voxpopulicosmicum
Senior Member
TirckyRicky -- Unfortunately, I don't think that "real change" (in a positive sense) will be possible without first making the lives of most people much, much worse. I don't treally have the stomach for making people's lives worse, so I am left to either (1) work very hard to possibly achieve superficial change (which is how I spent my earlier years) or, (2) keep my head down and accept that I'm not going to be able to change anything, but I can at least spread my cynical (if truthful) toxins in cyberspace just so I can't be accused (by whom?) of allowing this horrible state of affairs go unnoticed.
I'm not saying that I don't believe in the good motives of some people -- even some politicians -- who are working, or have worked, for positive change. I just don't see their efforts as leading to "real change". It's how I knew in July, 2008 that Barack Obama would not actually change anything: because he was going to win the election. I thought Miller might have accomplished "real change". I continue to believe he accomplished some positive change but I also think he purposefully limited his efforts in order to foster a broader constituency. Notwithstanding his caution, the nonsensical anti-Miller backlash was sufficient evidence of a powerful constituency that can and will act in manifold ways to hinder "real change".
So I don't disagree that it is a mistake, from a political perspective, to write-off Ford and his supporters as idiots. But Ford was a known entity before the election, and -- politics aside -- I don't really have the patience to engage people who were willing to ignore, or happy to support, Ford's record. Yes, of course such people are entitled to a voice in our political system. But that's the problem. If that's the level of discourse necessary to be part of the political system, then why would I take part in the political system?
To illustrate the meaninglessness of my life: Back in November or December the federal Conservative Party plead guilty to a number of Elections Act violations, and I listened to a Conservative Party spokesman tell his dutiful CBC interviewer that the convictions proved that the Conservative Party was innocent. This same "black-is-white" mode of argument is repeated every day in respect of small and large issues by all levels of government. What good does it do to spend decades studying economics, politics and law if it can all be undone by a simple, unsubstantiated denial of fact?
We live in the circumstances that Orwell and Kafka predicted.
I'm not saying that I don't believe in the good motives of some people -- even some politicians -- who are working, or have worked, for positive change. I just don't see their efforts as leading to "real change". It's how I knew in July, 2008 that Barack Obama would not actually change anything: because he was going to win the election. I thought Miller might have accomplished "real change". I continue to believe he accomplished some positive change but I also think he purposefully limited his efforts in order to foster a broader constituency. Notwithstanding his caution, the nonsensical anti-Miller backlash was sufficient evidence of a powerful constituency that can and will act in manifold ways to hinder "real change".
So I don't disagree that it is a mistake, from a political perspective, to write-off Ford and his supporters as idiots. But Ford was a known entity before the election, and -- politics aside -- I don't really have the patience to engage people who were willing to ignore, or happy to support, Ford's record. Yes, of course such people are entitled to a voice in our political system. But that's the problem. If that's the level of discourse necessary to be part of the political system, then why would I take part in the political system?
To illustrate the meaninglessness of my life: Back in November or December the federal Conservative Party plead guilty to a number of Elections Act violations, and I listened to a Conservative Party spokesman tell his dutiful CBC interviewer that the convictions proved that the Conservative Party was innocent. This same "black-is-white" mode of argument is repeated every day in respect of small and large issues by all levels of government. What good does it do to spend decades studying economics, politics and law if it can all be undone by a simple, unsubstantiated denial of fact?
We live in the circumstances that Orwell and Kafka predicted.
