Like his father, John is a man of great integrity, passion and commitment to his family and his country. Hearing him speak, of course, initially got me thinking about what others might say about me when my time comes; although I have not led a particularly accomplished life, I hope the one thing that will be remembered, if modesty permits, is that I tried to live my life with both personal and professional integrity.
Which got me to thinking about our last government. As I have mused at times in this blog, I still do not understand how the men and women who were part of Stephen Harper's regime can, even for a moment, delude themselves into thinking that their public lives were even remotely honourable ones. They allowed themselves and their principles to be dictated to by a martinet, almost no one protesting or asserting any objections whatsoever (Brent Rathgeber and Michael Chong notable exceptions). Surely this should be a source of deep shame, no matter how much they try to spin their defeat as a result of tone rather than policy.
They will not be missed.
When their time comes, each of the defeated and still-standing Conservative Members of Parliament will no doubt be remembered fondly by family and friends. Yet for others in living memory, they will be recalled for their manifest failure to do anything to better their country and their fellow-citizens. Our most recent election saw them being repudiated for a host of reasons as voters fled
[f]rom a hyper-partisan Conservative party that had grown cynical, sneering and closed under Stephen Harper. From practices that showed contempt for Parliament, the Supreme Court and science itself. From ugly, divisive, Muslim-baiting electoral tactics. And from deeply misguided policies that favoured the moneyed few, and that sold out civil liberties amid hyped fears of terror.What Canadians rejected could fill dozens of blog pages, and they have already been well-chronicled in the blogosphere this past decade. But they still don't get it, as Owen observes this morning at Northern Reflections. They still insist that theirs was a failure of tone. But Andrew Coyne points out that the problem runs much deeper:
...in the main what characterized the Tories’ 10 years in power was timidity, mixed with inconsistency. They took few risks, invested almost no political capital, articulated no broad vision. Where they did act, it was as often as not by stealth: important measures would be found buried four hundred pages deep in an omnibus bill, or parsed from some throwaway remark by the prime minister at a conference in Switzerland.Theirs was a failure, not only of vision, but of moral fiber, and no matter what kind of 'face' they try to put on a revived Conservative party, that persona, while the usual suspects still control the levers of power, will serve only to mask the underlying rot that corrupted the party under the leadership of Stephen Harper.
Until that rot is wiped away, merely adopting a new tone in emulation of the victorious Liberals will serve only to reinforce its incapacity to truly renew itself.
Dorian Gray is a perfect metaphor, Lorne. There's all kinds of rot up in the attic.
ReplyDeleteAnd as long as the Conservatives insist on hiding it away, Owen, it will only continue to fester and spread.
DeleteOwen posted a piece today also citing Coyne's op-ed. I find it darkly hilarious how Coyne and the minions of the corporate media cartel are so freely condemning the corpse now that it has drawn its final breath. It's farcical. Yes, Harper & Company failed the country, betrayed their countrymen but we don't need Coyne to tell us that. What we need of Coyne is the honesty to tell us how his Fourth Estate so badly failed us in this decade of darkness. That's a little bit of overdue soul-searching he's not eager to indulge. How did they switch from government watchdog to government lap dog? What did they get out of it? Why did they collaborate with what he now freely ridicules as a visionless, nasty gang with despotic tendencies?
ReplyDeleteTo me, Lorne, the mainstream media that showed their true colours in their pre-election endorsements, are today like the whore dishing dirt on the client. They're resorting to the "Good German" syndrome and, in the process, making the case for the need to dismantle the corporate media cartel.
Point well-taken, Mound. During the dark period of the Harper rule, I came to rely increasingly on alternative sources for news and commentary. In this regard, the world of blogs proved immensely helpful, and they pointed the way toward publications like The Tyee, Rabble, etc. I have often said to others that if more people read blogs and alternatives, they would be much better informed than those who merely consume the blatherings of the mainstream media.
DeleteI think the reason that the CONs keep saying they lost because of tone, not policy, is that they are signally to their base that nothing has changed. I also find it interesting that the main theme that is driving the CONs and that Harper so fully embraced,Neoliberalism, is not mentioned by Coyne, and if anyone knows about Neoliberalism it is Coyne.After all he is one of the main journalist that the Neoliberal think tanks rely on to promote Neoliberalism. To promote it without mentioning it's name. How does anyone analyze the CONs ideology, when they are completely bereft of ideas. .The CONs will continue on as bofore, but they'll do it with a smiley face.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree, Pamela, and as for Coyne and his ilk, take a look at Mound's comment above. It's as if people in the MSM believe that they can simply rewrite their own sad history of enablement by a few strokes of the keyboard, isn't it?
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