Tobin tax attracts some heavyweights

A global financial transactions tax, a Robin Hood tax, a Tobin tax ... call it what you will, it's day may finally be dawning. In 1972, American economist James Tobin proposed a tax designed to reduce speculation in the international currency markets which he saw as dangerous and unproductive. He suggested using the proceeds of the tax to fund projects for the benefit of Third World countries, or to support the United Nations.

Now, 350 prominent economists from around the world have written to the leaders of the G20 calling on them to implement a 0.05% tax on all speculative financial transactions "as a matter of urgency." The economists include Nobel prize winner Joseph Stiglitz as well as Jeffrey Sachs, George Soros and Warren Buffet.

Their letter reads in part: 

This tax is an idea that has come of age. The financial crisis has shown us the dangers of unregulated finance, and the link between the financial sector and society has been broken. It is time to fix this link and for the financial sector to give something back to society.

This money is urgently needed. The crises of poverty and of climate change require an historic transfer of billions of dollars from the rich world to the poor world, and this tax would offer a clear way to help fund this.

Trading in foreign currencies, stocks, bonds and their derivatives is now over $3,260-trillion a year, about 60 times the world's GDP, powerfully facilitated by networked computers. The result has been described as turning the financial market into an "electronic pinball," with billions ricocheting blindly across continents in split seconds in pursuit of instant profits. Regulating the pinball is in itself necessary for financial stability, and using the regulation for good works, as the economists suggest, is the icing on the cake. Alleviating poverty and fighting climate change are international responsibilities so an international tax is perfectly appropriate.

The G20 will probably reject the idea at this summer's meeting, but the consensus in favour is growing. And it is attracting some very prestigious champions.

A tale of two courts

Our Supreme Court is a splendid example of both equality for women and the ability of women. The Court consists of five men and four women with a woman as Chief Justice. That's about as equitable as you can get. Canadian justice is the main beneficiary of this maximizing of Canadian talent, but not the only one. Our Court is internationally respected with its judgments quoted in proceedings around the world.

Egypt, in contrast, has only one woman on its highest court and if the Council of State, an influential body that advises Egypt's government, has its way, they won't have any more. Last Monday, the council voted 334 to 42 against the appointment of women. Incredibly, the decision contradicts the Egyptian constitution which reads, "All citizens are equal before the law. They have equal public rights and duties without discrimination between them due to race, ethnic origin, language, religion or creed."

Up until 2007, Egypt had only one woman judge, Tehani al Gebali, who was appointed to the Supreme Constitutional Court by the president. Then the country's supreme judicial council selected 31 women for the bench. Conservatives, who claim women are not suited for the role, strongly objected. They are now getting their revenge. Both Egyptian women and Egyptian justice will pay the price.

The death of John Babcock and the Great Lie about the Great War

The papers this morning featured the death of the last Canadian veteran of the First World War, John Henry Foster Babcock. A sad day indeed for the friends and family of Mr. Babcock although he did live a long and active live, dying at the remarkable age of 109.

Sad, too, is the occasion being used to perpetuate the Great Lie about the Great War. Prime Minister Harper, referring to Mr. Babcock and his compatriots, said "They paid dearly for the freedom that we and our children enjoy every day." That of course isn't true. Quite aside from the fact Mr. Babcock never saw action, no one "paid dearly" for anyone's freedom in the First World War. The only possible exceptions are those Africans and Asians who served in British, French and German regiments. They may have naively thought they were fighting for their freedom, but they were quickly disabused of that dream once the war was over.

The 67,000 Canadians who died in the war certainly paid dearly, as did the 173,000 who were wounded, but they weren't paying for anything of value. They didn't sacrifice their lives for any great cause. They died in a bloody-minded exercise in mass stupidity perpetuated by a bunch of arrogant, decaying European empires. They died participating in easily the stupidest thing Canada has ever done. They died for nothing, for less than nothing.

The war is often referred to as a defining moment in Canadian history. And it was. It defined the low point in our history. It defined the nadir of misguided colonial loyalty. We participated for no other reason than we were part of one of the arrogant empires involved in the Great Folly. If we had had the imagination and courage to stand up and say no, we are not participating in your foolishness, now that would have been a defining moment worth commemorating.

If we want to learn from history we have to accept hard truths, including the hard truth that the Great War was little more than pointless mass slaughter, that we made a huge blunder in immersing ourselves in it, and that we threw away the lives of thousands of Canadians like we would throw out the garbage. We should stop telling ourselves easy lies, as comforting as that may be.

Gay rights confronts biblically-inspired hate in Africa

Homophobia is running rampant in Africa. Thousands of Ugandans demonstrated this week in support of proposed anti-gay legislation. The Ugandan parliament is considering a bill that would impose life imprisonment as the minimum punishment for anyone convicted of having gay sex. The maximum will of course be the death penalty. Ugandans are obliged to report any homosexual activity to police within 24 hours or risk up to three years in jail. Malawi is prosecuting two men jailed in December for holding a wedding ceremony. They could be imprisoned for up to 14 years. Gay sex is illegal in 36 African countries.

And what is fueling this outburst of hate? Phumi Mtetwa, executive director of the Lesbian and Gay Equality Project, a South African-based group, suggests at least one culprit. Commenting on the current binge of homophobia, he says,  "It's exploding at the moment, but it's been happening for a year and a half. We have proof of American evangelical churches driving the religious fundamentalism in Uganda." Knowing the attitude toward gays among fundamentalists in the United States and combining that with their missionary zeal, we are not surprised they should take their toxic views to Africa.

And of course they can rely on the Bible to support their bigotry. The good book says, in Leviticus 20:13, "If a man lies with a man as he lies with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination. They shall surely be put to death. Their blood shall be  upon them." Not known for tolerance, the Bible.

As a non-believer, I've never quite understood why people who claim to believe in the teachings of a gentle Jesus allow this Old Testament poison to infect their philosophy. I imagine quite a few gays in Africa are wondering the same thing. For them, however, it's a rather more serious matter.

Utah -- the Tennessee of climate change?

In 1926, high school teacher John T. Scopes was charged with teaching evolution at Clark County High School in Dayton, Tennessee. After a famous trial, dubbed the Scopes Monkey Trial, Scopes was convicted and fined $100, a fine later set aside by the Tennessee Supreme Court.

Scopes was accused of violating Tennessee's infamous Butler Act which made it unlawful to teach in any state-funded school or university "any theory that denies the story of the Divine Creation of man as taught in the Bible, and to teach instead that man has descended from a lower order of animals."

Utah’s House of Representatives has now passed a resolution that might be thought of as true to the science-denying spirit of the Butler Act. Fortunately, because it's only a resolution, it has no force in law. Nonetheless, it illustrates the same rejection of science in favour of special interests. In the Scopes case, the vested interest was fundamentalist Christianity; in the Utah case, it is more likely king coal. Ninety per cent of the state's electricity comes from coal. Utah also has a substantial oil and gas industry with extensive deposits of tar sands and oil shale.

The resolution, which passed 56-17, calls upon the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to “immediately halt its carbon dioxide reduction policies and programs." Typically, it also trotted out a conspiracy theory. The resolution claims there is "a well organized and ongoing effort to manipulate global temperature data in order to produce a global warming outcome."

All is not darkness in Utah, of course. A group of Brigham Young University scientists were so disturbed by the resolution, they wrote to the legislators highlighting several errors and urged them to reconsider. "We feel it is irresponsible for some of our legislators to attempt to manipulate the scientific evidence in order to support a political agenda," they wrote. Unfortunately, the people who actually know what they are talking about were ignored. 

There are moments in science when new knowledge delivers such a shock to the human ego, large numbers of people simply can not or will not deal with it. One such moment was when Copernicus discovered heliocentricity, telling humanity in effect that we were not at the centre of the universe. Another was when Darwin discovered natural selection, telling us we weren't special, just another species evolved from a lower order. And now come climate change scientists delivering the unwelcome message that we, God's chosen species, are wrecking God's creation. It's just too much for many of us, including 56 members of the Utah House of Representatives.

This time it's different, however. If a lot of people didn't accept heliocentricity or natural selection, so what? Life went on. But if too many people don't accept the reality of anthropogenic global warming, life may go on, but civilization likely won't.

Is this what sucking up gets us?

Our federal government has, in the past few years, turned our foreign policy away from a role as honest broker and peacemaker toward a role as uncritical partner of our traditional allies, particularly the United States. We obediently followed the Americans into Afghanistan, adopted their policy of unequivocal support for Israel in the Middle East, and made it clear we would do no more than they in dealing with climate change. We will be more than good allies, we will be obsequious allies.

And has this brought us greater esteem in the eyes of their people? Hardly. According to a global BBC survey, the number of Americans who think our influence in the world is "mainly positive" dropped from 82% in 2009 to 67% in 2010. The only larger drop was in China, from 75% to 54%. The third largest drop was in Great Britain, from 74% to 62%. Even we think less of ourselves. Whereas in 2009, 86% of us thought our influence in the world was mainly positive, now only 75% of us do.

China we can understand, but why are our friends souring on us? Doug Miller, chairman of GlobeScan, who conducted the survey, believes the drop is due in part at least to our policies, or lack thereof, on climate change. Bob Johnson, a senior adviser at the Canadian International Conference, a non-partisan research council established to strengthen Canada's foreign policy, believes that's the entire reason.

It seems that catering to the U.S. on other issues doesn't overcome our reputation as environmental laggards. If the question is "Will they love us in the morning?" apparently the answer is no. However, less sucking up and more environmental leadership might just do it.

Misogyny among the mitres

Anglican fundamentalists seem tireless in their determination to live in the past. Along with their routine gay-bashing and the occasional broad wink toward Rome, they insist on keeping women in their place, a place well away from the wellsprings of power. And, like sulky six-year olds, they threaten to split the church if they don't get their way.

A group of conservative evangelicals in the U.K. which refers to itself as Reform has stated its parishes will raise money to train their own clergy if women are allowed to become bishops. So there. If you won't play ball with us, we'll take our mitres and go home.

Not that the evangelicals consider women to be lesser vessels, oh no. In a statement signed by 50 vicars, they insisted, "We are not for a moment saying women are less valuable than men … this is the point we find hardest to communicate, since the world about us equates value with power." Well, yes, value and power are not the same thing, but unfortunately those who hold the power usually set the values. And, in the eyes of the evangelicals, that's damned well going to be men.

Their justification is that book for all seasons, the Holy Bible, which the Reform evangelicals insist does not allow women to be in "headship" of any organization, including businesses and families. It is, they say, an issue about "Holy Scripture."

Meanwhile the Church dawdles at bringing women fully into the Anglican fold. Ordaining women as bishops was approved 18 months ago, yet the group assigned to frame the appropriate regulations has so far come up with nothing. The Right Reverend Nigel McCulloch, Bishop of Manchester, explained that "the scale of the task made it impossible" to show results so soon. They've been ordaining men for centuries, how can it possibly be that difficult to ordain women?

Organized religion is supposed to provide moral leadership, yet it seems replete with moral reactionaries. A bunch of men using Scripture to suppress women is a sordid business, not exactly a high-water mark of moral rectitude.

The Dalai Lama and the oh so sensitive autocrats in Beijing

The Chinese government has 1.3-billion people to be concerned about, yet they obsess about one man. The problem is he isn't one of theirs, so they can't control him. That, however, doesn't stop them from using diplomatic muscle to attempt to control anyone who fraternizes with him.

The man is of course the Dalai Lama. His goal of autonomy for his homeland is understandably annoying to a regime that thinks Tibet is rightly part of China, particularly to a regime composed of control freaks. They express their annoyance loudly and frequently. When Prime Minister Harper welcomed the Dalai Lama to Canada in October, 2007, the Chinese accused Canada of interfering in China's internal affairs and claimed the feelings of all Chinese people had been hurt. They are currently expressing great umbrage over the Dalai Lama's visit to the U.S. later this month where he will meet with President Obama in Washington. And not only heads of state feel the wrath of the Chinese. The granting of an honorary degree to the Dalai Lama by the University of Calgary in December has resulted in the removal of the university from one of the Chinese minister of education's accredited institution lists. The man's persistent popularity in the democracies seems to drive the dictators frantic.

Not that he has particularly impressive democratic credentials himself. Chosen as head of the faith, and therefore by default as head of state, by an arcane process of religious mumbo-jumbo, his claim to legitimacy as leader of the Tibetan people has no democratic foundation. The Dalai Lamas long ruled over an impoverished, backward land of aristocrats and serfs as oppressively as the Chinese rule over their Tibet.

The Dalai Lama appears to have put all that behind him, however, and is now a major spokesman for human rights, and that does nothing to endear him to the barons of Beijing either.

The obvious solution would be to let the Tibetans choose their own future, but that is of course not in the cards. So the Chinese are stuck with this annoying pebble in their shoe. And they may be stuck for a long time. After all, the Dalai Lamas, through reincarnation, live forever. The current incarnation, Tenzin Gyatso, declares he won't be reborn in a land that isn't free and has even suggested Tibetans should be allowed to vote on whether or not they accept his rebirth. It's not surprising the Chinese are concerned about an enemy who may never die. On the other hand, he insists on a peaceful approach to the conflict with China, an approach other Tibetans are highly impatient with. The Chinese should at least be grateful for that.

Wall Street, where failure pays big

In late 2008 and early 2009, the U.S. government bailed out American International Group (AIG), the largest underwriter of commercial and industrial insurance in the country, with $180-billion in aid. The boys and girls at AIG had screwed up big time. The executives of the financial products division had brought the corporate giant to the brink of collapse, triggering the largest corporate bailout in American history.

So, of course, they must be punished. Whereas last year they received bonuses totaling $168-million, this year they will only receive $100-million. That will teach them.

But wait a minute! They're still getting $100-million for screwing up? Can't help it, says Obama's "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg, the contracts were drawn up years ago and "we've got to abide by the law." Well, OK, the law's the law, but that doesn't quite explain how any employer would be stupid enough to sign contracts that hand its executives massive bonuses even if they trash the company. Aren't bonuses supposed to be for doing something especially good? But these guys are getting bonuses for doing something especially bad. Capitalism is so entertaining.

Omar Khadr, conservatives and the tribal impulse

The Harper government's refusal to seek Omar Khadr's release from Guantanamo is the most callous act by a government of Canada that I can remember. Allowing a foreign government to torture and otherwise abuse the rights of a Canadian teenager is almost incomprehensible for a civilized society. Every other Western government successfully retrieved their citizens from that tropical hellhole. But not us.

The obvious reason is that he is a Khadr, a member of a family despised by Canadians. Stephen Harper is, by his own admission, thinking strategy every moment of his waking day, and there are no votes to be gained and possibly some to be lost from the Conservative core by catering to a Khadr. But this just makes it all the more callous: punishing a boy because of his parents. And it fails the ultimate test of human rights. Defending the rights of those you like is easy, defending the rights of those you don't like is hard.

And it is particularly hard for conservatives. We are all tribal, hence we all care more for those who are like us than those who are not. But conservatives are especially tribal. They are more inclined to think in terms of us and them, black and white, good guys and bad guys. Thus their tough stance on crime, their passion for things military, their urge to patriotism, and their contempt even for simple decency for Omar Khadr.

The Khadrs are alien to the Canadian majority in almost every respect: ideologically, religiously and ethnically. So they are beyond the pale, and one of their tribe can be freely sacrificed to the American lust for revenge. To the Harper Conservatives, there are citizens and then there are citizens, some worthy and some not, some too different to be considered one of us and therefore not deserving of the rights the rest of us take for granted.

Omar Khadr is a tough luck kid. Betrayed by his parents to a life of extremism, then betrayed by his country to incarceration and abuse. For him, justice is a stranger.

Could we please stop "going forward"

Every once in a while yet another obnoxious word or phrase pops up, seemingly out of nowhere, and attaches itself like a leech to everyday discourse. A few years ago what might be the ugliest word in the English language, "exacerbate," was showing up everywhere. What the writer usually meant was "aggravate," a word quite satisfying to the senses.

More recently, we have become plagued by the nonsensical phrase "going forward." In last Saturday's Globe, Michael Ignatieff was quoted as saying, in reference to brain disease, "This is a central health challenge facing our country going forward." The phrase is of course completely redundant. (Could there be a challenge going backward?) What he means to say is: "This is a central health challenge facing the country" ... period, full stop, 'nuf said.

On the Jon Stewart show last week, his guest Elizabeth Warren, bailout watchdog for the Obama administration, marred a lively and passionate interview with her incessant "going forward." Warren and Ignatieff are bright, articulate people, they should be setting an example for the rest of us with their command of the language, not relying on crutches.

But that seems to be the nature of these infectious phrases. They tend to afflict the professional talkers more than the amateurs, as contrary as H1N1. Unfortunately, there seems to be neither preventative nor cure.

On climate change -- even Osama gets it

Not all religious fundamentalists are immune to the threat of global warming it seems. One of their more prominent brethren has seen the light and spoken out. I refer to Islamic zealots' favourite cave man, Osama bin Laden. 

From somewhere in the misty reaches of the Hindu Kush, according to an audio tape obtained by Al Jazeera, bin Laden declared, "All of the industrialized countries, especially the big ones, bear responsibility for the global warming crisis,"  and emphasized that, "Speaking about climate change is not a matter of intellectual luxury -- the phenomenon is an actual fact."
 
Wow! One of the world's true weirdos may have a better grip on the problem than a goodly number of national leaders, including ours. Perhaps our Prime Minister should spend some time in a cave recalibrating his understanding of what science is desperately trying to tell us. If it led to environmental enlightenment, it would be prorogue time well spent.

Everyone agrees with Taliban Jack now

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Late in 2006,  New Democratic Party leader Jack Layton suggested that talking to the Taliban was important in bringing peace to Afghanistan. He was excoriated in the daily press and treated with contempt by both Conservatives and Liberals. They called him Taliban Jack and laughed him out of the House.

Well, Taliban Jack is laughing now. It seems that almost everyone agrees that talking to the "scumbags" is the only way to peace in that tortured country. That Pakistan is talking to "all levels" of the insurgency is hardly a surprise. But Afghan President Hamid Karzi is also interested in discourse with the more moderate elements. Most surprisingly, U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, commander of the International Security Assistance Forces and the American forces in Afghanistan, agrees with talks. “As a soldier, my personal feeling is that there’s been enough fighting,” McChrystal told the Financial Times. “What I think we do is try to shape conditions which allow people to come to a truly equitable solution to how the Afghan people are governed.” U.S. Secretary of Defence Robert Gates concurs that the Taliban are a part of Afghanistan’s “political fabric.”

Canada's position, too, has evolved over the past four years. Having once ridiculed Layton's position, in 2008 the Conservatives said they would support talks with those Taliban who renounced violence. Now talks with the insurgents is one of the official priorities of the Canadian mission.

The Taliban are a bunch of brutal theocrats but, like the murderous IRA in Ireland, they have a lot of support among their people. They are the dominant force among Pashtuns in the south, where Canadian troops operate. Taliban leader Mullah Omar remains perhaps the foremost spokesman for Pashtun interests. Just as dealing with reality in Ireland meant dealing with the IRA, so dealing with reality in Afghanistan may mean dealing with the Taliban. NATO's special civilian representative in Afghanistan, former British ambassador to Kabul Mark Sedwill, appears ready to deal with that reality, recently stating "If we are going to bring conflicts like Afghanistan to an end … that means some pretty unsavoury characters are going to have to be brought within the system. Because if you don't bring them within the system in some way … you risk whatever fragile peace you build falling apart." Sedwill said further that refusing to deal with the Taliban because of their past behaviour is hypocritical when there are warlords responsible for appalling abuses on the government side.

Bringing the Taliban into a government would be unpleasant, but we are on good terms with the oppressive, misogynistic Sauds in Arabia, a regime that recently sentenced a 75-year old woman to 40 lashes and four months in prison for having two unrelated men in her house, so we can hold our noses and live with similar religious thuggery in Afghanistan.

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Obama vs. the big banks -- what are the odds?

If U.S. President Barack Obama is serious about bringing his country's big banks to heel, he will be embarking on a very courageous political act indeed. He will be biting the hand that feeds him. In the 2008 presidential election he, like his opponent John McCain, got well over a third of his campaign funding from the financial industry.

In this year's congressional elections, candidates will be heavily dependent upon the banks for campaign dollars. And with the recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that allows corporations to donate without limit, supporters of Obama's policies could be facing a veritable flood of corporate money. And then of course there is the bankers' lobbying machine with 1,500 lobbyists in Washington, three for every member of Congress, to drive home the reality of American politics in the 21st century. Congressmen and women will eventually have to approve Obama's measures and the lobbyists will make it very clear what the price of that approval would be.

It will certainly be clear to the Democratic head of the Senate's powerful banking committee, Chris Dodd. In the last four years, financial companies have provided the good senator with $8-million in campaign contributions. He is retiring at the end of this year, but it's unlikely he will forget who his friends are.

So I'm betting on the banks. As Democratic Senator Dick Durbin said last year about the banking industry's Washington lobby, "They own the place." Still, it's a gutsy move on Obama's part, and if he can somehow get anything substantial through Congress, it will be a great victory for the American people, both politically and economically.

Stephen Harper discovers Canada

Canadians, like most peoples, have an image of themselves that carries both a certain amount of truth and a certain amount of wishful thinking. A favourite image of ours depicts us as a gentle, reasonable people, cautious in our worldly affairs and caring toward each other. This image is how many others see us as well, rightly or wrongly, but it is not an image our Prime Minister has seemed to hold in very high regard. After all, he once described us to a crowd of Americans as "a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term."

And yet, and this is my surprise of the day, I read in the morning papers that when he addresses the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday, he will emphasize a couple of very Canadian themes. First, he is expected to talk about how Canada's well-regulated banking system brought our banks relatively unscathed through the global economic crisis. And second, he will call on countries to address the challenge of maternal and child health care in the developing world, something he wants to be a key priority when he hosts this summer's G8/G20 meetings.

The cynics will no doubt say the forever-strategizing Mr. Harper is simply trying to downgrade the climate change issue for the G8/G20 meetings, but let's give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, when Stephen Harper, the champion of free markets and small government, goes all communal and puts the very Canadian virtues of well-regulated banks and caring for the less fortunate high on his agenda, considerable progress has been made.

Cindy McCain -- poster girl for NOH8

Cindy McCain – attractive, intelligent, filthy rich and married to a prominent U.S. senator – offers a picture of the best and brightest of Republican womanhood. Yet she has a flaw. She supports gay marriage. And isn't shy about it. She not only has come out in support of the NOH8 gay marriage campaign, she has posed for a campaign poster. NOH8 opposes California's proposition 8, a law banning same-sex marriage.

Her husband, former presidential candidate John McCain who once supported a similar law in his home state of Arizona, has been forced to declare that while respecting the views of his family he still "believes the sanctity of marriage is only defined as between one man and one woman." Gossip-mongers have suggested Cindy is simply taking a shot at her husband because of his behaviour toward her in the past. (He once publicly called her a cunt.) I prefer to think she genuinely believes in gay marriage and is making the point that Republicans can be progressive on the issue. As her daughter Meghan McCain, who also appears in the poster campaign, said, "I couldn't be more proud of my mother for posing for the NOH8 campaign, I think more Republicans need to start taking a stand for equality."

Good for Meghan. And good for Cindy.

Supreme Court further undermines U.S. democracy

I have frequently emphasized in these pages that Canada is not a democracy. When corporations own most of the mass media, dominate the economy and fund political parties, think tanks and lobby groups, we are as much a plutocracy as a democracy. We have a hybrid system.

Occasionally we do take measures to advance the democratic component. The federal government, for example, has banned corporate funding of election campaigns. 

Our neighbours to the south have just been told they will not be allowed to take even this reasonable step to protect democracy from the corruption of wealth. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled, by a 5-4 margin, that governments can not restrict corporations and unions from spending on ads expressly urging a candidate’s election or defeat. Big money is moving quickly to exploit the ruling. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has promised the largest, most aggressive election campaign in its history to defeat congressional Democrats who support Obama's proposals for overhauling the health insurance and financial systems and limiting carbon emissions.

The founding fathers of the United States would cringe at how their great democratic experiment has been perverted. Thomas Jefferson, who believed in a democracy of craftsmen, farmers and small businessmen, advised that the new nation should “crush in its birth the aristocracy of our monied corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength.” The aristocracy he feared has now, with the help of the Supreme Court, triumphed yet again over his dream of a citizen-based democracy. The Court, it seems, is unable to distinguish money from speech.

Is "tough on crime" bankrupting California?

Everyone knows the state that was once the epitome of the American dream is crumbling into bankruptcy. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has recently proposed an $82-billion budget for California, a state with a population larger than Canada's. It will almost certainly be inadequate. Out of that $82-billion, $10-billion will go to the prison system. And that of course excludes police, courts, and all the other paraphernalia of criminal justice.

California's prison population has exploded with an array of get tough on crime legislation including the infamous "three strikes and your out" law. While the population of the state has doubled over the past thirty years, the number of prison inmates has increased almost six-fold. Before the incarceration binge, California spent about $5 on higher education for every $1 on prisons, today it spends more on prisons and corrections than on its universities. As a result, its once vaunted university system is in decline.

And, ironically, all this money spent on incarceration hasn't even produced a decent prison system. The system's physical and mental health care is so bad the federal courts have declared it unconstitutional, and its drug rehabilitation and vocational training programs are being dismantled.

The get tough on crime laws proposed by the Harper government are certainly not as severe as those in California, but it is nonetheless worth keeping in mind the road we are on to make sure we don't travel too far along it.

There is spending and then there is Olympic spending

Some juxtapositions in your daily paper leap off the page at you. Such a one did just this in Saturday's Globe and Mail. On Page A5, we find an article discussing spending on the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. The total is estimated at a whopping $6-billion. But the number that really caught my eye was the expected $900-million on security. Almost a billion B.C. and federal taxpayer dollars for security at a sports event!

Turn over to Page A6 and you find an article about a lack of funding for cancer studies. Apparently clinical trials that could significantly improve patient care are being stopped or not performed at all because the money isn't there. Michael Wosnick, vice-president of research for the Canadian Cancer Society, observed "... I have no way to know whether the next Nobel Prize winner in cancer research ... doesn't get funded because we just don't have the money," and Ralph Meyer, director of the NCIC Clinical Trials Group, asked "Where does it place Canadian investigators in a global environment, in terms of the competition to be successful in research?"

Lots of money to compete for Olympic medals, not so much to compete for Nobel Prizes in medicine. Is it just me or is there a fundamentally flawed set of priorities at work here?

Of all the records set at the Olympics, spending is the one that more than any other gets the gold.

Who does this lazy Parliament represent anyway?

As Parliament snoozes away the winter, we might ask just who isn't being represented during this hibernation. An answer to that question has been offered by that indefatigable pursuer of democratic representation, Fair Vote Canada. FVC has recently written two letters, one to the Conservatives and one to the opposition parties, suggesting they make use of their winter break to think about creating a democratic Parliament. A telling passage from one letter particularly caught my eye:

Judging from the current “representation” most Quebecois want to quit the federation; most Canadians are reluctant to elect women; there are no Conservative supporters in Vancouver, Montreal or Toronto; there are no Liberal supporters in Alberta. There are no New Democrat supporters in Saskatchewan and remarkably few elsewhere, and no Green supporters anywhere in Canada.

Although it appears farcical, this is indeed what the current makeup of Parliament suggests, and it's a sad and disturbing message. The fact that Conservatives are not represented in our three major cities and Liberals are not represented in Alberta, even though many people in those areas support those parties, contributes to dangerous divisions in an already regionally divided nation. That millions of Canadians are unable to help elect someone who represents them is a democratic tragedy.

This doesn't justify shutting the thing down, but it certainly gives our "representatives" something to occupy their minds while on their extended holiday. You can read both Fair Vote Canada letters here. And, if you too are concerned about our undemocratic Parliament, you can support the letters with your own.

Moneymen go green

The voice of $13-trillion of assets is speaking out loudly in favour of a green agenda. A group of 450 investors, meeting in New York, is urging world governments not to wait for an international climate change treaty but to take immediate action on global warming. They warn that delay will risk loss of the opportunity for a clean and sustainable low-carbon economy.

Peter Dunsombe, chairman of the Institutional Investors Group on Climate Change, a forum that includes some of the largest pension funds and asset managers in Europe, said "Given that Copenhagen was a missed opportunity to create one fully functional international carbon market, it is more important than ever that individual governments implement regional and domestic policy change to stimulate the creation of a low carbon economy." Anne Stausboll, chief executive of the California Public Employees Retirement System, largest public pension fund in the U.S., said that they are prepared to increase their green investment as soon as Congress passes climate change legislation.

Pension funds are heavy hitters in the investment world and if they are keen to invest in a low-carbon economy there should be no shortage of funding for green technology. If $13-trillion won't bring the politicians around, what will.

Kudos to the feds on Haiti

So far, our federal government is responding admirably to the catastrophe in Haiti. Things are moving well on a number of fronts:

• Our emergency aid has been swiftly dispatched.
• Red tape has been reduced for aid transports from other countries refuelling in Canada.
• Ways are being discussed to fast-track Haitian immigration.
  

Prime Minister Harper may have given Parliament a long winter's nap, but he is wide awake on this issue.

Google stands up

These attacks and the surveillance they have uncovered--combined with the attempts over the past year to further limit free speech on the web--have led us to conclude that we should review the feasibility of our business operations in China. We have decided we are no longer willing to continue censoring our results on Google.cn, and so over the next few weeks we will be discussing with the Chinese government the basis on which we could operate an unfiltered search engine within the law, if at all. We recognize that this may well mean having to shut down Google.cn, and potentially our offices in China.

Thus, in a public statement, Google has finally stood up for freedom of speech in its China operation. After succumbing to Chinese censorship since launching Google.cn in January, 2006, the mighty search engine has decided to do the right thing. The final straw was apparently "a highly sophisticated and targeted attack" on Google's corporate infrastructure that originated from China and resulted in the theft of intellectual property from the company. Google stands to lose over 30 per cent of the largest internet market in the world.

Some Chinese appreciate their courage. "Google is a great soldier of freedom. You don't bend to the devils," said a note on one site. Unfortunately, mesmerized by the huge Chinese market and cheap labour, corporations routinely do bend to the devils. Finally one has stood up to them in the name of basic human rights.

For Google's complete statement, "A New Approach to China," go to http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-approach-to-china.html.

The Globe dispatches Murphy to the Post

Some years ago, when I first started reading The Globe and Mail, the paper had two columnists—Terence Corcoran and Spider Robinson—who tediously insisted that cigarette smoking didn't cause cancer. Both eventually disappeared from the pages of the Globe, Corcoran moving on to the National Post, a much more congenial home for his reactionary views.

Recently, there have been two columnists in the Globe manifesting a similar denial about global warming—Margaret Wente and Rex Murphy. In Saturday's edition, Murphy was absent from his usual prominent place on the op-ed page. And where had he gone? The National Post of course. No doubt he too will feel much more at home. A treat for Globe readers was to find Murphy replaced, at least for last Saturday, by Doug Saunders, one of the Globe's best and most perceptive journalists. Let's hope this becomes a tradition.

I have no particular quarrel with writers such as Wente and Murphy. They get paid for being contrarian, for provoking liberals, so they are just doing their job. If progressive thinkers say one and one is two, their task is to say it's three. But Wente and Murphy have been getting far more column-inches in the Globe to write nonsense about global warming than scientists, i.e. people who actually know what they're talking about. This perversion of debate about the most important issue facing us is not healthy journalism. Perhaps the Globe has finally realized that and has decided to behave more responsibly, just as it did with cigarette smoking.

Barack Obama and the new centurions

Perpetual war—from the Romans to the British to the Americans, this has been the price of empire. There are always tribesmen out there on the fringes who resent the imposition, who fail to appreciate the benefits of civilization, and who often therefore misbehave and must be put down. Barack Obama now finds himself in this Orwellian dilemma. As much as he might like to create peace, he cannot. Empires corrupt their own leaders.

George W. Bush arrived in office with a limited interest in foreign affairs. He sought less involvement in "nation-building" and small-scale military engagements. However, the perils of empire soon overtook his agenda and turned him into a war president as they are now doing to Obama. He has rejected the term "war on terror" but in a speech this week he emphatically declared, "We are at war." And they most certainly are. Already the new commander-in-chief is involved in five wars: two overt in Iraq and Afghanistan, and three covert in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. Five wars. The fringes are restless indeed.

One thing that is new in the American case is the reach of the tribesmen. In the case of previous empires, the imperialists might face danger on the frontier but they could always return to the homeland, be it Rome or London, and there find sanctuary. They could sleep peacefully in their beds at night. But the world has shrunk. With modern technology, the malcontents can gain access to the very heart of the empire. And that's what the Islamist extremists are doing. They are saying in effect, if you come into our house and do mischief, we will come into your house and do mischief. They have changed the rules, and now the imperialists live in fear.

And what of us? What is Canada's role in the empire? We must as always deal carefully with our elephantine neighbour. In our early history, we were a military lackey of the British empire and paid the horrific and pointless price of the First World War. We do not want to be led down that path again. Or are we already on it?

British may abandon important legal precept

When courts in Great Britain issued arrest warrants for former Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni and Defence Minister Ehud Barak, a certain diplomatic flutter was to be expected. Livni's warrant was withdrawn when she canceled her planned visit to the U.K. Last September, and Barak avoided arrest by pleading immunity as a serving minister of his government. The warrants were issued under the 1988 Criminal Justice Act, which gives courts in England and Wales universal jurisdiction in war crimes cases. Both Livni and Barak were accused of war crimes committed during Israel's invasion of Gaza early in 2009.

Israel has complained loudly and the British foreign office plans to change the legal process so that the attorney general would have to approve warrants before suspected war criminals could be arrested. Lawyers are outraged at this proposed political interference in the legal system. Daniel Machover, a partner at Hickman & Rose, who obtained an arrest warrant for Israeli general Doron Almog in 2005, asked, "If there is evidence against Israeli leaders and a judge thinks that there is a case to answer, then why does the process need to be changed?"

Good question. Why should the legitimate pursuit of war criminals be hampered for the convenience of political discourse? If British politicians feel they need to talk with these people, they can visit them in their home countries. Indeed, British Foreign Minister Lady Scotland is currently in Israel promising to look at "ways in which the U.K. system might be changed to avoid this situation arising again." How unfortunate that the Lady wants to abandon a measure to hound war criminals. 

War criminals should be hounded. They should be given no rest, even if appropriate measures sometimes inconvenience our friends. And after all, not only Britain's friends would be affected by this change. What other reprobates would be protected? Another Pinochet perhaps?

Let's hope the British government comes to its senses and cleaves to the rule of law.

Can conservatives be democrats?

Stephen Harper's proroguing of Parliament as if it sat at his pleasure has raised questions about the Prime Minister's commitment to democracy. But a larger question might be whether conservatives, by the very nature of their philosophy, can ever truly be democrats. They may believe in our system, but our system isn't a democracy. We have elections, so there is obviously a democratic component, but there is also a powerful plutocratic component.

Democracy means political equality, and we are a long way from that. For example, our public forums, the mass media, are owned and controlled by a small special interest group within the corporate sector. The only independent mass medium, at least on the national level, is the CBC. The rest is the property of media barons. The most powerful media empire in the country was, until recently, controlled by one family. That is plutocracy or, if you like, oligarchy, but it is not democracy.

In Calgary, we have four daily newspapers, two national, two local—all conservative. That is the choice the vaunted free market system offers us. It is reminiscent of Henry Ford's famous offer on his Model Ts: any colour you like as long as it's black. In Calgary, we can buy any philosophy of newspaper we like, as long as it's conservative.

Nor does corporate control stop with the media. Corporations dominate the economy and economic decision-making by our politicians. Trade agreements such as NAFTA, which so powerfully affect all of us, were driven by corporate demand, certainly not by the wishes of ordinary citizens. And corporations are still allowed to contribute to political parties in most provinces, quite aside from their propaganda and political lobbying through front organizations such as the Fraser Institute, the C.D. Howe Institute, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives, and so on, and so on. Most annoying is that we all pay for corporate funding of these organizations through our consumption of corporate goods and services.

So what kind of system do we have? Part democratic, part plutocratic. Essentially, a hybrid system.

The question then becomes, do conservatives support our hybrid system or do they support a democratic system? Preston Manning, perhaps the leading conservative intellectual in the country, has established the Manning Centre for Building Democracy. The centre is ostensibly about promoting democracy and it expresses some fine values such as individual freedom, principled leadership and even informed, deliberative democracy. But it supports all these good things within a conservative framework and never mentions the greatest challenge in creating a democratic Canada—overcoming the power of the plutocracy. Manning clearly wants to improve our current tattered system, but apparently not at the expense of challenging the privileged position of the plutocrats. We can only conclude he is content with a hybrid system, considerably improved yes, but hybrid nonetheless. And this, I suggest, is the conservative position generally.

Furthermore, it is what we should expect. Conservatism has always been about protecting privilege. To support a democratic system, conservatives would have to advocate a dramatic reduction in the political influence of the rich generally and the corporate sector specifically. They would have to support democracy in all our institutions as any true democrat must, including a democratic media and democratic workplaces. All this would go against the very grain of conservatism.

This is not to say all conservatives support the Prime Minister's cavalier treatment of Parliament. We have heard from some who don't. Nonetheless, although conservatives may want to improve the current system, and although they may strongly support freedom (which is quite another thing from democracy and deserving of a separate discussion), they are not comfortable with broad political equality. Conservatism and democracy in its fullest sense are simply incompatible.

If you doubt Dawkins, ask Jesus

The Irish recently took a retrograde step with freedom of speech. The Irish government passed legislation effective January 1st making blasphemy a crime punishable with a fine up to $37,000. Blasphemy is defined as "publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted."

Irish secularists are fighting back. Atheist Ireland has published a series of anti-religious quotations online to challenge the new law which they have promised to fight in court. One of the more intense quotations is by the famed biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins:

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Intriguingly, ever word is true. Dawkins, a consummate scientist, is ever thorough in his research. But don't take his word for it. In the New Testament, John 8:44, Jesus has a few words for the Jews about their God,

Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.

Richard Dawkins and Jesus: tough team to beat. If you want to read the full list of quotations, and I heartily recommend it, go to http://www.atheist.ie/.

To prorogue or not to prorogue

I admit to ambivalence about Prime Minister Harper's extended prorogation of Parliament. As a democrat, I'm offended but not surprised at this contempt for the peoples' business. It is yet another example of the dictatorial powers of prime ministers in our "democratic" system.

On the other hand, I'm in no rush to have more Conservative legislation brought forward. Better it be delayed, hopefully forever. And seeing as our government now simply follows the American lead in key areas such as foreign policy and the environment, there is a limit to what we can expect from them in any case.

The common explanation for the exceptional recess is the government's keen desire to stifle discussion of the torture of Afghan detainees. One can appreciate their desire to suppress that issue because if anyone in the system knowingly handed prisoners over to torturers, they are criminals, and no one wants to rush into adding that to their résumé.

But then the Liberals can use the extra time as well. God knows they have a lot of work to do before they're ready for an election.

Anyway, prorogue it is. A glass half full and half empty.

America's next war — any bets on Yemen?

It seems the United States needs a new war at least once a decade. Currently they are winding one down and winding another one up. So who is the next lucky country to experience occupation by the empire?

The smart money seems to be on Iran. The U.S. is mightily peeved about the poss-ibility of Iran developing nuclear weapons and, always important, Iran is perceived as a threat by Israel. But the smart money may be shifting its bets — to Yemen, a country where in fact the Americans are already militarily involved.

President Obama has taken a close interest in combating al Qaeda in Yemen, issuing a statement in September that proclaimed Yemen's security to be "vital" to the U.S. national security interest. Only Pakistan receives more American dollars for counterterrorism training and support than Yemen. This fall, U.S. and Yemeni government forces jointly attacked al Qaeda training camps in the Arhab district, northeast of the capital. Senator Joe Lieberman has called for immediate, extended "pre-emptive" military action to counter the terrorist threat, and the U.S. Congress has already designated Yemen a "front state" in the war on terror. Evidence that the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, trained in Yemen will no doubt heighten the American interest.

Yemen is already a violent place. The government has been intermittently fighting an uprising by the Shia Zaidiyyah sect in the north of the country, adjacent to the Saudi border. The Saudi and Yemeni governments accuse Iran of aiding the rebels. Murmurs of secession still occur in the south and the kidnapping of foreign tourists by tribes remains an ongoing problem. Yemen is also becoming a hot bed of al Qaeda activity as jihadis displaced by U.S. military action in Afghanistan and Pakistan trek south. Saudi Arabian al Qaeda members are said to be pouring in. Somalia's al-Shabaab Islamist militia has said it will send reinforcements to Yemen in response to U.S. attacks there, and with an estimated 200,000 Somali refugees in Yemen, that's not a threat to be taken lightly. The country's lengthy border with Saudi Arabia has long served as a convenient weapons transit point for Islamist militants fighting the Saudi monarchy. And of course any threat to the Saudis is a threat to American oil interests and that, too, can be a precursor to violence.

Poor, alien, divided by tribal factions and violent, Yemen would pair nicely with Afghanistan. Already, like Pakistan and Somalia, a victim of U.S. covert warfare, it is a likely candidate for something much bigger. Lay your bets.

The U.S. under seige

The United States is under siege by angry Muslims from within and without. In November, U.S. Army psychiatrist Major Nidal Malik Hasan opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas, killing 12 people and wounding 31. On Christmas day, Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to blow up Northwest Airlines fight 253 as it approached Detroit.

What is fueling this madness? It may have something to do with the United States fighting wars in two Muslim countries and supporting Israel as it continues to oppress the Palestinians. If I was a Muslim, I too might be starting to lose my sanity as more Muslims suffered and died from American aggression.

President Obama's reaction to the latest outrage is predictable. "We will continue to use every element of our national power to disrupt, to dismantle and defeat the violent extremists who threaten us ... anywhere where they are plotting attacks against the U.S. homeland." Ho hum. When isn't the U.S. president threatening retaliation and counseling fear? Such is the nature of empire. There is always a threat.

Perhaps it's time they tried another approach. Like not constantly getting in other peoples' faces. Like pulling their troops out of Muslim countries and ending funding of Israeli aggression. Like winding down the empire and minding their own business. Does it not occur to them that their homeland might be threatened because they are constantly interfering in other peoples' homelands?

I'm sure it has occurred to Obama. But what can he do? The leader of a militant empire must strut his militarism or lose face. He, and his fellow Americans, are trapped in a cycle of violence as the madness increases on the other side. According to Nigerian human rights activist Shehu Sani, "There is a serious and growing problem of Islamic fundamentalism in this part of Nigeria. Young people are getting very aggressive and intolerant. Hundreds of young men ... are currently studying in the Middle East. [Abdulmutallab] is a product of this type of hatred and intolerance."

As long as the American empire fuels this kind of hostility, the United States will be under siege. The choice is theirs.

Is the recession Harper's ally?

For many Canadians, perhaps most, the recession has been a bad thing. But for the Harper government, maybe not so much. Indeed it may offer an opportunity for Mr. Harper to realize his vision for the country.

Stephen Harper is a small government man. Of that, there is no doubt. The problem that he had when he first assumed power was that times were good and it's difficult to reduce government in good times. But then toward the end of 2008, capitalism crashed and times turned sour. The Harper administration was taken by surprise but soon got into the swing of things and joined other governments around the world by funding massive economic stimuli while plunging the country deeply into debt. Suddenly we were into big government, very big indeed, with a deficit this year of $56-billion.

This might look bad for a small government man, but not necessarily. We now have to climb out of deficit and the Prime Minister and his finance minister are making it clear how that will be done. It will be done by economic growth and by shrinking government. Taxes will not be raised, not even to correct the mistake of cutting the GST. Transfers to provinces will not be reduced. Apparently, we are to climb back to balanced budgets largely by allowing the public service to shrink by attrition. Economists and former Finance Department officials have suggested this strategy won't be enough but their views have fallen on deaf ears.

Gary Corbett, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, warns Mr. Harper, "I hope he realizes that when you cut public servants, you cut public service." Mr. Harper is no doubt fully aware of that.

The only question is what public services are to be cut. Some departments are safe. With their fondness for the military and their punitive approach to crime, the government won't be cutting in those areas. Indeed the top two departments in terms of hiring recently are National Defence and Correctional Service. Public services less favoured by conservative philosophy can be expected to be in shorter supply. And that I imagine is what Mr. Harper has had in mind all along.

Hopenagen or Nopenagen?

So where are we after Copenhagen? Was it Hopenhagen or Nopenhagen? Is the glass half empty or half full? Is it the beginning of the end or the beginning of the beginning?

There were promising signs. The conference brought together the largest gathering of heads of state in the history of the UN. There was general recognition that we are indeed warming the planet, that deep cuts to greenhouse gas emissions are "required according to science," and even recognition of the scientific view that we must keep the warming to within two degrees. The developing countries agreed they too must slow emissions, and the developed nations accepted a responsibility for helping them fund adaption to climate change.

Still, it was nowhere near enough. No binding agreement. Commitments were vague. No agreement on goals for emission reductions in the long term. Not even agreement on whether significant items such as aviation and shipping should be included.

Nonetheless, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon was optimistic. "It may not be everything we hoped for, but this decision of the Conference of Parties is an essential beginning ... The importance will only be recognized when it's codified into international law ... We must transform this into a legally binding treaty next year," he said. Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change secretariat, was less enthusiastic, commenting, "We need to be clear that it is a letter of intent and is not precise about what needs to be done in legal terms. So the challenge is now to turn what we have agreed politically in Copenhagen into something real, measurable and verifiable.”

And that will be quite a challenge indeed. It is now a race against time. The scientists tell us the threat now isn't a greenhouse gas effect, it's a runaway greenhouse gas effect. We are approaching the point where we can't stop it regardless of what we do. Copenhagen indicated a general realization of the problem but not of the urgency. So I remain pessimistic. I don't yet see that people have the will to do what is necessary and I see leaders doing more following than leading.

As a species we have the intelligence to save ourselves. We know what the problem is and we know how to solve it. We have the intellectual capacity. What we lack is the moral capacity. We are too selfish, too tribal. The other guys should make the first big move, we all have a good reason why it shouldn't be us. And that attitude could prove fatal.

For your New Year's resolution, support Bill C-463

Sent your MP a Christmas card this year? Probably too late now. But not for a New Year's card. You could, if you believe in fair trade, do worse than send him a little note along with it suggesting he or she support Bill C-463 when Parliament resumes sitting ... whenever that may be.

Bill C-463, tabled by NDP international trade critic Peter Julian, would prohibit the importation of goods that failed to meet the labour standards set by the International Labour Organization. Specifically, those goods "produced, manufactured or assembled, in whole or in part" that contravene the following:

(a) the right of association;
(b) the right to bargain collectively;
(c) the prohibition on the use of any form of forced or compulsory labour;
(d) a minimum age for employment of children; and
(e) acceptable conditions of work with respect to minimum wages, hours of work and occupational safety and health.

Trade agreements have been primarily instruments to protect the rights of international corporations, particularly to freely set up shop in places they find most conducive to profits. Unfortunately that often means in countries where employees work in sweatshop conditions, lacking the basic human rights that every worker deserves. This bill, if given royal assent, would at least assure that such workers were not exploited by Canadians. As Peter Julian has said, we need "a new set of rules to reform the existing one-sided approach to trade." Not only would this ensure Canadians had clean hands, it would help create and protect Canadian jobs, and it would offer us an opportunity to be an international leader again, a role we have been systematically abandoning.

So, if fair trade is your cup of eggnog, resolve to pass along the message to your MP in 2010.

The taxi driver and the WMDs

Graham Greene or John le Carré couldn't have done it better. Tony Blair topped them both.

In the run-up to the Iraq war, Blair's government produced a dossier that, among other things, claimed Saddam Hussein could unleash weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes, a claim that sent shivers down the spines of people who heard it, including mine. It was, of course, nonsense. Saddam Hussein couldn't unleash weapons of mass destruction in 45 years, never mind minutes. He didn't have any.

So where did this nonsense come from? Wait for it. Britain's MI6 obtained the information indirectly from a taxi driver on the Iraqi-Jordanian border who overheard a conversation between two Iraqi military commanders in the back of his cab two years earlier. Yes, it was on the basis of such evidence as the gossip of taxi drivers that Blair's government frightened its citizens into supporting an invasion of Iraq. Thus does farce descend into tragedy.

An interesting footnote is the career of the man in charge of the "dodgy dossier." Head of the Joint Intelligence Committee at the time, John Scarlett went on to become head of MI6.

Obama's Nobel speech: "just" war or just war?

It may have been the least peace-sounding speech by a Nobel Peace Prize winner ever. U.S. President Barack Obama, this year's winner, attempted to strike a balance, justifying war at the same time as he justified peace. A balance he said between pacifism on one side, exemplified by Gandhi and King, and militarism on the other. In other words, the moderate path between extremes.

This might have been convincing if the United States was on such a path, but it isn't. The United States is waging two wars, has hundreds of military bases around the world, and spends almost as much on weaponry as the rest of the world combined. It is on a path of militarism, and that's the path Obama has inherited and is pursuing. He may be winding one of his wars down, but he's ramping the other one up.

Now the leader of a war nation, Obama may, for better or worse, simply be adapting to that position because he has no choice. Militarism is now so entrenched in the American economy and the American culture that a true man of peace probably can't win the presidency of that nation. Obama must play the warrior, talk some war talk and do some war stuff or lose his credibility.

The real question is where he's going with it. Is it possible that he isn't quite the man the world hoped for and, soaring rhetoric aside, has succumbed to the lure of power? Does he find the role of emperor pleasing and is he becoming increasingly comfortable with massive military budgets and endless war? Has he become a closet militarist?

Or is he playing for time, performing for the warmongers while planning to actually move his country off the militarist road and toward the moderate path he talked about? There are hints. He seems serious in his dialogue with Russia about reducing nuclear armaments. Indeed, he talks about a world without nuclear arms. He is pulling his country out of Iraq, if painfully slowly, and despite the surge he has set a timetable for leaving Afghanistan. Despite his stimulus policies, he seems to understand the United States can no longer afford its spendthrift ways and the fattest budget available for the axe is the defence budget.

To borrow his favourite word, we can only hope. But the United States has a long way to go to shed its militarism: ending two wars, closing dozens of military bases, decommissioning thousands of nuclear weapons, dramatically slashing weapons spending ... a very long way indeed. If Obama can even make a serious start on all this, he will have earned his Nobel.

The logic of empire: Obama does his Bush impression

"What's at stake is the security of our allies, and the common security of the world." With that ludicrous statement, U.S. President Barack Obama became heir to the neo-con arrogance of empire that fueled the George W. Bush administration's foreign policy. And the speech in which he made this remark was worthy of George W. Bush: start off with the mandatory reference to 9/11, repeat the word "security" ad nauseam, instill lots of fear without providing evidence, wave the flag, and bow out.

In fact, the Americans' chosen enemy, the Taliban, are a threat to no one's security outside of Afghanistan.

As for the dreaded al Qaeda, Obama's own commander, General Stanley McChrystal, has stated they are few in number in Afghanistan and largely limited to non-combat support roles. In other words, even the parasites on the Taliban are no threat from Afghanistan, and even if the Taliban formed a government, it's doubtful in the extreme they would want bin Laden and his troublemakers around. And al Qaeda doesn't need Afghanistan. They've got sanctuaries in Pakistan, Iraq, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and god only knows where else. Or will the U.S. invade those countries, too? And maybe Iran for good measure?

In Afghanistan the Americans, with Canadians trotting along behind, are propping up a weak, corrupt, drug-addled government of marginal legitimacy that even they don't trust. In his speech, Obama warned Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, that “The days of providing a blank check are over.” And then he proceeded to sign a very large blank cheque.

God forbid, but I'm starting to wonder who to support in Afghanistan. True, the Taliban are a frightening bunch of religious thugs, but on the other hand they didn't leave 3 million dead behind them in Vietnam, nor did they leave a million dead behind them in Iraq, nor are they backstopping the oppression of the Palestinians. If the Taliban can humble the Americans and thereby encourage them to rely more on soft power in their international dealings rather than their $600-billion military budget and 600 military bases, maybe in the long run it would be for the best.

... What thoughts to harbour!! Yet when even a president like Obama cannot escape the logic of empire, one's thinking does wander.

The people spoke ... and embarrassed their nation

One question that anyone who spends time thinking about democracy eventually encounters is the relative merits of direct and representative democracy. The recent referendum in Switzerland in which the Swiss voted 57 per cent to ban minarets on mosques in that country raises the question once again.

The Swiss are big on referendums and, indeed, referendums are the most popular vehicle for direct democracy. They are not, however, without major weaknesses. Problems arise from their yes or no nature. Yes or no sucks one of the vital ingredients of democracy — compromise — out of the issue. It also divides, creating an atmosphere of us and them, winners and losers. And indeed the Swiss decision has created division, and much hostility.

Few issues are as simple as yes or no. Referendums relieve citizens of the need to think below the surface. Some citizens will research the issue, think it through calmly and thoroughly, and discuss and debate it with others. Many won’t. The ignorance component of referendums can, therefore, be very high. One of the powerful advantages of representative democracy is having decisions made by people whose job is to study issues thoroughly before deciding. Referendums short-circuit this advantage. A decision made by elected representatives after thorough consideration might be closer to what the people would decide if they deliberated rather than if they simply voted in a referendum.

And then there's the question of just how representative a referendum is. How representative of the Swiss people was the 53 per cent who turned out for this vote? Was it truly representative of the whole population or was it, as referendums often are, dominated by those most emotionally involved with the issue. In this case, that may very well have been the bigots, those most aroused by hate and fear of the other.

Fortunately, there is a form of direct democracy which neatly solves the problems of division, inaccurate representation, and lack of deliberation posed by referendums. It's called a citizens assembly, and consists of bringing a representative group of citizens together to immerse themselves in an issue and discuss it face-to-face. Provided with a comprehensive package of information, access to experts and politicians on all sides of the issue, and ample opportunity to discuss and debate among themselves in small groups, participants can arrive at a thoroughly deliberated decision that incorporates a full range of views. With scientific sampling of a population and mandatory attendance, an assembly can truly represent the people, at least the people in microcosm.

Referendums force citizens to take sides, and the majority hammers the minority. Whereas referendums divide people, assemblies unite them, and unlike a referendum, every citizen involved in an assembly is well-informed. People isolated in their own domains tend to obsess on their own world views, constantly reinforcing their prejudices. Assemblies bring people together to unite and modify their views. Dialogue between participants ensures better decision-making, engenders respect for other views and refines the art of compromise. It educates and civilizes. It offers the possibility of a politics of shared goals rather than a politics of angry difference.

So what would the Swiss have decided if a group truly representative of them had had the opportunity to thoroughly deliberate and discuss their views with each other in an intimate setting? Well, we don't know. We do know that without that opportunity they came to a decision laced with bigotry. We also know that the bigotry has no basis in fact. Muslims make up only five per cent of the population of Switzerland; they are mostly of European extraction, well-integrated, religiously moderate and no mosques have called for sharia law or any other form of political Islam. We know also that the government, the mainstream political parties, the churches, the major newspapers and the business community all opposed the ban. Of course, the people are not obliged to pay any attention to their leaders. And yet the most recent poll showed only 37 per cent of the Swiss people supported the ban, leaving one to wonder if those who voted did represent their countrymen and women. Were they the voice of the people?

In any case, the result was not surprising for the divisive instrument of referendum. If the Swiss had opted instead for a citizens assembly, they might have reached a more enlightened decision and avoided embarrassing their country.