Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Manifest Destiny?


Stephen Harper won a majority and Osama Bin Laden was killed, now which is the bigger story? I suppose that seems too easy given the media hype over the latter but I am here to say the real answer is the former.

The closest thing to a dictatorship in a democracy is a Parliamentary Majority.

Harper doesn’t need to ask his 167 MP’s how to govern. He can decide, hand them their marching orders and pass swift legislation. This is not a Conservative reality, this is a Parliamentary reality. We are about to see someone with the ability to make virtually any decision in the face of an economically crumbling world without the need to pacify public opinion.

This is a key point, as most people couldn’t run a corner store so polling them on how they “feel” is not always an effective way to govern an entire Country.

Bin Laden on the other hand was shot point blank surrounded by 24 highly trained Navy Seals, none of which suffered so much as a scratch in a “fire fight”. Was there no value to asking terrorist Number One a question or two? Was he so inconsequential it was more important to move his body posthumously for an impromptu Sea Burial?

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are still churning as I write this and will continue in the foreseeable future.

American’s are still paranoid, distracted and broke.

Interestingly Americans took this news as if they were a Nation of Forest Gumps whose team had just won the big game and began celebrating in the streets. A reaction I found distasteful and juvenile. I watched like a curious dog with a crooked neck. Had these people lost the plot? Are these ruffians really the manifest destiny they think they are?

I can see this was an accomplishment worthy of some relief and vaguely connective pride but where was the perspective? American death toll in “The War on Terror” approaches 10,000 and you can add many more 10’s of thousands on the other side.

People wrongly compared this death to that of Hitler because everything in America still gets compared to Hitler. That death however ended a World War. Bin Laden’s death is a trophy mount, a gold sticker, “a fucking tee shirt. At best”, to quote Brad Pitt.

The perspective is this: America killed a Boogeyman.

In the last 9+ years Bin Laden was unable to pull off another attack. He failed to harm a single person out of 300,000,000 obese Americans trundling about the third largest country on planet earth. Herbert from Family Guy had more teeth.

For Chrissake lighting picked off 400 Americans in 9 years and it wasn’t even trying.

If you’ve been reading this blog, one thing you know for sure is that America is in horrific financial trouble. These Yanks are going bust quicker than Bill Maher sold his Libertarian beliefs and we Canadians need to prepare for the worst.

I hope Harper will know what to do when the shit hits the fan because America seems happy to shoot first, ask questions later and party like they’ve won something.