Thread by @sunnshiiny

More evidence of the outright attack on the most vulnerable.

How many more vulnerable people need to die or suffer greatly before those with privilege stand up to this ideological and corrupt punishing government?

https://twitter.com/orlaghokelly1/status/1406970734509969408

We are reliving the lament of Martin Niemöller.

It’s obvious ‘speaking up’ is not enough.

As a society we are permitting UCP to attack the most vulnerable.

Voicing concern regarding how reprehensible it is does not provide us with absolution from permitting these policies and outcomes.

We are complicit.

Are the privileged going to wait until personally impacted before organizing a unified resistance to UCP policies meant to harm?

I think so.

Niemöller was correct. Germans were complicit in the Holocaust.

History will document that Albertans were complicit to UCP abuse.

The public is aware of numerous UCP policies & actions that have attacked the most vulnerable: Child labour reduced wages, senior’s healthcare, AISH recipients, addicts, LGBTQ youth, First Nations in MDWB, victims of covid, public servants, school age children’s curriculum.

Scrambling from one issue to another, from one vulnerable group to another, the effect of disjointed resistance measures is obvious.

UCP continues to bulldoze all dissent, using character assassination to smear official opposition & open contempt for public left wing criticism.

Repeating an action with the expectation that the outcome will be different is the definition of insanity. Or so goes the popular adage.

We are repeating history by refusing to acknowledge the UCPs removal of democratic norms while simultaneously imposing harmful policy.

Most people believe they are still living in a democracy.

We are not. Yet the belief persists.

Viewed behaviourally, this is classic extinction.

Like when you push the button of an elevator and it doesn’t come. The vast majority keep pushing the button.

UCP has eliminated democracy to meet their agenda (the elevator). Only those with privilege can get where they want to go (take the the stairs).

Those who are more vulnerable are left pushing buttons that make no impact whatsoever.

The elevator has been decommissioned.

If you’re standing with the disadvantaged pushing the elevator call button, how long before you figure out it’s broken and there are no plans to fix it?

Are you willing to wait for an election for almost 2 years for the slim chance to repair the broken elevator (democracy)?

Because it is broken. And being fully dismantled. The most vulnerable rely on democracy to protect their rights and freedoms. Most refuse to admit that our rights & freedoms are not being protected. They’re being eroded, regardless of advocacy efforts using democratic norms.

The public’s commitment to patiently keep using democratic means that do not produce results and the decision to wait to restore democracy until an election is won is a death sentence for some and sentence to suffer profound indignities for others.

We are allowing it to happen.

If you continue to support inaction as the only available democratic approach, when the freedom of association and the freedom to peaceful protest are hard won democratic approaches that remain available, you’re complicit in the abuse UCP continues to legally carry out by policy.

You’re protecting your privilege. You haven’t quite abandoned the vulnerable who rely on the elevator to exercise their political agency or to just exist.

But you have the option to leave. And when it becomes intolerable to witness the suffering, you will opt for the stairs.

We must make efforts to escape our human nature.

Few of us respond to threats effectively. Fight or flight takes over. Instinct.

We fight ineffectively when we use common democratic principles to address autocratic behaviour and strategies.

Or we run in fear.

Evolutionarily the strategy makes sense. The weak & vulnerable are sacrificed to predators for the benefit & endurance of the herd.

But humans are supposed to be evolved. Our capacity for compassion & empathy enabled our species to protect the most vulnerable for generations.

We use mores, norms and legal code to restrict the debased who would seek to dominate and take humanity back to sacrificing the vulnerable for our collective survival.

But this behaviour also occurs in nature.

Leaders are left to fight it out who gets control of the herd.

EXCEPT in primates, the whole social group makes the choice. If an attempt is made to destabilize the group by an illegitimate leader, the problem is removed from the social group. Through banishment or death.

Peaceful protest to remove illegitimate leaders is our legitimate democratic fail safe. Understanding how democracy works is essential to protecting us from those who put society at risk and intentionally attack and sacrifice the vulnerable through unequal resource allocation.

Because right now, Albertans with privilege, power and agency are pushing buttons to elevators that stopped working in April 2019. Continuing to watch the vulnerable fall to predation, policy and cunning demagogic rhetoric.

People are dying in front of us.

People are suffering greatly. Pushed into poverty. Forced to choose between shelter food and medication. Being subjected to indoctrination and toxic rhetoric. Exposed to covid denial. Picked off one by one because they dissent.

Those being sacrificed know what’s happening.

They look to the more privileged to assist them to escape abuse. We respond with disapproval, thoughts and prayers.

The vulnerable know they are being sacrificed.

How long before the privileged realize democratic practices are broken & more drastic measures are required?

How many times do you push an elevator call button before you realize the damn thing is broken and you have to take the stairs?

Do you not realize the longer we wait the thinner the herd becomes?

There are fewer and fewer left to dissent.

We give tacit permission for UCP to assume total power consolidation.

The UCP will eventually attack the privileged left. But there won’t be anyone remaining to protect your privilege. The suffering you witness now will be your fate.

Niemöller wrote more than his famous poem lamenting his complicity in Nazism.

He survived the war and lived with his guilt and shame for the remainder of his life.

Stop repeating history. Learn from it instead.

Stop looking away as the vulnerable continue to be attacked.