Delusional Canada: Democracy and party politics are dead in the water

Where we fail to respond to the truths of our times dire consequences will prevail.

Memorandum to my fellow Canadians

Preface

Professor Wendy Brown is a leading authority on the stealth ideology of neoliberalism. In this succinct quotation she provides us with a very valuable snapshot of what is neoliberalism and its effects on societies.

“As neoliberalism wages war on public goods and the very idea of a public, including citizenship beyond membership, it dramatically thins public life without killing politics. Struggles remain over power, hegemonic values, resources, and future trajectories. This persistence of politics amid the destruction of public life and especially educated public life, combined with the marketization of the political sphere, is part of what makes contemporary politics peculiarly unappealing and toxic— full of ranting and posturing, emptied of intellectual seriousness, pandering to an uneducated and manipulable electorate and a celebrity-and-scandal-hungry corporate media. Neoliberalism generates a condition of politics absent democratic institutions that would support a democratic public and all that such a public represents at its best: informed passion, respectful deliberation, aspirational sovereignty, sharp containment of powers that would overrule or undermine it.”
― Wendy Brown, Undoing the Demos: Neoliberalism’s Stealth Revolution

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JustinTrudeau openly refused electoral reform because the present broken system favors his party. The Liberals have promised proportionate representation(PR) for, over a hundred years and never delivered!

I hate playing the roll of the perpetual killjoy but I feel an obligation to share my thoughts with you. In these times there is a lot of killing going on and not much joy to be had. When I speak of killing I am not just referring body bags on battlefields, I am referring things much closer to home.

Watching Canadian politics now is a painful parody of what should be happening and is not. Over half a century I have seen my share of federal elections, ran as a candidate in 1993, and the rot now is there for all to see. No amount to Tylenol is going to fix our national crisis. Most of us don’t even want to acknowledge what is unfolding before our eyes. The media is doing its usual wicked job of deceiving us and trying to float their bottomless boats.

Where we fail to respond to the truths of our times dire consequences will prevail.

With two years to go before the next scheduled federal election the discontent with the present government is palpable and rightly so as it has been a constant under performer for the past eight years. The Opposition Conservatives are screaming for an election, and the Opposition leader is hoping this will promote him to the PMO.

Canadians suffer the mistaken belief a new PM will make things better Both parties are cut from the same cloth. Their branding is different but both practice the colonial dictates arriving from Washington. Both parties suffer the Tweedledee-Tweedledum complex.

From the performance of all our parties it is clear they put their partisan self-interest ahead of the public interest which has been reduced to nothing by the demands of neoliberalism. Where neoliberalism prevails politicians are idle hands free to the Devil’s work. They have taken full advantage as our Parliament becomes an adult day care for the over paid and under worked, all cheering for more war.

We are supposed to be the peacemakers; but when was the last time you heard a Canadian politician s peak for peace? Like their American counterparts they have pledged allegiance to war to keep their pay checks rolling in.

Both parties are in neoliberal corporate capture, as are American Republicans and the Democrats. Political parties are no longer accountable to the people who elect them, but the corporations that control them.

A stated goal of neoliberalism is to denigrate the role of government and this has been achieved in both Canada and the US.

Americans are electing a new president in 2024 but it will make little difference. The Democrats are doing their best to put Trump in jail, and incumbent Biden should be in jail on bribery charges. American Presidents like Canadians Prime Ministers don’t serve the peoples electing them but the vested interests controlling them. If Canadians are frustrated it is because our government is serving others and the duplicity is there for all willing to see it.

Both countries are waging war on the world neither can afford. Political elites on both sides of the border are solidly behind these wars, as they are corporate wars for corporate profits.

Canada’s last two federal elections in 2019 and 2021 yielded very similar results, not because they were an expression of the peoples preferences but because we are enslaved to a broken electoral system. When we have a de facto Liberal majority government(propped up by a defunct NDP) winning only 32% of the popular vote and almost 50% of eligible voters not voting this hardly qualifies as a vigorous democracy. Even more absurd, the Conservatives have 34 % of the popular vote and far fewer seats. So much for responsible and representative government?

Whenever the next federal election is held the results will duplicate the last two elections. The prime minister’s fate is sealed and he cannot run again. The Liberals will no doubt insert a new leader to nullify the CPC’s knee jerk rise in popularity. The Liberals will then eek out another minority government. The NDP will meet its final demise and remaining parties will continue to game the system in a broken democracy where the public is disenfranchised.

My point being, like the US to the south, both democracies are broken until fundamental changes are made and more enlightened leaders prevail.

We may choose to not respond to the daunting challenges facing us, but then we must brace for the consequences. The futures of acquiescent colonized countries are fixed in time, place and decline.

The beleaguered West is facing an existential crisis of its own making. The pig-headed despotism of our elites is rapidly foreclosing our future. They are so utterly craven as to wage war on the world when they should be rebuilding, restoring our democracies and re-inventing our societies, instead we are mired in the blood and chaos of endless war.

The infantile animus directed at Russia and China should be redirected at our despotic elites who are betraying their populations and destroying the West.

A bold new multipolar world is emerging that will be more fair and just for all. As the West persists in its war mongering intransigence and despotism it is going to end up on the margins as the rest of the world moves on. Social and economic and indicators verify this trend.

History has power and authority we fail to acknowledge. Only fools and despots try to rewrite it.

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