So, maybe the NDP is going to chicken-out and hide from the electorate, I mean "make Parliament work" by propping-up the monstrous harpercons for some crumbs in the budget. Of course, Liberal bloggers are working themselves into a sexual frenzy at the thought that their party has found its spine and the NDP is humiliating itself and exposing its years of tough talk as having been nothing but disgusting lies.
To his credit, Liberal blogger Steve V of "Far and Wide" has acknowledged that the Liberal Party itself is far from perfect and needs to be captured by progressives if it's to actually be of any use. He admits to having voted NDP and Green in the past and to have never voted for Paul Martin.
The idea of a progressive takeover has some legitimacy, but the problem is that the Liberal Party is almost as dependent upon the same social forces that back the harpercons, and its voting base is comprised of too many people who would be uncomfortable voting for a genuine progressive platform. It's also staffed and led by people for whom the invasion of Iraq sounded like a good idea and the Canadian Council of Chief Executives looks like an organization they'd like to be a part of.
I think it's more plausible to ask progressive Liberals to vacate the mushy middle and take their voters to the NDP and let all those people who think single-mothers on welfare are bankrupting the nation or whatever decide if they can stomach the harpercons.
Whatever. I'm not pretend to instantly dismiss the idea of progressive activists swamping local riding associations and implementing a progressive takeover bit-by-bit. I think it's an inferior option, but I don't think it's evidence of abject ignorance and blindness.
But if the NDP does cave, and the Liberal assault fails, it will not only mean harper lives to do something else disgusting on another day, it means our political system is almost entirely broken.
The opposition can't rouse itself to defeat the single-most anti-democratic prime minister in our country's history. The electorate doesn't care about the forms of our democratic system or the betrayal of our principles (torture, warrantless spying, mass arrests, illegal detention). The country as a whole cannot grasp the bankruptcy of our economic system.
Then I watch the Egyptian Revolution. While Obama stalls and obscures, he tries to cobble-together a working coalition of "pragmatic" pro-Western politicians and "dependable" Egyptian generals, to ensure that as much of the status-quo (which caused the revolution in the first place) is preserved in the post-Mubarak era.
We seem to have to make herculean efforts to achieve the barest of reforms.
But people fought and struggled for centuries to make things better. To embrace our higher selves and to allow others to free themselves from the chains of inferior political systems.
As hard as it is, we have no choice but to struggle. I can't make my peace with this system.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Friday, February 4, 2011
A Little Story
My father owned a couple of buildings in the east-end. Three-storey walk-ups. One fall Sunday he took me with him to inspect the building. I was about seven years old. As we approached the first building, we could see a lot of commotion in front. I saw a woman and her three children on the sidewalk. The youngest was merely a toddler, holding on to the mother's hand and bawling. The middle one was about my age, also weeping piteously. The oldest was about twelve, and he (unencumbered by the youngsters) was attempting to lead the charge as he and his mother tried to climb the front steps and enter the building. Both of them were being slapped down by a man I recognized as the building's superintendent.
"What's going on?" I asked. My father remained silent. The superintendent was slapping both the boy and the mother quite hard at times, shoving them backwards down the steps. The glass doors of the front alcove would open frequently and some young, rough-looking men would come out and throw some item belonging to the family (furniture, clothes, family heirlooms, etc., ) onto the sidewalk, sometimes almost hitting the smaller children.
"We should stop this!" I shouted.
My father swallowed. "It's not always as simple as all that." he said.
"What do you mean?" I asked a little hysterically.
"I'm as upset about this as you are." my father answered almost without emotion. I couldn't process my father's indifference to the family's agony while watching them suffer at the same time. Then, the superintendent slapped the boy hard enough that teeth and blood flew from his mouth. He then gave the boy a shove with both hands and sent him sprawling to the street where he banged his skull hard onto the sidewalk.
"Stop this!" I shrieked. My father continued to hesitate. I watched the mother frantically try to throw herself down to her fallen son while still holding on to her little ones. The superintendent began roaring terrible insults at the woman. More furniture, dresser-drawers filled with clothes, and such were still being thrown carelessly at them by the workmen. I remember a lamp smashing right beside the toddler, and then my eyes filled with tears. I was only seven. Apparently I started wailing as loud as the dispossessed children on the street.
Later on, my mother tried to explain things to me. Apparently that family was two months late with the rent. Of course, they weren't alone among my father's tenants. This was in the days before rent control and my father had been raising the rents considerably with some frequency at that time. The real problem was that the woman and her husband had been forming a tenants' rights group and they'd been calling all sorts of newspapers and the local tv news, city inspectors, everyone, pointing out problems with the buildings. This was bad enough for my father, but the couple were reaching out to distressed tenants in nearby buildings, stirring up trouble for other landlords.
"They might even be communists!" my mother hissed.
"But why did we have to be so mean to them?" I asked her.
"Don't you like living the way you do? What do you think would happen if all these poor people were able to control the cost of renting? Do you think we'd be able to afford to live in a house like this?" In my simple, childish morality, I thought that it would be fine if we lived in a smaller house, if it meant we didn't have to throw people out on the street, but I kept my thoughts to myself.
"Besides. Those people don't know the first thing about how much it costs to run those buildings. Let them set the rent and pretty soon we'd have to give the building back to the bank! Their problem is that they have children before they can afford to look after themselves. They quit school, get married, and take the only jobs that hire uneducated people. Then they have kids they can't afford and then they become communists and blame everybody else for their problems."
My father spoke to me later that day. "I fired Mr. Mubarak." he said in a gentle voice.
"Who?"
"Mr. Mubarak. He's the man who runs that building. Who was being mean to the woman and her children." he answered.
"Oh."
"Yes. He let things get out of hand. He shouldn't have acted that way to them. I'm sorry."
"Did you let that family move back in?" I asked.
My father sighed. "Son." He sighed again. "No. I can't let them move back in. They can't afford to live there and I can't afford to let them live there for free."
I must have looked very upset.
"They're all right. I had some of my men give them a ride to her mother's house. We also carried their furniture for them, in one of our trucks. That's the best I can do I'm afraid. But Mr. Mubarak should not have treated them the way he did. I thought he was a good superintendent. It's a tough job. Sometimes tenants don't want to pay their rent and they get very angry. He had to be very brave sometimes. But other times, he was mean, like you saw today. And I won't have that. Anyway, I got someone new, and I hope you never have to see anything like that ever again. I hope you're not too upset."
I didn't know what to say. I was upset. I was upset about what happened to that family. I was upset that my father took so long to do something about it. I was upset to have to hear so many sad things about the way the world looked and about my place in it. I just stared in front of me.
"Well, if you want to talk, just let me know." said my father, leaving the room.
[If you think calling the superintendent "Mr. Mubarak" ruins everything, lemme know.]
"What's going on?" I asked. My father remained silent. The superintendent was slapping both the boy and the mother quite hard at times, shoving them backwards down the steps. The glass doors of the front alcove would open frequently and some young, rough-looking men would come out and throw some item belonging to the family (furniture, clothes, family heirlooms, etc., ) onto the sidewalk, sometimes almost hitting the smaller children.
"We should stop this!" I shouted.
My father swallowed. "It's not always as simple as all that." he said.
"What do you mean?" I asked a little hysterically.
"I'm as upset about this as you are." my father answered almost without emotion. I couldn't process my father's indifference to the family's agony while watching them suffer at the same time. Then, the superintendent slapped the boy hard enough that teeth and blood flew from his mouth. He then gave the boy a shove with both hands and sent him sprawling to the street where he banged his skull hard onto the sidewalk.
"Stop this!" I shrieked. My father continued to hesitate. I watched the mother frantically try to throw herself down to her fallen son while still holding on to her little ones. The superintendent began roaring terrible insults at the woman. More furniture, dresser-drawers filled with clothes, and such were still being thrown carelessly at them by the workmen. I remember a lamp smashing right beside the toddler, and then my eyes filled with tears. I was only seven. Apparently I started wailing as loud as the dispossessed children on the street.
Later on, my mother tried to explain things to me. Apparently that family was two months late with the rent. Of course, they weren't alone among my father's tenants. This was in the days before rent control and my father had been raising the rents considerably with some frequency at that time. The real problem was that the woman and her husband had been forming a tenants' rights group and they'd been calling all sorts of newspapers and the local tv news, city inspectors, everyone, pointing out problems with the buildings. This was bad enough for my father, but the couple were reaching out to distressed tenants in nearby buildings, stirring up trouble for other landlords.
"They might even be communists!" my mother hissed.
"But why did we have to be so mean to them?" I asked her.
"Don't you like living the way you do? What do you think would happen if all these poor people were able to control the cost of renting? Do you think we'd be able to afford to live in a house like this?" In my simple, childish morality, I thought that it would be fine if we lived in a smaller house, if it meant we didn't have to throw people out on the street, but I kept my thoughts to myself.
"Besides. Those people don't know the first thing about how much it costs to run those buildings. Let them set the rent and pretty soon we'd have to give the building back to the bank! Their problem is that they have children before they can afford to look after themselves. They quit school, get married, and take the only jobs that hire uneducated people. Then they have kids they can't afford and then they become communists and blame everybody else for their problems."
My father spoke to me later that day. "I fired Mr. Mubarak." he said in a gentle voice.
"Who?"
"Mr. Mubarak. He's the man who runs that building. Who was being mean to the woman and her children." he answered.
"Oh."
"Yes. He let things get out of hand. He shouldn't have acted that way to them. I'm sorry."
"Did you let that family move back in?" I asked.
My father sighed. "Son." He sighed again. "No. I can't let them move back in. They can't afford to live there and I can't afford to let them live there for free."
I must have looked very upset.
"They're all right. I had some of my men give them a ride to her mother's house. We also carried their furniture for them, in one of our trucks. That's the best I can do I'm afraid. But Mr. Mubarak should not have treated them the way he did. I thought he was a good superintendent. It's a tough job. Sometimes tenants don't want to pay their rent and they get very angry. He had to be very brave sometimes. But other times, he was mean, like you saw today. And I won't have that. Anyway, I got someone new, and I hope you never have to see anything like that ever again. I hope you're not too upset."
I didn't know what to say. I was upset. I was upset about what happened to that family. I was upset that my father took so long to do something about it. I was upset to have to hear so many sad things about the way the world looked and about my place in it. I just stared in front of me.
"Well, if you want to talk, just let me know." said my father, leaving the room.
[If you think calling the superintendent "Mr. Mubarak" ruins everything, lemme know.]
Thursday, February 3, 2011
Hillary Clinton Goes to Haiti During Egyptian Revolution?
Mark Weisbrot from Common Dreams:
It didn't get much attention in the media, but US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton did something quite surprising on Sunday. After taping interviews on five big Sunday talkshows about Egypt, she then boarded a plane to Haiti. Yes, Haiti. The most impoverished country in the hemisphere, not exactly a "strategic ally" or a global player on the world's political stage.
Inquiring minds might want to know why the United States' top foreign policy official would have to go to Haiti in the midst of the worst diplomatic crisis she has faced. The answer is that there is also a crisis in Haiti. And it is a crisis that – unlike the humanitarian crisis that Haiti has suffered since the earthquake last year – Washington really cares about.
Like the Egyptians, Haitians are calling for free and fair elections. But in this case, Washington will not support free and fair elections, even nominally.Read the rest. Apparently there's genuine resistance to the USA's bullying efforts to force one of their two right-wing stooges on the Haitians. Here's hoping. I hope the US world system unravels. It's an evil, doomed, suicidal system. The sooner the people the world over get control over their affairs the sooner we can begin facing up to reality and maybe saving ourselves.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Some Minor Details
Just some sweeping up in the market place of ideas. In some of the mental gutters of the internet you'll find imbeciles mocking Obama for his evident confusion and hesitation with regards to the Egyptian Revolution while they contrast this with their delusions about bush II's steely resolve and strategic brilliance. (I shan't be linking to such puke-sites. You can find them if you want to.)
The argument is that while Obama is clearly out of his depth, bush II was in control of events. Obama ("Obambi" to some of these morons) can only react incoherently while bush II directed his Middle East policies.
Well, first of all, one must remember that this revolution came almost out of nowhere. (Well, it came out of thirty years of dictatorship, torture, corruption and economic incompetence, but you get the idea.) Wikileaks (demonized by Washington, London, and all the corrupt souls in the mainstream media) revealed documentation exposing the massive corruption of the Tunisian dictatorship, which, combined with the suicide from despair of Mohamed Bouazizi, sparked a public uprising against dictatorship and misery without end. Roughly a month after the uprising in Tunisia erupted, the fire had spread to Egypt.
The point is, we can bet that had something like this occurred on bush II's watch, the stammering dullard (and his shit-head advisers Rumsfeld, Rice, and Cheney) would have been just as confused, if not more so, and might have responded even more disastrously than Obama has.
How can I be sure of this? What did bush II accomplish in Iraq? Did he create a functioning democracy? Not really. There are elections, but it is a corrupt "vague democracy" that is on its way to becoming a failed state. It is a country riven (perhaps by Washington design) by sectarian and ethnic divisions, between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. It saw the increase of religious fundamentalist power and a precipitous fall in women's rights. It is a country where the police are universally feared as rapists, thieves, torturers and murderers. It is a country without hope.
Afghanistan is a similar disaster. Corruption appears to be the state's sole occupation. There too, human rights are a distant fantasy. It could be argued that human rights were no worse under the Taliban.
Remember that the cost in American lives for bush II's blunders and/or evil has been in the thousands. Tens of thousands have been wounded and maimed. Trillions have been spent.
Remember too that thanks to bush II, Syria and Iran (previously enemies) have formed a compact of sorts. Iraq itself is governed by politicians with more loyalties to Iran than Saddam Hussein ever had with the former USSR. Hezbollah has risen to prominence in Lebanon thanks to continued Israeli atrocities.
So, in answer to the dead-enders, still trying to make a silk purse out of a pig's anus, the reality is that bush II was a revolting failure who would have responded to the Egyptian Revolution just as badly as Obama has, if not hugely more so.
The argument is that while Obama is clearly out of his depth, bush II was in control of events. Obama ("Obambi" to some of these morons) can only react incoherently while bush II directed his Middle East policies.
Well, first of all, one must remember that this revolution came almost out of nowhere. (Well, it came out of thirty years of dictatorship, torture, corruption and economic incompetence, but you get the idea.) Wikileaks (demonized by Washington, London, and all the corrupt souls in the mainstream media) revealed documentation exposing the massive corruption of the Tunisian dictatorship, which, combined with the suicide from despair of Mohamed Bouazizi, sparked a public uprising against dictatorship and misery without end. Roughly a month after the uprising in Tunisia erupted, the fire had spread to Egypt.
The point is, we can bet that had something like this occurred on bush II's watch, the stammering dullard (and his shit-head advisers Rumsfeld, Rice, and Cheney) would have been just as confused, if not more so, and might have responded even more disastrously than Obama has.
How can I be sure of this? What did bush II accomplish in Iraq? Did he create a functioning democracy? Not really. There are elections, but it is a corrupt "vague democracy" that is on its way to becoming a failed state. It is a country riven (perhaps by Washington design) by sectarian and ethnic divisions, between Shiites, Sunnis, and Kurds. It saw the increase of religious fundamentalist power and a precipitous fall in women's rights. It is a country where the police are universally feared as rapists, thieves, torturers and murderers. It is a country without hope.
Afghanistan is a similar disaster. Corruption appears to be the state's sole occupation. There too, human rights are a distant fantasy. It could be argued that human rights were no worse under the Taliban.
Remember that the cost in American lives for bush II's blunders and/or evil has been in the thousands. Tens of thousands have been wounded and maimed. Trillions have been spent.
Remember too that thanks to bush II, Syria and Iran (previously enemies) have formed a compact of sorts. Iraq itself is governed by politicians with more loyalties to Iran than Saddam Hussein ever had with the former USSR. Hezbollah has risen to prominence in Lebanon thanks to continued Israeli atrocities.
So, in answer to the dead-enders, still trying to make a silk purse out of a pig's anus, the reality is that bush II was a revolting failure who would have responded to the Egyptian Revolution just as badly as Obama has, if not hugely more so.
[More] Blood on Obama's Hands?
So, Obama sent Frank Wisner to talk with Mubarak ...
But by quietly siding with Mubarak, and forcing the people of Egypt to have to fight, Obama has new blood on his hands. And our political culture is so thoroughly debased that people will still be talking about the [non-existent] blood on Julian Assange's hands, and not Obama's contemptible betrayal of democracy.
If the long-term goal is Democracy, then that is all very well because it has to be sacrificed to the short-term, namely support for the kind of Pharonic State embodied by Mubarak. Nothing more is on offer. No wonder that a "Washington Middle East hand" told The Cable, "[Wisner's] the exact wrong person to send. He is an apologist for Mubarak." But this is a wrong view. Wisner is just the exact person to send to protect the short-term, and so only-term, interests of Washington. The long-term has been set aside.There's more at the link, but this is pretty damning:
I first wrote about Wisner in 1997 when he joined the board of directors of Enron Corporation. Where Wisner had been, to Manila and New Delhi, Enron followed. As one of his staffers said, "if anybody asked the CIA to help promote US business in India, it was probably Frank." Without the CIA and the muscle of the US government, it is unlikely that the Subic Bay power station deal or the Dabhol deal would have gone to Enron.Prashad concludes:
Wisner urged Mubarak to concede. It is not enough. More is being asked for. Today, Mubarak's supporters have come out with bats in hand, ready for a fight. This has probably also been sanctioned in that private meeting. It is what one expects of Empire's bagman.More about those "Mubarak supporters" proposing the ""win-win" of allowing the dictator to remain in power for nine more months:
However, other Egyptians said they believed that Mr Mubarak's offer could be a suitable compromise.Some of them might genuinely be the sort of people who would side with harper in Canada against coalition "coups," which is to say, ignorant or not very bright people. But remember too, that Mubarak has a police force of about 250,000 members. They have family and they have friends. If they're crooked cops and etc., they have dependents and clients whose bread is buttered by the Mubarak corruption. Of course he can fill the streets with these people and call them his supporters!
Omneya Okasha, a resident from Alexandria, told the BBC she believed that sudden change could lead to "more drastic consequences".
"I find this a stable solution something that suits both sides - a win-win situation."
But by quietly siding with Mubarak, and forcing the people of Egypt to have to fight, Obama has new blood on his hands. And our political culture is so thoroughly debased that people will still be talking about the [non-existent] blood on Julian Assange's hands, and not Obama's contemptible betrayal of democracy.
Shorter Mubarak: "I know I've robbed and oppressed you for thirty years now ..."
"I know I've robbed and oppressed you for thirty years now, and I'm s... I understand. Now, go home, and I promise that I'll voluntarily leave power in nine months. Dictator's honour!"
The Egyptian protesters would not only be naive to accept this insult, they'd be suicidal.
Again. Not only would it be naive to trust Mubarak, it would be suicidal.
The Egyptian protesters would not only be naive to accept this insult, they'd be suicidal.
- Police and torture apparatus still intact and under Mubarak's rule? CHECK
- All state communication (tv, radio, newspapers, etc.) loyal to Mubarak? CHECK
- Mubarak able to loot public resources at will? CHECK
- Mubarak able to position his own hand-picked successor? CHECK
Again. Not only would it be naive to trust Mubarak, it would be suicidal.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
Corporate Tax Cuts in the Budget = Election
In the past, the harpercons have stated that every vote will be considered a confidence vote. As "Impolitical" infers, this was needless brinkmanship. She also condemns the NDP for cheering these games. She neglects to mention that the reason the harpercons and the NDP played these games was because the Liberals were so hapless, confused, unpopular, timid, etc., that they'd agree to anything or hide in the lobby, to avoid an election. (Whether the NDP was hypocritically taking advantage of the Liberals' cowardice to hide their own is still an open question. I myself thought that Ignatieff's last election gambit was so horrendously ill-timed that it threatened a harper majority, though I think the NDP settled for far too little to allow the government to survive.)
But in their "all partisan politics, all the time" habit, the harpercons are now going to pretend that in the interests of "making Parliament work" they're going to pretend that hardly anything will be a confidence bill. As Impolitical points out, this is just more typical harper dishonesty and crud. Fat stephen gets to pretend that he's a reasonable fellow, trying to avoid an election, but only for propaganda purposes. He implants the notion that he's doing everything possible to avoid an election, but the thing is that the budget's being a confidence motion isn't optional. And it's the budget that is the issue here.
I take this as harper the loathsome toad, who snores through the masses of whatever Christian sect he doesn't believe in, intimating that he's serious about forcing an election on dim-bulb Flaherty's corporate tax-cut budget. By making these empty gestures of accommodation, without addressing the pink elephant in the room that it has been the budget that the government will survive or fall on, harper can only be trying to make Canadians think that it is the opposition parties that are being unreasonable.
It's all about crude manipulation of symbols and language, not about anything genuine. (harper doesn't have a genuine bone in his body!)
But the thing is, the government SHOULD fall if it sticks these idiotic tax cuts into the budget. Dale at Hill Queeries directs us to a StatsCan economist, who (he says) "punches a whole bunch of holes in all the rhetoric on all sides about said corporate tax cuts" although it really only does that to the pro-tax cut argument. The Winnipeg Free Press says:
But in their "all partisan politics, all the time" habit, the harpercons are now going to pretend that in the interests of "making Parliament work" they're going to pretend that hardly anything will be a confidence bill. As Impolitical points out, this is just more typical harper dishonesty and crud. Fat stephen gets to pretend that he's a reasonable fellow, trying to avoid an election, but only for propaganda purposes. He implants the notion that he's doing everything possible to avoid an election, but the thing is that the budget's being a confidence motion isn't optional. And it's the budget that is the issue here.
I take this as harper the loathsome toad, who snores through the masses of whatever Christian sect he doesn't believe in, intimating that he's serious about forcing an election on dim-bulb Flaherty's corporate tax-cut budget. By making these empty gestures of accommodation, without addressing the pink elephant in the room that it has been the budget that the government will survive or fall on, harper can only be trying to make Canadians think that it is the opposition parties that are being unreasonable.
It's all about crude manipulation of symbols and language, not about anything genuine. (harper doesn't have a genuine bone in his body!)
But the thing is, the government SHOULD fall if it sticks these idiotic tax cuts into the budget. Dale at Hill Queeries directs us to a StatsCan economist, who (he says) "punches a whole bunch of holes in all the rhetoric on all sides about said corporate tax cuts" although it really only does that to the pro-tax cut argument. The Winnipeg Free Press says:
"A couple of billion dollars (of savings from tax cuts) is a drop in the bucket of corporate income here," Cross said in an interview. "It's trivial."Canada's natural resources, the price of oil, currency fluctuations and the state of the country's financial markets have been far more influential on corporate investment decisions than recent tax cuts, he says.
"These huge forces were going on — globalization of supply chains, commodity price booms and so on. And somewhere in there you're going to be able to separate out the impact of small changes in the tax rate? You're kidding," Cross said.
followed by:
The larger impact is on the government's bottom line, not the corporate bottom line — even though corporate taxes have now become key in determining whether there will be a spring election.
Indeed, federal Finance Department documents show that the reduction of corporate income tax — from 18 per cent in 2010 to 16.5 per cent in 2011 and then to 15 per cent in 2012 — will be expensive for any government battling a deficit. The cost is about $1.6 billion in foregone revenue in the 2011-2012 fiscal year, $3.9 billion the year after, and a total of more than $10 billion over three years.
In other words, these tax cuts would have a negligible job-creation power and cause significant damage to the government's own finances. That most of the tax cut would go to oil and finance (who need no extra money and who create little in the way of jobs) is another strike against them.
The tea-leaves are pretty clear. harper wants to have an election on this subject. (Why is anyone's guess. Perhaps he's hoping that simply doing their job will discredit the opposition enough in the eyes of voters to give him his majority, or he's just simply gone completely insane.) He wants to bet his political career on this ruinous course and we should call his bluff.
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