I hate talking points.
You can smell them a mile away. It's this heady whiff of sulphur, ignorance and complicity. The sulphur comes from the stale, fetid air in the bunker from which they issue. The ignorance is due to the gas emanating from the duped and dutiful sheeple who regurgitate them on talk radio, newspaper comment boards and letters to the editor. Complicity? Well that's the perfumed scent of self-importance wafting from lazy journos who are only too glad to have some kind of 'inside track' that they can breathlessly sputter from their waning pedestals.
I kind of hate politics, too. Though I confess to being a bit of a junkie for the stuff. And, having worked on advertising for one or more of the major Canadian political parties, I've met a few of the purveyors of the sinister art of political communication. And over the last couple of months, since the prorogue-ation of our parliament, the talking points have been fast, thick and especially odious. The first out of the gate after our Prime Minister hid behind the robes of the Queen - our nominal head of state - in order to avoid a confidence vote which would have toppled the government were as predictable as they were loud.
Seeing that a governing coalition might be formed between the lefty NDP, the blandly centrist Liberals with the co-operation of the region-centric Bloc Quebecois, the government sent their very vocal supporters throughout the land, over the airwaves and into the web. Their message was as simple as it was false: This was a coup, It was a cabal. It was a gang of ELITISTS, SOCIALISTS AND SEPERATISTS.
Lions and tigers and bears, oh my.
The argument may have been semi-valid had it been reasonably and calmly articulated, but it was shrieked with such hysterical, scripted vigour that it was soon exposed for what it was: self-serving bullsh*t and nonsense. The louder it was bellowed, the more Canadians had to look into it. And then, people started to talk. Soon enough, most sensible people had given themselves a little education in parliamentary democracy and probably came to the conclusion that, well, we may not like it, but it's perfectly legal under our system.
So the talking points from master to minion shifted. Now, it was a collective yawp of indignation from the sitting-around-waiting-to-be-told-what-to-be-outraged-about set. The new script, readily download-able from some place like 'MyCampaign.ca' was: "Undemocratic. Traitorous! Put this coalition thingy to vote!" This notwithstanding the fact that everywhere else in the civilized world, representative legislatures reach accords and form coalitions amongst themselves all the time. After the vote. Nobody, anywhere, votes for coalitions. They just happen .
And so with parliament set to resume in, oh, ten days, it's sad to note that a new set of talking points has lumbered upon the land. They're not as vile as those directed at the previous leader of the opposition, who was photoshopped into a grim facsimile of an autistic eel, quoted out of context and ridiculed as 'Celine'. However, this new script is no less vapid.
You see, the minty-fresh leader of the opposition comes from a prominent - aristocratic, even - family of eastern European descent, Since coming to Canada, the family has been distinguished by diplomatic and other national service. This new leader, Michael Ignatieff, is a writer, professor and television personality who, since leaving Canada after university, has done very well for himself in The USA and Great Britain. He was essentially acclaimed by his caucus after, erm, 'Celine', stepped down.
So the new talking points? Mark my words, Ignatieff will be demonized as a *gasp* foreigner. Not only that but he's...oh, my...an elitist. And Russian! And he's....sputter... unelected - he was...appointed! To really hit the ball out of the park let's call him, repeatedly and disdainfully....Count! And let's do it in a way that ambiguously suggests Dracula, the guy from Monte Christo and some Romanoff-esque consort of Rasputin. As usual, the ploy is to let him be defined by the unholy trinity of sulphur, ignorance and complicity before the Foreign, Elitist, Russian, Un-democratic Count has chance to define himself.
So, yeah, I hate talking points. Preferred script is a lousy substitute for healthy debate. Especially when said script advances nothing but the political interests of a particular party. Worse, the message in the script may even be counter to the best interests of the engaged partisans who disseminate it. However, if one is waiting to be told what to say, it's those very interests that ultimately become devalued and debased.
