Dear Barack Obama, Stephen Harper et al.:
 
We sense Vladimir Putin is making you angry. Even worse, we sense that he is – once again – making you look like a band of powerless eunuchs.
 
As he did over Syria. As he did with Edward Snowden. As he did with his gay-hating laws leading up to Sochi. As he even did with that female punk rock band, Pussy Riot – when he defied popular culture deities like Madonna, U2 and Bruce Springsteen.
 
Putin has made all of you – all of the civilized world, in fact – look pathetic.
 
Every time he does something outrageous, we raise our voices in protest. And, every time, he keeps on doing what he is doing – laughing at us. Ignoring us.
 
With his invasion of the Ukraine, he is repeating his tried and true formula. He is expecting the West to act like we have done in the past. That is, say much, but do very little.
 
We know you don’t want a war with Russia. No one does. But, if any of you were in any way intelligent, you’d simply ask your own citizens for advice.
 
Because average citizens already know how to bring Putin to heel.
 
Go to L.A. or the Big Apple. Go to London or Paris or Palm Springs. In each of those places, you’ll hear the same thing: the local language, to be sure.
 
But the second language-of-choice? It’s Russian.
 
Those places are overflowing with the new Russian bourgeoisie. They are loud and boorish and easy to spot. And they have money. Lots of it.
 
Most of them owe their newfound largesse to Putin. They give him their allegiance, and he in turn bestows upon them riches.
 
They then – pay attention, here – invest those riches in Western banks. Not Russian banks. There was a flight of capital from Russian banks about six years ago. Ever since, the new Russian moneyed class have parked their riches abroad.
 
In the West.
 
You can deny visas to powerful Russian officials, to be sure. You can expand the U.S. Magnitsky Act, and cause discomfort to some of those same officials.
 
You can (and should) revisit Obama’s decision to “reset” relations with Russians, and go ahead with deployment of ballistic missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic. You can (and should) kick him out of the G8, and abandon plans to attend a meeting of world leaders in Sochi in June.
 
But Putin has probably anticipated each of those things. He’s a canny little bastard, after all. What he has not anticipated – and what he cannot contain – is the panic that will grip the new Russian oligarchs when their bank accounts in Miami and London are frozen.
 
And don’t just stop there, either: bring down a regulatory hammer on the property that Russians have snapped up in the West. Squeeze them until they squeal.
 
There’s a reason, world leaders, why there was a bloodbath in Russian markets on the day the Crimea was invaded. There’s a reason why there was a massive sell-off in Russian equities, and why the ruble plummeted to an all-time low.
 
The reason is this: Putin may WANT a new Cold War. But the people who prop him up, the new Russian overclass?
 
They can’t AFFORD one.
 
Sincerely,
 
Warren
 

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Says it all.  We need someone who can drive Mayor Crackhead out of office, I’d say, and we need that someone soon.

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So, PKP.

I’ve never met him, I’ve never seen him, I’ve never heard from him.  That’s the way I like my media moguls: totally invisible.

In my years at the Sun – on air and in print – no one has ever told me what I could or couldn’t write.  Not once. My experience at other Canadian media outlets, however, has been quite different.  A sampling:

• In 1988, at the Ottawa Citizen, Keith Spicer refused to publish a thing I did suggesting that the Free Trade Agreement would place our healthcare system at risk.  “We have to be nation builders,” Spicer said in a note to my editor.  My editor showed it to me. He actually wrote that.
• In 2001, again at the Citizen, Scott Anderson dropped my freelance politics column because I was “too Liberal.” I pointed out that Izzy Asper (RIP) had hired me because the paper needed a Liberal. Anderson, who never met a managerial fart he couldn’t catch, was undeterred.
• In 2007, I quit my media column at the National Post because (a) they refused to let me say positive things about human rights and (b) they absolutely refused to let me print anything positive about the Toronto Star or the CBC (I have the emails to prove it). Even though they are, you know, big on free speech and all that. Um.

Anyway.  Based on what I’ve read about his riding, Peladeau stands a pretty good chance of being elected to the National Assembly next month.  At that point, his media days are over for a long time, perhaps for good.  At that point, he’ll have even less influence over what I and others say than he does at the moment.  Which, as noted above, is presently the square root of f**k all.

And if he loses? Well, then he goes back to doing what he did before: which is, still not telling me what I can and what I can’t write. (Including the anti-separatist screed I had in today’s paper. Here.)

Let me conclude with the title of  a chapter in Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics: to wit, “the media is a special interest group.” That is, the only people who think the media is a pillar of objective thinking is, well, the media.  The public sure as Hell don’t think that. They never have.

And that is JWK on PKP.

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Isn’t that a nice illustration? The Internet is fun.

Anyway. Hit 15,000 Twitter followers sometime over the weekend. If (a) I didn’t have a lingering Man Cold and (b) Winter 2014 didn’t go on and on and on, I would celebrate or something.

Instead, I will leave you with this unrelated, linkless thought: media barons aren’t taken down by the media. They’re taken down by the people.

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From “Chris,” email Roadhammer_@live.ca, IP 24.138.62.169. He’s somewhere in Nova Scotia, looks like.

I know you won’t approve this, but you still have to read it.

I hope to HELL that some illegal with a firearm shoots you, takes your wallet and then robs your house because he now has your address. Maybe he will take a family member hostage.

THIS is why I own firearms.

Of all the shootings in the U.S., how many are from legal firearms owners?

You’re just a left wind metrosexual who does nothing but run their mouths and force their beliefs onto others.

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[This is a reworked/expanded version of the post I wrote a few days ago. Quite a few of you claimed to like it, so I worked it into 625 or so words. Cheers, W.]

Now that Quebec’s separatist government has called an election – and now that there is a very real prospect of the Parti Québécois seizing a majority in the National Assembly – strap on your seat belts. We’re in for another bumpy ride, Canada.

In recent years, of course, it has been become de rigueur for the commentariat to declare that the separatist movement was “dead.” Some of us vehemently disagreed with that assessment. When your politics are entirely about identity, and long-nurtured grievances and humiliations, you never give up.

Separatist longing is unkillable, because logic has nothing to do with the desire for a separate nation. If it did, we wouldn’t be hearing – once again – about the likelihood of another Quebec referendum. It is a matter of the heart, not the head. Party platforms come and go; dreams don’t. They’re eternal.

Politically, the circumstances favour the separatists. If you survey the political landscape, and take a hard look at all the players, you’ll see why.

· Quebeckers aren’t bullish on Canada: Statistics Canada notwithstanding, most Quebecois (like most Canadians) do not believe that a robust recovery is underway. They know (as this writer suggested on this page last week) that they are still only a couple paycheques away from living on the street. To Quebec voters nervous about their economic prospects, Canada does not seem to be thriving any more than Quebec is. Pauline Marois’ argument is dishonest, but compelling in its simplicity: economically, we derive no benefits from Canada – they are pulling us down. Why not try some economic independence, for once?

· Canadians aren’t bullish on Quebec: As a smart Conservative friend told me at lunch this week, it is a fact that Canadians themselves cannot be counted on to automatically rally in support of a united Canada, as they did in 1980 and 1995. Instead, they can be expected to respond with anger and/or indifference to the sovereignty issue again being revisited. Maybe. But he is certainly not wrong when he observes that Stephen Harper, Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair do not possess any of the populist political skills of Pierre Trudeau and Jean Chretien to rally average Canadians. And none of them, my friend observed, has ever fought a referendum before.

· The federalist giants are gone: The great separatist-slayers of the past – Chretien, Trudeau the Senior – have left the scene. They have been replaced by a passionless, Western anglophone Prime Minister who is reviled in Quebec; a novice Liberal leader who lacks any real support off the island of Montreal; and an NDP leader who clearly sympathizes more with sovereignty than federalism. Who, then, will speak for Canada, in the coming confrontation?

· The federal political parties aren’t ready or willing: The political culture/stature of each of the federal political parties isn’t what it was. Conservatives quietly wonder if Canada wouldn’t be better off without Quebec. Liberals have zero strength on the ground in Quebec. And the New Democrat caucus is mainly made up of former crypto-separatists. Not good.

· To many Québécois, Canada herself is a myth: Over the years, all of the symbols of Canada – ranging from things as simple as Canada Post offices to the flag – have been disappearing in Quebec. Quebeckers, therefore, can’t be condemned for wondering what their federal taxes pay for. Watch their newscasts: their world does not extend past the Ottawa River. Canada is an illusion, to most of them.

None of this is to say, of course, that the separatists are without their own problems. Marois, in particular, is no populist firebrand like a cane-wielding Lucien Bouchard was. She is no Rene Levesque.

But politics, like comedy, is all about timing. And, presently, the timing favours the separatists.

Thus, my prediction: our preoccupation, in the months to come, will not be Crimea or Syria or Iran or the Central African Republic.

It will be Quebec.

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Check what this genius tweeted tonight, then later deleted. Wow.

Then again, the possibility that he lives in a different time zone than the rest of us may explain a few things.

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There are many awesome posters out there. This was one of my favorites for today.

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Here, on the Reformatories adopting Justin’s position on pot and MP expenses – after previously mocking him on both.  Holy flip-flop, Batman:

 

And here, about seven minutes in:

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Sigh.

Well, you guys know I – like Messrs. Chretien, Romanow and Broadbent, among others – favour progressives finally coming together.  So that we stop splitting the vote, and so we finally defeat Mr. Harper.

You also know that I believe another referendum is increasingly likely – and that we all need all of the federalist political parties onside for that effort, as they mostly were in 1980 and 1995.

Thomas Mulcair has ensured that neither will happen.  With this statement, he has (a) made any cooperation with Liberals impossible and (b) he has strengthened the hand of the Parti Quebecois.

Jack Layton, Canada misses you, very much.

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