Conservative Constipation

While most of the world celebrated the triumph of freedom over tyranny, of the will of the people over the despot in Egypt, one part of the political spectrum, at least in Canada, seemed decidedly uncomfortable.

My local television station had comments from a number of 'experts,' and while there was general satisfaction over the ouster of Mubarak one man, representing a think tank called the MacKenzie Institute, rather peevishly carped that the revolution was going to do nothing to bring down food prices in Egypt, something he seemed to feel was the impetus for what occurred. Typical of the right wing, he was looking at human motivation through the narrow lens of 'homo economicus' (economic man) which sees all human action as being prompted only by self-interest.

Similarly, Stephen Harper, in what can only be described as a bout of verbal constipation, (it seemed very hard indeed for him to get the words out), offered a very grudging and qualified endorsement of the Egyptian liberation, reminding them of the importance of adhering to their peace treaties. This, of course, was his way of reminding everyone of his unqualified, unwavering and completely uncritical support of Israel.

It has long been obvious to me that while the right wing likes to talk about the importance of human rights and democracy for the world, its support tends to be confined only to those people who make the correct choices at election time, the right choice being, of course, voting for those candidates who may not necessarily be best for the people, but rather friendly and deferential to first-world democratic interests, which are all too often synonymous with the goals of the corporate world.