Little Women

Movies

The movie Little Women was written and directed by the very brilliant film maker,  Greta Gerwig.  A while back I blogged about undergoing a sex change operation. I suggested my name had been changed to Johanna. Now I will add fuel to that fire.  Here it is:  I enjoyed the movie Little Women more than any action movie I have seen in the last 5 years! There it is. I am out of the closet!

This film had some important things to say and it did so in an entertaining way. It reminded us that women often recognize that love is important, even very important, but so is the life of the mind and there is no reason why women should not participate in that life as much as any man.  I also liked what one of the sisters, Meg, said to her sister Jo: “Just because my dreams are different from yours doesn’t mean they’re not important.” Women  have the right to resist being put into boxes they are pressured to stay inside. This is an important lesson for men and women of all ages. It is easy to succumb to such pressures. It is brave to resist.

We also had an interesting experience in the theatre.  There were only 6 people watching the film.  And 2 of them sat right beside us. These were 2 women. Not only that, but they chatted or commented annoyingly throughout the film. Why did they do that? Then, near the end of the film 2 more women walked in  and one of them stopped right in front of Chris and asked her if she was in the right seat, implying that Chris was in her seat. Chris responded by waving her away and saying yes she had been sitting in her assigned seat for the entire film. The woman was obviously coming in too early for the next show. The lesson I learned: Yes women can be brave, but they can also be a pain in the ass.

 

Is Donald Trump a King?

2020 Trip to Southeast USA, Democracy, Human rights, politics, Trump

Recently, I learned some astonishing things about the United States. One of my legal heroes, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, made astounding statements in the U.S. Senate in defence of President Donald J. Trump from impeachment charges launched in the House of Representatives.

Susan Glasser a reporter with the New Yorker interpreted what he said as follows:

“Donald Trump’s lawyer said that the President can do just about anything he wants.” This is an astonishing claim. It amounts to saying the United States is not a democracy. Dershowitz was asked by Senator Ted Cruz, during the question and answer phase of the Senate Impeachment Trial of Trump whether or not the President’s motivations mattered when he imposed a condition on the release of hundreds of millions of dollars of military aid for the Ukraine’s defence against Russian aggression. If the President insisted on a quid pro quo that Ukraine investigate Trump’s leading Democratic Party rival before getting the military aid was that permitted?

Dershowitz, one of Trump’s lawyers, went beyond saying what he needed to say to answer that question. Dershowitz said, Donald Trump has the power to do just about anything he wants to do, and there’s nothing that the U.S. Senate can or should do about it. There are no limits on what the President can do. Dershowitz in effect suggested.

 I was stunned to hear this. Democracy is more than counting ballots. Counting ballots is important. It is a vital part of democracy, but it is not all of democracy. A democracy must be a country that permits all citizens to vote and for all their votes to count equally. But there are many forms of democracy. Democracy is more than that.

The majority must be constrained by civil liberties or human rights. In other words, we must have a liberal or constitutional democracy. Even majorities in a genuine democracy cannot impose their will on the minorities in all cases. There must be reasonable limits on what the majority can do. For example, the majority cannot be allowed to ban freedom of religion or freedom of speech.  Another example: the majority cannot be permitted to ban free speech, or the free press, or the freedom to assemble.

In Canada such limitations on democracy are contained in the Charter of Rights and Liberties. Added to that, to have a democracy we must have a society in which the rule of law is respected. We do not elect dictators or kings. Our elected representatives, even our top leaders, must govern by law. Political leaders must be governed by law like everyone else. They cannot do anything they want. This is the flaw in Dershowitz’s argument. Saying the President can do “anything he wants,” amounts to saying the President can be an absolute dictator. That is contrary to democracy.

I am no expert on the American constitution so don’t want to comment on it. But a democratic society cannot be led by a dictator or king, even if the term of the leader is limited for specific years, such as 4 years in the case of the United States.

Dershowitz had something larger and more profound to say, however: Donald Trump has the power to do just about anything he wants to do, and there’s nothing that the U.S. Senate can or should do about it.

Dershowitz argued,

“If a President does something which he believes will help him get elected in the public interest, that cannot be the kind of quid pro quo that results in impeachment,” he argued. Dershowitz was offering Trump—and all future Presidents—a free pass. His argument seemed unbelievable: as long as the President thinks his reëlection will benefit the country, he can do anything in pursuit of it without fear of impeachment.”

Really?

Of course, earlier Trump himself made it clear that this was his position. No surprise there. He said “I can do whatever I want.” Trump’s actions and statements, ever since he got elected, make it clear that is precisely what Trump believed. If Trump is right, America is not a democracy! If Trump is right the US has elected a King!

In the impeachment trial in the Senate the House managers who acted as prosecutors, played the video of Trump making this statement over and over again. It was no surprise that Trump believed this. All of his actions and statements since being elected in 2016 made it clear that this was his belief.  Few others have expressed similar views. Therefore is it was shocking to see this position supported by Alan Dershowitz a respected Harvard Law Professor emeritus.

As shocking as all of this is, and it is shocking, what is even more shocking is that millions of Americans agree with this!  Millions don’t challenge his statement. Whatever Trump says or does, he must be right. We will soon see how many Republican Senators agree with this. I suspect almost all of them agree. In my view this means all of these people do not think it is important that the country is democratic! That is shocking!

I wonder how many Americans think Trump is a king?

Impeachment is not important; Democracy is important

2020 Trip to Southeast USA, Decline of the west

I don’t know know what happened today at the impeachment hearing in the U.S. Senate as to the conduct of President Donald J. Trump, but I suspect it was not good. I suspect the Republicans who control the Senate decided it was not necessary to have witnesses for a fair trial.  That is because their minds are made up. They won’t convict not matter what, so why have a trial?

If I am wrong, and there will be witnesses, I suspect that won’t matter for the same reason. They have already decided to acquit no matter what evidence is produced against Trump.

I don’t really care about Donald Trump. Americans elected him. Americans can live with him. What I do care about is that it seems millions of Americans no longer believe in democracy. To think that in the self-proclaimed leader of the free world millions of people no longer care about whether they live in a democracy or not is deeply disturbing to me.

I never thought impeachment was a good idea, at least until Nancy Pelosi came out in favor of impeachment. I know lots of people despise her, particularly on the right. I don’t despise her; I respect her. She is a wily politician. She was largely responsible for getting Obama’s Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) approved by Congress. She did that, if you recall, when many in the house of Representatives and Senate were violently opposed to it, but she promised Obama she would deliver the votes and she did. It was masterly. If now she thinks impeachment is necessary, I find it hard to disagree with her.

What we all have to remember is that democracy is more than giving people the right to vote and then saying the will of the majority as evidenced by votes, must prevail. This is part of democracy, but more is needed to have a genuine democracy. For example, the country must respect the rule of law. Moreover there must be reasonable limits on what the majority can do. Human rights must be respected even if the majority wants to get around them. This is important.

We need rights and freedoms that are entrenched in a constitution to be a democracy. That means these rights and freedoms are constitutionally protected. There are different kinds of constitutions and different kinds of human rights. So some democracies are more democratic than others.

As well, those rights and freedoms need not be absolute. In Canada the way our Charter puts it is that limits on the basic rights and freedoms must be such as can be justified in a free and democratic society.

This ensures that the leaders who are elected must obey the law and must honour and respect the fundamental constitutionally protected rights and freedoms. In a democracy we don’t elect absolute rulers. We don’t elect kings who are entitled to do as they please. Our leaders must be subject to the rule of law and basic rights and freedoms. This is sometimes called a Liberal democracy.

Even though I am not per se concerned about whether Donald Trump is found guilty of what the American Constitution calls “high crimes and misdemeanors.” If he is found guilty of that by the Senate he will be removed from office. I believe Trump richly deserves this, but that is not for me to decide. I am concerned however that more and more Americans don’t seem to care any more if they have a democracy or not. I am concerned that many Americans seem content to have an absolute ruler. It does seem to me that millions of Americans don’t care. That I think is very important.

 

Spaniards and their successors

Indigenous People After Contact

 

All European nations were infected with the disease of Eurocentrism. This was unfortunate because the inhabitants of the Old World and the New World had so much to learn from each other.

We in the west are familiar with the accomplishments of European civilization. They are profound. The European accomplishments in philosophy, science, politics, music, art, history, religion, economics, and technology are astonishing. All of this was entirely unknown to the Indigenous people of the Americas both North and South.

At the same time the Indigenous People of the Americans had an equally astonishing culture that they could have shared with the Europeans. This included an amazing knowledge of the natural world, including the animals, plants, and even skies. As well, they knew how to apply that knowledge to their relationship with people. Their spirituality was stunning. They could have offered a whole new attitude to nature that might have averted the desperate existential problems created by Europeans and their desire to impose their will over the natural world. We might all be in a much better world now, had the Europeans been willing to learn from their “equals.” The indigenous people had no doubt that they were at least equal to these strange people from the Old World.

The aggressive invaders from Europe were blind to what they might learn from those they assumed were inferior. Feelings of superiority gave the Europeans the false presumption that they had nothing to learn from these savages.

Of all the European nations, the Spaniards were among the most aggressive. They saw nothing good about Indigenous people who were so obviously their inferiors. At least so they thought. The Spaniards came with impressive weapons: firearms, steel blades fierce warhorses, and attack dogs. Even more effective were diseases that they brought with them and for which the Indigenous people had no immunity. Entire tribes were sometimes demolished.

Historian Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. described the attitude of the Spaniards and those who followed them into the New World this way:

“The arrant racism introduced by the Spaniards against the Indians in the Caribbean and the southern lands of North America was adopted in various forms by other European powers and spread throughout the continent, everywhere maiming and poisoning whatever chance there might have been for harmonious coexistence and mutual respect and understanding between Europeans and the indigenous peoples.”

Racism was the ideology of all European nations. It devastated the Indigenous people and hamstrung the Europeans. Because that racism has been around so long, often in unacknowledged forms, it has plagued relations between them ever since.

Eurocentrism: a Foundational Error

Indigenous People After Contact

The inspiration for this long series of post on my blog about Indigenous people was some comments I received about a year ago from two friends. If I recall correctly, they suggested that we could help them by showing up for a weekend or so and build some homes for them. In other words they suggested we white guys knew what was good for the Indigenous people  and could solve their problems. That is a terrible mistake, because it assumes that we know best and all they need to do is do what we suggest they do. This is mistake is what I call Eurocentrism–i.e. the assumption that we are superior and know what’s good for them. We are as subject to his prejudice as early Europeans were when they first encountered Indigenous people. This is exactly the attitude that we need to expunge.

The Initial misunderstandings between Europeans and Indigenous People that occurred from their first meetings in 1492 proved to be fundamental and ensured that the relationship between them would never be stable.  Historian Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. put it this way:

“To a large extent, the fundamental problem stemmed from (and continues to stem from the non-Indians’ Eurocentrism, an ingrained conviction on the part of those who came first to the Americas from Europe, as well as by their American descendants, that their cultures, values, religions, lifeways, abilities and achievements were more advanced or of a higher order than those of the Indians. It followed therefore, that they deemed the Indians to be inferior peoples–uncivilized Stone Age savages, perhaps even subhuman–and their cultures irrelevant or barbaric and dangerous to civilized mankind.

More importantly, through the centuries, the belief in their own superiority justified, to the white invaders, the enslavement of Indians, the seizure of their lands and resources, the destruction of their societies, the cultivation of anti-Indian prejudice, and the patronization that still treats Indians as inferiors and denies them self-determination, sovereignty, and respect for their spiritual life.”

This was unfortunate for both of these worlds. Had this Eurocentrism not been there both sides could have learned immense things of value from the other. Both could have benefitted immeasurably. The history of the world could have been radically different and we are all the losers as a result.

Misunderstandings

Indigenous People After Contact

 

A couple of years ago, when I visited the Casa Grande Ruins, the ancient home of the O’odham Nation, nearby where we are living in Arizona, I remember hearing a local person say how mean and nasty Apaches were. That is a typical opinion of whites in North America. They were considered ‘treacherous savages” as were many other indigenous peoples. Often that opinion was based on prejudice or misunderstanding.

 

Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. gives an interesting example of this in the book Native Americans: An Illustrated History.  It happened in 1849 on the California Trail that was used to transport what he called “hordes of fortune hunters” rushing from Eastern North America to California in search of gold. The vast desert of what is now Nevada was considered the most dangerous stretch of that trail. The travellers, who had not been invited by the local indigenous people we must always remember, believed those local inhabitants were treacherous savages. What would we think if Canada or the United States was filled with uninvited hordes from Russia, or Iran, or Mexico?  The answer is obvious. We would not be gracious. Likely the invaders would consider us savages for resisting the invasion.

 

Many of the travelers relied on published journals of earlier European migrants who had described the local indigenous people as “wretched, degraded, and despicable.” They went on to call them “the meanest Indians in existence.” The travelers noticed that these “Indians” hid from sight during the day and came sneaking out at night into their camps to steal food and livestock. How nasty can you get?

The weary travelling whites had to post guards all night long keeping a careful eye and ear out for suspicious sights and sounds. Alvin M. Josephy described what resulted as follows:

“When they heard a suspicious noise, they shot in the direction of the source, and at dawn they often found a dead Indian lying nearby. Sometimes it was the body of a young child or woman, or a gnarled elder, and the traveler’s stories circulated the information as proof that all “Diggers” (as they called the local Indigenous people) were skulking thieves, no matter their age or sex.

The Indians side of what was going on was quite different. It never got into the history books…What the whites had believed were “skulking” thieves and murderers in the darkness were in fact hungry and terrified Indian families trying to get safely across a road that white men had unwittingly cut directly through territory where for centuries the Indians had lived, gathered food, and held their ceremonies. The bisecting road had crippled the Indian’s freedom of movement across their lands, for they lived in mortal dread of the stream trigger-happy white travelers who shot at them as if they were rabbits.”

Indians, as the Americans call them,  often desperate for food on the verge of starvation had to take risks to get food for their families. So they hid with their families during the day until darkness gave them cover to try to get some food. Often they would tell their young to scamper across the trail until they managed to join them. The Indians of course tended to blame the whites for over-running and destroying their food gathering grounds, polluting their water wells, and things like that. So they thought it was only fair to steal some of the whites livestock or food. Wouldn’t you?

As Alvin M. Josephy said, “These, in short were what the travelers cursed as “the meanest Indians in existence”–men, women and children trying to survive, but whom the whites occasionally heard in the night and killed.”

Josephy came to the following conclusion about these misunderstandings:

“In the history of Native American nations, the California Trail story is not unique. Ever since Europeans first arrived in the Western Hemisphere in 1492 their relations with Indians have been marked –even until today–by the stain of countless similar episodes in which groundless fears, prejudices, and misunderstandings have led to tragedy.

These misunderstandings date back to 1492 when Columbus thought he had reached India. He thought, as did the Europeans that followed him, that they had “discovered” a New World that was “a barbaric, virgin wilderness.”  They did not realize that there was nothing new about it at all. As Josephy  said,  “To the Indians, of course, this ‘New World’ was a very ancient one of many millions of persons and a myriad sophisticated and thriving cultures and civilizations.”

It is unfortunate that the relationship between these worlds was based on such fundamental misunderstandings.  That has colored everything that followed. And that is a real pity. It could have been so much better.

 

The Rio Grande is not Grand

2020 Trip to Southeast USA, Anthropocene, Environment

 

On our trip to Arizona we saw that the Rio Grande River was dry again. This magnificent historic river has been reduced to a few puddles here. Nothing that would warrant the name “grand” or even “river.”  This is a shame. After we passed it I realized I should have stopped to photograph its demise. Next year I should photograph that as well.

Will Rogers once described the Rio Grande as “the only river I know of that is in need of irrigating.”  This was funny, but also a wise observation because thanks to dams and withdrawals for agriculture this famous river has become fragmented.  It is nearly 1,900 miles longs second in the US to only the Missouri-Mississippi network. At least at one time the Rio Grande was that long. It really isn’t anymore as we could see. Water no longer flows through its entire channel.

The Rio Grande’s headwaters are found in the San Juan Range in Colorado. From there it empties into the Gulf of Mexico at Brownsville Texas. Water flows into the Rio Grande from 11% of the continental United States. Much of that land is drought prone, but it is also vulnerable to many dams and irrigation projects that divert much of it historic flow. In recent years significant portions of it have run dry. In 2001 for the first time the river failed to reach the Gulf of Mexico. It happened again the next year.

Diversions for municipal and agricultural use claim 95% of its average annual flow. That is the problem. Recent droughts have exacerbated the problem. Climate change may mean there are more droughts. So the future of the river is grim. Growing populations around Albuquerque and El Paso sharpen the problems.

Yet parts of it are still spectacular. But we did not see any of them. We just saw puddles. No river at all.

Camps: Incubating the next Jihad.

War, War in Iraq (2nd war)

There are some consequences of the war to the “liberation” of Mosul that I was not familiar with.  That is the existence of camps for refugees. One of the often forgotten results of war is the displacement of people. It is just not possible for people to live in a war torn country. As Ben Taub reported in the New Yorker, “The war against the Islamic State displaced a million people in Nineveh Province.” (emphasis added) And that is just one province of Iraq! It is difficult for us in the west to comprehend 1 million people not being able to live in their own homes. Imagine the distress this would cause.

 

Many of these people were placed in refugee camps, often near by in other parts of Iraq some distance from the worst fighting. Originally the main inhabitants were people displaced by ISIS. Later ISIS linked families were added to the list of the displaced as the U.S. led coalition forces claimed “victory.”  Many were transported to the camps in 115°F weather in open trucks without shade or water.  Taub reported how the head of a major Non-governmental organization described the camps as“like a concentration camp.”

 

Many of the security forces were reluctant to protect the camp residents. They are more interested in exacting revenge for violence inflicted on their loved ones. Life inside those camps was gruesomely bad:

 

In some camps, humanitarian workers offer aid in exchange for sex. Many women are pregnant from having been raped by the security forces or from having sex to feed themselves and their children. Although the fighting has ended, “these camps are meant to stay,” the N.G.O. director said. “If you are ten years old now, and you have no food, no assistance, and your mother has to prostitute herself to survive, and the whole of Iraqi society blames you because you were close to ISIS—in two, three, four years, what are you going to do? It’s clear. The seeds for the next conflict are all here.” (emphasis added)

Many commentators criticized President Obama for the chaos he left behind in Iraq, saying it generated ISIS. Now the American supported coalition forces are doing it again. As Taub said,

“At a police compound in West Mosul, I asked a colonel named Mezhar Sedoon whether he thought that the camps are creating more security problems than they are solving. “Some of the mothers in the camp are raising ISIS children, but others have become prostitutes,” he said. He laughed. “Money-money, fucky-fucky!” he said in English. “I’d rather they become whores than raise terrorists!”

Some women try to carry out abortions inside their tents. Others give birth, and discard the babies in unpopulated parts of the camp. Those who are found alive often end up in the care of Sukaina Mohammad Ali Younnis, an Iraqi government official who is in charge of women’s and children’s issues in Mosul. Over tea in Erbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, she showed me hundreds of photographs of children she has found in camps, on the streets, and dead in trash cans. Earlier this year, she saw someone throw a bundle out of a car, and found that it was a baby boy. She showed me a video of herself cradling him in the back of an ambulance, as blood bubbled out of his nostrils. He died on the way to the hospital.

Outside the camps, thousands of other children have been abandoned or orphaned by the war. Many of them were born to Yazidi women who had been kidnapped by ISIS and forced into sexual slavery. “After ISIS, the Yazidis accepted the women back into the community, but not their half-ISIS babies,” Younnis said. “They force the women to turn over their children to the orphanage. Every day, these women call me, wanting to know how their children are doing.” (emphasis added)

Hundreds of very young children are living in Iraqi prisons because their parents have been sentenced to death. As Taub said,

“Iraqi children whom ISIS trained to become fighters and potential suicide bombers, are imprisoned, as if their lives were irredeemable. “They are useless in interrogations—they just cry,” the senior Iraqi intelligence official said. “We are holding children as young as twelve in cells with hard-core jihadi fighters.”… Thousands of children in Mosul live on the street, searching through the trash for scrap to sell. “After their parents were killed or imprisoned, their relatives refused to take them in,” Younnis said. “They are seen as tainted, even if they were too young to absorb the ideology.” Many of them hang out in traffic and at checkpoints, choking on dust and diesel, trying to wipe down windshields or sell water and tissues to passing motorists. “They will do anything for fifty dollars,” she said. “I go to many government officials, asking to find ways to help these kids, but they all say, ‘It’s not my area of responsibility.’ ” (emphasis added)

Thousands of children in Mosul live on the street, searching through the trash for scrap to sell.

So the American supported coalition forces have created a problem that will come back to haunt not just he Middle East, but likely, the world.  All of this is just one more unintended consequence of war. Taub put it this way,

“The camps are a time bomb,” Younnis continued. “The fathers are in prison or dead. The mothers are being raped. They will raise the kids accordingly, and their sons will seek revenge. This won’t just affect Mosul, or Nineveh, or Iraq. This will affect the whole world.” (emphasis added)

At least the Pentagon is not saying “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq. They have learned that the next generation of jihadists is being incubated. No matter what Trump says, ISIS is not destroyed. He did not start any of these wars, but he seriously misjudged, as did Obama, how difficult it is to end these crazy wars in the Middle East. That is one more reason not to start them in the first place. Already since its “defeat” ISIS has set up checkpoints and has carried out abductions and assassinations in parts of Iraq. It has been said that they have buried large quantities of weapons and even cash to be unearthed when the next jihad is declared. Taub concluded his article in the New Yorker this way:

” According to the Pentagon, ISIS is “more capable” now than Al Qaeda in Iraq was at its peak, in 2007, and there are still some thirty thousand fighters operating in Syria and Iraq. Citing the camps, Umm Hamad told me that she expects the Islamic State to return to Mosul. “Not soon, but more powerful than before,” she said.

The other woman was Umm Hamad’s niece. She was in her twenties, and spoke softly and wistfully of the past. “Everyone in my family welcomed the Islamic State, except my youngest brother,” she said. “He hated them.” Throughout the occupation, she and her other brothers had tried to convince him of the merits of the caliphate, to no avail. Then he was arrested by the Iraqi security forces, under suspicion of ISIS affiliation. He was twelve years old. She has no idea where he is, or when he will get out of prison—she knows only that, if the government doesn’t kill him, by the time it lets him go it will have taught him that she was right.”

 I keep thinking about my American friend who wants to “take out Iran.”  How easy will that be? What unintended consequences would such actions usher in? The United States has helped cause the death of thousands of people, helped displace millions of others, spent hundred of billions of dollars (if not trillions) in Iraq and the result has been the Middle East is filled with people who hate Americans and the next generation of jihadis has already been  born to unleash their reign of terror on a new generation of innocents. This is not madness; it is much worse than that!