Some Penetrating Truths

While I always attempt to write as carefully as I can, conciseness and clarity sometimes elude me. Because of these lapses, I take the liberty of reproducing a letter that appeared in today's print edition of the Toronto Star by Enrico Carlson that offers some timely and, I think, some very important observations, given the power the moneyed class has to heavily influence both the media we consume and the political agenda of our elected representatives:

How right hoodwinks the poor

Re Good jobs aren’t in the plan, June 18

I expect the rich and powerful to look after their own interests, but as always it’s the growing number of poor that remain a dilemma. Why do they support conservative policies designed to undermine their interests? Among the many reasons are five that stand out:

(1) the ability of the right to define the parameters of reality (what is “doable,” “affordable,” “realistic”) and the willingness of the majority to buy into those parameters;

(2) the right’s penchant for simplistic explanations easily digestable to a pseudo-citizenry wanting easy answers (“law and order,” “the economy” vs “labour disruption”);

(3) the ever diminishing possibilities of finding long-term, decent paying jobs, which leads to a spiraling down of expectations and a misguided suspicion of unions;

(4) the mass diversions in gadgets and “reality TV” that take away from really paying attention to political and economic realities; and,

(5) easy scapegoating (when things go wrong, point fingers).

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson: vigilance is the lifeblood of democracy; no vigilance, no democracy.

Enrico Carlson-