And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
You may have noticed my blog tagline, one of the great quotes from George Orwell: In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act.
This same premise is highlighted in the story of Mouseland, made famous by Tommy Douglas. When the mouse posits, “Why don’t we elect a government made up of mice?” “Oh,” they said, “he’s a Bolshevik. Lock him up!” So they put him in jail.”
Truth incites revolution. Truth is in fact the enemy of the ruling class. Truth should set you free but in all likelihood will get you arrested.
With the current swing to the right governments of all stripes are promising tax cuts. It plays well with the populace,yet taxes are what keeps us running as a society.
Look around your community. Your roads, government services, water, hospital, doctors, parks are all a result of taxation. The health card in your wallet that allows you free health care is a result of taxation. That health care is becoming more and more tenuous and why is that? It is not as some would have you believe because public health care is unsustainable, it is not because people are fatter and it is not because the sky is blue.
It is because the burden of taxation has been almost entirely lifted off of corporations and placed squarely on the shoulders of the citizenry. These tax cuts were promoted to us as necessary to keep and create jobs and wealth. Yet more and more jobs are being moved off shore and jobs which are being created are those in the service industry which require a household to secure employment with two or three employers just to keep the basic necessities.
Growing Gap.ca shows very clearly that truth is being subverted.
Canadian families are putting in more work time, yet most — 80% of them — are getting a smaller share of Canada’s growing economy
The rate of unemployment in Canada is lower than it has been in more than a generation.
Despite these changes — all of which were supposed to ensure greater prosperity for every Canadian — the reports continue to come in indicating the gap between the rich and the poor is greater than it was 20 years ago.
There is growing consensus that Canadian provinces must do more to bring the minimum wage up to a living wage (above the Low-Income Cut Off, or LICO).
As Jacobs writes, “We need to move faster. This is not new terrain; we’ve been here before. In the 1970s workers earning the minimum wage received a rate that was roughly equivalent to $9 an hour today. Thirty years later the Canadian economy is producing much higher levels of wealth and profit, but paying its most vulnerable workers less.”
A CBC headline states that Homelessness ‘chronic’ in Canada. Yet a story in today’s news reports,
Homeless people in Canada have more mental health problems than the rest of the population
people who are homeless tend to report higher stress, lower self-worth, less social support and different coping strategies, factors that are associated with depressive symptoms, substance abuse, suicidal behaviours and poor self-rated health.”
Well you could knock me over with a feather at these results. Higher stress, lower self worth, depression amazing. Interesting is it not, that after reporting on how homelessness is ‘chronic’ the story is followed up by one which attempts to place the blame on the moral or psychological deficits of the homeless themselves. Thereby mislaying the blame and misleading readers from the truth.
In cost cutting efforts the Harris government cut new affordable housing, reduced welfare to unsustainable amounts, closed a number of group homes that allowed the functionally disabled and those with diagnosed “mental health issues” to live in dignity.
Now those cuts and closures are coming home to roost.
If we continue to allow our truths to be substituted with bigotry, prejudice, half truths and downright lies, we allow ourselves to just follow orders. We allow ourselves to see our fellow human being as less worthy, as less important and as less. We trade our humanity for the crumbs that fall from the masters table and the dangled suggestion that one day we may sup there.
Now is the time for truth. Now is the time for revolution.
Lyrics from Pink Floyd Wish you were here.
Youtube Video
I am beginning to think that the only way the progressive movement will make real progress is by getting everyone that collects a paycheck to join a union.
I think there is a high degree of correlation between the decline in union membership and income stagnation for the middle class. Down here in Dumbfxxxistan the unions have been taking a pounding since at least Reagan. Working to elect “Democrats” has accomplished nothing since they are democrats in name only. They all really work for the corporatists. We need to re-vitalize the labor movement if we want to be able to eventually change the behavior of our governments.
I am not in a union myself, but it is the only way I can think of to get the necessary leverage over the capitalists. From the way the elitists scream bloody murder and freak out at the mention of the word union, you know it is one of the few things they fear.
“Why don’t we elect a government made up of mice?”
I take this one step further – why elect our masters at all? Why not merely voluntarily come together, cooperate or compete and ignore the middle man (the state and the government) all together?
Now THAT would be revolutionary and quite peaceful.
Real power to the people means NO power to the state.
Excellent post, Debra, just excellent.
Tax cuts are away of saying : Unfortunately we privatized much of the public infrastructure that once made your lives livable and for which you already paid once out of your taxes, so now we are refunding you a tiny bit of your original investment back.
Another 1000 jobs gone in Oshawa. The government and their hand maidens, the mainstream media, lie all the time. They cut services because of debt and deficits and yet they encourage the average person to assume large debt just to keep the economy growing. They slash corporate and business taxes at all levels of government using the old “stimulate the economy” excuse while well-paid, unionized jobs disappear and the gulf between rich and poor grows.
Excellent post, Debra! Splendid!
“The revolution starts now
When you rise above your fear
And tear the walls around you down
The revolution starts here
Where you work and where you play
Where you lay your money down
What you do and what you say
The revolution starts now
Yeah the revolution starts now”