"I was Getting Tired of Green Anyway!"

FTLComm - Tisdale - Friday, September 7, 2001

Slowly they are gathering, and like the grass upon which they fall, they are drying up. This parched country has experienced less precipitation this year than any year that anyone can remember. But the deciduous trees with their long deep roots found this an excellent growing year.

Year after year this process has occurred and year after year it is a surprise to us, always its seems premature even though records show it happens with a few days each year when the first leaves begin to turn.

Our memory is far more flexible than we want to think and it is a troubling concern
 


of mine that if we forget about the seasonal changes how much more we are inclined to forget about the distasteful and sometimes uncivilised behaviour of times only a few decades ago.

So before we forget, let us do a quick refresher on some things we should definitely remember.

  1. WW1 essentially a commercial conflict between German and Western Europe where hundreds of thousands died in a futile conflict that resolved nothing.

  2. "Night of Crystal" Hitler blamed the Jews for economic conditions and launched the "final solution" extermination of Jews, mentally deficient people, Gypsies and other undesirables.

  3. US senate investigation into "un-American activities" a political purge in North America where "commies" were hunted down, exposed and deprived of a living, it was not confined to the US as the backlash to the cold war was standard political fare for us as well.

  4. The treaties, in order to obtain economic and political control of North America the government of Britain signed treaties for all time with the aboriginal people of the land, agreed to terms and conditions. In return peaceful European settlement took place in British North America but by reneging on the terms of the treaties the consequences to the aboriginal people was not unlike the fate of German and other European Jews The Jews were murdered, the Indians robbed of their self esteem, language and culture now facing extermination from alcoholism, poverty, lower life expectancy and massive incarceration.

  5. Universal Medicare, invented in Saskatchewan then adopted by the Trudeau government for the whole country, intended to pay for medical care not control it yet provincial and federal governments have lost sight of it as a means for paying for medical care and use it instead as a means of rewarding and punishing the electorate as politicians and administrators have all but destroyed basic health care nationwide.

  6. Canada's Charter of Rights, battered and abused by government and police, constantly under attack as there is one crisis after another that demands that additional powers be given to police to combat individual conditions as they arise: gang crime, mass murder, drugs, terrorism, separatism. Police powers have grown in Canada to the point that death squads operate with immunity in Saskatoon and in Regina the police routinely (twice in the past thirty days) execute people using pepper spray. With armoured vests and nineteen shot semiautomatic weapons, the police are far more dangerous to your safety than any possible criminal.

  7. The Dirty Thirties, a massive economic and financial crisis in October of 1929 coupled with a serious drought in the North American prairies resulted in a depression. Unemployment grew until there was fear of insurrection in US and Canada. The remarkable collapse of the capitalist system was the cause of the event and also the reason conditions did not recover. The depression ended only when government interceded directing and controlling the economy so that World War II could be fought. Massive government intervention paid for the amazing effort of the war but also launched a huge post war economic period of prosperity lasting until the late sixties.

  8. The five Day Work week, Canadian railroad employees went on strike bringing industry and trade to a halt for just over three weeks in the early fifties. This strike resulted in the country wide acceptance of a forty hour work week. Wage earners at that time earned enough to support a family so that one of a married couple worked while the other could devote full time and attention to rearing and caring for the children in the family. Unemployment at the time was less than 5% and the economy was booming. Corporations paid taxes and there was more leisure time for everyone than ever before or ever since.

  9. Albert Einstein, a Jewish scientist who left Europe to avoid persecution and must be considered the genius of the twentieth century. Not only did his quest for understanding lead to the most devastating weapon ever developed by mankind, but also his work opened the window on the universe, limitless energy and his name comes up at least once a month as new discovers affirm the man's theories.

  10. Free and universal public education. Democracy is a costly and complex form of government but is contingent on the participating voter having a well rounded education that will afford him or her to make reasonable and rational decisions. Society is in danger of losing sight of why we have our public system and it is being modified to serve industry and the corporate world gradually divesting itself of the elements of creativity, social values and quality of life appreciation. Dogmatic capitalistic politicians are undermining and under funding it in a deliberate effort to further their political agenda. Charter schools, home schooling, funding of private schools, are all clear attacks on a system to replace it with pre-eighteenth century feudal conditions.
 
 
Timothy W. Shire