Good-bye Mr Obama... It's Time For You to Go

In the 2008 US Presidential election, your not-so-humble scribe backed John McCain -- at least so far as any Canadian had any business endorsing a candidate for any political office in the United States.

But when Barack Obama won the same campaign, this author was not terribly concerned about it. Although McCain had been deemed to be the superior candidate, there seemed to be an awful lot to like about Obama.

Sadly, many of those things never materialized.

Obama's "yes we can" mantra implied the empowerment of citizens over the imposition of state activism. Obama promised a more constructive dialogue on race. Government would be more responsive to the needs of the American people, especially during times of crisis.

These things haven't come to fruition -- there's little evidence that they will.

It isn't Obama's health care reform package -- although it was poorly conceptualized and the to-date execution of that plan has been poor, to phrase it kindly -- that has been the straw that broke the camel's back. Nor was his administration's meagre response to the still-flowing British Petroleum oil spill.

In the end, the final straw for the Obama administration has actually been its corrosive approach to racial issues. Ironically, a more constructive approach to race was one of the more promising prospects of the Obama administration. What has emerged has instead been the polar opposite.

Democrat legislators falsely accuse Tea Party protesters of hurling racial epithets with little or no admonition by the President or by Democratic party brass. A state that passes legislation to enforce federal immigration law replete with a higher standard of jurisprudence than the federal law mandates is declared to be racist, and challenged in court by Obama's Department of Justice.

But the final straw has to be what appears to be political interference in a voter intimidation case.

The case stems from the presence of members of the New Black Panther Party at a Philadelphia polling station on November 4, 2009. Members of the party openly brandished weapons while claiming to be "security".

Captured on video is King Samir Shabazz, who also attained some level of infamy by calling for the killing of white people and, specifically, white children.

Prosecutors for the Department of Justice won the case against the New Black Panther Party. Then an as-yet unknown figure within the US Department of Justice ordered the case dropped before the sentencing stage.

This is apparently the approach of the Obama administration to race and to law and order: when a group of African Americans is captured on video intimidating voters with weapons at an election polling station, the case is dismissed without explanation. And Americans still have yet to hear an explanation.

In an administration cognizant of its legal and constitutional obligations, Barack Obama would be leaning very hard on Attorney General Eric Holder. When more than a year went by without a satisfactory explanation of the decision -- whether made by Holder or by another Department of Justice official -- for the decision failed to materialize, Holder's resignation should have been sought.

It hasn't been. Holder remains Attorney General. In charge of a Department of Justice that is responsible for enforcing the laws of the United States, declines to do so, and then sues the state of Arizona when it passes legislation to do precisely that in the federal government's stead.

Your not-so-humble scribe, not being a citizen of the United States, does not imagine himself to hold any right or privilege to call for the resignation of the President of the United States; a foreign country.

But this author now agrees with a growing legion of American citizens who believe Barack Obama has failed to meet his obligations as the President of the United States, and should depart from that office at the earliest opportunity.

It's unfortunate. Riding a highly-motivated movement of politically active citizens, Barack Obama had the opportunity to combine government action with citizen action to truly better his country.

Instead, he has stood by while his Department of Justice threatens to render his country a nearly lawless state.

It's time for the Obama Presidency to end, as soon as possible. Americans of sound political conscience need to set the stage for a 2012 defeat of Obama -- provided that he doesn't do the honourable thing and resign as President -- by doing what they can to stem Obama's disastrous tide in 2010.

Democrats of sound political conscience need to ensure that Obama faces strong opposition in primaries leading up to the 2012 election. Republicans need to ensure that their candidate is of the highest possible calibre -- and need to put aside internal divisions within their party long enough to give that candidate the best possible opportunity to win the election.

John McCain cannot save the United States now. He's declared he won't run for President.

Who will be President after 2010 is not for this commenter to decide -- American citizens will have to decide that. But Barack Obama cannot continue as President so much as one minute longer than necessary.

Good-bye, Mr Obama. It's time for you to go.

The Excuses They Make

Just as predicted, the far left excuses themselves over Levi Johnston revelation

As predicted yesterday, the American far left lost little time in looking for a way to excuse themselves for gleefully reporting the lies that Levi Johnston admitted he told about Sarah Palin.

Writing in an op/ed in the New York Times, Gail Collins shows no interest whatsoever in honestly addressing the revelation, and sinks to an actually quite-comical low in order to do it:

"We have been dealing with a lot of imperfect apologies recently, but this one hits a new level of unsatisfactory.

At the very least, we need to know which of the gossip he was dishing was true, and which not completely. The part about how Sarah fights a lot with Todd? Or that she never cooks? Personally, all I want to know is whether Levi was being straight when he said that the former governor of Alaska doesn’t really know how to shoot a gun."

It's so utterly pathetic that one hardly knows where to begin.

Apparently, it's unthinkable to Collins that the vast majority of what Johnston said about Palin is untrue.

What Collins -- and other far-left figures such as Andrew Sullivan -- has entitled themselves to is a unique rhetorical trick.

The honest and rational individual examining the media coverage of Levi Johntson's comments about Sarah Palin would recognize that it was all merely gossip -- hate-driven gossip intended to influence impressions of Palin's politics, despite having little or no relevance whatsoever.

The honest and rational individual will quickly realize that, given that one is dealing with nothing more than gossip, if any unidentified portion of it is admitted to be untrue, then all of it is suspect.

Instead, Collins has entitled herself to a rather different take. Her self-serving take seems to be that if none of what is untrue is specificially identified, then none of it is suspect.

That's hardly a rational or honest approach to this revelation. Then again, the modus operandi of individuals such as Collins to Palin has been one that has been fundamentally dishonest and irrational. Nobody should have expected anything to change now.

In the case of Collins, she isn't done entitling herself to rhetorical tricks. In a particularly pitiful attempt to squirm free of the implications of the Johnston revelation, she even disputes the commonality of the phrase "youthful indiscretions", suggesting that its use is evidence of some kind of conspiracy:

"Johnston also told People that he hoped that the Palins would 'forgive my youthful indiscretion.' This does not really sound like something that would come from a high-school dropout who gave his son the middle name of Easton because that is his favorite hockey equipment company. In fact, the last time I heard anyone refer to a 'youthful indiscretion' was in 1998, when 74-year-old Henry Hyde, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, was confessing to an adulterous affair he had conducted when he was 41."

This would mean that Collins wasn't paying attention as recently as July 1, 2010 when USA Today refered to the "youthful indiscretions" of Ted Kennedy in the midst of an obituary piece on Senator Robert Byrd.

Google passes verdict on the commonality of the phrase quite decisively.

As an argument, this is beyond weak, and it actually sullies the pages of the New York Times that they would bother printing such tripe.

It's a sobering reminder for any of those who had hoped that the revelation that the far left yellow journalists who had posted so many of its hopes on the gossip offered by Levi Johnston would smarten up and offer a mea culpa. With Gail Collins and the NY Times leading the charge, an appropriate admission simply isn't in the cards.

They've simply let themselves off the hook -- at least in their minds.

Andrew Sullivan Before the Levi Johnston Revelations...

While this is unlikely to make the the pale imitations some clowns offer of intellectually superior alternatives, Levi Johnston, the man who impregnated Sarah Palin's daughter and then delighted the left-wing media with his tales of Palin's alleged dirty deeds, had admitted that many of the things he said about the Palin family were "not entirely true".

It doesn't take a PHD in etymology to realize that means that Johnston told a few fibs; sold a few lies.

So while the furthest of the far left find themselves excuses to not shuffle their feet uncomfortably, it's certainly worthwhile to take a look at some of the individuals who took great pleasure in reporting, and actually embellishing, some of Johnston's mistruths.

One need not have a great deal of regard for Palin to agree that Andrew Sullivan -- he of the Trig Palin conspiracy theory -- is due for some comeuppance.

Even setting aside the self-destructive Trig Palin conspiracy theory -- in which Sullivan managed to destroy his own reputation with a story invented out of whole cloth -- Sullivan has far too often staked his credibility on the topic of Sarah Palin to escape with it intact.

The degree of the effect Palin has on Sullivan's psyche became evident mere days after Palin's selection to be John McCain's running mate in the 2008 election, when he suggested that Palin should be "dismissed out of hand":



Sullivan remarkbly once claimed that the only thing he was interested is the truth -- while suggesting that Harper Collins should have vetted her autobiography, and continuing to peddle his self-humilating Trig Palin conspiracy theory!



By the time Sullivan made his most recent appearance on Bill Maher's HBO program, it became clear that his reputation was all but shot.



(For the record, Sarah Palin has a right to part of what Sullivan describes as "our discourse" because she is a US citizen. Andrew Sullivan is not.) (Would it be crass to suggest that Sullivan won't use the meth pipe Maher gave him because he may already have one of his own? -ed)

Sullivan shouldn't be surprised to find out that Johnston has been lying. Even in the midst of his glee he acknowledged that Johnston could be lying while describing Johnston's allegations as "the best we've got":

Now, it turns out that the best source Sullivan had to offer in the midst of his anti-Palin crusade wasn't being truthful. In fact, he was likely being far from truthful.

One should expect a mea culpa and a massive apology from Andrew Sullivan for taking the Johnston allegations in so deeply. One should, but one doesn't.

In fact, on the very day of Johnston's revelation, Sullivan was still pretending there's a debate regarding Trig Palin.

As of this writing, Sullivan hasn't come clean on the extent to which he's been bamboozled by Johnston's dishonesty. Nor should one expect one.

Meet Andrew Sullivan after the Levi Johnston admission. Same as the Andrew Sullivan before the Levi Johnston admission.

The Wrong Idea

In a 60 second spot rejected by CBS, the Republican Trust attempts to make its case against Cordoba House, a 13-story Islamic centre that will also feature a mosque.

Arguments against Cordoba House insist that it will become a lightning rod for militant Islamists, will promote militant Islam, and that it will be a celebration of 9/11 -- a symbol of Islam's triumph.

This is precisely the argument presented in this ad.

The problem for the GOP Trust is that this argument relies on an overweening ignorance of the individuals behind Cordoba House, and the beliefs of the organization leading the project.

Even the evidence offered for the alleged radicalism of Cordoba Initiative -- such as its Shari'ah index project -- are not in reality what they are said to be. In fact, the Shari'ah law promoted by Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf doesn't appear to be any Shari'ah law that would be recognized by those familiar with the extreme variant of it practiced in so many states today.

“What are the principles that make a state Islamic?" Rauf rhetorically asks. "We can say among them is justice, protection of religion and minorities and elimination of poverty, and so on.”

Protection of minorities isn't a concept one would associate with Shari'ah law-practising countries such as Iran or Saudi Arabia.

The opponents of Cordoba House are close to being right about one thing: the construction of the centre would represent a triumph for Islam: a triumph of moderate Islam over the evil and militant political ideology individuals like Osama Bin Laden have transformed it into.

Opposing Cordoba House doesn't aid the fight against this insidious political ideology -- it actually hampers it. By denying organizations such as the Cordoba Initiative public space, they deny them the opportunity to counter the vile message of militant Muslim demagogues who send their poorest and most disenfranchised to wage war for their benefit.

Opponents of Cordoba House may not appreciate the symbolic value of Muslims worshipping peacefully at the feet of the towers their hateful counterparts destroyed. But a great many moderate Muslims will.

To deny them that opportunity out of a xenophobic, intolerant and paranoid mania would be a historical tragedy with little comparison, and that is what would really embolden militant Islam.

On the fifth anniversary of the 7/7 bombings that tore through downtown London, there are few better days than today to realize that obscuring the difference between peaceful, moderate Islam and the aforementioned Islamist political ideology is unacceptably counter-productive.

It's the wrong idea, through and through.

Uncovering the Fingerprint of Communism on the British Coalminers' Strike

British coalminers' union accepted communist funds

A dirty secret of the cold war has come to light recently, as a study by Dr Norman LaPorte and Stefan Berger have revealled that Britain's National Union of Mineworkers accepted funds from East Germany in the midst of its 1984-85 coalminer's strike.

The revelation casts further light on a key page of cold war history.

The strike was considered a key ideological confrontation of the cold war. The British coal industry had been nationalized since 1946, when the Labour Party government of Clement Attlee passed the Coal Industry Nationalization Act. Coal mining in Britain would henceforth be managed by the National Coal Board until its privatization by the Thatcher government in 1987.

The strike began when the Thatcher government moved to close coal pits that were unprofitable, and had become a liability to the government. (The Tories had already attempted once to do this in 1981, but abandoned these plans in the face of a strike.)

The government's plan to close 20 pits -- at the cost of 20,000 jobs -- spurned the NUM to begin strike action.

But the Thatcher government was prepared for the strike. The conversion of many British power plants to oil, as well as pre-strike stockpiling of coal, allowed the government to ride the strike out and outlast NUM strikers.

If not for the financial intervention of the communist German Democratic Republic, one wonders how long the NUM could have held out.

The ferrying of these funds to NUM was seemingly an international affair.

"The documents talk about the possibility of using a 'go-between' from the French communist union CGT [General Confederation of Labour] who would deliver the money straight from Eastern Europe to representatives of the NUM," Berger explains. "They also allege that the East German FDGB union {Free German Trade Union Federation) helped the miners by providing free holidays for the families and children of British miners in the German Democratic Republic."

"The FDGB, the documents say, also co-ordinated the shipping of food parcels, clothing and so on to British miners," Berger continues.

The East German communists saw the coalminers' strike as a choice opportunity in the ideological struggle between communism and capitalism.

"The communists perceived the NUM as an ally in the international class struggle against capitalism - hence the close interest in the strike," Berger added.

Nor was the coalminers' strike the only time NUM associated with east European communists.

"Relations between the NUM and east European communism had been good since the 1960s," Berger explains. "It was among the first major trade union federations to call for the recognition of the GDR."

"However it was by no means the only union with a cosy relationship with East European communism," Berger continues. "By the late 1970s, 24 of 44 members of the general council of the Trades Union Congress represented unions which had 'fraternal relations' with East European communist unions."

"It was, above all, the anti-capitalism of left-of-centre British trade unionists which made them believe that East European communism was on the right path," Berger concludes. "The British Left ignored massive human rights abuses and the lack of basic freedoms behind the Iron Curtain because they believed that the basic development in the direction of socialism was right."

It was this same willful ignorance of the atrocities of communism that had turned George Orwell -- who helped popularize coalminers as a left-wing political cause celibre with The Road to Wigan Pier -- away from his admiration for socialism and led to the clear anti-communist attitude expressed in Animal Farm.

(Orwell, it could be said, may have been history's first neo-conservative.)

The revelations regarding the 1984-85 coalminers' strike could, in time, lead to deeper investigation of the 1974 coalminers' strike, in which NUM managed to bring down the Conservative government of sir Edward Heath.

With intrepid historians such as Stefan Berger and Dr Norman LaPorte exploring these issues, one can only wonder how many more such episodes could be revealled.

Michael Ignatieff's Sino-Cluelessness

Ignatieff fails to account for Chinese human rights record

Posting on the National Post's Full Comment blog, Ezra Levant has some choice words for Liberal leader Michaelf Ignatieff.

Ignatieff, Levant insists, has spoken "false praise to power".

In a speech delivered at China's Tsinghua University, Ignatieff embraced Jean Chretien's craven approach to China; all he needed to do to make it complete was swap the phrase "good governance and rule of law" for "human rights".

In fact, despite China's human rights record -- the Chinese Communist Party's legacy written in blood -- Ignatieff's greatest human rights-related barbs were reserved for Canada.

"I am a proud Canadian, proud of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the rights we accord religious and linguistic minorities, and the constitutional acknowledgement of our Aboriginal peoples," Ignatieff said. "I will defend these achievements everywhere, but I am not blind to the gap that exists between our ideals and reality for some of my fellow citizens. Indeed, I am in politics to narrow that gap."

Canada certainly hasn't always been perfect. But it's drawn the line at harvesting the organs of religious minorities to sell internationally, as China has done to practitioners of Falun Gong -- an abuse revealled internationally by Liberal Party icon Irwin Cotler.

In fact, Ignatieff spoke very softly about China's human rights record.

"In my classroom at Harvard, there were vigorous debates about China," Ignatieff continued. "My Chinese students did not always see eye to eye with other students on such issues as the death penalty, the rights of religious and ethnic minorities, access to the Internet and the largest issue of all, to what degree, to what extent, and at what level, economic liberalization should be followed by increased democratic rights."

"But I made it clear that the ultimate decision about these questions will be made, not by foreigners, but by the Chinese people themselves," he naively added.

Of course, the world remembers what happened the last time too many Chinese citizens tried to campaign for democratic freedoms in China. The state ran them down with tanks.

Many Chinese citizens today still do not know about the Tiananmen Square massacre. They are generally not taught that it took place, nor was it covered by the Chinese media of the day.

The farther away within China one lives from Beijing, the more unlikely one is to know about the events of June 4, 1989. Ignatieff, speaking just one month removed from the 20th anniversary of that atrocity, has no such excuse.

Perhaps some would see it as fitting that Michael Ignatieff, the grandson of a Russian diplomat who, by Ignatieff's own admission, once effectively bilked China out of some border provinces would try to make amends by so blatantly caving in to the Chinese phenomenon of "shame diplomacy" -- attempting to shame foreigners out of criticizing China's human rights policies.

An honest Canadian leader would broke no such pressure. Canadians who believe in human rights were rightly embarrassed by Jean Chretien's cowardly approach to this topic.

Michael Ignatieff has embarrassed us again -- but at least he hasn't embarrassed us as Prime Minister.

Arizona Will Get Its Day in Court

Arizona will finally get fair opportunity to defend immigration law

After all the boycotts, all the accusations of racism, and all the indignation surrounding Arizona's efforts to head off (pun possibly intended), the United States Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit to attempt to overturn the state's immigration law.

The brief filed by the Justice Department argues that states may not enact their own immigration laws, nor may they enforce existing state laws in a manner deemed to inferfere with federal immigration law.

The Arizona law, which requires immigrants to carry alien registration documentation, and allows police to question suspects about their residency status while enforcing other laws.

But as it turns out, some of the most-objected-to provisions of the Arizona law already mirror federal law. Immigrants in the United States are already required to carry alien registration documentation as per the federal Alien Registration Act of 1940.

The biggest difference between the Arizona law and federal law is that a lawful stop is not required under federal immigration law, it is required under Arizona's law.

In other words, a higher standard of jurisprudence is required under Arizona's law than under federal law. This is actually the kind of improvement that those criticizing the law should be applauding.

It's difficult to think that there's much more at the heart of the justice department's challenge the Arizona law than pandering to left-wing groups exploiting the issue of racism for ideological gain.

After all, regardless of how the left-wing opponents of this bill want to characterize it, this is not about race. It does nothing to impede the legal entry of immigrants -- Mexican or otherwise -- into the state of Arizona.

The racism argument is, as it so often has been, a canard meant to ideologically benefit those who cynically exploit it.

Afghanistan is Not a Political Football

Michael Steele's comments on Afghanistan unconsionable

Following Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele's recent comments on Afghanistan, a storm is brewing within the Republican Party that could well blow him right out the door.

In a clear and blatant effort to cast Afghanistan as Barack Obama's war, Steele mischaracterized the United States' involvement in the region, treating them as if it was actually Obama's doing.

"This was a war of Obama's choosing," Steele insisted. "This is not something the United States had actively prosecuted or wanted to engage in."

"During the 2008 Presidential campaign, Barack Obama made clear his belief that we should not fight in Iraq, but instead concentrate on Afghanistan," Steele later explained. "Now, as President, he has indeed shifted his focus to this region. That means this is his strategy."

"I supported the decision to increase our troop force and, like the entire United States Senate, I support General Petraeus' confirmation," he continued. "The stakes are too high for us to accept anything but success in Afghanistan."

If Steele is really in such agreement with the war in Afghanistan, one may wonder what, precisely, the problem for him was -- aside from Obama's plans to shift US attentions away from Iraq.

The truth is that, following 9/11, the United States made an effort to get involved in Afghanistan. Later, at the request of the UN, the rest of NATO did as well. It goes without saying that George W Bush, a Republican President, led the US to depose the Taliban.

It was a just act the responsibility for which Steele, as RNC chairman, should not be deflecting onto Barack Obama. If not for the increasing unpopularity of the Afghan engagement, there's little question that Steele wouldn't be.

But the increasingly unpopularity of the war lends itself toward its use as a political football -- it's clear that this was Steele's full intent in his comments. It's utterly unacceptable.

Senator John McCain is among the many Republicans who won't stand for it, and have all but called for Steele's resignation as RNC chairman.

"I think those statements are wildly inaccurate and there is no excuse for them," McCain said. "I think that Mr. Steele is going to have to assess as to whether he can still lead the Republican Party as chairman of the Republican National Committee."

Of course, with less than four months to go until the midterm elections, it may be fair to question if teh Republican Party can afford to oust Steele as RNC chairman at this point, for fear of disrupting ongoing campaigns.

One thing is for certain: Michael Steele would clearly be better served to keep politically-motivated comment on foreign policy to himself, at least until the midterm elections are over.

At that point, the Republican will have to make a decision on whether or not they can continue to the key confrontation with Barack Obama in 2012 with Steele in place.

Electoral Reform in the Eye of the Storm

Former Tory leadership contender leads fight against electoral reform

When David Cameron successfully negotiated the coalition accord that made him Prime Minister of Britain, one of the key concessions he had to offer was a referendum on electoral reform.

In the end, not only did Cameron give Liberal Democrat leader and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg control over drafting the proposition for electoral reform, but he also placed him in charge of reviewing electoral boundaries -- effectively giving Clegg the power to, if he should so choose, gerrymander right under Cameron's nose.

Last but not least, Cameron announced that he would decline to lead a "no" campaign against the Alternative Vote system Clegg will likely champion, although he has solidly come out against it, and will campaign against it.

While no formal leader for the "no" campaign has, to date, emerged, the man whom Cameron defeated for the Tory leadership has begun to lead an insurgency against it within the Conservative Party.

David Davis has described AV as "ant-Tory", and declared that he will oppose the referendum itself.

"With AV, in times of trouble, you get oscillations of government rather than stability," Davis insisted. "You would have got [Margaret] Thatcher then Michael Foot, Thatcher then Neil Kinnock."

"Our current system almost always delivers a clear result," he continued. "It pretty much always reflects the mood of the country. You don’t want to replace that, as a result of some electoral deal, with something that may give us permanent instability."

The trouble with this argument is that it depends on how any one individual interprets "the mood of the country". People of differing ideological perspectives will always interpret this differently -- and the most demagogic amongst them will always seek ways to spin the available information to suit the end they desire.

Davis may have lost the 2005 Conservative leadership campaign, but a great many Tories are feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the amount of power Nick Clegg has been given to shape Britain's electoral system, with a minimum of Tory input.

David Cameron would be wise to take this entire affair back to the drawing board, and at the very least impart a stronger voice to his own party on the form that Alternative Vote will ultimately take.

It may not be enough to placate David Davis, but it's just the responsible thing to do.

Why Elizabeth May Needs Election Fever to Survive

Green Party grassroots moving to dump Lizzie May

For embattled political leaders, the omnipresent spectre of an election isn't merely a boon -- it's a survival instinct.

This seems to be the case for Green Party leader Elizabeth May, who is attempting to head off a leadership challenge by telling Green Party members that an election is imminent.

Green Party members are beginning to organize to dump May's leadership -- a prospect that seems grim for May as she continues to fight to avert a mandatory leadership review, due for this autumn.

A vote to avert the leadership review will be held at the Green Party convention in August.

“Some resolutions would cause an immediate leadership race, forcing me to resign - even before the next election,” May writes in a letter to Green Party members. “It is entirely up to you, our members, whether I remain as leader through the next election or not. If members want me to step down, so be it. It will have been my honour to serve you since 2006.”

“There’s an election on and this one really matters,” May later added.

Problem being of course, that there's no election on right now -- and the prospects for an election seem grim, with a governing party that seems to have little incentive to call one, with recent polls indicating that the Conservative Party is still shy of majority government territory.

Of course, election fever is in the best interests not only of Elizabeth May, but also of Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff -- whose party is languishing as low as 25% in recent polls.

Keep followers agonizing over the prospects over an election that may still be as much as two years away seems to be in the best interests of embattled political leaders. And with nothing to show for her four years of leadership of the Green Party, there's no reason in the world why May shouldn't be embattled.

As with all things, May's description of her motivation are typically self-aggrandizing and self-serving.

“My motivations are very much based on what will make Canada’s democracy work better," May insisted.

Yet it seems that whenever Elizabeth May does something that will advance her own political career, and increase her own public profile, she always insists that it's for the betterment of Canadian democracy.

May's democratic motto could be said to be "l'estat c'est elle".

After all, subverting the rules of the Green Party to shield her leadership from scrutiny isn't at all in the best interests of Canadian democracy, or even in the best interests of her own party.

It's in Elizabeth May's best interests. Full stop.

If May needs to provoke a perpetual state of election anxiety amongst her party membership in order to satisfy her best interests, so be it.


Other bloggers writing about this topic:

Mark Taylor - "Start With Our Own Democracy First"

Dr Roy Eappen - "Iffy Is Not the Only One in Trouble"

The "What If" Scenario of History

Looking back on history, it can often be easy to overlook

But in the case of Operation Sealion, Nazi Germany's planned invsion of Britain -- averted by defeat in the Battle of Britain -- historical distance should actually increase the sense of the urgency Britons must have felt while fighting the air battle against the Luftwaffe.

The documented plans for the occupation of Britain revealled a plan to lull Britons into a false sense of security, then oppress them brutally.

It seems clear that econommics was at least one of the weapons to be used against the populace in occupied Britain. The exchange rate set by the Nazi government was to be extravagantly favourable to the British Pound.

One can see this in the true-life occupation of the Channel Islands (occupied as a prelude to the attempted invasion of Britain).

This was to be followed by systematically hunting and killing those whose names were found in the pages of the "Black book" -- German emigres like Sigmund Freud and Britain's literary and intellectual elites.

Even authors as otherwise unthreatening as Virginia Woolf were to be killed by Nazi death squads operating in Britain.

The "what if" scenario is one that has proven popular in history as in fiction. The "what if" scenarios presented by history are all the more unsettling because of the looming prospect of reality.

Five More Reasons to Be Proud This Canada Day - 2010 Edition

The Nexus tradition oflisting five reasons to be proud to be Canadian each Canada Day continues. As with the 2008 and 2009 lists, these are just a few reasons to be proud this Canada Day:

1. The World's Longest Undefended Border - Along the 49th parallel, Canada and the United States of America share the longest undefended border in the world, and have enjoyed one of the longest periods of peace in history.

Peace between the United States and Canada was far from inevitable. The principle of Manifest Destiny coupled with Canada's status as a British colony to demand that the United States annex Canada. One reason was to satisfy ideological demands for complete US dominion over North America. The other was security.

Peace between Canada and the United States eventually came about as a result of earned trust. Canada and the United States have fought side-by-side in numerous conflicts -- most importantly World War II and the Korean War.

Through sharing the status of comrades-in-arms, the United States came to know the true nature of Canada: a peace-loving people who will stand and fight when the objective is necessary, and the cause is just. While many Americans have forgotten this in the midst of Canada declining to join the US war in Iraq, it is a reputation that our country is re-earning in Afghanistan.

The world's longest undefended border is Canada's legacy of pursuing peace while opposing tyranny.

2. The 2010 Winter Olympics - When Canadian history books are written at the conclusion of the 21st century, there should be little doubt that the Vancouver 2010 Olympics will be written about as a turning point in terms of the Canadian identity.

Vancouver 2010 will be seen as the birthplace of a new Canadian identity. That of a country learning to outgrow its former humility, and celebrate its successes on the global stage without fear of being branded as "too American".

It should be considered a welcome change in the minds of many Canadians. Canadians have waited a long time to become comfortable with their patriotism.

3. Leonard Cohen - Every Canadian can periodically use a reminder that, yes, a Canadian can achieve global icon status without also having the world come to loathe them for the depth of their ego (a la Celine Dion).

Born in Montreal, Cohen's music is appreciated around the world. "Halelujah" may well be one of the most iconic songs of all time.

4. The Group of Seven - From the 1920s onward, Franklin Carmichael, Lawren Harris, Andrew Young Jackson, Franz Johnston, Aurther Lismer, Frederick Varley, Tom Thomson and James Edward Hervey MacDonald presented the Canadian landscape to the world in the form of art.

Working in styles ranging from realism to impressionism, the Group of Seven produced some of the most iconic images of Canada's landscape.

In particular, Andrew Young Jackson formed the group at least partially to confound art critics who didn't consider his style to be conventional enough -- few things can be as Canadian as that.

5. Lacrosse - Canada's national summer sport is one that, sadly, hasn't received the attention it deserves. While that is changing with the increasing popularity of the National Lacrosse League -- currently with teams in Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto.

Lacrosse was first played by Huron and Iroquois Indians. It was equal parts religious ritual, physical competition and alternative to armed conflict. Games were played by hundreds or thousands of players on fields as much as miles long. Games would last for three straight days.

The game was eventually picked up by Jesuit missionaries operating in modern-day Quebec, and eventually developed into the game as it's known today. Like hockey, Lacrosse has a uniquely Canadian character that should be cherished by all Canadians.


Happy 143 years, Canada!

Thank God For Global Research (Thank God For Comedy)

As discussion of the riots at the G20 Summit continue to dominate Canadian discourse, one has to take some time out from the sobering realities -- such as the reality that Toronto Chief of Police Bill Blair almost single-handedly appropriated additional police powers via deceit -- for a little comic relief.

To that, one should say "thank god for the Centre for Research on Globalization. Amidst all the genuine causes for concern surrounding the G20 Summit -- such as unwarranted police crackdowns on peaceful protesters -- the G20 riots have managed to narrowly focus the mania that has infected that organization, and should remind a great many people why they aren't to be taken seriously.

That the CRG isn't widely viewed as a haven for 9/11 truthers should be attributed strictly to the fact that they largely have no public profile. In reality, their website is a dark corner of the internet where little light tends to be cast.

9/11 truthers -- who, far more than climate change skeptics could be deemed to be akin to Holocaust deniers -- such as Christopher Bollyn, Michel Chossudovsky and David Ray Griffin, among many, many others, have disseminated their filth through the Global Research website.

Following the G20 riots, the site's 9/11 narrative seems to have infected recent events, as numerous conspiracy theories are being peddled through that website, with little to no evidence being offered in support.

For example, Rady Ananda suggests that the infamous black bloc may actually be a police psyops group. She offers no evidence whatsoever to back this suggestion, other than suggesting that the individual in this video (pictured left) is a "a clean-cut man with a military style haircut".

Apparently, the idea that any black bloc anarchist could have their hair cut short under their military-style caps is utterly unthinkable to Ananda.

There's little question that police indeed used undercover officers at the G20 summit in order to monitor protests, and to better counter organizations such as the black bloc. But when one compares the video Ananda offers to actual video of police getting their UCs out from under cover, it becomes clear that changing clothes huddled in a doorway is not the means by which such officers evade detection.

Ananda is very clearly fishing with no bait. Her colleages from Global Research would be doing the same, if they weren't fishing with scant bait.

Terry Burrows is a little more direct in his accusations.

He falls back once again to the "same shoes" argument, and uses numerous dark and grainy photographs to try to make the case. For example, he insists this photograph (pictured right) "clearly" demonstrates that the police were wearing the same shoes at the black bloc protester pictured below at left.

The self-serving hilarity of it all is undeniable.

Unfortunately for Burrows, that picture doesn't establish anything. The tread on the officer's boot -- the means by which these individuals have been establishing such claims -- are effectively entirely obscured from view.

There's nothing clear about this at all.

Burrows at one point even attempts to offer the belt and the mismatched socks of a black bloc anarchist as evidence that he's an agent provocateur. (The idea that an anarchist miscreant would flaunt fashion by mismatching his socks, or could purchase a black leather belt at the local five and dime is apparently unthinkable to Burrows.)

It's remarkable to find that individuals such as Terry Burrows and Rady Anand can't simply admit, in the wake of these riots, that they and their compatriots tolerated a terrorist element amongst their protests at the G20 Summit.

While the burning of police cars has emerged as the defining image of the G20 Summit (no matter how badly the elft wants that image to be riot cops), another image deserves consideration: it's the sight of a CUPE protester, pink CUPE flag flying high, calmly following the black bloc up a Toronto street while they smash windows and destroy property. This spectacle was captured by a CTV camera on site at the riot.

While a great many protesters eventually did stand up to the black bloc -- chanting "shame on you" at the miscreants who disrupted their peaceful and democratic protest with their violent and anti-democratic tactics -- it seems that the correspondants for Global Research were not among those principled individuals.

Rather, they set out thinking about how they could evade responsibility for their collusion with the black bloc, and smear the police in the process.

It would be shameful if their efforts weren't so utterly laughable.

Terrorist Apologists of the Far Left

Rioting "not violence" but "freedom of expression". Who knew?

According to a Montreal-based anti-capitalist group, the black bloc anarchists who indulged their revolutionary fantasies in downtown Toronto this past week were not violent.

Ani-Capitalist Convergance, a group whose name speaks for itself, made a variety of absurd statements that the Toronto Star obligingly reported. Those statements ranged from blatant apologism for the terrorist thugs who rampaged in downtown Toronto to making some absurd accusations.

“For us it’s not violence,” mused Mahieu Francoeur, a spokesman for the group. “It’s a means of expression and doesn’t compare to the economic and state violence we’re subjected to.”

"We respect a diversity of tactics. People are angry, particularly in the context of an event like that," Francoeur continued. "For us it's vandalism against certain institutions . . . it's symbolic and doesn't compare with violence in general in society."

In other words: the black bloc terrorists destroying storefronts in downtown Toronto weren't violent because the ACC approves of their actions. Meanwhile, the economy is violent because the ACC disapproves of capitalism.

Consider it something of a Marxist slip.

“I think the message is clear,” explained Danie Royer. “If people take back the streets, if people attack symbols of capitalism, I think this is the message."

Among the more absurd comments made by the group was an accusation that riot police in Toronto indiscriminately arrested all francophones in downtown Toronto.

“Everybody that was in the streets that talked French or even cars that had Quebec plates were arrested," Royer insisted.

The best evidence they have to offer for this is that one of their members, arrested during the riots, was held in a 20-person holding cell with 18 other francophone Quebeckers. They also note that 300 of 450 people they took to Toronto didn't return with them.

Many of them were likely arrested.

Foyer also complained that the police moved quickly to deal with the ACC.

"When we arrived by bus the police were waiting for us. They took our flags, our [signs]," she said.

Of course, there's more to the matter than Francoeur or Foryer admit. As it turns out, Anti-Capitalist Convergence, as a broader movement, peddles in various forms of support for protest movements. There's nothing inherently wrong with this.

But among those forms of support is agitprop, most simply propaganda designed for agitation.

Which explains why so many members of ACC may have been arrested in Toronto. While the black bloc riots were clearly premeditated and not provoked by the ACC, the ACC was almost certainly attempting to agitate protesters at the G20 Summit into some kind of action -- and it's already been shown that they aren't the slightest bit taken aback by violence.

Thinking more deeply about the group and its goals, it becomes clear that the group's attempts to stir up ethnic/lingual tensions in a country rendered sensitive to such matters -- due to the fact that it has been tragically prone to such tensions -- is itself an article of agitprop.

As far as being one-trick ponies goes, groups such as Anti-Capitalist Convergence not only take the cake, but they baked it too.

Attn G20 Vandals: No, The World Really Doesn't Get You

Rick Barber's Giant Ego Trip Continues

Rick Barber, a candidate for the Republican Party's nomination in Alabama's 2nd district (the fightin' second!), has managed to set the bar high for political narcissism with his now-infamous "gather your armies" ad.

He clearly took the well-deserved criticism he received for that ad as encouragement to continue stroking his ego. Little else really explains his most recent ad.

Entitled "slavery", Barber continues his conversation with George Washington. He counters arguments that Washington would have supported Obama's health care bill by pointing out that Washington's taxation record was largely relegated to key and basic government functions -- for example, the retiring of federal debt from the Revolutionary War.

He then turns to a rather scary-looking actor playing Abraham Lincoln. "Hey Abe," he addresses Lincoln, "when someone's forced to work for months to pay taxes so that a total stranger can get a free meal, medical procedure or a bail-out, what's that called?"

After further similar questioning from Barber, and some deliberation, Lincoln responds:

"Slavery."

Barber then goes on to point out that the United States suffered greatly to rid itself of slavery, then accuses the government of enslaving the American people.

As with Barber's previous ad, the result is actually rather comical. This is a man with the temerity to brand himself as the last, best defender of the legacy of the civil war, and counter-brands Barack Obama and the Democratic Party as its betrayers.

What Barber seems to fail to understand is that no one man won the civil war. The American civil war was won by the sacrifices of an entire nation, and is thus the legacy of that war is common property of all the citizens of the United States. Its legacy could never be defended by one man alone, nor is it meant to be.

That Rick Barber could effectively annoint himself the one to defend that legacy is, once again, deeply revelatory of what his run for congress is really about: his own ego.

The Left's Playbook On Avoiding Responsibility for G20 Riots...

...Is to blame everyone else but themselves.

In the days following a riot in Toronto which has eventually spawned 600 arrests, Canada's left has emerged with a rather predictable playbook on avoiding their share of the responsibility.

Cast the fingers of blame everywhere but where they actually belong.

Blame the police. Blame Stephen Harper. Blame anyone but the anarchists themselves, and the left-wingers who share their agenda.

In particular, some of the claims -- that the riots were actually started by agents provocateurs -- simply don't hold water. For example, one left-wing blogger insists that the rioters and riot police were wearing the same shoe.

This is a claim that can be swept aside with a cursory examination of the photographs in question. In one case, not only is one of the rioters wearing sneakers, but the shoes are actually rather different:

By examing the photo, one can determine that the shoes worn by the rioters have a matte finish. One can also identify what appears to be laces on the shoe.

By examining the other photo offered as evidence, the importance of these details becomes evident:

The shoe worn by Toronto riot police have no laces. Moreoever, they have an entirely different finish.

They clearly are not the same shoe. It doesn't even require an enlargement of either shoe to glean this detail (although it helps).

It can't help this blogger's case that the only one of these three photographed in the act of an offense -- the one spray-painting the police cruiser -- is the one wearing the aforementioned sneakers.

But the agents provocateurs angle is simply a recycled page out of the left-wing playbook. While there were almost undoubtedly uncover officers amongst the protesters in Toronto, there is absolutely no evidence that any of them have acted in this manner.

Not that there aren't a few left-wingers who aren't interested in waiting to see any evidence:

It certainly must help to declare the police officers -- the ones who are actually trying to turn back the tide of lunacy in the midst of these riots -- guilty until they are proven innocent.

It's a martginally more advanced tactic than simply blaming Stephen Harper on account of the choice of venues, as some left-wingers have done. The detail that black bloc anarchists showed up at rural areas such as Gleneagles, Scotland, must simply evade them.

But this is, frankly, the reaction that one should expect when it becomes publicly evident that the far left shares a common agenda with lawless terrorist thugs like the anarchist black bloc.

It's so much easier to evade responsibility than to own up to it.

Reflections on the Prelude To the Toronto Riots

On May 18, 2010, self-dexcribed anarchists firebombed a Royal Bank of Canada branch in downtown Toronto.

In a YouTube video taken of the attack, the perpetrators cited RBC's sponsorship of the 2010 Olympics, homelessness, and the bank's financing of oil sands developments in Fort MacMurray.

The group also promised to be present at the G8 and G20 summits.

In other words, their May 18 attack was actually a prelude of what this particular group was planning at the G8 and G20 summits.

Examining a number of different postings of that video, one thing quickly becomes an apparent: those who sympathize with anarchist terrorists are nearly as much a part of the problem as are the terrorists themselves.

These videos managed to draw a number of sympathizers to defend the actions of those who perpetrated the bombing. Some of them are more lucid than others.

They tend to base their support of this attack on an economic worldview that the far left seems to share with anarchists:

They tend to be particularly candid on how they see actions such as the May 18 attack, or the riots currently tearing through Toronto. It isn't a joke. These people are deadly serious:

They defend these kinds of actions based on necessity. Unable to voice their agenda in a manner that would win the support of logical, rational Canadians, violence is the last resort of these individuals. They actually lionize this kind of intellectual sloth:

Moreover, they attempt to excuse themselves by pointing out that "no one got hurt". (Yet are rather resentful of the detail that a bank firebombing in Greece killed three people, including a pregnant woman.)

Moreover, they attempt to justify their violence by pointing out the violence that police use against them -- omitting the detail that the violence is in response to the violence used by anarchists themselves.

Moreover, they forecast further violence:

However bad the violence in downtown Toronto has been today, the RBC firebombing reminds us that it could have been much worse, especially if police hadn't arrested the perpetrators of that bombing before the summit.

When police arrested the three known perpetrators of the May 18 bombing, they were found to be in possession of hundreds of 7.62 mm rounds, as well as incendiary materials and explosives.

Whatever RBC bomb perps Roger Clement, Matthew Morgan-Brown and Claude Handge had in store for the G8 and G20 summits, it becomes clear that the May 18 bombing may have paled in comparison.

Not all anarchists are terrorists by any means. But international summits have demonsrated that terrorists walk among anarchist circles. Well-meaning anarchists would do well to identify such individuals and expel them from their movement.

But one thing they cannot do is justify the violence. Terrorism is terrorism, and it should always be dealt with appropriately.

Let's Talk About the "Culture of Fear"

The far left simply doesn't get it -- they didn't get it before, and they won't get it now

Writing mere hours before the outbreak of violent protests in downtown Toronto surrounding the set-to-begin G20 summit, Rabble.ca's Darren Puscas published an article entitled "Harper's aggressive plants: Canada at the G8 and G20 Summits".

Among the plans Puscas treats as "aggressive" are the promotion of budgetary austerity amidst the European economy walking a tightrope between tenuous stability and total collapse, opposition to a global bank tax, opposition to Iran's nuclear program, climate realism, and the child & maternal health program.

And one other thing: Puscas insists that Stephen Harper is propagating a "culture of fear" around the G8 and G20 summits:

For the far-left, Puscas' article is a potent and somehow welcoming fantasy, built upon a heap of other ideological fictions.

Yet as Canadians confront the reality unfolding in downtown Toronto, Puscas will likely be disappointed to learn that his propaganda cannot obscure the truth: it isn't Stephen Harper that has propogated a culture of fear around these summits, it's the far left.

After all, it isn't Stephen Harper currently smashing windows and torching police cruisers in downtown Toronto. It's the extreme anarchist denizens of the black bloc -- not an organized group, per se, but rather a pseudo-spontaneous mass intended to provide cover by allowing violent, black-clad protesters to nearly vanish within it.

When one considers Puscas' denunciation of "the insider and outsider reality that marks the global economy", it becomes clear that the violent thugs at work today share Puscas' perspective on the matter.

The goal of the black bloc is to spread fear amongst leaders and their supporters, so as to breed acquiesence to their agenda.

In other words, it's the black bloc, sharing Puscas' agenda, that are seeking to create a culture of fear.

In fact, it quickly becomes apparent that the security perimeter built around around the summit site is entirely justified in order to contain and control these violent outbursts -- Puscas' description of it clearly is not.

Not that one should expect Darren Puscas to understand this. He clearly didn't understand it when he wrote his Rabble article, and he almost certainly doesn't understand it now.

Who Is The Tank Man?

When the western world thinks about the Tienanmen Square massacre of 1989, one image springs to mind: it is one of the the most iconic images of the 20th century.

British journalist Alfred Lee identified the man as Wang Weilin -- an account that no other journalist has ever been able to verify.

To many, it's frustrating that we cannot identify the man who provided one of the most iconic images of not only the 20th century, but in time of all time.

The Chinese government has certainly expended a great deal of time and effort in destroying this image. No sooner had the photo been taken then Chinese security services attempted to sieze the film, Fortunately, the photographer was enterprising enough to successfully hide it.

Today, just as many Chinese students never been told about the Tienanmen Square massacre (the further within China's borders one lives from Beijing the less likely one is to know about it), they don't know the Tank Man image.

The Chinese state has built an elaborate infrastructure to the suppression of such information. In such, they have successfully stunted the growth of the democracy movement.

It may not be inconceivable to think that the rest of the world will not see democracy and freedom in China until as many Chinese people as possible know the iconic image of the Tank Man, even if they may never know his name.