Feb 2, 2024

The Dark Days of Winter

Sylvia Shawcross

Out there the freezing rain settles crystals on the high snow and in the trees and dens the animals are warm and dreaming. Inside the people in their homes hope to heavens they don’t have to go out in “that” because life is hard enough without sliding and slipping and skating on treacherous grounds.

The western world is navigating treacherous grounds now. Treachery seems a likely word—the breaches of trust from western governments sitting hollow on our hearts. How different it might have been if the ones who orchestrated this new world had simply told the truth. Truth being the cornerstone of trust which they seem to be so intent on rallying around now.

But it is too late now. They earn no trust from the people. Not now. Through hubris, hypocrisy and harassment they have created the monsters that will devour them if they don’t devour each other first. And their gatekeepers, the legacy media, is perhaps more culpable than they. They did not do their job. I’ll repeat that: They did not do their job. They sold their souls for a pay check. They, of all the people who believed the lies, are the ones who should not have. That was their training. That was their duty to the people. They will be the hardest to forgive.

Here in Canada, the Federal Court deemed the calling of the Emergency Act during the trucker’s protest unconstitutional. The damage however was done. Logical and thinking people lost all faith in their government. The ones who were aware of the simplest of things, e.g. in a democracy no government can freeze a bank account on a citizen nor threaten citizens who supported a protest. Nor can they crack down with unreasonable force on a people’s right to protest without violence. Nor are people to be presumed guilty and basically thrown in jail for all this time still awaiting bail hearings.

In our country, our peaceful democracy, these things happened and are happening. And if you are not aware of these things then the legacy media is to blame—to which they can only answer with “we were bought and paid for” or “we were grossly incompetent.” They can have no other answer. They will argue perhaps that they thought they were doing the right thing to save the planet and bring in a bright new world. No. They were not. They were participating in and overseeing a terrible divisiveness which hurt people. Even if the planet is in terrible trouble, this is no way to treat your fellow human beings. There is no justification for that. Not ever. And for those who supported this gross treachery, yes, YOU ARE THE BADDIES now.

In the UK and Australia and elsewhere the powers that be are now outwardly speaking about a possible draft of citizens to go to war. Why would we fight their foreign wars while leaders are busily dismantling all the reasons people might actually go to war for? Why would we fight for democracy in another country when leaders are unraveling our democracy at home? Why would we fight for western values of freedom when leaders are taking it away from us, particularly freedom of speech? Why would we even fight for our homeland when we hardly recognize it anymore with all the governmental shenanigans that have been going on?

Fight your own wars. The trust is broken.

You will be hard-pressed to find people to willingly fight your wars now for your insular vision of the future. The leaders of this world need to leave the people alone. You’ve done nothing but damage. You have given tokens for titanic demands and hardships. And I fear, if anarchy and chaos was what you were ultimately looking for in this divisiveness, no doubt you will get it. Congratulations on that. But you need not think that the mooing herds will acquiesce to your new world. You are becoming more and more inconsequential. The people will turn their backs on you. Just as the far left and the legacy media turned their backs on their fellow citizens like the privileged and mostly uninformed cowards they acted as.

What people “will” fight for is the democracy they are quickly losing and they will fight for one without such government oversight and taxation likely in grassroots communities. Democracy is not at stake in the Ukraine. It is at stake in our own countries.

As to the trucker protest in Canada—to think that all it took was the Prime Minister of this country to leave his ivory tower and walk down to the protestors to talk to them. That is all they were demanding having been denied all other recourse for respectful dialogue repeatedly. Repeatedly. The mark of a true leader is the ability to walk and talk with those who disagree with them. A true leader is a leader for all of his people whether they agree or disagree. Mr. Trudeau was not this kind of leader. And it is too late now.

It seems that the government will appeal this decision by the federal courts probably based on a number of things. They might argue that the declaration was actually moot since it was rescinded before the Senate ratified it. Some of the finest speeches this country will have ever heard were given during those deliberations before they were shut down—there are still some who understand democracy. Those speeches were given very little coverage if any in legacy media.

They might argue that “at the time” it was the right decision based on recommendations from the RCMP and police services except that this was not true. That was proven. They cannot argue that there was widespread violence. They cannot argue that this was a threat to trade given that the border blockades were removed before their Emergency Act declaration. They cannot argue that the truckers were unvaccinated and a threat to public health since the majority of them were vaccinated. They cannot argue the facts that are in front of them. They can only perhaps plead ignorance. They didn’t know.

And why didn’t they? If not intentionally planned, perhaps that happens when you don’t engage in dialogue either through imagined fear or hubris and the media doesn’t do its job. The meek scuttling of legacy media reporters along the sidelines of the trucker protest with chosen guests in a rush does not constitute journalism.

This is a very difficult piece to write. I have been my entire life either left or liberal. I am independent and not any of those now and do not vote. I am not necessarily okay with conservatives at this point either who are failing to address global issues in their platform such as wars, W.H.O. oversight, global ID among other things.

This is like writing an obituary to my naïveté. I do not recognize the liberal left. They are definitely “the other.” They appear to be kind to each other and those who agree with them. They are kind in their personal life perhaps. But politically they appear monstrous. Things could have been different had there been honesty and dialogue. The best that I could say about them is that they are living in a pretend world and are out of touch with reality and are ultimately then incompetent. They are protecting each other but not Canadians.

Over half this country do not trust the liberal left now. Their greatest hope now is that the 76% of judges in this country are liberal appointees and an appeal might work that way. But was it honest? Their other hope might be that this decision on the Emergency Act disappears into the tedious long bureaucratic world and will be gone for long enough to be forgotten with the next crisis. That is not likely though. And their final hope is that perhaps they will bring in enough naive immigrants to vote for them, until they pack up and leave as many many immigrants have.

Trudeau’s party members will possibly ask for a leadership review. It is too late. Perhaps in treating the public that disagreed with them by sticking to the party line and collectively walking away, denying, not answering questions, lying and denigrating, keeping quiet when they saw wrongdoing—all this, instead of actually engaging in dialogue and honesty it would not have come to this. It might help to admit their profound betrayal of Canadians. We are more likely to forgive them then. If we can.

One thing is for sure, they cannot crawl into their hideaway and pretend it is over and walk away. They must face the consequences we will all face because of their actions and that might mean a swing to the far right politically for the country. There will be no cozy den for you. For any of us anymore. This is what they’ve wrought. If I was to advise the liberal left on anything I would suggest they step out of their bubble and stop creating enemies to be afraid of with their uninformed actions and words. Everybody who disagrees with you is not a nazi. Even as we know that not all leftists are monsters; yet by their silence they betrayed.

You do not “handle” people, you talk to them.

And as for the legacy media, there is nothing a person can say. The betrayal was an act of treason. Certainly with the trucker protest among other serious things. There used to be laws with consequences about that.

I will repeat “Even if the world was coming to an end and we were facing a grave situation, was this any kind of way to treat your fellow humans?”

Given the way that our leadership has brought this country of Canada and others to such a state, the need for an Emergency Act may well become a reality—when there will “actually” be threats of violence to the entire country. And what will happen then? The time may come that our federal government will long for the days of bouncy castles and horn-honking as protest.

I have no earworm for you all this week. I haven’t the heart for music just now. Hope and courage everyone. We will all rebuild, with or without them—until they remember elected officials are servants of the people. Do not comply to anything that makes you less than a free autonomous individual living in a democracy with privacy, dignity and hope. We can rebuild the countries that people from around the world sought citizenship in once. Just because they’ve thrown that out doesn’t mean we have to.

Peace. Here. Now.