Time to get together and protest irresponsible government

When I first saw the movie V for Vendetta several years ago, I was so inspired that I saw it again... and again. Based on a graphic novel, it's a futuristic tale set in a London, England where government resembles a Nazi rogue's gallery... and masked hero V (portrayed by Hugo Weaving, just post his Lord of the Rings role as Elf King Elrond), a formerly incarcerated medical guinea pig, makes it his task to bring that government down with the help of a character played by Nathalie Portman. The poster's slug line is People Should Not Be Afraid of Its Government, Government Should Be Afraid of Its People, and as I watched, I found myself getting angrier and angrier. As the British citizens were inspired by V to rise up in full-scale PEACEFUL revolt, I felt the urge to do the same.

Once upon a time, despite the rogues in government who were dishonest and self-serving, I think government respected its people a lot more. If they did take advantage of them, they weren't as blatant about their actions.

I don't know if it's just me, but nowadays it seems our governments don't really give a damn what we think once they are elected. Like the British government in V for Vendetta, they act any way they desire, pass laws that are totally self-serving and rather than come up with bold, creative initiatives to battle rising deficits, all they do is raise taxes, to the point where we have less for ourselves and our families to show for all our hard work.

Here in Quebec, it's a losing battle every election. Regardless of which party is in power, we keep paying the highest taxes in Canada without a peep. The Liberals aren't any better than their predecessors the Parti Quebecois in that area, but what choice do we have? Voting for the PQ is giving them a mandate to follow a separatist agenda and there are NO better alternatives. The Quebec Solidaire party, which is more leftist than the PQ, would strive to rip us out of Canada in an even more extreme fashion. We HAD a potentially good leader in Mario Dumont, late of the ADQ party he founded and ultimately didn't know what to do with. And there is no up-and-coming leader in the wings worth mentioning, unless someone inspirational like the NDP's Thomas Mulcair gets agressive someday and founds a new party in his home province.

At the municipal level, it's a total disaster. Montreal's mayor, Gerald Tremblay, was just re-elected for a third time, despite one of the most horrendous records in the history of that office. Why? Because his opposition was weak and, in one instance, a virtually unilingual separtist and former PQ minister. Meanwhile, Tremblay only does one thing well, two if you count cutting ribbons at opening ceremonies: inflicting new taxes on us. He is destroying downtown businesses by raising parking meter fares to impossible levels, and is about to force indoor and outdoor lots to pay taxes they will have to pass on to the consumer. And, admittedly, we in Montreal pay more for gas than people in the regions around us, due to higher taxes on the stuff. You would think that our government would try to help us during a tough economic downturn, but we have already proven that we will take all the tax hikes they dish out, so why would they? We grumble, we complain, but in the end, we do nothing. We are angry, but impotent.

I am just curious how much more punishment we will take at the hands of our elected officials before we crack. There ARE methods of combating government abuse, you know. There is civil disobedience and, certainly, there are other options available to us if we all got together and acted within the boundaries of the law.

I remember visiting Jamaica in the early 1980s during one of their periods of extreme gas price hikes and everywhere my tour bus took us, there were burning tires blocking the way. As our visit to Ocho Rios was delayed and we were inconvenienced, I remember thinking that the Jamaicans responsible were uncivilized, that this would never happen in Canada. But these were a people fighting for their livelihood and, in reality, what is wrong with that? Is there a difference between burning tires and blocking roads with large trucks during protests, which our trucker's union is wont to do... other than damage to the local ecology? Do we have any less of a right to insist that our govenments heed the fact we are suffering and use their offices to develop plans that do NOT involve taxing us to death?

In my Briefly Bram column in Montreal's West End weekly, The Monitor, about two years ago, I tackled the subject of the large gas companies and their penchant to raise gas prices, fiddling with them every few days and raising them high, even when the world's per-barrel prices were declining. I told readers which companies were not engaged in this obvious price fixing and suggested we patronize one business in our area and hurt the others by sticking to our guns and not shopping there. I was not the only one advocating this notion, but was merely passing it on using my local column to point the way. And like sheep, most people kept going to their neighborhood favourites, despite the fact the competitor three blocks away was charging a few cents less per liter.

If you are going to shut up and put up, then you have no right to complain. If your government abuses you financially and you do nothing, you merely empower them to act more outrageously the next time. V for Vendetta may just be a movie, but it's got a powerful message. I suggest you rent it on DVD sometime. Maybe your subsequent anger will spur you on some action. As long as we live in a free society, we have options. Not exercising them... well, like any appendage, don't use it and you lose it. Keep that in mind as you drown in complacency.