Crying on Dec. 6th

Sometimes it is OK to cry isn't it? I am sometimes accused of crying too much, and at times when it is not appropriate. I have no control over it - I think I could squelch it only by getting armed, and I am a pacifist. I resist anger, I try to hold it back, I worry that if I let it go I might become homicidal, and so I cry.

Today I cry for the women massacred on December 6th but also for all the women experiencing violence - not just here but all over the world.


There are the women at the hands of soldiers and warlords, and mercenaries and corporatists - women being raped in Congo, (and children driven to despair mining metals, and accused of being witches, and recruited as child soldiers) driven from their homes (and raped) in Darfur, poisoned and drenched in acid for going to school, or running away from husbands 30 and 40 years their senior, in Afghanistan.




Won't embed - but another video - very recent - on women in Afghanistan can be seen at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpFP5-gsehY

So I cry.


In Canada, although the long gun registry reduced the number of women killed by their partners - the numbers are too high and the weapons remain - and now they want to (are about to) eliminate the registry. As a recent Vancouver Sun article puts it in context --

The biggest risk for Harper's Conservatives will be how women react, since women are predominantly victims of murder by long gun, a fact conveniently overlooked in mostly male anger over the registry.

Yet an Ipsos Reid poll in 2006 found three out of four Canadians want stricter, not more permissive, gun controls. Most agree the gun registry is flawed. They want it fixed, not dismantled to appease special interests. . .

Eighty-five per cent of domestic homicides involving firearms were committed with a non-restricted rifle or shotgun. According to a 2007 study of family violence by the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics, the victims of murder or attempted murder by a spouse or ex-spouse were women 87 per cent of the time.

Seventy-four per cent of firearms recovered from suicides and suicide attempts were unrestricted rifles and shotguns.

These statistics tell us that the decision by parliamentarians to scrap the long-gun registry is ideologically based pandering to a self-serving myth held by a minority of Conservatives and amplified by intense lobbying from a special interest group.

People in positions of power - teachers and priests but also Doctors and Psychologists and professors, and bosses, use their position to abuse their power and sexually abuse women and even children.

First nations women have disappeared in droves and who really cares? Where is the press?

Most days I am struggling to right wrongs, as I see them - I go to demos, I write hundreds of letters (OK they are emails) I organize, and I used to be angry. But anger has simply turned to sadness, even despair. Things have not got better as my life proceeds inevitably toward the end - but seem to be worse. Not worse for me necessarily. . . but worse overall, and nothing I have done seems to be working to improve things. I think in the future they will look back n this time (if we have a future on this planet) and say - ah -0 the worst of all possible times. Times of alienation (even if you are rich) times of despair and to many suffering from mental illness - why? Because we have lost shared values, community, and lost faith and trust in each other. I believe that all of this results in giving in totally to a system based on profit - capitalism. A system based on exploitation, a system based on atomization of individuals (every "man" for himself), and alienation and making us shop to feel better - See; www.thestoryofstuff.com

I wake up and find that we are heating up the planet and are not willing to do anything about it. Copenhagen starts tomorrow and all the news is that "nothing will come of it". . . Too many people drive big gas guzzling cars, and somehow feel OK about it.






Once, we had no cars, (living in Toronto) but in search of a simpler life we moved to the country in Nova Scotia, and now, have two cars (both gas efficient) as there is no transit and I need a car for work every day (I drive around for work not just to work) No one seems at all driven (as they are in places in Europe) to reduce their piles of consumer goods (and, we all have our foibles, I buy used, try to fix, do not "shop" for fun ever, don't do Walmart - ever- and try to avoid "Made in China" but we all have our foibles - I am not willing to give up Xmas presents for my children and grand children, and so there is always what feels like a lot of excess for Xmas).

Corporations have, slowly . . . over the last 25 years taken over the rights of individuals and now they have more rights than I do. See: Growing Gap

Somehow taxes were collected to keep soldiers in good equipment and to make sure that they economy gets "bailed out" (I wanted the jobs bailed out but not the investments - isn't that the point that it was all a big gamble to be in the "market'?) but not for a national daycare program, health care, employment and social services. They are all just too rich for us. Who is actually making that decision? Who decided that taxes - the way that we all share in the price of things that we all need or might need - are toxic or acid rain or just generally a bad thing. I watched the first iteration of Poor No More (a Canadian film, in development, about poverty) last week and the Swedes are all on camera saying - taxes? - taxes are a good thing . . . and I agree taxes are a good thing, but I want them spent on programs for people, not subsidies for the tar sands or a slight increase in taxes on the poor (e.g. GST AND HST) in order to continue to afford tax breaks for the rich and corporations. There was a great editorial in the Toronto Star a while back, on taxes, written by Hugh MacKenzie from the CCPA - see: editorial

And so I cry. I cry because my co-workers and members of organized labour unions (people I think should be progressive) too often think only of themselves, shop at Walmart, (some live in communities with no alternatives - but some have alternatives, and can afford NOT to shop there) drive gas guzzling beasts and think it is not racist to resist/oppose affirmative action for African Nova Scotians or First Nations, along with some being highly suspicious of so-called benefits (ha!) for newcomers. I cry because my friends who work in progressive non-profits see unions as "fat cats" instead of a way to organize people out of poverty. I cry for the women who say "I am not a "feminist", I cry for the men (and women) who think that pregnancy should be compulsory and for the women around the world with no access to contraception, abortion or education (and yes I think they are linked).

Sometimes, sometimes, like this morning, I just cry.

Tomorrow, though, tomorrow is another day.
Tomorrow I will return to the fray. Today I will just be kind and compassionate and loving.