finding light on a dark day

Naturally I'm upset.

I'm upset that the Governor General allowed her office to be used for political chicanery and self-interest. And my disgust for Stephen Harper can scarcely be put into words.

But we are where we are, and we have to work with that. And we have a lot going for us.

We have a Liberal-NDP coalition in place, with real potential to defeat the Conservatives in an election. Only weeks ago, a centre-left coalition was a dream. Now we have it.

We have the Liberal leadership contest sorted out through next May.

We have six weeks for the public to get used to the idea of a coalition, and decide whether they prefer a centre-left coalition to the Harper Government.

We no longer have the excuse that there will be a change of government without an election. The confidence motion that Harper took such unprecedented steps to avoid was democratic and constitutionally legitimate, but many people didn't understand that. Now that fear has been removed from the table.

Stephen Harper has further exposed his true nature. This can only help our cause.

There are many negatives, of course. I'm not going to list all the things that could go wrong between now and a no-confidence motion in late January. You can turn on your TV or radio and hear them being listed almost any time of day, and there are plenty of bloggers for whom negativity is stock-in-trade.

Losing hope will get us nowhere. When we lose hope, we lose the incentive to work for change. And if we don't work for change, we won't get it. For me, hope is a necessary condition of making change.

Often when I blog about the resisters, people say, "But what good will it do? No one is listening." I know one thing. Doing nothing will get us nowhere. There are hundreds of inspirational quotes that are very meaningful to me, but there's a reason that only two win pride of place on wmtc.

You may never know what results come of your action, but if you do nothing, there will be no result.
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
- Margaret Mead

Let's acknowledge the pitfalls, but only briefly, and keep working for what we want.

Here, I posted the latest email from Canadians for a Progressive Coalition. Also see Make Parliament Work.

And please, if you haven't already, take a moment to support US war resisters in Canada. They need you.