Wednesday, January 22, 2014

Think.

Climate change is as much a threat to the safety and security of countries and regions as a massed army on the border. When armies start to mass on borders, the intelligence services of the threatened state go to work analysing the opposing force's capabilities and intentions.

Yet, now, in Canada (and other places) the intelligence services at the behest of politicians are actively supporting those industries most responsible for climate change and other environmental risks.

This effectively pits them against the majority of citizens who pay their salaries and represents a total abdication of their responsibility in the face of the most dire environmental threat civilisation has ever faced in recorded history.

In the long-term, everyone loses, from Enbridge to the seagulls and starfish. In the short-term, they become complicit in destroying everything beautiful about the Canadian landscape, seascape, and people.

This could mean blackened Pacific coastline and a poisoned sea and fracked lives and livelihoods.

It could also see the mass imprisonment or police shooting of local residents who daring to raise placards in objection to the destruction of their home and planet, BECAUSE THIS IS WHERE FASCISM LEADS. 

Which will be interesting to see in Canada. We don't really have massive ideological divisions in society like Italy or Spain that can be exploited by the fascists. Your middle-class neighbour's kid who did so well at university and helped old ladies on weekends was subcontracted to Enbridge by the big dumb animal who just went to Israel with a plane-load of crazy people. He reads your emails because you live on a proposed tanker route and wrote a letter to the editor about why this is bad. The intel he collects is then passed to police and the corporate security people, who, when the protests start, end up doing awful things to you because they are also big dumb animals (they herd, you see).

You won't know what hit you. And neither will your neighbour's bright but naive kid who loves Canada, Ottawa lattes, trips to Langley and London, and the hard-on that comes from dealing in secrets and lies.

Because this is where fascism leads.

6 comments:

Steve said...

In a very interesting tar sands development, Neil Young has scored more than a flesh wound.

West End Bob said...

Excellent post, Boris, excellent.

You

nailed

it . . . .

Owen Gray said...

A point well taken, Boris. Fascism begins quietly and gains power in the dark.

e.a.f. said...

I've never had any illusions about the current government being willing to shoot citizens who will oppose the pipelines, by protesting Harper's attitude is very clear. if you oppose him or his agenda you are a terrorist.

Being an aging baby boomer and had the opportunity to live in a beautiful country, if they want to shoot me on a picket line, so be it. It isn't the worst way to go.

Having always believed in peaceful protest, no violence please, I do recall politicians having police or armed forces shooting and killing citizens who opposed them. We have only to look at things such as Oka and the U.S.A. Politicians haven't changed and neither have corporations.

double nickel said...

I'll be right beside you, e.a.f.

The Mound of Sound said...

As a coastal denizen I have a mix of trepidation and even greater resolve to see this madness stopped before wallowing supertankers ever ply the Douglas Channel and Hecate Strait.

I've never been arrested for anything yet I'm pretty sure I will be soon. I suppose after the first time you've broken the ice so to speak and you can get arrested over and over again.

I suppose of there's enough of us lifelong law-abiding grey hairs who stand up to that jumped up little shit and his cabinet stooges we, together with First Nations and environmental groups, may be able to transform this into a political nightmare for the Harper Conservatives and anyone in the NDP and Liberals who won't stand with us.