Cognitive Dissonance

Whaddya know...Our Glorious Leader does a damn good Beatles cover. Musical talents aside, does anyone else find it a little odd to see Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, a reactionary opponent of cannabis decriminalization, sing about getting high with a little help from his friends?

A Tale of Two Movies

This weekend saw me shell out $20 at the downtown movie theatre to see two films, only one of which I would have had any interest in seeing on my own, but which itself was not necessarily the kind of flick you need to see on the big screen. In the interests of full disclosure, I present to you my take on two very different new releases:

Love Happens
More like "Shit Happens." I saw this movie as a selfless act of chivalry on a double-date, and was one of approximately five males in the whole theatre. Expecting a typically bland romantic comedy, what I actually got was a depressing romantic drama that, despite the best efforts of leads Aaron Eckhart and Jennifer Aniston, failed to save itself from a cliché-ridden script.

Eckhart plays self-help guru Burke Ryan, who has attracted millions of converts with his book A-Okay!, written in the wake of his wife's death. It turns out, however, that Burke has not been entirely honest with either his readers or himself, and has yet to properly deal with the circumstances surrounding his wife's demise. Ultimately, Aniston's character Eloise is secondary to the plot, which was fine by me, since she seemed to again be playing an unlucky-in-love single woman whose philandering ex-boyfriend will no doubt remind many viewers of Aniston's neverending tabloid adventures. Eckhart gives a strong performance as Burke, and special praise is due to John Carroll Lynch as Walter, a man palpably griefstruck over his son's death, whom Burke attempts to help.

Ultimately, however, the film is just too bland and too reliant on ancient genre conventions (such as Burke and Eloise meeting when they accidentally bump into each other - GROAN), making it easy to dismiss this as a strictly-for-chicks weepie. Nevertheless, I must add one more complaint - the film's crass commercialism and way-too-obvious product placement. Aside from Burke's iPod and a major on-screen role for Qwest, Walter's grand, character-defining moment of redemption occurs when he goes shopping at a Home Depot. Yes, the filmmakers seem to say, happiness is only a $3000 shopping spree away, complete with loving shots of a hammer and a DeWaal power drill. Pass.

Trailer Park Boys: Countdown to Liquor Day
I'm actually somewhat late to the Trailer Park Boys phenomenon. Although my friends have loved it for years, it took me a long time to embrace the show, even after seeing Randy and Mr. Lahey live at the Alehouse (a show consisting entirely of them getting wasted onstage). It was only in the past few months that I finally "got" the show, growing to love its unique characters and off-the-wall sensibilities. Having devoured as many episodes as possible and seen part of the first movie, I approached the debut of this second and, it appears, final Trailer Park Boys epic as a must-see event. That said, it took me about a week after release to actually get my ass into a movie theatre.

So was it worth the $10? Well, it's like this: if you like the Trailer Park Boys already, you'll certainly get your money's worth. It's essentially an extended episode of the TV show, and I wouldn't expect anything less in this venture. Suffice it to say, our favourite characters are all there, and they develop in interesting new directions. Jim Lahey may be my favourite, and I've never seen him as drunk and messed-up as he is in this film, shortly after going back on the liquor and hitting rock bottom. We see Bubbles get lucky in love with a girl who works at the animal shelter, J-Roc and Tyrone facing creative disagreements (I enjoyed the title of J-Roc's hit single, "Can't Not Be Feelin' Dis"), Randy getting a tough new haircut, Julian attempting to start a legitimate business, and an explosive climax featuring the most piss-drenched car chase I've ever seen. Highly recommended.

BONUS - Clerks II
Saw a version of this on the internet as a post-screening antidote to Love Happens, and all I can say is, Kevin Smith is the MAN. After seeing this and the classic Mallrats, I definitely need to delve back into his ouevre. While I'm sure the original Clerks is far superior, the pop-cultural references alone make its sequel a worthy way to spend a couple hours. And I'm glad they acknowledged the fact that Dante, while a great character, is probably way too schlubby to have two hot chicks fighting over him in each movie.

Mao's China Turns 60

On October 1, 1949, Mao Zedong proclaimed the People's Republic of China from atop Tiananmen. Sixty years later, the Chinese Communist Party retains its iron grip over a country that has changed immensely since its birth following a protracted civil war, brutal Japanese occupation during World War II and more than a century of humiliation at the hands of colonial foreign powers. Today, on the PRC's 60th anniversary, it's worth taking stock of the country's accomplishments since that fateful day.

Few leaders in world history have proved as controversial as Chairman Mao. Although he remains officially venerated by the Communist Party of China, Mao's grotesque failings as a statesman have been evident ever since his hugely ambitious yet tragically misguided Great Leap Forward. In an attempt to instantly propel a poor, largely rural nation to great power status through large-scale collectivization of agriculture and forced industrialization, Mao took all the worst aspects of the Soviet experiment under Stalin and brutally enforced those radical policies on the Chinese people. Collectivization in the Soviet Union caused widespread famine in rural areas, especially the Ukraine, but what historians of the Soviet period referred to as the "man-made disaster" wrought even greater havoc in China, where it has been estimated up to 30 million people died in the worst famine in recorded history.

The Great Leap was constantly marked by boneheaded administrative delusions, such as Mao's desire to overtake the United States in steel production within ten years. To that end, he forced at least 90 million people to build backyard furnances in which all available metals - dining utensils, doorknobs, whatever was at hand - were melted down to create "steel", in reality useless slag that would later cause the collapse of bridges and other large-scale construction projects. Reality was never an impediment to Mao, and he was notoriously dismissive of human life. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday's biography Mao: The Unknown Story, banned in China because of its unabashedly negative view of the communist leader, is rife with examples of Mao's callousness. Upon being informed that one county was doling out food to people too ill to work, he responded: "This won't do. Give them this amount and they don't work. Best halve the basic ration, so if they're hungry they have to try harder." He freely allowed that "half of China may well have to die" in order to fulfill his policies.

When the failures of the Great Leap Forward could no longer be hidden, Mao was largely thrust aside by the party apparatus, who aimed to reduce his influence and transform him into little more than a figurehead. That proved a disastrous decision as Mao used his burgeoning personality cult to destroy political enemies and bring chaos to China in the Cultural Revolution. Employing legions of teenage followers as his weapon, Mao turned the Red Guards on any and all manifestations of authority other than himself. The result was a virtual lost decade for China, as students killed their teachers, children turned in their parents, schools and hospitals shut down operations, and cultural life atrophied into banal revolutionary propaganda under the influence of "Madame Mao", Jiang Qing. The wave of violence intensified as Red Guard factions turned on each other, and it was only with Mao's death that the Cultural Revolution could be said to have truly ended.

Since then, the free-market reforms of Deng Xiaoping have turned the economy of China around through an embrace of once-taboo capitalist policies. Despite the fact that the country is suffering from an array of problems associated with capitalism - rising inequality between rich and poor, rampant corruption, ethnic uprisings, and severe pollution - the engine of Chinese economic growth has never been more powerful. China's rise, especially in the period following Deng's reforms, provides one of the more challenging refutations to conventional Marxist dogma. Under Mao's extreme version of communism, millions died and the country almost tore itself apart (a serious charge given Mao's reputation for uniting China after its disarray under various warlords and the Nationalist government of Chiang Kai-shek). It was only following Mao's death that a generation of more pragmatic leaders forged a new path in which, to paraphrase Van Jones, they could substitute the cheap satisfaction of the radical pose for the deep satisfaction of radical ends.

Ultimately, what can we say about the China of today? The country is far more prosperous and stable than it has ever been, and yet the Communist Party is well-aware that its claim to power rests on its ability to deliver economically for its people. Unlike in the USSR, the Chinese communists were unable to disassociate themselves from a mass-murdering despot in the same way that Kruschchev embarked on his campaign of de-Stalinization. The Soviet leadership could portray Stalin's rule as a perversion of the communist ideal by pointing to his predecessor Lenin, who they claimed represented "true" communism. The Chinese leadership did not have this same luxury. The party had gained power through Mao and was indelibly associated with his name. To renounce Mao would be to dismiss the party's entire claim to legitimacy, and so they settled on a compromise policy in which Mao remains officially revered, though his flaws are acknowledged. In an approach characteristic of the post-Deng leadership, it is a highly...pragmatic decision.

We should not forget that there was much that was admirable about Mao's achievements. Aside from uniting a broken country and restoring its sense of national pride (a feat at odds with notions of proletarian internationalism), he also raised the overall standard of living - promoting universal education, increasing life expectancy by decades, serving as an outspoken opponent of Western imperialism on behalf of developing nations, and, it should not be forgotten, breaking down barriers to women in society and overturning repugnant, misogynist cultural traditions such as foot-binding. Mao famously said, "Women hold up half the sky," and Chinese women can surely count themselves as far more liberated since the foundation of the People's Republic.

But like so much of Mao's life, his views on women were fraught with contradictions. As documented in Jung Chang's biography, he treated his wives horribly and in old age had many dalliances with younger women. It's a microcosm of the larger contradictions of Mao and the People's Republic of China, a booming capitalist country administered by an entrenched communist party, founded by a prophet of equality whose ruthless desire for absolute power drove his country into totalitarian misery, horrific famine, cultural indoctrination and virtual slavery. Figures like Mao remain the most difficult obstacle to promoting socialism in capitalist countries where that ideology is viewed as synonymous with Maoism and Stalinism. Only when we reclaim socialism through a grassroots-organized, decentralized movement, dominated by workers and regular people, can we have a valid response to critics who raise fears of despotic, centralized, old-school "communist" tyranny like Mao's.

Actual "Expert" vs. Pundits

The Western political-media establishment is busy ginning up baseless fear again over Iran's nuclear program, so pay absolutely no attention to this little gem of independent thought from Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency:

I am dismayed by the allegations of some Member States, which have been fed to the media, that information has been withheld from the Board. These allegations are politically motivated and totally baseless. Such attempts to influence the work of the Secretariat and undermine its independence and objectivity are in violation of Article VII.F. of the IAEA Statute and should cease forthwith.

Doesn't he know Iran is eeeeeeevil?

Thankfully, here's Glenn Greenwald on MSNBC, characteristically cutting through the pundit-generated bullshit like a hot knife through butter. But I was shocked to discover none other than Arianna Huffington stoking fear about Iran. For shame, Huff.

The G20 Travesty

The recent economic summit of the G20 nations in Pittsburgh was everything I expected - that is, a glossy stage show in which the chief political representatives of world banking interests offered vague statements praising the so-called economic recovery (for the bankers, that is) while pressing forward on plans to make working people pay for the crimes of international finance, all while peaceful protesters outside faced now-routine police brutality bolstered by the most technologically-advanced methods of crowd dispersal/oppression. Tear gas, pepper spray, batons, rubber bullets and sonic cannons (also known as Long Range Acoustic Devices) were all deployed as the international elite attempted to neutralize any popular criticism of its reactionary policies.

According to the G20, economic recovery will require governments to reduce spending and squeeze workers by lowering their living standard, a solution which does not exactly square with their professed goals of creating jobs and reducing poverty. Perhaps the weakness of their actual economic plans was what prompted leaders of the Western nations to distract the media's attention by engaging in this heartwarming act of political theatre:

In what has all the hallmarks of an orchestrated political provocation, the United States, Britain and France, with the support of Germany, denounced a supposedly secret Iranian nuclear plant, threatened stepped-up economic sanctions and possible military action unless the facility was immediately open to inspection.

In a joint announcement Friday morning at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh, US President Barack Obama, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and French President Nicolas Sarkozy appeared together before television cameras to issue the warning. Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel, who had left Pittsburgh to return home, issued her own statement of support for the threats against Iran.

Obama declared, “The Iranian government must now demonstrate through deeds its peaceful intentions or be held accountable to international standards and international law.” He gave Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad six days to respond—by the time of an October 1 meeting in Geneva. His approach echoed that of George W. Bush seven years ago in citing an alleged nuclear weapons program as the basis for going to war against Iraq.

Talk about déjà vu all over again. Is the memory of the public really so short that the buildup to war against Iraq in 2003 - supported by the same bogus claims about weapons of mass destruction and the same hypocritical lectures about international law from the world's most powerful rogue state - has already been forgotten as we see the exact same propaganda applied to Iran? That's a rhetorical question, of course; public opinion has almost always been irrelevant when it comes to U.S. foreign policy. But it is depressing to see the foreign policy elite do everything in its power to beat the drums of war, especially at a conference supposedly designed to address the economic crisis. Then again, we shouldn't be surprised; unscrupulous politicians have always used war as a distraction from and "solution" to economic problems.

Canadian Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon characteristically followed the lead of the United States, condemning Iran for its "continued refusal" to listen to resolutions by the UN Security Council and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Unless, of course, you consider the fact that the existence of Iran's supposedly top-secret nuclear facilities was actually disclosed to the IAEA by...Iran, in a letter written September 21 that acknowledged the construction of a new pilot-fuel enrichment plant. But whatever.

The relentless demonization of Iran by the wealthy Western elite is merely another indication of how little power the people of those nations actually have over their governments' foreign policies. We should revere the heroes who showed up in Pittsburgh to protest the continued dominance of the neoliberal agenda over a world that ideology has clearly failed, especially given the ever-more repressive measures undertaken by the new American police state. Riot squads entered university dormitories to threaten students with arrest and expulsion, many requests for peaceful demonstrations were unceremoniously denied, and the use of pepper spray, rubber bullets, gas and LRAD against the crowd was justified by the supposed threat from anarchists, though it has been shown in the past that plainclothed police provocateurs often infiltrated anarchist groups in order to justify the brutal crackdown on protesters.

Also noteworthy is the coverage of the G20 protests in the largest mainstream news organizations, which is to say there was barely any, certainly nothing approaching the wall-to-wall coverage of factually-challenged teabaggers at town hall meetings. We mainly saw sanitized coverage and carefully-prepared statements from the G20 leaders themselves, though CNN ran a nice little fluff piece on the riot police point of view.

Of course, no discussion of this G20 would be complete without a quote from the first Community Organizer-In-Chief. For any deluded liberal who still believes Obama has anything in common with them at all, the following howler should provide a much-needed slap in the face:

PITTSBURGH (AP) — President Barack Obama says the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh was relatively tranquil and protesters should realize that world leaders are trying to shape a global economy that helps poor people.

Obama told reporters Friday that previous world summits drew far more protesters than the several thousand who clashed with police this week in Pittsburgh.

The president said many of the protesters oppose capitalism and free markets in general. He said they are free to express their views but he disagrees with them.

Obama said the G-20 leaders agreed to economic policies that should create world markets that help workers and poor people have more stable and prosperous lives.

After all, if there's anyone who knows about helping workers and poor people have more stable and prosperous lives, it's Wall Street's most prominent puppet.

Head in the Sand

I caught longtime activist Yves Engler at Queen's yesterday promoting his new publication, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy. You can be sure I immediately snapped up a copy. As should be obvious if you've read any of my previous posts, I've been consistently critical of American foreign policy and imperialist wars in general. However, my knowledge of Canada's own international crimes has been sadly lacking. Aside from the most obvious cases, such as the war in Afghanistan, I have largely fallen into the same mindset as most Canadian establishment journalists - i.e., that we are a benevolent, peaceful nation, standing in stark contrast to the more aggressively capitalist and militarist United States.

Call it patriotism, nationalism, or ethnocentric chauvinism, but that is essentially what results when one uncritically supports whatever their country does. While I have been aware of the Harper government's shameful neglect of Canadian citizens imprisoned abroad, such as Omar Khadr and Abousfian Abdelrazik, and its professed support of Israeli war crimes in Gaza, I have still subconsciously clung to the notion of Canada as peacekeeper. What Engler reminds us is that no country is ever as good as its public statements would suggest. He highlights the important fact that we should always regard government words with skepticism, and that Canadians in particular have paid far too much attention to our government's words rather than its actions. If we examine the historical record, the evidence of Canadian compliance in or advocacy of imperialist crimes is damning indeed.

Engler makes a convincing case that throughout our history, Canada has always supported the actions of the preeminent imperial power of the day, be that Great Britain or the USA. Thus, even when it appears on the surface that we have taken a brave stand against American foreign policy, if one digs deeper we usually find either aquiescence to broader U.S. policy or the aiding and abetting of American aggression. Praise of Lester Pearson's famous 1965 speech at Temple University in which he called for a pause in American bombing of North Vietnam - which has been cited even by leftist journalists like Linda McQuaig as an example of Canada's peaceful nature - ignores the more salient truth that Canada largely supported American anti-communist policy in Southeast Asia and even allowed Agent Orange to be tested in New Brunswick, due to the similarity of the foliage to that of Vietnam.

Similarly, despite our much-ballyhooed opposition to the Iraq War in 2003, Canada provided implict support to U.S. forces by allowing the use of our air space, providing logistical support, sending naval vessels to patrol the Arabian Sea, providing equipment such as aircraft, and even sending a small number of soldiers to participate in the conflict, including General Walter Natynczyk, now Chief of the Defence Staff of the Canadian Forces. Our role in Iraq is best summarized by Janice Gross Stein and Eugene Lang in their book The Unexpected War:

In an almost schizophrenic way, the government bragged publicly about its decision to stand aside from the war in Iraq because it violated core principles of multilateralism and support for the United Nations. At the same time, senior Canadian officials, military officers and politicians were currying favour in Washington, privately telling anyone in the State Department of the Pentagon who would listen that, by some measures, Canada's indirect contribution to the American war effort in Iraq – three ships and 100 exchange officers – exceeded that of all but three other countries that were formally part of the coalition.

In the same vein, Canada's rejection of the American embargo on Cuba was not an act of benevolence and common sense, but was designed to serve American interests. In his book Three Nights in Havana, Robert Wright lays it out for us:

Recently declassified State Department documents have revealed that, far from encouraging Canada to support the embargo, the United States secretly urged Diefenbaker to maintain normal relations because it was thought that Canada would be well-positioned to gather intelligence on the island.

Upon closer reflection, none of this should surprise us. Canada is no better or worse than any other country in that its foreign policy is largely dictated by the concerns of an elite establishment. Imperialism, whether British or American, serves the needs of Canadian business interests, who therefore have no trouble supporting neo-colonial adventures in the Middle East or Africa. Aside from acting as a junior partner to larger imperial powers, we have also engaged in the neoliberal exploitation of developing nations, ensuring that Canadian corporations have free rein to extract resources from those impoverished countries. It's really no surprise that our foreign policy elite acts in this way, since it's the same in any country: you only have to follow the money to know why nations often engage in such behaviour without broad popular support.

Canada's exploitive urges are limited only by the size of our population and our resources, not by any claim to moral superiority. To ignore this fact is to fall into the same trap as chest-thumping nationalists south of the border, who I have so often criticized because, let's face it, it's easier to criticize others than to take an honest look in the mirror. Writers such as Glenn Greenwald have noted American hypocrisy in decrying human rights abuses by official enemies such as Iran while ignoring America's own record of torture, international aggression and flouting of the rule of law. For me to continue to criticize those abuses while downplaying my own country's crimes would be utterly hypocritical. In that sense, Engler's book was more than worth the $15.

A Small Dose of Common Sense

Gosh, this sounds reasonable:

Israel promised Russia it would not launch an attack on Iran, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said in an interview aired on Sunday in which he described such an assault as "the worst thing that can be imagined."

Israel has hinted it could forcibly deny Iran the means to make an atomic bomb if it refuses to suspend uranium enrichment and has criticized Russia for agreeing to supply to Tehran S-300 anti-aircraft weapons that could complicate an attack.

In an interview with CNN recorded on Tuesday, Medvedev denied Moscow was backing Iran but said it had the right to supply defensive weapons and said sanctions against Tehran should only be used as a last resort.

An attack would lead to "a humanitarian disaster, a vast number of refugees, Iran's wish to take revenge and not only upon Israel, to be honest, but upon other countries as well," Medvedev said, according to a Kremlin transcript.

"But my Israeli colleagues told me that they were not planning to act in this way and I trust them."

Call me crazy, but I'm not sure I can place as much trust as Medvedev does in the word of the Israeli government, especially since Joe Biden appeared to indicate in July that the U.S. government would do nothing to stop an Israeli first strike against Iran. Of course, we're talking about Joe "Ready to Gaffe" Biden here. But although the Obama administration distanced itself from those remarks - with the President personally saying the U.S. had "absolutely not" given Israel permission to attack - you have to wonder, given the Beltway establishment's unrelenting push for war with Iran and Obama's own penchant for saying one thing while doing another.

Throughout all of this, I can't help but appreciate the role Russia continues to play as a bulwark against U.S.-Israeli aggression in the Middle East and elsewhere. Although I'm no great fan of Vladimir Putin and the corrupt, authoritarian-leaning government he heads, I understand his popularity among Russians who might desire a more traditional strongman after the economic chaos of the 1990s, the grotesque failures of free market "reforms" masterminded by Larry Summers, and the international embarrassment embodied in booze-addled political opportunist Boris Yeltsin. Following the Cold War, the boost to American exceptionalism provided by the demise of the Soviet Union and the rise of a "unipolar" global order found its most odious expression in the cowboy diplomacy of the Bush administration. Although the neoconservatives have been largely discredited by foreign policy disasters like Iraq, their noxious worldview continues to thoroughly infect mainstream political discourse in the United States, with the result that Beltway conventional wisdom is often predicated on their warmongering interpretations of daily events - which of course then finds its way into that ultimate vehicle for establishment-approved political thought, the Obama administration.

As a result, whenever the American media-industrial complex attempts to push a factually false, but politically convenient meme - such as the idea that the 2008 South Ossetia conflict was unprovoked and entirely attributable to Russian aggression, rather than a response to Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili's ill-advised offensive into the breakaway province - it's nice to have Russian opinion providing a counterbalance. Yes, it's just another great power protecting its own geostrategic interests, but with the percentage of blatant lies clogging up American political discourse getting thicker all the time, Russian interests will often lead that country's spokespersons wading into the realm of fact. It's a refreshing alternative, but it also underlines the extent to which, in the propaganda-soaked post-9/11 media wasteland, the United States plutocracy has largely made a mockery of the idea that its public relations channels (or "news networks", as the euphemism would have it) resemble anything like a free press. As in any other authoritarian state, the American media serves the interests of powerful elites. It's just a question of which state's bullshit you choose to believe.