THIS IS NO TIME TO PLAY GAMES
Covid19 numbers are climbing exponentially, but the British Columbia NDP have broken their promises, blindsided the Greens, and called a snap election: political opportunism at its worst.
THERE IS NO TIME TO WASTE
We know time is running out. I already felt that way when I started university/CEGEP at 17. I took an extra course load because I was so concerned about the speed at which we were destroying everything. But ongoing human rights and environmental abuses (like the James Bay Hydro Project flooding Cree, Innu and Inuit un-ceded territories) which NO existing party opposed, convinced me that we needed a political voice to go with my eco-justice concerns. So in 1982–3, the final year of my Masters degree, I was completely consumed with co-founding the Green Party. We came up with a set of 6 core values, which we still share with all Green Parties around the world:
THE GREENS UNIVERSAL 6 CORE VALUES
Sustainability and Ecological wisdom
Social justice and Non-violence
Respect for diversity and Participatory democracy
I didn’t need to go to university to know that all life on our planet is interdependent and important – I could feel that in my very essence, when I was still a child, but it was gratifying to learn that it makes complete scientific sense as well. I was brought up to believe that the scientific paradigm is what holds the most sway in our society, so I decided to study sciences, instead of journalism, or art … But I was wrong. Knowledge and logic are not what makes the world go round … it is what makes technology and all the miracles of modern life possible, but it is not how people make decisions, it’s not what motivates people. People are motivated by emotions.
Unfortunately when peoples’ decision making is based only on emotions, those emotions are often either overtly or subconsciously quite primitive; they are linked to base motivations like greed – envy – ego, or being part of the in-group.
WHY ITS HARD BEING GREEN
If you look at any electoral district, most people are oblivious to politics until something threatens their personal well-being. Most are motivated to participate in the so-called democratic process out of self interest. They vote for who they think will fix the threat to their self interest. If that threat is labour related, they’ll vote for a perceived socialist party like the NDP. If they are well to do, they’ll choose those who they believe will maintain the status quo, and vote Conservative; if they’re confused and like the name, they’ll vote ‘Liberal’.
The number of compassionate, empathic people who have a global, long term vision, who tend to be big picture thinkers, those people normally do not make up the majority of the population in any electoral district. They are the progressives. Getting the majority of people in any population any electoral district to be so idealistic that they will vote for a party, that is truly future, life, and equity oriented, is considered unrealistic in our First Past The Post electoral system. But sometimes the interests of the selfish, and the herd followers, coincide with those of the empaths, and in my experience it’s only then that we manage to surpass 50% of the vote. Even less likely, getting the MAJORITY of electoral districts to vote in an idealistic fashion, is a very VERY difficult, if not an impossible task. BUT this is what the Greens have to do.
DON’T GIVE UP NOW
We are at a cross roads now. I was in my teens when I first felt that we were committing irreversible ecological crimes, and now time is running out to safeguard what is left of nature. It took a huge commitment, it was my life’s work, to combat this rapacious, exponentially destructive trend. With the overwhelming odds against us I often feel like giving up but I can’t. Not only would it mean that I’ve wasted my entire life only to give up just before the end, but I have a child and it would be irresponsible for me, who brought her into this world, to abandon her now.
Finally, thanks to Greta Thunberg and the fact that the media could not ignore her, we have ALL learned now that we may have only 7–8 years left to reverse total climate melt-down. Add this urgency to the threat posed by ever more dangerous nuclear arsenals, bio-weapons, increasing polarization between megalomaniac dictatorships, the global extinction of uncountable species, the large scale and permanent poisoning of fresh waters above and below ground (due to tar sands, mining, industrial wastes, toxic dumps leaking), the depletion of our very oceans.
For those who are still in the climate change denial camp, you may ask: What if I’m mistaken? Or: What if you’re you’re mistaken?
No matter what the answer to those questions is, also ask yourself this: What is the downside of combatting pollution and building peace? If you are not a fossil fuel investor, war-mongering weapons dealer, or psychopath, the answer to both questions is: NONE. Combatting climate change is a win-win scenario! Yes, I know — sorry, this was a logical argument, and therefore without merit. But it’s also an emotional plea — because who doesn’t like being a winner?
I have been a broken record for 50 years. There is no point in saying ‘I told you so’, in view of all this. I can keep asking, what does collapse mean if not this? What is enough? When will we learn? Will we, homo ‘sapiens’, ever wake up? Or I can prompt you to remember that taking a deep breath of forest-fresh, unpolluted, florally scented air smells sooo good, and it is such a pleasure to rest your eyes on miles and miles of natural landscapes, or to dip into pure, refreshing waters, to drink, to bathe, to swim in; to feast on fish or frond from an unpolluted sea, to harvest locally grown and ripened fruit, to grow your own vegetables in your own garden. This is what we are working to keep, to re-gain, what I cherish, and what I hope we won’t throw away forever.
So we have to keep going. The question I ask myself is: how can I do this intelligently? How can I maximize my impact? How can I be as efficient as possible, now that it’s worse, not better, than when I started? With so little time, and so much to do, we have to work on all front. We have to be activists and be active in politics.
OVERCOMING OBSTACLES
So that Greens had a better chance to finally win a seat First Past the Post electoral system, Elizabeth May had to move to the most green oriented riding in the country. Concentration our efforts with a team of idealistic volunteers from across Canada, knocking on as many doors as possible, she managed to get elected as our first Green MP. Based on this success, we even managed to multiply this result in a few other federal and provincial ridings.
But that’s not enough. We do not have the time to incrementally repeat this effort to obtain some gains. A few more token Greens won’t cut it. We are too close to the edge now. We have to wake up, collectively, as a nation, as humans. It takes a huge concentration of effort and volunteers (especially for a party that has no self serving lobby with money) to win a seat. When those in power, in control, when the 1% feel their status is threatened, they have no moral qualms to do whatever it takes to keep it (because they would have had to have an absence of morals to get so disproportionately rich in the first place, because here is something deeply immoral to be an ‘*illionaire’ when those around you go without.)
The powers that be, who have been ruining this world with their ‘profit at any cost’, quarterly-report-paradigm control the media, and because the rich have always weathered calamities with the power of money in the past, they feel they are invincible.
But they must finally understand, that the end of the world is a calamity that even money can’t buy you out of.
The alarm bells have been ringing for decades – they are as loud as fire-alarms now – are we so used to their noise that we can not wake up? Please please please wake up, and smell the roses. And if you think green, VOTE GREEN.