Where does Hope live in this nation called Canada?

What can I do? Other

Category: Other

When: 02:44 AM September 4, 2008

Where does Hope live in this nation called Canada?
by Catherine Whelan Costen
“No one can convince me 100% that Canada will not survive and thrive!”
Canadians are living at a time of incredible decisions. We are seeing so many of our country’s greatest achievements, our values and ideals washing down a toxic toilet of greed, selfishness and confusion. There are many books written on the perils we face. There are facts and figures to educate us on the foreign takeover of our nation’s resources, done at the hands of our politicians of every stripe. We see there is plenty of blame to go around. Many of us see we do not have a true, fair and just democracy, we are leaning heavily towards a ‘corporate rule’, a North American Union, under the SPP. (This is well documented, just not widely read). I am not going to give you a list of errors in judgement or legislation that is killing the nation, because there are many already written and for the most part Canadians are choosing to ignore the facts. If you want statistics and feel you are ready to know what has happened to your country, I urge you to read Mel Hurtig’s latest book, ‘The Truth About Canada’. Or use the internet and search out the words, North American Union, Security and Prosperity Agreement (SPP) and decide for yourself.
The purpose of this article is not to scream at you to wake up or take action, rather it is to express that when we know that danger is upon us, or that decisions are being made which we do not embrace, we have choices still. We are not victims unless we chose to be. We are not helpless unless we give up our options, our strength and our ability to think.
I have just had the opportunity to watch a very powerful video on the internet. It was an interview with Dr. Viktor Frankl who survived the German Nazi concentration camps. You may wish to view this for yourself. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-846059789265076312&vt=lf&hl=en
It is intellectually stimulating, emotionally moving, and humanly real. He spoke of desperation and the difference between those who commit suicide under dire situations, or under somewhat advantageous situations and those who chose life. When people become overwhelmed with their circumstances and cannot grasp anything they can do to change their circumstances they can become desperate. I am paraphrasing here, but the theme was that when we cannot change a situation, when something is solid and cannot be moved or changed, then we must change our perspective. That is the key to getting out of the box.
When he found himself in a death camp and knew that the chances were extremely high that he would die in the gas chamber, he realized that his only hope was to disprove that theory. He began to believe that no one could convince him 100 % that he would die in that gas chamber. He spoke to the importance of people realizing they had something to do, something to give, something to invest in living and that is what changes everything. When there is a reason to be, there is a counter attitude to death.
I had a similar experience of awareness a few years ago. Someone very close to me had three close encounters with death in a two year period. Each time it happened I, together with other close family, worked as hard as possible to keep that person alive. We did everything humanly possible and indeed they lived. After the stress was over I realized that I had changed. I had decided that life had a purpose beyond what I had thought in the past. The person who nearly died, remained rather lifeless in their day to day activities. One day I expressed my feelings rather bluntly and said, ‘You have nearly died 3 times in the last two years, and yet I am the one who feels rebirth. You have been given a new chance to live now, why don’t you embrace life?’ The answer was, ‘I’m not afraid of dying’. I said ‘I know, but you are afraid of living!’.
That was an awakening moment for me. I feel the same about my country. Canada has been hanging on by the skin of her teeth for over 25 years now. We have watched deal after deal made behind closed doors, committing the people of Canada and her resources to the corporate agenda. We have allowed her to slip further into peril and barely kept the life support system in place. It is as if she is lying on her deathbed behind a curtain and we act as if we don’t know, or we don’t care, or we are too frightened to confront the disease.
Canadians have lived with a common value or label which states we are a peaceful nation, seeking peace throughout the world. We uphold social values to empower those less fortunate and we desire clean air, water, and soil. We believe we hold a standard of living far exceeding other countries and yet we see the poverty, the injustice, the increased police violence and use of weapons in our cities. We see through rose coloured glasses because to do otherwise would mean taking a stand. Taking a stand is a frightening decision. We have watched others try to take a stand and been destroyed by the forces that desire our enslavement. Some people will call these forces evil, and attempt to create monsters of them, but doing so denies the reality that these people behind the agenda are just like you and me. They are people who have chosen a path which upholds a belief that some are chosen for riches and others are meant to serve, to be enslaved and to otherwise be used as a product or resource. I would not call them evil, although their actions may be deplorable. I would suggest they are ignorant and perhaps arrogant, in as much as they have not educated themselves beyond their own small world and do not know enough to seek that education.
They do not yet realize that human beings are not separate from nature. We cannot continue to destroy our ecosystem to support higher profits and expect the planet to sustain us; even the very rich cannot survive without a healthy planet. Can you ingest money? Or breath it? You cannot get maximum production out of sick workers, you cannot get nutritious food out of depleted soil. This is the great equalizer. Standing up for freedom, fairness, life and truth is not for the weak, however each one of us finds our own strength when we seek it.
People will say we are not cowards, we are simply realists. ‘There is nothing we can do’ is so often the mantra of well meaning citizens. But there is something we can do. The first is to recognize that ‘No one can convince us, 100% that Canada will not survive and thrive!”
I agree, we are not cowards. We are beaten individually however, and that is what keeps us from acting collectively. We have been reduced to seeing our very survival threatened. This is what keeps us quiet, protective of what we are able to gain, and cautious about getting involve. When citizens tried to speak out against the SPP in Montebello they were met with contempt by fellow citizens who wished they’d go away. They were treated to chemical weapons by our own police force wearing riot gear. The collective consciousness is affected by these actions and the lessons are important to the destruction of our nation. So rather than speak out, we vote on election day. We vote for the other guy, and end up swapping one party plan for another, never seeming to get real representation for the people. As has been said many times before, parties are not accountable to us!
Many people have referred to the events of the 1960’s as the raising of awareness and then hitting a wall. As people began to open themselves up to an understanding that we are all created equal and that all human beings must be valued, along with the environment in which we live, another force was growing. Although the movement towards change did not cease entirely, it did receive a serious kick in the teeth. The negative vibration of three very public assassinations affected people personally. It could be said that, the public message delivered (whether purposeful or not) through the killing of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and then Robert Kennedy was heard around the world, not just in the U.S. Loud and clear the public saw the greatest leaders of their time, told to shut up, through the barrel of a gun! Ghandhi, who by many people’s accounts was the key leader of a non-violent resistance movement, also met a public assassination. People learn more by example than by words.
Whether or not these examples were intended to teach us a lesson or not, they did in fact stop people from speaking out. Many Canadians do not feel safe in expressing dissenting points of view. It is not a matter of fact that harm will come to them, but rather it is a matter of conditioning.
And so as I asked that very close person in my life a few years ago ‘I know you are not afraid to die, but are you afraid to live?’ I am asking you the reader the same question. Many have resigned themselves to the death of Canada. Or they have resigned themselves to an alternative reality where Canada becomes part of the North American Union, but everything stays the same in their lives. They fail to see that living under corporate rule is not democratic, nor is it freedom. They fail to see that this is not becoming part of the U.S., it is the loss of three nations. None will be sovereign. None will be free. None will have the ability to decide which wars to fight, what food standards are acceptable, what healthcare system we want, etc. in other words if we do not resist, we will be enslaved. So that is the factual expectation for our future. Just like the doctor in the concentration camp, his factual expectation was to die in the gas chamber; however his personal choice was to declare that it was not 100% certain. Canadians can also take that position. We can declare that we are choosing something else.
It is desperation without any vision of light that allows humanity to die, or commit suicide. Canadians who are fighting to keep their homes, their jobs, or wondering where they will get enough money to send their children to school, or pay for their health needs, or keep healthy foods on the table, or pay their gas bills, won’t be paying much attention to the political parties internal squabbles or external bashing of opponents. Canadians living with their own reality of despair, are tired, frightened and unaware of the political games being played at their expense. Now is the time to shine the light on what Canada can be, regardless of the plans to destroy her. Just because someone wants to kill me, doesn’t mean I should not have a plan for life!
We have all heard the famous quote by JFK, ‘it is not what my country can do for me, but what can I do for my country’.... sadly we do not hear that in Canada. We do not hear that level of commitment or attitude towards service from politicians today. We need to hear it, but more importantly, we need to see it.
Dr. Viktor Frankl speaks to the attitude he has seen in people who are suffering with unimaginable situations and notes their freedom comes from within. It is when they realize that life and this physical experience is entirely about; what can we do for others, there is something or someone outside of ourselves that needs our love, our attention and our gifts, -it is then that the moment of real freedom and real living begins. Canadians have been given a great deal in terms of geography, natural resources, human effort, imagination, inventions, hundreds of years of relative peace, sacrifice of thousands of soldiers to ensure our freedom, and now it comes the time when we can reach outside of ourselves and build the nation we desire for ourselves and future generations.
I implore my fellow Canadians to become informed, educated beyond the mainstream media and not be afraid to stand up for true, fair, and just democracy. We will have to get beyond the concept of ‘me first’ or ‘only my needs are important’, because without the rest of the people, the ‘me’ will not survive either. So be selfish and reach out, stand up and be heard, because to help others will in the end help you. Let us not solely look at the wound, or the infection, or the disease, but let us look at the healing, the vision of health and wealth for all Canadians! That is where hope lives in this nation called Canada, it is within each one of us who dares to think outside of the box! It is you.

Contact information: cathpublish@wildroseinternet.ca

Web link for more information: www.coic.ca or http://web.mac.com/whelancosten

by Canadianinmotion