In Other Election News...

Holy Crap, HAMAS WON.

The Islamic fundamentalist group Hamas, which has said it favors the destruction of Israel, won a landslide victory in Palestinian legislative elections, securing 76 seats in the 132-member legislature, officials said Thursday.

The preliminary results showed Fatah, which has held power since the creation of the Palestinian Authority, garnered only 43 seats, dramatically shifting the political landscape in the volatile region.

The 13 remaining seats went to smaller parties and independents.

Even before results were announced, the outcome was apparent. "We have lost the elections; Hamas has won," Saeb Erakat, a Palestinian lawmaker with Fatah, said early Thursday.

So, um, hooray for democracy?

Needless to say, this is not good news for Israel, or for those in the region who want the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians resolved. Check out Israel's reaction:

Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel could not accept a situation in which Hamas in its current configuration -- committed to the destruction of Israel -- was a part of the Palestinian Authority.

"I will not negotiate with a government that does not meet its most basic obligations -- to fight terrorism. We are prepared to assist the Palestinians and [Palestinian President Abbas] very much but they must meet their commitments," Olmert said, according to a statement released by his office.

The problem, though, is that while this is excellent rhetoric, I wonder whether Olmert will be able to follow through with it. Is Israel going to cut ties altogether? How will they administer the occupied territories?

Yet, there is perhaps some good news: as seen in this related story, "for the first time, the overwhelming majority of Palestinians oppose violent attacks against Israelis". So it may well be that Hamas will be forced to moderate, if it wants to retain the power that it has finally won.

Canadian Election

Stephen Harper wins, with (as of right now) about 121 seats to Paul Martin's 105. Not the results he was expecting-he was expecting a much stronger minority, or even a majority-but he still won, nonetheless.

Yet it's important to remember in the coming months that this does not really show a wide swing to the right in Canadian political culture. Harper won by, essentially, painting himself as a progressive. He acted like a "middle-class guy", his GST cut prediction was actually progressive, and he soft-pedaled his conservatism.

When a majority or a strong minority was in the cards, the possibility existed that he would drag the country to the right, or reflected a move to the right. Neither is likely now, as instead he'll be focusing on those issues (like the GST cut, and increased provincial power) that appeals to parties like the NDP and Bloc Quebecois.

Instead, this election was really a combination of two factors: the internal rift in the Liberal party (which led to the Martin faction believing that they would escape blame for the Chretien faction's failings) and a dismal campaign by the Liberals, rooted in a lack of clarity as to what, if anything, the party truly stands for.

(That's the flipside of the "scary Harper" concept- he stands for something that Canadians aren't necessarily fond of, but they'll take that over a party that seems to believe in nothing.)

Martin is done as leader- the Liberal party is now embroiled in what will probably be the most important and contentious leadership race in decades. The key question a leader needs to answer is what the Liberal party is all about: and, if it decides that it is rooted in small "l" liberalism, what that truly means.

I have my own opinions on that, but they'll come later. Right now, the important thing is that the party that could, potentially, embody liberalism in North America is about to redefine itself. Time will tell as to what that means.

Others on Ebert

Ebert's comments started a firestorm of controversy: I thought that I should link to the latest iteration here. Others cited Shadow of the Colossus as the best example, although others brought up games with recognizably mature storylines, like Planescape: Torment. Torment is a trickier case: the integration of form and function is (to a certain extent) limited by technical requirements and its adherence to the Dungeons and Dragons ruleset. In terms of strong narratives that integrate gameplay, however, it's a classic.

As for SotC, people brought up the tragic mood that is carefully cultivated whenever the main character succeeds in scaling and killing one of the colossi, but doesn't get into the broader themes in the game. That's understandable, as nobody truly understand what SotC is really about until the final moment of the final scene, which is one of the main reasons I'm so reluctant to discuss it.

(If you do read this, Mr. Ebert, I'd be more than happy to get into greater detail in an email.)

Another "Ebert on Gaming" Piece

I have little hope of actually ending up on the man's radar, but I figured that i would once again respond to Roger Ebert's take on the idea of video games as art.

Q. I was saddened to read that you consider video games an inherently inferior medium to film and literature, despite your admitted lack of familiarity with the great works of the medium. This strikes me as especially perplexing, given how receptive you have been in the past to other oft-maligned media such as comic books and animation. Was not film itself once a new field of art? Did it not also take decades for its academic respectability to be recognized?

There are already countless serious studies on game theory and criticism available, including Mark S. Meadows' Pause & Effect: The Art of Interactive Narrative, Nick Montfort's Twisty Little Passages: An Approach to Interactive Fiction, Noah Wardrip-Fruin and Pat Harrigan's First Person: New Media as Story, Performance, and Game, and Mark J.P. Wolf's The Medium of the Video Game, to name a few.

I hold out hope that you will take the time to broaden your experience with games beyond the trashy, artless "adaptations" that pollute our movie theaters, and let you discover the true wonder of this emerging medium, just as you have so passionately helped me to appreciate the greatness of many wonderful films.

Andrew Davis, St. Cloud, Minn.

A. Yours is the most civil of countless messages I have received after writing that I did indeed consider video games inherently inferior to film and literature. There is a structural reason for that: Video games by their nature require player choices, which is the opposite of the strategy of serious film and literature, which requires authorial control.

I am prepared to believe that video games can be elegant, subtle, sophisticated, challenging and visually wonderful. But I believe the nature of the medium prevents it from moving beyond craftsmanship to the stature of art. To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers. That a game can aspire to artistic importance as a visual experience, I accept. But for most gamers, video games represent a loss of those precious hours we have available to make ourselves more cultured, civilized and empathetic.

Again, I hold no illusions about the volume of readers that I command vs. Mr. Ebert, but I already cited a few examples:Shadow of the Colossus, and Fahrenheit, as examples of games-as-art.

(Even if the ending of the latter was somewhat disappointing, the basic concept of playing hunter-and-hunted was still brilliant and well executed.)

The question I'd put to Ebert is: is architecture art?

Yes?

No?

It's important. Architecture combines two elements: the visual, aesthetic element, and the utilitarian element. Architecture that is aggressively useless isn't in any way better art than architecture that elegantly combines form and function. Far from it, it's the effective combination of the two that makes it what it is. If the form and function seamlessly integrate, it's great architecture.

(It's much like comics, where the art lies not in the text or the visuals, but the interaction and tension between them.)

Ebert is complaining, essentially, that people must interact with the game- but in that it is no different than architecture. The architect must take into account the fact that it is to be used for something. So must the game designer. The advantage a game designer has is that he controls the experience- he can create the game so that interacting with the thing he has built in and of itself serves to create or intensify the ideas, moods, and themes that he is trying to express.

It is like that piano performance piece where the pianist sits down, prepares to play, and then sits in silence for a time, before explaining to the audience that their own reaction was the performance. It's like a play with audience participation. It's like any number of guerilla "performance pieces". Only the medium is different.

For an example, I'll go again to Fahrenheit, an aggressively cinematic game, at least in terms of presentation. One of the key themes of the game is inevitability; one of the key moods that of ambivalence. Both of these are served by the game's twinned protagonists, where the killer (that the player controls) is trying to avoid leaving clues for the detectives (that the player also controls).

The player quickly learns that whatever clues they leave behind will be picked up. They are held by the tension between these two roles: if they leave too much, they will be caught, and the central mystery remains unsolved; wheras if they leave too little, their task as detectives becomes difficult to the point of impossibility. All the protagonists are sympathetic characters, particularly the detectives- the player cannot (and, thanks to the sympathetic characterization, almost certainly wouldn't want to) leave them high and dry.

A player in a game quickly grows to think of his avatar as an extension of himself; by exploiting this to have the player see two opposing forces as these extensions, they destabilize the boundary between Self and Other; between Us and Them.

The game thus does something that is extremely difficult, if not impossible in movies. It takes gaming's matchless empathy between character and player and uses it to do the difficult task of making them empathize with all the players in the drama, rather than one.

Ebert asks how a game can make you "cultured, civilized, and empathetic"? To misquote Alan Rickman, I give you Fahrenheit. All the world is a stage: empathy with other avatars is a step towards empathy towards other people.

(And I haven't even got into Shadow of the Colossus. I can't, because readers may well have never played it and it relies on an element of surprise, but it is perhaps the best example of a game where everything, and I mean everything, about it serves the artistic purpose of its creators.)

Oh, and one other thing, Mr. Ebert: Despite what Professor Bordwell told you, the vast, vast majority of games do not require anything near 100 hours to master. For that matter, the vast, vast majority of books do not require 3-5 hours to read. Shadow of the Colossus takes, on average, maybe 10-12 hours, and I got more out of those 10 hours than hundreds of hours of movies I've seen, and tens of thousands of hours of television.

(Might I suggest, next time, that you ask the young fellow Bordwell is supervising about it? The one actually making the comparison?)

Regeneration

Returning to the Canadian election, it's almost surprising to discover how quickly Stephen Harper's Conservatives have been eclipsing Paul Martin's Liberals- whereas before the holidays people were musing about a weak Liberal minority, today the numbers seem to indicate that Harper may well win a majority. This is odd, considering that Harper's success seems tied to what are, essentially, progressive policy promises: he's going to cut the Goods and Services Tax (the GST) by 2%, he'll (for all intents and purposes) replace the old "baby bonus" where parents get cash each month for their kids, and a series of carefully-targeted income tax cuts. There are lots of non-progressive elements to his platform, of course, but there's nothing as retrogressive as in the previous policy platforms he's advocated.

Yet, as most Canadians are no doubt aware, it's extraordinarily unlikely that he has himself become in any way "liberal", or even really moderate. He has carefully constructed a bland inoffensive persona, but there is a world of difference between that and his true opinions. The controversial attack ads by the Liberals that quote his old attacks on Canada as being "socialist, in the worst sense of the word" speak to this, and are clearly intended to remind people that despite the progressive policies, he isn't one himself.

Yet, it isn't working, not really. People are so distrustful of the Liberals that they won't believe that the quotations are real, and not pulled out of context; they see the bland persona and match it with the quotes and come out in favor of the persona.

Also, the media's reaction has been odd too: while they used to be somewhat hostile to the Conservatives and the old Reform party that still makes up the majority of their members, now they're almost embarrassingly friendly, and astonishingly hostile to the Liberal party, considering their past positions. Even the publicly-funded CBC has moved in this direction, despite the zealous free-marketeer Harper being the worst possible person to control the purse strings of a public broadcaster. Forget strategic calculation on behalf of the CBC, the very fact that they're public employees should incline them to skepticism of Harper's libertarian mantras, yet that hasn't happened.

Why?

Because of the myth of the "time out".

It seems that everybody in Canada, media and public alike, wants something like the Liberal party to be running the show. The Conservatives' current policies read like something Martin would draft in the 1990's. They're angry and fed up with the perceived corruption of the Liberal party, and the factionalism within the party- that underpins Martin's unspoken "I was shut out because Chretien hated me" defense of his non-involvement in the sponsorship scandal- is either forgotten or ignored. They believe that the Liberal party has been in power too long, and needs a "time out". Like a willful child, they should be sent to the corner for a little while to calm down and think things through, so they can come back and be a better party.

The problem? If the Liberals lose, I truly doubt that anything like this is going to happen. The Conservatives will do whatever they can to cement their hold on the country- they're essentially Bush republicans without a drawl, and we've seen the games that Republicans will play in order to retain power. There's no guarantee that the Liberal party will return in anything like its present form, or that the Conservatives won't poison the well to the extent that the Liberals could never get anything done.

(The devolution of powers to the provinces is an excellent example- once done, it cannot be reversed, and a weak federal government would make it extremely difficult for the Liberals to do anything when they regain 24 Sussex. Harper doesn't care, because he has come not to praise Canada, but to bury it- to make the provinces so relatively powerful that Canada becomes no more united than the European Union. The Liberals, however, are the party of the center, and of a single Canadian identity.)

(Gutting public broadcasting won't help, either.)

Even if the Conservatives are unsuccessful in neutering the federal government, the Liberal party is very unlikely to sit down and think things through. The whole problem with it is that it's riddled with viciously infighting factions, so much so that it's an open question as to whether Chretien supporters are deliberately sabotaging the campaign. If the Liberals lose big, then the factions will only get worse, as both Chretien and Martin's lieutenants blame each other for what happened.

That fight is unlikely to end well: both factions are responsible. Chretien's faction is responsible for the scandals that created this situation in the first place. Warren Kinsella may dodge around it with all the skill of an old political operative, but the fact remains that the so-called "Adscam" happened under the watch of his old boss and his allies, who thought that their mission to fight the seperatists was more important than anything else, including legality. They then left the scandal to afflict Martin's government; while I only speculated about "poisoning the well" on Harper's part, it damned well happened with Chretien.

On the other hand, Martin couldn't have more badly misread the reaction to the scandal. He hoped that by distancing himself from his predecessor, he would escape the fallout from it. He forgot that to the average layman, there is one Liberal party, and they will blame ALL Liberals for what happened. That is what's happening now- even after Gomery exonerated Martin and his allies from responsibility, the scandal is still a millstone around his neck. Martin thought that he could distance himself from his own party- unfortunately, Franklin's old comment that "we must hang together, or we will most assuredly hang seperately" has never been truer.

Both, however, are at fault for the policy weakness of the Liberal party. Chretien seemed obsessed only with winning elections; people were complaining for almost his entire period of governance that his government was listless and without a core political philosophy to draw on. His biggest legacy remains almost losing the country in 1993.

Martin, in turn, had a lot of ideas, but they were often contradictory and he never fully reconciled himself with jettisoning them in order to protect a minority government. All the comments about the "democratic deficit" were clearly intended to reflect on the flaws of Canadian majority governments, not minority governments; a minority government that does not keep discipline does not keep intact, and the next election is always in the back of the leaders' minds. The comments he made about a better relationship with the Americans also didn't survive the Republicans' rightward rush following 9/11; he knew that Canadians were deeply troubled by what they saw to the south, and many were angry over American duplicity on trade, so he could not both keep domestic support up and please Washington. He had to choose, and he chose nationalism over continentalism.

(Yes, it was a political choice, but it was a political choice in the best sense of the term: a politician reacting to the public's will, on an subject where policy is indeterminate and human rights are not the issue.)

He never fully explained the reasons for these choices, and never quite broke with his past. He never fully admitted that the quasi-conservative Martin of the Liberal leadership race is dead and buried, but tried to have it both ways.

So, with both sides to blame, neither side can claim ascendancy, and neither side can really heal the wounds. A third force would need to emerge in order to bring things together, and I think that's what everybody is hoping for, but that third force has not shown itself yet. More importantly, the Liberal party needs to come to terms with its own nature as a liberal democratic party, but the infighting that will follow a loss to the once-hapless Harper by a truly hapless Liberal campaign is unlikely to provide the forum for effective debate of political philosophy. Especially when Harper essentially ran with a Liberal policy platform in a differently colored book.

Instead of rebuilding itself during this "time out", the Liberal party may well tear itself apart. I doubt Harper and his Calgary base will shed a tear, but I suspect that the rest of the country isn't going to like the results of their tactical choice. This "time out" could end up longer than anybody expected, with results few would welcome.

Harper is NOT a progressive, and not a stand-in for the Liberals. Canada will learn that, to its sorrow. I just hope the damage he'll do can be fixed.

Sharon Has "Life-Threatening Stroke"

From ABC News:

Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a massive, life-threatening stroke Wednesday and underwent lengthy surgery to drain blood from his brain after falling ill at his ranch. Powers were transferred to his deputy, Ehud Olmert.

Doctors placed Sharon on a respirator and were trying to save his life only hours before the hard-charging, overweight, 77-year-old Israeli leader had been scheduled to undergo a procedure to seal a hole in his heart that contributed to a mild stroke on Dec. 18.

Israel Radio quoted an unidentified Israeli health official as saying that Sharon's prospects of a full recovery were slim.

Sharon's cerebral hemorrhage, or bleeding stroke, came at a time of upheaval among Palestinian factions in Gaza and in the midst of both Israeli and Palestinian election campaigns. Sharon's absence would halt momentum toward further peacemaking with the Palestinians and leave a major vacuum at the head of his new Kadima party, which was expected to head a government after the March 28 vote

Needless to say, this tragedy will throw Israel into disarray. With its leader definitely out of politics (and here's hoping that's the extent of it), the new centrist party Sharon was leading will be in grave danger of collapsing. Israel will almost certainly have an election shortly in order to determine its new head of government, but the identity of that man (and the policies that would follow) is very up in the air. It could be Peretz, or could be Netanyahu, (or perhaps even Peres), and that will lead to two (or three) very, very different Israels.

Easier Response

Edit: Heh. "Renopse". I haven't been blogging since I wrote this post, so I hadn't noticed the title issue. Almost tempted to leave it, but it should probably be made clearer.

A nice piece over at Crooked Timber debunks the ludicrous notion that the leak about NSA spying is as bad as Plamegate. He brings a lot of arguments to bear, but misses the easiest response:

Did it involve outing a covert agent? Did it endanger the lives of her contacts in doing so?

No?

Then it isn't as bad. Simple as that.

(They're similar in one respect, though: they're both playing merry hell with Bush's credibility, and alienating him from the Republican party. I've been focusing on the Canadian election because I believe that the American political scene is currently at a low ebb in comparison to the vicious battle in Canada, but that doesn't change the fact that Bush is clearly flailing, and the Republicans with him.)

Stephen Harper: Campaigning or Changing?

Over at the creatively-titled "peace, order, and good government", comes this take on Stephen Harper:

From Chantal Hébert's column in today's Toronto Star:

But almost one month into the election campaign, the evidence is that the past 17 months have also had a profound transformational impact on Canadian politics.

Start with the Conservatives. Their campaign should put to rest the notion that the merger of the right was little more than an Alliance takeover of the former Progressive Conservative party.

Not even close. They can say anything they like while it's just campaigning. The proof that they themselves believe it would lie in the way they govern, not in what they tell us while they're trying to win votes. In order to find out, we'd have to give them the chance to prove they mean it.

Personally I remain sceptical. Harper's transformation from his stated views of just a few years ago is too abrupt. See Tim's post on this site from just a few days ago.

One of the odder aspects of Canadian politics that I've noted before is that unlike, say, the United States, you really don't want to look too right-wing or you'll lose most of the country. That doesn't mean that you can't be right wing in truth, but that you shouldn't appear as such.

This is the main reason why the Liberal party has been so controversial. They have a tendency to "campaign left and govern right" that consistently wins elections, but frustrates both the left, who don't see their favored policies enacted; and the right, who are treated as anathema during elections. Still, everybody at this point knows how this works, and undermining it by somehow creating a Liberal-NDP coalition is a popular concept among both voters and the liberal literati. Unfortunately, aside from the poorly implemented idea of "strategic voting", Canada's electoral system makes that difficult-at-best.

This has culminated in the government of Paul Martin, but with somewhat of a difference. Martin's centre-right positions during his tenure as finance minister and leadership candidate (where he had to distinguish himself from other liberals, including Jean Chretien's hand-picked successor, John Manley) have given way to centre-left positions on, if not the majority of issues, enough to show a significant change from what he was promising back before he was leader. This is at the core of the "Mr. Dithers" charge- he cannot remain consistent with his old positions, his somewhat conservative advisors' beliefs, and what (at least appears to be) his relatively liberal attitude as PM, so has moved back and forth between them in order to keep everybody happy.

This has made him unpopular in certain circles, particularly opinion journalists, but at least it kept Canada from openly supporting the missile defense boondoggle. (This is important: what the United States needs from Canada is symbolic support, not financial or military support. Canada openly defying the US on issues takes away from any rhetoric of consensus that the United States can bring to bear: if even Canada doesn't support something, then why the hell should anybody else?)

The side-effect of these two effects, though, is the weird perceptions that are out there about Stephen Harper. The "run left, govern right" trick is well known, and there's little reason to believe that the Conservatives won't do the exact same thing. Stephen Harper has every reason in the world to make himself and his party look more moderate than they really are, and even the most cursory examination of his record and his campaign promises would, normally, set off alarm bells.

Yet, if one looks at Paul Martin, one does see a candidate who has changed. Whether it is base political calculation, a change of heart, or perhaps even a movement back to his own true beliefs now that he is no longer minding the books or engaged in his long run for the liberal leadership, he's not making the policies that people expected the Paul Martin of old to make. If Martin changed, then logically Harper can change, right?

And therein lies the problem: Harper is a horse of a different colour. He is, first and foremost, something that Canadians don't usually have to deal with: a libertarian. I don't believe he is truly a social conservative, although he has had to work with them (like the more libertarian Republicans in the US) in order to achieve power, but I know that he's a fairly doctrinaire libertarian when it comes to social programs, the role of government, and the usefulness of a social safety net.

This explains the attacks on "corporate welfare",for example. Corporate stalking horses like your typical Republican (or, indeed, too many Liberals) don't dare touch these programs, but Harper ran on promises of eliminating them during the last elections. These are the promises of a libertarian, not a social conservative.

If you look at the Hebert article, you'll see that the positions that they're willing to jettison are all socially conservative ones-and to be honest, Hebert is reaching when she describes the new positions as "progressive in the first place. The ones that actually near and dear to Harper remain solidly in place.

So, has Harper actually changed? I agree with POGGE- there's little reason to believe that a man's political positions can change so much in 2 or so years, and every reason to believe that he's just playing the same old positioning game.

(Which, of course, gets back to the opinion makers: they seem to be of the belief that the best thing for Canada would be for the Liberals to "be out in the wilderness" for a while, and then come back as a better, meaner, leaner party. I personally think this is nonsense, and will engage the question later.. but a significant component of this belief is that Harper wouldn't be too bad, so it's fine for the Liberals to lose. The problem is that as far as I can see, yes, Harper really would be that bad. No matter how much they dislike Paul Martin and his supporters, they can't simply wish Harper's libertarianism away.)

Merry Whatever (Plus: Bolivia and the American Divide)

See title. Merry Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, Solstice, or whatever religion you happen to follow.

Not that playing with the (apparently narcoleptic) Paul Wells isn't fun, but the Canadian election isn't the only even going on in the hemisphere.. or even, in many respects, the most important.

(Before the topic shift, though, I do have to ask: does Canada's PM have any defenders on the internet nowadays? Aside from maybe Jason Cherniak, it seems that the vast majority of small "l" or big "L" liberals are demonstrating lukewarm support at best, and he certainly seems to lack much support in the Canadian media, aside from the "Harper as a trojan horse for social conservatism" stories.)

No, the most striking event is the election of Evo Morales in Bolivia, and what it means for South America and the Americas in general. It heralds a trend that most people in North America would never have expected.

That trend?

Socialism is back.

Still derided as a "dead" ideology in the North(witness Marcus Gee's comments about Jack Layton), its reach is inescapable in the South. Bolivia, Venezuela, even Brazil and Argenina (to a smaller extent) are moving in a socialist direction, and Cuba hasn't gone anywhere. Some are democratic, some aren't (depending on how you feel about Venezuela), but the trend is unmistakable.

What's even more surprising is that this has happened in the United States' backyard, in the region that has been synonymous with neoliberal reform in the minds and words of every political economist in academe. That would appear to simply show these countries to be "hard cases", but in every one of them, the changes are clearly due to American neo-liberal influences, rather than in spite of them.

Why? Well, we're seeing the side effects of the gaping hole at the centre of neo-classical, neo-liberal economics: distribution. While neo-liberals are very good at maximizing the theoretical efficiency of an entire economy, thus improving the average income, they seem to either be unable or uninterested in affecting the median income. It's showing itself in the enormous inequality that characterizes South and Central America either not improving, or getting worse, thanks to these reforms.

(It makes perfect sense. Every economist knows that that which you prioritize is going to do better than that which you don't. They prioritized systemic growth over income equality, and, well....)

Of course, the decline of the Washington Consensus isn't news, but the decline of Washington's influence is. There is no way that the cold warriors that still hold sway in the halls of power in Washington should have allowed their backyard to be infested with socialists, but in all cases they've been powerless to do a thing about it. Whether the stories are true of the CIA monkeying with elections in the past, it's doubtlessly true that they were unwilling or unable to do a damned thing about Bolivia. The ongoing embarassment that is the presidency of Hugo Chavez also speaks volumes about American power- how on earth does an American-sponsored coup (like the one a few years back) not succeed, with the power and reach that the United States is supposed to have?

Maybe it's just that the United States is ignoring the Americas right now, with its collective vision so focused on the Middle East and East Asia. That would explain a lot- Washington wasn't paying attention, and got blindsided. Continuously. For the better part of a decade.

The problem for Washington, though, is keeping it in South America. Vincente Fox isn't doing that well, and the indigenous Mexicans aren't going to ignore the success that their Bolivian counterparts have enjoyed. Last I heard, Subcommandante Marcos hasn't gone anywhere, and equality in Mexico isn't doing so well either. Mexico could easily follow in Bolivia's footsteps.

Or, even more disturbing for Washington, is the possibility that this trend could start making waves in the United States as well. I had written a while back about Paul Krugman's analysis of the "jobless boom" in the United States- that while corporate profits and capital gains are exploding, wages are relatively stagnant, and the divide between the wealthy and poor is growing faster than it ever has been. Krugman couldn't explain how and why this was happening, but he noted that it was creating a huge division in perception between the classes in the United States over whether the economy was doing well or not. This is reflected in sales statistics: whereas Wal-Mart's profits are dwindling despite its notoriously exploitative wages, high-end sales are skyrocketing.

(SOMEBODY'S buying all those plasma screens you see at Best Buy and the Sony store, and it ain't Wal-Mart employees.)

This raises the question: what happens if those Americans who are perceiving a weak economy start believing that it's only weak for them? In the past, perceptions of a class divide in the United States have always been dampened by the combination of the overwhelming racial divisions in the country and the perception of civil equality. Civil equality doesn't mean much when people believe that the state is unimportant and the parties are indistinguishable (as an increasing number of Americans do), and I believe (perhaps optimistically) that the racial divide is improving.

Don't get me wrong: I'm not predicting that a social democratic party or president is going to sweep into power anytime soon. I do think, however, that once Americans start looking inward again as the threat of terrorist attacks on American soil recede and the war in Iraq winds down, people are going to start asking questions.

With neoliberals unable to provide evidence that their answers solve a damned thing, will the proletariat start wondering, again, about the words of the man who popularized that term?

What is it with Wells?

In all honesty, I've had problems with Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin, or at least since he became Prime Minister. I think that in trying to be all things to all people, he has weakened his ability to do good policy and good politics. I think a lot of that is due to relatively benign reasons, though. He is surrounded by both a large number of relatively conservative advisors that he has deep loyalty towards, and a Liberal party rank-and-file that has wildly different political positions from said advisors.

Walking that line isn't easy for any politician; for Martin, leader of a party that can't quite decide if it's centre-left or centre-right, it's brutally difficult. I personally think he'd be better off going with the rank-and-file, as hewing right is neither good policy nor good politics, but it's a difficult choice to make.

That said, I must also say:

Paul Wells, this has become silly.

"I would never for a moment suggest that Stephen Harper would prefer, for partisan political reasons, to see a separatist victory."
—Paul Martin, Wednesday morning

"All that motivates [Duceppe] in Ottawa is to work for separation — and it's obvious….Why else would he team up with Stephen Harper? Think about it. Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe."
—Paul Martin, Wednesday evening

One of those "Gotcha!" moments that I said weakened his analysis.

Let's see where that comes from, though, shall we? From the Globe and Mail (Wells, sadly, didn't link):

Mr. Martin also questioned yesterday why Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe co-operated on some issues with Mr. Harper, who holds views different from Quebeckers on such things as the war in Iraq, ballistic missile defence and daycare. Mr. Martin said all that motivates Mr. Duceppe in Ottawa is to work for separation.

"It's obvious. Why else would he team up with Stephen Harper? Think about it. Stephen Harper and Gilles Duceppe. Stephen Harper who wanted to send our soldiers to Iraq against Quebeckers' values. Stephen Harper who was for missile defence against Quebec's values."

It is clear, from context, that Martin's attack was aimed at Duceppe, not Harper, and I don't recall anybody saying that Duceppe wasn't fair game. It's a very legitimate attack on the social democratic Bloc Quebecois- they really wouldn't have much to do with the Conservatives, were the Conservatives not holding out the possibility of further dissolution of federal powers to the provinces.

Why did you misrepresent what Martin said, Mr. Wells?

It is, yes, implied that Harper would be willing to work with seperatists, but even that claim is worlds different than Harper's incredible claim that the Liberal party wants the Parti Quebecois to win Quebec so they'd have a strawman to beat up. The former is simply an indictment of one's choice of alliance partners; the latter is tantamount to saying that you'd be willing to risk the country's dissolution for partisan ends. For all that the sponsorship issue revealed about the Liberals' ethics, they never went THAT far, and it is an incredible claim to make that they would.

(For readers who may not understand what this is all about: the Bloc Quebecois is the Quebec seperatists' federal wing, whereas the Parti Quebecois is the Quebec seperatists' provincial wing. All the former can do is gum up the works in the Canadian parliament, but the latter has the theoretical power to break up the country. The difference in their power shows the relative severity of Harper's accusation.)

It's a pity. Paul Wells, when he wants to be, is an intelligent, insightful commentator on Canadian politics. It is becoming increasingly apparent, however, that he doesn't want to be. For whatever reason, he wants Stephen Harper to be Prime Minister of Canada, despite not betraying the slightest conservative inclination.

Perhaps he is, like Warren Kinsella, willing to throw the baby out with the bathwater out of loyalty to former PM Jean Chretien.

Perhaps not.

Whatever the reason, it's yet another chapter in the decline of Macleans, and a sad testament to the disorganization of the Canadian left.

(More entries about American and international politics soon.)

Canada's Referendum

Edit: I hadn't realized that Mr. Wells was a reader! He wrote an extra-friendly note to my last piece on Canadian politics, and I wrote a friendly response back. Feel free to read them.

Oh, and by the way... Mr Wells?

Chris Dornan had Maclean's nailed- the Svend cover was ludicrous, and the shift in the magazine's tone under Whyte is bizarre, considering the rank failure that was his stewardship of the National Post.

I realize that you have a job to do, and I'm sure nobody begrudges you that, but c'mon... "Canada should sell its water to the Americans before they steal it"?

You gotta be kidding.

I criticized Paul Wells a little while ago for his misrepresentation of Paul Martin's positions and his seeming personal dislike of Martin. I haven't changed in that opinion, but I do think that an article he wrote claiming that "this election is about Stephen Harper, and whether he'll be trusted to lead" provides a useful jumping-off point for an idea that both Canadians and Americans should consider:

Canada's election is, primarily, about George W. Bush.

Leave aside, for the moment, the issue of Canadian unity. The main points of contention are protection of the social safety net, the Conservatives' social conservatism, and Canadian sovereignty in its foreign policy. The main reason why Mr. Harper is attacked as being out of the mainstream is his views on these three broad issues: they see him as disdainful of social welfare, backed by hardcore social conservatives, and supporting tight fiscal and strategic integration with the United States.

Yet, for all three of these issues, the basic idea is similar: Harper wants to make Canada more American, and less European. Harper and the other conservatives insist that they are not stealthy Republicans and aren't THAT conservative, but they're still derided as "scary".

Scary? Harper isn't scary, not in-and-of himself. He's a policy wonk who never learned how not to look wooden on television. What makes him scary is that the a significant plurality (if not a majority) of Canadians absolutely, positively, and viscerally LOATHE George W. Bush, and everything that he represents.

This is not due to envy, as Republicans seem to believe--few Canadians envy American political and popular culture, but simply appropriate what they like about it and jettison the rest, just as the rest of the world does--but simply because he represents a part of Americana that is almost entirely unexportable, because it relies on a religiosity that doesn't exist in Canada and a neo-conservative sense of American mission that, by definition, almost any outsider doesn't share. Americans themselves? Like many non-Americans, Canadians regard the vast majority with fondness. Not identification, but fondness.

Canadians don't like Bush or what he represents, but they have an advantage over those Americans who don't: they have that big beautiful border, protecting them from his follies. It's not just a geographical line, but a policy-based one- as long as Canada is different, that line keeps them independent. It kept them from going to Iraq, it kept them from domination by the religious right, it kept them from the attempted gutting of social security, it kept them from the Department of Homeland Security... the more that Bush has screwed up, the better that line on the map looks.

Thus, Harper's woes. It's not just about whether or not the policies he espouses would be good for Canada. It's about that line, and whether or not the policies would make that line fade or disappear. Paul Martin's anti-American tirades are code for "I'll keep that line sharp and safe", which (since it's the most important issue in American politics) is also code for "I'll keep your friends and family from bleeding to death on the streets of Baghdad". He pledges that as long as he is Prime Minister, George W. Bush and the Other that he represents will be kept down where they belong, until whatever the hell caused the American people to actually vote for the man dissipates or burns itself out.

So, to a certain extent, this isn't about Harper. It's about W. The worse Bush looks, the more important that line becomes, and the easier it is for Martin to ride these fears to victory. Harper cannot retain his policies and also allay these fears. His talk about standing up to the United States is immaterial, because his policies would make Canada more like the United States, and thus blur the border. The best he can do is show that Martin would blur it as well, which is why the Conservatives have been trying so hard to paint Martin as a fair-weather nationalist. Jack Layton's NDP is doing much the same thing, because they also can't credibly claim to be able to defend the line: they don't have the power, and won't have the power.

The only two provinces that don't really care about this are Alberta and Quebec. Quebec, because it will be distinct from the rest of English-speaking North America no matter what its policies are. Alberta, because the conservative political movers-and-shakers there are just fine with Republicans and Republicanism, and see the blurring of the line as a feature, not a bug.

(In fact, it is this that is Harper's biggest millstone: Ontarians and Albertans have a deep distrust of one another, at least partially due to this issue. It is Ontario, however, that Stephen Harper--the self-identified conservative Albertan--needs to win.)

It is unfortunate, but events down south will almost certainly have an effect up in Canada. It won't be easily measured, and as an intervening variable, it will likely not show up on any poll... but it will have an effect nonetheless. Harper is running against two men, and judging by the latest news, Bush is likely to remain a serious, serious problem.

IMPEACH

Brilliant idea over at Daily Kos: IMPEACH: The Guerrilla Marketing Movement.

So, now that all impeachment bets are off, what can we do to take this topic off the TV talk shows and the blogosphere, and put it where the rest of America can see and feel it?

Anything you want to.

But I have a few suggestions, and they include everything from simple act that anyone can afford, to elaborate collective action schemes that no one can miss.

The key thing to keep in mind: The message is simple, universal, and non-specific. But if it's the same everywhere, there will be no mistaking what it is, and how widely it's supported.

So, let's talk.

This idea isn't new, by any means. It's just being put to a new use -- taking impeachment out of the realm of broadcast wonkery, and making it real.

This isn't about achieving the result of impeachment directly. I think we all know where we stand on that score. This is about building resonance, and making impeachment "real," because it's being brought to the attention of real people.

What I'm proposing is this: Go into your word processors right now, and type out the word "IMPEACH." Go ahead, use caps. Center it. Bold it. Make it 72 point. Turn the page to landscape if you like, and make it bigger.

You've got a sign. Print it out. Xerox it. Put it up on a lamp post. On a supermarket bulletin board. Inside a newspaper vending machine. Anywhere.

You've joined the movement.

How does it feel? Want more? Would you be willing to spend a little money on it?

Pick up a pack of Avery labels down at the office supply store. Print out a page worth of stickers that say the same thing. IMPEACH.

Not impeach Bush. Not impeach Cheney. Not Chimpeach. Just IMPEACH.

Bolded that last bit because it's the most important. This is a brilliant idea, because if it takes off it'll create buzz and make the concept more acceptable. The key is the use of the single word: everybody knows who the "impeach" refers to, and trying to weigh it down with arguments and cases and whatever doesn't matter. The case is out there. The argument is out there.

Instead this should be like the teaser campaign that happens long before the movie is even finished. Just the force of one word over, and over, and over, and over again, everywhere you look, in places you don't expect it. It'll piss Bush supporters off, but that doesn't matter: the act of arguing against an idea is the most important one for legitimizing it. And hell, how do you argue against the repetition of a single word?

Do it right, and it becomes a trend, and while Bush's corporate backers know how to coopt a trend, they have no idea how to stop one.

Just one word:

IMPEACH.

Breaking Blogiquette

I realize I should be linking, but instead I'll just respond to the panopoly of defenses of Bush's illegal wiretapping of Americans simply.

The defense is "he's using it against bad guys, and we can trust him not to use it against political opponents".

My question?

What the hell WOULDN'T this justify? You could play apologist for anything, up to and including secret police death squads, using this argument or one like it. It's a call for absolute executive power.

It's not even Orwellian, because even 1984's party was a little more subtle than this.

Debate

For those following Canadian politics, they had their first english-language election debate tonight. The format was unimpressive and stifled real exchanges, but it highlighted the three issues that grab me about Canadian politics right now: the difficult relationship with the United States, the wrangling over whether to embrace european-style social democracy or American-style capitalism, and the threat of the province of Quebec seperating from Canada.

(One of the four parties during the debate, the Bloc Quebecois, openly advocates seperation... showing just how different Canada treats seperatists than the vast majority of other countries.)

The most striking moments? Both involved Prime Minister Paul Martin: his argument over whether he'd send troops to Iraq, and his passionate attack on the sovereigntists for their often-dubious legal claims of the right to unilateral seperation. It's not often that you see a Canadian prime minister so incensed as Martin was with Duceppe's claim that Quebec could leave whenever and however it wishes, in contravention of Canadian law. With Martin, it's even rarer, yet there it was.

The best commentary on the election online? So far, the "CalgaryGrit", a Liberal supporter who nonetheless asserts his independence and avoids clear partisan apologetics.

(Unlike, say, Paul Wells, whose obvious personal loathing of Martin weakened his election analysis considerably, leading him to side with Martin's America-friendly opponent Stephen Harper on thin grounds over the Iraq issue. Or the Grit's largely conservative commentators, who sound like Harper's spin doctors.)

Go, man! GO!

Sirota ripping on the DLC:

Less than two weeks ago, the Democratic Leadership Council said that people like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Vietnam War Hero Rep. Jack Murtha (D-PA) were "offering surrender" by supporting an exit strategy from Iraq. This followed on the DLC's long record of slamming anyone who it disagrees with (for more, just see the DLC's treatment of Howard Dean in the 2004 presidential primary). Now, the DLC is desperately attacking those like Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) who have been critical of Sen. Joe Lieberman's (D-CT) support for the Iraq War, and in the process, actually claiming the DLC has always been for "inclusion" in the Democratic Party and against "polarized politics."

This is how pathetic and corrupt it has gotten in Washington. The nation's capital has become a place where corporate-funded institutions like the DLC can one day viciously stab courageous progressives, and then the next day turn around and claim they are actually for "inclusion" - all without batting an eye, or thinking twice about how dishonest and hypocritical such behavior really is. What an insult to the public's intelligence.

Apparently to the DLC, "inclusion" is defined as being in lockstep with their far-out-of-the-mainstream views, and the only thing important to them is preserving their status on the D.C. cocktail party circuit by issuing press releases touting their "friendship" with those who undermine the Democratic Party.

The bolded bit is, as always, the key to this. It's groupthink--hardly a new thing--and the groupthink is clearly being exploited to ensure that the right thoughts are held by the right people. It's also, however, the loose party structure in the United States; when the connection between partisans is so weak, and the "bipartisan" ties of power and circumstance are so strong, is it any wonder that people choose the latter over the former?

All the DLC does, in the end, is reverse Milton. Better to serve in "heaven", than to rule in "hell". That these things are defined by their supposed opponents is immaterial.

Digby on Richard Pryor

A great and insightful man passed away from us today, and digby gives him the moving eulogy he deserves.

(Or perhaps I should say "elegy": it is definitely a lament... but I think more of a lament for all the things that we never learned from him. Or, perhaps, forgot.)

Growing Radicalization in America

I'm going to take a step back and look at the broader picture in the United States, because I think we have some clues about where things are going to go in American politics.

First, no matter what happens, it's unlikely that foreign policy is going to be fruitful for either party- the dominant Dems are those that are stuck between their votes for the war and against it, and the Republicans are too identified with the increasingly unpopular war in Iraq to really run on foreign policy. Yes, there's still the terrorists, but let's face it: as a means of mobilizing the people, the war on terror has had its run barring another attack. (Even then, the results would be predictable- it would have happened on the Republicans' watch.)

Second, take a look at this important column from Paul Krugman on monday. he calls it ""The Joyless Economy" for a reason: the economic growth that is raising GDP and average income isn't doing a damned thing about median income, which is actually declining, implying that the gap between the wealthy and the poor is widening, not closing. This isn't new, but it is creating a huge disconnect between public perceptions and elite perceptions of the economy- the latter is worried more about inflation than anything else, whereas the former perceives that the economy is in a recession. To them, it is.

The most important part of this, however, is that Krugman acknowledges that this is not President Bush's fault:

It's much harder to explain why. The disconnect between G.D.P. growth and the economic fortunes of most American families can't be dismissed as a normal occurrence. Wages and median family income often lag behind profits in the early stages of an economic expansion, but not this far behind, and not for so long. Nor, I should say, is there any easy way to place more than a small fraction of the blame on Bush administration policies. At this point the joylessness of the economic expansion for most Americans is a mystery.

Thus, this isn't really good news for the Republicans, because if they aren't responsible for it, they can't really do much about it.

(The Dems could, through income redistribution, but the actions of the DLC's proxy candidate Hillary Clinton shows that they have no intention whatsoever of veering leftward.)

So, where are we? The people are pissed off about the economy, foreign policy is unlikely to serve as a distraction, and the government can't really do much about it.

So what happens in 2006/2008?

Enter Thomas Frank. Remember, Frank's thesis about the culture wars is that those who are being hurt the worst by these economic trends are paradoxically the most likely to embrace social conservatism- it's a way of gaining self-respect, political relevance, and moral superiority for those who have no other avenue for it. There is an element of deliberate deception by those wealthy Republicans who want to distract the people from the economic issues, but they've been the victims of their own success, as the socially moderate apologists for wealth get elbowed aside by the growing power of social conservatism. This is only going to increase- while the social conservatives are ticked about Bush's behavior, they aren't going anywhere.

The Dems aren't willing to tack left on the economy, though, not really: they're still trapped in the "triangulation" paradigm that they think helped Clinton in '92. They'll probably push for some level of socialized healthcare, but unless they're willing to go up against the most powerful lobbies in Washington, it's not going to go anywhere, and the base is unlikely to be impressed by it. Thus, unless the power structure in the Democratic party shifts, they aren't going to be able to "shift the debate" to economic issues. The core economic problem is, as Krugman said, something that they probably can't do much about.

Without a serious debate on economic issues and with foreign policy off the table, though, what's left?

Frank's culture war.

Hence the title of this post. Dem leadership is clearly trying to move right on social issues, so as to (supposedly) reassure the elusive swing voters that they aren't Godless Liberals and refocus the debate on economic issues. This is going to lead to two effects: the social conservatives on the right will pocket the advantage and move further to the right on pretty much every issue but abortion....

...assuming that Roe V. Wade isn't dead: if it is, it becomes a huge election issue in every state in the country...

...while the urban liberal Democratic base, abandoned by the leadership, gets more and more ticked off at what they see as the creeping dominance of social conservatism, with honest libertarians likely to follow suit.

Frank's effect will ensure that even more people become more radically socially conservative, so as to regain the respect and moral foundation that they once enjoyed as prosperous middle-class workers. They sense, rightly, that something's wrong with the country, but many will blame it on collective moral failings instead of impersonal economic forces- the flip-side of the "can-do spirit" that Americans laud themselves for is that they don't easily believe in structural responsibility.

Since the economic debate won't address the real problems, it won't go anywhere or "hit people where they live", and it will be vulnerable to a social policy counterattack. The Dems, true to form, will try to triangulate by moving right on social policy and attempting to reframe the debate on "the economy, stupid"... but this isn't 1992, and even Hillary Clinton isn't Bill Clinton, so all it will mean is "moving goalposts". The base will see this, get ticked, and likely get really, really loud about it, both online and offline.

(The libertarians will too, but I imagine their days as movers and shakers in the Republican party are very much numbered.)

What I can't predict, however, is what America will look like at the end of the day. It depends on how far this goes. If things just kind of muddle along, then it'll probably look a lot like now, just more so. If things get really bad, though, then the scapegoating may well shift from liberal political philosophy to other convenient "Others".

Considering the current atmosphere about the "war on christmas", "borders under siege", and "the Chinese threat", it doesn't take much imagination to think of who those scapegoats will be.

Again, I'd suggest looking to the controversy over video games as the canary in the coal mine. The attacks on games are a proxy for attacks on secular culture, as it's the newest and thus most vulnerable form of expression of that secular culture.

Rest assured: what starts in Silicon Valley will end up in Hollywood.

"Those People"

Courtesy of Atrios and Ailes, one of the dumbest lines I've heard since the last time I read Townhall:

"But the dirty little secret in America is that anti-Semitism is no longer a problem in society; it’s been replaced by a rampant anti-Christianity."

The best part?

This is from a jewish guy.

Incredible.

(Me, I'll be spending the holidays with Jon Stewart at Osama's Homobortion Pot 'n Commies Jizzporium.)

Once Again, a Quick Tip for Hillary Clinton:

No matter how ludicrous your attempts to reposition yourself to the right become, you're still going to be a Stalinist to Republicans.

Yes, that includes backing anti flag-burning legislation, as Jon Tasini points out.

I personally find it deeply disturbing that of all the rights that the American people have, it seems the the right of free speech seems to be the one that the DLC's surrogates seem most willing to jettison for popularity.

Kevin on Those Who Were Correct:

From Kevin Drum:

I'll have more to say about this over the next few days, but for now I'd just like to mention one thing. I've seen a lot of lefty critics who have hammered Packer because he supported the war and, in their eyes, hasn't been forthcoming enough about admitting he was wrong about that. Michael Hirsh led the charge here in these pages a couple of months ago. I have three words for these critics: get over yourselves. Perhaps someday we'll ship Packer and his fellow liberal hawks off to reeducation camps and force tearful confessions of doctrinal error out of them, but for now partisans on both sides could do worse than admit that the world comes in shades of gray and neither success nor failure in Iraq was quite as preordained as you might think. A little bit of difficulty figuring out where you stand on the war isn't quite the moral failing some seem to think it is.

Kevin, that isn't what happened and you know it. Yes, there are shades of grey, but that doesn't mean that a person who hasn't been blinded can't tell the difference between off-white and near-black. That failure wasn't practically preordained is definitely an open question too: a violent insurgency had been a strong possibility from the beginning, and it could easily have been worse than it has been.

Considering what has happened, though, what on earth is the reason to "get over ourselves"? Critics were derided then and are (incredibly) derided now that they've shown they were right, and were the enterprise successful, the "liberal hawks would not be defending the "anti-war left" now. That they weren't right, yet expect forbearance for mistakes of judgement that could easily happen again, simply doesn't make sense.

The comment, by the by, was contained within a review of Assassin's Gate, a book by George Packer on the war and what happened. I haven't red the book and don't presume to be able to judge it, but there was one other thing related to it that I wanted to mention;

Blog readers know a fair bit of this history already from magazine articles and newspaper reporting, but as I was saying a few days ago, the only way to really know a subject is to read a book. It's true that most of us don't remember everything we read in books, but that's not the point: only when you get the whole story, in all its glorious detail and told all at once, do you really get a narrative sense of what happened. That's what Packer has done in Assassins' Gate.

Don't get me wrong- I love books, and narrative especially. That said, there is always a danger of a book like this forcing events and motivations into fitting said narrative. Real life is often random at best, and history often doesn't fit convenient narratives.

I'm not saying this is a weakness of Packer's book, I'm not able to judge: but this is a potential problem with any attempt to take a complex event and summarize it in 200-300 pages. I think Drum needs to be aware of this.

Edit: The commentators on Drum's site are engaged in an all-out war over this. There is a good point there that needs to be made, though: the "liberal hawks" have never admitted that they were wrong. They have admitted that Bush is incompetent and that they shouldn't have put their faith in him, but their faith in the idea that it was a good idea to go into Iraq, period, has seemed to have never wavered. This issue still very much matters, because any future administration doing this is going to argue that they will "do it right", and the danger exists that the liberal hawks will roll right back in and back these guys.

(Especially if they're Democrats.)

Admitting that Bush screwed it up is very different than admitting that the whole thing was a bad idea. Mixing those up doesn't get anybody anywhere, because it's the latter point that is important.

Further Edit: Greg Sargent argues that the problem was not doctrine, but judgement. He does a good job of highlighting why judgement is important, but there's a fundamental problem.

The problem is that doctrine can cloud judgement, and the question remains as to whether or not doctrine did in the eyes of the "liberal hawks" (not, as he seems to suggest, merely Bush and his friends.) The doctrine in question, I'd say, is that of being "reasonable", "mainstream", and "bipartisan" over all else, and that classic doctrine of American exceptionalism, but these things are open to dispute.

What isn't open to dispute, however, is that the judgement was flawed, and that the question of "why" needs to be addressed more deeply than "whoops, I didn't realize that Bush's crew were incompetent".