The Horror of 2011 and the Hope of 2012

(Click pic to enlarge)

I can't remember a more gloomy New Year's eve, grey, strangely warm, and eerily ominous. Last year, on the final day of 2010, I wrote this:

It was the worst of years. The year when the crazed tyrant Stephen Harper ripped a giant hole in the fabric of Canada, chewed on its heart and its liver, and lied through his bloody teeth.

So what could I possibly write about the even more horrible year of 2011?  The year when a morally degenerate ideologue, and his band of American-style RepubliCons, seized control of the country I love and began screwing it into submission.

For who could ever forget this image, of one of those ghastly Cons firing imaginary bullets into the legacy of murdered women, and the bleeding side of the helpless opposition? 




While his redneck colleagues banged their desks and shouted yee hah or hee haw !!! 

Who could imagine that a Canadian government would be trying to turn us into a sinister prison state, and that only six months after Stephen Harper won his precious majority, in a parliamentary democracy we would be asking this question?

How could we ever forget that the reason Harper got that majority was because he managed to fool so many people, so many Canadians didn't bother to vote, and so many progressives couldn't see the forest for the trees?

Or the poison berries waiting to choke them...

Who could possibly accept that so many Canadians still cling to the illusion that it can't happen here? 

Yup. I have to admit that my usual breezy optimism has taken a bit of a bruising eh? But fortunately in the darkness of Harperland there were enough shining moments to give me the strength to continue to resist.

For how could I ever forget the moving legacy of Jack Layton?

And how those stirring words brought out the best in me and so many others...

How could I forget the many victories of the gay movement in its long march to equality, or the beginning of the Great War on Bullies? After so many young lives lost.

And of course, how could I ever thank the Occupy movement, for inspiring me to believe that we can change the world? And renewing my determination to fight Cons, bigots, bullies, and the greedy grubbers of this world, harder in 2012 than I ever have before.

You know... if I could choose a city to be in at the stroke of midnight, I have to admit it would not be one in gloomy Canada. It would be Edinburgh, where the Scottish people are successfully resisting the Cameron Cons. And where after three days of partying and massive torchlight parades and concerts, the fireworks explode over the castle on the hill.

But since I can't, I'm going to watch this video and imagine the kind of party we're going to have right here in Canada.

The day our ghastly Cons are finally defeated...



My greatest fear is that I won't live to see that day, because I have to have an operation to repair my heart, that was damaged when I was a baby... in an Edinburgh orphanage.

But won't it be a beautiful day? And isn't a better world worth fighting for?

Thank you for reading my little blog.

Happy New Year everybody !!!!