Tuesday, March 26, 2013

Boris, Alison and Moi

 A little while ago, in the comments section of one of her posts, Alison at Creekside was asked why she isn't blogging so much anymore. She replied that there didn't seem to be much point to blogging in the face of official sanction for an illegitimate government.(I don't remember which post this conversation occurred in.)

Yesterday, Boris at the "Galloping Beaver" announced his own change of focus:
I've had much less energy for blogging over the past while, my posts have gotten shorter and from my view, aren't the same class as some of my earlier stuff. I've shifted quite a bit in my thinking over the years. I look around Canadian politics and society, and see the mainstream in a different light than maybe I did a back in 2006 or 2008. Then, I had some naive hope that our institutions and public were strong enough. But thrice times Harper, and well folks, the rot is set. Our political institutions are a gangrenous limb and won't recover even if we manage to send the current group of hagfish back to the depths from whence they came.
If you ask me, I'll say bluntly that on the whole we are a country that has grown too self-satisfied, too rich, and too idle. Too many generations of ease have passed, and the liberal and social ideals that drove the Grits and Dippers  have hollowed out into mere platitudes. All are caught up in that same mindless Ottawa Shore TV series, its own fantastical deviation from realities of the world we're in. I suppose I should stop being surprised at the complete lack of balls eminating from the elected government as well as the civil service. There's barely a peep despite the loss of the long form, muzzling of scientists, and other vandalisations. Docile and complacent, thinking it all end someday, few act - like when they're out of jobs. As I've said before on this blog, they way to beat the Harper crowd is come down hard and fast. They win because they play on our docility and our niceness. Hell, they even rigged the last election and didn't even need to use the army and secret policy to do it or repress the aftermath.
And, I said, a while ago that I was taking an indefinite break from online "activism." In that, my choice of words was poor. I didn't mean that I would stop blogging. I just meant that I wouldn't be typing lengthy screeds criticizing stephen harper and finishing with "THIS HAS TO CHANGE!" as if my blogging, or anybody's blogging, was going to accomplish that. If I ever do start doing that in a big way, I didn't want my readership to drop-off altogether, so I was going to post video links, random reflections and what-not.

I said elsewhere that it looks like blogging and discussion boards are fading into oblivion.Babble at Rabble.ca allegedly has not much going on. EnMasse is in the doldrums. Crust and Dandelions I don't even know about any more. And somebody posted about how the activity on the "Blogging Tories" was down as well, so it's a trend shared by both semi-normal people and right-wing shitheads.

But seriously people, ... if nobody in your neighbourhood is proposing a meat-space response to harper, ... look in the mirror. What are you waiting for? It's obvious that the Supreme Court is willing to compromise itself for our fuckhead self-called "prime minister." It's obvious that Elections Canada has no intention of doing its fucking job. The Council of Canadians is the only group of people actually challenging the results of the stolen election. And the wheels of justice grind slowly, and in the case of the Supreme Court, the wheels come loose and fly off.

Think people! What would bring accountability to Canada? If an afternoon rally or an online forum for bitching and complaining and petitioning isn't going to do what you want, ask yourselves "what will?"

If all of our political parties are debased and corrupted by the same insular, business-as-usual pissing contests, don't resign from real-world politics! This democracy, as frustrating as it is, is all we've got.

I agree with Boris in that as a group, Canadians are rich and complacent. Some of us in dire straits (LIKE MEEEEE!!!!) still have a heated home and access to diversions. Others of us though, are mired in the rat-race. Overworked and unable to think through our situations. Desperate to keep our heads down and keep working. And, finally, I've said this many, many times before: If the full-time political-junkies and protesting types haven't figured out a way to change things, why should we expect some regular, apolitical types to jump up and do something??

I've managed to speak about these things to a couple of groups. I'll be doing more here in Toronto and Hamilton. Look at yourselves. Think through how you might get something REAL going. And go out there and try.

4 comments:

900ft Jesus said...

maybe it's like everything else in life when something goes wrong - we tend to get angry, place blame, then look for solutions.

Getting angry is important because it gets us past that zebn forgiveness which changes nothing. Blame isn't great, but assigning responsibility is. But too often we bloogers stop with the second part after we've released a bunch of anger and frustration. Sometimes, we even feel like we accomplished something.

But we fail to carry it through into action, as you point out. I still think the online posts are very useful (I left a comment on Boris' post, so I won't repeat it here), but yes, we really need to find ways to translate our words into actions.

I don't know where else to start formulating plans except through these blogs, and while it has been tried a few times, it eventually fades to nothing.

I'm not sure what to do from here, but I hope we can all get a good conversation going to figure something out. We need one big, organized group rather than a bunch of smaller (but wonderful!) ones like Idle No More, and the Occupy movements.

Time to hit the books, I think, see what has worked elsewhere.

What do you think?

thwap said...

900 ft Jesus,

Well, two things to keep in mind (and I'll comment here tomorrow):

1. We need an alliance of every Canadian who doesn't spit on democracy.

2. We need to make Canadians realize that there is no genuine debate to be had here. Just earlier today, some commentators at a mainstream newspaper's website, were going on about how "leftoids" can't stand democratic decisions that go against them; hence the sniping and attacks on Rob Ford or stephen harper.

Bull-fucking-shit.

Ford's own actions triggered the entirely legal efforts to remove him from office. None of those processes were invented after the fact.

harper has himself demonstrated complete contempt for our system of government. Furthermore, he has demonstrated contempt for the electoral process. Any Canadian who cannot grasp the significance of harper's buffoonery, or who defends it, has no place even attempting to stop any rebellion against him.

Dana said...

What has worked before has worked on the streets not in a comfy office chair.

Before the opponent was always the ones in the comfy office chair. The ones wanting change were out on the streets or in halls. Even the young republicans who wanted to get George W. Bush elected knew they had to get off their asses.

What do we do?

Nothing. We *do* nothing. We think and type and bloviate and congratulate one another for the brilliance and clarity of our arguments and observations.

All from a comfy chair.

I'm 65 now, with a heart condition. I don't think I'll be taking to the streets much anymore. Been there, done that, still got the old jeans (that don't come close to fitting anymore).

Nothing will change until there's action on the streets.

You can quote me.

thwap said...

Dana,

It definitely does have to be done in the real world.

Take your young Repugs for example; Even with supporters from among the elites, they still had to get out there. They have their evangelical preachers providing them tax-deductible propagandizing and the major media carrying water for them.

We have a huge amount of work to do and it's not going to happen by creating a webpage.

One thing that's cool about the present time: Remember Marx's "18th Brumaire"? How the parliamentarians had so debased the whole idea of democracy that they couldn't get anyone to defend them against Louis Napoleon's coup?

With the harpercons and his media enablers, ... they'll endorse searing contempt for even having to tell Parliament how the government wants to spend tens of billions of dollars. Then they support tearing-up our treaties with the First Nations. Hell, they'll even give kiddie-porn a pass if their buddy Tom Flanagan does it.

Then they'll presume to lecture the Quebec Students or environmentalists or peace-activists for being immature and disrespectful!