Deja Vu

I have said this before, several years ago, but what we are and have been for some time witnessing in the United States of America is a duplicate of Nazi Germany in the 1930s. And I am personally disgusted at our leaders for not recognizing this. Britain and Europe paid a heavy price, as did much of the world, when it tried to placate Hitler. It was like an ostich with its head in the sand, until Poland was invaded. And it was too late. The invasion, and that is what it was, of Venezuela this week is simply history repeating itself. This was an illegal act by the US administration that seems to think, with some success sadly, that it can ignore Congress and the Senate, not to forget international law. 

If I thought Trump was intelligent, I would compare him to Hitler. But I think the Hitlers are those who stand behind him. Men like Vance, Rubio and Miller and all of the white blonde women who have been given positions of power and influence. Disgusting people all. The current administration thinks it can invade any country it wants with impunity. Will Greenland and Canada be next. The DONALD has voiced repeatedly this desire and now he has added Columbia and Mexico to his list in a recent verbal vomit of his. We have Putin who can invade Ukraine with impunity, China threatening Taiwan, and the USA threatening all within its grasp. The triumvirate of superpowers are at our doors while we sit timidly by and watch.

Let's call a spade a spade. And let's get ourselves ready to fight. David against the Goliaths.

Sing a Joyful Song

I love Celtic music. The jigs, the reels, indeed all the dances are a joy. Not to mention the musicians who play the fiddles, the mandolins and guitars, the accordions, whistles and more. But the lyrics of the songs are so depressing. They speak, for the most part, of death, separation, exile, hardship, rebellion, oppression and war. And they speak of and were written in times long past. But they are still sung today with much the same fervour, romanticizing and perpetuating the sorrow, rage and despair of an earlier age.

There are, of course a few songs that are joyful, very few. Yes horrible things have happened over the course of humanity’s existence on this planet. Some are natural; some are due to human failing. Yet, even those whose ancestors suffered centuries ago, or more recently, are better off than they might have been had their forbearers not been displaced or mistreated. In this country of ours, we are all displaced people. Everyone is here because someone long ago, or not so long ago, left somewhere else, due to poverty, war, persecution, environmental issues or social injustice.

Even the first people to inhabit what is now known as the Americas came from elsewhere. We are all immigrants and immigrants continue to arrive here and will always do so. But none of us own this land. We are merely caretakers of it. We have a responsibility to it,
and to each other. Let us sing joyful songs, full of hope for the present and the future. Let us find reason to be grateful that we now live here. As imperfect as it may be, or we think it is, it is far better than so many other places in this troubled world.

Bigotry Disguised

The expression, "Make America Great Again" is just a call to return to the good old days when white straight men reigned with their pretty little blonde bimbos at their side. I say "Let America Think Again". And this includes its neighbour to the north, Canada.  Sadly the right wing agenda has bled north into this land.

When I read about the anti-LGBTQ movement that is disguised in the misnomer "Parental Rights", I want to throw up. The late Queen Elizabeth II once warned that Human Rights hard won are easily lost. And that is what is happening. It's not just about gays, lesbians and transgendered or non-binary, it's about latinos, blacks, asians and indigenous people's too.

Perhaps this is a good thing. We minorities and marginalized people have become complacent with rights hard won and slowly won since the end of the second World War. We need to renew our vigilance. We need to  fight like some of us fought in the 60s, the 70s the 80s. Complacency seemed to settle in somewhere in the 1990s.

Canada warned recently that the USA was not a safe country for the LGBTQ+ community. Now Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick appear to be sliding in that direction too. The religious right is a dangerous enemy because they disguise christian faith in a cloak of hate fashioned from ignorance and fear of anything that is different. They are a wolf in sheeps clothing. But the shepherd would see through them and cast them out.

A New Coronation

I am so tired of the negative news coverage of the coronation of Charles III.

A waist of public money? No. Not only would much of the money be spent anyway on things like the military and the police, but without it, hundreds of millions of pounds would not be going into the public coffers.

It is colonial reminder: Maybe, but it is also a new day under a new and enlightened monarch who has dedicated his life to racial tolerance, liveable cities, sustainable agriculture, the environment and climate concern, inner city youth and much more. Without British colonialism, which was marshalled by a quasi-democratic government of the 19^th century, those who object could well have been exposed to far worse colonizers; slavery would likely have lingered longer than under British rule - as it did in an independent USA - and the complainers would not be situated where they are, or be as well off. 

And were people taken from better situations. Many yes. But the pre-colonial era in these continents were not the ideal many would try to paint. There is evidence that there were brutal tribal wars in Africa and North America, and even evidence of forms of slavery there long before colonization. Slavery was not created by the colonizers. It had existed in all societies and sadly, still does in some form in some societies today. 

Monarchy is anti-democratic. Who says? It’s not at all. Constitutional Monarchy is one of the most stable forms of democracy and one of the protections it has. Look to the USA and other republics. So many have descended into a dreadful form of authoritarianism, tribalism and fascism.

We should certainly learn from and acknowledge the mistakes of past generations, and from the ones we continue to make. But, stop whining. Stop clinging onto the misery of our ancestors as if it is necessary a shackle on you. The ancestors of the “privileged white settler descendants” in Canada and other countries were exposed to a form of “slavery” too. Call it feudalism, call it classism, call it what you will. It is why so many came to faraway lands and suffered incredible hardships to build a new life. 

And we are glad to be there. The whiners should be too. 

What is Woman, What is Man

There is so much in the media right now about transvestites, transsexuals and transitioning people. What is the fuss!

I blame the Bible. Adam and Eve and all that rot. What about the snake? We are and have been for millennia brainwashed to think there is only one sexuality and only two sexes. What is man, what is woman?

What two women or two men are the same. Not even identical twins are truly identical, or necessarily have the same sexuality. Sex and sexuality are on parallel spectrums, they are not defined points. It may be that most people identify clearly at one or other end of these two spectra. But not all do. And much harm has been done by this confined and confining view.

Some people born as biological women, are short, some tall, some obese, some skeletal, some pear shaped, some curvatious, some with very large breasts, some with none, some with mousy voices and some with deep and resonate voices, many can bear children, but some cannot, some are physically strong, some not. Some have body and facial hair, some do not. Some of these “women” can run ten miles at break-neck speed, scale cliffs, paddle in whitewater, and others struggle to get up off the sofa to turn off the TV.

So who are these uniform biological women athletes that the anti-trans advocates claim to be supporting. Are we to accept the innuendo that one must take from this position: i.e., that biological women are universally inferior in strength and endurance to men. And who are these men anyway?

And interestingly, I have yet to hear any objection voiced that a biological woman who has identified as male, should not be allowed to compete as a man. I wonder what assumptions and stereotypes that is based on.

And I haven’t even gotten into sexuality yet.

Public Schools

I recently performed a monologue as a benefit for our local elementary school's breakfast and lunch programme. The performance raised $800. The school principal invited me to present the cheque at one of their school assemblies. I delivered a cheque to the 192 pre-kindergarten to grade 5s at the school. I was more nervous about that audience than I'd been the previous week at the performance of the play to a sold out adult audience. 

I was so impressed with how wonderful the teachers were with the children and with how the children were with each other, despite age differences, racial differences, social differences and physical and mental health differences.

It's why I feel that home schooling is a poor choice for parents to make. I know there are reasons given and that in some special circumstances it might be the only choice. However, children who do not interact on a daily basis with children and adults from all "walks" of life, in my experience, lack the social skills of tolerance, acceptance and compromise that these other children are forced to learn in such a diverse setting.

We live in a civil society. In the real world one must interact with all people in our society. Isolation is not a socially responsible choice. And it is not a healthy one.

Nasty Colonialism

Of late we are reading about Royal tours of the Caribbean and the protests about past colonialism, slavery and calls for reparation. It is tiresome.

No sensible person would ever say slavery was good or justified. But slavery was not the sole domain of the British. Virtually all of the countries in Europe engaged in colonization to some degree and enslaved blacks and others. Slavery was practiced by The Roman Empire, the Greek Empire, the Egyptian Empire, the Mayan Empire and even in many pre-colonized countries of the world to some degree.

Slavery ended in British territories in 1833, almost 200 years ago. British colonies started gaining independence as early as 1867 and more latterly from the late 1940s on. Jamaica gained independence in 1962, Grenada in 1974, St. Lucia in 1979, Antigua and Barbuda in 1981. Had Britain not colonized much of the world, you can be sure that other countries would have. Had there been no British Empire, it is quite likely Hitler would have won the second World War. Had he done so, what would have been the fate of non-whites in the far reaches of the world? One can only guess, but it does not seem likely the fate of non-Caucasian races would have been more agreeable.

We can’t know what would have transpired in Africa, Australasia or the Americas had Europeans not settled there and colonized there. It seems ludicrous to even imagine that these continents could have ever remained isolated. Just as it seems the world was populated by migration out of Africa, so migration continues today and will continue, whether by reason of population growth, economics, insurrection, or war. Nations will not be islands for one race or culture. Those who wish they were are blind to reality.

I am quite sure the Crown would be more than happy for former colonies to become republics should they wish to do so. I am not aware that they were forced on independence to retain the Monarch as head of state.

It is time people accepted the acknowledgement that bad things have happened over the centuries and stopped demanding endless apologies by people who played no role in those wrongs. As for reparations, I say why. Unless the wrongs were very recent, reparation is meaningless and incalculable. Would the blacks of the Caribbean have been better off had they never come to the Americas? We can’t know. They are not indigenous to those islands any more than were the British, French, Spanish or Dutch who colonized them. Although they were involuntary settlers, they are settlers nonetheless.

I say, those who continue to whine, to perpetuate their victimhood through the injustices done to their ancestors and relish in it, should be thankful for what they have today, and the opportunities that are there for them if they would only seize them.