Canadian Observer

Apparently long before Jimmy Carter or Cupe Ontario used apartheid to describe the Israeli juridical regime in Palestine, a certain Israeli Attorney General described it as such. We are sure Kinsella would describe Michael Ben-Yair as just another self-hater. But hey that’s what happens when fallen Catholics attempt resurrection.

We enthusiastically chose to become a colonial
society, ignoring international treaties,
expropriating lands, transferring settlers from Israel
to the occupied territories, engaging in theft and
finding justification for all these activities.
Passionately desiring to keep the occupied
territories, we developed two judicial systems: one –
progressive, liberal – in Israel; and the other –
cruel, injurious – in the occupied territories. In
effect, we established an apartheid regime in the
occupied territories immediately following their
capture. That oppressive regime exists to this day.

— Michael Ben-Yair (Israeli’s Attorney-General
1993-1996), The War’s Seventh Day; Ha’aretz, 3 March
2002.

OK just so you know there are more of us out here than you think just not as many as we would want. It is just that most of us have been banged into the discursive shape of the times. Hoping beyond hope that the world has really not moved so far to the right. But alas it has. So sometimes we just say fuck it and blog about technology from an open source point of view.

But hey what do you want in a world where in one breath the environment is pointed to as the single biggest market failure in human history and in the next breath we are told that market based solutions are the only solutions. And then we are further told that these two propositions taken together are Radical! How much room does this leave for the Hard Left as you call it?

I think most of the Hard left has either scurried off to regulate bicycle helmets, smoking, seat belts, trans fats (do you think if they were hetero fats they would get such a bum rap?) in short the public safety and morality committee (what about the children?); or they have joined a cult like urban avante guarde where they waiting for us to kick things off so they can jump to the front and lead us to where we were already going; or they have given up; or a yet even smaller group of us are blogging and passing time until the great slumber comes to end.

The Real Parliamentary Hard Left, left the house circa 1972. And neither they nor the NDP has really gone anywhere. It is interesting that despite the expulsion of the Hard Left, the NDP has remained a distant third party despite its cleansing. There is lesson somewhere in there for the NDP but I think they would be rather unreceptive to it. Anyway the sons and daughters of the HARD LEFT nay the SOLID LEFT are here to battle on. Rage rage against the dying of the light as we do.

Perhaps we should have known that Kinsella was still working when he penned that conspiracy theory for the Post about a quid pro quo between the libs and the cons. Kinsella has yet to print a retraction of the charge which means either it was pure fabricated innuendo or that he knows something we do not. Either way let us be the first to apologize for following Kinsella’s suggestion that the liberals were involved in a complex cover-up of an insider trading scam. If we learned anything from the Gomery inquiry it is (a) that the liberals are bad at covering their tracks and (b) that their preferred mode of pay-offs is strictly of the brown paper bag variety stashed stuffed with cash . Who was Kinsella backing then and which leader was cleared?

And by the way Warren we do not hate you we pity you.

This comes from the comment section of our last post. There is a large kernel of truth in it we thinks.

Harper is the product of a culture whose outrages seem to mount day-by-day on issues great and small. Anger is his modus operandi, and it is a never-ceasing torrent of rage, indignation, and victimization. It is particularly telling of a culture who has controlled the executive, legislative, and judicial branches, the majority of premierships and the media, could somehow paint themselves as being persecuted, helpless, and oppressed. In virtually any conceivable setting, this backlash self-victimization would be utterly discredited were the battles fought on specific winnable issues. By adopting policy agendas by which they cannot possibly achieve their goals, the ever-present spectre of failure looms overhead, adding a sense of nobility; a righteous Christian cause fought tirelessly against a mighty, monolithic enemy whose all-encompassing authority routinely crushes the gallant defenders of Good. Who wouldn’t want to be fighting with the vanguard of freedom and righteousness?

C-288 could have been a good manoeuvre had it contained any significant content which would have compelled a significant action or expense by the Cons on the environment.  But it was a typical cake-and-eat-it-to expedition: the liberals wanted to force the Cons’ hand without taking any of the responsibility for the consequent action.  This is classic parlour play.  How about some real use of the minority government to achieve some real results and not just crass electioneering?  Perhaps it is true, priorities are hard to identify when all you want is the big chair.

Ok we have been rather hard on the guy and we still do not think very highly of him when he acts on his instincts.  That said, a good piece of honest muckraking about those more powerful than the rest of us and the collusion that keeps it that way.  Three Cheers to Kinsella.