Terry Glavin's hysteria

Has Terry Glavin's "progressive" mask finally fallen off entirely? Not content to slander the Canadian peace movement, or suggest that someone is an anti-Semite for referring to him as a "neo-con" (Glavin is Irish), we now have this wretched little piece of yellow journalism.

Try to follow the logic. It's a little sketchy, but here it is: Maude Barlow and her fellow progressives oppose the so-called "Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP)," because talks are talking place among senior politicians, bureaucrats and corporate leaders out of sight of the public, and because this likely heralds a new phase of what has been called deep integration. Bulk water exports from Canada to the US are on the table, despite official denials; unrestricted and unaccountable information exchange amongst security agencies, which has already led to the rendition of Maher Arar and the stupid (thankfully temporary) refusal to allow a mild-mannered labour relations professor to teach at Carleton University, will be heightened; Canada's environment and sovereignty, already threatened by NAFTA, will be under even more pressure.

But some far-right America Firsters are also against the SPP. They think it will lead to unrestricted immigration, amongst other things, and world gummint, probably run by the Jooooos, if not the Illuminati, which will impose socialism, race-mixing and God knows what else, sending the patriots off to the hills (if they aren't there already) to chow down on C-rations and pick off ZOG agents at their leisure. Yee-haw!

Now, because there happens, for whatever wacky reasons, to be an alignment of concern about the SPP--not an alignment of views, mind you--it is all too obvious, to Glavin at least, that there is some kind of sinister ideological convergence. So, in his classic fashion, he links to an earlier post connecting the left with--well, what else, he's hipped on the subject--radical Islam. See, it all fits together--Maude Barlow, terrorism, Pat Boone, the John Birch Society, anti-Semitism, environmentalism...a "subtle pattern," as Glavin puts it. Subtle indeed.

The odd thing about this foolish fantasizing is that it has all the earmarks of the very wingnut theorizing that he complains about in his post. Somehow the same people who go to the wall fighting homophobia, sexism, racism, and (let's call a spade a spade) American imperialism, are really in bed with fascists and Islamists and anti-Semites and terrorists and homophobes and woman-enslavers....not to mention turtles and Teamsters. It's, well, a conspiracy.

We defeated the MAI and the FTAA--so far--simply by exposing those multi-legged white grubs to the bright light of day. There are more grubby deals in the offing, though, and the SPP is just the latest of them. Progressives will continue to research, write, publicize and protest, thank goodness--more power to them. And those living in their closed delusional universes will continue to spin bizarre paranoid theories: "It's the One Worlders! No, it's the Islamic-socialist axis! It's the Jews! No, it's the Council of Canadians!" Terry Glavin and Pat Boone, in fact, have far more in common than either of them might imagine.

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UPDATE: (August 22) Just caught this comment by Glavin about the policing of dissent at Montebello: "Pick a fight with a riot squad, you deserve to get your ass kicked, I reckon."