Iv’e never been a triumphalist. Perhaps, somewhere deep inside I’m too superstitious. Fortuna’s wheel can turn against you on a dime and certainly doesn’t need any temptation to thwart your plans or wishes. Some people, of course, are triumphalists for a living, such as political media professionals. They have to
Continue readingAuthor: kirbycairo
kirbycairo: Is A President Above the Law, or only beneath Contempt?
Some people in the US keep telling us that “no one is above the law, even the president.” But then the in next sentence they tell us that (at least according to DOJ policy) the president cannot be indicted of a crime. Every time I hear these two claims side
Continue readingkirbycairo: Begging the Question and acting Appropriately. . .
The phrase “beg the question” has recently begun to be widely misused, at least in relation to its strict traditional meaning. People now will often say something “begs the question” when it simply raises another question or problem. Such a phrase can obviously have a very wide application. For example,
Continue readingkirbycairo: My Socialism Includes Kids. . . .
After a lifetime of observation and thought, it increasingly seems to me that failures on the left are often not a result of leftists being too radical, but of them not being radical enough. That is to say, leftist who are supposed to oppose the arbitrary uses of power that
Continue readingkirbycairo: Guatemalan Dictators, and Brutes of our Own. . . .
Yesterday the former dictator of Guatemala, Efrain Montt, was convicted of 80 years in prison for Genocide. The sentence is, in a sense symbolic considering that Mr. Montt is now 86 years old and very unlikely to survive any significant time in prison. But the sentence is interesting at least
Continue readingkirbycairo: E.V. Lucas and the Gradual decline of the Book. . . .
One of my very favorite writers is an obscure Englishman named Edward Verrall Lucas, usually known in print simply as E.V. Lucas. Lucas was the author of over a hundred and thirty books, a few of which are novels and biographies, many collections of essays, and quite a few excellent compilations of
Continue readingkirbycairo: The Shine is Coming off. . . .
The embarrassing attack by the HarperCons on any kind of thought and refection reached the height of folly this past couple of weeks and it seems to demonstrate a faltering government which seems to be incredulous at the thought that they will eventually lose power. First we have Harper’s bizarre
Continue readingkirbycairo: The Smoke and Mirrors of Environmental Destruction. . .
It has always been obvious to anyone who pays attention to such matters that the Harper Party has, from its inceptions, orchestrated an all out attack on environmental regulations in an effort to create a third-world style petro-state. A central part of the HarperCon effort has been to remove the
Continue readingkirbycairo: Banana-oil Republic of Harperland. . . . .
We in the leftist blogging community have become something like forensic auditors of the slow debasement of democratic values under the HarperCon cabal. It seems that each week we have a new story of autocratic offensiveness to examine as Harper slowly but surely disassembles out democratic institutions. It is a
Continue readingkirbycairo: Some Literary First sentences, just for fun. . .
On the day after the HarperCons finally made their utter hypocrisy TOTALLY clear by voting down a motion to ensure that MPs are able to speak freely in the House, I thought I would say to hell with all that crap and post something a little different. So here are a few
Continue readingkirbycairo: The Liberal Party vs the Harper Party, can you tell the Difference. . . . ?
It has become commonplace among those on the left of centre to lump the contemporary Liberal Party of Canada in with the Conservative Party. And this tendency is clearly rooted in a certain degree of truth. Though the Liberals talk a good game on the environment, for example, when they were
Continue readingkirbycairo: Temporary Foreign Workers and the Semi-Slave economy. . . .
Jim Flaherty, that inconceivably incompetent buffoon who calls himself a ‘finance minister,’ keeps telling us that the Conservatives needed to expand the ‘temporary foreign workers’ program because there are ‘labour shortages’ and there are many jobs ‘Canadians just wont do.’ But of course this is another in a long line of Conservative lies. Notice that they
Continue readingkirbycairo: Thatcher’s Capitalist Revolt and the Impending Disaster. . .
I know one is not supposed to speak ill of the dead but Margaret Thatcher was an awful, terrible, scoundrel of a person. But as bad as she was, she was really just one of many leaders of a global movement, the goal of which was, and continues to be,
Continue readingkirbycairo: The Racism goes Blithely On. . .
I recently wrote a blogpost on racism toward Canada’s Aboriginal people. I only received a couple of comments, one of which was depressingly racist in nature. I have since blocked that commentator’s source-feed and as a result the comment is no longer visible (though my reply is still there). As
Continue readingkirbycairo: The Nanaimo Letter and the On-Going Racism. . .
As I have written here before, and as many others realize, racism against Aboriginal people is one of the only areas where it seems that open bigotry is still accepted in out society. Racism is regularly directed at the First Nations people, and far from being ashamed of their opinions,
Continue readingkirbycairo: Liberal Vote Info Arrives. . . .
Like many people, today I received my form in the mail for voting in the Liberal Leadership race. I have voted strategically for Liberal Candidates a couple of times in my life and so I didn’t mind taking part in their experiment in democracy. I don’t know if the experiment will amount
Continue readingkirbycairo: The Empty Rhetoric of Martha Hall Finley. . .
Today on Power And Politics Evan Solomon interviewed Martha Hall Finley (perhaps my least favorite of all the Liberal Party leadership candidates). Finley was at pains to say that she is not one of those Liberals who think that the LPC should in any sense shift to the “left.” Instead,
Continue readingkirbycairo: Joyce Murray Follow-up. .. .
Earlier today I engaged in a small thought experiment in which I asked Joyce Murray for an explanation of her participation in the cabinet of Gordon Campbell. My language was intentionally provocative because when it comes to human rights issues in particular I think we often need to be a little provocative.
Continue readingkirbycairo: My Open Letter to Joyce Murray. . . .
Dear Ms Murray Like many Canadians of all different political stripes, I got involved in the new open leadership process of the Liberal Party of Canada. Though my politics are considerably left of the LPC, I was still eager to support this experiment in democracy. In addition to my political curiosity at
Continue readingkirbycairo: We Miss You Roy . . .
This anniversary of the death of my ol’ dad seems to have arrived and passed in a strange, dreamlike state. As the time passes it seems more and more unreal that he is gone. My dad and I were partners in the crime of being misfits. The great bond that we shared
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