A New Year Offers New Opportunities

One of the reasons that a new year excites people, I suppose, is that it offers a psychological opportunity to start anew. Our personal world beckons with a fresh slate awaiting our new and improved imprint.

The truth, however, is that despite our seeming addiction to redefining ourselves through resolutions, the majority of them are quickly discarded as the realization dawns that we have either been too ambitious or insufficiently motivated to bring our goals to fruition. New diets and exercise regimens are often among the first causalities.

The city of Montreal, however, begins today with a law that shows what is possible when we have both the personal and the political will and the courage to act for the common good. Although it will barely put at dent in the worldwide scourge of plastic pollution, it is a good start and should inspire all of us.



Happy New Year.

Voter Suppression And Gerrymandering

Robert Reich does his usual fine job of warning about threats to American society and democracy posed by the entrenched interests who care nothing for principle and everything about the acquisition and retention of power:

Voting rights are under attack. States across the country have adopted voter suppression laws and the Trump administration could try to implement similar measures at the national level. We must stay vigilant. The right to vote is the cornerstone of our democracy.

If The Shoe Fits

For some strange reason, this resonates with me:

When All Else Fails

... claim voter fraud. That is what the notoriously graceless Alabama loser and alleged pedophile Roy Moore is asserting, as he steadfastly maintains that he didn't lose the election to Democrat Doug Jones.

If you ever had any doubts about the cracker's racism, consider this: the main basis of his fraud claim is that he alleges

"anomalous" higher voter turnout in Jefferson County, in which census data shows 43% of the population is black. He called the county's 47% voter turnout as "highly unusual" and questioned the integrity of its election results.

Message to Moore: true and healthy democracy works when enough people care.

Not All That Surprising

Given the downright insanity that seems to pervade American evangelical circles, and given their habit of richly perverting the message of Christ, I am really not surprised that a disproportionate of them are tenaciously steadfast in their support for Donald Trump.

And that support has not escaped the withering criticism of Paul Bayes, the bishop of Liverpool, who recently said,

...“self-styled evangelicals” risked bringing the word evangelical into disrepute, and added there was no justification for Christians contradicting God’s teaching to protect the poor and the weak.

Bayes told the Guardian: “Some of the things that have been said by religious leaders seem to collude with a system that marginalises the poor, a system which builds walls instead of bridges, a system which says people on the margins of society should be excluded, a system which says we’re not welcoming people any more into our country.

Bayes' analysis of the sad state of American fundamentalism likely offers nothing new to those of us unfortunate enough to be cursed with regular media exposure to the unhinged religious who cavort with and lustily endorse the Orange Ogre. However, he does everyone a service by reminding us of how debased they really are:

“Some quite significant so-called evangelical leaders are uncritically supporting people in ways that imply they are colluding or playing down the seriousness of things which in other parts of their lives [they] would see as really important,” Bayes added.

Bayes is not alone in his astonishment and reprobation:

Last month, Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury, said he could not comprehend the strength of support for Trump among conservative evangelicals in the US. “I really genuinely do not understand where that is coming from,” he told ITV’s Peston on Sunday programme.

In his Christmas Day sermon at Canterbury Cathedral, Welby criticised “populist leaders that deceive” their people, in comments interpreted as being aimed at Trump.

Both ecclesiastics have real cause for their concern:

According to the Washington-based Pew Research Center, 80% of self-identified white evangelical Christians said they voted for Trump in the 2016 election, and three-quarters have since said they approve of his presidency.

Bayes, who has been bishop of Liverpool since 2014, said: “If people want to support rightwing populism anywhere in the world, they are free to do so. The question is, how are they going to relate that to their Christian faith?

“And if what I believe are the clear teachings of the gospel about love for all, the desire for justice and for making sure marginalised and defenceless people are protected, if it looks as though those teachings are being contradicted, then I think there is a need to say so.”

One hopes that neither Bayes nor other truly religious hold their breath on that one.

The Future Is Bright

For plastics, that is. For the rest of us, not so much.



Despite the terrible environmental problems posed by plastic pollution, The Guardian reports that the future will see more of it, in large part due to the enthusiasms of the fossil fuel industry.

Fossil fuel companies are among those who have ploughed more than $180bn since 2010 into new “cracking” facilities that will produce the raw material for everyday plastics from packaging to bottles, trays and cartons.

The new facilities – being built by corporations like Exxon Mobile Chemical and Shell Chemical – will help fuel a 40% rise in plastic production in the next decade, according to experts, exacerbating the plastic pollution crisis that scientist warn already risks “near permanent pollution of the earth.”

Greenpeace UK’s senior oceans campaigner Louise Edge said any increase in the amount of plastic ending up in the oceans would have a disastrous impact.

“We are already producing more disposable plastic than we can deal with, more in the last decade than in the entire twentieth century, and millions of tonnes of it are ending up in our oceans.”

The Guardian reports a shocking statistic that sets all of this into perspective: the amount of plastic produced in a year is roughly the same as the entire weight of humanity.

So why are we continuing to embrace environmental disaster?

The huge investment in plastic production has been driven by the shale gas boom in the US. This has resulted in one of the raw materials used to produce plastic resin – natural gas liquids – dropping dramatically in price.

That, of course, translates into even bigger profits for the corporate giants who fuel the industry.

Left undiscussed in the article is the other element that makes this madness almost unstoppable: our own addiction to the convenience of living a disposable lifestyle. Why have to worry about holding on to containers for return, when you can just toss that water bottle in the recycling (only a small percentage of which are actually recycled), trash bin or simply on the ground?

There are answers to this problem, but neither industry nor consumers want to hear them; ergo, few governments will attempt any remediation.

As usual, nothing new or hopeful to report about the future.

Not At All Like His Father

That is the opinion of Star letter-writer Colin Languedoc who, along with Mubashir Rizvi, shares my disappointment in Justin Trudeau's craven capitulation to bullying by Donald Trump and his minions.

Canada sits on its hands for UN vote, Harper, Dec. 22

Tim Harper’s excellent column about the UN vote denouncing the U.S. embassy move brings into sharp relief how badly our federal government is representing Canada.

Instead of taking a principled stand and joining most other countries in condemning the move, Ottawa abstained from the vote to avoid annoying the Trump administration.

What makes this episode particularly pathetic is the contrast between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his father. When Pierre Trudeau was at the helm, he did not hesitate to set out positions diametrically opposed to Washington on international controversies like the Vietnam War and relations with Cuba.

This issue shows how far the apple has fallen from the tree.

Colin Languedoc, Toronto

Canada abstains on UN’s rebuke of Trump’s plan, Dec. 22

I was shocked that Canada chose to abstain from voting at the UN vote calling on the U.S. to withdraw its recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

As a Canadian, I was hoping for a better response from my Liberal government than what the previous Conservative government would likely have done.

Canada has prided itself in playing a more progressive and just role in the illegal usurpation of Palestinian lands by the state of Israel. But all that belongs to the good old days. The Liberal government appears to be more interested in appeasing U.S. President Donald Trump than doing the just and rightful thing.

With the UN vote, Canada could have demonstrated that it stands with the rest of the world in condemning this move. It is speculated that Canada did not vote because Trump threatened the U.S. would be watching.

However, just as Trump and his divisive administration were taking names, so was the rest of the world, including Canadians like me. And what I saw made me wonder how far Canada has deviated from our principled Canadian positions. I expected more from my Liberal government.

Mubashir Rizvi, Pickering