Harper is in hiding.  Maybe not reclusively but, for a prime minister just three months from an election, he is surprisingly a constant no-show.  Christy Clark?  The same.  These folks are our so-called leaders and they have simply exited stage right.  Oh, they will show up eventually but I have noticed that many politicians are increasingly ‘hiding’ these days. They are not doing the exposure-thing that politicians used to do.  They basically keep a lower profile and the more unpopular they get, the lower their profile is.   Harper is, by historic standards, a recluse.

I think we like to think of that parody on leadership as simply their shame and humiliation but, after thinking about it, I don’t think so anymore.  I think it is more Machiavellian. Politicians know that the voter’s memory is incredibly short.  Better put, we all seem to have political dementia.  We can’t remember anything from even the last few months.  Last year is erased.  So they lay low for months before the election, come out smiling with newly whitened teeth and making promises and they think we don’t recognize them for who they were and are.  We are so stupid, they think, that we forget how much destruction and havoc they have previously wreaked.

And they’d be right.

Remember Harper’s jet fighter debacle?  The length of time it took to get helicopters?  The Coast Guard cuts?  The submarines that don’t work?  The 100% false job creation programs?  The proroguing of parliament?  The mis-telling of random acts of madness as terrorism?  The silencing of scientists?  The scandals?  The falseness surrounding Northern Gateway?  The secret trade deals?  The secret deals with  China?  The list goes on so long that even I can’t remember it all.  It is just evil, ugly, stupid long.

And Christy Clark and her Liberals are just as bad.  See the 100 reasons Laila Yuile compiled several years ago.  I think she must have another 100 by now: http://lailayuile.com/100-reasons-the-bc-liberals-must-go/.  Mt. Polley.  Yoga-on-the-bridge.  Transit.  Fire the conservation guy for saving bear cubs.  Suicides from working in government health!  There may be 500 reasons for getting rid of the Liberals by now.

We are governed by fools, crooks, incompetents and liars.  The real question, tho, is this: does it matter?

Increasingly, big nation-states and BIG money are calling the shots. For all of us. Including Harper and Clark.  Even a somewhat-first-world country like Greece can’t make it’s own way.  They are not independent.  They are not even truly sovereign.  Little countries must be puppets on strings. Hell, Canada clearly is!  We do as we are told.  If we don’t, NAFTA slaps us back into line.  We may have some influence in Jamaica but we step-and-fetch-it for a lot of bigger entities and that includes major corporations. And, lately, China.

Hell, the big guys even sell us our own oil for more than they charge others!  How is that even possible?

Bottom line: I think it is changing.  I can feel it.  I can’t describe it but I can feel it.  All the petition-groups are having an influence.  Bloggers are, too.  The mainstream media?  Not so much. The people are NOT borrowing and spending either (lack of confidence) and it is showing up in the until-now invisible recession that is just emerging like a hippo surfacing. We will be in recession officially by the next quarter if they tell the truth and we have been in one for several years if you just open your eyes.  Your basic ‘citizen’ is gently and quietly withdrawing from the system.  They are shutting it down.  They are saying ‘no mas’.

“Oh, that’s silly!  How can they?  They gotta work to pay bills.   The economy will chug along and the politicians will still control it.  Give your head a shake!” 

Yeah.  For awhile.  You are right.  This AIN’T a revolution, merely a blurry, amorphous blob of passive resistance of sorts.  Still unconscious, probably.  But think about it – the next generation behind us are less consumer oriented and the computer culture is more into sharing.  Anonymous is hacking like they were led by Robin Hood.  Uber is a sharing-based company, 3-D printing may replace some corporations.  Recycling is BIG.  Going simple and small is even BIGGER.  Solar panels are proliferating.  The list of counter-establishment efforts is long and growing.  Watch Elon Musk.  Even the 100-mile diet and yoga is a statement against the Type-A personality sociopath-run, mega-corp route to the future we have been on – the one exemplified by Northern Gateway and Keystone and Petronas.  If the people aren’t revolting, they are certainly walking towards carbon Hell dragging their feet.

Maybe the Harpers and the Clarks simply won’t count for much anymore.  Maybe we are moving away from that lead/follow model.  There ARE some signs.  I really hope so.  Keep your fingers crossed.