UPDATED: A Tale Of Two Corporations

 

Well, as the year winds down, I find myself with the same thoughts as I'm sure many others have: the ongoing devolution of the United States into outright fascism. A recap of all the examples attesting to this fact seems hardly necessary unless you live off the grid in some remote realm, so I'll skip them to focus on one aspect: corporate appeasement of Trump.

Myriad examples exist: the corporate rush to abandon diversity initiatives and the settling of meritless lawsuits: YouTube/Alphabet, Paramount/CBS, and ABC/Disney. These are but the most egregious instances of craven corporate submission. There are many others, but the following offers a study in contrasts between both submission and resistance, serving as a striking illustration that resistance is not futile.

First, the servile grovelling, via Home Depot:

Ken Langone, co-founder of The Home Depot, says he has “never been more excited about the future of America” than he is under President Donald J. Trump. In an interview on CNBC, Langone praised President Trump’s economic policies, leadership, and return of the American spirit.

Here’s what you missed:

• On optimism: “If I told you how bullish I was, you wouldn’t believe it. I have never been more excited about the future of America than I am right now, right this minute, for a lot of reasons. Number one, like it or not, this guy is getting things done … He’s acting presidential. I’m impressed with the people he’s got around him.”
• On his past reluctance: “I am sold on Trump … I think he’s got a good shot at going down in history as one of our best presidents ever … What I’m seeing happening is absolutely nothing short of a great thing. People are walking with more bounce in their [step] — it’s all around … When you made a mistake, admit it.”
• On tariffs: “Initially, my concern was I don’t like tariffs; I like free trade. However, I think — damn it, give Trump credit. His instincts are good. Some of these things need to be fixed.”
• On the One Big Beautiful Bill: “I was worried about inflation and I was worried about the deficit. I think there’s a lot of merit to the notion that it’s going to trigger such significant economic growth that we might see tax revenues going up through the profitability bracket.”
• On foreign policy: “The world is a mess, but I think it’s coming more in our direction than it was. I think that strike in Iran had significant symbolic meaning for the world that America is here and when our interests are at risk, we’re going to do something about it.”

 

Next is Costco's approach, as reported by Eric Blais:

 The U.S.-based retailer — which, in an irony not to be overlooked, has become one of the most trusted institutions in this country — filed a lawsuit in the U.S. Court of International Trade challenging the legality of Trump’s emergency tariffs.

And it didn’t do it with grandstanding or theatrics. Its complaint is calm, methodical, and devastatingly clear: Trump’s tariffs are unlawful, economically reckless, and imposed under emergency powers that courts have already said don’t apply.

Costco is a store I have patronized for a long time; many years ago, my son worked there while a university student, and I was impressed by the way the company treated him and all of its employees.

 Earlier this year, Léger released its annual reputation survey ranking the most admired companies in the country. Costco was the No. 1 most admired retailer in Canada across more than 300 companies in 30 sectors.

Noteworthy as well is the fact that Costco refused to abandon its diversity initiative, remaining steadfast in the face of a Trump administration hostile to anything that doesn't especially and exclusively favour white people.

And rather than simply label some products with a T (to indicated a tariffed item) as many stores did, Costco's approach has been refreshingly defiant.

Costco is ... challenging the government responsible for the tariffs in court. Not as activism, but as brand behaviour. Costco’s identity has always been rooted in stability and fairness. It cannot function in a landscape shaped by improvisational trade policy and “emergency” powers deployed like marketing slogans.

Blais suggests that such behaviour needs to be rewarded.

Corporate behaviour responds to incentives. When a retailer pushes back against political overreach, especially from a president known for punishing dissent, consumers should be willing to say: this matters. We notice when a company defends transparency and predictability. Values that ultimately protect Canadian consumers too.

 In a perfect world, we wouldn’t rely on retailers to steady the geopolitical turbulence swirling around us. But in this moment, Costco has done something rare: it stood up. Calmly. Respectfully. Persuasively.

And Canadians should notice.

Because the marketplace could use more courage.

And Costco, astonishingly, but not surprisingly, just showed us what that looks like.

And to that, I have nothing to add.

On a personal note, I will be taking a break for a few days this holiday season, so I'll use this opportunity to wish all my readers the best of the season, and extend a thank-you for reading my blog. 

UPDATE: For the latest in corporate cowardice, click here to read about the most recent fiasco at CBS, this one a tawdry tale of overt political censorship exercised against 60 Minutes.

 

 

 

This Is What You've Become, America

Initially, I was only going to post the above without any further commentary, since Trump's vile, debased and inexcusable comments speak for themselves. However, I read a piece by Bruce Arthur this morning that offers some pungent observations about the nature of the man who posted them, and what he has unleashed.

... we live in a world dominated to an unreasonable degree by Donald Trump, and the American president’s reaction was vile, even for him.

Trump blamed Reiner for his horrendous, awful death, and in fact painted the murderer as a Trump supporter, because Reiner didn’t like Trump. Like so much of Trump — going way back, decades, in a way that we have both normalized and memory-holed — it’s just sick, wretched, and repellent on a human level. It’s a celestial level of narcissism, and another implicit call to political violence.

And it’s another clarifying moment in our age of moral collapse. The American right — and some Canadians, too — were zealotic after the assassination of Charlie Kirk; hundreds of Americans were fired for their commentary after his death, and both media figures and politicians vowed revenge, and to suppress rights.

It was transparently partisan. More and more, the modern right revels in inhumanity, and the incentive systems have been set up to reward dehumanization in almost every way possible, with AI as gasoline on that fire. As Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva told The New Yorker earlier this year, “We thought we were creating a more civilized, more solidarity-based, more humane society. The result is worse. It’s as if there is a lamp, and when you open the lid the evil people come out.” 

Trump is getting worse — one is reminded of the diminished inhibition of some dementia patients as the disease takes hold — but the information system is so thoroughly polluted that it probably sinks beneath the waves. What is clear is Rob Reiner stood for a gentle, honest, and principled version of humanity — when Charlie Kirk died, for instance, he expressed genuine horror and sympathy. In his art, he reflected that humanity. In his life, too.

Trump is like a demon, possessing the soul of America and giving license to its worst parts. And that's all I have to say. 

 

A Very Upsetting And Unsettling Experience

With the news constant about Jeffrey Epstein's files and his many depravities, I decided to brace myself to read the following book:

A very brave book written by the late Virginia Giuffre, one of Epstein's most prominent and outspoken victims, it is a chronicle of the victimization of a vulnerable teen who grows up to be a resilient and dogged fighter for justice. 

You probably know her as the one who blew the whistle on the former Prince Andrew who, it can be concluded with certainty, sexually abused her three times. In his abject cowardice, he has always denied the claims, despite this picture with Giuffre when she was about 17.

While Andrew consistently denied ever meeting her in a disastrous interview for the BBC, there is no doubt that both the picture (which he claimed was a fake) and Giuffre's assertions were true. Indeed, Andrew ultimately paid her a reported £12 million, strange for a man who claimed to be so grievously wronged.

However, the book goes far beyond the sensational headlines, weaving a narrative revealing Guiffre as a victim of sexual abuse at an early age by both her father and his friend. Virginia was a very damaged girl almost right from the beginning, making her relatively easy prey for the diabolical duo of Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who was the former's chief procurer and now reposes in an almost-recreational prison. Indeed, Trump has not denied considering her for a pardon. 

Virginia faced many difficulties in her life after Epstein, but she became much more than a victim. She married an Australian and had three children, to whom she was a loving mother. But her determined pursuit of justice, not just for herself but Epstein's many victims, cost her dearly. She had a number of health battles, perhaps the worst being a broken neck from a fall that left her in regular pain. Yet those physical struggles did not stop her.

Heroism is something we often equate with daring feats: people rushing into a burning buildings, pulling people out of crashed cars, putting themselves on the line for a belief, striking in the face of armed goons, standing up to those who would tear us down. Well, in my view, Virginia Guiffre's adult life was one of heroism; she never lost sight of the goal that justice is for all victims, not just the individual. 

That battle, however, which she never flinched from, meant she had to constantly relive the trauma and the degradation of her abuse, often in front of a hostile world and the powerful of that world. But it is not my purpose here to recount those battles, only to acknowledge the courage of a very fallible yet determined woman. And it is for that reason I think this book should be widely read. We can all benefit not just from seeing that heroism, but also examining our own souls and the times we might have thought of women as lesser human beings. 

It is for that reason I think it would be particularly useful for young men and women to read it, even older teens who, in this world of readily accessible pornography, may often see girls as objects solely for their lust and pleasure. Young women could be particularly moved by bearing witness to Virginia's bravery and realize that self-respect is not just a quaint notion but a very realizable objective.

We have all seen the results of the #MeToo movement and the consciousness it has raised. Nobody's Girl is a more than worthy addition to its efforts to change the course of society's relationship with its female members.

This Should Keep Them Out, Eh?

It puzzles me that people still choose to visit the United States. Each day offers a myriad of reasons to avoid that diseased country, and although the number of Canadians going there is significantly down, people still go. Perhaps there are elements of denial about reality in the tourism decisions people make. Perhaps some blithely assume that because they are not (yet) among the targeted victims of an increasing unhinged administration, they are safe. In any event, all should be aware that the number of 'undesirables' is increasing.

Tourists to the United States would have to reveal their social media activity from the last five years, under new Trump administration plans.

The mandatory new disclosures would apply to the 42 countries whose nationals are currently permitted to enter the US without a visa, including longtime US allies Britain, France, Australia, Germany and Japan.

In a notice published on Tuesday, the US Customs and Border Protection agency (CBP) said it would also require any telephone numbers used by visitors over the same period, and any email addresses used in the last decade, as well as face, fingerprint, DNA and iris biometrics. It would also ask for the names, addresses, birthdates and birthplaces of family members, including children.

Maybe it's just me, but I find it abhorrent that the state can invade visitors' privacy to such a degree, the price to be paid for proving you are a 'worthy' visitor. And this has been in the works since Trump was re-elected, when he signed an executive order:

[T]he US president called for restrictions to ensure visitors to the US “do not bear hostile attitudes toward its citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles”.

The US has already started squeezing foreign tourism in other ways, slapping an additional $100 fee per foreign visitor per day to visit national parks, such as the Grand Canyon and Yosemite, on top of the regular admission fees. Nor will national parks have free admission on Martin Luther King Jr Day any longer: they will now only be free to visit on Trump’s birthday.

Now, defenders and supporters of this lunacy, i.e., the MAGATS, would undoubtedly argue that if you have nothing to hide,  what's the problem. Or, of course, they could say if you don't like it, don't visit. Many are, in fact, opting for the latter.

California tourism authorities are predicting a 9% decline in foreign visits to the state this year, while Hollywood Boulevard in Los Angeles reported a 50% fall in foot traffic over the summer. Las Vegas, too, has been badly hit by a decline in visits, worsened by the rise of mobile gambling apps.

Statistics Canada said Canadian residents who made a return trip to the US by car dropped 36.9% in July 2025 compared with the same month in 2024, while commercial airline travel from Canada dropped by 25.8% in July compared with the previous year, as relations between the two countries plummeted.

Who else is on the proscribed list?

As recently as last week, the administration told consular officials to deny visas to anyone who might have worked in factchecking or content moderation – for example, at a social media company – accusing them in blanket terms of being “responsible for, or complicit in, censorship or attempted censorship of protected expression in the US”.

I'll leave the final word with Sarah McLaughlin, a member of the free speech advocacy group Foundation For Individual Right and Expression:

“Those who hope to experience the wonders of the United States – from Yellowstone to Disneyland to Independence Hall – should not have to fear that self-censorship is a condition of entry” ...

 “Requiring temporary visitors here for a vacation or business to surrender five years of their social media to the US will send the message that the American commitment to free speech is pretense, not practice. This is not the behavior of a country confident in its freedoms.”

And as we are seeing, those freedoms are now more of an illusion than a reality. 

 

Good For A Giggle

I have absolutely nothing to add to this, other than to observe that America's debasement continues apace.

‪Republicans Against Trumpism‬

 ‪@rpsagainsttrump.bsky.social‬

· 1h

Trump, five days apart. A pathological liar.

Violence In The Classroom

I am a long-retired high school teacher who saw his share of unpleasantness in the classroom, but the events currently transpiring across the country are nothing I ever had to confront.

Recently, The Globe and Mail offered a detailed examination of widespread violence in  schools, and that includes violence perpetrated against both fellow students and teachers. Fortunately, because we are not a culture that worships the gun, as do the denizens of the Benighted States, most of that violence is physical and verbal, although dangerous weapons are not completely unknown.

Because the causes are myriad, there are no simple solutions. Poor parenting, frightened staff members, feckless administrators and large classes with few supports all contribute to the problem, and I shall excerpt just one paragraph from the piece that sheds some light:

The first step in addressing violence in schools is to puncture the culture of silence that surrounds it. Nobody on the ground wants to talk. Teachers are afraid they will be accused of incompetence or of betraying student confidentiality. Principals don’t want to alarm parents or to expose their own weakness as leaders. School boards worry about legal action. Victims fear retribution.

While those were problems even in my day, I can only imagine they have intensified. My retired teacher friends often lament the lack of institutional memory among today's staff, a memory that includes standing up to supine administrators and not being to afraid to make a fuss about problems. There were always firebrands amongs us, but today's staff, I suspect, are taught that having problems reflects badly on them and hence the impulse to let things fester. The norm has changed, and not for the better.

Globe and Mail readers offer some insights well-worth considering:

School of thought

Re “Violence in Canadian schools is reaching a tipping point. What needs to change?” (Opinion, Nov. 29): Schools are becoming more violent. Who is responsible? Well, everyone.

But it does start with parents who fail, often by example, to teach their children values such as empathy, compassion and respect for others. And it ends with parents, too.

As a former school trustee, here’s how I see that working: Teachers are unable to enforce discipline because they cannot rely on principals to back them up; principals in turn cannot count on support from administrators, who in turn cannot count on boards of trustees; elected trustees can be soft on discipline because of ideology or because they are terrified of voters, a great many of whom are parents.

This downward spiral will likely persist until those within the system get a grip and stop letting the buck be passed around. Instead, say “no” and hand it back.

Tom Masters Former Victoria school trustee; North Cowichan, B.C.

 

Before I retired, I taught in a school with a police officer stationed there on a daily basis (a school resource officer). He happened to be Black.

I witnessed the benefits as he broke down preconceived notions about the police, as well as prejudiced views about Black people. The students loved him and would often turn to him with their personal problems; he was like a big brother to them. There was no violence.

I witnessed the same interactions in a school where I did a stint as a supply teacher after retiring. That officer also happened to be Black. In both cases, the benefits were obvious.

I knew it was a big mistake when political groups insisted on terminating the program because of misguided concerns. The presence of these officers served not only to protect, but also offered fine role models for students.

Sheryl Danilowitz Toronto

It is said that the first step in solving a problem is acknowledging its existence. With so much evidence staring us in the face, it is past time to move on to the next step: addressing the violence in all ways possible. 

 

Competition For Word Of The Year

Despite the fact that rage bait has been named the world (phrase?) of the year by the Oxford University Press, I much prefer John Cleese's above word. It definitely is one for the times, eh?