We have all com­plained about the lack of decent can­di­dates to vote for, in elec­tions. Yet noth­ing com­pels us to con­stant­ly elect sleazy and incom­pe­tent peo­ple to pub­lic office. Every com­mu­ni­ty has tal­ent­ed, hon­ourable, and uncor­rupt­ible peo­ple. It is the struc­ture and cus­tom­ary oper­a­tion of polit­i­cal par­ties that ensure that such peo­ple nev­er enter politics.

So what is the solu­tion for peo­ple who want to see reform and progress in their com­mu­ni­ties (whether local, region­al, or nation­al)? I think the solu­tion is a school. What if there was a School of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pub­lic Ser­vice? It’s pur­pose would be to pre­pare peo­ple to run for pub­lic office. We expect some­one who runs a hydro-elec­tric plant to study civ­il engi­neer­ing, we expect a car­pen­ter to study car­pen­try. Why should we not expect any­one who presents them­self as a can­di­date for polit­i­cal office to have stud­ied it? This is not the same thing as study­ing “Polit­i­cal Sci­ence”. We would expect a seri­ous can­di­date for pub­lic office to study phi­los­o­phy, eco­nom­ics, man­age­ment, envi­ron­men­tal sci­ence, urbanol­o­gy, his­to­ry, soci­ol­o­gy, law, human rights and moral phi­los­o­phy, among oth­er things, specif­i­cal­ly as they relate to hold­ing pub­lic office. If there was a school which offered a degree of Mas­ter of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Pub­lic Ser­vice, and its cours­es where observ­ably rig­or­ous and pro­gres­sive, I would cer­tain­ly look on any inde­pen­dent can­di­date who held that degree with enough respect to con­sid­er vot­ing for them. If any par­ty went out of its way to select can­di­dates who held such degrees, I would be inclined to take its plat­form seri­ous­ly. I would be even more inclined to vote for some­one who could demon­strate that they did not enter pol­i­tics from busi­ness, or law prac­tices that obvi­ous­ly incline them to bend to spe­cial inter­ests or to seek finan­cial gain through their office. Read more »

The CBC (Cana­di­an Broad­cast­ing Cor­po­ra­tion) often does excel­lent inter­na­tion­al reportage, espe­cial­ly when they deploy cor­re­spon­dents like Patrick Brown. Tonight’s Nation­al News fea­tured a good exam­ple. For decades, the dic­ta­tor­ship in Bur­ma has been com­mit­ting sys­tem­at­ic mass mur­der while sup­press­ing the sev­en-mil­lion strong Karen eth­nic group, and using many they don’t kill for slave labour. Brown entered Bur­ma (Myan­mar) through the jun­gles of the Thai bor­der with young Karen who are deter­mined to doc­u­ment con­di­tions in that region with hand­icams. Brown care­ful­ly gave a run­down of the his­tor­i­cal back­ground, intro­duced the main ele­ments of Karen cul­ture, and inter­viewed sev­er­al peo­ple. Most dra­mat­ic was the inter­view with a frail, elder­ly woman forced to build roads for the Burmese army — roads which will be used to bring in troops to mine the region and burn down Karen vil­lages. Read more »

As we enter the sev­enth year of a new mil­len­ni­um, the sad­dest thing to con­tem­plate is not only the prob­lems we face, but the pathet­ic inad­e­qua­cy of the intel­lec­tu­al tools employed to address them. There has been, in effect, no progress in the way human social, polit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic issues are dis­cussed. It is as if we were attempt­ing to prac­tice mod­ern med­i­cine, but inca­pable of employ­ing any ter­mi­nol­o­gy except the pre­sci­en­tif­ic con­cepts of “humours”, divine ret­ri­bu­tion, witch­craft and astrol­o­gy. That is sure­ly the state of affairs, for instance, when the idi­ot­ic “left/right” tem­plate is employed to describe “the polit­i­cal spec­trum”, or when the child­ish pseu­do-intel­lec­tu­al super­sti­tions of Marx­ism and Con­ser­vatism still pro­vide the frame of ref­er­ence. These con­cepts were worth­less when they emerged and pet­ri­fied two cen­turies ago. That they remain dom­i­nant, unchanged, and inescapable in their putres­cence, after all this time, sug­gests that our politi­cians, jour­nal­ists, aca­d­e­mics, and pun­dits are not capa­ble of rea­son­ing, learn­ing, or grow­ing up. Read more »

Fidel Cas­tro still lives, but there was some good news today. Anoth­er dis­gust­ing cock­roach that has infest­ed our world has died. No sane per­son will miss Augus­to José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte, the ruth­less dic­ta­tor of Chile. The tragedy is, of course, that Pinochet was nev­er brought to jus­tice, nev­er tru­ly defeat­ed by the forces of civ­i­liza­tion and lib­er­ty. He was mere­ly demot­ed, and some of his toys were tak­en from him. The count­less thou­sands whom he tor­tured and mur­dered, the mil­lions he exploit­ed, have seen no jus­tice. The same will be for Cas­tro. Pinochet and Cas­tro were, of course, iden­ti­cal twin broth­ers, dupli­cates of each oth­er down to the small­est mol­e­cule. Both have got­ten away with it. They have lived to ripe old ages, unre­pen­tant and unpun­ished for their crimes.

Britain’s Mar­garet Thatch­er chats ami­ably with dic­ta­tor, mass mur­der­er and tor­tur­er Augus­to Pinochet, whom she seems to have deeply admired. At the time of this pho­to, Pinochet was under indict­ment for a tiny por­tion of his atrocities

Augus­to Pinochet and Fidel Cas­tro in 1971, cel­e­brat­ing the acme of Pinochet’s tor­ture regime.

¿Que difer­en­cia tienen estos dos dic­ta­dores? — Nada.

I watched the Lib­er­al Party’s nation­al lead­er­ship con­ven­tion with great inter­est, because the cur­rent Con­ser­v­a­tive gov­ern­ment is rapid­ly los­ing the respect of the Cana­di­an peo­ple, and the Lib­er­als have a very good chance of win­ning the next elec­tion. The con­ven­tion opened with Michael Ignati­eff as the favourite, with a strong lead. 

Ignati­eff comes from an unusu­al­ly pres­ti­gious back­ground for a Cana­di­an politi­cian. His grand­moth­er was Princess Natasha Mestch­er­sky and his grand­fa­ther was Count Paul Ignati­eff, a close advi­sor to Czar Nicholas II serv­ing as his last Min­is­ter of Edu­ca­tion. In 1918, Count Ignati­eff was arrest­ed and slat­ed for exe­cu­tion but fled to Cana­da with his fam­i­ly after he was released by sym­pa­thet­ic guards. His father was a career diplo­mat who served as rep­re­sen­ta­tive to NATO (1963–1966), Cana­di­an Ambas­sador to the Unit­ed Nations (1966–1969) and pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed Nations Secu­ri­ty Coun­cil. Read more »