Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy, Hypocrisy. . . etc. . . .

As though to punctuate the irony of breaking diplomatic ties with Iran, Harper signed a trade agreement with China a day later. When he was leader of the opposition Harper never tired of condemning the Liberals for their association with China and now he spends much of his time courting the Chinese government. Harper is truly the lap-dog of one of the world's most horrendous human rights offenders. And he licks at their teats as  lying bile vomits from his mouth onto his own people, while filthy bitumen spews from his ass onto China and into the air of everyone.

One of the primary reasons that Harper and his clones gave us for breaking ties with Iran was because of their terrible human rights record. In their latest report on China Amnesty International tells us that in China -

-"The authorities continued to harass, intimidate, persecute and criminalize pro-democracy and human rights activists. Activists supporting the China Democracy Party were sentenced to long prison terms.

-"The number of people subjected to enforced disappearances grew. Many were held in secret detention, including Hada, a Mongolian political activist. Many others remained or were placed under illegal house arrest.

-"China continued to use the death penalty extensively, including for non-violent crimes, and to impose it after unfair trials. Executions were estimated to number in the thousands.

-"The authorities pursued their goal of bringing all religious practice under state control.


The indictment goes on and on. Certainly in terms of the number of people affected, China is has the worst human rights record in the world. Yet Harper licks at the disgusting underbelly of the Chinese state in order to line the pockets of his oil buddies in Calgary. But Harper is not a man of principle. Rather he is a religious maniac, dispensationalist wacko who would do anything to please the Israeli government. Most of the charges that John Baird made of the Iranian State could effectively be levelled against many other Canadian allies, including, most importantly, Israel. Racist diatribes by government officials, active use of military means for political ends, oppression, expansionism, etc. And of course, most ironically, nuclear proliferation!

It is all hypocrisy. Disgusting, inhuman, abhorrent, odious hypocrisy. And it never ends.

More Thoughts on this Thorny Language Question.

Continuing on with the problem of language laws and the issues that the election of the PQ raises, I thought I would make a few more comments. These thoughts were inspired somewhat by a quick exchange between myself and the blogger Montreal Simon, a blogger who I enjoy a great deal and whose work deserves respect.

Montreal Simon was eager to defend the tendencies in Quebec to defend, with some degree of fervency, the French language. In his comments to me Simon claims that "leftists sometimes make the mistake of equating language and race. Because while you can't change your colour, you can learn a new language. So its not racism." Now as much as I respect Simon, I find this truly shocking and disturbing. First of all, it is a strangely contradictory argument considering that he makes it in a discourse about the defence of  language. But putting that contradiction aside (to which he is, I believe, driven because of rhetorical necessity), it is also a shocking argument to make in a country in which one of the primary racist efforts  over the past two hundred years or more has been to prevent the continuation of the Indigenous languages. One of the primary motives behind the residential schools was the effort to cut young native people off from the use of their own language. This is because, as the UN has recognized for many years, language is central to culture. Thus the UN declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states in Article 14 - "Indigenous peoples have the right to establish and control their educational systems and institutions providing education in their  own languages, in a manner appropriate to their cultural methods of teaching and learning."  This is a very clear recognition that language cannot be separated from culture and cultural identity, and it is therefore clear that it is central to the notion of "race" as people commonly use the word. Thus I believe it is simply wrong to imagine that one can separate linguistic rights from basic human rights or from the protection of a cultural community.

Now lets address the wider issue of linguistic rights. The UN Declaration on Linguistic Rights states in Article 2 "This Declaration takes as its point of departure the principle that linguistic rights are individual and collective at one and the same time." It then continues with a very important observation in which it says that when it defines "the full range of linguistic rights" it includes "not only . . the geographic area where the community lives, but [and this is important] also . . . the social and functional space vital to the full development of the language." In other words language rights must be defended based upon cultural communities in general. An attack on a community's language rights is an  attack on their culture, their community, and their "racial" identity. We must always, therefore, be cautious about restrictions on language rights regardless of where and when we are enacting them.

It based upon these basic assumptions that I believe that Quebec language laws have been de facto racist. Though they have been enacted in a context in which French speakers have been actively attempting to defend their own language (and cultural identity), they have quickly become part of certain racist tendencies among people who have been much too quick to move from protection to insulation, from promotion to control. In a context in which there is a significant linguistic community it is important, even essential, to make room for expressions of that linguistic culture, in education as well as everyday life. Most importantly in this context, it is essential not to make any "official" linguistic competence a central part of political or community participation. Such efforts run the risk of not only being racist but dangerously classist as well.

Now when we address these issues in relation to Quebec it is important to do 2 things. One, we must not under-state the right of Quebecers to maintain the French language. And two, we must not over-state the degree to which other languages communities must be defended within the larger community. I know that there are a number of crazy rightwingers out there who are not necessarily well motivated to defend their own linguistic rights. However, having said this I have deep concerns over questions of minority language education rights, and participation in the larger community. And I think anyone who believes in such rights should be concerned.

Within fifty years or so latinos will out number anglophones in a number of US states. It will then be within their ability to actually enact laws that restrict English. I have no fear that this will happen but if it did I think it would be as objectionable as when anglophones have enacted so-called "English Only" laws. The spanish language is thriving in the US despite the racism of many whites, and it does so even when it is surrounded by a sea of English speakers and anglophone power. Spain maintains a number of distinct linguistic communities in official and non-official capacities. They have done so through active cooperation, understanding, and concerted efforts. In some regions of Spain you can speak and go to school in Catalan, but you can also actively use Castellano in any way you see fit.

In the final analysis I believe this for certain - if you need police to compel people to not use a certain language you have already lost your fight.

A Few Thoughts on the Quebec Election. . .

Ok, I admit it - I have never really understood the drive for Quebec sovereignty. I have generally not been sympathetic to nationalist movements except where they have been driven (generally in the third world) by an effort to foment feelings against colonial power. But in general terms I think that nationalism is driven by an undercurrent of racism, and I see no good reason to support such efforts which are divisive and ugly.

I have never heard a convincing argument for Quebec sovereignty and I think the federation between it and the other provinces has been mutually beneficial. Furthermore, I think that Quebec sovereignty would probably be disastrous for native people and would end in serious financial and social disaster for Quebec in general. Racist language policies would lose their excuse in a sovereign Quebec and the country would face international human rights challenges and could potentially face condemnation in the UN and possibly trade sanctions by many countries. To make matters significantly worse, Quebec separation would be a terrible loss for the rest of the Francophones in Canada. French speakers simply would not be a significant enough minority in the rest of Canada to justify protection of their language rights the way that they have and funding for remaining Francophone organizations would quickly disappear. There would obviously be no justification for maintaining the federal government as a bilingual organization and Francophones would find it difficult to receive services in the language of their choice.

This election in Quebec, which will finally be decided tomorrow, has seen some disturbing noises coming from the PQ. The idea that only those people whose first language is French are 'truly' Quebecers is a frightening kind of racism. The worst thing of all has been their talk of a so-called "Quebec citizenship." Though it is not entirely clear what such a citizenship would look like, or why they have invoked such a plan, it appears that to "qualify" for such citizenship one would have to undergo some kind of language test. It appears that this test would be used to restrict who could run for public office and it seems to me that a natural extension of such a policy would be much like the Jim Crow laws in the US which prevented African Americans from engaging in the political process. The idea that any kind of language skill would qualify someone for the rights and privileges of citizenship is deeply frightening and reeks of the worst kind of racism. And of perhaps equal importance is the class implications of such a plan. In any political system people with literacy challenges are de facto less engaged. If you have challenges, in reading and writing for example, it is more difficult to be familiar with the body politic and the issues of current events are harder to access. The PQ's obsession with French already excludes people from the political process and any plan to further entrench the language  issues will take more people out of politics. In the end the PQ is not only promoting racism and classism, but it is creating a situation in which Quebec society (and the French language) will, in fact, atrophy and die. History demonstrates to me that you can promote a language but it is not at all clear that you can enforce it.

Romney and Randian Nutbars. . . .

Ok, I will go out on a limb here and predict that Obama will lose the up-coming election to Mitt Romney.  This victory will not be based upon Romney's popularity but on the near complete failure of Obama as president and the hopelessness of the Democrats in Congress. No matter what Obama was to do during his presidency, the rightwing was going to condemn him as a radical socialist. During the past four years the Democrats have further demonstrated that they are essentially the party of the rich despite trying to portray themselves as the party of the people. Meanwhile Obama did nothing to fulfil the promises of governing from the left of spectrum. He never closed that symbol of American fascism, Guantanamo Bay, despite saying it was to be his first order of business. He did little for the environment, he didn't bother with any real reforms to Wall Street or the Banking sector despite the fact that they almost single-handedly brought down the global economy. His health-plan was better for the insurance companies than for the average people, and bankruptcies due to health problems continue apace in the States. Despite the ranting and raving of the right in America, Obama is little more than another neo-liberal with slightly liberal social attitudes. Because of the fact that Obama did nothing to live up to his liberal tongue-wagging, he has largely lost those that he brought into the political process and those left-leaning democrats who lived in great hope that he would be a real reformer. As a result of this, and the continuing economic problems of the US (many of which are a direct result of neo-liberal economic policies), many left and liberal voters will just stay home and if Obama wins, it will only be by a very slim margin.

Now, don't get me wrong. While Obama is just another mainstream politician, Romney and his running-mate are just plain wacko. The Republicans are so crazy that they threaten to bring down the entire world economy, start a nuclear war, and bring us back to the sixteenth century where women and gay rights are concerned. It simply baffles me when I hear otherwise rational people talk as though this billionaire who made a career out of liquidating companies, killing jobs, and sending capital oversees, is going to reinvigorate the US economy. It is simply amazing to me. The neo-conservative agenda of men like Romney (and Harper for that matter) is simple - turn the economy into a third-world style system so that the rich can truly benefit from the capitalist order. And what is remarkable is that people still buy their political talk even while they actually offer nothing in their discourse or policy. The only policy initiative that the rightwing offers is lower taxes, something that has demonstrably failed to grow any economy. You continually hear Haper talk of 'creating jobs' and building the economy, but you never hear ANY actual policy ideas other than lowing taxes. The simple fact is that higher taxes and more government intervention has proved time and again to be the most successful way of bring up living standards and growing an economy. Anyone who looks at the facts knows this. Yet people, often people who are struggling to make ends meet, actually think that billionaires who want to give tax breaks to the richest are going to make things better for them. It baffles me.

We will see if Romney and his bizarre Randian running-mate will be able to pull it off. I know that Harper is salivating at the notion. Weider things have happened, that's for sure. Meanwhile in Canada, it seems clear to me that Fortuna's pendulum has swung away from the rightwing as Liberals (both in name only) face defeat in Quebec and BC and Harper's government has seen the fastest, most dramatic plummet in the polls that any government in Canada has experienced. The noticeable deterioration of the environmental conditions will further erode rightwing support. People are watching the post-war gains erode and they are slowly panicing about their future and the future of their kids.

Romney might win. But his victory will be more of the failure of the left to actually step up and have the courage to offer real solutions, solutions that have worked in places Scandinavia and once worked here until the rightwing nutbars convinced people that prosperity and equality are bad things.

Rightwing dishonesty.

Among the many important differences between the right and the left is that if the position of the left is incorrect, it is an honest mistake. Socialist philosophy is fairly simple really - it proposes that the so-called market economy is not necessarily effective or efficient in certain areas of our social system. It really is as basic as that. Now, the fact is that despite what many on the right would have us believe, this is a nearly universally accepted postion at some level. There is no rational person who could believe that what we currently have is a "free-market" system, and we have accepted that markets cannot be "free" but must be controlled and regulated. More specifically, in various parts of the economy, such as education, we have long ago accepted that the only way to guarantee a universal system of more or less equal primary education is through a state sponsored system. I believe this is essentially undeniable since there are almost no viable political parties in the Western democracies who advocate for an elimination of this form of socialized education.

Now, getting back to the point at which I began, these socialist ideas (whether radically advocated or not) are more or less universally accepted by even rightwing parties. But if the more radical position of socialism turned out to be incorrect, it would be an entirely honest mistake. The goal of socialists is (even according their strong critics) to reach a more equal and universally prosperous society. The rightwing suggests that it is naive and wrong-headed to be committed to socialism, but it seems clear to me that the motives are fairly honest or straightforward.

On the other hand, the prevailing rightwing ideology is not only wrong but, in most cases, blatantly dishonest. The rightwing talks about freedom but pursues policies of powerful central governments with all sorts of powers to enter and control your personal life. They talk about smaller governments but generally increase the size of governments, the number of regulations, and overall they don't even reduce taxes. Rightwing governments talk about economic freedom but they pursue policies that radically increase the power of larger corporations which in the end reduce everyones' economic freedom. Most importantly, rightwing governments talk about increasing general prosperity but they pursue policies that they know will only increase the wealth of the richest group and will weaken the majority. Men like Mitt Romney, for example, know that their economic policies are specifically designed to increase the wealth of the rich, increase economic inequality, and weaken the ability of most people to better themselves.

The conclusion for me is simple. I would rather be naive (though I don't think I am) than be dishonest.

Charest and Nixon, Friends Indeed. . . .

Here are some interesting parallels -


Jean Charest of Quebec is fighting an election in the midst of a major investigation into corruption, the results of which could easily drive him from office if he were to win re-election.

Richard Nixon fought the 1972 election amidst an investigation into a major corruption scandal (Watergate) which did indeed eventually drive him from office.

Jean Charest is fighting an election amidst a large public protest movement which he is attempting to parle into an election victory. 

Nixon also fought an election while a huge protest movement raged in the streets against the horror of the Vietnam War.

Jean Charest seems to have attached himself to the political slogan "The Silent Majority" to further marginalize the protesters and all who would vocally oppose his tyrannical neo-liberal agenda. 

The phrase "The Silent Majority" was, in fact popularized by none other than Richard Nixon. 

Nixon was little more than a heap of excrement. 

And Jean Charest? ....... Well you know that story. 

The only question left - will this be the Quebec voter?

Good Days and Bad Days in Harper's Canada. . . .

Politically speaking, I exists in two extremes these days. On the one hand I am intensely pessimistic. It is now clear that Harper has de facto control of Elections Canada and this make our Prime Minister more or less like Vladimir Putin. Harper has turned the military into an arm of the Conservative Party and is attempting to do the same with the RCMP. It is entirely reasonable to believe that Harper can now win future elections with deep and broad fraud and since Canada does not allow foreign election observers, fraudulent elections could go on basically unchecked. Furthermore, on bad days I honestly believe that if by some miracle Harper was unable to orchestrate an election 'victory,' he would still refuse to give up power and go from being a de facto dictatorship to a de jure dictatorship.

This is the pessimistic me.

On the other side I sometimes think that no Western leader has done more for the leftist cause in recent years that Harper. He has shown the rightwing to be not only tyrannical, dangerously militaristic, secretive and paranoid, lawless, anti-environmentalist, corporate pawns, but also widely incompetent both fiscally and legislatively. In attempting to appear to occupy the political centre (though never actually doing so) and destroying the Liberal Party of Canada, Harper has driven many voters into the NDP camp. But, more importantly, Harper's psychotic paranoia and tyrannical style, has demonstrated to many exactly what the rightwing in this country really stands for. Meanwhile, his bizarre behaviour regarding environmentalist and any alternative energy approach makes even many conservative voters deeply nervous. Though Harper has always attempt to govern (and change things by stealth) it has become difficult for him to hide his real agenda and that agenda is the very best demonstration of just how bad modern conservatism is that I, and many Canadians, can think of. What better way of promoting leftwing change than demonstrating to everyone that rightwing ideology in a modern Canadian context is a lawless, tyrannical, top-heavy, secretive, paranoid, blindly pro-corporate, fiscally irresponsible, and dangerously unstable way of thinking?

Thus some mornings I get up and I look like one of those cartoon characters with a cloud over my head imagining the worst, most tyrannical future for all of us. And other mornings, all I can think is "thank heaven Harper is such a nut-job because he is destroying the very political ideology he is trying to create.