Maritime Morning - Andrew Krystal

I have had the privilege, over the last few days, of interviewing two of America’s best investigative reporters: Ron Suskind and Craig Unger.

Suskind has written explosive exposes of the Bush administration including the One Per cent Doctrine on Vice-President Dick Cheney and The Price of Loyalty on Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neil, and now The Way of The World, which establishes that the Bushies doctored intelligence, falsified other evidence, knew in advance Saddam had nothing, and generally lied and manipulated to start a war in pursuit of an ideology.

Now, Craig Unger, who previously wrote House of Bush, House of Saud and The Fall of the House of Bush, has his book renamed for the trade paperback American Armageddon: How the Delusions of the Neoconservatives and the Christian Right Triggered the Decline of America. The paperback has a new afterward that updates things to the spring of 2008.

Of all the Bush-bashing books, and there are quite a lot of them, this is one of the best. It chronicles the rise of Bush and the machinations and intriguer efforts of Dick Cheney and the rest of the Neo-Con crew. Of particular importance is Unger’s insight into the religious and father-hating nature of Bush, whose childhood rage at underachieving and disappointing his Father until the age of 40, translated into President W’s empowering of his Father’s life-long enemies. People like the discredited former secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld.

Unger reminded us that no one knew that the Bush Presidency would be so radical. The Neo-conservative agenda metastasized like a cancer, it was something that spread and took on a life of its own. It was never supposed to be this way. Bush was never considered a radical, or an ideologue of any kind. However, once he took office, the rats ran around the cheese. Suddenly, Bush had a belief system, a way to perceive the world, an agenda — unfortunately.

The candor-filled Unger mentioned to me on the air today that George W. Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, is extremely disappointed with the massive screw-up his son has made of the office of the presidency and the country his father loved so much — never mind Iraq and Afghanistan.

As Craig Unger so effectively and so diligently chronicles, in the end, the loser son, the boy who couldn’t shoot straight, the kid who was always uncomfortable with his social/academic betters and who also knew deeply how limited he really was; who leaned upon his God to find a faith in himself beyond himself, and, in so overreaching, fell back to his family place as the black sheep, the failure, the boy who never made his father proud, who never had the right stuff, and who, this time, took the world, and the blood of so many others, down with him.

Nova Scotia Premier Rodney MacDonald came out swinging at the Liberal Party platform on my broadcast today. He says the “Green Shift”; (www.thegreenshift.ca) strategy will cost Maritimers more. He mentions $ 400.00 per year on average; that the Liberal tax cut refund cheque will also be slow getting into our hands whereas the costs of living will be immediate.

Nova Scotians rely on fossil fuels more than anybody in the country — 90 per cent of its electricity and 60 per cent of its home heating – and we are the most vulnerable.

The point is, however, no one really knows what the Liberal carbon tax is going to cost consumers. More importantly, the Liberals are, at least, discussing costs. The Conservative and NDP green platforms will cost us too. Yes, that’s right brothers and sisters, there will be a “carbon tax”, no matter what you call it, and no matter who is in power.

The Conservative green plan will cost consumers, of that there is no question. Energy companies, if hindered in their profits by whatever party, will pass additional costs and/or lost revenue onto the consumer. The Conservatives know this.

Proof of this Conservative awareness is the government’s own document from Environment Canada, released on March 10^th, 2008 called “Turning the Corner”: Regulatory Framework for Industrial Greenhouse Gas Emissions.

Canadians can therefore expect to bear costs under the regulatory framework that are not trivial. At the same time, these costs strike an appropriate balance between environmental results and manageable economic impacts.For the majority of individual Canadians and for businesses outside the regulated sectors, these costs will be most evident in the form of higher energy prices, particular with respect to electricity and natural gas. However, increased energy conservation and efficiency are expected to limit those increases.” The document is available here: http://www.ec.gc.ca/doc/virage-corner/2008-03/541_eng.htm

The Liberals have at least said what they will do to help the people out in terms of tax relief after the energy companies charge us more to make up for those lost profits (see the tax cut calculator on the www.thegreenshift.ca web site.

Nova Scotia premier Macdonald says that the Harper government will “work with the Province” to help ease the pain when it comes to the Conservative plan. What does that mean? “Trust us”? Anyone can use generalities and say “don’t worry, we’ll work it out”, just like the Liberals will say “it won’t cost a thing”, “revenue neutral.”

Sure.

I asked Liberal leader Dion if there is room for a “side deal” with Nova Scotia or New Brunswick with the Liberal “Green Shift” plan and he said, very directly, no — a straight answer and at least Dion is trying to make the carbon tax “revenue neutral” by providing tax cuts.

I applaud the principal of Premier MacDonald standing up for Nova Scotians; and, in that regard, Premier Macdonald should applaud former Conservative MP Bill Casey who also stood up for Nova Scotians over the Atlantic Accord debacle and who was forced out of his own party for voting with his conscience on behalf of his constituents, Province, and region. Instead, the premier is supporting the local Conservative candidate against Casey.

And while the Premier agreed with me when I brought up the subject of the Feds backtracking, and reneging, and weaseling, on the promise to provide more supply ships to the Navy (after a big announcement from Defense Minister O’Conner in 2006 in Halifax), it is non other than Casey that is coming on tomorrow to pointedly raise hell about it.

The Premier should also be critical of the costs to Nova Scotians when it comes to the Conservative Carbon emissions plan; in other words, defending the province — being critical of all federal parties, or any other entities that don’t benefit the residents. We should have specifics as to what any side deal for Nova Scotia, from Harper, will look like.

Look at the billions Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams, a Conservative, garnered for his province when he stood up to everyone – all by himself. Any less of a man would’ve left money on the table, or in the hands of the oil companies, or the Feds.

You have to be a partisan, but being Premier means being a partisan to those who directly elect you — and only to them. There is no such thing as a Federal party in Provincial politics. Often we vote federally the opposite of whom we elect provincially. While the political ideologies are similar in that parties can belong to the same “family”, execution and the nuances and vagaries of national interests obviates any specific, provincial ties. For example, the Liberals have a provincial party in Alberta, which is like running a Christian college in Riyadh.

Former Public Works Minister, and Kings Hants Liberal MP, Scott Brison has accused Premier Macdonald of knowing that he will lose the upcoming provincial election and is claiming that the Premier is pulling for a Federal patronage appointment in the same manner federal partisan PEI Premier Pat Binns was rewarded the Ambassadorship of Ireland three months after he lost his Province.

We’ll see.

Right across the planet, the geopolitical problems are mounting: Russian nationalism and NATO response; Iranian nuclear ambitions and Israel’s and America’s response; Pakistan’s rising fundamentalists and internal political and economic instability (and they have a nuclear arsenal); Afghanistan’s Taliban problem, potential NATO defeat there, and the option for spill-over into Pakistan; the rise of China and the growing shadow of Chinese Nationalism and a potential war to retake Taiwan (which would lead to war with America and Japan); and if that were not enough, the prospect for nuclear terrorism by state-less actors also looms.

The world has never been this unstable. Certainly pre-World War One was one such period, but there were 75 per cent fewer people on the planet and no nukes back in 1914.

In addition to nuclear weapons, there also exist today battlefield low-yield nuclear weapons that are tempting to deploy, tactical weapons which easily escalates into strategic use. Strategic use is, of course, a world-ender. We might survive it, but it wouldn’t be a pretty place to live in after a nuclear exchange with intercontinental ballistic missiles unleashed: subsistence farming, nuclear winter, nuclear fallout and radiation effects, “Mad Max” style survival, and the end of society as we have understood it to be.

Ron Suskind joined me today from Washington D.C., author of “The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope In an Age of Extremism”, as did Eric Margolis author of “War At the Top of The World”, to discuss our Afghanistan policy and the threat of nuclear terrorism.

Simply put, the enemy is better at predicting our response modalities than we are. They can see around corners when it comes to what we can do to them and how we react, whereas we, ourselves, can’t see where we are going, or where we have been, or what history means.

Al Qaeda, the Taliban, and Pakistan are winning. In order to survive, Ron Suskind says we have to emphasize more goodwill/aid efforts.

It was Machiavelli, the great Renaissance thinker who posited the notion in his great work “The Prince” that if you cannot destroy your enemies you must befriend them.

And we cannot destroy them.

I have had several people come up to me lately asking about whether or not tax payer’s money should go towards the Olympic games (Tom Young actually asked the question on his show today), and whether or not tax payers money should be spent on big concert events.

Concert events, if wisely chosen, like the upcoming Elton John events in the Maritimes are an obvious winner as they generate income, unless of course costs run ahead of revenues, and the entertainer costs too much, etc. Otherwise, why complain if the concert makes money and generates revenue for the downtown businesses? Elton John sold out in minutes and will bring in lots of collateral spending. Good for the Province and Fred MacGillvrey.

People still complain however — and you know who they are: The constant gripers and tax moaners who also don’t bother voting in municipal elections (most don’t anyway) but who have the most to say about what the city is, or isn’t doing.

As far as the Olympics are concerned, does success in Beijing equate to higher profile elsewhere? Does that higher profile translate into tangible economic benefits? Not really. But sports culture is still culture and not every human activity needs to be tied to economics. There are intangible benefits too that can evolve into economic benefits: morale and productivity, national prestige and international investment; the mere fact that there is cultural intercourse with the Olympic Games also improves international understanding (however, the Berlin Olympics did nothing to “bring people together” — it actually did the opposite, promoting Hitler).

Eventually, an overly cost-conscious nation that has disposable wealth ends up impoverished and boring. How can we extend foreign aid to others, and rebuild Afghanistan, and then not support our own athletes?

The classic “bread, not circuses” argument really falls this way: sometimes you need dinner and a show.

Frequently, we lionize policemen and firemen, but not front line healthcare workers. Why?

The workaday, everyday, tender mercies ministered by personal care workers, licensed practical nurses and nurses themselves, often go unheralded, and uncelebrated, lost in the lonely universe of taken-for-granted professionalism and the quiet urgency of the elderly and infirm.

It is also the elderly, whose ranks we will all become, but whose inevitable fraternity we deny, that receives the least attention. The elderly are actively ignored in our society; the lack of frequency of visits to nursing homes and assisted living facilities is but one testament to this fact and but one barometer of our collective omission.

Attendant to our active denial of the elderly, are the attendants themselves; the lack of attention given to caregivers is a direct result of our collective lack of a senior citizen focus. Not only does our society, generally speaking, avoid the issue of death and dying and the later stages with our eyes averted, it is the path of least resistance —  ignoring the inexorable to make hay while the sun shines.

Partly, this is the cultural result of a consumer orientation where children gain relevance by virtue of the products that surround them and the products for which they nag parents; where people are broken down into consumer age categories and targeted by marketers as such, and where those who are no longer in need of much, who are, in fact, shedding their earthly belongings like the elderly, have no consumer value at all.

One of the dirty little secrets of our society is how badly we marginalize the elderly, how little respect we give them and what little time most of us put in to seeing them or bringing them comfort.

And most of the time the elderly don’t complain. They are grateful for whatever time their loved ones grant.

One of my favorite quotations is from John Donne:

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were: any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

The next time you find yourself aging or losing your powers: be it sight, or focus, or acuity, or health, or you see the mirror graying and the reflected layers lined, and creased, and freckled, think of John Donne.

And ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.