Friday, September 28, 2007

Acknowldege the Need for Revolution (because "business as usual" only encourages them)

Jeeziz, .... "Death to Canada,"* that's what Afghan protestors are shouting outside Kandahar, where they accuse Canadian soldiers of killing two religious elders during a raid. Canadian authorities claim they were not involved. NATO spokespersons said that the protest was staged by the Taliban, who also inflate the numbers of civilian casualities. Of course, Canada and NATO exaggerate the numbers of Taliban they kill and underestimate civilian casualities, ... so take it all with a grain of salt.

The thing is, they're shouting "Death to Canada" somewhere in the world. FIVE YEARS after we defeated a not-too-very-popular regime, and have supposedly been working hard to bring stability and development to the region.

The point is, that you can't trust the fuckers for anything. The same politicians that created the federal public debt on the engineered unemployment of the workers, and who have used the debt to slash necessary public services for the majority, and who are blaming the people they themselves threw out of work for being "dependent" upon those social programs and therefore causing the debt, ... these are the same politicians who we trust to deliver on the best interests of the Afghan people.

The same people who harassed, slandered, and fired Shiv Chopra, Margaret Haydon and Gerard Lambert, the veterinary drug scientists who blew the whistle on the dangers of Monsanto's rBGH growth hormone, are the ones we trust to represent us to the people of Afghanistan and Haiti.

The system that allows corporations to produce dangerous products and intimidate the institutions our taxes pay to regulate them is not a system that should ever be trusted. It is not a system we should accept.

The system that sends two unelected presidents, and a duplicitous, unpopular prime minister, to Montebello, to "streamline" the regulatory framework of three supposedly sovereign nations, ... while a sampling of their corporate paymasters guide their hands, ... all behind closed doors and the prying eyes of the people, this is not a system that a free people would typically endorse.

People who are already skeptical about this system, people who vote left-wing, whether they are deluded left-Liberals or NDPr's, have to come all the way through and realize that a system that does these things, and that creates a wall of confusion which perpetuates the two corporate parties, and condemns semi-realistic ones to permanent minority status and irrelevance, is a sick system.

A system that deliberately kills people, and which gladly kills more people if there's a buck to be made, is not a system that can be reasoned with.

I believe in democracy and human rights, and, I think, more than many people. I believe they are the only principles that grant us some degree of security from the system. But they were won by people opposed to the system, ... they weren't granted by the system. They create a cocoon of complacency around the capitalist system though.

Our political-democratic movement has to move forward with the majority of the people, but first the majority of the people have to be convinced that the system has to go. It has to be dramatically changed. And before we can do this, we have to make sure that everyone who critiques the system understands how truly inhuman and monstrous it is.

I could go


* This news was brought to my attention by Alison in the comments section of the last thread. Thanks for the heads-up on this important (and depressing) situation.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, that's it then. Time to go, they're calling us names and saying bad stuff.


We're outta here!!

thwap said...

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Something tells me it's not important.

Anonymous said...

Just putting into words your action plan for Canada in Afghanistan. Apparently we should get out because they're chanting about us.

thwap said...

Oh. I thought you were talking about something else.

Okay. Well, we've made enemies in Afghanistan. And we're making more everyday.

Since you people (pro-war, right-wing) wet your pants about Islamic terrorism, I would think you'd want to avoid making enemies.

Since I like civil liberties, but you right-wingers trash them in your pants-wetting panic about terrorism, I'm loathe to have Canada make more enemies for itself like that.

And you're belittling a growing anger against our killing of more and more innocent civilians (that even Karzai is worried about) so I can't imagine you have a coherent position on Afghanistan anyway.

And then there's everything else I talked about.