Dispatches from ground zero of the woke reich

I’ve been back in my hometown of Vancouver, Canada, for a few days now. The big wall-to-wall news story has been about a moron who was speeding around on a jet ski in the harbor off the downtown coast where pods of whales have been swimming around – and ended up using a grey whale as a jump ramp. The whale seems no worse for wear, while the jackass crashed out. I can’t remember the last time that I’ve heard such mass outrage.

This is Vancouver, after all. Home of “save the whales.” Greenpeace was literally founded here in 1971. People here have parked themselves in trees for days on end to save them from being chopped down for development. How could some jackass end up possibly slamming into a whale when anyone with working eyes can see that orcas are everywhere right now, putting on aquarium-like shows in their natural habitat. The answer is simple, really. The whims of a select few have been accommodated for far too long. That is, until something disastrous happens and jolts some people out of their slumber to notice that the institutions have failed to uphold even the most basic common sense. The incident is a metaphor for the whole place these days.

I remember when I was growing up here in the 1980s and wokeism used to mean fighting the good fight for the rights of the oppressed. Labor unions pushing back against creeping demands by the state and its corporatist cronies to give more for increasingly less. Defending animals and nature incapable of advocating for themselves. Equality of opportunity for all was the name of the game. And helping those who fell through the social safety net to get back on their feet.

But then, like the whale jumper, some folks took things too far in their own self-interest. Cottage industries of lobbyists and NGOs popped up to cash in on pushing grievances not towards any constructive resolution benefiting society, but instead to permanent profit for themselves.

And now, like the whale show spectators, average people are finally showing signs of being horrified by the results.