The Inconvenience Truth

When most of us get up each morning we are looking forward to a day that goes our way.  Some days you start out and know right away that this is not going to be one of those days.  You hit the alarm one too many times, grab the toothpaste and realize that no matter how hard you squeeze you are not going to get one more blob out of that tube.  This sends you in a frantic search for that new tube that's got to be under this sink somewhere.  Now you're quickly falling behind schedule which leaves you more anxious and any attempt to get caught up is futile.  Rushing to save a little time pouring that last cup of coffee before you leave the house will inevitably leave you with coffee spatter on your shirt.  Finally you resign yourself to the fact that it's just one of those mornings. 

Luckily those mornings are balanced off by the ones that just roll out with unusual grace.  You wake up before you've even hit the snooze button for a third time.  The sun is usually shining and before you know it you're ready to head out the door but stop for a second because, you're actually five minutes ahead of schedule.  You're not sure how it happened but it's a nice surprise.  You jump in the car and hear the traffic report on the radio and they say something to the effect of, "we're not sure why but traffic volumes are much lighter than usual today".  It's just one of those good days. 

There is balance between the good days and the bad days.  It may not always seem like it when you get into a bad stretch but, looking at the big picture, you've probably also had a good stretch at some time that you need to take into account.  The problem comes when that natural balance is disturbed by unnatural forces. 

One of those unnatural forces is other members of our society inconveniencing all of us to send a message to the small group of people they want to reach, namely, politicians.  There is a similarity in tactics between native protesters blockading a public highway to press their demands and the Toronto Transit Commission workers going on strike and bringing a major city to it's knees to press their demands.  The problem with these tactics is the way they undermine any support out there for their problems. 

Canadians, by our nature, are a just and decent people.  We have great capacity to see the suffering and the injustice being done to others.  So that support should be encouraged and not thwarted by easy and intimidating actions so that you can get on the nightly news.  Sending a message to government can be done in numerous ways.  If the aboriginal peoples of this nation hope to force the government to deal fairly with them, they must find a way to utilize the support of all the people of Canada.  Blocking this country's highways and challenging this country's police forces is only going to weaken support among non-natives and embolden the government to continue to not deal with your issues.

 Working for the transit commission in Toronto can be a tough job and since transit is a big piece to the future of fighting Global Warming, most of us would support paying these workers a fair wage for what they do.  However, turning the city inside out to make a point about how important and powerful you are, only serves to anger the masses.  That's not helpful since no one would be better at putting pressure on politicians to solve your problems than the masses. 

Democracy is built on the concept of majority rule and small constituencies with a beef would be well served to bring the majority of us on board.  Get your message out, get the people on your side, which is not hard if your cause is just.  Then sit back and watch the politicians fold like one of those accordion buses when it turns a corner.  Inconvenience the masses and turn their seemingly good day into a bad one and all you do is squeeze us until there's no more support for you coming out of this tube. Until We Type Again, Take It Ease !