Chapter 11. Why Feminism Didn't Lead To Socialism. by Dave Jaffe.
"The socialist age was coming to an end," Peter Jenkins wrote about the 1970's. In fact Jenkins jumped the gun here because many left wing governments were in power or elected to office in the 1970's. These governments included those in Australia, British Columbia, Saskatchewan and New Zealand. Also revolutionaries took power in places like Ethiopia, Cambodia, Vietnam, Nicaragua and Vietnam. The revolutions in Iran Cambodia and Ethiopia turned into horror stories. Still, large parts of the world did pivot to the left in the 1970's.
Yet by the 1980's, right wing governments took power in many places. Aided by business groups and their allies governments took to slashing social programs and doling out big tax cuts to the rich. By the 21st century the conservative forces had shifted the politics of the world massively to the right.. Free trade agreements took many rights away from people. For instance Canada lost 600,000 well paying jobs after it signed free trade agreements with the United States and Mexico. The U.S. in turn saw millions of jobs vanish from its industrial sectors.
By 2018 observers pointed out that the wages of many blue and white collar workers hadn't really gone up since the 1970's. A new expression, namely 'the precariat' entered social science jargon. Here were the young workers who couldn't find decent jobs, slaved away at two or three jobs just to get by, and often in their late 20's still lived with their parent or parents. Others gave up any hope of joining the middle class.
"I'm planning to move into my car and live in it," said Peter a 40's something British Columbian who had just completed a training course in technical work to. One of his friends was now parked in a station wagon since he couldn't afford to live in an apartment. "The rents are too high," Peter points out , "and he only works eight months a year."
Yet one thing stood out amidst the governments' wars against social programs and the poorest half or third of society. Right wing governments were not only elected, they were often re-elected. Many working people voted for harsh right wing governments along with the rich and the middle class. Austerity paid off at the polls.
When in the 1970's, Jackie told Dick "Capitalism can't survive feminism," she ignored the incredible power of capitalism. The free enterprise system has shown amazing flexibility. The new left of the 1960's and 1970's did achieve some great victories. In the U.S. it helped overthrow the vicious regime of segregation and with some help from the National Liberation Front of Vietnam, it ended the military draft. All across the world it shook governments up and paved the way for many liberating changes. Yet in the end, the new left couldn't survive the massive counterattack that powerful business groups and their allies launched against it.
"The left wins the skirmishes," Dick told Jackie. "But the right wins the battles." To some extent Dick was right.
Wednesday, 8 August 2018
Saturday, 4 August 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings Of An Old Man. Chapter 11. Part Four. Why Feminism Didn't Lead To Socialism by Dave Jaffe.
Why Feminism Didn't Lead To Socialism by Dave Jaffe. Part Four.
As the new groups of the 1970's appeared and protested, a big cultural shift took place too. Many young people turned away from mainstream religion. Like what poet Gary Snyder in the 1950's and painter Mark Tobey had done, they turned toward Buddhism and other eastern religions. Also many young people mimicked the life of the underclass. Casual dress, casual sex and casual drug use were embraced by many youth.
Yet in the 1970's, the economy started to underperform and show signs of crisis. On the heels of two massive oil price hikes by many oil producing states and U.S. President Richard Nixon's desertion of the by now old Bretton Woods currency agreement, inflation rose as jobless totals did too. This supposedly broke the then reigning Keynesian consensus that as prices went up, jobless totals fell and vice versa. Now inflation took off and many people also lost their jobs.
In reaction to this new reality, right wing ideas took hold across the western world, especially in English speaking countries. "There is no alternative," the very right wing Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in the 1980's. Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister in British history. Yet she also imposed a harsh regime of austerity in Britain. She cut the rights of blue collar workers and smashed unions like coal miners who opposed her in the 1980's. She cut many government benefits to the bone. She sold off dozens of government-owned firms and gave big tax cuts to the rich.
In the U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the two Bush presidents gave the rich massive tax cuts. Meanwhile they slashed social programs to the poor and launched massive military buildups. When Bill Clinton became the Democratic President from 1992 to 2000, he rarely restored the Republican cuts. . In fact, he abolished one of the oldest welfare programs in the U.S., namely the Aid To Dependent Children program. He also put in place a really tough imprisonment program that soon tripled the number of prisoners in federal penitentiaries.
In Canada in the mid-1990's, Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his Finance Minister Paul Martine launched a massive program of government cutbacks. They fired over 45,000 government workers, slashed federal transfer payments to the provinces by a whopping40 per cent, cut unemployment benefits by nearly half and scrapped the Canada Assistance Act that had assured five rights to welfare applicants.
"I have been for the little guy," Chretien said in effect in 2018. Yet there were few signs of this when he served as Prime Minister. His tough cutbacks came on top of hard right wing provincial cuts by premiers like Mike Harris of Ontario, Bill Bennett of British Columbia, Ralph Klein of Alberta, Brian Peckford of Newfoundland and Frank McKenna of New Brunswick.
In Australia, the Labour Prime Minister Bob Hawke made few attempts to restore the cuts by the Australian Liberal and Country parties. Austerity for the poor and the poorest half of most western countries became the order of the day.
As the new groups of the 1970's appeared and protested, a big cultural shift took place too. Many young people turned away from mainstream religion. Like what poet Gary Snyder in the 1950's and painter Mark Tobey had done, they turned toward Buddhism and other eastern religions. Also many young people mimicked the life of the underclass. Casual dress, casual sex and casual drug use were embraced by many youth.
Yet in the 1970's, the economy started to underperform and show signs of crisis. On the heels of two massive oil price hikes by many oil producing states and U.S. President Richard Nixon's desertion of the by now old Bretton Woods currency agreement, inflation rose as jobless totals did too. This supposedly broke the then reigning Keynesian consensus that as prices went up, jobless totals fell and vice versa. Now inflation took off and many people also lost their jobs.
In reaction to this new reality, right wing ideas took hold across the western world, especially in English speaking countries. "There is no alternative," the very right wing Conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher said in the 1980's. Thatcher became the first female Prime Minister in British history. Yet she also imposed a harsh regime of austerity in Britain. She cut the rights of blue collar workers and smashed unions like coal miners who opposed her in the 1980's. She cut many government benefits to the bone. She sold off dozens of government-owned firms and gave big tax cuts to the rich.
In the U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the two Bush presidents gave the rich massive tax cuts. Meanwhile they slashed social programs to the poor and launched massive military buildups. When Bill Clinton became the Democratic President from 1992 to 2000, he rarely restored the Republican cuts. . In fact, he abolished one of the oldest welfare programs in the U.S., namely the Aid To Dependent Children program. He also put in place a really tough imprisonment program that soon tripled the number of prisoners in federal penitentiaries.
In Canada in the mid-1990's, Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien and his Finance Minister Paul Martine launched a massive program of government cutbacks. They fired over 45,000 government workers, slashed federal transfer payments to the provinces by a whopping40 per cent, cut unemployment benefits by nearly half and scrapped the Canada Assistance Act that had assured five rights to welfare applicants.
"I have been for the little guy," Chretien said in effect in 2018. Yet there were few signs of this when he served as Prime Minister. His tough cutbacks came on top of hard right wing provincial cuts by premiers like Mike Harris of Ontario, Bill Bennett of British Columbia, Ralph Klein of Alberta, Brian Peckford of Newfoundland and Frank McKenna of New Brunswick.
In Australia, the Labour Prime Minister Bob Hawke made few attempts to restore the cuts by the Australian Liberal and Country parties. Austerity for the poor and the poorest half of most western countries became the order of the day.
Saturday, 28 July 2018
Ends And Odds: The Ravings Of An Old man:Chapter 11, Part Three: Feminism Didn't Bring On Socialism by Dave Jaffe
Feminism Didn't Bring On Socialism. Part Three by Dave Jaffe.
The great rebellions of the late 1960's nearly all failed. "In 1968, hopes more or less underground for years," writes John Berger, " were born in several places in the world. These hopes were categorically defeated." Clive Doucet, a city councilor in Ottawa came to the same conclusion as Berger did. And Rodger Garbutt, a now retired socials teacher said, "All the rebellions couldn't dislodge the old rulers."
These observers are right. Still, on the ashes of the failed rebellions of the 1960's, a whole host of new groups suddenly appeared. Gays, lesbians, feminists, environmentalists, hippies, black power advocates, Quebec sovereigntists, First Nations and anti-war activists came into the open.
Now no government in the western world can rule just by force. So in the 1970's and after governments in the western world did listen to the demands of these groups. Anti-war activists in the U.S. and elsewhere forced the U.S. government to give up its war in Indochina. "Peace is at hand," said the U.S. government in 1972. It took another year before the U.S. signed a peace accord with the various Vietnamese groups. Still, in 1975 all U.S. troops vanished from Indochina and communists soon ruled Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
In 1973 the U.S. Congress abolished the draft. "I came to Canada to get away from the U.S. army," one young American told this writer. He wasn't alone. Over 50,000 young American males fled the United States and came to Canada to evade the draft. Now the draft was history.
African American revolutionaries were often shot and killed by U.S. government forces. Yet more conservative African American politicians ran for office in many places in the 1970's and were elected. African Americans and other groups of colour ended up in high places in the American bureaucracies.
Women around the world marched and demonstrated in the 1970's. Soon women entered medical faculties, law departments, and many other places. Women became doctors, lawyers, accountants, carpenters, bus drivers and business leaders. .In the 1950's people used to say, "Women are going to college to meet future doctors and marry them." Now women went to university to become doctors.
Women began to run for elected offices and many succeeded. Outside of the U.S., women became presidents and prime ministers Restrictive laws against gays and lesbians were scrapped in many countries. Gay and lesbians often ran for political office and didn't hide their sexual orientation. By 2015 many western countries hade legalized gay marriage.
Some people objected to these changes. Yet the new groups often had their way. This was the carrot that governments gave to voters in the 1970's and later. And by and large, these changes helped defuse protest. Jackie who I mentioned at the beginning of this piece thought that capitalism couldn't survive feminism. Yet capitalism did survive the rise of feminism and the rise of many other groups. Soon some women were running huge corporations.
The great rebellions of the late 1960's nearly all failed. "In 1968, hopes more or less underground for years," writes John Berger, " were born in several places in the world. These hopes were categorically defeated." Clive Doucet, a city councilor in Ottawa came to the same conclusion as Berger did. And Rodger Garbutt, a now retired socials teacher said, "All the rebellions couldn't dislodge the old rulers."
These observers are right. Still, on the ashes of the failed rebellions of the 1960's, a whole host of new groups suddenly appeared. Gays, lesbians, feminists, environmentalists, hippies, black power advocates, Quebec sovereigntists, First Nations and anti-war activists came into the open.
Now no government in the western world can rule just by force. So in the 1970's and after governments in the western world did listen to the demands of these groups. Anti-war activists in the U.S. and elsewhere forced the U.S. government to give up its war in Indochina. "Peace is at hand," said the U.S. government in 1972. It took another year before the U.S. signed a peace accord with the various Vietnamese groups. Still, in 1975 all U.S. troops vanished from Indochina and communists soon ruled Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos.
In 1973 the U.S. Congress abolished the draft. "I came to Canada to get away from the U.S. army," one young American told this writer. He wasn't alone. Over 50,000 young American males fled the United States and came to Canada to evade the draft. Now the draft was history.
African American revolutionaries were often shot and killed by U.S. government forces. Yet more conservative African American politicians ran for office in many places in the 1970's and were elected. African Americans and other groups of colour ended up in high places in the American bureaucracies.
Women around the world marched and demonstrated in the 1970's. Soon women entered medical faculties, law departments, and many other places. Women became doctors, lawyers, accountants, carpenters, bus drivers and business leaders. .In the 1950's people used to say, "Women are going to college to meet future doctors and marry them." Now women went to university to become doctors.
Women began to run for elected offices and many succeeded. Outside of the U.S., women became presidents and prime ministers Restrictive laws against gays and lesbians were scrapped in many countries. Gay and lesbians often ran for political office and didn't hide their sexual orientation. By 2015 many western countries hade legalized gay marriage.
Some people objected to these changes. Yet the new groups often had their way. This was the carrot that governments gave to voters in the 1970's and later. And by and large, these changes helped defuse protest. Jackie who I mentioned at the beginning of this piece thought that capitalism couldn't survive feminism. Yet capitalism did survive the rise of feminism and the rise of many other groups. Soon some women were running huge corporations.
Wednesday, 25 July 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings Of An old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter 11, Part Two. Feminism Didn't Bring On socialism.
Feminism Didn't Bring On Socialism. Part Two by Dave Jaffe.
As mentioned, Jackie, a 1960's activist thought that the rise of feminism would lead to socialism. That of course, didn't happen. In fact the rise of new movements in the world in the 1960's and 1970's, triggered a massive backlash. So that to-day things are far more conservative in some ways than they were forty years ago.
So how did this happen? Very simply really. "How do you move a donkey?" people used to say. "Just use the carrot and the stick." This is what the business class and its allies did. The stick they brandished was government--backed force. In the year 1968 protests movements and near insurrections erupted all across the globe. Yet they were nearly all crushed.
In early 1968 a massive attack in Vietnam by National Liberation Front troops and their North Vietnamese allies was launched against the American troops in South Vietnam. Yet the attack was beaten back by massive American force. The U.S. and its allies killed about 100,000 Vietnamese and the terrible war in Vietnam just went on and on. Back in the U.S. assassins murdered Martin Luther King Junior ands then Robert Kennedy. With the death of these two men all hopes of progressive change in the U.S. just vanished. Thousands of African Americans rioted when King was shot dead.. Police forces and military guards shot and killed over 170 African Americans. The political hopes for people of colour and the poor in general were crushed.
The assassinations in the U.S. didn't stop there. Police forces in the late 1960's and early 1970's shot and killed members of revolutionary groups like the Black Panthers. Still in 1968 revolts spread far outside U.S. borders.
In that year, French students and many workers occupied schools and factories defying the French government of President Charles de Gaulle.de Gaulle unleashed his police forces against the rebels and then called an election, where he won a massive electoral victory. "It is forbidden to forbid," French students wrote on walls in Paris. Yet their protests couldn't forbid or stop another De Gaulle victory at the polls.
The mood of rebellion spread to the other side of the Iron Curtain. In communist-ruled Czechoslavakia, communist leader Alexander Dubcek tried to create what his supporters called "Socialism, with a human face." Yet the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies made short shrift of these hopes. Their armies rolled into Czechoslavakia and crushed Dubcek and swept away his government.
In Mexico, just before the opening of the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City thousands of young people took to the streets to demand changes from the long ruling government of the Party of Institutionalized Revolution or the PRI. The PRI rulers brushed off these youthful rebels. Government armed forces killed hundreds of youthful protestors in the Plaza of the Three Cultures in Mexico City just before the opening of the Games. That was the end of the protests in Mexico - at least for a while.
The brutal face of force and repression rolled on. Police forces gassed and beat protestors in the streets of Chicago in the summer of 1968. The protestors had come to this big American city to protest the Vietnam war outside the Democratic convention held in Chicago.
The use of brute force didn't end in the 1960's. In the spring of 1970 American forces invaded Cambodia and tens of thousands of anti-war protestors shut down dozens of American college and university campuses. Troops shot and killed protestors at Kent state in Ohio and Jackson State. The protests faded away but the terrible now Indochinese war just went on and on.
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau proclaimed a war Measures Act in the fall of 1970 after the revolutionary front de Liberation de Quebec kidnapped a British diplomat and a prominent French-Canadian politician. "just watch me," Trudeau told reporter Tim Ralfe, who asked the Prime Minster how far he was going to go to crush the F.L.Q.
Hundreds of Quebecois were rounded up and jailed. Most were released after the so-called 'October Crisis ended. Still, Trudeau had crushed the F.L.Q. and it too vanished into history.
As mentioned, Jackie, a 1960's activist thought that the rise of feminism would lead to socialism. That of course, didn't happen. In fact the rise of new movements in the world in the 1960's and 1970's, triggered a massive backlash. So that to-day things are far more conservative in some ways than they were forty years ago.
So how did this happen? Very simply really. "How do you move a donkey?" people used to say. "Just use the carrot and the stick." This is what the business class and its allies did. The stick they brandished was government--backed force. In the year 1968 protests movements and near insurrections erupted all across the globe. Yet they were nearly all crushed.
In early 1968 a massive attack in Vietnam by National Liberation Front troops and their North Vietnamese allies was launched against the American troops in South Vietnam. Yet the attack was beaten back by massive American force. The U.S. and its allies killed about 100,000 Vietnamese and the terrible war in Vietnam just went on and on. Back in the U.S. assassins murdered Martin Luther King Junior ands then Robert Kennedy. With the death of these two men all hopes of progressive change in the U.S. just vanished. Thousands of African Americans rioted when King was shot dead.. Police forces and military guards shot and killed over 170 African Americans. The political hopes for people of colour and the poor in general were crushed.
The assassinations in the U.S. didn't stop there. Police forces in the late 1960's and early 1970's shot and killed members of revolutionary groups like the Black Panthers. Still in 1968 revolts spread far outside U.S. borders.
In that year, French students and many workers occupied schools and factories defying the French government of President Charles de Gaulle.de Gaulle unleashed his police forces against the rebels and then called an election, where he won a massive electoral victory. "It is forbidden to forbid," French students wrote on walls in Paris. Yet their protests couldn't forbid or stop another De Gaulle victory at the polls.
The mood of rebellion spread to the other side of the Iron Curtain. In communist-ruled Czechoslavakia, communist leader Alexander Dubcek tried to create what his supporters called "Socialism, with a human face." Yet the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact allies made short shrift of these hopes. Their armies rolled into Czechoslavakia and crushed Dubcek and swept away his government.
In Mexico, just before the opening of the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico City thousands of young people took to the streets to demand changes from the long ruling government of the Party of Institutionalized Revolution or the PRI. The PRI rulers brushed off these youthful rebels. Government armed forces killed hundreds of youthful protestors in the Plaza of the Three Cultures in Mexico City just before the opening of the Games. That was the end of the protests in Mexico - at least for a while.
The brutal face of force and repression rolled on. Police forces gassed and beat protestors in the streets of Chicago in the summer of 1968. The protestors had come to this big American city to protest the Vietnam war outside the Democratic convention held in Chicago.
The use of brute force didn't end in the 1960's. In the spring of 1970 American forces invaded Cambodia and tens of thousands of anti-war protestors shut down dozens of American college and university campuses. Troops shot and killed protestors at Kent state in Ohio and Jackson State. The protests faded away but the terrible now Indochinese war just went on and on.
Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau proclaimed a war Measures Act in the fall of 1970 after the revolutionary front de Liberation de Quebec kidnapped a British diplomat and a prominent French-Canadian politician. "just watch me," Trudeau told reporter Tim Ralfe, who asked the Prime Minster how far he was going to go to crush the F.L.Q.
Hundreds of Quebecois were rounded up and jailed. Most were released after the so-called 'October Crisis ended. Still, Trudeau had crushed the F.L.Q. and it too vanished into history.
Monday, 23 July 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings Of An Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter 11' Part One. Feminism Didn't Bring On Socialism.
Feminism Didn't Bring On Socialism.. Part One by Dave Jaffe.
Jackie was a young cheerful revolutionary back in the mid-1970's. She's become an ardent feminist and had high hopes for this new movement. "Capitalism," she told a friend of mine, "will never be able to resist the power of feminism. The feminist movement will lead to socialism." But my friend Dick had a more subtle grasp of history.
"I'm not sure about that," he said. "Capitalism is very flexible and has absorbed lots of past movements. Don't ever underestimate the power of the capitalist system." On this exchange as on many others he'd been involved in, Dick was right and Jackie was totally wrong. In fact in the past 45 years or so, the capitalist system and its right wing advocates have swept the board.
In the 1980's right wing governments popped up in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and splintered into 15 separate republics. All of them ditched socialism. The former eastern European satellites of the Soviet Union won their freedom, or so they thought and quickly moved into NATO and joined the capitalist system. By the mid-1980's the People's Republic of China had ditched hard core Maoism and embraced the profit system. "To get rich is glorious," former hard line Maoists said in China.
Now the move to the right has hit western European countries. Social democratic parties in France, Italy, Germany and Austria are losing millions of their voters to extreme right wing anti-immigrant parties. Emmanuel Macron, a former social democrat and now president of France has embraced a rigid anti-immigrant posture. He has also made massive cuts to social programs.
In the United States, Donald Trump, the incredible demagogic president from New York City heads a government that has trashed most of his country's social programs. He has also put through the country's Senate and House of Representatives a bill that gives him and his rich friends a massive tax cut. Great Britain is wrestling with its dilemma over Brexit.. "No matter how Britain leaves the EU" one friend of mine who worked in antipoverty groups in Britain said, "many British people especially the poor are bound to suffer."
My friend Dick died many years ago. The last time I heard about Jackie she was working in Texas leading a unionizing drive among women workers in a slaughter house. I wish her well and hopes she succeeds in her organizing. These days I often tell people, "Never underestimate the power of capitalism." Dick is dead but his words are still impressed in my mind. Maybe even she remembers Dick's warnings. Somebody's got to.
Jackie was a young cheerful revolutionary back in the mid-1970's. She's become an ardent feminist and had high hopes for this new movement. "Capitalism," she told a friend of mine, "will never be able to resist the power of feminism. The feminist movement will lead to socialism." But my friend Dick had a more subtle grasp of history.
"I'm not sure about that," he said. "Capitalism is very flexible and has absorbed lots of past movements. Don't ever underestimate the power of the capitalist system." On this exchange as on many others he'd been involved in, Dick was right and Jackie was totally wrong. In fact in the past 45 years or so, the capitalist system and its right wing advocates have swept the board.
In the 1980's right wing governments popped up in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and splintered into 15 separate republics. All of them ditched socialism. The former eastern European satellites of the Soviet Union won their freedom, or so they thought and quickly moved into NATO and joined the capitalist system. By the mid-1980's the People's Republic of China had ditched hard core Maoism and embraced the profit system. "To get rich is glorious," former hard line Maoists said in China.
Now the move to the right has hit western European countries. Social democratic parties in France, Italy, Germany and Austria are losing millions of their voters to extreme right wing anti-immigrant parties. Emmanuel Macron, a former social democrat and now president of France has embraced a rigid anti-immigrant posture. He has also made massive cuts to social programs.
In the United States, Donald Trump, the incredible demagogic president from New York City heads a government that has trashed most of his country's social programs. He has also put through the country's Senate and House of Representatives a bill that gives him and his rich friends a massive tax cut. Great Britain is wrestling with its dilemma over Brexit.. "No matter how Britain leaves the EU" one friend of mine who worked in antipoverty groups in Britain said, "many British people especially the poor are bound to suffer."
My friend Dick died many years ago. The last time I heard about Jackie she was working in Texas leading a unionizing drive among women workers in a slaughter house. I wish her well and hopes she succeeds in her organizing. These days I often tell people, "Never underestimate the power of capitalism." Dick is dead but his words are still impressed in my mind. Maybe even she remembers Dick's warnings. Somebody's got to.
Monday, 9 July 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings Of An Old man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Ten, Part Two
Death's Been On My Mind Lately by Dave Jaffe. Part Two.
Two things stand out when you think of death. First off, men are far more reckless than women and are much more likely to die than women whether they're young, middle aged or old. Any visit to an old people's home will show you many women but not too many men. The female of the species, any species, usually outlives the male and this includes human beings.
Women also take better are of themselves than men do. They watch their weight, diet more than men, and exercise more than males do. So as said before, they live longer than a man does. They don't take the risks that men do. Also, men work in some very dangerous jobs. In the 1960's, more than 60 men died every year working in the woods of British Columbia.
"I'll never work in the logging industry," a construction foreman once said. "It's just too bloody dangerous." On the other hand, a logger once told me, ""I'd never work in any mine. I'm scared of going underground." In recent years, sawmill closures, and mechanized mining and logging practices have cut the death rate for many industrial jobs. Yet there are still many men working in blue collar jobs and often men die in these jobs. These jobs are still filled mostly be men.
Anything connected to driving is dangerous. Every year over 2,000 people die in car crashes or traffic accidents in Canada. Over 600 people are murdered every year. In short you're three and a half times more likely to die in a car crash than be murdered. Many people who drive for a living are often victims of car and trucking accidents.
As you reach yours 50's, your chance of dying goes up and up. One of the fastest ways to die in your 50's, is to smoke tobacco and drink alcohol. My mother was a smoker who died of breast cancer at the age of 51. She never inhaled tobacco into her lungs. Yet one oncologist, a cancer specialist said that cigarette smoke can trigger cancerous tumours anywhere in your body.
Albert Giacometti was a famous sculptor who was born in Switzerland. In the late 1940's he became famous and rich. "He was almost isolated as a sculptor as his own figures were isolated in space," notes art critic Edward Lucie-Smith. Yet Giacometti wasn't isolated in his smoking habits. He was a chain smoker who rarely was seen without a cigarette in his mouth. He died after two massive heart attacks that were probably brought on by smoking. He was 66 years old. Mordecai Richler the well-known, Montreal-born novelist smoke tobacco and love to drink alcohol. Cancer carried him to the grave of 68.
Eating habits can speed up death or delay it. Vegans or people who don't eat animal flesh usually live longer than those who eat meat. Money plays a part too in helping you live longer. The rich live longer than the middle classes who in turn live longer than the poor. In any case we all die. Every year about 50 million people pass away. "He not busy being born" sang Bob Dylan, "is busy dying." Like most Canadians of my age, I'll pass away one of these days. Stroke, cancer or heart attack will kill me.
As the French say, "On verra," or "We'll see." Yet like billions of people who've lived before me, I'll be gone one of these days.
Two things stand out when you think of death. First off, men are far more reckless than women and are much more likely to die than women whether they're young, middle aged or old. Any visit to an old people's home will show you many women but not too many men. The female of the species, any species, usually outlives the male and this includes human beings.
Women also take better are of themselves than men do. They watch their weight, diet more than men, and exercise more than males do. So as said before, they live longer than a man does. They don't take the risks that men do. Also, men work in some very dangerous jobs. In the 1960's, more than 60 men died every year working in the woods of British Columbia.
"I'll never work in the logging industry," a construction foreman once said. "It's just too bloody dangerous." On the other hand, a logger once told me, ""I'd never work in any mine. I'm scared of going underground." In recent years, sawmill closures, and mechanized mining and logging practices have cut the death rate for many industrial jobs. Yet there are still many men working in blue collar jobs and often men die in these jobs. These jobs are still filled mostly be men.
Anything connected to driving is dangerous. Every year over 2,000 people die in car crashes or traffic accidents in Canada. Over 600 people are murdered every year. In short you're three and a half times more likely to die in a car crash than be murdered. Many people who drive for a living are often victims of car and trucking accidents.
As you reach yours 50's, your chance of dying goes up and up. One of the fastest ways to die in your 50's, is to smoke tobacco and drink alcohol. My mother was a smoker who died of breast cancer at the age of 51. She never inhaled tobacco into her lungs. Yet one oncologist, a cancer specialist said that cigarette smoke can trigger cancerous tumours anywhere in your body.
Albert Giacometti was a famous sculptor who was born in Switzerland. In the late 1940's he became famous and rich. "He was almost isolated as a sculptor as his own figures were isolated in space," notes art critic Edward Lucie-Smith. Yet Giacometti wasn't isolated in his smoking habits. He was a chain smoker who rarely was seen without a cigarette in his mouth. He died after two massive heart attacks that were probably brought on by smoking. He was 66 years old. Mordecai Richler the well-known, Montreal-born novelist smoke tobacco and love to drink alcohol. Cancer carried him to the grave of 68.
Eating habits can speed up death or delay it. Vegans or people who don't eat animal flesh usually live longer than those who eat meat. Money plays a part too in helping you live longer. The rich live longer than the middle classes who in turn live longer than the poor. In any case we all die. Every year about 50 million people pass away. "He not busy being born" sang Bob Dylan, "is busy dying." Like most Canadians of my age, I'll pass away one of these days. Stroke, cancer or heart attack will kill me.
As the French say, "On verra," or "We'll see." Yet like billions of people who've lived before me, I'll be gone one of these days.
Saturday, 7 July 2018
Ends and Odds: The Ravings of an Old Man by Dave Jaffe. Chapter Ten, Part One..
Death's Been On My Mind Lately. By Dave Jaffe. Part One.
There's two ways for an ageing progressive like myself to look at death. First off, death is an incredible equalizer and I'm ausually in favour of equality. No matter who you are you will die. So in that way death is incredibly progressive. On the other hand, death is the final injustice because you can't avoid it
"Old age is a massacre," American novelist Philip Roth once said, and he was right. So many people I admired like Philip Roth for instance are now dead. So are many of my friends. Two of my favourite writers on the visual arts are now gone, namely John Berger and Linda Nochlin. "Who's next?" I ask myself. And the answer comes back, "Maybe I am." After all I'm 76 years old. I've been in hospital now three times in the past two years. In these operations surgeons scooped cancerous tumours out of my body enabling me to go on living.
Soon I think I'll be gone, but not right now. Still, I believe I'll be gone in three years time or less. Death by the way can sweep anybody away any time. Ten centuries ago when Canada was a land of aboriginals most people died in Europe before the age of 40. Then came the scientific revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. Then came the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.
At first, people kept on dying early in life just as they always had. Yet then came new surgical procedures, new drugs and big public health improvements. All of this, lengthened people's lives quite a bit. Cholera, plagues, typhoid fever and other death causing infections vanished. Miracle drugs like streptomycin taken with other medicines vanquished tuberculosis which used to kill so many people. Think D.H. Lawrence and George Orwell. Penicillin got rid of other infections. Whooping cough and scarlet fever vanished. The vaccines of Salk and Sabin erased polio. All of this took place between 1870 and 1960.
"People were really scared in the summer .That's when polio epidemics would come," One man who'd lived in Montreal recalled in the 1980's. By 1960, polio epidemics were a thing of the past. So were many other diseases. People lived longer than 30 years old, or 40 or often past 70. Many people, especially women live into their late 80's. Yet death is still around especially in the poor countries of the world.
In many poor nations thousands of poor children die before the age of five. And many adults in really poor places don't get to the age of 60. Then there's the casualties of adolescence and early adulthood in the rich countries. Rona was a young woman, still a teenager who died in a car crash. Robert was a hiker and a bit of a daredevil. He jumped off a cliff one summer afternoon and died in the waters below. Connor was an illegal drug user though his parents didn't know it. He died from a drug overdose when he was in his early 20's. Paul was a manic depressive. He committed suicide when he was in his late 30's. These are just some of the deaths of relatively young people that I remember. I know there are many others I can't recall.
There's two ways for an ageing progressive like myself to look at death. First off, death is an incredible equalizer and I'm ausually in favour of equality. No matter who you are you will die. So in that way death is incredibly progressive. On the other hand, death is the final injustice because you can't avoid it
"Old age is a massacre," American novelist Philip Roth once said, and he was right. So many people I admired like Philip Roth for instance are now dead. So are many of my friends. Two of my favourite writers on the visual arts are now gone, namely John Berger and Linda Nochlin. "Who's next?" I ask myself. And the answer comes back, "Maybe I am." After all I'm 76 years old. I've been in hospital now three times in the past two years. In these operations surgeons scooped cancerous tumours out of my body enabling me to go on living.
Soon I think I'll be gone, but not right now. Still, I believe I'll be gone in three years time or less. Death by the way can sweep anybody away any time. Ten centuries ago when Canada was a land of aboriginals most people died in Europe before the age of 40. Then came the scientific revolutions of the 17th and 18th centuries. Then came the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries.
At first, people kept on dying early in life just as they always had. Yet then came new surgical procedures, new drugs and big public health improvements. All of this, lengthened people's lives quite a bit. Cholera, plagues, typhoid fever and other death causing infections vanished. Miracle drugs like streptomycin taken with other medicines vanquished tuberculosis which used to kill so many people. Think D.H. Lawrence and George Orwell. Penicillin got rid of other infections. Whooping cough and scarlet fever vanished. The vaccines of Salk and Sabin erased polio. All of this took place between 1870 and 1960.
"People were really scared in the summer .That's when polio epidemics would come," One man who'd lived in Montreal recalled in the 1980's. By 1960, polio epidemics were a thing of the past. So were many other diseases. People lived longer than 30 years old, or 40 or often past 70. Many people, especially women live into their late 80's. Yet death is still around especially in the poor countries of the world.
In many poor nations thousands of poor children die before the age of five. And many adults in really poor places don't get to the age of 60. Then there's the casualties of adolescence and early adulthood in the rich countries. Rona was a young woman, still a teenager who died in a car crash. Robert was a hiker and a bit of a daredevil. He jumped off a cliff one summer afternoon and died in the waters below. Connor was an illegal drug user though his parents didn't know it. He died from a drug overdose when he was in his early 20's. Paul was a manic depressive. He committed suicide when he was in his late 30's. These are just some of the deaths of relatively young people that I remember. I know there are many others I can't recall.
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