To answer some questions:

Willie-O said: "PDC is partly right, but I sure don't swing the "wild swings to the left". Please find me one so I can ride on it!"

We haven't had any of the wild swings yet -- but they are what I fear most. I live in BC, where the political parties are very polarized between left and right. We've had disasters under the NDP, and disasters under the current conservative administration, largely because each party is so opposed to the other that when one gets in power, it immediately attempts to undo whatever the other has done when it was in power. That's unhealthy and partisan. You should just see the terrible social cuts being made in BC now, under the Campbell administration, at the same time as he is spending like a drunk on the forthcoming Olympics. Yuck.


McGrath of Harlow asked: "What impact does Bushism south of the border have on Canadians? Do the see it as a horrible warning against right-extremism, or does it make right-extremism seem a normal sort of thing?"

It's a very interesting situation. Of course Canada is enormously influenced by the US, but it's (so far) more a social influence than a political one. Unfortunately, as social views are influenced, so are political ones, so I am afraid that the writing is on the wall here. I give great, great credit to Jean Chretien, who is about to retire, for passing legislation that makes Canada culturally more distinct from the US than it has been in the past, but I'm not sure it will have a lasting effect. I hope so.

When Preston Manning created the party that is now the Alliance Party, which is uniting with the Progressive Conservative Party, he looked south to the extreme right for his party's platform. (He was quite disgusting -- you could see the naked hunger for power on his face, and could tell that he would sell a member of his family to get elected. My husband called him the "ankle-biter" because he was such a yappy little puppy.) He borrowed his blueprint from the American extreme right, and unfortunately enough people bought into it that he and his party became the official opposition.

Now that the rightwingers in the US have led that country into a situation which many Canadians view as suspicious, dangerous, and blatantly crooked, there is a possibility that Chretien's actions to distance Canada from the US will resonate, and Canadians will vote to retain the status quo.

But don't hold your breath -- the Canadian electorate is generally no more educated about issues and politics than the electorates of any other country. As long as reality TV is on, why bother?

Aargh.