And tens of thousands of riot police were on hand to keep the welcoming committee and their barrage of Molotov cocktails out of range.
And then the plump Teutonic waddler had the audacity to announce that she "stood behind" the people of Greece...
Ya right!
I guess you could say Jerry Sandusky "stood behind" those schoolboys in the showers at Penn State too.
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Canada's new best friends
Once upon a time Canada was seen as a force for good in this world. We were peace-keepers and honest brokers.
Those were the days when young Americans sewed a maple leaf to their backpacks before setting out on their international adventures.
They don't do that anymore. The ascent of the Harper gang has been a game changer.
Last year Canada entered into free trade agreements with Honduras and Columbia. Those are the kind of free trade partners that the Harperites are willing to court.
According to Amnesty International Colombia "suffers a dire human rights situation." Oh well then, that would be the kind of partner we want to cultivate.
Writing in Counterpunch today, Nick Alexandrov paints an even bleaker picture of Honduras. Since the coup that toppled their democratically elected government just before Harper inked that free trade agreement, the situation there for workers, union organizers, and human rights activists has grown desperate indeed.
Again, this seems to be the kind of partner Harper is comfortable cosying up with for a free trade agreement.
Nevermind that we have now had 25 years to realize that the granddaddy of free trade agreements, the one Reagan and Mulroney signed back in 1987, was the beginning of the end for Canada's industrial sector.
And while Canada has always had a good relationship with Israel, the wholesale sucking up to the Likud crowd by the Harper gang has undermined Canada's credibility throughout the Middle East and beyond.
It's not enough that Foreign Minister Baird travels the world with his "personal" Chabad Lubovitch Rabbi in tow. Both Baird and Harper have gone out of their way to claim that no country in the world is a better friend to Israel than Canada.
Forget the occupation, nevermind the settlements, Canada will out-do even the AIPAC-addled US Senate and Congress to claim slavish adherence to the Likud party line.
It's as if Peace Now and the 70% of the Israeli population who want peace with the Palestinians don't exist.
Friends don't let friends build illegal settlements.
So forget all that peace-and-love Trudeau-era stuff. We're not peace-keepers anymore. We're not honest brokers.
And if you're planning to travel abroad, sew a Quebec flag to your backpack instead.
The Canadian one doesn't cut it anymore.
Those were the days when young Americans sewed a maple leaf to their backpacks before setting out on their international adventures.
They don't do that anymore. The ascent of the Harper gang has been a game changer.
Last year Canada entered into free trade agreements with Honduras and Columbia. Those are the kind of free trade partners that the Harperites are willing to court.
According to Amnesty International Colombia "suffers a dire human rights situation." Oh well then, that would be the kind of partner we want to cultivate.
Writing in Counterpunch today, Nick Alexandrov paints an even bleaker picture of Honduras. Since the coup that toppled their democratically elected government just before Harper inked that free trade agreement, the situation there for workers, union organizers, and human rights activists has grown desperate indeed.
Again, this seems to be the kind of partner Harper is comfortable cosying up with for a free trade agreement.
Nevermind that we have now had 25 years to realize that the granddaddy of free trade agreements, the one Reagan and Mulroney signed back in 1987, was the beginning of the end for Canada's industrial sector.
And while Canada has always had a good relationship with Israel, the wholesale sucking up to the Likud crowd by the Harper gang has undermined Canada's credibility throughout the Middle East and beyond.
It's not enough that Foreign Minister Baird travels the world with his "personal" Chabad Lubovitch Rabbi in tow. Both Baird and Harper have gone out of their way to claim that no country in the world is a better friend to Israel than Canada.
Forget the occupation, nevermind the settlements, Canada will out-do even the AIPAC-addled US Senate and Congress to claim slavish adherence to the Likud party line.
It's as if Peace Now and the 70% of the Israeli population who want peace with the Palestinians don't exist.
Friends don't let friends build illegal settlements.
So forget all that peace-and-love Trudeau-era stuff. We're not peace-keepers anymore. We're not honest brokers.
And if you're planning to travel abroad, sew a Quebec flag to your backpack instead.
The Canadian one doesn't cut it anymore.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Wall Street Journal pissed at Chavez election victory
Read the sour grapes here.
It's all about his control of the media and the "fear" the populace feels.
Hmm... Wouldn't you think that fear would lead voters to stay home? Instead, voter turnout for Sunday's election was over 80%. Compare that to an election in North America, where 60% is considered good.
Control of the media? Most newspapers are privately owned and vigorously anti-Chavez. The government owns about 5% of broadcast outlets and those get about 5% of viewers. Nothing remarkable there.
It's a tough nut for the WSJ crowd to get their heads around, but maybe a majority of the voters just prefer Chavez.
Unlike certain politicians further north who have campaigned on promises of hope and change, Chavez has actually delivered enough change to keep the hope alive. Under Chavez the gap between rich and poor has closed markedly. Unemployment is down. Vast sums have been invested in improving the education system.
Which is not to say Venezuela is without problems. Inflation runs at about 18%. That's more of a problem for the small minority that has significant cash reserves than it is for the working classes. For most Venezuelans that's not a big deal if you've got a job and a roof over your head.
Violent crime remains a problem. In the next term we'll see if eliminating poverty will bring the crime rate down. Venezuela will be the lab for a social science experiment that socialists the world over have been waiting for.
We'll see how it goes.
It's all about his control of the media and the "fear" the populace feels.
Hmm... Wouldn't you think that fear would lead voters to stay home? Instead, voter turnout for Sunday's election was over 80%. Compare that to an election in North America, where 60% is considered good.
Control of the media? Most newspapers are privately owned and vigorously anti-Chavez. The government owns about 5% of broadcast outlets and those get about 5% of viewers. Nothing remarkable there.
It's a tough nut for the WSJ crowd to get their heads around, but maybe a majority of the voters just prefer Chavez.
Unlike certain politicians further north who have campaigned on promises of hope and change, Chavez has actually delivered enough change to keep the hope alive. Under Chavez the gap between rich and poor has closed markedly. Unemployment is down. Vast sums have been invested in improving the education system.
Which is not to say Venezuela is without problems. Inflation runs at about 18%. That's more of a problem for the small minority that has significant cash reserves than it is for the working classes. For most Venezuelans that's not a big deal if you've got a job and a roof over your head.
Violent crime remains a problem. In the next term we'll see if eliminating poverty will bring the crime rate down. Venezuela will be the lab for a social science experiment that socialists the world over have been waiting for.
We'll see how it goes.
Where's Bandar?
Back in July Saudi Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the long time ambassador to the US, was made head of Saudi intelligence services.
Prince Bandar is an extremely intelligent and well-connected player on the world stage. He was so close to the Bush family they used to call him Bandar Bush. He was long a proponent of getting Saudi Arabia a more outward looking orientation. To that end he favored improved relations with countries as diverse as Russia, China, and Israel.
A few days after his appointment there was a story floating around that he had been injured or killed in an assassination attempt. There were various theories to the effect that Syria was behind it, but the House of Saud denied the story and lacking independent confirmation the original news site that broke the story backed away from it.
Two months later, the story is all but forgotten, but Prince Bandar has not been seen in public since.
Coincidence?
Prince Bandar is an extremely intelligent and well-connected player on the world stage. He was so close to the Bush family they used to call him Bandar Bush. He was long a proponent of getting Saudi Arabia a more outward looking orientation. To that end he favored improved relations with countries as diverse as Russia, China, and Israel.
A few days after his appointment there was a story floating around that he had been injured or killed in an assassination attempt. There were various theories to the effect that Syria was behind it, but the House of Saud denied the story and lacking independent confirmation the original news site that broke the story backed away from it.
Two months later, the story is all but forgotten, but Prince Bandar has not been seen in public since.
Coincidence?
Professor distinguishes himself with lame analysis of Syrian civil war
Maybe Mark Levine is pulling his punches because he's writing at Al Jazeera and one of the Emir's relatives is looking over his shoulder.
That is one ultra-wordy exercise in hand-wringing about whether the Syrian opposition was too hasty in making their peaceful protest into an armed uprising. That transition to violence was measured in hours rather than months or years.
Levine speculates that unnamed states in the region might have made promises of external support to the opposition which they have since reneged on. Those unnamed states are of course named as Saudi Arabia and Qatar everywhere else, so why the reticence? Could it be because he's ever so obliquely accusing the backers of Al Jazeera of perfidy?
And nowhere in all those words does he mention that fighters and arms and money continue to pour into Syria from Turkey. Maybe part of his reluctance to speak boldly stems from his reliance on professional democracy activists, a species that invariably have their bills paid by Washington and work their magic in countries that Washington doesn't like.
Like the "senior non-violence trainer" he refers to in his postscript. What the hell is a non-violence trainer anyway?
If the architects of the Syrian crisis had wanted non-violence, all they had to do was stay home, mind their own business, and let Syrians chart their own course to democracy.
Instead, they lit this conflagration which has now gotten completely out of their control as Syria becomes a magnet for wannabe jihadists across the Islamic world.
Are the Syrian people better off than they were before all this started?
That is one ultra-wordy exercise in hand-wringing about whether the Syrian opposition was too hasty in making their peaceful protest into an armed uprising. That transition to violence was measured in hours rather than months or years.
Levine speculates that unnamed states in the region might have made promises of external support to the opposition which they have since reneged on. Those unnamed states are of course named as Saudi Arabia and Qatar everywhere else, so why the reticence? Could it be because he's ever so obliquely accusing the backers of Al Jazeera of perfidy?
And nowhere in all those words does he mention that fighters and arms and money continue to pour into Syria from Turkey. Maybe part of his reluctance to speak boldly stems from his reliance on professional democracy activists, a species that invariably have their bills paid by Washington and work their magic in countries that Washington doesn't like.
Like the "senior non-violence trainer" he refers to in his postscript. What the hell is a non-violence trainer anyway?
If the architects of the Syrian crisis had wanted non-violence, all they had to do was stay home, mind their own business, and let Syrians chart their own course to democracy.
Instead, they lit this conflagration which has now gotten completely out of their control as Syria becomes a magnet for wannabe jihadists across the Islamic world.
Are the Syrian people better off than they were before all this started?
Pot-addled hillbilly scoops major think tank by a year
Makes you wonder what Candace Rondeaux and her colleagues at the International Crisis Group are smoking.
You don't need a crystal ball to figure out that Karzai's days are numbered, and this blog has been saying so regularly almost since its inception.
If I were a betting man I'd wager that the crafty Karzai is going to be settled into his villa in Dubai even before the last ISAF troops leave at the end of 2014. "Transition" means handing Afghanistan back to the Taliban and a handful of warlords.
There hasn't been an informed observer worth reading who has said anything else for years. Karzai was never anything other than the West's puppet, as the massively fraudulent 2010 election convincingly demonstrated. The only people saying otherwise these days are Hillary Clinton's speechwriters.
Have the Nations of Virtue learned anything from their Afghan fiasco?
You don't need a crystal ball to figure out that Karzai's days are numbered, and this blog has been saying so regularly almost since its inception.
If I were a betting man I'd wager that the crafty Karzai is going to be settled into his villa in Dubai even before the last ISAF troops leave at the end of 2014. "Transition" means handing Afghanistan back to the Taliban and a handful of warlords.
There hasn't been an informed observer worth reading who has said anything else for years. Karzai was never anything other than the West's puppet, as the massively fraudulent 2010 election convincingly demonstrated. The only people saying otherwise these days are Hillary Clinton's speechwriters.
Have the Nations of Virtue learned anything from their Afghan fiasco?
XL Foods and the Peter Pocklington legacy
For quite a few years Peter Pocklington was the darling of the Canadian media. They loved his rags-to-riches bullshit story. He was big in the business section and also in the sports section. In fact, thanks to his ownership of the Edmonton Oilers he was considered such an icon in Canadian hockey circles that he was known as "Peter Puck."
Peter Puck has long been exposed as a fraud and a charlatan, but there is still one bit of his putrid legacy making waves today. Peter Pocklington revolutionized meat processing in Canada. The tainted beef recall at XL owes everything to Peter Puck.
You see, it was Peter Pocklington who made meat processing a race-to-the-bottom industry in Canada. His Gainers lock-out and union busting destroyed the old model of meat processing.
The old model had career employees staking their livelihoods on the quality of the product they put out every day.
The new model has recent immigrants or temporary foreign workers busting their asses to meet meat quotas every minute of the day. They have no long term stake in the steak.
Twenty thousand gringos get sick from e-coli? Oh well, guess I'm going home early... easy come easy go!
And it would never have happened without Peter Puck.
Peter Puck has long been exposed as a fraud and a charlatan, but there is still one bit of his putrid legacy making waves today. Peter Pocklington revolutionized meat processing in Canada. The tainted beef recall at XL owes everything to Peter Puck.
You see, it was Peter Pocklington who made meat processing a race-to-the-bottom industry in Canada. His Gainers lock-out and union busting destroyed the old model of meat processing.
The old model had career employees staking their livelihoods on the quality of the product they put out every day.
The new model has recent immigrants or temporary foreign workers busting their asses to meet meat quotas every minute of the day. They have no long term stake in the steak.
Twenty thousand gringos get sick from e-coli? Oh well, guess I'm going home early... easy come easy go!
And it would never have happened without Peter Puck.
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