ISRAEL'S CELEBRATION OF THE FESTIVAL OF LIGHT: MORE THAN 300 DEAD AND STILL COUNTING

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

We are witnessing the most wanton war crimes by Israel, but people are afraid to speak up.

Just as when Israel slaughtered 1,500 in Lebanon and scattered a million cluster bombs to cripple for years on a flimsy excuse.

The 'rockets" are homemade rubbish which haven't killed one Israeli. They are the anguished efforts of people with no resources and no freedom.

And the killing of 310 people (latest tally) comes on top of the roughly two dozen Israel has murdered in the last month or so with its missiles.

And that's yet on top of keeping 1.5 million people without medicine, electricity and food.

And that's on top of arresting much of the elected government of Gaza.

And that's on top of perhaps 9,000 illegally held prisoners.

And that's on top of a half century of disgusting abuse.

Israel is openly telling the Palestinians who they must elect, backing up the demand with mass killing and destruction.

After taking their land, tearing down houses, and building a Berlin Wall, the Palestinians are told how to vote.

South Africa was kinder.

AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT - A CONTEMPORARY CHRISTMAS TALE

AND TO ALL, A GOOD NIGHT

A Contemporary Christmas Tale
(reposted for the season)

John Chuckman

It was only a matter of time before Santa Claus himself came under the Neanderthal-eyed scrutiny of American intelligence. After all, Santa’s citizenship is unknown, and he crosses borders with no passport or other form of identification. No one knows whether he even has a valid pilot’s license.

Although his image is well known, there is no official photograph on file with American border control, and he has never been fingerprinted or body-searched. Most disconcerting of all, he delivers parcels to children all over the world, including the children living in the Axis of Evil. His intentions with this activity are not understood beyond some fuzzy generalization about kindness and generosity to all. Clearly, here was the world’s largest unplugged pipeline to potential terrorists.

It was only after receiving no response to several urgent letters from the State Department requesting an immediate meeting in Washington that a decision was made to approach Santa’s North Pole solitude. As usual in such matters with the people now running America, a wing of America’s most lethal killing machines was employed for the purpose. You never know what you might encounter in such a forbidding place.

As the planes first zoomed over the icy silence of the North Pole workshop, one of the pilots decided to swoop down for a closer look. He was one of those daring fly-boys, and his tail struck the only wire for thousands of miles around, the North Pole Telegraph, sending his plane hurling into the workshop in a ball of flames with tons of ammunition and missiles exploding.

Santa and Mrs. Claus rushed out of their snow-blanketed gingerbread house to see what was happening, trying to calm the terrified reindeer running from their stable at one end of the house. The elves, too, scurried towards the stable, trying to stop the reindeer from running or flying off.

Above, in the dark vault of sky, the other pilots observed the explosion and saw missile trails smoking into the air. They also saw the frantic activity below and quickly concluded their comrade had come under anti-aircraft attack. So they swooped down in attack formation, rapid-fire canon tearing into everything ahead of them.

Most of the reindeer fell in the snow, spurting warm blood across the bluish-white surface. Most of the elves, too, fell gasping for life. Mrs. Claus received a wound in the head and instantly fell limp. Santa tried heroically to reach his wife but realized the situation was hopeless and turned, running into the darkness accompanied by Prancer, the only surviving reindeer.

The only witness to the massacre is one surviving elf now living somewhere in Canada under an assumed identity, fearful for his life. It is only from his testimony that we know anything about Santa’s fate.

Realizing the horrific mistake they had made, the pilots dropped white phosphorus bombs with the intention of incinerating all evidence. The entire North Pole lit up and Santa and Prancer could be seen in the distance on a huge block of ice drifting off into the dark sea, the ice everywhere cracked and weakened by the combined effects of white phosphorus and years of global warming.

Within in a few hours, the beating sound of a black helicopter approached Santa and Prancer. The elf, from his hiding place in a snowdrift, could only make out intermittent sounds across the howling coldness, but it seems armed men emerged from the helicopter, shot Prancer and shackled Santa, shoving him into the dark, beating machine. The elf heard a word that sounded like Guantanamo and Santa has not been heard from since. Reports of his fate reached the International Red Cross and organizations like Amnesty International, leading to inquiries, but these have been met only with silence from American authorities.




VICTIMS OF BUSH'S BRAINLESS WAR ON TERROR

A PROPOSAL TO FIX CANADA'S POLITICAL PROBLEMS FROM THE SAGE OF THE ATHABASCA TARSANDS

RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY PRESTON MANNING IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Manning’s old-granny image tends to disguise the underlying, unpleasant nature of his thoughts.

And his thoughts are precisely the stuff you would get from Newt Gingrich or Tom Delay playing sage.

Alberta is little more than the other end of a big pipeline to Texas.

Alberta sends oil down.

Texas sends up executives and managers and ideas and money.

The money is why Manning can sit back in his "institute" and blow hot air, pretending to significance for Canadians.

The vapid ideas appear to compose the entire content of his mind.

God, does anyone recall that pathetic series on CBC1, "This I Believe"
which Granny Manning hosted a couple of years ago?

A daily set of platitudes and bromides, likely the most pathetic broadcast ever offered by the network. All of it, ideas and even the title, taken from a U.S. broadcast, itself a tiresome business.

Thank God, it didn't last long, I'm sure CBC received bags of complaints, and it probably only ran it in the first place owing to pressure from Manning and Harperites.

Now, he's providing similar quality political stuff in his "columns" in the Globe.








IT TRULY IS HARD TO TELL THEM APART: PRESTON MANNING IS THE ONE IN BLACK-AND-WHITE

THE DEATH OF CONOR CRUISE O'BRIEN AND THE DISPARAGEMENTOF ONE OF HIS MOST IMPORTANT BOOKS

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY OLIVER KAMM IN THE TIMES

Mr. Kamm,

We agree on the greatness of gentleman and scholar Conor Cruise O'Brien.

But with the following words you depart into a fantasy world and certainly leave me behind: "...and a truly terrible book purporting to demonstrate that Thomas Jefferson was an ideological precursor of Pol Pot."

I have read perhaps ten biographies of Jefferson besides being familiar with that period of American history, and I think it fair to claim some understanding. Your characterization of the book is unfair and inaccurate.

Here is my review of O'Brien's book, "The Long Affair," which incorporates remarks on the lamentable Georege Will who expressed himself in ridiculous words about it when it was published (University of Chicago Press):

This is, quite simply, one of the most important books ever written about Jefferson. It redresses the terrible imbalance created by American historians who think of the Founding Fathers as the Twelve Apostles re-incarnated. Critics of the book should understand that O'Brien is a world-class scholar.

When O'Brien published "The Long Affair," about Thomas Jefferson and his peculiar admiration for the bloody excesses of the French Revolution, the Sage for Archer Daniels Midland (aka George Will) went into a word-strewn fit over the book. I think Will's excesses speak to the quality of most criticism of the book.

Perhaps, the single thing about the book that most upset George was O'Brien's comparison of a statement of Jefferson's to something Pol Pot might have said. Jefferson wrote in 1793, at the height of the Terror, "...but rather than it [the French Revolution] should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated. Were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is." George wrote off Jefferson's brutal statement as "epistolary extravagance," and attacked O'Brien for using slim evidence for an extreme conclusion about an American "hero."

George went so far as favorably to compare the work of Ken Burns with that of O'Brien, calling Burns "an irrigator of our capacity for political admiration," as compared to one who "panders" to "leave our national memory parched."

I mean no disparagement of Ken Burns, but he produces the television equivalent of coffee-table books. O'Brien is a scholar, the author of many serious books. The very comparison, even without the odd language, tells us something about George.

But language, too, is important. The irony is that George's own words, "irrigator of our capacity for political admiration," sound frighteningly like what we'd expect to hear from the Ministry of Culture in some ghastly place (dare I write it?) such as Pol Pot's Cambodia.

But George should have known better. This letter of Jefferson's is utterly characteristic of views he expressed many different ways. Jefferson quite blithely wrote that America's Constitution would not be adequate to defend what he called liberty, that there would have to be a new revolution every 15 or 20 years, and that the tree of liberty needed to be nourished regularly with a fresh supply of patriot blood.

Jefferson's well-known sentimental view of the merits of sturdy yeomen farmers as citizens of a republic and his intense dislike for industry and urbanization bear an uncanny resemblance to Pol Pot's beliefs. Throwing people out of cities to become honorable peasants back on the land, even those who never saw a farm, was precisely how Pol Pot managed to kill at least a million people in Cambodia.

What is it about many of those on the right relishing the deaths of others in the name of ideology? You see, much like the "chickenhawks" now running Washington, sending others off to die, Jefferson never lifted a musket during the Revolution.

While serving as governor of Virginia, he set a pathetic example of supporting the war's desperate material needs. He also gave us a comic-opera episode of dropping everything and running feverishly away from approaching British troops in Virginia (there was an official inquiry over the episode). Jefferson turned down his first diplomatic appointment to Europe by the new government out of fear of being captured by British warships, a fear that influenced neither Benjamin Franklin nor John Adams.

But real heroes aren't always, or even usually, soldiers. Jefferson, despite a long and successful career and a legacy of fine words (expressing thoughts largely cribbed from European writers), cannot be credited with any significant personal sacrifice over matters of principle during his life. He wouldn't give up luxury despite his words about slavery. He never risked a serious clash with the Virginia Establishment over slave laws during his rise in state politics. And in his draft of the Declaration of Independence, he lamely and at length blamed the king of England for the slave trade, yet, when he wrote the words, it was actually in his interest to slow the trade and protect the value of his existing human holdings.

Unlike Mr. Lincoln later, who had none of his advantages of education and good social contacts, Jefferson did not do well as a lawyer. He never earned enough to pay his own way, his thirst for luxury far outstripping even the capacity of his many high government positions and large number of slaves to generate wealth. Again, unlike Mr. Lincoln, Jefferson was not especially conscientious about owing people money, and he frequently continued buying luxuries like silver buckles and fine carriages while he still owed substantial sums.

Jefferson spent most of his productive years in government service, yet he never stopped railing against the evils of government. There's more than a passing resemblance here to the empty slogans of government-service lifers like Bob Dole and Newt Gingrich who enjoy their government pensions and benefits even as they still complain about government. Jefferson's most famous quote praises the least possible government, yet, as President, he brought a virtual reign of terror to New England with his attempts to enforce an embargo against England (the "Anglomen" as this very prejudiced man typically called the English).

Jefferson, besides having some truly ridiculous beliefs, like those about the evils of central banks or the health efficacy of soaking your feet in ice water every morning, definitely had a very dark side. Any of his political opponents would readily have testified to this. Jefferson was the American Machiavelli.

It was this side of him that put Philip Freneau on the federal payroll in order to subsidize the man's libelous newspaper attacks on Washington's government - this while Jefferson served in that very government. At another point, Jefferson hired James Callender to dig up and write filth about political opponents, an effort which backfired when Callender turned on Jefferson for not fulfilling promises. Callender famously dug out and publicized the story about Sally Hemings, Jefferson's slave-mistress, his late wife's illegitimate half-sister (slavery made for some amazing family relationships), a story we now know almost certainly to be true (by the way, dates point to Sally's beginning to serve Jefferson in this capacity at 13 or 14 years old). It was this dark side of Jefferson that resulted in a ruthless, years-long vendetta against Aaron Burr for the sin of appearing to challenge Jefferson's election to the presidency.

Jefferson expressed himself in embarrassingly clear terms about his belief in black inferiority. And it is important to note that in doing so, he violated one of his basic principles of remaining skeptical and not accepting what was not proved, so this, clearly, was something he believed deeply. There is also reliable evidence that on one occasion he was observed by a visitor beating a slave, quite contradicting Jefferson's public-relations pretensions to saintly paternalism.

When Napoleon sent an army attempting to subdue the slaves who had revolted and formed a republic on what is now Haiti, President Jefferson gave his full consent and support to the bloody (and unsuccessful) effort.

Hero? I have no idea how George Will defines the word, but by any meaningful standard, Jefferson utterly fails.

Read the book, and decide for yourself.








THE DEVIOUS HIGH PRIEST, JEFFERSON, WITH THE CHIEF ACOLYTE AT HIS TEMPLE, GEORGE WILL

THE AMERICAN SENATE AS A DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTION

RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DANIEL FINKELSTEIN IN THE TIMES

Daniel, until 1913, the Senate was entirely an appointed body.

The U.S. government was largely based on the British constitution of the time – greatly admired by many of the Founders - with the Senate having the role of the House of Lords, hardly a democratic model.

(Indeed, the president represented the king in the original scheme, with a number of the Founders favoring a lifetime appointment or a ten-year term. As it was, the Electoral College concept - taken from old systems like the election of the Holy Roman Emperor - made him not directly elected by the popular vote. In the early days the popular vote didn't even matter.

The College vote did - by a small group of elites - the college not having to conform to popular sentiment at all – or what there was of it since in a place like Virginia about one percent of the population had the franchise. Indeed, technically this remains true today, although the College would never dare deliberately overturn the popular vote. Still, we get minority presidents frequently because of the winner-take-all element in the state-by-state votes.)

The anti-democratic Senate is the body with the real power. Having to approve every major presidential appointment and treaty negotiated as well as all legislation from the “People’s House” or the president, the Senate can virtually emasculate an elected president.

Even with election today, the Senate remains highly anti-democratic.

It is elected in a staggered fashion, one-third every two years, so that its basic composition cannot be changed in any one election. Public concern or burning issues largely don’t effect it.

The requirement for a super-majority (60%) to overcome a filibuster truly means the Senate does not work with normal democratic rules under any of its deliberations.

The fact that the Vice-President is given the role of tie-breaker in the Senate - his only genuine Constitutional duty - is also anti-democratic because, as you know, the silly office of Vice-president is filled by selection of a presidential candidate.

You cannot vote separately for President and Vice-president, although, in the early Republic, Electors could, and sometimes Vice-presidential candidates wound up as President. In the original thinking, the Vice-president really does represent something like the Prince of Wales, a king in waiting, although his role as prince-in-waiting ends with the next election.

The Senate’s bizarre two seats for every state - the Great Compromise protecting the interests of under-populated slave states - means today that one of the Senators from California "represents" sixteen million people. At the same time, one of the Senators from New Hampshire represents about three hundred and fifty thousand - very democratic, especially when you consider the Senate’s immense power.

Because Senators from big states today cannot possibly shake hands with all their constituents, even if that's all they did for six years, then advertising and marketing play a key role in elections.

It is estimated a Senator on average spends two-thirds of his/her time in office collecting and soliciting campaign money. Once the money is received, the quid pro quo is access by lobbyists for the next six years. Again, very democratic.

The Founders, most of them, did not trust or even like the idea of democracy. The word had the connotation among members of the Constitutional Convention similar to “communism” in 1950s America. That’s why there are all the extremely conservative designs in the Constitution, with the Constitution being by design an immensely difficult thing to alter.

The sense of democracy you feel in America today comes only after more than two hundred years of rebellions, wars, and crises gradually making America a fairly democratic place. But the nature of the Senate – its powers, manner of election, and financing - provides the real measure of how far removed even today America remains from democracy.

Colin Powell couldn’t have been more wrong when he answered the French at the U.N., in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, that America was the world’s oldest democracy.

BERNANKE AND HIS STUDIES OF JAPAN APPLIED TO THE CURRENT FINANCIAL CRISIS

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

The writers are trying to glorify what amounts to a cheap trick on all America's trading partners and allies, another scam even bigger than the ones we've seen.

It doesn't matter what academic terms Bernanke uses to cover it.

What the U.S. is doing is to embark on an inflation that will penalize all those holding dollars, an involuntary tax on people all over the planet.

That's how it’s going to pay for Bush's gross excesses.

It's done this before: we saw the same behavior after the idiotic and incredibly costly Vietnam War.

Now it's going to do the same for its equally idiotic, and even more costly, adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Of course, the American dollar is already being questioned as the world reserve currency, and rightly so.

OBAMA AND EDUCATION

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JOHN IBBITSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Yes, I'm sure Obama cares deeply about the poor state of much of America's public education.

But education under America's Constitution is a state matter, and the federal government is very limited as to what it can do.

The Department of Education of course doles out billions in federal incentives and assistance, but it is the local authorities who shape things educational in America.

Local authorities like the current Governor of Illinois and a host of crooks and incompetents across the land.

CON ARTISTS: WHY DO PEOPLE FALL FOR THEM?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DANIEL FINKELSTEIN IN THE TIMES

Why do they fall for advertising's flimsy and dishonest claims?

Why do they fall for ambitious and manipulative politicians?

Why do they fall for wars and send their children off to die in them?

Why do they fall for the ridiculous and prejudiced claims of religion?

I think it has something to do with the fact that humans are little better than glorified chimps, responding to the chest-beating of an aggressive male.

Evolution may produce a better model someday, but for now it truly remains the human comedy, what Mark Twain called ‘the damned human race.’

CANADA'S PRINCE OF DARKNESS ASSUMES LEADERSHIP OF THE LIBERAL PARTY

December 13, 2008

CANADA’S PRINCE OF DARKNESS ASSUMES LEADERSHIP OF THE LIBERAL PARTY

John Chuckman

Since leaving the shaded groves of Harvard a few years ago, seeking as his second career the running of a country, Michael Ignatieff has been a prominent politician in Canada . He didn’t just pack his bags and come home – he grew up in Canada – he had the encouragement of some Liberal Party officials as a possible future leader.

While it’s true that the Liberals needed to do something to revive their fortunes – Ignatieff is their third leader in a few years – they have acted desperately both in selecting him and in their manner of selecting him.

Canada’s progressive vote is divided among four parties, and the largest of these, the Liberals, was hurt by a scandal in Quebec a few years back. The bright, relentless, frequently less-than-civil Stephen Harper has kept his new Conservative Party in power as a minority for two and a half years, making every measure before Parliament one of confidence, rarely consulting the opposition, and daring them to make his government fall.

Two weeks ago, shortly after an election no one really wanted and a loss of Liberal seats, tempers snapped with Harper’s provocative introduction of three anti-democratic measures described as economic ones – they involved government funding of parties, equity for women, and the right to strike – while holding off any genuine economic measures. Three opposition parties then formed a coalition to topple Harper, something for which there is little precedent in Canada.

Harper started backing off his insulting measures almost immediately, but all trust was broken. In a poor precedent, the Governor General accepted Harper’s request to prorogue Parliament until near the end of January. So on January 26, Parliament will return, Harper will likely introduce some genuine economic measures, and the Liberal Party will have a new leader to face a delicate situation.

The Liberal party executive sees Ignatieff as tough, the kind of attack-dog needed against Harper, and so, behind the scenes, his leadership opponents were pressured to withdraw – including the remarkably talented and highly experienced Bob Rae – leaving only Ignatieff and a party membership feeling it has been ignored.

Ignatieff spent years speaking for America 's global empire, allying himself with the Neo-cons in his enthusiasm for invading Iraq . He joined the ranks of ethical cowards by suggesting some modest role for torture. He since has blubbered something about changing his views, but it's what he did when it mattered that counts. Had he been in office when Bush invaded, Canadians would be killing and being killed in Iraq . Ignatieff has nothing in common with Canada ’s great Liberal tradition, which saw Pearson saying no to Lyndon Johnson over Vietnam and Jean Chretien doing the same to George Bush over Iraq .

Ignatieff’s way to the leadership is consistent with his past. After leaving Harvard, he got his nomination to run for parliament by being parachuted into a riding where he used some questionable tactics. Here is one Toronto newspaper columnist's description of Ignatieff's efforts about three years ago:

"And snookering one potential opponent, name of Shwec, on the grounds that he wasn't a party member, although he'd paid his dues, and another, name of Chyczij, who also happens to be the association president, on the grounds that he hadn't resigned the presidency when he filed. Not to mention locking the office door ahead of the deadline so they couldn't file in time."

It sounds a great deal like politics in Richard J Daley's Chicago or President Mubarak's Egypt .

He told his constituents he would live in the riding, a suburb of modest homes, but instead lives far away in an upper-class condo district, claiming to be "a subway ride away," less than true and certainly not the same thing as living among those he represents.

Arrogance comes with the territory of national leadership, but there is a limit as to what is palatable, and Ignatieff exceeds that limit. He spent most of his adult life in other countries, serving interests often inimical to those of Canada . He has three years of political experience, no organizational experience, no policy experience, in foreign or domestic affairs. But he has a name, and some of our political insiders have tripped over themselves to thrust him forward.

But he is aggressive, arrogant, and has demonstrated Machiavellian skills. I see him as a divisive and anti-democratic figure, much as Stephen Harper.

What a poor choice is left to the people of Canada for the next election. I’ll be throwing my vote to the Greens.




MICHAEL IGNATIEFF, ETHICAL NULLITY

AN AMERICAN NEO-CON LIVING IN CANADA PREACHES ABOUT CANADIAN DEMOCRACY

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY TOM FLANAGAN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Tom Flanagan is an American neo-con, and truly has little basis for preaching politics or constitutional matters to Canadians.

Moreover, he has been a close advisor to our unpleasant, personality-disorder Prime Minister.

"But the Governor-General, in her role as protector of Canadian democracy, should ensure the people have that opportunity..."

That statement is simply ignorant of Parliamentary government, as you might expect from an American and from a Harper advisor.

It also is just a re-statement of one of the official Harper talking points given to all Conservative mouthpieces. We've heard it over and over, in one form or another, and there is no factual basis for it. Indeed, quite the opposite.

Democracy spoke during the recent election. Canadians voted 63% against Mr. Harper's party.

Under the Westminster system, our system, once a Parliament has been elected, the people have done their democratic duty.

After the election, members have the freedom to form new alliances or even a coalition. We often see, for example, members crossing the aisle. Such members of course must answer to the people at the following election. Half the parliaments in the world are run by coalitions.

No one "voted for" Harper but the small number of people in his own
riding, and the coalition's assuming power would of course not affect his riding's representation.

So how is democracy affected?

Amazingly uninformed comments from a supposedly educated man.




TOM FLANAGAN, BUSY SPREADING THE ALIEN VIEWS OF AMERICAN NEOCONS ACROSS CANADA

AFGHANISTAN SHOULD BE OVER - WE'VE DONE WHAT WE COULD

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DOUG SAUNDERS IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

"Canada and its allies are fighting at the request of the United Nations Security Council, which has used repeated resolutions, the most recent one enacted last month, to authorize an International Stability and Assistance Force."

This is technically true, but saying only this leaves out the harsh realities that are far more important.

The UN was pushed into this by Bush whose people were pressuring and threatening and bribing countries around the globe for the vote.

When the Brits first joined Bush in the invasion, we know they did so in part because they seriously feared America was ready to use nuclear weapons on Afghanistan otherwise.

Canada made this commitment under intense pressure, officials in Ottawa saying at the time "we owe one to the Pentagon."

The U.S. never had a clear purpose, beyond revenge, when it invaded Afghanistan. It had made almost no real effort to use diplomacy, legal channels, and economic pressure to seek justice over 9/11.

So far it has achieved nothing but dispersing the Taleban and killing a lot of civilians. Much of the support of moderates there has been lost with its insane propensity to bomb everything that moves, which generally turns out to be civilians.

The Kabul government today is no more genuinely in charge of the country than it was five years ago.

But Canada has been recognized in America - always desperately looking for countries to join in the killing - and that is the only genuine purpose of this "mission."

So, indeed, the purpose, what there was of it, has been achieved.

DION SHOULD GO SAYS MANLEY

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY JOHN MANLEY IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

John Manley is right on this - although it's already been said by others - and he is hardly much of one to speak on this.

Manley is in his own way as pathetic a politician as Dion - a boring speaker who resembles an overweight boy scout given to jerky shakes of the head and rolling of the eyes. Altogether unattractive.

And, more importantly, very much a crypto-Conservative, an American wannabe.

Dion at least has the merit of being an honorable man with genuine ideals, not an opportunistic fence-sitter like Manley.

When a man of Manley's character speaks like this, it isn't brave, it's just creepy.




A TELLING PICTURE OF JOHN MANLEY WITH STEPHEN HARPER WATCHING

THE DECISION BY GOVERNOR GENERAL MICHAELLE JEAN TO PROROGUE PARLIAMENT

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY HEATHER MALLICK IN THE GUARDIAN

I'm sorry, but Heather Mallick gives a version of events inaccurate enough so that the unfamiliar cannot understand the historic events that just transpired in Canada.

"She is Michaëlle Jean, a Haitian-born Quebecois woman of great intelligence and style, a former journalist who speaks five languages, a diplomatic star overseas, in other words, an intellectual who personifies everything that enrages Harper."

This is simply incorrect both with respect to fact and emphasis.

First, while the unpleasant Harper has spoken contemptuously of the arts community receiving grants, we have no evidence that intellectuals in general “enrage” him. None.

Indeed, he is a highly intelligent man - trained in classical economics and having made remarkable progress in learning French while on the job - albeit one seriously lacking in emotional intelligence.

As for Michaelle Jean, the not widely-known truth is that while beautiful and intelligent, she is a highly fragile personality.

She keeps away from the press, but there are enough stories since her appointment as Governor General by the previous (Liberal) Prime Minister Martin to confirm the idea she has serious emotional and/or mental problems. A few reports in the press suggested Mr. Martin understood this not long after the appointment.

Despite avoiding the press, her fragility shows through clearly in some pictures of her lovely face.

It was reported in major newspapers in an almost footnote story a while ago that when Mr. Harper first took office, people filling him in on less-known problems in the capital advised that the Governor General was a possible road-side bomb waiting to go off.

In this, she reminds me very much of the late Princess Diana, a glowing woman who charmed mass audiences but, by many reports, blew gaskets behind the scenes.

Now, I like what I see of the Governor General, and I don't say these things to attack her character, but they are essential to understanding her historic, and wrong-headed, decision. Intelligence and beauty played no role in this, and I think it fair to say Ms. Mallick emphasizes them to set up her false dichotomy about Harper and intellectuals.

Michaëlle Jean’s decision about proroguing Parliament (a temporary adjournment and wiping clean of the order paper for upcoming business such as the imminent confidence vote) was simply wrong on the facts. Of course, we must accept it, just as we accept any decision of the Supreme Court in criminal or civil matters, but we are, as members of a free society, free to analyze and even criticize it.

She was totally within her rights to do what she did because there are no written rules for this crucial aspect of her job, but it was a mistake, going against the rights and responsibilities of the members of Parliament as a whole, setting a bad precedent, and effectively suppressing the will of a large majority of Parliament - the three parties of the coalition opposing Harper representing 63% of the popular vote in the recent election.

She has allowed a prime minister facing an imminent vote of non-confidence to escape, much like dismissing school for seven weeks to benefit a student who was about to fail an exam. The precedent set is a poor one.

Most of the time, the Governor General, just as the Queen, serves a ceremonial role, representing Canada as head of state abroad, at ceremonies, and in awarding honors, allowing for a decent separation from the head of government, a politician. But on the rare occasions in which the parties in Parliament cannot agree as to where the rules and traditions take them, she is there to make a binding decision.

Of course, out of respect for democracy, her decision is to be based on the Constitution, parliamentary rules and traditions, and precedent, and not on personal preferences with regard to parties or personalities.

And I don’t think her decision shows such bias, but it did show, I believe, another bias, and that is the preference of this frail personality to avoid public controversy and the great tensions of making a correct but difficult decision.

After some inappropriate activities by Mr. Harper, immediately preceding the Governor General’s decision, the stage was set for the right decision to require extra courage and stamina.

Harper’s nasty little party spent days hurling accusations of everything right up to treason against three honorable men following their consciences and going about a perfectly legal operation of parliamentary government.

Indeed, it was only the divisive and extreme aspects of Harper’s character – exhibited in his government’s bizarre recent economic statement, only the latest of many bizarre and antagonistic behaviors in a few years - that drove three disparate leaders from three parties to come to the difficult decision that they must join in a formal coalition to topple the government.

Harper went out of his way to promote misunderstanding around the coalition, claiming voters had just selected him and that this effort amounted to overturning democracy. Of course, in our Westminster system of democracy the only voters who actually selected Harper were the tiny number of his own constituency. And he has served as prime minister for two and a half years solely by virtue of periodic support of other parties in the House, the very parties he was now viciously attacking.

Harper and some of his worst hacks threw every unfair accusation they could think of, fanning hatreds and prejudices, including prejudices towards Quebec, the home base of one of the three parties. They ran quickly produced ads, the party being well financed by Alberta oil. They arranged public demonstrations, including one in front of the Governor General’s residence, surely entirely inappropriate for trying to influence a decision whose nature is perhaps best paralleled by a decision of the Supreme Court. Popular opinion simply has nothing to do with it.

We are left, after the Governor General’s decision, with a widely disliked government, led by an almost psychopathic and certainly devious personality. The chief political fact keeping his minority in power is that the progressive opposition is divided into four different parties. A country that is overwhelmingly progressive is stuck with a neo-con Prime Minister who listens to no one and stoops to any cheap stunt he thinks will be to his advantage.

Yes, the opposition can return near the end of January and defeat his government on its budget, but those many weeks will see unparalleled efforts by the government to demonize the opposition and manipulate public opinion, and the opposition, not nearly so well financed, will come under unusual pressure to break up. And already Harper’s government has toyed with the idea of bribing key parties in the opposition with posts or appointments.

I’m sure the budget will be fairly reasonable too, making defeating it all the harder. But a budget per se – there hasn’t been one yet - has not been the cause of this historic non-confidence effort. Harper’s school-yard bully personality is, and we appear stuck with it for a while.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND CIVILIZED SOCIETY - REFLECTIONS ON A PIECE BY OLIVER KAMM FOCUSING ON KHOMEINI'S 1989 FATWA AGAINST RUSHDIE

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY OLIVER KAMM IN THE TIMES

"A cosmopolitan and polyglot society is a wondrous development in Western civilisation."

Yes, I agree heartily. In Canada we enjoy one of the world's leading cosmopolitan, peaceful, and decent societies. I wish the blessing on all people.

"It involves a single category of citizenship and equal rights under the law for everyone, regardless of national origin or race or creed."

Fine words there too, but what about Israel? It violates these principles every day. And it is precisely the West's reluctance or cowardice to push Israel in the correct direction that helps generate so many of the grievances we see between Moslems and the West.

"The often feeble Western response to the fatwa two decades ago was a terrible precedent...."

And just so the Western response to Israel's bloody excesses. Israel's insistence on a half century of the policy of an "iron wall" towards its neighbors is the source of great instability and injustice in our world.

1,500 people killed in Southern Lebanon and a million hideous cluster bombs dropped to kill innocents for years to come - all done on a flimsy, contrived excuse.

A siege of the 1.5 million people of Gaza and dozens of mafia-like assassinations - all because a free election failed to elect the government Israel wanted?

Has Iran done anything to anyone to compare? I don't think so.

You can't be selective in these human-rights matters, as I detect a regular tendency in your columns.

You are either for civilized values or you are one more obstacle against them.

A CONSERVATIVE HACK INVENTS A RIDICULOUS THEORY ABOUT QUEBEC TO SUPPORT HARPER'S EXCESSES

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY WILLIAM JOHNSON IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

William Johnson, I don't know what planet you've been living on, but I haven't seen M. Duceppe laugh once.

I don't hear him making school-yard bully remarks or low-life jokes either, although I hear these regularly from Conservatives and especially the unpleasant Mr. Harper.

No, M. Duceppe has viewed this entire matter as the grave business it is, even though his party's interests are strictly provincial.

He has acted rather statesmanlike throughout.

Which is far more than anyone can say of leading Conservative mouthpieces.

Look at you, inventing a nonsense theory about Quebec just to offer a new slant on the Harper attacks.

Ridiculous and more than a little prejudiced.

I'd be ashamed to put my name to intellectual rubbish like this, but then I'm not serving the interests of the most low-life prime minister in memory.

IS THE COALITION USING A FALSE PRETEXT TO TOPPLE HARPER?

POSTED COMMENT TO A COLUMN BY STANLEY HARTT IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

This is just intellectual rubbish, showing no understanding of the way parliaments work.

Actually, it is just plain rubbish, because there is nothing intellectual in Stanley Hartt's words.

In our system, a governing minority either has the confidence of the House or it does not.

Harper's Conservatives do not have the confidence of the House.

How could that be any clearer?

Uninformed speculation on motives for why the minority governing party has lost the confidence of the House is entirely irrelevant.

There is no validity in asking why each member of parliament has cast his or her vote on any issue at any time.

And just so here.

Once the people have spoken in an election - and they have just spoken with more than 60% of their votes cast against the Harper Conservatives - it is up to the members of Parliament to make arrangements there.

Second-guessing them is in fact what is anti-democratic.


____________________________


The Bloc is represented in Parliament.

The Bloc has actually been the Official Opposition.

The Bloc always participates in our election debates.

They have just as much legitimacy to act within the rules of Parliament as any other party does, and that is all they are doing.

It is actually darkly funny to hear Harperites attack the Bloc when it was their leader who recognized Quebec as "a nation," a cheap act done for the sake of gaining a few votes.

WAS OBAMA'S APPOINTMENT OF CLINTON RISKY?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MICHAEL TOMASKY IN THE GUARDIAN

I don't agree at all that she is a big risk.

Obama is a calm, self-confident person, one moreover who already has gone toe-to-toe with Clinton during the primaries.

He won those confrontations. Hillary was the one off brooding in a corner.

Her sleazy husband was ferociously angry by all reports and kept telling his friends that Obama could never win.

Guess who won and won big?

The immense concessions the Clintons have made - approval of sleazy Bill's speaking engagements and a full vetting of his contributors - really show a complete humbling of their pride.

And Obama has her inside the tent peeing out rather than outside peeing in.

HARPER'S FURY OVER THE COALITION

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

A high-handed bully called Harper has brought this upon the nation.

Three leaders from three parties with different views have been driven to forming a coalition against their first impulses by this unpleasant and dangerous man.

Just the rhetoric Harper is now using displays for all thinking people his poor character.

He's intelligent enough to know the charges he is hurling are cheap "sound bites" appealing to various Canadians who do not understand this perfectly legal working of Parliament.

This is government by a manipulative liar, a man with a natural bent to authoritarian government.

We all know Harper was perfectly happy to have the Bloc's support for whatever it was he wanted.

He even signed an agreement with them to topple the Martin government.

Now, suddenly, they are ghastly people.

In fact, the Bloc is currently working for the best interests of Canada despite their basic philosophy. At any rate they are a legal part of Parliament entitled to behave in any legal way that other parties do.

They and the other coalition parties represent the majority of Canadian voters, the landslide majority at well over 60% of the vote.

Harper is simply a liar when he says anything else.

What is so sad, judging from some comments here and in other places, is that there appears to be large numbers of Canadians - poorly educated Canadians and perhaps many new immigrants - who simply do not understand how parliamentary government works.

If it weren't for this fairly widespread ignorance, Harper's efforts to hurl half-truths and lies would be hopeless.

Also, importantly, do we demonstrate and rile up people with slogans when the Supreme Court is to make an important decision? Of course not. We don't want a Supreme Court ruled by yelling mobs.

And it is precisely the same for a decision by the Governor General. Hers is a legal and binding decision to be made with regard to our Constitution and traditions and parliamentary rules. She is not running a popularity contest, and, good God, we hope she is not deciding from intimidation.

That way lies insanity, yet that seems clearly the direction Harperites are pushing us towards. Absolutely irresponsible.

Demonstrations in front of the Governor General's house much resemble the ugly stuff of Right Wing Americans demonstrating at a doctor's house over abortion or intimidating women attending a clinic.

It is completely inappropriate. As are Harper's behavior and statements.

_____________________

I just wonder do some people forget how dreadful Harper has been for this country?

We have a story in this same newspaper tending to confirm what many knew, that Mulroney took bribes and lied and took money from the government on false pretences.

All Harper has done with this nasty business is to bury it.

Just as he has done with the Cadman affair, a very serious business indeed.

As he did with the shameful behavior of his former foreign minister.

And do people forget how Harper has belittled the leader of the opposition with name-calling and cartoons rather than arguing with sound arguments?

And do people forget how this nasty man, Harper, said that Canadians questioning the horrid bloody policies of Israel were anti-Semitic?

And do they forget how Harper blamed UN observers doing their jobs for Israel's deliberate killing of them - including a brave Canadian officer - during its illegal invasion of Lebanon?

Do they forget Harper never corrected his deputy when he insulted a woman in Parliament and lied about it?

This man has no character. None. And he’s going out of his way to prove it now.




Harper leaving a late session of Parliament.

CANADA'S CONSERVATIVES OFFER A BIZARRE ECONOMIC STATEMENT

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE TORONTO GLOBE AND MAIL

And so the Tory minority should be in jeopardy.

What a bizarre document the Conservatives have presented us.

I would have no objection to the government playing things cautiously with regard to major-industry stimulation policies, taking only sensible steps until the developing picture is a little clearer.

After all, a new government is being born in the United States, and it is not clear what steps will be taken towards an industry like automobiles.

But without major programs being started yet, one did reasonably expect certain steps to have been taken. Some extension of EI benefits would be one. So is a substantially better treatment of retirees with their drawdown of savings from government-created instruments. And so would genuine government restraint, such as a reducing a bloated cabinet, placing hard-nosed limits on expenses, and perhaps even reducing ministers’ salaries.

But here we have no such measures.

And, just as important, we have no consultation with opposition parties before presenting this document. None.

It’s the clearest indicator that Harper intends to rule exactly the way he has the last two and a half years, and that is simply not acceptable.

This document plays politics under the guise of economic restraint, and it is not just any politics, it is American-style Right Wing politics.

What benefit worth measuring can possibly come from ending support for political parties? Moreover, does anyone in his or her right mind think American-style private money controlling politics is good?

What benefit worth measuring can come from suspending the right to strike?

Is the suspension of that right even legal? It seems to me to invite a court challenge. This isn’t bringing people together, it’s the opposite.

What meaningful benefit can come from the changes concerning women and equity?

This document provides the clearest evidence of Harper’s continued ideologue approach to government. He seems to have learned nothing, only posing in his general statements and photo-ops as a man who has learned something.

CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS WEIGHS IN ON HILLARY CLINTON AS OBAMA'S SECRETARY OF STATE AND HE'S JUST AS SILLY AS THOMAS FRIEDMAN

RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY DANIEL FINKELSTEIN IN THE TIMES

Christopher Hitchens becomes more trivial and irrelevant with each passing day.

Since when is being "devoted to no interest other than their own" an accusation against a politician? It is only a pleasant accident of history when a leader’s self-interest happens to correspond to a greater general interest.

What planet has Hitchens been living on that he can write, "whose personal ambition is without limit"?

I truly would like Hitchens to name one national politician - especially an American one since hubris, like greed, in America has been raised to a position of high national merit -
whose personal ambition is not without limit.

What can you say of Abraham Lincoln, raised in shacks and with less than two years formal education, offering himself for the highest office?

George Bush, who insisted on reaching the highest office despite being an obviously incompetent man, something I believe even he knows in his quiet moments?

Franklin Roosevelt, a man bound to a wheelchair, seeking the highest office?

Some degree of narcissism, or even mild psychopathy, comes with the territory of powerful national leadership. I should think any decent student of history would understand that fundamental truth.

"...sordid backstairs dealing"? That's Political Anti-Speak for the normal operations of governments and senior politicians.

Hillary has two qualities which, despite her intelligence and energy,
are widely disliked. Indeed, I very much dislike them.

First, is her public inconsistency. One day, she's a follower of Eleanor Roosevelt, the next a cheap politician appealing to grubbiest trailer-park values.

One day - early in her seeking her Senate seat for example, speaking from Palestine - she's showing unusual sympathy, for an American politician, at the plight of Palestinians. The next she's making hard-line statements that could have been scripted by the most ruthless defender of Israel's ugly excesses.

Second, there is her sticking with that great hunk of charismatic sleaze, Bill Clinton.

While most people admire loyalty through tough times, there is something more about this particular relationship than loyalty which strikes many as being distasteful and even repulsive.

But so long as sleazy Bill is kept at arm's length from Washington, I think Hillary could prove a very effective Secretary of State.

As for her views not being the same as Obama's, I don't know when this is ever the case. George Marshall, a great Secretary, certainly disagreed with Truman at times. Kissinger and Nixon?

Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson actually hired scurrilous writers, shamelessly on the government payroll, to cast shadows on President George Washington’s administration.

Obama is a remarkably calm and self-confident person. There is something of the Buddha there. He is also very "results-oriented." I think he will be able to use Hillary's strengths without much damage from her weaknesses.

If he is not able to do that, he simply isn't the extraordinary person I believe he is.

Recently, the oleaginous Thomas Friedman - professional salesman for the Pentagon who frequently moonlights for Israel - said similar things about the appointment.

That was enough to tip me into believing Obama is right. Hitchens only nudges me further in the same direction. One really must consider the source.

HOW THE REPUBLICAN PARTY SHOULD BE RE-INVENTED

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOK IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

For the foreseeable future, the Republican Party is doomed to remain an ugly marriage of disparate interests.

In many ways, it resembles a nasty laboratory experiment combining parts of several species into a weird creature.

In theory, it is the party of fiscal conservatives, but that has not been the case for decades.

They have been a super-spending party. Its distinction in this regard with Democrats has been that Republicans spend only on certain interests, especially on wars, whether wars on drugs or wars on terror or various colonial wars.

Adding to the record of fiscal irresponsibility has been a long stream of tax cuts, many of them poorly considered for the long-term interests of the country and reflecting ignorance of the many roles taxes play in a society.

The tax cuts have been vote getters from certain segments of the population but, perhaps even more, they were money-getters for the party from those massively benefiting.

The party has always been against serious reform in financing elections – the single most anti-democratic element of American government, a system that in some ways effectively acts as a poll tax - because it always said its “story” was more difficult to tell and required more money. It also embraced the specious argument that giving money was a form of free speech.

The party in fact would be a perpetual minority were it not for the Religious Right.

However, as a more honest John McCain told the world in 2000, the Religious Right has a pernicious effect on the party, and I think all thoughtful people recognize this.

The horrible irony that America was founded largely by deists and others wishing not suffer under religious opinions in their government escapes these people entirely. They just keep coming like a mob of zombies in a horror movie, always ready to impose new inappropriate religious practices to American government.

WHERE WILL BUSH'S PARDONS GO?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY ZACHARY ROTH IN THE GUARDIAN

The real question here is why do presidents have this ridiculously abusive power?

It's just one of many outdated, anti-democratic provisions in the American Constitution.

The idea was taken from the power of kings at the time, many of the Founders favoring a presidency which closely resembled a monarchy.

It's long past time for this provision to be changed, but I doubt anyone will make the tremendous effort it takes to change the Constitution in the least matter.

HARPER'S BLUBBERING FROM COLUMBIA ABOUT TRADE BEING KEY TO THE FUTURE

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Yes, it is, Mr. Harper, but your grandiose words about world trade do not fit well here.

Columbia is a completely unimportant place for our trade, a small country with a very limited range of products of interest to us and an economy poor enough to provide nothing much of a market.

Moreover, since it is a narco-state, it has people running large parts of its economy who are no different in character to the Taleban you have us fighting in Afghanistan.

There is only one genuine reason for your doing this goofy stunt.

Again, you are simply doing whatever Bush wants.

Trade treaties with places like Columbia are Bush policy in the hopeless war on drugs.

THE LIEBERMAN FARCE, THE MEANING OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, THE SENATE IS NOT A CLUB BUT SOMETHING FAR MORE SINISTER

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY MICHAEL THOMASKY IN THE GUARDIAN

The Lieberman saga is just one more prime piece of evidence for the meaninglessness of the contemporary Democratic Party.

Lieberman is a disgrace, but the party just burps and continues as it was.

It has no principles, no purpose other than seeking power.

It is difficult to see how any really progressive agenda of Obama's can succeed.

The Senate isn't so much a club, as you describe it, Mr. Thomasky, as it is the center of power in a big fat imperial power with extremely conservative attitudes.

Its collection of old, fat, crinkly, self-satisfied faces resembles for all the world something from Rome, about 100 AD.

The institution is not and never has been democratic in spirit. Its structure was planned that way.

It was appointed until 1913, and even its election now, staggered as it is, one-third every two years, keeps popular opinion from having much of an influence at any time.

Filibuster is of course anti-democratic in effect, requiring a super-majority of 60% to overcome.

This group of pompous old imperialists has tremendous power being required to approve every major appointment, judge, and treaty, as well as all normal legislation.

Its two-to-a-state structure creates some true absurdities, besides also being anti-democratic. A Senator in California could spend six years shaking hands and never shake all his "constituents" hands.

That makes immense amounts of money all the more important for campaigns. Thus all populous states have Senators whose main service is riveted towards special interests. They spend, literally, two-thirds of their time in office collecting contributions, a full four years out of six.

Newcomers are oddities in the Senate, incumbency being virtually characteristic. Inherited seats too are common.

It's a terrible, outdated institution entirely, but it will continue a very long time.





The full Senate

HILLARY CLINTON AS SECRETARY OF STATE A GOOD IDEA?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY CLIVE CROOK IN THE FINANCIAL TIMES

Thomas Friedman’s disapproval is enough to make me think it a great idea.

Friedman always makes me (using his own words) slouch in my chair because he’s not a genuine journalist, just a mouthpiece for big-money special interests.

Friedman is a full-time aluminum-siding salesman for the Pentagon, doing odd after-hours jobs for Israel.

He has no idea of the best long-term interests of the United States or of the world.

BARACK AND MICHELLE 60 MINUTES INTERVIEW

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE NEW YORK TIMES

I rarely watch this kind of thing, but I watched this.

On the personal level, Barack and Michelle are a completely charming, beautiful couple.

The intelligence and keen sensibilities of both of them are obvious.

There has not been a couple like them in the White House in a very long time.

Also on the personal level, what is so apparent in the president-elect is a remarkable, unflappable temperament.

It comes right through, and it is just what the world needs now in an American president.

The policy level is always, I think, the least important part of such interviews since policy changes and adjusts to changing circumstances and new priorities.

Just look at the way the economy has shot to the front of the line in a very short time. Few could have predicted this.

Obama's basic qualities of character assure the world of a rational response from America whatever the situation. No more blindly stupid, infantile "You’re with us or against us!" or "Bring 'em on!"

Indeed I like to think there will be no speaking out of both sides of one mouth, a disgusting Bush speciality. Apologies for the atrocious acts at Abu Ghraib while giving us Ozzie-and-Harriet stuff about that not being the America he knew.

Mighty good to hear torture - using the word without the shading or quibbling of No-ethics McCain - is not going to represent America anymore.

Good to hear that moral hellhole in Guantanamo is to be closed.

I only hope the poor prisoners left can be released rather than tried in civilian courts.

You do not try captured enemies in war, unless true war crimes are involved. But the only unambiguous war crimes involved here are those of George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Donald Rumsfeld.

By every reasonable standard, they should be subject to an international war crimes trial, but we know well they will not be.

I think the emphasis on Osama bin Laden is not promising. He is a tired old man, and we have not had a single published scrap of evidence that he is guilty of anything other than hating the policies of the United States. But this kind of thing is unavoidable given the politics of the United States.

Obama is overall a highly welcome figure on the world stage.

BUSH: THE MEMOIRS NO ONE WANTS TO READ?

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN IN THE GUARDIAN BY MEG KANE

Sorry, you over-estimate Americans.

The most incompetent president in history still has millions of admirers.

The Republican Party, always well financed if nothing else, will also use its established trick of buying up thousands of copies.

How else do you think literary agents are besieging the literally brainless Sarah Palin with book offers?

ALVIN CURLING'S HOPELESS VIEWS ON BLACK CRIME IN TORONTO

RESPONSE TO AN INTERVIEW ON CBC RADIO'S THE CURRENT WITH ALVIN CURLING

Alvin Curling was notorious as a virtually incompetent Speaker in the Ontario Parliament. Hearing him talk about his report on black-youth violence makes it painfully clear why that was so.

The man cannot think clearly. For example, in defending the collection of race-based statistics, Mr. Curling talked about the way things can be put to good or bad uses, citing the example of the hydrogen bomb. What on earth were the good uses of the hydrogen bomb?

Every cliché possible concerning black youth and violence was served up by Mr. Curling. His approach is simply not helpful. It gives us no factual basis for dealing with a real problem, the violence of young black males.

Numerous times, for example, Mr. Curling referred to the low graduation rate of black youth in Toronto – on the order of 40%.

That indeed is a vital social fact, but Mr. Curling turns it completely on its head by claiming it is evidence of racism and inadequate public facilities.

He seems totally unaware that this poor rate of graduation is typical of the black youth of his own homeland of Jamaica. Indeed, it is typical of many dominantly black regions and countries, including (predominantly black) American cities and neighborhoods, other Caribbean states, South Africa, and even black neighborhoods in Britain.

Yes, Toronto remains a relatively safe city, but if you keep reciting that you ignore important and threatening trends. The fact is that about as many black young men have been killed by guns in Toronto as Canadian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan, and they have been killed only by other black men.

Our overall low violent crime rate – one of the best in North America – is owing to a continued drop in traditional forms of murder and violence on a per capita basis. But this overall gain is partly offset by a new kind of violence Toronto has never known before, public shootings with no consideration for bystanders, simply insanely scary stuff.

In the recent past, the Toronto School Board accepted a “zero tolerance” policy for violence in the schools. It served the interests of other students and teachers who all deserve a violence-free place in which to learn.

As soon as it became apparent that black males overwhelmingly made up the statistics of those penalized under the policy - people of Mr. Curling’s inclination would refer to those “victimized” by it – the policy was dropped. All the earnest representations over the merit of the policy by officials a few years before were reversed instantly after a flood complaints from people of Mr. Curling’s views.

Anyone who understands statistics knows that this kind of argument for policy reversal, the argument that the policy was ipso facto unfair because more of one group’s young men were penalized, is unwarranted in logic.

It is the same kind of thing as trying to explain crime statistics by vague notions like prejudice. Prejudice of course exists – and it exists among all groups – but it is actually a form of superstition no rational person accepts. Hard statistics are not superstition, they are facts.

In America, for example, there is a huge, decades-long body of statistical evidence showing that roughly half of violent crime is committed by young black males, despite black people making up only about 13% of American society. These trends are supported by statistics in other societies also. They are not the product of prejudice or imagination – not when we have millions of statistics – but hard facts to be faced.

Despite these dismal facts, we see that when a bright and talented black man offered himself as candidate for president, the American people embraced him.

Contrary to Mr. Curling’s recitation of clichés, poverty, it can be demonstrated, has little to do with it. We have had generation after generation of different groups coming from other places with almost no resources – poor Chinese, Koreans, Jews, Italians, Irish, and others – and making a success of things without behaving as armed psychopaths on our streets.

My brother and I were raised in extremely humble conditions. We never once thought about carrying loaded guns to school or shooting people on the street. But then we did not have babies at fourteen, we did not drop out of school, we never touched drugs, and we had a mother who set demanding standards for us despite having to work at a demanding job full-time.

Immigrants from Jamaica have transplanted that country's culture of violence and crime (1200 murders a year with a population the size of Toronto where the long-term historical annual rate is on the order of 60) to Canada. This is a crime problem immensely more than it is a general social problem.

There is a syndrome of behaviors we find in every black country and region. The syndrome includes early pregnancy, dropping out of school, fathers who ignore their babies, and general lack of economic success compared to almost any other group you care to name.

Canada is one of the best and most tolerant countries on earth, and I resent the kind of reverse-racism people like Mr. Curling promote and thrive on, blaming Canada for the lack of success in large parts of his particular community. Canada is in fact - with health care, school, and other helps – far more generous to immigrants than the United States and many other lands. And just look at the people in the Caribbean lined up to emigrate to Canada. They aren’t lined up because Canada is an awful place.

No, Mr. Curling offers us nothing helpful, and indeed parts of what he says are destructive to the fabric of our society.

Your past, recent topic of increased poverty in the GTA likely has a related explanation.

Economically-unsuccessful groups like Jamaicans are now concentrating in areas of Toronto. More successful groups, as for example Asians, are moving out to Markham. Likely a close examination of the stats would show these kinds of trends explaining increasing poverty in Toronto.

There is little industrial work in Toronto for unskilled school drop-outs of any ethnicity.

These facts together define a major and growing structural problem for Toronto. Talk about social centers or recreational facilities, while I don't condemn them, is far off the mark of dealing with hard basic trends.

If these trends continue, there is little doubt Toronto will one day begin to hollow out as so many American cities have done. Contrary to widespread notion that America’s phenomenon of “white urban flight” in the 1960s represented racism, it largely was a reflection of middle class people’s fear of living with violence. Indeed, confirming that today, we see the flight of successful blacks from violent old neighborhoods to suburbs.

CHANGING THE NATURE OF REMEMBRANCE DAY

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY REX MURPHY IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

That's just not true, Rex.

Remembrance Day comes out of WWI, a vast and pointless war in which all the sides involved were imperial powers.

Queen Victoria's progeny sat on half the thrones of Europe. The Kaiser and the British monarch were related.

How was Britain's empire over India and other lands any different at all than Germany's Reich. It wasn't, not at all.

WWI was about the European balance of power. It was also the result of heavily armed states and arms races.

Huge armaments and standing armies just always get "used." They do not keep peace or preserve principles, ever.

And if Germany had won? Well, first, there never would have been a Hitler ot a Holocaust or a Russian Front, the most titanic bloody battle in human history.

Second, European states would, over future decades, gradually have adjusted largely back to their origins over time, just as they always do after great imperial conflicts.

I am always touched by the thought of the men in the trenches, but not because all those people died horribly for any great cause, rather because they died for nothing and killed for nothing. And their leaders were incompetent in very many cases.

Your way of thinking about this, Rex, leads nowhere worth going.

THE EFFORTS OF CANADA'S LIBERALS TO PICK A NEW LEADER AND MICHAEL IGNATIEFF PROVES HIMSELF INDISTINGUISHABLE FROM HARPER

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN IN TORONTO'S GLOBE AND MAIL

Bob Rae is, of course, absolutely right here.

What Ignatieff is showing us now is what a very close twin to Harper he is.

Secretiveness is a basic Harper characteristic, as is being an angry control-freak behind the scenes.

We already understood Ignatieff was a divisive man. We already knew he supported the state-terror of the Iraq invasion. We already knew he was arrogant and aggressive. We already knew he had little of what honestly can be called ethics.

With this behavior, he proves he cannot be distinguished from Harper. The only differences are style.

Which monster do you like? A Frankenstein-like creature who smiles with a two-second delay to any stimulus (Harper) or do you like a low, cunning were-wolf type (Ignatieff)?

With Ignatieff, the Liberal Party becomes an irrelevant copy of the Conservatives.

I would not vote for the one over the other under any circumstances.

_______________

Ignatieff unquestionably represents a watershed in Canadian national politics.

It will be the end of the coalition of interests we have called the Liberal Party for decades.

There is no reason on earth to vote for this unethical man over Harper.

Any success he could hope to achieve would only reflect old sentiments and associations people have in their minds concerning the party.

But these emotional connections are already frayed.

They will snap altogether with the emergence of this dark, unpleasant man as leader.

_____________

M. LeBlanc is actually the Liberals' greatest prospect.

He is altogether an energetic, intelligent, informed, and likeable man.

He has the French name and language so important in Quebec.

He could create some real excitement.

But no, the boundless, unwarranted personal ambition of Ignatieff will prevent that happening.

It is a very troubling set of circumstances.

____________

"...but Iggy is the better liberal."

A ridiculous statement.

The traditions of the modern Liberal Party - the party of Pearson, Trudeau, and Chretien - are violated in almost every aspect by what Ignatieff represents.

There is no connection whatever, anymore than there is between Harper and that tradition.

RE-BRANDING OPPRESSION

November 11, 2008

RE-BRANDING OPPRESSION

John Chuckman

There has been an ad on television recently, one featuring a young couple walking or drifting into a place of enchantment, a warm and colourful fantasy world, a kind of biblical Disneyland. Every step of their brief journey is met by people smiling warmly, moving slowly, even bowing, greeting them at each turn with Shalom!

It is interesting that all the faces in the ad are the same kind of faces we might see in New York or London, except that here they are all bathed in glowing antique light. We see no harsh fundamentalist types cutting down someone else’s olive groves and cursing anyone, even other Jews, as interlopers. We certainly see no arrogant settlers, strutting around with machine guns, sneering at the camera.

The couple quick-cuts their way through pleasant scene after scene – images of ancient middle-eastern streets and buildings and finally a man watering a garden, back-lighted by sun so that each drop he sprays is seen like blessing making the desert bloom.

We see no check-points bristling with guns, no razor-wire, no concrete wall dwarfing Berlin’s fabled one. We see no Palestinians, indeed, no one resembling an Arab. We see no endless line-ups at check points with poor people waiting around for hours just to do the business of their lives or go to hospital. We hear no soldiers cursing and abusing them.

We see no images of the giant open-air prison that is Gaza nor the slow, inhumane siege that grips the place night and day, making it close to impossible for a million and a half souls to cloth themselves and eat and enjoy basic amenities. We certainly see no Hellfire missiles incinerating people as one did just the other day, murdering six without a hint of legality.

No, there’s the handsome young couple briefly, dreamily drifting through sunny fantasy, the woman with lovely, frizzled long red hair glowing in the sun.

That last image of the smiling man sprinkling a sun-filled patch of garden reminded me of another piece of film, an historical oddity recently brought to light.

The other film was similar in many respects despite being 70 years old and in black and white. It was done for similar purposes. It was made on the occasion of Germany’s upcoming Olympic Games in 1936, and the satanic genius of marketing, Joseph Goebbels, saw the need to reassure visitors about Germany’s treatment of the Jews.

You see, while the Holocaust was years away in 1936, and even the murders and burning and pillaging of Kristallnacht were yet two years away, there still had been a lot of ugly and brutal behavior towards Germany’s Jews, generating nasty press coverage abroad. The Nazis were concerned lest the “bad press” keep tourists away from what was planned as the most grandiose Olympics to date.

The old film offers a fantasy version of the Nazis’ treatment of German Jews. It shows a happy village of re-located Jews with people walking about and looking pleasant and doing pleasant things. In particular, there is a scene of Jews carrying huge watering cans, happily sprinkling large, lush gardens. Well, the film is inferior in quality to the 2008 film from Israel, three-quarters of a century later, but one could be excused for thinking that someone in Israel got his or her inspiration from Dr. Goebbels’ film.

But maybe not: like conditions tend to breed like ideas and actions, over and over again across nations and eras. History is regularly forgotten, its main stories re-staged with new directors and lists of characters, and rarely have I seen a more striking example than Israel’s current re-branding effort.

Now, a new ad has appeared, this one with visiting children going through a different sequence of glowing images. Gone is the woman with the red hair. A series of ads may always have been intended, but I couldn’t help thinking perhaps the ad with the beautiful red hair had been pulled because it reminded too many viewers of Rachel Corrie. She was a real visitor to Israel, a sweet-tempered, innocent young woman, and she had strawberry-blond hair, at least before she was rendered into pulp by an Israeli D-9 armored bulldozer, diverted momentarily in its work of smashing Arab homes.

That’s not the kind of image you want in your re-branding effort for sure.

THE FALSE IDEA OF HOPING OBAMA INHERITS KENNEDY'S LEGACY - OBAMA'S BETTER THAN THAT

POSTED RESPONSE TO COLUMN BY OLIVER STONE IN THE GUARDIAN

I agree completely with the general direction of your sentiments, Mr. Stone, but I think you have, and always have had, far too simplistic an idea of John Kennedy.

He was a ferocious Cold Warrior, a martinet in military matters.

Good Lord, he started the American thug-assassin organization, the Green Berets.

They would, of course, go on to cut the throats of 20,000 civilians in Project Phoenix in Vietnam with creepy night attacks against people like village chiefs, a disgrace far greater than Guantanamo.

Kennedy also was deeply involved in trying to assassinate Castro.

Kennedy kept company with, and took benefits from, some terrible underworld types in America.

He was, both in matters involving the Cold War and in matters involving the American Mafia, a man who consistently played at both ends.

His legacy is actually a blur, as are his ethics. We have no idea of what he really was, what he really stood for, and much the same with his brother, Robert.

The Kennedys did not like Lyndon Johnson and his godfather, Edgar Hoover, but they kept Hoover on and enjoyed the filth he delivered on political opponents.

Lyndon Johnson was so crooked in politics, it is impossible to view him clearly. Vote fraud put him into office again and again in Texas.

And the Kennedys, so far as we know, were happy to take his help in 1960. Vote fraud in Texas and Illinois put Kennedy into office. I don't know about you, but I believe we never get good things out of evil starts.

I know the Kennedy mantra you keep, the bright, brave young man who tried to keep America from the insane human waste of Vietnam.

But we have no clear evidence for that view. He launched the Bay of Pigs. He kept - Robert in charge - making attempts on Castro's life. He came close to starting a nuclear war in Cuba.

He was a truly dangerous risk-taker, just as when he'd have prostitutes over to the White House swimming pool when Jackie was away.

And, if anything, his brother Robert was even worse.

Obama is from another world altogether. First, he is a genuine intellectual, something not true of either of the Kennedys, although they showed public respect for intellectuals not seen since.

Second, he is a genuinely warm and loving family man, something not true of either of the Kennedys. Robert drove his wife into alcoholism, and John used Jackie as little more than a photo-op prop.

Third, he doesn't come from a wealthy, "connected" family, the Kennedy's father having had a long association with the Mafia.

Fourth, he genuinely embodies a world view, being the product of a complex multi-cultural background.

The Kennedys, all of them, were a clan with all the narrowness and intolerance that word implies.

I much prefer comparisons with Franklin Roosevelt, although clearly even in this case there are greatly different backgrounds and influences.

Obama is something genuinely new and bright and genuinely attractive. It will be exciting to watch him try making America at least a little bit better place, which I cynically believe is the very best that can be hoped for.

Finally, anyone who knows some real American history knows that “W” was not a new phenomenon in American politics, just the most incompetent one in memory.

And remember he had Dick Cheney always there, a viciously competent man, who assumed powers as surely as any fascist dictator. And there are lots of Dick Cheneys out there.

God, a recent poll said over 70% of Republicans would support the ignorant, uninformed, ridiculous Sarah Palin as candidate in 2012.

They know a "Cheney" would be there waiting to quietly guide that pathetic lump, a woman the Secret Service has formally accused of creating a big spike in threats against Obama's life with her trashy mouth.

It will be a miracle if Obama can generate any meaningful change, but then his election itself was something of a miracle.

You know, you really cannot have both an empire and a beacon of liberty. It is impossible.

And you really cannot have a nation whose greed at consuming knows no limits and a world of some fairness and decency. That is an oxymoronic idea.

I really think the prospects for meaningful change are a bit bleak. America in the past has always learned by first beating its head against walls until the pain is just too great to stand.

I think it is very difficult to come up with counter-examples of the American learning process. After all, we only got Obama after enduring eight years of insanity. And the insanity is still there, bubbling just under the surface.

Remember William Shirer’s dark utterance: "Perhaps America will one day go fascist democratically."