The choice for America couldn’t be more clear .

Both conventions are over.  One, highlighting the future.  The other, the past.  The Democratic convention was a celebration of America’s rich racial and cultural heritage and its diversity.  It called on the nation to return to the principles in its founding documents, principles never fully actualized and even flawed in their first expression, but principles that none the less have offered a beacon to freedom loving people around the world for over two hundred years.

The Republican convention was something entirely different as it sowed fear and anger and division, appealing to America’s darkest instincts and worst impulses, a perfect reflection of the man leading it, Donald Trump.  Going into the convention organizers signalled they were going for a softer, more relatable Donald Trump and Republican Party, while painting a nostalgic picture of an earlier America where white small towns and suburbs overflowed with the benevolent milk of an Andy Griffith show.

Well, you really can’t dress up a pig.

It seems the Republican election strategy is going to borrow from the Willie Horton playbook used by George H.W. Bush in his campaign, and an indelible stain on his otherwise commendable life.  Fear of the other.  And the other always has a different skin colour although, far and away, the greatest fear of insecure American white males is that they will be replaced, emasculated, rendered vulnerable by Black men.  Hispanics concern them but the Black man is the ultimate, indeed existential, threat.

So, while the streets of America are roiled by demonstrations in response to the seemingly constant killing of black people by police Donald Trump and the Republican Party pour fuel on the festering wound of slavery and racism that is America’s original sin. The goal is to distract the American people from the appalling failure to respond effectively to COVID 19 by Donald Trump and his administration, leaving America an object of pity for the rest of world, as it continues as the epicentre of the pandemic with over six million infected and one hundred and eighty thousand, and counting, dead.

There is no attempt to reach out; to console; to calm.  Just the relentless use of division and hate to further the political ambitions and economic privilege of a tiny group of people, while engaging in an extraordinay attempt to gaslight an entire population; a campaign worthy of the best efforts of the twentieth century’s worst and most detested tyrants and dictators.  Move over Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot and, not to be forgotten, Vladimir Putin.

They demand Americans follow them down the rabbit hole where right is wrong, up is down and truth is fiction.  On their side of that looking glass Donald Trump has provided effective and inspirational leadership combatting the pandemic.  In fact, they want Americans to believe its response is a model for the world, something all of us outside of America envy and want to emulate.  And they want them to believe that he and he alone can turn back the tide of protest and anger, all the while doing everything to inflame it. They tell Americans Donald Trump has made America stronger, more respected and more feared in the world.  And they want Americans to believe that only Donald Trump can lead America’s economic recovery from the worst recession since the Great Depression, a recession made much worse by his dishonesty, ineptitude and incompetence fighting the pandemic.  Fiction is truth and down is up.

Republicans like to describe themselves as belonging to the party of Lincoln.  But, of course, today’s Republican Party isn’t even a distant cousin of the party of Lincoln.  In fact, more and more, it is even unhinged from its own more recent conservative roots, adopting instead a rabid populism where its leaders feel nothing but contempt for their supporters as they manipulate them to support positions that only benefit the very wealthy and powerful and that fundamentally undermine American democracy. Reasoned debate is replaced by tweets, by screeds and, worst of all, by incitements to violence, incitements that have already resulted in deaths at the hands of white militias.  

One waits for a Joseph Welch moment from the Army-McCarthy hearings when he famously confronted Senator McCarthy:

“At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”

But of course, Donald Trump and the grifters and enablers around him had none to begin with.

One speaker at the Republican convention got my attention when he described Donald Trump as “the bodyguard of Western Civilization”.  His name is Charlie Kirk, a conservative provocateur on college campuses, whatever that means, and it’s entirely possible he actually believes that although I suspect his idea of Western Civilization has more to do with the Vegas Strip, Trump Tower and Chick fil-A than the teachings of Sophocles, Aristotle, Cicero and Edmund Burke.  

And then there were the gun toting McClosky’s who when, I suspect, their cocktail hour was interrupted by peaceful Black Lives Matters protestors walking past their faux Grecian mansion, felt the appropriate response was to threaten them with deadly force, he with a semi automatic rifle and she with a pistol.  The Republicans lionized them as patriots and probably the vanguard of what law abiding citizens would have to do if Donald Trump loses in November.  What an appalling disgrace.

The convention is only a few days behind us and now we see clearly it was just the dress rehearsal for perhaps the most irresponsible political campaign in American history. When a group of Donald Trump supporters, calling themselves patriots, decided to mount a protest cavalcade to confront the protesters who have been demonstrating in Portland ever since the killing of George Floyd, the inevitable happened.  One of them was shot and killed.  It wasn’t inevitable that one of them got killed but it was only a matter of time before someone did.  And how did Donald Trump  respond?  By recklessly throwing fuel on the fire.  He refers to his supporters as “Great Patriots”.  And lets not forget the teenage vigilante in Kenosha who showed up with an automatic rifle and shot four demonstrators, killing two.  When asked, Donald Trump refused to condemn this man now charged with two first degree murders.  In fact, he manufactured a justification for his actions, further encouraging his supporters to stage similar such acts.  The odds look increasingly likely for a violent and bloody two months leading up to the election and the appalling truth is Donald Trump doesn’t care who is hurt or killed as long as it helps him stay in power.

It is clear that Donald Trump, those around him and his enablers in the Republican Party are willing to do anything to retain power, including if necessary, tearing apart the very fabric of their country.  I have no doubt they will continue to lie and cheat, to work to disenfranchise as many Americans as possible, to incite violence and then seek to use it to their advantage in the campaign; all the while trying to distract the American public from their epic failure to manage the COVID 19 pandemic that continues to kill thousands of Americans and cripple the economy.  This begs the question whether or not America can survive.  Even if they manage to steal the election what will be the result?  Will the majority of Americans who oppose them simply give up and endure their appalling grift or will they rise up in opposition leading to further turmoil and dysfunction.  Knowing Americans as I do, I expect they will rise up and resist at whatever cost.

Amidst all this carnage there is hope.  Joe Biden continues to lead in the polls and, increasingly, long time Republicans are coming out in support of him.  Millions of Americans are clearly willing to do whatever is needed to ensure their vote is not stolen and, along with it, their country.  At times like this the language of poetry or scripture is sometimes useful.  In this case perhaps with America’s Better Angels facing the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.  I’m still betting on the Angels.

just sayin

G

 

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Two nights ago something extraordinary happened. A thirteen year old boy with a stutter, Brayden Harrington, stood before the cameras in front of millions of people and read a statement in support of Joe Biden for President. He looked just like any other ordinary kid just entering his teens. But there was nothing ordinary about what he did. He was there because Joe Biden, himself also a stutterer, had helped him overcome his disability. We knew he had endured teasing, bullying, self doubt, rage and grief during his brief thirteen years on this earth. We could barely imagine his pain in those years. And yet here he was.

He started well with no sign of the stutter. Then, perhaps a couple of minutes in, he encountered a consonant, it was an “s”, and stopped. The silence that ensued echoed from Alaska to Texas, from Maine to southern California and beyond and seemed to last forever as this child focussed all his attention, all his energy, all his pain on that single letter. I have no doubt millions wanted to rush to his aid, to lift him up and free him of this burden but he stood there alone, staring into space, all his focus inwards, and fighting an agonizing battle with the stutter. And then it broke. He pronounced the “s”, actually the word “stutterer”. Quickly, fleetingly, but done. And we all exhaled. There were a couple of further brief pauses, but nothing to equal that moment of agony. When it was over he smiled shyly off the camera, one hopes at a grinning, thumbs up, mom and dad.

And what an extraordinay metaphor, surely not planned but, really, perfect. America at a moment when everything is on the table, when the struggle between the forces that would turn it into an inward looking, corrupt, anti democratic kleptocracy are being confronted in what may be the final contest.

As I expect most of you have figured out, I’m a bit of a political junkie. I used to be more so but, of late, I’ve tended to forgo the hours of watching political conventions, debates and election returns, preferring instead to let someone else distill them down, give me the highlights, and share their opinion. So I had no intention of watching the Democratic Convention but, after the evening news on Monday, I decided to give it a brief watch, perhaps ten minutes. Two hours later I had watched the entire program. I then decided I didn’t need to watch on Tuesday at all but, again, I dipped my toe in and stayed to the end. And so it was on Wednesday and Thursday although by then I knew I would watch the entire thing.

And what did I see? I saw the America I so respect, look up to, admire and, yes, even occasionally envy. I saw it’s big demanding heart, expressed in every hue of the rainbow: noisy, clamouring, shouting and bursting with energy. It was the America I had almost forgotten amidst the carnage of the last three and a half years and certainly the America I had missed. It was like catching a glimpse of an old friend after a long separation and remembering how important that friend is to me.

Oddly, the part I enjoyed most was the role call. The f…ing role call for gods sake! Typically it is mind numbingly boring and takes place in a massive crowd on a convention floor that is then interrupted by the delegate from wherever, often dressed outlandishly and plugging whatever is special about their state, only to be swallowed back into the vast waves of people around him or her. Unless, as never seems to be the case any more, there is a brokered convention and people really don’t know who the nominee is until he or she accrues the necessary number of votes, it is a good time to take a nap. But in this time of COVID the Democrats did something quite remarkable and, I suspect, technically very risky, as they opened portals into each state where the representatives were standing to cast their votes, all the way from the Bering Sea to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond. Even the shmaltzy platter of Rhode Island calamari added a nice note. For me, however, the most moving moment was the casting of Wyoming’s votes by the parents of Mathew Shepard standing out on the empty plain. In case you don’t remember, Mathew Shephard was the twenty two year old gay man who was beaten, crucified and then left to die by homophobic assailants on those same plains.

And then there was The Speech. You know the one that nobody expected would be very good. The one that would inevitably pale in comparison to the Democratic warhorses who spoke earlier. The one where Joe Biden accepted the nomination of his party to challenge Donald Trump in November. In case you have been sealed in an hermetic vault since, let me be the first to let you know Joe Biden nailed it. Delivered with barely a hiccup or, in his case, a stutter, he took on the three and a half years of thuggery and corruption that has dominated American politics starting at the White House and he promised to lead the American people back to a place of sanity and civility. But he didn’t just promise a return to “normal” as he acknowledged the enormous issues of income disparity, racism and health that bedevil America today perhaps as never before. It was a speech about hope but also about struggle, acknowledging the forces of recidivism and darkness that today threaten the very life of the American Democracy.

I certainly don’t think of “poetry” when I think of Joe Biden’s speeches, but it was there too. Not just in the quotation from the great Irish poet, Seamus Heaney: “But then, once in a lifetime/ The longed-for tidal wave/Of justice can rise up/And hope and history rhyme.” but also in the very themes that underlined everything he said and, especially in his peroration:

“May history be able to say that the end of this chapter of American darkness began here tonight as love and hope and light joined in the battle for the soul of the nation.”

We could almost visualize all those determined, happy warriors heading out into the night to confront the evil that has diminished their nation.

Of course next week we will get the Republican answer that, apparently, is being closely choreographed by Donald Trump himself. It will be dark and distopian but, I suspect, not enough to overwhelm what Joe Biden and his party have unleashed.

just sayin

G

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The U.S. Presidential Election is 83 days away. You can almost hear the collective intake of breath as people opposed to President Trump wait fearfully for something awful to upset the campaign’s current trajectory which sees Vice President Joe Biden consistently ahead both nationally and in key battleground states. After all, isn’t that what happened in 2016 when, up until the last minute, the election of Hilary Clinton seemed certain? Until it wasn’t.

Of course after the election dust settled; after a “moral victory” was declared because Hilary Clinton won the popular vote by nearly three million votes; after the Womens’ March allowed so much venting; everyone settled into a kind of reassuring narrative that Donald Trump, once sworn in and surrounded with wise men and women, wouldn’t be so bad after all. That somehow the weight of the office would transform him from the real estate mountebank and outlandish buffoon of a campaigner into something vaguely familiar and presidential. And, of course, there were all the sane men and women around him, the proverbial “adults in the room” who would guide him and avoid any total disaster.

Well, how did that work out for you America?

Aside from shredding the constitution at every opportunity and behaving like the insecure, privileged bully he is, what else has he done? Where to begin? In the earliest days of his administration he undermined and weakened the alliances and international structures that contributed so much to America’s success in the eighty years since the second world war, being sure to belittle and insult its oldest and best allies on the way. He rolled back, and continues to roll back, the initiatives on climate change implemented by the Obama administration while withdrawing America from the Paris Climate Accord and aligning it with a tiny group of small, pariah nations. Wherever possible he attacked the rights of minorities in America, whether racial or sexual, all the while fanning the flames of racial conflict to further his own political ends. He cozied up to anti democratic “strong men” around the world including Vladimar Putin, Kim Jong-un, Recep Erdogan, Viktor Orban, Jair Bolsonaro and even Xi Jinping clearly envying them their freedom from legal/democratic constraints. On the subject of Xi Jinping by the way, he withdrew America from the Trans Pacific Trade Partnership, as great a gift to China as he could have possibly given. And of course, he failed utterly to marshall an effective American response to the COVID 19 Pandemic resulting in the richest, most powerful and, in many respects, most technologically advanced country in the world now being the epicentre of the pandemic that has already taken over one hundred and fifty thousand American lives and inflicted untold damage on the economic well being of the country and its citizens.

Not bad for an amateur.

And let’s not forget the army of enablers in the Republican Party who have supported him all the way through this carnage and have proven definitively that the vaunted “checks and balances” means nothing when people with no moral centre are in charge.

Not to be ignored through all these outrages, the sleazy opportunism of him and his family and the toadies that surround them as they milk the American system for their own enrichment and enjoyment no matter the cost to national unity or, indeed, survival.

Much time and energy is being spent trying to analyze why Donald Trump does what he does. Why bother? Take your pick: he’s massively insecure; he has serious daddy issues; he’s a grifter at heart and will never change; he completely lacks empathy. And…well, just consult the New York Times Book Review and you’ll find an almost infinite number of well developed possibilities. But frankly, I don’t give a damn why he is what he so obviously is. Except, of course, that he is the President of the United States and in a position to inflict terrible damage on the world, even more so than he has already done.

So, yes, the election on November 3 is important, really important, and not just for America but for all the functioning democracies in the world (not to mention those that aspire to become functioning democracies). And I believe Donald Trump will be defeated on November 3. When I say those words I hear that collective intake of breath again with the whispered advice “please don’t say that” as if saying it might somehow jinx the outcome. I’m no expert, but that strikes me as a kind of PTSD following November 2016 and everything since but I offer my opinion based on a few things. Some of you know that many years ago I was very involved in politics and that I organized and managed many election campaigns and there are still a few lessons from those days rattling around my now seventy one year old head. There are three principal reasons I believe he will lose: first, it is a virtual certainty he will receive fewer votes than he received in 2016 and remember he only “won” by a hairs breadth in three determinative swing states; second, the epic failure to manage the pandemic cannot be shrugged off and will most likely cost him many independent votes; and third, and most important, turnout. Turnout is one of those terms you hear political commentators throwing around all the time and, for most I suspect, it is a pretty amorphous term but for those who really “do” politics it is the meat and potatoes of winning elections, particularly close ones and I do not believe I have ever witnessed a more politcally motivated group than those people who want to be rid of Donald Trump in America today and that will translate into votes no matter what the voter suppression efforts of the Republicans or the fear of the virus. In a sense, Donald Trump is the secret weapon for those who want him gone. In fact, it might not even be close.

So, I foresee waking up on November 4 feeling relaxed for the first time in four years. But here’s the problem: winning the election is the easy part. Salvaging/rebuilding America is the hard part and I doubt Joe Biden’s shoulders are broad enough to do that (although, remember Harry Truman). At best, I think a President Biden will calm the waters and rebuild the most obvious ruptures Donald Trump has caused. If that is all that happens then America is only postponing the inevitable return to the kind of appalling division and conflict laid bare by Donald Trump and his administration.

Even with his defeat Donald Trump will have received the support of tens of millions of Americans who, by almost any measure, can no longer claim to not completely understand what and who he is. They will have voted for him because they support him and his views and that’s an enormous problem.

If America is to permanently “right the ship” it will need to do much more than reject a wannabe tyrant with the hope everything will return to whatever the old “normal” was. And that will take enormously competent leadership and a willingness to confront some of the absolutely irreconcilable foundational pieces that created America.

I’m an optimist and I generally side with the view that one should “never bet against America” (at least in the long run). I also know there are millions of good Americans who want desperately to reform and remodel their country into one that truly reflects the noble words in its founding documents. But the outcome is anything but certain.

Just sayin

G

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Is it five months? Or maybe six? Does it matter? I’ve lost count. But then, how should we measure them? The first person in B.C. with COVID 19 was reported on January 28, 2020. He was a traveller returning from Wuhan China, then the epicentre of the outbreak in the world. The first case of community transmission in B.C. (and Canada) was confirmed on March 5, 2020. So, depending upon how you calculate, the pandemic has been with us for either five or six months. At times it feels like five or six years and at others, just a few weeks. Everything is askew.

I have the good fortune to live in B.C. where the incidents of COVID 19 have been comparatively few and where the province has responded well and effectively. We are now in “Stage 3” of reopening with the understanding “Stage 4” can only happen when the pandemic is over. And many things seem the same as before. People are out and about although with an increasing number wearing masks. Most restaurants have re-opened offering both alfresco and indoor dining although with far fewer tables and precautions everywhere. The galleries and museums are open, again with precautions and limitations everywhere. Federal politicians have returned to their most comfortable mode, bashing each other. And the “boys of winter” have become the “boys of summer” as the very odd NHL season has begun in Edmonton and Toronto “bubbles”.

Everything should feel fine. But it doesn’t. There is always that dark, invisible cloud just hanging there, disrupting and limiting and constantly reminding us of our mortality unless, of course, you are one of the yahoos who decided Kelowna was a good place to party on the Canada Day weekend and promptly set off the worst outbreak in the province since the beginning of the pandemic.

Every day, every hour, every minute involves a micro calculation that includes the virus. Should I go or should I stay? Why is that person standing so close to me? What are the people clustered on the beach thinking? Did I wash my hands when I returned home or did I forget? Why should I always have to step off the sidewalk? Am I the only one taking this thing seriously?

Yesterday I arranged to meet a friend for lunch on a relatively crowded local commercial street. I walked and when I reached the street discovered that, while I had remembered my hand sanitizer, I had forgotten my mask which was sitting right next to the sanitizer. Panic. Total disorientation. Should I go back home and retrieve the mask? But then I would be late for the lunch. Would I be able to go into the one shop I needed? I proceeded with care, finding I was holding my breath when people passed too close to me and telling almost random strangers I had forgotten my mask, presumably so as to eliminate any thought I might be one of those most vile of people these days, an “anti masker”. How very odd. How utterly exhausting.

It’s been strange watching my friends respond and adapt to the pandemic. Most of us are in our seventies or older and I would have thought would share my (our?) deep concern about the possible effects on, well, me. But, oddly, some just haven’t seemed to read the memo, planning instead a cruise in the fall or an annual trip to Palm Springs in October, or looking for any way to evade the pervasive travel bans and restrictions. I’ve had conversations where I wonder if I am the only person following the news.

And then there are the others, those for whom no amount of restriction is enough, who demand the sainted Dr Henry (B.C.’s Provincial Medical Health Officer for those of you who have been on Mars for the last few months) take stronger action. I have vacillated on this. Some of you may remember I wrote a blog (seems like years ago) where I demanded masks be made mandatory in public spaces but, as the pandemic has progressed, I’ve been more and more able to let myself follow Dr Henry’s (largely voluntary advice) and feel it was taking us in the right direction. This is quite a change for me. Many, many years ago someone carved a sentence on one of the walls of the UBC Student Union Building that said “Geoff Holter has latent Stalinist tendencies” to which some of my friends at the time responded “latent??”, so there is a part of me that just wants the government to take a very hard and inflexible line. However, another part, says “follow the evidence” and the evidence would appear to support the largely voluntary measures in place in the province. Although the third largest province by population in Canada, B.C. has consistently had much lower rates of transmission than either Ontario or Quebec (or, for that matter, Alberta right next store to us) and that seems to be a result of a remarkable buy-in by most British Columbians to the “we’re all in this together” mantra, something that might not happen if the government was more directive.

Yes, the uptick in infections since entering Phase Three is worrying, although still modest against most other comparable jurisdictions and, with the exception of the Kelowna parties, don’t seem connected to lack of compliance. There are three outbreaks in B.C. right now, two community and one in a Long Term Care facility. One commuity outbreak is in a blueberry processing plant in the Fraser Valley and the other on Haida Gwaii affecting a native community. And the rate of hospitalizations remains astonishingly low, as does the number of deaths. Given we have been told our efforts to “flatten the curve” were all about ensuring we continued to have a functioning and effective healthcare system, that’s pretty impressive.

I know. I know. When we see groups of people ignoring the advice and, seemingly putting us all at risk, we feel outrage and the demands for something to be done rise but, so far at least, pretty much everything is under control here.

And then there are those dastardly Americans. You know, the ones who try to sneak into pristine, pure and virginal Canada despite the border being closed. Why last week one went so far as to crash his truck (stolen I believe) through a border station in the Kootenays. He then lit out on foot with the Canadian Border Service Agents in hot pursuit until he leapt on a log and floated down the Kettle River. In the end, as always, the Mounties got their man. He was arrested and returned to the custody of the Border Service Agents. I suspect there was more to this than him just wanting to sample the poutine up here though.

And what about the Americans pretending to be going to Alaska and, instead, visiting our national parks and lord knows what else!?. It’s become a bit of a national obsession. You know, spotting cars/vans/trailers with American license plates and then climbing onto social media to out them. I’ve noticed the photos of the vehicles are usually blurred which kind of reminds me of photographs of Sasquatch sightings over the years (but I digress).

Actually I suspect all this outrage is venting against, well, everything. It may not be healthy but it sure feels good at the time.

So, yes. I am exhausted. And I really, really want things to go back to whatever “normal” is. By the looks of it that isn”t going to happen for six to eight months and then only with some very good science and a bit of luck. In the meantime, keep slogging. Flatten the curve. Plank the curve. Do whatever you want with the damned curve as long as it doesn’t go up.

Also, an ice cold gin martini seems to help.

Just sayin

G

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When asked what I like most about New York I answer “everything”. Yes, everything. The incessant, irritating honking of taxis stuck in the never ending traffic jams; the rumble of the subway underfoot; the warm smells rising from grates across the sidewalks; the rushing crowds; the shouted voices; the smell of cooking nuts or meat floating from hundreds of tiny food carts scattered seemingly randomly across the city; the street fairs and markets that sprout up on weekends, making the already impossible traffic even worse; the massive Beaux-Arts knock offs that line some of its grandest boulevards; Grand Central Station; Three Lives Bookstore; the Strand; the fleeting glimpses into someone else’s world through the uncovered window of an elegant brownstone; the preening sky scrapers seemingly defying gravity; the silence when you step from the cacophany of the city into the tranquil, dark sanctuary of an old fashioned wood panelled bar; the never ending theatre of the subway, whether by buskers or just the beaten down inhabitants making their ways to or from work; that great miraculous green space, Central Park, in the midst of this giant petri dish of seething humanity; the Metropolitan Museum, the Guggehneim, MOMA, the Whitney, all of them actually; the quiet neighbourhoods that sit like sanctuaries, unchanged after a couple of centuries; the Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building; being jostled and carried along and cursed and smiled at and even occasionally “checked out” and flirted with.

Yes, everything.

But…if I had to choose one thing only, it would be “Broadway”. Not the street. New York theatre. All those great theatres that fill the tiny space of Manhattan from the Lower East Side to Washington Heights, with its densest few blocks in midtown mostly west of Times Square.

Many cities have theatre districts but none of them equals New York’s (yes, London’s West End comes close but it is very different).

I’ve never really analyzed why I so enjoy going to the theatre in New York but this time of pandemic and isolation and missing seems as good a time as any to do so. So what is it? The basic outlines are pretty prosaic. You arrive at a certain time, usually a bit early, and mingle with your fellow theatre goers on the street in front of the theatre, each of us grasping our precious ticket until, at about thirty minutes before curtain, the doors open and the uniformed ushers manage the surge as everyone moves to get in. You are directed to an area and then an aisle and then are led, often by an octogenarian lady in uniform who, it seems, has been doing this for a very long time, down to your row where, once you find your seat, you sit, although not for long because it is certain you will be asked to stand at least once to let other, later comers pass by you to their seats. There will be repeated apologies and usually a stale joke or two about arriving early/late (I’ve never figured out whether it’s more polite to stand and lean back or whether to turn my back to the passersby and lean forward, but I digress). Eventually things settle down although not before your hopes of moving to the better seat two rows down are dashed as a latecomer rushes in to claim it.

And then a mysterious force slowly enters the room as the crowd gradually goes quiet. We know. There is a an anouncement about photographs (don’t) and cell phones (turn them off…this a more recent feature) and then the lights go down. If there’s an orchestra in the pit someone, somewhere in front of you, will spot the conductor and begin the applause as he (usually he at least) makes his way to the podium where he takes a bow. The lights dim further.

An overture or just a rising curtain. Whichever. You are now transported to a world of suspended disbelief along with hundreds of strangers. A world of magic for adults. And for the next couple of hours, perhaps interrupted by an intermission, nothing else will matter but what is happening on the stage in front of you and through it, to you. There are protocols of course although some of them have changed over the years such as when to applaud. I remember when an audience would never applaud until a scene or maybe even an act was finished although, of late, audiences seem to applaud anytime the “star” or “stars” make their initial appearance causing the performance to pause briefly. The best rule is go with the crowd. While I’m on the subject, what’s with standing ovations? I used to be impressed by the approach of New York audiences as opposed to those in other cities I visited. A standing ovation only occurred for an absolutely outstanding performance. Now, it seems de rigueur which I think is a shame, but I digress (again).

I first visited New York in 1975. I had been warned. Oh, how I had been warned. Friends in Vancouver regaled me with terrible stories of murder and mayhem on the streets of New York. In fact, I fully expected if I went to 42nd Street I would likely die or, at least, be horribly maimed. Still, I went. The attraction was too great and, yes, New York in the seventies was not the nicest, safest place. I stayed at a hotel recommended by the late Hugh Pickett, the Vancouver Impressario extraordinaire. I think it was called “The Summit” and was near the United Nations. The first thing I did when I arrived was purchase a sturdy umbrella with a metal tip, expecting it could serve as a weapon when I was fending off the depradations of the muggers, murderers and lord knows who else. I also insisted on going everywhere in taxis and was incensed when a cabbie refused to take me two and half blocks, assuming my blood would be on his hands as I was forced to walk with my trusty umbrella. I was very careful and absolutely nothing bad happened to me, although a lot that was good did. I have been mugged three times in my life: once in Athens (roughed up); once in West Hollywood (gun) and once in San Francisco (switchblade) but never, never in New York despite my dozens, if not hundreds, of trips there, including some in my younger years where sensible precautions were usually ignored often to the horror of my New York friends.

The highlight of that first trip was when two friends from Philadelphia (one a professor at Temple and his partner, a priest) came to the city one evening. We had dinner and then went to a Broadway show. They had chosen the show and bought the tickets and I knew little about it. The play was “Private Lives” by Noel Coward, starring Maggie Smith and directed by John Gielgud. And I remember the exact moment I was hooked. Our seats were quite literally in “the gods”, so much so my hair (I had hair then) practically brushed the ceiling. I had the aisle seat and when Amanda recognizes Elyot, her ex-husband, while both are on their honeymoon, I started laughing so hard I was afraid I might tumble out and down the very steep staircase beside me (I’m not making this up. It was that steep). To this day I don’t know how Maggie Smith got from one side of the stage to the other without seeming to move at all.

Since that night, Broadway has always been part of my many New York visits. There have been too many great shows to name them all. The great musicals, whether “classics” like “Oklahoma”, “A Chorus Line”, “Follies”, “South Pacific”, “A Little Night Music”, “Hello Dolly”; or the darker ones like “Sunset Boulevard”, “The Three Penny Opera”, “Hedwig and the Angry Itch”; or the big brassy seventies and eighties shows like “Dreamgirls”, “Evita” (with the one and only Patti LuPone), “Miss Saigon”, “Les Miserables”, “La Cage aux Folles”, “Hairspray”, “Timbuktu” and, yes, “Cats”; or the “serious” ones like “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” (twice), “Torch Song Trilogy” (twice), “Angels in America”, “The Goat, or Who is Sylvia”, “Three Tall Women”, “The History Boys”, “A View from the Bridge”, “The Boys in the Band” (twice), “I Am My Own Wife”, “Grey Gardens”, “Doubt”; or unexpected beautiful surprises like “Farinelli and the King” and “The Band”; or the silly unexpected delights like “An Act of God” and “Something Rotten”.

I’ve enjoyed them all. Yup…all of them.

And so many great actors: Maggie Smith, Glen Close, Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, Eartha Kitt, Jennifer Holiday, Jennifer Hudson, Glenda Jackson, Laurie Metcalf, Cherry Jones, Brian O’Bryrne, Patti LuPone, Angela Lansbury, Elaine Paige, Christine Ebersole, Marian Seldes, Bernadette Peters, Elaine Stritch, Harvey Fierstein, Carol Channing, Bette Midler, Mark Rylance and on and on and on. They have all enriched my life with their genius as they transported me to that magic place that, for adults at least, only live theatre can access.

And the moments that leave sharp, often funny, memories. Like the time I was in the front row for Eartha Kitt’s comeback to Broadway in “Timbuktu” only to find myself showered with spittle from the very moist Ms. Kitt; or the time I found myself sitting next to Julie Andrews (well, one seat over actually) for a matinee of “Lettuce and Lovage” (also starring Maggie Smith) ; or fearing Jennifer Holiday was going to end up in my lap just before they start dragging her back in the show stopper (“And I’m telling you I’m Not Going…) in “Dreamgirls” ; or listening to the young gay men in the audience at the remount of “Boys in the Band” at the Lucille Lortel marvel at what they’ve just seen and say things like “they’re so nasty to each other but so funny”, or watching a weight challenged Elizabeth Taylor struggling to rise from a chaise longue as Richard Burton stood beside her pawing the stage like a bull, or the performance of “Three Penny Opera” where Cindi Lauper took a note too low, realized she couldn’t get out of it, joked about it and started over again. All of them, quiet, simple, intimate moments with hundreds of “friends”; a kind of secret society open only to the privileged few who happened to be present at that exact moment. And that’s certainly one of the appeals: the uncertainty; the possibility something unusual or unscripted will happen and will result in a magical moment from a brilliant actor.

In the last few years when I’m in New York on my own I’ve started going to matinees. They have a different audience from the evening shows. Usually there are large parties of elderly ladies, many I suspect who have been bussed in from seniors’ residents in and around the city, and boy do they know their shows. Listening to conversations before the curtain goes up and at the intermission is one of the treats of being there as they compare this experience to earlier, legendary performances they witnessed.

And now the plague has shut the theatres and left me stranded four thousand miles away clinging to my memories. I’ll be back as soon as possible but, in the meantime, I leaf through old programs, some from 45 years ago, and try to relive the magic.

Just sayin

G

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It’s been nearly five years since Canadians tossed the Stephen Harper Conservatives out of office and replaced them with a seemingly rejuvenated Liberal Party under the leadership of Justin Trudeau. In those five years the Liberal government has had to wrestle with at least three quite unprecedented challenges: the election of Donald Trump and his threat to abrogate the North American Free Trade Agreement; the emergence of a truculent and aggressive China and a pandemic the likes of which Canada has not seen in a century. It has also attempted to balance the demands of Canadians wanting aggressive action on climate change and those dependent upon resource extraction, particularly in the oil and gas sector. It’s success on these files has been mixed but most Canadians likely give it a passing grade, particularly on the saving/renegotiation of NAFTA and its handling of the COVID 19 pandemic.

Despite these relative successes the Liberals were unable to repeat their 2015 majority in the 2019 election, finding themselves reduced to a minority government dependent on at least one of the Conservative Party, the NDP or the Bloc Quebecois. And, just as much of the credit for the successes lies at the feet of the Prime Minister, so does responsibility for the loss of the majority.

From the beginning there have been legitimate questions about Justin Trudeau’s judgement at least in so far as it relates to matters of conflict of interest. There have been two significant occasions when conflicts of interest have been found to exist: accepting an invitation to vacation with his family on the Aga Khan’s Caribbean island at a time when the Aga Khan had financial dealings with the federal government and the role the Prime Minister’s office played in the SNC Lavalin affair that resulted in the resignation of the then Minister of Justice and her subsequent expulsion from the Liberal caucus and party. In my earlier writings I have been clear that I do not sympathize with the former minister but equally that I was dismayed at the appallingly poor judgement of the Prime Minister and his Office on the matter.

And now it appears, we have a third potential conflict of interest: the role of the Prime Minister and his family with the WE/ME charity and business. Like most Canadians I suspect, I knew little about the WE organization until the latest revelations. I was aware that it seemed to come out of nowhere and its two founders, the brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger, were suddenly and unexpectedly showing up all over the place in Canada with opinion pieces and news. I had a vague understanding it attracted celebrities like Oprah and Prince Harry and Megan, and that the Trudeau’s also seemed to have some kind of a connection. But that was about it. And, as with so many seemingly similar such organizations or movements, I dismissed it as a passing fad, one more likely to be talked about on Ellen than making a real and lasting impact and certainly something I didn’t need to devote any attention to.

But with all this new attention I did a bit of digging and WE and it’s profit making affiliate does appear to be legitimate and has done a number of good things although with an evangelical zeal that leaves me cold but then I’m 71, not the teenagers who are its core demographic. As the press are reporting, the Trudeau family has strong ties to this organization and, despite earlier denials, has profited significantly from those ties. Specifically, the Prime Minister’s mother, Margaret, has been paid in excess of $300,000 for various appearances at WE events and his brother, Sacha, received in excess of $30,000 for similar appearances. Sophie Trudeau, the Prime Minister’s wife, received approximately $1400 for a single appearance prior to him becoming Prime Minister. Aside from the financial ties, however, there are clearly other connections including repeated appearances by the Prime Minister at WE functions and his wife in a continuing role as some kind of WE ambassador. While these events and activities do not seem to have involved any money, they clearly provide a benefit to both the Prime Minister and WE.

As part of its response to the COVID 19 pandemic the government announced in April that it would be creating a one billion dollar student grant program to assist students unable to find seasonal employment due to the economic collapse resulting from the pandemic. It was just one of a dizzying shower of programs and initiatives taken by the government as it responded to both the health and economic emergencies and, for most I suspect, it didn’t get much attention. Then in June the government announced the contract for administering the program would be given to WE. It didn’t take long before critics discovered the contract was a sole source contract so there was no competitive bidding for it and that the Prime Minister had not recused himself from the Cabinet discussions that led to its being awarded. Nor, for that matter, did the Finance Minister, Bill Morneau, who, we now learn, also has family connections to the charity. When challenged, the Prime Minister responded that WE was the only organization capable of managing the program and went so far as to claim that was supported by the recommendation of civil servants, although which civil servants is not yet clear. Nor, apparently, was the civil service itself considered capable of managing such a program, although why has yet to be explained.

As I noted above, WE’s initial response was to state flatly that no monies had been paid to the Prime Minister or his family, presumably relying on the belief the payments had come from it’s sister organization; sophistry worthy of the Prime Minister’s initial response to the SNC Lavalin controversy by the way. Then WE discovered there had been an “accounting error” and that some of the payments had indeed come from WE itself, something they assured us had been rectified retroactively. Finally, and I suspect not entirely of its own volition, WE withdrew from the contract, presumably leaving the administration of the grant program to the civil service that, only days earlier, we had been told was not competent for such a role.

That’s the basic outline of the issue so far although there are a number of other twists and turns they don’t seem to have an essential bearing on the claim of conflict of interest for the Prime Minister (and, perhaps, his Finance Minister). In fairly short order, the Conflict of Interest Commissioner opened an inquiry into the matter while, not unexpectedly, the attack dogs on the Conservative benches demanded the RCMP be brought in to conduct a criminal investigation.

If, as seems likely, a conflict is found this will be the third time there has been a finding that Prime Minister Trudeau ran afowl of the Conflict of Interest Guidelines and, perhaps, the law. At the risk of bringing the wrath of Oscar Wilde’s ghost down upon me, to parapharase Lady Bracknell: to commit one conflict of interest violation may be regarded as a misfortune; to commit two looks like carelessness. And now we have three.

Canada has been ruled by an elite for all of its one hundred and fifty three years. Even in the days prior to Confederation the two major provinces of Upper Canada (Ontario) and Lower Canada (Quebec) had ruling cliques that led to open rebellion in both colonies. Since Confederation it has generally been under the control of what we now call “the Laurentian Consensus” and its primary political vehicle has been, and is, the Liberal Party of Canada. And it is not without reason that party is often referred to as Canada’s Natural Governing Party. It’s not necessary to come from the geographic area in or near the Laurentians to be a part of the consensus but it is necessary to subscribe to a certain set of values and beliefs about Canada and its place in the world. And those values have informed Canada’s policies and laws for much of its history. From my perspective at least, many of the directions Canada has taken as a result have been good, although some, for example our relationship with the People’s Republic of China, less so. However, as with any such arrangement, pervasive elitism breeds contempt for those who have a different view.

Justin Trudeau is a fine exemplar of the Laurentian Consensus. The son of a Prime Minister and his wife, the daughter of a prominent and powerful Liberal Cabinet Minister, he obviously believes his values and behaviours are right and beyond reproach. And that is why he is constantly getting into trouble. It also explains his apparent inability to truly understand why everyone doesn’t agree with him and see why, despite the minor technicalities of law or standards, what he is doing is right and good.

While the idea of the Laurentian Consensus and the Liberal Party as it’s avatar sounds pretty benign, that party is also a ruthless and effective political machine when it comes to gaining and holding power. It’s long history tells us that the commitment to power supersedes all other considerations and can go so far as to remove a sitting Prime Minister from office. Whether those same rules apply to a Trudeau is yet to be seen.

I voted for Justin Trudeau in the last two elections, the first mostly motivated by my wish to be rid of the Harper Conservatives, and the second because of the lack of any credible alternative. Both votes were less than enthusiastic mostly because I distrusted the celebrity gloss and suspected the core values I would expect in a Prime Minister were somewhat lacking. I believe now that those reservations were well founded.

It is often said Justin Trudeau is following in his father’s footsteps. On February 28, 1984, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau went for a famous walk in the snow during which he decided he would step down as Prime Minister. Perhaps it is time for his son to follow in those same footsteps.

just sayin

G

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Last week Canada lost its bid for a seat on the U.N. Security Council.  It was it’s second such loss in as many attempts and is prompting soul searching from the foreign affairs establishment that has controlled Canada’s foreign policy for aeons.

Not only was Canada defeated, it was resoundingly defeated by an even larger margin than before Justin Trudeau’s “Canada is back” announcement to the world in 2015.  And what’s worse, it was defeated by two tiny countries:  Norway and Ireland.  Norway, that little patch up by the European arctic with a population roughly equivalent to that of British Columbia but, it has to be conceded, enormous oil wealth that it has husbanded well (note to Alberta) that has allowed it to contribute foreign aid well beyond what its size would otherwise suggest.

And Ireland.  Ireland for god’s sake (as my Irish friends might say right now:  “Jesus, Mary, Joseph”); that tiny patch of disputatious green off the Atlantic coast of Britain. Apparently it contributes far more than Canada to peacekeeping, something one supposes it is particularly suited for given its history.  But Ireland?  I mean what has it given the world other than some decent whiskey, an occasional poet and, the bain of all English undergraduate students: “Finnegan’s Wake”?

I mean, how is this possible?  How could Canada the good, Canada the progressive, Canada the feminist, Canada the land of a million lakes and a thousand apologies, Canada that gave the world hockey and basketball and poutine and beavertails (don’t ask) possibly be shouldered aside by these two tiny, although admittedly virtuous, countries? We practically invented peacekeeping; helped found the U.N.; belong to the Group of Seven (not the painters you idjit) and are one of the richest and most virtuous countries on earth.  What’s next?  Luxembourg?  Monaco? Lichenstein?

Truly the centre cannot hold (oh dear, another Irish poet popping up just when I don’t need  him).

This all started when Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, announced “Canada was back”, and rapidly tranformed our international image into that of a dillettante that is delighted to be on the front cover of Vogue (or was it Vanity Fair?).  I can’t help but think of Sally Field when she won her first Academy Award and said, in her acceptance speech, “they like me.  they really like me”.  How pathetic.

And so we began our campaign to get a seat on the Security Counsel five years hence. But it seems no matter how many unsavoury dictators we cozied up to; how many millions of dollars we threw at the campaign; how many crass behind the scenes promises were made; the world saw right through us.  All flash.

And so we begin the autopsy.  First up, various ambassadors humming and hawing (never quite sure what “hawing” was)  about the unfairness of it all.  Then the Minister of Foreign Affairs (you know, the one who owes China one and a half million dollars to maintain his two pads in London), vowing to leave no stone unturned as we examine the entrails of our defeat.  And finally the Prime Minister, offering bromides about the other candidates and vowing to continue Canada’s steadfast commitment to the U.N. despite now being the rejected suitor.  In fact, yesterday, a U.N. official helpfully suggested Canada should up its contributions to the U.N. to get a seat next time.  As if that was the appropriate goal.  Oh Canada.

I have a better idea.  How about not obsessing over why Canada lost as if the measure of our foreign policy is why the world doesn’t like us because, frankly, I don’t care whether the world likes or doesn’t like Canada except insofar as it affects the wellbeing of Canadians.  How about us having a hard conversation about what is in the best interest of Canada and Canadians whether in our dealings with other countries or our security here at home.

In case you haven’t noticed, a lot has changed out there in the big bad world, especially in the last six years.  Remember Brexit?  How about Donald Trump’s election and America abandoning its leadership of the west role?  Also, how the Poles and Hungarians and some of their neighbours, not to mention the Turks, no longer seem enamoured of our great democratic traditions?

And then, of course, there’s China, you know that country we had such deep and respectful relations with because of Norman Bethune and Pierre Trudeau; the same China that would, with modernization and prosperity, become more  liberal, more free, more respectful of human rights, more, well, like us.  Oh, you’ve noticed, that hasn’t happened?  Well then, why does the Prime Minister continue to grovel; his response to the news the two Michaels are being charged with espionage being an especially cringeworthy example of what not to do when dealing with a bully.

I guess it’s been kind of fun.  Lecturing the world.  Announcing how good, how virtuous we are.  You know, how Canada is the future.  Seeing ourselves portrayed flatteringly in American media, that final arbiter of importance and virtue for so many Canadians.  And all this with very little real investment.  Just a Prime Minister with good hair and a Cabinet composed of equal numbers of men and women.  “Because it’s 2016 (stupid)”. Giggle.  Yes, I’ll have another flute of that divine Sauvignon Blanc and maybe just one more of those tiny, delicious smoked appetizers based on an indigenous recipe smuggled out of Haida gwaii by the last white man to leave.

So, here we are.  Canada.  Stripped naked before the world.  Exposed as a fraud; a dilletante; a parvenu (look it up!) and, most irritating of all, a virtue signaller with little substance behind all those pretty words.

Time to get real Canada and invite the adults back into the room.

just sayin

g

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The first COVID 19 case in Canada was identified on January 25, 2020 in Toronto. He had recently returned from Wuhan, China, then the epicentre of the outbreak in the world. Since then the virus has spread across the country infecting at least one hundred thousand individuals and killing over eight thousand. The number of infections is almost certainly significantly higher than the one hundred thousand confirmed as that number reflects only those who have been tested and have been found positive. Many believe this is just the tip of the iceberg, something that is being confirmed as more information is gathered about this novel corona virus.

In response the federal and provincial governments sprang into action, introducing the Canadian population to a whole new vocabularly on what is, and how to respond to, a pandemic. Their efforts have had varying degrees of success in suppressing the virus while, at the same time, inflicting tremendous economic damage on the country as large sectors of the economy were shut down to support isolation and social distancing. Like the rest of the world, in the early stages of the pandemic, much of the response was made on the fly in the face of the great unknowns about the virus. On the whole, and probably justifiably, Canadians are satisfied with the performance of their governments during this emergency although that may also be a reflection of what they see happening to the south in the United States where the response is so dramatically controlled by the deep political divisions afflicting that country and where, to the astonishment of many, the wealthiest, most technologically advanced nation in the the world has become the epicentre of the pandemic.

Canadians have received different advice in different provinces but most of it has been based on the science as known at the time and health professionals have played a key role in communicating with and advising the public. That is especially so in my home province, British Columbia, where the Chief Medical Health Officer, Dr Bonny Henry has been the consistent voice of the province’s response. Dr Henry’s approach, which relies heavily on providing information to the public and recommending changes of behaviour while not leaning much on enforcement, seems to have been remarkably successful in “bending the curve” in B.C. and allowing for the gradual reopening of the economy. The province seems to be experiencing a slight uptick in cases now but that is the expected response to the reopening and is believed to be managable.

While I continue to admire and support Dr Henry and the approach of the provincial government to the pandemic, there is one area that I have never been able to reconcile with what otherwise seems sound, common sense, medical advice and that concerns the wearing of non medical masks by the public. In the very beginning of the pandemic Dr Henry and her counterparts across the country and nationally took the strong position that wearing masks was not necessary and, indeed, might even be harmful. I suspected then, and still do, that messaging was designed to protect the supply of medical masks for caregivers which were, increasingly, in short supply. If that is the case, it was a strategic mistake because in the end it could very well undermine the public trust in the messaging coming from the government.

In Canada we are aware that Asian Canadians are much more likely to wear masks than others. I had always assumed it was a vestige from countries that had much more serious pollution problems or less robust public health systems. This allowed me to feel superior as, I suspect, it did many others. It seems we were wrong.

We are told the COVID 19 virus is spread through droplets we expectorate when coughing, sneezing, talking, shouting, singing…all those things humans tend to do a lot of. And they are then received through our nasal passages, our mouths and throats and our eyes. I’m no epidemiologist but it struck me from the very beginning of the pandemic that covering at least our noses and mouths had to provide some level of protection from the virus. But, no, we were told, it did not. How could that be? But, like everyone else in BC, I had come to accept the advice from Dr Henry and her colleagues across the country as gospel so, although it made no sense to me, I accepted it, rather like I accept some other things in life that make no sense to me but that people clearly more qualified than me tell me simply is.

Then I began to notice a few dissenting voices across the globe, not just from Asia but elsewhere as well, voices that were sufficient for me to change my personal approach. I began carrying a mask whenever I went out and, if I was to go into a public enclosed space, would put it on. I mean, what was the harm? Shortly thereafter, Dr Henry and her colleagues began to suggest that might be helpful.

Since then, the message from above has continued to shift. Increasingly we are being told that it might be helpful to wear a mask when going into an enclosed public space, but really not much more. And I can’t for the life of me figure out why. Yes, there are some people who, for medical reasons, cannot wear a mask. But I expect this a small minority and they could certainly be exempted. So why wouldn’t the public health authorities at the very least give a very strong message that wearing a mask in an enclosed public area is highly recommended? And, for that matter, why would they not make it an order? I’ve heard the response that there would be enforcement problems, as there are with social distancing but that hasn’t prevented that advice being given the force of an order.

Increasingly there are studies emerging showing that wearing masks in public does result in a significant reduction in infections. One recent study from Germany found that it reduced transmission by forty percent. Think about that. If it is right, wearing masks in Canada from the outset of the pandemic would have reduced the number of known infections from over one hundred thousand to sixty thousand and, presumably, the number of deaths from over eight thousand to five thousand. Those are not inconsiderable numbers when we are counting human lives.

Unlike our neighbours to the south, whether or not to wear a mask in Canada is not a reflection of our politics, but it is a reflection of a failure of leadership on the issue. I am not finger pointing and suggesting there is any reason to look for blame as everyone does their best trying to guide us through the pandemic, just saying it’s time for public health leadership in Canada to do the right thing on the wearing of masks and order that they be worn.

Although it is often attributed to Winston Churchill, it was Maynard Keynes, the great British economist, who said “When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do madam?”

Over to you Dr Henry.

just sayin

G

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On May 25th a woman named Amy Cooper was walking her dog in Central Park, New York City, and called police to claim she was being threatened by “an African American Man”.  The man, who was bird watching, had objected to Ms. Cooper having her dog off leash in an area where that was prohibited.  He was also named Cooper, Christiane Cooper.  This was three days after the story emerged of a black man who was jogging being shot and killed in coastal South Georgia and on the same day as a black man was killed by Minneapolis police during an arrest.  In the Minneapolis case, the man was already subdued, handcuffed and on the ground when an officer knelt on his neck for nine minutes as life seeped out of him.  The title “Karen” has now been attached to Ms. Cooper, a term that signifies an entitled white woman who, while believing in her own virtue, is actually blind to her weaknesses.

And now America is aflame.  Those of us of a certain age cannot help but think back to the 1968 murder of Martin Luther King and the riots that followed as all of America seemed ablaze.  Of course there are differences.  Todays events are unfolding as America holds the dubious title as the epicentre of the world wide COVID 19 pandemic and has a President with no moral authority and who is incapable of calming and soothing a fractured and fracturing nation.  In fact, it seems he is relishing the carnage that is unfolding on his watch and is issuing tweets that fan the flames.

Living in Canada we look with dismay at these events, secure in the belief that our country is immune from the forces being unleashed in America.  But are we?  For starters, it came as a shock to learn that Amy Cooper is a Canadian.  Yup.  One of us.  And she lives on the Upper Westside of Manhattan, one of the strongest bastions of liberalism in America.  By all accounts, she is well educated and had a good career.  In fact, I’d bet she prided herself on her liberal credentials.  That was evident in the language she used on the call.  She referred to Christiane Cooper as an “African American man”.  Not a negro, not a coloured person, not even a black person and certainly not by the “N” word. No, she used the politically correct and apparently racially sensitive “African American”. And yet she played the race card without giving thought to the potentially deadly consequences she might be unleashing on Mr. Cooper.

Of course America’s “original sin” of slavery, followed by Jim Crowe and violent segregation, is an open wound that never really seems to heal and isn’t present in any other western country to the same extent but that doesn’t give us a “get out of jail free” card on racism.  I believe that every human being on earth is a racist, just that some are less so or at least less visibly so.  We all feel some level of discomfort when dealing with human beings who are racially different from us.  Many, I hope most, have learned to overcome that part of our id but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.  I don’t know if it’s genetic or environmental but I think each of us harbours that nasty little virus.

Over the past few months there has been a significant rise in racist attacks on Canadians of Asian origin, presumably in response to the appearance of COVID 19 in China.  Some have been subtle but others have been truly shocking, including the attack on a 92 year old Asian man and last week’s attack on two Asian women trying to park their car in Vancouver.   Most of us line up and condemn these attacks, sometimes a little too loudly it seems to me, but at least we have learnt our lines.  But does that mean we have eliminated racism from our psyche’s.  I don’t think so.

Canada’s “original sin” is its treatment of indigenous people during and after the European occupation of the space we now call Canada.  For most at that time it would have been incomprehensible to be accused of racism because of the predominant attitudes towards, and treatment of, indigenous Canadians.  My own grandparents homesteaded at the end of the nineteenth century in central Alberta.  And they did so on “free” land given them by the government of Canada.  It would never have occurred to them that land had in some ways been occupied by indigenous Canadians for millenia and really wasn’t free. I grew up in a home where overt racism wasn’t present, nor would it have been tolerated, and yet we did have a certain innate sense of superiority because of our northern European roots, a sense that extended to other later settlers from elsewhere in Europe.

When I watch the video of Ms Cooper calling the police it is jarring, not so much because of what she’s doing and the danger it poses to the peaceful black man who is filiming her, but because it scratches an itch I have spent most of my life trying to stop.  I am a liberal middle class white man, well educated and now with a successful career behind me.  I have lived for nearly fifty years in one of the most racially diverse neighbourhoods in Canada.  I have had colleagues and employees of different races than mine, as well as friends and neighbours.  Stepping out my front door guarantees I will be interacting with dozens of people who are of a different race than me and whose life experience is fundamentally different than mine.  I openly celebrate the diversity of my neighbourhood and my country.  I strongly support high levels of immigration into Canada from around the world.  And yet… I know racism lurks somewhere deep inside of me.  How many of us, when involved in an unpleasant confrontation with a person who is of a different race, have seen the temptation to hurl the racial epithet, that most vile of weapons in our arsenal.  I have.  And I’ve suppressed it.  Decades of layering on of defences against that behaviour have held and, thank god, those words have never passed my mouth.  But they’ve been there and I have seen them.  And, I suspect so have you.

So what do we do?  There’s no simple or easy answer.  The best I can come up with is just keep trying.  Keep reminding yourself that people, no matter their skin colour, religion or ethnic background, are still people with feelings remarkably similar to your own. Canada makes a good start but it’s only a start and, at a time when the world is retreating into racial silos, we need to defend it as never before.

just sayin

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Yesterday the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled on a significant preliminary issue in the extradition proceedings for Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, finding that the doctrine of double criminality did apply in her case and allowing the extradition process to proceed. Essentially, what the court found was that the alleged crime the United States is seeking extradition for was fraud, specifically lying to the HSBC bank while attempting to secure funding. The court found that charge, if proven, would be a crime in Canada as well as in the United States and therefore falls under the purvue of the extradition treaty between Canada and the United States.

In its early stages, the response from the Peoples’ Republic of China has been entirely predictable, referring to Canada as a “clown on the international stage” and a stooge, complicit in America’s campaign to take down Huawei. Two days prior to the ruling spokespeople for the government of China, including the Chinese embassy in Canada, issued dire warnings of severe consequences to Canada if the ruling did not go Meng Wanzhou’s way and lead to her release, showing yet again a complete lack of understanding of Canada’s judicial and political system.

I have no doubt Beijing will now up the pressure on Canada, including on the two Canadian hostages it has held now for going on two years. Some commentators have suggested China will move ahead with espionage charges against the two Michaels and may sentence them to death. I think that is quite possible although I think it unlikely they will execute them, that probably being a road too far, although with the government of the PRC, one never really knows . I expect China will throw its support against Canada’s election to a seat on the U.N. Security Council and will try to find other ways to damage the Canadian economy.

There is also growing evidence that state players are behind at least half of the posts on social media concerning COVID 19, fuelling divisions in the west over how to respond to the pandemic. That is especially true in the United States which provides fertile ground for those divisions, particularly over the issue of when and how to reopen the economy. I expect we will learn shortly that China is one of the state players behind this campaign. After all, what could serve China’s interests more than a politically divided and economically weakened America. Expect some of the same tactics directed at Canada.

Canada finds itself in an impossible position on the two hostages. The price China has set for their release is one Canada cannot pay. This, despite the continuing mumblings of appeasers who, with a straight face, recommend a hostage exchange despite clear evidence that would be very unpopular with the majority of Canadians. The sad fact is there is little we can do to alleviate the suffering of the two Michaels and the sooner we come to realize that the better. Our policy towards China cannot be dictated by hostage taking.

While all this is going on, and under cover of the COVID 19 pandemic, China is moving to extinguish the last vestiges of a democratic movement in Hong Kong in violation of the undertakings it made when Hong Kong was handed over to it in 1997. The rights and safety of 300,000 Canadians who live in Hong Kong are in jeopardy and Canada needs to speak up in their defence and in defence of the rule of law in international relations, including the absolute obligation for nations, irrespective of their size or power, to honour the binding international commitments they make.

In some respects, the conflict that has arisen because of the Meng Wanzhou extradition proceeding is good for Canada. What it has done for most Canadians is unmask China as the rogue state that it is and given the lie to the notion this country can have normal relations with it. Had the B.C. Supreme Court ruling gone the other way I have no doubt many of Canada’s leaders would have rushed to try to “normalize” relations with China and take us back to the point where we were before the conflict and before COVID 19 emerged from China. And they probably would have succeeded. The argument is seductive. All that money from trade. Support for the Security Council seat. An end to the constant hostility. Until next time that is.

So let us continue learning our lesson on how to deal with China. Every time it ups the ante another lesson is learned and hopefully we will reach a point where even the most compromised of Canada’s leaders will have to concede going back to “normal” is not an option.

On China Canada needs a clearly focussed foreign policy that draws on its long history of democratic government and the rule of law as well as the protection of human rights around the globe. Yes, there will be economic consequences. But here’s the thing. We’re suffering those consequences anyway and now we need to get on with life, including focussing our trading efforts away from China and towards partners we can rely on.

This is no time for the faint of heart and its past time for Canada’s leaders to move assertively on this file.

just sayin

G

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