Excavations


... nothing is more essential to public interest than the preservation of public liberty.

- David Hume



Friday, February 19, 2010

Cicero on Prisoners and Fair Dealing in War: Words of advice for Stephen Harper

Early in Book 1 of his On Obligations, written late in 44BC, (following the death of Julius Caesar) Cicero offers a guide to honourable conduct, and he explains that “Fair dealing casts its own clear light ....” (By the way, Cicero was somewhere to the Right on the political spectrum). More importantly, the Romans had an obligation for fair dealing in war: “What must always be kept in mind when honouring a pledge is the intention, not the form of words.” Put another way, the Geneva Conventions are deeply rooted, with very strong antecedents in the Roman past, and even Stephen Harper might show some humility, if he were to allow history to be his guide (and the Prime Minister certainly seems to prefer the Roman stuff):

Consideration should also be shown to those who have been subdued by force, and men who lay down their arms and seek the sanctuary of our generals’ discretion should be granted access to them, even if a battering ram has shattered their city wall. In this respect justice has been observed so scrupulously by fellow Romans that those very men who conquered cities or nations in war and then admitted them to their protective discretion, subsequently became their patrons in accordance with ancestral custom.

The procedure for fair dealing in war has been most scrupulously committed to paper in the fetial code of the Roman people. This code can help us understand that no war is just unless it is preceded by a demand for satisfaction, or unless due warning is given first, and war is formally declared. ...

.... War with the Celtiberi and with the Cimbri was the equivalent of conflict with personal enemies, and thus was fought not for supremacy but for survival, whereas we fought with Latins, Sabines, Samnites, Carthaginians and Pyrrhus for extension of empire. True, Carthaginians broke treaties, and Hannibal was cruel, but others behaved more justly. So there is that celebrated speech of Pyrrhus about the restoration of prisoners:

No gold I ask for, no reward are you to give.
Let each of us as warriors, not traffickers
In war, with steel, not gold, determine life or death.
Which one of us Dame Fortune destines for the crown,
And what the end she brings, let us by valour seek.
Here too this word: those brave men whom war’s fate has spared
I too am minded both to spare and liberate.
Take them; I give you them. The great gods will it so.


Excerpted from Cicero, On Obligations, Tr. P. G. Walsh (Oxford: Oxford World Classics, 2008), 14-15.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

How Stephen Harper met George Orwell in High School

"‘There is a word in Newspeak,’ said Syme, ‘I don’t know whether you know it; duckspeak, to quack like a duck. It is one of those interesting words that have two contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it is abuse, applied to someone you agree with, it is praise.’" (George Orwell, 1984)

Stephen Harper is fond of Orwellian duckspeak, because he is always speaking to his group (which is quite like a gaggle – and often not high in flight). Prorogation is massive duckspeak, because it avoids having to do anything with lips, and it prevents any public feeding; there is just a lot of waddling, here and there. Conservative television ads are full of duckspeak, as they squawk a lot, and they leave droppings on their opponents almost to the point of no return: remember the unfortunate Mr. Dion, and to a lesser extent there is Mr. Ignatieff who flies too high (according to his imagination).

Parliament is about duckspeak (and it can sound that way), but Harper and the Conservative Party have honed it to a fine art. Early in January I wrote my MP James Moore with complaints about prorogation (see my blog entry). I did receive a reply, within a few weeks, but there was no mention of a prorogued Parliament, and quite frankly the letter did not say anything much ... until I came across the word duckspeak. Mr. Moore was sticking to script, according to his group, even though a Minister, and avoiding any accountability to his constituents: duckspeak. I do wonder who actually wrote the letter. If it were Rick Mercer’s guess, the office plants had a say.

Another word comes to mind when considering Stephen Harper: “egological” (a deceased friend of the late Pope John Paul II came up with the term). Forget the environment, save for the office plants, Mr. Harper also puts new meaning the notion of ‘head count.’ I thought we had surpassed the ‘Me’ generation, but can the Prime Minister be a holdover from the age of bellbottoms? No, that would be an Orwellian thought-crime. Think way back, I mean, way back, to the age of the Saints, of never doing any wrong, you know, St. Augustine, St. Ambrose, St. Paul, and so on.

“Saint” is an ostentatious title for most of us, if not all. It can suggest incompatible thinking, or Orwellian doublespeak, as if there were nothing better, supposedly (and everybody else is considered a "sinner"), but that is how Stephen Harper was indoctrinated at Richview Collegiate Institute in Toronto. In other words, Mr. Harper still thinks he is one of the “Saints,” the nickname for his High School (where Church and State unite), and he persists in believing he is the head boy. (Incidentally, Margaret Atwood went to the Harper family's old area of haunt, the Leaside "Lancers"). So Harper has finally figured out a way of overriding the Senate (the teachers); in his own day it would have been by old-fashioned student strike. However, prorogation is a pretentious high school kid’s answer to getting one’s own way. Only he has succeeded in closing down the school because initiation rites may have gotten out of hand. Given that Harper is so egological, it really is like water off an Orwellian duck’s back.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Mel Hurtig's "The Truth About Canada" - A Review

Mel Hurtig’s recent bestseller, The Truth About Canada (2008), is reminiscent of a number of different books, for example Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine (2007) and William Marsden’s Stupid to the Last Drop (2007). All these books are written with a critical and breath-taking edge reminding us of “some truly appalling things” as Hurtig’s subtitle properly puts it. But to my mind the work that resonates most with Hurtig is Paul Tillich’s classic The Courage to Be. While The Truth About Canada is no exquisite theological treatise, and Hurtig’s use of statistics from the OECD (which he never defines) can be a bit mind numbing, Hurtig’s book is in itself the product of a profound act of courage. He rallies against Canada’s ‘think tanks’ (especially the far-right Fraser Institute, as well as the ‘non-partisan’ C.D. Howe Institute and Institute for Research on Public Policy) and almost single-handedly he unites the charge against Prime Ministers (previous and existing), Governments, Health Care, Businesses, Banks, Media, the Military, NAFTA, Globalization, Higher Education, you name it. Most of all, I savour the fact that Hurtig is an Edmontonian by origin.

Yes, Canada has changed mightily since the presumed ‘good old days’ (prior to Mulroney), and the great number of these changes are not promising, particularly if you share concerns over heightened continentalism. Pointing to the absolute decline in the number of doctors as Canada’s population increased between the years from 1993to 2003, he reminds us that American society and its health system is far from ideal. Life expectancy in Harlem is lower than it is in Bangladesh, and Malaysia and the U.S. have similar infant mortality rates. Moreover, the child poverty rate in the U.S. is just ahead of Mexico. Not to be smug, he reveals that the child poverty rate in British Columbia, the highest in Canada, is 23.5%. Borrowing from Lars Osberg, an Economist at Dalhousie University, he explains the number of “monster homes” now increases with the number of homeless, and (again) the rich-poor income gap is highest in B.C.

Turning to other economic indicators, we see that productivity is in decline in Canada. In 1970 we were 5th (out of 24 nations); by 2007 we were 47th (out of 50 nations). More significantly, our manufacturing industries are increasingly under foreign control, up to just over 50% in 2004, higher than any other OECD nation (and increasing). Meanwhile we continue to cut (‘foreign’) corporate taxes. Quoting Globe and Mail business columnist Eric Reguly, he explains that “the relative tax burden on the individual has doubled” between the years 1961 and 2006. We are, as Hurtig’s apt phrase goes, a “hollowed-out country ... sleepwalking back to colonial status” (assuming we had ever left it), and Reguly blames nothing but “feckless CEO’s,” good ‘managers’ only, who bring shame to Canadians in the light of, say, Vimy.

Hurtig goes further and accuses the Harper government and former Industry Minister Jim Prentice of “intentionally misleading Canadians.” From 1996 to June 2007 the number of Canadian companies taken by foreign companies over was 6,355 – not 1540 as claimed by Prentice’s office. Meanwhile the number of foreign companies acquired by Canadian ones was 3,898. Only Canadians would give up the likes of the Hudson’s Bay Company and its 350 year relationship with the nation’s history. Only Canadians, because of NAFTA, would give up something over 50% of our production of natural gas to the United States. More importantly, “we now have less than nine years of natural gas left” (and the scenario for our oil reserves is almost as bad); in other words, Alberta’s economy (and Canada's future) is built on a house of cards, a situation one anonymous Calgary expert Hurtig quotes as “pretty scary.” (See also the aforementioned Stupid to the Last Drop).

Hurtig’s solution is to “abrogate NAFTA and impose export taxes on all oil and gas exports” – not a bad idea, if you are first a Canadian with no ties to Americans. Our excessive media concentration (which one definitely finds in Vancouver) also prevents the proper dissemination and contest of ideas so essential to a democracy. And in this light our universities are failing us because of chronic underfunding, among other things. According to the most recent United Nations Development Report, Canada is 90th in terms of “public expenditure on education as a percentage of all government spending.” Hurtig’s solution to our many ills is proportional representation and resulting better voter turnout (a consequence, according to studies): we will actually have increased representation, less vote distortion and alienation, and a more meaningful democracy; why, it might even help inculcate a better sense of nationhood among us all, likely one of Hurtig’s aims.

Where do I disagree with Hurtig? First, he far too hastily dismisses the Senate in less than one paragraph without due consideration to the virtues of a bicameral legislature. Secondly, his criticism of our military lacks a little focus. Yes, unfortunately (according to Steve Staples of the Rideau Institute on International Affairs) we have transformed ourselves as a nation from a “peace-keeper to a war-fighter,” and we have done so without public debate, which is cause for concern. Yes, sadly, we are now the “sixth highest military spender among the 26 NATO countries,” outspending the bottom 12 NATO countries combined. Yes, our involvement in Afghanistan is highly questionable and, I believe, doomed to failure. Yes, if we are to accept Michael Byers, Harper and other governments have bungled the matter of the Northwest Passage, which is quickly de-icing. But that is precisely where perhaps some of our military spending should go, if we are to prevent strange underwater bumping from going unchecked. In the interest of territorial sovereignty we should be doing something more about Canada’s North rather than preach democracy (from the barrel of a gun) in Afghanistan.

The Truth About Canada is far more than a statistical rant, and I can see Mel Hurtig speaking to many groups across Canada, as a former publisher, politician and a present-day moralist. It takes real courage to be Hurtig and to take on so many institutions with entrenched interests. He must have armed himself with the First Epistle of St. Peter: “Who is going to harm you if you are eager to do good?” This verse ought to be coupled (in our minds) with the following: “But even if you should suffer for what is right, you are blessed.”