It Makes Ya Think, Don’t It! (4)

Posted on by Peter Scott Cameron

A Harris-Guardian Poll in May 2024, (1) shows that the majority of Americans believe, incorrectly, that the U.S. is in recession (and blame Joe Biden).

     Beliefs:

1. 55% think the economy is shrinking and 56% believe the country is in a recession.
2. 49% believe the stock market, particularly the S&P 500 is down for the year.
3. 49% believe that unemployment has hit a 50-year high.
4. 72% think that the rate of inflation is increasing.
5. 55% say that the economy is “only getting worse.”

     Facts:

1. 2023 GDP for the U.S. grew by 2.5%, (2) real disposable income increased by 4.3%, savings rate increased by 4.5%. (3) GDP growth continued in the first quarter of 2024. The last recession was in 2020, at the height of the pandemic.

2. The S&P was up 24% in 2023, is up 12% so far this year, and this month the DOW hit its highest level ever, over 40,000.

3. Unemployment is at a 50 year low, consistently hovering below 4%.

4. The rate of inflation is decreasing from its post-pandemic high of 9% plus, and is now around 3.4% (above the target rate of 2%, but still decreasing toward the goal).

5. The economy has improved continuously since the pandemic low (of 128 million jobs in the economy). Since April, 2020,  not only did those jobs recover to the pre-pandemic 150 million job level, but we are now at 158 million jobs and disposable income is rising above the inflation rate.

     It makes ya think. All this information is commonly available on regular mainstream news sources – although not on Fox “News,” of course, where such content is suppressed.

     I’m confused. Are we still considered to be in the “information age?”

_______________

1. Aratani, Lauren. Majority of Americans wrongly believe US is in recession – and most blame Biden. The Guardian, May 22, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ article/2024/may/22/poll-economy-recession-biden. 

2. Gross Domestic Product, Fourth Quarter and Year 2023 (Advance Estimate). U. S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, January 25, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.bea.gov/news/2024/ ross-domestic-product-fourth-quarter-and-year-2023-advance-estimate.

3. By the Numbers: U.S. Economy Grows Faster than Expected for Year and Final Quarter of 2023. U.S. Department of Commerce, January 26, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.commerce. gov/news/blog/2024/01/numbers-us-economy-grows-faster-expected-year-and-final-quarter-2023. 

 

Who Are You Calling “Woke!?”

Posted on by Peter Scott Cameron

Them’s fightin’ words.

     At least some people, particularly politicians, appear to think so. Lianne Rood, a Conservative Member of Parliament for Lambton, Ontario, has been railing against “woke” coffee lids, of all things. She is complaining about the Canadian coffee and doughnut chain, Tim Hortons, that in an effort to become more planet-friendly, is changing from plastic to fibre lids for its take-out coffee. She has Xed (1) about “woke paper lids that dissolve in your mouth” (2) – which does beg the question of what kind of person eats coffee cup lids, but we will leave that for now. “Until Tim Hortons gets rid of this paper lid, I’m done with Tim Hortons,” she has said.

     The lawmaker’s pronouncements make one wonder what has happened to us. How is it that our politicians have ditched the concern that generations of parliamentarians have had for the Canadian value of good governance, and instead have elevated warring about cultural leanings to prominence – along with dissing those who care about the planet and social issues?

     Another Conservative anti-woke warrior, Saskatchewan MP Corey Tochor introduced a private member’s bill in February that would reverse the federal government’s single use plastic ban. He is most concerned about the loss of plastic straws, and in a moment of cleverness, he said: “Soggy, limp, wet and utterly useless: we are not talking about the Liberals. We are talking about paper straws.” Heh, heh, witty that. I hope it got recorded in Hansard, the official parliamentary record, for posterity. It’s a keeper.

     There are many entangled issues here, such as: what is “woke” anyway, what is the job of Members of Parliament, how should they spend their time (should they be eating coffee lids, for example, while on the country’s payroll), and what about the importance of cultural symbols, the environmental crisis, and bad grammar? However, we can only deal with a few of these.

     First, for our American readers, some background on Tim Hortons, since there is no U.S. equivalent. Comparison to Dunkin’ Donuts falls flat (it is now called Dunkin’ in a radical re-branding effort, given that in the age of social media, remembering two words in a row taxes the attention span). Not even close. There is nothing similar in American culture, not even the family bonding ritual of consuming a six-pack of Bud Light while watching football on Thanksgiving day. Tim Hortons is sacred, representing a trinity that includes sacramental doughnuts, coffee, and a deceased hockey hero all in one. At the heart of it – other than a great Canuck staple, doughnuts (its stature matched in Canadian cuisine only by Kraft Dinner) – is the beloved Maple Leaf (and later, Buffalo Sabres) hockey hero, Tim Horton. He died on the Queen Elizabeth Way in February 1974, on his way home from Buffalo, heading to Toronto.

     Tim was driving his exotic De Tomasa Pantera, going so fast that the cop he passed could not be sure of the colour. Rumours at the time were that he had been with a mistress, but no! Not Tim, don’t even say that! In any case, no Canadian hockey heroes ever had mistresses. No, instead he was having a business conference at one a.m. in Hamilton. Perhaps there was consumption of salutary social lubricants at the business meeting. After that, he took to the road, and sadly lost control at well over one hundred miles an hour, was ejected from the car, not wearing a seatbelt. (Hey, it was 1974!) It was too sad and the whole country grieved. (3) Tim was a good guy and we all loved him.

     There you have it, the Canadian Holy Trinity: a dead hockey hero, coffee, and most important, doughnuts, preferably chocolate-glazed. I offer a warning about this. For generations, the U.S. has had, and still has, standing plans for an invasion of Canada (4) – and in fact, during the pandemic, Candace Owens, a supporter of Trump right-wing rowdies, called for the invasion of Canada to stop Prime Minister Trudeau from cracking down on “Convoy” hooligans. (5) But given the importance of doughnuts, I have a warning for the Marines: Don’t get between Canadians and their Timbits. You will regret it, profoundly so. The hand-to-hand combat will be vicious.

     So, then! We have to admit that Ms. Rood exhibits some substantial cojones. To attack Tim’s because of its apparent wokeness, and to say she is done with the brand is unprecedented, radical. It may even be against Canadian law, violating hate-speech statutes. I’m not sure of this, but it is just possible.

 

But just what is a “woke” coffee lid, anyway?

     Webster’s, at least the online version, defines woke as: “aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice)” (6) “Stay woke” has been in use since the nineteen-thirties in the African-American community, and the blues singer Lead Belly is reputed to have used the term as early as last mid-century. The word was used to refer to awareness of structural racism that goes beyond individual prejudice, especially in the American South during the Jim Crow era. Use of the term became more common after 2010, particularly within the Black Lives Matter movement. Since then its meaning has widened to include injustice in many forms: to be aware of not only racism, but prejudice and discrimination aimed at many groups, including women, gay people, and people who do not conform to gender expectations, as well as advocates for environmental and climate concerns. Quite simply, although expressed in dodgy grammar, the word refers to consciousness of important societal and civic issues, particularly those of injustice.

     Rapidly there was a backlash, as there always is, when the status of the privileged is challenged. The word quickly became a pejorative. This transformation was an extension of a tactic that the right has been enormously successful in carrying out; that is, co-optation of positive words that call for social change and progress. Now, even hard-core Liberals can be heard denigrating wokeness, as though it implied someone who is fey, superior in attitude, someone who is ridicules, but who nevertheless fascistically wants to impose thinking and beliefs on others. This disdain for woke has spread to Canada and many other countries. A good deal of this has been orchestrated by entrenched powers: for example, fossil fuel interests manufactured a deliberate war on “wokeness” in order to undermine environmentalists. (7) More on that it a bit, but first…

     It is not that “woke” is without problems: questionable grammar, for one. My inner- grammar-child recoils at “woke.” I can feel Miss Scott’s ruler, my second grade teacher at King George School, rapping my knuckles as I say the word. Ouch. “Awakened,” would be more correct in terms of the English language, but it implies that the individual is in a state of Buddhist enlightenment, so that is not quite right. “Awake” would be correct – as in, “she is awake to the reality of structural racism.” But I have to grant that the inventors of the term wanted something unique, something that would stand out, hence: woke. This is similar to the adoption of the term “gay,” by gender-script non-conformists. Although I miss the old usage of gay, I have to accede to them the right to take the term, given how much mistreatment they have had to endure.

     Of course there is another tangential English problem associated with this discussion: namely, Tim “Hortons.” It should be Tim Horton’s, of course, unless there were several hockey players who started different restaurants and who were all called Tim Horton. I don’t understand why we accept this travesty so passively. They could call it Tim Horton, as in Walmart, but since they chose the possessive, there should be an apostrophe, and we ought not tolerate its absence without a fight. It is the same for Lands End and Starbucks, which should be Land’s End (or less sensible, but still correct, Lands’ End) and Starbuck’s. I wrote to Lands End about the issue and received a jokey reply intended to humour me. I was not amused. Even more egregious, from a few years back, was Apple and “Think Different.” Outrageous. Of course, despite the catastrophic loss of the adverb in North American culture, it should have been “Think Differently.” Or, if the monsters at the helm of Apple did want people to think the word “different,” then it would have been “Think: Different.” A simple colon would take care of the problem. But no – the cads said to hell with the decline of civilization – we don’t care! Low.

     The other problem is that woke people can appear superior, intolerant, and downright annoying. What comes to mind is the unfair treatment of J. K. Rowling, who, without rancour or prejudice against trans people, put forth a not-unreasonable position on sex vs. gender. (8)  Another example concerns the invented concept of “cultural appropriation.” For instance, there was the cancellation of yoga classes at the University of Ottawa a number of years back. Some students complained of discomfort due to North American people engaging in a practice that is originally part of the culture of India. Yoga was being “appropriated” by Canadians, the woke students kvetched. (9) What nonsense. There can be misappropriation, as when a fashion house, in a massive exhibition of crass insensitivity, used faux North American Indigenous headdresses in a show. Ugh – tacky and disrespectful. Still, there is really no such thing as cultural appropriation.

     Cultures are not things; nobody owns them. Culture is a process, a way of living, and elements of culture spread or diffuse to other people all the time and there is nothing wrong with that. It would be silly of me to be upset, for example, if a Sherpa mountaineer wore a kilt in the traditional way, without undershorts, during an ascent of Everest, nor should I be perturbed with a Japanese teenager playing the bagpipes, nor an Iranian who chose to wear a Montréal Canadiens’ hockey sweater. So woke people: enough with self-righteous posturing, already.

     But back to the organized war on wokeness. In addition to the think-tank inspired campaigns, such as that noted of the fossil-fuel industry, commercial entities and politicians are jumping on the ant-woke honey wagon. Not for comedic effect, although it would appear that way, there are retail marketers that cater to the denigration of social consciousness. Right wing outlets, such as The Daily Wire, have launched lines of anti-woke products, including vitamins to “reclaim masculinity,” called “Manly Green Vitamin Capsules.” Jeremy’s Razors, Black Rifle Coffee, Ultra Right Beer all follow this line, promoting themselves as antidotes to the “woke mind virus.” The working class staple, Bud Light, almost tanked after using a transgender person in an advert. The Daily Wire advocates that people not “buy your men’s health products from a company that partners with drag queens and supports radical organizations that push gender procedures on children.” (10)

     The cynics of the political world have seized the opportunity also: the aforementioned Ms. Rood, and the Canadian Conservative populist wanna-be, Pierre Poilievre are two. But most notable is the self-declared leader of the anti-woke Brownshirts, Ron DeSantis in the U.S. “Florida is where woke goes to die,” he has famously declared. (11) It would be tempting to ridicule this statement and this man, were the consequences of this not so disheartening and harmful. For example, under his approval, the Florida middle school social studies curriculum and texts discuss how African slaves benefited from slavery by learning new skills! The curriculum makes no mention of who it was that did the enslaving, or slavery’s horrors. Despicable, that.

     But this tells us what is at the root of the antipathy. The most fundamental basis is racism. The foundation of anti-woke is simply good old-fashioned racism dressed up in a brand new suit. We can add to that broader feelings of fear, hate and prejudice toward people who do not conform to society’s gender scripts, toward those who advocate for fairness and justice, and those who care about our fellow creatures and the planet. Couple all that to greed – that is, protection of wealth, especially fossil-fuel wealth – and there you have it.

     So there it is; now we understand what Ms. Rood is getting at. God forbid that Tim Hortons joins the attempt to take on the monstrous problem of plastic pollution, and thus take away our plastic lids and straws. What is next? Giving up incandescent light bulbs, having to drive electrical vehicles, and being forced to see wind turbines on the horizon? Equal and just treatment of all people, regardless of skin colour, or ethnicity, gender, or gender behaviour? Ensuring that all eligible citizens get to vote? Children free of gunfire in their classrooms, safe, happy, and learning in their schools? Living wages? Access to health care? Where will it all end?

     It probably would end in that great dream of the Enlightenment: democracy and decency – things we should be willing to fight for. I hereby declare that I, for one, am willing to fight. In that spirit, keeping in mind our rich and exemplary role-models Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, who challenged each other to an ultimate fighting contest, I demand satisfaction from DeSantis and Poilievre, as a tag-team, to a fight in the octagon. Once I was a martial artist who could kick seven feet in the air (in case I was attacked by a seven-foot opponent, I suppose). Now, at 77, the best I can do is aim for the ankles, but still, I would take them. That famous arc of history that bends toward justice is definitely on my side. And by all means, Lianne Rood can join them: they will still go down. I will wear a robe with a Black Lives Matter  flag on the back, Pride flags imprinted on my gloves, an Extinction Rebellion baseball cap, and my trunks will have WOKE! printed on my arse.

     I urge every Liberal and other people, including true small-c conservatives, to embrace the term and use it with pride. I consider that every college and university sophomore, if not woke, should consider themselves as failing in their work. Let there be Woke Pride.

     After all, who would not want to live with compassion, with understanding of structural injustice, a concern for our planet, and its well-being, with a desire to defend the decency and the dignity of all people and other creatures? Count me in. Please, call me woke!

_____________

  1. There is uncertainty as to what to call “tweets,” now that the company is X. Musk as suggested “X’s,” and a completed X would then be “X’ed,” including the incorrect apostrophes. One wag suggested they be called “2 cents,” since that is what the company is worth, post the Musk takeover. Retrieved from: https://mashable.com/article/twitter-x-what-are-tweets-called.
  2. Major, Darren. Are Tim Hortons’ new lids ‘woke’? One Conservative MP thinks so. CBC News, May 8, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/conservative- mp-tim-hortons-fibre-lids-1.7199306.
  3. 50 years after Tim Horton’s deadly car crash, we clear up one lingering mystery. The Toronto Star, February 17, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/50-years-after- tim-hortons-deadly-car-crash-we-clear-up-one-lingering-mystery/article_079468f2-c9d1-11ee-a912-97985739c8f3.html.
  4. For example: Lewis, Dan. The 1927 U.S. Plan to Invade Canada. August 26, 2012. Retrieved from: https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12366/1927-us-plan-invade-canada.
  5. Porter, Tom. Candace Owens called for the US to invade Canada to stop Justin Trudeau cracking down on trucker protests. Business Insider, February 21, 2022. Retrieved from: https://www.businessinsider.com/candace-owens-wants-us-invade-canada-defend-truckers-trudeau-2022-2?op=1.
  6. Merriam-Webster. Retrieved from: https://merriam-webster.com/wordplay/woke-meaning-origin. My old Webster print version, copyright from 1955, simply defines it as the alternative past tense of wake.
  7. Noor, Dharna. Rightwing war on ‘woke capitalism’ partly driven by fossil fuel interests and allies: Report shows connections of business and rightwing thinktanks to laws aimed at environmental, social and corporate governance. The Guardian, June 22, 2023. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/jun/22/rightwing-war-on-woke-capitalism-industry- interests.
  8. Petter, Olivia. JK Rowling criticised over ‘transphobic’ tweet about menstruation. Independent, June 15, 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/jk- rowling-tweet-women-menstruate-people-transphobia-twitter-a9552866.html.
  9. Foote, Andrew. Yoga class cancelled at University of Ottawa over ‘cultural issues’: “There were some cultural sensitivity issues and people were offended,” says instructor. CBC News, November 22, 2015, Retrieved from: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/university- ottawa-yoga-cultural-sensitivity-1.3330441.
  10. Gabbatt, Adam. Poor reviews, missing product: firms’ anti-woke offerings soak consumers: A thriving retail niche caters to the performative masculinity of the right wing, oftentimes bilking its chauvinistic client base. The Guardian, May 11, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/may/11/anti-woke-vitamin-economy.
  11. Czachor, Emily Mae. “Florida is where woke goes to die,” Gov. Ron DeSantis says after reelection victory. CBS News, November 9, 2022. Retrieved from: https://www.cbsnews.com/ news/ron-desantis-florida-where-woke-goes-to-die-midterm-election-win/.

What Has Befallen Us: Hitler and the Rise of Trump

Posted on by Peter Scott Cameron

What has befallen America? It has been a privilege to split my life between two great democracies, Canada and the United States, and I have lived comfortably here despite the country’s foibles. I became a citizen after 9/11, as an expression of gratitude for and solidarity with the American people. The U.S. has been generous and hospitable to me, and I am grateful.

     And yet. I have grown increasingly disquieted and anxious here among my neighbours and fellow citizens. After a first inexplicable and frightening Trump presidency, and with electoral polls showing him possibly winning again, I no longer feel at home in this United States. How could nearly half the people support such a person?

     Before the 2020 election, my neighbours over the hill and down the road hung their Trump banners on their house and barn: Finally a president with balls, one stated. On a few weekends before the election, they practised shooting their semi-automatic weapons in their fields. They mowed gigantic letters into their hillside: FREEDOM. After Joe Biden was elected, they hung their huge American flag, inverted, dominating the hilltop, meaning: Distress. Extreme danger to life and property. Who are these people?

 

I fear they are the same people who allowed Hitler to take power in 1933 in Germany. The everyday view of Hitler’s ascent is that he “seized” power, but this not really correct. Instead, the despot was handed power by enablers who believed they could control and manage him. He was appointed Chancellor, through the legitimate democratic process of the time. Then he consolidated and took over, using available means. He did not have a mandate from the majority in the election that preceded his appointment; rather, he was given his position as a kind of compromise candidate, even though most of the “conservative political class” at the time regarded him as a “chaotic clown” – an idiot. (1)

     Here in America, we are facing a situation that is parallel to the Weimar Republic of 1933. Although the mechanisms are different, we have an aspiring dictator who may well be handed power once again in November of this year. This is despite the facts: that Trump is a convicted fraudster and molester of women, that he is a misogynist, a racist and supporter of white supremacists, a chronic liar, a chaotic incompetent (demonstrated by his first term in office), a fool (such as pondering the internal use of disinfectants (2) to treat Covid), a threat to world peace and order, who undermines venerable domestic and international social and political institutions such as NATO, who is a foe of women’s rights and an impediment to climate action, who admires dictatorship, and who, by his own words, is a clear threat to the American Democracy itself. One wonders how so many people can support a person who threatens the foundation of the two-hundred-and-fifty year old American experiment in democracy and its – imperfect and uneven to be sure – struggle for development of the human potential.

     We know the story of Nazi Germany too well: a once-decent society consumed by hatred and the holocaust, with not only six million Jews exterminated, but also another five million Gypsies, Poles, communist, gay, lesbian, mentally ill, and developmentally disabled people murdered. Along with that was the worst war in history, with an estimated 75 to 80 million deaths (worldwide) – in Europe occurring under the rule of a megalomaniac who nevertheless many saw as a fool. The Germans were not an uncivilized people – quite the opposite. The Jewish people were not outsiders in German society of the time – again, quite the opposite. There was of course, a virulent strain of anti-Semitism concentrated in the higher echelons, propagated mainly by elitists, pseudo-scientific thinkers, and some artists at the time, such as the notorious racist, the composer Richard Wagner. But overall, the Jewish people were integrated into German society. How could this catastrophe have happened? How could decent Germans have allowed a person such as Hitler to take power in their democracy?

     Similarly, how could the decent American people allow a potential despot to take power in their democracy? In the end, this may be unanswerable. But there are themes:

1. Various constituencies believe the despot will represent their interests.

     Too many people in Weimar Germany considered Adolf Hitler to be an idiot who would be useful to them, someone who could be manipulated while he would protect their assets. And so it is that too many people in America consider Donald Trump as, at least, an unsavoury character, but as someone who will defend their interests and position. A common refrain among Trump supporters is that “I don’t like the man, but I like the policies.” This judgement is a terrible error and it is the same thing that groups of Germans thought about Hitler.

     Various communities of people, although they had a dim view of Hitler’s character, saw him as someone who would shield them from harm or loss. The conservative wealthy class and the managers of industry saw Hitler as a “performative” clown, but one who nevertheless would protect their wealth. Small business people and the self-employed, who felt their livelihoods were threatened, supported him. He appealed to the Catholics by his posing as someone who would defend Christian values. Likewise, he attracted the employed Protestant voters and domestic workers who felt secure in a rigid hierarchy with strong leadership. Of course, angry down-and-outers, accurately or not, saw in him someone who would recognize their victim-hood and help them our of their misery. Finally, there were those, the underground power-broker trolls of their day, like the Steve Bannons of our time, who wanted to tear down Germany society and establish strongman rule – although not by Hitler himself. They thought he would prove useful in the transition to autocracy but then could be disposed of and replaced by themselves.

     All these constituencies together formed a powerful coalition with adequate numbers to create a pathway to power for Hitler.

    The parallels are obvious. Somewhat unfairly, we Liberals often think of Trump supporters as rabble, donning red MAGA hats and yelling “lock her up” at his earlier rallies. But really these are disaffected people, many of whom have been harmed by long-term social and economic changes over which they have no power. Many are just angry working people partly disenfranchised by massive social and economic shifts. Trump appears to stand up for them by giving the finger to the more liberal, better-educated and self-satisfied establishment. The more outrageous and lawless he is, the better they like it; after all, they feel they have little left to lose.

     In addition to that group, there is a very sizeable number of Evangelicals who see Donald Trump as a “flawed messenger,” but who nevertheless stands for their values and issues, particularly their determination to have control over women’s sex and reproductive lives. Also, there are some Catholics who will vote for him because of his opportunistic opposition to abortion. There is a swath of the middle class whose position feels threatened by economic changes, the influx of immigrants, and seismic shifts in social values. To them, Trump is seen as a defender of both their way of life and their social position. Further, he provides, as Hitler did with the Jews, convenient scapegoats: Muslims, who are believed to threaten us with cultural change and terrorism, and migrants who are “not people” and who are “poisoning the blood” of the country. Add to this a fantasy – a promised return to a better, prouder time, the “Reich,” a time of power and glory – and you have a perfect, complementary emotional formula to focus the projections of those who are unhappy or afraid in the present. Make American Great Again.

     The conservative wealthy upper classes, knowing full well that Trump is a dishonest businessman who only dimly comprehends economics, nevertheless see him as someone who will work for them, ensuring that they will be well rewarded with tax-cutting, with libertarian policies, and with protection for entrenched interests such as the fossil fuel industries. Finally, there are those ready to tear down American democracy, from American proto-fascists like Steve Bannon (noted above) and Roger Stone, to radical libertarians like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk, to professional political power cynics like Mitch McConnell in the Senate , and all the way to lunatic fringe members of the Freedom Caucus in the House. To these people, Trump is the useful idiot, who can be put into service, and then outflanked, in establishing a new order.

     Underpinning all this, there is a powerful foundation of simple anti-black racism among white members all of the above groups; Trump has communicated clearly that he represents them.

     Add to all this the single-issue gun people and climate deniers, and those who will vote Republican no matter what, and you have a sizeable coalition. This fusion of interests into a collective, similar to 1933 Germany, might fall short of a popular majority, but it represents enough people to enable Trump to win the presidency, especially with spoiler candidates such as the befuddled Robert Kennedy in play.

2. The despot is an astute media player and has major media enablers.

     Donald Trump has been a brilliant player in the era of social media. I am certain that not a single day has gone by since June, 2015, when he announced his candidacy, that he has not been in the news. His very erraticism and unpredictability ensure that he garners attention and even his most abhorrent behaviours serve to promote him. He said it himself: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot someone and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?” (3) Perhaps he underestimated himself here; if coverage of his criminal and other cases is an indication, he would not only not lose voters, but rather would gain them.

     Hitler was also a master of the media of the time. He exploited “sound recordings, newsreels, and radio,” and he even campaigned, theatrically dramatic for the era, by aeroplane. In this, he was supported and used by media moguls, such Alfred Hugenberg, who like right-wingers of our time, imagined a media bias against conservatism. Hugenberg, like Rupert Murdoch of Fox News, and the likes of Tucker Carlson with Trump, capitalized on Hitler’s persona despite privately thinking he was “manic.” Hugenberg used Hitler to promulgate “catastrophic politics” with inflammatory news, and a disinformation campaign of “half-truths, rumours, and outright lies.” His goal, like the Murdochs, was to promulgate culture wars, divide the society, and polarize politics, in order to preclude a socially progressive consensus. Like Trump in the present, Hitler was seen as a useful actor in promoting this destructive agenda. Of course, once entrenched in the chancellorship, Herr Hitler took that agenda to extremes that even Hugenberg and others could not imagine.

3. Decent people believe that their playing by the rules will contain the despot.

     Democracy is vulnerable and fragile, as indeed, is civilization itself. As Goebbels famously said: “The big joke on democracy is that it gives its mortal enemies the tools to its own destruction.” In order to work, democracy’s inherent untidiness has to be supported by people of good will and good faith, who agree to play by both the letter and the intention of the rules. The decent left, centre, and right of present-day America, and other democracies like Canada, the U.K., and The Netherlands, are prone to a belief that if they, themselves, continue to work fairly within it, the democratic system inevitably will protect against the lawless players. But this is a fallacy that the populist demagogue exploits at will. Hitler used this delusion to advantage, as did Senator McCarthy two decades later in America. Trump, even more bold-faced, has publicly promised to use the system against itself, for example by employing the Justice Department against his political enemies generally and Joe Biden personally if he is elected president.

      Earlier on, the first line of defence in the U.S. against Trump populism would have been the Republican Party itself, but unfortunately the party has been following a long arc of decline in political ethics.(4) In the Trump era, decent Republicans, from very conservative like Liz Cheney to the moderately so like Mitt Romney, have either been railroaded from the party or have run for the hills themselves, unable or unwilling to subject themselves to the virulent onslaught. Too many of those who are left are fawning minions like Lindsey Graham, destructionists such as Matt Gaetz, the unhinged like Marjorie Taylor-Greene, and cynical manipulators of power such as Elise Stefanik and the previously noted Mitch McConnell.

4. Decent people believe the motivations of the despot are like their own.

     A second fallacy of decent people is that they assume that someone like a Hitler is motivated by the same, normal things that they are: wanting to make things better, wanting to help, enjoying being liked by others for doing good, and being part of the human community. The normal person wants to avoid wrongdoing and does not want to feel shame or guilt. Decent people assume that the demagogue will respond to these things and feel good when they do right, and feel shame when they do wrong. But this is wrong. These normal motivations simply to not apply to a Hitler or a Trump – people with psychopathic and narcissistic character structures. A person with the psychopathic traits (5) easily exploits the decency and normal motivation of regular people – as easily as he takes advantage of the vulnerabilities of political systems. He sneers at normal people, considering them inferior, or as Trump calls them, “losers.”

     Much has been written of the character structure of Adolf Hitler (6), and certainly it is true that after-the-fact psychiatry can be all too facile and glib. Nevertheless, it is easy to see the psychopathy of Hitler, and to see that he was motivated by rage, and a desire to wreak upon the world his hatred and need for destruction. He lacked a conscience and empathy: these, the penultimate indicators of the psychopath. Further, obviously he craved attention and admiration: signifiers of the narcissist. There is no need to peer inside the psyche or to analyse his childhood in order to see these things; they are in plain sight. Hitler was a psychopath with narcissistic traits.

     Similarly, Donald Trump’s narcissism and psychopathy are in plain sight, in his words and deeds. However in his case, it would be fair to reverse the sequence and describe him as narcissistic, with psychopathic tendencies. His primary motivation is his need for admiration and attention. He craves notice and tolerates only fawning acclaim from those around him and from the public. Hence, his favourite moments on earth are his rallies. When admiration falters or is withdrawn, as a narcissist he lashes out and dismisses the transgressor. “Pathetic,” he called Nikki Haley. (7) These moments alternate with episodes of farcical self-aggrandisement – he has proclaimed himself the most “presidential” of Presidents since Abraham Lincoln. (8)

     However, his character structure does include psychopathic components of rage and hatred; life is about dominance, and winning. Others, even a venerable war hero and public servant, like John McCain, are “losers” – in this case because he “lost” by becoming a prisoner of war, after being captured serving his country in combat. (9) Trump never admits defeat, never admits errors, exploits others, and exhibits a lack of conscience and empathy. Still, his destructive rage is not primary, as it was in Hitler. He would not necessarily embark on a program to exterminate groups of people, as Hitler did. He is racist to be sure, but likely does not care that much about these people, as long as he is getting attention and admiration. His demonizing of migrants and Muslims is mostly opportunistic, a way to capture notoriety.

     It is, perhaps, psychological hair-splitting to discuss whether narcissism or psychopathy is primary in these two people. Whichever way around it is, the narcissistic-psychopathic pairing in character structure is dangerous: dangerous to those around the person, and dangerous to the society. And in the case of the U.S., this person with the personality disorder is a clear threat not only to the decency and civility of the nation, but also to the Democracy itself.

 

The strength of American democratic institutions is greater than that of the post-world-war Weimar Republic, and Trump is no Hitler, exactly. Perhaps Mussolini would be a more apt comparison in character and deportment. But make no mistake: he is a very dangerous aspiring despot and conditions are ripe for the ascent of such a person. We should not be complacent or deceived. The parallels with the rise of Hitler are apparent. The means to subvert democracy are available and there is a broad coalition of people who believe Trump will protect their interests. The candidate is adept at media use and there are media players who capitalize on this. This candidate with a narcissistic-psychopathic character structure is an admirer of dictators and a would-be dictator himself, and there is a cadre of determined enablers, with plans prepared, that is ready to enable their useful idiot. As Isaac Arnsdorf has reported, Steve Bannon, for instance, one of Trump’s handlers, has a detailed plan for at least one-hundred years of rule by a gang of MAGA proto-fascists. (10)

     Trump does not need to seize power. All he has to do is be elected, and then be allowed to consolidate. If he can be defeated at the polls, it will be a bumpy ride, but he will go away, and the road will be clearer to protect against the next Trump. If he is not defeated at the polls, then it will be up to all of us, and to every decent person who believes in democracy, to oppose, to challenge, and to stop him, by whatever peaceful and lawful means we have available to us. (11)

     Meanwhile, what to do about the discomfort with my fellow citizens and my neighbours? Part of me, of course, just wants to flee. But it would be hard to do so in good conscience. The right thing to do is to stay and resist tyranny. In any case, we truly are one world, and there really is no escape from these people. Canada has its opportunistic, “populist” prime ministerial candidate, Pierre Poilievre. The Netherlands has Geert Wilders; France has Marine Le Pen, Italy has Giorgia Meloni, and Hungary, Viktor Mihály Orbán. They are everywhere, and this is not to mention Presidents Putin and Xi Jinping, Min Aung Hlaing of Myanmar, Nicolás Maduro Moros of Venezuela, and all the other tin-pot dictators the world over. No, there is no escape; the only way forward is to stay and fight.

     The simple truth is that I just have to live with the disquiet I feel, and know that I am not alone in this. Kathy and I meditate; and every evening, she lights candles for peace on the dining room table. I take solace in knowing that there are very many good people out there in this country. Although the Supreme Court has become an unreliable protector of democracy, I know that if the man is elected, the good states, such as New York, Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New Jersey, California, Oregon, Washington, Illinois, will fight to resist the despot.

     I also know that there are also many decent people who will vote for Trump. I have to accept that they have their reasons. To live with that, I can only adopt a Buddhist take on it. They are not bad people; they are just mistaken. As to my gun-toting neighbours: I can’t offer friendship, but I can offer peace. For now, their banners are down, the flag is upright, and there has been no shooting for a long time. Maybe they have had an epiphany and realize that the man is no good. We will see what they do.

     I can only hope for the best, while preparing for the worst. And prepare to resist. To fight.

____________

After-note:

I find it depressing to write about this man, and I hope not to do so again.

Sources:

Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich. Penguin Books, 2003.

Gopnik, Adam. The Enablers. The New Yorker Magazine, March 25, 2024

Ryback, Timothy W. Takeover: Hitler’s Final Rise to Power. Knopf, 2024.

Notes:

1. The historical analysis of the rise of Hitler here is entirely dependent upon the review by Adam Gopnik in The New Yorker Magazine, and on Timothy Ryback’s book, both listed above. Most quotations are from Gopnik.

2. President Trump Task Force Briefing. C-Span, April 23, 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.c-span.org/video/?471458-1/president-trump-coronavirus-task-force-briefing. 

3. Flores, Reena. Donald Trump: I could shoot someone and not lose any voters. CBS News, January 26, 2016. Retrieved from: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trump-i-could-shoot-somebody-and-i-wouldnt-lose-any-voters/. 

4. Milbank, Dana. The Destructionists: The Twenty-Five-Year Crack-Up of the Republican Party. Doubleday, 2022.

5. I do not use the term, “Antisocial Personality Disorder,” from the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The Committee has whitewashed the diagnosis; it sounds like someone who doesn’t like social gatherings much, as opposed to an inhuman character structure that lacks a conscience and any empathy and is prone to interpersonal abuse and often violence. That is a psychopath: not someone who is “antisocial.”

6. See, for example: Martin-Joy, John. Erik Erikson: A Psychoanalyst Looks at Hitler. Psychology Today, July 28, 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/politics-psychiatry-and-psychoanalysis/202007/erik-erikson-psychoanalyst-looks-hitler. 

7. Moran, Lee. Donald Trump’s ‘Pathetic’ Excuse For D.C. Primary Loss To Haley Is Mercilessly Mocked. Huffington Post, March 4, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-responds-nikki-haley-defeat_n_65e5743ce4b0f89059333258. 

8. Cillizza, Chris. Donald Trump ranked himself 2nd on a list of most ‘presidential’ presidents. The Point, CNN, July 26, 2017. Retrieved from: https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/26/politics/donald-trump-abe-lincoln/index.html. 

9. Associated Press. Fact check: Trump says he never called John McCain a ‘loser.’ He definitely did. Chicago Tribune, September 5, 2020. Retrieved from: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2020/09/05/fact-check-trump-says-he-never-called-john-mccain-a-loser-he-definitely-did/.

10. Pengelly, Martin. New book details Steve Bannon’s ‘Maga movement’ plan to rule for 100 years: Isaac Arnsdorf’s Finish What We Started shows how the strategist wanted to create a dominant coalition to take US political power. The Guardian, April 4, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/apr/04/steve-bannon-book-maga.

11. Over 20% (28% of Republicans, 12% of Democrats) agree that violence may be necessary to “get the county back on track.” Santhanam, Laura. 1 in 5 Americans think violence may solve U.S. divisions, poll finds. PBS News Hour, April 3, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/1-in-5-americans-think-violence-may-solve-u-s-divisions-poll-finds.

Revised April 29. 2024.

In Praise of Luddites

Posted on by Peter Scott Cameron

A confession: while I was living in Toronto, Amazon announced that it was planning to begin using robots – these would travel along city sidewalks and make deliveries to individual addresses. It was rumoured that they would start very soon in the city. I couldn’t wait. I imagined messing with them in numerous ways: from simply blocking the robots’ paths to see if I could confuse them, to forcing them to drop off the curb into the line of an oncoming Toronto Transit bus. I took pleasure in picturing assaulting the things with a baseball bat if there were no constables around. I mentioned my thoughts to a friend, explaining that sidewalks were for people, not corporate interests, and every delivery robot represented jobs lost for individuals for whom unemployment in the capitalist economy is the great motivating terror. “Luddite!” my friend exclaimed.

     Indeed. Thank you.

     Luddite is a pejorative that we have deep affection for, using it, as we do, to insult those we love, and even relatives. It means our victims are resisting technology pointlessly, or they won’t do what we want them to do, such as wasting ten minutes of their short life watching a TikTok influencer with mauve hair explaining why we should use only organic asparagus butter. Luddites are people who are uselessly anti-progress, negative nay-sayers, inept at using technology, standing against the development of human productivity and well-being. They are a bit stupid, unruly and stubborn, a bit like donkeys, we think. However, we are wrong.

     Our estimation of Luddites is incorrect, as is our assessment of donkeys. What we think about them is not who they were at all.

     The Luddites, in fact, were intelligent and self-controlled craftspeople who correctly foresaw their lives altering for the worse as a result of disruptive technological change. They consciously chose to resist. They wanted to preserve a life that was home-based, autonomous, productive, satisfying, and even artistic.

     The Luddites took their name from a “Ned Ludd,” a mythical figure in the Robin Hood tradition, who, legend has it, fought for justice in the same area of Nottinghamshire as had Robin and his merry band. “General” Ludd was said to be more or less up to the same devilry: protecting the poor and powerless from arbitrary exploitation, oppression and debasement, as carried out by the powers that be – Kings, Sheriffs, land owners, and the wealthy.(1)

     They were mainly skilled weavers, combers, and dressers of wool, along with cotton trade artisans, who worked as independent craftspeople in their workshops in homes and cottages. As a group, they were described as highly disciplined, organized and effective. They were also well supported; despite bribes and threats, no one ever betrayed them to the authorities. Given that they operated merely for a fifteen month period in 1811 and 1812, in an area that included only parts of five counties around Nottinghamshire, it is remarkable how well they became known and how long they have been remembered.

     The accurate view of them has been buried in propaganda propagated by authorities of the day, and perpetuated by the corporate and technology interests of our own time. Our current Techno-Nottingham Sheriffs would have us believe, in a form of false consciousness, that, for example, watching a video of nature online is the same as being in nature, or that we should be enchanted with the prospect of artificial intelligence.

     Yet, despite all the efforts to discredit the Luddites and our use of their name as a deprecatory label, their call echos still, if mostly in the subconscious level. I believe we know that they were on to something. Their cause, in fact, is one that resonates in all of us: our humanity itself. They were not fighting against machinery; rather, they were fighting for what it means to be a human being.

     But were they not violent, you ask? If violence can be committed against inanimate objects, I suppose that we have to say yes, they were. They attacked the new factories at night and destroyed the power looms and other machinery. In some cases they burned buildings, including factories and in a few cases, the homes of owners. However, there were no known instances of Luddites attacking or killing human beings. (There were instances of personal violence during the period, when members of the starving general population rebelled against the terrible conditions of the time but these killings were not carried out by followers of General Ludd.) Despite the actions of the Luddites being directed at machines and not people, authorities responded with everything they had, including shooting, imprisoning, transporting and executing people who they believed were part of the cause. In less than a year and a half, their resistance collapsed, although the broader unrest noted above continued because of the dreadful social conditions of the time.

    On a most basic level, the Luddites were just protecting their livelihoods, but you could say they were prescient. They did not hate machinery as such. What they hated was the life that the new industrial age devices was bringing, and they saw that life with clarity. Workers in the new factories quickly became near-slaves, held to their work hour after hour, day after day, in dirty, hot, and dark conditions. Foremen walked the aisles with whips, to ensure absolute focus on the mind-numbing and body-damaging toil. Women were abused, sexually and otherwise, and children who did not perform up to standard were beaten. The prevailing industrial theory of the day – not so far removed from the ideas of some of our present titans of the gig economy (2) – was that one should pay enough so that workers would not starve, but not so much that they would not be hungry, literally speaking.

     The result has been well documented: gruesome factory conditions, ghastly tenements, increasing crime and corruption, starvation, disease, addiction and alcoholism, demoralization and mental illness. Descriptions are nearly unbearable to read:

Not one father in a family of ten in the whole neighbourhood has other clothing than his working suit, and that is as bad and tattered as possible, many, indeed have no other covering for the night than these rags, and no bed, save a sack of
straw and shavings…

On the occasion of an inquest held Nov. 14th, 1843, by Mr. Carter, coroner for Surrey, upon the body of Ann Galway, aged 45 years, the newspapers related the following particulars concerning the deceased: she lived at No. 3 White Lion Court, Bermondsey Street, London, with her husband and a nineteen-year-old son in a little room, in which neither bedstead nor any other furniture was to be seen. She lay dead beside her son upon a heap of feathers which were scattered over her almost naked body, there being neither sheet nor coverlet. The feathers stuck so fast over the whole body that the physician could not examine the corpse until it was cleansed, and then found it starved and scarred from the bites of vermin. Part of the floor of the room was torn up, and the hole used by the family as a privy. (3)

     Who would not want to resist this?

     But of course, over time things did get better, at least in part of the world. In the Western world conditions did improve over the course of more than a century. Working conditions got better, wages grew, and health, housing and living circumstances improved to the point that it can be said that the industrial revolution resulted in a standard of living and personal longevity that was beyond the most fantastical imaginings of everyday humanity. And so, were the Luddites mistaken?

     Not exactly. Such working conditions remain in many areas of the world: the clothing factories of Bangladesh, for example. Aside from that, the changes for the better were a result of decades and decades of struggle by workers, by unions of people, by individual humanitarian champions, by agencies and governments who saw the plight of people and responded to it with regulation and legislation. The Luddites were not wrong in what they were seeing.

     However, we could say that the Luddites could not see the bigger picture, and so were shortsighted – that change is always disruptive, and technological improvement will ultimately lead to a betterment of life for humanity, if we give it time. But is this true?

     I would respond: not necessarily. First, all technological improvement comes with a price tag. The automobile was instrumental in getting rid of the mountains of horse manure on city streets, but now the planet is choking on the exhaust fumes. Cell phone technology resulted in instantaneous, full-time communication among people, but also has resulted in a distracted, misinformed population with their noses stuck in their devices at the dinner table, uninterested in communicating directly with one another. Our rivers, our lakes and oceans, our land, and even our bodies are full of plastic. Reefs are bleaching, birds are dying, animals are disappearing. And overall, we seem to believe that the meaning of life can be found in what we own. To be human, it has become, is to consume. Meanwhile, this wealthy Western world is in a crisis of meaning, wherein thousands, addicted to opioids, are dying in streets and alleys, and where, at least in America, automatic-weapon-carrying young men in a state of anomie are murdering children with great regularity in their school rooms.

 

There was a more recent span of Luddite-ism in the twentieth century: the short-lived Hippie period and its back-to-the-land movement. The Hippies have been denigrated too, and perhaps some of that is deserving. But at the heart of the movement was a rejection of materialism, a resistance to the conversion of human beings into consumers. The Hippies were opting for a life that was more generous, loving, sharing and made of authentic experience rather than possession of material goods. Of course, pampered Baby-Boomers were ill prepared for the hardship, complexity and skill requirements that life on the land entailed, and so mostly they failed. In addition, it is extraordinarily difficult to try to live outside of mainstream culture; to do so, your customs and ideology have to be very strong, as is, for example, the ethos of the Mennonites. The Hippies did not have this cohesion of practise. Finally, corporate powers recognized the threat and mobilized powerfully during the period to counter the movement and to complete the colonization of the culture. One can see this clearly in the co-opting advertisements of the nineteen-seventies. Consider these paint colours offered for your new Ford Maverick in 1970: Freudian Gilt, Hulla Blue, and the best one, Anti-Establish Mint. It was completely successful of course: the Hippies and anti-materialism became an inside joke. We capitulated and the Baby-Boomers became the most materialistic generation of humanity ever in history.

     Given all that, is there any relevance left to consider, if not for the Hippies, at least for the Luddites? I think: yes. I don’t think I am alone in this. Many people are concerned about the quality of our technological life and the associated problems of meaning. Many are disturbed and frightened by what we are doing to the planet and our fellow species with our uncontrolled spewing of fossil-fuel emissions. Many are simply dissatisfied with the state of things: the bombardment of twenty-four-hour-a-day marketing and the ever-titillating yet desolate wasteland of most television, the phones, screens, Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok.

     In a sign of cultural health, some groups of teenagers have emerged, in more places than one, who are rejecting the smart-phone lifestyle for something more substantive, including sketching together, discussing Dostoevsky or Kerouac, or simply listening to nature in a park. “Social media and phones are not real life,” one said, correctly. (4) Further, educators are – surprise! – discovering that children learn better on paper than on screens (5) and that banning cell phone use in school improves concentration and outcomes. (6) Who’da thunk?

     I think, when remembering the Luddites, that the story of their struggle challenges us to ask: must we accept every technological invention, every change, even when there is a chance it will degrade or debase us? Short of that, must we necessarily accept something new when it will result in our losing something old that we love? The answer is no, of course. The continuing popularity of physical books over electronic readers shows that many are willing to make such a choice. Computer word processing programs are wonderful tools, without a doubt, but is there not something satisfying about starting in writing on a yellow legal pad with a freshly sharpened pencil? Is not selecting, then taking an record album out of its sleeve, and stopping to read the liner notes, a greater pleasure than catching half a song in your Spotify stream as you go about your other business? Of course, these are trivial and we are merely talking about preferring an earlier technology to a newer one, which is a common leaning, especially for those of us with more than a few miles on us.

     But what about more profound and far-reaching change? What about genetic editing or artificial intelligence? What about a million of us living on Mars, in SpaceX City, as Elon Musk would have it? What about living in a Meta-verse designed by a Zuckerberg?

     One can say that it is futile to resist technological change: after all if we choose not to do something, someone else will do it. We might not want to select our children, through gene-editing, to become blond, blue-eyed Aryan ideals, but someone will. We may not want Musk’s chip planted in our brain so that the internet can be directly connected to our precious consciousness, but some will pay for that. We may prefer to read and research the history of Western Civilization for ourselves, but others will prefer a summary generated by AI. We may find pleasure in producing a poem or other piece of writing, a song, a painting, a photograph – but there will be others that would rather have AI do that for them, and they will see it as the same thing.

 

It is hard not to observe that we have become slaves to our technology. We, in our fun-land Western Civilization live a life of unbelievable wealth, health, and comfort, without a doubt due to our technology. There is a lot to be said for light bulbs, television, and central heating on a cold winter’s night. And yet…personally, I cannot help but feel sad when I see a group of adolescents sitting on a stoop, each one of them a gorgeous bundle of vibrating life, yet all of them with faces buried in phones, while the sun shines, and the street flows by. The birds that are still left sing directly to them, but they do not hear.

     Convenient technology can become our master. Mary Shelley, writing about science and technology, saw that likelihood. Dr. Frankenstein’s monster, his creation, says, near the end of the story: “You are my creator, but I am your master;- obey!” (7) In this, do we not hear the ghostly and premonitory whisper of artificial intelligence?

     The lesson of the Luddites is to question. They challenge us to discern and to resist if we do not like what we see, and to opt for the richness of authentic experience. As Marguerite Duras put it, “Everything seems to be done in order to spare man the effort of living, both in his work and his daily living. It’s terrible.” (8) Or, as Lao-tze said, centuries earlier: “Let there be labour-saving devices that are not used.” He was speaking, even back then, to the tendency of technology to distract us, even to alienate us, from the natural flow of life, from that the directness of experience that is our birthright. (9)

     Even if Luddite resistance is futile in the big picture, is such resistance not fundamental to who we are? Do we not have a right to say no? Is there not nobility, dignity, in refusal?

     I think so. I believe we should take courage from our Luddite brothers and sisters and resist, where and whenever we feel it, whether such resistance is futile or not in the bigger picture. Eschew the electric scooter, and take a slow walk along a city street on a sunny day. If you do see an Amazon robot, try not to get arrested, but you will have my blessing if you knock it off the sidewalk. Close the Facebook page, and call up the real friend whom you actually care about. Turn off your TikTok feed and dance a little jig yourself. The effort of being a living, breathing human animal is worth it.

_____________________________________

1. Sale, Kirkpatrick. Rebels Against the Future: The Luddites and Their War on the Industrial Revolution. Persus Books Group, 1995.

2. Greenhouse, Steven. Major US corporations threaten to return labor to ‘law of the jungle:’ Trader Joe’s and SpaceX are among businesses challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board. The Guardian, March 10, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/mar/10/starbucks-trader-joes-spacex-challenge-labor-board. 

3. Engles, Frederick. The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Translated by Florence Kelley Wishnewzky. Information Age Publishing, 2010. See particularly pages 29-40.

4. Vadukul, Alex. ‘Luddite’ Teens Don’t Want Your Likes: When the only thing better than a flip phone is no phone at all. New York Times, December 15, 2022. Retrieved from: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/style/teens-social-media.html?searchResultPosition=1. 

5. MacArthur, John R. A groundbreaking study shows kids learn better on paper, not screens. Now what? The Guardian, January17, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/17/kids-reading-better-paper-vs-screen.

6. Root, Tik. What happens when a school bans smartphones? A complete transformation. The Guardian, January 17, 2024. Retrieved from: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2024/jan/17/cellphone-smartphone-bans-schools. 

7. Shelly, Mary. Frankenstein (1818 text). Oxford Wold’s Classics, 1994, p. 140.

8. Duras, Marguerite. Me & Other Writing. Dorothy, A Publishing Project, 2019, p. 82. 

9. Cathart, Thomas, and Daniel Klein. I Think, Therefore I Draw: Understanding Philosophy Through Cartoons. Penguin Books, 2018, p. 86.

A Letter to the Editor, #2

Posted on by Peter Scott Cameron

February 22, 2024

Editor
The Washington County Free Press
P.O. Box 330
Granville, NY 12832

Dear Editor:

I am responding to the article, Stefanik demands NYS attorney general be disbarred or suspended, which appeared in the February 23 edition of your paper.

I want to say: on the contrary. It is Elise Stefanik who should step down or be removed, for her failure to uphold her constitutional duties in refusing to certify the presidential vote of 2020. And further to that, her support for a candidate who has openly expressed his desire to be a dictator in our democracy should disqualify her from public office. This is shameful backing of the presidential candidate who, it is now legally established, committed sexual assault and defamed the victim, and who committed fraud in his business activities, and who is further charged with election interference in both Federal and State cases.

Letitia James on the other hand, has carried out her duties with dedication and ability; she is a credit to her profession.

Yours truly,

Peter S. Cameron

CC: Representative Elise Stefanik

The Malarkey Scale

Posted on by Peter Scott Cameron

Malarkey (mel-ŏr´kē) n. Slang. Exaggerated or foolish talk, usu. intended to deceive. (1)

Picture Joe Biden’s big blue 2019 campaign bus: NO MALARKEY! Mostly the slogan was derided, seen as antiquated, out of touch, and reflective of Joe’s advanced age. (2) However, many of us, usually oldsters, enjoyed it and understood it immediately, having endured the four chaotic years of the previous scurrilous occupant of the White House. There is some truth to the charge that it was antiquated, but that makes it even better! It is exactly the word we need to describe what we are all wading in, in our so-called “information” age. (3)

     Let me challenge, right here, those younger who would mock the word. I would say, if we old-timers have been expected to learn strange terms in our old age such as what gnarly means to a skateboarder, what gaslighting, ghosting, doxxing and catfishing mean to social media addicts, to understand what fetch means when uttered by a mean girl, or even that a really hot girl is one who wears no undergarments so as to better display her attributes – well, then, younger people should be expected to understand and use English.

     Hearken, kids: you should know what it means to peregrinate, what it is to be purblind, what chicanery involves, what sort of raiment a person is wearing, what it is to twattle, and how it is to feel crapulous after over-indulgence the night before. You should know the difference between someone being indefatigable as opposed to indomitable; they are similar, but not the same, certainly. And, for good measure, speaking as a retired professor who has graded too many papers, you should know where apostrophes go, rather than just sprinkling them on the page like confetti.

     Thus I think we owe Joe Biden kudos for his effort to revive this wonderful and useful word. In this age of distorted public discourse, social media prevarication. marketing nonsense, public relations impression management, public figure pontificating, not to mention outright lying and disinformation, we need a good word to describe it all. That word is malarkey.

     Of course, there are other words for it, as the Princeton University philosopher, Harry G. Frankfurt (1929 – 2023) described earlier. (4) Uncle Joe, though, is too circumspect and civil to have used NO BULLSHIT! on the side of his bus. The other guy, who is a much cruder and more primitive fellow, might do such, although he would be lying, of course. There are other terms; one might use “humbug” for example. Malarkey is richer, however, because it includes considerations of degree – quantity and quality – as well as consciousness vs. unconsciousness, and matters of intent. Humbug is a much simpler concept. It is mere humbug to say that the country is under the guidance of divine providence, for example, but if this is taken further, it becomes malarkey. An example would be to claim that the aforementioned providence entitles citizens to believe that they are especially selected, and have the right to exceptional privilege, usually at the expense of others.

     There are many kinds of malarkey (also spelled malarky – feel free) and the concept has important dimensions that are worth considering. Doing so leads inevitably to a Malarkey Scale: a rough measurement of the size, the qualities, and the impact of a particular piece of malarkey. Is it a little fib or a whopper? Is the intention relatively harmless, or does it seek to rob others of their well-being? Is its impact negligible or does it cause untold damage in a number of areas of civil life? That is, is it only an unconsciously believed small bit of nonsense that does little harm, or is it a monstrous lie, deliberately crafted, that harms many powerless people or helpless creatures?

     For example, it could be as harmless as the idea that not wearing your rubbers in the rain will give you a cold. Or it could be as malevolent – albeit comically preposterous, of course – as Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claim that the California wildfires of a couple of seasons ago were caused by Jews firing lasers from outer space (in order to clear the way for a Jewish-financed high-speed rail project). You see the difference: we are talking about the size, the intention, and the consequences – each of which exist in degrees on a scale. Based on these dimensions, a piece of malarkey may qualify for one M, or it may deserve two (M M), three (M M M) or even four (M M M M) Malarkeys.

 

The first component is of course, size: how much actual balderdash there is in a particular manifestation of malarkey? Is it a tiny bit of nonsensicality, say, such as the idea that dreams predict the future? (More on this later.) If so, it probably will qualify for just one M. In many cases, although consequences are a separate consideration (see below), these tend to do little harm, and may even do a bit of good. I should mention that these constitute much of what we consider as “common sense,” which is to say, shared cultural understandings, accepted at face value, but that have no inherent relationship to reality. Some of these could just as easily be referred to as humbug.

     A good example of this would be the pronouncement, most often made to teenagers, that “you can be whatever you want to be.” It is part of the constellation of common-sense American mythology and is a satisfying bit of folderol that can even be quite useful. It can be used, for example, to inspire Junior to stop watching TicTok videos of partly-clad young girls dancing, and instead get up off the couch and do something meaningful like studying mathematics or trying out for the hockey team. But it is not exactly correct, of course. True, with a reasonable I. Q., a bit of luck, a good education, and if one did the requisite ten thousand hours of study and work, one could accomplish a lot in almost any field. Nevertheless, you may not become the next Marie Curie, Max Weber, or Eric Clapton. You may just end up being an social media influencer. Still, you are a better person for having tried.

     So, the above, even if it is a bit of hooey, has a grain of useful inspirational legitimacy in it. But the idea can be inverted and used to do damage, thereby qualifying for more than one M. An inversion can be, and is often, used to shame and unjustly blame people for their predicament. For example, there is an entire ideology that has been created that condemns the poor for their plight, thereby justifying stultifying inequality and rationalizing a half-hearted social safety net. It denies the reality of the structural nature of mass poverty, both domestic and colonial, in our consumer-capitalist society. (5) We say that the poor are poor because it is their fault; they’re lazy etc. True in some cases, of course, but it is mostly poppycock that makes us feel better about ourselves when we have more wealth. I would point out just one fact and then let it go at that. The large majority of poor families in North America have at least one member working full-time, full-year, often more than one job. (6) That is a structural problem, not a failure of the person.

     This brings us to the second dimension then: intention of the malarkey-spreader. Is the person intending to deceive and thereby to harm others? Is he or she benefiting, consciously or not, from promulgating the malarkey? Is the intention to benefit, psychologically, socially, or materially usually at some cost to others? Again, it is a matter of degree. We oldsters might criticize the music of younger people because it makes us feel better while we are dealing with our arthritis or musing about our youthful hotness that has gone AWOL. This is minor: there is no harm done and their music isn’t that bad. We really don’t mean to hurt them and the young people certainly don’t feel hurt. After all, they don’t really care about our musical opinions.

     On the other hand, the malarkey could be the malicious work of, say, an Andrew Tate, the purveyor of toxic masculinity, deliberately propagating hateful ideas to a large Internet following. He provides poisonous ideology to impressionable young men, amplifying their ignorance and feeding their misogyny so that…well, so that he can be somebody. And so that he can abuse vulnerable women. And so that he can drive expensive, fast cars. Pathetic really, but there it is: a developmentally delayed boy-man, propagating harmful claptrap with the full-on intention to harm others for personal gain. This makes his malarkey monstrous.

     Finally, the third dimension is: consequences. Does spreading the malarkey do no, or little harm? Belief that the world is flat, for example, does no harm. Nobody cares, and usually the belief has no effect – and if it does have an upshot, it is positive: that is, providing beneficial amusement to others.

     But the consequences of some malarkey can be catastrophic. Think blaming immigrants for crime as Trump did when he entered office and is doing so again this year (in fact, crime rates among immigrants are consistently lower than in the host population). (7) Trumpery, indeed. Think of (Trump again) the failure to condemn white supremacists after the Charlottesville demonstration and the murder-by-car of Heather Heyer, and later, in 2020, of his message to the Proud Boys, to “stand down and stand by.” It was an endorsement of the group and their cause, and they were thrilled and encouraged. (8) Think of Hitler blaming Jews for the political and economic woes of Weimar Republic. Enough said.

    There you have it in assessing malarkey: the size or scale or degree of the lie, the intention, and the consequences. This leads quite naturally to the Malarkey Scale, as follows:

1. Minor Malarkey M:

     This involves a smaller lie, just some flapdoodle made usually without intention to harm others, and the consequences are quite minor. I was, for example, in teaching about the sleep and dreaming cycle in psychology, surprised at how many students claimed not only that dreams predicted the future, but that they, themselves, had experienced such a prognosticating function resulting from the activation of random neurons in the brain stem during rapid-eye-movement sleep. It is untrue, of course, but there is no intention to harm another, and the effects, other than the believer sounding a bit silly, are inconsequential: just one M.

2. Moderate Malarkey M M:

     This level of malarkey involves a greater degree of fibbing, possibly in more that one direction. The intention may not necessarily involve directly harming others, but there is definitely some intention to get something from or put something over on someone, for personal gain. One common example is the claim to psychic powers. One of our regional newspapers used to feature a column by someone claiming to be a pet psychic. She would tell you what your pet was thinking and even could tell you how Fido was doing beyond the grave. She could gather these “insights” just from the letter you sent her – no need to meet Buddy or hold a seance in person! A clever bit of gimcrackery, of course. Often the proponents of this kind of malarkey claim no intention to deceive and may even believe their own flim-flam. But deceive they do, with the benefit of either appearing more special than the next person, or having gainful employment (such as a clairvoyant column-writer) or both. The consequences are usually light: not much harm is done most of the time. I enjoy a good astrology column myself, and I make sure to get fortune cookies with my Chinese take-out, though I would not want to become delusional and start thinking there was anything to these things.

3. Major Malarkey M M M:

     This involves a bigger lie, sometimes even a whopper, and the intention is usually to harm others, or at least separate people from their autonomy, power, and/or money. Most advertising is this: the major lie is the claim that this product will somehow magically make one happy. Research clearly shows that this is never really the case once you are above a basic level of material well-being. But the sleight of hand connecting greater material possession with happiness is accomplished masterfully; your fundamental human emotions, and your desires for experiences like relationship, love and sensuality are cleverly linked, that is, psychologically associated with material objects though a vicarious conditioning process. The intention is to rob you of your money, of course. The consequences of this marketing ballyhoo can be quite serious: the dead-end pursuit of endless material satisfaction, slavery to a paycheque, resulting over-consumption of resources and production of waste, and even, for some, an emptiness in living, that is, the old ennui. Three Malarkeys for this existential lie: M M M !

     Some codswallop might otherwise qualify for four Malarkeys because of its maliciousness, but the fabrication is so outlandish, unbelievable, and moronic as to make it otherwise completely laughable. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s previously noted claim of Jewish outer space lasers is such an example, as well as the entire Q-Anon conspiracy theory, to which the congresswoman also adheres, by the way. (9) The scale of the bunkum would ordinarily lead them to be considered as M M M M. However, these theories are so outlandish that the harm to public discourse is somewhat curtailed in that nobody in their right mind would believe them, which leads to, of course, the non compos mentis factor – the dispensers of this baloney have lost contact with reality, and therefore most likely do not understand what they are doing and what the consequences are. Some allowance must be made here, although certainly these people should not be elected to positions of public responsibility or leadership.

4. Monstrous Malarkey M M M M:

     This is the worst level of tommyrot. Racism is M M M M. Misogyny is M M M M. The lies are huge, the intention is to exploit, disempower and oppress others, or worse, and the consequences are very damaging, if not catastrophic. In addition, the charlatan is of a sane state of mind: that is, not delusional, although usually psychopathic, like Steve Bannon or Roger Stone, both sycophants of Donald Trump. Trump’s “stolen election” bunkum qualifies as Monstrous Malarkey on all fronts: degree of nonsense, intention and state of mind, with tremendous consequences. The twaddle that the election was stolen is entirely untrue – so outlandish, with all the investigations, evidence, court cases and the like as to no longer require refutation, if it ever did. The intention is absolutely clear: to seize power, not only undeservedly, not only illegally, but immorally. The state of mind of the perp is clear: he is a psychopath, without conscience. The consequences for America are catastrophic: the undermining, and if successful in this return election engagement of 2024, even the unwinding of the two-century-plus experiment in civil democracy. M M M M !

     Monstrous Malarkey is so nefarious, so odious, that one might think that another, more dramatic word is called for, but at the bottom of it is classic malarkey. And so, I stick with the term.

 

America is in its long, tortuous election year and so we have to expect to be eyeball-deep in malarkey this year. There will be plenty of malarkey in Canada, too, which will have an election in 2025, if not before. Consider: Canada’s banking system is considered one of the best, most stable in the entire world. (There was no melt-down in 2008; the Canadian banks did not participate in the mortgage follies that preceded the crash.) However, the leading opposition candidate, Pierre Poilievre, who is likely to be the next prime minister, has proposed getting rid of the Bank of Canada and that the country go big into cryptocurrency. Go figure. And the current premiere of the oil province of Alberta, Danielle Smith, after the past year when Canada pretty much went up in smoke as a result of cumulative climate change problems, has implemented a moratorium on the development of…wait for it…renewable energy! Ah…well, go figure.

     Still, the situation is less dangerous there right now than it is immediately in the U. S. In this country, the very democracy is at stake; at the same time, we are drowning in hogwash, disinformation, law-breaking, and fraud in the political sphere. It will get worse with the use of artificial intelligence, which will make dupery much easier to carry off, and much more difficult to discern.

     Overall, “only” one-third of Americans believe the 2020 the fraud perpetrated by Trump, that the election was stolen; however that translates to close to seventy percent of Republicans who believe this hokum. (10) It also leads, incredibly, to a sizeable proportion of the population who intend to vote for the fraudster who inspires unbelievable loyalty, like a Mafia Don, and who aspires to dictatorship. The danger is grave, indeed.

     My hope is that the Malarkey Scale presented here is helpful in identifying and assessing what we are facing – and ultimately in overcoming it. One hopes that intelligence, rationality, and sanity will prevail over the dark forces, and that in the long run, good will prevail. In the meantime, what specifically can we do? The simplest and most direct thing, when we hear, read, or see something, is to ask: is it true? Is it true, for example, that immigrants have a higher crime rate than native people? Then we dig in and find out from real, objective sources.

     And finally, we all must thank Joe Biden for reminding us about the power and menace of malarkey – and for the need to be straight and true, to the best of our abilities. I, for one, would like to see the slogan go back on the bus. 

____________________________

1. ITP Nelson Canadian Dictionary of the English Language: An Encyclopedic Reference. Thompson Canada Limited, 1997.

2. Yglesias, Matthew. “No Malarkey,” Joe Biden’s unabashedly lame new slogan, explained. Vox, December 3, 2019, https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/12/3/20991841/joe-biden-no-malarkey. Accessed January 26, 2023. 

3. An equally or possibly more legitimate term would be the “disinformation age.”

4. Frankfurt, Harry G. On Bullshit. Princeton University Press, 2005.

5. Desmond, Mathew. Poverty, By America. Random House, 2023.

6. Carl, John, and Marc Bélanger. Think Sociology. 2nd Canadian ed., Pearson, 2013.

7. Fact check: Immigration doesn’t bring crime into U.S., data say. PBS News Hour, February. 3, 2017, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/fact-check-immigration-doesnt-bring-crime-u-s-data-say. Accessed January 23, 2024. 

8. Subramanian, Courtney, and Jordan Culver. Donald Trump sidesteps call to condemn white supremacists — and the Proud Boys were ‘extremely excited’ about it. USA Today. September 29, 2020, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2020/09/29/trump-debate-white-supremacists-stand-back-stand-by/3583339001/. Accessed January 23, 2024. 

9. Begs the question: how did this person ever get elected to Congress?

10. Kamisar, Ben. Almost a third of Americans still believe the 2020 election result was fraudulent. NBC News, Meet the Press Blog, June 20, 2023, https://www.nbcnews.com/meet-the-press/meetthepressblog/almost-third-americans-still-believe-2020-election-result-was-fraudule-rcna90145. Accessed January 24, 2024. 

Copyright © Peter Scott Cameron, 2024

Good News 2: Climate Change

Posted on by Peter Scott Cameron

Good news! No, sorry, it is not that Elon Musk has blasted off on a one-way rocket to Mars, or that Taylor Swift has laryngitis – even better news than that! We have made progress on the climate front.

     Good news cannot help but be most welcome after an anxiety-provoking year with record heat, Canadian fires, and a final COPS 28 document, that like Bob Dole in his last years, suffered from erectile dysfunction. The COPS document should have been no surprise, given that the conference president was Sultan al-Jaber of the United Arab Emirates, who was also chair of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company. This (having an oil executive in charge of the world conference on climate change) was such a good idea that we have already decided to replicate it. Mukhtar Babayev, former executive of the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan for twenty-six years, has been named as president of COPS 29.(1) Talk about foxes guarding the hen-house, or I would say, hiring wolves to tend the sheep. No wonder the COPS outcomes tend to be, as the wise-beyond-her-years Greta Thunberg would put it: “blah, blah, blah.”

     Sorry! Back to the good news:

     The price of renewable energy is coming down exponentially. This is affecting fossil fuel use to such a degree that we likely have reached a positive tipping point. That is, fossil fuel use may peak as early as 2030. All forms of renewable energy are surging and by 2027, solar is expected to become the cheapest source of energy, period. There are strong indications that we are at peak electric power emissions right now – such emissions are expected to decline in 2024.

     Our awareness of the poison of plastics is rising. With varying degrees of success, countries such as India, Canada, and the U.K. are fighting to ban single-use plastic, despite stiff opposition from the likes of DOW Chemical and Exxon. Canada developed a plan in 2023 for a plastics registry that includes manufacturers, which would gather and use evidence in the effort to reduce and even prevent plastic pollution. The goal is zero plastic waste by 2030. Meanwhile numerous lawsuits are underway in several countries against high plastic users such as Pepsi and Evian etc.

     In the past year, oil companies such as BP, Exxon and Saudi Aramco pledged to reduce methane emissions by at least 80% by 2030. This is completely achievable. Oil companies, of course, are notoriously unreliable partners in efforts to improve public well-being, but we can hold their feet to their methane flares, so to speak.

     COPS 28 did establish a fund provided by wealthy, high-emissions countries to help development of poorer countries without adding to fossil fuel emissions, as well as to address problems caused by climate change in these countries. This is a big deal; it will help huge swaths of the world to avoid following our path toward high fossil-fuel development.

    Deforestation in the Amazon in Brazil is plummeting under President Luiz Ignácio Lula da Silva, exactly as he promised, after the previous populist bad guy, Jair Bolsonaro, was turfed from office (good news all by itself, that).

     “Kids” are not waiting for their parents to get with it. Not only are they changing their consumption patterns, but they are filing lawsuits, making the claim that they deserve, of all things, a liveable world. Young people, for example, won a suit in Montana (Held vs. Montana). The state trial judge ruled that the Montana government violated the plaintiffs’ right to a “clean and healthful environment” by failing to consider the harms of fossil fuels.

     States and localities are taking the initiative ahead of national governments (although there is progress by nations there, too: Switzerland, for example, has made a legislative commitment to get to net-zero by 2050). But even small cities, where you might not think it would happen, are making efforts to go green: think Greensburg, Kansas (conservation rebuilding), Georgetown, Texas (wind and solar in the heart of oil country), and Juneau, Alaska (developing electric vehicles infrastructure). In Canada, cities like Vancouver, Edmonton, Halifax and Montreal are tackling the problem with retrofits, clean energy projects, road pricing and carbon accounting. And many Canadian indigenous communities are leading in fighting fossil fuel expansion as well as the development of renewable energy projects.

     A piece of great news and a tremendous victory for people and the planet: The Green Belt has been preserved in Ontario. It was intended to protect environmentally important land from unfettered urban sprawl in a large area around Toronto, from Oshawa to Hamilton, referred to as the “Golden Horseshoe.” The Horseshoe has been the fastest growing area in North America for years and is expected to approach twelve million people by around 2031. Within and around the Horseshoe, the Green Belt is a swath of two million acres of land, including agricultural, forest, and wetlands that was established in 2005 under the Liberal premier at the time: a brilliant idea.

     But alas, as Cameron’s Fifth Law states: “no idea is so great that some dunderhead will do all that can be done to take it down.” Enter Doug Ford. Americans might not know Doug Ford, but will remember his younger brother Rob Ford, the former crack-smoking mayor of Toronto, perhaps best known for showing up inebriated at Tim Horton Doughnut shops in the middle of the night, spouting gibberish in an ersatz Jamaican patois, and for his campaign promises to “tear up” the newly installed bike lanes in the city.(2) If Rob was a drunken Chewbacca figure, then his older brother is more like Darth Vader, only more devious but not that smart.(3)

     The election of Doug Ford in 2018 was not a happy moment for the climate movement. The former provincial premiere, Kathleen Wynne, a good climate warrior who introduced a cap-and-trade program, was thoroughly trounced at the polls. She was a highly intelligent woman who also happened to be a lesbian. She lost the election because she was: a) highly intelligent, b) a woman, and c) a lesbian. This hat-trick of threats was too much for the fragile male egos of the province, so they tossed her out on her green lesbian bum. Sad.

     Ford, on the other hand, touted prosperity through burning lots of fossil fuel, which is always a good selling point for a sizeable percentage of any electorate. One of his potential cabinet ministers promised to “tear out wind generators by the roots,” if elected. Not good, though a somewhat comical image: perhaps she was confusing wind mills with sunflowers. When Ontarians woke up the day after the election and realized what they had done, they were like black-out drunks in the morning, saying, “no, wait, I did what last night?” But then, brains addled by Long Covid, the good people of Ontario elected him again in 2022. Goes to show you.

A Digression.

If you want, you can skip this section – it is off topic. But if you do that, you will regret it. It will enrich your life, so I recommend you stay with me.

     Americans should know that – and it may come as a surprise to those who see Canada as a more civilized (true) and more peaceful nation (true) but similar to their own – Canada has a long tradition of tolerating and electing politicians…let’s say, without all their oars in the water. Canadians don’t seem to expect that their politicians to be any less or more bonkers (4) than the general population.(5) So leaders with quirks or issues are not unusual. None of this should come as a surprise, when you realize that among the greatest exports from Canada to the U. S. have been William Shatner, Norm MacDonald, John Candy, and Jim Carrey.

     One mayor (Mel Lastman) of Toronto who preceded Rob Ford by a decade or so, was an appliance hawker who went by the name of “Bad Boy” and who appeared in those goofy television commercials wearing a striped prison outfit – you know the kind of ad I am talking about. He was a Liberal Party member, but claimed that fact was a result of a “misunderstanding” although the nature of the misunderstanding was never explained. Bad Boy is remembered best for exclaiming, before a diplomatic trip to Africa, that he didn’t really want to go because, and I quote: “I just see myself in a pot of boiling water with all these natives dancing around me.”

     Completely without charisma, the highly intelligent William Lyon Mackenzie King (fondly known as “Weird Willie” by the populace), was elected as prime minister three non-consecutive times and led Canada during WWII. By all accounts, he was an excellent prime minister. He was also a spiritualist and held seances while in office in order to consult with his dead mother, his deceased dogs, and Leonardo da Vinci, among others, about public policy. No doubt his full formal moniker was a big part of his problem. He was a bachelor, it probably goes without saying.

     W. A. C. “Wacky” Bennett was a leader of the Social Credit Party in Western Canada and served as the premiere of British Columbia for – count ’em – seven consecutive terms, beginning in the early nineteen-fifties and stretching until the end of the sixties. Wacky was…well, you figure it out. The Social Credit Party itself was founded in the nineteen-thirties by a radio evangelist, “Bible Bill” Aberhart who mixed fundamentalist Christianity and a dash of anti-Semitism with the dubious economic theories of an engineer by the name of C. H. Douglas. Douglas sought to apply engineering theories to rationalize economics. His theory was that…oh, well, never mind. In any case, in the first campaign for the Social Credit Party in the Great Depression in Alberta in 1935, I understand that the party promised to hand out $100 cash to every citizen if elected. Bible Bill and the Social Credit won, and the day after the election people are said to have lined up outside the legislature waiting for their money, but were surprised to find the doors locked.

     Even the (arguably) greatest Canadian prime minister, Pierre Trudeau, the cultured intellectual, told his fellow parliamentarians, right in session, to “fuddle duddle.”(6)

     So there, you see.

End of digression: Back to Doug Ford and Saving the Green Belt:

Ford had promised to develop housing on the beloved Green Belt, but Ontarians had elected him anyway. Sure enough, a few years later, he made crooked deals with developers and announced plans. The electorate was surprised and outraged, which begs the question…well, it is hard to think what the right question is in this situation. In any case, the population rose up in opposition and protest, which demonstrates that some of the time, people actually understand things. Not only that, but the dealings were entirely shady and have caught the attention of both ethics watchdogs and the Provincial Police. The plan was hastily withdrawn. Even though Ford has hinted that he has not given up, this is a victory of inestimable value in the climate fight.

     Plus everyone knows that the solution to twenty-first-century exploding-population housing crisis in urban areas is to build vertically, not horizontally – condos and apartments, not sprawling housing developments. Anyway, let’s hear it for the people of Ontario, who it appears, might have come to their senses!

     There is more good news, and it is possible I’ve saved the best for last:

     Joe Biden’s efforts and the so-called Inflation Reduction Act have had a profound effect already. The U.S. is pivoting away rapidly from gas, oil and coal toward wind, solar and other renewables. Progress resulting from the Act is happening faster than expected. Emissions from electricity in the U.S. is on track to be reduced by 83% by 2030. A bonus, but predicted and promised: job generation was been huge. At the same time, China has sped up also, and is expected to double its solar and wind energy in just the next two years. Further, in the face of the Russian war against Ukraine, European countries are weaning themselves off Russian oil and accelerating toward renewables. Overall, the momentum is tremendous.

     Notably, India’s emissions have dropped by thirty-three percent in the last fourteen years. This has been accomplished mainly by increasing both renewable energy and government-initiated reforestation. India is clearly on track to meet its commitment to reduce emissions from 2005 levels; the country is expected to show a reduction of 45% by 2030. This is a demonstrative case: given India’s overpopulated society and rather messy economy, it shows us that it can be done, no matter what the conditions.

     The U.S. and China agreement, from late 2023, to ramp up renewables and phase out of fossil fuels, even if modest, will have huge effects since these two countries are the biggest producers overall, and China is big producer of methane. It also portends well for further cooperation, despite the otherwise combative stance that these two countries take in relation to one another.

     U.S. emissions fell a tad – about two percent – in 2023, despite an apparent frenzy to fly in aeroplanes after the pandemic, as well as a neurotic compulsion to drive all over the damn place in gargantuan pickup trucks and gigantic SUVs. Overall American emissions have declined just over seventeen percent since 2005. Mostly this is due to an ongoing decline in coal burning resulting in the lowest level of coal emissions since the early 1970s.

     Clearly, given climate events of 2023, this latter is not enough, but – it is something. It is progress. And since we are fossil fuel addicts, I think it is appropriate to borrow a phrase I have heard from members of Alcoholics Anonymous, to the effect that they seek “progress, not perfection.” 2023 was not good, but there was progress, so let us not be disheartened.

     Let us instead, embrace this progress and promise to ourselves, to each other, and to the creatures of the planet, that we will do more in 2024.

 

Notes:

1. I am going to eschew my usual practice of providing bibliographic references this time. There would be no end to them. But you can DuckDuckGo the points and find supporting references easily if you wish. Also, in this piece, I am returning to my practice of preferring Canadian English spellings whenever I can remember to do them.

2. It is not my intention to speak poorly of the dead. Rob died of cancer a couple of years after leaving office and I am sorry about that. I am only making fun of him while he was alive, which is fair enough. And I would note that he had a heart and was personally generous to a fault; we can use more people with those qualities. If he met someone without money on the street, he would hand them $20 from his pocket. 

3. As executor of his brother Rob’s will, Doug Ford was accused of mishandling and possibly embezzling money intended for his brother’s widow.

4. As a long-time community mental health worker, I use these terms as in common vernacular, referring to defects of character and maladies of impoverished and distorted thinking – not in reference to actual serious mental illnesses. People who suffer from these real illnesses deserve our empathy, our help, and our respect. 

5. Americans elect just as many, if not more, politicians who are not firing on all cylinders, such as Marjorie Taylor Greene or Matt Gaetz. The difference seems to be that the news media and the American people appear feel compelled to pretend that these people represent normal and legitimate ideas, which makes them more dangerous and leads to some dissociated public discourse, to say the least. 

6. Pierre told them to “fuck off.” At first he said, when asked, that he was merely moving his lips, and challenged them, demanding to know whether they were lip readers. Asked about it later, he said it was “fuddle duddle.” This became the big Fuddle Duddle Incident of 1971, a landmark event in Canadian politics, challenging even the Mange de la Merde episode Trudeau had with union workers in Montréal a year earlier.

Good News 1: Gun Control

Posted on by Peter Scott Cameron

As we start 2024, given the rather dreary year just past (wars, a tough year for climate, and a record number of mass shootings in the U.S. etc.) I thought it would be helpful to start the new year with some good news.(1)

     On the issue of gun control in the U.S.: despite a Supreme Court crackpot majority that seems bent on ensuring continuing mayhem (2) – with a preponderance of members stuck in the eighteenth century, dreaming of the day that men’s breeches are fashionable once more (or in the case of one member, petticoats) – Blue and Blue-ish States have seized the initiative. These may be baby steps, and they will be challenged in lawsuits brought forth by gun boneheads and the big money that backs them, but still they show sanity, courage, humanity, and a willingness of Legislators to take on powerful, monied interests.

1. California, Oregon, and Illinois have passed new “red flag” laws, enabling risk protection orders that allow gun possession prohibitions for people who have already demonstrated a strong potential for violence. It can be difficult to predict violence, of course, but still it is common sense to strip a previously violent person of his (usually his) guns, or someone who is threatening to kill his ex – or anyone who is menacing, for that matter. Duh.

2. Governor Newsom in California signed legislation that prohibits carrying concealed guns in twenty-six public places, including churches (!), parks (!!), and playgrounds (!!!). Of course, why people are allowed to carry concealed weapons – or open carry, for that matter – anywhere, anytime in a civil society, boggles my mind. Call me crazy if you will, but I just think we are all better off without jokers walking around carrying guns in public. But maybe that is just me: too rational, I suppose, and I’ve done therapy so that my childhood developmental issues are minimal. Anyway, go Guv, good on ya!

3. A ban on the sale of many semiautomatic assault weapons, including AK-47s and AR-15s, went into effect on New Year’s day in Illinois. I know, I know, the banning of AR-15s etc. will cramp the style of lawful squirrel hunters in the State, but hey! We all have to give a little for the common good.

4. Colorado has also banned kit and ghost guns (home-made, with no serial numbers). This logically would include plastic guns made with 3-D printers. Pro-gun dunderheads have already brought a lawsuit claiming this infringes on personal liberty to…well, to do whatever the hell they want, I suppose. But I am hopeful that even this High Court will see the wisdom here, understanding the difference between a flood of untraceable, lethal-impact weapons in a predominantly urban, high-population Civitas, versus a society that was low-density and agrarian and in which the main weapons were muskets or single-shot muzzle-loaders, along with hay forks.

5. Just prior to 2023, our good New York Governor Hochul signed legislation that took several steps, some small to be sure, but with the main thrust restricting concealed carry in certain public locations – after the Supreme Court ludicrously struck down an effective one-hundred year old N.Y. law that restricted such carry outside the home. It never struck me as particularly good idea to allow the carrying, concealed or otherwise, of guns in bars, for example, although the Supreme Court apparently thinks this is an okay idea. Go, Guv!

     So! Small steps, to be sure, but significant nonetheless. Thank you to these States and their leaders. We mustn’t give up or give in, not for a moment. Our children and grandchildren depend on us. As good old Uncle Joe Biden might say: No More Malarkey!

Notes

1. Sadly, I would be remiss not to note the school shooting yesterday (January 4) in Iowa.

2. I understand “Originalism.” But this idea is Big Malarkey. The American Constitution and its amendments are not sacred texts that came down from the mountaintop on tablets. Rather, these constitute a powerful yet living, guiding document that must be interpreted and reinterpreted in light of both past and current social and historical contexts. 

Sources

Governor Hochul Announces New Concealed Carry Laws Passed in Response to Reckless Supreme Court Decision Take Effect September 1, 2022. August 31, 2022, https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-new-concealed-carry-laws-passed-response-reckless-supreme-court. Accessed January 4, 2024.

Marcos, Coral Murphy. New gun safety laws take effect around the U.S. after over 650 mass shootings in 2023. The Guardian, January 1, 2024.

Global Burning: It’s Personal

Posted on by Peter Scott Cameron

Climate change is personal. I have seen it first-hand. More than a decade ago I travelled up to my hometown in Northern Ontario, the land of lakes, rivers, and pine forests. It was as savage and beautiful as always. I had a small aluminum boat in tow, with a ten-horsepower outboard motor on it, and my one-man canoe on top. I drove the few miles out of town to Lake Kenogami, where I had spent idyllic summers on the lake, swimming, fishing, and wandering its miles of blue water, and exploring the river at both ends: The Blanche.

     As a boy, alone and with childhood chums, I boated along the river, especially at the west end, which was wilder: a land of beavers, muskrats, herons, and if you were lucky, a moose or a black bear on the shore. At points in the river you would have to drag your boat over the sturdy beaver dams, strong enough to hold you, your pal (if he was with you), and your boat as you pulled it over. For a boy, it was as close to heaven as you could get on this earth. When I bite the big one, this is where I want my ashes to be scattered.

     This day, I put my boat in near the bridge over Highway 11, at the two-story wooden Kenogami Hotel (renamed later in our more pretentious age, “The Kenogami Bridge Inn”), and before heading onto the lake I motored a half-mile east on that part of the Blanche. My outboard hit two rocks on route – this might otherwise mean nothing, but despite all the years that had gone by, I still knew the river and how to navigate it. It meant the river was much lower than it used to be: it least a foot lower, by my estimate.

     I returned to the lake and moved up its length, stopping by the shore of “our” bay to look at our small log cottage now apparently relegated to a sleep cabin or storage shed. Then I stopped for a while at “my” island, a small, pine and moss-covered rock island about fifty feet long, where I had camped as a boy. With the lowered water, my old landing slip was now a rocky outcrop. When young, I would stay a day or two, skinny-dipping in the cool water, and fishing for pickerel. From the island, there were no cottages and no people to see. I had enormous freedom, but there were rules: if camping overnight, we had to go in pairs, each boy with a boat in case of problems, and once a day we had to check in at home. We’d build a fire and cook the fish we caught, eating it with tea that we brewed. At night, in our tiny pup-tents, we would fall asleep to the hallucinatory calls of the loons.

     After visiting my island, I continued another mile or so, to the point were the Blanche joined the lake at its western end. But I could not find the river mouth. There was no obvious inlet for the river water flowing south and east from Sesekinika Lake. Instead, there was a reedy area, with numerous rivulets – a marshy shoreline; somewhere behind that had to be the river, assuming it still existed. I came back with my canoe the next day and still could not find a distinct inlet. I was unable to get to my beloved Blanche. (1) The reason is straightforward: changing climate had warmed the atmosphere, shortened the winter, and reduced the snow pack and the rainfall and the water level had fallen. What I had known was gone.

 

We all read about the fires in Canada last summer, and some of us saw it, albeit second-hand, at least in the form of an orange-brown haze over both Canadian and American cities – a haze that, where I live, in Northeastern New York, you could taste on some days. The haze made it all the way to Europe. The conflagration began in early spring, and since then there have been more than 6,500 fires. (2) As of November 9, there were still 412 fires, 119 of them out of control. (3) So far the fires have burned 18.5 million hectares (45.7 million acres). Many of the fires were large and fierce enough “to create their own weather via pyrocumulonimbus clouds, or ‘fire storm clouds,’ which can stretch 200 miles (320km) wide and carry ash and other debris upward and unleash lightning that can trigger multiple other fires that immolate more trees.” (4) This was in the vast boreal forest that makes up about a quarter of the world’s intact woodlands – the boreal forest of Canada is about the size of India.

     It is a disaster. The cause? Climate change. Forests have been weakened by the changes. Winters are shorter and not as cold. The snow-pack is not as deep and does not last as long and rainfall is less. Quite simply, the forest is entering a new age, an age of fire, because it is too dry.

     In August, I read a piece in the New York Times: it was heartfelt, a description by the writer of driving (presumably from New York, where he is a member of the Times editorial board) up though the Adirondacks, though the orange haze, past Montréal, where “the sun was reduced to a red spot,” and on to La Belle, Quebec where the author has a summer cottage. He goes on to describe the fire conditions and to lament the situation both in global terms, but also in terms of its affecting the serene beauty of the lake where he is observing and writing. (5)

     Yet, nowhere did he make a connection between his driving, for hundreds of miles, from his place of work to his cottage retreat. It – the fires, the haze, and all – appear to be just happening to the world and to him, giving him feelings like sorrow and wistfulness.

     But what about that drive? And how many times a season does he make it? How much carbon does he emit as a result?

     And what about me and my earlier trips to the hometown in Northern Ontario? Did I realize my contribution to climate change? I’d like to obfuscate and say “sort of,” but that would be a lie. I did realize. I – and we – have have been publicly aware of climate change since at least 1980. (6)  But I went anyway, just wanting to do what I wanted to do, including towing a boat behind my Jeep S.U.V. and carrying a wind-dragging canoe on top. So now: should I ever travel the five-hundred miles each way to go there again, even though I would like to? No, I think not.

 

Global burning is personal; yet, we continue to live as though it is not. We are observing effects and wringing our hands alright, but we continue to do whatever we do, while waiting for the technological and market fixes that will avert the disaster and avoid any personal inconvenience. But the simple truth is, even if we are marvellously ingenious, technical and market fixes will be too little, too late. These fixes will never be enough, in any case. In order to save the planet from the worst of climate change, we have to change our behaviour. We have to change how we live.

     But I see few signs that we are willing to change. Instead, I see us continuing to build gigantic McMansions, when much smaller houses would do. I see more and more huge pickups and sports utility vehicles barrelling along the road (Ford discontinued selling standard sedans and small hatchbacks in North America in 2020, in favour of trucks). (7) I see people flocking back to travel after the pandemic, flying all over the place and packing themselves onto cruise ships. (8) Consumption, from cheap fast fashion to over-priced iPhones, shows no sign of moderation.

      This summer I was alarmed to see, on numerous occasions, locked vehicles idling in the grocery store parking lot. People were going in to shop and leaving their cars running (for 15 minutes? A half-hour? An hour?) with the air-conditioner on so that the car would be cool when they came out. The hottest summer, caused by climate change, and that is the response? Unbelievable.

     We just don’t get it.

     Of course, governments and corporate rascals are backtracking, too. Oil companies like B.P. and Exxon are quietly stepping back from previously set climate goals. The U.K.’s Conservative Sunak government announced, in September, a rollback of established climate goals and actions. Incredibly, Daniel Smith, the Alberta Premier, has imposed a moratorium (!) on renewable energy projects in that dirty oil (tar sands) province. Even good old Uncle Joe Biden is persisting in developing the Willow oil-drilling project in Alaska, despite otherwise being a “green” president.

     The rascals certainly must be held accountable, but we also must be accountable to ourselves, to each other, to our children and to our grandchildren. We have to change our behaviour.

     I am someone who abhors telling others what to do and how to live, but this is an emergency: we know the drill.

     Live in smaller homes. If you have a second home, sell it or rent it to someone who needs a place to live. Get rid of the big trucks; drive a smaller, lighter, car, preferably a sedan. (9) If you need a truck or S.U.V., make it a smaller one like a Ranger or a Forester. Drive less; combine trips. Or just don’t go. Car pool to work, and work from home as much as you can. Don’t fly unless you have to. Take the train.  Don’t go on cruises; but if you absolutely must cruise, go every second year instead of yearly. Eat less meat. Reduce buying. Keep your clothes longer; repair items rather than replace wherever possible. Avoid buying and using plastic as much as you can. Substitute old lights with L.E.D bulbs. Replace an oil or gas furnace with a heat pump if you can afford it. Buy legitimate carbon offsets (research carefully). Give up NIMBY-ism and support wind and solar projects in your area. If you are in a market that permits it, purchase renewable electricity, even if it costs you more. Support your government to implement carbon pricing and taxes even when they affect you personally. The basic theme that is the foundation of all this? Individually, personally, reduce our consumption. Do what you can. If you need inspiration like I sometimes do, read Wendell Berry or Bill McKibben.

     I say all this because there is a simple reality. Yes, corporations and governments must change their ways – but they will not do so as long as demand for fossil fuel stays strong. Instead, they will merely posture, as Canada pretends, to pursue greenhouse gas reductions. (10) Put another way, countries and companies will not reduce their output of oil products until the demand diminishes. That is squarely in our hands. It is up to us.

     I know, I know, everybody hates a noodge and I understand my good readers are doing what they can. But we need to remind and refresh ourselves and each other and take action. This does create personal dilemmas; I get that. How often do I take the 800 mile round-trip to Toronto to see my grandchildren? Answer: less often. Otherwise the planet will burn up. It is that simple.

     The good news is that the list of what we can do personally is robust – it goes on and on. More good news also is that many young people are willing to make big changes like having fewer children and not owning a car to help salvage things. They are making smaller changes also, like cutting down meat and dairy, buying secondhand clothing, and riding a bike to work. (11) And some older people, even we, the high-consuming and greenhouse-gas emitting Baby Boomers, indicate that they care, at least.

     The climate situation is dire, but we must not allow ourselves to wallow in despair. There is still time. I am not without hope; nature, if not always human beings, inspires me.

 

Late yesterday afternoon I was standing in the middle of dirt road in front of our house (obviously the traffic is not too heavy here), gazing at the patterns of crystallizing ice in the little pond on the far side of the road, when I heard the bleating of Canada geese in the twilight sky. It took a while until I could see them, as their honking conversation grew louder and louder. When they came into sight – no kidding! I felt my heart swell and a lump in my throat at the sight of them. There were hundreds, just like the old days, in those disorganized flocks that you would see in the fall – some in masses and some in competing not-quite “V” shapes. They were yakking at each other, choosing leaders, talking it over, while practising for the big travel formations they will use to fly to the southerly states and to Mexico.

     I understand some geese no longer make the trip, as we continue to warm. But nevertheless I felt, then and there, that as long as some of these big, bleating, courageous birds are willing, then I, too, should be willing. I am obligated to do what I can do, to sacrifice a few things in gratitude for all that joy and well-being that I have been given, my whole life, ever since I wandered up the beautiful Blanche River as a boy. It is not too much to give back to our paradise. It is not too much to offer our sweet old Earth.

_________________________________________________

     Notes

1. See my poem, On the Blanche, written in the seventies, below this blog post. 

2. Milman, Oliver, and Andrew Witherspoon. After a year of record wildfires, will Canada ever be the same again? The Guardian, November 9, 2023, https://www.theguardian.com/world/ 2023/nov/09/canada-wildfire-record-climate-crisis. 

3. CIFFC Home. Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre Inc., https://ciffc.net/. Accessed November 9, 2023.

4. Milman and Witherspoon, op. cit. 

5. Schmemann, Serge. It Is No Longer Possible to Escape What We Have Done to Ourselves. New York Times. August 23, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/opinion/ canada-wildfires-climate-change.htmlopinion/canada-wildfires-climate-change.html. 

6. The first scientific publication concerning climate change potential was in 1896. The Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius publicized calculations showing that industrial age carbon dioxide emissions would warm the planet. By 1950, the scientific community was openly discussing the problem; even economists were aware of the issue by 1970. (See The Worldly Philosophers, by Robert Heilbroner.) By the 1980’s scientists were insisting that action had to be taken. This, of course, as we all know, was countered by a massive disinformation campaign managed by so-called “think tanks,”  funded by oil interests, such as Exxon – which in its own documents, showed it knew exactly what was happening with climate change. This was entirely successful in creating the false “controversy” we live with, and in delaying any real action for forty crucial years.

7. Even with electric vehicles and increased efficiencies, North America reduced yearly vehicle emissions by only 1.6% since 2010; had both the percentage of SUVs and trucks sold not increased, and the size and weight of these vehicles not exploded, the reduction during the period would have been over 30%. Horton, Helena. Motor emissions could have fallen by over 30% without S.U.V. trend, report says. The Guardian, November 24, 2023, https://www.the guardian.com/environment/2023/nov/24/motor-emissions-could-have-fallen-without-suv-trend- report.

8. The Oasis of the Seas uses one U.S. gallon of diesel every twelve feet; or to put it another way, the comparable Freedom of the Seas uses 28 thousand (U.S.) gallons of fuel every hour. This results in 626,640 pounds of carbon dioxide per hour. 

9. Electric vehicles are touted as the panacea; I am reserving judgement for now. They may help per-vehicle life-time emissions, but come with their own serious environmental issues, particularly the massive levels of mining for battery materials. Also, E.V.s only save emissions if the grid is green or nuclear; hardly the situation at this point. Battery recycling needs to be perfected. In any case, even the automobile companies privately admit that electric conversion of all those large trucks and S.U.V.s is unsustainable. The required battery weights are just too much and minimize potential emissions gains. But still…they can be a big step forward if the mining and electric grid problems are addressed, batteries are recycled, and there is a concerted effort to reduce the size of vehicles.

10. Naishadham, Suman, and Victor Caivano. Canada says it can fight climate change and be a major oil nation. Huge fires may force a reckoning. Los Angeles Times, November 10, 2023. https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-11-10/canada-says-it-can-fight-climate-change-and-be-major-oil-nation-massive-fires-may-force-a-reckoning. 

11. Henley, Jon, and Michael Goodier. Young Europeans more likely to quit driving and have fewer children to save planet. The Guardian, October 25, 2023. https://www.theguardian.com/ world/2023/oct/25/young-europeans-quit-driving-fewer-children-save-planet-climate-crisis. 

 

 

 

 

On the Blanche (Posted Previously)

Posted on by Peter Scott Cameron

Time was…blue waters ran in and out of cool lakes
and the paddle made no sound
slipping by reeds
where the muskrat and pike lay suspended
dark trunks lurched toward the river
extending indifferent fingers
a ghostly scraping on the red canoe sides
as evening grew
somewhere the beaver sounded
though no one spoke
and the sun ceased dancing
and lay in an orange and yellow puddle on the water
time was no time
here and gone and yet to come.

Time was…blue waters licked the island shore
a curling dog tongue
on the wrinkled skin of ancient stones
the jack pine stood narrow and straight
tops lost in the void
and the earth untroubled
carried our impetuous weight
on her furrowed belly
limbs shrunken by cold
grew warm and heavy
in the amber touch of the wood fire
the ground stank of life and death
spongy under our sleeping bags
time was no time
here and gone and yet to come.

© Peter Scott Cameron, Northern Ontario Anthology, Highway Book Shop Publishers, Cobalt, Ont. 1977