Values

This is a good time for Canadians to apply the five values outlined in Timothy Snyder’s On Freedom and see where we stand.

Sovereignty: We started as a land mass inhabited by indigenous people who had been there for hundreds of years. Explorers reached us hundreds of years later and settlers set up colonies, largely French and English. We were a British Dominion for many years but ultimately became independent with our own constitution. While we are now a multicultural country we maintain our French and English traditions with two official languages and our own culural identity.

Unpredictability: Another country that doesn’t know us very well assumed that we were willing to be their vassal. Imagine what happened when we suddenly walked away from a trade negotiation that didn’t address our own needs - and even hit back, knowing that we would also be hurt in the process. And are OK with that.

Mobility: People are free to go where the wish within the country - and free to avoid going to countries that they don’t like or buying their stuff. We are not tied to jobs that we don’t like because losing their benefits is too costly. The majority of our health costs are covered in a system that is far from perfect but neither turns us into communists. Public universities provide good education without graduates having overwhelming debt.

Factuality: We have a free press that calls those in power to account. Our national broadcasting network is paid for by the govenment, but is not afraid to question government policies all the time. Daily papers, alas, are dwindling but at least one has regional editions. Fact checking happens. At least one paper publishes its mistakes. Investigative journalism is still alive.

Solidarity: Canadians are generally a modest people and one of the ongoing jokes is that they apologize to the people who bump into them. But that one has been tested lately. We have put it to bed. Change it to the Moose that Roared. We are probably the only country in the world whose prime minister is the author of a book entitled - VALUES.

Invitation - no thanks!

Among the emails describing fresh American disasters are frequent invitations to improve this website. My hosting platform, Dashlane, is good enough to warn me that such invitations might be spam, and to say so if I think they are; the answer is invariably yes. It’s not that they don’t feature really good consultants; one helped some years ago with another site and almost refused to be paid because the task was simple for him as opposed to impossible for me. Thr spam messages here are telling me how much money I am going to make on this site with their help. They obviously are trolling for addresses without ever taking a look at the content.

The clue is that they know nothing about the site. It’s not intended to make money. I note that any recommendations that I very occasionally make have no connection with any source of payment. I’m not intending to be a big time influencer at this stage of life; I’m just having fun writing occasionally as I have been doing onlne since 1995.

Linkedin is handy as a source of getting in touch with people. My site is still there and I am clearly marked as retired. Nevertheless several universities think it would be a good idea for me to start an MBA. I’m also told that x number of people have visited my Linkedin Site with a view of employing me.

Then there are the spam phonecalls. The lady speaking Mandarin or Cantonese leaves frequent messages and I may be missing out on something wonderful, who knows? There are all those parttime marketing jobs on offer too.

I’m not exactly born yesterday to put it mildly. But I have been around the block more than once in the last 24 hours. Delete becomes the most important button on the keyboard.

Crazy times

I have been absent while doing a wonderful drawing course, which is a good way to get away from the news. but not entirely. Here is some copy from the UK Independent as it looks on at the activities of the leader of the free world in 40 early morning posts on July 2.

President Trump ages in reverse!” the caption of one post featuring an image of Trump read.

Some of the AI content imagined Trump as Elvis Presley, compared him to former President George Washington and, bizarrely, showed Trump capturing an extraterrestrial.

Canada had a prime minister who followed sprirtuality and had conversations with his deceased mother. We didn’t learn about that in his lifetime. I wonder if we would have taken action, had we known. But the above actions are going on in plain sight. Does any of his country members notice and care or are they just following this as entertainment? How crazy does it have to get? More than this apparently! Reality TV never got this far.

How To

M. Gessen, an opinion writer at the New York Times, has written an article appearing today with a formula to deal with growing autocracy. Both Americans and Canadians should pay attention. She uses the recent defeat of Orban to point to ways for others to follow: Read the full article here.

 ·       Volunteer and organize other to do so.

·       Make the case in person going door to door, if you are a politician or major supporter. Don’t just march in protests or spend all your time making a case on social media. (Last year, a Canadian party leader lost his seat to an opponent, who took the time to knock on doors in his riding several times in the preceding two years.)

·       Use clear forward-looking language – don’t go back to “Again”. Say “Start Over”. Name the abuses of the person you want to defeat. Be specific.

·       Take over an existing party instead of trying to create a new one and build its internal organization.

·       Lead it as an outsider – but do so as a person of integrity. Don’t expect an outsider with no integrity to be on your side under any circumstances.

·       Turn supporters into volunteers; grassroot supporters can become allies in areas of agreement

·       Show moral outrage at the Big Lies; don’t just report them without comment. All of us need to recover a sense of lofty ideals, the rule of law and human rights.

·       Be clear that victory means representation of everyone - everyone – not just those who elected the new leader.

·       Apologize to the victims of the previous govenment and hold them accountable

·       Make politics both aspirational and inspirational.

·       Embrace minorities. Never exclude them.

·       Reclaim national symbols from those who would misuse them.

Taste and autocracy

I am reading more of The Economist and less of the New York Times these days but I do check out the headlines and opinion sections of the latter - and full confession, Wordle, Strands, Letterbox, the Mini, the Maxi and sometimes Spelling Bee in te search to be a genius. I liked Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens in the opinion section this morning. A couple of good quotes today.

Bruni: “Tastelessness and classlessness are the least of my concerns when it comes to President Trump’s collaborators.” . . . ”This is about idolatry, a cult of personality and the replacement of real achivements with vacuous adornments.”. . . It’s a ballroom built on bribery. Makes Everything OK”

Stehens: In talking about the ballroom and the endless pictures on buildings and bank notes: “, Bad taste and autocratic interests tend to go together for a reason because the purpose of autocratic design is to overawe rather than intrigue or delight; to erase beauty, which elicits a sense of humanity and reverce, with largeness, which elisits fear.

On with activities for the day leading to beauty - process rather than result - piano practice and drawing.