Occupy Toronto taking place in the financial district on Oct. 15, 2011.Peter Power/The Globe and Mail
Occupiers' theme
Konrad Yakabuski writes that the success of the Occupy movement may depend on whether the middle class joins in (Occupied – Oct. 17).
What middle class? While, admittedly, the present rallies look more like that classic "I am mad as hell and I just won't take it any more" theme, I think the final aim of this outcry will become a demand that anyone who works must have a living wage – and that means being able to buy a house and bring up children before you reach 30. That's middle class to me.
Andy Mulcahy, Victoria
.........
The central message of the 99-per-cent movement is simple: People object strongly to the unseemly concentration of wealth and power we have seen in the past 30 years. The consequences include unacceptable economic and social inequalities and a distortion, indeed a subversion, of democracy. The combined result is a growth in the impoverishment, marginalization, exploitation and repression of the many by the few. A third consequence closely related to the concentration of wealth and power is the exploitation and degradation of nature, which parallels the exploitation and degradation of people.
In response to this triple threat, we need a triple transformation: Much greater social justice, democratic reform that results in a fairer, more proportional system of representation and a more participatory democracy, and a shift to a sustainable, green economy. These problems are interconnected, and an holistic, comprehensive response is required.
Trevor Hancock, Victoria
.........
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC) figured out what drives the Occupy movement well before history's biggest share-the-wealth advocate (Hint: He's very popular with the Sunday set). "Inferiors revolt in order that they may be equal and equals that they may be superior. Such is the state of mind which creates revolutions."
It was true more than 2,000 years ago. And it's true in 2011. Have-nots want to be haves and haves want to be have-mores. And nobody likes the have-mosts.
Matt Nguyen, Winnipeg
.........
Partisan picks
Re PM Taps Ontario Judges Karakatsanis, Moldaver For Supreme Court (Oct. 17): Mr. Justice Michael J. Moldaver is a very experienced criminal law expert and long-time member of the Ontario Court of Appeal. His appointment will no doubt strengthen this side of the Supreme Court's appellate work.
Madam Justice Andromache Karakatsanis is in a different category. She has only been on the appeal court for about two years; her experience on the trial bench was not much longer. By all accounts her swift elevation to the Supreme Court was based on ideological considerations and to please the Greek community.
The Court of Appeal justice who should have been elevated was undoubtedly Robert Sharpe, an outstanding jurist and legal scholar, as highly regarded overseas as here, a former dean of the University of Toronto law school, fluently bilingual, with first-hand experience of the Supreme Court while serving as senior legal counsel to chief justice Brian Dickson.
The fact that he has been passed over twice is convincing proof why appointments to the Supreme Court should be taken out of the hands of highly partisan politicians and entrusted to a much better balanced national appointments commission.
Jacob S. Ziegel, professor of law emeritus, University of Toronto
.........
I vote because …
Ian Coleman says he's a 59-year-old who rarely votes and invites anyone to convince him otherwise (Rocking The Vote – letters, Oct. 17).
Let me try! I am an 85-year-old and have been voting faithfully since 1945 (when those of us under 21 in the Canadian army were permitted to vote). Voting is a function of citizenship. If you are a citizen of this great country, you are expected to vote in elections, serve on jury duty, and defend the country in a time of war. In return, you are entitled to a Canadian passport and expected to represent our country when outside it. It is unlikely that this will persuade Mr. Coleman, but it might give him something to think about.
G. Alex Jupp, Stratford, Ont.
.........
I am a 26-year-old, and have voted in every election I've been eligible to participate in. I vote because I know the outcome of the election is, in part, decided by how I vote; the results affect my well-being directly, without government, I would have no roads to drive on, or hospitals to visit in emergency; what little power our government has to steer the course of our economy has helped Canada avoid the fate of countries like Greece. I vote because I care about the future of this country – and because I have the right to vote when so many don't.
Tess LaPensée, Peterborough, Ont.
.........
No tolerance
I disagree with Lysiane Gagnon (Why We Must Tolerate Hate – Oct. 17). I know a few very elderly gentlemen who share a few things in common. One is the remnants of numbers burned into their forearms courtesy of the Nazis in the concentration camps.
These men approach their memories of those monstrous occurrences of decades ago in various ways. Some keep their recollections to themselves, dealing with it as best they can. Others recount their experiences in high schools, in hopes of educating our young citizens to the horrors of man's inhumanity to man, and the importance of society's vigilance against a recurrence. But they have at least one other thing in common: the right to live out their lives in dignity – the dignity of knowing that whenever some racist moron attempts to deny the Holocaust, our lawmakers and law enforcers have the right to at least attempt to do something about it.
Ms. Gagnon clicks "delete" when receiving venomous letters. Is that really an effective option for the gentlemen to whom I refer?
Alan Rosenberg, Toronto
.........
Hooked on a ban
The crimes committed by addicts to fund illegal drug habits cause far greater harm to society than their usage of the drugs. Neil Reynolds (A Little Legalizing, A Big Peace Dividend – Oct. 17) is right in calling for an end to the war on drugs. Legalization, with all the attendant regulations and medical provisions that would go with it, would offer a far more humane and economical outcome.
If one were to set out to devise a policy to create maximum social harm with the greatest waste of taxpayers' money, one could do no better than copy our present drug laws. Their most notable achievement has been the entrenchment of a murderous, and immensely profitable, illegal drug trade.
Ray Argyle, Kingston, Ont.
.........
Now that is insulting
In his CBC apology (Cherry's Grovelling Fails To Erase The Many Miscues – Oct. 17), Don Cherry refers to three former hockey players — Stu Grimson, Chris Nilan and Jim Thomson – as "my kind of guys." That sounds much more insulting than "pukes, hypocrites and turncoats."
Norman Rosencwaig, Toronto