We all have a picture, a mental representation, of what fascism looks like, based on experience and images from the twentieth century.

A common representation would be this: Adolf Hitler being greeting and saluted by a loyal and admiring crowd.

But there are other possible faces and looks of fascism. For example, a face could be as bland and benign-looking as this:

This is the billionaire founder of a gigantic online retailer, who owns the venerable Washington Post, long known for its investigative reporting and vigorous defence of democracy. This man instructed his editorial staff to write only articles favourable to free markets, and that opposing viewpoints “will be left to be published by others.” (1) Of course, in a good newspaper, articles favourable to free markets are desirable, but along with articles that are critical of same or aspects of same. A free, unfettered, professional press is, as we all know, one of the pillars of democratic society. Is this a face of fascism? Do monkeys eat bananas? It surely looks like it: one of the first things fascists do is to take control of the press, cloaking their efforts in apparent blandness.

Or consider this as potentially a face of fascism:

This is another billionaire industrialist who in this case has attained authority to dismantle long-standing institutions and service programs of democratic government after donating enormous amounts of money to an autocratic president during his election campaign. This billionaire has been indiscriminately cutting programs beneficial to people and the country and engaging in mass impersonal firings of staff. He was brandishing the chain saw, of course, to symbolize what he was doing to public services. Could this be a face of fascism? One of the things fascists commonly do is to brandish symbols of powerful masculinity, especially phallic ones, for psychological reasons. This guy certainly does that.

Consider another:

In this case, during a diplomatic meeting in the White House, the two highest officials in the land initiated a shouting match, berating and attempting to bully a courageous democratic statesman who was trying to elicit aid in his country’s fight against a totalitarian enemy. The disgusting ambush and bullying session was the culmination of a meeting in which the two officials, acting in a way similar to Mafia “Dons,” had offered unguaranteed “protection” in exchange for tribute payments in the form of valuable minerals. The two acting in the fascistic manner are on the right wearing blue suits, and the statesman is on the left wearing a sweater emblematic of his beloved and threatened country. Psychologically speaking, fascist types, with their psychopathic character structure, commonly bully and attempt to overpower others in an obvious effort to compensate for their underlying weakness and inadequacy along with doubts about the size of their genitalia.

And so, one can see from this that face of fascism is variable.  Fascism can take many forms that are not always obvious. It may be right in front of our eyes, but we fail to recognize it.

____________________________

1. Reilly, Liam. “Jeff Bezos announces ‘significant shift’ coming to the Washington Post. A key editor is leaving because of it.” CNN Business, 26 Feb. 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/26/ media/washington-post-opinion-jeff-bezos-david-shipley/index.html. Accessed 2 Mar. 2025.

2. Liptak, Kevin et al. “Trump and Vance erupt at Zelensky in tense Oval Office meeting.” CNN Politics, 28 Feb. 2025. https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/28/politics/trump-zelensky-vance-oval- office/index.html. Accessed 2 Mar. 2025.

I have resisted writing about Trump and Musk and the American coup. I did not want to give the bastards and their toxicity any oxygen. Still, it has been hard to imagine anything else to write about, and so the blog has remained dark.

     I expected it to be bad; and so it has been, only it is much worse. There is no need to list or detail all of that here; we all know what has been happening. He has already declared “LONG LIVE THE KING” (written in all CAPS, of course, as a pathological narcissist would do in referring to himself). (1)  Suffice it to say that the psychopathic team is tearing down the good American government administration, trashing over eighty years of morally excellent humanitarian development, along with unleashing indecent cruelty upon the powerless.

     In this initial period I have been doing the things I can do: signing petitions and sending letters to the powers-that-be. I have been giving small amounts of money to organizations here that are taking the Trump administration to court – apparently our last line of defence, as it seems that Congress is missing in action – such as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Natural Resources Defense Council, 350 Org, and VoteVets. But it feels like not enough. I feel helpless at times.

      Although I am not a Facebook user, a Canadian friend (Richard) sent me a link that I took a look at. It was an Australian, who, in solidarity with Canadians (and Mexicans) is boycotting anything American that he is able to. (His original post was on TikToc.) Good on him, I thought: after all, it is not just Trump alone. As recently as a week ago, the psychopath’s approval rating among Americans was at 53%. (2)  Most often people laud him for “doing what he said he would do” – as though this is a positive, when what the bully is doing is hateful and destructive.

     Unbelievable, incomprehensible: I have lived here half my life and I cannot express my dismay. In any case, the Australian gave me a gift: encouragement, resolve, and a realization. Most inspiring was his declaration, in so many words, that the futility of his effort did not at all negate it. He said, knowing full well that his personal boycott is ineffectual, “I will not be complicit in the tyranny of the U.S.A.” (3)

     I will not be complicit in the tyranny of the U.S.A.

     I have taken this on as a mantra. I refuse to go along. I will not be silent. I will keep sending my bits of money to good organizations. I will keep on signing the petitions, and sending my letters. If I buy anything, if there is a non-American option, I will get that. While cheering on the Canadian hockey players who whipped the U.S. last night, I put a Canadian flag decal on my car. I have my Team Canada hockey sweater ready to wear when I go into town. I will go to the small anti-Trump protest/vigil in the little village of Salem tomorrow and stand in the cold with the rest of the good, decent people. My poster will read: Stop the Coup!

      I do not know what else I will do, but I am determined to think of things. I will keep myself mentally healthy, and as physically healthy as I can be. I will be ready. I will take refuge – as Buddhist adherents take refuge in the Sangha – in the sanctity of my like-minded American friends.

     Eighty years ago, our parents and grandparents defeated the Nazis. We must do the same.

     They will not win without a fight. My answer to them is: no.

     I will not be complicit in the tyranny of the U.S.A.

___________________

1. Yang, Angela. “‘Long live the king: Trump adds monarch rhetoric to actions.” NBC News, 19 Feb. 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/king-trump-rcna192912. Accessed 21 Feb. 2025.

2. Wolf, Zachary B. “Americans voted for Trump. Did they vote for this?” CNN Politics: What Matters, 13 Feb 2025, https://www.cnn.com/2025/02/13/politics/americans-support-for-trump- what-matters/index.html. Accessed 21 Feb. 2025.

3. See: Johnny Cole Public, https://www.facebook.com/reel/2995900423918554. Accessed 21 Feb. 2025. 

          kakistocracy /kăk″ĭ-stŏk rə-sē, kä″kĭ-/

          Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens.
          [Greek kakistos, worst, superlative of kakos, bad; see caco– + –cracy.] (1)

Here in the U.S., and for the rest of the world, inauguration day of the second presidency of Donald Trump has befallen us. Catastrophic and incomprehensible it is. How can it be that the American populace, having made what appeared to be a foolish mistake in electing him the first time, and thereafter having experienced the chaos and damage of that first term, would elect the man again? It is a nightmare, recurring.

     Most disturbing to me is knowing that a plurality (granted, by a small margin) of citizens, including my fellow county residents, supported and voted for this terrible person. It makes me very uncomfortable to know this. I live in a largely Republican, Trump-voting district: I am now discomforted even to do simple things, say, for example, to be among townspeople at the grocery store. Another writer said it better and simpler than I might:

      “Even today, it is difficult to comprehend that a plurality of those who chose to vote on November 5, 2024, preferred a twice-impeached, coup-plotting, insurrection-inciting, adjudicated sexual abuser and fraudster whose campaign was premised on revenge, division, and overt racism.” (2)

     It is worse than this: Trump has the mind set of a fascist.

     As to his cabinet: he is appointing the worst collection of clowns, saboteurs, incompetents, unstable know-nothings, hard-core ideologues and destructionists. For example, there is the advisor Elon Musk. You know things are bad when even the likes of Steve Bannon calls Musk “evil.” No, I am not making this up! (3) Then there is Pete Hesgeth, unbelievably unqualified and dangerous, put forward to be leader of the world’s most potent military. Even the most innocuous nominees – borrowing a page from the old Reagan destruction game-book – are people whose main qualification is that they oppose the functions of the offices they are to head, such as Lee Zeldin to lead the Environmental Protection Agency. You know the ride is going to be rough when the befuddled non-physician Robert Kennedy, designated to be Health and Human Services Secretary, looks like one of the good guys.

     Dear old Dad, if he were still around, in his understated comedic way would say: “the jokers are in charge.”

     Unfortunately, the jokes aren’t funny. Some things, like the choice of Hesgeth, are outright terrifying. For people who care about good government, who care about civic well-being, about democracy, truth, justice and fairness, about international order, about saving the world as we know it from the ravages of climate change – well, it is going to be bad. There is no way around it. I confess that this has resulted in a kind of existential crisis for me – but I know that I am not alone and there is solace in that.

 

The question is: how do I – we – survive the Kakistocracy? In this, I can only speak for myself, but I offer considerations that have come to mind in case these may be helpful to others.

     Refuse: I am old and the time I have left here is finite. I refuse to give over that time to this man and his minions. I refuse to give up any serenity I have in old age. I refuse to give into distress, to cede the happiness I experience at seeing a herd of pretty cows in a rolling green field, or watching my grandchildren take flight in the world, or in the funny conversations I have with my dear companion. No! This is mine. You can’t have it. I will not fall into line! (4) I will fight, but keep the joy that I have.

     Resist: The agenda, the cruelty, the hatred, the indecency, the dishonesty must be resisted every day. I will redouble efforts to practice decency and kindness in my daily affairs – by itself a form of resistance. I will fight by supporting good causes, in writing letters to civic leaders, and in signing petitions. Although I am not wealthy, I will send bits of money that I can afford to good organizations that will fight the Kakistocracy and will take it to court, such as the ACLU, the Natural Resources Defense Council, Planned Parenthood, VoteVets, and in Canada, the Suzuki Foundation or the Wildlands League.

     Demonstrate, march, and join vigils if you have the strength and stamina. Engage in civil disobedience if the moment or opportunity arises. Dig out and dust off your pussy hats! And men, if you don’t have one, get one!

     If I can say it without sounding melodramatic, when the agents come to take my undocumented neighbour family into custody, I hope that I will find the courage to put my body between those agents and that family. I say this despite being a believer in the need for secure borders. Remember Pastor Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the Communists…” (5)

     Reappraise: I want to be careful about what I allow into my consciousness. I want to avoid reading the daily Trump “outrage de jour,” (6) this time – he is not getting free rent in my brain. I hope not to write much about him anymore. The situation is terrible and I know that already: no need to torture myself. I will avoid reading “what if” opinion columns. There is no need to speculate; we know it will be bad.

     The problem is how to stay aware enough, if one chooses that, without going mad. I am focusing on only reliable sources: well established, credentialed, ethical news sources, such as, say Reuters or the BBC, or here in America, PBS. Personally, I am watching little television news now and avoiding infotainment networks; but if you enjoy these, chose the networks that will oppose the Kakistocracy, such as CNN. There is no need to view Fox so-called “News” for “balance;” it is merely a toxic swill of carefully crafted lies and insidious propaganda. Even without the current crisis, I’d recommend ditching social media with their algorithms and their embrace of inflammatory misinformation that drive civic discourse to the bottom of the rat hole.

     Retreat: There is nothing dishonourable in leaving the battleground when you are defeated. I am not entirely there yet, but sages and those wiser than myself, over many ages, have advised against becoming too invested in the affairs of humanity. It is perfectly acceptable to eschew the vexing machinations of the greater world, and instead to tend your own garden. The world may have gone mad: there is no requirement that one join the madness.

     Run: should things go too far – if the concentration camps start to be built – it is acceptable, even advisable to run, if you can. Just as in retreat, if you are not young enough and not predisposed to taking up arms, there is nothing ignoble in running from imminent danger to a place that is safer or saner. As a dual citizen, I think about it a lot. I can go to Canada – although Canadians are on the verge of electing their own populist joker, Pierre Poilievre, so I am not certain that is a good option. Portugal will have you if you have a bit of Social Security or other very basic income, and there are any number of other stable countries that welcome Americans.

     Reflect: K has reminded me that the great spiritual traditions recognize the duality of human existence – that there is always a struggle between the positive and negative, between good and evil. It seems that human history is not so much about linear progress, but more about oscillation, between light and dark, between progression and regression, and back again. At times the darkness prevails, but then light returns.

     I have found comfort also in reflecting on Buddhist view that one way or another, like everything else, this will pass. Everything changes. Perhaps in two years, American voters will recognize the disaster and will flip the House and the Senate, partly stymying this administration. In four years, should the Democracy survive, a decent person may become president. There is no reason to suppose that the distressing lurch toward autocracy will not be reversed. Perhaps the populace will come to its senses and resume its slow pilgrimage toward democracy. Perhaps there will not be too much damage that is permanent. We simply don’t know what will happen.

     Looking out my window this sunny winter morning, seeing Dudley, the Maine Coon cat, sniffing mole-tracks, and seeing the snow-covered landscape, the heavy boughs of the evergreens, the iced-over pond, and the mountains of Vermont in the distance, I can only hope that this is the case: that we are in a moment of oscillation and that at some point – while I am still upright would be good! –  the nation will reject the Kakistocracy and turn back toward the light. I hope so.

     Above all: we must keep the faith.

____________________________________________

1. ITP Nelson Canadian Dictionary of the English Language: An Encyclopaedic Reference. ITP Nelson. 1997.

2. Hubbell, Robert B. “2024 changed us for good.”   Today’s Edition Newsletter, 31 Dec. 2024, https://roberthubbell.substack.com/p/2024-changed-us-for-good?r=3no2gg&triedRedirect=true. Accessed 13 Jan. 2025. 

3. Michael, Chris. “Steve Bannon condemns Elon Musk as ‘racist’ and ‘truly evil’.” The Guardian, 13 Jan. 2025, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/12/steve-bannon-calls- elon-musk-racist. Accessed 13 Jan. 2025.

4. For a most powerful statement of this, see: Pavlovitz, John. “I Choose Not to Obey in Advance.” Fact Keepers, 6 Jan. 2025, https://factkeepers.com/i-choose-not-to-obey-in-advance/. Accessed 15 Jan. 2025. Thanks to Mary M. for directing me to this. 

5. “First They Came by Pastor Martin Niemöller.” Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
https://hmd.org.uk/resource/first-they-came-by-pastor- martin-niemoller/. Accessed 14 Jan. 2025.

6. David Brooks, the NY Times columnist, used this term on the PBS Newshour.

     January 6th and the certification of the American 2024 election passed yesterday without incident. The proceedings were completely normal and routine.

     There were no transgender women and childless cat ladies storming the capitol. There were no pro-abortion activists breaking windows. There were no feminists wearing combat gear attacking security guards. There were no Black Lives Matter protesters using their flag poles as lances against the Capitol Police. There were no woke climate change advocates roaming the hallways of the legislative building searching for the Republican speaker of the House. There were no radical, leftist DEI trainers shouting slogans while wearing buffalo robes, blue paint, and horned helmets. There were no wild-eyed Bernie Sanders followers tearing around the building looking for legislators to assault. There were no calls from within the Democratic membership for the hanging of Kamala Harris. President Biden did not exhort insurrectionists to violence in order to “stop the steal.” There were no deaths. Democracy was not imperiled.

     No, it all went off as it should: a civil process done with civility and dignity.

     I think this tells you most of what you need to know about Biden versus Trump, about the Democratic party and about the Republican party as it is now constituted, and the adherents of each.

     I realize that saying this is not in the spirit of reconciliation. Nelson Mandela I am not, it appears. Angry is what I am.(1)

________________________________________________

 1.  I acknowledge and am grateful to Mike Pence for his courage and his adherence to duty and decency four years ago. That can be taken as a sign that all is not lost.

January 3, 2025

President Joseph Biden
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500

Dear President Biden:

     We are writing to express our heartfelt gratitude for your service in the White House, and really for your whole life. We will miss you and your decency and thoughtfulness more than can be measured.

     You served honorably for all those years in public life – in the Senate, as vice-president, and finally president – and in the latter you guided us out of both a great public health crisis, but also out of the chaos and negativity of the regime that preceded you. You also did right things that were so urgently needed: including getting America on a path to mitigate climate change and restoring credibility and decency to our relationships with our allies.

     Of course, there were tremendous challenges: Ukraine, Afghanistan, Gaza and Israel, a Supreme Court gone awry – none of which had easy or obvious solutions. Nevertheless, we could trust that you were doing your best, with grace and intelligence.

     You were, quite simply, a great president, and history will say so.

     Thank you.

     We are most apprehensive about what is next, but we will keep you and Vice-President Harris in mind, as beacons, to guide us through the darkness.

Yours truly,

Peter S. Cameron

Kathleen C. Flanagan

 

America, drawing from its deep collective unconscious, has elected the Shadow King. (1) This person represents what is regressive in human nature and in our twenty-first century culture: greed, misogyny, racism, hatred, ignorance, and negligence – this, in a time of great need, especially the need to restore wholeness to nature and creation.

     We need not document here what the man has said and done to deserve the above description. It is all part of the public record, including his first term as president. We do not need to wring our hands and wonder what his intentions are. He has stated these clearly, and his early appointments to important positions document the destructionist purposes.

     The Shadow King brings not strength, harmony, order and justice, but rather its opposite: weakness and vanity, disharmony and disorder, chaos, injustice, and retribution. The Shadow King is indecent. (2) Norms of decency are violated as a matter of course, and the society falls out of civility and cooperation.

     Thus, with the civitas having elected him, many of us have arrived at the time of ashes. (3) This is a time of reckoning, when positive aspiration and ambition have come to nothing. Good intention, great effort, and the propagation of compassion have ended in failure. This is where we are now. Here, in 2024, after so many people working for decades to increase tolerance, understanding, and appreciation, and to improve life conditions for all, and to save the planet from our own excesses, it has come to this. The time of ashes may include grief, but above all, it is the recognition of reality. The fire has gone out.

     The above comes with the realization of personal failure. The fact that the majority of the people of America, my present home and adopted second country, have selected the Shadow King as president, tells me that I have been mistaken. I am out of tune with the world. I must be at the wrong place at the right time, or I’m in the right place but it must be the wrong song. (4)  In my life – with more mistakes than I care to admit – I have carried out a flawed effort, through study and learning, community work, and teaching, to make the world a little better, to nudge myself and human consciousness in general toward greater caring. Of course, it can’t all have been in vain. I trust that these efforts by myself and so many others has done some good.

     Still. Here we are: time not just to rake ashes, but to eat them.

     But what else is to be done? As a holder of two citizenships, my first impulse is to flee with my wife, because I can. But there are reasons not to: a lovely home on an acre of paradise, a loving companion, dear old friends. And Canada itself is highly likely to elect its own shadowy populist leader in the next year. There is no escape from these people. They are everywhere.

     The second option is to be part of the resistance. Picture the French Resistance after June in 1942. Certainly this is a noble and right thing to do: to resist the negation of civil life at every opportunity. This is happening; already the little local band of Democrats in our small township are talking and organizing themselves, bless them.

     The third and perhaps most important option will be just to do what you do, and to keep the lights on in a dark time. The writer and social philosopher Morris Berman saw that at the turn of the century, American culture was entering its equivalent of the medieval ages. It is in the twilight of its culture, when knowledge would give way to superstition, when enlightenment values and understandings would be lost to ignorance. (5)

     Clearly in the age of social media, he was not wrong. Consider, for example, an armed militia group, fuelling itself via their Telegram Messenger chats, planning to attack the U.S. military for its role as an accomplice in the Democratic administration’s directing of hurricanes at Florida and other parts of the South – this government weather-directing having been carried out in order to ensure control of lithium deposits in a “planned Ashville SmartCity.” Apparently “chemtrails” are part of it – and, oh right – the military also is poisoning citizens. (6)

     The task then, in our modern medieval period, is to be like certain monks of the Middle Ages: to keep the light of knowledge and reason alive. Just as these monks, in the glow of candles, copied by hand the manuscripts of the more enlightened Greeks and Romans, we must keep the understanding alive until the time comes for our own Renaissance.

     This last is what I hope to do. That is, in my own twilight, to embody the ideals of compassion, caring, understanding, and gratitude for the beauty of our planet, and to act accordingly, every day. To be sure, I will have to sift through the ashes. But I will not allow the dark forces to take away my joy in daily life, my peace of mind in my old age, and the love that I share. No matter what, they cannot have these.

     I am not depressed. I am pissed.  We will resist. We will fight. We will keep the lights on. The darkness will not prevail.

______________________________

1. Moore, Robert, and Douglas Gillette. King Warrior Magician Lover: Recovering the Archetypes of the Mature Masculine. HarperOne, 1990. 

2. Frankl, Viktor. Embracing Hope: On Freedom, Responsibility and the Meaning of Life. Beacon Press, 2023. Frankl, based on his surviving the Nazi concentration camps, says there are just two “races:” the decent and the indecent.

3. Bly, Robert. Iron John: A Book About Men. De Capo Press, 1990. The road of ashes involves facing the failures of one’s dreams and aspirations – facing the reality that these have come to little or to nothing at all.

4. Forgive the misquote, Dr. John, wherever you are. Malcolm John Rebennack, Jr. (Dr. John). Right Place, Wrong Time. Warner Chappel Music, Inc., 1973.

5. Berman, Morris. The Twilight of American Culture. W. W. Norton and Company, 2000. 

6. Wilson, Jason. “Far-right militia targets US military over baseless hurricane ‘weather weapon’ claims.” The Guardian, 19 Nov. 2024, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/19/ far-right-militia-targets-military-weather-manipulation. Accessed 21 Nov. 2024.

 

 

On this sunny, blue-skied autumn day, I take my usual walk. Whichever way I end up finally going on these country roads, it begins with an initial flat stretch on the gravel, then heading more or less south, down the steep hill toward the old barn, storage building, and silo at the bottom of the hill on the east side. Before that I pass by the big, fenced pasture, with its rambling shape and outcrops of shelter trees – last year it was scruffy and bushy, but now it is cropped, green and neat from grazing. There is a herd of beautiful, black Angus cows and calves that I stop to look at and talk to each day.

     But today I am stunned. There is a haunting and eerie silence hanging over the empty pasture. The cows are gone. I think perhaps they have been taken to the barn for some reason, but down there, again I see nothing. I hear nothing. They are gone. The place is hollow. There is nothing: only grief.

 

Early in the spring, a pair of men had begun sinking fence posts and stringing wire, after mowing the scrub down in the large field. It had once been pasture for dairy cows, but not for several years, and now it looked like it would be so again. Some days after the men started, the animals arrived, but were kept in the barn and a small field adjoining it, while the men continued their work. They were Angus: beautiful black creatures, who shied away and headed to the barn when I stopped by fence. One day the farmer, Bill, was there and we stopped to talk. It was a small herd, he said, and some were calving; previously they had been in an isolated field and were not used to people, and so were shy of newcomers. One day K and I helped him corral one who had gotten through the gate and was on a roam – by spreading out and staking ourselves in three of four directions, we were able to direct her back through the gate and into the yard.

     Spring days moved into summer, and the cows and their calves now roamed the big field that had been fenced for them. It was lovely and a wonder to see them. They would move around in a clump, foraging, with the little black calves followed their mothers. Usually, for some part of the day at least – when the sun was very hot, or when it was raining – they would gather under a big, gnarly tree. I am not sure what kind it is, never having gone close, but it looked like a multi-trunk apple tree gone rogue, although I don’t know if there is such a possibility. Without fail it would cheer me, as I trudged down the hill, to see them appearing happy and at peace – if I do not anthropomorphize too much.

     At first, if they were feeding near the road when I came by, they looked and then would move away quickly. I would greet them, asking “how’s it going?” and would comment on the quality of the day, the state of the fields and so on. I might compliment them on their good looks. A regular little Doctor Dolittle I was, chatting to them. After a couple of weeks, the cows stopped moving away, usually just raising their heads and taking a moment to look at me, then going back to their grass.

     One week K and I were dog-sitting Lucy, a black, medium-sized, gentle hound mix (you could not have a more companionable dog) and I would take her down the hill on a long leash for my walks. To my surprise, the cows (with calves following) came right up to the fence – and not only that, but followed me along the fence line, down the hill. I thought I saw consternation – there was something to be sure, a concern. A couple of them bawled at me, quite obviously objecting to the situation. I soon realized that to them, black Lucy looked like one of their calves, and so they were concerned that I was taking her away. Of course, I tried to reassure them.

     And so, through the summer we went: me walking, and the Angus cattle feeding and wandering about – sometimes close to the road, other times back on the hill or nearly out of sight behind the pond, and sometimes lying happily under the tree. At one point in the summer, I thought that the herd grew a bit smaller. I wondered if some had been sold off: maybe male calves, if Bill’s business plan is about breeding stock. But then I thought no more of it.

 

Down the hill I would continue on these walks, arriving at Jim’s place on the paved road. There, usually, a greeting committee – “the boys,” two Great Dane pups in a pen, and “the ladies” (they were older), two Newfoundlands on a landing on other side of the house – sang to me. The Danes were pro forma about it, just a couple of curious barks, but the Newfies threw their hearts into the job and made a racket. This occurred day after day, even though I explained to the ladies: “Hey! Same guy, different day. You know me.” Jim’s driveway-and-barn-dwelling chickens clucked and eyed me with some suspicion, but overall they were not too worried. His rescue horses in the paddock raised their heads to watch me as I greeted them, and then went back to their grazing.

     When the third horse arrived a couple of years ago, he had a bad case of what is called “stall vice,” in this case a stereotypical head swaying motion, reminiscent of the repetitive motions of a child with severe autism. I read and found that it’s a result of too much time stuck unattended in a stall, with the inevitable isolation, boredom, sometimes fear and anxiety, lack of exercise, hunger and bad nutrition. I, of course, let the fellow know that he no longer had to do that, but if it felt comforting for the short term, I said, then by all means carry on. At first the other two horses would have nothing to do with him, but that changed over time, and now they are a trio. The stall vice, under Jim’s kind care and the companionship of the other two horses, the chickens and the dogs, eventually went away. He is a kind man, that Jim.

     I carried on, my curved and polished walking stick in hand, and the pepper spray on my belt. The stick is general purpose, but mainly for warding off The Proud Boys or their minions should they pull up in their battered Dodge pickup on particularly remote section of Smith Road. The spray is for the German Shepherd down at Warner Road, who has demonstrated every intention of ripping off my arms and maybe my face, if he were to get off his lead. Once, when the owner was walking him, he reared up full height bellowing and snarling, pulling her nearly off balance. It was all she could do to hold onto him. After that unnerving event, I ordered the spray. At the time, the woman, my neighbour, gave me attitude and acted as though it was my fault. It must have been that I was the problem for being out walking, not her insane dog.

     Obviously, I am not loving this neighbour as myself, although I want to try. She no doubt has problems of her own, say, for example, a bad husband. But in fact I confess that my esteem for humanity has been in rapid decline since the pandemic. They are part of the same species that would not wear masks during Covid, took part in the Trucker Convoy in Ottawa, or who thought the deep state was somehow involved in paedophilic and cannibalistic activities at the Comet Ping Pong Pizzeria in D. C. And these terrible wars this year, our refusal to do what is needed about climate change, especially after the most sweltering summer ever recorded, and the second coming of the most reprehensible presidential candidate of all time, have not helped my outlook. Add that having to pick up Twisted Tea and Bud Light cans on the roadside, tossed out of car windows by drinking drivers – well, it makes me like the animals better.

     Sometimes I would see a turtle on the road. If it was a big one, I just guarded the crossing to make sure that a car did not hit it. If it was a small one, I picked it up and moved it to the other side. When you pick up the big snappers, they do this sudden very powerful shudder that can scare the hell out of you and make you drop them. Better just to stand guard. We have a huge snapper that crosses the road by the house and then our yard a couple of times a season. Primordial, bigger than a platter, probably as old as I am. No doubt remembers the sixties, just like I do. We have a pond in front of us, on the other side of the road, and then another back of us in the field, bordering the cow pasture. This big one travels between the two of them – I assume he is visiting relatives, or is looking for an amorous encounter, which is admirable at his age. Although K notes that it could be a female, perhaps looking for a place to lay eggs. I hadn’t thought of that, and have not asked the snapper about its preferred pronouns.

     I’ve seen other creatures: deer all the time, turkeys, often, and a heron now-and-then, which surprises me – there just doesn’t seem to be enough water and creatures in it to support the big bird. I’ve encountered porcupines and possums and a fox or two, and woodchucks – you have to love their roly-poly running style. I came upon a dead, not-fully-grown coyote with its guts ripped out – how did that happen? The turkey vultures got it and after a day or two there was nothing but bones and some bits of fur.

     I’ve seen a lynx. New York State has decreed that this is impossible as they have pronounced the lynx extinct in the state. But I know what I saw: not a bobcat, they are different. Anyway, more tolerant Vermont has declared that they are not extinct at all and since we are only a couple of miles from the border, it is possible one slipped across in the dark, sans passport, away from the eyes of officials. Vermont is more libertarian in any case. (A classmate back in business school, a senior banker from New Hampshire, declared that Vermont was socialist, the first and only time I’d heard that. But then, frankly – and I hate to say this of a person responsible for other people’s money – he was a bit of an idiot. He also said that Canada was “communistic.”)

     There have been bear sightings at both ends of our road, although I have not seen one, and I’m just as glad. They scare me, even though I am from Northern Ontario and therefore am expected to be more nonchalant about bears. I’ve seen a water snake in the stream – you have to love the way they swim, all slinky like that. The other day I saw a garter snake on the road, not unusual in the fall particularly, enjoying a warm-up on the asphalt on a sunny day. I plunked the end of my stick down in front of its nose, to get its attention, and gave it a verbal warning about the danger of traffic, along encouragement to get off the road. It raised its head and flicked its tongue, decided I was nothing to worry about and then ignored me, paying no attention to my admonition. I was gladdened to see on my return journey that there was no snake still on the road, flattened or otherwise. All theses sentient creatures: all of them are trying to live, trying to eat and not to be eaten.

     My walks past the Angus cows and their growing calves continued through August. And then one day, late in the month, when I tramped down the hill, they were all gone.

 

We human beings are not to be trusted. It is true that we can be kind, that we will take care of you and bring you food and water, and we will shield you from your other enemies if we are able. But too often we do this for our own purposes. In the case of pretty Angus cattle, we may keep you well over a season, then, without warning we will transport you to the auction barn, and then sell you off, as likely as not, to the slaughterhouse, then to the butcher, the grocery store, and then to somebody’s plate. Then we will eat you.

     Humans eat anything and everything. Someone reminded me once – when I was not eating much meat and my red cell count dropped a bit low – that we were carnivores, as though that explained everything. In any case, that is not really correct; more accurately speaking, we are omnivores. If you are a fish, we will eat not just you, but also your gooey eggs, smack our lips and call it caviar. If you are a goose, we will perform gavage on you until you develop steatotic liver disease, and then we will take that liver and make paté of it and spread it on crackers or toast. If you are squid, we’ll eat your arms and tentacles as well as your body – usually battered, of course. You name it; we’ll dine on it and invent a sexy name for it while we are at it, such as “sushi.” Of course, we can’t entirely help it; like every creature, we would and must eat. It is an inevitable part of the great catastrophe of living – or is it the calamity? – as I believe Jack Kerouac termed it, although I’m having trouble finding where he did say so.

     And yet. Do we have to be so unkind, nay, so hubristic and cruel about it, with our factory farms, our industrial chicken farms, our crowded, filthy, and terrifying tractor-trailer transporters, and our grisly abattoirs?

     We could, after all, be vegetarian. Maybe, with cows, we could just “steal her butter and cheese,” as it says in the musical Oklahoma, not to mention stealing eggs from chickens. This would be a fair exchange for shelter and food and for playing country music for them on an old radio in a snow-proof barn. Or we could, as indigenous people once did, show courage and kill by hand if we have to, and afterwards pay homage to the creature in a ceremony and give thanks to the Animal Master. Not that I do this of course: I am no better.

     People will say, “well, they are just animals.” True, I say, and so are we. They are not so different, although certainly not so wily as we are. If you prick them, do they not bleed? Do these animals not experience fear and pain? Do they not experience contentment and what looks like happiness? Do they not experience attachment to both their kin, and in some cases to us? Are they not sentient?

     Ask Fido who gazes at you like a lover, or that mouser of yours that lives behind the living room sofa and pokes her head out when you come into the room.

     No, no, I say to the cattle in the field. Do not trust us. Look at how our eyes are placed. We have the eyes of predators. It is part of our nature.

 

And then one day, the cows were back – or at least most of them. I thought some were missing. I speculated that the ones who were back were unsold at an auction. Where had they been? Surely they had not been in the barn – I would have heard them, would I not, even with my dodgy right ear? Bill was not around to ask, and as a reclusive neighbour myself, I don’t know where he lives, to go pepper him with questions. But K went out with the binoculars and counted: twenty-three, which is about right.

     So it had to be that I was mistaken or misinterpreting. It is extremely rare for me to be wrong, naturally, and I am reluctant to admit such, but there you have it. I can’t argue with K’s count. I do feel happiness at seeing them again, of course, but the experience has affected me; now that happiness is tinged with some foreknowledge. After all, I know the ultimate outcome, and their temporary absence brought that fully to consciousness. Bill is not keeping them as a hobby, unlike the wealthy gentleman farmer up over the hill who keeps his sleek race-horses, or Jim with his rescues.

     So for now, I go on, as we all do. I walk by and I stop to watch them. If they are close by, I talk to them, ask them how things are. They raise their heads and look at me with not-unintelligent eyes. They have decided I am okay, if a bit nutty.

     What is there to be said about all of this? Given that we are all in the same predicament, there can be no reason for these wars we wage, and no reason to wreck the climate. There is no reason to elect a nincompoop as president or throw Bud Light cans out your truck window. But it is the case we must eat and there are so many of us – so many human beings. It is a calamity, no doubt. Given that, there is only one possible stance. Not indifference, but rather as the Buddhists would prescribe, to practice loving kindness, if not vegetarianism. We are all in this life together: human beings, the other sentient creatures, even the plants, the land and the waters.

     It the face of it all, there really is only one possible living stance: radical compassion, for all of us. I can’t think of anything else. And so for now, for today, I walk, and the sight of my Angus cattle gives me great joy.

     I’ll take that. The rest I can’t fix.

 

The old news is that Joe Biden, under great pressure, yet graciously and selflessly, has taken himself out of the presidential race.

     I will step around an opinion about whether or not this was the right thing to happen, although it is clear that the Democratic campaign is reinvigorated under the capable and battle-ready Kamala Harris. So be it. The orange-headed bloviator must be defeated.

     I will say that I have been appalled by the public attacks on President Biden over the past weeks by supposed supporters, his fellow Democrats, and press members such as the New York Times and The Economist. Shame. The issue is not whether they were right that he should go; rather, it is about the public disloyalty and the disheartening take-down of this venerable leader. Et Tu, Brute?! As an aside, but in relation to this, I hereby give notice that I have cancelled George Clooney.

     That said, let us take a moment to praise and thank Uncle Joe. He has been an exceptional president. He has accomplished the nearly impossible, after inheriting the chaotic mess left by his predecessor. He quickly established administrative order, bringing in many top minds to help the effort. He directed the country to come to grips with the menacing pandemic. In partnership with the Fed, he led the charge against runaway inflation, and pretty much stopped it in its tracks, the best record in the Western economies. Against the great odds of the recalcitrant legislative bodies, he managed to get legislation through that has begun to address America’s tattered infrastructure, while generating jobs, and he set country on a course to address climate change, the first president to do so. He also inaugurated a modernization of the American economy, moving toward high-level manufacturing, for example, in nanotechnology and renewables. And he did all this while restoring America’s position as a respectable, honourable, and trustworthy international partner for the world’s democracies, a position trashed by his hoodlum predecessor. Without being inflammatory or reckless, he took on the autocrats of China and Russia. We could say that, at least thus far, along with the European allies and Canada, he has saved Ukraine. What a record for a short three-and-a-half years!

     Of course, he has not been perfect. Although following a script written by the previous administration, he left Afghanistan in a shambles, and in the hands of the monstrous Taliban. And his – shall we call it ambivalent? – support for  the thuggish Prime Minister Netanyahu, in the face of the Gaza tragedy, has been perplexing at best. He has been between a rock and a hard place with Israeli policy, the situation is hideously complex, and the massacre by Hamas was unbelievably barbaric – but still. More should have been done to prevent the wipe-out of Gaza and so many everyday people.

     But in the end, he has been a good man and an excellent president. He has cared, and has tried to do the right thing as he saw it. He has acted honourably in the face of nearly insurmountable odds and cynical opposition. And he has acted honourably once again, by acceding to the wishes of his party, and withdrawing.

     We owe this man, Joe Biden, immense gratitude. Immense. We are in his debt. Thank you, Uncle Joe.

The Supreme Court decision, released on July 1, is abundantly clear to all. There is no need for subtle legal analysis. The president of the United States, from this date forward, has immunity from criminal prosecution for any act undertaken while performing so-called “official duties.”

     Any act. Ordering a vice-president not to certify an election, for example. Directing the burglary of the opponent party’s headquarters, for example. Ordering the jailing or assassination of a political opponent, for example. Ordering the U.S. military onto the streets of an American city to end a political protest or otherwise peaceful assembly, for example.

     Richard Nixon’s infamous (and erroneous then) declaration is now the reality in practice: “when the president does it, that means it is not illegal, by definition.”

 

A most basic foundation of democracy is that no person is above the law.

     The country’s founders would be appalled to find that this principle has been scrapped. They deliberately eschewed giving the president sovereign status.

     Six Supreme Court judges have taken the country back to a time predating the start of our common democratic heritage, best symbolized by the declaration of Britain’s Magna Carta.

     It is just possible that the democracy can be saved from the sovereign presidency. It will take a specific amendment to the American constitution.