The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

Elian Wants To Return To America

It's been just over 15 years since federal agents seized Elian Gonzalez at the home of his Miami relatives. The story of the six year old boy's escape from Cuba, and the resulting high stakes custody battle, dominated headlines in the first half of 2000. In the wake of Bush v Gore later that year many pundits speculated that the Clinton Administration's insistence on repatriating Elian may have swung Florida, albeit narrowly, over to George W Bush.

In the immediate fallout from 9/11 the story was largely forgotten. In the years since occasional interviews with Juan Miguel, Elian's father, and carefully staged photo-ops between Elian and senior officials in the Cuban regime, acted as reminders of the Gonzalez tragedy. Typical accounts of the saga recall the story as "polarizing" and that a majority of the American people wanted Elian returned to his father. Much of the Cuban-American community, which opposed the repatriation, was widely vilified by the mainstream press for putting ideology ahead of family.

An ABC interview aired on Monday is the first media interview the now adult Elian Gonzalez has given:

Today, Gonzalez says he'd like to come back to the United States, but only as a tourist, telling ABC News he'd like to see a baseball game, visit Washington museums and talk to Americans.

"For my family it has always been, we always have the desire to say to the American people, to say to each household our gratitude, appreciation and love that we have," he said. "Perhaps one day we could pay a visit to the United States. I could personally thank those people who helped us, who were there by our side. Because we're so grateful for what they did."

At the time of his return many of us feared that Elian would become a prop of Cuba's communist government, being trotted out at official occasions, a smiling cover for the realities of an authoritarian state. Sadly this fear has come only too true. Now he is being trotted out again, conveniently in the wake of the Obama Administration's attempts to re-normalize US-Cuban relations.

It's very likely that Elian Gonzalez will come to America in the near future, not simply as a tourist but as a propaganda symbol for a regime that rigorously controls the thoughts and movements of eleven million people. Knowing the Obama Administration, and much of the media and cultural elite, he will almost certainly be feted by the great and good. A symbol of a new era when the Castro brothers and the state they rule over are no longer pariahs in the halls of Washington.

Those who have never lived under a dictatorship, have never been deprived of the freedom and opportunity that Americans take for granted, can view the drama that unfolded nearly a generation ago as nothing more than a family quarrel. Two Cuban families fighting an old battle with a little boy caught in the middle. For those who know better. For those who know why thousands of Cubans have risked their lives to reach the coastline of southern Florida, this is a tragedy plain and simple.

When Elian does return to America, surrounded by cameras and the false grins of the political leadership, please give some thought to the mother who died trying to make him an American. 

Tuesday Night - Rockelbel's Canon

Making Friends The Government Way

No problem too small or too great:

Seniors on Galiano Island will benefit from financial support for a local organization that helps reduce social isolation. The announcement was made today by the Honourable Peter Van Loan, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, on behalf of the Honourable Alice Wong, Minister of State (Seniors).

Through the New Horizons for Seniors Program, the Galiano Club will receive over $23,000. This funding will allow the Galiano Club to purchase kitchen equipment that will enable it to host intergenerational community dinners. The Club will also organize volunteer drivers to help isolated seniors attend these events. In addition, the Club will produce a guide to help other remote communities create similar programs.

 

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

In Which Rex Murphy Gets His Snark On

My sentiments exactly:

Here in Canada, white privilege has been with us for centuries. In my part of the country, Atlantic Canada, the white epidermis has been a pure passport to bliss and favour. For generations Cape Bretoners, for example, have revelled in the advantages that poured on their coal-dusted heads and corrupted lungs from generations of labouring under the earth, stooping with pick and shovel, in the murky, dank, mildewed hell of the coal pits. Privileged? I’ll say. How they lorded it over the folks selling haberdashery in the above-ground stores bathed in sunlight and fresh air. Forty years in a coal mine — if accident or early death had not claimed them — and the world was their grime-coated oyster. What were the odd mine collapses, early deaths, TB, and a lifetime working in darkness and danger compared to the privileges that came their way just from being white?

That "white privilege" is a crude racket, one that really only works on the young and gullible, is understood. What's fascinating is the brazen nature of the attempt. It is a literal and exact example of reverse racism. You are guilty of this terrible pseudo-crime by virtue of your skin colour alone. It's advocates are only slightly above the level of the Jim Crow bigots of yore as they have, so far, refrained from using violence to enforce their positions. 

On the downside we are seeing a generation being indoctrinated in the mantra of racial guilt. On the upside we are witnessing another instance of the Left's intellectual bankruptcy. When socialism had failed the Left drifted into advocating environmentalism. When electorates proven unwilling to destroy their living standards for the sake of Gaia, the Left fell back on the problems of racial minorities. After half a century of Great Society and affirmative action programs apparently American blacks were still far behind their white counterparts. 

Rather than blame the welfare state for entrenching and expanding black disadvantage, which would mean rejecting their core political goal, the Left is now chasing after the phantom of white privilege. If actual white racism against blacks could not be blamed for the state of black America, then the success of white Americans was the product of some nefarious factor. White people apparently have a kind of magical forcefield around them ensuring their success and happiness. The nature of that forcefield cannot be explained or even reasonably defined. It just is.

Like primitive tribes unable to explain natural events, the Left has resorted to the intellectual level of witchdoctors to cope with the failure of their social and economic policies. What began more than a century ago as "scientific socialism" has now sunk to the level of voodoo. 

Monday Night - Victoria

Your Tax Dollars at Work

Getting psyched:

The Honourable Bal Gosal, Minister of State (Sport), today announced that Friends of the Pan Am Path is receiving funding of $100,000 through the Community Celebrations Fund to plan and carry out the Pan Am Path Art Relay Grand Finale on August 15.

This support from the Government of Canada will help Friends of the Pan Am Path offer an exceptional celebration to strengthen our national pride and raise awareness of vibrant cultural communities in the region. Over the course of the Games, community celebrations across the country will offer cultural experiences and performances to thousands of Canadians and visitors alike.

Living and working in Toronto I cannot recall a single conversation, at least not in the last few months, in which the Pan Am Games have even been alluded to. The level of enthusiasm has to be measured in microns. In a real sense these are Games by and for the bureaucrats. A gigantic make work project that will, possibly, snarl traffic for a few days this summer. 

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

I Don't Have A Dog In This Fight But...

...I still find the travails of Michael Coren interesting:

It’s been an interesting two weeks. I was fired from three regular columns in Catholic magazines, had a dozen speeches cancelled and was then subjected to a repugnant storm of tweets, Facebook comments, emails, newspaper articles and radio broadcasts where it was alleged that I am unfaithful to my wife, am willing to do anything for money, am a liar and a fraud, a “secret Jew,” that my eldest daughter is gay and I am going directly to hell. As I say, an interesting two weeks.

As an atheist in good standing, though hardly a militant one, Michael Coren's ecumenical back and forth has always been strangely fascinating to me. Public intellectuals, a rubric that Coren fits quite easily, only very rarely recant their public positions. When they do there is often, lofty assertions aside, a monetary or social pressure driving them on. That's never seemed to be the case with Michael Coren.

I've never met the man. For all I know this whole thing could be a terrific bit of theatre aimed to boost his career. I doubt it though. Coren has always struck me as someone who, in his own stumbling way, is trying to find and live the truth. He isn't quite sure what that is. Even in his mid-fifties he keeps trying. That's the impressive thing about him. Too many of us, and I'm hardly immune from this statement, are a little too smug in our beliefs.

For most of us our view of the world gets hardened by the time we reach thirty. Beyond that we're supposed to have grown up and done all our thinking. The rest of life is dealing with practical matters and leaving the ideas and values stuff to the otherwise unemployable tenured class. But here is someone with a good position, well as good as it gets in Canadian journalism today, who keeps committing the awful crime of changing his mind in public. 

I've met people who utterly loath Michael Coren because of this aspect of his personality. That the man is a flip-flopper and an intellectual coward and more terms that I certainly won't repeat here. Being stubborn in the face of changing facts and understanding isn't being principled, it's being blind. That doesn't mean that I agree with much of Coren's world view. He isn't really an economic conservative or libertarian, in the above article he praises the welfare state and public medicine. The conservatism of Michael Coren is perhaps more about rejecting the cant of the Left than about embracing a rigid Right-leaning ideology. 

Say what you will about him he still tries after all these years. That's a measure of intellectual honesty that's rare enough these days that it should be encouraged wherever found. 

Friday Night - A Fistful of Dollars

The Art of Politics

This one just kinda slipped past:

Chris Lloyd, a Conservative candidate in Montreal who said his campaign was part of an art project, has resigned.    

CBC News has learned his campaign and party involvment are part of a decade-long project which involved writing letters to Prime Minister Stephen Harper almost every day. 

At an art discussion in Fredericton in March, Lloyd said he was a member of all political parties at one point, as well as a member of LeadNow, a group that advocates voting for anyone except Harper in the upcoming federal election.

Since Lloyd was running in Justin's seat perhaps the whole thing was a weird meta-joke being played by the Tory High Command. That or they just really goofed. 

Scenes From The Imperial Capital

A Spectre At The Feast

Is anyone else sensing a lack of brand confidence?

The ghost of Jack Layton is apparently watching over NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair.

At least that’s how it looks in a new flyer sent to residents of a Toronto riding.

A large, faded image of Layton’s head can be seen peering over the shoulders of Mulcair and local Scarborough-Rouge Park candidate Rev. KM Shanthikumar.

It's actually kind of creepy. As if Jack! is about to slide in from the next world and capture Scarborough-Rouge Park for Team Orange. Before we go too hard on the Dippers let's remember that the Grits are fond of invoking the legacy of Pierre Trudeau when convenient. The NDP has merely put a picture of a dead former leader on their campaign materials. The Liberals went all the way and elected a dead former leader's son. You may judge which is the weirdest.

The Tories, by contrast, have few former leaders with a strong popular appeal. Brian Mulroney is hated. John Diefenbaker is forgotten. The rest of Stephen Harper's predecessors are too obscure to recall excepting John A Macdonald. Being able to claim institutional decent from the founder of the country is a neat trick, it does have the unfortunate downside of linking you with a corrupt high functioning alcoholic.

The reach back to Jack Layton seems risky for the NDP. The implicit message is: Vote for me because you liked my dead predecessor. It has the uneasy appeal of being both exploitative and pleading at the same time. Tom Mulcair isn't a strong enough leader to win on his own, he needs the borrowed glory of a man four years in the grave. This does not bode well for the official opposition. 

 

 

Thursday Night - Roger Scruton