Canada’s Debate

I’m working on re-skinning this blog, so its gonna look a little fugly for the next little while.

I know it’s been along time since I’ve made an appearance… I just had to come back and share some good news. Omi, a restaurant I spoke of nearly one year ago, has been reborn at Parliament and Carlton and I am atwitter at the prospect of enjoying a fine meal under John Lee’s careful supervision.

As for the site; I’ve changed jobs, bought a condo and moved in recently and I have a great deal of personal business to resolve. Once that is done however, this site will be relaunched. Stay tuned.

You throw a war, and a “popular resistance” shows up instead?

Recently I’ve seen a spate of news editorials, letters and blogs calling on Israel to show restraint when engaging in operations in Gaza. Good, fine. I agree that Israel’s policies in Gaza (and the West Bank) are terrible. They are largely designed to delay and weaken the Palestinian movement so that it is unable to secure an advantageous deal for peace in the future.

That being said, they are also designed to minimize Israeli casualties, and I think the great “letter writers” of the world are ignoring a few realities of the situation in their objections. Haroon Siddiqui always makes hay of the fact that the number of Gazans vs. Israeli’s killed always favours the Israelis… Well, yes. As I said, Israel treats the Palestinians poorly. Then again, so do the militants who use civilians as shields… It’s a fact that almost never gets reported, but Rocket Squads are frequently observed closely by adoring young well-wishers. Odds are, if you read about children being killed in an Israeli airstrike, and it didn’t happen in the middle of a dense residential area; they were cheering on the military targets from less than a stone’s throw away.

As Canadians (or Americans, or even some Europeans) we are accustomed to fighting war from a distance. The Palestinians are completely content to specifically target civilians, and use their own as body armour and cannon fodder; and we have the gall to suggest that only one side has lost its moral justification? That’s absurd. In the Israeli/Palestinian conflict there are no clean hands; no winners… only losers. And by claiming that one side’s attrocities are justified by desperation, religion or politics we just further enable the cycle of violence.

When it comes to cities Canada has some real gems, each with its own character. Montreal has it’s European charm and Bohemian Sensibility; Calgary has the Stampede and a “look what I made” sense of Pride; Vancouver has it’s scenic vistas and an attitude to match… Toronto?

As much as I love this city and think that it is truly one of the greatest places in the world to live, Toronto’s real character isn’t it’s diversity, or its food, or anything else along cultural lines; it’s the legacy of bad city planning. Honestly, I can’t think of a government anywhere that exerts so much effort to get so little done. Now, before you blame David Miller or our current crop of politicians, consider that the last time there was a unified and coherent effort to develop Toronto in a progressive way was during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Toronto saw a brief building renaissance during the 1960’s, but building two highways and a City Hall does not qualify as planning.

Honestly, what is the deal? A subway on Sheppard Avenue? Spending more money to bury a subway line that it cost to build? Selling a lot on some of the most valuable urban real-estate in the country for $3.8 million? Some might accuse the city of being more timid than anything else; but I don’t see that. I see an entire city incapable of planning for itself in the larger context of growth and development. Makes me seriously consider running for a Councilor’s seat. Considering my lackadaisical behaviour as a student, I’ll fit in perfectly…

I’ve stayed out of the latest Tory scandal (involving Chuck Cadman) because I’ve been somewhat underwhelmed by it all. When the news first broke I told my family that these sorts of deals happen all the time; the only thing that surprised me (and still does) is how apathetic Harper was in basically admitting it to the press. Tells me he just doesn’t care what people think of him, so long as they think he’s a Prime Minister.

But this story really infuriates me, and is a telling lesson of the true character of the Conservative party. I can’t remember the last time the Federal government issued such a mealy-mouthed and ineffectual response to a Canadian being sentenced to execution overseas.

Should I be surprised? Their defense of the kangaroo-court proceedings towards Arar is at least couched in the terms of due-process and fairness, but Saudi Arabia is hardly a bastion of balanced and fair jurisprudence. Harper and the Tories have clearly stated that defending Canadian citizens overseas is not their highest priority. Say what you will about the Liberals; they never directly put the immediate-lives of Canadians abroad on the back-burner for political or economic reasons.

It’s too fucking early.

That is all.

At least once a week I come across an editorial, blog or essay lamenting the death of the Middle Class. The Middle Class is “shrinking” or under pressure, etc.

I think it’s time as post-modern thinkers to accept facts; the Middle Class no longer exists because only vestigial traces of the manufacturing economy that it supported remain. As markets have expanded and manufacturing has become automated it is no longer labour which drives economic activity.

In the same way that the Agricultural Revolution allowed the societal elite to move away from labour and pursue non-agricultural efforts (religion, art, philosophy… the bedrocks of a culture-based society); the Industrial revolution allowed those who were skilled to turn their wealth into owned property, something only the elite had until the 18th century. Unfortunately, almost as soon as this started to happen, middle-class labourers started to purchase material goods which they had otherwise made themselves or gone without.

Well, the scale has finally tipped; the “Middle Class” no longer exists because labour is no longer a gateway to ownership, it is a gateway to consumption. With the decreasing value of consumer goods and the shrinking of labour pools widespread and consistent consumption is driving the economy almost exclusively. Home-ownership has skyrocketed, but it has been financed by debt and questionable practices. Owning four walls while borrowing money to pay for your groceries and clothes is indicative of an economy of consumption, not ownership. And so I give you the new Consumption Class. The “middle class” is still there; it’s just the at the centre of a new economy, and centuries-old labels no longer apply.

For once, a post that’s not about Warren Kinsella… although it does stem from a reader comment on his site.

but it suffers rather badly from something I see as a flaw with many Liberal ideas - too much emotion, not enough reason.

Ignoring for a moment the ambiguous use of the capital-L, lets consider this statement for a moment. What are liberal ideas? (The “L”iberal party’s only real idea is “stick to the middle and don’t do anything crazy”) I know how people like to talk about how “liberal” and “conservative” values have been transposed in recent centuries, and so on, but that’s bullshit. Liberalism always has been and always will be achieving the greatest liberty, for the greatest number, while Conservatism always has been, and always will be about having as little government intervention as possible. Sometimes these ideologies agree, but that’s the subject of another post.

What sticks to the roof of my mouth is this idea that “liberal” values are emotional, and “conservative values” are rational. I’ve heard this same sort of argument whenever I’ve challenged the doctrine that the free market is inherently more efficient than mixed-market or public-sector services, and various I’ve advanced similar ideas.

The fact is that all philosophy stems from an intuitive (read ‘emotional’) response, and then is developed through a rational thought process. Edmund Burke and Thomas Hobbes were both rational people who took emotional conceits (liberty can only be provided by the state; the French Revolution is democracy run amok) and developed political treatises which defined the Liberal and Conservative movements (”The Leviathan”, “Reflections on the Revolution in France.”)

Everyone believes their core beliefs to be rational. To a homeless guy wearing a tinfoil hat nothing could be less rational than leaving your brain undefended; our very self-awareness depends on our ability to not only reason, but rationalize. The arguments against Hate-speech laws are no more or less rational than those for them. The difference is the core values that underpin them: the Liberal quest to maximize freedom for all (90% freedom for three people is better than 100% freedom for one), or the Conservative ideal of “creating” freedom by restricting the individual as little as possible.

Personally, I choose the latter… And lets face it, I’m much more rational than your average Conservative.