Now's not the time ...

 

The Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) grew out of the Progressive Conservative Party. Without making too much of this, the fact remains interesting. What we call left wing or liberal (and perhaps, socialist) politics are also called progressive political ideologies. Voters should have learned in school what’s meant by left or liberal politics as well as the difference between it and conservative ideology.

Conservative impulses exist in all of us; we find comfort in conserving what is; change is unsettling. A good example is the CPUs campaign to “Axe the Tax,” a progressive carbon emission tax imposed to reduce the dependency on fossil fuels and their contribution to climate change. Progressive ideology recognizes that a changing climate demands new ways of doing things; conservative ideology looks to what worked yesterday and campaigns for the status quo. Progressive policies look forward; conservative thinking focuses on the present as informed by the past.

Tree-hugging environmentalists may be progressives—even socialists—on Employment Insurance, but adamantly conservative on preserving forests as they are. Being “right-wing” is not like being right-handed; we’re all politically ambidextrous depending on the issue. It’s the divisive party systems that label us either “candy-assed liberals” or “red-necked hillbillies,” making every election an us-and-them, win-and-lose proposition.

There’s a time and a place for conservative thinking, and it’s tempting to join the current rush to defying change while the “let’s all hate Trudeau” theme is threatening to displace our national anthem. It’s easy to get swept up in the notion that the time and place is now. It most certainly is not; this is the worst possible time.

The implications in a time of rapidly escalating global warming are clear: to reject progressive measures and deny the need for decisive change is to borrow life from future generations. It’s the refusal to make a small sacrifice now, even if it results in a lifetime of huge sacrifice for our grandchildren.

In times of frustration—inflation, forest fires, dependence on foodbanks, intolerance, medical care crises, “wars and rumours of wars,” etc.—the temptation to kick over the furniture in rage is strong, the blaming of leaders and the dividing into for-and-against camps is predictable. But like wars, depressions, pandemics, famines, hurricanes and such, climate change and economic cycles cannot be gone around, they must be soldiered through. Neither are they the fault of the government in office: the cycles of human social and economic fortune have always been. And because each trial is unique, it’s progressive thinking—innovation—not adamant conservatism and finger-crossing that will help us through.

Feel Free to reply to gg.epp41@gmail.com

Nostalgia: the dark side

 

But first, some music. Links for hearing what's posted are provided:

A love Ballad for Millennials (born after 2000)

STAY (excerpt)

The Kid LAROI, Justin Bieber

I do the same thing, I told you that I never would
I told you I changed, even when I knew I never could
I know that I can't find nobody else as good as you
I need you to stay, need you to stay, hey

I get drunk, wake up, I'm wasted still
I realize the time that I wasted here
I feel like you can't feel the way I feel
I'll be fucked up if you can't be right here

Oh-whoa (oh-whoa, whoa)
Oh-whoa (oh-whoa, whoa)
Oh-whoa (oh-whoa, whoa)
I'll be fucked up if you can't be right here.

 

A love ballad for Baby Boomers (born in the 1950s)

I'll Never Find Another You (excerpt)

The Seekers

There's a new world somewhere
They call the promised land
And I'll be there someday
If you will hold my hand
I still need you there beside me
No matter what I do
For I know I'll never find another you

There is always someone
For each of us, they say
And you'll be my someone
Forever and a day
I could search the whole world over
Until my life is through
But I know I'll never find another you

Try on this explanation for the “culture war” as we are seeing it unfold in the USA:

Seeing the world in hindsight invariably results in a nostalgia reaction, the donning of rose-coloured glasses as we leaf through old photo albums. The nostalgia reaction exaggerates the good we remember as compared to the much-changed world we’re living in. This phenomenon is older than ravens (Hi, Doug!) and any historian will tell you that it has the power to paint mind pictures of WWII (for instance) that are heroic, glorious even. Nostalgia revises history.

Have you ever heard a senior say things like, “Kids these days have no respect,” or “Why is there no good music anymore?” These sentiments understandably magnify in proportion to the speed and extent of change and are subject to the rose-coloured-glasses nostalgia, the corollary being that kids were respectful once upon a time, and music was melodious and meaningful “when I was a kid.”

Again, the speed and extent of change exaggerates the dislocation of values in our minds. What characterizes our age (mine for instance, 1941 to today) is warp-speed change, ergo, our age is bound to experience unprecedented chaos, driven mostly by rage at the imagined loss of a world … that never really was. The disappointment at what appears to the large older-middle-aged group and seniors to be a burglary of an age made golden through nostalgia, easily turns to a collective rage and a search for the villains who are blindly ruining everything! It’s the right-wing “fascists” for some, the “woke” neo-Marxists for others; you might as well say “any crook will do in a storm.”

None of this is meant to say that the losses that come with change are all imaginary. The internet gave us texting, video conversation and email, but it also opened the door to a loss of privacy, scam opportunities and virulent trolling, plus being complex enough to leave all but a few of the oldest generation frustrated. I certainly feel nostalgic sometimes for the days of letters, postage stamps, wall phones and paper newspapers. I’m a proud curmudgeon.

It follows that the personality with a decidedly conservative bent will feel the burglary of the past the most. It might explain, for instance, why Republicans in the USA are as militantly angry as they are while Democrats are characterized as suffering from a lack of unity around a cohesive plan. Expectation of change that can’t be avoided should engender creativity in riding the changes in the best way possible; American Republicanism in its rage is focused firstly on preventing unliked change and, secondly, rolling public social policy back to an imagined earlier “golden” age.

The two “love songs” with which I opened this post were intended to illustrate the typical intergenerational frustration that’s at the heart of this thesis. I listen to music by my contemporaries: Neil Young, Paul Simon, the Carpenters, Carly Simon, Joan Baez, Don Maclean, Eric Clapton, etc. I shudder to imagine the clientele in a seniors’ housing project attending an Avril Lavigne concert, painfully enduring the Girlfriend song, perhaps.

A more salient illustration can be had by following court decisions on abortion, on gender dysphoria and the pronouns that have emerged as a result, even on the sanctity of keeping Mens’ and Women’s washrooms “as they’ve always been.” And we remember that a combination of factors have over more than a century made universal metrification of measurement in the USA impossible. Further, we’re well aware of the dynamics that led to a pro-choice ruling in Roe v. Wade, and what gigantic effort was put into turning the clock back on abortion.

We want to escape the hardship of change: global warming, national debt, social disruption, pandemics, artificial intelligence, population dislocation, etc. We want it to be like it was before the shifts became apparent. We want solutions without pain, without sacrifice, “like it used to be.” It’s natural. Trouble is, reality will assert itself despite mountains of wishful thinking, and it’s liberal (arguably), logical thinkers like Jesus Christ who will do what they can to point us toward our best future, but not without pain or sacrifice.

Seems to me that summarizing the “culture wars” by hating Donald Trump is both illogical and futile. Reaction—including rage—against change will happen and will seek out its justification and its heroes. If not Trump, then some other person who knows how to manipulate, magnify popular frustration into money and power will worm his/her/their way into the White House or other seat of authority.

Possibly you have a brother or sister who rails against the limiting measures being taken to slow climate change, while you’re frustrated by people who won’t “get with the program” like you’re trying desperately to do. Your sibling probably will attach politically to Poilievre or Bernier while you support the Liberals and/or New Democrats. Thanksgiving dinners at your house are probably  interesting.

You’ve no doubt noticed that arguing our half-facts, conspiracy theories and social media pronouncements isn’t getting us anywhere, so you may have decided to avoid the touchiest subjects.

A couple of things in conclusion: 1) Scientific assessment is nearly unanimous that global warming is broadly dangerous to humanity’s future, and 2) Your brother is objecting out of a very real psychological syndrome, a panic over changes he doesn’t understand fully, plus nostalgia for a time when climate change wasn’t talked about. And 3), it’s important that your sibling change his/her/their actions, if not their mind, at least if the future suffering and dying of people is important.

How that’s done is an even more urgent topic than this one.

  

 

Before I vote

I'm writing this from Ottawa, the seat of our fragile democracy.

We don’t talk politics a lot, but we did—albeit briefly—at supper last night. It’s discouraging. Our party leaders are rolling out the promises by the ream, again: more money for your children’s future, more affordable housing, more for healthcare, more, more, more. And in our heart of hearts, we know that if these promises are ever kept, it will be like parents buying their kids every neat thing their heart desires . . . on Visa or Mastercard! Because the overriding promise, of course, is that taxes will be reduced, not increased to pay for the pledged goodies.

How did we get here? In this rapidly changing age, how is it we still do our politics like cavemen? We all know that government is not like parents in one way, not charged with “social engineering” the population to fit some preconceived ideal. 

Our federal government’s central responsibility is to do the budget for providing those things we have in common: infrastructure, safety, energy, food security, healthcare, global involvement, etc. 

Good parents know how to say “no” when necessary. They recognize the difference between the fundamental and the frivolous. Good parents know the comparative value of things, have the knowledge and the fortitude to choose. They don’t buy their children’s affection with money they don’t have. Good parents are open and honest; they explain their choices.

Only good people become good parents; only good people make good politicians. That’s possibly why many of us have lost faith in the party system of democratic politics; the majority approached in a recent straw poll indicated that they vote for the party, not the person nominated by the party. There are practical considerations for doing so, of course, but the downside is that the group of 350 or so we end up choosing to set priorities for us and enact our national budget on our behalf might well contain far more incompetence than necessary. We ought to choose our representatives far more critically than we do, don’t you think?

Some would say—justifiably—that our flawed political system has still resulted in our living in the best country in the world. That’s a judgment easily made, of course, but the general consensus—I think—would be that we have found a workable balance between individual autonomy and the public good. 

But, saying we live in the best country in the world might be a fine sentiment for Mount Royal residents, while it would undoubtedly sound hollow in Attawapiskat or Vancouver’s Hastings Street. Were our federal politicians truly the carefully-considered choice of their constituents without the load of party baggage they carry, the attention to the potholes in our democracy might get their due attention.

I live in Carlton Trail-Eagle Creek constituency. My current MP is Kelly Block, former mayor of Waldheim and a Conservative Party of Canada candidate. The others are: NDP-Jasmine Calix; Liberal-Rebecca Malo; Green Party-Dean Gibson; People’s Party-Cody Payant and Glenn Wright is running as an Independent. 

How on earth are voters going to get a fair picture of the qualifications and personalities of this crew without effort? Rebecca Malo has a Facebook page as do Jasmine Calix and Cody Payant. Glenn Wright is mostly known to us as one who has previously run for the NDP and was hoping to secure the nomination this time around, but didn’t make it. He too can be found on Facebook.

I’ve already called this one: Kelly Block will get as many, or more, votes as the others combined, but who knows if that won’t miss out on a representative with super intelligence, experience and qualifications.

And then come the photos of Trudeau in blackface, Harper with paint and feathers and the primary-school playground fight is on. “He hit me first.” Sheesh. What do we do with that?

If you were hoping for guidance in choosing where to place your X, only one suggestion comes to mind from this quarter: know as much about the candidates as you can, discard those who are primarily reactionary and from among the rest, pick the most grounded, the most well-spoken, the best educated, the one who talks most about issues and least about the opposition. 

Because, in the end, no matter to which party you feel an affinity, which party you feel you owe loyalty, any party will do well if their elected members are genuine, are “good folk.”

I think. 

I could be wrong. But I've never done blackface, although my brother did once. 

Jawings from Moose Jaw

Someone posted a link to a video of an Arizona pastor referring to Levitical law to make a point that AIDS could be cured by Christmas if we were to obey the Old Testament injunction that says homoerotic acts should carry the death penalty. Putting aside for the moment the misconceptions about HIV's preferences, such ghastly pronouncements falling on hundreds of ears are bound to find some receptive, fertile ground in which to grow and flourish.

I'm waiting to see if the pastor in question will be charged with spreading hate. If he is, a cadre of followers will no doubt emerge to cry "freedom of speech, freedom of religion!" and make out that the pastor is the victim here; it happens frequently.

This may sound alarmist, but I sense that the number of people being drawn into that comfort zone characterized by legalistic, arbitrary, deductive, black/white thinking is growing. Fortunately, it's not a majority in North America yet, but because of the quieter, more tolerant voices of liberalism, conservative bombast is ending up punching far above its weight class. In Canada, the relatively-solid 38% have ruled the roost for the past eight years, producing reams of ideologically-driven legislation, much of it so bad that the supreme court has had to step in to prevent the pernicious disregard of the constitution.

My experiences as a classroom teacher have informed my conviction that there is real harm awaiting us if liberalism can't find a way to unite against creeping, retrograde thinking. I've observed that among teachers you're always bound to find many who teach kids and others who teach curriculum. For the latter, the curriculum is the law book to be applied with equal vigour and the same expectations to every kid in class; good teachers, meanwhile, measure success by the growth in skills, self-confidence and socialization of the individual child, whether or not the curriculum has been mastered as prescribed. Too-simply put, probably, curriculum teachers drive the less-endowed into deviance, the kid-teachers produce well-adjusted citizens who retain with dignity the attributes with which they were born.

Even so, the conservative mind clings to the sanctity of the curriculum, demands standardized testing, imposes on teachers restrictive, deductively-arrived-at parameters that seem to be logical but waste the skills and understandings gained in professional training. This is the conservative mind at work. For the Arizona pastor, the Bible is the curriculum and under its apparent dictates, every student must be taught the same as every other one.

My point today is finally that unless we mean to be governed by Harperism into the foreseeable or distant future, liberals will need to eat some crow and give the population a viable progressive, social democratic choice. In Canada today, I want to see the Liberal and NDP unite to form the Liberal Democratic Party of Canada (LDPC) and the Green Party to take over as the "third party of conscience."

The clock is ticking, people. Great harms of all kinds are very real possibilities. The times require you and me to act.

Alberta Tar Sands Project - Satellite View

Go right, go left, go straight ahead?^©

By George Epp

Do you consider yourself a conservative or a liberal? I know those terms are fraught with more than meaning; they arouse fervour, anger, elation, all kinds of emotions that don’t have much to do with what was intended when they were coined. A good check on this can be found at numerous Conservative/conservative websites where the vitriol aimed at liberal thought borders on trespassing hate-mongering laws. Explore the contents of one or two of the US “conservative radio” websites and you’ll see what I mean (KRLA 870 at http://krla870.townhall.com/, for instance).

The PERSONAL FINANCE Section of the Saskatoon StarPhoenix featured an article called “Historic rivals share success” on April 28^th, 2008. The gist of it was that the fertilizer, fuel and food industries are simultaneously enjoying windfall sales and profits. Well we all know about the cost of gasoline, but many of us are not aware that the potash mining industry in Saskatchewan is booming big time. Shares in PotashCorp have gone from around $30.00 less than a year ago to around $140.00 presently (according to Ray Turchansky’s article).

That fertilizer prices should climb alongside food prices is not surprising; neither is the rise in fuel prices, since food production is so dependent nowadays on fossil fuel, both for growing and transporting. The three industries will continue to extract higher and higher profits in tandem with each other, and the question for me is: while the shareholders are gleefully pocketing their increasing dividends and the CEO’s are enjoying massive raises, and the western farmer is finally enjoying some business success (if the cost of fertilizer and fuel don’t eat up the increases), what will be the NET effect on the human populations of the world?

Such escalations both in price and in quantity of resource exploitation are unsustainable; we all know that. In this, we are well advised to be conservative. So chocolate cake tastes good—that doesn’t mean that you can get away with eating it morning, noon and night. A breaking point has to come. Balance must be restored.

Conservative thinkers will cry, “Go back! Go back! It was better back there.” Liberal thinkers tend to realize that “You can’t go home again,” and either despair, or get to work turning the new reality into something workable.

I’m a conservative when I think that our best hope for a sustainable future is to reduce, reuse and recycle—particularly the reduce part. The West’s focus—food wise—is to find ways to curb people’s insatiable appetites or to develop means to prevent obesity while overeating regularly. That picture is obscene to most of the world, but it still serves as an apt metaphor for the resource gluttony that characterizes North America particularly.

I’m a liberal when I think that conserving won’t be enough; we’re going to have to picture the world as different in the future and begin devising technologies and practices that shape that future. Think outside the box, if you will.

There are people who are challenging the deeply-held conviction in the West that economic growth must be the yardstick for success in managing our communal affairs. I would urge my readers to check out the website, http://www.growthbusters.com/ where filmmaker Dave Gardner seeks to do what he can to propose an alternate view of the how the future world will need to work.

However you view the future of the globe, whether conservatively or liberally, you may come to the conclusion—as I have—that the dialogue needs to leap the political barriers in order to meet the challenges of the future.