Bad American

The text of the e-mail I received from my Canadian podcasting partner-in-crime, Matt Adams:

hi,

Matt

You have to hand it to the Chinese - there must be hordes of functionaries constantly combing the Internet for any sign of “Western decadence” or some such that the Chinese people must not be allowed to hear.

And they found our little podcast. I am so honored to be singled out as a National Security Threat to the Chinese Quasi-Communist Government. At least give the Chinese credit for that - they’re pretty overt in letting people know they’re a threat. The US and Canadian governments keep you guessing whether you’re on some such list or another - or not.

This leads me to the whole Olympic issue which I’ll deal with briefly.

I pay no attention whatsoever to the Olympic Games. Never have, never will. As long as sport is used in way that encourages jingoistic nationalism - ours or anyone else’s - I could care less about it. Hitler in 1936 was just the most overt example of the trend. The Communists and the US used the games as some sort of sick showcase - if our athletes were better than yours, than our society was better than yours.

Count me out.

And the fact the IOC gave the games to the Chinese is about as odious an example as you can get. The ought to ring the running track with the bodies of dead Tibetians (?) if the Chinese are so proud of what they have done.

The Chinese state is a brutal and repressive regime that the US (also a repressive regime in other ways, more subtle but still effective), plays footsie with due to their slavish devotion to the almighty dollar.

Again, count me out.

When they have an Olympics in a truly neutral site, say Switzerland, and the athletes compete without having to wave their country’s flags and mumble their national anthems at award ceremonies, then I might care.

Back to the original subject - if you want to strike a blow for freedom of speech, listen to our podcast, highlighted twice above. It’s entertaining AND informative - wow, what a concept!

Here are my latest gut feeling predictions for March 4. I think Clinton will win Ohio now based on her comprehensive personal campaigning in the state, her greater visibility on the street in Ohio (as opposed to TV) and my feeling that the nasty winter weather on Tuesday will hold down the Kiddie Korps voters that Obama needs to win Ohio.

There’s also a little story from Canada that refuses to die and may bite Obama in the ass (see bottom of post). If true, watch Obama’s support in Ohio erode further faster.

However, it does seem that Obama keeps getting stronger in the Longhorn State. Actually this is getting tougher to handicap because of so many variables that are getting thrown into the prognosticating cauldron.

So having said that here are my predictions:

Texas primary - Feb 13: Clinton, 52-48; Feb 20: 50-49 Obama; today: 51-49 Obama (Latino vote will not be able to offset Obama’s strengths in urban Texas but it may be closer than this)

Ohio primary - Feb. 13: 50-50 split; Feb. 20: 50-49 Obama; today: 51-49 Clinton (I still think Obama has a shot at eeking out a win here but the trends look better for Clinton now as does the weather.)

Vermont primary - Feb 13-20: Obama 60-40; today: Obama 58-42 (polls show Obama with a big lead in Vermont, I think Clinton has probably narrowed it somewhat but Obama should still win going away)

Rhode Island primary - Feb. 13: Obama 55-45; Feb. 20: Obama 58-42; today: Obama 53-47 (I really feel polls earlier in showing Clinton with a big lead here are not right. Weather and turnout in Providence will play a big role here. Clinton could very well win here but not by the 60-40 lead some polls seem to indicate).

I also have to wonder if Hillary Clinton’s latest television commercials - the one where the phone is ringing - will cut into some of Obama’s support among the so-called ‘national security moms.’ If Clinton takes out Obama on national security, we will have an election on who can be the biggest warmonger in Washington - a very bad thing indeed. If Obama starts talking tougher on defense, he’ll alienate his base support. He’s now on the hot seat and has to dance with the progressive peace crowd - as tenuous as that tango may indeed be.

Having said all this this does not translate into a knockout for Obama and if these results hold up and Clinton wins Ohio she will stay in and the campaign shifts eventually to Pennsylvania April 22. I strongly suspect there are people in Clinton’s inner circle who feel that only now Obama is really having to take the heat on a lot of these national security issues.

And then there’s this (not so) little matter:

From CTV (Canada)

Despite repeated requests, Barack Obama’s campaign is still neither verifying nor denying a CTV report that a senior member of the team made contact with the Canadian government — via the Chicago consulate general — regarding comments Obama made about NAFTA.

Allegations of double talk on the North American Free Trade Agreement from both the Obama and Clinton campaigns dominated the U.S. political landscape on Thursday.

On Wednesday, CTV reported that a senior member of Obama’s campaign called the Canadian government within the last month — saying that when Senator Obama talks about opting out of the free trade deal, the Canadian government shouldn’t worry. The operative said it was just campaign rhetoric not to be taken seriously.

The Obama campaign told CTV late Thursday night that no message was passed to the Canadian government that suggests that Obama does not mean what he says about opting out of NAFTA if it is not renegotiated.

However, the Obama camp did not respond to repeated questions from CTV on reports that a conversation on this matter was held between Obama’s senior economic adviser — Austan Goolsbee — and the Canadian Consulate General in Chicago.

If true, and CTV is sticking to their story, a lot of Obama’s support in Ohio could erode and, if he doesn’t score a knockout on Tuesday and this story grows, it will hurt him seriously in Pennsylvania among voters to whom trade matters matter.

So is that anti-NAFTA talk just garbage talk for rust belt rubes?

I’m really missing John Edwards about now.

I don’t know if Paul Craig Roberts and I are reading each other’s notes but we’re clearly on the same vibe. From his latest column:

In new books writers as disparate as Naomi Wolf and Pat Buchanan conclude that America as we know her is disappearing. Both writers hope, but are not confident, that enough Americans will catch on in time to find the leadership to pull America back from the brink.

If polls are reliable, a majority of Americans are dissatisfied with President Bush and Congress. However, Americans are far short of Wolf and Buchanan’s grasp of our peril.

I do a podcast for the Canadians (actually two podcasts). In my rabble radio commentary which I sent on Monday, I wrote the following (I’ve included links for the Americans to understand what I’m writing about):

Happy December my Canadian friends this is rabble columnist Keith Gottschalk for rabble radio.

Would there be too many tears shed in Canada if the United States implodes? I mean on a one to one basis we get along just fine and I don’t mean Condoleeza Rice and Peter MacKay either. There are just enough of us Usian progressives to keep things jolly on both sides of the border. 

So just in time for Christmas, American conservative commentator and former Presidential candidate Pat Buchanan comes riding the fifth horse of the apocalypse to tell Americans we are. . . doomed.

Buchanan seems to be repeating an old schtick pioneered by comedian Alan King who used to have little TV specials with names like Alan King’s Final Warning. Well this time, Pat is giving us his final warning in a book called, Day of Reckoning: How Hubris, Ideology and Greed Are Tearing American Apart. 

Yeah, real optimistic title that one. And that’s from a conservative.

Buchanan basically holds that the dollar is crashing, our military is a shambles, our economy is owned by foreign banking interests, the Mexicans are taking over the southwestern states, and we’re dividing along class, ethnic and race lines. 

All this at $25.95 just in time for Christmas.

The funny thing about all of this is that in places like where I live, little towns on the peripheries of large cities, we’re really not cognizant of our own impending doom. Sure gas costs a lot, still more in Canada, but hey Christmas shopping got off to a great start and the Browns might make the NFL playoffs so how bad can things really be? 

Its at this time when we celebrate peace and brother and sisterhood on earth that I wonder if something truly remarkable might happen if we put Pat Buchanan and Naomi Wolf in the same room together – they might agree on something.

Wolf’s newest work: The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot, contains her 10 Steps to Fascism and examples of how the United States is following them. It’s a chilling call to arms that has also ignited much discussion amongst the educated classes that make up about 15 percent of the American population. 

I envy Canadians, I really do. While the United States is in the process of tearing itself asunder the entire Canadian media and government is wrapped up in another delicious and utterly Canadian scandal involving Brian Mulroney, whose shadow across Canada seems as large as Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s but for all the wrong reasons.

So what does Karlheinz Schrieber know and what is he willing to tell about the cash deals between himself and the former Prime Minister and those other scandals he supposedly knows about? 

So did Pat Martin really call Paul Szabo a son of a bitch?

Oh, to get a live CBC feed of Parliament Hill next week! A two-four of Blue and mountain of popcorn for this one for sure. 

You Canadians are so lucky. You’re politics are fun and spicy and your politicians unrestrained and saucy. Our government is so boring and predictable by comparison. And your country isn’t going down the toilet yet if the worse things going on are scandals like this.

I’m genuinely envious. 

Oh well, need to go out to chop down some trees in the backyard for winter heating fuel and hock the family gold jewelry to pay for gasoline. You folks up there just enjoy the holidays and think well of us Usians mired in what Buchanan calls our ‘existential crisis.’

See you in Buffalo for the cross border shopping.

Back to me here and now again: so smile and be happy. The dollar and the markets still have a long way to crash.

AP - Saudis Defend Barbaric Punishment of Rape Victim

Whenever I see stories like this one, I’m reminded of the neocon’s scare tactics about “terrorists following us home” or infiltrating Muslims bringing Sharia law to the infidel America.

Does anyone in their right mind think the American people would stand for this for a second? If anyone so much as suggested such a thing, I’d hate to think what the reaction would be.

Look, I’m probably one the harshest critics of American society, but no way in the galaxy would this nation ever codify a law that would sentence a victim of a gang rape to 90 lashes or whatever, for the ’sin’ and ‘crime’ of being in a car with a male relative who is not her kin.

What I will criticize is the official US government reaction to what the Saudis did:

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack avoided directly criticizing the Saudi judiciary over the case, but said the verdict “causes a fair degree of surprise and astonishment.”

“It is within the power of the Saudi government to take a look at the verdict and change it,” McCormack said.

Oh yeah, that will cause fear and trembling in Riyadh.

The Canadians, bless their maple covered hearts, called a spade a spade:

Canada’s minister for women’s issues, Jose Verger, has called the sentence “barbaric.”

And I still have to wonder how many Americans realize how many of the 9-11 attackers were SAUDI and NOT Iraqi? Damn few, probably. But with the Bush crime family’s close, and I mean very close ties with the Saudi royal family, of course, our brave government isn’t going to ruffle any feathers there.

And that is much to our shame.

No country in the world should be allowed by greater society to treat anyone this way. Not only are the Saudi rulers barbaric they are evil and criminal. I’d almost support an invasion of Riyadh to round up all of these guys and subject them to the exact same punishment they dish out to women whose only crimes are trying to live like free human beings.

There should be something above ‘barbaric’ to describe these men.

Call it a democracy? Oh Canada what has become of you under Harper?

CommonDreams from The Canadian Press

OTTAWA - A former diplomat and retired US army colonel said she was detained at Ottawa airport Thursday while en route to anti-war talks and a news conference with Canadian MPs blasting wrongful detentions. Retired US Army Colonel Ann Wright, was scheduled to speak to media at 1 p.m. local time (1700 GMT) alongside five opposition MPs, outside parliament.

Later, she was to join the wife of Maher Arar, a Canadian who was wrongfully detained as a terror suspect and tortured, and the head of the International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group for a panel discussion on civil liberties breaches tied to post-9/11 security.

“I’ve been detained and I’ve been banned from Canada for one year,” Wright told AFP. “Now, they’re sending me back to the United States on a 5 p.m. flight” because of a half-dozen US misdemeanor charges stemming from anti-war protests in Washington.

“It’s ironic that I find myself in this situation,” she commented, noting she was in town to spotlight the use of “watch lists and how people find themselves on these lists and are detained.”

Wright, who was denied entry into Canada earlier this month, faces a US jury trial in December for disrupting top US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus’s briefing to Congress in September, during which she demanded an end to the “Iraq occupation.” (snip)

“Apparently, she’s a threat to national security and is on US watch lists,” lamented an official with New Democrat MP Alexa McDonough, who invited Wright. “It’s silly because there’s no reason for her to be detained.”McDonough herself regretted that her guest underwent “three hours of interrogation” by customs officials, saying: “What happened today underscores how worrisome it is that we have these arbitrary kinds of decisions being made on the basis of FBI watch lists.”

Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day told reporters everyone entering Canada undergoes a security check, and risks being barred from the country if they have a criminal record.

“The border officer doesn’t make a distinction between what were the extenuating circumstances that arose to a certain conviction,” he explained.

Stockwell Day is a snotty, sniveling little weasel who would warm the heart of any American neocon and I can think of no greater insult to a Canadian.

The border officers CAN and HAVE made distinctions at the border as I explained in a previous post. They’ve done it for a long, long time but not anymore. Now they are taking orders from Washington via Ottawa: anti-war people that Washington doesn’t like will not be permitted to liaison with their compatriots in Canada. This is exactly what is intended. The Canadian and American government are currently doing all they can to foster the swift flow of goods and commerce across the border. But get a misdemeanor arrest for protesting against the war, and, especially have a high public profile, and you get banned from Canada.

Money yes, political undesirables no.

The specter of fascism now stalks both the US and Canada.

UPDATE:

Rice Refuses to Apologize for Arar Torture

Reuters/CommonDreams

I linked this story here because Col. Wright was going to meet with Maher Arar and discuss his case with Canadian human rights workers. Of course the Bush administration wishes this story would just disappear.

From the story:

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice admitted Wednesday that the United States had mishandled the case of a Canadian who was deported to Syria and who has said he was tortured there, but she stopped short of an apology.

Ms. Rice spoke in response to a lawmaker’s question about the man, Maher Arar, who was arrested during a stopover in New York in 2002 and deported to Syria, where he has said he was tortured and imprisoned for a year.

“We do not think that this case was handled as it should have been,” Ms. Rice told the House Foreign Affairs Committee. “We do absolutely not wish to transfer anyone to any place in which they might be tortured.”

The Canadian government has cleared Mr. Arar of any links to terrorist groups. It has apologized and paid him $10.9 million in compensation and legal fees.

“I am pleased that the U.S. administration has taken the encouraging step of acknowledging that my case was mishandled,” Mr. Arar said in a statement from Canada. The case has become a sore spot in relations between Canada and the United States, and Canada has asked the United States to remove Mr. Arar from its security watch list.

Mr. Arar, a software engineer who was born in Syria, is still prohibited from entering the United States, although a Canadian inquiry found that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had wrongly told United States border agents that he was suspected of being an extremist.

Its the American creed once spoke by John Wayne: “Never apologize Mister: It’s a sign of weakness.”

Also read the comments under the story. This is to our national shame.

ABC News Political Blog

You know its a blog because of the typos and poor writing. But what the heck, its info.

From the story:

ABC News’ Eloise Harper reports: Rob Reiner sang a rousing rendition of “Happy Birthday, Mrs. President” in honor of Senator Hillary Clinton at his Brentwood, California, home on Sunday evening.

Celebrities came to see to see Clinton, D-N.Y., and to celebrate in advance of the former first layd’s 60th birthday. Although they didn’t bring gifts, celebrities from Jamie Lee Curtis, Magic Johnson, Ted Danson, Bridget Moynihan and Chelsea Handler raised a half a million dollars for the Clinton campaign and enjoyed cocktails and hors deouvres in return.

Despite the massive fires miles away in Malibu, guests were greeted by men dressed in head to toe white, with lavender bow ties saying with “Welcome to the Reiner’s,” as they shuffled up and down the street parking Bentleys, Porsches, and BMWs.

You know what I really get a kick out of? Read the comments on the bottom of the post. Of course, this was linked from Drudge so what do you expect, but really!

Well, isn’t that special. The Hollywood elite/royalty throw a b-day soiree for Comrade Hillary.

I guess Joe McCarthy wasn’t all that wrong about Hollywood socialism.

Posted by: Bluecat4usa | Oct 22, 2007 8:25:48 AM

Socialist?!?!?! If ONLY! I mean seriously, I know no socialists riding around in Bentleys. These people are pure capitalists in a purely capitalist business. If you don’t believe that, check out the coming writers strike.

I mean any serious socialist would not be luxuriating in such splendor while a wildfire was consuming the neighborhood five miles away. I can bet you that in Canada, Jack Layton wouldn’t be caught dead at a soirée like this. But that’s Canada.

AND, I find it hard to believe, in a way, this was the same Rob Reiner who was such a Deaniac just three short years ago. Ah, but he wants to feel like a WINNER this time. And I hear that bed in the Lincoln bedroom is mighty comfy.

Another post:

Did MeatHead also sing “Nearer My God to Thee” as that is where a Hillary Presidency will put the US but then again they don’t don’t believe in God do they unless the deity is in the likeness of George Soros.
Perhaps singing the Soviet national anthem would be appropriate too for such class warfare agendas, values and beliefs as for Mr Clinton’s and her husband’s.

Posted by: PM | Oct 22, 2007 8:29:37 AM

Again, when I read tripe like this I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. There are people out there who actually believe this and they vote! If this is class warfare, I want to be on the Hillary-Rob Reiner side. I think they are winning. See folks, what Warren Beatty said in the underrated movie Bulworth is true: ordinary white people have more in common with ordinary black people than they do with rich white people.

Yes, Hillary Clinton is truly the candidate of the forgotten American. Provided he’s Howard Hughes.

So you think a few civil disobedience type anti-war protests are no big deal, right? Pay your little fine, maybe some community service and go about your business.

Wrong.

For starters, forget about visiting Canada.

CanWest: American Peace Activists Stalled at Canadian Border

OpEdNews: FBI Puts Antiwar Protesters on Criminal Data Base

I cannot emphasize how serious a development this is. The reasons:

Canadian law enforcement now, de facto, takes orders from Washington. Even under Canadian law, exceptions can be made for minor violations of the law - I know this because I witnessed such an incident firsthand at the Blue Water bridge crossing to Sarnia. A man was questioned for misdemeanor violations which had been adjudicated and he had paid his fines. After some haggling with the Canadian border guard, the guard was able to determine that the man had paid his fines and he was allowed into Canada.

You may ask why was I detained? Because I was traveling with my son (who was 17 although I had custody) and said I was renting a condo in Toronto. The Canadians are sensitive to family custody issues and they had to be assured I had custody and that the rental was for a one week’s vacation only.

Back to the subject at hand. In the case of Medea Benjamin of Code Pink, she had been admitted into Canada as recently as August, according to the CanWest story. The crime that she was turned back for:

In Benjamin’s case, border agents cited a past misdemeanour trespassing conviction for a sit-in at the U.S. mission at the United Nations. She was fined $50 in that incident.

The other woman involved, former US Army Colonel Ann Wright (who had her mic cut off by Bill O’Reilly, a video I linked to in a previous post) had also been given a three day visa to meet with Canadian anti-war activists last August.

But apparently, things are changing at the border. Now $50 misdemeanor arrests will keep you from coordinating in person with fellow activists in Canada. How long before most other countries also knuckle under to the demands of Washington and do their dirty work for them as well?

The gates seem to be gradually closing to dissent all over the world. This is another atrocity to put on Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s debit side. I have little doubt that his government has taken a ‘yes Mr. President’ stance on any orders coming from Washington.

From the CanWest article:

The peace activists met Thursday afternoon with immigration officials at the Canadian embassy in Washington. The women were informed they could not enter Canada until they completed a lengthy application detailing their “criminal rehabilitation.”

From the OpEd News article:

To be criminally rehabilitated, they would have to do a huge amount of paperwork and state that they were no longer going to commit the “crimes” they were convicted of.

Wright told OpEdNews “We were told (by the canadian border agents) if we tried to enter Canada again, we would be officially deported from the country, which is “big trouble. ‘We’ve warned you not to come back until we are criminally rehabilitated.’

Wright asserted, “We will never be criminally rehabilitated since we intend to continue to engage in non-violent peaceful protest of Bush administration policies, particular the war on Iraq and we intend to peacefully and nonviolently protest all of these until they end. They can lead to arrests for civil disobedience, like refusing to move from the fence in front of the whitehouse or standing up and speaking at congressional hearings.“

Let that sink in - “criminally rehabilitated.”

Somewhere, George Orwell nods knowingly. Can one ever truly ‘criminally rehabilitated’ anymore with your permanent record following you everywhere - forever?

Thankfully, many Canadians are doing what they can to put a stop to this. NDP MP Olivia Chow (married to NDP leader Jack Layton) has fired off a letter to the Canadian consul general in Buffalo:

“In Canada, peaceful protest is not a criminal activity, despite how some U.S. agencies may regard it,” Chow wrote in the letter to Stephen Brereton, Canada’s consul general in Buffalo.

Indeed. But Brereton takes his orders from Ottawa, not Toronto (more’s the pity) and no doubt Chow’s concerns will be noted and filed.

I found this passage from the CanWest article interesting:

Benjamin said Canadian border agents were “almost apologetic” for denying the women entry, allegedly saying it was policy to turn away anyone on the NCIC database.

The Canadian Border Service agents are a professional force and they know what is going on. They may not like it, but they have to follow orders. And I think they know full well the ultimate source of those orders.

Of special note is this excerpt from the OpeEdNews piece:

Wright added, “The fact that the FBI has put us on this list. The National Crime Information Center Computerized Index is a form of political intimidation. The list is supposed to be for felony and serious misdemeanor offenses.

“We don’t qualify– it’s for sex offenders, foreign fugitives, gang violence and terrorist organizations, people who are on parole, a list of eight categories all together.

“It is very disturbing. We’ve asked our congressional representatives to investigate this.”

According to Wright, there was almost no coverage of this in the US, except for an AP release. In Canada, Toronto’s Globe and Mail and several other newspapers and three Canadian TV stations covered it.

Indeed it should seem rather sinister that there is a virtual blackout on this news in the controlled US media. I would think that well-meaning Americans who get caught in police dragnets at peaceful protests (it happens more than you think - police often wall off a street and arrest everyone on it whether part of the protest or not) may be denied the ability to visit Canada and, someday soon, other nations as well. Having a ‘no fly’ list without recourse to knowing why you are on it (or how to get off of it) is bad enough, but now this.

Of course, this development probably has nothing to do with the coming North American Union which is denied as a matter of course by the establishment in the USA, Canada and Mexico and anyone who dares utter the three words is immediately branded a ‘kook.’

And yet, and yet, these ‘incidents’ of extra-legal ‘cooperation’ between the US and Canada keep happening and they seemed aimed at controlling both business and populace.

I should also note that Benjamin and Wright are the not the first people that have been turned away from Canada. The American protest folksinger David Rovics was also banned from Canada for a year.

From Rovics’ My Space blog:

But what really seemed to be the thing was the piece of paper that came out of their computer system — the “direct action” literature (some random piece of paper from some anarchists in Wisconsin I had inadvertently picked up and brought with me) was the excuse.

The nice man was nervous, evidently freaked out by the inconsistencies between his view of what Canada was supposed to be about, and what it actually is about.  He said emphatically a few times, “Canada is not a police state.”  (His tone of voice said, “Canada is not supposed to be a police state.”)  I don’t think he was supposed to show me the paper.  Hands shaking, he did.  It was specifically about me.  There were no particular allegations of prior wrongdoing, but the paper said specifically that David Rovics was an activist from the US who would probably be trying to cross the border to go to the G8 protests and that he was up to no good and should be run through the ringer.  It didn’t specifically say I should be turned away, but that seemed to be the indicated policy decision.  The man told me he could lose his job if he let me across.  Reluctantly, he told me to go back to the US, and further informed me that there would be an all-points warning put out about me, so that if I tried to cross the border anywhere else in the next eight days I would be arrested and detained until the G8 protests were over.

And, of course, these regulations are also aimed at people like myself. In my off hours I write and do podcast commentaries for the premier Canadian national progressive website, rabble.ca. There is little doubt that my writing for the Canadians has found its way into some dossier in Washington. I also travel to meet my online compadres in Canada as well. As of yet, I have not been question for my writings or politics either by Canadian or American border officials.

But the next time I approach the Canadian border it will be with some trepidation.  I’m not worried about the Canadian, but the people they’re taking orders from.

And you should be as well.