I’M PLANTING SOME FLOWERS

There is a meme that surfaces on Facebook occasionally that I feel is particularly, poignantly perfect for the times we find ourselves in this spring.

There are multiple versions of this meme but they all have two people talking.  One asks “Aren’t you worried about what the future will bring?” and the other replies “I think it will bring flowers.” to which the first person responds “Oh really, why is that?”

 “Because I am planting flowers.”

In his farewell address in 1989 President Ronald Regan spoke of the United States of America as “A tall, proud, shining city built on rocks, stronger than oceans, windswept, God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity.” His words being inspired from a bible verse Matthew 5:14.

These are lofty words but they came at a time in history where the men and women whose leadership got us through WW11 and who realized that peace isn’t just the absence of war but rather ‘the presence of justice, of law, of order – in short, of government’ and had put into place NATO and The United Nations to ensure the safety and freedom that we in the western world have taken for granted for 80 years.  It hasn’t always been perfect but it beat the heck out of what is happening now.  We watch in horror as all of Regan’s high ideals crumple like a house of cards at the hands of a man who wants to make it into the history books.  No doubt he will – if anyone is left to print or read them.

But, enough about that.  Sorry about being so dark.  Let me get back to planting flowers.

We are days away (again) from Trump’s threats of tariffs.  Will his fear of crashing the stock market make him back off again?  Who knows?  Is it really the tariffs he wants, or the turmoil and uncertainty that he likes most?  Regardless, we have to prepare for … well, we don’t really know, do we?  How will this affect our lives?  How deep with the economic pain go?  We will hurt, but the experts say so will the Americans.  How this affects regular people, no matter which side of the border they are on concerns him not at all.

At his first threat we Canadians felt powerless, but then someone came up with some ‘flower seeds’ to plant.  His tariffs are all about money, it’s the only thing he is interested in … so let us speak in the only language he understands – dollars.

His threat of tariffs and the insult of making us his 51^st state has galvanized Canadians into the most thorough anti-American shoppers ever to wield a shopping cart.  It’s so ironic that in past Free Trade negotiations it was the USA who insisted on country-of-origin labeling; now the very thing that is making identifying what we don’t want to buy so much easier.  Not that it’s all straight forward, ‘Made in Canada’ is not the same thing as ‘product of Canada’ but there are websites and Facebook pages set up to help you understand what you are buying and advice on where to find what you need.  Don’t think for a moment that you can’t make a difference, those big companies watch their market share and down is not a direction they want to see.  Canadians are known for our ‘nice-ness’ but read the history books – we are not to be messed with.

The world order tipped yesterday, spilling out the security we have enjoyed for so long and allowed evil and greed for power to seep in.  All is not lost, there are still good people in the right places to make a difference, but as we head into this year there is lots to worry about.

Personally, I’m going to plant flowers.  It won’t change the big picture, but at least there will be flowers.