It’s not every day in my little universe here in Vernon that I get to talk to a world traveller about politics. But that’s just what happened the other day when I interviewed Canadian guitarist Jesse Cook.
Now I’ve been to a few places on this planet; some exotic like Australia, and some during political strife – South Africa before Apartheid was a head scratching eye-opener. And then there was Northern Ireland in the early ’90s, which was still a hotbed for unrest.
But Jesse has been ALL over the place, and has been touring the world for the past 20 or so years since his first record came out.
It helps that he is a pretty amazing musician and has fans pretty much on every corner of the planet, but he also has a thoughtful, intelligent outlook on life, so when he says he doesn’t recognize the world we live in right now, you have to sit up and listen.
With Tuesday’s U.S. election about to seal all of our fates, we should all be concerned about the current state of the world. Cook is right when he says we have slipped back 50-60 years to the Civil Rights movement when Martin Luther King Jr. tried to impress that all people are created equal.
After the bloodshed, it seemed that most of us never expected to see that kind of inequality ever happen again.
Boy, were we wrong.
It seems a certain candidate for the presidency wants to send us back there. His fight is not just with “illegal” immigrants in his own populace, but with countries whose ideals and religions are different than his own.
We’ve had a leader like that before and it did nothing but cause pain and suffering around the world.
We’ve also had walls built before. They now lie in a pile of rubble, their pieces sold in souvenir shops all over Europe.
Cook tried to express his thoughts in a Facebook post on the last day Americans needed to be registered to vote. In it, he wrote, “America is the most powerful, and influential country on the planet, and the responsibility of choosing a suitable leader is not to be taken lightly.
“It is not for me to tell you who to vote for, but I have no doubt that if the majority of Americans (and especially those with excellent taste in music!) get out and vote, the right choice will be made. I have faith in you, our neighbors to the south.”
To that, someone told him to butt out of American politics, but from the rest, he was applauded for his concern.
It is a concern we must all share. All beings on the planet will be affected by Tuesday’s decision.
We cannot stay mum or sit idly by while a few can choose a different course that could set the Earth on a tailspin to destruction.
If no one did anything more than 70 years ago, xenophobia and hatred would never have been challenged.
Yes, I agree with Cook. The world is unrecognizable right now. But that doesn’t mean we can’t change it. To my American neighbours (and that includes my family), that change starts with you.
I know you will make the right decision.