Beyond The Valley Of The Neocons....

AllYourMeannesses'RUs
StraussianSchoolsInABarrelVille

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(Warning: This is an end-of-the-weekend, combinatorial thinking-cap/snarkoleptic post....if you are opening this on Monday morning you may have better things to do and/or read.....)
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Laura has an interesting project going at her place, We Move To Canada, in which she has asked her readers to complete the following sentence:

We don't want another harper government because...

And the responses have been fantastic, numerous and insightful.

In a general sense, one of the things that is most interesting about those responses is how many of them focus on the meanness that is being foisted on us, at us, and/or because of us, particularly as it pertains to our 'worst fears' about things like crime, artists, women, children, family, terrorists and economic armegeddon - not to mention evil, elite 'galas'.

Which begs the question.....

Why?

Why is Mr. Harper using meanness and fear to win us over?

Well to answer that, I think you have to understand at least two things.

First, you must realize that much of what Mr. Harper holds dear in terms of his real, heart-of-his-heart, policy desires stems from his involvement, right from the start, with something called 'The Calgary School' of neoStraussianism which Dave at 'The Galloping Beaver' did an exceptional job of illuminating just before the last election.

Now, one of the central tenets of neoStraussianism, regardless whether it comes from cloistered academic bubbles (yes, it's an academic/professorial construct, albeit shrouded in a veil of theocracy) in fields where rigorous peer review is almost entirely lacking or from think tank-wurlitzered poppycock that is used to justify things like the the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), is:

'The concept of the 'noble lie'.

Now just what the heckfire is that?

Well, just to be clear, it is NOT named for the guy who started all those prizes for scientists and such (as no doubt, a certain, half-bright governor from a southen oil-rich state very likely initially surmised when it was first explained to him in, say, 1997).

Instead, it is the idea that the neoStraussians themselves know what is best for society and as such there are times when they are justified in telling the public white (?) lies so that they can get on with their more noble causes and policy changes, behind closed doors, in secret, away from the prying eyes of both the media (especially those of the non-water carrying kind) and the public.

And we all know where that kind of garbage leads, be it unjustified pre-emptive wars bent on regime change and/or the blooming of bacilli deep within uninspected meatcutters.

Now to the second point, which is:

How do you push these noble lies?

Well, to do that you have to obfuscate, and obfuscate mercilessly.

But don't forget that, because you have already convinced yourself that what you are doing is 'noble' and 'just' and 'right', well..... anything goes.

And to do that you bring in people like Mr. Frank Luntz, a man who can turn black into white and white into black, often by preying on people's worst fears.

As such Mr. Luntz, brought the PNACkians best and biggest lies to the people of the United States, by unabashedly saying things like the following:

"September 11 changed everything. So start with 9/11....Without context of 9/11, you will be blamed for the deficit....The trick is to contextualize the deficit inside of 9/11."

So..... has Mr. Luntz come north to help the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance Party (ie. NOT the 'Tories') deliver their lies......errrrrr....'messages' of nobility?

You bet he has.

In fact bringing Mr. Luntz north, as Preston Manning did before him, was one of the first things Mr. Harper did after he won last time around:

"Next Saturday (in May 2006) a group of Tories will gather quietly in Kanata, Ont., to 'analyze the strengths and weaknesses of conservative communications in Canada'......

{snip}

Sandra Buckler, the Prime Minister's director of communications......is to participate.

Frank Luntz, a (U.S.) Republican pollster and advisor to Preston Manning when he was Reform Party leader, is the keynote speaker. His topic: "Communicating Conservative Messages".


But here's the thing.

When you have created ideology whose central tenet has at it's core both self-delusion as well delusion of the people because you have made the decision, prior, that what you believe in (ie. extreme disaster-assisted Laissez-Faire Capitalism b/w a Socially Conservative/Theocracy-Based Patriarchy and an Inflexibly Unilateral Foreign Policy) where does it all end?

The delusional part, in the name of fake goodness and the unbearably lightness of being light headed I mean?

Well.

How about ........ here?


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And in case you doubt, or are laughing off my final conclusion, I remind you again that, according to Mr. Harper's website at least, Ms. Laureen Harper, who, apparently, used to very much enjoy elite galas, is still the Co-Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.



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