Influence 6

So, Canada has just elected a new government. The results are not at all surprising and, as always, disappointing. As I just commented on the phone to the CBC early morning program, the Early Edition, most Canadians are too afraid of change to want to elect a party and a leader that will actually be good for this country, so, instead, we are again stuck between reptiles, in this case Junior with a minority Liberal government and that deplorable little reptile, Andrew Scheer holding the balance of power as the leader of the Conservative opposition. Ugh! Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the NDP, and the only one in the lot worthy to govern this country, has once again been sidelined to the margins, because too many Canadians are afraid of change, have an irrational fear of socialism, or anything that looks progressive, and, even if they will not admit it, an underlying prejudice against brown people who wear turbans. Neither do they, especially if they are particularly wealthy, interested in accepting a small increase in taxes in order to bankroll affordable housing for the homeless and universal pharma and dental care. The usual greed and self-interest always seem to triumph. Our loss. Our sad and tragic loss, but so powerful is the influence of fear which was really the dominant emotion of this political campaign. We live in very uncertain times. Well, what else is new? We have always lived in uncertain times. But now the smugness of the so-called developed nations is finally being threatened and challenged by the forces of that big ugly real world that we are all having to live in. It is unfortunate that our global influence is dwindling, but because we do have a lot of cred as beacons of liberal and social democracy and the rule of law, but now we have that behemoth of the Communist Party of China and their loathsome People's Liberation Army rising and threatening to swallow the planet in one big gulp. Think of the rest of us as dim sum. A very dim sum, since our leaders were completely blinded by greed as they signed away our sovereignty and our integrity as a nation for trade deals that benefit dictatorships and impoverish Canadians. I will not go into the perennial problem of the Dump in the White House, since that entity already is given way too much oxygen, but, yes, along with climate change and looming mass extinctions (us among them) we do have a few things to be worried about. But fear paralyzes us, and we have to do better than fear. I am glad that one hundred thousand young people and a few others turned out four weeks ago in my city to protest climate change and global warming, but they are also being hobbled by fear instead of letting it become like an engine that will move us forward. So, older more conservative Canadians, how do they respond? By offering their unmitigated support to the Conservative Party of Canada, giving them more status as the opposition with a weakened Liberal government. At least with the Conservatives, they don't mask their nefarious intentions with beautiful lies, unlike Junior and his Liberal Party, making lovely sounds about the environment from one side of his mouth, while with the other agreeing to buy pipelines and simply go on kissing the asses and other nether regions of big oil, big pharma and anyone else who wants to keep soaking the canadian people for their own greed and self-interest. We need more influencers to keep on railing and working and screaming out against this toxic and destructive nonsense that is already enveloping us like a lethal black cloud!