Soma Nation | Reflections on the Canadian Election Fallout

May 3^rd, 2011, by Cory Morningstar

1984 lyrics by Jaz Morningstar

1984

I got three words for ya

Can ya dig it?

And if you can’t dig it, how you gonna live it?

Double think, crime-stop and black-white

When you think double, your mind

You attack fight

Pushing values back, telling you what’s

Wrong, right

No one speaks truth

But this song might

So you’re getting pushed in different directions

And they’re searching to expose your imperfections

Changing your thoughts and you perspectives

Big brothers in control

There ain’t no electives

He’s so inner party protected

Proles starve for love

Feelings so neglected

Steamy love affairs, kept on the low

Thinking of your lover’s touch and that’s when you know

You’re crime-stop thinking what you know

An act for love? Hardly

Strictly pleasure for the party

But you ain’t feeling it

Hearts cold, no one stealing it

Nowhere to go

Never late, never tardy

2 minute hate starting

voices loud, screaming like they’re coming from a mic

got your briefcase, all you know is black-white

nothing else

only thing good about the spell

benefit of the hypnosis

everyone staying quiet like they’re voiceless

helpless and choiceless

because once you stand up

it’s you on them

once you stand up

room 101.

Blackwhite is defined as follows: “ … this phrase has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known in Newspeak as doublethink.” — Orwell, 1984

Soma Nation | Reflections on the Canadian Election Fallout

The morning after. A Harper majority. The Canadians who possess the ability and embrace the right to critically analyze the information pumped out by corporate media and corrupt politicians are reeling. It’s like a horrific kick – straight into one’s gut. A Harper majority begs the question – do Canadians suffer from Stockholm syndrome?

A Drink to Our Annihilation

“The service had begun. The dedicated soma tablets were placed in the centre of the table. The loving cup of strawberry ice-cream soma was passed from hand to hand and, with the formula, ‘I drink to my annihilation,’ twelve times quaffed.” – Brave New World

Brave New World Revisited, Chemical Persuasion, Aldous Huxley:

“In the Brave New World the soma habit was not a private vice; it was a political institution, it was the very essence of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. But this most precious of the subjects’ inalienable privileges was at the same time one of the most powerful instruments of rule in the dictator’s armory. The systematic drugging of individuals for the benefit of the State (and incidentally, of course, for their own delight) was a main plank in the policy of the World Controllers. The daily soma ration was an insurance against personal maladjustment, social unrest and the spread of subversive ideas. Religion, Karl Marx declared, is the opium of the people. In the Brave New World this situation was reversed. Opium, or rather soma, was the people’s religion.”

Masochism: The act of deriving pleasure from being offended, dominated, or mistreated. The tendency to seek mistreatment.

Fellow Canadians – say goodbye to our fresh water as we reach deals to sell it off. Say goodbye to organic food regulations. Say goodbye to climate science. Say goodbye to science based policies. Say goodbye to a renewable energy revolution based on clean safe solutions. Say goodbye to any possibility of electoral reform. Say goodbye to democracy. Say goodbye to the last remnants of empathy, kindness, ethics and decency; the qualities which we once based our decisions upon, which now lie in tattered ruins. Say goodbye to your child’s future.

Fellow Canadians – say hello to further deteriorating Indigenous rights and further deteriorating women’s rights and the elimination of gay rights. It is clear and painfully obvious that rights belonging to future generations already count for nothing. Say hello to furthering hostile policies that punish immigrants. Say hello to public pensions which will be diminished if not destroyed. Say hello to the further dismantling and suppression of independent media, further corruption and an unprecedented inundation of propaganda. Lying is the new normal and denial is regarded as dope by the bourgeoisie. Say hello to the complete privatization of public services, de-regulation and more debt. Say hello to growing emissions, escalating pollution, further decimation of environment, irreversible climate change and the commodification of the planet’s last remaining natural resources. Say hello to more nuclear, more tar sands, more failed carbon capture storage, more fracking and other false solutions that poison us ever so silently. Say hello to further erosion of our education system, and further corporate takeover of education, health and public services. Say hello to a new European Free Trade agreement. Say hello to the expansion of genetically modified corporatized monoculture. Say hello to more temporary, part-time, minimum wage jobs. Say hello to more poverty as the corporations line their pockets with historic, unsurpassed profits while basking in further tax cuts. Say hello to ensuring there will be no further international aid. Say hello to billions more on war planes, militarism, prisons, furthering of a police state, further occupations and thousands more deaths of innocent civilians. Say hello to becoming hated – to being a pariah to the international community. Say hello to replacing the Bush regime with the Harper regime. Say hello to further deep integration with the US. Say hello to new official international recognition as a key participant in the military-industrial complex.

Fellow Canadians – we have blood on our hands.

Fellow Canadians – cling on to your denial. You will need it.

The future is grim to say the least.  Not too long from now, Canadians will be crying a river, wondering what the hell happened.

A toast to our annihilation, and please – pass the soma.

Cory Morningstar is climate justice activist whose recent writings can be found on Canadians for Action on Climate Change and The Art of Annihilation site where you can read her bio. You can follow her on Twitter: @elleprovocateur