Anger Management: Conservative version

Former premier Roger Grimes makes some solid observations in the Tuesday Telegram about the idea of building Muskrat Falls on its own, as the latest iteration of the Lower Churchill goes.

“It makes ... absolutely no sense to finance the smaller part of the project that, of and by itself, can’t make any money,” he said.

What’s way more interesting in the current context, though, can be found in the comments section. 

Just note the number of comments, likely all Conservative partisans, attacking Grimes personally for having the temerity to offer an opinion. Notice how many of them appeared before 8:00 AM.  That is some serious anger-management issues going on there, people.

As you read the comments – if you can stomach them – remember that this is polling month.  As usual, people in the province are being treated both to an orchestrated series of happy-news announcements.  But what makes this month stand out is the connection to the assaults by the Fan Club. 

The Fanboys.

The Greek Chorus.

The Pitcher Plants.

The last time this crew deployed in such an organised and indignant manner was when some people dared to notice that the Premier had heart surgery. Their anger is aimed, not surprisingly at Liberals and if reporters step into the line of fire the media will be added to the list.

Anger  - and we are talking some major-league bile here - aimed at liberals and the news media.

Sounds just a wee bit familiar.

Dontcha think?

It gives a whole new meaning to the term anger management.  The real question, though, is will the strategy that worked before continue to work just as well the next time.

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Vox Pops

An apparent member of the Fan Club – how typical is open to debate -  criticising the media for reporting on the Premier’s health problems, from a recent call to CBC Radio’s Cross Talk (02 Feb 10):

He doesn’t even take a salary… he’s done everything he can short of fixing the original problem [and] going back in time and taking Joey Smallwood out at birth…I think all news should be very much censored and what we see of it from a personal matter should be read on TV by Toni-Marie Wiseman in a bikini…

 

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And he will get mail, too

Geoff Meeker in the first of what looks like a series of posts over at The Telegram on the war being waged by the Danny Williams Fan Club on local news media.

If history is any guide, Geoff will get more than a few vicious e-mails of his own.

One can only imagine what attention Bob Wakeham is getting. 

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The Fan Club

There has always been this bizarro cult of personality thing to Danny Williams’ supporters.

They worship him as if he was a celebrity.

Some out here in the rest of the world – your humble e-scribbler included – have taken to calling the truly hard core cultists The Fan Club.  They make comments all over the Internet faithfully  pushing whatever line is currently on the go from the Club directors or simply attacking anything that they think undermines the gloriousness of their idol.

They’ve got a language of their own, too, but that’s another story.

Six years in, though, the Fan Club doesn’t have quite the same impact as it once did.

Take the past 24 hours with two examples.

Not so very long ago, the sort of attack on supposed foreign demonios being launched by Hisself and the Fan Club  against Hydro-Quebec (again) would be spreading like wildfire.  For examples of the Fan Club talking points, just check the comments sections at the Telegram, CBC or even here at Bond Papers.

Not so this time.

This is all old hat around these parts and ordinary taxpayers seem to be having a really hard time connecting a theoretical issue in far off New Brunswick to real-world issues in this province and in their lives. 

People have built up an immunity to the same old, same old.

Now that’s really interesting because the immunity is really at the heart of the results in the Straits by-election.  Hisself framed the whole thing around the same old, same old:  look at all the riches I brought you.  $137 million.  Show me how much you appreciate that by voting for me.

Well, they didn’t. 

A couple of thousand people didn’t and likely lots more didn’t who just never bothered to show up at the polls.  A monumental effort worthy of the most grandiose display of the faltering Smallwood empire failed to motivate enough to win the seat as it has every time since 2001 in the Straits and on the overwhelming majority of other similar cases across the province ever since 2001.

That’s not good.

Nor is it good that the Hydro-Quebec attack – another same old, same old – ain’t working either. 

That is intended for two purposes:

First, it lets Hisself vent his frustration that the Lower Churchill just isn’t happening. 

Second – and perhaps most importantly -  it is supposed to help change the channel and get people’s mind off the disaster in the Straits.

But it isn’t doing that second thing.  The ordinary taxpayers seem to have caught on.

Meanwhile, there is another problem for the Fan Club beyond the fact their usual stuff just doesn’t work any more.

As he left, Trevor Taylor provided his membership in the Fan Club by praising Hisself to the highest heights on every level.  Hisself returned the favour in his comments about Trevor.

Until the loss in the Straits.

Now party insiders are spinning the story to local media – see David Cochrane’s report on Wednesday’s Here and Now, for example –  that the whole loss was Trevor’s fault.

That sort of stuff just isn’t going to sit well with a whole bunch of people who haven’t joined the Fan Club but who like the stuff Hisself puts out.  They’ve been buying his CDs for a few years now just like they’ve bought The Other Blue Note CDs before. 

But maybe not so much any more.

Not, that is, if people like Trevor are getting blamed for stuff they really didn’t do.

Fan Club takes on a whole new meaning when it’s the fans getting clubbed.

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Of mice and antelope through the looking glass

In this summer of political problems across the province, of meltdowns and power lines, some old posts at Bond Papers take on a renewed relevance.

In November 2006, your humble e-scribbler brought out the idea of mice and antelope as a metaphor for the political problem of focusing on side issues  - trivial issues - rather than keeping eyes on the big prize.

A couple of years into the administration, its tendency to get distracted was plainly obvious.

Now a couple of years into its second term and the tendency has become the main operating method.

Around these parts, we’d say the mouse hunting is one of the big reasons why projects tend to hang around - unresolved - for years or why legislation is passed and then left to the sidelines or why major capital works projects are announced and then seem to take forever before a shovel is even waved above a sod let alone pushed into it.

The thing is that as time goes by, any government that tends to get distracted by mice will wind up having more things not accomplished than it has accomplished.  The magnitude of what it gets done, even if they are big things like offshore oil projects or a massive hydro project,  starts to look puny compared to the mountain of others things that hang around seemingly gathering dust.

That Lewis Carroll notion  - think “un-birthdays” - is one we’ve gone to before.  There is un-communication, for example.  Now it seems to be appropriate to start talking of the current administration’s un-accomplishments.

The Fan Club, at this juncture, is no doubt rushing about shouting something about shooting or lopping off heads, but in doing so they miss the point entirely, as usual.

People typically want their government to succeed.  They like it when schools are built, roads are paved, and jobs are created.  They like it when the party that wins an election actually does all the good things they promised;  sustainable development acts, improvements to open records laws, a New Approach that involves listening to people and giving them substantial input into how they are governed.

Pointing out the shortcomings is a reminder that there are antelope over there aplenty waiting to be slain.

It’s a call to the Fan Club and its idol to stop getting distracted by the mouse scurrying by.

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