Friday, April 01, 2022

Today's News: Walking Together


Tonight, I decided to start with this outstanding photo from Alessandra Tarantino, AP, as the visit to the Vatican of Canadian First Nations, Metis and Inuit representatives for healing and justice continues -- I am using the title "Walking Together" because the hashtag #WalkingTogether was also used today in several tweets about the meetings 
Here is an excerpt from Jason Warick's CBC news story continuing the national coverage of this historic visit with Pope Francis to talk about the terrible legacy of Canadian residential schools: 
As a Canadian delegation prepares for its final meeting with Pope Francis in the Vatican Friday, a growing chorus in Canada is hoping Francis commits to immediately remedying the Roman Catholic Church's broken compensation promises to residential school survivors. 
Canadian bishops announced a renewed fundraising effort last fall — $30 million over five years — and say work is well underway. But critics are skeptical. 
Even if that money can be raised, they say it's wrong to make the dwindling number of elderly survivors wait that long. 
They say that if Canadian bishops won't do it immediately, the Vatican should. 
 Although all the full specifics of the Vatican's holdings are unknown, a tabulation of known assets puts them in the tens or possibly hundreds of billions of dollars. 
Survivors say the compensation money isn't for them — it's to fund addictions and mental health supports, job training, recreation, language preservation and other programs for their descendants suffering through intergenerational trauma. 
"It affected my children, my grandchildren. So many are lost," said survivor and mental health worker Audrey Eyahpaise of the Beardy's & Okemasis Cree Nation. The survivors say the Vatican is just as responsible as the local religious orders and dioceses. 
"This has been a struggle for many years. They've been patient. They keep hearing broken promises," said University of Saskatchewan Indigenous studies professor and Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation member Bonita Beatty. 
"It's a hierarchy. They report up to the Vatican. So yes, he [Pope Francis] is responsible for the various arms of his government. He can't just wash his hands of it."
Today's meetings were with First Nations representatives, following meetings earlier this week with Metis and Inuit representatives. Tomorrow is a final public meeting with all the representatives. Move coverage from today:
As a settler, this list hit me in the gut -- it is a list of our shame and sorrow for all of us. 

Turning to today's news from Ukraine, I have some hope tonight that Ukraine is now going to be successful in continuing to push Russia back - provided they continue to get more weapons and armanments 
Here is an important commentary -- because Ukraine must strike quickly now:
 At Daily Kos, Mark Sumner writes that Ukraine is going on the offensive: 
But whatever is happening around Kyiv, and to the northeast by Chernihiv, there is no doubt that in prosecuting the next stage of this war, Ukraine has to go on the attack. 
It has to reclaim territory that Russia has taken near cities to prevent Russia from using those locations to continue shelling of civilian centers. It also has to prevent Russia from establishing a contiguous, well-defended block of territory in the southeast that would allow Putin to simply suck about a third of Ukraine right into Russia. 
As Markos has discussed repeatedly, Ukraine can’t do that on a diet of defensive weapons alone. All the human-carried anti-tank and anti-aircraft weapons in the world won’t help Ukraine make the kind of extensive gains it needs to roll back Russia’s invasion. 
But there is news today from the U.K. that represents a shift in the weapons the West is willing to ship to Ukraine. 
U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace stated, “As the tactics on the ground change, we need to change what we supply and try to meet Ukraine’s demands. There will be more lethal aid going into Ukraine as a result of today.” Lethal, in this case, means weapons that the U.S. would classify as offensive. And that’s exactly what the U.K. intends to send: long range artillery and armored vehicles. 
Great. 
Risky, but great. I wondered when Ukraine would be able to start attacking Russia across the border. Apparently it was today: In other news, this stuff falls into the category of: we already knew right-wingers could be nuts, but are they out of their minds? Finally, I have to share this -- just because it made me smile and its the way we all feel here in April, when winter is finally over:
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