National Observer lists Ontario Budget Cuts for 2019

Ontario budget cuts for 2019 - this list found in the National Observer:

Legal aid for climate emergency
Money for First Nations Wildlife Protection
Paramedic services
Support for Refugees and Immigrants
Legal aid and crime victims

"The 2019 budget forecasts that Ontario’s public account will not reach balance until 2023–24, one year earlier than the prior Liberal government of Kathleen Wynne had proposed but beyond the current term of the government’s mandate, breaking one of Ford’s key election promises." (National Observer.). But it looks like people who really need help to survive and the environment will suffer.

This morning as I waited for the ferry I struck up a conversation with a woman who lived in a luxury high-rise condo who was upset that homeless people made her and her visitors uncomfortable as they sat on a bench near the shopping mall asking for change.

I confessed I felt uncomfortable that people are homeless. It seems to me their plight is way more damaging to their well-being than having to say no to people who ask for a handout.

But then that is a sensibility that predates the concern for balancing the various budgets. The flurry of panic headlines that worry about government debt don't include the costs of homelessness on a societal level -- a kind of blindness we maintain as if life itself is a nuisance, undoing our vague sense of security in the abundance of things, entertainment and nice homes. When people suffer they seem to get in the way of being organized.

The Real Crisis

"No, the real crisis is an upsurge in hatred — unreasoning hatred that bears no relationship to anything the victims have done. And anyone making excuses for that hatred — who tries, for example, to turn it into a “both sides” story — is, in effect, an apologist for crimes against humanity." (Paul Krugman, Return of the Blood Libel, New York Times.         https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/opinion/blood-libel-trump-immigrants.html)

Paul Krugman writes about how Hitler's hatred of Jews became a "cause" for his campaign to find glory in killing as many people as possible.

The fact that hate drives wars is a sordid economic boon, while the lives of decent people are disrupted and destroyed. This is true for any system of government.

In the early part of the last century there was a theory, probably created by Russian secret police, that Jews were planning to take over the world, writes Krugman. As Russia was about to begin the communist revolution through fascist means they embarked on spreading fear through the charge and imprisonment of writers and artists who expressed "anti-Soviet ideas". Krugman writes the steps and causes of the rise of hate across Europe in a clear way. His article is worth reading.

In my less detailed way of finding patterns I propose that a system rules people until the people see the errors of it, then as movements to resist grow, up pops another scapegoat and theories are manufactured to point the blame to a small powerless group. 

This is achieved by billionaires and the ruling elite who fear being sacked by the masses. Media helps to spread this hate as people begin to feel more trapped by a system that punishes them for being poor and powerless.

Many wise people have warned that the rising gap between haves and have-nots will lead to fascism and violence.  It has been documented in the past.  But those most impressed by the anti-immigrant movements have been duped, manipulated by the emotions that men dare not speak of.

How can any self-respecting macho man admit that he is vulnerable to forces he cannot control no matter how strong he tries to be? Whatever the system is and whatever promises are made by well meaning leaders the pattern always ends up with the psychopath on top. Men love the apes that pound their chest and roar and feel contempt towards the poorest most bullied and abused.

This is called projection - projecting our fantasies onto others, in stories, songs and politics.

If you go to the article written by Krugman there is a picture of a white man with his distorted mouth open as though he is screaming some hateful epithet. This is the face of the human who has lost hope for the future while centralized power organizes humanity's expulsion from the commons. This is the face of the man who has been purchased, who is trapped and cannot find a way out.

Why Hate is Not a Way Out

Antony Gormley was quoted in an article (by Hannah Ellis-Petersen, printed in the Guardian July 6 ) with a warning - we live in dangerous times. “Yet we are all sleepwalking through it...aware the centre cannot hold, that 250 years of industrial activity has undermined and fundamentally disturbed our world – yet we feel somehow not responsible.” 

Worse is the seeming efficiency with which movements are able to destroy civil society all across the globe with very little analysis among comrades or from the mainstream media.

So while hatred has been whipped up towards immigrants, or more likely people who are not white, and while hatred has done so much damage to struggling countries everywhere - we seem to have learned nothing.

But there are recurring elements we must remember before we slip into civil wars, terrorism or xenophobic attacks.

1. The white race has for centuries invaded all continents and brutally destroyed the social systems of aboriginal people they encountered.

2. Outrage at the "problems" caused by immigrants usually comes from the white race who felt entitled to invade, rape and pillage wherever they landed without question. The harm done by colonialism has yet to be fully examined by Europeans who now feel threatened by mass migrations. 

3. The military-industrial complex has been very effective in flaming hatred where they stand to profit from the wars that result from it. However we don't remember the interests who help to fund campaigns such as the Nazis in WWII, military coups in Central America, or the Middle East.

4. We don't pay attention to the really powerful lobbies and their ideologies. It's as though we accept their reptilian appetites as business-as-usual without blame.

5. We forget that the front line hooligans, thugs and suicide bombers are often the poorest most desperate groups who have very little choice, and who are hungry for a future that includes dignity and meaning.  We readily turn away from their condition and their despair when it is obvious they are in need, and then are shocked when they become radicalized.

6. We forget that the masses are dismissed until they are exploited and manipulated to cause the conditions for a profitable invasion from a foreign elite so powerful, their presence is rarely reported in the mainstream.

7. We forget that every generation experiences the disregard for humanity, until their suffering becomes a useful means for profit for the very few. 

In spite of all this, we quickly blame without reflection, those who have the least power to change things. There seems to be an inability to see our part in this recurring drama which ultimately harms us all. 

But also we need to realize that it is the system that breeds contempt for life with its surgical strategies that further divide us and make life miserable.

If we don't wake up soon, our beloved will suffer the torture and violence that spreads like a deadly virus as though it is the only solution, when in reality, it simply breeds the trauma that keep us fearful and afraid of one another. And therefore powerless cannon fodder for the strategists planning their next windfall.