Canadian Artist Robert Bateman Condemns the Destruction Imposed by the Neoconservatives

Robert Bateman the well know naturalist and artist, wrote a piece in 2003, that was shared on the CAPP board yesterday.

I wish I'd seen it before, because it expresses my views. I too was a Conservative, but hate that the neoconservatives have taken over the historic party of Sir John A. MacDonald.

Below are a few excerpts (1) from his Globe and Mail column, now available on his website:

I am a conservative. This is why I deeply resent the neo-conservatives who are not conservatives at all. They are the opposite: radicals who are destroying cherished institutions and wreaking havoc on our human heritage as well as our natural heritage.

I do not consider destroyers to be conservative. So many cherished institutions have been built with great care and dedication through the decades by well-trained people with good hearts. These are being smashed and weakened in great haste by politicians and ideologues who do not even understand what they destroy. Creation is long and difficult; destruction is quick.

Now we are faced with the foolish idea that a corporation should be regarded legally as "a person." In reality, a corporation is simply a pile of money to which a number of persons have sold their moral allegiance.

The slogan of most of these entities is "make too cheap and sell too high." With few exceptions, there is little obligation among such corporate "persons" to ideas of public place or public good. In "In the Presence of Fear, Three Essays For a Changed World", his excellent book written after 9/11, Wendell Berry observes, "Corporations make the assumption that stable and preserving relationships

Among people, places and things do not matter and are of no worth." And "that there is no conflict between self-interest and public service." This seems to be the
philosophy of the neo-conservatives.

Sources:

1. I am a Conservative, By: Robert Bateman, Globe and Mail, December 13, 2003