Some days in paradise are better than others. Today was a really good one.
As you know, my daughter is in Hong Kong teaching English. And, it seems, she is getting the writer’s bug. Today she sent me a draft blog that she is contemplating. It is an unflinching rant, completely unchained. Not in the least unhinged. She tears the US Republican party candidates a few new orifices, rips into the Robo-call issue, laments the Enbridge Gateway project and comments on Uganda and the Middle East just to round things out.
I am sure that she will get to the CBC when she gets back to Canada.
I couldn’t be more proud of her. She will be a force to be reckoned with and she has the tools. She always has.
Not to leave my son out of it. Seems he is getting into writing a bit more, too, although his is more hedonistic than politic. Meals, miles and motorcycles. See him and his beautiful chameleon-like partner as they travel around the world (seems no matter where she is, she is seen to be indigenous. I can hardly wait til she gets to Sweden). http://circumnavigate2012.tumblr.com/
Writing, eh? Who knew?
Back to politics…….seems the Liberals are stepping up and confessing to a few robo-calls of their own. Robo-calling is legal so that is not the issue. Robo-calling without admitting that you are who you are or have a party affiliation is not. They claim to have slipped up a bit on that. And the Conservatives are happy to be able to share some of the heat.
I am of two minds about that. On the one hand, the Liberal confessions make no difference to me. We are all sick of dirty tricks, lies, deceit and the corruption of the system. Their mea culpa is no surprise. It changes nothing that the two biggest parties (historically) fling mud. I am sure the NDP, the Bloc and even the Aryan Nation have stooped to so-called dirty tricks when trying to win the hearts and minds (and votes) of the citizenry.
It is not who is doing it so much as it just ain’t right.
And, like so many Canadians, I have no faith in Elections Canada or the RCMP to make it all right. They may catch a Pierre Poutine or two but will they clean all the sewers and the drains while they are at it? ‘Course not.
On the other hand, I am a smidge concerned that we get refocused on the bigger dirty trick issue rather than scorching the feet of the current rascals. By moving the issue to the larger topic of a dirty system, we are, in a way, diffusing the original crime. It blurs it in some way. Lets the bad guys off, somehow.
“Oh well, they all do it, I guess. Let’s carry on watching TV and drinking beer, eh?”
In this way, the Liberal confessions tend to dilute the problem for the Conservatives. Maybe they should – to be technically fair – but the real result will not be a cleansing of the system. It will instead end up as another reinforcement of the cynicism and apathy of the electorate.
And that is what the parties are trying for anyway.
You may recall Glen Pearson, the Liberal ex-MP who just wants rid of the politics in his life despite having been immersed in it for decades. I read up on him. He seems like a good man. And so I wrote him. Encouraged him to stay and fight the monster. He declined. Basically, GP said that he found it more rewarding keeping it local and close to home. Said stuff about community building. Hard to disagree with that.
The good ones get out but at least they are still doing good. That’s not all bad. Plan B may work.
Our Off the Grid Home 
What say you about the NDP leadership race? Where do you see the the party heading? They have been called the ‘tax and spend party’ but mostly all the deficits have been run up parties of the various stripes all right leaning. What sort of social programmes should Canada have? I do not have the poverty stats for Canada but recently reported from the USA three quarter of a million Americas live on two dollars per day. Many of these individuals are children. Do we need an under-class of abject poverty? What is wrong with social democracy? We can do better than winner takes all…off shore!
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Even tho we need some band-aid programs in the short term, it is not the solution. The solution is simple: we have to ‘buck thr trend’ of globalization. Somewhat. We even have to buck the nationalistic trend a bit. We really heve to focus more locally. And we have to use our resources ourselves. We need guys in lumbermills, workers in refineries and huge investment in local ‘real’ work projects. We need to develop our tourism, fix our ferries and grow more of our own food. Globalization just makes us slaves. We have to become more self-reliant.
Of course, we have globalization to a large extent anyway but the solution for BCérs is to focus on BC.
The NDP are part of the problem. They are no better nor worse. It is not the current group that is the problem (tho Libby Davies has a special place in Hell reserved for her). It is just that the system is broke and all efforts within the system perpetuate the problem. Are they better than the crooks? Many are. But many are idealist bullies who favour cliques. My NDP experience was best summarized by a minister with whom I was negotiating a land lease for non profit housing. He wanted six times the going rate! I said, “This is for non-profit housing, for God’s sake! We don’t make enough to pay that. Why charge us so much?” “We in the NDP want you to make the profit and then give it to us! In that way you remain non-profit and the people get the money!”
Corruption can show up in many guises.
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