THE BIRD, GUILT GRAVY, AND HOPE

If we had a bird for Thanksgiving dinner, chances are we washed it down with a gravy of guilt that wasn’t present in my day. Now, not only do we have to think about the suffering of factory birds, we have to fret and wonder why so many earth people have little to eat or even anything at all. It’s true that many people were cash poor when I was growing up, (80 odd years ago) but most people still lived outside the big cities and could scratch out enough food on small plots to keep families reasonably well fed. With organic meat and vegetables. Certifiably organic. That was before chemicals became king. That was before corporations became persons.
I am thankful for the Constitution of Canada. The Constitution contains the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And even in the face of the ultra conservative Supreme Court of British Columbia and a privatizing crazed premier, The Constitution of Canada is at least a guide to a better, fairer way of governing ourselves. And because BC is becoming a harsh, even barbaric place with practically every man, woman and child scrambling for substance while choking on shredded social cut backs, that doesn’t mean this is the earthly norm. Or the norm for other countries, localities, world bodies, or even other provinces in Canada. I don’t think there are any other provincial leaders trying to incite people poverty (it is a war), and bust the back of health care all with a few secret cabinet meetings. And with unabashed gusto. It’s amazing. It’s shock and awe. But the Canadian Constitution is still there. The Charter still lives as much as the conservative judges of the Supreme Court of Canada and Gordon Campbell wishes it didn’t. There is hope. Even the judicial decisions that declare that corporations have the right to act as persons without responsibilities to anyone but their share holders and who, by law, can be sued if they don’t make money, more money, and even more money, regardless of environmental destructions, is under attack. I think we are headed into a new area. Let’s all be thankful today and tomorrow for the Constitution of Canada.