The Reasons Why: My Radical Politics

To begin with, let me first say a few things about the human race, humankind – now I think it is pretty obvious that we are a social species, we like to do things in groups, we like to socialize, we work together, fall in love, share our thoughts – it’s what we do and we do it in a place called “society”.

Guards, Part IV: "Veritas"

As the testimony continued and as the evidence was produced, the “Judicator” and the other black-clad man remained stone-faced and silent, displaying no emotion. When at last it ended, the man said “People of the commune, citizens of humanity, your testimony has been heard and the crimes of this man have been laid before our eyes this day – your judgement is clear and now here is ours.”

Guards, Part III:"The Trial"

The warlord's heart sank as he did as he was told, dropping to both knees on the hard-packed earth. A flood of questions poured through his mind: who were these people? Agents of the UN, an armed NGO, that was unheard of! Entering the country and getting past all of bureaucracy and corruption and then proceeding to train helpless villagers how to fight and defend themselves against his militia, impossible! Foreigners in these parts only ever engaged in useless aid efforts for the peasants or contacted his militia if they wanted to take part in illegal diamond trades – so what was this all about? How could he have become so helpless?
The two black-clad strangers, dressed almost identically, now stood on either side of him as the villagers gathered around. Even the women and children began to appear, some of the women, like the strange black-clad woman, with guns in their hands. Women with guns?! To Rambo’s mind this too seemed impossible and yet here it was.

Guards, Part II: "The Encounter"

Rambo’s amazement quickly turned to anger: these villagers had defied him, defied him to the point of armed resistance and killing his own fighters – an example, a brutal example had to be made of them, and he could not let this challenge stand. “Kill them all!” he bellowed to his men, who needed no encouragement. He followed closely behind as they plunged through the ring of blazing huts and into an open space beyond, taking pleasure in treading on the dead bodies of several unlucky village defenders. Expecting to run into a last ditch group of defenders he brought up his magnum, but stopped dead in his tracks along with his men when he saw that the place was deserted.

Guards, Part I: "The Burning"

Huts burned, the air was filled with smoke, the tortured smell of blazing grass and the rending cries of the terrified villagers as the raiders bore down.

Setting a Trap for the People

The ultimate job of all of these security agencies, set up and empowered to an incredible degree by the liberal regimes around the world, is to set traps for the people to fall into so that the jails remain filled with legions of lawbreakers. Instead of addressing the root causes of crime and working to eliminate the conditions which give rise to it they seem more interested in keeping the jails full and the security forces active and the so-called “War on Terrorism” has given them the justification they need in the eyes of a docile populace to place more and more people under lock and key. Infinite numbers of flexibly applied laws are exploited to this end – from “breach of the peace” to “resisting arrest” – and the aim is to ensure that anyone can be detained for any reason without calling into question the liberal façade of “democracy”.

Weak Democracy and Entertainment

For the majority of people in the West it appears that democracy has lost its meaning as a means of political participation and is now seen as a kind of freedom to have fun or to be entertained – a right upheld and maintained by massive security forces, harsh anti-terrorism laws, vast corporations and increasingly powerful executive driven governments. While democracy continues to exist as a political and social ideal for so many oppressed peoples in the Third World, in the West it has become a matter of preserving the luxuries we currently enjoy against any perceived threat – from terrorism to global warming. Under such circumstances it is no wonder that democracy is not in good condition and largely exists in name only, not only in the corrupt states of the Third World, but within the increasingly decadent heart of the West itself.

Partisan Politics versus Direct Democracy

The effect that the advent of partisan politics had on the legislative process is that it disconnected political power from the physical community of human beings and transferred it to an artificially created political interest group claiming to represent the “interests” of the people as a whole.  

Comedy, Counter-Culture and Why Bush Doesn't Care About Either

It seems that the concept of what makes a political statement is lost on many people these days. A lot of comedy today is merely an aspect of the so-called “counter-culture” and many of these comedians seem to think that they are making a political statement by making fun of their society’s elites in various creative ways. In reality they cannot be considered rebels at all – do they not see how the elites they make fun of pay them no heed? Their comedy actually serves a very useful social function that the present day elites would be foolish to condemn or throw away.

Actions not Words: How to Realize the Ideals of One World

This past week has seen two demonstrations of the growing desire for peace, justice and unity between human beings on a universal scale, and I am left with no doubt as to the sincerity of the people who made them happen.

The first, was the One World show, which was a very impressive gathering and, in many cases, a fusion of cultural traditions with the expressed intent of building a sense of togetherness and unity between people of diverse cultures. I remember being particularly moved by the show’s motto (“one love, one people, one world”), which hung above the stage the entire time as people from all manner of backgrounds showed their diverse talents in one place. The second was Earth Hour, which was truly a worldwide phenomenon, with the University of Guelph being part of this global effort to raise awareness about climate change and its global implications for all of humankind. The coordination of this event around the world shows that people do care and that people are increasingly seeing the world in a broader and more inclusive sense – this is a beautiful thing.

However, while I support these efforts, let me also say without hesitation that they are not enough. They are not nearly enough and I think people generally know that, but given the commonality of the sad tendency of resorting to band-aid “solutions”, feel-good events, and awareness campaigns in modern progressive circles, I feel the need to offer some serious criticism and some suggestions which I hope people will consider in the future – because if we rely exclusively on the present methods being used (that I have just mentioned), the “one love, one people, one world” vision can never be realized. If we want something so profound – just as people who have wanted something profound throughout history have had to do – we have to be willing to fight for it.

Consumerism as a discouragement of Direct Democracy

Consumers do not make good citizens. Anyone who would not inconvenience themselves for the sake of society cannot be called a good citizen and since the life of the consumer is ruled by convenience and the desire for convenience than they can hardly be called good citizens who will actively participate in society beyond their immediate circle of friends and relations.

Canada as a Human Homeland

Canadian identity has been a nagging problem ever since Confederation. When Canadians ask what distinguishes us most from the Americans, many would immediately say “multiculturalism” and explain that unlike them we do not try to assimilate our immigrants but generally leave them alone to follow whatever tradition they wish to follow. While the rhetoric is pretty clear, the substance of the matter is somewhat different. While the Americans do have a much clearer idea of what it means to be an American and they do attempt to indoctrinate their immigrants a lot more than we do, they still have an incredibly multi-cultural society. One look at the influx of illegal immigrants from Mexico will tell you what a laughingstock the idea of a single “national” culture in the United States is. When (predominantly) white Americans talk about holding onto American culture and American “values” they are really missing the point – their citizens follow just as many creeds, cultures, languages, value systems, belief systems etc. as Canadians do. They may talk tough and say that they are united under a single way of thinking and “the American Way” of life but they are not and they never really were to begin with. So basically Canada and the United States are both multi-cultural societies and only the political rhetoric and political cultures are different.

Cynicism and Inspiration: A Call to Action

There has been a lot of talk about the level of cynicism in this country, perhaps too much talk, and almost always centered on the youth and their stubborn unwillingness to participate in the political process. Parents who grew up in the euphoria of the Trudeau years and who vote as a matter of course seem to be wondering where they went wrong and why their kids are so apathetic or hopeless about politics. Voter turnout is lower than it has ever been, we all know that, and yet (for all the efforts of those people who encourage young people to vote for the sake of voting [remember the “I care, I vote” pins?]) nothing seems to work, government does not change, and the system remains the same, so what do we do now?

Politics of the Future

The politics of the future will be the politics of finding the optimal balance between individual and collective and to provide the best possible reconciliation between the individualistic and social aspects of humankind. We cannot expect perfection, only a perpetual process of improvement and adjustment.

Ireland as Universal State

Stereotypical views of Ireland run deep and misunderstandings abound: an emerald isle awash in myths, legends and faerie stories, and steeped in a highly marketable (and misleadingly uniform) “Gaelic” culture hardly does justice to the complexity of this land and its people. Few people would consider Ireland to be a universal state (basically a multi-ethnic state with an inclusive ideology) but its history makes it a surprisingly good candidate for this status. While there are those in Ireland who wish to keep that land exclusively for Celts (“the real Irish” as they mistakenly say), they are blind to their own ancestry and the intermixing of blood and culture that gave rise to the Irish people and made them what they are today.

Unhealthy Skepticism

The liberal status quo thrives off of the demise of communism because they know that as soon as any great progressive idea is put to the test of public opinion, the people can be counted on to skeptically reply: “I’ll believe it when I see it,” or cynically condemn it as a “pipe dream”. Therefore they will leave the progressive thinker with the nigh impossible task of building a new model society without any popular support. It is no wonder that the liberals and conservatives who make up the backbone of modern politics think that they will remain in power indefinitely – for they are the only choice and in the absence of socialism or any other progressive ideology no one really questions their domineering authority over a political system which, likewise, no one seriously challenges. Indeed, the only things that are challenged and seriously questioned are the alternatives put forward by others.
When liberalism and conservatism rose to power, and particularly in the case of liberalism, people were willing to believe in new ideals and were willing to sacrifice for new ideals (we have to remember that modernity did not emerge overnight but through a long and bloody period of trial and error spanning over two centuries). The skepticism that is so prevalent now essentially keeps the outmoded ideals of the 18th and 19th centuries in power because few people are willing to believe in and almost no one is willing to sacrifice for new ideas – essentially they are unwilling to endure the period of trial and error required to build a new and better world order and therefore they stunt the growth of humankind. This situation permits world leaders such as George W. Bush to advance their reactionary agendas with impunity regardless of how much the general public despises them. It is impermissible that such a situation should continue. Humanity must advance.

What does it mean to be Progressive?

It is increasingly fashionable in politics today and regardless of which side of the political spectrum a politician or political commentator happens to come from, to speak in terms of “threats”.

When in December of 2007, Richard Mottram, a former member of Gordon Brown’s government in the UK, effectively attacked his government’s fixation on the threat of international terrorism to the exclusion of all else he had little constructive to say beyond highlighting several other threats besides terrorism. Instead of attacking the scare-mongering policies of the Brown government which, in keeping with the policies of Tony Blair, basically have succeeded in transforming Britain into an island fortress that positively bristles with anti-terrorism measures, Mottram elected to scare the public about global warming and weapons of mass destruction instead. I can’t say I’ve ever met the man but he doesn’t seem to be a terribly deep or creative thinker by the looks of things and hardly original for that matter.

The rhetoric of the early 21st Century politician is consistently dominated by talk of threats and the language of fear and has been since the earth-shattering terrorist attacks of 2001. Calling it the 9/11 syndrome would hardly be far from the mark and it certainly isn’t confined to neo-conservatives. Whether we are taking about fears about global warming, terrorism, rogue states, flu pandemics, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or whatever, these threats are continuously pressed home from politicians and commentators on the left, on the right, in the middle or wherever. Whether it’s in the media, during election campaigns, in the White House, in the British or Canadian Parliament, the Bali Conference on Climate Change, or any number of other political forums across the world the focus of the discussion is on the existence of threats, the causes of threats, and responses to threats.