Critical Perspectives and Reflections

BILL LEE March 15   The Big Interview with Prince Harry, the Duke of Whatsit, and Meghan, Duchess of Whatsit, took place last night. I have no idea what all material was covered because I didn’t watch it. I didn’t forget, I just simply did not watch it. I never watch royal stuff as it is not in my line. However, some of the fallout from the event struck me as interesting. The chatter and the blather about the consequences from “The Interview” is all over the place today and will probably last more than one or two news cycles. Indeed, the event had been hyped for weeks with the hints that there would be some sort of “bombshell” information that would come out of it. And now it has. To be frank, as a Canadian (of Irish heritage which, I freely admit, colours my view of anything related to Great Britain), I have less than zero (nada, zilch, zippo) interest in the British royals and their personal dramatic to-ing and fro-ing. The members of this gang are an obscenely wealthy lot, for w...

                                                                          BILL LEE February 12, 2021 The phenomenon of QAnon has come to dominate so much of the political and social world (particularly the social media world) in the USA over the last four years (and has crept into some parts of the Canadian right-wing scene). It is almost a daily item in USA News. Though it is ubiquitous in general, I find however that it is a downright puzzle to me. The thing itself has put out a wide range of strange and weird ideas, most relate to a series of fact-less, odd and even bizarre notions. Some have become well known and relate to conspiracy theories like the one suggesting that there is a cabal of Democratic Party luminaries, like Hilary Clinton, joining with celebrities to form a top-secret club of “elites ...

GEORGE FROEHLICH February 9, 2021 Marjorie Taylor Greene is as vile and evil as it gets. This Republican first-time member of the US. House of Representatives is a conspiracy spewer whose beliefs are not limited to the QAnon gang. She wanted Democrats to be executed, particularly Nancy Pelosi. She believed and still believes that many mass school shootings and killings were staged by actors and actually made a video of herself harassing one of the student survivors of the mass shooting Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the well known, Michael Hogg. She got elected in her constituency not in spite of the nonsense but because of it. She is a new breed politician - intent on destroying the very democracy that allows her to flourish and peddle lies over and over again. There is more - but you get the picture. So, let’s cut to the chase - the Democrats voted to remove her from three committees she sat on, one of which was Education, because most of her Republican co...

WAYNE JOHNSTON January 7th, 2020 Folks I’m writing as a Canadian and poking my nose into American politics. Hope you’ll bear with me. I do believe passionately in democracy and that true authority comes from the hands of the people, not two parties. I have been an avid observer of Americans and American politics for some time, certainly since Nixon. Though like most of us I’m a flawed person I think that by and large I’m reasonable. I don’t believe that everyone who voted Republican embraces the Trump cult. Nor do I think everyone in the Democratic primaries who embraced Bernie Sanders are socialistsi My sense is that there are a whole bunch of people who make up the majority. These are traditional Republicans and Democrats who are willing to embrace progressive policies yet remain also focused on the economy. I call this being socially generous yet fiscally prudent. Most folks in successful western democracies seek this balance, a sound economy and decent social programs that treat ci...

Bill Lee December 30, 2020 A little while before Christmas, Erin O’Toole the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, had taken to peddling the old colonial lie that Residential Schools were created with some sort of benevolent intent. Press Progress (2020) reported that, at an event at Ryerson University in Toronto, O’Toole suggested that John A and his gang, and the governments that followed, simply wanted to make it possible for those little “savages” to be able to fit into the enlightened society of the properly “civilized” European interlopers. Good Grief! This is disheartening, though perhaps less than surprising. This vile mendacity has been “accepted wisdom” in this country until very recently. Nevertheless, the absurd lie that good intentions were at the root of the residential school project (which lasted for generations) continues to be trotted out by various people. The idea of presenting the residential school project, one of the founding acts of this country, as anythi...

December 15, 2020 BILL LEE ... the people screaming outside Benson’s house raise an entirely different question, about how long our society can endure absent any overlapping values or common truths. - Michelle Goldberg (2020) The USA, a country to which I have many and varied positive connections, including family, seems to be tumbling further and further down a dystopian rabbit hole of chaos and violence. The era of Trump appears to have let loose some sort of national derangement. Of course, the USA has had some deep fissures and “sins” since its founding. They have indeed caused deep anger, frustration and pain. But this is different. George Froehlich (FB, Dec. 11, 2020) was moved to remark that, Donald Trump has ripped open that soft underbelly for the world to see, the cesspool of systemic racism, inequality, the super rich and the super poor, and politicians who are totally corrupt. What has not simply been exposed but activated is a very dangerous farrago of deep working-class a...

BILL LEE November 30, 2020 There has been an unpleasant story making the rounds on a lot of media sources, the ones to which I have access anyway. It is about an Abbotsford First Nations mother, Krista MacInnis (Pictured here). She became righteously enraged that her daughter received a school assignment asking students to list “five positive stories” about residential schools. She told the local newspaper that she found out about the assignment when her 11-year-old daughter, who is in Grade 6 at an Abbotsford Middle School, came to her for some help with it. (Hopes, 2020) At first, I was stunned. In this day and age, after the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women Report, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the ‘apology’ rendered by then Prime Minister Steven Harper, which was applauded by all and sundry of the Whitestream class, including the opposition parties, the idea of asking any child to come up with positive stories on a signature event of the original colonial project...

BILL LEE November 12, 2018   Half the country has been demonized as awful for four Years.… And now it’s let’s heal.’ ‘Unity!’ Good luck. - Megan Kelly (Former Fox News host)i    As we all know Joe Biden has been confirmed as winning the Presidential Election of the USA by pretty well all the reputable news services in the country. With the exception of a few of the usual suspect on the international scene he has been duly congratulated for the victory. Though there are still votes to be counted, it was surprising close, but only the Great Denier and some of his most abased acolytes maintain that it is not over.   Healing Anyone? But with Whom? And he accomplished the win, it seems, in great part, by solemnly, and often, promising to have as the first priority of his administration action focused on the healing of the divisions of the nation, “bringing together” the citizens and politicos of whatever stripe and to restore civility and mutual respect ...

  JIM WARD Oct. 26, 2020 In recent weeks, the Globe and Mail has published powerful articles on what appears to be overwhelming racial discrimination against non-white prisoners in the Canadian correctional system, particularly Indigenous and Black prisoners. The first of these deals with the appalling conditions under which prisoners in the Thunder Bay prison live, many of whom are still awaiting trial, i.e. have not been convicted as yet and are living the lives of people already found guilty of some crime. The majority of prisoners in the Thunder Bay prison are Indigenous. The second article provided considerable detail on the wide difference in treatment between white and non-white prisoners in Canada’s federal prisons. I would like to make the case that what is primarily at work here is class discrimination. I am not aware whether or not anyone has, as yet, done a comparison between the treatment of white working class criminals and those with middle and upper class background...

  WAYNE JOHNSTON NOV. 2. 2020   I’m sitting up here, in Canada, pondering as I watch the USA with genuine concern. I’m a political junkie and, in particular, I find American politics to be intriguing, particularly the two-party system. I cannot help thinking that it boxes people in politically by not allowing them to look at issues on a broader scope, creating dogged ideology. But I digress. Dear USA, you perplex me as I look back on your history and accomplishments. What happened in the blink of an eye? You become dinner theatre for the rest of the world. I truly cannot figure out why any fair minded, decent person would vote for Trump. To me there are only a few explanations. You are rich, a racist, incredibly stupid, or you have a fetish for mendacity and like to be lied to daily, several times daily. Surely this proves that some misguided folks will vote for and support the vilest of people. I know some of you will lose your raspberries over this, but here go...