Many of you know that I am not a follower of any religious organization, nor a supporter of any church, but believe completely in the right of anyone to have whatever religious beliefs they wish to have. However someone sent me a letter written by a Rev. Dr. Mathew Fox to the Speaker of the House in the USA Paul Ryan, and whilst I agree in principal with all he said this particular passage appealed to me because it also applies to our own Canadian Dictator:
“I pray that you may be converted and return to the teachings of Christ and the Church striving to teach in his name very soon. Time is running out for our species and you are in a position of trust and responsibility and leadership in our country at this time. Earn it!
Meanwhile, until you and your party pay attention at last to these basic issues, I as a Christian priest and theologian can only conclude that you are not at all a Catholic or a Christian but just one more hypocrite flaunting your bogus religion on your sleeve to garner more votes and stay in a cushy job while you sell your soul to the Koch brothers and other Wall Street misers. People who don’t have a clue about the “weightier matters of the Law—justice, compassion, good faith!” (Mt. 23:23) that Jesus preached, and who could not care less.
Jesus had something to say about that too, remember? It was strong stuff. He was speaking to you, Paul Ryan, and your fellow politicians when he said: “Alas for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You who are like whitewashed tombs that look handsome on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and every kind of corruption. In the same way you appear to people from the outside like good honest men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness….You are the sons of those who murdered the prophets.” (Mt 23.27-28, 31): Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox”
Great stuff and good on you Rev Fox for putting it out there.
So how does it apply to our pretty faced, great haired (!) dictator? One of my favourite cartoons is where a mask of Trudeau is taken of the face of Harper with the caption “Surprise!” Toxic trade deals which should be investment agreements such as CETA, TPP and TiSA, pipelines, damns, fracking for LNG, toxic fish farms are all left over Harper dealings wholeheartedly accepted by Trudeau, not because they are good but because his puppet masters tell him he must.
Then of course there are two election promises made quite deliberately and neither one going ahead.
One was abandoned, the promise that 2015 was to be the last FPTP election held in Canada. We all know what happened with that one and the money and energy spent by so many before such a pathetic excuse was given that there was “no consensus in Canada” for change. Even the younger generation do not accept that, and they were bought on board by that promise. The damage done to even the idea of political promises here is immense since it further destroys the fragile confidence held by the next generation that they could believe in anything they are told, now they know that they cannot.
The second promise was the relationship between Canada and her original peoples who have been here for millenniums and have been treated with contempt and distaste for at least the one hundred and fifty years Canada had been Canada. Both they and we were promised a new relationship, and one year + in we see nothing new. Young indigenous people are still so desperate and full of despair they are taking their own lives. Clean running drinking water is scarce, education is hit and miss, healthcare – particularly mental health – is almost nonexistent, and in effect we still have our original peoples largely held in a third world country state within Canada. Can we be proud of that? Are they not human beings too? Way too much talk and nowhere near enough action. This quote from the Cree people applies just as much here:
“Only when the last tree has died, and the last fish has been caught, and the last river has been poisoned, will they realize that money cannot be eaten”.
So where do we go from here? Clearly our system in Canada is broken, and it is time to fix it instead of simply accepting the status quo.
However beautiful the strategy, you should occasionally look at the results.
If I was a young person today I would be looking at the alternative political parties, because I would know that we can interchange the two major parties, add in the third easily and know that they are all controlled by big money, do not represent their constituents to the parliament of Canada (maybe on very small matters of individual comfort they can do something but in debates and votes they are robots); yet they speak of democracy not even knowing what that is, and expect us to accept that.
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
I do not accept that now as an old man, but if I was young again I would be doing all I could to ensure that there were 12 – 15 parties represented in our Canadian House of Commons and that they were looking out for the Canadian people not simply their wealthy friends, supporters and lobbyists. This means working for and voting for any fringe party or independent in any riding and ensuring that the Liberal/Conservative cycle of power is ended and replaced with a real form of democracy.
Albert Einstein: The world is a dangerous place not because of evil people, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.
It was very interesting last week to see an event “Daughters of the Vote” in Ottawa, put on by Equal Voice, and to see 337 young women take the seats of their MPs in the House of Commons, and to hear some of them make statements. There were MPs in the gallery watching and they should have been impressed by the passion they saw from these young women, and yet later when they took back the HOC it was the same old partisan nonsense as if nothing had happened earlier, and the lesson was completely missed. How sad.
Meanwhile thank you Rev Fox for speaking out against not only the USA but all governments everywhere that are only interested in self-aggrandizement and support for their wealthy friends to the detriment of the real people of the world.
Jeremy
Jeremy Arney's Blog 