Healing Trauma: Perspectives And Attitudes, 30

The legal right to doctor-assisted suicide has been dusted off and carted out again for public viewing these days, by some of our major news outlets, the CBC and the Globe and Mail. The CBC is broadcasting a weeklong series on the matter for their Vancouver-based morning program, the Early Edition. Sandra Martin, the death columnist at the Globe and Mail wrote a multipage panegyric about it. Both media outlets are fawning in their praise and unashamedly biased in favour of assisted suicide, giving scant or no attention to any other perspective, position, angle, experience or opinion. Of course the official and editorial position on this controversial subject is going to be favourable. Our chattering classes do want to show the rest of the world how progressive they are. It's all part of the progressive-liberal package: you are going to be pro-choice, pro-diversity, at least two of your best friends are going to be representatives of the LGBTQ contingent, if you are white (and probably you are) you re also going to have at least two or three friends and perhaps even a romantic partner of a different colour, you are going to be either atheist, or spiritual but not religious, you are going to favour Buddhist and yoga practices, dislike Christians and Christianity, be pro-environment, pro-harm-reduction and pro-legalization of all drugs and other psychoactive substances, and you are going to be a feminist, with strong socially progressive values in favour of universal support for the poor and economic redistribution and economic and social equality. This is a package. And there is a general consensus that this is a seamless garment, without nuance, all painted in broad strokes of black and white. I, for example, share most of those values. I draw the line at the anti-Christian talk. I am also against doctor assisted suicide. It is interesting that two of our major media sources are so dedicated about this, and I sometimes wonder why they are doing this with such unqualified zeal. Whose agenda are they fulfilling? Why is doctor assisted suicide so important to our government? I have posited elsewhere on these pages the idea that legal medical suicide dovetails very nicely with the so-called grey tsunami of a huge wave of ageing seniors who are going to drown the hapless taxpayers in their health care needs and expenses. And really, it is all about money. The One Percent, and especially the most gruesomely wealthy .01 percent, are now richer than ever, and guess who is making them so obscenely wealthy, Gentle Reader? That's right, it's us. With our low and stagnant wages and pay, our reduced government subsidized social and health services, by allowing those swine to impoverish us, we are making them wealthy. Their influence over our media outlets is huge, and the Globe and Mail is owned by the Thomson Group which is headed by a Canadian multi-billionaire. They want us to die, if that will reduce costs, and help them stay rich. Chilling, eh? I have written elsewhere about how particularly vulnerable poor single adults are to the abuse of doctor assisted suicide. Any poor geezer who is left having to choose between an old age of hunger and inadequate housing and a quick easy out, is going to be even a little tempted to opt for kicking the proverbial bucket, thus saving the health care system crap-loads of money and keeping the One Percent fat and wealthy. I also find it interesting that Sandra Martin mentions in her article that it is aging Boomers who are spearheading legitimized suicide. They want choice in everything and they do not want to suffer the ministrations of paid strangers when they are at their most vulnerable. This unprecedentedly entitled, spoiled generation of whining arrogant shits would rather flip the bird at God instead of humbly accepting that their demise is going to be as far from their control and choosing as were their conception and the date and time of their birth. And the One Per Cent is trying to capitalize on this narcissistic arrogance, pull strings from behind the scenes so that we'll think we're getting what we want, and thus assuring that they get what they want. By the way, for those of you who know me, I am not a Boomer. I was born during Generation Jones. We are the sub-generation that followed the Boomers in 1055 or so till 1964. Our Boomer elder siblings had already picked all the lovely plums and other low-hanging fruit, leaving us with the pits and skins. The Boomers gave the world Woodstock. We gave you guys punk rock. Got it?