Government

Israel is a proverb

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The people of the Middle East never saw past the movie that evangelicals and Catholics have been packing and pushing for the last millennia.  If you want to know what good government, human nobility, and divine authority look like you will do yourself a favor by examining the Bible.  A book written long before the American Revolution, long before the Arab Emirates became a broker, and long before the United Nations rose to foster cooperation and justice.  As it turns out the nations with the most detailed set of laws are the most lawless.  The nation that gave us the wisest ruler in all of human history is the most brutish and foolish of all nations.  The people with the most amazing story of ancestry and high hopes are the people who most often trample on the ancestry and high hopes of others.  Israel’s proverb status is best understood as the reduction from substance to words, sometimes, mere words, and mere words is often the case for both Israel and its staunchest allies.  They are really just all talk, malicious programs, and trigger happy warriors, and big swords.

Missing the magical metre

3. When He broke the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, “Come.” 4. And another, a red horse, went out; and to him who sat on it, it was granted to take peace from the earth, and that men would slay one another; and a great sword was given to him. (Revelation of John 6:3-4, NASB)

Reading the Bible leaves no doubt that all the nations have failed to climb the little hills of justice and peace.  Governments and leaders are not going to be evaluated as loyal to religious doctrine.  Only three things will make their day of reckoning tolerable: peace, righteousness and relieving oppression.

3. Let the mountains bring peace to the people, And the hills, in righteousness. 4. May he vindicate the afflicted of the people, Save the children of the needy and crush the oppressor. (Psalms 72:3-4, from NASB)

Moses and the United Nations are waiting

While young Jewish men are taking over their neighbours’ lands, and the neighbours are hoping for a piece of the Arab pie, laws are flaunted, borders violated, hopes dashed and the history of annihilation comes around like clockwork.   Laws do not mean a thing outside of a person’s head, and they mean even less outside a person’s heart.  None of the evangelical think tanks and Catholic congregations for doctrine have a wholesome outcome for the world.  They all foster illegalities in the name of crisis and self defence.   Israel has always been an ungodly and unrighteous nation.  The fact that annihilation can be an Israeli policy is utterly abominable, but who can tell us who is really watching the fox in the coop?  “Nation of law” is a convenient cover, but laws are to be guides to doing better, not the same as the good old days.

Unbelief is written all over the various classes of government.  Whatever benefit people think they derive from heroic and authoritarian regimes is momentary.  All rulers, with rare exceptions, have one preoccupation.

Peter answers a taxman’s question about paying taxes. 

25. He said, “Yes.” And when he came into the house, Jesus spoke to him first, saying, “What do you think, Simon? From whom do the kings of the earth collect customs or poll-tax, from their sons or from strangers?” 26. When Peter said, “From strangers,” Jesus said to him, “Then the sons are exempt. (Matthew 17:25-26, NASB)

42. Calling them to Himself, Jesus said to them, “You know that those who are recognized as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them; and their great men exercise authority over them. 43. “But it is not this way among you, but whoever wishes to become great among you shall be your servant; 44. and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be slave of all. 45. “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” (Mark 10:42-45, NASB)

The kingdom of Judah, long gone, is a story like no other.  The pipedream of Mosaic legacy pervading the planet is not even a dry joke.  Even the prophets are broken vessels, but David’s great son has not even one bone broken.  The Israeli projector does not work when the pieces of Moses’ prediction are in full evidence.

Who is a hated, hateful, terror and terrorist

‘I will make them a terror and an evil for all the kingdoms of the earth, as a reproach and a proverb, a taunt and a curse in all places where I will scatter them. (Jeremiah 24:9, NASB)

Gets messy

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Sweet love making may never appear to be even remotely associated with terrifying pain, months of discomfort and disability and regret, but it often is. Citizens seem at home with political charlatans begging for money to fund the services of which governments are the only legal providers. Most recently we are hearing a lot of talk about balanced budgets, and other levels of government – for example the federal government – not putting enough funds forward to assist regional budgets, as if budgets are not supposed to be a statement of spending based upon what one has or what one can project to have. Democracy like marriages and even friendships can get messy, so let’s wake up and smell the tea and stop sipping the deadly Kool-Aid of partisan politics and perfect privileged lives.

Since when is credit a violation of human dignity

Balanced budgets and normalizing violence against migrants, women and children are part of the same master plan as the right to bear arms, freedom of expression, reservations and residential schools. Are fiscally conservative politicians and their allies buying homes and cars with their debit cards? Have they forgotten that the government-issued coins and bills can be worth nothing overnight? Even the gold, silver, platinum and lithium can plunge to zero value in a trice. With panhandling from the federal government becoming the latest scam let’s get ready to be taxed into slavery. Democracy is messy, governance, but neither needs to turn into insurrection and totalitarian tyranny.

Who is cheering the sudden burst of nationalism?

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Barbados and Australia have recently severed ties with the British crown but they have the same system of government as the colonial power that stole, sold, and oppressed Black and Aboriginal peoples for over four hundred years. Now Belize and Jamaica are pressing demands about the role of the British crown in the slave trade and colonization of the Caribbean islands. Who will apologize to all the generations of freed slaves for idolizing the broken and corrupt model of the people’s house? There is hardly a visionary dimension to be found in the governments of the greater and lesser antilles. Who beside the usual armchair freedom fighters and quasi-revolutionary Pan-African intellectuals are cheering?

Embarrassment’s epitome

It was not the British crown that made 99% of the nations in the Caribbean pull out all the stops to maintain a system of useless votes, dubious debates, bogus budget statements, apathetic amendments to law, and the facade of national unity. We did that ourselves because we have had too few leaders willing to think outside of the box. You guessed it if you are beginning to think that we have been robbed of outbox action. The people who were silent over the centuries and in the more recent decades when governments were imitating the United States and Great Britain with the oppression of poor people, the suppression of the legitimate Rastafarian religion, the idolization of law, and the frittering away of homeborn culture. Who should be embarrassed is quite clear.

Useless votes

Since the ballot box serves to establish the public sentiment it is an abject shame that the result of a plebiscite can be a tool in the construction of a national suicide. We should not allow our votes to be used to facilitate opposition and division. We know what happens to divided domains. Making our votes count is not rocket science but it takes a vision and courage.

Dubious debates

Parliaments that thrive on facts and reason are rare. All that matters is mathematics: how many votes in the house can be mustered in defence of the leading party’s initiatives. Speakers have a hard enough time keeping simple speaking order – speak then listen – so it is a Herculean task to hold members of parliament to logic and common sense. Let us not be deceived by what we hear on the hustings. People running for political office are unwilling champions of truth and civic society. What we hear at political rallies and in the pre-election advertisements is a mix of pollyanna rhetoric and juvenile wishes. Real debates are hard to find.

Bogus budget statements

In my experience a family goes shopping with cash or credit and both can run out when the spending is completely transparent. The millions and billions mentioned budgets statements need to be seen in their relevance to improving the lives of ordinary citizens. When the average citizen cannot see how the numbers add up in a Finance Minister’s statement to the nation, greed, discrimination and corruption are in the works.

Apathetic amendments to law

Following what is assumed to be a Biblical basis for legislation most nations in the Caribbean have allowed punishment and the violation of human rights to appear as the solution to the problems of civic society. When laws, amendments or originals, do not pass the smell test – justice, mercy and reliability – those innovations should be abandoned. We all know people who are so loyal to law that they no longer recognize human need. Remember the “too holy to help” kinds of people, like the people in the Good Samaritan story.

The facade of national unity

It must be obvious by why we have examined thus far that the substantive notions of independence and good government have been left on the dusty shelves of our high school textbooks, treated as utopian fantasy, in full defiance of the combined weight of our sacred books, so no-one is raising his or her right hand as experienced offspring and root of what is precious and invaluable. Maybe it is best we say nothing about national unity, even when we have incontrovertible rocks to stand on, such as the men and women who took the first steps in shepherding our people, through the early years of our emancipation. Let it suffice to say that we can always trash our national heroes for moral failings, political missteps, and even for losing their way entirely, but we have no rationale for denying that figures of national importance are immovable rocks. How we build on what they have started will be the measure of our strength as a people and nation. The people of Australia, Belize, Barbados and Jamaica are being duped again by people who choose to forget our recent history and are willing to deny that our choice to imitate the oppressor and not the liberator is suicidal. There are no great dead peoples.

One peek at Parliament Hill

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There is no question that grade one business happens in Canada’s parliament, but the seated members need to stop the childish loser mentality and the pollyanna slogans about children and the future to bring it to a maturer footing. The speaker has the noble task of bridging the gap between the government and the “members opposite” and I can hardly wait to hear him but a boot on the neck of opposition heckling and posturing with lengthy preambles to ten-second questions.

The 44th Parliament is just concluding its first session and the charges are flying: misleading the house, there is no realistic tackling of Canada’s crises by the government. It is hard not to notice that the media covering Parliament Hill is swarming all over Quebec’s religious garb law hoping to feed on the opinions of politicians, without asking directly “Are provincial laws and their application above question and comment?” Boy, oh boy! It is going to be hard to take our eyes off the parade of the cowardly, the reckless, and the wise in January 2022.

Why it is not funny

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The greatest powers on earth might seem to have no mention in God’s road map, the Bible, but let’s face it, Syria, Iraq, Iran,  Lebanon, Russia and Egypt are all living witnesses to the movement of God’s agenda from antiquity. So where are China, Australia and the Caribbean?  The nations of Europe are in the record, but where are the United States and Canada?  Is it funny that Israel and the undisputed powerhouse of the modern era are often in the same room, eating the same dinner and no-one seems to be unravelling the outrageous homicidal behavior of the powers competing for dominance on the world stage? No. 

The powers that have helped Israel with God’s stamp of approval are few. Though the Israelites kept running to Egypt for help it is Ethiopia, Syria and Persia that have been the helpers of Israel. Today’s Arabs will betray and attack Israel even as both parties invoke the name of Abraham. It is not funny. It is a deadly game of profit over the prophetic. God is not impressed by monuments, cowardly generals, and magnates. Poverty, misogyny, miscarriage of justice, and the crushing the visions of young people with deadly traditions is not funny.

Calling for peace with a knee on the neck of a helpless and vulnerable people is immoral in any country. God gets the last and decisive laugh and the blind now sees they all do it.

2) The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed, saying, 3) “Let us tear their fetters apart and cast away their cords from us!” 4) He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them.

(Psalms 2:2-4)

Not the worst country

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Canada is not competing to be the bad boy, the sheriff, the virgin, or the Zion of the modern era. It seems that the democracies of our times have been trying desperately, with the help of cowardly religious groups and movements, to imitate the adventures of ancient nations, conquering, exploiting and oppressing peoples both near and far. I personally wish my head were a fountain to weep with the First Nations on Turtle Island. I do have a pair of feet, a pair of hands and one mouth. The depth of shame and disgrace that Christians have brought to this nation defies description. Standing with Canada’s First Nations is a long overdue measure this nation needs if can ever have an approach to healing. Make no mistake, everybody needs healing: the brave and the cowards, and the political parties need to consider packing up their rhetoric and get ready for a makeover. We are counting the unmarked graves of children who went to school and did not return home. Canada needs a vaccination with a strong dose humanity and it does not matter whether anyone evaluates us as the worst country on the planet. Justice calls for a strong rebuke of the responsible agencies: the churches, the licensing and governing authorities to do more than apologize and compensate our First Nations families. As far as I am concerned the Vatican, the police. and the political parties must pay. Then the rest of us must search our hearts for that evil streak that has allowed thousands of First Nations people to be missing and unaccounted for. We must demand the records of brutality against Canadians in police custody; a phenomenon that speaks of Canada being a very naughty country. There is no comfort in not being the worst country.

Justice is not a game for clever lawyers or political operatives. It is not the use of majorities in the legislatures to mount damaging campaigns in favour of big or small business. Justice is missing in action as long as we still have police officers who still think that their animus against young people, non-White persons is allowed. They and the rest of the administrative branches of government have not tasted the long arm of the law. This remains a stain on the record of governments we thought were humane and accountable. Apparently, most Canadians do not know what equity and service mean. We need the videos and records of police interactions with Black and Brown people. We also need a forensic analysis of what religious groups are teaching. If you think that is scary think about the fact that the disappearance of school children went unreported and unaddressed by church and government (of both political parties). Neither freedom of religion nor state religion prevent a country from being bad, worse or the worst.

Giggly Canadian justice

We have been saying that justice has a long arm and that the RCMP always gets its man (the violater of our laws), but justice in Canada makes some people happy, others laiugh out loud, and others giggle at how stupid we are. If we could defy gravity at will we could also evade the exposure of our despicable secrets. Time always tells, and hidden things will come to light, even the nasty plots in the highest councils of both the godly and the ungodly. We need to get ready for a huge dose of reality if the nation is going to deal with our genocidal history. Clergy and their allies will be expected to vomit all over themselves in their pride and zeal to defend their treasures. We are neither laughing nor giggling. Our tears are just too much. Not even the golden rule seemed to be in play!

I dare to say that church leaders (Protestant and Catholic) have been delusional in their view that justice is ultimately served by imprisonment, fines, and inhumane and merciless treatment of offenders and even of innocent people they do not like or deem as outsiders.

Let their treasures be our trash so we can move on. Let their zeal be a sick comedy. Let the Vatican and the cardinals show what they are really made of. Canadians will be interested in seeing whether they human or machines of blind loyalty and covetousness?

Schools that do no keep records?

It is abundantly clear that people posing as teachers of children had so little regard for our First Nations that they had nothing to say – NOTHING AT ALL – to the parents of the children whose corpses we are now discovering. A child murder atrocity must be punished. We are sure that apologies are insufficient. Maximum penalties must be applied impartially. When the whole nation – every province – commits itself to the remedies for this national tragedy we will have a reason to say something meaningful, graceful, and right about not being the worst country. Get ready for more revelations of evil, but that, to me, is an unprecedented opportunity to freshen up Canada. Freshen up, Canada.

Ontario’s furious Ford

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Mr. Ford, failing to take a hard line to protect Ontarians, and ordering unadvised extreme actions he has had to walk back, keeps blaming the Federal government for problems at the Canada-US border. Truth be told, our Premier has not kept the vulnerable safe, has not convinced Ontarians to follow the science or even to follow stay-home guidance within municipal boundaries. “What gives?”, indeed. We are not that blind. We see the fear of irresponsible and vocal commercial actors. We feel the outbreaks at factories and the numewrous attempts by partygoers to ignore the pandemic. We hear the ongoing threats of antivax protests, and the imaginary dust-up between provincial and federal governments about vaccine supply and the international border is a fury that may continue until someone catches the Premier voicing his other views.

Premier Ford, losing the grip on the hearts of Ontario’s residents, needs to keep his political swipes out of the government info update packages. This is one Ontarian who can see in black and white as well as vivid colour. Should we blame our Premier for Ontario’s troubles?

There is a dangerous line between thriving businesses and a healthy population. Its name is death-by-covid19.

I remember Ford’s “Ontario: open for business”

Who on earth can believe that (1) the government (any government!) is following all the expert advice and (2) Ontario’s residents are doing a great job at fighting the pandemic? The two cannot be true as the infections and death continue to rise and fall. “Open for business” seems to be a conservative priority in Asia, Europe and North America. I will remember the value placed on human lives, and for now reception of conservative idea, even the revolutionary ones, is off.

A HISTORIC TEAM FOR A HISTORIC OPPORTUNITY

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Eyes are on the White House again with respect percolating for the institution! An election to compare with the upcoming contest is hard to find and the Democratic ticket is a far cry from the frenemic duo of the last 3 years.  Former Vice-president Joe Biden and Senator Kamala Harris are individuals shaped by the common struggles and by their distinct embrace of public service.

The wild fantasy of a land free of the influence of non-Caucasian peoples just took a hit as the man who witnessed firsthand the evil heart of the Republican Party and the poverty of the newly invented Christian alliance as they insulted and opposed potus44 Barrack Obama for eight years.

The first woman of colour and the first person of South Asian descent to be on a presidential ticket gives a boost to the pride of people who have always looked to the United States. The American dream was part of my cosmos for a very brief period but I have so many strings attached to family and friends that my interest in America’s progress never falters. As a Canadian I can only watch with glee as the very fine racists and crooked businessmen hear their wakeup call.

The chances of another adulterous adventure with a half-dead businessman or some other unlikely hero stands at zero.