Columnists
And so, politics
I guess an election is coming, and those of us who know nothing will reel in the best propaganda Canada has to offer. We have governments, I think more than we actually need to get jobs done.
And this makes me wonder: What does government do? Simple question. I don’t think any of us have an answer. So let’s break it down.
OUR FEDERAL GOVERNMENT
For most of us, the federal government has nothing to do with us. They make stupid rules for stupid reasons, so they can look ‘fatherly’ … a kind of care based on whatever lobby group has their attention. Their opinions follow us— gay rights would not be on the federal agenda until we said it should be. Then every political human body is joining marches. Homeless people? Totally on board with fixing that, but not actually fixing that.
The federal government sends us money. We rarely know why, but we take it, because it’s money, and we need it. We also give them money, through a complicated system which can only be understood by accountants and TurboTax. We give them all the info we know, then wait to see if we get a $200 rebate or owe $5,000 dollars.
It’s kind of a magical thing, and they hold the wand. If they say you owe them money, pay it. Don’t ask why. Some machine may have determined this, but they have actual humans — with genuine suits and ties from Moore’s— who are devoid of human feelings and have never laughed a day in their lives. And they will come to you, and make you pull out every receipt from every purchase you’ve ever made. And they will go through them, and punch them into a calculator at a speed which defies description. They love calculators, because the feds don’t allow them to use handguns.
THE PROVINCE
I’ve watched this over the years, and here is my analysis: Reasonable, crazy, reasonable, crazy, really smart but not right for the time, really crazy, followed by even more crazy, and then digging deep into the Big Pot of Crazies to find the worst of the worst. And then Doug Ford. He surprised me, but he seems to have the level hand that his predecessors lacked.
I am not a Doug Ford fan, but he had one thing all the others before him did not have: He was not an oligarch. He didn’t send down edicts from above, as everyone before him did. Sure, his first move, the $1 beer thing was not tactical brilliance. But he was not a traditional politician. I kinda liked that. Like most politicians, he will be eventually discarded and disgraced, and live out his life with a huge provincial pension, which will ease his pain.
All premiers have a thing. It’s called a ‘trial balloon’, in which they propose (to the media) a horrendously awful proposal, which makes everyone upset. Then they back it down to something which is simply awful, and we all go, “Okay, that’s better.”
This is a carny trick which has been employed for centuries, yet we fall for it again and again. Witness Bill Davis lowering the sales tax a couple of months before an election, then restoring it after. You gotta laugh! We fall for this every time!
MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT
I won’t bang on these guys too hard, because they are trying to stage a show with no backup. The Feds and Province aren’t even in the wings, but they run everything we do. County has something to do? Whoops! Province brings the big bag of ‘No’. We need money? The Feds and the Province pull their empty pockets out, and are all required to carry a purse in which a moth flies out of it. That’s separate from their Platinum card, which they keep in another pocket.
I know that budgeting, on each of these levels, is difficult. But our needs are different. The cost of building a hospital has been mostly bourne by us, the locals. We give what we can. But I can’t help thinking: A few less unnecessary meetings of provincial and federal employees in a big booked room in some top hotel, and a few less lobster dinners to ‘discuss things’ that could have been done in someone’s apartment, with appropriate peanuts, pretzels and beer.
The thing is, every day the people who rule us spend more in one day than I spend in two months. When I give $100 to the Hospital Build, that’s a big deal for me, and for you.
I look down, and I don’t see a lot of money, though the donations are amazing. I look up, and see money allocated to a lot of things that don’t count. Not as important as providing hospital care to the people who live here, and age here.
If our Poppa and Mama governments can’t help Baby government survive, then they are simply bad parents. They have the means and the money to help us when we need it. But they turn away. Not good parenting.
BACK TO POLITICS
Some us are deeply involved in politics. I have had flaming discussions with people who are really, really serious about their politics, and have taken some of my column comments to mean more than I intended.
I have no political affiliation. Politics is just a game to me: Great move; bad move. Just like chess. Like chess, people make good moves, and stupid moves. Anyone remember their good and bad moves. No.
That is why we get fooled, time and again, by the same old carny tricks—tear down your enemy with negative ads; make promises no-one short of Jesus can make happen.
It’s like a weird Christmas present. When you open the box, do you get a teddy bear or a lump of coal? Roll the dice. This is what elections are about. Is what you see and hear going to be what you get? Depends.
NO HOLDS BARRED
When I was a kid, every family voted for a party. My parents were farmers, so they were Liberal, and voted Liberal every time, without a look to left or right. Their friends were Conservative, and so they vote, regardless of anything. (I once had a lady in the voting room say, “My eyes aren’t that good, can you tell me which one is the Conservative?” Great opportunity to make a vote for NDP, but I couldn’t. I just pointed, even though her vote cancelled mine.)
Now, voting is a free-for-all. Even the election night broadcasters and pollsters have no idea what the hell is going on. This is a reflection on where the County is at right now. Basically, we don’t know what the hell is going on.
Clearly Council does not have the ability to tell us what’s going on, according to their plan. Perhaps we’re too dumb to understand it. Which makes us perfect voters!
Comments (0)