Canada, eh? Re-Thinking the Direction of Canada, and the World

Scarcity is by and large artificially created, through grossly unequal, elite-controlled access to resources. The myth of scarcity needs to be shattered now. If we over-consume, then yes, we will have scarcity. But if we share and are moderate, then we will have abundance. We need to reflect long and hard on these simple facts, because if we fail to understand them, then our future will be dystopian, while, if we come to understand and accept them as the simple reality of life on Earth, then we can have a good future, and even a renaissance and a rebirth for humanity and the Earth. This is the context of human life which it has become critical for humanity to realize the facts of now, in the 21st century. We either “get it”, or we die – slowly, and in largely self-created misery, and a dystopian dark age. The stakes could not be higher. And the real answers could not be simpler. All it takes, is a willingness to deal with the real world.

As Gandhi said, and he was right, 80 years ago, and it is an even more relevant and stark reality now:

“There is enough for everyone’s need, but for no one’s greed.”

Simple enough to understand. Now, to apply it.

Canada is arguably the richest nation in the world, not as measured by the grossly distorting lens of GDP, but in terms of its land-base, combined with an immensity of natural resources – not even mentioning the fact that we also have a highly skilled, educated and literate populace, with all of the talent and brain-power we could possibly need, and more. The fact that one child in five in Canada lives in poverty, and the majority of the elderly in Canada are forced to retire in poverty – and these numbers are now rising exponentially, thanks to the lock-downs – is quite simply a disgrace. The fact that we export most of our resources raw, asking meekly that the multinational corporate robber barons leave a penny in the jar on their way out, after pillaging our pantry and our family treasures, is appalling, and shows that we have had a string of criminally corrupt and literally treasonous governments, since 1979.

Moreover, if the people of Canada, living in one of the richest countries in the world, cannot fathom the reality of natural abundance, and the ugly truth of artificially created scarcity, and overcome these tragic delusions through sheer grit, will, imagination, cooperative effort and vision, then what hope is there for the world, where most nations have just a sliver of our natural resources and our wealth?

The people of Canada, and the world, need to wake up, and to realize that poverty and scarcity are artificial creations, based in an enforced, and extreme inequality of access to resources; and that poverty and scarcity are artificial creations which are the product of a ravenous, and truly predatory, global corporate elite. Remove them from power, and the people can live in prosperity and abundance, freedom and peace. All it takes, is will. And when the people are truly fed up, and have had enough of living as virtual serfs and digital slaves, when they are tired of living on the edge of an abyss, and when they are fed up with struggling to simply survive, while the billionaire technocrats continue their orgy of extreme self-indulgence, vast over-consumption, pillage, and global rape, then the global corporate empire will fall, and it will fall like a house of cards – exactly as the equally criminal Soviet Union fell, thirty years ago.

That day is coming.

In the meantime, here are some thoughts to ponder, on the current direction, and possible direction, of Canada and the world, in the 21st century.

The obsession with security and safety, when taken to an extreme, becomes a straight-jacket, and a kind of prison; and worse, it leads to insanity, and to authoritarian impulses, even to fascism. And that is precisely what has happened. But the price to be paid for this devil’s bargain, is about to become vividly, and terribly clear.

The great majority of people are pack animals. I mean this with no derision or disrespect – as good-natured as the great majority of people basically are, it is simply a fact. Most people would rather stick with the crowd, or the herd, than dare to try anything different or new, or even to entertain a single thought that goes against the generally brainless consensus of group-think, which rules over their social circles. This applies to all socio-economic levels, from the bottom to the top, and to virtually all social groups, from left to right, secular or religious. But not everyone is determined to live with such profound timidity, perpetually corralled, imprisoned, and virtually lobotomized, by their own herd-instinct. There are always a few in every generation who feel compelled to think for themselves. And at this time in human history, those who question and reflect, are becoming a larger and larger percentage of the world’s population, as the crises we are now facing, simply require it. Therefore, there is most definitely hope, even though most of the people still live in a perpetual stupor, and despite the fact that the great majority of governments, and business and political elites, are quite simply, profoundly inept, and profoundly corrupt.

The majority of people live in a perpetual state of anxiety and fear, whether they admit it to themselves, or acknowledge it, or not. Out of anxiety and fear, they cling to the false sense of security that is provided by conformity, obedience, deference to authority, jobs, money, and material possessions; along with rote habits, that also give the illusion of security, by the very nature of their grim, glum familiarity. But this bubble of illusory security, is about to burst, and it is bursting. That is a sad, and unfortunate way to have to wake up. But the awakening is necessary, and it is, for most people, unavoidable – and, what’s more, although the initial shock may be painful and disorienting, the results will be an increase in joy, in health, in freedom, and in fulfillment.

It is true that we have nothing to lose but our chains. Marx was simply wrong in his ideas about how that would take place, and how the liberation of humanity and the Earth would proceed. Yet, it is proceeding now, even while the elite try their desperate best to contain and corral the people, and to bind them into slavery, and to servitude.

Keep your eyes and heart open. This isn’t over yet.

Within that context, and with that perspective, here are some thoughts to consider: on the future of Canada, and on the future of humanity and the Earth.

*

I did not know – Quebec is nearly triple the size of Texas or France…which makes it roughly the size of Mexico. And that is just one Canadian province. Vast country, eh. Good thing nearly all 37 million of us live within 100 km of the southern border, gathered in a tight knot in cities, choking on smog and obscene housing prices, packed cheek to jowl.

But don’t tell the anti-immigrant xenophobes that the country is virtually empty of people, or they might have a brain hemorrhage from intolerable levels of cognitive dissonance. And yes, we have more resources, more wealth, a lower population density, and more arable land, than virtually any country on earth, and could take in many more people – and should, if we want to be able to support an aging population, with a negative population growth.

Yet, we huddle in the cities – like rats on a treadmill, in an ever-tightening cage, as if the dread of Nature terrifies us; or we are terrified that we may actually have to spend some time with ourselves, or maybe have to talk with our neighbours.

And the great majority of Canada, like the US, is public lands. Go figure. But nobody knows that. Nor is it an advertised fact. Land reform in Canada and the US? Now there is an idea whose time has come. Watch for the North American land reform movement – and guerrilla homesteading. It is coming, and soon. But for now, the people huddle together, in meek and mild-mannered desperation, afraid to leave the increasingly dubious comforts, and the increasingly illusory security, of the cities and the crowd.

We wouldn’t want to be under-crowded, now would we?!

Heaven forbid we think of living in the….countryside! Yikes! And we are a country of practical, amiable, rough and ready, woodsy nature lovers? In theory maybe, historically certainly, but at present? Dubious. Timid mall rats, more like it – or so it seems we have become. Or, worse, hunker-in-your-digital-bunker-and-order-it-online, techno-entranced, obedient and docile consumer drones, placid as cattle led to slaughter.

Canoe…? What’s a “canoe”?

And please remind me again, what’s the Canadian motto?

Oh yes, I remember….

Give me Walmart, or give me death.

J. Todd Ring,
August 14, 2020

J. Todd Ring is a Canadian philosopher and social/political analyst, and is the author of Enlightened Democracy, and The People vs The Elite, along with the forthcoming book, All Hell Breaks Loose: Global Geopolitics 1945-2045, available on Barnes & Noble, and in better bookstores everywhere. Support your local independent bookstore, and order them today.

Republishing of articles is welcome, of course, with attribution.

Addendum:

Rough Notes On Building A Better World For All:

Peering into the darkness, seeing the first rays of dawn

Better put out some extra blankets and sleeping bags, dust out the bunkie, the camper trailer or the cottage, and stock up on back bacon and beer. We’re about to be over-run with refugees – American refugees, fleeing the ever-widening environmental disaster zones, and the civil war that is likely to erupt in the US. Our hospitality, I suspect, will soon be needed. Just a head’s-up. And no, I do not jest.

I suggest we revise our refugee policy now, this year, and without delay. Though it is unlikely to happen soon, since our national religion – nay, our modern world religion – is denial. However, it would be sensible and practical to amend it thusly:

We will take in one US refugee, out of a good neighbour policy, along with one refugee from Africa, one from Eurasia, one from Oceana, and one from Latin America, to the total equivalent of our 2020 population of 37 million, over the next ten years. Once we have seen and demonstrated, and thoroughly proven, that we can handle that, and handle such enlightened self-interest and genuine magnanimity with reasonable skill, learning as we go, and even with some element of grace, with no great disasters arising from it, then we can increase the scope and the scale of our generosity, and reap the rewards of intelligently chosen voluntary mutual aid, which will inevitably follow, as a result.

Refugee families will be granted one acre plots of land, reallocated from the public lands which account for more than 60% of Canada, and from corporate farms greater than 10,000 acres.

And give each Canadian a one acre plot as well, since the majority are sinking economically, and this lifeline may soon become essential to economic survival.

Note: Canada’s landmass is approximately 3.5 million square miles, or roughly 2.24 billion acres (excluding lakes and rivers). 74 million acres given out in one acre plots would require a mere 3% of Canada’s land to be redistributed. We could thus give out 74 million *ten-acre plots*, at perhaps near to the upper limit, sparing the boreal forest which is the lungs of the northern hemisphere, and still be left with a country comprised of vast forests and tundra, with room to spare.

The reciprocity involved will require refugees of adult age to devote a portion of the year to environmental remediation and the retrofitting of every home and building in the country for double or triple the current insulation and energy efficiency levels – with funds made ready from returning corporate tax rates to 1980 levels, prior to four decades of cuts, and from a simple but necessary tax on pollution, and most urgently, on carbon in particular – with the important stipulation that any pollution tax be collected, not by an unelected globalist oligarchy of transnational corporate elites and technocrats, nor even by the federal or provincial governments, but by local communities and municipalities, in order to strengthen them in terms of economic vitality, democracy and freedom, rather than undermining all three, as the globalist agenda would do, and is determined to do.

Other urgent projects to follow will include the building of a trans-Canada solar-hydrogen highway; the rapid conversion of all road-licenced vehicles less than five years old to hydrogen fuel; the construction of water pipelines and desalinization plants for public use, combined with decentralized solar-hydrolysis systems for producing hydrogen fuel from super-abundant sea water, thus ending our fossil fuel dependency; the building of tens of thousands of small scale ecovillages, centred around regenerative agriculture, to heal the soil, feed the people, and reverse climate change by drawing down massive amounts of carbon into the soil from the atmosphere; the banning of pesticides and GMOs and a rapid shift to regenerative organic farming and food; the               replacement of a policy of economic globalization and catering to large, multi-national corporations, with an economic plan which centres around local, regional and national self-reliance (not isolationism), and around small to medium local businesses, farms and co-ops, with a tax and subsidy structure that reflects that shift in focus and priorities; and a trans-Canada solar-electric mag-lev light rail corridor; along with the more fundamental and even more urgently needed acts of leaving the deeply corrupt and corrupting, nation-devouring and democracy-devouring, corporate-ruled power blocks of NAFTA, NATO, the BIS and WHO; reasserting democratic control over the publicly-owned Bank of Canada; and implementing a tax on currency speculation to stabilize and safeguard the currency and the economy, and to halt the practice of financial extortion by international banking elites; in order to reclaim our democracy, sovereignty and freedom; and of course, formally and fully re-instituting the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, along with democracy and universal human rights for all – to name just a few key policy items of basic sanity for the 21st century.

But then again, such a plan would entail boldly dealing with reality – something the people of this country, like most countries, have become steadfastly averse to.

So…. Let us eat cake.

Cataclysm it is, then.

And I pray that I am wrong.

*

But, lest this short meditation on the future of Canada, and our world, end in a dark and dismal tone of bleak, self-fulfilling fatalism and despair, we should also say this.

The world is now undergoing an awakening, and a new renaissance is being born, all across the Earth. The birth of this new renaissance is, in many places, occurring peacefully and joyfully, and in other places, it is happening, but it is a slow and laboured, painful birth. But it is happening, and it is growing in power, and in speed.

The dream of a better world for all can be deferred, obstructed or delayed, but it cannot be destroyed; and likewise, the new renaissance, which is occurring now, can be slowed, obstructed, thwarted or delayed, but it cannot be stopped.

As Yogi Berra said, “It ain’t over ’till it’s over.

It is imperative now, that we dare to dream. In fact, we should not only dare to dream, not only dare to hope. We can, and should, and must, be confident. The emerging awakening that is taking place across humanity, will win out. I am not saying things are going to be easy. I am not saying it will not get darker before we see a better time. In most places, it will not be easy, and it will get darker; and we will need our courage, and our sense of mutual cooperation, our resilience, our patience, our perseverance, and our grit, to get through this very difficult, dark time ahead. But we will endure; and more, we will see the beginnings of great and positive changes in the world – and the younger ones among us, will live to see them blossom and come to fruition, in a truly beautiful and powerful way.

Get ready for some exciting times. This is not the end, but merely the beginning of the beginning. There is more day yet to dawn.

JTR,
November 17, 2021