It's Time To Show Some National Self-Respect

When I was a child, I was afraid of many people: my teachers, who believed in strapping and slapping us as early as Grade One, school bullies who periodically picked on me, and some of the thuggish people residing in my working-class neighbourhood who enjoyed verbally assaulting those even more powerless than themselves.

It didn't occur all at once, but gradually, as I got older, whatever was in my personality that encouraged easy victimhood changed, and I started to assert myself as an individual. And over the years I have discovered that although my battles are not always won, there are clear and healthy psychological benefits in refusing to adopt a passive acceptance of the injustices and indignities the world can offer. Sometimes there are victories to be savored which can be particularly sweet.

It is therefore difficult for me to watch so many of my fellow Canadians wearing personae of passivity, indifference, and helplessness in response to the national bullying that is the defining characteristic of the Harper regime, the arrogant thrusting through of the budget omnibus bill just the latest example. Far too many of us are content to allow our video games, our smart phones and our sundry other diversions to narcotize and infantilize us while the country we love is being radically altered by a government that respects neither its constituents nor the values that define us as a nation.

It is time for everyone to grow up.

A story in yesterday's Globe suggests that Harper's latest assault on democracy could prove to be a costly one for his government, as Tory M.P's are hearing from constituents loudly complaining over thuggish tactics to pass a budget bill that includes far too many non-budgetary items, many of which, for example, pertain to the weakening and, in many cases, the dismantling of environmental protections and oversights.

Now is the time to communicate volubly and voluminously our displeasure.

Now is the time to begin the long process of reclaiming our democracy and educating ourselves to the perils it faces.

Now is the time to start mobilizing our opposition to this regime so that 2015 does not repeat recent history.

I have an out-of-town-commitment today, but in my next post, I hope to have composed a letter to my M.P. David Sweet, putting him on notice by expressing some of the things I have discussed above.