Smug Liberals Need a Smack Down
by Diane Walsh
 The Liberals may have won 45.9 percent of actual votes cast, with 42.1 going to the NDP and 8.1 to the Greens but that in no way assigns them the fat medal that they think they deserve. Quite the opposite in fact – people across the board are disgusted. However, not all of them bothered to say so on Election Day. Simple as that. Everybody agrees voter turnout was atrocious. The people motivated to go to a polling booth, as their preferred way to be heard, dropped since the last election from 58 percent voting in 2005 to only 47 percent coming out this year.
On what planet is a majority when only 22 percent of the electorate actually voted for the winner? (Oh right – pillaged planet Gordo*).
At one time, long ago in our history, political theorists wrote about a majority as intending to mean a majority of the whole of the people.
Arrogant liberals haven’t learned their lesson. It’s detention they need – the bullies that they are.
The question we need to be asking – today – is why don’t more people show up on voting day when clearly bad things are happening all around us? When the Liberals sneaking in again through the cat door is being viewed by thousands of British Columbians as a ghastly state of affairs. It’s equivalent to finding the same paroled burglar in your bedroom.
It would be so nice to say that the Liberals’ winning is nothing but an unhappy accident. But it’s more complicated than that. As you might expect the answer isn’t straight forward.
You know you can hear the Liberals laughing in our faces. But pound not thy head. Promising coalitions of people across communities and political orientations are a-foot. The fight back has not ended at the poll booth. The opposition against the Liberal’s anti-worker, anti-student, anti-senior, anti-public educator agenda is a-boom with or without NDP central giving the lead.
By and large, at least at an underground level, people are in agreement on the left that we do have to unite the left. For instance, there are local groups that have come together in last year for this purpose, realizing the NDP needs help to better mobilize. One such group is calling itself, Island Solidarity Centre where the spirit of Che and Marx as well – lives on.
Some people have tried to say that Green votes took away votes from NDP. However the consensus is there’s no added value in just blaming the Green Party for vote splitting. Compared to the2005 election, the NDP gained 0.8 of a percent while the Greens dropped by 1 percent; as did the Liberals, by 0.4 percent.
The new direction being chanted is this: The only possible answer to this Liberal government- led abomination is for progressives to come together.
Which leads us to beg this question: “Where… Oh, where is Thy Left” if you or I wanted to unite with them? You aren’t the only one wondering where to find them. Half the time they’re underground. Canvassing somewhere or attending a rally.
Some people are not comfortable with overt politicization. Such people may be opting to stay home, even though they may not like the Liberals being in power. On the flip side, there are other many well-meaning individuals directly or indirectly affiliated in the NDP and the Greens and they represent a loosely-coordinated group asking for a forum to air their concerns. The rhetoric takes many forms.
The problem is large scale. Here is one way of encapsulating or describing what’s going on:
People feel so disenfranchised that apathy has taken over whole communities. Some try to veil it as anarchist-style politics. Others will say quite openly that they just can’t be bothered to get themselves to the polling booth. They don’t think their vote will change anything. Or they just don’t give a toss because they are so unimpressed by the party options.
The problem is that this invisible pledge to be “un-political” as it were, is happening right across the board. But let’s be clear – this decision to opt out of the political process is not the same thing as a non-confidence vote or a spoiled ballot. Not voting at all hurts everyone.
Charles Taylor, a political theorist, who has taught many a student at McGill, talks about this notion of a collective depression impacting whole communities. And the effect: Governments that aren’t really supported are getting in because they have a well-oiled machine and they get their friends to vote – which effectively is what’s happened in BC.
Optimists like to point out the results in South Saanich where a new pattern seems to be emerging. Newly-vetted Lana Popham winning the election in Saanich South is an example of poetry in voting. This is wholly due to the fact that she not only received from area veteran NDPers but small “g” environmental allies who injected themselves into her campaign. With this marriage, her victory was crystallized. Ms. Popham is an organic vineyard owner and avid gardener. People in the area like that.
Across town, her colleague, Jessica Van Der Veen wasn’t so lucky. Albeit she’s equally impressive. She lost by only 530 votes in her constituency of Oak Bay-Gordon Head. The voters there gave the oakie-dokie – yet again –to Gordo’s continuing assault on BC.
For that they deserve the mark of “F”.
Some might say that that “F” doesn’t stand for failed but rather fooled.
Did the vote end up being split in Oak Bay-Gordon Head?
Yes, it did.
The 2, 152 votes that went to the Green candidate (Steven Johns) in Oak Bay-Gordon Head allowed Ida Chong to “steal” the election. The fact that Ms. Chong got in is a sign that people are not properly mobilizing under the key issues of our times.
I once asked Elizabeth May (Federal leader of the Greens) if she wanted to build a coalition with the NDP, back in 2008. She said “yes” but that Mr. Jack Layton (Federal Leader of the NDP) turned it down flat. And further, we hear that members of the Green Party in Victoria have referred to NDP as their “enemy”. Where does that leave the NDP as far as strategic options? If the colour of the Green Party is as difficult to point out as it would appear some would claim, it is understandable why NDP party leaders wouldn’t want to build a coalition at this time.
One would have thought that Green was more closely aligned with NDP than they are the Liberals but as the past provincial election points out – that is clearly not the case. Some Green supporters will tell you openly that they are wolf-liberal wrapped in green-sheep clothing and proud of it.
Clearly, there needs to be a consolidation of the forces of the opposition. Ms. Ida Chong would have fallen if our stars had formed an effective constellation.
One thing you can do is to get behind a voice-of-the left newspaper – full-throttle. Wait a second. Isn’t that what the Lower Island News is? Hey, that makes it easy. Step 1 out of Apathy. Write to your editor. Say “You’re angry and you’re not going to take it anymore!”
Stop the Liberal Propaganda Weed from germinating.
Canwest-Global is now in a financial pickle, with its formerly supporting Wall-Street mogul losing more than his hat (much more so than the TC likes to let on). So now the liberals won’t be able to rely on them as readily to promote the sewage that is their party output. It’s your turn to speak now.
Legend:
1. The term “Gordo” is used in the text to refer to Premier Gordon Campbell, Leader of the Banana Majority (…sorry, I meant to say) Leader of the Liberal Government.
|
