Recently, the New Scientist published an article online entitled "The lure of the conspiracy theory". (You'll need a subscription to read the whole thing but you can also read it here). It talks about a study done to examine the psychological angle of 'theorizing'. Here's the opening paragraph...

Was Princess Diana the victim of drunk driving or a plot by the British royal family? Did Neil Armstrong really walk on the moon or just across a film set in Nevada? And who killed President John F. Kennedy - the Russians, the Cubans, the CIA, the mafia... aliens? Almost every big event has a conspiracy theory attached to it. The truth, they say, is out there - but where exactly? Perhaps psychology can help us find at least some of the answers.

The major failing of the article is found in it's basic premise, and the methodology of the study it refers to. It equates the phrase 'conspiracy theory' to that of religious codex, and assigns all conspiracy theories with the same 'unprovable' value as any religion, in any objective sense.

Ten years ago, maybe the 'conspiracy theory' of the Gulf of Tonkin Incident would have made that opening list as well. Though it's not as fantastical as aliens in Fidel Castro masks probing JFK, many doubted the official story of the Tonkin incident, which went something like this:

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a pair of attacks by naval forces of North Vietnam against two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy. The attacks occurred on 2 August and 4 August 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin.

This was the 'conventional wisdom' that allowed the LBJ administration to launch, in earnest, the Vietnam War. However, if one reads the wikipedia entry, that opening paragraph reads a little less authoratively.

The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was an alleged pair of attacks by naval forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (commonly referred to as North Vietnam) against two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy. The attacks were alleged to have occurred on 2 August and 4 August 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin.

In fact, it was shown that the second attack didn't occur at all (which was once just another wacky 'theory'). Conventional wisdom changes, and theories can become facts, given two parts of an equation this study ignores: Time and Information. Add more Time to the equation, and it becomes less relevant. Take away information, and it's less plausible. Conspiracists have neither the resources nor recourse to try their theories out in a forum (be it legal or journalistic) that's accepted by those who defer to 'conventional wisdom'.

Now back to the article at hand...

The study, which again involved giving volunteers fictional accounts of an assassination attempt, showed that conspiracy believers found new information to be more plausible if it was consistent with their beliefs. Moreover, believers considered that ambiguous or neutral information fitted better with the conspiracy explanation, while non-believers felt it fitted better with the non-conspiracy account. The same piece of evidence can be used by different people to support very different accounts of events.

Wow. That sounds really logical and scientific, but crafting a fictitious assassination, and providing similarly fictitious 'evidence' to the subjects is hardly the realm of science, and sounds more like a story teller leading his audience down the path he wants. I'd suggest that the crafters of the story may have their own confirmation bias to work out.

But the observation is the real jaw dropper...

This fits with the observation that conspiracy theories often mutate over time in light of new or contradicting evidence. So, for instance, if some new information appears to undermine a conspiracy theory, either the plot is changed to make it consistent with the new information, or the theorists question the legitimacy of the new information.

This observation is completely meaningless in the context of psychologically assessing those who delve into conspiracy theorizing (especially when the study does not qualify the prima facie value any particular theory). The observation also applies to legal prosecutors in the investigation of a crime. By replacing the word 'conspiracy' with 'scientific' in the above quote, you'll also have a perfectly legitimate reason why science turns out to be such a valuable tool to describe the universe(s?) in which we live.

Where the heck were the editors of the New Scientist before publishing this? Merely printing a headline that reads "Conspiracy theorizing is stupid" with "lorem ipsum" nonsense in the body would have been almost as informative, but I'm guessing they need all those nonsensical words to feed the members of the Orthodox Reductionist Cult who clench their Occam Razors in their conventional fists.

The reader shouldn't make assumptions about what conspiracy theories I believe or not, nor to what extent. This is merely an observation on just one of many articles on conspiracy theories to have come out over the past few years.

Personally, it makes me wonder what other outlandish, so called "psychologically generated" conspiracy theories would suddenly become 'conventional wisdom', if information were truly free, and it came out in a timely manner?

PS: I had forgotten about this post for a little while, but after reading THIS fine example of 'conventional wisdom', I decided to revisit.

Labels: conspiracy, politics

Yesterday, the following was plastered on the front page of The National Post...



You can read a version of the Chris Wattie article, but Canada's National Post story is now gone deade. Here are the first few paragraphs...

Iran eyes badges for Jews
Law would require non-Muslim insignia

Chris Wattie, National Post, Friday, May 19, 2006

Human rights groups are raising alarms over a new law passed by the Iranian parliament that would require the country’s Jews and Christians to wear coloured badges to identify them and other religious minorities as non-Muslims.

“This is reminiscent of the Holocaust,” said Rabbi Marvin Hier, the dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles. “Iran is moving closer and closer to the ideology of the Nazis.”

Iranian expatriates living in Canada yesterday confirmed reports that the Iranian parliament, called the Islamic Majlis, passed a law this week setting a dress code for all Iranians, requiring them to wear almost identical “standard Islamic garments.”

The law, which must still be approved by Iran’s “Supreme Guide” Ali Khamenehi before being put into effect, also establishes special insignia to be worn by non-Muslims.

Iran’s roughly 25,000 Jews would have to sew a yellow strip of cloth on the front of their clothes, while Christians would wear red badges and Zoroastrians would be forced to wear blue cloth.

“There’s no reason to believe they won’t pass this,” said Rabbi Hier. “It will certainly pass unless there’s some sort of international outcry over this.”

With the Hussein trial not registering as more than an occasional blip on the cable news tickers, I guess we need our New and Improved Hitler, complete with WWII era photos.

If one actually READS the whole story, there's NO confirmation from sources within Iran.

In fact, on the same day, also in Canada, Montreal's 940 AM had an article that called the veracity of the National Post story into question, also not linked from their website, but copies are scattered everywhere.

The National Post is sending shockwaves across the country this morning with a report that Iran's Parliament has passed a law requiring mandatory Holocaust style badges to identify Jews and Christians.

But independent reporter Meir Javedanfar, an Israeli Middle East expert who was born and raised in Tehran, says the report is false.

"It's absolutely factually incorrect," he told The New 940 Montreal.

"Nowhere in the law is there any talk of Jews and Christians having to wear different colours. I've checked it with sources both inside Iran and outside."

"The Iranian people would never stand for it. The Iranian government wouldn't be stupid enough to do it."

Political commentator and 940 Montreal host Beryl Waysman says the report is true, that the law was passed two years ago.

"Jews should wear yellow strips, Christians red strips, because according to the Iranian mullahs, if a Mulsim shakes hands with a non-Muslim he becomes unclean."

In the course of the day, the original story has been propagated all over the rightwing parrotosphere, and the Montreal 940 story in the leftwing mimicosphere. This isn't to say that there's no good commentary on them, but given that there is NO real confirmation on it at all, does it warrant ALL the jibber jabber? Well, it was good enough for Stephen Harper to start barking.

Oh wait, the NY Post also has a new article. Unfortunately, it doesn't clear anything up either.

Now back up a second. Read the article about Harper's reaction... wow, here's what some Muslim and Jewish leaders from Iran itself have to say...

But western journalists based in Iran told their Canadian colleagues that they were unaware of any such law.

And Iranian politicians - including a Jewish legislator in Tehran - were infuriated by the Post report, which they called false.

Politician Morris Motamed, one of about 25,000 Jews who live in Iran, called the report a slap in the face to his minority community.

"Such a plan has never been proposed or discussed in parliament," Motamed told the Associated Press.

"Such news, which appeared abroad, is an insult to religious minorities here."

Another Iranian legislator said the newspaper has distorted a bill that he presented to parliament, which calls for more conservative clothing for Muslims.

"It's a sheer lie. The rumours about this are worthless," Emad Afroogh said.

Afroogh's bill seeks to make women dress more traditionally and avoid Western fashions. Minority religious labels have nothing to do with it, he said.

All this smells too much like the Iraqi Incubator Babies incident to me. If you don't recall that sordid little PSYOP, well, Canada is standing in the place of England this time 'round. Here's a taste...

I completely understood his feelings. Although I had no family of my own then, who could countenance such brutality? The news of the slaughter had come at a key moment in the deliberations about whether the US would invade Iraq. Those who watched the non-stop debates on TV saw that many of those who had previously wavered on the issue had been turned into warriors by this shocking incident.

Too bad it never happened. The babies in the incubator story is a classic example of how easy it is for the public and legislators to be mislead during moments of high tension. It's also a vivid example of how the media can be manipulated if we do not keep our guards up.

The invented story eventually broke apart and was exposed. (I first saw it reported in December of 1992 on CBC-TV's Fifth Estate – Canada's "60 Minutes" – in a program called "Selling the War." The show later won an international Emmy.) But it's been 10 years since it happened, and we again find ourselves facing dramatic decisions about war. It is instructive to look back at what happened, in order that we do not find ourselves deceived again, by either side in the issue.

Though I'm reserving judgement, it sounds to me that we've got an Incubator Babies 2.0 on hand, so sit back and enjoy the PSYOP.

Can you hear the drums?

Labels: politics

Though I haven't really watched Boston Legal, this speech given by James Spader's character is pretty good.



Sort of sums up a lot about the current state of affairs.

Here's the link to the YouTube video.

Labels: politics

A great article from "Another Day In The Empire" on the ship jumping the neocons are going through these days.

Zalmay Khalilzad warns that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has opened “a Pandora’s box,” spreading “conflict,” as Cornwell describes it, across the Middle East. In fact, this is precisely what the Straussian neocons want—chaos and “conflict” spreading like an uncontrollable wild fire, scorching Muslim and Arab culture, eating away at the very societal cohesion of the region, thus leaving it decimated and malleable to reorganization along the lines envisioned by the Straussian neocons and the original architects of the plan, the racist Jabotinskyites in Israel. Cornwell, lost in the forest of corporate media spin and lies, is unable to see the tree planted by these devious Machiavellian co-conspirators.

The last line covers it succinctly. Even though they are admitting that Iraq isn't going so well, it's not the underlying idea, so much as the execution. In other words, when it comes to be Iran's turn, they'll get it right.

As has been pointed out by many in the past, the Straussian ideology is much like that of Trotsky, in that it calls for a perpetual state of conflict, or revolution.

Coincidentally (or not), it's no longer the "War on Terror", it's the "Long War".

The United States is engaged in what could be a generational conflict akin to the Cold War, the kind of struggle that might last decades as allies work to root out terrorists across the globe and battle extremists who want to rule the world, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday.

Rumsfeld, who laid out broad strategies for what the military and the Bush administration are now calling the "long war," likened al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden to Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin while urging Americans not to give in on the battle of wills that could stretch for years. He said there is a tendency to underestimate the threats that terrorists pose to global security, and said liberty is at stake.

The debate is being framed. The "War" isn't going to end any time soon, so we better fight it well.

If you've read 1984, you've been warned.

Labels: politics

As a follow up to my previous post of Harper's 1997 speech, I figured I should provide a link to the group he was talking to, the Council for National Policy.

When doing a simple google search, a website of their own doesn't appear immediately, so I'm going to do some more digging. The Wikipedia entry covers it well, but there's other analysis of the group out there, most of which are linked from the disinfopedia site.

Although I had read about them previously, I wasn't aware that Tim LaHaye was the founder. If you're unfamiliar with his work, Mr. LaHaye is a minister, and the author of the Left Behind series of novels that imagines what would happen if the Rapture hit us now. Here's the description of the first novel, fromt he above linked site.

Left Behind
A Novel of the Earth's Last Days

Passengers aboard a Boeing 747 en route to Europe disappear. Instantly. Nothing remains except their rumpled piles of clothes, jewelry, fillings, surgical pins, and the like.

Vehicles, suddenly unmanned, careen out of control. People are terror-stricken as loved ones vanish before their eyes.

Some blame space aliens. Others claim a freak of nature. Still others say it was a high-tech military attack by a world conqueror.

But airline captain Rayford Steele's wife had warned him of this very event. If Irene Steele was right, both she and their young son have disappeared. What about their older daughter? Lake Rayford, Chloe had been skeptical.

In the midst of global chaos, Rayford must search for his family, for answers, for truth. As devastating as the disappearances have been, the darkest days may lie ahead.

Terror and chaos continues worldwide as the cataclysm unfolds. For those left behind, the apocalypse has just begun.

In this moving novel, Jerry B. Jenkins and Tim LaHaye offer an account of what life might be like for those left behind when millions vanish. Left Behind will intrigue you, entertain you, and challenge you. And when you realize it represents an event that millions believe will actually occur, it could change your life.

Fun stuff, eh?

Now, I'm not one to poke fun of a person's religious beliefs, by any stretch of the imagination. At the same time, I wonder about electing to office people who believe the Rapture mythololgy is a fact. I think it's too obvious to point out that a leader who believes that the Rapture could come any day may not be in the best interests of long term societal development. Heck, I still remember when Saint Ronald Reagan said "We will be the last generation on Earth." back in the day.

To quote Count Floyd.... "Scary stuff, kids!"

Labels: politics

Oh yeah. Because they want to "Stand Up For Canada". Too bad Stephen Harper doesn't.

Though this is an old speech Harper gave to the US thinktank the Council for National Policy, I think it's worth re-posting. I'd also recommend googling "Council for National Policy", to get an idea about the group he's talking to.

It's also worth pointing out that top Harper advisors include pro U.S. neocon Tom Flanagan.

So, here's what he said...

Ladies and gentlemen, let me begin by giving you a big welcome to Canada. Let's start up with a compliment. You're here from the second greatest nation on earth. But seriously, your country, and particularly your conservative movement, is a light and an inspiration to people in this country and across the world.

Now, having given you a compliment, let me also give you an insult. I was asked to speak about Canadian politics. It may not be true, but it's legendary that if you're like all Americans, you know almost nothing except for your own country. Which makes you probably knowledgeable about one more country than most Canadians.

But in any case, my speech will make that assumption. I'll talk fairly basic stuff. If it seems pedestrian to some of you who do know a lot about Canada, I apologize.

I'm going to look at three things. First of all, just some basic facts about Canada that are relevant to my talk, facts about the country and its political system, its civics. Second, I want to take a look at the party system that's developed in Canada from a conventional left/right, or liberal/conservative perspective. The third thing I'm going to do is look at the political system again, because it can't be looked at in this country simply from the conventional perspective.

First, facts about Canada. Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it. Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.

In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people. They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance.

That is beginning to change. There have been some significant changes in our fiscal policies and our social welfare policies in the last three or four years. But nevertheless, they're still very generous compared to your country.

Let me just make a comment on language, which is so important in this country. I want to disabuse you of misimpressions you may have. If you've read any of the official propagandas, you've come over the border and entered a bilingual country. In this particular city, Montreal, you may well get that impression. But this city is extremely atypical of this country.

While it is a French-speaking city -- largely -- it has an enormous English-speaking minority and a large number of what are called ethnics: they who are largely immigrant communities, but who politically and culturally tend to identify with the English community.

This is unusual, because the rest of the province of Quebec is, by and large, almost entirely French-speaking. The English minority present here in Montreal is quite exceptional.

Furthermore, the fact that this province is largely French-speaking, except for Montreal, is quite exceptional with regard to the rest of the country. Outside of Quebec, the total population of francophones, depending on how you measure it, is only three to five per cent of the population. The rest of Canada is English speaking.

Even more important, the French-speaking people outside of Quebec live almost exclusively in the adjacent areas, in northern New Brunswick and in Eastern Ontario.

The rest of Canada is almost entirely English speaking. Where I come from, Western Canada, the population of francophones ranges around one to two per cent in some cases. So it's basically an English-speaking country, just as English-speaking as, I would guess, the northern part of the United States.

But the important point is that Canada is not a bilingual country. It is a country with two languages. And there is a big difference.

As you may know, historically and especially presently, there's been a lot of political tension between these two major language groups, and between Quebec and the rest of Canada.

Let me take a moment for a humorous story. Now, I tell this with some trepidation, knowing that this is a largely Christian organization.

The National Citizens Coalition, by the way, is not. We're on the sort of libertarian side of the conservative spectrum. So I tell this joke with a little bit of trepidation. But nevertheless, this joke works with Canadian audiences of any kind, anywhere in Canada, both official languages, any kind of audience.

It's about a constitutional lawyer who dies and goes to heaven. There, he meets God and gets his questions answered about life. One of his questions is, "God, will this problem between Quebec and the rest of Canada ever be resolved?'' And God thinks very deeply about this, as God is wont to do. God replies, "Yes, but not in my lifetime.''

I'm glad to see you weren't offended by that. I've had the odd religious person who's been offended. I always tell them, "Don't be offended. The joke can't be taken seriously theologically. It is, after all, about a lawyer who goes to heaven.''

In any case. My apologies to Eugene Meyer of the Federalist Society.

Second, the civics, Canada's civics.

On the surface, you can make a comparison between our political system and yours. We have an executive, we have two legislative houses, and we have a Supreme Court.

However, our executive is the Queen, who doesn't live here. Her representative is the Governor General, who is an appointed buddy of the Prime Minister.

Of our two legislative houses, the Senate, our upper house, is appointed, also by the Prime Minister, where he puts buddies, fundraisers and the like. So the Senate also is not very important in our political system.

And we have a Supreme Court, like yours, which, since we put a charter of rights in our constitution in 1982, is becoming increasingly arbitrary and important. It is also appointed by the Prime Minister. Unlike your Supreme Court, we have no ratification process.

So if you sort of remove three of the four elements, what you see is a system of checks and balances which quickly becomes a system that's described as unpaid checks and political imbalances.

What we have is the House of Commons. The House of Commons, the bastion of the Prime Minister's power, the body that selects the Prime Minister, is an elected body. I really emphasize this to you as an American group: It's not like your House of Representatives. Don't make that comparison.

What the House of Commons is really like is the United States electoral college. Imagine if the electoral college which selects your president once every four years were to continue sitting in Washington for the next four years. And imagine its having the same vote on every issue. That is how our political system operates.

In our election last Monday, the Liberal party won a majority of seats. The four opposition parties divided up the rest, with some very, very rough parity.

But the important thing to know is that this is how it will be until the Prime Minister calls the next election. The same majority vote on every issue. So if you ask me, "What's the vote going to be on gun control?'' or on the budget, we know already.

If any member of these political parties votes differently from his party on a particular issue, well, that will be national headline news. It's really hard to believe. If any one member votes differently, it will be national headline news. I voted differently at least once from my party, and it was national headline news. It's a very different system.

Our party system consists today of five parties. There was a remark made yesterday at your youth conference about the fact that parties come and go in Canada every year. This is rather deceptive. I've written considerably on this subject.

We had a two-party system from the founding of our country, in 1867. That two-party system began to break up in the period from 1911 to 1935. Ever since then, five political elements have come and gone. We've always had at least three parties. But even when parties come back, they're not really new. They're just an older party re-appearing under a different name and different circumstances.

Let me take a conventional look at these five parties. I'll describe them in terms that fit your own party system, the left/right kind of terms.

Let's take the New Democratic Party, the NDP, which won 21 seats. The NDP could be described as basically a party of liberal Democrats, but it's actually worse than that, I have to say. And forgive me jesting again, but the NDP is kind of proof that the Devil lives and interferes in the affairs of men.

This party believes not just in large government and in massive redistributive programs, it's explicitly socialist. On social value issues, it believes the opposite on just about everything that anybody in this room believes. I think that's a pretty safe bet on all social-value kinds of questions.

Some people point out that there is a small element of clergy in the NDP. Yes, this is true. But these are clergy who, while very committed to the church, believe that it made a historic error in adopting Christian theology.

The NDP is also explicitly a branch of the Canadian Labour Congress, which is by far our largest labour group, and explicitly radical.

There are some moderate and conservative labour organizations. They don't belong to that particular organization.

The second party, the Liberal party, is by far the largest party. It won the election. It's also the only party that's competitive in all parts of the country. The Liberal party is our dominant party today, and has been for 100 years. It's governed almost all of the last hundred years, probably about 75 per cent of the time.

It's not what you would call conservative Democrat; I think that's a disappearing kind of breed. But it's certainly moderate Democrat, a type of Clinton-pragmatic Democrat. It's moved in the last few years very much to the right on fiscal and economic concerns, but still believes in government intrusion in the economy where possible, and does, in its majority, believe in fairly liberal social values.

In the last Parliament, it enacted comprehensive gun control, well beyond, I think, anything you have. Now we'll have a national firearms registration system, including all shotguns and rifles. Many other kinds of weapons have been banned. It believes in gay rights, although it's fairly cautious. It's put sexual orientation in the Human Rights Act and will let the courts do the rest.

There is an important caveat to its liberal social values. For historic reasons that I won't get into, the Liberal party gets the votes of most Catholics in the country, including many practising Catholics. It does have a significant Catholic, social-conservative element which occasionally disagrees with these kinds of policy directions. Although I caution you that even this Catholic social conservative element in the Liberal party is often quite liberal on economic issues.

Then there is the Progressive Conservative party, the PC party, which won only 20 seats. Now, the term Progressive Conservative will immediately raise suspicions in all of your minds. It should. It's obviously kind of an oxymoron. But actually, its origin is not progressive in the modern sense. The origin of the term "progressive'' in the name stems from the Progressive Movement in the 1920s, which was similar to that in your own country.

But the Progressive Conservative is very definitely liberal Republican. These are people who are moderately conservative on economic matters, and in the past have been moderately liberal, even sometimes quite liberal on social policy matters.

In fact, before the Reform Party really became a force in the late '80s, early '90s, the leadership of the Conservative party was running the largest deficits in Canadian history. They were in favour of gay rights officially, officially for abortion on demand. Officially -- what else can I say about them? Officially for the entrenchment of our universal, collectivized, health-care system and multicultural policies in the constitution of the country.

At the leadership level anyway, this was a pretty liberal group. This explains one of the reasons why the Reform party has become such a power.

The Reform party is much closer to what you would call conservative Republican, which I'll get to in a minute.

The Bloc Quebecois, which I won't spend much time on, is a strictly Quebec party, strictly among the French-speaking people of Quebec. It is an ethnic separatist party that seeks to make Quebec an independent, sovereign nation.

By and large, the Bloc Quebecois is centre-left in its approach. However, it is primarily an ethnic coalition. It's always had diverse elements. It does have an element that is more on the right of the political spectrum, but that's definitely a minority element.

Let me say a little bit about the Reform party because I want you to be very clear on what the Reform party is and is not.

The Reform party, although described by many of its members, and most of the media, as conservative, and conservative in the American sense, actually describes itself as populist. And that's the term its leader, Preston Manning, uses.

This term is not without significance. The Reform party does stand for direct democracy, which of course many American conservatives do, but also it sees itself as coming from a long tradition of populist parties of Western Canada, not all of which have been conservative.

It also is populist in the very real sense, if I can make American analogies to it -- populist in the sense that the term is sometimes used with Ross Perot.

The Reform party is very much a leader-driven party. It's much more a real party than Mr. Perot's party -- by the way, it existed before Mr. Perot's party. But it's very much leader-driven, very much organized as a personal political vehicle. Although it has much more of a real organization than Mr. Perot does.

But the Reform party only exists federally. It doesn't exist at the provincial level here in Canada. It really exists only because Mr. Manning is pursuing the position of prime minister. It doesn't have a broader political mandate than that yet. Most of its members feel it should, and, in their minds, actually it does.

It also has some Buchananist tendencies. I know there are probably many admirers of Mr. Buchanan here, but I mean that in the sense that there are some anti-market elements in the Reform Party. So far, they haven't been that important, because Mr. Manning is, himself, a fairly orthodox economic conservative.

The predecessor of the Reform party, the Social Credit party, was very much like this. Believing in funny money and control of banking, and a whole bunch of fairly non-conservative economic things.

So there are some non-conservative tendencies in the Reform party, but, that said, the party is clearly the most economically conservative party in the country. It's the closest thing we have to a neo-conservative party in that sense.

It's also the most conservative socially, but it's not a theocon party, to use the term. The Reform party does favour the use of referendums and free votes in Parliament on moral issues and social issues.

The party is led by Preston Manning, who is a committed, evangelical Christian. And the party in recent years has made some reference to family values and to family priorities. It has some policies that are definitely social-conservative, but it's not explicitly so.

Many members are not, the party officially is not, and, frankly, the party has had a great deal of trouble when it's tried to tackle those issues.

Last year, when we had the Liberal government putting the protection of sexual orientation in our Human Rights Act, the Reform Party was opposed to that, but made a terrible mess of the debate. In fact, discredited itself on that issue, not just with the conventional liberal media, but even with many social conservatives by the manner in which it mishandled that.

So the social conservative element exists. Mr. Manning is a Christian, as are most of the party's senior people. But it's not officially part of the party. The party hasn't quite come to terms with how that fits into it.

That's the conventional analysis of the party system.

Let me turn to the non-conventional analysis, because frankly, it's impossible, with just left/right terminology to explain why we would have five parties, or why we would have four parties on the conventional spectrum. Why not just two?

The reason is regional division, which you'll see if you carefully look at a map. Let me draw the United States comparison, a comparison with your history.

The party system that is developing here in Canada is a party system that replicates the antebellum period, the pre-Civil War period of the United States.

That's not to say -- and I would never be quoted as saying -- we're headed to a civil war. But we do have a major secession crisis, obviously of a very different nature than the secession crisis you had in the 1860s. But the dynamics, the political and partisan dynamics of this, are remarkably similar.

The Bloc Quebecois is equivalent to your Southern secessionists, Southern Democrats, states rights activists. The Bloc Quebecois, its 44 seats, come entirely from the province of Quebec. But even more strikingly, they come from ridings, or election districts, almost entirely populated by the descendants of the original European French settlers.

The Liberal party has 26 seats in Quebec. Most of these come from areas where there are heavy concentrations of English, aboriginal or ethnic votes. So the Bloc Quebecois is very much an ethnic party, but it's also a secession party.

In the referendum two years ago, the secessionists won 49 per cent of the vote, 49.5 per cent. So this is a very real crisis. We're looking at another referendum before the turn of the century.

The Progressive Conservative party is very much comparable to the Whigs of the 1850s and 1860s. What is happening to them is very similar to the Whigs. A moderate conservative party, increasingly under stress because of the secession movement, on the one hand, and the reaction to that movement from harder line English Canadians on the other hand.

You may recall that the Whigs, in their dying days, went through a series of metamorphoses. They ended up as what was called the Unionist movement that won some of the border states in your 1860 election.

If you look at the surviving PC support, it's very much concentrated in Atlantic Canada, in the provinces to the east of Quebec. These are very much equivalent to the United States border states. They're weak economically. They have very grim prospects if Quebec separates. These people want a solution at almost any cost. And some of the solutions they propose would be exactly that.

They also have a small percentage of seats in Quebec. These are French-speaking areas that are also more moderate and very concerned about what would happen in a secession crisis.

The Liberal party is very much your northern Democrat, or mainstream Democratic party, a party that is less concessionary to the secessionists than the PCs, but still somewhat concessionary. And they still occupy the mainstream of public opinion in Ontario, which is the big and powerful province, politically and economically, alongside Quebec.

The Reform party is very much a modern manifestation of the Republican movement in Western Canada; the U.S. Republicans started in the western United States. The Reform Party is very resistant to the agenda and the demands of the secessionists, and on a very deep philosophical level.

The goal of the secessionists is to transform our country into two nations, either into two explicitly sovereign countries, or in the case of weaker separatists, into some kind of federation of two equal partners.

The Reform party opposes this on all kinds of grounds, but most important, Reformers are highly resistant philosophically to the idea that we will have an open, modern, multi-ethnic society on one side of the line, and the other society will run on some set of ethnic-special-status principles. This is completely unacceptable, particularly to philosophical conservatives in the Reform party.

The Reform party's strength comes almost entirely from the West. It's become the dominant political force in Western Canada. And it is getting a substantial vote in Ontario. Twenty per cent of the vote in the last two elections. But it has not yet broken through in terms of the number of seats won in Ontario.

This is a very real political spectrum, lining up from the Bloc to reform. You may notice I didn't mention the New Democratic Party. The NDP obviously can't be compared to anything pre-Civil War. But the NDP is not an important player on this issue. Its views are somewhere between the liberals and conservatives. Its main concern, of course, is simply the left-wing agenda to basically disintegrate our society in all kinds of spectrums. So it really doesn't fit in.

But I don't use this comparison of the pre-Civil War lightly. Preston Manning, the leader of the Reform party has spent a lot of time reading about pre-Civil War politics. He compares the Reform party himself to the Republican party of that period. He is very well-read on Abraham Lincoln and a keen follower and admirer of Lincoln.

I know Mr. Manning very well. I would say that next to his own father, who is a prominent Western Canadian politician, Abraham Lincoln has probably had more effect on Mr. Manning's political philosophy than any individual politician.

Obviously, the issue here is not slavery, but the appeasement of ethnic nationalism. For years, we've had this Quebec separatist movement. For years, we elected Quebec prime ministers to deal with that, Quebec prime ministers who were committed federalists who would lead us out of the wilderness. For years, we have given concessions of various kinds of the province of Quebec, political and economic, to make them happier.

This has not worked. The sovereignty movement has continued to rise in prominence. And its demands have continued to increase. It began to hit the wall when what are called the soft separatists and the conventional political establishment got together to put in the constitution something called "a distinct society clause.'' Nobody really knows what it would mean, but it would give the Supreme Court, where Quebec would have a tremendous role in appointment, the power to interpret Quebec's special needs and powers, undefined elsewhere.

This has led to a firewall of resistance across the country. It fuelled the growth of the Reform party. I should even say that the early concessionary people, like Pierre Trudeau, have come out against this. So there's even now an element of the Quebec federalists themselves who will no longer accept this.

So you see the syndrome we're in. The separatists continue to make demands. They're a powerful force. They continue to have the bulk of the Canadian political establishment on their side. The two traditional parties, the Liberals and PCs, are both led by Quebecers who favour concessionary strategies. The Reform party is a bastion of resistance to this tendency.

To give you an idea of how divided the country is, not just in Quebec but how divided the country is outside Quebec on this, we had a phenomenon five years ago. This is a real phenomenon; I don't know how much you heard about it.

The establishment came down with a constitutional package which they put to a national referendum. The package included distinct society status for Quebec and some other changes, including some that would just horrify you, putting universal Medicare in our constitution, and feminist rights, and a whole bunch of other things.

What was significant about this was that this constitutional proposal was supported by the entire Canadian political establishment. By all of the major media. By the three largest traditional parties, the PC, Liberal party and NDP. At the time, the Bloc and Reform were very small.

It was supported by big business, very vocally by all of the major CEOs of the country. The leading labour unions all supported it. Complete consensus. And most academics.

And it was defeated. It literally lost the national referendum against a rag-tag opposition consisting of a few dissident conservatives and a few dissident socialists.

This gives you some idea of the split that's taking place in the country.

Canada is, however, a troubled country politically, not socially. This is a country that we like to say works in practice but not in theory.

You can walk around this country without running across very many of these political controversies.

I'll end there and take any of your questions. But let me conclude by saying, good luck in your own battles. Let me just remind you of something that's been talked about here. As long as there are exams, there will always be prayer in schools.

No comment.

Labels: politics

Faux News Channel is at it again.

In an effort to out douchebag Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity, John Gibson has started laying it on thick. In tonight's lovely episode of "The Big Story", he spends some time ranting about the fab Brit 3 part doc "The Power Of Nightmares, by Andrew Curtis. This documentary compares and contrasts the rise of two simultaneous radical groups, extreme Islamists and the Western neoconservative movements.

First, for those not familiar with the doc...
Power Of Nightmares

A part of the documentary talks about how selling the idea of radical Islamic states failed to ignite the passions of the people of the Middle East in the latter part of the last century, and how in the late 90s Osama bin Laden decided to take the battle to the perceived enemy.

The series says, in part, that the threat of al-Qaeda, as it's portrayed in the media, is a false nightmare, in that it is not a single group, organized in a top down hierarchy, with Osama bin Laden dictating it's every move. The series does talk about the very real threat of international terrorism, and how this Global War On Terror (GWoT) will just further polarize and further create more radicalized opponents to the western world.

One obvious example that isn't really touched on in the series is al-Zarqawi, who is widely reported as the "Head of al-Qaeda in Iraq". Of course, this is not the Islamic extremist mirror of the US Ambassador of Iraq, because Zarqawi doesn't take orders from bin Laden (who's presumably hiding out in a stealth dialysis machine). Until the Iraq Invasion got underway, Zarqawi was often seen as a RIVAL to bin Laden, not an ally.

And why Gibson is a douchebag...
The Big Story

On the 20 July 2005 episode of "The Big Story", Gibson implies that the series, as a whole says that radicalized Islamic terrorists don't exists. The series doesn't make that claim at all, as my quick summary above shows. He reports on Australian TV (SBS) decision to delay the broadcast of the documentary, due to the proximity to the London bombings. Then a "FNC contributor" and supposed expert from The Times of London is trotted out, and promptly agrees with all his ill-conceived points. Of course it's worthy to note that The Times of London is another pustulant organ of Murdoch. Special care is made to bash the BBC as much as possible. Do I really need to mention that the business relationship between Faux and The Times goes unmentioned?

Gibson's rant is deplorable, and riddled with blatant lies. It's clear he's never seen the series, or if so, chose to totally ignore it to make a few digs at his boss's competition.

For those interested in seeing "The Power of Nightmares", there are a number of internet options available to you. Look for it and watch it, then wonder why the fear monger monkeys of Murdoch's empire don't want people watching it.

And a blogger who's pissed off that SBS pulled it without warning...
12th Harmonic

Remember, do NOT deviate from the narrow thought tracks that are being laid out for us

Labels: politics

While the rightie bloggers fall in line with the RNC Talking Points, linked here...
RNC Talking Points
and the so called liberal press from the NY Times to the TV pundits bellyache about the loss of the "freedom of the press", they're totally ignoring a KEY point, and also providing a telling example of why the press isn't exactly "Free" anymore.

Everyone's talking about Judith Miller having to do time (I won't even talk about Robert Novak getting a free pass beyond speculating that maybe he's the one who provided the 8 pages of sealed documents that keep this case alive... once again, idle speculation)

Anyways, this "freedom of the press" thang is overrated, in this case. Time Inc, by handing over Cooper's notes, wasn't violating this time honoured tradition by a long shot.

The purpose of "confidential sources" is to protect the identity of whistleblowers revealing wrongdoings, whether they be gov't abuses or violations being committed by the corporation they work for. This is a noble and ethical endeavour, and has lead to the exposure of all sorts of criminal activiity in the higher echelons of power.

This protecting of sources is NOT extended when the journalist knows that the source is engaging in felonious crimes.

In the Rove/Plame case, the source passing on the information is the alleged criminal act, so this "journalistic freedom" is a red herring.

Rove's passing on of information is not the act of a whistleblower getting information out to expose criminal wrongdoing, but a potentially criminal act of an agent of the government, trying to EXTEND the power of the Executive branch through what is SUPPOSED to be a free and independant press. Miller, Cooper and Novak are being USED by the administration for petty political retribution, either knowingly or not.

To see the great majority of the press rally behind Miller, and chastize Time Inc., is a sad perversion of the idea of a "Free" press.

A long time ago, one of my favourite authors, Harlan Ellison, wrote about the state of journalism. At that time in the late 70's/early 80's, he was worried about the effect of having "Journalism Schools", as all the old school greats never had to attend an institution of higher learning to study journalism. Instead, they came from disparate backgrounds, some from the streets, some from Ivy League schools where they studied history, english, economics, or whatever, and applied their knowledge and life experiences to the task of writing.

He argued that the "new crop" of journalists coming out of journalism schools would be more isolated, and less free, as they become part of the very establishment they are meant to cover.

Over 20 years later, what he wrote seems more and more true. The majority of journalists these days are navel gazing, so wrapped up in the concept of "protecting sources" that they've forgotten what it really means. In the end, they're defending Miller, who is doing nothing more than taking a bullet for the potentially illegal act of leaking a covert spy's name to the press.

If that's the idea of a "Free Press" these days, it's a sad state of affairs indeed.

Labels: politics

CNN and other media sources are STILL reporting that 17% of the youth vote turned up in the latest election... which is clearly BS.

Where are they getting the 17% number? Let's take a look...

Percentage of total # of voters, followed by turnout as percentage of youth vote...

Battleground Non-Battleground
2004 19.4% 18.1%
Turnout
Amongst 64.7% 47.6%
18-29 y/olds
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2000 17% 16%
Turnout
Amongst 51% 38%
18-29 y/olds

So the only "17%" number I can find in stats available online is the one for what percentage of the TOTAL number of voters was comprised of the Youth Vote. Even so, the 17%number that has been repeated in multiple mainstream media sources is plain WRONG, as illustrated above.

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In the thread "Looking at the numbers - THEY DON'T ADD UP" I posted other numbers for the youth vote. There's a link at the end where these stats were gathered from...

Youth vote (18-29 year olds) turnout, as percentage of whole:
2004 : 51.6%
2000 : 42.3%
1996 : 34.9%
1992 : 47.9%

Raw number 20.9 million in 2004 as opposed to 16.2 million in 2000.

Vote Split by Candidate in 2004 and 2000
Kerry / Bush / Nader
54% 44% 1%
Gore / Bush / Nader
47.6% 46.2% 4.7%

PDF: http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/Release_Turnout2004.pdf

Just to clear the air, the youth vote went up 9.3%, and they swung MUCH more towards Kerry than Bush (and Nader dropped down as well).

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WTF is going on? The echo chamber is just getting worse on a daily basis now. The information was released on the 3rd, but at the end of the NEXT DAY, the blabbering bobble heads are STILL touting a false 17% number that makes the youth appear disaffected and uncaring. The reality appears to be much different.

If anyone has links to media sources claiming either the 17% number, or a HIGHER number, feel free link it here.

Labels: politics