Camp is away this week so I get to rant all by myself. 

The latest robbery of public funds by Trump with the 1.7 billion dollar creation of the ‘anti-weaponization-fund’ boggles the mind with its scope and absurdity.  

I’ve come to realize that cynicism in the face of corruption with impunity is acceptance and defeatism. The autocrats from Moscow to Bejing to Washington dismiss and disregard cynicism since it is toothless and passive. 

To fight for what’s right takes courage, conviction and exposure of the fighter but if you don’t know the rules or if there aren’t any then the fight resembles Don Quixote’s flailing at windmills. It’s easier to justify moral outrage and retreat into the bubble of complacency, lamenting the state of the world and shouting at the heavens for the injustices and corruption carried out in plain sight. Normalizing bad behaviour and flouting the laws of common decency and morality renders both meaningless. The bullies and autocrats win when the populace resigns itself to a state of imposed anarchy by the ones wielding the power. It’s much more repressive and depressing when that power is granted by the plebiscite. When the governing institutions and courts support and even encourage this state of internal corruption and lawlessness then the population reaches a state of somnambulance and inertia that makes the autocracy a certainty. 

To reverse this process takes either a revolution by a population mired in generational misery and powerlessness or it takes a coup from within the ranks of government or the military. A highly unlikely scenario since all of those lawmakers and generals who oppose the regime have already been purged, dismissed or killed. As long as the population has food and the trappings of modern life like cars, heat, AC and TV, communication devises and entertainment, access to education and healthcare, a revolution is highly unlikely. 

There is no cure for cynical complacency and frustrated anger about the blatant corruption and kleptocracy will not change the outcome. 

We are in a state of emergency as far as our civilisation built on democratic principles and the rule of common law is concerned. We can stand by and watch the disintegration of standards of decency and goodness as they are trampled and dismissed by the oligarchs and autocrats or we can stand up and fight to uphold what we still have and value in places like Canada and Europe. It’s an existential necessity and we need to shun and oppose the purveyors of nationalist, racial righteousness in our midst and get back to a place of tolerance and acceptance. 

We have to go forward to a place where we feel good about ourselves again. Our children and grandchildren deserve to have a comfortable and decent life with solutions and cures, hopes and harmony with nature and each other. It sounds like utopia and maybe it is but those attributes are paramount for our continued existence as a free people. 

We have the tools and the knowledge, the art, the words, the music and the industry to make this world a better place. It is not the natural order for resources and achievements to be plundered and squandered by a few billionaires with their self-serving ambitions and limitless powers. It’s this aberration and infestation of greed and corruption that needs to be stopped, uprooted and abolished before it’s too late. 

I have a fantasy that together we can – with our voices, songs and words.