current events:

Political Ideology 101: Everyone got their knickers all up in knots a few days ago when Mr. Doshanjh became a member of the federal Liberal party and announced he would be running in Vnacouver South as a candidate under Mr. Martin. There were all kinds of wonderful rants written in to my favorite local lefty rags, mostly accusing him of being amoral and having no real beliefs, being willing to do anything to get elected, etc. What this all make me wonder is aren't we looking at this backwards? Rather than the evil-slimey-politician assumption, shouldn't we attempt to look at the actual positions these various parties occupy on the political spectrum? I'm sure Mr. Dosanjh would rather eat his children than run under the G-Cam Liberal, they're far too right-wing for him (eww and most of the rest of us too). On the other hand, if we compare the actual policy records from the last decade or so of federal Liberal leadership with those of our provincial NDP -- voila! We have two parties who, despite their names or claims, both subscribe to essentially the same political ideology, and hence two parties between which Mr. Dosanjh could hop as often as he likes without encountering much in the way of ideological dissonance.

In the words of the wise, we now turn our attention to Mess'OPotamia: More troops to Iraq, eh George? I think by this point we've likey all seen this coming. In fact, I think that even before the war in Iraq a lot of us knew this was coming. How? Do you know a better way to answer the question of how to ensure that only a pro-US government gets into and stays in power in Iraq than the continued presence of our good friends the US military? Unless Sadam truly was some evil warlock who had merely enspelled his citizens and now that he's gone the spell has been broken and they're all showing their true colours as fun-loving, tang-drinking, mtv-watching Americans of tomorrow over there, I don't think that we really had any right to expect that, with their country bombed to shit and their leader imprisoned and humiliated, they would all start cheering in the streets to celebrate their new leaders. Yet somehow the Americans seem as surprised as I think the Romans must once have been that their newly conquored citizen don't seem all too happy to be joining the "civilized" world. Yes, Sadam was evil, but warlock I doubt, and I can't help but think that given the nice long history of successful coups, if the Iraqi people had really wanted him disposed, they would have done it them damned selves, if for no other reason but than to ensure that they, and not Bush (whose judement we all know to be questionable at best), get to pick the new leader. So intead, let's call a sheep a sheep and see this all as the elementary school yard fight it is,. where Sadam gets the shit kicked out of him for standing up to someone with a lot more backup than he has, and a son in line ofr the presidency promising to kick the crap out of anything daddy puts an "evil" sticker on. After all, like the divine act of grace that bestowed upon us both Thatcher and Regan at the same time, so to is it an act of god that Bushie came 'round to clean up after daddy. And with gods like that, hey, we don't even NEED a devil anymore.