Moral Constipation

Ethics, religion, Religious Quest in the Modern Age, Social Justice

 

Brother Cornell West, like Woody Guthrie, always wants to be on the side of the oppressed. That does not mean the oppressed are always right about everything. It does mean they are oppressed and they deserve to be relieved of that oppression. Is that not what the Old Testament prophets urged us to do? Is that not precisely what Jesus did as well? West was not on the side of the money lenders. They didn’t need his help.

 

West translates that point of view to modern times. That is why I refer to him as a modern prophet. Sadly, sometimes the rich and powerful are not satisfied with their luck; they want to interfere with any ameliorative action on behalf of the vulnerable. When they do that they must be stopped. Then they are on the side of injustice. As West said, at the University of Winnipeg, when the elites are addicted to status and resist change, that is a case of “moral constipation.”

In 2015 when he talked at the university it was before the age of Trump. It was the age of Obama. Many people saw Obama as a modern Messiah. He was not a messiah to West. West actually campaigned for him, but told Obama that as soon as he was elected he would turn out to become his fiercest critic. Like Socrates, the job of the Prophet is to be a gadfly to power. Socrates one of West’s heroes and one of mine too.

West complained, that in the US many liberals did not want to criticize Obama because they sympathized with him in his fight against Fox News and other Conservatives. West compared Obama to what happened in the Savings and Loans crisis in the US when many people lost a lot of money as a result of those financial institutions collapsing. As West pointed out, during the S & L crisis in the US, which was during the Presidency of Ronald Reagan, 1,100 businessmen went to jail. And Reagan was not exactly a visionary for social justice. Yet during the Presidency of Obama, notwithstanding the financial chicanery, fraud, and shenanigans not one of those businessmen went to jail. as a result of financial crisis.  Is that taking the side of the poor and weak?

 

Obama’s financial advisors, like Tim Geitner came right out of Wall Street. Eric Holder, Obama’s Attorney General, was expected to investigate his best friends. How well did that work? It worked out well for them. For us not so much. West was suspicious of what Obama would do as soon he saw the advisors that Obama had selected. When Larry Summers was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by President Obama, he knew Obama’s government would be a Wall Street friendly government. There would be no investigations of Wall Street malfeasance. That undermines the legitimacy of the rule of law.  Even when they admit they did wrong what do they do? They just write a cheque. JP Morgan and Chase. They negotiate how much to pay. No talk of imprisonment. It is just the price of doing what they were doing. It’s just business. That is what West did not like.

 

West realized that this enraged many youthful radicals. “The young are filled with rage but the key question is how do you channel that rage through love and justice rather than hatred and violence. That is the fundamental question of any generation,” opined Brother West. That, I would submit is in the spirit of  the Prophets and Jesus.

 

West was asked at the University of Winnipeg, if he believed that a secular Prophet is possible. West asserted strongly that it was.

 

“Anybody who has the courage to speak the truth about human and social misery and provide an analysis of that social misery in such a way that they can be changed and transformed and alleviated and maybe even eliminated has a prophetic element to what they are doing.”

That is what it means to be a secular Prophet.

 

Justice: Prophetic Pragmatism and the Quest for God

religion, Religious Quest in the Modern Age, Social Justice

 

Brother Cornell West has been called a “prophetic pragmatist.” He likes that label. It is part of his desire for the Socratic life. Decide what sort of life you will lead, “what virtue you will enact in your short journey from womb to tomb.” That is the deeply Socratic life. West said, “That is William James and John Dewey the indigenous philosophy of pragmatism that I have been a part of.” But he also says, “it is prophetic because I remain a Christian.”

This is what West said in May of 2015 at the University of Winnipeg:

 

This is the prophetic Jewish tradition that was continued by a Palestinian by the name of Jesus. He said that we have to spread and love and kindness to the orphans and widows, fatherless, poor. Just like the Bible he means that in a broad sense of those who need help. He wants to spread kindness to the human particularly those who are weak and vulnerable and that includes gay brothers and sisters, workers, the colonized, the physically challenged, indigenous people, black, red, brown, white, poor working class whites.

 

Prophetic pragmatism is just establishing a fundamental tilt toward the weak and vulnerable. That includes the elderly and children.  In the US 40% of our children of color live in poverty. 22% of all children live in poverty! And that is in the richest nation in the history of the world. “That is a moral abomination.”

Even here in Manitoba, 25% of the children live in poverty. That is just not right. That is a state of emergency for them and their parents.”

 

We should be treating it like an emergency.  That’s what prophets do. They don’t just go to the pub with their friends. Or to the golf course with their buddies.  Not that there is anything wrong with such activities. After all I have done them many times. But, prophets do more than that.

That is what I liked about West. It is the same thing I liked about the Prophets of the Old Testament which I blogged about earlier.

The Prophets refuse to allow the powerful to stand in the way of helping the needy. That is fused throughout the Old Testament. Jesus inherited and even transformed this tradition. That is all for the good. West wants to  do that too for modern society. That is why he is a prophetic pragmatist.

In my language that is why I think Brother West, as he likes to be known,  is on a religious quest and can help us all learn something of value. Who knows, maybe even we can go on such a quest.

 

Cornell West: a modern prophet on a religious quest in the modern age

religion, Religious Quest in the Modern Age, Social Justice

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It is time for me to renew my religious quest in the modern age. 

I have hear Brother Cornell West, as he likes to be known,  speak a couple of times and once in person at Arizona State University where they invite the world’s greatest teachers to come to speak and invite mere minions like Chris and I. He is a flamboyant speaker and in my opinion a great thinker.  He has taught at Harvard, Princeton, and Union Theological Seminary. He is a frequent speaker and in fact says he has never been  home for one weekend. Usually he has 4 speaking engagements per weekend! He is the author of 20 books and has edited 13 more. I have seen him frequently on Real Time with Bill Maher where he usually outshines all the other guests.  He is never boring. He also had a part in the Matrix.  Naturally, he rarely sleeps.

West is also “a prominent and provocative democratic intellectual” according to his own website. He is not shy as you tell from that. He is certainly not shy when he speaks. Although I have not heard him call himself a prophet I think the word is appropriate. He is a modern prophet on a religious quest in the modern age. He has said this of himself: “I am a profoundly Jesus-loving free black man who bears witness to truth and justice until the day I die.”

Cornel West is a man of great interests who  has a passion to communicate to a vast variety of publics in order to keep alive the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. – a legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice. That is what being a prophet is all about.

One person he does say was a modern prophet was Martin Luther King Jr. Cornel West sees the legacy of  King as one of “telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice.” That is what the Hebrew prophets did. That is what Martin Luther King Jr. did and that is what Cornell West has done. Being a prophet is not about making predictions. That is cheap prophecy.

 

This is what West said in 2015 after his talk at the University of Winnipeg:

 

“Martin Luther King, was an example of a modern prophet.  That does not mean he made predictions about the future. That is not what prophets are about. That is cheap notion of prophet—a trickster.  West, said, inspired by King ,that there were 4 diseases eating at the heart of the US democratic experiment and they are poverty, racism, militarism, and materialism. They are eating the heart out of that great country.  (And the same thing is happening in Canada, I would add.)

 

That type of thinking became a danger to the oligarchs. They were more than uneasy with it. Just before Martin Luther King Jr. died 72% of Americans and 55% of Blacks in America, disapproved of him because he was too dangerous. “Anybody filled with that much love and full of that kind of fire for justice and will cut against the grain.”  That’s why corporate radio referred to him as an extension of Hanoi. They called him a Communist. The truth always allows the suffering to speak out.”

West sees the essence of the job of the prophet (mirroring the Hebrew Prophets of the Bible: “My job is to go down swinging for truth and justice,” said West. That is the job of the prophet. He wants to give voice to the powerless. The powerful don’t  need his help.

I will speak more about him in future posts.

 

 

 

Imagine Pleasant Nonsense

Epidemics/Pandemics, The Sleep of Reason

 

I read an interesting article in The Guardian recently. Two things caught my attention.

First, there was a small photograph of a young girl with a gentle smile on her face unmasked and cheerfully throwing a mask into a bonfire. This was the caption: “A Mask-burning rally against Covid-restrictions at the statehouse in Boise.”

The mask burning reminded me of southern Manitoba where recently a mask burning was held near Winkler.

Then there was a much larger photograph of an outdoor assembly of religious people in front of a large wooden cross with many people in close proximity holding a song book and apparently singing. Of course, no one was masked. There were about 75 people and not one person was masked and there was no social distancing at all. The caption indicated the people in Moscow Idaho were protesting against measures to combat Covid. Beside the song leader was a young child partly obscured but she was wearing a T-shirt with the following words visible: “Imagine Pleasant Nonsense.” Or perhaps more likely, “Imagine Pleasant Common Sense.” The shirt was partially obstructed, so I could not be sure, which allowed me to speculate.

The Guardian reporter, said the church was trying to create a theocracy in the town and also,

“The church and its pastor Douglas Wilson, have led an uncompromising campaign of opposition to coronavirus public health measures in Idaho…The campaign has included in person protests, misinformation and encouraged civil disobedience across media channels owned by the church. It also comes at a time when numerous far right groups across the US are taking action against Covid-19 mandates…”

Pastor Wilson’s book according to the Guardian article said that

“the churches eventual aim is…theocracy,” or, “a network of nations bound together by a formal acknowledgement of the lordship of Jesus Christ,” as opposed to secular society ruled by “civil governments [which] are in necessary degrees satanic, demonic, and influenced by the god of this world who is the devil.”

Wilson also co-wrote a book called Southern Slavery as it Was, which the Guardian described as follows,

“The book depicted slavery in the antebellum southern US as “a relationship based upon mutual affection and confidence” and argued that the enslaved enjoyed “a life of plenty, of simple pleasures, of food, and good medical care.”

 

The pastor also urged his faithful followers that this would not be “rebellion against lawful authority but “an example of a free people refusing to go along with their own enslavement.”

The Guardian also reported this,

“Last month, a video version of a post by Wilson at his well read-read blog was removed from YouTube. The blogpost entitled A Biblical Defense of Fake Vaccine IDs, was based on a conspiracy theory asserting that the vaccine response by was a “power play” on the part of the Biden administration, which intended to leave restrictions in place permanently.”

But I kept thinking what the message on the young girl’s T-shirt mean? This really piqued my curiosity. Why was she wearing a shirt with such a message? What did it mean?

Nonsense or Common Sense? Take your pick

 

Pee Brains of southern Manitoba rise again: When Distrust turns to animosity

Epidemics/Pandemics, The Sleep of Reason

 

I have tried to be more moderate in my condemnation of my fellow citizens of southern Manitoba. But sometimes that is very hard.

 I have been writing about how distrust in government and its institutions can lead to serious harms, but what happens when distrust curdles into animosity?

When it comes to Covid-19 there really should not be any more surprises in the Southern Health District of Manitoba (where I live). If someone had written a novel with these facts it would have been dismissed as too ludicrous to be believable. The Winnipeg Free Press has reported that Dr. Donna Neufeld of Winker (no relation) said in her region of the district people gathered to set fire to boxes of KN95 masks the province was freely giving out to anyone who wanted them. These masks were in such high demand because we had been told they were the best and with the Omicron variant  we should use the best.  Even though others (like me) were anxious to get such masks, these people gathered like a cult and had a mask burning party.

The  masks  were in such high demand that the province quickly ran out of them. as a result, some of the citizens there decided to burn them so no one could use them. This was an act of much more than vandalism. It puts lives of others deliberately at risk. Dr. Neufeld also told the reporter about a person who smuggled Ivermectin (horse and cow de-wormer) into the hospital so it could be given secretly to a Covid-19 patient by someone who thought they knew a lot more about medicine than the medical team, presumably by virtue of conducting extensive “research” on line. Why bother going to medical school for 7 years training when a couple of hours on the internet will give you all the knowledge you need?  This of course was doubly dangerous, because doctors prescribing medications of course need to know what other drugs their patients take.  Little wonder that the medical community in Winkler has felt a “collective angst,” according to Dr. Neufeld. Wouldn’t you feel that if you lived here?

Of course, Southern Manitoba does not have exclusive rights to crazies. I heard recently that in the US people who are vaccine hesitant have been willing to replace Vaccines with urine. I kid you not. I am sure the Internet researchers will soon be advising the Pee brains of Winkler to drink that instead of injecting vaccines.

I have been preaching that the sleep of reason brings forth monsters, as Goya said. Does anyone disagree? Sometimes I think that someone raised the northern seaboard and all the nuts and bolts rolled down to southern Manitoba. What a place to live.

 

We can’t Afford to get this wrong

Epidemics/Pandemics

 

With the arrival of the omicron variant, the Covid crisis is getting much worse in Manitoba, Canada, and everywhere. I have a lot of confidence in Manitoba’s Public Health professionals, but I fear they might be making a mistake. Or perhaps Manitoba’s political leaders are not taking their advice. I hope my fears are misplaced.

Recently, a number of intensive care physicians in Manitoba begged the province to impose stricter restrictions on Manitoba in order to establish a “circuit breaker” for the spread of the omicron virus. The same thing happened during the 3rd wave of the pandemic they proved to be right. Shortly after that, the province had to send 57 patients from Manitoba’s Intensive Care units to Ontario and Saskatchewan. Those physicians were right; Manitoba’s public health team were wrong. Are we going to experience the same thing again?  If so things will be much more challenging than last time as there is a good chance that those two provinces will not be able to help as this time Manitoba is going through the 4th wave at about the same time as them. As Dr. Roussin has said over and over again, “We can’t afford to get this wrong.”

 

Some have said Manitoba is relying too much on the number of admissions to hospitals, because those admissions typically rise 10 days or so after the virus hits. The second problem is this time with omicron the virus is spreading so rapidly cannot Manitoba wait for the proper numbers to be given? This what Carol Sander of the Winnipeg Free Press reported,

“Public health officials and Premier Heather Stefanson said this week they’re keeping a close eye on ICU admissions and hospitalizations before ordering a potential lockdown or other ramped-up measures to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Even if ICUs aren’t overwhelmed, vital services Manitobans need in their daily lives will likely be disrupted by Omicron, said virologist Jason Kindrachuk.

The normally reserved University of Manitoba medical microbiologist raised the alarm Thursday about the impact of many essential service workers — from pharmacy, grocery, transit and health to protective services — catching the virus.

What happens if a significant proportion of your work staff are all sick at the same time and unable to work? That now has an impact not only on your operations but also on the ability for people to get the goods and services they need,” said Kindrachuk.

Those things are crucially important for us to consider.”

 

Dr. Kindrachuk, from the University of Manitoba, made another very important point:

 

“We have to appreciate health-care capacity and the importance of preserving that, but we also have to look at other aspects and appreciate that we’re all interconnected.” 

 

We all know how vitally important it is to protect our health care system. That is inarguable. But there are other very important “systems” that also need protection. For example, many systems such as the police system, the educational system, the fire protection system, among many others could fail if too many of the people who work in those systems get sick and can’t work. We must not forget that while concentrating solely on the health care system. Because the new variant spreads so fast, we might not have time to make the necessary adjustments such as unwelcome, but perhaps necessary, further restrictions on the movement of people.

The NDP in Manitoba have been criticizing the province for being too slow to react, at the same time as the base of the Conservative Party is likely telling it the restrictions are already too onerous and not necessary. This is how Sanders described the issue:

“By waiting to see if ICU admissions rise before imposing more restrictions, the Progressive Conservative government is “rolling the dice with Manitobans’ lives,” said NDP house leader Nahanni Fontaine. Why wait until we get to the point where we’re goinng to have to contemplate sending people out of province? the MLA said.”.

 

During the third wave of the pandemic, overwhelmed Manitoba ICUs had to send 57 pandemic patients out of province for care. Now that neighbouring provinces are struggling with hospitalizations, that may not be an option.

 

“Ontario is in their own mess,” Fontaine said. “The reality is that there are consequences to sitting on the fence and doing nothing until the last minute — and the consequences are Manitobans’ lives.”

 

Who is right? A lot hangs on it. Another outside expert seems to be siding with the NDP on this issue. He is an outspoken law and public health Prof. Amir Attaran in Ottawa and this is what he said,

“Given Manitoba’s ICU capacity, soaring COVID-19 cases and unvaccinated pockets of the population, Attaran estimates the province will run out of critical care capacity early next week. Manitoba can’t count on outside help this time with the super-infectious Omicron wave hitting most of Canada right now, he added. “Every province, very soon, will be slammed for ICU beds,” said Attaran. “Nor can Manitoba expect the military to bail it out, either. Other provinces will be making the same request… We really are in it together this time.”

 

Some think the Conservative government is pandering to its base. I don’t believe that. I believe they are listening to their Public Health team of professionals. I trust those professionals. I hope my trust is not misplaced. Dr. Roussin is right—we can’t afford to get it wrong.

What does Fairness have to do with it?

Epidemics/Pandemics, Ethics

 

Dr. Ayoade Alakija a special envoy to the WHO and co-chair of the African Vaccine Delivery Alliance, recently threw a wet blanket on my enthusiastic optimism that we are in the down stretch of Omicron.  Christiane Amanpour asked Dr. Alakija if there was light at the end of the tunnel. Was the pandemic nearing the end? Dr. Alakija said, there was room for

“cautious optimism but it depends where in the world you are sitting and where in the world you live. Yes, there is potential optimism for those who are tripled vaxxed, who are getting booster doses like the US, UK, EU and other parts of the world, and maybe those people can call it a mild illness, but for  those of us in Africa, and for those of us in the low income countries of the world it is absolutely not the beginning of the end, it is more the end of phase I than of Phase II I would say.”

 

By now it is sadly apparent that we actually are all of us in this together, though the richer part of the world has not been heeding this advice. In our haste to get our own populations vaccinated, we have largely forgotten that variants can be developed in the poor parts of the world where the vast majority of people are not fully vaccinated. We will never be safe, until everyone is safe. Dr. Alakija pointed out the current WHO figures for the beginning of the year 2022:

Americas–60% fully vaxxed

Europe–56% fully vaxxed

South East Asia–39% fully vaxxed

Africa–7% fully vaxxed

 

But things are more complicated than that.  Now people in the west are saying fully vaccinated means 3 jabs. In Africa less than 1% are fully vaccinated on that definition. To make things even worse, some are even saying 4 jabs. As a result, she said,

“We could be breeding a super variant in a place like South Africa when the reality of fully vaccinated has now shifted from 2 doses to 3 doses, so Africa is not 7% fully vaccinated but rather less than1% fully vaccinated!”

Africa is a great place for a new variant to evolve! And by now we surely recognize that any new variant will never stay in Africa and we are entirely incapable of keeping it out of our country. In days it will travel from there to here (wherever “there” is ).

 Western politicians, and their citizens have been loath to admit this, to the peril of those citizens. It is not enough to protect ourselves. We need to protect everyone to protect ourselves and our loved ones.

We have to remember that Omicron came from South Africa and Delta came from India. While we were scrambling to protect ourselves, we forgot that this would not be good enough. We don’t know where the next variant will come from and whether or not it will evade our natural protections for those who caught an early variant or whether or not it will evade our vaccines.

Dr. Ayoade Alakija also pointed out how the world’s public health infrastructure was shown to be woefully inadequate, not just in the poor parts of the world, but in places like the UK and US (and Canada) I would add, where we are struggling to provide enough test kits or N95 masks. Chris and I got 10 N95 masks, which are now recommended, this week. We have been told we should all have these. But all we got was 10 and now we are learning they have run out! The philosopher George Santayana once said something like, those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I guess that describes us. As Dr. Alakija said,

“Right now people are holding on to slim tiny threads of hope, because we want this to be over. It is not over. It is not over because we have not vaccinated the world. It is not over because people in Africa and Latin America and parts of Asia do not have tests, so they are unable to test and are unable to stay home when they are unwell because there are not economic mitigation measures. It is not over because life in Washington D.C. at the moment is worth far more than a life in Abuja or a life in Sao Paolo is worth less than a life in Brussels. It is not over because we have gross inequity all over the world in vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics…who will stand up? Who will take the wheel at this critical moment world history? President Biden has been trying to take some moral leadership but there hasn’t been enough crowding around. This is a global event of historical proportions that is going to define many of our lives for a long time to come. Public health plus global solidarity is the only way that we’re going to get out of it. We need to act with urgency. We need to act together and we need to act now.”

Until the west learns the truth of this, the coronavirus will stick around to pester us, and perhaps, stick around until it evolves into something much more deadly than we have seen so far. There is absolutely nothing to say this can’t happen. It can. Like everyone else, I want this to end soon, but I recognize that my hopes will not bring it about it. We need to act now.

What does fairness have to do with it? Everything.

 

Who is the Boss?

Epidemics/Pandemics

 

Our previous Premier of Manitoba, Brian Pallister was soundly criticized for many things, often justifiably. But there was at least one thing I trusted about him. He said that when he got scientific advice from the public Health Team in Manitoba he always took that advice. They knew best he said. Brent Roussin, the Chief Medical Officer of Health backed the Premier up on that.

Our new Premier promised she would be different than Brian Pallister. Most of us thought she meant she would be better. Now I am not so sure.

I was surprised to listen to the press conference she held together with the Deputy Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Jazz Atwal, this week. A reporter asked Dr. Jazz Atwal directly if his department had recommended more strict measures be taken. To my surprise, Premier Stefanson immediately jumped in and interrupted to answer the question that had been directed at Dr. Atwal. But she did not answer the question. She skated around it instead. She started talking about how Manitoba already had among the strictest measures in place in the country. She added they got advice from many sources, businesses, doctors and others so that “it’s not just falling at the feet of (Manitoba) Public Health.” Like a master politician she dodged the question and as politicians are taught, when you are asked a question you don’t like, answer the one you wanted to be asked instead.

However, the reporters were persistent. They interrupted the Premier to repeat the question to Dr. Atwal. Had their department recommended stricter measures? This time Dr. Atwal gave an answer. Although it was not a complete answer either, he did make it plain what happened. Dr. Atwal said, “We do provide recommendations to government,” but left it up to the government to comment on whether or not it accepts them.”

 

It was telling that the Premier did not jump in to assure us that they always followed the advice of the Public Health team as Pallister had done. I know in a Democratic society the publicly elected representatives have the final say. That is how it should be. However, when they choose to ignore the advice of their own experts I think they should tell us that is what they are doing and then explain why, so we can make our own decisions about the wisdom of what the government has done.

For weeks now Manitoba physicians have been calling on the government to ramp up restrictions and bring in “circuit breaker” measures. I was surprised Dr. Roussin and his team were not doing that. Now I know why.  He was probably overruled by the Premier and Cabinet and no one told us about it. It looks to me like they took the advice of business people rather than the Public Health team.