Transparency, Conservative style

More on the travails of Kevin Page, Canada's first Parliamentary Budget Officer. Far from the officer of Parliament that we had every reason to expect, this highly-qualified individual has been reduced to a flunkey for the parliamentary librarian:

Canada's new budget officer has been told he can't release any report to MPs, senators and taxpayers without the approval of the parliamentary librarian.

William Young has reportedly laid down the law in a blunt letter to Kevin Page that severely restricts what the office staff can do and say. One official described the letter as "nasty," falling short of requiring the office staff "to get the library's permission to use the washrooms."

While some of this is clearly attributable to turf-wars within the parliamentary bureaucracy, Prime Minister Stephen Harper could put an end to this, pronto--if he so chose.

So far, Mr. Harper hasn't helped the confusion. He promised an "independent parliamentary budget authority" in his 2006 campaign platform to bring "truth to budgeting," but then blessed an accountability act that put the office within the library.

Meanwhile, in Winnipeg, delegates will be discussing resolution P-204:

The Conservative Party believes that the surest way to ensure accountability in government is to achieve the maximum possible openness and transparency in government spending. Access to information must be expanded to ensure that the public has timely access to all information about government spending. Exceptions should be few and limited to those areas where a clear case can be made for exemption (eg. certain military and security matters.

I'm assuming that the last phrase doesn't apply to Page's pre-election release of the costs to date of the war in Afghanistan, which appears to be behind much of the present foofaraw.

In any case, whether this resolution passes or not, what we have now is the very reverse of transparency. Since when did the parliamentary librarian, of all people, become a choke-point for information to which the public has every right?

Sore Thumb Chronicles: Prelude

Today is the day before the opening of the Conservative Party policy convention in Winnipeg. I am here for the duration.

What do Conservatives eat?* What are their rituals? Their beliefs? Their daily habits? I can promise a faithful if fragmentary account, but participant-observation may be a problem: my ethnographic entrance may never, in fact, take place. These are a fierce people, who do not readily accept outsiders, and I have somehow made myself unpopular with many of them long before setting foot in their territory.

Hence the Sore Thumb Chronicles, for I will likely find it challenging if not impossible to fit in, even though I brought along a blue shirt and my battered Stetson. I have mused about this difficulty earlier, and may avoid the attempt altogether unless self-preservation (or the need to gather information) requires it.

Obtaining informants may not be so much of an issue. Many of them have blogs. That's like having unpaid research assistants, as I've mentioned before. The unwitting eyes and ears of the Far Left. Thank you in advance.

I have friends in Winnipeg to rescue me if the culture shock proves to be too much, but I'm actually looking forward to this. Good field-note practice. Dancing with wolves.

Tomorrow: registration, reception, opening ceremonies and a keynote address by the Headman.

_______
*My stepson returned from five months in the Yukon last night, and we talked into the wee hours. I quizzed him on this question of diet. Without hesitation, he said "babies." That's my boy!

OK, time out

I regret having to do this, but the time has come.

Henceforward, two simple rules:

• Language in the combox. I have no difficulty, as regulars know, with spirited, even heated, debate on all sides of a question. This place is not an echo-chamber. But I would appreciate it if you all could refrain from cussin'. From now on this will be strictly enforced.
  
  
• Trolls. Trolls were never welcome here, but I developed a certain tolerance for them. That tolerance is now exhausted. The tipping-point has been reached. Trolls--and everyone knows what a troll is--will simply be banned. They have been keeping some of the more interesting commentators away, and they've been insulting me (and recently my co-blogger) in my own house. That will not continue. If they want to be rude and self-indulgent, they can go to Usenet and fill their boots.
  

At this point I'm not going to post these rules on the site. They should be common sense for any reasonably civilized human being. So for now, Verb. sap. and all that. Help me out here, folks. This is a family blog, for general release, and I mean to keep it that way.

Yours in civility,
Dr.Dawg

Human rights on Remembrance Day

This year is the 60th anniversary of the passage of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an international covenant that grew directly out of the world's experience of Nazism. It was an agreement among states that every state is responsible--obligated, in fact--to uphold the human rights of its citizenry.

Here is the Preamble, in full:

Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world,

Whereas disregard and contempt for human rights have resulted in barbarous acts which have outraged the conscience of mankind, and the advent of a world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief and freedom from fear and want has been proclaimed as the highest aspiration of the common people,

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Whereas it is essential to promote the development of friendly relations between nations,

Whereas the peoples of the United Nations have in the Charter reaffirmed their faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person and in the equal rights of men and women and have determined to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,

Whereas Member States have pledged themselves to achieve, in co-operation with the United Nations, the promotion of universal respect for and observance of human rights and fundamental freedoms,

Whereas a common understanding of these rights and freedoms is of the greatest importance for the full realization of this pledge,

Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.

In my naivete, I would have thought that marking the end of World War II by laying a wreath to commemorate this important anniversary was a no-brainer. Jennifer Lynch, the Chief Commissioner of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, did so today.

But there was protest--from the Usual Suspects.

Here's Ezra Levant. Be sure to read the comments from his braying acolytes. And here's Jay Currie, twice. Read the comments there as well.

The mask appears to have slipped a little too far this time. In fairness, Levant himself has never concealed the fact that he want to abolish Human Rights Commissions outright. The extremist Canadian Coalition for Democracies, of which newly minted Conservative MP Peter Kent is an executive member, echoes this. So does "free speech" advocate Paul Fromm, a prominent Canadian fascist who is a "sustaining member" of the white supremacist Stormfront website, and Marc Lemire, past head of the neo-Nazi Heritage Front.

Most of the other Speech Warriors, however, have presented their fight in narrower terms: they have claimed that their problem is specifically the language and the enforcement of Section 13(1) of the Canadian Human Rights Act, and similar sections of provincial and territorial human rights legislation--the hate speech provisions. They have raised at times heart-rending arguments on behalf of assorted homophobes and neo-Nazis, all based, they have declared, solely on the principle of freedom of speech. I've been prepared, albeit with some degree of scepticism, to accept the bona fides of at least a few of the Warriors in this respect.

But a somewhat wider agenda has now come into view. What is at stake here is human rights, period. The very notion that the head of the Canadian Human Rights Commission should lay a wreath in the name of the human rights that the Allies fought and died for--Nazism standing for the absolute negation of those rights--has got them up in arms. Disgraceful, they whine. It's political, they hiss. But both of these adjectives, it seems to me, far more appropriately belong to them.

My father was a young lieutenant during WWII, heading up the 1st Canadian Calibration Troop. He was at the Falaise Gap, taking refuge in a quarry with several hundred other soldiers as bombs rained down--from American forces, four miles off-target. He lived to tell the tale, and he went on to become a specialist in operations research with the Defence Research Board.

If he were alive to read some of this muck--whether it's the gender fascism in evidence at Dust My Broom or the shrill cacophony of opposition to laying a wreath in commemoration of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights--he would be appalled by it.

Indeed, he might well wonder if 1945 marked the decisive victory that he had believed it to be. "Lest we forget" is the motto that every schoolchild knows: we must remember, not only those who died in battle, but why they fought. But there are those among us for whom forgetting is not only an option, but a priority. Using the excuse of "free speech," they stand against everything my father and his comrades fought for. On this national day of remembrance--shame on them.

Only a few good men?

Sadly, that appears to be the case. My father served briefly in the Navy. I once had a very high opinion of men in the military, a perception that was supported by the fact that the men that I have been blessed to know, as family members and friends, are honourable and respectful of women. All women.

Thus it affronts me when thugs who have made a career in the military beat their chests and attempt to promote their own personal chauvinism and misogyny as the norm. My co-blogger Dr Dawg has recently written about such despicable specimens.

It pains me to report this, but the US military forces its female military personnel to pay the costs of forensic medical exam kits. Why? Could it be the 'exorbitant' expense?

In light of the disgusting shenanigans, comments and posts happening over at Dust My Broom, this comes as no surprise:

Women in the military are twice as likely to be raped as their civilian counterparts. In fact, "women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq," Congresswoman Jane Harman, D-Calif., told the House Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs in May.Harman said, "The scope of the problem was brought into acute focus for me during a visit to the West Los Angeles VA Health Center where I met female veterans and their doctors. My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military, and 29 percent said they were raped during their military service." ...

Cat-and-mouse games may sound like kid stuff, but refusing to pay for a rape kit is anything but. It implies that the victim is to blame. It does not encourage victims to come forward. And it makes it far more likely that soldiers will interpret the permissive climate as institutionally sanctioned misogyny.

Is this "supporting the troops"?

Speech/Warriors

More sick misogyny from the boyz at Dust My Broom--and what at least some conservatives, in an unguarded moment, really think of free expression:

That Marine is giving the young lady what she should have gotten when she was a child so she wouldn't grow up to be a leftard and picket in front of a Marine Recruiting station with a peace sign. Obviously you don't know any Marines. Trust me the Marines I served with and under would do that in a heart beat - especially the crusty old TOP's (Master Sgt's) and not think anything of it...

Besides there isn't a Marine who would respect a leftard like this young lady or treat her like a lady. She, in this cartoon is being treated the way all peaceniks should be treated. Don't get the honor and respect we give those ladies of society that deserve it confused with what a Marine will do to those who don't respect our country or our Corps.

Great way to observe Remembrance Day, eh?

Provincial Premiers Seduced by the Power of the Famous Blue Sweater

I heard the news today - oh boy!

The famous blue sweater strategy has gained momentum. Previously, Harper and the premiers had acrimonious interactions. But suddenly, there is a kinder, gentler post-election P.M. The provincial premiers were completely disarmed. They expected pitbull Harper and instead, Mr Fuzzy Listening Guy showed up.

In today's media accounts of the premiers' meeting with the P.M., one fact emerges. They agreed to agree.

When pushed by reporters to name one specific action that will be undertaken, one commitment by the federal government or one request that will be fulfilled, none of the premiers could provide an example. "Rien de concret mais pas de chicane." read one headline. Granted, expectations were indeed very low.

But a good time was had by all.

Violence against women

...conservative style. Words fail me. And no illustration seems to fit.

Violence flows naturally from that mindset. If they aren't into it themselves, so-cons always have thugs around to do their dirty work in the real world. Homophobic hate crime? They just pave the way with phoney "free speech" arguments, or post hatred simply because it makes them feel good. And leave themselves a little room to back away, of course, when there are real-life consequences.

H/t Slap Upside the Head via CC.

UPDATE: (November 11, Remembrance Day)

Check out the continuing sado-political commentary over at Dust My Broom. Eye-opening--especially today.

Miriam Makeba, March 4, 1932-November 9, 2008

I shall miss her. Beautiful flame, artist, anti-apartheid activist.

Love, not 8

I've been digesting the latest victory by the homophobes: the passage of Proposition 8 in laid-back California. (Perhaps not as surprisingly, similar measures were passed in two other states as well--Arizona and Florida).

Big money and bigotry won the day. The Church of Latter-Day Saints, whose entire religion is based upon a badly-written racist confabulation called the "Book of Mormon," coughed up about 80% of the money to get Proposition 8 passed, which it narrowly did. And, while the figures may not be all that they seem, it appears evident that most African American voters in California helped to push this regressive measure through. I can well understand the sense of betrayal felt by many GLBT people, who have traditionally stood up for civil rights and against racism.

But let's be clear: plenty of whites and Latinos voted for the proposition as well. It's racist to single out Blacks, many of whom voted against the measure. Once again, the latter find themselves homogenized and viciously scapegoated. That's not right, and cooler and wiser heads in the GLBT community have called for restraint.

But the Mormons don't get off that easily. They belong to a homophobic church with a racist past, based upon a "holy" book that reinforces a racist message, even with an "amendment" inserted in 1981 in an attempt to obfuscate it. Unlike gays, Mormons have a choice. Religion is not genetic. And the Church, whose adherents were instructed to provide wholehearted support of Proposition 8, is a tax-deductible institution, so that, in effect, taxpayers are being forced to subsidize bigotry.

I don't happen to believe that marriage is a "right." Historically, "wedlock" has been oppressive from a woman's point of view. But if that charmingly antiquated institution is available for straights, there is no good reason to deny it to gays, any more than there was for denying it to interracial couples in most of the US until the 1960s.

It's the issue of discrimination that is really before us, not marriage per se. That entails rights: equality before the law is fundamental, or it should be.

Putting rights to a vote is simply not on. And pouring millions of dollars into winning a vote against rights is reprehensible. This wasn't a triumph of democracy. It was an exercise in the backlash politics of hatred.

People forget, or simply don't know, what this cult stands for. It's not all about renouncing coffee and, a mere century ago, polygamy. Mormonism is founded upon violence and intolerance, and we can be thankful, I suppose, that they have now given such publicity to the darker corners of their creed. Remember that, the next time those button-down bigots come to your door.

Countdown to ConCon

The Conservative policy convention will officially begin in Winnipeg next week, but the resolutions books are out and lively discussions have already started.

The base gets one kick at the cat every three years, and the poor feline in question would appear to be a candidate for rescue by the Humane Society even in advance of the actual debates. The resolutions are a Christmas wish-list for far-right conservatives. Nothing hidden about this agenda, helpfully compiled by Kady O'Malley.

Back into the trenches of the culture wars we go: another stab at C-484 , no more Section 13 investigations by the Canadian Human Rights Commission, no more equal pay for work of equal value, cutting back student loans and payback flexibility (while making loans available to kids with wealthy parents), deleting any mention of childcare from the Conservative policy book, "three strikes and yer out" legislation that's been working so well in the States, and a brave stand against the onslaught of polygamy.

Canadians will be encouraged to adopt Canadian common values (equality, democracy and the rule of law). While this is clearly aimed at new immigrants, I find myself wondering about the Conservatives' own commitment to equality (e.g., equal pay for work of equal value, gay rights, etc.) and democracy (e.g., electoral reform, government transparency). Are we being governed by un-Canadians? Not much question about the rule of law, though: it's all crackdowns and punishment, all the time.

Not that it's unremitting doom and gloom. Resolution P-204 calls for openness and transparency in matters of government spending. (Good luck with that.) Resolution P-205 seeks enhanced Arctic sovereignty and devolution. Resolution P-222 supports employment standards protection for temporary foreign workers.

And the very first proposed amendment in the consolidated resolutions book calls for government to "ensure...the safety of our citizens at home and abroad." Is this a reference, perchance, to Brenda Martin? Or does it spell good news for Abousfian Abdelrazik, Omar Khadr, Bashir Makhtal and other marooned brown citizens? Too bad that this resolution, if it passes, won't be binding on a government that hasn't lifted a finger to help those people so far, and indeed has hindered their return.

Policy conventions are where ideology fetches up on the shoals of pragmatism. Harper grabbed his second mandate by being all sweater-y and moderate. He's not about to be swayed by much of the backlash stuff, at least until his Long March to a majority is complete. But we do get here, I suspect, more than a glimpse of the Conservative maximum program. The debates should be fascinating. I can't wait.

What's the Difference Between Sexism and Misogyny?

It's confusing. The terms sexism and sexist received more air play in one week on Fox News when Sarah Palin was named McCain's running mate in the US presidential election than in a year's worth of media coverage about Hillary Clinton's campaign to become the Democratic candidate.

So what's the difference? Sexism is the manifestation of attitudes, conditions, or behaviors that promote stereotyping of social roles based on gender. Misogyny is hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women.

Thus this offer from an adult movie producer to Sarah Palin combines the worst of sexism and misogyny. Did Dan Quayle, the prettiest VP the Republicans ever elected to power receive an offer to star in a porn film when he was defeated? If anyone ever doubted that intrinsically, the first assessment that men make of a woman, any woman would be: "Is she f***able?" then this certainly confirms it.

Had the popular male response, regardless of their political allegiance, been with regard to Hillary Clinton and the above question, "Yes!", then the US might presently have a female president-in-waiting.

Free speech and Carleton University

Since Carleton University is both my alma mater and my current abode, I was interested to hear, by way of Jay Currie, that a conservative radio program had been axed by the university radio station, CKCU.

The first questions I asked myself were, Is this a genuine free speech issue? Do all comers have a right to the airwaves, and to say anything they want, no matter how offensive? Is this "censorship," or is it editorial control?

On the other hand, what's wrong with having a mordant, edgy, irreverent conservative campus radio program?

To hear Jay tell it, the producers got into trouble for producing a history of Mohammed when they weren't believers. Indeed, the excerpt from an email by the station manager quoted by Jay seems beyond heavy-handed:

We have also had complaints about a program looking at the history of Mohammed. This subject matter immediately sets off alarm bells. Why are we looking at the history of Mohammed? We have a Muslim program that does this already. Do we need an alternate look? Nothing good will come of this other than to possibly enrage people and increase divisions. If there is a place to look at a fear of multicultural criticism it is not CKCU, a place that is proud of its multiculturalism. We are a campus/community radio station. Our very license indicates we are about building community. How do we build community by presenting the history of Mohammed by two non believers? The defence that this was a well researched program is not acceptable. There is research available to show that smoking doesn’t cause cancer and that there is nothing wrong with the natural state of the world at the moment. Common sense tells us that nothing positive will come out of criticizing anyone's personal beliefs. And CKCU is about the positive. There are many other media outlets who are covering the division and negativity, this is not one of them.

Even clumsier comments may be found in the emails that the conservative duo received:

We certainly are not going to run a message suggesting that things on CKCU do not represent the station. The station has a broad and varied message but we want everything presented on the station to represent a message of community building.

CKCU is about respect. These comments

“CKCU’s programs that deal with political issues are generally quite left-wing, and conformist.”

Are certainly not about respect.

Yikes, I thought, and decided to look into this further. I'm all for inclusiveness, and at Carleton, a cosmopolitan sort of place, this policy is (rightly) in full force. But does inclusiveness mean suppressing any point of view that makes people uncomfortable? Does everything have to be so relentlessly positive? Is criticism of left-wing "conformism" off-limits?

As it happens, I didn't have to look very far--the email exchange between the producers on the one hand and the station manager and program director on the other pretty well told the whole story. My friend Jay has been a bit selective in his choice of text. He left out the "joke" about Iranian taxi-drivers. He left out comments like "special Olympics head start," and making the sound of explosions while describing a German Mohammed look-alike contest, and a reference to amputating the hands of people who steal plants.

Then there's that program on Mohammed--spiced, apparently, with sarcastic comments and attacks on Mohammed, whom they portrayed as a murderer and a sex deviant. One of the show hosts ended the program laughing and pretending to call for security.

From the station manager and program director's point of view, nevcr mind their clumsy phrasing which frankly made me wince, this was all about respect. Indeed, as was pointed out in the excerpt at Jay's place, people of all political stripes go on-air at CKCU, even "Marxist Lennonists," in whose august company I could probably include myself.

So I end as I began, with some of the same questions, and a couple of others:

Are gratuitous insults an essential aspect of the conservative point of view?

Should a radio station be required to broadcast such insults and slurs in the name of "free speech?" Or is it reasonable to impose a general editorial requirement--respect for others?

Tuition fees are pretty hefty at Carleton: should I be required to subsidize this sort of thing?

Comments welcome.

Mornings after nights before

The tumult and the shouting have died, and we're still rubbing our eyes.

The binarism that is American politics achieved its ecstatic moment, and no one was immune. In a local bar, I jumped to my feet and cheered, along with everyone else in the place. A transition. A tipping-point. The possibility that the useless, ramshackle, superannuated notion of "race" might at last--someday--be thrown into the rubbish-bin of history. A door seemed to open, and sunlight was streaming inside.

And I still think that a door was opened. But Obama himself? Here's correspondent Chris Stolz in today's Globe and Mail:

[I]magine a political candidate who voted to renew the Patriot Act and fund the Iraq war, backed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Reform Act, courted the Israeli lobby, supported the death penalty, refused to champion universal, single-payer not-for-profit health care for all Americans, called to increase troop levels and expand the war in Afghanistan, failed to call for a reduction in defence spending, and lobbied (and voted for) the taxpayer swindle known as the Wall Street bailout.

This candidate sabre-rattled at Iran, promised to roll back "Russian aggression" and to extend treaty protection to a Georgian regime that cluster-bombed its own people, advocated for military strikes in Pakistan, opposed same-sex marriage, and favoured extending the death penalty.

Sober second thoughts, anyone? Obama, like any American politician, is a creature of the machine. The fact that he's Black, or half-Black, or Black and white, is of tremendous interest and significance. But Obama is just a fairly conventional, even conservative political operator in a wild country where half the folks think he's on the far Left. He is armed with charisma; he has the gift of oratory; I think he has a heart. But he's not an avatar of pure Goodness, or anything like it.

Yet he bears that weight. He was Hope, he was Change we could believe in, he was all things bright and beautiful. Today I had another look at a video of the crowds at Grant Park. They were joyful, waving their arms, cheering, some with tears in their eyes. The Moment had arrived. Barack Obama had won. I looked at those faces, and my first thought was, "Don't you let them down, you son of a bitch." But he will. He has no supernatural powers. He's no god. He's just a smart, capable, attractive politician. A politician who is bound to disappoint. They all do.

And John McCain, for his part, carried on his weary shoulders the burden of the dark side. Hatred, lies, rage, know-nothingism, reaction, bitterness. Mindless fear of the Other, of change, of even the possibility of change. To listen to some conservative commentators, caught up in that same Manichaean politics, a rough beast was now slouching towards Washington to be born, darkness (literally) had triumphed over the light, evil incarnate was on the loose.

McCain was too much the gentleman, as his concession speech so clearly showed: his sense of relief was palpable, his words were vibrant, strong, unhesitating. He didn't please his audience. The Manichaean struggle is eternal. You don't concede.

But McCain, too, was constructed out of myth. He was presented as a war hero--for bombing unknown numbers of Vietnamese civilians, and getting captured and quite possibly maltreated. War hero, hell--he was nothing of the kind. Frankly, if I'd been one of those yellow folks who dragged him from the lake where he'd landed, I'd have shot him on the spot. Two million Vietnamese were sacrificed on the altar of American warrior righteousness. They're still dying today from the after-effects of Agent Orange. That war was an abomination, and McCain was one of the people who made it so.

And then there was that dreadful, bone-stupid, benighted sidekick of his. All-American girly image pasted over astonishing ignorance and non-stop shrill intolerance. Whose fans, in the last gasps of post-party carry-on, were seriously talking about a run in 2012. If the GOP carries out that threat, it will implode. One can only hope.

But hey, it was a great party. We all drank too much and talked too loud. And two days later I'm still hung over, and grumpy. Does it show?

And the nutroots react

I hope the FBI is beginning to compile a list of possible assassins:

Obama represents the greatest force for evil existant [sic] in this world. He's a symbol, literally, of everything that we've ever stood against. His friends are criminals and terrorists.

We must - and we shall - destroy him.

[NB: This comment, by Adam Yoshida, has now been removed by the Shotgun editors. --DD]

When whites vote for other whites, it's all about political analysis, values and options. But when Hispanics (who tend to vote Democrat, as do African Americans) vote for Obama...or when other folks vote for Obama...well, listen to a pint-sized hater jumping up and down and stamping her tiny foot:

McCain bent over backwards to accomodate [sic] Mexicans and they voted for Obama, because his skin is brown. So did the usual guilty white liberals and secular Jews, who also voted for Obama based solely on his skin colour.

And there is no shortage of classy well-wishers:

I for one welcome our new black nationalist overlords. And as a white race-traitor myself, I could be useful in rounding up other honkies to work in their underground crack mines.

Personally, I enjoyed the fireworks last night--thousands of conservative heads exploding in a simply spectacular display of venom, rage, bile and bilge.

A catharsis? One might hope. But somehow, alas, this stuff seems to be self-generating.

John McCain also can.

Last night John McCain delivered the best speech of his campaign. It wasn't about loss. For a brief moment he rose above the odious web of incitation, fabrication, innuendo, attack, smear and dirty tricks that is now the standard Republican political campaign operation mode.

What I know about John McCain could probably fit on a 3x5 index card. I don't really know that much about Barack Obama, either. I have been at times, an enthusiastic observer of US politics but I lost my taste for it around the time the Republicans used September 11 to cement their hold on government. But there are elements to this campaign that have caught my attention.

Earlier in the evening, a comment from two unidentified Republican war-room peons was posted amidst the busy patchwork of information bits and bites that CNN favours in its broadcasts:

No path to victory.

John McCain probably figured that out a few weeks ago. He certainly did not seem surprised, angry or unprepared.

What I sensed about John McCain is that he was not a bitter or defeated man as he stood in front of a well-tailored and blue-blooded Republican crowd at a glitzy Arizona resort. He seemed quite relieved and even relaxed. It was over. He spoke firmly, with grace and honour. The best of John McCain was on view. He did not provide his supporters with the catharsis they wanted, but that is no longer his duty.

There will surely be a litany of naming, blaming and shaming in private and public conversations between Republicans. The acrimony, the mendacity and the rapacity that the party has promoted within and outside its ranks may continue; John McCain has left the building.

End Times

The Anti-Christ, the Manchurian Candidate, that terrorist, Muslim, Jew (How did that get in here? --ed.), anti-American, Marxist, Arab, Communist, Jew-hating n----r won! Fake birth certificate and all!

The "long march through the institutions" is complete!

Who's in charge now?

We is.

Lock up yer daughters! Barricade yer doors! Or head for the hills. Who cares?

We know who you are, and where you are, and we're coming for you. Yeah, you. And you. And especially you.

Go ahead, move your blogs to offshore servers while you still have time, you knuckle-dragging, moose-killing, gun-clutching, God-bothering whackos. Good luck finding a computer where you’re going.

Bow down to the Beast. The One. Yes, that One.

Harper undermines government accountability [updated]

Governments should be accountable to Canadians all the time, not just during election time. One of the key elements of a functioning democracy between elections is transparency and on-going government accountability to Parliament and to the people of Canada. Two new watchdog positions—a Parliamentary Budget Officer and a Public Appointments Commissioner—were created recently with substantial input from my own MP, Paul Dewar. Their respective mandates would allow them to shine a bright light on government expenditures and appointments.

Unfortunately, the Conservative government has seriously undermined both functions before they have even had a chance to be put into operation.

There is at the present time no Public Appointments Commissioner. The office has been deliberately kept vacant. Prime Minister Stephen Harper abruptly made that decision this past May, after a friend of his, Gwyn Morgan, was found to be unsuitable for the position by the House of Commons Government Operations Committee. Mr. Morgan, a Calgary oilman, had made disparaging comments about immigrants, multiculturalism and unions in a speech to the Fraser Institute, a conservative think-tank. In Mr. Harper’s opinion, Morgan’s plainly intolerant views should not have disqualified him from one of the most sensitive positions in Parliament. The Committee, thankfully, disagreed.

But Mr. Harper’s decision means that it’s still business as usual—unvetted patronage appointments with no Parliamentary oversight whatsoever.

The duties of the Parliamentary Budget Officer, technically an officer of the non-partisan Library of Parliament, include carrying out independent analyses of Canada’s economy, finances and planned government expenditures. Another crucial part of the job is to provide an objective analysis of departmental and agency spending estimates, when asked to do so by parliamentary committees reviewing those estimates, such as the Senate National Finance Committee and the House of Commons Finance and Public Accounts Committees.

The first appointee to this post is Kevin Page, who appears to be very well-qualified for the position. But, in keeping with the Conservative government’s smoke-and-mirrors approach, his office has been given a paltry operating budget of $2.5 million, which will simply not permit him and his staff to do the work with any degree of thoroughness. Mr. Page himself has graciously tried to make the best of this tiny allocation, but questions have been raised about how this sum will permit him to serve all 308 MPs, and the various committees that will call on him for assistance.

An expert on the workings of government, Sharon Sutherland, puts it this way:

If MPs want to have at their service a challenge function to both the Finance Department and to the expenditure budget, and if all the political parties make full use of the function, even assuming the Budget Office uses only available data, it will find itself out of funds pretty quickly. Even to perform an interpretive function, it will need to hire experts, and it will have to work with academic economists who charge huge fees.

A responsible and responsive government should be accountable in fact, not just in theory. Two steps in the right direction have now been taken, with the establishment of a Public Appointments Commission and a Parliamentary Budget Officer. But these two steps forward have been countered by two steps right back: an unfilled office in one case, and a grossly under-budgeted one in the other. Canadians, pressed by an economic downturn and shrinking public services, have a right to know what our government is doing on a day-to-day basis. We deserve far better than this.

UPDATE: (November 4) Kevin Page's mandate, it seems, was intended to be largely ceremonial in nature. Officer of Parliament? Why, no--according to the Speakers of the House and the Senate, he simply works for the librarian. (As for the Public Appointments Commissioner, the less said, the better.) It's business as usual in our 40th Parliament. Harper--and now the Speakers--are making sure of that.

[Last sentence added at the behest of commenter Mark Collins. --DD]

I used to think Flea was a heavy hitter

But he's just another crackpot.

No, I do him a disservice: he's a platinum-plated, Oscar-winning crackpot:

Barack Obama is a Manchurian Candidate. He has been groomed for this mission since before he set foot in the United States. He cannot become President of the United States.

Wow. Just wow. When these folks start drinking their own Kool-aid, it's time for serious medical intervention.

Dog bites man

Peter Jaworski points me to this straw poll of Western Standard contributors. It seems that not a vote for Barack Obama is to be found among the Usual Suspects.

In other news, the sky turned blue today, a bear relieved himself in our northern forests, and the Pope embraced Catholicism.

UPDATE: I should have noted that there are actually two lists over at the Shotgun: "contributors" and "friends." The friends didn't cast a single vote for Obama. A plurality of the contributors went for Libertarian Bob Barr, followed closely by "wouldn't vote." There were two "spoiled ballots" (in my opinion), one vote for McCain--and, mirabile dictu, Mike Brock showed up late to throw in a solitary vote for Obama. Out of 26.

FOX News: anti-Semite is honoured guest on Hannity

I've posted about the connection between FOX News and assorted unsavoury Fourth Reich types before. Now we have more of the same: a revolting anti-Semite hosted by a fawning Sean Hannity--who else?--to slime Barack Obama.

This would be none other than Anthony Martin-Trigona, now plain "Andy Martin," a perennial litigant, political candidate and all-round nutjob, who once wrote, "I am able to understand how the Holocaust took place, and with every passing day feel less and less sorry that it did, when Jew survivors are operating as a wolf pack to steal my property." Martin was more than willing to be publicly fellated by Hannity on FOX News prime time. Obama organizer Robert Gibbs later used this to turn the tables on the FOX pseudo-journalist after hearing a few too many cracks about one-time Chicago Citizen of the Year William Ayers.

Glenn Greenwald notes that prominent conservatives who use the "anti-Semitic" label at the drop of a hat to advance their right-wing agenda were oddly silent after a real anti-Semite was featured on FOX. Indeed, several of them continued to appear on that network after the Hannity-Martin interview.

While the specious charge of "anti-Semitism" is regularly used against those of us who dare to be critical of the state of Israel, assorted neo-Nazis have been permitted to re-emerge as alleged defenders of free speech, and bottom-of-the-barrel types like Martin are feted on conservative television shows. Since the word "anti-Semitic" has now been successfully drained of all meaning by the Right (and the occasional Liberal), maybe we need a new term to describe those folks, and I can think of a few--but this is a family blog.

Turkish 'Delights' Presented as Frightful

On the weekend I read a travel item in the Ottawa Citizen about Istanbul. Like much of the writing found in the pages of papers owned by Canwest News Services, it catered to a particular readership. One can only assume that the author of this fluff piece, Loraine Whysall, wrote it and submitted it for publication with the complete assurance that readers would be sympathetic to her myopic perspective on this ancient city.

On principle, I appreciate travel essays that provide useful information that has been gleaned from observation and experience, such as timely warnings with regard to safety issues and sage advice on respecting local customs.

In this particular item, the first two paragraphs centered on the author’s recoil when she was shuttled from the airport to the old quarters of Istanbul. It read as though her life's experience of cab rides had been restricted to Victoria. Has she visited cities such as Alexandria where traffic lights are notably absent and drivers navigate narrow streets where cars and tour buses must share space with souks, pedestrians, cyclists and even horse-drawn calèche? Her slightly hysterical tone suggests that she has not.

Then, she regaled her readership with her parochial reaction upon being awakened at dawn by the vibrant call to prayer. Again, one wonders at the chauvinism waved like a flag; why should this be surprising? Had she has done her research she would have known that her choice of hotel, in proximity to one of the world’s biggest mosques, would expose her to this daily tradition.

“Jarring …. blasted from loudspeakers …” - this is the twenty first century, Ms Whysall. Digital technology amplifies even the booming of bells from church steeples, which I suspect you would not have described in such rude terms.

Next morning she and her husband visited the Blue Mosque, the Aya Sophia and Topkapi palace, cramming in her typically tourist manner all three sites into a day’s speedy visit that Whysall claims to be comfortably doable. One would certainly not want her to be sidetracked by the opportunity of approaching these stunning architectural wonders with the veneration, respect and time their history warrants.

Whysall extolled her personal bravery, as shown by the extraordinary feat of allowing herself to bathe at the Cemberlitas hamam, in spite of her distaste for the presence of female attendants, unclad from the waist up. Perhaps she should have requested a blindfold, in order to be spared this unpleasant discomfort?

Her surprising appreciation of a lovely boat excursion on the Bosphorus was happenstance; she discovered it by listening to and following around better informed English tourists. Heaven forbid she might have found this cruise by interacting with local people.

Her descriptions of actual involvement with the residents of Istanbul seemed limited to “aggressive” merchants who followed her. My experience of the vendors who attempted to interest visitors in their merchandise was that they were persistent, courteous and ever optimistic that a commonly agreeable purchase price could be negotiated.

Ethnocentricity is not a virtue, and it is particularly irritating when it is blatantly on display in a travel piece. You’d be better served by avoiding travel pieces framed by Whysall's narrow world view. With regards to Istanbul, I’d recommend the Knopf guide to Istanbul as it is not marred by provincial and inappropriate remarks.

Last few days of the campaign...

...and the GOP base is getting a tad wrangy.

Equality is "not an American value"

So said Dennis Prager, a conservative radio Sprachmeister, before an audience of 3,000 in Minneapolis.

Equality, quoth Prager, is "the primary value of the left," and it's a European value, not an American one.

In refutation, the well-meaning folks at thinkprogress.org remind us of this:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal..."

But we know that "men" didn't include "women" in those days--or Blacks, valued at 3/5 of a white person in the US Constitution until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 and the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868.

Prager is right on the money. Equality is not an American value--and obviously not a conservative one. Why all the shock and surprise?

[H/t Keith Olbermann]

Not waiting for the asteroid

Bye, bye, National Post.

[H/t Big City Lib, and with apologies to KM]

Compassionate conservatism

Boo!

[H/t Creative Revolution]

Israel's war on its own citizens

I have posted about the plight of Bedouins in Israel before. Briefly, Israeli Bedouins are citizens of that country, but without the right even to live in their own villages. Since it came into being, the land-hungry Israeli state has herded these people around and taken their best land, and this warfare against a minority continues today.

From time to time I'll be putting up "guest blogposts" on the continuing oppression of Bedouins in Israel. This one is from Josh Berer.

**********************

Dear all,

Thursday in the unrecognized Bedouin village of Khashm Zanna the home of Bassam abu Gwedar, a father of three young girls, and his wife, all citizens of the State of Israel, was demolished. The reason given by the Israeli authorities was that the structure was a new structure and had been built without a permit, which for all residents of the unrecognized villages is unattainable. The home had been built a year ago replacing the tin hut in which they had lived, and the demolition order was posted almost immediately. The family took the case to the local courts, which refused to offer any respite from their predicament, and supported the demolition order. The situation is that of a catch 22: there is no method of attaining a building permit, but without a building permit the home is illegal and must therefore be destroyed, so Bassam and his family were left homeless Thursday. The bulldozers arrived at nine o'clock in the morning accompanied by 150 soldiers and 20 members of the paramilitary Green Patrol.

Bassam's neighbors gathered in front of the home in non-violent protest of the order, but under threat of violence they retreated and the bulldozers crushed his home to rubble. It was completed at 10:40 AM, taking under two hours to leave a family of five without a home. Bassam and his family's sole crime were being members of an ethnic group in a state that is severely biased against him and those like him. Bassam's family watched the demolition with utter desperation and helplessness, confronted with a faceless force of destruction.

The season chosen for the demolition was not lost on the family. The recent rains and cold make their homelessness that much harder. "We have nowhere left." He told members of the RCUV Thursday.

Khashm Zanna is an unrecognized village of more than 2000 people living roughly 15 kilometers south of Beer Sheva in the Negev desert, and has been in the same location for more than 200 years. They have no access to electricity, water, sewage, paved roads, or medical services from the Israeli government. They are constantly under the threat of home demolition, as all houses in the village have been deemed illegal. This demolition is not an isolated incident, but the latest in a series of co-ordinated operations designed to make life in the villages as unbearable as possible, so as to force the residents to abandon their lands.

Also Thursday, the village of Tweil abu Jarwal was completely destroyed for close to the 20th time. The night prior to this demolition, six young men of the village were arrested and kept overnight in the police holding cells in Beer Sheva. They were arrested in the village on charges of trespassing on their own land, held overnight and then released on the sole condition that they refrain from returning to their village for two weeks. This village is deeply in need of assistance in the form of new tents, and if you or someone you know can contribute for new tents in the village, please donate through PayPal to yallylivnat@gmail.com, or send a check payable to the RCUV at

47 Ha-Atzmaut St
PO Box 10002,
Beer Sheva, 81405
Israel

Thank you all,
Joshua Berer,
International Communications Advocate
Regional Council of Unrecognized Bedouin Villages
olomachad@gmail.com
+972 52 7500 159

The big wet slurpy kiss of death

What's that sound? Why, I do believe it's the last nail being hammered in.

[NB: thanks to commenters for noting an erroneous earlier link. Correction made. --DD]

As Canadian as...

I guess this had to happen someday.

America

The good:

Unless a successful concerted effort to steal the election in several states takes place, the US is about to have its first Black president. Maybe someday, or in a perfect alternate world, nobody would notice one way or the other. But here, now, it's significant. It's a coming of age for a country that in many ways has been fighting the Civil War since 1861. Appomattox was just an uneasy truce.

"Race" is a central element of the US psyche: the country seethes with it. It bubbles and smoulders, seen and unseen, like a lava flow under a swamp. Coded or blatant, racism—by which I mean the racialization of groups of people, with attendant assumptions of white superiority—has been ever-present, from the very birth of the United States of America.

But now a corner is about to be turned. Colin Powell was right: Barack Obama's rise to the presidency will indeed be "transformational." And this isn't because Obama is The One, or because he's a "liberal" (whose actual politics would, in the Canadian context, put him shoulder-to-shoulder with Stephen Harper on not a few issues), or because there's any depth to his "Yes we can," "Change we need" cheerleading, or because of his undoubted charisma. It's because a majority of Americans will have decided that "race" should be no barrier to the leadership of their country.

Most Obama voters will vote for him regardless of what colour he is, although some will vote for him in spite of his colour, and others because of it. But the result is what counts: a qualified Black individual will have achieved the very highest office in the land because of who he is and what he stands for.

Transformational indeed. Some years ago my stepdaughter had a birthday party in a local restaurant, attended by a large number of friends. The crowd, to borrow a phrase from a character in Broken English, looked like a UN peacekeeping force. But the very best part of all this was that my late partner and I were the only people who even noticed.

Perhaps America can reach the point where "race" is no longer a category, with its fixed boundaries and its built-in struggles and Angst. But to do that, it had to make a beginning. Never mind Obama's conventional politics, not to mention the dead certainty that any vision he might have will be shaped, chipped away at, moulded and constrained by the machine in whose toils he is trapped. What he offers is possibility—not in the anodyne "hope" and "change" political sense, but for a deep and festering lesion in the very heart of America to begin its slow, inexorable healing.

The bad:

It's always terrible news when a living legend dies. Louis "Studs" Terkel has passed away at the age of 96—a month before his latest book was due to be released. He was a brilliant journalist whose preferred method was letting ordinary folks speak for themselves, not to mention an unabashed trade union supporter (which led, of course, to his being blacklisted in the 1950s). Terkel not only had the common touch, but was that touch: a means by which people were able to tell their own often gripping stories to the world. Check out Working to get the flavour.

More here and here and here.

The ugly:

Once again our American overlords are telling us how things are going to be, and if we don't like it, too bad.

This time it's "an influential analyst on Canada-U.S. relations," one Christopher Sands of the Hudson Institute, addressing an audience of security intelligence professionals in Ottawa yesterday (Hallowe'en).

Sands is an enthusiastic advocate of North American economic integration. But he was not in Ottawa to promote this frankly imperialist agenda. Instead, it was to do yet more of that tiresome Yankee finger-wagging at Canadians, telling us that we've had a free ride for far too long, that it will be on our head if any terrorists enter the US from Canada, that information on our citizens—"people you may be looking at for reasons, but there's no indictment and there's no charge"—needs to be turned over to the US forthwith.

Sands quoted some assistant secretary of policy in Homeland Security as saying that Canadians have "had a better deal than anybody else in terms of access to the United States and for that they've paid nothing." (That about sums up the official American attitude to nearly everything, doesn't it?) Sands was indeed correct when he said that the Bush administration's desire for less access and more money "is a very difficult message to pass on to Canadians." And I suspect he is also correct in saying that the next administration (which he assumes will be that of Barack Obama) won't change much in this respect.

Sands then took the obligatory swipe at Maher Arar, saying that Canada has absolved him of nothing at all, and that he wouldn't have his name removed from the pernicious US no-fly list "in (Sand's) lifetime." To Sands and his cohorts, being an Ay-rab seems to be enough. All such people will have to prove their innocence of any and all charges that some Homeland Security munchkin can dream up (with help from incompetents in the RCMP) before they will be treated like normal people. In Europe, centuries of anti-Semitism led to some Jews changing their names, the better to fit in. Perhaps Maher Arar should have changed his to "Wayne Smith."

Canada expects to meet the US "standard" by 2011, but, says Sands, "there'll be tremendous pressure to get there faster." And then the clincher:

[W]hile we live in a world in which an independent foreign policy for Canada is as possible as ever, an independent security policy, an independent intelligence policy, becomes trickier because we need Canada to help us protect ourselves and to protect yourselves.

If a new terrorist attack is traced back to Canada, Sands said, damage to Canada-U.S. relations could last for years. The key will be the new head of Homeland Security:

There is no more important cabinet secretary to Canada today...because homeland security is the gatekeeper with its finger on the jugular affecting your ability to move back and forth across the border, the market access upon which the Canadian economy depends.

Shorter Sands: "Nice country you've got there--be a shame if anything happened to it." The Ugly American, redux.