Alternatives to an Olympic Boycott

I have no idea if this would work, but it would absolutely send a message if it did. What if, for the duration of the Olympics, Canada legally changed its flag to incorporate the flag of Tibet (maybe put it in a corner). All our athletes would wear this, every time we won a medal everyone would see it. We could even get other countries in on this. It doesn't punish our athletes like a boycott would either.

Just one idea...

Corporate Censorship

What would you say if a large, bureaucratic organization forced an individual out his or her job for publishing material that some might find offensive? It seems that, for Mark Steyn, it depends on whether this organization is a private corporation or a government. Witness this from his column on the infamous Danish cartoons:

"Back in Jutland, the cartoonists had originally accepted the Muhammad assignment in order to test the boundaries of freedom of speech in Denmark. And they failed only insofar as the episode tested freedom's boundaries not in Denmark, where nobody has been prosecuted; nor in the U.S., where CNN's craven straddle artfully finessed the issue; nor in France, where the sole editor to publish the cartoons was subsequently fired by his boss, as is a private employer's right;"

Oh okay, so a private company can censor, got it. What about a government? Not so much:

"No, the Western jurisdiction in which the Danish cartoons have most comprehensively demonstrated the constraints on free expression is our own decayed dominion: only in Canada have the commissars of the state launched an official investigation for the alleged "crime" of publishing the cartoons."

Keep in mind that, as disagreeable as you may find the complaint against Levant, all Ezra had to do here was answer some questions, he has incurred no financial loss and, if anything, has greatly enhanced his public profile. This is Ezra's wardrobe malfunction. This French guy (who Steyn cannot even be bothered to name) lost his job over this. But, no big deal, that's an employer's right - to censorship.

If the government censors someone, that's a crime to Steyn, but if a private enterprise does this, that's okay. Wonderful, nice to see another right-wing champion of free speech in action.

Is it time?

There have been a few occasion where myself and other bloggers have called for the toppling of the Conservative government, but few of these calls has been as forceful or coherent as Scott's pair of posts on the matter (aided by JimBobby) in the last couple of days.

I think they're onto something here, particularly with the prisoner transfer. A couple of ministries in Harper's government have always been embarrassments. The reality though is that Harper could get away with that at, say, Environment because no one who really cared about the environment was voting for him anyway.

Now though, we see confusion and gross incompetence in one of the files that Harper seems to be really concerned about, the war. Steve's ideas about Canada being "back" on the world stage (where did we go?), his desire to improve US relations, and his general yearning for a "tough" image were all bound up in the Afghan file.

And his people have messed it up, botched a cover-up, and generally made fools of themselves. How his communications people aren't unemployed is beyond me.

Harper has now exposed a great deal of weakness on what was thought to be one of his most well-guarded flanks.

Self-Nullifying Views of Ezra Levant

Ezra Levant is a self-important, useless douchebag of a man who I would not hire to clean my toilet. According to Mike Brock this exercise of my free speech somehow imperils my free speech because free speech can do everything except criticize Ezra Levant:

"People can flagellate about Ezra Levant's ego and his "grand standing" for the camera. But they do so, at great disservice to the point he has made, no matter why he chooses to make it."

What? That's swell, it's the same logic that says that human rights commissions can clamp down on free speech. You are no better than that which you seek to criticize. I'm not working for your clampdown, Mike.

If Ezra's meaningless insults deserve praise, so do mine. You must laud me.

Is Harper out of touch with the military?

The new talking point about the cessation of Afghan prisoner transfers emanating from the PMO is that the government didn't know they had ended. For the past couple of months this had been an ongoing issue with Canada's role in Afghanistan. In this sort of situation, don't you think that someone in the government might want to phone up the military ask what's going on with prisoner transfers.

Is this government a secretive, partisan operation, or is it just unfathomably incompetent?

Five Priorities? More like one.

Scott Tribe has already made a pair of very thoughtful posts on the cessation of prisoner transfers to Afghan authorities. I think that his central assessment of this is correct, that Harper was making a political move more than anything. This is another piece of evidence that Harper has one priority - partisan gain.

How damaging were the stories of Canada turning over Afghans to be tortured? The culture of Afghanistan appears to have, among other elements, a sense of family and clan honour that appears to require that scores be settled. If Afghans thought that Canada was handing over their countrymen to be tortured, how many of them were inspired to give aid and comfort to the Taliban? What if we had loudly said, as soon as the issue came up, that ill-treatment was unacceptable, that prisoners dying in captivity was unacceptable, and that we would not be party to any such thing?

The problem though is that Stephen Harper is a man of priorities - and priority number one is partisan victory.

George Jonas Doesn't Understand Human Rights

It would appear that Jonas is attempting to make the case that the right be a racist is a human right:

"A human right is to be sovereign in one's legitimate sphere. A human right is to select whom to hire, promote, service or esteem. It's to decide with whom to associate. It's to have an opinion, silly as it may be. It's a human right to be an idiot."

In other words, those in the position to do the hiring are the ones who get rights, if you want a job though... not so much. But let's not make this about class warfare just yet. Is it really a human right to be an idiot? Should I have the right to set my own house on fire? I mean, if you believe in property rights, I should be allowed to be idiotic with my property, isn't that what Jonas is saying? So yeah, I should be allowed to set on fire a house or any other structures that I own free and clear. The problem is that if I do that I endanger all other residents in my community, someone will inevitably call the fire department and firefighters will probably also be put in danger.

I'm not much for authoritarianism and I really do think that people should be allowed to do things that I might think are stupid (go ahead, buy a Nickelback CD!) The most elementary problem with Jonas' logic is that he just cannot conceive of how allowing people to use racism etc. to drive their hiring practices doesn't hurt anyone.

Of course Jonas has the standard right wing corrective for all ills - the market!

"When left to their own devices in a free society, most will select whom to hire, promote, service or esteem on the basis of enlightened self-interest, not prejudice."

No. An example that avoids any politically-charged category might be what Malcolm Gladwell observed about CEOs in Blink: the average American CEO is significantly taller than the average American. It would seem that their stature goes into the mix of how hiring is decided upon even though I'm sure that no board of directors ever includes this as a conscious hiring category. In other words, even when we try to, we do not make merit the sole basis for employment or promotion. George Jonas lives in a fantasy world.

If we want to claim that we have society that provides equality of opportunity we should have something more than the market as evidence of this.

Mammoliti calls for Martial Law in Toronto

For those of you who don't follow Toronto politics, Giorgio Mammoliti is pretty much the worst of all possible councillors. A former NDPer-turned right-wing whacko, he hasn't seen an office expense he didn't enjoy (including a limo ride to nowhere).

In Mammoliti's latest exposition of his general vileness, he has proposed calling in the military to round up alleged gang members whilst dispensing with any kind of due process. Seriously, here's a sample:

"This idea of asking the federal government to help out came up awhile back. It’s not the first time I’ve been saying it. You know, it comes out of desperation, I think, in a community that has been promised by all three levels of government that the shooting will stop and governments are doing whatever they can to help. It’s been years and it’s not subsiding at all. It’s getting worse. It’s not getting better. It’s gang members that are doing it. They’re holding communities hostage. [People] are afraid to come out of their homes and they want something done immediately. This community, they would like to see these gang members taken off the streets and held indefinitely, if possible. The only people that have that authority are the federal government and the army quite frankly."

Meanwhile, the chief of police, Bill Blair has quite sensibly told Mammoliti to shut the hell up. The gang problem in Toronto is bad enough, but if New York City could survive without the army in the 1980s, then we can manage here.

What are we doing at the UN anyway?

Apparently Canada sponsored a resolution condemning human rights violations in Iran - and it passed. While this seems sensible in that most observers would tell you that, yes, there are rights violations in Iran, what is mind boggling though is how you set this in the context of how the Conservatives have treated other UN resolutions or other expressions of concern for human rights.

Canada would not place a simple phone call to support a death penalty resolution recently. This could not be done because our people at the UN were busy on other, unspecified, resolutions. Last year, Canada could not even get behind a resolution to investigate Israel's use of collective punishment in the Gaza Strip.

In the meantime, if you raise questions about Canada's own actions in Afghanistan, it's because you hate our troops. We are no better at home than we are abroad.

When Canada took a stand on an issue at the UN, there used to be some moral weight behind it - or at least the sense that we were an independent-minded agent. Now we appear to be useful idiots for the US and Israel. At home, when there were serious problems with our mistreatment of Somali prisoners we went to the trouble of a public inquiry. Now the government accuses critics of lacking patriotism.

What this does is drain all the credibility out of our efforts at the UN. When we now condemn Iran's government it appears to be less an exercise in legitimately criticizing the immoral actions of its government and more an effort to establish our bona fides with the US and Israel.

The Disappeared

I think we are in denial. I know I am in denial, because I'm not saying enough about this. We are fucking disappearing people in Afghanistan! What the hell? Were we satisfied that we nicely asked the government to look into it? Maybe, I don't know. We are losing everything that we built, our reputation as peacekeepers, as respecters of human rights. We are betraying it in Afghanistan for the sake of convenience and we are allowing such a thing to happen because those who support such policies will denounce us as unpatriotic if we do not.

What happens in a few years when Afghans come to us looking for their family members. Can't happen here you say? I'm not so sure. We are monsters if we let this continue with our knowledge. If we have to be complicit with a murderous, torturing regime we ought not to be in Afghanistan. If the Afghans want us, they can damn well get their shit together with regard to prisoner treatment.

Ghost Detainees

According to a report on CBC tonight there are at least 39 US-held detainees for which there is no accounting. These are people that were taken into custody by the CIA and who have simply vanished. Considering what we know is happening to prisoners we know about, what is happening to the ghosts? On what basis were these people snatched off the street?

Think about what happened to Maher Arar, a man whose friend's brother had signed a lease for some guys that were suspect, or something like that, he was sent to Syria. What is the utility of ghost detainees. I mean I'm sure that Al Qaeda or whoever they allegedly work for has noticed that they don't show up to meetings or call or write much any more. I'm sure that they can surmise that the CIA is one of the likeliest groups to have picked up their people. So it's not like this is some kind of security issue with protecting info from the bad guys.

And what about the people who are not bad guys, just in the wrong place at the wrong time? What legal protection do they have? None.

Disappearing people is a very dangerous sign and threat to any free society.

Et tu, Hugo?

There's something about Hugo Chavez that makes him a guilty pleasure. His speech at the UN that got all those Bushie noses out of joint? Classic. I like that he's serious about sharing Venezuela's oil wealth around a bit. That's something that I highly doubt his opponents would do. The alternative to him is very likely another Latin America oligarchy.

That said, I was more than a little concerned about Chavez's latest shut down of opposition media outlets. Larry Gambone posts a rebuttal on the topic in Sisyphus' comments section. I understand where Larry is coming from but I'm still leery of this new authoritarian lurch from Chavez.

Who are the "perverts" here?

Are they the gay activists who peacefully brought a petition to the mayor of Moscow requesting that they be allowed to hold a parade?

OR

Are they those in the leering mob who assaulted said activists as well as the police that beat up the activists and arrested them?

Can we just start calling the leader of Russia Czar Vladimir I?