Sometimes Progressives Can Be As Dogmatic As Their Right-Wing Counterparts

I recently wrote the following:

One of the things that I think distinguishes progressives from rabid reactionaries is that the latter tend to have reflexive positions on key issues, while the former can appreciate nuance.

I do believe in the general validity of that thesis, but it is also true that some who embrace the progressive title can be as inflexible, dogmatic and reactive as their far-right counterparts. A very interesting story in The New York Times about the repurposing of old oil rigs amply demonstrates this.

Dr. Milton Love, a professor of marine biology at the University of California Santa Barbara, has researched marine life at offshore drilling sites, and says that

the location of these rigs — in marine-protected areas in a cold current that swoops down from British Columbia — have made them perfect habitats for fish and other sea life.

“They are more productive than coral reefs, more productive than estuaries,” ... “It just turns out by chance that platforms have a lot of animals that are growing really quickly.”

Most stunning of all is that Dr. Love's research has determined that most of the life was actually created at the rig rather than having come from other parts of the ocean and settled around the massive concrete pylons.

While there is growing momentum to leave large sections of the decommissioned rigs intact (80 feet below the surface so as not to impede shipping lanes) after wells have been capped and cemented, the concept has also provoked strong opposition from some surprising quarters:

“It’s seen as something which benefits the oil industry, and opposing the oil industry is the role taken by many environmental groups,” said George Steinbach, the executive director of the California Artificial Reef Enhancement program, a nonprofit advocacy organization funded by the oil industry.

“People here have been waiting for these oil platforms to go away,” said Linda Krop, an environmental lawyer with the Environmental Defense Center, an advocacy group based in Santa Barbara, where several offshore rigs can be easily seen from shore.

Ms. Krop disagreed that the science is settled on the role of the rigs in fostering marine life. Regardless, she said, leaving the rigs up would be tantamount to rewarding polluters with the windfall of not having to pay to remove them.

“When they built those platforms, that was a cost that they took into effect,” she said.

The savings to the oil industry cited by Ms. Krop is something of a red herring. While it is true that only partial decommissioning would save big oil an estimated $1 billion,

under the law, oil companies would be required to put at least half of the money they save into state coffers to fund conservation programs.

Many would view that as a happy compromise.

Personally, I find the kind of dogmatism expressed by Linda Krop and the Environmental Defense Center a little hard to understand, given the obvious benefits research has shown would accrue by keeping the rigs intact. While one may have genuine reasons for opposing views, adamantine ideology cannot qualify as one of them.

In any event, treat yourself to some stunning images of the marine life to be found around these rigs which have, for all intents and purposes, become artificial reefs:

This Speaks Rather Loudly, Eh?

While the woman in the above photo, Birgitt Peterson, claims she was provoked and that her Nazi salute has been misinterpreted (I'm sure such mistakes happen all the time), and a right-wing site offers a lamentably lame spin on her, as they say, actions speak louder than words, eh?

That is not to say, however, that Toronto Star readers' words fork no lightning as they discuss their views of the the U.S. descent into fascism via Donald Trump. All of the missives are excellent, but I reproduce only a few of them below:

The Trump phenom might be ugly, as your editorial states, but it says a lot about the anti-intellectual stream that exists in American society. It’s not just Trump, but most of the Republican candidates for president are worse. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are downright scary. They look like characters in a bad Hollywood movie.

This is the country that put a Man on the moon and developed the Internet, but a good chunk of America is quite ignorant and knows nothing about the rest of the world. And in many ways, why should it? It has a huge domestic economy where internal trade is more important than external trade. They don’t need to look outside their borders.

But saying that, there is no excuse for ignorance. Let’s face it, many Americans, including most Republicans, still believe in Creationism. They believe the world was created in six days and many deny climate change. Even though cities like Miami and New York will be under water in a hundred years.

Obviously, Donald Trump plays to the anger many feel over their lot in life; lost jobs due to globalization and the hollowing out of the American manufacturing sector. Trump speaks to their fears, even though he has no real solutions. Crazy American elections aren’t new, just look at 1968 with the likes of Richard Nixon, George Wallace and Hubert Humphrey. But what is consistent in American life, despite their immense power, is their parochialism and small mindedness.

That is dangerous and sad.

Andrew van Velzen, Toronto

I have read literally hundreds of negative reports on Trump campaign, yet not one article mentions why he is so popular. Although the average American does not know for sure why things are so bad regarding wages, job opportunities or how the 2008 Wall Street fiasco screwed them out of millions of homes, they instinctively know they are being lied to. It would be nice if the schools taught the real history of what has been happening and what led to World War II, but somehow I doubt that is going to happen.

Add to that the “dumbing down of America” that has been in full swing since the mid 1970s and this is what America has become.

All we have to do is look at Germany in the 1930s. They were probably the most educated and advanced society in the early 20th century, yet they allowed a tyrant into power who led the world to a world war.

And why did this tyrant get into power? The economy had collapsed, the German dollar had collapsed and people were desperate for help. Now we see America with cities in ruin, poison water, jobless people living in tent cities and they do not have the social net we have in Canada.

Let’s be honest. The so called 1 per cent has put us in this position and Trump is the answer the Americans have come up with.

If we do not wake up and realize that without a solid middle class, we are doomed to repeat history, then people like Trump will rule.

Gary Brigden, Toronto

Perhaps a significant block of American voters are responding to Donald Trump not because they admire a bully, but because in one respect at least he’s finally speaking to something that no North American politician, and few elsewhere, have dared to speak to in a generation, something that has detrimentally affected and continues to affect virtually every working-class person on the continent.
The so-called “free trade” deals that have been imposed continentally for the past 30 years were calculated to wipe out domestic manufacturing, simply and solely for the sake of somebody else’s bottom line. Although new deals in the offing still persist in callously promising us the moon, they only ever leave a decimated economy at street-level, and diminished opportunities to prosper for succeeding generations. This is clear to anyone who has experienced life in such an economy, such as the current generation of Canadians.

Trump speaks to the fraudulent nature of these multiple ersatz trade deals, which plainly have always had more to do, even in the latest proposals, with investor rights than with broad economic advancements.

If Trump is finally talking turkey about the daily lived fraud that North American workers have endured for too long, and if his message in this respect is resonating with workers, then perhaps his opponents and his critics might take a lesson from his strategy and finally start talking real cases themselves.

Justin Trudeau, are you listening?

George Higton, Toronto

To borrow sardonically from The Bard, who seems to have seen it all,

O brave new world / That has such people in't!

In Trumpworld, Refraining From Violence Is 'Political Correctness'

Watch as Rachel Maddow traces the evolution of violence in the Trump campaign, aided, abetted and encouraged by the demagogue himself:

A Walk In The Neighbourhood

Having pretty much recovered from a nasty stomach bug that laid me low for about 24 hours, I thought it might be a good time to take a brief walk to the local plaza, situated about seven minutes from my house. The first part of my perambulation depressed me; one of the homeowners on my route decided, for reasons not apparent to me, to cut down an old fir tree enisled in their circular driveway. At least 50 feet high, its desecration thus far had left it with only the top three or four feet of branches, the rest already consigned to a shredder.

Aesthetics aside, I saw this termination as yet another flagrant example of how we like to mouth the right platitudes about climate change, but whenever doing something to mitigate it encroaches upon our personal freedoms and choices, our truer, more selfish natures come to the fore. I wondered, as I passed by, if they had given any thought to the stored carbon that this tree's termination will see released into the atmosphere. Even if it is relatively little, the choice to cut it down does not, in my view, reflect mindful stewardship of our environment.

The same could be said of other aspects of my community. Although it is a very walkable one (e.g., a pedestrian trek to our library takes about 10 minutes at a brisk pace), I would classify only a handful of people in my neighbourhood as walkers: the young couple who moved in next door, having abandoned the dream of home ownership in Toronto where they were renting, are out and about on a regular basis, often with their little girl in her stroller. I suspect their sojourn in Toronto taught them that walking is often the best way to get about. The other person, on the street over from mine, regularly walks to the plaza. And, of course, my wife and I do much walking as well.

Only five people, living in a very walkable community, regularly walk. What is wrong with this picture?

My own affection for the pedestrian way is long-standing; however, as I get older I think more and more of my father who was a lifelong walker, frequently perambulating to his place of work which must have been at least 40 minutes from where we lived. Despite two heart attacks and crippling pain in his later years, he still got about with his walker. When he died four years ago at the age of 90, he was still compos mentis, a fact that I believe had a lot to do with his walking habits. Indeed, research tends to support that hypothesis.

Perhaps I am rambling a bit here. My point here is not to suggest that I am some kind of exemplar of environmental consciousness; indeed, in my working years I drove pretty much every day (about a 15-minute car-trip) to the school where I taught; I could probably have arranged car pooling, but I never felt it would work very well, given that teachers operate on different after-school schedules, some staying late to mark, others leaving earlier. But the point is I never even tried unless my car was not working.

Is this our fate, to live in our own closed universes where our needs and wants take precedence over the most pressing of issues?

Time Grows Short

As The Mound of Sound points out, it is getting very late on the climate-change front. The goal of keeping global warming at below 2 degrees Celsius by 2100 seems a fool's errand, given that it is now predicted to be reached by 2030. A bitter truth that too many wish to ignore, some people are facing up to it, as reflected in the following two letters from yesterday's Toronto Star:

Re: Climate change to wilt food supply, March 6

This story makes it clear that those scientists predicting the end of planet Earth in a few hundred years are more accurate than many would believe. Climate change, rising sea levels, deforestation, fishing the oceans bare, the slaughter of our wildlife, the ongoing pollution of air, land and water, new diseases emerging, overpopulation, global terrorism, the real threat of a major world war, etc. should make all those denying the grim reality pull their heads out of the sand.

Sadly, it’s too late. Man’s ignorance has placed this world on the “fast track” to its doom.

I am nearly 70 and can honestly say that I am glad to be “on the way out.” I weep for those now being born.

Planet Earth could have been a paradise. Corporate greed (profits trump the environment) and the lust for power will bring it to an end.

I think of an old saying. “This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper.”

Robert Trowell, Ingersoll

Congratulations to the Star for its stand on climate change. In addition to its March 6 editorial (“Going green no time soon”), there were four great letters under the headline: “Feeling hopeless over climate change.” On the previous page, A9, there is yet another article supporting attempts to roll back climate change: “Climate change will wilt food supply.”

One thing we must know is where we should be heading in this struggle. Unless we get our carbon dioxide emissions down to the level that the world’s vegetation can assimilate, we are doomed.

Canada’s part in this process, according to our population, is 42 megatonnes of carbon dioxide annually. In 2014 we produced 699 megatonnes.

We have a long way to go. Let’s make sure that we know the destination. Let’s hope that the Star will continue to guide us.

Ken Ranney, Peterborough

Sadly, these periodic recognitions of climate doom are likely be too little, too late, but at least we will recognize, when the time comes, that we were collectively responsible for our demise.

And as a graphic illustration of our peril, you might want to take a look at this:

Remembrances Of Things Past (And Present)

I suspect it is only the very young and the profoundly naive who believe that justice is blind, that all are treated equaly under the law. While a pleasing fiction that governments like to perpetuate, nothing could be further from the truth.

Consider the latest revelations about the Canadian Revenue Agency's shoddy hypocrisy, begun under the Harper regime but showing no signs of abatement under the Trudeau government.

The Canada Revenue Agency offered amnesty to multi-millionaire clients caught using what's been called an offshore tax "sham" on the Isle of Man — a reprieve that was supposed to remain secret and out of the public eye until it was uncovered by a CBC News/Radio-Canada investigation.

Canada Revenue officials demanded, and offered, secrecy in a no-penalty, no-prosecution deal to high net worth clients of accounting giant KPMG involved in a dodgy offshore tax scheme.

The amnesty allows for "high net worth" clients of the accounting giant KPMG to be free from any future civil or criminal prosecution — as well as any penalties or fines — for their involvement in the controversial scheme.

The clients simply had to agree to pay their back taxes and modest interest on these offshore investments, which they had failed to report on their income tax returns.

While this might come as no surprise to many, what compounds this egregious injustice is the fact that the CRA is far less forgiving of ordinary people, many of whom, through no fault of their own, found themselves the victims of very punitive CRA action:

Toronto tax lawyer Duane Milot, who represents middle-income Canadians in disputes with the CRA, says his clients are routinely dragged through the courts for years by Canada Revenue.

"It's outrageous," he told CBC News after reading the leaked document. "The CRA appears to be saying to Canadians, 'If you're rich and wealthy, you get a second chance, but if you're not, you're stuck.'"

Just how much contempt the CRA feels for non-wealthy people is evident in the first four minutes of the following report:



Will relief for such iniquitous inequity be forthcoming from our 'new' government? In his finely-honed prosecutorial style, Thomas Mulcair asked some hard questions of the Prime Minister in the House. I was less than reassured by the answers he was given:


I couldn't help but note that in the response he gave, Mr. Trudeau sounded alarmingly like his predecessor, deflecting the questions by criticizing the questioner and then launching into some pious platitudes.

It seems that in some ways, our new government is getting old very quickly. Consequently, the CRA's foul practices continue apace.

The Archbishop And Assisted Dying

One of the things that I think distinguishes progressives from rabid reactionaries is that the latter tend to have reflexive positions on key issues, while the former can appreciate nuance. I hope the following helps to reflect that difference.

The other day, the Archbishop of Toronto, Cardinal Thomas Collins, issued a statement and a video about assisted dying, read and shown in over 200 churches in the Archdiocese of Toronto:



If you watch the above video, you will note that Collins is citing from a 70-page report tabled Thursday, called "Medical Assistance in Dying: A Patient-Centred Approach," a report that sets out the recommendations of a special committee of MPs and senators on who should be eligible to request assisted suicide. When I first heard what he had to say, I thought that Collins was engaging in some dishonest fear-mongering, but closer examination shows that, for the most part, he was not.

The report includes the following recommendations:

- the right to assisted death should not be limited to physical conditions, and that Canadians with psychiatric conditions should not be excluded from doctor assistance to end suffering.

- a two-stage legislative process. The first would apply to competent adults 18 years or older to be followed by a second stage with competent mature "minors" to come in to force no later than three years later.

- establish a process to respect health care practitioners' freedom of conscience.

- doctors opposed to assisted suicide would have to recommend someone willing to perform it.

While there is much more to the report, including safeguards against abuse, I must confess that I feel deeply ambivalent about the anticipated legislation for a number of reasons. I am cautiously supportive of its overall goal, to offer a way to end intractable suffering, but it is the parameters of how that suffering will be defined that bothers me.

For example, when one ventures into mental suffering, one cannot help but wonder if such a request for termination would spring from a failure of all treatment modalities, or an inability of the sufferer to access those modalities. Waiting lists for treatment can be very long indeed. Can a person truly be deemed competent to choose death over life in the midst of crippling mental illness?

The proposal to lower the age of consent to include minors also troubles me deeply, especially if we are talking about suffering that is not strictly physical. As well, can a minor, no matter how mature, truly make such a momentous decision. I can't help but think, for example of the 11-year-old girl, Makayla Sault, who, with her parents' support, opted to end treatment for her leukemia, treatment that would have likely resulted in a cure. She died as a consequence of that decision.

The matter of a doctor's conscience also causes me some concern, While some go so far as to argue that a publicly-financed hospital should provide a completer suite of services, including assisted suicide, most seem satisfied that they provide a referral to someone who will. However, I can see that in such a contentious issue, even that might be too much for some medical practitioners. What will be the consequences of a refusal to refer?

As you can see, I have but scratched the surface of this issue. While I have no window into the suffering that others experience, I do believe that much more vigorous debate is needed on this question. It demands that we examine our own values, and the values we think are important in our country, so that we don't plunge headlong into a practice that, once begun, could lead to consequences that none of us desire.