Politicians and the letters we've sent

I have consistently criticized the Harper government for their corruption, lack of ethics, and total disregard for the people of this country. I do this even when many of the voters don't seem to care that they the government is acting consistently against the interest of the vast majority of the people. 

However, regardless of my politics, I will not indulge the perception that the other parties are somehow more concerned with average voters. 

Over the past seven years I have sent no less than twenty letters and countless emails to politicians of all political stripes. I have sent at least six of those to Jack Layton, two to Dion, two to Ignatieff, and one to Harper. And of course I have sent many to MPs of all parties. But here is the sad fact. I have never received a single reply from anyone except my local (Tory) MP, the dreaded racist Pierre Poilievre. Even though my politics, although non-partisan, would be closer to the NDP than any other party, no one in the NDP has ever bothered to reply to my letters or concerns. My letters to Jack Layton were clear and articulated my concerns about the course of the party and the country but he didn't bother reply to any of them. 

If you want to know why so many people are sick of politics and politicians you only have to look as far as your mailbox. These people just don't care, period.

Time to go Mr. Layton. . . .

It is time for people on the left of Centre to take back the NDP and make it a party of principle. I don't care what your political stripes, if you are committed to democracy (unfortunately many conservatives are not so committed) you must know that there is a place for a party at the left of center to make a contribution. Unfortunately, under Jacky Layton the NDP has become a party that seems to change positions with the changing of the weather. Unfortunately there are other NDP MPs who are even worse that Layton like Mr. Mulcaire. In recent decades we have have watched the political spectrum shift slowly to the right and the result has been more inequality of wealth, the centralization of power, radical increases in corporate crime against the environment and human rights, decreases in political participation, media concentration. The fact is that a handful of people have most of the wealth and through that wealth they control most of the political agenda. Global capitalism is failing and so is democracy. The NDP under Layton is part of the shift to the right. It is time for a change. It is time for principles to return. 

Political doldrums and New Books

I haven’t blogged much in the past few days because it doesn’t seem worth it anymore, at least not from the political perspective. The NDP has rolled over and become Harper’s lab-dog, the Liberals are running namby-pamby ads which will have no impact at all because it’s like fighting against a guy shooting an Uzi by dancing ballet, and Harper is just getting worse every day. Writing about politics now seems like trying to a have a rational discussion about aerodynamic while the plane is going down, interesting but superfluous.

In light of this I will just mention the books I got in the mail this week. I got a three volume edition of the Letters of the Wordsworth family edited by William Knight, published by Ginn and Company, Boston, 1907. The set is in very good condition but is discarded from the library of Occidental University so the spines are numbered with typical white numbering. It should be interesting to read many of the letters of William and Dorothy Wordsworth to some of the other great literary figures of the age. Though I am not a big fan of Wordsworth, he knew a lot of people and writes a surprisingly good letter. This is not, of course, the exhaustive collection of Wordsworth letters. The complete letters are published by Oxford I believe in a multi-volume edition and each volume can cost a couple of hundred dollars. But I am certainly not a Wordsworth expert and am more interested in the letters as background reading concerning the Romantics in general so this set will do for my purposes.

I also received six volumes of the writings of Thomas de Quincey. I already had two of these volumes but I won the set on ebay, and the two new ones are in better shape than the old ones. These published byf Ticknor & Fields of Boston and are part of a nineteen volume set of the complete works of De quincey published in the 1850s. I have never been able to figure out why a publisher like T&F, a company that was well known for their fairly good quality publications, would invest this kind of effort in publishing this multi-volume works of De Quincey. From what I have been able to determine, De Quincey was well known but hardly popular enough to warrant such an elaborate publication, particularly in the US. Interest in the Romantic poets was growing in the 1850s and De Quincey knew all of them and had written a great deal concerning them and their lives. But that would only have taken a couple of volumes, not nineteen of them. And the strange thing about this set is that it doesn’t include any of De Quincey’s correspondence.

De Quincey is, of course, most well known for his book Confessions of an Opium Eater which appeared in the London Magazine in serialized form in the early 1820s. This book quite needlessly exposed the addiction of Coleridge to Opium and was not a very flattering picture of the great poet. But De Quincey in general is quite an enigma and why he wrote certain things is a complete mystery to me. His prose is some of the most complicated of the whole romantic era and can be extremely difficult to read at times. Some of his work is very interesting if you can wade your way through the long digressions and get to heart of the matter. Such complex writing is best read out loud to get the true effect of the pomp of prose. I encourage people to read a biography of De Quincey because he presents such a strange and enigmatic picture that it is always interesting. 

Open letter to Jack Layton

[I post this letter here because I have learned through experience that Layton does not answer letter sent to his office so I have given up trying for a personal response]

Dear Mr. Layton;

For months now I have been defending the NDP while Liberal bloggers have subject it to constant excoriation. Many have said that once Jack Layton thought it was to his advantage to support Harper and his cronies his so-called principles against the Torys would suddenly evaporate. They said that your criticisms of the Liberals for supporting Harper were just empty political games because under pressure you would stand up with some lame excuse to support the Tory government. And though I have never been one of your most outspoken supporters, I foolishly rejected this contention. I assured people that though you are not politically perfect, you would never stoop so low as to keep the worst, most dangerous Prime Minister in Canadian history in office. Imagine my shock and disappointment when I learned that all your talk about Harper being untrustworthy was just political rhetoric? I was doubly shocked to see that you are willing to sell out the people of this country for bogus EI legislation that will do nothing for the vast majority of workers.

If you think average NDP supporters are going to see this as anything less than crass political opportunism you are surely wrong. And all of this begs the question, if you were going to be willing to support the Harper government on something as empty as this EI reform, why did you spend so long criticizing the Liberal Party for doing exactly what you are doing now? Is it just outrageous political incompetence that would drive you to such a public reversal? Are you just so surrounded by yes-men and fools that you can’t see what your actions really mean out here in the world to average people?

What you are doing now Mr. Layton is the very reason that democracy is in crisis. Politicians constantly say one thing and do another. They play political games with constant harsh rhetoric which is suddenly contradicted by their actions. You don’t have to ask yourself why voter turn-out is so low, you need only look in the mirror. People are turned off by this opportunism and hypocrisy.

It is very sad that we now have no real alternative to look to in Ottawa because you are all playing the same game.

Kirbycairo

Let's respond Leftist bloggers. . .

The NDP bloggers on New Democrat Online have, for a long time now, taken every opportunity to deride and excoriate the Liberal Party of Canada for continually voting with the Harper Conservatives. They have, however, been ominously silent in recent days about their own leader’s overtures to Harper and his cronies, rationalizing the potential agreement as a genuine effort of the NDP to get some concessions that will help working (or no-longer working) people.

Anyone who has looked at these so-called concessions knows that they don’t even fulfill the Liberal demands let alone the demands of the NDP. Now I know that no vote has yet taken place (and the NDP may not support Harper) but come on Leftist bloggers, let’s see some indignation at the very idea that the NDP would keep the Harper government alive so that Jack Layton and Peggy Nash know how we feel out here!  

 

NDP hypocrisy, how sad. . ..

Today Paul Dewer, NDP MP for Ottawa Centre, talked to the media directly after the Tories presented their EI reforms. Mr. Dewer told us that it would be “irresponsible” for the NDP not to closely examine the proposals before making a decision on whether to support the government or not. This is nothing short of complete political hypocrisy and opportunism! They didn’t need to read the previous budget, and instead the NDP told Canadians that because Harper and his government simply couldn’t be trusted it didn’t really matter what the budget said. Now, suddenly when they cannot blame the Liberals for propping up Harper, the NDP is into political responsibility. How disappointing! I agreed with the original NDP position, to wit; this government cannot be trusted, period! But it is disappointing to learn that they didn’t really mean it and it was just political posturing. Mr. Layton has now proven himself to be just like any other political leader in this Parliament; an opportunist who is more concerned with his own pension than real principles. (I have, of course, seen this before in Mr. Layton who failed repeatedly to condemn the invasion of Afghanistan until the political wind shifted and he saw the condemnation of Canada’s role as politically expedient. )

If you cannot stand on principles Jack, why are you the leader of the NDP? You need to resign now. . . . (And while you are at it Mr. Dewer, you need to resign also.)

Harper treads water

It is utterly amazing to me that, in the face of such terrible conditions and remarkable incompetence, the Conservative Government still maintains a respectable showing in the polls. I have been thinking a great deal about this and trying to determine what might explain such a situation.

Many die-hard conservatives will, of course, simply contend that Canadians are more committed to conservative principles than ever before and that is why the Harper Government maintains a certain degree of popularity despite so many difficulties. I believe we can dispense with such a claim immediately for two main reasons. First, because on many issues, particularly social ones, the Canadian population is, over time, slowly becoming more liberal. Second because Harper’s Government has demonstrated that it will abandon any principle in order to gain and hold power, so the public can’t be holding on to any particular principles which it shares with Harper or his cronies. Harper has abandoned accountability, the rule of law, transparency, the freedom of individual MPs to serve their constituents, his claim that he would never appoint Senators, all his claims to populism, his legislative opposition to gay marriage, and of course his claim that he would never run a deficit. It is hard to believe, therefore, that Canadians are supportive of Harper’s principles since it is not clear that he has any. And one need not argue that Harper has only temporarily abandoned these ideals until he gains a majority, because principle’s jettisoned for expediency (even temporarily) are not principles at all.

Thus I don’t believe for a moment that the Canadian public has simply become more Conservative and that is why Harper’s Government maintains a decent poll showing. I think we must look elsewhere for a convincing explanation of this phenomenon. When you think about it the Conservatives are actually playing a pretty simple game; in times of generalized uncertainty the right-wing is often fairly successful because it trades on basic fears of crime and instability. This was certainly true in Europe during the 1930s. All Harper has to do is maintain a public image of strength and sow the seeds of fear in people’s minds and he will not drop too far in the polls.

However, another contributing factor in the Conservative’s continued popularity is Liberal incompetence. In times of uncertainty, when people want strength, the Liberals have exuded a consistent image of weakness. While blustering constantly about how terrible Harper and his government have been, they have failed at every opportunity to oppose them. And an Opposition that doesn’t oppose cannot create an image of strength in people’s minds. This has, thus far, been a deadly combination for the Liberals; weakness in opposition, uncertain times, and a Prime Minister who, though sinisterly Machiavellian, has kept his public image of strength. And until the Liberals can change this, nothing that the Conservatives do, in and of itself, will make a real difference. Fifty Billion Dollar deficits, racist comments, abandonment of principles, a finance Minister who doesn’t know a Loonie from a lug-nut; none of this will really matter. Until the Opposition actually becomes and Opposition we can rely on the Conservatives maintaining 30 to 35 percent in the polls.

Of course the incredible hypocrisy of Jack Layton (and keep in mind that I am closer to the NDP than the Liberals) is now presenting the Liberals with a new opportunity to show some backbone. If the NDP are going to take up the role of keeping the Harper Government alive the Liberals can finally start to vote against Harper for the first time. Six months of a strong opposition, coupled with a completely incompetent Government will surely tip the polls enough to lay waste to Harper once and for all. 

The Liberals, Layton and Hypocrisy.

There is a lot of talk around political circles, and I stress that it is mostly rumor and innuendo at the moment, that the Bloc and the NDP are both ready to work with the Conservative Minority Government for the foreseeable future in order to avoid an election. The recent polls which suggest that Harper is in trouble and may have run his political course confirms something that is clear to anyone with an ounce of political analysis. As I have said before, an unusual confluence of historical event brought Harper to power and the conditions have changed. These historical event, coupled with some fairly outrageous political mistakes have, I believe, irreparably doomed Harper’s political fortunes. Furthermore, his ultra-partisan, frighteningly controlling political style always has limited political lifespan in modern Western democracies. It can work for a while during relatively comfortable and trouble-free times, but when the economic and social conditions get stormy, such a centralizing, Machiavellian style tends to turn people off because it seems mean and self-serving. Anyway, back to my original point which is the degree of cooperation that Harper can expect to enjoy from the Bloc and the NDP now that his fortunes seem to have changed. In the Blogosphere many Liberals are beginning to rant and rave, centering most of their attacks on Jack Layton, at the prospect that these parties might attempt to cooperate with Harper with the intention of avoiding an election themselves and gaining some political concessions. Yesterday, such speculation went into overdrive with the release of polling numbers in Quebec that suggest that the Liberals have actually overtaken the Bloc in popularity. Now I find this Liberal indignation ironic for two reasons. The first is that the Liberal party was the only one that voted with this government on a confidence issue since it returned to power. Both the other opposition parties voted against the budget which means thus far it has only been the Liberals propping up Harper’s Government. The second is that no one has actually said or done anything in either of the other opposition parties which is proof positive of the cooperation on which so many are speculating. The fact is that even though the NDP has been the main target of the Liberal attacks in recent days, the Bloc is a much more likely candidate for keeping this Government alive. The NDP may be mourning the loss of their dreamed of coalition but they have less to lose than the Bloc from an election. Furthermore, there is very little, if anything, that the Conservatives can offer the NDP that would justify the political risk of being seen to cooperate with the Harper. The much vaunted referendum on proportional representation is a non-starter and even if such a thing did happen, it would have no chance of passing with the opposition from the other three parties. Thus, if it does turn out that there is nothing to this Blog-rumor that Layton has sold the soul of the NDP, the most startling thing about all this recent discourse is the incredibly ironic accusations of ‘hypocrisy’ that have been so quickly thrown at the NDP by the Liberals. Not to say that it would not be hypocritical for Jack Layton to now support the Harper Government after the vitriolic attacks he made on the Liberals in the last election and the continual acts on his part to paint Harper as a democratic antichrist. It would be hypocritical indeed if Layton were now to somehow prop up the minority government in complete contradiction to his political discourse for the past two years or so. However, for the accusations of hypocrisy to come from the Liberals is itself profoundly hypocritical. Dion and Liberals voted with Harper time and again from pure political expediency, they knew they couldn’t win an election and that there was a real chance of Harper gaining a majority. Now one might argue that keeping Harper from a majority is of such political importance that the Liberals were right to avoid an election at any cost. I for one believe that a Harper majority would be a serious threat to the fundamental democracy of our system; not because of any single policy that he pursues but because his political style is centralist and Machiavellian that the present Conservative Party would actually chip away at democracy itself. (This is not, by the way, a generalized attack on Conservatives or Conservative Ideology but rather aimed largely at Harper and his inner-core. There are many Conservatives with whom I disagree about policy but who I think are committed to democracy and fair-play) However, since the Liberals have certainly never publicly made this argument, I don’t believe that can retroactively use it for their two-year support of the Conservative Government. The simple fact is that when it was in their political interest to do so, the Liberals had no qualms about keeping Harper in power. It is disingenuous, therefore, for Liberals now or in the future to turn their vitriolic attacks on Layton for doing the exact same thing.

Layton is, I believe, of dubious character and has taken the NDP away from what should be its principled stance on many issues. I also believe he was profoundly wrong to bring down the Martin Government just because he saw an opportunity to gain a few more seats. If Martin had remained Prime Minister for another year or so Universal Childcare would have become a political fact like universal education and Harper would probably been unable to stop it. Furthermore, Harper’s abandonment of the Kyoto and the Kelowna accords would have been much more difficult. I therefore have no serious words of defense for Jack Layton. However, the Liberals have always been the master of political gamesmanship and for them to accuse anyone of hypocrisy at this point is ridiculous. If Liberal’s really want to step onto the high ground of political discourse they should stand for real and serious political reforms to this country including some form of proportional representation, genuine accountability, a decentralization of political power away from the PMO, real campaign reform including an abandonment of the market-driven advertising approach to politics, campaign finance reform, genuine freedom of information, and some serious public investment in alternative energy programs. When the Liberals are ready to make these kinds of reforms then perhaps they can accuse others of hypocrisy. Until that time, it is clear to any honest political observer that the Liberal party continues to be just another self-interested political party who will play almost any political game to gain power and keep it. 

Charisma and leadership

We are all asking ourselves – ‘Must we watch Canadian democracy be destroyed because Mr. Dion has no Charisma?’ Because this is what it all comes down to. If the leader of the Liberal Party was a charismatic speaker with style who imbued people with a sense of confidence and hope, the Conservatives would have no change and would be lagging badly in this election. But then maybe it does come down to leadership, because a good leader is able to take advantage of his opposition’s inadequacies, And the record of the Conservative Government is so terrible that if the opposition had any kind of leadership, everyone in the country would be talking about their awful scandals and their fundamental attacks on democracy. But no one is talking about those things because the Liberals seem to have no chutzpah. I am not a big fan of Jack Layton but at least he is running some kind of campaign and trying to remind people just how terrible Stephen Harper has been. But then maybe the Liberals don’t really want to win. After all, if Harper just got another minority, then six or seven months from now Harper will have proven just how hopeless he is in taking care of the economy and will have destroyed any chance he had of securing a majority.

But then if we Canadians are looking down the barrel at another Conservative government just because the liberal leader has no charisma, we are surely luckier than the American public who are facing another Republican president simply because the Democratic candidate is an African American. Because make no mistake, if a Democratic candidate had come along with the style, charisma, and background of Obama – and he were white: he would now be so far ahead of McCain that the election would have already been decided.