A Vote for Layton's Sustainable Energy
Jun. 12th, 2004 06:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
c9Heather Mallick of the Globe and Mail writes rather well. Today, she explained to me the indescribable feeling that I keep having as I consider my vote.
By HEATHER MALLICK
Saturday, June 12, 2004 - Page F2
NDP Leader Jack Layton's book on ideas to improve life in Canada is a shot of adrenaline. And I say that as a formerly driven, indeed obsessive, humming engine of a person who is now in such a slough of despond about politicians that her personal Contribution to Canada for 2004 was going to be finally labelling the damn fuse box.
I've been saying, "Call an electrician," for 15 years. Our attempts at labelling involve two married people racing between floors -- "the fridge is dead, I smell burnt almonds or is it ricin, omigod, it's the DVD" -- cursing, snarling, and finally I'm on the floor, twitching, while a male voice says soothingly, "Calm down. We'll call an election, I mean electrician." Victory!
Never has an election been so crucial, yet so lacking in passion. Paul Martin is promising to be an actual 1970s Liberal again, which I'd believe if it didn't sound in his lingo like what British political satirist Simon Carr renders as "cross-cutting local partnerships accountable to but operationally independent from the centre preserving their autonomy in strategic associations with community-based initiatives."
Meanwhile, Stephen Harper wants to take us back to a lumpen era of no CBC, no Kyoto Protocol, coat-hanger abortions, hanging, untraceable guns, treating gays as less than human, and private health care that makes a profit by cutting corners, i.e., X-rays done with a pencil, tracing paper and a wild surmise. I think of him as an avoidable brutality, doing harm as he lies on his chaise longue dropping grapes into his mouth as he cancels things.
Like Mr. Martin, he is a passivist as opposed to an activist. But I like my humans active. Mr. Layton says we've been told for so long, "Lower your expectations, you Canadians. Abandon your dreamy ways, your optimism, your capacity to construct the future you wish for." No wonder voter turnout is so low, he says. Why should anyone roll off the couch?
Mr. Martin's motto: "We might do some stuff."
Mr. Harper's motto: "Let things be done to thee, and yes, no, you can't have a sedative, but you can buy one."
Mr. Layton's motto: "Here's one hell of an idea. Let's vote on it and get cracking."
Polls show that the main thing Canadians want right now is the return of a health-care system as first devised by Tommy Douglas, a CCF/NDP guy who had big ideas in 1944. And while that's being done, they will want to look at Mr. Layton's Speaking Out: Ideas That Work for Canadians because there are fine, original, workable plans in it that will pare and cleanse the awfulness of the globally warmed, under-oiled, hyper-tense future.
Whenever I encounter anything particularly clever in a book, I draw lines in the margin so as not to lose the moment forever. Mr. Layton's book became one long scribble augmented by exclamation marks. Mr. Layton got more squiggles from me than the great historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto's book on the history of food. Comestibles are a big subject, so congratulations, Jack.
His ideas bubble. He wants to change the way we deal with our greatest resource, water. He has plans on how to end the terrifying and inefficient experience of sharing highway gridlock with enormous trucks by putting truck trailers on trains. There are hidden costs to the way we ship goods, and they include huge highway subsidies, not to mention death. Retrofit homes, offices and factories to cut energy use, he says. It pays for itself in time. Let's stop sending raw logs to the United States where they're made into two-by-fours. It's like exporting Canadian jobs.
The Liberal obsession with cutting the national debt (which I've always thought was a school-yard reaction -- I can outbully you -- to right-wing fanatics) is something Mr. Layton likens to paying down the mortgage faster. Yes, families do that if they can. But they don't do it if the roof leaks, or a teenager needs money for university. Family comes first. Paying off the mortgage comes second. So why won't Mr. Martin and Mr. Harper behave as a sane family would?
Mr. Layton's ideas come thick and fast. It just takes votes, money and human energy to start them up. And that's what strikes me most about the NDP versus the Liberals versus the newly named Conservatives. The right wing is so passive in a world that is changing so fast that "passive" means "expired." Let the market decide. Why? The market is rapacious yet dumb, mendacious yet not in its right mind. If the market decides to plunder your life, giving you jobless parents, badly schooled children and a dog turned asthmatic from smog alerts, shouldn't voters tell the market to get stuffed?
Mr. Layton writes about the puzzling trend of the past 20 years: We are told we should accomplish less, not more. You can't solve problems by throwing money at them, the right wing says. You mean things like a shortage of money?
I shall vote NDP (Peter Tabuns of Greenpeace is my riding's candidate), although I have voted for Liberals and PCs in the past, sometimes for strategic reasons. I suspect my vote is partly expiation for my guilt at not doing enough for my country.
I would like to emphasize that the fact that I have danced with Mr. Layton to Mambo No. 5 is not a factor, even though I would run screaming from the room rather than do the Lindy with Mr. Martin or clump around with Mr. Harper's weird eyes and wet lips inches from my face.
Let the fuse box remain a dusty nameless collective. I want to do more. That's the meaning of my vote.
A vote for Layton's sustainable energy
By HEATHER MALLICK
Saturday, June 12, 2004 - Page F2
NDP Leader Jack Layton's book on ideas to improve life in Canada is a shot of adrenaline. And I say that as a formerly driven, indeed obsessive, humming engine of a person who is now in such a slough of despond about politicians that her personal Contribution to Canada for 2004 was going to be finally labelling the damn fuse box.
I've been saying, "Call an electrician," for 15 years. Our attempts at labelling involve two married people racing between floors -- "the fridge is dead, I smell burnt almonds or is it ricin, omigod, it's the DVD" -- cursing, snarling, and finally I'm on the floor, twitching, while a male voice says soothingly, "Calm down. We'll call an election, I mean electrician." Victory!
Never has an election been so crucial, yet so lacking in passion. Paul Martin is promising to be an actual 1970s Liberal again, which I'd believe if it didn't sound in his lingo like what British political satirist Simon Carr renders as "cross-cutting local partnerships accountable to but operationally independent from the centre preserving their autonomy in strategic associations with community-based initiatives."
Meanwhile, Stephen Harper wants to take us back to a lumpen era of no CBC, no Kyoto Protocol, coat-hanger abortions, hanging, untraceable guns, treating gays as less than human, and private health care that makes a profit by cutting corners, i.e., X-rays done with a pencil, tracing paper and a wild surmise. I think of him as an avoidable brutality, doing harm as he lies on his chaise longue dropping grapes into his mouth as he cancels things.
Like Mr. Martin, he is a passivist as opposed to an activist. But I like my humans active. Mr. Layton says we've been told for so long, "Lower your expectations, you Canadians. Abandon your dreamy ways, your optimism, your capacity to construct the future you wish for." No wonder voter turnout is so low, he says. Why should anyone roll off the couch?
Mr. Martin's motto: "We might do some stuff."
Mr. Harper's motto: "Let things be done to thee, and yes, no, you can't have a sedative, but you can buy one."
Mr. Layton's motto: "Here's one hell of an idea. Let's vote on it and get cracking."
Polls show that the main thing Canadians want right now is the return of a health-care system as first devised by Tommy Douglas, a CCF/NDP guy who had big ideas in 1944. And while that's being done, they will want to look at Mr. Layton's Speaking Out: Ideas That Work for Canadians because there are fine, original, workable plans in it that will pare and cleanse the awfulness of the globally warmed, under-oiled, hyper-tense future.
Whenever I encounter anything particularly clever in a book, I draw lines in the margin so as not to lose the moment forever. Mr. Layton's book became one long scribble augmented by exclamation marks. Mr. Layton got more squiggles from me than the great historian Felipe Fernández-Armesto's book on the history of food. Comestibles are a big subject, so congratulations, Jack.
His ideas bubble. He wants to change the way we deal with our greatest resource, water. He has plans on how to end the terrifying and inefficient experience of sharing highway gridlock with enormous trucks by putting truck trailers on trains. There are hidden costs to the way we ship goods, and they include huge highway subsidies, not to mention death. Retrofit homes, offices and factories to cut energy use, he says. It pays for itself in time. Let's stop sending raw logs to the United States where they're made into two-by-fours. It's like exporting Canadian jobs.
The Liberal obsession with cutting the national debt (which I've always thought was a school-yard reaction -- I can outbully you -- to right-wing fanatics) is something Mr. Layton likens to paying down the mortgage faster. Yes, families do that if they can. But they don't do it if the roof leaks, or a teenager needs money for university. Family comes first. Paying off the mortgage comes second. So why won't Mr. Martin and Mr. Harper behave as a sane family would?
Mr. Layton's ideas come thick and fast. It just takes votes, money and human energy to start them up. And that's what strikes me most about the NDP versus the Liberals versus the newly named Conservatives. The right wing is so passive in a world that is changing so fast that "passive" means "expired." Let the market decide. Why? The market is rapacious yet dumb, mendacious yet not in its right mind. If the market decides to plunder your life, giving you jobless parents, badly schooled children and a dog turned asthmatic from smog alerts, shouldn't voters tell the market to get stuffed?
Mr. Layton writes about the puzzling trend of the past 20 years: We are told we should accomplish less, not more. You can't solve problems by throwing money at them, the right wing says. You mean things like a shortage of money?
I shall vote NDP (Peter Tabuns of Greenpeace is my riding's candidate), although I have voted for Liberals and PCs in the past, sometimes for strategic reasons. I suspect my vote is partly expiation for my guilt at not doing enough for my country.
I would like to emphasize that the fact that I have danced with Mr. Layton to Mambo No. 5 is not a factor, even though I would run screaming from the room rather than do the Lindy with Mr. Martin or clump around with Mr. Harper's weird eyes and wet lips inches from my face.
Let the fuse box remain a dusty nameless collective. I want to do more. That's the meaning of my vote.
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no subject
Date: 2004-06-13 09:08 am (UTC)Voting from Abroad?
no subject
Date: 2004-06-14 12:20 pm (UTC)The fact that you vote, and consider your vote, is far more important than who you vote for. I'm pleased that you're seriously considering the NDP (especially since every vote a party gets in this election equals $1.75 / year in federal funding over the next five years!), but since last time around only 61% of Canadians voted, it's important just to get more people involved!