NATO meets in Wales this week....a hypothetical reflection of one at the table

So, just imagine you are one of the delegates to the NATO meeting in Wales later this week.
You know that your country's participation in the defence organization began as a response to a potential threat from the then Soviet Union's expansionist aims and goals. You also know that, for the last twenty years, following the collapse of that former Soviet Union, the west has treated the emerging Russia more as an ally than an enemy. You also know that your country's military budget has not permitted the 2% spending on military spending, both on new resources and personnel. It is probably more in the 1% range, and with the rest of your colleagues around the table, the people in your country are certainly not anxious to enter into a military conflict with the Putin-led Russia, especially as he has just reminded the world "not to mess with Russia, that I remind you is a nuclear-armed super power".....
And the question facing all of those seated at the table in Wales is "What does NATO do now in the face of the Russian continuing invasion of eastern Ukraine amid Putin's denials and Poroshenko's formal request for both military assistance and even NATO membership?"
An open military conflict with the Russian bear is likely off the table. And Putin is counting on that.
Another round of economic sanctions will likely produce either little impact on Putin or a reciprocal round of sanctions, possibly including the cutting off of needed heating oil and natural gas for the upcoming winter in Europe.
Approval of Ukraine's request for membership in NATO, while compelling, seems too big a step at this time, for most of those in the meeting, so will likely be deferred.
The EU has just announced a one week ultimatum for Putin to reverses course in Ukraine or face further sanctions, which most agree will likely have little impact on Putin's determination to prevent Ukraine from sliding further into what he sees as the 'western orbit' a position that could eventually include both EU membership for Ukraine and also NATO membership.
So, what's left could be a lengthy discussion of NATO's making enhanced contributions of military, intelligence and strategic resources to the Ukrainian government in Kiev....as a way of threading the needle with a very small opening, without actually ordering any "boots on the ground" or committing to what would eventually become an all-out war between Putin and NATO over the Russian meddling in eastern Ukraine.
While you contemplate making your own statement to those assembled at the table, you are fully aware that whatever you say will be reported to your government and people back home, and your capacity to deliver, should you agree to contribute substantially to the Ukrainian cause, on behalf of your government, could so raise the stakes between Ukraine Russia that could bring NATO into direct military conflict with the Kremlin. You also know that doing nothing is really not an option, especially when the future of both Ukraine and NATO are essentially on the line, at this moment.
As one EU leader has already stated publicly, "This is a significant moment in human history"...or words to that effect.
And so, you contemplate your words, very carefully. You listen intently to those words already being shared around the table. You recognize and respect the defensive aspect of the NATO origin, and recognize that Ukraine, although not a formal member, deserves the support of her neighbours, if invasions of other former Soviet satellites by Putin's Russian forces ( no matter how scantily disguised) are to be avoided. It was Poroshenko himself, in his petition for NATO support who warned that the stability of Europe was on the line, and while that scenario does not face this meeting in Wales, at this moment, he could well be foreshadowing a likely outcome should NATO come up short.
Even those people in countries represented at this table are, for the most part, deadly serious about avoiding another war and would be appalled if NATO succumbed to the slippery slope of full military engagement with Russia. Yet, talking with Putin, the very one openly seeking negotiations, is unlikely to generate the kind of resolution and withdrawal of his forces from the Ukrainian soil, or his agreement to resist further incursions. There seem to be no levers available for participants to deploy in an effort to reverse Putin's nationalist ambitions.
And so, you raise your hand, signalling your preparedness to speak to the meeting. When recognized you begin nervously:
With respect, ladies and gentlemen, we all agree that NATO, and in many ways, the world, seems to be a  boiling cauldron of various forces of instability, and nervousness, as well as fiscal restraint and political impairment. We are meeting when well over 2000 people have already died in the fight to preserve the territorial integrity and legitimate aspirations of the people of Ukraine, including those who consider their Russian heritage to be integral to their identity, while living within the Ukrainian boundaries. We are also meeting staring statements of denial and blame coming from Putin, including even conflicting statements to his own coming from the Kremlin itself. The fog of war, especially regarding Putin's full intentions, already engulfs our deliberations.
We have a responsibility to our NATO treaty, as well as to the assurance of freedom of the people whom NATO represents, to see clearly through the most intense fog we have faced since our birth.We also have a responsibility to acknowledge and to repel all threats to the territorial sovereignty of our members, and in this case, to one seeking membership, knowing full well that this could well be prologue to an actual Russian invasion of one of our own members, in spite of Putin's vociferous denials of any such ambitions.
Increasingly, and transparently, NATO is being asked, perhaps some would consider it "forced," to demonstrate a level of courage, commitment and leadership that none of us at this table could or wold have envisaged when we accepted this responsibility. Nevertheless, there are clearly many leaders around the world who are watching and listening to our deliberations, and especially to our decisions. We must demonstrate that we are both willing and able to find a series of action steps that can and will support the Ukrainian people, while simultaneously, posing a serious and substantive pause in Putin's thinking and his determination to continue his reckless and dangerous threats.
Speaking for my own country, I submit a commitment of the best of our intelligence technologies, including both the personnel and the training required to operate these technologies to the co-ordinated complement of NATO contributions to the people and government of Kiev. I also commit to engage our government's foreign affairs department to the pursuit of substantive negotiations between Moscow and Kiev, brokered if necessary by NATO leaders in conjunction with EU  leadership.
The future of NATO and the potential future of the Ukrainian people as well as the future of the nation state of Ukraine is at stake, and while not exclusively in our hands, nevertheless, our hands are intimately and permanently tied to its resolution. We must seek to remove the Russian rebels, indeed terrorists, from a future participation in the resolution of this conflict. And we must be seen to be and to remain steadfast in our resolve, through actions of which our grandchildren can and will be proud.
Thanks you for your attentive respect and continuing dedication to this moment in history.

Harper's reductionism in his rejection of a public inquiry into missing and murdered aboriginal women

In his public statements to justify his rejection of a public inquiry into the issues at the root of some missing and murdered aboriginal women, the Canadian prime minister, Steven Harper says "This problem is not to be treated as some sociological phenomenon."
To counter his "straw-man" sociology, Harper says it is a criminal problem, and the police are working to find those responsible.
That would be like your doctor examining an open sore on your leg as a skin infection, when a biopsy reveals cancer cells.
Reductionisms, Sir, are killing your government, and any respect some of us may have harboured for your perceptions of your responsibilities.
You have overplayed your "strong-on-crime" hand.
Sir, not all problems that the country faces can be solved through increased police activity, nor can they even be fully understood through a lens that refuses to acknowledge the conditions under which these missing and murdered leave their families and their communities, and scar both forever.
There will be some who say that Harper's unified approach, to criminalize the problem, is a minimalist approach, permitting government to allocate only those resources that will address the situation.
Others of us, however, know that it is not merely the allocation of an envelope of money to those with "authority" in the society that will address most problems. In fact, looking merely for a perpetrator leaves out more than it includes in the original definition of the problem.
Schools today brag about teaching "problem solving skills"....but first they need to develop a perception of the problem that includes the capacity to rank the variables and it would seem to some of us less "smart" than Harper that such a complex understanding of the problem of missing and murdered aboriginal women would want to understand the role that factors larger than bullets, or ropes or guns are integral to a concern.
While it is true that some of those factors may not be as amenable to complete resolution as the "settling" of the legal requirements of questions like who committed the crime, the processes that would seek to address those factors would significantly  re-shape the society in which these crimes are taking place.
It is not rocket science to note the rise of terrorism needs a soil of similar conditions to those of other abuses of power: poverty, alienation, hopelessness, a lack of education, a lack of access to health care and to employment with dignity and security, and to the various conditions that constitute a full acknowledgement of the social contract that used to be an integral component of the relationship between government and the body politic.
Control, and the excessive need for control seems to underlie the mind-set of those, like Harper who espouse a narrow perception of social issues facing government. The scale of various tax burdens, the scale of military and police investments and the rate of growth of the GNP....these are the guiding factors for such political leaders.
They do not link the wider and contributing factors that impinge on the achievement of "other" and to them "irrelevant" questions, and consequently they attempt to ride the tips of their chosen "benchmarks"....and both the media and much of the corporate world gives them the pass they so desperately need.
Others of us, however, remain sceptical, suspicious, and even dismissive of such reductionisms, although our recognition of the messiness and the complexities of our definitions of issues does not deter our idealism.
Increasingly we know from multiple research projects in so many different academic disciplines that the isolation of serious issues into simplistic reductionisms is a danger to the overall health and well being of the body politic. We can't pour sugar into our children's tummies through our school cafeterias and not expect them to develop diabetes and obesity. We cannot remove the arts and physical education from their curriculum and expect that science and math and technology can or will replace those missing ingredients in their balanced diet.
And we cannot remove the responsibilities of contemporary governments the need to publicly acknowledge and address messy and potentially intractable issues like racism, classism, and the abuse of power, in the definition of issues, that is permitted in too many human interactions.

The plight of young black and latino men in the U.S. and of aboriginal young women in Canada...racism abounds

More and more frequently, the 49th parallel is becoming like swiss cheese....very porous.
This week, we learned that the American fast food giant, Burger King is purchasing Canadian business "icon" Tim Hortons, another fast food veteran of the past half century in Canada. For the American audience, the purchase/sale is about tax avoidance on Burger King's part. By joining a holding company, whose head office will be located in Oakville Ontario, a distant suburb of Toronto, the company will pay at least 10% less in federal tax, given the difference between the Canadian and U.S. corporate tax rates. For the Canadian audience, the merger is about lowering standards and tarnishing what has become a national "brand" of considerable pride, even though the coffee, donuts and other baked goods do definitely deserve to be known by consumers around the world.
The purchase price of $12 billion seems quite astronomic, given the waning sales of Burger King products over the last couple of years. Reports are that the two companies are not intending, at least for now, to merge their offerings: no burgers will Tim's coffee, and no Tim's Donuts with a Big Whopper.
This story has received much coverage in both American and Canadian news rooms for the last few days,
There are two other stories boiling on both sides of the 49th parallel that are boiling, yet separate and unique to each country.
In the U.S. there is a public outcry following the Ferguson Illinois police shooting of an unarmed black man, Michael Brown. Reports from various sources who are outraged indicate that there may be as many as 1080 unarmed  black and latino young men who have been murdered by police forces across the United States over the last two or three years.
In Canada, the issue is murdered and mission aboriginal women, some 1200 according to published reports. The most recent case involves a young aboriginal woman who was buried this past weekend in Winnipeg.
In the United States, the Justice department is conducting an investigation into whether or not civil rights charges might be laid in the Michael Brown case.
In Canada, however, the Prime Minister Steven Harper has steadfastly resisted a public inquiry into the murdered and missing aboriginal women.
A Justice department investigation and a Public Inquiry are clearly not the same thing. Canadians and Americans, through their public figures and governments do things differently.
However, both issues beg some obvious questions about the fabric of race relations on both sides of the 49th.
Black and latino young men being murdered by public police officers, paid by the taxpayers of various states and counties offer a continuing scourge on the reputation of a country that has not shed the shackles of deep and profound racism in well over 200 years.
The fact that over 1000 young women from First Nations communities in Canada are dead or missing, while the federal government refuses to open the discussion formally and fully to a public inquiry into the root causes of Canada's most enduring and most racist blight on her conscience is no slight cause of embarrassment for Canadians. Premiers of all provinces and territories are demanding a public inquiry. Citizen activists of all ethnicities are calling for a public inquiry. The Harper government insists the issue of murdered and missing aboriginal women is a criminal issue,  requiring continued, uninterrupted police investigation. They contend that a public inquiry would only impede such an inquiry. Some in Canada are asking that public focus include the numbers of missing and murdered young men.
In the United States, we have not heard voices focusing on the needs and issues around young black and latino women,
So, amidst the racism that is magnetizing political conversations and debates in Canada and the United States, issues of poverty, ceilings on opportunities through education, employment, family nurturing and the relations that have existed and continue to exist between the black and aboriginal communities and the body politic, including those in government and those responsible for public peace and security, that means law enforcement overlap the issues facing public officials in both countries.
Focussing only or mainly on the legal issues, looking for the criminals both in the police forces in the United States, and the policed forces across Canada is merely a Band-Aid approach to the fundamental issues facing those young men and women living at the bottom of the sociological ladder in towns, cities and regions in both countries.
Both countries face a serious danger of objectifying these young men and women, by grouping them as statistical numbers, thereby reducing them from former living and vibrant human beings to digits under study, so they might fit into some policy forum, fixable through both the laying of criminal charges and convictions and removing the obligation on public figures to address underlying and root issues that are far less amenable to political or legal "pills".
Racism is not something that can be crammed into a politician's "file folder" under the broader title of "UNSOLVABLE ISSUES".... Each and every politician of all political parties in both countries is sharing responsibility for removing those clinging barnacles and tumors of both overt and more insidious nuanced racism, that includes a form of sexism. We are watching racism play out, with quite different faces and forms in Canada and the United States, while politicians in both countries would prefer to deal with single issues, one by one, without digging more deeply into the far more disturbing underlying issues.
To dig into those underlying issues, of course, would require a complete re-thinking of the fundamental principles of how the rich are getting richer and the outcasts are being thrown into the ditch in both cultures, with what looks like complete impunity on the part of those in power in both countries.
Clearly the top 1% in both countries have a common white face.
Also, clearly, the governments in both countries are comprised of primarily white faces.
Also clearly, the sensitivity to issues underlying murdered black young men, and murdered and missing aboriginal young women seems to be a publicly shared need by both populations in Canada and the United States. The power structure strongly resists digging deeply into the root causes especially of issues that have plagued these so-called "advanced" and "liberal" countries, because, presumably they do not wish to expose themselves to  the dangers of relinquishing some of their treasured and jealously guarded power "percs". However, for the power blocks in Canada and the United States to continue to bury their heads, hearts and eyes in the sands of denial brings shame on the people in both countries.
It is a no-brainer for ordinary folks to recognise the facts of racism, of ostracism, of insouciance and even of negligence of those most in need of public support throughout their lives, beginning at birth, continuing through early education programs and nutrition programs, access to quality health care, reasonable housing, public security and responsible parenting, as well as access to the same opportunities that "white young people" enjoy....
And, that gap is growing, shaming both countries.

Calgary Imam declares ISIS will destroy Islam!...he is right and we need to hear his hunger strike as a call to action

Canadian Imam says ISIS will destroy Islam.
Those are his words not mine and the Calgary Muslim cleric said them in a video recording on CBC television.
Naturally, we agree with him and support his hunger strike to gain attention inside the Muslim world for the depth and breadth of the danger, not only to Islam but also to the whole world.
We are not proud of the fact that we have been crying out for months, perhaps even years, against the spreading cancer of Islamic jihad. without witnessing any apparent sharing of those fears among the leaders of the world's nations, at least to the degree that this Calgary Imam has now joined and proclaimed.
The British Prime Minister, David Cameron, through the Home Secretary in his Cabinet writing an article that appeared in the British press last night, is proposing legislation that would take direct aim at those in Great Briton who espouse Islamic terror, even British Imams who advocate violence through their homilies and the distribution of leaflets, on behalf of the recruitment of new jihadists to the ISIS campaign to establish a caliphate. Just yesterday, a digital advertisement imposing the ISIS insignia on the image of the White House, proclaiming the promising the destruction of America and all of her allies.
Whenever and wherever I have encountered Sunni Muslims, over the last few years, I have formally and directly pleaded with those men to "tame their monster" referring firstly to Al Qaeda and more recently, ISIS, as well as the Imam in Great Briton who was quoted as announcing that Islamic jihad intended to take over Buckingham Palace, leaving the Royal Family two choices, convert or leave the country. It is neither as advocate for the preservation of the crown as the head of state in Canada, nor as rocket scientist that we have spoken out against such abhorrent statements. It is merely a non-Muslim, Caucasian Canadian's response to the facts as reported on the ground in too many countries on too many continents, in Nigeria, Sudan, Central African Republic, Somalia, Spain, the United States, Great Britain and elsewhere.
It has been neither comfortable nor comfortably received that these admonishings were delivered and received. I do not like telling another human being that there are men (almost exclusively) operating as agents of his faith community in their own perceptions and words and actions, with a purpose and goal of violently imposing their tyrannical will on innocents, both Muslim and "infidel" (their word).
The Imam in Calgary has obviously, and with much more relevance and credibility than I, been making similar overtures against this cancer. He has experienced direct death threats, and another such threat just this week. Just this week, the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyhu spoke this way about Hamas: "They are a branch of the same tree as ISIS!"
And that is just another reason why all people, Christians, Jews, and all others including Muslims who do not subscribe to the radical Sunni interpretation of the Koran held by these scum, must, for the purpose of the survival of all humanity, join in solidarity against this scourge in its current and any future iterations.
The military wing of Hamas just yesterday, is reported to have executed some 18 Palestinians whom they accused and convicted, in a terrorist court, of spying for Israel. Six of those 18 were executed in public, by masked terrorist members of Hamas, as a demonstration of what will happen to others who might consider spying for Israel. Also, just yesterday, another suicide bomber drove a vehicle into the Security Offices of the government of Baghdad, killing another couple of dozen Iraqi's....reports have not yet confirmed this latest act was committed by an ISIS agent, but here is little doubt that it was.
ISIS, sadly, has also infiltrated Syria, to the degree that the United States might actually be compelled to ally with Assad, the hated leader of that country, in a marriage of  necessity, certainly not of choice. The Sunni members of the Iraqi government this week walked out of talks dedicated to the formation of a unity government that represents all factions of the Iraqi population, Sunni, Shia, Kurd and minorities.
Will the United States be forced to drop bombs on Syria, in their drive to eradicate ISIS, a country that has already faced the deaths of over 120,000 in the three years plus of its civil war? There are strong indications that that development is imminent. Will other western governments be forced to join the military initiatives against ISIS around the world? Will the people represented by those governments subscribe to the need for actions on all fronts to not merely drive ISIS underground as bombing raids certainly will, but to decapitate its many heads, and disperse its many cohorts, including the use of the intelligence cohort, the police and criminal cohort, the military cohort, and sadly, the citizen cohort.
If all citizens do not share the Calgary Imam's perception and reality, that ISIS will destroy Islam, along with all other models of western culture including all faith communities, then this initiative (much more than a "project", to use the president's latest word for his many initiatives) will fail and ISIS will indeed impose its terror not only on the Twin Towers of Manhattan, but on the many structures and targets of our way of life.
For them this is a Holy War, analogous to the Crusades, only this time, we all face the threat that these thugs will eventually acquire not only our left over tanks and humvies, but our loose nukes and the capacity to fire them into our towns and cities. Last night's rocket attack on a Kibbutz in Israel, killing a four-year-old Israeli boy, fired by another arm of Islamic terrorism, Hamas, could be a foreshadowing of the kind of actions to which we could all be subject, without our having pushed back as vigorously and as coherently as each of us can.
And our leaders have to listen to the Calgary Imam, and to his perception of the risks of doing nothing, or doing too little too late, a tradition on so many files that does not do us proud or serve our purpose.

A Canadian imam known for his pacifist sermons warned Friday that Islamist militant group ISIS was actively recruiting in Canada and said one member issued him a death threat.

Syed Soharwardy, founder of the Islamic Supreme Council of Canada (ISCC), called on Canadian and Western authorities to intensify the fight against Islamist militant movements.

"Absolutely I am convinced that this recruitment is going on right here in this country, under our noses, in our universities, in our colleges, in the places of worship, in our community," he told CBC public television.

Soharwardy added that a Muslim man from Ottawa who was fighting with ISIS in Mosul in northern Iraq had sent him a death threat on Facebook.

"He was condemning me for condemning ISIS, and he was saying that 'You are a deviant imam and your version of Islam is not the right version,'" Soharwardy said, using another acronym by which ISIS is known. (Al Arabiya, Middle East. August 24, 2014)

Harper opens 2015 campaign with hollow rhetoric about straw men shelling "new" without substance....

According to the Globe and Mail, Stephen Harper just yesterday opened the campaign for the 2015 election, warning supporters in British Columbia, on a stop before heading for his annual trip to the Arctic, that liberals will attempt to sell "new" policies without putting any meat on those bones.
Actually, Harper has no need of expressing anxiety about "new" ideas from the opposition parties. He has so radically misshaped the historic traditions of Canada, and not for the better for Canadians, that it will be the job of both opposition parties to attempt to restore Canada's best and most cherished traditions, through turfing the Harper gang out of Ottawa.
Multilateralism, balance, human compassion especially for those at the lowest rungs of the economic ladder, balanced initiatives that preserve and enhance economic growth while balancing the serious needs of the environment, respect for the provincial governments, engagement on health care sustainability and enhancement within the confines of shared provincial and federal leadership, shifting the "wealth" from the most affluent to a more shared and egalitarian approach....these are just some of the "old" and trusted and proven approaches that have stood Canada well, when applied by both "liberal" and "progressive conservative" governments over the last century and a half.
There would be a return to respect for the institutions like the Supreme Court, the Civil Service, the historic role of departments like Statistics Canada whose work has fueled social policy for both academic researchers and social planners in the field since its inception, falling into disrepute through the elimination of the long-form census. Federal support for scientific research of the fisheries, and for significant and long overdue initiatives that would help to push back against the pollutants belching into the Canadian atmosphere by the friends of this government who rape our natural resources for profit while leaving the environment devastated in their wake, as the government turns a blind eye to environmental regulation and oversight.
It is the old chestnut of "common sense" and respect for all regardless of their political or economic status and ideology that Mr. Harper has more to fear than "new" policies without substance.
Demonstrating the capacity to critically self-examine one's performance, as we have witnessed from the White House podium by the current occupant of that office for the last six years is another of the Canadian traditions that could and would return with the removal of the Harper government and the willingness and the courage to work with political differences in Ottawa would be another sign of a return to something Canadians have cherished for the length and breadth of our history.
A willingness and a determination to negotiate honestly, openly and respectfully with First Nations with a view to bringing that population fully into the mainstream of Canadian life and culture would be another obvious change that Canadians could look forward to with the removal of the Harper Neanderthals.
Answering questions posed by the reporters attached to the campaign, as another sign of respect for the role and responsibility of leadership, rather than staged and scripted phoney exchanges with selected reporters and planted questions would be another sign that Canada has indeed returned to something like her former self-respecting status of respect for the deployment of political power with a light touch, and not with the fist of arrogance.
No, Mr. Harper, is it not "new" marketing ideas from the opposition parties that are your greatest enemy. It is the record of your government that has so taken this country off course from the history and traditions that leaders much more successful and treasured than you have engrained into our DNA that poses your most serious threat to re-election. And for you not be aware of that reality is another way by which you demonstrate your existence in your own bubble of the wealthy, the privileged and the 1% whose cash fills your party's coffers and whose authority will be challenged along with yours in 2015.

Mr. Harper said other parties will ask Canadians not to think about the choice between change and the strong economy, safer country and stronger position in the world the Conservatives will tout to win votes.
“You can listen to the liberal elites, and the liberal media pundits and liberal interest groups and you can hear the plan: Tell Canadians there’s something new and exciting,” Mr. Harper said, speaking to an audience of several hundred.
But he suggested there would be no details beyond the plan being “new.”
“They’re going to tell you this. Just close your eyes, dream but don’t ruin it by asking any hard questions. If you want something from the government, whatever you want, they’re going to tell you you can have it. Don’t worry about how it’s going to be paid for.” (By Ian Bailey, The Globe and Mail, August 21, 2014)

Can the NDP take power in Canada....some modest proposals for consideration of that worthy goal

Winning even a minority government, for the Canadian NDP under Tom Mulcair's leadership, in 2015 is and will continue to be a national priority. However, it is certainly not a foregone or predictable result. There are many residual impediments deeply buried in the national culture that stand between Mulcair's move from Stornoway, the home of the Leader of the Opposition, to 24 Sussex, the Canadian home of Prime Ministers.
Some of these impediments, while nothing in politics is exclusively dependent on merely empirical, scientific evidence, have been shaped by the complex combination of some evidence generated by history, and the process of how that evidence is perceived over time by the general public, the body politic.
One example of that 'distortion' is the lamentable reputation of the Bob Rae NDP government in Ontario in the 1990's. His government admittedly made mistakes, as have all governments. However, transferring those mistakes to the national party bearing the same name is nothing short of misplaced resentment, misplaced revenge and a denial of the full truths of  both the previous Ontario government and the potential of the current NDP in Ottawa to operate differently. Mulcair has to confront this "demon" of distortion and reclaim the high ground, in Ontario, using the positive evidence from the record to reconstruct the Rae government's reputation first among Ontario voters and second with the national media. To some extent this is a project of defeating a straw man, one based on distortions, and on misrepresentations and on exaggerations incubated and nurtured by a right wing dismissal of a 'bad apple' of a government that does not deserve the dissing.
Another 'demon' that Mulcair has to confront is that the NDP cannot and does not provide competent administration when in government. The pages of Canadian history abound with examples of excellent administrations all formed and led by the NDP. Some of these governments bear the names of premiers Tommy Douglas, Allan Blakeney, Roy Romanow, all of them leaders whose administrations provide more than adequate shoulders upon which Mulcair can  build a case for his own potential administration. Once again, however, he has to demonstrate the aspects of successful administrations he actually likes and would adopt, as his way of earning and earning and re-earning the trust of the Canadian electorate.
And then there is the question of the relationship of the NDP to the labour movement, a movement that just last night blackened both its own eye and that of the party through its protest in the city council chambers in Montreal when the city fathers were debating a measure that would require unionized workers to contribute more to their own pensions. Smoke bombs and overtaking the council chambers, treating the members of Montreal city council with disrespect including physical punches and raining copies of their collective agreement throughout the chambers is no way to protest changes to their pension contributions.
However, there are ample opportunities to begin the process of restoring the public respect and dignity of ordinary workers for Mulcair to embrace the issue of worker protections without falling into the trap of a Siamese twin relationship with the worst elements of the labour movement. Providing tax incentives for corporations who actually respect their workers, whether they operate within a union framework or not would be a reasonable beginning. Providing leadership through the contractual relationships that exist between the federal government and its own employees and contractors, through minimum wages, monitoring the ways through which the federal government achieves labour trust and respect would be helpful to other employers and their workers, through the publication of such examples of enlightened leadership. A serious look at the question of the federal minimum wage would also demonstrate a commitment to the lives of ordinary workers. And of course, the question of temporary foreign workers needs a unique, compassionate and fair approach, as compared with the exclusively pro-corporate approach of the Harper government. Workers also need the kind of legislative support for their legitimate needs, perhaps under a different rubric, such as worker associations that are unique to each corporation and not linked to an international union, working through a reinvigorated International Labour Organization, when comparing best practices (like those in Germany) as standards for Canadian workers. These modest steps would help to bend the arc of public perceptions of how the NDP would deal with the current realities of employer-employee relations.
And then there is the fundamental question of how Canada extracts and protects our natural resources which include not only oil and gas but also water, forestry and mineral extracts. A national approach to extractive processes that respect the long-term needs of the environment while permitting the exploration of new claims, including how Canadian resources are negotiated on the world market, and how the workers of Canadian corporations are treated around the world, while respecting the global environment....without necessarily imposing a carbon tax but through more creative fiscal structuring of natural resource extractions and the needed confrontation of how Canada will both use and protect our water in a world hell-bent on privatizing water, with the big guys already depleting the underground reservoirs in places like California one of the most productive world garden.
And on this note, the NDP could provide tax incentives for Canadians who return to local gardening and providing fresh fruits and vegetables for local populations, without the use of harmful toxic fertilizers.
And following up on the "greening of Canada" theme, the NDP could provide significant tax incentives to individual families to move off the electricity grid, and to purchase those fruits and vegetables grown in local community gardens, and to encourage provincial governments to subsidize new initiatives that link bedroom communities to their larger workplace hubs through commuter buses on a smaller scale to the already successful examples like the GO system in the GTA. People are moving out of cities and are crowding the township roads back into the cities where they work but would benefit from medium-sized buses to convey them to their work, without having to drive or spend excessive dollars on energy to drive their private cars.
And still with energy, the question of  the refining of Canadian crude inside the Canadian refineries, including the question of reversing an existing pipeline and the potential need for additional pipelines, as well as assurances that rail cars will meet minimum standards in the transition needs to be a priority for the party's energy position.
And then, there is a question of another national intervention into both the health care field and the field of transportation and communication. With respect to health care, we need a national drug plan and provides access to needed drugs to all in need, a national program to provide access to dental services for at least all children regardless of the economic status of their families, a nationally supported, if not Ottawa directed early child education program including access to high nutrition and physical activities through enhanced leadership and support for such programs as participaction and access to physical team sports for all children with both interest and commitment.
And while we are dreaming of a more "perfect" Canadian society under an NDP government, we will naturally expect prisoners to face rehabilitation that works, judges to return to a flexible sentencing posture, and workers to find full-time employment with minimal safeguards from physical and political interference and dangers.
And then, lets begin the process of investigating the feasibility of a trans-national rapid transit monorail train system that emulates those being built (in part by Canadian companies) in other countries. Our vision of the Canadian iteration of the national monorail system would link all provinces and territories and provide opportunities not only for employment but also for enhanced exposure by all Canadians of all regions and local cultures and traditions.
It is not a complete list of proposals but rather a stimulus to provoke more submissions from others more qualified than your scribe, in order to enhance the prospects of an NDP government in the election of 2015. And there is no need to move rapidly into the Colorado model of "pot" fundraising in order to be popular.

Ferguson, Missouri, the latest scene in a long-running American tragedy

America is once again bleeding!
She is fraught with so much anger and tension with so many background roots that official government seems unwilling or unable (or both) to do much to alleviate. Of course, the shooting by police of another unarmed young black man who was apparently holding his hands over his head while being shot six times twice in the head, in Ferguson Missouri is the precipitating incident.
However, with three autopsy reports being performed on his body, and dozens of people walking the streets throughout the nights, for the past ten days since the murder of Michael Brown, the removal of the local police force from the duty of providing peace and security, the responsibility having been handed over to the State Highway Patrol department, and the calling in of the National Guard just last night by the governor....there is no end in sight to the simmering angst, which is being compared favourably to other similar situations from other years and other locations throughout the U.S.
Militarizing the police, following 9/11 in a panic of fear, without appropriate training, naturally has provided additional means of crowd control, but the original police shots, plus the overriding of the local police by the governor and the demographic shift of the population of Ferguson, formerly primarily white, now primarily black although the police force itself is mainly white and the feelings of injustice that have been obviously lurking underneath the surface of the community for some time all combine to generate a toxic social cocktail that is leaving a black mark on the face of the community, as well as on the country.
The president has weighed in a couple of times calling for calm and dubbing violence against the police as well as over-reactions by those police as inexcusable, never wanting to "tip the scales" while the situations are proceeding and investigations continuing. People who have driven to Ferguson have allegedly  been arrested, so the situation is providing an opportunity for those seeking to express rage from outside the community to bring their own feelings of injustice and powerlessness to the streets of Ferguson.
This is not the Arab Spring, not the tension in eastern Ukraine, and not the war between Israel and Hamas. It is a very localized set of circumstances. However, it does have the potential of burning another historic wound into the consciousness of the nation.
Race relations, in spite of the election of the first black president, have not been reduced with that election. Race relations, in fact, have undoubtedly become exacerbated, through the growth of the gulf between the have's and the have not's.
There are stunning facts about the suspension and expulsion rates of black young men from American schools, far higher than the rates for while male students. There are also stunning numbers of unarmed black youth having been shot by law enforcement personnel in all corners of the country, numbers that eclipse the figures of white young men in relation to law enforcement. Black mothers speak openly about "having had the talk" with their male children, introducing them to the reality of having to go out into an highly unfriendly world, orienting them to the rigours of how they will have to confront that world, without losing either their dignity or their life and freedom.
White mothers and fathers, on the other hand, simply do not have to have "that talk" and the disparity continues to haunt the streets of communities across the nation.
From the outside, we can only speculate at the depth and the angst of a nation conceived in the violence of rebellion, developed through the even deeper violence of a Civil War that set brother against brother, not over a foreign invader, but over the continuation of slavery, that monster of the abuse of power that will plague the United States so long as there is a United States.
No matter how "developed" and how "advanced" and how "progressive" the country has become, and will continue to become, it will always carry with it in its conscience and in its unconscious, the plague of its own history, in proportions that few nations will understand.
Even when the president sends the Attorney General, Eric Holder, himself a respected black leader, into the situation in Ferguson, to help calm the waters, there is no guarantee that his presence will have the desired impact the president hopes for. There is no single person who has the influence sufficient to the complexities of the situation unfolding in Ferguson to calm the winds of fear, injustice, vengeance and the sheer opportunism that always attaches itself to erupting social wounds.
Criminality, without race overtones, resides inside the body of every town and city; that element will rear its ugly head wherever and whenever the occasion opens to their subversion. With the race element added, the apparent lessening of prospects for young men and women facing a life of an education that is less than what is required to survive and a degree of poverty that attends many in the black community.... the shots fired into the body and head of Michael Brown are nothing short of the spark that ignites the tinder box of a dry and parched economy, that watches the rich grow their incomes and opportunities on the backs of those seemingly "sentenced" to lives of scarcity and resentment.
If those shots actually waken the country to the kind of disparity it has grown and fostered and nurtured, and brings all elements in the political leadership to their senses through legislation that levels the playfield through job opportunities, tax policies and long-term fiscal equity, then they will have brought a needed outcome to a festering disease of denial, insouciance and irresponsibility.
However, the prospects of that kind of long-term resolution to the underlying dynamics are not promising. In fact, the  public consciousness will shift from this crisis to the next, put the faces of experts on the television screens across the country, keep the news departments up all night providing coverage, and then move on to the next enactment of the long-running drama of division, both of race and of opportunity on the streets, in the classrooms, and in the court rooms of the nation.
And the world will be the needed "audience" for this most tragic and epic of struggles, the American battle the with demon of racism, their unique version of the eternal struggle between the powerful and the powerless.