Politics: December 2004 Archives

Actually, I think in theory the UN is the right authority to coordinate the response to the recent natural disaster in South-East Asia, but practically speaking this presumes the UN is functioning reasonably close to how it is suppose to be functioning. It is not. And given how corrupt the UN has become -- it is now a coalition of banana republics, terrorist states, and tinpot dictatorships -- the reality is that the US has to take charge.

This way, the developed world knows: 1) the aid will get to where it is suppose to be going, and 2) the money doesn't end up lining the pockets of some corrupt official in a country that changes government through revolution more often that the French go on vacation. So while the UN should be coordinating the effort in theory, realpolitik necessitates the US taking the lead.

That being said, Canada continues to prove its inneptitude by charging a surviving victim $100 to replace her passport so that she can go home, while our Prime Minister continues to enjoy his holiday, and Liberal legislators complain they don't have the time or energy to get personally involved but then they slam America's response. Get me a green card quickly.

Almost a year ago, I wrote a short post called "Killing poor people by keeping them poor," about poverty's role in massively lethal natural disasters. I expressed my contempt for the "activists" who campaign to keep Third World peasants in a Rousseau-like state of nature. For some reason, most people think these activists are selfless, but they are pursuing a prideful, secular vision of Paradise and causing human misery. As I said then,

...The anti-globalizers on the Left want to ensure that these disasters happen from now until the end of time. Who cares about mothers wailing for their children, or thousands of homes wiped out in a few minutes of screaming, suffocating chaos? All these things must be offered up to the god of environmental primitivism.

What do I mean by "environmental primitivism"? The anti-globalizers think that poor non-Western people are cute, so they don't want them to change their charmingly backward ways, which are (they imagine) the way people lived before the nasty Industrial Revolution with its so-called "abundant food," "long lifespans," and "housing codes." They love that poor people don't consume much energy or natural resources, and they use "organic" methods of agriculture -- which aren't very helpful for crop yields, but they don't use evil pesticides or fertilizers. And harvesting by hand -- so darn cute!

The "Diplomad," an American diplomat, confirmed this thesis:

Having served and visited extensively in Central and South American countries with large "indigenous" populations, I can freely state that the region's "indigenous" cultures largely ceased to exist hundreds of years ago; "indigenous" culture today means rural poverty. As the saying goes, "I was born at night, but not last night," so even I understand, therefore, that calling to protect "indigenous culture" really means seeking to preserve rural poverty; to keep people poor, sick, illiterate, and isolated from the great and small wonders of our age. It means helping condemn them to half lives consumed with superstition, disease, and of watching their puny children struggle to live past the age of five. It's a call to keep certain people as either an ethnic curio on the shelf for the enjoyment of European and North American anthropologists or, equally vile, as exploitable pawns for the use of political activists.

This jibes with my trip to rural Nicaragua a few years ago, where it occured to me that they could use a little globalization in Juigalpa province. (It wasn't all misery, though; I'd go back in a heartbeat.)

Now with the tsunami-created disasters, we see this effect play out once again. I am certainly not blaming the victims for dying — they had nothing to do with it. And neither did anyone else, really. So instead of trying to explain that submarine tectonic movements are a result of global warming, why not try to figure out how these poor people can gain enough wealth to build more durable homes?

Police became suspicious when a derogatory word for homosexual was carved into the lad's forehead backward. In Canada, he likely would have received an award from the Governor General anyway.

Like I do every month, here's the unedited December installment of Canons and Culture -- the monthly column I write for the Wanderer:

Of Canons and Culture
President Bush’s Five-Fingered Canadians

Pete Vere

Had the President arrived a day later, it would have been–if I may borrow an expression from Ann Coulter – like Christmas in December Of course the five thousand anti-Bush hooligans who gathered on Parliament Hill would disagree. Strangely, I counted more New Yorkers than native Canadians among this collage of radical rejects from the 1960's, proponents of failed ideologies, and, I kid you not, Belly Dancers Against Bush.

Yet this last group deserves some credit for bearing (or perhaps baring is the more appropriate verb) a winter protest in the world’s coldest capital. Still, one could easily mistake the anti-Bush festivities as the illegitimate offspring of an All Hallow’s Eve party hosted by Ed Wood and a Soviet era May Day celebration. Or a typical day in the French legislature. And before I forget, this was mid-wived with the seriousness of Ground Hog Day.

But it revealed an important truism of modern Canadian politics–besides that we’re the only country taken less seriously in international politics than France. This hardly surprised most Canadian conservatives who pine for the days when our military projected a more fearsome reputation than the Vatican Swiss Guard. But returning to the topic at hand, this truism is that young conservatives make up Canada’s new anti-establishment.

For example, one particularly brave student sported the following on her placard: “Yo Hippy Shouldn’t you be working?” While I sympathize with this young lady, her question is more rhetorical than fair. Work, and not Bush, is the real four-letter vulgarity that this leftist coalition of political protesters, professional perverts, and pot-smoking poets finds offensive. After all, nothing frightens this Coalition of the Unemployable more than the real world. And there are only so many jobs within Canada’s activist judiciary, the ivory basement of Canadian academia, and the morally incoherent–not to mention culturally irrelevant–Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). For our American readers, the CBC is Canada’s closest equivalent to NPR, but with a liberal bias that even Dan Rather would find obvious and objectionable.

Using the right side of your brain, you can imagine this was not the welcome we Canadian conservatives wished to extend to the President. Given that this was Mr. Bush’s first official visit to our nation, and given the presence of the First Lady, Connie Wilkins and Mark Fournier set about organizing a pro-Bush rally in Canada’s capital region.

Connie and Mark are the co-founders of FreeDominion.ca. This makes them two of Canada’s most popular conservative activists as FreeDominion.ca is the official Canadian sister site to FreeRepublic. This couple is a rare breed among Canada’s political conservatives; one easily distinguishes them from Arlen Specter. In other words, FreeDominion.ca is among the few secular Canadian media outlets that welcomes social conservative and provides us with a voice within a larger conservative community.

“Given some of their negative past experiences,” Connie explained to me during an recent interview, “Canadian social conservatives tend to shy away from political activity. We need to change this. We must give social conservatives a fair voice in the process. Canada’s conservative movement cannot be making its tent smaller if we hope to make political inroads and take back our country.”

“The Internet is our free speech in Canada,” Connie subsequently added. “Liberals control much of the mainstream Canadian media, which is why FreeDominion.ca is a growing website. We’ve registered 4500 members in just under four years. I belong to the Salvation Army, and I see great potential for co-operation between social conservatives from various religious backgrounds. This includes Catholics. Protecting traditional marriage, the children in our womb, and the family – we all agree these issues are essential to a healthy, functioning, and moral society.”

Having received our marching orders from Connie, a group of us from FreeDominion.ca showed up at the airport to welcome President Bush. A handful of Americans from upstate New York and a trucker passing through from Nevada also braved the cold to join us. Since they were not rioting hooligans from New York City, and since this was politics and not hockey, we welcomed them with open arms.

About half an hour later, the presidential motorcade left the airport hangar. We stood within fifteen feet of the vehicles. Recognizing the presidential seal on Mr. Bush’s limo, we started chanting Bush The President seemed a little taken aback at first, but then a big Texas grin spread across his face. He slowed down the limo, stopped waving and gave us the big thumb's up. I cannot describe what we felt as beleaguered young conservatives in Canada. Some twenty-something mother pointed the president out to her toddler and said: That's what a real political leader looks like. He's pro-life. You won’t find these in Canada.

During the press conference that followed the President’s visit to the Canadian Parliament, some graceless reporter–probably from the CBC–confronted Mr. Bush about the number of protesters. I frankly felt like the reception we received on the way in from the airport was very warm and hospitable,” the President grinned, “and I want to thank the Canadian people who came out to wave — with all five fingers.”

Connie and Mark had joined my wife and me at the local pub for lunch. As the press conference flashed across the television, we heard President Bush’s aforementioned comment. A big smile crossed each of our faces. Thanks to FreeDominion.ca, Canadian political conservatism is on the rise.

Well, there was. Only his name was spelled "John Carey." Unlike Senator John Kerry, Blessed John Carey was Irish.

Well some Canadian legal Moore-on just charged President Bush with war crimes before a provincial court in British Columbia. What's even more ridiculous is that the BC provincial court accepted it. Here's the details:

A Vancouver lawyer has filed torture-related criminal charges against U.S. President George W. Bush in Vancouver Provincial Court. Gail Davidson, cochair of an international legal group called Lawyers Against the War, told the Straight that she charged Bush on November 30 with seven counts of counselling, aiding, and abetting the commission of torture in connection with the actions of U.S. armed forces at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and at a U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay. If the case goes to trial and Bush is found guilty, he would be liable to imprisonment for up to 14 years.

"I went about it in a very organized and solemn way," Davidson said. "It wasn't every day that someone was going to walk in and try to lay a charge against a visiting president."

A justice of the peace accepted the charges, which means there will be a hearing to decide whether or not Bush will be required to appear. Davidson said that within eight days of her laying the charges, the Attorney General of Canada, Irwin Cotler, must give his consent for the case to continue.

Given how Canada's judiocracy has come to think of itself as the Robed Masters of the Universe, this is one of the few times where I wish the President was more ruthless and less classy. As it stands now, he will probably just ignore the charges and wait for our Attorney General to order the charges dropped. Nevertheless, it would have been nice to see President Bush represented, not by good lawyers but a cruise missle.