Meanwhile, Back At Home

While the Gong Show unfolding in the U.S. will likely continue to preoccupy a great many of us in the weeks, months and years to come, we would be remiss to ignore disquieting occurrences in our own country. Many of these occurrences are unfolding under the blinding glare of our prime minister's sunny smile; indeed, many of them are being orchestrated by Mr. Trudeau, under the not-so-subtle aegis of his neoliberal agenda.

One of these issues is the Infrastructure Bank Trudeau is establishing, one that seeks to meld public and private money to finance projects. The key question one must ask, of course, is what is in it for the institutional and consortia investors he is trying to attract. Kate Chucng, a Toronto Star reader, recently raised a very pertinent point.

So the federal government plans to start an “infrastructure bank.” But we already have one. It’s called the Bank of Canada, and it was set up for this very purpose.

The Bank of Canada exists to make low-interest loans to all levels of government. So why are they wanting to borrow at high interest rates from private investors? Could it be that the 1 per cent controls the government?

It is a question all of us should be asking.

In his column today, Paul Wells writes about a meeting the prime minister and nine of his ministers had on Monday in Toronto at the Shangri-La, where they were guests

of Larry Fink from New York’s humongous BlackRock investment firm, pitching Canada as an investment destination to some of the deepest pockets on the planet.

Around the table were all your favourite emissaries from global capital. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, with $360 billion (U.S.) in assets. Norway’s Norges Bank, which may be the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, though it’s hard to tell and the Norwegians hope to keep it that way. The Olayan Group from Saudi Arabia, with assets somewhere north of $100 billion. Singapore’s Temasek Holdings, closer to $200 billion. The Qatar Investment Authority. The Lansforsakringar, which is Swedish for “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it.”

Interestingly, for a government that promised openness and transparency,

the whole day happened behind closed doors and surrounded by heavy security.

This kind of secrecy and preferred access, so typical of the former Harper regime, should cause all of us concern:

The novelty of it all, and the long trains of zeros and commas following all these visitors around, has generated a very large amount of skepticism among the relatively few Canadians who’ve been following this project so far. How will the investors generate returns? Toll roads? Jacked-up hydro rates? What kind of bargain is it if Canadians pay for all this fancy new stuff through their daily out-of-pocket expenses, rather than through their taxes?

Nearby, at Nathan Phillips Square, the Ontario Public Service Employees Union was staging a protest of the whole business. “When people find out how much of their money private contractors are skimming off the top, they don’t want anything to do with it,” Smokey Thomas, the OPSEU president, said in a news release.

There is no philanthropy in business. Everything is done with an eye to the bottom line. This fact alone should give Canadians deep, deep cause for concern over the direction our 'new' government is taking us in.

At The Altar Of Baal

All along, Trump seemed like a twisted caricature of every rotten reflex of the radical right. That he has prevailed, that he has won this election, is a crushing blow to the spirit; it is an event that will likely cast the country into a period of economic, political, and social uncertainty that we cannot yet imagine. That the electorate has, in its plurality, decided to live in Trump’s world of vanity, hate, arrogance, untruth, and recklessness, his disdain for democratic norms, is a fact that will lead, inevitably, to all manner of national decline and suffering.

The above is but one paragraph from a penetrating and, I suspect, prescient, article by David Remnick in the New Yorker. Even if you are feeling sated from Trump coverage, try to make room for this piece, rich as it is in insight and prediction.

What especially resonated with me in the above was Remnick's observation that Trump's election is a crushing blow to the spirit. I doubt that I am alone in feeling both dazed and demoralized by a demagogue's elevation to the highest office in the U.S. When it happened, I felt that a giant middle finger had been offered to all the things that I and most progressives believe in: education, critical thinking, fairness, acceptance and compassion, to name but five. For about two days I was mired in a kind of existentialist funk, wondering what the point was in continuing to write and advocate for the things I value - none of it seemed anything more than an exercise in vanity, catharsis and futility.

But after two days, my perspective changed.

I realized that to stop, to give in to despair, would be to abdicate to all the things that I despise in my life: racism, intolerance, ignorance and profound, willful stupidity. And so the fight continues.

I will take but one more excerpt from the Remnick article to comment upon:

In the coming days, commentators will attempt to normalize this event. They will try to soothe their readers and viewers with thoughts about the “innate wisdom” and “essential decency” of the American people. They will downplay the virulence of the nationalism displayed, the cruel decision to elevate a man who rides in a gold-plated airliner but who has staked his claim with the populist rhetoric of blood and soil. George Orwell, the most fearless of commentators, was right to point out that public opinion is no more innately wise than humans are innately kind. People can behave foolishly, recklessly, self-destructively in the aggregate just as they can individually. Sometimes all they require is a leader of cunning, a demagogue who reads the waves of resentment and rides them to a popular victory. “The point is that the relative freedom which we enjoy depends of public opinion,” Orwell wrote in his essay “Freedom of the Park.” “The law is no protection. Governments make laws, but whether they are carried out, and how the police behave, depends on the general temper in the country. If large numbers of people are interested in freedom of speech, there will be freedom of speech, even if the law forbids it; if public opinion is sluggish, inconvenient minorities will be persecuted, even if laws exist to protect them.”

We are, of course, already seeing the normalization of Trump, the legitimization, if you will, of a man who inhabits his own universe, at the centre of which is a black hole sucking in values and beliefs that most of us hold as preeminent guidelines to anything approximating a civil society. This normalization would not be possible without the cooperation of what Henry Giroux calls 'a supine media.' A good illustration would be the interview last night on 60 Minutes with the president-elect and his cheering entourage, a.k.a., his family. I did not watch it, but saw a sufficient number of clips touting the interview to get a good sense of it. Soon, some people will be saying, "Trump's not really a bad guy at all."

Another disheartening example of normalization came from a disappointing piece written by Garrison Keilor. While he may not be happy over what the electorate has chosen, his ultimate advice is to take it in stride:

We liberal elitists are now completely in the clear. The government is in Republican hands. Let them deal with him. Democrats can spend four years raising heirloom tomatoes, meditating, reading Jane Austen, traveling around the country, tasting artisan beers, and let the Republicans build the wall and carry on the trade war with China and deport the undocumented and deal with opioids and we Democrats can go for a long brisk walk and smell the roses.

That is something none of us should do. We need, as Michael Moore said the other day, to be resolute and active against all that Trump represents:

“White people, no matter how painful, have a responsibility to reject anybody who stands in front of a camera who spews racism. Who spews sexism, misogyny. Who brags about being a sexual predator. I don’t care what your race is, but especially if you’re white. Because that means that you belong to the race that’s been in power forever. This a country that was founded on genocide and built on the backs of slaves. So you have a special responsibility as a white person to always object to anybody who uses racism, who spews this hatred.”

Donald Trump now has something he has always dreamed of: the adoration of many, the attention of all. What he will never have, I hope, is respect from the people who truly matter to our humanity.

I have no illusions about the reach or efficacy of my little soapbox called a blog. But if it helps me, and perhaps a few others, to penetrate the darkness we are mired in, it is worth it. The alternative is just too frightening to contemplate.

A Sad Anatomical Fact

This is what happens, boys and girls, to those who have had their head up their posterior for more than the recommended duration:

Sadly, I Am Inclined To Agree With Sir David Attenborough

His logic seems impeccable:



Or, to put it another way:

That Kellie Leitch: She Never Exceeds Expectations

I think the following video explains it all:

Judicial Bias

I was planning a post different from what I am writing today because of a set of circumstances that occurred yesterday, when a friend on Facebook pointed out an article in the Globe about a Hamilton judge who went to court wearing a Trump cap that read, "Make America Great Again."

Given my own encounter with judicial bias last June involving Justice Antonio Skarica, which I recounted in this blog, I decided to write to the reporters listed on the story to tell them about my experience with Toni Skarica and his t-shirt. I was then called by reporter Sean Fine, who briefly interviewed me on the phone.

Here are some excerpts from the article: The first provides the context:

On Wednesday morning, after the U.S. presidential election, Judge Bernd Zabel of the Ontario Court of Justice in Hamilton wore Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign ball cap when he entered his courtroom, a source who was in court told The Globe and Mail. He said the cap signified that it was an historic occasion. He removed the cap and put it on the bench in front of him, the source said, and returned with it after the court’s morning break.

Citing The Globe’s report, law professor Gus Van Harten complained in writing to the Ontario Judicial Council on Friday. He said Judge Zabel’s “childish” conduct cast doubt not only on the fairness of his courtroom but that of the entire Ontario Court of Justice, whose judges sit throughout the province. And he said the judge should at the very least be made to withdraw from cases involving minority groups disparaged by president-elect Trump during the campaign.

Van Harten's disgust and objections mirrored my own when I encountered Skarica:

The case of Ontario Superior Court Justice Antonio Skarica – who wore a Trump “Make America Great Again” T-shirt while out shopping one day last spring – provides an indication of how seriously judicial authorities take such complaints.

Lorne Warwick, a retired teacher from Dundas, Ont., complained to the Canadian Judicial Council, the disciplinary body for federally appointed judges. The CJC referred the complaint to the chair of its conduct committee, Nova Scotia Chief Justice Michael MacDonald. He spoke to Justice Skarica, who told him he had not intended to make a political statement; he had received the T-shirt from his brother and considered it an item of memorabilia. He promised not to wear the shirt in public again, according to a letter from the CJC that Mr. Warwick posted on a blog.

A spokeswoman for the CJC confirmed the authenticity of that letter. “I believe it shows we took the matter seriously, seeking comments from the judge, and carefully considering the matter following Chief Justice MacDonald’s direction,” Johanna Laporte said in an e-mail.

Mr. Warwick said in an interview that he was “astounded” when he and his wife saw Justice Skarica in the Trump T-shirt. “I felt his judgment was very bad.” He said other shoppers who recognized Justice Skarica looked at him “with disgust.” But at least the judge had to account for his “strange behaviour,” he said in his blog post.

I am one who leads a low-key existence and never seek to extol myself or 'build my brand,' as the young are wont to say. However, I write this only as a way to encourage people to keep fighting the good fight, a personal philosophy that I found deeply shaken after the results of Tuesday's presidential election.

I now feel my fighting spirit starting to return.

UPDATED: More From The Conservative Braintrust

Well, we know what an abomination Kellie Leitch is as a Conservative leadership hopeful, but what about Brad Trost?

The pool, it would seem, is very, very shallow:



UPDATE: Note to Brad Trost: A B.Sc. in Geophysics does not make you a geophysicist.