Hosted by Justin Podur
In Harperland, Lawrence Martin points out how Harper hates the press (you can see it in this campaign, with the 19th century schoolmaster’s Five Questions policy).
In a chapter on Harper’s press policy, called “the Control Fixation”, Martin relates this story (pg. 65):
Calgary academic and Harper advisor Tom Flanagan has more influence on Canadian politics than most people in this country realize. He was an important informant in Lawrence Martin’s imporant book, “Harperland”.
A good quote from Flanagan, on pg. 47 of Harperland:
To go with Canadian election season, I am reading books about Stephen Harper, his party, and his movement. I have got Lawrence Martin’s “Harperland”, Marci McDonald’s “The Armageddon Factor”, and I have ordered Christian Nadeau’s “Rogue in Power”.
I thought I might put some of the interesting quotes out on this blog as I encounter them.
I started with Harperland by Lawrence Martin.
A great quote from Harper on pg. 29:
A friend from the movement asked me my thoughts on George Monbiot’s article in the UK Guardian about how Fukushima actually converted him to nuclear power. George summarizes the Fukushima incident as follows:
For the seven years since he was overthrown in a coup in February 2004 there have been many different speculations about why Aristide never returned to Haiti. People argued that his exile in South Africa was comfortable, that he had fled in 2004 out of fear for his life and didn’t return because of that same fear, that he was waiting for the moment when he could return to power.
Wikileaks and the future of information from Justin Podur on Vimeo.
Justin Podur on Wikileaks and the Future of Information Part 2 from Justin Podur on Vimeo.
Parts 1 and 2 of a talk on Wikileaks, media, and the future of information given at the Toronto Public Library’s “Thought Exchange” program on January 31, 2011.
Most people are interested in something that no one knows or can know: what is going to happen in Egypt? It is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future (that’s from Keynes). There are lessons from past revolutions that might help us understand what is happening, but from where I’m sitting, marveling at Egyptian people’s courage and looking at these utterly unanticipated and amazing events, I haven’t said much because I don’t have much to offer the people whose courage made this happen and whose decisions will determine how this all goes. Still, there may come a time in the near future when we can help, and when that time comes the more we understand about these dynamics the better.
So, parallels. The 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising was definitely the first one that came to mind. One thing to remember on that front, if you are feeling impatient: the protests at Tiananmen started in mid-April 1989, and the big massacre that drove them out of the square wasn’t until early June. It seems to me that everything depends on Egyptians’ capacity to stay mobilized and to keep escalating protests. The other major point is that if they lose now, they really lose – the worst violence is after the big demonstrations, not during them, when protesters and dissidents are hunted down.
One I hadn’t thought of came from Bill Blum, who made the comparison with Portugal 1975 in his “Killing Hope” column:
“The visual symbol of the Portuguese “revolution” had become the picture of a child sticking a rose into the muzzle of a rifle held by a friendly soldier, and I got caught up in demonstrations and parades featuring people, including myself, standing on tanks and throwing roses, with the crowds cheering the soldiers. It was pretty heady stuff, and I dearly wanted to believe, but I and most people I spoke to there had little doubt that the United States could not let such a breath of fresh air last very long. The overthrow of the Chilean government less than two years earlier had raised the world’s collective political consciousness, as well as the level of skepticism and paranoia on the left.”
“Washington and multinational corporate officials who were on the board of directors of the planet were indeed concerned. Besides anything else, Portugal was a member of NATO. Destabilization became the order of the day: covert actions; attacks in the US press; subverting trade unions; subsidizing opposition media; economic sabotage through international credit and commerce; heavy financing of selected candidates in elections; a US cut-off of Portugal from certain military and nuclear information commonly available to NATO members; NATO naval and air exercises off the Portuguese coast, with 19 NATO warships moored in Lisbon’s harbor, regarded by most Portuguese as an attempt to intimidate the provisional government. In 1976 the “Socialist” Party (scarcely further left and no less anti-communist than the US Democratic Party) came to power, heavily financed by the CIA, the Agency also arranging for Western European social-democratic parties to help foot the bill. The Portuguese revolution was dead, stillborn.”
Blum has good reason to worry, but events don’t always go Washington’s way. If they did, Egyptians wouldn’t have made it this far, and if they go further and keep their resolve, the US won’t have unlimited options. Of course they’ll try to subvert anything decent – but that doesn’t mean nothing decent can happen.
There’s Iran 1979, which Juan Cole did a good blog about.
There’s Venezuela 2002. This wasn’t a revolution though, to overthrow Chavez, but an attempted coup. What’s interesting here is the contrast in the US reaction. Everybody’s seen “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised”, right? Remember how there was a setup, in which coupster snipers attacked the crowds, killing pro- and anti-Chavez demonstrators, and news companies manipulated the footage to suggest that Chavistas killed the demonstrators? In that situation, the (false) claim that pro-Chavez forces killed 10 demonstrators (a number it seems selected in advance by the coupsters) was enough to convince the US that Chavez was a human rights violator who had to go (the whole movie is on Google Video). Take a look at around minute 30 for the incident, and 49:05 for the White House spokesman’s statement, which is too good to not quote at length:
“We know the actions encouraged by the Chavez government provoked this crisis. The Chavez government suppressed peaceful demonstrations, fired on unarmed peaceful protesters resulting in 10 killed and 100 wounded. That is what took place, and a transitional civilian government has been installed.”
Haiti 1986. Another interesting case, because mobilizations took years before they overthrew Duvalier (Egyptians have actually been struggling for years, but not on this level). I was reading Michel Trouillot’s excellent book about the Duvaliers (Haiti: State Against Nation: The Origins and Legacy of Duvalierism, 1990, pg. 224-5)
“For different reasons, the US government, the CNG, the Haitian urban elites, political parties of all tendencies, and large chunks of the Haitian masses have fancied the assumption that Baby Doc’s departure was a clear step on the march to democracy, an immediate and inevitable consequence of the disturbances and massive riots of 1984-5. To be sure, the riots were a necessary factor in the end of the Duvalier dynasty: had the Haitian masses not defied the army and militia with their bare hands during a month of daily encounters in which many unarmed citizens were injured and killed, chances are that Jean-Claude Duvalier would still be ruling the country. But if the riots were necessary for Duvalier to leave, they certainly were not a sufficient condition for him to depart the way he did. It took something else to orchestrate his departure at that particular time, under those specific circumstances, and with a no less specific aftermath… Two series of events occurred on February 7, 1986: first, the departure of Duvalier; second, the takeover of the state machinery by a group of apparently disparate individuals, civilians and career army officers… For what Haitians witnessed on February 7, 1986, was not the disorderly escape of an ‘entire leadership’ pushed out by popular pressure… but a transmission of power, orchestrated with absolute order – albeit against the background of a pouplar uprising.”
Trouillot refers (on pg. 226) to “one crucial fact: Jean-Claude Duvalier was brought down by a high-level coup d’etat executed with international connivance.” The coup prevented the complete uprooting of the structures of the dictatorship, and a series of dictators continued to rule the country for years, a scenario many, like Samir Amin, have foreseen for Egypt.
Of course, the best thing about this situation is that it isn’t a repeat of anything that has happened in the past. It is the Egyptians’ moment, and they will make it.
Justin Podur is Toronto-based writer.
Philanthrocapitalism, a book by Bishop and Green, argues that philanthropy will help the public accept a new age of plutocracy (the rule by wealth). The rich are giving their money away so effectively, they say, that the public won’t mind increasing inequality. At one point the authors of reference Slavoj Zizek, who criticizes philanthrocapitalists and calls them “liberal communists” in an essay called Nobody Has To be Vile and it’s available for free at the LRB, which isn’t the norm (I am still trying to figure out how to get Jackson Lears’s review of Nader’s “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us” without subscribing, which wouldn’t be worth it for me).
Zizek is lots of fun. He identifies a real problem, which is a turn to the rich for solutions to the problems they create. Zizek helps clarify the problem in his description of Soros and Gates. Soros:
“…stands for ruthless financial exploitation combined with its counter-agent, humanitarian worry about the catastrophic social consequences of the unbridled market economy. Soros’s daily routine is a lie embodied: half of his working time is devoted to financial speculation, the other half to ‘humanitarian’ activities (financing cultural and democratic activities in post-Communist countries, writing essays and books) which work against the effects of his own speculations. The two faces of Bill Gates are exactly like the two faces of Soros: on the one hand, a cruel businessman, destroying or buying out competitors, aiming at a virtual monopoly; on the other, the great philanthropist who makes a point of saying: ‘What does it serve to have computers if people do not have enough to eat?’”
Gates:
“is already the single greatest benefactor in the history of humanity, displaying his love for his neighbours by giving hundreds of millions of dollars for education, the fight against hunger and malaria etc. The catch is that before you can give all this away you have to take it (or, as the liberal communists would put it, create it).”
Zizek’s conclusion, quoted by the authors of philanthrocapitalism, is:
“We should have no illusions: liberal communists are the enemy of every true progressive struggle today. All other enemies – religious fundamentalists, terrorists, corrupt and inefficient state bureaucracies – depend on contingent local circumstances. Precisely because they want to resolve all these secondary malfunctions of the global system, liberal communists are the direct embodiment of what is wrong with the system. It may be necessary to enter into tactical alliances with liberal communists in order to fight racism, sexism and religious obscurantism, but it’s important to remember exactly what they are up to…They may fight subjective violence, but liberal communists are the agents of the structural violence that creates the conditions for explosions of subjective violence. The same Soros who gives millions to fund education has ruined the lives of thousands thanks to his financial speculations and in doing so created the conditions for the rise of the intolerance he denounces.”
Where Zizek’s essay is incomplete is in the answer to the pragmatic argument. People are turning to money – or, to use Zizek’s term, to ‘liberal communists’ – as a matter of urgency. In this system, problems can’t be solved without money. Governments are captured by money. So, where to turn for help, if you need to solve a problem right now? People with money. In doing so, we make things worse, we strengthen the ‘structural violence’ of the system. But if we want to support and be a part of ‘true progressive struggle’, what can we offer to counter their patronage power other than structural critique? The democratic/social movement idea is that mobilized and organized people can counter elites even if elites have much more money, whether in social contests or even in solving social problems like health, education, or environmental problems. It seems like that idea is the one that is weakened the most by this philanthrocapitalistic movement, especially added to all the other demobilizing elements in society (propaganda, infrastructure, etc.).
Zizek writes this as if the counter-argument is self-evident – indeed, so self-evident that his description of their ideology is mocking.
“Liberal communists are pragmatic; they hate a doctrinaire approach. There is no exploited working class today, only concrete problems to be solved: starvation in Africa, the plight of Muslim women, religious fundamentalist violence. When there is a humanitarian crisis in Africa (liberal communists love a humanitarian crisis; it brings out the best in them), instead of engaging in anti-imperialist rhetoric, we should get together and work out the best way of solving the problem, engage people, governments and business in a common enterprise, start moving things instead of relying on centralised state help, approach the crisis in a creative and unconventional way.”
But I am pretty sure that they would read that description and say, yes, and?
My attempt at an answer to that question (“yes, and?”) would be that even philanthrocapitalism’s proponents concede that the billions they give are peanuts compared to what taxpayers provide. And what they don’t concede is that a lot of hype conceals a huge gap between what is pledged and what is actually delivered. The result is that all this philanthropy seems to provide the wealthy with control over public systems by virtue of giving a small portion of the total money to a program. Through that small portion of a contribution, they buy control over a whole system (like New York’s public education system, university priorities, or public health systems in various African countries). Linda McQuaig’s book “The Trouble With Billionaires” argues the crazy idea that the wealthy should pay taxes.
Another attempt at an answer might be to identify certain things that billionaires won’t ever do. Call this my challenge to the philanthrocapitalists. They can call leftists doctrinaire and trapped in the old ways all day, and I will celebrate their innovation, if they do the following:
1. Pay the $25 billion France owes Haiti, and then use international legal means to get the money back from France.
2. Pay Rwanda off to stop its de facto occupation of the eastern DRC, which Rwanda is doing for the hundreds of millions in minerals it gets from the enterprise. Philanthrocapitalists could make a major contribution to peace in one of the worst human conflicts by creating an endowment that will give Rwanda an annual subsidy equaling what it would earn from plundered DRC minerals, in exchange for Rwanda’s complete withdrawal of all militias and Rwandan military presence in the DRC. A similar arrangement could be made with Uganda.
3. Here I’m inspired by one of Ralph Nader’s proposals in “Only the Super-Rich…” and JK Galbraith’s novel, “A Tenured Professor”. For every politician who gets private campaign funding, give a matching amount to a politician opposing them automatically. Neutralize the effects of money in elections, creating a disincentive for all lobbying activity. When the super-rich character in Galbraith’s novel tried this, the system was able to mobilize quickly to change the laws and take away his fortune. I suspect the same would happen to the billionaires if they tried it for real.
4. Inspired by the various anti-Israeli-apartheid organizations in Toronto and elsewhere (Queers Against Israeli Apartheid QUAIA, Students Against Israeli Apartheid SAIA, etc.), form Billionaires Against Israeli Apartheid BAIA. Give the government elected by Palestinians funds matching what the US gives Israel. Offer Israel funds matching what the US gives if they end the occupation, allows the refugees to return, and give equality to Palestinian citizens of Israel. If BAIA wants to attach all sorts of conditions to this, fine – for example, if BAIA says that Palestinians and Israelis can only receive their funds if they renounce violence, that is ok. Conditions must apply to both sides, however. To smooth things, BAIA could also match funds the US gives to Egypt if it abandons those funds and provides Gaza with a normal border that people can cross normally (ie., if it stops helping Israel with the siege).
The point is not to encourage billionaires to adopt my own favourite causes, in effect saying – stop fighting malaria and AIDS and follow what I think you should do. The point is, instead, to show that billionaires are not above politics. Their taking and their giving has a definite political bias, and will either reject or are not strong enough to win even reform-oriented, very money-oriented proposals (none of my 4 proposals are revolutionary, they don’t ask for overthrowing the system) if they run against the system.
Philanthrocapitalists might have two possible counterarguments. 1), my causes are too obscure and low priority or 2), no billionaires are interested in these particular causes. To one, I would say there was plenty of philanthropic interest in Haiti after the earthquake, just no mention of the stolen billions; that the DRC is probably the worst conflict in the world in absolute terms; that neutralizing money in politics is an old favourite of liberals (it comes from Galbraith and Nader!); and that Israel/Palestine is one of the longest-running and most attended-to conflicts in the world, it’s just that all the billions are going to making things worse for the Palestinians now and for everybody eventually. To 2), I would say this proves my point. With more billionaires all the time, why isn’t there support for any of these problems that might be solved if the right billionaire came along to throw money at it? Perhaps because there’s some kind of selection process for becoming, and staying, a billionaire. And that these hyperagents (that’s what philanthropists call them because they are able to do so much more good than ordinary people) can only exercise their hyperagency in ways that reinforce the system.
For the rest of us agents (not hyperagents), we are going to have to try to convince large numbers of people to do things using non monetary methods. That’s my hypothesis, and until billionaires have fulfilled my simple, 4 item list, I won’t drop it.
Justin Podur is a Toronto-based writer.
Jaron Lanier, author of “You are not a gadget”, is very well-informed about what he is writing about, which is some of the social consequences of the internet, and some of the implicit ideologies that are built into the internet as we are living with it today. Lanier was one of the early minds behind virtual reality and has helped create a lot of the technology that shapes how we live and how we think. In his book, “You are not a gadget” (Knopf NY 2010) he offers some reflections on this technology, recent trends and coming trends, and the relationship of the technology to society.