Bird’s Eye: The bird is puzzled. Why has Followups been moved? The editor chirps up in response: it’s not the most important, so why bury the lead? In future issues Followups will hover somewhere between the political and the rest. This week we follow up on the look at the Canadian people’s swing to the left (as distinct to their government), at hockey players’ swings to the head, and at Noam Chomsky’s observations about the political landscape’s swing to Occupy. Of note is that our hockey commentary is by Adam Gopnik, who delivered the fourth of last year’s Massey lectures as a paean to the nobility of hockey.
* Canada’s Socially Progressive Values Now Stretch From Coast To Coast Den Tandt Montreal Gazette
An extraordinary transformation has occurred, or more precisely appeared above the waterline. It is a change so epochal, so profound, you’d think Canadians would be in the streets, cheering. But then, this is Canada: Celebratory back patting is not our cup of tea.
The big news, which will never make a bold headline, is just this: Across this country, from coast to coast to coast, there is now a nearly unanimous view that the old, divisive, angry debates about matters of individual faith and morals are over. And we’re not going back there. Not any time soon, probably not ever.
Discrimination based on race and gender and sexual orientation are history, too, for the most part. There are still racists, homophobes and gender-haters in Canada, of course. And there are aberrations (Afro-centric schools in Toronto, for example). But the shared expectation of equality under the law for all, is now so firmly embedded as to be foundational. This is something interesting, unique — and new.
We actually, finally may be living in a just society, as various past prime ministers dreamt we one day would. Not only that, but we live in a society in which the shared idea of equal rights spans the political spectrum, and also our country’s vast geography.
Too Pollyannaish by half? It sounds it. But consider the facts on the ground….
* Violence in Hockey Adam Gopnik The New Yorker
What more is there to be said about the plague of violence in hockey this spring? Last Sunday, after watching my suddenly resurgent—should that be insurgent?—Chelsea Blues come back and beat Tottenham to make one more F.A. Cup Final, I turned on the Penguins-Flyers game late, and was not entirely surprised to see that the two teams were brawling. But then, as the Flyer’s Hartnell took a “victory” turn around the ice, a sudden howl went up from the crowd, and the usually suave Doc Emrick said glumly, “The crowd is responding to a Hulk Hogan video they’re showing.” And I thought: it’s come to this? Hockey, which I had spent the past year arguing at length, on Canadian radio, is the most intrinsically beautiful and strategically lithe of all sports, now cynically samples pro wrestling to stir up a crowd? My true blue (or red and white) Canadian wife, who comes from a true hockey playing family—her great uncle is actually in the Hockey Hall of Fame—saw what was happening, shuddered, and walked away.
“The most vicious and, perhaps, disgraceful first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs” was the verdict of Stu Hackel, the former director of broadcasting for the N.H.L., and this is now close to a universal view—if you except Don Cherry and Mike Milbury, who may not actually live in this universe, but rather in some other, remote dimension, where it is forever 1959.
* What Next for Occupy? Noam Chomsky The Guardian
Q: We are interested in learning what your position is on mainstream filtering, the repression of civil liberties, and the role of money and politics as they relate to Occupy and the future of America.
A: Coverage of Occupy has been mixed. At first it was dismissive, making fun of people involved as if they were just silly kids playing games and so on. But coverage changed. In fact, one of the really remarkable and almost spectacular successes of the Occupy movement is that it has simply changed the entire framework of discussion of many issues. There were things that were sort of known, but in the margins, hidden, which are now right up front – such as the imagery of the 99% and 1%; and the dramatic facts of sharply rising inequality over the past roughly 30 years, with wealth being concentrated in actually a small fraction of 1% of the population.
For the majority, real incomes have pretty much stagnated, sometimes declined. Benefits have also declined and work hours have gone up, and so on. It’s not third world misery, but it’s not what it ought to be in a rich society, the richest in the world, in fact, with plenty of wealth around, which people can see, just not in their pockets. All of this has now been brought to the fore. You can say that it’s now almost a standard framework of discussion. Even the terminology is accepted. That’s a big shift.
