» Archive: Op-ed
April 12, 2006
Life after medicare
[A rather worth-reading analysis of Canada's health care woes. --doj]
by Tim Rourke
The health care system that has been in place in Canada for forty years is now collapsing. It has been based on a top down system which is called ‘insurance’ but is not a true insurance system. It is public revenues used to pay providers of health services by a ‘fee for service’. It is being replaced by a real insurance based system which will be an extension of the American system. This is run by private insurance companies for their own profit, out of premiums paid by those who can afford this service.
Opposition to this private health care system in Canada and in Ontario has been huge, hysterical and ineffective. The push to ‘privatise’ health care in Canada has rolled on like a glacier. Some leaders of the ‘fight to save medicare’ admit their fight remains in “one step forward, two steps back” mode and they seem unable to take the offensive.
Medicare defenders are defending something which is indefensible. Medicare was never a good system. But to its defenders it is a sacred cow, the biggest thing which ‘defines’ Canada for them.
The ‘fight for medicare’ has come to be lead by a coalition of health care unions and certain types of non profit clinics. The fight has focussed on preservation of union jobs and clinic funding. Scant resistance is offered to the progressive ‘delisting’ of medical services, first physiotherapy, now optometry, and of drugs, which are of much greater importance to users of health services.
January 24, 2006
That could have been worse.
The anticipated hangover will be a little less painful.
Now, will the NDP have the balance of power? The statistically improbable has happened again: an independent holds the balance of power (or likely will).
January 20, 2006
Conservatives to 'mericans: Ssh.
This email that was apparently sent to American conservatives is pretty funny.
Canadian voters have been led to believe that American conservatives are scary and if the Conservative party can be linked with us, they perhaps can diminish a Conservative victory. Chipeur asks that if Canadian media calls, please do not be interviewed until Monday evening at which point hopefully there will be reason to celebrate.
Partisanship anon
When advocacy groups (*ahem*councilofcanadiansierraclubcanadianautoworkers*ahem*) say they're non-partisan, the word non-partisan is a stand-in for the following more nuanced position:
"We agree with the NDP on some issues, but we won't support them. The Liberals seem willing to buy us off with career advancements and rhetoric, and gosh, Paul Martin says he agrees with us, and he's so enthusiastic. The conservatives must be feared. FEARED! BOO! Are you scared?? BOOOOO! We're against the Conservatives because they're scarrrryyyyyy! (Not because we're cozy with the Liberals... we just think that lying between two sheets on a mattress with the Liberal party is the best thing for our cause.)"
I'm not really exagerrating all that much. Listening to, say, the Think Twice coalition, you wouldn't know that Paul Martin had implemented the deepest cuts and the most retrograde privatization agenda in 30 years. The fact that he did this with a smile and while patting the lefties on the head doesn't change the effects on actual people.
The fact that Harper would probably make more cuts doesn't really change the fact that Martin bragged about cutting social spending back to 1953 levels. Because he did. Fait accompli.
Now, the excuse (most recently heard from a Sierra Club rep) that's used is that you "have to work with the people who are in power". (Apparently "work with" means "laud uncritically," but that's another story.) If that is the case, I wonder why the Sierra Club and Maude Barlow are spending so much time slamming Harper?
Let's take a moment to look at Paul Martin's Liberals' record on cutting emissions, or privatizing health care. What? You say privatization is continuing apace and emissions are increasing, making it almost entirely unlikely that we're going to meet reduction goals?
Funny, you don't hear the professional left saying that much. To her credit, Barlow has criticized Martin in the past, but where is that criticism now?
With the Conservatives likely to take a minority (thanks to a completely inept Liberal campaign and infighting in that party), where is the "you have to work with the people in power" principle now?
There's a choice: they're either partisan, or they're not. If you're not calling the Liberals on their destructive history in housing, health care, environment and so on, you're either blind or partisan. Neither one seems appealing, but you can't behave the way the think twicers are behaving and avoid being at least one of those two. Or both.
So, assuming it's one, which is it?
January 16, 2006
Strategy: Ok, so the election is decided...
...the Conservatives are going to win a majority or near-majority minority. But there's a week to go, and though my sensibilities are along the lines of those of Mr. Podur, my politics-as-pure-strategy side tends towards speculation, with a small but potent dose of I-don't-want-a-right-wing-government.
Speculation about what, say, Martin or Layton could do to turn everything on its head and redefine the game during the last week. Any stunt that could pull this off would involve, by definition, a) insane risks and b) enough sincerity that it wouldn't look like a desperate move to win an election, which it would be. I honestly don't have any great ideas (add yours in comments) what the move would be, but here's my best try too late on a Sunday night:
Martin:
His main problem seems to be that he's seen as being willing to say, promise, or pledge support to anything or anyone to stay in power. And rightfully so; any attempt to figure out what the guy is really about reveals an incoherent mess: layers upon layers of convenient lies over a core of your basic multimillionaire who hangs out with CEOs.
So the point would be to win peoples' attention without further confirming this will-say-anything image.
My first suggestion is "come clean". Which is to say, quit trying to cover up your mistakes and get back to what you're about. Unfortunately, the Liberals are almost solely about getting and holding power, so the trick is to do this in moderation, but still make a dramatic splash that will put all eyes on PM the PM.
The upside is that Paul Martin does the "sincere agent of change" thing pretty well (ignoring all substance, for the moment), as we saw with the post-scandal mad-as-hell tour.
So, how to be desperate without appearing desperate? Bulworth or West-Wing style candor seems out of the question, at least as an abrupt 180. The trick would be to have a decisive moment that stopped the say-anything narrative, and then run a consistently good campaign after that. (Probably not possible with Martin's current staff, but let's give ourselves a bit of room.)
[time goes by...]
After considering a number of possibilities, it occurs to me that Martin et alia have backed themselves into a total corner here. Basically, the only way out is to find religion at the last minute. Run on the record and be serious about something that matters. But what? Democratic reform? Oops. Health care? Same thing. And so on down the list.
My final conclusion ends up being pretty boring.
The Liberals have done a piss-poor job of communicating their current record, and they appear corrupt because they are. So the plan would be to do some very straightforward ads and PR events that explain, in a visually memorable, straightforward way, what the Liberals have "accomplished" over the last 12 years. None of this "Reussir le Canada" bullshit. Take some pages from Mike Harris (via John Doyle) and name an imaginary city in each province and give it a population of the number more people that are employed compared to the Mulroney years. Hire a huge crane to lift the some symbol of the weight of the debt that Martin is so proud of having paid off. Or variations on this theme. As for corruption, I think that the basic answer is to run on the record of what the Liberals have accomplished in terms of addressing this issue, and communicate that in similarly simple, straightforward, and TV-friendly ways.
That said, the Liberal record is crap, and has increased human misery in Canada and abroad, but elections about a lot of things before they're about reality.
Layton:
If I knew what made people react with such visceral distancing from the NDP (much less those with a more radical understanding of things), I'd be, well, at least a little less frustrated by my lack of understanding.
My solution for the NDP, assuming they want to get more than a maximum of thirty seats, is to s#^t or get off the pot (no marijuana pun intended). That is to say: be left wing, or position yourselves as the successor to the Liberal party, but don't try to hover between the two.
Option 1, be left wing:
This would involve Jack Layton pushing the envelope in ways that he got slapped down for doing before. Like accusing Paul Martin of being responsible for the deaths of homeless people. That got him tonnes of flak, despite the fact that it is, well, a fact. Martin cut the housing budget down to zero and cut transfer payments, and that had an effect. No matter to the media, who had a field day.
Instead of hitting superficial stuff like that, though, the NDP could grab headlines with Pierre-Ducasse-esque statements like "there is no reason for banks to be privately owned", and then come up with a plan for serious regulation and outline how much money people would save. Spend a few days selling the idea, and put the war room to work on some clever, snappy explanation that is equal to their skills at dissing the Liberals.
Or choose another topic that matters that the Liberals and Conservatives violently agree on, and take it apart. Canada's role in Haiti might be one. Inequality might be one. Whatever it is, the problem is getting the media on board. Never easy when you're the NDP, which I guess is why Jack occasionally talks about the party buying a newspaper.
Admittedly, this is more of a long term strategy, but if he hit the right note with the right amount of media punch and the right timing, it's not impossible for Jack Layton to set the agenda for the last week of the campaign.
Option two: become Liberal-lite:
The long term version of this involves Jack heading to Bay street and selling NDP policy as good for the economy and good for corporate profits. Whichever ones aren't substantially compatible with agenda of a workable subset of corporations, he sidelines or makes appear marginal, at least for the moment. Newly funded, the NDP positions itself as the only party that can legitimately represent Canadian values. Tough sell, but easier while the Liberals are down and out, and the Conservatives are bickering about whether to work with everyone or opportunistically use power to push through retrograde social policy or send troops to Syria, Iran or Venezuela, it would be easier. Once in power, if you have any lefty ideals left, use your clout to strengthen your base, and hand them a few policies to social movements to get them fired up, and then let them push you in the direction you need to go.
This scenario is not bloody well likely, but Bay Street backing is the one proven way to take power in Canada.
The last-week-of-campaign version of this is a little more simple: stop "picking at the Liberal carcass" (as Coyne put it), and toss it out of the way. Through shear self-confidence or hubris. Say it loud: the Liberal Party is down for the count, collapsing from massive internal contradiction, ethically and financially bankrupt, and the NDP is the only party that can keep the Cons in check. Push hard for a total shift to the NDP. See if it catches on. (I actually don't see a lot of downside to this last version. The Dippers could use a bit more self-confidence. And the key question is: why is someone with Harper's far-right associates and track record the one who's the heir apparent to the centrist government?)
There's an option three (no one-week version), but that being my life's work--though not necessarily about the NDP--I'll save it for a future discussion.
That said, the above reflects very few of my political beliefs, but strategy is fun to think about.
Now... your thoughts, please?
December 04, 2005
Staying in the Political Party Box
All of the campaign weblogs seem to be focused on portraying their authors as thoughtful, caring, charming, good human beings. Not a lot of policy though. An exception is the NDP's great [economist] hope, Paul Summerville, who posts his letters to the editor, stats and analysis of NHL standings.
I'm surprised none of the parties are making any effort to tap, Dean style, the grassroots energy of weblogs. I suppose it helps to have fixed election dates and a year-long campaign, but the current party web sites are boringly identical, as if they're all using the same consultants. Ugh.
The NDP, with its lack of funds, just ends up looking like the other parties, but weaker. Doesn't anyone want to be different anymore?
Is politics really about having the biggest picture of your party leader with the least amount of mud on it? How incredibly depressing.
If I stop being depressed at some point, I'll write up a post about all the things that, say, the NDP (not that I have any particular affinity with them; they just seem to have the least abhorrent economic, social and environmental policies) could be doing at little cost.
For a while there, it looked like politics was going to come out of the hermetically sealed bag that it likes to be in... at least with the NDP, it seemed like Jack Layton's plan was to work with, from, and occasionally for social movements. Perhaps playing power broker is more rewarding.
November 15, 2005
Kellan on Religion
Laughing Meme: "So Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all represent successive waves of innovation to produce a more viral ideology that could better leverage network effects. It's an idea that has fascinated me since an off hand comment in a college history class that monotheisms were better able to displace traditional pagan cultures because monotheists were able to bring their God with them rather then being tied to a series of local, non-portable phenomena."
July 02, 2005
Revelation and Surprise
George Monbiot: "At the G8 summit we will hear the same tones of revelation and surprise. Now, as then, the political elite will give the impression of having discovered the importance of this issue for the first time. In 16 years we've gone nowhere."
April 24, 2005
9/11 and our daily programming
Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, has pled guilty.
Granted, the case is receiving a surprising amount of coverage after a 3 1/2 year media blackout, but by mere virtue of the fact that it IS a case that has been under a 3 1/2 year media blackout...
March 14, 2005
The Facts on U.S. Social Security
It makes sense that Social Security should become the new bone to fight over in the ongoing class war given the ever widening gap between the rich and poor.
As the middle class disappears, what rationale is left for the elite to sustain the poor financially? Why pay into a system that doesn't make your money mulitply as quickly as you're used to? If you hold the belief that poverty is self-inflicted, what reason would you have to dump your hard earned cash into a system that invests in society as a whole, when the carrot of private bank accounts is being dangled before your eyes?
Bush says Social Security is broke. He's lying. More importantly, he's being fed lies. It's a lie on the scale of WMD, and just about every other piece of major policy that has been called into action.
February 10, 2005
What Ward Didn't Say
"What is necessary is cruel and strong reactions. We need precision in time, place, and casualties...we must strike mercilessly, women and children included. Otherwise, the reaction is inefficient. At the place of action, there is no need to distinguish between guilty and innocent."
Mickey Z on What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
January 23, 2005
Nazi Formerly Known as Prince
Charles Demers in Seven Oaks:
Nor was much of anything made of the fact that the fancy-dress party to which Harry wore the Nazi uniform had a “Colony and Native” theme, meaning that as Britain’s political elite engaged (along with their American allies) in the bloody process of re-colonizing Iraq, their sons and daughters – the British equivalents to America’s Bush Twins, or Canada’s noxious Justin Trudeau and Ben Mulroney – were partying in a form of blackface, luxuriating with the cruel imperial arrogance that is the privilege of those at the centres of wealth and power in the metropole.
In short, nothing at all was done to place the rich little shit’s display into any sort of historical, social, or political context – so as America and Canada and the United Kingdom commit to the dismantling of democratic rights at home, and engage in inevitably racialized imperialism in Haiti, Afghanistan and Iraq, we’ll pretend that the only harbinger of fascism on the horizon is the swastika wrapped ‘ironically’ around the arms of one of their privileged sons.
January 13, 2005
Disasters
Body and Soul: "Empathy comes naturally to most human beings. Sustained empathy does not."
January 11, 2005
Moussaoui and 9/11
Zacharias Moussaoui, the alleged "20th hijacker" and his pending trial has been the best kept media secret of the past three years.
The Washington Post published an article today about the latest Supreme Court filing and the intense secrecy surrounding it.
For a brief context of Moussaoui's trial and the legal battles involved, here are a few other articles of interest:
CACI has a vast database of articles regarding the case. Why has CACI keeping such tabs? Well, you may remember their fantastic work as a defense contractor providing such Pentagon outsourced jobs as: interrogation of detainees at Abu Ghraib and 'Gitmo'. You could spend an entire afternoon on their website leaving you with more questions than answers.
read more...November 28, 2004
The Future of Freedom
Is your government in a position to profit financially from terrorism? Are you? Would you like to be?
read more...July 11, 2004
Seperatism and Self-Determination
Three points in response to this thread about Quebec Seperatism on ThisMagazine.ca's blog:
1) Allowing a province or nation to secede from the state of Canada doesn't necessarily help anyone's self-determination. The main forces against self-determination are corporate monopolies and the US. The Federal Govn't far behind either of those, and, well, it's *our* federal government. There remains the *possibility* of forcing it to act in a democratic fashion. There is less likelihood that corporate monopolies and the US will act in a democratic fashion.
2) The Canadian state, as a unified entity, is the most effective bullwark against US and (to a lesser extent) corporate domination. Provinces on their own are *much more likely* to capitulate to their demands. Ironically, the best way to have distinct nations within Canada is to have a strong fed gov. Does anyone believe that provinces on their own will be more effective at resisting US/corporate hegemony?
3) All this is precisely why Paul Martin has promoted destabilizati... er, decentralization so fervently. It lays the ground for corporate takeover everywhere.
3a) To add another layer of paradox, the only way that the federal government will ever do its job as the protector of Canadian sovereignty (y'know, self-determination) properly is if people, as individuals, nations, and groups, demand it and make the consequences extreme enough to be unpalatable.
March 23, 2004
Dear Citizen,
The most important issue facing Canada today is the sponsorship scandal, and whatever mucked up patronage mess we can dredge up today. The important issues is most definitely not growing inequality, integration with the US, the privatization of health care, Canadian support of illegal US interventions, all of which are proceeding apace.
In fact, forget we mentioned those things at all. The sponsorship scandal is more important! Because we say it is. Scandal! Scandal! Say it with us. It's fun!
Moreover, Stephen Harper is a political genius. Really. What? You thought that he was a wooden right winger? Nope. Actually, he's a massive intellect. Modesty compels us to forgoe mentioning what gives us the ability to judge this trait in others.
But really. We wouldn't write it if it wasn't true:
But Harper is also one of the most intriguing success stories on the federal market these days... Harper is equipped with one of the best strategic minds in Canadian politics. He is Martin's match intellectually. In the next election, he stands to outdebate him in both official languages.
Neat how we can simply assert things, and they'll start to sound true, eh? Remember how Stockwell Day turned out to be a political genius, justifying the thousands of column inches we dedicated to him? This is a bit like that was.
A bit of practice, and a circulation of 500,000, and you'll be able to do it too.
What? You don't believe us? But that's the neat thing. There's no other source of information available, so you'll never know how much we're lying to you. I mean: how truly profound our dictates actually are.
Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more urgent Harper-mania.
love,
The Canadian Media
March 16, 2004
Props to Tom?
I never thought I'd have anything good to say about Tom Friedman (who is a corporate shill of the worst kind), but I've got to hand it to him for this.
February 22, 2004
Forest and Trees
Is a worker at McDonalds providing a service or are they 'manufacturing' a hamburger when they assemble the lettuce, patty and bun components?
No, seriously. Stop laughing.
As the NY Times reports, this question is actually considered in the new Economic Report of the President. According to N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the president's Council of Economic Advisers, this distinction is "an important consideration" when looking at economic policy.
Part of the report asks, "When a fast-food restaurant sells a hamburger, for example, is it providing a 'service' or is it combining inputs to 'manufacture' a product?"
If you are only making $4 an hour, does it really matter whether you are part of the service sector or the manufacturing sector?
If you can't house and feed yourself, let alone a family, perhaps the real question is not what sector the job is in, but whether it is a job at all.
Letter to Government and Corp. Media About Haiti
Though often futile, speaking truth to power can be therapeutic. Here's a copy of a letter I sent out to about 200 corporate lackeys regarding the crisis in Haiti. Some of the main addresses are at the bottom of the letter, for ease of clipping and pasting, if one is so inclined as to send their own letter...
February 17, 2004
Bravery and Fidelity
Guardian: "Neither fidelity nor bravery is all that useful, on a practical level, in running a country. The first suggests self-denial, altruism, a long-sightedness and commitment to the principles of honesty and deferred gratification that are totally at odds with aggressive first world capitalism. The second combines altruism with reckless self-endangerment and the privileging of physical instinct over rational judgment - qualities that aren't going to do anyone a power of good in a situation room."
February 05, 2004
Corporate Media Lackeys: And the Beat Goes on
by Anthony Fenton
This year, I’ve made a resolution to keep a closer eye on our national print media, the Globe and Mail and National Post. With each passing day, this exercise becomes all the more fascinating as the Globe and Post both obediently protect the corporate status quo.
read more...February 02, 2004
Anti-Jazz
Not three hours after I posted the previous entry quoting Arundhati Roy's latest essay, someone posted a comment characterizing it as "Anti-American". I have to say, my immediate reaction to the term "anti-American" is to make some smart-ass remark like...
"I have lots of friends who are Americans," or:
"I guess that makes me a self-hating American".
But in this case, Arundhati Roy has already written a much more eloquent response that goes straight to the heart of the matter, so I'll let her dismantle the claim herself:
Recently, those who have criticised the actions of the US government (myself included) have been called "anti-American". Anti-Americanism is in the process of being consecrated into an ideology. The term is usually used by the American establishment to discredit and, not falsely - but shall we say inaccurately - define its critics. Once someone is branded anti-American, the chances are that he or she will be judged before they're heard and the argument will be lost in the welter of bruised national pride.What does the term mean? That you're anti-jazz? Or that you're opposed to free speech? That you don't delight in Toni Morrison or John Updike? That you have a quarrel with giant sequoias? Does it mean you don't admire the hundreds of thousands of American citizens who marched against nuclear weapons, or the thousands of war resisters who forced their government to withdraw from Vietnam? Does it mean that you hate all Americans?
This sly conflation of America's music, literature, the breathtaking physical beauty of the land, the ordinary pleasures of ordinary people with criticism of the US government's foreign policy is a deliberate and extremely effective strategy. It's like a retreating army taking cover in a heavily populated city, hoping that the prospect of hitting civilian targets will deter enemy fire.
There are many Americans who would be mortified to be associated with their government's policies. The most scholarly, scathing, incisive, hilarious critiques of the hypocrisy and the contradictions in US government policy come from American citizens. (Similarly, in India, not hundreds, but millions of us would be ashamed and offended, if we were in any way implicated with the present Indian government's fascist policies.)
To call someone anti-American, indeed, to be anti-American, is not just racist, it's a failure of the imagination. An inability to see the world in terms other than those that the establishment has set out for you: If you don't love us, you hate us. If you're not good, you're evil. If you're not with us, you're with the terrorists.
January 22, 2004
Facts and Arguments
[Posted as a comment in response to David Berlin's essay, Where Leaders Fail, on the Walrus website.]
It seems that the fundamental problem faced by people who want to solve the question of Palestine is to understand what has been going on for the last 50 years.
While David Berlin seems to be proceeding from fairly benevolent intentions, the overall effect seems to perpetuate false assumptions and misinformation about the situation.
Take, for example, the claim that "Palestinians do not yet have the civic culture to sustain a sovereign nation". The assumptions at work here are problematic at best. We're talking about a society that has been systematically dismantled by the state of Israel: economically strangled, humiliated daily, displaced, and so on. To say nothing of hundreds of house demolitions, the normalization of political assassinations, and the impunity with which Palestinians are regularly killed.
read more...January 17, 2004
Missile Defence, an illustrated primer
Download the poster [100k, pdf]
January 09, 2004
Letter to the NDP, re: "Missile Defense"
[The NDP just sent out an email announcing a new ad campaign against Martin's likely support of National Missile Defense, Star Wars, or whatever you want to call it. Here's my response...]
To: jack@fed.ndp.ca
The NDP's reasons for opposing National Missile Defense/Star Wars:
1. Star Wars is expensive Star Wars could costs as much as $1 trillion. If Canada is asked to pay even 1/100th of the bill - it will mean $10 billion less for medicare, cities, and the environment. (Source: Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation)
2. Star Wars won't make Canada safer Starting the next arms race will do nothing to promote security. Canada's Department of National Defence warns Bush's missile defence plan paves the way for putting weapons into orbit (Ottawa Citizen, Jan. 9, 2004).
3. Star Wars doesn't work Star Wars technology has never worked. Last year the New York Times reported that one test missed its target 'by hundreds of miles'. In contrast, there's lots of technology to keep us safe from climate change. Where's the leadership for that?
With all due respect, these aren't the reasons that Star Wars is wrong. In fact, they share many of the assumptions that lead people to think that Star Wars is in fact a good idea.
If Star Wars was not expensive, did make Canada safer, and worked, would it be a good thing? No.
The reason is that, despite its name, NMD is an offensive weapon. Don't take my word for it; read the words of the Project for the New American Century (of which Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz and Jeb Bush are members). Quoting from "Rebuilding America's Defenses", a PNAC report:
Effective ballistic missile defenses will be the central element in the exercise of American power and the projection of U.S. military forces abroad. Without it, weak states operating small arsenals of crude ballistic missiles, armed with basic nuclear warheads or other weapons of mass destruction, will be a in a strong position to deter the United States from using conventional force, no matter the technological or other advantages we may enjoy. Even if such enemies are merely able to threaten American allies rather than the United States homeland itself, America's ability to project power will be deeply compromised.
If you condemn NMD for the right reasons--that American Empire, global military dominance, or whatever you want to call it are wrong, and to be resisted instead of helped--then I'll support the NDP's fancy new politics a la Wired magazine.
A debate isn't worth starting unless it's based on all of the reality we have available to us.
sincerely,
dru oja jay
paulmartintime.ca
dominionpaper.ca
October 30, 2003
Quote of the Week
"In my opinion, any man who can afford to buy a newspaper should not be allowed to own one."
--Ray Hattersley, as quoted in Tom Bower's Maxwell, the Outsider, 1991.
(from the Canadian Assoc. of Journalists list, I think)
Update: Stiff competition comes from this latest Bushism:
"The vast majority of Iraqis want to live in a peaceful, free world. And we will find these people and we will bring them to justice."
May 14, 2003
Don't Lift the Sanctions
Rahul Mahajan: Don't Life the Sanctions Yet!
Did this administration, which tried to keep Iraqi infants from being vaccinated for diphtheria and limited imports of streptomycin into the country, see a blinding light on the road to Baghdad? And did other countries suddenly decide that the deaths of Iraqi children was, as Madeleine Albright put it in an interview in 1996, a price worth paying and this time merely in order to uphold a trivial legalistic argument?Actually, it's not so confusing. The United States has moved to consolidate control over Iraq. The talks being held by selected members of the "Iraqi opposition" under the control of the U.S. military are not intended to create an independent government, but rather one which is tightly controlled by the United States just as in Afghanistan. As in Afghanistan, the meetings are excluding entire segments of the political spectrum. They are being done with express disregard of calls across that spectrum for meetings to be held under neutral U.N. auspices rather than under those of an occupying power with clear plans for increased regional domination.
Those plans have become clear as well. The Bush administration wants to set up permanent military bases in Iraq, making it the main Middle East staging area for U.S. "force projection." The massive political leverage given by this presence will be used as a club against Iran and Syria and also to force the Palestinians to acquiesce to the Israeli occupation through the latest "peace plan." The administration also wants not only to open up future Iraqi exploration to foreign corporations (with U.S. and maybe British corporations presumably favored) but to privatize, at least in part, the state oil companies and their currently producing wells.
May 13, 2003
Mother's Day
Mother's Day Proclamation, by Julia Ward Howe
May 12, 2003
Race and Reporting
Farai Chideya: AlterNet: When Is a Good Liar Better than a Good Reporter?
Race is always an issue; one that, if you live long enough, will work both for and against you. As America gets more diverse, the total number of black and of-color newspaper reporters has stagnated from year to year, in some cases dropping. The failure of America to have a truly integrated media does two things: 1) reinforces racial essentialism (i.e., all black reporters are held accountable for the sins of one; not so for whites) and 2) gives people who really want to play the race game a wide open field in which to do it.
Racial essentialism means that whites are thought of as having no race, and blacks (and to a lesser extent, other non-whites) are thought of as only seeing the world via race. This skewed perspective leads to the assumption that whites are "objective" when covering race (because they are somehow neutral, or raceless) and blacks are biased. It also means that white people don't have to apologize for famous plagarists like the Boston Globe's Mike Barnacle and Ruth Shalit (who penned a controversial article on race in the newsroom for The New Republic). Blacks apparently do.
Klein
Naomi Klein: Elections vs. Democracy in Argentina
On December 19 and 20, 2001, when Argentines poured into the streets banging pots and pans and telling their politicians, que se vayan todos, everyone must go, few would have predicted the current elections would come down to this: a choice between two symbols of the regime that bankrupted the country. Back then, Argentines could have been forgiven for believing that they were starting a democratic revolution, one that forced out President Fernando de la Rua and churned through three more presidents in twelve days.
The target of these mass demonstrations was the corruption of democracy itself, a system that had turned voting into a hollow ritual while the real power was outsourced to the International Monetary Fund, French water companies and Spanish telecoms--with local politicians taking their cut. Carlos Menem, though he had been out of office for two years, was the uprising's chief villain. Elected in 1989 on a populist platform, Menem did an about-face and gutted public spending, sold off the state and sent hundreds of thousands into unemployment.
When Argentines rejected those policies, it was hugely significant for the globalization movement. The events of December 2001 were seen in international activist circles as the first national revolt against neoliberalism, and "You are Enron, We are Argentina" was soon adopted as a chant outside trade summits.
May 10, 2003
The Russians
kuro5hin.org: Best war reporters: The Russians?
You see, Russians are monitoring all radio traffic over Iraq, and they have some fancy toys that give them a very clear picture of what's going on. But what's amazing is that they post their findings on the internet. I started reading these a few days ago with a "this is surely a hoax" attitude. Since then, I am convinced that it's the real thing. They predict division movements and tactics with devestating accuracy, and their analysis seems very well supported. One webpage, which takes a few minutes to read, contains far more information about the war than 4 hours of CNN.
The Russians
kuro5hin.org: Best war reporters: The Russians?
You see, Russians are monitoring all radio traffic over Iraq, and they have some fancy toys that give them a very clear picture of what's going on. But what's amazing is that they post their findings on the internet. I started reading these a few days ago with a "this is surely a hoax" attitude. Since then, I am convinced that it's the real thing. They predict division movements and tactics with devestating accuracy, and their analysis seems very well supported. One webpage, which takes a few minutes to read, contains far more information about the war than 4 hours of CNN.