I can’t recall his name* but some ex-Liberal MP (southern Ontario) was on the radio last night explaining his reluctance to run again. Seems MPs are a waste of time. They can’t do anything. He felt useless most of the time. According to him, all the power resides in the Prime Ministers office and government and opposition MPs alike are impotent in every meaningful way. The most they can hope for is if they are in the party that forms the government. Then they might get some crumbs thrown their way for their riding or themselves. Even at that, their voice in getting the crumbs is the least heard. Even being a winner is being a loser if you are not near the very top.
(Editor: found it on the CBC website: http://www.cbc.ca/asithappens/episode/2012/03/08/the-thursday-edition-19/. His name is Glen Pearson)
‘Course, we’ve known this for years but this is the first time I have heard an MP say it ‘out loud’. On CBC, no less. Mind you, he did wait til he was no longer an MP. He had lost the last election by just a few votes (18, I recall) to a Conservative and he was being interviewed because, despite the opportunity presented to perhaps get the previous election overturned, he was not willing to get back into the snake pit that is Parliament. He was not going to challenge the results even if Elections Canada concluded that he lost by dirty tricks. He was just plain sick of it.
Interesting. But not as interesting as his reasoning. He claimed that the Conservatives and many modern parties have a plan to ‘disengage’ the average voter. The idea is to reduce the voter turnout to the ‘fully engaged’ and most strident voter – get the middle-of-the-road guy out of the way. And, he claims, low voter turnout proves the plan is working.
With the ‘moderate-centre’ gone, then it is just the right versus the left and the right have more money. Ergo, low voter turnout will be more likely inclined to the Conservatives. Throw in a few dirty tricks where necessary and the whole picture becomes so disgusting even more people turn away. What appears to be apathy in the electorate is purposefully generated disgust and revulsion. It is a conscious political tactic.
This guy claims that the government will only get worse because by being anti-voter, they turn off more of the opposition than they do their own. The smaller the vote, the better for the party in government.
A friend of mine said to me the other day, “I love the blog. Read it every day. But, honestly, man. The ravens and dogs are better than the politicians. No one wants to hear that stuff. I don’t read those political rants, myself. Stick with whales and stuff.”
Reminds me of Walt Kelly all over again. His cartoon character, Pogo, said, “I have seen the enemy and the enemy is us!”
Our Off the Grid Home 
Well I’m off on a tangent but activating the base or the crazies worked for Bush. Socially conservative positions have the God squad flooding the voting places. It’s working.
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The problem is that ‘hi-jacking’ the God squad seems so easy. The right sounding rhetoric and some of them are putty in the hands of political manipulators. But those easily-led are not bad people. God-lovin’ folk are neither bad nor stupid. A smidge naive, perhaps. They just want to ‘show the faith’ and be good Christians. Someone claiming goodness is a magnet to them.
“Those who appeal to the faithful are often the wolves in sheep’s clothing”.
See Jimmy Swaggart. See Jim Baker. See the Catholic priests scandals. See all the pervs-in-the-pews. I think one of the best places for evil to hide is in the church. But that doesn’t make churchgoers evil. Just makes ’em more vulnerable because the evil doers are there, too.
But they must know this.
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Hi David,
Thought you would like to know the following.
the exact quote (as it came to be) is: “We have met the enemy and he is us”. Here is part of the story, written by Walt Kelly “hisself:
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“In the time of Joseph McCarthyism, celebrated in the Pogo strip by a character named Simple J. Malarkey, I attempted to explain each individual is wholly involved in the democratic process, work at it or no. The results of the process fall on the head of the public and he who is recalcitrant or procrastinates in raising his voice can blame no one but himself.
‘…Specializations and markings of individuals everywhere abound in such profusion that major idiosyncrasies can be properly ascribed to the mass. Traces of nobility, gentleness and courage persist in all people, do what we will to stamp out the trend. So, too, do those characteristics which are ugly. It is just unfortunate that in the clumsy hands of the cartoonist [referring to himself] all traits become ridiculous, leading to a certain amount of self conscious expostulation and the desire to join battle.
‘There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve, then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tiny blasts of tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.’ ”
As years passed, the final paragraph was reduced to “We have met the enemy and he is us,” in a few strips having to do with pollution”.
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"We Have Met The Enemy and He Is Us" was used on a poster for Earth Day in 1970. Kelly did a two panel version with Pogo and Porky in a trash filled swamp. This is the only example known where Pogo responds to Porky with "YEP, SON, WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND HE IS US." In 1972, it was the title of a book, Pogo: We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us. (More political)
FYI
John H
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“Until philosophers rule as kings or those who are now called kings and leading men genuinely and adequately philosophise, that is, until political power and philosophy entirely coincide, while the many natures who at present pursue either one exclusively are forcibly prevented from doing so, cities will have no rest from evils,… nor, I think, will the human race.” (Republic 473c-d)
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