Global and CTV have one thing in common - they both shill for the Conservative government. However I'm sure that had nothing at all to do with their "win" before the CRTC which decided the broadcasters are entitled to compensation from the cable companies that distribute their programmes.
I carry no brief for the cable companies. They plainly overcharge for a second-rate product. But this isn't about what Rogers or Shaw charge or deliver to the public.
Television networks like CTV get their revenue through advertising. That's why they fill their spot on the public airwaves with American programmes of mass consumption, usually mindless reality shows and tired sitcoms. Agencies like the Bureau of Broadcast Measurement (BBM) track how many viewers watch individual shows. The larger an audience a particular show delivers the more advertising during that time slot will cost.
Having been a BBM survey participant I can attest that the company doesn't care less whether you watch a particular programme via a coaxial cable or a rooftop antenna. Doesn't make the slightest difference. All they care about is how many people are watching a particular show. That's all the advertiser cares about too.
Cable transmission allows the TV networks to reach a larger audience than they could ever achieve by over-the-airwaves broadcasting. Larger audience = more advertising revenues. It could (and should) be argued, therefore, that the cable companies already help the TV networks by delivering their shows and their shows' advertisers to a far larger audience.
The corollary asks why a network should be able to get money for a cable viewer that it doesn't receive for an over-the-airwaves broadcast viewer? The cost to the network for an antenna viewer and a cable viewer is the same. If you have a rooftop antenna and live close enough you get the shows free but if you get the shows via a cable then you'll have to pay for them? Make no mistake, the CRTC does foresee that the consumer will bear the cost and have proclaimed that we can afford it.
There was a time the CRTC placed the public interest first. That mandate seems to have gone out the window under the Tories.
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
How Long Before Americans "Get It"?
Trolling through American media web pages it quickly becomes apparent how the American people are divided into two utterly different realities over Obama's healthcare reform. Some truly support it, others act as though Joe Stalin himself was marching down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Oh the tyranny of it all!
John Kenneth Galbraith would find the anguish hilarious. The Canadian-born economic advisor who served Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson, long ago noted that the only socialism Americans could accept was socialism for the rich. From the Wall Street bailouts to tobacco and energy industry subsidies to the endless grants, subsidies and massive overruns of the defense industry, America is the ultimate corporate welfare state. Socialism for the rich and powerful indeed.
Yet bringing the health insurance industry to heel and extending coverage to millions of formerly uninsured Americans is more than those taxpaying teabaggers can stand. It doesn't matter that, in the short and long-term, it will save their government money. These are the idiots, 19 out of 20 of whom don't realize that Obama has lowered their taxes. These are people who have disconnected themselves from reality which, I suppose, qualifies them as mentally disturbed at best, deranged at worst.
Obama got his healthcare bill. Maybe not the legislation he sought at the outset but a toehold bill in any case. He's signed it into law. But he's not out of the weeds yet. The Republicans, well and truly deep in the healthcare industry's pocket, will fight furiously to kill this off. They think they still have a chance to rescind this law but even they know they have to act fast before the public come to understand what healthcare reform really means. Once the American people "get it", the Republican resistance is finished.
Oh the tyranny of it all!
John Kenneth Galbraith would find the anguish hilarious. The Canadian-born economic advisor who served Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy and Johnson, long ago noted that the only socialism Americans could accept was socialism for the rich. From the Wall Street bailouts to tobacco and energy industry subsidies to the endless grants, subsidies and massive overruns of the defense industry, America is the ultimate corporate welfare state. Socialism for the rich and powerful indeed.
Yet bringing the health insurance industry to heel and extending coverage to millions of formerly uninsured Americans is more than those taxpaying teabaggers can stand. It doesn't matter that, in the short and long-term, it will save their government money. These are the idiots, 19 out of 20 of whom don't realize that Obama has lowered their taxes. These are people who have disconnected themselves from reality which, I suppose, qualifies them as mentally disturbed at best, deranged at worst.
Obama got his healthcare bill. Maybe not the legislation he sought at the outset but a toehold bill in any case. He's signed it into law. But he's not out of the weeds yet. The Republicans, well and truly deep in the healthcare industry's pocket, will fight furiously to kill this off. They think they still have a chance to rescind this law but even they know they have to act fast before the public come to understand what healthcare reform really means. Once the American people "get it", the Republican resistance is finished.
Monday, March 22, 2010
This Is Why Staying in Afghanistan is Madness
Peace is at hand? The electorally-engineered president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is having peace talks with the insurgents. Well not exactly all of the insurgents. Just Hizb-i-Islami, the insurgent militia of the most treacherous of all Afghan warlords, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
From time to time Bush and others have referred to monsters who throw acid in girls' faces.
That monster was Hek. While studying engineering at university in Kabul, Hek made a name for himself by murdering a Maoist student and by chucking acid in the faces of female students who chose not to wear a veil. He was jailed for a couple of years in the early 70's until he was given amnesty by the then prime minister Daoud Khan. To show his appreciation for Daoud's leniency, Hek wasted no time bolting to Pakistan where, with the assistance of authorities, he promptly organized an anti-Daoud Islamist militia.
When the Russians showed up in 1979, Hek was showered with cash and weapons by the CIA to wage jihad in Afghanistan. He was one of the most prominent warlord "freedom fighters" during the 10-year battle with the Russians. Hek was an early multi-tasker, finding plenty of time to run a successful drug empire while also taking the fight to his fellow warlords.
When the Russian gig wrapped up in 1989, Hek stirred it up in the subsequent civil war. He was an equal-opportunity hater, switching sides repeatedly. For brief spells in 1993 and 1996 he was the Afghan prime minister. When the Talibs took over in 1996, Hek beat feet for Iran.
After the Taliban were routed in 2001, Hek rejected a peace overture from Karzai and instead joined up with his old rivals, the Taliban and has spent the last eight years as what some call "the most prominent anti-American guerrilla" operating with the Talibs.
Earlier this month Hek's Hezb-i-Islami fighters turned their machine guns and rocket propelled grenades against the Taliban which, for Hek, is nothing out of the ordinary. Encouraged, Karzai has received a Hezb-i-Islami delegation to Kabul for peace talks.
Hek's plan, according to CBC, would see the Afghan parliament dissolved and replaced by an interim government. The insurgents also want a new constitution merging the existing "democracy mandate" with former, presumably less democratic constitutions.
Why Hekmatyar, why now? Either Karzai is desperate to save his skin, even foolishly so, or perhaps he thinks Hek may be a lever to draw the Taliban into talks. It really doesn't make much difference. The importance of this is that our contribution - in lives and treasure - can have little lasting significance while these characters pull the strings in Afghanistan. Any "peace" Karzai brokers with Hek will probably be no more stable or lasting than Hekmatyar has been his entire adult life. We gave Karzai an opportunity. He's made the absolute worst of it. It's time to cut our losses.
From time to time Bush and others have referred to monsters who throw acid in girls' faces.
That monster was Hek. While studying engineering at university in Kabul, Hek made a name for himself by murdering a Maoist student and by chucking acid in the faces of female students who chose not to wear a veil. He was jailed for a couple of years in the early 70's until he was given amnesty by the then prime minister Daoud Khan. To show his appreciation for Daoud's leniency, Hek wasted no time bolting to Pakistan where, with the assistance of authorities, he promptly organized an anti-Daoud Islamist militia.
When the Russians showed up in 1979, Hek was showered with cash and weapons by the CIA to wage jihad in Afghanistan. He was one of the most prominent warlord "freedom fighters" during the 10-year battle with the Russians. Hek was an early multi-tasker, finding plenty of time to run a successful drug empire while also taking the fight to his fellow warlords.
When the Russian gig wrapped up in 1989, Hek stirred it up in the subsequent civil war. He was an equal-opportunity hater, switching sides repeatedly. For brief spells in 1993 and 1996 he was the Afghan prime minister. When the Talibs took over in 1996, Hek beat feet for Iran.
After the Taliban were routed in 2001, Hek rejected a peace overture from Karzai and instead joined up with his old rivals, the Taliban and has spent the last eight years as what some call "the most prominent anti-American guerrilla" operating with the Talibs.
Earlier this month Hek's Hezb-i-Islami fighters turned their machine guns and rocket propelled grenades against the Taliban which, for Hek, is nothing out of the ordinary. Encouraged, Karzai has received a Hezb-i-Islami delegation to Kabul for peace talks.
Hek's plan, according to CBC, would see the Afghan parliament dissolved and replaced by an interim government. The insurgents also want a new constitution merging the existing "democracy mandate" with former, presumably less democratic constitutions.
Why Hekmatyar, why now? Either Karzai is desperate to save his skin, even foolishly so, or perhaps he thinks Hek may be a lever to draw the Taliban into talks. It really doesn't make much difference. The importance of this is that our contribution - in lives and treasure - can have little lasting significance while these characters pull the strings in Afghanistan. Any "peace" Karzai brokers with Hek will probably be no more stable or lasting than Hekmatyar has been his entire adult life. We gave Karzai an opportunity. He's made the absolute worst of it. It's time to cut our losses.
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Every Progressive Must Read This - An Israeli Mea Culpa
The progressive Israeli newspaper Haaretz has thanked prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu for finally shining a light on Israel's shameful past:
A revelation has come forth in Jerusalem: Most of it is a settlement. After decades in which we lied ourselves to pieces and rendered kosher that which was not - only to ourselves, not to any other country - the truth has been revealed. It has been revealed after years in which no one thought to call the residents of these giant neighborhoods settlers. Years in which Teddy Kollek, a Labor Party man and a man of peace, of course, was considered a "builder" and not the greatest of settlers. He settled more Jews in occupied areas than any settler leader. Years in which doubting the settlement enterprise was tantamount to heresy and treason. So of all people, this right-winger, Netanyahu, proponent of the Greater Land of Israel, has lifted the veil.
The work of the righteous is sometimes done by others, as the saying goes. (Let's not forget the assistance of the Obama administration - its only real achievement so far.) From now on we will have to conduct ourselves in the neighborhoods in the occupied areas just as we do in the settlements in the occupied areas. Any additional construction will come at a heavy political cost. House demolitions in the city have already been completely stopped; we can thank Netanyahu and Obama for that, too. Those who wanted it all may now lose it all, and that's a good thing.
How pleasant it was all those years to think that Jerusalem was ours alone. We did what we wanted, we enacted the Jerusalem Law, we annexed areas that were not ours and believed that this was enough to whitewash reality.
Now, perhaps, it's over. Thanks to the Obama-Netanyahu team, questions will arise: What exactly is the difference between this occupation, which we never admitted to, and the occupation we have admitted to? What's the difference between the Shoafat refugee camp and the Deheisheh refugee camp? Why is it okay to issue blue ID cards to residents of the Shoafat refugee camp and allow them relative freedom of employment, and not to the residents of Deheisheh? Why does a Palestinian from Beit Hanina not endanger security when he drives on Israeli roads and even takes off from Ben-Gurion International Airport, while his friend from Abu Dis is a ticking bomb? After all, they are the same Palestinians - in Jerusalem as in nearby Bethlehem and distant Jenin.
Why, in the framework of negotiations "without preconditions," are eastern and northern Jerusalem not up for discussion, when every provocative act of construction on the other side of the Green Line in the capital, which has hardly expanded westward at all, is intended to create unilateral "political facts" - in other words, preconditions?
And we must not forget that this huge building project in Jerusalem is for Jews only; not one Palestinian neighborhood has been built in 43 years of occupation. Should that not be called apartheid? Even the new magic and foolish solution of the greatest master of words, President Shimon Peres, has persuaded no one: Israel, the president now tells his guests from abroad, has the right to build in "Jewish neighborhoods." And how, Mr. President, did they become Jewish, all of them on Palestinian land, if not by massive, illegal settlement, just like in Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim and Gush Etzion, which are now within the "consensus" we invented for ourselves? Consensus? Only in Israel. And to a great extent this consensus, too, has been fabricated.
And we have not yet said a word about "sanctity," another reason for demands for sovereignty and settlement. Since when is sanctity a value in a secular state? What does it have to do with sovereignty? And to how many Israelis in this city, in all its new Jewish neighborhoods and old Palestinian suburbs, is it indeed sacred? And is it sacred only to us?
Can someone with connections inside the LPC, someone perhaps who's able to contact Michael Ignatieff, please send him this link?
A revelation has come forth in Jerusalem: Most of it is a settlement. After decades in which we lied ourselves to pieces and rendered kosher that which was not - only to ourselves, not to any other country - the truth has been revealed. It has been revealed after years in which no one thought to call the residents of these giant neighborhoods settlers. Years in which Teddy Kollek, a Labor Party man and a man of peace, of course, was considered a "builder" and not the greatest of settlers. He settled more Jews in occupied areas than any settler leader. Years in which doubting the settlement enterprise was tantamount to heresy and treason. So of all people, this right-winger, Netanyahu, proponent of the Greater Land of Israel, has lifted the veil.
The work of the righteous is sometimes done by others, as the saying goes. (Let's not forget the assistance of the Obama administration - its only real achievement so far.) From now on we will have to conduct ourselves in the neighborhoods in the occupied areas just as we do in the settlements in the occupied areas. Any additional construction will come at a heavy political cost. House demolitions in the city have already been completely stopped; we can thank Netanyahu and Obama for that, too. Those who wanted it all may now lose it all, and that's a good thing.
How pleasant it was all those years to think that Jerusalem was ours alone. We did what we wanted, we enacted the Jerusalem Law, we annexed areas that were not ours and believed that this was enough to whitewash reality.
Now, perhaps, it's over. Thanks to the Obama-Netanyahu team, questions will arise: What exactly is the difference between this occupation, which we never admitted to, and the occupation we have admitted to? What's the difference between the Shoafat refugee camp and the Deheisheh refugee camp? Why is it okay to issue blue ID cards to residents of the Shoafat refugee camp and allow them relative freedom of employment, and not to the residents of Deheisheh? Why does a Palestinian from Beit Hanina not endanger security when he drives on Israeli roads and even takes off from Ben-Gurion International Airport, while his friend from Abu Dis is a ticking bomb? After all, they are the same Palestinians - in Jerusalem as in nearby Bethlehem and distant Jenin.
Why, in the framework of negotiations "without preconditions," are eastern and northern Jerusalem not up for discussion, when every provocative act of construction on the other side of the Green Line in the capital, which has hardly expanded westward at all, is intended to create unilateral "political facts" - in other words, preconditions?
And we must not forget that this huge building project in Jerusalem is for Jews only; not one Palestinian neighborhood has been built in 43 years of occupation. Should that not be called apartheid? Even the new magic and foolish solution of the greatest master of words, President Shimon Peres, has persuaded no one: Israel, the president now tells his guests from abroad, has the right to build in "Jewish neighborhoods." And how, Mr. President, did they become Jewish, all of them on Palestinian land, if not by massive, illegal settlement, just like in Ariel, Ma'aleh Adumim and Gush Etzion, which are now within the "consensus" we invented for ourselves? Consensus? Only in Israel. And to a great extent this consensus, too, has been fabricated.
And we have not yet said a word about "sanctity," another reason for demands for sovereignty and settlement. Since when is sanctity a value in a secular state? What does it have to do with sovereignty? And to how many Israelis in this city, in all its new Jewish neighborhoods and old Palestinian suburbs, is it indeed sacred? And is it sacred only to us?
Can someone with connections inside the LPC, someone perhaps who's able to contact Michael Ignatieff, please send him this link?
Friday, March 19, 2010
NYT's David Brooks Turns ...Pink?
While he's supposed to be a voice of the Right, you might be hard-pressed to come to that conclusion by reading today's New York Times column by David Brooks.
Brooks laments that his country is becoming a "broken society":
"The public has contempt for the political class. Public debt is piling up at an astonishing and unrelenting pace. Middle-class wages have lagged. Unemployment will remain high. It will take years to fully recover from the financial crisis.
"This confluence of crises has produced a surge in vehement libertarianism. People are disgusted with Washington. The Tea Party movement rallies against big government, big business and the ruling class in general. Even beyond their ranks, there is a corrosive cynicism about public action.
"But there is another way to respond to these problems that is more communitarian and less libertarian. This alternative has been explored most fully by the British writer Phillip Blond."
Communitarian? Did I read that correctly? From David Brooks? Yes, that is indeed the case Brooks makes in his column.
Blond argues that over the past generation we have witnessed two revolutions, both of which liberated the individual and decimated local associations. First, there was a revolution from the left: a cultural revolution that displaced traditional manners and mores; a legal revolution that emphasized individual rights instead of responsibilities; a welfare revolution in which social workers displaced mutual aid societies and self-organized associations.
Then there was the market revolution from the right. In the age of deregulation, giant chains like Wal-Mart decimated local shop owners. Global financial markets took over small banks, so that the local knowledge of a town banker was replaced by a manic herd of traders thousands of miles away. Unions withered.
The two revolutions talked the language of individual freedom, but they perversely ended up creating greater centralization. They created an atomized, segmented society and then the state had to come in and attempt to repair the damage.
...The effort to liberate individuals from repressive social constraints didn’t produce a flowering of freedom; it weakened families, increased out-of-wedlock births and turned neighbors into strangers. In Britain, you get a country with rising crime, and, as a result, four million security cameras.
In a much-discussed essay in Prospect magazine in February 2009, Blond wrote, “Look at the society we have become: We are a bi-polar nation, a bureaucratic, centralised state that presides dysfunctionally over an increasingly fragmented, disempowered and isolated citizenry.” In a separate essay, he added, “The welfare state and the market state are now two defunct and mutually supporting failures.”
...Economically, Blond lays out three big areas of reform: remoralize the market, relocalize the economy and recapitalize the poor. This would mean passing zoning legislation to give small shopkeepers a shot against the retail giants, reducing barriers to entry for new businesses, revitalizing local banks, encouraging employee share ownership, setting up local capital funds so community associations could invest in local enterprises, rewarding savings, cutting regulations that socialize risk and privatize profit, and reducing the subsidies that flow from big government and big business.
...Essentially, Blond would take a political culture that has been oriented around individual choice and replace it with one oriented around relationships and associations.
...Britain is always going to be more hospitable to communitarian politics than the more libertarian U.S. But people are social creatures here, too. American society has been atomized by the twin revolutions here, too. This country, too, needs a fresh political wind. America, too, is suffering a devastating crisis of authority. The only way to restore trust is from the local community on up.
With Brooks it's always a good idea to wait for the other shoe to drop in a week or a month down the line but his analysis sounds sensible - and radical - coming from an American conservative. However it reminds us that not all American conservatives are the malevolent scum manifested in the Cheneys and today's Republican Congress. There are indeed moderate, fiscal but not social conservatives struggling to find a way to regain control of the American Right. We should all wish them well.
Brooks laments that his country is becoming a "broken society":
"The public has contempt for the political class. Public debt is piling up at an astonishing and unrelenting pace. Middle-class wages have lagged. Unemployment will remain high. It will take years to fully recover from the financial crisis.
"This confluence of crises has produced a surge in vehement libertarianism. People are disgusted with Washington. The Tea Party movement rallies against big government, big business and the ruling class in general. Even beyond their ranks, there is a corrosive cynicism about public action.
"But there is another way to respond to these problems that is more communitarian and less libertarian. This alternative has been explored most fully by the British writer Phillip Blond."
Communitarian? Did I read that correctly? From David Brooks? Yes, that is indeed the case Brooks makes in his column.
Blond argues that over the past generation we have witnessed two revolutions, both of which liberated the individual and decimated local associations. First, there was a revolution from the left: a cultural revolution that displaced traditional manners and mores; a legal revolution that emphasized individual rights instead of responsibilities; a welfare revolution in which social workers displaced mutual aid societies and self-organized associations.
Then there was the market revolution from the right. In the age of deregulation, giant chains like Wal-Mart decimated local shop owners. Global financial markets took over small banks, so that the local knowledge of a town banker was replaced by a manic herd of traders thousands of miles away. Unions withered.
The two revolutions talked the language of individual freedom, but they perversely ended up creating greater centralization. They created an atomized, segmented society and then the state had to come in and attempt to repair the damage.
...The effort to liberate individuals from repressive social constraints didn’t produce a flowering of freedom; it weakened families, increased out-of-wedlock births and turned neighbors into strangers. In Britain, you get a country with rising crime, and, as a result, four million security cameras.
In a much-discussed essay in Prospect magazine in February 2009, Blond wrote, “Look at the society we have become: We are a bi-polar nation, a bureaucratic, centralised state that presides dysfunctionally over an increasingly fragmented, disempowered and isolated citizenry.” In a separate essay, he added, “The welfare state and the market state are now two defunct and mutually supporting failures.”
...Economically, Blond lays out three big areas of reform: remoralize the market, relocalize the economy and recapitalize the poor. This would mean passing zoning legislation to give small shopkeepers a shot against the retail giants, reducing barriers to entry for new businesses, revitalizing local banks, encouraging employee share ownership, setting up local capital funds so community associations could invest in local enterprises, rewarding savings, cutting regulations that socialize risk and privatize profit, and reducing the subsidies that flow from big government and big business.
...Essentially, Blond would take a political culture that has been oriented around individual choice and replace it with one oriented around relationships and associations.
...Britain is always going to be more hospitable to communitarian politics than the more libertarian U.S. But people are social creatures here, too. American society has been atomized by the twin revolutions here, too. This country, too, needs a fresh political wind. America, too, is suffering a devastating crisis of authority. The only way to restore trust is from the local community on up.
With Brooks it's always a good idea to wait for the other shoe to drop in a week or a month down the line but his analysis sounds sensible - and radical - coming from an American conservative. However it reminds us that not all American conservatives are the malevolent scum manifested in the Cheneys and today's Republican Congress. There are indeed moderate, fiscal but not social conservatives struggling to find a way to regain control of the American Right. We should all wish them well.
The Supreme Court Hands Harper a Thick Slab of Raw Meat
It was a tough case and came down to a 4-3 decision but the Supreme Court of Canada today aquitted a Saskatchewan man of kiddie porn charges. The case came down to the validity and scope of the search and seizure of the man's home computer.
It's a highly technical and complex legal decision on a subject that the public will not abide. The Court showed great courage in holding the line even though it meant aquitting a child pornographer. The fact that the Court was do sharply divided will do nothing to quell the inevitable outrage the Harpies will delight in exploiting.
R. v. Morelli
It's a highly technical and complex legal decision on a subject that the public will not abide. The Court showed great courage in holding the line even though it meant aquitting a child pornographer. The fact that the Court was do sharply divided will do nothing to quell the inevitable outrage the Harpies will delight in exploiting.
R. v. Morelli
Canada Thwarts Bluefin Protection
The Atlantic bluefin tuna is on the ropes. Overfishing has caused stocks to drop by 75% and many countries, including the United States, warn the prized species is seriously endangered. That's why the Harper regime joined forces with the Japanese to sabotage a proposal to ban the export of the bluefin.
In keeping with its enthusiastic support for seabed trawling, Canada joined other nations in rejecting a bluefin ban proposal that came before a United Nations conference on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Qatar.
But wait, there's more!
Canada also blocked an American proposal to ban the international trade in polar bear skin and parts.
Oh well, did you hear about all the gold medals we won at the Olympics?
In keeping with its enthusiastic support for seabed trawling, Canada joined other nations in rejecting a bluefin ban proposal that came before a United Nations conference on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in Qatar.
But wait, there's more!
Canada also blocked an American proposal to ban the international trade in polar bear skin and parts.
Oh well, did you hear about all the gold medals we won at the Olympics?
Arms Race Update - Attack of the Drones
North Americans have been largely spared the sort of attacks experienced in other lands. We're surrounded by oceans vast enough to have kept most potential aggressors at bay. The Japanese sent over a few dozen balloons and their subs lobbed a few shells on shore targets but, by and large, we've not had much foreign aggression to contend with.
We did, however, institute a joint US-Canada air defence command, NORAD, to monitor the aerial approaches to our countries and maintain a fighter deterrent to potential aggressors. The focus was mainly on the bomber threat from the former Soviet Union. We deployed a sophisticated, conventional force to meet a somewhat less sophisticated, conventional threat. Well, what about the unconventional?
The Brookings Institute is examining the risk to the North American homeland from attack by unmanned, aerial vehicles, UAVs or drones. The point is no place is out of reach when "..a 77-year-old blind man from Canada designed an unmanned system that in 2003 hopped the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Ireland."
America has gone heavily into drone technology and its potential rivals and its enemies have been watching. Today, two-thirds of military expenditures on drones and drone technology is coming from countries other than the US.
Anyone with the money and a moderate amount of skill can acquire, assemble and launch an intercontinental drone from components freely available on the marketplace. And, as the Brookings report showed, drones can be devilishly hard to track, much less down. They're relatively stealthy and fighter jets have great trouble flying slowly enough to gun them down.
So, here we have an emerging 21st century threat to North American security with an enormously high-tech but potentially ineffective 20th century defence. We know that we're vulnerable, the bad guys know that we're vulnerable and, now, you know it too. It's conceivable that even Peter MacKay and Stephen Harper have finally clued into it ...but then again.
The question is what are we going to do about it? That the threat is real is beyond question. If the bad guys want to hit hard at Main Street, USA, drones are a far better option than highjacking airliners to fly into buildings. These can deliver real WMDs and they don't even have to succeed. The psychological blow is struck as soon as the public learns somebody actually launched one of these drones that could have caused widespread devastation, because, once it's happened the only question on peoples' minds will be when the next one will be launched, the one that will actually get through?
We've spent a lifetime, my lifetime at least, taking war to other peoples' backyards. In fact we're currently waging protracted but ineffective wars in the Middle East specifically (so the Right tells us) that we don't have to fight "them" at home. What if these rightwing nutjobs are wrong? What if their perpetual war actually ensures that the bad guys have every reason to bring their war to us? Tough questions, tough times.
We did, however, institute a joint US-Canada air defence command, NORAD, to monitor the aerial approaches to our countries and maintain a fighter deterrent to potential aggressors. The focus was mainly on the bomber threat from the former Soviet Union. We deployed a sophisticated, conventional force to meet a somewhat less sophisticated, conventional threat. Well, what about the unconventional?
The Brookings Institute is examining the risk to the North American homeland from attack by unmanned, aerial vehicles, UAVs or drones. The point is no place is out of reach when "..a 77-year-old blind man from Canada designed an unmanned system that in 2003 hopped the Atlantic from Newfoundland to Ireland."
America has gone heavily into drone technology and its potential rivals and its enemies have been watching. Today, two-thirds of military expenditures on drones and drone technology is coming from countries other than the US.
Anyone with the money and a moderate amount of skill can acquire, assemble and launch an intercontinental drone from components freely available on the marketplace. And, as the Brookings report showed, drones can be devilishly hard to track, much less down. They're relatively stealthy and fighter jets have great trouble flying slowly enough to gun them down.
So, here we have an emerging 21st century threat to North American security with an enormously high-tech but potentially ineffective 20th century defence. We know that we're vulnerable, the bad guys know that we're vulnerable and, now, you know it too. It's conceivable that even Peter MacKay and Stephen Harper have finally clued into it ...but then again.
The question is what are we going to do about it? That the threat is real is beyond question. If the bad guys want to hit hard at Main Street, USA, drones are a far better option than highjacking airliners to fly into buildings. These can deliver real WMDs and they don't even have to succeed. The psychological blow is struck as soon as the public learns somebody actually launched one of these drones that could have caused widespread devastation, because, once it's happened the only question on peoples' minds will be when the next one will be launched, the one that will actually get through?
We've spent a lifetime, my lifetime at least, taking war to other peoples' backyards. In fact we're currently waging protracted but ineffective wars in the Middle East specifically (so the Right tells us) that we don't have to fight "them" at home. What if these rightwing nutjobs are wrong? What if their perpetual war actually ensures that the bad guys have every reason to bring their war to us? Tough questions, tough times.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Third Time... Lucky? Or Why Does Stephen Harper Hate Theresa Fraser?
It seems the Harper government can't wait to see Theresa Fraser in the cold, cold ground.
The poor 77-year old from, get this, Garden of Eden, Nova Scotia, has twice been given up for dead by the feds in just the past five months. The government Scrooged Mrs. Fraser the first time in November when she drove into town to do some Christmas shopping. She went to the bank to get out some of her pension money only to find the cupboard bare. The insanely cruel Harper government had stopped depositing her cheques when another Theresa Fraser of Pictou County died.
The bank teller helped Mrs. Fraser get the Canada Revenue Agency sorted out, but not for long. Last week she received a letter addressed to the "estate of Theresa Fraser" demanding return of the $94 GST cheque they had mailed to her in January.
Mrs. Fraser hopes to get this mess sorted out before the Feds are right.
The poor 77-year old from, get this, Garden of Eden, Nova Scotia, has twice been given up for dead by the feds in just the past five months. The government Scrooged Mrs. Fraser the first time in November when she drove into town to do some Christmas shopping. She went to the bank to get out some of her pension money only to find the cupboard bare. The insanely cruel Harper government had stopped depositing her cheques when another Theresa Fraser of Pictou County died.
The bank teller helped Mrs. Fraser get the Canada Revenue Agency sorted out, but not for long. Last week she received a letter addressed to the "estate of Theresa Fraser" demanding return of the $94 GST cheque they had mailed to her in January.
Mrs. Fraser hopes to get this mess sorted out before the Feds are right.
Flakoboucci
Flak. Today, it's a mildly perjorative term for those who toil at "public relations" which is, itself, a highly flattering title for what are often little more than rank dissemblers, obscurers and spin meisters who seek not to 'relate' to the public but to mislead, confuse and manipulate the public. The name itself comes from the German Fliegerabwehrkanone or anti-aircraft cannon that barraged Allied bombers in an attempt to rattle their crews and make them miss their mark.
We're told that the already hyper-secretive Harper regime is not going to allow Parliament to see its documents pertaining to the handling and subsequent treatment of Afghan detainees but, instead, is going to have ex-judge Frank Iacoboucci review them so that he can opine on what MPs may and may not see. Judge Frank has been given guidelines with more than generous wiggle room for him to pass judgment on these documents.
How do we know Judge Frank will be more jurist than flak in this job? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen? Why, I guess that would be Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay, wouldn't it? And isn't that precisely the problem that brought us here?
The opposition needs to dig in on this one but I can't see them willing to risk facing an election over a few tortured Afghans. No, I think they'll use it to make a bit of noise before scampering back into their dark corners. Brace yourselves kids, we may be in for the full Flakoboucci.
We're told that the already hyper-secretive Harper regime is not going to allow Parliament to see its documents pertaining to the handling and subsequent treatment of Afghan detainees but, instead, is going to have ex-judge Frank Iacoboucci review them so that he can opine on what MPs may and may not see. Judge Frank has been given guidelines with more than generous wiggle room for him to pass judgment on these documents.
How do we know Judge Frank will be more jurist than flak in this job? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchmen? Why, I guess that would be Stephen Harper and Peter MacKay, wouldn't it? And isn't that precisely the problem that brought us here?
The opposition needs to dig in on this one but I can't see them willing to risk facing an election over a few tortured Afghans. No, I think they'll use it to make a bit of noise before scampering back into their dark corners. Brace yourselves kids, we may be in for the full Flakoboucci.
Just Plane Screwy
The Federal Court of Canada has ruled that flight attendants can refuse to fly with a pilot they deem suicidally depressed.
Fair enough.
In August, 2008, four Air Canada cabin crew refused to fly to Paris with a pilot who, on the previous trip, had talked about flying his aircraft into the Atlantic. Air Canada was so concerned that it rounded up replacements and the flight proceeded from Toronto to Paris.
Wait a minute.
Shouldn't Air Canada have handled this just a bit differently? Shouldn't the airline have also found a replacement pilot at least until the situation could be looked into? Maybe the captain was just fine but, when four crew members are willing to risk their jobs over it, shouldn't Air Canada have done just a little more for the passengers and changed pilots?
Just sayin.
Fair enough.
In August, 2008, four Air Canada cabin crew refused to fly to Paris with a pilot who, on the previous trip, had talked about flying his aircraft into the Atlantic. Air Canada was so concerned that it rounded up replacements and the flight proceeded from Toronto to Paris.
Wait a minute.
Shouldn't Air Canada have handled this just a bit differently? Shouldn't the airline have also found a replacement pilot at least until the situation could be looked into? Maybe the captain was just fine but, when four crew members are willing to risk their jobs over it, shouldn't Air Canada have done just a little more for the passengers and changed pilots?
Just sayin.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Bravo for the Bloc
BQ MP Francine Lalonde has shown the sort of courage we could use a lot more of in the opposition ranks. She's introduced a private member's bill to amend the Criminal Code and legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide in Canada.
Lalonde, who has herself battled cancer on and off in recent years, is morally and ethically right on this one. From the Toronto Star:
"Helping someone to die gently and without pain, can we call this murder? Many would say 'no.' And that's what I say," said Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l'Île).
"People who are going through a painful terminal phase, we should not refuse them the right to die with dignity.
She said her bill would allow terminally ill patients to "decide for themselves the time of death."
Ms. Lalonde provoked the expected outrage from Conservatives, especially the hysterical social cons like my MP, James Lunney. "Contrary to her intentions, this bill will allow doctors to provide a patient with a lethal injection, making many Canadians vulnerable to premature death," said Conservative MP James Lunney (Nanaimo-Alberni).
This "slippery slope" argument is utter nonsense and Lunney could and should know that. He lives just a few hundred miles north of Oregon which introduced its own assisted suicide legislation several years back. Anyone interested in this would do well to explore Oregon's experience.
In Oregon, terminally ill residents diagnosed with less than six months to live can apply for their programme. This is followed by counselling and interviews with independent physicians. If the applicant meets the criteria and satisfies the physicians there is a waiting period and a subsequent review. Only after that is the individual given a prescription for life-ending drugs.
The patient is given the prescription, that's it. They can have it filled or simply leave it unfilled. As it turns out, only a small percentage get it filled and fewer yet take the drugs. And that's the point, make no mistake about this.
What Oregon's programme does is alleviate the fear of the terminally ill that they may experience absolutely intolerable pain in the process of dying. This programme effectively targets the fear of an anguished death. It is about providing assurance and comfort to those facing the end. That's why most don't take the drugs. They only wanted them to ease their fears.
What kind of animal would refuse that ease of mind to the terminally ill?
Lalonde, who has herself battled cancer on and off in recent years, is morally and ethically right on this one. From the Toronto Star:
"Helping someone to die gently and without pain, can we call this murder? Many would say 'no.' And that's what I say," said Lalonde (La Pointe-de-l'Île).
"People who are going through a painful terminal phase, we should not refuse them the right to die with dignity.
She said her bill would allow terminally ill patients to "decide for themselves the time of death."
Ms. Lalonde provoked the expected outrage from Conservatives, especially the hysterical social cons like my MP, James Lunney. "Contrary to her intentions, this bill will allow doctors to provide a patient with a lethal injection, making many Canadians vulnerable to premature death," said Conservative MP James Lunney (Nanaimo-Alberni).
This "slippery slope" argument is utter nonsense and Lunney could and should know that. He lives just a few hundred miles north of Oregon which introduced its own assisted suicide legislation several years back. Anyone interested in this would do well to explore Oregon's experience.
In Oregon, terminally ill residents diagnosed with less than six months to live can apply for their programme. This is followed by counselling and interviews with independent physicians. If the applicant meets the criteria and satisfies the physicians there is a waiting period and a subsequent review. Only after that is the individual given a prescription for life-ending drugs.
The patient is given the prescription, that's it. They can have it filled or simply leave it unfilled. As it turns out, only a small percentage get it filled and fewer yet take the drugs. And that's the point, make no mistake about this.
What Oregon's programme does is alleviate the fear of the terminally ill that they may experience absolutely intolerable pain in the process of dying. This programme effectively targets the fear of an anguished death. It is about providing assurance and comfort to those facing the end. That's why most don't take the drugs. They only wanted them to ease their fears.
What kind of animal would refuse that ease of mind to the terminally ill?
The Rank Hypocrisy of the Right Makes Even the American Enterprise Institute Puke
It's not easy to get something as far right as the American Enterprise Institute to turn on its own but congressional Republicans and their backers in America's delusional rightwing media did just that.
Norm Ornstein, writing in AEI's Enterprise Blog tears a strip off congressional Republicans, the Wall Street Journal, and all the Republican hacks that infest America's TV and radio outlets:
...I can’t recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news. It reached a ridiculous level of misinformation and disinformation over the use of reconciliation, and now threatens to top that level over the projected use of a self-executing rule by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times, and was no stranger to the concept of “deem and pass.” That strategy, then decried by the House Democrats who are now using it, and now being called unconstitutional by WSJ editorialists, was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld). Dreier used it for a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that his fellow GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration. I don’t like self-executing rules by either party—I prefer the “regular order”—so I am not going to say this is a great idea by the Democrats. But even so—is there no shame anymore?
Norm Ornstein, writing in AEI's Enterprise Blog tears a strip off congressional Republicans, the Wall Street Journal, and all the Republican hacks that infest America's TV and radio outlets:
...I can’t recall a level of feigned indignation nearly as great as what we are seeing now from congressional Republicans and their acolytes at the Wall Street Journal, and on blogs, talk radio, and cable news. It reached a ridiculous level of misinformation and disinformation over the use of reconciliation, and now threatens to top that level over the projected use of a self-executing rule by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In the last Congress that Republicans controlled, from 2005 to 2006, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier used the self-executing rule more than 35 times, and was no stranger to the concept of “deem and pass.” That strategy, then decried by the House Democrats who are now using it, and now being called unconstitutional by WSJ editorialists, was defended by House Republicans in court (and upheld). Dreier used it for a $40 billion deficit reduction package so that his fellow GOPers could avoid an embarrassing vote on immigration. I don’t like self-executing rules by either party—I prefer the “regular order”—so I am not going to say this is a great idea by the Democrats. But even so—is there no shame anymore?
Saturday, March 13, 2010
A "Must Read" for the Liberal Right
Canadian liberalism seems to have lost its way in the Liberal Party's quiet drift to the right under Michael Ignatieff. The Liberal leader is unquestionably well-educated yet he regularly demonstrates the limited value of intellect alone.
Michael's Gumby-like character that seems capable of stretching in any direction on any issue at any moment should be enough to give all Liberals real cause for concern. It points to a serious character flaw, the sort of failing that allows a person to endorse illegal war of conquest before repudiating it or to condone torture before rejecting it or to pre-absolve Israel for its war crimes in Gaza. A person who vacillates so easily, so repeatedly and to such extremes is mere chaff blowing in the wind. You cannot find vision in beliefs anchored to the briefest moments in time.
I don't think the Liberals have much hope of regaining their former prominence until the party returns to the centre-left. And, until it does, I think Canada will be much the worse for it. We will pay a real price, in the medium and long-term, if we don't even our own keel. One point demanding Liberal intervention is the growing wealth gap between rich and poor in Canada.
To those on the right end of the Liberal spectrum I invite you to read "The Spirit Level" by two prominent British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. In Spirit Level, Wilkinson and Pickett bring the scientific approach of epidemiology to bear on the issue of income inequality, the gap between rich and poor, and its effects on modern Western society.
The authors digest half a century of data from the industrialized democracies of Europe, North America and Asia and similar data from each of the United States. The nations and the states are ranked from least to most-inequal and against that are charted their respective performance on everything from mental health, drug use, physical health and life expectancy, obesity, educational performance, teen births, violence, imprisonment and punishment and social mobility. Whether it's a comparison of individual states or of various nations, the results are consistent. Societies with the greatest income inequality always have the poorest performance records. As wealth gap narrows, performance improves. As it widens, conditions worsen.
What's most impressive about Spirit Level is the depth of the research and the manner in which the authors foresee and pre-empt rebuttals about causation, ethnicity and historical influences. They examine and dispose of each of these at length relying not on professional opinion as much as half a century of observation and study.
The lesson of this book is that income inequality results in societal dysfunction. The authors show that this isn't merely a blight on society's poor but also has profoundly negative impacts on all social stratas save for the narrowest at the top. The likewise show that measures to curb income inequality benefit almost all social segments proportionally.
Why I feel it urgent that Liberals open their eyes to the realities of Spirit Level is that it reveals we are closely and perhaps inseparably intertwined with the most dysfunctional society in the developed world, the United States of America. Despite Barack Obama's grand promise of change, the U.S. continues to trend very negatively on income equality and the social ills that it spawns.
A dysfunctional society is a weak society. It is a vulnerable society. Weak or failing societies and enormous social upheaval are expected to be the hallmarks of the 21st century. Even the Pentagon and the CIA have warned this is our future whether we acknowledge it or not. Canada needs a strong, healthy and resilient society even if the United States sees the situation differently. Liberals need to embrace these lessons and realize that Canada and Canadian society may pay dearly for acquiescing to the current drift to the right. Getting back to an even keel isn't going to be easy. It's going to take a leader with resolve and vision and principle.
Michael's Gumby-like character that seems capable of stretching in any direction on any issue at any moment should be enough to give all Liberals real cause for concern. It points to a serious character flaw, the sort of failing that allows a person to endorse illegal war of conquest before repudiating it or to condone torture before rejecting it or to pre-absolve Israel for its war crimes in Gaza. A person who vacillates so easily, so repeatedly and to such extremes is mere chaff blowing in the wind. You cannot find vision in beliefs anchored to the briefest moments in time.
I don't think the Liberals have much hope of regaining their former prominence until the party returns to the centre-left. And, until it does, I think Canada will be much the worse for it. We will pay a real price, in the medium and long-term, if we don't even our own keel. One point demanding Liberal intervention is the growing wealth gap between rich and poor in Canada.
To those on the right end of the Liberal spectrum I invite you to read "The Spirit Level" by two prominent British epidemiologists, Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett. In Spirit Level, Wilkinson and Pickett bring the scientific approach of epidemiology to bear on the issue of income inequality, the gap between rich and poor, and its effects on modern Western society.
The authors digest half a century of data from the industrialized democracies of Europe, North America and Asia and similar data from each of the United States. The nations and the states are ranked from least to most-inequal and against that are charted their respective performance on everything from mental health, drug use, physical health and life expectancy, obesity, educational performance, teen births, violence, imprisonment and punishment and social mobility. Whether it's a comparison of individual states or of various nations, the results are consistent. Societies with the greatest income inequality always have the poorest performance records. As wealth gap narrows, performance improves. As it widens, conditions worsen.
What's most impressive about Spirit Level is the depth of the research and the manner in which the authors foresee and pre-empt rebuttals about causation, ethnicity and historical influences. They examine and dispose of each of these at length relying not on professional opinion as much as half a century of observation and study.
The lesson of this book is that income inequality results in societal dysfunction. The authors show that this isn't merely a blight on society's poor but also has profoundly negative impacts on all social stratas save for the narrowest at the top. The likewise show that measures to curb income inequality benefit almost all social segments proportionally.
Why I feel it urgent that Liberals open their eyes to the realities of Spirit Level is that it reveals we are closely and perhaps inseparably intertwined with the most dysfunctional society in the developed world, the United States of America. Despite Barack Obama's grand promise of change, the U.S. continues to trend very negatively on income equality and the social ills that it spawns.
A dysfunctional society is a weak society. It is a vulnerable society. Weak or failing societies and enormous social upheaval are expected to be the hallmarks of the 21st century. Even the Pentagon and the CIA have warned this is our future whether we acknowledge it or not. Canada needs a strong, healthy and resilient society even if the United States sees the situation differently. Liberals need to embrace these lessons and realize that Canada and Canadian society may pay dearly for acquiescing to the current drift to the right. Getting back to an even keel isn't going to be easy. It's going to take a leader with resolve and vision and principle.
How We Lose Afghanistan
Afghanistan today is really little more than an unresolved civil war in hiatus. We have interceded between the main protagonists, the Northern Alliance warlords, and the Taliban. In the process we have handed over the levers of power to the brutal, corrupt and treacherous warlords of the Northern Alliance while we stepped into their shoes to give battle to the Taliban.
While the warlords have certainly entrenched their cancerous hold on Afghanistan, we have fought a half-hearted, short-sighted war against the Taliban that has seen the 'bad guys' return as an insurgency that morphed into a full-blown rebellion, holding or controlling territory that is supposed to belong to the regime in Kabul.
If we believed we actually had a chance at defeating the Taliban that's what we'd be doing. But we know - and they know - we're not going to defeat them and so, in a war where there is no Option "B", we've decided to go with Option "B" and seek to bring "the Taliban" into a power-sharing arrangement with their Northern Alliance brethren.
As I said at the outset, there is no Option "B" and there never will be. Option "B" is at best a fantasy, at worst a dangerous delusion. Option "B" presumes the existance of a valid central government onto which we can graft the Taliban. Afghanistan has no valid central government, merely a "criminal enterprise" based on a nexus of a corrupt administration and a narco-economy undermined by warlordism and tribalism. We can't even get that to stand up on its own much less graft something else onto it.
Option "B" also presumes we can somehow get these disparate groups to set aside their rivalries and join to form a harmonious, marginally democratic government that will be compatible with our own geo-political interests in that region. We want a proxy state and nothing less. We want a pro-Western Iraq to the west of and a pro-Western Afghanistan to the east of Iran. We want a fortress with which we can contain not merely Iran but also the energy hungry appetites of China and Russia. We want it all.
We want the unreliable Karzai out. He knows it. He knows that Britain and the United States are going behind his back to erode his support among Afghan leaders. We know it. He knows it. Iran knows it. China knows it and Pakistan knows it. Iran and China are moving vigorously to consolidate their positions in Afghanistan. Pakistan wants in too, especially as Karzai has tested the winds and knows there is much to be gained by dumping Islamabad's rival, India, in favour of an Afghan-Pakistan alliance. Iran, China and even Pakistan may have a great deal to gain by backing Karzai, particuarly if that drives a deep wedge between Kabul and Washington and London.
They know our Achilles' Heel - time. Time is not on our side. We can't sustain public support for the Afghan war much longer. The longer Karzai and his backers can dig in their heels, the weaker becomes our hand. We need momentum, they need only inertia.
This might be an ideal moment to fall back on our own default option when dealing with an intractible puppet regime - a military coup. Unfortunately in our eight years of warfighting in Afghanistan we've failed to build an Afghan army capable of taking control of the place.
If nothing else, Afghanistan will have been a terrible expensive object lesson. It has taught us that overwhelming military firepower is no cure all for lousy political leadership.
While the warlords have certainly entrenched their cancerous hold on Afghanistan, we have fought a half-hearted, short-sighted war against the Taliban that has seen the 'bad guys' return as an insurgency that morphed into a full-blown rebellion, holding or controlling territory that is supposed to belong to the regime in Kabul.
If we believed we actually had a chance at defeating the Taliban that's what we'd be doing. But we know - and they know - we're not going to defeat them and so, in a war where there is no Option "B", we've decided to go with Option "B" and seek to bring "the Taliban" into a power-sharing arrangement with their Northern Alliance brethren.
As I said at the outset, there is no Option "B" and there never will be. Option "B" is at best a fantasy, at worst a dangerous delusion. Option "B" presumes the existance of a valid central government onto which we can graft the Taliban. Afghanistan has no valid central government, merely a "criminal enterprise" based on a nexus of a corrupt administration and a narco-economy undermined by warlordism and tribalism. We can't even get that to stand up on its own much less graft something else onto it.
Option "B" also presumes we can somehow get these disparate groups to set aside their rivalries and join to form a harmonious, marginally democratic government that will be compatible with our own geo-political interests in that region. We want a proxy state and nothing less. We want a pro-Western Iraq to the west of and a pro-Western Afghanistan to the east of Iran. We want a fortress with which we can contain not merely Iran but also the energy hungry appetites of China and Russia. We want it all.
We want the unreliable Karzai out. He knows it. He knows that Britain and the United States are going behind his back to erode his support among Afghan leaders. We know it. He knows it. Iran knows it. China knows it and Pakistan knows it. Iran and China are moving vigorously to consolidate their positions in Afghanistan. Pakistan wants in too, especially as Karzai has tested the winds and knows there is much to be gained by dumping Islamabad's rival, India, in favour of an Afghan-Pakistan alliance. Iran, China and even Pakistan may have a great deal to gain by backing Karzai, particuarly if that drives a deep wedge between Kabul and Washington and London.
They know our Achilles' Heel - time. Time is not on our side. We can't sustain public support for the Afghan war much longer. The longer Karzai and his backers can dig in their heels, the weaker becomes our hand. We need momentum, they need only inertia.
This might be an ideal moment to fall back on our own default option when dealing with an intractible puppet regime - a military coup. Unfortunately in our eight years of warfighting in Afghanistan we've failed to build an Afghan army capable of taking control of the place.
If nothing else, Afghanistan will have been a terrible expensive object lesson. It has taught us that overwhelming military firepower is no cure all for lousy political leadership.
Global Warming - Looking At Denialists
Those who "get " the science of global warming now call the naysayers "denialists" or "deniers." They, naturally, cloak themselves in a mantle they ill-deserve, "skeptics." They're skeptical, not readily taken in, not gullible, not weak-minded like the global warming crowd and that dreadful IPCC.
A letter written to the folks at realclimate.org has put the real nature of the denialists in a clear and refreshing light:
"...there are plenty of ill-considered opinions to be found either side of any issue, but only the most ignorant person could fail to see the terrible intellectual gulf between the quality of so-called skeptic sites and those defending the science behind the AGW thesis."
And so the point is driven home. There is legitimacy in true skepticism, an authenticity of approach and process, that the denialists reject. Yet they seek to wrap themselves in a legitimacy they themselves don't respect much less uphold.
My friend Scruffy Dan regularly engages the denialist crowd in his posts, rather graciously taking apart their shallow, brittle arguments one by one. Recently one commenter upheld two leading denialist figureheads. Dan pointed out that these two advanced arguments that were not merely inconsistent, but contradictory. He noted that the denialist community is full of 'experts' who regularly run afoul of each other's theories. The denialist replied that didn't make the slightest difference. I couldn't help but interject that when there were 20-people in a room, each with a different reality, we used to call that an asylum.
A letter written to the folks at realclimate.org has put the real nature of the denialists in a clear and refreshing light:
"...there are plenty of ill-considered opinions to be found either side of any issue, but only the most ignorant person could fail to see the terrible intellectual gulf between the quality of so-called skeptic sites and those defending the science behind the AGW thesis."
And so the point is driven home. There is legitimacy in true skepticism, an authenticity of approach and process, that the denialists reject. Yet they seek to wrap themselves in a legitimacy they themselves don't respect much less uphold.
My friend Scruffy Dan regularly engages the denialist crowd in his posts, rather graciously taking apart their shallow, brittle arguments one by one. Recently one commenter upheld two leading denialist figureheads. Dan pointed out that these two advanced arguments that were not merely inconsistent, but contradictory. He noted that the denialist community is full of 'experts' who regularly run afoul of each other's theories. The denialist replied that didn't make the slightest difference. I couldn't help but interject that when there were 20-people in a room, each with a different reality, we used to call that an asylum.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
Cut It Out, You're Scaring the Driver!
I swear, I promise never again to use the metaphor about 'throwing somebody under the bus.' We've all gotta stop, please?
Put yourself in the shoes of the humble bus driver. Imagine. All you ever read about is people throwing other people under your bus. In other words, you're being used - apparently constantly used - as a freebie executioner. I can't understand how a driver could even look underneath his bus. Every little muffled thump, every bump, you'd be wondering if you just ran somebody over.
There was a time we used to throw people off a cliff or throw them to the wolves or toss them to the lions. My point is there are options. And I'm sure with a little creativity we can come up with no end of new things to throw people to or under or off.
But, please, let's lay off bus drivers - at least for a while. Please?
Put yourself in the shoes of the humble bus driver. Imagine. All you ever read about is people throwing other people under your bus. In other words, you're being used - apparently constantly used - as a freebie executioner. I can't understand how a driver could even look underneath his bus. Every little muffled thump, every bump, you'd be wondering if you just ran somebody over.
There was a time we used to throw people off a cliff or throw them to the wolves or toss them to the lions. My point is there are options. And I'm sure with a little creativity we can come up with no end of new things to throw people to or under or off.
But, please, let's lay off bus drivers - at least for a while. Please?
Maybe the RCMP?
When opposition parties of the past thought the government of the day was up to no good, they would meet with the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and ask the force to investigate. Harper even used the tactic with a compliant (and subsequently disgraced) Commissioner in order to successfully skew an election his way.
So, why don't Iggy and Layton and Duceppe hop OC Transpo to Alta Vista for a sitdown with the current Commissioner?
Oh dear!
That would mean sitting down with the RCMP's first civilian commish, a veteran Tory fixer and lifelong bureaucrat, Harper appointee, Bill Elliott.
"Hey Bill, think you might have a look at this and see if Harper or MacKay or Hillier should be chucked into the Greybar Hotel?"
Okay kids, this one's for the lawn furniture, what do you think are the chances that would get anywhere?
So, why don't Iggy and Layton and Duceppe hop OC Transpo to Alta Vista for a sitdown with the current Commissioner?
Oh dear!
That would mean sitting down with the RCMP's first civilian commish, a veteran Tory fixer and lifelong bureaucrat, Harper appointee, Bill Elliott.
"Hey Bill, think you might have a look at this and see if Harper or MacKay or Hillier should be chucked into the Greybar Hotel?"
Okay kids, this one's for the lawn furniture, what do you think are the chances that would get anywhere?
Saturday, March 06, 2010
Dear Judge Iacabucci - Sorry To See It End This Way
Dear Frank:
You're old enough that you'll be familiar with the line about getting your tits caught in the wringer. Well Frank that's the sort of predicament you've gotten yourself into right now.
You've got another highly esteemed legal mind, international credentials and everything, who has seen the same documents you're going to be reviewing. For all we know he's got copies of them. It seems the guys who are using you screwed up royally and let the smoking guns out long ago on a Freedom of Information enquiry.
Worse still, Frank, this esteemed legal mind has made accusations that take these documents right out of the 'national security' discussion and into the realm of criminal coverup. This guy, Ottawa U law professor Amir Attaran, says you'll be reading documents that make plain that the government was knowingly complicit in torture of Afghan detainees. Attaran says you're going to read that we handed detainees over to Afghan torturers so they could wring intelligence out of them.
And, Frank, the instant you read that and realize what it means, you're going to have to ask yourself if you've been set up to participate in a conspiracy to conceal war crimes. At that point all this 'national security' bullshit becomes just that - bullshit, neck deep.
You know Harper has no legal right to withhold these documents from Parliament. You know it's an abuse of the Canadian constitution to do that. You also know that if Harper had any genuine belief otherwise, he'd be arguing his point before real judges, the folks sitting just a block away, not an ex-judge.
Once you see evidence of a conspiracy to conceal war crimes, you're right between the rock and the hard place. Professor Attaran has given you a gentle reminder that Harper has let these documents slip through his fingers already. At this point you're being set up as Harper's political shill, his beard. You're not to determine fine points of national security and you're not even being asked to deal with the constitution. You're a prop and that's it, a public relations gimmick for the 30% of Canadians who haven't clued in to what a petty tyrant we have running this country.
You've had an impressive career Frank. You built a fine reputation. Too bad you're willing to let Harper throw all that off a cliff to save his political skin.
You're old enough that you'll be familiar with the line about getting your tits caught in the wringer. Well Frank that's the sort of predicament you've gotten yourself into right now.
You've got another highly esteemed legal mind, international credentials and everything, who has seen the same documents you're going to be reviewing. For all we know he's got copies of them. It seems the guys who are using you screwed up royally and let the smoking guns out long ago on a Freedom of Information enquiry.
Worse still, Frank, this esteemed legal mind has made accusations that take these documents right out of the 'national security' discussion and into the realm of criminal coverup. This guy, Ottawa U law professor Amir Attaran, says you'll be reading documents that make plain that the government was knowingly complicit in torture of Afghan detainees. Attaran says you're going to read that we handed detainees over to Afghan torturers so they could wring intelligence out of them.
And, Frank, the instant you read that and realize what it means, you're going to have to ask yourself if you've been set up to participate in a conspiracy to conceal war crimes. At that point all this 'national security' bullshit becomes just that - bullshit, neck deep.
You know Harper has no legal right to withhold these documents from Parliament. You know it's an abuse of the Canadian constitution to do that. You also know that if Harper had any genuine belief otherwise, he'd be arguing his point before real judges, the folks sitting just a block away, not an ex-judge.
Once you see evidence of a conspiracy to conceal war crimes, you're right between the rock and the hard place. Professor Attaran has given you a gentle reminder that Harper has let these documents slip through his fingers already. At this point you're being set up as Harper's political shill, his beard. You're not to determine fine points of national security and you're not even being asked to deal with the constitution. You're a prop and that's it, a public relations gimmick for the 30% of Canadians who haven't clued in to what a petty tyrant we have running this country.
You've had an impressive career Frank. You built a fine reputation. Too bad you're willing to let Harper throw all that off a cliff to save his political skin.
A Shot Across Iacabucci's Bow?
Ottawa University law professor Amir Attaran may have thrown a wrench into the gears of Harper's determined, perhaps desperate efforts to conceal documents pertaining to torture of detainees captured by Canadian forces and handed over to Afghan captors.
Professor Attaran claims he's seen the documents and they're unequivocal. He maintains they show detainees were handed to the Afghans for what Michael Ignatieff politely refers to as 'enhanced interrogation' in order to extract intelligence from them.
There are some fascinating dimensions to Attaran's gambit. He says the documents exist. He says they show a deliberate policy of torture. In other words, Professor Attaran is telling the public that retired Justice Frank Iacabucci will be receiving unredacted documents that plainly show we had a policy of using Afghan government thugs to torture detainees to extract intelligence.
But wait, there's more!
What's also implicit in Attaran's statement is that we did this, we duly recorded the fact and that information was conveyed through channels to Ottawa. People in Ottawa knew and that means they'll be accountable for their actions once they knew. Who would that be? Almost certainly it would include senior officers at the Defence Department and, unless they're willing to throw themselves on their swords, the knowledge trail would likely skip right over the Laurier Bridge to Parliament Hill.
But wait, there's even more!
How did a law professor come to see these unredacted documents when the Harper regime has them so securely under lock and key? The most likely explanation is that someone inside thought they needed to be leaked and was willing to risk the consequences to prevent them from being buried. Who, what, when? I would expect professor Attaran has already had his first sit down with the RCMP. We know that Harper doesn't like upstarts telling the public the truth he doesn't want them to hear.
And, you guessed it - even more.
Now most of you kids are probably too wet behind the ears to recall a guy named Daniel Ellsberg and what became known as the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg was a Pentagon analyst who leaked rafts of documents showing that the Pentagon knew Vietnam was unwinnable. That was quite the scandal. The American newspapers had a field day with that. The point is, once this sort of stuff is leaked, the genie is forever out of the bottle.
I'm guessing that Attaran was shown these documents by someone of conscience unwilling to let them be buried. That suggests the documents Harper is struggling so fiercely to bury have already fled the coop and may be circulating in public.
My bet is that Amir Attaran has fired a shot across Justice Iacabucci's bow. He's just told Frank Iacabucci and Stephen Harper and all those safely-retired generals that they've lost control of these documents and, if they don't release them, someone else just might. And, if Attaran's accounts of what's in these documents is right, that kids may be game, set and match.
Professor Attaran claims he's seen the documents and they're unequivocal. He maintains they show detainees were handed to the Afghans for what Michael Ignatieff politely refers to as 'enhanced interrogation' in order to extract intelligence from them.
There are some fascinating dimensions to Attaran's gambit. He says the documents exist. He says they show a deliberate policy of torture. In other words, Professor Attaran is telling the public that retired Justice Frank Iacabucci will be receiving unredacted documents that plainly show we had a policy of using Afghan government thugs to torture detainees to extract intelligence.
But wait, there's more!
What's also implicit in Attaran's statement is that we did this, we duly recorded the fact and that information was conveyed through channels to Ottawa. People in Ottawa knew and that means they'll be accountable for their actions once they knew. Who would that be? Almost certainly it would include senior officers at the Defence Department and, unless they're willing to throw themselves on their swords, the knowledge trail would likely skip right over the Laurier Bridge to Parliament Hill.
But wait, there's even more!
How did a law professor come to see these unredacted documents when the Harper regime has them so securely under lock and key? The most likely explanation is that someone inside thought they needed to be leaked and was willing to risk the consequences to prevent them from being buried. Who, what, when? I would expect professor Attaran has already had his first sit down with the RCMP. We know that Harper doesn't like upstarts telling the public the truth he doesn't want them to hear.
And, you guessed it - even more.
Now most of you kids are probably too wet behind the ears to recall a guy named Daniel Ellsberg and what became known as the Pentagon Papers. Ellsberg was a Pentagon analyst who leaked rafts of documents showing that the Pentagon knew Vietnam was unwinnable. That was quite the scandal. The American newspapers had a field day with that. The point is, once this sort of stuff is leaked, the genie is forever out of the bottle.
I'm guessing that Attaran was shown these documents by someone of conscience unwilling to let them be buried. That suggests the documents Harper is struggling so fiercely to bury have already fled the coop and may be circulating in public.
My bet is that Amir Attaran has fired a shot across Justice Iacabucci's bow. He's just told Frank Iacabucci and Stephen Harper and all those safely-retired generals that they've lost control of these documents and, if they don't release them, someone else just might. And, if Attaran's accounts of what's in these documents is right, that kids may be game, set and match.
If Frank Iacabucci was supposed to be Stephen Harper's beard, he just got trimmed.
Friday, March 05, 2010
Is There A Smoking Gun on Afghan Torture Waiting for Iacabucci?
According to an Ottawa University law professor the documents to be laid out before retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Iacabucci reveal Canadian officials handed over Afghan detainees to torturers for the specific purpose of gaining intelligence.
Professor Amir Attaran has told CBC News that he's read the unredacted documents the Harper government is hiding: "If these documents were released [in full], what they will show is that Canada partnered deliberately with the torturers in Afghanistan for the interrogation of detainees," he said.
"There would be a question of rendition and a question of war crimes on the part of certain Canadian officials. That's what's in these documents, and that's why the government is covering up as hard as it can."
If professor Attaran is right and if these documents become public, either by being released by Iacabucci or through back channels, it's foreseeable that the chain of command of culpability could reach straight up to the upper echelons of the Defence Department and into the Harper cabinet as well.
In the United States this would be brushed off as all but completely irrelevant but isn't that mentality part of what has brought that once great country low? If professor Attaran is right, if these documents contain what he says he's read with his own eyes, then it'll be our turn to confront government criminality. Will we stand against it? Will we refuse to tolerate it? Will we demand that wrongdoers in high office be punished? Or will we follow the example of the American people, shrug and avert our eyes to it?
How we, the Canadian people, respond to this may define the kind of people we'll be and the Canada we'll have for decades to come. Let's hope that we appreciate what we may be coming up against.
Professor Amir Attaran has told CBC News that he's read the unredacted documents the Harper government is hiding: "If these documents were released [in full], what they will show is that Canada partnered deliberately with the torturers in Afghanistan for the interrogation of detainees," he said.
"There would be a question of rendition and a question of war crimes on the part of certain Canadian officials. That's what's in these documents, and that's why the government is covering up as hard as it can."
If professor Attaran is right and if these documents become public, either by being released by Iacabucci or through back channels, it's foreseeable that the chain of command of culpability could reach straight up to the upper echelons of the Defence Department and into the Harper cabinet as well.
In the United States this would be brushed off as all but completely irrelevant but isn't that mentality part of what has brought that once great country low? If professor Attaran is right, if these documents contain what he says he's read with his own eyes, then it'll be our turn to confront government criminality. Will we stand against it? Will we refuse to tolerate it? Will we demand that wrongdoers in high office be punished? Or will we follow the example of the American people, shrug and avert our eyes to it?
How we, the Canadian people, respond to this may define the kind of people we'll be and the Canada we'll have for decades to come. Let's hope that we appreciate what we may be coming up against.
Thursday, March 04, 2010
What Kind of Moron Does It Take to Support Republicans? Ask the Republicans
How does the Republican Party see the rank and file, small donors to their cause? Well, thanks to an internal, 72-page GOP document carelessly allowed to fall into Democratic hands, now we know. From Politico:
"The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading 'Visceral Giving.' Their motivations are listed as 'fear;' 'Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;' and 'Reactionary.'" That's right, the Republicans know their real party faithful. They ought to. They spent the entire dark years of the Bush regime making the American people fearful, preying on their vulnerabilities. Now fear drives the flow of cash into their coffers. And, yes, the Repugs know their nearest and dearest are indeed reactionary. They're knee-jerk rednecks, just the way the Grand Old Party likes'em.
Does anybody think that bottom feeder that passes for our prime monster is any better than his Republican, American Idols? Inculcating fear, anger and bigotry is their very stock in trade.
Reactionary people are stupid. They don't think, they react. You feed them the right stimulus, a heaping helping of fear, or appeal to their base bigotry and out pops their chequebooks.
The Republicans, having been caught with their pants down, are running for cover just as fast as their little paws can carry them. And that, kids, is why these far-rightwingers are assholes.
"The small donors who are the targets of direct marketing are described under the heading 'Visceral Giving.' Their motivations are listed as 'fear;' 'Extreme negative feelings toward existing Administration;' and 'Reactionary.'" That's right, the Republicans know their real party faithful. They ought to. They spent the entire dark years of the Bush regime making the American people fearful, preying on their vulnerabilities. Now fear drives the flow of cash into their coffers. And, yes, the Repugs know their nearest and dearest are indeed reactionary. They're knee-jerk rednecks, just the way the Grand Old Party likes'em.
Does anybody think that bottom feeder that passes for our prime monster is any better than his Republican, American Idols? Inculcating fear, anger and bigotry is their very stock in trade.
Reactionary people are stupid. They don't think, they react. You feed them the right stimulus, a heaping helping of fear, or appeal to their base bigotry and out pops their chequebooks.
The Republicans, having been caught with their pants down, are running for cover just as fast as their little paws can carry them. And that, kids, is why these far-rightwingers are assholes.
Lenny Quits the House That Dad Built
Will the last Asper to leave please turn out the lights? Lenny Asper has called it quits at CanWest having steered the company straight onto the rocks and into the arms of moonraker creditors. For a good while, Lenny had transformed CanWest into a public relations arm of his favourite causes, notably Israel and Canada's right wing. Years ago The Globe's Lawrence Martin wrote that CanWest, particularly the National Post, operated as the Conservative's party organ and was so far right it should be "delivered in a holster."
When you're pushing ideology talent is not at a premium, a fact borne out by the gaggle of second-rate hacks the likes of Terrence Corcoran, Kelley McParland, Jonathan Kay and visiting scribbler Lorne "the grunter" Gunter who practically oozed across the CanWest newsprint. These guys weren't journalists as much as side show barkers, carnies. Their output was lame but, worse, it was predictable and ultimately boring. As the headliners of The National Spot, it's not difficult to see why the paper was a monumental money loser. It was in the wrong country. That sort of trash actually has a strong market south of our border but not here.
CanWest's broadcasting arm is gone. G-lowball is lost to the Aspers forever. The papers are up on the block with bidding to close this Friday. Creditors hope the papers will fetch more than the .95-billion dollars they're owed. Failing that they're expected to bundle them up into a new chain and take the whole thing public. Hard to see how well that will work. I'd bet it's just as likely they'll wind up having to flog them piecemeal with bidders paying good money for the wheat and fire sale prices for the chaff.
When you're pushing ideology talent is not at a premium, a fact borne out by the gaggle of second-rate hacks the likes of Terrence Corcoran, Kelley McParland, Jonathan Kay and visiting scribbler Lorne "the grunter" Gunter who practically oozed across the CanWest newsprint. These guys weren't journalists as much as side show barkers, carnies. Their output was lame but, worse, it was predictable and ultimately boring. As the headliners of The National Spot, it's not difficult to see why the paper was a monumental money loser. It was in the wrong country. That sort of trash actually has a strong market south of our border but not here.
CanWest's broadcasting arm is gone. G-lowball is lost to the Aspers forever. The papers are up on the block with bidding to close this Friday. Creditors hope the papers will fetch more than the .95-billion dollars they're owed. Failing that they're expected to bundle them up into a new chain and take the whole thing public. Hard to see how well that will work. I'd bet it's just as likely they'll wind up having to flog them piecemeal with bidders paying good money for the wheat and fire sale prices for the chaff.
Tuesday, March 02, 2010
Afghanistan Failing Right On Schedule
Did someone give Karzai a handbook on how a failing state is supposed to lose to an insurgency?
The latest dictate out of Kabul: a ban on news coverage showing Taliban attacks. Effective immediately, journalists may film only the aftermath of attacks and, even then, only if they have first obtained the permission of Karzai's spy agency, the NDS National Directorate of Security.
An agency spokesman said that live coverage does not benefit the government and only helps the Taliban.
This sounds like something the late Saigon governments would have been perfectly happy with.
The latest dictate out of Kabul: a ban on news coverage showing Taliban attacks. Effective immediately, journalists may film only the aftermath of attacks and, even then, only if they have first obtained the permission of Karzai's spy agency, the NDS National Directorate of Security.
An agency spokesman said that live coverage does not benefit the government and only helps the Taliban.
This sounds like something the late Saigon governments would have been perfectly happy with.
Monday, March 01, 2010
McClatchey Newspapers Compares Vancouver Games to Hitler's '36 Berlin Olympics
This from today's McClatchey news:
After a spirited torch relay ignited pride in every corner of the country, the Olympic Games began and quickly galvanized the nation.
Flags were everywhere. The country's national symbol hung from windows and was worn on nearly everyone's clothing.
Fervent crowds cheered every victory by the host nation.
But enough about the 1936 Berlin Olympics
...for the most part, the most underappreciated soul at these Olympics was an American or a European on the medals stand.
Yes, every host nation cheers lustily for its native Olympians. But never in my experience to the extent that we saw here, where the rest of the world's athletes were little more than drink coasters at the party.
South Korean Kim Yu-Na's dazzling gold-medal performance in women's figure skating, for example, was overwhelmed here by the attention given to Quebec's Joannie Rochette, whose mother tragically died.
...Team Canada hockey jerseys became the uniform of the streets. Maple leafs were either hanging or on clothing everywhere.
One thing I never saw: a simple flag or shirt with the five Olympic rings. Not anywhere. After 15 Olympics, that was a first.
I didn't attend the '36 Olympics, but I've seen the pictures. Swastikas everywhere.
...An Olympic host is supposed to welcome the world. This one was too busy being (their word) "patriotic."
"Now you know us, eh?" chief organizer Furlong said.
We thought we did two weeks ago. Now, I'm wondering if Canadians can even recognize themselves.
Nice party. But so 1936.
Cute references coming from a hack from the first Western country to illegally attack and conquer another nation since the Soviets took Czechoslovakia. Typical fucking American bullshit. Typical fucking American.
By the way, this Hitler guy. Isn't he the one who lied his ass off to find an excuse to invade another country? Hmm.
After a spirited torch relay ignited pride in every corner of the country, the Olympic Games began and quickly galvanized the nation.
Flags were everywhere. The country's national symbol hung from windows and was worn on nearly everyone's clothing.
Fervent crowds cheered every victory by the host nation.
But enough about the 1936 Berlin Olympics
...for the most part, the most underappreciated soul at these Olympics was an American or a European on the medals stand.
Yes, every host nation cheers lustily for its native Olympians. But never in my experience to the extent that we saw here, where the rest of the world's athletes were little more than drink coasters at the party.
South Korean Kim Yu-Na's dazzling gold-medal performance in women's figure skating, for example, was overwhelmed here by the attention given to Quebec's Joannie Rochette, whose mother tragically died.
...Team Canada hockey jerseys became the uniform of the streets. Maple leafs were either hanging or on clothing everywhere.
One thing I never saw: a simple flag or shirt with the five Olympic rings. Not anywhere. After 15 Olympics, that was a first.
I didn't attend the '36 Olympics, but I've seen the pictures. Swastikas everywhere.
...An Olympic host is supposed to welcome the world. This one was too busy being (their word) "patriotic."
"Now you know us, eh?" chief organizer Furlong said.
We thought we did two weeks ago. Now, I'm wondering if Canadians can even recognize themselves.
Nice party. But so 1936.
Cute references coming from a hack from the first Western country to illegally attack and conquer another nation since the Soviets took Czechoslovakia. Typical fucking American bullshit. Typical fucking American.
By the way, this Hitler guy. Isn't he the one who lied his ass off to find an excuse to invade another country? Hmm.
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Never Underestimate the Power of the Padlocked Mind
The state government of Utah has overwhelmingly condemned climate science as "alarmist" and disputed any scientific theory of global warming. According to The Guardian, the Utah legislature so readily embraces the inbred that it counts among its ranks the likes of a representative who links climate science to abortion:
...the representative Mike Noel said environmentalists were part of a vast conspiracy to destroy the American way of life and control world population through forced sterilisation and abortion
.
By the time the final version of the bill came to a vote, cooler heats apparently prevailed. The bill dropped the word "conspiracy", and described climate science as "questionable" rather than "flawed".
However, it insisted – against all evidence – that the hockey stick graph of changing temperatures was discredited. It also called on the federal government's Environmental Protection Agency to order an immediate halt in its moves to regulate greenhouse gas emissions "until a full and independent investigation of climate data and global warming science can be substantiated".
As Noel explained: "Sometimes ... we need to have the courage to do nothing."
I can snicker and guffaw about cretins like state representative Noel but those of you 40 and under had better listen up. People just like this guy could create all sorts of problems for you in another couple of decades. If you want to write off this guy and those like him as harmless buffoons, you may regret it.
Yes, global warming, is a "theory" in the sense that gravity and evolution are likewise just theories. If you want a really fascinating yet far less conclusive theory, there aren't many better than the concept of time. Several years ago I heard an interview on CBC Radio with a US Navy commander who was the head of the atomic clock at the Naval Observatory (from whence we all get our time today). This guy said he had to accept "time" as barely more than a theory. He just knew too much about it. Global warming, however, is far more certain than the theory of time and far closer to gravity and evolution. We have to be hardcore stupid to dismiss all this science as "theory."
BTW: If you want a powerful and compelling response to the far right's "Climategate" scam, read this: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/ipcc-errors-facts-and-spin/ Read that and you may just come away with a new perspective on living in the same world with these denialists.
...the representative Mike Noel said environmentalists were part of a vast conspiracy to destroy the American way of life and control world population through forced sterilisation and abortion
.
By the time the final version of the bill came to a vote, cooler heats apparently prevailed. The bill dropped the word "conspiracy", and described climate science as "questionable" rather than "flawed".
However, it insisted – against all evidence – that the hockey stick graph of changing temperatures was discredited. It also called on the federal government's Environmental Protection Agency to order an immediate halt in its moves to regulate greenhouse gas emissions "until a full and independent investigation of climate data and global warming science can be substantiated".
As Noel explained: "Sometimes ... we need to have the courage to do nothing."
I can snicker and guffaw about cretins like state representative Noel but those of you 40 and under had better listen up. People just like this guy could create all sorts of problems for you in another couple of decades. If you want to write off this guy and those like him as harmless buffoons, you may regret it.
Yes, global warming, is a "theory" in the sense that gravity and evolution are likewise just theories. If you want a really fascinating yet far less conclusive theory, there aren't many better than the concept of time. Several years ago I heard an interview on CBC Radio with a US Navy commander who was the head of the atomic clock at the Naval Observatory (from whence we all get our time today). This guy said he had to accept "time" as barely more than a theory. He just knew too much about it. Global warming, however, is far more certain than the theory of time and far closer to gravity and evolution. We have to be hardcore stupid to dismiss all this science as "theory."
BTW: If you want a powerful and compelling response to the far right's "Climategate" scam, read this: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2010/02/ipcc-errors-facts-and-spin/ Read that and you may just come away with a new perspective on living in the same world with these denialists.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Forget Civil Discourse -
David Gergen hit the nail on the head some time ago when he noted that, in today's Right, Richard Nixon would be seen as a Leftie. In several respects Nixon was far more successful than his successor, Ronnie Reagan, even though Reagan never got the opportunity to slaughter as many foreign civilians as RMN. But modern Republicanism has drifted so far to the extreme or lunatic right that the several progressive measures Nixon took would be angrily, furiously denounced.
We have our own little neo-Republican movement here in Canada. In fact it's been the government for the past four years. It doesn't look all that much like its American Idol but, rest assured, that's only because it understands the obvious - that it would be turfed out on its pulpy backside if it pushed its social conservative agenda while still a minority.
One of the first rules of war is that you have to realize when you come under attack. If you don't know you're being attacked then you're not going to fight back and you're pretty much easy meat. The American working public, the wage earners, have been on the losing side in a class war that has been conducted against them since the Reagan era. These three decades have seen the undoing of America's Social Compact. Governments - federal, state, local - have been starved into bankruptcy; workers' payroll tax contributions intended to fund their Social Security have been stolen, misappropriated by the very government that now portrays the contributors as greedy bums; basic infrastructure that always was the lifeblood of America's economy has fallen into ruin; despite impressive increases in productivity, wages have either stagnated or fallen; the nation has switched from a production economy to a consumption economy dependent on a succession of bubbles to craft the illusion of prosperity; and their nation has witnessed a massive transfer of wealth from the blue and white collar classes to the very wealthiest. On each and every one of these battlefields, the wage-earning public has been slaughtered.
The Christian Right has made hay while the Republican sun shines and their latest stunt, the Manhattan Declaration, reveals how easily they transform the religion of love into a cult of hate. From AlterNet:
Religious right leaders are making a concerted push to gain thousands of new signatures for their "Manhattan Declaration," a manifesto released late last year by about 150 conservative Christian leaders. The document, signed by such religious-right heavy-hitters as Focus on the Family eminence James Dobson and Prison Fellowship Ministries leader Chuck Colson, compares pro-choice advocates to eugenicists (and implicitly to Nazis) and equates same-sex marriage with polygamy and a gateway to legalized incest. Its authors promise to defy any law that does not comport with their religious beliefs. Joining the religious right's Protestant leaders as signatories to the declaration are four Roman Catholic bishops, including those presiding over the powerful archdioceses of New York and Washington, DC.
Supporters of legal access to abortion and supporters of physician-assisted suicide are described in the 4,700-word manifesto as "those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled." The declaration goes on to link reproductive rights and death-with-dignity advocates with the early-20th-century eugenicists whose notions fueled the murderous Nazi ideology of genetic purity. From the declaration:
...Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben ("life unworthy of life") were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of "liberty," "autonomy," and "choice."
In other words, the declaration suggests the only difference between Nazi master-race theorists and today's pro-choice and death-with-dignity advocates is rhetorical.
Similar respect is accorded to same-sex couples and those who support them. The declaration never mentions same-sex relationships without pairing them with polyamorous relationships or incest, a fact reflected in the headline of an Associated Press story (as it appears on Edge, an LGBT Web site) about the declaration: "Evangelicals, Catholics: Gay Marriage Paves the Way to Incest." That, along with the well-documented anti-gay histories of many signers, makes it hard to take seriously the document's assertion that it is "love (not ‘animus') and prudent concern for the common good (not ‘prejudice')" that is motivating the signers' pledge to resist and defy laws that recognize civil marriage equality.
Isn't it time we saw these people for what they are, a genuine threat to our way of life? They're not just odious radicals. They have genuine, mainstream credibility associated with an equally odious and radical mainstream political movement.
My view of these types has hardened considerably over the past few years. I no longer see them as an obnoxious annoyance. Now I see them as a genuine threat, one that must be combatted - openly and vigorously - if we are not to see that same malignancy of intolerance metastasize in our Canada. The American people may have lost their class war but there's no reason we have to do the same.
We have our own little neo-Republican movement here in Canada. In fact it's been the government for the past four years. It doesn't look all that much like its American Idol but, rest assured, that's only because it understands the obvious - that it would be turfed out on its pulpy backside if it pushed its social conservative agenda while still a minority.
One of the first rules of war is that you have to realize when you come under attack. If you don't know you're being attacked then you're not going to fight back and you're pretty much easy meat. The American working public, the wage earners, have been on the losing side in a class war that has been conducted against them since the Reagan era. These three decades have seen the undoing of America's Social Compact. Governments - federal, state, local - have been starved into bankruptcy; workers' payroll tax contributions intended to fund their Social Security have been stolen, misappropriated by the very government that now portrays the contributors as greedy bums; basic infrastructure that always was the lifeblood of America's economy has fallen into ruin; despite impressive increases in productivity, wages have either stagnated or fallen; the nation has switched from a production economy to a consumption economy dependent on a succession of bubbles to craft the illusion of prosperity; and their nation has witnessed a massive transfer of wealth from the blue and white collar classes to the very wealthiest. On each and every one of these battlefields, the wage-earning public has been slaughtered.
The Christian Right has made hay while the Republican sun shines and their latest stunt, the Manhattan Declaration, reveals how easily they transform the religion of love into a cult of hate. From AlterNet:
Religious right leaders are making a concerted push to gain thousands of new signatures for their "Manhattan Declaration," a manifesto released late last year by about 150 conservative Christian leaders. The document, signed by such religious-right heavy-hitters as Focus on the Family eminence James Dobson and Prison Fellowship Ministries leader Chuck Colson, compares pro-choice advocates to eugenicists (and implicitly to Nazis) and equates same-sex marriage with polygamy and a gateway to legalized incest. Its authors promise to defy any law that does not comport with their religious beliefs. Joining the religious right's Protestant leaders as signatories to the declaration are four Roman Catholic bishops, including those presiding over the powerful archdioceses of New York and Washington, DC.
Supporters of legal access to abortion and supporters of physician-assisted suicide are described in the 4,700-word manifesto as "those who today assert a right to kill the unborn, aged and disabled." The declaration goes on to link reproductive rights and death-with-dignity advocates with the early-20th-century eugenicists whose notions fueled the murderous Nazi ideology of genetic purity. From the declaration:
...Eugenic notions such as the doctrine of lebensunwertes Leben ("life unworthy of life") were first advanced in the 1920s by intellectuals in the elite salons of America and Europe. Long buried in ignominy after the horrors of the mid-20th century, they have returned from the grave. The only difference is that now the doctrines of the eugenicists are dressed up in the language of "liberty," "autonomy," and "choice."
In other words, the declaration suggests the only difference between Nazi master-race theorists and today's pro-choice and death-with-dignity advocates is rhetorical.
Similar respect is accorded to same-sex couples and those who support them. The declaration never mentions same-sex relationships without pairing them with polyamorous relationships or incest, a fact reflected in the headline of an Associated Press story (as it appears on Edge, an LGBT Web site) about the declaration: "Evangelicals, Catholics: Gay Marriage Paves the Way to Incest." That, along with the well-documented anti-gay histories of many signers, makes it hard to take seriously the document's assertion that it is "love (not ‘animus') and prudent concern for the common good (not ‘prejudice')" that is motivating the signers' pledge to resist and defy laws that recognize civil marriage equality.
Isn't it time we saw these people for what they are, a genuine threat to our way of life? They're not just odious radicals. They have genuine, mainstream credibility associated with an equally odious and radical mainstream political movement.
My view of these types has hardened considerably over the past few years. I no longer see them as an obnoxious annoyance. Now I see them as a genuine threat, one that must be combatted - openly and vigorously - if we are not to see that same malignancy of intolerance metastasize in our Canada. The American people may have lost their class war but there's no reason we have to do the same.
Sunday, February 07, 2010
CTV Up In Smoke
I'm betting it was a grease fire or maybe a spark in the storeroom where the make-up artists store Lloyd Robertson's supply of mortician's wax but, either way, a fire last night gutted CTV's Ottawa newsroom. Gone forever is the network's collection of commemorative Mike Duffy pizza boxes.
The Conservative Television Network bureau will stay in business, initiating an emergency plan to relocate to the ByWard Market. However prime minister Stephen Harper surprised nobody when he contacted network officials suggesting that CTV cut out the middle man and move its correspondents straight into the PMO.
The Conservative Television Network bureau will stay in business, initiating an emergency plan to relocate to the ByWard Market. However prime minister Stephen Harper surprised nobody when he contacted network officials suggesting that CTV cut out the middle man and move its correspondents straight into the PMO.
Saturday, February 06, 2010
The Limits of Western Military Power
Afghanistan is witnessing a most curious war. A war best fought quickly that has, instead, dragged on for more than eight years and could easily linger on for decades to come. A war in which we made ourselves dependent on allies who ought to have been, in normal circumstances, our logical enemies and who will, if and when it suits their interest, turn on us without the slightest qualm. A war in which we foolishly, make that stupidly, substituted firepower for manpower and, in the process, betrayed and alienated the civilian population. A war whose outcome will be decided mainly by events beyond the defined battlefield where our efforts are focused.
Now, we're told, American and ISAF forces are mustering for a massive battle to retake Marjah, said to be the last Taliban village stronghold in Helmand province. Western forces have been advertising this attack for better than a week now. They claim all the publicity is a form of psychological warfare intended to intimidate the Taliban into laying down their weapons or fleeing.
If this sounds like a curious way to defeat the Taliban, that's because it is. Then again, it seems the victory that US General Stan McChrystal is hoping to win isn't really in the village of Marjah but on Main Street, USA.
This business about intimidating the Taliban into laying down their arms is nonsense, utter garbage. When, in the course of our eight years of fighting the Taliban, have they ever laid down their arms? If they're cornered they'll fight to the death but surrender doesn't seem to be in their playbook.
Remember Operation Medusa, when Canadian and ISAF forces trapped the Taliban in Panjwai district? Remember how our generals crowed about the Taliban fighters having but two options - surrender or die? Do you remember how the Taliban showed us their own option by exfiltrating in the middle of the night, totally undetected and unmolested, straight through our iron cordon, with their weapons, to make good their escape, regroup and fight another day?
That leaves us with Option B, forcing the Taliban to flee. Now that is in their playbook. That's what they do when confronted with overwhelming force and total fire superiority. They melt away to regroup and fight again. They have to do that. They don't have any tanks or artillery or jet fighters or attack helicopters. They don't even have our numbers. But that doesn't matter to the war they're fighting. Because the element of time is on their side, not ours, escaping still gives them the tactical victory. In the war the Taliban are fighting, to simply survive is to win.
It is a sign of a war in which logic has been stood on its head that, when our forces finally do roll into Marjah and take over the place, we'll be told that's a great victory - for us. If nothing else, our side will have cleared out the Taliban, or so we'll be told. Just like we cleared the Taliban out of Panjwai during Operation Medusa until some time later when we've moved on they simply moved back in. That's because, despite the supposed "surge" of 30,000 additional troops, Western forces in Afghanistan remain less than half the strength prescribed by the American military's own counterinsurgency doctrine. That leaves them unable to effectively secure territory which is the only way to drive out the Taliban. Well, the American people were easily duped into believing that the Iraq "surge" pacified that country so for General McChrystal it's a reasonably safe bet they'll swallow the Afghan surge to boot.
Now, we're told, American and ISAF forces are mustering for a massive battle to retake Marjah, said to be the last Taliban village stronghold in Helmand province. Western forces have been advertising this attack for better than a week now. They claim all the publicity is a form of psychological warfare intended to intimidate the Taliban into laying down their weapons or fleeing.
If this sounds like a curious way to defeat the Taliban, that's because it is. Then again, it seems the victory that US General Stan McChrystal is hoping to win isn't really in the village of Marjah but on Main Street, USA.
This business about intimidating the Taliban into laying down their arms is nonsense, utter garbage. When, in the course of our eight years of fighting the Taliban, have they ever laid down their arms? If they're cornered they'll fight to the death but surrender doesn't seem to be in their playbook.
Remember Operation Medusa, when Canadian and ISAF forces trapped the Taliban in Panjwai district? Remember how our generals crowed about the Taliban fighters having but two options - surrender or die? Do you remember how the Taliban showed us their own option by exfiltrating in the middle of the night, totally undetected and unmolested, straight through our iron cordon, with their weapons, to make good their escape, regroup and fight another day?
That leaves us with Option B, forcing the Taliban to flee. Now that is in their playbook. That's what they do when confronted with overwhelming force and total fire superiority. They melt away to regroup and fight again. They have to do that. They don't have any tanks or artillery or jet fighters or attack helicopters. They don't even have our numbers. But that doesn't matter to the war they're fighting. Because the element of time is on their side, not ours, escaping still gives them the tactical victory. In the war the Taliban are fighting, to simply survive is to win.
It is a sign of a war in which logic has been stood on its head that, when our forces finally do roll into Marjah and take over the place, we'll be told that's a great victory - for us. If nothing else, our side will have cleared out the Taliban, or so we'll be told. Just like we cleared the Taliban out of Panjwai during Operation Medusa until some time later when we've moved on they simply moved back in. That's because, despite the supposed "surge" of 30,000 additional troops, Western forces in Afghanistan remain less than half the strength prescribed by the American military's own counterinsurgency doctrine. That leaves them unable to effectively secure territory which is the only way to drive out the Taliban. Well, the American people were easily duped into believing that the Iraq "surge" pacified that country so for General McChrystal it's a reasonably safe bet they'll swallow the Afghan surge to boot.
Sort of Like the Titanic - Without the Ice
We all learn something new every day. There was a time that was a good thing. Times change.
Yesterday I learned of "Arctic cyclones." I'd always thought of cyclones or hurricanes as warm-temperature events, fronts moving out of the tropics sort of things. Turns out we're now getting them up in the Arctic too.
The results of a 2008 mega-study of Arctic ice were released in Winnipeg yesterday. A team ofr 370 scientists from around the world spent 2008 up in the Arctic taking a close look at conditions and that led to a report about the "Circumpolar Flaw Lead System."
Speaking to a symposium yesterday, professor David Barber didn't pull any punches. The Arctic ecosystem, he said, is worse than we'd thought and is in fact under threat of collapse. We've known for years that Arctic sea ice is becoming a seasonal thing and is receding but we never really grasped just what that meant to the ecosystem. It does everything from releasing toxic contaminants into the sea to generating cyclones that further hasten the break up of sea ice to drawing the jet stream - and warming air - steadily further north. Marine life is being impacted by the toxins and the disappearance of the ice cap. Orca, once held at bay by the ice, are now spreading into the Arctic to prey on the once protected creatures. Lovely, just lovely.
Oh well, with a government headed by a petty tyrant with a stooge like Prentice for EnviroMin I'm sure we have nothing to worry about.
Yesterday I learned of "Arctic cyclones." I'd always thought of cyclones or hurricanes as warm-temperature events, fronts moving out of the tropics sort of things. Turns out we're now getting them up in the Arctic too.
The results of a 2008 mega-study of Arctic ice were released in Winnipeg yesterday. A team ofr 370 scientists from around the world spent 2008 up in the Arctic taking a close look at conditions and that led to a report about the "Circumpolar Flaw Lead System."
Speaking to a symposium yesterday, professor David Barber didn't pull any punches. The Arctic ecosystem, he said, is worse than we'd thought and is in fact under threat of collapse. We've known for years that Arctic sea ice is becoming a seasonal thing and is receding but we never really grasped just what that meant to the ecosystem. It does everything from releasing toxic contaminants into the sea to generating cyclones that further hasten the break up of sea ice to drawing the jet stream - and warming air - steadily further north. Marine life is being impacted by the toxins and the disappearance of the ice cap. Orca, once held at bay by the ice, are now spreading into the Arctic to prey on the once protected creatures. Lovely, just lovely.
Oh well, with a government headed by a petty tyrant with a stooge like Prentice for EnviroMin I'm sure we have nothing to worry about.
Friday, February 05, 2010
When Pelicans Come Begging
I'm getting bloody tired of climate change denialists, particuarly those shit for brains Tar Sanders. It's here, it's happening and, with the mountains of science that just keep growing, it's effectively proven. Sure there have been a couple of glitches and gaffes along the way but that's like pointing to two suspect trees in a forest. You've got two trees, the rest of us have the entire forest so, for the denialists, it's "put up or shut up" time. You've got an entire multi-trillion dollar fossil fuel industry backing you up so start producing some convincing research to disprove the global warming theory. When the best you can do is claim this is a hoax perpetrated by a global conspiracy of middle-class science geeks, then it's time you shut the hell up.
Want to see the ravages of climate change? Come out to Beautiful British Columbia. Take a leisurely drive through our expansive mountain valleys and marvel at the endless stands of forests with their rust-coloured foliage. Aren't they supposed to be green? Well, only if they're living. Once they've been killed off by the pine beetle they turn that rust colour. What's that got to do with climate change? Everything. Cold winters - the sort we used to have, always - kill off the pine beetle infestations, allowing the trees to live and, well, be green. We don't get those winters much any more and so the pine beetles spread and multiply and kill the forests. The only good part about this is that they've now crossed the mountains into Alberta, the last place on the planet where the inhabitants have any right to bitch about climate change.
Earlier this week we heard about Canada's wolverine and how their numbers are plummeting, again the suspected culprit being global warming. But this isn't about wolverine or pine forests or massive stocks of salmon that simply vanish without a trace or invasive species migrating into our coastal waters. This is about the jolly pelican (jolly, that is, unless you have to walk the same dock they use as their latrine).
The Pacific brown pelican is a magnificent bird. They're something to see when they fly in perfect formation, skimming the ocean surface in search of food. I've watched them plunge, headfirst, like giant hailstones into a placid boat harbour, feasting on a school of small fish. They've co-existed with humans on a live and let live basis. They don't seem to mind us at all when we're at a moderate distance.
Something is going on with the brown pelican. A lot of them have stopped migrating and even those that still do are showing signs of starvation. From the Los Angeles Times:
All along the Oregon coast over the last month, hundreds of brown pelicans have turned up dead, starving or begging for food.As many as 3,000 of the gangly seabirds failed to make their annual fall migration to California, many instead winding up at Oregon's rehabilitation centers.
Those that did head south, leaving the Pacific Northwest winter behind, were battered by California's recent storms. Shelters in San Pedro and the San Francisco Bay Area are also full of emaciated pelicans.
Researchers, at a loss to explain the casualties, are looking at unusual ocean currents and the depletion of fish stocks -- as well as warmer temperatures, toxic runoff and algae blooms -- as possible causes.Meanwhile, pelicans are sitting listlessly on beaches and scavenging outside restaurants and canneries.
...This is the second straight year that a large number of pelicans have remained in Oregon rather than trek to the warmer, quieter waters of California and Baja. From 1918 to 2002, the Audubon Society tallied fewer than 100 pelicans in Oregon every winter. Then the number shot up to 554 birds. In 2008, 3,647 stayed.
Three to four thousand pelicans doesn't sound like all that many but nature tends to give us huge numbers of small birds and only small numbers of really big birds.
I'm starting to think the Pacific coast ecosystem has become North America's miners' canary. Change seems to be overtaking the speed at which flora and fauna can evolve to adapt. Of course that's the real danger of global warming isn't it - not so much change itself but the speed at which change is occurring. We can't outrun it and there's your problem. With the exception of some very nasty things like viruses and noxious weeds, we haven't evolved the ability to evolve quickly or at least not quickly enough to stay a safe distance ahead of ourselves.
Want to see the ravages of climate change? Come out to Beautiful British Columbia. Take a leisurely drive through our expansive mountain valleys and marvel at the endless stands of forests with their rust-coloured foliage. Aren't they supposed to be green? Well, only if they're living. Once they've been killed off by the pine beetle they turn that rust colour. What's that got to do with climate change? Everything. Cold winters - the sort we used to have, always - kill off the pine beetle infestations, allowing the trees to live and, well, be green. We don't get those winters much any more and so the pine beetles spread and multiply and kill the forests. The only good part about this is that they've now crossed the mountains into Alberta, the last place on the planet where the inhabitants have any right to bitch about climate change.
Earlier this week we heard about Canada's wolverine and how their numbers are plummeting, again the suspected culprit being global warming. But this isn't about wolverine or pine forests or massive stocks of salmon that simply vanish without a trace or invasive species migrating into our coastal waters. This is about the jolly pelican (jolly, that is, unless you have to walk the same dock they use as their latrine).
The Pacific brown pelican is a magnificent bird. They're something to see when they fly in perfect formation, skimming the ocean surface in search of food. I've watched them plunge, headfirst, like giant hailstones into a placid boat harbour, feasting on a school of small fish. They've co-existed with humans on a live and let live basis. They don't seem to mind us at all when we're at a moderate distance.
Something is going on with the brown pelican. A lot of them have stopped migrating and even those that still do are showing signs of starvation. From the Los Angeles Times:
All along the Oregon coast over the last month, hundreds of brown pelicans have turned up dead, starving or begging for food.As many as 3,000 of the gangly seabirds failed to make their annual fall migration to California, many instead winding up at Oregon's rehabilitation centers.
Those that did head south, leaving the Pacific Northwest winter behind, were battered by California's recent storms. Shelters in San Pedro and the San Francisco Bay Area are also full of emaciated pelicans.
Researchers, at a loss to explain the casualties, are looking at unusual ocean currents and the depletion of fish stocks -- as well as warmer temperatures, toxic runoff and algae blooms -- as possible causes.Meanwhile, pelicans are sitting listlessly on beaches and scavenging outside restaurants and canneries.
...This is the second straight year that a large number of pelicans have remained in Oregon rather than trek to the warmer, quieter waters of California and Baja. From 1918 to 2002, the Audubon Society tallied fewer than 100 pelicans in Oregon every winter. Then the number shot up to 554 birds. In 2008, 3,647 stayed.
Three to four thousand pelicans doesn't sound like all that many but nature tends to give us huge numbers of small birds and only small numbers of really big birds.
I'm starting to think the Pacific coast ecosystem has become North America's miners' canary. Change seems to be overtaking the speed at which flora and fauna can evolve to adapt. Of course that's the real danger of global warming isn't it - not so much change itself but the speed at which change is occurring. We can't outrun it and there's your problem. With the exception of some very nasty things like viruses and noxious weeds, we haven't evolved the ability to evolve quickly or at least not quickly enough to stay a safe distance ahead of ourselves.
Wednesday, February 03, 2010
Don't Take Canadian Democracy for Granted
Some notable Americans are waking up to the fact that their nation's vaunted democracy is in serious and immediate peril. Canadians would do well to heed their alarm.
Corruption has become endemic in the United States, particularly within America's "bought and paid for" Congress. Whether it's Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Big Agra, corporatism has ruthlessly and relentlessly subverted American democracy. When Republican House leader John Boehner blissfully strolls the floor of the House of Representatives distributing envelopes bearing "contributions" from the tobacco industry just moments before a vote critical to Big Tobacco - and gets away with it - the writing is on the wall and it is indeed as plain as day.
When a nation runs two wars, both fought with a corporate (mercenary) presence hitherto unseen in the West and all funded with foreign borrowings and at the very same time funds tax cuts for the very rich, also paid for with foreign borrowings, this is not a government of the people, by the people, for the people. This is a government beholden to a few very powerful interest groups, the servant of an oligarchy.
Even the US Supreme Court is in on this democracy death dance. It's uber-right wing majority decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission recognizing corporations as "persons" under the First Amendment was far more anti-democratic than most people, particularly Americans, can grasp. There should have been mobs running the streets of Washington with pitchforks and torches but there was barely a whimper of protest. Indeed, after the 48-hour news cycle, the case has been all but forgotten.
Corporations can't vote but that doesn't matter much if they can use their financial muscle to swing elections their way. From here on in, reformers or even those simply trying to restore American democracy, will be swept out to sea by a tsunami of corporate influence peddling. With a voting public conditioned to always look at the "shiny thing", to believe in spectacle and rank delusion, to be driven by fear, anger and hatred powerful enough even to overwhelm self-interest, reality doesn't stand a chance.
In a nation as divided and confused as the United States the forces of corporatism don't have to win over the American people, merely a modest segment of them sufficient to swing elections. Once they've reached that modest goal, a corrupt legislature and a radicalized, ideological judiciary will do the rest. Robert Reich, UC Berkley professor, labour secretary under Clinton and author of several books including "Supercapitalism" has an interesting post entitled "Our Incredible Shrinking Democracy." Even more compelling is Chris Hedges new book, "Empire of Illusion, the End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle."
I received Empire for Christmas and immediately set to devouring its small, 215-pages. Like Hedges' earlier works, "War" and "American Fascists", it's a diminutive book, something of a lovechild between a tome and a pamphlet. Like all of his works, it's jam packed with insight.
Empire is organized into five chapters: "The Illusion of Literacy; the Illusion of Love; the Illusion of Wisdom; the Illusion of Happiness; and the Illusion of America." On this skeleton he hangs the meat and offal of delusion, distraction and deceit that have become the standard fare of the American people and their ultimate undoing. Here are a few passages excerpted from Hedges' final chapter, "The Illusion of America."
"The words 'consent of the governed' have become an empty phrase. Our textbooks on political science and economics are obsolete. Our nation has been hijacked by oligarchs, corporations, and a narrow, selfish, political, and economic elite, a small and privileged group that governs, and often steals, on behalf of moneyed interests. This elite, in the name of patriotism and democracy, in the name of all the values that were once part of the American system and defined the Protestant work ethic, has systematically destroyed our manufacturing sector, looted the treasury, corrupted our democracy, and trashed the financial system. During this plundering we remained passive, mesmerized by the enticing shadows on the wall, assured our tickets to success, prosperity, and happiness were waiting around the corner.
...The government, stripped of any real sovereignty, provides little more than technical expertise for elites and corporations that lack moral restraints and a concept of the common good. America has become a facade. It has become the greatest illusion in a culture of illusions. It represents a power and a democratic ethic it does not possess.
...The decline of American empire began long before the current economic meltdown or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It began when we shifted, in the words of the historian Charles Maier, from an 'empire of production' to an 'empire of consumption.'...We started borrowing to maintain a lifestyle we could no longer afford..
...[Columbia University professor, Seymour] Mellman coined the term 'permanent war economy' to describe the American economy. Since the end of the Second World War, the federal government has spent more than half its tax dollars on past, current, and future military operations. It is the largest single sustaining activity of the government.
Hedges quotes Einstein explaining why he was a socialist: "Private capital tends to become concentrated in a few hands partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. ...The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. ...Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed inmost cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.'"
Hedges points out that the alarm has been ringing since the era of FDR: "...Our political and economic decline took place because of a corporate drive for massive deregulation, the repeal of antitrust laws, and the country's radical transformation from a manufacturing economy to an economy of consumption. Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized this danger. He sent a message to congress on April 29, 1938. [in which] he wrote: '...the first truth is that the liberty of democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism - ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way to sustain an acceptable standard of living.'"
Canada is plainly not in the same boat as the United States. Our parliamentary democracy appears at least somewhat more resiliant than America's congressional system. For the moment at least we have some safeguards on corporate inducements and electoral meddling although they too could be dismantled quite simply on the floor of the House of Commons. Yet there are reasons for concern and these need to be addressed forcefully and rather quickly.
Harper came to power on promises of transparency and accountability and then wasted no time sacking both. We must carefully scrutinize how that happened, how that continues and what needs doing to put an end to it in all future Canadian governments. That has to end for it is a direct threat to our democracy.
Successive governments have sat by and allowed the wealth gap between rich and poor to turn cavernous. They have allowed our manufacturing base to atrophy. They have fed us nonsense about the "new economy" and outright lies about the information age even as they have failed to fund the educational system that sort of transformation requires. They fiercely cling to Industrial Revolution-era capitalism where growth is the elixir to solve all problems even as we have propelled ourselves into a world that already operates well beyond its carrying capacity. They too freely wield the power to wage wars they are powerless to end much less win.
Worst of all, they capitalize on the enormity of their failures by blaming everything on "big government" when the problem isn't size but quality. We're living with the consequences not of big government but of bad governance and those consequences are poised to grow much larger and much more dangerous very, very soon.
My fellow Liberals squander their resources and efforts on the diversion of partisanship, sniping at the Harper regime to little effect, when they ought to be focusing instead on the core failures of their own party, its lack of vision and lapsed courage. They would rather waste time we cannot afford to wait while Harper stumbles and weakens instead of making their own party stronger and more directed to the serious problems besetting our nation. They too cling to the disastrous fantasy of Canada as a petro-superpower at a time when the future of our species and our ecosystem hinge on decarbonizing our economies and our societies. Perhaps afraid of angering the Wild Rose/Big Oil cabal, we don't even press for a renewal of our manufacturing sector on alternative energy generation. That we leave to the Chinese who are now the world leader in wind turbine development and production and are positioned to also dominate the solar energy sector.
We need to recall that government, Parliament is the place of the people. It is there to serve us and our fellow Canadians first and foremost. Parliament also exists to assist industry and commerce but not in their own right, only as best befits the interests, short and long-term, of the Canadian people. Parliament doesn't exist to accommodate industry and commerce as our fellow constituents.
Like the Americans, Canadians are being harmed by a corporatized mass media that operates in thrall to the emerging oligarchs. The media, as any other institution in Canada, owes its troth to the people for, without that faithfulness, it is transformed into a instrument of manipulation. We see this in rank partisan propagandists rewarded with senate appointments. That was Canada's John Boehner moment. We urgently need to dismember the media cartel, strip newspapers of their television stations and radio frequencies, severely restrict both concentration and cross-ownership in all forms. We need to remember that the frequencies of our television and radio networks are public property, merely licensed out for a term of years to the networks. We need to hold them accountable to the public, recognizing that they have abused the remarkable freedoms we have given them.
I believe the times that are upon us and the challenges Canadians will have to meet during the 21st Century require our own "New Deal." We have to break the bonds that lash us to Industrial Revolution capitalism and move to a new, more responsive form of capitalism that is subordinate to the interests of our citizens. For the Liberal Party, now being steered to the centre-right by Ignatieff, this necessitates a move back to the centre/centre-left. The Liberal Party has to serve Canada again, not the interests of its own ruling elite. That is the only path back to not only power but genuinely good governance of the kind our country and our people so badly need.
We need to do this now if only because we may be unable to do it in twenty or thirty years from now. Our world is undergoing a grand transformation - economic, political, military and environmental - to which we're going to have to respond and adapt. These are challenges not of our choosing and no longer under our control. How well we respond to them, how ably we adapt, will depend in great measure on the strength of our governance, the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed. This is no time to take our democracy for granted. It is no time to tolerate that which subverts it.
Corruption has become endemic in the United States, particularly within America's "bought and paid for" Congress. Whether it's Big Oil, Big Coal, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, Big Agra, corporatism has ruthlessly and relentlessly subverted American democracy. When Republican House leader John Boehner blissfully strolls the floor of the House of Representatives distributing envelopes bearing "contributions" from the tobacco industry just moments before a vote critical to Big Tobacco - and gets away with it - the writing is on the wall and it is indeed as plain as day.
When a nation runs two wars, both fought with a corporate (mercenary) presence hitherto unseen in the West and all funded with foreign borrowings and at the very same time funds tax cuts for the very rich, also paid for with foreign borrowings, this is not a government of the people, by the people, for the people. This is a government beholden to a few very powerful interest groups, the servant of an oligarchy.
Even the US Supreme Court is in on this democracy death dance. It's uber-right wing majority decision in Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission recognizing corporations as "persons" under the First Amendment was far more anti-democratic than most people, particularly Americans, can grasp. There should have been mobs running the streets of Washington with pitchforks and torches but there was barely a whimper of protest. Indeed, after the 48-hour news cycle, the case has been all but forgotten.
Corporations can't vote but that doesn't matter much if they can use their financial muscle to swing elections their way. From here on in, reformers or even those simply trying to restore American democracy, will be swept out to sea by a tsunami of corporate influence peddling. With a voting public conditioned to always look at the "shiny thing", to believe in spectacle and rank delusion, to be driven by fear, anger and hatred powerful enough even to overwhelm self-interest, reality doesn't stand a chance.
In a nation as divided and confused as the United States the forces of corporatism don't have to win over the American people, merely a modest segment of them sufficient to swing elections. Once they've reached that modest goal, a corrupt legislature and a radicalized, ideological judiciary will do the rest. Robert Reich, UC Berkley professor, labour secretary under Clinton and author of several books including "Supercapitalism" has an interesting post entitled "Our Incredible Shrinking Democracy." Even more compelling is Chris Hedges new book, "Empire of Illusion, the End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle."
I received Empire for Christmas and immediately set to devouring its small, 215-pages. Like Hedges' earlier works, "War" and "American Fascists", it's a diminutive book, something of a lovechild between a tome and a pamphlet. Like all of his works, it's jam packed with insight.
Empire is organized into five chapters: "The Illusion of Literacy; the Illusion of Love; the Illusion of Wisdom; the Illusion of Happiness; and the Illusion of America." On this skeleton he hangs the meat and offal of delusion, distraction and deceit that have become the standard fare of the American people and their ultimate undoing. Here are a few passages excerpted from Hedges' final chapter, "The Illusion of America."
"The words 'consent of the governed' have become an empty phrase. Our textbooks on political science and economics are obsolete. Our nation has been hijacked by oligarchs, corporations, and a narrow, selfish, political, and economic elite, a small and privileged group that governs, and often steals, on behalf of moneyed interests. This elite, in the name of patriotism and democracy, in the name of all the values that were once part of the American system and defined the Protestant work ethic, has systematically destroyed our manufacturing sector, looted the treasury, corrupted our democracy, and trashed the financial system. During this plundering we remained passive, mesmerized by the enticing shadows on the wall, assured our tickets to success, prosperity, and happiness were waiting around the corner.
...The government, stripped of any real sovereignty, provides little more than technical expertise for elites and corporations that lack moral restraints and a concept of the common good. America has become a facade. It has become the greatest illusion in a culture of illusions. It represents a power and a democratic ethic it does not possess.
...The decline of American empire began long before the current economic meltdown or the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. It began when we shifted, in the words of the historian Charles Maier, from an 'empire of production' to an 'empire of consumption.'...We started borrowing to maintain a lifestyle we could no longer afford..
...[Columbia University professor, Seymour] Mellman coined the term 'permanent war economy' to describe the American economy. Since the end of the Second World War, the federal government has spent more than half its tax dollars on past, current, and future military operations. It is the largest single sustaining activity of the government.
Hedges quotes Einstein explaining why he was a socialist: "Private capital tends to become concentrated in a few hands partly because of competition among the capitalists, and partly because technological development and the increasing division of labor encourage the formation of larger units of production at the expense of smaller ones. ...The result of these developments is an oligarchy of private capital the enormous power of which cannot be effectively checked even by a democratically organized political society. This is true since the members of legislative bodies are selected by political parties, largely financed or otherwise influenced by private capitalists who, for all practical purposes, separate the electorate from the legislature. ...Moreover, under existing conditions, private capitalists inevitably control, directly or indirectly, the main sources of information (press, radio, education). It is thus extremely difficult, and indeed inmost cases quite impossible, for the individual citizen to come to objective conclusions and to make intelligent use of his political rights.'"
Hedges points out that the alarm has been ringing since the era of FDR: "...Our political and economic decline took place because of a corporate drive for massive deregulation, the repeal of antitrust laws, and the country's radical transformation from a manufacturing economy to an economy of consumption. Franklin Delano Roosevelt recognized this danger. He sent a message to congress on April 29, 1938. [in which] he wrote: '...the first truth is that the liberty of democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism - ownership of Government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. The second truth is that the liberty of a democracy is not safe if its business system does not provide employment and produce and distribute goods in such a way to sustain an acceptable standard of living.'"
Canada is plainly not in the same boat as the United States. Our parliamentary democracy appears at least somewhat more resiliant than America's congressional system. For the moment at least we have some safeguards on corporate inducements and electoral meddling although they too could be dismantled quite simply on the floor of the House of Commons. Yet there are reasons for concern and these need to be addressed forcefully and rather quickly.
Harper came to power on promises of transparency and accountability and then wasted no time sacking both. We must carefully scrutinize how that happened, how that continues and what needs doing to put an end to it in all future Canadian governments. That has to end for it is a direct threat to our democracy.
Successive governments have sat by and allowed the wealth gap between rich and poor to turn cavernous. They have allowed our manufacturing base to atrophy. They have fed us nonsense about the "new economy" and outright lies about the information age even as they have failed to fund the educational system that sort of transformation requires. They fiercely cling to Industrial Revolution-era capitalism where growth is the elixir to solve all problems even as we have propelled ourselves into a world that already operates well beyond its carrying capacity. They too freely wield the power to wage wars they are powerless to end much less win.
Worst of all, they capitalize on the enormity of their failures by blaming everything on "big government" when the problem isn't size but quality. We're living with the consequences not of big government but of bad governance and those consequences are poised to grow much larger and much more dangerous very, very soon.
My fellow Liberals squander their resources and efforts on the diversion of partisanship, sniping at the Harper regime to little effect, when they ought to be focusing instead on the core failures of their own party, its lack of vision and lapsed courage. They would rather waste time we cannot afford to wait while Harper stumbles and weakens instead of making their own party stronger and more directed to the serious problems besetting our nation. They too cling to the disastrous fantasy of Canada as a petro-superpower at a time when the future of our species and our ecosystem hinge on decarbonizing our economies and our societies. Perhaps afraid of angering the Wild Rose/Big Oil cabal, we don't even press for a renewal of our manufacturing sector on alternative energy generation. That we leave to the Chinese who are now the world leader in wind turbine development and production and are positioned to also dominate the solar energy sector.
We need to recall that government, Parliament is the place of the people. It is there to serve us and our fellow Canadians first and foremost. Parliament also exists to assist industry and commerce but not in their own right, only as best befits the interests, short and long-term, of the Canadian people. Parliament doesn't exist to accommodate industry and commerce as our fellow constituents.
Like the Americans, Canadians are being harmed by a corporatized mass media that operates in thrall to the emerging oligarchs. The media, as any other institution in Canada, owes its troth to the people for, without that faithfulness, it is transformed into a instrument of manipulation. We see this in rank partisan propagandists rewarded with senate appointments. That was Canada's John Boehner moment. We urgently need to dismember the media cartel, strip newspapers of their television stations and radio frequencies, severely restrict both concentration and cross-ownership in all forms. We need to remember that the frequencies of our television and radio networks are public property, merely licensed out for a term of years to the networks. We need to hold them accountable to the public, recognizing that they have abused the remarkable freedoms we have given them.
I believe the times that are upon us and the challenges Canadians will have to meet during the 21st Century require our own "New Deal." We have to break the bonds that lash us to Industrial Revolution capitalism and move to a new, more responsive form of capitalism that is subordinate to the interests of our citizens. For the Liberal Party, now being steered to the centre-right by Ignatieff, this necessitates a move back to the centre/centre-left. The Liberal Party has to serve Canada again, not the interests of its own ruling elite. That is the only path back to not only power but genuinely good governance of the kind our country and our people so badly need.
We need to do this now if only because we may be unable to do it in twenty or thirty years from now. Our world is undergoing a grand transformation - economic, political, military and environmental - to which we're going to have to respond and adapt. These are challenges not of our choosing and no longer under our control. How well we respond to them, how ably we adapt, will depend in great measure on the strength of our governance, the relationship between those who govern and those who are governed. This is no time to take our democracy for granted. It is no time to tolerate that which subverts it.
Saturday, January 09, 2010
What's That Awful Noise? It's the CanWest Death Rattle!
The long-suffering creditors of CanWest Global have pried the would-be media giant's newspapers from its control and thrown them on the block. Such is the fate of barrel-bottom, hack journalism.
The publishing garage sale features such less-than-august publications as The National Post and The Calgary Herald, the Vancouver Province, the phantom ghost Windsor Star, and the somewhat more reputable Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Ottawa Citizen and Montreal Gazette.
The creditors are hoping the lot may possibly fetch half the sum originally paid by the late Izzy Asper.
According to the rarely credible National Post, Canwest CEO Lenny Asper memoed employees telling them that the loss of the newspaper business, "...furthers a plan that will, over time, see the broadcasting and publishing groups become more independent of one another." Lenny left out the part about "the plan" being the creditors' plan to salvage what they can, not his own.
As for the other arm of the CanWest media empire, the broadcasting side, held by CanWest Media Inc., it too shelters under bankruptcy protection sought in October after defaulting on a US$30-million interest payment in March.
Unfortunately a lot of good people and their families are thrown into financial insecurity thanks to the lack of business acumen in CanWest boardrooms and journalistic integrity in CanWest newsrooms. Asper Jr. chose to make his lead papers a veritable house organ for the far right in Canada. He chose to chase a niche readership that simply could not and would not return the revenue stream he needed to keep his Ship of Fools afloat.
Throughout North America, it's tough enough these days to keep quality newspapers in business. You simply cannot build a viable media empire on third-rate rags, at least not in Canada. Take the Post for example. Reality is not always predictable. Yet as reality unfolded in its day to day chaos, the way the Post covered it was always predictable. Like any propaganda service it became infected with its own numbing consistency. It might have been at times infuriating but the real problem was that it became boring.
Maybe that should be CanWest's epitaph - "It Bored Itself to Death."
The publishing garage sale features such less-than-august publications as The National Post and The Calgary Herald, the Vancouver Province, the phantom ghost Windsor Star, and the somewhat more reputable Edmonton Journal, Vancouver Sun, Regina Leader-Post, Saskatoon StarPhoenix, Ottawa Citizen and Montreal Gazette.
The creditors are hoping the lot may possibly fetch half the sum originally paid by the late Izzy Asper.
According to the rarely credible National Post, Canwest CEO Lenny Asper memoed employees telling them that the loss of the newspaper business, "...furthers a plan that will, over time, see the broadcasting and publishing groups become more independent of one another." Lenny left out the part about "the plan" being the creditors' plan to salvage what they can, not his own.
As for the other arm of the CanWest media empire, the broadcasting side, held by CanWest Media Inc., it too shelters under bankruptcy protection sought in October after defaulting on a US$30-million interest payment in March.
Unfortunately a lot of good people and their families are thrown into financial insecurity thanks to the lack of business acumen in CanWest boardrooms and journalistic integrity in CanWest newsrooms. Asper Jr. chose to make his lead papers a veritable house organ for the far right in Canada. He chose to chase a niche readership that simply could not and would not return the revenue stream he needed to keep his Ship of Fools afloat.
Throughout North America, it's tough enough these days to keep quality newspapers in business. You simply cannot build a viable media empire on third-rate rags, at least not in Canada. Take the Post for example. Reality is not always predictable. Yet as reality unfolded in its day to day chaos, the way the Post covered it was always predictable. Like any propaganda service it became infected with its own numbing consistency. It might have been at times infuriating but the real problem was that it became boring.
Maybe that should be CanWest's epitaph - "It Bored Itself to Death."
Friday, January 08, 2010
Harper's Rotten Collaborator - Michaelle Jean
From Left to Right, domestic and international, it's the same verdict - Stephen Harper is perverting Canadian democracy.
It's easy to blame Harper. He deserves all the scathing criticism he's getting - and more. But we've always known he was a bully, an opportunist and a cheap fixer - an unprincipled hustler who will do anything he can get away with.
The person we should be taking a closer look at is the one person without whose support Harper would not have been able to undermine Canadian democracy and Canada's Parliament - the Governor General, Michaelle Jean.
It's not Stephen Harper who is padlocking Parliament, it's Michaelle Jean. She holds the keys to the locks. It's her call. Harper can't get away with this without her prior consent. To the extent he is perverting Canadian democracy, it's with Michaelle Jean's collaboration.
The Governor-General's power to prorogue Parliament is discretionary. She has to decide that it's warranted. Even if she does agree to prorogue, the Governor-General is empowered to impose conditions. Little things such as no stacking the Senate while the heat is off.
When Harper decided to prorogue Parliament in 2008, his Rideau Hall henchman saved his sorry Tory ass from certain defeat. No matter how you cut it, that was Michaelle Jean playing Tory partisan politics.
If you doubt her Excellency's partisanship, look to her New Year's gift to Canadians this year. This time Stephen Harper didn't even have to drive the few blocks over to Rideau Hall to plead his case. He simply phoned it in and she signed off as directed.
A lot of people gave Michaelle Jean an awful lot of slack the first time. Call it the benefit of the doubt times, oh, infinity. I know - she's a woman, she's black, she's an immigrant, she's from Quebec. So what? There's no reason to give her the benefit of the doubt this time. She has abused and sullied her office and she has betrayed our nation, our people and our Parliament.
Even the right-wing British magazine, The Economist, understands and denounces Stephen Harper's undemocratic machinations. If there is any lingering reason to have a Governor General, surely it's to prevent people like Stephen Harper undermining Canadian democracy.
If Michaelle Jean had a shred of decency left, she would resign in her well-earned disgrace. She doesn't and she won't and Stephen Harper must be deleriously grateful to know that his Rideau Hall stooge will soldier on, ever complacent to his will.
It's easy to blame Harper. He deserves all the scathing criticism he's getting - and more. But we've always known he was a bully, an opportunist and a cheap fixer - an unprincipled hustler who will do anything he can get away with.
The person we should be taking a closer look at is the one person without whose support Harper would not have been able to undermine Canadian democracy and Canada's Parliament - the Governor General, Michaelle Jean.
It's not Stephen Harper who is padlocking Parliament, it's Michaelle Jean. She holds the keys to the locks. It's her call. Harper can't get away with this without her prior consent. To the extent he is perverting Canadian democracy, it's with Michaelle Jean's collaboration.
The Governor-General's power to prorogue Parliament is discretionary. She has to decide that it's warranted. Even if she does agree to prorogue, the Governor-General is empowered to impose conditions. Little things such as no stacking the Senate while the heat is off.
When Harper decided to prorogue Parliament in 2008, his Rideau Hall henchman saved his sorry Tory ass from certain defeat. No matter how you cut it, that was Michaelle Jean playing Tory partisan politics.
If you doubt her Excellency's partisanship, look to her New Year's gift to Canadians this year. This time Stephen Harper didn't even have to drive the few blocks over to Rideau Hall to plead his case. He simply phoned it in and she signed off as directed.
A lot of people gave Michaelle Jean an awful lot of slack the first time. Call it the benefit of the doubt times, oh, infinity. I know - she's a woman, she's black, she's an immigrant, she's from Quebec. So what? There's no reason to give her the benefit of the doubt this time. She has abused and sullied her office and she has betrayed our nation, our people and our Parliament.
Even the right-wing British magazine, The Economist, understands and denounces Stephen Harper's undemocratic machinations. If there is any lingering reason to have a Governor General, surely it's to prevent people like Stephen Harper undermining Canadian democracy.
If Michaelle Jean had a shred of decency left, she would resign in her well-earned disgrace. She doesn't and she won't and Stephen Harper must be deleriously grateful to know that his Rideau Hall stooge will soldier on, ever complacent to his will.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)