Very Conservative Media Policies

Looking at John McCain in this campaign is enough to turn anyone who had any hope for their politicians into a total cynic. For decades, McCain carefully cultivated an image of a straight talking maverick. It had gotten him wide respect from the people and some fellow lawmakers. It had also gotten him rejection from his own party when it came to primaries. It is clear so far in this campaign that he has fallen in line with the powers of his party and employed the same tactics he had opposed for decades. Even his slogan-famous straight talk is no more. Right now he is more Stephen Harper then Straight Talk Express. Maybe this why Harper has to up his game and use his RCMP protection team to keep vetted reporters away from him and Conservative candidates around him. I cannot help but wonder what these people are hiding. In this time of reports famously not asking the tough and the real questions, politicians, in the right particularly, act as if they were con men facing 60 Minutes. But then, come to think of it, maybe that is precisely the case, and they are such con men that they are even afraid of the weakest pool of reporters in history.

It takes one...?

With all the bailouts from the U.S. in the last week or so, I have not seen or heard anyone on TV or radio or print questioning the credential of Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson as the one to lead the rescue and sit as the de facto CEO of the financial market. Before Paulson was appointed Treasury Secretary, he was the CEO of Goldman Sachs. One may be relieved that Goldman is one of the two investment banks that did not fail outright. It is still hard to overlook the fact that he was the head of investment banking, then COO, then CEO of one of the major players that caused this present market crisis. It is under his watch that the instruments that made such a horrific impact in the last few months was created. It is safe to say that if anyone should know the details of these instruments, Paulson is the one. So, even if we were to leave his culpability as the former head of Goldman Sachs out of the question, as the Treasure Secretary he should still understand the risk and the deceptive nature of these practises in the investment banks and acted to control them. For over two years Secretary Paulson did nothing to curtail these dangerous practises; in fact, he encouraged it. Now that the system he helped created crashed and is taking everyone with it, he proposes to have the U.S. government buy up all the bad debts and even the investment banks. This would make Paulson the King of the United Kingdom of investment banks and insurance companies. A promotion indeed. The question though is whether he is the right person for the job. His link to the institutions he is spending a lot of the government's money to save and his part in creating this crisis are serious questions on his qualifications. Should the con who set up the game be the one to save the world after the game almost destroy it? I am no so sure.

When Politicians Talks About the Fundamentals, We Are In Trouble

I forgot who said it but it is very true. When it comes down to dressing things up to make themselves look good, politicians in power are not picky—anything would do. 'Fundamentals' come up only when there is nothing at all good to say about the economy. So, when I see the economy campaign advertisement from Stephen Harper consists of nothing but “the fundamentals are strong” I really know we are in serious trouble. What are the fundamentals really? Most people probably do not know and that is why they like to use it. I am guessing that they are the growth of the Gross National Product, the health of the financial institutions, the level of unemployment, the financial health of the government, the relative strength of the currency, the inflation rate, the level of worker's wage, etc. There is no such thing as a bad economy with good fundamentals. A bad economy is one that has decreasing growth or even shrinkage on the GDP, reduced lending abilities from financial institutions, increase in unemployment levels, increase deficit from the government, devaluation of the currency, higher inflation, lower wages, etc. There is no such thing as sound fundamentals and miserable economic life. No wonder McCain got into such problem and had to redefine this most fundamental of economic terms. By redefining economic fundamentals as the workers (their continuous employment? Looking shakier and shakier. Their health? No employment no insurance. Their continuous existence? Well, no news of massive dying off yet, fingers crossed.), McCain is certainly challenging Bill Clinton (the meaning of 'is' and 'sex' for example) in who has greater impact on revolutionizing both the English language and the basic concepts in life.
While I do not support the candidacy of Stephen Harper, I am nonetheless praying (to whom? I am not sure) that he does not have to do the same bad semiotic magic as McCain. When they bring out 'fundamentals' they are wearing nothing but the last dirty loincloth, I really really do not want to see that gone. Otherwise, I may have to dig a bomb shelter and become a survivalist.

Oh, sorry dad, got something better to do...

In every election parties have a 'family value' ad that portrays their candidate as a family man/woman. In the last election, we saw Stephen Harper playing with his young children. And now, we are seeing him in an ad called 'Family is Everything' telling us about how he plays card games and go to the movies with his son despite his now teenage son's increasing reluctance. This is very nice, very 50's, very warm and fuzzy. Harper even looks the part, a little awkward, a little amateur-actor-ish. This sort of things must be useful or they wouldn't be bring it out every election. I am not sure though this has much relevance in an election. It is about value, they, particularly the parties on the right, would say. What kind of value it it? If we take the ads as the honest truth, we learn that the candidate love his family and want to do right by them. That is very nice indeed. But what does it have to do with being a prime minister or a president? It is safe to assume that all the candidates, and indeed most people with family, do love their family and want to do right by them. It would indeed be an insult to suggest otherwise without convincing evident. If we were Confucian and believe in a paternal political system, then this 'good-father-ness' is important. I would to think that we don't think about our elected officeholders as or want them to be, our fathers. We want them to work for us, not to feed us, to entertain us or to discipline us. If he is the best father on earth but useless as a politician, I have no use for him in office. If he is a good politician but is found wanting as a father, his paternal shortcomings are none of my business. To evaluate a Prime Minister, I have but one question, what is he/she going to do to/for our country as a whole. What kind of family he/she has, or even if he/she has a family, is not something I care about. But then we have trained to value the warm and fuzzy over the complexity of reasoning. Now that we have Harper's family ad, Dion's and Layton's can't be far behind, and we can just sit and watch some very lovely and comfortable wool being pulled over our eyes.

Elections again

Now that North America has officially entered into election season, I thought it is as good a time as any to reactivate this blog.

The U.S. Campaign so far looks interesting--not only is the Democratic Party presidential candidate a black man, but the Republican Party Vice Presidential Candidate is a woman. Of course, the novelty of these candidates is tempered by their white old running mates. Nonetheless, it is a lot more interesting to watch than the usual. Speaking of the usual, we too are speeding towards an election before the U.S. We trump the U.S. in number of parties and candidates, but, despite our often celebrated diversity, our candidates are as boring as they come. All three major parties are led by very familiar, very dull, very awkward and very white men. The only remotely interesting thing on the race front is that Jack Layton's wife is ethnically Chinese. Sure, I put the NDP alongside the Liberals and the Conservatives because I do like the NDP better than the others and not because they have a chance in hell to win or become the official opposition party in this election.

Beside the sameness in the appearances of our candidates, their styles of public speaking are equally uninspiring. Dion is a great example of writing skill does not necessarily translate into speaking skills. His open letters on Quebec sovereignty were eloquent and effective but when you hear him speak, in either English or French, there is no hint of that order and clarity, much less eloquence and effectiveness. By comparison, Harper is clear, but he seems to be unable or unwilling to two sentences together with any kind logic—it is extremely annoying to hear a speech consists only of slogans mascaraing as sentences. That leaves Layton who tries very hard to get any public forum to speak but when he gets it, he does not have very much to day. So, we have one who no one know what he is talking about, one who we can understand but offer no reason or argument, and one who say things but we forget it as soon as we hear it. This make me miss Chrétien—although we don't know what he was talking about, or made out a word, he looked like he meant it and was excited about it. This is what we have come to, we are looking back at style without substance as the good old days. Ah, only if we had just a little style so we could overlook the emptiness beneath. For that I eagerly wait for the U.S. campaign to really get going so I can watch it like a fashion show.