An urgent plea - Stop this war now!

Hello friends,

I have just seen a podcast by Simon Smith. It is a presentation on the thesis “Territorial concessions by Ukraine would simply reward Russian crimes and aggressions”.

There are some points in it that need to be countered. Smith made the point that there is not really a territorial dispute here. I find this disingenuous. There have been longstanding disputes in the Donbas between opposing groups there. Pro-Russian and pro-Ukrainian groups have been at loggerheads there for some time. It was precisely to settle these disputes that the Minsk agreements attempted to resolve.

STOP THIS WAR NOW!

The world is boiling in heat waves and wildfires. At the same time a fratricidal war in Europe is tearing us apart! Two sides seem to be gearing up for endless war.

Can we change in time?

We are all on the Titanic. The trip has been wonderful. The music is good. The wine is excellent. Life is good.

Then in comes the ship’s steward. He says:

“I have important news from the captain. According to the latest data just received, we have got to change course – right now! If not, we are almost certainly headed for an iceberg.”

The reaction of the partying crowd:

“What is this all about? This is extreme language. Let’s look into this in the morning”.

Stop it now

 Biking tonight

            Passed through the University

                        One building caught my eye.

The biology building

            So tall and proud and sleek

                        A marvel of modern engineering

Many high-rise condos

            Along the peaceful canal

                        Where people pass their tranquil lives.

Then, a missile crashing into residences

            All is gone in a flash!

I am stunned

            Sick to my stomach,

                        Full of grief and sadness.

The shattering destruction of war

            Our fragile earth is being torn up by this madness

                        Dear God, deliver us from ourselves.

 

My mother was Finnish

Some have questioned my reference to Finland as a possible role model of what could happen in Ukraine. Let me provide you with a few more details.

Reflections on a rail/road trip

Recently my wife Fran and I made a trip out west to see our family – Dan and his family in Edmonton, Alberta and Suzanne and her family in Comox, BC. We went by train from Ottawa to Edmonton and then by car (yes, one of those fossil fuel dinosaurs) and a ferry to Comox.

The two sites visited could not have been more different. In Alberta we were in the fossil-fuelled heartland of Canada. In Comox BC we were in the agricultural, free-wheeling experimental zone of Canada. During our visit a growing climate crisis was raging in North America. Five hundred wildfires were burning in Canada sending waves of smoke everywhere, including down to the USA. A heat dome of up to 48 degrees Centigrade was occurring in Texas. The fossil fuel industry was charging ahead by plastifying everything they could.

The death knell of Evangelicalism

When president Trump was elected, he had the support of the majority of evangelical Christians in the USA. President Trump was the most unchristian president the USA had ever seen.

In Brazil, Bolsonaro has the support of most of the evangelical Christians. He is the ‘Trump of the tropics’. He is on his way to destroying the environment and has the support of the ruling class of Brazil’s billionaires.

What is happening here? I believe that this is what is happens when one worships Jesus and then does not pay attention to what he said.

Changes that are needed

You can feel it in the air. Change is coming whether we heed it or not. We cannot continue to trash the planet as we are doing. Social and income inequality cannot continue to reach record heights.

So, what might change look like? It will either be planned and rational, or violently forced upon is by relentless nature. The future will be multi-faceted and complicated. We will need to make personal changes and system changes. Here is a list of the actions needed.

Radical hope in a doomsday scenario

Our human species has had a remarkable ride over the last 10,000 years. We have gone from a group of scattered hunter gatherers, we have discovered agriculture, moved from a religious, mystical phase to an age of reason and science to industrialization and technology to our present era of a new and evolving digital world.

There are two sides to every story

Recently 43 Ukrainian women arrived in Ottawa to be trained in parliamentary procedures. On May 9 (Victory day in Russia) they staged a demonstration at the Russian embassy. At the same time a smaller group of Russians arrived to remember the Nazi German invasion into Russia. So interestingly, two invasions were being commemorated – the German  invasion into Russia in 1941, and Russia’s invasion into Ukraine now. Things did get somewhat turbulent at times, but all that occurred were several heated shouting matches.

Who caused this war, and what to do about it?

One of the main causes of the WWII was the Versailles Treaty which closed WWI. It treated Germany poorly and Germans felt aggrieved. However, as the Wehrmacht rolled across Europe, the memory of the Versailles Treaty was lost in the ensuing carnage. Hitler’s military rampage destroyed any sympathetic alliances that he may have had.

Eventually the original causes of that war got smothered by the atrocities committed during the war and the accompanying genocidal actions. In the case of WWII that meant the Nazi holocaust.

A Short Tale of Two Wars

WWII

The Versailles peace treaty after WWI treated Germany badly.

Hitler appealed to this sense of grievance and rose to power.

One could have been sympathetic with him at the beginning, but after he began

his military rampage (in Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland...) sympathy for him dropped.

For more details see How Hitler Invaded Half of Europe (7 mins.)

Ukraine

The creation of NATO and its expansion eastward treated Russia badly.

Putin has risen to power and has appealed to Russia’s concerns about NATO.

One could have been sympathetic with him at the beginning, but after his military rampages (in Syria and Ukraine) sympathy for him has dropped.

For more details see Why Russia Wants Ukraine ( 8 mins.)

Lessons from history

Destructive foreign wars do not achieve their objectives:

Hitler in Germany
Putin in Ukraine
And USA in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Against the USA in Vietnam, then; Against Russia in Ukraine, now

All empire states tend to dominate their neighbours. Russia has a long history of doing this. During WWII, Russia invaded Finland and grabbed the state of Karelia, where my mother was born. Subsequent Russian invasions include Hungary (1954), Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979-89), Their methods are often brutal as seen in recent wars in Chechnya (1996-99) and Syria (2015-19). Now after Russia’s first invasion into Crimea, it is invading all of Ukraine.

A Tale of 2 Empires. Or is it 3?

We are witnessing the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. Many people are saying – Why is this happening now? This is part of a pattern. Empire states tend to control smaller ones at their borders.

What we can learn from the Freedom Convoy (FC) ?

The recent freedom convoy of truckers and others who recently invaded Ottawa can teach us something. Members of Extinction Rebellion (XR) claim to be working on a rebellion. There are obviously different types of rebellions – there are peaceful rebellions and there are violent rebellions, and everything else in between.

It all begins with disinformation – or is it misinformation?

Let’s begin by defining the difference between misinformation and disinformation. Misinformation is false information that one spreads because one believes the information to be true. Disinformation is false information that one spreads even though one knows it to be false, i.e., an effort to deceive people. 

Thoughts on Buddhism and the environment

I’ve had a longstanding interest in Buddhism, in particular what it has to say about stress and our relationship with the environment.

What follows are some of my thoughts on this topic followed by a Buddhist prayer for peace, which I believe suggests a path forward for dealing with the environmental crisis:

Buddhism and the environment

Protest of the Royal Bank of Canada, a major global investor in fossil fuels

If you click on this link, you will see some action at the HQ of Canada’s largest bank, the Royal Bank of Canada (RBC). The top video gives a general view of the demonstration.

If you open this link, from the 2.30 minute mark to the 4.40 mark, you will see the Rebellious Seeker cancelling his RBC credit card.

Rebellious Seeker

Ottawa

October 2020

My views on the NCC's decision to build a hospital in a wooded area on our experimental farmland

Here in Ottawa a new hospital will be built. Our National Capital Commission (NCC), after a detailed study recommended that the hospital be built at Tunney’s Pasture. Then suddenly it was decided to place the hospital in a wooded area on our experimental farmland. At an Ottawa city council planning committee, many citizens spoke about this decision. Here is my 5 minute contribution:

Rebellious Seeker's contribution to NCC hospital location debate

Water, the key to our future

Those who have studied water are seeing signs everywhere of an impending climate catastrophe.

First, some places have too much water. Because global warming has raised the temperature of the oceans, there is now more energy to fuel hurricanes and typhons. Recently in the Gulf of Mexico a category 4 hurricane, Ida, formed. It was so powerful that it rampaged through the entire east coast of the United States. Even in the northeastern states, the "tail" of Ida dumped record levels of rainfall in a very short time. These rainfalls were so unexpected that 50 people died trapped in their own homes and in cars on the road. Extreme rainfalls are now a global phenomenon, as seen in Germany and other countries.