Showing posts with label John F Kennedy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John F Kennedy. Show all posts
Saturday, February 06, 2010
Messiahs & Martyrs in American Politics
In part one of The Trojan Horse, a scenario is presented in which Canada is politically merged into the United States under constitutionally unfeasible and politically unlikely circumstances.
In part two of the mini-series (also the concluding chapter), a more persistent theme in American politics is explored: that of the relationship between political martyrdom and an assassin's bullet.
There's a rare and hallowed place in the pantheon of American political history for many of those slain by an assassin's bullet.
Certainly, not all of the political figures killed by an assassin are considered central figures in the political mythology or civil religion of the United States. Presidents James Garfield and William McKinley are seldom-considered figures in the big picture of American history.
But Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr and John F Kennedy each occupy deeply hallowed positions in American history. Lincoln, of course, is cited for giving his life to preserve the union and free the slaves. King is recalled as the man who led a passionate crusade for the civil rights of racial minorities. Kennedy is remembered as a widely-beloved President struck down in his prime in what history widely regards as a senseless killing.
(The death of Kennedy's assassin at the hands of Jack Ruby has ultimately shrouded the motives for Kennedy's murder in the fog of history.)
In part two of the Trojan Horse, former Canadian Prime Minister (and later Presidential candidate) Tom McLaughlin (Paul Gross) is shot during what appeared to be an assassination attempt. McLaughlin is seen by many to be a potential contender for the Presidency, and thus his assassination attempt is viewed as politically motivated.
(It is, in fact, planned and executed by the international cabal supporting McLaughlin's bid for the Presidency, with his consent and participation.)
McLaughlin takes advantage with a dramatically staged hilltop baptism, and is henceforth treated by many with the hushed and reverent tones with many regard Lincoln, King and Kennedy -- in a manner ever-similar to that in which many religions regard religious martyrs.
In a sense McLaughlin is transformed into a political messiah -- eventually seizing upon the grave missteps of President William Stanfield (Tom Skerritt) in handling the hostage-taking of American schoolchildren in Saudi Arabia in order to win a historic Presidential victory as an independent candidate.
Of course McLaughlin's motivations are far from Christ-like. Having lost his country to the United States, his response is to make the United States more like the Canada it has enveloped -- a prospect threatening only in the context of the cloak-and-dagger tactics by which his Presidency is won.
Tom McLaughlin turns out to actually be a wolf in Messiah's clothing -- clothing donned first in the form of a hospital gown, following what is devised to appear to be a near-martyring.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Liberal Party's New Electoral Strategy: Obama!
Grits want Ignatieff to be Obama's newest best friend
Now that George W Bush has been out of office for three months, the Liberal party has realized they need a better electoral strategy against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative party than "Bush's best friend".
So the Grits have dreamed up an alternative: "Michael Ignatieff is Barack Obama's best friend".
On Wednesday Ignatieff will have a dinner meeting with Richard Holbrooke, Obama's Afghanistan policy advisor.
Liberal party insiders have reportedly been scrambling to spread the good word on the meeting, and portray it as demonstration that Obama would prefer Ignatieff as Prime Minister.
"Michael Ignatieff is not even prime minister and already the Obama team is reaching out to him for his expertise and because they believe he will be Canada's next prime minister," said an unidentified Liberal.
"This shows how highly regarded Michael Ignatieff is to leading figures in the Obama administration," says another unidentified Liberal.
This tactic is likely meant to remind Canadians of the role John F Kennedy played in the political rivalry between John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson. Kennedy actively sought ways to help Pearson defeat Diefenbaker, whom Kennedy didn't particularly care for -- and the feeling was mutual.
During the 1960s, it was Kennedy who sought to interfere with Canadian politics. This time it's the Liberals who are attempting to drag an American President into Canadian politics, and make it appear as if he's taking partisan sides while he's doing it. It's a common act of Liberal cross-border partisan parochialism, one with particularly hypocritical undertones.
If the Conservative party were making themselves this cozy with an American President, the Liberals would howl bloody murder over it. In fact, they have before.
Even more comical are Liberal claims that Canada has allowed itself to be neglected in the formation of policy on Afghanistan.
"Canada's voice has been muted. We should not simply be a repeat of the US," said another Liberal insider. "We have paid the largest price in the percentage of soldiers killed and we are significant aid donor. We should make sure we have a say in the war against terrorism and the mounting challenge in Pakistan."
Of course this ignores the fact that Canada has been very active in settling multilateral -- not merely bilateral -- policy on Afghanistan, especially through NATO.
This all points to an evident lack of imagination in the Liberal party's strategy. At the earliest opportunity, they'll envoke Obama and one can expect that they'll do it as often as they can.
Now that George W Bush has been out of office for three months, the Liberal party has realized they need a better electoral strategy against Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative party than "Bush's best friend".
So the Grits have dreamed up an alternative: "Michael Ignatieff is Barack Obama's best friend".
On Wednesday Ignatieff will have a dinner meeting with Richard Holbrooke, Obama's Afghanistan policy advisor.
Liberal party insiders have reportedly been scrambling to spread the good word on the meeting, and portray it as demonstration that Obama would prefer Ignatieff as Prime Minister.
"Michael Ignatieff is not even prime minister and already the Obama team is reaching out to him for his expertise and because they believe he will be Canada's next prime minister," said an unidentified Liberal.
"This shows how highly regarded Michael Ignatieff is to leading figures in the Obama administration," says another unidentified Liberal.
This tactic is likely meant to remind Canadians of the role John F Kennedy played in the political rivalry between John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson. Kennedy actively sought ways to help Pearson defeat Diefenbaker, whom Kennedy didn't particularly care for -- and the feeling was mutual.
During the 1960s, it was Kennedy who sought to interfere with Canadian politics. This time it's the Liberals who are attempting to drag an American President into Canadian politics, and make it appear as if he's taking partisan sides while he's doing it. It's a common act of Liberal cross-border partisan parochialism, one with particularly hypocritical undertones.
If the Conservative party were making themselves this cozy with an American President, the Liberals would howl bloody murder over it. In fact, they have before.
Even more comical are Liberal claims that Canada has allowed itself to be neglected in the formation of policy on Afghanistan.
"Canada's voice has been muted. We should not simply be a repeat of the US," said another Liberal insider. "We have paid the largest price in the percentage of soldiers killed and we are significant aid donor. We should make sure we have a say in the war against terrorism and the mounting challenge in Pakistan."
Of course this ignores the fact that Canada has been very active in settling multilateral -- not merely bilateral -- policy on Afghanistan, especially through NATO.
This all points to an evident lack of imagination in the Liberal party's strategy. At the earliest opportunity, they'll envoke Obama and one can expect that they'll do it as often as they can.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
Despite "Presidential" Gaffe, Obama Has a Point
NAFTA needs to be renegotiated -- for various reasons
This past week, would-be Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama provoked a notable response when he mis-titled the Prime Minister of Canada.
"I would immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada, to try to amend NAFTA, because I think that we can get labour agreements in that agreement right now," Obama announced during a Democratic debate in Chicago.
While the remark has spawned numerous criticisms accusing Obama of lacking an understanding of foreign policy issues, many of the critics are overlooking a fundamental fact about Obama's gaffe.
Mostly, that he's right.
While Free Trade has benefited Canada's economy in various ways -- including allowing for increased flow of American development capital into Canadian industries -- NAFTA has, in many respects, turned out to be a failed god economically.
Part of this has to do with fundamental flaws in free trade regimes. Free trade is an economically sound concept. It focuses around the belief that every different country in the world possesses areas of competitive advantage, and encouraging countries to focus on their areas of competitive advantage allow for an aggregate increase of production of those various products, thus benefiting everyone by making them superior, more plentiful, and cheaper.
This is free trade in theory. In practice, free trade has turned out to be very different. For one thing, because it focuses on generating wealth through aggregate production increases that are pursued through an economic environment that encourages non-competition in areas of competitive advantage, the concept of trade deficits should not be part of the economic lexicon of a free trading state.
Yet, the trade deficit has become something of an obsession for some American economists. An economic moral panic emerged when 2003 turned out to be a record year for the American trade deficit, as the United States imported 17.1% more than it exported. Under proper free trade principles, this is entirely to be expected in a country whose comparatively strong currency gears its economy toward importing.
Of course, this is an area where free trade theory fails. Comparative advantage may encourage countries to import more than they export, but this importing must be sustainable, and it becomes unsustainable if insufficient wealth is being produced within the country to finance such imports.
In particular, the outsourcing of American jobs into the Mexican market has become problematic. As American jobs are exported to Mexico, putting those once employed out of work, this undermines the economic viability of the United States, in both its private sector (as exporting manufacturing jobs also undercuts the domestic market for those products), as well as the public sector (as the tax revenue lost harms the government's ability to operate and remain fiscally solvent).
Part and parcel of this problem is the comparatively poor wages paid to such workers in Mexico, which also contributes to the problem of illegal immigration into the United States, as Mexican workers smuggle themselves north in order to live in the United States and enjoy its far superior labour conditions.
NAFTA has also contributed to the spread of sweatshop work conditions in Mexico. This is no surprise, as this has turned out to be the case almost anywhere where free trade policies have allowed business from developed countries to exploit the lax labour laws of such countries.
This is actually natural under free trade, as labour becomes a comparative advantage for countries that have such lax conditions -- advantageous for nearly everyone involved but the workers; those who would be unemployed, and those who would be exploited.
When Barak Obama talks about the need for labour agreements to become part of free trade agreements, he isn't demonstrating a lack of understanding of the issue. In fact, he's demonstrating rare and remarkable clarity.
The other reason why NAFTA needs to be renegotiated is that the United States has, of late, has refused to abide by it.
Consider the recently-settled trade dispute between Canada and the United States in regards to softwood lumber. During the dispute, the United States argued that the Canadian government unfairly subsidized softwood lumber producers.
NAFTA and World Trade Organization rulings routinely favoured Canada (although one NAFTA ruling merely concluded that the tariffs being imposed were too high, although tariffs were, in principle, justified).
Yet, the United States refused to abide by the rulings, all along insisting that Canada negotiate with them. A 2003 attempt to negotiate such a deal failed, although a deal was reached in 2006, amidst great controversy.
As a treaty signed between the United States, Canada and Mexico, NAFTA represents international law. Yet international law is administered essentially in two ways: what countries agree to do (as in the case of NAFTA) and what countries actually do (as in the softwood lumber dispute).
As such, NAFTA is already a broken agreement, and needs to be either renegotiated or scrapped althogether. Because Free Trade has proven to have economic benefits for everyone involved -- fuelling Canadian economic growth through the acquisition of development capital and increased exports and fuelling American economic growth by making it easier and cheaper to acquire the necessary resources -- the necessary action is pretty clear: NAFTA needs to be renegotiated. The case for scrapping it outright is rather thin.
If Obama, as the American president, does choose to renegotiate NAFTA, he'll need to be very careful about how he goes about it. The United States desperately needs the resources it can acquire in Canada, and any move that hurts Canadian business by making it harder to export south of the 49th parallel will only hurt the American economy more, possibly even forcing it to the verge of strangulation.
If one presumes that Stephen Harper will still be Prime Minister by the time Obama has hypothetically taken office, this is something that can pay dividends for him, as well. He would do well to see a Conservative Prime Minister building an amicable relationship with a Democratic president (something that hasn't occurred since John Diefenbaker and John F Kennedy put the two parties at odds).
Most importantly, however, the United States will have to learn to abide by NAFTA one way or the other, and find ways to stop the treaty from stabbing America's working class in the back.
In the meantime, Barak Obama could stand to get better acquainted with Canada.
This past week, would-be Democratic presidential candidate Barak Obama provoked a notable response when he mis-titled the Prime Minister of Canada.
"I would immediately call the president of Mexico, the president of Canada, to try to amend NAFTA, because I think that we can get labour agreements in that agreement right now," Obama announced during a Democratic debate in Chicago.
While the remark has spawned numerous criticisms accusing Obama of lacking an understanding of foreign policy issues, many of the critics are overlooking a fundamental fact about Obama's gaffe.
Mostly, that he's right.
While Free Trade has benefited Canada's economy in various ways -- including allowing for increased flow of American development capital into Canadian industries -- NAFTA has, in many respects, turned out to be a failed god economically.
Part of this has to do with fundamental flaws in free trade regimes. Free trade is an economically sound concept. It focuses around the belief that every different country in the world possesses areas of competitive advantage, and encouraging countries to focus on their areas of competitive advantage allow for an aggregate increase of production of those various products, thus benefiting everyone by making them superior, more plentiful, and cheaper.
This is free trade in theory. In practice, free trade has turned out to be very different. For one thing, because it focuses on generating wealth through aggregate production increases that are pursued through an economic environment that encourages non-competition in areas of competitive advantage, the concept of trade deficits should not be part of the economic lexicon of a free trading state.
Yet, the trade deficit has become something of an obsession for some American economists. An economic moral panic emerged when 2003 turned out to be a record year for the American trade deficit, as the United States imported 17.1% more than it exported. Under proper free trade principles, this is entirely to be expected in a country whose comparatively strong currency gears its economy toward importing.
Of course, this is an area where free trade theory fails. Comparative advantage may encourage countries to import more than they export, but this importing must be sustainable, and it becomes unsustainable if insufficient wealth is being produced within the country to finance such imports.
In particular, the outsourcing of American jobs into the Mexican market has become problematic. As American jobs are exported to Mexico, putting those once employed out of work, this undermines the economic viability of the United States, in both its private sector (as exporting manufacturing jobs also undercuts the domestic market for those products), as well as the public sector (as the tax revenue lost harms the government's ability to operate and remain fiscally solvent).
Part and parcel of this problem is the comparatively poor wages paid to such workers in Mexico, which also contributes to the problem of illegal immigration into the United States, as Mexican workers smuggle themselves north in order to live in the United States and enjoy its far superior labour conditions.
NAFTA has also contributed to the spread of sweatshop work conditions in Mexico. This is no surprise, as this has turned out to be the case almost anywhere where free trade policies have allowed business from developed countries to exploit the lax labour laws of such countries.
This is actually natural under free trade, as labour becomes a comparative advantage for countries that have such lax conditions -- advantageous for nearly everyone involved but the workers; those who would be unemployed, and those who would be exploited.
When Barak Obama talks about the need for labour agreements to become part of free trade agreements, he isn't demonstrating a lack of understanding of the issue. In fact, he's demonstrating rare and remarkable clarity.
The other reason why NAFTA needs to be renegotiated is that the United States has, of late, has refused to abide by it.
Consider the recently-settled trade dispute between Canada and the United States in regards to softwood lumber. During the dispute, the United States argued that the Canadian government unfairly subsidized softwood lumber producers.
NAFTA and World Trade Organization rulings routinely favoured Canada (although one NAFTA ruling merely concluded that the tariffs being imposed were too high, although tariffs were, in principle, justified).
Yet, the United States refused to abide by the rulings, all along insisting that Canada negotiate with them. A 2003 attempt to negotiate such a deal failed, although a deal was reached in 2006, amidst great controversy.
As a treaty signed between the United States, Canada and Mexico, NAFTA represents international law. Yet international law is administered essentially in two ways: what countries agree to do (as in the case of NAFTA) and what countries actually do (as in the softwood lumber dispute).
As such, NAFTA is already a broken agreement, and needs to be either renegotiated or scrapped althogether. Because Free Trade has proven to have economic benefits for everyone involved -- fuelling Canadian economic growth through the acquisition of development capital and increased exports and fuelling American economic growth by making it easier and cheaper to acquire the necessary resources -- the necessary action is pretty clear: NAFTA needs to be renegotiated. The case for scrapping it outright is rather thin.
If Obama, as the American president, does choose to renegotiate NAFTA, he'll need to be very careful about how he goes about it. The United States desperately needs the resources it can acquire in Canada, and any move that hurts Canadian business by making it harder to export south of the 49th parallel will only hurt the American economy more, possibly even forcing it to the verge of strangulation.
If one presumes that Stephen Harper will still be Prime Minister by the time Obama has hypothetically taken office, this is something that can pay dividends for him, as well. He would do well to see a Conservative Prime Minister building an amicable relationship with a Democratic president (something that hasn't occurred since John Diefenbaker and John F Kennedy put the two parties at odds).
Most importantly, however, the United States will have to learn to abide by NAFTA one way or the other, and find ways to stop the treaty from stabbing America's working class in the back.
In the meantime, Barak Obama could stand to get better acquainted with Canada.
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