Sooey Says

Walk into a bar with Ken Whyte.

Just kidding.

But I guess Neo-Con writers and editors in Canada can only fail upwards, eh?

I'll explain.

I came across this article TheLeft!TheLeft! by Mark Steyn in Macleans magazine, a national newspaper that for some reason is retrying the failed National Post experiment of telling Canadians, over and over and over, how much Canada sucks because it isn't an ideologically driven Rightwing paradise like Bush Inc.'s post 9/11 America. (The editor of Macleans is Ken Whyte, a Conrad Black disciple and apparent brainchild of such back to the future magazine covers as: "Why Are We Dressing Our Daughters Like Skanks?" which featured under that clever caption a 12 (10? 8?) year old girl dressed like, well, a 12 (10? 8?) year old girl or "skank" as Ken Whyte would call her, I guess.)

But back to now.

The article is a review of a new book: "The Mitfords: Letters Between Six Sisters" - or so it would seem, until suddenly, it's not:

What was Trudeau's excuse when he cheered "Viva Castro!"? And what was the Canadian media's excuse when they cooed over Fidel's appearance at Pierre's funeral? They seemed to regard his presence as the sole head of state to think the Father Of Our Country's passing worth an airline flight as some kind of validation of Trudeaupian Canada, rather than a belated confirmation of its irrelevance.

Whoa! But, of course, anyone who has ever read a book review by Mark Steyn must prepare for a dramatic detour to his constant and unwavering opinion, shared by Macleans editor, Ken Whyte, that Canada sucks because it isn't an ideologically driven Rightwing paradise like Bush Inc.'s post 9/11 America. Oh, and that thanks to the Left, Canadians are voting their way to Fascism.

Okay. Well. Except for the part about blaming the Left for Canadians voting their way to Facsism, I couldn't agree more. But I didn't vote for Stephen Harper and his New Conservatives and neither did anybody on the Left that I know of (well, maybe Bob Rae did, but what the hell - it's hard losing and politics gets pretty personal for politicians). So don't blame me for the state of the nation, guy who lives in New Hampshire, the "Live Free or Die" bumper sticker state. (Personally, I'd feel a lot better, if I was a New Hampshiremanperson, if there were more choices, but there you go - I'm not a Libertarian, either.)

So yeah - blame Bob Rae, not the Left.

Still, despite being somewhat put-off by Mark Steyn's review, I'd like to read the book about the Mitford sisters - not just because I like books about rich society people, but because it's always fun to read about what traitorous fascists of indifferent morality rich Americans usually are.

People like George W. Bush's grandfather, Prescott, for instance:

Er,IKnewNothing...

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

Ironically, in that article I found ANOTHER book I'd like to read. It's by John Loftus and I don't have the title but here is Mr. Loftus talking about Prescott Bush and his upcoming book on Bush Sr. Sr.'s pre, during and post WWII business activities - which, really, should reassure Mark Steyn that the way in which rich Americans do business hasn't changed much at all. In fact, it's almost like instead of voting themselves into Fascism, like we in Canada are doing, Americans don't have to because they never really left it. Or something like that. Anyway, John Loftus explains it better'n I can:

"You can't blame Bush for what his grandfather did any more than you can blame Jack Kennedy for what his father did - bought Nazi stocks - but what is important is the cover-up, how it could have gone on so successfully for half a century, and does that have implications for us today?" he said.

"This was the mechanism by which Hitler was funded to come to power, this was the mechanism by which the Third Reich's defence industry was re-armed, this was the mechanism by which Nazi profits were repatriated back to the American owners, this was the mechanism by which investigations into the financial laundering of the Third Reich were blunted," said Loftus, who is vice-chairman of the Holocaust Museum in St Petersburg.

Now, in fairness, Mark Steyn, as a sort of an Official Pundit for the American establishment currently in power - which is what I would call FascistLite, not Fascist - probably won't review that book because it would be a conflict of interest, and even though I don't always get where Mark Steyn is coming from (and I guess when you put all your eggs in one basket and then that basket ends up doing seven years in an American pentitentiary, you might not get where you're coming from, either) I can understand why he wouldn't want to take on yet ANOTHER 30s era rich society and politics yarn.

In any case, back to the grand finale of Mark Steyn's book review of the Mitford opus which he sums up in this final paragraph:

A Western nation voluntarily embracing sharia? Sounds silly. But so does Unity Mitford. Liberal democracy is squaresville and predictable, small-scale and unheroic, deeply unglamorous compared to the alternatives. And kind of boring. Until it's gone.

Omigawd. I almost forgot about that complaint to the Canadian Human Rights Commission. If you're new to SooeySays, four law students have made a complaint to the CHRC in regards to an article by Mark Steyn which was published in Macleans (and just because Macleans is owned by Rogers don't hate Mark Steyn for those phone calls you get from telemarketers trying to sell you a cell phone - every time you sit down for dinner) because they say it unfairly maligns Muslims.

Anyway, I guess Mark Steyn et al (he's got the entire Canadian Right, and a few Americans, lined up with him against the law students and the CHRC - they seem to be going with the "define unfairly" line of defence) forget to give credit where credit is due because there was a big hullabaloo about sharia law a while back right here in good ol' Liberal Ontario.

It was quite ironical, too, because when Premier McGuinty pretty much said, "No", to sharia law having any kind of legal legitimacy in regards to marriage "mediation", Jewish and Christian groups suddenly showed up asking, "What about OUR sharia law?!" (or whatever Jews and Christians call sharia law) and McGuinty was all like, "Yours goes, too" - probably because, like most Ontarians, he had no idea ANY of this was going on right under our noses for years and years and years in our very own Jewish and Christian circles.

Seriously - who knew? I had no idea. Thank Gawd for newcomers asking permission to practice law outside the law. But then, I didn't have much of an idea about the CHRC doing that since 1972 or thereabouts, either, until some guy who used to work for it started making complaints about white supremacists he found on white supremacist sites, and the mainstream media, particularly the National Post, started hailing him as some kind of legal genius justice crusader.

Ironically, again, it turns out that while the complaint maker has the resources of the CHRC at his disposal, the accused must cover his own costs, unless he can't, in which case he goes before the CHRC without legal representation. So, even if you agree with the intent, it's pretty hard to agree with anything else about the CHRC.

But back to the topic.

In summation, I guess I'd say that Patriarchy and Fascism and Religion are like the three sisters that always do things together, hand in hand, like.

Oh, and speaking of sisters, there's a new book out about the Mitford sisters being review by Mark Steyn in Macleans...