Politics and Press

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

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.

Rick Santorum: The Catholic Church’s Trojan Horse

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The Republican primaries continue to amaze and entertain with Mitt finding new ways to sink lower into the mire of pandering to the lowest common denominator, the aptly named Newt Gingrich self inflating at the sight of a microphone – any microphone – and Rick Santorum ranting against the joys of sex. Of particular recent interest is the role being played by the Catholic bishops in a strange, retro fight over birth control.

As the self appointed guardians of American faith and morals the bishops are mostly known by members and former members of their faith as the enablers of countless Catholic priest pedophiles. Just to be clear, we are being asked to buy into the morality of a group that ensured that priests under their administration could continue to rape young boys by moving them to ever new pastures of altar boys at the slightest threat of disclosure. The photo in the Boston Globe of the new Cardinal Dolan from NY being hugged by Boston’s chief pedophile enabler Cardinal Law after Dolan was elevated to Cardinal by Pope Benedict tells us all we need to know.

So now in a country that used to pride itself in its ability to keep religion largely out of our political life, the likes of Cardinal Dolan and his old friend Bernard Law have inserted themselves into the presidential election on the issue of birth control. in doing so the bishops are promoting a largely ignored and even ridiculed Church’s view that birth control is against God’s law even as virtually every Catholic woman in America has moved beyond that medieval view.

The moral power of the Catholic church is contributing to the dingbat wing of various state legislatures which are imposing laws that are intended to remind American women who is in charge – white guys in suits waiting in line to order the legal rape of any woman who might wish – for whatever reason – to have a legal abortion. In states like Texas and Virginia women are faced with these bizarre laws regardless of whether a pregnancy is the result of rape or incest or whether a woman’s health is threatened.

Rick Santorum follows the bishops’ lead and and would have everyone in America have sex only when they are intent on conceiving a child. We are truly in a dark and strange area here; an area where state legislators begin to practice medicine of the ob-gyn variety..

As for the Catholic Church – I refer readers to Catholic historian Gary Wills’ history of the church’s screwing around with contraception (“Contraception’s Con Men”)
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2012/feb/15/contraception-con-men/
and how it became “Catholic Dogma” on the NY Review blog. And let’s all pray for the lives destroyed by pedophiliac priests and their bishop enablers, and the lives lost to AIDS because the church won’t support condoms in Africa, and for the disappearance of Rick Santorum into the dustbin of history.

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”.

Save a tear for Germany

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Pity poor Germany.  It made such a mess of the twentieth  century that it just can’t do anything right in the twenty-first.  The truth is it is about the only country doing anything right in Europe these days, but no matter what it does, the folks it tries to help dig out Granddad’s old war memorabilia, and suggest that  that help is just another sign of Germany’s desire to laud its over poor European neighbours.  The passengers going down with  the Titanic curse the  German life boats ,that actually function,  rail on about how the war that ended almost 70 years ago was  making a comeback and of course don’t mean a word of it.  Places like Greece, Portugal, Cyprus, Spain and even Italy don’t really want to go under and drown  and of course they expect the Germans to come to their rescue, but first they’s like to remind you of how nasty their rescuers are.

It’s an odd time in good old Europe.  Athens burns in protest, Portugal and Spain provide no jobs for their youth in protest, Cyprus makes no progress towards becoming a united and perhaps then viable island state, Italy votes for a leadership that is beyond mockery, and Hungary one beyond tolerance and even France displays an unheard-of humility in the face of the only European economy that works.  And they all expect the German rescue boat to haul them back on board.  God help them if the Germans decide they are not worth the effort.

Auschwitz 77 years later

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Exactly 77 years ago the Red Army entered a large relatively  new settlement built outside the old Polish garnison city of Oswiecim and discovered the relics of  Auschwitz,the largest of more than half a dozen Nazi killing centres.  In the Auschwitz Protocol its genocidal purpose had been described in detail almost a year earlier by the Slovak Jew Rudy Vrba , who was the first and one of the very few who ever had escaped from it.  But about  a million others had been murdered in that place, mostly Jews, but also hundreds of thousands of others who for political, sexual or ethnic reasons were deemed unworthy of remaining alive.  This was decreed  by a murderous government with its centre in Berlin.  In the German parliament in the same city on the anniversary of that day, a 91 year old Polish-born Jewish man named Marcel Reich-Ranicki who became Germany’s leading literary critic reminded the elected members of that parliament about what that previous political system had done to him  personally, to his family, to his culture and ultimately to the reputation of Germany  throughout the world.

It is a sign of the  sea change in the public position of Germany that no one in that parliament made up of parties ranging from deeply conservative to near-communist expressed anything but  unanimous approval of a motion that Germany undertake a united effort  to make sure such an event could not happen again.  The reason  for this unanimity was however deeply unsettling and very clear.  Over the last decade a terrorist group based in Zwickau in the former East Germany had been murdering ethnic Turks (along with a Greek and a  policewoman)who ran small businesses in Germany at a rate of about one  a year.  This came as a shock to the average German population as it recalled an  evil past that almost all Germans dearly wished had faded into history.  It was even more of a shock when it became clear that  the trio of murderers could not have remained undetected for a decade without a substantial  support group that many suspect  included some police.  Keep tuned and see whether Germany, with a powerful prime minister who is definitely untouched by any suspicions of  having had anything to do with those Nazi events, can combat this threat with efficiency, power and justice.

Living in Lies: America Goes to the Polls

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Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred.
—— Vaclav Havel

The late Vaclav Havel promoted the concept of “living in truth” as a revolutionary strategy for overcoming the authoritarian crimes committed on the Czech people by the Soviet regime. A frequently jailed dissident, Havel led the Czechoslovak people through their Velvet Revolution, became the president of Czechoslovakia, and watched sadly as the country’s Czech and Slovak populations went through their Velvet Divorce. Havel then re-emerged as the President of the Czech Republic and started the process of re-invigorating the country’s political and economic cultures. Throughout his life his commitment to truth remained paramount and constant, both in his literature and his politics. Small of stature, he was a giant among the world’s leaders.

And that brings us to those of our home grown political practitioners who are convinced that truth is at best a relative term and at worst an inconvenience. We are stuck – and I do mean stuck – with a group of Republican challengers for the presidency whose commitment to truth is about as strong as Newt Gingrich’s commitment to his first two wives.

The likely Republican challenger to President Obama, Mitt Romney, flits from one stance to another while manufacturing Obama quotes that were never actually said. People expressed shock when Newt Gingrich said on national TV that Romney is a liar, but their shock was only that he said it, not that the description was untrue. Our candidates are expected to lie and we accept it as part of the game. But the result of our willingness to play along with that game is that we end up electing people we cannot trust and then wondering later what went wrong.

The Czech Republic is a country of approximately 10 million people and it produced the leadership of Vaclav Havel; our country of 300 million produces the Lilliputian likes of Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Donald Trump and Rick Santorum. Go Figure.

The CFL at 99 and counting, what Canadian football could teach the Yanks

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So the big game is over, the Grey Cup has been  presented in its ninety-ninth year to aVancouver team that lost its first five games and won nine of its next ten, including today’s down to the wire victory at home against Winnipeg.  56, ooo people sold out its new half billion dollar upgraded stadium, to watch he best young quarterback in football (think Doug Flutie, Warren Moon, Joe Theisman if you want to recall the kind of players who preceded Travis Lulay in the CFL) lead the Lions to a deserved narrow victory .  It’s true that for Canadian sports fans this can’t replace the loss by the Canucks in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup championship  to Boston, but virtually the whole country watched it and it was a reminder, if one was needed, of how much more exciting  Canadian 3-down  football games are compared to US 4-down ones.  With  4 minutes to go and the team with the ball leading by a touchdown in the US, the game is basically considered over as you can run out the clock with a steady diet of four-yard runs.  Paint dries faster.

In Canada that game is just beginning at that point.  Winnipeg scored two touchdown in the last three minutes to come within 8 points of Vancouver and were driving again as the game ended.  Even more exciting was the Canadian university championship game played two days before the pro championship in the same stadium, during which the favoured rouge et or of Laval came back from 23-0 half-time deficit to pull ahead of McMaster by one point with  a couple of minutes to go only to see themselves go ahead by a single, get tied by a rouge and apparently lose by one point when McMaster missed a field goal with  no time left, but any ball that is kicked into or out of the end zone without it being returned or kicked back out results in  one  point in Canada, enough  to win the game in this case.  But the ball didn’t go over the end zone line as a Laval player caught it before it passed the  line and made it back out to the one–yard line after faking a drop kick as a return.  Eventually the winner was decided by an overtime that   had everyone standing and defies explanation.  These are rugby rules, and the NFL should send someone up to see how they add excitement in places where the NF L offers nothing but  dead air – fair catches, no reward for kicking balls into or out of the end zone, no possibility of returning kicks with kicks, ridiculous ways ways of breaking ties, etc.

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.

Iceland, Greece, Whatever

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The economic crisis send out its ripples, knocks down its first dominoes, and the rich fat cats who thought they were too far away to be threatened, are starting to raise their heads and start smelling something rotten heading their way. First it was Iceland, now it’s Greece, and soon it may be bigger fish in much bigger lakes like Italy and Spain. The problem is always the same: whole countries live beyond their means, run up big debts on credit and fall apart when the sleazy chaps who convinced them to take out cheap loans, ask for a payback.   Iceland lived in a fantasy world of fake wealth in this bizarre ritual and the streets of Reykjavik rumbled with the weight of oversized  cars bought on non-existent money. The average Reykjavik household had 3 cars, and more than 20,000 cars were imported in the year before the banking system collapsed in 3 days only 4 years ago. This year 2,000 cars are coming in. But Icelanders have learned to live with catastrophes: hunger winters, volcanic eruptions, whatever. When asked how he was doing in the midst of the debacle, my brother Doug’s Icelandic pal had a quick reply: “Don’t worry about us, we know how to fish and raise potatoes”. And lo and behold it is the Icelandic fishery that has actually prospered in terrible economic times, as the fishing fleet never stopped going out into dangerous waters, still under Icelandic control after the cod war of the 1970s after the fleet turned away invading British warships, and provided a solid economic base for an economic recovery, even for the gamblers who had  lost in the economic games of the mid-2000s.

Now it is Greece’s turn to pay the price of spending too liberally on the basis of phoney money. Just as in Iceland (and in all the countries that will be hit next) it is the fat cats who will be able to find an escape hatch and the poor suckers who have tried to make an honest hard-earned wage who will find that their savings have disappeared along with their jobs. Like Iceland Greece has tremendous resources in its saplendid setting and matchless history. Come on guys, get it together, start planting those potatoes or whatever grows best, send out the fleet, and get those workers who are ready to roll up their sleeves back on the job.

The Wild Ones make a comeback

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In a period of seemingly unending bad news about the state of the environment, it is time for some surprisingly upbeat developments: Some of the big guys in the animal kingdom are coming back to areas they had abandoned under constant human pressure scores of years ago, in some cases even centuries ago. It is true that almost all these cases are happening in the still somewhat wide-open spaces of northern North America and Euroasia, but still they are happening and there is quite suddenly some startling evidence that the often apparently hopeless attempt by some humans to undo the damage done by most humans is actually having some success. It seems that protected national parks actually work as something other than a tourist goal.

In southern British Columbia grizzly bears are definitely extending their range southward and even westward as the first sightings in a century of the giant carnivores within an hour of Vancouver lead to predictions that within twenty years a grizzly will be standing on the ski slopes of Vancouver looking at his encaged brethren at the top of Grouse Mountain. Four young male grizzlys are now being tracked on the west coast of Vancouver Island where the languages of the natives have no word for them, as there is no record of them having been there before. It can only be assumed they have made the almost unimaginable swim from the mainland by moving from island to island and are now considering whether they want to stay in a new land where they would be king of the wilderness. If the resident black bears run into them, they may regret getting to know this branch of th e family.

They would almost certainly also be meeting an ever-expanding cougar population, once seen only rarely and at a distance – my brother Doug claims to have almost hit one on the road to Zeballos – and now making thei presence felt in many places where they may be less than welcome. This summer a cougar jumped out of the bush and on to a little kid at popular Kennedy Lake in Pacific Rim National Park, only to be driven away by an irate mother. Cougars have also now been positively identified as roaming the woods of Quebec and will surely soon be back in th he Adirondacks.  Wolf packs are spreading rapidly eastwards in Germany where they have been absent for a century.   Tigers have been brought back from the brink of extinction in southeastern Russia through a decision in Moscow that a great country like Russia deserves a great wild animal.  China may be thinking that one over at the moment, since they wiped out all their own tigers, but still get the occasional wanderer from north of the Amur River. In 2009 in British Columbia federal officials estimated that the salmon returning to the greatest free-flowinng salmon river on earth, the Fraser, which reaches the sea in Vancouver, would be reduced to a rump 1 million fish and might well be considered on the way to extinction.  And then 30 million showed up from nowhere, the highest number in a century, and all bets of extinction were off. So take heart, you may yet run into a grizzly or a pack of wolves on your afternoon constitutional and never be the same again.