The State of the Race

 

I am profoundly depressed by the state of the polls in the Canadian election. Careny and the Liberals are projected to win a majority government, and I believe this will be the end of democracy in Canada; even the end of Canada. See my last post.

It would be divine justice for the arrogance of so many Canadians: thinking they are better than Americans, and better that Albertans and Saskatchewanians, and those guys had better just give us what we want, or else…

Narcissistic thinking.

Too many Conservative commentators are relying on the polls being wrong. That is an irrational, delusional, thought. That too is narcissistic thinking: as though the world is obliged to conform to my desires.

I think it is rational, at least, to hold out some hope for the upcoming debates. Because he is leading in the polls, all the other parties will be attacking Carney. And leaving each other alone. Blanchet is masterful in debate; and his party's current situation gives him every reason to go for broke and try for the knockout. Poilievre is masterful. Singh is desperate. Carney’s French is limited. And he has little experience in debate. He was not challenged in the Liberal leadership debate. He has been prickly even taking questions from essentially friendly reporters. He is not good at taking criticism. He is liable to blow his cool, or look a fool, or be caught lying.

I think the drip, drip, drip of scandals may also catch up with him. I overheard on the bus a few days ago one guy trying to convince others that Carney’s ties to the CCP are too sinister. Now there is the scandal of dirty tricks at a Conservative event. There is the issue of using tax havens. There is the issue of lying about moving his corporate headquarters to the States. There is the issue of possible conflicts of interest, and lack of transparency on what he owns. There has to be a tipping point.

We can pray and hope.

Reasons Not to Vote Carney

 

As a public service, here are a few reasons not to vote Carney and Liberal in the upcoming Canadian election:

Carney, like Trudeau, seems to be run by China. He seems to be cooperating with Beijing, naming candidates with known connections to the CCP; and refusing to remove candidates known to have such ties. We know the CCP is backing him on social media. His hostility to the US looks like China’s bidding. He looks, in short, like a Manchurian candidate.

We know there is foreign interference in our electoral process. We know there is foreign interference from China specifically. We must know what candidates are compromised. The Liberals have been doing whatever they can to suppress this information, and Carney seems even worse on this than Trudeau. 

In order to find out what is going on, and ensure the security and legitimacy of elections, we must get the Liberals out of power now so we can have an open investigation. 

We seem to be entering a new Cold War, between China and the United States. Carney seems to side with China against the USA. He has declared the US a “national security threat.” Do we really want to side with China in this global conflict? Leaving aside the obvious rights and wrongs of this, we are too vulnerable to attack from the US to contemplate turning on them. It would be fatally arrogant.

Carney has said he will impose even stricter censorship in Canada—making it more like China. “We announced a series of measures with respect to online harm… a sea of misogyny, anti-Semitism, hatred, conspiracy theories—the sort of pollution that's online that washes over our virtual borders from the United States. My government, if we are elected, will be taking action on those American giants who come across [our] border.” Under Trudeau, we have already largely lost freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and a free press. Carney plans to push further down this road. He must admire China’s “basic dictatorship.”

Carney says he will not repeal the “no new pipelines” bill. He says he will not force a pipeline on Quebec. He and his cabinet want to hobble the oil and gas industry, with their “net zero carbon” program. He has made this a cornerstone of his personal philosophy, in his book “Values.” 

This, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith warns, will trigger a “national unity crisis.” Scott Moe in Saskatchewan is also threatening action. The mechanism to separate is available to them, established through the Quebec referenda. They can vote to leave, and if to their advantage to join the United States. Doing so, they avoid both tariffs and equalization payments. If Alberta merely pulls out of the Canada Pension Plan, they theoretically have the right to take half the fund with them. Canada may be split in two, and without Alberta shovelling cash eastward, much poorer. It is suicidally arrogant for voters in eastern Canada to ignore Alberta’s concerns and vote Carney.

Justin Trudeau, having declared the Emergency Act and frozen bank accounts without legal justification, needed to be so utterly rebuked no future government would ever again try such a thing. Unfortunately, Trudeau resigned without facing a vote. Therefore, we must rebuke his successor Carney, his party, and the cabinet and caucus who supported Trudeau in his actions. Under Carney they remain in power. For the sake of Canadian democracy, they must be thrown out. Every Liberal vote is an act of treason.

While both Carney and Poilievre are foolishly (or cynically) calling for a trade war against the US, this is suicide for Canada. But now that Trump has delayed most tariffs until after the election, in order to negotiate with a new government, Poilievre is at least better placed to negotiate that new trade deal. A new government can more easily reset the relationship and avoid responsibility for the belligerence of the past. It helps that Poilievre is broadly aligned politically with Danielle Smith and Doug Ford, the two premiers who have been most active and most flexible in talks with the Americans. It helps that Poilievre is, like the Republicans in power in the States, a conservative.  Ford, for all his initial bellicosity, has already proposed the obvious solution, reciprocal complete free trade and a shared defense perimeter.

Carney is the perfect globalist. He holds three passports. He has lived and held high government positions abroad. He has declared himself a European. He moved his businesses offshore. There is no reason to believe he holds any great allegiance to Canada. His allegiance is to the globalist elites and their agenda. This may not be in our interests. We need someone who will speak for us to international fora, not speak to us for international fora.

As a high-level investment banker at Brookfield and manager of investment funds, Carney has huge possible conflicts of interest. He is dodging questions about this. He seems even to have suspended his campaign or a few days to avoid questions about this. At a minimum, we must get a good look at the books, his tax returns, and his Cayman Islands and Bermuda addresses before we give him the PM chair for four years. 

He has, he says, put everything in a blind trust. But can he really remain blind to what, for example, Brookfield is invested in day by day? It’s probably in the papers. And in his memory. And, assuming he stays honest, what good is a Prime Minister who must recuse himself from most government decisions?

In modern times, democracies are gradually being taken over by the bureaucracy, the “Deep State,” the “blob.” This becomes an unaccountable ruling class. To forestall this, we must insist always on civilian oversight, on final power remaining always with out elected representatives.

Carney, unfortunately, is the personification of the bureaucratic mind. Voting in a bureaucrat to oversee bureaucrats is surrendering our democracy.

Over the past ten years, under Liberal stewardship, Canada’s GDP per capita has stagnated. Government debt has skyrocketed. The loonie is at a 50-year low against the dollar. We are slipping into the Third World. Carney was economic advisor during half of that time. We already know his policies are a disastrous failure. We must pull out of this nose dive.

Over the past ten years of Liberal leadership, mass migration and multiculturalism have badly damaged Canada’s social fabric, and produced shortages in housing and health care—essentials for life. At the same time, we are being warned that many low-skilled jobs will soon be obsolete due to automation, and a UBI may be needed. Meaning all these new immigrants are likely to be a growing burden to the taxpayer. 

Carney is committed to continuing these policies: mass migration and multiculturalism.

I discover that a Parliamentary committee has, with full support from both the Liberals and the NDP, called for withdrawing tax-exempt status from religious charities. This will further erode our social fabric, and withdraw the most effective support for the poor. 

Carney has been caught lying to the public repeatedly. He plagiarized his doctoral thesis. He has promised new laws that are already on the books. Would you buy a used car from this man?

Would you buy a used government?

When a Man Loves a Woman

 

“A Complete Unknown,” the Dylan biopic, has reinforced my belief that men love at a deeper level than women do. Men love in technicolour. Women love in black and white, on a flickering cathode tube. 

A man will, in principle and often enough in practice, lose everything for a women. He will give her everything he has. He will die for a woman. 

For women, on the other hand, a relationship is transactional. What is she getting out of it? Can she do better elsewhere?

Ann Landers’ test when a letter writer asked whether they should leave their marriage was: “Are you better off with him or without him?” 

In other words, never mind him, or the kids, what’s in it for you?

This was even pre-feminism. Or at least, Landers was not considered a feminist.

This is shown also by the fact that 70% of divorces are initiated by women. Men will stick it out, for richer or poorer, in sickness or in health. The reason women usually give for leaving is that they felt unfulfilled; that they felt the relationship was holding them back in some way.

Ask Betty Freidan.

The feminist movement said out loud that for a woman a man is only a means to an end, like a bicycle. Does a fish need one? Do you need one? What’s love got to do with it?

Since the increased home automation of the 1950s, if men applied the same test, the answer would have always been no. But for men it is not transactional. They fall in love.

For men, it is about love. For women, it is about being loved. Or as someone once said to me, for women it is just business.

If if you are a man’s first love, or their special love, you are forever the world to them. It is not whether you are the prettiest they ever met. You are all women. You are really the only woman.

I note that male poets and artists invariably have a muse—some idolized women they are creating for. Beatrice, Maryanne Ihlen, Suze Rotolo, Maude Gonne, Lucy, Annabelle Lee, the dark-haired lady of the sonnets … someone. I discover on asking that female poets and artists never do. They write for themselves.

It is a tragedy that women and men are different in this way.

The matter used to be balanced by making divorce difficult, and more difficult for the woman. And by the social expectation that the woman, in exchange for the love and support the man was giving, would show gratitude, respect, and at least public deference.

Sadly, that has been lost, and many lives lost and destroyed as a result.

A Complete Unknown

I’ve just finished watching “A Complete Unknown.” I think it is a brilliant movie. There were so many things going on, so many telling details. I think it needs watching again and again. Which is what we need in movies now: because we no longer see them in theatres, a one-shot thing, but buy them, as we used to buy records, to play over again.

And what is in effect a musical is ideal for this.

The casting for Dylan was incredibly good. Timothée Chalamet really gets Dylan down pat, reminiscent of Val Kilmer playing Jim Morrison. Hard to do, with someone so famous and still living. Definitely earned an Oscar. 

Ed Norton as Pete Seeger is also brilliant. A little easier, since Seeger is somewhat less famous. But he really does seem to be Seeger himself.

Joan Baez is not as good. Not Monica Barbaro’s fault. She does a fine job with the role, but nobody could imitate Baez’s unique and uniquely good voice.

And Boyd Holbrook as Johnny Cash is a fail. Unlike enough that it is distracting, and interferes with the willing suspension of disbelief. Again, the problem is the voice. You needed an actor with a deep baritone. Without it, Holbrook just comes across as a generic greaser, a Fonzie.

Seeger’s “parable of the teaspoon brigade” looks at first like a fail by the scriptwriter. Because it does not work. The obvious way to balance the imaginary seesaw was of course not to fill the leaky bucket of sand with teaspoons, but to take some rocks out of the other one.

Or perhaps this was an intentional parody of Seeger’s political views.

I think the latter. I hear Dylan himself annotated the script. Dylan likes to subtly send people up. He does it to Seeger in his autobiography by lamenting how unjust it is that Seeger was set upon by the government, he being descended from people coming over on the Mayflower and all. 

In other words, Seeger was a poseur who never really risked anything with all his leftist politics, and had no rapport with the actual working class. All a sham. He was really a card-carrying member of the old rich. Went to private school, parents were prominent academics and bureaucrats.

There are other lines and opinions in the movie that I feel certain are Dylan himself speaking: “Picasso is overrated.” 

Yep.

“Bette Davis was not trying to find herself.”

Yep. The task of the artist is not to find himself, but to lose himself. As Keats said, “the poet is the most unpoetical thing in existence.” The “chameleon poet” disappears into the work through “negative capability.” Bobby Zimmerman disappears. Irving Layton referred to his poems as “my dead selves.” 

Baez’s songwriting is lousy.

Yep. It seems obvious to me why their relationship was doomed. Baez was not at Dylan’s intellectual level. But she was too successful and ambitious to live in his shadow. She would have been a millstone around his neck. He would crush her ego.

I’m a dedicated folkie, and also a dedicated rocker. I love them both. But I do find it heartbreaking that Dylan abandoned the folk movement; that pretty much killed it, and it was so beautiful. 

Why did he do it?

The reason the movie suggests and the one Dylan himself suggests, is that everyone was trying to own him. He felt trapped by the expectations of the movement. He needed to break free to be his own man.

But I think that is kind of a cover story. It is not Dylan who felt trapped. Dylan was not real; the self was gone, and there was only the music. It was the voice in his head, the place the songs come from, that felt trapped. It could no longer speak in the folk idiom. 

People imagine authors, poets, and songwriters have command of their material. The best ones don’t.

Someone once asked Stephen King why he only wrote horror.

“Do you think I have a choice?” he answered.

So Dylan could not stay in folk. He had no more folk songs. He would only let them down.

But why did he have to confront the Newport Folk Festival with the fact? Didn’t he owe something to that paying audience? Wasn’t he deliberately insulting their taste? Couldn’t he have sung some of the old songs, just one more time?

I believe the key to that is Suze Rotolo—Sylvie in the film. 

I think Dylan was truly and completely in love with her. She was his first love. And I think she was the one who left him. Probably, as the film suggests, because his brilliance and success crushed her ego. I think she was his muse. For the folk and protest period, he was speaking for her. His voice was trying to please her.

And when she was gone, I suspect it is not just that the folk songs no longer came. It was also that they suddenly became too emotional for him, with too many memories.

I often fear as I read my poetry in public that I might break down. Leonard Cohen needed to get drunk before a performance; when he began, he considered wearing a mask. Dylan went through a period of performing in whiteface.

Dylan’s early folk lyrics are very intimate.

He had to create a new hard-edged persona to protect himself. So, edgy rock. Sunglasses.

And the new songs spoke out of a bitterness. He was badly hurt.

Even today, a Dylan concert is disappointing. Because he won’t play his own songs straight. When he plays his own stuff, he always plays it in a weird bouncy tempo. I’m not sure what it is musically; I think it is 3/3. Happy happy joy joy. The effect, I think, is to take the emotional edge off it, to distance himself from it. Otherwise he may still fear breaking down in public.

Perhaps still for Suze. Perhaps for other heartbreaks since. Everything beautiful comes from pain.

I think there is a similar thing with Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen. 

Men do not easily get over their first true love. We are not meant to.

The Trade Wars

 

I cannot vouch for its accuracy, but I hear reports that, in response to Trump’s new “reciprocal” tariffs, at least seventy nations have offered to cut their own tariffs and restrictions in order to have them removed or reduced. And only two nations have responded so far with retaliatory tariffs: China and Canada.

Until now, the US has looked on Canada, if they thought of us at all, as their best friends. Cousins across the border.

I’m afraid we are revealing ourselves as secret enemies.

Shame on us.

Rotary's Fourfold Test

 

Friend Xerxes laments the “mob mentality,” and advocates Rotary’s fourfold test as the antidote.

Before saying anything, according to that fraternal organization, you must consider:

1. Is it the truth?

2. Is it fair to all?

3. Will it build goodwill?

4. Will it be beneficial to all?

This is, however, I submit, itself an example of the “mob mentality.” Or, as I prefer to call it, the herd instinct.

Whenever you create a formal group or organization, you are creating a herd. Anyone outside of the herd is “other.” You are violating, of necessity, the universal brotherhood of man. 

This is not blameworthy so long as there is an honourable reason for the group. 

What is the reason for Rotary?

The official reason is to do community service. 

But the real and original reason is to bring businessmen together for mutual support. “A way for professionals to connect, exchange ideas, and form meaningful, lifelong friendships.” Fraternal brothers will favour one another in business; a little cartel against competitors, by extension against the public interest. The community service bit serves for legitimization.

The problem with belonging to any herd is that in doing so, one may easily surrender one’s conscience to the group. One ceases to act morally, but just goes along. 

The Bible makes plain in many places that this is a bad idea. Most directly, in Jesus’s warning:

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

This is also the story of all the prophets, up to and including John the Baptist: they are solitary figures, “voices crying in the wilderness.”

It is the story of Noah and the ark; of Lot in Sodom and Gomorrah; of Moses in Egypt; of Job and his comforters; of Eve persuading Adam to bite the apple. And it is the story of the mob who condemned Jesus to death.

Whether or not, under the influence of the herd, one goes on to do something else immoral, simply going along with the herd without making your own choices is immoral.

The proper Christian test of speech is not fourfold. It is simply 1: Is it the truth? 

For the truth shall set you free.

The rest of Rotary’s four tests are there to enforce the herd mentality.

If you believe in God, the Christian God, you also believe that the truth and only the truth is fair to all. You believe that the truth and only the truth is ultimately of benefit to all; a lie never is. Adding these additional two tests seem only to subvert the truth.

And Rotary’s test 3 is most troublesome. Of course the truth does not always lead to good will. That is the usual excuse for a lie: to go along with the herd. To preserve “social harmony.”

In doing so, you may be required to condone sin, to condone evil. And this is as evil as doing the evil yourself. “All that is required for evil to prosper is for good men to do nothing.” If good men stood up to resist, evil would be gone tomorrow.

The Rotary test advocates that you keep silent.

The Church has always been suspicious of Rotary; priests were once banned from joining ot attending meetings.

I feel there is good reason.

The Blob Attacks

 

The powers that be are going to alarming lengths. The latest is the disqualification of Marine LePen from the next French presidential election, and the arraignment of Russell Brand on rape accusations over 20 years old.

And we saw the attempt to use the legal system to take out Trump and his associates; not to mention the assassination attempts. We saw the Canadian government blatantly freezing the bank accounts of dissidents.

And almost at the surface now is the realization that there is a system which deliberately compromises prominent people, so that they can be controlled by the group—a group that stays in the shadows. So long as the target toes the line, they are allowed to get away with anything. They can have their fun. Show independence, and charges surface.

Remaining innocent is no sure protection either; the blob can fabricate something. It is especially easy, in the modern climate, to get some woman to testify that you raped or molested her. Or standard business practices can be declared criminal. The general public will not know any better; it’s too complicated. 

Nobody is safe.

It seems to me that by now, the blob must be going too far. It is too obvious. The thing is about to crack and collapse. They are acting desperate.

But, alarmingly, they are prepared to take down all the elements of a stable civil society with them. They have undermined public trust in the press. They have undermined public trust in the police. They have undermined public trust in the banking system. They have trashed our shared history. They have undermined public trust in the justice system. They have undermined public trust in academia. They have undermined public trust in science. They have undermined public trust in the voting system. They have weaponized everything.

It's a hard rain that’s going to fall.

So Long, Canada. We Hardly Knew You

 

Big Pink

The world is mad. It has always been mad, but something snapped around 2020.

Canadians are in terminal Trump Derangement. They are prepared to burn down the country out of spite.

Trump and the USA of course have every sovereign right to impose tariffs at their border. This is not a hostile act. 

Trump is not threatening to annex Canada. That is paranoid fantasy.

It is insane for Canada to impose retaliatory tariffs. We cannot win a trade war with the USA. The sane course is to negotiate 100% free trade instead. But no Canadian politician dares say this. Instead, we will just stand there and pour gasoline all over ourselves, then light a match.

Unless things change dramatically in three weeks, Canada is about to re-elect the Liberals under Carney; with a majority government. 

Right-wing commentators are as delusional as everyone else, insisting that the polls must be wrong.

With the Liberals’ environmentalist agenda blocking the development and transport of Alberta’s energy resources, Alberta is then planning to hold a referendum on secession. 

It is likely to pass, with the Liberals in power. But Easterners all still insist on voting Liberal.

If Alberta separates, Saskatchewan is likely to follow. BC will probably need to go too.

If this happens, Eastern Canada will be left an impoverished rump. 

Trump gets his best case scenario: he can admit the resource-rich West to statehood, and get full access to their resources. He need not let in all those left-leaning voters in the East.

Congratulations, Canada. Darwin would be proud.