How Does a Lawyer Justify Participating in a Legal Fraud?

I understand that in a system that abides by due process all those accused of a crime are entitled to legal counsel, regardless of how depraved they may be. I have no problem there. But I also understand that lawyers are obligated to respect the justice system. And here I have a problem with the lawyers defending Trump in his impeachment trial.

The trial is a fraud. A majority of the jurors declared, before the trial started, before any evidence was presented, that they would acquit. The result is preordained, it is rigged. How can any self-respecting lawyer willingly participate in a rigged trial?

And then there's John Bolton's allegations that Trump personally instructed him to withhold aid money from Ukraine until that country announced an investigation into the Bidens. Did Trump's lawyers know about this? If they did, then they lied to the Senate when they stated categorically that he did no such thing. Isn't knowingly making false statements perjury?

And we mustn't forget John Roberts, who presides over the process. How, I wonder, does a Chief Justice feel about presiding over a trial in which jurors have boasted about not being impartial? 

Apparently some prominent lawyers and law firms declined offers to join Trump's legal team, but other high-profile litigators jumped on board, including former Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, he of the O.J. Simpson and Jeffrey Epstein affairs.

Defending a degenerate is one thing—somebody has to do it—but defending a degenerate in a trial rigged in his favour is something else. On the other hand, with a win guaranteed, it's easy money and easy fame.

It seems that anyone who becomes associated with Donald Trump is either corrupted by the experience, of corrupt to begin with. Even a Supreme Court Chief Justice can't escape the taint.

The Greatest MIstake Humanity Ever Made

There are those who argue that the greatest mistake we humans ever made was agriculture. And they have a point. For 200,000 years we lived a hunter-gatherer way of life, and we did rather well. Evolving in Africa, we came to occupy every continent on Earth except for Antarctica. Then we settled down and started farming, and that set us on the road to where we are today.

We started by wreaking great havoc on the environment. We cut down forests and plowed up prairies, much of which ultimately turned into desert. On the other hand, this new road led to great invention, to writing, the plow, irrigation, the wheel, mathematics ... and inventions led to yet other inventions, and so on ultimately to atomic power and the computer. It led to civilization and to the modern age.

And what did we get from this transition? For most of us most of the time, not much. Those at the top of our various civilizations lived royally, but the great majority of us were peasants. Our standard of living was a step down from the hunter-gatherer way of life. We were smaller and weaker from being less well-nourished, and riddled with disease from living intimately with animals. When Europeans landed in North America, they were impressed by how tall and strong the indigenous people were compared to themselves. The Europeans also brought their diseases with them, diseases unknown to the Americans as they had not domesticated animals, and the diseases wiped out millions. A gift of civilization.

Not until the Industrial Revolution did a high standard of living became generally available to ordinary people. And a very high standard of living indeed. Today, those of us lucky enough to enjoy it live a life of luxury that would have been unimaginable to even the richest kings and queens of past centuries. In summary, agriculture brought millennia of hardscrabble for most people followed by a century or so of lavish living.

And now the technology that brought us this brief period of high living is about to destroy the very civilization it allowed us to create. It has brought global warming and species extinction, and it is greedily exhausting the resources it needs to survive. If we don't bring it under control, if we don't transition it into something sustainable, it will bring our fancy civilization down around our ears, perhaps reducing us to a state that will make hunter-gathering look like a golden age, or possibly even extinguish us as a species. The thing that set it all into motion, the invention of agriculture, will doom us. It will turn out to be a lethal mistake.

But there may be an even worse mistake. Taming technology is within our understanding and intelligence. But instead of simply recognizing the threat and acting sensibly to make yet another transition, this time to a sustainable way of life, we have turned the challenge into a political issue. Those who recognize the crisis are posited as enemies of the economy, indeed of society, as the world's most powerful leader recently insisted in Davos. Our greatest mistake, therefore, may turn out to be not so much agriculture and all the technology that flowed from it, but from the foolishness of turning an issue that should be about physics into a quarrel about politics. Of course, given our nature, that may have been inevitable from the beginning.

A Royal Contribution

If one subject is done to excess in the Canadian media it's the royals. Witness the front page soap opera "Harry and Meghan move to Canada." It is, therefore, refreshing when a royal does something that actually matters. Such an event was Prince Charles speech to the Davos Conference. Not only was the speech a striking contrast to the blathering of the American president, but it was perhaps the most pertinent and sensible speech of the entire affair.

The prince warned that climate change and biodiversity loss are the greatest threats humanity has ever faced and urged his audience of business and political leaders to embrace a radical reshaping of economies in order to tackle the crisis.

He proposed a 10-point plan for a sustainable economy:

1. Put nature and the protection of nature’s capital at the heart of operations.
2. Create responsible pathways to decarbonize to reach net zero, and for governments and businesses to set a clear plan for how they will decarbonize.
3. Reimagine industries through the lens of sustainable markets.
4. Identify game-changing technologies that can speed up the creation of a sustainable economy and eliminate barriers to change.
5. Remove subsidies that prevent the economy becoming more sustainable, and set taxes, policies and regulations in a way that catalyzes sustainable markets.
6. Invest in science, technology, engineering and math skills, and in research and development, to help bring emerging technologies to market.
7. Invest in nature as an economic driver of growth.
8. Agree unified metrics for measuring environmental, social and governance standards, to provide transparency to company’s supply chains.
9. Make it easier for consumers to see which products are ethical and sustainable.
10. Realign investing so it can support sustainability. This would direct trillions of pounds in pension funds, sovereign wealth funds into environmentally responsible projects that offer long-term value and rate of return.

"In order to secure our future and prosper, we need to evolve our economic model," he argued. He emphasized the need to account for the costs of environmental damage, declaring, "If all the true costs are taken into account, being socially and environmentally responsible should be the least expensive option because it leaves the smallest footprint behind."

His 10 points are just good sense. Of course this is the kind of economy we should be moving rapidly toward. But we aren't. Will we? The prince posed a question: "Do we want to go down in history as the people who did nothing to bring the world back from the brink in time to restore the balance, when we could have done?" Unfortunately we are currently aiming at the wrong answer.

The World's Most Dangerous Man

There are a lot of unpleasant people running countries these days. North Korea's Kim Jong-un for example, surrounding himself with nuclear weapons while his people starve. Or China's Xi Jinping, who has made himself emperor. Or the homicidal crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammad bin Salman. Or Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, the racist, misogynistic ex-military man who has spoken favorably of torture and murder. Lots to choose from.

But the most dangerous leader in the world is not one of these. That dubious honour goes to Donald J. Trump, president of the United States. Not because he has upset the world trading system, nor because of his provocations in the Middle East, but because of his undermining of the world's efforts to deal with its biggest threat, global warming. He is the world's major climate change denier, infamously once calling it a hoax.

He is actively undermining his own country's years of environmental progress, both at the federal and state levels. For example, he has appointed a former coal lobbyist as head of the federal Environmental Protection Agency. His appointee, Andrew Wheeler, has touted rolling back pollution standards and has refused to identify global warming as a crisis. At the state level, he has gone after California in particular, perhaps the most progressive state environmentally. He has revoked the ability of California and other states to set tougher auto emissions standards than the federal government and is attempting to invalidate the state’s carbon cap-and-trade agreement with Quebec. He has even investigated auto makers for antitrust violations for co-operating with California on reducing car emissions.

Not content with undermining efforts at home, he is attempting to undo efforts made by the international community. He is, for instance, withdrawing the United States from the Paris Agreement on climate change. His administration has also hindered other countries from taking action through the United Nations, the G-7, the G-20, the Arctic Council and other bodies.

At the Davos conference this week, he displayed his denialist views in full rhetorical ignorance, rejecting the overwhelming scientific consensus that is finally driving the rest of the world to action. No other country has the same capacity, or indeed responsibility, to lead as the United States which makes Trump's actions doubly tragic.

Nothing poses as great a threat to global stability as climate change. By aggravating the crisis, Trump imperils the future of all of us, including that of his own people. Americans obsess about their national security, yet they have elected a man who presents their greatest threat.

Promise of a Collective Voice for the Precariat

Along with much else, the workplace has seen a transformation. Fifty years ago, workers looked forward to full-time, secure jobs with good wages and benefits. Often, the quality of their work was protected by their collective voice, i.e. a union. Today, an increasing number of workers face part-time, temporary jobs with low wages, limited benefits and irregular hours. Many must work several such jobs to make ends meet. And, as most of these jobs are non-union, workers tend to lack a collective voice—they are on their own.

The federal government has recognized that labour standards, critical to ensuring a basic floor of rights for workers, are no longer adequate for this new workplace. It is now in the process of up-dating the Canada Labour Code to fit this new world of work.

The Code was amended in 2017 as a first step, including strengthening compliance and enforcement. Further changes followed in 2018 regarding fair treatment for workers engaged in precarious work. Consultations suggested that much more change was required in a number of areas including e-communications outside of work hours, protections for workers in non-standard work, portability of benefits, federal minimum wage and non-unionized workers ability to express their views collectively. The Minister established an independent expert panel to consider these issues. The panel has now concluded its study and issued a report.

Some of the 39 recommendations that particularly caught my attention include the following:

• A minimum wage, to be adjusted annually, be set at 60 percent of the median wage
• The Code provide clear definitions of "employee," "dependent contractor," and "independent contractor"
• The Code definition of "continuous employment" include periods of layoff or interrupted service of less than 12 months
• The Code provide a right to compensation or time off in lieu for employees required to remain available for potential demands from their employer
• The federal government explore the development of a portable benefits model for workers
• Further study of legal barriers in the Code to union representation
• The Code include protection for concerted, i.e. union, activities
• The Labour Program undertake a benchmarking exercise to obtain systematic information on the prevalence of joint workplace committees and related voice mechanisms, both individual and collective, among non-unionized firms
• Further examination and analysis of graduated models of legislated collective representation
• Studying the feasibility of an independent legal framework that would enable freelancers working for federally regulated broadcasters and truckers who are considered as independent contractors to organize collectively
• Further study of the advantages and disadvantages of introducing a legal framework to enable extensions of collective agreements in specific sectors ... where unionization rates are very low
• The federal government regularly review progress on modernizing federal labour standards and protecting those in precarious forms of work

All this applies only to the federally regulated private sector which includes about 18,000 employers, 915,000 employees and 80,000 self-employed workers. Although only directly affecting a small portion of the country's 15-million plus workers, if acted upon it would set a strong standard.

A standard sorely needed as inequality rises. From 1982 to 2010, the bottom 90 percent of income earners saw only a meagre two percent increase in real market income while the top ten percent saw an increase of 75 percent and the top one percent 160 percent. A large part of the problem is the increasing number of people finding themselves stuck in the precariat. Many of the panel's recommendations are directed at assisting these workers. Of special importance are those which would offer currently non-union employees a collective voice.

With most provinces now having conservative governments, hope that they will follow the fed's example is slim, but if the Trudeau government acts on the panel's recommendations, a path is set toward a more equitable future.

Why Do We Choose Fools to Lead Us?

Let’s face it, most of us aren’t all that bright. Or all that wise. Today we live in a quite remarkable hi-tech society. We can communicate instantaneously with someone on the other side of the globe. We can fly to the moon. But it took us 200,000 years or so to get here. A truly intelligent and imaginative species would have made the journey much more quickly. Obviously we didn’t get here because of the intrinsic intelligence of Homo sapiens. We got here because a tiny minority of us are much brighter than the mass of us. We got here because of Einstein, Darwin, Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Archimedes and other exceptional and rare members of our species. Without such rarities we would still be hunching around campfires gnawing on bones, terrified of the darkness.

And what have we, the unwashed masses, done with what our best and brightest have allowed us to achieve? Have we managed it wisely? Well ... not exactly. While developing a hi-tech society, we have at the same time put the whole thing in jeopardy.

We have put our futures under threat of annihilation by our own weapons; we are heating up our planet to the point where it threatens civilization itself; we are systematically exterminating our fellow species; and we are exhausting our planet's resources. In summary, we are fouling our own nest. Even birds, with their tiny brains, know that you don't do that.

A major reason for our various stupidities is that we place the responsibility for managing our societies in the hands of fools. Think Trump, Morrison, Bolsonaro, Maduro, etc., and these are just a sampling of leaders we chose personally through the democratic process. We mutely allow a far worse batch to assume power without even bothering to ask our permission. Would an intelligent or wise species place their future in the hands of fools?

We often fail to even recognize our brightest and best, or worse, reject them. Copernicus delayed announcing his theory of heliocentricity until he was on his death bed for fear of how his benighted fellow citizens would react to hearing they weren't at the centre of the world. Galileo was censured by the Church and might have suffered worse if he hadn't had friends in high places. Darwin was mocked for simply telling his fellow men and women the truth, that they had evolved out of pond scum. And today all too many of us and our leaders reject the knowledge of our wise men and women when it comes to climate science. We choose instead to listen to fools and rush on toward Armageddon.

There is no point in feeling blue about all this. It is what it is, or to paraphrase Popeye, "we are what we are and that's all that we are." Except for a gifted few we are a very limited species. If we don't survive our assault on the planet, it will be no more than evolution dispensing with a species that has run its course. We will join millions of others. For the dinosaurs, it took a comet; for us ... well, we are doing it all by ourselves. Nonetheless, as a billion innocent animals burn alive in Australia, in large part due to our folly, I can't help feeling sorry for all the other species that got stuck with us.

Holocaust in Australia—We Are All Guilty

Scott Morrison, Prime Minister of Australia, has been referred to as a blockhead, which is fair, and not because his large head is rather squarish. He was warned by his Department of Home Affairs that Australia faced more frequent and severe heatwaves and bush fires due to global warming. Twice a group of former fire chiefs warned him that an emergency like we are now seeing was on the horizon and requested a meeting with him. He declined, persisting in his denial of anthropogenic climate change. He has persisted also in his rabid support of coal production (Australia is the world's biggest exporter). Now his country is burning up.

Morrison is a fool but let us not forget that Australia is a democracy and his people elected him despite his party’s lamentable record on climate change. He is, in other words, the peoples’ fool. And the Australian people are not alone. The Americans elected a similar fool as their president, and here in Alberta we have not done much better.

Australia isn’t burning just because of Australians’ behaviour. We are all in this together and Australia, like the Amazon and Siberia, burn because of the foolishness of all of us. Everyone everywhere is contributing to the greenhouse gasses that are turning Australia into an oven.

Scott Morrison suggests that as Australia only contributes 1.3 per cent of the world's greenhouse gasses, it should not bear too heavy a load in confronting the crisis. We hear the same weaseling out of responsibility in Canada, especially in Alberta. And this of course is a large part of the problem. When something is everybody’s fault, it becomes nobody’s fault. So much easier to pass the buck than to do the right thing.

It isn't everyone's fault equally of course. Not everyone in Australia voted for Scott Morrison any more than everyone in Alberta voted for Jason Kenney. And the people in some countries are a lot more responsible for emissions than those in other countries. We and the Australians (and the Americans) are in fact more responsible than people anywhere else in the developed world. Among G20 nations we three top the charts in per capita greenhouse gas emissions. By far. Each Canadian is responsible for twice the emissions of a Chinese.

So as Australians suffer, let us not place all the blame on Morrison and the people who elected him. Australia burns and the Arctic melts with lots of blame to go around.