Who in the Canadian media landscape will stand up for the virtue and righteousness of Empire once Postmedia collapses?

Oh, I don't know... the Toronto Star crowd maybe?

That's a question that arose as I was reading Mike Den Tandt's missive at the National Post re: China's over-reaching ambitions in the South China Sea.

Mike is all knotted up because POTHEAD has been making friendly with the leaders of that commie dictatorship in the most populous nation on earth, the People's Republic of China. Mike is a local guy who made good; he's one of the few Postmedia employees who still draws an actual pay-cheque from the rapidly sinking conglomerate. He gets to work mostly from home these days, mainly because his bosses have sold his office building and put his office furniture in hock to stave off the hedgies for another month.

But that's another story.

In this story, Mike is fulminating against the commies, which I think is a must-do in the job description of every Postmedia employee, whether they be real employee or unpaid intern. So Mike wants to champion the plucky Canadian reporter who raised some questions about human rights in China during a presser the Chinese FM was having in Ottawa.

This is of course a very Canadian thing, to harangue others about their human rights abuses while remaining comfortably numb about our own human rights record. (See stats on native suicides, native incarceration rates, residential schools, etc.)

Nine paragraphs in, Mike drops the gloves with Well, OK. But here's what the US State Department report for 2015 says about China's human rights record.

Seriously? Come on Mike, surely the US State Department can't be your go-to source on the state of human rights in China?

Get outta here!

Why Kevin O'Leary is not Canada's Donald Trump

Michael Den Tandt is a local boy who made good. He's one of the few professional journalists still drawing a paycheque from that floundering colossus, SunPostMedia, the media empire that just keeps giving back to the hedgies who bought its corporate debt for pennies on the dollar a few years back. Most of what you read in Postmedia properties these days is courtesy of unpaid interns, but Den Tandt is the real deal, and his opinion pieces play coast to coast and are generally worth a look.

Folks who follow this stuff will know that Kevin O'Leary was thinking out loud the other day about throwing his hat into the ring to replace Big Steve in the big chair at Canada's Conservative Party. Today Den Tandt offers an enthusiastic endorsement of O'Leary's delusions of grandeur.

I think Michael's got it right that O'Leary is not Trump, even though they superficially have that same "blow-hard" persona. Where I think he's got it wrong is in how they're different. True, O'Leary has yet to disgrace himself with xenophobic clap-trap geared to the prejudices of the baying masses. Instead, he is a man of principles.

And that's the problem. His principles are the tried, tested, and manifestly failed pillars of the Thatcher era; welfare state too generous, unions too powerful, government too big, and taxes too high. We can only bring back prosperity by slashing and burning and cutting taxes.

It's a recipe that hasn't worked since the Thatcher era, and there's no reason to think it will work with just a little more slashing, burning, etc.

So while Trump fill stadiums with his rancid appeals to emotion, it's hard to imagine O'Leary doing the same with his appeals for more austerity.

Not only that, but what really makes Trump important is that he threatens the very foundations of America's sclerotic two-party system. He's the only candidate telling the public that the system is broken. O'Leary leading the Conservative Party would be a more engaging personality bringing you four or five more years of Big Steve.

And who needs that?

National Post invokes Reputation Institute in defence of Harper foreign policy

Michael Den Tandt, one of the few remaining PostMedia writers still drawing a paycheque from the shrinking media conglomerate, has come out swinging against the elitist critique of people like former Ambassador Paul Heimbecker and Peter Jones of the University of Ottawa.

The Harper/Baird destruction of Canada's international reputation is a myth, and don't just take Den Tandt's word for it, he's got a study from the Reputation Institute to prove it. That "global leader in corporate reputation management" has pegged Canada as having the best reputation among fifty countries in the world, so pshaw to Jones and Heimbecker and the rest of the Harper-haters and Baird-baiters.

Oddly enough, in the middle of an article claiming that Harper reads Main Street better than his elitist critics do, Den Tandt offers this;

The global diplomatic corps may indeed hold Canada in lower regard now than it did, say, 15 years ago. We know this to be the case at the United Nations, where Harper and Baird have fallen into a pattern of finger-wagging or official absence.

Precisely! Hence the "bitter, small-minded" Canadian foreign policy of Mr. Jones' article in the Globe and Mail yesterday.

Of course Canadians favour support for Israel over Iran. That's a no-brainer. (Those countries rank 37th and 49th on the Reputation Institute's list of virtue, by the way.) But what's small-minded is closing our embassy in Tehran and then claiming that you are using "direct diplomacy" to further the interests of Iran-Canada relations.

Yup, it's still a "hot topic" on the home page of our Department of Foreign Affairs, Gold Mining Development, Religious Freedom, Gay Rights, Gold Mining Freedom and Development Rights... well over a year after we closed our Tehran embassy!

Through direct diplomacy, Canada is committed to supporting the people of Iran in achieving a better future for their country.

John Baird; the mouth that can't stop roaring

Michael Den Tandt has a quaint opinion piece in the Montreal Gazette today, which is at once a slam of the UN and a tribute to Canada's ever-bloviating Foreign Minister, John Baird.

First of all, congratulations Michael on keeping your post on the sinking ship you write for, but remember, tomorrow is a brand new day.

Secondly, there is no question that the UN is an easy target. What the hell do they accomplish? It's all too easy to argue that the answer is nothing or right next to it.

But for better or worse, it is the one forum that includes everybody. Sure, it's dominated by a few rich donor countries, but how would we be better off without it?

The rich donor countries, at least some of them, are distraught over the fact that a majority of UN members consistently vote against their initiatives on certain pet issues like the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Yes, the democratic process can be frustrating, especially when your positions are clearly anathema to the vast majority of your peers, but democracy doesn't mean that everybody has to agree with you.

As for Canada being the seventh largest financial contributor to the UN, that is not far out of line for the eleventh largest economy in the world, and suggests nothing more than that there may be four countries that should be paying a little more.

Where Den Tandt shows his stripes is with the claim that it is "NATO, led by the Americans," that intervenes to stop international barbarities when the UN fails to do so.

That is precisely the line of argument that ensures that a majority of UN member states will continue to vote against the Nations of Virtue at the General Assembly. The majority of the global population see America and her me-too NATO sidekicks as fomenting international barbarities rather than preventing them.

Baird's track record of high-profile idiocy since becoming Foreign Minister in 2011 has indeed served to isolate Canada. The flagrant and obsessive championing of Likud policies in the Middle East, the closing of the Canadian embassy in Iran, the scrapping of CIDA, the bone-headed refusal to observe international conventions initiated by Canada with respect to the child soldier Khadr; all of these have contributed to Canada becoming part of a rump bloc at the UN comprised of the US, Israel, and a handful of US vassals.

After years of contemptuous treatment of the UN, is it any wonder that some of that UN majority is moving to strip Canada of its status as home of the International Civil Aviation Authority?

Den Tandt finds it reasonable that Baird demands of the UN to account for what it accomplishes for our $76 million annual contribution. He thinks that's what makes John Baird an "effective" foreign minister.

$76 million could be better put to use buying half an F-35 fighter jet. Standing in front of the General Assembly and speechifying about Canada's presumed moral superiority doesn't make him "effective."

It makes him a buffoon.

Where to find racism in Canada

I'm guessing that if you've got time on your side you'll be able to sniff it out anywhere.

But if you're in a rush and want to find manifestations of nauseatingly crude racism in a hurry, just click onto any major Canadian news site. Find a story about First Nations and then go to the comments.

See what I mean? What'd that take, about 15 seconds?

Canada is of course a bastion of anti-racism. We long ago dispatched the n-word to the dustbin of political incorrectitude. Paki jokes? Not in Canada my friend.

But bring on those Canadian Indians/First Nations/Aboriginals/Native Peoples and it's open season!

The Idle-No-More movement has caused an avalanche of news stories in Canadian media, and hence an even bigger avalanche of racist commentary.

If I had the stomach I'd write a book about it. After all, the mainstream white Canadians who type those comments are doing most of the writing for you. It would be an easy gig...

If you've got the stomach for it.

Which I don't.

I am appalled by the level of sheer ill will that any mention of Native Rights arouses in the Canadian populace. What, hundreds of years of oppression but you're pissed off because you're gonna be a half hour late to the discount mall in Port Huron?

I am further appalled by the ignorance that underlies this kind of commentary. To be sure, there have been missteps aplenty on the First Nations side. There has been corruption and incompetence in Band leadership, just as there is in white communities.

There are people who "work the system," just like in white communities. There are lazy people and drunks and abusers just like in white communities.

But white communities don't have the burden of a five hundred year colonialist legacy to drag them down every day. They don't have the legacy of residential schools. They don't have the legacy of spending all of their history as second class citizens.

Contrary to what Postmedia columnist Michael Den Tandt has said, it's not about eliminating the Indian Act and treating everyone equally.

It's about honoring the agreements that our forbears the white colonists made with their forbears.

As a white from a heritage of colonialism in South Africa, I imagine you would have given some thought to such questions, Mr. Den Tandt.