Defending Democracy: by Russell McNeil

Why I am fighting for the survival of democracy, and why you must too: The Greek idea of democracy and the Roman idea of civitas are not just clever governing principles. They are concepts deeply embedded in - and part of - the natural law of the universe. Defending democracy isn't an option. You and I are required to defend democracy with every fiber of our intellect - even to the death. We have no option here. Read on:

The only stoic commandment (more a direction than a “commandment”) is to “live according to nature.” This means we are directed by nature to exercise virtue-based critical thinking in all that we do. Nature, meaning nature’s law, is the model we follow, because nature’s law is perfect; it is beautiful as all perfect things must be; and, we are drawn to beauty, through an attraction called love; and love brings us to the place where beauty and truth converge. We are drawn to the Law by our love of its beauty. When we get close we behold its truth. As a physicist/scientist, I get this. You must too:

Beauty is truth,

truth beauty,

that is all you know on earth,

and all you need to know. 

~ John Keats

This is more than a quaint ancient idea. This view of nature as a divine cosmic dance, animated by universal law, survives unscathed after nearly 2,500 years. If you or I were magically transported back to the steps of the Agora in the Athens of 350 BC and introduced to Xeno or Chrysippus – the two founders of Stoicism – the news we would share with them about what we know now about nature in the 21st century - would be met with rapt attention, but not disbelief.

Our stoic ancestors would be impressed with our new wisdom about the mechanics of nature with its four or five basic laws – a mechanics now in search of a Grand Unified Theory of Everything. But interestingly enough – as philosophers - they would ask themselves what new insights our modern laws brought in their pursuit of self knowledge, to know oneself? Might quantum mechanics – for example – be read in ways that would allow me to know myself better?

But the stoics had already read a great deal into the law of nature, long before we moderns uncovered its recent secrets: the Greeks understood - at least qualitatively – four ancient laws: 1. Gravity (they called it affinity); 2. Constancy - in essence the idea of energy conservation; 3. Entropy – the necessity and normality of change; and 4., that cosmic cycles lay at the heart of the rubric of nature. These four ideas are still in play – although many others have been added in the past few thousand years.

These four older “laws” - were read by ancient stoics allegorically - as parables - with deep portent for human purpose. Lest you think that the ancient stoic idea expired with the birth of Christianity - think again. The Christian world view borrowed heavily from stoicism and included this idea too. The four Christian gospels were to be read allegorically as parables that were to guide our actions in life. Nature - according to the Christian view - was to be seen as a fifth gospel which also was intended to be read in this way.

These readings of nature’s law (shared by ancient theists and non-theists alike) taught generally that actions and attitudes that alienate us from nature are not rational. Specifically, anger and dishonesty have no meaning in nature, and hence have no purpose in life. Nor does nature ever act in a thoughtless way – nature follows its internal law with unerring perfection. Humans are also social – nature teaches us that through its various affinities. This implied harmony in nature requires humans – who are also in nature - to work in concert and cooperation with one another. And so in stoicism, the Greek idea of democracy and the Roman idea of civitas – were Stoic influenced reason derived attempts to mirror nature’s law in civil law – human law - and these designs became the templates for our modern civil contracts: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the constitutions and charters of most modern liberal democracies, including our own Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. 

I must defend democracy - and you must too. My survival, your survival and the planet's survival depend on this. We have no other options. #TheResistence

Other post from Russell McNeil CONFRONTING EVIL 

Democracy in Chains

In a recent post (Missing Links) by George Monbiot we learn of how American democracy has been crippled by corporate funded economic theories. 

Papers found by Nancy MacLean at Virginia University after the death of James McGill Buchanan are the subject of her latest book Democracy in Chains: the deep history of the radical right’s stealth plan for America.

Buchanan's theories influenced by the neoliberalism of Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises,  argued that freedom is the absolute right to use your property however you wish without interference from society, human rights, social justice, and labour laws which are seen as exploiting "men of property on behalf of the undeserving masses." 

Monbiot's post is worth reading for how it reveals the progression from Western democracy and the threat of totalitarian capitalism.

Restless is the Heart of an Exile

From Ascent Aspirations Friday's Poem 

This little town holds
a contained and fragile charm
where my elsewhere-birthed spirit
learns to survive.
My sustaining friends candle it into home
though shadows shimmer in curtained corners.
The land of ancestors buried in hard-won sacred soil
calls out to my waiting bones...
I am forbidden to answer,
grieve for my moment to come
when alien soil covers restless remains
and spirit hovers between
the world that barely embraces me
and the pulsing claim of blood and ligament,
heart, spirit and tribal ties
that scream for my absorption
back into fiery particles that stoked my entity.
Wine cannot placate, bread of other fields seldom satisfies,
a communion I must re-learn.

Katherine L. Gordon
for Trump exiles from America.

Torturing Youth is Okay with us?

“More than two-thirds of Canadians feel Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the wrong choice in awarding a $10.5 million settlement to Omar Khadr, according to a new poll by the Angus Reid Institute.” CBC News

But we don’t see the survey questions in this article. How was the poll actually worded? Reading one article might make us believe we are well informed, but how does a single poll actually tell us how people feel?  

“And while the survey shows that a majority of Liberals and New Democrats are opposed to the government's decision, how the numbers compare to previous polling suggests that views on Khadr have hardened over the last decade — and that he remains a divisive figure.”

How can a single poll tell whether Khadr is a divisive figure or not? What information do respondents have to make such a claim? 

The article then switches to a former US special force soldier who was blinded in one eye during the 2002 firefight in Afghanistan involving Khadr.  Of course he would be critical of this, but who needs a US soldier’s advice on a decision between Canada and Khadr. Why would we expect the widow of Sgt. Christopher Speer who was killed in that battle to agree either? 

The article claims 71% of respondents agreed the government had "done the wrong thing".  "Though Khadr has publicly renounced the radicalized worldview of his father, almost two-in-three Canadians (64%) don’t appear to believe him." says the ARI article. What information do they have to believe or disbelieve? What news sources do they get their information from? Who paid for the Angus Reid Poll? 

How would these respondents feel if their son or daughter was imprisoned and tortured at the age of 15? How would they feel if their government did nothing to help for ten years and left them there to be interrogated by a formidable power?

But here is the reason I suspect this CBC article was written. "This disapproval with the government's decision extended to Trudeau's own supporters: 61 per cent of Canadians who said they voted Liberal in 2015 felt that the wrong decision had been made. That increased to 64 per cent among NDP voters.”

This article is much more about a Conservative push to win public opinion with help from a single poll and media.   Andrew Sheer was quoted here almost as a wink that we can expect him to be the next prime minister.

The article claims the “poll suggests Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, in his fierce criticism of Trudeau's decision to settle with Khadr, is on the right side of public opinion.”

I don't believe a single poll represents public opinion in a deep and meaningful way. I believe we feel more comfortable when justice is done. We would probably be sickened to see or hear of the cruelty that happens in prisons and battlefields. We value kindness and helpful neighbours, but we haven't figured out how to create that politically and economically. 

Social Currencies

The business of keeping people alive, supporting one another, emergency and  crisis response, food banks, community libraries, child-raising, education, language development, storytelling in all its forms, transport, food production, water, electricity, communication, safe shelter - these are just a few of the capacities that have enabled our species to survive and thrive.  We take these things for granted in first world countries, until they are no longer there.

The people of Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and some Eastern European nations have lost their support systems. Refugees don't give their money away to pirates for a shaky sail in dinghies by choice. When societies are destroyed people become homeless.

No matter how established, cultured, intelligent or wealthy we are today, we are all refugees when the meaning of our life is translated into a single obsession - money.  Salaries, real estate, stocks, markets, jobs, economics, screeching media and weapons of mass destruction.

"The experience of oppression does not grant supremacy, in the same way that being a powerful colonizer does not. Justice will never look like supremacy. I wish for a new societal order that does not revolve around relations of power and domination." Frances Lee, Kin Aesthetics, Excommunicate Me From the Church of Social Justice.

The currency that supports life and gives it meaning is the power of influence. "Influence is like lighting one candle with another. Sharing your influence with someone else does not mean you have less; you have more. When we use the flame of a candle to light another candle, the first is not diminished. There is now, simply, more light." Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.

More light, more warmth, more knowledge that builds homes and community.

Units of Power and Other Social Currencies

"Power does not necessarily imply the wish to destroy... (t)he question is why some people use power to destroy." Richard Koenigsberg

The question for me - is why I see everything in the political/economic world as a contest for more and more power?  Who can argue that our obsession with money is not about power?  If you have money you can hire people to do your work for you. You have banks eager to gain more business from you. You can pressure politicians with your lobbies. You can change the mandates of higher learning. You can bring other wealthy people together for global conferences. You can influence the UN and the EU, and since November 2016, you can even destroy America.

So I wish to defend my obsession with how power is destroying our civil societies. I come from a place where family ruled my world. They interpreted reality for me. They measured my worth with their judgemental comments. They told me what my intentions were, what I was thinking, and what I hoped to gain.  At the time I did not see this as power, but concern and care.

From here I learned about morality, civilization and history from the classroom where I was a vacuous sponge.  I learned how to stay in a job. How to negotiate my needs with the needs of the company. I learned from older men and women about how to succeed in the job and in my life. I wedded the ideas of my partner to my own. But I also made mistakes by false beliefs.

I started out as a child needing to win, to prove I was worthy of the pain my mother suffered. I needed to win because I was afraid of my father who gave me instructions and who spent his life working to feed and house me. I needed to be aware of fashion - not be consumed by it, but to appear normal  to my peers and superiors.

What was the prize? What did I want to win ultimately? I wanted to belong, to have dignity and respect.  So here was I in this capitalist structure that told me I was a consumer who had to appear successful.

Success - this carrot on a stick - is rarely one you can control. Who will like you, employ you, who will hate you, who will care for you when you have a breakdown because you haven't learned that you are not in control no matter what you do or how much you learn. But that was the myth I internalized. Like Willy Loman I believed I had to play all the right roles to be 'well liked'.

There were many times I failed, in ways I told myself I would never fail. I was staunch in my  rejection of failure, and yet I failed and failed again in my own self-esteem. I remember times when I felt like throwing all our china on the floor, slamming the door until it broke. I got really scared when I felt an urgent need to go out to beat up somebody or something. Earlier in my life I was the target but never the fighter, and could never imagine raising my hand to hit anyone.

There a glimpse of insight came when I told a friend that I felt like an old Volkswagen Beetle hauling a caravan up the hill. She asked what was causing this stress?

It took many years before I could see what was happening.  My own internal drive to prove that I was worthy in a world run on money, glamour and celebrity. I was shaking the tree of life for all the nuts in the world to make up for the lack of self-love that one needs in order to dwell within community.

In the quiet hours of brokenness - which is the best word for that state where you realize  you will not get what you want - ever, it occurred to me  that "success" was not a thing that provided happiness or peace.  The consumer kool-aid I had drunk so thirstily was just an addiction. Part of the fantasy industrial complex.

There are those who climb to the top of their field through study, inquiry, good habits and humility. This uses a different kind of power. Immersion into the relationships and power of community through compassion, cooperation and self reflection. Rather than a top down control it is the commitment to serve. To observe beauty in nature and to feel gratitude for what one has.

So had I won my quest for personal glory, had I not broken down and wept, I would have carried on the ego fantasy and probably hurt many more people than I had. I might have burned the bridges to that two way learning, caused trauma to my beloved family without awareness.  This is called narcissism. And had I persisted to win at any cost my drive would have destroyed the life systems around me. This is called psychopathy.

This is what destroyed the first nations after European contact. Narcissistic, megalomaniac, psychopaths sailing into the sunset on their ships of discovery, out to conquer the world. And the way to do it is to refuse acknowledgement of the harm you are causing for the sake of your own self-agrandizement. To replace the voice of conscience with propaganda and new ideologies. To hasten the demise of aboriginal communities with germs, guns and alcohol.

This is  happening with neoliberal economics - the belief that free markets are really free while civil society and it's social institutions are being dismantled back to feudalist warring. When those who have so much power  can choose to listen to whomever they wish, they can purchase think tanks designed to back up their world view and sense of entitlement.

Power leads to destruction when the ego that has achieved some success keeps building on their status and position rather than the greater good for all. Even those in positions of power need to be surrounded by people they can trust to tell the truth, and to know that for as long as they live they belong in the family of humans.

The Best Way to Celebrate Canada Day - Broadbent Institute

by Ed Broadbent

from the Broadbent Institute

As Canada Day gifts go, Parliament’s adoption earlier this month of a bill prohibiting discrimination against transgender Canadians and affording them protection against hate crimes stands out.

The steady expansion of rights for Canada’s LGBTQ community, which has accelerated since we became the first country outside of Europe to grant equal legal treatment of same sex marriage in 2005, is cause for celebration — for their own sake, but also for what they illustrate.

Such changes don’t simply happen of their own accord. They are the outcome of substantial community mobilization and the commitment of talented activists who won’t take “No” for an answer.

So much of what makes us proud about Canada is the product of such dedication; and the product, whether explicit or not, of a social democratic engagement to put equality and the good of all first.

A quick look at our history makes the point.

The decades-long struggle by women finally resulted in universal women’s suffrage in 1960.

And it was the hard work of civil society activists in the 1980s that led to the explicit recognition of the rights of women and Indigenous peoples in the Charter of Rights.

Years of resolute environmental activism led to the closing of polluting coal plants right across the country, most recently in the groundbreaking Alberta Climate Leadership Plan of November 2015.

We should never lose sight of this path we have travelled already. And of those who made it possible. We must remember and honour those true trailblazers who fought for change.

This Canada Day, I’ll be celebrating the accomplishments of Frank Calder, the hereditary Nisga’a chief who in 1949 became the first status Indian to be elected to a legislature in Canada.

I’ll be celebrating the tireless Agnes Mcphail, the first woman elected to the House of Commons in 1921, who gave us one of the best ever mantras for progressive activism: “Never apologize. Never explain. Just get the thing done and let them howl.”

And I’ll be reflecting on the legacy of my friend Rosemary Brown, who in 1972 became the first Black Canadian woman elected to a legislature in Canada. Rosemary’s reminder that, “Until all of us have made it, none of us have made it,” still resonates today.

Though we’ve come a long way, Canada remains a work in progress. And nowhere is the gap between rhetoric and reality more glaring than in the case of First Nations. It’s no surprise that many Indigenous peoples do not celebrate 1867, precisely because the immediate years after Confederation was one of the worst periods in abrogating their rights.

On Jan. 26, 2016, the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal (CHRT) ruled that the Government of Canada racially discriminates against 165,000 First Nations children.

The Tribunal found that the Government of Canada had known for decades about the inequities in child welfare and other government services for First Nations children, yet had repeatedly ignored calls for reform.

Unfortunately, the pattern continues. The Tribunal issued two non-compliance orders against Canada in 2016 and another one this year — but the federal government refuses to act. Meanwhile, First Nations children and their families are suffering irreparable harm.

The funding discrepancies in government services mean that generation after generation of First Nations children have been separated from their families unnecessarily, compounding the damage done by the residential school system. As we approach the 150th anniversary of Confederation, it is past time to right this wrong.

In partnership with Cindy Blackstock and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society, the Broadbent Institute has launched a petition calling on the Government of Canada to fully comply with the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal. Please consider signing this petition and sending it to everyone you know: http://www.broadbentinstitute.ca/fn_chrt.

As we reflect on what we need to improve, at this moment of Canada’s 150th birthday, it’s important to remember that the history of this land goes back thousands of more years. The hard work of reconciliation has only just begun.

It’s not enough for our government to celebrate the diversity of our country, but not enact policies that head off growing inequality. It’s not right to speak a good line about Indigenous rights without investing in the future of Indigenous children.

The narrative of an inclusive Canada is a story that is still at odds with the lived experience of too many Canadians.

A country’s true worth is measured by how it provides for each of its citizens. The best way to celebrate Canada Day is to rededicate ourselves to making good on this promise — for all.