Category: Uncategorized

Barack Obama: Partying like it’s 1967

I’ve never seen the movie Dumb and Dumber; I don’t have to.  All I have to do is sit back and watch President Barack Obama and the US State Department stumble around, stomping on the flowers of the Arab Spring, and I’ve pretty well got the storyline.  These guys make the Keystone Kops look like Sherlock Holmes.  Obama’s most recent foray beyond the Beltway, on May 19th, was one of the oddest speeches I’ve ever heard.  Apparently, it was a major policy statement.  Who knew?  From my point of view, Barack Obama’s Middle East policy sounds, looks and acts like a 2011 cut rate rerun of the much despised Bush Doctrine.  To be sure, Obama stuck to his guns and threw in a lot of rhetoric about change, but that was probably just force of habit.  After all, he’s been yipping about change for nearly four years now — without very much of it actually happening.

Anyway, according to Obama, the way America will effect change in the Middle East is by throwing a couple of billion dollars at the Egyptians, starting a civil war in Libya and ignoring Tunisia and Yemen altogether.  Furthermore, if Bashar al-Assad in Syria doesn’t quit shooting people in the streets America is going to get really, really angry.  And, if Ahmadinejad in Iran continues his reckless pursuit of nuclear weapons, Barack will personally denounce him and call on the world to apply more sanctions, more often.  None of this is new or even news.

After that, the speech was padded out with some fancy footwork, dancing around the situation in Bahrain, where, it seems, there are several different ways to ruthlessly suppress political opposition — and America recognizes all of them.  There were some further admonishments of Iran – like Ali Khamenei cares what Obama thinks – and a friendly wave to the women in the crowd.  However, absolutely glaring by its absence from the Obama Doctrine was any mention of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.  To be fair, Pakistan is not technically in the Middle East, and perhaps Obama will get around to them later, but Saudi Arabia is smack dab in the middle.  In fact, its importance in the area is what most presidents have called “paramount.”  Talking about the Middle East without talking about Saudi Arabia is like singing the Old Macdonald song without any of the animals: it doesn’t make any sense.  I hate to resort to rhetorical questions but: Is the Kingdom so perfect as to resist the forces of change and self-determination Obama’s talking about?  Or did they just get lost in the desert?   Don’t get me wrong: I don’t mind the realpolitik that says leave the Saudis alone; I just distrust the motivation.  After all, those are Saudi troops in Bahrain.

Of course, Obama saved the best for last – Israel — and the guy was on a roll.  He started off by saying “the status quo is unsustainable” then went on to say “The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines…”  I’m not even going to grace this with an argument.  Obviously, the people in the State Department have never seen a map of the Middle East.  Israel’s pre-1967 borders were indefensible; that’s why they had a war!  Granted, it only lasted six days, but it was pretty memorable.  Who, in their right mind, would think those same borders could be defended any better in 2011?  Wild guess?  Nobody!

The world has changed since 1967.  For example, back then, Elvis was a newlywed, Che Guevara was still alive and a guy by the name of John McCain had just got himself shot down over North Vietnam and was checking in for an extended stay at the Hanoi Hilton.  We were watching Get Smart, The Beverly Hillbillies and Gilligan’s Island on TV and Aretha Franklin was about to record “Respect” – the first time.  Personal computers were unheard of, phones were attached to the wall and most cars got three miles to the gallon.  Hell, we didn’t even have the metric system!  If “the status quo is unsustainable,” how does turning the clock back 44 years help the situation any?

The problem is that it’s not Obama’s fault.  He doesn’t know anything about foreign relations.  Niall Ferguson, a well known British historian, has said — on more than one occasion — that the guy’s clueless.  He’s depending on the State Department to treat him right; this is where you get the dumber part of the equation.  The US State Department has never been the brightest bulb on the Christmas tree, and recently they’ve been spending most of their time unplugged.  This latest adventure in the world of the unknown is just a continuation of the stumble/fumble in the Middle East that started last December.  For example, now that the Egyptians are going to try Mubarak for murder, do you think Gaddafi’s is going to go quietly?  Sometimes I think Hillary’s recruiting her researchers and diplomats at WalMart.

Luckily, Hezbollah and Hamas are still going way too fast on the Crazy Train to let the Palestinians take advantage of the situation.  Nothing is going to happen
for a while, and by that time maybe the American people will quit relying on Hope and Change and take a look around them.  Me?  I’m going to give up
downloading movies and just watch CNN for laughs.

Left Wing Reaction to the Canadian Election

I can’t figure it out.  The NDP just scored a gigantic victory in yesterday’s election.  They went from a minor, anti-everything coalition of the disaffected to a bold, new national force in Canadian politics.  They gathered votes from just about everybody who wants to change the way we do business in this country.  They more than doubled their best election results to date and nearly tripled their parliamentary power.  They increased their popularity from a paltry 18.2% to 30.6% — which means nearly one in every three Canadian voters now supports the NDP.  And that’s not all.  Of overwhelming significance, Jacques, Le Tueur de Geants (Jack, the Giant Killer) did what no politician has been able to do for twenty years.  He separated the Sovereignistas in Quebec from the allure of separatism and convinced huge numbers of Quebecois to join in a federalist dream.  Not bad for a guy with a bum hip and a failing memory!  Yet, in the middle of it all, even before Mansbridge could choke out “C-C-Conservative majority,” the Internet was bulging with I Hate Harper tirades.  Did I miss an e-mail or something?  Is this the way one is supposed to celebrate the greatest night in the history of “progressive” politics?

In less than twelve hours, the anti-conservative forces in Canada went from bright-eyed political activists, working flat out for change, to a pack of snarling Harper-haters, spitting sour grapes.  Of course, hating Harper has been a leisure activity in Canada ever since he kicked Stockwell Day to the curb in 2002, but election night was way over the top.  It started with Mansbridge saying something like, Stephen Harper’s most cherished dream was to destroy the Liberals, and it just soared into the stratosphere from there.  There were the usual George Bush and Adolf Hitler comparisons, of course, but then it just got bizarre.  Harper was going to outlaw abortion, gay marriage and bright colours.  Harper was going to change all the hospitals into pay-per-view clinics.  He’s going to steal everybody’s Old Age pension cheques and buy fighter jets with the money.  He was going to shoot the homeless, abolish daycare and burn the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in front of cowering orphans and weeping widows.  As the night went along, Hell itself couldn’t hold half Harper’s nastiness and even Satan was sending the children out of the room.  Most of it was unprintable.

The last time anything like this happened was when the Republicans in America finally realized that Palin was an idiot and Obama was actually going to be President.  The venom was unbelievable.   Did that just happen here?  Are the “progressives” in this country taking a page out of the Republican playbook and starting down the yellow brick road to some kind of Canadian Cappuccino version of Tea Party Crazy?  Is there a left wing Canadian Glenn Beck waiting to emerge?  Do we even know where Harper was born?  Hold it!  Let’s just stop for a second and take a deep breath.

First of all, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government isn’t worth the name.  If you don’t believe me, take a look at what Blogging Tory Adrian MacNair has to say about it — here.  Harper and his crew are probably further left politically than “progressive” poster child, Barack Obama.   Hyperbole doesn’t work when you don’t know what you’re talking about.  Secondly, we didn’t just elect Louis XIV for God’s sake!  Despite CBC’s continuous assurance that the people of Canada have handed Stephen Harper “absolute power” he’s only the Prime Minister.  Nothing gets done in this country without the bureaucrats and the special interest groups taking their cut, so I wouldn’t worry about anything called rapid change.  Thirdly, last time I looked, Jack Layton was the only guy who didn’t campaign with a handful of mud.  He kinda wanted to talk about the issues during the election.  I would think the party faithful would follow his example and demonstrate that much-vaunted “progressive” tolerance we’ve all been hearing about, ad nauseum.

And finally, you lost.  It’s that simple.  You can yip all you want about shadowy corporate conspirators subverting the will of the people — or media bias — or abolishing reforming the electoral system.  Hell, you can even say Harper is a Manchurian Candidate born in Kenya if you want to, but that doesn’t change the facts.  More people wanted a Conservative government than wanted an NDP one.  Even though 60% of the voters didn’t vote Conservative, using those numbers, 70% didn’t vote NDP: case closed.  If the “progressive” message is so alluring, Jack Layton is now a Prime Minister in waiting, and he’s got four years to prove he can do a better job.  Get after it!

The vast majority of people in this country want to change the way we do things politically, and many of them demonstrated that by voting NDP.  Let’s leave the venom and the rhetoric alone, calmly sit down, compare blueberries and oranges, and see which Canadians want.   Then all we have to do is figure out how to pay the bills and learn to live with the result — without resorting to American-style nutsy.

Canadian Election: It’s Finally Over

Congratulations, Canada!  You’ve almost made it.  In a couple of hours, one of the doziest elections in our history will be over.  The signs will come down, the pollsters will put away their pencils and the politicians will crawl back into hibernation.  Tonight, Canadian Survivor gets one more 2-hour TV finale (just so we can actually see who gets voted off the public payroll) and that’s it – it’s over.  And, with any luck at all, Canadian politics will irrevocably change.  Thank God! 

As I said in the beginning, Decision 2011 — or whatever journalists are calling it this week — has nothing to do with the people of Canada.  This was a political election, pure and simple:  engineered by our politicians and for the exclusive use of our politicians.  This wasn’t an unnecessary election, per se, it just didn’t have anything to do with us.  Our politicians have been wandering around the banks of the Ottawa River, trying to figure things out, for quite some time.  For years now, nobody on Parliament Hill really knew where they stood in the political spectrum, and they needed to get re-aligned.  They solved the problem in typical Canadian fashion.  They held an election among the three opposition parties and today we’ll find out who won.  In that sense, I suppose, there is some drama, but we’re not getting very much bang for our buck, considering the money we spent.

Here’s what just happened; it gets complicated, so stick with me.  Ever since Stephane Dion got the chop for incompetence in 2008, the Liberals haven’t been quite sure how far left of centre they want their centre-left party to be.  Michael Ignatieff is about as close to a Red Tory as you can get without the name; whereas, Bob Rae and Ujjal Dosanjh both ran genuine socialist horde NDP provincial governments.  There’s so much political schizophrenia going around on Bay Street these days, it’s a wonder the whole party isn’t in therapy.

Meanwhile, in another part of the political forest, the NDP have been creeping to the right.  Jack Layton has introduced Thomas Mulchair, a former provincial Liberal, as deputy leader.  This move overshadowed Libby Davies, who is about to retire anyway and take her brand of left-coast-bad-girl politics with her.  Layton sees an opportunity to move the NDP from wacky wannabes into the sunlight as a reasonable left of centre alternative in Canadian politics.  This is especially feasible since the environment is no longer on the agenda and the Greens, now lost in the wilderness, aren’t chewing on his left wing anymore.  Jack set his laptop on “Find: Replace,” retooled his speeches to read “middle class” (instead of “working class”) called it change (a la Barack Obama) and plunged right into the fray.  Ignatieff, too proud to battle a “fringe” party like the NDP, set his sights on Harper’s Conservatives, blissfully unaware (until it was too late) that, without Quebec and the West, the Liberals have become not much more than an urban “fringe” party themselves.  Two political objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, so the war was on.

All this would have been a minor skirmish, except Gilles Duceppe, probably the most competent politician of this generation, decided to take the month off.  He showed up briefly during the French language debate to scold Harper and rhetorically slap Jack Layton, but in general, he wasn’t there.  Duceppe is tired and wants to finish off his career back in La Belle Province.  He will get a good chance to govern as leader of the Parti Quebecois, when Charest’s Liberals collapse and he wants to take it.  Besides, he thought that the Bloc had little or nothing to fear until the old Rene Levesque-inspired sovereignistas start to die out in a decade or so.  Anyway, pension secured, Gilles went to bed early most nights and slept late.

And what about the guy who seems to be forgotten in all this hoopla — Stephen Harper?  After his five years in power, even the CBC couldn’t make the perennial favourite “secret agenda” label stick to him.  Harper’s diehard opponents still think he’s the living tool of Satan, however — just waiting for a majority so he can destroy Health Care, evict widows, stomp on kittens and sell us out to his American masters.  (Barack Obama?)   The truth, of course, is Stephen Harper isn’t the bogeyman any more than Joe Clark or Bob Stanfield were before him.  Conservative politics aren’t the manifestation of evil on earth, and most people can’t tell the difference between the day before yesterday and 2004, when Paul Martin was running the show.  Stephen Harper’s Conservative government is steady, and Conservative support might not be majority material, but it is deep and it is solid.  Besides, now that Danny Williams isn’t around to poison the well in the Maritimes, and if Harper can storm Fortress Toronto, he might just get a majority.  Regardless, tomorrow morning he will form the government.

That’s it: six weeks later; no big ideas exchanged; no national vision debated.  We can only hope that the politicians have finally sorted themselves out — because if they haven’t, and there’re any loose ends dangling about, we’ll all be back at it, in a year or two.