Advent Music from Jerusalem

 

Advent Music

 

Trump's Egomania Revealed

 

There is as lot of grumbling about Elon Musk being so active in the incoming Trump administration. The common sneer is that he must soon fall from grace, because “Trump doesn’t like being upstaged.” 

This is not really a new idea. I heard this comment before, when there was discussion of possible VP picks. 

Where is it coming from? Does anyone have any actual evidence of Trump turning on someone for upstaging him?

Maybe from Mike Pence being his original VP. Pence was always low key to a fault.

But the story I hear is that Pence was not Trump’s choice. He was forced on him by the party brass, who feared Trump’s flamboyance and wanted a steady hand and steadier image. Trump wanted Newt Gingrich—another firebrand.

The thesis remains unproven. Nobody has ever upstaged Trump. It is just a way to avoid giving Trump credit for his own great showmanship. He has never needed to suppress anyone else for being a better showman, so there is no way to know whether he would.

But look at his cabinet picks. They are what evidence we have. He has not selected faceless bureaucrats or shrinking violets or yes-men. Each choice is someone outspoken, charismatic, and with their own constituency. RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Matt Gaetz, Tom Homan, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, Kristi Noem... They were the very ones you would pick if you were trying to find someone to upstage Trump.

Compare the cabinet of Justin Trudeau in Canada. None have established an independent constituency or identity with the public—unless by resigning. Those who already had a public profile, having served prior to Trudeau, Stephane Dion or Marc Garneau, were pushed out early. In the recent cabinet shuffle, with perhaps one third of his caucus in open revolt, Trudeau appointed David McGuinty and Nathaniel Erskine-Smith as new ministers. You would think at this point he was scraping the bottom of the barrel. Instead, he was finally forced at last to appoint members who, based on their skills, accomplishments, and constituencies, should have been in the cabinet all along. But they might have taken some of the spotlight from Trudeau.

As is usually the case, the common wisdom among the punditry is the opposite of the truth.

Downfall

 

Many commentators are asking how Trudeau and the PMO could have been so clueless as to think that Chrystia Freeland would cheerfully agree to reading a Fall financial statement she disagreed with, and then be replaced as finance minister the next day, for a position without portfolio. And being told this over a Zoom call! And without having any assurance from Mark Carney that he would take over!

The answer is narcissistic rage. 

Trudeau knew he was about to lose power. The polls show it, and now Trump was about to drop the hammer.

As M. Scott Peck pointed out, when a narcissist is challenged, and sees no exit, they lose touch with reality, become psychotic. Their world-view is in the first place based on a delusion, of their own superiority. Panicked, the imperative was to prove to himself that he still had power, by exercising it on someone else ruthlessly. He had to kick the dog, beat his child, see someone else entirely under his power suffer.

Freeland looked like a suitable scapegoat and victim, precisely because she had always been so loyal.  It would be most cruel, then, if he turned on her, and most hurtful.

Was it liable to blow up the government? Trudeau was not going to care. He knew he was going down anyway. His instinct was to do as much damage to others as possible as he went. Make it as spectacular as possible, to stay special. Best if he could destroy Freeland, destroy the Liberal Party, and leave Canada in the worst position to negotiate, on the way down. The narcissist, if he must lose, will do his best to take the world with him. It is the way a school shooter thinks.

What might Trudeau do next? I think it would be most characteristic for him not to prorogue parliament and step down, allowing the Liberals to choose a new leader. Rather, it would be to use the one power he has left: to go to the Governor-General and ask for dissolution and an election himself, or concur with Poilievre's call for a special sitting of Parliament. He's going down anyway. This is his chance to stick it to the Liberal Party, to those in the party who want him gone, and to the leadership hopefuls. It would also take revenge on Jagmeet Singh, who seems to be counting on the Liberals stalling by proroguing parliament to avoid a non-confidence vote until February, when Singh's pension kicks in.

Let's see.

Christmas is Coming

 

Advent Music

 

How Far We Have Come in our Treatment of the Indigenous Peoples

 

The traditional image of Tecumseh

One standard element of the wider myth of the North American Indian is the standard claim that, until recently, indigenous Canadians were despised and discriminated against. And they and their contribution was supposedly omitted from the history books.

As fate would have it, I inherited my grandmother’s high school history book, published by the Ontario Ministry of Education in 1914. Ontario High School History of Canada. Price 19 cents. So let’s have a look. Are the Indians left out? Are they treated with contempt as an inferior race?

The first chapter is about the land, the geography. But the second chapter is all about “The Aborigines.” Not “Indians”; “Aborigines.” “Indians,” it is explained, is a misnomer. Sounds pretty woke. 

They are described on introduction as “Men of good features and athletic build.” There is a detailed description of the various tribes or nations and where they lived at first contact. They are referred to a couple of times as “savages.” Our author does not hold the modern prejudice that all cultures must be considered equal on all points. But note, this is an issue of culture, not race. And he goes on to say that the Iroquois, however, “had done something … wonderful,” in forming the Iroquois Confederacy, “and had solved many of the most difficult questions of government.” “Each member of the tribe had great individual liberty.” “No state ever more fully realized Napoleon’s ideal of ‘a career open to talent.’” The author refers to their “political genius.”

That’s at worst, condemning the culture itself with loud praise. 

There may seem to be some criticism of their methods of war: “usually the only fate in store for the captive was torture and death.” But this is no more than a statement of historic fact, as recorded in all the contemporary accounts. And that sentence is immediately followed by this: “Yet, they did not disdain the arts of peace, and all the tribes had lifted themselves more or less above primitive barbarism.” 

Details are then given of Indian arts and culture. Things were done “with great skill”; “with real skill; “well-tilled fields.” The potlatch is praised as promoting hospitality. “To the Coast Indians the potlatch fulfilled the three objects performed for us by a dinner party, a general store, and a bank.”

To sum up, “Freedom marked the life of the Indian from his earliest days…. Nothing was done under compulsion.”

When it comes to Indian spirituality, there is some clear criticism. “His love of inflicting torture was only one sign that his nature was really nervous and hysterical. This we see clearly in his religion.” “Hysterical,” however, to this author, means it involved a lot of dancing and making noise. Presumably he would have the same problem with a Methodist tent meeting or Pentecostal service. This smacks of the Anglican unease with “religious enthusiasm.” A prejudice, perhaps, but not a racial one. 

Of the Inuit, treated separately, our author opines that under the influence of the Moravian missionaries, “They cast their cruelty and love of war aside, and became the peaceful race we know today.”

The story of the indigenous people is then woven through the following two chapters, on the European discovers and the early years of New France: the war between the French/Huron/Algonquin alliance and the Iroquois is described. 

Chapter Five is again wholly about the Indians, “Missionaries and Indians.” The aim of the missionaries, it is explained, “was to establish a native Christianity. They learned the language of their flocks, and made little or no attempt to teach them French. …In order to preserve their flocks from the many vices of European culture,  “They wished to keep their Indian charges in absolute seclusion from all white influence save their own.” So much for the modern claim that the intent was to impose European culture and assimilate the Indians. But this is the historical reality, borne out by the extensive Jesuit Relations.

In subsequent chapters, Iroquois are featured in the “Half Century of Conflict” between England and France. “Renewed Iroquois Attacks” on New France; “The Massacre of Lachine”; “The Three War Parties.” 

A chapter or two later, we read of “Pontiac’s War,” which was “a struggle against the white invader.” No guilt is attributed to the Indians for the uprising.

A chapter on the War of 1812 tells of Tecumseh, “a brave and chivalrous warrior and a far-seeing statesman.” The Indian role in that war and in its significant battles is covered.

The tale of the Red River Rebellion and North West Rebellion are told in terms sympathetic to Riel and the “half-breed” rebels. It was all down to insensitivity and blunders by the federal government. “It would have been better to give them want they wanted than to drive them into rebellion. Others of their requests, such as those for schools and hospitals, were still more reasonable.”

In sum, while a few of the terms used would, for arbitrary reasons, be considered politi9cally incorrect in acurrent text, the indigenous people are fully reported on and treated sympathetically.  When they clash with Europeans, the story is generally told from the indigenous point of view.

Canadians, and Americans, have always loved Indians, and have always been inclined to give them special treatment.

Giving to the Poor

 

I keep seeing stupid posts saying things like this: “Elon Musk is worth $442 billion. Such greed! There are only 8 billion people on Earth. If he handed all that money out, everyone on Earth would be a billionaire. No one man should have so much.”

Seriously. I see and hear this repeatedly.

Do the math: 442 divided by eight: Elon Musk could give each of us 55 dollars and 25 cents.

Musk would then have nothing, and nobody else would really be any richer.

A similar comment: “How can Musk complain about homelessness being due to addiction and mental illness? Why doesn’t he give some of his money to the poor and actually do something about it?”

This assumes that homelessness is caused by poverty; that you can fix poverty by giving poor people money; and that Musk is doing nothing useful with his money.

In principle, nobody should hoard possessions. See the parable of Dives and Lazarus. Luke 16: 19-31. If you have two coats, and you see someone else freezing, you owe him one of them. 

However, someone who is rich is not necessarily hoarding. Not all gains are ill-gotten. Musk or another wealthy man may be living modestly, but using his money as a tool to improve the world. Entrepreneurs commonly are. Musk clearly is. Give away all his money, and we get none of the innovations he is responsible for, which cumulatively improve everyone’s lives far more than a one-time payment of $55.

And if we do have more than we need, we must target our charity so that it actually does help others, rather than just using it to salve our conscience, or make us feel superior. We need to do what is best for them, not what is easiest for us. 

Homelessness is not caused by poverty. 

I volunteer at Romero House, giving meals to the poor. Some of the people who volunteer there have been on the streets themselves. They never got off the streets because someone gave them money. It is always because they found religion. Ask AA about that. Ask the Salvation Army.

One guy gave me some interesting information. Back in those days, he would beg on the streetcorner uptown. He claimed he cleared thousands in a week just doing this. The problem was, in the afternoon, he spent it all on drugs or alcohol.

So it does no good to simply give a truly destitute person money. It probably does them harm. 

The local own council sought last year to end homelessness by setting up a village of containers converted into mini homes, in a downtown parking lot where the homeless already gathered.

Yesterday, I saw the containers have all been shut down and moved into a pile. At the onset of another winter. Clearly the experiment did not work. 

The problem is meaninglessness. These people are in real need; they are dying by the day. But we have to give them meaning and hope, not money for another fix. Or, worse, a free fix. 

We need to get out and talk to them, about Jesus, the Gospel, God. As the religious charities are or ought to be doing. If you want to help, volunteer with them.

In the Bleak Midwinter

 

Advent music. 

Lyrics are a poem by Christian Rossetti. Music is by Gustav Holst. I find it intensely beauiful.

Although I'd tweak the lyrics if I could:

In the bleak mid-winter
  Frosty wind made moan
Earth stood hard as iron,
  Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
  Snow on snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
  Many years ago.

On Being Born Again

 

"Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?"

Friend Xerxes, in his latest column, scorns an evangelical pastor for asking him if he has given his life to Jesus.

“Many times,” Xerxes answered.

“Once is enough,” the evangelist replied.

Xerxes holds that truth dawns only slowly, over one’s lifetime. In the real world, it does not happen all at once.

But I have to agree with the evangelical pastor. Once is enough to give your life to Jesus, assuming you do not take it back; and we should expect conversion to come suddenly. This is how the Bible describes it.

See Saul on the road to Damascus. Deus ex machina.

But see also the calling of the apostles. “So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him." James and John even abandon their father Zebedee in the boat, no doubt wondering what just happened. 

Compare the experience of Saint Augustine:

“I quickly returned to the bench…snatched up the apostle’s book…and in silence read the paragraph on which my eyes fell: ‘Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lusts thereof’ (Romans 13:13)…. I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something light the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.” Augustine, Confessions 8

And Jesus says this is the way it is supposed to happen, refusing to let a prospective disciple wait even until his recently dead father is in the ground.  “Let the dead bury their own dead.” 

In an instant, everything changes.

Ask the Buddha suddenly enlightened under the Bodhi tree. Ask Moses encountering the burning bush.

I can’t really account for Xerxes’s experience being different. Of course over time one can grow in the faith, but the initial experience really is, as the Bible says, like being born again. I say that as a Catholic, not an evangelical Protestant. This is why in the Catholic Church we have the sacrament of Confirmation, a second baptism.

I suspect anyone who has not experienced this sudden wrench in perspective, like jumping off a cliff into the arms of angels, has not really given their life to Jesus in the first place.

Advent Music

 

Canadian Advent.

What if Joni is singing about her relationship with God?

Canadian Government in Chaos

Things in Ottawa are happening too quickly for commentary. The Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, Freeland, resigned two hours before she was to present the fall budget statement in the Commons, openly criticizing the PM for the policy she was about to announce.

The automatic next in line as finance minister, Champagne, immediately refused the position and refused to read the financial statement. 

PM Trudeau is apparently not available.

I don't know yet who actually presented the budget statement. 

Also this morning, the Housing minister resigned.

The Minister of Transport and Head of the Treasury Board, Anand, was cornered in the hall, and was clearly emotional. She was blindsided by Freeland’s resignation. She refused comment, saying she needed to compose her thoughts.

Situation changing hourly. Whatever happens next, this one will be in the history books.

This all seems to have been triggered by Trump’s tariff threat. Freedland refers to it in her resignation letter.

I think Trump knew what he was doing. Amid such chaos, it will be difficult for the NDP to vote confidence in the government yet again.