Religion flaunts its nasty side in Israel

When bigotry starts to lag, you can always count on religion to give it a shot in the arm. In early December, 40 municipal chief rabbis in Israel signed a letter in support of a ruling by Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu instructing his followers not to offer accommodation to non-Jews. The rabbis didn't allow their status as public servants (their salaries are paid out of the public purse) to preclude their mischief-making.

Not to be outdone by their menfolk, rabbis' wives have now gotten in on the act. The wives of 27 prominent Israeli rabbis have signed a letter of their own urging Jewish women not to date or work with Arab men. The not dating is one thing, but the not working with is something else. Do they think their young women will get pregnant from drinking at the same water fountain as Arabs? No chances are to be taken it seems to prevent the defiling of the flower of Jewish womanhood by Arab seducers.

An array of Israelis have expressed outrage at these sentiments, including top political leaders, the prime minister and the defence minister among them. Ordinary Israelis are not so righteous however. A recent poll showed that 44 per cent of Israeli Jews support the rabbis' ruling banning the renting of apartments to non-Jews.

Actually, if the rabbis and their wives are so concerned about Jewish purity, they should welcome their young women mixing it up with Arab boys. After all, their Semitic blood has been diluted by 2000 years of miscegenation with Europeans. Intermarriage with their fellow Semites would restore them to a purer Semitic state. Sounds like win-win to me.

The Denisovans enter the human story

I would greet the latest addition to the human family with a hearty hello; unfortunately they are all dead. Thirty thousand years dead, in fact. Scientists announced that the remains of a finger discovered in the Denisova cave in the Altai mountain range of southern Siberia belong to a previously unknown human ancestor. They believe that the undocumented human species lived alongside Neanderthals and modern humans as recently as 30,000 years ago.

The Denisovans join Homo floresiensis, or the "hobbits," a diminutive species of human discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia in 2003. Although some scientists persist in the belief that the hobbits were in fact Homo sapiens with a brain-shrinking disease, the evidence increasingly suggests they belonged to a different human species that shared the planet with us up until 13.000 years ago.

We humans are a lonely species, with only one of our kind left on Earth. Most creatures have many species, even thousands. It appears that not all that long ago in evolutionary terms, we too had rather more company, with perhaps four of our kind roaming the planet: Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis, and now Denisova hominim.

One is intrigued by these ancient relatives of ours. What were they like? How did they pass their days? What happened to them? Did we, in our characteristic savagery, exterminate them? We have exterminated so many other species, why not a few of our own? We will never be able to answer many questions about them, but I wish the scientists great success in increasing our knowledge about these distant cousins.

Shame on Apple

As a long-time fan of Apple (the only computers I have ever owned are Macs, including my current iMac), I was more than a little disappointed to hear the company had joined the corporate mob attempting to suppress WikiLeaks. Earlier this week, it pulled a WikiLeaks application from its iTunes store. And this isn't the first venture into censorship by the company. Apple has also banned apps with political cartoons and gay travel guides, leading the Guardian newspaper to observe that "many magazine publishers developing 'apps' for the new iPad... have had to self-censor."

As for pulling the WikiLeaks app, Apple explained, "We removed WikiLeaks because it violated developer guidelines. An app must comply with all local laws. It may not put an individual or target group in harm's way." What nonsense. WikiLeaks hasn't been convicted of breaking any laws and the release of the diplomatic cables has caused no loss of life. In fact, WikiLeaks has released the material quite responsibly. By channeling it through respectable newspapers like the Guardian and The New York Times, it has combined its ability to gather vast amounts of data with the editing and reporting skills of the conventional media. Names, locations and dates that could put people at risk have been carefully redacted.

Strictly speaking, the WikiLeaks app did violate the store rule that apps enabling donations must be free and this one was not (it cost $1.99). However, Apple could have gotten around that simply by insisting the app be given away. Instead, it banned it permanently.

What next, one wonders, will Apple and its corporate friends like Amazon, MasterCard, Visa and PayPal be up to? Suppressing the Guardian and The New York Times? This is not one of Steven Jobs finer moments.

I would hate to stop buying Apple, but for the very first time I'm having doubts. And, fortunately, I can still get WikiLeaks on my browser.

U.S. Senate offers a Xmas present to the world

Yesterday, the United States Senate voted 71-26 to ratify the new strategic nuclear arms treaty (New START) with Russia. New START, in addition to establishing a system for monitoring and verification, limits the two countries to 1,550 nuclear warheads each, down from the current 2,200. Considering that between the two to them, the U.S. and Russia possess more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons, this is of global importance.

It is also a small step toward the two nations fulfilling their responsibilities under the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty, which requires them to rid themselves of nuclear arms. So at this holiday time, let us be grateful for small mercies.

To the U.S. Senate, a merry Xmas and a happy New Year.

Ivory Coast - a democratic riddle

Everyone it seems, agrees that Laurent Gbagbo should step down as president of Ivory Coast. The UN, the African Union, the United States and the EU are all in agreement that his opponent in the recent election, Alassane Ouattara, should now assume the presidency. Considering that Ouattara won by 54 per cent to 46 per cent, they have a point. Gbagbo, unfortunately, demurs. And considering he controls the Constitutional Court (which insists, contrary to international observers, that Gbagbo won the election), the state television channel and the army, he has to be taken seriously.

If this were simply a matter of another African strongman refusing to give up power, and that may be partly the case, it would be a straightforward issue. But there is more to it than that. Ivory Coast is part of a swath of Africa from west to east that contains countries with Muslim populations in the north and Christian populations in the south. And therein lies the problem. Gbagbo is a Christian southerner and Ouattara is a Muslim northerner.

If we think strictly in numbers, then Gbagbo must go. But democracy is about more than numbers. Democracy is about representation. And, since Ivorians voted strongly along ethnic and religious lines, we can assume the southerners don't believe their interests can be represented by a northerner. If that is the case, does Gbagbo have a point? Is the result democratic if the south is to have imposed on it a president inimical to its interests?

We have a certain experience with this in Canada. The perception that certain prime ministers favoured Quebec caused rumblings of secession here in Alberta. And rumblings of secession are heard constantly in Quebec rising in part from distrust of les maudits anglais.

Fortunately, our trust in each other has overcome our suspicions, as it must if democracy is to work in a pluralistic society. Perhaps this trust has simply not developed in Ivory Coast, in which case democracy simply by numbers may be unworkable. This suggests two possibilities: Ivory coast can follow the path taken by Sudan, i.e. hold a referendum on splitting the country in two, or it can develop some kind of power-sharing agreement to keep both north and south reasonably content.

The latter has been the Canadian approach to Quebec's yearning for independence. We established structures that allowed Quebec sufficient autonomy to feel comfortable within the union. Of course, Quebec has also tried the referendum on secession approach, but there was enough trust in the union—barely—to prevent a breakup. Accommodating Quebec has caused grumbling in the rest of the country about a tyranny of the minority; nonetheless, the system has worked for over 140 years, longer than most countries have existed. Perhaps there are some lessons here for Ivory Coast.

There is of course a third approach—a return to civil war until one side is battered into submission. This may work in the long run, as it has in the United States, but it can cause horrific tragedy in the short term, also as it did in the United States, and there are no long-term guarantees. I doubt either the international community or the Ivorians want to take this route. Although maybe Gbagbo does.

Perhaps the greatest risk here is that the international community will impose a "democracy" on Ivory Coast—in the name of Alassane Ouattara—that is no real democracy at all for half the people. This may do nothing more than provide Laurent Gbagbo with more justification for bloody-mindedness. The UN et al. should, therefore, sponsor a democracy that has real meaning for Ivorians north and south. This is clearly a major challenge for the international community. It requires a Lester Pearson moment. The alternative is yet more misery for West Africa.

Why the Pope should try relativism

At least Pope Benedict XVI recognizes that child abuse is a major problem for his church. "We must ask ourselves what we can do to repair as much as possible the injustice that has occurred," he said in his Xmas speech. "We must ask ourselves what was wrong in our proclamation, in our whole way of living the Christian life." If he's talking about the behavior of priests, indeed they must.

He isn't quite ready, however, to accept all the blame. Apparently it's as much our fault as theirs. Referring to child pornography he declares, "We cannot remain silent about the context of these times in which these events have come to light, that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society." So the fault isn't so much the priests paedophiliac inclinations or the fact they aren't allowed to marry, it's the "context of these times." In other words, everybody's doing it.

The old boy is being more than a little disingenuous. In no modern country is child pornography considered normal, or for that matter, legal. He went on to say, "In the 1970s, paedophilia was seen as a natural thing for men and children." If that was the case, I must have missed the 70s. As I remember them, pedophilia was as unacceptable and as illegal then as it is now.

And who is he kidding that this all began with the wicked 70s? More likely it's been going on for centuries but only in the last few decades have Catholics gained the courage to speak up against their licentious priests.

Benedict was playing off a theme he's used in the past, that the fault lies with the modern world's moral relativism, something the Catholic church has the task of challenging and defeating. But it isn't society's relativism that's the problem, it's the church's absolutism. If priests were allowed some leeway to enjoy sex, say in marriage, the problem of child abuse would largely diminish. But the church insists on no sex, a highly unrealistic expectation. The church's absolute positions on abortion and contraception create other problems.

Relativism essentially means tolerance. It offers us the opportunity to use our brains, to think for ourselves, to entertain diverse views, to consider circumstances and make decisions, rather than blindly following ancient dogma. So embrace it, Benedict, drop the absolutism and answers will come.

The problem doesn't lie in the context of society, it lies in the context of your church. Allow priests normal sex lives, and you'll attract men with normal sex drives. Hell, go wild and crazy and include women in the priesthood. I'll guarantee the molestation of children will drop impressively. I offer this advice as my Xmas present to you.

Have a happy holiday.

How the Christians stole Xmas

This is the time of year when Christians tend to complain that their favourite holy day is being trampled upon by pagans. Christ, they insist, is being removed from Christmas. The holiday is too commercial and too secular. The too commercial I sympathize with, but as for the too secular, I must protest. After all, the Christians stole Xmas from the pagans, so they can hardly complain about the pagans enjoying the holiday in their own way.

The Xmas season is the season of the winter solstice, and this was celebrated well back into neolithic times, long before there were Christians. To the ancients, it was the time of year the sun came back to life. The world would continue. The sun god was reborn.

It has been celebrated in some form or another by many cultures. In cold climates, people prepared for the hard winter to come. Cattle would be slaughtered so they wouldn't have to be fed during the winter, making this almost the only time when ample fresh meat was available. Wine and beer had now fermented and were ready for drinking. It was the last, best feast of the year. In December the Romans celebrated Saturnalia, the origin of many of our Xmas customs. Schools were let out, gifts were given, and there was much feasting and drinking.

This in fact is rather how my family has always celebrated Xmas: Santa Claus, gifts under a tree, turkey dinner with all the trimmings—and not a jot of religion in it. A Saturnalian holiday sans Saturn. Indeed one of the best things about Xmas is that it is a holiday that can be enjoyed by people of any faith or of no faith, thanks to its pagan roots. Xmas is now a major festival and public holiday in most countries of the world, including many that aren't Christian.

No one knows when Christ was born, either the date or the year, so imposing it on the solstice was as good a choice as any and in fact rather clever—replace Saturn with Christ and Saturnalia becomes Christmas. But to many of us, it's nothing more than a merry time. Ho, ho, ho.

Suing the drone masters

That American drones are killing innocent Pakistanis is not news. When you fire a missile into the house of a Taliban or al Qaeda leader, you can never discount taking out members of his family or friends. And of course there may not even be a Taliban or al Qaeda leader in the house in the first place. This drone-killing is not popular in Pakistan, but with the government privately complicit with the Americans, there hasn't been much the victims' friends and loved ones can do. Now a Pakistani journalist is trying to change that.
 
Karim Khan, whose brother and son were killed in a CIA drone attack on their home in North Waziristan last December, has lodged a civil suit for $500-million in damages against the U.S. government. Khan claims that the target of the attack, Taliban commander Haji Omar, wasn't in the house and that his relatives had nothing to do with the Taliban.

Khan has also called for the arrest of Jonathan Banks, the CIA station chief in Islamabad, on a charge of murder. He has applied to the Islamabad police to prevent Banks from leaving Pakistan, saying "He should be arrested and executed in this country." His lawyer plans to file a constitutional petition in an effort to end the attacks. A report issued to the UN Human Rights Council earlier this year accused the U.S. of inventing a "law of 9/11" and warned the attacks left CIA employees exposed to prosecution "under the domestic law of any country in which they conduct targeted drone killings."

The report also warned that the drone program could create a "PlayStation mentality" (the drones are remotely operated by private contractors at CIA headquarters in Virginia) that could spread to other countries. If the Americans can do it with impunity, why not others? The U.S. are not alone in possessing drones. At least 40 other countries, including Turkey, Russia, India and Iran, have drones although not all have the technology to fire guided missiles from them. Yet.

Mr. Khan's chances of successfully suing the CIA are, of course, remote. PlayStation war offers the United States a risk-free method of suppressing troublesome tribesmen at the ends of the empire, and they won't easily give it up. Nonetheless, Khan may have started something and, in any case, with a lawsuit he's speaking a language Americans are very familiar with.

The gorillas are coming!

As humans continue to despoil the planet, making life ever more difficult for so many of our fellow species, it is nice to get the occasional piece of good news. Thus I was delighted to read in the Guardian that the mountain gorillas living in the Virunga Massif in central Africa are experiencing a population boom. At a growth rate of 3.7 per cent a year, their numbers have increased from 380 to 480 since 2003. With 300 more in Bwindi Impenetrable national park in Uganda, there are now 780 mountain gorillas in total living in the wild.

More and better-paid park rangers, offering local people livelihoods that reduce trespass on gorilla territory, and closer monitoring by veterinarians has significantly reduced the incidence of poaching and disease.

I feel good for these great, shambling beasts. Long harassed by us, their fellow primates, they deserve a break. So mate on, cousins, may your generations multiply.

The roots of blowback - the Saudis support terror and the U.S. supports the Saudis

"Donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide." So claimed Hillary Clinton in a secret (now, due to WikiLeaks, not so secret) paper issued in December, 2009. She goes on to add, "Saudi Arabia remains a critical financial support base for al-Qaida, the Taliban, LeT and other terrorist groups." It would appear that in the U.S. war on terror, Saudi Arabia is the main paymaster of the enemy.

One wonders why, then, does the United States sell massive amounts of arms to the paymaster of al-Qaida and associates? Saudi Arabia is the Americans' top customer for military equipment. The U.S. administration is currently pursuing the biggest arms sale in the country's history, worth $60-billion, to this selfsame sponsor of terror.

Isn't this madness? Don't you have to be insane to strengthen the very power that funds, indoctrinates and encourages your enemies? Perhaps, but what if that power has oodles of oil and is more than willing to sell you as much as you want, say over a million barrels a day? And what if you had a serious balance of payments deficit and you desperately needed to put some of the billions of dollars you were spending on oil back in your pocket? Well, it would still be crazy, but an addiction to oil, like any other addiction, can drive you to do crazy things.

The Americans have engaged in this folly in the Middle East before. Back in the 1950s, they helped depose a democratically-elected government in Iran in order to imose a dictator, Shah Reza Pahlavi, who was more amenable to their oil interests. This blew up in their face when the people of Iran turned on the the Shah, overthrew his regime, and installed a government that has never forgotten the American insult and causes the U.S. grief up to this very day. This was where the expression "blowback" originated as a spook term for unintended consequences.

Saudi Arabia is, like Iran, ruled by a ruthless dictatorship generously supported by the United States. Like any dictatorship, it could disintegrate in a moment, leaving the country, armed to the teeth, in the hands of God knows who, quite possibly Wahabi extremists. And they, like the Iranians, may not easily forget who befriended their oppressor. Blowback redux.

WikiLeaks and collateral damage

Not only University of Calgary professor Tom Flanagan has suggested assassinating WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. A variety of American politicians and media types express similar sentiments. And why do they entertain this murderous impulse? Well, according to Flanagan, "what he's doing is very malicious and harmful to diplomacy and endangering people's lives, and I think it should be stopped."

I might take the "harmful to diplomacy" part seriously if governments didn't tell us so many lies, but they do, so just once in a while I'd like to know what they are really up to on the international front. Endangering people's lives is another matter entirely. That we have to take very seriously indeed. It would not, however, seem people's lives are being endangered. Even the Pentagon admits they are not aware of a single mutilated body showing up as a result of WikiLeaks behaviour. One cannot, of course, say the same thing about U.S. behaviour in Iraq which has resulted in many mutilated bodies showing up.

But what if WikiLeaks disclosures did result in killings. There's a phrase for that, it's called "collateral damage." There has been a lot of that in Afghanistan. Entire wedding parties have been inadvertently blown up, scattering body bits of men, women and children across the landscape, as a result of NATO or American bombs landing where they really shouldn't have. Oddly, people like Flanagan, who express such concern about WikiLeaks, have little to say about that collateral damage.

I suppose it's a matter of the greater good. If the knowledge of international relations that WikiLeaks brings us is as important as whatever we are doing in Afghanistan, then it would justify as much collateral damage. Flanagan et al. would insist it isn't. Many others would insist it is. The point is you can't simply support censoring WikiLeaks on the basis it might result in innocent casualties. You have to prove the amount of benefit isn't worth the number of casualties. And that is obviously a matter of opinion.

However, seeing as Wikileaks' information deluge doesn't seem to be causing any casualties at all, except maybe a few diplomats' careers, it appears that so far the debate is strictly academic.

Kudos to Dave King - and his call for a single school system

“We want little Catholic kids to be educated beside little Protestant kids, beside rich kids, poor kids, Indian kids, refugee kids. I believe in our kids being educated together.”

So says Dave King, Minister of Education under Premier Peter Lougheed and former executive director of the Public School Boards' Association of Alberta. Along with Ontario, Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories, Alberta offers the constitutional right of minority faiths to have their own school systems fully funded from the public purse. Or at least it does if the minority is Christian. Other minorities -- Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, whatever -- are denied the right.

King has created a website with an online petition to end the special privilege. He not only believes that in a multicultural society, children of all backgrounds should have the opportunity to mingle, but he is concerned that the privilege discriminates against non-Christian faiths. He also feels that two systems, with the attendant duplication, spreads education resources too thin. As an atheist, I would add a concern about my taxes being used to indoctrinate kids in beliefs I neither share nor respect.

King has a mountain to move. Abolishing the separate school system would require changing the Alberta School Act and, a much bigger challenge, changing the constitution. Nonetheless, Newfoundland and Quebec have done it, so it is doable if the political will is there.

At the moment, it isn't. Current Education Minister Dave Hancock states that he doesn't "see any real public groundswell saying that they don't want to have what we've got now.” King will just have to make the ground swell. You can help by signing the petition here.

Assange or Cinton - who's the law-breaker?

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is looking for legal means to shut Julian Assange up. Presumably she believes the WikiLeaks founder has violated some law or other in his career of exposing troublesome secrets. The irony is that one of the secrets Assange revealed in his latest data dump is that Clinton herself is orchestrating illegal activity.

In a cable headed "Reporting and Collection Needs: The United Nations Ref: State 048489" issued in Clinton's name, U.S. diplomats are instructed to collect a mass of personal information on UN officials including credit card and frequent flier account numbers. This is sometimes called identify theft and it is illegal under both U.S. and international law.

State Department spokesmen have insisted that thousands of messages go out under the Secretary's name but she isn't necessarily familiar with their contents. That may be, but if it goes out under her name, she is responsible for it. One spokesman even hinted that it came from another department, but the man who classified the document, Michael Owens, is acting director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, an agency listed as part of the Department of State. No doubt here, the buck stops with Hillary.

So who should we be arresting? Julian Assange or Hillary Clinton?

Iceland - writing a new constitution the right way?

One could make a good argument that a constitution should be written by the people it will govern. And this, in essence, is what Iceland is doing. To help with a fresh start after their country's economic collapse, Icelanders are writing a new constitution which they hope will, according to Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir, lead to "reconstruction and reconciliation." The new constitution will replace the one adapted from the Danish constitution when Iceland gained its independence in 1944.

Not all the people will participate of course. It would be difficult to get all 319,000 Icelanders around a table. Instead, they have elected 31 citizens to a Constitutional Assembly to do the job. Anyone except the president, MPs and the committee appointed to organize the assembly, was eligible to run. Candidates from truck drivers to IT experts and university professors, 523 in all, were given equal airtime on Icelandic radio to make their pitch.

Berghildur Bergthorsdottir, who is entrusted with organizing the assembly, claims "This is the first time in the history of the world that a nation's constitution is reviewed in such a way, by direct democratic process." That may be, but the method of choosing the assembly is nonetheless flawed. If the people are to be represented, they should be represented accurately, and that demands certain criteria.

First, they must be chosen by random selection. Electing an assembly is no better than electing a legislature, i.e. you might as well let your legislators do the work.
And second, once chosen for the assembly, attendance must be mandatory, as with jury duty. If it is voluntary, as is the case if it is elected, the process runs a high risk of being skewed toward those who have more time on their hands or more interest in the process.

Only with such constraints can Icelanders be assured their assembly truly represents the population, that it is the people in microcosm, so to speak.

In the end, what matters of course is whether or not the Icelandic people believe the process was legitimate. If they do, my quibbles will hardly matter. After all, as owners of what is probably the oldest parliamentary democracy in the world, they ought to have a pretty good feel for such things.

Dissent from the Alberta government? You must be insane

Alberta MLA Raj Sherman got the boot the other day. Former parliamentary assistant to the Minister of Health, Sherman was ejected from the Conservative caucus for publicly criticizing Alberta's handling of the backlog in the province's hospital emergency rooms. He also accused former Minister of Health Ron Liepert of being "rude and offensive" to front-line medical staff. Sherman is himself an emergency room physician and former president of the Section of Emergency Medicine for the Alberta Medical Association.

Sherman's dissent will not be tolerated by the government. Not only has it brought his political career in the Conservative Party to an end, but the new parliamentary assistant for health, MLA Fred Horne, has questioned his sanity. Apparently Horne called Dr. P.J. White, president of the Alberta Medical Association and a psychiatrist, about Sherman's heresy. Horne explained the call by saying he was simply rallying "support around a friend who's been very courageous but is also doing so under a great deal of stress." Far from an act of friendship, Sherman finds Horne's behaviour "personally offensive."

 

Wasn't there another government somewhere that accused dissenters of being mentally unstable?

Ireland collapses into the capitalist maw

Poor little Ireland. So successful for so short a time, now back into the doldrums. Unlike Greece, its companion in misery, its government ran hefty surpluses for years up to the time of the financial crisis. Nonetheless, it is in a state of economic collapse. It was, of course, undone by its banks, who failed because they doled out billions to developers on the premise that property prices would continue to soar. Then the recession hit, prices collapsed and the banks were left with enormous debts they couldn't pay.

Ireland now faces an austerity budget that is rumoured to include a 12 per cent reduction in the minimum wage and substantial cuts to welfare. What it almost certainly won't include is an increase in the 12.5 per cent corporate tax rate, the lowest in the EU. The Irish don't dare. The corporations won't allow it. Lionel Alexander, head of Hewlett-Packard's Irish operations, categorically threatened, "HP is very clear, if the tax rate increased we would be re-looking at our investment in Ireland." That's clear enough. So the Irish government will demand sacrifices from the poor, but not from the rich whether it likes that choice or not. So much for "we are all in this together."

You can't blame the corporations of course. Global trade has been set up for their purposes and guided largely by their hand, so naturally they exploit it to the hilt. Democratic process has to yield. The Irish government is simply recognizing that.

And it will get worse. The Irish government is talking to those two capitalist-friendly outfits the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The ECB and the IMF are pushing for what the IMF calls an "internal devaluation," a process of shrinking the economy and creating so much unemployment that wages fall dramatically, making the Irish economy more competitive internationally. The increased competitiveness is designed to increase exports thus helping the economy recover. It probably won't work -- Ireland's major markets are the EU, the U.K. and the U.S. and they aren't buying all that much these days -- but it will effectively reduce Irish incomes for years. It will, like reducing the minimum wage, certainly give Ireland another boost in the race to the bottom. Average incomes have already declined by over 20 per cent since 2007 and unemployment more than tripled.

The Irish aren't helpless. The EU can't afford to see Ireland, as small as it is, do an Argentina and default on its debt. And the Irish could always threaten to abandon the Euro (a common currency for highly unequal nations may be the underlying problem anyway).

Nonetheless, between international corporations and their servants the ECB and the IMF, the Irish are largely at the mercy of a capitalism running rampant over democracy and sovereignty. Such is the new world order.

Would tits deter immigrants?

As far-right political parties pick up support across Europe with their immigrant bashing, the ideas get wilder by the day. For example, Denmark's People's Party, now the third largest party in the country, has proposed applying a new weapon -- bare breasts -- to deter newcomers. Specifically, the Party suggests that the film shown to immigrants as part of the entry test include topless bathers.

The idea is that this display of free-wheeling Danish culture will give potential immigrants from strict religious backgrounds (read Muslims) second thoughts. The thoughts of prospective immigrants may not, however, drift in the direction the People's Party suspects.

Cantor sings an Israeli tune

If there is anything that really offends American Jews, it's the accusation that they put Israel's interests over those of their own country. Nonetheless, it seems there are those who do. And important ones at that. Incoming House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for example. Cantor, in a recent meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, apparently told the Israeli prime minister "I'm with you, not my president" and promised Netanyahu that the new Republican majority in the House would "serve as a check on the Administration."

As the only Jewish Republican in the U.S. Congress, Cantor may feel a special responsibility to exploit his position for Israel's purposes, but he should at least be discrete about it. Even his fellow Republicans may balk at the vaguely treasonous act of expressing loyalty to a foreign leader over his own.

The chickens of globalization come home to roost for the U.S.

The Americans are famously competitive. The free market is their economic god. So naturally they have been leaders in the push for economic globalization, turning the world into one big market. It appears, however, that global competition may be getting a bit too rich for their blood.

After years of buying a lot more from China than China buys from them, they want the Chinese to let their currency rise thus making their products more expensive. Accusing the Chinese of currency manipulation, they pushed hard for this at the recent G-20 summit, but their fellow nations refused to go along. The U.S. case was seriously weakened when it recently printed $600-billion to boost its economy, thereby engaging in a little currency manipulation of its own.

The G-20 did agree to attempt to reduce the gaps between nations running large trade surpluses and those running deficits, or at least they agreed to monitor them by guidelines yet to be determined. In other words, they agreed to measure the problem rather than do anything about it.

The underlying problem, of course, is that the Americans are living beyond their means. For years they have run huge trade deficits with exporters like China, Germany and Japan. These countries understandably lack sympathy for the U.S. Chinese commerce ministry spokesman Yu Jianhua wrist-slapped the Americans with the comment, "If you're sick yourself, don't ask others to take medicine." Germany, the world's second largest exporting nation, was outraged at U.S. plans to limit the current account surpluses of big exporters, pointing out that its trading prowess has nothing to do with currency mischief. "To set political limits on trade surpluses and deficits is neither economically justified nor politically appropriate," said German Prime Minister Andrea Merkel. 

The U.S. push for globalization was a success on its own terms. It is a corporate state and it pushed for a form of globalization that would above all afford its corporations cheap labour. This it has achieved, abroad and at home as well with the systematic undermining of organized labour. But it turns out that what is good for American corporations might not be so good for America.

Harper is right, our pro-Israel stance did help lose us a Security Council seat

This time Prime Minister Harper has got it right. At first he blamed Ignatieff for losing us a seat on the UN Security Council, but now he is correctly blaming his government's pro-Israel position. Although he is right, it's not so much our support for Israel that contributed to the embarrassing defeat, but rather our unquestioning support.

We have always supported Israel, but in the past it never precluded us gaining a seat on the Security Council. That's because our approach to the Middle East was balanced, favourable to Israel but balanced enough that we were able to maintain the respect of all sides and play a constructive role in the area. Indeed that was where we experienced our finest hour in foreign policy since WWII when Lester Pearson played a key part in ending the Suez war and practically invented peace-keeping.

Today, having committed ourselves entirely to one side, we are utterly useless in the Middle East, capable of contributing nothing (except possibly cannon fodder for a war in Iran). As a result, Middle Eastern countries, excepting Israel of course, can hardly be expected to help elevate us to the Security Council.

The United States follows a similar Israel uber alles policy, but everyone has to pay attention to the most powerful country on Earth. Nobody has to pay attention to us, and obviously they no longer do.

Harper's professed anti anti-Semitism is commendable, however it is misplaced in the case of Israel. It is Palestinians, not Jews, who are incarcerated in squalid refugee camps; it is Palestinians who have been ethnically cleansed and segregated; it is Palestinians who are collectively punished and who see more of their land stolen every day. The Semites we should be concerned about in the Middle East are the Palestinians, not the Jews.

I doubt that electing the Liberals would change our policy much or enhance our credibility in the Middle East. Iggy appears to be as eager as Harper to genuflect before Israel. When that country launched its attack on Gaza, an attack that slaughtered over 300 children, and Harper referred to the atrocity as a "measured response," Ignatieff had little to say. The two gentlemen seemed to agree that Palestinian children could be sacrificed to the greater good of Israel.

So it appears we are wedded to an ineffectual policy in the Middle East for the foreseeable future, a future without a seat on the Security Council.

The proper level of taxes - Calgary's view

Calgary is generally considered a conservative town and conservatives are generally thought to believe that taxes must always be lower. A recent survey indicated that may not always be the case, at least according to Calgary city hall’s annual citizen satisfaction survey.

Thirty-one per cent of the survey's respondents want council to increase taxes to maintain the current level of services. Twenty-seven per cent would prefer to keep the tax rate steady and cut services if necessary. Twenty-four per cent would raise taxes and improve services while only 10 per cent want to cut services to reduce the tax rate. In other words, over 80 per cent of Calgarians want the tax level maintained or increased.

This raises the question, What is the proper level of taxation? In a democracy, one would assume that to be the level that provides the services citizens want and are prepared to pay for. Finding that level will always require much debate among citizens, among different priorities and differing philosophies about public spending.

Unfortunately, that debate is severely truncated in our public forums, particularly our major public forum, the daily press. The daily press is the property of the corporate sector and the corporate sector wants taxes to go in only one direction—down. Nonetheless, the Calgary example suggests Canadians, even conservative ones, are resisting their propaganda.

Human Development Index - an improving yardstick of human welfare

That the GDP is a wretched measure of human welfare is now accepted by anyone seriously interested in human welfare. Consequently, other yardsticks have been proposed. Perhaps the most prestigious of these is the Human Development Index (HDI), or the more useful Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI), annually reported in the United Nations Human Development Report. The widespread media attention to the 2010 Report is an indication that alternatives to the GDP as a measure of human progress are being increasingly recognized.

Recognizing the weakness of the GDP in measuring human well-being, the UN Development Report incorporated three dimensions—health, education and income—to create the HDI. This year they recognized that averages in these dimensions could conceal wide disparities within populations, so they adjusted the results to account for inequalities, resulting in the IHDI. This is of critical importance because we know the health of a population depends more on equality of incomes than on the absolute level of incomes. This year, the Report also added measures for gender and poverty.

The world’s average HDI has increased 18 percent since 1990 reflecting considerable improvements in life expectancy, school enrollment, literacy and income with almost all countries benefitting. Of the 135 countries measured from 1970 to 2010, including over 90 percent of the world’s people, only three—the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Zambia and Zimbabwe—have a lower HDI today than 40 years ago. Poor countries are catching up to rich countries overall although incomes have diverged and the progress is uneven.

Health advances have been strong but some countries—such as those from the former Soviet Union and Sub-Saharan Africa—have had dramatic reversals. Progress in education has been widespread. Progress in income has varied considerably: in contrast to health and education, rich countries continue to grow faster than poor countries.

The report issues an important caution: "The main threat to maintaining progress in human development comes from the increasingly evident unsustainability of production and consumption patterns.... The close link between economic growth and greenhouse gas emissions needs to be severed for human development to become truly sustainable."

Unfortunately, the HDI doesn't include a measure of sustainability, not does it include a measure of progress in democracy and human rights although these issues are discussed in the Report. As the HDI is further refined it will become an increasingly useful yardstick to measure humanity's well-being, relatively and absolutely. It deserves the closest attention of the world's nations.

The Republican Party - the greatest threat to American security?

A loss of seats in Congress to the opposition in mid-term elections is not uncommon for a sitting U.S. president, so the results of Tuesday's election are not surprising. Presidents from Roosevelt to Truman to Reagan and Clinton took significant hits. Therefore, my reaction to Tuesday's results wasn't concern about Obama and his Democrats but rather for the environment.

Among the Republican winners are some of the most virulent climate change deniers in the country, led by the new speaker of the House, John Boehner, who once said, "The idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical." Boehner's comment would be comical if it hadn't been made by an American in a position of great power. In one sentence he combines the loopy idea that the concern about carbon dioxide is that it's a carcinogen with a profound ignorance about its contribution to global warming. This is a very dangerous man.

A leader who denies the reality of climate change is a much greater danger to the United States than a leader who denies the existence of al Qaeda. A Congress with a pack of like-minded Republicans is a very serious threat indeed.

In 2007, a report by the CNA Corporation, a Pentagon-funded think tank, authored by 11 high-level retired military officers, termed climate change a dangerous "threat multiplier." The report warned that global warming could lead to resource wars, environmental refugees and failed states in already vulnerable regions of Asia, Africa and the Middle East, areas where American troops currently operate. All this could pose much greater danger to the United States than anything bin Laden has up his sleeve. And this just covers external threats.

The Republicans are not alone in their benighted approach to climate change, of course. Democratic Congressmen, particularly those from the fossil fuel states, can be equally intransigent toward environmental progress. But the Republican Party easily includes the most and the loudest deniers, and therefore poses by far the greatest threat to American security. And, of course, to ours. The United States is the world's second greatest polluter and where they go environmentally so go we. House Leader Boehner and his colleagues pose a very great threat to all of us.

Whoops! -- the day Bill Clinton lost the nuclear codes

What happens if the president of the United States loses the codes that authorize him to order a nuclear attack? Apparently not much. When one of Bill Clinton's aides lost track of the codes in 2000, no one (except the aide) noticed for months. Not until the codes were due to be replaced did the Pentagon learn of the oversight. This was recently revealed in a memoir published by Hugh Shelton, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Actually the codes cannot in themselves be used to launch an attack. They are required to open the briefcase holding yet another set of codes needed to launch nuclear missiles. The briefcase is always accompanied by a military officer and kept close to the president.

It's a relief to know that the aide's incompetence couldn't have resulted in nuclear war. In fact it would have made it more difficult to start one. One can imagine a darkly humorous, Strangelovian scene with the military officer and the president desperately trying to pick the lock on the briefcase so they can fire the missiles.

That just one set of codes can't plunge the world over the edge is reassuring, but one wonders nonetheless just how many mistakes we are from nuclear Armageddon. And if an efficient country like the U.S. can fumble the codes, just thinking about what goes on in an unstable, disorganized nuclear power like Pakistan is the stuff of nightmares.

Oh, Toronto, is Rob Ford really the best you've got?

I'm a Calgarian but I am definitely not one of those Westerners with a chip on his shoulder about Toronto. I lived in Toronto at one time, loved the place and have always had a soft spot in my heart for it. However, those folks out here who think Torontonians are a bunch of smug elitists have been smirking a lot this week.

While Calgary flaunted its cosmopolitan credentials by electing an articulate, progressive, well-educated Muslim as mayor, Toronto elected a redneck buffoon. Really, people, is that the best you can do? Rob Ford? Are you kidding me?

I'm one Westerner who's willing to concede Toronto is the major centre of Anglophone culture in this country, so please don't embarrass me. Next time, try a little harder. If you need help, look to Calgary.

Calgary needs Winnipeg's election rules

With the election now behind us, this is a good time for Calgarians to reflect on the rules that govern the choosing of their civic leaders. Democracy requires, indeed essentially is, political equality, and a key factor in determining political equality is money. Sound campaign rules will therefore ensure equitable funding for candidates.

Unfortunately, the rules governing Calgary elections fail miserably to do that. Crafted by the province—cities being creatures of the provinces—the rules echo those applying to provincial elections which are the most lenient in the country. The Conservative government, beneficiary of major corporate largesse, has no intention of killing its golden geese. The most prolific of those geese is the development industry, the largest donor to both the provincial conservatives and to amenable municipal candidates.

Big spending doesn't guarantee victory, of course. In the recent Calgary election, the winner, Naheed Nenshi, was heavily outspent by his major rival, the development industry-backed Ric McIvor. Nonetheless, it is a significant factor.

Calgary might look to Winnipeg to see how to minimize the corruption of local politics by vested interests. Actually, we have to look beyond Winnipeg to the Manitoba government which recently passed the Municipal Conflict of Interest and Campaign Financing Act. Article 93.6(1) of the Act states "No person or organization other than an individual normally resident in Manitoba shall make a contribution to a registered candidate," thus taking corporations out of the election picture. The Act also amended the City of Winnipeg Charter to limit contributions to $1,500 for candidates for mayor and $750 for candidates for councillor.

If candidates collect surplus funds, the Act requires those funds be paid to the municipality and held "in trust on behalf of the candidate for use by the candidate in the next general election." In Calgary, candidates are allowed to keep their surplus funds for any purpose they like, an unfortunate incentive to exploit elections in order to line their pockets.

In order to encourage election contributions from citizens, Article 93.17(1) of the Act allows city councils to pass a bylaw that entitles donors to a credit on their municipal taxes or a rebate of part of their donation. Winnipeg offers

a 75 per cent rebate on contributions under $300. Councils are also allowed to establish programs that reimburse candidates for a part of their campaign expenses.

As Manitoba's Municipal Conflict of Interest and Campaign Financing Act demonstrates, improving democracy is possible if the will is there. In Alberta, it doesn't seem to be. Calgarians who want fair election rules must wake up their provincial politicians and point them east.

Joel Francis puts Charles Koch on notice -- I like this kid

Charles Koch and his brother David have spent many millions attempting to undermine government, particularly any government effort to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. The brothers own virtually all of Koch Industries, a Wichita, Kansas, based conglomerate with annual revenues estimated at a hundred billion dollars. Koch Industries is also

one of the top ten air polluters in the United States.

True to form, the Koch boys have donated at least a million dollars to support Proposition 23, an initiative on the California ballot this November designed to stall California's landmark global warming legislation.

Now, Joel Francis, a senior at Cal State Los Angeles, has challenged Charles to a debate on his support for the Proposition. Francis has offered to take him on "anytime, anywhere in the state before election day" to give him the opportunity to explain why he is meddling with democracy in a state he doesn't live in. If Koch fails to respond by next Tuesday, Francis says he will show up at the door of Koch's office in Wichita, Kansas, to reissue the challenge in person.

 

So come on, Mr. Koch, stop hiding behind your corporate mask, put your mouth where your money is, and debate the kid.

Climate change and fundamentalist religion -- bridging the gap in Kansas

The New York Times reports on an innovative approach Kansas environmentalist have taken to get climate change deniers involved in reducing energy use. Kansans tend to be religiously and politically conservative, and suspicious of "big government," climate change scientists, and Al Gore. They have, therefore, been reluctant to respond to the challenge of global warming, many considering it just a natural cycle or even a hoax perpetrated by scientists.

Rather than give up on this benighted population, a small nonprofit group, the Climate and Energy Project, has developed an ingenious approach to gain their co-operation in reducing fossil fuel emissions. To begin with, as Nancy Jackson, chairwoman of the group, says, “ [we] don’t mention global warming, and don’t mention Al Gore.” Instead, they talk about reducing energy consumption for other reasons, such as thrift, patriotism, economic advantage or spiritual conviction, thus divorcing the issue from climate change politics.

The group initiated a competition among six Kansas towns to improve energy efficiency. They pointed out the value of keeping costs, thus taxes, down. They emphasized reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil and showed how green jobs can help support the economy and even prevent the decline of small towns. Ms. Jackson talked to local ministers about “creation care,” the obligation of Christians to act as stewards of the world that God gave them, and even provided sermons they could download from the Web.

The towns included in the competition reduced their energy use up to 5 per cent relative to other areas, a considerable success. One farmer, a climate change doubter, was so taken by the possibilities of wind power, he organized a group of local leaders who then convinced the Siemens energy company to build a wind turbine factory in the area. Siemens has promised to create up to 400 local jobs, farmers in the area will gain another source of income by leasing land for wind turbines, and land prices are rising.

What is most encouraging, even inspiring, about this breakthrough in Kansas, is not simply the benefit for the environment, although that is of great importance, but rather what appears to be two irreconcilable positions coming together by finding common ground and going on to achieve something of real value. We need a great deal more of this in all areas of public concern.

Unfortunately, it's much easier to self-righteously rant (as we bloggers tend to do) than sit down with people you generally disagree with and work out something that will work for everyone, albeit for different reasons. And unfortunately politics tends to increasingly focus more on division than compromise, with its exploitation of wedge issues, attack ads, and other instruments of hostility. Politicians and political junkies can learn from the Kansas example, both about turning people on to politics and about getting things done.

Election Calgary 2010 -- my choices confirmed

Thank you, my fellow Calgarians, for confirming my choices in yesterday's civic election. For the first time I can remember, everyone I voted for -- school trustee, alderman and mayor -- won. And what a turnout: 53.2 per cent compared to 32.9 per cent in 2007. Not the 100 per cent it should be, but a huge improvement, nonetheless.

I was particularly pleased to see the development industry's man for mayor, Ric McIvor, go down to defeat, despite the big bucks they threw in his direction (to say nothing about the support he had from Stephen Harper’s campaign team and that he's been running practically since the last election). The possibility of doing something about sprawl, Calgary's biggest challenge, is now greatly increased.

City Council should also function much more effectively with the departure of both parties to the feuding between McIvor and former mayor Dave Bronconnier.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi is truly a fresh face in the Calgary civic arena and his progress will be followed closely by his fellow citizens. So, welcome, sir, and the best of luck ... for you and us.

The need for a World Environmental Organization

An article in mondial, the newsletter of the Canadian branch of the World Federalists, makes an excellent case for a World Environment Organization (WEO) comparable to the World Trade Organization (WTO). The authors, Larry Kazdan and Fergus Watt, suggest a WEO could fulfill a number of functions including:

• monitor environmental agreements for compliance
• provide technical advice and support to help agreements
• establish a dispute settlement mechanism
• establish a world environmental court with powers to take legal action against offenders
• set international norms for environmental responsibility

Their argument is unassailable. Dealing with climate change and the myriad other assaults we make on the planet is our number one challenge. If our economy continues to exceed the capacity of our environment, our civilization will eventually collapse. That is the magnitude of the challenge. This means caring for the environment must precede caring for the economy. A WEO should therefore take precedence over the WTO. Yet, as Kazdan and Watt point out, while the WTO has powers to enforce trade rules on national governments, environmental standards are ignored with impunity.

International environmental governance is currently provided by the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and various treaties. Unfortunately, UNEP is a rather isolated body with a trivial budget. According to Kazdan and Watt, the result is a global environmental governance that is, by design, "weak and fragmented."

One of the major themes of the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in 2012 will be establishing an institutional framework for sustainable development. A WEO would seem a natural outcome. If our government wants to be perceived as a leader on the world stage, perhaps even be deemed worthy of a seat on the UN Security Council, here is the best possible arena in which to prove itself.

Old Commies promote free speech in China

The Chinese government has not distinguished itself with its furious reaction to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo, imprisoned campaigner for human rights and democracy in his country. The reaction was expected of course from a government that remains afraid of its citizens freely speak their minds. It is encouraging therefore to see opposition to the government's approach coming from elders of the Communist Party.

Even as Liu's wife, Liu Xia, is placed under house arrest, presumably to prevent her from reporting her husband's thoughts or collecting the prize, a group of senior officials has written an open letter demanding freedom of expression in China.

The letter, addressed to "Dear members of the standing committee of the National People's Congress," begins by stating that Article 35 of China's constitution, which guarantees "freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration," has been "negated by detailed rules and regulations." This, say the authors, amounts to a "scandalous mark on the history of world democracy."

The letter concludes by making a series of demands including "the right of journalists to carry out reporting freely throughout the country;" ending "taboos concerning our party's history;" permitting "the free circulation within the mainland of books and periodicals from Hong Kong and Macao;" and transforming propaganda organs into "agencies that oppose power and protect media and journalists."

The distinguished signatories included Li Pu, former deputy director of Xinhua news agency: Wang Yongcheng, professor at Shanghai Jiaotong University; Du Guang, former professor at the Central Party School; Yu You, former editor-in-chief of China Daily; Sha Yexin, former head of the Shanghai People's Art and Drama Academy; and Li Rui, former vice-minister of the organization department of the CCP central committee and once secretary to Mao Zedong.

The letter can be read in full here -- a breath of fresh air from that oppressive nation.

Gender gap narrows

The World Economic Forum has released its latest report on the global gender gap and the news is encouraging. In the five years the Forum has been conducting the survey, 86 per cent of the countries covered have narrowed the gap. The survey measures equality between men and women in four areas: employment, education, health and politics.

The 134 countries included in the report, representing over 90% of the world’s population, have closed almost 96 per cent of the health gap and almost 93 per cent of the education gap. However, only 59 per cent of the economic gap has been closed and only 18 per cent of political inequality.

Needless to say, the Nordic countries do best, with Iceland ranked number one, followed by Norway, Finland and Sweden. Canada ranks 20th in equality, up from 25th last year but still well down from the 14th we placed in 2006. That we are outranked by the Scandinavians is not surprising; however that we are behind Third World countries such as the Philippines and South Africa is both surprising and disappointing. We do very well in health and education, scoring near 1.0 where 1.0 is equality, but only .59 in economic participation and opportunity, and a lamentable .18 in political empowerment. With women making up only 22 per cent of the House of Commons and 27 per cent of the Federal Cabinet, we have a long way to go to properly include women in our governance.

Iceland's superior performance is due in large part to its government's powerful commitment to equality. For instance, this year it introduced laws requiring companies with more than 50 employees to ensure their management consists of at least 40 per cent women by 2014. We could do with some of that kind of affirmative action in this country. It is doubtful patience and merit alone will ever overcome the ingrained macho nature of our business and politics, and the resulting prejudice against women.

Jon Stewart and liberalism's original sin

I have the greatest respect for Jon Stewart as a man and as a comic. And his Rally to Restore Sanity is brilliant — and long overdue. But Stewart is, nonetheless, a liberal guilty of that philosophy's original sin.

I refer of course to the obsession with balance. In the pursuit of tolerance, liberals have a tendency to insist that each side in an argument is equally worthy, or equally unworthy, as the case may be. Listening fairly to all sides is important, of course, but that doesn't mean all sides have an argument of equal merit. Often they don't, and it may be both unfair and dangerous to act as if they did.

For example, when Stewart talks about the toxic atmosphere in American politics today, he suggests that both sides, liberals and conservatives, are equally to blame. But this is not true. The great part of the toxicity in American politics comes from the hard right.

When that icon of the hard right, Fox News' Bill O'Reilly, has guests on his show with which he disagrees, he has been known to bully them, shout them down, even threaten to throw them off the show. By contrast that icon of liberalism, Jon Stewart, consistently treats his guests with respect, whether he agrees with them or not. And he invites many guests he disagrees with. It is not only unfair to say progressives are equally responsible for the toxicity, it is dangerous. Dealing with a problem is difficult if you refuse to recognize the cause.

Another example is Stewart's approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict. He seems to take the position there are two equal sides — Arabs and Jews — equally responsible for the disagreement over land. But there aren't two equal sides. There is a conqueror and a conquered, victors and victims, and the victims are the Palestinian people. To blame the victims equally with the victimizers is grossly unjust and makes it almost impossible to bring justice to those victims.

Jon Stewart is a wise, thoroughly decent, and very funny man. His intrinsically liberal desire to take a balanced approach is admirable, even noble. But pretending there is balance where there isn't is wrong. Even sinful.

Clinton admits Israel-Palestine conflict is major cause of terror

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton, speaking in Cairo, made a remark on the Israel-Palestine conflict that his fellow Americans should pay close attention to. He said that settling the conflict would "take about half the impetus in the whole world — not just the region, the whole world — for terror away." It is remarkable to hear a former president of the United States admit that this issue is the major cause of Islamic terrorism. I use the word "admit" advisedly — he is in effect saying that those responsible for the failure to resolve the conflict are also responsible for 9/11, and his country holds a great deal of responsibility for that failure.

Clinton blames the Israelis and the Palestinians for not settling the issue, specifically along the lines of the version of the Oslo accords that he authored in 2000. But he overlooks a few simple facts. The U.S. unequivocally supports Israel, and while Israel has little reason to negotiate, the Palestinians have no leverage to negotiate. The Israelis steal more land every day and more effectively sequester the Palestinians every day with no more than token opposition from the U.S. Meanwhile, the Americans continue to supply Israel with more aid than they provide any other country in the world, much of it in the form of weapons. Until they exploit this largesse to do some serious arm-twisting with Israel, the chances of an equitable settlement are slim indeed.

Meanwhile, the conflict continues to generate hostility to the United States throughout the Middle East and, as Clinton admits, acts as a major recruiting tool for organizations such as al-Qaeda. And the United States responds by spending more on arms than it can afford, waging foreign wars that generate even more hostility, and living in a state of paranoia. Yes, indeed, the Americans would do well to seriously reflect on the ex-president's remarks.

The Aftican National Congress raises the media issue: should we?

The ruling party of South Africa, the African National Congress (AFC), is alarming many South Africans by proposing legislation that would restrict the media. The alarm is justified. It's justified when any government starts talking about restricting the media and perhaps even more so with African governments. They have not been known for their commitment to the basic freedoms.

Nonetheless, a debate about the mass media is overdue in this country as well, at the very least to consider the question "Is ownership of the daily press, the major public forum in a modern society, by a small group of corporations and oligarchs compatible with a healthy democracy?" These owners have their own agenda which often subverts the public interest, an agenda that leads to many critical questions lacking full and proper discussion. The corporate press either isn't interested or would rather not have the discussion at all.

The first question that springs to mine is, "Who should own the public forums in a democracy?" In the democracy of ancient Athens, there were two public forums, the Assembly and the marketplace. Every citizen could go to either, and hear and debate the news of the day. These forums were owned and controlled by the citizens. In our society, the major public forum, the daily press, is owned by one tiny special interest group. This group quite naturally has little interest in a debate about its control of public discourse.

Another critical question is "What is the appropriate level of taxes for the kind of society Canadians want?" The daily press, faithfully following the agenda of their corporate colleagues, want taxes to go only down. They persistently indoctrinate us in this policy and appear to be having considerable success. A proper debate is long overdue, but again this is a debate the corporate sector would rather not have.

Then there's the question of environmental responsibility, particularly in regard to energy and climate change. The daily press took a long time to open a discussion and then only with reluctance. When 97 per cent of climate scientists agree that global warming is occurring and we are causing it, the shape of the discussion should be clear, but you'd never know that from reading the daily press. Science deniers have a far greater say than the three per cent they deserve, but we can hardly be surprised when massive corporate interests oppose dealing sensibly with climate change.

So the African National Congress is right at least in insisting that governments should concern themselves with the media. Indeed, I would go so far as to say governments have a responsibility to ensure that citizens are well-informed and discussions of issues are thorough. What could be more important in a democracy? But the AFC is very wrong if it believes the answer to media bias or excess is to restrict speech. The answer is to ensure that the media include a full complement of news and a full range of opinion that emphasizes the reality of issues not the promotion of special interests.

In Canada, this would require a left-wing press to counter the current corporate dominance. Unfortunately, nobody on the left has the kind of money it takes to own daily newspapers. We could perhaps complement the CBC, our only independent mass medium, with a national, daily newspaper owned by all of us. It would be a start. No doubt there are other worthy ideas out there.

But first we need the debate. With the owners of our major public forum uninterested or even adverse to the idea, it would be useful for one of our national parties to follow the lead of the African National Congress and get it started.

I will watch closely to see where the current debate within the AFC leads South Africa.

Buying democracy - in Alberta and the U.S.A.

We really do deceive ourselves when we think we live in a democracy. At least we do in Alberta, rather like our cousins to the south.

Alberta has the least restrictions on electoral spending of any province in the country. The result is something resembling a plutocracy more than a democracy. In 2009, corporations contributed almost as much to the Progressive Conservatives as the other parties combined raised from all contributions. Donors contributed $2,337,252 to the Conservatives, over 60 per cent from corporations. The Liberals came second with a mere $666,983 in contributions, 17 per cent from corporations.

The major corporate benefactor of the Conservatives was the development industry, followed by energy and finance. The energy industry alone donated more than ten times as much to the Conservatives as it did to the Liberals.

That's about the same ratio of money pouring into Republican and Democratic coffers in the upcoming elections in the U.S. With corporate spending unleashed by Supreme Court rulings, the Republicans are expected to be receiving up to ten times as much in campaign donations as the Democrats by election day. The Court gutted regulations designed to protect American democracy with rulings that banned restrictions on contributions from corporations, other special interests and billionaires, while allowing them to contribute anonymously. The result is massive slush funds called Super PACs (political action committees) dedicated to smearing Democratic candidates with attack ads.

Saddled with a Supreme Court that seems incapable of distinguishing money from speech, the Americans face a considerable challenge in restoring democracy to their nation. Alberta has no such excuse. Our Supreme Court has ruled that restrictions on corporate election spending are quite within the Charter, and the federal government and two provinces have instituted strict regulations accordingly. If we want more democracy and less plutocracy in Alberta, i.e. less buying of elections, we need to take note.

The new look Globe helps break my daily paper addiction

I have little to say about the new design of The Globe and Mail except that it’s ... well, colourful.

My concern is the eviction of my two favourite columnists. The two issues I always looked forward to the most were Friday’s, because of Rick Salutin, and Saturday’s, because of Tabatha Southey. With both gone, I now find it difficult to look forward to reading the Globe at all.

I have been addicted to reading a daily newspaper for more years than I can remember. For a social democrat in Calgary, this presents a challenge. We have four daily papers: two national, two local, all conservative. That’s the choice the vaunted free market offers me, something like the choice Henry Ford offered buyers of his Model-T -- any colour you like as long as it’s black. I can buy any philosophy of newspaper I like as long as it’s conservative. I have long chosen the Globe because it’s the least conservative. However, with the dismissal of their only left-wing writer with a regular column, I feel I’ve been squeezed out of the market entirely.

The Globe got a new editor-in-chief last year and I suppose a new boy always feels he has to put his stamp on the paper. Mark his territory, lift his leg on it, so to speak. In a rather presumptuous tone, John Stackhouse announces the new look Globe will launch a discussion that will "strike at the heart of how Canadians define ourselves, and our nation. It is meant to go beyond words. We hope it will become a turning point."

Well, sacking my two favourite columnists is a turning point for me. I am turning entirely to the Web. Not a difficult decision really. The Web has lots of choice, most of it free, and unlike the Calgary market it even offers some progressive dailies. I'll miss the rustle of newsprint and the ink on my fingers, but I'll adapt.