World Politics – Page 16 – Babel-on-the-Bay

Oil and royal action figures go south.

February 25, 2012 by Peter Lowry

Do you remember the Falklands War of 1982? We were laughing at Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, at the time, having a Brit fleet circling in the mid Atlantic hoping to scare the Argentine soldiers on the Falklands/Maldivas into surrendering. In the end it got bloody with some 900 Argentine soldiers being killed when the Brits landed. On the 30^th anniversary of the dust-up, they have found oodles of oil off the coast of those islands and the protagonists are back at it.

With an estimated US$180 billion in oil potential, the sheep herders on the islands off Argentina are becoming a cause célèbre for the entire South American continent. As the Brits have no intention of giving the islands to the Argentines, South American countries are rallying to the side of the sheep herders. The sheep herders—in case anyone cares—are quite happy being British subjects.

Thankfully, this time, it is still very much a war of words. To be on the safe side, the Brits have sent a nuclear submarine and a destroyer to the Falklands to point out their claim of ownership. They cheerfully explain to all who might be interested that the one destroyer has enough rockets on it to shoot down every fighter aircraft in South America. Their point being that they would not fool around in the mid Atlantic this time.

The Brits already had plans this year for some 30^th Anniversary events to honour their Falklands citizens. They have already sent Prince Billy to the Falklands to serve his country. (There is nothing more dangerous than to fly one of those old Sea King helicopters.) Mind you, Kate is keeping a stiff upper lip about it back in London. The scene would only be a bit better if she was pregnant with another royal heir.

The Brits have realized that an important component of the old traditions is sending their princes off to fight their battles. This has led to a rapidly growing market throughout the Commonwealth for action figures of Prince Harry shooting Arabs with his machine gun and Prince Billy flying his decrepit Sea King and rescuing people in more serious straits. The Queen has even been asked for permission by the toy manufacturers to make sure the boy dolls are anatomically correct. It is a matter of some concern in certain circles that they cannot show the royal princes without balls.

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Mr. Harper is in heady company.

January 27, 2012 by Peter Lowry

It must be the rarefied atmosphere in Davos, so high in the Swiss Alps. It could also be the company of so many of the world’s leaders, political, industrial and academe. With his toupee firmly in place, our Prime Minister is ready to read the riot act to the World Economic Forum. He gently chides the world leaders for their economic bungling. He tells them that in Canada, we know just what to do. Canada can penalize those who cannot fight back.

Why Mr. Harper chose such a remote forum in which to announce that he would take more money from impoverished seniors, was not clear. He was certainly safe from having enraged Canadian seniors rising up and rendering him into a crushed mass on the floor of that august stage. Not many Canadian seniors can afford the lift fees at Davos at its peak season.

But if you think Canadians back home are puzzled at Mr. Harper’s choice of topics for these world leaders, the world leaders are equally puzzled by him. He has no message of interest to them. He barely gets polite applause.

The Prime Minister and his staff seem to have no clear understanding of what the World Economic Forum in Davos is about. That breaks a cardinal rule for people giving speeches and their writers: you have to know your audience. These people have not come to hear the old conservative economic bromides. They are here to be challenged, to hear new ideas, to see if there are solutions. They are deeply concerned about the world economic situation and have no interest in the same old conservative ideology.

The Davos participants must be shocked by the threat from Mr. Harper to force through the pipeline to Canada’s British Columbia coast from Alberta. This twinned pipeline is to take oil-sands crude to ocean tankers for shipment to the Far East. To threaten to ram this pipeline through the Rockies and native lands to the coast, without proper consideration or precautions, comes as a shock to any caring person.

Mr. Harper needs to look out the window of his Davos hotel suite. He needs to see the majestic beauty of the Alps, the challenging ski runs on the Junkerboden and the fact there is a world out there where people care about people, not ideology.

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Mr. Harper sets the world aright.

November 5, 2011 by Peter Lowry

It is lovely to be in Cannes at this time of year. The heavy mugginess of summer on the French Riviera has past. The crowds are sparse between the seasons. Prime Minister Harper took his wife but we doubt you will find her enjoying the topless beaches. She will probably be partaking in a cloying spouses’ program while he tells the other world leaders how they should run their countries.

That boy is just work, work, work.

He is hardly a newby after hosting last year’s fiasco in Toronto. The French police must have used his idea to kettle the protest groups. They are being kept 30 kilometres away from the people with whom they really want to talk.

He had a very meaningful discussion with President Barack Obama the other day. The American President wanted to know what that red thing was on his lapel. Stephen told Barack about poppies and Remembrance Day.

Down to business, Mr. Harper tried to tell his friends in Cannes how to straighten out the Greeks but had to admit that he did not have a clue what else could go wrong there. He told them that the eurozone needs a tough, oppressive and conservative banking system like Canada and that would solve all their problems. He explained that he trained as an economist and he should know.

Harper even offered his Bank of Canada guy, Mark Carney, to police world banks and make sure they run tight operations just like Canadian banks. They jumped at the offer.

What his G20 cohorts in Europe need to understand is that if they want to be an economic zone such as Canada and the United States of America, they have to accept the responsibilities along with the benefits. Even if Harper and Obama do not admit it, there are weak economic areas in America and Canada that are compensated for in the management of the country. It is obvious that Greece, Southern Italy,Spain and Portugal are never going to be the economic dynamo’s of the eurozone, on the scale of France and Germany.

What they do not understand is that the Greeks should not be expected to endure lengthy and vicious austerity programs until the bailout money is repaid. That is akin to blaming the inmates for a badly run insane asylum. The Greeks have every right to be aggrieved. They are in the mood to tell the myopic eurozone leaders to stuff it.

If the eurozone is going to hold as an economic unit, there have to be cash transfers into those faltering economies on an ongoing basis. Nobody should expect a payback or even gratitude. It is reality.

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