The last day of my 45th year

It was on my 35th birthday that I was granted the greatest gift I could ever receive, the gift of fatherhood. My son was also born on May 21.

We both share the day as a birthday, now a surreal experience with a pandemic underway.

I’m waiting to return to the job, Rylind is waiting to resume some normal existence and hang out with friends again.

But as we wait for the calendar to flip over a day, I’m reminded of my role too.

It’s my job as it is anyone’s, to leave a better world for our kids than what we received.

So I will continue to argue and fight for what is right.

Right, on human rights, climate change, science, social and economic justice.

Look at me.

I’m of the demographic that has the least to worry about things. I sit atop a world in a fairly privileged position.

As Tommy Douglas once said that it’s never too late to fight for a better world.

I agree.

My first 45 years have brought me to this place. I’ll spend the next 45 making it better, for my kid and yours.

Let’s go

My2bits

Mild for Joe

potus

You know its true. Joe Biden isn’t Barack Obama and doesn’t illicit the same passion and groundswell of support that then Senator Obama did in the lead up to his 2008 election…and you know what? That’s perfectly ok.

There are few political candidates that drum up that sort of gut bending passion that you want to bend over backwards for them. Certainly it was Barack Obama, perhaps Bernie Sanders, once it was Ronald Reagan, or Justin Trudeau here in Canada. That luster wears off in time and its a contest of ideas (as it should be).

Joe Biden doesn’t do it at all. While he was an enthusiastic campaigner and very capable Vice President to Barack Obama, on his own terms, he’s not ‘that guy’.

He doesn’t have to be.

American politics are going through the other side of what began in 2008. Where there was hope and potential of great progress under Obama, the arrival of Donald Trump as President in 2016 is the exact opposite of hope and progress. He is literally the antidote of the excitement and promise the 2008 election.

Donald Trump is the worst excesses of the Tea Party movement filtered down through the most offensive and militant versions of racism and bigotry imaginable.

If there is anything that progressives, liberals and the left are guilty of, it was to pretend that this hateful force doesn’t hold any sway. They apparently vote…and in large enough numbers that they can win elections.

There are some D’s still fretting about 2016 like it was a stolen election. It wasn’t. Popular vote doesn’t determine elections, despite runaway tallies the Democrats had in their core, big states. What they cannot defend is how they lost swing states of Ohio, Michigan, Florida and dropped (in percentage) support in areas they did win. There was a pronounced swing against the Democratic party thanks to the angry racially populist messaging of Donald Trump. Given the tightness of the polls right now, Joe Biden has to offer more than “I’m not Trump” as a narrative.

To the left wingers and progressive populists that were aligned with Bernie Sanders, I know your disappointment. This is the second, and probably last time that Sanders will make a play for the Democratic Party Presidential Nomination. Progressives will have to think up something different if they wish to change America.

And this leads me to a point I think is necessary to discuss. There are those genuinely on the left so disappointed at Bernie Sanders’ withdrawal from the race that they’re actively trying to undermine Joe Biden. Either you’re a closet Trump supporter clawing your way into the open, or you’re probably stupid.

Yes I said that.

Here’s the problem.

America is not Canada.

In Canada, we have a robust multi-party democratic system. Its not just Liberal vs Conservative; those voters further to the left or right have different options.

The American system isn’t designed this way. Oh, yes it should be different, and that’s nice debate to have, but that’s not the reality on the ground.

Either Donald Trump gets another four years in power, or he’s stopped.

The frustration of the left is understandable. We’re proving that major government intervention is helpful; Canada is proving this. With the power of the state to levy taxes, print its own currency, and enforce laws, left wing ideas can get us out of the muck we’re in as a result of the global pandemic. So why hasn’t this caught on?

Because America isn’t a left wing country. Its a centre-right nation. Come to think of it, so is Canada.

Far left ideas haven’t caught on in America for the same reason that far right ideas haven’t caught on in Canada. Our people aren’t typically extreme.

This isn’t to suggest that far left ideas are equivalent to the far right. Folks on the far left aren’t screaming outrage at ‘Mexican rapists and drug dealers’ in left-wing rhetoric. You’re more likely to hear ‘medicare for all’, and ‘basic income (for all)’ coming from the left.

It didn’t matter that Trump’s rhetoric was racist or that it was substantially wrong, he said it regardless…and thus began the effort to create a permission structure for blue collar voters who were generally underwhelmed at a slow economic recovery, blame immigrants and other people of colour (even if factually incorrect). That’s how Trump was able to peel off enough votes to flip swing states.

We’re at a place where the hard core activists are angry their chosen person didn’t make the cut and some are threatening either a boycott or obstruction as a result. That doesn’t make you much of a team player now doesn’t it?

Did Bernie Sanders throw a tantrum at Hillary Clinton in 2016 and run as a third party candidate? No: he was a powerful surrogate who headlined over a dozen events in her name – because he knew that Donald Trump had to be stopped. If the US Presidential Election was decided on popular vote, she would have won. In fact, one could argue that because of Sander’s efforts, Hillary was able to score the second highest popular vote tally in US history. But that’s not America’s system.

Did the losing GOP candidates throw a tantrum in 2016 and undercut Trump? No, they climbed aboard. Unfortunately.

Some of the most cantankerous progressives would seemingly be happier of Trump got a second term than if Biden won instead. I’m having a lot of trouble with this.

Nobody is saying Biden is perfect. He’s no less flawed in 2020 than Hillary was in 2016; neither would have been my first choice in any primary/caucus contest had I been an American registered Democrat. But they’d get my vote for President in November regardless.

As Trump cheers on anti-lockdown protests (by folks looking to shop, get haircuts), nobody is talking anymore about the thousands of children of undocumented immigrants locked in cages separated from their parents at the direction of the Trump administration. Not just separated, seized. Not just seized, being adopted out to American families.

Progressives will point to some allegations made by Tara Reade of very inappropriate behavior of Joe Biden. Allegations that we’re to believe; as per #metoo activists. Now, I’m not going to be the one to challenge if a woman has or hasn’t been a victim of a sexual crime; they face enough hurdles on coming forward with allegations. But, questions have been raised, and doubt is being raised towards the allegations.

Rather than delving into either the allegations, or denials, I’ll just say this..

That ship has sailed.

Maybe Tara Reade is right and Joe Biden is a creep. But I’m just going to say that nobody cares anymore about that. Donald Trump bragged up shitty behavior, and he won an election. There are more powerful people in office who do shady things than we know. Some are known quantities, some aren’t. The time before Trump, it was Bill Clinton being a creep – and he won re-election.

People vote on bread and butter, economic issues now. They could care less about personal lives. Republicans learned this too; after showcasing their moralistic holier than thou attitude during the Bill Clinton impeachment efforts, it was revealed later that many GOP folks were creeps too.

Again, I don’t want to minimize Tara Reade’s allegations, but the outrage is muted. The sitting President is out in the open with his depravity and could win another term. The person that the far left really do want, Bernie Sanders isn’t without his own interesting issues. His political legacy is that once he called for an end to mandatory public education…along with other distractions.

Oh yes, that’s literally a dose of ‘whataboutism’, but seriously, to the American voter, the choice ahead may just be a life or death option. Donald Trump and his covid10-trutherism has been picked up by the anti-vaxxer crowd; and should he get a new term of office, the anti-medicine people will have sway in public policy.

This will get people killed.

I’m truly sorry, Bernie folks, that your guy isn’t the Democratic nominee. Sure, Biden is a flawed candidate, just as Hillary was; just as Obama turned out to be. But you will be hard pressed to convince me that at any time that America would have been better off under the influence of any of the Republican options. We’re now finding out how bad it is under Trump; now imagine four more years of it.

You’d argue that the system is broken and that its hardly democratic: and that’s not a bad point to make. Except that its wrong.

The Republican party got as stupid and right wing not because Trump convinced them to be; it was a concerted effort over decades at the grassroots level that the worst lot of conservative ideologues slowly took over low level party positions as volunteers and rank/file gate keepers. It was only a matter of time before its leadership followed suit.

The left assumed that Bernie could just be dropped into place and win the nomination race. What were they thinking?

This isn’t to say that there are some genuine left enclaves within the Democratic Party; there clearly are. But they don’t dominate the party, nor are they the front line foot soldiers in the same way that far right activists have taken over the GOP. If the left wants the Democratic Party to move left, then get involved and drag it to where it needs to be. Or start your own party.

Look. Vote Biden to halt Trump. Vote Democrat to sweep Republicans from house and senate seats; shift the legislative direction. Put facts and science back in their rightful place.

Odds are, that even if it Biden wins, he’s only there for one term. Bernie isn’t likely to run for this again either. Progressives and liberals within the Democrats can look for new alternatives to campaign for in the ’24 campaign.

But if the left is genuine about changing America, as many of their loudest cheerleaders suggest, you can act first by saving America by throwing Trump out. If you cannot do that then I question your motives.

Either you actively choose someone that doesn’t stir excitement in you, or you’ll get Trump.

I’m aware that this opinion might trigger a blow-back in some of my political circles, but I’m unmoved by that possibility.

What I’m calling for is an ounce of pragmatism here, and if folks can’t read the “unite to stop the fascist from destroying a country” message here, then you’re just as much a hard-liner as you pretend not to be. There are times when a nations’ citizenry unite to overcome a common threat; this is that time, Trump is that threat.

Time to choose.

My2bits

Trudeau plays his conservative opponents like a fiddle and they’re too stupid to realize it.

From the hyperventilating going on, you’d think that Trudeau has outlawed all firearms.

He hasn’t.

He’s done the thing that so many Canadians mock Americans for: banning of military grade weapons. Included on the list you’d find RPG’s and rocket launchers. Here’s the list.

Outrage.

What he is guilty of is exploiting another crisis to do this, but that’s Trudeau. But in doing so, he’s managed to bait a lot of people into taking on Trump-like NRA/Republican talking points. Y’all stepped right into it.

How embarassing.

Trudeau always wanted to campaign against a Trump-like irrational group think. Given some of the reactions so far, you’ve played right into his hands.

Now he gets to run on a polarizing issue while nobody is talking about his various other failures.

How embarassing.

The hypocrisy of Canada’s far right on covid19

Why won’t Trudeau help Canadians becoming ‘how are we going to pay for that’

Don’t lift a finger to stop these far right imbeciles from looking any more stupid than they already do.

But, aren’t they stupid? Of course they are, but now they’re drifting into the realm of irrational.

The above screenshot is from Canada Proud, a relative newcomer to the social media self-fellatio of the right wing nuttosphere.

They’ve latched onto what is bubbling up in the Trump world of alternative facts and it may have a profound impact on American politics. It must not do the same here.

Justin Trudeau did not create the $140 billion debt prior to the covid19 pandemic. That was already there. Some of it was by decisions of his government, much of it was left over from all previous administrations.

To then argue or light your hair on fire over the costs rising from the mitigation efforts infers that either they would not have spent a penny to help Canadians through this pandemic.

You’ll note that they ignore this problem when it comes to conservative regimes in Alberta, Ontario or under Trump.

Somehow, money only matters (that needs to be paid back) when non-conservatives are in charge.

They do have a point. Money borrowed like this does need to be paid.

But the right wing has no real answers. They’d cut taxes for the rich again and gut social spending, as they always do. By doing so they serve to widen the already obscene rich/poor gap they pretend to care about. They don’t. They only have one master: money.

They will not entertain a wealth tax, they will not examine a basic income, they won’t lift a finger for social housing. They’ll pretend to care about front line essential workers but undermine the workplace safety provisions they need.

Because they’ve always done this.

I’m not a Liberal Party supporter, but I don’t see any way that massive debt charges were avoidable when large swaths of employees were told to stay home from work while social distancing guidelines take effect.

Nobody had fun doing this and it’s going to cause other issues soon enough. But, money? Well if your only God is money, then your worship over it at least makes sense.

But you’re wrong.

My2bits

New movie Planet of the Humans is a wake up call

Some environmentalists have taken the movie as a knife in the back, or a slap in the face by Michael Moore. Some have gone so far as to call for its removal.

I don’t see it that way, and I don’t think removing it will help; that amounts to green-censorship which will immediately backfire.

What this movie has done has put a spotlight on the Green Energy industry and highlighted some of its contradictions. Green Energy isn’t entirely green. We should at least agree on this.

The movie laments the corporate control over the movement too.

While I’m no expert on Green Energy, it’s fair to ask questions and not right that some folks feel that it’s beyond scrutiny.

Much of the technology involved in green energy comes from rare earth metals and minerals that are..well..rare.

They’re sourced by industrial giants in far off places in countries where they tend to have lax environmental protections and even lower labour standards.

Doing the right thing can, at times, come at an ethical cost.

And I say this as a supporter of the Green Energy industry. Do better, research more. There’s progress to be had, but we’re going to have to do this different.

Instead of demonizing Michael Moore as a sell out, listen to the message. If what we’re doing isn’t working, then we need to change.

My2bits

Updated: climate change deniers have latched onto this movie. They should not. It’s a reality check that the Green Energy industry needed, and a call to action. Not surrender.

The price of lies

At 1:23:45am local time April 26, 1986, at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine SSR, a series of errors and bad judgment led to an explosion in reactor #4 that spread radioactive material through much of western Europe.

Design flaws of the reactor type that were suppressed by the state meant that the safety countermeasures would fail during a safety test leading the a catastrophic accident. It cost lives immediately in the explosion, it cost lives in the attempt to put out the radioactive fire, it cost lives in the months long mitigation efforts to cap the spread of radiation. It cost lives by the thousands.

Good, honest heroic people of the Soviet Union paid with their lives to make safe the region around Ukraine and stop the threat of a nuclear holocaust through much of western Europe.

Chernobyl, however, is the perfect metaphor for the Soviet Union. Built up on dangerous mythology that would fail if tested. And it did.

Former General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev wrote in 2006 that the Chernobyl incident was likely the true cause of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Perhaps he is right. Generations of corruption and cynicism finally let loose and nobody trusted the regime anymore.

We are in danger of repeating a mistake. While this isn’t a nuclear plant melting down, we’re in a global crisis of another brand. A pandemic.

Several of our leaders are bent on returning life back to normal – the “normal” we had prior to the outbreak. It’s the same yearning to maintain status quo that the former Soviet authorities were fixated on. Because to let any other narrative slip in there it meant that change would have to be embraced.

The Soviet Union paid a price. It wasn’t until well after the Chernobyl incident that they were forced to admit that their reactor type had a critical design flaws, but in having their science community point out this flaw in years previous; it was an admission that by suppressing the information of the flaw the Soviet Union became responsible for the disaster. They alone could have prevented it, but they weren’t prepared to change.

In striving to return to normal as this pandemic burns through its process, by refusing to change, we are collectively setting ourselves up for the next disaster.

It’s true that nobody can take “blame” for the onset of Coronavirus, but how we deal with it should be revealing as to the various leadership styles out there.

For the Soviet Union, it was prestige and power. Today it’s money. Money isn’t everything. Just like prestige and power can quickly evaporate.

The notion that “we’re all in this together” cannot just be a political tag line, it has to be a new philosophy. Both in these times of crisis but as we emerge.

On the other side of this pandemic, we have to rethink how we care for our most vulnerable so that they may lead a dignified and relative independent existence. Homelessness needs to stop completely. The tax code needs to stop coddling the one percent. We need to invest in a universal safety net. Nobody should starve or be homeless.

We are granted by our creator this place among the stars as our home, and no place else like it exists. It’s our moral obligation to care for it and care for each other. We have no place else to go.

Either we change or die. Change isn’t going to be easy or fast, but doing nothing and pretending that we can just carry on as “normal” is the lie. And that lie will be our doom.

My2bits

Serious question for the legal community

Considering free speech guarantees in the constitution, which is the First Amendment of the USA constitution and 2(b) of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada, there are limits to the above freedoms.

Both countries place limits on what you can advocate, such as Canada’s criminal code sanctions on Hate Speech. And no where do you have the right to yell “fire” in a crowded theatre.

These limits have faced legal tests of their own in the supreme courts and have been validated over the years.

So my question for legal experts, can laws be passed that outlaws and criminalize any advocacy that runs opposite to public health orders? I mean if to yell “fire” in a theatre can get you a serious fine (or worse if your actions caused injury or death), then shouldn’t that apply to those opposing vaccinations? Flouting ‘stay-in-place’ orders?

We’re not talking about those who argue that earth is flat or that the moon landings were faked in a Hollywood studio. Making these arguments based on conspiracy theories is inconsequential; nobody can be harmed by how flat you feel the earth is. You might be called stupid or an idiot, but that’s your argument to make.

Those who argue against life saving medical advice and established science have a profound impact that could cost lives. That, in my opinion, is no different than the asshole who yells “fire” in a crowded theatre.

You have every right to follow whatever faith you wish; stand on your soapbox and bang the drum for (or against) whatever political cause or party you wish…and as repugnant as those views may be, I support your right to have them.

But I do not support you having the right to argue against life saving medical advice because *you* feel that it goes against your personally held beliefs.

In my belief system, I accept that we are all created in his (God’s) image. To me, that means that everything that exists today as we know it flows from this design. Including the medical science we have gleaned from years of experience and education. If we, human animals, were not intended to discover things and generally *advance*, then we’d be no different than any other mammal prowling the earth on instinct alone.

It’s not my place to judge how you interpret the articles of your faith, but if in the free practice of your faith you put my community, my family, and myself at grave risk by your actions, then your actions are akin to calling fire in that crowded theatre.

And there should be a law against it.

My2bits