What The US Government Shutdown Really Shows

Last night, the US Government shut down all 'non-essential' services.  The reason?  Because a group of Republicans in the House of Representatives had a hissy fit over funding health care and tried to slam riders onto the budget legislation which would defund it, and the Senate refused to pass the amended legislation.

The end result?  A stalemate, and the wheels of government brought to an abrupt halt.

Republicans have been trying to block "Obamacare" since day one.  At the end of the day, they have lost at every turn.  It has been passed in both houses, their court challenges against it have failed and so on.

Practically speaking, what this shutdown really looks like is a hostage taking.  The far right in the House Republican majority have chosen to hold the funding of the US government's routine operations hostage to their demand to not fund "Obamacare" (more correctly the "Affordable Care Act" - ACA).

This is a highly manipulative, dishonest act on the part of the Republicans - and in particular the "Tea Party" rump.  The Tea Party followers seem to have decided that they can achieve their goals by being rigid, inflexible and dramatic - if not outright extremist - in their politics.

However, the bigger question that people should be asking is "who benefits from the Tea Party tactics?".  It certainly isn't the 50 million Americans who cannot access health care coverage today.  It certainly isn't the people who rely on the government services that are currently shut down or the employees of those services either.  Nor, from a political standpoint does it appear to be something which will ultimately benefit the Republicans or the Tea Party rump.

So ... who benefits?  ... and how do they benefit?

You need to look at the who is the money behind the Tea Party movement, and then try to understand how they benefit from the kind of disruption that the Tea Party is creating in US politics.    How do the very wealthy benefit from the current situation?  In several ways.  Some direct, some indirect.

While I don't necessarily think that the Koch brothers (for example) benefit directly by shutting down the US government, they do have something to gain.  First of all, the shenanigans going on in Washington serve as a powerful diversion of the American public's attention.  That creates a lot of opportunities for groups like Koch to move pieces around the chess board without being noticed.

One of the pieces that many people are likely overlooking is how Obamacare undermines the emerging corporate feudal state.  The current situation in the US makes health care a pivotal piece of how corporations can retain control over employees.  An employee who is covered by health insurance, but has a long term health condition (euphemistically called a "pre-existing condition") is in a very difficult place when it comes to changing jobs, or starting their own business.  Move to a smaller company that doesn't provide benefits coverage, and suddenly you are paying the full shot for premiums out of your salary - a non trivial amount.  Start your own company?  Likely as not, you won't have a lot of income for a year or two while getting it off the ground.  Suddenly, you find yourself in the place where you have no coverage and that pre-existing condition renders you either unable to get coverage at all, or with so many exceptions to what is covered that you are fundamentally hosed.

So ... what does that mean for the average employee?  They're stuck.  They can move between similar sized companies to some extent, but taking major steps in new directions is unlikely.  This gives the people at the top of the economic food chain effectively a feudal lord's control over their staff ... and it makes it much easier to exploit people by paying them less, reducing benefits or increasing hours of work.

In a similar vein, one has to only consider the utter lack of empathy that is exhibited by the extremists towards those who are struggling to survive.  Republicans have voted to strip funding from the Food Stamps program, now they are trying their best to kill off the biggest health care reform in decades.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but working actively to undermine the supports for those who are the most vulnerable demonstrates an almost pathological lack of empathy - one that is only surpassed by the seemingly endless greed that the mega corporations and their leadership seem to exhibit.

On Keystone XL ... Why?

I've generally stayed quiet on the subject of Keystone XL.  Not because I don't have opinions about the pipeline, or questions about it, but because the entire proposition has struck me as rather ridiculous from the outset.

Think about it for a moment.  Here we are, investing billions of dollars to extract bitumen from the oil sands projects in northern Alberta, and then we are just going to ship it off to refineries elsewhere to turn into usable products - refineries who will sell the final product back to Canada at very high prices, no doubt.

I'm sure that the analysts in TCPL who first dreamed up this pipeline project did all of the number crunching and determined that TCPL stands to make a handsome profit from moving all the raw (or minimally upgraded) bitumen down to Oklahoma for refining.

For the last year, we've been hearing how we get about half the price per barrel of crude out of the oilsands that is the published price on the world markets.  Shipping the raw material off to China seems equally short sighted to me.  Frankly, I just don't get it.  Why are we talking about shipping raw material out of country for processing?  It's not like Canada doesn't have the capability to build and operate refineries.

Perhaps more interesting is the sentiments in this article from Forbes.  It is, rightly asking why are we even bothering to build Keystone XL.

The tar sands are also a contentious issue within Canada (John Richardson, Esquire). Building a pipeline that takes the tar sand crude to the Canadian Pacific Coast is meeting fierce citizen resistance. The Canadian government is employing rather draconian tactics in squashing this opposition, including destroying scientists careers if they discuss scientific results that do not support the tar sands development (Thomas Homer-Dixon).  This is a different kind of cost to that country.

I’m not sure why Canada doesn’t just build refineries near the tar sands and then move the refined products to the coast where new port facilities would be built to handle the super-tankers from China. It would be a lot more lucrative for Canada in the long-run, and less environmentally risky. But it would require more up-front capital and construction and take a bit longer than using our refineries.

Ultimately, this asks the fundamental question that Canadians should have been asking a long time ago - namely why are we just selling the raw resources?  There has always been more money in refined product.  The argument that "there's already refinery capacity in the US" has never made sense to me.

Canada needs to look to its own future, and if that means insisting that we make investments in building the infrastructure to be able to manufacture refined product, then so be it.  If that angers "investors" from other countries, tough luck to them.  In the long run, Canada will be more prosperous if we look at doing things for ourselves, not just continuing to sell the raw resource materials to others to upgrade.

Keystone XL has become mired in political wrangling.  Frankly, I don't blame Obama for being unwilling to make a clear decision on the project.   No matter which way he goes, it's a political lose situation for him.  Kicking the ball down the field is probably the least damaging thing that he can do politically.

As time has gone on, I have become less and less thrilled with the idea of Keystone XL, or for that matter the Northern Gateway alternative.  Both of them continue the old pattern of Canada drawing the raw resources out of the ground and selling them, instead of making the end product.  The current rush to sell everything we have today seems foolhardy indeed - if the bitumen stays in the ground for a few years, it will still be there when we are able to extract and refine it into something more useful.

... and if it turns out we don't need it, so much the better.

Apparently, Big Daddy Doesn't Want GG To Talk

At all.

Canadians would think that even a pathologically mute government, whose relations with the country's surrogate head of state are tepid at best, could answer the question: Did President Barack Obama invite Governor-General Michaëlle Jean to Washington?

But no.

The Prime Minister's Office for three days has refused to respond to queries about a Saturday report published in several Ontario newspapers that the President, on his recent visit to Ottawa, invited Ms. Jean to the U.S. capital to talk about the politics and economy of her native Haiti.

Ms. Jean's spokeswoman, Marthe Blouin, who was quoted in the published reports as saying the President told the Governor-General he “would love to see her in Washington,” has since issued an e-mail statement saying: “I have nothing to say regarding the … article on Saturday.”

What is it with this lot of Conservatives? Harper seems to have such a limited repertoire of communication available to him that he can't even deal with a simple question - and worse, it appears that the PMO is insisting that the GG's office can't comment either!

Canadians have learned more about what happened when Obama came to Ottawa through the US press and the White House than we have from our own government.

This is disgraceful. Prime Minister Harper should be ashamed of himself. His disrespect for Canada, Canadians and our head of state is beyond appalling for a man who is the head of the sitting government.

Obama's First Week In Office

Well, if nothing else, Obama's made it quite plain in the last few days that whatever the "norm" used to be under Bush II, it is now over.

In ordering the shutdown of Guantanmo Bay, and stripping the CIA of their "black prisons" and 'torture tourism' programs, he has signalled that the United States is emerging from one of its darkest periods on the world stage.

Much of what Obama has done is really just the beginning of tearing down the secrecy and self-serving policies of Bush II / Cheney. I think that Bush II did more damage to the United States than anyone realizes yet. It will probably take Obama's first year to even begin the process of untangling the knots and disarming the booby traps that Bush II, and probably to a greater degree Cheney, created within the structure and operation of government. I hope that Obama will continue to repeal the various odious 'executive orders' and other rules that Bush II cooked up while sitting in the oval office which are destructive not only to the United States as a political power, but to its citizens as well.

If one thing became clear in the last 8 years it was that Bush II and Cheney were not - definitely not - open to the public about what they were doing. Nor did they have any respect for the fundamental principles of the rule of law and government openness. Obama has made it clear that he sees things quite differently.

While I do not expect to agree with everything that this president does, I have to give him credit for tackling some pretty odious issues head on within days of being sworn in.

(I see that the hand wringing over the disposal of the inmates at Guantanamo Bay has already begun. Of course, they only have half of the facts, and are completely ignoring this Presidential Order which is clearly intended to address that question in as reasonable way as possible.

What to do with the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay is not an easy question to answer - few of them can be charged with any crimes under US law. That means they should be released. However, there's good reason to believe that many of them have been badly mistreated while detained and interrogated. There is a very real possibility that the US finds itself 'holding a tiger by the tail' right now. Some of those detainees are going to go away quietly, but some will have become hardened in their hatred of the United States as a result of their treatment - they are apt as not to lash out and bite - hard. That is far from the last problem that these detainees present. Many of them are effectively homeless today. The countries that they called home deny their citizenship for fear of being accused of being complicit, if citizenship can even be established for them - far from an easily solved problem)

Reflections on Obama's Inauguration Speech

I wasn't going to say much about Obama's inauguration yesterday, however a regular reader sent me an e-mail that reflects on Obama's speech in a very Canadian context:

From Obama's inaugural speech comes the following statement;

"...To those who cling to power through corruption and deceit and the silencing of dissent, know that you are on the wrong side of history,..."

Although I'm sure that he wasn't specifically focussing on Harper you'd have to admit it pretty much nails Harper dead on.

.....corruption: examine the crooked scheme he used to funnel money to and from the various campaign headquarters during the 2006 election. Then he calls another election just before the inquiry into that, was due to start. The Chuck Cadman affair is another instance.

.....deceit: To many examples to list all, but one of the biggest ones is his twisting of the constitution and the lies that he very publicly spouted when the coalition was announced.

.....silencing of dissent: The direct control of every person in the Con party, the removal of people from jobs for daring to question him. (Think Garth Turner) The blackballing of oversight committees (Think of the firing of the lady that was in charge of the Nuclear Safety Committee when the medical isotope shortage happened). The removal of media from airports where the remains of Canadian Soldiers where being brought back.

Need I go on??

How Will Obama Influence Harper?

I think Lawrence Martin has some interesting points - in particular:

Although Stephen Harper is a conservative who is more at one with the Republican philosophy than Mr. Obama's, officials say the Prime Minister will be most accommodating with the new president. Given Mr. Obama's popularity, he can scarcely afford to be otherwise.

The real question is whether Obama's presence in the White House will sway Canadians in directions that lean away from Mr. Harper's desired direction. It's no secret that the Harper Conservatives are tied into the Bush Republicans in a 'joined at the hip' kind of way. High profile members of the Conservatives routinely attend Republican policy conventions and so on.

Certainly, in the short term, Mr. Harper has to tread somewhat cautiously where President-elect Obama is concerned. Nobody is really sure just how Obama will structure his government, or what is real stance on a lot of topics will be. Harper would be foolish indeed to act precipitously in a manner that could easily run afoul of Obama's direction.

That said, traditionally, even US Democrats tend be comparatively right-wing compared to what Canada will elect under the 'Conservative' banner. Obama may not be so different in his policies than Harper - perhaps somewhat less inclined towards the false glory of war, but I suspect the two may share more ideological ground than a lot of Canadians would like to see.

Regardless, Obama will be good for the United States. After 8 years of a regime I can only politely call nasty, Obama represents a more reasoned and thoughtful view of government. One that I can only hope will guide the US out of the quasi-imperialism of the Bush II era in a constructive and meaningful way.

How that will bend Harper remains to be seen. Harper hasn't shown himself to be willing to adapt to compromise to this point, whether the trade balance with the United States is a big enough lever to move Harper remains to be seen. (and, even if it does turn out to be effective, that isn't likely to change the destructiveness of Harper's policies within Canada)

The Politics of Hope Versus The Mendacity Of Stupid

For the first time in nearly a dozen years, a campaign based on something other than sliming the opponent actually won.

I won't spend a huge amount of time on Obama's victory right now, I merely want to recognize that for a change, the Rethuglican tactics of smearing opponents with lies and attack ads failed. I can only hope this marks the end of the ugly tactics favored by Karl Rove in both the United States and Canada.

The McCain/Palin ticket followed the Rove playbook almost slavishly - Palin in particular turned me off as soon as she started opening her mouth. Much of what she said on a variety of subjects was so obviously false as to be offensive. Political campaigns should be about character and ideas, not character assassination. I was glad to see Obama's victory last night be solid (338 electoral votes to McCain's 163) - even Bush's victory in 2004 wasn't as solid.

There Are Plots ... and Then There's Terminal Stupidity

It appears that the morons who were "plotting" to assassinate Obama are somewhat less than sophisticated thinkers.

Reading through some of the news article linked to above, it appears to be the juvenile meanderings of two people who had not grown much past grade 9.

In all, the two men whom officials describe as neo-Nazi skinheads planned to kill 88 people — 14 by beheading, according to documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

The spree, which initially targeted an unidentified predominantly African-American school, was to end with the two men driving toward Obama, "shooting at him from the windows," the court documents show.

"Both individuals stated they would dress in all white tuxedos and wear top hats during the assassination attempt," the court complaint states. "Both individuals further stated they knew they would and were willing to die during this attempt."

Ooooh - look at all the deep symbolism in there - and outside of a very small community, who'd notice? What morons. They couldn't even decide if they were plotting to assassinate Obama or commit mass murder.

Sheriffs' deputies in Crockett County, Tenn., arrested the two suspects — Daniel Cowart, 20, of Bells, Tenn., and Paul Schlesselman 18, of Helena-West Helena, Ark. — Oct. 22 on unspecified charges. "Once we arrested the defendants and suspected they had violated federal law, we immediately contacted federal authorities," said Crockett County Sheriff Troy Klyce.

Court records say Cowart and Schlesselman also bought nylon rope and ski masks to use in a robbery or home invasion to fund their spree, during which they allegedly planned to go from state to state and kill people. Agents said the skinheads did not identify the African-American school they were targeting by name.

Hmmm...lessee 18 and 20 years old, and such grandiose plans for the future. To judge from their actions, we aren't talking about the brightest tools in the shed, are we?

That said, I would not be surprised at all if others were plotting similar nastiness as well - there's been an unprecedented level of ugly in the current presidential campaign.