The Wide World

Every step you take, every move you make:
The British government’s new plans for mass surveillance

© By Eric King

For the past 18 months, I’ve been investigating the export of surveillance technologies from Western countries to despotic regimes, but I never thought I’d see a democratic government proposing to install the kind of mass surveillance system favoured by Al-Assad, Mubarak and Gaddafi.  Yet the Home Office’s latest plans would allow the authorities unprecedented levels of access to the entire population’s phone records, emails, browsing history and activity on social networking sites, entirely unfettered by the courts.  It would allow the police to see which websites you were browsing, your activity on social networks, and who you were communicating with via email,  telephone, or Skype, and when. This is a system that has no place in a country that calls itself free and democratic.

The idea of a “modernized” (read, ‘more invasive’) surveillance law was first proposed by the Labour government in 2009.  They argued that changes were required in order to restore the status quo of the early 1990s, when we all used landlines, and British Telecom (BT) ran all the networks.  Call and location records were generated and stored by BT for commercial purposes, and the police thus had ready access to pretty much every communication in Britain.  But in the era of Google, Facebook and Twitter, the authorities have been cut off from significant chunks of people’s communications and a lot of data resides on foreign servers.  The government designed the “Interception Modernisation Programme” (IMP) to give themselves access to all this juicy new information; but, after controversy about the cost, ethics and feasibility of the project, it was ditched in the run-up to the 2010 general election.

The Coalition Agreement that formed the current government clearly stated that IMP-style mass surveillance of the British public was unacceptable; but now the old policy seems to have risen from the grave as the innocuously-named “Communications Capabilities Development Programme” (CCDP).  The Home Office will try to pretend that the CCDP is a brand new idea — in that it forces companies to store data locally and make it accessible to police whenever they request, rather than automatically transferring data from ISPs and mobile network providers to the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) for centralised storage.  But the idea of a central database was abandoned before IMP was formally proposed, so, in fact, the two projects are basically identical.  More importantly, the principle is the same: the government will have the right to intercept everyone’s communications, all of the time, without the inconvenient requirement of judicial warrants.

The Leveson Inquiry (i.e. the ongoing public inquiry in the U.K. into the practices and ethics of the British press arising from the phone-hacking scandal) has shown us just how dangerous unfettered police powers can be.  We know now that information, once collected, can never be 100% secure and is always vulnerable to exposure by human error or corruption.  Yet in the midst of a recession, the government wants to spend billions of pounds peering into our private lives with an intensity that would make even the most ruthless tabloid journalist blush.

Eric King is Head of Research for Privacy International.

Founded in 1990, Privacy International seeks to defend the right to privacy across the world, and to fight surveillance and other intrusions into private life by governments and corporations. Visit Privacy International at:   https://www.privacyinternational.org/

© April 2012 by Eric King and Privacy International.

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Freedom from Fear:
Building a Culture of Peace through Collective Security and Human Rights

© By John Arkelian

© Illustrated by Linda Arkelian

“Fearlessness may be a gift but perhaps more precious is the courage acquired through endeavor, courage that comes from the habit of refusing to let fear dictate one’s actions.”(1)

“In very truth gold is god today and rules with pitiless sway in the affairs of men… I can see the dawn of the better day for humanity.  The people are awakening.  In due time, they will and must come to their own.” (2)

Confident predictions of Man’s inexorable progress toward a better day, of his awakening from latent barbarism, are by no means borne out by the

facts.  On the contrary, violence, injustice, and oppression are as prevalent today as ever.  Our long-expected better day may yet turn out to be a bitter one instead.  At best, complacency will garner us more of the same — bloody conflict, squalor, and misery for the many, empty materialism for the few.  Democratic government and entrenched human rights may continue their incremental erosion until they collapse, like a shelter whose foundation has deteriorated from neglect and misuse.  Or, we may finally ignite the nuclear conflagration or global environmental catastrophe we daily court with our greed and indifference.  We have much to fear — war, famine, disease, creeping tyranny, reckless poisoning of our environment.  Terrorism is the fashionable bogey lately, the bête noire du jour, but danger it poses is, in the long run, the least of our worries.  The question is:  will we continue to allow selfish indifference to blind us as we shuffle aimlessly along the edge of the precipice; or, will we cast aside apathy and face our fears, fashioning the means to free ourselves from their yoke forever?  Will we turn with relentless will and purpose to the task that needs doing — remaking the world into a place of truth, justice, liberty, and compassion?  If so, we need to establish security, equity, fundamental freedoms, and tolerance — or, in a word, dignity — for all.

“Within a system which denies the existence of basic human rights, fear tends to be the order of the day.  Fear of imprisonment, fear of torture, fear of death, fear of losing friends, family, property or means of livelihood, fear of poverty, fear of isolation, fear of failure.  A most insidious form of fear is that which masquerades as common sense or even wisdom, condemning as foolish, reckless, insignificant or futile the small, daily acts of courage which help to preserve man’s self-respect and inherent human dignity.” (3)

I.  Fundamental Freedoms

If we are to be truly free we have to advance and protect rights of Man.  In the Western democracies, the main threat to those rights is our own indifference and (lately) our susceptibility to accepting their curtailment in the spurious name of security.  It is far better to face the dangers posed by terrorism (and other, more mundane forms of crime) than to submissively cast aside the very things — our fundamental freedoms — that define who we are and set us above those who wield fear and violence.  But it is not enough just to cherish those rights ourselves.  We must be every bit as tireless in ensuring that the rigorous observance of fundamental rights is the governing principle of all mankind.  If our rights are to mean anything, they cannot be for us alone.

The nature of fundamental rights is no mystery.  They are enshrined in the constitutions of the West and in binding international conventions.  They include the freedoms of conscience, religion, speech, and assembly; the rule of law; a free press; the citizen’s right to elect a responsible government in free and fair elections; and checks and balances on the executive, legislative, and judicial powers of government.  Fundamental rights bar arbitrary arrest, and they require that arrested persons be promptly brought before a court and charged with a specific offense.  (The principle of habeas corpus precludes secret detention or protracted imprisonment without trial.)  Those charged with a crime are entitled to legal representation by counsel of their choice, access to visitors, and a fair and open trial.  Every accused person has the right to hear the evidence against him and to face his accusers.  He has the right not to incriminate himself.  And, there is an absolute right not to be tortured, or to be otherwise subjected to cruel or inhuman punishment.  Even that most basic and inalienable of human rights has been under attack since 9/11 — alarmingly, from high officials in the leading nation of the free world.

Fundamental rights were fought for and won at great cost, but we have become neglectful of them, forgetting their inestimable value and failing to safeguard them with the zealousness that is not only their due but also our duty as a free people.

II. Security

“Cultural conflicts are increasing and are… more dangerous today than at any other time in history.  The end of the era of nationalism has been catastrophic.  Armed with the same supermodern weapons, often from the same suppliers, and followed by television cameras, the members of various tribal cults are at war with one another.” (4)

“Strength [has] value only when it [serves] a just cause.” (5)

“Fear, like so many things, is a habit.  If you live with fear for a long time, you become fearful.” (6)

To be free from fear, we must feel that we are secure.  Yet we seem gripped

in a culture of fear, and it is fear rather than wisdom that guides too many of our choices.  Too often rich and powerful nations seek security through their wealth and power alone, neglecting more important cornerstones of lasting security — things like justice and compassion.  To be truly secure, we must put the lie to the notion that ‘Justice is for the weak, and the strong can do whatever they want.’  Lasting strength is rooted in justice.  And, real security must mean security for all — for rich and poor, for weak and strong.  No country, or group of countries, can create a lasting bastion of safety and tranquility for themselves to the exclusion of the less fortunate.  To make exclusive claims on security for the few, with indifference to the suffering many, is to invite perpetual danger for ourselves and misery for everyone else.  Instead, we must rededicate ourselves to collective security, to enlisting all of the nations of the world in safeguarding each other’s security.  We can do that by putting aside unilateralism and returning to the long and difficult work of building a system of international institutions and laws that offer meaningful protection to all.  The dangers posed by aggressive states, by terrorists, by nuclear proliferation (and the still not achieved comprehensive ban on the testing of nuclear weapons), by creeping environmental catastrophe, by existing pestilences like AIDS and looming pandemics like influenza, by the militarization of space, by human rights abuses and tyranny, by ideological extremism, and by economic exploitation of the poor by the rich Ð all of these dangers, and more, can best be addressed multilaterally.  Where institutions are weak, or recalcitrance is strong, then the work will be difficult, but we must not shirk it.  We can start with confidence-building measure, by, for example, foreswearing the unilateral use of force, consistently and vigorously demanding respect for human rights, and by unequivocally committing ourselves to human life and human dignity Ð through substantially increased foreign aid, a permanent cessation of arms sales, and a unilateral end to nuclear testing.  We should dedicate ourselves to the proposition that physical security and economic justice are the due of all mankind and then work hard to make that goal a reality.

III. Equity

“Kindness… is in a sense the courage to feel concern for the people.  It is undeniably easier to ignore the hardships of those who are too weak to demand their rights than to respond sensitively to their needs.  To care is to accept responsibility, to dare… [to be] the strength of the helpless.” (7)

A secure world, a world without fear, is one with equality of opportunity.  In the West, most of us take a comfortable life for granted; most of the world’s inhabitants are not so lucky.  A comfortable life requires a good standard of living, with access to food, water, housing, health care, education, and

employment.  It includes opportunities for both advancement and for recreation, and it needs unfettered access to ideas — in addition to the basic human rights and personal security discussed above.  Of course, there’s more to life than just being “comfortable,” or we in the West would represent the pinnacle of human fulfillment instead of finding ourselves so often bereft of meaning and purpose.  Comfort is not the destination, but it is a prerequisite for making the journey.  Without an equitable distribution of the world’s resources and wealth, we cannot achieve a world without fear.  The gross disparities — in wealth, education, and freedom — that beset this world fuel endless resentment, aggression, and conflict.  A world where poverty, starvation, and squalid misery are the lot of many, while a fortunate few regard wealth as their birth-right, is an unjust world.  If our goal truly is a better day, then we must adopt, as an urgent priority, the righting of that wrong, sacrificing, if need be, our own excess to eradicate the scarcity of others.

IV. Tolerance

“The quintessential revolution is that of the spirit…” (8)

“The truly reliable path to… peaceful coexistence… must be rooted in self-transcendence:  transcendence as a hand reaching out to those close to us, to foreigners, to the human community, to all living creatures, to nature, to the universe; transcendence is a… need to be in harmony even with what we ourselves are not, with what we do not understand, with what seems distant from us…” (9)

For as long as Man has existed, his fiercest nemesis has been his own capacity and compulsion for devising categories which exclude others.  It hardly matters whether the dividing line between “us” and “them” is nationality, religion, language, ethnicity, gender, class, or color.  All of those differences obscure the fundamentals we share in common.  Leftovers from tribalism, they denote the savage that lurks within us Ð the darkness that permits us to neglect, oppress, or destroy any who are deemed to be “other.”  Unless we conquer that instinct within ourselves, it will be our undoing.  Before we can create a culture of peace, we have to create a culture of tolerance and understanding.  We can start with simple things, like ensuring that all school-children everywhere learn more than one language, by implementing widescale exchange programs between children (and young adults) of different linguistic, cultural, national, or religious backgrounds, and by ensuring that our school curriculums immerse students in the culture and history of lands besides their own.  Internationally, we must practice what we preach about abhorring ethnic conflicts.  When one group rises in arms to enslave or slaughter another, we must intervene – promptly and vigorously.  There must be no more Rwandas, if we truly want a better day.  First and foremost, we must create a structure for tolerance — at home and abroad — teaching tolerance and enforcing it, where goodwill alone does not suffice.  We need to prove by our consistent example that we will take responsibility for the world and oppose all its injustices — even these propelled by our own self-interest.

V.  The Sleeper Must Awaken

“It has been given to me to understand how small this world is and how it torments itself with countless things it need not torment itself with, if only people could find within themselves a little more courage, a little more hope, a little more responsibility, a little more mutual understanding and love.” (10)

“For it is the dawn that has come, as it has come for a thousand centuries, never failing.  But when that dawn will come, of our emancipation, from the fear of bondage and the bondage of fear, why, that is a secret.” (11)

Mankind has been sleepwalking through all of our existence.  Will we awaken at last from our long, enervating slumber?  Will we behold the havoc and

suffering we have wrought across history?  Will we confront the savage lurking within each one of us and say, finally, “Enough!”  Will we take real responsibility at long last by declaring that what has always been — cruelty, injustice, and war — is acceptable no more?  If we truly want a better day, to replace so many bitter ones, the answer must be yes.  The sleeper must awaken.

John Arkelian is an author, journalist, and lawyer.

Linda Arkelian is a dancer, choreographer, teacher, and artist.

Text © 2004 by John Arkelian.
Illustrations © 2004 by Linda Arkelian.

Footnotes:

1. Aung San Suu Kyi, Freedom from Fear and Other Writings (New York: Viking, 1991) 184.   2. Eugene V. Debs (Sept. 14, 1918), cited in William Safire, Lend Me Your Ears: Great Speeches in History (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2004).   3. Aung San Suu Kyi, 184.   4. Vaclav Havel, The Art of the Impossible: Politics as Morality in Practice (Toronto: Knopf Canada, 1997) 168.   5. Aung San Suu Kyi, 190.   6. Ibid., 234.   7. Ibid., 172.   8. Ibid., 183.   9. Havel, 173.   10. Ibid., 229.  11. Alan Paton, Cry, the Beloved Country (1948).

Editor’s Note: The foregoing essay, “Freedom from Fear,” first appeared in our hard-copy magazine (Artsforum, Issue #11, Winter 2004/05) over seven years ago.   Sadly, its plea for collective security and human rights is as desperately urgent — and as utterly unsatisfied — today as the day it was written.  It is reprinted here as part of an occasional visit to our archives.
(March 2012)

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The Future of American Democracy

© By Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Russell Simmons

This is not a progressive issue or a conservative issue.  This is not a Tea Party issue or a liberal issue.  This is an American issue.  Money is destroying our politics and our political system. The signs are everywhere.  A “SuperPAC”** supporting Mitt Romney spent $3.5 million to knock Newt Gingrich out of the lead in Iowa.  A SuperPAC supporting Newt Gingrich spent a greater amount of money to return the favor to Mitt Romney in South Carolina.  Our electoral system has become such a joke that two late-night comedians are now actually participating in it and are generating great laughter just by demonstrating how it operates.

In the past, Congress has made two bipartisan efforts to control the impact of money on our elections, first in the early 1970’s and more recently with the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, known as “McCain-Feingold.”  Both of these laws tried to restrict the influence of money on our elections.  But after each of these efforts, the Supreme Court kicked down the door and allowed campaign money to flow more freely.

First, in Buckley v. Valeo, the Court held that money is the equivalent of “free speech” under the First Amendment, and that no act of Congress could restrict the amount of money that an individual could contribute to his or her own campaign or expend in support of another person’s campaign as long as that expenditure was “independent” of the campaign.  This decision gave the “one percent” a voice in our elections that greatly exceeds the concept of “one citizen, one vote.”

Then, in January 2010, in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court went off the deep end and ruled that corporations are “persons” under the First Amendment and that no act of Congress could restrict the amount of money a corporation could spend in an election.  This decision gives all U.S. corporations (and all U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations) all the same rights to participate in our elections that individual U.S. citizens have, excepting only the right to actually vote.

The concept of giving corporations the same rights as individuals would have staggered our “founding fathers.”  Corporations in their present form did not even exist in 1789, when the Bill of Rights was ratified.  The Bill of Rights was written to protect individuals from the power of the federal government.  It was later extended by the Fourteenth Amendment to protect individuals from similar abuses by state governments.  Where in this “original intent” was there any expression that corporations should have the same rights as individuals to participate in our electoral process?

We must get money out of our politics and out of our electoral system. We must eliminate the influence of multi-national corporations and foreign corporations on the government of our country.  Since the Supreme Court majority is obviously opposed to such reforms, the only way to correct our system is through a constitutional amendment that will take money out of our electoral system.

This week, a constitutional amendment was introduced in Congress that will require all federal campaigns — that is, campaigns for President, Vice-President, Senator and Representative — to be financed exclusively with public funds; it will prohibit any expenditures from any other source, including the candidate. This amendment will also preclude any expenditures in support of, or in opposition to, any federal candidate, so that special interest groups will not be able to influence elections either.  This amendment does, however, maintain our historical “freedom of the press” and preserve the traditional role that the media have played in our electoral process.

It is clear:  Money has become a corrupting influence in our political system.  This is one of the most important issues of our time.  We must rescue American democracy.  Together, we are committed to protecting the future of our democracy, and that is why we have come together to promote this constitutional amendment. Whether you are a Republican, Democrat, or independent, we urge you to join us.

Dennis Kucinich is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he has represented Ohio’s 10^th Congressional District since 1997.  A former mayor of Cleveland, Mr. Kucinich has twice been a Democratic candidate for the office of President of the United States.

© January 2012 by Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Russell Simmons

Editor’s Note: In American electoral parlance, a “PAC” (or “political action committee”) is a private group set up to support particular candidates for political office and/or to promote one side of a particular public policy issue.  Interest groups, unions, and corporations make their contributions to political parties and candidates through the mechanism of a PAC.  Controversial decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court and the U.S. Federal Court of Appeals opened the door to the rise of so-called “super-PACs” — starting in the 2010 federal elections.  “Super-PACs” can raise unlimited funds from corporations, unions, interest groups, and individuals.  Technically, those entities are supposed to be “independent” from the candidate or party they are supporting; but said independence is more theoretical than real, and many “super-PACs” openly support particular candidates.  Unlike traditional “PACs,” there is no limit on how much money “super-PACs” can donate.  Both types of “PACs” are obligated to disclose their donors; however, “super-PACs” use a loophole to postpone said disclosure until after the applicable election is over, thereby evading meaningful scrutiny.  JA

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Is Greece finished?

© By Yanis Varoufakis

In one sense, Greece was finished the moment the Great Recession cut its growth rate (in the second quarter of 2009) from among the highest in Europe to almost zero.  Given its high, and increasing, debt-to-GDP ratio, not to mention the recent run on Dubai’s private-cum-sovereign debt, Greece’s stalled economy precipitated a run on Greek bonds.  The writing was on the wall:  The huge bailout could only ever delay the inevitable default, especially so in view of the swinging government expenditure cuts that were the condition for the bailout; cuts that have led to a precipitous collapse of demand, a subsequent run on Greek banks (and a flight of deposits to Switzerland and Germany), a wholesale investment strike, and the overarching recession which has already pushed Greek GDP down by 15% since 2008/9.  Add to the mix the July 21, 2011 EU Agreement (and in particular the sad reality that that Agreement was not worth the paper it was scribbled on), and what you get is the logical conclusion that Greece is about to default.  And since default within a highly financially integrated eurozone is unthinkable, the same train of thought takes its ‘passengers’ straight to the junction where Greece decouples and parts ways with the eurozone.

In another sense, however, and even though most of the above analysis is correct, the conclusion reached in the previous paragraph misses the most crucial of points: Greece cannot exit the eurozone without setting in motion a brief sequence of catastrophic moves which will cause Germany to bail itself out of the eurozone before it itself loses its triple-A rating. (Why and how is something that I have explained on a previous occasion when Greece’s exit from the eurozone was touted.)

Of course, none of this means that the present path is sustainable.  Greece’s debt will be downsized, if not liquidated, one way or another.  A hard Greek default can only be prevented by means of steps that the current European leadership seems determined to avoid, even if the price of such avoidance is the euro’s collapse.  So, the big question is whether the eurozone can survive with a member-state in a state of chronic default.  In theory, it could be possible to have a member-state of a currency union that cannot meet its obligations to creditors and thus remains in some form of receivership until it can climb out of its hole.  In practice, however, such a scenario is pure fiction when such a destabilizing event occurs within a currency union lacking all institutional mechanisms for recycling surpluses in a manner that might restore stability.

We hear that German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schauble is preparing his country’s banks for the shock of Greek default.  Do not believe a word of it.  He cannot pull this off, and he knows it.  At some point, he thought that time would allow Germany’s banks to work out ways of insulating themselves from a Hellenic shock.  Instead, they seem more vulnerable today than ever.  So, what on earth is going on?  What is Mr Schauble really doing?  What plans is he trying to hatch?

As I have consistently argued, Greece will not be allowed to default before Germany first puts in place a decent plan for splitting Greece’s monetary system from that of the surplus countries.  But if I am right that such a plan cannot involve the mere expulsion of Greece from the euro, as it will kick off a chain reaction that will eventually knock France out for a sixer, before returning to Frankfurt and Berlin to haunt the ‘planners,’ the only logical conclusion that I can come to is that, behind all the talk of a German plan to contain a Greek default or to push Greece out of the euro, lies the groundwork for a pragmatic plan that sees Germany bailing itself out.  Such a plan would entail Germany rounding up countries it truly deems worthy of sharing its new currency with (the other three surplus countries of the existing eurozone, plus perhaps Poland, the Czech Republic, and even Estonia) and exiting in the most orderly manner possible; offering, for example, to the eurozone countries that will be left behind (fretting France in particular): a few gifts (e.g. Germany may choose to foot the bill for existing bailouts), an illusion of unity (e.g. suggesting that the new Germanic currency is also minted and administered by the European Central Bank – which will now be responsible for more than one currency at once), and some vague promises (of possible fusion of these currencies, once the ‘right’ discipline has been knocked into the hearts and minds of the undisciplined).

To sum up, when I hear that Germany is planning for a Greek exit for the eurozone, even for a Greek default, I immediately suspect that Germany is planning a controlled disintegration of the eurozone, and, at once, I fear that it will only manage to achieve an uncontrolled disintegration, whose end result will be massive recession in the European north and gargantuan stagflation in the European periphery.  Or, as the Bard might have said, ‘For in that sleep of debt what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this Greek coil, Must give us pause…’

Yanis Varoufakis teaches political economics at the University of Athens.  Visit his blog at http://yanisvaroufakis.eu/

© 2011 by Yanis Varoufakis.

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Tear Down the Firewalls

© By Birgitta Jonsdottir

I am born on a small island at the edge of the world with only 315,000 people sharing it with me.  My island has natural borders, with the roaring Atlantic Ocean creating a shield against the rest of the world.  That shield can cause an intense sense of cultural and personal claustrophobia.  Nepotism thrives and everything becomes predictable.  You are either related to everyone you meet or you and another know someone mutual intimately.  This can be a curse or a blessing, depending how you look at it.  I never really fit in the box people tried to put me in, and I felt increasing discomfort with the labels attached to me by my relatives and by perfect strangers who had heard something about me through the grapevine.  The only way out of this box — which had shaped itself around me much like the binding of feet to make them small or the placing of rings around a neck to make it long — was to hitch a ride on an iron bird.  And so I did.   I found the layers of expectations dissolve, and I discovered that I was not the person my environment had tried to make me believe I was.  After many years of experimenting with new countries, new people, and the unknown, I was ready to settle on my island, because I had discovered that I don’t belong to any one nation.  I am free to say, instead, that I belong to all of this planet — and that its borders are just an optical illusion.

One of the prime influences in shaping this view was my participation in co-creating the landscape of the new world online.  In 1995, I started working with the shapers and pioneers in the internet landscape in Iceland and beyond.  One of my passions was to merge creative spaces: music, poetry, and art all bleed well together in the multi-creative space of the internet.  But that was not enough.  After all, this was a new world, without borders and without limitations, other than the limitations of our imagination.  We could shape it with impossible ideas that became reality because likeminded people found each other, no matter where they happened to be located in the real world.  We could work together — trans-border, trans-culture, transgender, trans-party, trans-race.  It was a world of transparency, almost beyond duality.  It was as close to paradise as I could get in this human vessel.  It was almost spiritual; it was as if the collective consciousness had taken on tangible shape in a virtual world that was influencing the real world at an increased speed every day.  My dream was that this world we created with the free flow of ideas, information, and understanding could manifest itself outside the virtual.

The internet has given us the tools to empower ourselves in the real world, with knowledge beyond the cultural conditioning we acquire within our own culture.  The internet has given us the tools to work together beyond traditional borders, and it has allowed us to create real windows into the real world that reach far beyond our cultural beliefs about other countries.  However, this world beyond borders is now under serious threat, a threat that is growing at an alarming rate.  I have seen the development of the internet since its early visual stage.  I have seen how it can improve and enrich the quality of life with the free flow of information and expression.  I have also seen how those who hold the reigns of power in our world have discovered that the internet needs to be tamed, like the rest of the world, and brought under their control — to be industrialized in the same manner that other media have been brought under control by industry and the state.  My last hope of gathering momentum in stopping this development is through the free spirit within the wilderness of the internet — where the conditioning and the reigns of control have not been able to tame the free spirits who roam with the hackers’ manifesto singing in their hearts.

I have seen new stories and new myths emerge out of the language of the internet, where people speak together through Google and translate new languages; and I have seen the library of Alexandria materialize with free knowledge and torrents of information wash upon shores otherwise impossible to reach.  I have seen the alchemy of stories take on real shape in a collective online effort; and the truth seeped into the real world.  As the untouchables try to hide their secrets for the chosen few, those secrets keep spilling out in a whirlwind of letters in every digital corner of the world.  They sweep through the streets of Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, Tunisia, Greece, Iceland, Hungary, Libya, and the United States — confirming that the rumors are true: “corpocracy” is the new global empire, and it thrives in local corruption.

The internet has given people access to information that should remain in the public domain; yet it is a trending policy to make everything secret by default, without a consensus about the process of deciding what needs to be kept secret.  Transparency and open access to information are the only real pressures on governments to remain true democracies.  If you don’t have freedom of information and expression, you are not living in a democracy; rather it’s the rule of dictatorship with many heads.  Many people don’t realize that if we won’t have freedom of information online, we won’t have it offline.

The culture of free flow of information is still strong online, and every attempt to block, hinder, or erase information is met with increased creativity.  Yet those of us who care for freedom of information have to step-up our quest to remove the gags, tear down the firewalls, and dissolve the invisible filter borders.  The telecom companies have gained incredible power and tend to cave-in under government pressure, as we saw happen in Egypt in early 2011.  We also saw Amazon cave-in under political pressure and kick WikiLeaks off its cloud.  We have information refugees moving from one IP host to another and from one country to another, never knowing when the current IP host may be forced to kick them out.  Information refugees usually publish material that is critical of governments or corporations.  Corporation and specialized law-firms are trying to find the best country to serve as a medium to attack and gag journalists, writers, publishers, and the rest of the media. They have become so good at it that unwanted stories have vanished from the public domain.  Modern book-burnings occur every day in every library in the world by a click of a button.  Libel tourism, prior restraints, gag orders, out-of-court settlements, and tampering with our online historical records are altering our current history in real time and robbing us of the possibility to be informed about the activities of the most influential corporations and politicians in our world.  We have to do everything in our power to stop this development — through lawmaking and creative resistance.  The “Icelandic Modern Media Initiative” (IMMI) is an attempt to raise the standard and upgrade the current legal framework to strengthen freedom of information, speech, and expression in our world.

You can find more information about that initiative and its institution at http://immi.is.  There are many other organizations that resist and inspire, among them, EFF, WikiLeaks, Index on Censorship, and Avaaz — to name a few.  You can make a difference.  Be inspired!

Birgitta Jonsdottir is a member of the Icelandic parliament and chairman of the board of directors for the International Modern Media Institute.

© 2011 by Birgitta Jonsdottir.

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War on the Middle Class in America

© By Senator Bernie Sanders

Mr. President, there is a war going on in this country, and I am not referring to the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan.  I am talking about a war being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in this country against the working families of the United States of America, against the disappearing and shrinking middle class of our country.

The reality is many of the nation’s billionaires are on the warpath.  They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end, and apparently there is very little concern for our country or for the people of this country if it gets in the way of the accumulation of more and more wealth and more and more power.

Mr. President, in the year 2007, the top one percent of all income earners in the United States made 23.5% of all income.  That is apparently not enough.  The percentage of income going to the top one percent has nearly tripled since the 1970s.  In the mid-1970s, the top one percent earned about 8% of all income; in the 1980s, that figure jumped to 14%; in the late 1990s, that one percent earned about 19%.  And today, as the middle class collapses, the top one percent earns 23.5% of all income — more than the entire bottom 50 percent. Today, if you can believe it, the top one-tenth of one percent earns about 12 cents of every dollar earned in America.

We talk about a lot of things on the floor of the Senate, but somehow we forget to talk about the reality of who is winning in this economy and who is losing.  It is very clear to anyone who spends two minutes studying the issue that the people on top are doing extraordinarily well at the same time as the middle class is collapsing and poverty is increasing.  Many people out there are angry, and they are wondering what is happening to their own income, to their lives, to the lives of their kids.

If you can believe this, since between 1980 and 2005, 80% of all new income created in this country went to the top one percent — 80% of all new income! That is why people are wondering: What is going on in my life?  How come I am working longer hours for lower wages?  How come I am worrying about whether my kids will have as good a standard of living as I had?  From 1980 until 2005, 80% of all new income went to the top one percent.

After we bailed them out, Wall Street executives — the crooks whose actions resulted in the severe recession we are in right now; the people whose illegal, reckless actions have resulted in millions of Americans losing their jobs, their homes, and their savings — are now earning more money than they did before the bailout.  And while the middle class of this country collapses and the rich become much richer, the United States now has by far the most unequal distribution of income and wealth of any major country on Earth.

Mr. President, when we were in school, we used to read the textbooks which talked about the banana republics in Latin America.  We used to read the books about countries in which a handful of people owned and controlled most of the wealth of those countries.  Well, guess what?  That is exactly what is happening today in the United States. And apparently the only concern of some of the wealthiest people in this country is more and more wealth and more and more power — not all of them, by the way.  Not all of them.  There are many wealthy people in this country who understand that it is important is that all of us do well. And this is an issue — greed is an issue — we have to deal with.

In the midst of all of this growing income and wealth inequality in this country, we are now faced with the issue of what we do with the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003.  And if you can believe it, we have people here, many of my Republican colleagues, who tell us: ‘Oh, I am so concerned about our record-breaking deficit.  I am terribly concerned about a $13.7 trillion national debt.  I am terribly concerned about the debt we are going to be leaving to our kids and our grandchildren.  But wait a minute. It is very important that we give, over a 10-year period, $700 billion in tax breaks to the top two percent.’ Oh yeah, we are concerned about the debt, we are concerned about the deficit, but we are more concerned that millionaires — people who earn at least $1 million a year or more — get, on average, $100,000 a year in tax breaks.  So we have a $13.7 trillion national debt, and growing, we have growing income inequality — the top one percent earning more income than the bottom 50 percent — but the highest priority of many of my Republican colleagues is to make sure millionaires and billionaires get more tax breaks.  I think that is absurd.

But it is not only income tax rates that we are dealing with; it is the estate tax as well.  And let’s be clear.  While some of my friends want to eliminate completely the estate tax – which has been in existence in this country since 1916 — every nickel of those benefits will go to the top three-tenths of one percent. If we did as some of my friends would like — eliminate the estate tax completely — it would cost us $1 trillion in revenue over a 10-year period, with all of the benefits going to the top three-tenths of one percent.

So I am sure that in a little while my friends will come to the floor and say:  We are very concerned about the deficit, we are very concerned about the national debt, but do you know what we are more concerned about?  Giving huge tax breaks to the wealthiest people in this country.

Mr. President, the tax issue is just one part of what some of our wealthy friends want to see happen in this country.  The reality is that many of these folks want to bring the United States back to where we were in the 1920s, and they want to do their best to eliminate all traces of social legislation which working families fought tooth and nail to develop to bring a modicum of stability and security to their lives.

There are people out there — not all, but there are some — who want to privatize or completely eliminate Social Security.  They want to privatize or cut back substantially on Medicare.  Yes, if you are 75 years of age and you have no money, good luck to you getting your health insurance at an affordable cost from a private insurance company.  I am just sure there are all kinds of private insurance companies out there just delighted to take care of low-income seniors who are struggling with cancer or another disease.

Furthermore, there are corporate leaders out there, and many Members of Congress, who not only want to continue but to expand our disastrous trade policies.  My wife and I went shopping the other day — started our Christmas shopping — and we looked and we looked and virtually every consumer product that was out there in the stores was China, China, and China.  We seem to be a country in which we have a 51st State named China which is producing virtually all of the products we as Americans consume.

Our trade policy has resulted in the loss of millions of good-paying jobs as large corporations and CEOs have said: Why do I want to reinvest in America when I can go to countries where people are paid 50 or 75 cents an hour?  That is what I am going to do:  To heck with the working people of this country.  So not only are we saddled with this disastrous trade policy, but there are people who actually want to expand it.

While we struggle with a record-breaking deficit and a large national debt — caused by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, caused by tax breaks for the wealthy, caused by an unpaid-for Medicare Part-D prescription drug program, caused by the Wall Street bailout driving up the deficit, driving up the national debt — some people will say: ‘Oh my goodness, we have all those expenses, and then we have to give tax breaks to millionaires and billionaires, but we want to balance the budget. Gee, how are we going to do that?’

Obviously, we know how they are going to do that.  They are going to cut back on health care, they are going to cut back on education, they are going to cut back on child care, and they are going to cut back on ‘Pell programs.’* We just don’t have enough money for working families and nannies.  We are going to cut back on food stamps.  We are surely not going to expand unemployment compensation.  We have a higher priority, Mr. President:  We have got to, got to, got to give tax breaks to millionaires.  I mean, that is what this place is all about, isn’t it?  They fund the campaigns, so they get what is due them.

Amazingly enough, we have the CEOs on Wall Street and the large financial institutions that want to rescind or slow down many of the provisions — the very modest provisions — in the financial reform bill.  I voted for the financial reform bill, but I will tell you clearly that it did not go anywhere near far enough.  But it went too far for our Wall Street friends and their lobbyists, who are all over here. And for the hundreds of millions of dollars Wall Street spends on this place, they want to rescind, or slow down, some of the reforms.

These people want to cut back on the powers of the EPA and the Department of Energy so that Exxon-Mobil can remain the most profitable corporation in world history while oil and coal companies continue to pollute our air and our water.  Last year, Exxon-Mobil made $19 billion in profit.  Guess what?  They paid zero in taxes.  They got a $156 million refund from the IRS.  I guess that is not good enough.  We have to give the oil companies even more tax breaks.

So I think that is where we are.  We have to own up to it.  There is a war going on.  The middle class is struggling for existence, and they are taking on some of the wealthiest and most powerful forces in the world whose greed has no end. And if we don’t begin to stand together and start representing those families, there will not be a middle class in this country.

Bernie Sanders is a United States Senator (Independent) from Vermont.  Senator Sanders delivered the foregoing speech on the floor of the United States Senate on Tuesday, November 30, 2010.  The edited version appearing here is reprinted with permission.

© 2010 by Sen. Bernie Sanders.

* The U.S. Federal Pell Grant Program provides need-based grants to low-income undergraduate and certain post-baccalaureate students to promote access to postsecondary education.

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At Arm’s Length

© By Justine Ponomareff

“There is a completely blurred line between spectator and participant.” (Emily Haines of Metric)

As a society, we are removed from nature.  We watch it exist behind a glass wall or a television screen.  That’s what we are, a society of observers.  We are comfortable observing.  We go to the zoo, turn on the television, and sit amongst the audience.  We are content doing these things.  But when an animal shatters the image of pleasant obedience to which our society is so accustomed, shock ensues.  We are used to animals adhering to the limitations we set for them, and when these limitations are ignored, it becomes apparent that observing is not as harmless as we’d like to believe.

Quesero the Spanish bull made three attempts before managing to heave his half tonne body over the arena’s barrier, and then over a wire barrier and into the stands.  In a state of desperation he began to rampage through the crowd.  This was only three months ago during a ‘recortes’ in Northern Spain, an event that involves men getting as close to the bull as possible without getting harmed.  The stands were filled with thousands of spectators, many of whom were taunting and heckling the bull before he escaped.  The people who paid to see this display of bravado, who sat, watched, and cheered for every sad and confused pass Quesero made, were not expecting to be forced into a state of accountability.  Their jeering was replaced with sheer panic as the bull ran rampantly through the stands, injuring forty.  These people were not injured because this bull was vicious, but because they chose to support an event that confuses and torments bulls, making spectacles of them.  The crowd didn’t expect to become a spectacle themselves – an example of what can happen when animals have reached their breaking point.  Quesero was shot for doing what his instincts told him to — charging his tormentors, which in the confines of the arena would have earned him applause.

Only a month later, across the world in Japan, a dolphin named Kuru made her own desperate bid for freedom.  But she was not seeking the same sort of freedom as Quesero.  During a marine show the dolphin leapt out of her tank, landing on the floor in front of the rows of spectators.  It is fair to assume that a collective gasp and a sudden hush followed this unexpected occurrence; seeing a dolphin out of the water is to see them in their most vulnerable state, and it’s extremely unnerving.  In the wild, dolphins swim hundreds of miles in a single day.  In captivity they swim circles around a tiny tank and turn tricks for our delight.  They smile in that oh-so-sapient way because it’s what humans want.  They are such bright creatures, but it seems to be wasted on us.  We think that by clapping we are showing appreciation for their athleticism and grace; but the only way to honour beauty is to let it be.  And humans seem to find it so hard to just let the natural world be; we need to package it and put it on a pedestal.  And, to the audience’s relief, Kuru was rescued and put back on her pedestal — probably the last thing that she wanted.  We go to the marine show to see a beautiful animal flip, jump, spin, and, of course, smile.  But we don’t expect to see them deliberately leap out of the one thing that is keeping them alive. We don’t expect a dolphin to leave the water, the one thing separating us from them.  No distance between us and the entertainment, that’s what we really find unnerving.

These are just two recent examples of animals ignoring the restraints that humans cherish.  This has been happening for thousands of years, and with the invention of television, internet, and now YouTube, observing has become that much more convenient and private.  But if it is this uncomfortable to be placed in the unfamiliar and unfavorable role of participant, why are animals still used for entertainment?  Because we all want a show.  We want a show badly enough to ignore the ‘incidents’ that test our comfort levels and blur our boundaries.  To us, none of this is madness, it’s just something that happens, and then we’re onto the next thing.  It doesn’t matter what that thing may be, as long as we’re liking it we feel good.  Instant gratification and self-preservation: it’s when the two start conflicting that we suddenly start caring.  And, even then, it’s never our fault.  Instead, these incidents are the result of a ‘rogue’ animal who had abnormal or vicious tendencies.

Most of the time, it’s safe to poke and prod from a distance;  we came, we paid, we watched. It’s rare that we are forced into that state of accountability — rare enough that we can retain our sense of moral integrity.  But sometimes the whale pins their trainer to the bottom of the tank.  Sometimes the tiger mauls their tormentor.  Sometimes an angry bull rampages through a crowd.  Sometimes a circus elephant crumbles under the weight of a lifetime of abuse.  When these things happen, we witness the impact of the limitations we place on animals.  We may not be the matador, the trainer, the provoker, or the ringmaster, but we’re the ones condoning this exploitation.  Whether or not we choose to acknowledge it, the things we observe have consequences.

Justine Ponomareff is a writer and prospective student of journalism.

© 2010 by Justine Ponomareff.

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We all Live in One Big Disney World

© By Peter Berg

Why do people still drive all the way to Florida and visit Disney World when they can enjoy the same unreal theatre, called life, at home?  These are strange times and they are getting stranger by the day.

Mass media, politicians, economists, and businessmen are telling us that we are only in a temporary crisis.  Economic growth is just around the corner.  Meanwhile, governments all over the world borrow record amounts of money for which future generations will be on the hook.  Nobody states the ugly truth: this debt will never be paid back.  Instead, we start the printing press, so much so that even the famous Public Debt Clock in New York ran out of digits.  South of the border, they are now finding themselves in more than $13,500,000,000,000 of federal debt.  This is equivalent to about $40,000 for every citizen of the country but, more importantly, about $80,000 for every working citizen — never mind the personal, state, or municipal debts that need to be added to this figure.

Debts are a bet about future economic growth.  Without growth, default is looming.  Unfortunately, our species has exceeded the carrying capacity of the planet.  The Earth cannot sustain the rates of resource flows that we are demanding.  We have literally run up against the limits of our biosphere and, hence, the limits to growth. Our very monetary system predominantly based on virtual money rather than coins and notes, is at stake.  It is a very telling development that nobody, especially economists, has a clue any longer what is happening to our world.  Meanwhile, events are unfolding at an accelerating pace, often so surreal in nature that just five years ago we thought they were impossibilities.

Miscommunication and misinformation is adding to the sense of being at a loss, a feeling that many of us experience these days.  For example, a couple of months ago, it was announced that the U.S. Federal Reserve is buying government debts!  How is that even possible when the government is borrowing from the Federal Reserve (a conglomerate of twelve private banks) in the first place?  It must be imprecise bankers’ jargon, the validity of which is no longer questioned.  How can you buy something you are in turn owing to someone else?  A negative price?  Surely, they must mean that the Federal Reserve is issuing debts to the government, i.e. lending money.  Or else, as one person put it: “The only hope is that this debt chases itself in circles until it devours itself and disappears into nothingness!”  It all sounds a bit desperate to me.

It is a sad reality that there are no sufficient public funds to retire the baby boomers while we maintain the same standard of living.  And, no, substantial economic growth will not return, unless it comes in disguise, namely inflation.  Canada has avoided the most severe consequences of the global meltdown so far.  However, are we not following other nations into Lalaland when we place all our bets on an over-inflated housing market that enslaves people through 30-year mortgages?  Why should Canadian home prices not come down as the U.S. economy continues to struggle and the bailout money ends?  After all, it is just meant to be a stimulus — not more, not less.  If we do not start making stuff in this country again, how will we create true wealth?  It will certainly not be achieved by the new and so-called ‘creative class.’  Ph.D.s in psychology do not make any goods.

One might say that reality is what one observes and not what one is told.  As the first decade of the 21^st century is drawing to a close, we can observe the converging trends of global resource scarcity, population increase, and rising food prices.  The pressure on our planet is growing.  Despite of these developments, we prefer to watch celebrity news than to pay attention to a flooded Pakistan.  We cheer for UFC fighters, gladiators in a socio-economic system that is approaching its end of growth, and online gambling is being launched in Ontario.  In these times of crisis, the level of entertainment is reaching new lows while the distraction of the masses is reaching new highs.  Perhaps, the reason is that we want to be entertained and lied to, just like a child who wants Disney World to be true.

Dr. Peter Berg is an associate professor of physics at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology (UOIT) and director of its Energy and the Environment Program. He is currently writing a book on energy, the environment, and the economy in the 21^st century.

© 2010 by Peter Berg.

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Full-Body Airport Scanners:  Intrusive Surveillance and a False Sense of Security

© By Kate Hanni

On December 25, 2009, when the media reported on Umar Farouk Adbulmutallab’s attempt to detonate an explosive device aboard a Northwest airliner bound for Detroit, images of 9/11 were once again conjured up in the collective minds of Americans across the country.  More significant was the national groan from millions of air travelers who anxiously anticipated the next wave of invasive and ineffective security procedures to be implemented by the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

Since 9/11, the flying public has been subjected to myriad new rules as lines at security checkpoints have reached unbearable levels at many of the nation’s busiest airports. Air travelers have been subjected to supplemental gate pat-downs, the removal of shoes and belts, and restrictions on liquids and gels. Additionally, the TSA and security personnel abroad have touted the use of state-of-the-art x-ray machines and contraband detection methods.  Despite these so-called “advances” in airport security training and technology, no person or machine detected the explosives on Abdulmutallab’s person Christmas day, more than eight years after the most brazen and fatal airline hijacking in history.

Once again, federal officials are back to square one in the airport security arena, despite nearly a decade of effort and investing billions of dollars.  Now the TSA, backed by the federal government, believes that full-body scanners manufactured by Rapiscan hold the absolute answer to the world’s airport security woes.  And let’s not forget the ringing endorsement of these scanners by former Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff, as he put on his best Billy Maysesque performance for the weekly talk shows. It all sounds perfect. Does that mean that passengers nationwide can now breathe a collective sigh of relief?  Well, not quite.  It turns out that Chertoff failed to mention that he is a paid consultant for Rapiscan. Fortunately, he was exposed when CNN anchor Campbell Brown questioned him on the air, forcing him to disclose his financial relationship with the company.

Despite the government’s ironclad guarantee that full-body scanners are the answer, despite the fact that the TSA has already purchased 150 Rapiscan units and is poised to purchase 300 more at a cost of $76 million to the taxpayers, and despite Michael Chertoff’s assertion that these scanners are the pinnacle of airport security evolution, there is still no consensus that these machines are even capable of detecting explosives like the ones carried by Abdulmutallab.  When President Obama’s top counterterrorism aide, John Brennan, was asked on Meet the Press whether full-body scanners would have detected Abdulmutallab’s explosives, he responded, “I think it’s an unknown.” That’s hardly a ringing endorsement.  So, what this all means is that an “unknown” is providing the impetus for a $76 million shopping spree at the taxpayers’ expense?

Fortunately, there are several experts who believe there are simpler, less invasive and more cost effective solutions for early detection of airport security breaches.  Dr. Kenneth G. Furton, Professor of Chemistry at the International Forensic Research Institute at Florida International University is one such expert.  Dr. Furton has done extensive research on the reliability of canines in the detection of forensic specimens and is convinced that the use of canines as contraband detectors is a far more effective, and certainly less expensive, tactic for sniffing out (pardon the pun) explosive materials than the use of full-body scanners.  In a 2005 research article on the reliability of canine detection, published in The Canadian Journal of Police & Security Services, Dr. Furton made this assertion, “Overall, detector dogs still represent the state of the art in real-time detection of items of forensic interest. There will likely be no replacement for the use of detector dogs in the foreseeable future unless numerous compromises are made in terms of speed, accuracy, sensitivity, selectivity, reliability and mobility.”  Furthermore, Dr. Furton maintains that research has shown that canines have the ability to detect explosives in a far less intrusive manner than full-body scanners.

Despite extensive research to support his assertions, even Dr. Furton believes that there is not one end-all, be-all way to prevent terrorists from smuggling explosives on board commercial airliners. What’s best, he concludes, is a multi-layered approach to airport security that is efficient, accurate, cost effective and minimally invasive to passengers.  The Rapiscan full-body scanner displays none of those traits. In fact, though it can depict a person’s unclothed body with shocking detail (a virtual strip search), it is only capable of detecting objects within one-tenth of an inch of the skin on a human body. Translation: A terrorist who conceals explosives in a body cavity, crevice, adult diaper, feminine protection, or a myriad of other ways, will walk through a full-body scanner completely undetected.  Yet the TSA wants to order mass quantities of an invasive technology that sees the human body, but can’t see objects hidden in it.  And speaking of “invasive,” James Carafano, a homeland security expert at the Heritage Foundation assured the Washington Post that the scanners “cover up the dirty bits.”  Pardon our ignorance, Mr. Carafano, but wouldn’t a terrorist be likely to hide an explosive utilizing one of those “dirty bits” if s/he had that piece of information?

The bottom line in all of this is that despite the TSA’s rush to judgment, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to improving airport security and it is irresponsible of the government to freely spend tax payer money on new technology without research to support its effectiveness.  Moreover, Americans aren’t willing to be humiliated every time they fly, particularly if these scanners won’t even improve security.  If the flood of messages from FlyersRights.org’s members is any indication as to the general state of mind of the nation’s air travelers regarding the use of full-body scanners, then the airlines may need to brace themselves for a very lean 2010.

Kate Hanni is Executive Director of the “Coalition for Airline Passengers’ Bill of Rights” in the United States.  Visit that organization at:  www.flyersrights.org

This article was originally published in “U.S. News and World Report” and is republished here with the permission of its author.

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Twenty-one Observations on the Human Condition

© By John Arkelian

Illustrated by Linda Arkelian

(1)  Death by Taser?

In October 2007, Robert Dziekanski, a 40-year old immigrant who spoke only Polish, arrived at the Vancouver Airport after 24 hours in transit, expecting to be met by his mother.  Instead, he was met by neglect and indifference by airport staff who left the inexperienced traveler to his own devices for more than 10 hours — stranded in an area just shy of the main arrivals space.  Had the staff done their jobs, by being proactive and showing some initiative (not to mention compassion), they would have found a way to communicate with Mr. Dziekanski and to unite him with his mother, who had been waiting nearby.  Instead, he was overlooked, and he grew increasingly confused, frustrated, and emotionally agitated as the hours passed.  That’s when he was confronted by four RCMP officers who proceeded to taser him five times.  They shot him with darts carrying a painfully incapacitating electrical current, and they continued to do so again and again, even when he was writhing on the ground in agony.  And so he died.  It was an utterly unnecessary death, one that has left the credibility of the RCMP in tatters and the reputation of Canada badly tarnished.  Suggestions that one bedraggled man posed any danger at all to a quartet of armed policeman (even if he was brandishing a simple office stapler) are not borne out by the videotape evidence or by plain old common sense.  It’s clear that the police officers used excessive force.  The very least that should happen to them is an immediate end to their careers in law enforcement.  They should probably face criminal charges as well.  (Take your pick: perjury, assault causing death, obstruction of justice, and/or manslaughter.)  As for the infernal device that they so recklessly used on Mr. Dziekanski, the taser should either be withdrawn from service, or it should at least be immediately (and permanently) designated as a potentially lethal weapon, with its use narrowly restricted to those last-resort situations in which a police officer is lawfully entitled to discharge a firearm.

(2)  A Study in Grace Under Pressure

In November 2008, a CBC journalist was freed after spending a month in a dark hole in the ground as the captive of kidnappers in Afghanistan.  Her composure and modesty when she told her harrowing story in the days that followed her release made Melissa Fung a picture of serenity and grace.

(3)  A Turquoise Light in the Darkness

There’s other good news from Afghanistan, and it takes the form of a place called Turquoise Mountain.  It’s a school for adults that offers three-year courses in Afghan arts and crafts, things like woodworking, calligraphy, and ceramics.  (There were over 650 applicants for 33 places in its calligraphy program alone.)  Its raison d’etre is to create jobs, restore pride, and train self-sufficient artisans.  It seeks, in short, to make a difference on the ground — and to restore the old-quarter of Kabul into the bargain.  Canada is one of the supporters of Turquoise Mountain, donating $1 million over three years to its worthy work.  With unending reminders of violence, misogyny, and backwardness coming out of the benighted place we call Afghanistan, the positive contribution made by Turquoise Mountain shines like a beacon of hope in a morass of darkness.

(4)  A Tempest in a Constitutional Teacup

Remember the political fracas back in late November and early December 2008 that swirled around an impending vote of non-confidence and the cobbling together of a coalition of opposition parties intent on unseating the minority Conservative government in Ottawa?  It all started when Stephen Harper (and his fellow ideologue Jim Flaherty) seized an opportunity to do potentially lethal damage to their political opponents by announcing an abrupt end to the public funding on which opposition parties depend for their very existence.  It was partisan maliciousness writ large.  And it irresponsibly precipitated a domestic political crisis when the entire world was already in the grip of a financial calamity.  Two of the opposition parties, with the passive support of the third, found common cause and announced their intention to defeat the government in a confidence vote a few days later, with a view to taking its place as a coalition government that had the support of a majority of Members of Parliament.

The Conservatives responded with wild accusations that the opposition parties were engaged in some sort of coup, aiming to subvert democracy by supposedly overturning the result of the recent federal election.  Such assertions were baseless, insofar as they conveniently ignored the obvious fact that that same election had left the opposition parties, collectively, with a majority of the seats in Parliament.  But the fear-mongering didn’t end there; on the contrary, there were insidious suggestions that the proposed coalition government smacked of sedition or even treason.  Legally and constitutionally, that was sheer nonsense, of course.  But, it was dangerous nonsense that sought to deliberately mislead citizens (who ought to have known better) about the way our democratic system works.  Even the normally reliable CBC irresponsibly echoed the ‘constitutional crisis’ alarums that were so cynically sounded by the government.  One night’s special news coverage had anchorman Peter Mansbridge sitting in front of a graphic of angry storm clouds (atop Parliament Hill) that looked like a furious onslaught by forces of darkness straight out of Tolkien’s Mordor.

Prime Minister Harper took abuse of process a big step further when he went to Governor General Michaelle Jean to ask her to “prorogue” Parliament, that is, to temporarily suspend it for several weeks.  While our constitutional system permits a Prime Minister to do that, it has never before been done for the purpose of avoiding a confidence vote and thereby artificially propping-up a government that is about to lose such a vote.  So, the unelected Governor General met in secret with the head of a minority government and accepted his “advice” about proroguing Parliament, apparently without even imposing any conditions.  Talk about carte blanche!  One thing did proceed according to convention:  We never heard a peep from the Governor General herself on the matter.  It seems she’s a latter-day Oracle of Delphi, whom only the self-appointed High Priest can consult.

(5)  The Leaders We Deserve?

It’s said that people get the government (and leaders) they deserve.  If so, we must be a pretty reprehensible lot, given the manifold deficiencies in character, integrity, and vision of those we keep electing to public office.  It’s the rule of the petty philistines, people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing.  Consider the case of Stephen Harper.  Petulant, humorless, mean-spirited, narrowly partisan, and cold, he’s got a small condescending voice that sounds for all the world like that of an impatient misanthropist talking down to naughty children.  Should enough of us tire of him, who is likely to take his place?  Why, none other than Michael Ignatieff, who positively exudes an air of being ‘to the manor born.’  And why shouldn’t he?  He only deigned to return to Canada from his self-imposed exile of over 30 years in order to make a presumptuous bid for the highest office in the land.  And he’s well on his way, having been anointed leader of the Liberal Party without the inconvenience of even having to wage a leadership campaign.  A leading British newspaper, the Guardian, calls Ignatieff a “blowhard.”  Much more troubling is his lamentable track-record at Harvard as an apologist both for torture (he preferred the empty euphemism “coercive interrogation”) and for the Bushites’ war-under-false-pretenses in Iraq.  One would have thought that a track record like that, combined with his choice to spend most of his adult life outside of this country, should have dissuaded any sensible political party from crowning him as their leader, let alone doing so by acclamation.

It’s sad that the Liberals made such short work of their previous leader, Stephane Dion.  It’s true that he was short on charisma and came across awkwardly in English.  But he also conveyed intelligence and integrity.  And, how common are those qualities in politics?  Rightly or wrongly, Dion too often came across as ineffectual; but, more importantly, he also struck us as a decent man.  If only decency counted for more than superficial polish.  What was decidedly indecent were the vicious personal attacks to which Dion was subjected by Harper’s Conservatives from the moment he was elected leader and the anonymous disloyalty to which he was treated by members of his own party.

(6)  The Leaders They Deserve?

There was something disconcerting about the endless American Presidential campaign, something that left us asking, ‘Are these the best candidates they can come up with?’  When Barack Obama won that election on November 4, 2008, to an unseemly chorus of hosannas, he was at once hailed as a “transformational” President.  But, surely, that is hyperbolic and premature.  The fact is that he is a mostly unproven leader.  Yes, he is an eloquent, dignified, and, at times, inspirational speaker.  But, before he was elected, all of that inspiration came from style, not from substance or a record of achievement.  Could it be that Obama is a blank slate, onto which we are projecting our individual and collective hopes and yearnings?  He appealed to a widespread desire for “change,” but, really, how vague can you get?  And the near adulation that accompanied his candidacy and victory is troubling.  It’s bad enough that we bestow such adulation upon music stars, film stars, sports stars, and other so-called celebrities; it’s far worse to bestow it upon political leaders.  If they earn it, our leaders deserve our respect, but never our idolatry.

Much has been made of the fact that Americans elected their first black President.  It is cited as a great milestone, and, given the long legacy of racism, it does have a certain historical resonance.  On the other hand, while slavery and its hundred year aftermath of racial segregation and bigotry were terrible things, they ceased to be pervasive attributes of the United States years ago.  We would have come immeasurably further as a society if skin color were so irrelevant as to deserve no mention at all.  The color of someone’s skin is no reason to vote for or against them.  If we were truly color-blind, as we ought to be in such matters, we would not think skin tone was even worth mentioning.  Yet, in his victory speech, Obama declared that, “America is a place where all things are possible.”  That’s a commendable proposition as far as it goes, but not when he was seemingly citing his own election as evidence.  It smacks of hubris, when what we need most in our leaders are humility and compassion.

Credible sources have suggested that Obama very deliberately chose to run for President while he was still a relatively unknown commodity.  Had he put off his run for the highest office in the land, he’d have inevitably accumulated political baggage — simply by taking positions, one way or the other, on the controversial issues he’d encounter as a Senator.  Running for President sooner rather than later meant doing so before he’d acquired a longer track record on which he could be judged.  But, is that in the interests of the electorate?  Whether they are merely pragmatic or politically cynical, such machinations seem out of keeping with the idealism Obama seems to espouse.  GIven the choice between Obama and John McCain, it’s true that Obama was the more appealing candidate.  However, a free people should demand more from its election campaigns than bread and circuses.  We crave celebrity and spectacle, and we are mostly content to do without a thoughtful exchange of substantive ideas.  Those are not the attributes of a society that values its freedom and takes its democratic responsibilities seriously.

(7)  Bailing Out the Sinking Ship of State?

Ever since the financial crisis reared its ugly head last fall, we’ve been engaged in a staggeringly expensive bail-out.  In the case of the United States, the tally comes to many hundreds of billions of dollars.  Indeed, in the waning days of the Bush Administration, Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. was prancing about with buckets of money like a latter-day Daddy Warbucks.  (He even looked the part.)  Meanwhile, politicos, journalists, and the rest of us have blindly accepted the official bipartisan line — that doomsday was upon us and that no expense, however massive, could be spared in the attempt to extinguish the inferno with oceans of money.  Not enough voices asked if the doomsday scenario was real.  Not enough of us considered other potential options.  If so many financial institutions were teetering on the edge of the precipice, maybe we should have at least entertained the idea of letting them fail.  Instead of pouring public money into a bottomless pit, we might have rid ourselves of those businesses that were brought down by their own reckless greed and mismanagement and instead helped healthy new banks, insurers, and investment companies take their place.

If, after a sober analysis of all available options, we nevertheless chose to prop-up some or all of the falling dominos, our enormous commitment of public resources ought to have come with iron-clad conditions attached:  (1) There should have been a purge of the upper echelons of all of the affected companies.  Those responsible should have been dismissed — and without severance pay.  (2) There should have been vigorous prosecution of any criminality involving the reckless or negligent mismanagement of the financial assets of the affected companies.  (3) New laws should have criminalized the kinds of financial speculation by banks and other corporations that precipitated this crisis in the first place (a crisis that has ravaged the savings of countless ordinary men and women).  (4) New laws should have permanently prohibited executive bonuses and perks and established sharp reductions in executive compensation.  (When the head of one failed financial institution appeared before a U.S. Senate committee last fall, a question arose over many hundreds of millions of dollars the man received as remuneration in one year.  Was it $800 million or a “mere” $250 million?  It was theater of the absurd!  No one ‘deserves’ to make hundreds of millions of dollars, or, indeed, anything close to it — private sector or not!)  (5) There should have been (but wasn’t) a fool-proof guarantee of absolute transparency in the use of bail-out monies.  The question is:  Why didn’t governments — here, there, or anywhere — think of, and implement, these conditions before they opened the floodgates and let the torrents of money flow?

(8)  Running on Empty?

Canada and the United States have also committed hundreds of millions of dollars to saving the ailing automotive giants General Motors and Chrysler from imminent collapse.  It’s a huge expenditure of public monies, with no guarantee that it will succeed.  Yes, it would be a blow to lose the manufacturing and ancillary jobs represented by these one-time industrial behemoths.  But, it might be cheaper just to help the affected workers.  Besides, if the automotive industry bail-out doesn’t include iron-clad guarantees for the long-term protection of jobs (and it doesn’t!), then why bother?

(9)  Spending Our Way to Oblivion?

The government of the United States was operating with a budget deficit of $455 billion in 2008.  That means its expenditures exceeded its revenues by nearly a half-trillion dollars.  That deficit may reach $1 trillion this year.  Meanwhile, as of last fall, the U.S. government had a total debt of $10 trillion.  For any country, no matter how rich and powerful, to exceed its means by those staggering amounts is a sure recipe for disaster.  The United States’ indebtedness is out of control and that’s a clear and present danger to the security of that great nation and to the rest of the free world.  The fact that much of that debt is held by China, a totalitarian tyranny with an ideology that is implacably hostile to our way of life, makes the situation intolerably more dangerous.

(10)  Torture in America

The United States should prosecute all those responsible for torturing prisoners at home or abroad.  That’s hardly likely to happen, of course.  Although President Obama did authorize the release of documents which further documented the Bush Administration’s shameful readiness to indulge in such grotesque violations of human rights, Obama’s own record elsewhere is less commendable.  For one thing, he’s okay with “rendition,” the unlawful practice of transporting captives to a third country for torture there.  And, alas, he’s back-tracking on his promise to abolish the so-called “extraordinary tribunals” (which would more accurately be called kangaroo courts) set up by his predecessor to try some of the inmates at Guantanamo Bay.  Why is he back-tracking?  Well, for the nefariously pragmatic reason that the torture and other abuses suffered by those prisoners while in American custody would result in a real court excluding any “evidence” obtained through such improper denial of rights.  In short, they don’t have enough untainted evidence on most of these “suspects” to convict them in a fair trial; but, they don’t want to just let them go, either.

(11)  The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same…

With the United States, Great Britain, and (too few) other allies, Canada has been expending a great deal of blood and money in an effort to remake Afghanistan.  At last count, 120 Canadians have sacrificed their lives in the conflict there.  And, according to Parliament’s chief budget officer, the war there is costing Canada $6.5 million a day.  By 2011, it will have cost us $18.1 billion.  (Incidentally, that’s more than twice what was predicted; and Parliament has no effective oversight over that massive expenditure.)  Imagine the embarrassment, then, when our local allies on the ground, the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai, signed-off this spring on the “Shia Personal Status Law,” a mind-boggling bit of backwardness that would allow members of that country’s Shiite minority to rape their wives with impunity and prohibit Shiite women from working, traveling, getting an education, or even receiving medical care without their husbands’ permission.  And, in the event of a marriage break-up, only fathers or grandfathers would be eligible for custody!  It was an attempt to curry favor with the country’s Shiites (or, at least, Shiite males); and, it was reluctantly withdrawn for ‘further study’ by the Karzai government only when it attracted a chorus of condemnation in the West,  We should make it clear to the Karzai government (and to everyone else in Afghanistan) that our military and developmental assistance activities there are unalterably conditional upon their vigorous support for, and protection of, human rights.  Yet, puzzlingly, no one from our government threatened to withdraw our support if Afghan authorities failed to observe those basic tenets of civilized behavior.  We did not overtly make our continued presence in that country contingent on its government permanently withdrawing the odiously misogynistic new law, even though our parliamentarians did (correctly) describe that new law as “regressive,” “horrifying,” and “unacceptable.”

(12)  Troubles in Pakistan

Since 9/11, Pakistan has received $11 billion in U.S. aid; yet it remains an unreliable ally at best.  It has never managed (or really tried?) to close its porous border with Afghanistan, over which Taliban militants daily cross with impunity on their way to and from the ambushing of allied forces.  It has not apprehended the top Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders who are thought to be sheltering within its borders.  It has not closed the so-called ‘religious schools’ that indoctrinate the young with poisonous hatred.  It celebrates as a national hero a scientist who endangered all of us by transferring nuclear secrets and material to rogue states.  It tolerates the presence of Islamists in its powerful military intelligence service.  And it periodically tries to placate extremists by giving them free-rein in parts of the country.  The latter reckless practice backfired this spring.  Taliban militants were granted control over one territory (the Swat Valley) in exchange for peace.  They wasted no time in imposing harsh ‘sharia law,’ beheading opponents, publicly flogging women, and burning girls’ schools.  But that didn’t satisfy them for long, and they soon advanced beyond their designated zone into the neighboring Bruner District, a mere 100 kilometers from Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad.  Under pressure from Washington, Pakistan girded its loins and sent in its army, but not before thoughtful people the world over had to shudder at the prospect of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal falling into radical hands.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again:  The West ought to have taken whatever action was necessary to prevent Pakistan, and its next-door nemesis, India, from acquiring nuclear weapons.  With their track record of recurring conflict (they’ve fought three full-scale wars), and South Asia’s vulnerability to terrorist infiltration, it’s not a region where nuclear weapons can safely reside.  Belatedly taking corrective measures, by obliterating Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, will become an urgent necessity should radicals ever take control of that country.

(13)  Lawlessness on the High Seas

Piracy has become endemic off the coast of Somalia, in the busy shipping lanes of the Gulf of Aden (through which more than 20,000 ships pass each year) and across a million square miles of the Indian Ocean.  The toll Somali pirates are taking on commercial shipping far exceeds their resources; they usually operate in groups of ten, aboard small, but fast-moving, boats called skiffs.  Like terrorists, they provide an object lesson in “asymmetrical warfare,” in which a small, determined, and adaptable force can thwart a huge conventional one.  One commentator has said that we need “a more scrappy, street-fighting navy” to deal with this problem.  And, there are other options.  Why not, as another commentator has suggested, place small armed contingents of marines from allied countries aboard randomly selected merchant vessels and give them the mandate to use deadly force to repel borders?  That way, pirates would never know if their next intended prey was ready to fight back.  We can also make new international law, by arresting and prosecuting would-be pirates instead of merely seizing their weapons and releasing them.  And, in a constructive vein, we must do everything in our power to restore stability to Somalia and provide real opportunities for its long-suffering people.  That means putting an end to our plundering of its fish stocks and the despoiling of its waters with toxic wastes.  (By 2006, 700 foreign ships were vacuuming-up $100 million worth of fish from Somalia’s 3,300 km long coastline.)  But, if a judicious use of force to repel borders; substituting prosecutions for capture and release; and a genuine, concerted effort to rebuild that country do not suffice, the West needs to consider more aggressive measures, up to and including the systematic sinking by an allied fleet of every Somali ocean-going vessel in harbor or at sea.

(14)  Human Trafficking

The trafficking of human beings — usually for the purpose of enslaving young women as involuntary prostitutes — runs rampant in many places, including the supposedly civilized West.  This new slave trade was the subject of a recent documentary “Sex Slaves,” produced by investigative journalists from PBS’s “Frontline” and the CBC.  In too many places, apathy or corruption stays the hand of law enforcement agencies.  That has to change — urgently.  Human trafficking, that is, slavery, is an abomination that befouls our very notion of civilization.  Only one response to possible:  A concerted, implacable international effort to eradicate this evil and rescue its victims.

(15)  A Study in Civic Responsibility

It’s never wise to judge a book by its cover.  That goes for beauty pageant winners, too.  Nazanin Afshin-Jam, a former Miss Canada, has commendably become an activist for the rights of women and children in Iran, the country from which her father hails.  In April, Ms. Afshin-Jam boldly confronted the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad outside U.N. offices in Switzerland on the subject of torture.  (In the aftermath of the highly suspect Iranian election results in June 2009, he could as justly be questioned about the legitimacy of his own return to power.)  If only more of us would take up the responsibility of holding to account the oppressive and corrupt.

(16)  Lord Black of the Hoosegow

Why, oh why, does the National Post continue to give the better part of a full page to its erstwhile owner every Saturday?  Conrad Black is a convicted felon, serving time in a federal penitentiary; yet there he is each week, expounding on world events like nothing untoward had befallen him.  There’s even a photograph of the man, looking (to the right of course) like the lord of all he surveys.  At the very least, shouldn’t the newspaper insist on him appearing in a convict’s striped garb rather than a former media tycoon’s more costly apparel?  The weekly column’s presence in a major newspaper tacitly implies that we should forget Black’s criminality and disgrace.  He certainly thinks we should.  Every now and then, he opines on his present predicament:  “Readers will be aware that I am at the moment, technically a criminal in the United States, thanks to the perversities of the country’s justice system.”  Technically?  There’s nothing very “technical” about being tried, convicted, and sentenced — despite having the best legal talent that only money can buy.  (Why is it that white collar criminals so often seem able to field the best, and most expensive, defense teams, while their victims can almost never afford such high-priced help?)  But, Black does not seem inclined to meaningful self-reflection, humility, or remorse.  He says he’s “planning the relaunch of my career when this lengthy and tiresome persecution is over,” and he even casts his criminal behavior in a heroic mold:  “But someone has to resist the putrefaction of justice…  and if someone of my means doesn’t, then who will?”  It is long past time to retire Black’s column.  It’s not as though there aren’t lots of other qualified commentators ready and able to take his place.

(17)  Freedom from Fear

‘Putrefaction of justice’ is a term that would more aptly be applied to the on-going ordeal of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Aung San Suu Kyi.  Burma’s military dictatorship has had her under house arrest for years.  Now, they’re aiming to move her to other accommodations, namely a prison, through the expedient of trumped-up charges that she gave shelter to a foreigner who appeared at her door.  The cruel clique that tyrannizes Burma needs to be made ever more acutely aware of the utter revulsion with which they are regarded by the civilized world.  It’s enough to make one wax nostalgic for the now-discredited notion of regime change.

(18)  In Memory of the Brave Victims of Tiananmen

Ah, revulsion.  It’s a good word to describe how we feel about one of the Burmese dictatorship’s only friends — their fellow tyrants in China.  June 3rd was the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.  Lest we forget, it consisted of the brutal slaughter of unarmed civilian protesters who wanted nothing more than freedom.  The regime launched a battlefield assault on its own citizens — with tanks, assault rifles, and fixed bayonets.  As many as 3,000 unarmed civilians were brutally killed.  All that from the ruthless tyrants with whom we in the West are more than happy to do business — and to whom we’ve recklessly allowed ourselves to become heavily indebted.

(19)  Gangsta Culture?

While gang-related gunfights aren’t exactly commonplace on the streets of Toronto, the appalling fact is that they have occurred, sending a spray of bullets in all directions and too often claiming innocent bystanders (like 15-year old Jane Creba in 2005) as their victims.  Such violent free-for-alls look like something out of an ugly Holllywood movie about thugs and killers.  But there’s nothing make-believe about this violence, and its presence on our streets is intolerable.  What to do about it?  That’s where we need to muster the resolve to venture down a politically incorrect path.  It is all but taboo to discuss the minority status of criminal offenders, lest we set in motion such ills as racial profiling.  But, the trouble is that gun violence in Toronto seems to be disproportionately associated with young men who have close ties (apparently as first or second generation immigrants) to a particular part of the world.  Is that impression accurate?  If it is, then perhaps we need to consider the uncomfortable option of ending immigration from that part of the world.  Does that mean that everyone from that part of the world commits crimes?  Of course not!  Would a ban on immigration from that part of the world penalize everyone for the criminal misconduct of a few?  Unfortunately, yes.  But, might such selectivity in immigration choices nevertheless be justifiable in the name of preserving the safety and lives of Canadians?  Possibly, yes.  We already pick and choose who enters Canada.  Adding a new criterion, based on the higher incidence of violent criminal offenders who come here from particular parts of the world — if such a higher incidence of criminality is in fact borne out by statistical evidence — is no different from applying other standards as to who we’ll take a chance on and who we won’t.

(20)  Funny Money?

A man who used to be the highest ranking official in the land.  Another man claiming to represent powerful (mostly foreign) business interests.  Private meetings in hotel rooms in New York and Montreal.  Envelopes stuffed with thousand dollar bills.  Hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash changing hands without a paper trail.  Failure to report those monies to taxation authorities for several years.  Disputed claims as to the amounts paid and the services rendered.  Failure by one to reveal the existence of a business relationship with the other while being questioned on a matter involving other alleged dealings between the two.  What’s not “above board” about all of that?

(21)  The New Rajahs

Once upon a time, princes in India were known as rajahs, and their guiding principle was to take from the poor in order to give to themselves.  Well, today, too many politicians and senior bureaucrats in Britain and Canada have shamelessly taken up that princely mantle, determined, it seems, to spare us no outrage in improving their own lot at our expense.  Piracy, alas, isn’t confined to the coast of Somalia.  It’s alive and well and wearing a suit and tie right here in the West; while the notion of integrity seems to have been reduced to a laughing-stock by those we entrust with managing our public and private affairs.

This spring in Britain, scandal threatened to shake confidence in the very system of government itself, when it came to light that dozens of Members of Parliament were grossly abusing their privilege of claiming reimbursement of work-related expenses.  By mid-May, 80 of 646 legislators had been implicated, and the number continues to rise.  The list of private expenses which they brazenly billed to the public coffers is enough to make us shudder in outrage.  It includes:  X-rated movies, a bathtub plug, hanging plant baskets, cat food, toilet seats, horse manure, wine racks, rat poison, swimming pool maintenance, piano tuning, cleaning services (paid by the Prime Minister to his own brother!), a pizza cutter, chandeliers, dry rot repairs at a seaside holiday home, and repairs to a moat on a country estate!  One M.P. used taxpayers’ money to add an $88,750 extension to her flat so her brother could move in.  It’s a mind-boggling litany of selfishness, greed, and abuse of power.  Every M.P. implicated should be thrown out of office and prosecuted, though it’s not entirely clear whether, technically, they broke any laws!

There’s no reason to be smug on this side of the pond.  Last fall, a Toronto Star investigation documented high-priced travel by federal politicians and civil servants.  For example, former Agriculture Minister Chuck Strahl spent $84,000 on airfare and hotels for himself and eight aides to attend World Trade Organization talks in Switzerland.  Former Environment Minister John Baird gave Strahl a run for our money by blowing $61,000 on travel to Bali for a U.N. conference on climate change.  Baird’s own airfare for that trip cost us $10,920, though an Albertan cabinet minister spent only $3,200 to fly to the same conference.  Meanwhile, then Health Minister Tony Clement burned through $30,000 on a trip to Africa to deliver a $150,000 cheque to health clinics Canada is supporting there.  Although Clement flew economy, his two aides preferred executive class seats at $11,000 each.  Too bad they didn’t just mail the cheque.  There are more examples — lots more — of such reckless extravagance.  The truth is that it’s nothing new.  Politicians have long felt entitled to travel like princes, staying at posh five-star hotels and wining and dining themselves at our expense.  No one is suggesting that they should stay in dumps when they travel; but there is no need for them to stay in palaces, either.  Frankly, a Holiday Inn would do.  We should not be expected to pay for opulent travel, regal accommodations, or gourmet dining by men and women who are supposed to be working on our behalf.

Lately, this brand of grasping self-entitlement has come home to roost in Ontario, where senior staff at “eHealth Ontario,” the agency established to convert health records in this province into electronic format, have enriched themselves and a coterie of consultants.  Enormous salaries, self-approved bonuses, at least $2 million in untendered contracts given to cronies and associates, and huge bills for frivolous tasks tell us that there is indeed something rotten in the state of Ontario, too.  One consultant was paid the princely sum of $2,700 a day but still billed taxpayers $1.69 for her tea and $3.99 for her “Choco-Bite” snacks.  (And, by the way, why are we paying such outrageous sums for consultants instead of hiring staff to do the same work?)  Another consultant flew home to Edmonton 31 times in five months, at a cost (to us) of nearly $21,000.  Meanwhile, a former aide to Premier Dalton McGinty was paid $327 an hour to write to another aide.  In a triumph of understatement, McGinty conceded that he could “understand why people are upset.”  The agency’s CEO left in disgrace, but with severance pay worth $317,000, when she ought to have been fired for cause, without severance, and with a relentless impartial investigation into the unpardonably self-serving and irresponsible financial largesse bestowed by her agency upon its own senior staff and their friends.  If our elected representatives continue to acquiesce in such obvious misconduct, they are no better than the officials at ‘eHealth’ who seem to have been more concerned with enriching themselves and their friends than in serving the public interest.  Heads should be rolling (figuratively speaking) and charges should be being laid.  So why aren’t they?

John Arkelian is a former diplomat who represented Canada in London and Prague.  He is also a writer, lawyer, international affairs analyst, professor of media law, and editor-in-chief of Artsforum Magazine.

Linda Arkelian has danced with the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, as well as the Anna Wyman and Judith Marcuse dance companies.  She is a choreographer, teacher, and artist.

Text © 2009 by John Arkelian.
Illustrations © 2009 by Linda Arkelian.