University my second time around to the first timers

 From Fall 2014 until 2018 I audited Political Science classes at the University of Guelph. 

 

The following was published The Ontarian (the student newspaper). 

 

From university my second time around to the first timers 

I’m an old sixties battlehippie taking political science courses because I like talking politics more than most sane people.  Students today are smarter and more hard working than I ever was but show a remarkable lack of interest in public affairs. Good marks to get a job is the total focus.  Student activism and protest, the hallmark of my first trip through university, are unheard of. 

 

The Canadian military has been killing people who have done us no harm for reasons of domestic politics since current students were in kindergarten but there is not a peace group on this campus.  Canadian and American elections pass without notice.  Poster Day is content free – no issues, no political leaders of any party, of any country.  Club Day featured one political group – the Young Communists.  Federal legislation on marijuana proceeds without student comment despite Canadian students being among the world’s heaviest pot smokers.  Most of my classmates in third year political science barely know there was a war in Vietnam.  A substantial majority don’t recognize the name Tommy Douglas.   

 

 

Nobody asks questions 

Is the government doing well?  How can I help to change things I think are important?  Should CSIS be allowed to collect everybody’s phone data.  Should Canada buy the F35?  Once a dynamic caldron of intellectual curiosity, passion, debate, challenge, disruption and growth, university today is a place of eerie silence cowering in fear that an idea might offend someone. 

 

This lack of interest in real life politics extends to the Political Science faculty.  I found it bizarre to take a course in American politics from a Prof. who didn’t know that the Republicans had taken control of the Senate the previous year.  When I took a course in public policy development that bore no similarity whatever to the process that has been the centre of my entire professional and political life, silence was no longer an option. 

 

 

Beyond Policy Analysis (text) 

The text is a jaw-dropping cornucopia of Orwellian alternative facts so utterly unrelated to the actual process of policy formation that a conspiracy theorist would see it as a deliberate effort to produce docile employees by supressing in students any notion that they have any role in political power or that their views were important.  It is beyond parody. 

 

“...the origins of policy analysis in the “policy sciences” were steeped in a sense that policy and politics would be immeasurably improved if the messy interplay of political interests could be tamed (if not completely supplanted) by the rational application of technical and expert knowledge.  “Insofar as possible, science and factual information should replace the politics of bargaining and negotiation that characterize pluralist democracy.” ” p 228 

 

If this was how it actually worked in real life, SUVs would be illegal and marijuana would not.  Despite such worthy outcomes, this statement is a complete repudiation of democracy and an endorsement of the policy formation process in Communist China (which, despite its considerable successes, is not a model I wish to emulate).  The problem with a reliance on experts to determine policy is Newton’s Third Law of Politics, which states, “For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert.” 

 

People have different priorities, strengths, needs, and ideas.  There are no objectively correct answers.  We live in a culture with people who are urban/rural, with/without family, hard working/lazy…  The list, and the resulting complications, gets longer fast without even considering ideology, fraud, religion, race, or incompetence.  Democracy is indeed messy.  Politics is how we sort it out.  “Politics, at its best, is nothing more, and nothing less, than the peaceable resolution of conflict among legitimate competing interests” - Mark Shields 

 

Forty years involvement with public policy in the Ontario electricity sector taught me that we live in an effective, functioning democracy and we get the government we deserve.  One person working hard through the system for a long time can have an important impact.  I know this is a fact, not a theory, because I’ve done it myself three times and I’m not done yet. 

 

Issue management in turbulent times (text subtitle) 

During my first journey through higher education (1967 – 75) Brezhnev sent tanks into Prague.  LBJ sent tanks into Detroit (before Black Lives Matter, there was Burn Baby Burn – check out “Black Day in July” on YouTube).  Trudeau the Elder sent tanks into Montreal.  Troops murdered four students at Kent State.  Birth control and homosexuality were made legal.  Political demonstrations were surrounded with first-aid tents for the wounded.  There was a police riot at the Democratic convention.  Israel had two shooting wars with its neighbours.  The second led to an overnight quadrupling of the international price of oil.  Pure evil stalked the earth in human form as Milhous, spreading carnage and death until public pressure led to his impeachment.   

 

We live in comparatively peaceful times.  Suggesting otherwise is marketing for those who want to increase security budgets and compromise privacy and civil liberties.  Canada can best protect its citizens from terror by simply not going to other peoples’ countries and killing them.  The Third Law of Belligerence states, “If you shoot at people, sometimes they shoot back”. 

 

Rational v the competitive and political nature of policy development 

The text describes policy formation as an antiseptic, top down, technical process of thoughtful consideration of the public interest.  In real life policy formation is a combat sport.  Think mixed martial arts with less blood, more tears, and much higher stakes.  Inside government, especially in cabinet, policy positions are  driven by the interests of the donors to the political parties.  Claims about serving the public interest are nothing more than a marketing tool. 

 

In a democracy government responds to people.  The text suggests dealing with government through earnest presentations about the public interest in an orderly process along a flow chart.  This is indeed the approach used by the lobbyists for wealth to argue that tax cuts for the rich and fewer environmental regulations are in the public interest.   

The rest of us, having less money with which to bribe parties, traditionally have had the most success using the grab-them-by-the-throat-and-squeeze-until-their-eyes-bug-out approach to government relations.  When you can organize well enough to make them fear electoral impact they will pay attention.  Government does not respond to politeness, they respond to fear (Kathleen Wynne and electricity rates).  Make government fear your numbers otherwise the priorities of donors dominate based on “The Golden Rule” – who has the gold makes the rules. 

 

Impact of activism 

Most disturbing is the suggestion in this, and other Political Science classes, that effective, large scale social activism is relatively recent phenomena dating from the nineties or perhaps as far back as the seventies (and seen by some theorists as a distracting nuisance).  Really?  Pray tell, what then were the Suffragette, Temperance, CCF, Wobbly (union) movements or the Mac Paps that challenged governments in the decades before I was born?  Were the anti-war, civil rights, women’s liberation, and environment movements I grew up with just hallucinations? 

 

The 1974 Mackenzie Valley Pipeline Inquiry introduced intervener funding which professionalized movement political activism.  The Aboriginal community is working on their third generation of lawyers.  They’re getting really good.  They win a lot.  Governments have learned to fear messing with them.  Women’s groups and environmental advocates have followed their lead.  Computers and the internet have made politics a much more level playing field.   Business still has more lawyers but ours are better.  They are true believers.  

 

 

What is the point of a university education? 

Is the objective of training students for the job market in conflict with teaching the critical thought necessary to encourage innovation, entrepreneurs or participate in democracy?  That depends on your goals and sense of the future.  If one’s life aspiration is limited to a cubicle with a dental plan and a modest condo, and you imagine this is sustainable, the best education is; work hard, do as you’re told, keep your mouth shut, and never, ever, imagine that your opinion is important to those who actually matter.  Public policy is not the concern of the public except on voting day.  The relentless message of “policy science” (sic) is that power is with business and government not individuals or interest groups.   

 

Bullshit!  Interest groups going to court, environmental assessment boards, regulatory tribunals, and hounding politicians, are not subverting the authority of elected members of parliament.  It’s how we have an impact in a rules based democracy.  Aboriginals, women, environmentalists, unions, LGBTQ, or pot smokers, we carry the fight to as many fronts as possible.  Sometimes we win.  Sometimes we lose.  We will not kneel.  This is where all positive change comes from.   

 

Join us.  

You are the future 

To be smart, healthy, and educated at a Canadian university makes students here among the most privileged people on the face of this earth.  You are the future.  Not only does your opinion matter, it’s all that matters.  If you hope to live as well as me when you hit my age, you have to aim much higher than a cubicle.  You have to save the world.  You will have to make sacrifices for your kids that my generation and the generation that runs the university didn’t make for you.   

 

None of this is fair.  It wasn’t your selfish, short-sighted mismanagement of the environment and economy that created the degradation and debt you’re going to raise a family in.  To live and prosper you have to clean up the mess we left you.  Business as usual is not a survivable option. 

 

Peace, the environment, the economy.  Be inclusive.  Intolerant political correctness, identity politics, and pronoun wars will narrow your organizational base and encumber the alliance building necessary to make a serious difference.  Make yourself difficult to annoy.  A thick skin is an absolutely essential political resource.  There are no “safe spaces” in real life, especially if you compete for the high stakes that are always part of changing government policy.   Potential losers in a policy discussion will exploit your every weakness and crush you if they can.  Do not allow the pursuit of perfection to encumber the achievement of the useful.   

 

People that don’t ask questions and check the answers elected Donald Tweet.  The Women’s March on Washington and the American Civil Liberties Union flooding the airports with lawyers in response to the Muslim ban are the meme of the new revolution.  Make it grow or your kids are screwed. 

 

 

Question Authority 

Raise questions and demand answers.  Authority is a necessary part of society but, get into the habit of keeping it on a short, accountable leash with a choke chain.  If not on the great issues of the day, start with local questions that effect student life.  Why is there no seating for the buses while the university is piling boulders in front of the UC?  Why do we have to walk through mud – crossing for the bus at the South Loop, in front of Massey, across Johnson Green?  Would you hire an engineer trained at a university that showcases north facing solar panels (Raithby House)?  Given the grotesque overuse of materials, what makes the Gryphon Bike shelter “green”?  Can we have a mileage standard to get a permit for the university parking lot?   

 

Many of these questions have perfectly reasonable answers that are available on request – but nobody ever asks.  That’s OK for fitting into a cubicle - not so good for participating in democracy, starting a business, or being an innovator. 

 

 

Battlehippie values 

Community and co-operation work better than selfishness and competition. 

Make love not war 

The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment 

Women should be paid a dollars wage for a dollars work 

Racism is evil 

 

Jesus was a Hippie

Jesus advocated peace, love, forgiveness, charity, education, and free health care.  He discussed complex topics at length, opposed capital punishment, supported the separation of church and state and the payment of taxes. He never talked about the importance of the military.  His first miracle was bootlegging and last act was to make drinking wine a sacrament.

The Jesus Christ depicted by the Bible in today’s America would hang with Bernie and AOC.  Fifty years ago, Christ would have been a hippie environmental and civil rights activist who supported the women’s movement and opposed wars.  Eighty years ago Christ would have been a supporter of Norman Bethune – a Communist and womanizer. 

Health Care

Healing miracles were the backbone of Christ’s marketing.  He gave them to everybody and gave them for free.  Medicare for all.

Party wine, loaves and fishes, knowledge, compassion, leprosy cures.  A complete social service agency.  We would all be better off if government and society actively promoted the Christian agenda as presented by Christ.

First Miracle – Bootlegging

At mom’s request, Christ provided between 120 and 180 gallons of high quality wine for a party, skirting the Roman monopoly.  How would that have worked out during Prohibition?

John 2:1-11 - 1 And the third day there was a marriage in Cana of Galilee; and the mother of Jesus was there: 2 And both Jesus was called, and his disciples, to the marriage. 3 And when they wanted wine, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. 4 Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come. 5 His mother saith unto the servants, Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it. 6 And there were set there six waterpots of stone, after the manner of the purifying of the Jews, containing two or three firkins apiece. 7 Jesus saith unto them, Fill the waterpots with water. And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And he saith unto them, Draw out now, and bear unto the governor of the feast. And they bare it. 9 When the ruler of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and knew not whence it was: (but the servants which drew the water knew;) the master of the feast called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory. And rhis disciples believed in him.

Cleaning the Temple

Unlike the leading figures of the Old Testament, Jesus was working class - a carpenter.  He had been doing manual labour for twenty years and had the best nutrition and health care.  He was toned and ripped.  He marches into the Temple of Jerusalem, the centre of Jewish society, and starts kicking over tables and slapping around big shots (no archangels, floods, or plagues).  Jesus was Badass!  Not what Yahweh would have done. 

Matthew 21:12-13 - 12 Jesus entered the temple courts and drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves. 13 “It is written,” he said to them, “‘My house will be called a house of prayer,’ but you are making it ‘a den of robbers.’”

Opposed capital punishment in defiance of the Law of Moses

John 8:1-11 - 1 Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 2 At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. 3 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6 They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7 When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8 Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. 9 At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?” 11 “No one, sir,” she said. “Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

 

Evangelical Christians are really Orthodox Jews

Today’s Evangelical Christians reject everything Jesus taught in favour of the lessons of the Old Testament.  They are Ultra Orthodox Jews, not Christians.  They worship Yahweh not Christ. 

It’s the Old Testament, not Jesus, that gave us creationism, the flood, and hating gays as well as positive depictions of war, slavery, genocide, and misogyny.  Except for factions of the Ultra Orthodox, most Jews see Genesis as a background story, not literal history – and it’s their book.

Yahweh was a thin skinned, narcissistic, genocidal, control freak devoted to military solutions, blind obedience, and hypocrisy - a Republican.  Of course they support Trump. 

 

Selective use of the Bible

The Bible is a Newtonian document.  For every Proverb, there is an equal and opposite Proverb.  "An eye for an eye" vs. "Let he who is without sin"

It's easy to find Biblical support for all manner of positions.

 

The Beast - 666 - has been here

We have already been visited by the Beast who did massive damage we still feel.  He undermined co-operation in society and adored the military.  He was the father of wealth inequality and ruinous deficits.  He said, “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help.’ ”

He was clearly identified as specified in the Bible by the mark of the beast - 666.  Count the letters in his name – Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Revelation 13:11–18 -   11Then I saw another beast rising out of the earth. It had two horns like a lamb and it spoke like a dragon.12It exercises all the authority of the first beast in its presence, and makes the earth and its inhabitants worship the first beast, whose mortal wound was healed.13It performs great signs, even making fire come down from heaven to earth in front of people,14and by the signs that it is allowed to work in the presence of the beast it deceives those who dwell on earth, telling them to make an image for the beast that was wounded by the sword and yet lived.15And it was allowed to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast might even speak and might cause those who would not worship the image of the beast to be slain.16Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead,17so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name.18This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666.

Promiscuity is the badge of success

Given the Evangelical preference for the Old Testament, why are they so hostile to active sexuality?  The titleholder of "King of the Jews" blessed by Yahweh got more sex that Hugh Hefner.  Getting laid a lot is a badge of leadership and success, the example set for followers.

1 Kings 11:1-3 - King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. 2 They were from nations about which the Lord had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. 3 He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.

2 Samuel 5:13 - 13 And David took more concubines and wives from Jerusalem, after he came from Hebron, and more sons and daughters were born to David.

 

Jesus promoted separation of church and state and paying taxes

Mark 12:13-17 - 13 Later they sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus to catch him in his words. 14 They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know that you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by others, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. Is it right to pay the imperial tax[a] to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay or shouldn’t we?”But Jesus knew their hypocrisy. “Why are you trying to trap me?” he asked. “Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 16 They brought the coin, and he asked them, “Whose image is this? And whose inscription?” “Caesar’s,” they replied. 17 Then Jesus said to them, “Give back to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s.”   And they were amazed at him.

Abortion

According to the Bible, abortion is acceptable into the tenth month if the baby is inconvenient to power.

David gets Bathsheba pregnant

2 Samuel 11:1-6 - 1 In the spring, at the time when kings go off to war, David sent Joab out with the king’s men and the whole Israelite army. They destroyed the Ammonites and besieged Rabbah. But David remained in Jerusalem.  2 One evening David got up from his bed and walked around on the roof of the palace. From the roof he saw a woman bathing. The woman was very beautiful, 3 and David sent someone to find out about her. The man said, “She is Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam and the wife of Uriah the Hittite.” 4 Then David sent messengers to get her. She came to him, and he slept with her. (Now she was purifying herself from her monthly uncleanness.) Then she went back home. 5 The woman conceived and sent word to David, saying, “I am pregnant.”

David had Bathsheba’s husband killed.

2 Samuel 11:14-18 - 14 In the morning David wrote a letter to Joab and sent it with Uriah. 15 In it he wrote “Put Uriah out in front where the fighting is fiercest. Then withdraw from him so he will be struck down and die. ” 16 So while Joab had the city under siege, he put Uriah at a place where he knew the strongest defenders were. 17 When the men of the city came out and fought against Joab, some of the men in David’s army fell; moreover, Uriah the Hittite died.

Yahweh was not pleased with David

2 Samuel 11:27 - 27 When the time of mourning was over, David sent and [a]brought her to his house and she became his wife; then she bore him a son. But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord.

Yahweh killed the baby – and it took a week

2 Samuel 12:9-20 - 9 Why did you despise the word of the Lord by doing what is evil in his eyes? You struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword and took his wife to be your own. You killed him with the sword of the Ammonites. 10 Now, therefore, the sword will never depart from your house, because you despised me and took the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your own.’  11 “This is what the Lord says: ‘Out of your own household I am going to bring calamity on you. Before your very eyes I will take your wives and give them to one who is close to you, and he will sleep with your wives in broad daylight. 12 You did it in secret, but I will do this thing in broad daylight before all Israel.’” 13 Then David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the Lord.” Nathan replied, “The Lord has taken away your sin. You are not going to die. 14 But because by doing this you have shown utter contempt for[a] the Lord, the son born to you will die.” 15 After Nathan had gone home, the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill.  16 David pleaded with God for the child. He fasted and spent the nights lying in sackcloth[b] on the ground. 17 The elders of his household stood beside him to get him up from the ground, but he refused, and he would not eat any food with them.  On the seventh day the child die.

Killing David and Bathsheba’s baby permitted the orderly succession of Solomon – abortion in the tenth month in the service of politics

2 Samuel 12:24-25 - ²⁴ Then David comforted his wife Bathsheba, and he went to her and made love to her. She gave birth to a son, and they named him Solomon. The Lord loved him; ²⁵ and because the Lord loved him, he sent word through Nathan the prophet to name him Jedidiah.^[a]