Friday, August 11, 2023

Hoping Against Hope



If you are part of the Doug Ford cabal, you must certainly and ardently hope the above is true. If it isn't, you may intuit that you are in big trouble with the electorate, despite the crowing of some Tory insiders that the legislature does not resume until the end of September, long after an often somnolent public has gone back to its repose.

If letters to the editor are any indication, the public mood is sour over the Greenbelt corruption that is obvious to most. Here are a few of those letters:

We must hold our premier accountable

Ford’s sweetheart deal betrayed public trust, Aug. 10

Ontario Place, the Science Centre, Greenbelt, Duffins Rouge Agricultural Preserve … where will all of the corruption in the Ford government end? The auditor general’s report on the Greenbelt and land swaps notes a total lack of playing by the rules that the public expects from our elected leaders. An audit demands accountability and proof of integrity. This government needs to be held accountable and the first action should be to demand the resignation of the minister and staff accountable to us. 


Jane Veit, Scarborough


Now that we have the auditor general’s report, perhaps the Trudeau government will at last stand up to Premier Doug Ford. How did Ford’s plans at Ontario Place get away without an environmental assessment or an impact assessment? The feds are responsible for federal areas of jurisdiction that Ford has encroached upon. Federal ministers could intervene but … crickets. The unholy alliance of Freeland and Ford is hopefully at an end as Ford digs a grave for himself. That is unless Ford is thrown a lifeline by the Liberals who may see advantages to propping up Ford rather than defending the environment. 


Bruce Van Dieten, Toronto


When former mayor Rob Ford was coach of a high school football team, he genuinely thought that commandeering a municipal bus to get his players out of the rain was a perquisite of his other job as mayor of Toronto. Like his younger brother, Premier Doug Ford has trouble with the idea that the use of democratic power should be limited to projects that benefit citizens, along with the democratic concept that it is the duty of each elected representative to honour that restriction. 


Don Reynolds, Toronto


Premier Doug Ford proposes to remove about 7,400 acres from the Greenbelt zone in order to have land for building houses. At the same time, he intends to put about 9,400 acres into the Greenbelt zone. Why not leave the 7,400 acres alone and build houses on the 9,400 acres elsewhere? This looks like a winwin solution, except for the developers who benefitted from the swap. That is a risk that persons speculating take. 


Jacob Psutka, Toronto




Wednesday, August 9, 2023

"Banana Republic Corruption"

If you have read anything coming out of Ontario Auditor General's report into the removal of Greenbelt lands for development, you will know that the stench of corruption is deep and pervasive in the Doug Ford government. I watched Ford and Housing Minister Steve Clark's damage-control news conference this afternoon, and it was staggeringly unconvincing. 

No heads will roll, not even that of Clark's chief of staff. All the hapless duo would admit to was that they are committed to "improving the process."

The following analysis sifts through the facts concisely, articulating the truth to be found in this sordid debacle:


As the video host says, this is banana republic corruption, writ large.



Blame Trudeau

Everyone else does.

THE PROVOCATION: 


Justin Trudeau
@JustinTrudeau
We’re team Barbie.

Famous windbag Piers Morgan expressed his displeasure this way.

“So glad I’m not Canadian.”

But the ramification of the 'transgression' goes far beyond old Piers' disapprobation: 

THE CONSEQUENCE:


The galaxy has spoken.





Monday, August 7, 2023

When Education Becomes Perverted


 “If you’re not straight, white, and conservative, it doesn’t feel safe” - Raineesha Day, California teacher.

Having had a career as a teacher, I have always believed in educations's mitigating effects: it can help bridge the gap between ignorance and critical thinking and can mean the difference between poverty and economic stability. Most importantly, it can contribute to citizens' healthy, knowledgeable participation in their democracy.

But all of those benefits are predicated on an education system that is honest and earnest, that sees itself as a conveyor of truth rather than a weapon to promote ignorance. Sadly, both in Canada and the United States, as I have written in many posts, it is the latter that often prevails today.

In The Guardian, Robin Buller writes about a deplorable situation in California where education has become weaponized by a right-wing faction.

The small southern California city of Temecula made headlines across the US when its school board banned critical race theory and attempted to purge elementary school textbooks that reference gay rights icon Harvey Milk.
On Wednesday, a group of parents, students, teachers and a union sued the Temecula valley school district, alleging the critical race theory ban violates California law, the right to due process and the right to be free from discrimination. If the court rules in their favor, lawyers on the case say it will set a new precedent for the right to fact-based education in California public schools.

 It appears that the real problems began during the pandemic, when parents objected to school mask mandates. As we know from our own experience, that brought out the extremists who, in this case, managed to elect three board members who appear to believe that ignorance is bliss. Homosexual icons like Harvey Milk and so-called Critical Race Theory wound up being banned.

In the spring of 2022, three new school board candidates – Danny Gonzalez, Joseph Komrosky and Jen Wiersma – ran on platforms that opposed masking and vaccine requirements, accused the teacher’s union of working against parents’ interests, and suggested standard curriculum had been replaced by “sexualized” material. 

 The developments echoed those in other parts of California and across the country.

Reshaping suburban school boards was part of a national Republican strategy in 2022 to energize voters. Often, those interventions were funded by national conservative groups with deep pockets, like Moms for Libertythe American Council and Turning Point USA. The campaigns of Komrosky, Gonzalez and Wiersma were financed by the Inland Empire Family Pac, which is headed by a local evangelical pastor.

And such repression has real-life consequences.

In past years, homophobic and white supremacist graffiti has been scrawled in public spaces, football fans at the local high school have greeted a visiting team with loud racist taunts, and a mayor was forced to resign following the release of emails in which he made racist remarks about police violence against people of color.

Tuesday Cortes, a 16-year-old queer student, 

... said she was bullied for her sexuality throughout middle school, with limited intervention from school administrators. In eighth grade, Cortes said, classmates chanted “there’s only two genders” during recess and mocked her for her short hair.  

Black parents have also been made understandably uneasy by statements from the board such is this:

...board member Komrosky called CRT a “racist ideology” that uses “division and hate as an instructional framework in our schools”. Gonzalez and Wiersma did not respond to questions.

The only real brights spots here is the fact that sane and reasonable people are fighting back against the unhinged through the lawsuit that has been filed. That, and the fact that both parents and people like Cortes are unbowed.

[Involved parent Jennifer] San Nichols and others say the events will not push them out of Temecula. If anything, the ban has had the opposite effect, bolstering their activism.

“The harder they try to suppress us, the harder Black and Brown parents will push back,” said [Christina] Johnson, the mother of three. “I am staying for as long as I can.”

The final word goes to Cortes, who correctly identifies the poison that ignorance can engender:

...ensuring that the history of gay rights is taught in school is a critical part of preventing anti-LGBTQ+ bullying. “If queer history isn’t available to learn, we will never progress and people will stay full of hatred and ignorance,” she said.

 




 

 

 

 


Saturday, August 5, 2023

The Sickness Unto Death

 

“The greatest hazard of all, losing one’s self, can occur very quietly in the world, as if it were nothing at all. No other loss can occur so quietly; any other loss - an arm, a leg, five dollars, a wife, etc. - is sure to be noticed.”
― Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Upbuilding and Awakening

In these fraught times, what are critical thinkers to do, other than to muse and despair? It is a question I often ask myself as I watch the United States implode, and worry that the sickness that has besieged its people is having an undeniable influence on politics in Canada. One needs only examine our crazed right-wing for evidence of that.

But the problem seems much worse south of the border, largely due to the cowardice of those seeking the Republican presidential nomination or currying other political favour. With few exceptions, they would rather see the American Republic fall than reduce their own competitive chances. They have freely given themselves over to the darkest of human impulses.

Some Republicans in Congress are still willing to criticise Trump on certain issues and a few, such as Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, are outspoken in their conviction that he is unfit for office. Others, such as Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, have either retired or been ousted.

But most party leaders have stayed silent and fallen into line, apparently terrified of alienating Trump’s fervent support base in what critics describe as political cowardice. Even his main opponents in the party’s presidential primary race have dodged the issue or endorsed his claim of a Democratic witch-hunt and “deep state” conspiracy.

And the sad truth is that with each indictment, Trump's popularity amongst his unhinged base increases. Without principled opposition, that cannot change.

Rick Wilson, a Republican strategist and co-founder of The Lincoln Project, which is merciless in its denunciation of Trump, makes some observations worth noting. 

“Not one of the serious candidates – there aren’t many in the primary field – are making any kind of argument other than this is illegitimate, this is wrong, [special counsel] Jack Smith’s the real criminal, all these crazy things. Not one of the serious ones is saying this guy should be in prison, not in the White House.

“I don’t think this is a moment where Trump has been harmed in the primary; it’s solidified it. He’s going to be on TV every minute of every day for weeks and weeks and weeks and every time that happens the fundraising for the other Republicans dries up, their ability to communicate a messaging stops, none of it works. The whole thing is set of perverse incentives and it’s an almost inescapable trap for the rest of the field.”

A different set of rules seems to apply to the orange demagogue. Seemingly without consequences, he openly mocks, slanders and threatens those who stand in his way.

At a court hearing in Manhattan in April, Justice Juan M. Merchan, who is overseeing Mr. Trump’s state prosecution on charges stemming from a hush payment to a porn actress, warned the former president to refrain from making comments that were “likely to incite violence or civil unrest.”

Justice Merchan’s admonition came after Mr. Trump posted on Truth Social saying that “death and destruction” could follow if he were charged in the case in Manhattan.

That same month, Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, who was presiding over a federal rape and defamation lawsuit filed against Mr. Trump by the writer E. Jean Carroll, warned the former president to stop posting messages about the case. The ones he had already written were “entirely inappropriate,” the judge said.

Mr. Trump had derided the case on social media as a “scam” and personally mocked Ms. Carroll. 

 After the hearing in front of Justice Merchan, Mr. Trump returned to Florida and to his customary practice, calling the district attorney who brought the New York charges against him, Alvin L. Bragg, a “criminal,” and Justice Merchan himself “a Trump-hating judge with a Trump-hating wife and family.”

Days after Judge Kaplan issued his warning, Mr. Trump attacked him too, saying on a trip to one of his golf courses in Ireland that the judge was “extremely hostile.”

We live in dystopian times, times when selling one's soul for political gain has become commonplace; those who should be protecting their democracy with every fiber of their being have abandoned their responsibilities as they jockey for personal gain.

Sadly, there appears to be few who are willing to save the people from themselves.

 

 

Friday, August 4, 2023

What Else Can You Do?

 Because of the absurdity of the world today, sometimes all one can do is go along for the ride but season it with some sarcasm, some satire, some absurdity. Here is a clip that captures it all, in my humble view.


I'd rather watch this than cry. H/t Tim Young


Wednesday, August 2, 2023

A Timely Reminder

 With prosecutor Jack Smith excoriating Trump for his attack on democracy in seeking to overturn the 2020 presidential election, the following is both prescient for its time and a relevant reminder of the peril Americans currently face:

It’s not. But it can be. It’s not. THE NEWSROOM (2012-14) This is Writing. This is Acting. This is Drama.


H/t Michael Warburton