Let’s face it: there’s a very strong possibility that people we don’t agree with or even like are going to be running this country shortly. Our fellow citizens are going to put them there. This is the annoying thing about democracy: politics.

Citizens of countries run by dictators get to avoid all of that, but their alternative – which generally includes dungeons and bearded maniacs – is definitely worse.

So, what to do. The election is set for January 23, which is 41 days away. Seems like a long time, but the holiday boozing will quicken the campaign the same way it makes family functions fly by. There’s less than a month-and-a-half to go before an election. And this is a blog, not campaign headquarters.

In fact, is there any point in trying to make a difference this election with a blog at all?

Well, unless you’re an insomniac and the gentle patter of my writing helps you get to sleep, I presume that some of what you read here sinks into your brain. (If not, please don’t tell me.) But I watch my traffic counters and I know where I fit in the blog pecking order. This site is in the “long tail” of the web, a reference to (here we go, you’re thinking) probability statistics.

Give me one quick second, since it’s a simple concept. It means there are a few sites that get tons of traffic, and millions of sites (the long tail) that get just a little bit. The power of the long tail is that those millions of sites all add up.

And so the point is not just to occasionally influence an individual, but also to join the chorus – or cacaphony – of voices seeking change.

Then again, the community-based aspect of blogs, allowing links and discussion, means that it is easy to make yourself heard on the heavy-weight blogs that aren’t in the long tail at all, but lead the pack. In Canada, there are a number of remarkably popular conservative blogs that fit this description.

There’s a huge audience of Canadians who are reading these blogs but are still persuadable (after all, I read them, and I’m no conservative – I read them because of the old saying, “Know thine enemy”.) In fact, the clout of alternative media is growing, and the newspapers and television stations know it. If there was ever a time to fight an election online, now is it.

One such blog is Angry in the Great White North. I generally disagree with Angry, but I have to hand his blog two points: first, it’s entertaining, second, it’s generally free of degenerate name-calling and flaming. It sticks to the issues, by-and-large.

I also have to hand it to him for garnering a huge amount of media attention for his petition site kidsnotbeer.com, a stroke of pure genius. Created to attack the Liberals for Scott Reid’s statement that the Conservative’s $100 a month for child care would be spent on beer and popcorn, this website has landed him numerous television and radio interviews.

Discussing the popularity of the petition site, he points out that “Technorati is listing literally page after page of blog posts with “beer and popcorn” as the topic”, a concrete example of the long tail of the web. (Depending on how Technorati indexes this post, this could get added to the already long list too.)

Back to what this means for the election. Blogs like Angry’s are the perfect place to get a message out. They’re frequented by people who are frustrated by the current government and are looking for something different. Angry hopes that something will be the Conservatives. But it’s anybody’s game.

So my strategy for the next few weeks is simple:

First, to vigorously attack the Conservatives in the first half of the campaign (until late December/early January), focusing on increasing awareness of their history, their ideology, and their more unpopular policies. The goal is to undercut their support among undecided voters and make them think twice about voting for them.

Second, to support alternatives to the Conservatives in the second half of the campaign, in January, such as the NDP. The goal is to make undecided voters feel they have a genuine choice in front of them, and to encourage people who may not vote to do so.

You can join the party by posting elsewhere and if you don’t have a site of your own, you can leave your website URL (most sites, including this one, allow you to enter one when posting) as:

Election 2006

I’m continuing to compile information on the election there and the more eyes we get on it, the more people might think twice about voting Liberal OR Conservative.

Stay tuned as I jerk a few chains.

I’m not sure I like the sound of the following: Mr. Michael Ignatieff, a learned Harvard Professor and Canadian expatriate runs as Liberal candidate in the Ontario riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore. I’ve taken a week to consider the implications of the above statement and I have come to some conclusions. Mainly, I discovered that it’s not his candidacy that irks me, but rather it’s the implication of his winning the seat that is really problematic.

Before I explain myself, let’s make two assumptions about Mr. Ignatieff’s situation for the sake of argument. First, let’s assume he is really concerned about the people of Etobicoke-Lakeshore (not a cabinet seat, or any other accolades that may follow him into the House of Commons). Second, let’s assume that Mr. Ignatieff indeed wins his seat and becomes the new Liberal member for Etobicoke-Lakeshore.

With these two assumptions on the table, I am prepared to say the following: Michael Ignatieff is the wrong person to represent Etobicoke-Lakeshore. I’m hoping the good people of Etobicoke-Lakeshore will all vote NDP and I won’t have to defend these statements, but just in case I do, I’ll make the case right now.

First, a clarification for any of my potential detractors: I have no problem with Michael Ignatieff because he is a parachute candidate. The Liberal Party is entitled to drop in any able-bodied, heterosexual, white male over fifty whom they want to run under their banner. Go get ‘em Tiger. That the Liberal party has entitled itself to choose its own candidates is OK by me. Without this prerogative, federal party candidatures could be subject to take-over by interest groups. Well-organized lobby/interest groups, say for instance the anti-abortion lobby, could sign up sufficient new party members from their ranks, run a candidate in the nomination race, and win.

Sure, the party leader could simply refuse to sign the candidate’s papers. I accept that fact. But that could be messy and the Liberal Party of Canada (LPC) already makes enough of a mess out of riding nominations. Ask Sheila Copps, or now Ron Chyczij.

Jean Chretien sold the idea of the parachute candidate to his convention floor as an opportunity to put more women and ethnic minorities in the House of Commons. This bit of political mastery invested ever-more power in the upper ranks of the LPC to shape the party’s electoral image, but in doing so it also endeared the party to potential ethnic and women voters. However, as the saying goes: with great power, comes great responsibility. And still fewer than 25% of the members of parliament are women (65 of 308 MPs, 34 of 135 Liberals); statistics based on ethnicity are harder to come by, but safe to say there are too few visible minorities amidst the ranks. I would love to hear stats conveying how many visibly ethnic or female sitting members from the 38th Parliament were introduced to their ridings as parachute candidates. Ruby Dhalla comes to mind, but I have no idea who else. I digress.

Why is Ignatieff the wrong person for the job? It’s not because he’s white, or because he’s a man, it’s mainly because he’s politically inept.

Etobicoke-Lakeshore is heralded as a Liberal safe-seat. The incumbent, Jean Augustine (ironically a parachute candidate herself), won the seat in 1993, 1997, 2000, & 2004. She held the riding by close to 10 000 votes each time – a sizeable proportion. The seat was a sure win for any Liberal candidate, provided that candidate did their homework and played to the interests of the riding. Mr. Ignatieff had no idea. He didn’t bother to find out about the riding association politics. He didn’t bother to seek the support of any local constituent groups. He didn’t do a good job diffusing the controversy that followed his nomination. He didn’t even buy a house in the riding. Mr. Ignatieff chooses the more palatial surroundings of a Yorkville condo. How will he handle the affairs of his constituents?

Mr. Ignatieff insults the people he represents by fluttering down from a Harvard ivory tower and buying a house in the riding next door. He barely gets his hands dirty in the nomination. What kind of personal, hands-on service can they expect from Mr. Ignatieff in the future? Best intentions aside, this is a real problem. Not even the Prime Minister’s office supports this guy.

Still, Mr. Ignatieff gives speeches; he cries when 12 supporters show up to clap. He really doesn’t seem to understand what his ascension represents. If he wins solely on the power of the Liberal brand, the LPC brain trust can breathe a collective sigh of relief, but the rest of us should be very worried. It means that voters and parties are completely out of touch, neither understands the other and neither really cares.

————
This article was written by alevo

Last night, US federal air marshalls shot dead Rigoberto Alpizar on American Airlines Flight 924 in Miami, after he apparently claimed he had a bomb in his bag.

There are a number of remarkable similarities between this incident and the one involving Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot by police in London in July:

1. Both men are originally from Latin America (Menezes from Brazil, Alpizar from Costa Rica). Presumably, both men’s darker skin and hair meant they could have been superficially mistaken for Arabs.

2. Both men were thought to have been carrying explosives.

3. Neither of them actually were.

4. Both were killed in areas of public transport. Menezes in a subway, Alpizar at an airport.

5. Both were said to have been fleeing law enforcement. UK officials stated Menezes jumped a turnstile, ran from police and refused orders to stop, so they shot him. US officials state that after Alpizar exited the plane and ran onto the tarmac, he refused an order to lie down and reached into his bag, so they shot him.

In the case of Menezes, it turned out that UK officials initially lied about several parts of the story. Menezes paid the fare, descended the escalator normally, and then ran to catch the train to avoid missing it. He was then captured, pinned down, and killed.

The discrepancies between official statements and actual events, including the false claim he was wearing a heavy jacket too warm for the weather at the time, turned the incident into a scandal for British police.

Will scandal become the next thing these situations have in common?

Had some drinks last night with friends which led to the usual: 90 decibel debates where getting a point across depends on how long you can carry a sentence or two at top volume. I felt like I made some good arguments, but after waking up this morning, I had to change my mind.

The discussion started when someone brought up Esperanto. Esperanto is an artificial language that was created as a simpler language without all of the quirks and idiosyncrasies of other languages like English that could be used universally. It never caught on.

I suggested that a universal, artificially-created language never would catch on. Language is a reflection of society and is created organically, not artificially. People won’t adopt a universal language because they are not universally the same. Since language controls thought, the character and origins of a language have great impact.

My assertion that language controls thought (not an original idea by any means) was widely disagreed with, which bumped the conversation up by another 10 decibels. Which I find odd, since I know that I think in English, at least when it comes to conscious thoughts. (I was subsequently urged to explore “thinking without language”, but this came from a self-confessed Reverend of the Universal Church in California who later performed a “reading” on my bewildered neighbour, so I’m taking his advice with a grain of salt.)

To see how effective language is at controlling thought you only need to look as far as politics and public relations, which is pretty much the same thing these days. Public relations a step further is the new field of “perception management”, a step beyond that and we get to psychological warfare. In all of these, language is the tool that shapes thought – not by informing or communicating, but by confusing and controlling. Not by telling the truth, but by lying.

This morning’s issue of the New York Times reported on the speech of playwright Harold Pinter as he accepted a Nobel Prize for his work. I’d never heard of Pinter until today, but apparently he’s quite famous. I have no clue what his plays are like, but he definitely knows how to deliver a speech. Speaking via video from his wheelchair, Pinter, who has cancer of the esophagus, blasted the use of language as a tool of power:

So language in art remains a highly ambiguous transaction, a quicksand, a trampoline, a frozen pool which might give way under you, the author, at any time.

But as I have said, the search for the truth can never stop. It cannot be adjourned, it cannot be postponed. It has to be faced, right there, on the spot.

…

Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.

His speech was also a full-on, fiery broadside against the United States, and the language theme kept popping up:

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It’s a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, ‘the American people’, as in the sentence, ‘I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people.’

It’s a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words ‘the American people’ provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don’t need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it’s very comfortable.

The full text of his speech is definitely worth reading.

The Liberals have one, although it falls flat at times (then again, who am I to talk on that point). The Conservatives have one, but it’s written by an anonymous blogger who sounds a whole heck-of-a-lot like a public relations spokesperson (lame!). The NDP don’t have one, and this blogger wants to know why:

I didn’t think it was possible for the conservatives to lie any more than they have been but today I pointed my bullshit detector at the Blogging Whories site and it exploded. Scared the crap out of the dog too. Now I have a burnt hand and dog crap on the floor. Thanks a lot, losers.

The Revmod Gaffe-O-Meter currently stands at 5 for the Cons and 0 for everyone else. I believe this is one race where the Cons will manage to win a majority.

Dude. . .er, I mean Jack, where’s our blog?

Good question. Get with the times, Jack-O!