Why Russia protects Assad, from CNN website, January 26, 2012
Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of an article from the ‘Oxford Analytica Daily Brief’. Oxford Analytica is a global analysis and advisory firm that draws on a worldwide network of experts to advise its clients on their strategy and performance.
On Tuesday, the U.S., UK and French ambassadors to the United Nations sharply criticized "irresponsible" arms sales to the Syrian regime. This was a thinly veiled reference to Moscow's close defense-industrial cooperation with Damascus.
In recent months, Russia has been Syria's foremost protector in the international arena. It has taken on this role because of Syria's economic significance for its arms export industry, its role as the host of Russia's only military base outside the former Soviet Union - and its concern that anti-government protesters in Moscow might be inspired by a successful popular uprising farther afield.
Syria is one of the top five foreign buyers of Russian defense equipment, receiving 6% of all its arms exports in 2010. Contracts for further deliveries are worth about $4 billion, and are critical for some companies' financial survival. Russian exporters fear that regime change in Syria would lead to the annulment of these agreements, as new rulers may pursue opportunities to purchase weapons from other countries.
The uprising has not deterred Russia from continuing to send weapons to Syria, including a shipment of various munitions that came to attention this month after the ship carrying the weapons made an unscheduled stop in Cyprus.
In addition to military contracts, Russian companies have other investments in Syria, primarily in natural gas extraction. These are valued at approximately $20 billion and include a pipeline and a liquefied natural gas production facility. Moreover, Russia has given up all but one of its military facilities outside the former Soviet Union - the sole remaining presence is its naval logistics facility in Tartus. The base’s primary purpose is to repair and resupply Russian navy ships transiting the Mediterranean.
While the Syrian opposition has not made any statements regarding the future of Tartus, Russia has long depended entirely on President Bashar al-Assad and cannot expect to have good relations with his successors, especially if they come to power by force.
While the 'Arab awakenings' have little direct connection to the rallies against President Vladimir Putin's political order, Russian leaders feel that they are surrounded by a tide of anti-incumbent protests - and see each government toppled as potentially feeding the mood throughout the world. A related fear is that the overthrow of the Assad regime may feed a resurgence of anti-government protests in Iran, bringing political instability even closer to Russia's borders.
Furthermore, Russian leaders are concerned about the gains made by Islamist forces in the region, particularly in Egypt. The twin dangers of popular overthrow of local autocrats and subsequent electoral victories by Islamic parties have raised fears about an Islamist takeover in one or more Central Asian states. Though such a scenario appears unlikely, it is a particularly sensitive issue for Russia because it would likely lead to a significant increase in migration inflows from the region, further destabilising an already volatile domestic political situation.
Russian leaders will use the Syrian crisis as an opportunity to show that their country is still a force to be reckoned with in the Middle East. They will also press their case that overthrowing the current Syrian regime would lead to further instability in the region - which might even spread to the former Soviet Union. As a result, Russia will do its utmost to prevent the fall of Assad.
Monday, January 30, 2012
"Heinrich Himmler" by Peter Longerich, reviewed by Jonathan Yardley
Book Review By Jonathan Yardley, from truthdig.com, January 26, 2012
“Heinrich Himmler” A book by Peter Longerich
This biography of one of the most evil creatures ever to walk the earth is thoughtful and perceptive, stupendously long and almost unimaginably exhausting. The first names that come to mind when the subject of 20th-century evil arises are those of the ungodly trio—Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung—but surely that of Heinrich Himmler belongs among them. Utterly devoid of courage, decency or genuine human feeling, he caused through his manipulation of the Nazi police bureaucracy the deaths of uncountable millions of people, almost all of them innocents, and when it was all over he died a craven death.
Himself a native German, born in 1955, Peter Longerich is a professor of modern German history at Royal Holloway University of London and a leading scholar of the Holocaust. That he spent as many years with Himmler as were necessary to the research and writing of this massive book suggests that he is a man with a strong stomach. Indeed there are many times in his “Heinrich Himmler” when the reader needs one as well, for the record of Himmler’s depredations is long, violent and bloody, and Longerich does not shrink from setting forth the details, as indeed he should not if he is to give us the full measure of the man.
At the outset Longerich asks: “How could such a banal personality attain such a historically unique position of power? How could the son of a prosperous Bavarian Catholic public servant become the organizer of a system of mass murder spanning the whole of Europe?” To address these questions, neither of which can be answered conclusively, Longerich has gone “beyond the established pattern of political biography and (taken) into account quite literally the whole of Himmler’s life in its separate stages and its various spheres of activity.” He argues that the crimes committed by the German police state in its various manifestations—among them the SS, its intelligence operation the SD and its military arm the Waffen-SS—were all Himmler’s crimes, because “he to all intents and purposes united in his own person all the instruments of violence belonging to the Nazi state.”
Thus this book is less a biography as the term is commonly understood than a history of the organizations that Himmler created in order to terrorize the citizens of his own country, the Jews of Europe, and Europe itself. “Himmler was the complete opposite of a faceless functionary or bureaucrat, interchangeable with any other,” Longerich writes. “The position he built up over the years can instead be described as an extreme example of the almost total personalization of political power.” Therefore it is necessary, Longerich convincingly argues, not merely to portray Himmler the man but also the institutions he created in his own image.
Himmler was born in 1900 into a respectable and almost entirely conventional Munich family. His father was a schoolteacher, his mother a homemaker. He was “the middle son, trapped between the model of the superior big brother and the solicitous care focused on” the youngest brother. He “had a sickly constitution, he was frequently unwell, and his whole appearance was delicate.” From an early age he was fascinated by “everything connected with war and the military,” and like countless other German boys of his generation he was deeply embittered by the peace imposed on his country in the Treaty of Versailles. He was in military uniform at the end of World War I but never saw action, which left him permanently resentful even though there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that he would have been a competent military officer, much less a brilliant or brave one.
“Nothing in Himmler’s childhood and youth,” Longerich writes, “would suggest that someone with clearly abnormal characteristics was growing up there.” He became obsessed early on, though, with “the soldierly world,” with its precepts of “sobriety, distance, severity, objectivity, but also order and regulations,” and its relegation of women to subordinate and supporting roles. “It was only much later,” Longerich says, “that he discerned ‘homosexual dangers’ in this way of life, with its protective cocoon of male solidarity and its self-imposed celibacy, and this was a disturbing insight that strengthened his latent homophobia.”
True enough, but Longerich does not explore the possibility that Himmler’s homophobia may well have been an outward defense against inner fears of his own homosexuality. From Hitler on down this was a pattern among the males of Nazi Germany. Himmler’s complex, ambiguous relationships with and feelings about women—he had a passionless marriage and, much later, an affair with his private secretary about which little is known except that “the couple cannot have seen much of each other, and they cannot possibly have lived together”—suggest that his sexual self-confidence was shaky and his true sexual identity uncertain. The possibility that the extreme violence he actively promoted in the organizations under his command was an expression of inner rage cannot, it seems to me, be discounted.
(For more of this review, go to truthdig.com)
“Heinrich Himmler” A book by Peter Longerich
This biography of one of the most evil creatures ever to walk the earth is thoughtful and perceptive, stupendously long and almost unimaginably exhausting. The first names that come to mind when the subject of 20th-century evil arises are those of the ungodly trio—Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung—but surely that of Heinrich Himmler belongs among them. Utterly devoid of courage, decency or genuine human feeling, he caused through his manipulation of the Nazi police bureaucracy the deaths of uncountable millions of people, almost all of them innocents, and when it was all over he died a craven death.
Himself a native German, born in 1955, Peter Longerich is a professor of modern German history at Royal Holloway University of London and a leading scholar of the Holocaust. That he spent as many years with Himmler as were necessary to the research and writing of this massive book suggests that he is a man with a strong stomach. Indeed there are many times in his “Heinrich Himmler” when the reader needs one as well, for the record of Himmler’s depredations is long, violent and bloody, and Longerich does not shrink from setting forth the details, as indeed he should not if he is to give us the full measure of the man.
At the outset Longerich asks: “How could such a banal personality attain such a historically unique position of power? How could the son of a prosperous Bavarian Catholic public servant become the organizer of a system of mass murder spanning the whole of Europe?” To address these questions, neither of which can be answered conclusively, Longerich has gone “beyond the established pattern of political biography and (taken) into account quite literally the whole of Himmler’s life in its separate stages and its various spheres of activity.” He argues that the crimes committed by the German police state in its various manifestations—among them the SS, its intelligence operation the SD and its military arm the Waffen-SS—were all Himmler’s crimes, because “he to all intents and purposes united in his own person all the instruments of violence belonging to the Nazi state.”
Thus this book is less a biography as the term is commonly understood than a history of the organizations that Himmler created in order to terrorize the citizens of his own country, the Jews of Europe, and Europe itself. “Himmler was the complete opposite of a faceless functionary or bureaucrat, interchangeable with any other,” Longerich writes. “The position he built up over the years can instead be described as an extreme example of the almost total personalization of political power.” Therefore it is necessary, Longerich convincingly argues, not merely to portray Himmler the man but also the institutions he created in his own image.
Himmler was born in 1900 into a respectable and almost entirely conventional Munich family. His father was a schoolteacher, his mother a homemaker. He was “the middle son, trapped between the model of the superior big brother and the solicitous care focused on” the youngest brother. He “had a sickly constitution, he was frequently unwell, and his whole appearance was delicate.” From an early age he was fascinated by “everything connected with war and the military,” and like countless other German boys of his generation he was deeply embittered by the peace imposed on his country in the Treaty of Versailles. He was in military uniform at the end of World War I but never saw action, which left him permanently resentful even though there is not a shred of evidence to suggest that he would have been a competent military officer, much less a brilliant or brave one.
“Nothing in Himmler’s childhood and youth,” Longerich writes, “would suggest that someone with clearly abnormal characteristics was growing up there.” He became obsessed early on, though, with “the soldierly world,” with its precepts of “sobriety, distance, severity, objectivity, but also order and regulations,” and its relegation of women to subordinate and supporting roles. “It was only much later,” Longerich says, “that he discerned ‘homosexual dangers’ in this way of life, with its protective cocoon of male solidarity and its self-imposed celibacy, and this was a disturbing insight that strengthened his latent homophobia.”
True enough, but Longerich does not explore the possibility that Himmler’s homophobia may well have been an outward defense against inner fears of his own homosexuality. From Hitler on down this was a pattern among the males of Nazi Germany. Himmler’s complex, ambiguous relationships with and feelings about women—he had a passionless marriage and, much later, an affair with his private secretary about which little is known except that “the couple cannot have seen much of each other, and they cannot possibly have lived together”—suggest that his sexual self-confidence was shaky and his true sexual identity uncertain. The possibility that the extreme violence he actively promoted in the organizations under his command was an expression of inner rage cannot, it seems to me, be discounted.
(For more of this review, go to truthdig.com)
Sunday, January 29, 2012
UPDATE: Muslim community responds...Three found guilty in "honour killings" in Kingston Ontario, Canada
Just a few moments ago, the jury released its verdict of guilty of first degree murder in the deaths of three teenaged girls and a second wife, in a polygamous marriage. Guilty are the father of the three young women, his other wife and their twenty-something son.
In a trial requiring translators, interpreters, scholars to explain the meaning of honour killings under Sharia Law, which witnessed a bomb threat that evacuated the court room just this past week, the issues were those that attend the new world order, given the elevated rates of immigration from such places as Afghanistan, where this family originated.
The public evidence of incompatibility between the desires of the young women to have male friends, to date, and also to seek shelter from their treatment at home, according to witnesses, and the expectations of their father at least, to remain chaste, pure, unavailable to men and protective of the family honour eventually proved to be irreconcilible. The four women were found dead in a car in one of the locks on the Rideau canal just outside Kingston.
There was considerable public evidence of missteps by the three defendants, including contradictions, misleading statements, evidence of intemperate actions following the alleged timing of the deaths. Nevertheless, the prosecution held fast to its theory of "honour killings" under the umbrella of evidence that the father of these three young women considered them "whores" especially when compared with his version of their responsibility to the family of which he considered himself the head.
In his absence, it fell to the adult son to maintain the family honour, in the face of the actions, attitudes and beliefs of his sisters.
Should anyone think that the cultures of Afghanistan and North America can or will be easily, readily or even modestly merged, through immigration, or education or accommodation, they would be will advised to releae such thoughts. They are not going to happen, not now, and not in the foreseeable future.
We could import as many educators from Afghanistan into our Canadian school systems as we might like, without altering the culture that prevails between men and women in this country.
While there is growing evidence that people of different ethnicities and languages and cultures are assuming positions of responisbility in public life in Canada, we are not about to adopt Sharia Law; and we are not about to permit the erosion of a culture and values that have seen us knit formerly English, French and First Nations communities into something of a patchwork quilt, albeit with many rips and tears and lots of failures, in favour of the adoption of a culture as foreign and unacceptable as that apparently at the core of this murder trial.
And those who seek to impose the requirements of such a cultural change need to hear our push-back, although this verdict stands on its own merits, and on the evidence, not on the debatable merits of Sharia Law.
And this by Sheema Khan, Globe and Mail, January 30, 2012
Imam Sikander Hashmi, the newly-appointed imam in Kingston, took the lead the day the Shafia trial began. In no uncertain terms, he told the congregation that honour crimes were heinous, and forbidden by Islam. He reminded the audience that while such crimes were committed by different ethnic/religions groups, Muslims should step up to the plate and be part of the solution. That includes unequivocal condemnation of murder, and the establishment of resources to address family tensions.
This was soon followed by a National Call to Eradicate Domestic Violence, signed by over 100 mosques and community leaders across the country, which stated: “Domestic violence and, in the extreme, practices such as killing to “restore family honour” violate clear and non-negotiable Islamic principles, and so we categorically condemn all forms of domestic violence.” As part of this call, imams across Canada gave sermons unequivocally condemning family violence. Signatories pledged to go further by raising awareness, and providing workshops in mediation, anger management and family counselling.
Furthermore, a group of Muslim men launched the first-ever Muslim community White Ribbon Campaign at the Islamic Institute of Toronto. Men and boys pledged never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls. It was also promoted at Toronto’s annual Reviving the Islamic Spirit convention, with an audience of 15,000. The White Ribbon campaign is scheduled to go nationwide on March 8, coinciding with International Women’s Day.
Last week, the London Muslim Resource Centre for Social Services and Integration announced the launch of the “Honouring Families” project, in partnership with Ceasefire, a renowned anti-gang program based in Chicago. The premise is that one can “save face” through mediation and non-violent options.
MRCSSI, led by Dr. Mohammad Baobaid, has a wealth of experience (and success) dealing with inter-generational conflict in Muslim families, finding key risk indicators for honour-based violence, such as: cross-generational gender conflict (e.g. father-daughter) which is exacerbated by the involvement of extended family; an older male sibling taking on a parental role; when extended family or a parent overseas has a significant say in the parenting; pre-migration trauma or post-migration stresses; and family isolation. In many of these cases, the parents are disengaged from the solution, and blame the child entirely. They hold uncompromising views of their tradition, and/or maintain rigid interpretations of Islamic teachings regarding gender roles and expectations. The risk is highest when the conflict involves adolescent girls. Also, reports with the police or child protection services can worsen the situation, as the child subsequently denies any problem for fear of getting their parents in trouble, especially if the intervention is not culturally sensitive.
The MRC has been successful in resolving many high-risk cases by engaging the family at risk, and the many support services around the family.
In a trial requiring translators, interpreters, scholars to explain the meaning of honour killings under Sharia Law, which witnessed a bomb threat that evacuated the court room just this past week, the issues were those that attend the new world order, given the elevated rates of immigration from such places as Afghanistan, where this family originated.
The public evidence of incompatibility between the desires of the young women to have male friends, to date, and also to seek shelter from their treatment at home, according to witnesses, and the expectations of their father at least, to remain chaste, pure, unavailable to men and protective of the family honour eventually proved to be irreconcilible. The four women were found dead in a car in one of the locks on the Rideau canal just outside Kingston.
There was considerable public evidence of missteps by the three defendants, including contradictions, misleading statements, evidence of intemperate actions following the alleged timing of the deaths. Nevertheless, the prosecution held fast to its theory of "honour killings" under the umbrella of evidence that the father of these three young women considered them "whores" especially when compared with his version of their responsibility to the family of which he considered himself the head.
In his absence, it fell to the adult son to maintain the family honour, in the face of the actions, attitudes and beliefs of his sisters.
Should anyone think that the cultures of Afghanistan and North America can or will be easily, readily or even modestly merged, through immigration, or education or accommodation, they would be will advised to releae such thoughts. They are not going to happen, not now, and not in the foreseeable future.
We could import as many educators from Afghanistan into our Canadian school systems as we might like, without altering the culture that prevails between men and women in this country.
While there is growing evidence that people of different ethnicities and languages and cultures are assuming positions of responisbility in public life in Canada, we are not about to adopt Sharia Law; and we are not about to permit the erosion of a culture and values that have seen us knit formerly English, French and First Nations communities into something of a patchwork quilt, albeit with many rips and tears and lots of failures, in favour of the adoption of a culture as foreign and unacceptable as that apparently at the core of this murder trial.
And those who seek to impose the requirements of such a cultural change need to hear our push-back, although this verdict stands on its own merits, and on the evidence, not on the debatable merits of Sharia Law.
And this by Sheema Khan, Globe and Mail, January 30, 2012
Imam Sikander Hashmi, the newly-appointed imam in Kingston, took the lead the day the Shafia trial began. In no uncertain terms, he told the congregation that honour crimes were heinous, and forbidden by Islam. He reminded the audience that while such crimes were committed by different ethnic/religions groups, Muslims should step up to the plate and be part of the solution. That includes unequivocal condemnation of murder, and the establishment of resources to address family tensions.
This was soon followed by a National Call to Eradicate Domestic Violence, signed by over 100 mosques and community leaders across the country, which stated: “Domestic violence and, in the extreme, practices such as killing to “restore family honour” violate clear and non-negotiable Islamic principles, and so we categorically condemn all forms of domestic violence.” As part of this call, imams across Canada gave sermons unequivocally condemning family violence. Signatories pledged to go further by raising awareness, and providing workshops in mediation, anger management and family counselling.
Furthermore, a group of Muslim men launched the first-ever Muslim community White Ribbon Campaign at the Islamic Institute of Toronto. Men and boys pledged never to commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women and girls. It was also promoted at Toronto’s annual Reviving the Islamic Spirit convention, with an audience of 15,000. The White Ribbon campaign is scheduled to go nationwide on March 8, coinciding with International Women’s Day.
Last week, the London Muslim Resource Centre for Social Services and Integration announced the launch of the “Honouring Families” project, in partnership with Ceasefire, a renowned anti-gang program based in Chicago. The premise is that one can “save face” through mediation and non-violent options.
MRCSSI, led by Dr. Mohammad Baobaid, has a wealth of experience (and success) dealing with inter-generational conflict in Muslim families, finding key risk indicators for honour-based violence, such as: cross-generational gender conflict (e.g. father-daughter) which is exacerbated by the involvement of extended family; an older male sibling taking on a parental role; when extended family or a parent overseas has a significant say in the parenting; pre-migration trauma or post-migration stresses; and family isolation. In many of these cases, the parents are disengaged from the solution, and blame the child entirely. They hold uncompromising views of their tradition, and/or maintain rigid interpretations of Islamic teachings regarding gender roles and expectations. The risk is highest when the conflict involves adolescent girls. Also, reports with the police or child protection services can worsen the situation, as the child subsequently denies any problem for fear of getting their parents in trouble, especially if the intervention is not culturally sensitive.
The MRC has been successful in resolving many high-risk cases by engaging the family at risk, and the many support services around the family.
Geithner strikes balance in approach to economic crisis...Is Harper listening?
Listening to Fareed Zakaria interview Timothy Geithner, Treasury Secretary in the Obama administration in Davos earlier this morning, I was aware of both the "term limits" on the Secretary's service to the administration (he will not serve in a second term) and the balance of his assessment and analysis of the relative importance of "austerity" and "stimulus" in the resolution of the nation's debt/deficit crisis.
Advocates of austerity over-estimate its importance while advocates of stimulus also over-estimate its significance at this time in the economic cycle...was the position I heard him striking.
Nevertheless, the political campaign airwaves are saturated with personal attacks painting the president as some "european socialist" and one Republican candidate for president dubbing his opponent as a wealthy elite with Cayman Island and Swiss bank accounts to accommodate his $42.6 million in income in 2011, while he (and his opponent) want to restore "opportunity" to the American people, another code word for unleashed capitalism and its little sister, "austerity" in order to reduce the size, importance and role of the government.
While the political rhetoric is painted in "either-or" terms, coloured black and white, without a hint of grey, or green, or blue or yellow or orange the more mature perspective as articulated by Geithner is both closer to the truth and also more representative of actual governing, than is the inflamed rhetoric of campaigning.
Not co-incidentally, the president appointed a blue ribbon committee (Bowles-Simpson) to make recommendations on how to bring both debt and deficit back into line. Their responses were "balanced" similar to the "balanced" rhetoric of Geithner in Davos, and while there are critics of the president who think he did not put the full weight of his office behind their recommendations, nevertheless, he has consistently advocated a position of balance between spending cuts to entitlements and also increased taxes on the most wealthy, a position blocked by the Tea Party and the Republicans in Congress.
So, it says here that the presidential election that is still in its incubator, will unfold as a debate between the president's balanced approach (favoured by most Americans) of spending cuts, tax increases and investments in industry and manufacturing and training as well as infrastructure versus the Republican candidate's position of no tax increases, and no increases in spending, to preserve the opportunity of the most wealthy to "generate jobs" a position that is neither supportable by the evidence nor by the opinions of most respected and responsible economists of all political persuasions.
While I have not always been a fan of Mr. Geithner, considering him far too close to Wall Street where he was employed at the height of the economic meltdown, prior to the Obama election in 2008, and thereby unlikely to be the agent to promote stiff and needed regulatory changes in the financial services sector, nevertheless, his measured, balanced and detached responses to Mr. Zakaria in front of a "studio audience" in Davos at the Economic Forum attended by the world's leading political and business leaders merits our attention, and our faith and our hope that the president can and will be able to articulate to the American people, and thereby to the rest of the world, the importance of neither too much austerity (take note, Mr. Canadian Prime Minister) and too many tax breaks for the wealthy, both corporate and individual (once again take note, Mr. Harper) while at the same time providing government incentives for industry, manufacturing and both training and research.
Political rhetoric of the ideological kind, from both sides, is neither a solution for our problems, nor a measure of the success of any responsible government, including both Canadian and American political practitioners.
Advocates of austerity over-estimate its importance while advocates of stimulus also over-estimate its significance at this time in the economic cycle...was the position I heard him striking.
Nevertheless, the political campaign airwaves are saturated with personal attacks painting the president as some "european socialist" and one Republican candidate for president dubbing his opponent as a wealthy elite with Cayman Island and Swiss bank accounts to accommodate his $42.6 million in income in 2011, while he (and his opponent) want to restore "opportunity" to the American people, another code word for unleashed capitalism and its little sister, "austerity" in order to reduce the size, importance and role of the government.
While the political rhetoric is painted in "either-or" terms, coloured black and white, without a hint of grey, or green, or blue or yellow or orange the more mature perspective as articulated by Geithner is both closer to the truth and also more representative of actual governing, than is the inflamed rhetoric of campaigning.
Not co-incidentally, the president appointed a blue ribbon committee (Bowles-Simpson) to make recommendations on how to bring both debt and deficit back into line. Their responses were "balanced" similar to the "balanced" rhetoric of Geithner in Davos, and while there are critics of the president who think he did not put the full weight of his office behind their recommendations, nevertheless, he has consistently advocated a position of balance between spending cuts to entitlements and also increased taxes on the most wealthy, a position blocked by the Tea Party and the Republicans in Congress.
So, it says here that the presidential election that is still in its incubator, will unfold as a debate between the president's balanced approach (favoured by most Americans) of spending cuts, tax increases and investments in industry and manufacturing and training as well as infrastructure versus the Republican candidate's position of no tax increases, and no increases in spending, to preserve the opportunity of the most wealthy to "generate jobs" a position that is neither supportable by the evidence nor by the opinions of most respected and responsible economists of all political persuasions.
While I have not always been a fan of Mr. Geithner, considering him far too close to Wall Street where he was employed at the height of the economic meltdown, prior to the Obama election in 2008, and thereby unlikely to be the agent to promote stiff and needed regulatory changes in the financial services sector, nevertheless, his measured, balanced and detached responses to Mr. Zakaria in front of a "studio audience" in Davos at the Economic Forum attended by the world's leading political and business leaders merits our attention, and our faith and our hope that the president can and will be able to articulate to the American people, and thereby to the rest of the world, the importance of neither too much austerity (take note, Mr. Canadian Prime Minister) and too many tax breaks for the wealthy, both corporate and individual (once again take note, Mr. Harper) while at the same time providing government incentives for industry, manufacturing and both training and research.
Political rhetoric of the ideological kind, from both sides, is neither a solution for our problems, nor a measure of the success of any responsible government, including both Canadian and American political practitioners.
Friday, January 27, 2012
Iron Lady: a review of the movie...
My wife and I just returned from watching the new movie starring Meryl Streep, Iron Lady, dominated by the director's skillful, seamless and really nothing less than "artistic" editing of past, present, earlier past, nearer past and present into a montage of authentic performances by Ms Streep and the rest of the cast. And Prime Minister David Cameron is right when he says the movie is really about Ms Thatcher's dementia as much as about her political career.
The only woman in the Conservative Party caucus when she entered the House of Commons, after a first unsuccessful attempt in 1959, when women were virtually unheard of, and certainly unwelcome in the political backrooms of all western nations, including Great Britain, Mrs. Thatcher was headstrong, determined, persistent,
ideologically "right" of centre and eminently combative. She fought the trade unions, busting the coal miners union; she fought the IRA and the war in the Falklands, after the British islands were invaded by the Argentinians.
She will be forever linked to President Ronald Reagan, her cohort in reducing the size of government, and in her case, provoking violence in the streets, at the hotel where her party was holding its convention and in various locations carried out by the IRA.
The movie brings to life a political regime of austerity, self-righteousness and even arrogance not at all dissimilar to the current class of Republican/Tea Party members of the U.S. Congress, and the Canadian government under a leader who is nothing more or less than a clone of the "thatcher" model of political leader.
She would not listen to her Cabinet, just as Harper runs his own one-man government.
She refused to see the need for government compassion and fairness, preferring instead to tilt her government in favour of the wealthy, and against the ordinary people, in the same manner as Harper does, and either Romney or Gingrich would.
The timing of the movie's release, just as the 2012 presidential election is beginning in the U.S. will remind voters there, and unfortunately also in Canada where we do not go to the polls again until 2015, of just how repressive and frightening a right-wing leader and government can be and have been, not so very long ago.
If the movie has the desired effect, it will move a majority of voters away from the Republican camp and re-elect President Obama. It will also enrich and spread an awareness of ageing that is both credible and somewhat frustrating both for the individual and the family of the elderly.
From an artistic perspective, the movie provides outstanding acting, a brilliant script, uplifting and seamless music and sound effects, and one of the most clever editing performances in any movie.
From a political and historic perspective, the movie is an authentic rendering of her time in office, her determination and role modelling for other women seeking public office, and a scathing critique of what she considered "weak men" for whom she grew tired making apologies. Her fragmented relationship with her own spouse, Dennis, is captured in his exit scene, in which he declares, "You will be just fine; you have always been just fine on your own!"
Streep's portrayal is so complete, authentic and convincing that it reminds one of the other women cut from the same cloth, proud, determined, capable and completely intolerable of anything less than perfection from others, none of whom were equal to or even close to her own performance, just like my own mother.
The only woman in the Conservative Party caucus when she entered the House of Commons, after a first unsuccessful attempt in 1959, when women were virtually unheard of, and certainly unwelcome in the political backrooms of all western nations, including Great Britain, Mrs. Thatcher was headstrong, determined, persistent,
ideologically "right" of centre and eminently combative. She fought the trade unions, busting the coal miners union; she fought the IRA and the war in the Falklands, after the British islands were invaded by the Argentinians.
She will be forever linked to President Ronald Reagan, her cohort in reducing the size of government, and in her case, provoking violence in the streets, at the hotel where her party was holding its convention and in various locations carried out by the IRA.
The movie brings to life a political regime of austerity, self-righteousness and even arrogance not at all dissimilar to the current class of Republican/Tea Party members of the U.S. Congress, and the Canadian government under a leader who is nothing more or less than a clone of the "thatcher" model of political leader.
She would not listen to her Cabinet, just as Harper runs his own one-man government.
She refused to see the need for government compassion and fairness, preferring instead to tilt her government in favour of the wealthy, and against the ordinary people, in the same manner as Harper does, and either Romney or Gingrich would.
The timing of the movie's release, just as the 2012 presidential election is beginning in the U.S. will remind voters there, and unfortunately also in Canada where we do not go to the polls again until 2015, of just how repressive and frightening a right-wing leader and government can be and have been, not so very long ago.
If the movie has the desired effect, it will move a majority of voters away from the Republican camp and re-elect President Obama. It will also enrich and spread an awareness of ageing that is both credible and somewhat frustrating both for the individual and the family of the elderly.
From an artistic perspective, the movie provides outstanding acting, a brilliant script, uplifting and seamless music and sound effects, and one of the most clever editing performances in any movie.
From a political and historic perspective, the movie is an authentic rendering of her time in office, her determination and role modelling for other women seeking public office, and a scathing critique of what she considered "weak men" for whom she grew tired making apologies. Her fragmented relationship with her own spouse, Dennis, is captured in his exit scene, in which he declares, "You will be just fine; you have always been just fine on your own!"
Streep's portrayal is so complete, authentic and convincing that it reminds one of the other women cut from the same cloth, proud, determined, capable and completely intolerable of anything less than perfection from others, none of whom were equal to or even close to her own performance, just like my own mother.
Letter to David Brooks
By David Brooks, New York Times, January 26, 2012
It’s sad to compare that era of bigness to the medium-sized policy morsels that President Obama put in his State of the Union address. He had some big themes in the speech, but the policies were mere appetizers. The Republicans absurdly call Obama a European socialist on the stump, but the Obama we saw Tuesday night was a liberal incrementalist.
There was nothing big, like tax reform or entitlement reform. There was no comprehensive effort to restore trust in government by sweeping away the tax credits and special-interest schemes that entangle Washington. Ninety percent of American workers work in the service economy, but Obama spoke mostly about manufacturing.
Dear Mr. Brooks: You seem to have forgotten that Mr. Obama worked most of last summer to get a "grand bargain" with John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, on many big items. You also seem to have forgotten that it fell through because Mr. Boehner could not deliver the votes necessary in the House. You also seem to have forgotten that virtually since the passing of the Health Care bill, there has been gridlock in the Congress, with the Tea Party and the Republican leader in the Senate both publicly declaring their goal to be "Obama is a one-term president".
One of the basic rules of government is that, in an election year, you don't paint pictures the country is not ready for, lest in attempting to move the public too far when it is struggling for survival, you force them into regression.
Mr. Obama, unlike your Republican friends, seeks to make change whenever and wherever possible. For example, he brought the auto makers together, to secure a commitment that they would produce cars that achieve 52 miles per gallon of fuel by 2020.
That did not make loud and 72-point headlines; however, it is a significant achievement, and will result in a dramatic change both to the design of the auto as we know it, but also a significant reduction in demand for oil.
He has also generated a new industry, led by America, in the generating of car batteries, with various technologies still on the drawing board.
Let go of the past, Mr. Brooks, when the "Cecil B. deMille" version of political accomplishment was in fashion. We live in different times; technology is changing the micro managers into nano-micro-managers, and in that context Mr. Obama is still seeing both the forest and the trees, and acting, often without either fanfare or Congressional votes (which are unavailable to his ideas) to demonstrate he is the president of all Americans.
We know all Republicans will forever be disappointed in Mr. Obama; he is a Democrat and this is an election season when Democrats are "fair game" for all Republicans.
However, as a serious thinking and demonstrably intelligent writer with considerable heft in both your ideas and your position in the bully pulpit of the New York Times, you can be expected to surmount petty political partisanship at least once in a while. Today, you failed in to meet that expectation.
Yours truly,
JTA
It’s sad to compare that era of bigness to the medium-sized policy morsels that President Obama put in his State of the Union address. He had some big themes in the speech, but the policies were mere appetizers. The Republicans absurdly call Obama a European socialist on the stump, but the Obama we saw Tuesday night was a liberal incrementalist.
There was nothing big, like tax reform or entitlement reform. There was no comprehensive effort to restore trust in government by sweeping away the tax credits and special-interest schemes that entangle Washington. Ninety percent of American workers work in the service economy, but Obama spoke mostly about manufacturing.
Dear Mr. Brooks: You seem to have forgotten that Mr. Obama worked most of last summer to get a "grand bargain" with John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, on many big items. You also seem to have forgotten that it fell through because Mr. Boehner could not deliver the votes necessary in the House. You also seem to have forgotten that virtually since the passing of the Health Care bill, there has been gridlock in the Congress, with the Tea Party and the Republican leader in the Senate both publicly declaring their goal to be "Obama is a one-term president".
One of the basic rules of government is that, in an election year, you don't paint pictures the country is not ready for, lest in attempting to move the public too far when it is struggling for survival, you force them into regression.
Mr. Obama, unlike your Republican friends, seeks to make change whenever and wherever possible. For example, he brought the auto makers together, to secure a commitment that they would produce cars that achieve 52 miles per gallon of fuel by 2020.
That did not make loud and 72-point headlines; however, it is a significant achievement, and will result in a dramatic change both to the design of the auto as we know it, but also a significant reduction in demand for oil.
He has also generated a new industry, led by America, in the generating of car batteries, with various technologies still on the drawing board.
Let go of the past, Mr. Brooks, when the "Cecil B. deMille" version of political accomplishment was in fashion. We live in different times; technology is changing the micro managers into nano-micro-managers, and in that context Mr. Obama is still seeing both the forest and the trees, and acting, often without either fanfare or Congressional votes (which are unavailable to his ideas) to demonstrate he is the president of all Americans.
We know all Republicans will forever be disappointed in Mr. Obama; he is a Democrat and this is an election season when Democrats are "fair game" for all Republicans.
However, as a serious thinking and demonstrably intelligent writer with considerable heft in both your ideas and your position in the bully pulpit of the New York Times, you can be expected to surmount petty political partisanship at least once in a while. Today, you failed in to meet that expectation.
Yours truly,
JTA
Harper: Tea Party North, in Davos, while lecturing Europe on "responsibility"
By Joe Friessen and Bill Curry, Globe and Mail, January 26, 2012
With reports from Jane Taber in Ottawa and The Canadian Press in Davos, Switzerland
Although short on details, Mr. Harper’s speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday made clear the sweep of his ambition. He will change how Canadians finance their retirement. He will overhaul the immigration system. He will make oil and gas exports to Asia a “national priority” and aggressively pursue free trade in India and Europe.
Several times in his speech, Mr. Harper portrayed his agenda as a fix for a generation – a fix he claimed is necessary to confront the challenges of an aging population. Canada’s demographics, he warned, pose “a threat to the social programs and services that Canadians cherish.” Preserving those social programs will likely mean cuts elsewhere.
“Western nations, in particular, face a choice of whether to create the conditions for growth and prosperity, or to risk long-term economic decline. In every decision, or failure to decide, we are choosing our future right now,” Mr. Harper said.
“We’ve already taken steps to limit the growth of our health-care spending. … We must do the same for our retirement-income system.”
He said he plans to make Canada’s old-age supplement program sustainable. What that means is unclear. He did not spell out whether seniors will have to wait longer to receive the benefit or whether clawbacks would be increased for higher income earners.
Unlike the Canada Pension Plan – which is supported by a separate and well-financed pool of savings – there is no pot of cash to support the OAS program, which is paid out of government revenues. A recent actuarial report pointed out that the cost of OAS will climb 32 per cent between 2010 and 2015, and OAS payouts to retirees will rise to $108-billion in 2030 from $36.5-billion in 2010.
While future changes to OAS were not explained, Mr. Harper said current retirees will not be affected. The major policy reforms are in addition to looming spending cuts, which Treasury Board President Tony Clement said on Thursday could be as much as $8-billion, twice the $4-billion target announced last year.
Mr. Harper further outlined the blueprint for his government by ticking off a list of policy priorities. He said Canada’s investments in science and technology had produced poor results and were a “significant problem for our country.” He said he intends to pursue free trade with the European Union and India and find new energy markets beyond the United States. Regulatory delays for mines and energy projects are also being targeted.
Mr. Harper said he intends to tackle immigration reform, a thorny issue in a country where one in five is an immigrant. Canada’s humanitarian obligations and its family reunification objectives will be “respected,” he said, but the needs of the labour force and the economy will now be central.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has been working on significant reforms to the immigration system for several months. Mr. Kenney has said he wants to speed immigrant integration in the labour market by changing the emphasis of selection criteria. He intends to reward applicants who speak English or French, have job offers, Canadian work experience or postgraduate degrees, all of whom tend to fare better economically. The increased emphasis on economic immigrants could lead to reductions in the family class.
As the Canadian population ages, immigration is increasingly the major source of population growth. At the moment, more than 60 per cent of population growth comes from immigration, but that will approach 100 per cent by 2030. If Canada wants to maintain its population structure, or at least the proportion of the population that’s over 65, it would have to start admitting about three to four times its annual intake of roughly 250,000 immigrants, experts say.
As for OAS, previous Liberal and Conservative governments have tried – and failed spectacularly – to make the program financially sustainable. Both Brian Mulroney, and Paul Martin when he was finance minister, were forced to back down in the face of public pressure.
C.D. Howe Institute president Bill Robson said he believes the public will support changes if they see MPs and the public service scaling back their benefits as well.
“As seniors get more numerous, it’s clearly more difficult for politicians to take them on,” he said. “But I’m encouraged to think Canadians can get together on things like this.”
Susan Eng, vice-president of the non-profit retired persons advocacy group CARP, predicts a strong negative reaction to OAS changes, which were never discussed during the election campaign.
Ms. Eng said her group’s surveys show strong opposition to changing the OAS.
So from the top of what Harper considers the "mountaintop" of a world business leaders' conference, when capitalism is under fire for lacking any hint of social responsibility, and some are calling for its transformation, far away from the mud and mire of Ottawa and the national media, the Canadian political leader issues his manifesto, stolen directly from the Tea Party manifesto in the United States.
Not a hint of any of these ideas was uttered in his "5-Q's" (5 questions max. at each face-to-face with media) encounters with the media throughout the campaign only last Spring. No parliamentarian from any opposition party was permitted the "privilege" of knowing these moves, although aides were prompt with their talking points in Davos, in support of the speech.
And the people of Canada have the voters in Toronto, principally, to thank for their short-sighted and politically self-destructive election results, both in electing their equally threatening Mayor as well as a Harper majority government on May 2.
It is not only these initiatives that will bind the country into a kind of grid-lock, in which some demographics will be at war with other demographics, because "austerity" to this government sounds more responsible than courage and creativity and compassion and imagination and balancing various interests.
Furthermore, to suggest that there is a problem with OAS (Old Age Security) because it is not "funded" by employer and employee contributions is only true, once again on the surface. It is tied to the economic revenue of the government, and together with the CPP (Canada Pension Plan) amounts to no more than 15% of the ecoomy, which itself will continue to grow as it has since the beginning. This is another ideologically motivated move to curtail "entitlements" when it is not justified, and cannot be justified, except for a political base that seeks to "gut" what is sees as the "nanny state."
This government would rather buy 65 F-35 Fighter Jets and more armed ships than provide education and housing for First Nations people in Attawapiskat, for example. This government would rather cut 60-70,000 government employees, while committing millions to new commissions with no staff or work in expensive downtown Ottawa offices. This government would rather unload its traditional "national" responsibility for equalization and health care on the provinces than takes its place at the head of the table in formal and informal discussions with the provinces about how to share the revenue from resources that are obviously not distributed equally by nature.
And this prime minister would rather deliver what many consider a "throne speech" in Davos under the glare of international kleg lights, while lecturing the European nations on how to take responsibility for their fiscal crisis, than acknowledge the facts in his own backyard, that jobs in Canada are showing both lower pay and less stability and reliability. This government would rather play "hoity-toity" with the so-called big-shots of a crumbling capitalism in Davos than preserve both good jobs and fair benefits through union negotiations in Canada.
With reports from Jane Taber in Ottawa and The Canadian Press in Davos, Switzerland
Although short on details, Mr. Harper’s speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday made clear the sweep of his ambition. He will change how Canadians finance their retirement. He will overhaul the immigration system. He will make oil and gas exports to Asia a “national priority” and aggressively pursue free trade in India and Europe.
Several times in his speech, Mr. Harper portrayed his agenda as a fix for a generation – a fix he claimed is necessary to confront the challenges of an aging population. Canada’s demographics, he warned, pose “a threat to the social programs and services that Canadians cherish.” Preserving those social programs will likely mean cuts elsewhere.
“Western nations, in particular, face a choice of whether to create the conditions for growth and prosperity, or to risk long-term economic decline. In every decision, or failure to decide, we are choosing our future right now,” Mr. Harper said.
“We’ve already taken steps to limit the growth of our health-care spending. … We must do the same for our retirement-income system.”
He said he plans to make Canada’s old-age supplement program sustainable. What that means is unclear. He did not spell out whether seniors will have to wait longer to receive the benefit or whether clawbacks would be increased for higher income earners.
Unlike the Canada Pension Plan – which is supported by a separate and well-financed pool of savings – there is no pot of cash to support the OAS program, which is paid out of government revenues. A recent actuarial report pointed out that the cost of OAS will climb 32 per cent between 2010 and 2015, and OAS payouts to retirees will rise to $108-billion in 2030 from $36.5-billion in 2010.
While future changes to OAS were not explained, Mr. Harper said current retirees will not be affected. The major policy reforms are in addition to looming spending cuts, which Treasury Board President Tony Clement said on Thursday could be as much as $8-billion, twice the $4-billion target announced last year.
Mr. Harper further outlined the blueprint for his government by ticking off a list of policy priorities. He said Canada’s investments in science and technology had produced poor results and were a “significant problem for our country.” He said he intends to pursue free trade with the European Union and India and find new energy markets beyond the United States. Regulatory delays for mines and energy projects are also being targeted.
Mr. Harper said he intends to tackle immigration reform, a thorny issue in a country where one in five is an immigrant. Canada’s humanitarian obligations and its family reunification objectives will be “respected,” he said, but the needs of the labour force and the economy will now be central.
Citizenship and Immigration Minister Jason Kenney has been working on significant reforms to the immigration system for several months. Mr. Kenney has said he wants to speed immigrant integration in the labour market by changing the emphasis of selection criteria. He intends to reward applicants who speak English or French, have job offers, Canadian work experience or postgraduate degrees, all of whom tend to fare better economically. The increased emphasis on economic immigrants could lead to reductions in the family class.
As the Canadian population ages, immigration is increasingly the major source of population growth. At the moment, more than 60 per cent of population growth comes from immigration, but that will approach 100 per cent by 2030. If Canada wants to maintain its population structure, or at least the proportion of the population that’s over 65, it would have to start admitting about three to four times its annual intake of roughly 250,000 immigrants, experts say.
As for OAS, previous Liberal and Conservative governments have tried – and failed spectacularly – to make the program financially sustainable. Both Brian Mulroney, and Paul Martin when he was finance minister, were forced to back down in the face of public pressure.
C.D. Howe Institute president Bill Robson said he believes the public will support changes if they see MPs and the public service scaling back their benefits as well.
“As seniors get more numerous, it’s clearly more difficult for politicians to take them on,” he said. “But I’m encouraged to think Canadians can get together on things like this.”
Susan Eng, vice-president of the non-profit retired persons advocacy group CARP, predicts a strong negative reaction to OAS changes, which were never discussed during the election campaign.
Ms. Eng said her group’s surveys show strong opposition to changing the OAS.
So from the top of what Harper considers the "mountaintop" of a world business leaders' conference, when capitalism is under fire for lacking any hint of social responsibility, and some are calling for its transformation, far away from the mud and mire of Ottawa and the national media, the Canadian political leader issues his manifesto, stolen directly from the Tea Party manifesto in the United States.
Not a hint of any of these ideas was uttered in his "5-Q's" (5 questions max. at each face-to-face with media) encounters with the media throughout the campaign only last Spring. No parliamentarian from any opposition party was permitted the "privilege" of knowing these moves, although aides were prompt with their talking points in Davos, in support of the speech.
And the people of Canada have the voters in Toronto, principally, to thank for their short-sighted and politically self-destructive election results, both in electing their equally threatening Mayor as well as a Harper majority government on May 2.
It is not only these initiatives that will bind the country into a kind of grid-lock, in which some demographics will be at war with other demographics, because "austerity" to this government sounds more responsible than courage and creativity and compassion and imagination and balancing various interests.
Furthermore, to suggest that there is a problem with OAS (Old Age Security) because it is not "funded" by employer and employee contributions is only true, once again on the surface. It is tied to the economic revenue of the government, and together with the CPP (Canada Pension Plan) amounts to no more than 15% of the ecoomy, which itself will continue to grow as it has since the beginning. This is another ideologically motivated move to curtail "entitlements" when it is not justified, and cannot be justified, except for a political base that seeks to "gut" what is sees as the "nanny state."
This government would rather buy 65 F-35 Fighter Jets and more armed ships than provide education and housing for First Nations people in Attawapiskat, for example. This government would rather cut 60-70,000 government employees, while committing millions to new commissions with no staff or work in expensive downtown Ottawa offices. This government would rather unload its traditional "national" responsibility for equalization and health care on the provinces than takes its place at the head of the table in formal and informal discussions with the provinces about how to share the revenue from resources that are obviously not distributed equally by nature.
And this prime minister would rather deliver what many consider a "throne speech" in Davos under the glare of international kleg lights, while lecturing the European nations on how to take responsibility for their fiscal crisis, than acknowledge the facts in his own backyard, that jobs in Canada are showing both lower pay and less stability and reliability. This government would rather play "hoity-toity" with the so-called big-shots of a crumbling capitalism in Davos than preserve both good jobs and fair benefits through union negotiations in Canada.
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