Tagged: politics
Quote of the day: The chill in the air
…anyone who steps on the toes of either corporate interests or major conservative institutions (which are often more or less the same thing) has to expect to run into a buzzsaw. The purpose of that buzzsaw is not so much to get specific corrections as to intimidate — to deter the journalist and his or her colleagues from going there again.
And it works. I’ve seen it over and over: some commentator says the obvious, gets hit hard [with chill letter], and thereafter steers away from such issues and is very, very careful not to offend the hard right.
The all-important Spartikus 2011 civic election endorsement
International affairs is, and probably always will be, my one true love. But back in 2007 I made the discovery (in a sadly unpleasant fashion) that municipal politics play a very important part – if not always directly and continuously apparent – in one’s life. So I decided to study up in the way I was accustomed to in international politics: I dived into the blogging world and comments boards.
4 years later, I am certainly much better informed – I truly feel debate is the most engaging and stimulating way to learn about a subject. That said, I would say there is still a long way to go in terms of the back stories of the players involved, not to mention the sometimes dry, technocratic yet important world of urban planning and by-laws and whatnot.
So I have carefully considered this year’s election and come to a definitive conclusion. And here is my endorsement:
Voting
Yes, this is one of those blog posts – but I’m not going to preach to you touchy-feely do it for freedom arguments. No, I’m going for the practical angle: Voter turn-out has declined in Canada over the last few decades. Some might say it’s now in a precipitous state. And municipal turn-out has always been problematic. There are likely many factors at play for people not exercising their democratic rights. Personally I am convinced that we have been offered an ever declining variety of choice in terms of what we are voting for – monied interests have very successfully narrowed the debate so that we often are choosing one or the other side of the same coin in terms of policy . As statistics have now definitively shown for much of our society wages and benefits have stagnated for decades, while a narrow few have benefited tremendously.
This, I believe, leads to a “why bother” attitude.
But the “why bother” attitude also provokes a feedback loop – the less people vote, the more the system benefits those that do. So even if you, like me, feel like we are not really being afforded a meaningful difference between the two and a half parties that have a chance to govern (almost everyone wants the same thing for Vancouver, they just differ in minor ways on how to get there) by not voting you are exacerbating the feedback loop…and politicians will be ever more inclined to pander to those that do make a point of voting.
So vote, dammit. Vote early and vote often if you have to, but vote.
Compare and contrast: Vivian Krause, 3rd edition
One would think that Elections BC would look into this attempt by an American foundation to meddle in B.C. politics. Surprisingly, Elections BC has said that there is “nothing for Elections BC to investigate.”
The Election Act does not restrict the activities of foreign groups in B.C. political matters.
vs.
American foundations aren’t sup-posed to mobilize voters in a foreign country
Did the B.C. Elections Act change between February 25, 2011 and November 15, 2011?
Why, no…it didn’t.
See also: Elections BC on Krause and City Caucus charges and Foreign influence on Canadian environmental policy: A request for some balance
In the real world, its foreign corporations that exert [exponentially] more influence on Canadian policy-making than foreign NGOs. An honest debater would point that out.
Aside: It was a riot
There’s probably a post in me on the riot. There’s probably a post in me on the riot and political rhetoric. But god I can’t rub 2 brain cells together at the moment. Meh.
Quote of the day: The F-35 runs on money!
Image via Wikipedia
Once again calling in to question the statements made by Canadian politicians and defence officials…
The cost of building the F-35 fighter jet, set to replace a large part of the US warplane fleet, is “unaffordable” in its current version and must be reviewed, the Pentagon’s top acquisition official said Thursday.
“Over the lifetime of this program, the decade or so, the per-aircraft cost of the 2,443 aircraft we want has doubled in real terms,” said Ashton Carter, the under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics.
I support Canada fielding a 1st-rate military. I would prefer it to return to it’s historical role of peacekeeping and even, heh, for Canada to adopt a Swedish form of neutrality, but we must keep our forces well equipped and well trained. And while I don’t think it’s fits with our defence needs, the F-35 will be a very capable aircraft, able to blow things up like things have never been blown up before. But it’s always been the process, or lack thereof, that’s in question here. It’s the lies about costs. It’s the lobbyists masquerading as experts in the media. It’s a sham.
The F-35 may be a smokin’ sports car, but those cost a lot of money. And run on it.
Quick post-election thoughts
It was the Liberal-NDP vote-splitting in the Big Smoke that won the day for Harper. How did this happen? Well lots of smarter people than I have waxed poetic already, but here is my 10 second take…
I found this Liberal Party postmortem by Robert Silver very telling. Of note:
We entered the election with a clear strategy to triangulate the NDP on just about every single issue save Afghanistan.
Personally I think “save Afghanistan” is a bit of deal-breaker for many progressives but that’s just me. But even then the strategy strikes me as internally contradictory, given their party leader. Veering left with Tony Blair clone Michael Ignatieff at the helm? These two things cancel each other out.
Which is to say Michael Ignatieff was an incredible, perhaps fatal, mistake for the Liberal Party. It’s too bad because the Tories were vulnerable. Very vulnerable. And it wasn’t the Corporate Income Tax or the JSF or the Income-splitting or any of the other policies that helped those that needed help the least.
It was contempt of Parliament. It was prorogation. It was the abuse of authority. It was the suppression of information. I can’t say with any certainty if this is true, but I have the strongest of hunches there were a lot of Conservative voters in the ilk of my Dad – lifelong Conservatives who were deeply troubled by the behaviour of Stephen Harper’s crew. And then there were the Blue Liberals. And while these latter issues were discussed during the campaign, they were never the central message of the opposition parties.
This should have been hammered on to Harper again and again. He was on autopilot on message most of the time. “An unnecessary election? No, sir, you brought this on yourself. You have lied to Parliament. You have lied to the Canadian people and it will not stand, sir. It will not stand…”
That would have resonated with Dad.
Etc.
“That’s invented. There’s so much cuckoo around this…”
That’s Queen’s University Parliamentary expert Ned Franks on this statement by Stephen Harper:
“You said in your statement that the party that wins the most seats would get to try first. Then you think you’d all get together, vote against it and replace the government. That’s not how our system is supposed to work in this country.”
No Stephen, that’s not how it works. The government needs the confidence of the House of Commons, which when you have a majority is a given. However Le Roi here wants us to believe a minority government should automatically be granted the confidence of the House as if it were a majority. As long as that government is Conservative. If it isn’t, all bets are off.
Alas, in the debates last night Harper left some flanks exposed that the other leaders failed to launch torpedoes at. Especially this lack of understanding of and/or contempt for our democratic processes – which has always been a vulnerability for him in terms of public perception.
Oh well…
Koch hopped: Sugar daddies of the Fraser Institute
The Center for American Progress has a new report up – The Koch Brothers: What You Need to Know About the Financiers of the Radical Right. Of interest to Canadians is the list of think tanks the extreme right-wing brothers fund…
Fraser Institute—$373,721
As has been pointed out before on this blog, this is something you wouldn’t discover reading the Fraser Institute’s Annual Reports. They decline to list the names of any of their funders.
The Koch Brothers
What You Need to Know About the Financiers of the Radical RightThe Koch Brothers: What You Need to Know About the Financiers of the Radical Right
Quote of the day: The real paradigm
I think we get trapped into a false paradigm of “right/left”, “Democrat/Republican”, “Christian/Atheist” all the time. And I think it’s deliberate, propagated by the people who own the media and broadcast it.
The real paradigm: rich/poor.
And it’s always been the paradigm. In all cultures, in all countries, throughout history.
