“At some point, you know, you get up every day and you get kicked in the balls and, you know what, you get tired of it. So when people stop fighting back, I’m telling you, that’s a most dangerous, dangerous, dangerous day”
– Insider in the Canadian Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who has suspended parliament. (Robert Benzie, The Toronto Star: “PM partisan, passionate and profane,” Dec. 6, 2008)
•••••••
“Like Richard Nixon, Harper seems obsessed not merely with defeating his opponents, but with destroying them. The fact that he could not restrain himself, even in a minority position, bespeaks a kind of sickness better explained by pathology than politics. It is poetic justice that after Harper’s repeatedly goading, taunting and humiliating his opponents, they finally sucked up their guts and kicked him in the privates.”
– William Neville, The Winnipeg Free Press (“Harper finally gets his comeuppance,” Dec. 5, 2008)
[An interesting coincidence: two ways of approaching political analysis, both by way of kicks to the male genitalia. I also noticed a Canadian political blogger who wrote, "now we have a prorogued parliament thanks to a Governor General who has no balls" -- our Governor General is a woman. Given the number of kicks to the balls that are being distributed, she has remained relatively unscathed, despite her decision to agree to the suspension of parliament to prop up a falling government.]
•••••••
For more on the transformation of Canadian politics, see 1D4TW:
- Video Audit of Canada’s New Authoritarianism
- Führer of the True North: Stephen Harper, Canada’s Pathological Prime Minister
- A Fascist Putsch in Canada: Stephen Harper vs. Democracy
—
J.J.
7 December 2008
Please tell me that there is a lot more to Canuck humor than just a kick in the shnutz!
Maximilian Forte
7 December 2008
Hello J.J.
To answer your question seriously (limited humour on my part?), I can only think of three possibilities:
(1) Metaphors in usage in everyday discourse are shrinking in number and quality;
(2) There is something about political power that evokes male genitalia, in a patriarchal society; and/or,
(3) They were not trying to be funny, and the statements above are really not a reflection of the kind of comedy one finds here, although I sense a decline there too (our best comedians end up in the U.S., which I suppose is a testament to their great sense of humour).
Cheers,
Max.
thenonconformer
8 December 2008
“For the Conservatives, the most damage in the past week seems to have come from the province of Quebec, where a plurality believe Mr. Harper should resign as leader of the party and a majority blame the Conservatives more than anyone else for the parliamentary crisis.” Dumb Harper was foolish enough to attack the coalition government blame on Quebcers and he is now continuing to pay the price for it. He Harper cannot win without the support of Quebec, east.. nor can the Liberals
http://thenonconformer.wordpress.com/2008/12/06/the-laws-still-do-need-to-be-enforced-in-reality/
Maximilian Forte
8 December 2008
Thank you nonconformer. Harper has definitely doomed himself in Quebec, and those who seemed closest to him within Quebec, notably the ADQ, and this very day seeing themselves crushed at the polls. Harper would make a great Governor of the State of Alberta.