Home »
Hands on the wheel
By Peter Christensen
Op-Ed Commentary
I have a friend who is old; he is an opportunist, always has been. At times I believe this trait a short coming and at other times I admire his optimism. Recently he reposted on Facebook an ‘End of the World’ weather prediction by a holier-than-thou Carbon Prophet. Immediately a West Kootenay cohort jumped in “hoping” an ‘End of the World’ catastrophic event would come soon.
Strangely, this post-modern apocalyptic pronouncement made me think of a conversation I overheard as a boy in the kitchen of our pioneer church between my Mother, a Second World War survivor, and the older Ladies of the congregation. After a particularly pungent ‘fire and brimstone’ sermon the ladies cornered Esther by the sink in the basement kitchen during an after-service coffee-time gathering and tried to pull her into a dishtowel prayer meeting.
The ladies bowed their heads and pleaded with her to join in their refrain. “The end is near; the end is near.” Esther, who during WW2 collaborated with the Danish Underground smuggling Danish Jewish citizens to Sweden under a hostile Nazi eye while working as a nurse, would have none of it. She took their hands in hers, looked deep into their eyes and responded, “Well, I guess it is for you dear!”
Now this was not the kindest thing she could have said; however, in her defense, she did have a worldlier understanding of risk. Driving home my Father tried to tone her down but she would have none of it. There was a lot of work to be done on the primitive farm and lolling about in contemplation of one’s immortality or lamenting about how much one had suffered did not fit her temperament: there were animals to be fed, gardens to tend and two eager boys to be raised.
I posted this story about my dear departed Mother in the comments section below the ‘End of the World’ prediction because I thought the ‘End of the World’ proselytizers needed to be reminded that there have been other hard times and people have gotten past them.
Liberal and left-wing fatalists believe that revisionists are deserving of control and reward; however, many ordinary people with less politicized goals have fought battles and lost much. Rather than preying on guilt and assumption they went to work and made a go of things.
Ironically the response to the story about my Mother was a recollection by my friend of how he and other naturalists had beaten BC Hydro’s plan to divert the Kootenay River into the Columbia River at Canal Flats. Being compared to a handful of fearful old widows had awakened a sense of optimism. The Carbon Prophet’s ‘End of the World’ predictions it seems were not as assured as my friend and the West Kootenay seer had eagerly anticipated.
I can’t think of anything worse than having to change one’s mind about something. It can shake one’s very foundation. Reading books outside of favored subjects, especially one’s that offer more worldly comparisons or alternate ‘truths’ can be devastating. One should avoid reading books; far better to rely on deodorant selling mainstream media and the CBC!
“At a time when the world seems to be spinnin’
Hopelessly out of control
There’s deceivers and believers and old in-betweeners
That seem to have no place to go
Well, it’s the same old song, it’s right and it’s wrong
And livin’ is just somethin’ that I do
And with no place to hide, I looked in your eyes
And I’ve found myself in you.”
Hands on the Wheel. Written by written by Bill Callery and Juventino Rosas made famous by Willy Nelson.
As it is election time I am looking for someone into who’s eyes I can look and find myself. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau advised us that it is okay for members of a particular race to burn down and vandalize churches. I am not a religious person but I do respect people’s desire to worship provided they are not promoting violence. The highest office in the land condoned violence, stumbled through an epidemic and acted on unproven accusations thereby encouraging an activist judiciary to make new law by setting precedents rather than creating law through parliamentary procedure. This was a gross error in judgment.
Sadly, adherents of ideological views regard statements of their creed as indistinguishable from facts. Top-down decision-making by surrogate rulers and the occult central planners so favoured by Justin Trudeau’s Federal Government and the unelected David Eby NDP ignore the millions of individual decisions and accommodations of ordinary people that brings into play a vastly larger range of knowledge gained through experience and examination.
It should be the goal of elected representatives to discover and choose from a hard-won catalogue of ideas, decisions and accommodations. Rather we have name-callers and charmers implementing concocted ideology.
A self-anointed ideological class has gained power in Canada. Believers in scientific method, common law and rational thought have been collectively silenced through provocation, accusation and rumor. Governments evade substantive arguments and even propose laws that make opposition and debate a crime.
It is high time for a change. Let’s get our hands back on the wheel; his era of intimidation must end.
– Peter Christensen is a Columbia Valley based writer and poet
