Wednesday, December 10, 2008

So Much For Democracy

Without a single delegate or member vote cast.

Without a single public debate.

Without a word about what he's supposed to do.

Without anything even approaching a platform.

Without any explanation given about what "moving to the center" is supposed to mean.

That's how he won.

Were the Democrats to have gone through a similar exercise, they would have nominated Hillary. And they would have lost.

I wish the Canadian Liberals all the best. But I no longer am convinced they're worth my time. I had fixed on them because I had thought that they were the last bastion of honest-to-goodness liberal democratic thought and belief in the west, without its tainting by "I got mine, Jack" market fundamentalism in Australia or Europe and its association with communism in America. Instead, it appears that they are, if anything, just like the Liberal Democrats in Japan: a party of power and privilege that pays lip service to democracy; and not even that to their grassroots.

I hope, for Canada's sake and liberalism's sake, that I'm wrong about this choice of an arch-supporter of torture, adventurism, and abandonment of progressive and liberal principles in the name of a fanciful "move to the center".

But I don't expect to be.

Good luck. Eh.

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