of monstrous words

I have spent the day at the hospital. I'm supposed to get up in 5 hours to do the whole thing again. Unfortunately I'm not working my previous dream career. No, I'm there to visit my husband, who is currently admitted, yet still in the ER because there are no beds.

He has bilateral pulmonary emboli & if we hadn't caught it just in time, he'd be dead and I'd be a widow.

I'm not ready to be a widow at 35.

He's in good hands, being taken care of. But there's a nasty undercurrent to all of this, something that has caused us more stress than the health problems that have landed him there in the first place.

Every day we are tacitly or explicitly reminded that we are not people in BC anymore. We are unpeople — untermenschen. We are the unwanted, the unclean, the dangerous. We are the people taking up space who must not be tolerated in a clean, prosperous Canada.

We are the unvaccinated.

Some will say, because they lack the ability to reason their way out of a paper bag, that we have chosen to be second class citizens, that we could easily regain our status if we simply chose to get the jabs.

Some will say that people who refuse things that are “necessary for the health of all” have no place in a civilized society.

These people are collaborators, or accommodators. They may not realize it, but their “reasoning” is the exact same that led to people being exterminated in every single genocide or mass killing in history. I don't need to allude to Nazi Germany; there are thousands of examples.

(You want some? Rwanda. Bosnia. The Russo-Circassian War. Cambodia. The White Terror in Spain. Pick up a book and see that history is rhyming.)

“But it's a choice!” you scream at me.

Fine. Then choose to stop being Christian. Choose to stop being a professional or “intellectual”. Choose to abandon your political convictions. Choose to stop being a vegan on ethical grounds. Choose to stop the diet that keeps your health on track.

What if tomorrow our esteemed leaders say “Actually, you all NEED to be vegetarian or our society will collapse. You must comply. Those who do not will lose their jobs, and not be allowed in polite society. Vegetarianism is the only way to ensure the health of all Canadians going forward.”

What if a year ago your doctor told you you needed a diet with lots of animal proteins for your health?

What if now that doctor refused to write you an exemption for the new enforced vegetarianism?

Or what if the powers that be said, “Hey, you can't be vegan anymore. It's hurting the bees, and if it hurts the bees our ecosystem will collapse. We need to support beekeepers and other animal industries, and do our part. You must consume honey products, keep beeswax in your home, and furthermore you must support other animal industries to keep the ecosystem going. You can't use synthetic yarn anymore; you must use wool.”

What if you're vegan because of strongly held convictions? Because it would be anathema to the core of you to consume any sort of animal product?

What if by refusing to comply, you lose your livelihood, your friends, and any feeling of safety in the country of your birth?

Now do you understand what we are saying?

When you isolate a portion of the population for personal choices that are part of their strongly held convictions, that are choices made for their health, for choices that are religious, for choices that have to do with their bodily autonomy — the sovereignty of their person — you are engaging in evil acts.

This is where the strawmen arguments come out, about keeping people safe, and what if your “personal choice” was to murder others.

Please shut up.

Because what you are advocating is this:

You are advocating that people like my husband should be separated from his wife when dealing with massive health issues.

You are arguing that despite the health issues that would definitely be exacerbated by the Covid vaccines currently on the market, my husband should be forced to take them.

You are arguing I should be a widow.

And you are arguing that I should be made a widow in the waiting room, separated from his side, unable to tell him how much I love him in his final moments.

Currently, I am lucky. My husband is safe in the ER, where doctors don't push the vaxx as strongly, and where I am still allowed to visit him. If they move him to a ward, I will be prevented from seeing my husband — my HUSBAND — while he deals with the fight of his life.

I will be prevented from being his PATIENT ADVOCATE if a doctor on the ward tries to push the vaxx. And I know they will, because I used to work in a hospital. I have seen the shit. I have been in the shit.

It was working in a hospital that convinced me we are never, ever getting these vaccines, and nothing you say will ever convince me.

These are our strongly held convictions. My husband has been clear: his medical orders for scope of treatment are as follows:

All extraordinary measures, all life-saving measures, unless those measures are “the Covid vaccine (any one of them)”, in which case, no, fuck no, never in a thousand years, fuck right off with that shit.

Because yes, there's a chance he gets Covid, and there's a chance it's really bad, and he's really sick.

But there's also a chance — a HIGH chance, you can't argue against that if you're able to read things and look outside the news and Facebook — that if he takes any of those vaccines that will supposedly give him an easier time of Covid, he will have an adverse event.

And seeing as he's already got massive (yes, that was the word used by the doc) clots in his lungs, he is at high risk for further clotting. Which is a known adverse event of the vaccine.

Even knowing that, his mom was still pushing him to get it. This is how far the mind virus goes.

And today, heading into the hospital, I went through the main entrance. Why? Stupid me, I guess; I had to park closer to the main entrance and I had a heavy bag of supplies for him. I decided instead of walking all the way around the building to the ER entrance, where I am never, ever hassled, I'd just go through the front.

After all, his mom hadn't had any issues going through the main entrance.

I got asked if I was vaccinated. I responded that I wasn't comfortable giving my private medical information to her, because that is the only response you should give when asked by people whose business it is NONE OF what you do with your body.

Imagine if we asked strangers how many sexual partners they had, or what their latest pap test results were, or if they have herpes. All far better indicators of presence of contagion, by the way.

She, of course, had to say “Well you can't go see him then.”

I informed her she was wrong, because he is in the ER, and I am allowed to see him, and that is the policy, but of course she had to call down and check even though I'm sure she KNOWS the policy and was just enjoying her time putting a filthy unvaccinated in her place.

What I wanted to say was this:

I don't give a fuck what your policies are. I am his WIFE. I married him in front of witnesses and a priestess and the gods themselves, and no one is going to tell me I cannot see him when he is in the fight of his life. The gods themselves would have to descend from Mount Olympus and tell me not to go in, and even then I'd probably clock Zeus on the chin for even suggesting it.

What I wanted to say was this:

You are violating the sacred laws of marriage, you are trespassing in Hera's domain, and I hope she pays special attention to you and you know her mercy.

What I wanted to say was this:

Would you also like to know my religion? In case it's a dangerous one?

What I wanted to say was this:

Shouldn't you be saying that with a German accent?

What I wanted to say was this:

That man in there I love more than life itself, more than the air in my lungs, and if I could I would GIVE him my lungs if it would help, if it would make him breathe easier, if it would save him even a second's discomfort. That man in there is supposed to be the father of my children but because of pandemic policies ruining the economy and, frankly, our lives, we have yet AGAIN had to put off starting a family and every time my period comes we mourn together. That man in there IS my life. I am HIS WIFE. And not god, not you, not ANYBODY will keep me from his side.

And if you try, I will burn your life to the ground and salt the earth so nothing grows there again.

But I did not. I was surprisingly civil, even though I wanted to take this woman by the hair and smash her masked face into the plexiglass window between us. I didn't tell her to go fuck herself with a cactus, I didn't strike her, and I sure as hell didn't turn around, get back into my car, and drive it through the entrance, trapping her between my vehicle and the wall.

All incredibly violent urges, yes.

Because my husband is in the hospital with something that could kill him and tiny dictators are getting their rocks off trying to keep us apart.

I think, considering I keep my urges in check, I am allowed to think them.

I think when faced with evil, it is a struggle not to give in to evil yourself.

I think collaborators get what they fucking deserve.

If you support these policies, you are on the side of evil. If you put your head in the sand, you let evil flourish. If you act to enforce these policies, the refrain of “just doing my job” will not save you when the reckoning comes.

And I am going to remember each and every one of you.

---

Author's Note: this was written on June 10th. At midnight on the 11th, my husband was moved up to the ward and I was forbidden from seeing him until he was discharged on Monday the 13th.

I was able to get the nurses in the ER to put in his chart that we refused the Covid vaccines, in black and red and white, and he didn't get one forced on him as far as he knows. (No evidence of injections on his shoulders.)

As he heals from this ordeal, we continue to be reliant on a medical system I no longer have any faith in. It will be months before he regains his health, and in that time I must practice constant vigilance and continue to be his advocate.

In the meantime, I continue to offer my prayers to the gods, that collaborators may know Their mercy.

Democracy died in my country yesterday.

Our esteemed PM has invoked the Emergencies Act for a peaceful protest in the capital city. Our Members of Parliament voted to uphold this, 185-151.

Including the New Democratic Party, who by their actions have lost their right to be called that. From now on let them be known as the New Dickhead Party.

Not creative, but gets the job done.

For reference: the Emergencies Act is the successor to the War Measures Act — they are the same act under different names. The Emergencies Act in its current incarnation / name had never been invoked until now. The WMA was invoked before — in times of actual emergency. War. Kidnappings. Bombings.

Actual strife.

The Trucker Protest, contrary to what bile CBC, CTV, and Global have been spewing, has been peaceful and Canadian to the core. Flags everywhere. A dance floor. An outdoor hot tub.

It was noisy at times, but not violent.

So now the Emergencies Act has been invoked, and before the MPs could even vote on it they began using it to arrest people in the capital. Police brutality, again, because at this point all the decent cops have resigned (and some have been arrested themselves, like Cpl. Bulford, former sniper for Trudeau).

It's telling that right before the violent crackdown in the capital, the Police Chief in Ottawa resigned.

It's pretty clear he did because he wouldn't give the order from up high. The new guy did.

Kinda reminds me of all the times Darth Vader fired someone for not following his orders to his liking (well, ok, his version of firing was murder, but we're only a year off from that or so). The new guy was very quick to make things happen for Lord Vader.

So, Lord Trudeau, Lord Chickenshit, Lord Coward — I could go on — after hiding from the protesters, maligning them, calling them Nazi sympathizers and saying anyone who defended them was one as well, has actually gone full Hitler himself and invoked this act “for our safety”.

The “blockade” (not that they actually blocked the streets, but okay) has already been lifted and he's saying they need to keep the Emergencies Act for the full 30 days.

Why?

If the emergency was “Ewww, the working class have come to Ottawa and want to be heard” and that's ended by virtue of police brutality and crackdowns, then why keep the Act powers in place for the full 30 days?

I mean. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to figure this out.

Chrystia Freeland — descended from a Nazi collaborator, of note, which she knew about and tried to hide for years — has made it clear already that they'll be making some powers of the Act permanent.

Well, she says some.

Our Deputy PM and noted WEF puppet smiled and laughed when she talked about taking away freedoms of Canadians.

They've frozen bank accounts of people involved in the protest or if they THINK they're involved in the protest. The cops have threatened Ottawa business owners for staying open during the protest.

But still, I'm proud of my countryfolk. Lord Chickenshit invoked the EA to stop the protests, and he managed to crack down in Ottawa — but protests have sprung up all across the country.

Coast to coast to coast, Canadians have had it. They are fed up and they want their freedom.

My lefty friends sit on Facebook and think they know the whole story because someone shared a “freedumb” meme and Mr Star Wars Socks himself said the truckers were all Nazis, so it must be true.

But across Canada a movement that is, at core, apolitical is brewing.

You may argue that it's not apolitical, that's very political. But I disagree. I think a movement that is about our freedoms and our Charter Rights is by its very nature apolitical.

Because these are things that should matter to us no matter where we consider ourselves at home on the political spectrum, or if, like myself, we are politically homeless.

No matter what other views you may have, we can unite over this: we deserve our freedoms. They are inalienable, or they should be. And the government has trampled over them long enough.

We're fed up and we're not going to take it anymore.

My friends — current and former, and I'm sure a lot more of the first category there will join the latter before this is over — can malign me all they want, call me a murderer and a plague rat and whatever else. They can call me and other protesters spoiled children having tantrums.

They have freedom of expression, after all.

I hope that at some point, they realize that these protests weren't just for the protesters.

They were for all Canadians. Even the ones that hate us with every fibre of their being.

Especially those ones.

Because if your rights do not apply equally to a person who has declared himself your enemy, then they are not inalienable.

And isn't that the whole point?

I'm a constituent of Rachel Blaney; I live in Powell River with my mother.

We are both urging Ms. Blaney to make the right vote today and vote against the Emergencies Act.

If Ms. Blaney votes for the Emergencies Act she is betraying the very principles the NDP stands for, and if the NDP supports this overreach by the PM they are dancing on Jack Layton's grave.

It's very clear that Mr. Singh is fine with betraying everything the NDP is supposed to stand for. He's been doing it for a while.

But I have to assume that some NDP MPs still believe in what the NDP was, the core of it — a democratic party for working class people that stood up for Canadians' rights and freedoms under the Charter.

Just because you're led by a champagne socialist with ties to the WEF doesn't mean you have to vote in line with him.

In fact, if all an MP is going to do is vote with the party leader, then why do we even have more than one MP per party in the house?

Our taxes pay your salary. You work for us.

Vote against the Emergencies Act. Vote against this tyrannical overreach by the Liberal minority gov't.

Ignore the party line, and think about what's most important for the people. I can guarantee you it's not further restrictions, removal of rights, or freezing our bank accounts.

Today's vote will shape the fabric of Canada. What do you want to tell your grandkids that you did?

Vote against it. Please.

Chrystia Freeland's speech made me incandescent with rage. These people are evil fucking bastards, and today has been possibly the darkest day in Canada's history.

If the country recovers from this, we will be stronger for it, and never let something like this happen again.

I keep telling myself that.

I don't think we can recover from it. And if we do, I don't think we'd stop it from happening again. After all, we interred Japanese-Canadians during WWII.

The last times the Act was invoked (formerly War Measures, now Emergencies, but it's the same fucking act) there were actual emergencies going on. You can criticize the choice to invoke it, and people have, rightly — but you can't deny that there was actual fucking unrest. Like...WWII. Or kidnappings and bombings.

This was a peaceful protest with a bouncy castle for the kids and dance parties for the adults. Protesters put homeless people up in hotels so they wouldn't freeze on Ottawa's sidewalks. They shovelled snow and cleaned up the war memorials. Ottawa crime rates were down.

In short, the protesters were quintessentially Canadian in their protest, and Ottawa was better taken care of by them than by the ruddy politicians.

So of course, Justin Trudeau tried to start a dialogue with them, to meet them halfway and see what they wanted, and it quickly went south and the protesters turned violent and they had to invoke the Emergencies Act....

No. That didn't happen. He didn't even try to have a dialogue with them. He didn't even try.

This is our Prime Minister who, in the span of less than 3 weeks, refused all diplomatic channels, hid from his constituents, insulted the people on his doorstep, and then declared martial law.

Whether or not you agree with the aims of the convoy, you cannot deny this was an utter failure of leadership. No one who can't have a diplomatic dialogue with his own citizens should be leader of a country. No one.

If he's not going to try diplomatic channels with peaceful protesters on Parliament Hill, then why should we think he would with other countries?

Or will he, because Canada has a weaker military than any other country and he knows we'd lose?

It's easy to push around peaceful unarmed protesters. It's easy to crush citizens. Of course we'll ignore diplomatic channels with them, because they're little people who don't count.

Other countries, though, he has to be nice with – or daddy Schwab will spank him.

I think some of us might pay to see that.

the un-examined life isn't worth living.

this is something my mom has said to me my whole life. for years i thought it was just academic elitism couched in fancy language. i railed against it, in defence of — well, i don't really know who i was defending. perhaps no real people at all.

but now i realize it's not academic elitism. it's simply speaking to a truth that most people won't acknowledge: you need to examine yourself honestly, without flinching, to have a good life.

a good life.

a life where you do good.

****

self-examination is not taught in schools. it's not taught at home. it's not taught, period, in our society.

in order to learn it, we have to struggle.

i believe it's learnable. i believe almost everything is learnable.

and i think without self-examination, our species is doomed to failure.

****

i hope that's not the case. because i don't see much hope for people learning self-examination before we devour ourselves, like an ourobouros drunk on power.

but i do wonder if we can truly make changes to our worst behaviors if we can't even examine where those behaviors come from. or, indeed, even tell that they're shitty behaviors.

you cannot carry the world's sorrows on your shoulders.

sometimes i feel we are being asked too much. too much outrage. too much feeling. too much empathy. too much too much too much.

it is said we can only remember a certain amount of people. that our brains are only equipped for a certain amount of friends and acquaintances, family members, colleagues. other human animals with whom we spend our time. there's a set number, and beyond that number, our brains break down into overwhelm.

the internet is simultaneously the best and worst thing to happen to humanity.

now, it's not what happened on your street, in your town, in the greater metropolis in which you are a part, or even your country.

it's what happened everywhere, all the time, to everyone.

we are being asked to feel all of it. to carry all those sorrows.

not only to carry all these sorrows, but to speak about it. loudly. to show the world we are carrying those sorrows, because if a donation is made in silence, did it really happen?

this is a task no human being can take on. this is a task that will be the end of us all.

but we are being asked it, every day, and when we say “no, i can't, i have too much of my own thing” — when we choose our own personal battles — then they come for us.

they come for us with knives and pitchforks and words sharpened to a fine point, and they lash at us with tongues and other, stronger tools. public shaming. dogpiles, and not the soft, fluffy, filled-with-puppies type.

carry the world's sorrows on your shoulders, and do it publicly.

or else they know you are the enemy.

****

of course you care, of course you care about other humans. this is why you cannot speak publicly about every injustice. this is why you must put on blinders to some things, focus on others.

or that caring will undo you.

****

yet even if you do speak up, against all sense in your head and heart, against the warning voice that says this will destroy you, it will not be enough. it is never enough.

you didn't say it right.

you didn't say enough.

your words were not polished enough, which belies a deeper agenda, that shows you cannot be trusted.

or, the ever-present: you are speaking over the people who should be heard.

****

because if your silence doesn't speak volumes, then you need to shut up and listen.

there is no way to tell which one it is until you do the wrong thing.

****

sometimes the safest thing for your own wellbeing is to not engage, you think, but then you go about your business and suddenly people are calling for your firing or worse, simply because you didn't say anything.

so you speak out, because you feel this injustice needs words said about it — but then you said it the wrong way, or you said the wrong thing without realizing it, because you don't know what you don't know, and then people are calling for your head, because this is even worse than your silence.

do the right thing, or you are the enemy.

****

the problem with an us vs them mentality is there always needs to be a them. and if the truth is there isn't a them, if the truth is that we're all just humans and we're fucking messy....

then a them must be invented.

more gets added to the list of infractions. it changes every day, until eventually not even the Chosen members of Us can remember them all.

and once all the them have been shamed and ostracized, who does it leave?

Us.

we sacrificed our privacy on an altar inscribed with the words nothing to hide, nothing to fear

we sacrificed our kindness when we let form obscure function

we forgot to feel the strong pulse beating under every word we cannot understand

we chose hate because the love directed at us eschewed elegance for rawness and we can't tell

the difference