baited with beauty
on elections, politics, and authentic peace no matter what
During Covid my husband and I decided to strap on our long johns and big farming overalls to brave the frigid temperatures of our nation’s capital, Ottawa, and go check out what was going on with the trucker’s convoy ourselves. We move in some interesting, diverse circles. On one hand, his work means he’s surrounded by mostly upper class, university educated people. On the other hand, our friends and backgrounds are more working class. He was an officer in the military, I was an enlisted man. That, too, showed us glaring differences in not only the treatment, but the minds of others. So while his colleagues were openly sneering and suggesting that should someone from the trucker’s rally show up in the ER they would refuse to treat them, and the news was hysterical and condemning, we decided we should go check it out for ourselves.
What we saw there was the most unifying, joyous collection of Canadians we had been in the good company of in a very, very long time. There were people from all walks of life, children, families, immigrants, old people, veterans, people wearing thousand dollar Canada Goose jackets and people wearing reflective coveralls. Everyone smiled and hugged and spoke to each other. People danced in the streets. People showed each other their faces and embraced. We cheered and laughed and connected. It was profoundly beautiful.
When we looked at the news at that time, they spoke of racists and hateful rhetoric and the menace of uncontrollable masses. Threats of force were brought in and engaged. Our own Prime Minister called us a “fringe minority” and said we were “misogynistic and racist” and other vile, loathsome things. It was one of those moments when the realisation of the power of such propaganda is not only deployed, by widely accepted by the masses. What they were saying had absolutely no basis in reality but people still believed what they were told.
And that’s the part that saddens me the most. Where there was joy available to all, the controllers tainted it with hate and told everyone to be afraid, for the gain of their own interests. And in large part, that worked. It’s working now. It will work again. And at its core is the same maggot chewing through those rotten, empty places.
An apple, well nourished by the soil and the sun, holding tight to the nourishment of its tree, will not be so susceptible to pestilence. But grow it in poor soil and let it be fed not by rich minerals and lively bacteria, but by synthetic fertilisers and it will require the herbicides and pesticides its keeper sprays on it. It can’t live without! It doesn’t have what it takes to grow full and bright without. It will succumb - its skin pallid and its flesh dry.
I gave up on the mainstream, corporate media long, long ago. I’ve been on the fringe since I decided not to vaccinate my infant daughter some thirty one years ago and my fringe keeps growing apparently. Or, so the media would have you believe. The rhetoric around any sort of thinking outside of the box has become more vitriolic