Earth to Ralph...Earth to Ralph...

The arrogance of Ralph Klein came front and center yesterday during the leaders debate.

There's two things that really gall me in reviewing what happened in the leader's debate:

1. His complete disregard for the electoral process and what it means:

"My vision for health care is to have the best health-care system in Canada. How we achieve this is up to Albertans. My plan is to ask the people," Klein, seeking a fourth term, said. "Our plan is to continue the course we have set for the province.

Think on this phrase for a moment - "My plan is to ask the people". Isn't that part of the purpose of an election? I'm sorry, an election is not a symbolic coronation Mr. Klein. An election is all about telling the people what you intend to do as a government, and let the polls speak.

Your "public consultation" process is at best superficial, at worst, it is a way to exclude your opponents from public debate. I notice that the "what should we do with the surplus" results came out as a lovely set of statistics. Of course, there was no opportunity to debate the merits of each path, come to think of it the questions themselves were so badly loaded that I couldn't even find my position and beliefs represented at all! (My, some debate)

2. "I didn't mean to be insensitive"

Klein said he didn't mean to be insensitve, but stood by his promise to weed out anyone abusing the system, which pays those unable to work because of a disability a maximum of $850 a month.

Errm - Ralph - you were insensitive, and so far all the public has received from you are mealy-mouthed half apologies. Are you so cock-sure of yourself and your "perfect image" as a "man of the people" that you think you don't owe the public at large an apology?

I know it's standard neo-conservative dogma that everyone who accesses a government program must be abusing the system somehow or another.

The only thing that the Klein government appears to understand is numbers (it sure as heck isn't people):

He said his government used the royalties to pay off the $23-billion debt he inherited when he became premier, as well as invest in the infrastructure and sustainability funds.

Again, think on this - and consider the reality of governance includes a lot more than just paying bills. The "other side" of governance includes looking after the social balance sheet as well - making sure that the public is healthy, educated and safe.

Why do I say that ensuring the public health, education and safety is part of the government's job? Simple - the government depends on its population (ultimately) for its revenue stream. It isn't exactly difficult to get the notion that a healthy, educated population that feels safe is going to ultimately be more productive.

This isn't to say that the government has to own all aspects of those domains, but it is incumbent upon the government to make sure that these things are kept in balance. As the current furor over health care should make abundantly clear, throwing money at things is not always the correct answer. Investments need to be made (e.g. like replacing hospitals that have been demolished...), but also day to day issues in delivering and cost managing these areas need to also be undertaken. Health care must be readily accessible to the citizens, without a sudden illness driving the family into bankruptcy.

All of this requires planning and vision. What kind of vision is Ralph proposing? "Re-elect me on blind faith and I'll deign to consult with you" seems to be his platform. Can Alberta afford another 2-4 years of this buffoon?

Pride Goeth Before a Fall(ujah?)

I was listening to CBC's "As It Happens" program, and they were interviewing a US Army Sargent about the current attempt by the US forces to take over the city of Fallujah in Iraq.

From the Sargent's mouth comes the following gem of hubris: "These terrorists are facing the greatest military machine the world has ever seen". Followed by "The outcome is not in doubt, it is only a question of time"

Puhleeze! Give me a break. The American army is no doubt the most technologically advanced army of the day. But then again, look at the overwhelming differences between the Viet Cong and the US army of the 1960s. If technology wins wars, then Vietnam should have folded like a bad poker hand.

Don't misunderstand me - I respect the firepower at the hands of the US military - it is truly quite awesome. But it is the height of arrogance for anyone to believe that because they are "the biggest" that they will prevail.

It doesn't take a genius to see that there is far more going on in Iraq than just resistance in Fallujah. Cities are big - even a relatively small city like Fallujah has thousands of points of entry and exit - and those are just the obvious ones. The insurgents/terrorists/freedom fighters (pick your name for them) in Fallujah can no doubt come and go with far more ease than the Americans think. (Besides - just what does a terrorist look like?)

The troops on the ground in Fallujah are facing the most brutal, difficult type of combat possible - urban warfare. I wish them luck - they are going to need it to come home in one piece. Their political masters will have to answer for their own deeds in the fullness of time - and likely to whatever God they happen to worship eventually. (Given the wrathful God that many 'born-again' Christians like to reference, I'm not sure I'd want to be in their shoes at the time of reckoning...)

Fodder To Consider

Tomorrow, the leaders of the various parties that are running in Alberta will engage in a debate on the local Global TV affiliate.

Normally, debates like this can be rather interesting and revealing. They are among the few times that we get to hear the leaders express their visions for the future in terms of both policy and perspective.

While the leaders of the "second parties" (the Liberals, NDP and Alberta Alliance) have much to gain from being heard, the PCs have much to lose - especially if someone can get under Ralph's thin skin.

Notably, Ralph has recently tried to 'take the high road' in the campaign - which seems to mean saying as little as possible and hoping like heck that nobody notices. Notice in this article that Ralph is very careful to avoid talking about anything concrete (are political campaigns becoming like software functionality promises - vaporware? - cool - Ralph's standing on a vaporform...hopefully it's like Wile E. Coyote in the clouds...)

Seriously, I urge all Albertans to read the platforms of the different parties - critically, and carefully.

After spending a couple of hours reading the PC "platform" as expressed on their website, and the last couple of years listening to Ralph bully, badger and heckle his way through issues, I'm more than a little worried about 4 more years of this man running the province. The least we can do as Albertans is send back a serious opposition. (E.g. 20-30 seats or so - at least!)

Perhaps most worrisome about the PC platform is the talk about "what they've done", not what they intend to do. To be frank, I don't care what they've done in the past - other than providing fodder for guessing future behaviour, it's largely irrelevant when they are asking us (the voters) for a new mandate. Ralph needs a mandate - but he's not saying "what for" - think about it. The other parties all have platforms that look forward - I don't drive my car by my staring out the rear window while accelerating forward. "Ralph's Team" seems to be looking backward and saying "let us govern again - we did all this for you..." - I'm asking "what will you do next?" Ralph's silent on the subject...

I'm just about finished reading a book that my father pointed me to - "Alberta Politics Uncovered", by Mark Lisac. While it's clear that Lisac has his own axe to grind (as do the authors of most such books), he does an excellent job of making his assertions from a position of clear information. At $10.95, it's cheap reading, and should be mandatory for anyone who plans to vote in the upcoming Alberta provincial election.

An intriguing counter-balance emerges

The UN, and its predecessor League of Nations were based on two key assumptions. First, that "power" was defined in physical and military terms. Second, that more than one major power exists in the world, each acting as a counter balance to the other.

Today, we see ourselves looking at a world where the United States is the sole remaining 'superpower' state. This, along with the fracturing of other power blocs into small, bickering states that seldom agree on the time of day, much less how to counteract the overwhelming clout that the US has emerged with.

At first blush, this seems to be all too worrisome a prospect, and given the hawkish nature of the Whitehouse administration this past 4 years, those that worry about the rise of the American Empire seem well-justified.

However, America's heavy-handedness in the world has come at a price. The US Federal Deficit for the 2004 fiscal year threatens to approach $700 Billion (USD). Deficit at the end of a year rolls into a country's total foreign debt. Even the US, with its mammoth economy cannot afford to extend its international debt indefinitely.

China, now in possession of the world's fastest growing economy, may have just placed the world on notice that it intends to exercise its political clout. It has asked that the Iran "file" not be forwarded to the UN security council yet.

Now, one looks at China, and says - well, they're a developing nation; they have all these social problems etc. However, China has _MONEY_, and lots of it. Recent discussions around China's "Minmetals" state corporation purchasing Noranda, and apparently purchasing interests in Australia speak to a country with some serious cash to throw around.

In several dimensions, this is interesting. China allegedly holds a sizable chunk of the US deficit in the form of US Treasury Bills. The American government is in the position that sooner or later, someone is going to start using the debt held in foreign hands as a club for diplomatic maneuvers. Since few nations pose a serious military threat to the US, the only plausible threat that they will listen to is financial.

Can you imagine the conversation between the American State Department and a foreign Diplomat:

[SD]: If country xxxx doesn't put down its , we'll go in and remove that government.

[FD]: Ah, very good Mr. Secretary. I applaud your resolute desire to ensure the safety of the world.

[SD]: I'm glad you agree.

[FD]: But, if you invade country xxxx, we will be forced to call in $X billions in loans that we hold.

[SD]: You can't stop me from doing what I damn well please!

[FD]: Yes, but if your foreign debt is suddenly subject to demand repayment, where do you think you are going to find the funds to prosecute another war?

[SD]: The American Economy is strong, we can afford it.

[FD]: It might be strong, but the last several years have run up deficit and debt. That suggests an economy living beyond its means.

...


Perhaps, we are moving into an era where cash is the weapon of choice in foreign affairs, not nukes.

A Rising Dark Age ?

Recent events and patterns in the world have led me to start asking a question - is Western Society in the throes of a rising "Dark Age"?

The last "Dark Age" was nominally from the collapse of the Roman Empire through to the Renaissance. During this time, we lost touch with many great teachings; governance became capricious and corrupt; life, in general was short, mean and brutal. The wealthiest had all the money; and power tended to concentrate among the wealthy and spiritually powerful.

Consider the patterns in the world today:

a) The United States has just re-elected a man who has made no bones about his desire to involve the religion in the business of statecraft.

b) Advanced education is becoming progressively more and more expensive, and steadily becoming out of reach for many parts of our society.

c) Governments in Canada and the US have steadily been cutting back on their funding of education at all levels, from primary through to post-secondary.

d) The Bush administration has a track record of modifying scientific study results to suit their political agenda. (Rather than using science to guide their agenda, they have used their agenda to distort science) Consider two key cases - environment (Kyoto), and stem cell research.

e) World leaders (esp. Bush, but others as well), seem to downplay the importance of knowledge and wisdom.

f) A serious imbalance in the market economy is emerging. While consumer demand is dropping for items, the prices are not coming down. Instead, the prices are remaining static or even going up. One theory I have heard postulated is that the stock market (another 'free market' is pushing against the corporations for 'share earnings', and the result is that companies are keeping prices high in order to make their earnings targets.

g) The US economy appears to be headed for a serious decline in the next few years. Energy costs are rising, but the effects of that are not reflected in the 'consumer price index' that they use to measure inflation (see item f above). Consequently the 'Federal Reserve' seems to be blind to what's happening around it. The 'war economy' needed to sustain activity in Iraq is driven primarily by borrowed monies - sooner or later, the lenders are going to start calling their loans in.

h) Rising religious influence in politics. Western civilization is predicated on the notion of separating church and state from one another. Throughout the western world, there are major lobby groups taking center stage that claim that the moral compass of state has been lost because it is no longer guided by 'god's law' {whatever that means}.

i) Intellectual understanding and thought is being denigrated and replaced by emotionalism, fear and arbitrary responses. Some of the comments about Presidential candidate Kerry were rather revealing. He was constantly criticized for being 'too wordy', or 'too intellectual' for people to understand. There was a time when intellectual prowess was the mark of a potential leader - now it is a mark for derision?

j) Statistically, the gap between the wealthy and the poor is growing in our nations, with the middle class not only bearing a higher proportion of the 'public burden', but also being stretched ever thinner as a proportion of the population.

k) Health care is becoming more and more inaccessible unless you have a bank vault full of money. In the United States, there are all sorts of obstacles to accessing health care; in Canada, it seems that the funding is in a perpetual state of crisis. I suspect the pattern repeats elsewhere as well.

There are many pieces to this puzzle - far more than can be adequately explored in one entry in a blog. Mostly what I'm seeing are a number of patterns that individually are likely benign, but they are beginning to align in a way that portends the emergence of a shadow over our civilization. One in which the balances of the 'free market' system get overbalanced, and casts the economic life of our nations into quicksand; the concentration of wealth in the hands of a few will further concentrate political power in those same hands; the cost of advanced education is reaching a point where only the wealthy will be able to afford it.

The net result? A descent into a cultural environment where education is minimal; moral absolutism begins to prevail - for no better reason than it is simple to understand. The economic, legal and political power structures will continue to concentrate power in the hands of a very few.

Of course, this is all very speculative - the optimist in me likes to believe that human kind is capable of rising above these issues. The pessimist however, is far less sure of our collective commitment to doing so.

The groundhog saw his shadow...

It would seem that the groundhog saw his shadow when he poked up yesterday, and the world is doomed to another four years of mindless violence and pointless wars. Why? Just as leopards don't change their spots, I don't really expect GWB to change his blundering approach to foreign policy.

As I drove into work this morning, I found myself wondering why Kerry lost - it wasn't by a lot, so you can't assert that it was a "flip-flopper" message, nor do I think he "alienated" the voters by speaking too loftily.

My thought is that unlike Bush, who was eminently consistent in his message (like it or not), and was able to repeat it constantly in the face of both opposition, and supporters, the Kerry campaign seemed to flail around for a bit, and changed both direction and message a few times.

If Kerry had come out with a simple message like "You were lied to", and hammered at it constantly, he might have come out ahead in a few of the so-called swing states. I suspect that the inconsistent messages (and a less than definite plan for extricating America from Iraq) played against Kerry's overall success.

On the whole, I think Kerry did quite well, especially considering that he was far from the strongest candidate that the Democrats could have put forward.

Like it or not...

It all comes down to this day.

The last 6 months of sniping, attacking each other and trying to convince the public that the other candidate is 'more hopeless' than oneself culminate in voting today for the President of the United States.

Whether or not we like it, the votes of a few hundred million people today will impact the rest of the world for four years, and probably longer than that.

In one corner, George Bush stands pugilistic and defiant. Ready to swing at anything that he doesn't understand or wants to 'make an example of'.

In the other corner, John Kerry stands - what for nobody's sure, but he stands nonetheless.

I've never made any bones about it - I've not been impressed by Bush and his handlers - they strike me as a rather nasty bunch of people bent on success through subjugation. The whole Bush campaign has played on fear and misunderstanding of the world.

The Kerry campaign hasn't been much better - although at least Kerry gives me the impression that he might just think his actions through before jumping into something (like - say a war in Iraq). At the end of it all, I really don't know what Kerry stands for, only that he's the 'Not Bush' candidate.

Rather like the situation here in Alberta, I just plain don't like the incumbent candidates. For a variety of reasons, the stench of rot that comes from the intellectual gangrene that often seems to afflict those in power emenates equally strongly from both Washington and Edmonton these days.

Face it, America, you were lied to about Iraq. Iraq had nothing to do with WMD's, 9/11 or anything else that was put forth. In focusing on Iraq, your armies were distracted from the real threat - Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. (Who, it should be noted, popped up a few days ago on al Jazeera with still more threats.) So - how effective has Bush really been. From an outsider's perspective, he appears to have lost track of the original objective of going into Afghanistan, and left a key head player (bin Laden) free to do whatever he pleases. Is America safer for W's "War on Terror" - I think not.

Will Kerry be any better? No, probably not. But then again, Kerry starts with a relatively clean slate on the world stage. Just maybe he can involve enough other countries to help clean up the mess that is in Iraq. Remember, W's little war is costing billions of dollars each day, and each day of that excursion is adding to the US deficit (and debt). In investment banker's terms - what's the ROI? What is America gaining by prosecuting war in Iraq? Do the rewards make up for the cost? Can you afford that cost? (Can your children??)

Kerry sounds like a hard-core protectionist - a man whose idea of free trade is likely to be even less accomodating than Bush's approach to the subject. Canada and Mexico in particular stand to bear the brunt of his economic policy, and yet certainly the majority of Canadians seem to be firmly behind Kerry - mostly as a reaction to Bush and his pugilistic approach to the world, I suspect.

This election feels a bit like Groundhog day in February. It's either an early spring, or four more years of W, and the shadows of his ill-conceived 'War on Terror'.

Whatever happens, I wish the world luck today, for its future is being decided by a mere few hundred million in one country.