Our Newest Canadian Election

Nobody cares!  I’m telling you this straight up – nobody cares!  All this ripping and snorting and blowing about a spring election might just as well be going on in Belgium.  Canadians don’t give a damn.   Why?  It’s got nothin’ to do with us!  This election, if it even happens, is of the politicians, by the politicians, and for the politicians.  We, the people of Canada, are not involved.  Some of us are going to show up on election day (but these numbers are dwindling.)  And, truth be told, a lot of people vote these days just so they can claim the right to bitch for the next 2 or 3 years.  The only people who are getting excited about this democratic exercise are the apparatchiks in Ottawa and a couple of thousand party diehards in Southern Ontario.  The rest of us are a whole lot more concerned about Tripoli and Fukushima than we are about our honourable members flopping around in the April breeze.

It’s ironic, isn’t it, that there are people in this world literally dying to get their hands on democracy and we-the-people here in Canada could care less?  The fact is, at least this time, it’s not our fault.  Our leaders — all of them — have betrayed us.  This election is about nothing.  It’s a conflict of disinterests.  I double dog dare any one of these Federales to name me the issue that is so monumental in scope, so dire in its consequence, that we must halt the business of government forthwith and seek the mandate of the people before we proceed.  Could it be forgiving student loans for doctors and nurses?  Or perhaps it’s the tax credit for caregivers?  What a joke!  It’s no wonder Canadians have such a low opinion of politicians.  Here we are, struggling along in a world that is rapidly coming apart at the seams, and these clowns want to dance around for six weeks, calling each other names.  I swear, boys and girls, the folks in Ottawa have been out to lunch for so long they are now on a permanent picnic.

Here’s how it’s going to go.  Ignatieff is going to call Harper the antichrist.  Harper is going to call Ignatieff an educated idiot (or an ex-patriot educated idiot, if you prefer Global or CTV.)  Layton, who is one pension away from being a millionaire, is going to talk a lot about working families, just as if he knew anything about it.  And Elizabeth May is going to wander around, looking bewildered.  I haven’t mentioned Gilles Duceppe because you and I both know that the Bloc could run Harold the Talking Penguin (Harold, le Pingouin Qui Parle) in Quebec and still get 50 seats.  If there is another scenario for the next month and a half, I’d like to hear it.  Oh, yeah!  There will also be at least two debates, so the other party leaders can punch Harper in the stomach for an hour or so — in both official languages.  And that’s about it.  Most Canadians won’t set eyes on their local candidates.  Some won’t even know who they are.  And 40% of us just won’t bother to vote.  I say again, it’s ironic that some people in this world are literally dying to get their hands on a ballot and our leaders are making such a mockery of democracy that nearly half of us have to turn our faces away.

So, what the hell’s really going on?

Despite what you are going to hear from the candidates and the media, this election is about straightening out the political scene in Ottawa.  It has nothing to do with ordinary people in places like Brandon and Thunder Bay.  The Liberals and the NDP are in a Texas Death Match to determine who is going to represent the Centre Left in this country.   Although Ignatieff has tried to drag the Liberals to the right, some members (I’m not going to say Bob Rae) don’t like it.  They prefer to remain left of centre and want Mikey to lose an election — so they can trashcan the guy and pick a more appropriate leader.  Meanwhile, the Green Party is slowly eroding the far left edges away from the NDP (who are quietly moving right to avoid a fight.)   If you’ll notice, Jack Layton doesn’t talk about working people anymore without calling them “middle-class.”  And lately, he’s gotten downright shy about the Palestinians.

Anyway, since two objects can’t occupy the same space at the same time, the Liberals and NDP need to decide who is doing what to whom.  They’re going to let the voters do that for them.  Layton sees an opportunity to claim some Liberal territory, and Ignatieff needs to demonstrate he can defend his party’s left wing turf.  These two are going to be taking just as many shots at each other as they do at Harper.  By the way, they both know Harper’s going to form the next government: I don’t care what they say.

On the other end of the political spectrum, Stephen Harper sees this as a once-in-a-political-lifetime opportunity to storm Fortress Toronto.  Tee-Oh has just elected right wing Bob Ford as mayor, and Harper thinks he can cash in on the honeymoon.  A couple of seats in Metro Tee-Oh and he’ll have that majority he’s been smelling for the past five years.  Besides, he knows he’s got nothing to lose because — without Quebec and the West — there’s no way Ignatieff can beat him.  Since there’s no risk involved, why not take a run at 155 (the number of seats he needs for a majority.)

That’s it!  This election is just a realignment of the usual suspects.  Outside of Ottawa, we, the people of Canada, could care!  And to the politicians who have been working so hard to deliver this election, I say: Have you been in a coma for the last six months?  People all over the world are dealing with some pretty serious problems.  They’re taking on large ideas that will fundamentally change the nature of their lives and affect future generations.

I think I speak for all Canadians when I say I don’t believe extending The Home Retrofit Program is exactly the kind of grand vision we all have in mind when we think about shaping the future of our country.

So You Say You Want an Arab Revolution?

For those of you who are still keeping score on the Arab Spring, it’s Democracy 2 – Dictators 1 — and  everybody else undecided.

In Tunisia, the Jasmine Revolution is still being propelled by daily protests.  The caretaker government is keeping the country together – so far – and elections should be held this summer.  The main problem is that the gulf between the urban European north and the rural Arab south is widening.  This has actually created a political vacuum.  At this point, the Islamists haven’t made any significant gains, but, unfortunately, nobody else has, either.  There are still serious threats to this fragile process, but now that the world’s eyes are turned elsewhere, the Tunisians have a good chance of settling their own affairs and moving slowly — but directly — to democratic reform.

In Egypt, the people have voted overwhelmingly in favour of constitutional change; presidential and parliamentary elections could come as early as September.  The military, who are the real bosses, are busy trying to figure out how to keep the process going without turning power over to the mob (read Moslem Brotherhood.)  Meanwhile, some old scores are being seriously settled, and that violence may continue.  However, the pro-democracy people are working hard to form an urban coalition beyond Mubarak’s old regime — without much success.  The most immediate and serious problem in Egypt is the tourist industry has collapsed.  The result is huge unemployment numbers and no hard currency coming into the economy.  This alone could kill democracy long before it ever gets to the ballot box.

In Bahrain, as predicted, the minute the Western media turned its back, the king called in the troops (in this case, the Saudis — so there was no fear of the military changing sides) and the street battle was over within hours.  The protesters were driven out of Pearl Square, with some loss of life.  The country is now under martial law.  Everybody on both sides is keeping a low profile, and any talk of political reform is strictly forbidden – now and in the future.

In literally every other country in the region there is some sort of political unrest — including the most unlikely of places: Syria and Iran.  In Damascus, the relatively recent protests have been met by a government response that has escalated from whistles and batons to teargas and bullets in less than a week.  In Tehran, and across Iran, the nights are still haunted by anonymous voices echoing “Allah Akbar” into the darkness, in a two-year-old protest against that country’s corrupt elections.  In Yemen, President Saleh denies he ordered the military to open fire on protesters, but dozens were killed, and the bullets had to come from somewhere.  In Jordan, the protests are still peaceful but they’re continuous — and the crowds are getting bigger.   In Morocco, the people remain in the streets as King Mohammed VI has both promised reform and threatened a crackdown.  Time may be running out on both these royal houses.  And this brings us to our old buddy, Muammar, and the situation in Libya.

Muammar Gaddafi has been a pain in the ass on this planet ever since he seized power in Libya in 1969.  He has thrown bags of money at every terrorist group he could get his mitts on.  He financed IRA bombs in Britain, Red Brigade kidnappings in Italy and had his hand in just about every other terrorist attack in Europe for the last 30 years.  He has provided weapons and training to every psycho who came calling — from Abu Nidal to Abdelbaset al-Megrahi.  At one time or another he’s managed to piss off just about everybody — except maybe the Pope and the Dalai Lama (and that’s only because they have to forgive him.)  He’s been kicking sand in the face of every Western country for decades, and there isn’t one of us who hasn’t been waiting for a chance to slap the crap out of the guy.  Last Friday, March 18th, the United Nations flicked on the green light.  The Security Council passed Resolution 1973, which authorizes a “No Fly Zone” over Libya.  In our eagerness to get a few licks in before anybody can change their mind, I don’t think we gave much thought to the consequences of our actions.  We just attacked him.

For those of you who haven’t got the time to read the entire U.N. Resolution, let me summarize it for you.  Basically, it says this: “We, the undersigned, are going to rain fire and hell on anything in Libya that moves faster than a donkey cart, so stay off the roads and out of the sky.  After that, we’re going to hang around forever, taking a bunch guff from both sides, while the situation deteriorates into chaos.  Even though we have overwhelming military superiority, we don’t have the political will to fix things, once and for all.  Eventually, we’re going to get tired and bored and go home for a while.  In a couple more years, we’ll come back — with boots on the ground — to try and correct our original mistakes.  At that point, a lot of young people are going to die.  If anybody has any illusions about this situation, take a look at Iraq, circa 1991, when another U.N. coalition wasted an opportunity to get rid of a dictator because a U.N. resolution didn’t authorize it.”

That’s it — in a nutshell.  Without a lot of serious help, which includes ground troops, the rebels simply aren’t strong enough to topple Gaddafi, and he isn’t going anywhere voluntarily.  On the same page, do we even know who these rebels are?  For a people’s army of barbers and shopkeepers, they certainly seem to know what they’re doing militarily.  Who’s running the show in Benghazi?  And finally, how are we going to know when this is over?

So, again, if you’re keeping score, it’s Democracy – 2 Dictators – 1.  And the U.N. has dropped the ball in Libya, so we’ll all be going in to a long and bloody unnecessary overtime.

You’re NOT entitled to your opinion!

One of the most enduring myths of our time is “Everybody is entitled to their own opinion.”  People tend to believe this because it’s been repeated so many times and it kinda sounds good.  It’s sort of like saying we’re all in this together or some other such egalitarian nonsense.  Unfortunately, regardless of how many times you say it, it’s still a myth.  In fact, it’s an out-and-out lie.  In reality, “Everybody is entitled to their own opinion” is just the Happy Face version of the end of the argument when everybody wants to change the subject but nobody knows how.  Essentially, it’s cocktail party code for “You’re a jerk, but I’m tired.”  The problem is that tons of people think it’s actually true.  They believe that everybody’s two-bit opinion (mostly their own) can share the stage with everybody else’s.  They’re the folks we know who are constantly traveling on the Stupid Train and then telling the rest of us all about the journey.  This kind of thinking has caused no end of problems in our society.  So, for everybody’s benefit, let’s just take a moment to shoot this myth in the head and bury it in the backyard.

The whole thing started when somebody who wasn’t all that bright, got confused.  He made the mistake of thinking equal rights actually meant “equal.”  This is another myth for another time, but here’s the Twitter version.  Alex Ovechkin is a better hockey player than I am; therefore, we are not equals.  Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney is a better writer than I am; therefore, we are not equals.  (This goes on and on but you get the idea.)  We have equal rights, equal opportunity, equal everything else — but we are not actually equal.  Opinions work the same way.  Seamus Heaney might have an opinion about the “left wing lock” in hockey, but quite frankly, I’d go with Ovechkin on that one.  Heaney is a pretty smart guy but his opinion about hockey is useless.  In any hypothetical conversation with me or Alex Ovechkin, he’s not entitled to an opinion because he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.  It’s that simple.

All kinds of people think they are entitled to an opinion when they don’t know anything about a situation.  For example, if your toilet is plugged, you don’t call your lawyer and ask her for advice.  She’ll probably tell you to sue American Standard (which isn’t going to do you very much good in the short term.)  In this situation, you want the opinion of a plumber.  Your lawyer, no matter how exceptional she might be at wills, contracts or business law, is not entitled to render an opinion about your plumbing.  In fact, if she did she’d have to sue herself for negligence — on your behalf — and just think how much money that’s going to cost you.  I’m constantly amazed at the number of people out there who offer their opinions on subjects they know nothing about and then proudly defend themselves because they think they’re entitled to them.  And that’s not all.

There’s a misunderstanding these days that if you work or play in an industry, you have some kind of all-purpose, intuitive expertise.  For instance, I don’t know how many times I’ve heard doctors yakking on about our medical system (both for and against.)  Are you kidding me?  That’s like the guy who makes your latte at Starbucks telling you how to run a coffee plantation.  “Hey! Dr. Do Little!  Just exactly when in med school did they teach you construction cost analysis and labour relations?”  If I want my appendix out, I’m going to see a doctor.  If I want to build a hospital, I’m going to go to a construction company.  The plain fact is that — unless you can back your opinion up with cold, hard evidence — you’re not entitled to it.  I don’t care if you’re a doctor, a lawyer or a Knight of the Round Table.

Here’s what I mean.  It is my opinion that penguins are green.  Everybody knows that the only people who can actually say this are allegorical artists and people who have just eaten most of their crayons.  I offer no evidence to support my claim.  I’m not a zoologist.  I don’t live in Antarctica.  I’ve only seen black and white penguins a couple of times.  But it’s my opinion that penguins are green.  Why — under any circumstances known to me, man or penguin — am I entitled to this opinion?  Just because?  What rational, reasonable (Hell — unreasonable) argument can anybody put forth to support this as a valid opinion, deserving consideration?

Nobody distinguishes between opinion and informed opinion anymore.  The greatest minds of our time are being lumped in with rock stars and actresses.  I’m not saying celebrities are stupid, but honestly, the ability to cry on cue isn’t the kind of talent we should be looking for to drive our decision-making.  There are a whole pile of people wandering around labouring under the misconception that if Ted down the street comes up with some homemade theory of economic development, it’s just as good as the experts’ at the University of Chicago.  It’s not.  We need to get nasty and tell these folks they’re sucking pond water.  And while we’re at it, we might want to tell some of the Teds of this world to “Sit down and shut up!”

Of course, all this is just my opinion.