The Monsters are Due on Parliament Hill

On this Easter Sunday, I'm feeling in a nostalgic frame of mind, no doubt inspired by the shifting array of attack ads given the surge in popularity of the NDP. Thanks to the last two years of Conservative ads attacking Michael Ignatieff, we have become so conditioned to seeing him as the enemy, the sheep in wolf's clothing, the fifth colonist, if you will, that it is somewhat jarring to learn that we've been wrong all along.

Now, it turns out, according to the latest word from Stephen Harper, Jack Layton is the true threat to all things that we hold dear:



Perhaps it was this ad that got me thinking about The Twilight Zone, a favourite of mine when I was a young lad. One of its most memorable episodes was entitled, “The Monsters Are Due On Maple Street,” perhaps the finest exploration of mob psychology ever presented in popular entertainment.

Without giving away the entire story, I will say that it revolves around the aftermath of an apparent meteorite flying over Maple Street, an ordinary suburban neighbourhood, on a mild and relaxed Saturday afternoon. Soon, the people find themselves without electrical or automotive power, and the situation quickly degenerates into suspicions and accusations that someone in their midst is responsible for the power loss, and may not be who he seems to be. The ensuing confusion and mayhem, seen in the last third of the episode, represents the kind of mentality I suspect is at the heart of such attack ads.

A Voting Video From McMaster Students

I quite enjoyed the energy and enthusiasm these young people bring to the video as they extol the value of voting in this election.

Banishing The Dark Spirits

By attending the advance poll, we did our part yesterday in what one hopes will be the beginning of a collective exorcism to banish the dark spirit of Stephen Harper and his acolytes from the political landscape.

By media reports I have read, turnout was strong, with some lineups lasting well over an hour. We voted in the late afternoon, completing the process in under 10 minutes, but were told that earlier in the day the lineups were out the door.

This early sign perhaps suggests that people are not so willing to accept the dark prince's contention that this is an unnecessary election.

Harper and the Supreme Court

There is a thoughtful and balanced online piece today by Adam Radwanski on how the composition of the Supreme Court could be affected by a Harper majority.

I Think I've Reached My Saturation Point

The following is a comment I left yesterday on Sue's Blog in response to a post she made about Evan Solomon's Power and Politics and the media obsession with coalition talk. It pretty much sums up my frustration about media coverage of this issue and, in some ways, the entire election campaign:

While I generally like Power and Politics, I tuned in [yesterday] and quickly tuned out when I saw the coalition topic being pursued. I have just about reached the breaking point in my patience with the kind of 'gotcha' journalism that has become the norm today, a journalism much in evidence during Peter Mansbridge's interview with Ignatieff when the coalition issue was raised.

My own theory, based on that interview [....] is that Mansbridge and others at the CBC are so fearful of the Conservatives and what they plan to do with the Corporation that they have become toadies for the Prime Minister in the misbegotten hope that somehow they will be spared the inevitable cuts that will ultimately lead to its demise.

Consequently, since I already know how I will vote, I am beginning to withdraw from the almost obsessive viewing of things pertaining to the election. The media, it seems to me, are aiding and abetting the Harper regime's agenda by playing upon and compounding the ignorance and credulity of my fellow Canadians. If that sounds a bit harsh and arrogant, I [am afraid that I] cannot offer any apologies.

A Great Anti-Harper Video

For those interested in what Stephen harper has done to set back issues important to all of us, but especially to women, give this about a minute of your time:

The Philosophical Foundation of My Aversion To Stephen Harper And His Government

While conventional wisdom dictates that blog posts should be short and pithy, I am going to challenge it by posting something in excess of 700 words as I outline why I think Stephen Harper and his dark politics are injurious to the Canadian psyche. Although many of my comments can equally apply to politicians of other stripes, it is essentially the philosophical foundation for my aversion to the Prime Minister; I hope you will stay with me.

What does contemporary government leadership have in common with one of Shakespeare's greatest plays, Hamlet, whose chief villain, yielding to his lust for power, kills his brother in order to seize the throne of Denmark? Quite a bit, as it turns out.

To appreciate its relevance, we have to understand that Shakespeare's contemporaries saw an order to the universe they called “The Great Chain of Being” in which each realm, be it divine, human, animal, or mineral, had a hierarchy. (Remnants of that notion remain today as we, for example, refer to the lion as the ‘king' of the jungle; reason has priority over emotion, the eagle is considered the head of the avian world, etc.) In human affairs, the King was regarded as God’s representative in human society and so was responsible for the spiritual and material well-being of the people. If the King was good, the nation prospered; if bad, the country suffered.

Because Hamlet deals with a ruler, Claudius, who achieves his royal ambitions through murder, he is deemed to have violated the natural order and is therefore not God's rightful representative. As the story unfolds, this usurper is responsible for a moral corruption that affects many, thereby seriously undermining the spiritual health of Denmark. Characters lose their better natures, surrendering to betrayal, suspicion, hatred, and vengeance in place of fidelity, trust, love and forgiveness.

So how is this tale of moral decay and destruction relevant to us? Can it help to explain some of the political and moral dysfunction plaguing Western society today? Well, even though we no longer see political power as coming from above, i.e., from God, but rather from below, i.e., the people, (at least in a democracy), it is difficult to accept the notion that government is merely a reflection of the people, that we only get the representation we deserve through the electoral process. In truth, how many of us purposely vote to install people defined by ineptitude, dishonesty, corruption, contempt, and cronyism? Yet these elements characterize so many governments today, including our own.

I submit that the aspect of the Great Chain of Being so pertinent today is the infectiously destructive nature of bad leadership. By this I mean much more than the obvious consequences of being led by those unfit to govern: abuses of basic freedoms, manipulation of truth, withholding of information to which we are entitled, abrogation of due process, catering to special interests, etc. Much more insidious, and something Shakespeare clearly demonstrates in Hamlet, is the toll exacted upon the nation’s spiritual health or character. Indeed, that play's central metaphor is an unseen yet highly contagious and destructive disease.

I believe it to be an apt metaphor for our times.If we consider, for example, the widespread cynicism and disengagement gripping people today, we are witnessing the effects of bad leadership. When people are manipulated by the politics of fear, division, suspicion and exclusion, they become victims of diseased leadership. When people refuse to vote because they don’t feel it will make any difference, when they ascribe self-interest and greed as the main motivations of people seeking elected office, when they evince little or no surprise at the flouting of constitutional laws by their elected representatives, they not only have fallen prey to a spiritual or moral malaise, they are in fact facilitating its spread, something I suspect our political leadership is not in the least bit concerned about; after all, the more disengagement and disaffection there is amongst the voters, the easier it is for politicians to continue on their self-aggrandizing and pernicious paths.

So is there a solution, a cure for this disease? How does a nation recover its soul? Democracy being a messy process, there is no simple answer, but I sincerely believe that the search for one must begin with as many people as possible turning out on Election Day. At a time when people in other parts of the world are willing to fight and die for democracy, that seems like little enough to ask of citizens. And it may ultimately help restore health to the body politic.