7 October 2011, mid-morning
I now live in a riding with an NDP MP and an NDP MPP. How did that happen? I never thought the day would come. Like most of Toronto, Davenport was a bright red riding when I moved in. The mostly useless Tony Ruprecht had been my MPP for the past 5 years. He’d been in this riding since 1999. (He’d been an MPP since 1981! That’s some staying power.) His not running in this election may have been in part due to Mario Silva’s loss in the federal election. It’s quite likely that even with an incumbent running the Liberals would have been voted out of Davenport. Ruprecht was far from popular amongst people I know in the area. My hope is that Jonah Schein is more energetic than his predecessor, a low bar to be sure.
McGuinty’s win in Ontario is probably a good thing for the province. I don’t want to imagine just how scorched earth things would be if Hudak had managed to fair better this election. Ontario really doesn’t need another “common sense” revolution. Shima and I don’t have a TV, so I only saw one political ad this whole election. It was for the Liberals, and it wasn’t an attack ad. It featured McGuinty in front of a white background telling you the viewer that, despite his being an unpopular figure, the Liberals were serious bad-asses who had accomplished this and that. It was simple yet slick, and very on point. I suspect in the last few weeks the message resonated with voters. (I feel like the provincial Liberals keep a very low profile most of the year.) McGuinty should be congratulated for coming back from some pretty dismal poll numbers early in the campaign. The Liberals were really on the ball this election.
Of note is that Toronto’s so called Ford Nation looked to have no interest whatsoever in the provincial conservatives. My guess is that two things are at play here. One, Fords many recent fuck-ups may have soured Toronto on his friends. Second, Toronto is a city full of immigrants. Calling these people foreigners is probably going to sour the city on your politics. You can’t win Ontario without winning in Toronto: nicely done, GTA. Well, except for Thornhill. That place is the worst.
[1] Politics | Toronto
24 August 2011, late morning
Canada is a great country, one of the hopes of the world. We can be a better one – a country of greater equality, justice, and opportunity. We can build a prosperous economy and a society that shares its benefits more fairly. We can look after our seniors. We can offer better futures for our children. We can do our part to save the world’s environment. We can restore our good name in the world. We can do all of these things because we finally have a party system at the national level where there are real choices; where your vote matters; where working for change can actually bring about change. In the months and years to come, New Democrats will put a compelling new alternative to you. My colleagues in our party are an impressive, committed team. Give them a careful hearing; consider the alternatives; and consider that we can be a better, fairer, more equal country by working together. Don’t let them tell you it can’t be done.
My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.
— Jack Layton, in an open letter to the country.
Jack Layton passed away this week. My co-worker sent me a message while I was away in New York to let me know. During his press conference he looked to be in pretty bad shape, but I didn’t think things would move so quickly. Cancer is like that, I suppose. Jack Layton was an amazing politician. The NDP are now the official opposition party of Canada, I suspect largely due to his charisma. His death is a real loss for this country. We have so few truly engaging political leaders.
[2] Politics | Toronto
21 October 2010, terribly early in the morning
Ward 18 has only gotten better since I moved here. I would like to think that some of that is due to me, but I suspect a fair amount of the credit should go to Adam Giambrone and his staff. Kevin Beaulieu is the first of Adam’s staff that I met when I moved here. He would attend DIG IN meetings when Adam could not make them, or in addition to Adam. He’s always been easy to get a hold of and very quick to respond to inquiries. He’s also very knowledgeable about the area and its issues. I was glad to see that he was running to take Adam’s place in our riding. There are lots of good candidates running in Ward 18, but I think Kevin is by far the best. At the public debates I’ve attended, he’s the only candidate who can ever offer up very specific solutions to the problems in our ward. Most other candidates speak in very broad terms. (“We need more community meetings!” Perhaps, but that isn’t a solution for every single problem ever.) I hope he makes it on to city council. It will be to our collective benefit.
Bloor and Lansdowne | Politics
20 October 2010, terribly early in the morning
I’m voting for Joe Pantalone. (You may already know this, since it’s plastered on the top of this web site in a big orange box.) At this point it’s not looking very likely that he will win. I hope I’m wrong about that. If he loses I think it will be a real shame. Toronto under Mayor Miller has been great; Pantalone is in many ways the man who would continue the progressive programs that Miller started. Of the three candidates left running, he is the only one who doesn’t seem to hate Toronto. That should count for something.
Statisticians ask people who they are going to vote for and the newspapers publish these results. I’d argue that polling is a detriment to the political process. It might make sense for candidates to know how they are doing, but does it really matter to the voting public? If you are voting for someone because X percent of a sampled population is voting for that person you are doing it wrong.
People should vote for what they believe in. Otherwise, what’s the point? If you think our first-past-the-post system is broken the way to fix it is certainly is not through strategic voting. If Smitherman does end up winning because a bunch of people couldn’t stomach Ford as mayor, he will essentially have been given a false mandate. That Smitherman can’t beat Ford without banging his, “I’m not Ford,” drum is a testament to just how ineffectual his campaign has been. He has no vision for the city. He seems to think he is entitled to the job. You shouldn’t get to be mayor just because your opponent is a drunk and a moron.
Vote for Joe Pantalone.
Toronto | Politics
19 March 2009, early morning
I find the way people react to stories about unions humourous. People doing clerical work for the city do what most people would consider simple work anyone could do. And yet they get paid a good amount of money for what they do. Similarly, autoworkers, people driving TTC buses, etc, all get paid very good wages for doing what people consider menial jobs. When there are labour disputes the publics reactions is generally, “suck it up, you already get paid too much.” If you went to university for 4 years only to graduate and make less than someone who has been working in a unionized factory since grade 11 it would probably make you bitter. People lash out at the worker because he’s demanding too much. The real question people need to ask themselves is, “who says how much is too much?” People never react to stories about TTC drivers making X amount of dollars by saying, “That’s amazing, I need to unionize where I work too!” The almost universal reaction is, “Fucking TTC drivers make more than me!” And this reaction is pretty stupid, because clearly that TTC driver is doing something right.
[11] Politics
22 February 2009, mid-afternoon
Andrea Horwath won’t stop spamming me. She’s running for leadership of the Ontario NDP. I’ve also got more robocalls from her than any other candidate. Annoying the electorate isn’t a good way to run a campaign: If you’re going to call me at least have a real live person do on the other end of the phone line. I would think this is obvious, but apparently not. Signing up for the NDP has been a bit disappointing. I haven’t been the recipient of this much junk mail in ages. This is lame.
[4] Life | Politics
8 December 2008, terribly early in the morning
Ignatieff is apparently going to take over as head of the Liberal party some time this week, if not today. I can tell you that picking Ignatieff as leader isn’t going to steal any votes from the Left, though it may pull some old school Progressive Conservatives from the Right. Ignatieff creeps me out, which is why I think the Right may like him — they seem to enjoy creepy-ass leaders. If he does get the leadership nod, I think this highlights a big problem with the Liberal party: it’s run with back room deals by the party old-school. At least, it certainly seems that way, and has since Paul Martin and Chretien started fighting. Dion won the last race fair and square, but it was clear to most everyone that he wasn’t the person the party actually wanted to lead: and they have provided him with little to no support. I dislike the Liberal party for a lot of reasons, and that would be one of them.
If Ignatieff does end up leader, I suspect the coalition between the NDP and the Liberals isn’t going to last. The Liberals, with a leader firmly in place, will be in a much better position to handle an election. They may feel confident they can reclaim leadership of the House of Commons. The Conservatives have burnt plenty of bridges these past couple weeks and have also probably pissed off some chunk of their core supporters. I think they will be hard pressed to keep any seats they have won in Quebec; you can’t win an election in Canada without winning a good chunk of Quebec. The Conservatives are still the best funded party right now, but for all their money, they just don’t appeal to enough people. Canada isn’t America: trying to copy the Republicans is a doomed strategy. This country is very much a Liberal country. For the past few years the Liberals have been on a timeout while people wait to see if they can get it together.
[10] Politics | Current Events
10 November 2008, terribly early in the morning
During the last election the LTTE asked — is that the right word? — the residents of Jaffna to boycott the election. And, in doing so cemented a win for Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was quite clear about his intentions when it came to dealing with the LTTE within Sri Lanka. The day before the election I had agreed with the LTTE boycott, because the political system in Sri Lanka has clearly failed its Tamil people. My thinking here was one of abstract politics: people shouldn’t take part in a broken system. For the LTTE, I suspect it had more to do with their belief that a solution for the Tamil people’s problems lay solely with them. And now 3 years later, the Sri Lankan government rejected a ceasefire with the LTTE. On any given day TamilNet reports on various murders and kidnappings in Jaffna and the East, on bombings, disappearances, etc. Sri Lanka sounds like it is the worse it has been in years.
Current Events | Politics
15 October 2008, terribly early in the morning
Some will say yesterday night was a big waste of an election. They are probably right, but it wasn’t all bad. Yes, our government is basically the same as how it was the night before, but there is now a tiny little orange dot in a sea of blue in Alberta: the NDP took a piece of Alberta back from the Tories. That’s got to count for something. The NDP actually made some big gains, and they are probably the only party that can be happy with the election results. (Sadly Peggy Nash lost her seat.) Another plus is that minority government number three for Harper may mean he gets the boot. (The Anyone but Harper Liberal, NDP, and Bloc coalition I was hoping for never materialized.) The Tories can’t be happy with this result at all, regardless of how Harper tries to spin things. They had a huge lead in the polls going into the election, which they managed to lose completely through horrible campaigning. If you can’t beat Dion — whose party barely supports him — who can you beat? In two more years maybe we’ll be doing this again. Go Canada!
[4] Current Events | Politics
5 September 2008, early morning
I met Mahi for a drink yesterday, and the conversation turned to Sarah Palin. He’s convinced that if the Republicans win it will be because of her. Having listened to her speech finally, I can see where he is coming from.
Palin appeals to the far-right — your Christian nut jobs, your gun-totting NRA members, etc — with her crazy-ass views on everything. She is nuts. And the far-right is certainly a strong and active voting block. That group probably wouldn’t have voted for Obama, but they may have sat the election out if McCain hadn’t added someone who appeals to them to his ticket.
There is more to Palin than her appeal to the right. Palin clearly is playing up the fact she’s just a regular small town girl. This comes up again and again in her speech. In most countries, I don’t think that would play well. Chrétien always portrayed himself as the little guy from Shawinigan, but it was also clear he was a bright and capable politician. The fact he was from Shawinigan was cute, but ultimately inconsequential. Most people don’t want the dude that teaches their kids hockey on Saturday mornings running their country. They want the lady with policy experience, or the fellow with diplomatic experience, or — well really, someone who isn’t a dumb ass. In America there seem to be a large enough group of people who aren’t interested in that at all. They want the reluctant politician: “I’m just a hockey mom, but these dudes in Washington are messing up, so I’m going to go out there to clean things up.” Never mind that the job of running a country is complicated. Never mind that the last two moron-presidents of note, Regan and Bush, were probably the most corrupt, evil, and crony-loving politicians in American history. People seem to wilfully look past that. Palin is going to sell herself as the Washington-outsider every-woman, and many people will gravitate to that.
If the Republicans do win again, it will be because just enough American’s are morons, and the democrats don’t seem to appeal to that group at all.
[20] Politics | Current Events
6 June 2008, terribly early in the morning
I suppose I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that Obama is going to be the Democrat nominee during the upcoming US elections this November. This is good. I have no real issues with Clinton, save for the fact she scares the shit out of me. It’s a bit disappointing that because she’s a women she has to act ten times as crazy as her competitors to be taken seriously. And her ass has been straight up crazy this election season. I’m not convinced it’s anything but an act: she never struck me before as being so far to the right. (Maybe I just don’t pay enough attention.) Enough on her. Obama is awesome. I think many people—myself included—see him as a modern day JFK. He has far more charisma than McCain, and there is really no comparison when we take a look at Bush. I want him to win just so I can hear him give kick ass speeches with some frequency. Of course, it now remains to be seen if Americans will still vote for the scary old White dude. I kind of think they will.
[1] Current Events | Politics
29 November 2007, early morning
If some Muslims have their way, it will soon be illegal to say Muslim immigration is bad for the West. 9-11 be damned.
Michael apparently still holds onto the notion that too much immigration into the US is what caused 9/11. If you are ever so unlucky as to read through an articles on Vdare you will find that a lot of people think immigration policy is the root cause of all the ills in the West. If you suffer with high taxes you can blame immigration. Unemployed? Blame immigration. High blood pressure? You’re worrying about immigration too much. Can’t get all the stars in Super Mario DS? That sounds like an immigration issue to me. No date to the prom? Damn those sexy immigrant boys and girls. And 9/11? Well that is obviously an immigration issue: if the attackers weren’t here how could they fly planes into the Twin Towers? (You know, because planes from abroad never ever enter the US.) You may also recall that for similar reasons immigration was the root cause of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Michael is upset with the Canadian Islamic Congress who are upset with Mark Steyn. Steyn wrote an article MacLeans, The Future Belongs to Islam, they have issues with. A part of me likes reading articles like The Future Belongs to Islam just to sit in awe of the ignorance and arrogance it takes to write something like that. Some people really need to read A Discourse on Colonialism.
Steyn and his ilk look at the Middle East and see a place where people hate the West because they apparently have nothing better to hate on. For people like him there is no history or context to anything. Steyn mentions, “in the same three decades as Ulster’s ‘Troubles,’ the hitherto moderate Muslim populations of south Asia were radicalized by a politicized form of Islam,” but doesn’t stop to consider why that may be. When did the US decide that propping up a regime in Saudi Arabia was a good idea? When did they decide that maybe Eygpt wasn’t so bad after all? (Wait: who was flying those planes again?) And was it really Islam that radicalized them? I imagine if you are young and your life is shit it won’t take an Imam to make you angry. So yeah, I don’t think Steyn’s article is exceptional or interesting or even well thought out. It rehashes arguments bandied about all the time: it’s all demographics and “oh-no what will White people do?”.
Now I can see why Muslims would find the article offensive, as apparently Muslims are the future architects of the destruction of civilization as we know it. At the very least Steyn acknowledges half-assedly that not all Muslims are terrorists. I’m sure the Human Rights commission will give him points for that.
[10] Current Events | Politics
13 November 2007, terribly early in the morning
I’m barely a third of the way through Naomi Klein’s last essay for Harper’s, Disaster Capitalism, and I’m already seething with rage. I suspect the last two-thirds will be equally as good and as frustrating to read. I love Harper’s.
After each new disaster, it’s tempting to imagine that the loss of life and productivity will finally serve as a wake-up call, provoking the political class to launch some kind of “new New Deal.” In fact, the opposite is taking place: disasters have become the preferred moments for advancing a vision of a ruthlessly divided world, one in which the very idea of a public sphere has no place at all. Call it disaster capitalism. Every time a new crisis hits — even when the crisis itself is the direct by-product of free-market ideology — the fear and disorientation that follow are harnessed for radical social and economic re-engineering. Each new shock is midwife to a new course of economic shock therapy. The end result is the same kind of unapologetic partition between the included and the excluded, the protected and the damned, that is on display in Baghdad.
Consider the instant reactions to last summer’s various infrastructure disasters. Four days after the Minneapolis bridge collapsed, a Wall Street Journal editorial had the solution: “tapping private investors to build and operate public roads and bridges,” with the cost made up from ever-escalating tolls. After heavy rain caused the shutdown of New York City’s subway lines, the New Yark Sun ran an editorial under the headline “Sell the Subways.” It called for individual train lines to compete against one another, luring customers with the safest, driest service — and “charging higher fares when the competing lines, stingier on their investments, were shut down with tracks under water.”[It’s not hard to imagine what this free market in subways would look like: high-speed lines ferrying commuters from the Upper West Side to Wall Street, while the trains serving the South Bronx wouldn’t just continue their long decay-they would simply drown.
It’s a very good read so far. I imagine her book The Shock Doctrine on the same topic will be an interesting read. (It inspired Alfonso Cuarón to create a short film of the same name.) The October Harper’s is particularly good; this months not so much, though I did enjoy the Mitt Romney article very much.
(Also, Harper’s new web site continues to amaze me. I’m so impressed with what they’ve done.)
[2] Current Events | Politics
10 October 2007, early evening
Tony Ruprecht holds the lead at the moment with 50% of the vote — with 10 polls reporting. My man, Peter Ferreira, is in second place with 27%. It’s not looking good, but it is still early. 64% of Ontario are in favour of the current electoral system, first past the post. What the fuck people? Seriously?
Update: Every time a new poll reports in, Ferreira has a few more seats. He has 34% of the vote now, with 42.65% going to Ruprecht. Hopefully this trend continues, but Ferreira needs a few polls going to him for things to really flip.
Update: The Green Party is doing better than the Tories in this riding. Does that make them a proper party? I’d say so.
Update: Ruprecht has been sitting at 40% of the vote for a while now, Ferreira at 37%. I can’t believe it’s this close.
Update: Well it looks like Ruprecht has it, unless the last 36 polls decide to do things very differently. He’s up by 1000 votes. The split remains more or less the same; now it’s 41% vs. 36%.
Update: I just realized that if everyone who voted for the NDP voted for the Green Party (of vice versa) Tony wouldn’t be winning this riding. (Of course, if you add the Liberal and PC numbers up they’d come out on top.)
Update: Well, at least the season premier of Intelligence was really good.
[5] Politics | Current Events
1 October 2007, lunch time
[ed. This is an edited version of a message I originally posted in response to a comment on the DigIn mailing list. If you haven’t been following the MMP debate on the news, it probably won’t make much sense.]
I’d like to say there has been a lot of discussion on the voting referendum taking place during the upcoming election, but really, there hasn’t been.
We’ve had how many governments in a row now where a 40% popular vote returns a huge number of seats in parliament? In 2003 the Liberals had 46.4% of the vote, which earned them 70% of the seats. We’d be moving to a system that would temper this sort of thing.
People opposed to MMP seem upset by the party lists. We (the people) currently don’t get to pick which politician chooses to run in our ridings. The party lists represent a new group of people we also don’t get to pick. That said, if you want a say in who is running for the NDP, you do have an option: join the NDP party. More so, to pretend we don’t get to vote for this new set of people is misleading. You see the party lists before the election. You know who your “party vote” is going towards. All this talk about “non-elected” members making it to parliament is straight up scare mongering. If these people do a bad job of things, the party will need to think hard about including them on their party list for the next election, lest voters decide to give their party vote to someone else.
More so, from voteformmp.ca we learn:
“Conservative Party leader John Tory, NDP leader Howard Hampton, and Green Party leader Frank de Jong have already stated their parties would used democratic processes to nominate their at-large candidates should the MMP system be adopted in the referendum.”
The 3% popular vote barrier to get the party seats does shut out fringe parties for the most part, but this really is no worse than the current system, which gives fringe parties absolutely no venue to address this. Chances are the Green Party will break the 3% barrier this coming election. In the current system, that doesn’t matter, because they’ll probably never win a riding with those numbers; under the new system, this would get them a seat.
Also keep in mind that straight-up proportional representation is not without its issues, and would generally not be considered a democratic system of government. We don’t have referendums on gay rights for a reason.
I don’t think MMP is perfect, but it is certainly a step forward.
[5] Politics | Current Events
23 August 2007, terribly early in the morning
Bush has started going on about how Iraq is the new Viet Nam. Wait, I know what you’re thinking, why would you compare the new war to America’s most shining example of defeat? Well, Bush has been trying to argue that America shouldn’t have given up in Viet Nam when it did — I shit you not. This from the man who didn’t actually fight in Viet Nam. I’m sure if the US continued to bomb the shit out of Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia for a few more years they would have “won” the war, whatever that even means.
Bush also thinks the Khmer Rouge would have cooled it with all the killing had the US won the war in Viet Nam. There are a few things to keep in mind here:
- Many historians believe that the US bombing campaigns in Cambodia are what pushed the Cambodian peasantry to support the Khmer Rouge. They certainly destabilized the country.
- This bombing campaign killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians. The bombings were stopped in 1973, at which time the US had dropped 540,000 tons of bombs on the country. If you are going to talk about genocide and mass killing, you can’t leave the US out of things.
- It was the Communists in Viet Nam who actually invaded and stopped the Khmer Rouge.
- The US itself has supported the Khmer Rouge. After Pol Pot was ousted from power, the US supported him and his insurgents for much of the 80s.
So yeah, fuck Bush.
[6] Current Events | Politics
14 August 2007, terribly early in the morning
I finished reading The Culture Struggle last week. As the title suggests, the book is about the conflicts that arise from, or are rooted in, culture. The book is comprised of 4 sections, each section contains a few short essays. Despite the subject mater, it’s a fairly easy read.
The book begins, more or less, with a discussion on how the dominant class within a nation use culture to reinforce its interests. The book ends with a section on hyper-individualism, which is probably the most America-centric section of the book. The end ties into the start of the book in that the culture of individualism that is so prevalent in the United States is what helps perpetuate much of the inequity that exists in the country. Individualism is the cultural base that helps the dominant moneyed class maintain there position in society. The middle two sections of the book are on imperialism, the subjection of people, and racism. (There are two chapters on violence against women which are insane; I need to look up the source he cites because the facts he spits out sound so unbelievable.) The chapters on racism are quite good, examining how slavery, amongst other things, was made palatable. Parenti also touches on how the dominant class will sometimes try and instigate racial strife so as to redirect anger that would rightly be directed at them. So, for example, you have poor White workers complaining about immigrants stealing their jobs, not about those who control all the money. The middle two chapters of the book were what I found the most interesting.
The topics may sound a bit heavy, but I found it to be a fairly easy read. The essays in the book are all quite short: Parenti makes a few points, and then moves on. The book as a whole is really a series of observations, and interesting topics for further discussion. Any essay in this book could probably be turned into something far more substantial. On the whole it’s a great read; it leaves you with a lot of things to think about.
[4] Politics | Comics and Books
13 August 2007, early morning
[Siracusa’s list of enterprise desires for the iPhone] is, to be blunt, horseshit. It’s apologist blathering to cover up a failure of imagination and ambition. And it’s saying that people cease to become people when they’re at work, and are instead Enterprise Employees.
The emphasis here is mine. This is a tiny point from a much longer article by Anil Dash on developing products for the enterprise market. I thought it was interesting he didn’t feel a need to argue this point: obviously you are the same person at work that you are at home; to think otherwise is ridiculous. To many this idea is axiomatic. In reality, its a reflection of the cultural norms within a capitalist society. For the vast majority of people in the world, work does strip you of your humanity. Our relationships to our coworkers, our bosses, and our customers, can’t be called “human” in any sense of the word. People do become enterprise employees when they arrive at work. Those of us living in the West live in a world built by people who were interested in preserving their wealth, and the modes of production that allow them to continue generating wealth. Think about how important property rights are in any country that operates with a capitalist economy. Property rights are of paramount importance. Think about the cultural norms put in place to explain away poverty and inequity in these countries. Poor people are poor because they are lazy. Rich people are rich because they work hard. These are 18th century puritan Christian ideas that are no longer questioned. Finally think about how we can reach a point where working in a cubicle farm can be called being human.
Politics
30 July 2007, late morning
I haven’t been living at Bloor and Lansdowne too long now, but I have been here long enough to realize that Tony Ruprecht is a thoroughly useless MPP. Ruprecht is the most senior Liberal MPP not to make cabinet. And this is the only fellow in Toronto that endorsed McGuinty’s leadership bid, so to be passed over seems like quite the disrespect. You may recall he gained some notoriety for spending way too much time in Cuba. He claims he was trying to learn Portuguese — I shit you not. (So maybe not having a cabinet position suits him fine.) He is also somewhat infamous for taking donations from all sorts of people you probably would not want to be associated with. As election season approaches I’ve seen him out and about more frequently. When I saw him last he was asking the cops what needs to be done to help reduce crime in the area — this was after they discussed at length what they needed the provincial government to do. To say he comes off as a bit clueless is an understatement. Apparently it was more of the same this weekend at a community march he attended. The worse part is that more likely than not he will win again. He always wins as far as I can tell. What is wrong with people? Please, think before you vote.
Update Sep 12th: Ruprecht is currently doing a good job of avoiding any and all all-candidates debates. There is one scheduled for the 25th of this month he is refusing to participate in thus far. Apparently various community group leaders have been ringing his office up trying to get him to commit. They’ve had no luck thus far. He recently skipped an all-candidates debate on Gold Hawk Live. Yesterday he was at a DigIn meeting, but apparently left before it actually got underway. I wonder if he is worried about people actually hearing what he has to say. Ah the life of an incumbent.
Update Sep 25th: The all candidates debate was today. Ruprecht opted to show up, which was great; it was an actual all-candidates meeting. Even representatives from both communist parties where there. Tony is amicable enough in real life, but he just doesn’t deserve the job he has. He’s been at his post for years, but doesn’t seem to have effected any real change in the area. My vote is probably going to Paul Ferreira. Not only does he have a lot of experience, he was easily the most well spoken of the candidates at the debate.
[7] Bloor and Lansdowne | Politics
19 July 2007, terribly early in the morning
I’m reading through Al Gore’s The Assault on Reason — which I can confirm could be renamed An Assault on the Bush Administration — I just finished reading Nemesis, and I watched V for Vendetta again with Shima last night. I now feel like starting a riot, but then I live in the idyllic wonderland that is Canada: I’m not sure what’d I’d riot about. Why don’t Americans riot? This is what I can’t understand. You have a government that clearly operates in its own interests, not in the interests of its people. There is blatant cronyism in most everything the Bush administration does, from the laws it passes to the people it protects. Democracy is supposed to be by the people for the people. I don’t know what is up in America now, but it certainly can’t be called a Democracy. Now if the poor were getting less poor, they might welcome the slow march towards fascism, but as far as I can tell this isn’t the case. It is amazing what you can convince people they want. I need to read Manufacturing Consent one of these days.
[7] Current Events | Politics
3 July 2007, early morning
There are so many things I wanted to write about today, including my brand new transformer, and a visit from my cousins, but instead I’ll mention that unsurprisingly, President Bush has commuted the sentence of Scooter Libby.
I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison.
This isn’t all that surprising. I don’t think anyone actually expected him to spend any time in jail. You can almost feel the rage on MetaFilter. I wonder how much press this will get today, or over the course of the week. Any of you in America have a sense of how people are reacting to the news?
This quote from the Times sums things up nicely:
Presidents have the power to grant clemency and pardons. But in this case, Mr. Bush did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.
Of course, in the grand scheme of crap things the administration has done, this barely ranks. I’ve been reading through Nemesis now, a book Martha bought me for my birthday last year, which is a pretty neat and tidy account of why America is constantly fucking up, and why it is probably totally fucked. I think it’s well worth checking out. There is so much truly evil stuff Bush has got up to since taking office, it’s hard to get worked up about Libby being let off the hook for outing Plame — more so since in all likely hood he was covering for Cheney.
I wonder if anyone in the US will ever get charged as a war criminal. They’ve certainly got enough of them running around living it up.
[5] Current Events | Politics
15 June 2007, terribly early in the morning
The cover of the Globe and Mail features a Hamas fighter standing on a table in Fatah’s intelligence headquarters, brandishing a Kalashnikov and a Qur’an. It’s a pretty amazing photograph. Gaza is now under control of Hamas. The West Bank remains under the control of Fatah. There are reports of gun battles out there though, so fighting may flare up in the West Bank next. How did we end up with Palestinians shooting at Palestinians? Somehow I doubt this this will lead to Palestinian self-determination.
[3] Current Events | Politics
15 February 2007, early evening
Hossein is part of a generation of idiot savants who have the audacity to refer to themselves as human rights activists, while sipping on five dollar latte’s and attending bogus conferences in the proverbial West. These quasi-intellectual talking heads have no scholarly understanding of human rights discourse, and an even poorer understanding of their own country’s history. — Samira Mohyeddin (of Banu fame.)
I follow the news on Iran much more closely than I ever did before, mostly because of Shima. I used to read hoder.com to get some insight on Iran because I foolishly thought — like many bloggers I suspect — that Hossein Derakhshan actually had something insightful to say. To be brief: he really doesn’t. Hoder is pro-Reformist and Tehran-centric in his outlook. He is very critical of anyone that doesn’t share his political ideology. Reading his site during the last election, you would think it was guaranteed that the Reformists would win, when I suppose if you had been actually paying attention it would be clear this wasn’t going to happen at all. People who can fly back and forth between Iran and Canada are not the sort of people that you should look to for reliable criticism of Iran.
So why bring this all up today? I checked out his site again after he posted on MetaFilter today, and he describes Reading Lolita in Tehran as anti-Iranian propaganda-literature. And you know he’s saying that with a straight-face. This is the go-to guy for news on Iran?
Update Feb 22nd 2007: He posted his thoughts on Reading Lolita in Tehran on MetaFilter today.
[2] Politics
23 January 2007, terribly early in the morning
Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it really doesn’t matter with me now, because I’ve been to the mountaintop. And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the Promised Land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight, that we, as a people, will get to the promised land! And so I’m happy, tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man! Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!
This was the last speech Martin Luther King, Jr, gave before he was assassinated. He was killed the very next day. It’s an excellent speech — like all his speeches — and well worth taking the time to read.
[4] Quotes | Politics
22 December 2006, early morning
Cheap Polish labour is pushing British workers out of the construction industry. I’m curious what the British workers bring to the table that the Polish ones don’t? If the answer is nothing, then I don’t see why they should expect to be payed 20% more just for being British.
These laborers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.
In a capitalist society, if you are a worker, you need to remain competitive. That’s cold, but it’s basically how the system works. It’s the big reason why big box stores like Walmart can move into a town and destroy all the mom and pop shops that used to operate there. It’s why companies choose to outsource to places like India rather than operate locally. It’s why capitalism will eat itself.
The lower strata of the middle class — the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants — all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialized skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus, the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population.
Actually, I lied, I don’t really think capitalism will eat itself anymore. Most governments put in place just enough socialist policy to keep the system working. Most developed countries have some form of unemployment insurance, health care, welfare, etc. Even if you are living in squalor, its hard to rage against the machine that is paying your way. So who do you get mad at? Who do you demonize? I think that answer should be clear.
(All quotes are from the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels.)
[5] Politics | Current Events