This is what graces its current cover:
Impoverished indeed are we as a nation* if a minister as consistently and profoundly incompetent as Peter MacKay and his family are deemed worthy of celebrity status.
* Special thanks to Yoda for permission to use his always arresting syntax.
The widening epidemic of celebrity worship and its commensurate devaluation of anything remotely and truly valuable that may be tied to it is just another symptom of invasive corporatism, meant to distract us with the shiny, vapid, and facile while Rome burns and our freedoms and rights die around us. To heap celebrity on this skeevy, duplicitous example of serial incompetence and dumbfuckitude simply for committing basic biology merely underscores how unworthy of any attention - beyond that of focusing on his crimes against Canada and its citizens - he is...
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I agree completely with you, Neil. Like you, I have long been of the opinion that the shiny baubles that are offered as substitutes for anything remotely substantial and readily consumed by people are indeed consistent with the corporate agenda, which encourages a passivity that precludes standing up for the things that are really important in a democratic society. Especially disquieting is the proliferation of reality television which, from what little I know about it, treats the people depicted as mere commodities to be mocked and disdained.
DeleteWhat better way to further weaken the already unravelling threads of community that sustain a society?
Lorne, Peter Mackay is from Maritimes and you hurt my feelings. :)
ReplyDeleteHis wife is a practicing Muslim from Iran. Does that mean that he will play the same games as Anthony Weiner of N.Y. whose wife is Muslim too?
Before Harper formed the government I did correspond with Mackay on certain issue. He did come across quite humble. He explained why he joined Alliance party although I did not ask - he was being reprimanded by Progressive Conservatives. He does have some redeeming qualities. However he did change once he became a Minister – starting with foreign affairs Minister.
Sorry, LeDaro. No offence intended. :) We will just have to consider MacKay the exception that proves the rule about the integrity and generosity of spirit of Maritimers.
DeleteThe thing about MacKay that I have always found unforgivable is the fact that he betrayed his promise to David Orchard, who at the time was vying for the leadership of the Progressive Conservatives, that he would never join the party with the Alliance Party. Orchard took him at his word, thereby ensuring that MacKay became the leader of the PCP. He reneged on that promise shortly afterward, leaving us with the mess we must currently contend with federally.
It might be wise to recall old Joe Kennedy's advice to his son, Jack. "It's not who you are that's important. It's what people think you are that's important."
ReplyDeleteOn either of those counts, Owen, MacKay strikes me as an abject failure.
DeleteLorne, Mackay did betray Progressives. No questions about it. Even Joe Clark was very upset. Clark refused to join CPC.
ReplyDeleteHe is a typical politician whose own interests come first. Harper does not like or trust him that is why there was an Associate Minister of Defence to undermine his portfolio. I don't know how he is doing as a Minister of Justice.
I haven't heard anything thus far about MacKay's work in his new portfolio, LeDaro, but if past performance is any indicator, I doubt that it will be too long before he is in the news again, for, of course, all the wrong reasons.
Deletethe baby looks like harper
ReplyDeleteOne can only hope he grows out of it, Anon.
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