Decline of Education in Ontario

In virtually all aspects, education in Ontario is worse now than it has ever been in my close to twenty years of teaching. Ford and Lecce have expedited the damage to our system that began under previous governments (of all stripes). As Conservatives each is a disgrace.

We now have radical desteaming in the math and the sciences (a recipe for falling standards), hybrid classes (that both parents and teachers loathe), a pathalogical obsession with virtual learning, routine cancellations of exams, bouts of mark freezings, an upsurge of politically divisive politics making its way into the classroom and worst of all a deluge of grade inflation.

For those who went into education to pass on a tradition of high standards this is truly a sad and disturbing time.

Oh and if you think that all of this will change once the pandemic passes I have a bridge to sell you.

Three Cheers for Ukraine's leader

 I am very impressed with Mr. Zelenskyy. He has become the face of the free world. G-d knows we need one. Having said that he irony of a Jew leading a nation which has a long history of antisemitism is bizarre at best.

Ukraine Invasion

Questions as of February 26th.

Several Questions about the Russia/Ukraine invasion that are pertinent to its understanding. (I have re-posted this on Big Ideas and Quora).

1. Having invaded the Ukraine, how far does Putin intend to go? Is the end point the overthrow of the current Administration in Kiev or something else and if overthrow is the aim what does he intend replacing Zelenskyy's administration with? A Moscow puppet? direct rule etc?

2. Is Biden going to 'up' the sanctions to the next level by hitting the Russians on the oil front and SWIFT (economic transaction system)? If not what is his strategy? Right now it hardly seems effective. If he claims that he knew about all this months ago why has it taken him so long to act? Will he eventually have to use the US military here and if he does the public have an appetite for it? Asking the average American to tighten their belts during a high inflation era will be hard sell. Protecting boundaries in the Ukraine when the US can't seem to do the same at home also smacks of hypocrisy.

3. Will NATO establish a no-fly zone over the Western Ukraine? What is their game? Does Europe even have the military strength to fight the Russians? Do they even want to? Are they going to rely on the US to do the dirty work for them?

4. How long can Europe hold out on the energy front v Russia? Looking at you Germany. Having embarked on reckless Green Energy initiatives they are more indebted now than ever on Russia to meet their shortfalls.

5. In what way will China gain from all of this? Moscow and Beijing have moved closer and the Chinese government can easily use their clout to undermine sanctions initiatives. Also will China use this as an opportunity to attack Taiwan? From their perspective it makes sense. Act when the iron is hot.

6. What factors are driving this war other than the obvious ones? Who stands to gain? Putin is certainly not alone here.

A realization

One aspect that I have learnt over the years is that their are various perspectives to an issue. That being said this does not imply that all perspectives are equally valid. To understand the latter one has to delve into the details which many are loathe to do. There is an innate fear of having one's confirmation bias shattere

What is the Freedom Convoy?

My answer on Quora

The Freedom Convoy is a grassroots protest movement that emerged from the trucker community in Canada, in opposition to the excessive use of vaccine mandates by the various levels of government. It affirms the central nature of individual rights and offers a loud, but necessary denunciation, of persistent state overreach initiatives that have come at the expense of personal freedom and choice.

Predictably it has ruffled a great deal of establishment feathers producing an avalanche of purposely contrived negative reporting, that has been regurgitated here on Quora and other sites, by a chorus of voices whose confirmation bias precludes an honest attempt at evaluating the issues.

Freedom Convoy source: BBC

The convoy is not an extremist movement. Nor does it have the intention of overthrowing the government. In addition it is not a vanguard for anti-vaccine mania. This is all establishment propaganda, deliberate hokum generated to muddy the waters and besmirch enemies of the administration. There are enough strawmen here to cover the great wheat fields of the Steppes. Remember one can stand in opposition to vaccine mandates while personally been vaccinated oneself, as I and most truckers are. So enough with the pig swill counter-narratives.

Oh….and the Freedom Convoy is not a fringe movement. Not even close. Trudeau knows this too…which further highlight his fibbing…you don’t invoke Emergency Acts for a handful of ‘undesirables’.

What is most ironic and indeed tragic about the Freedom Convoy is that if the Federal and Provincials governments had listened to the various stakeholders in our Canadian society, instead of treating them as underlings, who must be spoken down to none of this would have happened.

This was of course wishful thinking. Authoritarians never miss the opportunity to enhance their domain and Trudeau and many of the other Premiers in the country have marched to this exact drum. They have exceeded their own ‘mandates’ of governance and have deliberately pushed aside a key principle that is vital to all liberal democracies – the notion that government is a servant of the people. The reverse is the short route to tyranny.

Elitists of course hate it when you push back and remind them of their foundational quicksand upon which their egos stand and so it is with Trudeau who has tried every trick in the book to dismiss the truckers, lie about their intent while deliberately using the legacy media to sow further national division.

The decision by his government to not open necessary dialogue with the Trucker leaders is a low point in Canadian political history. Imagine if Trudeau had followed a similar approach with BLM protests in 2020 or the Native Demonstrators in 2021.This is even more laughable by his hypocrisy in lecturing the Indian government in months gone by about the shameful nature of their clamping down on grassroots protests. NIMBY overload I guess.

Canadian Civil Liberties Association takes federal government to court over Emergencies Act

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is taking the federal government to court over Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s historic move to invoke the Emergencies Act this week.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/canadian-civil-liberties-association-takes-federal-government-to-court-over-emergencies-act-1.5785850

Trudeau was always an inept leader but his handling of the convoy crisis has illuminated - even after several years as head of the government - how ill-prepared he still looks in the country’s top executive job. Name recognition was a shining feature of his original appeal - there wasn’t much else- but his actions here show that once that sheen is removed from his superficial exterior, how lacking in substance he really is.

Not only does the Emperor have no clothes he has no clue where to acquire them at all.

Trudeau had a chance to bring together Canadians, reach out across the political impasse and stand tall as a man of character. Instead he gave the finger to those voices he personally disagrees with, stormed around like a petulant child in Parliament and sank his entire arm elbow deep into the Fascist handbook by threatening to weaponize the financial institutions to go after his opponents. The latter should frighten both sides of the aisle. Evil ideas have a habit of biting back and coming full circle.

He not only blew it but he placed the nation on notice about how malicious those in power can be. This should be added to his reading list.

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Background Before the Charter came into being, rights and freedoms were protected in Canada by a variety of laws. These included the 1960 Canadian Bill of Rights . Although important, none of these laws was part of the Constitution . They therefore lacked the supremacy and permanence of the Charter. The Bill of Rights also only applied to federal , rather than provincial laws. A Difficult Beginning In the early 1980s, the government of Pierre Elliott Trudeau began the process of patriating Canada’s Constitution — taking it out of the hands of the British Parliament. The Trudeau government also decided to include within the Constitution a new Charter of Rights and Freedoms . ( See also Constitutional History .) Amid the wider constitutional debates of 1981 and 1982, there were concerns about whether the Charter would give courts and judges too much power to interpret its meaning. There were also questions as to how it would be amended once it was in place. Many provincial leaders feared that a Charter would restrict the right of provincial governments to make laws as they saw fit. ( See also Distribution of Powers .) The hard work of negotiating and crafting the Charter fell to Trudeau’s justice minister , Jean Chrétien (later prime minister ). Chrétien was helped by two provincial attorneys-general , Roy Romanow of Saskatchewan (later premier ) and Roy McMurtry of Ontario . Ontario Premier Bill Davis was also instrumental in bringing the Charter to life. ( See Patriation of the Constitution .) In February 2003, former Prime Minister of Canada Jean Chrétien speaks at the Canada Winter Games in Bathurst, New Brunswick. Photo taken on: February 22, 2003. Quebec Premier René Lévesque , however, was less concerned with the Charter. In 1975, Quebec had passed its own Charter of Human Rights and Freedoms . It took precedence over other laws in the province, but was not enshrined in the Canadian Constitution. Lévesque was initially a fierce opponent of any new constitutional arrangement, especially one that did not honour Quebec’s traditional constitutional veto. But he entered into an alliance with other provincial premiers . ( See Gang of Eight .) Lévesque agreed to surrender the veto in exchange for a constitutional agreement that prioritized provincial rights over what he called a “rigid, even in some ways authoritarian conception of federalism .” The other premiers of the Gang of Eight agreed to the new proposal spearheaded by Chrétien and Romanow. ( See Kitchen Accord .) However, they chose not to seek Lévesque’s approval because, as Romanow explained, “What the province of Quebec would have done is requested additional amendments or changes, in my judgment, that would have either obfuscated or delayed and thereby killed the process.” Lévesque and his lieutenants vehemently objected to the way the constitutional deal was negotiated in his absence. This became known in Quebec as the “night of the long knives.” “What they did this

https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/canadian-charter-of-rights-and-freedoms

As for the Convoy they have pulled off the mask of the elites and have hopefully opened the eyes of Canadians about the need to return to the basics. Positions of power do not give you a blank check to bulldoze ahead with policy that makes no sense. Kudos to the Convoy for reminding Trudeau and the nation about this. Be Strong Canada.

Who won the Battle of Kharkov?

 (My answer on Quora)

Which one? There were four altogether. In the First Battle (October 1941) the Germans took the city. The Soviets then tried to take it back in the Second Battle but failed (May 1942).

The Third Battle (late February and mid March 1943) was part of the Donets campaign and was the last big Axis hurrah on the Eastern Front. The Germans drove out the Soviets who had very recently taken Kharkov (16th of February 1943).

Scenes from the Third Battle of Kharkov. source: http://www2db.com

In the Fourth Battle (August 1943), also known as the Belgorod–Kharkov offensive operation, the Soviets finally defeated the Germans leading to a Wehrmacht retreat into the Ukraine and the Battle of Kiev (another Soviet victory).

All in all the battles proved costly for both sides. However that was not unusual for the battles on the Eastern Front.

Why did Wilson create a powerless League of Nations?

 (My answer on Quora)

Woodrow Wilson saw the League of Nations as a body that would settle disputes and conflicts between nations. However the United States never joined the League of Nations as his motion to join was not ratified in the senate.

Key figures in congress were concerned about the US losing political sovereignty and being forced into the role of global cop by the doctrine of collective security. These concerns were legitimate. the prospect of endless war is not to be taken lightly.

However the failure of the League of Nations itself was not Wilson’s fault. The League was doomed to begin with as it lacked teeth. It was also extremely biased in favour of the victors of WWI viz. Britain and France.

Both of these Western powers lacked the wherewithal to back up collective action directed against third party aggressive states as the appetite for military action in light of WWI, did not enjoy popular support on the home fronts.

This reduced the menu of possibilities to that of sanctions and other types of trade warfare, that could be easily flouted by unscrupulous parties who saw a great business opportunity if ever there was one.

Hitler and the Chancellorship. Why did he run?

 (My answer on Quora).

After the failed Munich Beer Hall Putsch in 1923 the Nazis realized that the only way to power would have to go through the ballot box. While the party started off small (albeit with some big name backing at one point viz. Erich Ludendorff) they gradually picked up great momentum in a fractured political system over the next decade drawing heavily from both traditional left and right wing voters.

Economic instability and dissatisfaction with the ruling elites played into their appeal. Their share of the popular vote made them a power player (although by November 1932 it appeared as though their fortunes were waning).

However what saved Hitler (and with hindsight doomed the Weimar Republic) was the ill-conceived miscalculation by the former Chancellor Franz von Papen, who felt that he could use Hitler as a bulwark to isolate his rival Kurt von Schleicher.

Von Papen (who at the time was out of favour) convinced the elderly German President (and WWI war hero) Paul von Hindenburg that Hitler could be boxed in and controlled as Chancellor if he, von Papen, was made Vice-Chancellor.

Hindenburg, whose relationship with von Schleicher had soured, reluctantly agreed allowing Hitler to ascend to the Chancellorship on the 30th of January 1933. Once the toxin was allowed entry into the crypt there was no turning back. Von Papen was no match for the Austrian.

On Party Establishments

The Two large American Parties incorporate a range of opinions and special interests that for political necessity canvas under the defined umbrellas.

The problem in the contemporary is that the elites in both parties have become far removed from the mainstream voters and all too often have more in common with each other than they have with their traditional voting bases.

Trump, warts and all, was a reminder of the growing chasm within the GOP. His nomination in 2016 poured ice cold water in the face of the Republican establishment who had grown complacent with respect to individual rights, secure borders, excessive regulation and the culture war. Trump succeeded in knocking the establishment off their perch, not out of a sense of novel ingenuity but out of opportunity. He saw the chance of addressing vital issues that the elites appeared to have brushed off the table and took it feet and all. As for the GOP establishment it stills exist. Very much so. Look no further than Mitch McConnell.

Biden on the other hand is the very face of the Democratic Establishment. It is the only reason he is in office. He won the nomination in 2020 as the Donk establishment managed to launch for the second time - the first being Hillary in 2016 - a successful rearguard attack with the necessary alliances that isolated and saw off the Populist Sanders revolution. Biden will survive as long as he offers utility to the establishment.

The GOP establishment tried the same strategy in 2016 against Trump but could never recover from their backing of several weak horses (Jeb Bush then Marco Rubio). Sanders on the other hand was an easier target to marginalize as he struggled to poll well with minorities and was susceptible to a concerted effort by the big urban party machines that play an outsize role in the Democratic Party.

These same machines have less of an impact in the GOP where grassroots local groups, outside the establishment fray, have traditionally more clout. This worked in Trump’s favour and reinforced his brand. Whether it will help in 2024 (should he run) remains to be seen.

What are your thoughts on Whoopi Goldberg and her Holocaust comments?

 (My answer on Quora)

Whoopi Goldberg has never been the model for clarity of thought. Remember this ‘classic’….

Polanski was not guilty of 'rape-rape', says Whoopi Goldberg

'We're a different kind of society, we see things differently,' actor says in defence of Roman Polanski

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2009/sep/29/roman-polanski-whoopi-goldberg

On the face of it I wouldn’t give her comment any more time than the nanosecond that is consistent with its intellectual worth. However on a broader level her ‘view’ (no pun intended) reflects on the macrocasm of twisted thought that has become all too common in victim/victimizer politics. Her words are merely a reflection of a narrative that has worked its way from academia into the mainstream media.

In ‘Whoopiworld’ race discrimination is paramount and in the hierarchy of evils it seems to stand alone as a unique crime. She of course like others in her thought bubble specifically define race as being categorically synonymous with skin colour and like so many who adhere to this construct it is necessarily shoe horned into a dichotomy of white vs black.

Essentially Whoopi has bought into such an ideological narrative with specific assumptions. Race in this context is a function of pigmentation and thereby cuts a deeper swathe. The fact that she is using a definition of Race that is pseudo-scientific seems lost on her.

There's No Scientific Basis for Race—It's a Made-Up Label

It's been used to define and separate people for millennia. But the concept of race is not grounded in genetics.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/race-genetics-science-africa

This implies that other evils - including the Holocaust, the Cambodian Killing Fields, the horrors of the Holdomor and even the Rwandan genocides - can be pigeonholed into the catch-all category of ‘man’s inhumanity to man’. The exact cliche that she herself doubled down on in the supposed apology on Colbert’s show.

This of course is pure sophistry.

A quick reading will show that Race historically has been a very malleable term. It is a political manifestation of the ‘I and Thou’ that fuels a great deal of Identity politics ie. the need to separate the ‘in group’ from the ‘demonized’ other. Culture, ethnicity, language as well as skin colour have all been used to delineate race. As expected it has been utilized to justify various injustices.

The fact that Hitler himself and other National Socialist Teutonic supremacists was explicit as seeing Jews and other undesirables as being members of a lesser race is significant. It is also important to note that Jews, Italians and Irish were themselves viewed in earlier times as non-white by the dominant establishment in the United States itself.

In short Whoopi’s framing race strictly within the skin colour discrimination framework minimizes conflicting historical reality and damns the evidence.

I wonder if she is aware of this?

Nazi Racial Science

From 1933 to 1945, Nazi Germany carried out a campaign to “cleanse” German society of individuals viewed as biological threats to the nation’s “health.” Enlisting the help of physicians and medically trained geneticists, psychiatrists, and anthropologists, the Nazis developed racial health policies that began with the mass sterilization of “genetically diseased” persons and ended with the near annihilation of European Jewry. With the patina of legitimacy provided by “racial” science experts, the Nazi regime carried out a program of approximately 400,000 forced sterilizations and over 275,000 euthanasia deaths that found its most radical manifestation in the death of millions of “racial” enemies in the Holocaust. This campaign was based in part on ideas about public health and genetic “fitness” that had grown out of the inclination of many late nineteenth century scientists and intellectuals to apply the Darwinian concepts of evolution to the problems of human society. These ideas became known as eugenics and found a receptive audience in countries as varied as Brazil, France, Great Britain, and the United States. But in Germany, in the traumatic aftermath of World War I and the subsequent economic upheavals of the twenties, eugenic ideas found a more virulent expression when combined with the Nazi worldview that espoused both German racial superiority and militaristic ultranationalism. The following bibliography was compiled to guide readers to selected materials on the history of Nazi racial science that are in the Library’s collection. It is not meant to be exhaustive. Annotations are provided to help the user determine the item’s focus, and call numbers for the Museum’s Library are given in parentheses following each citation. Those unable to visit might be able to find these works in a nearby public library or acquire them through interlibrary loan. Follow the “Find in a library near you” link in each citation and enter your zip code at the Open WorldCat search screen. The results of that search indicate all libraries in your area that own that particular title. Talk to your local librarian for assistance. Burleigh, Michael, and Wolfang Wippermann. The Racial State: Germany, 1933-1945 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. (DD 256.5 .B93 1991) [ Find in a library near you ] Provides a general history of Nazi racial policies, with a particular emphasis on the Nazi goal of creating a “racial utopia.” Describes the regime’s murderous activities from euthanasia to the mass murder of Jews and Gypsies in the context of its racial policies. Haas, François. “ German Science and Black Racism--Roots of the Nazi Holocaust .” FASEB Journal 22, no. 2 (2008): 332-337. (Subject Files) [ Find in a library near you ] Traces the origin of the concept of “racial hygiene” to the work of German physicians and scientists of the late 19th century. Shows how the spread of this idea, based on Social Darwinism, culminated in the Nazi T4 euthanasia program and

https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/nazi-racial-science

or this?

Black People during the Holocaust Era

Persecution of Black people occurred despite their relatively small presence in Nazi Germany.

https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/afro-germans-during-the-holocaust

or indeed ?

race - “Race” and the reality of human physical variation

race - race - “Race” and the reality of human physical variation: Scientists have known for many decades that there is little correlation between “race,” used in its popular sense, and actual physical variations in the human species. In the United States, for example, the people identified as African Americans do not share a common set of physical characteristics. There is a greater range of skin colours, hair colours and textures, facial features, body sizes, and other physical traits in this category than in any other human aggregate identified as a single race. Features of African Americans vary from light skins, blue or gray eyes, and blond hair to dark skins, black

https://www.britannica.com/topic/race-human/Race-and-the-reality-of-human-physical-variation

Now of course none of this is intended to play down the odious nature of discrimination based on skin colour, wherever it resides. Nobody other than the most extreme Identitarian would condone such purposeful action.

However politics is by its very nature game of power and ideology serves a purpose. Grievance dynamics that play loose with the truth and redefine complexities into easily regurgitated soundbites are useful. Repeat them enough times and they appear rooted in a solid foundation. Race as a synonym for ‘colour only’ is just such a trope. Weaponizing it has its advantages. Deciding who is entitled to utilize the term it is how radicals frame the discourse between the oppressed and the oppressor.

How the Media Led the Great Racial Awakening

Years before Trump’s election the media dramatically increased coverage of racism and embraced new theories of racial consciousness that set the stage for the latest unrest

https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/media-great-racial-awakening

Whoopi is a fool in having shown her playing cards but she is not alone. She merely blurted out for all to see, agitprop, that for decades now have been well received on university campuses. Race in such a post-modernist revolutionary context is too valuable a term for just anybody to use. Infrastructures have to be upended and utopias built and if truth is such a casualty the so be it. The ‘ought’ must prevail over the ‘is’.

Sources:

Book Reviews How Jews Became White Folks and What That Says about Race in America. By Karen  Brodkin. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1998. Pp. xi+243. $48.00 (cloth); $18.00 (paper). | American Journal of Sociology: Vol 105, No 2

Permission to reprint a book review printed in this section may be obtained only from the author.

https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/210335?journalCode=ajs