Sunday, April 14, 2013

A Grave Injustice


If someone committed a grave injustice against you (stole your business, your life savings, kidnapped your child, poisoned your family, destroyed your life) and then bribed or otherwise corrupted all the institutions that could bring you justice, what would you do?

What would you feel entitled to do?

Would you ever say to yourself: "Well, the courts have ruled in my adversary's favour. I might not agree with this decision, but I have to respect it."? Would you really say that in the face of an obviously corrupt process?

What if it never even got that far? What if the police were in your enemy's back-pocket and they ignored your claims and beat you up if you made a stink about it? Would you say: "I guess there just wasn't enough evidence to press charges."?

So, faced with a failed economic system, disguised by a corporate media system biased towards the status-quo, we face at least a decade of ruinous austerity. We face ruinous austerity, which means we have no idea what sort of economic tail-spin it will cause. We also face the galloping crisis of global warming, which we, as a civilization, are obviously incapable of even admitting to, let alone responding sanely to it.

At the present level, we have super-corrupt provincial governments in British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec. We have corrupt incompetents pretty much everywhere else. We have a government installed via fraud and protected by corruption. And we have three federal parties, all competing to be their own versions of the lowest common denominator, in order to try to win the "big prize" of a majority of the seats in our legislature, based on the largest minority of the bare majority of Canadians who bother to vote.

Part of the reason for this revolting state of affairs is OUR failure (we the people on the internet and in the streets who have been right all the time; right about Afghanistan, right about Iraq, right about global warming, right about "free trade" deals, right about economic policies, right about tax-cuts, right about education, right about pollution, right about the First Nations, right about gay rights, right about feminism) to use what power we have as a small, but committed minority, to have an impact on the political culture in this country.

Right here, right now, I encourage everyone who reads this to leave a comment. Everyone, even the lurkers; lurkers who are similar to the people who I've met in person who are just as intelligent as me, but lack the self-confidence or the willingness to publicly make mistakes, to blog or speak in public, leave a comment.

But your comment must answer the question: In the face of a government installed via fraud and protected by corrupted institutions, in the face of the fact that you believe in your heart that our present "government" stole its power, ... what can unarmed, democratic activists do in response to this?

8 comments:

Owen Gray said...

It took quite awhile for opposition to the Vietnam War to build, thwap.

But that opposition stopped the war. And it brought down Richard Nixon. Unfortunately, a lot of indefensible things happened before the final outcome.

And therein lies the tragedy of it all.

karen said...

First: I believe the reason more people are not publicly angry, the reason that only .02% of the population is showing up at rallies and protests (Quebec students excepted) is that they are afraid. They are afraid that something will happen to the roof and the fridge. I believe that a small number of people are worried about the roof over their own head and their own belly, but I think more are worried about someone else: their kids, their spouse, their parents. Most of us are a single paycheck from homelessness. Sorry, but that is huge in this country. Do you have any idea how many people could live without a roof in this country? Damn, damn few. It only takes a few minutes of thinking about that to retreat back into the reassuring lull of American Idol.
It is my view that if there is to be any meaningful action, it must address this fear. I must find a way to make sure that you can pay your mortgage and feed your son before I can ask you to risk your job or your personal freedom. We have to get out of our homes, meet our neighbours and find ways to take care of each other.

I'm a carpenter, I can repair the roof, put in more insulation, install a window or a door for you, I can help you build a shed or a greenhouse, with a group I can build a house or a barn. I am a knitter, I can sew and mend clothes. I can proofread a paper for a student, I'm a good cook. I have a small garden in the summers and I'd be happy to share my yard if someone also wants a garden. I can help you with basic electrical or plumbing repairs- or I can teach you to do some of those things yourself. If you have an older car I can do some of the repairs and I can teach you to do them too. I love little kids, I'd be happy to spend some time with the kids while their parents go to work so they don't have to pay a babysitter.

What can I do to make your life easier today?



sinned34 said...

What can I do? I could probably fire up an Asterisk server to make robo-calls to defraud voters in key swing ridings.

I hear it worked well for the last party that did that.

thwap said...

Owen,

But what's going to happen to bring our national nightmare to an end?

The Vietnamese Communists won that war. The protests in the USA were peripheral to the US leaders when they made their calculations.

What will we do to hold the harpercons accountable for dishonouring our system of government?

thwap said...

karen,

You're right that a lot of people who might be on our side are sidelined by work pressures, debts and fear of unemployment.

But given that reality, is it hopeless?

I want to change that reality and I want to do it democratically. That's possible, but not if cheating, lying thugs like harper (and McGuinty) get to violate the law with impunity.

thwap said...

sinned34,

Methinks that if you did that for any party other than the harpercons, Elections Canada would find its purpose again and take you down.

Two-tier justice!

alec said...

i just found your wonderful blog when googling "john ibbitson is a fucking idiot" (he and i have a bit of a history, and his latest video on J.T.'s Boston comments and "just how bad were they", is a straight up con attack ad).

basically, i was out in the streets, at zucotti park on september 17th, 2011, getting arrested, beaten, slapped with bogus charges, and you know what? our resistance was violently crushed into submission. here, in canada, and abroad. until there is some kind of recognition that the entire fucking system is connected to our collective societal misery, and only after wages and benefits are cut so much that middle class families can't afford to feed their kids, nothing is going to happen.

thwap said...

Alec,

A big part of me thinks you're right about how bad it will need to get before people grasp the enormity of harper's scuzzery.

By then it will be too late. The same chumps who voted harper will just go fascist.

Regardless, it was nice to read how you got here. I've written a few times about the hack Ibbitson. Treat yourself to 'em!