men in trucks with guns

Katherine's Blog

Previously… We met Major, Katherine’s friend and Canadian army veteran - she offers a level-headed and sobering perspective on the issue of societal unrest. At the first Town Hall meeting, after the Mayor describes the new enforced ‘normal’, Katherine sees the beginning of a male-led campaign to begin carrying guns, threatening the norm of collective security.

blog - men in trucks with guns

I guess I was naive to think that if dozens of governmental agencies, countless experts and scholars in just about every field, and every major corporation or organization that held on after the stock market began to plummet all said the same thing, that it would be impossible to argue.

I've learned nothing is impossible to argue.

For every essay released, there is an outraged 'debunking' that inevitably devolves into personal attacks against the author – and that's if the author is read at all once his or her voting record or political ideology or parenting style or Amazon wish list is revealed. Every act, every thought is considered evidence of complicity with what used to be called the consensus and now is mockingly dismissed as 'mainstream'. Anything generally agreed upon is subject to bad faith scrutiny, but the goal is never clarity, it's ambiguity.

If everything is a matter of perspective, nothing is truly real.

That's how I felt at the Town Hall meeting here last night.

Our Mayor, Magdala McEachren, who I felt honoured to vote for only three years ago, spoke for all of four minutes. Paraphrasing: Just because all future generations are doomed to live in a calamitous hellscape doesn't mean we can stop paying our property taxes. Minor crimes like domestic violence will be left to the community to mediate. Major crimes like shoplifting and protesting on Town property are treated as priority. We have made an agreement with the Toronto city council, the details of which are not to be shared, wherein the supply chain shall not be disrupted – what Toronto gets from this deal is left to wild speculation. Hunting and fishing licences are no longer necessary. Businesses that stay open will be rewarded. A rations system is not out of the question. There will be no election next year.

Eventually, the crowd became so unruly that the Council left.

Any hope I may have had for a peaceful apocalypse has been annihilated.

The comments we heard as we made our way out of the building unnerved me. The contrast between what we would normally experience exiting Town Hall was a stark comparison to now. Instead of mostly white-haired couples murmuring about the plot or impressive staging or lighting of a local play or the hoped-for upward trajectory of a local artist, there were groups of people forming tight, loud circles, blocking the exits for the rest of us. Tricia, my mom, and Major all confirmed what I'd witnessed: pockets of mostly men, angry voices raised, talking about bringing guns wherever they go. From the drug store to the pet food store.

I want so badly to have the courage to confront all of them at once, to just loudly announce that the violence they are suggesting is going to get people killed and that their fear is going to cause panic among others.

But I realize, and maybe you've realized this too, is that men in trucks with guns aren't actually interested in keeping anyone safe except themselves and maybe their families. But men also turn their guns on their families and themselves all the time. The solution is actually the problem, I think. So much of this unthinkable global scale of destruction originated from a place of greed and violence. The male desire to extract resources from the earth, from women – the inability to believe in being accountable to society as a collective. Men like this decided 'us versus them' was a natural law, not a division tactic that they fell for and then replicated over and over again.

So I'm wondering... Men in trucks with guns is the last thing I want. So then, what do I want? Women safe together. For any woman who wants it, and if my blog's jump in traffic is any indicator, there may be more women looking for this than I could have imagined.

I need a team, I need land, I need resources. I need help.

Is anyone else out there trying to do this?

Are there women's lands out there that are prepping for the worst case scenarios, or counting on remoteness and good security to keep them safe?

Shit. Oncologist calling. I'll blog more soon.