Over the last few years, in this web­site, I’ve tak­en many crit­i­cal swipes at Amer­i­can pol­i­tics and cul­ture. Like most Cana­di­ans, I have a some­what ambiva­lent and jaun­diced atti­tude towards our south­ern cousins. Some­times this can get car­ried away. When times are at their worst, we tend to respond with the frus­trat­ed anger of some­one who has learned that his admired broth­er has turned into a drug addict or been brain­washed by the Moonies. For the times I’ve been intem­per­ate in my crit­i­cisms, I duly apol­o­gize. But let me say this: I have always admired Amer­i­ca, as most Cana­di­ans have always admired it, for the obvi­ous rea­sons. Those rea­sons can be found in the quin­tes­sen­tial­ly Amer­i­can works of art, music, phi­los­o­phy and lit­er­a­ture that are as much a part of me as the red maple leaves blow­ing in the street out­side my door are part of me. Tomor­row the Amer­i­can peo­ple will decide whether their nation is over and done with or will con­tin­ue and renew itself. If McCain is elect­ed, every­one in the world will know that Amer­i­ca is washed up, fin­ished. Nobody will ever take any Amer­i­can seri­ous­ly again. But it appears that the tide is turn­ing. Amer­i­ca seems to be re-dis­cov­er­ing itself. I have faith in the Amer­i­can peo­ple. Tonight, I’ll read Whitman.

Ever won­der about that “three mil­lion dol­lar ear­mark for an over­head pro­jec­tor” that is such an impor­tant talk­ing point in John McCain’s elec­tion cam­paign? Accord­ing to an arti­cle in this week’s Sci­ence News, it turns out that the “over­head pro­jec­tor” is the Zeis star pro­jec­tor in the ven­er­a­ble Adler Plan­e­tar­i­um in Chica­go. Like the oth­er two major Amer­i­can plan­e­tar­i­ums in New York and Los Ange­les, the Adler must replace its fifty-year old instru­ment, which the orig­i­nal Ger­man man­u­fac­tur­er will no longer ser­vice. As with the oth­er two, the request for fed­er­al fund­ing is rou­tine, and no politi­cian would dream of vot­ing against it. The three plan­e­tar­i­ums teach the fun­da­men­tals of astron­o­my to mil­lions of urban school chil­dren who have nev­er seen a clear night star-filled sky, and are basic ameni­ties of major cities. The cost of a few mil­lion dol­lars amor­tized over half a cen­tu­ry is triv­ial. No politi­cian in any of the three states involved would have vot­ed oth­er­wise. Could any­thing bet­ter demon­strate the dis­hon­esty and the mind-bog­gling igno­rance of the McCain campaign?

“Lais­sez-faire” is one of many terms that are con­sis­tent­ly mis­un­der­stood, mis­used, and distorted.

The term orig­i­nat­ed in 17th cen­tu­ry France. Under the rule of Louis XIV, France had a cen­tral­ized, state-man­aged econ­o­my. Vir­tu­al­ly all key eco­nom­ic deci­sions were in the hands of Louis’ inten­dant (“man­ag­er” is a bet­ter trans­la­tion than “min­is­ter”), Jean-Bap­tiste Col­bert. Col­bert direct­ed the country’s indus­tries with absolute author­i­ty, pun­ish­ing the dis­obe­di­ent with bru­tal sanc­tions. He sup­pressed what lit­tle labour orga­ni­za­tion there was. He encour­aged the cre­ation of giant cor­po­ra­tions, and he gave out mil­i­tary con­tracts, monop­o­lies, sub­si­dies and priv­i­leges to those he liked. The cor­po­ra­tions grew fat on the pro­ceeds of Louis’ inces­sant wars. France was a sort of Hal­ibur­ton’s Heav­en. As a con­se­quence, after a brief boom cre­at­ed by the ini­tial con­cen­tra­tion of cap­i­tal, France’s tech­nol­o­gy and econ­o­my stag­nat­ed, the gap between rich and poor widened, and those at the bot­tom starved, just as it has tran­spired in all such dirigiste regimes. Read more »