FROLITICKS

Satirical commentary on Canadian and American current political issues

May 10

America Wanted to be Great Again.  Now It’s Just Sick!

by bcurry

I know what I’m about to write is controversial.  However, it is true and the facts bear it out.  During and after the pandemic, the U.S. like a lot of countries went through very difficult times.  Over a million Americans died due to COVID and many more were ill and now face what has become known as long COVID.  The rate for COVID-related deaths was the highest on a per-capita basis among industrialized countries.  Although a vaccine existed, a large number of Americans refused to get immunized and even prevented their children from being protected against this horrific disease.  Now, corporate giants are buying up primary care practices at a rapid pace in order to institute what is now referred to as corporate medicine.  In order to take advantage of the growing privatization of Medicare and an aging population, deals are being made which will risk shifting the balance in health care from quality treatment to profits.  Today, nearly seven in ten of all American doctors are either employed by a hospital or a corporation, with primary care doctors increasing simply becoming employees.  It’s all tied to billing.  As for Medicaid coverage, as pandemic protection expires, states are again determining which people are eligible for the health insurance program.  Millions could potentially lose access to their current coverage. 

Then there is the issue of abortion.  More and more states have placed either greater restrictions on legal abortions or have effectively banned abortions within their states.  Anti-abortion factions have even initiated lawsuits aimed at questioning the safety of medication abortion, the method used in more than half of abortions in the U.S.  They are trying to block legal access to mifepristone, a drug approved years ago by the Food and Drug Administration (F.D.A.) as being safe.  The Justice Department strongly disputed the claims in these lawsuits The F.D.A.’s rigorous reviews of mifepristone over the years repeatedly reaffirmed its decision to approve mifepristone, which blocks a hormone that allows a pregnancy to develop.  In addition, where states have placed strict prohibitions on abortions, doctors are complaining that the health of pregnant women can be seriously endangered due to their inability to perform an abortion for medical reasons, resulting in needless suffering.

Then there is the record number of mass shootings so far this year in the U.S.  To date, there have been 22 mass killings in 2023, defined as four or more people killed, not including the perpetrator.  According to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit publicly sourced database, there have also been at least 202 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year, leaving 792 victims injured and 276 dead.  The archive defines a mass shooting as at least four victims struck by gunfire.  Military-styled assault weapons, used in most of these shooting are everywhere, and apparently easily purchased by anyone without stringent background checks.  As usual, Republicans and gun owners offer their condolences and prayers, often alluding to some form of mental illness as the primary cause.  While mental illness is a concern, studies have shown that the majority of the shooters acted because of other motivations, including hate and anger directed at particular groups and individuals.  There appears to be no end to these tragedies in sight.

Then there are the growing actions by certain states over transgender youth.  Over the past three years, Republican state lawmakers have put forward a barrage of bills to regulate the lives of transgender youths, restricting the sports teams they can play on, bathrooms they can use and medical care they can receive.  The people pushing these laws include Christian conservatives — among them some of the same figures who fought the legalization of gay marriage.  Medical groups have overwhelmingly rejected arguments by conservative activists emphasizing parental control and child protection and calling transition care harmful.  They note that transgender people have higher rates of depression and suicide.  Research shows that transition care — which can involve puberty blockers, hormones or surgery, though minors rarely receive surgery — can improve mental health.

Over all, the list goes on and on and on.  I have not even touched on issues related to climate change which several state governments continue to ignore and disavow.  I used to look up to the U.S., but no more.  Its policies now represent the elements of one very sick society.

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Feb 16

We Now Have a Generation of Survivors of School Mass Shootings

by bcurry

Since the Columbine High School attack of 1999, which left 12 students and one teacher dead and reshaped how Americans viewed mass shootings, we now have a generation of young people who have witnessed more than one school shooting.  Most recently, gunshots erupted on the vast Michigan State University campus, killing three students and injuring five others.  Unfortunately, many on campus felt a chilling sense of familiarity.  Today, several college students were just children when the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, killed 26 students, teachers and staff members in 2012.  Nine years later, the Oxford High School shooting in a nearby township outside of Detroit left four teenagers dead.  These were just but a representative few of the recent school mass shootings in the U.S.

Following the recent shooting at Michigan State University, the New York Times interviewed several students only to find that a number had also experienced a school shooting when they were in elementary and high schools.  One student interviewed on campus, who was at Sandy Hook Elementary on the day of the shooting, was reported to have said that “it was incomprehensible to have lived through two mass shootings in her 21 years.”  University faculty interviewed also noted that a number of their students had experienced a school shooting while in primary or secondary school.  Can one imagine how this latest school shooting must psychologically affect these young people?  I couldn’t imagine their current state of mind!

Those of us who attended college understand that the idea of security on campus is a difficult concept because of the size of a campus, with many buildings and facilities being frequently used by students, teachers and administrators.  Since mass school shootings occurred more frequently, colleges have introduced new security or safety measures in order to protect students and to prevent casualties from such incidents.  These include requiring key cards or photo identification to enter most campus buildings, sports facilities and residences.  Common across the country, campus wide systems were introduced whereby security alerts are sent to cellphones when there is a possible or actual threat on campus.  However, in most cases students must opt into the service, rather than opting out.  Campus police departments as part of their continuous training learn to prepare for and how to respond to threats. In the U.S., they often work closely with Federal Bureau of Investigation (F.B.I.) campus liaisons to track potential threats from outside the school.  Many colleges also have threat-assessment teams made up of public safety officers, counsellors and student affairs groups, who try to spot troubled students and staff members who might be considering violent acts.  In such cases, school and community support services are made available to students with any issues.  However, this does not help those situations, as in the case of Michigan State, where the perpetrator comes from off-campus and is not affiliated directly with the school.

The ideal is that campuses of colleges and universities are meant to be open in the spirit of higher learning and freedom.  Therefore, at the post-secondary level, the authorities have to undergo a balancing act between allowing freedom of movement and enforcing security on campuses.  In the U.S. in particular, this is not an easy thing to do.  Even in Canada, colleges and universities have introduced more security measures in light of what has happened south of the border.  Fortunately, Canadians have seen far fewer violent incidents on our campuses, especially incidents involving gun violence.  Remembering back to my days in college, it is a shame that young people today go off to campuses under such a cloud of insecurity.  One has to feel for the parents who can only assume that their children are learning and developing in a safe environment.

Students today are being forced to be ever vigilant, recognizing that even college campuses are but another reflection of our societal woes.  Gone it appears are the more carefree and anticipated opportunities for growth that come with college and university experiences.  Increasingly, students are being forced to deal with continuous security and safety issues.  However, perhaps these experiences are meant to prepare young people for what they will experience in later life.  Alas, reality has indeed embraced our campuses.

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May 17

The Role of Conspiracy Theories in Radicalizing North American White Folk

by bcurry

As the recent tragic shooting and killing of innocent blacks by a young white supremacist in Buffalo, New York, demonstrates, there is the growing role of conspiracy theories.  The racist ‘replacement theory’ has become a common far-right ideology and has been connected to multiple mass shootings carried out by white supremacists, including the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue shooting, 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, a Black church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015 and the 2019 shooting of Hispanics at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas .  Unfortunately, its central ideas are now promoted not just by violent extremists, but by right wing media personalities like Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

The conspiracy theory’s more racist adherents believe Jews are behind the so-called replacement plan.  Broadly speaking, the roots of this ‘replacement theory’ are deep.  In the U.S., one can point to past and current efforts to intimidate and discourage Black people from voting.  The antagonists’ view this as replacing” white voters at the polls — dating to the Reconstruction era after the 15th Amendment made clear suffrage couldn’t be restricted on account of race.  More recently, white nationalists marching at the Charlottesville, Virginia, rally in 2017 chanted “You will not replace us!” and “Jews will not replace us!”

There are Americans and Canadians who believe in conspiracy ideas about immigrants being brought into the U.S. and Canada as part of a political plot to increase non-white voters in support of so-called ‘liberal’ and ‘left-oriented’ political parties.  Besides Fox News, many of the followers prefer watching right-wing networks such as OANN or Newsmax.  Access to such networks is readily available on both sides of the border, often via the Internet.  Extreme nationalist groups in turn promote such conspiracy theories on their on Web sites.  Thus begins the radicalization of young whites, men in particular.  Regrettably, like other conspiracy theories, the ‘replacement theory’ has even been taken up by some right-wing politicians.  The fact is that such theories have no place in the traditional conservative thinking, and certainly not in their platforms.  In the U.S. in particular, one needs Republicans in particular to disavow such theories.

Don’t think for a moment that this theory is only believed by a small number of Americans.  In a poll released last week, the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that about 1 in 3 Americans believe an effort is underway to replace U.S.-born Americans with immigrants for electoral gain.  The attention paid by many Republican politicians to what they see as a leaky southern border along the U.S. has been interpreted, at least by some, as a nod to the concern of white people who worry about being “replaced.”

However, while the majority of followers of replacement theory do not overtly promote calls to arms, there are smaller groups of white supremacists who are inclined to support violent tactics.  Indeed, they consider those behind the above noted horrific mass shootings as being saints in their eyes.  They sadly don’t hesitate to use such theories as a means to justify the use of violence.

The question for governments and societies is how to combat the spread of such conspiracy theories and the resulting climate of hate that they support?  There are no easy answers.  It may not be enough to just treat the associated violent behaviour as hate crimes, after the fact.  What is most likely needed is to confront and outright disown such theories and the resulting disinformation, especially emerging from certain media sources.  Political and spiritual leaders have to step up on a daily basis to speak against such divisive conspiracy theories and to promote unity and mutual respect among our citizens.  This will take a massive effort, particularly as hate mongering has simmered in our society for decades.  Much more has to be done to de-radicalize our youth in particular.  De-radicalization is the on-going process of hopefully changing a person’s belief system through such means as peer group and family intervention and various education schemes.

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Dec 6

27 years after the Montreal massacre, gun control in Canada is as lax as ever

by bcurry

On December 6, 1989, Marc Lépine shot and killed 14 women at Université de Montréal’s École Polytechnique, before turning his (legally registered) semi-automatic gun on himself. That tragic event set in motion a new chapter in the history of gun control in Canada. On this day, numerous campaigns, marches, vigils and related events are held every year across Canada.

The federal government passed stricter gun control policies just six years after the tragedy, including the establishment of a long-gun registry. However, the Conservative government under Stephen Harper unfortunately dismantled the long-gun registry in 2012, and eased several restrictions on restricted or prohibited weapons. The same 2012 law abolishing the long-gun registry also relieved private gun sellers from the obligation of asking to see the buyer’s firearms permit.

The U.S., with the least gun control laws among industrialized countries, saw 181 mass public shootings with at least four fatalities since 1900. One of the most recent was the Pulse nightclub massacre in Orlando, Florida, which saw 49 people killed by a shooter carrying a legally purchased AR-15 assault rifle. Rather than introducing stricter gun control initiatives, most states have made it easier to carry concealed weapons and to purchase guns, all the result of the Supreme Court’s nonsensical decision endorsing the ‘right to bear arms’ in their constitution.  Thankfully, Canada doesn’t have such a precarious right, despite what the Canadian Firearms Institute may advocate.

Today, Canadians continue to remind young people of the need to avoid tragedies such as that at the École Polytechnique 27 years ago. We must strive to ensure that there are much needed controls on the lawful possession and use of firearms.  The three pillars of gun control are licensing of gun owners, control on guns and a ban on weapons that are designed solely for the purpose of killing other human beings.  Whether such laws work in preventing deaths is a matter of politics. What is real are the lives that might potentially be saved.

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Dec 4

Help Me To Understand Mass Killings in the U.S.

by bcurry

Let me understand this.  The latest mass shooting in San Bernardino, California, which killed 14 people and injured 21 others, represented the 355th such mass shooting in 2015.  Mass shootings are usually defined as incidents in which four or more people, including the gunman, are killed or injured by gunfire.  According to the Reddit tracker, the number of mass shootings so far this year in the U.S. has already surpassed the total number of mass shootings in 2014.  At this pace, the total will be well above 2013’s pace, when a total of 363 mass shootings were recorded.

What is really difficult to understand is why Congress would block an attempt to ban the sale of weapons to persons on the American potential terrorist watch list.  According to the Government Accountability Office and The Washington Post’s Wonkblog, more than 2,000 terrorism suspects purchased guns in the U.S. between 2004 and 2014.  Democrats have repeatedly proposed closing that loophole, but the National Rifle Association and its Republican allies have apparently blocked those efforts, so it’s still legal.

In addition, just hours before this latest mass shooting, more than 2,000 physicians from around the country petitioned federal lawmakers to lift a restriction on research.  For nearly two decades, the restriction essentially blocked the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from conducting research on gun violence.  The doctors spoke about the need to view gun violence as a public health epidemic and research ways to solve it – as the country would with any disease causing thousands of American deaths each year.  The removal of the restriction would have in no way infringed on the rights of gun owners.

As in the case of other mass killers, the authorities discovered that the assailants had large caches of lethal arms and ammunition in their possession.  Police found more than 1,600 rounds of ammunition on or near the California couple, suggesting that they were prepared for a long siege.  Police recovered two assault rifles and two 9mm pistols, all legally purchased, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  Kind of makes you wonder why such large quantities of munitions and the purchase of assault rifles wouldn’t have raised some eyebrows!

When one person dies in America every 16 minutes from a gun, people discuss an urgent need to talk about remedies.  Democrats, including President Obama, want to address America’s problems with guns.  Republicans talk about the need to address mental health. Both are right.  Society routinely constructs policies that reduce the toll of deadly products and activities all around us.  That’s what we do with cars (driver’s licenses, seatbelts, guardrails).  It’s what we do with swimming pools (fences, childproof gates, pool covers).  We often pre-examine and licence people (police officers, military personnel, drivers, pilots) so as to prevent persons with mental or other health issues from potentially endangering public safety.  Indeed, when it comes to improving universal background checks, recent polls have shown that a majority of gun owners would approve such an initiative.  So one can only ask why Americans aren’t ready to really deal with this issue?  I don’t have an answer or logical explanation.  Maybe you do.

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