The Music of Alfred Tokayer

ALFRED TOKAYER: (1900-1943) A COMPOSER CAUGHT IN THE MAELSTROM OF HISTORY

Sixty eight years after Irene’s father’s deportation to Germany in 1943 his yellowing manuscripts are coming to life with a CD made of his compositions. The process was started in 2006 by my son and daughter, Peter and Cathy, who met up with three very fine and well known Canadian musicians, Norman Hathaway, violinist, Catherine Wilson, pianist and Leslie Fagan, soprano who gathered some other musicians and shortly thereafter from these ageing manuscripts put together a concert in Toronto of several pieces. This concert represented the first hearing of this lovely music, and for us, and I know for many in the hall, it was a moving experience.

In the meantime in France a concert pianist, Bertrand Giraud, who was giving a concert in our home town in southern France, Rieux-Minervois, met with Irene and took copies of the manuscripts back to Paris, was impressed and in collaboration with Amaury du Closel, a well known conductor prepared a CD in 2007 of about twenty pieces. This preparation kept Irene busy researching libraries in England, France, Morocco and Germany about her father’s past and including finding another manuscript (added to the CD) and copyright evidence of other pieces that as yet we haven't recovered.

In May 2008 we attended our first a concert in Paris of some pieces of Alfred Tokayer’s music. Amaury du Closel had written a book entitled The muffled voices of the Third Reich (The Voices Stifled by the Third Reich). It provided the basis for the formation of the ensemble of musicians who have since undertaken an ongoing series of concerts to present this music in towns and cities throughout Europe. As of June 2009 there have been approximately 15 concerts, 12 by ensemble Voix Etouffées, and three independently by the pianist, Bertrand Giraud. These concerts have taken place in France (Paris 3, Rieux- Minervois, Orleans), Germany (Koethen, Magdebird, Halberstadt, Rostock, Permasens), Roumania (Bucharest), Austria (Vienna) and Poland (Auschwitz). The program for the remainder of the 2009 season and 2010 will be announced shortly.

Irene was hoping that someday she would just hear this music and what has occurred has exceeded her wildest dreams.



The following history of Alfred Tokayer was written by Amaury Du Closel
“Alfred Tokayer, conductor, composer, born march 21, 1900 in Koethen”- an entry as banal as this could well have been found, among thousands of others in the DICTIONARY OF JEWS IN MUSIC’, published in 1940 by Theo Stengel and Herbert Gerigk. This sinister pamphlet clearly reflects the single-mindedness with which Nazi Germany, basking in the glow of its victories, applied itself to the persecution of Jews on every level of the social scale. By making itself the instrument of a policy which used denunciation in the service of the Final Solution, and targeting, in particular, the musical community, it contributed to the deportation and assassination of countless musicians, many of whom were simple folk -from music teachers to Cabaret artists - who had neither the means, nor the contacts which might have allowed them to take the road into exile. Some years ago the German musicologist Eva Weissweiler, attempted to discover the fate of almost two hundred of those victims whose story ends in most cases with the mention “died. in Riga, in Majdanek, in Auschwitz”. Alfred Tokayer died in Sobibor” Yet Alfred Tokayer was the victim of another denunciation, that of the country in which he sought shelter with his daughter – France.

That it should have taken 65 years for his music to be revived, says much about the efficiency of the cultural policies of the Nazis, which for a long time survived the collapse of the Third Reich. When Hitler published “Mein Kampf”, he seized on a theme that had become central in German debate since 1918: that of its cultural identity. The revolutionary movements following the defeat, the humiliation of the Treaty of Versailles and the economic crisis which followed, the occupation of the Ruhr by French Troops, all contributed, and in particular in the more conservative classes, to the fear that due to the influence of foreign forces, Germany was about to lose its soul. In this fertile and paranoid soil, a new nationalism developed and found its way into the musical sphere. In 1919 Hans Pfitzner denounced not only the influence of Bolshevism and Americanism but also of “Degeneration” that were becoming aspects of modernity in theArts.

In the chapters dealing with Modern Art, Hitler, in Mein Kampf used the terms “bolshevist” and “degenerate”. These concepts were distilled into anti-Semitism: Bolshevism becoming the weapon by which the Jews seek to dominate the world, and “Degeneration” the natural proclivity of the Jewish Race that would make it “the destroyer of culture” When he came to power, the cultural policies of the Nazis where built on these theories and would soon, as early as the end of 1933, result in a cultural apartheid. An organisation named “Juedischer Kulturbund” was created in Berlin and other German cities. It was reserved for Jews only, a farce, since after the Nuernberg laws of 1935, Jews had already become second class citizens who were no longer permitted to perform in German Opera Houses and Concert Halls. In May and June 1938, when the Reich stepped up its campaign of anti-Semitism, an exhibition named Entartete Musik (Degenerate Music) organized by friends of Alfred Rosenberg and modeled after the Exhibition Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) held the previous year in Munich(1937), decried the influence of the Jews on German music.

Alfred Tokayer did not wait for the Kristallnacht to leave his homeland.. He was born in Koethen, a town in Sachsen-Anhalt - where Johann Sebastian Bach was chapel master at the court from 1717 to 1723 - into a Jewish family originating from Bistritz, a town in Transsylvania at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, but today part of Roumania. There, the family lived in abject poverty, in conditions resembling those described 40 years later by Albert Londres in his book, ‘The Wandering Jew’, in which he investigates Jewish populations all over the world. This poverty, coupled with the fear of pogroms, and repeated violence against Jewish communities in the easternmost sector of the empire, led many families at the turn of the century to seek a better life in Western Europe. This was the case of the family of Norbert Glanzberg, future composer of songs for Edith Piaf and Yves Montant. Coming from Galicia that family settled in the town of Wurzbuerg in Germany in 1910. Moritz Tokayer, future father of the composer, is ahead of this wave by almost 20 years, arriving in Berlin in 1891. In 1899 he marries Gertrud Simon, a cousin of Bruno(Schlesinger )Walter. The couple settles in Koethen where Alfred is born on March . It is there that he begins the study of music. During the year 1919/20 he continues at the Hoch’sche Konservatorium in Frankfurt where he also attends courses in philosophy and economics, subjects he had studied at the university of Berlin the previous year.

It must be said that much of the life of Alfred Tokayer is almost devoid of documentation, because many archives have either been lost during his exile, or destroyed in the war. For example, it has been impossible to retrace his whereabouts between 1920 and 1924 at which time he obtains his first professional engagement at the Opera of Bremen. We know that he studied piano, chamber music, accompaniment, orchestration, conducting and composing with some of the most prominent musicians of the time, among others, Ernst Toch, a great and as yet too little known composer who was forced to flee Germany in1933.


In Bremen, where he remains until 1930 he is conductor and voice coach. The musical director of the Opera is none other than Manfred Gurlitt, the creation of whose opera “Wozzeck’ unfortunately coincided, that same year, with the work of Alban Berg . In 1938, when he can no longer exercise his profession, Gurlitt emigrates to Japan. Alfred
Tokayer, is voice coach and conductor of operetta and light musical entertainment, and is well received by the critics of the day. In 1927 he marries a colleague, the singer Lucie Rena.

From 1931 to 1933, they are both engaged at the Volksoper in Berlin. Alfred Tokayer collaborates with Max Reinhardt, Oskar Strauss, Theo Mackeben, the brothers Vladigerov. He becomes voice coach to Kaethe Dorsch and again conducts operetta and light music (Note: Kaethe Dorsch was then to Germany what Gertrude Laurence was to the English speaking public). Like many musicians with modest incomes, he works on orchestrations, in particular the operettas of Kuennecke. Lucie, while being the understudy of Kaethe Dorsch, helps make ends meet as an usherette at the cinema.

When Hitler comes to power, and the Chamber of Music of the Reich is put into place, Alfred Tokayer is most likely deprived of any remaining possibility to exercise his profession. Simultaneously, the application of the legislation depriving Jews of legal status gets underway, making his family one of its first victims. On Mai 5, 1935 their German citizenship, so proudly acquired in 1919, is cancelled and their possessions given to “more deserving” Aryans. On december 16, 1935 the once prosperous business built by Moritz Tokayer is forced into bankruptcy.and the family takes the road into exile: Alfred flees to France, his parents to Yugoslavia.

The waves of immigrant musicians, mostly Jewish, who arrive as conditions in Germany worsen, are not welcomed into the French musical community. On November 26, 1933 the composer Florent Schmitt interrups a concert of the works of Kurt Weill at the Theatre des Champs-Elysees with cries of “Long live Hitler! We have enough bad musicians in France without taking in all the Jews of Germany”, and some journalists, in the name of defense of the national culture, support this view, denouncing the “vulgarity” of the songs of Silver Lake, performed that night by Madeleine Grey. Reviewers like Rene Dumesnil, Alfred Bruneau, Pierre-Octave Ferroud, Lucien Rabatet lead the charge in attacking “this Jewish-German Virus, ..this large contingent of émigrés”, “these germs of decadence brought with the invasion of the German Jews.” A hitherto latent anti-Semitism is suddenly revealed and not only in musical circles, but in the society as a whole. Even the “anti-boche” feelings of World War I are revived. When rules and regulations are put in place to restrict employment for foreign musicians, “to work at all is something of a tour de force”, writes the composer and conductor Hans Walter David ) as early as 1933. He continues:…”first of all, there is a large stamp in my passport stating that all professional activity is forbidden. Furthermore, the exercise of the profession is dependant on a membership in a professional association: conductors need to be members of the conductors’ guild, composers of the association of authors etc.
Since these organisations admit only French citizens, the immigrant alien is excluded from all work, from all income.”

And yet, Tokayer seems to adapt reasonably well to his new life in Paris. He keeps in contact with his fellow immigrants, but gravitates to French musicians such as Manuel Rosenthal and Reynaldo Hahn. Through them, he meets the countess Lili Pastre who during the occupation sponsored and protected many Jewish artists in her property at Montredon near Marseille. She provides him with some income, and also finances the education of his daughter, Irene, who has come to join him in 1938. He accompanies recitals, works on arrangements, among others, for the composer Maurice Thiriet, who wrote much of the music for the films of Marcel Carne. While prisoner of war in Germany, Thiriet will lend his name to several Jewish composers working underground, among them Joseph Kosma, so that they might receive the copyright income that is otherwise blocked by the Sacem .(Societe des Acteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique) Why would Tokayer have registered his works with the SABAM (Society of Belgian authors and composers) when he was living in Paris? One might guess that his candidature (if there was one) was rejected, because of policies put in place by SACEM to discriminate against composers, especially Jewish, fleeing the Nazi regime. A subsequent study on the spoliation of Jews led by Jean Matteoli states: “ For ten years prior to the arrival of the Germans in Paris, the management of the Sacem, targeted foreign members thought to be too numerous in the society. This Xenophobia led to the implementation of discriminatory rules, which caused several foreign composers living in France to join more liberal organisations, in Belgium or Italy”. In the case of Tokayer however, these questions must remain hypothetical.

In 1936 Tokayer is called to London to orchestrate and conduct the music for the film “The Robber Symphony” directed by Friedrich Feher ) This is to be the first film – before Walt Disney’s “Fantasia” to be based on music. The film, at the time, is not well received (it has to-day ardent defenders) yet the music is unanimously applauded. While in London, he meets one of his fellow-students, the conductor Heinz Unger, who had made his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic in 1919, but was forced into into exile in l933. In 1948, he creates and becomes musical director of the North York Philharmonic Orchestra in Toronto. It seems both Unger and Tokayer were students of Ernst Toch.

At the end of 1938 he is chosen to participate in the broadcast of laureates organised by Radio 37. This private radio station had been opened the previous year by Jean Prouvost, director of the daily ‘Paris Soir’ and folded with the arrival in 1940 of the German troops in Paris. In a letter dated December 27, 1938, Tokayer alludes to the concert that was broadcast from the Tour Eiffel. The letter also mentions the various steps he is undertaking in order to bring his parents to France. In this he receives help from Marcel Monteux, the son of the industrial who founded a large shoe manufacturing industry, an art lover whose villa in Antibes was decorated by Ker-Xavier Roussel a painter of the Nabi school of Art, and who, in 1931, sponsored La Chienne by Jean Renoir. Another source of help is a Mr.Singer the nephew of the Princess Polignac, nee Singer whose salon played such a great part in musical creation in France between the two wars. His efforts seem to have been succesful, since in 1940, when he joins the Foreign Legion, Moritz and Gertrud Tokayer reside at 12, Rue Fenoux in the 15th arrondissement. In the same letter, Tokayer mentions that he is rehearsing Offenbach’s “La Chatte Metamorphosee” for the New Year’s concert, probably in his own arrangement for 2 pianos and four voices.

When war is declared on September l, l939, Alfred Tokayer, considered an enemy alien, is interned in the camp of Sourioux, near Vierzon in the Cher that was originally built to house Spanish refugees. Here he shares the fate of several composers –Erich Itor Kahn, Marcel Rubin, Louis Saguer, Eric-Paul Steckel, Rudolf Goehr……all interned to allow the French authorities to determine “ who presented a danger to the country and who could be used in the war effort”. Voluntary engagement in the Foreign Legion reduced official suspicion of any fifth column activity. Like many others (Max Deutsch volunteered as soon as war broke out, as did Erich Itor Kahn, Paul Arma or Joseph Kosma but who were rejected as physically unfit) Tokayer joins the Legion on December 8 1939. He arrives at the Legion Headquarters -Sathonay - on december 17 and remains there until March 1940: it is probably here that he writes the Cantique de Sathonay. He is then sent to Sidi-Bel-Abbes in Algeria, and later to Khenifra, in Morrocco. He is assigned to teach music at the conservatory of Meknes where he also conducts, in 1940 ,“Une Journee de mon Enfant” for a local station of Radio Maroc.

When he is demobilized in 1940, he settles near Limoges where friends and colleagues from Paris had fled. He continues to make music, gives concerts, plays the village harmonium, brings music into a nearby home for Jewish refugee children, even mounting a production of Offenbach’s “Chanson de Fortunio”. In 1942, the Allies land in North Africa and the Germans reply by invading the whole of France. The anonymity of a large city now looks safer and he decides to return to Paris. The Abbe Robert, priest of the village where he had found refuge and who has become a friend, helps him acquire a false identity. Now called Andre Tharaud he returns to Paris with his partner, Mado. Early in 1943, he leaves Paris again, hoping to reach England via Portugal. He and Mado are arrested at the demarcation line. Mado is freed, but Alfred Tokayer is sent to the camps of Beaune-la-Rolande and Drancy- where, by miracle, he meets his parents, Moritz and Gertrud. A few days later all three board the convoy to Sobibor….


It is to-day impossible to ascertain whether the pieces on this recording constitute the entire musical output of Alfred Tokayer , especially since the only work preceding his exile is ‘Das Lied vom Wein’. All others were composed later. We know that when he registered his work with the SABAM on July 18, 1939, almost all the other pieces on this recording had already been composed. These include the four melodies that constitute the suite Une Journee de Mon Enfant: Teddy, Quand je suis mechante, Hirondelle and Berceuse. The Symphonic Suite, based on the same work dates from 1936 and does not seem to have been registered with the SABAM. La Petite Musique pour Clavecin et Orchestre a Cordes is composed after 1939. The orchestrations for 2 of the songs, “Arriere Ete” and “Une Femme a Passe” are added in that same year. This catalogue of works created in exile, which includes most of the vocal pieces, could be seen as, a hommage to its adoptive country, because the influence of the French School of that day is so profound. There are echoes of Ravel, the Group of Six, especially Poulenc. Alfred Tokayer masters the French language very shortly after his arrival. He choses French texts for all his works: Maurice Merillot, “Une Journee de mon Enfant” Theophile Gautier, the Belgian poet Fernand Severin, Emile Pauly and his partner, Mado. He is determined to adapt to his new life and to become part of French musical life. Yet his music has echoes of his family’s roots in central Europe. In particular, some of the orchestrations of “Journee de Mon Enfant” evoke strong memories of Gustav Mahler. This piece is, incidentally, rather unusual: each movement starts with a song and continues with several progressions played by the orchestra; yet the songs are not a central theme upon which variations are built and the Suite takes on the form of a collage. The seven songs, in their brevity, are inspired by the French model. Their somber aspect leads us to believe that they are composed after 1940 and reflect the dark side of the times.

The Stifled Voices of the Third Reich have long been relegated to silence. Many composers who became the victims of the brown terror were not only eliminated from the world of the living, but also from the memory of generations that followed. To this day, perseverance and a solid dose of optimism are required of a family who dares demand that the voice of the victim be heard. Thanks are due to Irene and her children, the descendants of Alfred Tokayer, for finding a way.

Canada Up For Sale - Libertarian Paradise

 As Libertarians, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and no one is forced to sacrifice his or her values for the benefit of others.
  Libertarians wield an unusual type of intellect, mostly born out of borderline autistic personality traits, enormous self confidence and a complete lack of connection to reality.

My interpretation of Libertarian views
 

A speech from the throne by the Right Honorable Stephen Crapaud Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Libertarian Party, Jan 6th 2019

"My fellow Canadians I am pleased to announce that great progress has been made in our plan to downsize the Federal Government and the heavy burden it has placed on you, your family and Canada's businesses and communities. You will recall that we proposed to eliminate all income tax in the recent election.  Public support was overwhelming from all parts of Canada and led to our commanding majority in the House of Commons.


Due to your overwhelming support you will be pleased to hear that we are now proceeding to make this possible through universal privatization, namely our plans to sell off all public properties including lands, lakes, properties and utilities. In the spirit of the IMF, Libertarian values, Free Trade, Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman this sell-off is open to foreign bidders. The response has been encouraging.

The following has been accomplished to date:

1. We have accepted The Chinese Development fund (CDF) offer as the highest bidder for the Trans Canada Highway, the Great Lakes and St Lawrence Seaway. We are asking for more information about their plans before this deal will move forward;. 
2. Parklands in Canada have been sold to a consortium of investors put together by the Koch Brothers and Sheldon Adelman, a well known owner of gambling syndicates in Asia, the US and Spain.
3. The Canadian Government will be receiving 22 trillion dollars payable over the next 10 years, a sum exceeding what the GNP would have been during this same period.  

As expected the Manitoba and Ontario Governments are raising some objections about selling off their sections of the Trans Canada Highway and Ontario adds the Great Lakes and and the St Lawrence River to this dispute. Quebec politicians object to everything and are threatening independence again, but we are nevertheless confident we will resolve all these disputes shortly so that the sale of these assets can get underway. As for Hudson's Bay, the Arctic Islands and Northwest Passage, the USA and Russia have formally objected until their disputes over these lands are settled, so this sale is off the table for now."

July 12th 2019 Announcement by Crapaud


"Much progress has been made since January and we are now pleased to announce that the Chairmen of the CDF and the US Koch/Adelman  consortium have formally submitted to the Federal Government their business plans for developing and managing these acquisitions,. The Trans Canada Highway will become a toll road. The roads, rail lines, pipelines and waterways entering the park will exact revenue from people and vehicles on entry and royalties will be applied to all shipments of minerals, and timber leaving these properties. In order to encourage the high price CDF was willing to pay and in accordance with Libertarian principles these operations will be unhindered by any form of costly regulations over the exploitation and methods employed. The Greens, NDP and some Liberals are agitating for environmental regulations and demonstrations are planned across Canada. Be assured that our RCMP  and military will be in attendance and will firmly deal with any trouble makers. In the spirit of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged, and the inspiration of Milton Friedman's economic philosophy and Libertarian principles we have complete confidence that the leaders of the CDF and the American led consortium will do the right thing. The Banks and large Hedge Funds see much profit in all of this and are most enthusiastic in their support."

August 17th 2019 PM's Progress Report from Crapaud

"My fellow citizens, I am pleased to announce that CDF report that the tolls on the highway have been working successfully these past months. Traffic has continued to build. and it has become clear however that operating costs are above expectations if profit objectives are to be met, and accordingly the CDF Board have decided that it will be be necessary to lay off 40,000 Canadian employees to be replaced by less costly labour brought in under contract from the Philippines.

CDF have reported that their plans are being implemented in Alberta  but they are temporarily  encountering serious problems with many campers and Native People entering via trails and through the brush and refusing to pay the fees. CDF have announced that they have no alternative but to build an electric fence around these properties. This will require 6,700 miles of electrified fencing. We are pleased to announce that a contract has been signed with India Steel of New Delhi to undertake this project."

December 5th 2019 Progress Report from Crapaud

Indian Terrorists on the warpath in the Park

"My fellow citizens, this is a plea for the public's cooperation. There have been Native Peoples uprisings and violence over the park fencing project and a large group of terrorist Leftists have joined them. It has something to do with their hunting rights and the migration of animals. It is unfortunate that the NDP, Green Party, some Liberals and even some Conservatives are supporting their misguided cause.  There have been reports of threats and violent confrontations. The employees of India Steel, fearing for their lives have elected to go home. The RCMP have been called in to monitor the situation, Dick Cheney has been contracted as a consultant to offer advice on where we go from here and he is advising that we negotiate with Blackwater to see what can be done. You can appreciate that with the World watching our Global reputation as a Libertarian Free Trader is at stake here."

Globe and Pail Report, December 15th 2019

A Blizzard on the Trans Can Hwy

CDF report that the highways in Alberta and through Rogers Pass were closed for ten days owing to heavy snow storms. A 175 mile traffic back up of cars and trucks occurred and two sections of the highway have experienced serious avalanches that have yet to be cleared. We now realize that Dubai management and their Philippine staff had never encountered snow before and were staying indoors. The federal government is temporarily bringing back some Canadian staff on a part time basis to tackle this problem. Needles to say this will be expensive and in order to sustain profit objectives tolls will be increased, Jan 1st 2020 by 30%.

Globe and Pail Report, June 12th 2020 
Due to the public's unfortunate resistance to these new rates, highway usage has seriously dropped with excessive loads now backing up on secondary roads. CDF reports the Trans Canada highway has become unprofitable until this resistance is resolved. We have also learned that some automated toll booths have been blown up by terrorists and traffic is now entering freely, This must be stopped. Since the RCMP are fully committed to the problems in the parks the government has asked the the Canadian Military as peace keepers to monitor the situation along the highways.

As for the parks controlled by the US Consortium it has become an all out war with our Native People and their leftist supporters doing battle with Blackwater. This is the height of the mosquito and black fly season and it has been reported that this is causing a great deal of suffering among Blackwater's mercenaries who have never encountered such a siege before. They have therefore asked permission to employ Drone aircraft to strike at known terrorists within the parks.

Globe and Pail update, June 12th 2020 

Mr Fin Haddi Chong Bong, Chairman of the CDF has announced that the toll system has broken down and traffic is defiantly moving freely again despite the presence of the military who are simply sitting by. Without funds the CDF has no alternative but to close the highways and send the Philippine workers home. Many are seeking asylum and the Immigration Department has this under review.

Globe and Pail update, June 26th 2020

Drone Aircraft

The arrival of Drone aircraft has been generously arranged with the US Military  and will be courageously operated by 'soccer moms' using video technology that gives them full operational control while siting comfortably in bug free offices in Texas. Flight Commander Evil Braun who has extensive experience in striking villages in Afghanistan will lead her 'soccer moms' into battle

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in protest and in fear of the Drones have gone on strike. It is their first strike since their mutiny in 1876 to protest against an unsavory leader in Bow River, a location now known as Calgary, If Blackwater and their Drone attacks fail to win this struggle soon, all national parks will be closed until further notice.

August 7th 2020. Final report from The Right Honourable Stephen Crapaud


"My fellow Canadians, I am speaking to you from the bunker under the Parliament buildings. The Native Canadians now supported by so many leftists have taken control of the buildings. I am watching on my television the large, noisy and ugly terrorists outside celebrating this disaster, undoubtedly NDPers, Greens, some Liberals and a few turn coat Conservatives. The RCMP and Military are standing aside; simply peace keepers and lacking backbone. My fellow Canadians, you have let this government down, I see on the TV monitor that this mob is now burning me in effigy and I fear for my life. This leaves me with no choice but to accept the Governor General's request for this Government to resign and to fly to Columbia in South America where their democratic government will welcome and protect me."

Aftermath as reported in The Globe and Pail. October 22nd 2020

The Rapture

The public is in an uproar. The elections of 2019 based on tax reforms were overwhelmingly supported by wealthy Canadians and most Albertans.  Pensioners and the working class were deeply divided and it was looked upon negatively by box store employees and the unemployed. Since this latter group rarely cast a vote, the results from the election were inevitable. As for religious fundamentalists this chaos seemed to sow all the signs of the Rapture. The Governor General has called for a temporary coalition government (in my opinion The Tower of Babel) to attend to immediate business until an election is called.

Quebec announced separation today and have formed a political alliance with France and will be adopting the Euro. Both the English and French populations in Quebec are solidly behind this.

The US Consortium and CDF have been declared bankrupt and this leaves Canadian and foreign banks and a host of hedge funds and their derivative and credit default swaps left holding the bag. These losses combined with the elimination of income taxes have left the Canadian Feds strapped. They hope to raise four trillion dollars to cover immediate ongoing government expenses.  The bankrupt ventures(US consortium and CDF) are currently working desperately with a variety of foreign venture capitalists, Goldpain Sags, JP Moron, Russian oligarchs, hedge funds and the Chinese to find solutions.

To complicate matters the Greens, NDP and some Liberals have entered into discussions with leftists in Latin America to join Latin America's Bolivarian Revolution, the Native people have declared Nationhood in the parks, and Alberta, Saskatchewan and BC are seriously considering the formation of a Western Nation that will include the NW Territories and the Yukon. The Maritime Provinces have been lying low in all this until it all sorts out. Major oil findings have just been announced off the coast of Nova Scotia so they just might go the way of Norway.

When last heard from, Stephen Crapaud is living comfortably on the coast of Colombia. His very young third wife found the past two years very stressful and decided not to join him. The were subsequently divorced and she is now happily married to her ex tennis coach who has been her good friend for many years.

Latest Globe and Pail: December 3rd 2020

Stephen Crapaud and an 18 year old woman who was visiting with him at the time have been kidnapped. FARC claims responsibility and has taken them off into the jungle. They are asking for an undisclosed sum from the Canadian Government for their release. What remains of the Canadian Government has this situation under review.

The investors in China and the USA face a 22 trillion dollar loss write off and this is causing panic in financial markets and threatens the bankruptcy of many banks. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on how you feel about hedge fund, these operators will survive because they  have sold derivatives and credit default swaps and passed on their losses to investors

We are killing the Goose that laid the Golden Eggs

"The Goose That Laid the Golden Eggs" by Aesop

A man and his wife had the good fortune to possess a goose which laid a golden egg every day. Lucky though they were, they soon began to think they were not getting rich fast enough, and, imagining the bird must be made of gold inside, they decided to kill it. Then, they thought, they could obtain the whole store of precious metal at once; however, upon cutting the goose open, they found its innards to be like that of any other goose.

Sounds just like the story of our bankers and CEO's. Their greed tore apart the system that had worked and they are "killing the Goose that Laid the Golden Egg". That Goose was the buying power of 300 million Americans. When the bubble burst and they lost 16 trillion dollars in the stock market and housing meltdown (an average of 50 thousand dollars for every man woman and child)they couldn't keep the Goose alive.

The economy has gone into the tank and we are investing trillions worldwide into quick starting a recovery to return everything back to what it was, but it can't return to what it was because we face two insurmountable problems:

1. Globalization in its present laissez-faire form has undermined the earning power of consumers in America and Western Europe, namely their domestic workforce, while shifting the nation's wealth into the hands of a small favoured elite. With the collapse of the housing bubble there simply isn't enough earning power in the hands of the public to sustain these economies. A handout in terms of tax relief or mortgage support might temporarily put off the damage but greed at the top has seriously crippled the very financial system that made them wealthy in the first place.

2. The American way of life is admired and copied around the world and this small planet can't handle it. The issue here is a progressively deteriorating environment and with it human suffering and dislocation, and eventually the issue of human survival. We simply must reshape how we intend to live and get on with it now.

In short, the system is badly wounded, we can' return to what it was before, and we have only a limited time to fix it.

It's Theft, Feudalism is Back

Ayn Rand: The only social system that fully recognizes individual rights is capitalism. When I say "capitalism," I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism—with a separation of state and economics.

the proper moral purpose of one's life is the pursuit of one's own happiness or rational self-interest

The disciples of Ayn Rand and laissez-faire capitalism, Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan and Reagan were the culprits who kicked off this mess and for the next 20 years Bush I, Clinton and Bush II ably guided by Greenspan and a dominant Republican congress joined the ride. It was quite a trip with a systemic enrichment of 1% of the population while flattening middle class earnings and reducing the buying power of another 40% of the population. It's what happened in the period leading up to the Great Depression.

I don't know what the outcome is going to be from this meltdown but I can't see a simple turnaround because in America greed has trashed the system and it has to be rebuilt.

We have returned to an 17th century feudal model where the wealth of the nation has gravitated to a small number of powerful people. The reality is that deregulation released those with power from any constraints on their desire to have more. Like the dukes and kings of old they took as much as they could; and if there was more they would take that too.

It's theft when a young hedge fund manager can earn in 10 minutes what the average worker earns in a year or many times the income of a Nobel Prize winner, the President of his country or that of an internationally renowned artist. It's theft when CEOs of merchant banks and hedge funds become overnight billionaires and Presidents of large organizations now average incomes eight hundred times that of an average worker. Forty years ago it was only 30 to 40 times an average workers wages. Its theft when they influence politicians to remove inheritance taxes and promote flat taxes so they and their children can take it all home. It's theft when they hide their ill gotten gains in offshore tax havens (and most do) so that they and their corporations can avoid paying their fare share. And its theft when each year they manage to gain a bigger share. (A 2007 study of the Congressional Office Bureau found the wealth of the richest 1 percent of Americans totalled $16.8 trillion, $2 trillion more than the combined wealth of the lower 90 percent of the population)

Now dumping public funds on financial institutions to flood the market with easy credit again and subsidizing mortgages and car buying avoids the basic issues facing working families and will at best put a temporary halt in the inevitable collapse that is bound to continue. The reality is that the wealth of the nation has been stolen, workers have lost buying power over the past twenty years, and unless that changes another frenzy of credit buying will just repeat the cycle.

America has to rebuild with a different model and I have my doubts they can do it. Too many powerful people have an inbred belief in laissez-faire capitalism and have too much to lose. That means, I believe, despite the good intentions of Obama, it is going to get a lot worse. If Merkel has her way the same will happen in Europe.

Once Upon a Time (Before Globalization)

Once upon a time there was a big beautiful country with fertile farms that grew and raised almost everything their people ate and factories that made almost everything they needed including their processed food, their clothing, their furniture, their appliances and cars.

The farms needed many workers to tend and harvest the crops and look after the poultry, and cattle, and in the towns the factories needed semi-skilled and skilled workers for production, and workers with trade skills, engineers, clerks and accountants. There were many good jobs to choose from and people could select the job they were best suited for based on their aptitudes and education. And in these fields and factories if you were good enough you could advance to become lead hands, foremen and even the general manager. With passing years as these companies grew and prospered workers, often with the help of unions, were able to gain a share of this wealth with better wages, retirement benefits and health coverage. As the years past and the businesses grew the workers and people benefited and became increasingly secure and satisfied with their lives and committed to where they worked.

Then one day the owners of these businesses got the bright idea that if they shipped all this work far away to countries where people would work for much less and without benefits and where there were no laws governing working conditions, or hours worked, their companies and its owners could earn much more money. No longer would they have to put up with unions and the wage demands of their workers. And the politicians agreed with this and used terms like free trade and globalization to glorify it.

And now with cheap foreign labour the profits of businesses greatly increased and the owners and their bankers greatly prospered. The population of multimillionaires and billionaires increased like dandelions in an unattended field and the result was an unparalleled demand for the things great wealth could buy such as giant yachts, aircraft, toy girls and boys, and many mansions.

The manufacturing plants were now closed, their workers gone and the life in the towns was greatly changed as the plants became silent shells. Many of the workers who were let go were fortunate to find work in the great shopping areas outside the towns where there were vast shopping plazas and box stores selling food and goods from far away countries. The problem was that the work paid far less than what they had been earning before but with two or more family members working long hours and with fewer benefits and belt tightening life carried on. For those who were unable to find work, food stamps kept them from starving

Governments don't like belt tightening because people spend less and this isn't good for the economy. The solution was reducing interest rates and encouraging lenders to offer easy credit terms: no credit check required, nothing down and next to nothing to pay for the first two years. That enabled people on small incomes to start buying again with borrowed money. This money felt just the same as additional tax free income. They bought houses, put big cars in the garage, or in the driveway for the neighbours to see, and filled their houses with the things they always wanted. With all this buying, housing prices continued to rise and the people were borrowing even more against this, and so it went for many years. People came to believe that a good life living off credit would always be this way as they continued to borrow to finance their new life. So the policy worked for a while. Flat or declining earnings for workers but lots of easy money on credit to keep them buying. There was lots of money going around so the community and everyone benefited.

Then one day the loan payments started to come due and many discovered that they didn't have the money and in desperation began walking away from their homes and the many things they had bought on credit. This caused housing prices to start declining rather than growing so people couldn't borrow anymore to meet their obligations. Then everything began to collapse. The banks faced billions in unpaid debts, business performance declined because fewer people were buying, many businesses failed and millions of people became unemployed.

The government, like Mary Mapes Dodge's Little Dutch Boy, kept plugging the holes as best they could with pots of money but unlike the Dutch Boy they didn't succeed because all those good paying jobs on the assembly lines were gone and along with them many of the research, engineering and skilled service jobs. The obvious had happened; without these jobs the country had lost its buying power and the housing bubble couldn't be blown up again.

This formerly great country subsequently went into an economic decline for many years, faced political turmoil, and faded away as an industrial power.

But many years later this  story has a happy ending. The far away countries became very rich and their people prospered. Then one day the owners of their businesses got the same bright idea that if they shipped all this work far away to a country where people would work for much less and without benefits and where there were no laws governing working conditions, minimum wages or hours worked, their companies could earn much more money . No longer would they have to put up with unions and the wage demands of their workers. And the politicians agreed with this and used terms like free trade and globalization to glorify it.

And so, the work came back again to that now poor, but once big beautiful country, and the cycle started all over again.

T Hobbes, J Locke, JC Rousseau vs Ayn Rand

Dave's Observation
I don't find the usual attribution of the US financial meltdown to greed to be particularly helpful.
By and large people were just trying to maximize their sales, hit their targets or whatever. There is greed there but I don' t know that it expressed itself in a different way than in normal times. One wonders if it is even useful to ascribe a human vice to something like a financial system.

My Response

The word "Greed" clearly reflects the anger and resentment of a public who feel betrayed and exploited by a collapsing financial system. It's true, as you point out, that the people involved were simply maximizing their performance as they have always been inclined to do, but you have to accept that free of constraints, self interest inevitably leads to excesses. This is what has happened.

The belief that dismantling regulations would free the entrepreneurial spirit and thereby benefit humanity has proved to be utterly naive. The philosophers,Thomas Hobbes, John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau who profoundly influenced Western thinking and the formation of our governments understood that man is driven by self interest and by necessity had to enter into a social contract with his fellow man to control his behaviour by establishing governments for societies protection.

Ayn Rand took the opposite view that self interest should be the foundation of morality. Since all participants are acting selfishly the market is self correcting. She chose to be blind to the fact you could harm others while pursuing your self interest. The Chicago School and Greenspan were captivated by this ideology and thus the disaster we have today. In short, you need rules of the road to prevent disasters; regulations to restore our confidence in the integrity of the fiscal system

Yes, there is a moral element in all this. A social contract saves us from ourselves and makes for a fairer society. A world run by corporate interests is unlikely to have any collective moral compass.

The neo-conservatives and their Republican friends really believe that no government is good government and by starving tax revenues all public effort to set a social agenda and offer regulatory controls will be starved into extinction. Thus man can again be restored to his "noble savage" state of freedom.

I think the answer to "what does it all mean and what needs to be resolved" will only be found by America shifting politically to the radical left. Leftist values invariably respect intellect and education, and demand a fair redistribution of the nation's wealth through universal health coverage, adequate minimum wage policies, taxation commensurate with earnings, arts subsidies and the list goes on. It is fair to say that this sense of fairness eventually becomes a universal public value and spills over into international relationships.

Would it happily end there? Obviously not. Our world changes, our environment is threatened, in the absence of any weapons agreement the proliferation of atomic weaponry goes on, and our vastly expanded global trade has us tripping over each other. The social contract to manage the pursuit of self interest becomes increasingly a vital global concern. It is now self evident that the US role of "The World's Policeman" by necessity must give way in an increasingly multipolar world.

America can't face its Guilt

Why can't America face its past? The Germans after WWII had to at Nuremburg and today we have a well informed and comparatively enlightened population. Germans recognize their dreadful past and wish never to repeat it. Jacques Chirac publicly attempted the same cleansing in France but unfortunately his successor, Sarkozy, in order to gain favour with Le Penn's extreme right wing voters in the 2007 elections refuted Chiracs claims.

Obama is being condemned by Bill Clinton for supporting his pastor who at one point said "Damn America" for a past that has reaped the problems America faces today. In other words the pastor clearly stated the obvious and what every American needs to understand. Instead we here again observe the flag waving of Hillary and McCain who claim to love America more than Obama does. The US election campaign has truly hit the gutter with most of the press joining in. If Americans fail to come to grips with their sordid past the younger generations will go on making the same mistakes.

I recall that when the shoe bomber was sentenced the judge made the comment, "you hate us because of our freedom" It was a statement much heralded in the US and I received several copies via email "to send it on" No guilt or reflection on the many millions that have suffered in the Middle East, Vietnam, Cambodia and throughout Latin America over the past 100 years through US actions. Just "we love freedom and they hate us for it"

Like the pastor I am stating the obvious to most non Americans and am bewildered by their blindness. Maybe the impeding financial collapse will tear people away from their escapist TV and a majority will put their flags away and actually begin to think. I have my doubts.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice and Globalization

Power over Wisdom

The Sorcerer's Apprentice - a concert piece by French composer Paul Dukas was originally an ages-old fairy tale that had been interpreted as a poem by Goethe.

You may recall Walt Disney’s version in Fantasia

where Mickey Mouse is the mischievous apprentice-magician to the Sorcerer, Yen Sid (Disney spelled backwards) assigns Mickey the task of filling a large vat with water that requires using buckets to collect it from an outdoor fountain. Yen Sid then departs leaving Mickey to the task. He is soon bored and by putting on Yen Sid’s magical hat uses his powers to put arms and legs on a broomstick and commands it to fetch the water. Mickey sits back and proudly waves his arms like conductor as he watches the broomstick merrily going back and forth with overflowing buckets. Mickey falls asleep and dreams of controlling the clouds, the planets and the universe. Mickey suddenly awakes with water crashes over him in the flooded room. Mickey doesn’t know how to command the broomstick to stop. In desperation he smashes the broomstick into many pieces. They come alive and now he has an army merrily carrying water and a swirling flood threatens to drown everything. The story has a happy ending when the Sorcerer returns and put an end to the flood

The lesson? Don’t start what you don’t know how to finish or know your limits. The story illustrates the dangers of power over wisdom.

Globalization is a replay of this story with many thousands of tiny apprentices turned loose to use their magical powers. The only problem is that we don’t have the Sorcerer or Wizard that can tell them when to stop. Like Mickey they dream about their power and lead their little assigned activities to expand and grow. They have no idea where it will end.

One billion people in the world at the beginning of the 20th century have now become seven billion at the beginning of this century and there isn’t much room any more for the animal kingdom. In another 100 years at this rate there will be standing room only and the wild animals will be gone. In the meantime our tiny apprentices will build more of everything, strip the land of our forests and voraciously dig into the earth’s crust to extract whatever remains to in order to satisfy their ambition and to supply the needs and wants of this ever increasing and demanding human army. Temperatures will rise, the coastlines will flood people from their homes and the mountain glaciers will disappear thus drying up the fertile valleys below that feed millions of people. In a world of scarcity people will flee increasingly uninhabitable lands. Tiny apprentices in political roles will rally their citizens to gain control of a portion of this unstoppable momentum and wars will be inevitably fought over what remains.

There is a lot of wisdom out there but who can stop the tiny apprentices?

Maybe we have to hope for a Sorcerer to arrive before it is too late.

Scary Bible Quotes Applied to the Law

I've just read Scary Bible Quotes http://home.earthlink.net/~owl233/biblequotes.htm

To all those Christian fundamentalists out there who believe the ancient scriptures show the way just imagine if our legal system and foreign policies applied these quotes. This LORD sure is bloodthirsty. 

 

Leviticus 20:9

If anyone curses his father or mother he must be put to death. Wow! this one is a dandy. When I was a kid my mom used to wash out my mouth with soap and water when I said those words, and that was bad enough. It would certainly reduce the kid population if parents got serious about this. It would take quite a legal system to draw up the rules and I don't envy the role the police would have to play. Not sure how many kids would be left.

Leviticus 20:10

If a man commits adultery with another man's wife - with the wife of a neighbour - both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death. This sure gives a lot of power to betrayed spouses. This is going to put a lot of people to death and here again the courts and police must carry a heavy burden. And how if the death penalty is applied, is the offended party going to get any alimony? Also I am not sure what the punishment is if the adulterer is caught with a single woman.
I must say that the Muslim Shira laws are much better because I understand that they only the adulteress is stoned to death and the man gets off the hook.

Leviticus 20:13

If a man lies with a man as one lies with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They must be put to death. Well, this will put an end to the gay community. Hopefully there might be a few exemptions for some creative people like Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and Leonard Bernstein and maybe a good politician like Barney Frank.

Deuteronomy 22:10-1

If, however, the charge is true and no proof of the girl's virginity can be found she shall be brought to the door of her father's house and there the men of the town shall stone her to death. There needs to be some rewording of this because single moms raise a lot of kids now. I wonder what the role of the police will be in all this. Are they spectators? And who cleans up after? And my understanding is that there aren't too many virgins left any more so this law will get really nasty to apply.

Exodus 35:2

For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day shall be your holy day, a Sabbath of rest to the LORD. Whoever does any work on it must be put to death. Well there goes Sunday shopping! Walmarts and the Big Box stores will be in trouble. Same goes for the flea markets. And how will this law apply to those who practice the Sabbath on other days of the week?

Deuteronomy 7:1-2

When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations . . . then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy. This sounds like what George Bush and Dick Cheney did to Iraq.

Deuteronomy20:10-17

When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. . . . This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby. This is quite a foreign policy!! We are obviously making some progress in Iraq and the men and women can certainly be used as cheap labour which fits in with the goals of Globalization. Problem is we are killing too many men because they won't give up and you know what the Lord says about that. Not so sure however what we can do with the kids. As for the livestock, why pay for it if this law is on our side and we can get it for free. Everthing else I guess would include the art we have already plundered

However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them as the Lord your God has commanded you. Well the Americans tried this in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Not so sure this foreign policy should apply any more. Maybe the British, French and Dutch felt this way about their empires at one time and how the USA still feels about Central America and Cuba. Atomic warfare could help the Lord to make this work. .

Ephesians 5:22-24

Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Men will really like this but it is going to be a really hard law to enforce. Women are going to get very mad. The Lord is going to have an uphill fight to pull this one off.

1 Peter 2:13

Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every authority instituted among men. Dictators, and armies have always liked this one. Now corporations, politicians, the people who hand out parking tickets, and school teachers will like this too. No more messy protest movements and demonstrations.

Jesus, on His Second Coming

Matthew 24:29-34

[T]he sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. . . . They will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky, with power and great glory. . . . I tell you the truth, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. [Emphasis added.]
Lately global warming is causing storms like this. As for the 'Son of Man' Wikipedia doesn't know who this is so we will just have to watch the clouds 

Matthew16:27-28

For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what he has done. I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom

I don't know who this Son of Man is but I suspect this is going to be THE BIG EVENT. They say when this happens that the chosen few will rise up from whatever they are doing - through the roof of their car or from the dining table, the bath tub and even making love - and zoom up bodily into heaven while the rest of us will perish in the fiery end.

How it will end for Human Life

Environmental Scientists are telling us that we are polluting this world at an ever increasing rate and we have about 10 years left to alter these trends before much of this earth in the following years to come will become uninhabitable. Polar and glacial ice will melt away, the seas will rise and our coastal cities will be submerged, storms will ravage our lands and tropical regions will lose their fertility as the mountain streams running off the glaciers will dry up. Populations will desperately flee to regions where the soil remains fertile. Governments will be unable to prevent this unplanned migration. Increasingly scarce resources such as arable land, oil, water and minerals will be fought over thus ensuring an escalation of world conflict.
Just finished an interesting book by P.D.James entitled “The Children of Men” The story begins in 2021 in England. Worldwide men became sterile in 1995 and as the story begins the final generation has just turned 25. In another 60 years the human race will have disappeared, the cathedrals, libraries and factories will become silent and the animal kingdom will carry on. I will not tell you how the story ends but it got me thinking about how it affects our pollution problem. Forests and fields would cover the land, the air would become sweet again, lakes and rivers would fill, and the animal kingdom would repopulate. Unfortunately no human would be around to appreciate it but it clearly would present a solution to our pollution problem.
A less drastic solution would require leaders of major nations enforcing draconian policies that would drastically alter how we travel, how we live, what we eat and produce and what we dispose of. Leaders need public support and that means making popular policies and decisions that fit into a four year electable time frame. The time frame doesn’t fit even with the modest Kyoto plan, a fair predictor of how the environmental challenge will unfold.
In the PD James story a dying population doesn’t care about the future on this earth because there is no future. They live a futile life simply waiting for the end. Their goal is simply to hang on to what they have and to collect more as generations die off and leave their possessions behind. Presumably the last person alive will own everything, albeit in a cleaner world..
In the real world I think most of us in our own way do care about the future.. Why do we care? Clearly because we see life as a continuum from past to future generations; we will die but our family and others will carry on in the future. The problem is we are inexpert individuals preoccupied with the here and now. In the absence of visionary leaders a disaster is inevitable.
Maybe the religious fundamentalists have it right. At some point the end will abruptly come.. As an agnostic I have my doubts however about the Rapture when those born again Christians who have already died will have their bodies restored, ascend through the air, and meet Jesus in the sky. This supposedly will be followed by a mass migration of the born-again who are currently living. It will be quite an event. Mom will disappear from the bathtub, people from their automobiles, some will disappear from the dinner table and lovers from the bedroom and rise up through the roof and through the air. Babies are innocent so maybe they will rise too.
Presumably the rest of us, including my dog, will wave good bye before Jesus returns on a horse leading an army who will exterminate most of the earth's population in a massive genocide. It will be numerically the largest mass extermination of humans in history. Certainly this represents another solution to global warming. but it isn’t the loving Jesus I read about.

My Strawberries and Globalization

perfect strawberry

I have a garden in southern France where I grow fruit and vegetables. The sun is hot where I live and to use my strawberries as an example, when they reach my table fresh from the garden they are fragrant and with an unmatched rich and sweet flavour. Small producers in our area sell similar locally grown strawberries in the market square.

No flavour

The supermarkets like Carrefour, Walmart’s and others don’t buy these strawberries of course and sell larger and beautifully shaped red strawberries that they have purchased at the lowest possible price from some distant country. It’s part of globalization. If the cheapest price is from large greenhouses in Southern Spain, California or an oligarch's estate in Brazil, then this is where they will buy them. They are undoubtedly genetically modified, chemically treated and harvested early to avoid any blemish and to withstand the long voyage to markets. If it is bigger than a normal strawberry they even paste a label on it. I suspect the store buyer is given a bonus if he finds a lower price somewhere else. The problem with this is that they don’t taste like strawberries!!!.
Perfectly shaped and unblemished tomatoes from California taste like red and slightly sour cucumbers in Toronto, apricots unlike our juicy local variety arrive dry and tasteless – but they are cheaper ! Let’s face it, locally grown fruit and vegetable tastes better and I think that has something to do with the quality of life. The global experts don’t know how to measure this, and probably most of them are rich enough to not care anyway because they can go to their gourmet shops.
If we carry this globalization argument further France should logically give up growing everything because there is always somewhere in the world where the local currency is depressed plus large landowners assisted by generous World Bank loans can hire penny labour and harvest more cheaply. The economists in Brussels and writers for business publications who are devoted to globalization believe this is a good thing. They obviously accept that traditional farmers in France and throughout Europe should give up their land, or sell it off for golf courses, and migrate to the cities to take up modest labour where it is available.
Let me see if I can understand what global advocates are saying. By freeing up markets from any government imposed constraints the capacity to generate wealth will be greatly enhanced. This will occur because companies will be free to invest, buy and sell wherever it is most profitable and this will support the growth of mega businesses and mega farms that will be more profitable. The question is; profitable for whom ? I guess it is the handful of oligarchs in most third world countries who control most of the land and who pay pennies to their workers, plus additional profits for the World Bank, transportation companies, and the mega retailers like Walmarts and Carrefour. To many buyers this makes sense since the wages in the areas where Walmarts and Carrefour exists are depressed and the buyer can partly benefit from lower prices. It is like going there to shoot yourself or your neighbour in the foot.
Getting back to strawberries, an article in LeMonde today claims that strawberries from China vs from Perigod in France requires 20 times more fuel to get it to market. It goes on to say that farm produce shipped thousands of miles by ship, rail and trucks for the cheapest price has become a major factor in rising CO2 gas emissions in the atmosphere. Destroy the planet but get a better price ! It’s something to think about.
In conclusion I don’t really understand all this enthusiasm for Globalization, and as I originally stated, locally grown strawberries taste so much better. I guess I’ll follow the seasons and buy locally. Saving a few farms and eating well makes it worthwhile.