Segacs’s World I Know

Is it just me, or is the “tax the rich more” mantra getting a little old to anyone else, too?

I’m tired of hearing that everything is the fault of “the wealthy” or “corporations”. I realize it’s easier to blame those we envy. I understand that “corporations” are widely perceived as the big, bad bogeymen and that, because we don’t identify faceless corporations with actual people, it’s simple for us to advocate raising their taxes. After all, it’s better than raising our taxes, right?

Sometimes I wish that – just once – a politician would have the courage to tell it like it is. That is, to say that, while, yes, rich people should pay more tax than poor people because they can afford it, there are limits. And that the flip side to over-taxation in the highest brackets or for corporations is a lagging economy and less jobs for the “little guy”. If instead of the faceless corporations, people saw the faces of the employees facing layoffs and unable to feed their families, people might see it differently.

Or maybe not. “Blame the rich” is just too tempting, isn’t it?

London is planning to phase out double-decker busses in order to comply with EU regulations about making public tranist more wheelchair-accessible.

I have no problem with accessibility, but the double-decker bus is too quintessentially London to simply disappear. Couldn’t the busses be refitted to make the first level wheelchair-friendly but still keeping the second story?

Update: Thanks, Tom, for saying it ain’t so. Not all the double-deckers are on their way out; only the cool vintage ones. So I guess it’s only partially so.

… My mom inviting me over for the evening so I can use their satellite dish to watch the Sex and the City finale.

You’re the best, mom!

There’s been another suicide bombing in Jerusalem that killed at least seven and wounded over 62:

Al-Aksa Brigades claimed responsibility for attack, which took place one day before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) at The Hague is scheduled to begin hearings over the West Bank security fence.

Among the dead and wounded were a number of young students. Reuters is reporting that the attack took place near a hotel where US Jewish organization leaders were meeting. All the reports seem to have focused on the fact that the ICJ hearings are about to begin.

What is there to say? What else could there possibly be left to say, that’s any different from last time, or the time before, or the time before that? Besides sympathy for the victims and their families, concern for scared Israelis, disgust for Arafat and his terrorist band, and disdain for the world that seems to want to condemn Israel – the victim – in every instance, what else can anyone say?

Only this: I fear that if Sharon continues on the path of rewarding terrorist attacks – or seeming to – through unilateral pullouts and tearing down sections of security fence, it will only fuel the terrorists’ fire and encourage more attacks. And more innocent people will die.

Sick. All of it.

Update: Lynn has more about the PA’s connection to terror.

Damian’s been having shovel troubles digging his way out of the big east coast snowstorm.

We’re supposed to get dumped on tonight. Hopefully there’ll be some good ski weather.

Canada’s Citizenship and Immigration board has essentially signed the death sentence of Song Dae Ri, a North Korean defector who escaped with his son to Canada and petitioned for refugee status. With this ruling, the board has thrown out the temporary reprieve it issued to Ri.

Once again, I’ll state that without knowing all the facts of the case, it’s hard to judge. There have been numerous cases of people claiming refugee status who were clearly abusing the system.

But even Immigration Canada doesn’t seem to think that Ri is guilty of any crimes against humanity:

Robert Genier, a senior analyst with Citizenship and Immigration Canada, endorsed a much-criticized decision from the Immigration and Refugee Board. That ruling found Mr. Ri guilty of war crimes merely for being a trade official in North Korea’s secretive, repressive regime. No allegations of specific crimes against humanity have been made against him, and Canada’s War Crimes Unit found no evidence of wrongdoing.

[ . . . ]

“I am satisfied [Mr. Ri] would be at risk of cruel and unusual punishment if he were to return to North Korea,” ruled C. Lemonde, a pre-removal risk assessment officer with the Canadian Border Services Agency.

However, Mr. Genier, a more senior immigration official in Ottawa, reviewed the findings and concluded last week that Mr. Ri was not entitled to Canada’s protection “because of the nature and severity of the acts committed” by him.

Something doesn’t jibe here. There’s a contradiction. Either he’s a war criminal or he’s not… but IRB seems to want it both ways.

The deportation order can still be stayed on humanitarian grounds:

A source in the Immigration Department indicated that Mr. Ri would likely get a favourable ruling and be permitted to stay.

Still, critics suggest the fact that he was twice labelled a war criminal shows the refugee-determination system is flawed. There has never been any specific evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Ri. But IRB member Bonnie Milliner found him complicit in crimes against humanity because he willingly joined the government and did not leave at the first available opportunity.

It’s not as though you can just hop on the first flight out, so that criteria seems harsh in light of the facts. But as they say, something smells fishy here. I suspect we’re not getting the whole story, and I wonder what’s not being said.

I didn’t want to write anything about the Mel Gibson “Passion” controversy. Really I didn’t. I felt – and still feel – that all the whining is just giving the film tons of publicity that it wouldn’t have been able to get otherwise, and I didn’t want to feed the media frenzy in any way.

But whatever one thinks of Mel Gibson, Meryl has the scoop on Mel’s dad, giving credence to the theory that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

Even if there’s no direct evidence that Mel shares his father’s extremist views, in light of the film and surrounding controversy, can you really blame a person for wondering?

Gazette columnist Henry Aubin adds his two cents into the volatile pool of Quebec language issues, proposing free French lessons for students who graduate from university in Montreal and then end up leaving the province to seek employment elsewhere. It’s Aubin’s idea of a way to solve the brain drain:

Students flock here from outside Quebec, then leave in droves, diplomas in hand.

[ . . . ]

But that ignores an important fact. As the city-hall study confirmed with numerous interviews, the majority of these people love Montreal and would be happy to make their lives here were it not for certain constraints.

Like what? Political instability and a rotten job market have faded. The new disincentives, the study suggests, include high taxes, the city’s secondary status in the global knowledge economy and, finally, “language policy.” The first two problems are complex and can’t be solved quickly, but one facet of the language issue is – believe it or not – easy to improve.

Aubin’s idealistic proposal has a few problems attached to it, though.

First, a few French classes are unlikely to improve someone’s fluency level to that needed to work in most positions. I’ve been learning French for almost my entire life, and while I’m functional, I’m certainly not perfect. If I – a fourth-generation Montrealer with a bilingual education – had trouble finding a job because of the language issue, then what’s to say that a free French class will help grads from outside Quebec get employed?

Second, there are a number of programs and language courses already offered either for free or extremely cheap, similar to what Aubin proposes. YES Montreal, for example, offers a basic French course. Most of the universities, have continuing education classes held in the evenings that are cheap. And the best deal of all: students from outside Quebec who decide to come here and major in French language or literature can attend university paying Quebec resident tuition. That’s a discount of thousands of dollars to encourage people to flock to Montreal to study French! A few do it… most don’t.

Perhaps most important of all, most people in Quebec don’t see the departure of visiting university students post-graduation as a problem in the first place. After all, students come from outside Quebec, pay higher tuition, get educated, live here a few years, and then go back home so they don’t take up jobs. And by leaving, they don’t threaten Quebec’s “French character”. After all, most of the English-speaking ones aren’t desirable immigrants to Quebec precisely because they’re not francophone… so people are not looking for a solution because to them, there’s no problem. It’s no use telling them that a better-educated workforce will lead to job creation and an expansion of the proverbial pie, with more prosperity all around. No, to them, the English interlopers are stealing their French jobs, and good riddance to them anyway.

In a week where Quebec is still reeling from perceived attacks by Don Cherry, Conan O’Brien, and the Liberal corruption scandal, it may not be politically savvy to say this. But I’ve never really cared much about being politically-correct in the past, so why start now? Quebec needs to grow up, toughen up, and open up. It’s that simple.

Our society is threatened by openness and change, and reacts defensively to any attempt to educate and re-create the definition of the future. The politicians keep the French Quebecois here by not enabling them to learn English from a young age, cutting off most of their opportunities elsewhere. They keep the English out by not making job opportunities available to them. In these ways, Quebec’s character stays French, that’s true. But the economy also stagnates behind the rest of Canada, as one opportunity after another is squandered.

I suspect that when Ontarians who graduate from McGill cite the “language policy” as a reason not to stay in Montreal, they mean much more than being able to function in French. They mean the dirty little secret that nobody likes to talk about but everyone knows: the English are not really “part” of Quebec society. They’re not wanted. And even if they stick around and get a job and learn French, they’re still the Big Bad Anglos who want to oppress the Quebecois and threaten its precious French majority.

That is the real “language policy” and it’ll take a helluvalot more than some free French classes to solve.

The Jerusalem Post asks, in an opinion piece, Why not Mitzna?

Why, when during the last Israeli election campaign, former Labor party leader Amram Mitzna proposed essentially the same “pull out and fence off” plan that Ariel Sharon’s government is pursuing now, was he so readily dismissed?

As Prime Minister Ariel Sharon reviewed his year in office in a Knesset speech last night, it was hard not to ask the question, have we not come full circle? In the last election, the now-forgotten Amram Mitzna proposed negotiating with the Palestinians, and if that did not work, unilaterally withdrawing behind the fence.

During the election campaign, the Labor party ran an advertisement accusing Sharon of not building the fence fast enough. The Likud responded with an ad featuring Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who explained the dangers of Mitzna’s plan to withdraw unilaterally from much of the West Bank.

The article claims that it’s because Sharon’s vision is pragmatic while Mitzna’s was idealistic:

Plan B, however, is preferable to the status quo. And we would rather have Sharon implement it than Mitzna.

The reason is that what Israel needs most is consensus on its own red lines. Mitzna could never have redrawn the map the way Sharon is doing while maintaining a consensus, in part because the Left cannot quite shake its ideology that concessions will bring peace, in part because Mitzna would never have been able to gain the trust of the Right. Sharon is doing what Mitzna said he would do but for the opposite reason: drawing the most defensible (politically, demographically and militarily) lines because there is no Palestinian partner. The public will back a pragmatic withdrawal/retrenchment over a utopian one any day, and that consensus is itself critical to maintaining Israel’s strategic credibility.

I think that’s true. But I think it goes further than that.

The thing is, a leader distrusted by the majority of a population can’t sell the tough concessions. There’s a reason it was Menachem Begin – with his hardliner background and right-wing affiliation – who signed the peace treaty with Anwar El-Sadat. It’s the same reason that Ariel Sharon might be able to sell a Gaza pullout, while Mitzna would never have been able to do so.

Israelis are concerned first and foremost about their security. They won’t trust a leadership that they perceive as selling out their security for a worthless piece of paper. They may trust a leader who they perceive as taking steps in the interest of security.

That doesn’t make me any more enthusiastic about Sharon’s plan. But it does go a long way towards explaining why the Israelis have been voting for people like Sharon over people like Mitzna in these past few years.