What is this about?

Listening to the CBC show today about the Convoy protests: constant honking, protesters defecating in the street, carrying Nazi flags, threatening nurses, making racist remarks, intimidating others, damaging statues and other destructive acts ... I believe this is not a protest at all but an opportunity for the people who cannot find a connection between who they are and the society they live in ... so they trash it. Their disruption is a violence that has festered in their minds for years.

I am not blaming anyone other than those who trashed whatever they could. Choosing hate as a way out will further disconnect us from one another. Society represents all of us - our apathy, our pain, our symbols, our anger. For as long as I live I owe this society my voice and my choices - even if these are not heard. I have an obligation to respond to whatever our society passes into law or habit. Learning how to do this responsibly is the challenge. Speaking, writing and acting is not broadcast but that doesn't mean my voice doesn't exist, that my values are not present.

I go back to the word "power" for all its uses and abuses. How do I use my power within this moment? How will it be ignored or reverberated from now on? What about the hurts and pain that others suffer? (If you are thinking that I pardon destructive forces this is not the case. I own the regrets for my misadventures and apologize. I try not to harm anyone or anything. I try to offer care and support to all hurting souls and see that care as the answer to our current malaise.)

We are all feeling something all the time, unless we are so dissociated from our feelings we cannot see or feel the urges within until it hurts someone else. Anger is present before - we punch someone in the face, say sorry, get charged, end up in prison or fined. I have a responsibility to own that feeling. Anger is not bad. It's a message, a signal that something is wrong.

So what is wrong? The habit that we must be subjected to the power of others because of their position of privilege. Getting elected to president or police officer may be necessary for them to do their job but who will call them out when they abuse their power? When does a position become abusive and when is it ineffective? Stories of this abuse fill up TV dramas daily.

The events over this weekend didn't begin this week. Observers will note that institutions have an obligation to act with care about the wellbeing of our society. The biggest clue of our failure has been the propaganda from centralized power, the punishment of those who interrogate without fear, the acts and histories of institutions who failed to care about the morality of their actions towards the people who are forced to live under them.

Jobs have been lost, workers have been abused, the vulnerable suffer under policies created by those who don't have to live under them. Nations of people are traumatized by unethical practices and yet the sufferers do not get "air time" in the commons. Instead its their symptoms which are noticed and ridiculed.

Eventually we all become irrelevant participants and our alienation finds more and more toxic ways to exhibit the rage. The supporters of the protest, political pundits,  broadcasters and legal experts find it difficult to respond effectively. We are living under the weight of organized, funded, corruption and helplessness.

When we are not allowed to criticize our society, officials, religions or political parties ... we find scapegoats which is the most destructive habit for human societies. After 911 US policies fell apart, after WWII Germany lost its status as an intelligent nation, after WWI the Austro Hungarian Empire fell apart, after Colonialism was subjected to further scrutiny of how the original people were uprooted and tortured. It was clear the white man was NOT more civilized.

Colonial white supremacy is a mental illness which led us to believe this was civilization. We have endured centuries of abuse and are without true culture. We have become the bullies and subsequently the bullied as the arts, music, manners and values have been subjugated to the spread sheet of money, the lizard brain of power.

Please don't silence various voices by broadcasting only the worst behaviour as the purpose of an event. Please don't be impressed by violence over wisdom.