Let's Talk. Why are so many Canadians depressed?

"Let's Talk" about mental health.

It's about time after months of being bombarded by the media about depression and suicide.

If anything maybe we can get a break from those commercials after today. There's a bright spot. Those depression commercials are depressing. Holy Shit, I feel sad, every single time I watch that one with the lady that is all dressed up for work and she calls in sick.

That dude that is at home and his buddy can see him ignoring the phone through the picture window. Who is the sadder guy in that commercial. I think it's the guy who is outside and he doesn't have the balls to bang on the door and give his buddy a "What the Fuck, Man? I can SEE you!"

No, I am not going to make light of depression and act like people just need a good kick in the ass. Although some people need a good kick in the ass. I know depression. I know what it's like to obsess over ending it all. Day after day after day after day. I have lost friends and family to that lonely heartbreaking battle.

I remember the first great sadness in my life, black as Kubrick's monolith in my memory.  It was that period that followed the collapse of our newspaper, Nativebeat and lead to almost complete nervous breakdown. The heaviest of depression lasted about three years and has returned in smaller more manageable but no less black chunks in the years since.

I had a second great run of depression that coincided with a thirsty obsession during a soul sucking period of life in Our Nations Capital. I drank a million tears that were not mine. I drank a million tears and wondered why I couldn't stop crying. I dug deep for darkness and then cursed God for making me blind.

I survived the heaviest unknowable depression in silence and with support from powers also unknown.

My second bout of depression was handled by sobering up. I went to AA for a while and that helped. I don't go there these days since I still drink. I know, by sobering up, I mean, not drinking booze like people drink coffee.

I will drink now and then but rarely to get sad. But I can't say I will never again because sometimes you need to cry like a great big baby but most times you just end up acting like one.

I am a strong supporter of marijuana although I do not know what the practical applications are regarding mental health. I do know that it will put a smile on your face. I also know that Chronics are cranky.

I do not support the overwhelming acceptance of pharmaceuticals as the quintessential treatment for depression.

I hate to get all Ron L. Hubbard on people but blindly taking whatever pill is being pushed is foolish at best, when the pill is for your mind it can be dangerous.

If it works, it works. Do whatever needs to be doing. Take as much as you need it's your say but just remember to take a look at who is getting paid.

The Mental Health industry is booming and people driven campaigns like "Let's Talk" can be exploited to get more people hooked on more drugs and become lifetime consumers. That is the sad truth.

It is the sad truths that are connected to the larger miasma of depression and mental illness that has settled over Canada.

***

I have said it before and I will say it again. If you aren't depressed you aren't paying attention.

There is a reason why and it's time for people to stand up

Throw open their windows and scream out,

"I am sad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."

It is time to speak up but not just acknowledge the pain but seek for the truth.

There is so much that is not right. So much that makes no sense. So much that we cannot speak about. The ghosts in the many rooms of the house we now live.The Overlook Hotel had nothing like this. This feeling that we are being driven blindly towards the cliff. At best buffalo and at worst lemming.

It is an assault on the minds of young people to teach them one thing while the awful truth lay bare before them. Revelation of the ongoing genocide that is the foundation of Canada and is reflected daily in actions of resource companies and official government policy is a stab to both the heart and mind.

They tear the truth from your heart and treat you like a fool
This is the journey to enlightenment for open minded Canadian youth

*

I have found sanity and joy in ceremony and in life.
I greet the sun with smile and can hug a tree until I cry.
I am blessed I know and still at times the darkness comes
and doesn't let me go until he is done.

*

Too much drinking and drugging
and hating and sulking have taken away
all you can give

Whatever it takes to get a smile on your face
If a prayer or a toke or a cry or a joke

There is only one thing I can say
The sun is shining today
And that's more
than a reason
to live

****

Harper sings Hey Jude to join Bieber and Ford in destroying Canada's image around the world

A puffy, pasty and horribly, horribly out of tune Prime Minister Stephen Harper singing "Hey Jude" while Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visibly squirmed in the audience was the cherry on the cake of a week in which Rob Ford and Justin Bieber returned to the international spotlight to continue their own on-going destruction of Canada's image.

The Beatles song is connected to an incident in 1968 in which Paul McCartney painted "Hey Jude" on the window of the Apple Boutique. McCartney's actions created outrage in the local Jewish community with the window being smashed and some threatening violence on the Beatle. "Juden" is German for Jew and "Juden Raus" was painted on windows of Jewish businesses during the Holocaust. McCartney said he did not know of the association at the time and apologized as he did not mean any offense.

Why would Harper chose to sing this song at that time to that audience? It does not make any sense. Who is advising him? I know he sang the song before a large Jewish audience in Canada, but this is Israel. They treated Harper as statesmen of the highest order by inviting him to speak at the Knesset, a first for a Canadian Prime Minister. It won't be that speech that will be remembered, it will be this ignorant song choice.

Seriously? Is this the only song he can sing? You get the feeling of the precious little boy to whom no one can say "No".

If he knew that this was a song that could conjure up any anti-Semitic connotations why would he sing it. Was he drunk? That's what we would ask if he was just Stevie the mid level wonk.

So now he has returned home after his vacation. (No time to visit the troops.) He is surrounded with the obsequious as we do with all men of power.

The economy is in free fall and his government is mired in corruption traced like a thick film of rancid slime right back to him. Don't hold your breath thinking that things are going to change. The spoiled brat who was behaving in all the right ways to get what he wants has been telling the country to "suck it" ever since he got his majority election. Having acted out on the international stage will only make it worse at home.

Phil Fontaine gets greeting worthy of the Native Face of The Keystone Pipeline

I do not know the name of the President and CEO or the Founder or the Spokesperson or anyone who would represent the face of TransCanada.

I do know that TransCanada is the name of the company that is building the Keystone pipeline. I know the Keystone pipeline has become the literal line in the earth. The line that cannot be crossed. Not only for Native People but for non-Native people as well. That part is obvious.

What isn't so obvious is what former National Chief Phil Fontaine was thinking when he took on the role of "Native Face of the Keystone Pipeline". In the midst of a resurgent Native rights movement that has networked internationally through the Idle No More campaign, he should not have been surprised with the response he received in Winnipeg.

On January 23, Fontaine was making his first public appearance back home and his first major speech since becoming the Native Face of the Keystone Pipeline. Guess what happened? He was met with protest.

Yes, the images of the former National Chief being shouted down before having a chance to speak at the University of Winnipeg are embarrassing. It's Native people yelling at Native people and the whole thing looks like the climax of Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe. With the accusations creating feelings of awkwardness and shame but no real damage. "You're as traditional as a tootsie roll," someone screamed out. Yeah, pretty embarrassing.

Nevertheless, I have to commend the people that stood up and took a public stance even though it would be seen as acting against one of their own. They were there because they had been compelled. This is the line in the earth.

We know Fontaine was there because he was getting paid. Winnipeg may be his home turf but the city also has the largest population of Native people in Canada and has hosted many Idle No More actions.

What happened seems predictable in hindsight and when results occur that are not surprising we usually consider the action planned.

Phil should have known. If he didn't know, that's a blemish on his character or his intelligence. People in TransCanada knew, that's why they got Fontaine on the payroll.

Before Fontaine became the Native Face of The Keystone Pipeline he was the most reasonable Native Leader of Our Time. Why deal with pesky or uppity when you can deal with reasonable? The image of the calm softspoken white haired Fontaine being challenged by a group of people with drums and facepaint dovetails into the classic Canadian stereotypes.

One one side the noble Indian and on the other side the pesky savage. It's the grand trope of western society. They never get tired of that one. In the battle for hearts and minds of the mainstream Canadian public; there is no doubt whom the majority will support.

If the line in the earth can be defined by the reasonable Fontaine on one side and the thuggish modern day savage on the other side that perception can only benefit TransCanada.

Why do I get the feeling that somewhere in TransCanada's communications' bunker people are smiling, laughing and high-fiving each other.

I like Phil. He seems to be a good man, but he's on the other side of line in this one and my gut is telling me that he is not just getting paid, he's getting played.

2013 - the Year in Review

2013 is gone. Poof. Just like that. After all the big empty noise of 2012 what else could be expected. Poor old 2013, the millennium became a teenager and no one cared. It is the saddest birthday since John Hughes' Sixteen Candles. 2012 had long since sucked all the life out of the room. Since whenever. It was supposed to be the end of everything. And it wasn't.

13 came and went and there is little to mention beyond more of the same. Here are some of the more notable headlines.

            Patrick Brazeau breaks color barrier.

It has been difficult all these years watching the pigs at the trough fill themselves beyond capacity on the backs of Native Peoples and the Canadian Peoples. It seemed as though there was mass blindness among the populace to the open theft of the nation's coffers by those claiming public service. Yes, there are numerous and nauseating examples of Native people taking advantage on money intended for the under privileged. This year Patrick Brazeau broke through at the highest level and to a historically maximum capacity a with such an undeniable sense of entitlement. It was more than Canadian, it was practically Albertan.

It was a Jackie Robinson moment in the Bizzaro World that is Canadian politics. A Native man feasting without shame on the taxpayer trough who is judged in a trinity of swine that includes both a male and female from the fifth estate. Those held in the highest regard in the media elite, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Duffy. It was amusing in some sad way watching the media elite turn on their own.


                  Toronto Mayor Rob Ford Swallows Elsipogtog

As the year progressed, it seemed that the Idle No More movement was going to become nothing more than an armchair, click here do nothing fad. A Konyesque internet blip but only smaller and less ironic in it's failure. And then Elsipogtog happened and we had a real moment for the movement. A centre unto which to coalesce. It was starting to build and the issue brought in voices from all over, it was not just our issue.

The attack by the police on the blockade at Elsipogtog First Nation and resistance by primarily members of the Elsipogtog had created a situation reminiscent of the Oka Crisis at Kanehsatake
over 20 years ago. It had paralyzed the country and mesmerized the world for months and showed the true face behind the smiling Canadian veneer.

It seemed as though everything had lined up as it had during the Oka Crisis but this time there were non-Native people on the front lines and involvement internationally at a historic level. This would be the story that would define Canada in 2013.

Then this unbelievable Chris Farley like apparition emerged like a modern day digital Hindenburg to rise up and burst into an eternal flame and expansion over the entire Canadian landscape. Mayor Rob Ford swallowed up all the media and public attention in this country like a black hole feasting on stars like a morbidly obese kid from the 1970's eating a bowl of Alphabets.

It was such a cartoon like farce that one could picture a Simpsons type scene with a cabal of fat privileged white men gathered together. "We don't need this shit. We can't have soccer moms and Native People supporting the same issues. We can have the old ladies at Timmies listening guys wearing camouflage. Someone is going to have to take fall."

I know it's just paranoia.

News would come early in 2014 that Canada had prepared a national defense action plan in preparation for Native people rising up in response to Elsipogtog.


                                       The Canadian Holocaust

In the years since the Oka Crisis, the world has largely ignored the ongoing Canadian Holocaust with the ultimate goal of taking the Indian out of the Indian no matter what the United Nations said. The heart breaking news that Canada's academia had conducted starvation experiments of Native children in residential school created no public outcry. No one is demanding justice for this unspeakable horror. Satisfied silence descends.

I asked who is Canada's Mengele? Hoping that I could offend to acknowledgement but the response makes me wonder if it was less bluff than underplay.


               Idle No More - A leadership crisis for a leaderless movement

It has been just over a year and there is little doubt that the highs of 2012 that marked the Idle No More Movement have begun to fade away. Oh, the blush of new romance. The thrill is gone. Once you have it you never want it again. And on and on and on.

I have no idea what happened. I'm not an insider. What I can say in my small assessment of things is that the movement hit a roadblock and it does not know how to move forward. No organic direction emerged. There was I believe a misinterpretation of the value of social media. Clicking like is not a revolution.

What I have seen in my experience and the most painful lessons I have learned was that the people whom you place the highest value may least deserve it. Those that seek power are often those who should not have it. I do not know if this is the case but I do know that there are leaders or spokespeople who are out representing and getting paid. If that's the case it's best to name that person and have them take the responsibility and the blame that go along with the perks. I learned back in the day was that the system will get you in two ways. First they give you nothing and then you give you everything.

The acknowledgement of division becomes division. The denial of division becomes division. The connection is real or it is not. I can hate my brother but he is still my brother. I can deny my father but he is still my father. I can hate my sister but she is still my sister. I can deny my mother but she is still my mother. And on and on and on.

There has to be leadership. Someone must be accountable. The collective must know who their voice is given.

It's the challenge that is placed upon every movement at some point, the internet made it happen faster.


                      Raise your fist as Billy Jack rides into the Sunset

It's 1972, I am around eight years old and my father has rented both a projector and a film from I have no idea where. He pins a bed sheet onto the living room wall in and he plays the movie Billy Jack for our family and a handful of friends and family. It was the most powerful movie I had ever seen. The Native People are right and these racists are wrong and the HalfBreed Hero kicks ass with bare feet. After the film played to a packed house at the community centre the days in the school yard would be trying to repeat the immortal words and arguing over whether it was going to be a left foot kicking the right ear or the right foot kicking the left ear.

Tom Laughlin passed with little fanfare this year. Despite a creating both independent film and the blockbuster at the same time. He went outside the Hollywood system and made a film that told a truth no one wanted to hear and made more money than anyone thought possible.


                       Elijah Harper makes the final journey

Elijah Harper, one of the most important figures in modern day Canadian history, passed away on May 17, 2013. It was Harper who killed the Meech Lake Accord. All the machinations and heavy breathing by the Canadian elite to deny reality of the day were unable to change the facts upon the end of day. This one is done and done. There is no need to debate the fact. History is history. Elijah Harper stood up to the Canadian elite and denied their wishes. It was a beautiful thing. One of the great days.


                           20-14

There was this idea that the end was near, but now it feels unknown.
There are lessons in all of these things, change is beyond our control.