The Mind\’s Eye

Greetings Folks!

There are a lot of exciting developments in North American Government and Politics.  Well….I predicted the huge win by Barack Obama and am certainly very excited about his forthcoming presidency.  I even applied for a job…. you can too if you so wish at change.gov    But…he had to mobilize a huge grassroots movement to pull it off.  If he had depended on the regular voters  for support than we would be likely to see John McCain sworn in on January 20th, 2009.  It was a remarkable Revolution….Americans were mobilized….particularly the young and disenfranchised to push their nation into a new direction.  I think this was a renewal of democracy in the U.S.A which was absolutely vital to it’s future…without it…it surely would have lurched further towards fascism.  I just hope that President Obama will be able to effect enough change so that a truly new direction will occur…a new tragectory will be gained and maintained in the following elections.  Failing that…the know-nothings will support Sarah Palin or someone even worse and there would be great risk of a Fascist State….as social order would likely disintegrate under their policies.

Meanwhile in the Great White North, Canada had it’s own election.  And Canadians have a much greater variety of choices for their vote.  In their election…like in the previous 2…no political party had enough seats to form a majority government….and so…The minority government of Stephen Harper, of the Conservative Party, appeared likely to continue…however…..the political landscape has evolved a lot in Canada in these last years.  After only recently having the election….Stephen Harper seems to have over played his hand.  He recently has not preposed any new stimulus projects for Canada in spite of the current global economic turmoil…but…he has preposed trying to destroy his political opposition….by preposing an end to government financing of political campaigns….a very cynical…machiavellian ploy to try and turn his political minority into a majority by forcing repeated elections on the other parties until he had turned off enough voters that he would have gained enough seats to form a majority government. Canadians have been very hesitant about giving him a majority government….and with good reason…his policies and philosophy seem much more at home in the Republican Party of the United States….than in a Canadian Conservative Party…..the last Canadian “Conservative” Party….also had the word “Progressive” in it’s name…and Mr. Harper doesn’t seem to reflect anything like Mainstream Canadian Life….he’s anti-multiculturalism, anti-arts, anti-social programs, anti-parliamentary,….pro-business, pro-small government, pro-republican, pro-life, pro-bible thumper…as I say…completely at odds with Canadian Mainstream….but he has tapped into frustrations over the traditional parties and garnered alot of support…but clearly not enough.  He’s just too ideological and not predisposed to working with other parties.   And to get back to my earlier point on the recent election…although the Conservatives ended up getting more seats in the House of Commons….they received less votes than the last time.   Hence we have a historic moment in the offing.  Two of other parties in parliament, the Liberal Party and the New Democratic Party……appear to have forged a coalition alliance to bring down the current government and offer the country a truly historic government for Canadians….a Coalition Government.  This will be the first time in Canadian History that a truly Coalition government will exist.  It shows the tremendous evolution that Canadian Politics have gone through….moving from an essentially two party political system….with a third on the margins….to a truly multi-party system in which…a once inconsequential NDP party will apparently take up a quarter of the cabinet positions.  The Liberals have the most to lose from this…if they waited long enough…then they probably would have been able to unseat the Conservatives…..but this coalition gives the most opportunity to the NDP.  The NDP, Canada’s Premier Social-Democratic Party, has had mixed results in Provincial Politics and has never had the opportunity to be part of a Federal Government.  Even if this coalition fails….the NDP will have gained for it…as they will be seen as having been trying to serve it’s constituents, while the Liberals would likely be seen as desperate to return to power.  It seem the Governor-General is no longer the powerless rubber stamp of our Queen…but in deciding on giving this coalition an opportunity to form a new government will surely be exercising a truly monumentuous act of political enpowerment.  Canadians overwhelmingly voted for parties other than the Conservative Party….I’m excited to see this evolution have revolutionary consequences…The Political Parties of Canada will now be under even greater influence by the people of Canada.  If it’s a choice between the American Style 2 party system and the European style Multi-Party Coalitions….I’ll take 500 years of Peace and the cuckoo clock versus 300 years of War and the Atom Bomb any day.

+ Robyn Graves +