when someone got ahead, they would get dragged down by the group.

The overwhelming majority of Canadians don't even know slavery existed in this country. The Senator even alludes to this in the interview. So you're influenced by something you thought happened elsewhere? To say nothing of the risible notion that old-stock Canadians are more bigoted than newer group. Seriously? Groups that spent generations slaughtering each other over trivial differences in physical appearance, religious beliefs and language are suppose to show up in Canada and have no problem with blacks? Is the Senator aware of the Indian caste system? Is he aware of the prejudice shown in many Caribbean countries for darker blacks by lighter skinned blacks? There is likely more systematic racism, if we can call it that, in Jamaica than Canada.

I suspect I've known more "new Canadians" than the Nova Scotian Oliver. There racial attitudes are typically far less enlightened than those of "old-stock Canadians." Recall, Senator, that it was an old stock Canadian (Brian Mulroney) who appointed you to the Senate. That it was old stock Canadians like Diefenbaker (thought he was not considered as such at the time), Pearson and Trudeau who dismantled this country's anti-black immigration policies. If racism is so systematic how have you had a successful legal and political career? 

The vast majority of Canadian blacks, or their parents, emigrated to Canada in the last forty years. They came here like most Canadians and there ancestors were never held as slaves on Canadian soil. Many of those who came to Canada before 1970 did so to escape the systematic racism of the American South. While this country was hardly a picture of tolerance by modern standards, it was far preferable to what else was on offer. How many American governors would have posed with a large number of blacks in the 1920s? 

As for blacks being excluded from positions of power? Well let's turn that issue around a bit. The black community accounts for about 2.5% of the country's population. Roughly the same percentage as the combined totals of Portuguese and and Spanish. How many Iberians do you see in positions of power in this country? Rather few. This isn't a product of bigotry. Most immigrant groups take time to climb up the socio-economic ladder. If those groups have persistently high drop out rates, like say Jamaicans and Portuguese, then it shouldn't be surprising that this process is slower than for other groups, like say the Poles.

Senator Oliver is trying to rally the black population of Canada. How is this more sensible, or rational, than yours truly attempting to rally the white population? Oh, but the white population is dominant and the black population is a minority. Minorities need to be protected from majorities. That is true in societies that identify people based on their race or ethnicity. Do we really want to go down that road? Do we really want American-style race baiting in this country?

Raced based politics has no place in Canada. Some have certain tried to introduce it, mostly with limited success. Senator Oliver is not trying to fight racism, he is trying to institutionalize it. You fight racism by treating people as individuals, not as members of a racial collective. Oliver is also importing an American conceptual approach to race relations.

Most American blacks are descendants of slaves. Most Canadian blacks are immigrants or children of immigrants. The experiences of the two groups are very different. What does the typical Barbadian have in common with the typical Somali? Or the ordinary Jamaican with a Nigerian? Their skin colour. The black world, the Caribbean, Latin American and Sub-Saharan Africa are more culturally and religiously diverse than Europe. Would anyone think of jumbling together Portuguese and Russians? Or even Germans and Italians? Simply because these groups are white? We recognize differences in culture among whites. Why not among blacks? 

If Senator Oliver succeeds with his race hustling it will be for one reason: Cowardice. The non-black population is terrified of criticizing race based rhetoric for fear of being called a racist. The black population of being called Uncle Toms or Oreos. The real victims will not be Canada's whites, Asians or Indians. It will the black population. There is nothing more pernicious to a group of people than to see themselves as victims, able to excuse every failure on some mythical "system" of racism. All this so an old man can grandstand to the media. Vanity.

 

Tuesday Night - Mary Pickford

A Piece of England and All That

From the Telegraph:

In this case, Jonathan is coming along for one day to tell me all about it, then I'm on my own. Right now he is grimacing at English Heritage's excellent audio guide to the Battle of Hastings site; me too. It explains why, by sundown on October 14 1066, this vast, tussocky arena was strewn with 7,000 corpses, English and Norman.

You can hear the clash of battle axes, imagine the English locking shields to form a wall and the Normans pretending to flee (it worked – the wall broke in pursuit). Harold, as it turns out, was a tall, respected warrior with a girlfriend called Edith Swan-Neck. Frankly, anyone who can spend all day carrying a shield that heavy – we know, because you can lift a full-sized replica in the Visitor Centre (instructions in French and English) – is no wimp.

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

Beverley and Baldwin Street

The Peace of Savages

Mr Coren explains:

In an ideal world, the Vancouver rioters — including the particularly pathetic one who cried to his mom and dad on camera — and the neurotic Gaza flotilla twits who left Toronto this week for the Middle East would be forced to fight one another, the winner receiving the last government grant in Canadian history.

But, alas, we are not in control of history and must leave these selfish dunderheads to their own devices. There is, however, actually more commonality between these two groups than you’d imagine.

However much I love the imaginary of the first paragraph, I must condemn the logic of the second. These creatures are not selfish. They're juvenile, though many seem to be well past that physical age. An individual with any sense of self-respect would never engaged in such behaviour. A proper sense of self is the best guardian of the public peace.

Where once rioting was the province of the poor, the desperate and the hate filled, we have in Vancouver the spectre of middle class entitlement slipping easily into decadent revelry. They broke because they liked to hear the smash. Boredom attracted them to the flames of burning cars. The herd instinct seems to have taken care of the rest. The "neurotics" on the Gaza flotilla present a somewhat more respectable front. They are off to aid the Palestinians who are being cruelly oppressed by the evil Israelis. Except the Palestinians are being oppressed by no one but their own government. An Arab lives better in Israel than anywhere else in the Middle East.

Facts, as a statesman of a different generation observed, are stubborn things. But why pay attention to facts? From an evolutionary stand point the answer is obvious: survival. That's not a concern for rioters in Vancouver, or decadent poseurs on their way to Gaza to play Byron for the locals. The cost of their blindness to the facts of private property at home, and Palestinian terrorism abroad, are borne by other people. If the State of Israel is ever destroyed, it will not be the poseurs of Gaza that will suffer. If those shop keepers go under, it won't be the rioters having to find alternate work.

What wealth buys you, above all else, is space. The distance between yourself and the ugliness and hardness of life. For a peasant scratching a bare subsistence from his patch, the distance between himself and the grave is very short. Illness, idleness or error can be disastrous. He doesn't need a poet to tell him "if you don't work you die." That's the first lesson of life. Such constrains simply do not apply, and are rarely understood, by modern North American. Even the homeless tramp knows that, within an hour or so he can easily beg for his supper. If he becomes seriously ill, no hospital will turn him away. These are unimagined luxuries for most of the people that have ever lived on this earth.

Being ignorant of the distance between luxury and death is also dangerous, but only after a certain time. Mrs Thatcher famously observed that socialism works only until you run out of other people's money. That could describe any form of decadence. Socialism can be seen as decadence, the day dreams of the middle and upper classes to save the world, all through the magic elixir of legislation. Rioters in Vancouver and the Gaza poseurs are not necessarily socialists. Reading big thick books seems beyond most of them. The latter can just about nod in acquiescence at whatever Noam Chomsky has to say.  The placing of self-absorped fantasy above facts unites them all.

From where did these little monsters come? Your city, your neighbourhood and your block. For years many on the Right, though more so in the United States, have complained about how immigrants are diluting the historic character of North America. We are not that essentially British place we once were. The fault, however, lies far less with the immigrants than with the native born.

The hijab wearing Muslim is certainly a more obvious threat than the white middle class punk. The former is obviously alien, the latter is much more insidious. You can close the border tomorrow. Remove all the nasty foreigners you like.  The future, however, will belong to whoever is around to run it. They may have impeccable WASP names, and nice clean white faces, and none of this will prevent them from behaving like the savages they were raised to be. 

The fault dear Brutus...

 

Monday Night - Saskatchewan

Yeah. I didn't know the Rockies were in Saskatchewan either.

Regrets? The Chief Has Had a Few

Took a year.

Toronto police will never again use the controversial crowd control technique known as kettling, which was employed for the first and last time in the city’s history during last year’s G20 summit.

The decision was revealed to the Star in a police statement Tuesday, along with the information that two Toronto police superintendents were “responsible” for commanding and controlling G20 policing in the city outside the security fence.

 "You know the score, pal. You're not cop, you're little people! "

Scenes From the Imperial Capital

British Columbia Road