When Being Fair Means Being Equal

In the upcoming federal election, I’m not sure if I should vote for the competitive party or the cooperative party. I guess the alternatives would be equality and parity. Cooperation and collaboration seem to be hooped right from the start which means that we will probably go through another 1000-year term with inequality and social injustice gaining points in a weak-minded political market. We are so fucked when it comes to figuring things out. We are appalled with all the drugs and murders and thefts and other violent crimes and yet we never do the right thing to put an end to it. If Joe gets cancer, give him a regimen of chemicals and radiation and possibly cut out a segment of his colon or lop off his prostate. That is more manageable that trying to get Joe to eat right, live right, stop smoking, stop drinking. It is also more light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnelish than trying to clean up the environment that fostered Joe’s malignancy to start with. We pretty much handle all of our social, emotional, financial, environmental problems like that. We have spent a fortune, many fortunes, on band aids when we should have been investing in permanent and long term cures for our woes. Let’s face it, we are mentally fucking retarded when it comes to solving the world’s big problems and you know why? Because money gets in the way. There are some guys out there that are really lucky that money controls the world because they would be shit out of luck if everybody was all of a sudden put on the same equal and level playing field. And there’s the problem right there. There is no equality or parity in the world. All the individuals in the village, let alone the municipality, let alone the province, let alone the country, let alone the world are not playing on the same field. Hell, we’re not even all in the same league or playing the same fucking game. I have a house. It is not big. It gives me shelter and warmth and a place to keep my stuff. It is my home base. It is an important part of my life. It gives me a centre point. I can go back to it when I need to recollect or to rest or to recuperate or to read or eat. I can let people know about my place when I have to work or pay bills or apply for loans or school. It makes me feel good to know that I will always have somewhere to go. There’s the deal – it makes me feel good. Why shouldn’t everyone get to feel good about themselves by having their own place to live? There’s the first inequality. There are people out there that have houses that are bigger than hotels and that could hold dozens of people and that aren’t even lived in because their real house is an even bigger one somewhere else. I have heard it said that these people can’t be denied their big homes and all the accessories just because they are rich. They have worked for their money and so deserve the good life. Bullshit! These people are rich because others are poor. That’s the way the world works. The cobra population is up because the mongoose population is down. The Raptors suck because the Pistons are hot. These people are rich because others around the world have no chance of ever getting a piece of the pie. Child and slave labour around the planet provides goods and services that allow the rich to get richer and stay richer. You and I pay outrageous prices for fundamental and basic needs that somebody is selling and becoming amazingly wealthy. Cha-fucking-ching.

So that’s inequality for sure, real lack of parity. Well now I’m depressed because I look at my partner and my kids at Christmas time and I can’t get them the coat they need or the toys they want let alone the food they should have and that guy over there is using a plastic piece-of-shit credit card to buy up stuff like there is no tomorrow which he will probably throw away in two weeks and he doesn’t even need it or want it. How fair is that? My depression is slowly turning to despair. I am giving up hope for ever getting on an even field. The poorer I get, the poorer I get. I lose my job because I don’t have the skills I need so now I can’t afford a table or a lamp for my house so that my kids can do their homework at home so they get behind and I can’t help them catch up because I have to be out looking for a job or working at some shit all-night-gas-station job. So, the kids start going out when home-life sucks because my partner and I fight all the time over the money we don’t have and she starts drinking and I’m pounding a few back too because it takes the edge off this despair-turning-to-hatred funk that I’m in. The kids end up out on the streets, doing the same as us and worse because they feel the same despair. Then they get into the wrong shit and they don’t come home and when they do, they talk really mean because they are without hope in this dump that we can’t afford to live in or keep warm anymore. They have a better chance of finding hope in a bag of crack or some crystal meth or a bottle or some lame John that preys on hopeless kids whose lives have been fucked over by disparity and inequality brought to them in part by their local neighborhood corporations and environmental rapists. So now I hear that my daughter is pregnant by her pimp-drug-dealing boyfriend and my partner has puked in bed again and my precious son has disappeared and he had a chance – he was smart and kind and he would have gone somewhere with half an opportunity and I loved him – but he’s gone and that night that I hear about him being gone and I start to think about it really hard, this guy in a brand new Cadillac Escalade drives up to my gas pump and flicks a lit cigarette out the window right where it says no smoking and comes in and gives me shit because I’m not fast enough at serving him because he’s goddam rich and I’m poor and because he has nice new clothes and I wear a Chevron clown suit to hide the clothes I don’t have. And I snap. I can’t see anymore. There’s this white light in front of me that just blinds me for a second and then its gone and I’m looking through a rolled up newspaper at this prick who’s bossing me around because he can or thinks he should. I am a man without hope remember and I see a man in front of me with every reason to have hope and he is a fucking jerk and it makes me think that even if I had hope I could be him and that he is the very reason why I can’t get out of this hole I’m in and I reach under the counter and I pull out the till pistol and I level it at his face and I pull the trigger and blow his brains out. I kill the fucker because I am without a speck of hope and now, I’m pissed right off so I go out to his car and fire a couple of rounds through the side window and blow away the guy he’s with. I drag him out of the car and take his wallet. Shit, I should have taken the other guy’s wallet too. Oh well, and I pour a little gasoline on his still-twitching body and I light a match and drop it on him. Like a big throaty St. Bernard, the flame lights up the sky and I jump in his car, not sure if it is on fire too and I drive off. I probably kill or rob or rape again that night but I don’t go home and I’m still out there – at large and armed and dangerous and desperate. You wonder why there’s crime on the streets. Make some people rich and some people really poor, take away their hope their dignity and rub their faces in it and crime is a guaranteed outcome. How many times does it have to happen throughout history to finally catch on? All politicians should be forced to study history and pass the final exam before they can run for election.

Or let’s go to another level. Let’s say that I live in a country that has some resources and is filled with generally good people. Some are my relatives, cousins, uncles and so on. Everyday I watch these good people getting sick and they have no money for medicine and even if they did there is no medicine to be had because it is too expensive for our pharmacy (which is in a city too far away to even travel too) to purchase and make available. Even though Pfizer and Bayer can make this medicine for fractions of a penny per tablet it is still too expensive to be purchased by anyone in my village. So, I watch my uncle die and I see my children who are malnourished start to weaken. When talking to one of my neighbors he shows me a photograph of two powerful corporate executives in France and they are signing a deal that will use the resources and people of my village and country to make them even richer with little or no financial gain for my people. This disparity in wealth and opportunity turns to despair and while hope wanes another neighbour feeling the same lack of hope devises a plan to build a bomb and place it in a car that belongs to a group of French diplomats that have traveled to a neighbouring region to speculate on the new deal. We manufacture the bomb and plant it as planned and when it detonates it kills all of the diplomats and my neighbour. I wish that I could have died too. I am alive to suffer the loss of such a friend and to still feel the pain of having no hope.

It seems simple enough to me. If everyone is equal for at least the basic fundamental needs in life – a home, health care, education and clothing for the children, decent food and a worthwhile and meaningful (i.e., well-paying) job then it would be acceptable for some people to have some of the extras that others don’t. I don’t think anyone would mind if the CEO of Wal-Mart had three houses as long as they had one or that he ate caviar as long as they ate.

When I vote in the upcoming election, I am going to vote for the candidate that can promise equality for the people of this country and work toward societal and financial parity on a global scale. The farmer and the fisherman and the forestry worker and the guy who takes the copper ore out of the ground and the gas jockey and the nurse and the waitress and the janitor and the teacher need to be paid what they are really worth for their goods and their services. Only then will our economy truly honor the land and water and air that supports us all. Corporations and banks need to be taxed heavily to recycle the money that is taken from all of us every time we pay a bill, buy food, and purchase insurance. If the money in the bank is mine, why do I have to pay for using it? Bank service charges need to be funneled directly back to government’s social and employment programs. Corporate profits must pay for the refurbishment of the environment that is depleted by the conducting of their operations. No business needs to make profits of a billion dollars a year. These excessive profits should pay for improvements in health care and education and to subsidize the production costs of farming, fishing, forestry and mining. If education is to be paid for through taxation, then we will get more education dollars if we tax the rich instead of the poorest citizens of the land. Right? Hello. . . anybody out there? If the corporations that are presently in the country and investing their dollars decide that they would like conditions better elsewhere – to hell with them, let them go. Some other organizations, insurance companies, bankers, corporate groups will step in to fill the void and when they do let’s not let them fuck us around. Let’s make them play by our new rules. Let’s make them accountable and let them know from the start that we are working toward the goal of equality of fundamental needs for every Canadian citizen, and indeed, for every citizen on the planet. Once that happens our nation’s economic doors will be beaten to a pulp by the would-be investors that want a piece of this pie that has raised the spirits, hopes and opportunities of an entire nation. But until that time, the man or woman, the true leader who has the extreme courage to withstand the corporate, media and financial firing squad that will attempt to shoot his/her lights out with every tick of the clock will have to be totally and unwaveringly committed to the plan. Where the hell is Tommy Douglas when you really need him?

Anyway, I’m voting for whomever stands on such a platform. Anyone out there with the balls to go for fundamental social and financial parity for all has my respect and my vote. I think that if this leader worked to get parity happening, we would all of a sudden have less crime, fewer social problems, a better cash flow and an increased national morale. Oh Canada I will stand on guard for thee if the leaders of this country would only lead.