Resignation of Paul Estrin

I have just written the following to the editor of the Canadian Jewish News, in response to their publication of an item by Paul Estrin, recently resigned as the President of the party.  Whether they choose to publish or not is their right.  I am publishing on my blog to record the fact of my letter to them and as an expression of my views.

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I am a member of the Green Party of Canada, and I am deeply concerned about Paul Estrin's resignation and the treatment he claims to have received. 

If Paul is guilty of anything, it is for publishing a view as President on our web site that did not conform to party policy.  No-one should be surprised by the reaction of the party.  If he had not been President, or not on the party's web site, the reaction would have been very different. 

However, beyond that, it is the policy of the party to support neither Hamas nor Israel.  Both are guilty of extreme acts against the other.  We fully support the right of Israel to exist, and equally the right of Palestinians to an equivalent statehood.  We support the right of Israel to self-defence, and equally that of the Palestinians to the same.  We do not equate those rights to the right to kill large numbers of either Palestinians or Israelis.  In the most recent conflict Israel's loss is small compared to that of the Palestinians.  I think one can be forgiven if one's sympathies are with the Palestinians (note please NOT Hamas!). 

None of which says we condone the acts of either party.  The Green Party would work towards a peaceful coexistence with each recognized and respected by the other. 

This expresses my personal view, based on Green party policy, and not necessarily the official view of the party.

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I am not convinced that had I been in Paul's shoes I would have resigned.  The apology he issued would have been enough.  We do pride ourselves on tolerance, and part of the reaction to Paul appears on the surface to be intolerant.

I have not been privy to the deliberations within federal council (the administrative body of the GPC), nor have I read the blog that has led to Paul's resignation.

At the same time, I think it is a bit short-sighted to lose the president at the start of an election year.  Paul's skills wold have helped ensure we garner the support we need.  We now have alienated a segment of the electorate that we may need.  A new president has to be found, who will need to be brought up to speed rapidly to ensure we can field the candidates and the platform required in 2015.

In support of Bombing

Never in my wildest dreams did I think I'd start an essay with that title!  But the decision to bomb the forces of the Islamic State (IS) has tempted my thinking.  Lets see where this gets us.

Aerial bombing seems to me to be the ultimate in terrorism.  Particularly given the nature of an advanced warning that it is going to happen.  People on the ground can look forward with anticipation of the terror knowing that bombs will be rained down on them.

Compare this to a suicide bombing.  Nobody knows its going to happen except the suicide bomber, and suddenly there is blood and guts everywhere.  The terror is in the fright and horror of the after event, rather than in any anticipation before hand.

The crews in a plane, on the other hand are high above, mostly way beyond any risk of aggression from below in a position basically to rain terror on whoever is below.

For me this is an act of gross cowardice.  Whereas a suicide bombing takes enormous courage on the part of the bomber.  The fact that it is also idiocy is another matter altogether.

Both are idiocy.  Both are aimed at unspeakable loss of life, of strangers rather than intimates, those who one might meet in say single combat.  Both are the act of bullies, unable to resist the need to make their presence felt, to make their statement of power, unable to find a way of living together otherwise.

However does that mean that we can be in support of the use of bombing?

Powerful governments have always adopted the greatest terrorist threat they can to force their views.  The blitz of London and other cities in England was Hitler's attempt to subjugate the British early in WWII.  Churchill's carpet bombing of Dresden and other cities in Germany was his attempt to bring Hitler to his knees later in the same war.  And Truman's dropping of the A-bombs on Nagasaki and Hiroshima similarly, and finally brought that war to its close.  In all cases the bombing followed an offer of a surrender.

Still gross acts of terrorism, and conducted from a position of power but with great cowardice.  (This latter attribution not to belittle the efforts of the airmen who took part in the raids, nor of the sacrifices many of them made.)

The bombing of IS targets approved by Obama, is required of course because of the unconscionable errors made by the US presidents of the last 25 years.  If we (they!) had not wished to topple Saddam Hussein etc, we would not be in the position we are to day, of a power vacuum in Iraq that the forces of IS (originally we called them ISIS, though neither I suppose is what they call themselves) have been able to fill.  Despite Kerry's shuffling around in the mid-east, I doubt an offer of surrender has been made to IS.

What truly scares us is their apparent philosophy.  I say apparent, since I have read no credible journalistic reporting of the aims and motives of the newly declared caliphate.  But the reporting of the threat to non-muslims of, pay a tax, convert, or be killed, appears singularly brutal.  I have seen no clean indication of what the tax might be, but have to presume given the intensity of the western reaction to the threat that it is beyond the means of most to pay it.  It is also antithetical to our mores to tell or be told pay up or die!

So it boils down to a sense that IS is being exceptionally intolerant of others.  Given our sense of fairness in that the only thing to be intolerant of is intolerance itself, we respond to their intolerance with an intolerance of our own, though it is unlikely to make much difference in the long run, and may have many unintended consequences:  Bomb the heck out of them.

Our car culture

Every time I get stuck in a traffic jam, I wonder why.

Were it not for the car, we would not be able to function.  Yet even with cars we waste large amounts of resources just getting to and from wherever it is that we desperately need to go.

We have engineered our society to be dependent on cars.  Vast shopping malls could not exist unless we were prepared to drive to them.  And because we can we do.  Vast forests of suburban residences could not exist unless we were prepared and able to drive to them.  Between the acres of homes and the acres of shopping malls and other acres of entertainment complexes, there are vast ribbons of roads.

Acres and acres of land consumed irretrievably in homage to the car.

A prime issue is of course that our dedication to driving has polluted our atmosphere to the point of serious global warming.  Since there are so many of us increasingly dependent on oil and gas for our travel, and the movement of the wonderful goods we all desire, it is no wonder that CO2 concentrations have increased to a dangerous level.

One solution proposed is to go electric.  The result would be a dramatic reduction in tailpipe emissions.  It would not be an elimination of tailpipe emissions, as in any case the building of roads and the building of the electric cars themselves would remain an intensive oil consuming process.

It would solve the one problem, in time at least, reducing our pollution.  But it would not stop the other problem, that of the proliferation of cars.  It could even exacerbate it.

We can mitigate one problem, not solve them all.  As Boulding is quoted as saying, "The name of the devil is sub-optimization."

On Nationalism

What is it about nationalism and its associated ism patriotism?

I really dont have a problem with being a nationalist or a patriot.  They are good expressions of identity, of belonging, in a world of multiple identities.

But when taken to extremes, I find them very objectionable.

The extreme is when my country takes precedence without critical consideration.

The case in point is the extreme nationalism of the israeli state.  Under the guise of fighting for its survival within the arab world, the israeli state is suppressing freedom of expression  Those who would be peaceful Israelis, against the abhorrent assaults on the palestinian people of Gaza, are being stripped of their rights to free expression.

This of course is not unusual.  When a nation goes to war, its populace are encouraged to support the aggression.  It helps enormously in the propaganda war to have the masses behind you.  Britain did it in WWII along others with its "loose lips sink ships" campaign, and the US did it very successfully with the disinformation about "weapons of mass destruction" in the Iraq excursion under the Bush regimes.

But is it necessary?  I was always taught that the means justifies the end, not the end justifies the means. There are those that think that aggression, such as quite possibly about to be unleashed in the Ukraine by Russia, unleashed in Iraq by IS against the Yazidis, as well as recently by the Israelis in Gaza, justify the goal of survival in a hostile world.  However, those that live by the sword die by the sword, is an axiom that suggests that survival does not follow.  It is so much better to be Ghandian, or Mandelan, or in the real tradition of Christianity, to turn the other cheek, to respond with kindness not aggression.

My preference as an ethos is in the masthead of the Globe and Mail: The subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither propose nor condone arbitrary measures.  Thus we should encourage discussion at all levels of public discourse, we should have a continuing public discourse whether we are at peace or at war, in Israel no less than in Ukraine.

One of the things we have managed to do in our relatively peaceful societies -- though the US has been at war almost continuously since the end of WWII, is channel our aggression through team sports.  It is very satisfying to "beat the crap" out of the other guys.  We do it vicariously through support of our favorite teams.  In team sports, the other guys survive to play another day.  In war they do not.  It is so much more civilized for the victor to allow the vanquished an equal role in the future.