Rex Murphy and the Evangelization of Progress

This is amazing. I had no idea. Thank you Canadaland. As someone who has enjoyed Cross Country Checkup on numerous lazy Sunday afternoons and appreciated the few of Murphy's editorials that I'd seen on The National, I had always taken Murphy to be a neutral object in Canadian media. Admittedly, this was out of ignorance and selective listening. Shit like that happens when you ain't got cable and you tend not to regularly read Canadian newspapers. Often whole narratives and cycles pass me by without at all registering on my radar. But, man, I still wasn't prepared for this.

He's funny. I gotta give it to him. Murphy's oratorical skill is in full effect in the above video. I'm really impressed. And at the same time I'm very disturbed! He is preaching the virtues of energy production and consumption. He's preaching this with everything he can muster. Energy maintains civilization, he says.* Separating oil from sand and reaching the pinnacle of human intelligence are the same procedure, he says. It's a miracle, he says. Without energy there is no 'human dignity.' There is no social stability. Hell, there is no Newfoundland!

He's paid for these engagements, by the way. And then he goes on The National in favour of the oil sands. The CBC response reads like so. The National Post comments editor defends it thusly. And Rex himself writes this. 

Now I am ensnared in the fucking shit show that is media and gossip and low talk. Ugh. Welcome.

*It does maintain 21C carbon democracies, so maybe he ain't wrong in his wrongness.