Who Will Stand Up for Democracy?

The whole kerfuffle about Elizabeth May being excluded from the leaders debates got me thinking about democracy and who's job it is to ensure that it does not erode. Is it the government's job? Looking at the situation in Canada right now, it would be laughable for anyone to say that our current federal government is a strong upholder of democracy. Stephen Harper has no problems with Elizabeth not being in the debates, he even hinted that he wouldn't want the NDP or Bloq in them either when he suggested an one on one debate with Ignatieff.

So if its not the government's job, what about the media? The media has historically represented itself as an accountability mechanism for governments to make sure that people know what their government is doing. This is a big reason why the concept of freedom of the press is so important. But no with the decision to not allow Elizabeth May into the debates, the reason they are citing is that it is not their responsibility to keep people informed of all the major parties, their job is to make money. So it's clear that the mainstream media has reneged on its own previously self-purported responsibility to uphold democracy, who's left? There is independent media which does a great job of holding government accountable and espousing democratic ideals, but it's independent and thus doesn't get the exposure that the more well-funded and far reaching mainstram media gets.

Then there are the people. Us. But the problem is that most of us don't know how to access the type of information we need in order to hold the government accountable. Some of us know about the indy media sites and publications. Some of us are involved in the political process. But the vast majority of us don't have access to these resources and only hear what the government and the mainstream media tell them. Ans when that is all you get, you may come to believe that the status quo, no matter how corrupt, intolerable, or authoritarian it is, is just peachy, simply because they tell you it is.

This brings us back to the question: Who will stand up for democracy? Because the small group of us that are outraged enough to try to do anything about it aren't strong enough to hold the powers that be accountable.

The political system is broken. Our mainstream society is broken. I would love change it but don't know how and don't know where to start. How do you change important parts of the system when the people that have all the power don't want that change? This is the question I put out to all of you, and I look forward to your suggestions.

Rob McDonald

Protesting the G20

It may seem a little bit late to look at the issues surrounding the G20, but I have wanted some time to collect my thoughts on the issue. This post is more thinking about the role of protesting in our society than that of the G20. The G20 is simply the most visible recent venue where all the issues surrounding protesting have come to the fore. The big issue of the G20 protests was the amount of security surrounding the event and the number violations of protesters rights by the police during the protests.

The story starts with the announcement of the $1 billion budget for security for the two days of the G20. This alone would cause me to protest, nevermind whether I agreed with the event or not. I feel that this budget and the seemingly weekly announcements of what weapons would be put to use during the protests set the tone for how the protests would unfold before the G20 even started. These were very intimidating and antagonistic gestures that were meant to put fear into the hearts of those who were contemplating disturbing the event. My feeling is it had the opposite effect on many people, angering them even more about the G20 event and causing them to go out and have their voice be heard.

One the G20 started, I was not at all surprised that the tone of the protests was exactly what it was. What did surprise me was the complete abuse of power used against the protesters. Say what you will about the behaviour of the protesters; detaining huge blocks of people for as long as they could, beating people, and threatening rape represents a gross misconduct on the part of the police, and the calls for more far-reaching inquiries should not go unheeded.

Of course, the behaviour of the protesters also needs to be examined. Unquestionably, there were some violent outbursts amongst the protesters, and the people committing this violence needed to be dealt with. A big problem with figuring out how hard the police should have come down on the protesters is the possibility that the most violent actions of the protesters may have been committed by police provocateurs themselves. Ever since it was proven a couple of years ago that police infiltrated the protesters in order to undermine the protest movement by creating violence, and the following police crackdown on protesters, one must question the amount of violence and damage that legitimate protesters actually cause. This opens the door for protesters to commit acts of violence and then place the blame on police provocateurs. When we don't know who did what, it is hard to figure out who is in the right.

The bigger question, though, is what has become the role of protests in our current society. It is painfully obvious that our current government doesn't want to hear the voices of anyone but themselves, so it is no surprise that they would try to undermind the protest movement in any way they can. The problem is that I feel that protests should be a very powerful way that people can express their dissatisfaction with how the government is conducting itself. Instead of acknowledging those feelings, the government is trying to stifle that voice, leaving no place for the dissatisfied people to express their opinions. This further distances people from the political process, leading less and less people to be motivated to participate at even the most basic political level, voting. When citizens are restricted in the tools they can use to influence government policy, and many are moved to apathy by the feeling of disgust with the political process, this is very bad for democracy. So bad that we can question whether it really is a democracy at all.

It is interesting to note that there was a protest march targeted at the lack of inquiries into the G20 abuses. The protest was said to go very smoothly as the police were very accommodating to protesters. It makes one wonder what the actual G20 protests would have been like if the police had taken this attitude in the first place.

Rob McDonald

BP Oil Spill, and California's Debt Crisis... Connected?

By now, everyone knows about the catastrophic oil spill in the US Gulf Coast. Labeled the worst environmental disaster in US history, the amount of oil that has already entered the environment is unknown, nor is it known how long it will take to stop the flow of oil into the ocean. Another unknown is how far-reaching the effects are going to be. I have read two great articles about the oil spill that go past the actual oil spill itself and look at more in depth issues the spill reveals. They can be found here and here. For the purposes of this post, I will be focusing on the first of the two articles.

Today, I also read an article in the Globe and Mail talking about California's debt crisis. This is a story I've been following for the past couple years and it looks like it's finally coming to a head. In short, California is going bankrupt, and it might take a bailout on the same scale as the big bank bailouts we have seen in the past couple years to keep the state's essential services operating. This is bad news for the US and the rest of the world, which is still reeling from the previous financial crisis in the US, and is wary that the financial crisis in Greece will create global havoc.

So, other than the far reaching impacts of both, what do these two issues have in common? More than what you might think. To follow my train of thought, we must look at pieces of each of the articles I have linked to to go deeper into each of these issues.

The first linked article states that "while the BP Spill is the biggest single oil spill we here in America have experienced, in terms of overall impact, it's just a drop in our pollution bucket... Even in terms of oil spilled in North America, this disaster is small compared to business as usual: more than 90% of all the oil spilled in North America comes from oil leaked from cars (or poured down drains) finding its way to the sea". Why has the general public not heard about this? Why are people so outraged over the BP spill, yet not the everyday pollution which is far worse?

There are two answers to this question. The first is that the BP spill is very visible, very sudden, and effect a specific geographical region and specific people. It is very easy to get angry when you can see the damage being done and who and what it damages in a very short time-frame. The other reason is very similar. There is only one very visible bad guy. It is BP that was in charge of the rig that collapsed which caused the oil spill. It was their lax safety practices that led to the disaster. It is easy to angrily point our fingers at BP and says "You did this!" However, you do we point our fingers at for the everyday pollution? Who is most affected? What exactly is the damage to the environment and where is it? These questions aren't as easily answered. We are all part of the society that is responsible for this pollution. Does this mean we should be pointing our fingers back at ourselves? That we should all abandon our jobs and our cars and live in little homesteads in the woods? Not so fast, the worldchanging article adresses this point:

"In failing to see that the BP Spill is a symptom, we also make it easy to blame the wrong people for the failures of the systems we now use. I've read dozens of pieces parroting the opinion that the BP Spill is all of our faults; that because we all use oil, we've all been responsible for making this happen. That's just stupid. Leaving aside entirely the fact that this particular spill itself appears to be the result of unethical and possibly criminal leadership within BP, the simple fact is that we continue to use so much oil largely because Big Oil, the car companies, the road-building lobby and sprawl developers have engaged in one of the largest sustained political efforts in history to keep us using as much oil as possible by blocking climate legislation and gas taxes, fighting smart growth laws and new public transportation investments, stalling higher mileage standards in new cars, channeling trillions of dollars into new roads and auto infrastructure, gutting water- and air-quality laws, even (arguably) getting a former oil man (George W.) elected, which resulted in a war for oil and general atmosphere of climate denialism. We burn oil in such astonishing quantities because those who profit from selling and using oil have all but run the American political system for the last ten years, and exerted decades of dominant influence before that.

In that light, our personal behaviors are essentially meaningless, especially if they aren't part of a larger effort to identify ways of changing our cities, transportation, agriculture and energy systems to function much more sustainably. If we want to change our impacts, we need to change our systems, on a scope we almost never talk about, stretching through essentially every aspect of our society."

Based on the arguments given in the article, the problem is that big business has too much influence on government decision making. This is a big problem, but is that the extent of the problem? If we just don't allow big business to tell government what to do, will everything be alright? Can we even do this? To answer these questions it is useful to look at the California debt crisis.

The reason California is in the precarious situation it's in is because people's fight against many forms of taxation since the 1970's. It costs more and more to provide services for a growing population, but the tax revenue hasn't grown at the same rate. "Americans have been “brainwashed” into believing they pay a lot of taxes ... In fact, they are among the least-taxed people in the Western World, particularly if they’re wealthy" states the Globe and Mail article. California residents want the services, but they are not willing to pay for them.

This situation reveals two issues. The first is that the wealthy aren't carrying their weight in paying taxes. This points to the theory that the wealthy and big businesses have too much influence on government being true. But what the previous statement really points to is a bigger underlying problem. People do not want to sacrifice their own income and comforts to allows government to provide all the services that they want to see government provide. The general public is not seeing the bigger picture. Most people focus on their own economic situation, and trying to get ahead in any way they can. The motto of today's China sums it up the best: "It is glorious to get rich."

The real problem at the base of each of these issues can be derived from China's new favorite pastime. We are a society that is focused almost exclusively on economic progress, and we need to change our values... fast. Until we change our fundamental values, any move to separate business from government won't gain any traction, because our societal values as they are right now, are exactly the same values of big business.

If we valued a sustainable healthy environment to live in, BP wouldn't have been allowed to skimp on safety precautions. We probably wouldn't have developed a society based on polluting technologies in the first place. And the only way we are going to move our society away from these polluting technologies is if our society as a whole changes what we value most away from the economy.

The same can be said for the California debt crisis. If people changed there values from a me first financial perspective, to a perspective that values health, education and community support services instead, the state would have much less resistance to the taxes needed to pay for these things.

Both of these crises are the fault of society at large. By places our values in a me first economic system, we are setting ourselves up for many such catastrophes. We need to look into our collective mirror and ask ourselves what we really value. This includes each individual and business, but especially the media and government. Because if we don't change our societal values quickly, we might lose all those things that really are more important than our pocket books, like our natural environments, our schools and our health care systems.

Rob McDonald

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