Letter to the Leaders of the Political Parties

I feel somewhat like Tom Paine must have felt when he wrote his history-changing pamphlet "Common Sense"(1776) which. together with his" Rights of Man" (1796), effectively radicalized the Colonists of the British colonies in North America south of the border to such an extent that they wrote a new constitution.

The situation in Canada today is somewhat analogous to those historic times, and, by coincidence of fate, so too am I one of those disaffected Englishman who 'went West' to escape the tyranny of the Monarchy. Perhaps this accounts for this feeling I have for Tom Paine and so I would like to address you somewhat as I think he might. Thomas Paine had seen the underbelly of the brute force which sustains the aristocracy of birthrights. Today of course the iron fist is cloaked in not merely leather, but velvet. The institutions of this dying, unconstitutional but mythic mightiness continues to oppress the peoples of these tattered remnants of the British empire at the end of the twentieth century. When the totemic "Great Mother", a rather little person, passed away at the beginning of this century, the practical fact of 'black gold' had already overshadowed the glory of the glitter of state uniforms, coaches and the like.

The New World Order of the Fossil Fuel Barons grabbed the reins of power. In 1933 the British Foreign Office, using the Statute of Westminster, simply washed its hands of the responsibilities that it had grabbed so long ago from the Indigenous Tribes in the early colonization to the South, and that they had held onto in the Dominion of Canada.

The 'old boys' who took up the reins of power were not, by and large, a very honest lot, and certainly they came from long family lines of advantage-takers. No blame... that's the nature of things. Tom Paine would say that this is only half of the equation; the other half is the clean page of tomorrow.

Which brings us to the issue so close to Payne's heart - the Constitution. Perhaps a definition at this point would assist our understanding. For instance: government is good management of collective affairs. Is that reasonable? Now the word Constitution may be reasonably described as a document which creates an institution for the good management of collective affairs (as above) and which defines the relationship and responsibilities of that institution and the people whom that institution effects.

In practical fact there is in Canada no single Constitution after and in the manner of that document envisaged by Tom Payne and his Common Sense, and as loosely defined above. There is the Constitution Consolidation Act , The Bill of Rights, and the British North America Act (BNA) etc.. It has transpired that the people of Canada, ever since the death of the Queen mother, have been more or less oppressed and disadvantaged by a clique who, having once seized all power, never again relinquished it to the people. Now this idiocracy of the elite has allowed a post-Colonial people to be colonized by the New Empire/World Policeman south of its border. The demands on the wealth of the lands north of the 49th Parallel and on it's people to support the empire on its wild ride to attempting world domination has been the primary source of the oppression.

Just as the American colonies of 1774 were waking up to the fact that they did not need to service the expansionist trade with Great Britain nor to support her armies or pay her taxes the Canadian People of today have awakened to their relationship with the United States and the situation is well described by Tom Paine in the following way: "A long habit of thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being wrong and raises at first a formidable outcry in defence of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason."

So now, like Tom Paine the radical politician, I ask you, the Party Leaders, to seriously consider a practicable alternative to the way in which the people of Canada must now engage the serious responsibility of regaining and maintaining our sovereignty as a people, since I consider that none of you have offered any vision for the future of Canada.

A multi-cultural society, as Canada has clearly become, demands a new sense of equality. This matter of ethnic, cultural and spiritual identity is, besides that of access to land, the matter about which the greatest social tensions arise. Some of the history of Canada - in particular the incompetent or duplicitous treaty-making with the First Nations and the insensitive, cruel and unjust treatment of Native children in the Church-run Residential Schools and orphanages - is recognized today as disgraceful, and I am confident that the people of Canada will allow no repeat of such things.

A new sense of equality, arising at this time in the diverse peoples of Canada, can be found in the random, jury-like selection of the NONE OF THE ABOVE option.

The rise of competitive corporate capitalism around the world requires that the Canadian people on their own land have access to strong and intelligent good management. A system which parades parties of professional adversarial politicians as the avenue for public participation in Democracy is really nothing much more than a ruse by a privileged autocracy - we might call it an "idiotocracy" - encouraging foreign wars, dressed up with the mantle of "policing" or "peace-keeping actions", in support of our New Colonial masters to the South.

What is the solution ladies and gentlemen?

I believe, like Tom Paine, that the power of the democracy, or republic, if you will, must be with the common people. Direct democracy and the practical option for representative fair play, offered with None Of The Above (N.O.T.A.) Voting. Random selection of a man and a woman from among those voting in a None of The Above box on the ballot would take place if a majority made that choice. There is in this a new and fundamental equality. No more shabby dealings, no more partisan or ethnic advantages.

One Planet, One People, One Purpose - Peace.

I am convinced after 40 years of constant and concerned observation of the Canadian neo-Colonial economic occupation by the military/industrial complex that American President Dwight Eisenhower warned against that there has never been a more urgent and better time for the Canadian people to register their unity as a sovereign people, and to evolve the structures of planetary good management of collective affairs.

The door to escape from the oppressed condition of a subject people is open and I seek your support to encourage the None Of The Above option in both the provincial and federal elections.

Thank you.

Yours in the love of Truth and Knowledge
John Allen West
caretaker42@hotmail.com

17/11/2000