Bill’s Election Rant – oh, canada, remix

It’s deja vu all over again, just like Yogi Berra said.

Ah, election time in Canada. Same faces as last time, and the same lame game. Stephen Harper wants to put the fear of economics into you, Stephane Dion is all but unintelligible to English Canada, Jack Layton still comes across as a Jack Russell terrier who wouldn’t know what to do with it if he ever managed to catch the car driving by him, Gilles Duceppe could only be a viable federal candidate in our own unique political entity and Elizabeth May just wants to be taken seriously and is willing to do almost anything just to be invited to the party at the popular kids’ house.

Oh, Canada, indeed. Stephen Harper must be a fan of the movie “Wag the Dog” because he seems to have adopted the campaign slogan of the incumbent president of that movie in that he’s basically saying ‘ you don’t change horses in the middle of a race’ on the one hand while trying to get us to still buy into the deregulated free market that’s been working so well for our friends south of the border on the other. You’d think that now would actually be the time to consider other ideas or models when thinking about our current geopolitical/economic morass and how to address the issues facing us in the coming months and years, but Stephen wants us to believe in the bogeyman economy that’s waayyy scarier than the shitstorm we’re caught in right now. As if watching George’s republican administration, with their fundamentalist belief in governmental nonintervention in the workings of the free market economy, suddenly flooding the market with over a trillion dollars worth of bailouts for the banks and investment houses owned by their friends isn’t proof enough that unchecked avarice is a shaky foundation for one’s society, here comes Stevie boy telling us that what is needed in Canada is for the government to get outta the way so anybody with deep pockets can buy up whatever they want of our country and our resources and that it’ll be good for us.

What’s it going to take to get this bunch of money managers to realize that a) they’re supposed to be putting our interests ahead of that of themselves and their friends, and that b) governments actually have an impotant role to play vis a vis the structuring of our economic environment as it serves to enhance the well being of our society in all facets and that the most important of these may elude the cost analysis provided by spreadsheets and voter data polling. Instead these folks mock anything deeper than the gene pool they slithered out of and shrug their shoulders in response to questions regarding things like consumer gouging by oil companies, saying que sera sera and fuck you for asking.

I figure the conservative party thinks Obama is going to win the election in November and that they called the election before the changes in thinking south of the border make their way north. Otherwise why bother breaking their own law with regard to five year terms ? And why give the center/left time to get their shit together before that term is up ?

And in tactical terms, who can blame them ? The opposition is so busy bickering among themselves that they haven’t a hope in hell of defeating this bunch of gasbags.

Stephane Dion may well be the brightest guy in the room, but he’s virtually incapable of communicating that fact with any perception of confidence or ability, a sight duly incorporated into the campaign by his right wing rival. And once this kind of a perception has taken hold, and it has, it arrives before the candidate even has a chance to show up, rendering pretty much anything he says immaterial as it’s going to be seen as another oppurtunity for the conservatives to gather material for their next t.v. ad. Which is a shame, since his version of taxation seems to want to incorporate emerging environmental realities with the causes of those realities on an economic level which could lead to a more intellectually conscious manner for us to be aware of how our choices in one area of our existence impact every other aspect of both our and every other species lives on this fragile planet we call home.

Which leads us to the next candidate in this run for the cure, Mr. Jack Layton, a man for any and no seasons. This guy is like an ad for Canadian Tire, more annoying and cloying every time you see him on the tube. He’s been well coached in making a neatly scripted and sanitized 30 second message that says he’s in it for the little guy, but ask him a question that requires an answer that hasn’t already appeared in his photo-op of the day and you get the political version of a between the periods interview with a right winger for the Phoenix Coyotes or something that goes kinda like “well, geez, eh, we’re all in it together and we’re givin’er 110 percent, eh, and like, those conservative guys on the other team haven’t seen our best yet, you know. We’ve still got a lot left in the tank an’ we’re full o’ new ideas,eh, and we’ll see what happens once we get ‘em into overtime. Thanks, Ron. ” that just leaves you scratching your head and wondering if this isn’t just some really stupid attempt at irony except for the fact that the n.d.p. really thinks that he’s the best they’ve got going into an election. Joey Smallwood wouldn’t let this guy…..

Gilles Duceppe ? C’mon. Enuf sed.

Elizabeth “Greenday” May, who has to spend most of her time trying to get invited to the little soirees known as the t.v. debates  and other media “events”, is little known anywhere other than, perhaps, B.C. (the province, not the era) and sundry pockets in what is left of the liberal in liberal arts schools scattered across the land, and is the first of many electoral generations that must go before the voting public before they’ll begin to be taken seriously as a political party. She knows this and is up for her role as what we believe to be the conscience’s of our childrens’ childrens’ children. Which is a good if thankless role to play at any time when making decisions about the future of our country, continent and planet, and is the role Jackie Laytons n.d.p. played formerly, before gaining the hubris necessary to see oneself as the ANSWER and greasing himself up for his time with the big boys.

Hello Stephen Harper, Mr. Prime Minister, chief opportunist of a decrepit era this side of the political border. The only question is : will he have a majority this time ?

Will anybody care ?