Read 'Em And Weep

Losing Friends And Not Even Influencing His Uncles
GordCoVille


Nothing goes out of style faster than professional football coaches and political action committee playbooks.

Just ask the followers of Vince Lombardi and Karl Rove.

Unfortunately for Gordon Campbell, however, his handlers didn't get the memos from either Sports Illustrated or Bill Keller.

Because when Mr. Campbell came back from his self-imposed media-deflector-spin-in-exile trip around the country today he got up on the stump and let fly with even more of his 'Winning Isn't Everything, It's The Only Thing' rhetoric. Then he went simultaneously Rovian and vindictive when he unveiled his 'special prosecutor', whose main job appears to be bashing the teachers senseless.

All of which would have been fine and dandy if His Gordness had the people on his side.

Which, of course, was supposed to have been the job of the 'Soften 'Em Up Crew' that got down and dirty last week while Mr. Campbell was in hiding. This included the inflammatory statements of Minister of Union Busting Mike de Jong, the puffed uppery of anti-Education Minister Shirley Bond, and the insane bleatings of the BC Business Council et al. who blamed teachers for creating the labour unrest that was actually created by their fellow members in the heretofore utterly unexplicable (not to mention extremely unlikely, but nevertheless not entirely inconceivable) Double-Secret Vizzini Probation Conspiracy.

All of which would have worked out fine and dandy for Mr. Campbell if only Mr. and Ms. Everywoman had hopped aboard the Spincycle Express.

But, despite the best cheerleading efforts of a supplicant mainstream media, it hasn't quite worked out that way.

And you don't have to take our word for it.

Instead, you can take it from Ipsos-Reid, whose latest poll has members of the public supporting the BCTF position by an almost 2 to 1 margin.

You got that?

That's 2:1 public support in favor of the Teachers despite the non-stop, not-so secret, but extremely duplicitous propaganda onslaught from the government that began exactly 5 days before the provincial election last May.

"How can this possibly happening?" the high-priced waterheads barricaded deep within the Big Red PropMachine's underground bunkers must be asking themselves.

Well, we think that Dirk Meissner of the Canadian Press, speaking rationally and reasonably to an increasingly shrill Michael Smyth this evening, may have hit the nail on the head when he mentioned that the rank and file teachers he interviewed at today's big public demonstration at the Legislature were calm, articulate and well-reasoned.

In other words, what the public has been seeing are not screaming, frothing at the mouth, whacked-out, waygone lefties like me on TV. Instead, they are seeing the same wise folks who teach their kids everyday standing up for an important social principle.

And members of the public can respect such a stand, even if they don't totally agree with it, especially when they also find themselves watching an increasingly whacked-out, lunatic-fringed government unmask itself when it tries to invoke the memory of guilt by association, stained blue dresses, and special prosecutors like Kenneth Starr.

_____
Update: Paul Willcocks, in his story on why Mr. Campbell has already lost the battle, is on the same wavelength as Dirk Meissner with his lead.

.

The Judge's Real Intentions

AThousandMonkeysPoundingAt
AThousandKeyboardsVille

Many, many media mavens in British Columbia have been banging out dingbat copy on the BCTF's legal situation but only one that we have seen, read, or heard, has actually nailed a quote demonstrating Madame Justice Brown's true intentions.

And not surprisingly it was Rod Mickleburgh that wielded the hammer.

School board lawyer Nazeer Mitha accused the union of violating the (Madame Brown's) order by continuing to use its main website and local websites to promote the strike.

He even suggested Ms. Sims was violating the order by using transportation to go to media interviews, and might be in breach of the order by speaking at Monday's planned mass protest rally in Victoria.

But union lawyer Sebastian Anderson said such matters were covered by free speech guarantees.

Judge Brown agreed. "It was not my intention to muzzle the union, or enjoin any member of the union from communicating," she declared."

(emphasis mine)

Why is it not surprising that we learned this from Mr. Mickelburgh? Well, it was he, and only he, amongst the corpJournos that had the guts to clearly and emphatically state that Mr. Campbell's widely amplified pre-election accusation about secret and duplicitous plans by the BCTF and the NDP were absolutely bogus.

____
End Of The Weekend Digression: The Globe appears to have become the land of 'he said/she said' columnists. Check out Saturday's Heather Mallick vs. Rex Murphy on Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize as well as Mickleburgh vs the West Coast Stay-Puffed Man, Gary Mason, on the BCTF situation as examples (and we know Mickleburgh is not strictly a columnist, but if read his 3 dot bit from Saturday you'll see he actually debunks the 'BCTF couldn't even get along with the NDP in the '90's' meme that has been regularly served up by the gov't spinmeisters since the summer).

.

Rafe Is No Lame Duck

You'reFired
StayOnVille


Rafe Mair was fired by the folks running Jimmy Pattison's AM 600 last week.

His last show was Friday and he took the highroad all the way.

But in an interview with Public Eye Radio, Mr. Mair revealed something interesting:

"We just had a really good feeling it was starting to rock along. And I got a call from the manager to pop in after the show on Wednesday. And he said they'd decided to terminate it. And that was that. And, of course, the idea was that I might stay till the end of the year. And I said, "You've got to be kidding. If I'm going to get paid, why would I work?" So we decided that the day after that - on Friday - would be the day I'd call it a day. And that's what happened."

(emphasis mine)

So why is this interesting, aside from the fact that it demonstrates that Mr. Mair is no dummy?

Well, it also means, protestations to the contrary, that Mr. Pattison's managers still wanted a piece of Mr. Mair's ratings. If not, why would they have asked him to stay to the end of the year? To our ears, this suggests that there was more to this decision than just the rate of return on Mr. Mair's salary because, based on their desire to have him stay on, the best pure business decision would have been to have him play out the string until the bitter end (ie. that would have given the greatest amelioration on his salary that they have to pay out no matter what until August 2006).

So, if there really were non-business factors that contributed to the 'Gag Rafe' decision, what they might have been? Well, if we were to going to be so bold as to hazard a guess, we might suggest that Mr. Mair's recent statements on things like the coming open season on oil and gas exploration, not to mention who will build and own all those new pipelines, might have had more to do with it than his longterm stand on fish farms.

.

Is Labour The Big Loser?

HSTFridays
11thEditionVille

Hunter Thompson was never much of an overt supporter of organized labour. I figure he was way too much the Charley Varrick type for that.

But he always rooted for the underdog. And, more importantly, he knew how to find the best in tough times. Here's what he had to say when George Bush squashed John Kerry, just like he'd predicted, based on the parallels between 2004 and Nixon/McGovern in 1972.

"Their army is how much bigger than mine? Three percent? Well shucks, Bubba. Now is the time to establish a network and an attitude," he said. "You make friends in moments of defeat. People in defeat tend to bond because they need each other. We can't take the attitude that it's over and we give up. We're still here."

Point is, progressives, or even centrists, have been banged like a gong for sometime now in all corners South of the 49th.

But that's nothing compared to the losing streak of organized labour up here on Left Coast Canuckistan which, arguably, goes all the way back to the Munrovian Sellout of the Solidarity Movement in 1983. And now the cheerleading sportscasters.....errrrr..... mediamavens are calling it a humiliating shutout loss for the BC Teachers' Federation.

So here's hoping the teachers stick together and gather up all the friends they can find. I certainly consider myself one of them. And so do my wife and kids, who will be taking muffins to them on the line this morning. And if the judge wants to freeze our culinary assets we say 'Come and get 'em!' because the remains are locked away in the basement freezer right beside the summer gone's left-over Revellos.

But, more seriously, here's hoping anybody who works for a living or who has profitted from all things progressive in the Province of British Columbia (ie. everybody) remembers that we, the people, never got anything by knuckling under.

And besides, as another of Mr. Thompson's favorites, young Bob, once said:

"For the loser now will be later to win"

So here's to changing times.

And to all those cheerleaders who keep bleating that it's time for the teachers to pack it in, they should learn something that real players know deep in their guts - that you can't win if you're not in the game.

.

Pretzel Logic On The Not-So Giant '98

HeSaid/SheSaidJournalism
SelfMadeVersionVille

This evening (Thurs Oct 13th), Michael Smyth was right to bash the SS Gordon Campbell up the side of the head for tearing up contracts and imposing contracts without bargaining repeatedly, even when the courts have told them to clean up their act in the past.

But then in the next breath how can Mr. Smyth argue against himself and tell the BCTF that:

"It's time to go back to work and fight another day."

And what day would that be, exactly, Mr. Smyth?

The day that their shredded and busted Federation can be steamrolled into swallowing a deal forced on them at the point of a legislative gun in the total absence of collective bargaining and/or arbitration?

Or perhaps it will be day that Mr. Campbell kicks off his 'Learning Roundtable'.

Ya, sure.

Just go ask all those HEU workers how well capitulation followed by staged-for-the-media conciliation works with this bunch.

.

Sometimes A Percentage Is Just A Percentage

NeanderconMath
BadExampleVille

Everybody, even those who don't understand basic arithmetic principles because they've spent all their time studying the Fraser Institute's guidelines on how to privatize public education, understands that 90% is big chunk of anything.

Because 90% represents 9 out of 10 or thereabouts, regardless whether it is members of the Little Rascals voting to censure Alfalfa for smooching Darla, crotchety old hockey purists voting against the magical mystery shoot-out tour as a way to end regular season games, or 20,545 of 22,690 members of the British Columbia Teachers Federation voting for a walkout.

In other words, you count the votes of those who voted not the votes of those who didn't.

But that hasn't stopped the SS Gordon Campbell's designated union buster Mike de Jong from attempting to con us into believing that non-votes are actually no votes, which would change the teacher walkout percentage radically if only it were true and 2+2 really did equal 477. But, of course, an unfamiliarity with truth and basic equations has only served to make it easier for the local media monopolies to willingly swallow the con hook, line and sinker.

David Schreck has the story.

Kind of makes you wonder why the BC Liberals and their TV goons hate Democracy so much.

____
Update: And if (anti)Education Minister Shirley Bond really does want to get more teachers to cross the line, maybe she should make like Telus' Darren Entwhistle and start offering up iPod inducements.

.

Five Strikes, You're In!

TheRealFaceOfPrivatization
NoContestVille

Well, it's official.

The huge multinational Maximus is being fined for the 5th consecutive assessment period for not meeting benchmarks for 'interfacing' (ie. answering phone calls and mail requests) with British Columbia Medicare and Pharmacare 'customers' (ie you and me).

And for this we are paying them hundreds of millions of dollars.

How long will this go on before we force the Minister responsible, George Abbott, to say:

"You are costing us money....
You are throwing our own people out of work....
You are not as good as our own people....
You are in breach of contract.....
Game over....
Good-bye."

.

Teachers Strike, Day 2

InconvenienceAndTheLivingIsEasy
LotusLandia

Last Friday was Day 1 of the Big B.C. (justified) Teachers' strike.

Can't even remember Day 1 as it was so long ago on the other side of the long weekend (Canuckistanian Thanksgiving was yesterday).

Today was day 2. Both kids spent morning with Mom at work singing and dancing with toddlers. Oldest spent the afternoon with me pipetting, answering phones and downloading Ramones videos off one of the lab computers. Can't wait for the institutional firewall sniffers to catch up with that one. Then it was off to Richmond for theatre class with oldest and back into town again to pick up youngest from Mom's chorus. Stop at gas station, only $1.05 per litre (~$4.00 CDN/US Gallon), buy two packs of Sweet Hearts for treats ($0.39 each; best buy in candyville).

Heckfire!

Haven't spent so much time with my kids on a work day in ages. Hope that doesn't destroy their education.

.

Death And Glory

It'sJustAnotherStory
NakedAggressionVille


"People worry a lot about how the Arab street is going to react. Well, I see that the Arab street has gotten very, very quiet since we started blowing things up."

Donald Kagan, Co-Chairman, Project For A New American Century
Interview with Paul William Roberts, Sept. 2002, In: A War Against Truth, Raincoast, pg 39.

Very, very quiet, indeed.

But then again, these people decided a long time ago to never let reality get in the way of their Empire building:

"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

Bush Admin Official Speaking (Derisively) to Ron Suskind, Summer 2002
First published Oct 17, 2004, NY Times

All of which is fine and good, especially if the Empire Loyalists are successful in portraying the Iraqi resistance through an Islamo-Fascist lens.

But what happens if and when their countrymen begin to seriously 'study' things like this?

.

Shining A Light On The Underbelly

Leak-O-Rama
DingDongVille

Sean Holman has been tearing it up lately, especially when it comes to giving the great unwashed a peak at the inner workings of rightside-leaning local (ie. Southwestern British Columbia) political parties.

And the bonus is the comment threads, where the insiders go ballistic on Mr. Holman and each other. Here's just one example, taken from the NPA shoot out at the Circle Sam Corral (2nd link above):

Ah, my dear Mr. Biltmore...some background to help fill in the blanks for you...

1) Sean Holman and the NPA's now marginalized chief dimwit Greg Wilson are old pals from federal Grit days, they both of the left wing of that Sliperal spectrum (Rock, Copps etc.)

2) Mr. Wilson has been leaking very inside information to Mr. Holman for months. The story is ALWAYS favourable to either their own political end of the spectrum or highly supportive of the whackstar antics of one Mr. Wilson. Of course, those moves are always masked as newsworthy and the reportage allegedly coming from several sources. Not even the combined gray matter of Messers. Holman and Wilson are good enough to BS theri way through that.

3) As strong evidence of number 2 above, Mr. Holman didn't even cover the news that Mr. Wilson had basically been cast aside fro Mike Hillman so the NPA would have a real campaign boss and not the nutbar Wilson who pisses off candidates, and their staff by ruling by fiat and misses deadlines only to provide feeble and pathetic excuses in their place.

Nothing is covered with any balance anymore on this blog (like in the beginning)

But it is sure a great place to come read of what the asses far left of center think and are leaking.

This leak, truthfully, will certainly get someone fired.

Take good care.

Posted by NoSurpriseAtAll on October 7, 2005 04:41 PM


I like the bolded line (emphasis mine) because, based on these threads and others like them, I would suggest otherwise.

That is not to say that Mr. Holman hasn't, and won't continue to, shine his light leftward. It's just that when the leftsided insiders get mad at each other they are much less often vindictive and usually come off as human.

_____
By the way: Mr. Holman, who really is the last of the journalistic independents in this Province (don't forget, he walked away from a fulltime gig with the Vancouver Sun for reasons officially unknown) is starting his own radio show this weekend. It's Sundays @ 6pm on CFAX in Victoria. For those outside of the insular SouthVI/Mainland listening area you can stream it from here.

.

Smells Like.....

HSTFridays
10thEditionVille

.....Optimism

War of naked aggression gone bad.....Economists beginning to flay the stag.....Congresscritters indicted....Lobbyists justifying.....Base ankle biting....Braintrust re-upping with prosecutor.....Poll numbers supertanking....

That is today's Bushworld in a nutshell, one year before midterm elections that could give Americans hope, especially if the Democrats manage to seize control of one of the two houses of Congress and force real committee hearings before Bush III Comes To Washington.

But now is not the time for the Dems to sit back, play it safe, and wait for good things to happen at the ballot box in 2006 and 2008.

After all the very fine folks with their hands around the neck of American Democracy have been in trouble like this before. And that was before redistricting, electronic voting machines and trickle-down cronyism:

"Political gibberish is not a purely American art form, like jazz and the safety blitz. But in only 200 years we have raised it to a level of eloquence beyond anything since the time of the Caesars or even Genghis Khan.....

The Democrats' game plan, until then, was to lay low and talk like The Universal Underdog - just another bunch of good guys and athletes who got victimized by the cruel ignorance of Ronald Reagan......They felt strangely out of place, like Mike Tomczak or Turk Schonert, thrust into starting roles they hadn't played for years. Barney Frank, apparently worried that his party members would drool all over themselves in some sort of presidential feeding frenzy, counseled moderation, "There's no point in us trying to reform the NSC....there's no way for us to keep cowboys like North off the staff. It's not wise to try an institutional solution of personal defects," thereby earning a place of his own next to immortals like Hubert Humphrey, Al Haig and Yogi Berra.....

After all, Oliver North is not a Cuban burglar. He is a lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corp....."

Hunter S. Thompson, 'The Lord And A Good Lawyer', Dec. 1st 1986
The San Francisco Examiner, Reprinted in Generation of Swine, Summit, 1988 pg. 182

And Karl Rove is neither Cuban nor a Marine, except perhaps in his wildest dreams and/or his favorite Village People video.

But that is neither here nor there. The point is, if the Dems allow Plamegate to go the way of Contragate, start making book on The Jebbinator in 2008.

.

The Angel Of What, Exactly?

EveryLongMarchBeginsWithTheFirstStep
GrandJuryVille


Even if it is voluntary, two things about Karl Rove's decision to give in and make an 11th hour (re)appearance before Patrick Fitzgerald's PlameGate Grand Jury, have many wondering if all those mega-indictments really are coming after all.

First, despite the fact that Mr. Fitzgerald did not deliver a 'target letter' to Mr. Rove may protect him from having to take the 5th on the entire deal, but it did not preclude the possibility of an indictment at a later time.

Second, the fact that Mr. Rove's lawyer, Mr. Luskin, has been all over the map regarding his client's position and intentions suggests that they have not yet figured out a way to manage the newscycle on this one because they, themselves, don't know what is going to happen.

And both are good news, because together they strongly suggest that Mr. Fitzgerald is not carrying the Cheney Administration's water on this one.

Regardless, it's important to remember that this entire business of the press being informed that undercover CIA agent Ms. Plame was 'fair game' was all about revenge right from the start.

Revenge against her husband Joseph Wilson for blowing the whistle on the bogus Niger uranium thing and thus forcing the Rovians to fess up that those 16 words inserted into the 2003 State of the Union Address were little more than bald-faced lies.

And with the revenge motive in mind, it is important to remember that Mr. Rove's feelings about the subject are not exactly a secret in Washington circles. Here is Ron Suskind's illuminating description, from a 2003 article published in Esquire.

"I arrived at his office a few minutes early, just in time to witness the Rove Treatment, which, like LBJ’s famous browbeating style, is becoming legend but is seldom reported. Rove’s assistant, Susan Ralston, said he’d be just a minute. She’s very nice, witty and polite. Over her shoulder was a small back room where a few young men were toiling away. I squeezed into a chair near the open door to Rove’s modest chamber, my back against his doorframe.

Inside, Rove was talking to an aide about some political stratagem in some state that had gone awry and a political operative who had displeased him. I paid it no mind and reviewed a jotted list of questions I hoped to ask. But after a moment, it was like ignoring a tornado flinging parked cars. "We will f*ck him. Do you hear me? We will f*ck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever f*cked him!" As a reporter, you get around—curse words, anger, passionate intensity are not notable events—but the ferocity, the bellicosity, the violent imputations were, well, shocking. This went on without a break for a minute or two. Then the aide slipped out looking a bit ashen, and Rove, his face ruddy from the exertions of the past few moments, looked at me and smiled a gentle, Clarence-the-Angel smile. "Come on in." And I did."

And the best thing?

Unlike hatchet men, Angels have no need to walk over their own grandmothers to get what they want or to undergo religious conversions while they are in prison.

.

Standing Up For Their Right To....

SecretPlans
DuplicitousVille

...Bargain

I grew up in 1970's British Columbia and remember two big teachers strikes very well.

As a kid they were the best of times and they were the even better times.

During the first, when I was younger, my friends and I had wicked, non-stop, up against red brick wall road hockey games every single day.

During the second, when I was a little older, a girl named Wendy taught me, amongst other things, how to play tennis.

What I'm really trying to say is that a few days of no school definitely will be an inconvenience for us parents, but it is not going to irrevocably 'hurt kids' as the SS Gordon Campbell and the local media are so fond of saying (over and over and over again).

Because somebody has to stand up to this government. This business of ripping up contracts and shutting down negotiations on a whim whenever it strikes their fancy has to stop.

_____
And when you hear those CanWest 'Trumpets Red Blare' on this issue, please don't forget this.

.

Fortress North America

HuntMeDownByTheWaterfrontDocks
WhereTheSailorsAllComeInVille

Last night I got to watch the orange-purple, autumnal high-sky sundown from Vancouver's waterfront docks.

Not the Ferry docks, which are located far from downtown Vancouver, and which Colin Powell, back in the days when he was still carrying water for the Rovians, once told us were sure to be a terrorist target.

No.

I'm talking about the real thing. The deepwater harbour docks right next to where my Dad used to go to work when he left for Alaska on the tugboats.

But this time I wasn't going to watch my Dad go to sea.

Instead, I was going to a fancy-schmancy restaurant.

And it was a truly beautiful sight from the deep end of the harbour looking west, back towards the city skyline with the northshore mountains shooting straight up into the stratosphere across the water.

But whatever you do, don't try head down there just for the heck of it, either to check out the view or to find yourself a sailor or two.

Because this is Mr. Bush's Fortress North America. And as such this very Canadian waterfront is now closed to all but those on official business, or those who can afford to hob nob with the fancy-schmancy pants set (a visit to the Cannery is a rare event and much more than just a simple twist of fate, indeed, for my wife and I).

But I digress, because what I really wanted to say was.....

Hey, Rovians! Give us back our sovereignty!

_____
The ironic thing about all of this is that the Economist magazine has just named Vancouver as the most liveable city in the world for the fourth straight year, and not just because of the beautiful landscape, the mild climate and the multiculturalism. What really puts us up top is the fact that, on an overall global scale, Vancouver is a large metropolitan area that has been deemed by people who actually know something to NOT be a likely terrorist target.
Thanks to Scott from Montreal for the liveable city tip.

.

Comments Make The Blog Go Round

Speaker's Corner
ElectricAvenueVille

Moon of Alabama is a damn fine a replacement for the old Whiskey Bar.

But it can never be the real thing.

Why?

Because, one of the things I found most interesting was that, in addition to his wicked posts, Billmon always patrolled, and participated in, the comment threads at the old place.

I understand why he had to shut down the comments (ie. with 500 or more comments per post he was going crazy, now matter how good the conversation) but I really miss the multilayered stratification of the dialogue that went on there - and the kicker is, just like subway stations, when there is a real person watching over you rather than a machine or a video surveillance camera, the discourse and the human interactions are somehow more civilized.

Rowdy maybe, but still civilized, even when they wandered into the darkness on the edge of town*.

Anyway, in the spirit of civilized discourse I'd like to bring the following comment to everyone's attention. This is from new reader ' surf's up' who responded to our earlier post about CanWest wanting an editorial writer for the Ottawa Citizen who believes in the ideology of 'small government and personal freedom':

"Code words for: government outsourced to cronies in the private sector at two or three times the cost or more, rampant corporatism, and total information awareness."

Good stuff that. And an important issue to explore. Maybe we should start by collating all the specific examples where privatization has failed miserably.


_____
*My favorite comment on the Billmon thread in question was from SusanG., who later went on to great blogging fame and fortune herself when she helped get Joseph Wilson's story out and did a lot to expose Gannon/GuckertGate over at dKOS. She had this to say about the great value in the inspiration of art: "That's what great art has always done. It's like heroin mainlined straight to the brain, unexpected truth in all its glory."

.