June 14, 2020 The Plague of-Cultural Marxism/Social Communism

We had the plague, then the lockdown, then the riots.

Cultural Communism, Social Marxism are just a couple of the names for the wedding of Marx and Freud at the Frankfurt School.

The essence of Marxism was the paranoid position. I and them. The beogeoisie and the proletariat. Marx said there needed to be perpetual class warfare between the rich and poor till Communism won and there was a classless proletariat society.  

It was a rather reductionist, simplistic, and wrong. Fabianism, the socialist theory that said there were three classes, the upper, middle and lower gave rise to the successful Union movements. The Middle Class was the Guilds.  Ultimately a just society would put this group of meritocracy and competence central with elevation of the poor to wealth through education and cooperation. 

Where ever Marxist paranoia “I and them’ by contrast has been imposed, the poorer have become poorer and the elite rich richer.  War has prevailed.

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Cultural marxism and social communism moved away from economics to social groups and then joined them, rather arbitrarily, by the word ‘oppressed’. So the salt shaker ‘oppresses’ the ‘pepper shaker’.  Men oppress women. Whites oppress blacks. Yellow oppresses red.   It goes on ad infinitum.  Leonard Cohen called it the ‘war’ and said the odd is at war with the even. 

Lenin introduced the term ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ .  Communism has forever remained dictatorship, a gangsterism construct  always justified by dubious intellectual authority.  Intellectualism was the equivalent to Aetheist Godless Communism as the Church was to the Monarchy. To communism the State or the dictatorship, by individual or  committee.  

The dictator then makes  a list of people with grievances and uses ‘divide and conquer’  to gain greater control.   Favourites played against one another in the ‘social marxism’ or cultural communism ‘oppression’ flavour of the month.  

All women are oppressed. All men are bad.

All blacks are oppressed. All whites are bad.

All criminals  are good. All police are bad

Take any ‘binary’ and in Marxism,the Climate denier ‘oppresses’ the ‘climate change saint’.  The whites oppress the blacks.  It’s a tedious moralistic judgemental, informal based paranoid society as a result. 

The trouble is in African nations dominated by Blacks , the blacks oppress the Indians, Chinese and Whites. But as this doesn’t fit the State assigned narrative, it’s ignored.

Women who lie and falsely accuse men, putting thousands in jail for untold years out of spite are still  invariably the ‘oppressed’ and the ‘abused’.  The white slaves that were taken by the black Barbary Coast pirates are excluded from the narratives. Similarly the whole history of Communist murder, 80 million killed in USSR, 100 million killed in China, and half the country, 3 million murdered in Cambodia. All that is ignored. The lie is central.  The bigger the lie the better.

Generalizations and what Piaget called ‘concrete’ thinking, the pre adolescent, inability to abstract and think critically are the rule. Media plays predominantly to the masses which average less than high school.  College level thinking is the minority.  Hence mob violence. ANTIFA. Black Lives Matter and other Communist groups.

I don’t say that the so called ‘right’ don’t do the same. The Nazis’, National Socialists, did the same. Che Quevara jungle warfare is taught at West Point. Right now everything that was used by the Nazis to gain control and destroy Germany is being played out , not by National Socialists ,but by Communists,  International Socialists, in the world today. 

Ironically Islam is a partner in this as politics make strange bedfellows. Hitler and Stalin were allies.  Now Islam is also a construct of perpetual war.  Whereas perpetual war for Communism leads to ‘worker paradise’ with ‘dictatorship by the party’, Islam, the religion of peace, claims that when all are Muslim, then the ‘religion of peace’ will prevail.  The ends justify the means.

The difficulty with gangsterism and communism is that the other guy will turn on you when he has an opportunity so Hitler at the height of his power turned on his ally Stalin and attempted to invade Russia. 

That’s where we are today.  It’s not rocket science. I once wondered why the Mensheviks, the Russian majority communist party, lost control to the bolsheviks, the minority communist party. The reason was simple. Lenin, Tolstoy, Stalin and Molotov, Bolsheviks, promoted Assasination and Bank Robbery. They were cold blooded killers and  and thieves . They were the violent mob leaders and the Mensheviks were the moderates,  against murder and bank robbery.  Lenin and the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian Parliamentary democracy and began to rewrite history.  

Today the Democrats are supporting violence, mob rule and robbery.  History repeats itself.  

18 yo - The Latvians

Baiba was Latvian. Naturally as a Canadian I knew nothing about Latvia.  I was immersed in the propaganda of my country taught pretty lies in school and rather boring history.  Older I’d come to know the extraordinary tale of Louis Riel, how the Feberal Liberals loved prostitutes and how ouija boards were used in the legistislature of Manitoba.  As a child I was subjected to the heavily censored chalk tasting history of my country. I was given a geography that told no tale of why these countries were as they were.  The truth wasn’t the Marxist lie of ‘good guys and bad guys’, the paranoid position of the binary but rather a wonderful tapestry of family, passsion, romance ,intrigue, bullies, and the brave.

Vecsmanin, Baiba’s grandmother had received her Bachelor degree around the time of WWI.  Her husband had been an Army General in Latvia, on the inner council of Stalin, until he was one day purged along with so many others.  Stalin, Lenin, Molotov et al had been the Bolsheviks who overthrew the moderate Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks distinguishing feature was their blood thisty nature. The Mensheviks hadn’t wanted to assassinate and get their money by robbing banks.  The Bolsheviks with their superior knife and pistol debate and endless cash funding  beat  the leftist intellectuals who preferred endless trivia hair splitting, sloganeering,  drinking coffee and vodka  and having sex with underage girls.  

Alexander Kerensky, Prime Minister of Russia, the last democratic leader before the Lenin’s military coup backed in part by Wall Street money, « dictatorship of the proletariat’ which has to date been ‘communism’ or ‘international socialism’ it’s other name.  International socialism was distinguished from the National Socialism of Nazi Germany. There the Brown Shirts were the low brow thug equivalent of their Bolshevik contemporaries.  

Canada’s history was surprisingly dominated by communism in my teen age years despite the fact that Russia had targeted American (Canada included) with nuclear weapons short years before.  Quebec was a hot bed of binary intellectualism and Pierre Trudeau who would become Prime Minister, a card carrying communist.  At the time I liked his red carnation. 

Maija, Baiba’s mother escaped Latvia with Vecsmamin fleeing before the Communist hoards of WWII, the ones who would see the destruction of Germany as the beginning of the Communist overthrow of the world for themselves.  Only after the pablum propaganda of Canadian history teaching would I learn of the division of Berlin, the Berlin air lift, the Ptomkin villages, the Katyn Massacre and the hundreds of millions murdered around the world by communists.  I remember Maija sharing personal stories of their time under Communist rule and being careful not to shock me too much. It was very much like a Matrix red pill or blue pill situation as the immigrants would share their stories which were ignored by the government.  The liberal  promoted was propagating terrible lie. 

I remember when Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s heavily censored books appeared exposing the slave labour camps that were the back bone of Russian industry.  Maija would send her family in Latvia money for tires because though the central government had finally produced cars that could be bought they’d not produced tires to go with the cars.  Even today I find myself feeling like I’m in an endless loop of Invasion of the Body Snatchers as I listen to Canadians old and young who simply refuse to believe the truth of those who have experienced first hand what every year a new politician proposes as the communist/socialist utopia. 

 I would talk with my father and he’d tell me that what I was learning was true and that he and my mother had to accept the nonsense we’d learned in school about the world so we could learn mathematics and sciences. I remembered coming home and sharing the learning I’d had at school as a child and their later hushed arguments.  But now I was an adult and set out to learn the truth that my education and government denied me. 

 Years later I’d talk to Serbians and Rhodesians and live in Mexico,  London and the United States only to return to Canada and again be in this kindergarten dominated by bureaucratic bullies who refused to read Arendt’s studies on the ‘banality of evil’.  Finally as a psychiatrist I’d love to read Scott Peck’s A Road Less Travelled and later the follow up People of the Lie.   The more I traveled around the world the more I’d learn but feel that in Canada so much was censored and could not be shared because there was this big ‘lie’ , the prevailing narrative. 

Communists were aetheists. The religion of the state had replaced all other religions. There would be no other gods but the State and Lenin was his first prophet.  A Chilean professor would pull out her hair sharing with me how putrid the politician discussions were at the university where the Canadians were so ‘apathetic’.  Here ‘apathy’ is considered a virtue, Apathy is what defines jail and asylum populations.  

At Maija’s table and in the Latvian community I’d meet for the first time White Russians who had fought for democracy against the dictatorship of communism. I’d meet Germans who had fought for the Germans in WWII on the Eastern front. I’d later meet Russians who’d show me that the American Hollywood propaganda about WWII was simply not true in Europe. The numbers of dead simply did not lie.  Without Russia the Nazis would have prevailed. Yet Stalin and Hitler had initially been best of buds and formed an alliance of dictators against the western weak democracies.  The tales of the Pacific War were closer to truth but the American Hollywood approach to the European war would be anathema to my learned friends in London.  My parents were Scottish Irish, Old Canadian, British Stock and we’d talk about school and wheat prices over the linoleum kitchen table.. Meals were primarily times to eat.  Discussion occurred while working under cars among men or while having tea with Mom.

 Baiba’s family always had white table cloths and meal time was a time of conversation.  Vecsmamin was the greatest of Latvian cooks and I’d be the envy of the community because I’d be so close to the fountain of flavour. .

« When my grandfather was killed everything that we had was lost,, « Maija told me.  « Overnight there was no income no home. We were essentially outlawed by the state.  Vecsmamin had to do whatever she could so we could survive. Those were hungry times.  She sewed for neighbours, got odd work from friends and she cooked. When we were in the refugee camps everyone said that Vecsmamin could make shoe leather taste like a feast. »

I’d go on expeditions with the two of them in the forest where they’d find fancy mushrooms. My father had taken me into the woods with him and taught me the plants which the Natives had used for food. My mother taught me the nutritional and medicinal value of the plants she grew and here I would often be in the woods with this family learning what herbs they’d used to make water taste and be nutritious when there was no other food.  The trouble was with translation. They knew the Latvian names for the plants but not the English worlds. 

Dad had been the same. « These are good for salads and these are like potatoes. I’ve eaten them especially when we were hungry. But I don’t know what they’re called., Billy »

For me, raised on meat and potatoes the Vecsmamin cuisine  all exotic and wonderful.  As well there was always wine and conviviality. Baiba was the most beautiful girl in the world. Her brother Paul, a very funny handsome young artist,  and Baiba‘ s younger sister, quiet but wise and soon  to become a sultry beauty like a young Elizabeth Taylor..  

We all danced too. As a family they came to the functions of the Ken Mathews Dance Studio. Later we’d attend all the Royal Winnipeg Ballet season.  Baiba had been a ballerina from childhood.  

Vecsmamin did yoga in the living room each morning. That wasn’t what the grandmother’s were doing in my neighbourhood. The first time I saw her doing a head stand I was admittedly surprised. She’d demonstrate her hatha yoga technique and turn out to be a human pretzel. She’d continue doing yoga until she was over a hundred.  By then her activities once counted as bizarre and foreign were admired by all. 

I was interested in spirituality and art.  Maija and her family were too. They were nominally Lutheran at some time but the conversations went more to the strange mix of Christian and pagan spirituality of old Europe.  I’d later love Herman Hesse and grasp the flavour of this deeply spiritual tradition in his Nobel Prize Winning books like Steppenwolf  and Narcisisus and Goldmund. I’d love Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and later love Joseph Cambell and Carl Jung.   I began reading the great European Traditional literature.  This would continue but began in the discussion at the Vecsmamin  table.  My artist friends at the time were becoming Rosicrucians and Buddhists. It was an extraordinary time of exploration among the creative artists of the day. Everyone was sharing authors and artists and insights they’d found. 

The house was full of plants too. An orange tree with miniature oranges stood in the corner overhanging the table. There was an oleander tree as well. My aunt loved oleander and would take us to a favourite restaurant in Toronto where we’d sit among oleander. Here was this house that was half conservatory. Like my mother Maija had a particularly green thumb. 

The Assiniboine Park Conservatory with little paths in a jungle had been my favourite place since a child. In winter when I was a child and we had visitors , usually my aunt, my father asked where I’d like to go, I’d shout ‘the jungle.’  As a family we’d don parkas and overshoes and drive to Assiniboine Park. Then we’d walk around the little paths, a tiny space really, the adults talking, the humidity and heat a delicious treat in the cold and dry freezing Winnipeg winter. I loved to throw pennies to the fish there.   After we’d go to the elegant Conservatory restaurant where we’d have tea and eat pastry.  

Now here was Baiba’s family with their own conservatory.

Baiba and I by now had an illicit relationship.  Somehow a sexual nuclear bomb had exploded between us and we did our best to keep it a secret.  She was a year younger than me and had become a student at the dance school.  It was about her 18th birthday that matters changed. I don’t know the date or technicality. Before Baiba sex was exciting but after Baiba it was transformative.  Somehow the local biplane acquired rockets and the sky was no longer the limit.

I used to drink red wine and find the world became rosy. Girls breasts always seemed bigger and rounder and more inviting too.   I was fascinated in those days by the Tarot of the Rose and studying the tarot deck.  I ‘d later be interested in the rose as the virgin mother symbol.  I loved studying Robert Graves.

At the University of Winnipeg I was taking my economics to complete my Gr. 12 and later would find Paramahansa Yognanda’s book, Autobiography of a Yogi in the United College Theological Library.  I began studying theatre and took Literature of the Bible with Dr. Carl Ridd and studied DH Lawrence in English.  The world transformed from black and white to a myriad of colours.  It was so dynamic once the dance and Baiba and the oleanders trees filled my world.  I was alive in a way I’d not been since Nina and that had been such a brief time.  A boy in love is a wonderful thing. For him. I suspect others found me tedious but I wrote poems and songs and danced and couldn’t wait the extra second to be in the presence of this Venus.  Every word and move she made became sacred.

It was the 70’s and ‘all we need is love’ was the theology of the contemporary day. The Beatles still prevailed. I loved Simon and Garfunkel.  Maija made fun of my liking ‘folk music’ considering the  American folk country scene as contemporary cowboy music. She loved Mozart and considered folk music the ancient music of Europe. The Latvians were great singers and were held together by the truly uplifting and beautiful music of their nation.  

I’d join the Latvian Dance Society and learn these lovely quaint dances which we’d take to compétitons with other ethnic groups. Soon I was mixing with Philipinos, Italinans,  Germans, Scots, Africans, Brazilians.  Baiba’s family were very much involved in the Winnipeg Folk Festival and her brother Paul would eventually become the Mayor of the annual event. Each ethnic community would put together a venue showcasing their food and customs, songs, dances and costumes.  Baiba naturally became the Latvian queen. She’d made all her clothing with her mother who was a great seamstress in her own right. The two of them would make their gowns for the ballet and all of Baiba’s costumes in the basement where Vogue patterns would be spread about the room reminding me of Dad with his room full of blue prints.  

The house was an actual university factory with everyone creative.  I’d entered into this university factory where a thousand activities were going on each day.  The smells of Vecsmanins kitchen, the sound of Maija’s sewing machine, Paul painting and Baiba insisting I join her in complicated dance choreography in the living room where her sister was reading a book. 

Maija told us stories of the war and translated for Vecsmamin.  Visiting dignatories, great religious and political leaders would visit to pay homage to Vecsmamin as much as to eat her famed soups and delicate pastries.  I’d be introduced, then Baiba and I would leave so they could speak freely in Latvian and Russian. Looking back I’d be amazed at who I’d meet and the ideas I’d encounter there and then.

Maija had loved a man who was known for his spirituality, a politician and mystic and talked of the sacred in her land where the spirit and spiritual had been so important to the freedom the youth experienced before the war and before the invasions by the Germans and the Russians.  

« Journey to the East’ by Herman Hesse talked of the spiritual revival of the Lutheran and European community of the time and this rise of intellectualism and spiritualism  in  art and consciousness.  The Latvian and other East Europeans I met had such grief for the losses they suffered. Years later I’d read Hitch. Hikers’ Guide to the Galaxy when the Vorgons , a bureaucratic empire building race destroyed the Earth so they could build a super highway through the galaxy. I thought of the Vorgons, these great stupid poeople who were so like the  Communists with their paranoid binary low brow thug thinking which they thought so brilliant. Vorgons.

I’d begin meditating then. The Paramahansa Yogananda Foundation ‘s Self Realization Fellowship had a series of teachings mailed weekly in what we joked was ‘mail order enlightenment’.  I’d begin to study Patanjali and read Emerson and Thoreau. I’d become a pretzel like Vecsmamin.  Vivekananda had been the first Indian representative to the world congress of religions coming to America in the late 1800s while Yogananda came for the second World Congress of Religions in the 1920’s. He stayed and developed an Ashram in California near San Diego.  I’d eventually join a group of men in Winnipeg, one who was a member of the symphony and another who would become a lawyer. We’d gather in a house with incense burning and a few straight backed seats facing forward. We’d not talk but chant a few of Yognandas’s song accompanied by the Harmonium I’d eventually learn to play. Then we’d meditate for an hour before leaving without any adieu or words. But this would come later, after I’d met the Quakers in Oxford where Baiba and I would do pretty much the same thing but with many more people together sharing the silence.  I’d love years later learning that my Dutch  mentor Dr. Bernie’s favourite prayer had been « Come, Holy Spirit Come. ». 

Mostly I loved making love with Baiba, being in love with Baiba, being young and a dancer and so deeply involved in the passion and spirit of youth.  

My roommate Fern was just as in love with the woman he too would go on to marry and have children with.Each of us  thought our love was unique and original and never known by anyone else before. Meanwhile everyone was doing it.  Everyone in Ken Mathew’s would go on to marry. Everyone was falling in love in the dance world, meeting and marrying, students and teachers alike.  All of us teachers would laugh and talk about the students being smitten while the students would laugh and talk about us teachers and our encounters with Cupid. .

When Baiba and I finally admitted we were dating, everyone knew.  Ken and Marie at the dance school  thanked us for our discretion but we were so  glad we were’out’ .What had been taboo and the forbidden fruit, hiding our love from family and work, now just became part of the community and even more fun.  Baiba passed from student to teacher and life continued. 

My parents loved Baiba though my mother didn’t like Maija at all. Dad of course did but the family as a whole was an organic force. Families were entities of their own and each had it’s character and dynamic.  I’d love to watch our families in love over the years with all the foibles of neighbours. Mom and Dad both liked Maija more when Baiba and I divorced. Dad thought Paul was a great guy. 

I’d go on to marry Baiba in the months to come and we’d be married a short time, merely a couple of years, this whole time of my life with Baiba relatively brief. I’d stay in Winnipeg for medical school and Baiba would follow dance to the big city of Toronto. She’d done all she could to advance her career in Winnipeg. After London it had been hard for her to shift gears whereas I having been enriched in my study and learning in Europe and England found university alive and meaningful. When I’d left it before I’d thought it staid and old.   We parted while I stayed friends with the family, her brother Paul, who became one of Winnipeg’s most avante garde artists continued a close friend.  I loved to return to that table under the oleander tree and visit with the family.  Maija a midwife had in many ways inspired my going onto medicine. I was so impressed by her and her nurse friends and the work of medicine. In Oxford I’d meet the Quarker medical student and be moved by the university which I’d found before so slow and stifling. Eventually I’d approach Dr. Carl Ridd my Christian mentor and take his advice to pursue excellence and scholarship.  

One day in the University of Winnipeg Chapel I’d be on my knees praying, asking God what I should do.  Stepping out of the chapel I encountered my friend Glen who said he was going to write the MCAT. I thought I’d tag along. I signed up for the test that day and thought if I do well on this it might be my answer from God. If I do poorly I can return to my other plan to be a play wright.  Without any study or preparation I aced the exam.  But by then I truly loved biology and chemistry had become sacred.  Possibly that was the experience I’d had with LSD’s partial influence.  But that’s another story.  L Baiba and I became lovers, married and went on to bicycle across Europe and live in London before returning home to start radically new lives. .  

  

Anti-Authoritarianism and Politics

Anti-authoritarianism is fundamental to individuals and to the species.  Developmentally the first major conflict zone between the authorities and self is the parent child struggle named the Terrible Twos.  Developmentally at the age of roughly 2 to 3 a child exerts his individuality with contrarian distinction to the will of the parents.  Historically this was symbolized by the refusal to potty train or the 'no' and the 'temper tantrums.

Developmentally it is also a feature of the early teen years when children are moving from identification with their family to that of their peer group.

An old and simple truism is that the greatest leaders are the greatest followers.  There is great pride and narcissism in our culture with Frank Sinatra's song, "I did it my way" celebrating individual industry and endeavour. However there's a tremendous likelihood form most that this means a horrendous waste of time.  The NASA program doesn't encourage people to avoid the experience of learning from previous astronauts and just try jumping up in the air. Reinventing the wheel is avant garde but frivilous of resources.

Most creativity is done by those who have already accomplished the skills of those who have gone before them. Hence 'we stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before" is a truism.

There are 'exceptions that prove the rule' but the facts remain, in todays society there is a direct correlation between years of education and probability of success individually and in community.  It is true that there are PHD's driving taxis and Grade 6 drop outs who have become dot come millionaires. However the ratio is that more than 90% of PHD's are making more than $50,000 a year income while 90% of Grade 6 , perhaps even Gr 11 , drop outs are making less than $50,000.

Inflation in education is that today a Bachelor Degree or Journeyman papers are the same standard as the old Gr. 12 educations.  There's ratios.  The more complex the activity the more likely the need for advanced training.  No one wants a jetfighter pilot 'winging it'.

The difficulty with drug abuse and alcoholism is that they interfere with learning.  They also are strongly associated with anti-authoritarianism. Commonly those in 12 step programs who are supposed to do a Step 4 overlook addressing fears and resentments which they have to institutions and principles. Authority is perhaps best understood as a principle.  The major authority structures in society are government, education, religion, police, military, banks.

We have just had an election in Canada in which three outstanding individuals who all had great leadership skills competed.  Individually most Canadians were well spread in their appreciation for any of them and an anti authority joke that made the rounds was that 'choosing a politician is like choosing which STD one wants."  However, Mr. Harper  had been Canada's leader for 2 terms demonstrating his outstanding democratic leadership skills when winning ever one election is extremely difficulty.  Mr. Mulcair was leader of the NDP Opposition party and while he didn't win the election was a greatly admired leader of the Opposition and NDP>  Justin Trudeau, the present prime minister did exceptionally well as leader of the Liberal Party bringing this third place party to win the election.  His leadership skills on this alone are to be admired.

The fact is that all the Canadian leaders are A students when it comes to political. If there were an exam for "Political Intelligence" , Mr. Harper, Mr. Mulcair and Mr. Trudeau would all score A.  To date Mr. Harper has been A+ as a democratic leader serving two terms and having 8 years of leadership experience under his belt.  Mr. Trudeau has survived many months now and continues to lead his liberal party and the government of Canada while having only 40% of the popular vote. Mr. Mulcair has many years of experience and is facing another leadership conference. But the fact all these leaders are exceptional leaders.

Right now the American election is in the beginning delegates phase with Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders all leading in the races.  Again , all of these individuals are exceptional leaders. They have demonstrated great success individually in their own personal and public life and now are demonstrating their impressive leadership skills in these really tough campaigns and debates and the rather ugly spectacle of rough and tumble American politics.  Given American Transparency and Journalism every wrinkle and slip of the tongue is enlarged and distributed the world over whereas in the rest of the world where so many police states and so much of politics is behind closed doors no such public demonstration exists.

Elections in western countries are rather like blood sports and the public has a front row seat. That
truly is the issue of democracy whereas in communist totatitarian countries and other dictatorships the public doesn't know and there is no allowance for criticism and dissent.  America quite possibly
can be called the country with the greatest level of free speech in the world. Without 'free speech'





  
there is no freedom and political correctness is today the greatest threat to 'freedom of speech' and

'freedom' and "democracy" since Nazi Germany invaded Poland.

In a democracy with freedom of speech everyone has the 'right' to criticize the government and the authority institutions.  In Muslim lead countries we have seen that criticizing, questioning or repudiating Allah and Islam is a punishable offence with actual death as a consequence. Charlie was killed in another country by Islamic terrorists but the actions of those terrorist were supported by the Muslim Brotherhood and by Pew Statistics a majority of mainstream Muslims. In Thailand there is a professor in prison for criticizing the historical behaviour of an ancestral King. To criticize the Royal Family today is to risk incarceration.  To criticize the Royal Family in Saudi Arabia is to risk death as death was the lot of so many Argentinians who criticized their government in the terrible years.

Freedom is still a quite rare entity. So many of the leaders of the United Nations countries are guilty of major human rights offences and are quite frankly anti freedom for their citizens and often only pay lip service to the very idea of democracy.  Much of the world is ruled by old style tribalism, akin to gangsterism.  Power whether taken by gun or inheritted by those whose parents and grandparents took power by violence is in many ways the norm for much of the United Nations leadership despite their fatuous rhetoric.  The United Nations Authority has given rise to the black humor joke, "How do you know when a politician is lying. His lips are moving."

However, every leader in the United Nations is an A student in "Political Intelligence" and political leadership.

I'm personally not a very good leader. At most I've been in charge of a unit of 10 to 20 staff. I've been the acting head of units of a few more people but not that many. Mostly my businesses have at most had 2 or three assistants. I've not managed a marriage well. lasting 10 years in that endeavour and haven't had children. By contrast my brother, an highly accomplished administrator has wifh his wife of 30 plus years managed a family of 5, in addition to managing many many people in the work place and handling million dollar budgets.  Note that these are the true basis for judging leadship skills. Critics today are a dime a dozen and usually unskilled in and fundamentally ignorant. They are
however a 'legend in their own minds!"


I can only admire Canada's Prime Ministers and Political Party leaders for their "Political Intelligence'.  My brother's "political intelligence" is greater than mine. Obvioulsy Mr. Trudeau is
very bright politically to be the leader of a nation just like those who are leaders of the United
Nations.



It also means to my mind that they were all likely less 'anti authoritarian' than I am.  A communist leader might have got into his position of socialist leadership by killing a few competitors just like a leader of the Hell's Angels or Jacuzza or Mafia.  Justin Trudeau, Harper, Obama, etc. all got to their positions of leadershi by playing the 'game' without overt illegal behaviour.

The trouble with 'criminal' leaders is that they may in fact have political intelligence but they're a bit like people who bring guns to golf games. Criminals may win the golf game in their mind by killing the Tiger Woods. That doesn't make themgood golfers. They're losers except as killers.

Authority is power.  The democractic leaders as compared to the totalitarian leaders and the criminal leaders don't solely depend on fear and force. In a great movie excerpt from the classic Grand Canyon, the stupid thug Rocstar has a gun on the old man Simon who is discussing respect with him. Rockstar "are you asking me as a sign of respect or are you asking because I've got the gun' and Simon says "You aint got the gun, we aint having this conversation." Then Rockstar says, profoundly, "That's what I thought: no gun, no respect. That's why I've always got the gun."

So authority comes with fear or love.  Totalitarian regimes and gangter oligarchies and communist Committee run countries  are lead by fear.

In a democracy, the fact is 40% of Canadians voted for Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau individually didn't force them to vote for him. He didn't threaten them (except perhaps with the fear mongering Climate Change Cult, vote for me I'll save the world, vote against me and we all die because the planet is going to die) but really, he put forward his 'best sales job' and beat the other two guys who were doing their best to get votes and the majority went to Mr. Trudeau. The same happened for Obama.



In contrast many elections around the world, especially the phony communist elections and the fake democracies, if you don't vote for the dictator you're killed. He rules by the gun.

Now our government may well have the 'illusion' of democracy with the Elite, that 2% of every country that really rules, doing whatever they want to while giving us the illusion of choice.  In the
real politick of communism and socialist countries and other dictatorships the appointed people
simply take charge and tell you what to do.  There's no 'illusion of choice'.


That's fairly cynical and yes, all those who are cynical will naturally be 'anti authoritarianism."  Nihilism and cynicism are by nature 'anti authoritarian'.  The "loser' in the struggle of 'claw and tooth' in the wild will naturally be negative about their not getting the bone. Watching hyenas and lions is a study in such behaviour.  The multiplicity of carion beasts and the hierarchies of any society are complex.

But it remains that Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Obama today are A students in 'Politics'.  Just like Stalin and Hitler, and Henry the VIII and the Ottoman Sultan and Lincoln and Gandhi before them.  These men were all great leaders.

However, as the Golden Bough showed societies like to have leaders as 'scapegoat'.  Collectively the Germans who supported Hitler overnight denied association when the Nazi regime fell.  The same occured in the Bible with even Peter denying his association and following of Jesus, one of the greatest leaders of history.

Jesus was a great Authority, like Mohammed, like Moses, like Buddha, like other religious leaders. Personally I feel Jesus is the son of God but objectively all the religious leaders were A students politically and socially.

So when I criticize Trudeau who I personally do not like, his politics being as opposite my own as say the Montreal Canadienes Hockey team is from the greatest of all hockey teams, the Canucks.

In a democracy, with freedom of speech and political debate we can criticize our government openly
without wanting a revolution.  I love the Beatles song, "We don't want a revolution!"   I can understand why Americans want Hillary Clinton jailed and I can even understand why as many want Obama impeached as did Bush.  I would be ecstactic is Trudeau were step down from leadership of Canada and let someone more to my liking  win. I'd like the Canucks to win the NHL too.


I am interested in this issue of authority and anti authority though because a lot of people who have never even 'lead' anything or anyone speak as if they could do better than Justin Trudeau.  And it saddens me. I don't like Trudeau or even Obama but I really don't think with my experience and record I could do a better job than they are doing.

I'm a ship's captain and a rather adequate one.  I noted that when my ship was in a storm all the crew less experienced and capable than me wanted to be in charge.  I learned then that people who are afraid and unaware of their fearfulness, want to be in 'control'.  So often I have seen those out of control in my psychiatric practice want to 'take control' because this gave them the brief illusion of 'safety'.

I actually believe that our generation dominated by drugs and alcohol , television, movies and video games has an immense egotism and arrogance about their capabilities. I've seen so many picturres of rank beginners jumping on motorcycles and driving them first time. I've play video games. And yet, when I first drove a motorcycle it wasn't long before I crashed it. Even after advanced training and much experience I find riding my motorcycle a very advanced complex skill.  I've done these 'pilot simulation' series and I've been quite good. I've even sat beside dozens of pilots and had some basic training in flying. Still despite all the movies to the contrary I don't want to ever have to pilot or land a 747 or a jet fighter.

A professional is judged by his lowest level. The professional is one who does a whole lot of something and because of experience has quite outstanding successes but mostly can attest to a minimum standard of success.  There is no perfection in this human world despite the demands of authorities.    However a military sniper will hit the target with high probability most of the time.  They can have a bad day. By contrast an amateur can 'get lucky' and hit the target once.  Having delivered a hundred babies or so I see the great tv deliveries by the children, police, neighbour or whatever and think that's great.  90% of the time I really didnt' think I needed to be at the delivery. However there's at least a half dozen or more of the deliveries I attended that mother and child would
have died if I hadn't been there and I had n't had the greatest of teachers.

Because again, the greatest leaders are the greatest followers.  Just as I followed the instructions of
Rusty who taught me motorcycle riding, I had followed the instructions of the obstetricians and psychiatrists and other teachers who I was truly blessed to have as mentors. I also followed my father
and mothers instruction, perhaps not as well as I could have and certainly in retrospect should have, but I did follow them. I am indeed an extremely good follower.

But so is Mr. Trudeau.  He's been a great follower and learned from some of Canada's greatest leaders.  His father, Pierre Trudeau is just one. Both Mr. Paul Martin and Mr. Chretien supported and guided Mr. Justin Trudeau. Sadly even the Conservative weak link Mr. Joe Clark supported him.  He is clearly a great follower with great mentors and despite all predictions he has not totally bankrupt the country in the first 6 months of his leadership.  Obama might well be the devil incarnate but similiar America survived his rule just as it survived Mr. Bush.  Both Mr. Obama and Mr. Bush were as demonized as Mr. Harper in Canada was.

But the fact remains at this time they all are as great leaders as Mr. Putin or Mrs Thatcher.

Anti authoritarianism contains the inability to appreciate 'authority' in general and comes out specifically in a lot of situations.  Those who do drugs and alcohol are commonly anti law and order because it interferes with their addictions. Criminals are naturally 'anti authority' preferring to be 'a law unto themselves.'

Che guevara was as great a military leader as Ghengis Khan by some arguments but he wasn't as great a political leader as Khan or as his buddy Castro.  A great military leader or even a military hero might well not have the skills or political acumen to be the kind of leader that Truman or Kennedy were.

Political leadership is of a 'kind'.  It's a kind of 'authority'.  One feature is whether it's legitimate, criminal , or democratic.  Is is a product of force or attraction.  Is it 'respect' or is it a 'gun".

Now followers are fickle.  Mr. Harper, one of the greatest leaders of Canadian history, elected two terms and managed Canada through two world economic crisis is rejected overnight by the electorate one the basis of 'change'.  Anything is better than the old ways. Mr. Obama was elected much the same way after.  In democracies we don't as much vote for a person as against the last person. Even Winston Church lost his election despite what he'd done in WWII.  In democracy when a country is doing well the leaders may actually stay in power but the minute events change out they go.


It's been said that Benign Dictatorships are the best government overall for a country or a world however it's also said 'Power corrupts and Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely".  History shows too that regimes corrupt and eventually competition replaces them with empire after empire till the present world empire today.

Now the whole idea of 'freedom of speech', involves 'criticism' and therefore I can criticism authorities and thankfully in Canada the retaliation is not what it is in Saudi Arabia where the regime is so weak it cannot tolerate any dissension.  It's a government by force compared to Canada and even the US where the government is by attraction.

What's interesting in politics is not just the left and right dimensions but when the quality of criticism is by leaders themselves.  Not outsiders, but rather those leaders who have been before or themselves had the job of running large complex social structures.

The joke of the Alberta NDP election was that never before in the history of Canada or perhaps even the west have so many utterly ignorant and incompetent people gained so much power democratically. The vast majority of elected in that province had far less leadership experience than me and I've run a business, been an expedition leader, had masses of education and am a ships captain. The majority of candidates there had no leadership experience to speak of and had never managed budgets greater than a hundred thousand or so.  Yet despite the bankruptcy of the province they're muddling along showing that politics can 'survive' with all kinds. When there is a revolution such as the Lenin communist revolution that deposed the Russian government lead by socialist Alexander Kerensky after the abdication of NicholasII there is a similiar situation with generally politically ignorant, naive and incompetent people taking their leadership by force and establishing control with a gun.

The loss then is monumental. But it's interesting that a multi billion dollar business like the country of Alberta can be taken over by critics and school teachers and it muddles along.  Indeed experience is mostly associated with efficiency and without corruption, saving.

Now I'm looking forward to the leadership races in Canada. Rona Ambrose has been an amazing conservative interim leader and Mulcair is up for review by the NDP.  Meanwhile Donald Trump and
Hillary Clinton look like they will be the contenders for the next American presidency.  I personally like Country Rock or Country Folk Music but I like to think of these leaders as different types of music,  Obama was probably Rap while Hillary might be called jazz and Trump rock and roll.  I think of Justin Trudeau as hip hop myself and thought Mr. Harper classic rock.  Trump might be Metallica but the bottom line and that's what I want heard here is despite my fear and criticism of Trudeau and Obama I fully recognise them as A plus students of politics. As a Canadian I will follow Trudeau's leadership as well, kicking and screaming as I go. I'm paying his outrageous taxes and choking on his wasteful spending just like Americans who felt that neither the establishment Democrats or Republicans served them so look to the genius of Donald Trump, definitely a major leader.

But this analysis is like respect that which fighter pilots had for each other in WWI.  Downed pilots were treated respectfully and returned exchanged in prisoner exchanges in a civilized way before the rule of mob violence.

ISIS today definitely is lead by an A plus leader but his leadership is coupled with barbarian behaviour.

I guess it's summed up by recognizing that Lucifer was a great angel and remains a great angel but thankful he doesn't play for the Canucks. Personally I think the Angel Michael and even on good days that Jesus plays for the Canucks.  (Jesus was not playing for the Canucks this last season).

Ulyanovsk, Russia, morning

Another good night’s sleep in Barcelona Hotel.  Awake, meditate, exercise, shower.  Barrett has begun her exercises, is talking on iPhone.  I leave quietly.  It’s 7 am. The hotel is sleepy.  I walk the streets of Ulyanovsk, noting in passing no women wearing 4 inch heels this early.  I take a picture of a black and white bird, almost a racoon mask face.  I’ve not seen one before. I like a gymnast plaque I find on a wall. Takes me back to early days doing gymnastics at the YMCA, watching world competitions.
The news last night was of Ukraine monitors missing, the stoning honour killing of a pregnant married woman in Pakistan, gang rape of women in India, the missing girls kidnapped by the African moslems.  Google’s robot car is being tested on streets.  BBC World News in English.
There are more bronze statues here. I can’t read who they are too. A woman sitting.  I think the first man I come across was a local writer.  I’ve read about him.  Not Lenin but still. local boy did good.  Some of the statues are clearly  for tourists.  I take pictures of wooden houses.  For now a camera is a joy but one day I’d rather a sketchpad.  The television has a war movies on now.  I’ve returned and had breakfast down stairs.  Omelette, blinz pancakes, sausages, lox, yogurt, coffee and orange juice.  Barrett is now talking on phone to family here.  She is planning day of museums, a ensuring we get to the train station for this evening. 36 hours to Moscow.

Lenin's Home Tour, Ulyanovsk, Russia

The tour of Lenin’s childhood home was a highlight.  The guide spoke Russian but Barrett translated for me.  Barrett and I liked the the Lenin family had played croquet.  I liked the samovar attached to the stove.Barrett loved the piano.  It was just a perfect tour with a delightful woman so enthusiastic about the Soviet era and so knowledgeable about this famous Ulyanov family. The house itself was located on a street of wooden houses, many of them restored and used as museums for art and music of the area as well as matters related to Lenin. it was all historically so very interesting.
 

Lenin Memorial Centre, Ulyanovsk, Russia

This was a remarkable centre. A celebration of a man so important to the Russian People. I couldn’t help but think of the Lincoln Memorial and consider Lincoln and the civil war of the day.  Rebels today consider him and the win in America anathema.  Lenin is that controversial.  Major forces of history and men at the helm.  Great swaths of legalism and political ease.  Thousands dead on an idea or a word. Yet those who survive were part of an awesome time.  In the west we have a shallowness with emotionalism, soccer games and the screaming fans of some child rock star.  These days of Russia were life and death. As if California wanted to secede from the US and Texans decided en mass to stop them. All the absurdity and insanity of politics, people and wars comes to the fore.
I judge as history judges a million miles away. Lenin was a great man.  To the Russians he is what Churchill is to the British, Washington is to the Americans.  John A. MacDonald with all his corruption and foibles is as close as I can come with a comparison in Canada. Certainly he is in a way like Wallace to the Scots but in contrast to Wallace, Lenin succeeded in creating a new empire. He was a builder.  He brought a vast region under central control, created a modern state from what was essentially a medieval kingdom.
There is modern history in this museum too. I enjoyed the wall given to each of the Russia leaders since Lenin. I confess I enjoyed those bits where English was added and I could understand better what I was seeing. Definitely an audiotape tour would be more rewarding. Barrett answered my questions but was delightfully waylaid by two Russian ladies who waxed poetic she said about the Soviet era.  I loved the celebration of the Soviet Space exploration.