The Wasteland

If a new Angus Reid Poll is an accurate snapshot of where the country is today, then we are -- as the first George Bush used to say -- "in deep doo-doo." According to the poll, the majority of Canadians believe that "the worst are full of passionate intensity," while "the best lack all conviction." Jaideep Mukerji, the vice president of Angus Reid, summarized the results of the poll:

According to results obtained to date, only 20 per cent of Canadians can be described as “invigorated” by the current political scene and these are almost exclusively Conservatives — happy with politics the way it is, as long as their chosen party is in power, the poll found. “That’s Stephen Harper’s base, right there,” Mukerji said.

The other 80 per cent were scattered between mistrust, cynicism and alienation, with only 13 per cent described as hopeful, “mid-left” voters. These were the type more likely to say that politics was a positive force and that government’s job was to help out people less fortunate.

By far, the largest clump of voters were found at the mistrustful middle, in which well over 80 per cent agreed that politicians were less honest and that current political leadership in Canada was disappointing. No one party has an advantage with these voters — roughly 30 per cent are leaning Conservative, 30 per cent are leaning NDP and 20 per cent are leaning Liberal.

“No political party has enough of a base on their own to be able to satisfy the middle,” Mukerji says.

The results do not bode well for voter turnout. We are a country which has known passionate debates before -- the 1980 Quebec referendum among them. But we survived that turbulence because Canadians were engaged in their nation's politics. It would appear that the politics of personal destruction -- and I'm thinking of those five years of Conservative attack ads -- have left us in a political wasteland.

But, regardless of who is responsible, the country is now literally in our hands. Only we can change it. Or, as Yeats accurately predicted, the centre will not hold.

This entry is  cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Voting for a Constitutional Crisis

There have been red flags galore throughout this election campaign. From Bruce Carson, to "big boss" Dimitri Soudas, to fake lakes and gazebos which were required for "border security" in Tony Cement's riding -- there has been ample evidence of what Stephen Harper used to decry. But Harper himself raised the biggest flag of all last week when he questioned the opposition's right to form a government.

But asked whether the opposition parties would have the “right” to form government, Harper said “that’s a question, a debate of constitutional law.

“My view is that the people of Canada expect the party that wins the election to govern the country ... anything else, the public will not buy,” he told Peter Mansbridge.

Harper also said that if his party comes in second in the election, he would not form a government — even if asked by the governor general in the event the front-runner failed to win the confidence of the Commons.

“If the other guys win, they get a shot at government and I don’t think you challenge that unless you are prepared to go back to the people,” he said.

“We’ll be into another election before too long. That’s why I think I need a majority mandate. I think this has gone on long enough.”

Parliamentary expert Ned Franks dismissed Harper’s comments as “constitutional nonsense.”

“There’s only one requirement for being the government and that is you must enjoy the confidence of the House of Commons,” said Franks, professor emeritus at Queen’s University.
“It’s not a constitutional debate. Constitutionally, there’s absolutely no question. There are ample precedents both in Canada and abroad to support it.”

Franks accused the Conservative leader of trying to rewrite the Constitution for his own end.
“He’s trying to change not just the Constitution in terms of what confidence means, he’s also trying to change it in terms of how governments are formed,” Franks said.

So we could face a constitutional crisis when the House returns. Or we could face one later. William Johnson in The Globe and Mail reminded English Canada that nationalism's winds are blowing again in Quebec.

Pauline Maurois, who is likely to displace the Liberals and form the next Quebec government within two years, emerged triumphant from the weekend convention of the Parti Québécois with a confidence vote of 93 per cent, the highest in the party’s history. She promptly announced that a PQ government, as soon as it was elected, would enact a program of gouvernance souverainiste – that is, would occupy various jurisdictions now exercised by the federal government.

One of the reasons the Liberals are doing so poorly in Quebec is because the provincial party -- under Jean Charest for three mandates -- have tarnished the brand. And, when Quebecers wish to change governments, they only have one option.. Some might argue that Mr. Harper would simply let Quebec go. But it has never been that simple -- not when Quebec is in the middle of the country. Moreover, if Mr. Harper deals with Quebec's demands in the same way he has and intends to deal with the opposition parties, the country is in deep trouble.

Irresistible force meet immovable object. Add to that Mr. Harper's demonization of the Bloc Quebecois for his own ends. Any Prime Minister who claims -- as Mr. Harper has -- that his government has rendered Quebec separatism irrelevant is a fool. The question before us is, "How many Canadians wish to march in a Fool's Parade?"

A Lesson in Civics

Adam Radwanski writes in this morning's Globe and Mail that Michael Ignatieff has finally fallen into Stephen Harper's trap:

Mr. Harper has been setting this trap ever since Stéphane Dion’s ill-fated attempt to take power 2 1/2 years ago. Now, Mr. Ignatieff has wandered straight into it. He has 11 days to find his way out.

Oh, that wily Stephen Harper! National party leaders, writes Radwanski, are not supposed to be civics professors:

If the two men were being graded by civics teachers, Mr. Ignatieff would indeed be winning. His explanation of how another Conservative minority would work – the need for Mr. Harper to gain the confidence of Parliament, the possibility that a failure to do so will lead the Governor-General to turn to Mr. Ignatieff instead – is grounded in parliamentary conventions. Mr. Harper’s insistence that only the party with the most seats can govern, and anyone else attempting to do so is usurping the will of the people, is an open defiance of those conventions.

But the leaders are not being judged by civics teachers; they’re being judged by an electorate looking for a reasonably concise explanation of what its options are. Mr. Harper is providing that, however misleadingly. Mr. Ignatieff is not.

His column is a measure of how cynical political punditry has become in this nation. But there are occasional glimmers in the gloom. In this morning's Vancouver Sun Craig McInnes asks, "When did compromise become a dirty word?" He notes that:

Because of the low turnout in the 2008 election, Harper has been governing with the express consent of just 22 per cent those who could have voted for his party. If he gets similar support this time and a similar number of seats, to continue governing he will have to seek the support of a Parliament in which a majority of MPs were not sent to Ottawa by their constituents to keep him in office.

Harper says, unlike Ignatieff, he won't compromise with the other parties to get their support. Given the compromises the Conservatives have made in the past five years to stay in power, that seems unlikely unless Harper is trying to force a confrontation. More to the point, what benefit is there to Canadians when a party with only minority support insists it has the right to impose its views on the majority without taking theirs into consideration?

Mr.Harper maintains that, even though a majority of votes cast would not Conservative, those voters would be losers.That notion is more than just wrong, McInnes writes:

Beyond the legal position, if we believe that a country with disparate cultures and traditions can thrive under a common government, the notion that compromise and seeking consensus is un-democratic or un-Canadian, is simply offensive.

Mr. Harper doesn't get it. Neither does Mr. Radwanski.

It's All About Legitimacy

Dan Leger, in yesterday's Chronicle Herald, writes that the real issue behind this election has been obscured:

What’s the great issue of the 2011 election? Certainly leadership, platforms and competing visions of Canada are in play. But something else is going on. This campaign has become a battle for legitimacy. It has gone deep and turned dark, into a place where the parties now claim that electing their opponents will taint the legitimacy of politics.

It started on Day 1 and nothing has happened to change it. The story lines have evolved, but the underlying ballot question that has emerged is this dispute over legitimacy.

The New Right -- from the first President Bush down to Stephen Harper -- has attempted to portray its opponents as illegitimate. The first Bushies claimed that Bill Clinton was an illegitimate president because he garnered only 42% of the vote. And now some Republicans, who claim a preference for tea, claim that Barack Obama is illegitimate because -- all evidence to the contrary -- he was not born in the United States.

Stephen Harper has been using that line against Micheal Ignatieff since he returned from the United States. He's not one of us, Harper claims. And he has gone even further. In this election, he argues, any other political arrangement -- other than a Conservative majority -- is illegitimate.

Democrats turned that argument on Republicans when the Supreme Court installed George W. Bush in the White House. Now the Liberal Party has turned it against Stephen Harper. But there is a difference. Liberals argue that, while Harper was legitimately elected, his demonstrated contempt for Parliament has, in effect, nullified his legitimacy.

It is, indeed, a sad turn of events. Democracy is founded on the principle that differences of policy need to be debated. Most elections, writes Leger, revolve around two questions: Is it time for a change? And who is most fit to govern?

Those questions are certainly in play. But in 2011, with no great difference in party platforms, the arguments boil down to the idea that some parties must not rule because of something fundamentally illegitimate about their behaviour, their leadership or because of some hidden agenda.

Neo-Conservatism is the gift that keeps on giving. Or, more accurately, it is the poison that keeps on spreading.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

"Missed It By That Much!"

As Mr. Harper repeats his claim that his government stands for prudent financial management, there appears a story in today's Ottawa Citizen, reporting that the F35's the government plans to purchase are of the stripped down variety:

The multi-million dollar F-35 stealth fighter that the Conservatives want to purchase comes with all the accoutrement's of a high-tech aircraft — everything, that is, except an engine.

The government will be required to provide engines for the 65 planes to be delivered by U.S. manufacturer Lockheed Martin, according to newly released Defence Department documents.

.

In another time and place this story would provide the seed for an episode of Get Smart. It's not hard to visualize. Max and the Chief, entombed in the Cone of Silence, are reviewing the numbers for the purchase. When the Chief questions those figures, a flustered Max replies, "Missed it by that much!"

The point is that "smart" is not the adjective which comes to mind to describe this crew. When they present figures, the public response should be what President Obama reportedly told the Republicans on the other side of the bargaining table: "Do you really think we're stupid?"

Speaking of Harper's plan to find $11 billion dollars in savings, Paul Martin -- who has some experience constructing federal budgets -- told an audience in Edmonton yesterday:

Now I look at those numbers and I have the same reaction that the C.D. Howe has, that the Fraser Institute has, which is to say they can’t find that money without major cuts, and I can tell you one area that clearly is in danger [of] suffering, that is in fact the health care budget.

He then reminded his audience of what the Prime Minister has said in the past:

Stephen Harper has said unequivocally that he does not think that the Canada Health Act or that health care is a federal responsibility, so he’s going to stick with where the federal responsibilities in his mind are.

Mr. Harper has spent a lot of his time during this campaign running away from his past, and essentially repeating the lines of an old Bob Dylan song: "I Was So Much Older Then, I'm Younger Than That Now." Perhaps -- when the Prime Minister finally leaves government -- he will have a future as a pianist -- or better still, as a comic. Like Buster Keaton, he need never crack a smile.

If someone gets the bright idea of bringing back Get Smart, perhaps he'll answer the casting call.

The Competence Myth

Patrick Brethour, in Friday's Globe and Mail, writes that Canadians see Stephen Harper as "nasty, brutish -- and competent." Nasty and brutish, yes. But competent? Only if you buy Mr. Harper's rewriting of recent history.

Paula Arab, writing in what the Prime Minister calls his "hometown" paper, takes issue with Harper's claim to prescient economic management. When he touts his government's stimulus package, Arab writes:

That’s rich — claiming credit for something his party was forced to do, under threat of a non-confidence vote and another election. The opposition parties were so frustrated with the Harper government’s downplaying of the economy, they agreed on their own stimulus package, forcing an about-face.

Here’s what Harper declared just four days before the Oct. 14, 2008, election: “This country will not go into recession next year and will lead the G7 countries. We have every reason to believe Canada will stay out of recession if Canada doesn’t start raising taxes and spending itself into deficit.”

Then there's the matter of Canada's superior banking system. Susan Riley, in The Ottawa Citizen reminds readers that:

it was Liberal governments that created the well regulated banking system Harper likes to boast about internationally - often in the face of criticism from anti-regulation zealots like the old Harper.

Finally, there is the minor matter of the $12 billion surplus the Martin government bequeathed to the Prime Minister -- which disappeared before the recession hit. It's worth noting that Mr. Harper claims to be an economist.

Anyone with a record like that is pitching into the dirt -- and he should be sent to the showers.

Democracy? What's That?

Give Michael Ignatieff credit. Time and again last night, he reminded Canadians why this election was called. When Stephen Harper tried to make the point that the election was about the economy, Ignatieff countered that it was about democracy. "We need to rebuild our democracy after Mr. Harper," Ignatieff said,

Mr. Harper cannot be trusted with the institutions of our country. This is a man who simply will shut down anything he can’t control. He shut down Parliament twice,” Ignatieff said, referring to the Conservatives’ decision to prorogue Parliament on two occasions.

The historical significance of the recent non-confidence vote is lost on Harper. He is the only Prime Minister in the history of all the British parliamentary democracies to be found in contempt of Parliament. To Harper, the vote was merely parliamentary sleight of hand: "simply a case of the other three parties outvoting us." That statement encapsulates the Prime Minister's character. And, in the end, this election is about the Prime Minister's character. Since the current Conservative Party is a one man show, the man is the party. Both are full of seething resentment for the opposition -- particularly Ignatieff. But Ignatieff is right:

You’ve got to walk the walk here, Mr. Harper, and you haven’t. You keep talking about Parliament as if it’s this little debating society that’s a pesky interference in your rule of the country. It’s not. It’s the Parliament of the people of Canada.

Like Harper's PMO adviser, Bruce Carson, Mr. Harper was a bad hire. He is not the man who interviewed for the job. As Jack Layton -- who was at the top of his game -- said last night:

You’ve become what you used to oppose. You’ve changed in some way ... You said you’d clean up Ottawa from scandals and now we’ve got the most closed secretive government we’ve pretty well ever had.

This election is about the Prime Minister. Like the hundreds of thousands of Canadians who lost their jobs in the Great Recession, this man -- who claims to be an economist -- should be encouraged to find employment elsewhere.

Now It's Trudeau's Ghost

Yesterday, Stephen Harper conjured up the ghost of Pierre Trudeau and repeated what he has said throughout this campaign: "Boo!" He told an audience in Drumondviille that:

I think it’s a bit unfair to bash somebody in the grave - he’s not here to defend himself - but as you know Mr. Trudeau did have a different philosophy of government: a high-spending philosophy, a centralizing philosophy.

Unfair or not, that's precisely what he went on to do: "The comparison I’m obviously making is the fact that as we all know in 1972 ... we had a Liberal government that relied on the NDP for ongoing support." The result, Harper said, was unmitigated disaster:

All they did was spend money [and] that led to two decades of ... runaway spending, higher taxes, double-digit unemployment and double digit interest rates.

As Ned Franks, of Queen's University has noted, Mr. Harper's claim that coalitions are illegitimate is a figment of his imagination. Moreover, Harper's reading of history is highly selective. He ignores two Middle East oil shocks which had a lot to do with the stagflation of the 70's. More than that, he ignores the fact that the two highest deficits in Canadian history were run up by Conservative governments -- Brian Mulroney's and his own. In between, the Chretien-Martin governments eliminated the Mulroney deficit and ran up a $12 billion surplus. And, at the moment, Mr. Harper holds the record for both spending and deficits.

Mr. Harper is allergic to facts. That is why he deep-sixed the long term census. As long as a solid database exits, it's hard for him to support his argument. Whether its opposition politicians or members of the press, Mr. Harper finds it hard to confront a narrative other than his own. Perhaps that's because, deep down, he lacks the courage of his convictions. Or, perhaps, he simply lacks courage.

The Peoples Budget

Americans woke up on Saturday to find that their politicians had not driven off a cliff. There is cause for hope. But, like previous stop gap measures, the eleventh hour agreement doesn't solve long term problems. It merely buys time. Jeffrey Sachs, of Columbia University, puts recent budget skirmishes in context:

The current budget negotiations have been a dialogue among the wealthy. The big debate has focused on which programs for the poor should be axed first. There has been no discussion of raising taxes on the rich, and quite the contrary, the White House and the Republican leadership agreed to further tax cuts last December. Obama has repeatedly expressed regret at slashing community development, energy support for the poor, and other programs, but he is not fighting the trend, only regretting it.

Sachs then draws attention to The Peoples Budget, which has been advanced by the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Like Paul Ryan's plan, the People's Budget would reduce the deficit by 2021; but it

would do so in an efficient and fair way. It would close the budget deficit by raising tax rates on the rich and giant corporations, while also curbing military spending and wrestling health care costs under control, partly by introducing a public option. By raising tax revenues to 22.3 percent of GDP by 2021, the People's Budget closes the budget deficit while protecting the poor and promoting needed investments in education, health care, roads, power, energy, and the environment in order to raise America's long-term competitiveness. The People's Budget thereby achieves what Ryan and Obama do not: the combination of fairness, efficiency, and budget balance.

The poor don't vote; and they cannot afford to buy lobbyists. Their voice has been missing in the current debate. But, writes Sachs, Americans have been here before:

Twice before in American history -- during the Gilded Age of the 1880s and in the 1920s, just before the Great Depression -- big corporate money effectively owned Washington. But in both eras great progressive leaders (including the two Roosevelts, Theodore and Franklin) came along to restore the true meaning of American democracy: a government truly of the people, by the people, and for the people. With public protests against government by the rich now spreading in Wisconsin, Ohio and beyond, and with the launch of the People's Budget by the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a great national movement to restore American democracy has begun.

The genius of American democracy is that, for over 235 years, its citizens -- from the Civil War to The Great Depression -- have always done the right thing. That's not to say that there has not been unnecessary suffering and mountains of foolishness. But, in the end, government of the people has worked for all of the people.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

The Ghost of Nixon

More than thirty-five year ago, in the summer of 1974, I was finishing a Masters degree at the University of North Carolina. I lived in a student residence -- a high rise affair -- where, every morning, I could walk out on my balcony and look down at a parking lot whose cars bore licence plates from all over the United States. There was always one car which caught my eye. It was a green Ford from Massachusetts, with a bumper sticker which read, "Don't Blame Me."

The reference was to the fact that, in 1972, Massachusetts was the only state not to vote for Richard Nixon. The Watergate story -- thanks to Woodward and Bernstein -- had begun to come out during that election. The Nixon campaign team had authorized burglaries into Democratic Party Headquarters. Nixon had ordered the IRS to harass his enemies; and the FBI had begun to look into the affairs of people who did not support the president.

On the evening of August 8th, I was putting the finishing touches on my thesis. I took a break and walked down to the basement -- to the Common Room -- where every student in the dorm had gathered to watch Nixon give his resignation speech. When it was over, I walked back to my room, where some of my neighbours had opened a bottle of wine and were singing the Hallelujah Chorus. I had followed the Watergate Affair. But I was a visitor, so I kept my opinions to myself. I smiled, said that I was a Canadian, and I asked why the celebration. They -- there were about six in the group -- stopped, whooped and one guy said, slowly and distinctly, "Because we finally got rid of the son of a bitch!"

I have been thinking of that night as news reports of RCMP officers throwing people out of Harper rallies have come to light. It would appear that someone in that organization has been carefully screening Facebook pages. Then there is the story that Wild Bill Elliott, now Commissioner of the RCMP, issued a security clearance to Bruce Carson -- Harper's chief adviser in the PMO -- knowing that Carson had been convicted on five counts.

Harper's response has been, "When the room is full, some people have to leave." And, he says, "bureaucrats" vetted Mr. Carson; he had nothing to do with it. Harper is as believable as Nixon was when he proclaimed, "I am not a crook!" The evidence has been mounting for five years. Stephen Harper threatens Canada's democratic institutions. And, like Nixon, Harper's acquaintance with the truth is tenuous. Michael Ignatieff has it right. He "wouldn't recognize the truth if it walked up and shook his hand."

The question is, are Canadians going to place their trust in this man? If they do, they will regret their decision. And some night -- in the not too distant future -- they will celebrate his departure. Until then, there may be run on bumper stickers which read, "Don't Blame Me."

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Man of the People?

The Harper campaign has been working from Karl Rove's playbook. It micro targets voters and it carefully screens the people who show up at Harper rallies. The Chronicle Herald has published a story which may prove apocalyptic:

A Dartmouth volunteer who helps homeless veterans was turned away from a Stephen Harper election rally last week and the man calls it a slap in the face to those who have been injured in service of their country.

Jim Lowther of the Veterans Emergency Transition Team said he is apolitical but will stand with anyone who promises to help the people he helps: former Canadian Forces members who find themselves living on the street, often as a result of psychological disorders caused by their service.

Lowther has been trying to set up a meeting with Harper to seek help for veterans but has been rebuffed.

On Thursday, he and fellow veterans advocate Gary Zwicker went to the Halterm container pier on the Halifax waterfront hoping to get a few minutes with Harper, or at least to watch his speech. But a Conservative staffer in a suit and tie denied them entry at the gate.

"We said we were veterans and we wanted to listen to what he had to say," Lowther said. "And we were turned away."

Whether it's putting a fence between reporters and the Prime Minister, refusing to take their questions, or handing out future tax cuts to carefully defined voters, the Harper campaign is all about keeping the Prime Minister away from the people. For, you see, the people are the problem.

Mr. Harper is notorious for his lack of people skills."People skills?" Deb Gray, the first Reform MP sniffed. "He was more fond of policy. Constituency work seemed like a grind to him." The man who claims that Michael Ignatieff wants to be Prime Minister "for himself" doesn't like people. What is his reason for running? Is it to get even? Is it to destroy his opponents? Is it to prove that the nerdy kid from Toronto is really an Alberta cowboy?

Richard Nixon didn't like people, either. He worked hard to keep them at a distance. And he didn't trust them at all. A word to the wise.

Cue The Confidence Fairy

This morning's Nanos Poll suggests that the Conservatives now lead the Liberals by 14 points.

To support their cause, the Harperites have invoked what the American economist Paul Krugman calls " the confidence fairy." Their argument goes something like this: Global stability rests on business confidence. Business confidence rests on corporate tax cuts. Therefore, if you reverse those tax cuts, you cause global instability. No, they say, what we need is "expansionary austerity." -- which, in the short run, will lead to unemployment. But job destruction leads to lower wages, and lower wages lead to job creation. If this sounds like a tautology, that's because it is.

That policy is now being followed in Britain. But things are not working out as planned. Krugman writes:

Did I mention that in Britain, where the government that took power last May bought completely into the doctrine of expansionary austerity, the economy has stalled and business confidence has fallen to a two-year low? And even the government’s new, more pessimistic projections are based on the assumption that highly indebted British households will take on even more debt in the years ahead.

In the United States, the Republicans -- Mr. Harper's cousins -- are arguing that, if it takes a government shutdown to achieve expansionary austerity, then so be it. The Harperites are definitely following the crowd. And -- if the polls are to be believed -- so are a substantial number of Canadians.

There is a counter argument, of course. It is contained in the Liberal platform. The difference between the two arguments is the difference between night and day, between costs and investments, between employment and unemployment, between folly and wisdom.

Deal With The Devil

So far, Danny Williams -- now a private citizen -- has said nothing during this campaign. But one wonders what Williams would say about Stephen Harper's promise to guarantee a loan for the Lower Churchill Power Project. Even more interesting was Harper's promise yesterday to settle with Quebec on the question of HST compensation. It could have been done two weeks ago. As Quebec's Finance Minister Raymond Bachand will attest, it could have been done fourteen months ago.

I'm sure Williams has an opinion. I have a hunch he might be skeptical. After all, he understood what Harper's promises were worth. Danny might even draw a comparison with Harper's promise to give Canadian families a tax break in four or five years. My hunch is that he would call Harper's promises what they are: a deal with the devil.

Clearly Mr. Harper will do anything -- will say anything -- to get elected. As Chantal Hebert notes in Saturday's Toronto Star, Mr. Harper "has been blatantly creative with the facts."

Danny Williams' estimation of the prime minister was less euphemistic. "Stephen Harper," he said, "is a fraud."

Grudge Match

Stephen Harper's suggestion that he and Michael Ignatieff go one on one in a leaders debate is intriguing. I doubt that it will happen. As Elizabeth May is proving once again, you simply can't exclude the leaders of the other parties. Nonetheless, Harper's suggestion is interesting because of what it reveals about him. For Harper, this election isn't about the budget. It's not about a "wreckless coalition." It's not even about Canadians. It's personal. It's a grudge match between him and Michael Ignatieff.

A recent editorial in The Globe and Mail proclaimed that: "Personal attacks on Mr. Ignatieff have been the preferred tactic of his political opponents from the moment he entered political life after a distinguished career as a human-rights theorist, writer and academic." More than that, though, Ignatieff's career makes Harper's accomplishments look picayune. The editorial continues:

He is indeed an extraordinary Canadian. He was listed as one of the world’s 100 leading public intellectuals by Foreign Policy for his thinking on the “tension between security and human rights, the fight against modern terrorism and the philosophy of freedom.” (That quote is taken from the citation of one of his 11 honorary degrees.) His books have received many awards, including the Governor-General’s Award for Literature and the George Orwell Prize, and one was short-listed for the Booker Prize. The American philosopher Francis Fukuyama called Mr. Ignatieff’s Lionel Gelber Prize-winning book, Blood and Belonging: Journeys into the New Nationalism, “a marvellous work that shows the diversity, complexity, agonies and horrors of nationalism with greater depth and insight than most, if not all, academic treatises.” He has written for The New Yorker, hosted programs for the BBC, and has held teaching positions at Cambridge, the University of London and Harvard.

That list of accomplishments does not qualify Ignatieff for the job. But they do make Stephen Harper look small. Against Ignatieff's academic credentials, Harper offers his Master degree in Economics. And, next to Ignatieff's record of publication, Harper offers his Master's thesis and a book on hockey -- which, we are told, is a work in progress. Other than that, we have the attack ads, which have been relentless.

Mr. Harper plays on an old Canadian prejudice about achievement abroad. He was born two years after Lester Pearson was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize; but it's no stretch to imagine that Mr. Harper would have held that against the late Prime Minister -- who, incidentally, also led a minority government. And, even though he was in office for less time than Mr. Harper, Pearson gave Canadians the Canada Pension Plan, Medicare, and a flag.

The truth is that Stephen Harper's record of accomplishment is embarrassingly thin. He knows it. It's my hunch that his lack of accomplishment is what drives his personal animus against Ignatieff. That animus, I believe, is what should -- in the end -- disqualify him from the Prime Minister's job. But that is a decision for all Canadians.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

Confronting The Reality Based Community

A report in yesterday's The Globe and Mail claims that the Conservatives "wreckless coalition" strategy is entirely Stephen Harper's idea:

Mr. Harper pushed his campaign team to put the majority-or-coalition issue front-and-centre, according to someone close to the campaign, because he personally believes those are the only possible outcomes. Polls show that most voters oppose the idea of a so-called “coalition of losers,” or of any party governing with the consent of the sovereigntist Bloc Québécois.

The problem, of course, is that he called a meeting and signed a letter which undermines his two arguments against a coalition. First, he proposed changing governments without having an election. He suggested that then Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, consider "all of your options;" and he noted that "the opposition parties, which together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation." Second, he did not possess a majority of seats in the House. When the Liberals faced a non-confidence motion, they occupied 135 seats, the Conservatives 98 and the NDP 20.

Together Mr. Harper and Mr. Layton could only muster 118 votes. They needed at least some of the Bloc Quebecios votes to pass legislation. The non-confiedence motion failed by one vote, because a former member of Mr. Harper's party -- who ran and won as an independent -- voted with the government.

Now Mr. Harper claims that governments can only change after an election; and that the party with the second largest number of seats cannot form a coalition. His problem, of course, is that the two men he "consulted" with in 2004 are still on the scene to set the record straight. Mr. Duceppe now waves the letter in public, points to Harper's signature, and says:

"When Mr. Harper says the party that finishes second can’t be prime minister, he’s lying,” the Bloc Québécois Leader said on the campaign trail Sunday. “When he says it’s anti-democratic, it’s the opposite of what he wrote in 2004. He’s trying to build his majority on a lie."

Mr. Layton backs up Mr. Duceppe. A coalition, Layton says, "certainly was one of the options that was discussed around the table." A leader firmly grounded in reality could have seen this coming. The letter to Ms. Clarkson has been in the public domain for a long time. But Mr. Harper is like that anonymous adviser to George W. Bush who told the journalist Ron Suskind:

the reality based community believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernable reality. But that's not the way the world works anymore. We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality.

The real world came down around George W. Bush's ears in November, 2008 -- just as Stephen Harper won his second minority mandate. Since then, certain that Canadians didn't want to go to the polls any time soon -- and, therefore, believing that the opposition parties would not bring his government down -- he has governed as if he had a majority. The opposition parties have now called his bluff. Unfortunately, Mr. Harper still believes that -- like Jean Luc Picard on the bridge of the Enterprise -- he can bark, "Make it so!" and everything -- reality included -- will fall into place.

The Prime Minister is clearly delusional. The question we now face is, "Do Canadians buy his delusion?"

All He Has Is Fear Itself

Prime Minister Harper's speech in front of Rideau Hall this morning offered Canadians a glimpse into what makes him tick. He completely ignored the non-confidence vote -- claiming that it was an under the Peace Tower game which doesn't impress Canadians. That's been his position for the last five years.

Instead of "confidence" Mr. Harper wanted to talk -- repeatedly -- about "coalition." It got him out of the hole he dug for himself three years ago -- and he believes it will work for him again. Never mind that he proposed exactly the same kind of arrangement in 2004 with the same leaders of the same parties. All of that has gone down the memory hole.

His budget is empty. And he knows that if he costs out the prisons, the jets and the tax cuts, it will blow a huge hole in his deficit reduction targets. Like the second President Bush -- who kept two wars off budget -- he believes that citizens are lousy mathematicians and frightened children. Both men have followed the Wall Street Model. We have been living, despite the rosy picture Mr. Harper paints, with the consequences.

We shall see if we the people have learned anything over the last three years.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

It Had To Come To This

It has been obvious for a long time, that -- despite his claims to the contrary -- the Prime Minister has been engineering his government's fall. As Hamlet said of another melodrama, he "doth protest too much." For months, he and his ministers have crisscrossed the country, announcing all kinds of government goodies. The attack ads -- which never go on hiatus -- have increased. And pundits like Jeffrey Simpson and Chantal Hebert claim that the election is Harper's to lose.

Mr. Harper approaches the election with the same kind of hubris which led him to rename the government in his honour. Jeffrey Simpson -- again -- claims Harper is absolutely in the driver's seat:

Whatever happens in the campaign, the government presented a reasonable, moderate budget that contained some sensible spending increases, avoided additional and unnecessary tax reductions, and promised a credible, if somewhat leisurely, march toward a balanced budget. The budget won’t survive the House of Commons, but it will carry the Conservatives through an election they’ll almost certainly win.

Simpson's claims that "very few voters pay attention to the goings on under the Peace Tower." Like that great cynic, H.L. Menken, he seems to believe that Canadians are card carrying members of "the booboise." Simpson's colleague, Lawrence Martin, is more measured in his response to Tuesday's events. The election, he writes, hinges on Michael Ignatieff. But unlike Stephane Dion -- who did not allow the Prime Minister his coveted majority -- Ignatieff is no Dion:

While Mr.Ignatieff’s polling numbers are just as weak, he is considerably more gifted in terms of leadership potential. He is more articulate and trenchant. He is stronger in debate, better organized and surrounded by a better team. There will be no grainy videos arriving late at TV studios as there was under Mr. Dion. Mr. Ignatieff is unlikely to have to restart an interview several times, as did Mr. Dion, occasioning an embarrassing mishap at a critical period in the ‘08 campaign.

Moreover, Ignatieff has gotten better at his job. David Olive -- who has published a number of critiques of Ignatieff -- says it's time for Canadians to engineer Mr. Harper's exit:

As Mr. Trudeau said when the press got on his case, "Consider the alternative." And so we thought of poor Bob Stanfield and Joe Clark. And Trudeau lost an election and won four, and served some 15 years as PM. As we should have given Harper his chance - and trust me, we've seen as good as it gets from this cold, mildly paranoid, mean-spirited and visionless man - the most viable alternative now deserves its chance.

Olive has it right. If Simpson has correctly sized up Canadians -- and they are not willing to give the most viable alternative a chance -- then we have engineered the demise of our democracy.

We Need an Election

Yesterday, in The Globe and Mail, Jeffrey Simpson argued that "we're headed for an election we don't need." While Canadians don't want an election, Simpson wrote, their politicians do:

because politicians live for partisan advantage, and each party now sniffs, for different reasons, that an election will deliver such an advantage. In part, because they’ve turned on their election machines and can’t find the off switch, as witnessed by their spending millions on party ads, finding candidates and using every waking hour to attack each other

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In the end, Simpson wrote, there is no consensus in the country for change. Several months back, Mr. Simpson argued that Stephen Harper's prorogation of Parliament would be a blip on Canadian radar screens. I believe that, once again, he has underestimated Canadian voters. In this case, it's not the economy, stupid. The crescendo of Conservative contempt for Parliament -- and Canadian voters -- keeps rising. Besides proroguing Parliament, the Speaker has found the government in breech of basic parliamentary democracy three times.

John Baird argues that all of this amounts to a distraction. If he means that all of this emphasis on rules is a distraction for the Conservatives, he's right. Life would be much easier if the government didn't have to face the opposition parties. But the real issue is government hypocrisy. This is a government which was supposed to stand for transparency and accountability. This was a government which supposedly stood foursquare for the common man.

When Parliament demanded information on Afghan prisoners, Mr. Harper padlocked Parliament. When it asked for cost estimates on the government's tough on crime legislation, it refused to provide it. And, last week, when it dumped thousands of documents on the table, it admitted that estimates which had been discussed in Cabinet were being kept under wraps.

Now the Bruce Carson Affair has put the government's position on crime in a stark light. And, once again, it is all about hypocrisy. Mr. Carson went to work for the Conservatives long after he was convicted of defrauding his clients and disbarred. Allan Woods wrote in The Toronto Star that:

According to archived newspaper accounts, Carson, then 37, was criminally convicted of two counts of theft for misappropriating almost $20,000 of his clients’ funds by forging their signatures and stashing the money in his own bank account.

Carson was convicted in 1980. But after his conviction and disbarment, Carson went to work for the Conservatives:

In the meantime, Carson had taken a job as a researcher in the Library of Parliament from 1979 to 1981, then returned to school for a Master's degree in law at the University of Toronto. That helped launch his reinvention as a constitutional wonk and returned him to Parliament Hill for a distinguished career as a high-level Conservative operative.

He rose to become a senior adviser to the Prime Minister. For a man who claims to be tough on criminals, Mr. Harper clearly sees room for exceptions. Those exceptions apply to him and the members of his party.

That is why we need an election.

Taking Credit For Nothing

Wednesday night, in Quebec City, Stephen Harper claimed that the Bloc Quebecois was a party without a mission. He and his party, he said, were responsible for the Bloc's fall from grace:

“In spite of the popularity of the Bloc and other sovereigntist parties, support for sovereignty itself has fallen dramatically since our government came to office.”

Mr. Harper has a habit of taking credit for things which have nothing to do with him. For the last three years, he has travelled the world, extolling the virtues of the Canadian banking system, as if his government built it. The banks were protected from the rampant speculation of American and British banks because the Prime Minister's forebears did not follow the policies he says he believes in.

For the same three years, he and his government have peppered the nation with signs and television ads which sing the praises of Canada's Economic Action Plan, conveniently forgetting that the economic statement he and Jim Flaherty delivered in 2008 was about belt tightening, not expansion. Only when faced with a revolt of all three opposition parties, did he deliver a budget with the biggest deficit in Canadian history.

Now he and his confreres are responsible for the death of Quebec separatism. Those of us who grew up in Quebec know that Quebec nationalism is a dormant volcano. All it needs is a Maurice Duplessis, or a Rene Levesque or a Lucien Bouchard to encourage an eruption. Pierre Trudeau declared separatism dead. So did Jean Chretien. And now Stephen Harper takes credit for its demise. Only a man who thinks that The Harper Government is the Government of Canada would be foolish enough to make that claim.

History and Destiny

Over the weekend, David Sirota wrote an op-ed for The Washington Post, in which he opined that, "the 80's just won't go away." There is money in nostalgia. But there is more than that:

This collective deja vu moment is part coincidence, part commodified nostalgia and part impulse to rehash successful old political and entertainment brands. But the similarities between today and the 1980s also reflect a country now run by those who came of age in that decade - people whose worldviews were molded by an era that began with a Chrysler bailout and ended with foreign students protesting dictatorship in a distant square.

In the minds of many of today's leaders -- at least those in the Republican Party -- the Age of Reagan was a Golden Age, where America emerged from the doom and confusion of the seventies, personified by Jimmy Carter, into "Morning in America." Like Reagan himself -- who wanted to return to a pre-Depression America and a roaring economy presided over by Calvin Coolidge -- today's Republicans want to return to the optimism and the good times they associate with The Gipper.

The problem is that their memory -- like Reagan's -- is highly selective. Ronald Reagan came to office endorsing supply side economics -- until David Stockman announced quite publicly that the numbers didn't add up. The president quietly changed course. Reagan railed at the size of government and the deficit, while allowing both to increase substantially. It's true he did not become entangled in the Middle East -- in fact, he withdrew Marines from Lebanon. He did, however, lead a successful invasion of another country -- Grenada. And, rather than cutting back social security, he increased payroll taxes to ensure its solvency.

But he left it to others to deal with the consequences of his signature policies. To George Bush Sr. he left the Savings and Loan Debacle. Bush established the Resolution Trust Corporation and actually prosecuted the high rollers behind the savings and loan mess. Bush also increased taxes to restore fiscal balance -- a wise move. But to howls of treachery, he lost the next election. Then, of course, there was Ollie North and Iran Contra. And, to Reagan's credit, but unthinkable to some -- particularly to the Tea Partiers of his own day -- he sat down and did business with The Evil Empire.

Ronald Reagan -- like the America he loved -- has been mythologized. The problem with mythologizing the past is that you can't learn from it. The golden glow surrounding it makes it impossible to see its hard edges, its tragedies and its stupidities. Today, from Wisconsin to Washington, Republicans have been captured by a myth. In such moments, history becomes destiny.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.



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Giroux's Hope

Henry Giroux was born in Rhode Island in 1943. He began his working life as a high school social studies teacher in Barrington, Rhode Island. He then went on to teach at Boston University, Miami University and Penn State University. In 2005, he came to Canada to teach English and Cultural Studies at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. All the while, he has kept a close eye on his native land, commenting regularly on political and cultural life in the United States.

Giroux was no fan of the second Bush Administration. But he likewise has been singularly unimpressed with the Obama Administration. He believes that the two major parties have been co-opted by the wealthy. The consequences for the United States, he writes, have been catastrophic:

Ronald Reagan's infamous "it's morning in America" slogan, used as part of his 1984 presidential campaign, paved the way for a set of market-driven policies that historians faithful to the human record will be compelled to rename twilight in America to signal a historical crisis fueled less by a spirited hope for the future than by a shocking refusal to be held accountable to and for it. The policies that informed Reagan's neoliberal agenda have given way to the intense assault now being waged by his more extremist governmental descendants on all vestiges of the democratic state. This brutal evisceration includes a rejection and devaluing of the welfare state, unions, public values, young people, public and higher education; and other political, social and economic institutions and forces in American life that provide a counterweight against the political power of mega-corporations, the rich and the powerful.

The result, Giroux writes, is that democracy in America has been hollowed out:

Political power is now up for sale just as government resources are increasingly being contracted out or sold off to the highest bidder. Like lemmings in heat, thousands of corporate lobbyists flock to Washington determined to corrupt the political process, while multibillionaires such as the Koch brothers use their $42 billion-dollar war chest to fund right-wing think tanks, the Tea Party, and other conservative groups in order to crush the labor movement and enact legislative policies designed to decimate the social state and hand over the levers of political and economic sovereignty to the rich.

The picture he paints is dark -- almost hopeless. But he finds some cheer in what is now happening at the state level. As citizens protest against what Governor Walker and Governor Kasich are attempting to accomplish, he sees promise for his country's democratic institutions:

The current upsurge in collective resistance against the corporate state will succeed if it speaks to and connects with a broader crisis of public values, the eclipse of a democratic public sphere and the disappearance of the social state. If the principles of democracy are not to be turned against themselves in order to further the savage assaults waged on the American people by advocates of casino capitalism, it is crucial that emerging social movements emphasize what the late Tony Judt called the raising of social questions through a language that stresses the importance of public goods, shared responsibilities and a language that connects private troubles with social considerations.(8)

There will be those who will criticize Giroux for leveling this criticism from north of the 49th parallel. But Hemingway and Fitzgerald always claimed that they truly saw what was great about their country -- and what was not -- from outside its borders. Giroux, I think, would agree with them.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

What's Behind A Name?

Late last year, word went forth from the PMO that the Government of Canada would henceforth be known -- in all official government communications -- as "The Harper Government." It was an act of extraordinary hubris. No government in Canada's history has claimed that privilege. But the government which now bears the Prime Minister's name -- like the man himself -- has never seen hubris as a political liability.

That decision was made before the "In and Out " scandal blew up in the government's face, before Bev Oda floundered trying to explain why she altered a document and claimed it came from her advisers, before Jason Kenny used his office for political fundraising, and before skyrocketing fuel and food prices started to threaten the economic recovery for which "The Harper Government" is taking credit.

If one were looking for the source of such hubris, the Prime Minister himself would be a good place to start. But there is another clue to what drives these folks. Murray Dobbin noted a short time ago that:

When Stockwell Day (the Christians’ man in cabinet) ran a Christian school in Alberta years ago, its curriculum included this assessment of democratic governments: “[they] represent the ultimate deification of man, which is the very essence of humanism and totally alien to God’s word.” Those believing that government is essentially the devil’s work don’t lose sleep over a little lying or fraud. It’s the will of God.

"The Harper Government" isn't on government's side. But they appear convinced that God is no their side. Wiser human beings have discovered that it's dangerous to claim inside knowledge of the Creator.

James Travers 1948 - 2011

Much has already been written about James Travers in the twenty-four hours since his passing. I add this small comment simply because I could not let his passing go without acknowledging my personal debt to him. Readers of this space know that I have frequently quoted from his work.

He received a National Newspaper Award for a column which documented Canada's diminished democracy. He truly talked the talk. But, as his colleague -- and former parliamentarian -- Doug Fischer noted, he also walked the walk:

Once, Fischer remembered, he visited Travers while his colleague was working as the Middle East correspondent. They went to a Palestinian village and when Travers saw a young Arab boy being dragged away by the hair by a group of soldiers, he handed his notepad and tape recorder to Fischer. He confronted the laughing soldiers.

“There was a scuffle and he was lucky not to get beaten up or arrested, but he didn’t back down. Eventually, they let the boy go and they pushed Travers away.

He was a man with the courage of his convictions. And for that reason -- most of all -- he will be sorely missed. His family is in our prayers.

A Capra Moment

Frank Capra would have appreciated the present moment. In two of his best films, Mr. Smith Goes the Washington and Meet John Doe, the political system is entirely beholden to big money. And in both films, those financial interests control media empires which can crucify inconvenient upstarts who rock the boat. In the end, the only thing which stands between those interests and doing the right thing is the uncommon decency of the common man.

Financial interests sought and successfully repealed the Glass Steagall Act. The Citizens United decision gave them unfettered access to several media empires. With the exception of Bernie Madoff, no member of the financial elite has been punished. However, workers -- whose pensions that elite managed -- have borne the consequences of its failures.

Today, in Wisconsin and Ohio, those same workers are being told that their states can no longer afford their right to organize. But, in the midst of the debacle, there have been acts of uncommon decency. The Chief of Police in Madison announced that his police force would not serve as the governor's "palace guard." Six Republican state senators defied their governor and almost stopped Governor Kasich's bill to limit collective bargaining. And, when Fox News aired footage of supposedly violent protesters in Wisconsin, ordinary people were quick to notice the California palms in the background.

Capra had an immigrant's faith in the common man. Cynics dismissed his work as feel good schmaltz. After all, life was not that wonderful; and it was foolish to believe that an angel would save you when you stood on the bridge between life and death.

The criticism never diminished Capra's faith in "the people." Not that Capra didn't give money and power a wide swath. In the end, however, the people eventually set things right. It should be remembered that the citizens of Wisconsin have the right of recall.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

The Bogeymen

Paul Wells writes that, when Stephen Harper's attempt to eliminate public funds for his opposition rivals blew up in his face, the Prime Minister was in a very black mood. He was certain that his government -- which had won a minority mandate five months before -- was going down to defeat:

Let them win, he said, with no great conviction. Let Stéphane Dion try to run the country, with Jack Layton calling the shots and Gilles Duceppe sitting in judgment over the whole mess. It’ll fall apart in six months. We’ll pick up the pieces in the next election. Come back stronger than ever.

Then he saw that picture of his rivals shaking hands. And he saw the bogeymen. He and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty began to fulminate -- in apocalyptic terms -- about the dangers of a "socialist-separatist coalition." Flaherty, who grew up in Montreal, should know better. But then, for generations a significant portion of the English population there lived behind the barricades and rarely travelled east of St. Lawrence Boulevard. Harper doesn't understand Quebec. But he knows a wedge when he sees one -- and this was the biggest wedge of all.

Chantal Hebert tells the story of a Montreal businessman who found himself in a Calgary airport lounge as a report of the newly formed coalition appeared on television: "I figured it was not a very good time," he said, "to speak English with a French accent."

If there is any one decision which offers insight into Stephen Harper's character, it is his reaction to his imminent defeat in November, 2008. He fanned the flames of paranoia then prorogued Parliament. He will put personal, partisan advantage ahead of the country's national interest.

And you can bet that he'll use the same argument in the next election. He is a master of McCarthyism -- shrewd but not courageous. More importantly, he personifies what John Kenneth Galbraith wrote over fifty years ago: "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

That is the claim he makes about Michael Ignatieff. It would appear that the pot is calling the kettle black.

As We Sleep

Canadians keep saying they don't want an election. And the Prime Minister says he doesn't want one either, because things are going so well. We are a pretty lethargic and smug nation. Jeffrey Simpson writes in Saturday's Globe and Mail that

Another poll released this week showed that Canadians are right up there with the Swedes and Saudis as the world’s leading back-patters on how well their countries have done. That national self-congratulation is exactly what the Conservatives hope will put Canadians in a grateful mood come voting day.

But do the facts merit such self satisfaction? We are running the largest deficits in our history. We are about to spend billions on an airplane which experts say doesn't meet Canada's defence needs. We just chartered a plane to Libya and it came back empty. And the Prime Minister has told us that, even though one of his ministers misled Parliament,  it's alright because she made the right decision.

Then there is the case of the Prime Minister's recently retired Integrity Commissioner, Christiane Ouimete. During her tenure, she was asked to investigate 228 cases. She looked into seven.

The log shows that 42 of the cases involved alleged misuse of taxpayer dollars or government assets. Another 50 or so cases involved charges of what is listed as “gross mismanagement.” About 60 other allegations involved contraventions of Acts of Parliament.

After consulting with the Prime Minister's Office, she found that none of the 228 cases had merit. The Government's handling of arms length organizations -- whose job it is to act as a countervailing force on the government -- is instructive. From the Nuclear Safety Commission, to the Veterans Ombudsman, to Statistics Canada, it's clear that if the Prime Minister's line is questioned, the heads of those organizations will be replaced. The Integrity Commissioner retired after Sheila Fraser reported Ouimete wasn't doing her job. The government, however, was quite happy with her performance. She did not act as a countervailing force.

And, then there is the biggest countervailing force of all -- the Liberal Party of Canada. Gerry Nicholls, who claims to know how the Prime Minister thinks, writes that Mr. Harper wants to destroy the Liberals. Given the ads the Conservatives have been running, that does not appear to be a stretch.

It should be obvious by now that the Harper government has no respect for democratic institutions or rules. Like the governor of Wisconsin, Stephen Harper is committed to clearing a path for oligarchy. Unless we stop feeling so self satisfied, we may wake up after the next election to find that's exactly what we have.

Fighting for Oligarchy

In the United States, the battles over state budgets continue. Governor Scott Walker claims that his state is at the edge of a financial abyss. And -- even though the state's public employees have offered large financial concessions in an effort to reduce the state's deficit -- the real fight is about removing their right to bargain. Some basic arithmetic provides a little perspective. As Robert Reich points out:

Before Wisconsin’s budget went bust, Governor Walker signed $117 million in corporate tax breaks. Wisconsin’s immediate budget shortfall is $137 million. That’s his pretext for socking it to Wisconsin’s public unions.

This fight isn't about the budget. It's about power. While it is true that the Wagner Act of 1935 did not allow the formation of public unions, it did give unions legitimate legal status. Before 1935, unionization met the legal definition of a "conspiracy." Franklin Roosevelt supported private sector unions as a legitimate countervailing force against the concentration of wealth and power which had led to the Great Depression. Unions were a way to force money down the social ladder instead of allowing the wealthy to simply suck it to the top of the pyramid. For this, and several other reasons, Roosevelt was branded a traitor to his class.

Kevin Drum, in Mother Jones, provides an interesting analysis of what has happened since 1935. In the 1940's and 50's, unions were responsible for the prosperity of the middle class. But, beginning in the 1960's, politicians of both parties -- Democrats as well as Republicans -- began to abandon the working class. Democrats, whose traditional power base was Labour, fought for Civil Rights and against the Vietnam War. But economic justice slipped from their radar screens.

Many people forget that, when Marin Luther King was assassinated, he was leading a strike of garbage workers in Memphis. While it was true that the overwhelming majority of those workers were African Americans, King was not fighting segregation. The Civil Rights and the Voting Rights Acts had been passed. What King wanted was economic justice. "Many white Americans of good will," King said, "have never connected bigotry with economic exploitation. They have deplored prejudice but tolerated or ignored economic injustice." When King died, his fight for economic justice died with him.

Since then, Drum writes, working class wages have stagnated to the point where now:

The entire bottom 80 percent now loses a collective $743 billion each year, thanks to the cumulative effect of slow wage growth. Conversely, the top 1 percent gains $673 billion. That's a pretty close match. Basically, the money gained by the top 1 percent seems to have come almost entirely from the bottom 80 percent.

The fight in Wisconsin has been thirty years in the making. Governor Walker says his state can no longer afford the outrageous demands of public sector workers. But, given the fact that his newly minted tax cuts would just about cover the budget deficit, it would appear that the governor's rhetoric is a smoke screen.

This fight is about undoing the countervailing measures Roosevelt set up in the Wagner Act. Paul Krugman is right. It is about entrenching an oligarchy.

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

The Future Is The Past

The evolution of the modern Republican Party is a tragic tale.The Party of Lincoln has become The Party of Ayn Rand. The party which once held that government should do what the people cannot do for themselves has become the party which holds that government is the enemy of the people.

Today's Republicans want to repeal the Affordable Healthcare Act; and -- as is becoming abundantly clear in places like Wisconsin -- they want to repeal the Wagner Act. If they could, they would repeal the entire New Deal.

During the last election, the party faithful railed at President Obama for not creating enough jobs. Last week, after the Republican controlled house passed legislation to strip $60 billion from Obama's current budget, John Boehner declared that, if jobs were lost as a result of the cuts, then "So be it." The hypocrisy is stunning.

Republicans have been in charge for twenty of the last thirty years. During that time, President Reagan and the second President Bush left the nation with record budget deficits. When the second president Bush raised taxes to restore fiscal sanity, he was pilloried by his own party. When Bill Clinton passed his first budget -- without any Republican votes -- the Grand Old Party predicted Financial Armageddon. Four years later, Clinton ran the first of four surpluses -- the only time in the last thirty years when the government's finances were in the black.

Now, under the guise of financial responsibility, Republicans have adopted the slogan, "The Future is the Past!' George Orwell understood these folks. So did Franklin Roosevelt. "A conservative," he said, "is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward."

This entry is cross posted at The Moderate Voice.

The Kingdom of Dada

Andrew Coyne has never tried to hide his political convictions. As a columnist for The National Post, his opinions were grounded in classical economic theory. He had no patience for social engineering. And he was skeptical of big government. But he always insisted that any government -- regardless of party -- should be fundamentally competent. And he has suggested, on more than one occasion, that the Harper government -- despite what some see as its brilliant targeting of voters -- is incompetent.

In the latest edition of Macleans, he writes of the Harper government:

Far from convincing the public that it has no ideology, it simply confirms [Canadians] in the impression that it is both ideological and devious. And since its stratagems and deceptions are invariably found out, we should perhaps add to the list: ideological, devious, and incompetent.

It's more than a question of competence, of course. It is a question of moral legitimacy. It is a matter not just of the Harper government's legitimacy but any government's legitimacy. As Coyne writes:

BUT NOW we are beyond the minister, and beyond even this government. Because if this sort of conduct is allowed to stand — the minister’s first, and then the government’s in its backing of her — then it is not only this government that becomes a moral farce, but also Parliament, since it is Parliament’s job to police such things. And if the Parliament we elect can be so effortlessly mocked and defiled, then it is really us who have been as well.

This is now about us. If Ms Oda does not resign, or if Mr. Harper does not ask for her resignation, then there are grounds for a non-confidence motion. There are some issues which are more important than the management of the economy. Mr. Coyne, economist though he may be, recognizes this fact. He rightly asserts that those who do not recognize the fundamental principles at stake are living "in the kingdom of dada."

Down The Memory Hole

We appear headed for another election. When evaluating the present government, it is enlightening to judge it -- not by what others have said about it -- but by what Mr. Harper has said about his predecessors.

On the subject of concentrating power in the Prime Minister's Office, consider this bit of fulmination from 2005:

Will this be a country in which Parliament will rule on behalf of the people or where a self-selected group of lawyers or experts will define the parameters of right and wrong?

Then there was Mr. Harper's unshakable commitment to government accountability. When he was elected, the Prime Minister -- who has padlocked Parliament twice -- said:

Restoring accountability will be one of the major priorities of our new government. Accountability is what ordinary Canadians, working Canadians, those people who pay their bills, pay their taxes, expect from their political leaders.

When it comes to "separatist coalitions," it is important to remember that in 2004 -- when the future of the Paul Martin government hung in the balance -- Mr. Harper wrote to the Governor General. A coalition with the Bloc Quebecois was not a problem:

We respectfully point out that the opposition parties, who together constitute a majority in the House, have been in close consultation. We believe that, should a request for dissolution arise,this should give you cause, as constitutional practice has determined, to consult the opposition leaders and consider all your options before exercising your constitutional authority.

Measured by his own standards, Mr. Harper has been an abject failure and an absolute hypocrite. Apparently, he believes that Canadians live in an Orwellian world, where all his past pronouncements have gone down the memory hole. And, like O'Brien -- Winston Smith's torturer in 1984 -- his message to Canadians is:

We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves.

Consider, for a moment, the consequences of Canadians -- "those people who pay their bills, pay their taxes" being filled with the likes of Stockwell Day, Lisa Raitt, Vic Toews, Bev Oda and -- of course -- Stephen Harper.

Perish the thought.