A Truly Alien Nation

This weekend we celebrate with family and friends our Canadian Thanksgiving. As is the custom, we reflect upon the things for which we are grateful, and duly give thanks for them. This day, I am particularly thankful for what I am not - a resident of the United States.

The benighted nation south of us, which calls itself, without a hint of irony, "the greatest country on earth," suffers from a serious rupture from reality. To me, it is an egregiously failed country, one so foreign from my experience and understanding of what constitutes a civilized and mature society that it might as well exist on a another planet. It is truly an alien nation.

In today's Star, Daniel Dales writes about the most conspicuous aspect of the United States' moral sickness: its insane gun laws which, signs suggest, are about to go even further down the rabbit hole.

Even with so many deaths and grievous injuring marring the American landscape, including the latest massacre of 58 people in Las Vegas, the full-court press to make guns even more accessible proceeds apace:

This year, for example, Missouri Republicans allowed people to carry guns without obtaining a permit. Georgia Republicans allowed permit-holders to carry on college campuses. Ohio Republicans allowed gun licence holders to carry their guns at daycares that don’t put up No Guns signs and to store their guns in their cars on school property.

Before the Las Vegas shooting, House Republicans had been pushing a bill to make it easier to buy gun silencers [the euphemistically-titled Hearing Protection Act] . They have now delayed that effort a second time. The first delay came after a shooter attacked party congressmen on a baseball field in nearby Virginia — which, tellingly, prompted some to talk about loosening gun laws, for self-defence.

While a few states have slightly tighted rules, most are embracing, even extolling, looser restriction:

Charles Heller, a spokesperson for the Arizona Citizens Defense League, a gun rights group, said Arizona has passed “58 positive bills, signed by three governors, over 13 years.” He is pushing for more — such as a law allowing people with gun licences to bypass metal detectors at government buildings, as at the Texas state capitol, and a law making it legal to brandish a gun against assailants who have not yet caused physical harm.

Americans, it seems, have become inured to statistical evidence of the carnage caused by guns:

More than 33,000 Americans were killed by guns in 2014 — more than 90 per day. In 2015, the Washington Post found, 23 children were shot every day. Almost two-thirds of the gun deaths were suicides, which tend to receive the least attention.

One always reads that the main obstacle to passing laws controlling and restricting these weapons of mass destruction is the NRA. Of that I am not so certain. Sure, that dark organization has an almost unlimited war chest when it comes to influencing and buying legislators, but I doubt its agenda could reign supreme without one other element: a citizenry so deeply flawed, so deeply divided and so deeply fearful of their neigbours that only brute force and personal arsenals can offer a balm to their deeply, deeply debased psyches.

His Name Was Patrick Harmon

Only a failed nation perpetrates the kind of atrocity depicted in the following video. While difficult to watch, what other choice do we have but to bear witness?

Reaching Across The Divide

In an effort at ecumenical outreach, Mrs. Betty Bowers reaches out to the Real Housewives of ISIS to show that their religious sensibilities have much in common with those of the Religious Right in America.

Jeff Sessions' Religious Freedom order to undercut #LGBT rights allowed me to remind The Real Housewives of ISIS how much we have in common! pic.twitter.com/GRxZox1hxT

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) October 6, 2017

In The Eye Of The Beholder

It is my practice each evening at 6:30 to switch back and forth between NBC Nightly News and Global National, in part because I like to see the differing emphases placed on common news stories. Generally, I find Global National superior for its depth and analysis of key items.

For example, NBC has largely devoted itself to the human drama that was played out during the Las Vegas massacre and its aftermath, telling survivors' stories and sundry tales of individual acts of heroism that occurred. Global National, while not neglecting such aspects, has also examined some of the factors contributing to mass murder, one of them being the thorny issue of gun control, something NBC has shied away from. As a rule, Canadian media will tread where Americans fear to go or are forbidden by corporate fiat.

However, last evening I was quite disappointed at Global's coverage of the Energy East pipeline cancellation. I am including two clips from that coverage, the first a straight-forward reporting of the cancellation coupled with the predictable political games of the Conservatives blaming it all on Trudeau, the second an analysis with a decided editorial bias.



The next clip, which explores the question of the future of energy projects, has a decidedly pro-pipeline bias, as David Akin looks at the impediments to such projects. Phrases such as "interest group activism" and "regulatory dysfunction" leave little doubt that stronger measures to monitor and control greenhouse gas emissions are obstacles to multi-billion-dollar investments and good-paying jobs. While those of us who care about the environment and climate change are heartened by 'impediments' to further fossil-fuel development, others consider it a major blow to all that is good and holy - continuous, unrestrained growth.



In the second video, you will also have noticed David Akin's attempt to conflate pipeline development with some of the great infrastructure projects of the past like the James Bay hydro-electric project and the Trans-Canada highway. He also invokes Sir John A. MacDonald and laments the lack of a "national vision" today, my interpretation being that we are are somehow the poorer for a lack of imagination when it comes to pipelines.

Global National may be content to live in the past and extol the old economic models in which environment factors are simply an inconvenient obstruction to unrestrained growth. The rest of us who take the time to educate ourselves about the climate-change perils we face today can only look on with bemusement that such an antiquated model still holds captive much of the national media.

UPDATE: For those who tenaciously cling to the belief that fossil fuels will always reign supreme, this article provides a sobering dose of reality:

The electric vehicle revolution has been supercharged by plummeting lithium-ion prices, which are half of what they were in 2014. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) forecasts EVs will be as cheap as gasoline cars by 2025 and keep dropping in price until EVs overtake them in yearly sales, by which time EVs will be displacing 8 million barrels of oil a day — more than Saudi Arabia exports today.

UPDATE: Rosy Rhetoric Won't Get The Job Done

Those of us who pay even a modest amount of attention to the ever-increasing toll that climate change is exacting on the world know or sense that we have reached a reckoning point. People living in the Western Hemisphere see all too clearly the havoc being wrought by ever-more powerful storms hitting the Caribbean and the southern U.S. Looking farther afield, many parts of the world are afflicted by severe drought, raging wildfires, heat waves and monsoon floods of extraordinary dimensions. Yet to listen to Justin Trudeau and his sunny band of brothers and sisters, things are looking up.

Unfortunately, their rosy rhetoric will not save the day.

Several months ago Bill McKibben offered this piercing observation about our selfie-loving prime minister:

... when it comes to the defining issue of our day, climate change, he’s a brother to the old orange guy in Washington.

Not rhetorically: Trudeau says all the right things, over and over. He’s got no Scott Pruitts in his cabinet: everyone who works for him says the right things. Indeed, they specialize in getting others to say them too – it was Canadian diplomats, and the country’s environment minister, Catherine McKenna, who pushed at the Paris climate talks for a tougher-than-expected goal: holding the planet’s rise in temperature to 1.5C (2.7F).

But those words are meaningless if you keep digging up more carbon and selling it to people to burn, and that’s exactly what Trudeau is doing.

Ross Belot, writing about Trudeau's recent UN address, echoed similar sentiments:

”There is no country on the planet that can walk away from the challenge and reality of climate change. And for our part, Canada will continue to fight for the global plan that has a realistic chance of countering it,” Trudeau told the UN. “We have a responsibility to future generations and we will uphold it.”

Good words — until you notice what they’re not saying. Nowhere in his speech does Trudeau say Canada will hit its commitments under the Paris climate change accord. He says that Canada will “fight for the global plan.” He can’t say he’ll fight for the Canadian plan since … there isn’t one. Not one that suggests Canada can actually meet its targets, at any rate.

The most damning indictment of federal inaction comes from Canada's Environment Commissioner, Julie Gelfand, who leaves no doubt that the Trudeau government is whistling past the graveyard when it comes to mitigation efforts and preparations for an increasingly inhospitable climate:

In a blunt fall audit report tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development Julie Gelfand said the government has failed to implement successive emissions-reduction plans, and is not prepared to adapt to the life-threatening, economically devastating impacts of a changing climate.

The government released the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change in December 2016, which was endorsed by all provinces and territories except Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

But instead of presenting a detailed action plan to reach the 2020 target for reducing emissions, Gelfand said the government changed its focus to a new 2030 target.

The government has also failed to adopt regulations to reduce greenhouse gases that could help limit the risks of pollution, natural disasters, forest fires and floods, the audit finds.

This is a damning audit, one that puts to the lie all of the social media and other propaganda efforts our government has engaged in to give us a sense of false security as disaster comes barreling toward us. It is a catastrophe that our increasingly vulnerable infrastructure will not be able to withstand:

In her report, Gelfand said measures to adapt to climate change can save lives, minimize damage and strengthen the economy, yet a 2011 adaptation policy framework was never implemented.

The federal government has not provided its departments and agencies with the critical tools and guidance to identify and respond to risks.

Only five of 19 departments and agencies examined by Gelfand's audit team had fully assessed risks and taken steps to address climate change. The other 14, including Environment and Climate Change Canada, Public Safety and National Defence, had taken "little or no action" to address the risks.

The following interview with Julie Gelfand is most instructive:


We are long past the time when soothing words and platitudes are of any utility whatsoever; it is only the woefully under-informed and those slavishly devoted to Mr. Trudeau who will find something to celebrate under this increasingly hollow administration. For the rest of us, if things continue on as they are, those dark clouds on the horizon will become ever-more threatening and ever-more destructive.

UPDATE: Many thanks to The Salamander for reminding me of a video many of you have probably seen that shows the ripple effect any change to the environment sets in motion. As you will see, the very deliberate reintroduction of wolves into Yellowstone National Park has a largely beneficial effect. The trophic cascade that ensues is fascinating, but, more pertinently, it underscores how sensitive our natural world is to alterations.

As The Salamander wrote, in response to the Trudeau government's pallid efforts to combat climate change:

.. I'm left wondering what happens when politicians allow keychain species such as wild salmon or boreal caribou to be extirpated..

.. yes.. yes .. jobs jobs jobs.. the economy stupid.. we must grow the economy.. but what happens (forever) to the land, the water, the air ?

Can You Imagine?

I have always believed, and still do, that one of the essentials for bringing about real political change is knowledge. To be aware of and informed about the key issues is, in many ways, to be engaged. However, I now also realize, after watching the George Monbiot video posted by The Mound the other day, and reading No Is Not Enough, by Naomi Klein, that there is another essential ingredient: imagination.

For far too long, as Monbiot explains, we have been given a binary view of the world which offers essentially two choices: there is the neoliberal perspective, which originated with the Chicago School preaching (and there is no better word than that if we consider their proponents' zeal) the virtues of free markets with minimal government interference; then there is the Keynesian model, which extols government expenditures and lower taxes to stimulate demand and pull economies out of recession and depression.

As Monbiot points out, neither is a viable model today. Neoliberalism has plundered our world and brought us to the brink of environmental collapse and an ever-widening social/economic inequity; Keynesian policies, which are predicated on constant growth, are no longer viable because we live in a world of increasingly finite resources that can no longer sustain the environmental consequences of unlimited growth.

So Monbiot asserts that we need a new narrative to compete against the old ones, a narrative that will revive and inspire our imaginations. And that begins with paying attention to an essential component of our natures: our altruism.

If we consider the cant of the neoliberals, we are little more than homo economicus, people who behave with almost a machine-like rationality that determines our behaviour as we go about 'getting and spending." It is a soulless depiction of who we are, and ignores the non-rational, 'human' side of our natures. Monbiot points out that we are the most altruistic creature on earth, far-surpassing that found in other animals, and it is the realization of that fact that can propel us towards a much better world, one whose foundation is cooperation, not ruthless competition. The video provides stirring examples of that altruism, including those who, at grave risk to themselves, harbored Jews from the Nazis in the Second World War, and the millions who marched in solidarity after the Charlie Hebdo killings. The key is for us to be reminded that we are so much more than the neoliberals would have us believe.

That better world begins with imagining its feasibility. Once we pierce through the miasma of neoliberalism and understand that life need not be a zero-sum game, that it need not be a Hobbesian world where life is "nasty, short and brutish," our imaginations are freed, and massive co-operation is possible.

A 'participatory culture' building from the ground up and establishing what Monbiot calls thick networks can mark the beginning of a community renaissance that culminates in an economy owned and operated by the community. Invoking the idea of the commons and enclosure, Monbiot talks about the value that land, in a municipal setting, for example, has thanks to all of the tax money spent on developing infrastructure, schools, hospitals, etc. Because developers benefit from these expenditures in terms of the added value of their land, a tax or 'community-land contribution' would see a return of some of that value to the community through money for local initiatives such as a new park or even a dividend paid to citizens, perhaps even in the form of a basic income, with some of the money redistributed by higher government levels to other, less affluent communities, etc.

Monbiot also talks about the need for electoral financing reform, mitigating the influence of the big players on our politicians. His vision is that the money for parties would be raised by selling memberships, supplemented by a government subsidy. This would force politicians to reengage with people and their priorities in order to sell more memberships. While there is some merit in this plan, I doubt that it would be a panacea, as the allure of lucrative post-political positions from the corporate sector would still be too tempting for the pols to abandon their masters' agenda. He also advocates abandoning the first-past-the-post system, a subject Canadians know all too well, given Justin Trudeau's betrayal of his promise to do the same.

Another component of renewal is the selective use of referenda, but ones that treat the voter as intelligent and informed. Such referenda offer not a binary choice on issues but a range of choices, ones that require people to educate themselves about the issue at hand. We are talking about the opposite of what transpired on the Brexit vote.

Citing the near success of Bernie Sanders, Monbiot also discusses the importance of what is called Big Organizing, a model that is predicated on grassroots volunteer efforts. Had it started earlier, he has little doubt that Sanders would have won, and the same could have been true of Labour's Jeremy Corbyn.

I have hardly done justice here to what Monbiot has to say. I sincerely hope you will take some time to view the video, even if your time only allows for a fragmented consideration of it. Being an informed and engaged citizen today is hard work, but when one considers where apathy has taken us, there really is no alternative if we truly care about the future and those who will live it.

The Art Of Misdirection

While it is difficult in some ways to attribute anything resembling a method to the madness of the American Moron-in-Chief, it would be wrong to think he is totally unmoored and rudderless. Trump's tax-reform plan attests to this. As does the furor that was stoked over U.S. Health Secretary Tom Price's obscene and very expensive use of charter flights on the American public's dime, for which he has now walked the plank. Both serve, I believe, as a misdirection to obscure a much more sinister long-term goal, one that all citizens of so-called liberal democracies, including Canada, should be concerned about.

The first misdirection comes in the preamble to the tax plan:

It is now time for all members of Congress — Democrat, Republican and Independent — to support pro-American tax reform. It’s time for Congress to provide a level playing field for our workers, to bring American companies back home, to attract new companies and businesses to our country, and to put more money into the pockets of everyday hardworking people.
- President Donald J. Trump

I won't belabor the obvious here about the risible and false association drawn above between tax cuts and economic growth, but let's just say the fact that corporate Canada was sitting on about $700 billion in 2014 is a sterling example of how ineffective a low tax regime is in creating jobs.

And there is no doubt that corporations and the wealthy will disproportionately benefit from the proposed changes, which aims to:

- Cut the corporate tax rate to 20 per cent, down from 35 per cent. Conservatives are framing the lower corporate tax rate as something that will increase investment and help businesses create jobs.

- Lower the top tax rate for so-called "pass-through" businesses to 25 per cent. These businesses, such as partnerships, S corporations or limited liability companies (LLCs), are only taxed on individual income.

- Eliminate the state and local tax deduction for individuals, thus taking away a break for taxpayers in highly taxed states such as New York, New Jersey and California.

- Scrap the alternative minimum tax (AMT), which was designed to prevent high-income earners from using loopholes to pay zero tax.

- And repeal the estate tax, a provision that affects very wealthy people who leave money to their heirs. The tax is currently set at 40 per cent.

Then there is the Trump claim that he will not benefit from the tax cuts, something that is demonstrably false.

But the fiction surrounding these tax cuts conceals a far more diabolical truth, one that will become apparent, I suspect, in the not-too-distant future. But to get at that truth, one more fiction needs to be dismantled, the one that says this kind of deficit spending will burden future generations. That assertion presupposes that at some point, taxes will have to be raised, and one's children and grandchildren will be paying them.

Personally, given the neoliberal nature of democracies today, I think that is absolute rubbish.

Putting aside that politicians generally lack the fortitude or the integrity to rescind tax breaks (look, for example at the fact the Harper TFSA still exists under the Trudeau government), let alone raise taxes, the truth is that future generations will pay for these deficits, just not in the way one might expect.

Payment will be extracted, not through increased taxation, but with the gutting of American social programs, entitlements like Medicaid and Social Security, etc. This will be coupled with an increasing rate of privatization of public resources, the neoliberal wet dream. And who will feel these cuts the most? The poor and the working class, most immediately, followed by the middle class through the much higher rates they will pay for newly privatized services, utilities, etc.

Already we have seen this plan being enacted in Canada, with more just around the corner. Consider the great privatization of Hydro One that has taken place under Premier Kathleen Wynne, something about which I have posted in the past. A boon to Bay Street and a bane to Main Street, it was done under the pretense of allocating all of the profits to green infrastructure initiatives. Predictably and cynically, however, Wynne has instead used some of the money to balance the books while also serving as a willing vessel for the neoliberal agenda.

There is every indication that the federal government is watching such betrayals of public ownership with avid interest. I have previously written about Justin Trudeau's secret study to privatize Canada' major airports. Again, the argument being advanced is that it would free up billions for infrastructure projects; more accurately, as Craig Richmond, the chief executive officer of the Vancouver Airport Authority, says,

“This idea of a one-time payment, that’s like selling the family jewels and then regretting it forever..."

Except, of course, there is never any semblance of regret when it comes to the nabobs of neoliberalism and their government functionaries, all of whom view public assets as fit only for corporate plunder.

So yes, everyone should evaluate each policy and event on its own merit. People are right to be disgusted with Tom Price's profligate abuse of taxpayer money, and people should be outraged that Trump's "middle class miracle" will benefit mainly the wealthy. But they should also be acutely aware of and outraged by one other thing: the purposeful misdirection that all such things represent, and should consequently rise up in deep protest as more of the neoliberal agenda is carried out by their kleptocratic Commander-in-Chief and his assorted masters and minions.