Change Is Difficult---But It Does Happen

There's been a lot of news lately about sexual harassment of women in the Canadian Armed Force. 

I suspect people have lots of ideas about this---one way or another. I've never been in the military, and I'm certainly not a woman. But I think it's important for people of good will to raise issues about problems even if they don't directly affect us. This helps give them more visibility while at the same time taking some of the pressure off those who have had this happen to them.

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I like to watch old movies and television shows because the give me a chance to see how much society has changed over the years---and in a way that isn't "filtered" and "processed" by commentators pushing some sort of agenda. This isn't because they were trying to expose problems in their society but rather because they tend to show what people were oblivious to in times past. 

You Tube helps with this because people often put up old television shows that have no copyright concerns anymore. Lately I've been watching one about submarines called The Silent Service. Generally there isn't much to say other than I never, ever want to be stuck on a submarine during a war. But one episode had a couple scenes in it that just about had my eyeballs pop out of my head. I'll let readers take a look at them to see what I'm talking about.

(If people have a tendency to be triggered by sexism---especially if have been assaulted themselves---you should be warned that this clip can be disturbing. My significant other, who is a veteran who served in the Missouri National Guard during the First Gulf War, was so disturbed when she saw it that she couldn't finish watching.)

Take a moment to think about what is shown in the above clip. The woman (who only is identified as "Nanny") isn't identified as such, but I can only assume is an enlisted person in the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service, or, WRANS. She is performing an important service. She is in uniform (or the studio wardrobe's vague attempt at creating one.) The men harassing her are officers, in their uniforms, and, their commander (ie: the submarine captain) is watching all this take place.

The behaviour seems almost designed to destroy morale among allied enlisted troops and undermine the discipline of the navy! Don't think that this incident is just something a writer dreamed up, though. The US navy was up to their eyeballs supporting this show. Each episode was introduced by a retired admiral. And almost every episode had a epilogue where someone key to the incident was brought on---often in full uniform---to talk about it. Moreover, the producers not only were given access to wartime footage, they were also given access to an active duty navy submarine to shoot new footage. On some level, therefore, the behaviour modelled in the clips was considered "OK" by the Navy brass. 

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Lets really think about what is happening in these two scenes. 

First, "Nanny" was physically grabbed by these young men. Secondly, she makes it very, very obvious that she doesn't want them to do it---but they continue anyway. Moreover, she specifically appeals to their commanding officer to force them to stop, but he doesn't. When she complains, she is told "It's just a joke. Where's your sense of humour?" and about her and all the other women personnel "They love it and you know it." 

Secondly, as officers these idiots are "modelling" behaviour to the lower ranks. They are expected to "set an example", but the one that they are setting says that it's OK to abuse fellow service people if they are women. The problem is that people who don't know much better will see this and figure "it's all OK". And when that happens things will escalate as people push the envelope farther and farther. Eventually someone will get raped. Even if this didn't happen (and don't kid yourself---it probably did), the women got the message loud and clear that they are second-class service people and that they simply could not trust their comrades or superiors. 

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Justice Louis Arbour

We have come a long way since The Silent Service aired, but we still have a long way to go. Today, no one would simply write, shoot, and, air scenes like the ones I've included above. And that is progress. As Francois de la Rochefoucauld said "Hypocrisy is the homage that vice pays to virtue". We've gone past the point where the military couldn't even see how anyone would think it is wrong to assault women, but they still don't want to do much about it. 

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Justice Marie Deschamps

I toyed with speculating about why it is that the military (and the police, for that matter) have such a hard time treating women like equals. I have some suspicions, but the government has announced that retired Justice Louise Arbour will be making an inquiry. I'll let her do that job. Let's hope the result doesn't end up stuck on a shelf gathering dust like the report retired Justice Marie Deschamps wrote six years ago.

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Moreover I say unto you, the Climate Emergency must be dealt with!

Problematic Pandemic People

I've been watching the responses of a variety of public officials plus the public during this pandemic. The rich and varied tapestry of humanity has been, IMHO, somewhat depressing to watch. It appears that quite a few of our provincial premiers have been more concerned about keeping the economy humming than how to keep more people alive. I've also noticed a lot of folks treat the regulations designed to keep spread under control as silly impositions that should be ignored whenever there is a good chance to get away with it. And others seem to be convinced that this is yet another conspiracy by "dark forces" bent on oppression. 

I'm thinking about things like Jason Kenney's unwillingness to condemn---let alone encourage the police to charge---anti-mask protests that simply ignore the province's medical order to limit outside gatherings to 10 or less individuals. 

Jason Kenney c/o Wikimedia

“We would ask people not to engage in large-scale protests, and if they do so, please wear masks,” said Kenney, adding enforcement of any measures under the order Hinshaw signed is up to police, not the government."

I'm also thinking about Doug Ford's initial response to the Adamson's BBQ idiocy. 

Doug Ford c/o Wikimedia

"I can't get angry at any business person right now," Premier Ford says about Adamson BBQ

I'm also thinking about the abysmal way some members of the clergy have responded to the epidemic. The Mennonite community in Wellington and Waterloo counties seems to have totally "fumbled the ball" when it comes to the pandemic. If their leaders are anything like the ones from Steinbach Manitoba and Aylmer Ontario, I can certainly understand why they had an outbreak. Here's a CBC news clip that talks about the protest in Steinbach.

 

If you want to know who was the inspiration for this mess, all you need to do is watch the following video of Rev. Tobias Tiessen (the organizer) being fined in Manitoba and which another "plague rat" pastor named Henry Hildebrandt supposedly posted on his FaceBook page. (I got the video from the Steinbachonline.com news blog. I couldn't find the video on either Tiessen or Hildebrandt's pages, so I assume it's been removed.) The video quality is abysmal, but the audio is pretty clear---and I believe worth listening to simply because of the arrogance that drips from this "man of God".

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Adam D., CBC Original

Generally this is the point where I make a shameless appeal for readers to send me money. If you want to, please do. But this time I'm going to ask that you send Adam Donaldson some money too. (I do, $10/month.) Here's the link.

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All of the above is just to "set the stage". What I want to make a fuss about in this op-ed is that I think that far, far too many people seem to be incapable of understanding that the current situation isn't "business as usual" and shouldn't be approached the same way that they approach everything else in their lives.

Jason Kenney is someone who's built his brand in Alberta by playing up to the conspiracy theorists who blab on about how 'evil foreign foundations' are funding an anti-tarsands conspiracy. Could it be that he views the plague rats as part of his "core constituency"?

Similarly, Doug Ford is someone who build his brand around what he sees as straight-talking, small business types---presumably like the jerk behind the "Barbecue Revolution".

 

And, having grown up in a community that had far, far too many churches---all of the evangelical variety---I know from experience that most of their "brand" is build around peddling various conspiracies about how dreadful the "mainstream" world is and how it is riddled with secret conspiracies, satanic pedophiles, how Hell is packed with Jesuits, Rabbis, Mullahs, how environmentalists are all evil pagans, feminists are predatory lesbians, etc, etc. (I had a few years of Sunday school myself before I gagged. I also had friends who got polio because of their anti-vaxxer church.)

Generally most people tolerate this idiocy as a type of "background noise". But during some exceptional times---like now---these people become threats to the public good and need to be constrained. That's because some things simply aren't a question of "individual freedom" but rather "collective rights". And the people of Canada have a collective right to limit the spread of a potentially lethal virus. And the only way to protect that right is by limiting the right of plague rats to thumb their noses at reasonable medical guidelines.      

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The problem with the leaders I've identified above is that they seem incapable of understanding that this is a point in time where the old ways of doing things are no longer appropriate and it's time to act totally different. That's not hard to understand, however, because these particular politicians have built their lives around an ideology (libertarianism), and, the pastors around a superstition (fundamentalist Christianity). You can stumble through life on this basis and generally not create too much chaos for the people around you, but when times require quick adaptation, there's really no substitute for logic and evidence. Let's just hope that not too many people end up suffering from our leader's inability to adapt.

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Moreover I say unto you, we must deal with the Climate Emergency!