Alison alerts us that basic Canadian foreign policy is being secretly rewritten by the Con's political staffers:
Among the changes identified are the excising of the word "humanitarian" from each reference to "international humanitarian law," replacing the term "gender equality" with "equality of men and women", switching focus from justice for victims of sexual violence to prevention of sexual violence, and replacing the phrase "child soldiers" with "children in armed conflict." For many observers of Canada's foreign policy, these are distressing language changes that water down many of the very international human rights obligations Canada once fought to have adopted in conventions at the United Nations. As one source said, in the international world of diplomacy—where officials often focus detailed discussions on the language included in documents and policies—wording makes a big difference.
Why are these changes happening? Well, as Alison notes:
Canada pioneered protection for child soldiers in international humanitarian law at the UN, but that was before we became the last government on planet Earth to offer our passive support to what goes on in Gitmo.
The Republicans think they can kill Obama's attempt to improve US health care just like they killed Clinton's attempt in 1993. But though the tactics of lying, denying and distracting used by the health care lobby, the Republicans, and Fox News haven't changed, two other things have: today, we have blogs tocreatethe message and MSNBC to deliverit. This time, I think the bloggers and MSNBC might be able to combat the political and corporate forces of darkness who want to sabotage health care reform in the US. It appeared that Obama initally underestimated how tough a fight it was going to be, and how powerful the forces who want him to fail. He's learning. Health care reform supporters like Jon Stewart and Paul Krugman are telling Obama to smarten up and get a message:
The essence is really quite simple: regulation of insurers, so that they can’t cherry-pick only the healthy, and subsidies, so that all Americans can afford insurance . . . what it means for the individual will be that insurers can’t reject you, and if your income is relatively low, the government will help pay your premiums.
That's not quite the 'single-payer" nirvana that is the way we do things in Canada, but considering the complexity and size of the US, I have come to believe that perhaps its the best their federal government can do for them. And finally, the Democratic party is coming out swinging, with an ad campaign to confront the astroturf disruptions of their town hall meetings:
Knock on wood, but it looks like the airline we all love to hate is working on getting better. Yes, we had two good flights from Air Canada on our recent trip to Toronto -- and then the airline also sent me a questionnaire to ask about our experience. So, for the first time it appears that Air Canada actually cares whether we liked flying with them or not -- now, that's an advance! CEO Calin Rovinescu has set what is likely a realistic goal for customer satisfaction:
Winning over consumers will also be challenging and, despite much skepticism, Mr. Rovinescu is forging ahead in his quest to create a kinder and gentler Air Canada. “What are the chances of having a good flight and a high level of service? They're certainly, I would say, better than 90 per cent. Less than 10 per cent of the time, people may have less than happy experiences,” he said.
The only thing I didn't like about our trip was the automatic check-in kiosks in the Toronto airport -- difficult to work our way through screen after screen, and then we had to stand in line anyway to check our luggage. But basically, other than that, Air Canada did a great job.
"It's the nature of the business," we hear a nameless, faceless suit tell a reporter who's being laid off and who is also, appropriately, now nameless and faceless. And in the suit's earnest, practical, condescending and scolding tones we can hear the voice of the Times and the times. The human being losing his job is expected not just to understand but to approve. The nature of the business has become the nature of our society---we are all expected to understand that we are each expendable and replaceable, that our sole (soul's) purpose is to be at the service of the business and we should appreciate it when we are expended and replaced because aren't we lucky to live in a society where our being expendable and replaceable so improves the common good? Stock prices go up, someone else gets to keep his job---probably the guy telling you you've just lost yours---money's being made and spent and somewhere someone will eat well tonight because we have served the business by accepting that we are no longer of use to it.
Today the news is all over the blogs about the significant increase in the long-term US unemployment rate and how half a million people in the States will have exhausted their unemployment by the end of September. Food banks will be the new growth industry. This song keeps running through my head:
How terrifying it would be, to be Glenn Beck and to believe that the government is keeping an eye on Glenn Beck. I guess Obama must be using Bush's warrentless wiretap program, the one that all the right-wing pundits were so happy about.
Amazing -- ratfucking is no longer the preserve of unprincipled sleazy political operatives but has become mainstream. Just another advance we can thank the Republicans for.
Rick Salutin writes a sensible column about the Toronto civic strike He's the first commentator I have read who tries to get away from the horserace talk of "winners and losers" and accurately describe what actually happened:
The Globe's Marcus Gee wrote that at most, the mayor won a “partial victory.” Others said he “caved.” The National Post headlined, “Unions won, hands down.” His last press conference was like a lynch mob. Please note that the war talk didn't come from the unions. What had they “won,” to so annoy the class-warmongers? Exactly nothing. They gained nothing, never even aimed to gain. Their goals were to preserve what they had, and they got at most a partial victory. They held onto a diminishing (unto zero) part of their sick days bank, and a fraction of the wage increase that others, like police, received. What kind of victory do the critics want – unconditional surrender? Maybe the mayor should have A-bombed the picket lines. But if you call for social warfare, you might get it. There are scattered signs: VIA went briefly on strike; in South Africa, there are riots against the failure to deliver social justice as promised since the end of apartheid; even in the United States, people have been arrested, calling for single-payer health care. What causes social upheaval is not so much desperation, which is always in supply, as it is overdoses of sanctimony, hypocrisy and double standards.
Speaking from hillbilly fantasyland, Peter MacKay says the Canadian government is going to order 50 ships over the next 30 years. Dave calls them Harper's hillbilly Conservatives and he's right. And rather than awarding these billions of public dollars in shipbuilding contracts through old-fashioned competitive bidding, the Cons have developed great new system which will allow them to decide which shipyards to support:
...a new process that theoretically will allow the government to pick and choose in a more direct way which Canadian shipyards will build which ships.
I just hope none of those shipyards have any gay employees -- Charles McVety will complain and Tony Clements will have to take over deciding which shipyards can be trusted! Ya know, at some point Canadians are going to realize that the Harper Conservatives don't actually know how to run a government.
... he didn't mean to use words like 'banana eating jungle monkey' "in a racist way." "It was a poor choice of words," Barrett said. I didn't mean it in a racist way. I treat everyone with dignity and respect.".
If he HAD meant to be disrespectful, undignified and racist, what would he have said?
In a comment to Dawg's excellent coverage of the Suaad Hagi Mohamud scandal, Zia writes:
there could be a logical explanation for everything
Why yes, that's true. But given the pattern of how our own government appears to give both irresponsible authority and unwarranted credibility to anonymous secret allegations against Canadian citizens who run into trouble overseas, I doubt it.
I don't think American or Canadian TV could get away with this type of critique any more. Also, check out this one, reminds me of the Daily Show in skewering journanimalism. Again, don't miss the last 30 seconds:
I noted, once again, the irony how it's never white people doing racist things, or other white people subsequently denying even the possibility of racism inherent to those things, that are called the race-baiters, but instead the people of color who call that shit out. It's always people of color and their gosh darn insistence on talking about racism who are accused of preventing racial unity, not the white people who engage in racism. Thus, the narrative becomes that Obama, by talking about the history of police racism, is a bigger threat to racial unity than the actual police who practice and perpetuate institutional racism. KBlogz, always with the devastatingly witty insight, suggested wryly: "The media should go burn a cross on the White House lawn to remind Obama that racism is over."
