What has happened to my country?

I was going to write something up for Atlantic Free Press this morning on Galloway, but I am just too morose this morning to string together something that this topic deserves.

Being away for so long - I have only spent a few years in Canada since 1987 - and lived mainly overseas, I missed this transition to conservatism for the greater part.

I knew things were changing when I came home after one long trip and dad was reading the Globe and Mail. Apparently it was the last vestige of progressive rhetoric in the country. It was a paper he would not wipe his ass with ten years earlier.

How things change. 'Hippie-ish' west coast parents... lots of land, lots of peace - There was a wonderful blend of socio-anarchism in my house - enough leftie values to understand the collective and how we had to share as humans and enough anarchy to understand that government should not be telling people what to read, watch, or what to listen too... along with a healthy resistance to idea of collectivism in the form 1984 or Brave New World... we lived a kind of golden centre between despotism and anarchy.

I grew up Canadian - and was kinda' proud of it - in a quiet, personal, modest way.

But I really feel shocked today. And ashamed in a way. What has happened to my country?

Galloway? Fuck them. Fuck THEM.

Sorry I am really reconsidering the idea of moving my Dutch wife and daughters back to Canada. We have been thinking about if for a couple of years - moving from Holland back to Canada... for the fresh air, the green that this flat, packed country just does not have. Plus my family whom I miss terribly at times.

But I refuse to move anywhere where conservative values fuel the government and media - those of fear and not warmth, those of greed and not share, those of hate and not love.

Why oh why is my home, my birthhome... the abode of my cousins and uncles and aunts and grandparents and nieces and nephews... going backwards!? I actually feel pain thinking about it.

The rejection of Galloway is a watershed moment for me.

I have been so wrapped up in battling conservatism in the US via www.freepressgroup.eu and all the writers we work with, and the Right here in Holland with my vote that I have left Canada in the wake over the past decade thinking it could NEVER possibly... really really, become driven on conservative values.

Today, I am going to start paying attention to what's happening at 'home' and that I mean Canada. And my start is participating in Rabble and Babble.

While everyone around the globe in the progressive movement has been watching in horror eight years of neocon, conservative hell in the USA for eight years, Canada has suffered some kind of coup - media, government... for sure, but I pray not our national psyche.

Richard Kastelein
Canadian Expatriate
Groningen, Netherlands
www.expathos.com
www.freepressgroup.eu