Remembering

Ever since it's release I watch the same movie every year on my birthday.   

As I watched it this year I had to reflect on it's meaning the same as I did last year .

V for Vendetta is a very powerful movie. A moving movie.

A movie that although it doesn't stay true to the original graphic novel it's based on still conveys the message of a land that was lied to by those who wanted power and to make a profit and scared into submission by a virus that was let loose on purpose.

It makes the watcher swell with the power that words can have and the power that the people can have when united in a cause.

When this movie came out it addressed ,was in response to ,the actions of a conservative government in America that had recently used a terrorist attack to scare its populous into submission in the form of the Patriot Act and another unjust war.

As I watched it on November 5th, 2021 I thought how its meaning ,the meaning I see in it, the meaning that makes me shiver and be overcome with anticipation and excitement as the strains of the 1812 Overture accompany a fantastic fireworks display, could be twisted to reflect the recent events and the feelings that were tearing this country apart .

A virus had torn through the entire planet the year before killing millions and creating a fear that the government had somehow caused it for political reasons. Being scarily similar to the movie, the conspiracy theories ran rampant and people eschewed common sense and safety practices because they felt the alleged yoke of the government on their necks.

Nobody was being forced into black bags but you would have sworn they were by listening to the outcry on social media platforms.

By the Nov 2020 presidential elections the country was severely divided along social, political and idealogical lines. There was talk of civil war.

The presiding president was  a man who openly admitted that he could do anything and get away with it. A power hungry, attention seeking nationalist who rallied his supporters and whipped them into a frenzy against any subject to which he was opposed. He told them that if he lost the election it would be by fraud and cheating on the other side and he would not accept the loss.

He lost and when the newly elected president was being confirmed a crowd of his supporters stormed the capital building with the intent of overturning the election results and doing harm to members of Congress.

Just as the virus story from V for Vendetta could be misconstrued to reflect the Covid pandemic the throngs of Trump supporters could very well have seen themselves as the mass of Guy Fawkes masked acolytes of the lead character on a mission to make their country right again.

This year as I rewatch, as I feel those same feelings that the movie invokes I have to wonder if those people don't realize that the one who stirred them on is more like Sutter and McCreedy than the man on a vendetta trying to make things right and make those who did wrong pay for their crimes against him and humanity, the man who was deemed a terrorist by a frightened government .

Do they realize that they are the terrorists? 

Why does the phrase " A people should not be afraid of their government, government should be afraid of the people" mean something different to them than it does to me?

Why can't they see that the one they follow so blindly has not their best interests in mind but his?

I'll be headed to the polls soon and make my vote counter theirs. It isn't a presidential election year but there is a struggle still ongoing between the liberals and the conservatives and as I vote I will remember, remember that there are those around me who could very well take up arms against me for my opinions...

Which brings me to another Remembrance.

At the end of this week there is a public holiday.

In essence it is a day to remember those who took up arms to defend their country.

I don't feel there has ever been a just war and that our government has been as guilty of indoctrinating the youth to feel that they are indeed, fighting wars that are born of power struggles, money matters and border disputes, the twisting of events for the good of the few, to protect our freedoms  and way of life as any of the countries deemed as "the bad guys".

From childhood we pledge allegiance in public schools and are made to feel proud to fight and die for our ideals. Ideals that are supposed to be born and protected in the halls of government.

Veterans Day came into existence as Armistice Day.

The day on which fighting was halted in the First World War.

Remembrance Day.

Remembering that there can be Peace if only fleeting.

Veterans and fighting and dying and country allegiances did not bring about that Armistice.

For one brief moment in history warring factions said "Enough!"

That's what I want to remember .

There can be Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward all.