Welcome to 21st century Canada. I fear it will someday be known as a century that got off to a bad start with the election of our first neo-conservative government and went rapidly downhill from there. I believe this will be known as a century in which the state (not the country, the state - the government) turned on its people in service to corporatism.
I expect this will be a century of upheaval marked by waves of social, political and economic unrest; the decline of democracy; the rise of autocracy and, possibly, the collapse of the middle class ushering in a very long era of the precariat. There will be unrest, it's inevitable. Our political system is failing us. Our economic model no longer comports with reality. Our social structure is decaying. We still cling to this sagging apparatus but for how long?
Canadians were once nurtured and sustained on vision of what our country could be in years ahead, what we could bequeath to future generations. That's gone, displaced by tailing ponds visible to the naked eye from space. I remember, with enormous sadness, the days, not that long ago, when we believed that with effort and sacrifice and, for nothing more than honour and love of country, we could work to make this amazing land ever better - not for multinational corporations but for us, for our children and for their children. Canada was a work in progress, flawed (but not nearly so much as most), rough around the edges but something that was ours to make better as our ancestors had made it better for generations before our time.
Where did it all go? How did we wind up in this place, deeply divided, suspicious, so hostile toward each other? Who was so insidious as to make us virtually irreconcilable, stripped of common purpose, one despising the other, draining out our national soul?
We're furious at the people who fell for that, those who succumbed to manipulation of their basest instincts by this prime minister and his sleazy political trapeze; his deception and secrecy. I won't speak for you but I despise them for settling for a bargain so facile and cheap yet so lastingly expensive to our country. What were they thinking? Could they not remember what our Canada had been in the not so distant past? Did they never know that Canada? Is this, today, all they've known?
As I recall, Harper got 39% of the vote in the last election and even that was dubious, what with robocalls etc. It's not that voters voted for Harper. It's that the votes of over 60% counted for nothing. We have an antiquated, out-of-date, colonial election system that favours dictators. Unfortunately most Canadians are so badly informed,often in a self-inflicted way, they don't understand this. Toronto had a referendum on proportional representation and most voted against it. The Italians thought it would result in Canada becoming another Italy.
ReplyDeleteLincoln appealed to his citizens' better angels, Mound. Harper has aroused our demons.
ReplyDeleteAnd we have not distinguished between the two.
.. Eloquent .. sad .. inspiring .. provoking ..
ReplyDelete.. haunting ..
Should be hung outside The Harper Museum of Royal History, for all to read as they enter. Your blunt challenge comes from one who likely admired & valued the building's previous life and idea.. as The Museum of Civilization ..
I'll likely have more to say.. or write on what you've hung up and nailed to the wall.. for Canadians to look at.. or into.
Its a darkening mirror reflecting our times & ourselves staring at ourselves.. and the portal dimming behind us.. where we have come from..
Since most of us are losing track of where we have come from.. the question now.. is where are we going? And who are we? Who do we want to be?
I suspect that many times a day, Stephen j. Harper looks in a mirror. What and whom does he see? Certainly he won't see a glowing heart Canadian.. nor an honest man. Won't see a compassionate person capable of empathy or clear honesty.. or friendly curiosity.
If any any exceptional moral or human attributes were present in the child he was.. they're long gone.
Why Canadian's would tolerate such cold, disconnected sociopathy.. is an astounding question for all of us when we look into our mirror.. To think we would let such a man and his complicit cowards 'pretend' to lead this country.. reflect our values so falsely.. is simply astounding.
As a person I treasure tends to say..
regarding situations of abuse..
'you're either a victim or a volunteer'
and right now.. a giant majority of Canadians are volunteers for the Harper Rapture Conspiracy