Maritime Morning - Andrew Krystal

How well does the government really support the military?

HMCS Toronto announced recently in an email to military families that they would be coming home two days late at Christmas time, December 18th – instead of Dec. 16th due to fuel costs.

Only two days.

However, after a long, arduous, deployment of 5 months that has seen HMCS Toronto circumnavigate Africa and perform naval exercises with the South African Navy; pirate interdiction activities off of the coast of Somalia; rescue operations in the Red Sea following a volcanic eruption; anti-terrorist and anti-smuggling operations in the Mediterranean, it was said that the ship, very late in the deployment, now needed to travel at a lower rate of speed across the Atlantic in order to burn less fuel and save fuel costs (!?).

For military families (never mind the crew), the issue – if indeed it is the real one — of resource conservation in the wake of a multi-million dollar deployment, simply grated.

Since the 1960’s and military unification under the then Minister of National Defense, Paul Hellyer, the military has been starved of funds. Too much is asked with too little. The military simply work too hard. The hours are too long and the conditions too cramped, too uncomfortable – especially on ships. Canadian tax payers get too good a return on Navy labor with very little understanding of the sacrifices involved.

The Navy wives who called in today were also responding to many years of shutting up and biting the bullet. Today, they had had enough. Adding two days on a return may not seem like a lot, however, with only 3 weeks left on a 5 month deployment, with Christmas coming, with kids marking Dad’s return on the calendar, it does mean a lot.

The political and media protest all started when Dartmouth/Cole Harbor Liberal MP Michael Savage fielded an email letter from a Navy wife, Lori Rafuse, whose husband is on the Toronto. Her note from CO Virgin that fuel costs were a factor in slowing the ship down ignited a firestorm of consternation that reached Defense Minister Peter Mackay in Ottawa who was subsequently grilled by Savage.

On the air, Lori Rafuse broke down. Obviously, this just wasn’t about two days, it was about the principle — it was also about 30 years of frustration.

The Tories brand themselves as the saviors of the military — the ones who are sensitive, respectful, and responsive to Military needs. Chest-beating and a Canadian sense of military nationalism prevails in a party which garners much of its support from rural areas, and from a military that gets most of its recruits from rural Canada.

Is the late arrival of HMCS arrival a symptom of, again, attenuated budgets — a lack of real, materiel support?

The big picture is not pretty: Submarines don’t always have torpedoes, ammunition is low, and the Afghanistan costs for the army are skyrocketing. There is a lot of pressure. It affects command; it affects the crews and those in the field.

Rear Admiral McFadden heard the broadcast this week and called in. He stated that the rate of speed must be slower for the Toronto’s return and he didn’t want the ship coming back on fumes in case they were needed for search and rescue operations that might be encountered on their trans-Atlantic return.

Fair enough.

But what about removing adjusting the deployment to make allowances for the rate of travel? Remove a port visit, remove a military exercise, or simply start home earlier in order to meet with the arrival schedule.

What really happened, in my view, regarding the arrival schedule for HMCS Toronto was that someone probably made a simple error. I believe that the issue was never about the fuel. The issue is that it is not safe to cross the North Atlantic in the middle of December at 21 knots. Even 15 knots is bumpy. That’s why it is two days longer. But that is about a mistake of scheduling, or navigation – this is just speculation on my part.

HMCS Steve Virgin is one of the finest commanders in the Navy. He is adored by his crew, and is a very articulate interview subject. He has been, personally, very gracious with me. When he says that the ship needs to look out for weather and it is prudent to save fuel at a lower rate of speed, I believe him. However, the Navy PR department, and Minister Mackay say that CO Virgin actually has it wrong, it is about safety.

I don’t know about you, but whom do you trust more, a commander half a world a way on his own ship, or politicians in Ottawa and a PR department? I think CO Virgin is closer to the fuel gauge then they are.

Yes, traveling more slowly conserves fuel. And if that is the real concern, why wasn’t that factored into the deployment schedule? And why was it discovered so late in the deployment?

Ok. Stuff happens. But do not expect wives to be silent all of the time. Wives vote, have opinions, and have a right to complain when there is screw up – despite a closed military culture.

If indeed the late return of the Toronto is a fuel cost concern, then there must be a re-thinking of priorities.

Some have even speculated that senior government officials (read Mackay) and military brass were unable to come to the dockyards in Halifax on that particular Sunday to greet the ship; or that the labor and other related costs are cheaper during the week than on weekends. Again, is it about money?

There is a saying in the military that goes something like this: “if they wanted you to have a wife, they would have issued you a wife”. Callers on my show even referenced this to the wives who called and were on the air with me.

Democracy is a messy business. Being accountable not just to taxpayers but to the wives and families is part of that.

Wives who make waves are not something that the Taliban have to worry about – and that is one of the reasons we are fighting the Taliban.

A proposal from the Nova Scotia provincial government would see squeegee kids hammered with a $250 fine. But, any form of begging should also receive societal censure.

It was NDP Leader Jack Layton who said to me, regarding his extensive work on the homelessness issue, that street poverty is a choice. He meant it is a political choice for us. It has to do with national housing programs, youth crisis support, employment opportunities, drug programs and other money.

Fine. Good for Jack. Even if everyone gets a pony, there are people who fall through the cracks — that’s how our system works; that’s how life works. And it is up to government to address the health and well-being of the country. However, as much as homelessness and the issue of street people are a political issue and an economic issue, it is also a social issue.

What do you do if someone willingly wants to opt out of society for whatever reason: rebelliousness, rage, despair, incompetence, insanity? These people are, for the most part, the unconsoled: disparate and desperate, wandering in their own private boulevards of broken dreams — if they ever had them. Some wallow in their dropping out; others freeze to death — no more miles to go before they sleep.

But it is not my problem. I am not responsible. Like Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca, I believe in my own cause and cannot save the world (although the Casablanca protagonist was a closeted romantic who ended up with broad, altruistic tendencies when he gave up his girl and helped the cause). Perhaps “Rick” from Casablanca was a bad example of stoic indifference to the sad, cold realities of life’s ways.

Whatever; I still believe that giving money to beggars is at least more reasonable than the annoying squeegee kids. Who got the ridiculous idea to do this in the first place? It is unsolicited, unwanted, unnecessary labour. But the illusion of doing something for somebody creates, in their punk-pierced mind, the air of entitlement. Sometimes they just start up with the squeegee and motorists drive away shaking their fists!

When I did the squeegee kids topic today on the radio, one caller suggested fining those who gave money to the beggars, in effect, creating the status of a “John” to the enablers.

Let us fine everyone and then pay fewer taxes. The money isn’t obviously getting to anybody.

Don’t believe what the economists tell you. Yes, there is more money out there, but what we do with it is another matter. We are not richer, we are poorer.

Economic indices have, for a while now, shown that more and more money is flowing into fewer and fewer hands. The middle class is shrinking, attenuated by globalization and corporate concentration and by new consumer expectations — a new, and expanding, culture of consumption and imposed affluence.

The digital revolution in technology has meant whole new areas of expenditure with consumer products. For example, the simple home telephone required one local bill, plus long distance. Despite industry deregulation, and while long distance rates have dropped, other bills that didn’t exist before such as call display, forwarding, etc. now do. People now have cell phones too – two phones that they now pay for instead of one.

The increasing reliance by Canadians of, for example, debit cards has meant banks nickel and dime us every day – and Canadians use these cards a lot. Debit cards didn’t exist before the 80s.

The new wave of digital cameras, not to mention cell phones, and their incessant upgrades, has meant a constant stream of purchases driven by engineering/technological refinements.

The home computer, not around much in the early nineties, is everywhere now – and is considered obsolete in three years. What was once one home telephone bill has grown to “bundles” with internet, high definition TV digitization, and home phones together.

Kids insist on a galaxy of DVD games even as they download their free music on an Ipod or a computer you have bought for them (it was cheaper to send them to the record store).

Cars have become obscenely expensive and complicated. But, are they really any better though? Homes are overpriced.

What about globalization? Well, cheap Chinese labor has meant that while Wal-Mart stuff is cheaper, people simply end up buying more in Wal-Mart that they don’t need. In fact, studies have shown that Wal-Mart’s have a negative economic impact on communities. The money goes to the home office Arkansas.

Then there is the culture of gambling. Initially introduced as a recessionary device, Casinos are now as ubiquitous as is their bastard child, the lotto ticket – which statistically nobody wins (and when they do it I most likely to be the guy who sold it to you). We lose money on lotto ticket over a lifetime. We never did before.

The cost of tuitions has decimated families and students alike – and of course they all need lap tops, in addition to the home computer.

It is not that there are more consumer items; it is that there are more consumer items that are considered essential. A case in point would be the salesman who can’t use the five year old Blackberry even if he wants to. The cultural pressure is there to upgrade and not look bad, more importantly; some of these “old” devices simply won’t work anymore with new systems.

Resultantly, savings rates are at an all time low and debt rates are at an all-time high.

People work longer and harder for less. They spend less time with their spouses and even are having less sex in the marriage because of computer time. Kids don’t talk to adults (if they ever did); they are testing, and on myspace, instant messaging, etc.

Every generation is on facebook. The big screen plasma TV is sometimes not even watched anymore.

Are we better off? Are we any happier?  Statistically we have fewer friends even. No wonder. We are working too hard to pay for it all.

The neo-luddite, techno-terrified, homicidal “Unabomber” Theodore Kaczynski who railed against technological advents and their hold and control of us and who mailed out letter bombs to those he thought led the techno charge, was wrong in his violence — but not entirely mad.

Well, it was a long week with our special coverage of Noel last weekend. Next week we will look at Bob McCown’s new book The 100 Greatest Hockey Arguments. This one is a lot of fun!

I also want to take you on a journey to the troubled country of Pakistan and explain why this country is so important to Canada and the world. The internal domestic situation there could explode and will have repercussions everywhere — perhaps, catastrophic.

Maritime Morning will also look at the troubling rise of the Canadian dollar. What was once a novelty when the Loonie was on par with the American dollar has become a real concern. The dollar is creating a new, divergent, North American economy that will devastate the manufacturing sector, to name but one.

Also next week, we will look at the world of Alberta oil and the book Stupid To The Last Drop, by Bill Marsden. Marsden believes that we are sleepwalking toward a made-in-Canada environmental crisis.

Dr. Lori Secoular-Beaudry will be by next week to council us on how many people are giving up their real lives, and real in-person interaction, for the internet!

Lisa Teryl will be by too for The Law, and our place in it.

It will be an action-packed, fun week.

The controversy over Duane “Dog” Chapman continues. It began when his son, bizarrely, sold a confidential cell phone recording of their racial epithet-laden conversation to a tabloid, which was subsequently made public on the internet.

Dog’s son, apparently, has a black girlfriend, and the father’s concern was that his bounty hunting team’s natural inclination to use racial epithet’s (the same way rap artists do) might prompt offense; moreover, she might then “out” the team as anti-black in a public forum.

Keep the dirty n-word talk between the team, Dog was saying. In the tape recording he can be heard to express fear that if his son’s girlfriend revealed their salty, trash-talking ways that their own media position might be compromised.

What is less virtuous? Speaking privately, to an intimate, and using racist terms, or exposing what is private in order to diminish (in this case his own Father) and inflame and offend?

In the Middle Ages, you were condemned for what you thought, or what others thought that you thought. In modern times, you are judged by your actions, your deeds. In novels, and in plays, and in movies, characters are defined by their actions and their choices, as so in life.

Dog Chapman did not intend to offend. Nor did he direct the racial slur at an individual.  Dog was paranoid of offending Blacks for political purposes (which, understandably, for many, is not enough). His paranoia, however, was not enough for him to remove his reflexive use of a racial epithet on a regular basis while on the job or socializing with his rough-and-tumble posse.

The person who offended Black North America in this instance was Dog’s vengeful son — - not Dog directly. This is not even a revisiting of a Michael Richards-like tirade (remember the Seinfeld star’s n-word rant at a comedy club?). Dog never employed a racial slur directly at anyone. So, should he be condemned? Sure. Using racial slurs in any context is wrong. It is wrong when Blacks use it too; yet, look at Dog physically. Look at what you have.

What do you expect from a guy who looks like that — with circus-like hair and a leather-bound demeanor that is all biker bravado, biker sensibilities and swagger, and who is, himself, an admitted former criminal?

We want our cake and we want to eat it too. We want the rough-around-the-edges anti-hero, the reformed bad-guy, but we expect that person to manifest themselves as a Sunday school teacher on a Harley. It is not reality.

The real question is should someone be condemned for what they say in private?

People use taboos as intensifiers in private all the time. It doesn’t make it virtuous, but what is? Half of the taboo expressions used are used only for effect – because they are bad to say — and are not taken seriously, or are even physically possible. Think about it. And how many people do you know who really are romantic with their parents (as in Motherf*****)?

Is Dog Chapman a closet racist? That is a legitimate question of any celebrity as grand, gossipy, speculation. Does it matter if he keeps it to himself? What if the hockey player is a bad parent or husband? What if the singer is a bad son to his parents? Like the hockey player, it only counts if he doesn’t score.

No human being can survive such big questions of character for it is hard to really determine the measure of a man’s soul.

Can Dog catch the bad guy and get his bounty? Was Dog horrified at being considered a racist? Even if it is for economic and political reasons, doing and saying the right things in public are what matter most.

Who was it who said something about casting the first stone?

Please feel free to post a comment on the blog below (I usually get long emails sent to my radio address instead).

Next week we can look forward to the opening of Parliament and the fireworks there.

Meantime, the fall-out continues over the MacDonald/Mackay brokered deal with the Feds over the Atlantic Accord.  Many believe it is a sell out. I think they’re wrong. It is better than what we were given in the budget. It is pretty much the same thing as Martin signed. You can villianize Harper for backtracking, but you can’t blame Peter for his efforts — the Conservatives aren’t wrong all the time you know! People will say, well, you can’t say it’s a good deal because you haven’t seen it; well, you cannot decry what you haven’t seen either!

The motivation for Harper to get even with Bill Casey and Danny Williams probably means we will do well with this new deal. What is really happening now — and I can hear it with callers — is rank cynicism. People just don’t believe anything, nor do they trust.

On Monday we’ll look at the coming bird flu pandemic — it may eventually kill millions. Don’t buy in bulk!

Also, next week, “what’s wrong with the Americans”? Now they want flight lists for planes not even landing in the U.S. just flying over (?!).  Where will America’s paranoia end? Is any of this Homeland security hysteria effective anyway? it is a bureacracy that seeks its own power with fragile predicates, or any basis in reality.

Instead of just looking at security procedures, why not look at foreign policy as well?

Well, we await hurricane Noel. I will be live Saturday Nov. 3^rd from 1pm-5pm to provide complete storm coverage. Richard Zurawski will join me all afternoon as well.

Next week I will also have an exclusive interview with Karlheinz Schreiber, the man behind the Airbus affair and the scandal surrounding former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the $300,000 payment Mulroney initially denied, and then confirmed that he had received. Karlheinz Schreiber is currenty in a Toronto prison awaiting his extradition hearing November 15^th where he faces deportation to Germany for tax evasion and other charges.

Also on the broadcast next week, author Peter C. Newman on Conrad Black.

I will next be writing about the example made of Dwayne (Dog) Chapman. His son betrayed him and sold a taped cell phone conversation to the tabloid press that had him employing racial epithets.

Also next week: Christie Blatchford, Globe columnist and reporter and author of Fifteen Days, her book about our boys in Afghanistan.

As we look toward Remembrance Day, I will also have Pulitzer prize-winning journalist and historian Rick Atkinson with me. Rick is author of “The Day of Battle, the war in Sicily and Italy 1943-44, the second book in his Liberation trilogy.

Mark Zuelke is a Canuck historian that will also put our men at arms in perspective too. He will join us too.

Last, but not least, Dr. J. Colin Dodds, President of Saint Mary’s University will join us Monday to discuss the direction of higher learning. Also, on Monday, Guardian Angels founder Curtis Sliwa on his trip this weekend to Halifax.