I hate losing readers.  I really do.

They are so rare and beautiful. (Especially the rarely sighted responder-reader more commonly referred to as the commentator.  They are a delight to see.)

I hate losing readers so much that I purposefully ‘restrain’ myself and keep the blog to ‘fun’ and ‘light’ topics most of the time.  My editor kinda insists on that, anyway, really.  And I don’t wanna lose my editor.  I am sleeping with her.

The best way to lose a readership is to write politically.  Philosophy is a close second.  Man, oh man.  The readers come into the club in dribs and drabs but they leave in clumps and groups when I wax political or philosophical.  Popularity is an ephemeral thing and unpopularity is spelled p-o-l-i-t-i-c-s).

Still, a man’s gotta do…..ya know…………..so here it comes: my most recent cri de coeur………………

……well, since I can’t indulge this feeling often, there is a short list of ‘cris’.

For those of you already ticked off, please come back tomorrow after I have vented my politcal spleen.  Sorry.

But I will keep it to a minimum.

First off we have a huge injustice being perpetrated by industry and government over the Don Staniford case (see: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/02/01/don-staniford-fish-farms_n_1192219.html).  The guy (British) is being sued and deported for essentially exercising ‘free speech’ in Canada and polite ecological activism.  Very wrong.

Good news: many are rallying to his defense and the leaders in this rally are fishing lodges who agree with what he is saying.

Secondly, we have DFO (government Department of Fisheries and Oceans) increasing the allowable catch of herring in the Gulf of Georgia by a factor of 20 times!  This is insane for a myriad of reasons and will devastate the already hugely depleted fish stocks of the gulf.  There is no conceivable justification for this.  It is just plain evil.

Herring fishermen should refuse to take ’em.  Let’s hope.

Thirdly – Robyn Allen, a dyed-in-the-wool capitalist, ex CEO of ICBC and a staunchly conservative economist and accountant delivered an  unprompted analysis of the Enbridge pipeline to the National Energy board in which she states unequivocally that the Enbridge pipleline is bad for Canada in every respect and especially economically.  This lady stood up, stepped up and spoke up.  I doubt that she is welcome anymore at the local country club but she is welcome at my house.

Sadly, I have learned over the years that morals, ethics and goodness are trumped by one’s concern over one’s wallet.  The HST was defeated ostensibly because people didn’t like their government lying to them but really it was because the HST was understood as being more costly in the pocketbook. Thus, Robyn Allen’s argument against Enbridge may, in fact, be the most persuasive in this debate.

The NDP (BC’s flaccid opposition party) are leading in the polls.  They have managed to ‘get ahead’ by simply keeping their mouths shut and their heads down.  They haven’t stood up for much of anything in the last few years and are winning the war of popularity just by keeping a low profile.

Inspiring, don’tcha think?

This anything-to-get-elected strategy, at a time when there are so many issues to take a position on, tells me something: political parties are more afraid than courageous, more strategic than moral, more shrewd than honest.  And they are becoming more irrelevant as a result.

People are relying less on their elected reps than ever before (the reps are hiding, anyway) and they are using the ‘net’ to be their own form of an amorphous political voice. Read the Tyee.  The Common Sense Canadian. See the Occupy Movement.

Maybe in 20 years the politicians will be relegated to just the pomp and ceremony of government rather than real power……..sorta like the picked-for-their-looks governors general who simply host parties.

Let’s hope so.

“So?  Happy now, Dave?  Got it off your chest, did ya?  Can we go back to Ravens and dogs and guacamole?” 

Yeah.  Guess so………..sorry………………….

………….oooooooooooooooooops!  Just learned something new…..see postscript – the added-late blog post just after this one.