Tag: politics

Road Signs and the Tea Party

On a quiet December 16th, 1773 early in the morning, at the Boston Griffin’s Wharf, they snuck aboard the vessel ‘Dartmouth’ captained by James Hall and threw some of the 114 boxes of British East India Company Tea, overboard into the Boston Harbour. It was a protest that had been simmering for years and now actions were put to the words some had uttered many times before : ‘No taxes without representation!’ The British had charged that the ‘free loading colonies’ would now be forced to pay their fair share. About time. And so there is a push-back. The ‘Boston Tea Party’ an event that became securely fastened to the scenario and conflict of the ‘American Revolutionary War of 1775-76.’

The colonies were protesting their treatment by the British parliament and its King, George III, for his unjust and manipulating Townshend Revenue Act Taxes of 1766-67. Taxes (tariffs) were placed on goods bought by the American businesses in the Colony of Massachusetts and other American Colonies to pay for the expenses that the British encountered in administering and protecting the Colonies. In other words the Colonies were the ‘free loaders’ and even-though they had no voice in the British parliament, never the less, the English found that they deserved to be paid for the governess that they supplied to the people of the Colonies. Some people of these Colonies objected, resisted and threw the taxable (Tea) items into the harbour. Demonstrating their distaste. What better way to make your objections heard and felt. The colonists had had enough! War ensued and many moved and left the country.

Sounds and looks familiar?

Some 250 years later history repeats itself. President Trump decides to institute Tariffs on all imports to the USA. Remember what the posted billboards that began to appear, said: ‘Tariffs are a TAX.‘ Tariffs were needed, Trump said, to pay for the (past) benefits of protection and friendship of and by the great MAGA state. The years of the great rip-off, for free loading beggars was over. A new scenario took shape, the Day of Liberation: to call in the IOUs of US closeness that had benefited the ‘others’ for decades, would now be rectified by them paying their long overdue debts (tariffs) to the US and equalize the score.

But as the saying goes: It takes two to tangle!

Today’s threats of counter actions by the ‘others’ became the news of the day. It consumed the media. The US arbitrary ‘Tariffs’ some as high as 145% and the on and off yo-yo-ing of the timing and percentage penalties caused havoc on the world’s financial and business dealings systems. For sure, all of this would cause business plans to collapse and ‘costs of living’ to rise, with jobs to be lost for those affected, boomeranging even back for the one that raised and began the war of the tariffs in the first place.

The bottom line motive: Money, financial gain, superpower status, fletching the ‘Empire’ muscles, proving who is the greatest, causing the Nations of the world to come and kneel at the feet of the great ‘Colossus’; like the statue ‘Nebuchadnezzar’ raised in the desert for the all peoples and tongues to bow down to and ‘beg a deal.’

O where? is the honest sentiment and the sincere invitation inscribed on that other wonderful statue placed (gifted) on the shores of the New World, some 140 years ago: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempests-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!” Is this sentiment now lost, what was embodied by that ‘Lady with the Lamp’, at the welcoming shores of a Nation Proud and Free?

But the ‘beggars‘ struct back and warned to impose their own ‘tariffs’ some even threatening to cut off electricity and other resource necessities, to protest the unwiseness of starting this unnecessary damaging economic war with breaking agreements of past years.

I just have one question: WHY do this?!

So history repeats itself again. In fact we can go back to an Old Testament story (Book of first Kings Chapter 12) about a King who decided a tax increase (advised by ambitious young men) would prove how wise and strong he was. The result was the break-up of his country.

For us Canadians, we have seen an outcry against anything ‘American’. Elbows up Canada! Friendships are broken, trust is gone! Trips to the USA are down, vacations are planned to other points on the Globe, food items imported are left out of the shopping carts in favour of national Canadian products, the ‘Maple Leaf’ is now seen in Grocery stores and other places, governments talk about more home grown produce and locally manufactured items, new national endeavours: pipelines and supply lines from coast to coast, free trade supplies between Provinces, defense initiatives for the North, US is out; ‘Canadian made’ is in! The trade horizons are widened and business relationships are sought with close friends and allies even across the Atlantic. Let’s look out for ourselves first. Free and fair trade with a fickle neighbour? No way!

Meanwhile, the financial markets have dipped and continue to be erratic. People are fearful and yet determined! Where is the just and careful discernment in all of this! Where are the Wise Men?

Book of Proverbs chapter 29, verse 4 (NIV): By justice a king gives a country stability, but those who are greedy for bribes tear it down.

JS May 18, 2025

Featured picture: AI generated

…..because these are evil times!*

Recently I have been reading in a small book (222 Pages) about the 1994 ‘genocide’ in the African country of Rwanda. That is now 30 years ago. The book was written by John Rucyahana and is titled ‘The Bishop of Rwanda’. (finding forgiveness amidst a pile of bones) It was published in 2006. I do not know where I got the book but it came into my hands and I was able to read it while recovering from a bout with COVID recently.

The book describes the history of events leading up to and during the terrible times of May 1994 to July when 1,117,000 people were slaughtered and the later results and aftermath, the somewhat healing of this nation. (although there is still strife again in this nation today)

To start: it appears that the country was made up of just 2 tribes ‘Hutus’ and ‘Tutsis’ with one other very small tribe the ‘Twa’. Although the ‘Hutus’ and the ‘Tutsis’ had lived in peace for 500 years, things changed when after the WW1 the Belgians were the colonizers of the Congo and influenced events in Congo, Burundi and Rwanda. Already in the 1800s the meddling of the European powers caused serious and complex issues from the German African Empire of the late 1800s which of course fell apart after the first World War, to UN and Belgian control since then. By the 1950s there were voices promoting for Independence and the country (not without military (war) intervention and control) became the Republic of Rwanda on September 1, 1961.

But all was not well, there was bitterness between the Tutsis who had been favoured by the colonizers and the Hutus. The Tutsis were a taller race and had mostly been the government leaders of the country over the last 100 years or so. The Hutus although they were more in number began to resent the Tutsis. This became a tribal national issue and was encouraged by people in government, religious and the educational and administrational entities. Slowly the Tutsis were pushed out of leadership positions and the Hutus took control.

It was not unusual for school teachers to ridicule their Tutsi students. In morning class the teacher would say: Stand up Tutsis. Then he or she would say to the Hutus: Laugh at the Tutsis. Tutsis always received low scores on their tests and Tutsi teachers started to leave the schools. The author of the book says when he went to a church school as a student in region of Butare, there was a teacher (religious brother) that taught the Tutsis persecuted the Hutus. The church also participated in the slander and harassment of Tutsis by allowing the use of church papers to voice their rhetoric. Slander and misinformation was also broadcast from the local radio station RTLMC in the capital Kigali. Massacres, individual Tutsi killings and murders began to be common news in the days and years leading up to 1994.

A piece of propaganda called the ‘Bahutu Manifesto’ (1950) had called for the liberation of the Hutu tribe, first from the white colonials, and second from the Hamitic (Tutsi) oppressors. In this document we hear the future tone-set for a Hutu nationalist movement by pointing out that the “indigenous racial problem” was the social, political, and economic “monopoly” held by the Tutsi race. This mentality by the 1960,70s and 80s finally ripened to a full blown situation in 1990. There were many scrimmages and fights also into the neighbouring countries. So called leaders were positioning for control. It was a volatile time in Central Africa and even the French became involved in the squabbles and military interventions. In fact it was the French in March 1992 that made the purchase of enough machetes, one for every Hutu male (some say a $6 million dollars purchase) shipped from China through Egypt. The plan had ripened.

The new government continued to consistently harass the Tutsis. When the President Habyarimana’s plane was shot out of the sky (suspecting an inside job) at Kigali’s airport in April 1994, the plotting and plan for the ‘Tutsi operation’ that had been cooking for years was ready to launch.

General Romeo Dallaire (Canadian with the UN Peace Troops) saw the tension coming and issued warning after warning, ignored by the International community and delayed by UN bureaucratic ‘passing the buck’ resulted in inaction. Later President Clinton came to ‘apologize to the Rwandan people’ for the international indifference.

The killings started on the eve of April 6 and continued into July. To achieve the over 1 million (of Tutsis and moderate Hutus) killings in neighbourhoods, streets, highways and villages, ordinary people who had been fired up by the rhetoric of race and slander for years, went through their neighbourhoods equipped with the thousands of machetes that had been carefully distributed. Hutus hacked off heads and limbs of any Tutsi they encountered (friend or neighbour). Religious and community leaders helped to expose Tutsis hiding for their lives and led the killers to groups hiding in the bush and buildings, only to be slaughtered and executed. The country became a killing hole insane madhouse. Blood flowed everywhere. corpses scattered everywhere. The people became like insane mad-men. Some who had taken shelter even in churches or houses were killed by the thousands. Many fled the country. One commentator said: the killers were 5 times more efficient than the Nazis had been. Over 1 million executed in less then 3 months (100 days of terror). Women and children decapitated, raped and mauled with what every instrument available. Terrible, terrible! You can read those individual accounts on the Web. General Romeo Dallaire (UN Peace keepers) wrote the book ‘Shake hands with the Devil’ and talked about his mental health PTSD from the spectacles he had seen and tried to forget, because he had been unable to help or prevent the genocide. And afterward? Trauma, deep emotional from deep insane memories of the bad scenes witnessed by those who committed the slaughter and those who saw their loved ones killed. Memories unable to erase. A broken people. A broken nation. A long road to healing that is not even finished today!

Picture: blackpast.org

So now I have given you a glimpse into the Rwanda situation, so why did I write a piece now, about these events?

Well, I am worried about the situation we find ourselves in today. Youtube and the internet social media sites are full of vitriolic (hate and anger) statements, videos, ridicule and some generally dangerous comments made about people, events and our institutions. One of the contenders for the most powerful Presidential (USA) office in the world has been slandering and calling out ‘putdowns’ on many (leading) citizens of his own country and promoting revolution. (‘crazy Nancy P‘ and the event of January 6 storming of the US Capital) You can check it out on the Web. Further, we have heard time and again of slanderous ‘general’ accusations (cat-ladies) against migrants, refugees (criminals and rapists) and other aliens. Threats has been uttered and false information has been passed around (and imagined as real factual news) and spoken for as truth and factual, (Haitians eating pets) more dumbing down the self-worth and legitimacy of immigrants and even untruths told about political opposition leaders in the country. Turning comments on news events into weaponized barbs. Why even the ‘judicial institutional circle’ and people in the justice and protection services (defund the police movement) have been threatened with prosecutions and wholesale ‘revenge’ trials, imprisonments and deportations. And what about the conspiracy stories we can access on YOUTUBE where we find people who will tell untruths and make up ‘stories’ to attract attention with lies, all for money and control, meanwhile inciting and fooling decent citizen to believe the ‘garbage’ they tell. It all sounds so much like the rhetoric heard in Germany during the 1930s (remember KristallNacht) and the Rwandan genocide situation I describe above, isn’t it? To many today, these promotions are now the ‘god honest’ truth. Why even their fellow leaders in ‘high places’ are mum (dumb) about all of this. (Lets keep in power at all costs) You know the saying attributed to the Lutheran Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892 – 1984): ‘…First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew. Finally they came for me and then there was no-one left to speak up for me………….’

‘Then they came for me’ — Take a warning from the much maligned saying: “History repeats itself”. You say, but that is not so here in Canada? But you have already heard that the Prime Minister has been called a ‘wacko’! Is this the start?

I write this for my children and for my grand-children and my neighbours and friends. Please don’t go down this route. Keep to the highroad, nobody is perfect but in my neighbourhood the Christian command of ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ still is the proven rock hard foundation of our human togetherness.

Can we change course?

‘Like a city whose walls are broken through is a person who lacks self-control.’ Book of Proverbs chapter 25 verse 28

Peace to you all!

JS September 16th, 2024

  • Epistle to the Ephesians chapter 5 verses 6 – 16 Tr. the Voice. Don’t be fooled by people whose sentences are compounded with useless words, empty words—they just show they are empty souls. For, in His wrath, God will judge all the children of disobedience for these kinds of sins. 7 So don’t be persuaded into their ignorance; and don’t cast your lot with them 8 because, although you were once the personification of darkness, you are now light in the Lord. So act like children of the light. 9 For the fruit of the light is all that is good, right, and true. 10 Make it your aim to learn what pleases our Lord. 11 Don’t get involved with the fruitless works of darkness; instead, expose them to the light of God. 12 You see, it’s a disgrace to speak of their secrets (so don’t even talk about what they do when no one is looking). 13-14 When the light shines, it exposes even the dark and shadowy things and turns them into pure reflections of light. This is why they sing, Awake, you sleeper!     Rise from your grave, And the Anointed One will shine on you. 15 So be careful how you live; be mindful of your steps. Don’t run around like idiots as the rest of the world does. Instead, walk as the wise! 16 Make the most of every living and breathing moment because these are evil times.