Category: Politics

"We believed, after being told that if we didn't, we would die."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I don’t think Esquire gets enough respect. For a magazine that too often gets lumped in to the “Men’s Interest” section of the magazine rack with Details and GQ, it strikes a good mix of fun, hotness and (relative) intellectual stimulation. For examples of the first look no further than {dreamy sigh} their most recent winner of the Hottest Woman Alive award. For examples of the last, I submit the following:

1. A Little Counterintuitive Thinking on Gays, Guns, and Dead Babies, in which John H. Richardson turns the dogma of three standard conservative planks on their ears.

In this country, ten states supply fifty-seven percent of the guns that police recover from criminals in all other states. When compared to the ten states that supplied the fewest firearms, a recent nationwide analysis found that those ten gun-toting states also had nearly sixty-percent more homicides and three times as many cops dead from gunfire.

…

The difference between the states with all those cops shot dead and the others boils down to two obvious realities: gun-show regulations and gun-permit requirements. (I’ll leave you to decide which states have strict rules and which don’t). It’s another symbol with a body count, another political football with terrible consequences in the world as it actually exists. In the name of absolute firearm freedom without any restrictions — which will never be anything but a symbol until private citizens can buy working tanks and fighter planes — all those real cops are really dead.

2. What the Hell Just Happened? A Look Back at the Last Eight Years, a remarkable short piece of work by Tom Junod which carries more heft than the title suggests.

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The irony of 9/11 and the wars that followed was that they were supposed to disestablish irony as a reigning sensibility; instead, they wound up exposing us to ironies of the bitterest and darkest and cruelest kind. That is, not McSweeney’s — style irony, the irony of bright minds roaming free in increasingly confined spaces; but ironies contrived by the brutal hand of history itself. The ironies of the Bush Years were ironies that exposed the consequences of our assent, guided — missile ironies that were unerringly aimed at point after point of the American creed, which began 2001 as the foundation of our belief and ended 2008 as the scaffolding of our credulity. America does not attack countries that have not attacked us. America does not torture. America takes care of its own. America follows the rule of law. America’s laws are built upon the principle of habeas corpus. America’s distinction is its system of checks and balances. American democracy is the inspiration of the world, and American capitalism the envy. America is better than that, no matter what “that” might be. These are not political statements; these are articles of faith, and yet in the Bush Years they suffered a political fate, as they became yoked to an administration that endured the irony of being the most image-conscious in American history at the precise historical moment when any control over how images were either promulgated or consumed was completely lost.

I encourage you to read both; the former is very short; the latter is worth every word of its three pages. And the next time you’re in a store, think about picking up an issue of Esquire.

"[A]n appalling stance"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

From today’s Globe and Mail:

Alone among major Western nations, the United States has refused to sign a declaration presented Thursday at the United Nations calling for worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality.

In all, 66 of the UN’s 192 member countries signed the nonbinding declaration — which backers called a historic step to push the General Assembly to deal more forthrightly with any-gay discrimination. More than 70 UN members outlaw homosexuality, and in several of them homosexual acts can be punished by execution.

Another entry on the list of reasons why Americans will eventually regard the past eight years as a shameful period in their history.

How to throw a tantrum with ink & paper

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Do you remember watching The Mighty Hercules as a kid? Remember when Daedalus would think that he’d gotten one over on Hercules and he’d be all smarmy and pathetic and mean? And then, inevitably he’d lose and Herc would drag his ass around town and then the meanness was gone and he’d just be smarmy and pathetic?

That’s kinda like what the Toronto Sun is looking like these days. Here’s their front page from yesterday:

Now that’s professional headline writin’!

A $1.75 MacGuffin

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

It would seem that Canada’s opposition parties — the three largest left and centre-left parties: the Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois — are about to merge. Agreements have been reached as to who should lead the party and hold cabinet positions, and a missive has been dispatched to the Governor General.

Back in October, following the federal election, I joked that the left wing parties should unite, but didn’t think they’d actually try it. Indeed, I don’t think they would have, but for the strategic error Stephen Harper made recently to change campaign finance rules and take away the $1.75 earned by political parties for each vote they gained. That move, coupled with other intended policies and an empty set of solutions for the current economic situation, would inevitably have brought about a major move by the opposition. Normally this would have taken the form of voting down the budget and spurring another election. Instead, the opposition is uniting and hoping to avoid an election. This would win them great gratitude from the public, who would rather juggle rattlesnakes than vote again this year.

Not surprisingly, though, many are upset about this, and the debate is well underway. Witness the nearly 1300 comments on the Globe and Mail’s article posted just 24 hours ago (which Mathew Ingram dissects) or the nearly 3500 on the CBC article. Unfortunately, because of my schedule, I’ve had little time to absorb any of this. Pity; I suspect we’re witnessing one of the more interesting events in Canadian politics in my lifetime.

"I hope this story has an epilogue."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

More thoughts on last night’s US election:

For all the progress that was made last night, American “morality” politics still has some issues to work out. As happy as I am that Massachusetts voters approved a ban on greyhound racing, I’m appalled that California — California — voted to ban gay marriage. So did Arizona and Florida, but California comes as a surprise. On the plus side, this should help Canadian tourism. Attention gay American couples: your dollar will buy your wedding about 16.7% more fabulous up here. And hey, you might even be able to get Joey to play the accordion at your ceremony.

.:.

Last night, during John McCain’s gracious and eloquent concession speech, I remarked to my wife that the real John McCain showed up the second he knew he could no longer win. It’s bothered us both that McCain stooped to such pandering and self-mutilation in an attempt to win, and we clearly weren’t the only ones. Chris Jones has been writing in Esquire about the McCain campaign for some time, and today had this to say:

The future unfolded exactly as they envisioned it that night. Optimism won.

But something was lost in New Hampshire, too. That was the last time I saw McCain the way I first saw him. By the time Super Tuesday rolled around, he had grown smaller and smaller — not just in my viewfinder, but in my estimation. He had traded optimism for cynicism. He was irritable and sometimes seemed grasping, as though he would do whatever it took to win. John McCain, the politician, seemed to be on the verge of outflanking John McCain, the man.

Then he picked Sarah Palin as his running mate. I’d like to think someone else picked her for him, but how’s that the better option? She represented everything wrong with the Republican Party — the same intolerant elements that McCain had fought so hard against years earlier — and now there she was, smiling on the stage beside him. Historians will no doubt cite the collapsing economy and the legacy of George W. Bush as impossible obstacles for McCain to overcome. But for me, he lost the election when he picked Palin, because he lost the last vestige of his former self.

By Election Night, I’d given up trying to find what was left of him.

…

I couldn’t help remembering how this all started, and most of all I couldn’t help remembering the John McCain I used to know. I wondered how long it would take him to shed the candidate’s skin and become the man he was. I wondered if it was even possible in the time he has left.

I hope it is. I hope this story has an epilogue.

Me too. The old John McCain is a lot more valuable to his country than this recent incarnation.

Welcome back

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Four years ago, the day after the re-election of George W. Bush, I wrote this while trying to make sense of the previous evening’s events:

I firmly believe that just over half of those who voted (and those who did not vote who were complicit by their absence) had looked square at the past four years, an era that will, within a single generation, be regarded as a black mark on their nation’s history, and said “Again. Let’s do it again.” I believe they were either hopelessly ignorant, or were more corrupted by their own politics than I could have imagined.

I simply could not reconcile this with what I knew of America. This was a country that had made itself the lone remaining superpower. This was the country of equality and victorious war and comedy and science and cultural ubiquity and remarkable turnarounds. This was a country that had more than once looked at itself in the mirror, hated what it saw and led bloody revolution against its own prejudices and problems. This was my country’s constant ally, closest business partner and friend of a century. This was a country I’d visited often, where I was equally struck by Texas hospitality and the vitality of New York. Whatever concerns I had with the politics of the land — and I had many — I always counted on the people who lived there to make right what had so obviously gone wrong, as ever they had. But, in the end, it was obvious only to me…and, I suppose, to just fewer than 60 million American voters, as Mr. Bush and his administration had indeed been given another four years in power.

Last night a bit of my faith was restored. It remains to be seen what #44 does with the next four years, but at the very least he’d have to work awfully hard to be worse than #43.

Congratulations, America. That sound you hear? That’s the rest of the world patting you on the back and welcoming you back to the party.

[Image via Spacing]

Bookmark me, kids, I'm a reference!

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’ve noticed incoming traffic on my blog from Wikipedia, of all places. This blog post from 4½ years ago is referenced in the English Wikipedia entry for ‘Movie theater’. Presumably they’re linking to me because, scofflaw that I am, I included the full content of the now-archived Globe and Mail article in my post.

Hey, if I’m the presumptive authority on the death of cheap Tuesday, then I’m ready to lead. Can someone grab their general a Tribute magazine on the way in please? Thanks.

.:.

In other news, this is the funniest thing I saw all day. Courtesy of John Moltz, by way of Joey DeVilla.

OK, OK, I shouldn't have suggested "Here Comes Your Man"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Having now played Rock Band, I can say that while the drums may be more realistic than the guitar or bass, it’ll still little like playing the drums. I almost think I should have cranked it up to advanced as that would be more like playing the actual drum part to a song. Anyway, fun thing to do with co-workers.

.:.

The worldwide polls for the US presidency: not even close.

Americans may still be undecided, but the rest of the world has made up its mind about who should be elected president of the United States.

A Gallup poll of 70 countries conducted from May through September has found widespread international support for Democratic candidate Barack Obama.

Around the world, respondents favoured Mr. Obama 4 to 1 over Republican John McCain.

[From the Globe and Mail]

Yawn

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Another pointless election, another Conservative minority. No one is surprised by this, though Stephen Harper must be disappointed. With the opposition — especially the Liberals — this weak and the Green party sucking up left-wing votes, this was his best chance for a majority, but he couldn’t quite get there.

Speaking of the Liberals, I’d have to think that the party organizers have already put down a deposit on a hall big enough to hold a leadership convention. Stephane Dion has no doubt picked out his cigarette and blindfold. Meanwhile, the CBC is already asking Bob Rae and Michael Ignatieff about their campaign plans.

If the Liberals were smart they’d push a big wedge issue to the forefront of Canadian debate, like abortion or gun control, that will create a fracture in the Conservatives between the moderates and old reformers and divide that vote. However, I shan’t hold my breath waiting for any innovative or progressive tactics from the Liberals. Unite the left, anybody?