Just got back from shlepping tools and I am tired and sore.  Not so much because of the tool carrying – rather just because I am gettin’ on and everything makes me tired and sore.  Feel the need to be a bit grumpy, if you don’t mind….

I have to comment on the recent revelations that the Conservative Party of Canada used ‘dirty tricks’ to get elected (gasp!).  Seems they used automated calling devices (robo-calls) to phone voters that they had profiled as being NDP or Liberal and they then instructed those voters that the polling station had been moved.  People were sent to places miles distant just to find that the so-called official Elections Canada phone call was false.

Oh my.  Nasty stuff.  We are not amused.

Having said that, I recall working for the NDP when I was young (If you are not a liberal/socialist/Green when you are 25 you have no heart.  If you are still a liberal/socialist/Green when you are old, you have no brains….a David-ized version of Churchill’s statement so often quoted and I plead guilty to still having no brains)…and being informed at the party head office that all of our cars had been towed!  Seems someone who knew of the NDP offices called a towing company and about twenty of us had to go down to the city impound lot to get our cars out of hock.  That was in the 60’s.

I quit all parties after that.  It was too ugly.

Back in the ’30’s there was a political activist by the name of Saul Alinsky who drafted a veritable manual on how to rig democratic processes in Chicago.  I remember one: provide lots of free extra-strong coffee to the voting crowd early and often and have your supporters not drink any.  Close the bathrooms when the meeting begins and then drag out every speech as long as possible.  When the crowd had thinned – which it had to – the vote was called and the majority of those left were your non coffee-drinking supporters.

Democracy.

Having been involved in a number of electoral processes (and No!  Not once playing a dirty trick.  I swear!) I watched in horror as Saul Alinsky tactics were adopted by one of the Vancouver Civic parties all the time.  It was their main way to ‘get ahead’.  Their primary trick was to have all their supporters join a society at the last minute and then have all their people elected to that board.  The thing is, this group used to do it to hospitals and charitable organizations and then, with the board stacked with their members, they would ‘feed’ off the resources of the innocent-bystander society or service.  More than a few civic campaigns were subsidized by unwilling hospitals, charities and other groups that had the photocopy machines, phones and budgets to drain.

My point: Saul Alinsly did it.  Richard Nixon did it.  And I am pretty suspect of GW Bush and his brother Jeb down in Florida during the presidential election when Al Gore didn’t win.  And the Liberals were renowned for ‘buying’ favouritism in Quebec for decades.  The Conservatives – if guilty as charged – are simply the latest dirty rotten scoundrels in a sewer full of them.  Frankly, I am not in the least surprised by this.

Having said that, I am surprised by the inneffectiveness of the RCMP and Elections Canada.  We know the politicians are crooks but, really, admit it – you thought our actual ‘voting’ system was pretty good, right?  Apparently not.

And this boggles the mind:  Elections Canada and the RCMP (according to the CBC) announced that they were going to investigate fully the allegations of wrong-doing by the Guelph chapter of the Conservative Party.  They announced that they were on their way days before they were, actually, on their way. What is that?  A polite raid?

Does that mean the RCMP phones the Hell’s Angels and says, “Hey!  We’ve got some suspicions about you guys and we think we might find some evidence at your clubhouse so we are coming to see you next week.  Yes, we are.  You’ll see.  We’re on our way.  Now don’t you go trying to hide anything, OK?”

It will come as no surprise that the next radio commentary mentioned that Conservative party members were reviewing their Guelph office records the very next day.  “No, we are not listening to any tapes or looking through files.  We are just trying to determine if any of us were involved.  Inadvertently, of course.”

Which leads me back to the tools.  We got ’em.  Took half of them up the hill and into the shop. But, by then we were tired, hungry and sore.  So we left the other half on the dock. Some of the others will get to it, I am sure.  There is always tomorrow. The tools are safe.  No one is going to steal them.  No one is going to vandalize them.  This is a good place.  It is a nice place.  The people are good.

It should come as no surprise that we have no politicians.  No police.  No judicial system and no bureaucrats.  We have no riches, no commerce, not even a store to shoplift from.  We got people but none that belong to a political party.

Whew!

Just as well, I think. Seems some people will cheat to get ahead.  And we don’t need any of that out here.