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. 

Letter to Mr. Poilievre, (unfortunately) my MP

Dear Mr. Poilievre

 

As a constituent in Nepean-Carleton I cannot tell you how disappointed I am in the conduct of my Member of Parliament. It seems that you spend most of your time, and our money, campaigning against the opposition in a callous, disrespectful, and ultra-partisan manner. While your constituents are facing serious issues such as pollution, job-losses, radically rising food prices, unplanned urban sprawl, etc., you are continually presenting yourself to the public as nothing more than a disrespectful bully who conducts himself as little more than a child in public. As a parent who believes in living a responsible civic life, I encourage my teenage children to learn about politics and keep a close eye on how our government works. And they have asked me on more than one occasion why their MP is allowed to act in so discourteous and ill-mannered a way in and out of the House of Commons. And I have no answer for them. Instead, thanks to conduct like yours I have to watch my kids become disillusioned with politics and cynical about life! Please desist from tell your constituents that you support family values. Cynicism, belligerence, and blind political ambition are not family values! We cannot even depend upon you to stand by the rules, as yesterday you again violated them by indicating, in one of your ultra-partisan diatribes, that one of the Members was absent  from the house.

 

And the biggest tragedy for my kids and the future of this country is that when they ask me why you act that way, and they suggest that even for the sake of his own reelection shouldn’t  Mr. Poilievre act with more respect and greater decorum. I have to tell them “Well, he just doesn’t care. Even if he loses he will get a pension and enjoy a lucrative career based upon his time in the House.” And then my kids just shake their heads and ask me why they should bother with politics. But I have no answer Mr. Poilievre!  You spend our taxpayer’s money forging your own political career by continually campaigning instead of actually acting like a responsible representative and in the process you are destroying the political culture of this country, which is all tragically amusing considering that the Conservatives were first elected because of a commitment to change the political culture to a more humane and responsible discourse. Instead of laughing when one of your peers takes a jab at another, you should solemnly bow your head at this sign of disrespect and immaturity.

 

This is not a game Mr. Poilievre, it is real life and people out here have real problems! As a constituent and taxpayer, I demand that you start acting like an adult. This means forging compromise and cooperation while showing respect and decorum. Your present actions are doing nothing but undermining democracy itself.

 

Beyone the Law

Chantal Hebert is one of my favorite political writers because she is willing to take a swipe at anyone. Her recent article is another great example of how she is cuts to the heart of the matter. She shows how Harper is consistently derisive of the the law whenever courts or Parliament or the Governor General somehow violate his effort to impose his ideology. (Here is the translated version: http://tinyurl.com/hebert14 ) Similarly Garth Turner, once a member of Harper's caucus, has emerged with a book entitled Sheeples which compares Conservative MPs to sheep who must blindly follow Harper's will or face immediate expulsion. I think people in the country are finally waking up to the fact that Stephan Harper is a serious threat to democracy in Canada. He has no interest in the rule of law, or the will of the people as translated through the will of Parliament. He is only interested in gaining power however he can. He is undermining accountability, freedom of information and every other mechanism that protects the fragile democracy we are supposed to enjoy. (And don't forget he has been working hard to gerrymander the electoral line in Ontario) When he was elected he made a strong attempt to portray the legal system and the public service as one monolithic mechanism of the Liberal Party, and since then he has proven that he will do anything he can to bypass the law. When Harper is finally torn from his desperate grip on power many in this country will breath a huge sigh of relief when we realize that we barely escaped the total destruction of or democratic system.

Shelley and the Beliefs of politics

“Belief and disbelief are utterly distinct from and unconnected with volition. They are the apprehension of the agreement or disagreement of the ideas which compose any proposition. Belief is an involuntary operation of the mind, and like other passions, its intensity is precisely proportionate to the degrees of excitement.”  So wrote Percy Shelley in his early prose piece entitled A Letter to Lord Ellenborough, a remarkably eloquent statement from the pen of an eighteen year old boy. And while this passage is a very small part of a fairly long text that deals with the persecution of deists in England, I quote it here because I find it at once interesting and a little scary. I find it daunting because it seems true but its truth has problematic implications for politics. This is because belief doesn’t just form the foundation of religion but people’s politics also seem to be founded on some basic beliefs about what can or should be, what the goals of society should entail etc, etc. We have all experienced this firsthand. Someone has a particularly noxious political belief which they attempt to justify with an elaborate rational discourse which is really just a sophistic defense of some core beliefs. I have argued so many times with people about politics only to find, after a long process, that they have some outrageous belief about people that is not based on any rational discourse but is just a frightening bigotry. (I recently saw this in action when someone was speaking with utter derision of the Tamil protestors that were on Parliament Hill here in Ottawa for nearly a week – disrupting traffic and trying to gain attention for their cause. Instead of addressing the important issues that the Tamil’s were attempting to raise about the bigotry and brutality that the Tamil people have suffered, this person just waved them off as ‘stupid trouble makers.’ ) This is, for me, particularly disturbing in right-wing ideology which is so often rooted in an underlying belief that certain people are simply more worthy of prosperity and power than others. In action we can see this in their continual and nauseating attack on the most vulnerable people in society. This is not to imply that the political positions of left-winger’s are not rooted in certain beliefs; they are indeed. However, I simply find the beliefs of the left, for the most part, more attractive and beneficial than others. They are, I think, rooted in compassion, equity, and a society that not only the strong or connected enjoy prosperity.

Yet, all of this still leaves us with a difficult quandary; how do we engage in political struggle when at the heart of these struggles are beliefs which are not necessarily subject to rational discourse? 

Utopianism and Art

For those one or two of you who regularly read my blog you will know that I have been speaking lately about the role of art in politics, with a particular emphasis on the Romantic authors in the revolutionary period. The French historian Jules Michelet wrote that “every age dreams its successor.” I am convinced that art in all its guises is a central part in this dreaming. Utopianism is an essential element in all social and political change and art is an essential part of Utopianism.
Ernst Bloch was a German philosopher who made utopianism a central part of his writing and thought. He went to great lengths to connect art with the utopian function of human consciousness, particularly in his book The Utopian Function of Art and Literature. I quote a relevant passage from the book which speaks, I think, to the issues which I have recently discussing.

“….the question about the truth of art becomes philosophically the questions concerning the given reproductive potentiality of the beautiful illusion, concerning its degree of reality in a reality of the world that is not one-dimensional, concerning the place of its object correlate. Utopia as the determination of the object, with the degree of being (Seinsgrad) of the really possible (Realmöglichen) presents a particularly rich problem for corroboration in the light of the iridescent phenomenon of art. And the answer to the aesthetic question about truth is that artistic illusion is generally not only mere illusion but one wrapped in images, a meaning that only portrays in images what can be carried on, where the exaggeration and telling of stories (Ausfabelung) represent an anticipatory illumination of reality circulating and signifying in the active present (Bewegt-Vorhandenen), in an anticipatory illumination, which portrays things in a specifically aesthetic immanent way. Here, individual, social, and also elemental events are illuminated that the usual or sharp senses can barely detect yet It is due to the fact that the anticipatory illumination is attainable in this way, that art propels its subjects, figures, situations, actions, landscapes to the end, that it expresses these things in sorrow, in fortune as well as in meaning. Anticipatory illumination itself is attainable by virtue of the fact that the craft (Metier) of propelling something to the end takes place in a dialectically open space, where all objects can be aesthetically portrayed."

The concept of ‘anticipatory illumination’ is particularly exciting because it puts into words what is a very complex notion. Art creates a picture of a future that is nascent in the human soul.

Coleridge on Politics

“That general Illumination should precede Revolution, is a truth as obvious, as that the Vessel should be cleansed before we fill it with a pure Liquor. But the mode of diffusing it is not discoverable with equal facility. We certainly should never attempt to make Proselytes by appeals to the selfish feelings – and consequently, should plead for the Oppressed, not to them. The Author of an essay on political justice considers private Societies as the sphere of real utility – that (each one illuminating those immediately beneath him,) Truth by a gradual descent may at last reach the lowest order. But this is rather plausible than just or practicable. Society as at present constituted does no resemble a chain that ascends in a continuity of Links. – There are three ranks possessing intercourse with each other: these are well comprised in the superscription of a Perfumer’s advertisement which I lately saw – “the Nobility, Gentry, and People of the Dress.” But alas! between the Parlour and the Kitchen, the Tap and the Coffee-room – there is a gulph [sic] that may not be passed. He would appear to me to have adopted the best as well as the most benevolent mode of diffusing Truth, who uniting the zeal of the Methodist with the views of the Philosopher, should be personally among the Poor, and teach them their Duties in order that he may render them susceptible of their Rights.”

Coleridge: Introductory Address to his 1795 Lecture series.

Problems of Literature (Part 3)

When one follows this line of reasoning, even to a minimal degree, you are soon overcome with a queasy feeling that is rooted in the nagging sense that one is inevitably going to be faced with the problem of quality; the very problem that drove the narrator of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to the edge of madness. While the individual aspect of aesthetic experience drives one away from universal or objective notions of quality, such an idea is deeply unsettling as well as counter intuitive. On the other hand, the idea of fixed meanings and interpretations which tie us to a possible universal, albeit subtextual , experiences which are represented in literature. However, a felling of nausea grips you either way. Perhaps it is simply rooted in the vagaries of the ego, but the question nags one’s mind because how are we comprehend the idea that there is no qualitative distinction to be made between Coleridge and Rod McKuen, or Velazquez and Leroy Neiman? Is this just too disturbing to contemplate? There is no doubt something profoundly disturbing about the idea that there is no conceptual hook on which to hang the idea of aesthetic quality. On the other hand it is very clear that much of art or literary theory has been little more than an elaborate practice of elitism, intentional obfuscated theoretical constructs designed to promote certain values and agendas. This opinion was famously taken up by George Orwell who suggested that works of art were really “judged on political ground which are then given an aesthetic disguise.” Such a notion was made blatant and more refined by Fredric Jameson in his remarkable book The Political Unconscious. Here Jameson suggests that lying behind all acts of artistic creation as well as interpretation are fundamental political assumptions that serve to make them meaningful to their producers. It is, perhaps, a particularly tricky way of introducing an erstwhile universalism but makes no issue out of the thorny problem of quality. There is no question of the liberatory aspects of a non-qualitative approach to literature which doesn’t look at a literary document as a fixed object with correct and incorrect possible interpretations, but rather an object of utility which can serve whatever function we chose. This reminds me of Michael Radford’s film Il Postino where the shy but lovable postman uses one of Pablo Neruda’s poems in a love letter to the woman who he has been wooing. Neruda is upset that the man has used his poem, but the Postman suggest that poems don’t belong anyone in particular but to anyone who needs them. Indeed! At a more prosaic level I think of comedian Mitch Hedberg’s funny observation in which he says he just bought a three-bedroom house, but then he thought “Wait a minute, isn’t it up to me how many bedrooms it has. The kitchen is a bedroom that happens to have a refrigerator in it.