Mikhail Gorbachev had some interesting words recently. He was talking about his nation had its Perestroika (policy which translates to restructuring in Russian), but the west had not had its own. Great speech, here's the link to it:
http://www.michaelmoore.com/mustread/index.php?id=1210
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Back from the Dead (Again!)
Man, I need to get a new computer! My hard drive has had to be replaced again! They say it doesn't have anything to do with viruses. But even so, I've had far too much trouble with PC-related problems to justify keeping it any longer. PC's (for me anyway) are holes that you keep pouring money into, but they never quite get full. Then again, its my fault; I download far too much crap, but dammit people depend on me! How else are they to get copies of their favorite movies and tv shows for free?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Interesting times...
Ever get that feeling that you are listening in interesting times? It's a Chinese curse, I'm sure you've heard of it. No one who ever lives to see such times feels particularly privileged, except in the knowledge that they will be able to tell people about it someday. What makes them such a headache is that you have to witness human beings doing stupid things. That's almost always what defines it. Oh, and I hate constantly hearing about things going on south of the border while nothing appears to be happening here other than complaints of how our economy is suffering thanks to the US. After years of suffering from Bush's idiotic leadership, there's finally a stable, intelligent man in charge there. You'd think that things would improve, but the morons running Wall Street, who got us all into this mess through their dick-brained antics, run scared every time Obama does something half-way intelligent (firing the crooked CEO of GM for one). And there's an entire media industry dedicated to running the sour grapes play (that's where they try like hell to ruin him because he beat the man they're lapdogs to in the last election).
And now there's constant news of how Afghanistan is not yet over. I saw a broadcast just now saying how the country is fighting a bill that is threatening to be past which will legalize rape in marriage. Our politicians talk exactly like US politicians do about Iraq, looking and sounding like people who've checked their brains at the door for political expediency. Why can't anyone say the obvious? The so called "war on terror" which should have started and ended in Afghanistan was abandoned by its major player, and now the fight has lost all meaning. Defending the rights of women and civilians from the Taliban is a noble goal, but there's little difference between that and the "building democracy" line that was used to keep US involvement in Iraq going. Canada's and the Coalitions ongoing involvement in Afghanistan is a war against is dominant ethnic group, the Pashtuns, not a fight against terrorism or oppression or other abstract phenomena. That's what it comes down to, in real and practical terms, and that's not a winning fight. The Pashtuns constitue the majority of the population, the entire eastern portion of the country, the better part of western Pakistan. The whole reason western Pakistan is becoming such a hot spot, an open area of recruitment for the Taliban, a haven for Al-Qaeda and exiled Taliban leaders, and the spot where the US is launching Predator strikes, is for this very reason.
In short, the war on terror is over. Clinton said as much when she declared that they were dropping the phrase from their admin's lexicon. We in Canada need to wake up and acknowledge that the opporunity to do anything productive began slipping away years ago and is now all but gone. The women of Afghanistan will suffer for sure, but so will many others and it's a little late to be using that as a reason for not leaving. The fact is, had people cared about the plight of Afghanistant's people a few decades ago, the Taliban would never have come to power. Hell, the Soviet invasion would have been averted had people over here not decided to use these people to further their own strategic interests. It's a long and sad tale, well documented for sure, how Afghanistan suffered from US and Soviet power games, how Pakistant's own tampering led to the Taliban, and the US invasion-turned-withdrawal from the country has led to a resurgent crisis there. Afghanistan's problems, like those in Iraq - which are also due to the bungling of those who invaded it - will take decades to resolve themselves. But those problems are beyond our means to solve them. To assume we can correct for Afghanistan's long history, its impenatrable system of tribal loyalties, its long cycle of violence and suffering, and its broken economy by sending more troops or keeping them there longer, is arrogant to say the least. More US troops, as Obama has promised, won't help. Keeping Canada there until 2011 won't help either.
As my grandpa used to say, the best way to screw things up is to get people involved. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to step back and let things resolve themselves. And in the case of screwed up nations, especially the ones you helped screw up, sometimes the best thing to do is get out and let the people sort things out for themselves. It's the greatest injustice in the world that those who've already suffered so much will have to suffer more before things get any better. But unfortunately, that's life, and its a constant reality in Afghanistan. No one knows that better than them.
And now there's constant news of how Afghanistan is not yet over. I saw a broadcast just now saying how the country is fighting a bill that is threatening to be past which will legalize rape in marriage. Our politicians talk exactly like US politicians do about Iraq, looking and sounding like people who've checked their brains at the door for political expediency. Why can't anyone say the obvious? The so called "war on terror" which should have started and ended in Afghanistan was abandoned by its major player, and now the fight has lost all meaning. Defending the rights of women and civilians from the Taliban is a noble goal, but there's little difference between that and the "building democracy" line that was used to keep US involvement in Iraq going. Canada's and the Coalitions ongoing involvement in Afghanistan is a war against is dominant ethnic group, the Pashtuns, not a fight against terrorism or oppression or other abstract phenomena. That's what it comes down to, in real and practical terms, and that's not a winning fight. The Pashtuns constitue the majority of the population, the entire eastern portion of the country, the better part of western Pakistan. The whole reason western Pakistan is becoming such a hot spot, an open area of recruitment for the Taliban, a haven for Al-Qaeda and exiled Taliban leaders, and the spot where the US is launching Predator strikes, is for this very reason.
In short, the war on terror is over. Clinton said as much when she declared that they were dropping the phrase from their admin's lexicon. We in Canada need to wake up and acknowledge that the opporunity to do anything productive began slipping away years ago and is now all but gone. The women of Afghanistan will suffer for sure, but so will many others and it's a little late to be using that as a reason for not leaving. The fact is, had people cared about the plight of Afghanistant's people a few decades ago, the Taliban would never have come to power. Hell, the Soviet invasion would have been averted had people over here not decided to use these people to further their own strategic interests. It's a long and sad tale, well documented for sure, how Afghanistan suffered from US and Soviet power games, how Pakistant's own tampering led to the Taliban, and the US invasion-turned-withdrawal from the country has led to a resurgent crisis there. Afghanistan's problems, like those in Iraq - which are also due to the bungling of those who invaded it - will take decades to resolve themselves. But those problems are beyond our means to solve them. To assume we can correct for Afghanistan's long history, its impenatrable system of tribal loyalties, its long cycle of violence and suffering, and its broken economy by sending more troops or keeping them there longer, is arrogant to say the least. More US troops, as Obama has promised, won't help. Keeping Canada there until 2011 won't help either.
As my grandpa used to say, the best way to screw things up is to get people involved. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is to step back and let things resolve themselves. And in the case of screwed up nations, especially the ones you helped screw up, sometimes the best thing to do is get out and let the people sort things out for themselves. It's the greatest injustice in the world that those who've already suffered so much will have to suffer more before things get any better. But unfortunately, that's life, and its a constant reality in Afghanistan. No one knows that better than them.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Politics, cont'd
Well, well, well...
Some major developments have happened since I last blogged. Interesting how that's becoming a verb in it's own right, but I digress... I read an interesting article on CBC.ca the other day. A journalist there wrote an article called "The Triumphs of a Misunderestimated President." It was a piece on how Bush made several under appreciated accomplishments during his difficult reign as president, and how they have not been noticed. It focused largely on how his administration, after 9/11, essentially did all it could to prevent terrorism via a preemptive strategy and how the two unresolved wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East have produced beorgeoning but troubled democracies which may yet flourish. The journalist in question also posited that someday soon, should these areas resolve their conflicts and become stable places, how Bush's administration could come to be viewed as a success. He also blamed much of the bad coverage of the Bush administration on liberal media, and said that Bush also prevented terrorist attacks a la 9/11 from being repeated. To boot, he called it a "Reality Check."
Naturally, I and just about every other person to post a reply to this asked if this was some kind of joke. The cynical title, "Reality Check" seemed laced with sarcasm. The fact that the author was a former journalist working from Conrad Black's former flagship right-wing rag former in his right-wing rag media empire notwhitstading, this man appeared to be repeating wholesale the mantra of American Republicans and die-hard conservatives. I can say this with some authority because I've heard it many times before. Any Bushite would claim that Iraq and Afghanistan have yet to be proven successes, mainly to cover up the fact that they have been nothing but wholesale disasters since their inception. This is vintage Rumsfeld, who said that one cannot criticize an operation until its concluded; interestingly enough, this was when a number of generals and Pentagon officials were coming forward saying that all the disaster which he claimed were "unknown unknowns" were actually scenarios that were predicted and he had been repeatedly warned about. It's also vintage Bush, who kept claiming that history would somehow vinticate him on Iraq, despite the fact that all the things he claimed would go wrong if the US withdrew from Iraq were already happening. These included terrorists making a home there, civil war, and the empowerment of Iran.
Naturally, some people wrote in how they supported this argument, claiming that CBC is left-wing Stalinist propaganda and this article showed some balance. To this, I was foreced to laugh again. More American politics smuggled into our country, claiming that anyone who doesn't agree with conserative bias' is a victim of the "liberal media". It is a common stereotype that Canada is a liberal, left-leaning, socialist country where conservative opinions, like those found in the US, are not welcome. This has been said in a positive and negative way by people on both sides of the border. What surprises me is some people actually believe it. While I do agree that the average political discourse here in Canada tends to be slightly higher brow than the average in the US (mainly because we are not a global superpower or have a singular identity, and therefore cannot debate the moral implications of that) anyone familiar with ownership and content of Canadian media would know that this is a blatant and stupid myth.
The reality is, Canada's media is more concentrated than the US media, and hence is much more susceptible to a singular bias than the American media is. To bring up Conrad Black again, while he is no longer the media baron he once was, his empire was sold off to a number of different pro-conservative anti-liberal financiers who have common business ties a long time ago. CanWest controls an inordinate amount of the country's broadcasting, and its bias is clear. Bush and Stephen Harper (not to mention Ralph Klein and Mike Harris) were treated with kid gloves whereas criticisms of Chretien, Martin and Dion were not withheld at all. The war in Iraq was never reported on accurately, neither before nor after, and the excesses and abuses of the so-called "war on terror" glossed over and ignored. Rogers, another major giant, followed in the same suite. Macleans has been becoming more staunch in its views for years now, publishing arcticles denouncing the PVC vaccine, the movie Juno (because they claimed it encouraged teen-age pregnancy) praising Stephen Harper, slamming Dion, claiming that the birth rate and radical nature of Muslims makes them a danger to the world, praising Islamophobic author Melanie Phillips' "Londonistan", or entertaining the constant bitchings of Conrad Black's wife, Barbara Amiel, who just happens to be one of the chief editors. Then there's CTV, another network that dumped anti-Bush, anti-Iraq, anti-war on terror criticisms and have glossed over the costs of keeping soldiers in Afghanistan and the casualties and abuses taking place in Iraq and abroad as part of Bush's war. These are the Canadian media giants, and it is clear that a right-wing bias has set into each of them, for fear that any other kind of point of view would be considered too "controversial" or might be an indication of a Canadian left-wing orthodoxy.
No such claim can be made of the US media, which is dominated by MSNBC, ABC, CNN and FoxNews. While FoxNews' own bias' are blatant and obvious, the other networks find themselves on either side of the bias divide, with CNN on the right, MSNBC on the left and ABC pulling the middle. It is true that in the post 9/11 atmosphere, most of these networks either voluntarily or forcibly submitted to the authority of Capitol Hill, most have since recovered and are stating the facts as they are. Add to that the prelortha or newspapers and smaller tv providers and media empires that never submitted and even served as bastioned of untainted and uncompromised thought, and you begin to see how America is in fact a much more pluralistic place when it comes to its media. Noted author Gwynee Dyer, an internationall renowned military and political journalist, is a good litmus test for this trend. After Conrad Black took over the greater portion of Canada's media, he was banned from all publications and broadcasts. Neither CanWest, Rogers nor CTV allow their papers or stations to allow his articles or to interview him. But his articles still are printed in the US and Europe, disseminating his critical insight and controversial views (namely, his views on Israel, which are no where near being anti-semitic, but certainly don't mindlessly condone everything Israel does).
The only reason for this is because no one person or small group of people own all the media rights in the US. Only the CBC was immune from the spread of this poison, thanks solely to the fact that its a publicly owned media chain like the BBC, France-television, or Das Erste and ARD in Germany. These are all public broadcasting companies which were founded on the principle that media awareness and information needed to be publicly owned, that all people had the right to information, free of bias and taint, and that private citizens should not be allowed to monopolize publication or broadcasting rights. They were also all founded in a time when this was the general trend in newspapers and magazines, hence the percieved need for a public news forum. It is perhaps because of this that the stereotype of American vs. Canadian and European media standards exists. The US, with only PBS as a public company, has always felt wanting when it comes to networks that deliver news and information that is free of corporate biases and agendas. Unfortunately, this view has traditionally been discouraged by those who claim that publicly owned media (like socialized medicine or other such government initiatives) are an example of Socialism (which equals Communism, equals Stalinism).
Needless to say, this author got more flak than praise, and I'm sure that's what the CBC had in mind when they hired him. Controversy seems to be the lifeblood of ratings these days, but to see the CBC stoop to this surprised the hell out of me. To see Macleans, once a trusted newsource for me, adopt these shock-jockey tactis was one thing. But once the last publicly- owned national media chain is being threatened, we have to take action. As for myself, I recommended that he take this criticism, nail himself to a cross, like all right-wing journalists do when they find themselves under attack, and see if FoxNews was hiring. He would be right at home there, claiming that the maintstream media was ruled by some neboulous liberal conspiracy and that Bush was some kind of hero. No doubt they put him to work fast to find ways to convert their media from lap-dog mode, which was done for the sake of the Bush adminstration, into attack-dog mode now that the Democrats are back in power. Oh well, screw him! And to the executives of the CBC, get your heads out of your asses and get back to doing what you do best: spending tax money to promote Canadian talent and Hockey Night in Canada!
Some major developments have happened since I last blogged. Interesting how that's becoming a verb in it's own right, but I digress... I read an interesting article on CBC.ca the other day. A journalist there wrote an article called "The Triumphs of a Misunderestimated President." It was a piece on how Bush made several under appreciated accomplishments during his difficult reign as president, and how they have not been noticed. It focused largely on how his administration, after 9/11, essentially did all it could to prevent terrorism via a preemptive strategy and how the two unresolved wars in Afghanistan and the Middle East have produced beorgeoning but troubled democracies which may yet flourish. The journalist in question also posited that someday soon, should these areas resolve their conflicts and become stable places, how Bush's administration could come to be viewed as a success. He also blamed much of the bad coverage of the Bush administration on liberal media, and said that Bush also prevented terrorist attacks a la 9/11 from being repeated. To boot, he called it a "Reality Check."
Naturally, I and just about every other person to post a reply to this asked if this was some kind of joke. The cynical title, "Reality Check" seemed laced with sarcasm. The fact that the author was a former journalist working from Conrad Black's former flagship right-wing rag former in his right-wing rag media empire notwhitstading, this man appeared to be repeating wholesale the mantra of American Republicans and die-hard conservatives. I can say this with some authority because I've heard it many times before. Any Bushite would claim that Iraq and Afghanistan have yet to be proven successes, mainly to cover up the fact that they have been nothing but wholesale disasters since their inception. This is vintage Rumsfeld, who said that one cannot criticize an operation until its concluded; interestingly enough, this was when a number of generals and Pentagon officials were coming forward saying that all the disaster which he claimed were "unknown unknowns" were actually scenarios that were predicted and he had been repeatedly warned about. It's also vintage Bush, who kept claiming that history would somehow vinticate him on Iraq, despite the fact that all the things he claimed would go wrong if the US withdrew from Iraq were already happening. These included terrorists making a home there, civil war, and the empowerment of Iran.
Naturally, some people wrote in how they supported this argument, claiming that CBC is left-wing Stalinist propaganda and this article showed some balance. To this, I was foreced to laugh again. More American politics smuggled into our country, claiming that anyone who doesn't agree with conserative bias' is a victim of the "liberal media". It is a common stereotype that Canada is a liberal, left-leaning, socialist country where conservative opinions, like those found in the US, are not welcome. This has been said in a positive and negative way by people on both sides of the border. What surprises me is some people actually believe it. While I do agree that the average political discourse here in Canada tends to be slightly higher brow than the average in the US (mainly because we are not a global superpower or have a singular identity, and therefore cannot debate the moral implications of that) anyone familiar with ownership and content of Canadian media would know that this is a blatant and stupid myth.
The reality is, Canada's media is more concentrated than the US media, and hence is much more susceptible to a singular bias than the American media is. To bring up Conrad Black again, while he is no longer the media baron he once was, his empire was sold off to a number of different pro-conservative anti-liberal financiers who have common business ties a long time ago. CanWest controls an inordinate amount of the country's broadcasting, and its bias is clear. Bush and Stephen Harper (not to mention Ralph Klein and Mike Harris) were treated with kid gloves whereas criticisms of Chretien, Martin and Dion were not withheld at all. The war in Iraq was never reported on accurately, neither before nor after, and the excesses and abuses of the so-called "war on terror" glossed over and ignored. Rogers, another major giant, followed in the same suite. Macleans has been becoming more staunch in its views for years now, publishing arcticles denouncing the PVC vaccine, the movie Juno (because they claimed it encouraged teen-age pregnancy) praising Stephen Harper, slamming Dion, claiming that the birth rate and radical nature of Muslims makes them a danger to the world, praising Islamophobic author Melanie Phillips' "Londonistan", or entertaining the constant bitchings of Conrad Black's wife, Barbara Amiel, who just happens to be one of the chief editors. Then there's CTV, another network that dumped anti-Bush, anti-Iraq, anti-war on terror criticisms and have glossed over the costs of keeping soldiers in Afghanistan and the casualties and abuses taking place in Iraq and abroad as part of Bush's war. These are the Canadian media giants, and it is clear that a right-wing bias has set into each of them, for fear that any other kind of point of view would be considered too "controversial" or might be an indication of a Canadian left-wing orthodoxy.
No such claim can be made of the US media, which is dominated by MSNBC, ABC, CNN and FoxNews. While FoxNews' own bias' are blatant and obvious, the other networks find themselves on either side of the bias divide, with CNN on the right, MSNBC on the left and ABC pulling the middle. It is true that in the post 9/11 atmosphere, most of these networks either voluntarily or forcibly submitted to the authority of Capitol Hill, most have since recovered and are stating the facts as they are. Add to that the prelortha or newspapers and smaller tv providers and media empires that never submitted and even served as bastioned of untainted and uncompromised thought, and you begin to see how America is in fact a much more pluralistic place when it comes to its media. Noted author Gwynee Dyer, an internationall renowned military and political journalist, is a good litmus test for this trend. After Conrad Black took over the greater portion of Canada's media, he was banned from all publications and broadcasts. Neither CanWest, Rogers nor CTV allow their papers or stations to allow his articles or to interview him. But his articles still are printed in the US and Europe, disseminating his critical insight and controversial views (namely, his views on Israel, which are no where near being anti-semitic, but certainly don't mindlessly condone everything Israel does).
The only reason for this is because no one person or small group of people own all the media rights in the US. Only the CBC was immune from the spread of this poison, thanks solely to the fact that its a publicly owned media chain like the BBC, France-television, or Das Erste and ARD in Germany. These are all public broadcasting companies which were founded on the principle that media awareness and information needed to be publicly owned, that all people had the right to information, free of bias and taint, and that private citizens should not be allowed to monopolize publication or broadcasting rights. They were also all founded in a time when this was the general trend in newspapers and magazines, hence the percieved need for a public news forum. It is perhaps because of this that the stereotype of American vs. Canadian and European media standards exists. The US, with only PBS as a public company, has always felt wanting when it comes to networks that deliver news and information that is free of corporate biases and agendas. Unfortunately, this view has traditionally been discouraged by those who claim that publicly owned media (like socialized medicine or other such government initiatives) are an example of Socialism (which equals Communism, equals Stalinism).
Needless to say, this author got more flak than praise, and I'm sure that's what the CBC had in mind when they hired him. Controversy seems to be the lifeblood of ratings these days, but to see the CBC stoop to this surprised the hell out of me. To see Macleans, once a trusted newsource for me, adopt these shock-jockey tactis was one thing. But once the last publicly- owned national media chain is being threatened, we have to take action. As for myself, I recommended that he take this criticism, nail himself to a cross, like all right-wing journalists do when they find themselves under attack, and see if FoxNews was hiring. He would be right at home there, claiming that the maintstream media was ruled by some neboulous liberal conspiracy and that Bush was some kind of hero. No doubt they put him to work fast to find ways to convert their media from lap-dog mode, which was done for the sake of the Bush adminstration, into attack-dog mode now that the Democrats are back in power. Oh well, screw him! And to the executives of the CBC, get your heads out of your asses and get back to doing what you do best: spending tax money to promote Canadian talent and Hockey Night in Canada!
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