Author: The Activist

Black Press calls its weekly Tom Fletcher big money propaganda piece a neutral sounding “Viewpoint.” However, given Fletcher’s unrelenting, Fox News styled, rants from the radical right perspectives that Black Press tries to pass off as journalism, it would seem more appropriate to tag the column as “The Trump—ee–ter.” I have read enough of the Fletcher’s disinformation about climate change— “information” that would hardly shift an adjective if it came word for word from oil industry climate change denial textbooks—to not linger long over Fletcher’s tendentious presentation of Exxon Mobil’s dupery. However, a recent letter from Castlegar resident, Millennial Alyssa Taburiaux to the Black Press editor rebutting Fletcher and speaking eloquently about our moral and social imperative to leave a habitable world to our children did catch my fond attention. It warms my heart and makes me feel much better about the world my grandchildren will inherit when I read comments like Alyssa Taburiaux’s letter demanding that Black Press editorials reflect a much higher standard of credibility than the anti-science, big-money-interests-are-all-that-matter advocacy of Tom Fletcher. Looking at the news today, it is clear that Millennials are very justified in worrying about the future we are leaving to them.  But it is not just Millennials who are concerned. As a grandfather I am deeply concerned that the near constant promotion of big oil propagandist rants like Tom Fletcher’s in defiance...

“A lost coin is found by means of a candle; the deepest truth is found by means of a simple story.” – Anthony De Mello “A story is a way to say something that can’t be said any other way.” – Flannery O’Connor “The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, I smell it in the air.” —J.R.R.Tolkien. That we are living in difficult times is beyond question. Daily, human societies around the world are suffering the devastating consequences of our callous indifference to balances in the natural world while narrow minded greed-above-all-other-values thinking has elected a party in the most powerful nation on Earth that is determined to inflict the same destructive mentality on human societies as well. All the while, a mad man, elected by a farcical and corrupt electoral system, has gained access to the world’s largest, most deadly stockpile of nuclear, conventional and cyber weapons. Daily he struts his new weapons as though the mega death and destruction they would release if launched is no more serious a concern than the absurd comedies of another of his World Wrestling Entertainment bouts. This could all be depressing, very depressing. In fact, I’ve heard numerous people saying just that—it’s all very stressing and depressing; it is difficult, at best, to feel optimistic about our future these days. It is...

“My friends, love is better than anger. Hope is better than fear. Optimism is better than despair. So let us be loving, hopeful and optimistic. And we’ll change the world.” Jack Layton’s last letter When I think over the past year with the frantic efforts south of the 49th to carve up and feed every bit of public good/life to the greed of corporate profit while fanning the flames of racial hatred, gutting science institutions that suggest there is a limit to how much devastation our planet can take and remain habitable to human populations; when I think of our own government pandering after the “Free Trade” agreements that are—transparently—selling out our public good and environmental control to the unlimited greed of “investors” just to add to the greed of the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population; I take a deep breath and I go sit down in the shade of the plum tree in my back yard and reread Jack’s last words. Recently, I took Naomi Klein’s new book,  NO IS NOT ENOUGH, along on my quest for a suitably restful place from which to review Jack’s perdurable words. If I were to try to summarize Klein’s insightful book it would go something like this, ”No is not enough!!!!” According to Klein, “Trump is not an aberration but a logical extension of the worst most dangerous trends of...

Of the five candidates running to replace Tom Mulcair as leader of the federal NDP leadership the one candidate that stands out—even from such an exceptional group of leaders–is Niki Ashton, MP Churchill—Keewatinook Aski. She is the only leadership candidate that had the gumption to spend time campaigning for the progressive Social Democrat running for President of the United States, because she—early on—recognized that only a candidate who could offer a clear alternative could beat Trump with all his malicious, socially and environmentally destructive policies—with its implications for Canada and our world.  Ironically, the 35 year-old Ashton is likely the only Canadian who could become a stand-out-and-speak up Bernie Sanders kind of leader in Canada. The thing that has most moved me about Niki Ashton is her willingness to speak passionately about the grievous human rights abuses being perpetrated on the Palestinian people. No other Canadian politician is willing to do that.  Even NDP politicians who we expect to speak up for human rights seem to be struck dumb when it comes to the utterly devastating abuses that Israel is inflicting on Palestinian people. In fact, in the lead up to the last Canadian federal election Tom Mulcair refused to sign the nomination papers of anyone who had ever suggested that Palestinians are entitled to the same human rights that we seek for every other human being.  To me...