Ever since May 2, sovereigntists have been looking for someone to blame for the election debacle, but since Gilles Duceppe has slinked off the stage, it appears that Pauline Marois has been drafted as the sacrificial lamb, destined to become the fresh kill, necessary to feed the blood lust of those separatists furious with the negative turn of events, a wild mob determined to wreak vengeance on someone, anyone.
And so poor Pauline is being treated no better than a piñata, bashed around joyfully by blindfolded, directionless children, intent on destruction in the hopes of winning the candy.
So what is Pauline's great crime?
Why did her popularity collapse taking her from hero to zero in a matter of months?
Obviously it was the disaster of May 2, that triggered a stampede, led by the vigile.net rabble who exploded in utter frustration, watching the foundation of their forty years of sovereigntist militancy go up in smoke or down the drain, both metaphors, equally appropriate.
And so they have come to the startling conclusion that sovereignty can only be achieved by.... well..er.....hmmmm..... they haven't really said.
What they have said is that the PQ and Marois' go-slow approach is the wrong path to follow. Given the pragmatic point of view of the current PQ leadership that a referendum would be a disaster, the Marois approach is to take over government and rule with a sovereigntist optic until those mythical winning conditions materialize.
Not a great plan, but readers, what else can Marois and the PQ do?
Obviously the people are not in favour of a referendum or sovereignty, with a new poll indicating that only 32% of voters would vote YES. On top of it, many of those who would vote YES, don't want a referendum either, believing realistically, that the inevitable loss would cripple Quebec even more in relation to the RoC.
Now the 'go-fast' sovereigntists, including a bunch of hardliner MP's who quit the PQ caucus to sit as independents took part in a weekend seminar to launch yet one more sovereigntist group, the "Nouveau Mouvement pour le Québec" dedicated to support a more aggressive approach, which turns out to be nothing more than organizing province-wide coffee klatches to talk up the separatist option.
In response Marois announced that she too will organize some meetings.
I can't wait!
Frankly, it's pitiful.
The weekend rally which attracted about 400, was a rag-tag collection of disaffected PQ faithful combined with more radical elements including some ex-FLQ terrorists and present day wannabes from the RRQ, splitting off into a radical camp whose denunciation of the PQ has hurt the party to the point that support has plunged to just 24%, ten points behind Jean Charest's Liberals.
Readers, I have read dozens and dozens of these PQ and Marois denunciations in the mainstream press, as well as on the pages of vigile.net.
It was a colossal waste of time.
After bashing Marois and the PQ for a go-slow approach, nobody has a better solution, probably because there isn't any.
For an incredibly simple and straight forward analysis, read this magnificent article in the Toronto Star by Pierre Martin, a professor of political science at the Université de Montréal.
"Like many other idealistic political movements, the Quebec sovereignty movement suffers from a chronic incapacity to find the proper balance between idealism and realism; conviction and pragmatism; rationality and emotion.
In all mass movements for change, true believers provide vital energy, but they often are viscerally incapable of understanding the hesitations of those they wish to rally to their cause. This is why many rock-solid sovereignists always distrusted the professional politicians who stepped forward in their name to run a “mere province” or to fill seats in a “foreign” parliament.
Read the entire article, you won't regret it. Sovereignty and its discontents
Yes, I know I'll get mail for that comment......
