Daniel Aldana Cohen

2010-05-09T21:59:00.001-04:00

I'm going to experiment with a change of scene AGAIN: Green Shoots, Red Soil, aldanacohen.wordpress.com.

New site

2010-02-06T15:58:00.001-05:00

I'm going to experiment with a change of scene: Brooklyn Barricade, brooklynbarricade.wordpress.com.

My sister and the so-called "food crisis"

2008-11-10T00:15:00.008-05:00

Look, clearly Madeleine knows her food. Just check out the witty blog she and her friends have: c is for kitchen. You'd never know she refused to eat anything coloured until she was 12. (Sorry M, but what one hand giveth...)

And now I've even used her hardened cynicism to open an article about the food crisis in the Nov/Dec Canadian Dimension magazine (a review essay about two great books, The Global Food Economy by Tony Weis, and--yup--Good Crop/Bad Crop by Devlin Kuyek) :

On the phone with my sister Madeleine recently, I told her I was doing some background research on the global food crisis. “Hunger’s never a crisis,” she said. And she was right. The more we learn about the roots of the latest spike in food prices, the more obvious it becomes that hunger is really a predictable feature of our agricultural system. At root, the question “How do we feed everyone?” is really the question “How should we grow our food?”

As it happens, two sharp and accessible Canadian books released in the last couple of years skilfully explain how we got into this mess, and how we can get out. Though it may be trendy for urban lefties to focus on urban agriculture and other small-scale projects that could change our relationship to food, these authors take a vital step back to consider the big, rural systems that actually produce most of the food we eat — and will keep doing so for the forseeable future.

[read on]

But seriously, urban trendies in tight jeans don't have it all wrong--some might just be too modest with scale. At least, this is the point I try to make at the end at the article. (Neither of the books actually mentions such creatures, but I rarely think about anyone else.)

Bolivia behind the headlines: precarious wonders of water

2008-10-12T22:33:00.006-04:00

Here's a link to a piece I did that recently went up at The Walrus web site. Via encounters w irrigators, a senator, an NGO director, a political organizer, etc etc, it traces the amazing story of an irrigation law that could change the lives of millions of Bolivians, in part by banning privatization and finally recognizing indigenous peoples' uses and customs. It's also a key step in Bolivians redefining our idea of water as a human right. Not bad, hey? And a small Canadian development agency--the International Development Research Centre--played a big role in making it happen. A final point about this law--it's the first ever, in Bolivia, that was drafted more or less from below.

Of course, it has problems too. The fiercest, most effective critics come from Bolivia's academic left. I think it's also important to remember, as violence threatens to consume Evo Morales' government, that behind the headlines, a whole host of initiatives like this one--historic and revolutionary changes affecting people's everyday lives but don't always get a ton of attention--are at risk. There's more than symbols at stake. All right--enough rambling. The link: Bolivia's Water Fight.

Also, now that I'm at NYU pursuing graduate studies in various complicated matters requiring a lot of analysis, who knows what will become of this delinquint faux blog. But I may do something w my coca diaries from semi-tropical Bolivia when it colds out here.

Social service charities getting the shaft

2008-05-15T14:11:00.002-04:00

My story on social service charities in THIS Magazine, called "Whose Burden?", is on newsstands this month, and also available online. It's about the way right wing governments (Conservative and Liberal) have caused us to rely on social service charities to keep a big chunk of Canadians alive and well, then undermined the very same charities with terribly designed policies. It's also about the way these social service charities, by virtue of being charities, have so far largely failed to resist this new regime. And, finally, it's about the potential for these organizations, after all the reflecting and renewing they've done over the past two decades, to help build a much more just and democratic society--if only the government would lift its obscene burden off their back, and if citizens rise up to demand a better deal. (Implausible as that might sound.)

Blogging Hot Docs

2008-04-21T18:40:00.003-04:00

Just a quick note. For the past few days and until the weekend, I've been and will continue blogging Hot Docs for THIS Magazine, Toronto's documentary film festival. Check out the action at blog.thismagazine.ca.

New Year's Resolution: Be The Change

2008-01-06T16:34:00.000-05:00

What do British imperialism and Leo Tolstoy have in common? Two things actually--Gandhi and armies in Asia. Intrigued? You should be.... 'Cause it's a little known fact that Tolstoy was Gandhi's major early influence, as detailed in my story below...

Sixty years ago this month, history's most famous pacifist was felled by an act of senseless violence. Just after 5 p.m. on January 30, a Hindu nationalist named Nathuram Godse shot Mahatma Gandhi three times in the chest. He died the following day.
Yet while Gandhi's life and message of non-violence are well known, a crucial chapter in his philosophy's genesis is largely forgotten. The story features the Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, includes a bridge from Russia to Canada, and begins nearly 20 years before Gandhi's birth with the Crimean War (1853-56).
In his early 20s, growing tired of his (apparently) dull life of gambling and whoring, Tolstoy went to visit his brother, an army officer stationed in Central Asia. Tolstoy signed up and joined in imperial forays against the local Muslim population of the Caucasus mountains. He then moved on to the Crimean War, where he fought with an artillery unit during the Siege of Sevastopol.
Already a budding writer, he penned thinly fictionalized dispatches called the "Sevastopol Sketches" for a monthly literary journal back in St. Petersburg. "They were a sensation," says Professor Donna Orwin, a Tolstoy specialist at the University of Toronto. "Everyone was desperate for news from the front and here comes this great writer out of the blue."
As the world's first embedded journalist, he could accurately describe an officer's simultaneous vanity and dread of death: "At the instant the shell or mortar reaches you, you invariably think it will kill you," he wrote. "But pride keeps you up, and no one notices the dagger that is digging into your heart."
Read on...

Maude Barlow, and us running out of water

2007-11-16T11:43:00.000-05:00

In this month's Walrus, my brief review of her latest book, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water. I met Barlow in Bolivia, where she was in meetings with Bolivian and Norwegian ministers to get work on the right to water going, as well as touring an incredibly poor village on the outskirts of El Alto, where the residents had no access to clean water. As blogged here.

GreenTOpia launch this Sunday

2007-11-05T22:44:00.000-05:00

Come out to the Gladstone on Sunday for a day-long launch of GreenTOpia: Toward a Sustainable Toronto (evening events later at Sneaky Dee's). Good times all around. David Wachsmuth and I have a piece in the book about greening our municipal tax code (very sexy) and of course there are many many other compelling arguments within.

From www.chbooks.com:

The party begins at the Gladstone Hotel at 2:00 p.m. The afternoon's events centre around two interactive panel discussions moderated by Misha Glouberman, featuring GreenTOpia contributors Eduardo Sousa, Wayne Reeves, Keith Stewart, Todd Irvine, Lorraine Johnson, Bert Archer, Catherine Naismith, John Lorinc and Graeme Stewart. Attendees are encouraged to bring their thoughts and ideas. And be sure to bring an item for the freecycle swap table. Bring something you no longer want, walk home with something you do!

Then, in the evening, make your way to Sneaky Dee's for musical performances. The Wavelength music series features a GreenTOpian lineup. Remember Toronto features the Toronto bands to today playing the best Toronto songs of all time.

GreenTOpia Book Launch
A This Is Not A Reading Series event

Afternoon panels and party
The Gladstone Hotel, 1214 Queen St. W.
Doors Open 2:00 pm
$5 cover, free with book purchase

Wavelength Music Series:
Remember Toronto: T.O. bands of today perform the best T.O. songs of all time
featuring The Two Koreas, The Blankket, the Hip-Hop Karaoke Crew, Etaoin Shrdlu with Jonny Dovercourt and many more!
WSneaky Dee's, 431 College St.
Doors Open 8:30 p.m.
pay what you can

Rambo's (blow)back

2007-10-02T10:45:00.001-04:00

Just finished shooting (pun clearly intended) on the border of Burma, Rambo is back in the news. Already, a trailer for his new movie has been up for a while. (Tagline--when you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing.) What I never knew until a friend mentioned it at a party, is that in Rambo III, he's fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan alongside the Mujahideen! Some choice dialogue, courtesy of IMDB:

Masoud, Afghan Mujahedeen Leader: Now you see how it is here. Somewhere in the war there's supposed to be honor. Where's the honor here? Where? Now, we're taking the survivors to the border. Are you coming?
Rambo: I'm going to the fort.
Masoud, Afghan Mujahedeen Leader: Have you not seen enough death? Go! Go while you can! This isn't your war.
Rambo: It is now.
Masoud, Afghan Mujahedeen Leader: So be it. You're a good friend.

..

Mousa: This is Afghanistan... Alexander the Great try to conquer this country... then Genghis Khan, then the British. Now Russia. But Afghan people fight hard, they never be defeated. Ancient enemy make prayer about these people... you wish to hear?
Rambo: Um-hum.
Mousa: Very good. It says, 'May God deliver us from the venom of the Cobra, teeth of the tiger, and the vengeance of the Afghan.' Understand what this means?
Rambo: That you guys don't take any shit?
Mousa: Yes... something like this.

Toronto homeless beaten, raped

2007-09-19T10:06:00.000-04:00

Today, the Toronto Star and CBC (and likely others) covered a health survey of Toronto's homeless population. The Star buried the detail below, and the 60-second CBC news report didn't mention it (reporting substance abuse rates instead). But it strikes me as a pretty shocking detail:

...and, in the past year, one in three [homeless people] has been beaten and one in five women has been raped.

Read on.

Losing my electoral virginity...

2007-09-17T17:44:00.000-04:00

...was a lot more confusing than I expected. (And the ballot box more claustrophobic.) I've written it up for your viewing pleasure; its 'form' is the bildungsoped, a new hybrid of the bildungsroman and the oped. (At last check, bildungsoped had not a single google hit--could be an original!)

Right... Anyway, the Walrus magazine article is about Ontario's looming--and crucial--referendum on electoral reform and is called "Blown Into Proportion." If the proposal for a proportional system--derived by a citizens' assembly--is passed, Canadian politics will be dramatically transformed.

The story begins,

They say you never forget your first time, but they usually don’t say why. For mine, not long ago, I had to climb a steep hill in the rain. I was a nervous eighteen-year-old university student living in Montreal. I entered the polling station, looked down, and felt nothing.

...

Imagine Ottawa’s metamorphosis: a small but strong Green Party; the Bloc Québécois cut almost in half ... the PMO reined in by Parliament; stable coalition governments. For much of the old guard, this would be a nightmare.

Read on.

..

In other news, I've finished my internship at The Walrus; I'm currently "writing" and also applying for various grants and programmes of higher education.

God save the King streetcar: My letter to my city councillor Gord Perks and the TTC chair Adam Giambrone

2007-04-11T21:29:00.000-04:00

Hi Gord and Adam,

I live on Springhurst, just east of Spencer, and every morning, between 8:30 and 9:45, I try to take the King streetcar to my work at a magazine's editorial offices downtown. When it's early, the service is sometimes okay, but even in the AM peak between 8:00 and 9:00 it is deeply painful. As it gets later in the morning, the service becomes truly abominable, and tears of frustration are my new morning coffee. I usually have had to wait over ten minutes for a car ('frequent service' appears to be an Orwellian label designed to infuriate further), as well as 15, 20, 25 even 30 minutes. Astoundingly, the longer delays almost always coincide with the coldest days. If you can believe it, when the temperature is minus 10 or below, I can expect to wait at least 15 minutes. One morning, when it was minus 20, I waited for 30 minutes, and then only because I walked form Spencer to Dufferin and chanced on a short-turning car. Probably 35 or 40 minutes for those who stayed at Spencer. I wonder on those mornings why the TTC doesn't just send an operator by with axe to chop off people's toes. It's not only a sign of incredible -- even humiliating -- disrespect to strand transit users in the biting cold like this, but an outrageous health hazard. The looks on the frozen faces around me drive daggers of ice into my heart. It only adds insult to injury that all the while, going West is an unending string of empty cars that vanish over the hill never to be seen again. I can't tell you how many people I've seen flag down cabs out of desperation, because I lost count.

People take this streetcar -- which is uniformly packed to the gills on the rare occasions it saunters by, be it at 8:30 or 10:15 -- because they have absolutely no choice. I plan to bike now, to avoid buying a $100 metropass (is there anything more scandalous than the fact it costs more to buy a metropass than to take the TTC twice a day on business days?), and people with more money than me would be idiots not to drive. For other reasons, I often take the Dufferin bus, which is not the model being pursued on a grand scale because it's less efficient, but my god is it a better line, one that actually comes, actually moves fast, and doesn't make me balder.

The TTC's biggest supporters should be its users. Yet I'm pretty confident that the people who ride the King car with the eyes of an underpaid funeral photographer every day -- and let's not even get into what it's like to ride home, squished in like cattle, after 8 hours or more of work, in something resembling an acid flashback only a thousand times more grim -- are the TTC's biggest victims. I cannot tell you how demoralizing it is to start the day staring west, begging every flash of white coming over the horizon to be the top of a streetcar, only for it to be a truck. And then, fifteen minutes later, when the cars arrive, as they often do, in clumps, and you have to let one or two go by, it is so frustrating you want to stab someone, or rather yourself, in the eyes, with crochet needles. And when you have to let a stuffed car go by, and there isn't even another one in sight, well, better not to use the words that spring to mind. Finally, when you are riding at the pace of a clinically depressed snail into the downtown, you're so consumed by rage that the day before is drained of every possibility of joy. Good morning to you, TTC.

I read Steve Munro's blog, and I was touched at Gord and Steve flattering each other on getting the Transit City project up and running. And yet the majority of streetcar users, those who don't live on Spadina, aren't going to make very good shock troops for your publicity campaigns. Service on each of College, Dundas, Queen and King is dismal, each in its own special way. I do of course 'support' the Transit City plan, which I think is a wonderful idea, just as I continue to 'support' the TTC. But as the King streetcar obliterates the emotional link between what I believe to be right and what I can bear to lift my finger to support, because in fact I loathe its everyday existence with every cell in my body, I find myself -- someone who is committed to social justice and sustainability, who has knocked on doors for progressive candidates -- a pretty pathetic champion of public transit. Put the faces of the King streetcar on your publicity materials, and Torontonians will fill the ballot box with tears.

Your plan to restrict parking on King in the summer of 2008 is literally 12 months too late. Dramatic steps need to be taken right away, before your momentum, dreams and daring evaporate. Of course, I'm not the specialist in rouse public support to implement public policy. I'm just a voter and a transit user who wants to kill himself every day on his way to work.

Regards,
Daniel

Pair of popular Polish pols who appeal to the proles at the polls

2007-04-08T17:36:00.000-04:00

I have another no-byline 'Worldbeater' (this section never has bylines; my first was about Michael Ignatieff) in the New Internationalist this month (the April issue), about Poland's leading men, Lech and Jaroslaw Kaczynski:

They're anti-gay and pro-Iraq War, fervent Catholics and free-market skeptics, they want to bring back the death penalty and ban abortion even for rape victims. They're the President and Prime Minister of Poland. And they're identical twins. Really.

The story won't be online for a while, so you'll have to pick the issue up on newsstands if you want to know more (without trolling the internet for hours and undermining print journalism). Also, the issue itself, with many stories about cotton, is excellent.

Here's a couple pre-power pics, child and adult.

TIME to chill out, eh?

2007-03-22T21:35:00.000-04:00

So the March 12 TIME Canada got a little over-enthusiastic in its canuckitiness, or a little paranoid of CRTC censors, or something...

What stands out? (Yeah, I kind of spoiled the search.)

See, the thing is, when I'm on the Dufferin bus, and not next to my calculator, even if I do vaguely know that an inch is about 2.54 cm, and that 180 cm is roughly six feet, what the fuck is 170 cm supposed to mean to me in two seconds or less? Or ever? Is it tall or short? How many centimetres is Stephen Harper anyway? What kind of a headline is that? How many Canadians would actually understand what this headline is saying? I didn't! And I'm young! (And patriotic enough to spell metre just so.) And how many Canadian magazines would print a howler like that? I'm guessing none. So there you have it.

(I checked, and yes, in the American TIME, it's written right; the deck isn't given, but it's there in paragraph four. Ps, my roommate thinks the vegan mention is weird too. He had veal tonight...)

Terrorist corporate violence -- literally

2007-03-19T22:47:00.000-04:00

Chiquita, which sells bananas and used to be called United Fruit Company (in the olden days when it helped overthrow Guatemala's democracy), just admitted to conspiring with Colombian terrorists (from the NYT wire):

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Banana company Chiquita Brands International admitted in federal court Monday that for years it paid Colombian terrorists to protect its most profitable banana-growing operation.

Read the full story. (The story equates leftist rebels with right-wing paramilitary groups, though it suggests the bulk of the payments went to the former.)

Enthusiasm in Advance

2007-03-12T00:23:00.000-04:00

So a copy of the book -- pictured right -- came in the mail last week. Pretty slick. And the orange is arresting. For lack of anything better to do about this, I'm posting our (surprisingly?) excellent blurbs. Get ready to get this book. Here it is at the publisher's page (it's Greystone Books) and with an old cover sketch at Amazon.

Maude Barlow, Council of Canadians:

"Filled with passion, insight, pain, celebration and hope, Notes from Canada's Young Activists is proof positive that social justice in Canada is in good hands."

Wade Davis, author of One River:

"These remarkable essays, so heartfelt and rooted in experience, are the poems of our children. Honour alone demands that we listen."

Velcrow Ripper, Genie-winning director of SacredSacred and upcoming documentary Fierce Light:

"A treasure trove of possibility, offering much-needed hope in this time of global crisis. A heart expanding must-read."

...

For the record, I didn't actually write any of the stories in the book, I was just the craft kid. So this isn't completely self-promoting and boasting. I don't want to pull a Paul Wells here.

More abuse!

2007-02-14T16:53:00.000-05:00

Given what happened yesterday -- see blog post below -- this is a little crazy. Today, a big loud knock on the door. I go downstairs and there's a teenage kid at the door, and another on the sidewalk:

Door Kid: "Hey, we wanna shovel your sidewalk."

Me: "How much do you want?"

Door Kid: "What do you think?"

Me: Pause. Thought. "I'll give you two bucks."

Sidewalk Kid: "Ten."

Me: "Look, I'm a writer. Two bucks."

Door kid: "Come on, five."

Me: "I'll give you two bucks. Look, the snow's really soft, it'll take you ten minutes, less."

Door Kid: "Give us four, two for each of us."

Me: Shrugging. "Sorry."

Sidewalk Kid: "Come on man, don't be a Jew!"

Me: "I am a Jew! You shouldn't talk like that!"

They laugh and walk away.

Welcome home (to Canada) -- my self-indulgent rant

2007-02-14T13:00:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, the mini-plane I was on from NY to Toronto landed at Pearson, which I've heard a number of times charges the highest landing fees in the world. Waited for thirty minutes for the good people at Pearson to connect a tube from the gate to the plane. So I was in a pretty surly mood. The guy who let me back in the country must have marked me for further inspection, as the final stop on my exit from the airport was the place where they rifle through your bags to make sure you're not cheating the government of a couple hundred bucks of sales tax by exceeding your $750 spending allowance abroad. Obviously not to keep you from bringing in drugs, or they would have dogs...

Anyway, the guy assigned to me was, I would guess, of Middle-Eastern or South-Asian background. He asked me if I bought anything while I was away, and I said no emphatically and angrily. As he opened my bag, the first thing he saw was a book with its bright price sticker right on the cover. Oops. He didn't say anything. I asked him why he was searching my bag. He answered he didn't have any obligation to tell me.

"Actually, yeah, you do have to tell me why you're searching my bag."

No, he emphasized, he didn't have to tell me. "If you don't want people to look in your bags, don't travel. Do you understand my point?"

I wasn't being outwardly hostile, just sarcastic and dismissive. Anyway, a little more along those lines, and then:

"What do you do?"

"I'm a journalist."

"Oh, like that guy who got his head cut off, Daniel Pearl?"

"Yeah, actually my ambition is also to have my head cut off."

Yada yada yada. He reassured me that no one was getting his head cut off. I almost asked him for his full name and badge number, but couldn't be bothered. It seemed obvious that he was trying to show this snotty little shit what it's like to get humiliated by airport handlers. For one thing, Daniel Pearl hasn't been in the news for quite a while -- most Canadians probably wouldn't even know who he is. Given that he was beheaded in Pakistan, and that the name rolled so easily off the guy's lips, I imagine he must have either been Pakistani in origin or simply had a really good grasp of post-9-11 current affairs. (Or just a huge fan of BHL?) I also imagine it was a comment directed at me being Jewish, though I can't remember whether or not he looked at my passport or just my customs card -- ie, I'm not sure whether or not he read my name. But if it wasn't an anti-Semitic comment, what a wildly unspecific yet aggressive thing to say to a journalist! Obviously I didn't mention that I was only half-Jewish, and the wrong half at that. (Or that I was only half a journalist, and the wrong half at that.)

(Odd coincidences: I've read half of 'Who Killed Daniel Pearl?', and liked it but sometimes you don't finish books. I lent it to my Pakistani-Canadian friend Fahd, whose last name is Hussein, and who's had it a lot worse than that (!) at the airport. An Iranian-French girl I dated a couple years ago told me I looked like Daniel Pearl, within about twenty-four hours of telling me I looked like Jerry Seinfeld.)

After that, the harassment became banal, devoid of geo-political/identity-politics significance. He took my Apple laptop out of my knapsack, and moved it around with his hands.

"When did you buy this?"

"About three months ago."

"Do you have a receipt?"

"No."

"What store?"

"I bought it online."

"You know, I could hold onto this until you come back here and show me a receipt. Most people never come back with a receipt. Can you see now why we go through people's bags?"

"Look," and here OJ Simpson dangerously surfaced from my subconscious, "even if I did buy it in New York, it would cost the Canadian government about a hundred bucks in sales taxes. Who cares? People are bringing into Canada hundreds of millions of dollars of products made by six-year-olds."

A little more back-and-forth, and I was out, all luggage safely in hand. I can imagine that if he identified as a potential Daniel Pearl someone more Jewish and less self-hating, he would have gotten himself into some trouble. You know, because the wonderful anti-racist Jewish groups use such incidents of suspicion and division (and maybe resentment and even hate?) to bring people together, right? Ha ha ha.

Fittingly

2007-02-12T15:38:00.000-05:00

Since I'm in New York visiting (about 18 hours left), I figured why go outside when I can have the superior experience of reading the New Yorker in a living room in New York? A story I read last night on Google's quest to scan all books eerily compliments Jonathan Lethem's brilliant 'collage' in this month's Harper's -- among many things a celebration of plagiarism as the motor of culture in all its forms.

Glued together, the two pieces raise the prospect something monstrous and tantalizing, of gotcha-plagiarism-hunting to a whole new level: using Google's inventory of all books -- and eventually, I imagine, magazines, then newspapers, then song lyrics, then flyers, etc -- plus perhaps another elegant algorithm or two to construct a plagiarism database, where anyone can see which revered singer/novelist/orator stole what from whom to create what.

What a democratic, leveling force! Finally, our most treasured wordsmiths subjected to the same humiliating cavity search as suspicious looking airplane travelers and hapless college kids.

iPosture

2007-02-10T16:14:00.000-05:00

I'm in Brooklyn, here until Tuesday, and it's making me think I should move here, join the Park Slope food co-op, and write my first book: My Life as a Man: A Memella. (A memella is a fusion of memoir and novella. Obviously.) Anyway, slouching through the park today in typical imitation of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, I came up with an idea that has unlimited business potential. The iPosture. It's some thing you put on your back or neck (the details aren't important) that's connected to your iPod. Whenever you slouch, or otherwise deviate from good posture (standing or sitting), the music stops. A perfect mix of carrot, stick, and late capitalist decadence. In my humble opinion. (For the record, I don't own an mp3 player of any kind.)

Proliferation of the Person

2007-02-05T12:24:00.000-05:00

I'm ramping up my experimental online presence, both because I think I should, and because I'm on partial vacation until I start interning at The Walrus on the fifteenth. (For example, tomorrow I'm going to NYC for a week.) I made a web site, separate from this blog, to be a kind of static resume: aldanacohen.googlepages.com. Feedback welcome.

Micro, meet Macro

2007-02-01T13:23:00.000-05:00

James Laxer on another brick in America's looming debt wall. (Granted, such a thing might not actually exist.)

Meanwhile, individual Americans haven't saved so little for themselves since the Great Depression.

Afer the Water Revolution

2007-01-23T17:53:00.000-05:00

A belated post of my article about Bolivians' struggles to deliver on the promises they made to themselves during two massive water revolutions in the past seven years. Hopefully, the story sheds some light on how much trouble the Evo Morales government is having meeting the needs of its constituents in the face of huge obstacles -- originating at home, and also abroad.

The privatization of Semapa was an intolerable insult. The Bechtel subsidiary got control of the municipality’s entire water system, including the city’s aquifer. Its contract contained a guaranteed profit margin of at least 15 per cent, indexed to US inflation rates. The company had intended to charge tariffs on all water consumed by everyone in Cochabamba—even if it came from neighbourhood wells built by consumer cooperatives whose construction was paid for by users and international aid. The subsidiary’s start-up capital was US$12,000—laughable, given that privatization had been sold as the only way to generate massive investments. During the few months the Bechtel subsidiary was in charge, water rates were hiked in inexplicable ways, with many users facing raises in the neighbourhood of 200 per cent.

Beyond the grotesque particulars of the Bechtel deal, the rate hikes exemplify the fundamental problem of privatization policy: it passes the cost of infrastructure expansion on to consumers who simply cannot afford it.

Read on.

Black Superman runs for office -- or a profile of Keith Sweeney, running against an incumbent in Ward 12

2006-10-26T10:25:00.000-04:00

Today's NOW Magazine has my profile of Ward 12 city council candidate Keith Sweeney, a guy who actually is a man of the people he's hoping to represent:

Sweeney lives with his younger brother in a basement flat off Jane and Lawrence where one wall is lined with pairs of his size-15 boots and basketball shoes, and Superman comic books, merchandize and posters set the tone.

"Growing up in a five-person family in a two-bedroom apartment makes me more sympathetic to what other people are going through," he says.

Click here for the rest.

Of course, the Sun finds a way to paint his pro-developer opponent Di Giorgio as a softie progressive in an article detailing Fantino's ouster. But we know better.

Le Monde is watching

2006-10-24T16:49:00.000-04:00

Le Canada veut abandonner le protocole de Kyoto en ménageant ses plus gros pollueurs

A entendre la ministre canadienne de l'environnement, Rona Ambrose, jeudi 19 octobre, on aurait pu croire en la volonté du gouvernement conservateur canadien, en place depuis février, de faire mieux que le protocole de Kyoto.

Mais son projet de loi sur la qualité de l'air, "pièce maîtresse" d'un nouveau plan vert, laisse plutôt un goût amer aux écologistes et aux partis d'opposition. Non seulement, affirment-ils à l'unisson, enterre-t-il Kyoto en balayant les engagements canadiens en matière de réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre (GES) (- 6 % d'ici à 2012 par rapport au niveau de 1990), mais encore ouvre-t-il grand la porte à une accélération des émissions (qui ont déjà augmenté de 32 %), pour ne pas freiner la croissance économique. Au banc des accusés : de grandes entreprises du secteur énergétique et deux provinces (Alberta et Ontario) responsables de 77 % des rejets.

Migrant carbon

2006-10-16T12:23:00.000-04:00

I'm doing background research for a story on migrant workers with my colleague Jeff Carolin right now, and yesterday we went to Branford to see a UFCW-funded support centre. Much of the food produced in Ontario is actually planted, picked, etc, by agricultural workers from Mexico and the Caribbean through the SAWP program. There are about 18,000 such workers in Canada, of whom about 16,000 work in Ontario. They fly in for several months a year and at the end of their work period are flown back home. Obviously, conditions are often pretty grim. What occurred to me just the other minute, though, is that the fact that they're flown in really changes the way we calculate how much carbon it 'costs' to produce local food. The 100-mile diet is based on the idea that locally-grown food requires less carbon to be transported here than from California, Spain, South Africa, or wherever else it might be grown. But to what extent does flying in the labour change the equation? Could it possibly even tip it to another preference? Surely, it mitigates the gains. When George Monbiot's book comes out tomorrow with plenty of figures, maybe I'll be inspired to actually do some of the math. But probably not.

oops

2006-10-01T23:06:00.000-04:00

So rabble.ca did end up publishing my NDP piece, though as careful readers will note, it's a slightly different version from the one below. Points for whoever can figure out which was the most recent edit.

Naive, idealistic young man delivers late, angry rant about Jack Layton and the NDP

2006-09-26T19:26:00.000-04:00

Their hands were red from clapping

In an episode of The West Wing, President Barlet’s chief of staff tells us in reverent tones that his boss ‘loves the podium, he sees it as a genuine opportunity to change minds.’ These days it’s pretty clear that Jack Layton has other plans for the podium.

On September 10, during a one-hour speech, Jack closed the NDP’s largest policy convention since 1987 by failing to refer a single time to the decisions of the party’s grassroots. He boasted about policies that he would be unrolling in the coming months, while saying nothing about the policies unrolled that weekend by delegates in the very hall where he now addressed them.

Not that this bothered anyone. Delegates showered him with over a dozen standing ovations during his speech after handing him a 92 per cent approval vote.

It shouldn’t be crazy to imagine that the leader of parliament’s smallest party, who now says he wants to win the next election, take the need for persuasion seriously. And yet the hour-long speech was a brazen attack on the art of politics. Jack’s sentences were short and vacuous, like a row of empty shot glasses.

Seeing him talk like this wasn’t just offensive, it was saddening: he reminded me of King Kong chained to the stage on Broadway. In fairness, when after scolding the Tories he turned his attention to the Liberal leadership race, he seemed a man transformed. The suffocating sanctimony—surely a symptom of boredom—vanished instantly and a mischievous, then beaming smile crept on to his face. He shredded Ignatieff and Rae before complimenting Dion’s integrity and intelligence, ‘and therefore [he’s] almost certain not to be elected leader of the Liberal Party.’ Moments later, the weight of his chains dragged him down again. If the delegates hadn’t been so busy standing, sitting, and standing again, all the while clapping furiously, they might have noticed and called the Humane Society.

Instead, we got a Harper-esque 5-point plan. Afghanistan, the green economy, looking after seniors, making life cheaper for working Canadians and all things children. This will be achieved, Jack tells us, ‘Carefully. Prudently. And one practical step at a time.’ Never mind the plan itself—meek and unfocussed—how a party at 16% in the polls will actually get this done is hard to imagine. Especially when you look at what’s missing.

Let’s play the Ven Diagram game. What’s the democratic reform that would automatically produce a dramatic jump in the NDP’s national presence, simply by virtue of fairer math? What has been, on and off, one of the NDP’s principal policy planks over the past several years? What has Jack called a top priority of NDP negotiations with other parties in a minority parliament? And what did Jack not mention a single time in his speech, never mind making it one of the NDP’s five priorities for the next election?

Proportional representation. It was a strange omission on the very weekend that a citizens’ assembly in Ontario was being inaugurated, an assembly whose sole purpose is to figure out whether we need to fix the province’s electoral system, and if so, how.

It was a strange omission at a convention where the message was broadcast loud and clear that the NDP has decided once and for all that it wants to be more than an opposition party and is ready to play for all the marbles. I can imagine three possibilities. First, the party leadership thinks it can win Canada like Bob Rae won Ontario, by sneaking up the middle in an unprecedented number of three-way races. This would only take a little over 30 per cent of the vote and a dump-truck-load of luck. Slightly stranger things have happened. Second, they don’t think they can win, and are only pretending to be serious about taking power. Third, what are these guys thinking?

This is the same brain trust that’s decided not to talk about economic policy, despite recent studies (TD Bank, StatsCan) showing that salaries for Canadian workers have barely budged in twenty-five years. That’s a long time and it’s a big problem. You might even say it’s by far the top issue for a party that boasts about ‘Putting Working People First’. (Ironically, Bob Rae also had zero economic ideas when he fluked into power in 1990.)

On a host of issues, the NDP is taking bizarre positions. The party will likely vote with the Conservatives on raising the age of consent from 14 to 16 (changing a 25-year-old law). They campaigned in favour of minimum sentences against the expert opinion of criminologists and the views of the party’s own base. And despite the Conservative win in the last election, they still seem intellectually and emotionally fixated on fighting the Liberals.

On his blog, jameslaxer.com, York University political scientist James Laxer identified the NDP’s ‘strategic dilemna’: How do you go after the Tories when this means voters, choosing the lesser evil, will flee to the Liberals? Hence their current strategy of going easy on Harper, weakly accusing him of being ‘wrong on the issues’, and focusing their attack on what they believe to be their real enemy, the Liberals. Since Laxer thinks—and he’s surely correct—that Harper is the most reactionary Prime Minister in Canadian history, it follows that the NDP’s current obligation is to show Canadians how reactionary and out of touch with their values Harper is, even if this wins them fewer seats than nibbling away at the Liberals. (If Gerard Kennedy, Rae or Dion wins the Liberal leadership, this will be an even greater dilemma.)

Laxer argues that ‘the NDP must earn the trust of Canadians over time that they will never shy away from speaking out on behalf of working people and the nation. That is the road to electing the first people’s government in Canadian history.’

Is Laxer right? It’s impossible to say. What I do know with certainty is that Jack, at least two years ago, agreed with him.

When he came to McGill University one cold winter day to speak to an auditorium overflowing with students, he delivered a long speech without notes. Its focus was poverty. I was in the audience and sceptical. But did he ever win me, and the rest of us, over. Smart, funny, genuine: exactly what you want from a politician but are afraid you’re never going to get. The equivalent of a giant ape destroying three T-Rexes to save a girl. He said that when Tommy Douglas stood up against the War Measures Act in 1970, he thought, ‘this is a guy who doesn’t want to win the next election’. But he was so impressed with Douglas’s eloquence and principled stance that he joined the NDP.

In Quebec City, though, it was the hollow man, the one those of us who usually see him on TV have gotten used to. Closing a policy convention by pretending it wasn’t a policy convention. Timid and rigid. Speaking in a lifeless, imitative language designed neither to offend nor interrupt the applause. Critics on the right accuse Jack of wanting to move Canada in the wrong direction—too far left, too anti-American, too downtown Toronto. On the left, it’s a distorted mirror: on too many issues, he’s too moderate. But both imply that Jack wants to move the party somewhere.

I’m pretty sure now that such attacks miss the point. The NDP leadership doesn’t have a clue what it wants. Jack’s admirable opposition to the Afghanistan mission—driven in fact by the party’s grassroots—only obscures this bigger problem. The NDP can’t be bold, specific or intellectually challenging if it’s got nothing to say. Taking Jack out of his message box would help, but it can’t be the solution because the message box is the symptom, not the sickness.

Superficially, the history of the American and Canadian neo-cons over the past quarter-century is the history of brilliant campaigning. (The classic example is the transformation of the obviously progressive ‘estate tax’ into the cringe-inducing ‘death tax’.) But at a deeper level it’s a story of intellectual daring, the formation of a semi-coherent, semi-revolutionary idea of what society should be, and developing a strategy to bring about radical changes to how we live our lives.

The federal NDP, meanwhile, has found itself playing a progressively duller, more defensive game that reminds you of 14-year-olds glumly trying to master the neutral zone trap. Their political ambition has been reduced to keeping the last crumbs of social democracy from being swept off the table. The federal NDP is Canada’s most conservative political party—their rhetoric the most tepid, their ideas the most inoffensive, their proposed policies the most backward-looking.

The party’s base, judging by its massive resolutions binder, is bursting with ideas, good and bad. At the very least, the role of the leadership is to chisel and compliment these, then give them shape, cohesion, and a magic gloss. The kind of architectural vision that takes just isn’t there.

The New Democratic Party is 45 years old and completely adrift. The name used to be a useful one because it could mean anything: it reflected just the kind of forward-looking openness that the NDP then represented. Today, it’s useful to the party’s leadership for the opposite reason. It works because it conceals—if only barely—that in 2006, the label New Democrat means nothing at all.

I met a bunch of brilliant, inspiring young people at the convention. Keith Sweeney, a 25-year-old running for Toronto city council in Ward 12, is one of them, a reason to believe in the future of this party. But most of the smart, young, dedicated Canadian activists I know didn’t come to Quebec City. It’s too bad. They missed the chance to network with people as extraordinary as them; two great speeches, by Jane Doe and Stephen Lewis; and one hell of a bender.

--

I should point out, on a slightly different note, that I thought the convention itself was extremely well organized (by Ira Dubinsky).

Maude Barlow in Bolivia

2006-09-11T02:43:00.000-04:00

Um, I haven't been on this blogger thing for so long, I can barely remember how to use it. I got back from Bolivia recently and have published my first article about something that happened there, a visit by Maude Barlow for a historic meeting. The story appeared in the Star a week ago Sunday, and begins like this:

Wearing bright sneakers and a long beige overcoat, her hair sprinkled with confetti, Canadian activist Maude Barlow is touring one of Bolivia's poorest communities.

At 4,300 metres altitude and flanked by rugged Andean peaks, Villa Solidaridad is home to 100 Indian families. Their cluster of adobe dwellings sits on the edge of El Alto, the sprawling city above La Paz, Bolivia's capital.

On Villa Solidaridad's northern side is a privately owned treatment plant that supplies water to El Alto and La Paz. A pipe from the plant spews waste water onto the villagers' side of a chain-link fence.

Until recently, the people of Villa Solidaridad did their laundry with this water and some children became deathly sick drinking it. The villagers had little choice, being among the 1.2 billion people in the world without access to clean water.

"When we bathed in the water, it burned our skin," says Carlos Ortiz Silva, the community's elected leader.

For the full story, click here.

It didn't fit in the published story, but I wanted to say that this is was an incredible event because the meeting I describe in the article--between Barlow, Bolivia's water minister and Norway's minister of Development Cooperation--could be the first step in the creation of a UN Convention declaring that water is a human right and must be delivered by not-for-profit public systems. This could be the first positive victory in the anti-globalization fight, by which I mean, the first time the movement has put up a public-sector alternative to the neo-liberal model and had it legalized at the highest international level.

The story in Bolivia, I think, adds another dimension of fascinating, because social movements there are helping create a new "public" model. When I left it was still unclear what this would look like. But in the coming years, in Cochabamba and La Paz-El Alto, it's certain that the social movements in the water fight will be creating public water utilities with a heavy amount of participatory social management, to a degree no one can yet anticipate. In this and other matters, Bolivians have explicitly rejected the old statist model that we're all occasionally so embarrassed to defend. And if South America's poorest country can do this while instigating a radical reform at the United Nations, well, that's pretty incredible.

On October 11, a more in-depth story (by yours truly) on what's happened to the water situation in Cochabamba since the infamous 2000 water war will appear in Corporate Knights' annual water issue.

Water, you know. It's the new black.

..

Also, vanity. Here's a picture of me talking to some of the villagers of Villa Solidaridad, and right to my left Oscar Olivera, an enormous prince of a man.

(photo by my friend Boris Rios)

Ignatieff: yet more noxious macho manliness

2006-05-24T14:00:00.000-04:00

Though I'm meant to be following Bolivian politics, I just can't seem to get away from Michael Ignatieff's awesome phallic rhetoric.

To wit, a quotation I just stumbled on from a two-week old story on Canada.com. From a section of the story where he's boasting that a number of federal MPs said they supported his leadership bid:

Ignatieff said snagging the support of MPs is "tremendously important."
"These are people who've been in the battlefields. These are people who've taken the incoming fire. These are people who believe I'll be a good guy in a fox hole. So I'm extremely pleased to have their support,'' he told reporters.

I mean, we all know that being elected as an MP is tought work, but is knocking on doors really as bad as getting trench foot?

Now, to prove this is more than just a random occurrence, here is more of his strange fascination with his warrior alter-eg, this time from the actual campaign trail, exerpted from a blog post I never posted:

At a fundraiser in Toronto called Meet Our Champion (for which he skipped the televised candidates debate for his Etobicoke-Lakeshore riding), he gave a speech replete with bizarrely macho quotes about winning back Quebec. These are reported in an article by the excellent Toronto Star reporter Linda Diebel, who somehow got in even though the media weren't invited.
As she paraphrased some of the remarks, to be clear I will quote straight from the article and put MI's words are in red:

Michael Ignatieff warned that Canada is facing a national unity crisis in which "we need troops, warriors and chieftains" ready for the political battle over Quebec.[...]"Young federalist Quebecers exist but they need a champion ... to give them the courage to speak," he said. In watching the English debates Monday night, he had seen in Martin "a man of tremendous, almost physical toughness. I have tremendous respect for his endurance... Everyone in this room needs to give this brave man full support."

It's all just too creepy. Why on earth is he talking about his puffed out, geriatric party leader's physical toughness and endurance? Why are young federalist leaders chomping for a frothing viking chieftain?

"Michael Ignatieff: Apostle of He-manitarianism" tries to puzzle some of it out, but some of the geopolitics are pretty dubious. I'll also point out that though I can't find the source, I'm positive he recently told a reporter to emphasize that he's not some intellectual flake, he's been shot at! (Alledgedly in Bosnia.)

I just think it's hard to tell whether Iggy is overcompensating for his obvious meterosexual image as a Harvard prof and BBC arts correspondent for strategic reasons, or whether he actually fantasizes about being one of those steel-nut seargents from Platoon or Full Metal Jacket.

Monbiot defends Morales, Bush says he's undemocratic

2006-05-23T12:28:00.000-04:00

Reuters reports Bush saying that democracy is eroding in Venezuela and Bolivia.

Meanwhile, Guardian journalist George Monbiot rips a hole into attacks on Morales for nationalizing oil:

So on the one hand you have a man (Morales) who has kept his promises by regaining control over the money from the hydrocarbon industry, in order to use it to help the poor. On the other you have a man (Derby, president of Chad) who has broken his promises by regaining control over the money from the hydrocarbon industry, in order to buy guns. The first man is vilified as irresponsible, childish and capricious. The second man is left to get on with it. Why? Well Deby’s actions don’t hurt the oil companies. Morales’s do. When Blair and Rice and the Times and all the other apologists for undemocratic power say “the people”, they mean the corporations. The reason they hate Morales is that when he says “the people” he means the people.

For this quote to really make sense, you have to read the whole article.

More gas: Spanish reaction, some American press with a quasi-rebuttal...and my hesitant optimism

2006-05-08T15:39:00.000-04:00

In an earlier post I wondered how grassroots Spanish socialists would react to their socialist government's own somewhat hostile reaction to Bolivia's gas moves. According to a story in leftwing Bolivian news web site Bolpress.com:

En una de las primeras reacciones de la sociedad civil española ante las actitudes del gobierno español, representantes de diversos colectivos y organizaciones se concentraron ayer viernes frente a la representación diplomática de Bolivia en Madrid, y entregaron una carta al embajador en la que expresan su apoyo y solidaridad con la nacionalización del petróleo y el gas en ese país.

(Roughly translated) In one of Spanish civil society's first reactions to the Spanish government's position, representatives of various collectives and organizations assembled on Friday in front of Bolivia's diplomatic station in Madrid and sent a letter to the embassador in which they expressed their support and solidarity with Bolivia's nationalisation of its oil and gas.

Meanwhile, the NYT has another story on Bolivia's nationalisation that, typically, refers to the idea that previous privatisation efforts have failed to bring prosperity to the country, but offers no evidence and fails to interview a single social movement leader. (I know I keep harping on this fact. It's key because Evo Morales and his political party MAS rose to power not on the strength of partisan tactics or strategy, but broad-based social movement activism, much of it in rejection of previous government gas policy.) Also, a decent piece from the Christian Science Monitor on Lula's difficult position balancing domestic politics and international left stuff.

As I and the Time story I link to in the previous post suggest, an 'expert' quoted by CSM thinks Chavez's influence on SA geopolitics may (now) be greater than Lula's:

"I think that Lula and Chávez have disputed the leadership role in South America and this was a defeat for Lula," says Rogerio Schmitt, a political analyst with the Tendencia consulting firm.

"That doesn't mean we are seeing an irreversible shift to the left. There won't be a domino effect, other countries won't take the same measures. I think the radical left won a battle but they have not won the war."

Also note said expert's implicit panic (despite his uncanny certainty about other countries' future actions) and reference to the 'radical left'--one that 'nationalizes' oil by hiking taxes and increasing its share in various other companies, typically from 48% to 51%. I suppose Cuba, on this scale, would be classified as radical-radical-radical-radical left.

Finally, check out Jim Shultz's cautious and thoughtful initial reaction to the announcement ("...as always with the complicated gas issue, 'the devil remains in the details'.") and then his raging reaction to unbalanced media coverage, including the commentary of typically moronic Thomas Friedman on CNN. More substantial analysis is promised on the Dem Centre blog. Meanwhile, Shultz, concludes:

Make what you will of the Bolivia decree this week but one thing is clear, the message. If it is under our ground it is ours and if foreign companies want a piece of the action they had better be prepared for real negotiations, not giveaways behind closed doors.

Also, on Saturday night, at a small meetings of ecologists, we got a pretty thorough rundown on the actual nationalization decree from a lawyer who knows his shit. The basic summary is that much of what's in the decree is actually restatement of old law, while other aspects are not exactly overspilling with legal legitimacy--in both cases, the decree is more than anything a political document. Nonetheless, the decree does represent substantial change, especially insofar as the government takes over the chain of production, marketing and sale, including setting the price of sale and amount to be extracted.

So, I think at this point, with the measures promised in this decree, if the gov't and YPFB--the state hydrocarbon company--do manage to get their shit together, there is the likelihood of pretty substantial positive change.

Time Magazine on the Money??!!

2006-05-05T18:16:00.000-04:00

In an article I found online, Time Magazine appears to have been reading my mind. (At least, that's my meglomaniac's interpretation...). Posted today, and responding to the four-leader summit that ended with a warm endorsement of Evo's 'nationalisation' plan (AP summary), the article suggests that Chavez's illusions of uniting the Latin American left may be becoming less bluster than reality:

As he walked into a Puerto Iguazu meeting on Thursday, Chavez remarked that Latin America has "been trying to integrate for 200 years in and [the U.S.] has been trying to break us up for 200 years." It was typical Chavez bluster. But if he can prove his mediator mettle this week, he could make it much harder for anyone to thwart his hemispheric ambitions in the coming years.

In less hysterical terms (I want to be clear that I'm not endorsing much of the 'content' of said article beyond the basic insight), Chavez seems to have succeeded in becoming the most important international statesman in South America. After all, Chavez had little to do with Bolivia's decision insofar as it buys no Bolivian gas and has no important investments in that industry. Yet within the week, Venezuela has promised to help Bolivia achieve energy sovereignty with money and expertise, and more importantly at least for now, Chavez arranged a meeting with the presidents that were affected and seems to have ensured that Morales's decision be respected. (In all fairness, I did read in an Argentine source at some point that it was Kirchner's efforts that made it work...) And they used to say Lula would be the S American point guy.

Couple interesting NYT stories

2006-05-04T18:14:00.000-04:00

From the Times, now recovered from the nasty surprise, one general update on the gas situation and another on reaction in Brazil to Lula's apparently soft reaction to nationalisation. Still zero reporting on reaction from Bolivia's social movements, though.

Meanwhile, a bunch of stories likely to come soon about the results of a four-way emergency summit today in Argentina featuring Chavez, Evo, Kirshner and Lula. Chavez has definitely leveraged himself into a regional power-broker now, and seems to be throwing his support behind Bolivia.

I wonder if Spanish socialists who believe in what their party's named after, or other left militants, will pressure their PM Zapatero to respect Bolivia's economic sovereignty and lay off on the threats. As someone pointed out to me today, Aren't 500 years of exploitation enough?

English-language overview of 'nationalization'

2006-05-03T18:46:00.000-04:00

Local (i.e., Cochabamba-based) Democracy Centre researcher Gretchen Gordon has written an excellent overview of the implications of Monday's announcement that Bolivia will 'nationalize' its gas industry for Upside Down World (which is also asking for funding help...). Excerpt:

...many see the government’s plan as the key to much needed economic development and as a means of recovering state sovereignty in a country that historically has been managed in the interests of foreign capital. “The recovery of the oil and gas resources is what Bolivia is counting on to be able to develop,” explains Roberto Delis, an YPFB employee participating in the refinery “takeover.” “Now those resources are going to be returned so that they serve Bolivia.”
--SNIP--
Many aspects of the decree, however, remain to be determined and its true impact will depend on the details of its implementation over the coming months.

Local media laugh
Today, on the cover of one local paper, Opinión, a blurb advertising in-depth coverage of the 'nationalization of gas' ended with a couple of bullet points, one of which read: 'Experts say it's not a nationalisation at all'. Obviously, the editors don't agree.

Mainstream papers caught with pants down

2006-05-02T14:36:00.000-04:00

Everyone was shocked by Evo Morales's announcement yesterday that Bolivia is 'nationalising' its gas industry. 'Nationalising' in quotes because in some cases the government will be taking over 51% of shares in various aspects of the industry, and in others raising taxes foreign companies must pay to 82% of revenues.

This was a gigantic surprise, a secret kept even from almost everyone in the government. There were no leaks. Note that this is the most important announcement out of Bolivia since Evo won election and the NYT story was filed from Rio de Janeiro, the Miami Herald story from Lima, and the Houston Chronicle story that ran in the Toronto Star from Bogota. Also note that all stories only quote experts opposed to the plan and that none quote social movement actors in Bolivia where, in fact, many on the hard left are deriding this as a false nationalization. This LA Times story is the most informative I've read in English so far, though it too fails to capture the reaction of the Boli social movement leaders or participants who have, in the past few years, made 'nationalization' almost an inevitability.

Here's a brief story from Prensa Latina in English with some details on the ramifications of the new law, and this page from Bolivian daily La Razon, if you look on the right, contains a wealth of reporting on the announcement, though in Spanish. I haven't yet come accross anything in depth and reasonably impartial in English, but will post if I do, and feel free to send something along.

Meanwhile, for background on the Boli gas situation in general, this Democracy Centre blog post gives a very brief overview and links to a solid, preliminary analysis of the situation up until recently. Also, for more general background on oil issues in general, also see this Dem Centre post.

You can also read about Spain's proudly socialist government discovery that it may have more in common with Christopher Colombus than Che Guevara as it moves to shield a Spanish oil company.

I'll be writing more about this later today or early tomorrow.

More Bolis

2006-04-15T19:04:00.001-04:00

Since last update, I have—believe it or not—met more Bolis, all thanks to the gravy train of goodwill left behind by Yuill Hebert when he was in Bolivia (he’s got an excellent essay in the book I’m still editing).

In El Alto lives Fabiola, who has a tiny, adorable baby, a friendly husband, and a job in a medical clinic. I went there to meet her and it was packed with people of all ages, including many adorable babies. The road to the centre from the Plaza 16 de Julio appeared to be a mean-spirited joke. Structurally, it was a boulevard, with a couple lanes on each side of a wide median, and sidewalks on each side too. There weren’t many people or cars about. The median’s surface was a sort of combo of packed dirt overtop something one level beneath proper paving. Right down the middle, at irregular intervals of ten to fifteen meters, small groups of indigenous people were clustered under a tarpaulin around a couple bags of potatoes or boxes of fruit. Running through the sidewalk were veins of stones you did your best to avoid walking on.

In the medical centre, one poster showed an indigenous woman in bowler hat and shawl holding her hand over her mouth and read, “If you cough for more than two weeks…you could have tuberculosis.” Grim. Another read, “Having a son when you’re an adolescent not only deprives of your freedom. It also deprives you of your dreams.”

Rocio had told me that when mothers here have tons of kids, it’s said that it’s a zampoña family. (Look at the picture (and visualize upside down); think of the kids in descending order of height; Margolis, this one's for you.)

Fabiola took me out to lunch for chicken, fries and plantain and we talked about her family and living in El Alto. It’s cold, but at even higher altitude than La Paz, the sun burns.

When I went back to the centre to meet her on Saturday for a night on the town, the joke was on me. Not only was I fabulously late, but the same dusty, abandoned boulevard couldn’t have been more lively. Now the median was almost overstuffed with vendors, sidewalk street food vendors crowded pedestrians onto the street where they dodged healthy traffic, and the chipper music form the plaza filtered the length of the two blocks down to the medical centre. It was a Saturday night and the people were out in force. Looking at my notebook, where I’d jotted down about El Alto, “vast, wind-swept, empty, no-frills” I felt like an idiot. Well, at least, an idiot redeemed.

After stopping in at a wedding and eating dinner (Fabiola’s husband is training to do layout in periodicals, which is hot), we went down to La Paz and ended up in a club-cum-bar that looked about like a rec hall filled with tables, plus colourful lights and a disco ball. Also, a man with a mic circulated, sometimes interviewing dancers, sometimes singing along. I was there with Fabiola, her husband Marcelo, her brother Franz, Franz’s best friend Rafael, and Rafael’s wife, whose name I’ve obviously forgotten, which is obviously very shameful.

We drank beer and danced. When dancing music came on, people would line up in two long rows and dance with the person en face. Luckily, Fabiola took me by the arm and implored a bunch of girls to dance with me (I’m sure my charm was enhanced by blushing and sweating), until one poor woman agreed. I think a three-legged dog would have done better than I did. But she graciously giggled and showed me the steps. Actually, she was clearly showing me things much more complicated than anyone else was doing. When the music changed and people sat down, she said she’d be right back and I never saw her again.

Meantime, I got to talking with Rafael. It turns out he’s a salesman who loves classic rock (more The Police than Zeppelin…) and used to be a DJ. Also, like the general crowd, he seemed to really like the outrageously sentimental, epic Latin pop that was playing for way too long. I tried to explain that in Canada, these sorts of songs are usually reserved for the end of the night, but this only won me curious, slightly angry looks. Next we discussed me being the first atheist he’d ever met, and his wife told me she also used to feel that way until, logically, she found Jesus Christ. But they were very respectful. I said I found adequate mystery and cause for faith in nature and art, but I’m not sure they were convinced. Then, just as a I was thinking Rafael was well-meaning but a bit of a philistine, he gave me a long, nuanced appraisal of Evo’s strengths and flaws, repeating something I’ve heard a lot recently to the effect that the president has arrived in office a bit unprepared, but everyone has to learn new things in life. And besides, the old system was so corrupt, MAS’s victory represented genuine and incredibly positive change.

I’m not quite sure what the transition was (something about the four elements) but we next moved on to Greek philosophy. Rafael’s favourite thinker is Heraclitus, and his favourite quote that you can’t step in the same river twice. This was a real bonding moment, since I feel the exact same way about Heraclitus and the river. But alas, the conversation couldn’t go on forever.

(You guessed it: Heraclitus)

Franz had come up to me and said, “Daniel, let’s dance. I’ve found two women.” This time was more successful, and I got to dance and talk with Patricia, a nurse from Oruro (in the south). I didn’t tell her she had the same name as my mum, because that was just too creepy, but I did find out she was a big Robbie Williams fan, which was frankly also a bit much. Yet again, I had to keep my feelings about sentimental pop mostly to myself. (I have to admit, I did have a Robbie Williams CD once, but it was stolen on 9-11…) Otherwise she was very friendly and seemed like she’d be a very good nurse.

I also met in El Alto, in between the two Fabiola excursions, the cynical, very well-informed Khantuta. I believe, based on something I stumbled on in ‘Open Veins’, but haven’t yet confirmed, that she’s named after the imperial Inca flower. Granted, this additional insight doesn’t shed any light on her personality or ideas. (It seems like Yuill has a disproportionate number of attractive female friends—some I haven’t yet met. Fabiola agreed with me that a good book could be called ‘Las amigas de Yuill’.)

Khantuta took me on a revealing tour of El Alto, from Ciudad Satelite (sp?), the middle-class enclave of El Alto where she grew up, into much more destitute parts of the city. Apparently, the real money is around Plaza 16 de Julio, where the indigenous bourgeoisie lives in outward modesty (except for some really big parties). Some of the streets of El Alto were a bit like country roads, long strips of cobble-stone with walls on either side broken up by the occasional front-door. The commercial downtown, in contrast, was completely frenzied and chaotic. I’ve read descriptions of El Alto as a shanty-city but I think the term gives you a pretty poor idea of what El Alto is like. Taking the train from Paris to the airport you see buildings in far worse shape than much of El Alto. Some of El Alto’s houses are built on wildly dangerous slopes and will collapse after a fixed number of storms, or when their structural flaws cause them to simply give out. (The inhabitants of houses build many of these homes, not anyone you would liken to a building professional.) Yet many, many parts of El Alto, if extremely poor, are not cardboard boxes covered in corrugated metal, but solid-ish brick structures. You couldn’t bulldoze El Alto out of existence. Though El Alto has certainly bulldozed its share of political leaders. (Lazy, groaner transition.)

Alongside the unions, Khantuta told me the most powerful group in El Alto was FEJUVE, a sort of city-wide neighbourhood collective that elected members from every small community into a leadership that has had an incredible ability to mobilize El Alto citizens. When a Suez subsidiary was charging over USD$100 for the installation of running water in a house, the city went up in arms. Khantuta also told me that no one gets out of the FEJUVE leadership without being corrupted. And the current water minister, as I wrote above, the former head of FEJUVE, seems to be no exception. I haven’t found anyone in Bolivia yet who thinks he’s doing a good job.

I think I’d better stop here, before you start using this blog as a cure for insomnia . I’m now in Cochabamba, where I’ve so far witnessed Semana Santa and eaten BBQ’ed beef heart.

BBC interview, medica

2006-04-06T21:57:00.000-04:00

A solid BBC interview with Morales written up by the news guy, Paul Mason, on his blog.

Today a Cuban medico-administrator took me on a tour of a couple very rural medical centres where Cuban doctors are providing free care in communities that have never seen doctors. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to interview any patients. (It turns out they don't spend a lot of time in the centres, as they aren't used to having doctors around; the doctors are generally going to them...) So I still need to do some more on-the-ground research before hopefully talking with the ambassador, health minister, etc. I'm banking on finding more around Cocha--and some patients.

90% of the doctors are working in medical centres or medical posts, which are extremely small (a few rooms, a nurse, maybe some nursing students) and provide only primary care; this is also where they sleep. The medecine they bring is paid for by Cuba, which also pays them a food stipend. And of course, these doctors coordinate with the broader Mision Milagros (Miracle Mission) program, where Cuban doctors surgically remove cataracts, so that if someone with this problem is discovered in the middle of nowhere, s/he gets access to the free eye treatment in El Alto.

Outside a few public programs (universal care for pregnant mothers and young children), you have to pay to see the doctor in Bolivia. Unless, since early February, the doctor is Cuban. I'm told people really like that.

One tragic downside is that these poor Cubans are suffering in the cold. Though they put on a brave face.

Strikes and gutters

2006-04-04T23:11:00.000-04:00

Bankers (needlessly?) insist on being able to plunder Latin America according to their rules
Puts a dent in my plan to bus through Peru to Ecuador
School of the Americas wonders what to do with emptying lockers

Bits and pieces

2006-04-03T20:48:00.000-04:00

Meeting a peer

I went into the store to buy a guidebook to Bolivia, and ended up with a human being who was much more interesting (though let's be honest, the book will be the more useful as soon as I leave La Paz). As is my usual m.o., I take any opportunity I have to distinguish myself from an American tourist. So when I was paying for the book, I quickly established my credentials as a Canadian and a journalist. (I tried to explain freelance, but ended up conceding that I had neither a real job nor a real employer.) One of the saleswomen requested an interview, so I asked her if she thought Bolivia's closer ties with Cuba and Venezuela were dangerous. She said they were dangerous for the American embassy. A friendship was born.

Rocio is 23, Aymara, and is studying tourism. She's also, without knowing it, a daughter of the Enlightenment. She says she's been politically conscious since she developed the faculty of reason, says she has no religion because religions only cause wars, has a Japanese boyfriend, considers the Leninist and Maoist groups at her university irrational, and justifies being half an hour late for a rendez-vous by claiming that in Bolivia, it's only logical that 9:00 in fact mean 9:30. (I was persuaded, but wished I'd been apprised of this in advance.)

Thanks to a bizarre rental agreement I've never heard of outside Bolivia--I forget the name--she pays her landlady USD$1200, gets to live in the apartmentt for a year, and then moves out and gets the money back. Apparently this is a way for people who need to raise capital quickly to do so... And though it seems strange, I guess a tenant is better than a loan shark.

Rocio brought me to the biggest market ever, located in El Alto, a satellitete of La Paz spread across mountains to the north of the capital. You can buy everything there, from filthy, decapitated barbies to llama fetuses. (Actually, every description of Bolivian markets I've ever found in English lists llama fetuses, so this is more of a shout-out than anything else; really though, you can buy everything. As another woman told me, it defies the imaginationin. So I challenge you, imagine ten things you couldn't buy at this market, though they can't be too enormous, obviously.)

El Alto is also the scene of fabulous discontent, and has destroyed a number of presidents recently over water privatisationon and natural gas exports. The most recent head of La Paz's confederation of neighbourhoods, a key actor in the super-powerful social movement scene, is now Bolivia's Minister of Water. His replacement is already denouncing him for selling out. Tough crowd. (El Alto only became an official municipality 20 years ago, and has since grown to being bigger than La Paz, each around 850 000, though I've read higher numbers too, on the strength of rural Aymara migrants and miners unemployed by government privatizations and mine closures in the 1980s.)

Though she's a university student who, as she puts it, depends on the gringo dollar and gets nothing from the government, Rocio's a committed Morales supporter. She has little money, lots of class consciousness, and is a big fan of Eduardo Galeano. She pointed out that if you let yourself get depressed by all the horrible things you see in Bolivia, you would die. Also, she knows where to get good street food.

As I meet more people here, I expect to write shorter portraits. (Even so, I feel like I'm already giving away key parts of as-yet unwritten freelance masterpiecesces.)

Strange and unfortunate images

In my hotel room is a charming poster with an illustration of colonial looking buildings with a nice church, in a village setting. The buildings aren't actually colonial, though, they're original. It's a tourist poster for Andalusialucia, in the south of Spain.

In a restaurant where I recently sampled delicious-esque food very cheap, with only other Bolis in sight, there was a poster of the New York City skyline. Yes, you already know where I'm going with this. The only words on the poster were, 'Twin Towers, World Trade Centre, New York City'. I'm sure it wasn't meant as a provocation.

Of course, on the trufi from El Alto back down to La Paz, there was a big sticker on one of the windows that was a stylized image of Bin Laden's face. Same zeitgeist, different message.

Bourgeois lefty intellectual wet dream

This section, given the title, is bound to be disappointing, and I reserve the right to use the title again, should more appropriate circumstances warrant it.

Anyway, the other day I walked into 'Libreria Tercer Milenio', expecting to find the same new wave books as in most La Paz bookstores. (In a book store in Santa Cruz, there was a prominently displayedated copy of 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion', a less prominent but impressive stack of 'The Diary of Ann Frank' and about forty books about devilish church conspiracies. Also, lots of self-help guides and sex manual.)

I told the bookseller I was looking for a simple book about the recent history of Bolivian politics. He slapped a couple of books on the counter, a couple more, and then a couple more. I didn't know what to do. Two of them were histories of five hundred years of indigenous struggle and resistance. The man smiled shyly as I rifled through the books, trying to chose. Should I get 'Indigenous Geopolitics' or 'The Uprising of El Alto'? (Both featured similar photos on the cover.) In the end, I went with IG, which was perhaps a mistake as the book has more jargon than a fourth-year anthro course pack, and cites Foucault before the end of the first chapter. Well, it was in support of a good cause. I also picked up another academic book, and then, the biggest mistake, an illustrated Peruvian dictionary for kids, since hubris forbade me owning a Spanish-English dictionary anymore. (It's the worst dictionary ever. All definitions are circles of 2-3 words.)

When I came back a few days later to pick up a more general survey of the protest movements, and pointed to the book I wanted through the glass, he pulled it out, dropped it on the counter, gave me the same timid, goofy smile, and said, "Just that one?"

"Yes," I said, nodding sadly. He looked at me again. "Just the one?" "Yes, yes."

Two minutes later there was the exact same piles of books as the last time on the counter. I rifled through them again, but this time I determinedly insisted on just getting one. So he cleared off everything except the survey I'd already chosen and a modest, 250-page essay called "Rethinking Bolivia" that was pricier than the dictionary. I asked him if it was good, and he smiled guiltily and said yes. I got them both.

When I asked him if he read a lot, he just smiled sheepishly, so I added, "when you have a moment of spare time?" and he said yes.

I think it's the first time I've ever been in a banal revolutionary bookshop. By this I mean it wasn't run by a student co-operative, or filled with photocopied anarchist pamphlets, or otherwise self-consciously alternative. It didn't even occur to the guy to give me a right-wing book or boast that the ones he gave me were left. Pretty great.

Promises, promises

Soon, as I become informed, I will start blogging more specifically about the political situation here, and will add some Boli news and blog links, for the two of you who might be interested.

(Oh, and this is too rich. 'Blogging' and 'blog' aren't in the Blogger spellcheck.)

Turning the corner

2006-03-28T21:01:00.000-05:00

Armed with large bottles of water and long midday lie-downs, I'm fighting back against 12,000 feet of elevation. With crooked streets flanked by narrow sidewalks at steep inclines, and all the best stuff at the top of the hills, La Paz is fighitng back. Yesterday, the city won a phyrric victory. I managed to explore all manner of Aymara markets, penetrating deep into La Paz's indigenous commercial sector, but I was generally too dehydrated and disoriented to take advantage.

Sure, every time I saw the light filtering alluringly through the coloured awnings of another row of stalls, I clambered up, lost my breath, and inspected the stuffed animals, plastic toys, or strange animal parts that were on display. Yet I missed a million opportunities to rehydrate, failed to find myself a cup of coca tea (then foolishly purchased mate de cedron--whatever that means--from two charming-looking but apparently unconversatoinal young women and burnt my mouth because I could think of nothing to say), and forgot to buy one of the grandfather-style sweaters all the locals wear. I looked longingly into miniature cafes but didn't go in, inhibited by a combination of self-consciousness, shyness, and fear of the unknown. (Not sure why that whole paragraph is written in lists of three...)

It's true that I witnessed moments of true charm--four-year.old girls throwing way too much feed at pigeons in Plaza Murillo and then snuggling up to their mothers. The daughters would be in western dress--leggings, sweaters, etc--and the mothers in more tradional indigenous garb, poofy skirts, shawls and bowler hats. Many were enjoying jello and ice cream. Of course, the same mother-daughter combination appeared much more often, and with more pathos, on busy and not-so-busy streets, some begging, some with impressive stands of candybars and trinkets, and some selling as little as little bags of lemons.

Today, my sorties were shorter but better-organized. Recognizing that La Paz's forces, at least for the moment, were better mobilized than those of my body--which thinks I invented my past as an athlete in order to taunt it--I moved strategically. I'll spare you the details and me the typing, but for a few highlights. I managed to get lunch consisting of salad, a delicious giant bowl of soup (trying to separate a chunk of meet from its bone, I splashed generous quantities onto my shirt, so I'll be able to analyze the ingredients), a couple hot-dog-style sausages over a mound of mashed potatoes, and a piece of fruit in sweetish water, all for less than a dollar. The fact that coins here weigh less than poker chips also tells you something about the strength of the local currency. This evening, I managed my first impromtu chat with a local, the owner of a cafe/bar (I had cammomille tea and sponge cake) who gave me his thoughts on life in La Paz and his hopes and fears for the new government. I look forward to more of these chats, and understanding more than 50 per cent of what's said. When I mentioned I would be looking into the aftermath of the water wars in Cochabamba, he told me the recent floods had been a real tragedy. So today was an encouraging draw.

I leave you with a quotation from the Museo de la Coca, which not surprisingly comes out heavily pro-coca and anti-cocaine. (Cleverly in tune with current government policy.) On the effects of coca:

Y al igual que el orgásmo conseguido por la masturbación, nunca es suficiente y
pierde su verdadero sentido, el orgásmo químico de la cocaína sólo crea más
deseo y al mismo tiempo aísla y deprime al individuo cuando esté despierta de su
sueño de placer y éxito artifical.

Roughly translated, "And much like the orgasm that follows masturbation, it's never sufficient and loses its feeling, the chemical orgasm of cocaine only creates more desire while at the same time it depresses the individual when he awakes from his artificial dream of pleasure."

That was by far the museum's most devastating insight.

(I'm assuming you all already know that the coca leaf isn't satan-spawn.)

The Peace, Part I

2006-03-27T20:28:00.000-05:00

I'm liking La Paz a lot better than Caracas. Feel safe, people wearing sweaters, way fewer cars.

Also, though there is less Caribbean warmth, people seem more comfortable in their skin. Not a scientific observation, obviously.

Haven't seen any of the Evo sweaters yet, but have found the Che t-shirt sector. (Coincidentally, also where many of the tourists hang out.)

Bolivia, here I come

2006-03-26T12:38:00.000-05:00

Last night, a taxi picked me up at midnight (on reccomendation of the lady who picked up the phone) to take me to the airport . We drove on the provisional road to the airport (long story), which was so windy in some places the posted speed limit was 20 km/hr. Fortunately, my taxista knew an unposted rule that says if there aren´t a lot of cars and the turns are tight, it´s no problem driving in the oncoming traffic lane. When I smelled skunk through the window, I felt a strange burst of nostalgia for Toronto.

Obviously, the trip took half an hour, leaving me with a 4h30 wait before my flight (actually, more like 6h00 with the delay). Here´s a poem I wrote while I was waiting (internet café was closed; i used a pen, which felt strange):

simon bolívar airport
12:46 am
nothing open--nothing to eat or drink
i have a 5000 bs note
(worth about 2 US dollars)
no coins or smaller bills
the vending machines might as well be plastic pelicans
anyone i could ask for change
(i see one person from where i´m sitting, his head is on the table)
would be so depressed already
the mere sound of my voice
would cause him to burst into tears

solid plastic booth--
you´re so cold
i don´t blame you for being a soulless polymer
i have compassion for you
for my own sake
we´re in this together, booth
we´re reproducing a cliché
(itself a cliché idea)
i´m about as original as this table
thirsty, too.
the dry taste of my goodbye beer in my mouth--
it´s not so great

..

so there you have it, a tribute piece to my teenage angst.

anyway, now i´m in santa cruz, the city that narco-trafficking built (according to coca--in this case the name of my older sister--and my paperback guide to latin america); also the second biggest city in bolivia. i have a 10-hour layover and decided to check out the city. asking the bus driver whether he stopped at the plaza 14 de septiembre was a minor faux-pas (it´s actually the 24 de septiembre). anyway, it´s not a bustling metropolis. but it´s sunday, so no one´s judging.

..

later tonight i arrive in la paz, where i plan to spend a few days knowing nobody before heading to cochabamba. in theory, the next two months will be not only a cathartic but a journalistic journey as well. i´ll keep you posted on both. (yes, there will be much more blogging now.)

i promise to also try to drop this tone of western insouciance, obviously a symptom of my fear of earnestness and/or sincerity, and try to give you the straight goods on the revolutionary scene.

..

last night, i asked dave´s and my chavista waiter friend whether there was anything he wanted me to ask evo for him. he became embarassed and said no.

Problems with the World Social Forum (and Condi)

2006-02-19T16:38:00.000-05:00

It isn't a mystery. Simply read my article "Power to the Presidents" and you'll find out how the left's permanent "talk vs. action" debate matters to a WSF in danger of being eclipsed by Chavez et al.

In other news, Condoleeza Rice via Reuters has renewed her subscription to the Rich Irony Department of US Foreign Relations. According to Reuters,

The State Department says Chavez is using the nation's bountiful oil wealth to meddle in the affairs of neighboring countries, and has slammed him for boosting ties to U.S. foes like Cuba and Iran.

Not to be too obvious, but it's well known that the U.S. uses its bountiful oil wealth to meddle in the affairs of Latin American nations (see this story), sometimes even with help from Iran. And while un-named sources in the State Department have revealed to "Daniel Aldana in Venezuela" that Condi Rice does in fact smoke Cuban MonteCristo #4 cigars, I don't have the photos to prove it.

__________

UPDATE: Re the wild factionalism of the left, David Wachsmuth (sorry, no online presence) brings to my attention the Wikipedia page on anarchism, which has FOUR warning flags on it (you don't even get that on the Palestine page) and gets edited tens of times a day. You've really got to see it to beleive it.

Anarchism page

Wild "edits" page

"Civil discussion" page (Here you can scroll down to find a chart titled "Economic Theories of Selected Schools of Anarchism", with helpful colour-coding and a breakdown between the thriving schools of "Anarcho-communism", "Collectivist Anarchism", "Mutualist Anarchism" and "Anarcho-capitalism".)

Chavez camp, opposition demonstrate disturbing lack of originality

2006-02-11T17:01:00.000-05:00

It's about as easy to tell supporters and opponents of Hugo Chavez apart as to see the difference between a tree and an obelisk. Observe their rhetoric, though, and the two camps are like identical twins.

PRESS

Most of Venezuela's media is anti-Chavez. No surprise here: the press is largely owned by the old oligarchy, which is largely anti-Chavez. Yet there are Chavista outlets, too. Ultimas Noticias, for instance, is a tabloid-format, reasonably serious, populist paper that has a "We report, you decide" style and is sympathetic to Chavez. But ask a Chavez opponent what he or she thinks of the paper? Prensa amarilla--yellow press. Fair enough. And what do Chavez supporters think of the private TV and most dailies? That's right... Prensa amarilla--yellow press. Two sides, same colour.

DEMOCRACY

Chavez supporters claim that never before Chavez was Venezuela a real democracy--the poor masses had never meant anything to the country's leaders, they say. Now, they claim, the country finally has a president and a new constitution that respect's the people's "protagonistic" role in the country's politics. Their opponents, meanwhile, are taking money from the US government and are blatantly "anti-democratic." Chavez's opponents decry Hugo's concentration of power and accuse him of destroying Venezuelan democracy, which has existed for nearly 50 years. They accuse him of fixing elections, too. In a word, he is classically authoritarian and profoundly "anti-democratic."

HITLER

This is more of an international thing. Speaking at the Poliedro during the World Social Forum (see a few posts down), Chavez called President Bush, as he often does, Mr Danger, and said he was the world's biggest terrorist. As he did so, people, as they often did during the Forum, waved posters subtly depicting Bush as Hitler. Look at my photo:

Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld recently compared Chavez to Hitler--in retaliation?--saying:

“He’s a person who was elected legally — just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally — and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others.”

Neither comparison to Hitler holds much water, though a mano-a-mano election context is hardly flattering to Bush.

He's the one whose friendly Supreme Court handed him a false victory in Florida in 2000, when he also scored second in the national popular vote, and who's never won the support of over 54% of voters nationally, while Chavez hasn't scored below that number in two votes. Chavez and his supporters have won seven elections in seven years. (Opinion polls now place his support in the 70% range, though such numbers are virtually meaningless.) And anyway, the Nazi party never scored over 44% in elections, and their seizure of absolute power was hardly, as Rumsfeld claims, legal.

(Also note, Nobel Laureate and Commie hack Jimmy Carter has mused that the American electoral system is noteably worse than Venezuela's -- see for instance this Wash Post article.)

CONCLUSION

It seems the culture of PR, talking points, and general stupidity has infiltrated the Venezuelan political discourse. As a result, to mix a metaphor, the mudslinging around President Chavez is severely impoverished. Now that's bad for democracy.

Dignity is on the march

2006-02-05T23:06:00.000-05:00

Saturday Feb 4 was the Day of Dignity. It’s the anniversary of Hugo Chavez’s failed 1992 coup d’état, now referred to on propaganda posters as a “Bolivarian rebellion.” This is the date when Chavez supporters hold their annual celebrations.

As the coup was falling apart, Chavez was allowed to go on national TV to tell his troops to surrender peacefully. On the air, he said the movement had failed “por ahora”, or “for now”. The phrase caused a lot of talk then, and is now the slogan of the remembrance of the failed coup.

When I asked people at the enormous Chavista demonstration (the state claims two million attended; I would entirely unscientifically guess a little under one million) why they celebrated a failed coup instead of the countless elections Chavez had won, they said the coup was the moment that opened their eyes.

Whether or not that’s true or merely backward projection, it’s evidence of the profound disillusion with pre-Chavez Venezuelan democracy of the country’s masses. For years, the electoral politics had been dominated by two parites, Copei and Acción Democratica (AD), which were perceived as partners more than antagonists, and who did little for the country’s poor.

Many of the marchers on Saturday told me they had never voted or participated in politics until Chavez, and dated his entry onto the national scene as 1992.

After the coup, Chavez spent two years in jail. Beginning there and then, he began to plan his run for the presidency, though more through a loose coalition of allies than an effective political party. From the failed coup to his eventual electoral victories, he and his supporters saw the process as revolutionary, that is, in addition to bringing great change it has been focused on doing things outside the traditional institutions.

If you ask his supporters now if a revolution is indeed taking place, they usually say yes, and affirm that everything’s changing. (Unlike Chavez himself, a military man, who often talks of the glory of Venezuela’s armed forces and is now calling for a bigger army, I’ve never heard one of his supporters, even when giving homage to the failed coup, bring up the army as a standout element of the revolutionary process.)

Many of Chavez’s critics I’ve talked to see things reversed. They put a lot of emphasis on Chavez’s military background and authoritarian character, and as such see him as a dangerous enemy of democracy—he’s often accused of winning elections by cheating. Meanwhile, the significance of social change under his leadership is minimized. It’s argued that while he’s managed to do great damage to Venezuela’s economy and social fabric, it’s more often been at the service of a new ruling class rather than the poor, who are said to have benefited very little from the Bolivarian revolution—if such a thing could even be said to be taking place.

I’ll have a lot to say later about the different worlds—ideological and often economic— that Chavez’s supporters and antagonists seem to inhabit.

But for now, some pictures of the march (taken by yours truly; aesthetic defections can be attributed to the crude compression process necessary for blog viewing).

First, Juan Barreto, mayor of greater Caracas, mounted on a motorcycle. Note the helpful magnification. (Turns out motorcycle gangs play a big role in the Bolivarian Revolution.) (Also, I'd initially put the name of Freddy Bernal here, which was a mistkae. Bernal is the mayor of one part of Caracas.)

Next, just because he’s so happy, another dude on a motorcycle.

Here, proof that the Americans have got something right: no mass mobilization without, somewhere, cheerleaders shooting the shit.

Barrio-dwellers and ardent Chavistas Bolivar (left) and Roberto (right). Bolivar is fifty and says he’s been a revolutionary all his life.

Finally, Felix (right) with his nephew and brother-in-law. Felix is an administrator at the Venezuelan Open University whose eyes were opened in 1992. He’s an excellent communicator who chastised others for speaking to me too quickly. As we were waiting for Chavez to start speaking, he said that two million people (the official number) don’t come out for one man: the revolution is bigger than that. (Also, apologies for not getting a natural-looking photo of him. I must work on appearing to be a serious photo-journalist at the appropriate moment.)

Note, the opposition holds a rally every year on Feb. 4 as well, to commemorate the innocents who were killed in the coup attempt. (I couldn’t find an exact number, but was told the number is under one hundred victims.) This year, I’m told the march wasn’t too impressive, and that a much bigger crowd turned out two weeks ago before the World Social Forum. I certainly look forwarding to attending an opposition march to see what it’s like.

Chavez the orator: brilliant incoherence

2006-01-29T16:39:00.000-05:00

On Friday, under a geodesic dome half an hour outside Caracas, Hugo Chavez gave a one-hour, forty-five minute speech that made little sense and drew huge applause. The question that seemed most interesting to me at the time was, How is this not totalitarian?

Although the speech was slated to start at 7:00 pm, it would have been dangerous not to get there early. Some friends and I got into a cab just after 4:00. For a long time, we waited in our seats (picture a round stadium with a capacity of about fifteen thousand; it was never more than half full) for something to happen. Every now and then, some officials would run up the aisles with free fruit juice, sandwiches, posters of Chavez, or propaganda booklets. Although a cynic would have thought of bread and circuses, an organizer would be impressed by the command of logistics—you don’t want your cheering hordes to dehydrate before the show.

To warm us up, instead of trotting out hapless sub-ministers, the organizers brought out a number of bands: the “cultural revolution”. The choice was generally inspired, although it’s unclear why one folk band was dressed like a string quartet from the Titanic. The singers were, of course, politicized. In other words, they had talking points, ranging from “viva la revolución anti-imperialista” to “viva la unidad Latino-Americana.” Well, maybe not such a range.

The most energetic cheering contingent was obviously the Cubans. It’s not hard to guess why.

Finally, a little after 7:30, the man himself appeared at the centre of a long table of dignitaries placed at the head of centre stage. To their left, a man and woman spoke into a microphone to contextualize the Bolivarian Revolution for us. They ceremoniously intoned, one at a time, “The blood of our martyrs is still flowing in the veins of...” Followed the list of notables up on stage with Hugo, among them journalists Richard Gott and Ignacio Ramonet (obviously not from the school where those critical of power do not appear on stage with Presidents), Cuban politico Ricardo Alcarón (see “First Impressions”, below), and American super-mom Cindy Sheehan. Also, two indigenous leaders, both women, who helpfully sat on either side of Chavez—not, I’m sure, to deliberately frame him with two small, exotic women.

Before Chavez spoke, we also got to see him and the other dignitaries at his table hold hands for a Spanish rendition of the Internationale (Chavez, who smiled throughout, didn’t seem to know the words). There was, naturally, a group of young people holding up banners adorned with the logos of corporations who were routed in a mock battle by toy-machete-wielding activists whose banners read “No to GMOs”, “No to war”, etc. And of course, there were the costumed indigenous people who pranced around in front of the stage waving translucent fibres. All to set the mood.

It was in fact the incredibly kitsch nature of the spectacle, as well as its obvious lack of production values and order, that together were the greatest distinction between this event and the staged mass rallies of totalitarian governments.

And, it is true, Chavez’s rhetoric places a great emphasis on peace and diversity. Whatever might be said about the obvious cult of personality, the aesthetics of war and the rhetoric of combat were noteably absent. Chavez extorts struggle against poverty, but his insistence on respecting the diverse strains of his movement, be they indigenous or Christian socialisms, distinguishes him from the more dangerous megalomaniacs of recent years.

That doesn’t mean his speech was coherent. Much of the time, he seemed to stumble drunkenly from one talking point to the next. Early on, he was rambling along incoherently when Africa came up: “y Africa, pause, viva Africa! Viva Africa!” Followed lucid declarations about Africa’s place in the very soul of Latin Americans and its great potential, themselves followed by new bouts of random assertions, eventually landing by pure chance on a new chance for indignation, this time about the cynicism of the American empire, another time about the destructive nature of capitalism, yet another about the arrogance of the Latin American right—on the verge of suffering its worst defeat in “five-hundred-thousand years”.

Because of this pattern, it’s hard to say exactly what Chavez’s speech was about. It’s said that he’s a great communicator, and it is strangely fascinating to watch him speak endlessly off the cuff, frequently delivering rousing bits, but he didn’t exactly develop an argument, which I’m told is fairly typical.

This morning on Aló Presidente, his all-day TV show, in the middle of reading a long list of statistics demonstrating the triumphs of his health policy, he broke off suddenly, saying,

“Now, you may say Chavez, why are you always talking about numbers, about math? But numbers and math are important, they’re important to understand life. How tall are you? How much do you weigh? Uh, how much does your house cost? How big is it? Or even, what is the velocity of a vehicle? When you’re eating, it’s important, to know how many calories, how much protein. Numbers are important, math is important to understand life.”

He gets away with it, I think, because of his charm while he tells tangential anecdotes, and eloquence during his moments of lucidity. At least for a foreigner, a President unscripted, speaking at length off the cuff, is mesmerizing. It appears that his thoughts, while he’s speaking, are completely transparent. And who says you have to pay attention constantly? It’s easy to tune in and out without, any more than Chavez, losing the thread of the argument. Still, it’s obviously grating over time. As one of our taxi drivers said, “He does good things, but he talks way too much.”

The relationship between Chavez and the Social Forum is somewhat tense. The Forum released a statement on its web site insisting that while a great experiment is taking place in Venezuela, the forum’s presence is in no way an endorsement. Chavez recognized this in his speech, saying he didn’t care how the forum worked, before insisting that now was the time for action and that forum-goers needed to figure out their priorities and a plan for action.

Certainly, during seminars, I’ve witnessed sophisticated debates about the strengths and weaknesses of the Bolivarian revolution. But it’s also clear that the forum’s presence here is beneficial to Chavez. The Latin American left, a little like the hip hop scene, is all about guest appearances and connections. Evo Morales’ victory gives strength to all of Latin America’s left, just as he draws support from them. Chavez benefits from his association with the bottom-up world left through the forum, just as Castro basks in Chavez’s democratic glow and Chavez in Castro’s revolutionary credentials.

This kind of strength through networking is what the Forum is supposedly all about, except that in theory, it’s meant to reject the supremacy of state power. And indeed, judging from the individual seminars, there is clearly no danger of the Forum (at least on the global level) morphing into a powerful entity. More troubling is that there still seems to be no sense that the Forums are leading to the elaboration of something intermediate, that is, a strategy or common platform that is bigger than the constituent parts. It is thanks to this vacuum that in Venezuela, Chavez can steal the show.

Why the WSF works

2006-01-27T11:14:00.000-05:00

The streets of Caracas smell like petrol. Many resemble an open-face garage. The cars are generally in a state of functional disrepair, as are most of the roads and sidewalks. Every few blocks you’ll see vehicles being worked on, some raised on jacks with a man lying underneath, others with their hoods open and no one in sight. Yesterday, I wove around a driver who was washing his taxi on the edge of an intersection.

The etiquette of the road is equally improvisational. Crosswalks are where people start crossing, and are perfectly safe. Drivers do obey red lights, usually, during the day; hardly ever at night. The chaos doesn’t seem dangerous, though. I’ve only seen one near-accident and besides, in most cases, the damage of a fender bender would be invisible on most cars here.

The Social Forum’s indoor activities are in some ways an extension of this dynamic. Many scheduled seminars don’t take place. And when they do, you never know when, after an excruciatingly dull hour of yakking, a man will rise energetically to scream to the classroom about his father’s eviction and subsequent death, his own year of homelessness and learning to eat grass, the perversities of Venezuela’s property laws, and, after sitting down and rising again, declaring that anybody kicked out of his or her home will be his brother or sister.

You could call the unpredictable fluctuations of the Social Forum postmodern, but it may be more honest to use the word disorganized. Around one hundred thousand participants, thousands of NGOs, and more workshops than one could possibly even read about, all with the barest of centralized coordination—it’s inevitable that things be a little crazy.

Frankly, it’s a plus. Searching for one thing and ending up with another, by the strange universal rule of spontaneity, almost always produces a superior outcome.

Yesterday, I found myself in a seminar that was everything the didactic speeches of the previous night were not. Picture thirty adults in a small classroom squished into stiff, old wooden chairs with built-on mini-desks on their right-hand side. Up front were the two facilitators, one of them a highly dignified Bolivian community activist, Fernando Moya, who made the case for direct democracy. A partisan of Evo Morales, he was as good an explanation as any for the indigenous leader’s stunning victory. As a speaker, he was humble, passionate, clear and disciplined.

He moderated a discussion that was very much like what you’d find in a small high school or university class. Participants raised their hands to ask questions, make pointed comments, or go on tangential rants. This, I think, is the beauty of the Social Forum: the opportunity for a diverse group of people, in a small, manageable area, to engage in serious dialogue about all sorts of issues. That doesn’t mean it isn’t sometimes tedious, or the ideas occasionally ludicrous, but rather that at its most basic level, the WSF works.

Well, mostly. There is also, at times, the eerie silence of friendly lefties eager not to offend. As when, during the seminar on direct democracy, the other facilitator, a red-faced Venezuelan, distributed poorly made t-shirts with the picture of an international socialist leader on the front who’s name you’ll never guess. Go ahead, guess. Who do you think it is? Alright, you’ve probably already scrolled down. The answer is Muammar Ghaddafi (pictured below on front of shirt), with on the back of the t-shirt the assertion that ‘Another world is possible, through direct democracy’ (pictured below on back of shirt). For the record, I’m not the one wearing the offensive t-shirt.

Social Forum “nite life”, I should point out, is very cool. Last night, some friends and I went into the Cuba camp. We spent a good bit of time watching various Venezuelan and Cuban rappers at their political best. Rhyming about peace and brotherhood didn’t stop them from swigging rum on stage—a lesson we should all take to heart. Later on, we climbed a stairway in the concrete, modernist masterpiece that is Caracas’s downtown theatrical compound and found ourselves in a bar surrounded by ingenious salsa dancers as well as various more modest Social Forum goers who were content, after a long day of discussing how to change the world, to benignly sway their hips and shoulders.

First impressions of the Social Forum

2006-01-25T23:48:00.000-05:00

Today was the second day of the Caracas World Social Forum, and my first as a real participant—though I’m still far from feeling the warm tingle of international brotherhood.

The unofficial slogan of the Social Forum and Caracas these past couple days has been ‘Another Bureaucracy is Possible.’ Because of capital controls in Venezuela, it’s very hard to change US dollars into local currency, bolívars or b’s for short. One of the only places this can be done, el Capitolio, is famous for its pickpockets.

A shopping centre there is also where I went with my friend David to pick up a local cell phone; we’re each planning to live in Caracas for several months. The city’s shopping centres are three-dimensional mazes. Some are fancy, with décor resembling North-American malls—picture shininess and fluorescent lighting. Others are more modest, built out of concrete with merchandise occupying small cells. All forms of shopping mall have several floors, though stairways and escalators often skip a floor, with the obvious implications for finding your way. (Remember that scene from Labyrinth?)

The cell phone situation here is flexible. There are millions of mini-stores that sell parts of various sorts but not the phones themselves. In markets, you can easily buy pink or green plastic casing to liven up your machine, and day. And if you don’t have a cell handy, you can call a friend from tables to which phones from each company are chained. These are set up all around the city.

To actually buy a phone isn’t too complicated. Though travel guides explicitly warn you to never let someone go into a closed room with your credit card and passport, David and I did exactly that. We also provided several copies of our thumb and index finger prints. Oh, and a healthy slice of our lives. It only took about 1.5 hours to get in and out of the store.

For simpler, more ideologically appropriate shopping, head to any of the hubs of World Social Forum activity. Here you will be surrounded by Bolivarian kitsch. It seems that in Hugo Chavez, Che has finally met his match. I’ll be taking pictures of the wares on offer in the coming days. In the meantime, just imagine every kind of trinket you can in the Red, Blue and Gold colours of Venezuela. And if at all possible, adorned with the beaming mug of Comandante Chavez. T-shirts, rubber bracelets, knapsacks, buttons, key chains, bandannas, et cetera, all in massive quantities.

I haven’t seen any ‘normal’ Venezuelans partake in Bolivarian Kitsch, unless you count the odd faded T-shirt. But this doesn’t mean there’s a lack of Chavista sentiment in the city. When one hundred motorcyclists roar by you after sundown with their fists in the air shouting “Chavez!” you know the revolution has popular sex appeal.

I can’t possibly hope to speak representatively of the elemental particles of the social forum, the workshops. Each day, hundreds are held. It’s impossible to attend even a decent smattering. Today, for instance, I couldn’t attend a seminar in Portuguese on the revolutionary importance of Adorno and Benjamin, even though in my twisted mind nothing could be sexier.

I did, however, spend a couple hours in an auditorium where the perils of groupthink were on magnificent display. When divided societies open up, apparently, there’s often a process that occurs called “ethnic outbidding”, which refers to the tendency of the leaders of an ethnic group to compete with each other over who can be the most jingoistic. Tonight I witnessed leftwing ideological outbidding, which can also be found in most coffee shops.

A series of speakers, ostensibly on the topic of militarization, took turns emphasizing a) how far from invincible imperialism is, and b) just how much work it will take to overthrow imperialism. With each successive speaker, imperialism became more vulnerable, while the difficulty of overthrowing it grew ever more immense (and noble). One of the last speakers, an Argentine intellectual called Atilio Borón, thus indulged in Biblical regional solipsism, arguing that it was the fate of South America to be the location of the bloody Last Battle against imperialism. We’d better be ready.

He had little hope getting a rise out of the crowd, however, as the preceding speaker, the longstanding President of Cuba’s National Assembly Ricardo Alcarón (apparently, it’s difficult to dislodge incumbents in Cuba), received a standing ovation for his stirring call to never give up the struggle against tyranny. Because I think that Cuba, for all that it offers in alternative economic models, is still a dictatorship, I was in the minority who remained in our seats.

Not so the best speaker of the night, a feminist Quebecer, Michelle Asselin, of the Fédération des Femmes du Québec and Marche Mondiale des Femmes. Although she stood with the rest of the panellists to celebrate Cuban communist hypocrisy, and applauded a speaker who called on Latin American nations to prepare for peace by readying for war, she gave to my mind quite an intelligent speech.

She argued that fundamentally, global violence is an extension of societal violence against women, pointing to the fact that when war happens women and children suffer disproportionately. Around military bases rates of sexual assault and HIV infection rise, while in the long term the toxic leftovers of war poison women’s reproductive systems, while the social damage often leads to an upsurge of dangerous abortions. She characterized our current system as capitalist and patriarchal, saying it was not only misogynist but also racist and homophobic as well.

Having studied the intersection of gender and politically sanctioned violence myself, I think she was well-spoken and on the mark. She didn’t indulge in over-dramatic rhetoric. She also, judging form her reaction to her co-panellists, needs to work on her Spanish.

On the whole, I should point out that Venezuelans are extremely friendly. Yes, the taxi drivers here are constantly asking pedestrians for directions. But the overall hospitality is truly impressive. The Chavista biology professor who’s putting David and I up for the duration of the forum is a true revolutionary hero, as far as I’m concerned, while those who hate Chavez have also shown me the most incredible kindness.

Stay tuned for more on the Social Forum. Now that I’ve completed my basic administrative tasks, you can expect more on the forum events themselves, as well as the truth behind the Bolivarian Revolution.

10 questions for my local Marxist-Leninist candidate

2006-01-21T14:11:00.000-05:00

My sincere apologies to loyal readers (2 or 3 of you) who've been disapointed by my lack of writing these last few weeks. My excuse is a shabby one: I buried my head in the sand.

In closing, instead of an endorsement, a final query about the issues -- these being, apparently, famously important.

The fact is, I have been to two all-candidates debates in my riding (Trinity-Spadina) and the Marxist-Leninist party candidate, a Mr. Nick Lin, has each time spoken at length without referencing any Marxist or Leninist language at all. Shocking. He didn't even say, "What is to be done?" or "The worse things are, the better things are." Hello! Even their TV ad is bereft of theory. So to lift the veil of secrecy, I'm posting an open letter to my MLPC candidate to get some answers on where he really stands.

1. Orthodox Marxists and others insist, citing Marx, that the economic base wholly determines the shape and nature of the ideological superstructure. But revisionist neo-Marxists like Terry Eagleton claim that in fact the relationship between economics and culture is dynamic, and that each can influence the other. Where does the MLPC stand on the materialist theory of history?

Okay, the rest of my questions suck. But I have emailed this first question to the MLPC media person (no contacts listed for my individual candidate) and I will post any response I receive.

--

Otherwise, this is the long goodnight of This Is Not a Horse Race. It's been a wild ride. On Monday I'll be flying to Venezuela for the World Social Forum and then will be reporting and researching a book there and in Bolivia for the next year or so (as well as finishing another project I'm working on, an anthology of personal essays by young Canadian activists/leaders.) Accordingly, this space will get a new graphical treatment and a new title. Email any suggestions to aldana@danielaldana.net. Keep in mind, we're looking for something snappy, focused on South America's revolutionary fervour, but devoid of embarassing earnestness (i.e., not the "motorcycle blog" or "blogga la victoria siempre"...).

After this election, a change of pace will be good for you. So be sure to check back starting Tuesday for all you ever needed to read about the World Social Forum. Also, because I'll be travelling and likely quite lonely, I may write a little more personally than you've so far come to expect. You know, get to know my readers. But only a tad. Nothing mushy. Actually, never mind.

Moderator nearly won debate

2006-01-10T16:22:00.000-05:00

You can judge the nature of a political debate by the behaviour it induces in those who watch it. I’m about as proud of my behaviour last night as I am of my political leaders’ dreary rhetoric -- with the added insult that unlike me, they won’t be calling the Canadians they offended last night to beg forgiveness.

Someone during the debate should have pointed out that talking about national unity for a half-hour and the environment and climate change for no time was a dumb decision: a forward-looking democracy should focus on the future, not the past. Let’s focus less on keeping our political map united and more on keeping our landmass above water at sustainable temperatures! (Did you guess? I’m trying my hand at blog-bytes.)

And what about the rest of the world?! Jack Layton mentioned foreign aid once, and we heard plenty about the USA, but isn’t it strange to hear no more about any other place? Canadians donated unprecedented amounts to Tsunami victims and no Western democracy has a higher share of foreign-born residents than we do. And our international affairs are less important than provincial bickering?

It’s for these reasons that I insist last night’s debate was a draw. Had the lilac-tied moderator broached the poverty and potential of Africa OR climate change, I would have happily declared him the winner. (I'll point that I met a friend of the handsome moderator who begged him to point out that the biggest lump of discretionary spending in purely federal jurisdiction is foreign expenditures, over $5 billion worth spread through various departments. But alas, Mr. Moderator is just a pretty face: he claims he had no choice at over the questions.) He was certainly impressively nimble, despite the flat-top haircut.

Also, I should point out that I ought to eat at least a few of my words. My previous post argued that Jack couldn’t win the debate. Then today on CBC radio I hear the usually insight-allergic Keith Boag say that various mysterious opinion-trackers found that Layton alone among the leaders considerably exceeded the expectations of viewers -- though he was quick to point out that this didn’t mean that Jack actually won the debate or clearly improved his position.

I don’t dispute those findings. Jack was, in addition to being passionate and incisive, scripted and repetitive. But this was far more offensive to the minority who watched the whole debate (sadly, including myself) than to the majority tonly watched parts. It’s also plain that most reporters, while lamenting how Jack is tragically being squeezed out of view by the other leaders, curiously fail to note that unlike the democratic forum of a debate which gives leaders equal time, in the press (i.e., where the campaign mostly happens) it’s the self-same reporters who are doing the squeezing.

No one else is squeezing. Just you, Mr. Mainstream Media (MSM in bloggospeak). Squeezing away at the NDP orange, squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, then drinking the juice and wiping it off your chin, and looking up with a sad, sad face and going: “Oh, that poor orange, squeezed right out of the picture by some mysterious campaign force we’re all at pains to comprehend.” For a perfect example, see this report by Terry Milewski.

This point about the media essentially covering itself and claiming to cover the ‘campaign’ is one I’ve made before and on which Star blogger Antonia Zerbesias agrees.

I’ll also point out that because Jack insists on running on a patchwork quilt campaign (patches, really – we haven’t seen the quilt yet) of ‘doing better’ for Canadians, and on saying nothing more at all, he is forced to be very slippery when asked how he would react to various minority situations. This is dumb. Of all the leaders, Jack is the one whose campaign promises most closely reflect what he actually thinks and will actually try to do. He should capitalize on this happy coincidence -- as Duceppe more or less has on his own pretty honest pledges to be a dick -- by also being the most straightforward, least slippery of the politicians. Opportunity lost, Jack. Didn’t have to be that way. Squeeze.

Also, all the ranting about corporate tax cuts. Could be less simplistic. Just once in a while. To remind you actually have a PhD in globalization. It's okay to be thoughtful in public, right? That is, if anyone's paying attention. Squeeze!

Anyway, all this is a really a footnote next to the fact that Canada’s most conservative Liberal leader in ages and a very conservative Conservative leader are both campaigning like pink social democrats, a level of hypocrisy that should be declared a felony, with attendant minimum sentence and trial as an adult starting at age...two. It is absurd. But not new. Alas, we young ‘uns disillusion so easily.

Why Jack Layton can't win the leaders' debate

2006-01-09T02:09:00.000-05:00

This year, the NDP campaign message is a random assortment of pledges, united by the principle of “getting results for people”. Even in Canada, this is unforgivably dull. To use a silly metaphor, no matter how striking this year’s NDP flowers, they do not constitute a bouquet.

No distinctive vision unifies the NDP’s propositions. Their famous budget only spread money around -- there was no standout item. For instance, climate change, the one issue where they excel, affords them the chance to paint themselves as the party of the future, to consistently trumpet that they will not only retrofit Canadian homes but the whole Canadian economy, so that it’s more competitive in the global market and more rewarding to workers at home.

The only way to achieve short-term gains in electoral politics is to harvest the fruit (one more botanical metaphor) of long-term labour. Over time, you have to show Canadians that you represent something and when elections roll around, play to the strengths of your long-term message -- something the NDP is now completely failing to do.

The Liberals, by virtue mostly of coincidence, can consistently claim to be Canada’s only national party. In fact, it’s the most appealing thing about them.

The federal Conservatives, after years of civil war, are finally returning to what they were back when they won elections -- progressive conservatives. In other words, vaguely awful people who are nonetheless tolerable enough to hold power while the Liberals find a new leader. They’re proving this now by showing a basic grasp of policy and smiling.

Each party also benefits, as one of my friends pointed out, from having a basic ideological orientation embedded in its name. Not the NDP. Who, other than the party’s candidates, employees, and volunteers calls him or herself a New Democrat? What does that even mean?

What has the NDP since Ed Broadbent been building itself into? What kind of Canada has it been trying to build? In all this time, it seems the only thing the NDP has managed is to become, under Jack, a little more professional, a little more respectable, a little less scary.

The NDP has become the pragmatic, progressive party that stands for … various pragmatic, progressive things. Like public transit. Or, say, treating seniors with dignity. Opposing climate change, of course. And against Star Wars missile defence. And, you know, tough-but-not-too-tough on crime. Oh right, and the NDP stands for Canadian values.

Today, the NDP is awkwardly straddling the two functions of resistance and proposition like a camper straddles the canoe and the dock with a foot on each -- this camper always lands in the lake.

Let’s be more concrete. The NDP employs the electoral tactics of a loser, claiming to be trying this time to win. NDP insiders are convinced that if they attack the Conservatives, they’ll scare their own soft supporters into voting Liberal. So they only attack the Liberals. It’s like ordering tofu at a diner. Don’t all Canadians already agree that the Liberals are rather grim? Aren’t most Canadians (especially progressive ones) deep down afraid of one thing only -- Stephen Harper, and desperate for a genuine alternative?

Sometimes the NDP tries to attack the Conservatives, but it’s painfully forced. Don’t want to show how scary they are. Layton’s consistent zinger on the Conservatives is to attack their policies as “wrongheaded” -- ouch. He sometimes adds that they’re “wrong on Canadians values” -- fiery stuff.

Why doesn’t Layton paint the Liberals and Conservatives as Tweedledee and Tweedledum, flip sides of the same coin? Why doesn’t he say,

“They both stand for policies that will hurt all but the elite, they both represent tired, old debates, they both have no effective plans for education, childcare, and climate change. Ultimately, they both totally lack a constructive, forward-looking vision for working Canadians, whereas we…

“We…”

And there’s the rub. Jack Layton can’t win the leaders’ debate because he’s got nothing to offer. A good bouquet leaves a distinct smell that is more alluring than the sum of its odours. Despite its diverse, multicoloured contents, a good bouquet screams coherence. The offer of a handful of flowers is kinda nice, but a bouquet demonstrates effort -- careful thinking and prudent selection.

My suspicion is that strategy and marketing have overwhelmed the NDP brain trust. When it comes to policy, the effort just isn’t there.

Ignatieff letter pure lie

2005-12-20T20:42:00.000-05:00

In a letter to The Star on Monday, Michael Ignatieff wrote that he had "never supported torture, torture 'lite' or coercive interrogation," and said anyone familiar with his writings would agree. Sadly, he is mistaken.

On May 2, 2004, in his New York Times Magazine piece titled "Lesser Evils," he wrote, "defeating terror requires violence ... indefinite detention of subjects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war." He defined "permissible forms of duress" as including "disinformation and disorientation, like keeping prisoners in hoods."

Mr Ignatieff has repeatedly said that torture is unacceptable. But his definition of torture is so narrow that he manages both to legitimate torture 'lite' and explicitly call for "coercive interrogation", though he now denies this. And it is in this context -- so-called human rights advocates whittling away at the prohibited -- that the torture of hooded prisoners in Abu Ghraib took place.

So far, the Star has only printed one reply, a brilliant letter that dredges up this rare gem, which Ignatieff spoke in an interview with ABC Radio:

But there may be ways of putting people through severe recursive, non-physical, harassing interrogating that stops short of torture, stops short of this kind of lasting psychological abuse ... I think it's a problem of finding a small category of coercive interrogation techniques that will get us intelligence results without dishonouring the United States, and shaming the operators.

This guy is splitting all the wrong hairs. I'd like him to give a seminar on "severe recursive, non-physical, harassing interrogating" to the thugs who generally put in practice such delicate distinctions.

Bolivian socialist's stunning victory

2005-12-19T14:41:00.000-05:00

Check out the article on Jim Shult'z blog about Bolivia's election and Evo Morales's unprecendent victory. Jim Shultz is a highly credible source, an American democracy activist who's lived in Bolivia for years. (Also, the comments on this blog are usually lively and confrontational.)

For real change, click heels (Socialists win in Bolivia)

2005-12-19T10:32:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, Evo Morales, who described himself as a "nightmare for Washington" for his leftwing policies and his opposition to US efforts to eradicate the coca trade, won Bolivia's election and will be the country's next President and its first ever indigenous leader (over half the country is indigenous). His party, Movement Towards Socialism (MAS), got about 50% of the vote, well above the number in the mid-30s many polls were predicting. But don't expect Canadians to notice.

To their credit, The Toronto Star ran a wire story on the election today, though not available online, and CBC Radio 1 has been covering the election result in its hourly newscasts this morning. But The Globe ran nothing on the Bolivian election (nor on the pivotal constitutional referendum in Congo, also covered in a Star wire story not available online.) And in a campaign with zero discussion of foreign policy that doesn't involve the U.S., you can be sure the Canadian political landscape will remain unchanged. (You can read about Morales's victory in many other places, such as this NYT article.)

This is a serious problem. Canada's probably the only country in the hemisphere that doesn't have a sense of pan-American identity.

The Latin American nation we know best is Cuba, thanks to Fidel and Che's celebrity status alongside our leaders' consistently and visibly refusing to cave to U.S. pressure to isolate the island economically. Of course, given that Canada is currently aiding an anti-democratic occupation in Haiti, it's unlikely Paul Martin would be defending the sovereignty of the Cuban revolution had it taken place during his reign.

It's ironic that the only real presence the Latin American left has in Canadian minds is its most archaic incarnation, given that today it is in a renaissance of astonishing proportions. Brazil, Venezuela, Uruguay and Argentina have all elected leftwing governments that are trying to mix pragmatic governance with a slow transformation of the regional balance of power. Chile is on the way to electing a Socialist president and Mexico's leftwing candidate is slightly ahead in the polls. These are now joined by Bolivia's Evo Morales.

It's unforgivable for us to consider the majority of our continent an irrelevant American backyard. It's increasingly obvious that future peace on a global scale depends on increased cultural links between global citizens and a multi-polar distribution of power. Canadian leftists have always longed for a way to get closer to Europe (maybe an enormous earthquake...) when in fact, clicking our heels together would be far more effective.

South of the United States is a world of incredible cultural riches and where original models for social and economic development are emerging. Following the Canadian election campaign, it's sometimes impossible not to feel a dark frustration that we're mired in a re-hash of half-forgotten doctrines defined principally by their dullness. The great challenge of our era, confronting economic globalization and its consequent inequalities at home and abroad, isn't even on the map.

Fresh wind isn't blowing from Paris, London or Berlin however, but Caracas, La Paz and Buenos Aires. We can only alleviate our depence on the Americans by fostering inter-dependency throughout the Americas. As individuals, becoming conscious of the novel arts and ideas to our South can be a revolutionary jolt to our identities. As a country ostensibly tired of being scolded by American ambassadors, solidarity with a new, responsible Latin American left carries almost overwhelming potential.

I only wish more people felt the same way.

Last night, tonight, and the Martin-Duceppe love story

2005-12-16T18:03:00.000-05:00

Last night

Quebecers love government. Or at least, the strangely rural mix of discontents assembled by the debate people do. They asked about so many different programs, even Harper came off trying to sound like Santa Clause – red mantle and all.
Stephen Harper hates gay people. Asked if he would still love his kids if they came out of the closet, he solemnly declared that every parent has a duty to love his or her children (“un devoir”). Hmm, this sounds more like a Roman senator defending the indefensible than a national leader showing an open mind, but hey.
Paul Martin and Gilles Duceppe are not each other’s worst enemies – they’re best friends. The Bloq and the Liberals now enjoy a symbiotic relationship in Quebec. Each party’s sole campaign message is: vote for us to kick out the other guy. Disappear the Bloq, and suddenly the Liberals aren’t Canada’s only national party, they’re just Canada’s mediocre ruling party with no business in power. Remove the Liberals, and a more leftwing federalist party actually in tune with Quebecers’ values would replace them and disabuse the Bloq of its raison d’être (pardon my French).
Everybody hates the environment and foreign aid – except, sort of, Jack. Not a single leader broached the subject of foreign affairs last night (isn’t there a War on Terror going on? or at least a Clash of Civilizations? or something nasty?) except for Jack Layton, briefly and lamely, referring vaguely to some broken Liberal promise. (Probably the old 0.7% of GDP to aid debacle.) Jack also made the most of Martin’s laughable failure on greenhouse emissions, though nobody else picked up on it and not a single leader broached his plan to do something about it.
Paul Martin has zero credibility. Stephen Harper is clearly a charlatan who will win no seats in Quebec, but who may nonetheless rip the country apart. (Will he tell his English audience that he thinks Quebec should represent itself in international summits??!!) But Paul Martin, whose commitments really mattered, made a fool out of rational discourse by claiming over and over to be a progressive leader, when in fact he’s reduced social spending as a share of GDP. There are good reasons Martin re-structured Canada’s economy, whether you agree with them or not. But it is sheer cowardice for Martin to fail to explain himself to his audience – not the IMF advisors who told him what to do, but the voters who should make these decisions.
Gilles Duceppe isn’t such a great debater. It’s now conventional wisdom that Duceppe is, like, the most charismatic, best, sexiest debater ever. Sadly, this nonsense is only propagated because a) his opponents are terrible, and b) the Canadian media echo chamber is very small. Duceppe’s lame smile, on display after most of his comments, must be the most foreign-to-joy facial expression anyone has ever seen. More importantly, the range of his arguments is extremely narrow. He swaggeringly unloads on Paul Martin, which a twelve-year-old with the same cue cards could do, relying mostly on the beaten-to-death sponsorship scandal. He amiably affirms his commitment to the unemployed, which consists of voting yea or nay to other people’s legislation. But the thinner the file, the easier it is to master. Duceppe is only slightly less cowardly than Martin, and will probably be much less successful. By declining the leadership of the PQ, Duceppe showed he’s not up for the big game. Moses didn’t settle for being in opposition – why should Duceppe?

Tonight

As you can see from my comprehensive summary, last night’s debate more or less sucked. The fact that two neoliberals and one obstructionist rubbed out Layton’s message by themselves claiming to be social democrats is appalling – though only if you’re bothered by hypocrisy. Tonight, expect more of the same, except this time the Anglophone leaders may use up to a dozen un-rehearsed sentences.

The new format is a good one insofar as it gives politicians the chance to lay out their arguments in a reasonably civilized way. But it also exacerbates the worst aspect of Canadian political campaigning, namely the utter fakery of it all. In this format, with the fresh, dewy faces of Canadian voters on constant display, don’t expect leaders to drop for an instance the PR bull-shit that’s an enormous reason most people find politics so eye-glazing.

There’s also the atrocious media coverage that comes afterward, where pundits push their own talking points, usually at the expense of the NDP, which is treated as a cute indulgence instead of Canada’s third-largest party. (It gets a higher share of the popular vote than the Bloq.)

She's a Swarthy one

2005-12-15T22:23:00.000-05:00

All right, tomorrow morning I'll be posting through the fog of my debate hangover.

In the meantime, read up on Jack Layton on my cousin Jane Swarthy's revamped blog. Last I checked, there weren't a lot of women blogging about Canadian politics. (Hmm...)

All right, let's just say, first impressions:

Jack did a lot better than last time, though he still hates French. Not as much as Stephen Harper, a) whose French sucked, and b) who talked like a left-of-centre politician. Paul Martin is a monstrous liar whose claims to compassion you can find roundly refuted anywhere you care to look. (In case you're lazy, check Inaki's blog -- heck, read the whole thing if you can stomach Martin's perfidy.) Gilles Duceppe, well, how would you do if you were debating really, really stoned people?

Also, pretty dull.

Kids before Coors!

2005-12-14T15:04:00.000-05:00

Conservative blogger Stephen Janke, also known as "Angry in the Great White North," has finally taken a stand against the Bolshevik Liberals and their contempt for Canadian parents (also, their Soviet love for enormous government.)

Demonstrating maturity and a subtle sense of humour, he's done what proud citizens should do: posted an online petition. This one is to make sure Paul Martin knows just how offended Canadians are that a Liberal insider thinks every Canadian parent is currently hammered and stuffing him or herself with double-buttered popcorn. Check it out at http://www.kidsnotbeer.com.

In my last post, I claimed that arguing about silly things like beer and popcorn clouded the substantial issues facing democratic societies. What a bore. I could have actually written about the issues themselves and pointed out that the Conservative childcare plan, $100 per month per child, works out to about $5 per working day per month. In Quebec, where there are a limited number of $7-per-day childcare spaces, some parents under the Connies could actually pay only $2 a day for childcare. That's a great deal!

Sure, you say, that only works if you treat the Conservative party policy like a condiment instead of a sandwich. But then, you're an asshole. Can you imagine how offended Canadian parents would be if you told them you thought they'd rather feed condiments to their kids than sandwiches?

This is getting confusing. Why couldn't you just use the condiments on popcorn? Is butter a condiment? How about paprika?

Listen, if there were actually anything to "debate," "Angry in the Great White North" -- a tag that clearly has no racist connotations, and shame on you if it even crossed your mind -- wouldn't be begging Canadians to tell Paul Martin just how much they love their children. (Single welfare moms and NDP-voters are encouraged not to sign.) I mean, if it was worth rationally comparing policies, why would "Angry" spend his time blogging about Belinda's brother's shady online gambling business? ("Andrew Stronach: Combining Hooters with Meals-on-Wheels")

Rick Mercer, meanwhile, that biased, Communist-Broadcasting-Corporation-subsidized, Liberal-loving, humourless fop with Jewish hair came out with his own petition, this time -- if you can believe it!! -- asking Canadians to register their disgust at the all the anti-beer rhetoric out there. The nerve of that wimpy pinko! It's enough make your Bud curdle!!!

Beer and popcorn media coverage: suds and fluff

2005-12-12T17:07:00.000-05:00

When the media falls over itself to cover the "beer and popcorn fallout", all it's really doing is covering itself -- and doing short- and long-term damage to democracy in Canada.

I just finished listening to an awful, but representative, CBC Radio report. It claimed that a Liberal strategist's comments that parents would spend their child-care stipend on beer and popcorn "overshadowed" the campaign today. Since only the media decides what counts during a day of campaigning, the report consisted of the media covering its coverage of yesterday's throw-away soundbite. The report, and countless others on the Radio, TV and in the papers that have appeared and will continue to appear, could instead have paid attention to the substance of today's policy announcements.

It's absurd for the media to claim to be covering a "campaign" when in substance it's only covering its reactions -- an incestuous feedback loop now referred to, by media pundits, as the all-important 'news cycle.' Talk about navel-gazing.

The reporter, Mr Armstrong, pointed out that Harper and Layton, while announcing other policy, also made beer-and-popcorn jibes. Fine. But Mr. Armstrong could have simply ignored these and discussed the announcements themselves by measuring their merits against their rhetoric. Constantly pursuing this same strategy -- ignoring petty jibes -- would revolutionize the way campaigns are received.

(Another example is the frequent pundit insight that the NDP's goal must be to get attention for itself and not get sidelined by the Liberal-Conservative jockeying ... even though it is these very pundits -- usually reporters, columnists or editors -- who are deciding to primarily cover only two national parties.)

This maddening form of media coverage damages our democracy short-term because it fails to serve its basic purpose in an election: make it easier for Canadian citizens to make informed choices when they vote. Today, Layton and Harper made serious policy announcements. If citizens were given any but the most cursory analysis of these plans, they would have a much easier time making a decision based on reasoned appraisal of the choices presented to them. Could a senior editor at a Canadian news outlet please explain how coverage of stupid booze sound bytes is more useful to voters than coverage of the policies voters are voting on?

So why does the media do this? Let's take the simplest, superficial reason. Many political reporters, because of a combination of laziness, stupidity, and time constraints, do not put in the hours and do not have the expertise to cover most political stories in depth. So instead, they cover what they do know: empty politicking.

Most political reporters in Canada, sadly, seem know more now about PR and political strategy than they do about what politicians in power actually do: create policies that have a concrete impact on the life of Canadians. By extension, come an election campaign, these people, camped out on campaign buses instead of libraries, cover the campaign itself. This is simple, flashy, and useless to voters. (Though it's great for strategy-obsessed political junkies, a miniscule minority.)

The long-term problem is that this approach fosters cynicism among politicians and voters, encouraging both to come to understand the sphere of politics as pure politicking instead of policy. Campaigns are tailored for TV news shows -- generally the worst offenders -- which then educate Canadians with cheap, simple-to-produce segments on political strategy that have no bearing on anything. Long-term, by encouraging the population to perceive politics as nothing more than bickering, the media does its share to reduce voter turnout and cheapen public debate.

The media then covers this disenchantment as a strange and tragic phenomenon when, once again, it is merely covering itself. This, the long-term change in the way we perceive politics because of the way politics is portrayed, is the 'news cycle' in the truest sense of the term.

This cycle, which is so obviously a distraction that more and more people have thrown up their hands and given up, does benefit some people. It immediately benefits pundits, political insiders, campaign and PR specialists, spin doctors, etc., whose professional expertise grows in value as democracy is denigrated. It also benefits others more generally, as it reinforces the political and economic status quo. The less serious political discussion becomes, the harder it is for serious change to take place.

Note that the mainstream media today is operated by corporations (with the exception of the CBC, whose management, we saw this fall, merely has a corporate culture) and that federal policy since 1984 has had a clear pro-business slant (we've had a Montreal businessman as Prime Minister or Finance Minister this whole time). For more on this, see the excellent work by Inaki Mondragon.

One of the leading contenders for leadership of the Liberal Party after Paul Martin is Frank McKenna, who, before becoming Canada's ambassador to the US, was the chairman of the board of CanWest Global -- the enormous media conglomerate famous for its centralized editorial vision and creeping censorship of its reporters.

This system has served its small number of beneficiaries far better than the vast group of Canadian citizens. So is it really such a surprise that no one but the NDP -- the ultimate political outsiders -- will stand up to take proportional representation seriously? Certainly, the 12-year-and-counting hegemony of a political party enjoying less than 50% support makes zero sense. But try telling that to a drunk Canadian whose ears are stuffed with popcorn!

Ignatieff unmasked

2005-12-09T18:02:00.001-05:00

It's because we could use a distinguished academic in Ottawa that we've got to say no to Michael Ignatieff, an apologist for the worst imperial excesses of our time.

An article I wrote for this month's issue of The New Internationalist -- you should read it! (scroll down a tiny bit for the link) -- exposes Ignatieff's egregious thought, from his strange admonition that a "liberal society cannot be defended by herbivores," to his manly savvy that "imperial power requires controlling the subject people’s sense of time, convincing them that they will be ruled forever," to his now famous insistence that

defeating terror requires violence ... indefinite detention of subjects, coercive interrogations, targeted assassinations, even pre-emptive war.

The single thread of continuity that ties Ignatieff's incoherent ramblings together is the worship of power. Since the build-up to the Iraq war this was obvious to readers of his journalism, and became more and more disquieting as time passed and his position become ever more aggressive. His love of power has manifested itself anew in Canada, where he arranged to be undemocratically parachuted into an Etobicoke riding; he is now praising Chrétien for staying out of Iraq, recanting everything he stood for -- aggressive American imperialism -- as recently as this past summer.

Intellectuals serve us when they prioritize deep learning and difficult knowledge over spin and expediency. They should demonstrate careful, considered thought and they should work hard to challenge the lies of the powerful. After all, tenure does give them job security the rest of us dream of. In other words, they must speak truth to power. As Rick Salutin recently wrote in the Globe, Ignatieff does the opposite, he speaks power to truth.

Last week, we heard about Ignatieff's cosmopolitan discomfort with Ukrainian nationalism. Now, we must raise much more important and uncomfortable questions about his true political colours. This is a man, after all, who not only uses the word 'we' repeatedly when discussing the United States, but who wrote in Granta,

I loved my own country, but I believed in America in a way that Canada never allowed. I was against the [Vietnam] war because I thought it betrayed something essential about the country. I marched [against the war] because I believed in Jefferson and Lincoln. [...] The power of American scripture lies in this constant process of democratic reinvention. [It is] the only country whose citizenship is an act of faith, the only country whose promises to itself continue to command the faith of people like me, who are not its citizens.

Elect Ignatieff to office, and at the very least we'll save the White House having to pay for an American ambassador. I doubt they can find one more eloquent on the wonders of the Homeland.

Mayor Miller hates the Pixies

2005-12-09T14:09:00.000-05:00

Hey, whatever happened to our uber-progressive downtown, NDP mayor??!! First Mayor Miller opts to clear Nathan Phillips square of Homeless people. Then, after a summer of gun violence, he decides to get tough on crime. I mean, tough on ... punks?

Punks like our lady of love (pictured above)?

Already, reports are pouring in from community workers and criminologists that the new Liberal "ban on guns" is mostly smoke and mirrors. Take this from a recent CBC.ca story, for instance:

Anthony Doob, a University of Toronto criminologist, said he's skeptical that taking the additional step of a total ban would help much.

"We've got lots of laws (already)," Doob told the Canadian Press. "We've got laws about carrying, we've got laws about ownership, we've got laws about transfers of ownership."

Rev. Harry Lehotsky, an activist in Winnipeg, echoed Landau's views, saying a ban will make no difference.

"They're illegal anyway," Lehotsky said. "The cops have a million ways, reasons, to take those guns away from these guys already, so it's totally irrelevant."

But don't say that to progressive lefty David Miller. In a story in the Toronto Star today, which also contains quotes from Liberal-gun-ban skeptics, Miller comes out enthusiastically swinging for Martin's plan, declaring:

"Guns turn punks into killers."

But are punks really the problem? One entry on dictionary.com helpfully defines a punk as "A young person, especially a member of a rebellious counterculture group". That seems a little broad. In "street" lingo, of course, punks tend to be those protesting, angry, vaguely lefty -- sometimes even anarchist! -- people who are in perpetual turf wars with neo-Nazis. Then again, Mayor Miller's electorate in North York may not be aware of the "street" definition...

But maybe the problem isn't that Mayor Miller, in his days as a Harvard economics student, missed out the punk movement. Maybe he just misheard. Maybe he was listening to the Pixies' 'Sad Punk' the other day but couldn't make out the words:

I smell smoke/ that comes from a gun/ named extintion/ it was a long time ago/ could have happened to anyone/ he was struck by a bullet/ and he melted into fluid named extintion

...

I read something/ about a son of a gun/ named extinction

A portrait of creepy

2005-12-08T19:19:00.000-05:00

Try to figure out the location of these four pictures, painted in enormous scale onto the walls of a swanky dining room:

First, happy pilgrims:

Next, happy slaves:

Now, a cryptic panaroma, also looking idyllic...

But look again: these slaves have been bad. And... they're getting it.

Well, you guessed it, these pictures are painted onto the dining room in a beautiful apartment on the left bank, right off St-Germain, in Paris. What relevance to the Canadian election? you ask. Ha! The world is interconnected in so many ways...

The truth about young people and politics

2005-12-07T20:57:00.000-05:00

It has little to do with voting, quite a bit to do with social class, and you won’t find it in The Globe.

Today, our national paper printed yet another laughable dud (found on the authors’ web page for free), this time an op-ed piece by the people whose polls are to the scientific method what creationism is to, well, the scientific method. (I’ll also tell you about a very interesting study that The Star, to its credit, briefly wrote up in its front section today.)

My main problem with the article is not its assumption that the research it provides is sound – read on, and you’ll see their research is a joke. No, what’s annoying about their story is how they keep confusing political action – even transformation – with the act of voting. For instance:

[Young voters] are the voters we want going to the polls and shaping our country’s future.

But nobody who’s taken time to think would suggest that by voting for one of three or four parties anyone will transform the country. To its credit, the DemPro people did puzzle out that the lack of attention to the issues of “funding postsecondary education and the environment” is a major problem. (Both are central NDP policy planks, receiving hundreds of millions in the NDP budget, but whatever.) But the article’s recommendations, namely lowering the voting age to 16 and somehow “hold[ing] the parties accountable when it comes to engaging youth” show that they’ve entirely missed the point.

First off, because of our first-past-the-post electoral system, allowing younger people to vote will mean almost as little to them as allowing old people to vote. In most ridings, there is a two-way race between two parties with everyone else trailing far behind. If not for sheer habit or a stubborn sense of duty, no one would ever vote for a distant third-place party in their riding. There are many options for proportional representation that would make every vote count: young people, wondering why they should vote if it won’t count, might actually appreciate one of them. If we’re going to re-shape out future, as the piece’s authors claim to want, we might have to contemplate changing the system a tiny bit now.

Secondly, and here the StatsCan study comes in, the idea that ‘voting’ in itself is the way to change things politically is highly dubious. If there’s something we should learn from young people (I’m 23 – is that a conflict of interest?), it’s that the ballot box is not exactly “where it’s at” when it comes to transformative politics.

The new StatsCan study, which is worth reading, shows that while 22-29 year-olds voted less than the average for all age groups, they were more likely to engage in non-political activity than the average, and much more so than seniors, who vote the most (58% of 22-29 year-olds vs. 39% of 65+).

Social class also plays a key role. StatsCan found that young people whose family incomes had been under $20,000 growing up were more likely to engage in non-voting political activity than those whose family income was above $60,000. And yet,

On the other hand, young adults in low-income households had almost 50% lower odds of voting than those in high-income households, even when other factors (including student status) were taken into account.

Draw your own conclusions on what active youth are telling you about class, social transformation, and “proper” political activity.

Here’s another interesting finding. The main reason given by the The Democracy Project for youth not voting is “lack of information about candidates and issues” (Globe article). According to the StatsCan study, 36% of members of the 15-21 age group, and 32% from the 22-29 group reported “search[ing] for information on a political issue,” – each age group’s numbers being above the average for all age groups of 26% (this does not seem to include daily media consumption).

In fact, StatsCan shows that the older the respondents, the more likely they were to vote and the less likely they were to look political information up, or, in fact, engage in any non-voting political activity. Strange: that would imply not that the young ‘uns are incurious, but that the majority of (older) voters don’t know what the fuck they’re voting for. Not a comforting thought.

So, our first conclusion is that we should be highly skeptical of “experts” claiming to know youth, but who aren’t willing to contemplate the deep systemic reform needed to make our democracy more responsive to all voters. Next, despite the fact that they make fun of our “gerontocracy” and ask questions about rock bands, these DemPro people, who seem to think the future will be shaped by good boys and girls who tick the box, well, they’re out of touch.

PS, As for the methodology of the poll, which claims that Green Day fans are the most likely to vote, and is conducted by The Democracy Project, it’s discussed here. Note how they say they polled “a representative sample” of 2,517 young Canadians “using an online survey,” followed by pseudoscientific drivel. Simply put, respondents to online surveys are nothing resembling representative, no matter how they’re “weighted”. What the press release doesn’t tell you is the even wilder fact that you have to register on their site to even access the questionnaire. Lame.

I couldn’t find the complete methodology of the StatsCan study quickly. It’s taken from information extracted in the StatsCan 2003 General Social Survey, in which 15,000 Canadians were interviewed on a range of subjects. It too claims to be representative and as you’ll see if you read it, its statistical analysis is rather sophisticated. If anyone knows how those 15,000 Canadians were reached, let me know. And while I’m skeptical of all such surveys, I’m sure StatsCan had a better way of finding people that hoping they’d drop by their web site.

media & youth: Globe blows the pooch

2005-12-07T01:36:00.000-05:00

I always read/watch/listen to media coverage of the ‘youth’ vote with interest because I find that I learn more shocking new things about myself and my generation from these sources than I do from my own daily life. I’m sure Freud has a lot to say on how I fail to know myself or peers nearly as well as isolated corporate news reporters.

Today, the Globe ran two brilliant pieces, starting with their analysis of a “poll” with:

"a representative sample of 2,517 people drawn from a database of young Canadians who agree to take part in surverys. Results are considered accurate to within plus or minus two percentage points, 19 times out of 20."

Let’s be honest. The only people who believe in the accuracy of a self-selecting poll -- answered by people who even bothered to enter a mysterious database -- are credulous journalists and their journalistic-standard-free senior editors. According to this poll, 88% of youth plan to vote in the next election. Please note, an estimated 36% voted in the last one. (The same Dominion Institute polled youth last year, but then they at least had the decency to use a random telephone sample.)

Meanwhile, John Ibbitson is at it again, complaining that “our political leaders have absolutely nothing to say to Richard Crosswell,” an 18 year-old with no idea how to vote. JIbbitson’s idea is that federal leaders are all equally distant from youth. But if you look at policy proposals seriously, that’s simply not true. For instance, the NDP is the only party that aggressively proposes measures to lower tuition, and is the party that makes the biggest deal out of dealing with climate change. These – tuition and climate change – are issues we young ‘uns take seriously.

But the stance of the NDP is poorly known because the JIbbitsons of this world – and their editors at the Globe and other outlets – don’t take them seriously. One example is Tuesday night’s broadcast of the national, whose final, brief news item, not advertised in the headlines preceding the broadcast, was Layton’s announcement of the NDP climate change proposal. This even though CBC News allegedly cares enough about climate change to run banal stories about Northerners using triple-glazed windows.

A more grievous example still is JIbbitson himself! In an earlier column, he lamented the lack of a

“hope politician, someone who speaks to the aspirations of the young, diverse, urban, post-national state that Canada is becoming, someone impatient with, and willing to go beyond, the tired debates of the old men who captain us.” He added, “NDP Leader Jack Layton's energy and optimism probably come closest to personifying the hope factor, but unfortunately he remains wedded to a vision of social democracy that was out of date half a century ago.”

In other words, what JIbbitson is really looking for is someone who the youth will warm to and whose politics perfectly mirror JIbbitson’s (yes, the perspective of someone who thinks Jack Layton’s ideas – virtually identical to those of several European governments and most European technocrats – is a little narrow).

The point isn’t that Jack Layton is the answer to youth disenfranchisement. Rather, the point is that you can’t talk about a whole group of potential voters who are in fact disinterested without being contaminated by broader political questions.

Accepting contamination and running with it, you wonder why it is that young people don’t bother voting when they spent their entire childhood and adolescence (the Tory&Liberal years) being told to expect less from a government that was its best best to shrink itself (cheered on by the Globe and its various JIbbitsons). When you look at the fact that JIbbitson-approved neoliberalism has led to fewer permanent jobs, more Mc- and Gap-jobs, and a total disinterest in issues affecting the *future* like climate change, then you start to understand why the JIbbitsons can’t understand the ‘youth’.

Ignatieff is, I promise, on the way. Meanwhile, if you're having trouble getting into those JIbbitson columns, just searh "John Ibbitson" in news.google.ca and follow the links from there.

Broken promise of social spending

2005-12-05T18:41:00.000-05:00

In addition to delving into the issues myself – to my very limited abilities – I’ll be arguing here that the way the mainstream media covers this election campaign is detrimental to democracy.

I’ll talk about the perfidy of predictions, polls, the discussion of strategy, and more. I owe a lot of my thinking on the subject to a brilliant book by an excellent American journalist, James Fallows. The book is called Breaking the News – click on the title for its link on Amazon. Or better yet, order it at an independent book store or take it out of the library. My first target will be the cult of predictions, which are ubiquitous during election coverage, and completely useless to potential voters.

I should point out that CBC has explicitly claimed it wouldn’t cover this campaign like a horse race, and so far it’s done an alright job. On CBC Sunday News, last night, Neil MacDonald filed a pretty tough story about Paul Martin’s boasts to have kept his promise to reduce debt, lopping off $60 billion. Problem is, as MacDonald pointed out, Martin never promised to do such a thing.

His basic promises, contained in the 1993 Liberal Red Book, were about breaking with Conservative policies and investing in social programs (or, as Neil MacDonald put it, his promises were more 'liberal' -- he didn't say if he meant small- or big-L).

In fact, Martin did the opposite, systematically under-estimating surpluses and laying aside contingency funds to boost year-end extra surpluses. Thanks to a law the Liberals passed that all unexpected surplus money had to go to debt reduction, Paul Martin was able to legislate debt reduction at an absurd pace in a circuitous but extremely successful manner.

MacDonald also showed that Martin had broken his promise (made in the 1997 and 2000 campaigns) to allocate surplus money 50-50 to social spending on the one hand, and tax and debt reduction on the other. He said that Martin had spent only about a third of extra money on social spending. Coming at the close of an uncharacteristically critical story, this seems like a stinging indictment. But in fact, it may have been far off the mark.

Jim Stanford, an economist with the Canadian Auto Workers union, showed in a short study that's worth reading that in their second term, the Liberals actually spent only about 2% of surpluses on social spending and the rest on debt reduction and tax cuts (personal and corporate). The Liberals' spending patterns have not differed much since then; it's key to remember that almost all the recent spending promises won't have a substantial effect until the last years of this decade -- at which point only people like Stanford and their blogging readers will even remember who said what when.

Meanwhile, Stanford has an important column in the Globe today that exposes how Martin's supposedly stellar economic management only stands up if you look at a fraction of the numbers. (To get the column if you don't get Globe Insider edition, search "we look prosperous but the voters know better" at news.google.ca and follow the link). His hits the nail on the head with his closing remark that:

There's an indirect way, however, in which the productivity debate nicely sums up the strangely joyless state of Canada's supposedly prosperous economy. Canadians work harder and longer than they ever have. They have more skills, and a stronger work ethic, than ever. Yet their incomes are stagnant, and their jobs are at risk. All that's a recipe for a populist backlash. And who knows, one might even show up.

I'm not sure that a populist backlash is coming. A major reason is that the commonly accepted view of the Canadian economy is a myth, perpetuated without serious challenge by most of the mainstream media, most of the time. I do think most working Canadians, burdened by record levels of personal debt, feel a striking disconnect between a message of prosperity and their different reality.

But one of the most vicious aspects of inequality, as testified by this detailed Guardian piece, is that it increases the pressure on everyone else to spend more just to feel as if they're keeping up. Never mind the natural feeling one has of being isolated in one's despair: most Americans believe that class mobility in the US is far higher than it really is, in part, probably, because it's emotionally unbearable to be as pessimistic about the future as the empirical evidence demands.

___

PS, I said my next post would be about Ignatieff's views on war and imperialism. Clearly, I was lying. A story I wrote about him for this month's issue of the New Internationalist isn't due to go online until January at the earliest, but strings have been pulled and I hope it'll be up in the next couple days. I figured I'd wait until I could link to the story.

Follow the money (the rich got richer)

2005-11-29T22:13:00.000-05:00

(The graph above is given in constant 2000 dollars; it is based on a chart also available at StatsCan.)

The 1990s was a decade of fabulous riches. The Liberals -- with the help of free trade agreements negotiated by the Conservatives -- slashed government spending in 1995 by 19%, then slew the deficit, then ushered in a golden age of surpluses and tax cuts. The sun shone down on all of us.

Canada did so well during the 1990s, that the richest Canadians (the top tenth) saw their income go up by 15%! If only the rest of us were so blessed... With a rise in prices of 1.7% during the same period (UN Human Development Index), the bottom 60% of Canadians would see complete stagnation of their spending power, or worse.

The difference between the gains made by the best-off (in red) and everyone else (in green) is pretty incredible.

An online StatsCan report adds, "In 2000, the top 10% of families had incomes above $117,850. The combined income of these families accounted for 28% of the total income of all Canadian families. They accounted for 26% of the total income in 1990."

If this surprises you, that's because it's a story the media doesn't touch, for reasons best known to the owners and editors within the income group least eager to draw attention to its exceptional good luck.

Now, until the 2006 census, we won't have another study detailed enough to tell us how income groups in Canada have fared since 2000.

But, at least regarding the least fortunate Canadians, we can guess. In 2000, according to the Canadian Association of Food Banks, 726,902 people in Canada received emergency groceries from a food bank during the month of March 2000 (almost double the 1989 figure). This year, the 2005 report states that this number has grown to 823,856 -- of whom 40% are children. These numbers don't include users of soup kitchens -- the poorest of the poor.

I'll be blogging more about poverty soon. But for now, we should remember that whenever we're thinking about the Liberal record, we're talking about a federal government on whose watch only the wealthiest made substantial gains, the middle hasn't budged, and the poorest have gotten not just poorer -- but are going hungry in ever greater numbers.

--

Next up, what Michael Ignatieff really thinks. Not about Ukrainians, but about America's noble mission to spread Jeffersonion liberty like peanut butter over the entire world.

A teaser, from the professor himself:

"A liberal society cannot be defended by herbivores. We need carnivores to save us, but we had better make sure our meat-eaters hunt only on our orders."

Obviously, he's not a vegan.

--

My thanks to David Lizoain and Inaki Mondragon for their help in this research. As always, dear reader, if you come across information you think I'd find useful, please send it over to aldana@danielaldana.net.

This is not a horse race: a matchbook manifesto

2005-11-28T17:46:00.000-05:00

In 2004, on the day of the federal election, The Globe and Mail printed a picture a lot like this one next to a poll showing the Liberals and Conservatives in a 'dead heat'.

This wasn't absurd journalism just because the poll was wrong and the Liberals won 36 more seats than the Conservatives. It was also a refreshing reminder of how the mainstream media covers politics in this country like a horse race.

Unfortunately, it isn't just to the benefit of time-starved, dumb, or otherwise incapacitated political reporters to treat politics as sport. This parody of free speech also benefits election specialists, public relations consultants, idea-less politicians and every other parasite who benefits from a national debate on politics that reads like the script surly commentators read from their booth at the hippodrome.

Substantial debate and social change driven by engaged citizens in diverse communities -- i.e. the whole point of democracy -- is impossible when the mainstream media routinely compare political parties to "large hoofed mammal[s] (Equus caballus) having a short-haired coat, a long mane, and a long tail, domesticated since ancient times and used for riding and for drawing or carrying loads" (dictionary.com).

Tragically, as I'm not currently running a newspaper, I can only try to provide an alternative up here in the blogosphere (yes, it is very windy up here, what with having to share so much thin air with so many blowhards.) I'll post my own analysis, as well as linking to the rare article of substance in the press, and I'm going to rely a lot on research done over the long-term on social, political and economic issues. (Also: jokes, both funny and unfunny, to grease the ol' wheels.)

What we'll find, I think, is that Paul Martin and the Liberals have taken advantage over these past twelve years of the amazing absence of decent media coverage to move government in Ottawa hard to the right. I'll be focusing on Paul Martin and the Liberals because there's a lot that isn't known about how they've governed this country, even though they've been both governing and the most popular horse -- I mean party -- in Canada for over a decade.

Well, that's it for now. My next post will contain shocking statistics about who got rich and who didn't during a decade of Liberal rule.

Getting it right on the war of the Isms (and Boisclair's fatal flaw -- hint: it isn't cocaine)

2005-11-18T13:14:00.000-05:00

Chantal Hébert recently pointed out on CBC news that the two most popular leaders of the federalist cause in Quebec in 1995 were Paul Martin and Jean Charest. As no one new has emerged alongside them, and both have seen their popularity plummet, the obvious implication is that Canada's fucked.

A closer look, though, shows that the battle between 'federalism' and 'le souverainisme' is not at all what most English-language commentary implies. The first thing to know about English commentary about Quebec is that it's usually ignorant or deliberately misleading. Edward Said said that one reason people get away with such distorted protraits of the Orient is that no one knows much about the region. Similarly, Enlglish Canadians outside Montreal (and most English students at McGill...) know shockingly little about Quebec.

The two things all English Canadians should know right now is that Quebec-based Anglophones are historically associated with an exploitative, capitalist upper class, and that Jean Charest's miserable approval ratings have nothing to do with federalism, and everything to do with his neoliberal economic policies, which Quebecers have continuously rejected since their 1960s quiet revolution.

Jean Charest, much like Paul Martin in fact, is more distinguished by his neoliberalism than his federalism. Each of the two men believes in restructuring the state to replace government programs with market forces. Charest promised to replace Quebec's social-democratic model and is now trying his best to do so -- which is why he will lose the next election.

Paul Martin, meanwhile, doesn't have much to offer Quebecers either. His 'Canada' has a budgetary surplus because he demolished social democratic social spending in his 1995 budget (a 19% cut in program spending) and has used the resulting surpluses to pay down debt and cut taxes. The "fiscal imbalance", which makes Quebecers furious, is basically the imbalance between the federal government's piggish surpluses and the provincial government's bare coffers - an imbalance directly related to Martin's spendthrift ideology.

"Stay in Canada," Charest and Martin implore, "it's such a fabulous country, we're shrinking its government as fast as we can! Come on, stay, we can all be a big happy family in which each sibling competes against the other to be in the top 15% of Canadian income earners -- because the bottom 85% have all gotten poorer since the early '90s, thanks to our reforms."

Now, given that Quebec is the most progressive (i.e. leftwing) province in the country, as shown by polls and popular government programs, does it really make sense for neoliberals -- the Canadian economic right -- to sell federalism to Quebec? Without a question, the longer Canadian neoliberalism and Canadian federalism are allowed to be interchangeable, the more likely Quebecers will be to abadon a country -- and an ideology -- they don't believe in.

(Keep in mind, the Bloc is not just a sovereigntist party, it also espouses social-democratic ideals almost identical to those of the NDP; Gilles Duceppe did not even vote in the 1980 referendum because as a Maoist, he believed that workers across Canada should unite.)

It doesn't have to be this way. Either the Quebec Liberals or the federal Liberals could adopt progressive policies more in tune with Canadian and Quebecer values. Or, more promising, with proportional representation, the NDP could gain a foothold in Quebec and take on the mantle of Canada's progressive federalist party. As it stands, though, the first-past-the-post system is a formidable barrier to entry for them.

Here's where Anré Boisclair comes in. Quebec has never had a truly leftwing party of its own, for reasons many Quebecers have been at a loss to explain. Recently, the Parti Quebecois has been the province's left-of-centre grouping, but in an ambiguous way. Lucien Bouchard was an old Mulroney cabinet minister, and has recently declared support for economic policies similar to Charest's.

National liberation movements have a history of coalitions that submerge all social and economic currents into a single nationalist river. Quebecers share responsibility for having a Premier who represents the federalism of many Quebecers -- in other words, a break from referendum mania -- but the economic and social views of hardly any. Strangely enough, if Boisclair is elected as Quebec's next premier, the situation could remain the same.

There's been so much talk of his cocaine use, his homosexuality, the moderation of his sovereignism, and the fact that he's under ninety, there's been little discussion of how he would actually run a province, never mind a country. Well, a little story in the Globe and Mail gives us a hint:

But the more old-fashioned Péquistes and some younger restless tenants of independence are wary of him, seeing him as a smooth-talking neo-Liberal with a tepid commitment to sovereignty and a tin ear for their social-democratic ideals.

[...]
As minister of social solidarity in 1998, Mr. Boisclair tackled the issue of government spending cuts with the ruthlessness of an entrepreneur.

One controversial instance occurred with the demutualization of the Canadian insurance industry, the process where life insurers converted from mutual enterprises owned by their policy holders to publicly traded companies owned by shareholders.

Welfare recipients who were policy owners became eligible to receive shares worth thousands of dollars.

Mr. Boisclair's department was criticized for making no efforts to explain to welfare recipients that their new assets had to be declared and that they would lose their benefits and have their money seized by the government.

In one high-profile case, a single mother of two who got off welfare and opened a hair salon was left on the brink of bankruptcy after the government insisted she reimburse back taxes. That move and other cost-cutting initiatives angered anti-poverty groups that were lobbying the government for concrete steps to help the poor.

"[Mr. Boisclair] wasn't very receptive to our concerns," social activist Vivian Labrie recalled.

Most of this Globe story focuses on other things, but already we can see trouble brewing in paradise. How would Boisclair, who just got an MBA from Harvard, react to the Supreme Court ruling authorizing private health care in Quebec if he were in power? If the Liberals pass this law, would he repeal it and fortify the public system before holding a referendum?

There's a saying in Quebec that there will never be sovereignty because only the PQ would call a referendum; and because governments in power tend to annoy people, the population would express their anger at the government by voting 'no' in a referendum. Well, imagine the PQ governing with policies reminiscent of the hated Liberals. Not exactly winning conditions.

Boisclair knows this too. (Let's leave aside the conspirace theory that he doesn't even want to win the referendum.) Already cagey about his love for the white lady, he'll probably try to keep his economic cards to his chest until after a referendum. In other words, he'll call English Canada's bluff, betting that all we can come up with is more of the same. We should force him to show his hand, and we should make sure that when the chips fall, ours looks very different than it does now.

Paul Martin: Santa Claus ... or The Penguin!

2005-11-15T12:48:00.000-05:00

So Paul Martin has decided to shower the Canadian people with tax cuts. Mmm, I love hot water -- I mean, tax cuts. Apparently, the reasoning in the PMO is that the old scheme for buying votes, in which various middlemen -- I mean, party bag-men -- sponge up tons of the money is too expensive. So the good people in Ottawa decided: Fuck that, let's cut out the middle man and just buy 'em wholesale.

But does Paul Martin really make a convincing Santa Claus? Consider these four photos:

Isn't the following a little more convincing?

Did somebody say 'poppy-talitarianism'?

2005-11-11T11:54:00.000-05:00

So someone in our government has decided that the Canadian poppy must be trade-marked, otherwise the terrorists -- I mean fascists -- will win (note that the British gov't is encouraging anyone to download and use the poppy symbol):

...the poppy is a trademark of the Legion and anyone who wants to use it has to apply. Otherwise it would be all over the place. There are numeorus [sic] examples where it has been used for sales and other purposes. As it is not in the public domain and because it is a registered trademark of the Legion the organization is taking every step it can to protect it (and I do mean every step). All this can be avoided in the future if you ask to use it on your site and you get the proper approval. Sorry, I know your heart and many others are in the right place. Unfortunately we have to protect this image or lose its use as a symbol of Remembrance. -Bob Butt, Director of Communications for the Canadian Legion, writing to Pierre Bourque

(I got this from colbycosh.com and confirmed it on Bourque; you'll find it on other blogs, too.)

Pace my statism, but that's really a little much. The Russian people defeated fascism by piling up 18 million or so bodies in lieu of a real wall, with help from Allies who stormed a beach with - also their bodies. Not government garble but real human lives. Those people didn't die so that a concrete beachhead disguised as a bureaucrat could regulate popular memory from his cubicle. Milan Kundera, in The Book of Laughter and Forgetting, astutely pointed out that "the struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting." He also noticed, from his enclave in Prague then suffering under a Soviet regime, that they who control the past control the present.

Walter Benjamin, a German critic who died fleing the Nazis, spent a lot of his life writing about the revolutionary power of memory objects -- so long as they're free from authoritarian control. He also famously (in academic circles, that is) wrote that "there is no document of civilization that is not at the same time a document of barbarism."

The problem with state-controlled memories is that they impoverish memory. War is a complicated and terrible thing. The poppy, as a representative of individuals caught up in war, should be free to conjure up memories that would make a pacifist out of anyone (or any other memories for that matter). This isn't useful for a state that's pitching in soldiers to an end-less (pun intended) 'War on Terror' in Afghanistan (oh the irony! so many poppies...) right now, but it sure is useful for the rest of us.

Bob Butt says, "Unfortunately we have to protect this image or lose its use as a symbol of Remembrance." The opposite is true. So long as the image of the poppy is monopolized by 'people' like him, remembrance, in its richest and most dangerous sense, can never be possible.

Terrorism: all in the word (it's got nothing on killism)

2005-11-10T19:59:00.000-05:00

So here I am listening to an educated person on the CBC saying infectious diseases are so much less dangerous than *insert scary sounds* bio-terrorism. Which makes sense, since terrorists aren't actually good at killing people - lightening, car crashes, cigarettes, and rotten love affairs are way more effective. What terrorists are good at is scaring people - hence the irony of beyond-the-pale-media-fear-mongering that does the terrorist's work for him (or her). A million times scarier than terrorism is KILLISM, an as-yet uninvented practice (unless you count war) that really scares the shit out of me.

Star Paris reporting

2005-11-10T16:11:00.000-05:00

Good reports on French riots in the Toronto Star today. This pretty good story is a concise and necessary take on immigration history, which acknowledges the previous success of France's model before fucking it all up with the North and sub-Saharan African immigrants. But it also refers to an intifada, which completely misses the point.

Object lesson: buzzwords, which are often misleading, should be handled with care. Obviously.

For a corrective, which points to the primary economic aspects of integration, see Haroon Siddiqui's excellent piece - tightly argued.

Also, a classic wire story on the predictable barbarism of the resurgent extreme right - Le Pen et al.

And, most challenging, a longer, older piece about the misery of living in the suburbs that wasn't whipped up in 4 hours go next to a picture of burning cars.

A modest torture proposal - and more on French madness

2005-11-09T00:07:00.001-05:00

Toronto Star humour writer Linwood Barclay, less sharp than in the old days, nonetheless has a brilliant column this week:

Here's an idea, and I can't believe I'm the first to come up with this modest proposal, but why doesn't the U.S. government just go ahead and torture Lewis "Scooter" Libby? And not just for that ridiculous name.

Sure, the point's a bit obvious, but someone had to give it a go, and this one's pretty good.

Meanwhile, France is bathing in the glory of its hideous, underground, fascist aquifers - or some such metaphor. De Villepin's evoked a 1955 law that permits the state to impose curfews on towns and police to conduct raids without warrants. Surely there's some historical irony here!

Indeed, there is. The law was initially written to broaden the legal capabilities of French forces suppressing the Algerian revolution when Algeria was still a colony. And now, the children/grandchildren of the cheap Algerian labourers (themselves survivors of the first instance of the 1955 law) that France imported, are facing the repression under the exact same law.

(In fact, one might even notice a further irony, that perhaps there wouldn't be so many desperate immigrant families in France today from that part of the world if the Hexagon hadn't fucked Algeria so badly during its century of colonization that by the time it left, there were only two engineers in the whole goddamn newly-independent country [1].)

Also very precious, the leader of the Socialist Party in the French National Assembly, Mr. Ayrault, has refused to "play politics" - i.e., to criticize - this approach, out of Republican solidarity. Like President Chirac, who said that "by definition" the Republic is stronger than its enemies, Mr. Ayrault, as reported in Le Figaro, swears by tautology. He said:

"Cela fait partie des dispositions législatives qui n'ont jamais été abrogées depuis qu'elles ont été votées. Si elles étaient inacceptables, la gauche au gouvernement les auraient déjà abrogées depuis longtemps."
Trans: "[The law] is one of the legislative options that have never been abrogated since they were approved. If they were unnacceptable, the left when it was in government would have abrogated them a long time ago."

In other words, all laws passed before 2002, when the Socialists were most recently booted from power, are by definition good laws, since the Socialists, well, are-and-have-always-been perfect. Or, perhaps Mr. Ayrault is obliquely - subconsciously even - admitting that the Socialists share responsibility for the desperate conditions of France's slum-dwellers... Hmm, doesn't seem likely.

__________

1. Richard Lawless, "Algeria: The contradictions of Rapid Industrialisation," IN North Africa: Contemporary Politics and Economic Development, eds. Richard Lawless and Allan Findlay, (New York: Croom Helm, 1984), p. 153. (Yes, I wrote a long paper on the subject in university.)

Aimless autumn

2005-11-07T03:15:00.000-05:00

Life's a letdown when you're not published once a week. Somehow harder to remember shit when you're not mining it for material. Then again, a little peace and quit is nice - for about FIVE minutes.

Jane

ps, Daniel, your discussion of France is very interesting but a little *whisper* BORING. I suggest a little more humour, a little more relevance, and a few more flapper references. Thanks honey...

NY Times okay analysis

2005-11-07T01:58:00.001-05:00

This NY Times story (free registration required) does a decent job of summing up various parts of the story. Note Chirac's creepy quote about the 'Republic' needing to show who's boss. That's de Gaulle language which, becuase this is not a war against German fascism, is bad news.

French rioting in context

2005-11-05T18:06:00.000-05:00

Table of contents:

1. The current riots in historical context

2. A discussion of the political implications for France right now

3. A good friend's intelligent response, with more on the political implications

1. HISTORICAL CONTEXT

There's a period in French history called 'les trente glorieuses.' It's not a sarcastic euphamism for the depression, but rather refers to the thirty years of economic prosperity that followed WW2, a period that ground to a halt with the oil shocks of the early 1970s. During this time, in France as in most of W Europe and N America, there was virtually full employment - that is, almost anyone could get a job without a problem. In fact, there were even shortages of cheap labour, so France imported an impressive amount from its former colonies, where there was a significant surplus of cheap labour. (This was especially true of Algeria, whose economic development policies were founded on high-tech, capital-intensive industrialization.)

How to house all these people was a big question. The solution was to build high-rises in the suburbs surrounding the major metropolises. These are called 'cités', and the poorest agglomeration of this type of his housing is in the North East of Paris, where the riots are now taking place. The model has been reproduced in smaller towns throughout France.

After the world went into recession in the 1970s (it's a little discussed fact that the entire globe, with maybe the exception of SE Asia, has suffered lower econ growth in the past 30 years than in the three decades previous; neoliberalism obviously looks pretty bad in this analysis...), unemployment rates began to rise. In countries lie France, where social protections enjoyed by the indiginous majority (read, white workers) made the labour market inflexible, umeployment rose even more dramatically. For over a decade unemployment has been over 10% in France, and has long been considered the major problem of that country. (It's worse, I believe, in Germany now, but this probably because of the integration of the Eastern half of the country.) Culturally, there was a lack of concerted effort to integrate immigrant populations, which were already physically isolated and which were excluded from the traditional structures of labour mobilization. The ZEP is an example of a French program that tried to isolate underperforming 'ghetto schools' to provide them with more funds and younger teachers in an effort to improve education there. ZEP, like its sister programs, has in fact completely failed to attain its objectives. The result is geographically concentrated areas of destitute immigrant population, though we're talking less about fresh immigrants than second-, and third-generation communities that have found themselves on the periphery of the French economy. That said, there are now many disenfranchised white working class people who, feeling abandoned by socialist and communist politicians, have veered to the extreme right.

As you all know from reading my previous writing, the last decade has been a strange one in French politics, culminating in the French right coming to power and the ultra-repressive Sarkozy leading the charge for the forces of rage. A lot of rioters are screaming out Sarko as they fight the police, and many youth in these neighbourhoods have offered up his name to explain the recent riots. But they are not spontaneous, in the traditional sense of the word. It's been years since the French police have been able to safely patrol the neighbourhoods that are now on fire. For one who is even dimly aware of the conditions in these neighbourhoods, the current violence is no surprise.

The current mess could also be compared to the LA race riots, where you have a simmering tension explode after a supposed act of police malfeasance. (In this case, two youth died and a third was nearly killed while running away from police - who, apparently, were in fact chasing a different band of hooligans...) Young men, as in American black ghettos, are the worst off.

2. POLITICAL IMPLICATIONS TODAY

In terms of the political implications, it looks like the war between centrist PM De Villepin (who is a Chirac loyalist; the two are from the 'Gaullist' tradition, which is like an authoritarian version of Canadian red toryism) and neo-liberal, police-state-loving Sarkozy. De Villepin and to a greater extent the rightwing (but also Arab ethnicity) minister of equal opportunities are urging community building and some form of compassion as a response - plus, of course, police-kept law and order. Sarko insists that we must call a spade a spade, or a trouble-making immigrant (or child of an immigrant) a scum. I haven't taken the time to examine in detail the socialist response, though no doubt it will be varied since in France, repressive racists are sprinkled throughout the political spectrum.

Anyway, Sarko, who is rumoured to be gay and whose wife recently left him for a publicist has clearly decided to run for President under the tough-guy banner, and Villepin to try as a more centrist, conciliatory candidate. Both will seek the nomination of their party, the UMP. Sarko is supported by about 90% of party members, whereas Villepin has more or less caught up on national ratings from the entire French populous. But unless Villepin can win over his own party, Sarko is still the most likely, at this moment, to be the right's presidential candidate.

I believe the socialists have more soft support in general, but lack a unifying, compelling personality on the order of Sarko or Villepin, which will make it hard for them to run a stellar presidential campaign. For instance, the socialist party membership was pro-constitution, but the socialist party voting base (much, much larger) was anti-. The most likely presidential candidates, Francois Hollande (former Jospin loyalist) and Dominique Strauss Khan (former finance minister and a Mitterand, Jospin loyalist), both belong to the socialist leadership that was fucked by Le Pen in 2002. Meanwhile, Fabius, lord of the constitutional no vote, has struggled to build popularity among the public or coalition partners within the socialist party. If these riots persist, however, they could displace Europe as a central political question and revive the fortunes of Le Pen and the extreme right. We may now see the socialists settle on a social policy in response that could reframe the debate.

3. AN INTELLIGENT EXTENSION OF THE DISCUSSION FROM A MAN ON THE SCENE

Inaki Mondragon (see blog roll), currently living in Paris, emailed me this response, which clarifies matters enormously.

Aldana,

Your analysis has been great for thinking about the unrest in the banlieu. What is most stunning to me right now is how minimal the impact has been on life here in Paris proper. The suburbs might be burning, and the government might be facing a crisis, but everything seems normal. Marseille and Lyon may have both sparked up, but these speculations feel remote from reality.

The socialists, at the moment, have no answer. Neither to the banlieu nor for France's problems in general. They seem unwilling to host primaries, and there's already talk of de Villepin facing Sarkozy in a presidential run-off.

Now, the Greens and the Commmunists have both called for Sarkozy's head, which is logical since he's seen as having intentionally provoked the outbursts. The socialists are getting ready to stage demonstrations this coming week, but are sounding as though they acutely sense their impotence. There's speculation of measures as extreme as the army being sent in. Sarko, it is thought, will let the situation escalate so he can win credit as the man who imposed order on the rabble.

Sarko, for his part, agrees with you and me when he notes that the French model has not worked for the past thirty years. His solution is fascism. But the socialists, for their part, will be stuck until they break decisively with Mitterand. The socialists can't march in the banlieu against Sarkozy because they also share some of the blame for the problem. I listened to a young socialist tonight insist that all the 5th Republic needs is a charismatic and strong leader. This sentiment is more intense in the senior party.

Ideally, this surge of outrage will transform into mass action by the left and the fall of the entire right-wing French Establishment. It has been pointed out to me that this is highly unlikely since no one's offering a positive alternative. So in the meanwhile, I must hope de Villepin can smooth the situation and buy the Left time to get its act together. But more likely is the depressing outcome that this is only the beginning, and that both the excluded immigrants, and more alarmingly, the Right, will escalate their rhetoric and their tactics.

Objective White Male to the rescue

2005-11-02T00:40:00.000-05:00

Although Judge Gomery is an old man, he’s still vibrant and in good health – it wouldn’t be fair, just yet, to call him a Dead White Man (DWM).

Nonetheless, he is acting out an ancient, and hopefully dying, role. Gomery has been charged with providing an objective, final account of a Liberal corruption scandal. The public inquiry he led will end up costing close to $100 million dollars. As is frequently noted, he wrote every word of the first report, which came out this week.

But how can anyone believe that what a single man says represents the objective truth?

Jean Chrétien will accuse Gomery of bias before the courts because he didn’t like what Gomery said. But in the arguments he and his lawyer outlined on television on Tuesday, there was no broader questioning of the system: a judicial matter of the highest stakes resting on the judgment of a single human being.

Let’s forget for a moment what exactly Gomery’s first report actually says, and think instead about the kind of knowledge that it represents. In theory, the Gomery report is meant to provide an objective – you could say impartial – account of various facts. It is meant, and understood to be, true.

Maybe the broadest reason this kind of knowledge is valued is that it comes from what we consider the least corrupt branch of government – the judiciary. And if local courts and small-time judges are often held to be corrupt, at least at the highest levels, and compared to politicians, judges tend to be pretty well respected. This is obvious when it comes to Supreme Court justices, with whom we may or may not disagree, but who are treated with a hell of a lot more respect than most government ministers.

We also value judicial knowledge because it’s the closest to a clear understanding of morals and basic societal principles – like the freedoms enshrined in our constitutions. Some political decisions are moral and accessible, such as when deciding whether to go to war, but many others we call would political or bureaucratic, like how to plan a road system. The justice system, meanwhile, and let’s remember that crime TV always does better than political TV, hits close to home. We all feel closely affected by the motives and consequences of crime; and the ideas of guilt and innocence are absolutely central both to our society and to our inner sense of fair play.

So we feel we can trust judges, especially if the procedure is public, and we pay attention to them, because what they tell us is dear to our hearts. And because what they rule on is so important, there is usually an element of democracy built into the highest levels of judicial decision-making. Most criminal cases involve juries, which is the most direct involvement most citizens can have in public life these days. Then, at provincial and appeals courts there is often a panel of judges, reaching nine at the Supreme level.

The Gomery inquiry has no such structure – the conclusions he comes to are his own, and while he’s got a team, he is the undisputed leader. He’s not the first among equals, he’s the first, period.

Whose interests does this serve? On the surface, nobody’s, since presumably everyone would want the fairest possible process, and a more democratic structure would seem to be better than the current one. But there has also been a desire to get as clear an answer as possible to the questions raised by the Sponsorship scandal. As there has been no public outcry over the decision to have a single, omnipotent, and eventually, presumably, omniscient judge, we might even assume that people accept this logic.

I find it disturbing that we still chose, at moments such as this, to throw a living DWM, in all his glory, at a system buckling from the pressure of so many white male elites living out their years in power exactly as one would expect. Irrespective of whether Gomery, on balance, was right or wrong on the details, the fact that a single man has been empowered to find out, and that anyone will take such knowledge seriously as either a form of truth or even some kind of remedy, suggests a scandal completely different from the one described in the headlines. It suggests a structural gullibility of astonishing magnitude at a time when we all agree, at least superficially, that what is needed is the exact opposite.

Welcome, sit down, have a drink why don't you?

2005-10-21T00:22:00.000-04:00

Hello there my good friend,

and welcome to Aldana Unlimited. Here, all sorts of wild and wacky things will happen. For instance, I will post links; I will provide social commentary both serious and tongue-in-cheek; I will unwind.

I will also make some personal remarks - only not too often. (You know, like about the poignancy of autumn and those things...)

So to start off, a pretty serious piece about novels and politics in France, where people are enraged at the elites and at neoliberalism and have gone crazy. The left is out behind the left sidelines (European football joke!), France's bestselling writer in a bazillion years is a huge reactionary, and the only politician taking advantage is the monstrous Sarkozy. My god!

Is Islam really "a hypocritical anachronism that substitutes rage for a frank acceptance of our animal natures"?

Are the French really racist?

And just why have "[t]hese savage tirades against modern times ... struck a nerve in France’s body politic, currently seized by a dramatic crisis"?

You'll have to read "Reading Between the Lines" to find out (registration is required but also free - and, you can lie).

Readers with a short attention span might object that the article is boring - fair enough. They may also attack my failure to mention French PM Dominique de Villepin, who seems to be challenging Sarkozy from the right, right now. Well, the reason is that Sarko is the overwhelming favourite of righwing voters, and favoured by 90% of his party members; Villepin, a supposed centrist, may today jolt the left, but in the medium run, on the right, it's all Sarko. (And for more on the French constitution vote, click here.)

Otherwise, I'm distressed by the constitutional impasse in Bolivia, where the parties in power, who are about the get rocked in elections, are somehow completely failing to redistrict a handful of seats. If they can't work this out by the end of the week, December 4 elections would be cancelled. Silly, but true.

2005-09-02T16:01:00.000-04:00

Daniel Aldana (photo by Jenna Wakani)