Why Is A Free Press Important?

Watch this video of an interview with Glenn Greenwald for part of the answer:



H/t Popular Resistance

Linda McQuaig: Alberta And Climate Change

For me, one of the most disappointing aspects of the media coverage of the Alberta floods has been the relative dearth of commentary linking this monumental environmental disaster to climate change. To be sure, some prominent people have made that linkage, but by and large it has been omitted from mainstream coverage of what is probably Canada's worst flooding in our history. Television networks and major newspapers have seemed quite reticent about putting the two topics in the same story, for reasons I'll leave you to consider.

Always outside and beyond the mainstream, my newspaper of record, The Toronto Star, has Linda McQuaig's latest column in this morning's edition. In it, she draws a sharp contrast between the concerted action that was taken by the world in the 1970's to address the problem of ozone layer depletion with the inaction today on climate change. The reason for the difference?

The climate battle, launched in 1988 right after the signing of the Montreal Protocol, has been played out in a very different age — one dominated by the mantra “government bad, private sector good” when corporate power has been at its zenith, enjoying a virtual stranglehold on key public policy decisions.

McQuaig says that the footprint of corporate power and obstructionism is most profoundly evident in the United Nations which, she asserts, has been infiltrated and subverted:

With the new anti-government, pro-business paradigm, the UN was transformed from a body aimed at regulating and monitoring international corporate behaviour to one that “partners” with the corporate sector, note Sabrina Fernandes and Richard Girard in Corporations, Climate and the United Nations, a report published by the Ottawa-based Polaris Institute.

Taking full advantage of this change, the fossil fuel industry became deeply embedded in every aspect of the UN climate change process, using its inside role to effectively scuttle progress, like a fox setting up headquarters right inside the henhouse.

As always, Linda McQuaig has something very important to say. I hope you will take a few moments to check out her entire piece, which includes a couple of very interesting links that bolster her contentions.

Barriers

In my teaching career, one of the most powerful lessons for my students emerged from Atticus Finch, Scout's beloved father in the novel To Kill A Mockingbird. A lawyer with a deep sense of fairness and compassion, Finch taught his children a lesson that all of us should carry in life:

“If you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view—until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Empathy, the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another, or, more simply put, putting yourself in another's place, I have always felt, should make it easier for us to react to injustices with at least some degree of outrage.

For me, the most effective route to empathy is a simple question: Would I want my son or daughter to be treated in an unjust way (apply your own particular scenario here)? Ask yourself that question as you watch this video:

Integrity And Dishonour On Display

If there were two people in a room, a politician and a private citizen, and you were told that one was deeply dishonourable and one very principled, you would naturally assume that the mantle of dishonour would be worn by the politician. In the following case, you would be completely wrong, as the video and the accompanying story, which you might want to read first, make abundantly clear:

On Canada Day

On this Canada Day, I could write about all of the reasons I am very thankful for having been born and raised in this country. Instead, I will ask whoever reads this to check out The Star's Tim Hapur, who has a very sound suggestion on how we can best honour and work to restore our great legacy.

Perhaps if enough of us act on his words, we can once more become the country of great promise we used to be.

I Don't Know About You ...

... but despite our many earth-bound problems, I find this sort of thing absolutely fascinating:

Contrasting Pictures

This post could perhaps more aptly be entitled A Tale of Two Centuries. The top picture, from yesterday's Dyke March in Toronto, represents some of the best of the twenty-first century as people increasingy accept and welcome the diversity that is humanity. It is hard not to feel a measure of pride in a country that, while still beset with a myriad of problems, has been one of the world's forerunners in promoting equality regardless of sexual orientation. Both the Dyke Parade and today's Pride Parade are ample testaments to that progressiveness.

The second picture, taken from yesterday's Pride Parade in St. Petersburg, could just as easily have been taken in the nineteenth century or earlier, as protesters clashed with paraders who were taking a brave stance in a city where it is illegal to demonstrate on behalf of equal rights for LGBT people; by publicly doing so, they broke a city bylaw that is about to become national law.

Russian President Vladimir Putin will soon sign into law a bill that bans “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations.”

Under Russia’s new law, people who promote homosexuality through any media, including online, can be charged up to $3,200. The fines are tenfold for organizations, which can also be shuttered for 90 days.

According to state-owned pollster Vtsiom, 88 per cent of Russians support the ban. A survey by independent pollster Levada last year found that half of Russians believe homosexuals should be forcibly given medical or psychological treatment.

Changing people's attitudes and perspectives is among the most difficult of challenges. The fact that such challenges can be met is epitomized in twenty-first century Toronto in particular and North America in general.

In a world beset by runaway climate change, choking pollution, government surveillance of its citizens and a relentless and unforgiving corporate agenda that gleefully exploits an increasingly desperate workforce, surely it is time to turn our attention to matters more important than who people spend their time and their lives with.