HARPER BACKS OFF

Harper could not stop playing chess - eh-politics. When the country needed statesmanship, he played brinkmanship. Now he has gone to far, and any respect and trust he might have earned, is forfeited. Backtracking now will do little for him.He got hoisted by his own petards.

I do hope the opposition will not lose heart and back off. Bring on the coalition - it cannot be worse than this ineffectual minority government.

HARPER BLINKED

Harper Blinked…

Guess Machiavelli Harper & Co. pulled back from the brink after all. He thought he had an ace up his sleeve: having cancelled the cancellation, he now could make the opposition –the Liberals in particular –look self-serving and hypocritical if they backed off; by claiming that they were only interested in saving their subsidies. When it appeared that the opposition parties were going through with a non-confidence vote regardless, he backed off –buying time by postponing a vote until December 8th –but not before he showed himself for what he is: a cunning, conniving partisan who puts political scheming before the common good, in spite of his protestations to the contrary.

I predict that something like this will happen: The opposition parties, tired of playing political poker with the Harper & co. will pull the plug anyhow, as they should. They will likely have Dion move up his resignation date and then appoint Michael Ignatieff as temporary leader of the coalition, until an election can be held –after the Liberal convention and the resolution of the current economic crisis. After all, though not ideal, Ignatieff is all ready the Deputy Opposition Leader.

Regardless, we cannot afford to play politics as usual during these trying times. We need a concerted, non-political effort to face the tsunami of economic tidal wave about to engulf us.

HARPEROMICS

Stephen Harper must get up each morning and checking his weather-cock to see which direction the Washington southerly is blowing. Lately, it must seem like a hurricane.

Some might see this as a Machiavellian strategy of practical politics. Others might see it for what it is…

Re. Harood Sidiqui in the Star Nov 27/08

What a wonderful turn of phrase: “More immediately, all the key players need to rise above their self-serving agendas and pursue the common good, which is often best advanced through self-restraint rather than under the hammer of the law.”

Your resident Islamist-apologist, Mr. Siddiqui, is in your bully pulpit again. Self-restraining, my foot! Does he mean the kind of restraint shown by Islamists dancing in the streets after the fall of the twin towers on 9/11? Or the studied silence from the Islamic community when their young people decide to go on a “jihad” in Canada? Pray tell, where exactly are we to find the self-restraint of which he speaks?

YO-YO MACRO ECONOMICS

The international stampede to “add liquidity to the economy”,or in plain English, throw good money after bad,is more than troubling. I don’t purport to be an expert on finance or economics, but I do remember the continuing Liberal deficits during the Trudeau area's (and again during the Mulroney years)and concomitant inflation and ultimate high interest rate cure.I thought that yoyo macro-economics were a thing of the past –guess I was wrong. I predict that in two or three years’ time, we will see inflation roaring back with a vengeance.

Re. "Opposition takes hit as Tories move to cut $27-million subsidy for parties."Globe & Mail

I must admire Harper & Flatherty's Machiavellian tactics and strategies. The Liberals, in particular, are in bad financial shape. On the pretexts of saving money, he have just given them a kick to the head while they are down.

Oh, well, every dog has it's day, and another day it will be the Cons. in the barrel.

Timely quotation

"The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."

Cicero - 55 BC

Liberals need to rebuild - from the bottom up...

What the Liberal Party needs is a rebuild from the bottom up, a fundamental review of its policies, and in particular, its internal relationships and politics. Ignatieff might be the “frontrunner” –even the anointed one –but so was Paul Martin. What they need is a fresh face with fresh ideas and the energy and skills to implement reform –a Canadian Obama.

However, I fear that the Liberals will act in character: they will follow the “front runner” to the precipice, and like lemmings (or is it sheep?) they will go over the top, not realizing that they just elected an English-speaking Stephane Dion.

Mr. Harper, the incumbent, will reinvent himself again –like a chameleon –reflecting the needs of the day. Like Robert Frost, he will have lots of promises to keep –except he won’t.

I hope I am wrong –but then again, I rooted for Dion

The real reason a Big Three bailout is a bad idea - Andrew Coyne in Maclean's

Andrew Coyne does it again. He has zeroed in on the real problem, and elucidated it as only he can do.

The overpaid mandarins of the Big Three have for too long depended on government’s handouts and guarantees, with a song and a promise to maintain local production and employment, all the while pushing their gas guzzling dinosaurs and avoiding facing the inevitable changes. The unions were willing participants in the charade, just as long as the domestic auto manufacturers acceded to their outrageous featherbedding demands, paying them more than twice the average wage for semi-skilled labour. After all, before the Japanese snuck up on them, they had a virtual monopoly, and could pass the costs on to the buyer. For a while, mechanization and robotics kept the labour costs per vehicle in check, since they could reduce the expensive work force. However, the Japanese were even better at mechanization and cost cutting, implementing such innovations as “just in time” manufacturing, and technical innovations in efficient engines and quality products, leaving the domestic manufacturers scrambling to catch up. They forgot to innovate long ago; keepers of the status quo and followers rather than leaders.

These “captains of industry”(otherwise known as fat cats) pay lip service to laissez faire capitalism when the wind is in their sails, but as soon they face strong head-winds, they run to the government trough to feed with all the other little welfare- piggies –except they do it in corporate jets.

Mr. Coyne is making the very poignant argument that shoring up a failing industry is contra-productive in the longer run; the opportunity cost of capital being tied up in an obsolete and calcified industry exceeds the short time benefits of saving them now. Better let them fail –go into bankruptcy and reorganize; unload the overpaid “cretinous” bums at the top and pay the workers what they are really worth.

Perhaps then they can emerge again as an innovative and dynamic organization that can compete in world markets. Maybe.

McGuinty eyes race - Star, Nov.15th

Re.Steps in the right direction - Nov. 15

Finally, some sensible ideas on youth crime from a politician. Making racial statistics taboo might have seemed like a non-discriminating policy at the time, but all it really does is blindfold police and authorities, making it harder to zero in on the real issues and problem areas. Only when these problems are freely acknowledged by the authorities, as well as the affected parties, can something be effectively done, both through policing efforts and preventive social programs. It won't make it easy, but it will be a step in the right direction.

Sigmund Roseth, Mississauga

McGuinty eyes race stats - Star Nov.15th.

Finally, some sensible ideas on youth crime from a politician. Making racial statistics taboo might have seemed like a non-discriminating policy at the time, but all it really does is blindfolding police and authorities, making it harder to zero in on the real issues and problem areas. Only when these problems are freely acknowledged by the authorities, as well as the affected parties, can something be effectively done, both through policing efforts and preventive social programs. Better than banning guns and closing down gun club shooting ranges.

It won't make it easy, but it will be a step in the right direction

“A tinpot Parliament voted in by a tiny minority” – Andrew Coyne, Maclean’s Nov.24th/08

Andrew Coyne makes interesting observations and comments in his last column. I have always been conflicted about how to vote: should I vote for the party or should I cast my vote for the local member, whatever his party affiliation? With a few exceptions, I have chosen to vote for the party. However, this is one facet of our democratic process that is less than perfect. “One person, one vote” sounds fair and equitable, until you consider the unequal populations in our various provinces. That’s the conundrum of a federal state.

As usual, Mr. Coyne makes some pointed and rational observations. I agree that more televised debates are desirable, but they should also be of substance, not just showboating by the participants. It emerges, though, that the public wants to be hoodwinked, or at least tacitly accept it. How else to explain that our politicians are not held to account for promises made and broken.

There are ways to make the process more equitable and fair, but making change in the electoral system is fraught with its own problems and dangers. Our parliamentary system, inherited from Britain, has evolved over a very long time, and is not readily changed. There are too many vested interests –winners and losers – in such a process. Just look at the success we are having, reforming (or removing) the retirement home we call The Senate.

I agree that Australia’s mandatory voting process is “crude”; but effective? I sincerely doubt it. Furthermore, if we pay citizens to vote, what kind of thoughtful decision do you think such people would make? And if we force them to vote, would that be of any benefit to the polity? I maintain that if someone are not prepared to weigh carefully their choices and are not motivated enough to vote on their own volition, then we are better off as a society without their input. We need to vote for good people to lead and guide our country, people unhampered by pressure groups, lobbyists and bribery.

The voting percentage is no higher in the US – even in this last election; with the high stakes and the different choices facing the American voters; even with an energized and encouraged youth and Latino vote, the total turnout was still only in the sixties percentile.

Most people do not neglect to vote in order to protest, or because they are disillusioned. Mainly, they don’t vote because they are indifferent and complacent. Let them be.

“Mother fights for right to nurse child in pool” Star, Nov 12/08

Let me be sure I got this right:

Ellie Karkouti, herself an expectant mom, owns a commercial swimming pool in York Region. Cinira Longuinho, who immigrated from Brazil just four years ago, went swimming with her 20-month-old daughter in Ms. Karkouti’s pool on Monday, October 24th .She decide to nurse her daughter in the pool. Not on the deck, not in a corner of the pool area; no, in the pool. Ms. Karkouti asks her to suckle her child out of the pool, in the change room. Seems reasonable to me.

Ms Longuinho, to whom English is a second language, took umbrage to this rather sensible request, and, returning four days later, on Friday the 28th, with a few other women supporters, instigated a “peaceful protest for breastfeeding” against Ms. Karkouti and her Aqua Centre, who then had to hire private guards to protect her premises.

Now, Ms. Longuinho wants the Ontario Human Rights Commission to investigate why she wasn’t allowed to suckle her kid in the public pool! Have I got it right so far?

What blows my mind is how quickly newcomers to these blessed shores learn their civil rights here, and how ardently they pursue these rights as soon as they feel victimized by the slightest real or perceived offence.

I was an immigrant once, and more times than I care to remember was I “discriminated” against; called a D.P. and told to come back when I could speak English. It never occurred to me to complain, and if I had, I would have been told that if I did not like it here, I could go back to whence I came.

With all the unfairness, real discrimination and serious hurts in this world, we have a newly minted Canadian who wishes to waste public money by having the Human Rights Commission “investigate” why she got her nose out of joint. Then, to top it of, it is front page news in the Star –colour photos and all.

Mosque fights for human rights as it smears West, Jews online.

Here we go again. Muslims complaining to the Canadian Human Rights Commission about infringements on their “rights”. These same people who spout anti-western and anti-Canadian vitriol and vituperations at every opportunity, preaching hatred in their mosques such as the Khalid Bin Al-Walid.

Westerns, us – other than Muslims – are “wicked”, “corrupt” and “our clear enemies.” Takes me back to the Khadar interview done in Pakistan a couple of years ago.

This fringe fanatical Muslims came here knowing that Canada is a liberal democracy – what did they expect? If we are so foul, why did they come, and why are they staying?

In their wonderful Islamic societies from whence they came, and to which they so ardently aspire, would they be accorded even a sliver of the rights they are espousing and demanding here? I think not.

There is no law stopping them from leaving, and good riddance.

Let me just add that I do know a number of Muslim- Canadians and they are reasonable and decent people. I am sure they are chagrined at the unwanted attention their radical brethren are getting. They want just to be left to practice their faith and are quite happy to let others practice theirs, or lack thereof.

OBAMA

Much has been said all ready, both profound and profuse, about the sea-change in American politics and society. It is hard to imagine that it is scarce forty years since blacks were denied basic human rights in the southern US; that they faced segregation in schools and public areas such as buses and even washrooms. It is hoped that African-Americans as well as all Americans, have indeed reached that “mountaintop” of which Martin Luther King spoke, and that what they see in the distance is in fact their “New Jerusalem”.

I fear that the extraordinary expectations of the people will meet with disappointment down the road and the incredible challenges that will confront President Obama will be more than any human being can overcome, even though he surrounds himself with the best of helpers and advisers. Solving the economic mess alone will take tremendous efforts, requiring hard choices and difficult decisions, and take longer than most people realize. And, that’s only the beginning.

But I have another fear, of something much more sinister; that some home-breed crackpot will kill him. It happened to the Kennedy brothers, and it almost happened to Regan; and of course, it happened to Martin Luther King. In an open democracy such as America, it is hard to protect even a President from a really determined maniac.

Let’s hope, for everyone’s sake –America as well as the rest of the world – that in this case, at least, history does not repeat itself.