Bourgeois Radical?

[ed_rex]

No doubt to the disappointment of some of you, I will be casting a ballot this evening, neither declining it, nor even simply refusing to show up at the poll.

Though I am not excited by what I expect to be the outcome - a Tory government whose degree of neoconservative, self-loathing, Republican America worship remains to be seen - I still hope for a minority government, one which may be kept somewhat in check by a stronger NDP prescence.

That said, I would not expect revolutionary change even if it were an NDP government - what was once a (relatively) radical democratic socialist movement has become a left-liberal party, spending too much of its time defending such self-evident Good Things as universal medical care and fundamental human rights, without a corresponding vision of what might this an even better country in which to live. Any thoughts of challenging the economic status quo - as opposed to reigning in its worst excesses - are put aside for another era. I'll vote for the NDP because I believe they are an effective opposition party - and will be especially so if they hold the balance of power in a minority situation - not because I believe they have a vision for the future.

As befits the end of a campaign of much vented heat but little directed light, I too have placed my bet on the outcome of tonight's race.

For the record:

Conservatives:---> 132
Liberals:--------> 85
Bloc:------------> 47
NDP:-------------> 42
Green:-----------> 1
Independent:-----> 1

You can all have a good laugh at my expense in a few hours.

Comments

Too Late

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry you didn't post this earlier (and, therefore, sorry I didn't make my post earlier), because I am now responding with the wisdom of hindsight. As I type this, our outgoing Prime Minister is conceding defeat to the incoming, minority, Conservative government.

The polls tell the whole story at this point.

The polls have been wrong for 2 elections in a row, a fact which I find heartening; polls are a lazy journalists best friend and distract the press from covering the actual issues involved in an election.

I disagree with where forcemajeure is coming from politically, and I despise Tony Blair, but he forcemajeure) is quite right about the nature of the Liberal's campaign in this (and largely in the previous) election. The Liberals under Paul Martin were a political boat whose captain had overthrown its previous commander without any real idea of why he wanted the position.

I think Canada's Liberal Party is hypocritical and only "progressive" as it has to be to maintain power. (As an example, it did not lead Canada into the Iraqi quagmire (I hope to address your piece anon, but make no promises; other fish to fry, et al) but it did send troops to Afghanistan in what is a de facto support role for US imperialism.) That said, it doesn't play the fundamentalist religious card and has the virtue, as well as the vice, of seldom succumbing to dogmatism.

Re: Too Late

[colinmarshall.livejournal.com]

I've been trying to learn a bit more about Canadian politics of late, and as such, this election has been a timely observation experience. I've always enjoyed reading forcemajeure's eloquent commentary on the good old northern neighbor; he spent half his life there and (almost) half in the United States, so he approaches any comparison tempered by both sides of the "fence". You can tell Canada is where his heart is, but, like a parent, he tempers that with a bit of chastising as.

A few other of his political notes on his home country which you, as a fellow Canadian, might find somewhat interesting in these changin' times:

One of my many frustrations with Canada is that, at it's heart, it's a loveless group marriage among disparate regions, and that there's never really been some galvanizing event that established Canada's existence for its own sake, and put the question of whether Canada should exist at all beyond debate. For the US, that was the Civil War, which, at steep cost, established that the country was indivisible; for all the differences between, say, Alabama and Vermont, it's simply beyond the pale for either to hint that they're going to make or join a country more to their liking.

Canada isn't like that. No less than four of the ten provinces have active secessionist movements, and a very soft majority in one favors independence, and I doubt the other nine have the resolve to take up arms against the tenth. When the premier of Newfoundland and Labrador got miffed at Prime Minister Martin, he stopped flying the Canadian flag over provincial buildings. Imagine a disgruntled US governor, annoyed with President Bush over this or that, doing that in 2006: you can't, really, because the flag symbolizes something other than the federal government. In Canada, well, sometimes it does and sometimes it doesn't.

Sometimes this is okay, and it all bubbles beneath the surface and the country muddles through. But sometimes it erupts, and it's ugly, and sometimes the national dialogue is hijacked by a need to talk one or more provinces back from the ledge.

Canada's only Big Idea is the health care system, which has deteriorated into a nightmare, kept alive our of an almost religious conviction, impenetrable by fact or argument, that everyone else's system is worse. A nation held together by an entitlement program -- and a creaky one at that -- is a nation living on borrowed time.

My cousin Zev and I were having this discussion just the other day. He thinks the country doesn't need a big idea so much as it needs its politics de-regionalized, and that a Conservative government with a fairly broad geographic mandate -- a prospect which becomes more likely with each passing day of this election cycle -- will rescue the country from regionalism. I'm voting Tory, but I don't think a change of governments constitutes a big, unifying set of ideas. It's just a change of government, a sign that Canada is, just barely, a democracy. Eventually some part of the country or another will get into a foul mood and start talking about leaving.

Sometimes I think Canada's increasingly illiberal attitude toward free expression is the product of a fear that the country's fragile seams couldn't withstand the shock of unvarnished -- truly free -- speech.

I love Canada, but loving it doesn't mean I'm terribly optimistic about its future. I fear it is a country in the process of learning to be helpless.

Seems a tad harsh, but then again, I've never lived there...

Re: Too Late

[ed-rex.livejournal.com]

(I had most of a reply to this all typed up this morning, when a crash did it in; wail and weep with me, and gnash your teeth!)

I was interested in
forcemajeure's commentary, though I also found it mostly wrong-headed and occasionally factually incorrect, in a way I find disturbingly typical of neo-con/neo-liberal types (an assumption about
forcemajeure, as I have so far read only the material of his that you have provided).

To start with the factual problems, forcemajeure said, "No less than four of the ten provinces have active secessionist movements, and a very soft majority in one favors independence..."

While it may be true that four provinces have "active secessionist movements", I am only aware of one (in Quebec) which is active in the sense that it runs candidates in elections, or otherwise partipates in politics. Grumbling into one's beer with cronies at the local tavern doesn't count.

He also said, "...that Canada is, just barely, a democracy." I suppose this could fall into the wrong-headed column, but at the very least I would like him to expand on this idea. What country does he point to as a democracy that is more than "barely" a democracy?

Those issues aside, it is with forcemajeure's interpretations of Canadian history and politics that I take serious issue.

Where he see Canada as a "loveless marriage", I see it more as a quarrelsome extended family that nevertheless has chosen to stay together despite differences among them and despite the bright-lit pull of their neighbours to the south.

Canada doesn't have a Big Idea and I believe this is a Good Thing. Big Ideas tend to lead to rigid, ideological thinking, which tends to lead men and women to eschew compromise and the ability to "imagine the other" (to quote the philosopher and husband this country's former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, John Ralston Saul).

Rather than uniting behind any Big Idea, the Canadian historical experience has been one of grass-roots, pragmatic co-operation, which has resulted in the sort of society forcemajeure finds frustrating, but which I consider to be one that thrives on the dynamic tension of never-ending (though always changing) debate and argument.

As Ralston Saul pointed out, Canada took this path before it existed as a state, with French and British and native people living and learning together (and yes, sometimes killing each other as well, but not often, compared to most places in the world), often despite the will of their political masters.

Where forcemajeure sees weakness, I see strength and an essentially democratic and respectful mindset that is open to other points of view and even to changing its own.