Tomorrow's Yesteryear

Where was I?

It’s been a mere 499 days since last I visited this space. Jesus and Mohammed clocked in at a mere 40 days away from the world before emerging refreshed and raring to take it on (actually, in their case, take it over). Pikers.

Just so there’s an entry for 2010:

When last I wrote, I was bemoaning the unraveling of the Obama project south of the border. It would take another half-year before health care reform was passed, and the result was, unfortunately but perhaps inevitably, a Rube Goldberg device. (I earlier predicted it would be an abortion, but since it mostly doesn’t kick in for a couple of years, the judgment will have to wait.) There was some financial reform, but given the propensity of this president to cater to Wall Street (his closest economic advisers coming from the ranks of those whose criminally irresponsible speculation with others’ money led to the crash in 08, including Robert Rubin), it is difficult to feel hopeful that the same thing that brought on the current Great Recession will not blow up in our face again. Obama has done bugger all to address the pit in this pustule: those who destroyed the livelihoods and retirements of millions around the world have not only been restored to their pre-Crash selves with money from the very people they had just finished ruining, they have gone on since then to award themselves record bonuses in the thousands of millions.

As if this weren’t enough, after spending the mid-term campaign season drawing a line in the sand on the Bush tax cuts, Obama folded, handing those who could not possibly need it a several-hundred-billion dollar windfall that only pours vinegar onto fresh wounds. Incredibly, he joins Bush in the pantheon of those deserving to be honoured for their work with the overprivileged.

Having said that, Obama remains by far preferable to anybody from the Grotesque Old Plutocrats, with their collection of cranks and wankers. He has to be given credit for finally getting “don’t ask, don’t tell” repealed. And when you look upon the last days of this officially sanctioned anti-gay bigotry, and think of John McCain’s performance, you can not but be thankful that at the moment, it is Obama and not McCain who is entrusted with running the country.

McCain has shown himself unable, or rather, unwilling, to climb out of the vat of bile he has been swimming in since Obama whipped his ass by 10 million votes. Like that other GOP whore, Mitt Romney, who now pretends to rail against basically the same health care plan he himself implemented in Massa2shits, McCain has shown no hesitation in, as Sarah Palin would put it, refudiating everything he has pretended to stand for. Nothing so defines this shriveled erstwhile “maverick” in his political and personal decline than his tortured and petulant rearguard action to demonize gays in the military, this while his own wife campaigned to eliminate the bigotry fueling an epidemic of gay suicides. Following in the steps of that other one-time war hero Randy “Duke” Cunningham, McCain is further proof of the sad truth that military exploits do not automatically confer personal integrity. Public discourse can only get better once this cynical old poop, the man who brought you Sarah Palin, shuffles off the stage.

Would that it were otherwise, but here in the Great White North the political landscape is particularly barren at this juncture. Despite a succession of big events designed to boost his profile—the Olympics, the various summits—Harper has not been able to move the needle into majority territory, after 5 full years at the tiller. There will no doubt be an election this year, probably in the spring, and it will spell the end of either Harper or Ignatieff. If Harper were to win but still be unable to secure a majority, look for enough grumbling to surface that he will decide it’s not worth it for him to carry on, and will head for some soft corporate sinecure.

After all of 5 years, Harper finds himself with a gauzy legislative record. Unable to do anything of substance with his minority government, Harper and his Great Big Cabinet of Unsurpassed Tory Talent have been reduced to feeding bite-sized cubes of red meat to their hard core hyenas. On more than one occasion, it was reported that a Russian aircraft flew really close to Canadian airspace in the Arctic, but actually did not enter it. Gasps were audible all across the droolosphere as Tories took to their fainting couches. In the end, a little froth was stirred up, and all the little Vic Toews in Reformworld could go home and snort about how they gave it good to the Russkies. It also justifies spending up to $24 billion on new planes to counter this dread threat.

Lacking a majority, Harper has not been able to pursue a more vigorous, Repugnican agenda. As John Ibbitson recently noted in the Globe, the Tories are seen as adrift.

All of this should give some comfort to Michael Ignatieff and his Liberals, but they too seem to have hit a ceiling of 30% in support, which simply will not deliver them power unless in some kind of coalition with the NDP and the Bloc.

For whatever reason, the Liberals under Ignatieff have failed to light a fire, forced by circumstance not to force an election and thus effectively neutered in the House. This makes it difficult for the leader to affect a macho posture—remember “if you mess with me, I’ll mess with you til I’m done”? The spectacle last year of Iggy and Steve waving their dicks, each daring the other to trigger an election—en garde, varlet, sample my flesh blade!—was low-grade reality TV.

Anyway, it is a sad comment on the state of political leadership when the Liberal party can’t muster the mojo needed to take on a Tory leader who wears his tie to bed each night.

Ignatieff’s ascension to leadership was sold to many as the second coming of Trudeau: a heavyweight intellectual come to do his duty and give his country the gift of his leadership. Unfortunately, he has had all the impact of a 3 nanoton bomb.

Recent history provides a simple test of leadership and judgment, and that is the Iraq War. When Frat Boy Smirk embarked on his project to reshape the Middle East, it is helpful to remember that both Harper and Ignatieff supported this lunatic adventure, none more so than Harper, who was positively viagrified over the prospect of playing army in the sandbox with W. When Chretien nixed Canada’s participation in this right-wing circle jerk, Harperbot, with the laughable Stockwell “Wet Suit” Day in tow, waxed apoplectic about letting down a friend in need. They were joined by other solons who rushed in to bray about this historic mistake, in particular noted intellectuals Ralph Klein and chief Mike Harris fartcatcher Ernie Eves, reassuring Oedipus Tex that Canadians supported him even if their leaders didn’t, despite polls putting support for Chretien’s decision at 75%. A proud moment, to be sure.

As for Ignatieff, he signed on to Iraqapalooza at first, (the spectre of renovations to vast areas of the geopolitical map no doubt appealing to his intellect), even permitting himself to muse about circumstances where it would be okay to use torture, but had the menschitude to apologize for it later in the New York Times.

In any event, Harper can’t continue his smoke-and-mirrors government for much longer without finding a fight to pick, and Ignatieff can’t afford to be seen caving to Harper one more time, so expect to see Election Night in Canada sometime during the Cup playoffs.

Break out your vuvuzelas.

Free at Last

This is almost as deep into winter as you can get, and it feels like it. It was brass-monkey cold all last week, and the air has been thick with Bush's pathetic attempts to spin his place in history, a stupid man frantically trying to polish a turd. Many fatuous words were spoken about a library and a book from the Bushes—apparently Laura believes there's a lot we would pay $40 to find out from her. Frat Boy Smirk himself is said to be keen to sharpen his favourite crayon and give it a go. That would give him a two-book head start on filling up his new lie-berry. Presumably the new facility will feature stations where weary readers can go to have their reading calluses treated. Signs will hang from the ceiling reminding the various visiting Bush scholars: "REMEMBER: Lips together when reading."

One hopes for the day when Bush and Cheney will have their Pincohet moment, charged with war crimes and unable to travel for fear of being taken off the plane and sent to The Hague. The world showed it was serious when it hauled Milosevic and Karadzic (and soon, one hopes, Mladic) before the International Criminal Court. It should show no less zeal in seeking to add Bush and Cheney to this butchers' gallery. It would be worth paying to see W try to smirk and chuckle his way through a war crimes trial. He'd look good in orange.

Here in the Great White North, Prime Minister Doughboy gets a second chance to get it right with a budget next week. OpLeader Ignatieff makes noises that if it contains broad tax cuts, the Libs won't vote for it, and we're back to coalition time. However, Ignatieff never liked the coalition idea and will try to steer around it if he can. Harper may accommodate him, since he may realize that playing chicken this time around will see him in Stornaway post-haste. However, since he likes to campaign far more than govern, Harper may just decide to pull another adolescent stunt and force a crisis—election or coalition?—which would provide plenty of drama and keep everyone distracted from the world of hurt coming our way in the next several years. Harper may decide that now is not the time to be running things, since as the recession deepens, people will find out that at the end of the day, Sweater Boy, like his hero W, is really interested in rewarding his friends, and has no particular interest in, or talent for, running an economy for the benefit of everyone. Let's hope he takes financial wizard Patricia Croft's advice on how to weather the coming storm, delivered on TV on January 9: "batten down the hatchets."

Harper has decided his quest for a reformed Senate is doomed, as any first year poli sci student could have told him and Preston Manning back in the 90s, when this idea was trotted out as part of the sacred Reform canon. A quick look at the formula for amending the constitution (it basically requires unanimity from the provinces and federal government), not to mention memories of the great fun we all had the last time we tried doing it, could have saved the Reformistas a lot of grief. Then again, Reformers were never more happy than when angry and venting their own special brand of sour gas. In any event, Harper appointed 18 new warm bodies to the upper chamber, including media stars Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin, skier Nancy Green Raine and 15 other hacks, this while the House was prorogued. It might be argued that this is nothing more than facing political reality, and it is something he would rather not do if he had his druthers, but this can't be said of his decision to appoint a new Supreme Court justice without running it by a parliamentary committee, something he crowed about doing in 06. Apparently, Stevie doesn't think getting MPs' input on such appointments is worth it this time. Easy come, easy go. Back to Square One.

Still no word from the secret committee of anti-abortion MPs on how they intend to outlaw abortion without anyone finding out. Stay tuned. Or not.

Prince Harry, who distinguished himself a couple of years ago for showing up at a costume party dressed as a Nazi (perhaps in affectionate remembrance of his great-grand-uncle Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor, legendary bon vivant, Nazi sympathizer and likely traitor), has called a Pakistani member of his regiment "our little Paki friend," but we are told it is meant as a term of affection, as is, apparently, "raghead," another nickname he is fond of using. Harry comes by his racism honestly: daddy Charles affectionately refers to polo-playing friend Kuldip Dhillon as "Sooty", and Charles' daddy, notorious horse's ass Prince Philip, famously told British students in China they would end up "slitty-eyed" if they stayed there much longer. As for Harry, he continues in the tradition of other "spares" to the heirs, like Princess Anne, who must be kept occupied lest they open their mouths and Philip's genes kick in. If one prefers to treat things royal as a matter of animal husbandry, as is often done, Harry can soon be expected to get to work fashioning a suitable breeding arrangement, by way of marriage. His role as spare is not done, of course, until William suitably discharges himself of his responsibilities in this matter, with his own pair of spawn. And who knows? One need only look to the aforementioned Eddy8 to see the wisdom of having someone in the wings who can step in, someone who must share your blood, according to the rules, and, oh, by the way, definitely cannot be a Catholic.

Meanwhile, in the Unholy Land, Israel, having pulverized Gaza over the holidays, is getting out just in time before President Obama is inaugurated and has something to say about this latest murderous incursion. Sadly, it is hard not to see this as being as much about the upcoming Israeli election as anything else, as everyone trips all over themselves trying to out-Likud each other. Israel would like us all to see this as a one-off aimed at silencing Hamas rockets, with no reckoning being made of the effect of decades of Israeli occupation and colonization of Palestinian land, leaving the Palestinians something very much like the detestable Bantustans of apartheid-era South Africa. Media in this country and in the US have drunk the Israeli Kool-Aid; Israel is a fragile vulnerable country surrounded by fanatical mortal enemies, who need periodic doses of Israeli medicine to keep them in line. It is perfectly reasonable to kill 1000 or so Arabs every once in a while, just to show them.

I have come to the depressing belief that Israel and the Palestinians are doomed to a perpetual death-dance. Both are permanently traumatized populations who believe they can will their favoured reality into being. Do Tzipi, or the Ehuds, or Bibi really believe the claptrap they spout about how they will "topple" Hamas and replace it with a government more to their liking? What arrogance is it that looks upon the Palestinians as people allowed to elect only those who meet Israeli approval? As long as Israelis look upon their neighbours this way, there is no way forward.

The Gaza adventure exposes Israel as a country that wants not peace but only quiet. The biggest favour a President Obama could do for Israel is to tell them that they will not receive another red cent from the US until they immediately stop all settlements on Palestinian land, and submit a plan to dismantle the ones already there. If Israel is serious about long-term peace, they cannot pursue it while taking the land from under the Palestinians' feet.

Support for Israel on this side of the pond has sadly come down to support for the Likud view of never-ending violence and war, something dear to Netanyahu's heart. If, God forbid, he wins in February, Israel can look forward to more of the same, a debilitating prospect for anyone interested in her long-term security, but even more maddeningly, understandable in the short term, given Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran have made it a stated aim to see Israel wiped from the map. Welcome to Square One again. The future belongs to those with the rockets, guns and bombs.

I have been to The Beast, Tina Brown's answer to the HuffPost, and sampled some of Conrad Black's ageless prose. Actually, a while back, Black wrote a column in the Globe and Mail defending FDR from the revisionist claptrap of the right wing in the States to the effect that the New Deal actually made the Great Depression worse than it was. Black is always fun to read, and when he practises scholarship, he is at his best. It doesn't hurt that he writes coherently and in complete sentences, either. He seems to be unaware, though, of the ludicrous spectacle of him casting himself in the role of stalwart defender of the wrongfully convicted, something he has announced to the world from his cell through The Beast. Further outpourings from him on this subject are sure to be entertaining. We can look forward to five more years of his tireless work on behalf of those who have been shafted by the system, man.