If the Shoe Fits...

Like many, I witnessed the footage of U.S. President Bush narrowly ducking a pair of shoes hurled towards him by a protesting Iraqi at a press conference. This desperate, futile gesture of shoe-throwing reveals not just one individual's statement of visceral loathing but in a sense, symbolizes how many others both in Iraq and around the world feel towards Bush even in the dying days of his presidency. It is quite telling and remarkable that a U.S. president could have so singularly, in eight short years, successfully alienated world opinion to the degree that a reporter, in the normally safe bubble zone of a press conference, is willing to part with his shoes to demonstrate this.
I won't miss the Bush presidency and believe it was a disastrous spell not just for the U.S. but for the globe, yet, despite the administration's use of outright fabrications and perversions of justice as a rationale for its invasion of Iraq, Bush might have had a point when he brushed off the incident by remarking how this kind of protest was normal in an open and democratic society -- inferring that Iraq had achieved some measurable form of democratic progress. Of course, it's very tempting to be cynical about anything that comes out of the mouth of this president and his platitudes about democracy are outweighed by the reality on the ground there. Yet, it has become far too easy to dismiss everything about the Bush presidency as a caricature of arrogance and villainy combined with gross ineptitude. Such was the divisive and controversial nature of the Bush administration that it polarized the U.S. and the world to such and extent that any of its remotely positive accomplishments were eclipsed by its obvious failures.
There was much discussion and speculation in the news media after the "shoe-ing" episode about how to throw one's shoe is a mark of ultimate contempt in Arab culture and this was followed-up by a recounting of how hundreds of Iraqis gathered around a lowering Saddam statue to hit it with their shoes. What's curious here is that had it not been for the ill-considered U.S. invasion, Saddam might have still been around today gassing minorities, jailing opposition and torturing anyone who got in his way -- and people would have most definitely kept their shoes on. If there was one thing that came out of this that could be construed as redeeming, it was the removal of a vicious tyrant who, although some argued was a contained threat, ran his government like a mafia and repeatedly and mercilessly suppressed and murdered his own people. I describe myself as anti-Bush for a host of considered reasons -- although unlike some, I don't lay awake at night seething with his visage in mind and I don't subscribe to some of the more hysterical strains of Bush-hating out there -- I wouldn't even go so far as to assign him the equivalency of a Hitler or a Saddam - much to the surprise of some in my own circles . I've heard people time and again associate Bush to this stellar cast of infamy and I find it inaccurate, historically-ignorant and giving Bush too much credit. Bush was no evil genius but an "employee" or a "front" for a clique of paranoid, power-hungry neo-cons. As much as neo-cons have shown their capacity for inhuman enterprises, they are a few degrees of a lesser evil than Hitler or Pol Pot.
While Bush's neo-con led foreign policy has resulted in high numbers of casualties both direct and indirect during these last eight years, it now appears that it is now - hopefully - on its way to becoming another discredited, morally-bankrupt ideology like Fascism or Communism. I don't think I can recall a president who was so ridiculed and reviled since Nixon. Opposition to Bush was persistent, vocal, furious and creative in both the U.S. and internationally. True enough that the administration smugly ignored world opinion to satisfy the interests of its oil lobby supporters, yet now reality has finally come home to the U.S. in the undesired dividends of body bags and soup lines and a disillusioned and angry public has spoken by electing Obama. It would have been vindication for many had an impeachment process guaranteed an earlier exit but such is the way things are when the weight of the system and its legal obfuscation are against you.
The shoes were a size ten which almost matches the percentage of the outgoing president's approval rating. All things considered, this president led a charmed presidency considering he could have been ducking a lot more than a pair of shoes.

Goodbye, Dad

Exactly a week ago my father passed away. Knowing my father and his generally sound judgement, if the timing of his death was of his own volition, late-November was perhaps an appropriate time to go. The inconsolable drear and darkness of this month can discourage the will to get out of bed let alone live.
Although this had been long expected - with his confinement to a care home for three years succumbing to
the ravages of Parkinson's, two-strokes and dementia - the actual reality of
his passing still hit us like an emotional tsunami.
After the initial week of intense grief and sorrow and the busying around of making official arrangements and finally the funeral service, the sense of
the loss itself is only now starting to penetrate. One could say that the first week
was the early shock phase that involved denial and disbelief combined with confusion and episodic tears but now, after the ceremony and the family and public mourners have gone home, I am alone in the still moments to reflect and quietly mourn his loss and what he meant to me. He was a powerful influence in my life, as most strong fathers tend to be, and although he was absent through much of my childhood and youth, when he was present - he was unmistakeably so. He had a deep, full-timbred baritone voice that could naturally project, and a compact physique that he carried with swift confidence, but more importantly he was so energetic and driven. I think the life he lived was equivalent to several lives all concentrated into one. He was so determined and had so much fire within that he was comparable to a steamroller and it was often easy to feel flattened in his path. He was an impatient man from a very old school Catholic-Depression-era-upbringing who rose to prominence in public life here in Canada by the sheer might of his determination to succeed and his extraordinary self-confidence and focus. I always found him to be hard to live up to and spent years trying to live down to him instead. He felt that I had been given opportunities that he never had and I think he envied me for that. He and I had typical father and son conflicts,and I inherited his stubbornness, which meant that I was unwilling to admit it when he was right.
Even now, as I reflect about my relationship with him, I recognize how strained it was and how I wish that we had both respected each other more. He was a very accomplished man from humble roots who had charisma to burn and a larger-than-life presence. He was a "happy warrior" who maintained his values throughout his career and never compromised where it mattered most. It feels as if a void has opened up. That this world is less one more man of his generation -- a generation which did not eschew self-sacrifice and loyalty.
As we become more time-managed, distracted and coarsened by our lives that are circumscribed by the consumerist ethos of "more still" to placate the shallow needs of our own vanity and when we have slid into this festering hole of non-committal relativism underscored by a mistrust of social institutions, we are left softened at our edges and hollow at our core. To witness the lives of those who reflect a time in which standards existed and when values mattered is almost to be marveling at a museum display.
My father was a product of a simpler time, a time when the world was framed in dualities and not multiplicities. Obviously, significant and progressive changes have happened since then that he wasn't resistant to, and even helped to bring into being, yet for all of this, he was a man of his era and he did not swim easily with the currents that were to follow.
He did not go gently into that good night. He will be missed.

Here's a piece I came up with that indicts
the baby boomers as being largely responsible
for the credit crunch. The boomers have made the pursuit
of their self-interests their highest priority at the expense of
the generations that have succeeded them. If one has to
wonder how this whole financial disaster came about in the U.S.
then it wouldn't be a stretch to implicate the "Me Generation's" ethos
of instant gratification, spend now and let someone else pay later.
I think this mentality really lies at the root of much of the problems --
economic and social, that we're facing today.

Whobama

As I was walking home tonight a poster caught my eye that announced "Come Celebrate Obama's Victory Party." My gaze caught the smaller text below that read "organized by the African-Canadian community." It seems as if Obama is all but declared the winner before the Americans have even gone to the polls. The victory celebrations have jumped the starting gun it would appear and this smacks of presumptuous overconfidence despite the onslaught of daily polling data that suggests an Obama win is a foregone conclusion.
I think that before everyone who's pro-Obama congratulates themselves, a closer scrutiny at their candidate of choice is in order. With all of that out of the way, if I lived in the U.S. I'd probably vote for Obama -- but not without some reservation.
What I can't shake and want to get beyond here is the sense that Obama's presidential run is as much (if not more ) about identity politics than anything to do with policy. If one were to look past his dynamic veneer, and -- let's face it -- his "colour" -- then we might discover that he is another well-briefed, skilled politician with carefully-rehearsed responses and an oft-repeated buy-line promising some sort of unspecified "change." It's a no-brainer to conclude that Obama is far more suited to be president than Bush and arguably better than McCain, and after the Bush debacle, it will take a certain degree of courage to inherit the daunting mess that has been left behind. Yet the honeymoon with Obama persists and the tough questions are not being lobbed his way. This is precisely the time to be demanding to see a semblance of a coherent blueprint from Obama, or will it become one of these consensus-made, patchwork blueprints that will have to placate every special interest group that put him in power? Perhaps he's shrewder than he plays at. He is certainly trying to communicate the image of being the cross-partisan healer --- the one who transcends the ugly, nasty, rumour-plagued world of party politics and emerges as an iconic figure for a nation -- and a world -- on the cusp of hard times. But perhaps that's all the presidency is, -- a substitute for the monarchy that the American's thought they had so proudly vanquished in their war or independence. Ronald Reagan was certainly a figurehead for a conservative revolution in the U.S. He was backed up by whip-smart albeit dangerous ideologues who were later recycled in the Bush administration -- the Rumsfelds, the Cheneys etc. The Republicans have made a high art of using the presidency as a mere smoke and mirrors distraction for the masses while the real behind the scenes power brokers go about their business of running the show. However the Democrats -- the party that always insists on its ethical superiority than the former (something that isn't that hard to achieve I might add) look like they're borrowing from the enemy's playbook -- never to repeat a Gore or a Kerry. Wow'em with some of that Obama magic and they might forget about everything else. Or at least be more receptive to the administration's agenda.
It's time to really examine King Barack before his coronation. There are those within his camp that are simply proud of the fact that they have the chance of electing the first "non-white" president and this seems to preclude any further consideration of the details of his plans. It would seem to me that these same people who are more inclined to support him just for the symbolism alone -- are ironically and unwittingly making race the issue here. The real question should be "Who is Obama and what does he believe is best for America? "
I fear that the American obsession with "novelty" and "celebrity" has now permeated the political culture. Take for example, the respective candidates campaigning on late night talk shows. It's all ratings-generating show biz and one presidential candidate is just another prop in the routine of late night talk show land. The American worship of the movie star politician probably started with JFK and it certainly was manifest in Reagan while Bush played the straight-talkin' rube but now, with instant polling numbers and a media-fed, globally-connected YouTube generation making or breaking the latest trend at the click of a mouse, it seems that the image of the celebrity politician is more manufactured and pre-formatted than ever. This is not to suggest that Obama is generic -- although underneath the electricity of his appeal -- his message might be. Has the YouTube generation bought into the mere symbolic importance of Obama as president and ignored the rest? Could any other candidate get away with sounding like a Republican on some issues and still maintain the adoration of the many on the other side of that ledger? A demographic who may lack any critically informed political ideas of their own but have fairly inculcated values about race and identity. These young Obama supporters are products of a post-modern education system that has steeped them in doctrinaire credos of one-world togetherness and gender and race consciousness without a solid, basic foundation in Civics, Economics or History for that matter. In other words, they don't get the wider view but instead prefer to hyper-focus on affirmative action and same-sex marriage -- which are much more exciting and attention-retaining than economic policy, foreign affairs, trade relations and line-item vetoes.
Obama may in fact, bridge an important divide, and perhaps his "symbolic" presidency may have the power enough in itself to re-direct America (and the world) onto a wiser and genuinely better course. One can only hope so. But what if he turns out to be a modern-day Icarus? What if the colossal weight of expectation that is being downshifted onto his shoulders proves to be too much? What if cracks appear in his polished surface? what if he appears "human" even at times "ineffective"? How will the disillusionment translate itself?
Perhaps Obama is the tonic that is needed right now, but I can't help thinking that he is virtually untested in handling the reigns of leadership in government and he's about to take on the biggest and most unruly reigns there are. Even a turn at Vice President might have had a more humbling effect on him and given him a more gradual preparation for the top job, but in the end, his dynamic flair combined with his race hastened him to the top of the ticket propelled along by a critical mass of guilty, liberal supporters who want to see a black president first and a substantive set of policies second. Fortunately, it seems, that Obama is capable of delivering on both, but his transition into a "great" president, won't be seamless.

I've been busy getting back into political cartooning lately. The state of the affairs is almost a call to duty for sharp-eyed satirists it seems. These are a few of my latest takes on the situation in the U.S.

There goes the Economy...

Like most observers, I've been anxiously following the news about the financial meltdown in the U.S. and I can't help but feel that we're all standing on the crumbling precipice of an historical shift that is about to sweep us all over the edge. Of course, I could be reading too much into the fearful speculations of the news media. Perhaps it will be another false alarm -- like Y2K -- unnecessary anticipation of what turned out to be a non-event. Yet, somehow, this feels different,-- more real and pervasive. We have been told to brace ourselves for a looming lean-spell that is being billed as a "deep recession" -- "experts" are throwing buzzwords around that imply that this has uncanny resemblance to the crash of 1929. What is one to believe amid all of this panic and dread?
At an individual level, it feels so abstract and removed from our day-to-day realities. A mass-scale defaulting of high-risk mortgages and the subsequent collapse of major U.S. investment banks sounds like some kind of "doomsday" scenario that is too far beyond our control to even contemplate . People of my generation remember living through the end of the Cold War -- a time that was unimaginable prior to when it actually happened. A rapid succession of smaller events built up to the collapse of the Soviet Union and it took us all by surprise, yet still, our lives in the west were not noticeably altered. We continued to live lives on credit and ignore the wisdom of our elders --about thrift and not spending more than you earn. An entire society bred in the instant gratification ethos of the boomer generation. Self-interested entitlement and a rejection of the values of the generation of the Great Depression that warned us about the need to make sacrifices and defer our own pleasure. We've all grown up in a culture of such heedless excess that many of us couldn't conceive of the lifestyle of our more cautious forebears.
At the end of the cold war it was predicted that western capitalism had won out in the end and thus market values had been vindicated. There were some who declared that if history was defined by the Marxian struggle of class, then the ultimate ascendance of free-market capitalism meant the "end of history."
We live our lives against the backdrop of bigger events that frame our more mundane concerns, so why should we be so fazed by yet another one of these larger, unfolding global crises? Anyone with an informed understanding of historical trends(or common sense) could have anticipated the train wreck of the U.S. banking system. Eight years of an unregulated financial sector that was given carte blanche to enrich its shareholers with whatever means possible combined with pathological avarice and a sense of invincibility proved to be the toxic ingredients for a long-simmering brew. This whole crisis ought to translate as a lesson in political economy for the public. It demonstrates how an untouchable financial elite who have been allowed to play by a different set of rules (in this case, no rules) without parameters, or prudence and blindsighted by insatiable power and greed -- have wiped out the hopes and destroyed the lives of the many. I wonder if this is enough to pull the curtain back from in front of the American public's self-focussed gaze and reveal the raw, ugly essence of the dogma of American privilege that they have been duped into swallowing. I wonder if they'll be able to make the connections and discover the source of their forthcoming woe? It is perhaps too optimistic to credit the American public with such sophistication and sense but at least some of that anger and frustration will translate into electing Obama in November. In the eyes of an outsider who will nonetheless be effected, this all reads as some form of karma.
The U.S. electorate handed an inept, callous administration a second mandate to fine-tune its ideologically-driven agenda. Now we're reaping the harvest as it were. In a sense, this wild de-regulation didn't start with the Bush administration, but let's just say that it was certainly aided along with his presidency.
It may take a few generations to recover from this. We have all been violated by this and it seems that anger is not enough, a whole process of reckoning is needed -- on the global scale,on the societal scale and on the individual scale. Will we continue -- as a species, as a population, to live in a collective form of denial? While the planet is dying and the lifestyle of consumption and convenience that we've only ever known becomes more inaccessible to most of us, will this be enough of a clarion call to consciousness? One hopes so, but perhaps it will take another generation -- the true inheritors of our mess -- to take up the cause of real change. But by then it might be too late.

Election(s)

We have entered autumn (although August here was a good primer) and we are weeks into a national election campaign here in Canada. It is difficult to comment on this subject without risking cliche and making the usual associations. The election cycle has become another predictably episodic ritual of life in the west. The campaign will heat up. The public will become weary of deluge then the voting day will come and a decision will be made that will divide the population for the next four years. It has become such a perfunctory sleep-walking exercise that we forget about how precious this whole process is. Recently there has been a spate of elections across the western world in which there was no clear mandate for any of the victorious parties. A telltale sign that we may have entered the "hanging-chad" era of electoral politics -- where the public refuses to put the majority of its trust in any one party to represent its interests.
What we are coming to witness in the modern election campaign is a  "branding" contest that offers up political leaders who are trained to stay on message through carefully-scripted "catch-all slogans. I have tuned into the news coverage and discovered that it's more of documentation of each leader's respective glad-handing photo-ops du jour and less of a dispassionate analysis of their positions on any given issue. The political party itself  seems to serve only as a convenient backdrop -- a banner -- to the individual leaders who are given more sustained, front and centre exposure. As a result, we get "cult of personality" politics. The marketing of political parties may be an ancient art, but nowadays its a much more carefully-staged exercise in manufacturing a  political leader's made-for T.V. aura.
The once-respectable national news media here has become a mere distiller of more tabloid-style speculation rather than an "objective" and trustworthy news source from which to make an informed decision. I realize that I could invite the accusation of being naive for even implying that the fifth estate has ever been free of bias and true to its historical mission of serving the truth. Yet it seems now that even the most respected news media outlets have come to accept the their role as being an almost secondary news source and have responded with a somewhat more distanced approach of "meta-analysis" -- or coverage of the coverage itself. What we countenance in the television news media's superficial approach to election coverage is a tacit admission that serious analysis hurts in the ratings department and hence a stepping-back from any attempt at being a credible source of serious reporting. Spin itself, once the exclusive chicanery of governments to manage the message, has saturated media as well. The public is too savvy -- too hip to the art of spin --- and to fit expectations, the media has thus had to re-invent itself by succumbing to a the role of being an electronic carnival sideshow. The media's role is now fait accompli: diverting the public's critical gaze to a contest of readily digestible images rather than explaining the complex dimensions of underlying ideas.
Here in Canada, we're in the final days of a federal election campaign that has this overlapping effect with the U.S. presidential election, so the atmosphere here is saturated with election advertising, debates, speculative news reports and of course, damning soundbite moments that betray a proverbial chink in a candidate's armour. It can all become quite confusing for the average pundit on the street when so much of this obligatory charade of electioneering has become more tightly managed and slickly orchestrated to the point that if a candidate appears as contradictory or god forbid, less than superhuman, the carefully laboured illusion crumbles to the ground.
I will have a difficult time choosing who to vote for because I don't necessarily believe that party lines satisfactorily reflect much more nuanced and complex shifts in the world that demand more pragmatic and flexible approaches rather than rigid ideological ones. The problem with political parties is that there is always internal pressure for the party to adopt measures that mollify the special interest factions within that party and this often limits the party from assuming a more universal and outward-looking approach in addressing issues. This perhaps explains why so much emphasis is placed on the party leaders themselves. The leaders become iconic embodiments of the party's primary focus. Hence, Obama Democrats, Reaganites or Thatcherites, or here in Canada - Harperites or Trudeau-Liberals. The party is an extension of its leader and the leader's name becomes a hyphenated-label for a party in a given era. Is it fair to declare that the party's over? That in the age of the internet and ever-present and up-to-the-minute media coverage, the voter/citizen/consumer formulates his/her opinions based on impressions of individual political leaders rather than on the more cumbersome philosophical platforms that the leaders represent. The voters make a gut decision based on 30 second visual-clips rather than on the issues. It's easy to be impressed by Barack Obama for example, he is likeable, dynamic, telegenic and an outstanding orator but there is just as much mystery enshrouding his persona. Who is he really and what does he stand for? Although he may reflect good "core" principles in the vague sense of the word, is he a result of a choice made by his party to be a historical first (first black presidential candidate) rather than whether or not he has clearly defined policy positions. By all appearances, Obama demonstrates a fresh and new alternative to the status quo yet his candiacy is just as much about the American public's thirst to extend the heroic narrative in an age of such social and economic turbulence -- to make and then destroy another superstar. The winsome, youthful magnetism of Obama alone captures a tattered public imagination and it resonates on a primal level, far more than detailed, definable positions or salient character traits. This is not to deny the great attributes of Obama nor is it to negate his,no doubt, sincere intentions, it is however, meant to stand back from allure of his image and examine it with more scrutiny . The dismaying choice of Sarah Palin for the McCain ticket, illustrates this point even further.
In Canada we have an incumbent Conservative prime minister - Stephen Harper - who is considered cold-blooded and dictatorial yet decisive, while Stephane Dion, his Liberal Party adversary, appears on the nation's T.V. sets as a fragile, earnest, bookish type with a rudimentary command of English (French being his mother tongue.) Yet, if anyone had the patience or the rigour to listen to the substance of Monsieur Dion's ideas, they might discover that he is possibly quite a bit more capable of running a country than reassuring people with manly confidence. It is a sad indictment of our times that we as a society have become so shallow that we don't elect our leaders based so much on their credentials, experience or ideas but rather on how well they're able to play to a celebrity-driven media.