We've Got Law of the Sea. Is It Time for Law of the River?

One of the great successes of the international community was the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea hammered out following negotiations that lasted from 1973 until 1982.

Now we are facing similar, perhaps even greater challenges with rivers and relations among the nations they pass through.   A classic case is the Nile where the upstream countries are constructing dams that could threaten Egypt's access to freshwater for irrigation needed to support the country's agriculture.

Iraq is another country facing imminent and potentially devastating problems by the interception of upstream waters of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers by Turkey and Syria.

The greatest and potentially most dangerously volatile riverine threat relates to the Himalayan headwaters of the great rivers upon which nuclear-armed Pakistan, India and China are totally dependent.   Any guesses why China invaded, conquered and insists on controlling Tibet?

Even the United States is having serious internal problems, particularly in the southwest, concerning sharing of river waters among competing states.

"More than 40 percent of the world’s people live in 263 river basins that straddle international borders. The Danube, Rhine, Congo, Nile, Niger, and Zambezi rivers all pass through nine or more countries. Transboundary rivers contain 60 percent of the world’s river flows — for two-thirds of them, there are no agreements on water sharing.

"This is dangerous. Guinea threatens to barricade the River Niger, which could dry out the inner Niger delta, a wetland jewel on the edge of the Sahara in neighboring Mali. In September, Vladimir Putin visited the mountain states of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in Central Asia, where he announced financial backing for more dams on the Amu Darya and Syr Darya rivers to generate hydropower in those countries. But he ignored opposition from downstream Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan who fear the dams will deprive them of summer flows to irrigate their cotton crops.

"Water is today the most important global resource that does not have any international agreement, says World Bank lawyer Salman M.A. Salman. Abstractions of water from rivers have tripled in the past 50 years, mostly for irrigation. The entire flows of some rivers are now being taken for human use. And the natural flows of many others are disrupted by hydroelectric dams that only allow water to pass when the dam owners want electricity.

"Back in 1997, the UN adopted the Convention on the Non-Navigable Uses of International Watercourses. It did not lay down hard and fast rules for sharing waters, but it was a statement of principle that nations should

In refusing to sign a UN treaty, China asserted its sovereignty over waterways flowing through its territory.

ensure the “sustainable and equitable use of shared rivers.”

"Only three countries voted against: China, Turkey and Burundi — all of them upstream countries on major rivers. China is the water tower of Asia. Its Tibetan plateau is the source of the Indus, Brahmaputra, Irrawaddy, Salween, and Mekong rivers. But in refusing to sign the treaty, China asserted that it had “indisputable territorial sovereignty over those parts of international watercourses that flow through its territory.”

"To come into force, the treaty required 35 nations to ratify it in their legislatures. To date only 28 countries have done so. Other refuseniks include the U.S. and Britain, an original sponsor of the treaty. But the momentum for ratification is picking up. Eight of the 28 ratifiers did so in the last three years. France has become a cheerleader for the convention.
 
"Meanwhile the treaty has a counterpart: the Helsinki convention. This began as a 1992 deal on river cooperation between European nations under the UN Economic Commission for Europe. But at a meeting in Rome set for Nov. 28-30, its members are likely to vote to allow any nation to join. Early potential signatories include Iraq and Tunisia.

"France’s Thebault says the two treaties could complement each other. For while the 1992 treaty is a statement of principle about water sharing, the Helsinki convention is “bolder,” with formal arrangements for drawing up deals.

Also on the agenda for the Rome meeting of the Helsinki Convention is the devilish problem of sharing groundwater resources.   This is a powerful issue that, barring international pressure, could prevent Israel from ever yielding the West Bank to the Palestinian people.

One of the most potentially devastating impacts of climate change is the wild alteration of our planet's hydrological cycle.   A warming atmosphere carries more water vapour, and the energy that goes with it.   That results in more storms of greater intensity and destructiveness and radically altered precipitation patterns leading to more droughts in some places and more floods in others.

This is already well progressed which means we need to talk quickly and to find an equitable way for sharing the Earth's water resources.    And, yes, that's going to mean what the radical Right loathes - the notion of treating a fundamental natural resource as a Commons.   And, yes, that could well set a precedent for treating other resources and assets as Commons.   And, yes, we may not be able to survive without it.

Aaaaah! Is This Is How Civilization Ends?

Google Maps used to be a great aid to navigate your way to destinations.   That was then, this is now.  Enter Google Indoor Maps, the app that helps you navigate shopping malls and even individual retail stores.

The holiday shopping season is upon us. Your favorite retail stores are already playing holiday tunes, promoting sales, and decking out their displays in red and green. But if flashbacks of people rushing all around you frantically trying to find gifts for everyone on their lists are giving you anxiety, fret not. This year you can use indoor Google Maps on your Android device to stay cool, calm, collected and most of all, one step ahead of the crowd.

On Black Friday and throughout this holiday season, simply zoom in to a participating store on Google Maps to devise your shopping game plan. An indoor floor plan with helpful labels will automatically appear, and the familiar “blue dot” icon will help you figure out the fastest way to the accessories department, the food court when you need to refuel, and the closest restroom or ATM when you need a break from your marathon shopping session. For many locations, you can even get indoor walking directions to find the best route from one store to the next. 

I've got an idea.   How about lithium ion battery powered roller skates slaved via Bluetooth to an Android device running Google Indoor Maps.   You just step inside the mall, cursor over to the potato chip section at Wal Mart and, voila, you're there!

Are Republicans Finally Willing to Bury Reagan?

Ronald Reagan's nearly 30-year romp, or rampage, through Republican ideology, launched by a sitting president already in the throes of early stage Alzheimer's, may be over.

Reagan was, quite possibly, the greatest and most destructive bullshitter in American presidential history.    He fed his party and most of the American people a diet of raw bullshit by the shovel full and they lapped it up and made him a demi-god for it.

The Gipper was remembered for what he said, something that meant suppressing all recollection of what he actually did.   For example, when he came to power in 1981, America was the biggest creditor nation on Earth.   When he cleared out eight years later, America had fallen so far that it stood as the biggest debtor nation on the planet.

Reagan ushered in the era of Voodoo Economics featuring the utterly deranged "trickle down" theory that held cutting taxes for the rich created wealth that flowed downward to the working classes.   Even the author of that, David Stockman, now admits it was rank bullshit from the start.   Yet it's been the marching anthem of Republicans ever since and that includes one of its grandest Poster Boys, Mitch Romney hisself.   Even today the Republican Congress is well stocked with true believers aghast at the idea that the Bush tax cuts for the rich might be allowed to lapse.

Here's a little fact that most Americans overlook.   From the end of WWII until the Carter presidency, every president, Republican and Democrat, managed to reduce America's debt as a percentage of GDP.   Every one, including Johnson and Nixon during Viet Nam.

Reagan turned that on its head, swelling America's debt to GDP ratio, something continued by Bush the Elder and Bush the Minor, until America's debt-bloated economy imploded just in time for Barack Obama to arrive to clean up.

Now, having lost five of the past six elections, moderate Republicans are girding to attempt to take back the GOP from the far right radicals and Tea Party lunatics.  The New York Times' often mealy-mouthed conservative journo, David Brooks, describes a gaggle of Paleoconservatives, Soft Libertarians, Lower-Middle Reformists and Burkean Revivalists rallying to purge the Temple of the Reagan-inspired and fueled radicals.

"By and large, these diverse writers did not grow up in the age of Reagan and are not trying to recapture it. They disdain what you might call Donor Base Republicanism. Most important, they matured intellectually within a far-reaching Web-based conversation. In contrast to many members of the conservative political-entertainment complex, they are data-driven, empirical and low-key in tone."

Oh, we can only live in hope.

Another 1,000+ Coal Plants in the Works

Actually, the number may be closer to 1,200 new coal-fueled electricity plants about three-quarters of them planned for China and India.

Coal plants are the most polluting of all power stations and the World Resources Institute (WRI) identified 1,200 coal plants in planning across 59 countries, with about three-quarters in China and India. The capacity of the new plants add up to 1,400GW to global greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of adding another China – the world's biggest emitter. India is planning 455 new plants compared to 363 in China, which is seeing a slowdown in its coal investments after a vast building programme in the past decade.

"This is definitely not in line with a safe climate scenario – it would put us on a really dangerous trajectory," said the WRI's Ailun Yang, who compiled the report, considered to be the most comprehensive in the public domain. But she said new emissions limits proposed in the US and a voluntary cap on coal use in China could begin to turn the tide. "These policies would give really strong signals about the risks to the future financial performance of coal of climate policies."

With the United States currently reeling in a petro-bacchanal  from the bounty of fracking that promises to make America the leading oil producer in the world and the emerging super-economies forging ahead with coal, it's hard to see how we're going to win this.

Money Talks? We'll See

Together they manage 22.5-trillion dollars in assets.  Collectively, they're calling for governments to implement what they term, "investment grade climate policy."

The group is calling for a dialogue between investors and governments on seven points.

1.   Identify policies that promote low-carbon investment and discourage high-carbon investment;

2.   Reinforce reliability and predictability in climate and clean energy policy;

3.    Identify steps governments can take to improve climate policies, focusing on investment in greenhouse gas emissions mitigation;

4.    Find ways to bolster the effectiveness and spread of carbon markets;

5.    Work toward stronger international agreements on emissions reductions;

6.     Focus public and private sector collaboration on deployment of private capital on climate solutions, and;

7.    Phase out subsidies for fossil fuels that remain six times greater than subsidies for alternative, clean energy.

Money talks.   Maybe.

Why the Fear?

Why do the Liberals and NDP still act as though there was something remotely controversial about anthropogenic global warming or the threat to our society from growing inequality of incomes, wealth and opportunity?

These are two enormous threats to the Canadian people, today and for generations to come, and both require progressive solutions.

As a major, per capita emitter, Canada is among the handful of nations under the greatest moral duty to act to arrest climate change.   We are full members in a select club of major emitters who have an obligation to lead the world in decarbonizing our economies and our societies.   Yet there doesn't appear to be even one of those currently in party leadership positions or vying for a leadership spot who will stand on the principle of what Canada, already a well-deserved pariah state, must do.

And then there's the social cancer that threatens to consume our middle class, inequality.   It seems to be conventional political wisdom that Canada's economy is so integrated with America's that attacking inequality is too dangerous, fraught with enormous consequences for the Canadian economy. 

Are we really doomed to fly wingman to America as it spins out of control?   In several respects America is on its way down and on its way out.   It has become the corporatist state sans pareil, the most powerful permanent warfare state perhaps since Rome and a boiling cauldron of spreading inequality and ascendant oligarchy.   Must we tie ourselves to that?   Can we not imagine something better for our people than what they would inflict on theirs?   Are we really that fearful of a better future?

There was a time when the New Democrats would be demanding these very things for the Canadian people.   There was a time when they would be standing and loudly shaming the government of the day for this sort of thing.   Now they stand mute, silenced, seeking to become what they for so long reviled.   The duct tape across their mouths is their own.

Murray Dobbins Urges New Dems to Save Their Souls

The Tyee's Murray Dobbins says the New Dems are heading in the wrong direction and only the Libs and Tories will benefit from it.  Dobbins says Mulcair has it all wrong.

A couple of polls showing the federal NDP losing support to the Liberals pose some pretty fundamental questions for the party and its small 'l' liberal leader Thomas Mulcair. Does the party follow the narrow political path of the two big business parties or does it reinvent itself as a movement party and tap into the deep dissatisfaction of Canadians about the state of politics and governance in this country?

...Thomas Mulcair and the NDP decided ...to listen to the polls showing the Liberals (read Justin "He doesn't really want the job" Trudeau) gaining ground at their expense. The result? A complete about-face on so-called "free trade" deals. Instead of highlighting three incredibly destructive investment agreements currently in the news they panicked -- ending their commitment to get out of NAFTA, calling on the WTO to re-launch global trade talks and urging Harper to sign deals with India, Brazil and South Africa.
Here was a chance for the NDP to stake out ground that distinguished them from all other parties. Mulcair (who unfortunately does support "free trade") could have used these deals (FIPA, CETA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership) to lambast their potential destructive impact on the country and argue against more such agreements. None of them have anything to do with trade -- they are all about corporate rights, just like NAFTA and the WTO. 

...That Mulcair would back off the NDP's historic position on these odious corporate rights deals demonstrates how vulnerable the party is to feeling obliged to move in the direction of being a second Liberal Party. Ironically, it is their historic 100 plus seats that has made them more cautious (reminiscent of their increased caution in 1988 when they were running second in the polls). But the more they back off from who they are, the more people will go to the real thing. And it's not mostly about policies, it's mostly about trust. Harper has managed to create a new political and government culture in which the default position of most citizens is distrust. If Mulcair wants Canadians to trust the NDP he has to take the party forward and not backward.

...The NDP's future success depends on increasing people's expectations of what is possible -- not further decreasing them.

Dobbins has nailed it on Mulcair's balding head.   Just as Ignatieff dragged the Liberals to a place where there was nothing for them, so too is Mulcair, even if he is carrying on Jack Layton's plan.   This obsessively centrist political compression is toxic for the New Democrats.   If Canadians want a liberal party, as Dobbins puts it, they'll go for the real thing, not the Layton/Mulcair Latter Day Liberals.

F-35 Enters USMC Service - Sort Of

The United States Marine Corps has accepted delivery of its very first F-35 stealth light bomber - or some of it anyway.

"The Lockheed Martin-built plane’s computerized logistical system, flight software and special helmet still aren’t ready — and it lacks weapons."

But, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, what did you think of the play?

“This aircraft will be used to conduct a full spectrum of aviation operations in support of combat missions and maritime readiness worldwide,” the Pentagon boasted about its new frontline JSF.

Sure, eventually. And only after more testing, more design changes and potentially millions of dollars in modifications each to this jet and others like it. The Marines anticipate VMFA-121 being war-ready with 16 fully equipped F-35s no earlier than 2015, a slip of one year compared to the 2011 plan. In the meantime, the squadron will oversee some pilot and ground-crew training, complementing the main instructional effort in Florida and testing in California.

BF-19 is part of the Pentagon’s Low-Rate Initial Production of the stealthy JSF, meaning it was expensive — no less than $200 million — and assembled while Lockheed and the military were still working out the plane’s precise configuration. In April the Defense Department paid Lockheed $65 million to fix identified problems on dozens of F-35s it had already manufactured, presumably including BF-19.

JSF flight testing began in 2006 but is only 25 percent complete. As such, the list of things the F-35 still doesn’t have is a long one.

Now Tell Me Why We Need to Push Bitumen on the World?

"Twenty-seven or younger? Then you’ve never experienced a month in which the global temperature has been colder than average, according to the latest data from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration."

That little bon mot courtesy of Wired.com.

Here's the dandy graphic to go with that:

In NOAA’s monthly “State of the Climate” analysis, the agency reported: “The average temperature across land and ocean surfaces during October was 14.63°C. This is 0.63°C above the 20th century average and ties with 2008 as the fifth warmest October on record. This is the 332nd consecutive month with an above-average temperature.”

This is global data, of course, and the pattern is rather more complex at a local level. In fact, the average monthly temperature in Britain in October was 1.3 degrees Celsius below average, making it the coldest October since 2003. Scotland had its coldest October since records began in 1910.

Now here's a fun game for you readers.   Why don't you subtract 27-years from your own age and remember your own life  332-months ago.   Try to visualize what you've gone through, all the things you've accomplished, over this interval while the Earth steadily warmed.

                                                 

World Bank - Says What Everybody Knows, We're in Trouble

A World Bank report released today warns the world is heading for 4C of warming this century and that means trouble for everybody but especially if you're one of the nobodies from the poorest and most vulnerable countries.

There it is, the whole report boiled down to one sentence.   Not too hard to follow, is it?   Doesn't sound like the sort of world we want for our grandkids does it?  Yet it sounds every bit like the world we're determined to bequeath them.

Certainly gives you something to think about when you're trying to pick which petro-pol should govern Canada - Mulcair, some Lib or Harper.   Fact is, when it comes to the greatest threat facing Canada and the world this century there's damned little to choose from among this lot.   They're all vying for the centre control position in our rapidly emerging, pariah petro-state.

Vote Green.

Arms Race Update - Russian Lasers in Space

The Americans spent about 16-years trying to perfect an aerial laser system capable of taking down income ballistic missiles.   Russia is now pursuing what it calls space laser counter-measures.

The Russians are after a more modest target.   Instead of a laser missile shield, their initial effort is, "making inoperable adversary space vehicles’ sensors and optical electronic systems by directed laser beam impulse."

That seems to indicate that the Russians want to target American communications, command & control and spy orbital systems.    Instead of blowing them up with anti-satellite missiles, which creates a host of problems, the Russian approach is to fry them - render them deaf, mute and blind.

Does Russia Have the Top Stealth Fighter?

We in the West are sinking fortunes into 5th Generation, stealth warplanes that are supposed to have an enormous advantage over non-stealth, 4th Generation fighters.    The idea is that our Gen V warplanes will be able to dominate enemy held and enemy defended airspace.   We're stealthy, they're not, so we'll either be able to avoid them or, if need be, shoot them out of the sky before they'll ever know we're there.   Or so the sales brochure claims.

Well, maybe not.

Sukhoi T-50

Those same, let's call them potential adversaries, ("enemies" is such a loaded word) seem willing enough to play the same game.   The Chinese have flown not one but two stealth fighters.  The Russians, in cooperation with India, are fielding the Sukhoi T-50 and it might just be better than America's F-22 Raptor and light years better than the substantially inferior F-35 Lightning we're being pressed to buy.

One Russian advantage is what [Australian analyst Dr. Carlo]Kopp calls “extreme plus agility” — a consequence of the T-50′s “advanced aerodynamic design, exceptional thrust/weight ratio performance and three dimensional thrust vectoring integrated with an advanced digital flight control system.”

The second advantage: “exceptional combat persistence, the result of an unusually large 25,000-pound internal fuel load,” Kopp writes. The T-50 could keep flying and fighting long after the F-22 and F-35 have run out of gas.

Moreover, the T-50 will dodge certain radars better than others, according to Kopp — and U.S. sensors are among the worst at detecting the T-50′s unique shape, he contends. Kopp’s breakdown of T-50 RCS by radar type shows Chinese “counter-VLO radars,” specifically designed to spot American stealth planes, detecting the T-50 best.

The next best sensors to use against the Russian fighter is the UHF radar aboard the U.S. Navy’s E-2 early-warning planes. American fighter radars, including those aboard the F-22 and F-35, are of middling effectiveness against the T-50, Kopp asserts.

Kopp says the Russian prototype still needs work, including the addition of radar absorbing materials around the engines.   America's (and our) potential adversaries, however, have already pilfered a lot of America's stealth secrets hacked via the internet and gleaned from the Lockheed RQ-170 stealth drone captured by Iran roughly this time last year.   That little treasure should give our potential adversaries most of what they need to know about the latest in radar absorbing materials and stealth electronics.

It's a bit mind-numbing trying to figure out whether Russian and Chinese stealth technology now means that the F-35, with its enormous flaws in payload, range, speed, climb rate, agility and reliability, is a waste of money or is somehow oddly essential.  We might actually be better off trying to get the T-50, not that the Russians would want to equip a charter member of America's Aerial Foreign Legion with their latest and greatest.  Oh well, oh dear.

Arms Race Update - Asia Goes for Its Guns

Why Peter MacKay believes Asia needs a substantial and permanent Canadian military presence is tough to figure out.   Does Elmer's backward boy think the Asians are somehow lacking in firepower and need Canada to top up their capacity for mayhem?

Rest easy, Pete.   The Asians have their martial needs well in hand.

Indonesia is stocking up on South Korean subs, Chinese and American radar systems.   Vietnam is filling Russia's coffers with orders for subs and jets and has bought Israeli ballistic missiles.  Gee whiz.

Singapore, like everyone else, is also investing in submarines and the latest Swedish warplanes with highly effective anti-ship missiles.

86 more subs are expected to be sailing in Asian waters by 2020, 30 of which will be Chinese.   So what exactly do they need from us, Pete?   Hell, their submarines are going to be better and newer than those old Brit hulks we're finally pressing into service.

They don't need us Pete.   If they do, they'll ask.   So why don't we wait until they can give us a convincing reason why we should be there?

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/arms-race-explodes-as-neighbours-try-to-counter-china-20121118-29k4m.html#ixzz2Cbg2EHhd

Flush with economic success and wary of China's military expansion, countries are acquiring sophisticated sea- and air-based arsenals that include dozens of submarines that can operate in secret.
The institute said Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia had increased defence budgets by 66 per cent to 82 per cent from 2002 to last year.

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Indonesia was buying submarines from South Korea and coastal radar systems from China and the US, Vietnam was getting submarines and combat jets from Russia and had acquired Israeli ballistic missiles, defence analysts said.
Vietnam's defence budget for this year is $US3.1 billion, a rise of 35 per cent over last year. The Philippines has a huge wish-list of equipment it wants from the US and is also approaching Japan, South Korea, France and Britain for defence acquisitions.
Singapore, already the fifth-largest weapons importing nation, looked like keeping its title as the region's biggest spender, allocating $US9.7 billion this year on defence, 24 per cent of its national budget. The city-state's purchases included combat jets from the US and submarines from Sweden.
Thailand was planning to buy submarines and warplanes from Sweden that would eventually be fitted with anti-ship missiles, while arms deliveries to Malaysia jumped eightfold over the five years to 2009.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/arms-race-explodes-as-neighbours-try-to-counter-china-20121118-29k4m.html#ixzz2Cbg2EHhd

Flush with economic success and wary of China's military expansion, countries are acquiring sophisticated sea- and air-based arsenals that include dozens of submarines that can operate in secret.
The institute said Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand and Cambodia had increased defence budgets by 66 per cent to 82 per cent from 2002 to last year.

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Indonesia was buying submarines from South Korea and coastal radar systems from China and the US, Vietnam was getting submarines and combat jets from Russia and had acquired Israeli ballistic missiles, defence analysts said.
Vietnam's defence budget for this year is $US3.1 billion, a rise of 35 per cent over last year. The Philippines has a huge wish-list of equipment it wants from the US and is also approaching Japan, South Korea, France and Britain for defence acquisitions.
Singapore, already the fifth-largest weapons importing nation, looked like keeping its title as the region's biggest spender, allocating $US9.7 billion this year on defence, 24 per cent of its national budget. The city-state's purchases included combat jets from the US and submarines from Sweden.
Thailand was planning to buy submarines and warplanes from Sweden that would eventually be fitted with anti-ship missiles, while arms deliveries to Malaysia jumped eightfold over the five years to 2009.


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/arms-race-explodes-as-neighbours-try-to-counter-china-20121118-29k4m.html#ixzz2Cbg2EHhd

Trouble Sleeping? This Works for Me.

There are nights when the brain just doesn't seem to want to shut down.   Just too damn many things racing around and you really can't put a finger on any one of them.

Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, I've found what seems to be a dandy solution, one that doesn't require medication.  I get into bed and then I reach over and turn on my (relatively cheap) Nexus 7 tablet and watch a TED Talk.  Somehow that seems to focus the mind, eliminates all the clutter, and leaves you with some powerful thoughts that, as you relax, carry you into sleep.

Things like this talk by Juan Enriquez, founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project, discussing the evolutionary transition that mankind is at right now, a transition that could well mean your grandkids or great-grandkids will be an organism much different than you.



You might want to try it.   Works for me.

It All Sounds Good Until They Shoot Back

It's no accident that our fondness for resorting to military violence is inversely proportional to the risk that our target might inflict the same violence on us.   Put another way, we're all for whacking people so long as they can't whack back.

How fond would Benny Netanyahu be of targeted assassinations if Hamas had the ability to retaliate in kind?

How likely would Barack Obama be to resort to drone warfare in distant lands if the other side had the ability to send manned drones into U.S. airspace?

It begs the question of how we're going to cope with a "peer" adversary, a country such as China or Russia or a bunch of them in an alliance?

Cruise missiles are great as long as they're all heading in one direction but if cruise missiles start going in both directions then you're into a new game entirely.

We've become accustomed to this monopoly on violence business, far too much so.   It won't last.   It never has and it never will.  It didn't even exist for most of my lifetime and I'm pretty sure it'll be gone before I am.

Sadly, as Andrew Bacevich chronicles in The New American Militarism, in the post Cold-War era, military force or threats of force came to supplant diplomacy as his country's principal instrument of foreign policy.   That sort of hair-trigger diplomacy has led to America's military fiascos in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It's estimated that, four years from now, when Obama leaves the White House, China's economy will surpass that of the United States.   How will America's "muscular foreign policy" (to use Ignatieff's unfortunate words) sit with this ascendant China?

These are timely questions given that Elmer's backward boy, Peter MacKay, is currently hosting his Halifax International Security Forum.   For Pete this seems to be a largely masturbaTory exercise in imagining that Canada has a serious role to play in global security on just about everything from Syria to China.

Pete spent today doting on another pile of aging gristle, the late Senator John McCain who championed the imposition of a "no fly" regime over Syria.   McCain, who said his own people are "too war weary" for another ground war, envisions surrounding Syria with American Patriot missile batteries to shoot down any Syrian government aircraft that take to the Syrian airspace.   That, of course, would mean positioning American missile batteries in Lebanon, the Golan Heights, Jordan, Iraq and Turkey.   Good luck with that, John, and thanks for playing.

Is the Pot Wall Crumbling

Voters in Washington and Colorado have passed measures to decriminalize possession of marijuana for recreational use.   Now five other states are considering introducing similar legislation.

Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine and Massachusetts are looking at legalizing pot.  So too is Ohio.

Two Mexican think tanks say the actions of Washington and Colorado voters may do more damage to Mexico's narco-cartels than the "war on drugs" ever achieved.

Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Mulgrew+Drug+dominoes+begin+topple/7555366/story.html#ixzz2CWCnOPlb

What didn’t seem remotely possible a fortnight ago suddenly seems inevitable.
Lawmakers in Rhode Island and Maine said they intend to introduce marijuana legalization bills for debate next year, politicians in Vermont and Massachusetts indicated they will, too, and Ohio may join them.
Since even homegrown smuggled from Colorado and Washington would be far cheaper than B.C. Bud or Mexican schwag, with the exception of a few border states, the Sinaloa cartel could soon lose up to half its total income from American cannabis consumers.
A Mexican think-tank says the two states may do more damage to the country’s bloodthirsty narcoterrorists than the war on drugs came close to achieving.


Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Mulgrew+Drug+dominoes+begin+topple/7555366/story.html#ixzz2CWCnOPlb

 

 

What didn’t seem remotely possible a fortnight ago suddenly seems inevitable.
Lawmakers in Rhode Island and Maine said they intend to introduce marijuana legalization bills for debate next year, politicians in Vermont and Massachusetts indicated they will, too, and Ohio may join them.
Since even homegrown smuggled from Colorado and Washington would be far cheaper than B.C. Bud or Mexican schwag, with the exception of a few border states, the Sinaloa cartel could soon lose up to half its total income from American cannabis consumers.
A Mexican think-tank says the two states may do more damage to the country’s bloodthirsty narcoterrorists than the war on drugs came close to achieving.


Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/Mulgrew+Drug+dominoes+begin+topple/7555366/story.html#ixzz2CWCnOPlb

Poor Mitt, Run Out on a Rail by Republicans

George w. Bush got the message when he left the White House - scram!   Now it's Mitt's turn to endure the Republican instant cold shoulder.   He may have just set back the cause of polygamy by a century or two.

Republicans are fleeing Mitt Romney and his comments this week attributing his loss to Barack Obama’s “gifts” for minorities and young people at such a high clip that the United Nations Refugee Agency may need to step in to regulate the flow. First to take issue with Romney’s remarks was Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, then New Mexico Gov. Susannah Martinez, and now you can add Chris Christie to the mix. On the conservative punditry side, Romney took a whack today from John Podhoretz, after already being hit by his most loyal fan of all, Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, which is a bit like being called to task by your Aunt Sally who sends you $20 every birthday and thinks none of your girlfriends was worthy of your greatness.

The Repugs remain a house deeply divided with moderate conservatives and Tea Baggers each blaming Romney's failure on the other side.

Romney hadn't had time to bid adieu to his transition team before David Frum released his E-book, "Why Romney Lost and What the GOP Can Do About It."

The Climate Change Bill Comes Due

It's reported that if the steady decline in Mississippi water levels continues for just one more month, the river will be closed to most navigation.   The Mississippi carries some 60% of America's agricultural exports and a great many other commodities also.

An official closure is unlikely, but the river could become too shallow next month for most commercial vessels to transit a busy section from St. Louis to Cairo, Illinois.

Water levels on that stretch are forecast to drop to nine feet or less by early December as drought conservation measures will reduce the flow of water from the Missouri River and its reservoir system into the Mississippi.

And the impacts of America's ongoing drought are being felt across the Heartland.

In Decatur, Illinois, agribusiness giant Archers Daniels Midland is evaluating whether water scarcity may cause it to pack up and leave.

At the height of this year's drought, decision-makers at the agribusiness giant Archers Daniels Midland kept an uneasy eye on the reservoir down the hill from their headquarters.

At one point, the water level fell to within 2 inches of the point where the company was in danger of being told for the first time ever that it couldn't draw as much as it wanted. The company uses millions of gallons of water a day to turn corn and soybeans into everything from ethanol and cattle feed to cocoa and a sweetener used in soft drinks and many other foods.

Rain eventually lifted Lake Decatur's level again. But the close call left ADM convinced that, like many Midwestern companies and the towns where they operate, it could no longer take an unrestricted water supply for granted, especially if drought becomes a more regular occurrence due to climate change or competition ramps up among water users.

...With half of Minnesota, the "Land of 10,000 Lakes," still in deep drought, the Department of Natural Resources told 50 water users, including several major ones, to stop drawing from rivers and streams in October.

They included a paper plant owned by Sappi North America and a ceiling panel factory owned by USG Corp. The companies declined to comment, but DNR officials said they expressed concern about the future of their businesses.

A Free Course in Climate Change

Germany's WBGU, climate change advisory group, is offering a 90-hour, 3-credit online course,  "World in Transition."   The course comprises 11-modules, each based on two or three lectures, plus assigned readings and an online exam that can be taken at any university.

As far as I can tell, the entire course is available for those wishing to simply audit it online.

The course addresses why we need to transition to a carbon-free global economy and the means by which we can get there if we have the will to change, in time.

Britain Still Can't Build a Decent Submarine

Canada got suckered into buying their previous disaster subs and wound up with them out of service from the get go and for years afterward.  

Now it's the Royal Navy's turn to get stuck with lousy boats.   They're the supposedly latest and greatest hunter-killer subs of the Astute class.

The latest revelations show Astute, the first of seven new submarines costing around £10billion, is unable to reach its intended top speed.

It means the sub cannot sprint to emergencies or speed from an attack.

It would also be incapable of keeping pace with the Royal Navy’s new aircraft carriers, which need the submarines to protect them.

The Astute class as a whole is now four years overdue and £2billion over budget.

...And the subs have been surrounded by controversy since first being commissioned 15 years ago.

In 2010, the first to be launched, HMS Astute, ran aground off Skye, a mishap which led to its then commander Andy Coles being dubbed Captain Calamity.

Now it has emerged that a cap on a pipe which carries seawater sprang a leak during exercises off the US.

And the vessel, which launched in 2009, has also suffered corrosion, even though it is essentially new.

Computer circuit boards have had to be moved or replaced as they did not meet safety standards.

And there has been concern over instruments monitoring the nuclear reactor because poor quality lead was used.

Concerns have even been raised about Astute’s pioneering periscope system, which does not allow officers to look at the surface “live”.

The periscope takes 360 degree images which are sent to the bridge and, according to sources, are often blurred when the sea is choppy.

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Another Window into Harper's Sleazy Guest Worker Programme

Stephen Harper's "guest worker" programme is off to a predictable start and it has his government already running for cover.

The idea was that energy companies could seek Canadian workers and, if they came up short, they could bring in foreign workers to fill those jobs at significantly lower wage rates.

A Chinese-owned coal mine in northern B.C. knew a pot of gold when it saw one and went for it.   They began by duly advertising their jobs in Canada - at rates $10-17 lower than comparable wages at nearby mines.   But they also stipulated applicants needed to speak Mandarin Chinese.   And then, when all those Manadarin-speaking Canadian miners didn't jump at the chance to get the low-wage jobs on offer, the Chinese moved to bring in 300 Chinese miners.

Well this one was just a little too blatant, even for the Harpers.  The Chinese knew how to play Chairman Harper's union-busting, fossil-fuel subsidy game but they were just too damned obvious with that Mandarin-language business.

Still, Harper government lawyers are fighting to ensure that mining unions - those that represent Canadian workers - aren't allowed standing to be heard at the court hearing now underway.   The judge doesn't appear to be buying the government's arguments, pointing out that the deal by which the feds gave the Chinese permits to bring in 300-Chinese miners was all done "behind closed doors."

Lawyers for the Crown said the unions should not be granted standing in the case.
To do so would set a precedent that would open "floodgates" for labour and interest groups to pursue reviews of government decisions.
"That would be turning the entire judicial review process on its head," Lorne Lachance, representing the federal Department of Justice, told the judge.
"Is the court to be used for fishing expeditions that go well beyond individual concerns?" asked Lachance.
"There's fish in the lake," Judge Douglas Campbell responded.
Even Human Resources Minister Diane Finley has said there may be problems in the process, the judge noted, referring to Finley's announcement last week that concerns about the Murray River mine prompted a review of the entire foreign worker program.
"We need to see the process. We need to know what HD did," Campbell said. "This was all done behind closed doors."


Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/coal-mine-looked-for-chinese-workers-at-lower-pay-union-tells-court-1.1042253#ixzz2CUyexCCt

Louisiana Wants Out. Speaking of Morans.

The South will rise again - sort of.   America's unhinged Right is breathless with excitement at a few thousand nutjobs in the slave states petitioning Washington for the right to secede from the Union.

...according to Drew Zahn of Christianity Today, Louisiana’s secession petition has more than 14,000 signatures, more than halfway to the threshold needed after which the White House has pledged to respond. Texas, is another state to join the secessionists with about 25,000 signatures.
 
According to political experts such as strategist Mike Baker, Americans are becoming disenchanted with the federal government’s lack of perspective on issues of great concern — illegal aliens, crime, economic turmoil — while intruding into the private lives of citizens with gun-control laws and other intrusions.

Louisiana wants out, really?  It's already dirt poor and can probably get by just fine without all the handouts it receives from the Blue States via Washington.   It's not only poor, it's really, truly dumb.  Here's a list of some of the stuff taught in Louisiana schools, digested by Mother Jones.


Thanks to a new law privatizing public education in Louisiana, Bible-based curriculum can now indoctrinate young, pliant minds with the good news of the Lord—all on the state taxpayers' dime.

Here are a few gems on the curriculum:


1. Dinosaurs and humans probably hung out: "Bible-believing Christians cannot accept any evolutionary interpretation. Dinosaurs and humans were definitely on the earth at the same time and may have even lived side by side within the past few thousand years."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

 2. Dragons were totally real: "[Is] it possible that a fire-breathing animal really existed? Today some scientists are saying yes. They have found large chambers in certain dinosaur skulls…The large skull chambers could have contained special chemical-producing glands. When the animal forced the chemicals out of its mouth or nose, these substances may have combined and produced fire and smoke."—Life Science, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2007

 3. "God used the Trail of Tears to bring many Indians to Christ."—America: Land That I Love, Teacher ed., A Beka Book, 1994

 4. Africa needs religion: "Africa is a continent with many needs. It is still in need of the gospel…Only about ten percent of Africans can read and write. In some areas the mission schools have been shut down by Communists who have taken over the government."—Old World History and Geography in Christian Perspective, 3rd ed., A Beka Book, 2004

 5. Slave masters were nice guys: "A few slave holders were undeniably cruel. Examples of slaves beaten to death were not common, neither were they unknown. The majority of slave holders treated their slaves well."—United States History for Christian Schools, 2nd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 1991

 6. The KKK was A-OK: "[The Ku Klux] Klan in some areas of the country tried to be a means of reform, fighting the decline in morality and using the symbol of the cross. Klan targets were bootleggers, wife-beaters, and immoral movies. In some communities it achieved a certain respectability as it worked with politicians."—United States History for Christian Schools, 3rd ed., Bob Jones University Press, 2001

7. The Great Depression wasn't as bad as the liberals made it sound: "Perhaps the best known work of propaganda to come from the Depression was John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath…Other forms of propaganda included rumors of mortgage foreclosures, mass evictions, and hunger riots and exaggerated statistics representing the number of unemployed and homeless people in America."—United States History: Heritage of Freedom, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1996

 8. SCOTUS enslaved fetuses: "Ignoring 3,500 years of Judeo-Christian civilization, religion, morality, and law, the Burger Court held that an unborn child was not a living person but rather the "property" of the mother (much like slaves were considered property in the 1857 case of Dred Scott v. Sandford)."—American Government in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1997

9. The Red Scare isn't over yet: "It is no wonder that Satan hates the family and has hurled his venom against it in the form of Communism."— American Government in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1997


10. Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson were a couple of hacks: "[Mark] Twain's outlook was both self-centered and ultimately hopeless…Twain's skepticism was clearly not the honest questioning of a seeker of truth but the deliberate defiance of a confessed rebel."—Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University, 2001

"Several of [Emily Dickinson's] poems show a presumptuous attitude concerning her eternal destiny and a veiled disrespect for authority in general. Throughout her life she viewed salvation as a gamble, not a certainty. Although she did view the Bible as a source of poetic inspiration, she never accepted it as an inerrant guide to life."—Elements of Literature for Christian Schools, Bob Jones University, 2001

11. Abstract algebra is too dang complicated: "Unlike the 'modern math' theorists, who believe that mathematics is a creation of man and thus arbitrary and relative, A Beka Book teaches that the laws of mathematics are a creation of God and thus absolute…A Beka Book provides attractive, legible, and workable traditional mathematics texts that are not burdened with modern theories such as set theory."—ABeka.com


12. Gay people "have no more claims to special rights than child molesters or rapists."—Teacher's Resource Guide to Current Events for Christian Schools, 1998-1999, Bob Jones University Press, 1998

13. "Global environmentalists have said and written enough to leave no doubt that their goal is to destroy the prosperous economies of the world's richest nations."—Economics: Work and Prosperity in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1999

14. Globalization is a precursor to rapture: "But instead of this world unification ushering in an age of prosperity and peace, as most globalists believe it will, it will be a time of unimaginable human suffering as recorded in God's Word. The Anti-christ will tightly regulate who may buy and sell."—Economics: Work and Prosperity in Christian Perspective, 2nd ed., A Beka Book, 1999 

Update - I stumbled upon a new word today, "Teavangelist."

Guest Workers - Just Another Greasy Subsidy to the Fossil Fuelers

I have been truly dismayed by the near total lack of outrage over the Harper government's policies to allow foreign energy companies to import cheap, foreign labour to extract Canadian fossil fuel resources.

No matter how much lipstick you slap on that pig, it's just another greasy subsidy to the fossil fuelers, one of so many.   In the mid- to long-term it's also a great way to drive down Canadian wages.

Whether it's 200-Chinese labourers brought in to mine coal in British Columbia or unknown numbers imported to extract bitumen from Athabasca, it's an indictment of the provincial and federal governments that permit it and the energy companies they serve.

The companies say they need to import workers because they can't get Canadians to do the work.   What they really mean is that they can't get Canadians to do the work for what the energy companies want to pay.   They don't like the law of supply and demand when it doesn't go their way.  So they moan and whine to our corporatist governments for yet another subsidy - cheap, foreign labour.

There's another way to look at this.   These companies need cheap, foreign labour because, even with all the other subsidies, paying the rates Canadians would demand for those jobs would undermine the economic viability of their production.   The margins just aren't there, especially for bitumen.   Only with negligible royalties, direct subsidies, cost deferrals and, now, guest workers can the bottom line be met.   As Richard at Canadian Trends points out, the Tar Sands are already a positive drain on the Alberta economy.   All these subsidies, guest workers included, are tricks, economic sleight of hand implemented by elected hucksters in service to the Fossil Fuelers.

Update - CTV News reports on an example in Northern B.C. of the guest worker problem.

The company advertised the jobs in Canada, as required, at rates $10-17 per hour less than jobs in nearby mines and stipulated that applicants must speak Mandarin.   The majority owner of the mine is a Chinese company and its partner appears to be a Canadian subsidiary of a Chinese company.

That's the Harper way.

A mining company that has hired hundreds of temporary workers from China for its northern B.C. coal mine advertised those jobs in Canada for $10 to $17 less than what is paid for similar work at a nearby mine, a lawyer representing two unions told a federal court judge on Friday.
HD Mining also advertised specifically for workers who speak Mandarin, Charles Gordon said in arguing for the unions' interest in taking the decision to grant those permits to court.
"Bringing in up to 300 temporary foreign workers at wage rates considerably below what has been bargained by the trade unions at an immediately adjacent mine will invariably erode the union's bargaining power, and thus its ability to negotiate better terms and conditions of employment for its members at that mine."


Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/coal-mine-looked-for-chinese-workers-at-lower-pay-union-tells-court-1.1042253#ixzz2CUpGzn9d

A mining company that has hired hundreds of temporary workers from China for its northern B.C. coal mine advertised those jobs in Canada for $10 to $17 less than what is paid for similar work at a nearby mine, a lawyer representing two unions told a federal court judge on Friday.
HD Mining also advertised specifically for workers who speak Mandarin, Charles Gordon said in arguing for the unions' interest in taking the decision to grant those permits to court.
"Bringing in up to 300 temporary foreign workers at wage rates considerably below what has been bargained by the trade unions at an immediately adjacent mine will invariably erode the union's bargaining power, and thus its ability to negotiate better terms and conditions of employment for its members at that mine."


Read more: http://www.ctvnews.ca/canada/coal-mine-looked-for-chinese-workers-at-lower-pay-union-tells-court-1.1042253#ixzz2CUpGzn9d

We Need Another Charter

We need to go beyond our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.   Conditions on the ground have changed markedly since the Trudeau government formulated what Canadians today with genuine affection call "the Charter."

What we need today is a supplemental charter prescribing the principles on which we are to be governed through this century.  We are going to need clearly stated principles to ensure the social cohesion that will determine how Canadians weather what's coming our way.

Simple things - healthcare; education; measures to redress inequality of wealth, income and opportunity - everything that contributes to a strong and broad-based middle class.

To use a popular term in vogue today, we're going to need a "pivot" to the Left.   This isn't going to be easy given how both the Liberals and the New Democrats have been shoehorned well to the Right.  It's no longer acceptable for the Libs to be Conservative-Lite.  It's no longer acceptable for the New Democrats to be Latter-Day-Libs.

The obsession with economic development has to be treated like any other addiction.   It is taking us down.   The Tar Sands?  Are you kidding?  Richard at Canadian Trends can open your eyes about how the Tar Sands are actually dragging Alberta down.   Everything he says is fact.   Alberta just buried the last leader it had that ever understood the perils and pitfalls that underlie reckless Tar Sands development.

Fossil fuels, generally, are a sub-prime asset.   The governor of the Bank of England got that warning in January from a blue-ribbon team of financiers, scientists and politicians.   Bill McKibben of 350.org echoed this in his piece, Global Warming's Terrifying New Math in Rolling Stone.   These findings are also confirmed by the IAEA.   We're in the midst of a massive fossil fuel bubble of enormous financial and environmental dimensions.   Yet, thanks to fracking of shale reserves, we're finding the means to extract ever more fossil fuels even to the point that the United States stands poised to become the biggest oil producer on Earth.   There's a terrifying "feel good" quality to this that virtually ensures America won't be giving up fossil fuels until it collapses.

We're going to have to abandon our obsession with fossil fuel superpowerdom and focus instead on the many other advantages our country affords to meet future challenges.   That fool Ignatieff once described the Tar Sands as the "beating heart of the Canadian economy for the 21st Century."   The beating heart of the Canadian economy is the Canadian people and that's where we need to invest, not in pipelines to ship sub-prime assets with a highly dubious future that could even lead to our economic and environmental ruin.

Unfortunately our governments, in their drift into corporatism, have abandoned their responsibilities to the Canadian people.   They have turned away from the unwritten social pact between the people and their government.   They'll pay lip service to it, they all do, but we need something in the nature of a charter to truly bind them to it.   Needing it is one thing, getting it is another thing altogether.   We might have to await some major social upheaval to right our country's keel.

Get Out. Now.

"We cannot pretend there is any more to do in Afghanistan."

That brief observation underlies the argument of former British Liberal Dem leader, Lord Ashdown, that it's time to pull his country's military forces out of Afghanistan, just as quickly as possible.

Calling the war in Afghanistan, "this awful mistake," Ashdown said the only reason remaining for fighting is to cover our withdrawal.

"It is not worth wasting one more life in Afghanistan. All that we can achieve has now been achieved. All that we might have achieved if we had done things differently, has been lost. The only rational policy now is to leave quickly, in good order and in the company of our allies. This is the only cause for which further lives should be risked." 

And so, it seems, we may have at last reached the moment when the invincible military force (our side) realizes it has lost the war in which it never lost a battle.  We'll be agonizingly slow to admit it, careers, after all, are at stake, but we have lost in any case.

The ongoing war in Afghanistan is what routinely happens when a conventional military force, overwhelming in both numbers and firepower, loses to insurgents.   Because they can't defeat us on the battlefield we tend to keep on blasting away at them years after the issue is decided.

Just when was the issue decided?   Several years ago, that's when.  More than two years ago the Pentagon's own oracle, the RAND Corporation conducted an analysis that concluded our war in Afghanistan was irredeemably lost.

The report, "Victory Has a Thousand Fathers,"  identified positive and negative factors that created a litmus test to assess victory or defeat by counterinsurgent, or COIN, forces (our side).   The report was prepared for the then Secretary of Defence.

When the RAND folks ran the Afghan War through their test it came out a total loss, an utter waste.   Bear in mind that the RAND report was released to the public back in the summer of 2010.  Yet here we are nearing the end of 2012, talking about getting out of Afghanistan in 2014.

Here's the thing.   How many good people have we lost, how many innocent Afghans have we killed, since mid-2010?   How many good people will we lose, how many more Afghans will we kill by the time we all leave in 2014?   I wish we had those figures because they're very important.   They represent the number of people pointlessly killed due to the self-serving refusal of our political and military leadership to accept their failure at least as far back as mid-2010.  That is unless they can come up with some plausible justification for dragging out an unwinnable war by at least four (more like seven) years.

It's not that losing the Afghan War was inevitable.  That we'll never know.   What we should know, after all we owe that much to all the dead and their families, is that we made a few horrible choices that ensured we would wind up where we are today.

It's Time to Kickstart Occupy

I've been establishment all my life.  I have served in the armed forces, I have had a pretty decent legal career, I've done just about everything from grave digging to - well, let's not go there.  I have always considered myself an establishment progressive but I don't believe that sort of thing exists any more.   Now, as I embark on my advanced years, I truly want to see the whole rotten business swept aside.   Like Chris Hedges, I don't want to wait until it's too late because that far down the road only lies really nasty extremism. 

Our last, best hope may well be with a reborn Occupy movement.  And here's a terrific anthem just for that.

The Province of Vancouver Island

There are more than a few VanIslanders wondering why we're not a province all unto ourselves.

 If Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island qualify as provinces, why not Vancouver Island?

In area, we're five times bigger than P.E.I. and four times more populous.   Prince Edward Island is the 23rd largest island in Canada.   That's it, a paltry 23rd.

Newfoundland is bigger than Vancouver Island, at least when you tack on Labrador, the 4th largest island in Canada.   But (you knew there was a "but" didn't you?) Vancouver Island's population of 638,000 is substantially greater than Newfoundland and Labrador's meagre 485,000.

In fact, VanIslanders also outnumber the populations of Nunavit, the Yukon, the Northwest Territories plus Prince Edward Island combined and we're catching up on New Brunswick.  BC's overall growth rate is more than double New Brunswick's.

So why in hell should Vancouver Island not be recognized as a Canadian province in its own right?  It's our due.

Deposing the King

I don't meet a lot of people who like Stephen Harper.   I meet a great many people who dislike Stephen Harper but nonetheless say he's doing a pretty good job as prime minister.   When pressed, they routinely say that he's "managing" the country reasonably well.

These people see Steve as a manager, an administrator, a petit fonctionnaire.    They don't embrace Steve's vision for the country.  They don't perceive that he has one.   Yet that seems to be okay to them, at least for now.   Steve's approval ratings seem to bear that out.

What happened to leadership and vision?   When did these qualities become irrelevant to the electorate?   Steve doesn't lead, he rules.  He governs almost by fiat.  His management skills seem to ape those of a mob boss.   One man rule implemented through a small network of capos supported by foot soldiers in the backbenches.

Steve's approach to parliamentary democracy also shares parallels to a mob boss's approach to the criminal justice system.   Both seek to circumvent, obscure, manipulate and undermine the systems that might otherwise thwart their ambitions. 

Here's another parallel, one that should but doesn't matter.   Mob bosses infiltrate labour unions that are supposed to serve their members and, instead, put them into service to the mob.   Steve Harper has taken a similar approach to the public service that, by its very name is supposed to serve the Canadian public, and he has transformed it into his personal partisan political agency.   In other words, both are corrupters on a grand scale.

In so many respects, Steve is a thug.   There's really no other way to describe him.   Yet, to those not already disengaged from federal politics, he's okay - at least for now.

But, when they look at Steve and his rivals, what do they see?  Probably about the same thing I see, a wall of grey characters in grey suits all trying to crowd into the middle.   Opposition?   What opposition, where, who?  They're all vying for Steve's job, not the job of leader of Canada, not the leader to energize the Canadian people.   They don't present any vision.   They don't speak to the troubles besetting our nation and our people.   They just want you to give them Steve's job.

And that is precisely what Steve is counting on, his ace in the hole.  The leadership of the opposition parties has been instrumental in Steve coming to power, holding onto power and ascending to a majority.   They have facilitated Steve's coronation.   And now they owe a duty to the Canadian people to find a way to topple the king.  It's a tricky job, full of risks.   It can't be done without courage and vision.

There's an easy way to tell who isn't up to this task.   Anyone who is more intent on playing it safe than on taking Harper down is doomed to fail.   There is no safe way to get rid of Harper.   The only one who can hope to succeed is the person who actually stands for something, who speaks of a vision that resonates with the Canadian public and who is prepared to defend that vision against the inevitable onslaught of the Harper forces.  It's a risky proposition and it's going to take a person of the calibre we see so rarely in politics.  It's going to take a real king slayer.

The Terrible Reach of Citizens United

America's advance as a true corporatist state was given a huge boost by the USSC's decision in Citizens United.   That decision launched the United States into its first $6-billion election.

Money talks and it talks loud and clear in America's "bought and paid for" Congress.   When then Republican House leader John Boehner can stroll the floor distributing tobacco lobby cheques just prior to a vote on tobacco subsidies, the situation goes far beyond lousy optics.

American business, it seems, is discovering that buying political allegiance is a game that can be played elsewhere.   Once you've got legislators in your pocket, why not add a few grateful judges to round out your stable?

Big money flowed into judicial elections this year.   Fortunately, according to justiceatstake.org American voters didn't bite, not this time.

This year’s court-related campaigns also featured interesting side-stories, including spending by super PACs, entry by the Koch brothers into judicial elections, national politicians seeking to unseat an Iowa justice, and a viral video with TV stars that helped elect a high court candidate.

“The arms race around our courts is growing worse, but voters are seeing through campaigns to make courts more political and less impartial,” said Bert Brandenburg, executive director of Justice at Stake.

The line held, this year, but the independence of America's judiciary remains in very real peril.


“Judicial elections this year were characterized by attack ads, record-breaking spending, and outsized influence by special interests,” said Alicia Bannon, Counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “As judges face increased pressure to act like politicians, the integrity of our courts is at risk.”

Political parties and independent groups dominated this year’s races, in many cases relying on secret money that does not appear in campaign finance disclosure filings. More than 50% of all TV ads came from non-candidate groups, compared with roughly 30% in 2010.

Corporatists spent big in the election and, by all appearances, weren't terribly effective.   Unfortunately there is enough at stake that they'll be back again next time, probably with different approaches.  This is a trial and error exercise.

The Moral Fragmentation of the Liberal Class

Chris Hedges lambastes liberals for selling out America in last week's elections.

The presidential election exposed the liberal class as a corpse. It fights for nothing. It stands for nothing. It is a useless appendage to the corporate state. It exists not to make possible incremental or piecemeal reform, as it originally did in a functional capitalist democracy; instead it has devolved into an instrument of personal vanity, burnishing the hollow morality of its adherents. Liberals, by voting for Barack Obama, betrayed the core values they use to define themselves—the rule of law, the safeguarding of civil liberties, the protection of unions, the preservation of social welfare programs, environmental accords, financial regulation, a defiance of unjust war and torture, and the abolition of drone wars. The liberal class clung desperately during the long nightmare of this political campaign to one or two issues, such as protecting a woman’s right to choose and gender equality, to justify its complicity in a monstrous evil. This moral fragmentation—using an isolated act of justice to define one’s self while ignoring the vast corporate assault on the nation and the ecosystem along with the pre-emptive violence of the imperial state—is moral and political capitulation. It fails to confront the evil we have become.

...The ineffectiveness of the liberal class, as I saw in the former Yugoslavia and as was true in Weimar Germany, perpetuates a dangerous political paralysis. The longer the paralysis continues, the longer systems of power are unable to address the suffering and grievances of the masses, the more the formal mechanisms of power are reviled. The liberal establishment’s inability to defy corporate power, to stand up for its supposed liberal beliefs, means its inevitable disappearance, along with the disappearance of traditional liberal values. This, as history has amply pointed out, is the road to despotism. And we are further down that road than many care to admit.

...For a poor family in Camden, N.J., impoverished residents in the abandoned coal camps in southern West Virginia, the undocumented workers that toil in our nation’s produce fields, Native Americans trapped on reservations, Palestinians, Iraqis, Afghans, those killed by drones in Pakistan, Yemen or Somalia, or those in the squalid urban slums in Africa, it makes no difference if Mitt Romney or Obama is president. And since it makes no difference to them, it makes no difference to me. I seek only to defy the powers that orchestrate and profit from their misery.

 

The oppressed, the more than half of the world’s population who survive on less than $2 a day, will be the first to be sacrificed because of our refusal to halt fossil fuel’s degradation of the natural world and the assault of globalization. They already hate us with a righteous fury. They see us for who we are. They also grasp that for power to be threatened it must be confronted by another form of power. They know that the only way to effect change is to make the powerful fear their ability to retaliate. And the oppressed, inside and outside empire, are methodically building that power. We saw it at work on 9/11. We see it every day in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we will see it, although I pray it will be nonviolent, on our own city streets.    

Has Canada Fallen Victim to Political Compression Disorder?

 A PostMedia column, "Obama's Election Victory Won't Hurt Harper," by Michael Den Tandt today struck an uncomfortable chord.

NDP leader Mulcair has proven stubbornly resistant to Conservative attempts to paint him as a wild-eyed Trotskyite, aching to pass laws mandating straw-bale houses and kelp diets. The phrase "competent, responsible public administrator" is never far from Mulcair's lips.

This is as finely calibrated as any slogan ever has been to resonate deep in the amygdala, the lizard brain, with which we choose our leaders.

As I have said before, Mulcair's Oct. 24 foray in the House of Commons on Bill C-45 was a master class in political rhetoric. Anyone who reads it will see he is avidly courting the centre - not the left and not even, particularly, the centre-left. He's after Harper's crown jewels. In this light, Mulcair's "Dutch Disease" thesis, pitting Ontario's limping manufacturing economy against Alberta's oilpatch, is the weird, discordant note. Don't be surprised to see him gently sidle away from it as the months pass.

And now there's Trudeau, also courting the "middle class," even more avidly than Mulcair.

The great risk to Harper is not that Trudeau promises to upend Conservative economic reforms; it's that he promises to uphold most of them, while offering himself as a more attractive character, with a more open, inclusive, engaging style of government.

There seems to be an incredible compression underway in Canadian politics.   Yet without the broadest political spectrum the vision essential for healthy democracy is blinded and we wind up with a black hole capable of sustaining only technocracy.

Harper is a technocrat, albeit with suppressed theocratic instincts, and those who chase after him almost certainly will follow his course.

Can Canada as we have known it survive without a strong Left and a strong Right, each pulling at the Centre?   Surely it's the vision we get from this broad and dynamic political spectrum that draws attention to the real needs and problems facing the country and our people, both today and in the future.   Submission to the political compression of centrism and technocracy, championed so effectively by Stephen Harper, causes us to overlook and bypass the problems and challenges that are coming our way.