A naked man living in a cave and subsisting on foraged berries, roots and wild vegetables for years is definitely off-the-grid if not off-his-nut as well.  Living primitively is not fun.  Not easy, either.  To be pure OTG is a reduction of the human being into an animal whose sole function is survival even if wandering in the all-together is sometimes enjoyable on a sunny day. Basically, it would be a really tough life.

If that man should eventually stumble across a logging road and then use it on a regular basis to get from one patch of berries to the next, technically (according to some readers) he is back on the grid.  For some, OTG means leaving everything made-by-others (mbo) behind. EVERYTHING.

That’s just plain silly.  I think that definition is wrong-headed.

Our definition of OTG is so much softer and easier as to be legitimately questioned by even the most tolerant and generous definitions but it is still OTG in our books.  But I admit, our argument is weak.  And that is because we are even weaker.  We are pussies. We need some MBO’s.  We want a lot of MBO’s.

We like MBO’s.

We get propane delivered by barge twice a year.  We buy groceries from the nearest town at the very least once a month.  We get mail delivered to within a few miles. We have the ‘net’ by way of a satellite dish. We own a car and occasionally use it (altho I now put on the same number of kms in a month as I used to put on in a day).  Cell phone service is marginal but mostly functional.  We have grid ties if not actual grids on which we live.  But we don’t have the big ones.

Primary travel is by boat.  We make our own power (albeit by manufactured panels and electronics).  We source our own water.  We fight our own fires, provide our own security and make or fix 90% of what needs makin’ or fixin’.  But I admit I now have a welder to help me and a shed full of tools – all from the ‘grid’.  We are off the grid until it becomes difficult and then we run back on and grab what we need and race back to our strategically near-placed location in case of another emergency like running out of chocolate, scotch or dog food. We are about as off-the-grid as a recreational boater, actually.  We can stay at ‘sea’ for a long time but our voyage is always from port to port.

Does it matter?  I don’t think so.  OTG is not a degree bestowed on you by the U of OTG. It is almost always self-defined and compromised in many ways if examined closely. Even the longest living, most rustic, old-time recluse types when found deep in the woods by documentarians, have axes, knives, stoves and other mod cons that were, at one time, grid-sourced.  There are some wild people out there but even they are exposed to the grid from time to time.   The reason is not because the ‘grid’ is so ubiquitous (altho it is), it is because the recluse needs something and knows where to get it.  It is that simple.

“So, what is your point this time, Dave?”

OTG is a state of mind.  It means for us, for the most part, off the merry-go-round, out of the rat race and living as naturally and simply as possible so as to reduce our own personal stresses and tensions. We have come to add into that description, ‘treading lighter’ on the planet but we still tread.  We have come to think of it as greener but with the emphasis on ‘ER’.  We know it is a 1000% more enjoyable.  To us OTG is almost synonymous with vacation or therapy. It is definitely closely associated with retirement.  OTG is less a function of grid lines than it is laugh lines, less about modern services and more about healthy living, less about your thoughts, more about your physical actions.  OTG is another way of spelling ‘fun’, another way of spelling ‘being present’.  And there is plenty of room.

I guess the point is this: “Jump in!  The water’s great!”   

Disclaimer of sorts:  I wrestled with this one.  I can’t help but make it sound a bit anti-First Nations because of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.  But it is much more anti-process and anti-bureaucratic stupidity in the form of commissions than it is about the actual people.  Please believe me.  I actually think FNs are doing more as citizens than the rest of us these days but I make a point of their faults as well.  That’s the trouble with mud-slinging – people get dirty.  But, that’s the trouble with people – they get dirty on their own, too.  

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission has recently overseen or been instrumental in revealing the impact of the Residential Schools program on indigenous peoples.  Those who felt impacted by the flaws in what was seen as a well-intentioned program applied for compensation and many were successful in their applications.  About $140,000 was given to many of the self-identified victims.   Fifty six thousand people received about $25,000 and 30,000 people received a further $115,000* (averaged).

These monies are not the only amounts provided indigenous peoples for wrongs and mistakes we have made as a society.  But, what is really crazy is that the constant flow of money doesn’t seem to fix anything and some of the mistakes are still being perpetuated.

We’re all doing something wrong.

Hypothesis: it is the remedy prescribed.  It exacerbates the problem.  It doesn’t fix it.

Money, it seems is deemed the panacea for all harm done in our society. Because the harm done by the residential schools is still being passed down – it is claimed – to this day, and more young indigenous people are suffering because their parents or grandparents suffered, it is proposed that the T&R Commission continue and, presumably, continue paying compensation or channeling cash.  The Residential Schools/Truth and Reconciliation Commission may be the good/bad deed that keeps on giving.

I have extreme sympathy for the direct child-victims of specific crimes that came from the schools.  I even have great sympathy for the more general damage wrought by the larger accident of the plan itself.  Taking kids from their families is traumatizing at the very least and, in most cases, there was no good that ever came from it even if the particular child was never criminally violated.  It was basically just a bad thing done even more badly.

But life is hard sometimes.  It is not a walk in the park.  We all have to deal with hardship and carry on.  Some more than others.  Back in the day, it was not only aboriginal children who suffered physical punishment and deprivation, all kids did.  Kids were caned, spanked, beaten and were ill-treated across all segments of society.  Child abuse as we define it today was almost the norm.

Read Charles Dickens.  Read any book describing a poor kid’s life pre-1960.

My father was wounded in WWII and was 100% disabled.  He was a mess.  Our lives suffered greatly.  We had trauma.  We had deprivation.  We had immense hardship.  Maybe we should have sued? Maybe I should start the largest class action suit of all and sue all the governments involved for the damage wrought from WWII.  Why not?  Greece is contemplating suing Germany for WWII.

Or, maybe I shouldn’t.  Maybe I should just move on and make the most of what I have.

I am a white, privileged male in a patriarchal society seemingly designed to benefit me all to hell all the time and doing so while victimizing others.  I must be sitting pretty.  

(Honestly, I am way too ‘lucky’ to complain about anything – even the stupid, anti-white man bias.  It is just my nature.  It is not my fault.  I blame the government.)

But if the self-defined perpetual victims out there have their way, I should feel guilty and make reparations for all that has gone wrong for the last few hundred years primarily because I am male and white. Growing up in ghettos and getting CARE packages while attending thirteen different schools before graduation does not exempt me from the incredible privilege of white skin, gender or even my participation in the system of evil it seems.  I am bad to the bone.  So, sue me.

FYI: being the only white kid in an all black school in the poor section of San Francisco, California, was no real advantage while I was there, I can assure you.

My response: That was then.  This is now.  Now is different.  Now is good.  I blame no one for then.  I am grateful for now. 

Can there be another reasonable perspective?   I don’t think so.

But, let us get back for a minute to Truth.  Does anyone really think that the truth was fully revealed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission? How does the context of the overall societal norms back then get factored in?  Who’s re-writing this history?  Or is the truth somehow further obfuscated by this expensive and pandering exercise?   Does anyone else see any truth being openly revealed to all by the issuance of money to the few?

Don’t get me wrong: I do not begrudge the money or the gesture – especially to individuals struggling to get by.  Nor do I think wrongs should be ignored when brought to light.  I question our reliance on these bureaucratic processes and other mock mea culpas to do anything real.  Or even if anything real can be done.  What’s done is done.  And I really question beating ourselves up for wrongs done by previous generations.  That can go on forever.

See the Middle East.

And what kind of truth and reconciliation requires the continuance of the process of more truth and reconciliation?  Wouldn’t the continuance of that institutionalized ‘my bad‘ simply be an acknowledgment that neither the truth nor the reconciliation process worked?

And what kind of society are we encouraging with this ‘pay me for my pain’ approach? Shouldn’t we do something more constructive than just pay lump sums to some lumps for mistakes made?

Here is the truth.  The residential schools were a poorly conceived idea made even worse in practice.  And they continued on too long.  Those affected should take the compensation offered, close the book and get on with life.  They cannot be made whole again.  They will walk with wounds.  We all do.

Here’s the reconciliation: Canadians, generally speaking, are tolerant, accepting and embracing of others. Victims should work to heal themselves and become more acceptable and embraceable to Canadians.  The potential is there. It’s a two-way street.  Both sides need to move on.  With behaviour, not money.

Let us look for a minute at an even harsher truth.  The government makes mistakes.  Large scale.  All the bloody time. See: Residential schools, war, immigration, police, the senate, health care….the list is way, way too long….  And that is not about to change except maybe for the worse.

Worse?!  The government wants even more power to make potentially even larger errors.  Are we not – by allowing them to legally interfere with us (Bill C51) – simply setting up future generations to have to pay even more compensation to an even larger group of victims?  And wouldn’t those victims (like smokers are today) be somewhat complicit in that injury by voting for it?

Can I vote to have my rights violated and then sue when they are?

If you are not sure about that question, ask yourself this one: Can I smoke cigarettes KNOWING they are unhealthy and then sue the tobacco companies because my health suffers?  The answer in Quebec is ‘yes’.  Can I live a life of irresponsibility, crime, drug-addiction and anti-social behaviour and then sue because it was all deemed to be the government’s fault?  The Truth and Reconciliation answer seems to be yes.  The two issues just mentioned are not closely related causally to each other except by one thing: are these plaintiffs taking full or even enough responsibility for their own decisions, their own lives?

Shouldn’t the individual be the one regarded as primarily responsible for his or her choices in life?  Even from accidents?  Kids?  No.  Not so much.  But, if you make it to 16 or 17 then you have to start to lead yourself and, if you make it to 19, you have to take the full responsibility for your life and how you live it.  Even when bad things happen to good people, it is the individual who has to take the main responsibility for fixing it.  Money doesn’t do it.  Commissions don’t do it.

You have to do it.

That may sound a bit harsh but that is the way I see it.

The real new truth is that we are now living in a money-fix, victim-as-profession madness.

Apologies for the length of this blog.

Harper really should lose BIG TIME if the votes are honestly counted (not a given). Trudeau and the Liberals will likely be the big beneficiaries.  It’s just math.

Mulcair and the NDP are improving their numbers all the time, however.  But slowly.  They have no sex appeal, no ability to capture the moment or create celebrity magic.  They plod.  They are not aligning new followers like they need to.  Their marketers aren’t good enough.  If that trend continues, it will likely result in a minority government with the Liberals and the NDP controlling the house together.

But Mulcair and Trudeau don’t like each other.  The parties can’t seem to cooperate.  That is NOT the recipe for an alignment, a minority government.  How do they form the next government when they can’t even endure a lunch date?

I personally like minority governments but they don’t last.  Politicians want power, not progress.  And I have a theory about that.  And that is the real point of this blog:

I’ll keep it brief.  Politicians go into the ‘poli-business’ basically to do good.  I believe that. Mostly. In the beginning, anyway. Doing good is one of their prime motivations.  They are joiners.  They are team-players. They are patriots.  They are do-gooders. They love their country. They believe in the system.  They want to serve it.  But, of course, like all animals, they want to survive first. Survival is the top and prime motivation for all living things.

Service to others is a distant second (or even lower) on the priority list.

And that me-first concept is even acknowledged in law. We are pretty much allowed to do what we have to do if our own survival is at risk.  Survival, not service, is rule #1.  The real key question is ‘what constitutes your definition of survival’.

For most of us, it is simply eating, sleeping and breathing regularly.

But for politicians – and for many driven people – survival of the ego is the same for them as real, basic, life and death survival.  They are the image they hold in their heads. They feel they are allowed to do whatever it takes to survive as ‘they see themselves‘ surviving.  For politicians, surviving in a public setting is just as primal a need as eating, sleeping and breathing is for the rest of us.

They will sacrifice a lot of morals and ethics justifying their kind of survival.

But they are NOT the real problem.  Others (society, corporations, institutions) want to recruit and harness that kind of energy.  Those ‘ego’ people are eminently exploitable. “There’s money to be made in those egos!”

“You exaggerate! Nobody is that weak, susceptible or that crazy.”

You are right.  They aren’t that crazy from the get-go, anyway.  First they have to experience the institutionalized supplanting of their basic, personal ego with other, larger-concept things.  Enter: egos in training.  We teach them all kinds of ways how to do that in western society. They are taught to relate to their school. “Go Wolverines!”  They are taught to relate to their favourite team. “Go Canucks!”  They might eventually relate to Rotary or their province or, if they become really, really patriotic and/or political, they may buy a membership card in a political party.  “Vote Liberal!”

They will drink the kool-aid.

Being an egotist and a politician requires eventually transferring the basic, personal ego-survival tendency to a party or a team or religion or something even bigger – to the max.

And we encourage that habit of allegiance transfer because we (society) want to recruit them as soldiers in to our particular-interest army. Our society is built around that kind of recruitment.  “I’m a Chevy man!”  See Facebook.  Study marketing.

Also see: teens around the world seeking something larger than themselves and joining ISIS. See: teens around the world joining the Young Republicans or Christian Missionaries or the Crips.  See yourself defending your politics, your religion, your country.  Or your favourite football team.

We are born with ego and trained to join up.

It is not a hard sell, really.  People inherently know that there is something bigger and better out there than just themselves and so they transfer their personal survival skills to whoever recruits them best.  That used to be the churches.  Then nation-states.  It might be the Canucks, the Marines or the Young Conservatives. The Greens are currently out there wooing the young ‘for the planet’.  Marketers are the new priests because money is the new GOD.  For many, it is all a religion. We get recruited.  We all get recruited.

So, ask yourself…..do you have some HUGE allegiance to a sports team, a religion, a political party or even a dog breed?  Willing to dole out for them are you?  If so, your own personal survival mechanism may have been somewhat hijacked by them.  The basic ‘you’ has been compromised.

Marketers are generally pretty good at what they do.

Now imagine that you have been so completely hijacked by them, you are them.  You are the leader of the party, the head of the church, the top breeder of water spaniels…..whatever….

….what are you willing to do for them?  Where would you stop?

Are there any limits?  ……any limits in behaviour that might jeopardize your sense of survival?

What do you think Steve, Tom or Justin is willing to do or say to survive?  What about Elizabeth?

Let the electioneering begin!

Writing the book OUR LIFE OFF THE GRID was a job, of course but, for us writing newbies, it was mostly a labour of love.  I didn’t work at it.  Not really.  I just had fun with it. Sal, on the other hand, worked somewhat harder and it was likely less fun but, knowing her, the end result was compensating enough and she is pleased that she can now edit and publish books.  It was an education.  She has, once again, added to her considerable resume.  She’s good with that.

But such an indulgence in personal growth, vanity, narcissism, self-promotion and education is not free.  To get that puppy launched cost us (not counting our labour and such) approximately $1500.   Fifteen hundred dollars is not a large sum these days even for non-earners living in the bush. We could do it.  So, we did.  We were pretty much obliged to hard-print our own short (100 copies), custom, ‘first run’ edition at about $9.00 each for a cost of $1000.00 (with taxes) and, because we gave most of them away to friends, another half-batch later.  By the time we sold our first copy, we were in the red by $1500.00.

And, of course, we kept giving away copies.

Talking it up isn’t hard, it’s fun.  And talking it up is the larger part of selling.  But it is extremely difficult for us to do transactions.  Feels petty.  Our share from the book is around $3.00 if it goes through a store.  If we sell direct, it is $5.00.  Am I gonna carry change, do VISA transactions, issue receipts, wrap it in paper, lay on the hard-sell pressure for $5.00?  I don’t think so.  It is not my style to do that.  Nor Sal’s.  Not ever. So, we are NOT good sales people.  We suck.

But we do like to talk it up…and that means….I guess……we have to give it away…..

Despite that bizarre and dysfunctional view of how to conduct small business, book sales reports indicate that we have now reached break-even.  We are in the black. From now on, it is easy-street.  Just sit back and collect the moolah…about $100-$200 a month depending on market whim and appetite.  Oh yeahhhhh……….mint juleps and bon bons next!

So, that is good news.

We may have bon bons some day.

More news from the publishing world: hard copy sales have plateaued.  But e-book sales grow every month.  I have no idea what that says about the reading public but we’re happy.  I suppose it all comes down to distribution, really – so much easier to buy, distribute and receive an electronic version and the reading public has embraced that. That’s fine.  I don’t have to sign the e-version.  That’s a plus.

“Dave, is this blog gonna give me a book-sales update on your stupid book every so often?”

Yeah.  I think so.  Unless the sales drop off, in which case, I’l shut up about it.  But, if they continue to sell, I’ll continue to tell. And, anyway….it was a slow weekend for politics.

Top Conservative minister, Peter Mackay is NOT running again.  Fellow Con John Blair opted out awhile back.  Other Cons are facing trials and investigations. The federal Cons seem to be coming apart at the seemingly unseamly seams (sorry).  The provincial Cons in Alberta imploded, exploded and erased themselves in a political Hari Kari just a few months back. Con-psuedo-lib, Christy Clark is remarkably absent from the media and is keeping her head down and her mouth shut (thank God).  She is, essentially, in hiding and has been for the last few months.  The right-wing side of the political spectrum is having to come to terms with their lack of popular support and their record-setting litany of errors. They are all embarrassed and smelling defeat.  Or should be.  All the signs are indicating yet another eradication of the Cons (first one: post Mulroney.  The one inflicted on Kim Campbell).

And that is NOT a good thing.

I have never had much time for the Progressive Conservatives, the Conservatives, the Canadian Alliance or the Psuedo-Liberals of BC that used to be the Social Credit because, for the most part, I simply disagreed with the policies they promote.  But, honestly, I have not disagreed with all of them.  Preston Manning’s Reform Party had a number of positions that I not only agreed with, I would have supported completely and even would have run for them.  For Preston Manning, I went right.

The planks in the Reform Party platform that I found irresistible were that the MP was allowed to represent their constituency first, the party second.  And, further, they would be allowed to speak their minds freely in the house and vote their conscience.  As I mentioned before, history shows that those planks were quickly dropped but it also shows that the ‘right’ is not always wrong.  At least it was that way for me.

In theory, Canada is a democracy.  At the very least, that means respecting the existence of differing opinions.  And you first have to have differing opinions before you can decide to respect them further or not.  Right-wingers provide differing opinions.  And I respect that.  I rarely agree with them, but I respect some of them.  I respected the ones stated above so much that I would have sent money and run for the party.  Had they kept to those, I would call myself a rightie today.  Or, better put, right-leaning.

Why?  Because those planks are the essence of democracy for me.  They are more important to me than this or that tax break or this or that social program.  Having my representative free to speak his or her mind and to have the option to vote as they see fit rather than as the party tells them to is almost enough to make democracy work.  I think. Add in proportional representation and you just might have a workable system in my opinion.

And it was Preston Manning and the cowboy-hats from Alberta that first put those ideas forward – to the extent that the party did, anyway.  They eventually dropped them but still, credit where it is due.

Which brings me to the point of this political blog: those democratic reforms were not posited by the Liberals.  Or the NDP.  Sadly, they are not even part of the GREENs platform today (although they did try for proportional representation in BC).

The current batch of Cons are bad guys and some of them might even make official ‘con’ status if they get convicted of things.  They clearly have to go.  But, just because we rid ourselves of riff raff, that does not mean we get good people in their stead.  History is replete with riff raff replacing riff raff.

Bottom line: we have to MAKE the next batch of political porkers do the right thing.  And that starts with telling them what that is.   I don’t trust them to find that out on their own.

Write your porker.

…from my season of politics.

It never really ends but even I can focus on other things now and again. That is part of what living OTG is all about – a chance to smell roses, a chance to dance in the spring (like the Jules Feiffer dancer below with Jules himself) or, for me, a chance to go weld something or hurt myself. Currently doing both these past few days.  For Sally, it is currently quilting – quilting like a woman obsessed.  Sally is the quilting version of the Jules Fieffer dancer.

But, I digress.

On to other things.

This time – another death.  An acquaintance of mine just died at the age of 57.  I didn’t like him much.  In fact, I disliked him.  Still do, actually.  Funny, don’t you think?  One would think that dying would be the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card but, in his case the jail remains locked, he just escaped those mortal bars earlier than I expected.

I won’t denigrate him too much more than I have already – simply by NOT mentioning his name.  Just a guy I didn’t like.  But I am writing about him because of two things: he died at 57.  OhMyGawd!  I am already 10 years older than that!

I just find that shocking, is all.  His death – my reality check. Sheesh.

The second reason is that, even though he was a bad actor in my life, he was still an actor in my life.  This guy occupied some of my life space.  He was an influence.  Like Darth Vader, to be sure, but still an influence.  He gave lessons from the dark side.  He caused trouble.  To be fair, he caused a little trouble for me but he caused a lot for others and I was caught up and involved in trying to make things right.  More than a few times.  We were adversaries in a way.  But it wasn’t personal.  He was in the adversary business and I was in the solution business.  Our paths crossed.  And crossed.  And crossed.

He was like a skin rash that just wouldn’t go away.  Well, it was that way for at least a decade or so. NOW he has gone away.  Now he is gone.  And, to be fair, I haven’t really given him much thought for the last twenty years.  So, I think he is well and truly gone for me. Now.

That’s it.

That’s the blog.

Just a reflection of how even the bad people fill in your life spaces.  How things you want to go away never really go away.  Even when they go away, they are still there in a weird kind of way.  Memory.  Experience.  Scars.  Victories. Losses. Stories.

I am not happy for his demise.  I didn’t hate him.  I could have happily gone through my life without ever having met him but, on the other hand, I will never forget the encounters, the stories, the lessons learned.  In some twisted way, he is indelibly etched in my life and he is part of what makes me what I am.  I am almost OK with that, even though it seemed so ugly at the time.  Who would have thunk that a real-life Darth Vader-type would make such an impression?

And I am sure that someone must have loved him.  I never met any of them but I know of one who liked him and they were friends.  Inexplicable in the extreme for me.  Still, even the dark side has friends, I guess.  Someone misses him.

Maybe, in some small, twisted way I do, too.  At the very least he was the enemy I knew.

It seems that NOT VOTING is a popular consideration amongst many of us.  The idea being that NOT voting is a benign revolt, a subtle rejection of the system, a vote of non-confidence, as it were.  Cutting our noses off to spite our face is essentially what that is.

And that’s an error.  NOT voting is what the parties in power actually want.  All three of the major parties want lesser turnout, not more.  The ideal voting scenario for them is that only the rabid faithful vote and the rest of the general rabble don’t vote at all – for whatever reason they choose to cling to.

Why?  Because the big three can influence their own groups to get out the vote for them. The rest of the population is a crapshoot.  “Because our card-carrying ‘rabid faithful’ can maybe outnumber theirs especially if theirs don’t bother to vote.  And, further, we can cheat and do dirty tricks like busing uninformed immigrants around the place for no more than a free lunch and bit of speechifying.  They’ll vote for us and their vote at least cancels out the other party’s rabid faithful. With luck, the whole damn thing will be decided by just the few of us.”

In other words; they know they will vote.  Being able to count on others NOT voting is the second best thing for them.   

Small turnouts result in incumbents winning.  Small turnouts cannot create change.  Small turnouts indicate ambivalence, not resistance.  Small turnouts serve the BIG three.  You can either vote for Harper and he gets your vote or else you can NOT vote and he gets the equivalent of half a vote.  To vote against Harper you HAVE to actually cast a distinctly different vote and unless that distinctly different vote goes to the winning party, it will amount to only half a vote.  In effect.

Say, for instance, you vote Green but the Liberals win.  Your Green vote ultimately means nothing except that Harper didn’t get it.  The Liberals didn’t get it either but, because they won, that vote didn’t matter to them.  It didn’t help the Greens or the NDP either but it was, at least, half – effective.  It was a half-vote.  It was closer to the none-vote than a  NON vote would have been, actually. ‘Cause the NON vote only serves the incumbent well.

If you voted Liberal and they won, your vote counted fully.  It meant something to the successful party.  That is the only time it really counts as a real, fully empowered vote. In our system, you have to guess right to be fully effective.  It is this kind of reasoning behind the ‘vote strategically’ movement that wants us all to pre-determine which party has the best chance of unseating a Conservative and then voting for that one – whoever it is.  The idea is: any rep but a Con.

I don’t like that.  It means we eliminate choices.  Eventually it is just Republicans vs Democrats, Ford vs Chev, the American League vs the National league.  I am inclined to voting my conscience instead.  I want to perpetuate the semblance of choice by retaining some.   Plus I believe minority governments work better.

But this time, I am voting strategically.  I will be casting my vote for whichever NON CON running has the best chance to unseat the incumbent.  I would cast that vote for the Rhinoceros Party if they were the front-runner.  The Bloc, even.

But I feel that is a compromise to my ethics.  I really do.  I really feel we should be able to vote our conscience.  This time, we can’t.  So I am going to vote strategically instead.  I am not proud of this.

I was frightened into it.  A cynic friend of mine jokingly pointed out, “The Greens are funded by the Conservatives!  Remember Elizabeth May used to be Mulroney’s right hand. The Greens keep the Cons in!”

“WHAT!!!!  ARE YOU MAD????”

“Think about it, Dave.  The fewer people who vote, the more likely are the Cons to get back in because the incumbents benefit by low turnout.  Green votes are ‘left leaning’ so they split the ‘left side’ of the political spectrum.  There is only one party officially on the ‘right side’ and so any right-wing oriented voter has to vote Conservative.  If you really wanted to get rid of the Cons you would start four more parties all with right wing platforms to split the right wing vote.  Start a Republican Party, a SoCred Party, a Nazi-fascist Party and a Totalitarian Monarchy Party. That might just do it.  As it is now, the left is divided in thirds and the undivided right-wing Cons win with that system.”

“Oh, Gawd!  We need proportional representation so, so bad.”

I

Most of us don’t really know the power of the chip – as in computers and the internet and all that. For instance, already 62% of all traffic on the internet traffic is driven by machines. Robots.  The term used to describe this phenomena is M2M (machine to machine).  It is a smidge frightening to consider how much of our lives are already machine-determined.

But that is NOT news.

The growth of that new ‘power’ is news, however.  It is, of course, exponential and the growth is already uncheckable.  Unhindered.  They can’t stop it.  Like Moore’s Law that prophesied the doubling of computer power every two years, so is that machine power being more and more distributed among non-sentient watchers and actors.  Put another way: the internet today is the size – relatively speaking – of a golf ball.  By 2025 it will be the size of the sun.

Apparently we make more transistors today than we grow grains of rice!

“So, what has that to do with politics?”

Everything.

Michael Soma was convicted of ‘interfering’ with the 2011 Federal election.  He was the one ‘tapped’ to take the fall for the robo-call scam that deceived voters during the last federal election to favour the Conservatives.  Back when the internet was not even the size of the alluded-to golf ball, our politicians were employing ‘dirty tricks’ (like Nixon) updated to suit the times.  Soma was the then-wunderkind who applied the robo-calling plan.  There are other plans.  There are other strategies.  There are other wunderkinds. And they all change with the times.

And the times they have been a-changing.  Quickly.

There are numerous proven incidents of electronic voting tampering and many more suspected (who can forget Bush vs Gore?) for the longest time.  I doubt very much that that kind of skullduggery will change.  So why wouldn’t a party that is already proven to employ such tactics NOT do it again?  Especially since the tactics have been improved so much in the last few years?

Put another way: I do not know of one person who voted Conservative in the last election. I do know some who admit to having voted that way two elections back but I no longer know (with one possible exception) of anyone who would vote Conservative today.

My statement: If they win again, they cheated.  Whether we ever find out the truth, whether they are ever caught, whether or not the people ever suspect it, I am sure they already cheat (Soma) and, with improved computer power, they are going to cheat better and more effectively than before.  At the very least, they have a few more Michael Somas to throw under the bus – that is for sure.

Bottom line: voting may already be totally shanghaied.

Writing about politics suggests reciting acts of government incompetence and malice, slandering personalities and generally arguing for the beheadings of those currently inflicting (mostly financial) misery on our lives.

And so, let’s say we did and move on.

The reason for that on-the-surface tolerance is simple: those who already hate the Conservative Party as much as I do, already know of their collective absurdity from climate denial to election-fixing, from cut-backs in essential services to bigotry instead of justice. We know of their wanton spending on submarines that don’t work, helicopters that don’t fly and fighter jets that come without engines.  Their sense of entitlement and elitism is also well-known as is their complete disregard of citizens and their accelerated descent into ignorance rather than science.   And then there is the constant but simple-minded propaganda and the equally as constant assault on our freedoms and wallets….just to name a few.

There are way too many more.

So, none of that really needs repeating for us, the enlightened know-it-alls.  We already know it all.

One might write all that stuff to convince the swing-voters, tho, the ones who voted Conservative a time or two but are now having doubts.  This is the audience for political writing but, let’s face it – not for me.  No one of the Conservative Party persuasion would be reading me and, if they were, it would not be for my political acumen.  Maybe ravens. Not politics.  Those people who might read me and also might possibly vote Conservative can be counted on one hand without using the thumb.

“So, what’s the point, then?”

There are two points: I have to do what I can.  And I may have a point that you can use to sway a swinger or two.

“Do you?”

Only one, really.  And it is a simple one.  It works.  It resonates even with card-carrying Conservatives.  Please try it.  Here goes:  Conservative is a brand name, not their philosophy.  CONSERVATIVE is a name.  A N-A-M-E.  It means nothing.  It is no different than Mighty Ducks or Moose or Oddfellows.  It is just marketing – pure and simple.  Those voters who consider themselves conservative people are NOT necessarily CONSERVATIVE PARTY think-alikes.  In fact, most small-c conservative people wouldn’t act like Stephen Harper, Mike Duffy or Pamela Wallin even once in their lifetime.

We have to tell people that the name is just a name.  ALL names are just names – just branding – just marketing – just image.  We have to make them understand that Conservative Party has no relationship whatsoever to being a conservative-minded person.  That is the only message someone who votes differently from you can accept. That news-flash has a chance of changing some votes.  Even better: it is not too offensive.

If you get on a roll, you can include the Liberals but don’t push your luck.  

I have to write a bit politically from now on.  Til October 19th, anyway.  I know it is irritating. Sorry.  But, here’s the dilemma – for evil to be done good men only have to do nothing.  I have to do what I can to get rid of Stephen Harper and the mindset he represents.  I humbly request that you consider the points raised in this blog and, if you can’t vote Green, please make a point of voting to get rid of Harper.  I am not asking you to vote my way, just don’t vote the old way.  It is time we all united to rid ourselves of this bigoted fool who is an embarassment to our country.

If the economy is important to you, vote Green. If waste, destruction and debt are more to your liking, vote Conservative or Liberal. It may seem counter-intuitive to you and it is absolutely contradicting the myth spread by the old-time parties but the facts are clear; the new economy is going Green and the old economics of the established parties are elitist and have created nothing but decay and indebtedness for the average citizen. In fact, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives have managed the worst economic growth since the depression era at a record setting low of 1.77%.

Canada is hugely in debt. We owe 1.2 trillion dollars or 66% of our gross domestic output. And that does not include the provincial debt which raises the figures considerably. It is generally regarded that 80% is the point-of-no-return. We are too close to national bankruptcy. Given that we are one of the richest, most resource-full nations on the planet and, outrageously, with the fewest people, how is it possible that even a mediocre or slightly corrupt manager could run the country so deeply into the red?

But they did.  Sorta like they did in Alberta.

The Canadian Establishment got rich, the Canadian population became indebted and our economy is mired in a 19th century robber-baron mindset with our ill-informed economic hopes pinned on the almost non-existent jobs of the expiring Sunset industries. We grow wheat, sell trees, coal and oil. We even sell water but only for a pittance. We used to sell fish but we killed them all. We even sold our national railroad to Bill Gates. Face it: our old way of doing business does not work.

But here’s the real shock: only 4% of the population is employed in those sectors. That means that the rich are getting rich off our nation’s resources and hiring only a few citizens to help them do it. And there is no trickle down.  You are simply being robbed.

Most Canadians already know that we have been largely mismanaged in so many ways for far too long a time. What they want to know is what to do about it.  And they may not know that the newly emerging Green economy looms promising on our horizon if we make changes to our thinking and vote differently. We can and we will – if we keep the old Duffy/duffers away from the controls – be prospering in a land of abundance.

Sounds like a hippy, eh?

But Elon Musk is no hippy and he is prospering. He got his start in the cauldron of capitalism with the innovation of PayPal.  And he is now as Green as Kermit. See Solar City. See Tesla Motors.

Capitalism is NOT the problem. Capitalism motivates, initiates, energizes and promotes our ideas. It feeds off the natural inventiveness of the human animal. But, like a dog, it can be used for good or trained and directed towards aggression and doing harm. Our old leaders bred for Dobermans and Rotweilers and more than a few emerged as Pitt Bulls. Their dogs protected the elite and did harm to passersby. And they still are.

Green Natural Capitalism, on the other hand, works with nature, cooperates with others and, like Google says, ‘does no evil.’ Think Standard Poodle. Or Portugese Water Dog. Natural Capitalism is harnessing the positive and limiting the negative. Natural Capitalism is a good dog.

Natural Capitalism is also a book authored by Amory Lovins and Paul Hawken. Read it.

Synopsis: Ray Anderson saw the Green difference. He was a manufacturer of carpets. Then he took some trash to the dump and saw that his product was occupying a large part of it.  Ray re-worked his company to one that leases carpet and recycles all of the old carpet into new. In the process, Interface Corporation grew ten-fold. And the dump stopped seeing carpet.

“But we are just ordinary people with huge mortgages. We can’t do that!”

Yes, you can. Alan Hammond took the concept of local farmers selling direct to customers and gave us Granville Island Public market. Regular Canadians are doing it all the time.

Granville Island Brewery. Interior wineries. Small, boutique hotels. Virtually all your local service and hospitality industries. Builders, teachers, millwrights. Healthcare. They are all (95%) local. That is economy.  That is community. And that is sustainable.

In other words, your dentist keeps your teeth in order, your local grocer increasingly tries to go local, your neighbor replaces roofs and the kid next door did your lawn last week. What did Kinder Morgan do for you lately? Enbridge? Exxon?

The truth is that all of them (even Exxon) have contributed to the modern marketplace but some do more for you than others. Some are doing better for the planet and your children’s future than others, as well. Put your support where it counts.

Reject the global corporate mindset. It is not hard to do. Do we need a natural gas plant that sells our resources to a Malaysian petro-giant? Do you think your price of natural gas will be lower? Are you going to work at the plant? Do you think the shareholders of the company reaping the profits are your neighbours?

Vote differently and be part of a local, sustainable and green business. That’s where the future is.