Preparing for an uncertain future

I see a few posts on Facebook that indicate people see our future as being decided by the Harper government. I use that term because the Conservative party and Canada's democracy have been destroyed by this PM who proudly bragged we would not recognize Canada when he finished with it.

We were warned by so many quotes that he would turn us into a Republican branch plant - a petro state that Chris Hedges describes as intentionally destructive:

Extraction industries, like wars, empower a predominantly male, predatory population that is engaged in horrific destruction and violence. Wars and extraction industries are designed to extinguish all systems that give life—familial, social, cultural, economic, political and environmental. And they require the obliteration of community and the common good.

Jennifer Hinton describes the Greek Crisis as being the result of a parasite which "… comes from the surplus of the system (profit) being taken out of the real economy (the economy of physical goods and services) and put into the financial sector to generate more wealth for people who are already wealthy. This requires the economy to continually grow to compensate for the extraction of profit, which is essentially the extraction of the economy’s surplus."

So the economy in this case no longer serves the society that creates it. If Capitalism destroys societies how will it sustain itself? And is it really fascism in sheep's clothing?

A quote attributed to  Tommy Douglas, says "Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.” 

Democracy and the kind of social responsibility which enables our freedom is clearly under threat in Europe, the US, Canada and other nations. But a percentage of the population will not see it that way.

Perhaps I am over simplifying - but it seems to me that Harper's base are those who have lived under the canopy of several absolutes:

1. that the white man is inherently superior, 
2. that men are more reasonable than women 
3. that religion is necessary to maintain morality
4. that punishment is required to keep people on the right path
5. that capitalism is the natural vehicle for our economy
6. that Canada is a Christian country. 

For these beliefs to sustain themselves a mind must avoid straying beyond these tenets - to explore is dangerous, to think is heresy. 

Christianity has been usurped and corrupted as a kind of manufactured spiritually-gated community to support the power and privilege of a ruling elite. In these cases it is no longer about Jesus and his teachings, or the insights of Biblical prophets.  This is not Christianity at all. It is not about good orderly direction in the Universe. It is not about virtue or humanity. It is a means to control minds and to keep the masses living in fear. It was the instrument that Hitler used, and that South Africa used to sustain apartheid. It is the way that war and violence has been glorified for the ambitions of colonial and imperial states.

As Chris Hedges, who is also a minister of a Christian church, reminds us: "There is nothing inevitable about human existence except birth and death. There are no forces, whether divine or technical, that will guarantee us a better future. When we give up false hopes, when we see human nature and history for what they are, when we accept that progress is not preordained, then we can act with an urgency and passion that comprehends the grim possibilities ahead." 

It is time to act, not simply accept the status quo. There is a responsibility we have to find a way to contribute to the future with the particular skills we have. To use our knowledge and art to present a different way of being. To pool our resources so that these skills are offered as an extension of our selves within our society. This is the way we contribute to our survival. We do what we can and if we are not sure we can we try it.

Judging, shaming and blaming is a waste of energy unless it leads to our action to fix that which we see is wrong. There is no righteousness in texting or twittering if we can't ask ourselves what can be done about it.
We are not required to change the world tomorrow, but let's not dismiss our capacity to meet and talk sincerely with one another about what and how we can apply our knowledge to the problem.

Voting, protesting, marching, carrying banners all have their place in revolution, but there is another step beyond that. Becoming the piece in the puzzle to support and sustain what is life revering. It means offering alternative views without name-calling, insulting and de-humanizing others.

It means researching the right information, questioning our own prejudices, interrogating our own privileges.
It means compassion. 

The Link Between Climate Change and ISIS

“One of the things that preceded the failure of the nation-state of Syria and the rise of ISIS was the effect of climate change and the mega-drought that affected that region, wiped out farmers, drove people to cities, created a humanitarian crisis that created the symptoms — or rather, the conditions — of extreme poverty that has led now to the rise of ISIL and this extreme violence.”

Martin O'Malley, Democratic Candidate. Think Progress

Remembering Tommy Douglas

“Once more let me remind you what fascism is. It need not wear a brown shirt or a green shirt – it may even wear a dress shirt. Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.” Tommy Douglas

We the Citizens of Canada - hear this

Canadian Flag - Vancouver Observer

But if we, the citizens of Canada, win the next election, then there can be big, gloriously positive changes in the way this country runs – which will lead to an outpouring of optimism, a flowering of creativity, an expansion of community-centred energy and a hell of a lot of real fun.

Warren Bell, Vancouver Observer

From Peggy Mason of the Rideau Institute on Non-Nuclear Proliferation

"I am writing this blog post not only as RI President, but as a former Canadian Ambassador for Disarmament to the United Nations.   I had much direct experience of negotiations with Iran, in the context of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review process and in many other arms control negotiations at the UN.  Of course that was at a time when Canada’s foreign policy was not based on much sound and fury and little substance but, instead, on a steadfast commitment to, and demonstrated talent for, diplomacy as the means to achieve the peaceful resolution of disputes, as the UN Charter obliges member states to do." - See more at: Ceasefire.

A Small Needful Fact by Ross Gay

reposted with permission from Split This Rock Poem of the Week.

A Small Needful Fact

Is that Eric Garner worked
for some time for the Parks and Rec.
Horticultural Department, which means,
perhaps, that with his very large hands,
perhaps, in all likelihood,
he put gently into the earth
some plants which, most likely,
some of them, in all likelihood,
continue to grow, continue
to do what such plants do, like house
and feed small and necessary creatures,
like being pleasant to touch and smell,
like converting sunlight
into food, like making it easier
for us to breathe.

Ross Gay is a gardener and teacher living in Bloomington, Indiana. He is the author of the collections Against Which, Bringing the Shovel Down, and most recently The Catalogue of Unabashed Gratitude (Pitt Poetry Series, 2015). His poems have appeared in American Poetry Review, Atlanta Review, Harvard Review, Columbia: A Journal of Poetry and Art, and Margie: The American Journal of Poetry, among other places.

About Split This Rock:

cultivates, teaches, and celebrates poetry that bears witness to injustice and provokes social change. It calls poets to a greater role in public life and fosters a national network of socially engaged poets. Building the audience for poetry of provocation and witness from our home in the nation’s capital, we celebrate poetic diversity and the transformative power of the imagination.

Split This Rock explores and celebrates the many ways that poetry can act as an agent for change: reaching across differences, considering personal and social responsibility, asserting the centrality of the right to free speech, bearing witness to the diversity and complexity of human experience through language, imagining a better world.

Split This Rock is dedicated to revitalizing poetry as a living, breathing art form with profound relevance in our daily lives and struggles. Our programs integrate poetry of provocation and witness into movements for social justice and support the poets of all ages who write and perform this vital work.

The name "Split This Rock" is pulled from a line in “Big Buddy,” a poem from Langston Hughes.

Don’t you hear this hammer ring?
I’m gonna split this rock
And split it wide!
When I split this rock,
Stand by my side.

About Eric Garner: The Guardian

Capitalism

"… comes from the surplus of the system (profit) being taken out of the real economy (the economy of physical goods and services) and put into the financial sector to generate more wealth for people who are already wealthy. This requires the economy to continually grow to compensate for the extraction of profit, which is essentially the extraction of the economy’s surplus."

Jennifer Hinton on the Greek Crisis, Truthdig

Fire Safety and Preparedness

Garden in July

There is an abundance of advice in British Columbia regarding potential fire hazards and preparedness.

Updates on fire hazard conditions can be found at  Gabriola Fire Dept. 

Air Quality Advisories will give you updates here at  BC Air Quality

Emergency Social Service for Gabriola has a web site here ESS

For BC current alerts and evacuation information can be found at Emergency Info BC

Here is a list of things you might pack ready for an emergency from the Regional District of Nanaimo:

• Battery flashlight/radio - the crank variety are very useful
• Personal medication for up to 72 hours - one week is best. Ask your pharmacist about bubble packing
• basic first aid kit
• personal items (glasses, contact products etc)
• book/game - to keep kids busy
• family photos
• personal papers (photocopies of insurance papers, health info, ID)
• walking shoes
• change of clothing
• bottled water
• non perishable food
• light weight emergency blankets
• large garbage bags to use as a rain poncho, waterproof shelter, to keep pack dry or to capture rain water
• whistle and map
• toiletrries (toothbrush etc)
• information about your pets and supplies
• contact list - family, friends, doctors names and phone numbers
• extra keys to house, vehicles, safety deposit box

Here's wishing for rain and lots of it.

Juan Cole: Seven Churches Burned Down in the Last Week

Church of Global Denial

"This news is being reported tentatively and in the passive mood. The churches burned or were burned. But that arson directed at an African-American church in the South after the Roof murders is likely the work of white supremacists is only hinted at. The ambiguity of thunderstorms is typically brought in, quoting local authorities. But there are lots of thunderstorms all the time in the South and churches have lightning rods. Why would a church that had stood for decades suddenly succumb to a single storm?Shouldn’t the headline be “Suspected White supremacists burn down at least four African-American churches” ? Shouldn’t there be an agent, a doer, involved?

Compare how the press handled Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) attacks on Christians and churches. It was front page news! And the active voice was used, even though these events happened thousands of miles away amidst a fog of war and there were no Western eyewitnesses."   Juan Cole, Truthdig 

With each century we have become more blinded by our own prejudices, more in denial, more fearful and more inadequate in seeking justice.