Welcome to 2025, a year into which we now enter still carrying the burdens of the Covid-19 pandemic, our mental faculties overwhelmed by fiscal malady, and already dreading the prospects of heading into a federal election some time in the next ten or so months where the tenor, tone and content of political expectation will be drowned in a din of finger-pointing negativity and prejudice.
I suppose that I should be thankful that I’m not an American … yet, what with that nation about to (re)fill the most powerful political position on Earth with a felon whose favourite clothing accessory is a full-length mirror conveniently being carried in front of him by a member of the Secret Service. I’m also eminently aware of the fact that I’m not alone in my thought processes on this matter; CNN columnists Stephen Collinson, Caitlin Hu and Shelby Rose, knowing full well that incoming President Donald Trump has already openly told us that “he intends to subject US democracy and the American-led global order to its greatest test” – ever, they await with considerable trepidation a public’s anarchistic response as to “how he navigates his agenda of massive government spending cuts, tax reductions and new funds for his immigration crackdown,” even as he creates worldly economic chaos with his threats of massive tariffs and demanding fealty from all who seek his favour.
Critics of my viewpoint maintain that the concerns of “fake news” outlets such as CNN are irrelevant, and that opinions such as theirs or mine are nothing more than “word salads”, mixing kale and spinach greens with cherry tomatoes and peeled cucumber slices in order to project an opinion of neutrality and even handedness. Still, they offer nothing in counterpoint by way of rebuttal, save perhaps the blathering epidemic of nonsense spewing from Machiavellian “influencers” attempting to delude their followers into accepting black as a colour, as opposed to it being without clarity and hue.
OK, so why are people responding to real life events with such disdain for any form of factual interpretation – OR at least SOME form of substantiation from a neutral but respected observer or witness. This is a really very simple question to answer, but it’s not going to go down well with those who insist that they must get their facts straight from their social media networking friends: we’ve stopped thinking for ourselves.
It’s difficult for me as a teacher and someone trying to make a point writing a regular column expressing a point of view not necessarily “popular” with the folks on the political right, but it’s certainly easy to prove, and I’ll even give you a bit of “homework” just to demonstrate that very fact. For you to complete the assignment, though, you will need access to two sites on the Internet: Elon Musk’s “X”, or Twitter as some people still call it, and the second being the Western Standard.
Assignment One: After logging onto “X”, look for a commentator going under the handle of “Canada Proud”. Question One, Part A is for you to determine just “who” is writing these posts (it isn’t hard; both Bing and Google will bring up the same articles), while Part B requires you to determine whether or not that writer is paid for posting his material, and if so, what political party is providing such funding, while providing your HONEST opinion as to whether such practice is legal, or comes fairly close to providing an “end run” around political funding laws that the PARTY must follow, or is “legal” under existing statutes.
Question Two may seem a tad harder to answer, as it requires “inductive reasoning” powers, the essential functioning of the mind that allows us to be able to “solve problems”. Take any three posts by Canada Proud negatively referencing members of the Liberal or NDP parties, or the parties itself, find the media that originally referenced the comment that generated the post, then read that article to completion while looking for something in that article that directly CONTRADICTS the Canada Proud post.
How many of these choices did NOT have this contradiction only too obvious when you finally decided to “inform” yourself?
The second assignment is much, much easier, and only requires you to read but one article posted by Linda Slobodian titled “It’s not just Trudeau who has to go, it’s all of them”. Your assignment is straightforward: find something – ANYTHING – that carries a positive message of hope for our political future.
There are some contributors to the Western Standard whose opinions I will at least consider for their concern, as they are actually based upon true conservative philosophy and positions taken; this contribution is not among them. Reading this one article, one cannot help but note that she has absolutely no qualms about quoting Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre’s propensity to “double” the fiscal damage allegedly caused by the Trudeau government, despite such actions being intrinsically linked to Canadian citizens and small businesses were staggering under the destruction being created by the Covid-19 pandemic and others only too eager to profit from supply chain issues.
However, what truly rankles about her attitude is that she has completely abandoned the principles of “diversity, equity and inclusion” (DEI) that allowed her, as a woman, to choose a career.
The point is this: irrespective of our political position, we have to start analyzing why it is that we’ve now chosen to let someone other than ourselves provide “substance” to our position, when in fact such material may well be the result of absorbing gaslighting manipulation of your self worth, or worse, being directed to believe in such fashion as dictated by artificial intelligence algorithms fed with data that reinforces a position without reference to any alternative.
In short, it’s time we regained control of our own mental faculties, no matter how difficult the world’s events are making such action even possible.