The world according to Ien

I have been experiencing somewhat of  a political identity crisis. 

Increasingly I find myself cheering in favour of certain thinkers who identify as conservative. I can watch Douglas Murray videos for hours. 

Yet I believe in a strong social safety net. I don’t mind paying taxes for that. 

I believe in public institutions that create as much equality of opportunity as possible. Schools, libraries, museums, parks....

There are many other differences and I cannot imagine myself ever voting  conservative. 

It turns out that I am not alone. Youtube is crawling with channels by thoughtful people who have always considered themselves leftwing BUT.

Like myself, they are fed up with the excesses of identity politics and what has become known as the cancel culture.

The so called right is cheerfully gloating over this phenomenon and who can blame them.

Well, I am tired of trying to define myself by labels, especially since terms keep shifting in meaning.

I will never agree to seeing the noble word ‘liberal’ used as a pejorative. 

As stated before, I am aware that my life has been made easier by many privileges, but I refuse to accept the expanded definition of ‘racist’ as per the gospel according to Robin DiAngelo. 

As previous blogs attest, I have been mulling over this phenomenon for some time.

A while ago I ‘came out’ on Facebook and now self identify as Independent. If that were not an oxymoron I would call myself a fundamentalist eclectic.  Like Michel de Montaigne, I shall continue to take my good where I find it without necessarily buying into the entire world view of any thinker, left or right. 

In the case of Douglas Murray for instance I feel like standing on a street corner  handing out copies of The Madness of Crowds, yet I cringe when

I hear him praise Ronald Reagan’s breaking of the Air Traffic Controllers union.

In the case of Marx, I love the criticism of unopposed capitalism and the concept  “From each according to ability, to each according to need.” However I have no more desire to live under the dictatorship of the proletariat than under any other.

So here goes, an attempt at clarifying my own philosophy and what I would like to see.

Credo, the political section, and labels be damned. 

This has to be worked out in more detail, which is of course where the devil lives. There will be other posts on individual topics , but here is the gist.

To start with, no one gets to mess up or alienate the Commons. 

Earth, Air, Water are sacred, belong to all including  our non human fellow creatures  and are not to be messed with. 

No more externalising of costs. Polluter pays, from cradle to grave of the product. Yes, consumer items will cost more. We have too much stuff anyway. 

Humanity has to figure out its limits and play within them. 

This may require cooperation on a worldwide scale. It will not be easy.

It may well be too late. Nature has Her ways of dealing with species who overgrow their habitat. They are not pretty. 

But let’s pretend that we have some time before the great cull.

Inside the human sphere we install a floor and a ceiling.

The floor: Universal Basic Income.

Doing away with all the current bureaucracies that distribute and police existing programs would alone save a ton of money. Rutger Bregman makes a great case for this in his book Utopia for Realists.

The ceiling: A maximum income.

It can be quite high, we are not aiming for enforced equality of outcome here. But at some point enough is enough. At some point money morphs into excess power over others. Let’s call the number on the ceiling Bazinga.

Once a person’s fortune reaches Bazinga, it is time for a ceremonial GiveAway. 

I had a blog brewing titled “Why we need a Potlatch economy”,  but that

is probably a no-no what with cultural appropriation. I do want to honour the 

origin of the concept.

Anyway, for those addicted to the sport of amassing wealth and power, further status can be achieved by aiming for the maximum number of GiveAways in a lifetime.

In between the floor and the ceiling: Turn It Loose, as much as possible.

There are many discussions to be had about which functions of government 

are best performed at which level. I do not believe in full on anarchism, 

but I also like to be able to build a chicken coop without having to check a bylaw. Checking with the neighbours is another matter.

Some rules, such as those concerning the wellbeing of our shared planet, require global agreements. Others, such as the style of buildings, should be left to neighborhood level. 

Allow people to make mistakes and live with the consequences. 

Sh#t will happen. Humans are a fallible and ornery bunch. The human condition allows for the pursuit of happiness only, not its attainment. 

Happiness is more likely to occur as a byproduct anyway, but that is another topic.

 

Remember that getting it 100% right is not an option. 

The wisest law will run into cases where its application causes injustice.

What we do get is the freedom to choose in which direction to make our mistakes.

I choose to make mine in the directions of compassion and freedom.

Defining -isms.

This blog has been brewing for a long time. I have become increasingly impatient with excesses of political correctness. Please note: excess. When P.C. stands for Plain Civility I am all for it.  

Let's get some things straight before we start.

I am all in favour of measures designed to level a tilted playing field. 

I would gladly pay more taxes in order to fund programs designed to rectify past grievances as far as possible.
I want committed partnerships to be recognized with the full force of the law, regardless of the variation of sexual identity.
I am in favour of making workplace adaptations for people with various challenges, physical or mental.
I want schools to teach the true history of everyone, not just the winners. 

I am aware that I live on a stolen continent.
And so on.

But I am sick and tired of that whole walking on eggshells thing one keeps reading about. I say reading about because hey, I live near a village of 1500 mainly pinko beige people. My own experience is limited.  I just seem to have this compulsion to read, reflect and comment on what goes on in society at large. Maybe there is a disorder name for it. Compulsive Comment Disorder?  Some enterprising psychologist can add CCD to the next DSM. But, as is my wont, we digress. So many topics! So much to go on about! 

Anyway, here goes.

Defining  -isms.

In some circles, mainly the liberal tribe that I mostly identify with, the ugly accusation of '-ist' is taken on board at the slightest provocation. It used to be just racism, but we now have other forms of prejudice like sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia and so on. There is even "able-ism". The accusation usually has the effect of stopping a conversation in its tracks while the liberal in question adopts a stance of cringing apologetic reverence to the aggrieved minority du jour. I remember a white woman in Every Woman's Almanac twisting herself into a mental pretzel accusing herself for feeling guilty. This attitude sets my teeth on edge and rouses my inner redneck.

Some time ago CBC radio did a program on Trans people. More on that topic another time. Someone used the term "cis woman" to refer to herself. She meant she was a woman, you know, the regular kind. Estrogen, tits, vagina, just born that way. DoC forbid we use the word without qualifier as a default setting. That is Privilege, also used as verb. Privileging is a sin bound to get the perpetrator accused of being an -ist.

Here is my main beef, voiced before: too many people cannot make the distinction between being genuinely mistreated because they are a minority, and the inconvenience of being one.

I used to have the typical knee jerk guilt reaction. I still often do. But something shifted many years ago thanks to an article in another small feminist magazine that had been taken over by what we now call identity politics. The more victim categories one could claim, the greater one's status. An author was whining about the difficulty of getting time off work for her religious holidays, while Christians could be guaranteed free days at Christmas and Easter. This is when the penny dropped. You see, the author was Jewish, and so is my father, freeing me from the usual guilt reaction in this case. In a true AHA! moment it clicked: This is not persecution, it is inconvenience.

Being denied an apartment or a job because your name is Goldstein is wrongful discrimination, subvariety anti Semitism. A misnomer of a term but that is another topic.  It needs to be denounced and fought. Having to live with a weekend that starts on Saturday instead of Friday is an inconvenience. Deal with it. Replace example with minority of choice.

When it comes to defining racism I prefer a narrow definition. It goes for other -isms and phobias as well. Racism is a philosophy that considers certain groups of people inferior to others,  and wants to organise society to reflect and reinforce that inferiority. 

All too often we see an -ism claimed when the issue is not malicious persecution or even resistance to needed change, but simple lack of awareness or just old habits of thinking.

Do the fortunate among us need to be aware that privilege played a role in whatever we have accomplished?
Yes. One does not have to share a prejudice in order to benefit from centuries of it.
Do we need to somehow compensate and hear more of the voices that have been silenced for centuries? Again, Yes.

But could we please distinguish between malevolent oppression and people of good will just coming from their own experience?

Like everyone else muddling through this three dee  life, I live life as myself. I had the good fortune to be born in a favorable time and place as a white heterosexual able bodied woman with a loving, solid family of origin. On a good day I can pass for neurotypical. I have always been aware of my good luck, our parents instilled that in all four of us. I am a counter of blessings. Even so I do not go through daily life constantly wondering what a given situation would be like if I were a paraplegic lesbian of colour who was abused as a child. Fill in disability, identity or tragedy of choice. 

The following riddle went around some years ago. A surgeon and his son are in a car accident. The surgeon dies, the son is seriously wounded. As they arrive at the hospital the surgeon on duty exclaims: "I cannot operate on this patient, that is my son!" How could this be?

If you did not immediately say that surgeon #2 had to be the boy's mother, as at the time I did not, that supposedly proved you were a sexist. I say bollocks to that. It just proved your reflexes had not caught up to your convictions. Old conditioning dies hard. Refusing the boy's mother her position as surgeon just because she was a woman, now that would be sexism.


The bottom line: Could we please approach each other with an assumption of goodwill as the default setting, instead of angry suspicion? 

Thoughts on The Circus

History has always fascinated me. We are living through history in the making, a white water rapid in the river of civilisation. Someone on CBC radio compared our time to the European Renaissance, when one social order was making way for another. Interesting to read about, but not easy to live through. It is now more than a month after the end of what we have been calling The Circus, and what an ending it was. I have been spending hours on the iPad compulsively reading about USA politics.

It is not my country, for which I am grateful. Nevertheless I live right next door, within easy reach of the grasp of Empire, should that empire decide to grasp what it wants by more direct means than the current arrangement. Think water. We Canadians may take comfort in being a kinder, gentler nation, but let's not kid ourselves. The standing joke is that when the USA sneezes Canada gets pneumonia. The best we can hope for is the kind of relationship Finland has with its giant neighbour to the East. Like it or not, we both have to pay homage and attention to the great power next door.

Early on I decided to not waste energy on the insanity of a months long campaign. We skipped the endless ponderings of the pundits during the primaries, though we did feel the Bern. I rarely watch those stupid debates, with the media standing by to pounce on the slightest misstep as a "gotcha" moment. Once our favourite socialist was defeated I mainly paid attention to the dilemmas of my online friends in the USA, most of whom are not Republicans. Hold your nose and vote Democrat or say enough of this corrupt bunch and go Green?

Interestingly some thinkers whose opinion I value were happy with the outcome, mainly because they wanted to shake up the status quo. There was some approval of Trump's supposedly populist stance on certain issues. I think it was Dmitri Orlov who posted a video segment of Trump that could have been lifted from a Sanders speech. Also, quite a few people worried about poking the bear and applauded Trump's better relations with Putin.

Anyway, now that the die has been cast I find myself wondering how to behave in the face of possible tyranny. At this moment demonstrations are a waste of energy at best and counterproductive at worst if they degenerate into riots. Besides, the time to be active is during an election campaign and you just had one, duh! Then there is the need to maintain civil relations with people on the opposite side of the political spectrum. I wrote this on Facebook.

"I just found out that an internet friend who I admire for her big heart and fortitude in the face of a tough life is delighted with the outcome of the USA election. This person is the farthest thing from a bigoted racist you can imagine. She is a beautiful loving soul and I will not hear a bad word about her, Trump or no Trump. Let us maintain love above all. Avoid stereotypes. Don't let the haters win."

I have often reflected on how I would have behaved during the early years of the Nazi occupation in my native Netherlands. Good and evil are easy to tell apart with the brilliance of hindsight, especially after winners and losers have been sorted out. It is not so easy while you are in the middle of things. Imagine yourself there, in 1940. Of course you hate the occupation, but it has become a fact of life. For all you know it might last a few centuries. It is my nature to avoid conflict, and I tend to think the best of people. I might well have been a compromiser, thinking perhaps I might be able to do some good on the inside. I might have been chastised as a collaborator after the war.

Times are tough all around and not likely to get better any time soon. For many reasons that we will not get into here, it will never be 1970 anymore. I may have been spending too much time in collapsenik circles, and I alo just reread 1984. Not cheery. 

I have no idea what to suggest to any young person coming of age right now. Who knows what the future holds? In twenty years we may solve the energy crisis, learn how to live together, collect all the best from all traditions and cultures, and be on our way to a Star Trek world. Yeah, right. See those pretty flying pigs in the pink sky? Or the most vital skill may be knowing which warlord to suck up to. So much for the wisdom of elders.

All I can come up with this is this.
Above all: KEEP THINKING. Connect to your heart and gut as well as your brain. If a small voice inside whispers something feels off, pay attention to it. Ask it to speak up and explain.

Decide what your values are and defend them, regardless of who is attacking them. The enemy of your enemy may be evil. A drone strike ordered by Obama is no less deadly than one ordered by Bush. A pipeline built by charming, spouting all the right words Justin Trudeau is no less damaging than one built by dour mr. Harper.


Be careful what you wish for regarding laws that inhibit freedom of speech or assembly. Apply the same standards to your own side and to your opponent's. 

James Pfeiffer once drew a great cartoon. A man in a pinstripe suit and a hippie are chatting in a bar. Both agree that under certain conditions limits to free speech may be warranted. Says the hippie: "Exactly! And that is why I say that in Cuba...." Man in suit exclaims: "Cuba? I thought we were talking about the United States!" Horrified they turn away from each other.

Be vigilant. Beware the frog in boiling water effect, but don't get carried away by slippery slope fallacies either. 

See people as individuals first, and let the individual decide to which extent she wants to define herself as member of a group.
Avoid blindly climbing on bandwagons. Pay frequent visits to fact check sites before posting the latest meme on social media.

When the big world goes nuts and institutions start failing or grow rapacious, do what you can where you are to make a better world. Funny. I can think myself into a tizzy and I keep coming back to my mantra.

Be Here Now. Cultivate the Garden. Just Be Kind.

P.S. This excellent article in Yes Magazine says it all.

An Addendum to the Serenity Prayer

We all know the good old serenity prayer, don't we? 
"Grant us the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, 
the courage to change what can be changed
and the wisdom to know the difference."

Wise words, but too simplistic. 

A dear online friend just posted a long list of common sense advice, that starts with: "Live beneath your means".

Really?  Go tell that to an overworked parent in today's brutal economy who has to choose between paying the rent or putting food on the table. It is good advice for those who have choices. Not everyone does.
Has the writer of these homilies looked at wages lately? At the absence of job security? At the cost of housing?

Avoiding substance abuse, adopting the healthiest possible lifestyle, being willing to work and generally being a decent human is personal responsibility. Doing something about a global economic system that is destroying the planet while removing the ability to earn a living from whole communities requires working with others.

Traditionally the so called Left has stressed the need for collective action, the so called Right the need for personal responsibility. Isn't it obvious we need both? I blathered about this in part of a previous blog, see here. http://reflectionsrants.blogspot.ca/2014/03/on-evils-of-thinking-in-binaries-and.html 

Anyway, here is my addendum:

"Grant me the wisdom to know the difference between change that is my personal responsibility, and change that demands that I organise with others."

On audio books and Robert Kennedy on GDP, and even a recipe.

How I love that wonderful invention, audiobooks from the Public Library system! It works especially well for taking in non fiction books that I find quite interesting, yet somehow cannot read without getting restless or falling asleep.

Trying to just listen to audio usually results in a refreshing nap. But I love the combination of doing something with my hands, usually cooking, while listening. It makes the chore effortless and somehow the mind takes it in. Sometimes I have the print or e book AND the audio version, so things can be looked up without scrolling.

Today's offering is Mark Kurlansky's "1968". An interesting year that I remember well. I turned 25. It was my last full year as a European. I had won a scholarship from the Alliance Francaise (Sorry, no accent under the C) to spend the month of August in some school in Menton on the Riviera. Unfortunately in May students in Paris fell in love with playing revolution and the whole thing was cancelled.

Anyway, halfway the book is this AWESOME speech by Robert Kennedy on the madness of worshipping economic growth. I couldn't have said it better myself. Insert emoticon with tongue in cheek. I took the time to transcribe the segment, which is a pain to do but I need to be able to refer to it.
So, without further ado, speaking eloquently from the great beyond, HERE's Robert!

"We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in the mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones average, nor national achievement by the Gross National Product, for the Gross National Product includes air pollution and ambulances to clear our highways from carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. The Gross National Product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads. It includes the broadcasting of T.V. programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our children. 

And if the Gross National Product includes all this, there is much it does not comprehend.

It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our debates or the integrity of our public officials. The Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country.

In measures everything in short except that which makes life worthwhile."

AMEN. I just might want to learn this by heart. And meanwhile a double batch of my almost famous super nutritious muffins was made, the red currant and lemon zest variation.  The link goes to the recipe. You're welcome.

The white cats are back.

The good news is, the Harper regime has been voted out decisively in favor of a Liberal majority. Most of Canada heaves a sigh of relief. Turnout was way up, with many young people voting. Yeah! Dingdong the witch is dead!

The bad news is, the party of my choice, the social democratic NDP, got clobbered, though the NDP candidate in my riding squeezed in. 

I can understand why. The high watermark of the party's standing, forming the official opposition for the first time ever in 2011, owed much to the personal charisma of its former leader Jack Layton, who died of cancer shortly after the 2011 election. He was a tough act to follow, and Tom Mulcair lacked the charm of his predecessor.

Mulcair also made the mistake of trying to out-Harper the conservatives by promising balanced budgets, which left the door wide open for Liberal Hope and Change Boy Justin to promise stimulus instead, and never mind the deficit for now, let's get things moving first. Ironically Trudeau ended up sounding more like Jack Layton than Mulcair did. We might say the NDP got outflanked on the left.

While I am beyond happy that Harper is gone I am curbing my enthousiasm for the outcome. It all reminds me a lot of Obama. Personal charisma and Hope and Change yada yada. Then the moment he gets in what does he do? Nominate Monsanto man Tom Vilsack to agriculture. My spidey senses started tingling  when an email was leaked by a close Trudeau associate, advising the oil industry on how best to lobby an eventual Liberal government. That individual stepped down, but I fear the revolving door between corporations and government will keep merrily turning. And let's remember that Hope and Change Boy voted for Bill 51, with some vague promises about fixing the worst excesses of the invasive spy bill. Mulcair promised to do away with it.

Anyway, let's wait and see. This will be better than the previous government for sure. Part of me would like to cheer for young Trudeau and part of me is cynical. Sure, the black cats are gone. But I had been hoping for a government of mice, not a return of the white cats.

Update a month later. The new cabinet is in and it looks very promising. I fear this government will end up giving too much power away to the TPP, another one of those sovereignty destroying trade agreements that support corporations over citizens. But otherwise things look good. Imagine an indigenous woman as minister of Justice and Attorney General?! Yeah! 

Reflections on Canada's N word

There was a graph here that disappeared, from Eiynah "Nice Mangos". Never mind, just read her blog, please. 

http://nicemangos.blogspot.ca/2015/03/an-open-letter-to-niqab-supporting.html

I don't know what irritates me more.

The cynical manipulation of the issue by the Harper regime, attempting to win votes by pandering to xenophobia,

Or 

The knee jerk politically correct reaction of my fellow liberals, falling all over themselves to prove how accepting of diversity they are,

Or

The damn medieval face coverings themselves and the smug religious fanatics wearing them, whether by choice or not.

For some perspective, my solidarity lies with the brave women taking to the streets in this picture from 1979, fighting for the right to NOT wear the things.

Canada's new N word is Niqab, the cloth some fundamentalist Muslim women wear to cover their face, leaving just a slit for eyes. 

For non Canadians or those having lived under a rock the last months, the present conservative government had appealed a court ruling deciding that a woman could take the oath of citizenship while thus garbed. I have gone on about this issue in some depth before. The prime minister used the case as a wedge issue during the endless federal election campaign.

I detest the efforts by the Harperites to fan the flames of xenophobia. I am proud that Canadians have pushed back against this, including playful acts like the guy who went into an advance poll wearing a sort of doily over his face. Even so I stand by my original thoughts, explained at length here.

Today I want to discuss the accusation of Islamophobia that occurs when one expresses a preference for uncovered faces.

Yes, I am an Islamophobe. As a feminist how can I be anything but? Why should I not fear the growing influence of a religion that systematically relegates me to second class citizen or worse? This is an equal opportunity phobia. I fear theocracy in general. I am equally worried about the rise of the ultra orthodox in other religions. The dystopian Republic of Gilead from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is looking less like fantasy and more like a possibility by the day.  Schoolgirls on buses in Jerusalem are being harassed by ultra orthodox Jews whose actions resemble the morality squads of Tehran. 

Islam does not have a monopoly on misogyny or on the aim to do away with the wall between secular and religious powers. It does seem to have it more built in than the other bunch. I therefore fear it a bit more than the others. Fearing theocracy does not mean I fear ordinary neighbours of other cultures, including those from Islamic backgrounds. It does not make me a xenophobe or a racist.

It is said that politics makes strange bedfellows. I have always been an eclectic, and will never be a strict follower of any party line. On this one issue I find myself in agreement with a PM I otherwise cannot wait to get rid of. I repeat that I detest his use of the issue.

As for the much touted argument that it is their religion and therefore sacrosanct, I repeat my wish for some testing of that principle by a fundamentalist pagan. 
Seriously, what would happen if we demanded the right to dance naked around a May Pole, or even better, have a public orgy in the fields to help fertility?

Then there is the argument that telling a woman what not to wear is just as bad as telling her what to wear, so people who want to remove face coverings are as bad as the Taliban. Come on now. A bit of perspective here please. This argument suffers from the slippery slope fallacy, the idea that a bit of something is the same as a lot of it. According to that logic a gentle summer breeze is the same as Hurricane Sandy. They are both wind. All we are asking is one small concession.

Back in the early sixties we spent some summers in a rural area in Southern Spain, before that country had quite joined the modern era. It never entered my mind to dress in shorts on the street  there. It would have been disrespectful to the local culture. In this culture, we encourage equality between genders and we show our face. Doing otherwise, especially at a moment when one joins the nation as a member, is a sign of disrespect of our culture. 

Attempts at legislation seem to have a reverse effect. It gives the thing way too much attention and may encourage people to take up the custom who would otherwise not go near it. 

I am an immigrant myself, always aware that I live on a stolen continent. North America is relatively empty. It stands to reason more people from all over the world should move here. I welcome them. I love going to metro Vancouver and seeing the rainbow. 

However, some achievements from Western civilisation truly are progress. I refuse to apologise for  resenting the Niqab as a symbol of misogyny.

http://reflectionsrants.blogspot.ca/2010/03/showing-our-face.html

The linked blog contains words by a Canadian of Pakistani origin who feels baffled and betrayed by the PC crowd. Please pay attention to Eiynah "Nice Mangos".

A fight for Canada's soul

I got a (rare) cold, just in time to miss the all candidates meeting. But I managed to crank out a letter to the editor of the Valley Voice, just in time for the dead line. Not as polished as I would have liked but better than nothing.

The editor,

This is not an ordinary election.

The government which we have to retain or dismiss on October 19  is different from other conservative governments. Even though my personal sympathies are pinko/green, I recognize the value of an occasional small c conservative government for all over balance. 

The Harper regime has been anything but conservative. 

The last years have  been a time of radical change, rammed through with an ideological fervour and without regard for political process. 

One could go on and on about the abuses of power. Robo calls, harassing charitable organizations with targeted tax audits, proroguing parliament. the Omnibus bill, the erosion of civil liberties, the gutting of environmental protection laws. 

Among  the worst things this government has done has been waging a War on Science.

Since when is Canada a place where important research, paid for with tax payer's dollars, is being destroyed, probably because the findings might not be to the taste of certain industry interests? CBC Radio's program Ideas recently repeated an excellent series on the topic. Important research on the spawning habits of Atlantic Cod could no longer be duplicated. The DFO library is largely gone.

To anyone who still believes "They are all a bunch of crooks" and it won't make a difference who gets in, I offer this: If Stephen Harper had been Prime Minister in 2003 Canada would have been involved in the invasion of Iraq. 

Remember when we were known as honest peace keepers and travelers sewed Canadian flags on their back packs, because Canada was so respected world wide?

I want that country back. 

I will be voting NDP, even though I am a member of the Green party.  Not this time We just cannot split the vote. Together, the opposition parties can defeat the so called Conservatives (they should be called Harperites). In the freshly gerrymandered riding West Kootenays South Okanagan the NDP candidate Richard Cannings has by far the best chance of winning. Besides he is good man, a biologist.

This is not an ordinary election. It is a fight for Canada's soul. Please vote, and if you want to defeat Harper, vote strategically.

Ien van Houten, Nakusp.

Politics

We are now past the middle of the campaign that will decide the outcome of the October 19 federal election. I had vowed be active and help to influence the outcome. I am tired of it already.

The season may be partly to blame. In the beginning of the campaign the months of relentless heat, smoke and drought  sapped everyone's energy level. I was hoping to feel more like it when the days got crisp. Not. I am full of energy again but still busy with outdoor work and putting up the harvest. In August I was looking forward to the end, but now my head is back in garden space.

The level of discourse so far leaves much to be desired. I blame the media as much as the politicians. They seem to pay more attention to soundbites and  'gotcha' moments than to discussing the different visions of the parties.  I would like to see more honesty and less partisanship all around. Make an attempt to engage me, the voter, as if I have a brain. 

On scandals:
If a party has been in power for a certain length of time some member will be caught with a hand in the cookie jar. This is wrong, but may well be inevitable considering human nature. I want perpetrators caught and punished, but would like to see the media pay less attention to the details of relatively small scandals. Report on the basics and move on. I would like to see all leaders admit that such things happen. All leaders should do their best to limit the occurrence of corruption and not try to cover it up, but they can't promise 100% success. Scandals, even those plaguing one's opponents, are a distraction and a circus. I do relish the fact that a government that made much of the scandals of its predecessors is hoisted on its own petard. But we have more important issues to deal with.

On the economy.
I would like to see all politicians acknowledge that there are limits to what they can do when in power.  In particular, the whole concept of "managing the economy" needs to be less politicized. Economic cycles seem to be rather like weather. They can be responded to but not totally controlled. 
All parties claim or deny ability to manage the economy depending where the advantage lies.
I did a blog on that in February 2008. 
http://reflectionsrants.blogspot.ca/2011/03/fat-cows-skinny-cows-thoughts-on.html  

I would also like to see more honesty about where true power lies these days. Governments still have some, but transnational concerns like corporations and banks have more. Could we please have that out in the open and admit that the corporations have us by the short and curlies, instead of mouthing platitudes about "creating a favorable climate yadayada"?

Social Issues
Issues like gay marriages, niqabs....these are important to some of course, but also carefully manipulated as a distraction from other, more important issues of the day. 

The Big Picture.
There is the inevitable tide of history, in which the rest of the world's population is rightfully rising and demanding it's fair share, even as the world's resources are being strained to the limit.  Could we have an honest discussion about how to deal with the claims of the rest of the world? 

There is the reality of the limits of growth in a finite world. Whether fossil fuels are running out now or will in a hundred years, sooner or later humanity will have to live within a solar budget. Better start now, while we still have some ancient sunlight left to ease the transition.

Whoever is in power, it will never be 1970 again. Be honest about that and stop promising you will bring back the good old days.


http://reflectionsrants.blogspot.ca/2012/02/left-right-left-right.html

http://reflectionsrants.blogspot.ca/2014/03/on-evils-of-thinking-in-binaries-and.html

So this is what it feels like to be German.

Orange is the new black.
Palestinians are the new Jews.
Israelis are the new Nazis.

OK, this is not a nuanced statement. It is meant to shock. For the other side there is this video, "The Israeli-Palestinian conflict explained" which also has its points. Please do take the few minutes to see it for perspective. The phrase "The fact you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." sums it up nicely.
Another interesting thought experiment is to imagine the Middle East without Israel. It would be dearly missed as a handy scapegoat to blame for everything that is wrong in that part of the world.
There are many proxy powers fishing in the troubled waters.

But today, today I feel ashamed of the ancestry that links me to this country.* The ongoing encroachments into Palestinian terrain in the West bank, that obscene wall, and now the assault on Gaza with its overpowering fire power and 100 casualties on one side to 1 on the other is evil, no matter what the provocation. 

I try to do my small bits of protesting by writing letters to politicians. I donate to the organisation "Jews for peace" and have done so before the present crisis.  But I feel the burden of collective guilt. And the thought came to me: "So this is what it feels like to be German."


*In Jewish tradition the status of belonging goes through the female line. Since the Jewish grandparent is my father's mother he would be considered Jewish but his children not. However, in 1970 the law of return to Israel was amended as follows: 

4A. Rights of members of family

(a)The rights of a Jew under this Law and the rights of an oleh under the Nationality Law, 5712--1952), as well as the rights of an oleh under any other enactment, are also vested in a child and a grandchild of a Jew, the spouse of a Jew, the spouse of a child of a Jew and the spouse of a grandchild of a Jew, except for a person who has been a Jew and has voluntarily changed his religion.

(b)It shall be immaterial whether or not a Jew by whose rights a right under subsection (a) is claimed is still alive and whether or not he has immigrated to Israel.

(c)The restrictions and conditions prescribed in respect of a Jew or an oleh by or under this Law or by the enactments referred to in subsection (a) shall also apply to a person who claims a right under subsection (a).

4B. Definition

For the purpose of this Law, "Jew" means a person who was born of a Jewish mother or has become converted to Judaism and who is not a member of another religion.

On the evils of thinking in binaries and bundles.

If I could do one thing to make this world a better place it would be this: 

Discourage thinking in terms of ideology, be it religious or secular. 
Discourage binary thinking, either/or thinking, in general.

It is easy to fall into. We are creatures of Story, and story thrives on simple narratives. Villains and victims and heroes. Good and evil. White Hats Good, Black Hats bad. Believers to heaven, all others to hell. Our tribe AKA The People, truly human, all others not quite. And so on.

Well, how has that worked so far? I dare say humanity needs a different operating system and we need it fast. I believe that we face a bottleneck in our development. IF, and this is a big if, we pull together all the good things from all past and present cultures and traditions, then we just might have a chance to squeeze past another Dark Age with the gains of the last few millennia intact. Right now I am not too optimistic, but hope springs eternal.  I shall remain a possibilist till the bitter end.

What would happen if instead of teaching "If you are not for me, you are against me", we encouraged an appreciation of the deep wisdom built into the yin/yang symbol? The Tao teaches that opposites are complimentary forces, both needed. Balance is understood to be a dynamic ongoing dance, not a steady state to be achieved once and for all.

How would it work if every time we see the words either/or, we first ask ourselves if that could be and/and?  If searching for consensus was the default setting when conflict arises? It may not always work. There may be times to just take a stand and fight. In this world true evil does exist and may at times have to be fought on its own terms. But, just as a good healer tries a non invasive method before reaching for surgery or a harsh drug, so seeking consensus could be the place where we start when faced with conflict.

Our social discourse is rife with a certain way of thinking that drives me nuts. I used to call it 'block thinking', but it is more like a bundle, as in the bundle we get from the cable or satellite company. We may not care about sports, but the only way to get BBC is to pick a bundle that includes three sports channels.

In a similar way opinions seem to have become bundled. I am stereotyping to make the point here. The reality is more nuanced, but here goes. 

In order to don the mantle of the well meaning liberal one has to close one's eyes to excesses of political correctness. The victim is always blameless. Brown peasant good, white middle class person (especially if male, poor guy) bahahad. The talk is mainly about rights and little about responsibility. Park good, redneck who needs the logging job bad. 
Pointing out that some people truly abuse the public system can get you thrown out of the club.
Recommended reading for dogmatic leftists: "Life at the Bottom" by Theodore Dalrymple.

In order to be a card carrying conservative one has to value potential humans above poverty stricken incarnated ones and deny the science of climate change.
The discourse is mainly about individual responsibility. There is little attention to the social context in which that has to be exercised. If a man knows how to fish but has no access to a clean body of water he still goes hungry.   
Pointing out that the playing field is no longer level can get you thrown out of the club.
Recommended reading for dogmatic rightists: "Nickled and dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich.

I repeat, these are caricatures. The reality is always more nuanced. Anyway, there will be more blogs in this vein. Thoughts on babies and bathwater, margins of error, unexpected side effects, issues of scale.

Another one more or less on this topic is this one:
http://reflectionsrants.blogspot.ca/2012/02/left-right-left-right.html

And finally, Melanie Boxall did an excellent one.
http://chovblog.blogspot.ca/2014/03/the-public-gets-what-public-wants.html

On mountains, wolves, allergies and tough questions.

The pithy Latin saying Homo Homini Lupus has been much quoted, most famously by Hobbes. Man is a wolf unto man.

The saying is usually meant to state that people are both predator and prey of each other. Not that long ago fear of wolves was an entirely justified part of the collective psyche. Must re-read Fernand Braudel. Must not get side tracked.

In our city centered culture few people have to deal with predators directly. There is an irony there: because most of us live further removed from Nature, we can afford to take the more holistic view. In the beautiful phrase of Aldo Leopold, we can afford to think like a mountain, precisely because we no longer live on one. 

For those unfamiliar with Aldo's essay, it starts with a young man shooting a wolf, confident that killing a top predator will result in more deer for human hunters. Instead the shortage of wolves leads to an overpopulation of deer. The herd ends up "dead of its own too-much" after destroying its habitat. 
"I now suspect that just as a deer herd lives in mortal fear of its wolves, so does a mountain live in mortal fear of its deer."

We must remember that the wolf keeps the herd healthy. I once read an aboriginal story illustrating the same point. The Creator has granted the People their wish, and there are no more wolves. But the old and sick caribou no longer get culled. In time the herd sickens and so do the people. The wolves have to come back for the good of all.

Medical science comes up with ever more ways to keep weak and damaged individuals alive. 

CBC this morning had an item on a child with life threatening allergies to eggs and dairy. The mother accuses the school of not doing enough to accommodate her child. The words 'discrimination', 'inclusion', and 'rights' were bandied about.
A blog on the proper use of the word discrimination another time.

The mother wants a ban on the offending foods. No child in the whole school must be allowed to bring a cheese sandwich or any food item containing eggs, for the sake of protecting her fragile girl. The school is already peanut free.

Of course one feels for the family. Of course one understands that the mother is doing what any of us would do for her child. But as a collective, where do we draw the line? What about the rights of a struggling single parent to send her child off with the cheapest protein, which happens to be peanuts?

As a society, we must start tackling some thorny questions. We must dare to at least discuss certain topics without fear of being associated with past horrors. If we are wolves to each other, some of us may end up with the task of deciding when to let herd health take precedence over the care for the weak individual. This is not a position to be envied.