April 2009

A battle-hardened James charges on, leaving her minders behind her

By Justine Hunter
From Friday's Globe and Mail
April 24, 2009 at 5:40 AM EDT

... Ms. James acknowledged she is facing more pressure this time around. And she sounded frustrated that she still is confronted at every turn with the baggage of former NDP governments.

"We are a long way from getting past that polarization," she said. "I truly don't believe that our province is going to grow up and be a real player until we get past that." ...

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Though recent scandals and polls seem to be hurting the BC Liberals, I still believe that they will win a handy victory over the NDP.

The Liberals laid the foundation for their likely victory many years ago, when they worked to appopriate as much of the environmental agenda as possible. Through a series of initiatives, from the carbon tax to household renovations to small car rebates, they have worked to create an impression that they are an environmentally conscious government. Whether these initiatives are truly substantive or effective remains to be seen. Recent polls suggest that they still continue to follow the NDP and Greens on environmental trustworthiness. Nevertheless, they have blunted the NDP attack on the environment, and have made a few allies like the Suzuki Foundation. The NDP, in response, has offered a fairly muddled cap-and-trade alternative (though admittedly it gets little detailed coverage in the corporate press). The point is this: the Liberals have broached new ground, and have managed to steal some thunder from their opponents.

The NDP, on the other hand, have not broached new territory. They continue to reiterate their commitment to public education, public health, welfare, the environment, etc. Unfortunately, this is preaching to the converted. Their supporters already know these are the NDP's (perceived) commitments, so why regurgitate what everyone already assumes? Where is a new emphasis on economic policy, a topic that's traditionally dominated by a right wing perspective? The NDP does have many good economic arguments to make, but they seem disinterested in the topic. For example, they should have a hundred different arguments ready to defend the last NDP governments, whose economic records were much better than the Liberals and Canwest give them credit for. If James thinks that this can be wished away as mere "polarization", then she's really not up for the job. The NDP record needs to be addressed head-on, effectively and repeatedly. There should be an entire war room dedicated to responding to right wing propgaganda about the 90's. But no, James says we should grow up. Wishful thinking, perhaps?

The problem for the NDP is this: in BC's political landscape, the leading left wing party usually gets between 35% to 45% of the vote, while the leading right wing party gets the balance. So the math doesn't favour the NDP. The best the NDP can hope for is that the right wing vote is split. In fact, every NDP victory in BC, from Dave Barrett's government onward, has been because of a significant split in the right side of the spectrum (often because the right wing party has overstayed its welcome). Unfortunately for Carole James, the only real split right now is on the left side, protestations from the Greens notwithstanding. So, if anyone needs to blaze new paths, it's the NDP, not the Liberals. But since the NDP seems unwilling to do this, the result seems preordained. No new supporters, like moderate Liberals who are disaffected by Liberal mistakes, will be found, and the math will continue to haunt the NDP.

If the NDP are not prepared to tackle economic policy as their central policy issue, then an election like this - where the economy is very important - seems tailor made for another right wing victory. I'll grit my teeth and vote NDP (again), but it won't be because I'm happy with their current electoral performance.

Debts and deficits lead to higher taxes as night follows day

Jeffrey Simpson is one of those typical right-wing columnists who ensures The Globe and Mail's firm commitment to the I'm-all-right-Jack philosophy that pervades Canada's corporate media. Nevertheless, he is sometimes capable of refreshingly honest and atypical commentary. Here he talks about the inevitability of higher taxes that must follow a period of high debt. What is irritating - yet so predictable - is the lack of responsibility that he and his fellow corporate columnists take for the "twilight zone of veracity" that he decries below. Why can't politicians talk about raising taxes? What has happened to our "political culture" that makes paying for our expenditures (or exhorbinantly high interest rates, like in the 1980's) so poisonous? Given the concerted campaign from the CD Howe and Fraser Institutes (among others) for lower taxes, and the willing championing of this cause by the media arms of Hollinger, Canwest, Bell, etc, isn't the corporate media part of this problem? If one is skeptical, compare the number of articles in any given month that discuss the benefit of taxes with those articles that assume we must lower taxes. Anyone who consumes a lot of the corporate media in North America already knows the result. In any case, no answers are given by Simpson. All we see is his acknowledgement of the problem. And I guess that's better than nothing.

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Debts and deficits lead to higher taxes as night follows day

By Jeffrey Simpson
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/

April 24, 2009

Lesson one for Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff: Don't answer hypothetical questions in a sound-bite era. Lesson two: Don't even hint at the truth.

Last week, in answer to a question about what he might do if the federal deficit reached $80-billion, Mr. Ignatieff said he couldn't take any policy options "off the table," including raising taxes. Boom, the media pack went into action, and the Conservative yapping brigade hit him for espousing higher taxes. Such is political life.

Mr. Ignatieff did not call for higher taxes; indeed, he stressed that "no one in their right mind wants to shut off the recovery by raising taxes in any capacity." But in ruminating about the hypothetical, Mr. Ignatieff danced around a certain truth: Taxes will eventually go up to pay for the deficit and increasing debt brought on by the recession and government responses to it.

The Harper government has forecast $64-billion deficits in the next two years. Forget about it. They will be higher, because the economic circumstances are gloomier than anticipated. The Western world is awash in debt, led by the United States, whose projected deficits are astronomical, whose financial-sector debts are gigantic, whose personal indebtedness is enormous but whose political culture still refuses to acknowledge that, at some point, the piper must be paid.

As long as the United States refuses to face this fact, it will struggle to recapitalize itself. And as long as that recapitalization is delayed, the country's long-term economic future will be cloudy and the relative decline in which it now finds itself will continue.

High debts and ongoing deficits lead to higher taxes as night follows day. Canadians should know this truth. That was the Canadian experience once federal deficits began in the mid-1970s. The Mulroney Conservatives and, in their early years, the Chrétien Liberals raised taxes (and cut services) because there was no other realistic way to fight the Siamese twins of ongoing deficits and higher debts.

There was plenty of nonsense in those years about solving the problem with industrial strategies, pro-growth measures, eliminating "waste" in government spending, laying off civil servants. Everyone who wanted to avoid hard truths had a formula, just as so many do today. Eventually, the truth hit home, as it will after this recession. That Canada is heading toward more debt will merely increase the subsequent tax load. But, of course, politicians live in the twilight zone of veracity, suspended between what they know privately to be right and what their instincts and handlers tell them the political culture will allow.

So neither Mr. Ignatieff nor Prime Minister Stephen Harper will tell the whole truth about what lies ahead, in part because the truth will play itself out long after the next election. And since the country's economic literacy is so low, there is no point allowing your political opponent to embark on a scare campaign.

Deficits are dangerous for liberals, but especially hard for conservatives, to talk about sensibly. A mantra of conservative parties is that deficits are bad, but the way they govern invariably produces deficits, or at least weakens the fiscal position of the government.

This observation is heretical to conservatives and counterintuitive to others, but the evidence in Canada and the United States bears it out.

In opposition, then in office, conservatives promise lower taxes, and try to deliver them, as the Harper Conservatives did with their two-point cut to the GST that cost the treasury about $12-billion.

Having eroded the government's fiscal capacity, conservatives then promise to eliminate "wasteful" spending. When that effort produces meagre results, as it always does, the government either cuts programs (but never enough to make up for the tax reductions) or lets spending proceed apace, as the Harper crowd has done.

Twenty years of Republican administrations under three presidents followed this formula: a political campaign based on lower taxes and an attack on "wasteful" spending, followed by lower taxes but higher spending, with resulting chronic deficits.

Deficits of the kind conservative parties left in Saskatchewan, Ontario and Ottawa (Alberta was the exception because of energy royalties) also suggest that deficits and conservatives go together, rhetoric notwithstanding.

Michael Ignatieff's Latest Book

Though I remain undecided about Michael Ignatieff's leadership abilities, his family history and intellectual credentials are undeniably fascinating.

The following is a recent article in The Globe and Mail, in which Michael Valpy reviews Ignatieff's latest book, Four Generations in Search of Canada. The book focuses on Ignatieff's maternal family, the Grants, and it appears as interesting as Ignatieff's paternal Russian family.

Michael Valpy: Portrait of a patriot?

One of the more fascinating elements of the book, as described by Valpy, is Ignatieff's relationship with his uncle, George Grant. One of Canada's great philosophers, Grant is best known for his Lament for a Nation. Grant represents an almost extinct tradition: Red Tory conservatism. This is much closer to traditional conservatism than the conservatism of Brian Mulroney and Stephen Harper. It reflects a communitarianism that is not all that different from Canadian social democracy. (Not surprisingly, Lament's anti-Americanism continues to attract unabashed Canadian nationalists, most of whom are - unlike in the United States - on the left side of the political spectrum.)

The 1960's and 70's was clearly a pivot point for Canadian politics: before this era, the Conservatives were generally pro-British and anti-American (e.g. Borden's fight against reciprocity in the 1911 election; Diefenbaker's refusal to place American missiles in Canada). The Liberals, on the other hand, were champions of free trade and continental integration (Laurier and Pearson come to mind). After this era, however, Canadian conservatism shifted to neo-liberal integration, and the Liberals, under Pierre Trudeau, became much more suspicious of American intentions. To be sure, the Liberal Party waffled, and continues to waffle, over free trade, but its more left wing elements inherited many of the communitarian suspicions of unbridled, technocratic American capitalism. That's why the definitions of Canadian liberalism and especially conservatism are so difficult to nail down. They've changed over time, and are often a complete reversal of former meanings.

Ignatieff appears to inherit his uncle's communitarian spirit and nationalism, but not his uncle's pessimism and negativity toward American capitalism. Ignatieff, according to Valpy's article, seems to be following a typical Liberal line: try to take the best of other traditions and appeal to as many Canadian voters as possible. We shall see.

Here is the G & M chart that explains Ignatieff's connection to the Grant family:

Donald Brittain's The Champions

My favourite documentary on Canadian politics is Donald Brittain's The Champions. The three-part series explores the epic struggle between Rene Levesque and Pierre Trudeau, and their efforts to bring forth a sovereign Quebec and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, respectively. The series does a wonderful job of capturing the atmosphere of the 60's, 70's and early 80's, and succeeds at dispelling the myth that Canada's history and politics are boring. This is gripping stuff, and it will be worth the time you spend watching it.

http://www.nfb.ca/playlist/champions-series/

World Economic Forum

In a world where economic discussion is still overwhelmed by neo-liberal cant, it's refreshing to see a generally pro-business organization capable of seeing competitiveness and productivity in (somewhat) broader terms than Milton Friedman's disciples. The World Economic Forum is a Swiss-based think tank that promotes international dialogue on a variety of key global issues. Perhaps the Forum's biggest contribution is its annual competitiveness rankings. Unlike traditional right-wing economic observers, the WEF agrees that competitiveness is based on a wide variety of factors that go beyond the traditional neo-liberal pillars of low taxes and deregulation. It defines competitiveness as "the set of institutions, policies, and factors that determine the level of productivity of a country." These elements include such things as financial stability and market efficiency, but also health and education, reliable political institutions, and technological readiness. Its not exactly a left-wing menu of economic analysis, but it certainly goes beyond what we see from the ideologues at Fox News, the Fraser Institute or the Heritage Foundation.

Though the USA is traditionally strong in these rankings, so too are countries with high business, income and sales taxes, and large social safety nets. According to neo-liberals, this can't possibly be true. Workers in competitive and productive economies should give much and expect little, and be grateful that the upper class is doing so well. Or so the story goes.

For more information, visit the World Economic Forum's website:

http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/Global%20Competitiveness%20Report/index.htm

Torturing Democracy

The following is one of the best documentaries I've seen about the Bush administration. I first saw "Torturing Democracy" on PBS, but it's now available as a three-part streamed video.

We may all be tired of the Bush era, but this concise, chilling and very well-documented exposé of the Bush's War on Terror is a classic example of how the means often determines the ends. Totalitarian methods cannot lead to democracy; they only leads to deeper hatred and greater terror. And, it would appear, torture can't even obtain good intelligence.

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National Security Archive Update, April 14, 2009
"Torturing Democracy" Wins RFK Journalism Award

http://www.nsarchive.org

Washington, DC - Today, the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights announced that "Torturing Democracy" has won a Robert F. Kennedy Journalism Award for domestic television and is a finalist for the grand prize. Produced and written by eight-time Emmy winner and National Security Archive fellow Sherry Jones, the RFK Center called the documentary film on the Bush administration's interrogation and detention policies "the definitive broadcast account of a deeply troubling chapter in recent American history."

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/torturingdemocracy/program/

or

http://www.torturingdemocracy.org/

A Lapse of Truth in the Gaza War

The recent Israeli campaign in Gaza officially began on December 27, 2008. It started with many days of aerial bombardment of the Gaza territory, and then intensified on January 3, 2009, when the Israeli army invaded. 13 Israelis and over 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the fighting, which finally ended on January 21, 2009, when Israel withdrew its forces from the Palestinan territory. For a summary of the war, see the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008%E2%80%932009_Israel%E2%80%93Gaza_conflict

One of the really fascinating aspects of the war was who the western media portrays as the aggressor; not surprisingly, they blame the rocket-firing militants of the Hamas. There's a problem with this claim. It isn't true. The first side to break the June 2008 ceasefire was Israel. On Nov. 4, 2008, the Israeli military crossed into Gaza and destroyed what they claimed was a Hamas tunnel. The Israelis killed 6 Hamas militants in the raid.

Of course, something else was going on on November 4th: the American election. So, while the New York Times did report the raid, it was clearly a day when that piece of news would be forgotten by the euphoria of the election. Indeed, the news item is so generic that it hardly emphasizes the raid as the first major violation of the June ceasefire.

Moreover, it didn't stop major new organizations in the West from blaming Hamas when the Israelis started their invasion 7 weeks later. Even though most of the rocket attacks occurred after November 4, 2008, these attacks were the prime reason for laying the blame on Hamas. On Dec. 29, 2009, the New York Times argued that "Israel must defend itself. And Hamas must bear responsibility for ending a six-month cease-fire this month with a barrage of rocket attacks into Israeli territory." The vast majority of other major western newspapers concurred, and since then most of the focus has been on Hamas' culpability.

A significant contrarian view came from the official UN Report, but of course Israel, the US and the western media condemned it:

http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/48e5e2be2.html

Though the twisting of this story has been noticed by many people in the alternative press, I first heard about the inconsistency via, of all places, CNN (though CNN has since ignored the issue, and even in this report one of the commentators tried his weaselly-best to mitigate the impact of Israel's responsibility):