Weak with dependency on ‘benefactors’
Have we lost protective instinct to build healthy society within healthy landscape and defend it
A message to those Islanders who unabashedly, but not uncritically, love this Island and the society that has evolved here.
Investors, speculators and schemers from many places have Island land in their cross-hairs. And I understand that.
There are literally millions of individuals world-wide who would like to have a piece (a large piece) of this island. And who can blame them? This is an amazing place, being both beautiful and bountiful.
We are ripe for the picking, and if there is no effective, regulatory legislation in place (and enforced) the Island landscape will be utterly and chaotically transformed over the next generation in a manner that will have nothing to do with good planning or respect for this place.
Yes, it is just that dire, and we are the only ones who can prevent it. Someone needs to be in charge of the process and that someone is us. We need to step up.
Or have we lost the protective instinct; the instinct to build a healthy society within a healthy landscape and to defend it against those who respect neither.
Unfortunately, it appears to this Islander that the Island ‘self’ has grown weak and insecure, and unable to stand strong against the schemers who are coming.
The degree of complacency and compliance among Islanders generally is shocking. It must be concluded that many Island residents have become so narrowly self-absorbed and self-interested that they don’t even recognize an invasion when it is taking place all around them.
I realize these are hard words, and will be resented by many, but it is too late to be worrying about that. There is too much at stake.
Yes, invasion! There are no guns firing, but the dollars are flying like bullets and our landscape is being taken over as surely as if there was an army of occupation on the move.
I like to think I live in a spirited place where individuals are scrappy and strong-hearted, and not willing to be walked on. But I’m having to rethink that.
There is a passivity, and tolerance of abuse, in this province that is disturbing, and I tend to think it is the result of having been a culture of dependency for so long. And it’s just what the Irvings, GEBIS (both of whom pose as benefactors) and others are banking on. They have found us to be grateful and compliant. And they smile.
They offer perks as they go about their business of taking over and we say, “Thank you! Thank you so much. Welcome to our mighty Island.” It’s a sick joke.
How can we be a mighty Island when we are on our knees with our hands outstretched? We are sick with dependency and if we do not wake up it is a sickness that will destroy us.
What is needed at this time is for determined and self-respecting Islanders to say, “Enough!” And to do whatever it takes to stop the invasion.
Let us welcome those individuals who wish to come and live among us, and build with us a congenial society. And let us resist with all our might, and drive away, those invaders who do not respect what is here and wish to supplant it.