My mother has claustrophobia. Never comfortable in elevators I had to take her home from the Blue Jays' first game in their history at Exhibition Stadium as the crush of people made her ill. You see my mom lived near the Croydon airbase that was constantly pounded by German war planes during the Second World War. Consequently, while bombs fell, my mom, my aunt, and my grandmother spent night after night in a tiny, ill lit home made air raid shelter at the bottom of the garden.

We are currently living the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain that took a vicious turn on September 7th 1940 when London became the main target. An article that reminds us what was at stake from the Independent.

With thankful signs that Michael Ignatieff is finding the common touch after a summer touring Canada on a bus, news that the last US combat troops exited Iraq this week reminded me of my enormous discomfort with him and his position on Iraq.

An 11-minute video on the need for a 21st century empathy. The American economy is in a terrible bind. Housing is part of the problem. This will take years to correct.

Remember.

If there was ever a date on which to reproach ourselves, it is Tuesday week: 7 September will mark 70 years since the Luftwaffe first switched its attention from bombing our airfields to the streets of London.  http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/susie-mesure-never-has-so-little-history-been-known-by-so-few-2064728.html

Related.

A Canadian diplomat in London lives the fear and recognizes what is at stake.

We know the history of conquered races, the eternal resentment and the eventual revolt. Better to let this generation go through hell and beat the buggers.

 

The Siren Years  http://www.amazon.ca/Siren-Years-Canadian-Diplomat-1937-1945/dp/077107526X

 

 

Michael Valpy who skewered Michael Ignatieff    http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/being-michael-ignatieff/article841745/ in a piece four years ago finds him a different person on and off the bus. Thanks to Patricia of Victoria for sending this in.

Stacy Unger, 26, bounces out of Cowboy Coffee on to the sidewalk in downtown Kamloops. She jumps up and down, shouting, “I did it! I did it! I asked him!” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/youve-come-a-long-way-iggy-is-it-far-enough/article1687877/

American combat troops leave Iraq.

AS the last officially designated American combat forces left Iraq, television cameras caught the exultation of a soldier finally heading home. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/weekinreview/29baker.html?ref=todayspaper

My three points on Ignatieff's position on invading Iraq.

First, I am convinced that a world system that discourages countries from invading each however unpleasant the realities of the nasty country in question is more stable and less dangerous.

Second, the scars of war run so deep, the human costs so generational -- like the impact on an eight year old girl shivering in the night in a cramped, dark air raid shelter -- that going to war, or in the case of the United Kingdom in May 1940 staying in war, can only be justified by the most extreme of outcomes of not doing so. Invading Iraq did not come anywhere near passing this test. Standing up to Hitler's Germany long enough for the United States and the Soviet Union to join them did.

Third, the high and mighty tone of Ignatieff's view, the certainty of his belief, made him completely blind to the unintended consequences that of course played out in all its multi-coloured maddness the second that Saddam Hussein's army withered away.

Michael Ignatieff on the invasion six months in.

In the back alleys of Iraq, the soldiers from the 101st Airborne and First Armored Divisions are hot, dirty and scared. http://www.learntoquestion.com/resources/database/archives/000714.html

Michael Ignatieff on the invasion a year in.

A year ago, I was a reluctant yet convinced supporter of the war in Iraq. A year later, the weapons of mass destruction haven't turned up, Iraqis are being blown up on their way to the mosque, democracy is postponed till next year and my friends are all asking me if I have second thoughts. Who wouldn't have? http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/14/magazine/14WWLN.html

Michael Ignatieff on the invasion four years later.

The unfolding catastrophe in Iraq has condemned the political judgment of a president. But it has also condemned the judgment of many others, myself included, who as commentators supported the invasion. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/05/magazine/05iraq-t.html?bl=&ei=5087%0A&en=25418cdecb0dcd13&ex=1186545600&adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1186413128-B9y1eq62RoHK5m6JHu+4AA

A wonderful 11-minute video on the need for empathy in the 21st century.

Matthew Taylor explores the meaning of 21st century enlightenment, how the idea might help us meet the challenges we face today,  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AC7ANGMy0yo&feature=channel

The late Tony Judt on why 'I Am' means 'You're Not' and how we are all worse off for it.

“Identity” is a dangerous word. It has no respectable contemporary uses. In Britain, the mandarins of New Labour—not satisfied with installing more closed-circuit surveillance cameras than any other democracy—have sought (so far unsuccessfully) to invoke the “war on terror” as an occasion to introduce mandatory identity cards. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/mar/25/edge-people/

The US economy is running out of options.

THE American economy is once again tilting toward danger. Despite an aggressive regimen of treatments from the conventional to the exotic — more than $800 billion in federal spending, and trillions of dollars worth of credit from the Federal Reserve — fears of a second recession are growing, along with worries that the country may face several more years of lean prospects.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/weekinreview/29goodman.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

The Reinhart's warning.

The American economy could experience painfully slow growth and stubbornly high unemployment for a decade or longer as a result of the 2007 collapse of the housing market and the economic turmoil that followed, according to an authority on the history of financial crises.  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/business/economy/29fed.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=globasasa1

At the core is the housing decline.

The slump in U.S. housing, now more than three years old, is the most severe since the Great Depression. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/the-death-of-an-american-dream/article1688272/

 

It looks like this.

Bill Gross on the necessity to save the US housing market.

Later that morning, in front of cameras from my favorite television station, C-SPAN, I exercised (exorcised) my leadership role in proposing a solution for the resolution of Fannie Mae (FNMA) and Freddie Mac (FHLMC) and the evolution of housing finance in the United States. I proposed a solution that recognized the necessity, not the desirability, of using government involvement, which would take the form of rolling FNMA, FHLMC, and other housing agencies into one giant agency – call it GNMA or the Government National Mortgage Association for lack of a more perfect acronym – and guaranteeing a majority of existing and future originations.   http://www.pimco.com/Pages/MrGrossGoestoWashington.aspx

The cartoon.

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/

Finally, why the market economy unbridled is evil. Justice is not blind, the market is not rational.

A leading economist has likened the nation's acceptance of free-market capitalism to that of the brainwashed characters in the film The Matrix, unwitting pawns in a fake reality. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/free-market-has-turned-us-into-matrix-drones-2064799.html