My political naivety . . .

I think that I suffer from a certain degree of political naivety. I grew up in the US amidst the Vietnam war and eve as a kid I had a sense of how people were appalled by what they saw as an unjust, neo-colonial escapade. Yet when the first gulf war began and I was involved in the anti-war protests, I was just monumentally shocked that the West was able to perpetrate another such all-out war less than 20 years after the war in Indo-China had ended. And then I was still shocked when the US was able to instigate the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which were so obviously more blatant efforts by the West to control geo-politics through a brutal war effort.

In the past year I have done a great deal of research for my book which has involved reading about the French Revolution and the British reaction to the events in France. Such research demonstrates that the same types of ideological efforts at defending war and oppression have been going on for centuries. Yet I am still shocked that average people are largely uninformed and utter incapable of seeing through the lies of the rich and powerful who perpetrate wars in their own interests while average people do the fighting and dying.

But my naivety continues because I am totally shocked that any Canadians are willing to support a government that is not only incompetent but self-interesting, mean-spirited, and profoundly corrupt. It just shocks me and I can’t get past it. I continue to be amazed that people will let their biases allow them to stand up for the most shockingly atrocious actions as long as those actions are committed in the name of their ideology.

So it goes . . .