Politics and Press

The interaction of the press and politics; public diplomacy, and daily absurdities.

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Homage to Stompin’ Tom

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It’s not so easy to explain to outsiders why Canada has become such a different place from the United States in the last couple of decades, but the pause that was taken in the Ottawa-Toronto hockey Game last evening in toronto would be a good place to start. News had come through that Stompin Tom Connors had died and that was reason enough to stop playing hockey and play aloud one of the songs that Stompin Tom had written in his 50 years of singing that was probably better known in Canada than the national anthem : The Hockey Song. As the deep-throated version of “The good old hockey game, it’s the best game you can name” rumbled out over the jammed arena, most people stood up silently to pay tribute to a figure who will be the last of his kind.

He was 77 but almost everyone was shocked to find out he had become  mortal so fast; his songs dealt with the whole country – even French Quebec in his sparkling “Susanne de Lafayette” , dealing with the deportations of the Acadians to Louisiana – and did not come with a best before shelf time. My brother Doug says that one of his aboriginal Nuuchalnuut friends from the remote west coast of Vancouver Island had only ever spoken positively about one “Canadian” entertainer who sang about the things that also defined much of his own life – hard work in hard places: “Tillsonburg, my back still hurts when I hear its name, “Sudbury Saturday Night”, “Bud the Spud”  who was”flying down the 401 smilin with the  best damn spuds cause they’re from Prince Edward Island” and outwitting the Ontario Provincial Police to get them safe to Toronto, “Red River Jane”, “Okanagan Okee” and “A real Canadian Girl” who could do things the Yanks never dreamed of: drinking, fighting, smoking, dancing, playing the guitar, indulging in all those pleasures that political correctness crowd has deemed unworthy of sanctioning.  Tom spent his early years criss-crossing the country from Saint John’s to Victoria to Yukon,  picking up free beers and then some dollars in bars for singing his songs before moving along to write new ones about the place he had just been.  He spent the later ones making 50 albums of them.  Here is the last thing he wrote, to be opened only after his death.

Hello friends,

I want all my fans, past, present, or future, to know that without you, there would have not been any Stompin’ Tom.   It was a long hard bumpy road, but this great country kept me inspired with its beauty, character, and spirit, driving me to keep marching on and devoted to sing about its people and places that make Canada the greatest country in the world.I must now pass the torch, to all of you, to help keep the Maple Leaf flying high, and be the Patriot Canada needs now and in the future.   I humbly thank you all, one last time, for allowing me in your homes, I hope I continue to bring a little bit of cheer into your lives from the work I have done.

Sincerely,Your Friend always,

Stompin’ Tom Connors

Whither Italy?

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Italy is the third-largest economic power in Europe, and controls what is surely one of the most spectacular  geographical spaces in existence. It has at least two  of the world’s most splendid cities – Venice and Rome can’t be denied that, and who would exclude Florence – and it has a dominant place in the development of western art, and a very prominent one in literature art, and culture in general.  So what the hell  is going on as it appeared to be finally climbing out of a disastrous interlude and instead chooses to sink further  into a buffoonish and ever-deepening ing morass of self-destructive behaviour.    Now it is of course true that in the miserable European performances that culminated in World War Two, other countries outdid Italy in barbarous behaviour.  Germany leads that pack, but also is the one that has taken the most serious consequences of such thuggish national behaviour to heart and is anything but a clownish vulgar society these days.  But that can’t be said of its splendidly-endowed southern neighbour Italy, which  seems intent in proving that democracy is a political system ill-equipped to deal with serious problems, both of an economic and moral nature.

How else explain that an election that was supposed to finally finish off a corrupt and thuggish political generation offering bizarre governmental behaviour, and come up with one offering some stability and rational decision-making at the top should result in a potential  coalition run by a professional clown and another comic who was assumed to be a washed-up political and moral one?   And yet that is what they came up with, the people who spoke through their votes.  It is one thing for Icelanders to vote into power a true clown  as the mayor of Reykjavik in order to show their disdain for a simple-minded government that set into motion an economic fiasco.  (He turned out to be a pretty good mayor). But it is quite another to offer power to two  clowns to  take control of a relatively major economic and even military power, one working from an actual  circus background and the other from a circus government that he had indeed formed as acircus of a government.  These two working together  have no chance to rescue a collapsing economy and even social framework by bringing in laws to confront chaos.  These guys thrive on the comedy of chaos.  So keep posted annd see what happens when Italians will be forced to vote yet again.  Better luck next time..

The Oscars and History

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So no less than four films being considered for Best Film at the Oscara supposedly portray US history. One of them is relatively harmless. “Lincoln” is probably going to win everything because it does not, as far as any layman can tell, falsify history in any kind of serious way and features enough bearded men to make old testament prophets feel jealous. And it has a very Lincoln-looking British actor, no doubt thanks to terrific makeup help, who has the wrong accent but is as good at portraying a decent common man who acted well under pressure (Bob Newhart called this “The humble bit”), as were Raymond Massey – also a foreigner – Henry Fonda and others who have portrayed Honest Abe in the past. So we can give this a pass on the honest history front, although Spielberg once again demonstrates his fascination with brutal hand to hand combat and dead soldiers, though not at the level of “Saving Private Ryan”.
But what should we make of “Zero Dark Thirty” , supposedly a factual presentation of the CIA’s role in the assassination of bin Laden, or Ben Affleck’s “Argo”, another alleged representation of actual CIA operations.  And there is no doubt that “Argo” is an exciting film, especially in the opening scenes depicting the attack on the US embassy in Teheran.    But what’s going on?  Since when do films get such serious consideration that are made with government support and obvious comic-book plots  – a CIA female warrior  in one, and  a devil of a fearless handsome CIA agent in the other carry out awesomely dangerous missions for good old Uncle Sam – and against all odds succeed.  If they didn’t do that, there would certainly not be a film.  The first  has been attacked on the US Senate floor, by senators who actually personally know how torture functions, since the film seems to suggest that torture by US agents actually led to the discovery of the whereabouts of bin Laden.  From all accounts this is not true, and the very suggestion that it is  acceptable for the US  to gather information in this way, is more than offensive for those who suffered under such methods.

And “Argo” is “so full of bullshit it might as well have been a Charlie’s Angels episode” to quote Steve Burgess. The heroic people who really risked their lives and  those of their families in rescuing those US diplomats who managed to escape the chaos in the attack on the US embassy in Teheran , were of course the ambassador and the attache of Canada, who died last week.  They did what the diplomats of no other country – including some of the US’ supposed closest allies like the UK – were unwilling to do: risk their own lives to save those of US colleagues.   In real life the US citizens were hidden in two different Canadian diplomatic residences for a lengthy period before they were smuggled out, perhaps even with some input from the CIA operative who is made the hero of “Argo”: Affleck directing Affleck in the role.   One of these Canadian  diplomats, the  Ambassador, actually appears fleetingly in the film, but does not seem very important; the other  is never mentioned.    A postscript was added to the film, after howls of protest about an obvious insulting falsification of reality,  which  threw  a few crumbs  to the ambassador but never mentioned the attache, not to mention the Canadian prime minster, who allowed this mission to take place. It was all too reminiscent of how President Bush managed to  thank half the countries of the world for having helped during the 9/11 attack, but forgot Canada, the only one that had really done anything.

And then there is the fourth film”Beasts of the Southern Wild” a tale of the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrine on the  Louisiana coast, which features an  amazing performance by an 8-year old girl who amazingly is also up for best actress, as is the director.  None of the above will win, because they don’t present a phoney version of history, that ranges on propaganda, but rather offer a mythic story of outsiders who have no desire to return to the society from which they have been cut off by the inundations.  This is the film of the year.  Go see it, and skip cartoon history

 

Who has charisma? I’ll tell you who: Angela Merkel

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In “Schubertiana” one of his greatest poems – and he has written more of them than anyone else alive – the matchless Tomas Tranströmer – incredibly he is  a Nobel prize winner who actually deserved it – presents the  composer  Franz Schubert like this: “And the man who catches  the signals from a whole life in a few ordinary chords from five strings who makes a river flow through the eye of a needle is a stout young gentlemen from Vienna, called “the mushroom” by his friends, who slept with his glasses on and stood  at his writing lectern punctually in the morning.  And then the wonderful centipedes of his manuscript were set in  motion.”  (Trans. Robin Fulton).  What Tranströmer is driving at here, among other things, is that the superficial outer shell of  beauty that  plagues so many contemporary politicians;  think in terms of Obama’s wife and kiddies, Romney’s religious zeal, Sarkozy’s phoney aristocratic bearing, Berlusconi’s bizarre displays of burlesque pleasure, the no-name British prime minister’s ridiculous portrayal of a person of power, etc.  In all of Europe there is now only one politician who has real power and she has  gained it by not playing a role that  is based on poor theatre, but on hard work and policies that have brought results.  This is Angela Merkel, the 57 year old former East German physicist, who displays none of the silliness of her colleagues in supposed power, who dresses without flair (we have to mention the one extraordinary exception to this that proved the rule when she wore a dress to the opening of the new Oslo Opera House that was so low-cut that the puritanical Norwegians missed watching the opera), and whose husband, an eminent physicist, is never seen at political events.

Against all odds she has now been in power as  the first female chancellor of  Germany  for 7 years,  and today she was reconfirmed as leader of her party, the conservative CDU, by the largest majority she has ever received:  80% of the party delegates voted for her.  Even the most conservative wing of the conservative party for whom she is too liberal, admitted that they would be “blöd” (nuts) to not give her their full support in the upcoming election, which they will certainly win, (but by how much is unclear).  In a stunning display of solidarity, the leader of the even more conservative Bavarian sister party (CSU), which has usually been  at odds with anyone governing in Berlin (no wonder when you experience  the splendid condition of the Bavarian capital München compared to rundown bankrupt Berlin) admitted that his party will be a “purring cat” during  the pre-election months, content to snuggle up to the warmth provided by Mama Angela.  Now that is charisma.

Politics And Press: The Presidential Sweepstakes

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  • To vote for a Democrat means, now, to vote for the party’s influential members—for unions (including public unions of teachers, firemen, and policemen), for black and Latino minorities, for independent women….To vote for a Republican means, now, to vote for a plutocracy that depends for its support on anti-government forces like the tea party, Southern racists, religious fanatics, and war investors in the military-industrial complex. The independents, too ignorant or inexperienced …are the people most susceptible to lying flattery. They are called the good folk too inner-directed to follow a party line or run with the herd. They are like the idealistic imperialists “with clean hands” in Graham Greene’s The Quiet American—they should wear leper bells to warn people of their vicinity—Gary Wills, New York Review of Books

We have been subjected to a political campaign for the presidency that began nearly four years ago, moved into high gear over a year ago, presented a cast of shockingly bizarre Republican characters, and finally settled into a two man race that the American press has managed to define as a horse race to be covered as a sporting event of style over substance.

No day goes by without one or more new polls that tell us who is viewed most favorably among any number of subgroups: women voters, unmarried men, gays and lesbians, hispanics, white males, retirees, firemen, catholics, protestants, etc. etc. Candidates then try to tailor their heartfelt views to the identified interests of enough of the various subgroups to build a winning majority.. And by tailor, I mean, cut to size, redesign, change the entire look and feel – as various focus groups indicate. Mitt Romney’s constant and dramatic changes of expressed beliefs and values are an extreme example but Obama’s caution is also illustrative.

The press serves as the testing ground for policy changes by simply reporting them and then collecting data on whether the changes are liked or disliked by a largely unaware public. The press does this partially by collecting opinions from man-and/or-woman in the street interviews – a technique whose cost is only dwarfed by its innate absurdity. Of particular interest are those who after years of political jockeying have not quite been able to make up their mind. I mean, what does it take to get someone to decide? the world is not changing that fast, the candidates are only pretending to change, and yet these proud independents – unable to commit to any political belief or philosophy – wait for the magic moment – the epiphany – when they can decide between candidates representing radically different value systems and turn the election in whatever direction enters their sweet little heads.

Finally, to help them decide, the press provides analysts – almost always one from each side to discuss the issues in serious and quasi intellectual terms, but each reading from his or her internal Power Point presentation provided by their candidates. PBS’s Newshour has become especially proficient at this, cowering in its insecurities while it gives favor to each side hoping against hope that it will not be caught actually taking the side of rational thought, thereby perhaps risking its federal funding. The fact that they have become irrelevant, boring, tedious even – no longer matters. There is really no competition out there unless one turns to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert, who in their own wacky way, move toward the truth. Colbert would say to independents, “flip a damned coin and get over it.”

Obama – How has he done?

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As an election in the USA approaches, the judgments on Obama’s four years in office, even among his supporters, seem to be settling in an area that might be summarized as pretty disappointing but not when compared to what the competition is offering.  For those of us looking on from outside, it seemed from the beginning that Obama’s victory was both  a very pleasant surprise that might however lead to a big let-down .  On  the one hand it showed such resilience that a non-Caucasian could win the big prize in a country that only 50 years ago was still struggling to ensure basic civil rights for all citizens.  On the other hand it just seemed impossible that such an inexperienced politician could fulfill the hopes placed on him in such  an unstable political and economic world.

On top of that, as it turned out he was be faced with a congress that was unwilling to co-operate  across party lines and soon ground to a standstill.  And there didn’t seem to be any doubt that beneath  the surface there would always be a significant number of voters who  would vote him out of his office because of his colour, no matter what he did.  In such grotesque episodes as the birthers, doggedly attempting to prove he wasn’t born in the USA, this came right up on to the surface.  The leading German news magazine Der Spiegel just came out with a sympathetic photo of Obama on its title page, and one word underneath it:  Schade (” Too bad”), and  in the most recent New York Review of Books, David Cole summed up Obama’s record on such a basic matter as civil liberties and the law as much better than his predecessor as he stayed clear of the politics of fear, but at the same time very disappointing in his unwillingness to defend the ideals on which  the USA once placed its flag out in the world.   In short, the judgment seems to be that Obama was dealt a poor hand but hasn’t shown much creativity in playing  a better round with it.   Under normal circumstances he would be in  deep trouble for the next election, but a recent tour of beautiful New England, where he will win in his rival’s home state, convinced my brother Doug that the Republicans have made such a mess of their campaign that Obama is at the moment still the slight favourite to be re-elected, but it will be over a very divided country if he does win.  And his second term might then  be even  more problematic than his first.  May the force be with him.

 

 

May Day: Europe and the United States Compete for Worst Economic Policy

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In a battle for world supremacy for economic stupidity America’s Paul Ryan is taking on Angela Merkel in a battle for the ages. While Ryan is only one of 435 Representatives in the U.S. Congress he has become the intellectual leader of the party that gave us the $3 Trillion Iraq War, the huge Bush tax breaks for the wealthy, the unpaid for prescription drug benefit for Big Pharma, and unleashed America’s investment banks so they could sell paper crap around the world and bring the world economy to its knees. Having participated in creating a recession that barely missed becoming a depression, Ryan is now regaining his strength with Mitt Romney, much of the American press and virtually all of the so-called Tea Party singing the praises of the Man Who Would Destroy the American Economy as an homage to his heroine, Ayn Rand. Ryan’s austerity budget has even managed to create a negative response from elements of the Catholic hierarchy – a group normally focussed on how best to reduce women’s power.

Across the Atlantic Angela Merkel serves as Ryan’s powerful competitor for the title of Master/Mistress of the Recession. With the help of France’s embattled President, Frau Merkel has managed to force Greece, Spain, Portugal, Italy and Ireland (the list will surely increase) to adopt economic austerity policies guaranteed to force most or all into a lengthy recession with devastating unemployment rates, low or no actual economic growth and a near suicidal commitment to doing more of what demonstrably does not work in order to avoid admitting to their mistakes.

Ryan and Merkel have so far avoided being compared to David Cameron whose ongoing commitment to economic disaster seems to have been missed by much of the press, but that could change at any time as Britain has entered its second recession in four years. But before Cameron can be allowed into the field he must rid himself of the attention given to his love affair with Rupert Murdoch which has greatly diminished the attention given to his disastrous economic policies.

The next several months will determine the success of Ryan, Merkel and Cameron as they struggle – each in his or her own way – to bring national economies to their knees. The U.S. election, the budding resistance to Merkel’s stubborn commitment to folly among other Euro zone countries, and the shakiness of of the Conservative-Liberal Democrat ruling government in Britain will play out as the three head for the finish line in this race to the bottom.

Trudeau in stunning upset

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In the biggest upset in boxing since Pee Wee Hermann scored a TKO on Cassius Clay in that famous fight in Lewiston, Maine, Pierre Trudeau Junior (aka as Justin), a  3-1 underdog, brawled his way to a TKO in the third round of a charity challenge fight over tough-guy aboriginal Tory senator Patrick Brazeau.  By accepting the challenge of the toughest guy in Ottawa, despite dire warning that he risked serious injury, the slight 40 year old son of the greatest Canadian Prime Minister of modern times, risked his career as a potential future Prime Minister which was long threatened by a reputation as an over-intellectual type who took after his rather sensitive mother rather than his black-belt father.

As it turned out it was Brazeau who was in danger, stunned by haymakers leading to three standing 10 counts, before the ref stopped the fight in the third round. In less than ten minutes of real action Trudeau demolished his reputation as a wimp who could not stand the rough stuff of Canadian politics and emerged as someone to fear in future national elections. An amazed Brazeau admitted defeat to the new tough guy on the block and asked for a rematch. The fight Canadians would really like to see is the one with the arrogant current Prime Minister Stephen Harper who would probably also go in as a 3-1 underdog. Stay tuned.

Tom Lehrer – Where are you when we need you?

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“Let’s make peace the way we did in Stanleyville and Saigon”.  The lines are 50 years old, but the Harvard math  lecturer  who wrote them is still alive, as far as we know: the great (and final?) Amurcan political satirist Tom Lehrer.  Where are the comic writers of today who could sing their way to  Armageddon so sweetly?  What’s that you say?  There are no sitting duck targets like those disastrous interventions of yesteryear in French Indochina and the Belgian Congo.

Well, how about every mixup of western troops in the last two decades in the troubles of the Middle East?  Iraq is, as long predicted, quickly sinking back into the authoritarian nightmare of the Saddam era.  Civil war seems inevitable, as is already happening in Syria, where no one has intervened.  In the course of only a year, Libya has already reconstituted itself into the tribal areas of pre-Ghaddafi days.  Egypt’s future is completely unpredictable and unnerving.   Afghanistan is already pretty much  in the hands of the various factions that will take over the moment the last US troops leave. Like the Brits (several times ) and the Russians before them, the US will soon leave Afghanistann in undignified disarray.   We can  only hope it is not quite as desperate and chaotic as the last helicopter flights  from Saigon.   But it will be yet another defeat for a once-vaunted army, whose allies have already disembarked  from a doomed campaign.  So what else would Old Tom need for a finale.  Well, let’s not forget his A-bomb song “Who’s next”?   It ends with the lines “We’ll all try to stay serene and calm when Alabama gets the bomb”.  He should be able to come up with a rhyme ending in “an” or “ael”.

The Media’s Election Narrative

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There is one year to go before the 2012 presidential election and the American press continues to focus on the political process over the substance of issues. Early on the press determined that while Mitt Romney held a slight – and decidedly soft – lead in most national polls, a changing series of candidates must be anointed by the press to the role of “anyone but Romney” challenger for the Republican nomination. This has happened with little or no substantive exploration of issues, but has maintained a horserace kind of press coverage..

Initially former Governor Tim Pawlenty was promoted by much of the press for his “seriousness” which the voters then determined was a kind of insipid, tediousness. The press then jumped to Michelle Bachmann who presented a feminine face backed by a religious nuttiness that always seems to show up in Republican primary races in Iowa. She tanked early after voters began to actually listen to the strange things coming out of her mouth.

The press then decided that Governor Rick Perry was the one to take on Flipper Romney, not out of any particular policy differences but rather because he was from Texas, had a lot of campaign funds and talked a big – or at least loud – game. Perry lasted about two weeks as he fumbled in debates for words that might be translated into actual thoughts. The press then ignited his downfall because of a slip in a debate when he lost track of his thoughts – some would argue, not all that unusual an occurrence. Then the press moved to pizza company CEO Herman Cain as a new frontrunner with the innovative campaign strategy of joking about how little he knows about the world while defending himself against numerous (5 and counting) accusations of sexual harassment.

Now the press has identified Newt Gingrich as the next likely antidote to Romney. This, some months after the press dumped him as a tired old hack who couldn’t manage his campaign staff or his wife’s Tiffany account. Meanwhile Ron Paul maintains credible numbers, has an identifiable set of policies and is mostly ignored by the press. Jon Huntsman makes the most sense – especially on foreign affairs – and is mostly ignored by the press as irrelevant. Romney continues to waffle his way toward some weird kind of consistency – that is, the consistency of having no apparent core beliefs that he would not jettison for a few more votes, and the search for an alternative continues, but not based on any particular policy issues.

We have another year of this and perhaps as the process moves along the press will begin to focus on actual issues but for now, the focus remains on the way the game is played rather than on the probable consequences of candidates’ actual policy differences.