If you want to read the most articulate, most long-awaited reality column about democracy in the Middle East, I recommend that you access the New York Times of February 27th for the column by Nicholas Kristoff. He was on the ground in Egypt and he saw first-hand what the word democracy means to these people, and how wrong we have all been with our “idees fixes” about the Arab/Muslim world. In fact, we have been very wrong and it is time to make amends.
Kristoff cites British Prime Minister David Cameron, who is no screaming radical: “he forthrightly acknowledged that for too long Britain had backed authoritarian regimes to achieve stability. He acknowledged that his country had bought into the bigoted notion “that Arabs or Muslims can’t do democracy.” And he added: “For me, that’s a prejudice that borders on racism. It’s offensive and wrong, and it’s simply not true.” The light has finally shone.
I have been trying myself to square my notions of Arab intellectual poverty and backwardness and radical Islamism, with the faces of thousands of young Tunisians, then Egyptians, then Bahrainis, who are the farthest thing from rabid jihadists. It seems to suit our personal purposes to label them all as suicide bombers, Islamist militants and America-haters. Far too easy because it gets us off the hook. We have always known and have been complicit in maintaining all of it, that there is literally no democracy anywhere in the Arab world. From Morocco to Yemen, from Syria to Saudi Arabia, despotic rule is the norm. Kings and Emirs and Ayatollahs, and in the case of Iran, the despotism of the Revolutionary Guard, abetted by the Ayatollahs... There is enough blame to go around, with oil-needy first world countries so perilously in need that they want only one thing: stability.
But one man’s stability is another man’s tyranny. We must not continue to believe that everyone in the Arab world is a compliant, willing servant of his non-elected masters. To believe that there are great masses of illiterates who are easily governed by dictators is to ignore the reality that has been exposed by these utterly spontaneous revolutions. Maybe the arrival of Facebook and Twitter has demonstrated to all of us that these people are aware and ready for change.
Obama seems to have decided in favour of the new realism. He trod carefully with Mubarak until that man relieved himself of the presidency. Now he is openly calling for the removal of Khaddaffi. Will there be more? Can the Saudis possibly maintain their feudal hold on their 15th century Wahabbi country? They are already dishing out goodies to their people and hinting at reform. Until the rest of the Western World says publicly what David Cameron has said, there will be tension. Worse, without western support the tide of the new Arab democracy could turn in a hostile direction.
I do not believe that the radicals will benefit from democracy. Hamas and Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood will be dispatched to the trash bin of obsolescence, because these new revolutionaries know the old ways are self-destructive. We worry too, and I wrote about it several weeks ago, that a power vacuum would leave these countries vulnerable to even more authoritarian government. Maybe I was too quick to judge. They seem ready and able and are forming their own provisional councils and are starting to construct the kind of democracy they believe they deserve.
I am cautioning myself not to let my hopes rise too high. Revolution can beget many sinister children. But if you read back into Kristoff’s insightful peace you will see that he invokes history, reminding readers that it took more than six years from the end of the American Revolution to establish a stable government.
What is needed most is encouragement. A new day is dawning and the oil moguls had better reconsider their strategy. Reconsider or get done like dinner.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
MUSIC TO MY EARS
Part of my “Looking Ahead” idea is that I continue to look for new things to do, new places to learn, and new ventures. It’s one reason why, a few years ago, I returned to the piano. I am still taking weekly lessons and if I live to be 150 will be appearing at local night clubs doing an imitation of Bill Evans.
All this is just to let me tell you about kids and music. I don’t mean garage head-banger bands. I mean kids who represent the reality that classical music, or more particularly, the virtuosity required to play it, is still alive and well.
For me there is an interesting paradox. I love learning to play jazz. I enjoy learning the harmonies, the “voicings” and the rhythms. The paradox is that what I enjoy playing and what I prefer listening to, are not the same. Aside from my awe when I see “You Tube” clips of the greats like the aforementioned Bill Evans, or the legendary Art Tatum or my favourite – Teddy Wilson – my preference for listening goes to classical music. All of it, although I lean away from opera. (That’s another story.)
Like many of my contemporaries, I observe the audience for music. Go to where jazz is being played. Notice how many people in the audience are older. Go to a classical concert and you are sure that, with a few exceptions, it is a geriatric gathering. But all is not lost. There are kids learning serious music. There are more than I would have believed.
A few nights ago I went to a concert at the Royal Conservatory’s exquisite Koerner Hall. The orchestra was the Royal Conservatory symphony orchestra, made up entirely (with perhaps one or two exceptions) of music students. I inveigled my sister into coming along because they were going to be playing Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, one of her favourites. She asked me of course, what it would be like to hear students playing. She was worried that it would be “A for effort” but not ready for prime time. At the opening bars of Smetana’s Bartered Bride overture, I heard a gasp from the seat next to me. She could not believe her ears. Sixty or so young people were sounding like the best symphony orchestra. They were lead from the podium by Julian Kuerti, virtuoso son of renowned pianist Anton Kuerti. Next on the program came a lanky kid who had won a competition at the conservatory. He played the Bartok Viola concerto. He got and deserved a standing ovation. (Afterwards I learned that it was his first playing of the piece with an orchestra, and it was Kuerti’s first conducting of it.)
Finally came the coup de grace. Petrouchka. It was spellbinding. The zest, the vigour, the musicality – it was all there. One forgives an occasional slip from musicians reaching high. It was memorable. I came away believing I had heard this piece for the first time.
Just down the street from the Conservatory and Koerner Hall is the University of Toronto Music department, a sort of “dueling banjos” arrangement. Again the orchestra is kids. A few weeks ago I heard their wind orchestra play. The highlight was a new concerto for percussion and orchestra by Christos Hotzis. His wife, Beverly Johnson, was the percussionist, the rest of the crowd on stage were students. They played with all the zest and enthusiasm of musicians not yet jaded by the competition of finding work, or the notion that ensemble playing is boring. A flautist friend of mine says a major orchestra is where you play what the way the conductor tells you to play. It becomes trying. But not for kids with their whole musical life ahead of them.
For me it is a revelation. For me it says that all the doomsayers who believe classical music has no place in the 21st century, and even more, that the rising generation had no interest in that kind of music, vindication. It’s all still there.
The rising generation will save us from that feared oblivion. They will continue to create great treasures. Even though there are thousands of kids who believe that playing guitar or drums or air guitar or air drums, is the way to go, and is the road to what they really want - celebrity, here are kids who play violins and flutes and bassoons and trumpets. Not only are they keeping a tradition alive, but their skills make it possible for a whole new generation of composers to strut their musical stuff.
Nowhere does the future more truly “belong” to youth. I applaud.
All this is just to let me tell you about kids and music. I don’t mean garage head-banger bands. I mean kids who represent the reality that classical music, or more particularly, the virtuosity required to play it, is still alive and well.
For me there is an interesting paradox. I love learning to play jazz. I enjoy learning the harmonies, the “voicings” and the rhythms. The paradox is that what I enjoy playing and what I prefer listening to, are not the same. Aside from my awe when I see “You Tube” clips of the greats like the aforementioned Bill Evans, or the legendary Art Tatum or my favourite – Teddy Wilson – my preference for listening goes to classical music. All of it, although I lean away from opera. (That’s another story.)
Like many of my contemporaries, I observe the audience for music. Go to where jazz is being played. Notice how many people in the audience are older. Go to a classical concert and you are sure that, with a few exceptions, it is a geriatric gathering. But all is not lost. There are kids learning serious music. There are more than I would have believed.
A few nights ago I went to a concert at the Royal Conservatory’s exquisite Koerner Hall. The orchestra was the Royal Conservatory symphony orchestra, made up entirely (with perhaps one or two exceptions) of music students. I inveigled my sister into coming along because they were going to be playing Stravinsky’s Petrouchka, one of her favourites. She asked me of course, what it would be like to hear students playing. She was worried that it would be “A for effort” but not ready for prime time. At the opening bars of Smetana’s Bartered Bride overture, I heard a gasp from the seat next to me. She could not believe her ears. Sixty or so young people were sounding like the best symphony orchestra. They were lead from the podium by Julian Kuerti, virtuoso son of renowned pianist Anton Kuerti. Next on the program came a lanky kid who had won a competition at the conservatory. He played the Bartok Viola concerto. He got and deserved a standing ovation. (Afterwards I learned that it was his first playing of the piece with an orchestra, and it was Kuerti’s first conducting of it.)
Finally came the coup de grace. Petrouchka. It was spellbinding. The zest, the vigour, the musicality – it was all there. One forgives an occasional slip from musicians reaching high. It was memorable. I came away believing I had heard this piece for the first time.
Just down the street from the Conservatory and Koerner Hall is the University of Toronto Music department, a sort of “dueling banjos” arrangement. Again the orchestra is kids. A few weeks ago I heard their wind orchestra play. The highlight was a new concerto for percussion and orchestra by Christos Hotzis. His wife, Beverly Johnson, was the percussionist, the rest of the crowd on stage were students. They played with all the zest and enthusiasm of musicians not yet jaded by the competition of finding work, or the notion that ensemble playing is boring. A flautist friend of mine says a major orchestra is where you play what the way the conductor tells you to play. It becomes trying. But not for kids with their whole musical life ahead of them.
For me it is a revelation. For me it says that all the doomsayers who believe classical music has no place in the 21st century, and even more, that the rising generation had no interest in that kind of music, vindication. It’s all still there.
The rising generation will save us from that feared oblivion. They will continue to create great treasures. Even though there are thousands of kids who believe that playing guitar or drums or air guitar or air drums, is the way to go, and is the road to what they really want - celebrity, here are kids who play violins and flutes and bassoons and trumpets. Not only are they keeping a tradition alive, but their skills make it possible for a whole new generation of composers to strut their musical stuff.
Nowhere does the future more truly “belong” to youth. I applaud.
Thursday, February 24, 2011
THE HOME OF THE BRAVE
America congratulates and reveres its fighting men. They must. They keep saying it over and over again. Even during a play-by-play sports telecast the commentator will say, somewhat unctuously I think, “this is for all those brave men who are fighting for our way of life etc…” Don Cherry likes to do the same. Whenever he seems to be short of something to say he invokes his patriotism and makes reference to our men in uniform. It’s all part of an ongoing rant. Not that it is without merit. There are men fighting and dying. Whether or not the cause is worth fighting and dying for is quite another discussion.
You would think, with all this reverence for them, that returning servicemen would be granted the rewards they deserve. In olden times, as recently perhaps as the Great War, returning veterans, some of them badly damaged, would be given very short shrift. My favourite was the man who occupied a spot outside an office building at Bay and Adelaide. He sold pencils. He was legless. Earlier, perhaps during the Napoleonic Wars crippled soldiers would return home and be given absolutely nothing.
That is all supposed to have changed. But in the last few years, in the U.S. there has been considerable criticism of the way VA (Veterans Affairs) deals with disabled veterans.
Now there is an organization called “RepForVets.” It seems that even heroes need an advocate. In their publicity the organization says: “The VA works for the government. The Rep For Vets works for you.”
Am I getting this right? Is this organization saying that Veterans Affairs (this is in the U.S. remember) is like some kind of insurance company? Insurance companies are famous for exploring every avenue of escape before paying a claim. It’s their business. They want to minimize outlay and maximize profits. But the VA??
After readying about this organization I look with jaundiced eyes at the scenes often seen on TV, of how the returning guys are all heroes and how nothing is too good for them.
Obviously there is a shortfall between intentions and reality. It may be true that there are returning veterans who will try to use the system to make gains to which they are not entitled. But having put their lives at risk, I wonder who can be so cynical about their need for assistance, real or imagined.
I will find myself watching scenes which could only be described a pious hypocrisy. Flag waving is easy, until it starts costing the “hard-working” (don’t you love that description?) taxpayer.
An ironic sidebar to the story: The VA health services are supplied by the government. Their post-battle care, along with care for people like Senators and Congressman is paid for by the taxpayer and administered by bureaucrats. Somehow, this single-pay system actually works. Which makes you wonder why the Republicans describe “Obama-care” as a “job-killer.”
You would think, with all this reverence for them, that returning servicemen would be granted the rewards they deserve. In olden times, as recently perhaps as the Great War, returning veterans, some of them badly damaged, would be given very short shrift. My favourite was the man who occupied a spot outside an office building at Bay and Adelaide. He sold pencils. He was legless. Earlier, perhaps during the Napoleonic Wars crippled soldiers would return home and be given absolutely nothing.
That is all supposed to have changed. But in the last few years, in the U.S. there has been considerable criticism of the way VA (Veterans Affairs) deals with disabled veterans.
Now there is an organization called “RepForVets.” It seems that even heroes need an advocate. In their publicity the organization says: “The VA works for the government. The Rep For Vets works for you.”
Am I getting this right? Is this organization saying that Veterans Affairs (this is in the U.S. remember) is like some kind of insurance company? Insurance companies are famous for exploring every avenue of escape before paying a claim. It’s their business. They want to minimize outlay and maximize profits. But the VA??
After readying about this organization I look with jaundiced eyes at the scenes often seen on TV, of how the returning guys are all heroes and how nothing is too good for them.
Obviously there is a shortfall between intentions and reality. It may be true that there are returning veterans who will try to use the system to make gains to which they are not entitled. But having put their lives at risk, I wonder who can be so cynical about their need for assistance, real or imagined.
I will find myself watching scenes which could only be described a pious hypocrisy. Flag waving is easy, until it starts costing the “hard-working” (don’t you love that description?) taxpayer.
An ironic sidebar to the story: The VA health services are supplied by the government. Their post-battle care, along with care for people like Senators and Congressman is paid for by the taxpayer and administered by bureaucrats. Somehow, this single-pay system actually works. Which makes you wonder why the Republicans describe “Obama-care” as a “job-killer.”
GREATER GOOD FOR THE GREATER NUMBER
I continue to weigh in one more events of the past week. You know where I will be coming from on the issue of the Wisconsin ‘budget” problem.
I start with an economic truth: the prosperity of the middle class is the most important element in a healthy economy. Agreed?
No force has been greater in expanding that middle class than trade unions. Historically, we had the upper classes, the owners of industry and resources, and the “working class” struggling millions who worked long hours for low pay. The arrival of collective bargaining allowed millions to share in the prosperity. It was good for everyone. Henry Ford, never a friend of labour unions, realized that his workers had to earn enough to buy the cars they made. He may have been paternalistic, but he made sense – just this once. His move also was to thwart the organization of unions in his company by keeping ahead of the demand. In Canada we had a perfect example of how a non-union company remained clear of labour disruptions. Dofasco Steel in Hamilton was always a little ahead of the curve. When Stelco went on strike Dofasco waited until after the settlement and gave its workers a comparable, even a touch higher, increase. Do you believe that the Japanese non-union car makers actually survive by paying low wages? Certainly not. They, for the most part, try to keep up with industry standards, standards that have been set by the unions.
The U.S. is, among industrialized countries, one of the least unionized. The Taft-Hartley Act and all the “Right to work” legislation” has seen to that. What’s more, companies upset by finicky unions simply moved to a state where unions were not supported by government. Unfortunately even those “right to work” states have felt the same pinch as bottom-feeding industries go offshore to where wages are controlled totally by the companies with the support of industry-favourable government.
The latest figures coming out of the Wisconsin standoff demonstrate again that more that half of the American public does not support unions. (I’m sure a similar, if smaller number, would apply to this country.) The anti-union people complain that people are being paid too much. They will always mutter the same silly stuff: I’m not making as much as they are” or “In a time of unemployment, why should they be exempted?” That’s just bad-mouthing. Would they be happier if working people were all punished for having the nerve to actually try to work for better wages, working conditions and benefits?” They would be. They are. There is almost no stopping the rush to unreality by the union-haters.
They characterize unions as corrupt. (There have been corrupt union leaders like Hoffa, and unions controlled by organized crime. There have also been corrupt companies and management.) People claim that unions are “always going on strike.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. Statistically the great majority of labour disputes end up being amicably settled without a strike. But the work stoppages are the best remembered. In fact, in Toronto we have a mayor whose popularity is based in part on his anti-union stance. Take away collective bargaining rights from transit workers. Privatize garbage collection. On the latter I have to weigh in with a comment: “The private company that takes over will only take over the service if they can make a profit.” Here again, too many people are angry that anyone as lowly as a garbage collector can earn enough money to own his own home or a car, or anything that makes him part of the even the lower end of the middle class.
The governor of Wisconsin is being disingenuous. Everyone knows it – even the Tea Party nut-bars. The public service unions have all told the governor that they will make the concessions he needs to balance the budget. He says his move to deny collective-bargaining rights, effectively busting the unions, is simply to balance the budget. He is bending to public sentiment. Several other state governors are on the same path. They simply hate unions. And for that they are getting a great deal of applause.
But to disregard the whole issue of unions, what benefit can there possibly be to impoverishing your fellow citizens? The word for that is “schadenfreude” which literally means pleasure at the suffering of others.
Alright, you say, there is no denying that historically unions were good for society. Everything has changed. Industry can go offshore for cheaper labour. More and more entrepreneurs are creating wealth. Most of all, the Industrial Revolution is over and has long since been replaced by the world of service innovation.
Everyone remembers Alvin Toffler for his book “Future Shock” published more than 50 years ago. Not as well remembered, but for me, more important, was “The Third Wave” published in 1980. He joined most of the other futurists and economists in declaring that the Industrial Revolution was over and we have entered the Information Age. And it is true that from virtually nothing twenty years ago, new wealth-makers have arrived. Silicon Valley in California and around Boston, our own in the Ottawa area (and don’t forget Research in Motion is Waterloo) have created new billionaires. In Austin Texas there are ordinary hi-tech workers who became what they call Dell-ionaires. Ordinary folks at Dell in Austin became rich from their share of the piece. (Countless millions have also gone broke, especially when the dot-com bubble burst and sent the NASDAQ Index from over 6,000 to less than 2,000.)
But even in with the arrival of high tech prosperity, companies add to their bottom line by outsourcing to countries where salaries are low and skills high – notably India. The evidence for most of us is in the call centres where you call for technical assistance and the phone is answered by someone in Manila or Mumbai.
The entire issue of union survival sparked by the Wisconsin crisis is best commented on by Nobel laureate economic Paul Krugman: “anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side. You don’t have to love unions; you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy.”
It’s not about unions and collective bargaining – it’s about social justice.
I am not against entrepreneurism. I value people who will put themselves at risk to climb toward success. But that is not everyone. We are simply not all the same. Is it wrong to look for safety and security? Is it wrong to want to bargain for your own future? I know, it is not the same kind of risk-taking, but it also does not come with the same potential rewards. To each his own.
What do all these people have against the principle of a collective agreement? The idea is, or should be, enshrined in the fabric of American life. There is implicitly a collective agreement between business and the people. Without Americans as customers – who buys their goods? Without Americans as workers, who creates their wealth? Of course, most of that has gone out the window as “entrepreneurism” (translation: every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost) captures hearts and minds. Most people are not entrepreneurial. They bring their skills, some of them primitive, to the marketplace and hope that someone will engage them. They have no product, no inventory – just ability, or brains, or willingness. Does that reduce them to second class citizens, unworthy of being able to bargain?
Business and industry does not have to go to a bargaining table to raise prices or pay extravagant bonuses to senior executives. But wait, I DO understand that business people are essentially risk-takers. They are betting that their risk will be worth the returns. Some go broke. Some prosper. But it is their choice. Most people are risk-averse. They have skills that can be used. That should never put them in the position of having to fight for their rights, their rights to join together and present a united front. Hey, I’m talking about schoolteachers, policemen, people essential to the well-being of the community.
I hope this blog has not made you too angry to at least – think about it.
I start with an economic truth: the prosperity of the middle class is the most important element in a healthy economy. Agreed?
No force has been greater in expanding that middle class than trade unions. Historically, we had the upper classes, the owners of industry and resources, and the “working class” struggling millions who worked long hours for low pay. The arrival of collective bargaining allowed millions to share in the prosperity. It was good for everyone. Henry Ford, never a friend of labour unions, realized that his workers had to earn enough to buy the cars they made. He may have been paternalistic, but he made sense – just this once. His move also was to thwart the organization of unions in his company by keeping ahead of the demand. In Canada we had a perfect example of how a non-union company remained clear of labour disruptions. Dofasco Steel in Hamilton was always a little ahead of the curve. When Stelco went on strike Dofasco waited until after the settlement and gave its workers a comparable, even a touch higher, increase. Do you believe that the Japanese non-union car makers actually survive by paying low wages? Certainly not. They, for the most part, try to keep up with industry standards, standards that have been set by the unions.
The U.S. is, among industrialized countries, one of the least unionized. The Taft-Hartley Act and all the “Right to work” legislation” has seen to that. What’s more, companies upset by finicky unions simply moved to a state where unions were not supported by government. Unfortunately even those “right to work” states have felt the same pinch as bottom-feeding industries go offshore to where wages are controlled totally by the companies with the support of industry-favourable government.
The latest figures coming out of the Wisconsin standoff demonstrate again that more that half of the American public does not support unions. (I’m sure a similar, if smaller number, would apply to this country.) The anti-union people complain that people are being paid too much. They will always mutter the same silly stuff: I’m not making as much as they are” or “In a time of unemployment, why should they be exempted?” That’s just bad-mouthing. Would they be happier if working people were all punished for having the nerve to actually try to work for better wages, working conditions and benefits?” They would be. They are. There is almost no stopping the rush to unreality by the union-haters.
They characterize unions as corrupt. (There have been corrupt union leaders like Hoffa, and unions controlled by organized crime. There have also been corrupt companies and management.) People claim that unions are “always going on strike.” Nothing could be farther from the truth. Statistically the great majority of labour disputes end up being amicably settled without a strike. But the work stoppages are the best remembered. In fact, in Toronto we have a mayor whose popularity is based in part on his anti-union stance. Take away collective bargaining rights from transit workers. Privatize garbage collection. On the latter I have to weigh in with a comment: “The private company that takes over will only take over the service if they can make a profit.” Here again, too many people are angry that anyone as lowly as a garbage collector can earn enough money to own his own home or a car, or anything that makes him part of the even the lower end of the middle class.
The governor of Wisconsin is being disingenuous. Everyone knows it – even the Tea Party nut-bars. The public service unions have all told the governor that they will make the concessions he needs to balance the budget. He says his move to deny collective-bargaining rights, effectively busting the unions, is simply to balance the budget. He is bending to public sentiment. Several other state governors are on the same path. They simply hate unions. And for that they are getting a great deal of applause.
But to disregard the whole issue of unions, what benefit can there possibly be to impoverishing your fellow citizens? The word for that is “schadenfreude” which literally means pleasure at the suffering of others.
Alright, you say, there is no denying that historically unions were good for society. Everything has changed. Industry can go offshore for cheaper labour. More and more entrepreneurs are creating wealth. Most of all, the Industrial Revolution is over and has long since been replaced by the world of service innovation.
Everyone remembers Alvin Toffler for his book “Future Shock” published more than 50 years ago. Not as well remembered, but for me, more important, was “The Third Wave” published in 1980. He joined most of the other futurists and economists in declaring that the Industrial Revolution was over and we have entered the Information Age. And it is true that from virtually nothing twenty years ago, new wealth-makers have arrived. Silicon Valley in California and around Boston, our own in the Ottawa area (and don’t forget Research in Motion is Waterloo) have created new billionaires. In Austin Texas there are ordinary hi-tech workers who became what they call Dell-ionaires. Ordinary folks at Dell in Austin became rich from their share of the piece. (Countless millions have also gone broke, especially when the dot-com bubble burst and sent the NASDAQ Index from over 6,000 to less than 2,000.)
But even in with the arrival of high tech prosperity, companies add to their bottom line by outsourcing to countries where salaries are low and skills high – notably India. The evidence for most of us is in the call centres where you call for technical assistance and the phone is answered by someone in Manila or Mumbai.
The entire issue of union survival sparked by the Wisconsin crisis is best commented on by Nobel laureate economic Paul Krugman: “anyone who believes that we need some counterweight to the political power of big money should be on the demonstrators’ side. You don’t have to love unions; you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy.”
It’s not about unions and collective bargaining – it’s about social justice.
I am not against entrepreneurism. I value people who will put themselves at risk to climb toward success. But that is not everyone. We are simply not all the same. Is it wrong to look for safety and security? Is it wrong to want to bargain for your own future? I know, it is not the same kind of risk-taking, but it also does not come with the same potential rewards. To each his own.
What do all these people have against the principle of a collective agreement? The idea is, or should be, enshrined in the fabric of American life. There is implicitly a collective agreement between business and the people. Without Americans as customers – who buys their goods? Without Americans as workers, who creates their wealth? Of course, most of that has gone out the window as “entrepreneurism” (translation: every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost) captures hearts and minds. Most people are not entrepreneurial. They bring their skills, some of them primitive, to the marketplace and hope that someone will engage them. They have no product, no inventory – just ability, or brains, or willingness. Does that reduce them to second class citizens, unworthy of being able to bargain?
Business and industry does not have to go to a bargaining table to raise prices or pay extravagant bonuses to senior executives. But wait, I DO understand that business people are essentially risk-takers. They are betting that their risk will be worth the returns. Some go broke. Some prosper. But it is their choice. Most people are risk-averse. They have skills that can be used. That should never put them in the position of having to fight for their rights, their rights to join together and present a united front. Hey, I’m talking about schoolteachers, policemen, people essential to the well-being of the community.
I hope this blog has not made you too angry to at least – think about it.
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
PIRACY VS EVANGELISM
In the next few days I am finally going to weigh in on some events and issues that have been percolating in my fertile brain. Like the Wisconsin “showdown” and the latest from the pirates of the Indian ocean. They seem undeterred by the menacing presence of warships. They seem not afraid to “duke it out” with the biggest navy in the world, - To a tragic ending: four people killed, two pirates dead, and the question: will they learn the lesson that the world will not tolerate these random, careless and stupid acts of terror? That's the party line. There's more.
Look at the previous high-jacking of a 54 foot private yacht with four people aboard. Those hostages are now somewhere in the anarchy of Somalia, and the U.S. State department is making noises of outrage, as if that will daunt these outlaws. But, is it possible that the hijacking of that yacht, speaks to more than anarchy and chaos.
I have no time for the pirates who kidnap helpless people and hold them for ransom, sometimes torturing, even killing them. You try to understand the genesis of the piracy. It began as a revolt against world indifference. It began because the already marginal fisherman who worked the coast of Somalia found their fish stock poisoned. Thousands of tons of toxic garbage has for many year been dropped in the sea off the coast of Somalia. The Somalis having no working government and not much concern from the rest of the world, were powerless to stop rogue contractors who carted tons of toxic waste from "developed" countries and dumped it in their waters. The countries and companies who turned a blind eye to what was happening to their garbage are very much to blame. The world community is very much to blame. Doing what has been done to Somalia and letting it happen would be like not noticing that BP was ruining the G7ulf of Mexico and depriving thousands of fisherman of a living. (Remember too that BP already has terrible safety record. Remember the chemical explosion just a couple of years back?)
It took acts of blatant terror, high-seas piracy, to mobilize resources to do what? To stop the reckless disposal of toxic trash off the coast of a country with no government to defend it? No. They mobilized naval vessels to attack the pirates. The U.S. State Department will be very much involved in the repatriation of this unfortunate couple.
The “righteous” pirates have turned into thugs. I am sure that most of them have no memory of what started it all. They are not fighting for justice, they are criminals.
There is another side to this latest story. It is a tale of religious hubris. It is a couple, well-intentioned perhaps, who see it as their mission to “civilize” the non-believers. Their “mission” was not to travel the world in search of peace and some adventure for themselves. It was to preach the gospel to the “un-saved.” The gratuitous and thoughtless propagation of a religion that is not only foreign, but detested by the very people who are being given these Bibles. And you can be sure that the Bibles are not simply the Old Testament, but the New Testament, with its salvation through Jesus.
Believe what you will, but stop the missionary work. You insult people. You degrade their beliefs as unworthy. You are a throwback to the old colonial days where the new Masters confronted the pagan savages with the “Book” in one hand, and the rifle in the other.
There is no longer any legitimacy to Somali piracy. Just as there is no longer legitimacy to the wanton preaching of a gospel that is alien to millions of people.
Look at the previous high-jacking of a 54 foot private yacht with four people aboard. Those hostages are now somewhere in the anarchy of Somalia, and the U.S. State department is making noises of outrage, as if that will daunt these outlaws. But, is it possible that the hijacking of that yacht, speaks to more than anarchy and chaos.
I have no time for the pirates who kidnap helpless people and hold them for ransom, sometimes torturing, even killing them. You try to understand the genesis of the piracy. It began as a revolt against world indifference. It began because the already marginal fisherman who worked the coast of Somalia found their fish stock poisoned. Thousands of tons of toxic garbage has for many year been dropped in the sea off the coast of Somalia. The Somalis having no working government and not much concern from the rest of the world, were powerless to stop rogue contractors who carted tons of toxic waste from "developed" countries and dumped it in their waters. The countries and companies who turned a blind eye to what was happening to their garbage are very much to blame. The world community is very much to blame. Doing what has been done to Somalia and letting it happen would be like not noticing that BP was ruining the G7ulf of Mexico and depriving thousands of fisherman of a living. (Remember too that BP already has terrible safety record. Remember the chemical explosion just a couple of years back?)
It took acts of blatant terror, high-seas piracy, to mobilize resources to do what? To stop the reckless disposal of toxic trash off the coast of a country with no government to defend it? No. They mobilized naval vessels to attack the pirates. The U.S. State Department will be very much involved in the repatriation of this unfortunate couple.
The “righteous” pirates have turned into thugs. I am sure that most of them have no memory of what started it all. They are not fighting for justice, they are criminals.
There is another side to this latest story. It is a tale of religious hubris. It is a couple, well-intentioned perhaps, who see it as their mission to “civilize” the non-believers. Their “mission” was not to travel the world in search of peace and some adventure for themselves. It was to preach the gospel to the “un-saved.” The gratuitous and thoughtless propagation of a religion that is not only foreign, but detested by the very people who are being given these Bibles. And you can be sure that the Bibles are not simply the Old Testament, but the New Testament, with its salvation through Jesus.
Believe what you will, but stop the missionary work. You insult people. You degrade their beliefs as unworthy. You are a throwback to the old colonial days where the new Masters confronted the pagan savages with the “Book” in one hand, and the rifle in the other.
There is no longer any legitimacy to Somali piracy. Just as there is no longer legitimacy to the wanton preaching of a gospel that is alien to millions of people.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
SPELLCHECK STRIKES AGAIN
I feel a little better about my plague of errata this morning. The Toronto Star, reporting on the sad story of a man who was promised home care and is still waiting.
The Star, maybe spell check is at it again, reported that the man had his "prostrate" removed. Does that mean he is now erect? Of does it also mean - you're gonna love this - that he has beaten his erectile dysfunction?
One of my most dedicated readers, who happens also to be an academic, scolded me for my misuse of the word "decimate." Strangely, she is a historian (or should that be AN historian?) never enjoyed the study of English. She was quite right, if you are a strict purist, decimate does not mean "ravage" - as I used it to describe the drop in consumer buying power - but means to reduce by one tenth. In spite of sending her a copy of the dictionary definition, she argued that I should know better. She also suggested that I write a blog about language misuse.
People who write books about grammar and solecisms and misplaced modifiers and redundancies, are not boring only to a small group of language hairsplitters. The only exceptions I can think of are Bill Safire, the ex-Nixon speech-writer who wrote for the New York Times, and the hilarious book about punctuation "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.
There was one other. The title escapes me but she wrote with wit about people who "talk fancy." It was all about absurd embellishments. Problem is: no one seems to read them except people who want confirmation of their own impeccable English. I have yet to hear anyone who says "at this point in time" retract and apologize.
In my own family there is at least one dissenter. I commented about the pronunciation of a word and his response was: "Who cares." A pragmatist, he insists that communication is more important than accuracy. He's right of course.
Except I confess that I do value language. Just as I enjoy music that is elegantly constructed, and played with musical fluency, I find that language has an innate elegance that should not be destroyed by bowdlerizing words or "evolving" to the point where we will find "I ain't got no nothing" becomes acceptable.
Grimly fighting to the last morsel of utter boredom, I carry on.
Solecists of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your illiteracy!
The Star, maybe spell check is at it again, reported that the man had his "prostrate" removed. Does that mean he is now erect? Of does it also mean - you're gonna love this - that he has beaten his erectile dysfunction?
One of my most dedicated readers, who happens also to be an academic, scolded me for my misuse of the word "decimate." Strangely, she is a historian (or should that be AN historian?) never enjoyed the study of English. She was quite right, if you are a strict purist, decimate does not mean "ravage" - as I used it to describe the drop in consumer buying power - but means to reduce by one tenth. In spite of sending her a copy of the dictionary definition, she argued that I should know better. She also suggested that I write a blog about language misuse.
People who write books about grammar and solecisms and misplaced modifiers and redundancies, are not boring only to a small group of language hairsplitters. The only exceptions I can think of are Bill Safire, the ex-Nixon speech-writer who wrote for the New York Times, and the hilarious book about punctuation "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss.
There was one other. The title escapes me but she wrote with wit about people who "talk fancy." It was all about absurd embellishments. Problem is: no one seems to read them except people who want confirmation of their own impeccable English. I have yet to hear anyone who says "at this point in time" retract and apologize.
In my own family there is at least one dissenter. I commented about the pronunciation of a word and his response was: "Who cares." A pragmatist, he insists that communication is more important than accuracy. He's right of course.
Except I confess that I do value language. Just as I enjoy music that is elegantly constructed, and played with musical fluency, I find that language has an innate elegance that should not be destroyed by bowdlerizing words or "evolving" to the point where we will find "I ain't got no nothing" becomes acceptable.
Grimly fighting to the last morsel of utter boredom, I carry on.
Solecists of the world unite - you have nothing to lose but your illiteracy!
Saturday, February 19, 2011
BLAME IT ON "SPELL CHECK"
I never should rely on Spellcheck. Thanks to an eagle-eyed reader who spotted this gaffe: "Farmers in Alberta are delighted to know that they will not be able to buy local diesel fuel for their farm equipment." Of course, it should read "Farmers in Alberta with NOW be able to buy....
GOVERNMENT CAN'T GET ANYTHING RIGHT???
The “true believers” always insist that "private" is best. Their doctrine, their dogma, includes one specific “truth” that: “governments should keep out of business and let the real world do what it does best.” Just let Free Enterprise take over. Just let business and industry do what it does best. Just let private business control the economy and everything will work out. Nonsense! Haven’t the events starting with the 2008 economic meltdown banished all those cherished notions? No – it’s still the mantra of everyone from the hard-right conservatives in Canada and of course the Tea-party-influenced Republican economics wizards in the U.S.
Now - of all places in Canada to have government involved in business, the last should be Alberta. At least that’s part of our mythology. Albertans have been all over the map on economic policy. From the old Social Credit nonsense of a Scottish religious fanatic named C.H. Douglas, espoused by Bible Bill Aberhart who combined his job as premier of Alberta with a revivalist hellfire and brimstone weekly radio program. He would have, if the Supreme Court had not stepped in, started printing money for free distribution to all Albertans. (Interesting that it was the successors to Bible Bill, the Mannings, father and son, who created the Reform Party which led to the Conservatives we have now.)
Earlier, before enterprise madness had taken over, there was the failed attempt by that dastardly “red” Tory Peter Lougheed to try to industrialize Alberta. (Alberta still depends on resources: grains, beef, and oil for its financial health.) Lougheed wanted to try to introduce some variety into the Alberta economy. He thought it would be a good idea to do what economists refer to as “value adding” to the economy. Simply said, you took raw commodities, and processed them and increased their value ten-fold. In fact, further processing, say to a finished consumer product, would add another ten-fold increase. (No economist but I think I got the number right. By why quibble?)
Lougheed, recognizing that Alberta was exporting oil-seed grains for processing, wanted do it at home and keep the profits for themselves. He opened seed-crushing facilities. Soon Alberta was heavily into the production of edible oils. The problem however was that the edible oil market took a nosedive and the Lougheed venture failed. Nice try but no cigar.
Now once again, those die-hard private-does-it-best guys are getting into the oil processing business. I have long complained that the whole country, not just Alberta, is a huge exporter of raw commodities. (Like my favourite hobby horse: Saskatchewan produces the majority of the world; mustard seed but produces little or no finished mustard. In fact, when I was in Dijon, one of our guides told us proudly that their mustard was made from locally grown seed, while all the other used seed from Saskatchewan.)
We all know that Canada is America’s best and most secure source of petroleum products. To that end were had developed a process to turn raw bitumen from the Oil Sands into a slurry to be shipped south via pipeline where is it processed in American refineries.
Turnaround! The Alberta government sees that the price of oil is rising again, Quoting from a recent G&M Report on Business: “Alberta said it will supply the proposed upgrader with 37,500 barrels of bitumen per day provided by production royalties that government will collect from oil sands companies.” What it all boils down to is that Alberta will process more of its own bitumen into diesel fuel. Farmers in Alberta are delighted to know that they will not be able to buy local diesel fuel for their farm equipment. It’s a step.
If Alberta, probably the county’s most right-leaning jurisdiction, can show that a private-public company can work to improve the economy. The plant will generate thousands of jobs. It’s “government to the rescue” and I for one am cheering!
Now - of all places in Canada to have government involved in business, the last should be Alberta. At least that’s part of our mythology. Albertans have been all over the map on economic policy. From the old Social Credit nonsense of a Scottish religious fanatic named C.H. Douglas, espoused by Bible Bill Aberhart who combined his job as premier of Alberta with a revivalist hellfire and brimstone weekly radio program. He would have, if the Supreme Court had not stepped in, started printing money for free distribution to all Albertans. (Interesting that it was the successors to Bible Bill, the Mannings, father and son, who created the Reform Party which led to the Conservatives we have now.)
Earlier, before enterprise madness had taken over, there was the failed attempt by that dastardly “red” Tory Peter Lougheed to try to industrialize Alberta. (Alberta still depends on resources: grains, beef, and oil for its financial health.) Lougheed wanted to try to introduce some variety into the Alberta economy. He thought it would be a good idea to do what economists refer to as “value adding” to the economy. Simply said, you took raw commodities, and processed them and increased their value ten-fold. In fact, further processing, say to a finished consumer product, would add another ten-fold increase. (No economist but I think I got the number right. By why quibble?)
Lougheed, recognizing that Alberta was exporting oil-seed grains for processing, wanted do it at home and keep the profits for themselves. He opened seed-crushing facilities. Soon Alberta was heavily into the production of edible oils. The problem however was that the edible oil market took a nosedive and the Lougheed venture failed. Nice try but no cigar.
Now once again, those die-hard private-does-it-best guys are getting into the oil processing business. I have long complained that the whole country, not just Alberta, is a huge exporter of raw commodities. (Like my favourite hobby horse: Saskatchewan produces the majority of the world; mustard seed but produces little or no finished mustard. In fact, when I was in Dijon, one of our guides told us proudly that their mustard was made from locally grown seed, while all the other used seed from Saskatchewan.)
We all know that Canada is America’s best and most secure source of petroleum products. To that end were had developed a process to turn raw bitumen from the Oil Sands into a slurry to be shipped south via pipeline where is it processed in American refineries.
Turnaround! The Alberta government sees that the price of oil is rising again, Quoting from a recent G&M Report on Business: “Alberta said it will supply the proposed upgrader with 37,500 barrels of bitumen per day provided by production royalties that government will collect from oil sands companies.” What it all boils down to is that Alberta will process more of its own bitumen into diesel fuel. Farmers in Alberta are delighted to know that they will not be able to buy local diesel fuel for their farm equipment. It’s a step.
If Alberta, probably the county’s most right-leaning jurisdiction, can show that a private-public company can work to improve the economy. The plant will generate thousands of jobs. It’s “government to the rescue” and I for one am cheering!
Thursday, February 17, 2011
WHAT GOES AROUND- COMES AROUND
I’m a huge fan of poetic justice, retribution, or whatever you choose to call it. Although I am pretty short-tempered, I enjoy hearing the admonition “Don’t get angry – get even.”
The latest bittersweet vindication for me is the bankruptcy of Borders, America’s second largest book chain after Barnes and Noble. Of course I hate to see the wreckage that follows: the inevitable downsizing, the closing of stores, and the layoff of thousands of employees. In the movie “You’ve Got Mail” Meg Ryan is the proprietor of a neighbourhood children’s book store that is put out of business by the “big box” book store created by Tom Hanks. Everything works out Hollywood-well in the end of course. But that’s Hollywood. The reality is that the big box book stores, which themselves suffered some huge setbacks - remember the near failure of Indigo and its rescue by Chapters and a very deep-pocketed owner? It was these book supermarkets that devastated the “real” bookstores, you know, the ones where you could actually talk to book lovers. The big box stores have it all of course, but the people behind the counter only have to know how to access their computers. My favourite fantasy is that I go to a computer-driven information station and ask for – say - “A Tale of Two Cities” and tell them to look under Dickens. The person at the computer would ask:” “And how would you be spelling that name?” I’m exaggerating of course.
Payback almost always happens where the winners who cared nothing for the destruction of their smaller competition, are themselves open to the same kind of annihilation.
One of the classic examples is how the textile industry in America kept migrating to new cheap labour locations. Small towns throughout New England were the centre of America’s thriving textile industry. There were cotton mills everywhere. There were garment factories all over. New York was the garment capital of America. (Just as Spadina Avenue in Toronto was, along with Montreal, our own clothing hub.) In the U.S., under “right to work” legislation enacted during the Truman years, the factories moved to the Old South where they didn’t have to put up with troublesome unions and other barriers to capital success. The irony of course is that because many industries are bottom-feeders, and chase after the lowest possible wage levels, they quit Carolina and headed for Central America. Even there, they left El Salvador for Honduras where they could pay even lower wages. The delicious but tragic irony was magnified during John Edwards failed run for the Presidential nomination. He promised to revive the battered textile industry. Of course, it was too late. Technology and corporate greed made it impossible to get that toothpaste back into the tube.(An interesting sidebar is that statistically, about 20 years ago about 50% of the clothing bought by Americans was made in America. Now the number is down to 2%.)
So now, Borders, which, along with the other big box book stores, devastated the small book stores, is now feeling the pain as E-Books take over. They were already in trouble because Amazon could outsell them and Amazon had no real estate to worry about. All they needed was to be the back-end to an interment order system and to run warehouses. And warehouses don’t need expensive Big Mall addresses. You may be saying that times change and those who can’t keep up will fall by the wayside. Agreed. But in the case of Borders, “he who lives by the sword etc….”
Who’s to blame? People like me I guess. Having access to book review sections in the Globe and Mail and New York Times, why would I do anything else but download books to my E-Reader? For the dinosaurs who insist that there is still nothing like the feel of a “real” book as you cuddle up to your favourite author, I thought so myself, until I discovered the wonderful portability (especially for travel) and absolute convenience of having Kobo do all the work.
As they say – it’s a jungle out there. Ordinary people get chewed up by the machinery. I’m just as ordinary as the next person and my taste in reading can be handled best by my portable electronic system. So there goes Borders. And who will be next?
The latest bittersweet vindication for me is the bankruptcy of Borders, America’s second largest book chain after Barnes and Noble. Of course I hate to see the wreckage that follows: the inevitable downsizing, the closing of stores, and the layoff of thousands of employees. In the movie “You’ve Got Mail” Meg Ryan is the proprietor of a neighbourhood children’s book store that is put out of business by the “big box” book store created by Tom Hanks. Everything works out Hollywood-well in the end of course. But that’s Hollywood. The reality is that the big box book stores, which themselves suffered some huge setbacks - remember the near failure of Indigo and its rescue by Chapters and a very deep-pocketed owner? It was these book supermarkets that devastated the “real” bookstores, you know, the ones where you could actually talk to book lovers. The big box stores have it all of course, but the people behind the counter only have to know how to access their computers. My favourite fantasy is that I go to a computer-driven information station and ask for – say - “A Tale of Two Cities” and tell them to look under Dickens. The person at the computer would ask:” “And how would you be spelling that name?” I’m exaggerating of course.
Payback almost always happens where the winners who cared nothing for the destruction of their smaller competition, are themselves open to the same kind of annihilation.
One of the classic examples is how the textile industry in America kept migrating to new cheap labour locations. Small towns throughout New England were the centre of America’s thriving textile industry. There were cotton mills everywhere. There were garment factories all over. New York was the garment capital of America. (Just as Spadina Avenue in Toronto was, along with Montreal, our own clothing hub.) In the U.S., under “right to work” legislation enacted during the Truman years, the factories moved to the Old South where they didn’t have to put up with troublesome unions and other barriers to capital success. The irony of course is that because many industries are bottom-feeders, and chase after the lowest possible wage levels, they quit Carolina and headed for Central America. Even there, they left El Salvador for Honduras where they could pay even lower wages. The delicious but tragic irony was magnified during John Edwards failed run for the Presidential nomination. He promised to revive the battered textile industry. Of course, it was too late. Technology and corporate greed made it impossible to get that toothpaste back into the tube.(An interesting sidebar is that statistically, about 20 years ago about 50% of the clothing bought by Americans was made in America. Now the number is down to 2%.)
So now, Borders, which, along with the other big box book stores, devastated the small book stores, is now feeling the pain as E-Books take over. They were already in trouble because Amazon could outsell them and Amazon had no real estate to worry about. All they needed was to be the back-end to an interment order system and to run warehouses. And warehouses don’t need expensive Big Mall addresses. You may be saying that times change and those who can’t keep up will fall by the wayside. Agreed. But in the case of Borders, “he who lives by the sword etc….”
Who’s to blame? People like me I guess. Having access to book review sections in the Globe and Mail and New York Times, why would I do anything else but download books to my E-Reader? For the dinosaurs who insist that there is still nothing like the feel of a “real” book as you cuddle up to your favourite author, I thought so myself, until I discovered the wonderful portability (especially for travel) and absolute convenience of having Kobo do all the work.
As they say – it’s a jungle out there. Ordinary people get chewed up by the machinery. I’m just as ordinary as the next person and my taste in reading can be handled best by my portable electronic system. So there goes Borders. And who will be next?
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
IT'S BECOMING AN OBSESSION
Watching ABC News a few nights ago I was startled but not surprised, when the newsreader said something like: “Americans are worried most about the deficit.” I suppose that ABC, who were the first to jump on the “weapons of mass destruction in Iraq” line that all that stuff was concealed in portable trailers which could move to avoid detection, should also swallow and perpetuate the dogma, beloved of conservatives, all the Republicans and many Democrats, that the deficit is the big villain in the America recovery.
First of all, it is not. Secondly, every survey that I have seen shows that “unemployment” is far and away number one in the American consciousness and the deficit lags quite far behind. Simply because the orthodoxy of deficit fighting has the upper hand politically, does not mean it should have. It’s the same in Canada. In the U.S. they go on and on about how borrowing to sustain the deficit makes America a debtor nation, putting a huge burden on the public purse and, as they always like to say: “On our children and grandchildren.” That is simply a lot of rubbish. It was not such rubbish that voters didn’t stream to the polls to elect the “no-more-Big-Government” members to Congress. Not so big that they didn’t accuse the Democrats of being “tax-and-spend.” The Harper gang uses the same dogma against our Liberals.
I know that I am obsessed with this. I know that many readers disagree. But I do believe devoutly, that the worst thing that can happen to an economy is to have unemployment that decimates the ability of the consumers to consume. The ridiculous irony is that while voters seem to be voting for deficit reduction, every poll says they want more jobs. And as far as “Big Government?” is concerned, who else but government should be installed to make decision that affects all of us? Those decisions ideally, are not made for selfish or self-serving reasons, but with an honest understanding of what is good for a country and its people. It is always sad to realize that so many people believe politicians are a lower form of life. For heaven’s sakes – they are the ones charged with the responsibility to make this a better place to live and work!! That's why we have elections!
So I’m back at my old hobby-horse: it would be better I am sure not to continue to grow the deficit, but unless government steps in, who is going to spend money. Certainly not business and industry who will not spend, will not hire, and will not make capital investments, until the economy improves. That’s Catch 22. It should be obvious even to the likes of Jim, Flaherty or Tony Clement, or for that matter Boemer and his gang in Congress.
Poor Obama. He has retreated so far from his election promises that they are nothing but a hazy memory, Even when he tries to spend money, like 55 billion (over many years to be sure) to build high speed rail, the opposition (and some of his own party) curse him for raising the deficit. Do I have to remind you that the same deficit fighters are the ones who voted against increasing taxes to the top 2%?
For me there is political irony right here at home. When Bob Rae was the N.D.P. premier on Ontario, he grew the deficit to provide jobs. Building was at a standstill. Paper mills were closing. Only government action could save them. And of course, the Citizen’s Coalition, led (remember?) by Stephen Harper was screaming that “you can’t spend your way out of recession.” May I humbly point out that that is precisely what Harper and Flaherty have been doing? And it has worked. The only part that will be missing, is that when times are good again and everyone is making money, taxes will have to rise to reduce the deficit. The irony is obvious: no party gets elected on a platform that includes raising taxes. No one seems to remember that “there is no free lunch.”
First of all, it is not. Secondly, every survey that I have seen shows that “unemployment” is far and away number one in the American consciousness and the deficit lags quite far behind. Simply because the orthodoxy of deficit fighting has the upper hand politically, does not mean it should have. It’s the same in Canada. In the U.S. they go on and on about how borrowing to sustain the deficit makes America a debtor nation, putting a huge burden on the public purse and, as they always like to say: “On our children and grandchildren.” That is simply a lot of rubbish. It was not such rubbish that voters didn’t stream to the polls to elect the “no-more-Big-Government” members to Congress. Not so big that they didn’t accuse the Democrats of being “tax-and-spend.” The Harper gang uses the same dogma against our Liberals.
I know that I am obsessed with this. I know that many readers disagree. But I do believe devoutly, that the worst thing that can happen to an economy is to have unemployment that decimates the ability of the consumers to consume. The ridiculous irony is that while voters seem to be voting for deficit reduction, every poll says they want more jobs. And as far as “Big Government?” is concerned, who else but government should be installed to make decision that affects all of us? Those decisions ideally, are not made for selfish or self-serving reasons, but with an honest understanding of what is good for a country and its people. It is always sad to realize that so many people believe politicians are a lower form of life. For heaven’s sakes – they are the ones charged with the responsibility to make this a better place to live and work!! That's why we have elections!
So I’m back at my old hobby-horse: it would be better I am sure not to continue to grow the deficit, but unless government steps in, who is going to spend money. Certainly not business and industry who will not spend, will not hire, and will not make capital investments, until the economy improves. That’s Catch 22. It should be obvious even to the likes of Jim, Flaherty or Tony Clement, or for that matter Boemer and his gang in Congress.
Poor Obama. He has retreated so far from his election promises that they are nothing but a hazy memory, Even when he tries to spend money, like 55 billion (over many years to be sure) to build high speed rail, the opposition (and some of his own party) curse him for raising the deficit. Do I have to remind you that the same deficit fighters are the ones who voted against increasing taxes to the top 2%?
For me there is political irony right here at home. When Bob Rae was the N.D.P. premier on Ontario, he grew the deficit to provide jobs. Building was at a standstill. Paper mills were closing. Only government action could save them. And of course, the Citizen’s Coalition, led (remember?) by Stephen Harper was screaming that “you can’t spend your way out of recession.” May I humbly point out that that is precisely what Harper and Flaherty have been doing? And it has worked. The only part that will be missing, is that when times are good again and everyone is making money, taxes will have to rise to reduce the deficit. The irony is obvious: no party gets elected on a platform that includes raising taxes. No one seems to remember that “there is no free lunch.”
Friday, February 11, 2011
CAREFUL WHAT YOU ASK FOR.
For a few minutes today (Friday) I sat glued to my TV. There is a wonderful breathlessness about all the commentators as they probe the realities behind the resignation of Mubarak. The networks – CBC Newsworld, CNN, MSNBC ( I didn’t bother with Fox) seem to be in a battle to be first and fastest with the latest word from the streets of Cairo. Suddenly everyone is an expert ion Egypt.
In a recent OpEd piece in the Times, the writer observed that two weeks ago most Americans wouldn’t be able to pick Mubarak out of a police line-up. Suddenly we have all grown wise. Suddenly we all have opinions about Egypt and the effect this “revolution” will have on the future of the Middle East and its relationship with the rest of the world, especially America. Recently I, another expert, wrote that I worried about the power vacuum that might be left if Mubarak quit. Now he has and everyone is signing on with their opinions. Carl Bernstein, a very good journalist worries that the “new” Egypt will not be the friend to America that Mubarak was. He also worried that the new regime may be less friendly to Israel. Everyone speculates. No one knows.
I know that Egypt is referred to officially as “The Arab Republic of Egypt.” I find that very strange. When Syria and Egypt made a political union they called it the U.A.R – the United Arab Republic, almost everyone who knew anything about the Middle East commented that the name was a misnomer because Egypt was not an Arab country. But now, all the commentators during the crisis refer to it as an Arab country and that Cairo is the centre of the Arab World. That definition comes easily to western pundits, but Cairo, while it may be the largest Muslim City (and I’m not sure about Jakarta in Indonesia) it is not the centre of the Arab world. Historically that centre is where the anointed Caliphs ruled: Baghdad. (“Anointed” is what has led to the outrageous and deadly battle between Shia and Sunni over the succession of Mohammed’s grandson Ali to the throne of Caliph. Twelve hundred years later and they are still k8illing each other.)
I presume that if you asked the same people who couldn’t pick Mubarak out of a police lineup, to name Arab countries, they would be all over the place. I would guess that many of them believe that Iran is an Arab country. It is not, Just as Pakistan and Indonesia are not Arab countries.
I enjoy splitting hairs. Not because I think it really matters, but because it is a reflection of how little so many people with so many opinions, really know.
I am no expert of course. I do not pretend to be. But I worry that power has passed to the army in Egypt. It was the army that was behind Nasser and Sadat and Mubarak. I suggest that even if there are to be elections that the winner will govern with the approval of the army. I suggest that if a radical Islamist movement should come out on top in an Egyptian election that the Constitution will be compromised and the army will step in. It will all be in the interests of “stability.” Which takes us right back to the last thirty years in Egypt. Mubarak declared martial law. It has never been lifted. It kept the country “secure.” The irony is that in his struggle to maintain control, Mubarak offered to “gradually loosen the martial law.”
They have a long way to go. I wish them well.
In a recent OpEd piece in the Times, the writer observed that two weeks ago most Americans wouldn’t be able to pick Mubarak out of a police line-up. Suddenly we have all grown wise. Suddenly we all have opinions about Egypt and the effect this “revolution” will have on the future of the Middle East and its relationship with the rest of the world, especially America. Recently I, another expert, wrote that I worried about the power vacuum that might be left if Mubarak quit. Now he has and everyone is signing on with their opinions. Carl Bernstein, a very good journalist worries that the “new” Egypt will not be the friend to America that Mubarak was. He also worried that the new regime may be less friendly to Israel. Everyone speculates. No one knows.
I know that Egypt is referred to officially as “The Arab Republic of Egypt.” I find that very strange. When Syria and Egypt made a political union they called it the U.A.R – the United Arab Republic, almost everyone who knew anything about the Middle East commented that the name was a misnomer because Egypt was not an Arab country. But now, all the commentators during the crisis refer to it as an Arab country and that Cairo is the centre of the Arab World. That definition comes easily to western pundits, but Cairo, while it may be the largest Muslim City (and I’m not sure about Jakarta in Indonesia) it is not the centre of the Arab world. Historically that centre is where the anointed Caliphs ruled: Baghdad. (“Anointed” is what has led to the outrageous and deadly battle between Shia and Sunni over the succession of Mohammed’s grandson Ali to the throne of Caliph. Twelve hundred years later and they are still k8illing each other.)
I presume that if you asked the same people who couldn’t pick Mubarak out of a police lineup, to name Arab countries, they would be all over the place. I would guess that many of them believe that Iran is an Arab country. It is not, Just as Pakistan and Indonesia are not Arab countries.
I enjoy splitting hairs. Not because I think it really matters, but because it is a reflection of how little so many people with so many opinions, really know.
I am no expert of course. I do not pretend to be. But I worry that power has passed to the army in Egypt. It was the army that was behind Nasser and Sadat and Mubarak. I suggest that even if there are to be elections that the winner will govern with the approval of the army. I suggest that if a radical Islamist movement should come out on top in an Egyptian election that the Constitution will be compromised and the army will step in. It will all be in the interests of “stability.” Which takes us right back to the last thirty years in Egypt. Mubarak declared martial law. It has never been lifted. It kept the country “secure.” The irony is that in his struggle to maintain control, Mubarak offered to “gradually loosen the martial law.”
They have a long way to go. I wish them well.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
#2 - MYTH OF EXCEPTIONALISM
America is still, indisputably, the world’s biggest economic power with the biggest consumer market and, while it is sagging, an outstanding industrial infrastructure.
But they can’t or won’t get it right! Stubbornness? Intractability? Conservatism? All are to blame. But the biggest blame can be laid on self-delusion. If they were as “exceptional" as they keep saying they are, the country would not be lagging so far behind the rest of the world in transportation infrastructure.
I’ve been here before. It has been years since I suggested that a government/private consortium could build the world’s most comprehensive high-speed rail network. When $150 a barrel oil and 9/11 crippled the airline industry, I said this is the chance America has been waiting for. It’s again the old “When you get lemons make lemonade.” Turn disaster into opportunity. I suggested then that government should propose to the airline industry that they join in a massive overhaul of transportation. Airports would become, as they are in major European cities, terminals for high speed rail. But of course, that would mean the dreaded “public enterprise,” and the echoes of the spectre of (ugh) socialism! Run for your lives, the Russians are coming, and old stuff like that.
So Obama, who has dithered on the edges of mass transit reform, has said he wants to spend $53 billion to develop high speed rail networks. Of course, the Republican House says it’s a “luxury” the country cannot afford in this time of growing deficits. Calling high speed rail a luxury is like calling food an indulgence. Bound by the toxic combination of right-wing orthodoxy and fear of government involvement, the opposition continues.
I am not a transportation expert, so I am not sure whether or not the rail system functioned during the horrible weather of the last few weeks; weather that strangled commerce and shut down airlines. (There was also a precious irony in the thousands of cancellations. To speed up airline service, new regulations say that every passenger must be paid for having to wait for a flight after a spoecific period of delay. The result is that instead of postponing flights and paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties, everything was cancelled.) I know there were delays with commuter rail, but maybe a lot of that was because commuters couldn’t get to the station to catch the train. Their cars were stuck in the snow, as if the car was the only way to get anywhere.
We Canadians are not doing any better. For more years than I can remember, I have deplored the fact that rail travel to our country’s capital is mired in the 40s. Just as America will, if Obama can ram it through, build new lines especially for high speed, Canada should have long ago created a new high speed route from Toronto and Montreal to Ottawa. Leave the existing rail lines to carry local and freight. Come staggering into the 21st century.
Just to rub a little salt into the wounds of inaction or stubbornness, China will lead even Europe, in high speed electric transit. While America continues to delude itself with the belief in greatness, lesser countries are taking the lead. I can hardly wait for Brazil to get into the act.
But they can’t or won’t get it right! Stubbornness? Intractability? Conservatism? All are to blame. But the biggest blame can be laid on self-delusion. If they were as “exceptional" as they keep saying they are, the country would not be lagging so far behind the rest of the world in transportation infrastructure.
I’ve been here before. It has been years since I suggested that a government/private consortium could build the world’s most comprehensive high-speed rail network. When $150 a barrel oil and 9/11 crippled the airline industry, I said this is the chance America has been waiting for. It’s again the old “When you get lemons make lemonade.” Turn disaster into opportunity. I suggested then that government should propose to the airline industry that they join in a massive overhaul of transportation. Airports would become, as they are in major European cities, terminals for high speed rail. But of course, that would mean the dreaded “public enterprise,” and the echoes of the spectre of (ugh) socialism! Run for your lives, the Russians are coming, and old stuff like that.
So Obama, who has dithered on the edges of mass transit reform, has said he wants to spend $53 billion to develop high speed rail networks. Of course, the Republican House says it’s a “luxury” the country cannot afford in this time of growing deficits. Calling high speed rail a luxury is like calling food an indulgence. Bound by the toxic combination of right-wing orthodoxy and fear of government involvement, the opposition continues.
I am not a transportation expert, so I am not sure whether or not the rail system functioned during the horrible weather of the last few weeks; weather that strangled commerce and shut down airlines. (There was also a precious irony in the thousands of cancellations. To speed up airline service, new regulations say that every passenger must be paid for having to wait for a flight after a spoecific period of delay. The result is that instead of postponing flights and paying out hundreds of thousands of dollars in penalties, everything was cancelled.) I know there were delays with commuter rail, but maybe a lot of that was because commuters couldn’t get to the station to catch the train. Their cars were stuck in the snow, as if the car was the only way to get anywhere.
We Canadians are not doing any better. For more years than I can remember, I have deplored the fact that rail travel to our country’s capital is mired in the 40s. Just as America will, if Obama can ram it through, build new lines especially for high speed, Canada should have long ago created a new high speed route from Toronto and Montreal to Ottawa. Leave the existing rail lines to carry local and freight. Come staggering into the 21st century.
Just to rub a little salt into the wounds of inaction or stubbornness, China will lead even Europe, in high speed electric transit. While America continues to delude itself with the belief in greatness, lesser countries are taking the lead. I can hardly wait for Brazil to get into the act.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
MORE: MY CONSCIENCE - MY GUIDE
I’m not sure there are many altruists left on Earth. Cynics, looking at modern society suggest that just about everything we do is based on self-interest; that underneath even the most selfless, caring response to social needs, is the imperative to be self-aggrandizing. You could even argue that Mother Theresa had nothing material to gain by being caring about the poor, but even she was preparing her place in heaven.
Recently I received a lengthy booklet telling me about the future of commodities. It had nothing at all to do with feeding the world’s hungry, stopping the spread of greenhouse gases, or trying to stem the tide of exploitation of non-renewable resources. It was not meant to be that kind of document. It was solely for the benefit of people like me, who have money invested in securities based on commodities, not just steel and coal, but food and fertilizer – things that should be associated with human survival, not with making a buck. But I live on the income generated by investments. I can speak as if I were altruistic, and at times I have chosen principle over practicality, but when it comes to the money that keeps a roof over our heads and food in 0ur bellies, I am about as self-serving as they come. I’m not even sure that all my ideals that were wrapped up in my on-air opinions were in the service of telling what I believed to be truth, whatever the cost, and more about keeping my spot in the local pantheon of celebrities.
The financial meltdown that nearly took America down began in 2008 with the sudden realization that there were billions of dollars of “toxic” securities based on mortgages given to people who couldn’t afford them. Financial institutions were out of control. CEOs of money-losing companies were being given millions in bonuses and stock options. Hirings were made on the basis of how quickly you could enhance the bottom line, with there almost never being a long view of the ultimate results of runaway speculation. The first casualty was Lehman Brothers. They had accumulated so much in worthless assets that their stock plunged and took investors and employees with it. Bear Stearns, whose big “players” were famous for thousand dollar bottles of champagne consumed with hundred dollar cigars, was saved from extinction when it was bought for a fraction of its former value. In fact, if the Stock Exchange had not interfered and demanded more, they would have been bought for $2 a share
Merrill Lynch was about to be the next to go, bring with it ruin to more than 60,000 employees.
The book “Fall of The Titans” is the best thing I have read about how America went to the brink and narrowly escaped falling into something even worse than the Great Depression. The story of how the rating companies, Standard and Poors and Moody’s said those toxic securities were triple A even though most of the mortgages were “sub-prime. It has become a legend of despair. But to me, the most significant part is the completely self-serving attitude of some of the players. The architect of Merrill’s near ruin was Stan O’Neal, who ruled this venerable company like a dictator, brooking no interference and loading his executive with people who would march to his drumbeat. As the disaster became obvious, O’Neal’s future was on the line. (A friend of mine, a member of Merrill’s “Thundering Herd” said if he met O’Neal he would punch him in the face.) What author Greg Farrell observes is that with chaos threatening O’Neal thought only of his own survival. Everything he did was to advance or protect himself. I’m not going to jump from the particular to the general and say that all the financial moguls implicated in the great 2008 disaster were looking out only for number 1. I do wonder though. How many people involved in the securities business always act in the best interests of their clients, their fellow employees, and the larger health of the society? Profits come first.
In the last few months, the most venerable and successful of all the investment bankers Goldman Sachs paid an enormous fine for improper dealings. It was also said that Goldman actually bet against its own clients, hedging with short sales on the securities they had sold their clients. In other firms there were allegations of “front loading” a total violation of trust between broker and client. The securities department would receive a huge order from a client. Before they would fill the order they would invest their own cash in the stock, riding the coattails of what would predictably be a rise in price.
During those hectic times when companies were falling, when government would bail out those “too big to fail” there were panicked mergers. Of course, those mergers would result in the loss of thousands of jobs as companies “rationalized” their operations. But that’s business isn’t it?
There were a lot of bad guys and a few good guys. The good guys actually wanted, like the president of Merrill and number 2 in the pecking order, to save this venerable company and the jobs of thousands. I can’t look into his head to discover how much was honest altruism and how much was self-preservation.
“Looking after number one” is an integral part of our culture. But even the greediest should know that without goodwill there will ultimately be a shadow over the profits.
I have spoken like the perfect hypocrite whose continuing survival depends on the price of oil (it should go up) and the rising cost of food, and the next political crisis. Do I have any choice?
Recently I received a lengthy booklet telling me about the future of commodities. It had nothing at all to do with feeding the world’s hungry, stopping the spread of greenhouse gases, or trying to stem the tide of exploitation of non-renewable resources. It was not meant to be that kind of document. It was solely for the benefit of people like me, who have money invested in securities based on commodities, not just steel and coal, but food and fertilizer – things that should be associated with human survival, not with making a buck. But I live on the income generated by investments. I can speak as if I were altruistic, and at times I have chosen principle over practicality, but when it comes to the money that keeps a roof over our heads and food in 0ur bellies, I am about as self-serving as they come. I’m not even sure that all my ideals that were wrapped up in my on-air opinions were in the service of telling what I believed to be truth, whatever the cost, and more about keeping my spot in the local pantheon of celebrities.
The financial meltdown that nearly took America down began in 2008 with the sudden realization that there were billions of dollars of “toxic” securities based on mortgages given to people who couldn’t afford them. Financial institutions were out of control. CEOs of money-losing companies were being given millions in bonuses and stock options. Hirings were made on the basis of how quickly you could enhance the bottom line, with there almost never being a long view of the ultimate results of runaway speculation. The first casualty was Lehman Brothers. They had accumulated so much in worthless assets that their stock plunged and took investors and employees with it. Bear Stearns, whose big “players” were famous for thousand dollar bottles of champagne consumed with hundred dollar cigars, was saved from extinction when it was bought for a fraction of its former value. In fact, if the Stock Exchange had not interfered and demanded more, they would have been bought for $2 a share
Merrill Lynch was about to be the next to go, bring with it ruin to more than 60,000 employees.
The book “Fall of The Titans” is the best thing I have read about how America went to the brink and narrowly escaped falling into something even worse than the Great Depression. The story of how the rating companies, Standard and Poors and Moody’s said those toxic securities were triple A even though most of the mortgages were “sub-prime. It has become a legend of despair. But to me, the most significant part is the completely self-serving attitude of some of the players. The architect of Merrill’s near ruin was Stan O’Neal, who ruled this venerable company like a dictator, brooking no interference and loading his executive with people who would march to his drumbeat. As the disaster became obvious, O’Neal’s future was on the line. (A friend of mine, a member of Merrill’s “Thundering Herd” said if he met O’Neal he would punch him in the face.) What author Greg Farrell observes is that with chaos threatening O’Neal thought only of his own survival. Everything he did was to advance or protect himself. I’m not going to jump from the particular to the general and say that all the financial moguls implicated in the great 2008 disaster were looking out only for number 1. I do wonder though. How many people involved in the securities business always act in the best interests of their clients, their fellow employees, and the larger health of the society? Profits come first.
In the last few months, the most venerable and successful of all the investment bankers Goldman Sachs paid an enormous fine for improper dealings. It was also said that Goldman actually bet against its own clients, hedging with short sales on the securities they had sold their clients. In other firms there were allegations of “front loading” a total violation of trust between broker and client. The securities department would receive a huge order from a client. Before they would fill the order they would invest their own cash in the stock, riding the coattails of what would predictably be a rise in price.
During those hectic times when companies were falling, when government would bail out those “too big to fail” there were panicked mergers. Of course, those mergers would result in the loss of thousands of jobs as companies “rationalized” their operations. But that’s business isn’t it?
There were a lot of bad guys and a few good guys. The good guys actually wanted, like the president of Merrill and number 2 in the pecking order, to save this venerable company and the jobs of thousands. I can’t look into his head to discover how much was honest altruism and how much was self-preservation.
“Looking after number one” is an integral part of our culture. But even the greediest should know that without goodwill there will ultimately be a shadow over the profits.
I have spoken like the perfect hypocrite whose continuing survival depends on the price of oil (it should go up) and the rising cost of food, and the next political crisis. Do I have any choice?
Sunday, February 6, 2011
MY CONSCIENCE - MY GUIDE
With apologies to Mark Kolke: some musings. (Mark's Blog is called Mark’s Musings. He trudges through the morning snow in Calgary with his dog and examinees the state of the world.) My musing started as my wife and I drove north on the Don Valley Parkway on this Sunday morning. It was not crowded so I wondered why a driver would, for more than a mile, tailgate a delivery van. There was plenty of room to pass on either side.
At the same time I found myself wondering about a recent story saying that drivers were flouting Ontario’s new law forbidding hands-on cell phone use or texting while driving. Aside from the clear danger to themselves and others on the road, there is the even more compelling reason not to: it is against the law!
My musing continued as I remembered the timeless quote by Oliver Goldsmith: “The true judge of a man’s character is what he will do if he knows he can get away with it.”
From there it is less than a quantum leap to why we behave the way we do, Often in defiance, not only of the law, but of any kind of reasonable human moral judgement. In other words, it is against the law to “follow to closely” in a car. But even more, it is contrary to decent behaviour, notwithstanding the law. The question then arises: is our behaviour circumscribed by law or by our own consciences, by our native sense of what it acceptable or unacceptable behaviour? Do we need a “code” of behaviour to be published, or do we know that it isn’t decent to kill or steal or burn down someone’s house.
In my earlier years I taught at a Reform Temple in Toronto. (I severed my relationship with it, and any house of worship partly because the rabbi was “re-mystifying liberal Judaism, and because my already shaky beliefs were seriously eroded.)
I taught a class in Bible study. I tried to “secularize” what is essentially a religious document while at the same time trying to justify some kind of "divine” interference, in the codification (not the creation!) of a moral standard. It was of course, epitomized by the Ten Commandments. I tried to tell my class that these edicts were a symbol of our sense of the Divine. I was also notorious for my “bible-burning” the act immortalized in a book by Rick Salutin. This class was my last stab at trying to reconcile humanism with the bible. I have since given up.
I have seen and heard, with amusement, the debates between theologians and atheists over the issue of where morality is based. The theologians believe that it is scripturally-based and that without the “civilizing” effect of the divinely-inspired writing, we would be morally rudderless. Of course, I side with the atheists who insist that moral judgements are part of civilized humanity and need no push from any notions of a divine power. The Existentialists do know right from wrong. In fact, right and wrong are challenged philosophically since we cannot judge behaviour by absolute standards. I prefer to use the word “appropriate” signifying that any kind of behaviour or moral decision is made pragmatically and is weighed in terms of how appropriate it may be to the circumstance. At its simplest: it may be a sin to kill but if there is a war with human survival at stake there will be killing. (Simple Philosophy 101.)
Bill Maher in his movie “Religulous” asks why, there is nothing new in the Ten Commandments, like amendments to the Constitution I guess. There should be “Thou shallt not kill innocent people with suicide bombing.” If the great mass of believers were brought into the 21st century with commandments like: “Thou shallt not tailgate your neighbour’s car,” or “Speed ye not on public highways,” or “Chain smoking will kill your neighbours." Would they, guided by the super-conscience of the divine, stop behaving anti-socially?
Millions still subscribe to the dogma of the old colonializing world that by taking over a country run by savages, we “civilizes” them by putting them in touch with a body of law, or according to the missionaries, with the “word of God.”
Because I am a non-believer I would not subscribe to it, but might there be a better standard of behaviour for people who won’t obey secular laws enacted by legitimate governments, if those laws were enshrined in a holy book?
The fact that I even consider it is an insult to one’s intelligence. But on the other hand….
At the same time I found myself wondering about a recent story saying that drivers were flouting Ontario’s new law forbidding hands-on cell phone use or texting while driving. Aside from the clear danger to themselves and others on the road, there is the even more compelling reason not to: it is against the law!
My musing continued as I remembered the timeless quote by Oliver Goldsmith: “The true judge of a man’s character is what he will do if he knows he can get away with it.”
From there it is less than a quantum leap to why we behave the way we do, Often in defiance, not only of the law, but of any kind of reasonable human moral judgement. In other words, it is against the law to “follow to closely” in a car. But even more, it is contrary to decent behaviour, notwithstanding the law. The question then arises: is our behaviour circumscribed by law or by our own consciences, by our native sense of what it acceptable or unacceptable behaviour? Do we need a “code” of behaviour to be published, or do we know that it isn’t decent to kill or steal or burn down someone’s house.
In my earlier years I taught at a Reform Temple in Toronto. (I severed my relationship with it, and any house of worship partly because the rabbi was “re-mystifying liberal Judaism, and because my already shaky beliefs were seriously eroded.)
I taught a class in Bible study. I tried to “secularize” what is essentially a religious document while at the same time trying to justify some kind of "divine” interference, in the codification (not the creation!) of a moral standard. It was of course, epitomized by the Ten Commandments. I tried to tell my class that these edicts were a symbol of our sense of the Divine. I was also notorious for my “bible-burning” the act immortalized in a book by Rick Salutin. This class was my last stab at trying to reconcile humanism with the bible. I have since given up.
I have seen and heard, with amusement, the debates between theologians and atheists over the issue of where morality is based. The theologians believe that it is scripturally-based and that without the “civilizing” effect of the divinely-inspired writing, we would be morally rudderless. Of course, I side with the atheists who insist that moral judgements are part of civilized humanity and need no push from any notions of a divine power. The Existentialists do know right from wrong. In fact, right and wrong are challenged philosophically since we cannot judge behaviour by absolute standards. I prefer to use the word “appropriate” signifying that any kind of behaviour or moral decision is made pragmatically and is weighed in terms of how appropriate it may be to the circumstance. At its simplest: it may be a sin to kill but if there is a war with human survival at stake there will be killing. (Simple Philosophy 101.)
Bill Maher in his movie “Religulous” asks why, there is nothing new in the Ten Commandments, like amendments to the Constitution I guess. There should be “Thou shallt not kill innocent people with suicide bombing.” If the great mass of believers were brought into the 21st century with commandments like: “Thou shallt not tailgate your neighbour’s car,” or “Speed ye not on public highways,” or “Chain smoking will kill your neighbours." Would they, guided by the super-conscience of the divine, stop behaving anti-socially?
Millions still subscribe to the dogma of the old colonializing world that by taking over a country run by savages, we “civilizes” them by putting them in touch with a body of law, or according to the missionaries, with the “word of God.”
Because I am a non-believer I would not subscribe to it, but might there be a better standard of behaviour for people who won’t obey secular laws enacted by legitimate governments, if those laws were enshrined in a holy book?
The fact that I even consider it is an insult to one’s intelligence. But on the other hand….
Friday, February 4, 2011
FREE AT LAST??
The Arab world is trembling on the brink of a new freedom, a freedom they have never had, a freedom that doesn't fit into the Realpolitik of power balance and petroleum. Make no mistake about it: the old Bismark Realpolitik is very much alive and well in the world of the ayatollahs, the emirs, the pashas and the kings. But it might be coming to an end, and the end will not be pretty. It will not be pretty because people who finally rise against oppression have never learned what it means to be a part of government, a part of public consensus, a part of political freedom and of choice.
Russia, when the Romanovs were finally toppled, found itself in the grip of another autocrat. At least this new power that emerged in 1917 represented itself as being on the side of the oppressed. But then they too became, and perhaps in the era of Putin, still oppressors. Democracy simply doesn’t happen. It evolves. It rises from the culture, the thought, the writings, and the strivings toward a better life. In fact, the seminal work on the subject of authoritarianism is probably still Erich Fromm’s “Escape From Freedom.” He posits that people who have lived under autocratic rule end up with more of the same – because it is what they are used to.
Enough high-blown rhetoric! The facts in Egypt are simple: Mubarak has had twenty years to turn Egypt into a democracy, but he has, in the name of public order, a convenient haven for dictators, kept the country under the yoke of martial law. What’s more, he has been supported by America which gives billions of dollars in aid, billions without which the country might be in an ever worse state of poverty and need.
I have no time for Mubarak. That’s easy to say because I live in a comfortable apartment on downtown Toronto, where I can speak freely, and where I can enjoy peace, culture, and good food. So, as they say: “It’s easy for me to say.”
However horrid Mubarak has been, his sudden departure would be a catastrophe. Yes, it is true, that finally, in the face of spontaneous and apparently universal revolution, he has announced that he will step down and an election will be called. Yes, it is true that he seemed not to want to upset the peaceful demonstrators, until he decided to bring in paid goons and thugs who, for a price, would declare themselves to be his supporters. Of course, not all Mubarak supporters are thugs. Many are hard-working business and professional people who want the only thing that works: stability. Now the stability has vanished.
But it will become profoundly worse if Mubarak caves in and leaves tomorrow. There will be a political vacuum. The disparate parties jockeying for positions will proclaim themselves in charge. Those parties include the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
You can't elect a government in the streets. You can’t riot a country into democracy. When you do, the opportunists will arrive and power will devolve to a new tyrant. Washington, which does not have much of a record at nation-building, proposes that Mubarak step down, be replaced by the vice-president (whom the freedom-seekers detest) and have him chair a committee which will include the Muslim Brotherhood, and present a new constitution.
It is obvious that the “revolutionaries” are an amorphous, leaderless crowd. They share a common wish but they had better be careful what they wish for. Without leadership there can be no stability. But without a measured, legal rise to power, there will be little hope for the aspirations of millions to be fulfilled. However difficult it may be, they must pull back and begin a serious dialogue with the existing government. They cannot rely on edicts from the President. He must make contact with them, and they with him. There must be order or there will be chaos. Egypt cannot endure chaos on top of oppression,
Russia, when the Romanovs were finally toppled, found itself in the grip of another autocrat. At least this new power that emerged in 1917 represented itself as being on the side of the oppressed. But then they too became, and perhaps in the era of Putin, still oppressors. Democracy simply doesn’t happen. It evolves. It rises from the culture, the thought, the writings, and the strivings toward a better life. In fact, the seminal work on the subject of authoritarianism is probably still Erich Fromm’s “Escape From Freedom.” He posits that people who have lived under autocratic rule end up with more of the same – because it is what they are used to.
Enough high-blown rhetoric! The facts in Egypt are simple: Mubarak has had twenty years to turn Egypt into a democracy, but he has, in the name of public order, a convenient haven for dictators, kept the country under the yoke of martial law. What’s more, he has been supported by America which gives billions of dollars in aid, billions without which the country might be in an ever worse state of poverty and need.
I have no time for Mubarak. That’s easy to say because I live in a comfortable apartment on downtown Toronto, where I can speak freely, and where I can enjoy peace, culture, and good food. So, as they say: “It’s easy for me to say.”
However horrid Mubarak has been, his sudden departure would be a catastrophe. Yes, it is true, that finally, in the face of spontaneous and apparently universal revolution, he has announced that he will step down and an election will be called. Yes, it is true that he seemed not to want to upset the peaceful demonstrators, until he decided to bring in paid goons and thugs who, for a price, would declare themselves to be his supporters. Of course, not all Mubarak supporters are thugs. Many are hard-working business and professional people who want the only thing that works: stability. Now the stability has vanished.
But it will become profoundly worse if Mubarak caves in and leaves tomorrow. There will be a political vacuum. The disparate parties jockeying for positions will proclaim themselves in charge. Those parties include the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
You can't elect a government in the streets. You can’t riot a country into democracy. When you do, the opportunists will arrive and power will devolve to a new tyrant. Washington, which does not have much of a record at nation-building, proposes that Mubarak step down, be replaced by the vice-president (whom the freedom-seekers detest) and have him chair a committee which will include the Muslim Brotherhood, and present a new constitution.
It is obvious that the “revolutionaries” are an amorphous, leaderless crowd. They share a common wish but they had better be careful what they wish for. Without leadership there can be no stability. But without a measured, legal rise to power, there will be little hope for the aspirations of millions to be fulfilled. However difficult it may be, they must pull back and begin a serious dialogue with the existing government. They cannot rely on edicts from the President. He must make contact with them, and they with him. There must be order or there will be chaos. Egypt cannot endure chaos on top of oppression,
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
MY BOYHOOD IN HISTORY
I don’t remember exactly when my love affair with history began. Perhaps it was because I was a growing boy when the world was changing; when Hitler was rising; when chaos was looming. I don’t know. I do know that when I was nine or ten years old I was “up" on current events. I remember the Spanish Civil War. I remember an Italian family who lived on Brunswick Avenue when I was a seven year old. They seemed to cheer for Mussolini and his venture into Ethiopia. I remember Chamberlain going to Munich and returning full of futile hope. I remember Anschluss with Austria and the occupation of Sudetenland, followed by the complete occupation of Czechoslovakia. I remember being a “lefty” when the Soviet Union seemed to be the only country that took sides with the “Loyalists” in the Spanish War and the only country ready to fight on behalf of the Czechs. I was shocked when they signed a non-aggression treaty with the Nazis. I knew even then that it was a defensive ploy, and that the Nazis and the Reds shared no common ground except mutual hatred.
Even today I find myself attracted to documentary film that appears on the Military Channel and retells the stories of the “Great” War and the misery in the trenches and of the rise of Hitler.
I was, as were millions of others, swept along by the Lanny Budd series by Upton Sinclair, a panoramic view of Europe from the beginning of the 20th century. I read with sadness and incredulity this item in Wickipedea: “The series covers in sequence much of the political history of the Western world, particularly Europe and America, in the first half of the twentieth century. Out of print and almost totally forgotten today, the novels were all bestsellers upon publication and were published in 21 countries. The third book in the series, Dragon's Teeth, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1943.
I was carried along with Lanny Budd who seemed to be present at every critical point in history. I started to lose interest with Sinclair became tangled up in spiritualism to the extent that communication with the “other side” was part of his last books.
But Sinclair put me there when Colonel House and Woodrow Wilson were waging their battle of futility against the entrenched anger of Clemenceau. He was brilliant with the invention of the classic “Beauty Budd” – Lanny’s mother, who seemed always to be the socialite who hobnobbed with everyone.
Now the pleasure of re-visiting that history has been renewed. I have just finished “Fall of Giants” the first in a trilogy by Ken Follett. It is difficult not to enjoy Follett’s painstaking look at history, woven, as Upton Sinclair did, into the lives of fictitious characters who were always present when the world was changing.
Missing were Sinclair characters like Basil Zaharoff, the international arms dealer who Sinclair inserted into all the historic intrigue of the period between the two wars. But Follett gave me a coal-mining town in Wales and the brother and sister team of Billy and Ethel Williams pitted against the Tory Lord Earl Fitzhugh. He gave me a German I could love and the Junker mentality that underlay the rise of Pan-Germanism. He gave me two brothers growing up in Russia and the most dramatic replay of the 1905 massacre in St, Petersburg.
The first book ends tantalizingly as Ethel Williams confronts Lord Fitzhugh. It is the twenties and Ramsay MacDonald is the Labour Prime Minister in a coalition with the Liberals.
Please Mr. Follett – more of the same. I have been there many times, but each time I take the trip is better than the last.
Even today I find myself attracted to documentary film that appears on the Military Channel and retells the stories of the “Great” War and the misery in the trenches and of the rise of Hitler.
I was, as were millions of others, swept along by the Lanny Budd series by Upton Sinclair, a panoramic view of Europe from the beginning of the 20th century. I read with sadness and incredulity this item in Wickipedea: “The series covers in sequence much of the political history of the Western world, particularly Europe and America, in the first half of the twentieth century. Out of print and almost totally forgotten today, the novels were all bestsellers upon publication and were published in 21 countries. The third book in the series, Dragon's Teeth, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1943.
I was carried along with Lanny Budd who seemed to be present at every critical point in history. I started to lose interest with Sinclair became tangled up in spiritualism to the extent that communication with the “other side” was part of his last books.
But Sinclair put me there when Colonel House and Woodrow Wilson were waging their battle of futility against the entrenched anger of Clemenceau. He was brilliant with the invention of the classic “Beauty Budd” – Lanny’s mother, who seemed always to be the socialite who hobnobbed with everyone.
Now the pleasure of re-visiting that history has been renewed. I have just finished “Fall of Giants” the first in a trilogy by Ken Follett. It is difficult not to enjoy Follett’s painstaking look at history, woven, as Upton Sinclair did, into the lives of fictitious characters who were always present when the world was changing.
Missing were Sinclair characters like Basil Zaharoff, the international arms dealer who Sinclair inserted into all the historic intrigue of the period between the two wars. But Follett gave me a coal-mining town in Wales and the brother and sister team of Billy and Ethel Williams pitted against the Tory Lord Earl Fitzhugh. He gave me a German I could love and the Junker mentality that underlay the rise of Pan-Germanism. He gave me two brothers growing up in Russia and the most dramatic replay of the 1905 massacre in St, Petersburg.
The first book ends tantalizingly as Ethel Williams confronts Lord Fitzhugh. It is the twenties and Ramsay MacDonald is the Labour Prime Minister in a coalition with the Liberals.
Please Mr. Follett – more of the same. I have been there many times, but each time I take the trip is better than the last.
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