JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSES TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

First, a great deal of time has passed with considerable change of circumstances since Pierre Trudeau was prime minister, changes which might well render Pierre himself not electable in the contemporary world.

But regardless of what Pierre’s political standing would be today, Justin is not Pierre, not even close.

Justin is a handsome and charming young man, but he received more of his mother’s genes than his father’s.

The steely will and fierce intelligence are simply not there.

I would say Thomas Mulcair more closely resembles some of what we saw in Pierre Trudeau, but that is not good news for the Liberal Party.

I suppose it’s worth a try, running Justin, but it would be a desperate measure for a desperate party whose fall is only the responsibility of its own coterie of insiders and in-fighters.
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“Those in Hog Town and kebec will love it though

“A great way to divide a country”

He was voted as the greatest Prime Minister in a public poll.

He did have qualities of toughness most people admire in a leader regardless of some policies with which you might disagree.

He also had a strong ethical bent we see utterly missing today.

Your “kebec” is stupid speech and plays to the trailer park crowd.

Talk about dividing the country, stupid speech will do it every time.
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“This is an informercial by a Grit hack.”

No, it’s a genuine matter of interest to millions.

Justin is a very popular figure.

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

My perception is that Harper’s government has precisely one competent and respectable senior minister, Jim Flaherty, and even he has his shortcomings.

He remains the only one in international exposure that is not an embarrassment to the country.

Harper’s list of clowns and weasels is long and may well serve as further evidence for the demonstrated principle that extremely conservative views are associated with lower intelligence.

Peter Kent, Bev Oda, Peter MacKay, Leona Aglukkaq, Vic Toews, and, in the past, Helena Guergis, Maxime Bernier resemble a skit from Monty Python on government. We’ve never been so low in public esteem.

I’ll add John Baird who, although intelligent, has the manner of a savage ultra-orthodox Israeli settler shooting at Palestinian children and bulldozing olive groves.

How do you “sweep” with toxic material like that?
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“Amazing – after 4 elections the Harper party is still talentless.”

Yes, pretty well talent-less so far as ministers.

But you cannot call Harper talent-less.

His set of redoubtable skills is a dark one, truly Machiavellian . Canada has not seen anything quite like him in my lifetime.

He has a thick hide, little or no respect for opponents and even disappointing associates, and, while mouthing slogans, his whole direction shows virtually no respect for democratic values or genuine human rights.

He displays many qualities that might fairly be described along the lines of an intelligent, manipulative, sociopathic personality.

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Robin Adams, below, has it right.

And there were still other less-than-Sterling qualities.

Roosevelt as assistant Secretary of the Navy when the Spanish-American War broke out. He actually functioned as Secretary of the Navy owing to the incapacity of his senior. Roosevelt thus was in charge when the phony attack on the USS Maine happened. Roosevelt was quoted in those days as saying he welcomed war, any war, to test out American troops.

To my mind one of his worst qualities – in complete contradiction to his written love of birds – was his hunting activity.

I’m not castigating normal hunting.

But Roosevelt didn’t hunt, he slaughtered on a massive scale.

He would shoot wild game by the dozens and scores, piles of them at each outing.

It was a disgraceful unethical and wasteful behavior, very revealing I think of the mentality that made him one of America’s great imperialists.

He was a man of many talents and tireless energy, and he was remarkable for overcoming his childhood disability of severe asthma, but he was a man to admire in only qualified terms as a leader.

 

 

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Rubbish.

Cute kitties in his lap didn’t work.

Neither did banging out pop songs on a piano.

So the dark bulk is trying to use hockey to make himself look human to Canadians.

But it won’t work. This man is an obsessive creature endlessly seeking new avenues to exert his power.

Nothing else matters to such a man.

He reminds me, as a personality type, of Martin Bormann, the terrifying eminence grise of the Third Reich.

 

 

JOHN CHUCKMAN

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

There is no surprise to thoughtful observers about Harper and Obama getting on.

It is only an apparent paradox, not a real one.

First, Obama has proven far more conservative than people thought, and indeed rather a political throwback of a president.

He keeps the killing machine and the secret prisons going just as the wretched Bush would have done, having upped the stakes in the pointless war in Afghanistan while initiating fairly large-scale killing of people in Pakistan, the last by remote control no less.

He also has not fought one significant battle for the things most people regard as true liberalism and democratic values.

Second, Harper simply grovels at the American alter, a worshiper of Old Glory if ever there was one, so what is the surprise at his cooperating warmly with anyone holding power there?

His entire political style and vocabulary seems to have been adopted from Republicans in Texas.

Last, it is simply inaccurate to speak of an open border.

What America wants, and Harper appears eager and ready to accommodate, is just moving the protected nature of the border to our perimeter – with Americans deciding the nature of the protection to be established there.

Hardly big thinking.

But then I suspect, Lawrence Martin, you reflect the fact, in your well-recognized role as a frequent apologist for the Liberal Party, that the unappetizing Ignatieff, former official spokesperson for the glories of American empire, is the Liberal Party’s pathetic appointed Leader, and who would doubt he is right on board with this dark business?

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN THE GLOBE AND MAIL

It’s only been a matter of time.

I’ve waited for our Neolithic Conservatives to take up the old Newt Gingrich theme. After all, everything else they do and say was done and said in the United States twenty years ago.

Old Newt used to go around talking about PBS as a sandbox for liberal yuppies to play in.

And he had an impact. PBS/NPR today is a very mediocre excuse for public broadcasting. It has lots of big glitzy shows, but its news and public affairs are toothless, just about as unchallenging as the rest of America’s major networks.

Well, the left/right business is almost meaningless now thanks to CBC’s own handiwork.

How can you talk about left or right when you are discussing a dumb marketing operation for pop music, surely what CBC Radio is well along to becoming totally?

Well, I guess the Neolithics are concerned about the last gasp of shows on CBC that have genuine meaning and challenge thought, a few intellectual gems in a stunningly meaningless broadcast universe.

Challenging thought we know sure ain’t the business of Harper’s gang of provincial incompetents and bellowers.

But I think they should just wait and save their righteous indignation and spewing and fuming: CBC management is killing the network with the death of a thousand little cuts.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Let Ignatieff be himself?

God, what a treat that will be for voters.

Let him drone on in his drab tone.

Let him display his arrogant and stand-offish attitude.

Let him display his striped trousers and silk stockings while crossing his legs on podiums across the country.

Let him speak about relatively trivial points while the great issues of the sweep past him.

Let him blubber about the democratic values his entire sordid little political career in Canada has worked against.

Let him smile his sardonic smile and be self-satisfied about his changing his mind about past support for torture and mass murder in Iraq.

God, I wish the Liberal Party would come to its senses and dump this political albatross.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Lawrence Martin,

This piece is silly babble.

The Canadian Chief Executives is a tiresome organization: a lobbying group for large American corporate interests and a place for political wannabes like Manley to spend some time in expense-paid comfort while schmoozing potential campaign contributors.

Either that last or it serves as a cozy sinecure for has-been or never-were politicians with strong American sympathies to have a title, some press time, and an expense account.

Just look at its last long-term head, an almost silly man who liked to go around in hair resembling Sir John A., absolutely his only point of reference to Canadian interests. Canada’s version of Ichabod Crane.

John Manley is, and always has been, a boring man with American wannabe tendencies. He is a reformer of nothing. He actually could put an audience to sleep with one of his speeches.

And on top of it all, he resembles a slightly demented and overweight chipmunk.

Come to think of it, he is in just the right place to hibernate into his decline.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED COMMENT TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

Lawrence Martin, this piece is a little pathetic.

I like Obama and wish him well, knowing full well no one can seriously alter the course of America’s paranoid imperial policies.

After all, the combination of all the vested interests of the FBI, the CIA, the dozen other intelligence agencies, the Pentagon, America’s Borgia-like wealthy clans, and its immense corporate interests reduce the voice of the people in an election to a little squib.

It’s nice to see that charming smile at the White House, but it hardly compensates for all the things that are terribly wrong.

The Iraq withdrawal has turned into a game of words.

Fighting has intensified in Afghanistan.

America is busy interfering in Iran and lying about it.

Guantanamo continues, as do horrid places like Bagram Air Base.

The ugly laws of the Patriot Act continue.

Some military bureaucrat daily sits down to a control panel somewhere in the US and lines up a Predator Drone to fire Hellfire missiles down at some poor people in Pakistan who are promptly incinerated with no arrest, no trial, not even any proper charges. Then the operator happily goes to lunch, having done his morning’s work.

Israel got away with mass murder in Gaza, and now it continues to block entry even of building materials to help clean up the mess. More than a million tortured people and Obama doesn’t say or do anything so far as we can see.

JOHN CHUCKMAN

 

POSTED RESPONSE TO A COLUMN BY LAWRENCE MARTIN IN TORONTO’S GLOBE AND MAIL

It was an unpleasant melodrama.

It is simply idiotic to appeal to people on the basis that your relative died after you’ve shown such insensitivity.

If Ms. Raitt’s personal experience had been so moving, why did it not inform her future speech?

Ridiculous.

This is American bathos politics at its worst.

And Ms. Raitt is an unpleasant narcissist.

No wonder Harper likes her.