The pattern set in the early days of his government -- by not announcing when Cabinet meetings were scheduled and only dropping in on provincial and territorial premiers on twenty-four hours notice -- Harper is now repeating on the trail. As Skinny Dipper notes, and as shown last night on the very pro Conservative CTV News, the press was not allowed off the bus for a scheduled media appearance in Montréal then were told they could talk to protestors who were waiting for the PM if they got permission from the PMO first.
Permission of course which was not coming, just as it wasn't coming for protestors who wanted to complain about human rights abuses during the Beijing Olympics last month and were instead rounded up and sent off to the gulag for "re-education" (i.e. torture).
An enemy of the press is an enemy of the Constitution. The PM is supposed to be the guardian of the Constitution and the rights within it; and like in the States with Bush 43 for the US Constitution, Harper has shown nothing but contempt for our Basic Law. He does not deserve a majority government. He does not deserve a minority government. He does not, in fact, even deserve to be re-elected in his home district of Calgary Southwest.
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Saturday, September 20, 2008
Friday, September 19, 2008
Harper gags military
In a continuing pattern of secrecy, the Cons have put a gag order on the military from discussing with the media various issues until after October 14th. While National Defence claims they don't want to influence the election, it's quite the opposite. This didn't happen, far as I can tell, during the last election.
This is clearly an attempt to limit free discussion of what's going on in Afghanistan. What's happened to require a gag order? Did some massacre happen that Harper is afraid to let Canadians know about? Or have some of our Afghan allies abandoned us and the Americans after getting fed up with us?
That kind of suppression simply is not healthy for a democracy, and fits clearly with the pattern of running a government on a need to know basis, rather than giving the people as much information as needed to make a rational decision.
Who do they think we are? Stupid? Even in Britain there's much more open discussion about what's going on in both Afghanistan and Iraq -- sometimes too much, but at least it's the kind of engagement and dialogue one expects in a Parliamentary democracy. This is not the United States. This is Canada.
The Fathers of Confederation chose a Parliamentary system for a reason. If Harper wants a separation of powers like in the States, he should put forward a constitutional amendment and have the people vote on it under the 7/50 rule. If he wants to gag discussion, then he should get Parliament to invoke the notwithstanding clause (which of course can't be done right now since the House of Commons stands dissolved during the election).
Otherwise, let the reporters do their job, and the public relations arm of DND do their job in a non-partisan fashion like they have done for decades.
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This is clearly an attempt to limit free discussion of what's going on in Afghanistan. What's happened to require a gag order? Did some massacre happen that Harper is afraid to let Canadians know about? Or have some of our Afghan allies abandoned us and the Americans after getting fed up with us?
That kind of suppression simply is not healthy for a democracy, and fits clearly with the pattern of running a government on a need to know basis, rather than giving the people as much information as needed to make a rational decision.
Who do they think we are? Stupid? Even in Britain there's much more open discussion about what's going on in both Afghanistan and Iraq -- sometimes too much, but at least it's the kind of engagement and dialogue one expects in a Parliamentary democracy. This is not the United States. This is Canada.
The Fathers of Confederation chose a Parliamentary system for a reason. If Harper wants a separation of powers like in the States, he should put forward a constitutional amendment and have the people vote on it under the 7/50 rule. If he wants to gag discussion, then he should get Parliament to invoke the notwithstanding clause (which of course can't be done right now since the House of Commons stands dissolved during the election).
Otherwise, let the reporters do their job, and the public relations arm of DND do their job in a non-partisan fashion like they have done for decades.
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Politically responsive, or politically independent?
Steve Harper not only refused to fire Gerry Ritz yesterday, he make the insult even worse by questioning the motivation of bureaucrats who leaked the story of Ritz' remarks.
If you want to do that Steve, then please answer this question: Do you want a bureaucracy that is professional and independent; or do you want one that is not free to offer policy advice even before you make a final decision? We expect cowering public servants in places like Mainland China and Libya -- not in Canada.
This, and the news that the Cons wants to kill meat inspection in Manitoba with the hopes of carrying the policy nationwide. (HT to Femme Verte.)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Food inspection is too important to contract out or privatize. We need our federal inspectors, in fact we need more to make sure the job gets done everywhere. This is for the benefit of both the farmers who provide the food and people in both city and country that eat the food.
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If you want to do that Steve, then please answer this question: Do you want a bureaucracy that is professional and independent; or do you want one that is not free to offer policy advice even before you make a final decision? We expect cowering public servants in places like Mainland China and Libya -- not in Canada.
This, and the news that the Cons wants to kill meat inspection in Manitoba with the hopes of carrying the policy nationwide. (HT to Femme Verte.)
I've said it before and I'll say it again: Food inspection is too important to contract out or privatize. We need our federal inspectors, in fact we need more to make sure the job gets done everywhere. This is for the benefit of both the farmers who provide the food and people in both city and country that eat the food.
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All politics local -- except for Mr Harper
Are the wheels falling off the Harper Express? Too early to say at this point but there were a few more sputters on the rails that threatened to derail the train to a majority government. Now two more Conservatives have gotten in hot water. First, Gerry Labelle actually questioned some of the more hardline elements of the party's platform -- in particular criticizing the meekness of the Cons' environmental policies and cuts to arts programs, and asking if it was wise for Slim Jim ™ Flaherty to say Ontario was the last place to do business. (The link is to a story in French.)
Second, Lawrence Cannon had to apologize for very indelicate remarks an aide of his made about Aboriginals that implied that all Natives are alcoholics. Cannon is trying to drum up votes for Harper in Québec where race relations can be a touchy subject even at the best of times.
The problems when you have a single leader controlling a message and making sure your lieutenants stick on mesage are twofold.
First: Some of your people are bound to step out of line. And when that happens, havoc can ensue. I remain convinced that the reason why people like Newt Gingrich and Mike Harris were possible is that media appearances were strictly controlled except for the "top of ticket." It worked very effectively. In the States, the "Contract With America" became a reality because many voters who hated Bill and Hillary Clinton didn't care which Republican was running in their district, they just pulled the switch for whatever Republican it was. Same here in Ontario, where people were just fed up with the ND's Bob Rae (who's since moved to the Liberals) as well as Lyn McLeod who came off as too timid They too didn't care which Conservative it was, they just marked an X beside that candidate.
Second: Even managing to keep people in line, a national platform doesn't necessarily allow for local circumstances. This is the case for all parties, but it's become a particular problem for the Conservatives. This is especially true in a case where a sitting MP or a prospective one running for office has to defend competing interests in a urban / rural district rather than a constitutency that is primarily one or the other. In an all or nothing platform like the Cons', there is no flexibility and one is bound to tick off one group or the other rather than seeking consensus.
To illustrate: Both urban and rural people want to fight crime, but people in the cities tend to eschew guns in the home while those in the country and the outports see guns as a vital part of their lives. For another, farmers understand the need to protect their land for future years and generations but their understanding of helping to clean the environment may very well be different than those in ciites who have to deal with smog; furthermore those same farmers may not care that much about cutbacks to the arts as much as city folk do.
(Jim Travers had a good column earlier this week about this in one battleground district, Perth-Wellington, where relations between Stratford and the surrounding countryside have never been that great. Stratford, beyond the Festival and related arts activities, also has an auto parts industry that is currently struggling with the current economic downturn; meanwhile the farmland beyond is right in the middle of Ontario's Bible Belt with Stratford a small-l liberal anomaly in an otherwise socially conservative part of the world.. At present things are coming to a head about the desire for federal funding of a satellite campus for the University of Waterloo. The area is represented by a Conservative at present who might get re-elected on the basis of a socon majority.)
There's only so much deviation that should be expected, otherwise why has one committed to a platform? But to expect complete subscription to orthodoxy will lead to problems. Candidates should be free to say how they'll help both town and country and not have to pit the two against each other because head office tells them to.
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Second, Lawrence Cannon had to apologize for very indelicate remarks an aide of his made about Aboriginals that implied that all Natives are alcoholics. Cannon is trying to drum up votes for Harper in Québec where race relations can be a touchy subject even at the best of times.
The problems when you have a single leader controlling a message and making sure your lieutenants stick on mesage are twofold.
First: Some of your people are bound to step out of line. And when that happens, havoc can ensue. I remain convinced that the reason why people like Newt Gingrich and Mike Harris were possible is that media appearances were strictly controlled except for the "top of ticket." It worked very effectively. In the States, the "Contract With America" became a reality because many voters who hated Bill and Hillary Clinton didn't care which Republican was running in their district, they just pulled the switch for whatever Republican it was. Same here in Ontario, where people were just fed up with the ND's Bob Rae (who's since moved to the Liberals) as well as Lyn McLeod who came off as too timid They too didn't care which Conservative it was, they just marked an X beside that candidate.
Second: Even managing to keep people in line, a national platform doesn't necessarily allow for local circumstances. This is the case for all parties, but it's become a particular problem for the Conservatives. This is especially true in a case where a sitting MP or a prospective one running for office has to defend competing interests in a urban / rural district rather than a constitutency that is primarily one or the other. In an all or nothing platform like the Cons', there is no flexibility and one is bound to tick off one group or the other rather than seeking consensus.
To illustrate: Both urban and rural people want to fight crime, but people in the cities tend to eschew guns in the home while those in the country and the outports see guns as a vital part of their lives. For another, farmers understand the need to protect their land for future years and generations but their understanding of helping to clean the environment may very well be different than those in ciites who have to deal with smog; furthermore those same farmers may not care that much about cutbacks to the arts as much as city folk do.
(Jim Travers had a good column earlier this week about this in one battleground district, Perth-Wellington, where relations between Stratford and the surrounding countryside have never been that great. Stratford, beyond the Festival and related arts activities, also has an auto parts industry that is currently struggling with the current economic downturn; meanwhile the farmland beyond is right in the middle of Ontario's Bible Belt with Stratford a small-l liberal anomaly in an otherwise socially conservative part of the world.. At present things are coming to a head about the desire for federal funding of a satellite campus for the University of Waterloo. The area is represented by a Conservative at present who might get re-elected on the basis of a socon majority.)
There's only so much deviation that should be expected, otherwise why has one committed to a platform? But to expect complete subscription to orthodoxy will lead to problems. Candidates should be free to say how they'll help both town and country and not have to pit the two against each other because head office tells them to.
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Now it gets ugly
First it was seniors. Then Generation X. Now it's children -- small children.
An infant in Manitoba has died from listeriosis. It's too early to say whether the death is linked to the problems at Maple Leaf, but it does make you wonder how much worse it is going to get before it gets better.
Almost amazingly, Harper continues to stand by his man Gerry Ritz, saying that while the remarks were "completely inappropriate" the apology was enough.
17 people dying is enough? Hundreds getting sick is enough?
Enough of the crap. Ritz has got to go even if Harper isn't.
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An infant in Manitoba has died from listeriosis. It's too early to say whether the death is linked to the problems at Maple Leaf, but it does make you wonder how much worse it is going to get before it gets better.
Almost amazingly, Harper continues to stand by his man Gerry Ritz, saying that while the remarks were "completely inappropriate" the apology was enough.
17 people dying is enough? Hundreds getting sick is enough?
Enough of the crap. Ritz has got to go even if Harper isn't.
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Bailout III -- uh, IV
Six of the major central banks -- those of Canada, the US, the UK, Switzerland, the Eurozone and Japan -- are extending another $180 billion US in cash reserves they've been sitting on to shore up a very shaky credit market. This is the third time facilities for debt swaps have been offered and increase the total credit line available to banks, to $247 billion.
All fair and well for the commercial banks. It is giving the markets a bit of a sigh of relief and gives some troubled institutions such as Wachovia and Washington Mutual some needed breathing space.
But at what point do ordinary people stand up and say, no more bailouts? It's not average investors' faults that their money was put into risky ventures such as subprime mortgages or commercial paper that had no assets to back them. This may calm down markets for a short time but the system needs major structural reforms to ensure risky lending becomes next to impossible for the future.
All fair and well for the commercial banks. It is giving the markets a bit of a sigh of relief and gives some troubled institutions such as Wachovia and Washington Mutual some needed breathing space.
But at what point do ordinary people stand up and say, no more bailouts? It's not average investors' faults that their money was put into risky ventures such as subprime mortgages or commercial paper that had no assets to back them. This may calm down markets for a short time but the system needs major structural reforms to ensure risky lending becomes next to impossible for the future.
Foot-in-mouth -- um, hoof-in -- no, stupidity (and notes from the Dion trail)
Three really, really bad cases of poor judgment. First, the ruling Conservatives. Gerry Ritz, the Agriculture Minister, apologized late last night for some comments about the listeriosis outbreak a little while ago during a conference call with about thirty people including the press, Agriculture officials and the PM's Communications Office. Ritz mused about the political fallout then said it was "like a death from a thousand cuts. Or should I say cold cuts." Then when reporters told him about a new death possibly linked to the bacterium and that it happened in Prince Edward Island, Ritz replied "Please tell me it's Wayne Easter." Easter is of course the former Ag Minister and currently the Liberals' critic on the file.
Easter accepted the apology but was nevertheless livid and demanded Ritz' resignation for showing a lack of sensitivity. I think it goes beyond that. Reporters were asking serious questions about whether the food inspectors may have dropped the ball. To then turn a deadly crisis into a political statement shows just how out of touch the Conservatives are. The food companies involved are among the biggest customers of farmers, and they're getting hit too. There's insurance and stabilization for crop failures, but not so much for public health disasters. From source to destination Canadians deserve respect throughout.
If someone can truly hate someone that much, just because he or she is from a different political party, then he or she should resign. I doubt Trudeau would have stood by Eugene Whelan if he made an idiotic remark like that of Mr Ritz.
The second faux pas from the Cons: Stephen Harper was in Welland yesterday. People there want to know what the PM wants to do in the fallout from the closure of the John Deere plant as well as an auto parts plant. Together they account for about 1000 jobs. Instead, he announced a crackdown on flavoured cigarettes. Right message, wrong location and timing.
The other oops comes from the NDP. Their candidate for West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast withdrew from the ticket after it was alleged that Dana Larsen may have been supplying seeds for manufacturing coca and marijuana; both illegal activities even though the party supports decriminalization of "soft" drugs like THC.
On this one, I have to question the wisdom of Jack Layton. Why did he sign off on the nomination papers of a co-founder of the BC Marijuana Party? If he's trying to peel off votes from a small but vital line of social conservatives who oppose drug use but oppose Stephen Harper even more, this isn't exactly an ideal way to do that.
But you also to wonder about the CBC's choice of headline: "Up in smoke." Can't they come up with a better line than a Cheech and Chong movie title?
****
I was at a local rally for Stéphane Dion here in Hamilton last night. It felt like there were way more than the 250 the local paper claims were there. Also there were quite a few local Liberal candidates from here in Hamilton as well as Niagara, Halton and Peel regions. I had the pleasure of talking to Garth Turner -- a really articulate and smart guy who we need back in the Cabinet.
Dion is a very smart guy. He may not be as articulate in English as in French, but he has a vision and he knows how to engage a crowd. His biggest line of the night: "It's true that Stephen Harper speaks better English than me, but I speak the truth better than him." If Dion's as worried as the press claims he is, he certainly wasn't showing it last night.
On a sidenote, I applaud the security. In a rather small union hall he packed it in, and the undercover Mounties were able to escort him and out without too much difficulty even with most of us just inches away from an invisible cordon. You could never get that close in America with their candidates no matter what the office.
UPDATE (8:47 am EDT, 1247 GMT): Minor corrections.
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Easter accepted the apology but was nevertheless livid and demanded Ritz' resignation for showing a lack of sensitivity. I think it goes beyond that. Reporters were asking serious questions about whether the food inspectors may have dropped the ball. To then turn a deadly crisis into a political statement shows just how out of touch the Conservatives are. The food companies involved are among the biggest customers of farmers, and they're getting hit too. There's insurance and stabilization for crop failures, but not so much for public health disasters. From source to destination Canadians deserve respect throughout.
If someone can truly hate someone that much, just because he or she is from a different political party, then he or she should resign. I doubt Trudeau would have stood by Eugene Whelan if he made an idiotic remark like that of Mr Ritz.
The second faux pas from the Cons: Stephen Harper was in Welland yesterday. People there want to know what the PM wants to do in the fallout from the closure of the John Deere plant as well as an auto parts plant. Together they account for about 1000 jobs. Instead, he announced a crackdown on flavoured cigarettes. Right message, wrong location and timing.
The other oops comes from the NDP. Their candidate for West Vancouver - Sunshine Coast withdrew from the ticket after it was alleged that Dana Larsen may have been supplying seeds for manufacturing coca and marijuana; both illegal activities even though the party supports decriminalization of "soft" drugs like THC.
On this one, I have to question the wisdom of Jack Layton. Why did he sign off on the nomination papers of a co-founder of the BC Marijuana Party? If he's trying to peel off votes from a small but vital line of social conservatives who oppose drug use but oppose Stephen Harper even more, this isn't exactly an ideal way to do that.
But you also to wonder about the CBC's choice of headline: "Up in smoke." Can't they come up with a better line than a Cheech and Chong movie title?
****
I was at a local rally for Stéphane Dion here in Hamilton last night. It felt like there were way more than the 250 the local paper claims were there. Also there were quite a few local Liberal candidates from here in Hamilton as well as Niagara, Halton and Peel regions. I had the pleasure of talking to Garth Turner -- a really articulate and smart guy who we need back in the Cabinet.
Dion is a very smart guy. He may not be as articulate in English as in French, but he has a vision and he knows how to engage a crowd. His biggest line of the night: "It's true that Stephen Harper speaks better English than me, but I speak the truth better than him." If Dion's as worried as the press claims he is, he certainly wasn't showing it last night.
On a sidenote, I applaud the security. In a rather small union hall he packed it in, and the undercover Mounties were able to escort him and out without too much difficulty even with most of us just inches away from an invisible cordon. You could never get that close in America with their candidates no matter what the office.
UPDATE (8:47 am EDT, 1247 GMT): Minor corrections.
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Wednesday, September 17, 2008
What's the CBC doing advertising on the BBC?
I'm not kidding, folks. I think we're all used to going to websites in other countries and seeing links all over the page advertising sites back home. I guess the host figures out where we are based on our IP address and spits out addresses to give the page a more custom look. I'm used to seeing this for such varied places as TPM, the NYT and even social networking sites -- the links we see come up are to the Canadian version, not the American one, when you come in from a Canadian location.
But I wasn't expecting to see CBC Radio 2 have an in-page web ad at the website of the BBC in a shameless attempt to attract Canadian listeners to its new format which dumped classical music and jazz, two perfectly legitimate forms of entertainment, for a music mix so confusing that it's turning off a discerning audio public.
We keep hearing the Centre of the Universe has a cash crunch. Obviously they don't if they can afford to advertise overseas.
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But I wasn't expecting to see CBC Radio 2 have an in-page web ad at the website of the BBC in a shameless attempt to attract Canadian listeners to its new format which dumped classical music and jazz, two perfectly legitimate forms of entertainment, for a music mix so confusing that it's turning off a discerning audio public.
We keep hearing the Centre of the Universe has a cash crunch. Obviously they don't if they can afford to advertise overseas.
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Tainted infant formula in China; lessons (not) for Harper
It's been nearly a month since the listeriosis outbreak hit the Canadian food supply chain. Yet somehow it has conveniently, for "Steve" Harper anyway, dropped off the media's radar screen. I find it amazing that the opposition parties are not hammering away enough at this issue, nor are they making hay of Harper's plans to deregulate the food inspection business even more.
To prove the point of how lack of regulations can cause serious damage, look at the tainted infant formula scandal in Mainland China. Here, at least three children have died and 6200 more fallen ill from drinking formula tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical used to make plastics and fertilizer. It also has fire retardant properties. Melamine was added to formula apparently to make the milk look like it was higher in protein. Worse still some batches may have been exported to such countries as Bangladesh, Burundi, Burma, Gabon, Yemen, -- not surprisingly, countries with less than stellar human rights records of their own. What if some of that formula made its way to Canada?
Kids shouldn't get kidney stones, or die from kidney and bladder failure. It's happened.
Clearly, people's confidence in the food supply system in China has been undermined. In response, Beijing is ordering a "full investigation," which includes (surprise) suppressing chat forums discussing the tragedy.
At least here in Canada, the business involved is taking full responsibility even though it knows its reputation for quality has been sullied. But part of the problem may turn out to be inspection procedures that were not followed and a "who cares" attitude at the agency's head office in Ottawa. Who's in charge of inspections, then? Is it possible that one or more ministers dropped the ball on regulation inspections in general, and Harper called a snap election among other reasons to prevent discussion of this?
What can we expect when we have laissez-faire in Canada like we used to, i.e. no regulations at all? How many babies dying will be satisfactory before Harper then says he was wrong? Or will he resort to invoking the notwithstanding clause he loves so much to suppress dissent here, too?
Kiss all the babies you want, Steve. Your contempt for necessary regulation proves the only children you care about are the two you sired. We're not going to fall for it.
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
To prove the point of how lack of regulations can cause serious damage, look at the tainted infant formula scandal in Mainland China. Here, at least three children have died and 6200 more fallen ill from drinking formula tainted with melamine, an industrial chemical used to make plastics and fertilizer. It also has fire retardant properties. Melamine was added to formula apparently to make the milk look like it was higher in protein. Worse still some batches may have been exported to such countries as Bangladesh, Burundi, Burma, Gabon, Yemen, -- not surprisingly, countries with less than stellar human rights records of their own. What if some of that formula made its way to Canada?
Kids shouldn't get kidney stones, or die from kidney and bladder failure. It's happened.
Clearly, people's confidence in the food supply system in China has been undermined. In response, Beijing is ordering a "full investigation," which includes (surprise) suppressing chat forums discussing the tragedy.
At least here in Canada, the business involved is taking full responsibility even though it knows its reputation for quality has been sullied. But part of the problem may turn out to be inspection procedures that were not followed and a "who cares" attitude at the agency's head office in Ottawa. Who's in charge of inspections, then? Is it possible that one or more ministers dropped the ball on regulation inspections in general, and Harper called a snap election among other reasons to prevent discussion of this?
What can we expect when we have laissez-faire in Canada like we used to, i.e. no regulations at all? How many babies dying will be satisfactory before Harper then says he was wrong? Or will he resort to invoking the notwithstanding clause he loves so much to suppress dissent here, too?
Kiss all the babies you want, Steve. Your contempt for necessary regulation proves the only children you care about are the two you sired. We're not going to fall for it.
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Tuesday, September 16, 2008
It's Patrick ... he got bailed out!
Late tonight, AIG was given an $85 billion emergency loan. It also looks like the US government will effectively nationalize the insurance company, taking an 80% stake.
This would really make Adam Smith ticked off. Loan guarantees in the past for corporate giants didn't involve a federal takeover -- the Chrysler situation in 1979, for instance. And this isn't like auto insurance which is nationalized in BC, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba; and to a lesser extent Québec (for personal injury benefits); and where a co-operative approach, like public health insurance, benefits everyone. The life insurance market relies on a competitive market which ensures lower prices across the board; and giving the world's biggest government a stake creates an unfair advantage.
AIG may be "too big to fail," but this sets a really dangerous precedent, and it will be Obama or McCain that will take the flack if this backfires.
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This would really make Adam Smith ticked off. Loan guarantees in the past for corporate giants didn't involve a federal takeover -- the Chrysler situation in 1979, for instance. And this isn't like auto insurance which is nationalized in BC, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba; and to a lesser extent Québec (for personal injury benefits); and where a co-operative approach, like public health insurance, benefits everyone. The life insurance market relies on a competitive market which ensures lower prices across the board; and giving the world's biggest government a stake creates an unfair advantage.
AIG may be "too big to fail," but this sets a really dangerous precedent, and it will be Obama or McCain that will take the flack if this backfires.
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"It's Patrick. He's dead!"
That, of course, was a classic spoof done by Air Farce a few years back of those silly Norwich Union ™ commericals. You know, "It’s Patrick, he got life insurance ..." then they went into a spiel for "guaranteed" life insurance for older people -- guaranteed because everyone was placed in the highest risk group when a term life plan, based on medical risk and age, could be obtained for much lower.
The North American operations were sold some years ago to AIG ™, American International Group, best known as the sponsor of Manchester United.
Late today, it was revealed that unless it somehow manages to raise upwards of $90 billion by the end of the day (more than double what was thought earlier), AIG will go bankrupt as well. Once again, it’s a case of a company investing innocent policyholders' money in subprime mortgages. Amazingly even though they're bleeding money, they still can afford to put on commercials for those same old people insurance policies on cable tv around the clock -- even today!
Wow, on top of the bad news over the weekend with Lehman and Merrill, who’s next?
So let’s try this commercial: "It’s Patrick. He says we’re screwed even though we got life insurance!"
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
The North American operations were sold some years ago to AIG ™, American International Group, best known as the sponsor of Manchester United.
Late today, it was revealed that unless it somehow manages to raise upwards of $90 billion by the end of the day (more than double what was thought earlier), AIG will go bankrupt as well. Once again, it’s a case of a company investing innocent policyholders' money in subprime mortgages. Amazingly even though they're bleeding money, they still can afford to put on commercials for those same old people insurance policies on cable tv around the clock -- even today!
Wow, on top of the bad news over the weekend with Lehman and Merrill, who’s next?
So let’s try this commercial: "It’s Patrick. He says we’re screwed even though we got life insurance!"
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
The full (carbon) monty, courtesy the Green Party
Following up on my post yesterday on the issue, I noticed that Senator Elaine McCoy of Alberta (who I had the pleasure of meeting last weekend, and who presently sits as a Progressive Conservative) has now posted on the subject of charging pollution sources more and lowering income taxes. My previous commentary linked only to an executive summary, here is the full report from the Green Party website about carbon tax cost that Harper was and is so determined to bury (but was available through a FOIA request).
One may think based on what the media says that all Conservatives oppose a carbon tax. Not necessarily. It's easy to forget that Joe Clark had the right idea back in 1979 when he tried to raise the gas tax 3.5 cents per litre. That was an early form of a carbon tax and was designed deliberately to encourage energy efficiency in an era when the price of gas was around 29 cents (yes I remember that!). People revolted, Clark's government fell.
In those days, unfortunately, many people didn't think about the fact we couldn't keep drilling forever. After all Hibernia had just been discovered as well and there was hope other bonanzas were looming too. In the era of peak oil, however, I think most of us have gotten it. To prove the point, just look at Hummer -- which GM is officially putting up for sale in the next few weeks.
It's time for Harper to admit he knew the truth all along: That the future is encouraging more efficient consumption and creating the technologies that will make Canada a huge player in the world in the future. Harper can keep burying his head in the sand like many on the hard right do, or he can watch idly by as yet another ice shelf breaks off Ellesmere or Baffin Islands.
Harper is not a leader.
(Sidebar: Ms McCoy is one of only three left in the Senate that are Progressive Conservatives -- the others are both from Ontario: Lowell Murray and Norman Atkins. Three of the sanest voices left in the Senate. That tells you something about the huge gap left when the right was allegedly "united.")
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One may think based on what the media says that all Conservatives oppose a carbon tax. Not necessarily. It's easy to forget that Joe Clark had the right idea back in 1979 when he tried to raise the gas tax 3.5 cents per litre. That was an early form of a carbon tax and was designed deliberately to encourage energy efficiency in an era when the price of gas was around 29 cents (yes I remember that!). People revolted, Clark's government fell.
In those days, unfortunately, many people didn't think about the fact we couldn't keep drilling forever. After all Hibernia had just been discovered as well and there was hope other bonanzas were looming too. In the era of peak oil, however, I think most of us have gotten it. To prove the point, just look at Hummer -- which GM is officially putting up for sale in the next few weeks.
It's time for Harper to admit he knew the truth all along: That the future is encouraging more efficient consumption and creating the technologies that will make Canada a huge player in the world in the future. Harper can keep burying his head in the sand like many on the hard right do, or he can watch idly by as yet another ice shelf breaks off Ellesmere or Baffin Islands.
Harper is not a leader.
(Sidebar: Ms McCoy is one of only three left in the Senate that are Progressive Conservatives -- the others are both from Ontario: Lowell Murray and Norman Atkins. Three of the sanest voices left in the Senate. That tells you something about the huge gap left when the right was allegedly "united.")
Vote for this post at Progressive Conservative.
Monday, September 15, 2008
Against it now, for it later (perhaps)
Some time ago, a report meant only for the consumption of the Cabinet -- the Harper government mind you -- leaked out. (The Green Party has actually had it up on their site for nearly three months; here's how the federal department of Natural Resources estimated a potential carbon tax cost). It shows clearly that the economy wouldn't be hit that hard if we moved to a fifty dollar per tonne carbon tax -- on average, five cents per litre or the BTU equivalent for other forms of energy consumption -- with a corresponding cut in income taxes.
Yet now the Harper government is slamming both the Green and Liberal parties for saying it will be the end of the world as we know it if we go that way. The main difference between his two mortal enemies is that Elizabeth May would implement the full whammy right now while Stéphane Dion would phase in the shift over four or five years.
Something tells me that the Conservatives are hoping to get a majority because when the floor falls out bigtime -- as it is today with a major drop in the markets -- they will shock Canadians with, surprise, a carbon tax of some kind. They are against it now but they'll be for it later on. It may be a couple months, it may be even be a couple of years. But it will happen.
Don't believe it? Remember Pierre Trudeau's flip-flop on wage and price controls in the 1970s? When he vowed he would never do it again, he did it again in the 1980s and even most provinces (of all political stripes) followed suit, including Ontario PC Premier Bill Davis. (The link refers to a classic article by Leo Panitch the first time Trudeau pulled a fast one on all of us.)
People in Ontario, even Liberals, are still furious at McGuinty for opposing tax cuts before putting in a health tax starting at $20,000 of taxable income and tops out at about $900 around $200,000.
A tax that shows no signs of being removed -- a health tax which in its basic form is actually quite similar to the one proposed by Mike Harris in 1994 a year before he was elected, except what Harris proposed had a $50,000 exemption and called for a 2% health tax on income top out for incomes at $150,000 with a cap of $3,000 after that. He was stonewalled by the feds who didn't allow tax-on-income regimes for the provinces (other than Québec) until 2000 so he instead had to come up with a provincial surtax that would have some kind of a health "premium" while preserving his promise to cut income taxes across the board by ⅓.
McGuinty comes in, renames the "fair share health care premium" a surtax and then puts in the health tax for everyone. He's not kidding anyone. He got the idea from Iron Mike! The only difference is that richer people actually get a much better deal under it than they would have if it was implemented the way it was supposed to have been under the Common Sense Revolution, whilst less well off get screwed.
And in the interests of equal time: Read My Lips: No New Taxes.
Bottom line folks: Never trust a politican who says that he or she will cut taxes. They are raised somewhere else, such as with user fees. Or they'll claim a fiscal crisis (often one they themselves created) and come up with a new way of taxing someone usually by stealing an idea from someone else.
Harper may be against it. But he'll be for it eventually. Remember that.
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
Yet now the Harper government is slamming both the Green and Liberal parties for saying it will be the end of the world as we know it if we go that way. The main difference between his two mortal enemies is that Elizabeth May would implement the full whammy right now while Stéphane Dion would phase in the shift over four or five years.
Something tells me that the Conservatives are hoping to get a majority because when the floor falls out bigtime -- as it is today with a major drop in the markets -- they will shock Canadians with, surprise, a carbon tax of some kind. They are against it now but they'll be for it later on. It may be a couple months, it may be even be a couple of years. But it will happen.
Don't believe it? Remember Pierre Trudeau's flip-flop on wage and price controls in the 1970s? When he vowed he would never do it again, he did it again in the 1980s and even most provinces (of all political stripes) followed suit, including Ontario PC Premier Bill Davis. (The link refers to a classic article by Leo Panitch the first time Trudeau pulled a fast one on all of us.)
People in Ontario, even Liberals, are still furious at McGuinty for opposing tax cuts before putting in a health tax starting at $20,000 of taxable income and tops out at about $900 around $200,000.
A tax that shows no signs of being removed -- a health tax which in its basic form is actually quite similar to the one proposed by Mike Harris in 1994 a year before he was elected, except what Harris proposed had a $50,000 exemption and called for a 2% health tax on income top out for incomes at $150,000 with a cap of $3,000 after that. He was stonewalled by the feds who didn't allow tax-on-income regimes for the provinces (other than Québec) until 2000 so he instead had to come up with a provincial surtax that would have some kind of a health "premium" while preserving his promise to cut income taxes across the board by ⅓.
McGuinty comes in, renames the "fair share health care premium" a surtax and then puts in the health tax for everyone. He's not kidding anyone. He got the idea from Iron Mike! The only difference is that richer people actually get a much better deal under it than they would have if it was implemented the way it was supposed to have been under the Common Sense Revolution, whilst less well off get screwed.
And in the interests of equal time: Read My Lips: No New Taxes.
Bottom line folks: Never trust a politican who says that he or she will cut taxes. They are raised somewhere else, such as with user fees. Or they'll claim a fiscal crisis (often one they themselves created) and come up with a new way of taxing someone usually by stealing an idea from someone else.
Harper may be against it. But he'll be for it eventually. Remember that.
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
Thirty-six candles ...
And what news greets me on this day?
I predicted something huge would happen to the financial markets and I was right! To stave off further huge losses on top of the $40 billion already written down , Merrill Lynch agreed to an all-stock sale to Bank of America. Interestingly, however, this purchase became possible after B of A walked away from a possible purchase of another company that turned out to be far worse on the balance sheet. This morning, Lehman Brothers will file for bankruptcy protection.
The markets are reeling over this. As I write these words, share prices for blue chips in London are down about 3 ¾%, Paris nearly 4 ½%. Oil has dropped below $100 (finally!) but there's no trickle down for the economy. Don't forget, our pension contributions are played on the market -- by the CPP's Investment Board and by the Caisse de dépôt for those who live in Québec. It is possible for the slush fund to be hammered even during the best of times, as people in La Belle Province found out a couple of years back. And these are hardly the best of times.
Reassuring words from politicians in both the US and Canada, as we are both in election campaigns, are not reassuring enough. There have been major job losses, in all sectors. We need bold action to avoid something like the Great Depression. If guys as big as Lehman and Merrill can go, what's next?
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
I predicted something huge would happen to the financial markets and I was right! To stave off further huge losses on top of the $40 billion already written down , Merrill Lynch agreed to an all-stock sale to Bank of America. Interestingly, however, this purchase became possible after B of A walked away from a possible purchase of another company that turned out to be far worse on the balance sheet. This morning, Lehman Brothers will file for bankruptcy protection.
The markets are reeling over this. As I write these words, share prices for blue chips in London are down about 3 ¾%, Paris nearly 4 ½%. Oil has dropped below $100 (finally!) but there's no trickle down for the economy. Don't forget, our pension contributions are played on the market -- by the CPP's Investment Board and by the Caisse de dépôt for those who live in Québec. It is possible for the slush fund to be hammered even during the best of times, as people in La Belle Province found out a couple of years back. And these are hardly the best of times.
Reassuring words from politicians in both the US and Canada, as we are both in election campaigns, are not reassuring enough. There have been major job losses, in all sectors. We need bold action to avoid something like the Great Depression. If guys as big as Lehman and Merrill can go, what's next?
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Election 2008 week one rant
After one week of the election here in Canada, I can't help but notice a rather disturbing pattern. The parties did what they had to do out of the gate, and some of the nastiness was to be expected. What I didn't expect was the press to do was claim it had been a bad week for the Liberals and a good one for the Conservatives. It was really the opposite but the press is only concerned with the opinion polls and personalities. And that says so much about a dying medium that chooses to rely on tracking polls that sample only 300 people a day -- way too small a sample to track the mood of 20 million plus voters.
Time was, and I'm young enough to remember that time, that elections were about issues and personalities took a back seat. Certainly you had the odd character who engaged citizens but the voters were usually able to look past a person's flaws or flamboyance and consider the issues at stake. If an incumbent or rather the incumbent party's candidate was in trouble it was over the issues and not personality.
Up until the 1988 election which was fought over free trade with the United States, this continued to be the case. The leaders of the then three main parties (the Liberals, New Democrats and Progressive Conservatives) may have profoundly disagreed with each other on policies but they left their disagreements there. They were quite civil with each other, friends even. Compared to some other countries debate was calm and reasoned.
So what changed? Well, a few things which fit in rather comfortably with each other. The first was the arrival of 24 hour news in Canada. It was actually supposed to begin that fall of 1988 but the election pushed the arrival of CBC Newsworld to the following summer. Before, news came in two waves, the morning and evening broadcasts. Party leaders had the time to mull things over before putting out reasoned responses to their opponents. With around the clock coverage came the need to respond quickly, often times within the hour. To pack that much news in for a short attention span, leaders were often quoted out of context. The average soundbite which had been about 30 to 40 seconds was chopped down to about 5 to 7, and lately 3 seconds or less. Just as one example, a news editor would rather put someone on that says "tough on crime" rather than "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." (So I'm not accused of plagiarism, that was Tony Blair.) The reason is those editors don't want crime to go down. They want it to go up so that news that sheds blood is the lede of a broadcast and people are driven to make irrational decisions at the polls.
(Americans had three election cycles starting in 1980 to get used to this concept thanks to CNN so it was old hat to them. Reagan was the first master manipulator of this short quote phenomenon but would by no means be the last -- in fact Clinton would have been impossible without Reagan. And it's gotten worse. Crime overall has gone down, but reportage on crime has sky-rocketed and people think things are getting worse. This is anything but a noble lie -- it's a mean spirited one.)
The second was the leaving from the scene of passionate but reasoned party leaders with ideologically driven ones mixed with strong personal characters. That's not to say a leader shouldn't have an ideology -- of course they should. And it's not necessarily a bad thing to have charisma, it's just how one uses it. But even if the leader has fine personal ethics and remains pragmatic overall he or she is bound to attract people who have even harder ideologies and is less open to hear alternative viewpoints.
You only have to consider the following election, 1993, to prove the point. By that time the Progressive Conservatives were in major trouble despite a strong new leader in Kim Campbell. Many still wonder if the choice had been the younger Jean Charest if the election that year may have been closer or if the PCs would have avoided the humiliation of losing official party status in the Commons. I do think it would have been closer and the Liberals held to a much tighter majority or even a minority government. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway because thanks largely to constant bombardment by Newsworld there were only two leaders that mattered -- Preston Manning and Jean Chrétien. The former a lay evangelical leader who assumed the mantle of a western protest movement then went national, the latter a battle-worn warrior of the Pearson and Trudeau eras and not ready to give up by any means. While on the surface they both targeted Campbell in reality they were fighting each other and starkly different visions of Canada.
For me, the nastiness in Parliament didn't begin with the Darrel Stinson incident (his being called a racist by Liberal John Cannis was uncalled for but Stinson's angry reaction -- the SOB epithet -- was just as much also) but rather a few weeks before the 1995 referendum in Québec. When Manning asked if fifty percent plus one was the margin needed to win one way or the other, Chrétien fired back with a negative response then accused Manning of wanting to give up on Canada without a fight. He ended by saying, "You might. I will not, Mr. Manning." The correct answer generally -- except that Chrétien referred to Manning by name, an absolute no-no in a parliamentary debate (unless a member is retiring and being paid tribute to, one never refers to a member by name, only by his or her district). Making it personal didn't answer the main issue -- how to address Québec's concerns about the Constitution and overall its place in Canada.
It was around that time that the Internet -- the third Factor -- started to become a force. Originally the domain of the US military then a virtual hangout site for university professors and students, the development of the Web by CERN in 1994 (the same people running the Large Hadron Collider that went online last week) gave anybody with a computer a chance to vent on virtually anything. This included political parties. Now it wasn't a question of replying within the hour but often by the minute.
It's a good thing that the press is finally catching onto the fact that there is a world beyond the rarefied atmosphere of the Fourth Estate. But we've moved beyond them and that's bad news for them. While some may still rely on the traditional sources of newspapers, radio and television and have their opinions shaped maybe by one of each (and often times owned by the same company) those of us who are "tech savvy" can find a variety of traditional and alternate sources instantly. More importantly, some of us (not me, at least not yet) are original news sources and can get ahead of the press.
Thus don't rely too much on polls. Many people only have cell phones nowadays which don't show up on polling companies' auto dial lists. They're also more engaged in the process than the "conventional wisdom" may have the masses "believe." While not a big issue in the past missing such a huge part of the population in the sampling game could be disastrous in the future.
Remember that way back in 1936 a magazine called Literary Digest conducted a mass poll that predicted that Alf Landon would beat Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. The sample size was unreal even for that era: 10 million were contacted and 2.3 million responded. (Here's a link to the article that made this opinion poll failure). Nowadays, a sample approaching a census would be a real snapshot of reality. Not back then. The magazine's mistakes: First, they relied on their subscription list which was already more affluent than most because they were able to keep affording magazine subscriptions. Second, they searched automobile registration records and phone book directories. Also, people with automobiles and telephones were better off and they tended to vote for the GOP. This process had worked for the elections in 1916 through 1932. By 1936, however, with most people just scraping by, the magazine just didn't get it.
Humiliated, Funk and Wagnalls eventually sold the magazine to Time which incorporated it and had the effect of turning the latter into a more general interest publication. Meanwhile, a tiny little company called Gallup sampled just a few thousand and corrected predicted a Roosevelt landslide.
What does it say though that a whole group of people are being missed now? It says the polling companies and the press don't get that we live in a new world too. It's not the world of the 1930s or even the 1980s. Many of us are tuned out. Those of us who are tuned in have issues and concerns the press don't care about.
What does it say that we're looking for God in a proton accelerator on the French-Swiss border but can't be bothered to look for the souls of people who have something to say but are not listened to?
If the press wants to believe that the Conservatives are headed for a majority, four weeks out, that's fine. But there's an undercurrent of people who don't like the nastiness, who don't much care for the press or politicians period, and will vote how they want; even outright lie to a pollster if phoned. Watch for the little guy that the MSM misses. They make the choices, not the media. To prove the press doesn't get it and keeps making the same mistakes, don't look to Dewey Defeats Truman but rather the 1945 election in Britain.
Nearly all the pollsters predicted Churchill would win off the coattails of victory in Europe. Only one (oddly enough, also Gallup) looked for what the others were deliberately missing and nailed down the real issue: The people on the home front were war weary, and as it turns out so were the soldiers who voted absentee (as they still had not come home from the battlefronts). Battered by the Great Depression and then a horrifying war, the people wanted a new social consensus. The win of Clement Attlee of Labour was a shock to the press but not to the people who knew better.
It's a brave new world nowadays, and I think what happens on October 14th may be a huge surprise. Frankly, I don't think any of the major firms here -- even the venerable Gallup -- understands the undercurrents going on. So if the mainstream media wants to redeem itself, they need to cover the issues and not the personalities. They also need to say what a party's actual stance is on an issue, not let their opponents get away with repeated lies and misrepresentations. This applies across the board. The press also needs to drop their bias and let the people decide. Elections would be so much more substantive if they were based on what the people want and offering solutions for them.
The polling companies also need to look beyond the preconceived notions of what we believe and look for what we actually believe. If they did that, that would also help shape the debate in positive ways. "Accentuating the Positive" is actually cool for most of us.
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
Time was, and I'm young enough to remember that time, that elections were about issues and personalities took a back seat. Certainly you had the odd character who engaged citizens but the voters were usually able to look past a person's flaws or flamboyance and consider the issues at stake. If an incumbent or rather the incumbent party's candidate was in trouble it was over the issues and not personality.
Up until the 1988 election which was fought over free trade with the United States, this continued to be the case. The leaders of the then three main parties (the Liberals, New Democrats and Progressive Conservatives) may have profoundly disagreed with each other on policies but they left their disagreements there. They were quite civil with each other, friends even. Compared to some other countries debate was calm and reasoned.
So what changed? Well, a few things which fit in rather comfortably with each other. The first was the arrival of 24 hour news in Canada. It was actually supposed to begin that fall of 1988 but the election pushed the arrival of CBC Newsworld to the following summer. Before, news came in two waves, the morning and evening broadcasts. Party leaders had the time to mull things over before putting out reasoned responses to their opponents. With around the clock coverage came the need to respond quickly, often times within the hour. To pack that much news in for a short attention span, leaders were often quoted out of context. The average soundbite which had been about 30 to 40 seconds was chopped down to about 5 to 7, and lately 3 seconds or less. Just as one example, a news editor would rather put someone on that says "tough on crime" rather than "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime." (So I'm not accused of plagiarism, that was Tony Blair.) The reason is those editors don't want crime to go down. They want it to go up so that news that sheds blood is the lede of a broadcast and people are driven to make irrational decisions at the polls.
(Americans had three election cycles starting in 1980 to get used to this concept thanks to CNN so it was old hat to them. Reagan was the first master manipulator of this short quote phenomenon but would by no means be the last -- in fact Clinton would have been impossible without Reagan. And it's gotten worse. Crime overall has gone down, but reportage on crime has sky-rocketed and people think things are getting worse. This is anything but a noble lie -- it's a mean spirited one.)
The second was the leaving from the scene of passionate but reasoned party leaders with ideologically driven ones mixed with strong personal characters. That's not to say a leader shouldn't have an ideology -- of course they should. And it's not necessarily a bad thing to have charisma, it's just how one uses it. But even if the leader has fine personal ethics and remains pragmatic overall he or she is bound to attract people who have even harder ideologies and is less open to hear alternative viewpoints.
You only have to consider the following election, 1993, to prove the point. By that time the Progressive Conservatives were in major trouble despite a strong new leader in Kim Campbell. Many still wonder if the choice had been the younger Jean Charest if the election that year may have been closer or if the PCs would have avoided the humiliation of losing official party status in the Commons. I do think it would have been closer and the Liberals held to a much tighter majority or even a minority government. But it wouldn't have mattered anyway because thanks largely to constant bombardment by Newsworld there were only two leaders that mattered -- Preston Manning and Jean Chrétien. The former a lay evangelical leader who assumed the mantle of a western protest movement then went national, the latter a battle-worn warrior of the Pearson and Trudeau eras and not ready to give up by any means. While on the surface they both targeted Campbell in reality they were fighting each other and starkly different visions of Canada.
For me, the nastiness in Parliament didn't begin with the Darrel Stinson incident (his being called a racist by Liberal John Cannis was uncalled for but Stinson's angry reaction -- the SOB epithet -- was just as much also) but rather a few weeks before the 1995 referendum in Québec. When Manning asked if fifty percent plus one was the margin needed to win one way or the other, Chrétien fired back with a negative response then accused Manning of wanting to give up on Canada without a fight. He ended by saying, "You might. I will not, Mr. Manning." The correct answer generally -- except that Chrétien referred to Manning by name, an absolute no-no in a parliamentary debate (unless a member is retiring and being paid tribute to, one never refers to a member by name, only by his or her district). Making it personal didn't answer the main issue -- how to address Québec's concerns about the Constitution and overall its place in Canada.
It was around that time that the Internet -- the third Factor -- started to become a force. Originally the domain of the US military then a virtual hangout site for university professors and students, the development of the Web by CERN in 1994 (the same people running the Large Hadron Collider that went online last week) gave anybody with a computer a chance to vent on virtually anything. This included political parties. Now it wasn't a question of replying within the hour but often by the minute.
It's a good thing that the press is finally catching onto the fact that there is a world beyond the rarefied atmosphere of the Fourth Estate. But we've moved beyond them and that's bad news for them. While some may still rely on the traditional sources of newspapers, radio and television and have their opinions shaped maybe by one of each (and often times owned by the same company) those of us who are "tech savvy" can find a variety of traditional and alternate sources instantly. More importantly, some of us (not me, at least not yet) are original news sources and can get ahead of the press.
Thus don't rely too much on polls. Many people only have cell phones nowadays which don't show up on polling companies' auto dial lists. They're also more engaged in the process than the "conventional wisdom" may have the masses "believe." While not a big issue in the past missing such a huge part of the population in the sampling game could be disastrous in the future.
Remember that way back in 1936 a magazine called Literary Digest conducted a mass poll that predicted that Alf Landon would beat Franklin Roosevelt in 1936. The sample size was unreal even for that era: 10 million were contacted and 2.3 million responded. (Here's a link to the article that made this opinion poll failure). Nowadays, a sample approaching a census would be a real snapshot of reality. Not back then. The magazine's mistakes: First, they relied on their subscription list which was already more affluent than most because they were able to keep affording magazine subscriptions. Second, they searched automobile registration records and phone book directories. Also, people with automobiles and telephones were better off and they tended to vote for the GOP. This process had worked for the elections in 1916 through 1932. By 1936, however, with most people just scraping by, the magazine just didn't get it.
Humiliated, Funk and Wagnalls eventually sold the magazine to Time which incorporated it and had the effect of turning the latter into a more general interest publication. Meanwhile, a tiny little company called Gallup sampled just a few thousand and corrected predicted a Roosevelt landslide.
What does it say though that a whole group of people are being missed now? It says the polling companies and the press don't get that we live in a new world too. It's not the world of the 1930s or even the 1980s. Many of us are tuned out. Those of us who are tuned in have issues and concerns the press don't care about.
What does it say that we're looking for God in a proton accelerator on the French-Swiss border but can't be bothered to look for the souls of people who have something to say but are not listened to?
If the press wants to believe that the Conservatives are headed for a majority, four weeks out, that's fine. But there's an undercurrent of people who don't like the nastiness, who don't much care for the press or politicians period, and will vote how they want; even outright lie to a pollster if phoned. Watch for the little guy that the MSM misses. They make the choices, not the media. To prove the press doesn't get it and keeps making the same mistakes, don't look to Dewey Defeats Truman but rather the 1945 election in Britain.
Nearly all the pollsters predicted Churchill would win off the coattails of victory in Europe. Only one (oddly enough, also Gallup) looked for what the others were deliberately missing and nailed down the real issue: The people on the home front were war weary, and as it turns out so were the soldiers who voted absentee (as they still had not come home from the battlefronts). Battered by the Great Depression and then a horrifying war, the people wanted a new social consensus. The win of Clement Attlee of Labour was a shock to the press but not to the people who knew better.
It's a brave new world nowadays, and I think what happens on October 14th may be a huge surprise. Frankly, I don't think any of the major firms here -- even the venerable Gallup -- understands the undercurrents going on. So if the mainstream media wants to redeem itself, they need to cover the issues and not the personalities. They also need to say what a party's actual stance is on an issue, not let their opponents get away with repeated lies and misrepresentations. This applies across the board. The press also needs to drop their bias and let the people decide. Elections would be so much more substantive if they were based on what the people want and offering solutions for them.
The polling companies also need to look beyond the preconceived notions of what we believe and look for what we actually believe. If they did that, that would also help shape the debate in positive ways. "Accentuating the Positive" is actually cool for most of us.
Vote for this post at Progressive Bloggers.
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