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In talking about aspirations, I am going to invent the phrase, heroic fiction. Actually this is a positive post. The current use of aspirations by politicians to move toward positive change seems to be in epidemic proportions. I am not saying people shouldn't dream, it's just that politicians need to talk less about their dreams and try to do a little more in primary areas. People might suspect the country's broke.
Historic fiction can lead to actual change or they can simply be forever potential. A potential where they default to political positions and forever never change. Canada has changed greatly , rising up for the better,even in the short time of my career in newspaper journalism.(37 years) The thing is, there are some fictions that have endured to the detriment of Canadian society as a whole. America is another matter although the fictions are deeply rooted and protected. It is time to call out the fiction.
Skepticism of the aspirational language is now rampant through it's overuse. It is in a very real sense talking over people who are living in hard times. Is that starry stare just over everyone's head and just past the photo op become offensive? On every issue, an overuse with so many layers of misdirection could overthrow the status quo, in not a good way. Overthrowing fiction in a good way is also possible. It has happened before. FDR's New Deal during the Great Depression. The March of Dimes,during the polio epidemic also FDR. The government of Germany under the leadership of Angela Merkel is good example after two world wars. An examination of that idea might also be good for the public to know.
Are Canada or the United States good countries? Y. or N. Or are we and others the best of a bad lot? Or, do we have better fiction? No,We have great fiction. Clean coal. A stolen election. Build Back Better? Truth or Dare?
Hollywood and Burbank created great American fiction. A son of an immigrant can become president.
John Kennedy should have been court marshaled twice, once for having a girlfriend who was a spy while worked in military intelligence in Washington and second when he allowed his PT boat to be cut in half in WW2 saved both times by his rich father in the movie industry with the fiction based on a true story of The PT 109.
There is no history without some heroic fiction
Canadian fiction, the welcoming polite country,we say thank you and sorry a lot, a police force wearing stetsons in red serge, riding horses, lumber jacks, miners, fishers and farmers that supplied a starving Russia, India and China, now Africa with grain. Much of this gone now. Foreign Affairs Magzine this month also has a story titled The Price of Nostalgia and that does not offend me. Growing up in the 1950's and 60's the non fiction was that new comers were not accepted as advertised. Often lured by exaggerated claims. Newcomers were cheated and humiliated for sport. And they knew they were still better off than in failing collective farms of the Ukraine or bombed out Europe. People were happy in their homes and established happy lives after hard beginnings.Many became rich at just being working class. Working class is a word not heard very often anymore.
Here we had Upper Canada and Lower Canada, the English dominated and an English accent got jobs with power. Police and fire jobs were often called Irish welfare. Upper and lower wasn't the only problem, federalism got in the way, Alberta wanted to separate over oil, Northwestern Ontario wanted to separate from Ontario, Quebec wanted to separate from Canada and very nearly did. As far as everyone knew BC was already gone. Ever immigrant race had it's own epithet and everyone was happily poor in a low wage low cost Canada.
I worked in paper mill wood room for a time. The noise level was so loud that what ever language you spoke didn't matter, there was sign language of a sort. The boss was Finn, we had second gen Italian who hated the new Italian immigrant, an old German soldier and a middle aged Yugoslavian, a Canadian born supervisor no one liked, a Canadian union shop leader who everyone liked and took care of the BS. Sitting around the lunch table was the only quiet time at the beginning of the day. The old German casually mentioned the winter was not as cold as his time in Eastern Front in the 1940's. The Yugoslav turned coldly with a hateful snarl, “yeah I know, I was was there too.” Occupied. Not another word was spoken by anyone in the crew. When it was time to work the sounds of the bark drum would rumble and giant chain to the chipper would scream a ghastly deafening human like screams of people in terrifying pain. At the end of the day, often the big boss would come by, and sign two fingers for hours and a slash across his body to signify to all we would work two and one half hours overtime that day. Not a word spoken. It was a great place to work, all these guys with all of their history worked well together and this very hard job was fun, and on paydays, even more. These jobs are gone now, and the old country hate is raw again.
How many filter layers are needed to tell this story today in media.
You did not want to be Polish in the 60's, that very same Polish joke would evolve as Canadians evolved. The Polish joke became the Newfie joke, then the blonde joke then died a quiet death. Layers of generations go bye. I would hear high in a newsroom that Indians didn't matter and that Indians didn't buy newspapers in the early 80's.In twenty eight years a lot has changed, and a lot stays the same.You would think this was a very unhappy place but it wasn't. But,First Nations people had it the worst. First generation immigrants from anywhere had it the second worst, but their kids learned English first and led households learning early to lead. Before drugs, people lived in healthy enclaves where grand parents would never have to, “speak the language.” China Town, little Italy on Secord Street, the Finns on Bay Street, each group had it's own school, even if it was only a church school. Many groups we now learned today was interned and some turned away. The Chinese built the railroad and handled dangerous dynamite in some town they lived underground in the foundations of the downtown with steam pipes for heat. Ethnic language, dance and culture was done on their own time in their own ways. English was only important at work. Immigrants were weary of government. They are all voting block friends now with big budgets. That's not fiction.What would history without filters sound like. What truths would media without filtres tell. They are already being told in violent actions they report with a shrug and no context.
I think anyone who is alive since 2016 knows about the toxic hazards I am talking about in politics. The political volatility has spread and it is now around the kitchen table. It is not such a bad thing. It may just prevent people from becoming what they despise. Covid 19 vaccine world wide distribution may change the game. And the fiction around that is...? The problem being,people are being repelled by the narrowness of politics and reporting. To some news organizations,it may seem like people can't handle the truth, but when it is revealed it seems like a breath of fresh air or a sledge hammer if it was all fiction. Fictions are easier to brighten hour long newscasts.
Defeating mass delusions means that mass media and newspapers in particular needs to learn to hit the curve ball like every great baseball player learns.
The BBC is steady as a rock and CBC, Golbal and CTV are now strong with their national newscasts and 24 hour news. I don't spend a lot of time on the internet, so assume their websites are good to. Newspapers need to hit the curve , the fastball, slider and sinker all once mastered but degraded, maybe it's poor eyesight.
CNN's news department seems to be adjusting for the good of the country, but it's Original Content specials are hitting the curve. United Shades of America is a good example that moved beyond comedy in 2021. In one episode African-Native American illustrator Afua Richardson known for her work with Marvel Comics,the Black Panther movie and Lovecraft Country said, talking about the importance of her art showing black and first nations people, “... bring us one step closer to the fiction that is on camera.” It is a recognition of the importance to the many of entering the fiction. Fictions do play a roll but, in politics illusions explode when learning the magic of any trick is not magic but misdirection. It seemed to be an off handed answer but it was quite profound when she said it. In the History of Comedy, David Letterman says in his first show after 9-11, on Jan 17 2001, “Be courageous because courage defines all other human behavior,pretending to be courageous is just as good as the real thing.”in an authentic honest, fearful moment in history. John Stewart would say about comedy in another segment “getting in touch with prejudice they never knew they had.” He would also say “a more serious world requires a more serious brand of comedy.”
In an age of apology you got to see this. I was raised on NFL Films instead of cartoons and for anyone who wants to see what an authentic apology should be , A Football Life - Joe Namath Part 2.Broadway Joe had a lot to apologize for on air drinking during his career. The fiction and myth building of the NFL bravely meets it's own history. Everyone respects Joe Namath and I had even more respect after seeing his apologies. You have to see the tape, the print versions don't have the same effect.
Polarization in politics especially in the US and also in Canada has led to, in reality, extreme actions with equally extreme reactions by political parties both both on the left and right that amount to political fiction on both sides with no clear path to change. Is this by design?, because historic injustice turned into extreme inequity leaves only aspirations, and extreme fiction and both good and bad intentions out in the open in a self canceling stalemate, leaving political parties good with their backers,bases and funding unchanged, kicking the can just a little bit further down the road. Visions of equity need only equality under law, people can handle that. A liberal vainer is not holding in the age of the internet.
So many people on the street worry about where Canada and America is going.
The US and Canada need to preach less and be better citizens in the world and remind our own citizens about citizenship, justice and fairness. History is yet to be written about what happens next, we all can be better in a heroic reality rather than a heroic fiction.
The American election fraud fiction, in one extreme has led to insurrection and belief in conspiracies, to death by police resulting in extreme localized uprisings in urban areas with burning, loss of life and property resulting opportunistic political fiction as a counter balancing to both extremes. An issue can easily be managed into an incident that can be papered over and forgotten like essential historic misdeeds.
In a recent BBC Hard Talk host Stephen Sachur with Ben Rhodes (former Deputy National Security Advisory to Barack Obama), Rhodes would describe his belief that the America was a multi racial, multi ethnic country where people from around the world could shape a national identity. Rhodes would go on to say, “America has always been a contest between different stories. American democracy is trying to do the work of living up to the story we tell about ourselves. We've done it before, we'll do it again.” This was the response to Sachur's question, “Is America fixable? The same question can be said for Canada.
Is the answer really in the retelling of stories that are not true for so many under the same banner?
In light of the 'devil in the detail revelations', and much naval gazing both by American's racism and also Canadians with residential school's have done regarding actual history and why things are the way they are, we see very different political responses.
Fiction plays a huge roll in media in the way history, historic leaders and events are highlighted. Setting over arching narratives that stick ,and can lead to huge disappointments when they are revealed in modern context as we have all seen in recent history lessons in news programming. The thing is how did journalism miss residential schools and the burning of Black Wall Street in Tulsa for 75 years. It was reported and is reporting journalism? No I don't think so. Reporting is a narrow starting point. This is where newspaper fail most often when it comes to history. This history is hard and the entire history is what it is, a mixture of the good , the bad and the ugly. Agendas are set, and answers are nudged. Sports writers often signal with a question that also contains the expected answer.Pulling cards of incidents out of an entire deck is an art not a science, and art isn't science,fair nor just. Enter heroic fiction and the term overarching.
Are both countries fixable? These harsh origins have their history in two countries during their building stages. Both Canada and the US were building non stop and furiously into the future. The good news and the bad news is both countries are no longer building. Both countries are coasting,have been coasting and roads are proof of that for a long while. The biggest problems have always been the oldest and those wounds do not have tax dollar answers anymore. Tax dollars were never the answer as budgets in the billions, now trillions have shown. Fairness and justice are free and they only require willingness and action. Peoples have risen only to crushed by the lack of both. Not a trick question, a heroic future fiction or a fact of history.
With the rush to build, over, time can be taken to contemplate the aftermath. Our countries have stopped building it is said for the past twenty years, de-industrialization has be been going on longer but mainstream media has apparently only noticed in the last twenty years as media fortunes have also changed as a result.
During that same time the disparity has been growing and middle class has been hollowed out, and descending, as the poor have also got poorer. The fiction also got thicker. The breaking points have been getting nearer and nearer.
The political parties, depending on where you look appear either silly or corrupt with empathy in too much supply or too little. It appears to be no path forward. The fiction gets thicker and thicker. Canada appears to happy to be the producer of maple syrup the way the Greeks see their olive oil. NOT! And there is now a fictional new economy to save the day,some day in the heroic future fiction. A fiction where debt takes care of itself,the rich pay their fair share and inflation and interest rates don't rise. And the climate crisis is solved.
A pandering heroic fiction always sounds the best but these days the opposite is not not fallowing but hardening in the opposite direction to the peril of all. The times are skeptical, opinions are many, the path is clear but the haze is thick.
The good news, in an essay by Harold James in Foreign Affairs Magazine May/June 2021titled Globalization's Coming Age-Why Crisis Ends in Connections. Basically historically crisis brings major change, if politics fails then something different will emerge. Media has been speculating the fall of democracies will occur with the rise of dictatorships and war, civil or global. Indeed that has also happened in similar times but in the end. The end of monarchs and feudalism also happened, the Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe and Japan after WW2 and stage one of globalization spread wealth around the world and raised millions out of poverty as eastern countries began to take up building and western countries traded first world gold for third world trinkets in a stunning reversal of colonialism.
The second stage of globalization is what happens next, the entire world may consume the way westerners have since the 1990's. The east gather wealth the way post WW2 generations did in a low wage and highly productive west. Their kids, spending and not saving, resting on past accomplishments as wealth is transferred but unable to be earned, leaving third generations wondering what happened.
With the crisis intersection of Covid 19 , and impending climate change, will the east and the west learn from past mistakes. The entire Foreign Affairs issue actually seems pretty positive in a, no BS, way. History has presented options and the challenges today with technology have created opportunities for not so much, one to many communication, but for many, to many in all communications platforms, and where histories are not just written by a winner and there needs to be more winners for sure.
Does the G7 and G20 hear footsteps, or an opportunity knocking with vaccines for the whole world. Opinion by Ken Gigliotti
*another BBC feature is about the history of Africa that is not written by European colonial victors but also includes the independence movements of Africa complied by UNESCO in an unbiased balanced way. Interesting as Canadian and US history could use the same treatment. When it was revealed that Abraham Lincoln did not start out as an abolitionist, CNN contributor Van Jones said, they didn't teach that in elementary school.
*Justin Trudeau came to power with the promise to do politics differently. All political campaigns promise change and no one can be criticized for wanting to improve the way government works. In 2015 on his triumphant walk ,he kept the promise with the first gender balanced cabinet, 15-men and fifteen women,with many of colour and a variety ethnic backgrounds. Trudeau had also declared himself a feminist. Declaring himself a feminist did not come without controversy from both men and women. Key thing, this all preceded Donald Trump being elected and the Pandemic.
The problem comes with declaring aspirations and creating expectations that are difficult to square with politics. Dealing with and separating Canada's good intentions from the Donald Trump term could not be wished on any country,much less that of a next door neighbor as well as the usual considerations of of Upper and Lower Canada, the west and First Nations, and being in a minority government with the ever present possibility of and election. We cannot forget a national response to a global pandemic , Covid 19. Also the two Micheals held hostage in China, relations with China, 5G and trade. This could not be a worse time to be in the prime ministers chair.
With the controversy around Jody Wilson-Raybould during the SNC-Lavalin court case resulting in the loss of Raybould and a second quality cabinet minister Jane Philpott,Trudeau's high expectations exploded the trifecta of heroic fiction. Doing politics differently with the whiff of scandal regarding the judicial system , not respecting feminism and not supporting but seeming to influence a female minister of justice during an ongoing case, who is also female but also first nations and also a lawyer.
Politics as usual and the lack of respect for a position that was also held by a woman of first nation heritage slams a whole bunch of core issues as part of an expected sea change of politic.
Internal problems at the Green Party and the defection of one of it's three elected members to the Liberals again sparked an attack by Green leader to slam Justin Trudeau's politics as usual, and not doing politics differently by accepting the renegade MP. She upped the attack by saying he is not a feminist. And we are back to that heroic fiction. This allegation is taken with some skepticism by media. Elizabeth May, the former leader is a pretty hard act to fallow.
These incidnets point to the definition of heroic fiction, the aspirations and the raising of hopes for those who believed in these good intentions makes for great disappointment among voters but also for those thinking about going into politics.
The history of good intentions, really, really good intentions has led to great disappointment, skepticism and loss of confidence in white/non white undecided, racialized or marginalized segments of society not only in Canada but especially in the United States and also in Europe. It makes everyone mad. It is this kind of disappointment that undermines the democratic process. It is not just one person, but the expectations for social justice and equality under the law that often falls short or gets erased as we are seeing now with happening at the highest levels of democracy in the United States.
Make America Great Again was a pretty high expectation, doing politics differently is also a pretty high expectation but the collateral damage is fixable, it is almost always fixable. next update-
Coming Fast and Furious, one incident after another, of an over sold optimism falling flat with disappointing or an angry thud. Heroic Fiction is alive everywhere one looks.
NDP, MP for Nunavut Mumilaaq Qaqqaq has decided not to run in then next federal election. She sights being very isolated in Ottawa but seems very disappointed in the progress of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) 94 recommendations, she says, “They've had since 2016 to start, and they've been talking about it since 2019.Here we are in 2021 with no progress.” Without being to sensational,I don't want to clip quotes because this is a very sad story . The progress has been “...the bare minimum...” The people of Nunavut, “...I think we need to stop allowing the federal government to give the bare minimum.” After seeing housing on government tour of the Nunavut she withdrew from public says a CBC story.
To go back up to Nunavut to face or take calls from northern people has to be very difficult to put it mildly.
In short the cheery and hopeful saturation advertising surrounding the TRC presents a very different picture than the reality for both First Nations and Inuit people. The mission accomplished ads are very misleading. Maybe the over the top optimism should be dialed back at least for the sake of First Nations representatives facing their communities. As their representatives to the government it must be heartbreaking and unbearable to live in this Heroic Fiction. She as an Inuit has been fallowed in stores, profiled by security inside the parliament buildings and not treated like a human in Ottawa,the seat of Canada's government. She also sights disappointment not only with institutions of government but also the RCMP in Nunavut. She is quit open and honest about her feelings and it is not easy for people from reserves or the North to adjust to life in the south. In Winnipeg a lot has been done for people coming from the north to the city for births or medical procedures. Now that Bay's historic store is closed in Winnipeg ,it will be one less, familiar place to visit and ride joyfully the escalators.(I moved from Thunder Bay to go to school in downtown Toronto and everything starting with facing the humidity leaving the airport terminal was a culture shock.)
Smerconish Saturday June 19-2021- In an interview with African American satirical writer D.L. Hughley talking about racism blacks face in a new book How to Survive America , another one of his titles is How Not to Get Shot and Other Advice From White People.
He chose instead to talk at length about the previous segment on Smerconish regarding a new study using 1940 US Census data about attitudes of whites who lived next to blacks that showed many would grow up to be Democrats. To me this seemed like a very strange segment.
Hughley said he would watch TV games show taped in LA where he lived. He goes on to say although he lived in Los Angeles, “he didn't know white people lived there.” He would see people on games shows taped in LA (many in Burbank) who said they were from LA,his response was, “ I never seen you around here...” He would also say, white people had a choice on where they would live and blacks did not. Blacks could only live in 3 areas of Los Angeles.
Burbank is the place where much of my premise, Heroic Fiction in the form of TV game shows,advertising ,dramas, comedies and movies about America were created for white audiences , Hughley added that he would latter work in Burbank and that it was a, “sundown city”,blacks had to leave during the night time hours. He also said even African American senator Tim Scott for Southern California was stopped seven in his first year times by police. Mumilaaq Qaqqaq would feel the same inequality in Ottawa based on false perceptions. Hughley would say“People have this notion of us, where what ever anything bad happens to us, it's our fault,even Covid.” Society has to stop pretending it doesn't know these things,because you can only change some stuff if know and accept this realty,and what you do about this reality is where we are now... we ask for justice and get a three day holiday instead.
He never did talk about his new book.
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