Time to stand up, silent majority
by Cookie
If you do a quick search, it is really easy to find references and links between pandemics and extreme beliefs of all kind. Religious fundamentalism, apocalyptic thoughts, political fallout. Plagues incite fear. And as Yoda always said ” fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering”
Forgive the Star Wars reference, because it is cheesy as a pair of sweaty tits on a hot day, but that doesn’t make it wrong. Everything that is going on in our country and around the world is displaying this quote in real time.
In 1919, after the worst of the Spanish Flu had killed something like 287,000 Germans, a small group of unemployed soldiers formed the Nazi party. Adolf Hitler was the 55th member to register in this political party, and over the next 14 years, he used all platforms- even the courtroom at his trial for high treason to spew propaganda until the Nazi party rose to power in the years leading up to WWII. By 1932 they had 37% of the vote. They were not the majority, but they were loud. There was daily violence in the streets. And they got away with it, because the majority of people just didn’t do anything to stop it. They didn’t know where to start.
Fast forward to today. The parallels do not go unnoticed.
As we saw in 1919, 100 years later we are living political discourse that is been fuelled by people’s fear of the unknown. Plague. Economic crisis. Failure of current systems. Clear lack of control by leaders. Use of media or other platforms to propogate political agendas. And maybe less obviously- using what started as the legitimate concerns of a few to try and force change for all that would only benefit the few.
I personally have been feeling increasingly anxious about what I am seeing. We are currently observing a foreign funded occupation of our capital city. Smaller, less organized branches are spreading throughout the rest of the country, terrorising residents and holding the entire country for ransom. Leadership is non existent and the inaction by the police feels corrupt and hopeless in some cases. The silent majority of us are being gaslit by authorities, reminding us that people have a right to peacefully demonstrate- but the word peaceful clearly has different definitions for tantruming white people than they do for any person of colour.
Like in Germany all those years ago, the extreme ideals of the minority are holding the majority of us by the fucking gonads. They are louder, they are motivated, they are organized. And they clearly have support in high places. It’s recipe for fucking disaster.
The past two years have been awful for most of us. When the first wave hit, as someone working in the arts the fear of losing my livelihood was very real. The possibility of seeing everything I have built over the last 20 years go down the gutter was a horrible feeling. On that level, I can empathize with people out there honestly demonstrating because the restrictions have harmed their ability to provide for their families. They are scared, they are angry- and as anyone who clings to any extreme belief system, they are doing it because they need someone to be angry AT, and something to put their faith IN.
Unfortunately, with their mixed messaging of “love and freedom” and symbols of racism, actions of terror, or signage of violence; their actions are clearly demonstrating that they have progressed past the hate stage. And while their hate may or may not be limited to political leaders (don’t display nooses and the names of political leaders and pretend you have peaceful intentions), it is the rest of us who are suffering.
Fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering.
We are in the suffering stage. It is widespread, varying from the residents who live in and around the demonstrations, being tortured by noise and harrassment and abuse to the rest of us feeling powerless to intervene or stop it from growing. Constant bullying of journalists. Concerns for freedom of movement across borders or even within their neighborhoods. Are we to assume that the goal is make life as horrible as possible for the rest of us that WE will ask leaders to make policy changes that satisfy the demands of these dipshits? At some point, the people we democratically elected to advocate for us need to do something to address this. And it doesn’t include olive branches or anything else of that nature. It includes consequences for inexcusable behaviour and breaking the fucking law.
The effects of this situation is wearing on all of us. We are worried that this will go on indefinitely. We are worried that despite doing everything asked of us over the last two years, this angry mob of uneducated fools will get their fucking way and make things a whole lot worse again. I get that they are angry, but I sure as fuck didn’t do anything to them. I don’t love Trudeau, but I sure as fuck love him a lot more than any potential leader who thinks that even one Nazi is tolerable. I get that they are frustrated and want some guarantee that life will at some point return to the “before”, but I sure as fuck understand that it won’t.
So many people have lost our way. I believe there are a minority of individuals who are trying their best to exploit the vulnerabilities of those most affected by this pandemic by offering them a big shiny political win. I believe that these occupations are thinly veiled political theatre and obvious adult temper tantrums by people whose lack of education make them easy targets to be moved around as pawns on the gameboard.
I don’t mean to call people stupid, but don’t fucking act stupid.
My final thought is that what’s good for the goose (HONK FUCKING HONK) is good for the gander. If the right the ‘peacefully protest” is so fucking protected and supported, then I would suggest that every single person out there who thinks this is rank bullshit comes out from behind their keyboard and stands the fuck up like those cyclists in Vancouver. Like those women in Ottawa. All the Indigenous people who were violently removed from protecting their own land, every homeless person forcibly removed from a public park, every person of colour, every woman who had to fight for her reproductive rights, every LGBTQ2+ person who had to fight for the right to exist, every single person who has every had to fight for ACTUAL freedom should assemble and march their asses to their legislative building or downtown or parliament and park themselves like these uninformed conspiracy loving idiots.
I wonder what would happen then? Would the right to protest be supported then? How much noise is too much? Can we bring saunas and cranes and piss on pictures of Candace Bergen? Should we bring our kids? Should we jump into traffic and get run over? WOULD THAT ALL BE OK?
Fuck this fucking fuckery.
ihaveanopinionidliketoshare 
as usual, well expressed! this is indeed dangerous …and i believe that it’s only the beginning
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I had to wait a little bit to read this blog post because I knew it would probably pis me off… I almost unsubscribed after your last post. But, hey, I’ve agreed with you on many things over the years that I’ve followed your blogs and even when I didn’t, I find your writing entertaining.
I have a couple of things for you to consider. Why are you able to dismiss an entire movement based on a couple hateful flags that were carried through the midst of a demonstration happening on public property, but you still think it’s OK for you to use hateful demeaning terms to describe those you don’t agree with? Just like love is love is love, hate is hate is hate, and I think you have overlooked your own.
Second, please consider that whatever sources you’ve been watching for information may not be completely truthful. I have never been a fan of Rebel News, but they really lost my respect when they attacked a personal friend of mine with over the top rhetoric and false accusations because of a school board decision. This was a few years ago and I still refuse to watch them. I was a follower and regular watcher of CTV news pretty much all my life and had this false idea that they were more balanced in their coverage of events. Until this last week. I first watched them downplay and minimize the convoy as it crossed Canada when in actual fact this was a record breaking convoy and these have been record breaking protests both in size and duration. They were also coming up with some pretty explosive theories about the violence that might happen in Ottawa, the possibility of racist white supremacists being in charge, the right wing extremists who could destroy property and riot like Jan 6th at the U.S. Capitol, maybe the Russians were involved. Meanwhile, videos from the convoy and reports from some people I personally know who are in it, showed people bringing them food, cheering them on, lining overpasses and highways welcoming them like no soldier alive or dead had ever received. People thanking them for standing up against government overreach. In Ottawa people were hugging, dancing, crying, celebrating, high fiveing and when someone stepped out of line they would make up for that with taking better care of the monuments than officials, reporting those who tried to burn a flag to police, feeding everyone including the homeless and local residents for free, running off those with hateful flags and making sure they knew they were not welcome. So now that they’ve been in Ottawa 10 days, the worst damage they’ve done is hang a couple signs and flags, honk horns and set off fireworks which annoys the neighbours, and idle their trucks at night, these things are being inflated by the media to make them seem like unacceptable hardships for those living in and around the protest area. The fear locals feel is completely understandable if they are watching the news on CTV or CBC to see what it’s like outside their window. However reports from individuals who have actually gone out and talked to their “new neighbours” are quite different with at least one describing those sitting in trucks as friendly, willing to talk, dedicated to stopping mandates that cause people who refuse a vax to lose their jobs and willing to stay as long as they need to to make the government listen. Funny the truckers themselves are not going insane from the horns if they are really as bad as the news make it seem. Of course I play bagpipes and find them quite enjoyable to listen to, so maybe I’m just an idiot dumbass.
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I dismiss any movement that creates space where Nazis, racists, white supremacists or anyone else who discriminates on any marginalized group feel like they belong. I dismiss any movement whose leader spews hate speech and talks about superior bloodlines. I’m sure many people there are generally decent folks who are making terrible decisions that are inherently selfish and hurt others. It doesn’t matter. Everything about this whole thing is wrong on so many levels. It’s not even that bad in Winnipeg and I can hear the horns 8 km way when they go off. Unfollow if you must, but my opinion is rock solid on this matter, and there is a huge difference between anger and hate. I am angry, not hateful.
I appreciate that you read anything I write ever, thank you for sharing your thoughts.
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