Flemming Holm's Blog

What a mess the world is in these days! (or is it just that I’m getting old and can’t keep up with the latest inanities?) The American Republican government has raised free enterprise, rampant capitalism and American exceptionalism to the status of a religion, and our ideology-driven Conservative government has bought into it hook and line – and the sinker is coming, I fear.

A year ago our government was saying that there was no financial crisis on the way, so eat, drink and be merry. Now they are saying that the government met the crisis a year ago and dealt with it then, so no further steps are necessary. Meanwhile, unemployment rates and the poverty gap are rising and food banks are busier than ever – or would be if we could afford to keep them stocked.

We have also been told that global warming and the environment are not important. Any day now, I expect to hear that they too have been dealt with while the country was sleeping. Meanwhile, the Arctic ice is melting, the polar bears are dying out, water tables are dropping, respiratory diseases are on the increase, and farms are going out of business. (Or is all this the fault of the previous Liberal government? – C’est la faute de liberal?)

We are told that it would be contrary to democratic principles for the other political parties to try to replace the present government with a left-of-center coalition. Is it democratic to continue to rule on the basis of principles rejected by the majority? Or to try to destroy an opposition party when it is vulnerable due to leadership problems?

I used to think democracy was firmly established in Canada.

After all, the Doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings was buried in 1649 when King Charles I lost his head, wasn’t it?

But now we hear that our Prime Minister and his staff have issued a handbook instructing committee chairmen how to manipulate Cabinet committees, prejudice the testimony they hear, disrupt their proceedings, make them irrelevant and even do away with the committee meetings altogether.

By so doing they are subverting our hard-won democracy.

Next thing we know, will King Steve be marching his troops into the Commons to arrest the Opposition? It’s been done before, but not for a few hundred years.

A minority government can only act with some support from other parties, and not as if it had a majority.

I object to the federal government cuts to grants to women’s and social programs. Many people in our society need a hand let down from above before they can stand on their own feet and take their places as contributing members of society. In the past election more than 60% of the electors voted for parties to the left of yours. The Conservative Party did not win the election; the Liberal Party lost it because of the sponsorship scandals. You do not have a mandate to govern as if you had a majority government.

The Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper,
Prime Minister of Canada

Dear Mr. Harper:

Apparently the Canadian government has allied itself with Israel in its struggle against the Palestinians. I want to remind you of some Biblical and historical facts.

In the second millennium B.C. the Israelites wrested the land of Palestine from the Canaanites, and occupied it for some 1300-1400 years until about 70 A.D. when they were dispersed by the Romans. Then the Palestinians had it largely to themselves (under various conquerors) until the Zionist movement of the late 19th century, when the Jews began returning in considerable numbers. International approval of their return was signalled by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, and in 1948 the nation of Israel came into being through the military defeat of Palestine by the Zionists. Since that time the world has generally held that the Israeli people and the Palestinians share historic rights to the land.

Thus, over a period of some 3300 years the land of Palestine has been Jewish for approximately 1500 years, and Palestinian (non-Jewish) for 1800 years. It would seem reasonable to hold that on the basis of history both peoples have some rights to the territory.

The Jews however have not been content with the 1948 boundaries, but have seized the best land and gradually pushed the Palestinians into smaller and poorer enclaves, making it impossible for them to rise out of poverty. The recently built walls are only the latest impediments placed in their way.

George W. Bush’s regime is a falling star, and rightly so. Do not hitch your wagon to it. One cannot force a people to adopt democracy, particularly when it has never known democracy in the past, and when the enforcers are in a position to benefit economically thereby.

Does God really want war? Can a new world war be a prelude to the Second Coming of Christ? Never! See Micah 6:6-8 and Amos 5:24. Can you imagine Jesus bombing anyone? I can’t! Would he want his followers to be unjust? Apparently Bush is supported by many people whose view of Christianity is different from mine!

Yours for a better Canada and a better world!