Rather Apt, Don't You Think?

h/t Canadians Rallying To Unseat Stephen Harper

The Responsibility We All Must Assume

In a column entitled A disheartening year in Canadian politics published on Dec. 20, The Globe's Jeffrey Simpson recounts the corruption, buffoonery and scandals that permeate our municipal, provincial and federal governments. Whether we look at the antics of Toronto's Rob Ford, the widespread venality, graft and ties to organized crime endemic to Montreal politics as revealed by the Charbonneau Commmision, the gas plant scandal in Ontario or the diseased mentality surrounding Senategate, there seems little from which the average citizen can take heart.

In response to that column, a Globe letter-writer, Caroline Wang from Vancouver, offers an antidote that I think all of us who write progressive political blogs would heartily agree with. Rather than letting our disgruntlement and disillusionment be a reason to disengage from the political process, it should prompt all of us to channel our anger and become part of the solution:

Re A Disheartening Year In Canadian Politics (Dec. 20):

So isn’t it up to the “plenty of honourable and hard-working people” of Canada to change the unacceptable “culture of deceit, backscratching and venality” that appears endemic in political life and that caused the annus horribilis?

Jeffrey Simpson asks a good question: “How was it, with so many people complicit in the corruption for so long, that no one blew the whistle?”

If we want to see a change to the way of doing business that will promote a culture and system of legality and honour, this can only be done by Canadians who are “mad and disillusioned.”

The answer is not turning off. It is becoming more involved in order to challenge what is wrong.

Working together to stamp out the disease of “widespread, prolonged and systemic corruption” wherever it happens to be in our society is the first step to recovery.

Electing exemplary leaders who will shape our future and create a legacy that reflects and defines our national character is the only way to create the best from Canadian politics.

May 2014 mark the year that increasing numbers of us channel our inner Peter Finch and use our anger and our passion for a better Canada by devoting at least part of each day to learning more about the people and parties who have betrayed the trust that the electoral system has given them.

Boxing Day Shopping

It's never enough, is it?

UPDATE: Guest Post: The Salamander's Innovative Ideas For Bringing Down Harper

Come, my friends.
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
the sounding furrows;

- Ulysses - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

I awoke this morning with a renewed sense of optimism, in part owing to a post that The Salamamder left on my blog yesterday, which I am reproducing in its entirety below. His comments and suggestions made me think of the possibilities before us, and once more reminded me of the strength, comfort and inspiration I take from my fellow bloggers. Not only do they so frequently lead me to information and insights not easy to find in traditional media, but they also leave me with the knowledge that there are many, many people in Canada who believe in and ardently seek a better world for all of us. The fact that they continue to advocate so passionately is proof, to borrow from and to paraphrase John Steinbeck, that the human spirit is alive and will not be vanquished.

The Salamander, I think you will agree, has some very creative and exciting ideas to share; please feel free to distribute them widely.

.. remember Thomas Nast's cartoons re Tammany Hall & New York City corruption... William M. Tweed reportedly said about them.. "Stop them damned pictures. I don't care so much what the papers say about me.
My constituents don't know how to read, but they can't help seeing them damned pictures

.. remember that Stephen J. Harper's base are seemingly incapable of understanding the destructive values, policies, narcissism and entitlement inherent in Harper and all his political franchise.. but they too can understand simple pictures, cartoons and brief truthful & undeniable messages.

ie Linking Peter Kent with a wolf poisoned by airdropped strychnine to 'save' boreal & woodland caribou (see Canada 25 cent piece) whose habitat is being destroyed by tar sands, fracking and pipelines.

ie Stephen Harper (image) does not want Canada or countries we export to, to realize that we are shipping infected commercial salmon & killing off our wild salmon.

ie John Baird (image) thinks its OK to drive indigenous Bedouins off their tribal lands to make room for Israeli settlements

ie Jim Flaherty (image) is A-OK with Nigel Wright and Onex, managing the Canada Pension Plan & delaying when you receive your benefits (not by mail!)

ie ice covered F-35's being sniffed by curious polar bears
ie Benjamin Perrin (image) 'I swear to uphold solicitor/client privilege ..'
ie Jason Kenney is getting by just fine.. but then he lives with his mommy
ie Dean Del Mastro is getting smeared by himself and crying to us about it
ie Senator Gertstein.. too big, too important, to go to jail or tell the truth
ie Ray Novak (image) Just 'friends' with Stephen Harper.. Canada, not so much

The list is endless.. and could facilitate the 4 steps you defined ..
and that's just one type of campaign .. There are others ..... ....
How about videos on Youtube that go viral.. !!!
and gain International attention ??
and millions of views ??
Remember the farcical interview with Kathyn Hammond re 'ethical oil' funding ???
and the puppet version done later ?
How about 'Tell Vic Everything' ? That went big .. and his name is now mud

Spread a little funding among brilliant, patriotic and scathing artists
and you have political dynamite .. especially if you target that weird fragmented 10% of voters the Conservative Party is so desperate to recover or deceive

Merry Christmas ... !!

And this later addition from The Salamander:

.. Lorne .. I dream of how bright individuals, the power of groupthink or lateral thinking solutions could help initiate such campaigns. I always think about Franke James and how she reaches into public areas with her brilliant work.. I wonder how we can stimulate & promote hundreds, even a thousand like her. And how we can piggyback or point to articles and blogs such as yours, Simon, MoS and all the others with their varying approaches yet incisive, critical information..

Bottom line ? I cannot believe a farmer from Saskatchewan will vote for his local Conservative MP.. or a young Tamil in Pickering, or a fisherman in BC upon realizing their MP cannot explain why PM Harper, leader of The Conservative Party is litigating against wounded Canadian military veterans.. So the challenge is.. how do you get across a simple undeniable truth.. that mainstream media fails to deliver? Probably with humor, truth, hard work and good old real Canadian values and can do - will do - ingenuity..

.. from the icy flatlands.. Best wishes & thanks.. & A Merry Christmas



UPDATE: This just in from The Salamander:

.. inspired by indy Canadian bloggers like you, and so many others that present undeniable truths.. am beginning to tweet suggestions for PM Harper Commemorative CP One Dollar postage stamps. Well, actually one could stick them anywhere - can't cost much to produce limited runs of sheets, say 9 by 9 (81) stamps.

I've already tweeted a suggestion for a wonderful stamp..
a heroic Stephen Harper image with copy such as
'I've Been Very Clear - Spying On Canadians is Canadian Values'

Stamps like these would be great on telephones & computer screens

Organize - Resist - Challenge - Change can be driven in two directions at once in a McLuhanesque mischievous way..
More on that later.. plus the '#AskHarperWhy?' hashtag

.. and I do want to initiate the concept of 'the glowing hearts'

I dream of the day when Stephen Harper starts shouting in a bathroom.. 'those stamps are ruining me !!'

A Christmas Thought

While I was not going to post anything today, I offer the following brief thought:

During this season and throughout 2014, may our hearts be attuned to those who can inspire us rather than to those who seek to manipulate and subjugate. May we begin to rediscover, as our greatest moral heroes amply demonstrate, that it is possible to prevail over our natural selfishness and shortsightedness; we can be a much better people, and the world can still be a wondrous place in which to fulfill our potential.

And as we confront those who want us to believe only the worst about ourselves and our fellow human beings so as to make their policies easier to enact, we need to

Organize

Resist

Challenge

Change

Merry Christmas, everyone.

A Good Question

But what is the answer?

Re: ‘Golden age’ for Poland caps 500 years of pain, Dec. 22

Seeing the statement “communism’s iron grip” was too much. What about capitalism’s iron grip? Communism has come and gone in Poland, Russia and many other countries. But we have endured capitalism for centuries and it shows no sign of abating.

It tells us that we live under democracy, when in fact we can do nothing to stop the actions of mean and disgusting people like Stephen Harper and Rob Ford, when binding treaties are negotiated without our knowledge, when we are not permitted to know when we are eating genetically modified food, when the poor get poorer while the rich get richer. Capitalism has resulted in climate change, of which there is no end in sight, other than the destruction of the world.

Our so-called “democratic” structures were set up centuries ago by the rich and powerful to attempt to make capitalism run smoothly, and, above all, to guarantee the system’s persistence. It has not run smoothly, but it has stayed in place.

How do we extricate ourselves from the iron grip of capitalism?

Ken Ranney, Peterborough

H/t The Toronto Star

Lessons Learned, Lessons Forgotten

H/t Catherin Bradbury

'God save thee, ancient Mariner!
From the fiends, that plague thee thus!—
Why look'st thou so?'—With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.

-excerpted from The Rime of The Ancient Mariner, by Samuel Coleridge

In what may seem like a very long time ago but is, by historical standards, really but a blink of the eye, our forebears had a quite healthy respect for nature. They knew of its power and its fury, its capacity both to give and to take, and the rhythms of the seasons imposed their own kind of discipline on people. Whether setting off on a sea voyage or planting crops, there was an innate understanding of humanity's place in the scheme of things. We were not the masters and mistresses of our own fates. Although we were bold and took many chances, propelled by our curiosity about the world around us, we still recognized our limitations.

Sadly, that wisdom has been forgotten.

When I was in the classroom, one of the works I delighted in teaching was Coleridge's The Rime of The Ancient Mariner. For me, the poem has always stood as a parable of humanity's willfulness; very briefly, it is the story of the humbling and horrible lesson a mariner must learn. The hubris informed by his own ego tells him that he is the pinnacle of creation and thus entitled to do as he pleases, with disastrous results.

In the early part of the poem, the Albatross is associated with good fortune, leading the sailors out of a dire predicament. After the crisis has passed, however, for reasons never directly explained, the Mariner, who is essentially the captain of the vessel, kills the albatross, an act that ultimately results in the death of his entire crew and the complete isolation, both physical and spiritual, of the Mariner. As I used to suggest to my students, he likely killed the Albatross simply because he could; in other words, it is one of those many heedless acts that seem to reflect so much of our human nature.

By the poem's end, the Mariner has learned his lesson, but at a horrible price. Unfortunately, in our time we seem, as a species, incapable of gaining such insights, the evidence of our willfulness so plentiful I will not insult you by pointing it out.

Every so often, even in our cossetted 'first-world' experience, we are reminded of our folly. In Southern Ontario, where I reside, yesterday's ice storm left parts of my community, including our house, without power for six hours, a minuscule inconvenience compared to the over 250,000 still without power in the Toronto area as I write this; some may even remain in the dark until at least Christmas Day.

Yet the storm, emblematic of a much more profound disturbance in the environment, will, as other countless disasters in recent years, go largely unremarked by the population at large and, of course, by those we entrust to lead us. Climate change amelioration? Carbon pricing? Valuing capital? Forget it. Adaptation? Maybe. But more likely our 'masters' will continue to say and do things that people want to hear: everything is fine, the economy is rebounding, and global warming is but a contentious 'theory'.

The Ancient Mariner learned a hard lesson that drastically altered the course of his life. It seems to be our fate as a short-sighted species never to learn ours.