FROLITICKS

Satirical commentary on Canadian and American current political issues

Apr 29

Like in Australia, the Problem of Gambling Addiction in North America Comes to a Head

by bcurry

Back in 2005, a study in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry found provinces that have casinos and large numbers of video-lottery terminals (VLTs) per capita also had some of Canada’s highest rates of problem gambling.  What reminded me of this issue was a very recent article by Samuel Tuck in Addiction News Now about the current situation in Australia.  He notes that Australia, while it is home to less than half a percent of the world’s population, has 20 percent of the world’s VLTS — further noting that 80 percent of VLTs are located outside casinos.  The result is a nation with the world’s worst average gambling losses: About $1,000 per adult each year.  In addition, as with many gambling addicts, easy access to VLTs can fuel suicides, domestic violence, insolvencies, employment loss and financial crimes.  Apparently, the VLTs, called “pokies” in Australia, are everywhere: in pubs, corner stores, restaurants, sports facilities, entertainment centers, etc.  Of course, the gambling industry says that VLTs are legal, regulated and enjoyed responsibly by millions of Australians.

Of course, gambling is big business, and VLTs are no exception.  As in Canada, thousands of Australian jobs depend on the gambling industry and it brings in billions of dollars to state governments and retailers.  Samuel Tuck compares the power of the gambling industry in Australia to that of the gun lobby in the United States.  As reported by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation last year, he notes that that the gambling industry had donated at least $60 million to the three major political parties over the past two decades.  In Canada, provincial governments have gambled big on gaming and lotteries, collecting almost $14 billion in revenue each year.  However, a 2016 poll by the AngusReid Institute found that one-in-four Canadians (26%) reported they were personally affected by problem gambling – either because they’re struggling with this addiction themselves – or because they have a close relationship with someone who is.  Most say necessary help for this problem has not been forthcoming. Canadian studies have also found three to four percent of teenagers and adolescents in their early 20s have a serious gambling problem compared to 0.8 to two percent of the adult population.

To top it off, companies and businesses are going after the growing youth market.  They are introducing a new class of machines, aimed at attracting younger players who grew up with more skill demanding video games.  Adding an element of hand-eye coordination, however simple, is just one way slot makers are labouring to broaden the appeal of the insistently bleating devices that have proved so popular among older players.  Besides new devices that provide an extra payoff for game-playing dexterity, manufacturers have developed communal games that link clusters of machines — which are proving popular with people under 40. Coming soon are VLTs with joysticks, which the industry expects to be particularly popular. Others machines will allow users to play in tandem or against one another, much as they do in many Internet games.

Although experts recognize gambling addiction, it is not usually treated as an illness in the same way as alcoholism and drug addiction.  Limiting access to gambling sources, such as VLTs, is a first step.  However, persons with addictions to gambling may be harder to detect as their symptoms are not so obvious.  The costs of gambling addiction to society and families are great, often the result of employment and productivity losses and mental-physical impairment.  The fact is we do poorly in providing support/counselling services for gambling addicts and their families.

Canada

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Apr 24

When It Comes to Treating LGBTQ in American Schools, What Happened to Their Parental Rights

by bcurry

On March 28, 2022, Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis signed into the Parental Rights in Education bill into law.  The Act now bars instruction on sexual orientation and gender identity in kindergarten through the third grade.  Critics had dubbed it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill which in turn suddenly sparked a national war of words, particularly among the LGBTQ community.  On top of which, the legislation created opposition by Florida’s Disney World against Governor DeSantis.  This has led to the Florida legislature to vote to undo the special district that Disney operates in, potentially affecting Disney’s ability to build new attractions, creating potential hiccups in transitioning to many of its current public services and increased expenses for Disney — which could mean higher prices at the gate.  The resulting economic impact could be massive.

What is even more important is the impact on the rights of LGBTQ parents and gay or transgender students.  Much of the justification put forward for such laws is that it protects the rights of parents, who by all concerned are non-LGBTQ parents.  Those opposed to the law argue that the Act centers around whether it would prohibit the “instruction” or “discussion” of sexual orientation.  Critics of the law say its language “classroom instruction,” “age appropriate” and “developmentally appropriate” is overly broad and subject to broad interpretation.  Consequently, teachers might opt to avoid the subjects entirely at all grade levels for fear of being sued by parents as now permitted under the law.  Opponents of the law also say that banning lessons about gender identity and sexual orientation marginalizes LGBTQ people and their presence in society.  DeSantis appears to love playing with smoke and mirrors.  Andrew Spar, president of the Florida Education Association, said the law is nothing more than a political wedge issue for Republicans.  He notes that elementary schools, especially in kindergarten through third grade, currently don’t even teach these subjects, much like “critical race theory”.

Moreover, there is little recourse left open to LGBTQ parents or students other than filing complaints with federal officials when they believe they are experiencing discrimination in school.  Subsequent to the bill’s passage, U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona said that his agency “will be monitoring this law upon implementation to evaluate whether it violates federal civil rights law.”  However, as everyone knows, such processes can often take years to implement, leaving LGBTQ parents and students in the lurch and prone to harassment.

Florida is not the only state that considered such a law, as a number of other conservative states have moved in a similar direction.  Take for example Alabama.  There you have the second openly gay lawmaker, Neil Rafferty, sitting in the state legislature.  As a Democrat, he has spent much of his current term in the Alabama Legislature working to prevent new restrictions on gay and transgender young people.  Mr. Rafferty appealed to his colleagues and constituents with Republican proponents on the basis of their conservatism, arguing that they had no business involving themselves in the decisions of parents, doctors and children.  “Where’s the freedom in that?” he asked. “Where’s small government in that?”

Indeed, there appears to be a fair amount of hypocrisy in the current legislative push by Republicans aimed at protecting some parents’ rights, to the detriment of other parents with different values and circumstances.  It’s obvious that this sudden obsession with eliminating any instruction on sexual orientation — including the LGBTQ history in American — and the banning of related reading materials from libraries is nothing more than a political ploy aimed at securing votes from the social conservative rank and file.  But at whose expense and which freedoms?

With so many more important issues to be concerned about today, does one really need to be sidetracked in this manner?  The mental wellbeing of all students, including LGBTQ students, needs to be addressed, especially in light of the negative impact of the pandemic on their education.  Surely, legislators have better things to do than to play politics with children’s lives and those of their parents!

Education in U.S. US US Politics

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Apr 22

Support for and Opposition to the Death Penalty in the U.S. is Mixed Bag

by bcurry

There is the incredible case in Texas of Melissa Lucio who faces execution by lethal injection on April 27th unless action is taken by the state’s parole board and Governor Greg Abbott.  The 53-year-old domestic violence victim and mother of 14 has been on death row since her trial over the 2007 death of her two-year-old daughter.  However, her lawyers argue she “falsely” admitted to killing her daughter after hours of intense police questioning, and that her daughter’s death was an accident and not the result of having been beaten.  The case of course has drawn a lot of attention on the national scene and among state lawmakers in Texas.

Once again, there is rising opposition against the death penalty in the U.S.  For example, the news outlet, The Independent, and the nonprofit Responsible Business Initiative for Justice have launched a joint campaign calling for an end to the death penalty in the U.S.  High-profile executives like Ariana Huffington, Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, and Virgin Group founder Sir Richard Branson are part of this initiative, as well as a number of American celebrities.  At last count, there are twenty-seven states across America that still have the death penalty on the books, including Texas.  Amnesty International notes that for every eight people executed in the United States since the 1970s, one person has been wrongfully convicted and later exonerated.  That’s the ones we know about who were exonerated before they were killed.  According the Amnesty International, for the 12th consecutive year, the U.S remained the only country to carry out executions in the Americas in 2020.  After 17 years, the Trump administration had resumed federal executions, eventually putting 10 men to death over five and a half months.  Among Western industrialized countries, the U.S. remains the only country with the death penalty.

In Canada, capital punishment was abolished in 1976 by the Canadian government.  Instead, Canadian courts can impose life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.  However, there is a segment of the population that supports the reinstatement of the death penalty for murder in Canada.  According to a poll by Angus Reid in 2012, a majority of Canadians polled supported reinstating capital punishment, particularly as a perceived so-called ‘deterrent’.  However, this support “drops considerably” when given the choice of life in prison without parole.  Today, the fact is that no federal government would dare support a return to capital punishment as it is not politically a high priority in Canada or an issue with much public support.  It’s highly unlikely that any government or political party would suggest bringing back the death penalty.

According to Amnesty International, by the end of 2020, 108 countries (a majority of the world’s states) had abolished the death penalty in law for all crimes and 144 countries had abolished the death penalty in law or practice.  The fact of the matter is that in those conservative American states, often governed by Republicans, there is little possibility that the death penalty might be banned and replaced entirely by life in prison without parole.  Nevertheless, some states have introduced moratoriums on executions which may or may not continue depending on the politics of the day. 

Once again, the high-profile case of Melissa Lucio, where there are so many unresolved questions surrounding the case and the evidence used to convict her, has raised concerns over the continuing use of capital punishment.  Despite such cases, it appears highly unlikely that the affected state legislatures would be willing to once again debate the use of the death penalty.  It will be very interesting to see whether Texas Governor Greg Abbott will spare the life of this unfortunate woman and mother who appears to be innocent.  The real question is how many innocent people are you okay with being punished so that a guilty person can be executed?  I would answer: “One is too many!”

Death Penalty US

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Apr 16

Tackling Systemic Racism Which Continues to Exist in American and Canadian Schools

by bcurry

School segregation in the U.S. is defined as the separation of students based on their race to the extent that an institution can be racially predominant by black students or white students.  Currently more than half of all students in the U.S. attend school distracts with high racial concentration.  Racial segregation in schools has a long history that leads up to modern times.  Although enforced racial segregation is now illegal, American schools are more racially segregated now than in the late 1960s, especially in the Northeast U.S.  Much of de facto segregation between Black, Hispanic and White students is the result of where public schools are located and their respective tax base in support of the schools, often referred to as ‘residential segregation’.  Many of the underlying problems of segregation haven’t been solved, even if it’s no longer legal.

Unlike in the U.S., the vast majority of Canadian public schools are financially supported by the provinces, given that each province is responsible for education under the constitution.  While property taxes do support a portion of funding for schools, the province guarantees that additional funding is allocated based on the number of students.  This reinforces the need to ensure adequate funding intended to provide equal access, teaching and curriculum in each school district.  However, this does not preclude the issue of systemic discrimination occurring in schools where visible minorities, including Black students, are in attendance.  Most boards of education don’t deny there is systemic racism in their schools, and have introduced measures in the last few years aimed at dealing with it.  In Ontario, the Ministry of Education conducted a recent review that showed a disproportionate number of Black students are streamed into applied courses — meant for students seeking to go to college instead of university — regardless of academic performance.  This is referred to as ‘streaming for students’ which led to implicit biases whereby a disproportionate number of Black students were prevented from going to university instead of community colleges.  As in the U.S., the review also disclosed that many more Black students received suspensions than White students relative to their proportion of the student population.

Many American schools are segregated by ethnicity and poverty, and for some minority students — particularly the soaring Latino population — the segregation is also by language.  As a result, even the highest-achieving Black and Hispanic students are often denied access to advanced math and science courses in the later grades, although such access is more commonplace for their White peers.  In Canada, the same can be said for new immigrants in particular who, because of their presumed ability in English and their accents, are often forced into remedial classes despite good academic capabilities. Thus, they are being unfairly held back.

Some students believe a key solution is to hire more Black and other teachers representing visible minorities in both countries.  As the population becomes more diverse, it seems only too obvious that such teachers would be in a better position to understand and appreciate the daily challenges that non-White students face on a daily basis.  For example, in a 2016 census of teaching staff, one Ontario school board showed seven percent of staff members identified as Black, while 67 percent identified as White.  That’s in contrast to a student census, which showed 10 percent of its students were Black, while 13 percent were White.  The lack of ethnic diversity among teaching staffs can do nothing but accentuate the prevalence of systemic racism in the eyes of Black, Hispanic and other visible minority students.

While things have improved somewhat in both American and Canadian schools, a lot more needs to be done to deal with systemic racism in the education systems.  In order to ensure equal opportunities for all young people, more funding and resources are needed to raise the standards for public education in each country.  There is an evident need to ensure that school board members, administrative and teaching staffs are sufficiently educated themselves about systemic discrimination and its resulting effects on the future of these young people.  No issue could be more important as there will be even greater population diversity in the coming years.

Canada Education Education in U.S. Race Relations Racism Racism US

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Apr 7

Is the Separation of Church and State Still Possible in the U.S. and Canada?

by bcurry

In both the U.S. and Canada, several religious groups attempted during the pandemic to have certain public health restrictions thrown out by the courts, but to no avail.  They argued that governments were infringing on their rights of assembly and religious freedom, which they felt were guaranteed by their respective constitutions.  However, the courts ruled that there was no such violation of rights since the broad-based restrictions were not specifically directed at religious gatherings, but were directed at places where normally the public would gather, often involving mandated lockdowns. 

Now, I’m no constitutional expert, but under the circumstances the imposition of health-based restrictions appeared to be more than reasonable.  Indeed, many churches, synagogues, mosques and other religious entities were more than happy to comply with the restrictions in their places of worship.  They did so out of concern for the safety and health of their congregations in light of the real dangers attributed to the pandemic.  No one’s specific religious beliefs were placed in jeopardy, and no constitutional rights were violated.  Let’s face it, no one was being persecuted, and churches found alternative ways to effectively serve their parishioners and communities.

Despite all of this, there is little doubt that religious fervour has been heightened among some Christian movements in particular, as evidenced by the growing political involvement of such groups.  Increasingly, right-wing political movements are taking advantage of many believers who are importing their worship of God, with all its intensity, emotion and ambitions, to their political life.  Politicians like Donald Trump had jumped on this band wagon, waving a bible back in June 2020 in front of St. John’s Church in Washington DC for a photo opportunity.  Talk about someone who is obviously irreligious wanting to garner support for his own political ambitions.  For some of his supporters, right-wing political activity itself is becoming a holy act and is often evident at his rallies.

Both the U.S. and Canadian constitutions are designed to prevent any one church or religious institution from having undo influence in the daily act of governance.  This of course is based on the fundamental principle governing the separation of church and state in each country.  However, this does not mean that certain religious groups will not attempt to influence which political parties or candidates are elected.  As in the case of their opposition to government mandates during the COVID pandemic, they spear head other causes such as the ‘right to life’, opposition to gay marriage, and the promotion of conspiracy theories.  Their attitudes are largely framed by an apparent desire to build a nation that actively promotes a particular set of Christian beliefs.

I firmly believe that many of these religious right-wing groups are feeling threatened by what is happening within both countries.  Immigration and high birth rates are moving the population to one of greater cultural and religious diversity, such that within the next decade white Americans and Canadians of Christian faiths will be outnumbered.  They believe that the predicted changes will undermine their Christian values, such that one often hears them, many of whom attend charismatic or evangelical churches, talking about ‘taking back the country.’  With over a hundred million evangelicals in the U.S., their voices make it hard for many politicians to ignore, especially Republicans, seeking election or re-election in many states.  Many are also attracted to populist movements wherever they may emerge.

Just as some churches attempted to support certain political entities in the past, their leaders and parishioners will do so in the future.  The danger is that the abyss between those who promote a state religion and those who support the separation between church and state will continue to grow.  As history has shown, such conflict could eventually lead to dangerous influences on public policy.  Policy which after all results from governance that reflects the current values of the majority of Americans and Canadians, regardless of their particular secular or religious beliefs.

Canada Populism in Canada Religion Republican Party US US Politics

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Apr 4

Much Like Americans and Vietnam, There Is Dissent Among Russians Over The War In Ukraine

by bcurry

It’s interesting to compare the nature of dissent among Americans during the military action in Vietnam years ago, and Putin’s current so-called “special military action” in the Ukraine by Russian forces.  Having lived during the years of the America’s military action in Vietnam, I can recognize the growing dissent among Russians over the Ukrainian invasion.  One has to remember that the U.S. involvement in Vietnam was never officially declared a war by Congress, but was instead acted upon by presidential executive statements.  America paid a terrible price for its involvement in Vietnam — nearly 60,000 killed in action, over 150,000 wounded, and some 1,600 missing.  Then there was the draft, whereby a good number of young draft-aged Americans were forced into the military and ended up fighting in the jungles of Vietnam against determined and aggressive fighters.  The U.S. military bombed the hell out of North and South Vietnam, apparently with little impact.  The administration’s policy excuse was to prevent some form of domino effect in Southeast Asia should the Communists take over all of Vietnam.  Unfortunately for the much better equipped U.S. military, the national desire of the Vietnamese to unite their country and expel all foreign intruders proved to be too much.  After killing thousands of Vietnamese and destroying much of Vietnam’s infrastructure, the Americans were forced to leave the country with the fall of the South Vietnamese capital of Saigon in April 1975.  Estimates for the number of North Vietnamese civilian deaths resulting from U.S. bombing range from 30,000 to 65,000.

As the Vietnamese conflict lagged on, more and more Americans began to question the U.S. involvement and related human and financial costs.  Some dissent took the form of draft-aged Americans fleeing the country, many to Canada which had an open policy for draftees.  Within the U.S., dissent grew among college students and even among many Vietnam vets.  President Nixon took much of the brunt of such anti-Vietnam protests.  Sometimes, protests became violent resulting in hundreds of arrests by the authorities.  Increasingly, the American press began to question the optimistic briefings provided by the military brass, often highlighting the alleged effectiveness of strategic bombings and gains made by ground forces.  However for the first time in history, video of the conflict provided by front-line war correspondents was seen by American television viewers on a nightly basis.  The influence of the American media was especially important at the time and helped to sway opinion against the conflict.

The biggest difference in the case of dissent against Russia’s incursion into the Ukraine is the complete control by Putin’s regime over state media outlets.  In addition, the punishment against Russians openly protesting the war has resulted in immediate imprisonment and the potential for up to 15 years in prison.  However, dissent has been particularly strong among younger and better educated Russians, as demonstrated by the thousands who have already fled Russia to Eastern and Western European countries.  There has even been dissent expressed among some oligarchs who normally are strongly aligned with Putin’s interests.  The Russian military is even more dependent upon conscription to complement its professional army, to the point that Moscow has indicated that it will conscript around 130,000 more military-aged Russians this year.  However, there have been indications that dissent has emerged among those conscripts currently serving in the Ukraine, including the abandonment of positions and deliberate disabling of equipment.  Faced with a committed and fierce Ukrainian opposition and inept military command, the Russian assault on Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv has been stalled. 

As the Russian economy falters and the war goes on and Russian casualties mount, there is little doubt that ordinary Russians will begin to question what the Putin regime is claiming.  A major difference with Vietnam is the fact that today social media is readily available, no matter how much the government attempts to control it.  Scenes of Russian military actions upon civilians, including the elderly and children, are extremely disturbing.  Increasingly, such actions are being depicted as “war crimes” in the eyes of the world.  As was the case in Vietnam, it will be interesting to see if Russian dissent will grow with the increasing scenes of body bags being returned to the homeland?  Such scenes at U.S. military bases greatly influenced the growth of American dissent as time moved on, especially when there was little indication as to an end to the Vietnam conflict.

Foreign Policy Ukraine US

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