Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
Dumb mouths, that ope' their ruby lips
The other Harperite perversity on ample display this week has been vicious, short-sighted, destructive policy petulance. The cuts to the Canada Summer Jobs program are a prime example.
Heard about this? Like the Court Challenges Program, like the Status of Women Office, like the money for museums, Canada Summer Jobs doesn't cost, in the grand scheme of things, a whole lot - it subsidizes/funds temporary positions for high school and university students in organisations that wouldn't otherwise be able to hire over ther summer. So why has $11 million been axed from its budget? Disabled little league baseball; an award-winning camp for autistic kids; daycamps in Jamestown - none of these things are apparently "worthy" enough, to quote Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg, to qualify.
While the fracas in the House is bad, this is reprehensible. Paul Wells thinks that the Conservatives are preparing a grand new human capital strategy. Well, denying young people in urban areas home to 80% of Canada's population, not to mention all of Newfoundland, summer job opportunities - and money, experience, skills development and the chance to innovate - is really such an outstandingly original way to develop a workforce, isn't it?
Harper knows that with a minority government, he can't chop away at some of the bigger strands of the social safety net. But it's open season on the small fry - and I bet you a $1.3 billion tank purchase that the Primer Minister thinks it will be easier to do away with the big stuff by softening up the victim with a thousand cuts.
Cuts, cuts, cuts. Cuts to the regulation of prime-time television commercials. Cuts to the Official Languages Plan. That holy shibboleth, tax cuts. Students, and everyone else, might want to bone up on their Classics - Canada has become like a man who goes in for a hair cut and is instead attacked with the shears. Or like Caeser stabbed in the back, by a fat man with a lean and hungry look.
Heard about this? Like the Court Challenges Program, like the Status of Women Office, like the money for museums, Canada Summer Jobs doesn't cost, in the grand scheme of things, a whole lot - it subsidizes/funds temporary positions for high school and university students in organisations that wouldn't otherwise be able to hire over ther summer. So why has $11 million been axed from its budget? Disabled little league baseball; an award-winning camp for autistic kids; daycamps in Jamestown - none of these things are apparently "worthy" enough, to quote Human Resources Minister Monte Solberg, to qualify.
While the fracas in the House is bad, this is reprehensible. Paul Wells thinks that the Conservatives are preparing a grand new human capital strategy. Well, denying young people in urban areas home to 80% of Canada's population, not to mention all of Newfoundland, summer job opportunities - and money, experience, skills development and the chance to innovate - is really such an outstandingly original way to develop a workforce, isn't it?
Harper knows that with a minority government, he can't chop away at some of the bigger strands of the social safety net. But it's open season on the small fry - and I bet you a $1.3 billion tank purchase that the Primer Minister thinks it will be easier to do away with the big stuff by softening up the victim with a thousand cuts.
Cuts, cuts, cuts. Cuts to the regulation of prime-time television commercials. Cuts to the Official Languages Plan. That holy shibboleth, tax cuts. Students, and everyone else, might want to bone up on their Classics - Canada has become like a man who goes in for a hair cut and is instead attacked with the shears. Or like Caeser stabbed in the back, by a fat man with a lean and hungry look.
The Bully Pulpit
You know, my immediate greivance with the paralyzing imbroglio slowly consuming the House of Commons has less to do with the tactics being employed by the Conservative government, than with the philosophy of governance the Harperites reveal by doing so. It's reasonably safe to say that most peoples' idea of government is of an institution that, well, governs - sets public policy, uses its authority to supervise a state, yadda yadda yadda. It's the Opposition that's supposed, by definition, to do the opposing.
So what kind of responsible government cancels committees because things aren't going their way, lies blatantly about events that happened, literally, last week, obstructs inquiries into its own alleged malfeisance, and lets the friggin' Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons physically harass an opponent? This is not, as the Globe's byline writers suggest, a war of procedure - it's a kamikaze assault by the governing party on the basic processes of the House that it was elected to protect. It's obscene, it's disgusting, and it's entirely consonant with Stark Contrast's theory about Stephen Harper: that he wants Canadians to expect politics to be as nasty as possible - because he's the reigning king of revile.
________________________________________________________
UPDATE - Hmmmm...I'll tell you what kind of government engineers the above-mentioned dirty tricks - the same kind of government that has 200 pages of material about said kamikaze assault, and an itchy printer finger.
Let's be charitable - maybe it was the clipper again? Someone call the RCMP!
So what kind of responsible government cancels committees because things aren't going their way, lies blatantly about events that happened, literally, last week, obstructs inquiries into its own alleged malfeisance, and lets the friggin' Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons physically harass an opponent? This is not, as the Globe's byline writers suggest, a war of procedure - it's a kamikaze assault by the governing party on the basic processes of the House that it was elected to protect. It's obscene, it's disgusting, and it's entirely consonant with Stark Contrast's theory about Stephen Harper: that he wants Canadians to expect politics to be as nasty as possible - because he's the reigning king of revile.
________________________________________________________
UPDATE - Hmmmm...I'll tell you what kind of government engineers the above-mentioned dirty tricks - the same kind of government that has 200 pages of material about said kamikaze assault, and an itchy printer finger.
Let's be charitable - maybe it was the clipper again? Someone call the RCMP!
Sunday, May 13, 2007
The art of the possible?
Liberal leadership contenders, progressives of all stripes, and anybody who's recently bashed Elizabeth May, take note: the separatists seem to know a trick that most other politicians in Canada can't manage. Namely, how to cooperate.
Wednesday, May 09, 2007
A Gay May Day Roundup
Yours truly is twenty-three years old today (seriously, are we sure I'm not seventeen? Or maybe five?) To my loyal readers, I apologise for the dearth of blogging of late: le palais du bureaucracie has been keeping me on my toes (literally, you really don't want to see my feet right now).
On that gross note, we proceed to a roundup of the last little while's political news:
a) Boisclair resigns, Luke weeps. I have written elsewhere of a sneaky liking for Andre Boisclair (yes, he''s cute) though not of his pet political project. I don't greet his resignation with good cheer - if nothing else, it simply proves that, poorly-written CP stories to the contrary, you can't as yet be openly gay and a First Minister in the True North, Strong and Free.
But why are federalists chortling? Would they really prefer Gilles Duceppe, quite a capable politico these days, leading the sovereigntist charge in Quebec? Are they really so sure there's no one capable of replacing him in Ottawa? Or that Mario Dumont is actually a slimy federalist, as opposed to a slimy opportunist? Have they looked at the latest SES poll, which seems to show the BQ's public support holding steady? (it's Stephen "Quebec is a nation" Harper who's losing points to those nefarious allies, the Greens and the Grits) And finally, have they considered the possibility, so often written, so seldom read, that Qubeckers are less interested in independence these days because they, in so many de facto ways, already have it?
b) Speaking of that poll.... I'm not going to, except to say that SES is usually exceedingly accurate, that the poll (the second of late to show the LPC and CPC in a dead heat) has received almost zero press coverages from the columnists and commentators who were so eager to trumpet numbers when it seemed the Conservatives were ascendant, and that you might cast your eye over three very interesting regional numbers - if they're actually trends and not stat glitches, they bear watching:
1) The Conservatives are up in Atlantic Canada, despite Danny Williams' monstrances. Bad news for Liz May in Central Nova if that keeps up;
2) NDP and Greens are up big-time in Ontario. Vote-splitting on the left? More Red Tories than we thought? We shall see;
3) The Greens are doing very well in the West, at the expense of the usual suspects.
This might all be bad news for progressives - except that the percentage of uncommitted voters has jumped to 14%.
c) Money, Money, Money. No kidding that it's a rich man world, or will be if the Conservatives get their way in banning loans to politicians over $1,100. The whole campaign-finance conglomeration is a great example of the Devil being in the details. Surely it's intuitive that if big companies and rich people weren't allowed to give as much money to politicians, they'd have less influence in politics, right? Right?
No sirree bob. We will have the unappetizing prospect of political candidates being tested based solely on their net worth, credit rating, and assets - not their intelligence, empathy, skill, or ideas. It's an Ayn Rand wet dream. Consider this: which individuals, these days, have the excess income to donate to political parties? Young people? Don't make me laugh. The poor, the lower middle class, or immigrants? Unlikely. Nope, it's retirees and the top 10% of income earners, exactly the people the Conservative Party relies on to rake in the cash.
The problem is, of course, that changing one procecedure or structure in a society without changing a bunch of other procedures or structures isn't necessarily going to affect the goal you want - in fact, it might have the opposite effect. And with political financing, progressives have been hoodwinked by what I like to call the Lisa Simpson/Malibu Stacey effect: assuming big + rich means = evil /forgetting that regressive conservatives are way better at making sure folks like their brand, and keep liking it.
d) And finally....
That last point, about making sure folks like the Conservative brand, is so key that I think I will expand a little bit on it. I thin the crux of the matter is this: it's so....easy, living in our society, to believe what the Conservative Party tells you, up to a point.
As a culture, we in North America have evolved to feel increasingly powerless about our lives - and indeed, in work, education and even leisure, our actions are more and more being orchestrated by outside agents and institutions. Paradoxically, capitalist propaganda's barrage of "choice" and "access" signifiers has meant we also expect ourselves to be able to obtain, in a whole host of spheres, infinite access with zero effort. In this dual context, easy choices must always be attractive: we believe we are acting autonomously, in our own best interest, and most importanty, within the regular pattern in which the world should exist. Hard choices are exhausting, difficult, complicated. But worst of all, they're uncertain.
So to believe that global warming is a crock, that we should lock all those crooks up and stop those kids from carrying on, that it's impossible to do anything about our problems and that we should hunker down and be happy with our lot - these are human reactions that come from feeling powerless, and from the defences (denial, fatalism, anger) that stem from it: human reactions that liberate us from choice, and therefore from uncertainty. And neoconservatism asks nothing of us other than to be certain: to side with the status quo, hearken back to saccharine (and surely, true!) memories of some bygone Utopia, and know that if only things would stop being so unclear, that the little guy (and of course, everyone thinks he or she is the one in question) would be tops, know all the answers, and be sitting pretty. We're so certain, we believe so well, that we averr things that our own eyes (if we could, as the Book of Proverbs exorts us, look, see, and observe) would tell us were untrue.
In fact, it's a miracle (of Grace or good sense) that so many people, despite this onslaught, still believe other things - the ones involving justice, and mercy, and empathy, and cooperation. Those are things that make living in the real world more bearable. If there's any real world left, by the time the neocons are through.
On that gross note, we proceed to a roundup of the last little while's political news:
a) Boisclair resigns, Luke weeps. I have written elsewhere of a sneaky liking for Andre Boisclair (yes, he''s cute) though not of his pet political project. I don't greet his resignation with good cheer - if nothing else, it simply proves that, poorly-written CP stories to the contrary, you can't as yet be openly gay and a First Minister in the True North, Strong and Free.
But why are federalists chortling? Would they really prefer Gilles Duceppe, quite a capable politico these days, leading the sovereigntist charge in Quebec? Are they really so sure there's no one capable of replacing him in Ottawa? Or that Mario Dumont is actually a slimy federalist, as opposed to a slimy opportunist? Have they looked at the latest SES poll, which seems to show the BQ's public support holding steady? (it's Stephen "Quebec is a nation" Harper who's losing points to those nefarious allies, the Greens and the Grits) And finally, have they considered the possibility, so often written, so seldom read, that Qubeckers are less interested in independence these days because they, in so many de facto ways, already have it?
b) Speaking of that poll.... I'm not going to, except to say that SES is usually exceedingly accurate, that the poll (the second of late to show the LPC and CPC in a dead heat) has received almost zero press coverages from the columnists and commentators who were so eager to trumpet numbers when it seemed the Conservatives were ascendant, and that you might cast your eye over three very interesting regional numbers - if they're actually trends and not stat glitches, they bear watching:
1) The Conservatives are up in Atlantic Canada, despite Danny Williams' monstrances. Bad news for Liz May in Central Nova if that keeps up;
2) NDP and Greens are up big-time in Ontario. Vote-splitting on the left? More Red Tories than we thought? We shall see;
3) The Greens are doing very well in the West, at the expense of the usual suspects.
This might all be bad news for progressives - except that the percentage of uncommitted voters has jumped to 14%.
c) Money, Money, Money. No kidding that it's a rich man world, or will be if the Conservatives get their way in banning loans to politicians over $1,100. The whole campaign-finance conglomeration is a great example of the Devil being in the details. Surely it's intuitive that if big companies and rich people weren't allowed to give as much money to politicians, they'd have less influence in politics, right? Right?
No sirree bob. We will have the unappetizing prospect of political candidates being tested based solely on their net worth, credit rating, and assets - not their intelligence, empathy, skill, or ideas. It's an Ayn Rand wet dream. Consider this: which individuals, these days, have the excess income to donate to political parties? Young people? Don't make me laugh. The poor, the lower middle class, or immigrants? Unlikely. Nope, it's retirees and the top 10% of income earners, exactly the people the Conservative Party relies on to rake in the cash.
The problem is, of course, that changing one procecedure or structure in a society without changing a bunch of other procedures or structures isn't necessarily going to affect the goal you want - in fact, it might have the opposite effect. And with political financing, progressives have been hoodwinked by what I like to call the Lisa Simpson/Malibu Stacey effect: assuming big + rich means = evil /forgetting that regressive conservatives are way better at making sure folks like their brand, and keep liking it.
d) And finally....
That last point, about making sure folks like the Conservative brand, is so key that I think I will expand a little bit on it. I thin the crux of the matter is this: it's so....easy, living in our society, to believe what the Conservative Party tells you, up to a point.
As a culture, we in North America have evolved to feel increasingly powerless about our lives - and indeed, in work, education and even leisure, our actions are more and more being orchestrated by outside agents and institutions. Paradoxically, capitalist propaganda's barrage of "choice" and "access" signifiers has meant we also expect ourselves to be able to obtain, in a whole host of spheres, infinite access with zero effort. In this dual context, easy choices must always be attractive: we believe we are acting autonomously, in our own best interest, and most importanty, within the regular pattern in which the world should exist. Hard choices are exhausting, difficult, complicated. But worst of all, they're uncertain.
So to believe that global warming is a crock, that we should lock all those crooks up and stop those kids from carrying on, that it's impossible to do anything about our problems and that we should hunker down and be happy with our lot - these are human reactions that come from feeling powerless, and from the defences (denial, fatalism, anger) that stem from it: human reactions that liberate us from choice, and therefore from uncertainty. And neoconservatism asks nothing of us other than to be certain: to side with the status quo, hearken back to saccharine (and surely, true!) memories of some bygone Utopia, and know that if only things would stop being so unclear, that the little guy (and of course, everyone thinks he or she is the one in question) would be tops, know all the answers, and be sitting pretty. We're so certain, we believe so well, that we averr things that our own eyes (if we could, as the Book of Proverbs exorts us, look, see, and observe) would tell us were untrue.
In fact, it's a miracle (of Grace or good sense) that so many people, despite this onslaught, still believe other things - the ones involving justice, and mercy, and empathy, and cooperation. Those are things that make living in the real world more bearable. If there's any real world left, by the time the neocons are through.
Sunday, April 29, 2007
"Canada's decision will make the development of a meaningful new global warming deal even more difficult"
It's nice to see that Canada's New Government is getting some overseas press coverage. And we're being recognised as being first at doing something significant! Research? Well, no....Innovation? Human rights? Not so much - but we're still first!
Thursday, April 26, 2007
The natives are restless
So the Canadian Press is quick (lead sentence, even!) to tell us in its syndicated report on the new Decima poll that "pundits and the pollster alike are telling political junkies to relax over a new survey that suggests Conservatives and Liberals are locked in a statistical dead heat."
And then give lots of column to a "long-time Tory strategist" who tell us that "Canadians like the government they have," and have "agreed to go steady with us but not much more than that at this time."
Relax? But surely someone thinks it's significant that the combined NDP/Green vote (just to recap, folks, that's the super-environauts, the granola-munchers, the people who John Baird thinks are going to lead the country to ruin) is at 30 frickin' percent? And that between 60 and 70% of the population support implementation of the Kyoto Accord? Given the actions (and inactions) of our current government, are these really numbers to get all zen about?
"If you want to use the dating analogy to the full extent, the worst thing you can do is try to go from first base to home," said the long-time Tory strategist. No kidding - but doesn't it seem to you that Canadians are already sick of being felt up by Stephen Harper?
And then give lots of column to a "long-time Tory strategist" who tell us that "Canadians like the government they have," and have "agreed to go steady with us but not much more than that at this time."
Relax? But surely someone thinks it's significant that the combined NDP/Green vote (just to recap, folks, that's the super-environauts, the granola-munchers, the people who John Baird thinks are going to lead the country to ruin) is at 30 frickin' percent? And that between 60 and 70% of the population support implementation of the Kyoto Accord? Given the actions (and inactions) of our current government, are these really numbers to get all zen about?
"If you want to use the dating analogy to the full extent, the worst thing you can do is try to go from first base to home," said the long-time Tory strategist. No kidding - but doesn't it seem to you that Canadians are already sick of being felt up by Stephen Harper?
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
Riddle me this, loyal readers
Which, to your mind, is the greater sin: not knowing that your ministry was occasionally doing shady things with the advertising budget, or not knowing that your ministry was concealing the fact that the country you personally represent on the world stage was in violation of the Geneva Convention and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
Yes, it's a semi-rhetorical question. But it's also now the most generous comparison you can make between the Liberal and Conservative Parties of Canada.
Yes, it's a semi-rhetorical question. But it's also now the most generous comparison you can make between the Liberal and Conservative Parties of Canada.
It has been a bad day
...for Canadians. It has also, if there's any justice, been a bad day for Canada's New (and Getting Old, Fast) Government.
The latest environmental plan is underwhelming. The ballooning travesty surrounding torture of Afghan prisoners is reprehensible.
As notes Paul Wells: "This government [now] lies to us without compunction or apology about the most important files a government can be asked to handle."
Stephen Harper has run out of EZ-Bake options. When your long-term goals involve taking a machete to the federation and forcing Canadians do the same abroad in locsktep with American adventurism, there are only so many "progressive" moves you can make without committing yourself to...progress.
The Conservatives are going to need their war room and their spin. Because every Canadian who belives not just in progressivism, but also in honesty, ought to take aim and fire.
The latest environmental plan is underwhelming. The ballooning travesty surrounding torture of Afghan prisoners is reprehensible.
As notes Paul Wells: "This government [now] lies to us without compunction or apology about the most important files a government can be asked to handle."
Stephen Harper has run out of EZ-Bake options. When your long-term goals involve taking a machete to the federation and forcing Canadians do the same abroad in locsktep with American adventurism, there are only so many "progressive" moves you can make without committing yourself to...progress.
The Conservatives are going to need their war room and their spin. Because every Canadian who belives not just in progressivism, but also in honesty, ought to take aim and fire.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The National Post, more bewildering than usual...
Or maybe it's just Canadian politics that are starting to get a little goofy, as the summer silly season comes upon us.
I also thought Conservative strategists liked the fact that Stephane Dion has been getting a lot of media attention of late. Do they really believe that any publicity is good publicity? Are they worried that, sooner or later, their snowjob will cease to be effective? Are they just plain ol' spinning the Post? Who knows....Maybe the Prime Minister's wardrobe consultant/palm reader will tell us - she's probably the most put together person in the Prime Minister's Office.
Certainly only in a farcical, amnesiac, ahistorical era like ours would it be possible to believe, and get others to believe, that you can become a Natural Governing Party in 18 months and with 35% support.
I also thought Conservative strategists liked the fact that Stephane Dion has been getting a lot of media attention of late. Do they really believe that any publicity is good publicity? Are they worried that, sooner or later, their snowjob will cease to be effective? Are they just plain ol' spinning the Post? Who knows....Maybe the Prime Minister's wardrobe consultant/palm reader will tell us - she's probably the most put together person in the Prime Minister's Office.
Monday, April 23, 2007
Puff Piece
I'm sorry Jane Taber, but is it really big news, worthy of inclusion in Canada's National (and Newly Revamped) Newspaper, that some people who work in politics are...bossy?
Do you not feel, in fact, as though your latest piece fanning the "dump Dion" embers this morning in the G&M might be just a little bit...contrived?
I know it must be so tempting to air the dirty laundry of disaffected supporters of losing leadership bidders...but just how many MPs did you use as sources for said article? Two? One?
Go forth Herb Metcalf, and solve those personality conflicts! And disaffected Grits: it would be nice if you gave at least the impression that you cared more about the country and its downward spiral under the Conservatives than you do about your own ambitious skins. Some of us are paying attention....when we can stomach it.
Do you not feel, in fact, as though your latest piece fanning the "dump Dion" embers this morning in the G&M might be just a little bit...contrived?
I know it must be so tempting to air the dirty laundry of disaffected supporters of losing leadership bidders...but just how many MPs did you use as sources for said article? Two? One?
Go forth Herb Metcalf, and solve those personality conflicts! And disaffected Grits: it would be nice if you gave at least the impression that you cared more about the country and its downward spiral under the Conservatives than you do about your own ambitious skins. Some of us are paying attention....when we can stomach it.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Hot Air that Stinks
Is this for real?
Two paragraphs in the aforelinked article contains some of the most partisan, if subtle, editorializing I've seen yet from Canada's National Newspaper:
"Mr. Drummond's letter appears to be a political boon for the Tories, and a blow for the Liberals, as parties gird themselves for the possibility of an election campaign fought on hot-button issues such as Kyoto.
[Psychologists call this "reactance," and normal people call it reverse psychology: by stating uncertainty, you make you reader surer of the statement's truth.]
It will be difficult for the Liberals to attack Mr. Drummond, a senior Canadian economist whom political parties, including Mr. Dion's, have consulted over the years. He wasn't paid for this latest opinion, which the Tories solicited from him."
[Somehow, not paying for Drummond's very vested opinion makes it more valid?]
The Conservatives really must have no idea what they're going to do about Kyoto.
Two paragraphs in the aforelinked article contains some of the most partisan, if subtle, editorializing I've seen yet from Canada's National Newspaper:
"Mr. Drummond's letter appears to be a political boon for the Tories, and a blow for the Liberals, as parties gird themselves for the possibility of an election campaign fought on hot-button issues such as Kyoto.
[Psychologists call this "reactance," and normal people call it reverse psychology: by stating uncertainty, you make you reader surer of the statement's truth.]
It will be difficult for the Liberals to attack Mr. Drummond, a senior Canadian economist whom political parties, including Mr. Dion's, have consulted over the years. He wasn't paid for this latest opinion, which the Tories solicited from him."
[Somehow, not paying for Drummond's very vested opinion makes it more valid?]
The Conservatives really must have no idea what they're going to do about Kyoto.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Rage and Art
The very bad (in every sense) and very telling short plays written by Cho Seung-hui in the months before his murders have been posted online - oh Lord, the wonders and terrors of the New Media - and while their appearance raises a number of questions relating to appropriate use of content (again, in every sense), those who can stomach reading them will see both why Cho's teachers were very worried indeed, and why they could do nothing concrete about their anxiety.
What is the formative relationship between rage and art? I don't think there is a direct one - or rather, I don't think one can truly create (as opposed to express) when so angry as to be uncontrolled. On top of our response to control rage, there's an element of transmutation at the moment of expression/creation that I think helps artists, those who get angry anyway, to take the animal ferocity of fury and use it to propel expression, not guide it. Thus the difference between rage expressed as art - Cho's writing - and rage expressed through art - Guernica.
More to the point, allowing people mired in their own hellish imaginings of personal and familial horror to purchase efficient killings machines easily is a stupid thing, that the Founding Fathers, sons of the Enlightenment all, could not have dreamed of. That the United States would prefer its citizens have the privilege of buying, as in Virginia, one gun a month, rather than have those same citizens - a selfless Holocaust survivor, outstanding researchers in engineering and medicine, students of all stripes - alive to the benefit of the republic, is an indication of something terrible in the American collective unconscious: a will to individual and societal death.
What is the formative relationship between rage and art? I don't think there is a direct one - or rather, I don't think one can truly create (as opposed to express) when so angry as to be uncontrolled. On top of our response to control rage, there's an element of transmutation at the moment of expression/creation that I think helps artists, those who get angry anyway, to take the animal ferocity of fury and use it to propel expression, not guide it. Thus the difference between rage expressed as art - Cho's writing - and rage expressed through art - Guernica.
More to the point, allowing people mired in their own hellish imaginings of personal and familial horror to purchase efficient killings machines easily is a stupid thing, that the Founding Fathers, sons of the Enlightenment all, could not have dreamed of. That the United States would prefer its citizens have the privilege of buying, as in Virginia, one gun a month, rather than have those same citizens - a selfless Holocaust survivor, outstanding researchers in engineering and medicine, students of all stripes - alive to the benefit of the republic, is an indication of something terrible in the American collective unconscious: a will to individual and societal death.
Monday, April 16, 2007
DFEAT?
Australia has an embassy in Phnom Pehn. Also in Riga, Sarajevo, Maputo (that's in Mozambique), Port Louis (Mauritius) and Luanda (Angola). In fact, the Australians have embassies or consulates in 90 countries around the world.
Canada? Not too far behind, with embassies or consulates in 86 states. Like in Phnom Pehn. And Riga. And Sarajevo.
Well, for the moment anyway. Because Canada's Only Slightly Used Government is closing our Latvian and Bosnian and Cambodian embassies. And smaller ones in some piddling place called, what's its name again, oh yeah, Africa.
"No one is immune from the need to stay flexible, shift resources and strengthen representation in some areas, while consolidating in others, to reduce costs wherever possible," our hopefully soon to be ex-Foreign Minister burbled in bureau-speak to the Toronto Star. "We all have to find new and innovative ways to deliver our services beyond the traditional bricks and mortar of embassies."
Maybe a kiosk in Second Life would do the trick? Or opening an Internet cafe in Luanda?
Canada, like Australia, is a large, immigrant-dependant country with strategic interests in several regions around the world. (In fact, most countries, whether they like it or not, now find themselves forced to consider their strategic interests in several regions around the world.) Stephen Harper and Co. seem to just love John Howard's jingo-spouting, immigrant-baiting, climate-denying policies. But even the Australians have a better handle on how to deal constructively, or at least semi-intelligently, with the vicissitudes of globalisation than our own fearless leaders do. Wouldn't it be a good idea to have someone on the ground in the Balkans, for instance?
Never mind - as the Prime Minister would like to be believe we're already de facto Americans, I'm sure he'll be arranging a cozy treaty ensuring any Canadian stranded in Cambodia or Angola has equal access to American overseas consulates. Right? Or maybe he should ask the Australians?
Canada? Not too far behind, with embassies or consulates in 86 states. Like in Phnom Pehn. And Riga. And Sarajevo.
Well, for the moment anyway. Because Canada's Only Slightly Used Government is closing our Latvian and Bosnian and Cambodian embassies. And smaller ones in some piddling place called, what's its name again, oh yeah, Africa.
"No one is immune from the need to stay flexible, shift resources and strengthen representation in some areas, while consolidating in others, to reduce costs wherever possible," our hopefully soon to be ex-Foreign Minister burbled in bureau-speak to the Toronto Star. "We all have to find new and innovative ways to deliver our services beyond the traditional bricks and mortar of embassies."
Maybe a kiosk in Second Life would do the trick? Or opening an Internet cafe in Luanda?
Canada, like Australia, is a large, immigrant-dependant country with strategic interests in several regions around the world. (In fact, most countries, whether they like it or not, now find themselves forced to consider their strategic interests in several regions around the world.) Stephen Harper and Co. seem to just love John Howard's jingo-spouting, immigrant-baiting, climate-denying policies. But even the Australians have a better handle on how to deal constructively, or at least semi-intelligently, with the vicissitudes of globalisation than our own fearless leaders do. Wouldn't it be a good idea to have someone on the ground in the Balkans, for instance?
Never mind - as the Prime Minister would like to be believe we're already de facto Americans, I'm sure he'll be arranging a cozy treaty ensuring any Canadian stranded in Cambodia or Angola has equal access to American overseas consulates. Right? Or maybe he should ask the Australians?
Friday, April 13, 2007
Breaking the Bank
If senior neoconservatives - who by all appearances lack empathy, compassion, foresight, wisdom, or competence in military affairs - also lack the good grace to keep their hypocrisy down to a dull roar with the rest of us, what's left of them? Note that this is not a hypothetical question.
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UPDATE: I wasn't even thinking of Gordon O'Connor when I wrote this post - but most of the descriptors listed above fit him nicely too! How fortuitous!
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UPDATE: I wasn't even thinking of Gordon O'Connor when I wrote this post - but most of the descriptors listed above fit him nicely too! How fortuitous!
Thursday, April 12, 2007
Jaw-dropping
"Liberals agree not to run candidate against Green leader" says the CBC.
Well...won't this be grist for a number of people's mills.
My initial, fleeting thought - "what a horrendously bad political move for Dion to make" - lasted for about fifteen minutes. But, then I pondered.
And it occured to me that the Liberals (who came in third in 2006 in Central Nova, with just 24% of the vote) weren't going to win against Peter Mackay anyway.
Whereas Elizabeth May, sucking up the support of Liberals, NDPers (the second place party in 2oo6 with 32%), old-school PC types, the 1.6 percent of people who voted Green last time, and May's high school friends, just might. Not for sure, but far more likely than if there were a Liberal candidate in the mix.
What would have been really canny (though probably impossible) would have been to convince the NDP to not run a candidate either. Can't you just see the wonderful symbolism: Canadian progressives agreeing to give the Green Party a seat in the House (and the televised leader's debates), while almost certainly ensuring the defeat of a boorish, high-profile Conservative turncoat?
Anyway, Dion's gonna get PILES of flack. Pundits (and some Liberals) will ask why he doesn't simply join the Green Party, as he's tacitly endorsing its policies and leader. In fact, May will likely join with the Liberals on almost every vote in the Commons (someone, with more time than me, I challenge you to find a spot where the two parties' platforms are substantively different), so in a parliamentary context, it's actually a remarkably astute move.
I'm just a little concerned that, PR-wise, it's going to be a disaster.
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UPDATE: Well, that wasn't so awful. Could get worse when the columnists weigh in tomorrow. One thing's for sure: Jack is seriously ticked off. Maybe he should try to do something to garner as much publicity as May just picked up - like maybe getting in on the "deal"?
But man, did Dion's English sound better at that news conference today. Much better. And Elizabeth May is delightful - her anecdote to Carol Off on CBC's As It Happens about talking to Dion on a pay phone in a Chinese restaurant was gold. Besides, how many times can Conservative MPs spew out tidbits like "this is all about Dion's lack of leadership" or some such without people becoming a little tired of the repetition? Law of diminishing returns, anyone?
Well...won't this be grist for a number of people's mills.
My initial, fleeting thought - "what a horrendously bad political move for Dion to make" - lasted for about fifteen minutes. But, then I pondered.
And it occured to me that the Liberals (who came in third in 2006 in Central Nova, with just 24% of the vote) weren't going to win against Peter Mackay anyway.
Whereas Elizabeth May, sucking up the support of Liberals, NDPers (the second place party in 2oo6 with 32%), old-school PC types, the 1.6 percent of people who voted Green last time, and May's high school friends, just might. Not for sure, but far more likely than if there were a Liberal candidate in the mix.
What would have been really canny (though probably impossible) would have been to convince the NDP to not run a candidate either. Can't you just see the wonderful symbolism: Canadian progressives agreeing to give the Green Party a seat in the House (and the televised leader's debates), while almost certainly ensuring the defeat of a boorish, high-profile Conservative turncoat?
Anyway, Dion's gonna get PILES of flack. Pundits (and some Liberals) will ask why he doesn't simply join the Green Party, as he's tacitly endorsing its policies and leader. In fact, May will likely join with the Liberals on almost every vote in the Commons (someone, with more time than me, I challenge you to find a spot where the two parties' platforms are substantively different), so in a parliamentary context, it's actually a remarkably astute move.
I'm just a little concerned that, PR-wise, it's going to be a disaster.
___________________________________________________
UPDATE: Well, that wasn't so awful. Could get worse when the columnists weigh in tomorrow. One thing's for sure: Jack is seriously ticked off. Maybe he should try to do something to garner as much publicity as May just picked up - like maybe getting in on the "deal"?
But man, did Dion's English sound better at that news conference today. Much better. And Elizabeth May is delightful - her anecdote to Carol Off on CBC's As It Happens about talking to Dion on a pay phone in a Chinese restaurant was gold. Besides, how many times can Conservative MPs spew out tidbits like "this is all about Dion's lack of leadership" or some such without people becoming a little tired of the repetition? Law of diminishing returns, anyone?
Money and the Quebec vote
I'm a big fan of SES Research - they tend to be fairly on the money, and Nick Nanos is rapidly turning into the anti-Allan Greg. The latest SES poll (and it's fresh off the press) of Canadians's comfort levels with a Harper majority government is therefore worth noting.
The gist: the numbers (comfort or discomfort-wise) aren't going anywhere significant, except in Quebec, where those somewhat comfortable with a Conservative majority have increased in number more than 15% since February.
Which shows to go you that, to paraphrase Bill Clinton "it's about the money, stupid."
As an aside, it will be interesting to see how the Toronto Sun's Greg Weston - for whom, it seems, the poll was done - will interpret the findings. I think I can guess how - can you?
The gist: the numbers (comfort or discomfort-wise) aren't going anywhere significant, except in Quebec, where those somewhat comfortable with a Conservative majority have increased in number more than 15% since February.
Which shows to go you that, to paraphrase Bill Clinton "it's about the money, stupid."
As an aside, it will be interesting to see how the Toronto Sun's Greg Weston - for whom, it seems, the poll was done - will interpret the findings. I think I can guess how - can you?
The obligatory Belinda Stronach post
One of my enduring memories from the media coverage of the 2006 Liberal leadership convention is of Belinda Stronach (along with John Manley) looking incredibly sour after Stephane Dion's surprise victory. Given her fairly frosty attitude at the time - not to mention the fact that being the CEO of a Big Three automaker is far more exciting than attending, for instance, the Newmarket Liberal Riding Association Golf Day and Clam-Bake - I'm not too shocked by Belinda's departure from the green chamber.
Nor am I surprised that various big-and-small "c" conservative pundits (there seem to be so many scurrying around these days) are crowing about rats and sinking ships. You have to at least admire the consistency of the conservative forces (interesting, parentheticaly, that the word "neoconservative" seems to have gone out of style in the media). One of the things that has always bedeviled progressives is a tendency to "discuss" (read: bicker) policy and position in a very earnest, honest and public way. Conservatives, from what I've seen, have no such problem.
Nor, for that matter, did some of those said-same Conservatives have any problem belittling Stronach, in ways so coarse and misogynistic that the only thing more incredible than the attacks themselves was the apparent acceptance of their appropriatness as public statements by the Canadian press and people.
But I digress. Politics is often a game of egos. Retirements aren't uncommon, and it's perfectly fair to say that some Liberal MPs who had a good run under the old regime are moving on to other things, some perhaps for reasons to do with the new leadership, most likely not. But the presence of Belinda, or Stephen Owen, or Lucienne Robillard, in the House wasn't going to sway too many people to vote Liberal one way or the other. The press's constant inflation of the story will do a much more effective job of that.
Oh, and Conservatives: wasn't the previous administration so corrupt and despicable that none of its members ought ever be trusted with high office again? Shouldn't you be pleased, in the name of a safer, stronger, better Canada, that Belinda is retiring? Or would you prefer "put down"?
Nor am I surprised that various big-and-small "c" conservative pundits (there seem to be so many scurrying around these days) are crowing about rats and sinking ships. You have to at least admire the consistency of the conservative forces (interesting, parentheticaly, that the word "neoconservative" seems to have gone out of style in the media). One of the things that has always bedeviled progressives is a tendency to "discuss" (read: bicker) policy and position in a very earnest, honest and public way. Conservatives, from what I've seen, have no such problem.
Nor, for that matter, did some of those said-same Conservatives have any problem belittling Stronach, in ways so coarse and misogynistic that the only thing more incredible than the attacks themselves was the apparent acceptance of their appropriatness as public statements by the Canadian press and people.
But I digress. Politics is often a game of egos. Retirements aren't uncommon, and it's perfectly fair to say that some Liberal MPs who had a good run under the old regime are moving on to other things, some perhaps for reasons to do with the new leadership, most likely not. But the presence of Belinda, or Stephen Owen, or Lucienne Robillard, in the House wasn't going to sway too many people to vote Liberal one way or the other. The press's constant inflation of the story will do a much more effective job of that.
Oh, and Conservatives: wasn't the previous administration so corrupt and despicable that none of its members ought ever be trusted with high office again? Shouldn't you be pleased, in the name of a safer, stronger, better Canada, that Belinda is retiring? Or would you prefer "put down"?
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
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