Who will get my vote?

 

 Who will get my vote?

I knew a couple from China who came here with nothing and after a short while opened a restaurant. They worked day and night, raised their kids while working, and survived any competition that took them on. After some years, they bought a nice home, sent their kids to university, and even managed to bring one set of parents here. They are a living example of how private businesses can operate successfully and efficiently.

I also knew some people who chose a career in the civil service. They worked for less than their equals in private industries but had more benefits and security. Most did well, but a few abused the system. Sometimes when politicians promise to create jobs, they do it by increasing the civil service without providing proper supervision. Elected politicians focus on staying in power, not on managing the workforce like a business would. We all know that if you leave kids unsupervised, they will get into trouble.

There are two solutions to the problem. One is to connect the pay of the high-level civil servants and their political masters to the performance of their departments. People in the cabinet should have clear goals and regular reviews. Being a premier is not just delivering speeches but acting as the CEO of a large company. Those who get elected only to be yes-men and vote with the party are not the same as those who strive to improve the system. I like the municipal way of governing. Each member of the council can use their moral guiding system.

The second is to privatize the service, which will not be free. Whoever is going to do the supervising for the government will do so usually for high returns. The government that privatizes public assets and services may have a free ride for a short duration, but the citizens will pay the price in the long run. We should never consider essential services, water, electricity, the internet, air, transportation network, police, health care, public education, courts, government revenue, and a few others, for privatization. If we must pay someone to let us stay alive, it is akin to extortion.

The problem we currently face is that people think we can privatize government functions and have them run like a little Chinese restaurant. There is no possible way that a private corporation will take on a great responsibility, like for example, health care for a province, and make it as efficient as the Chinese restaurant, without skimming high rewards for its investors or owners. We will pay for what we get, but the profits will go to a private pocket instead of back to the citizens.

The voting public is seeking simple things. The voting public seeks health, safety, political and religious freedom, and above all, an economy that does not set them back. Those who work wish for security and equality with their parents and other workers. They face a choice about parties promoting different ways of getting it.

I look for who is most likely to protect my way of living now that my work life is over, (oops, I am working right now) and who will treat my kind of people best in a sustainable way. I know all politicians will promise great things, so I look at their histories and what they have done in the past. If they had workers, I try to see how they treated those. Did they pay fairly for work? If they were in politics, did they do what it takes to ensure that their citizens enjoy a reasonable life? Did they treat my hard-earned taxes with respect as they should?

Take, for example, the latest controversy about the replacement of the Saddledome in Calgary. People in my area will have no benefit at all from the Calgary Flames new home. The team’s owners will. Yet the province was pretty insistent a few years ago on saving money from the pay of rural medical professionals. We paid and still are paying dearly for that move. People like me died from the shortage of doctors and nurses. It will take us years now to attain the level of care we were accustomed to.

So many people, especially the young, choose not to vote because they think that their one vote won't make a difference, or they don't trust all politicians. I like to say to them, making a few right moves can make a significant difference. Life will go on if we do anything or not, but not in the same way.

The people who started the little Chinese restaurant years ago could have worked for minimum pay for someone else who became rich from their efforts. They took action, made a sacrifice, and did not give up. We can all do that.

I look at where I live and pay attention. A few years ago, the main street here was full of for sale or rent signs and you could taste the feeling of despair. Now the Real Estate people are left with nothing to list. We are full. We only need more competition, but it will come. The Co-op is moving in. The people can own their needs without privatizing.

I also consider the state of our world. Spain last year had the hottest summer in 600 years. Are my leaders considering if our actions are good for the Earth? I only have one vote and I will make it count.

Written on Good Friday.

 

Written on Good Friday.

As a child, He was a refugee that escaped Judah and went to Egypt. In Egypt, his father probably worked on construction until returning home to Nazareth. Here we lose written records until he was old enough to go with His family to Jerusalem and got lost, apparently “teaching” the elders at the temple. Some years later, we discover Him doing miracles and preaching in Galilea. The rest of the story we all know.

The story repeats itself many times in history. People escape their countries to save their lives and some of them become famous in later years in the countries they migrated to. Albert Einstein comes to mind. After the Second World War, German scientists escaped to both Russia and the USA to develop the space program that is still going on. It is the way of the world.

Canadians today understand that immigration is essential for our prosperity. Yet, many others are campaigning against it. I know people who immigrated to Canada or were born to parents who did, and they want our province to go on its own. Their most regular excuse is that the Federal government takes our oil money and gives it to Quebec where people have better social programs than we do. We could do the same, but we give our money to oil companies.

Albertans don’t talk about moving away from native lands, only about freedom from the rest of our country. It’s a cartoonish solution. Alberta will need an army to protect its borders from the Americans and the rest of Canadians. All free countries have one. Yes, we will. Our Premier will “fight Trudeau” or his successor by legislating some bills in Edmonton and force the other provinces to have an energy corridor on their land. The first nations will only be asked after we tell them what they must do and they will agree to it. I find the entire argument hilarious unless I am missing something.

I met a guy, by the Post Office, who is very upset about the homeless people and the unemployed folks on our streets. The TV news interviewed some. Most of them were obviously beyond any hope of working a regular job. They were uneducated addicts with mental health issues. There was one who was educated and worked three low-paying jobs. After a couple of minutes, I realized I would not be able to explain to the gentleman at the Post Office that we can’t improve the economy by trying to force the homeless to work or by shutting off immigration.

What we can do is prevent our province from spending twenty billion taxpayers’ dollars on cleaning orphan oil wells that are the responsibility of those who enriched themselves by selling our oil.

The oil companies are seeing the writing on the wall and slowing down activity unless governments pay them. Now the cash cow is no longer oil but clean energy and storage for it.

We better watch our rhetoric about transfer payments which were invented so all Canadians would share equally in our country’s prosperity. Fortunes change and the last may be first. Recently, there were rich deposits of valuable rare minerals found in the Ring of Fire, about four hundred kilometers north of Thunder Bay. It will fuel the Canadian economy in the future and it is on the land of some First Nations. Those folks stated they are more interested in the well-being of the people than in making returns on investments. Their attitude may change what our society values.

When I started campaigning for the then-new Progressive Conservatives under Peter Lougheed, he made a prophetic statement. He said that the oil will give Alberta a chance to set up for the future before oil revenues run out. We squandered our chances and dismantled what he set up, making a few super rich and the many not so. We developed the province, but now a lot of us are struggling, even though Alberta has plenty of wealth. We don’t have enough doctors and nurses, and many seniors are visiting half-empty food banks. It is not because we are lazy, only because we lived too long under poor management. I am still waiting to get some value from Kenny’s War Room, for example. I will never see returns from some pipelines that took our money either. The only one still being built is doing so because of the Federal government’s generosity. I wouldn’t run a political campaign based on “fighting Trudeau” at this time.

Our so-called Western culture is based on a religious faith that began two thousand years ago. It taught simple truths which appealed to people. It was based on humans viewing society as one body. We celebrated Easter each year to remind us it could be beneficial to sacrifice the self for the benefit of all. After all, we don’t know what happens to the “self” when earthly life is finished. We know that all things are recycled and there is a natural resurrection happening year after year.

I am not any kind of religious leader, but I like to draw conclusions from what I encounter in life. I promote accepting the basics of my religious faith and applying it to life. Do unto others as…..

Is there a God?

 

 Is there a God?

On Easter day, a young man from out of town who reads the Simple Raven’s Post blessed me with a visit. He is about forty and educated above a Master’s level. I have been reading your column; he said, and I am surprised. You seem to balance your comments, but there is one group you don’t consider at all. The people who don’t believe in God. You know that there are a lot of us.

That is true, I must admit. I have been studying beliefs in God since before he was born. It has exposed me to the main Abrahamic religions, and I lived in the ruins of the historical places that they built. My high school was in the Galilea mountains where Jesus grew up. As soon as I could, I studied the history of human faith in a supreme deity. We always had one since the days of cave people. We have worshipped the Spirit as a singularity or split into many specialized Gods but always existed in human reality or imagination. Thousands of philosophers over many generations debated what God is like or not. As a matter of fact, I am writing a book about it, if I will ever finish.

Here was an intelligent young man, asking me on Easter day to tell him why I don’t take atheism seriously when writing in the Pass Herald. He left me lost for words. I should serve my whole readers’ community equally and remember the two newest religions, Science and money, or the faith in the Golden Calf. The last is not that new.

Every generation of humans always believed that their science is the greatest. If new scientific discoveries or hoarded riches are their God, I should mention them when I talk about religions. He was demanding of me to provide proof that the biblical God exists or admit that there is no God. He wants material evidence for a spiritual being. Can’t be done. Yet I care about that young man and wouldn’t wish him to feel ignored.

We have surpassed other animals and humans in terms of our culture. Yet we spend a lot of time trying to discover how the world or universe around us is working. We do it with our senses, eyes, ears, and so on. We are also very good at fooling our senses. One only needs to learn how to do some magic tricks to prove it. We can’t build even one human being or any other living animal and make it alive with all that we know.

My friend believes that it all happened by chance. Luck alone. He can easily point at things in the holy books that are factually wrong. He met some people who believe in the bible literally and he thinks that all those who believe in God think that way. We don’t. We have books with stories that demonstrate examples of humanity’s wisdom. Those books were written generations after events happened at times when most people were illiterate and knowledge was passed on by word of mouth. There were many more books that the communities of faith lived by and, over time, wars and other disasters, disappeared. After each great civilization, people destroyed books and past knowledge. The Spaniards destroyed the records of the Incas, for example.  

I can prove that I am a spiritual soul. I was a tiny toddler years ago and now I am a big old man. All the cells in my body and brain died and new ones replaced them, yet I am me. Not my body, but my soul. My scientific conclusion is that if that is the way things happen, it should go on the same way. The body recycles, but the person stays the same. Only at some point the body is no longer changing to get bigger or older but immaterial. Spiritual instead of physical. In games, we reach a point where we go to the next level.

The Bible mentions it in the story of the woman at the well. People, at some point, no longer will worship in an earthly place but in a spiritual way. The early Christians had many arguments about it and eventually solved the argument by force. That is not the Christian way.

My young friend said that perhaps we think God is some more advanced alien that came to Earth in our past. I have books about it. It’s not a new idea. What the ancients called Gods were far more advanced than humans at the time or possibly even now. I asked him if he ever tried to communicate with an amoeba. Perhaps advanced civilizations, or possibly even God, have no reason to communicate with us. God can easily not be visible to us and angels possibly are all around us.

Unless we investigate the dimension, we call “spiritual” we may not get far. Our experience shows that we tend to go one step forward and two steps back.

Old and New morality.

 

Old and New morality.

I am tempted to join the political discussion that heated up lately. What’s the use? In two months, we will consider other issues the most important. Presently, my son-in-law is upset about the NDP getting us into debt. They were in power when oil prices were the lowest for a while and Alberta had high unemployment. The fires in Fort McMurray drained their budget at the same time. The UCP came in when energy prices were rising and Putin was threatening Ukraine. Can we compare the two over that aspect? I think not. We should judge by what they each did with our money.

It is most interesting right now that the authorities have indicted a past President of the United States for crimes related to what seems to be sexual misconduct and cheating in business affairs. This is happening just at the time of Easter when many people are thinking about Christ being crucified for human sins. After all, the ex-president was married three times, which is forbidden in the Bible. Relationships with sex workers are also considered unfavorable. Will the American public reconsider their political choice? This remains to be seen.

Here in Canada, we are not as religious as our neighbors. Over three-quarters of Americans believe in creation and the rest in evolution. Here and in the UK, less than a quarter believe in creation, for example. Yet we have problems with sexual immorality issues. In the last year or so, we lost some of the most senior members of our military due to accusations of sexual abuse and or misconduct. Similarly, much of the clergy, often related to the infamous residential schools, have been accused. Many cases are in courts where they will be for a long time, and some individuals may be convicted. We should enforce the law on offenders, but the innocent suffer unimaginable pain and shame.

Laws can never cover all possibilities and fairly apply to all situations. Presently, the trend is to treat people as guilty until we prove them to be innocent, which often happens after a person’s name and career have been destroyed. We recently did it to a Chinese Canadian member of parliament and to high-ranking officers. In some cases, the alleged crimes took place long ago, and it’s hardly possible to remember the details. Politicians have no mercy if they smell danger to their power. The government removed the officers from prestigious positions, making them suspected criminals. That took place until they removed Major General Dany Fortin.

Mr. Fortin is a professional fighting man who knows what he is capable of. He didn’t go down easy and he is fighting back. He hired lawyers and demanded to have his old job back. It’s possible that he will take the government to court.

I lived through the period in which much of what is being fought about today was happening. It was a different world then. People were testing the laws and going around saying, “make love, not war.” Birth control pills became available and women could find jobs and live on their own. We made many technological advancements to suit women, like the automatic transmission, for example, and there was a new freedom in the air. We saw the first woman in parliament.

The new freedom mixed with the old customs. A sixteen-year-old girl was free to marry and have sex if she wished. It was almost the turn of the century when the government declared new rules about sex. Consequently, girls felt free to try their new freedoms, but guys could end up in jail for taking advantage of it.

A few years passed, and men with money or high positions became an endangered species. They lived in what was considered normal at the time, now not permitted.

I am the last one to protect abusers. I don’t feel sorry for an old ex-president displaying behavior that all Christians and Jews consider sinful. With an influential position comes responsibility. I object to people being punished for what used to be a joking matter and now is treated like a crime. We must take into consideration the fact that morality is forever changing like everything else.

Used to be that smoking marijuana was illegal, but smoking cigarettes on airplanes or in movie theaters was the norm. Now it’s different. God, according to the scriptures, created all things with a word. Our language is changing. Look at the words gay, black, trans, and thousands of others. It is immoral to punish people for not having followed the most recent meaning. We must revise the way we administer justice and take politics out of it.

It is wrong to deny girls schooling or force them to hide their hair. It should be just to lock up those who use power and money to abuse kids, break families and deny human rights to the unfortunate people who try to stay alive. A sin is hurting people unjustly. This is what Easter is about. Crucifying an innocent person for evil done by others.

An old friend called me and asked. Do I think that God is punishing humans? I look at the big world through my little computer screen and wonder. All sides are doing things that could bring the wrath of God upon us. I can’t just say, no.

The old Court House.

 

 The old Court House.

When I first came to the Crowsnest Pass, I was surprised. Coming on Highway 3, I passed some old buildings that were abandoned, but around them the ground was black. My mind pictured times in which people were working in and around those buildings to produce coal for fueling an industry that now no longer exists. A train passed to my left, pulled by diesel engines. I remembered that not long ago steam engines hauled trains and coal was dug out from here. Coal was replaced by oil and the people moved, creating a string of little towns that I and other history enthusiasts visited. Others came for the natural beauty and the abundant wildlife.

As I entered Blairmore to my right was an interesting historic building on which big letters pronounced Court House. It was no longer serving its original purpose, but it told visitors that here was a civilized place. Civilized people have laws, order, and a justice system in place. We live in a world where deception, lying, and taking advantage of each other are admired as good business and I was searching for a place with law and order. I like seeing the words “Court House.”

I look at world news from a few countries. You can’t trust news from one place these days. The world is plagued by people seeking justice. The president of Russia has been convicted by a worldwide court of crimes against humanity. He is responsible for taking Ukrainian kids and making them disappear. Perhaps adopted by Russian families. However, the only way to arrest him is by first destroying the Russian army that is loyal to him. There is no talk about the migrant kids that were taken from their families into the United States under Trump.

Talking about Trump brings to mind another issue related to justice. A New York court wants to arrest him for using election donations as hush money to hide that he had a relationship with a porn star named Stormy Daniels. He denies the allegations and asks his supporters to rise up if he is arrested.

Trump is not the only leader threatened with arrest. The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has the same problem. He was facing trial when he was elected. To save his skin, he stirred up problems with the Palestinian minority and now he wants to place his government higher than the Israeli high court. Hundreds of thousands are demonstrating against the move.

A few years ago, we had an issue with the Prime Minister dismissing the Justice Minister. We Canadians are timider and didn’t go wild as others do, especially since he made it look as if he was saving jobs in Quebec. They probably would have had just as many jobs if we stopped him, but we didn’t.

The French people in France are much more volatile. When their Prime Minister took away a portion of their retirement without a vote in parliament, they all went wild. For days we were watching huge demonstrations and clashes with police, who in their hearts probably felt a kinship with the demonstrators. For the time being, Macron managed to steer the news away by starting a large project for building a vast water reservoir which is unpopular with the masses. We also had a Prime Minister who tried to add years of work before the pension age, but we dealt with it in a Canadian way. Voters ousted him from office in an election and the opposition has been in power term after term. We are a country of law and order.

We share similarities with the Germans in that regard, but they have a threshold of tolerance that must not be breached. A few years ago, when global warming wasn’t yet known the way it is now, they established a goal for Berlin to produce zero emissions by 2050. Now, even while Germany is suffering from an enormous increase in energy prices, thousands of young people went to the streets demanding to achieve the goal in 15 years. The German people pride themselves on being hard-working, practical people. They achieved many of the social reforms that we still strive for, a long time ago. Now their youth is observing the world and drawing conclusions. They are willing to suffer some inconvenience in the short run to ensure the survival of the species in the future and push their government towards it.

My world is full of examples of people fighting for freedom from tyranny, inequality, and simply people competing with each other to deceive and get rich with little consideration for fellow humans. I feel I found a community where there is no need for negative competition. In the years that I have been a resident of the Crowsnest Pass, I met more honest people who care about each other than I did in the fifty years prior. There are exceptions, but overall it is a beautiful place inhabited by honest people. I hope that those moving in will join the local culture. I wonder if having a courthouse at the point of entry had anything to do with it.  

Can we see into the future?

 

Can we see into the future?   

Twenty-two years ago, a few men, mostly from Saudi Arabia, hijacked passenger planes and flew them into big buildings in the USA, including the Pentagon. They showed the world that might, financial and military, are not absolute. The US, which was the only superpower at the time, retaliated by destroying Afghanistan (with our help) Iraq, and some of Syria. The terrorists used box cutters to hurt the Empire, which hurt Arabs back using the most advanced weapons, losing thousands of soldiers and two trillion dollars. If we avoided this whole scenario, then money and people lost could have changed the lives of the people of the US forever. Every resident of the country could have had proper housing, free health care, education, and food. The great country could have helped poor countries and enjoyed friendships all over the world. Two trillion dollars is a lot of money. It was not to be.

Who motivates a country to take action that will lead to big changes in the lives of its people? We may say, obviously the politicians who lead the country. Ask the politicians and they will tell you they are representing the people or public opinion. Who forms public opinion? The leaders make statements and laws, but people see them through the filter of the media.

Canada, for example, subsidizes some media insisting that they will show both sides. Other countries have only privately owned media where one can choose to learn only the side they already support. Consequently, the public divides evenly and people hold each other in contempt.

Russia is one example. When the Ukraine war started, they ordered the media to show only the government’s side. News outlets that didn’t agree with the “special military operation” ended up escaping the country, trying to broadcast from neighboring countries. The people who did that may never be able to visit their homeland again, never mind living there. In America, Julian Assange exposed some of his country’s war crimes in Iraq. The US is seeking to extradite him, which would result in a hundred and seventy years in prison if successful. They will try him on espionage that he didn’t do. He, as a journalist, printed what was handed to him by a whistle-blower.

There is another kind of news media that people don’t credit for what it does. This is what we call the grassroots voice of the people. Little local newspapers or radio stations from small places like here. The big organizations pay attention, trying to gauge public opinion from small communities but get little. The vulnerable little news organizations can be sued, or shunned by political parties that have marketing budgets to promote themselves. Would be nice if provincial and federal governments would allocate funds to keep the little guys in business even if they are honest, but they don’t. We hear announcements about money for little local newspapers but we don’t see any money. Consequently, the little papers restrict themselves to reporting who won a little league game, but we don’t get a lively exchange of ideas. If some residents have political opinions, they send them to bigger papers and magazines, leaving the local media out of the actual news.

Countries are governed by politicians who exist thanks to money invested by rich donors, at times other countries such as China. We can’t prove the case, but we know it’s possible. An Ontario provincial politician has just resigned because of accusations of political interference from outside. The government in power is under pressure to investigate the same kind of accusations. If they give in, we will find out that every government in recent history had some dealings with foreign powers. It will shake our confidence in our political system and reduce our ability to govern ourselves. We may find, for example, evidence that mining companies owned by international investors donated to local politics in our area. What will we do then?

Since the late sixties, we have invested a lot of public money in space wars and nuclear deterrence. Again, that money could have improved the lives of people in America and the now-defunct Soviet Union. Why do we invest our working lives to promote political ideologies?

I studied writings from thousands of years ago. All the people who over generations became famous for their wisdom have one thing in common. It happened in every civilization. The wise people advocated abandoning the race for who will dominate in favor of working together and taking care of each other.

King Thoth, the Egyptian guy with the head of a bird who is credited with building the pyramids in Egypt, produced the Emerald Tablets that guided human civilizations. He lived many thousands of years before Christianity, Abraham, and any existing religions. In his writings, he talks about a future in which humankind loses connection with the spiritual side. The description is much like what we see today. There is much destruction and suffering until God returns to stop the great suffering and restore the earth to its original form. We called it the Garden of Eden.

We wrote the story, we can change it.

More information is available on YouTube: Graham Hancock Reads Thoth’s Prophecy From The Hermetic Texts - The Rebirth of the Cosmos.

Easter and politics.

 Easter and politics.

When I went to grade one, I was very proud of what I learned. All my teachers in the school were people who survived wars and told us we were lucky to go to school and have an education. They didn’t. Most of them escaped from authoritarian regimes and knew the value of being able to vote for the government they wanted.

Each day I accumulated more knowledge and knew that in many places, kids were not as privileged. This lasted until my parents moved to Canada and my formal education ended. Life went on and I accumulated knowledge until I managed to continue school and eventually earn a university degree. I never missed an opportunity to vote. I learned that here in the land of plenty, voters’ apathy is a problem. My adult kids tell me that there is no point in voting since elections are fixed. Doesn’t matter who you vote for, the average person loses.

I go to a nomination election in Coleman. There are two very capable young women competing to be our provincial representatives if the party wins. The room is packed and parking is non-existent. Wow, the voting public is fired up. Three years ago, I attended a protest meeting where doctors and nurses were fighting the same government to keep their pay and benefits. Something has changed.

I listened to our Premier’s speech in the capital, and it is so positive. She is ready to fight the Harper designed, Trudeau implemented Carbon Tax. There will be many energy high-paying jobs for people who will flock to our province. We can’t find workers now for existing jobs. Her party is going to fix health care by importing doctors and nurses to replace those who left. They are building new schools, but not rehiring the teacher’s aids they laid off. I am not impressed.

If there is one thing I learned in school and life, is that politicians are full of unrealistic promises before elections and only look at the viability of being able to fulfill them long after elections. Trudeau is a master in that art and his loyal opposition is even worse. They win elections by the amount of money donated to their campaigns by lobbyists, not by doing what matters to the voting public.

If it was up to me, I would allow only a given amount of money for political campaigns and make it illegal to make campaign promises which will not be worked on during a mandate. Punish those who mislead the public intentionally or do not do their homework and price what they promise. We punish for false advertising. It is the job of the media to expose those who win leadership positions by telling lies. Why is our system, which was designed to work well, not functioning? Why can’t my children have faith that democracy works?

In the meantime, I can’t just sit and wait for things to improve or for some savior to emerge and fix all the problems. He is not coming. The only solution is for enough people to wake up and do something. Showing up to vote is only one tiny step.

The first step is for people to look at the world soberly and realistically decide what kind of world they wish to live in. Away with the band-aid solutions voiced by emotional politicians who have no intention of fulfilling promises. Education and experience are things we must use. We are not voting for the most popular kids in school who want power, prestige, and no risk. We are voting for capable leaders.

I want a world that works for all those living in it, rewarding hard work while shunning cheating and lying. For example, I don’t want to hear about yet non-existent carbon capture technologies while increasing air pollution by the day. I am looking for peacemakers, not stronger weapons. I need health care, not more money in some disappearing heritage fund.

This article is too short to describe all that I am looking for, but we can find it in the Christian New Testament under the Beatitudes. Each of the other world religions has it in their holy books if you care to do the research.

The world that I am describing is not my original idea. My community reminds itself about it each Easter. They are also reminded that for some people; it was worth sacrificing their lives to achieve. Thank God we are not called yet to give our lives for a better world. Others before us figured out how it can be done simply by learning, paying attention, and voting in democratic elections. They sacrificed their lives and shed their own blood, so we will have the right.

I see young kids going to school to learn about life and eventually lead the world, and I think. Are we changing the world by teaching one child at a time what is really important?

Here is a link to my blog: https://thesimpleravenspost.blogspot.ca/  Feel free to check other articles and