Warning: If you love your country and feel that it is above reproach, then this post may cause anger, frustration or other emotional plague reactions and could be dangerous to your health and / or well being. There are no pictures of slaughtered cows nor did any animals get injured or killed in the writing of this post. Viewer discretion is advised.
Sacred cow: an idea, custom, or institution held, especially unreasonably, to be above criticism - Dictionary.com
It is common for me to run into people who think 'CANADA' is the greatest country in the world. They will suggest that everyone does well here even though a few people fall through the cracks. Canadians have free health care, pensions and other wonderful benefits. This is a free country and everyone is allowed to vote if they don't like what is going on. Despite the problems, all is good.
These same people don't like it when their 'country' is criticized and some even resort to name calling. Their 'sacred cow' is their security blanket and should anything happen to it, their lives would be immediately turned up side down. They will defend their country to the death if necessary.
When Ben Stewart first approached me to film his third documentary UNGRIP, he was contemplating calling the film 'Iconoclast'. For those who are not familiar with the term, allow me to look it up for you.
Iconoclast
1. a person who attacks cherished beliefs or institutions
2. a destroyer of images used in religious worship, in particular.
Dictionary.com
I used to be one of those people who loved 'CANADA'. I had a successful IT career, made money, had a home, car, bank accounts, mortgage and paid bills each month just like most other people. I received all kinds of benefits and privileges from the state and my position in society. My ignorance allowed me to be at peace with my lot in life. I was a good slave and completely ignorance to the fact that I was a slave. My life style and all my relationships which includes the institutions that supported my life style were indeed cherished! I was privileged to benefit from those relationships as I received many over the years.
Here is where the rub comes in
If I walk into your home as friends and then force you into a closet so that I can enjoy the benefits of your home with you out of the way, am I acting in honour? Does my violence justify my ability to take what ever I please and then invite all my friends to come and stay in the home as well? What if I killed off 90% of your family? Does that make matters better? Does my genocide trickle down to anybody who moves in and benefits from the home as a result of my murderous ways? What if I then make all these new people bow down to me and I rule over them as if I am their master? You feel put out, so I make rules to govern your closet. You can only come out with my permission. I take your kids and indoctrinate them to my ways. I find we need more room, so I do a renovation and make your closet smaller so that I have more room for my slaves. Over time, I even allow you to vote in any of the decisions we make, but it must be my way.
Alexander Keirincx (1640 - 1641)
Over time, I am able to provide many benefits to those living in the house. Some of the more wealthy get their own room upstairs. Most of the poor we send into the basement or dungeons. The middle class take up the main floor. We keep the poor hidden in the closets or basement while the well off are clearly visible from the street. They have the nice cars, big TV's and swimming pool in the back yard. When we take a look at how well off we are, this is what we see.
What is hidden is that I am the master and everyone in the house is my slave. They do all the work, pay me a percentage and I get to rule the kingdom. I also charge everyone rent, for a house that was not even mine to begin with. I keep my army in each room to ensure my occupation is secured. I make the laws and I pass judgement over anybody who breaks those laws. The laws are designed to ensure that ownership of the whole entire house remains mine. People must get permission from me to possess a room, move about in the house or to grow food in the yard.
The problem rests in that this has been going on for generations, so now the grand kids have taken over, have little to no memory of what happened, cannot see what is happening and as such the relationship remains the same. To them it is normal because they have not experienced anything differently. The people in the closets do remember and they are making a lot of noise. Same with all those people in the basement. Time to give them tax breaks a few more benefits and pretend to throw money at them. That will make it all better. Right? WRONG!
This is not even close to what a healthy relationship should look like!
If we want to be brutally honest with one another, we must acknowledge that the state is not our friend. This relationship is abusive and violent. If we live on the main or top floor of the house, then our privilege is clear. We cannot judge the success or failure of this living arrangement based on the optics of those on the top two floors. Lots of us have benefited from the genocide, abuse, bullying and violence. Most times, the privileged will do what ever they can to protect their wealth and way of life. Defend it with violence if necessary.
So what is the right thing to do?
We must end the violence, abuse and genocide first. We open the closets, basement and dungeons and start to reconcile the relationships with all those people. The whole house is for everyone. There is no 'ownership' but instead there is sharing this land with everyone. That was the original deal with the people who were in the house to begin with. They were able and willing to share the house with their brothers and sisters. The deal was to maintain the peace and not interfere with one another. That means honouring the land, customs, language, ceremonies and traditions of each other. In order to do that, the colonizers will have to make some significant changes in order to reconcile the relationship. They violated the original agreements with those who were in the house when they arrived under the guise of friendship.
To reconcile this relationship will require walking the path and leading by example. My whole entire blog is about this very topic. It is complex and a complete paradigm shift from the ways of the colonists. If we want to confront the root causes of a lot of our problems we must acknowledge that it all boils down to consent.
Yes, consent. Consent is the non-violent way to get the things that we need to survive or even thrive on this planet. How many of us actually ask the plant or the animal for its consent before we harvest them to eat or cloth our bodies? How many people ask the trees for consent before they chop them down to build a shelter or bridge? How many people ask others for their consent before having sex with them or even touching their bodies? How many of us ask others for consent before even asking a question?
Our whole way of thinking is based on taking what we want rather than asking for what we need. My wife and I have worked hard for over a decade to make that paradigm shift. We slaughtered a lot of the sacred cows that we held dear. I lived most of my life thinking that the government is there to look after me. That is NOT the case and is a dangerous sacred cow to hold onto. But when we slaughter that cow we quickly realize that nobody is there to look after us, so we better start doing the work to look after ourselves. Only then did we realize the scope of our violence against other people and Mother Earth.
By slaughtering our sacred cows, we started to see the violence in our way of life and dedicated the rest of our lives to no longer participating in it. We still do in some areas, but our efforts have reduced the participation significantly. As such, the people in the closets and the basement have seen our work, acknowledged the significance of our work and even rewarded us for honouring the original agreements.
But if you are going to sit there and accuse me of being a hypocrite, terrorist, rebel, renegade or dissident, then so be it. Call me what you want. I don't care what names you throw at me. Justify your participation in the colonization and genocide of millions. Turn a blind eye to the violence, abuse and bulling that you benefit from every day. It all violates spirit and it is time to start living live based on the natural laws of spirit rather than turn a blind eye to man's laws. If you cannot see past this violence, then your master will continue to clamp down on you as hell on earth is about to be unleashed on the blind and deaf.
This life is all about relationships and it is time that we see just how abusive we really are to one another and the planet upon which we live on. Time to send the sacred cows to the slaughter house.
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