As The Republicans Desperately Seek A New Political Religion

...they would be well-advised to read what, in my view (and I know many would disagree) is one of the greatest American novels ever written, John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath, the story of dispossessed Mid-West farmers seeking a new life in California. Like all truly significant works, the novel offers penetrating insights into the human condition that the right wing, were it less disdainful of such 'soft' pursuits as the perusal of literature, would do well to heed.

The U.S. Republican Party will soon embark on a necessary process of renewal and the search for a new constituency in its efforts to eventually recapture the White House; as has already been widely reported, those efforts will be grounded in the recognition that their current constituency, thanks to its historically recent capitulation to extremists, largely consists of angry older white men whose numbers and influence are dwindling, thanks both to nature's inexorable course and the growing proportion of Latino voters who, along with other 'minorities,' are strangely unreceptive to the politics of division and disenfranchisement currently peddled by the Republican 'brain trust.'

One of the great strengths of The Grapes of Wrath is its unflinching examination of the dialectic of history. In Chapter 19, Steinbeck offers the following warning to those who refuse to recognize new realities, a message that the privileged few in the U.S. (and elsewhere) would be wise to consider:

Once California belonged to Mexico and its land to Mexicans; and a horde of tattered feverish Americans poured in. And such was their hunger for land that they took the land - stole Sutter's land, Guerrero's land, took the grants and broke them up and growled and quarreled over them, those frantic hungry men; and they guarded with guns the land they had stolen… And as time went on, the business men had the farms, and the farms grew larger, but there were fewer of them.

Now farming became industry, and the owners followed Rome, although they did not know it. They imported slaves, although they did not call them slaves: Chinese, Japanese, Mexicans, Filipinos. They live on rice and beans, the business men said. They don't need much. They wouldn't know what to do with good wages. Why, look how they live. Why, look what they eat. And if they get funny - deport them.

… And then the dispossessed were drawn west - from Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico; from Nevada and Arkansas families, tribes, dusted out, tractored out. Caravans, carloads, homeless and hungry; twenty thousand and fifty thousand and a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand. They streamed over the mountains, hungry and restless - restless as ants, scurrying to find work to do - to lift, to push, to pull, to pick, to cut - anything, any burden to bear, for food. The kids are hungry. We got no place to live…. Like ants scurrying for work, for food, and most of all for land.

... They had hoped to find a home, and they found only hatred. Okies - the owners hated them. And in the town, the storekeepers hated them because they had no money to spend.… The town men, little bankers, hated Okies because there was nothing to gain from them. They had nothing. And the laboring people hated Okies because a hungry man must work, and if he must work, if he has to work, the wage payer automatically gives him less for his work; and then no one can get more. (pp. 315-318, The Grapes of Wrath, Penguin Books, 1992)

While many in Steinbeck's day felt both outraged and threatened by his assertion of revolution's inevitability as a reaction to oppression, his message has never been more relevant. Foolish indeed are those who believe they can ignore the lessons of history.

A New Threat To Seniors

I think we are all aware, at least on an intellectual level, that the gift of a relatively long life comes at a cost: physical and sometimes cognitive diminishment, myriad aches and pains, both physical and emotional, and susceptibility to scams and unethical relatives.

Sadly, a new endangerment is on the horizon. Former Ontario Premier Mike Harris and his lovely and youthful third wife, Laura, have hatched a scheme to 'help' their aging fellow citizens. According to a report in today's Star, the duo

...announced Tuesday they are starting a home-care franchise called “Nurse Next Door” to help seniors — pointing out the over-65 crowd comprises 15 per cent of Toronto’s population.

“It’s about helping our seniors celebrate aging and getting them back to doing the things they love,” Harris said in a statement, noting his wife was a registered nurse before joining the business world.

Laura Harris, who will run the day-to-day operations, promised everything from “a few hours of friendly companionship through to round-the-clock nursing care.”

Given the massive hospital layoffs that occurred as a result of Harris's slash-and-burn policies during what was arguably Ontario's worst government, and the complete callousness with which Harris engineered and enacted them, this new venture would seem to be one in which caveat emptor takes on a new and urgent significance.

On Rembrance Day

After reading a fine piece in today's Star entitled Politics shapes how we commemorate Canada’s wars, by journalist Jamie Swift and history professor Ian McKay, I couldn't help but think back over my time in the classroom, and how I dealt with the subject of war.

It was rare for a year to go by without spending some time with probably the greatest anti-war poem ever composed. Written by Wilfrid Owen, a soldier who died in the Great War shortly before its end, Dulce Et Decorum Est is a searing condemnation of all the countries and all the individuals over the centuries who have trumpeted the propaganda about the nobility and necessity of war. Given the Harper regime's attempts during its tenure to boost the profile of the Canadian military, pursue a 'muscular' foreign policy and trap our young soldiers in an unwinnable war that cost far too many their lives and their health, Owen's work has never seemed more relevant.

Describing the horrific effects of a gas attack, the poem lays down imagery far too vivid to easily forget:

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge, Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs, And towards our distant rest began to trudge. Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots, But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time, But someone still was yelling out and stumbling And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.— Dim through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin; If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori.

NOTES: Latin phrase is from the Roman poet Horace: “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.”

Food Banks: The Art of Enabling

Few rational people would deny the contemporary need for food banks. Begun in Canada largely as a temporary anodyne to recession-induced job losses in the 1980's, they have grown in size and scope, becoming a seemingly permanent fixture on our socio-economic landscape.

The annual study by Food Banks Canada reports the following:

More than 882,000 Canadians used a food bank in March 2012, up 2.4 per cent from last year, says the annual study by Food Banks Canada.

The number of people using meal programs — where meals are prepared and served —also jumped 23 per cent from last year, the study found. It says food bank usage is up 31 per cent since the start of the 2008 recession.

Sadly, increasing numbers of clients are in fact employed but working at jobs that do not provide a living wage.

Having volunteered at a local food bank for over five years, I have found myself increasingly uncomfortable over the fact that I am part of the problem; by helping with their operations, I am in fact aiding and abetting the morally indefensible abandonment of the poor by both provincial and federal governments; by ensuring that the problem is bandaged over by distributing goods high in sodium, sugar and fats, and deficient in nutritional value save for seasonal fruits and vegetables provided by community gardens, in the larger scheme of things I am doing no one any real favours.

It is time to demand more from our governments, who seem almost exclusively focused on the commercial class, whilst ordinary citizens, despite being the putative recipients of economic policy, are relegated to literally accepting scraps from the table.

This dichotomy between Canadian citizens and our corporate overlords is amply drawn in a column this morning by the Star's Carol Goar. Its title, Corporations prosper while food banks overwhelmed, says it all.

We have become a cowed people, too afraid to insist that government take care of its people lest we chase away the chance of a corporation setting up shop here to exploit people at near-minimum wage. After all, as the narrative goes, there are plenty in the developing world happy to work for five dollars a day.

I don't pretend to have the answers, but living in fearful submission and depending on the private goodwill of people cannot be one of them.

Thomas Friedman on What Being Pro-Life Should Really Mean

Still convalescing from food-poisoning, I realized today that my re-entry into regular blogging will likely be slower than I had anticipated. Nonetheless, as the situation has permitted, I have been spending some time getting caught up in my newspaper reading, and would like to recommend a fine piece by Thomas Friedman entitled, Why I Am Pro-Life.

In it, the new York Times columnist pillories the hypocrisy of the arch-conservatives who proclaim pro-life stances and reverence for 'the sanctity of life' while ignoring or actively opposing all those things that would, in fact, help guarantee quality and longevity of life outside of the womb, including measures like gun-control, accessible health-care, and educational opportunity.

As usual, Fridemen has some very worthwhile observations well-worth perusing.

Rick Salutin on Universities

Back from a two-week vacation and almost another week recovering from what I suspect was a food-borne illness acquired from a chicken sandwich I bought in the Rome airport, today's post will be brief, its purpose to direct you to Rick Salutin's latest column.

Entitled Universities are not job-training factories, the piece, while hardly breaking new ground, is a good reminder that there is still a very important role that university education can play in people's lives outside of what seems to have become its primary purpose, at least in the minds of our political and business 'leaders,' job training. Salutin opines the following values:

Students get to read widely and gain a sense of what human beings have been up to over the millennia. This expands their awareness and readies them to appreciate their own lives while contributing to enhancing the lives of others. Plus they learn to think critically, which is important to functioning as citizens rather than social cogs.

He goes on to argue that in this time, when job-sharing and shortened work weeks make sense, we need an educated and articulate population to entertain and discuss such matters. And, of course, if we think about it, having extra time on our hands, whether through unemployment, underemployment or, as in my case, retirement, possessing the tools with which to think critically and deeply really become invaluable assets and resources to draw upon as ways of enriching and deepening the experience we call life.

To me, that is surely a better alternative to the narcotizing effects of 'reality' television and other flights from the quotidian world available to us.

Time For Another Blogging Break

My Internet connection will be rather sporadic for the next little while as I take another break from blogging.

See you soon!