Welcome, Al Jazeera

Good news. The CRTC is expected to allow the Al Jazeera English-language television network to be broadcast in Canada. The Qatar-based international network has been attempting to enter this country since 2003. The CRTC approved carriage of the Arab version at that time but attached such stringent conditions none of Canada's major carriers wanted to take it on. It has agreed to work with some of its opponents such as the Canadian Jewish Congress and B'nai Brith Canada and has agreed to have its on-air content reviewed ever six months. These concessions are a slap in the face to freedom of the press but such is the power of the Israeli lobby.

While I welcome the entrance of Al Jazeera TV into the Canadian broadcasting realm, the network is not new to me. I have been checking out its English website daily for years. Although not as edgy as the Arabic version, it nonetheless provides something of an alternative to the Western media while doing some excellent journalism. It was, for instance, the only international English network on the ground during the recent Israeli invasion of Gaza.

Tony Berman, managing director of Al Jazeera English and former CBC executive, says the network is trying to shed some of the old stereotypes about anti-Western bias. Considering that it's material is watered down from the Arabic version already, I hope he doesn't go too far. Some of that bias is a refreshing change from the Western-centric, pro-Israel perspective of the commercial media in this country.

Gay birds - an evolutionary advantage?

The most common argument against accepting homosexuality as a social norm is that it is unnatural. Sex is for reproduction the argument goes, and same-sex couples can't reproduce (they can, of course, just not with each other), so it goes against nature. Furthermore, homosexual sex can't produce progeny, therefore it is an evolutionary dead end and must be not only unnatural but a conscious choice.

All of this has now been debunked. Same-sex relationships have been observed in a host of species, including bonobos, dolphins, penguins and fruit flies. The relationships show great variety. Male penguins form long-term sexual bonds. Toads will hop on any other toad that gets within range, regardless of gender. Marine snails all start out male, but when two males copulate, one conveniently changes gender. Male and female bonobos fornicate indiscriminately.

Given that it is universal in nature, the argument that homosexuality is unnatural falls apart. Nor, if fruit flies and penguins are doing it, can we argue that it's a matter of conscious choice. Obviously, evolution has not only allowed for same-sex relationships, it would seem to have a purpose, or purposes, for them.

Scientists are now ferreting out those purposes. They believe, for example, that male bottlenose dolphins engage in same-sex liaisons to facilitate group bonding. In a social species, stronger groups mean stronger individuals. Female Laysan albatrosses (shown above), who may remain pair-bonded for life, co-operatively raise their young, with greater success than heterosexual couples. About a third of Laysan albatrosses couples are female-female, for whom males apparently are of but transient utility.

According to Nathan Bailey, a biologist at the University of California, "Same-sex sexual behaviors are flexibly deployed in a variety of circumstances, for example as alternative reproductive tactics, as co-operative breeding strategies, as facilitators of social bonding or as mediators of intrasexual conflict. Once this flexibility is established, it becomes in and of itself a selective force." Why it evolved in humans is rather more difficult to determine than with albatrosses given the distance that human behaviour has drifted from what might be termed "natural." The mystery is deepened by the presence of our fertile imaginations. Sexually-speaking, are we bonobos, dolphins or fruit flies? I'll leave that question to the biologists.

Iran - an historical perspective

Iran is building a new kind of society -- an Islamic republic -- a project it has only been at for 30 years since it emerged from the dictatorship of the Shah, a dictatorship imposed by Great Britain and the United States. The events in Iran today are tragic, but building new societies is a process often replete with bouts of violence.

Consider, for example, the United States. Some Americans, former presidential candidate John McCain among them, are criticizing President Obama for not responding more strongly to the events in Iran. They forget their own history. In building its republic, the United States has endured repeated events of intense violence. It was founded in war. Within a century, it was engaged in one of history's bloodiest civil wars. It grew by crushing the native peoples. The struggle for human rights convulsed its people in violence up until the late 20th century -- two hundred years after the birth of the republic, its cities were burning and blood ran in the streets. Mr. McCain et al. can hardly expect more from the Iranians after only 30 years.

For Iran, whose civilization dates back millennia, 30 years is but a moment. We can only hope the violence of the current moment will be minimized and will lead ultimately to a better society, i.e. a step forward. In the short term, unfortunately, it's looking much more like a step back.

Getting beyond the GDP

Gross Domestic Product. The total value of all the good and services produced in a country annually. The GDP is not only the most common measurement of our economic well-being but often of society’s overall health. It is quoted ad nauseam as “our standard of living.”

This was not the intent of Nobel Prize winning economist Simon Kuznets, the inventor of the forerunner of the GDP. Kuznets had grave reservations about applying such an instrument too broadly. In his first report to the U.S. Congress in 1934, he warned, “The welfare of a nation [can] scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined above.” He later added, “Distinctions must be kept in mind between quantity and quality of growth, between its costs and return, and between the short and the long run. Goals for ‘more’ growth should specify more growth of what and for what.”

Kuznets cautions have been long forgotten and the GDP is applied very broadly indeed. Yet its weaknesses are as obvious as they are dangerous. For starters, it only values in terms of money, so those activities in which money doesn't change hands, including some of the most important work done in society, volunteer work for instance, or housework, are considered worthless. Unlike sensible accounting, it fails to include negatives as well as positives. Forests cut down are counted when they are sold for lumber, and later for finished products, but the cost of the loss of a forest, economically and environmentally, is ignored. Nature is not paid for her losses, so Her contribution doesn’t count. The planet could be sucked dry while the GDP soared merrily upward and our progress celebrated. The GDP has no interest in the future even though responsible accounting would insist that depleting Nature is depreciating an asset. Nor is polluting Nature a debit even thought its costs may prove catastrophic.

And many of the positives in the GDP are socially destructive. For example, a major growth industry in the U.S. in recent years has been incarceration. Imprisoning ever-increasing numbers of young men would seem to represent a failure in society, but the GDP notes the boom in expenditures on prisons, police, lawyers, courts, etc. and declares it a success. According to the GDP, crime definitely pays.

Factors that illustrate social progress may be of little account or even negative. Falling crime rates may lower the GDP. Reducing disparity between rich and poor is irrelevant. In Canada, while our GDP has steadily risen over the past two decades, income distribution has become increasingly skewed, living standards have been stagnant, housing affordability has diminished, job quality has deteriorated, and Canadians' own rating of their health has declined.

Some economists and others have called for better yardsticks to measure human progress -- or lack of it. The San Francisco-based group Redefining Progress has created a more comprehensive measure of progress which they call the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI), an instrument that starts with personal expenditures similar to the GDP but then deducts social and environmental costs such as crime, pollution, loss of leisure time, unemployment, etc., adds in non-monetary contributions such as housework, volunteerism and natural resources, and also adjusts for income disparities. It represents something closer to the economy that people actually experience as opposed to an economist’s abstraction such as the GDP. Indexes such as the GPI have shown that when the GDP is rising, overall quality of life may well be falling, i.e. that our belief our standard of living is improving may be an illusion.

Now Canada has come up with its own yardstick. Former Saskatchewan premier Roy Romanow has spearheaded the creation of the Institute of Wellbeing, an organization dedicated to reporting on the quality of life of Canadians and promoting a dialogue on how to improve it through "evidence-based policies that are responsive to the needs and values of Canadians." The institute recognizes a growing consensus about "the need for a more holistic and transparent way to measure societal progress – one that accounts for more than just economic indicators such as the Gross Domestic Product and takes into account the full range of social, health, environmental and economic concerns of citizens."

The institutes's "signature product" is the Canadian Index of Wellbeing (CIW), which will evaluate the quality of life of Canadians overall and specifically in areas such as health, quality of the environment, education and skill levels, the use of time, the vitality of communities, participation in the democratic process, and the state of our arts, culture and recreation. It will provide detailed reports on the various areas and ultimately a composite index, a single number that will give a snapshot of whether the overall quality of life of Canadians is getting better or worse. At long last we will have a single, national instrument, designed from a Canadian perspective, that shows whether our quality of life in all of its dimensions is getting better or worse. The institutes's first report entitled How are Canadians Really Doing? can be found here.

Cocaine ... the hidden report

In the early 1990s, the World Health Organization (WHO) undertook the largest global study on cocaine ever. It collected information from 22 cities in 19 countries about the use of the drug, the users, and the effects it has on users and the community. The conclusions it came to include:

• By far the most popular use of coca products worldwide is the snorting of cocaine hydrochloride. Most participating countries and sites did not report significant cocaine-related problems among this group of users.
• The smoking of coca paste and crack, and the injection of cocaine, are very much minority behaviours in the countries surveyed, and are mainly seen among the unemployed, the homeless, the poor and other minority and socially isolated groups such as sex workers and street youth.
• Most participating countries agree that occasional or experimental cocaine use does not typically lead to severe or even minor physical or social problems.
• Current national and local approaches which over-emphasize punitive drug control measures may actually contribute to the development of heath-related problems.
• Despite a broad range of educational and prevention approaches, this project has determined that most programs do not prevent myths but perpetuate stereotyping and misinformation in the general public.
• Users of minority background or low socioeconomic status are most subject to arrest and prosecution, while wealthier users are virtually immune to prosecution or rarely imprisoned.
• The aim of education about cocaine and related products should be to increase understanding about known high-risk patterns of cocaine use, in particular the intensity of use, drug combinations, and the potentially greater levels of harm associated with smokable and injectable methods of coca product administration.
• Use of coca leaves appears to have no negative physical effects and may have a therapeutic value as a tonic.

About cocaine use in Canada, the report had this to say, "Use in Canada does not typically cause even minor physical or social problems and use remains confined to a small minority of individuals. The few who suffer serious or chronic effects are usually intensive users. ... ex-addicts list more negative effects of use. Recreational users report positive results, claiming that cocaine provides energy for work or study and enhances creativity. ... Few recreational users intensify use over time or experience financial distress, though "addicts" are often made insolvent by cocaine expenditures."

Despite the comprehensive nature and quality of the report, and the substantial contribution it could have made to dealing with cocaine use, and drug use generally, it never saw the light of day. The United States government went apoplectic over heresies such as, "Most participating countries agree that occasional or experimental cocaine use does not typically lead to severe or even minor physical or social problems," and, "Current national and local approaches which over-emphasize punitive drug control measures may actually contribute to the development of heath-related problems." The Americans threatened to cut off their funding for all the organization's research projects and interventions unless it dissociated itself from the study. It did. Publication was canceled and as far as the WHO is concerned the report no longer exists. However, if you would like to read it, try www.tdpf.org.uk/WHOleaked.pdf.

Another corporate front, this one in the capital

The Fraser Institute is about to be complemented by another right-wing think tank, this one in Ottawa. Brian Lee Crowley, president of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies and F.A. Hayek disciple, is raising support for his Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Needless to say, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is ecstatic. He will host a private dinner at the Albany club to drum up Bay Street support for the institute.

Crowley claims his think tank will be non-partisan, but there's little doubt who will be paying the piper to hear appropriate tunes. Now that corporations are severely limited federally in their contributions to political parties, think tanks make excellent outlets for their propaganda. Of course they claim to be non-partisan, but who are they kidding with Bay Street picking up the tab. You don't have to tell hookers to wear short skirts -- they know what the boys like.

What annoys me is that we all have to pay the hookers. The money that corporations contribute to their various interests ultimately comes out of our pockets. If we want to eat, wear clothes, put a roof over our heads, etc., we have to buy stuff and that means putting money in the hands of businesses. That they use a portion to support right-wing propagandists like the Fraser Institute is damned annoying, yet impossible to avoid. You may prefer not to buy products from companies that contribute to groups you disapprove of, but because this is private business, their benefactors are confidential. You can never be sure who contributes to whom. You are not free to choose.

Democracy means political equality, and nothing corrupts political equality like money. If we want a truly democratic society, the effect of money must be neutralized and that means any organization that involves itself in politics, not just political parties, should be subject to strict funding rules. Contributions should be limited to individuals and to amounts most citizens can afford. Only if Crawley limits his institutes's funding thusly can he claim it to be non-partisan.

Gun love is killing the U.S.

In 2001, the year Islamic extremists took 3,000 lives in the United States, Americans murdered 8,000 of their fellow citizens with handguns. Almost three times as many. And they do this every year. George W. Bush could have done his people a far greater favour by declaring war on handguns than by declaring a war on terror. But that would have been a mighty challenge indeed, declaring war on a love affair, the love that his fellow citizens have for guns.

The results of American gun-love transcends borders. The thousands of guns that pour into Mexico every year, from handguns to high-powered assault weapons, most bought legally in the United States, arm the Mexican drug cartels. There are over 6,600 licensed gun dealers along the border alone. Whatever damage drugs do in the U.S., other than that done by their own drug laws, can be attributed in large part to those weapons.

And not only Mexican drug lords take advantage. The U.S. is a veritable supermarket for terrorists seeking high-end weaponry. During a recent investigation, government agents posing as private buyers bought military-grade body armour, technology to stabilize and steer guided missiles, a device that can be used to detonate nuclear weapons, and other munitions -- all by legal means.The companies selling the equipment had not violated any laws or regulations. Investigators reported that the problem was sensitive military equipment barred from export was often legal to sell within the country. Smuggling the material out is apparently a minor challenge. How much of this weaponry is then turned against Americans is difficult to assess but given the American presence throughout the world, particularly in regions of violence, it could be a lot.

The American proclivity for guns as a solution to problems leads them into a war every generation if not every decade and sends young men and women to die often pointless deaths -- almost 60,000 in Vietnam and over 4,000 in Iraq to date.

And there are other ways to die than needlessly in war. One cannot help but wonder if the United States wouldn't have provided all of its people with good health care years ago if it didn't spend excessively on armaments. Its military spending is almost equal to the total of all other countries in the world combined which is absurd. One of the few American politicians who dares to challenge the military-industrial-congressional complex, Congressman Barney Frank, insists it should be easy to persuade Americans "that their well-being is far more endangered by a proposal for substantial reductions in Medicare, Social Security or other important domestic areas than it would be by cancelling weapons systems that have no justification from any threat we are likely to face." I doubt it's anywhere near as easy as Congressman Frank thinks.

But the greatest damage to the United States from its grossly inflated military spending may be that it is simply bankrupting the country. The American federal government is expected to run a record deficit of $1.8-trillion US in 2009 (13% of GDP), adding to the rapidly rising U.S. federal debt of 11.4-trillion US (about $37,000 for every American). Not even the richest country in the world can persist in this degree of financial irresponsibility forever. Yet not even Barack Obama dares to cut spending on weapons.

How ironic that the paranoia created by 9/11 is doing more harm than the attack itself.

Civilized behaviour trumps politics as usual

So Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff have agreed their two parties will work together to examine employment insurance reform. Two political leaders not shouting at each other long enough to agree on a common effort for the public good is a rare and beautiful thing indeed.

After a series of face-to-face meetings -- in my mind the heart and soul of democratic process -- the two leaders will create a working group on employment insurance with three members selected by each of their parties. The prime minister is "optimistic" a deal on "realistic" changes to the EI system can be reached, and the opposition leader added, "We have found a way to make progress. We’re going to try and make it work and get good results for Canadians." How salutary, how refreshing.

If only this could become the modus operandi of the House of Commons. If politicians of all parties could work together to deal with issues, we the people would benefit from the intelligence, wisdom and imagination of all our elected representatives. We would have better legislation, we would be better represented and we would probably have a great deal more confidence in the system. But I'm dreaming, aren't I? This display of good will is really just a one-time exercise in election-avoidance. Still, it's nice to see, rare as it is.

Obama's curious confusion about violence and history

Obama's speech in Cairo would certainly seem to signal a new era in American foreign policy. It sounded rather like a retreat from empire, even though the audience was required to sit in their seats for two and a half hours before the imperial president appeared. He even spared us the word "terrorist" which was refreshing. But quite aside from the overall direction of the speech, on the critical issue, Palestine, he lectured the Palestinians with some curious logic.

"Palestinians must abandon violence," he insisted, "Resistance through violence and killing is wrong and it does not succeed." If he had just limited his remark to the Palestinians, he may have been on solid ground, but once he generalized he was in strange territory indeed, territory very much at odds with the American experience. He seemed to have completely forgotten that the United States liberated itself from Great Britain through violence. Can he possibly be implying that the American Revolutionary war was wrong and did not, in fact, succeed?

He went on to say, "For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the center of America's founding." Violence may not have won American blacks full and equal rights but it certainly liberated them from the lash of the whip. Is he suggesting that Abraham Lincoln was wrong and freeing the slaves was a failure?

"It's a story with a simple truth: violence is a dead end," he concluded. Well, the simple truth hasn't ended the American use of violence. They are the most violent nation on Earth, currently fighting two wars and prepared for more with dozens of military bases established throughout the world. Obama himself is a big fan of the Afghan war.

It's when he goes on to say, "Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel's right to exist," that we get a a hint of what this may be all about. The Palestinians must put an end to violence, but not the United States, and certainly not Israel, the most violence-prone nation in the Middle East. Violence, in other words, is legitimate for us and our friends, but not for you Palestinians.

As far as the American contribution toward peace in Palestine is concerned, he said, "We cannot impose peace." Actually, they can. They can get tough with Israel. Indeed, that may be the only way to achieve peace in the region because Israel has little incentive otherwise. Every day it steals more land from the Palestinians and further intensifies their segregation. Obama's position seems to be the United States will not pressure Israel into making peace and the Palestinians must forego violence. That would seem to leave the Palestinians entirely at the mercy of Israel. One could be excused for thinking Obama had been briefed by Netanyahu. To the point of forgetting his own history.

Contemplating the extinction of Homo sapiens

The recent report by the Global Humanitarian Forum, entitled "Climate Change – The Anatomy of a Silent Crisis" contains some news which I would say is alarming but, since so few people in the corridors of power are alarmed by climate change, I won't. For example, it states that climate change kills over 300,000 people a year through hunger, sickness and weather disasters, seriously affects 325 million people, and creates economic losses of $125-billion U.S. Four billion people are vulnerable and 500 million are at extreme risk, with the number of those affected more than doubling in the next 20 years. Meanwhile, scientists tell us that the problem isn't a greenhouse gas effect but rather a runaway greenhouse gas effect. In other words, barring dramatic action, it will soon be beyond our ability to control.

And the will to get it under control seems lacking in both leaders and populations at large. The only Canadian leader who took a serious policy on global warming into an election was Stephane Dion, and we all know what happened to him. We not only rejected him, we humiliated him. Get out of here, you silly man, we seemed to say, and take your carbon tax with you. The winners of the election show little interest in doing anything serious about climate change except meekly following the American lead.

This leaves Barack Obama as the great environmental hope. But this hope is increasingly faint. The U.S. House of Representatives is working on legislation that includes a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gases. This would provide improved environmental protection but is being so watered down it will be nowhere near strong enough. Scientists claim the U.S. must cut its emissions to 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020 to slow global warming. This legislation calls for only four per cent. And even this weak effort may not ultimately pass the House and Senate.

So global warming marches on and we fail to face up to its challenge. One wonders how far this can go. To the collapse of civilization, perhaps, or even to the collapse of life on Earth? Could we turn our planet into another Venus or would the collapse of our civilization limit the damage we could do? In any case, the extinction of Homo sapiens has become a real possibility.

And not only from climate change as we know it. Catastrophic war seems to be an increasing possibility as more nations go nuclear in order to play with the big boys, and nuclear war could in itself cause climate change. And then there's the possibility that chemical or biological warfare could run amok.

Any of these could result in our inability to physically or financially contain our technologies once catastrophe has unleashed them. Nuclear power plants, oil fields, chemical factories, could rage out of control. Add in the political and social breakdown that would result as governments collapse, massive population shifts occur and rogue armies rampage, and Armageddon starts looking like a real possibility rather than just a metaphysical prophecy.

Quite aside from catastrophe, our technology could turn on us in other ways. It may simply evolve beyond us -- the next logical step in evolution, so to speak. We have, for a long time, built machines that are vastly superior to us physically, now we are building machines that are superior to us, in some important ways, mentally. There doesn't seem to be any reason we can't build ones that are superior to us in all ways mentally. Maybe even superior to us emotionally. That certainly wouldn't be hard. And if we do produce machines -- robots -- who are physically and mentally superior to us, what will they need us for? House pets? Will they put us in kennels while they go off to explore the universe?

We are an intelligent species but not a wise one. We have always used our intelligence to destroy as much as to create. We are bright enough to create ever more advanced technologies but not wise enough to restrict their use to productive purposes. We are too violent, too greedy, too arrogant, too narrow, or at least too many of us are.

You might say we are too smart for our own good. We are like the dinosaurs in a way. They dominated the Earth for 1,000 times longer than we have been here. Their advantage was their size, their big bodies. Then one day, because of an asteroid landing or whatever, size became a huge disadvantage and the dinosaurs were finished. Our advantage, the thing that has allowed us to dominate the Earth, is our big brain. Now, it has become a disadvantage, a terminal disadvantage, like the dinosaurs' big bodies. It has led us into creating the means of our own destruction.

Oddly, I find myself quite philosophical about the possibility of our extinction. I am distressed neither intellectually nor emotionally. Maybe it's because at my age I'm facing my own extinction, but I don't think that's the reason. I have just become more analytical about Homo sapiens, simply recognizing that, whether individual or species, extinction is part of evolution, the natural road of life. We have our little moment, our speck of existence in an infinity of time and space, and then we disappear. If we, Homo sapiens, were a credit to our home, there might be room for regret, but we aren't. In our little moment, we have done massive damage to the planet, including driving thousands of other species into extinction. There would be a certain ironic justice in doing the same thing to ourselves. If we are to go, we won't be missed.

All hail Stephen the Red

Oh how time and fortune wear on our principles. Not very long ago Prime Minister Stephen Harper was among the strongest advocates of smaller government. Now he has made the biggest leap into the market by a Canadian prime minister since Pierre Trudeau and Petro-Canada. He has, on behalf of Canadian taxpayers, just "invested" $7.1-billion of our money in General Motors Corp.

This is the same Mr. Harper who once referred to Canada as a "Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term" and insisted we were "very proud of it." Well, we are now the very proud owners of 12.5 per cent of a bankrupt American corporation.

So rejoice Canadians. Led by our intrepid neo-socialist leader we are now in the car business.

U.S. security -- the ignorance factor

American ignorance about Canada is a rich source of humour for many Canadians. Generally it isn't something to be taken seriously because, after all, we are a bit player in the grand scheme of world affairs and they are a giant. Why would they know very much about us? Oh yes, we are their major trading partner but trade is dull, not something most people spend a lot of time chatting about. So they know little about us, so what.

Well, occasionally it does matter. One such occasion is their obsession with security. Their hardening of the border, to use the current expression, to bolster their security is creating considerable difficulties for both trade and travel across the no longer "world's longest undefended border." To the extent it interferes with trade, as boring as the subject may be, it has serious ramifications for the economies of both countries, particularly ours. And, unfortunately, it appears the U.S. concern about security is based to no small degree not only on paranoia but on ignorance. Leading Americans from Hillary Clinton to John McCain to, and here is where it becomes deeply troubling, the head of U.S. Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, have at one time or another claimed the September 11 attackers came from Canada. In fact, none of them had been in Canada and all had entered the U.S. on valid American visas.

Napolitano has now retracted her view but was still expressing it up until a month ago. And her retraction was phrased oddly. "Now we know the 9/11 terrorists did not use the Canadian border," she is quoted as saying, as if her agency had just discovered something new.

If senators of border states (and Clinton wasn't the only one), presidential candidates and, of the greatest importance, the key figure in the American security establishment, all believe in this blatantly false but critically important piece of information, how badly informed are the Americans about security over all? Is their intelligence about Canada on this issue of the same standard as their intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? This is a scary prospect.

Canadian Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan referred to Ms. Napolitano's comments on the issue as a "slight misspeak." Let us hope he's just being tactful.

Three women honoured, one gratuitously insulted

Yesterday's issue of The Globe and Mail stood out for its inspiring stories about not one but three women of extraordinary achievement. The first was about Canada's very own master of the short story, Alice Munro, "our Chekhov," and her winning of the $100,000 Man Booker International Prize for fiction. Selected from a short list of internationally renowned writers, Ms. Munro adds the Man Booker to her impressive list of awards, including the Governor-General's Award for fiction (three times), the Giller Prize (twice), the U.S. National Book Critics Circle Award and the W.H. Smith Literary Award in Britain. She has had 48 short stores published in the New Yorker and has been described in the New York Times as having "a strong claim to being the best fiction writer now working in North America."

Appearing on the front page of the Globe with Ms. Munro was U.S. President Barack Obama's nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor. Growing up poor in the Bronx, Ms. Sotomayor now aspires to the highest judicial office in her country. If she is confirmed by the Senate, as she almost certainly will be, she will become the first Latina justice on the Court.

Featured on the Globe's Law Page was Canada's most successful jurist, Louise Arbour. She achieved the highest honour available to a Canadian judge -- elevation to the Supreme Court -- and is also the most accomplished Canadian jurist internationally. She served as chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia, and recently completed a term as United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

At a recent meeting of the UN Human Rights Council, Ms. Arbour was praised by ambassador after ambassador, all expressing regret she was not seeking another term. All except the Canadian ambassador that is, who made no reference to her decision. The Harper government is known to have differences with her, but on occasions such as this, good manners call for differences to be set aside to say something nice about the person being honoured. But the Harperites seem to have great difficulty setting differences aside, it is always us against them. One wonders what the representatives of other members of the international community thought about this boorish slight by the Canadian ambassador toward one of his own.

Ms. Arbour will continue to play an international role, assuming the positions of president and chief executive officer of the International Crisis Group, an independent organization that analyzes conflicts around the world and proposes solutions. Congratulations to her, and to Mses. Munro and Sotomayor, and a raspberry to Canada's ambassador to the UN.

Ahmadinejad challenges Obama

So Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has offered to debate U.S. President Barack Obama at the United Nations on, in his words, "... global issues as well as world peace and security." Challenging the elegant, eloquent Obama is quite the display of confidence for the bumptious Iranian.

Nonetheless, the debate could prove interesting. Top of the agenda would probably be nuclear weapons with Obama demanding that Iran refrain from developing them. He would point out that Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which forbids non-nuclear nations from developing atomic weaponry. Ahmadinejad would have little trouble countering this. He would claim Iran was not working on a weapon, but only advancing peaceful uses of the atom, and he could refer to the U.S.'s own intelligence reports to support that position. But that would just be for starters. He could then ask Obama why the Americans' best friend in the region, Israel, is allowed to have nuclear weapons and the U.S. has nothing to say about it. He could go on to point out that the Non-Proliferation Treaty also requires nuclear nations to disarm themselves of atomic weapons, which the United States is not doing and is therefore in violation of the treaty itself. Ahmadinejad wins this one easily.

Next up, probably, would be bringing peace and stability to the Middle East. Obama would accuse Iran of providing weapons to terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah and thereby creating instability. A fair charge. But again, Ahmadinejad could easily rebut it, stating that in the view of most people in the region Hamas and Hezbollah are legitimate resistance organizations. Obama would have trouble with that considering both groups have been legitimized to a U.S. standard by engaging in the democratic process and in fact being quite successful at it. As for the terrorism charges, both organizations have used terror but then so have Israel and the United States. And as for Iran's support of Hamas and Hezbollah, the United States has provided massive military aid to Israel creating a huge imbalance of power in the region. It is hypocritical, the Iranian president might say, to criticize Iran for providing a much smaller amount of aid to the other side, particularly as that side is the victim. In any case, after the Iraq debacle, the Americans have little credibility when it comes to peace in the region. Once again, Ahmadinejad has the edge.

A real danger for Obama would be Ahmadinejad going on the offensive about the history of the U.S./Iran relationship. He could bring up United States collaboration in the overthrow of the democratically-elected Mossadegh government, the first Islamic democracy in the Middle East. This was where the current hostility between the two countries really began. Not only would this put Obama on the defensive, it would undermine one of his real strengths, his country's support of democracy.

Will Obama take up the challenge, assuming Ahmadinejad wins Iran's June 12th presidential election? He has said he wants dialogue with Iran -- here is a splendid opportunity. As for my prediction for the debate, should it take place: Ahmadinejad wins on facts hands down. Obama, however, seduces the crowd with his charm and eloquence. I'll leave the final verdict to the members of the General Assembly.

The Tamil tragedy and their psychopathic leader

Psychopaths, bereft of conscience, commonly resort to violence in the pursuit of their pleasures. In normal human intercourse, this often leads them into behaviour that is unacceptably anti-social or even criminal. But when violence is socially acceptable, such as in war and revolution, the psychopath comes into his own. He can use violence to aggrandize himself not only with impunity but with honour, even glory. Rather than a social pariah, he becomes a revolutionary hero. History is replete with such figures: Lenin, Mao, Mugabe, the list is long. And recently another has been much in the news -- Velupillai Prabhakaran, the founder and leader of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam.

Leading his Tigers in a just cause warped to his own sordid methods, Prabhakaran pursued a bloody, destructive civil war for 26 long years until finally dying, as he lived, by the sword. A master of assassination, suicide bombing and child soldiers, he was a man of considerably skill. Typical of psychopaths, despite his unimpressive appearance and unassuming manner he had a powerful charisma, described as an extraordinary "focus." He created a formidable military, complete with army, navy and even an air force.

Despite his substantial ability, his war was a miserable failure. He ruled the Tamils with the same merciless brutality he fought his Sinhalese enemies with, killing anyone who had the temerity to defy him. He brought his people 26 years of death and suffering and left them worse of than they were before. And one can't help but wonder how they would have fared if he had won. Not only does managing a country require very different skills than fighting a revolution, what would life under such a thug been like? Like Russian under Lenin? China under Mao? Zimbabwe under Mugabe? One shudders at the kind of society he may very well have created.

A more constructive, and far more enlightened, course for the Tamils was offered by a former revolutionary leader in neighbouring India. I refer of course to the greatest man of the twentieth century, Mahatma Gandhi, who showed all of us that great things could be done, including liberating the second largest population on Earth, without raising a hand against anyone. Such inspiration so close yet the Tamils missed it and paid a terrible price.

But now, with the Tigers defeated and their leader dead, the opportunity presents itself again. If the Tamils take it, if they pursue justice in Sri Lanka, or even a state of their own, by the methods of Gandhi, or at least peacefully, one thing is certain. They will do no worse than they did under the leadership of the psychopath Prabhakaran.

Chernobyl still vexes British farmers

When on April 26th, 1986, reactor number four of the nuclear power plant near Chernobyl in the Ukraine exploded, radioactive dust quickly drifted across Europe. Reaching the British Isles within days, carried in fine rain, it seeped into the hills of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland and there it remains. Hundreds of farms are still restricted in how they are allowed to use land and raise sheep. Radiocaesium-137 passes easily from soil to grass and accumulates in animals. Sheep grazed on upper pastures, where radioactivity levels are highest, have their heads painted red to identify them, and if a farmer wants to sell them for food, they must be scanned.

The number of farms requiring scanning steadily declines as the radioactivity fades, but the red-headed sheep will for a long time be reminders of the dangerous reach of nuclear power, even in its peaceful mode.

If the provinces can do it ...

The provinces continue to show some enlightenment on the challenge of global warming even if the federal government continues to keep its head in the sand -- the tar sands, of course.

Quebec was first with a carbon tax albeit a limited one. B.C. deserves credit for the first substantial tax and has enacted legislation to move toward a cap-and-trade system. Quebec will have cap-and-trade legislation in place by the end of June and Ontario and Manitoba will soon follow. The four provinces, along with seven U.S. states, are part of the Western Climate Initiative, which is working toward a regional cap and trade system.

None of this is enough to deal fully with global warming, of course, but it does show a commitment to the challenge. Meanwhile, the federal government lollygags, its efforts less than inspiring. The Environment Commissioner, Scott Vaughan, states that its targets are overstated and it has no system in place to measure results. The feds suggest we must wait on the lead of our southern neighbour.

The provinces don't agree. The premiers of Ontario and Quebec have indicated for some time that, if necessary, they will go it alone on climate change. According to Premier McGuinty of Ontario, "We both agree that we have an opportunity, even a responsibility here in Canada, to put in place a carbon-exchange register that will, one way or another, serve as kind of a pilot project that the federal government and maybe even the government in Washington can use as a base for a national program."

In other words, Canada can set an example. We could be a leader rather than a follower as our current federal government seems content to be. The situation was until recently the same in the U.S. States such as California led the way in dealing with climate change while their federal administration dragged its heels. With the election of Barack Obama, that's changed. Unfortunately, there is no Obama in sight in this country, but maybe we don't need one. The four provinces setting the pace include 80 per cent of the country's population and 75 per cent of our GNP, so much can be done without the help of the dawdlers in Ottawa.

What's Harper in it for?

A newly-minted Conservative attack ad on You Tube suggests Michael Ignatieff is "Not in [politics] for Canada," but only "In it for himself." My initial reaction was, are we talking about Michael Ignatieff or Stephen Harper? After all, it's something of a mystery why Harper wants to be Prime Minister of a country he doesn't seem to like very much. Consider the evidence:

• Speaking to an American right-wing think tank, he made comments such as, "Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it," and "if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians," revealing a not very elevated opinion of his country and his countrymen.
• Once asked if there was a Canadian culture, he answered, "Yes, in a very loose sense. It consists of regional cultures within Canada, regional cultures that cross borders with the US. We're part of a worldwide Anglo-American culture. And there is a continental culture." I think the answer was, in a very loose sense, not really.
• Then there's the famous firewall letter to Premier Klein of Alberta which he signed and which stated, "It is imperative to take the initiative, to build firewalls around Alberta, to limit the extent to which an aggressive and hostile federal government can approach upon legitimate provincial jurisdiction."
  
• About Maritimers he has said, "There's unfortunately a view of too many people in Atlantic Canada that it's only through government favours that there's going to be economic progress, or that's what you look to." So much for that benighted part of the country.
  
• And then there's his infamous inability to say he loves Canada, source of much mockery in the media.
  

So, to paraphrase the Conservative ad, what is Harper in it for? It can hardly be for love of country if he can't even say the words. Is the ad, therefore, some kind of unconscious comment on the Conservatives' own leader? Or maybe not so unconscious? Perhaps a pre-emptive attempt to portray Ignatieff as a political dilettante before the Liberals portray Harper as a mere ideologue?

But who knows what goes on in the minds of people who deal in attack ads. We are in a murky realm, a part of the political world that does so much to explain why decent people want little to do with politics. Best to just leave them to their silly games.

Will B.C.'s electoral choice harm Canada?

To say I'm disappointed with the B.C. referendum on electoral reform is putting it mildly. Not only did the voters of that province reject proportionality, they opted overwhelmingly for the corrupt first-past-the-post system (FPTP). Not that it necessarily makes all that much difference in B.C., a largely two-party province. In this election, for example, the Liberals approached a majority with 46% of the vote to the NDP's 42%. If a proportional system were in effect, the Liberals would have required a coalition to form a government and would probably have gotten one with the support of the Greens who, like the Liberals but unlike the NDP, supported B.C.'s carbon tax.

The real disappointment is what this might mean to the possibility of change at the federal level where it is most sorely needed. Not only does FPTP grossly corrupt the results of federal elections, it rewards division and punishes unity, the last thing a highly regionalized country like ours needs. In the 2008 election the Bloc Quebecois, the most divisive party in the country (it only bothers to run candidates in one province), was awarded 16% of the seats in the House of Commons for 10 % of the popular vote. The NDP, which runs candidates and wins seats in every region, won 12% of the seats with 18% of the popular vote. The Bloc was rewarded for its separatism with 61% more seats than it deserved and the NDP was punished for its all-Canadian approach with 33% fewer seats than it earned. The Conservatives commonly win more seats in the West than they deserve and fewer in the East, the Liberals just the opposite. So, thanks to FPTP, the two major regional divisions in the country, Quebec/English Canada and East/West, become greatly exaggerated in our national legislature.

This aggravation of regional differences is unhealthy and dangerous. Inasmuch as the B.C. referendum result discourages federal reform, it harms the entire country.

Who will run U.S. Middle East policy - Obama or AIPAC?

U.S. President Barack Obama has indicated he may do the only thing that will bring peace to Palestine and justice to the Palestinians. He will put pressure on Israel to agree to a fair settlement. During his election campaign, Obama said he regarded the lack of a resolution to the conflict as a "constant sore" that "infect[s] all of our foreign policy." It is indeed that serious and it has infected more than American foreign policy. It was a contributing factor to 9/11 and to Islamic hostility toward the U.S. generally. Recently, Obama's national security adviser, General James Jones, has said the new administration would be more "forceful" with Israel.

This is promising, but the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has other ideas, and this is a group to be reckoned with. It has sent a veritable army of lobbyists to Washington to convince members of Congress to sign a letter to the president dissuading him from a tougher approach to Israel. AIPAC may be the most powerful lobby group in the United States. When it holds a conference, half of Congress attends. Critics claim it has unseated members who, in its eyes, have been too critical of Israel. Its letter was in fact written by two influential Congressmen, Steny Hoyer, Democratic majority leader in the House of Representatives, and Eric Cantor, the Republican whip.

The letter, although calling for peace, in effect insists on allowing Israel to set the pace of negotiations. Israel, which steals more Palestinian land every day and continually intensifies the segregation of the Palestinians, is of course in no hurry to change the status quo. Asking the Palestinians to wait on the pleasure of the Israelis is reminiscent of Martin Luther King's words in Letter from a Birmingham Jail about requests for blacks to have patience: "'Wait' ... rings in the ear of every Negro ... This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.'" It rings similarly in the ears of Palestinians.

So will Obama emulate the impatience of Martin Luther King and demand justice for the Palestinians now or will he succumb to the political muscle of AIPAC and ask them to wait. This may be the most important foreign policy decision of his term.

On listing "terrorists"

Terrorism is once again in the news. The end of the Tamil Tigers, pioneers of suicide bombing, is nigh in Sri Lanka. In the United States, increasingly disturbing revelations about the Bush administration's use of torture in their "war on terror" is riling tempers. And our government leaves Canadian Abousfian Abdelrazik to rot in the Sudan because it has concluded, against all evidence, that he's a terrorist.

But if I'm going to talk about terrorism, I should first define it. To me, it means the use of terror against a civilian population to coerce it into adopting a certain political position. A definition is necessary because the word tends to be applied highly selectively, used by governments and others to demonize some individual or group they find disapprove of.

Essentially, terrorism is a military tactic, like an air raid or a blitzkrieg. It is sometimes called the weapon of the poor because it tends to be used by those who lack formal militaries, the Palestinians for example. Nonetheless, it is used by a range of agents, some poor, some not so poor. The greatest terrorist attacks in history, the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, were carried out by the United States, the richest, most powerful nation on Earth. and a democratic nation it is important to note. Probably the greatest use of terror overall has been by governments against their own people.

We consider terrorism to be particularly repugnant because it's directed at civilians rather than military personnel, i.e. at innocents. This is a finer distinction than it immediately appears, however. In modern warfare, most casualties are civilian. Consequently, when a nation decides on military action, it is consciously deciding to kill civilians. Distinguishing terrorism from conventional war is, therefore, somewhat arbitrary. Whether you die from a specifically terrorist attack or from collateral damage in a war zone is small consolation to the dead.

This reveals the rather arbitrary nature of terrorist lists. Placed on a list, an individual or organization becomes a pariah, not to be dealt with in any way by respectable people, possibly under threat of prosecution. The Canadian government has listed the Tamil Tigers as a terrorist organization, and therefore put them beyond the pale, and they have indeed done terrible things, but then so has the government of Sri Lanka, including the systematic repression of the Tamil people, yet with them we maintain full diplomatic relations. We have also put the Palestinian organization Hamas on a terrorist list and that both lacks logic and adds to the difficulty of creating peace in the Middle East. Yes, it has a military arm and that arm has used terrorism, but it also has a social arm that has brought much needed social services to the Palestinian people, and it has a political arm that is willing to participate in the democratic process which it has done with great success. To categorize a comprehensive organization such as Hamas as a terrorist organization makes no more sense than categorizing the United States and Israel as terrorist states because they have also used terror when it suited their purposes.

Listing groups as terrorists can at times be downright perverse. For instance, al-Qaeda and Hamas get lumped into the same do-not-touch category, yet have little in common. Hamas is an organization willing to subject its political and ideological goals to negotiation and democratic process. As a major player in Palestine, it can and should be a participant in the Middle East peace process. Al-Qaeda on the other hand answers only to God and therefore does not negotiate and pursues its ideological objectives only by violence. Hamas has goals amenable to reason, al-Qaeda does not. Hamas can be treated as a political entity, al-Qaeda only as a criminal organization. Treating Hamas as if it were al-Qaeda is a folly that leads only to hostility and lost opportunity, an action neither useful nor justified.

The situation with individuals is parallel. Abousfian Abdelrazik has broken no law, yet our government abandons him in a foreign land. The ostensible reason is that he is on the UN blacklist, yet the very placing of an individual on the blacklist egregiously violates due process. A government simply submits a name to the Security Council along with supporting details. The government doesn't have to publicly identify itself (in Abdelrazik's case it hasn't) and no formal standards of evidence are required. If there is no objection within five days, the person is added to the list. Their assets are frozen and they are not allowed to travel internationally. The person doesn't get a hearing and can't submit evidence to refute the allegations. They are guilty until proven innocent.

In Abdelrazik's case, the RCMP and CSIS have both vouched for his innocence, but our government remains unmoved. They do this to him because he is accused of being a terrorist; he'd be much better off if he were accused of being a common criminal. And that of course is how such situations should be dealt with. If he is suspected of committing a crime, subject him to due process; if he isn't, treat him as an innocent man. The same applies to groups who practice political and ideological violence. If they commit crimes, treat them as criminals. The law has ways of dealing with members of a criminal organization.

Listing is an arbitrary process that does more to confuse and subvert the search for peace and security than it does to enhance it. It should be abandoned along with the curious construct, the "war on terror," that gave it life.

"Taxes are the price we pay for civilization"

It's April 30th, a day occasioning two things to smile about: the death of Hitler in 1945 and the filing deadline for your income taxes. As for Hitler shooting himself in the head on April 30th, 1945 ... well, enough said. But paying your income taxes is worth a few words outlining one of our country's best bargains.

At least that's what authors Hugh Mackenzie and Richard Shillington call it in their report, "Canada's Quiet Bargain: The Benefits of Public Spending," published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. The report is full of intriguing observations such as the fact that, depending on the type of tax cut, the vast majority of Canadians are better off with improvements in public services rather than tax cuts, and benefits from public services adds up to more than 50% of the household earned income for more than two-thirds of Canadians.

These conclusions support the opinion of the great American jurist, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., that "taxes are the price we pay for civilization." Taxes allow for not only the basic infrastructure of a society but also for a more equitable, more compassionate society, i.e. a civilization.

As for the argument high taxes diminish a society's prosperity, an argument endlessly repeated in the corporate press, that is a lie. Sweden has the world's highest taxes, and it also has one of the world's highest GDPs per capita, higher than any country in North America. This is hardly a surprise. We should expect a healthy, well-educated population and good physical infrastructure to contribute to a successful economy. Quality is expensive and high quality public services require relatively high taxes. The price is high but the product is, as Mackenzie and Shillington report, a bargain.

The press will continue to push for lower taxes. They are good and faithful servants of the corporations who own them and corporations, focused solely on profit, always want lower taxes. We would all like to pay lower taxes, of course. I would like to pay less for bread, too, but not if it's mouldy. I'm willing to pay the price for good, tasty bread not past its due date, just as I'm willing to pay for high quality public services. I suspect most Canadian feel the same way, both about the bread and the taxes. Best then, to ignore the corporate propaganda.

So send in your taxes and smile; you're about to pay for the biggest bargain in the country. As the report says "For the vast majority of Canada’s population, public services are, to put it bluntly, the best deal they are ever going to get."

When torture worked

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

These immortal words of Pogo have been used a lot lately in the U.S. in the heated debate about the use of torture. Pogo was referring to pollution of the environment, of course, whereas current use refers to the Bush administration's pollution of American values.

Whether or not torture worked for American intelligence continues to be debated, but it certainly worked for the bad guys. I wouldn't attempt to get inside the heads of people who fly planes into tall buildings, but if I had to guess what their objectives were I would suggest two. One, to undermine American values, and two, to ignite a war between the West and Islam.

As far as the first objective is concerned, once the Americans turned to torture, they eroded one of their fundamental principles: respect for human dignity. The Eighth Amendment to the American constitution forbids the use of "cruel and unusual punishment." American values had been successfully undermined by the Americans themselves.

Regarding the second objective, there too, torture proved useful. When Colin Powell made his now-infamous speech at the United Nations to justify to the world an invasion of Iraq, he claimed Saddam Hussein was assisting al-Qaeda in obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and the U.S. knew this because of information they had received from "a senior terrorist operative" who was "now detained." The Americans had indeed obtained such information from a captured member of al-Qaeda, but it was obtained under torture, and it was a lie. The terrorist later recanted his confession, saying he had only wanted to stop the pain. Be that as it may, his information helped achieve exactly what his comrades wanted, to start a war between the West and Islam. Once again, the U.S. had followed the terrorists' script.

The Bush administration had met the enemy and it was themselves.

Jeffrey Simpson, anti-American?

Although I read a daily paper, I don't pay a lot of attention to columnists. Not that their opinions don't matter -- everyone's does -- it's just that, with a few exceptions, most of them are neither entertaining nor informative nor thoughtful enough to spend time on. Their prose is no more rewarding than chatting with the anonymous guy at the bus stop.

I do routinely read Jeffrey Simpson, however. Why I'm not sure, perhaps he's just become a habit. His comfortable, middle-of-the-road style is somehow relaxing, addicting even. That's why his column in last Saturday's Globe "Can We Reduce Our Dependence on America?" caught me off guard. Like many liberal and conservative writers, Simpson feels obliged from time to time to accuse the left of being anti-American. In this column he surprisingly took on task himself. Catch a load of this:

The U.S. got itself massively indebted through terrible government decisions. lax regulation, private-sector greed and a political culture that refused to face elementary facts.

Or this:

... the United States, a country whose share of world trade and general economic activity is declining, whose massive indebtedness and self-indulgence are weakening its power, and whose overstretched military is bleeding the country's resources.

Wow! Let's see a run of the mill anti-American top that. Of course, everything he says is simply the truth, but still, it's quite the rant. And what's this all about? Well, here's the point -- and it's sharp:

It's one thing to be an appendage of a country in the ascendancy; it's quite another to be one of a country that has screwed itself up. Such is Canada's fate.

When even an anti anti-American tees off like this, a mere anti-American may be inclined to think he was right all along.

Tough choice in BC

As much as I appreciate exercising my right to vote, I'm not unhappy I won't be required to exercise it in the coming B.C. election. I would face a choice I would rather avoid. My usual party of choice, the NDP, are on the wrong side of one of the issues of greatest importance to me and sitting on the fence on another.

I believe electoral reform is an essential step toward improving our democracy. The egregious weaknesses of our current voting system, first-past-the-post, are well known. In the upcoming May 12th election, B.C. voters will have the opportunity to dump first-past-the-post and replace it with an excellent proportional system, single transferable vote (STV). To my chagrin, the NDP is not officially taking a position on the referendum even though the great majority of its members support the need for reform. The party of the people is not, it seems, unduly concerned about ensuring the people are fairly represented in their legislature.

An even bigger issue is global warming. Indeed this is the mother of all issues, the one that has to be dealt with if any other issues are going to matter at all. (I don't much like single-issue voting, but when it comes to the most important issue facing humanity, I could make an exception.) One of the key instruments in dealing with global warming is a carbon tax. We, all of us, should pay for our pollution. The B.C. NDP thinks otherwise and promises to rid the province of its carbon tax if elected. After Dion's hapless promotion of it in the federal election, this could fatally harm one of the best tools we have to deal with the greatest challenge we face.

All is not lost however. The B.C. Green Party supports both STV and a carbon tax. As a B.C. voter, I would have an alternative without having to support Gordon Campbell and his Liberals (mind you, they deserve credit for introducing a carbon tax in the first place). Only with reluctance would I abandon the party of which I am a member, but on two issues of this exceptional importance, I would feel forced into it. The NDP complains about the Green Party undermining the left by taking votes away from them --- in B.C. they are handing the Greens votes on a platter.

George W. Bush and Lady Justice

The United States Senate released a report yesterday that directly implicates senior members of the Bush administration in the use of torture. The report, the most detailed investigation yet into the background of "harsh interrogation," undermines the claim of administration officials that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq was solely the work of rogue military personnel. The report connects the dots from former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to Guantanamo to Afghanistan and to Iraq. It states, "The abuse of detainees in U.S. custody cannot simply be attributed to the actions of 'a few bad apples' acting on their own. The fact is that senior officials in the United States government solicited information on how to use aggressive techniques, redefined the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorized their use against detainees." It also claims the administration rejected advice against the techniques from the military, who questioned both the morality and the reliability of information gained. The release of the report coincides with President Obama's setting the stage for possible prosecution of Bush officials.

Bush and his colleagues stand accused of a number of violations of American and international law, but the biggest offence goes deeper. It is the violation of the Rule of Law itself, one of the pillars of our civilization. The Rule of Law simply says we are ruled by laws, not men. Laws are made by men, of course, but once made, they are supreme, even over those who made them. Justice is blind, and therefore does not distinguish between the great and the small. We are, each and every one of us, equally subject to the law. Nowhere is this more important than at the top. The greatest benefit, indeed the prime purpose, of the Rule of Law is to protect society against arbitrary rule. And the Bush administration was very arbitrary, making up the rules as it went along and abandoning U.S. and international law on the way.

Now Americans must decide. Will they allow George W. Bush and his constitutional bandits to get away with breaking not only the law but with fracturing its very foundation? Will they allow the murderers of 9/11, who no doubt intended to assault American values, succeed in undermining one its most fundamental principles? It appears President Obama may be preparing to say no.

Is Ahmadinejad entirely wrong?

Yes, Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad does shamelessly grandstand, and yes, once again he has set the cat among the pigeons on the racism front, but is much of what he says not true? In his tirade at the UN anti-racism conference, he is quoted as calling Israel a "cruel and repressive racist regime."

Let's parse that phrase in terms of Gaza. Wasn't the slaughter of 400 children during Israel's invasion of the strip earlier this year "cruel"? Is not the continuing blockade of Gaza "repressive"? And is denying the one million Palestinian refugees in Gaza the right to return home simply because of their race and religion not "racist"? So where in that phrase is Ahmadinejad wrong or anti-Semitic?

The problem is that Israel wants to maintain its racial integrity -- its very purpose -- and when you do that in a heterogeneous region you wind up doing unpleasant things. Like ethnic cleansing. like apartheid, like collective punishment akin to terrorism, all of which Israel has done. We in the West have great difficulty saying these things because our collective guilt over our mistreatment of the Jews, culminating in the Holocaust, has made Israel by far the most politically correct issue around. Serious criticism just isn't on. Ahmadinejad is not bound by this political correctness and says what he thinks, much of which is nonsense, but some of which is inconveniently true. He says that the Holocaust was a "pretext" for the dispossession of the Palestinians, and wasn't it? It is certainly used by us in the West to justify the state of Israel.

Various motives are ascribed to Ahmadinejad for his attacks on Israel. He is accused of playing to the home crowd with an election coming up, of trying to establish Iran as the leader of the Arab World, of appealing to European anti-Semitism, and maybe some or all of these accusations are true. But is it not also possible he is simply very angry about the suffering of the Palestinians? A great many people in the Middle East are, a sentiment we in the West do not seem willing to accept.

Worth noting is that while European diplomats boycotted the conference or walked out on Ahmadinejad's speech, the representatives of Third World nations stayed to listen, many to applaud. I suspect this is because his views are close to the Arab people's, many of whom understandably see Israel as a colonial imposition, and Third Worlders generally are much more sensitive to colonialism than we are. If we want to contribute to peace in Palestine, and in the Middle East generally, while removing one of the major catalysts of hostility toward the West, we might try listening to Ahmadinejad. Filtering out the chaff, certainly, indeed condemning much of it, but paying attention to the kernels of truth, and certainly appreciating the passion of a Third World voice more broadly representative than we might like to think.

Chavez as Oprah

Look at this picture. It is not a fake. That is the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, presenting a book to the president of the United States, Barack Obama, who is graciously accepting it. And yes, I am not making this up, Chavez is quoted as saying to Obama, "I want to be your friend." Hell may not have frozen over, but relations between the U.S. and its nemeses in Latin America appear to be thawing out. To quote the Venezuelan leader again, "President Obama is an intelligent man, different from the previous one." Yes, indeed, Mr. Chavez, very different indeed.

The book, "Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent" by Eduardo Galeano, has already surged to sixth place on Amazon's U.S. paperback sales chart. Three years ago Chavez praised a book by Noam Chomsky, "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance," and it too shot up to the top of Amazon's bestseller list.

No word yet if Obama is reading his book.

India does democracy proud

Democracy has sometimes been considered a luxury reserved for rich nations. India has, for over 60 years, proved that notion wrong. Despite great poverty and illiteracy, a huge, almost unmanageable, population, and a vast range of ethnic groups and languages, India has remained steadfastly democratic for three generations.

Today, it embarks on its 15th election. It will be, as it always is, the largest democratic ballot in history with over 700 million voters eligible to troop to the polling booths. In order to manage the massive vote, the election will be held in five phases over 28 days. Candidates of over 1,000 registered political parties, from untouchables to members of the upper castes, from cricketers to Bollywood stars, will contest 543 parliamentary seats.

That such a populous, diverse and poor country can succeed at democratic governance is encouraging to democrats everywhere.

Calgary rides the wind

Considering it's a conservative city and home of Canada's oil industry, Calgary is establishing an impressive independence from fossil fuels. The C-Train system already runs entirely on power generated by the wind, and the city is now committing $250-million over 25 years to have all of its operations run by green power. An agreement with city-owned utility Enmax Energy will ensure all municipal operations, from swimming pools to city hall, follow the C-Train lead and are powered by the wind. Enmax will use the $250 million to build more wind farms. "We will become the largest green power consumer of any municipal government in Canada," boasts Mayor Dave Bronconnier. Calgary expects to reduce corporate greenhouse gas emissions to 50 per cent of 1990 levels by 2012.

Environmentalists are quite naturally pleased. Alex Doukas of the Pembina Institute sees this as an example for the province as a whole. "Alberta could go from 70 per cent coal-fired electricity, which is what we have today, to 70 per cent clean electricity in 20 years," he observed.

If the oil capital of Canada can do it, any city can.

Buying a financial crisis

Financial deregulation, the root cause of the current economic crisis, did not occur spontaneously. It is thought of as a product of the ascendancy of neoconservative philosophy since the Reagan/Thatcher era, and of course it is, but it took more than the intellectual force of neoconservatism to make it real. It took cash, and lots of it. According to the report "Sold Out: How Wall Street and Washington Betrayed America," by Robert Weissman and James Donahue, it took at least $5.1-billion US.

That's the amount the financial sector spent on federal lobbying ($3.4-billion) and political campaign contributions ($1.7-billion) in the U.S. in the decade leading up to the meltdown. Merrill Lynch alone spent $68 million and Citigroup $108 million. Big money for big rewards. In 2007, the financial sector was engaging 3,000 lobbyists to influence the federal government, more than five for each Member of Congress, and that only includes those officially registered. It doesn't include corporate PR campaigns or state lobbyists. The crisis was well and truly paid for.

This buying of Washington reveals a truth about our North American political systems. They aren't democracies, they are hybrid systems -- part rule by the people at large, part rule by the rich; part democracy, part plutocracy. The plutocratic part not only buys great influence over politicians, but through its control of the mass media, controls political discourse. And this aside from the power it exerts through domination of the economy.

The crisis has once again reminded us of the greatest challenge facing democracy in the 21st century: the struggle to diminish the power of the plutocracy. We need reminding because the plutocracy often exercises its influence in opaque and insidious ways: lobbying in backrooms, for example, and subtly requiring fealty from its media servants. We are currently paying the price for allowing this plutocratic mischief.

Growth: recipe for salvation or catastrophe?

One thing the nations of the world agree on during the current economic crisis is a need for growth. "The message is growth first," says John Kirton, director of the G20 research group at the University of Toronto. Some world leaders, like U.S. President Barack Obama and British PM Gordon Brown, emphasize stimulus, and others, like German Prime Minister Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy, emphasize regulation, but all support growth.

The need for a rejuvenated economy is overwhelmingly obvious, but is growth the panacea world leaders, uncritically supported by the mass media, think it is? They seemingly refuse to recognize that growth has limits. The planet is finite. And we are exhausting it. We are well past the point where it can sustain itself against our ravenous demand for growth.

Actually, growth hasn't been doing us all that much good lately. At least not us rich folks. Inequality is higher in the OECD countries than it was 20 years ago, and middle-class incomes in Western countries were stagnant in real terms long before the recession. Growth has, however, benefited poor nations. In China and India, for example, it has lifted millions of people out of poverty and we in the West can hardly criticize that. Nonetheless, we are left facing the outcome of billions more people aspiring to the level of affluence of the wealthier nations. To achieve that equality, the world economy will have to increase 15 times by 2050 and 40 times by the end of the century. At that rate, we will soon have an environmental crisis that will dwarf the existing economic crisis ... if it doesn't already.

The challenge, therefore, would seem to be less about restoring the destructive economic model of the past and more about replacing it with a sustainable yet balanced model, a world economy that reduces exploitation in the West while allowing undeveloped countries to catch up, an economy less about growth and more about sharing. The current crisis presents an opportunity to take up this challenge, to take a serious look at the structure of the world economy and consider serious changes.

An essential start is redefining prosperity. We seem to rely solely on GDP to measure our economic status even though it's more a yardstick of exploitation than of human welfare. There are a number of indexes out there that focus on human well-being generally, including the state of our environment, rather than solely on consumption as the GDP does. Any new definition must in its international application redefine prosperity so as to allow room for much-needed growth in poorer nations.

A recent report entitled "Prosperity Without Growth: The Transition to a Sustainable Economy," issued by the Sustainable Development Commission, the British government's "independent watchdog on sustainable development," presents a thorough analysis on how to shift to a world economy the planet can live with. The report recommends 12 steps to achieve a sustainable economy. These include investing heavily in jobs, assets and infrastructure for a green economy, increasing financial prudence, developing more environmentally sound measures of economic accounting and prosperity, sharing work and improving work-life balance, reducing economic inequality, creating healthier and more resilient communities, reversing the culture of consumerism, imposing clear global limits on resource use and pollution, creating ecological-based tax systems, promoting technology transfer to undeveloped countries, and funding investment globally in renewable energy, energy efficiency, and the protection of carbon sinks and biodiversity in developing countries. Each of these steps is expanded upon in detail in the report.

Economic growth has become discordant with both environmental sustainability and human well-being, and it is time for world leaders to seek economic structures that are compatible with these elements. Unfortunately, they are rising to the challenge only with reluctance ... if at all.