Saturday, May 19, 2012

The end of trust

A comment I heard the other day nailed it. The speaker lamented that, "all anyone needs to do is demonstrate that they're not out to screw you. We live in a culture where we all fear being screwed by the other guy."

It's been a number of years since I met an employer I trusted, and I am sure many of you might agree.

A generation of Quebec youth, the future of the province, have no more reason to trust their government. The law passed by their legislature is nothing more than a vicious reprisal by a government being taken to task.  

Every Canadian alive to the left of Harper has no more reason to trust their government.  Whether it's destroying communities and risking coast and sea to sell tar to China, backdooring anti-choice legislation, buying ships or fighter planes, using state security forces for political agendas, or the minor little issue of running an honest election, there is no more reason to reason to trust. Like Quebec, objection is met with truncheons and cages. Every word from a politician is a lie until proven otherwise.

It's not like this wasn't the case before. There's plenty of examples. However today I think were running out of the conventions previously held as sacred. Parliamentary supremacy? Elections? Very close to gone. Right to health and education? Nearly gone. Right to question your elected representatives about what they're doing with your trust (in every sense of the word)? Nearly gone.

Without trust, loyalty to governments must be bought or brutally compelled (truly a bizarre circumstance in a place that fancies itself a democracy!). Corporate loyalty is bought with our tax dollars and anti-social legislation. Public loyalty is purchased with lies, and with violence for the disbelievers.

Shredded social contracts are very hard to fix. When they are, it is often through a great deal of struggle.



4 comments:

thwap said...

harper's shallowness is shown by his mystification that his total contempt for democratic government is being thrown back at him.

him and all the other neo-liberal stooges.

Linda said...

Social contracts are next to impossible to achieve. We almost got there. I care + you care. Then, Tom Flanagan.

Anonymous said...

They say. Harper is a Neo-Nazi Reformer, of his Northern Foundation Party from 1989. They say. The skinheads organized that party. Harper's profile fits a dictator, right to a T.

Even another Common Wealth country's media wrote, how badly Harper is destroying Democracy in Canada. Our Civil Rights and Liberties, taken away from us.

The Etioboke Center Election, is declared null and void by the courts. I am sure Harper will appeal the ruling. He has to. That's a slam against, what every Canadian used to hold dear.

Harper is also trying to quash the robo-call investigation. What does that tell us?

kootcoot said...

Why didn't Tom Flanagan just stay in the U.S. and be a good little ReThug, oh yeah, they wanted him to go to Vietnam!