Against Democracy

Tags

a no-party system, American decline, are leaders needed, Cambridge Analytica, Canada, change, corporate greed, corporate meddling, corrupt politics, electoral ignorance, fake democracy, fascism, Gandhi, Illiberal democracy, lobbyists, media, paul william roberts, Plato, political hackers, Quebec separatism, revolution, Rousseau, US collapse, vested interests, voter rights

“The inflexibility of the laws can, in some circumstances, make them dangerous and cause the ruin of a state in a crisis. If the danger is such that the machinery of the laws is an obstacle, then a dictator is appointed, who silences the laws.”

 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract

 

We may well wonder whether Rousseau is stating a fact here or being prescriptive, if indeed he discerned any difference between the two. Popularly viewed as the Father of the French Revolution, and hence a progenitor of European liberty, equality and fraternity, Rousseau is often mistakenly regarded as a proponent of democracy, which he indeed viewed as a perfect system of governance but, he stressed, one that would only work for a perfect society, a society he characterized, inter alia, as “one of gods, not men.” He was in fact an advocate of the simple life, an existence close to nature, in tune with natural cycles and the land. It resembles Gandhi’s vision of an India consisting of villages engaged in rural tasks and farming. These prescriptions for harmonious societies would seem to conflict and contrast with Plato’s Republic, which is distinctly a city-state, yet they all flounder on the concept of democracy, its meaning and function. For Plato, democracy – from demos, loosely ‘the people’ – is undesirable inasmuch as it results in mob rule. He charts four stages of rule: timocracy (rule by property-owners), oligarchy, democracy, and finally tyranny. By ‘tyranny’ he means essentially what Rousseau means by ‘dictator’, the not necessarily bad rule of a strong central figure, who steps in to correct the chaos of mob rule and unite the state. In the tribal or kinship-based societies of Africa, Melanesia and elsewhere, this is the “Big Man”, a perceived natural leader chosen for the position, not born to it. In post-republican Rome such a government was symbolized by the fasces, the commonly-displayed image of an axe bound around by sticks, origin of the word ‘fascism’. We have become so accustomed to thinking of democracy as good and, largely thanks to Nazism, fascism being bad that we now seem to be incapable of an objective view of either.

 

I will limit this mainly to the Canadian situation for brevity’s sake and because it’s where I live. What is democracy in Canada? Well, it’s a vote for everyone of age, a vote they can cast basically for one of three political parties, the winner forming a government, often with a majority in the House of Commons that allows them to enact whatever legislation or reforms they have promised from their electoral platform. The party with the next most votes gets to form an official opposition, and generally spends the next four years decrying everything the government does. The third party, nominally socialistic in ideology, and usually the New Democratic Party, has the luxury of criticizing both parties and proposing reforms it will rarely if ever be called upon to put in place, which creates a tendency towards the impractical if not the downright fanciful, and always prohibitively expensive. While the two main parties present themselves as dramatically divergent in ideology and outlook, citizens are forced to concede that when it comes to actual government there is very little difference between them, and certainly scant difference in the public effects of their rule. Taxes remain far too high; the cost of living steadily increases. Those who can tolerate the schoolyard cacophony of tuning into parliamentary shenanigans are frequently forced to admit the experience is far from salutary and often close to embarrassing. The time and vast amounts of money taken up by committees and commissions – the answers to all government dilemmas – is dishearteningly wasteful, as are the billions apportioned to boondoggles, foreign aid – when aid is needed at home — the military, and countless other dubious enterprises over which the average citizen, who finances them, has no say whatsoever. Ruling parties often come a cropper with corruption scandals, but are rarely called to account for them in any meaningful way, beyond, that is, being short of votes in the next election.

 

What is it that makes up a voter’s mind about which party to vote for? True, there are people who rather inanely and illogically always vote for the same party, presumably wantonly ignorant or uncaring of the position taken on current issues. Perhaps sadder still are those multitudes who vote for a leader they imagine to be attractive or personable, as if a seemingly nice guy or gal cannot fail to be a great Prime Minister. Then there are all those whose vote is based on some envisaged personal gain: Pot will be legal: daycare will be free. And so on. Besides the first group, whose opinion was concretized somehow in a distant era, all of these decisions are based on media coverage in some way, or perhaps we ought to call it media manipulation. The grating shallowness and vacuity of many voters is frequently highlighted by man-on-the-street interviews, where you hear either the repetition of some party boast or slogan, or else mind-boggling nonsense usually addressing the interviewee’s pet peeve. And it is the amassing, measuring and categorizing of such peeves that parties scrutinize avidly for new avenues of vote-trawling. 49 percent think there’s too much immigration? Well, maybe we should say there is too much? Or should we say there’s not enough? What do the 51 percent think? It has nothing to do with the issue itself; it is simply about the votes. This is what Plato means by mob rule, the dictatorship of uneducated masses whose vote is obtained by the chanting of shibboleths: the swamp will be drained; tax dollars will be used to benefit tax payers; economic equality will be striven for; et cetera.

 

Should everyone have the right to vote? Yes, but only if they can prove they know why they’re voting and what for. I proposed a voters’ test years ago, to be howled at: fascist, elitist, and so on. I propose it again. What is wrong with a simple test that proves you understand the issues at stake and the positions taken by standing parties? It strikes me that the only possible objections would be from parties now unable to bamboozle, wheedle and con votes out of a vast chunk of the electorate whose uninformed vote is no more meaningful than the yells of a hockey crowd. But the elected government will place inestimable importance on those votes, proclaiming them as the mandate to do whatever it was they promised to do – although the outcome is rarely anything like the promo for it, and, no matter what happens, the rich will get richer, the poor sink slowly, and everyone else will struggle to remain above water. The rule of law is a boon trumpeted far and wide, but justice is far from just. To the well-off, a hundred-dollar speeding ticket is nothing; to the poor it is a day’s wages, the difference between surviving and suffering a little. This is not remotely just. Nor is a system that makes justice a commodity you can buy: the rich man or the corporation with lawyers on staff or retainer can tie up someone of modest means in a lawsuit that will either bankrupt them or impel them to abandon a civil action that may be just and honorable. The same is true for criminal cases: the person who can afford a good lawyer usually gets a far better result. Our prisons are full of poor people. It is said that anyone can run for political office, but those who have explored the possibility discover you need far more than good will to succeed at this: you need money. Little wonder that the ruling elites of whatever stripe, most but not all of them, come from affluent backgrounds, and some are multimillionaires. Many are lawyers, who earn a thousand dollars an hour or more, and are also trained to present right as wrong, or wrong as negligible. Without inherited wealth it is difficult, but admittedly not impossible, to thrive in business. Big corporations receive government funds – tax dollars – that are frequently spent on giving top executives annual bonuses amounting sometimes to a lifetime’s earnings for the average worker, who is taxed mercilessly on a pittance, and then taxed whenever she or he buys or sells anything, seeks licenses or permits, and in many more insidious ways. In return we get the system, its laws and police, who are surprisingly unhelpful if you ever need their help, and intolerably rude if you fall foul of them in your vehicle. Then there is the health care, which private insurance has to fund anyway for those expecting top-notch care, and which in some provinces is scandalously bad. The inequities go on, and on.   Is this the democracy promised in its brochures? No wonder the young are not voting in ever-increasing numbers. They see through the charade, realize it is merely a performance called Democracy and designed to create an impression that we have one, as if changing parties every four years were the very soul spinning there in the body politic, new brooms sweeping clean, a change finally arrived, the nation great again. Could a business operate on such lines, the owner and employees gone every four years? Perhaps it could, but the real question is why would it run that way, considering the expense involved and an incoming staff, even a chief, with little or no experience of the work? In fact government ministries rely totally on a formidable excess of civil servants who are permanent, unelected and ready to work for whichever government comes next, no matter if they find its stated policies detestable or conducive. The ruling party is then, in very real terms, a façade designed to promote a certain image with its specific message or messages intended to create for citizens the illusion that these people are different. Millions are spent on marketing, branding, psychological studies, niche identification and the innumerable vagaries of leading-edge advertising in order to conceive, shape and create such illusions. Nowhere is more being spent now than on the political weaponization of social media and the Internet. The news that Russia was doing this at home and in our home ought to have galvanized some dog-hole in CSIS rather than, as was the case, setting lightbulbs ablaze inside the brains of campaign managers and strategists, who immediately asked, “Wow, well how is that done, eh?” This, instead of drafting legislation to stop abuses and nail the perpetrators. The circus will now be a CGI show, hard to tell from the real thing, and sending you – just you – news morsels it just knows you’ll adore, because you’ve clicked like thirty times on this or that. They’re vampires of attention, because once they have yours – with some trifle or innocent vice – you’re their creature, moving up to the next level. With referenda like Brexit or Catalan independence, the fear is that an organization on the lines of Cambridge Analytica will be able to sway the vote by fair means or foul. The 1995 referendum on Quebec sovereignty – to be clear, the dismantling of Canada – was very close indeed. A digital push and the minority becomes a majority. In the recent Quebec election, an extraordinarily large percentage of the electorate was still undecided who to vote for a day before the election. These are voters easily lured by misleading promises or unwarranted warnings.

 

Why hold elections every four years? It is the performance of that drama created so you will know beyond all doubt you dwell in a democracy, one which has of late taken to US-style braggadocio in trumpeting “the greatest country on earth” and seizing on those spurious statisticians who announce “Canada: best country on earth to live for vegetarian flautists and ballerinas of larger body-type.” Statistics, as we know, can be manipulated to show any result desired of them.  A poll or a chart is not, I’m afraid, going to give you even the faintest glimpse of what really goes on in the halls, amphitheaters, chambers, back rooms, cabinets, weekends on the links or in Bermuda, and in the many late night bars where big decisions are made. There is so much for the enterprising investigative journalist here, but who will print it? Objectivity is vanishing fast from the media, so unless a voter is willing to research a bit independently her or his vote may well soon be yet another commodity bought by those who can afford it. Democracy is no longer what it ought to be and is far from democratic. Is it time to change the system to one where there are no parties or leaders, just elected (and thoroughly vetted) experts running the nation for the nation?

 

Regarding Rousseau’s opening quote: One instantly thinks of Doug Ford’s move to shrink town hall. If I trusted Ford and believed his motives were purely altruistic, I’d have to concede that smaller government is a good thing, a thing to aspire to everywhere. But the whole Ford family is too hand-in-glove with big business to be trusted, no matter how much ‘populist sloganeering goes on. What is wrong with big business and a thriving economy, you ask. Nothing inherently, but a corporation is legally bound to make decisions benefitting its shareholders, and legally not allowed to make decisions which will reduce profits. Such restrictions particularly affect environmental issues. A costly waste disposal system that will greatly benefit the environment and is not mandated by law will not be built because its price will reduce profits. Capitalism is a fine way to create and expand a business, but to keep the share price and dividends growing profits must increase quarterly, no matter how this increase is achieved. Lay-offs, reduced quality of manufactures, and other cost-cutting measures often result from this, and as a long-term principle it has obvious problems. Such huge concerns contribute much and in many ways, not all of them legal, to political campaigns. This is not done from sheer altruism of course, and what these companies want in return are a myriad of things only governments can do, from rezoning land to acquiring permits and licenses for all manner of activities. Needless to say, some of these perquisites will not be in the public’s best interests. While Ottawa or Toronto is not infested with lobbyists for vested interests the way Washington is, Canadian politics is far from free of them. The health of the economy is always presented as something of unquestioned good for all citizens, but this is not necessarily so. The increasing privatization of major utilities is provably not in the best interests of anyone, except perhaps the new owners. Such concerns should all be state-owned since they are so vital to the welfare of all. I would include internet service providers in this group too, since the internet is no longer a luxury toy and indispensable to all, rich or poor, young or old. If any of our governments had a real concern for our well-being they would have nationalized all such utilities and operated them on a not-for-profit basis. Instead all have perpetuated the lie that nationalized industries are always badly run and costly. Ontario Hydro users can attest to this falsity, now paying some of the highest rates in Canada for a second-rate, callous and avaricious service. In short, democracy has failed us and continues to fail, continuing also to masquerade as something it is decidedly not. As we watch the steady decline and fall of America, riven by corporate greed and corruption, along with a broken political system, we ought to give serious consideration, we the people, to taking back our governance before it is too late. Revolutions must be planned carefully, to make sure that what replaces the old is not worse than it was. This requires prolonged study and the good will of all concerned; but I believe it is possible in this country, more than most in the West, to evolve a planning committee dedicated to a reasoned approach to replacing what is crumbling and atavistic with something that fully reflects the decency and egalitarianism of the public, while not exploiting the ignorance of some. Change is not just another slogan; it is a viable possibility with an intelligent population such as ours. A better society can only come into being through will, effort and a clear perception that what we currently have is collapsing and, if people of good will do not participate in the transformation, will be co opted by far darker forces, ones whose best interests are their own. I’d be interested in hearing arguments against this modest proposal and for the current system.

 

Early Dog Days

Tags

Canada, China, trump

 

RIP Liou Zha Bo, a great friend of world peace and true democracy, a scholar and a poet, who tended to view his country through a lens too sharp for his time. Like everywhere, China is different. Her governments don’t brook criticism – not from anyone, except, occasionally, themselves – which tells you they’re insecure, understandably uncertain how they’d deal with the rising up of a billion disaffected people. Better to crush all nascent dissent, and give everyone else a little taste of wealth. Just a little. Better also to let the waking dragon roar a bit at the world, at the coffers and vaults of the west. It’s been asleep for so long. But, all in all, is the US any more tolerant of vehement dissent? Was there any real substantial difference between the Kent State massacres and Tiananmen Square? And China hasn’t sent 500,000 young men and women to their deaths in foreign wars over the past fifty years, has she? Let the dragon yawn and stretch; its time is surely nigh, and then we shall have to change our indolent ways.

 

Julie Paillette (my spelling is aural, not visual, so forgive if necessary). A wonderful choice for the new Canadian Governor-General. Her Majesty will probably enjoy chatting with an astronaut, someone who has obtained a real perspective on this world. Kudos to le Petit. I am hard on him, true, but only because I want him to be perfect – which, alas, he’s far from being, as are we all. I think he wants to do the right thing; but I suspect there are more powerful forces preventing him, consigning him to a purely decorative role. Will he have his father’s integrity and grit, to speak out one day? – that’s the question. We deserve to know who really holds the reins here, even if there’s nothing we can do about it. Or nothing legal, nothing peaceful.

 

Your Money and Your Life

Tags

atomic war, Canada, einstein, politics, taxation

 

 

Dear Taxpayer,

Do you feel that the government does not truly value the 35% of your income it claims? I do. This week’s examples: $500 million tossed away on a fantastically frivolous and fairly unpopular 150^th anniversary of Canada being handed over to a bunch of racist white guys in frock coats who ran it anyway. The $i0.5 million awarded as an apology to the terrorist Omar Kottar, because at the time he murdered an American medic and blinded another man he was a “child soldier” and thus knew not what he did. He wasn’t five, he was fifteen, a man in those parts of the world whence his family originates. Boys his age have been sentenced as adults in the UK and elsewhere if the crime warrants it. If Kottar was old enough to handle a rifle and throw hand grenades, he’s old enough to pay the price. So Canada trampled over some Charter rights in the process – who cares? Why should a terrorist have any rights? They don’t accord us rights. That the taxpayer should be forced to compensate this man to the tune of $10.5 million is scandalous, another grandstanding world gesture by Trudeau le Petit to bolster up his global image as cool dude PM. Not at home, pal. Add to this the planned $ trillion on defense and you wonder if there ought to be some curb on government spending. The half billion spent on a hundred-foot duck and a birthday jamboree could have been used to keep all those idle promises to improve the lot of indigenous communities. The trillion on death machines could make this place paradise. But no – the same old shit. We should demand an Internet plebiscite on all spending over X amount of dollars. You want to blow half a billion on pompous frippery, press Yes or No.

 

But the UN finally managed to do something useful. They passed a treaty banning nuclear weapons. Except – surprise, surprise – the 122 signees were all countries that do not possess nuclear weapons. Disgracefully, Canada did not sign, losing an opportunity to be a meaningful world leader. Did your government ask you if you wanted to ban nuclear weapons? No, of course not. The arrogant Dark Lords want to keep their toys, which “act as a deterrent”. A deterrent against what or whom? Have we not been dragged into enough pointless European conflicts by Britain now to be willing participants in endless US global rumbles? You would think we’ve learnt our lesson, and perhaps we have – but the Molochs on Parliament Hill haven’t. Besides, fear makes for strong governments. Let me tell you something about fear. In 1955, Betrand Russell and Albert Einstein – then widely considered to be the two most intelligent men alive – issued a manifesto on the dangers of nuclear war. It was co-signed by eleven other individuals, ten of them Nobel laureates. Einstein died shortly thereafter, but said that it was his firm conviction that if we did not rid the world of nuclear weapons the human race had a hundred years left at the most. The text stands today as it did then, except we should probably add at least one zero where applicable. Read it for yourself and decide how far behind intelligent people the world actually is. By the way, Joseph Rotblat was the only scientist to quit the Manhattan Project in protest.

 

The Russell-Einstein Manifesto

 

9 July 1955

 

In the tragic situation which confronts humanity, we feel that scientists should assemble in conference to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction, and to discuss a resolution in the spirit of the appended draft.

 

We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism.

 

Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire.

 

We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another. All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it.

 

We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?

 

The general public, and even many men in positions of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with nuclear bombs. The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities. It is understood that the new bombs are more powerful than the old, and that, while one A-bomb could obliterate Hiroshima, one H-bomb could obliterate the largest cities, such as London, New York, and Moscow.

 

No doubt in an H-bomb war great cities would be obliterated. But this is one of the minor disasters that would have to be faced. If everybody in London, New York, and Moscow were exterminated, the world might, in the course of a few centuries, recover from the blow. But we now know, especially since the Bikini test, that nuclear bombs can gradually spread destruction over a very much wider area than had been supposed.

 

It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 2,500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima.

 

Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radio-active particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. It was this dust which infected the Japanese fishermen and their catch of fish.

 

No one knows how widely such lethal radio-active particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.

 

Many warnings have been uttered by eminent men of science and by authorities in military strategy. None of them will say that the worst results are certain. What they do say is that these results are possible, and no one can be sure that they will not be realized. We have not yet found that the views of experts on this question depend in any degree upon their politics or prejudices. They depend only, so far as our researches have revealed, upon the extent of the particular expert’s knowledge. We have found that the men who know most are the most gloomy.

 

Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?1 People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.

 

The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term “mankind” feels vague and abstract. People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity. They can scarcely bring themselves to grasp that they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent danger of perishing agonizingly. And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited.

 

This hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use H-bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture H-bombs as soon as war broke out, for, if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious.

 

Although an agreement to renounce nuclear weapons as part of a general reduction of armaments would not afford an ultimate solution, it would serve certain important purposes.

 

First, any agreement between East and West is to the good in so far as it tends to diminish tension. Second, the abolition of thermo-nuclear weapons, if each side believed that the other had carried it out sincerely, would lessen the fear of a sudden attack in the style of Pearl Harbour, which at present keeps both sides in a state of nervous apprehension. We should, therefore, welcome such an agreement though only as a first step.

 

Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war. We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.

 

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

 

Resolution:

 

We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:

 

“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”

 

Signatories:

 

Max Born

Percy W. Bridgman

Albert Einstein

Leopold Infeld

Frederic Joliot-Curie

Herman J. Muller

Linus Pauling

Cecil F. Powell

Joseph Rotblat

Bertrand Russell

Hideki Yukawa

The Canadian Empire

Tags

army, Canada, defense, trudeal

     

Let’s say I have a thousand dollars to spend on my house and my large property. The house is in bad need of repairs. I have relatives living in a cottage on the grounds that is in even worse shape: they have no running water there too. An uncle of mine is living on the streets, homeless. But what I decide to do with my thousand dollars is buy some guns and install a security system for my property. Does this make sense? Well, this is what Trudeau le Petit, PM of Canada has decided to do with his thousand dollars – sorry, your trillion dollars.

 

All those cosy little dinners with Obama must have given him delusions of grandeur. First Christia Freeland, the Foreign Affairs Minister, says Canada should step up to the plate, the plate evidently vacated by America, and then we hear, the following day, that we shall increase our defense spending by 70 percent. Not on my tax dollars, brother! Who exactly are we defending ourselves against with this massive increase? Ah, we find, a few days later, with effusive CBC coverage, it must be the Russians. For a detachment of Canadian troops is now settling comfortably in to protect the Latvians from the Bear. Many Latvians say this protection is unnecessary – the Bear is friendly. And, one is forced to think, how much protection will 600 Canadians afford against the Russian military?

 

This country ought to set a real example and adopt a pacifist constitution – save the trillion dollars for what is needed here – yet it won’t. You wonder if there are dreams of empire in the PM’s office – a sunny little empire not at all despotic. If wisdom reigned, these little corners of erstwhile empire would be left to sort out their own problems in their own time. We weren’t dragged into modernity by the scruff the neck, and nor should they be. But until we wake up to our interference in their worlds, they will be.

 

Paul William Roberts

The Terror Comes to Quebec

Tags

Canada, Islam, justin trudeau, kevin o'leary, Quebec, quebec city, racism, shooting, terrorism

 

The response of Canada in general and Quebec in particular to the murder of five men and the wounding of many more in a Quebec City mosque has been deeply gratifying, and it defines the difference between this country and the United States. The violence of a self-professed white supremecitst neo-Nazi, along with his guns, is clearly very alien here – and so it should be – shocking the entire nation merely by its appearance, which is a quotidian affair down south. For the first time, Prime Minister Trudeau Le Petit proved he is not the invertebrate he has seemed to be over the past year, delivering a number of impassioned speeches – remarkably free of his usual neurotic gasps and ahs – that hit precisely the right note of unification within diversity, of a common identity despite trivial differences, of neighbourliness, mutual assistance in troubled times, and a common understanding that overrides all the hateful actions of a miniscule minority. This may well be Trudeau’s Winston-Churchill-Moment, his Finest Hour, his Blitz. Despite snide comments from the useless Opposition Party leaders, he has continued to walk the fine line between Canada’s vital trade with the US and the need to uphold and protect our values as an open and welcoming nation for refugees and immigrants, no matter where they come from or what faith they profess. Given the recent and interminable provocations from the White House, this is no easy thing for someone of such avowedly liberal inclinations. As leader of the not-always-so-liberal Liberal Party, it is a balancing-act requiring enormously deft skill. If Trudeau emerges unbloodied from his soon-to-be meeting with the new American President, and if our trading relationship is still intact — $ 2 billion crosses that border daily – then his stature will be increased manifold, the once-concealed titanium backbone visible for all to see. After the gamboling and shilly-shallying of this past year, it is remarkable to find that Le Petit has a much deeper and stronger core in him, and can at times seem to understand truly what he talks about – or maybe it is just a matter of truly caring about that of which he talks?

 

It is fortunate that the Quebec City shooter proved to be a lone wolf. Early reports had stated that there were two assailants, one with a Muslim name – a claim that Fox News was still posting three days later, 72 hours after it had been disavowed by the police here. More kudos to Trudeau for a letter from his office accusing Fox of “playing identity politics” and demanding that the post come down — which it duly did, complete with a rare apology. Trudeau termed the mosque murders “a terrorist attack”, which was true enough, but it may have made the more feeble-minded media fixate upon the usual terrorist act, which to them is so-called Islamist agents mowing down us infidels wherever we gather. It is more complicated than this, of course, but terrorism is also US drone attacks that “inadvertently” slaughter hundreds of innocent civilians. It is the invasion of sovereign states too, and the CIA financing or fomenting of rebellions against democratically-elected governments all over the globe. Since September 11^th 2001, there have been less than 50 citizens killed in the US by identifiable terrorists working on behalf of an “Islamist” organization – and those few killers were all US-born American citizens, who only imagined they were Muslims. Worldwide, the death-toll of innocents as a direct result of US covert operations is unknown – the Pentagon openly states that “we don’t do body-counts” – but it is believed to number, over the past decade, in the high six figures. So the balance of terror is well in Washington’s favour, or to its shame – and this is what principally motivates those we view, rightly or wrongly, as the Enemy. What happened in Quebec City does not therefore easily compute in the minds of all too many journalists, who are now focussing like hungry vultures on all the grief and heartbreak, as well as, with immense satisfaction, on all the national peace and love, all the weeping vigils, the flowers and gift-baskets. The term “lone wolf” equals “homicidal psychopath” – nearly impossible to predict or prevent – which means his motives are not worth seeking out, because insanity is its own impermeable motivation.

 

I cannot help thinking, however, how different the reactions of Canadians would be had the victims in Quebec been us, the white majority, and the murderers self-alleged Muslims. People forget that western Islamic communities are also much in need of support, comfort and sheer neighbourliness after such events as the Paris attacks or the Brussels bombings, when they feel most unsafe and fearful. What they most fear and feel unsafe about is what just happened in a Quebec mosque. It is good that we are finally hearing this from the lips of Canadian Muslims, many of whom now tell of more minor hate-crimes they’ve experienced, or the random hostility of strangers that makes wives, daughters and mothers afraid to walk the streets in daylight. But we must remember all of this when next we hear of Islamist terror attacks.

 

 

The Islam of 99.999 percent of Muslims is a religion of peace, compassion and fraternity — period. And Muslims are, after all is said and done, only 0.3 of Canada’s population. If we took in a million more refugees – which we could do and should do – they would only amount to 0.6 of the population. Nothing.

 

 

Just as the Torah, Tanakh and the Gospels contain passages of an horrendously bloodthirty or hateful nature, so, unfortunately, does the Holy Koran. But these texts were all written by and for a nomadic and clannishly warlike peoples many hundreds of years ago – yet all orthodox believers contend that they are the words of God, and thus cannot be edited or revised. The Kabbalists, just like the Sufis and Christian mystics, have found an interpretive way around this dilemma, and it is to be hoped that the mainstream of all three monotheisms will eventually follow suit. The Koran (which means “recited verses”) is, as its name suggests, meant to be chanted aloud, not read in silence. The classical Arabic in which it was written makes a good third of the text impossible to understand with any certainty, because, at its earliest stage, the written language more closely resembles a mnemonic device to aid those chanting the suras from memory – as the faithful are urged to do, because the words are, if often opaque in meaning, surpassingly beautiful to hear. This linguistic difficulty also means that all translations are necessarily interpretations, just as all interpretations are not necessarily accurate transmissions of meaning. Any devout Muslim scanning a terrorist website – many of which are funded by the fabulously wealthy and heretical Saudi Arabian Wahhabite sect – will instantly recognize quotations taken out of context, or drawn from writings other than the Koran and posted without any ascription. But the untutored youthful rebel looking for a cause will not know this. We must now remember that the radicalized Muslim kid is no different than Alexandre Bissonette, the 27-year-old Quebec neo-Nazi shooter – except you don’t really have to sift through or take out of context anything in the rantings of Adolf Hitler to find something suitably repulsive, hateful and violent for a causus belli.

 

The Province of Quebec, where I live, seems to be embarrassed or shamed by this horrible act, and she protesteth too much methinks. Such a strong showing of many thousandsturning out in support of the Muslim community, and many politicians, both provincial and federal – including the Prime Minister – joining them, belies the fact that Quebec has a darker and uglier side. You know this is true when the Premier denies it is true – not to mention the revelation that French radio shock-jocks in the province often broadcast racist rants. I don’t listen to French radio, but obviously someone does – and not a few someones, either, if advertising incomes are to be profitable enough to warrant keeping the shouters on air. Mordechai Richler recalled seeing hotel signs in the fifties reading No Jews or Dogs, and we still often hear of defiled mosques, synagogues, religious community centres, and of desecrated Jewish cemetaries. There are no Muslim cenetaries here – yet. The simple truth is that hate-crime stats in Quebec are far higher than those for the rest of this country. As Jean-Paul Sartre observed, the Jew exists only in the mind of the anti-semite – and it follows that the Muslim only exists in the mind of the Islamophobe. This glimpse of real Quebec Muslims that we are now getting, curtesy of their immense tragedy, ought to dispel the fantasy-images based on fear and ignorance. As Premier Cuillard wishfully stated, perhaps this is a turning-point in Quebec history. But, if it is merely hinged upon the nature of another terrorist attack, perhaps it is not.

 

French Canadiens imagine they have a long history of grievances against the English – whom they also imagine dominate federal government and are imposing multiculturalism on them – when in fact the British, after their 1759 consquest, could hardly have treated them more equitably. They kept their language, their legal system and the Catholic faith, when the norms of conquest dictated that English language and law should be imposed. No one in Britain at the time was allowed to practice Catholicism, so the Quebecois were in effect treated more liberally than British citizens. But a conquered people are never allowed to be content – it’s human nature. They complain endlessly, just as the Israelites in the Wilderness complained to Moses about everything. A largely imaginary grudge has now festered here for something short of 300 years, and it views anything deemed alien as an imposition by the despised English, who are believed to run everything with malign intentions – even though no government can be elected without the vast Quebecois vote. Despite the fact that Canada declares itself to be a multicultural country in the Charter of Rights, Quebec, which is even recognized by Ottawa as a “nation”, officially announces that it is proudly not multicultural. Everyone just shrugs: c’est les Francais. Many hardliners here, always seeking referenda to separate from Canada and be a litral sovereign nation, view such things as Indigeneous reservations and rights, as well as the current high immigration stats to be malignant impositions by the English-speaking majority, and designed to undermine or erode Quebecois values. Hardly anyone in the whole country denies their right to speak French, more or less, or pursue a unique and somewhat French-like culture, more or less. I for one find it an oasis of charm and politesse in the North American desert. But the Internet and social media are slowly eroding this from within, and young Quebecois are becoming increasingly bilingual, cognizant of their place in a still largely Anglo continent. This is bound to suffer blowback – and so it is. Just as the advent of Donald Trump is really all about a yearning for simpler, greater, whiter times, so the rise of Quebecois racism is really all about Francophile xenophobia and the pipe-dream of sovereignty – which is rapidly fading in the harsh light of a new day. But much of Quebec remains a backwater of startlingly primitive and ignorant communities, sheltered from North American realities by a media of stunningly narrow and parochial concerns. It is not unlike conditions in rural areas of the southern US states, fed on Fox Opinions and the intemperate tirades of Trump, along with the mad barrage of right-wing radio and fundamentalist Christian televangelists. Education is of course the only answer to this woeful condition, and education in Quebec – as it is in much of the US – has deteriorated into a muddle of confusion and nonsense, depriving first to sixth-graders of the bilingualism they most need and which could be most easily taught as conversation to kids of that age. Not a few here believe that this failure in the school system is designed to prevent the Quebecois from exploring the Big World, and thus retaining their Anglophobia, which will enslave them to atavistic sovereignist values and concerns. It will not and cannot work, for human beings are inevitably drawn to a critical mass – and what happened in that mosque does seem to be forming a new mass-opinion of some considerable size.

 

It is also trashing the vain hopes of Canada’s Francophobic wannabe Trump, Kevin O’Leary – who actually seems to live mostly in America. True to the idiotically insensitive form of his role-model, Kev – wealthy entrepreneur of dubious ethics, and abusive reality-TV co-host – posted online a video of himself laughing maniacally as he fired off a machine-gun in a Florida shooting range. You might say this was somewhat lacking in empathy after the Quebec slaughter – and many did say it. So many indeed that one of his lackies apologetically took down the offending video. But Kev had to lie, saying he took it down “out of respect” for the slain. Well, it was what Trump would have done, wasn’t it? What Trump wouldn’t have done, however, is run for the leadership of a party three years away from any general election. Perhaps Kev miscalculated this? In the unlikely event that he wins, he will have to spend over two years as Opposition Leader in the terminally boring House of Parliament – and show up nearly every day for even more terminally boring and stultifyingly trivial or petty debates. The media will be watching. He can’t return to his Big American Life, can he? Worse still, he can’t be sure of winning the 2019 eklection either – especially if sunny-boy Le Petit retains his backbone. Worse than that is the gambit of modelling himself after Trump, and thus being tied to the Trump fortunes – which even the most flamboyant bookmakers are currently not giving good odds on. The Puritanical dinosaur, Mike Pence, is by far the favourite in this race to avoid a  common doom. No, Kev has not thought this through at all. At what point will he say it’s all rigged? In fact it is rigged in my opinion – rigged to end in preposterous confusion whatever happens. Like the US system, ours is broken beyond repair. It’s an 18^th-century relic that belongs in a museum of governance. But you cannot replace it by running as a candidate who will dismantle government, can you? The only question worth asking is: can it be done peacefully, and then what will replace it? I suggest a look at the Vedic texts on this subject, and a study of the Torah’s social laws. Wise men always knew how best to organize and govern any society. It has been unwise men who’ve fouled the nest.

 

Paul William Roberts

 

 

RIP John Berger & Ottawoes

Tags

art, Canada, john berger, Ottawa, politics

RIP John Berger

 

Last week the esteemed writer and Marxist art critic, John Berger, died at the ripe old age of 95. Best known for his seminal book Ways of Seeing, and the four-part television series based on it (currently available free on U-Tube), Berger began his career as a painter, but abandoned this for writing, because “painting seemed to be irrelevant in a world so chaotic and conflicted”. Irrelevant or not, he certainly devoted much time to thinking about it once he had ceased to practice. Notable among his acute perceptions was the fact that photography has transformed the way art is viewed. Renaissance masterpieces were generally spiritual or religious in nature, designed to be viewed in a single location – most often a church of some sort – where they were installed as a central part of the overall structure. Icons were even believed to possess a numinousity of their own which merited extreme veneration. But now these images can be viewed in our homes, with our wallpaper, carpets and furniture as their background. They can also appear in books, as postcards, beer-mats, posters, and be imprinted on T-shirts or any other fabric. All of this radically alters the meaning and nature of the image itself. In referring to the National Gallery in London’s Virgin of the Rocks, by Leonardo Da Vinci, he observed that, in the gallery’s catalogue, the description of this painting ran to fourteen pages of dense scholarship about provenance and previous owners. None of this, he said, really concerns the picture. It is there to affirm the work’s authenticity – and mainly to disavow the authenticity of the same painting hanging in the Louvre, where the French insist that it is the English not they who have the copy. So art becomes about its value, about money rather than beauty or genius. The very hefty gilded frames that adorn these masterpieces suggest no less than this. Berger must have marvelled at recent auction sales, where both Lucien Freud and the still-living Peter Doig had works sell for close to 30 million. He noted that information also changes our perception, citing the familiar example of the cornfield with crows painted by Van Gogh an hour before he shot himself. Then he turned to Franz Hals vast portrait of the almoners’ directorate, observing that our view of these stark and sombre, white-frilled faces is dramatically changed by knowing that, before he embarked on the painting, the alms house had given grindingly poor old Hals three loads of peat to prevent him freezing to death over the winter. Berger wryly pointed out that the music played over images in art documentaries like his can transform our understanding of the work in often unhelpful or erroneous ways. Paintings, he said, are meant to be viewed in silence. He also criticized the zooming and panning in films, which distorts our comprehension of something made to be seen as a whole. Asking a group of school children to comment on Caravaggio’s portrait of Jesus with two argumentative men, he found that the girls all thought the figure of Christ was female, and the boys thought it was male – but, without being aware of the painter’s homosexuality, every kid recognized a gender ambiguity.

Ahead of his time in the very early seventies, Berger espoused a feminist view of the nude in art, assembling a panel of prominent women in his series to discuss their impressions of how the female form was presented in classical paintings. He himself saw the women in many, if not most of these major works as pliant, hairless and sexless, but always receptive to the male advance, noting adroitly that nudity here is a form of dress that is undressed. Sometimes even the flimsy garments are as revealing as a naked figure, falling suggestively in places, or clinging to prominent features. Berger was always quick to say that we ought not to take his word for anything – we ought to look and see for ourselves. And, as King David said, we have eyes but we do not see. As a way of seeing, Berger’s work is invaluable, and his was a life well lived – God speed, Johnny.

 

Ottawoes

 

Politicians have always been excruciatingly shallow and terminally hypocritical, but they usually conceal these traits better than is currently being done. Had Trump lost the election – which, according to the popular vote, he actually did – his name would by now be a byword for ridiculous failure. As it is, though, we have two candidates for leadership of Canada’s Conservative Party openly boasting that they are Trump-style politicos. The aptly-named Kelly Leach brays about her proposed draconian policies towards Muslim immigrants – policies which in fact would violate our Charter of Rights. The oafish loud-mouth Kevin O’Leary tells us how rich he is, and abuses contestants on his – yes! – reality-TV show. You can’t blame the multi-millionaire businessman for seeing a slight resemblance between himself and the Donald. But neither of these opportunistic reptiles seems to understand that there is a difference between Canada and the USA – the main difference being that they don’t have a hope in hell of getting elected leader. The prospect of them, however, makes me realize why I voted for Trudeau le Petit. Better sunny ways than bilious hubris.

 

Paul William Roberts       

Patriotism

Tags

Canada, patriotism, politics, trump, United States of America, war

What is it? Well, some – including Bob Dylan and Sam Shepherd – say, “It’s the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings.” I am bound to concur. It’s at the core of currently-floundering Trump’s message (believe me, he won’t go down so easily), just as it was rooted in the barking of Adolf Hitler, whose principal appeal was one of national and ‘racial’ solidarity. The Fuhrer’s ranting demands for lebensraum merely consisted of a call to expand the Fatherland and reintegrate bits that had been carved off by history – German-speaking bits, on the whole. So the hollering for nationalist fervour – which is patriotism, after all is said and done – seems not to be a good thing? If the Nazis are too extreme and polarizing an example, take Napoleon. His vision for a United States of Europe – an idea currently crumbling into dust – was in reality one of an engorged France controlling many servile satellites. Paris was to be the capital of this ‘union’, which was the French Empire under another name. From Frederick the Great all the way back to the Romans, patriotism meant the expansion of a local ideology to incorporate thinking in the most far-flung regions. Rome extended to Persia. Great Britain included China, and still, psychologically, includes Australia and some Pacific islands. But patrimonies, homelands, now seem to feel threatened, insecure. Hence the appeal of patriotic hectoring in various forms.

Is this, one asks, why the Angus Reid organization last week conducted a poll to gauge the level of emotional attachment citizens had to Canada? Putting aside the value and rectitude of polls in general, this one evidently noted that so-called ‘millennials’ – apparently people aged 18 to 35 – showed a marked lack of emotional attachment to their country. This strikes me as a good thing. Ever-jingoistic, the media thought otherwise, with baleful comments about the shortage of national pride. It may just be me, but I keep hearing politicians talking about Canada as, “the best country in the world,” these days. It almost sounds like part of the nation’s name, like “America the Wonderful”, or Alexander the Great. Don’t get me wrong, I have great affection for my adopted country, and certainly consider it a better place to live than most others. But to say it is the greatest country in the world has grimmer implications. If we weren’t such a small place, in terms of population – the tiny British isles have three times as many people – we would be hauling these nationalistic fantasies into a far more dangerous place, and we would be…well, America.

Can a vast country, built by immigrants from everywhere on the backs of a crushed indigenous peoples, ever claim the uniqueness of being, “One nation under God”? We are forced to admit that ‘the West’, wherever it is now located, is largely a product of European economic migrants. With its disgraceful thousand-year history of endless petty wars, Europe can hardly lay claim to the virtues of peaceful coexistence. And thus Europeans have an ingrained tendency to seek hostile solutions, where other erstwhile nationals – the Chinese, for example – look to a more innate rectitude of purpose to overcome problems. China has five thousand years of continuous civilization – the Chi’in state is the world’s oldest political union – where the USA barely has 300 years. While the Chinese have a strong sense of cultural identity, it has never translated itself into imperial designs. The state has merely reclaimed territories lost during periods of internal weakness. The American model, aped now so often by Canada, involves an incapacity to see the world as not, or – God forbid! – even anti-American. Historically, the United States has either been xenophobic and enclosed, or else imperialistic, seeking to impose itself on vulnerable nations or peoples. With the current enthusiasm for world-cop-like missions, I see a danger in Canada pursuing this path. It is logically impossible, however.

The Angus Reid poll, seeking to measure the levels of national idolatry, fails to take into account the increasing number of Canadian citizens who can never claim to love this country more than any other – usually the one of their heritage. Thirty-five years away from it, I would still have to choose England over Canada, if the countries were ever at war. No doubt, the same is true for many if not most immigrants. Culture, heritage, language, whatever it is – they bind us. To hear “God bless America”, or “Canada, the greatest country in the world”, is thus alienating. It implies that some of us are Canadians, and others are not, when, in truth, only the abused First Nations have a right to that claim. The Quebecois have been here four centuries, yet many of them still identify themselves as other than strictly Canadian, or ‘Anglo’. Patriotic fervour – the military, the heroism! – may not be so apparent a disease here as it is in America, yet deadly diseases grow and spread.

The Trump groan, to “Make America great again” is – besides making one wonder when exactly the USA was ever great – a call to arms. Crush dissent! Muslims and Mexicans out! We’re the global cop and the world will now pay us for the task, whether or not anyone wants it! For people who have nothing or know nothing, it may incite some form of identity or pride. Yet for the rest it’s obnoxious. And patriotism is truly obnoxious. The One God’s on our side – everyone else is wrong, or with Satan. That’s how it works, and it has been the single greatest cause of human misery for all of recorded history. You love your country, you fight for it – no matter how right, wrong, or indifferent the casus belli may be. As studies of the human genome show, we are all the same. Even the idea of races is ill-founded. As the greatest photograph in history shows, we all live on one beautiful little blue planet – and we’ll have to share its bounty equally, ,or else perish, like many incompatible species before us. Old maxims are rarely incorrect: Patriotism? It’s the last refuge to which a scoundrel clings.

 

Paul William Roberts

Canada, ISIS and Refugees

Tags

Canada, France, ISIS, Middle East, politics, refugees

 

                ^{Like the US attack on Afghanistan after September 11th, 2001, the French bombing} of a Syrian city was rash, emotional, and unplanned, resulting in possibly hundreds of innocent civilian deaths. It is worrying to find a government reacting like any other thug on the street, except for the military at its command to be ‘merciless’ – a declaration no civilized leadership ought to voice. As outlined in my previous blog-post, there is only one way to eliminate ISIS, and it involves accurate intelligence, and then the active presence of a tri-lateral army, particularly that of Special Forces, trained and able to differentiate civilians from the enemy.

Prime Minister Trudeau’s vow to disengage Canadian warplanes from the conflict is laudable, yet his promise to assist in other ways – like training of Syrian and  Iraqi troops – is flawed, and will still result in this country being viewed as a combatant. My previous blog explains why this West Asian catastrophe should be left to those nations responsible for it. The money saved will help us in the truly Canadian task of assisting refugees fleeing this nightmare.

Of course we must take great care in whom we admit, and I wonder how many are suited to the task of separating potential terrorists from genuinely displaced people. If lie-detectors are used – more as a deterrent than for their questionable accuracy – how many inquisitors will know the right questions to ask? A detailed knowledge of the Koran will be required, as well as of the apocryphal texts, and the versions utilized by Wahhabite clergy, and the websites on which these perversions of Islam appear. A familiarity with Arab tribal affiliations is also vital. Indeed, every Arabist in the country ought to be consulted, asked to suggest the questions posed to aspirants for asylum here. But the less involvement we have in the military struggle, the fewer terrorists will regard Canada as a deserving target. A glance at non-involved nations will alone drive this point home. ISIS is at war with countries viewed, historically and currently,  as enemies of, exclusively, Sunni Islam – or their distorted Wahhabite concept of it. To ignore this is to remain ignorant of what is really happening, both there and in the West.

 

Sincerely, with love,

 

Paul William Roberts

Election Songs

Tags

Canada, election, harper, john lennon, justin trudeau, leonard cohen, politics, songs

Song with Apologies to Leonard Cohen

 

Everybody knows Harper’s sinking,

Everybody knows his truth is lies,

In his eyes there’s that awful feeling,

No one will mourn him when he dies.

Everybody knows defeat will kill him,

Everybody knows he scorned the House;

Where he was never asked the question if his tactics came from Leo Strauss.

But the neo-Fascist shows,

And everybody knows.

Everybody knows the man’s a racist,

Everybody knows he’s a corporate slave,

And the rich are who his base is;

The rest of us his knaves.

That’s how Harper’s vision goes, and everybody knows.

Everybody knows he’s bribing voters,

Everybody knows that greed works best;

Everybody knows he needs the floaters, but would exterminate the rest.

The Fascist shows, and everybody knows.

Everybody knows he rigs elections,

Everybody knows that to win’s his real goal,

But he cannot abide defections,

Over ethics or burning coal. They wreck his phony pose, and everybody knows.

Everybody knows he’s the one Prime Minister called ‘un-Canadian’ and even ‘sinister’;

No one cares where the hell he goes, but he’s gone, and everybody knows;

He’s now the stateless terrorist he dreamt up, the man in those media shows;

He caused the fear that crept up, and everybody knows.

Everybody knows the war is raging; everybody knows Mr. Harper’s fate is toast,

And nothing’s there to save him, not even the Holy Ghost;

It’s by fiction the cash pile grows,

And everybody knows.

Everybody knows he won’t play fair;

Everybody knows his dirty tricks;

Everybody knows that Justin Trudeau will be the one a voter picks.

That’s what honest polls show, and everybody knows.

Everybody knows his power is waning, everybody knows his platform’s fake;

Everybody knows his budget’s draining social programs into a filthy Tory lake.

That’s how corruption goes, and everybody knows.

Everybody knows he’d kill the planet, if his masters made a buck or two.

Everybody knows the way to end them is just a vote by me and you.

That’s what history shows, and everybody knows.

Everybody knows his business plan was just a one-trick sham;

The eggs were in a basket, without bread or even ham;

As a glance at The Dow Jones shows, and everybody knows.

Everybody knows the rich are richer, and we know where the money went;

Everybody knows the Middle Class is dwindling, the savings all now spent;

Everybody knows the banks are thriving, Thanks to Harper’s sly conniving, since that’s where our money goes, and everybody knows.

Everybody knows where the numbers never cease to grow, and no one can ever reap what they sow, as bank reports show, and everybody knows.

Spied upon, unfree, and over-taxed,

Poor even if we break our backs;

Such is the way our nation goes, and everybody knows.

Everybody thinks a vote for Harper is sure to make them rich,

As if cloth of gold could be fashioned by one single little stitch.

The deceiver in him shows, and everybody knows.

Everybody knows he sang Imagine, John Lennon’s utopian song,

Everybody knows this was pure cynicism, an almost sacrilegious wrong.

Everybody knows he can’t imagine, everybody knows his soul’s long gone; and inside is an empty feeling, a dull resounding gong, like the darkness he’s imposed; and everybody knows.

Everybody knows we’ll have that piano; everybody knows the song we’ll sing, with Yoko’s kind permission, as the bells of all faiths ring;

Everybody knows we’ll show compassion, as hard as it might be, and everybody knows we’ll sing Imagine, and what the words will be: as for the pose: everybody knows….

 

( Sudden change of tune, with thanks and love to Lennon)

 

Imagine there’s no Harper, it’s easy if you vote,

No tyrant’s vile agenda, an economy still afloat;

Imagine all Canadians living once again in peace,

No egotistic leader wishing wars will never cease.

Imagine wealth is shared, no poverty or crime; fair treatment for First Nations, and a mandate to be kind.

Imagine equality and decency accorded every race; and all who seek asylum with a smile on every face.

You can’t say that I’m a dreamer because most of us agree sending Harper off to nowhere will set this nation free.

Imagine there’s a vote card clasped in your hand, and that your vote would make life better for all living in this land;

Imagine you don’t use it, and have to live with that, live with a representative lazier than your very lazy cat;

Imagine that those not voting lose many other rights, returning what was fought for back to a medieval night, when the barons owned everything, including all your rights.

Imagine there’s no government to help you, would you want that vote again? Imagine you had broken something no one now can mend: a wasted vote is guilty of summoning such an End.

For Harper is a schemer, and he’s not the only one;

I hope that you will join us, for the worshippers of Mammon are already on the run.

Imagine there’s no Harper, you won’t need to imagine long; for the vote will go to Justin, then you’ll wish you’d helped him on.

Imagine trust and hope in Ottawa, it’s no easy thing to do, which is why the end of Harper is eight years overdue.

 

(Suggestion for Harper’s Farewell Song)

 

It’s my party and I’ll cry if I want to, cry if I want to;

You would cry too if your party dumped you…

++++++++++++++++++

Remember, your vote not only counts but is your responsibility to use, not for any party, but for the person you feel cares and will do his or her utmost for your area when in Ottawa. If a candidate has not visited your house or home in person, it is a good sign that they care little about your needs and will do even less about lobbying for them. Think about the qualities of an individual, not the vain promises of party leaders, which will become increasingly desperate and fictional over the next two weeks. This is not the USA: we elect representatives not leaders. Think carefully about the representatives you know, and vote for the best one, regardless of his or her party. This is a system that has proven its worth over many centuries. Cherish your good fortune to have such a fine system and the glorious land smart enough to avoid adopting the unworkable chaos of Washington.

 

As always with love,

 

Paul William Roberts

Harper’s Wars

Tags

Canada, harper, Iraq, neo-conservatism, politics, syria

O Canada! Where did our home and native land go? We used to be peacekeepers and reliably unbiased mediators; now we are neo-imperialist interloping warmongers, a dependable, if small, wing of the ever-covert and increasingly confused aims of long term US-UK foreign policy, which has no connection to come-and-go governments, being something hatched in the back-rooms of the deep state’s permanent and most un-democratic tyranny. It is surely time for the citizens of fading Western powers to admit our lives and taxes are part of a system which does not remotely resemble a democracy. Significant decisions are taken with no reference to the public will, and with, if any, no acceptable explanation. Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, whose soft, warm, reassuring voice increasingly resembles that of disgraced talk-show host and violent sexual sadist Jian Gomeshi, has exerted an unprecedented control over the media amounting to censorship and a violation of our Charter of Rights regarding free speech. No one gets to ask him probing and relevant questions. A gag-order silences nearly all politicians in his party, as well as such people as scientists – most of who work for the government or rely on federal funding. Environmental and social concerns take a remote back-seat to allegedly lower taxes and statistical legerdemain about the health of our economy. We are so easily fooled by appearances. As far as I know, the only politician here to have seen through Harper’s carefully stage-managed façade was ex-Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Danny Williams, who recounted a blunt conversation with the Prime Minister where Harper told him, “Don’t fuck with my country.” Williams described him, when met in private, as “a nasty man” – much as Gomeshi’s staff and female acquaintances characterized the seemingly mellow and liberal talk-show yacker.

Having just waded through the slough of tax-time, I wonder why more Canadians are not questioning the cost to us of our ill-advised involvement in frosty-war ventures like the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, the meddling in someone else’s civil war in Syria, and the intervention to protect Iraqi oil-fields from their erstwhile owners and an element of fanatical Sunni Islamists – a situation created by the illegal US-UK invasion of Iraq in 2003. We can overlook the catastrophe in Afghanistan, which western forces have now shrugged off, achieving less than nothing for the years and expense of their involvement – an outcome anyone with a cursory knowledge of history could and did predict.

It is hard to say what is worse: a public broadcaster ultimately controlled and under-funded by a corrupt and deceiving government, or a massive media complex owned by and beholden to vast multi-national corporations deeply involved in big oil and the arms business. Both entail a warping, distorting and withholding of facts and context relating to any sensitive situation. For example: today we hear of ISIS ‘militants’ slaughtering 300-odd members of a ‘minority sect’ referred to as Yezidis. No broadcast I am aware of saw fit to explain just how minor a ‘sect’ the Yezidis really are – in anyone’s context. Having spent some time with Yezidis in Iraq, I can tell the reader that, in everyday parlance, they actually worship Satan, represented in their few temples by the idol of a gigantic snake. In reality they are an intriguing remnant of Gnostic cults which maintained that, after being expelled from heaven, Lucifer or Satan created the world in order to prevent himself from falling through all eternity. Ergo, the Devil is Lord of this world and the true God. Who has not experienced moments in their life when this thesis has not seemed persuasive? Either way, would it hurt the media to explain that Yezidis are not exactly a ‘minority sect’ of Islam? Similarly, would it hurt to explain the historical background to the ostensibly Shia-Sunni conflicts in Iraq and Syria? If we had a free media the truth would hurt no one, besides informing citizens about the squandering of their tax dollars and pounds on ventures of dubious merit and impossible resolution. But it would hurt the deep state back-room warmongers, whose motives would be seriously called into question. I have dealt with these issues in my two books on Iraq – The Demonic Comedy and A War Against Truth – yet am well aware that more and more people are unable to read books and need their news in a bite-sized form to which genuine information cannot conform. Most have trouble enough grasping the concept of two major Islamic factions, the Sunni and the Shia, which bear little resemblance to Protestant and Catholic divisions, let alone the existence of more minor branches on the tree of Islam, such as the Aluwites, the Ismailis, the Sufis, and so on. The advantage of being old is that much history is within personal memory. When I was a teenager Islam had no association with terrorism and appeared to be an attractive and exotic religion inextricably related to The Arabian Nights and other spoils from the colonial period. What changed? Well, as I keep saying, the Wahhabite sect – essentially an Islamic heresy – began to exert its influence over the faith on a global scale. This is the religion of Saudi Arabia, concocted in the 18^th century, and a perversion that reduces orthodox Islam to a prison code, banning music, dancing, singing, and regarding women as chattels, as well as condemning other forms of Islam, especially the Shia and Sufis, to the status of non-Islamic. Like Saudi royalty, the Wahhabite priesthood is hereditary and shares equally in the Kingdom’s oil wealth. What the princes did with their loot is well known; what the clerics did with their billions is not. In fact they established free schools all over the so-called Third World, from Africa, through Afghanistan and Pakistan, to the Philippines and beyond. In these free schools – hard to turn down by impoverished nations – is taught the pernicious Wahhabite doctrine, including a vehement anti-Shia bias and the proselytising of a holy war called ‘Jihad’ – something previously interpreted as the inner struggle between our higher and lower selves, but now distorted to represent a literal war against all unbelievers. A thousand years ago Islam was the world’s great civilizing influence, advancing science and classical learning in an empire stretching from Spain to China; but the Crusades ended all that, and Islam’s subsequent history has been one of steady decline. All highly militant or fanatical movements, from Al-Quaeda to Al-Shebab, are both funded and inspired by Saudi Wahhabi sources. This is a fact. Anyone sincerely interested in ending this minor reign of terror would merely have to trace the money behind various movements and web-sites back to their Saudi sources. It was very telling when the mother of the boy responsible for murdering an honour guard at Ottawa’s war memorial said that her son wanted to go to Saudi Arabia to ‘study Islam’. Again, the media failed to pick up on the fact that anyone wishing to study orthodox Islam would go to Al-Ahram in Cairo, not Saudi Arabia, where all one could ‘study’ would be the Wahhabite heresy. To me, it proved that the web-site or sites behind the radicalising of this boy were expounding Wahhabism, not Islam. It seemed to beg for a close examination of such sites and an attempt to trace them back to their origins. None came, of course. Saudi Arabia seems to possess an immunity from condemnation and prosecution. Sealed off within its own time-warped bubble, the Kingdom issues no tourist visas, stifles all dissent, and, in general, makes other notorious tyrannies, like North Korea, seem positively Utopian. Why the protective cloak? Obviously, the answer is bound up with oil and a knee-bending obsequiousness to western interests. The regal or princely half of the story is an open book – Saudi Ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar, is so close to the Bush family that he’s affectionately known as ‘Bandar Bush’, and the only foreign country EVER visited by George W. in a private capacity was Saudi Arabia (no tourists allowed) – but the other half, the equally oil-rich Wahhabi priesthood is unknown. No one can name the presiding Imam or High Priest; and no one seems willing to explore the global reach of Wahhabi indoctrination or its funding of exclusively Sunni-oriented terror cells. The Iraqi ‘insurgency’ – said to be some 30,000 strong, yet largely consisting of disaffected Sunnis ousted from power after the fall of Saddam’s Sunni tyranny – could be eradicated in a week, if the will to do it were there. The reason it is not there is because no one, least of all the Saudis, wants to see a Shia power block extending from Iran through Iraq to Syria (still controlled by the Aluwite Shia minority headed by the Assad dynasty).

The only conclusion one can draw from the current situation is that western interests are in maintaining a controlled destabilising Sunni element which will guarantee the kind of foggy chaos in which the US and UK prefer to operate, and which justifies an ongoing western military presence to ensure the safety of the fabulously rich (and still not fully explored) Iraqi oil fields, widely thought to exceed the rapidly dwindling trove of black gold in Saudi Arabia. Anyone who believes these nefarious neo-imperial ventures are not entirely about oil is an idiot.

Little wonder Harper’s day-long visit to Iraq swiftly took him to Kurdistan, where he bravely stood not ten kilometres from the so-called ‘front-line’: the Kurdish Peshmurga warriors are the only reliable soldiers in this manufactured struggle. They too suffered under Saddam – although it was Winston Churchill who advocated the first gas attack against them. Much like the Armenians, the Kurds have long awaited a homeland of their own, thus can be relied upon to hang onto it no matter what the cost. Those who once suggested a division of Iraq into three states – Kurdish, Sunni and Shia – were clearly forgetting that such a division would leave the Kurds and the southern Shia with all the oil, and a central Sunni homeland with…well, dates (37 varieties and the best dates on earth notwithstanding). The idea was no more viable than that of an Iraqi democracy, stemming from the same ignorance of internal ethnic and religious divisions.

There are many things no journalist is not allowed to ask Stephen Harper, but the most disturbing of them is surely the question of his close affiliation with the neo-conservative philosophy of Leo Strauss, who can be said to have founded the ideology during his tenure at the University of Chicago, where most leading lights in the neo-con movement – including Paul Wolfowitz, among other less well-known but immensely powerful back-room figures – were gathered. These people formed the American Enterprise Institute, principal advocate of the Iraq invasion, and strangely silent since the debacle they had sponsored became self-evident. Other leading neo-cons gravitated to Calgary, Harper’s home turf, and he was known to attend quasi-covert gatherings there that included several obvious journalists and media moguls. Those who have waded through Leo Strauss’s turgid tomes will have noticed that his political philosophy closely resembles fascism. Hardly surprising since he was a significant figure in the early German Nazi movement (before the overt emphasis on anti-Semitism), and his sponsor for US citizenship was Carl Schmidt, who crafted Hitler’s judiciary.  The Holocaust was not envisaged in this early period, and the more alarming rants in Mein Kampf were edited out. We now forget that fascism had a wide appeal at one point, and even early Zionists like Jabotinski were great admirers of Mussolini. The broad tenets of fascism are clear in Strauss’s work, just as they reveal themselves in Harper’s thinking and mode of governance. Lie to the people (they are fools who deserve no more); control the message and the media; conceal the decision-making process; appear to be concerned about the things most people are concerned with: taxes, the economy, security. Keep up a level of fear, and the suggestion of an enemy within – the most frightened populations have the strongest governments. Concoct incidents to generate fear if necessary. Make sure there is a need for greater and greater policing and security (be certain to broadcast all violent crimes, and make citizens believe criminal threats are increasing, particularly if they are not). It is all in Strauss, and it is all evident in the Harper governments actions; yet no one, to my knowledge, has ever questioned him about his neo-con connections or his adherence to Straussian ideology. Behind that mellow reassuring voice is “a nasty man”, many of whose hirelings have come to loathe him, and who has led this country far away from its cherished ideals, making us just another rapacious and hated western power. He has done this by subverting our democracy with complete disregard for our Constitution and the parliamentary process – to the point where the system is effectively broken, perhaps beyond repair. His achievement was only possible through an appeal to our basest instincts of self-interest; yet there is more to Canadian life than this – or I would hope so. It is surely time to rid ourselves of this would-be tyrant, and possibly even the entire system that has allowed such dark elements to take control of our nation and our lives. “Those willing to sacrifice freedom for a little security deserve neither freedom nor security.”

 

With love as always, Paul William Roberts.