Home grown veggies and the waving of flags

Choosing our groceries, and other serious matters

My spouse and I took great care, and more time than has been usual for us as we shopped for groceries last night. We hunted for the tiny printed words telling us where the bags of salad mix came from. We noted with concern how often the Great Canadian Superstore in Leamington displayed incorrect sourcing information on the placards above produce, or no information at all. We paid more for some things, and chose against other items.

In Essex County we live in the midst of huge factory greenhouses, most owned by multinationals, but we could still not find all that we wanted, locally sourced. We will try again today, at a year round farm stand.

We have joined an informal movement that is gaining momentum. Shopping local makes sense on so many levels. It’s good to use less diesel and plastic to move our food and other products to market. It’s good to support local business. It’s good to consume fresher produce that hasn’t mouldered in a shipping container while travelling half a continent, or half the globe.

I want to see our careful shopping as a positive choice, for something, and not just a method of wreaking economic vengeance.

A friend posted today on her Substack about re-claiming the Canadian flag. I love her writing. It almost always makes me think.

Peggy's Post (you can read it by clicking here)

I started a comment on her post, which grew into what you are now reading. My response began:

“Flag-waving I am less keen about.”

I am very happy to be Canadian. I have lived in other places, and I prefer to live here. I pay my taxes without complaint, always vote, and try to be a good citizen and neighbour. I belong to the Royal Canadian Legion, and took their oath of loyalty to the Crown. I swore a similar, if more detailed oath when I was sworn in as a chaplain and honorary commissioned officer in the OPP.

But…

Patriotism is so easily exploited, as we saw in the Trucker's Convoy protest. National pride can be too easily weaponized into a volatile, dangerous thing.

One side of the “Our Country First” coin is shiny and bright and encourages duty, like a military medal given to honour service and sacrifice. The underside is too often an "us vs. them" nationalism, that is by definition the opposite of inclusive. I am cautious about the basest forms of nationalism that pit groups against each other- usually to the benefit of the visible majority. That's essentially what's happening to the south of us. They are at war with everybody, including themselves, and it’s tiring, dehumanizing, desperately dangerous, and sad.

From what we are seeing, on the news every day, "Making America Great Again" means demonizing, expelling and excluding whole categories of scapegoated people- just like the National Socialists did in Germany between the World Wars. And it’s being done with a whole lot of flag-waving.

I am in no hurry to assume an “our country is better” mentality that leads us towards becoming militantly unkind.