Right Wing ridin' high

Take no prisoners is the order of the day, from Ontario to Alberta to Afghanistan

The Straight Goods Cyber Forum with Larry Solway

Commentary:

  It's been a huge week for the hard Right. George Bush is flexing his testosterone and Rumsfeld giggles at the thought that the entire al-Qaida will be exterminated by arbitrary on-the-spot executions. When asked about "prisoners" he grins.
  Sidebar. Little comment in this country about the head of the American Red Cross resigning in disgrace. They collected hundreds of millions for the September 11 victims. Then siphoned off a few hundred thousand for improvements for the Red Cross infrastructure, hundreds of thousands that would then not go to victims.

Here at home the hard Right is in full gallop.

  In Alberta, Ralph Klein, pleading the effects of drink and a sore back, told the residents in a homeless shelter to get a job. I know exactly how he feels. Bothers me too because I live, for now, just around the corner from Queen street west in Toronto, where hordes of young, healthy people with pierced lips, nostrils, eyebrows and egos, prop themselves against the walls of buildings and extend paper cups asking for "spare change." It makes me think maybe Ralph is right. Hell ­ even Gorge Bush may be right. Rumsfeld may be right.
  In the Ontario Legislature, on the eve of recess (some recess ­ it lasts until March, but hell, all the decisions are made in the premier's office anyway) Mike Harris was toasted by Dalton McGuinty, who may now be very worried that with a new guy, like say Ernie Eves at the helm, it could be another cold four years for the Liberals. The NDP sang a song of faint praise. Harris said goodbye with tears in his eyes, saying that his family, especially his sons, were more important to him than being premier. Which is a good thing because his days were numbered. Where that leaves Janet, who has been discarded again, I have no idea. Before he left he made sure that he got Hydro privatization going.
  The best right-wing knee jerk (can you jerk a wing and a knee?) was that as a consequence of the so-called education reform (Ontario is second last in spending in all of the country on a per-student basis) the Catholic School Board in Toronto announced the closing of 10 - TEN! - schools. Why? Because there are too few students. According to statistics, the Catholics are moving to places like Etobicoke. Where they want to live is their business. But the policy of school closing is the death knell of mature neighborhoods.

Nothing "hollows out" a neighborhood faster than closing a school.

  Nothing reduces real estate values more drastically than a school closing. Nothing so attracts families to a neighborhood as a good school. It is the biggest reason why young families move.
  The Tories are also announcing new highway initiatives, like extending Highway 427 north into farmers' fields. That's a joke. The "farmers" are mostly developers who drool at the notion that a super highway will soon bring them even more prosperity.
  Next week there will be small confab of media-wise left supporters. They asked me to be there. I will not say more because I wouldn't violate a confidence. But you can be sure that we have to rally some kind of energy to attack the demolition of the social unit called the city, with its neighborhoods, and schools, and yes ­ even kids with pierced skin and little glittering diamonds in the holes, leaning up against a building aggressively demanding (as one of them did to me) money for weed.
  It's better by far than gridlock, pollution and the sale of our electrical heritage to the greed of the cronies of The Right.

  Goodbye Mike. Godspeed. Say hi to Janet for me.

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