PARANOID GUESTS, VIOLENCE, SIGNS AND GELDOF
Happy New Year to all of our readers. We certainly hope you had a joyous and wonderful Christmas.
A few thoughts...
We just finished entertaining a friend of ours and his wife who recently accepted a job as a drama professor at a university just outside Dayton, Ohio. You remember Dayton, Ohio? The place where
Les Nessman from
WKRP was from. He told me that when he and his wife first moved there in September he was so terrified of getting shot that he kept his doors and windows double bolt locked every night.
Now, being terrified of getting shot in a small town outside Dayton, Ohio is like being terrified of being shot at the Shaw Festival at Niagara on the Lake. Lordy. He totally bought into all of the Toronto anti-American rhetoric and really believed most Americans in every American city were going around with a gun ready to blow everyones's head off. He said it was because of George W. Bush and the new American culture down there.
Now, I love my friend but dear God. I know Torontonians are brainwashed but is the average one really that...off? The fear he had was just plain silly. I told him Toronto was far worse than many American cities and most Torontonians are merely paranoid about America based on propaganda. I do not think I made a difference.
Some other friends also visited including the one who is the campaign manager and 'spy' for a local Liberal Party candidate. She said she was terrified that her political career would be over if they lost the election. I remained silent when some others in the room expressed concern for her career.
Does that make me a bad person?
As for the murder and random shooting spree in downtown Toronto on Boxing Day, words cannot express the horror. Sadly, most Torontonians will see this as an excuse to abide by Paul Martin's hand gun fraud.
David Miller again proved he is a mayor not worthy of the title. He is driven by ideology, not compassion. There is a gun problem in Toronto to be sure but until the people realize that it is really a gang problem and that it is cultural I fear nothing will change and the victims will continue to increase.
Do you think either David Miller or Paul Martin lost any sleep over this crime except for how it might affect their careers?
Please keep Jane Creba in your thoughts and prayers.
As for the Trust Fund scandal; it will not matter to most Torontonians, but I am noticing more Conservative signs than in the last election; even in Toronto. That bodes well for the rest of Ontario.
I think the Liberal vote will turn out. The average Canadian leftist is
TERRIFIED of Stephen Harper. Again, I add that most of my friends are in the arts so that makes them a notch or two more paranoid and hedonistic than the average Toronto voter...but they will climb through a blizzard to keep the 'Christians' out of office.
On the plus side...
The Conservatives I do know (and I do know a few) are more psyched up than ever before. One friend of ours works for a major Toronto daily as a journalist and 'outed' himself before Christmas. He lives in a major NDP-Liberal riding in the east end and proudly put a Conservative sign on his lawn and joked about how he calls his NDP neighbour a
'pinko' every morning. Stories like that warm my cockles...especially at this time of year.
As for reality...
There is hope but I am still not allowing myself to indulge. If that 6-8 point poll spread isn't closed in the next 12 or so days...
Finally, kudos to Sir Bob Geldof for taking a job as a consultant for Britain's Conservative Party on issues of poverty.
Geldof has, in the past, shown respect to both Pope Benedict and President Bush on life issues and he has proven he has no time for the empty anti-Christian rhetoric or anti-conservative partisanship of most in the entertainment industry. He is obviously someone who marches to the beat of his own drum in the best possible sense.
He is an inspiration to all true artists.
ELECTION HALF-TIME
Just a few thoughts on the election so far.
1. Harper has done a commendable job. Mister, you are already my Prime Minister.
2. The policy a day approach is articulate, intelligent and smart people are catching on.
3. Sadly, not all voters are smart.
4. The media has been better than I expected. I suspect there is a general sense amongst those close Liberal party supporters that this is a vile, corrupt crew that needs to go. I think many in the media even are beginning to realize this.
5. Sadly, after a decade of brainwashing the electorate, being moderately fair over the past few weeks is not enough to turn the tide. Harper should be waaaaayyyyyyy ahead. Sadly, we know he is not.
6. The average Torontonian still gets their world view from Robin Williams, George Clooney and Jon Stewart. This will not change by January 23.
7. Did I say it already...thanks for the decade of brainwashing Canadian press corps! Now, when we really have a true Prime Minister in waiting, we still have a bumbling, corrupt, arrogant billionaire ahead in the polls. And it ain't GW. Bush.
8. If you are any Christmas party over the holidays and people start bashing America; bring it back to the Liberals in Canada to shut them up.
9. The post Christmas campaign will be brutal. The exploitation of the Holocaust memorial photo is a testament to that. Liberal campaign heads (Scott Reid, John Duffy etc.) are nothing but gutter barrel, new-Left trash.
10. Jack Layton...lay off Harper. I can see it in your interviews. The Marxist ideologue in you is terrified of a Harper Canada. You demonize him at you own peril. Remember, his loss comes at the cost of NDP votes.
11. We'll see how the media treats the Liberals after the dirt flies. That will show how much they love this country.
12. All is not lost, the trends are good and there is a palpable sense of wanting Harper but still a fear of the unknown.
13. Being behind right now still makes Harper the underdog. That is good. He still has momentum. If he were ahead it could backfire.
14. Sadly, that Liberal 35% seems to be hard support.
These are just a few of my thoughts. I hope all of you are well.
Optimism with realism.
CHRISTMAS SPECIAL AT CRAZY MEL'S
Here is the link to the new teaser trailer for Mel Gibson's
Apocalypto coming this summer, produced by his own
ICON Productions and distributed by
Disney.
The trailer looks marvelous; like a very ominous version of
Baraka.
Given the tag lines used in the trailer I suspect very much that the film will metaphorically be about our own times. With the only language spoken in the film being the original Mayan dialect, Mel Gibson is setting himself up as a director who certainly is willing to take chances.
But he obviously doesn't want his audience to think that he has gotten all serious and pretentious on us either.
If you go through the trailer frame by frame, at roughly the 1:46 mark you will see that he has inserted into the trailer a flash frame of himself in all of his old Mel 'wackiness'. Quite a bizarre stunt for him to pull. This film should be one to watch for next summer. It'll be fun if Crazy Mel can pull another rabbit our of the hat and outgross Ron Howard's
The DaVinci Code and Bryan Singer's
Superman.
At Christmastime I have a list of films I try to watch every year, as do many. Old standards that keep me feeling warm and toasty. Here, in no particular order are my favourites:
A Charlie Brown ChristmasThe Year Without a Santa ClausIt's A Wonderful LifeDie HardMr. Bean's Christmas SpecialLethal WeaponNational Lampoon's Christmas VacationA Christmas StoryScrooge (Albert Finney version)
ScroogedGoin' My WayBlackAdder's Christmas (tough to find)
With regards to the election, can you feel it in the air?
Some commentator's are already talking about it and I agree.
There will be a majority government on January 23, 2005.
THE ENGLISH DEBATE
Just a few thoughts on Friday nights English debate.
1. Martin will be spun to be all passion when he was really all nervous.
2. Harper will be spun to be soul-less when he was really calm and sophisticated.
3. Jack Layton did a fine job. I give credit where credit is due. He would do fine in American politics.
4. Why the hell is Gilles Duceppe even required to show up? Really. Seeing him talk about Western alienation was laughable. Really.
5. The concept of having '
average' Canadians ask questions is childish, juvenile and silly. Do we really believe these questions are from the average Canadian or filtered through the prism of what left wing journalists want the debate to be about. Where are the questions from Evangelicals about withering rights for freedom of religion?
6. I really hate it when people conform to stereotypes. As soon as I saw the first woman I yelled out loud 'same sex marriage'. When she said her daughter was at Queen's Law, my old alma mater, I howled with laughter. I suspect she will be a Supreme Court Justice someday.
7. I really hate it when people conform to stereotypes, redux. As soon as I saw the guy with the too tight T-shirt, the beer gut and the rack of guns behind him I put my head in my lap in shame. He obviously had none. In one fell swoop that visual made thousands of people who had finally committed to giving Harper a chance have second thoughts. And it was intentional.
8. Was it just me or did Mistress Moderatrix seem to cut off Harper and sometimes Layton just a little too quickly while always letting Martin finish his sentence. Or maybe Martin just spoke really fast because he was so nervous and had nothing to say.
9.In the next debate, Harper needs to have a well honed answer about his vision for the country. One that includes sweeping vistas, and mentions how children are our future.
10. I would love to see what Paul Martin is doodling all the time when either Layton or Duceppe attack him. Sometimes you can just envision him clicking his heels like Doronthy.
"There's no place like home. There's no place like home."
DOSSIER # 20: FEMINISM, CHILD CARE, ‘POPCORN AND BEER’
When I first started writing
The War Room several months ago I began with a two part Dossier on the origins of
The New Left and how modern liberalism broke away from classical liberalism both in its origins and its objectives. Now, more than ever we can begin to see through Liberal Party of Canada policy how these origins are manifesting themselves in attempt to reshape the country into a form of ‘marxist-feminist utopia’.
Classical liberalism-
and most modern conservatives such as George W. Bush and Stephen Harper are actually classical liberals- has a world view that was formed from the ideology of the World War II generation. With an eye to community, faith and tolerance (as opposed to
“tolerance”) they believe in a creedo that is derived from Judeo-Christian values. At the core of these values is the need for the nuclear family to sustain society both through giving examples to children of a male/female role model but also as a way of fostering in society a bed-rock; a form of social upbringing that will keep society rejuvenating itself. A unit that protects the weakest (children and elderly) and gives the strongest (mothers and fathers) a purpose to love and care for their own. Most species do this but none in a more sophisticated way then the human animal.
Modern liberalism or the New Left, was born out of the sixties generation, with its touchstone experience being the Vietnam War. Many liberals came to see America, capitalism, democracy and Christianity as a form of ‘oppression’ and blamed them for societies ills. Because they did not side with America in this war, they showed sympathy to the enemy and by default came to see the philosophies of Marxism and communism in a more sympathetic light. Enamored with the South American model of communism and liberation theology thriving under the likes of Fidel Castro at the time, they then sought to apply Marxist economic notions of 'equality' to issues such as race, gender and sexual orientation.
No group did this more so than the radical feminist movement.
Going well beyond the concept of ‘equal work for equal pay’ which is a good thing, these theorists and ‘intellectuals’ began to deconstruct the very institution of the family itself, seeing it as an oppressive, patriarchal construct that kept women in a permanent form of ‘slavery’ to a male power structure. Many used deconstructionist philosophers such as Jacques Derrida as a base. Leading feminists took this notion to both logical yet hysterical extremes. Catherine Mackinnon was a leading feminist thinker in this respect and was a very important pundit to the feminist movement in the eighties and nineties. She once called any act of sexuality between a man and a woman in the context of marriage a literal act of ‘rape’, even if consensual. Her logic being that if traditional marriage is a form of ‘slavery’, than no woman can consent to an act while in the throes of being a ‘slave’. Her logic as it were is consistent with her own world view but purely wrong and anti-human. This is at the fulcrum of what is taught in many university course syllabuses and law schools.
This world view, modern feminist theory, is of course at the crux of thinking in modern New Left liberalism and after the same-sex marriage debate and now the debate with child care, we can see how this is philosophy is trying to nurture society against its nature. Scott Reid’s appearance on television saying that parents given a tax credit for their kids would be spent on
beer and popcorn’‘ should not surprise anyone. Reid is a young man and most likely was taught exactly the type of theory of which I write.
Paul Martin most likely is just a dupe to a philosophy of which he has no understanding but his quest for power makes him not question that which I suspect he knows is wrong. Modern New Left liberalism believes male/female parents are part of a corrupt system that has been ‘oppressing’ women and children for two thousand years. They see it as part of a patriarchal power structure rooted in Christianity that must be destroyed. Piece by piece; bit by bit.
Reflect a moment.
How many times have you heard a leftist defend the welfare system against accusations that many welfare recipients spend money on beer and cigarettes?
How many times have you heard leftists defend billions of dollars given to ‘arts’ programs where 'artists' get rewarded who have taken out a vile of their own blood and inserted it into their rectum like Istvan Kantor who has received a Governor Generals award. In the secular, liberal, New Left state these are forms of ‘enlightenment’ and ‘evolution’, yet parents are to be question, belittled and derided.
These views, in some form or another, are typical in many communist states such as China where government tries to determine child care policy and indeed all child policy. This view is also very white. It is I would argue the new form of white. western imperialism. Overwhelmingly the majority of immigrants that come to Canada come from demographics that are socially conservative and traditional family based. Korean, Chinese, Muslim, Italian, Portuguese etc. Sadly many of these demos also vote against their own interest and are a large reason why the Liberals are still in power. There is some change in this, but perhaps not in time for this election.
Ideological liberals and by association the Liberal and NDP parties see the modern traditional family as a threat; an evil that must be destroyed. It is why they believe trained ‘social workers’ are much better suited to rearing children than the average mother and father. Trained social workers from the modern colleges and universities will all be well versed in ‘oppression theory’ and the ‘patriarchy'. They will see Christian, Catholic and traditional morality in a negative light and instead will infuse in children the modern liberal state doctrine of
‘tolerance’,
‘open mindedness’ and
‘diversity’.
They will undoubtedly teach them sexuality from a very young age. Recall the government campaign
The War Room wrote about this past summer entitled
‘Presumed Heterosexual’ with infant babies on posters plastered throughout the urban downtown Toronto core. The goal of course was to ‘open’ kids minds to pan-sexuality and non-traditional morality as soon as possible. If you doubt me, if you think I am being hysterical, ask yourself the same question I asked when I wrote about it during the summer. Why infants?
The New Left does not define ‘enlightenment’ through intellect, ration, logic or reason. They define it through being liberated from the sexual morality of a ‘two thousand year old European, patriarchal, Judeo-Christian’ power structure.
This to them is the height of the modern human being; the cult of the body and the cult of the self.
They also believe it should be indoctrinated into the child at the earliest possible of ages. This philosophy is what is behind the modern distrust of the parent and the traditional nuclear family. If poorer parents become dependant on government daycare then they have less say in what their children are taught, and the more dependant they are on the state for the rearing of their children the less likely they will be to not vote Liberal. Scott Reid knows this. He cares nothing about children, the poor or the family. He cares about the New Left state and the power it can yield to destroy the family.
For the sake of Canadian society, Day Care policy is one of the most important issues in the current election. I believe Stephen Harper knows this. I can only hope for the sake of Canada’s families and children he can convince a majority of Canadians that he is right.
PUTTING THE POLLS IN CONTEXT
Just a few things to remember about Canadian election polls and polling:
1. All of the polls show frenzied numbers because different groups of people are polled at different times in different locations. If the Tories are at 31% one day and 26 % the next, it doesn't mean Stephen Harper made a mistake, it just means a different group of people were polled in a location where the demographic didn't favour him.
2. Different areas have different biases. If a poll is conducted in the NDP Beaches area of Toronto it will yield a much different result than in the Conservative suburbs of Burlington. Keep this in mind. We don't know where these polls take place or how they are weighted.
3. Polls are commissioned and those who commission polls have biases. They pay to get a specific result. The poll that they release to the public will be very different than the polls they choose to keep internal.
4. Many polls are used by people in power to sway public opinion. Not reflect it. We all know the
Toronto Star and the
Globe and Mail want a Liberal majority victory. If they release a poll with the Liberals far ahead it is because they want the public to see the Liberals as winning which will encourage people to vote for them. That doesn't mean the people will.
5. This election right now is probably closer than many would like to think. Let's not fool ourselves, the Liberals are definitely ahead, but the Conservatives are not out yet.
6. Do not trust that polling firms and individuals do not let their personal biases get in the way of polling. Remember, all of the polls before the last American election predicted President John Kerry would be making a triumphant victory speech that night. Even John Stewart was decked out in his Hollywood best. But, most of the exit polls were taken in 'blue states' like New York. This was deliberately done to out psych conservatives...who came out in record numbers. We know how that story ended. John Stewart virtually cried on national television.
7. Remember that sadly, Toronto is a write-off. The only Ontario polls that really count are the ones taken in the suburb areas...Peterborough, Brampton, Burlington etc. This is where the election will be won or lost.
8. Don't look at the daily rolling polls. They are silly. People do not change this quickly. Those polls are only done for entertainment value and remember, from the network perspective elections are entertainment and money.
I know how it feels to be an ideological conservative in Canada. You feel alone, like no one can hear you and there is no hope. You are constantly innundated with left-wing propaganda from the CBC and junk culture like the latest Atom Egoyan film scored with a Tragically Hip soundtrack. You dread office Christmas parties because you know sooner or later some ignorant, arrogant liberal with no facts and a lot of nerve is going to say something against what you hold dear and you'll have to 'out' yourself. If you live in a major city you know that hearing disparaging remarks about Christianity or Catholicism is a near regular occurance.
Don't let it get to you. There are a lot of us out there...almost a third of the country is locked on our side. That's a strong base. The Liberals know this.
Don't give up.
I know it is a cliche...but only one poll counts.
HOLLYWOOD, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS & CULTURE
I highly recommend reading the following articles on the politically correct left-leaning nature of Hollywood by two cultural observers. Both are essays that would never be found in the tired and cliched views of most Canadian film critics, still mired in the cultural mores of 1968. They also both hit directly on views put forth by
The War Room in previous posts.
First up is a
rather dense and long essay by New York Press columnist Armond White. In it he decries the left-wing smugness of modern day Hollywood films and the cyclical relationship they share with the critics who recommend them. This is not a generic essay but an impassioned one that hits hard and names names. He doesn't target easy films but the big ones, the Oscar winners. He is especially hard on George Clooney. What makes his essay so exceptional is not only the fact that he is such an eloquent writer, but that he is a respected film critic who does not come from a conservative political background but from a film school background. In other words, true cineastes cannot dismiss him.
"But Truman Capote's allegedly unscrupulous ambition has nothing on George Clooney's diabolical smirk now made insufferable in two features, Syriana and Good Night, and Good Luck. It's maddening to watch Clooney's media-flirtation, kissing up to the press that, in gushing response, refrains from holding him to even the simple ethical standards of a high school debate. Clooney out-smarms all his TV interviewers from Charlie Rose on up, but the reason he gets the carte blanche denied to Mel Gibson is obvious: Clooney sells the irreligious, left-liberal media their own cocktail party fantasy about themselves."Next is an
essay by the always wonderful Mark Steyn. Steyn is not as film literate as White, but he certainly is culture literate. His description of a disclaimer before the third in the series of Warner Brothers Looney Toones DVD collection is both funny and sad.
"Loved the first two: Daffy, Bugs, Porky, beautifully restored, tons of special features. But, for some reason, this new set begins with a special announcement by Whoopi Goldberg explaining what it is we're not meant to find funny: ''Unfortunately at that time racial and ethnic differences were caricatured in ways that may have embarrassed and even hurt people of color, women and ethnic groups,'' she tells us sternly. ''These jokes were wrong then and they're wrong today'' -- unlike, say, Whoopi Goldberg's most memorable joke of recent years, the one at that 2004 all-star Democratic Party gala in New York where she compared President Bush to her, um, private parts. There's a gag for the ages."Take the time to relax and read them both as you ponder what films and DVD's to invest your time and money in this Christmas season with your family.
