Time to invoke the courage of the civil rights protesters of the sixties

At a Tampa Florida rally last night, the “mob” or “herd” mentality was loud and physical. And there is nothing (other than an aggrieved woman) more dangerous that an unleashed mob, angry, blood near boiling, contemptuous of the network cameras filming their every gesture and utterance. And it is this anger, and this venom and this unbridled hate for everything that smacks of “learning” and research, and empirical evidence, and nuance and collaboration and democracy, including specific individuals whose faces have become symbols of their loathing that is being coached, impelled and energized by the rhetoric of the chief executive of the country.

At the podium, drunk on the adulation and euphoria the herd is spilling over the stage, totally unconscious of the truth that most, if not all, of that “love” is nothing more than projection of both their worst fears and their highest aspirations and unrealized dreams onto HIMSELF, is trump.

“Look at me, I was very successful and then, without an experience I ran for president and I won, beyond my wildest expectations!” poured from his larynx like mother’s milk for his emaciated and over-weening ego. Feeding that narcissism, parading that vacuous ego, trumpeting his ultimate delusions, as if there were accomplishments only ramps up the temperature of the blood of the hord, also apparently starved for attention, any attention, even from one so self-absorbed as HIM.

This mob could care less that they represent a mere 35% of the American population; they have so much volume, and venom and vindictive energy against what they deem to be the establishment, and so much unbridled hope and faith in the “promise” of this messiah that they will continue in their dystopia so misguided they believe it to be a prospect of utopia.

The television cemeteries are littered with tombstones declaring the names of other “messiahs” from other “revival” tents, all of them having promised, in the name of God, things that only God could deliver. Their evangelist campaigns tore through hamlets, villages and stadia like wild-fires of the ‘spirit’ unleashed through their rhetorical “charisma” delivering a menu of hollowness that ranks with last night’s emptiness.

The flamboyant failure to discern how they were being manipulated by this huckster is an indictment of both the education system and the religious institutions. Both critical thought and the capacity to appreciate symbolism, poetry, irony, and the complex menu of literate language are missing from yet another performance of this illusionist….and yet that gives the skilled illusionists a bad name!

When vacuity, vanity and blind ambition combined put on a blue suit and a red tie, to look patriotic, while, off stage children cry for their parents, parents weep for their missing children, lies dominate the news and North Korea mocks Singapore with more missiles, and Putin mocks Helsinki with new disclosures, and Facebook deletes 30+ accounts purporting to disseminate competing crowd-events to plant discord, and coal festers into clouds, fires, droughts and floods ….the list is becoming both boring and endless…we all know “we have a problem”….

And it is the threat of the barely hidden potential for violence from that Tampa mob that holds much of America hostage to their vehement and carcinous venom.

When facing a possibility of violence, especially the kind that could easily take over a street scene, a city or even a wider plain, (recall Charlottesville) there are few options for those opting for non-violent protest. Yet, it is precisely the example of the civil rights movement that shines its light into the dark corners of our fears today. Those humble, determined and courageous men, women and children knew implicitly that they were going to face the violence of the police dogs, clubs tear gas and water canons when they marched into the streets of Selma Alabama. And they nevertheless went out on their protest anyway. And they did face violence protesting for a cause in which they believed, in which they knew they had to participate for the sake of their children and grandchildren.

Today, the situation is different, and also similar. It is a white majority that continues to dominate the trump “base” and the law and order enforcers are still capable of illicit violence against innocents, especially black innocents. Today, the forces of tyranny, deception, lies and disorder, for the sake of empowering a single man and his family, threaten the very foundations of law, tradition, decency and honour in a once honourable nation.

The forces that would be unleashed against any non-violent protest against this administration’s leader include not only law enforcement but also that mob attending last night’s Tampa rally. Likely armed and angry, highly motivated and fed by the rhetoric of their messiah, they would likely stop at nothing to champion their cause, and that of their leader.

And those who refuse to contemplate the spectre of anarchy, not just this debacle of an administration, are either in denial or smoking something still not legal in most states. It is a very small step from where the body politic currently sits to outright civil violence.

And of course, it is not missing by the president  that he is fomenting the unrest, the division and the rising contempt. Unsettling people, for the purpose of gaining the upper hand, is one of the more visible and despicable tricks he uses. Sending his “lawyer” (hawker) Guiliani out to beat the drum against any potential charge of collusion (known as conspiracy in American law) and to defame Mueller, and then direct Attorney General Sessions to shut down the Mueller probe, as well as direct ICE to implement a zero tolerance policy on illegal immigrants and their children (some 700 are still separated from their parents, and many likely do not know where their parents/children are)….these are some of the slippery, devious and unscrupulous approaches the president has deployed from a quiver filled with wo more.

Today Canadians learn that U.S. Border guards have the legal right to inspect cell  phones, laptops, tablets and other electronic devices Canadians may attempt to bring across the border into the U.S. After threequarters of a century of crossing the 49^th parallel, and a few years of working in the U.S. prompting additional border crossings, I have never had the insult of being subjected to the kind of search that now prevails at the border. And for what reason? Are Canadian citizens, like Canadian streel and aluminum, a threat to the national security of the United States? Does the impulse for domination and control know no bounds with this president? It is not merely his actions and statements that the world abhors; his manner and style are emboldening those charged with any aspect of law enforcement to act in a manner consistent with the president’s attitudes: distrust of `everyone, enforce the letter of the law ignoring the spirit and the judgement that every law requires in order to preserve respect for the legal framework of the society.

And there is no Canadian politician who will stand up to this “harassment” given the multiple other irritants between our two countries like an unsettled NAFTA, the threat of tariffs on autos made in Canada and shipped to the U.S., trying to design environmental protections and carbon pricing that will not negatively impact industries that operate on both sides of the 49^th. Just last week, Canadian shoppers who have been crossing into the States for some unique purchases of food items for years, made the mistake to doing what they had been doing. After purchasing some $80 US of groceries in Watertown N.Y., they were charged a tariff of $80 US upon their return to Canada.

Lest anyone be under any misapprehension, this American administration is a danger to every single person living on the planet. And the range of danger is growing wider every day. So now I have to leave this computer at home if I wish to travel to the U.S. and my inconvenience pales in comparison to the dangers of children becoming foster children of the state, by the state, because of the triumph of the will of a single man. Who will be his Leni Reifenstahl?

A modest wake-up proposal (with a tip 'o' the hat to Jonathan Swift)

The rest of the world simply can no longer leave it up to the United States, and its government, including the Special Prosecutor, Robert Mueller, to depose trump.

There is a serious need for the world to step up to the plate recognizing the imminent and serious threat trump (and all other political decision-makers) poses to the environment of the planet. And, of course, given the availability to and access to legal systems like the International Criminal Court in the Hague, (the U.S. still is not a signatory), whatever proposal one might make would have to be ensconced in a literary model.

So, what would that look like?

If all of the agencies dedicated to the protection of the environment were to pool their resources, including their scientists, lawyers, accountants, statisticians, perhaps under an umbrella funded and co-ordinated by Michael Bloomberg and his foundation, and then create a movie script (or series) of an epic trial of trump (et al) in absentia, using the definition of a crime against humanity as the underlying pretext for the project, the  world would finally see just how close we all are to the precipice of our own doom.

“A deliberate act, typically as part of a systematic campaign, that causes human suffering or death on a large scale,” is the definition of a crime against humanity. Of course, historically, specific individuals have been charged and convicted of specific acts of mass slaughter, ethnic cleansing, tribal or terrorist killings, and the evidence has not been exclusively “circumstantial” as it would have to be in this case.

Nevertheless, from a literary, dramatic, and global perspective, this “proposal” references other literary masterpieces like E.J. Pratt’s poem, The Truant, or the epics of Homer, or the tragedies of Shakespeare. And, the literary model has the clear advantages of immediacy, relevancy, symbolism, erudition, imagination, universality and headline grabbing. And the current political morass that is the United States of America ought not to have sole responsibility for either the clean-up of the planet’s environment nor for the responsibility of ridding the world of trump.

He is a menace to the world trade order, to the system of immigration, refugees and asylum seekers, the nuclear disarmament initiative, the notion of racial integration and collaboration, and clearly all efforts to protect the people living now and in future generations from the ravages of climate change and global warming. And  add to that list the under-the-radar deviousness that he is attempting to turn the U.S. into a fully operational military materiel production machine, including his opening the right to publish specifications for a 3-D printer version of a hand gun on the internet. His “patsy” genuflecting before the NRA, as well as the Russian “spy” who has allegedly infiltrated the NRA on behalf of Russia and is now standing trial in the U.S. are more of the mounting evidence of some collaborative attempt to turn the country into an armed camp, obviously a threat to human life, in case no one has noticed.

Fires, drought, tornadoes, floods, melting icebergs and glaciers, and the combined impact of these “circumstantial evidence” events on creatures living on the earth, under the sea and in the air prevail hourly from too many quarters to permit the denial of “connecting the dots”.

The “dots” themselves are scorched communities, scorched millions of acres, towns and cities no longer habitable, in Ontario, California, Greece, and potentially many other sites at any moment. To be complicit with trump, and his terrorist gang of climate deniers any longer is not tolerable, or even conscionable. What is also unacceptable is to wring our hands and say, “What can I do?” when we all know that re-cycling, while noble, is merely a “drop in the bucket” of prevention. Electric cars, too, while honourable and worthy alternatives to fossil fuel vehicles, will take decades to become the norm. Local market farms, too, highly esteemed as legitimate efforts to erode the over-weening power of the behemoth argi-corporations (now proprietors of most seeds in the world), are like holding an umbrella against a hurricane. Non-profits like the Council of Canadians, too, while noble, honourable and separate from government, corporate and labour funding, rely on the donations of individual donors. And while they compile research and disseminate that data to their members and the world, they also have a limited impact, and could be invited to join this project.

Another ingredient now “baked into the cake of our political culture” is the world wide web, connecting every person (at least theoretically) in real time to the news from every share mile of the globe. Local and provincial/state politicians, as well as national leaders, while still somewhat relevant, have become restricted agents of all voting publics. And the restrictions are not limited to the local/national laws on the books of their respective jurisdiction. They also include the media pawns of the financial moguls who underwrite their business plans and the primary cheque-writers of their political campaigns. None of these restrictions could be permitted to impede or curtail the scope of this proposal.

We simply have to move out of our micro-focussed and micro-financed and our micro-ideological rabbit holes and join a global project if we are to have any hope of rising about the tide of political raw sewage that comprises so much of our current political debate.

Aaron Sorkin, for example, and Rob Reiner and Ken Burns, along with environmental experts like Bill McKibbon are prospective “brains,” writers, animators and energizer “bunnies” whose experience, reputation and networks would command the respect for such a project, while removing concern about the need for substantive funding. And the cast of characters could and should include the world’s people, from all corners and all strata, all religions or none, all languages and all ideologies. We are all ONE on this issue, and the sooner we begin to behave with that mind-set, the sooner we begin to recover our own immense power to influence events, another of the missing ingredients in our current hopelessness.

There is a significant hurdle to overcome: the risk that such a drama could arouse so much “fear and trembling” around the world that an onslaught on psychotropic drugs, including alcohol, marijuana and even opioids could ensue. Faced with the full dimensions of the danger, without a considerable amount of cognitive
“table-setting” to prepare potential viewers, such  project could conceivably also arouse political anger, disgust and resentment that protests could erupt on the streets of major cities around the world.

There have been reputable scientists like David Suzuki telling us that it might already be too late to save the environment from our incessant and unrelenting spewing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. His lament has hung over the planet for decades. Others also of note, have been sounding alarms even about the dangers inherent in a 2 degree rise in global temperatures. Reports of the Arctic’s icebergs and glaciers sliding into the sea continue as many of our ears grow increasingly deaf and immune to the danger; we have been hearing doomsday predictions for decades, so they have grown thin in our consciousness.

Naturally, politicians in many countries resist writing and passing laws that would hold their corporate benefactors accountable for their emissions. Even in Canada, so-called enlightened Canada, the federal government’s attempt to put a price on carbon is meeting strong resistance from at least two provinces, Ontario and Saskatchewan) who have signed a class action to take the federal government to court, calling the attempt “unconstitutional”….the word the provinces use for all federal initiatives they despise.

It is at least in part the short-term thinking, planning and acting, not a second beyond the next election, that limits many politicians’ “vision.” Self-interest of the political class that seriously handicaps the global survival needs and interests has to be confronted in a manner that wakens all people in all countries up from a shared and dangerous somnambulance.

Coal mining and burning has to be shut down; fossil-fueled vehicles have to be replaced by clean transportation including air transportation. The military establishments, especially that of the U.S. has to be compelled to transform their thinking and their need for fossil fuels, (and as a potential by-product, perhaps limit their pursuit of military conflict). If the personal health of individual humans has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to have resulted from the smoking of carcinogen cigarettes, and those companies have been forced to “cough” up billions to pay for health care costs of those individuals threatened, then is it not high time for the fossil fuel companies to have to come clean for having ripped all legitimate electric-powered engines from the market decades ago, as they consummated their ravenous rape of the planet with their deadly products?

One of the prime adages from the Bush administration’s boondoggle invasion of Iraq was the phrase “shock and awe” used as his bravado pretense to promise a very short and highly successful invasion. This proposal can be seen as a literary, creative, imaginative, high profile wake-up call to the leaders, the corporate boards of directors, the CEO’s, the institutions of governance around the world, including but not restricted to the Security Council, that the world’s ordinary people will no longer remain silent, on the sidelines, and complacent on the issue of the survival of the planet’s environment.

We are, as was the case in the proverbial story about the French Revolution, when a politician sitting in a pub saw a crowd marching down the street. Jumping from his stool, he cried to the bar-tender, “I have to go and find out where they are going so I can lead them!”

Today, we, the people of the world, are those people, and the politicians of all ideologies, ethnicities, religions, languages and cultures are sitting in that pub waiting for us to begin a very long march to show them not only where to go, but how to get there. And a television series, DVD’s, hard copy books, magazines and a longer term news organ dedicated exclusively to the threat/opportunity of global warming and climate change is another way to incubate a generation of activists, ready and unrestrained by that bane of too many western regions: political correctness.

That slogan has worn itself into oblivion. There is no time to wait. As Obama proclaimed on election night, 2008, “We are the change the world has been waiting for!”

Women enlighten the foreign policy debate

Allison Smith hosted a CPAC series of discussions on Feminist Foreign Policy which aired last night. Former Canadian Prime Minister, Kim Campbell, articulated a reasoned view of broadening the issues included in foreign from the narrow “masculine” dominated “national security” issues to include education, health, work with dignity and protection of the environment.

Co-founder of Foreign Policy Interrupted, Elmira Bayrasli, shifted the conversation to “a foreign policy for the 21^st century. Citing the many global threats, including global warming and climate change, terrorism, cyber security, epidemics, and the growing gap in income, along with the global deficit in girls education, Ms Bayrasli noted the name of her organization has been borrowed from Madeline Albright, former Secretary of State in the Clinton administration. Ms Albright has commented that, because the stereotypical conversation on foreign policy is conducted by men, the only way to bring other issues to the table is to “interrupt” these men, in order to educated them on the nuances and the larger dimensions of the changes needed as seen from a woman’s perspective.

This perspective, originated by Ms Albright, has considerable advantage over a “feminist” foreign policy, for the obvious simple reason that it confronts the reality on the ground of the need to “interrupt” the traditional conversation plus it embraces all people on the planet, men and women. As Ms Bayrasli noted, it will take all hands on deck to break through the wall of resistance that stands in front of such a significant and needed shift.

 As an example of the “tokenism” being paid in public statements by political leaders about including social development funds in the foreign policy envelop, a professor from Carleton University, cited the $70 million Trudeau has added to the military budget, while simultaneously cutting the foreign aid budget. It is the view of many that foreign aid, for the purpose of lifting up cultures, especially those in which women are barred from full participation in the life of the community, including the opportunity to start their own business, must be an integral component in foreign policy.

As the host reminded her viewers, research demonstrates that the education of women, and the support for their full integration into the economic life of the community lifts the prospects for everyone in that community. So, clearly, there is an economic benefit of considerable proportions to such a policy shift. In fact, whether we call it “feminist foreign policy” or a foreign policy for the 21^st century, the move away from “hard power” as the primary instrument of foreign policy, toward a much broader and more deeply penetrating injection of aid seems to undergird this conversation.

Education, and health care, and environmental protections, and personal and community security.. as the main thrusts of an enlightened policy would clearly leave people like the current occupant of the Oval Office out of the game, and thereby also exclude the United States from the game.

So, obsessed with the innovative and creative initiatives of his predecessors, Obama and Clinton, in their foreign policy that he is likely unaware and unwilling to learn about all the work Ms Clinton did to fuse women’s issues with all her activities and policies in foreign policy. This president’s view is not merely blinded by his own psychotic hubris, it also leaves the world stage open to the Chinese, the Indian and the Russian governments to fill the vacuum left by the American truculent withdrawal.

The infusion of the female perspective into the foreign policy debate, through television talk shows, including the Sunday shows, is a primary objective of the Foreign Policy Interrupted organization. And they are seeing some limited success for their efforts. Reports indicate that the ratio of women participating in foreign policy discussion has risen from 14% to 22% in the last couple of years. Perhaps the reportedly large cadre of women candidates entering the mid-term elections for November 2018 will have a salutary impact on those numbers.

Two of the more prominent women who appear regularly on American television, Robin Wright and Anne Marie Slaughter, both have the learning, the experience and the “savoir faire” to commend themselves to the editor of any public affairs show dedicated to foreign policy, or the editors of any of the best print organs that focus on foreign policy. After serving as an editor for Thompson/Financial Post, and appearing on American television’s top shows, Chrystia Freedland, is now the Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Canadian government, effectively responsible for two portfolios that command a single voice: foreign affairs and international trade.

It has been her steady hand, and voice, that has provided and sustained public confidence that Canada will not be victimized by the trump tariffs, threats to NAFTA, and general blowing hot air.

Already mentioned, Madeline Albright, has demonstrated her intellect, and her tough spine through both her stint as Secretary of State, and also in her latest book, Fascism, a warning. It would be difficult if not impossible to conceive of a single male counterpart meeting Ms Albright who would have the gall and the temerity to show her even a hint of disrespect.

Foremost, currently on the international stage, fortunately for all of us, and especially for the thousands of refugees landing in Europe, Angela Merkel, another scholar, this time in Chemistry, provides steady, moderate and courageous in Germany and through her in the European Union as it faces the impending Brexit negotiations and the fallout from those.

Another woman scholar, a doctorate in Russian studies, Condolezza Rice, has served as both National Security Advisor and Secretary of State under George W. Bush, and although the Iraq war is not a star in the galaxy of either Bush or Ms. Rice, nevertheless, she did provide some measure of gravitas and clear thinking to that administration. Similarly, Susan Rice, served Obama as National Security Advisor, and provided a maturity of perspective and integrity to each of his foreign interventions.

Nikki Haley, too, current American Ambassador to the United Nations, is a valuable foil for the machinations of her boss, as he continuously strives to bring chaos to each and every U.S. relationship with a foreign power.

There is a current full slate of competent, even exemplary women who have or are serving in the foreign policy and international relations field. And that choir will only grow in both size and competence as their numbers in the graduate schools of International Relations climbs. And if it takes “interruption” or outright defiance, our subtle diplomacy, women’s voices and perspective will become an integral part of the foreign policy of many nations…and the sooner the better.

Noticeable, in their absence, are both China and Russia, in the profile of women as leaders in foreign policy in both countries. India, too, seems to have reverted to a male-dominated role on the world stage, several years after the tenure of Indira Ghandi, as has Pakistan after the emergence of Benazir Bhutto…followed by her exile and murder.

Although she has not served in the state department, let us not forget that the only woman who has confronted the trump administration over the potential for compromise that Michael Flynn appeared to be under, was Sally Yates, then Deputy and Acting Attorney General successively. Her firing, while tragic, only demonstrates how deeply her submission to the White House impacted the occupant of the Oval Office. Her courage in bringing truth to power exemplifies the kind of spine so far invisible from the Republican members of Congress.

Advent '89

I know Marc Lepine

                never understood

himself

                    or his family

he bore a self-inflicted

                            martyrdom

of hatred

but that’s only half the story—

                        he signed the registration

for the .223 semi

                    he failed his

courses

              his relationships

                           his military admission

and his biographer

                                   he left no other criminal record

but mostly he failed

                        Canadian men

                                       fathers

                                            uncles

                                                 husbands

                                                      lovers

                                                           friends

his steel larynx

                          pierced

skulls

              hearts

                           spleens

and the curtain of

                           silence

between the sexes

                     and now the drum-roll

drones

                  to dialogue  

                                     and tears

as Advent advances

                   from sea to sea.

                                                           (1989)

Frozen

I saw the black cat

                          running

between us

                   before us

behind

the hair on my neck

                               quivered

as I recalled Sianna

                            the Siamese

that bit

               and snapped

at the red sweater

                           she wore

I screamed silent

                    shrieks of resentment

between females

                   a mother and a wife

paralyzed

                   between

as the black cat

nuzzled along my ankle

                  and Sianna bristled

along my spine.

                                                                  (1983)

Air Power

I watched the chick-a-dees

                         struggle

         for a perch at the

feeder

            their wings drummed their

song

                I felt compassion  

then I watched the

                         blue-jay

thwart the chick-a-dees'

                      struggle to feed

triple in size

                    double in strength

and decibels…

                    I grew older

                                        and sadder

                                                                     (1993)

Spring Break-up

the twelve-foot cedar strip

                      belongs to the headman

the assignment challenged the wind

                  funnelling up the river

      following the boys I entered the tunnel

seated as a sail

                   of cotton, denim and wool

around and around

                               and over

grab the keel

                          slip

grab again

                                     slip

blood slows and

                        pictures of summer dances,

report cards and roast beef

                        r-o-l-l-s-l-o-m-o

                                           on my screen

as the light in the projector

                             f l i c k e r s

the sound stops

                    and death reaches out

                                  to take me in

not counting on the vial

                of hidden adrenalin…

a side-stroke and the head’s canoe

                                       floats ashore

with my capsized ego.

                                                                (1983)