Political Games

According to the writer whose work persuaded me to join the Internet Blogosphere, successful Blogs require daily contributions. He would undoubtedly already consider The Old Man’s Post a dismal failure. As I am not trying to sell anything or earn an income, the motivation is not always there for the old man. For me, this is simply an outlet to explore the language, express opinions, reminisce, comment on what is becoming an ever stranger world, and also to create some kind of record of the way this old man fades away into his inevitable obscurity and anonymity. Although so far there has been no public reaction except from the few people I notified of the site who occasionally check it, it is worth the effort for me, just for the sake of the cerebral exercise entailed. So for now I shall continue as and when I can.

Some weeks ago I turned on the tube and surfed between Canadian and American news channels primarily because of the fuss that had been made about President Obama’s speech to American school children on the first day of school this fall. I wanted to hear the speech for myself. There is also a Canadian federal election in the offing, a phenomenon that seems almost an annual affair in the most recent four or five years. The political gamesmanship evident on both sides of the border becomes distressing to behold especially when I consider how very little real difference there is in what any of the participants in the game can accomplish. One can think of almost any of the issues politicians raise in one election after another and there is an almost equal division in the population about the direction we need to go to achieve a civil and peaceful society

In Canada that “federal election in the offing” has stayed in the offing ever since this fall’s session of the current parliament. Liberal leader Ignatieff announced before the sitting that he was ready to bring the Stephen Harper minority government down. That was immediately countered by the other two parties represented in the house announcing that Canadians did not want an election in the recession plagued country. That left Ignatieff’s first vote of no confidence effort falling far short of success. In the meantime the opposition leader’s popularity has continued to plummet and Harper continues to rule, with an unofficial election campaign, dirty tricks and all, continues to flourishing on all sides. Prime Minister Harper may yet end up with a majority government if he continues to be the wily politician, and turn out to be the Mackenzie King of our era. The country slides ever deeper into deficit and debt, and the population keeps on spending all the borrowed dollars that our sons and heirs will have to repay generations later.

All parties here and in the United States pay lip service to the serious matters of managing our physical environment by lessening the impact of our species on the pace of melting ice caps and deepening oceans. Yet all parties seem intent instead on exploiting the availability of scarce resources uncovered by the warming climate. It really does not matter whether Liberals, Conservatives, Democrats or Republicans are running things in our neighbouring countries, the consequences vary but little. On climate change, the Kyoto Accord of long years ago made participants who signed up feel righteous for such good intentions but not one country has really accomplished anything in reducing the impact of increasing industrial pollution on the rate of nature’s changing seasons. I predict no serious agreement will be reached at the approaching international meeting designed to come up with a successor to Kyoto.

In the States President Obama too is becoming a toothless tiger as ruler of the White House. No matter what his good intentions as a candidate, he is still a prisoner of the system. On domestic and economic matters he must rely on advisors he chose, all establishment figures in finance, public relations and politics, and pushed one way and another, he must opt for a decision, usually a compromise, which he must then try to sell to the body politic. As he nears the end of his first year in office, it is unlikely that anything approaching a successful health plan will take effect. Many of his economic and finance advisors are products of the banks and organizations who caused the near Depression in the first place, and as yet there is no indication that his government will come up with any way of bringing Wall Street under any reasonable control. He gets no help whatever from the loyal opposition and the way things are going, if Republicans come up with a believable leader in the mid-term elections next year, Democrats may well lose the Congress again in 2010.

In foreign affairs, Obama has made Afghanistan his war and after eight years fighting a war that seems to have no end, Obama also appears to be ruled by the advice of his military establishment, which by its very nature and existence has a vested interest in keeping all its pots boiling. Tell me, why should the United States have its armed forces stationed in some 150 countries around the world, all watching the World Series of baseball from afar as the announcers tell us during the games?

And so the game of government and politics goes on as nature moves inexorably on its way and we still know not what we do. I have copied pictures below of three of our current players in the game, being Prime Minister Harper and President Barack Obama.

The Old Man

November 1, 2009