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The time has come for a women’s political party.

“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “To talk of many things… and why the sea is boiling hot… and whether pigs have wings.”
– Lewis Carroll, The Walrus and the Carpenter

Actually, the Walrus wasn’t speaking to the Carpenter at this point, but to “all the little Oysters who stood and waited in a row”. Alright, already, we know what happened to all the little Oysters. They got eaten by the Walrus and the Carpenter.

The Walrus and Carpenter were bigger; too big to fail. And too fast talking for all the little Oysters to actually divine the intentions of the Walrus and the Carpenter, until it was too late (I notice how fast BC Liberal politicians Kevin Falcon and Christy Clark both speak; this is what I mean).

We Canadians may be somewhat akin to the poor little Oysters in Carroll’s poem who “hurried up, all eager for the treat; their coats were brushed, their faces washed, their shoes were clean and neat… And this was odd, because you know, they hadn’t any feet.”

Or brains, either.

But there’s the difference. We — progressive Canadians — have both brains and feet. We are not little Oysters after all, but we know Harper will appoint judges within the next four years who will give him and his fundamentalist religious values a majority on our Supreme Court of Canada bench.

Right now, it is Stephen Harper who speaks in deadened, measured tones to all us little Oysters standing up in a row waiting to be eaten. By what? I could say fascism because Harper certainly shows major tendencies to concentrate power under one rule, his rule. Yet it’s not the same. Hitler, regardless of whatever else he was about, was driven by hatred of the Jews. Harper is not. In fact, he sees Israel as being pivotal in bringing on the Battle of Armageddon which in turn will bring on the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy.

Harper, in my opinion, is more driven by hated of people he sees as sinners, that is: gay, women who want/need abortions, addicts, poor people (if they weren’t sinners they wouldn’t be poor), children of poor people, environmentalists, artistic people, learned people (evolutionists-godless), petty criminals, (big time, well connection criminals can be forgiven), poor elderly people; the list is endless.

Harper puts his money (our money) where his religious beliefs are. And what is really scary about this scenario is his utter literal belief in written religious scriptures that breed the same type of fanaticism. Harper knows his religious beliefs are not shared by most Canadians which is why he never talks about his religious beliefs.

And his utter literal belief in written religious scriptures feeds into, I might add, his disdain for women.

The time has come for women to organize. A women’s union, or an outright women’s political party. Not one necessarily to run against the NDP or the Greens, but one composed of women who are angry at what is happening to our children, our parents, our country, to our land itself and who are not afraid to show our anger.

With a Harper majority and the BC Liberals still holding sway in B.C. there is no political centre any longer. They themselves have polarized us.

We need a women’s party to protest the industrial use of hormones to maximize profits for corporations. Artificial hormones interfere with human reproduction and causes cancer. We need a women’s party to raise hell over genetically modified foods not being labelled. We need a women’s party with the clout to force our governments to give us reliable data on how much nuclear radiation from Japan is here, now, in B.C., and to plan for the shutdown of all nuclear plants in Canada. We need a women’s party that will shame the governments of Canada mercilessly over the cost of college education, child poverty, and deforestation, subsides to oil companies, the privatization of health care, prison systems, and transportations systems. Yes, the time has come.

So I am putting out a call. Any woman interested in coming together and contemplating such a group for discussion and action can email me: [email protected]

Betty Krawczyk, born American 82 years ago, but reborn as a Canadian in 1966, fell in love with the old-growth forests of British Columbia at first sight. Now a great-grandmother, she lives, breaths, writes and speaks of the necessity of saving our public resources for the people of British Columbia and Canada. She has spent over three years in B.C. jails and prisons for blockading corporate logging trucks in public forests. Krawczyk is the author of three books: Clayoquot: The sound of my heart, Lock Me Up Or Let Me Go and Open Living Confidential. She has a new book coming out on June 19, 2011, entitled This Dangerous Place: My journey between the passions of the living and the dead. Krawczyk lives and works in the Comox Valley on Vancouver Island, and can be contacted at www.bettykrawczyk.ca.

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