NDP Ad Shows Harper's Fiscal/Economic Policy as a Jenga Game

I discovered this fantastic new internet ad by the NDP today. A little late to post it now, on the night before election day, but hopefully some people who are up will watch it before deciding who to vote for. It's 1:26, and worth every second. It very artfully explains what is wrong with Harper's economic policies through the metaphor of a Jenga game, and uses the same visual metaphor to explain what the NDP would do differently. Extremely effective, and I wish they had come up with it a week earlier, to potentially give it time to go viral.

Anyway, here it is:


Days Remaining in Bush Presidency:97

Elizabeth May (eMay) Sells Out Her Party and Reveals Some Bitter Partisanship

In the closing days of the election campaign, Elizabeth May (from here on in: eMay) has sold out her supporters, and Green candidates across the country, by saying that where it close between a Liberal and a Harpocon, or a New Democrat and a Harpocon, Greens should vote for one of the other two parties. You might think, yes, that is rational strategic voting to try to avoid another Conservative government. You'd be wrong.

At the same time as making her call for strategic voting, eMay made it abundantly clear that she doesn't want Greens to vote for NDPers. In the Toronto Star, as well as other papers across Canada, we find this snippet:

"I think she's muddying the waters," [Green candidate in the Ontario riding of Simcoe-North] Valerie Powell said. "I think she's the best prime minister, and we have to keep working hard as Greens to make sure we have as many MPs as possible."

Asked if she is muddying the waters, May responded, "It's true I am."

"I love Valerie and I read her full quotes and they weren't harsh or unfair. She's right, life would be simpler if I acted like (NDP Leader) Jack Layton and didn't care if Stephen Harper formed government again.

"Life would be simpler if I were a complete hypocrite like Jack Layton and pretended I cared about the climate when all of his strategy makes his own personal success more important than survival of the climate and decent climate policy.

"I'm just not that person."

Lovely. That's really doing politics differently. Not only is that nasty and negative, it is completely false. Jack Layton has been a campaigner on environmental issues for decades. He bikes to work on Parliament Hill. He led the process which completely re-wrote Bill C-30, Harper's regressive environmental legislation to make it a strong, progressive, law to control and reduce carbon emissions (this is a bill, the rewriting process of which eMay called a "pointless exercise", and for which she absurdly claimed credit not two weeks later [source]). NDP policies on the environment under Layton received high marks from the Sierra Club until eMay left that organization to lead the Green Party, at which time the NDP (shockingly) dropped in the ratings, while the Green Party soared.

Elizabeth May has a long-standing history of making ridiculous, and bitterly partisan, attacks on Jack Layton and the NDP. Lets cast our thoughts back to 2007, when eMay struck her deal with Stephane Dion to endorse him for the PM's chair in return for the Libs pulling out of Central Nova (where they had finished third in 2006, with the Greens barely a blip). She then promptly turned around and demanded the same thing from the NDP. Unsurprisingly, the NDP, which finished a close second in Central Nova in 2006, told eMay to take a hike, in about so many words. eMay decided then to unleash a screed against Layton, charging that “there’s something wrong with Jack Layton if he’d rather open up discussions with the Taliban than the Green Party...” Not only is this a blatantly, bitterly, partisan thing to say (never mind being inaccurate), it is also a complete renunciation of the Green Party policy on Afghanistan, which favours a negotiated settlement.

Now, Elizabeth May is lying again. She has now "updated" her position, and claims that she doesn't endorse strategic voting. Get your story straight. I don't understand how anyone can support the Green Party when it is led by Elizabeth May. She is a proven liar and hypocrite, never mind advancing regressive opinions on abortion or comparing lack of action on climate change to Nevile Chamberlain appeasing the Nazis at Munich. She is trying to pull on the Green Party what Hazen Argue pulled on the NDP. And one day she will be as reviled in Green Party circles as Hazen Argue is in NDP circles.

As the last day before the election winds down, I want to remind everyone to vote. Vote for who you want, just get out there and do it. Democracy only functions if the people exercise their franchise and get involved in it.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 98

Harper Has Been Hiding a Deficit

So it turns out that all of Stephen Harper's assurances that the country is not in a deficit were false. Based on Ministry of Finance figures, blogger Michael Watkins has discovered that over the first six months of the fiscal year, Harper's government ran a deficit of $23 billion. This is far more that the deficit over this same time period from any other government this decade, and it is unusual for the government to see first half losses, indeed, there is usually a spike in the surplus in the first three months.

All of the documentation for this situation can be found at mikewatkins.ca. He's done a great job laying out the proof of Conservative perfidy and fiscal failure. I highly recommend reading it for yourself.

This is proof that not only can the Conservative Party of Canada not be trusted as fiscal manager (uh, no shit! Look at Ontario under this same Minister of Finance or Canada under Brian Mulroney), it proves that they are willing to lie about it, and hide the truth from Canadians (again, no shit. Flahrety lied about the shape of Ontario's finances, and a claimed small surplus turned out to be a $6 billion deficit).

The CPC is corrupt, and full of lying bastards who will do whatever it takes to hold on to power. What do you know, that is almost an exact description of the Liberal Party of Canada too. We as Canadians need to throw these bums out, and stop electing black cats, white cats, or spotted cats. Mouseland needs to elect mice to run the show. For those of you who don't get the reference, google "Tommy Douglas" and "Mouseland".

Six days left until the election folks.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 103

The Home Stretch

The election has entered it's final stretch, with seven days of campaigning left. The game has started to change. With the economy melting down around the ears of Canadians (witness the TSX being down as much as 1100 points this morning, and closing down 570-odd), Steve Harper finally blinked and admitted something was wrong. But he didn't take the opportunity to unveil his magical vanishing platform, instead he tried to turn a mea culpa moment into another opportunity to rail against the Liberal carbon tax plan. Too late, Steveo. Canadians are (finally!) tuning in to this election, and they don't like what they see.

Much as I have ranted against a focus on polls in this election, this is a moment in which I think looking to them is justified. Every poll reporting over the last two days (generally three day rolling polls) is showing the CPC below the level of support achieved in 2006, with Harris/Decima showing them as low as 32%. Nanos shows the CPC at 34%, the LPC at 29%, the NDP at 20%, the BQ at 11% and the Greens at 6%. The Conservative message is obviously falling flat on its face. Canadians are not an inherently conservative group of people. We support government intervention in the economy and, to blatantly steal Stephane Dion's good line, Harper's laissez-faire, I don't care attitude isn't going to cut it (of course the Liberal economic plan is pretty laissez-faire too. Dion's economic plan seems to involve meeting with bankers and capitalists so they can tell him what to do. You know, SOP for the Liberal Party of Canada). You can smell the stink of desperation coming of the planned release of the CPC platform tomorrow. They never intended to release it until they got hammered over their lack of a platform in both debates.

Harper will still, probably win this campaign, but any chance for a majority has gone right out the window. Given the poll numbers in Ontario and especially Quebec, the CPC will be lucky to net a gain of ten seats overall this election. After this, the knives may come out for our Robot Emperor.

Oh, and in my neck of the woods, Jack Layton was in town for a rally. Fantastic energy, and probably about 500 people out. Yelling, screaming, all revved up. Jack gave a great speech, and showed why he is the best one to lead this country. As the signs they were handing out said, "United with Layton" "We Will Beat Harper".

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 105

$700 Billion Bailout Fails to Pass Congress

What do you know. The unprecedented, mind-bogglingly big, handout to the corrupt financial sector in the United States has failed to pass through the House of Representatives. It failed by a margin of about 20 votes. This has caused a major drop on American stock markets, but remarkably an even larger drop in Canada. While the Dow Jones Industrial Average of the New York Stock Exchange fell 6.98%, the S&P/TSX Composite Index fell 7.9%.

As we see stocks in Canada being more adversely affected by this crisis than American stocks, and the trading partner on whom the Canadian economy is dependant circling the drain, we have the out of touch ramblings of our Prime Minister for cold comfort. Two weeks ago, Stephen Harper said “My own belief is that if we were going to have some kind of big crash or recession, we probably would have had it by now.” Yeah, right Steve. Tell that to all of the people who have seen their retirement savings wiped out over the last three weeks as the TSX has been tanking.

Steve would very much like for us not to connect the currently unfolding crisis in the States with the kind of massive, neo-liberal, deregulation that he wants to foist on us up here. Deregulation is responsible for this crisis, because when greed (i.e. capitalism) is allowed to run rampant and unchecked, it results in shady dealings and outrageous short-term planning. It leads to the kind of exploitation that sees the CEO of Lehman Brothers take home a pay package of US$37 million this year, the same year he steered that bank into the ground. Capitalism, but especially deregulated capitalism, is what allows the kind of insane, idiotic lending that led to this whole crisis in the first place. Neo-liberal deregulation of the economy is what led to Washington Mutual having on a tiny percentage of its debts in available cash, and being by far and away the biggest bank failure in the history of the world. Out of control capitalism is what led to the Great Depression, and it is what will lead to the depression that is coming. And the level of integration in the modern economy could lead to this depression spreading world-wide and making the Great Depression look like nothing.

Now is the time for the people to reassert democratic control over the economy. Now is the time to take control of the financial system away from greedy, exploitative and uncaring capitalists in their bank towers, and restore it to the people who actually make the economy go, the working class. Building institutions to allow for horizontal, popular, control over the economy will make sure that wealth is shared, and that no small cabal of piggish capitalists can drive the economy into the ground for their own personal gain.

It is exactly this connection that Steve and his pack of lying, bigoted and reactionary Conservatives would like for us all not to notice. Steve doesn't want us to realize that he is leading us down the garden path to financial ruin. He can spout all of the "strong on the economy" bullshit that he wants, but his policies essentially represent a massive wealth transfer from the labouring class to the capitalist class. The class that has stolen untold billions that they did not toil to earn. He wants to bleed Canadians dry to fatten the capitalist class. Canadians have to show him that we know what he is up to, and that he doesn't fool us.

But don't take this information and go vote Liberal. The Liberals have endorsed Harper's fiscal policies. They are simply a nice, smiley face to go with the same hyper-capitalist fiscal policies, and in fact they want to deepen the corporate tax giveaways and enrich corporate welfare while at the same time stripping resources from the poorest of the poor through a regressive carbon tax.

The NDP, while not perfect, is a party that can be counted on to stop this outrageous rush to the bottom of regulation, to put a stop to the insane transfers of wealth to the already obscenely wealthy, and to put money back into the social safety net. That's why I'm voting NDP. I hope you'll consider it too.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 112

The Disappearance of Protest Songs, and the Left's Loss of Its Roots

I have been thinking lately about how the left has become largely disconnected from it's ideological roots. The left arose in the context of union activism, of workers pushing for a fair distribution of the wealth of society, based on the work one does, rather than on the family into which one was born. This was represented by the great struggles of the 19th and 20th century for workers rights, such as the right to strike, the right to withhold labour, the right to keep scabs out of the workplace and job security.

The modern left seems to have largely abandoned this fight. Sure, leading lights in the NDP will occasionally show up at a major workers rights protest, such as the shut-down of GM Canada's headquarters by the CAW. This loss of interest in the plight of the working class has been parallelled by the loss of traditional protest songs, expressing both outrage and hope. Songs like "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize", "We Shall Overcome" (a socialist song before it was a civil rights anthem), "Solidarity Forever" and "Union Maid". These songs relate powerfully to the efforts of capital to stomp out any vestige of a movement for workers' rights.

Capital, and its cronies in government, at first sought to suppress the working class by sending in soldiers and police to kill strikers, like any number of coal miners' strikes in Cape Breton or West Virginia, or manufacturing workers strikes in Montreal, Toronto, New York, Chicago or Pittsburgh. That didn't work. The workers were willing to risk the rifles and bayonets of the soldiers to defend their rights. Then, there was the phase of McCarthyism, and the attempt to smear all labour rights activists as Bolsheviks and anti-democrats. And sadly, this largely worked. North Americans became convinced that unions were synonymous with big-C Communism, and in the face of the hysteria worked up by capital about the Cold War, turned away from fighting for their rights. Unions never stood for any such thing, rather standing for democratic socialism and for horizontal, democratic, control of the economy to produce just outcomes for all.

The loss of the old protest songs is a sad reflection of the modern tendency in labour relations, and in the wider battle against global capital. This tendency toward giving up, and back-peddling on, the rights of workers continues up to this day. Under the leadership of quislings like Buzz Hargrove (who sold his soul to the Liberal Party, icons of capitalism, for a prospective seat in the Canadian Senate), unions have frittered away the rights of workers. For example, the CAW signed a collective agreement with Magna stipulating that the workers did not have a right to strike. That is heinous. If the workers have no right to strike, no right to withhold labour, there is no way to get concessions from management for better pay, benefits and job security.

Perhaps if we heard the old protest songs again, some of the moribund sections of the union movement might finally wake up. After all, as "Solidarity Forever" proclaims:

When the Union's inspiration through the workers' blood shall run,
There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun.
Yet what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one?
But the Union makes us strong.

Capitalists would have the people believe that pushing for labour rights will simply see more jobs flee to China. That's bullshit. Jobs are fleeing to China anyway, and if the workers aren't organized, there's nothing they can do about it. But if they do organize, workers can fight back. With the flight of good jobs to China, and the proliferation of crappy, un-unionized, McJobs, workers are returning to the situation of the working class in the late 1900s. As Marx wrote at the end of the Communist Manifesto, "the proletarians of the world have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workers of the world, unite!"

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 119

Fed Up With Election Coverage

Holy sweet zombie jeebus am I sick of polls being the focus of election coverage. I know, I know, Kim Campbell was right when she famously declared that an election is no time to discuss policy, but seriously, can our leading news organizations do nothing but cover polls? If they were all showing the same thing, that might be meaningful, but they all show different things, and not even the same trends. And yet every single one gets reported as if it were an earth shattering event. Polls are not supposed to be the story in an election.

News organizations have gotten unbelievably sloppy and lazy. They save a tonne of money by having one hack sitting in an office writing horserace stories about polls, when what they should be doing is sending out reporters to cover and critique the policy of the various parties. There is no critical commentary in the media, simply a mindless and endless nattering about polls and how the change in one poll, within the margin of error, means that the world has come to an end for one party or another. If the CPC is up two points, then they are 'approaching majority territory'. If the Liberals are down two points, then they are 'spiralling into oblivion'. If the NDP is up two they are 'closing in on the official opposition' and if they are down two the next day they are 'falling into oblivion'. If the GPC is up two, they are 'about to make a breakthrough' and if they are down two they are 'failing to connect with voters.' This is all complete horseshit.

Our media needs to get it together, and cover the election, not the damn polls.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 120

US Debt to Increase by almost 10% to Bail Out Bankrupt Capitalists

Over the last couple days, as the drama on North American financial markets has unfolded, the US government decided that it needed to do something. And now that something has emerged as a US$700 billion plan to buy bad debt from banks and investment houses.

Brilliant. This plan will take the US debt from US$9.668 trillion (I can't even properly conceptualize that much money) to about US$10.3 billion. This plan will increase the US national debt by 150% the amount of the entire Canadian national debt (currently about C$500 billion or about US$477 billion). And for all this debt, Americans don't even have a national healthcare system. Lets, just for the shock value, look at these values expressed as numbers.

US National Debt: US$10 368 000 000 000
CAN National Debt: US$500 000 000 000

That's obscene. What is even more obscene is that this bail out won't do a single thing to help the ordinary people of the United States. The working class won't see a penny of this money. Bush is going to transfer $350 billion per year to the capitalist class. These are the same people who scream about welfare recipients getting a grand or two a month, so that they can buy food and pay rent (and often can't afford even that). And yet some on the right are screaming about this being "socialism." Trust me when I say, as a socialist, that this is not socialism. This is kleptocracy. The capitalists made ridiculously bad business decisions, endangered the fundamentals of the American economy, got filthy rich in the process, and now their mistakes are being covered by the taxes paid by working class Americans. It's obscene.

Americans are going to be stuck paying for this bailout for decades to come, if not centuries. The stupid, greedy piggish capitalists have gotten bailed out of their stupidity, and once again it comes on the backs of the people most oppressed by the capitalist system. But so long as the American media gushes about this bailout, most people won't ever know the difference. And of course, the supposed "left wing alternative" in the US, the Democratic Party, is cheer-leading this bullshit and will uncritically pass it through Congress.

This is bullshit. Americans need to be up in arms about this. Their future is being mortgaged (pun not intended, but now I like it) to bail out irresponsible pig-dog capitalists. But there is no outrage. It is beyond frustrating.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 121

I'm Back

I've let this lapse for far too long, but now I will try to get myself back on track. That may be tough, since I have a busy couple of days coming up, and there's been a lot going on, but I'm going to try.

The Canadian federal election is clearly going to be the top story. The media has itself worked up into a lather about how the Conservatives are knocking on the door of majority government, the Liberals are in meltdown, the NDP is pushing for official opposition and the Greens are the best thing since sliced bread and a going to make a serious breakthrough. Unsurprisingly, given the history of media lather, none of that is true.

To start off with, lets look at the polling numbers. Routinely, for the last couple federal elections, Nanos polling (formerly known as SES) has been the most accurate polling company, coming very close to the final result. So I am going to use their numbers as the guide for my commentary on polls through the election. Unless, of course, I see a blatantly ridiculous poll like the one from Segma Research last week that showed the CPC at 43%. That was a howler.

Nanos currently has the following numbers:
CPC: 38%
LPC: 31%
NDP: 17%
BQ: 7%
GPC: 7%
Margin of error: +/- 3.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

Looking at those numbers, it means that all of the change since the last election (CPC +2%, LPC +1%, NDP -1%, BQ -3%, GPC +2%, after rounding) is within the margin of error. We could very well come back with the exact same result as the last election. All of the people running around screaming about any number of disasters or miracles need to have their heads checked. Much as I would like to believe the NDP is about to have it's breakthrough to be the official opposition, it isn't looking like it is going to happen this time. The same way, the CPC will not form a majority government. 38% is only in the most positive of eventualities enough for a bare majority. Chretien squeaked one out with 38% in 1997, but there was no opposition party polling anywhere near 30% at the time and Liberal support wasn't concentrated in a relatively small province the same way CPC support is concentrated in Alberta. Stephen Harper can only win every seat in Alberta once. The Greens will also not elect a single MP. Potato Head Pete will beat eMay in Central Nova, and Blair Wilson will suffer an embarassing beat-down in West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast - Sea-to-Sky Country.

If the Conservatives come back with an increased minority (I repeat, it won't be a majority), it will likely be because of seat gains in rural Quebec, and possibly in BC. They will lose seats in Atlantic Canada, possibly being wiped out in NL and down to one seat in NS (Pete, beating eMay). The CPC may also lose Tobique-Mactaquac, putting them down five seats. It think, however, that the most likely outcome is probably the CPC coming out of this election up by 2-5 seats, with the NDP gaining 3-6, and the losses coming from the LPC, BQ and Greens (their one pathetic floor crossing seat).

The Cons have not been running the same kind of gaffe-free campaign they did last time, that much is already clear. From the puffin fiasco to the ill-advised swipe at the father of a dead soldier, however, the gaffes have come from the back room, not candidates. That all changed today. Today the Globe and Mail is reporting that Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz was making fun of the deaths from Listeriosis poisoning (referring to "death by 1000 cold cuts") and, when he heard that one of the fatalities was from Prince Edward Island, he said that he hoped it was Wayne Easter, the Liberal Agriculture critic. Oops.

That kind of gaffe is exactly what can sink the not-so-good ship Conservative. Last time around, a significant contribution to the fall of the Liberals was Scott Reid's "beer and popcorn" quip. This comment has the capacity to do the same thing. Conservatives are shown to be making light of the deaths of Canadians on their watch, from a product that is supposed to be regulated by the government they were running. This shows an appalling coldness of heart, as well as a sadistic streak, wishing death on Mr. Easter and hideous sorrow on his family.

This comment also shows that the CPC has not changed since it was the reform party. It continues to be crass, classless and cruel. Mean spirited cuts to the arts, ideologically motivated cuts to funding for Status of Women Canada (not to mention removing the word "equality" from their mandate), introducing copyright legislation more draconian that the US's Digital Millennium Copyright Act, electoral fraud through the in-and-out scheme, attempting to roll back the sexual morality clock to the 1950s by raising the age of consent (and shame on the other parties for going along with it) and by trying to repeal the Civil Marriage Act that allowed same-sex marriage. And let's not even get into their colossal failure on the climate chaos file.

Now, the Liberals are not a lot better, since they stood aside and let these paleo-con measures pass unimpeded, ranting and raving about how they opposed the bill, but generating all light and no heat, since when the time came only a rump of Liberals showed up to cast votes against the bills. The Liberals are also trying to out tax cut the Conservatives, pledging more and deeper tax cuts for corporations than even the Conservatives. That is NUTS. Canada already has a lower corporate tax rate that the United States, and corporate income tax rates are substantially lower than personal income tax rates. Never mind the Green Shift that works nicely for the upper crust puppet masters of the Liberal party, while laying the burden of the post-carbon transition on the backs of the poorest in society. But enough about the Liberals for now, they are mostly doing enought to embarass themselves that I don't need to help them along.

The NDP is not perfect. It is too pragmatic in its pursuit of power, and it has drifted too far from its principles and its base. But I do like a lot of the policy that the party has proposed this time around. It is good, on point, and addresses many important issues, including childcare, reform of the banking sector and climate chaos. I was ashamed to be a member of the party when all but Bill Siksay voted in favour of the omnibus crime bill that not only overrode just about every social worker and sociologist in the country on the age of consent, but also neglected yet another opportunity to end the bigoted differential age of consent for anal and vaginal intercourse. But I am still a supporter of this party. I can't say I will be forever, but for now I am. My vote will be going to Meagan Leslie, the NDP candidate here in Halifax, and I think she makes a good candidate.

The Greens are an interesting case. I think the most interesting role they have left to play in this campaign will be whether or not eMay endorses Dion and the Liberals at the end. She may well, since he has endorsed a number of Liberals, even those running against Greens. I will go on the record saying that eMay should not have been included in the debates. Her party has only got one floor crossing seat in Parliament. Every previous party has had to have at least one MP elected under their banner (and don't mention Gilles Duceppe, everyone knew he was running for the BQ but they just weren't a formal party at the time he was elected) to get into the debate. Yet eMay managed to shame the country into giving her a voice despite her deal with Dion which effectively makes her a second Liberal in the debate. We should all watch closely to see if they are signalling each other.

Any how, that is enough for now. As I said, I will try to keep this blog updated, but we shall see.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 124

Taliban "threats"

A spokesman for the Taliban in Kandahar has said that if the occupation of Afghanistan does not end, Canada can expect to see more dead soldiers coming back. Predictably, the pro-war media (i.e. all of the MSM in Canada) has worked itself into a massive lather about this, displacing even the bread and circuses spectacle of the Olympic Games. There is ranting hither and yon about the Taliban "threatening" Canada. That is just arrant stupidity. It doesn't matter whether you are for the occupation or against the occupation, it is simply a fact that so long as the people of Afghanistan continue to resist the occupation of their country by uninvited foreign powers (and no, the invitation by a US installed Unocal consultant doesn't fly), and so long as Canadian troops continue to take part in the occupation, Canadian troops will continue to die. It isn't a threat, it is a statement of reality.

Now I disagree with the Taliban on just about everything, from the rights of women to the right to a democratic government, but they have this one right. So long as the occupation continues, the Afghans will resist it. They have done it before, countless times since the invasion of Alexander the Great to the Soviet occupation of the 1980s. For the West to imagine it will be any different this time is the hight of hubris and arrogance. The people of Afghanistan have the right to determine their own future, not to have it determined by the imperial thug who sits in Washington, or his minions and lackeys in Ottawa, London, Amsterdam or Kabul. I profoundly hope that the people of Afghanistan choose a future free of the Taliban, but that is a choice they must make for themselves, and not have it imposed upon them by the American Empire.

If Canadians are wise, we will force our government to withdraw from Afghanistan, and serve two purposes at once: the end of the occupation allowing Afghans to determine their own future, and the end of Canadian soldiers dying for nothing more important than an oil pipeline route.


Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 155

More Gouging by our Friendly Neigbourhood Telecom Oligopoly

I really, really, hate the telecoms. I'm just going to put that out there from the get go. Let's toss the CRTC in there too. I really hate the CRTC.

Now that I've gotten that out of the way, on to why I am particularly peeved today. Bell and Telus have announced that in August, customers who do not have a text messaging package on their contracts will have to pay $0.15 per incoming SMS. That is bullshit.

It costs the telecoms absolutely nothing to deliver an SMS to a mobile phone, since the sending person has already paid. The telecoms are simply trying to force people into buying SMS packages on their phone systems. I for one don't use text messages all that much, so when I got my current contract, I didn't bother getting a text messaging package. This means that were I a Bell or Telus customer (which I am not), I would be forced into paying for something I don't want and don't need.

This is especially bull because there is no capacity to block unwanted text messages. A person is not given the opportunity to refuse an SMS when it comes it. This is like forcing a person to accept a collect call. If the company is going to make me pay for incoming text messages, they had damn well better let me choose which ones I do and don't want to accept. People who get SMS spam shouldn't be stuck having to pay for it.

This is gouging of the worst kind, and clear evidence of the existence of a predatory oligopoly. On the one hand, we have Bell and Telus, who want to impose bullshit charges on incoming texts. On the other, we have Rogers, which refuses to institute an unlimited data plan for it's smart phones. Between the three of them, Canadians pay vastly more for cell phone service than citizens of pretty much any other country in the world. And this is where we come to why I hate the CRTC.

The CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission) has been given the task of regulating the telecom industry. At this job, it has failed grievously. The CRTC has allowed unprecedented concentration in the telecom industry, allowing only three companies (and don't think I've forgotten Fido, but they are owned by Rogers now) to control the entire market. If the CRTC was doing it's job, it would never have allowed Rogers to buy Fido, and it would pursue much more stringent competition policies. Instead, it has been asleep at the switch, and what is more sleeping in the same bed as the telecoms.

We need to give the CRTC a massive kick in the pants to wake it up. The CRTC is an organ of the state, and the state is (at least theoretically) controlled by the citizens. What we also need to do is put in place a state-owned telecom, to enter the market and provide for-cost mobile phone, internet and television service. Force the telecoms to either give up their predatory practices or fade away. The people should control the economy. The economy should be democratic. But under capitalism, it is no such thing. The economy under capitalism responds to those with money, and through the economy, they control the state. A nationalized telecom wouldn't break the hold of the capitalists and the bourgeoisie, but it would start the ball rolling, proving to people that a democratic economy is possible, and indeed desirable.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 195

First Pride Parades Held in India

In defiance of homophobic legislation in India that provides a punishment of up to ten years in jail for being gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgendered, hundreds of gay rights activists have held the first widespread pride parades in India's history (there had been a couple small events in Calcutta in the last couple years). Good on them. What is sad is that many of those brave individuals who turned out felt the need to wear masks to hide their identity.

India's laws prohibiting homosexuality are a disgusting throwback to the era in which Imperial Britain imposed appalling Victorian moralizing on it's empire. The British Empire has many things to answer for, and the horrifying attitude toward GLBT folks is yet another one of them. I salute those with the courage to show up and show their pride. Straight society around the world needs to come to terms with the reality that gays, lesbians, bisexuals and trans folk exist, and are entitled to the exact same rights as every other person.

In many parts of the west, we like to congratulate ourselves on having a progressive attitude towards LGBT folks. The sad fact is that while in some countries (Belgium, the Netherlands, Spain, Canada, South Africa and Norway) there is full formal equality for LGBT folks, even in those countries, deep undercurrents of homophobic hatred persist. When school children feel it is alright to use "you're so gay" as a put-down to mean stupid or worthless, something is deeply wrong. When people rely on ridiculous injunctions from a book more than 2000 years old (that also, by the way, condemns as abomination wearing clothes made of two kinds of fibre among other idiocies) to decide that being gay is abomination, something is wrong. When a person is allowed to declaim violent hatred under the thin guise of religion, something is wrong. Ultimately, formal legal equality is meaningless unless there is substantive society equality to go along with it. Until the day that no child grows up learning to hate someone on the basis of a biologically determined reality, until the day that there is no danger of another murder like that of Brandon Teena or Matthew Sheppard, the work isn't finished.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 205

A Travesty of Democracy in Zimbabwe

Robert Mugabe was once a man to be respected and admired. He was a revolutionary who led the people of Zimbabwe to overthrow white minority rule, and opposed transnational capitalism. Unfortunately, Mugabe has degenerated into yet another violent tyrant, confirmed by the process leading up to the presidential runoff election held yesterday. Mugabe's thugs attempted to terrorize the population into turning out to vote, and to vote for Mugabe. In an incredible act of courage, the people have defied Mugabe, and stayed home in droves. The outcome of the election is not in doubt, and has not been since the unconscionable delay in releasing the results of the first round of the presidential elections in May, that opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai should have won outright, and yet still the ZEC (the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) can't manage to release the results of this staged farce within one day. They need more time to falsify the results.

The people of Zimbabwe are entitled to much better than this. They have the right to a vote and a result that expresses their collective will, not some ridiculous vaudeville act masquerading as an election. The people of Zimbabwe, as do all citizens of the world, have a right to government of the people by the people for the people, and that is not what they are getting. I will not call for an armed intervention in Zimbabwe. War doesn't fix anything, and only leads to more suffering. However, the United Nations must impose carefully targeted sanctions, such as travel restrictions and bank account seizures, aimed only at Mugabe and his chief thugs in what is mockingly called a cabinet. The UN must also be sure that the sanctions imposed do not hurt the people of Zimbabwe. This is not their fault, and they should not have to suffer any further for Mugabe's despotic brutality.

Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa, ought to be ashamed of himself for the stance he has taken during this crisis. He has refused to criticize Mugabe, and has tacitly lent him support. That is unbelievable in the leader of a democratic state, as South Africa is. Letting Mugabe escape without criticism is unbelievable. Frankly, this type of "quiet diplomacy" is a crock.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 206

Dion Defends Carbon Tax

So yesterday the Liberals finally released some of the details of their carbon tax plan. The key to it is offsetting income and corporate tax cuts of $15 billion. Stephane Dion claims that the Liberal plan will be "good for the environment and good for the economy — good for the planet, good for the wallet." He also pledges that under his plan the Auditor General will examine the numbers every year to ensure that the tax remains revenue neutral.

This is ridiculous. A carbon tax must, in order to be effective, have an impact on the bottom line. By making the tax revenue neutral, that impact on the bottom line is eliminated for all but the poorest of the poor. The middle class will see something approaching neutrality, and the upper classes will actually get extra money from the tax cuts. The addition of corporate tax cuts to the package simply reinforces the fact that Dion's plan will accomplish nothing but a wealth transfer from the poorest of the poor to the richest of the rich. Dion's plan is much more along the lines of from each according to his inability and to each according to his excess wealth. Dion is camouflaging a massive give away to the capitalist class as a measure to protect the environment.

Dion claims that his plan will price carbon in the first year at $10 per tonne, and rise to $40 per tonne by the fourth year. This is not nearly fast enough. The NDP's cap-and-trade plan will auction carbon quotas, with a floor price of $35/tonne in the first year. Dion further claims that the cost to the "average" home (without specifying what makes an average home) will be about $225-250 per year. That is a lot of money for some families, particularly those in the lowest tax brackets, even if that number accurately reflects the cost. There will also be many poor families living in rural areas who have to pay much higher added costs, for example struggling farm families who need to fuel their tractors.

The specific breakdown in the income tax cuts is as follows:

• Tax Bracket 1 (first $37 885 of taxable income) - 1.5% cut
• Tax Bracket 2 ($37 885 - 75 769) - 1% cut
• Tax Bracket 3 ($75 769 - $123 184) - 1% cut

It is totally counter to the spirit of a progressive taxation system to see tax bracket 3 get the same percentage cut as tax bracket 2. This is yet another step towards flattening the tax system.

The Liberal plan also does nothing to help Canadians make the switch to zero-carbon or low-carbon lifestyles. Because of "revenue neutrality" there are no additional funds to pay for beefed-up public transit, subsidies for the purchase of ultra-low emission vehicles, the development of green renewable energy generation or the retraining of workers in fields that will be adversely affected by any shift in consumer behaviour. Though I suppose that isn't really an issue, since this plan won't produce a shift in behaviour, since it won't negatively impact the bottom line for anyone but the poorest of the poor. And I'm pretty sure the Liberals don't want it to have much of an effect either. After all, they were in power for years after signing the Kyoto Protocol, and sat on their hands while emissions went up and up. Liberal green-washing is just as pathetically transparent as the green-washing the the oil companies are trying to do. I hope that Canadians have the sense to see through it. No, the Conservatives aren't any better, but they really aren't much worse at this point.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 215

Carbon tax vs. Cap-and-Trade vs. Do Nothing

As we move into the summer BBQ circuit/silly season in the world of Canadian politics, I thought I ought to take a gander at the proposals the main parties are making to control global climate change resulting from greenhouse gas emissions, and particularly carbon dioxide. I say control because there is a snowball's chance in Hell that we can stop it now. All we can hope to do is limit it to non-disastrous levels, say making sure that the oceans don't rise enough to submerge every island state in the world.

Since in this country it takes a proposal from the Liberals to get the media interested in anything, I will start with the Liberal position on the issue. They have decided that their approach to the problem is going to be a carbon tax, a la British Columbia or some of Europe's right-wing governments. This is a tax that the Conservatives have unhelpfully dubbed a "tax on everything." Typically inaccurate, but punchy. This tax is essentially targeted at the demand end of supply-demand teeter-totter, aiming to disincent carbon-intensive activities. This tax will increase the costs of goods ranging from home heating oil to motor vehicles to plastic wrap, in essence anything produced through CO2 intensive means, or putting out a substantial amount of carbon dioxide when used. The Liberals further say that their plan will be revenue neutral, that is the government will reduce other taxes, principally the income tax, to make up for the hit from the carbon tax. My experience growing up during the Mike Harris years in Ontario makes me automatically suspicious any time I hear the wwords "revenue neutral". After all, the amalgamation of Toronto was supposed to be revenue neutral, but the city is still trying to climb out of the massive hole created by amalgamation and downloading of social services.

The Liberal plan will jack up the price of many essentials for working class families, such as transportation and food (since food will cost more to transport). These same families will get very little back from an income tax cut, because they pay relatively little income tax to begin with. The supposed relief from the income tax cut will not even reach the poorest people, who don't earn sufficient money to pay income tax in the first place, but will take a ding in their already meager budgets from the costs added by the carbon tax. I can't support this plan because it is regressive, and will hurt the poorest and most vulnerable members of society, while passing on yet more money to the bourgeoisie.

Next, there is the NDP plan. The NDP calls for the creation of a cap-and-trade system, in which hard targets will be imposed, and companies doing better than their carbon quota will be able to sell their excess to companies exceeding their quota. This is the plan used by the European Union as a whole, as well as a number of other states party to the Kyoto Protocol. The levels of CO2 allowed would be reduced year by year, bringing emissions down. This plan is focused on the supply end of the supply-demand teeter-totter, aiming to disincent the production of carbon intensive products by companies and the development of new green technology. Further, the plan sells a company their quota of carbon dioxide for the year, bringing in about $2.5 billion per year according to NDP estimates. This money would then be put into a fund to develop green energy sources, worker retraining (to adjust to changes in the economy in the transition to post-carbon) and public transit.

This plan strikes me as much better, because it puts the burden on industry and business first, rather than setting the whole weight of the burden on the consumer. It also acknowledges that government action beyond fiscal policy levers is going to be needed in order to cope with the problem. I am not crazy about emissions trading, but to simply go straight to cap and no-trade would simply never get enacted. There will still be an increased burden on the poor, but there won't be a transfer of wealth to the capitalist class, and there will be measures to help ameliorate that burden, like expanding public transit to provide an alternative to private vehicles. This plan also wouldn't impose an extra cost on home heating, which is important in a cold country like Canada.

And then we have the Conservative plan, which calls for intensity targets and that's it. Blech. There is nothing good to say about this way of addressing the problem. An intensity target of a 25% cut means nothing if activity increases by that same 25%, and it means worse than nothing if activity grows more than that. For example, the government might tell the oil patch that it has to reduce carbon-per-barrel of oil by 25%, but production is expanding by well more than 25%, which means that not only will emissions not decrease, they will actually increase. The Conservative do-nothing plan has been rightly denounced as a fraud by every environmentalist from Al Gore and David Suzuki on down. This plan is merely a smokescreen to make a government that doesn't believe the science of global climate change look like it is doing something.

Hopefully Canada can have a meaningful discussion on this subject, but the Conservatives seem dead set on doing everything they can to prevent that, starting with their idiotic attack ads on the Liberal's "tax on everything." The CPC can't have much respect for Canadians, and they have proven that they have no interest in governing in the public interest, simply in their own interest. Here's hoping Canadians see sense, the Liberals grow a spine, and we have an election when the House comes back in the fall.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 217

Murder of de Menezes Back in the Headlines

The murder of Jean Charles de Menezes, a Brazilian electrician, by member's of London's Metropolitan Police in July 2005 in a Tube station, is back in the headlines as the inquest into the event is finally getting under way. That's right, the inquest is getting started three years after Mr. de Menezes was killed.

The police story at the time was that Mr. de Menezes resembled one of the fugitive terrorists from the then-recent July 11 bombings on the London transit system, was wearing bulky clothing and had jumped a turnstile, leading them to believe that he was about to detonate a suicide bomb. The bulky clothing story and the turnstile jumping have since been thoroughly debunked. Once again, the police lied about the circumstances of killing. As for resembling the missing bomber, de Menezes was Brazilian. About the only thing he had in common with the bomber was that he was brown-skinned. And that tells us a lot. Either members of some of the most elite squads of the Metropolitan Police are unable to tell brown-skinned people apart, or they were just out to shoot a brown man that day. While the first is disturbing, the second is absolutely appalling.

The Metropolitan Police as a corporate body has been convicted at trial of endangering the health and safety of Mr. de Menezes. What the inquest will determine is whether or not Mr. de Menezes was unlawfully killed. I don't see how the coroner's jury could possibly conclude otherwise. Mr. de Menezes was killed because he was brown, no other reason. What other possible reason could the police advance, given that their previous story has been completely debunked? Even if Mr. de Menezes did resemble a missing suspect, that is simply not grounds to shoot him. It might, if you stretch things, be reasonable and probable grounds for a short-term detention (i.e. an hour or two) to determine his identity, but these officers decided to shoot first and then try to avoid questions. If the jury comes back with the right verdict, these officers must face trial for second-degree murder.

Sadly, this case is just another demonstration of the need for fundamental reform in the way that society polices itself. The institutions of the police are too hopelessly racist, sexist and homophobic to deserve the trust of any marginalized groups in society, and are especially dangerous to any person that fits more than one of those bills. Civilians must have full and complete control of the police. The public must remember that the police serve us, not the other way around. We live in nominal democracies, and democracy gives us the tools to make a change, if enough people band together to demand that change. As Margaret Mead wrote, we must never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, people can change the world. And if even a small group can change the world given time, imagine how fast the people, united, could change it.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 218

Sanity Makes a Comeback in the American Legal System

Carl Schurz had the idea right when he said "If you want to be free, there is but one way; it is to guarantee an equally full measure of liberty to all your neighbors. There is no other." Today the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) recognized that and restored habeas corpus to the American legal system, by ruling that the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their imprisonment through the federal courts. After seven years, it is about damn time.

The right to challenge one's detention is a fundamental right in any society that is functionally democratic. Habeas corpus is the fundamental building block of a system of due process. No government has the right to hold anyone, without charge and without a chance to confront the evidence against them. The United States is on shaky enough ground about being considered a democracy, what with the rampant militarism, the outrageous xenophobia and so on, not to mention the two stolen elections and the limitation of electoral choice to effectively the blue and red wings of the Party of the Wealthy.

While this ruling by the SCOTUS is important, a note of concern should be that the ruling was a 5-4 split decision. I would expect two votes in favour of stripping away a person's legal rights, from Antonin Scalia and his hand-puppet Clarence Thomas, but also joining in the dissent were Chief Justice of the United States Roberts, and Samuel Alito. The fact that all four of them thought that the rule of law was not worth protecting shows clearly that there is every danger of this decision being reversed after the next election, especially if McCain wins and gets to fill the next opening.

As a bit of a tangent, why is it that in the United States the right can get away with appointing dionsaurs to the bench, but the left is too lily-livered to appoint anyone who isn't a moderate to the Court? This is how the US wound up with a court that makes some outrageously bad decisions, and has a four-strong dissent in cases like this. At least in Canada the Liberals have sometimes appointed decent judges to the bench. Heck, Pierre Trudeau even appointed a few New Democrats (though not to the Supreme Court). When are the Democrats going to grow some spine, and appoint someone who might be on the left-wing of their party (which would still make them a centrist Liberal in Canada)? My guess is never.

Anyway, back to the main point, this is still good news. For seven years, the rule of law has been functionally suspended in the United States. This ruling doesn't bring it all back, but it is a good step in that direction. The next step is to get rid of the PATRIOT Act, that founding document of the security state.

The United Kingdom, by the way, continues to traipse merrily down the path to dictatorship by lengthening the period for which people can be held without charge to 42 days. That is absolutely unacceptable. That is six-weeks. A month and a half. And the police claim that they need this time to put together cases. Well guess what, shoddy investigation technique is no excuse for denying people basic civil liberties. Britain seriously needs a new Magna Carta, this time to set out the rights of the people as against their government. If this law is allowed to stand, the British courts are not doing their job. They have a responsibility as the third branch of government to check the excesses of the other two branches, and if they let this government, a mockery of the name Labour, go forward with this, they have abdicated their claim to their positions.

Canada can't yet crow on this front either. We have legislation allowing for people to be tried in star chambers without the right to instruct their lawyer, know the evidence against them or confront their accusers. Our government holds a number of people indefinitely without giving them a trial. As of now that power can't be used against citizens of Canada, but if the government gets used to exercising this power against non-citizens for long enough, it will decide that it also wants to use it against citizens. And then we will be at the end of democracy.

Governments serve their people, not the other way around. Governments across the west have begun to forget that. Let's remind them.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 221

Industry Canada Busted Trying to Censor Wikipedia

Michael Geist, a specialist in Internet law at the University of Ottawa Law School, brought to public attention on June 4th an effort by Industry Canada to buff up the Wikipedia entry on Industry Minister Jim Prentice. Their edits included ridiculous praise of Prentice and speculation that he is in good position to be the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. More important and insidious, they attempted to get rid of references to Conservative efforts to introduce a clone of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act from the United States. Fortunately, Mr. Geist tracked the IPs of the edits, and the Wikipedia community has restored the information that was deleted. This seems like a classic example of the Streisand Effect.

Do the Conservatives (and I say Conservatives because the only people with the motivation to do this are members of Prentice's political staff at Industry Canada) really think no one will notice when they pull this kind of stunt? There are tools on Wikipedia specifically to track who makes edits to avoid exactly this kind of situation. Did they not know this because Conservatives are Luddites (of the Marjorie "I Don't Use Facebook But I Think It's Dangerous" LeBreton variety)? Or did they think they could get away with it because they think we're all stupid? Either way, it isn't a good thing. Just another indication that this government has no respect for transparency or accountability, and that it lacks simple common sense (seriously, if you are going to do this, take your laptop to Starbucks which has a different IP address).

This government is undemocratic, anti-constitutional (since they plan to ignore the private member's bill on climate change passed on June 4), warmongering and tyrannical. And yet they continue to poll 30%+ support. What needs to happen for Canadians to wake up and smell the coffee? If Americans are waking up, and about ready to give their most egregious liberals the boot, why can we not do the same?

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 229

Obama Secures Democratic Party Nomination

Today Barack Obama secured the nomination of the Democratic Party for the Presidency of the United States. This is a historic moment, with the first black person to secure the nomination of one of the two major parties in the United States of America. Obama has broken barriers and brought hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of new voters into the process.

Obama also gave a phenomenal speech tonight. There is only one orator like him in any given generation, and he may be able to mobilize the country, if the Republicans aren't able to drag him down into the mud. His call to seize the moment was hair-raising, and driving.

Hilary Clinton was deeply ungracious tonight. The race is over. She needs to admit that, endorse Barack Obama, and work on unifying the Democratic Party. What is most important at this stage is that John McCain not be the next President of the United States. The world cannot stand another American President who will recklessly spread war around the world. The world cannot stand a trigger happy President who wants to bomb Iran. Obama doesn't have the best policy in the world, but at least Obama believes in diplomacy, and the world needs diplomacy.

Now, the run-up to November begins.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 231

International Treaty to Ban Cluster Bombs Agreed

Diplomats representing one hundred nations, meeting in Dublin, Ireland have agreed to a treaty that would ban the stockpiling or use of cluster bombs. These bombs maim and kill many innocent civilians, and scatter unexploded bomblets across war zones, that may detonate and destroy a life years after the bombs were dropped. Most recently, these bombs were deployed during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and see continuing use in the occupation of Afghanistan. These bombs are weapons of terror, just as much as land mines are. I congratulate these one hundred nations on making this agreement, a worth heir to the anti-land mine treaty of the 1990s. Hopefully, this treaty will reduce the number of civilians who are killed in wars. Of course what would be better is to prevent wars in the first place, but until that happens we have to settle for banning the most hideous weapons of war.

But not all countries that produce, stockpile and in some cases have used these weapons are onside. The most notable holdouts are China, Russia, Pakistan, India, Israel and (surprise!) the United States. Shame on them. They persist in creating a legacy of fear and death for the people of the countries they attack, or for the victims of the countries to whom they sell cluster bombs.

I sincerely hope that the Canadian government has signed onto this treaty, but knowing Harper's craven boot-licking attitude to the Bush administration, Canada probably opposed the deal, simply because the Americans said so. We need an election.

Days Remaining in Bush Presidency: 238