Corporate Anglican church to divest of shares in corporations not doing enough to curb global warming and climate change....wow!

Yale University's study provides evidence that mast Americans support action to curb global warming even if it costs them more to achieve that goal. Corporate leaders met recently for a full day in Davos at the World Economic Forum to discuss the implications of global warming and climate change, especially as it affects their capacity to produce products, given both water and raw material shortages that can be traced directly to the issue.
And now, probably more as an initiative of economic and corporate congruency, the Anglican church is turning its investment attention to divesting itself of companies that do not do enough to combat the shared global threat.
One has to know that when the Anglican church climbs on board in support of a social issue, that issue has long ago passed the threshold of innovations, and of social protest and of radical thinking and activism. And bringing the "investment" arm of the church in line with the fight against this "demon" in the vernacular of stamping out evil that is the church's mantra, is hardly educating the people in the pew about the kinds of steps they might take to reduce the impact of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere.
In fact, while we clearly support the announced move, we do wonder not only what took so long, but also why the decision is so "corporate" in its mentality. There is a dark side to the "corporate" culture of the Anglican (and many other corporate churches) that speaks much more loudly to their "fitting in" with the kind of mindset and culture that supports the social hierarchical power structure. These corporate voices, including those of the Anglican church, are not the voices of the marginalized, nor are they the voices of the voiceless, nor are they the voices of the destitute and the ostracized and the ridiculed, and the homeless and the hungry and the dying.
They are the voices of the upper and upperwardly mobile and the better educated and the better paid and the people who make the decisions in the society. While we concur that all people share in a common spiritual malaise that could be categorized as spiritual poverty and spiritual isolation, it is those who have successfully masked that vulnerability and who have climbed into the seats of power in all of society's institutions, its universities, colleges, corporations, military ranks, investment firms and even its boards of education and town and city councils and for whom the Anglican church speaks.
The Anglican church, at least from my decade and a half working within that institution, does not even know the timbre of the voices of the voiceless, let alone adopt that tone and mission as its spiritual purpose. The Anglican church is the voice of the powerful, the establishment and the conservative faction of that establishment. It is the voice of the British Empire, struggling to maintain a lost relevance to a world in which the powerful have so abused their power and their position that we are collectively left with millions of refugees, millions of orphans millions of child soldiers and millions of dead and maimed from the wars of that same establishment.
If the Anglican church were really interested in curbing global warming and climate change, it would address the many confusing messages that are being put out by those very corporations, through both their investment reports to shareholders and through their corporate advertising campaigns that are dedicated to profit, and not to any kind of social conscience. The church would have to shed its cozy relationship with its many wealthy benefactors and their culture of denial, of the rejection of the science that proves the human contribution to global warming and climate change, and it would also have to change the way it preaches to the few who still remain in the pews.
Far from a corporate investment stance, which will never generate any backlash from any segment of the population, and therefore demonstrates no risk taking on behalf of those who will and are suffering most because of the scourge of global warming and climate change, the church needs to move its eyes further into the root causes of this impending disaster, take off the white gloves and the mourning suits and the mitres and the albs, put down the various coloured prayer books and start a campaign in the streets of our largest cities much like the "liberation theologians" in South America who took on their political leaders on in the fields of the workers and brought the wrath of the Vatican on their heads, for interfering in the political process.
Good on them, but they are, once again, taking the typically tepid and conventional and no-risk approach to an impending and fast-approaching  train wreck.

Global warming is not only considered an existential threat, but now is also a spiritual one. The Church of England has vowed, as a last resort, to divest itself of companies that don’t do enough to fight the “great demon” of global warming.
The Church of England has become an active force on climate issues, arguing that global warming is a moral issue, not simply a policy or scientific one. Church officials have urged the religious organization to play a bigger role in lobbying lawmakers to take action on global warming.
Canon Giles Goddard of Southwark diocese said the Church of England needed to “align the mission of the church with its investment arm and with the life of the parishes.”
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/02/13/church-of-england-vows-to-fight-the-great-demon-of-global-warming/#ixzz2tCPh8K27

UN Peacekeepers training in Kingston, Ontario...to be deployed to Congo and Sudan

Yesterday, a knock on my driver's side window, as I waited in line for the next step in my transportation, brought me into direct contact with three individuals, one an instructor and two students in a month-long training program for United Nations peacekeepers. The instructor was from Equador, the students were from Switzerland and New Brunswick. It was the mother of two from New Brunswick who had some questions about the area they were researching.
As she made notes, I became conscious of the considerable gap in both interest and relevance of international issues between the Canadian public consciousness of the many troubled spots around the world and these young men and one woman who were dedicating their professional careers to the service of all of us.
The Equadoran trainer had spent one tour of duty in Somalia, and articulated both the tribalism and the religious conflict he had encountered in that country, in which the radical Islamists had forced a division of the country into north and south, the north occupied and ruled by Muslims who had imposed Sharia law, the south occupied by Christians. And within that broader perspective, there are tribal 'provinces' which serve to encircle each tribe, while attempting to keep out "foreign" tribes.
If a man "strays" from his province into the adjacent province, he is immediately suspected of seeking and preying upon one of the woman from the adjacent province and could suffer the consequences.
The young mother will deploy to Congo, to help with an orphanage in that beleaguered country, and will serve for two months in that country. We exchanged emails and I look forward to hearing from her about the needs of the orphanage and how her home country might attempt to meet those needs.
The Swiss 'student' will be deployed in 2015 to Sudan, another  of the trouble spots in Africa, again suffering from Islamist radicals and their pursuit of an Islamic state.
While these three young people, all proudly wearing the blue beret or cap of the United Nations, along with both the Canadian and Equadoran military uniforms (my Swiss visitor was serving in other assignments back home directly under the United Nations), and their vehicle bore the blue flag also of the United Nations, I was reminded of the many times we had all watched as these symbols of peace and of peacekeeping and of peacekeepers were caught on camera in so many corners of the world, when the news was hot and the issue grabbed public attention. Thankfully, Canada serves as a training site for this generation of peacekeepers, and we are not likely to need the services these young people will provide, under considerable risk and danger to themselves, to those people suffering in conflict. The young mother from New Brunswick, who instantly made me proud to be a Canadian once again, far from the Olympic venues of Sochi, where other Canadians are gathering medals and flowers as they too burnish the Canadian reputation, told me of stories from her training that indicate the women in the UN camps put a watchperson on duty to protect them from the possibility of rape that could invade their quarters at any time. Said with a kind of nonchalance and grasp of reality, this young woman proudly displayed her rank of Major, and mentioned that her young family would have to stay in Canada during her tour of duty.
Naturally I invited all three to stay in contact, not only because I have a deep and profound respect for their courage and their commitment to peace in a very troubled world, but also because I believe that the next frontier of human accomplishment and human investigation and research, along with the many other frontiers of medicine, space, technology and undersea, as well as global warming and climate change, is "foreign affairs"....as the world shrinks in perceptual dimensions, as the resources to feed and cloth and provide clean water are stretched to the limit and as we come face to face with the no-longer abstract concept that we are indeed "our brother's keeper" in the widest possible application of that old chestnut.
And the violence that we read about, and watch on our television and computer screens could become a reality in all of our lives, without notice. (Just last evening, a former head of the security agency that protects the United States power grid, interviewed by Judy Woodruff on PBS, documented what he called a deliberate, disciplined and potentially fatal blow to a power station by individuals within the United States who had studied the grid, knew when and how to hit it, (although they chose a time when consumption was relatively low) and still have not been discovered.)
We wish peace and safety to our UN peacekeeper trainees and their instructors, in their upcoming missions and in their pursuit of a peace that we all know is elusive and its pursuit puts them directly in harm's way. They are doing this for all of us, in every country, of every ethnicity and culture and language on the planet. They are our ambassadors and they deserve our support.

The Swiss vote to cap immigration from other EU countries....

There was a plebiscite in Switzerland this past weekend, that by 50.3% demanded restrictions on immigration from other European countries into the "neutral" mountain country. Supported by political right-wing politicians as a step to limit the potential dilution of Swiss "identity", the move is a canary in the coal mine for the rest of Europe, given the increasing power and influence of right wing political parties in other countries. However, for the Swiss, the vote could spell restrictions on the sale of their national exports like watches and cheeses throughout the EU. While she is not formally a member of the European Union, she did sign a treaty to accept one of the EU's preferred values, open borders for people and goods.
However, with the rapid rise of globalization, there seems to be a concomitant rise in fear of  the loss of unique identities, even though reports indicate that workers from other European countries are welcomed by the corporations operating in Switzerland.
It is the smell of an "anti-others" attitude that is especially troubling. Whether the motive to keep out others has economic overtones, as it does in Germany for example where outsiders seek "tourist benefits" of a substantial social safety net from that country without paying the freight of resident taxes to support the program, or merely a kind of "keep them out" isolation that we have seen in the past, it smells of a new kind of racism, in spite of the protests from supporters that it is not intended to have that odor.
We are potentially witnessing a very disturbing trend in this vote, especially if it truly is a "pioneer" move that will be mimicked in Germany, United Kingdom, Hungary and other countries. Some reports suggest that not only will the Swiss relationship to the EU have to be renegotiated, but that such votes might become a threat to the EU's core value of open borders. It is the yin and yang of the future of the EU, this tension between open borders and closed borders, and the meme could become one of the identifying traits of the next few years or decades.
Increasingly, we see signs of pulling back from sharing at all levels. The dominant sign of this withdrawal paradigm, against which US Secretary of State John Kerry has had to speak publicly, is the US withdrawal from Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and ....other potential hot spots, causing questions about US commitment to its allies, as if the only and most significant level of intervention for the US is, as it has been too often, military. Signalling a shift to diplomacy and away from military action coming from US leaders, while welcomed in many quarters, is nevertheless troubling to some who see the US history of playing the heavy hand as a necessary component to keeping world conflicts from spinning out of control.
However, for Switzerland to adopt a cap to its immigration levels from other EU countries could signal a kind of fear of scarcity of resources, lifestyle and ethnic identity that makes most observers wonder about a not-so-subtle drama of racism. And in the long run, this vote in Switzerland is merely a very small isolated step in a very small country when one considers where there is an abundance of scarcity and a teeming population attempting to eke out an existence in that scarcity in other parts of the world. Are we, it will be asked increasingly in more and more places, our brother's keeper, in the sense that we are prepared to provide access to what has become a "way of life" based on abundance and "full employment" and so many amenities and the sharing of those amenities with all who live within our borders, including those who have come from afar? Or, are we increasingly fearful that our abundance and our amenities and our full employment and our national identity will give way to an influx of  outsiders whose ties to our "place", in essence our neighbourhood, and reduce or even eliminate our historic access to the abundance we have come to savour and feel the need to protect?
From a global perspective, the Swiss example could well be a warning sign for other countries, in which fear-mongering politicians whip up the not-so-latent fears of a public that has grown accustomed to too much isolation (in diplomatic-speak, known as "neutrality") for it own and its neighbours' health.
Lessons in inter-dependence, especially in a world whose natural resources are being stretched to provide for all, will continue to demand a space in the public square, and will determine the kind of relationships that set foundational trends for the next century. Some are suggesting that this recent vote has implications for a new international trade agreement between the EU and the US, and such agreements will continue to challenge our concept of national identity, as we give more power to foreign corporations who do not like the actions of governments in such treaties and potentially the power to take legal action against those foreign governments. The interface of the corporations and the national governments, in all countries, could become unrecognizeable if such agreements are eventually signed. Turning our countries over to the vagaries and the demands of international corporations, in agreements through which national sovereignty has been compromised, for the benefits of those behemoths, while seeming inevitable, is nevertheless still worth the strongest resistance and if the Swiss candle in the dark can be seen as such a light, then the world could come to thank the people of that country for their "individuality" in a world fawning at the corporate idols.
As one country that has often taken courageous steps that demonstrate its capacity for independence, Switzerland continues to draw the world's attention, if the motives behind this latest vote are less than platinum, in the short run. Perhaps in the long run, the results of the vote will see a shift in the way the world does both its geopolitical business and its relations with those corporate monsters.

Toronto Star: CRA targets environmental NGO's after complaint from Ethical Oil

There is a story in today's edition of the Toronto Star that outlines the targeted auditing of three environmental NGO's  by Revenue Canada, following complaints by another "charity" bearing the name "Ethical Oil" allegedly started by one of the staffers in the Prime Minister's office.
The issue in question is whether these agencies are spending more than the 30% of their time and energy on political activity, opposing the environmental impact of the oil sands.
Is this shades of the IRS scandal in the United States, over the political component in some of the charities, rather than conducting what are known as educational programs.
Ethical Oil, according to the Star story, positions itself as a online site for those seeking to support the "ethical development" of the oil sands, and accepts contributions from both individuals and corporations, apparently some of those coming from the energy companies themselves.
While we cannot comment on whether any of these NGO's complies with the 30% rule, we can easily see how Ethical Oil might have filed a complaint to the CRA, and how NGO's like  Environment Defence and the David Suzuki Foundation might be targets for such a complaint.
Everyone knows that the current federal government, while pleading a strong case for environmental protection, has put the development of the oil sands at the top of its priority agenda list. It claims the need for jobs and economic growth in that submission. Nevertheless, there is ample evidence of environmental damage to land and rivers in the area of the oil sands projects, as well as evidence of the impact on human lives from the environmental impact of those projects.
Unfortunately, the debate currently waging in the public domain, pitting both pro and anti-development sides ( in their extreme positions) as agents of this internal conflict under the scrutiny of the CRA. One wonders why, for example the environmental protection NGO's don't mount a legal case against the corporations responsible for the development of the oil sands projects, to bring to a formal process their evidence of the environmental impact of the development.
Of course, such an action would costs millions, and would inevitably bring the federal government into the court room, whether as defendant or merely as subpoenaed witness. Such an action would not be welcomed by the federal government, and their ability to "defend" in terms of costs would easily trump the legal defense fund of the NGO's.
However, unless and until the NGO's committed to the protection of the environment are prepared to solicit funds for a legal argument that would bring substantial and cogent evidence to the eyes and ears of a presiding judge, this public debate, with its skirmishes inside and outside the CRA, will continue without either side being able to declare any kind of moral victory. And the projects to remove the energy from the ground will certainly continue as long as the world's appetite and need for fossil fuels continues to grow, all the while adding more carbon dioxide to the planet's atmosphere.
If there is any evidence that the government is deploying Revenue Canada specifically to target what they consider enemies of the oil sands projects, however, it is also not difficult to predict a political brouhaha in the House of Commons, rebutted by the normal non-answers from the government side.

Sochi Olympics Opening Ceremonies...spectacular, expansive, expensive and ego-driven

Watching the opening ceremonies of the Sochi Olympic Games yesterday, one could not help but be enthralled by the scope and the drama of the production. Linking classical Russian music to contemporary LED technology, on a stage fit for a hockey championship game, in a stadium of some 40,000 built solely for the opening and closing ceremonies, the production selectively recounted the highlights of Russia's public history. Huge images of steam engines and inflated obelisks evoking St. Basil's cathedral were supported by dancers and gymnasts that seemed to flow from fish to adoring worshippers. LED-infused roller-bladers careening under a night sky of dome-like proportions added to the size and the scope of the drama, watched over carefully by the leader of the Russian federation, Vladimir Putin, the Secretary General of the United Nations, the Chinese leader and the President of the Olympic Organization, Stephen Bach from Germany.
There was no gulag here; there were no persecutions recalled this night; there was no KGB in this production, yet their presence (or that of its successor agency) surreptitiously covered the site of the Ring of Steel around the Olympic venue. Reports of a few arrests of gay demonstrators crawled along the bottom of the screen. One electric snowflake that was supposed to morph into the fifth Olympic ring, (also electric) remained in its snowflake configuration, requiring the television crew to retrieve a rehearsal tape that made the switch correctly.
Choreographed to the finest detail, this entertainment opus, a work that attempted to blend a rich history and tradition with a determined political statement of rebirth of the Russian archetype on the world stage, and specifically to shine a kleglight of considerable wattage on Putin himself. The show served as a very expensive and expansive statement of re-emergence of Russia on the world stage, as part of what is obviously a more deeply and more muscular dance of Russian hegemony that includes overt political manoeuvres to woo The Ukraine, support for the Syrian dictator and his faltering removal of chemical weapons, support for the Iranian pursuit of nuclear power and the removal of western sanctions, and the increasing power and strength of the Russian president himself in all world councils.
While watching, one was almost seduced into believing in the integrity of both the theatre and the people who put it together. And yet, in spite of the smiles and the obvious exuberance of the performers, one had the sense of too much discipline, not merely of a theatrical nature imposed by the producers and the directors, but even more imposed by a political system that seems quite rigid and authoritarian. That discipline that could be undergirded by fear or fatalism seemed to be exhibited in the dour faces of the men and women who carried the Olympic flag to the base of the pole where it was raised, and also on the face of the MAN himself, when he made the official announcement of the opening of the games.
There is really only so much mascara that can be purchased as a vehicle for national pride and joy and even it grows thin on the faces of those who do not quite believe the story they are telling.
We can all hope that the games proceed without any violence; that the athletes are treated fairly and that the memories of the Sochi Games are redolent of a new beginning in international collaboration and negotiations on so many important global issues, and not reminiscent of the Cold War, hints of which are emerging at the edges of these games.

Ottawa bungles while veterans burn

PTSD, the latest spike in veteran illness following tours of duty in both peacekeeping and actual combat, going back as far as the Korean War, and including many equally violent events while serving as UN peacekeepers, continues its invasion of the psyches of veterans for decades after their specific tour of duty.
Unfortunately, government lip-service to "support the troops" makes only a few politician-friendly headlines, without the actual steps to implement that support. In a background piece for CBC (excerpted below), Brian Stewart writes what could become a manifesto for either or both of the opposition parties in the coming federal election of 2015.
According to Stewart, bureaucratic turf wars, budgetary feuds have delayed, if not de-railed, the hiring of psychiatrists and mental health workers that Defence Department called for eleven years ago, and  after the Canadian Forces ombudsman told the government two years ago that some 447 mental health specialists were needed. And even more hypocrisy is evident in the government's setting aside $11 million for the Defence Department needs, while imposing a mind-set of deficit-slaying as the political culture. We used to call that 'speaking out of both sides of the mouth' when we heard such a story in our youth.

• Saying one thing, while doing the precise opposite, and
• claiming to be "making the streets safe" while crime rates are falling, and
• spending $50 million on job-creating programs that simply do not exist and
• generating headlines on the purchase of Fighter Jets that simply wont work and Ottawa's procurement practice failed
• transforming a balanced economy into a petro-dollar economy while strutting the world stage lecturing others on how to run their economies
• claiming to be protecting the privacy of Canadians by discontinuing the long-form census, when there were literally no complaints and professional planners needed that information

And the list could go on for chapters and books, of how this government is failing both itself and the people of the country. Read Mr. Stewart's analysis, and weep for the families of the veterans who have suffered needlessly under the negligence of the Harper government, and then ask yourself if these people deserve another  mandate. We clearly believe they do not.

Why Ottawa ignored the military's PTSD epidemic
By Brian Stewart, CBC news February 6, 2014
Most ominous still is the finding nearly buried in the same study that notes that the incidence of mental injuries can double with passing years — meaning that  fully 30 per cent of those involved in combat operations may need significant psychological and other support over many years.

Canada's former Chief of Defence Staff, general Rick Hillier has now called for a public inquiry into the mental health problems affecting Canada's veterans.  

Add to that the fact that we have only belatedly acknowledged that many of the 120,000 soldiers who served as UN peacekeepers in atrocity-ridden conflict zones have trauma rates as high as Afghan vets.
At the same time, while the number of those needing help has grown, bureaucratic turf wars and budgetary feuds seem to have delayed the hiring of needed psychiatrists and mental health professionals.
The government is only now scrambling to hire an extra 54 specialists that the Defence Department called for almost 11 years ago.
According to a recent Canadian Press report, the government was reminded by the Canadian Forces ombudsman two years ago that the overall goal of 447 mental health specialists was far from met. Still, by last month the shortfall persisted.
The delay in so critical an area seems due not to a shortage of funds, for the government set aside $11 million, but rather a reluctance to hire during a period when deficit-fighting ruled the bureaucratic mindset.
For several years now, DND has, to please the government, spent several billion dollars less than it has been granted by Parliament. The whole bureaucracy has underspent $10 billion over the past three years to help meet deficit reduction targets.
It's a vicious cycle as those who go to war feel extra mental stress when they sense their sacrifice is unappreciated, and their cause diminished by post-war indifference.
And it doesn't help when Canadians talk a bold game about "supporting the troops" but don't deliver.
Only three months ago, the military ombudsman reported that many military families were still housed in dilapidated, too-small mould-infested base housing and were feeling huge stress because of worries about constant family moves and its effects on their children.

Part 2: Corruption and its restraint....more courage and more empathy?

In order to make any quasi-judicial panel on corruption work effectively, the laws and the cultural attitudes on whistle-blowers will have to undergo a substantial transformation.
First, power figures do not take kindly to truth-telling that embarrasses them. Neither do organizations responsible to those in authority. After all, maintaining a perfect public image requires that it not be sullied with negative truths about either the people or the organization itself. Consequently, given that those in power exert the maximum amount and degree of influence on the foundational footings or roots of their specific organization and thereby of the culture generally, laws granting immunity, even support, for those with courage enough to step forward and tell their truth in the face of such a cultural and a legal climate are rare indeed.
It was once the policy at IBM, for example, that all employees were trained to include in their circle of reporting not only their immediate supervisor but also his or her supervisor. In other words, all employees were permitted to go one level above their supervisor if they had a grievance against the decisions of their immediate supervisor. While that policy relaxes the reigns on outlets for venting, it does not support or encourage going above that single level of authority and responsibility.
In most professional organizations, it is a well understood cultural norm that one does not publicly criticise another member of the profession in which one works. In that manner, doctors protect each other, lawyers and teachers and presumably accountants "cover" for each other, in silence. So only clients or patients of those professionals are able to bring a complaint to the professional body overseeing the specific profession. (At least these are the norms in Canada.)
On the other hand, "telling truth to power" is a trait that all leaders encourage in their own tight circle of workers, after also training them to bring any signs of trouble to them directly and not to "go public".
While that may be a mixed message, it is only mixed in the sense of how far the "damage" is permitted to reach. A small circle of workers in a department, or a government ministry, for example, would be expected to bring all hints and rumours and complaints to the table in that department, for immediate address and/or redress. Those seeking to sabotage the ministry from within, (and those people exist in all bureaucracies in all countries) would merely remain silent with information that would or could be damaging to their ministry.
However, we have culturally and collectively protected those in power through the implicit imposition of fear of dismissal, or fear of recriminations, without adequately balancing that goal with its corollary, the protection of the public trust. If and when a worker sees, experiences or even hears of the abuse of the public trust, in the organization or of the people responsible for upholding that trust, there must be in all organizations, the opportunity and the cultural expectation for that information to be brought forward in a manner that it can be dealt with, without causing the "whistle-blower" undo punishment or recriminations.
As a professional consultant, having once found myself in the position (documented elsewhere in this space) of being given specific information about the alcohol dependency of members of an executive team, I brought that information to the CEO privately. Unfortunately, he could not deal with the information in a professional and a compassionate manner, and rather than provide support for those with the problem, he summarily dismissed the consultant. There is no telling the lengths to which people in power, (often the most neurotic of all the people working in any organization) will go to cover up what could be extremely damaging facts, even when those facts can be addressed both compassionately and professionally. Protection of that perfect public image (mask,or persona) trumps dealing with the whole body of truth.
And, in that kind of cultural climate, there is a significant need for education in truth-telling from a very early age. "Tatttle-tales" in the school yard are immediately beaten and ostracized. One of the more frequently used revenge tactics children use against their enemies is to "rat" on them. And of course, getting the truth out on the table has to be taken into consideration along with the betrayal it evokes.
Family secrets, for example, are preserved for generations in some cases,  because no one wanted to incur the wrath of the "elephant" in the room, the alcoholic parent, or the dry drunk, equally as disturbing and troublesome as the alcoholic. We are not generally doing a very good job at a very basic level of developing the kind of courage, confidence and public support for those who need a refuge for their truth telling.
I recall an adolescent co-ed asking if she could see me after school, when she told me that her father had thrown her down the basement stairs the previous night. She needed someone to whom to tell her story, and my advice was for her to seek out the family services worker in her area to bring her truth to a place where she and it could be dealt with. As I did not hear any more about her plight, I assumed that she found the necessary support to change her situation.
On the other side of this "whistle-blower" file, is the question of how to bring about the changes that would implement the new truths in any situation. And that, my friends, is a horse of a very different colour. And we are not very sophisticated in our rehabilitative strategies and tactics. We are, however, much more inclined collectively to seek revenge, punishment, exposure and expulsion.
So we have a dilemma: we need the truth and we need to support and encourage the  truth-telling that brings that truth to the table, while at the same time we also need to recognize and support the balancing of rehabilitation and support for those who would clearly be "found out" in such a process.
And that would require an importing of compassion, sensitivity and empathy that seems to be missing. So the equation grows in its complexity....and in its requirement for inculcating both courage and empathy...neither of which seem to rank very high on the public's radar of personal and or professional expectations.