America Is in the Thrall of Future Shock

Observing what's happening in the US as Americans are only six weeks from electing their president, I am struck by a society in complete disarray.

A stalled economy, more than 40 million people living on food stamps, the lowest labor force participation rate since the end of the second world war, millions living in houses with underwater mortgages, real wages dropping for the majority of the population while the super rich are taking a greater share of the national income, elections during which corporations can spend unlimited amounts and states adopt legislation to suppress the vote, crazed gunmen that go on killing sprees, and the list goes on.

It's as if there is no glue that can hold the fractured population together.

The American dream is dead.

A university education used to be the way to a better future, but lately it has become a debt trap luring a younger generation into a wage slave existence.

All in all, I would say that America is a victim of future shock: too much change in too short a period of time.

In fact, the turn of the century brought about the demise of the American empire.

Securitization, off-shore jobs, lack of effective financial regulation, and tax cuts for the middle class and the rich combined with unfunded entitlements has left the US a mere shadow of its former self.

In the meantime, a dispirited population is pumped with the hype that it still lives in the best country of the world.

In what I find to be a pathetic spectacle, the hope for the future comes down to a cool black dude saying "yes we can" and a rich white guy who is doing everything in his power so that "no you won't."

Glad I live in Canada.


 

Notwithstanding the One Whacko, Quebec’s Collective Intelligence Prevails

Calling a general election during the summer months in order to avoid the anticipated turmoil of a government commission mandated to investigate corruption in the construction industry and dragging out the student strike so to make it a campaign issue didn’t go very well for the former Premier of Quebec, Jean Charest, and his Liberal Party.

In fact, he got spanked.  Twice.  In going down to defeat, his Liberal Party received the lowest percentage of the popular vote ever, and the man from Sherbrooke lost his seat in the National Assembly.

Now that the election is over and Jean has been put out to pasture, we can turn our attention to what is the most pressing political concern: cleaning up government.

We all know that Quebec’s political culture is rife with greed and graft.  Fortunately, we have the Charbonneau commission ready to begin its work in earnest.  The process of the investigation, the report of findings, recommendations to made, and legislation to be adopted will take about two years, more or less the life span of the caretaker PQ minority government.

In the meantime, the PQ will have its hands tied, unable to call a referendum on sovereignty or to adopt any controversial legislation due to its minority status.  In other words, the PQ has been given the task of simply managing the shop until we find out the extent of the problem.

Thereafter, we can then elect a government with the knowledge of how this state of affairs came about and with measures in place so that we don’t repeat the errors of our past.

At the moment, we have lost confidence in the political process and the political parties that would govern us.

For the sake of future generations, we must see the process of political reform to its end and take back the responsibility of governing ourselves.

WTF Even My Strategic Vote Won't Count

Before I start my rant, it should be known that I have been a candidate for political parties that wanted to change the voting system on four occasions.  I have also been a militant for civic organizations that shared the same aim.  I have even gone as far as to organize a charter challenge concerning the constitutionality of the first-past-the-post method.  All to no avail.

That being said, I am still faced with the reality that, with regard to my so-called Charter right to effective representation and meaningful participation in the electoral process, as far as the Quebec general election goes, I am shit out of luck.

I have thought hard and long about how I could participate meaningfully in this democratic farce.  I even reached the conclusion that voting strategically to prevent the Liberal candidate from getting elected would make my participation somewhat meaningful.

However, according to the polls the Liberal candidate has a lead of about ten points, which renders even my protest vote null and void, ineffective, not worth the paper that carries my pitiful mark, absolutely fucking useless.

Cry me a river!

Don't you know that the iron law of oligarchy rules the land.  Democratic participation is just a facade.  What the game is all about is mobilizing enough supporters so that more votes are cast for one oligarch over another.  That's it.  No more complicated than that.  The winner takes all, and the political power is transferred from the population at large to a very small elite running what is essentially nothing more than an electoral machine.

Hey, wait a minute, if that's the case, I am little more than a fucking peasant living in the twenty first century.

Yeah, but look at all the useless shit you can buy.  Have fun.  Don't worry. Be happy!

Enjoy the spectacle as long as you can and be content with the fact that although you don't live in a democratic society, you can accumulate a lot of stuff, which, if you so desire, you can pass off to your children.

Fuck that, all I want is for my vote to count.

Well, in that case, you really are shit out of luck.

A Three Ring Circus, a Horse Race, and a Pussy Riot

It's a funny thing living in the second decade of the twenty-first century.  There's such a wide gap between our technological reach and our social institutions.

On the same day, I can view the latest images beamed back from the planet Mars and learn that the young women from the Russian punk band Pussy Riot were sentenced to two years in prison for their performance of a prayer in Russian Orthodox Church to rid Russia of its president, Vladimir Putin.

I guess some people just don't get or appreciate performance art.  Check out the video at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCasuaAczKY&feature=youtube_gdata_player

Here at home, I have the pleasure of watching the spectacle of Quebec's general election called during the summer before the much anticipated anti-corruption inquiry gets down to serious business.

This is politics as spectacle at its best.

As a prelude to the election, we were entertained by a student protest that had great visuals: stone throwing, breaking windows, police whacking unarmed protesters with night sticks, tear gas, and let's not forget those near-naked marches through the streets, followed by the widespread banging of pots and pans to protest the government's adoption of draconian law that makes it illegal for more than fifty people to assemble without notifying the authorities.

Once the writ was dropped, we have the three leaders of the main political parties making promises left and right to spend taxpayers money as if there were no tomorrow in the heaviest-taxed, most debt-ridden province or state in North America.

Like carnies, each leader tries to seduce us with promises of a job, lower taxes, a family   physician, braces or free school supplies for the kids, even parking spaces.

Then there are the leaders of the smaller parties that the media won't give the time of day clamoring for attention, but to no avail since the voting system relegates them to cameo appearances only.

Periodically, just in case our attention wanes, the latest poll appears to tell us how the parties are performing relative to each other

According to the pundits, the real race for the finnish line starts with the leaders debate.  I can hardly wait to watch the three consecutive televised one-on-one mud slinging contests and the be treated to the in-depth analysis of whether or not a knock-out blow was delivered.

At the end, we'll huddle around our 50 inch plasma televisions watching as the results of the 125 winner-take-all electoral contests are announced, all of us hoping that our preferred political narrative unfolds, uncertain because of the systemic distortions of the popular vote that the first-past-the-post voting system regularly brings about.

Personally, I'm a big fan of schadenfreude.  I'm hoping that I'll have the pleasure to see our former Premier eat humble pie as his government is defeated and he loses his own seat in Quebec's National Assembly.

Yes, that would be sweet, bittersweet, since Jean Charest will have left politics with not one but two fat pensions at taxpayers expense, while leaving us with a mountain of debt that will take generations to pay.

But hey that's politics in a settler state that still has a foreign monarch as its head of state nearly 150 years after confederation and uses an electoral system that dates back to the middle ages.

For God's sake Scotty, beam me off this backward planet!  I want to be surrounded by intelligent life.

And while you're at it Scotty, do something for the members of Pussy Riot.  They really deserve a better fate.

The Economic Freedom of the Few Limits the Political Freedom of the Many

Politics is all about who decides on whose behalf. Inevitably, political decisions entail winners and losers.  In an ideal world, political decisions would be made by inclusive institutions that allow for a thorough analysis of the substantive issues in which the will of the majority prevails.

Sadly, this is not the case.

In fact, where I live the political system in place prevents people like me, who believe that effective measures to minimize catastrophic climate change must be undertaken quickly, from having effective representation in our elected legislatures.  Moreover, the federal court recently ruled that it is part of the Prime Minister's royal prerogative to unilaterally withdraw Canada from the Kyoto Accord, the only international agreement that attempts to prevent catastrophic climate from coming about.

In summary, the political system, in particular the voting method, effectively thwarts people like myself from having an effective voice in this nation's deliberative process and at the same time maintains the absolutist powers of the crown so to benefit those who would transfer as much of the carbon reserves in Alberta's tar sands into the atmosphere as possible.

What's up with that?

Well, the economic freedom of big money for one.  There is a ton of cash to be made from the extraction of oil from the tar sands and the negative impacts upon the environment are simply to be externalized.

That's as far as it goes.  No need to entertain economic arguments about short-term gains versus long-term costs or risk management.

Wealth extraction is the name of the game.

The rules favor those who want to be free to extract as much wealth as possible, and the rules are not likely to change anytime soon.

Democracy's Last Conquest: The Anglo-American Empire

Slowly but surely democracy is spreading and finding roots around the world. The latest countries to begin their path towards democratic governance are Tunisia and Libya. In both countries, democratic elections were held to fill the void left by the toppling of a tyrannical dictator.

Looking at a map of the world that demarcates democratic governance, there is clearly a trend since the end of the second world war for democracy to find its way into countries that were anything but. Central America, the former Soviet Union, and now North Africa have all experienced the incursion of what is becoming the only legitimate form of governance.

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We Are All Protestants Now, Slouching Towards the Apocalypse

The Big Lie Reigns Over Us 

Unfortunately, there is also the tendency for former and present day imperial powers, the United Kingdom and the United States of America, to pass themselves off as democracies by equating popular elections with democratic governance. In reality, they are nothing more than plutocracies.

As a result, the persistent presence of the democratic myth has taken in the vast majority of each country's respective citizens, making it such that those who protest the absence of truly democratic political institutions are marginalized.

In the case of the UK, the plutocracy is anchored in the wealth and privilege brought on by a steadfast adherence to tradition and custom rooted in time immemorial. It as though the British are stuck in the eighteenth century, unable to reform their unelected upper house, the House of Lords, more than one hundred years after declaring the intention of doing so. Moreover, the Brits actually refused to abandon the first-past-the-post voting system by way of a national referendum despite its well known propensity to distort the popular vote so that majority governments are manufactured for the benefit of a minority of the electorate.

In the United States, the plutocracy is supported by a political system that empowers the financial sector and the corporate class at the expense of everyone else. Despite the lofty enlightenment rhetoric of its founding fathers, the privileged persons who wield the most power are in fact the nation's corporations, which were, in fact, granted the legal status of a rights holding person by the US Supreme Court. Consequently, corporations can make unlimited financial contributions to political campaigns, which is tantamount to buying an election, thereby making mockery of the so called democratic process.

Fundamentally, both countries adhere to culturally held beliefs that stem from the Protestant Reformation, and as Max Weber pointed out the cultural consequences of Calvinism run deep. So much so that the religious belief in the divine separation of the Elect and the dammed manifests itself socially in the rampant inequalities that would have people believe that the poor and the oppressed are responsible for their lot and deserve their divinely ordained suffering. Wealth, on the other hand, is a sign of being favored by God.

Contrary to the perverse inequality of those who believe that they are members of the Elect, democracy is an ideology founded on a radical conception of equality: equality at birth, equality of rights, equality of the vote, and equality before the courts. This is not the ideology that supports the inherent inequality favored by those who desire an ostentatious display of wealth that suggests a divinely inspired sense of their superiority.

As Machiavelli so aptly observed at the beginning of the Renaissance, in order for the Republic to come about, men must love the Republic more than they love their souls.

This is certainly not the case in either country where the radical individualism nascent in widespread historical religious belief found the fertile ground of the radical individualism associated with Anglo-American capitalism.

Americans and the Brits may have become less enamored with their souls, but not with the status hierarchy that wealth brings about. The pursuit of happiness in each country is in reality the pursuit of wealth, and since this obsession is at the core of Anglo-American culture, any ideology that is inherently egalitarian like democracy must be avoided at all costs.

So, in the end, a combination of the myth of democratic governance and the cultural beliefs that require large inequalities make the Anglo-American empire impervious to real democratic reform with the exception of Australia and New Zealand, two countries that have transcended the limitations of the Westminster parliamentry system and Anglo-American culture.

A fish doesn't think about the water that surrounds it, and as long as there are fortunes to be made not a lot of serious thought will be devoted to bringing about democracy in either the US or the UK.

Canada's Lamentable Lack of Imagination

When I was a kid growing up, I thought Canada was cool. Canada's centennial celebrations made me believe that as a young country we were just coming into our own. A few years later, Paul Henderson scored the winning goal to beat the Soviets, which proved we were the best at something. We were at the top of the world.

Since then that bright future has faded. In all honesty, other than Henderson's goal, life here in Canada has been deadly dull. Let's face it, as a nation we lack both imagination and passion.

Ask yourself, what has been Canada's most memorable event since we celebrated Canada's one hundredth birthday?

The only exceptional event that I can recall is Terry Fox's attempted run across Canada. I'll never forget that young one-legged man with his hopping gait who set out to accomplish a dream that was as big as the country.

Unfortunately, trying to live the dream did him in, and I think that we never got or understood his message that regardless of the circumstances we find ourselves in, we can dare to accomplish something extraordinary. I think he would have been disappointed to see how run-of-the-mill we have become.

We pretty much slog along doing things like they always have been done since our colonial days. Nothing really innovative. Nothing that would rock the boat.

On the political front, we are still a settler state that privileges the birth rights of two charter groups. On the one hand, we are still a constitutional monarchy that has the monarch of one of the charter groups as Canada's head of state, and on other, the desire of the other charter group to assert its collective sovereignty over the territory it occupies.

Talk about being trapped in a time warp. Even hockey has become dull.

No more Gretzky, no more Lemieux, just the boring dump it into the corner and then pass it back for a slap shot from the point, hoping that the puck will make it through the five opposing players who have collapsed in front of their net.

Wow, like watching the balls from Lotto 649 drop out.

We need to be jolted out of our collective stupor. Life is far too short and far too precious to be lived in its entirety always on the safe side.