An analysis of Wolfgang Munchau's article, "Europe sways to a centre-right swansong"

This is an analysis of Wolgang Munchau's article in the Financial Times

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/f9aec5d8-06ed-11dc-93e1-000b5df10621.html


Contrary to what foolish American and Canadian right-wing commentators see as a triumph for the laissez-faire ideology in Nicholas Sarkozy's victory, Wolfgang Munchau argues convincingly that as the baby-boom bulge ages, there is a structural majority developing on the centre-left in both France and Germany- arguably globalisation will deepen this trend. I suspect that this solidifying of the centre-left will occur even in countries like Poland as sections of the labour force get priced out of the global market.

This article is interesting because, extending this analysis to Canada, one can see that Canada is ahead of the curve in that it already has a structural majority on the left. I suspect that the baby boom and immigration meant that the post 1968 crowd is a larger percentage of the voting public in Canada than in France or Germany. If you add in new immigrant, you get the centre-left structural majority continuing. This is because conservative parties can never truly represent immigrants (coloured or otherwise) who always face systemic disadvantages (one notable exception is Australia where blue-collar labour voters who switched to the liberals (right-wing) after they moved there.) A similar white voter consolidation has not come about in Canada due to the language wars, the very rapid change in the demographic of newcomers between 1981 and 1991, and the dramatic refactoring of national identity by papa Trudeau) Anyway, I suspect that over the next few years, conservative electoral problems will not be solved by appealing to rural racism in Quebec. Montreal- a bastion of the multicultural centre-left grows stronger not weaker in Quebec. Even the extra seats in conservative bases in the west will be vulnerable due to growing immigration, boomer and gen-x urban consolidation in urban areas. The Canadian political outlook is sunny.

the real blog the first (dion, rae, iggy etc.)

Burned repeatedly by my experiences with another blog site, I have turned to blogger. Of course the fact that I can log in with my Google id is a big plus.

So here goes:-

I see the results. Iggy baby the lover of moral wars is up front with Bob Rae, Dion and Kennedy in the chase. Of the four, Kennedy is the weakest even though he is second in Ontario and strong in the west. This is because he is zero in Quebec. And the truth is, no matter how many people say the west is there to be won, Quebec is a far more alluring prospect for the following reasons:

• Federalist Quebeckers and urban Ontarians are roughly parallel in voting patterns and ideologies.
  
• The federalist vote in Quebec is often there to be won en bloc.
• Ontarian and Quebec voters often prefer parties that are acceptable to each other (it remains to be seen whether this holds).

So where do we go from here?

• If Iggy is tops then he would probably keep the suburban voter within the liberal fold as well as bring in some conservative federalist votes in Quebec back to the Liberals. Assuming he keeps up the messianic miasma of tony bliar he would also solidify the NDP vote bank in Toronto and Vancouver and its budding opportunities in Montreal.

• If Rae comes in, he will eat the NDP lunch in urban Canada but may lose votes in rural Canada as well as suburban Ontario. Overall he will soften the NDP vote and solidify the conservative vote and push centre-right voters to the Conservatives. Still, he might make win because more NDP voters are likely to vote strategically for the liberals than are liberals likely to move to the conservatives. I suspect this is because strategic voting may often take place with a national perspective but protest voting may be localised.
• If Dion comes in, he will pull in improve Quebec prospects but may not be able to enlarge or hold on to Ontario votes. That is up in the air though. If he works well with his Ontario lieutenants, he will do well there. Dion though, alone among the eastern candidates will be able to improve liberal prospects in the west. I suspect this is because he is very staunchly federalist, and has a dour but honest and straightforward manner. He isn't evasive when he speaks and can speak idealistically without sounding puffy or strained.
• Kennedy can't come in. He seems to be a great candidate but he needs to work hard on his French. Quebec voters, whether they agree with him or not, appreciate Harper's desire and tenacity in learning the language well enough to carry out debates. Kennedy needs to demonstrate that. He is a westerner and get seats in the prairie provinces easier than the other candidates but to make headway in QC and NB, he better learn French very well.

Other thoughts:

• If any of the other three throw Ignatieff their support, he is probably clear and Layton will have a skip in his step as he will be the only national leader to oppose the war.
• If Kennedy folds to Dion, Rae will have trouble. Dion has enough traction in QC and Kennedy enough in ON and both enough in BC to make trouble for Rae. Rae can then go for broke and chance a split on the left (allowing Iggy through) or fold to his old buddy Iggy, who will probably win.
• If Kennedy folds to Rae, Dion is done. Dion doesn't have enough traction to counter their strength in ON and BC and Rae has good standing in QC. Dion will then be the king-maker. If he folds to Iggy. Iggy wins. If he folds to Rae, Rae will win.
• If Kennedy folds to Dion and Rae loses traction in the later rounds, Rae may fold to Dion (unlikely though). In that scenario it would be an even match between Iggy and Dion- two very different candidates. Dion would have the advantage in terms of liberal party tradition (next prime minister should be francophone) but Iggy would have the advantage of having the big money liberal establishment behind him. That would be the most interesting contest.

We shall see. We shall see.

A column by Richard Gwyn

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1118353813221&call_pageid=970599109774&col=Columnist969907618300

which contains the telling remark

"It's one of the curiosities of Canadian federalism that every single province and region is absolutely convinced it's being shortchanged."

My comments:

A big problem in Canada is provincialism and the ridiculous way it is feted. The great thing about Cdn nationalism is that it never goes far to become national chauvinism. Now unfortunately the pendulum has swung the other way with provincialism that borders on Xenophobia. And it is a curious xenophobia at that. Provincialists are willing to embrace anyone, the Americans, the French, the brown boys and girls from India, in a do-or-die effort to say "FUCK YOU" to anybody from another Canadian province.

When I listen to Easterners talk about Westerners, Westerners talk about Easterners, Francophones talk about anglophones and vice versa, I'm amazed at how small differences are being talked off as they mean anything at all. I was born in India, a country that has real diversity and underwent repeated bloodbaths on it. In India all Christians are considered about the same. This is because there are so many different types of people, no one has the energy to figure out the different types of Christians.

But here we go, La-dee-da... WASPs from Ontario and WASPs from Alberta and Roman Catholics from Quebec whisper darkly to me, a brown Hindu, about how "those people" are all so different.

Amazing

I read the obituaries this morning in the Star...

...and there was an article about a Ms. McCall. I think I read part of her book on Trudeau with Stephen Clarkson. Anyway, a lot of the article talks about her writing talent. Reading it brought to mind two discussions I had with people who were encouraging me to write. One was an old friend of our family in London. I told him I wanted to write fiction. He hadn't read anything I had written but he straight off told me that all it takes is practice; Somerset Maugham wasn't very good to begin with but he worked at it and got good enough. Listening to this strange encouragement, all of my notions of natural genius with regard to writing melted away and I thus began to look at writing as a noble drudgery.
My second encounter with advice was with a friend of my father's last year who heard I like to write. He and his wife invited me for dinner and once again he cut to the chase and told me (as if he were reading my mind then) that if I want to write columns for papers, I should just keep trying; don't give up if one paper rejects me. He had examples of his own experiences getting his foot in the door with various papers.

This morning, among so many other things I am pondering, I am keeping these two people and Ms. McCall in my head as I open the hallowed document once again for another shot at working a plot.

On Michael Ignatieff's speech on the connection between Foreign and Domestic Cdn policy (excerpt in the Toronto Star)

The excerpt of his speech is located at:

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1117663830280&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795


My comments:

It's one thing to speak generally when attempting to inspire- it's another thing to say very little that is concrete. Ignatieff points at problems- he doesn't point out why they are problems. He does not propose solutions. The depressing thing he still sounds better informed about Canadian problems than any federal politician.

And before we follow this mindless drivel about projecting power- Ignatieff points to protesters in Paris in 1968 and the ghost of Trudeau. Trudeau would never approve of "projecting power" as a rationale for creating a Canadian nationalism. After all shortly after coming to office, Trudeau halved the number of Canadian troops dedicated to NATO. He was trying to define a new nationalism at the time. Ignatieff is recycling trite and watered down realpolitik notions for his nationalism. He wants idealists protesting on the street. For what? For the vague, insipid notion of what he thinks Canadian nationalism should be.

Perhaps he should look into what does inspire young people to protest on the streets- WB, IMF, Globalisation, the Environment, the War in Iraq. Nobody is going to come onto the streets to demonstrate because .... "we cannot project power and influence abroad"

It is ridiculous to suggest that nationalism has weakened because Canada has not acted abroad. Canadian nationalism has been suffering internal haemorrhage. Canadian nationalism has been in trouble ever since parts of the country outside of Ontario and Quebec grew large enough to express their discomfort with rules geared towards the compact between those two provinces. Ad campaigns based on Canada's influence on the world are irrelevant sound-bites in the screaming match that ensues from domestic power imbalances.

This is the bankruptcy of ideas- when the most prophetic Canadian proto-polician sounds like he's running an independent election campaign.

I sympathise with Mr. Ignatieff's concerns...barely. Ignatieff seems to be worried that the elite of which he is a part is about to lose its precarious place. The speech sounds like the complaint of a petit bourgeois about to lose his club membership.

Is there anyone sounding better? Have the nationalists completely run out of ideas?

It all boils down to whether...

.. she can speak French fluently. Yes, we know she can speak German and maybe if she moves to Germany double-quick, she can challenge Angela Merkel for the dubious honour of being the Chancellor that watched over the decline of Germany.

What I like to call the Belinda Effect will be felt not only in the short term with the numbers on the voting floor of the Canadian Parliament, but also in the medium-long term with regard to the Liberal Party's chances with Quebec voters (75 seats out of 305).

But first Ontario:

Belinda Stronach's move away from the Conservative Party enhances a schism between the old white male anglo-saxon voter in Alberta and the young female professional pro-choice voter in Ontario. She was supposed to be the bridge between Stephen Harper's world and Dalton McGuinty's world. At the very least she was the face that would reassure people who didn't think such a bridge was possible. Now that the possibility is gone, she has not only delivered the political centre to the Federal Liberals in the next election, she has probably also brought back some soft-Liberal/NDP voters who were alienated by the way Sheila Copps was turfed out of the party by Paul Martin. Suffice to say, to a Liberal front bench that light on looks, youth and charisma, she is a godsend.

Now Quebec:

As mentioned above, the Liberal front bench is desperately in need of fresh blood. This is probably the unexpectedly good consequence of Martin single-mindedly destroying the political career of every member of the old guard, i.e Copps, Manley, Rock etc. Martin's obsession with destroying the liberal left has resulted in all the Quebec troopers such as Cauchon and Coderre being pushed out as well. Add to this the fact that alone among the spoilt remainders, left to wave the Federalist flag in Quebec, is Stephane Dion. Given Quebec's remarkable transformation into a markedly progressive society comparable to many more famous European examples, Belinda Stronach is probably better suited than most of the old white males in the party to appeal to voters. She and Dion are the only high-profile Liberals to be untainted by the sponsorship scandal. In fact, she has bounded from the ranks of the main accusers in this imbroglio. IF- if she can learn to campaign in french, the liberals will be able to showcase her youth and modernity and hide from the voters, a party bankrupt of ideas or ideology. If, she learns French quickly and doesn't reinvent the bimbo of Harper as the bimbo of Martin (a position that Anne McLellan will be loathe to give up) she has the ability to continue the work she was doing in the Conservative Party, i.e building a political base for herself in Quebec, and possibly even challenge Martin. Martin, seen in English Canada as the fallen deficit-slaying hero, is seen in Quebec as a spineless letdown of his francophone roots (which is any case were mostly media dreamt-up).


The Belinda Effect- it remains to be seen how large and where it will take place.

On Belinda Stronach's defection to the Liberal Party of Canada

I resent the criticism of her as ambitious or opportunistic. I see no one in the liberals, conservatives, or the BQ who haven't plumbed depths for their ideological skullduggery. I would rather a conservative join the liberals for personal gain than wholeheartedly row for the conservative cult of personal gain. The PCs who joined the Alliance and then the combined Conservatives themselves have been doing anything, anything at all for the last year to get a chance at toppling the government and getting elected. They are willing to allow the BQ to run riot if they just get one sure shot at taking the reigns. The fact is if they told Martin (the biggest whore of them all) that they will support him as long as he bends conservative instead of NDP, he would probably have agreed. His instincts are conservative rather than left-wing. But, that's the thing- Harper doesn't just want to resuscitate the liberal-conservative brokerage system. He wants to bring in a pure ideological stream from Alberta. I think that troubles all the Red Tories who signed up for this venture.

Now Harper's trojan horse is coming undone. Their founding member and most mainstream female voice in Ontario and Quebec ditches them for greener pastures. Now, suddenly the conservatives have become honourable and not willing to stoop to any level. Suddenly they find their moral composure and surety. Very good. Wrt honour among thieves- I find that statement needs disdain and nothing else. Any credit that falls upon thieves, murders, rapists, paedophiles, politicians, businessmen, law students, babes-in-the-wood and programmers who are "honourable" amongst themselves is miniscule compared to the larger moral nature (whatever) into which they are placed. In cricket, people slag people on the pitch the most, are the ones who are always say, "what happens on the pitch, stays on the pitch". The people who say that are the biggest rats- they are the ones with most to lose in a given power equation. Fuck that. It's because of honour among thieves that the RCMP and CSIS remain unbending to change. Honour among thieves keep the Vancouver mayor from criticising his former police colleagues when they go vigilante.

What I can say for Belinda Stronach is not only that she is a mover (she did set up the damn Conservatives a year ago) but she also has the most exquisite sense of timing. If machiavellian instinct were enough to define a politician then Harper, Martin and any other dog would do. Politics like everything else (unfortunately for me) is about timing. With the undercutting of the Quebec youth wing who supported her as well as the hard line being pushed by Harper (which would have undercut both mainstream opportunities in ON as well as any budding ones in QC) Stronach doesn't have much of a place other than being the poster-girl companion to the perma-second-in-command, i.e. Peter Mackay. I'm glad she decided to stab Harper and his reform buddies in the back.

I think the Liberal Party has the probably the least charismatic group of people they've had in the last few decades. They have no one- absolutely no one to campaign for them in QC- the old guard of Trudeau, Claude Ryan, Chretien are dead or discredited. Ontario doesn't necessarily need poster-children but after Mike Harris, Ontarians are looking for something more moderate than Mike Harris, Ralph Klein and Stephen Harper. Stronach was the moderate conservative female face for that sell. Stronach is going to bring Ontario home to the liberals. In terms of campaign material, compared to a bunch of old white men, she should do really well among young people, and women voters in both urban ON and the ruins of the federalist movement in QC.

At first I thought a conservative moving over to the liberals will help tilt the platform away from the liberal left, preventing NDP haemorhaging but the fact theat she is young, good-looking and female is probably going to hit NDP target audiences as well. And that unfortunately is trouble.

the exams approach ...

I never did get to talking about the conversation I had with a conservative about the whole gay marriage issue. I don't think it's worthe getting into. We don't say much to each other when we meet in the hall but I do want to put a prize catch of a comment by him on here. Cauchon compared the "equal but separate" proposal put forward by the Conservative Party to the "equal but separate" educational facilities that were open to black people in the US before desegregation. I brought that up and the right-winger I was talking to started railing about "agressive gays" and "black people need to accept that they are black". I think he forgot that he was speaking to a brown person- thus I conclude even racist mofos sometimes forget hte colour of the person they are talking to. :-)
In other news the world goes round and round- this year has been interesting, this semester has been interesting in a different way that last semester was- the range of experiences has been different. Foosball has been a retreating concern. Women have been a burgeoning one.
I still haven't taken stock of my writing- one of the biggest, most massive reasons for tripping up in my writing was my female characters, interactions of all sorts they engage in. Well, I have plenty of material to work with. So maybe in a few years, I'll actually get a chance to deal with Bally and the gang and their ongoing foibles.
The hunt is on for a summer position and I'm turning the few knobs, pulling the few strings I can. I wonder what will come of it.
For now there is crim, real property, contracts, torts, legal-I and then other things that want to fit on my radar.

replying to the left on tolerance

After the Cauchon speech, I spoke to someone who was hard left to the point where she despised the entire institution of marriage and therefore saw gay marriage as simply a pet project of the white gay male in an attempt at being progressive. She also said that the liberals are harvesting the results of their own immigration policies, i.e. letting in immigrants who are conservative in bent and therefore do not fit in with Canadian principles of tolerance. The underlying implication seems to be that there should be some sort of "tolerance check" at the border and calling for an intolerance of tolerance. In response to that I would like to say that I think tolerance involves an acceptance of intolerance (in thought). Or rather to avoid lying (since I substantially dislike majoritarian extremism and often support action aginst it) I should saying tolerance is probably about pragmatism and distance. Tolerance is probably about consistently recognising the view of "the other" and working towards the small steps that seek to respect those points of view. But how can I say one musn't struggle when faced with the violent extremism in the US? I think Cauchon moving on gay marriage using the equality principle is consonant with that approach. In my next post I want to deal with a view (or two) from the right that I had to deal with.

martin cauchon speaks

I managed to listen to Martin Cauchon speak. His talk at UBC was about the same-sex marriage bill. He had many of the politician mannerisms but seemed genuinely committed to the idea of equality, passionate about the idea, and it showed in his speech. I got a chance outside the hall to ask him about the whole upsurge of separatist sentiment in Quebec and how nobody in the federal government or outside quebec seems to be recognising what is happening. He agreed that the Liberal Party in Quebec was having problems and agreed that Gilles Duceppe's move is definitely on the cards. But, I guess as a loyal liberal, he urged the support of Charest (the former Progressive Cosnervatives party leader) saying he has two years and he is a good premier etc., etc., - the usual party solidarity.
On the whole, I have to say that even though I'm very NDP I like this guy and if the liberals have to have a hope in hell of putting someone charismatic enough to challenge good old Gilles, they better start looking around for someone like Cauchon. I guess that would mean our prime minister will have to start to re-integrating the left-wing liberals that he so happily turfed out a year ago.

everyone pile onto the grow-op bandwagon

Well, I've been reading the papers in Canada and there are two choices ahead of me:
1. Everyone is the Liberal Party and the "rest" of the media over here is crazy.
2. A lot of people are pushing an agenda.

I say this because the big story on the headline is four Mounties killed by a nutcase with an assault rifle who ran a grow-op that they were investigating. Immediately after the story broke, Anne Mclellan calls for stiffer penalties for grow-op. In fact so does every other bigwig in the liberal and conservative party and their respective factions in the media. Interesting line of reasoning these people have.

Now, let me get this straight- crazy guy who runs a grow-op gets hold of guns and kills people so we shutdown grow-ops. What about if the story was" car salesman gets hold of a gun and mows done 4 mounties"? According to the reasoning of the idiot in charge of internal security in Canada, we should therefore shutdown car dealerships.

So I guess it isn't a problem that nutcases can get their hands on guns and do other things. Nutcases with guns who do needlepoint 8 hours a day and shoot politicians the rest of the time are okay. Needlepoint is a laudable activity.

It just goes to show that the liberal-conservative elite trapped on top of the shaky ivory tower that is this minority government is still a weasly little lie-machine