My computer has been
in computer hospital since Sunday. I'm hoping it's now showing
paragraphs and slightly larger print.
The Canadian federal
election had the second-worst possible result. I'm much relieved at
the defeat of Harper. He was a threat to democracy and to any
independence of the Canadian nation. He's an ideologue who ignores
reality in favour of a belief system. Trudeau is an old-time
political hack. That is, he has no beliefs at all. Politics is just a
game, and it's only point is to win. Mulcair is a liberal who adopted
Liberal thinking because that's the way to win an election – except
when you're running against real Liberals. If elected, he would have
had no base to deal with the real issues facing us because the
Canadian people have been given no idea what the real issues are.
He's brighter than Trudeau, though, and does have some principles.
I wasn't crazy about
any of the parties. The NDP and the Greens, at a personal level,
are, in my experience, people of some, considerable social
principles. But the Greens had no possibility of a significant vote.
And the NDP castrated itself at its founding, when it softened its
principles to attract the support of unions.
There was no
significant discussion during the election of environment (except by
the Greens), nothing about foreign policy, nothing about our
military – its purpose or its deplorable condition -, and not a
whisper about the increasing drift of politicians into the pockets of
the very wealthy.
And maritimers
showed no change whatever in their usual practice of voting for one
traditional party, getting mad at it, punishing it by voting for the
other traditional party, getting mad at it…...and ever. This week's
voted prevented a disaster. But, otherwise, it's just a step back
into the past. Trudeau will appoint Leblanc to the cabinet. And
Leblanc will become the bagman for New Brunswick, the one who
collects money from very wealthy donors. And it will be old days,
again.
And that brings me
to Alec Bruce's column that appeared on election day. He quotes
Winston Churchill on democracy. “…..it has been said that
democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those
others that have been tried from time to time.”
Winston Churchill,
for all his virtues, is the last person in this world I would quote
on the subject of democracy. Born into an aristocratic family of
Victorian times, he had all of his class' contempt for the average
person, and all of its racism in regard to people of other nations.
In fact, his racial views were almost identical to those of Hitler.
That's why he never lifted a finger to establish democracy anywhere
outside Britain and its white colonies. And where populations of two
races – as in South Africa and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), he invariably
recognized only the white part of the nation. For that matter, he was
not always critical of Hitler's Germany. Indeed, he recognized
Germans as racially quite brothers with the British, and he did not
oppose Hitler until, with others of his class, he realized it was
becoming an economic threat to Britain.
I don't know whether
democracy is the best system because I have no idea what all the
systems have been. And we have certainly seen countries that call
themselves democratic when real power rests in the hands of the very
wealthy.
Obvously, if the
very wealthy come to control a system, it cannot be called a
democracy. But democracy needs more than keeping a rein on the
wealthy. It also needs accurate, unbiased, and full information from
its news media. We do not get that from our privately-owned news
media. The examples of intelligent, informed and honest news media in
this world are very, very few.
We need commentary
to stimulate our thinking – not to tell us what to think, but to
encourage us to think. We need a population willing to think and to
demand information and we need to discuss it in public. New Brunswick
doesn't have that. New Brunswick's idea of commentary is pretentious,
high school humour by Rod Allen. In fact, I found it unpleasant to
watch most post-election commentary on TV. Most of it had to do with
the tactics of winning the election (Trudeau looked good on TV, that
sort of thing.) There was very little about how this election is
likely to affect Canada. Most of the commentators were old-time
political hacks who saw the whole election process simply as a game.
I was astonished to
see an old friend from my radio days who was appearing on TV to give
his expert analysis of the election results. He's a nice guy. I
always liked him. He gave informative and amusing little talks on
radio about the entertainment world. But he knows nothing whatever
about political issues or current events.
Oh, yes. To have a
democracy, we also need a population that is literate. And
intellectually alive.
We live in a world
in which whatever democracy we have is collapsing, a world in which
uncounted millions are dying of war, of starvation, a world created
by our mainstream political parties. Yes, those are really people and
children and babies huddling in rain without food or shelter on the
borders who countries that won't let them in. (And they're not on our
borders because we won't let them get even that far.).
World disorder is
spreading because we are helping to create it. The disorder has
spread throughout the middle east, into Europe ( where it's going to
get much worse). And it's going to spread here, within our own
societies. The U.S. is working on spreading it to Asia by holding
fleet exercises in waters claimed by China. (However, I don't think
China will take that bait.)
Most of this
disorder could have been prevented. It could have been prevented in
Israel, in Iran, in Syria, in Iraq, in Libya, in Afghanistan. It
wasn't. And that's because big money didn't want it to be prevented.
We are drifting very quickly into a world controlled by big money
which also controls whatever 'democracy' is left to us.
There's no hope the
Liberals or Conservatives will deal with that. For them, from their
origins, it has always been a big game and nothing more.
The Greens are
attempting to break that. The NDP should be going back to its origins
– and stop acting like Liberals and Conservatives.
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