Reciprocal Politics

To no one’s surprise, a small percentage of protesters at the G20 Summit in Toronto are engaging in violence.

Did all of the non-violent protesters go home?

They might as well have, for all the attention the media is paying to them.

Certainly violence and vandalism is legitimately newsworthy. But just how many times do I need to look at that same Toronto police cruiser burning? Or that guy who looks like he can’t even grow a decent beard yet kicking in the same shop window?

If the so-called “black bloc anarchists” are only a small percentage of the thousands reported to have been marching peacefully earlier today, why is it that the media gives them nearly exclusive access to our living rooms?

I realize that hundreds of officers in full riot gear and vandals in Halloween-grade ninja pants is cooler than a bunch of folks dressed like bunnies to protest ecological damage or like dirt-smeared poverty-stricken citizens of the third world to protest economic inequity, but which group needs more press?

By focusing on the violence, the media aids and abets the ability of the rich and powerful to ignore these essential issues.

By failing to effectively and fairly represent the majority of peaceful and sincere demonstrators, the media fails in its duty to the citizens of the world to provide us with in-depth information so that we can judge the success, or failure, of our leaders to responsibly manage our economic, social, and environmental health.

The “reciprocal” in Reciprocal Politics is an acknowledgement that no one aspect – politician, media, or public – stands in isolation from any other. All form an inextricably interconnected fabric.

In this case, the media is failing to hold up its corner.

For a less sensationalist look at the Summit, you might be interested in : G8 Research Group

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And it seems, much of the time, so does the media.

No, I’m not talking about overlooking something as quintessentially Canadian as maple syrup, toques, Alberta beef, or backbacon. I’m talking about a basic element of what makes us who we are that those who want to both lead and inform us just don’t seem to grasp.

There’s an old adage that goes “Great minds discuss ideas; Average minds discuss events; Small minds discuss people.” It’s sometimes attributed to Eleanor Roosevelt, but I think it must have originally been coined by a Canadian.

For the most part, Canadians are average. More than that, we’re proud to be average. That’s not a criticism. Being average, for most Canadians, is a matter of being practical. That seems to me like a good thing.

Don’t get me wrong. We recognize the value of “ideas” – if they lead to better practical things. We just don’t want to spend all of our time contemplating them. There’s too much else to be done. It’s a big country.

Mr. Ignatieff, try as he might, always seems as though he’s at the front of a lecture hall somewhere. Deep reflection is all well and good, but lectures generally last only an hour or two. That leaves most of the day to do “real work.”

And … well … to be honest, we’re as prone as anyone to smirk, if only behind our hand, at the smart aleck who taunts the dweeby kid. So there may have been a certain amount of guilty pleasure at Mr. Harper kicking sand in Stéphane Dion’s face.

At first.

But bullies wear out their welcome pretty quickly around Canadians. When every challenge is answered with mock mirth, dismissive sarcasm, or some variation of “y’ur mudda wears army boots”, we tend to lose patience.

The media seems equally out of touch. They seem as perplexed as the politicians when average (there’s that word again) Canadians get annoyed at issues like prorogation or the unwillingness of elected members to have their expenses audited.

It’s really not that complicated.

In fact, John Ralston Saul wrote an entire book about it. He called it – a Fair Country.

Maybe we should send a copy to all politicians and the media pundits.

Fairness doesn’t mean that we’re content to “go along to get along.” It means that we’re willing to give our elected representatives the benefit of the doubt. It means that we have considerable patience when it comes to allowing them to work out compromises.

But patience is not, as some try to argue, the same thing as apathy.

The difference was on full display for the whole world during the recent Olympics in Vancouver. Why was anyone surprised at our fierce, loud, and proud patriotism? When we have reason to celebrate, no one does it better.

The pride and patriotism of the average Canadian is also on display every time a fallen soldier is repatriated. From outside the fence at CFB Trenton, to every bridge and overpass from there to Toronto, average Canadians know that it would be a grave injustice to let even one family think that the sacrifice of their loved one wasn’t recognized and valued.

That’s what fairness means.

We have had leaders who’ve understood the underlying fairness that guides us. John Diefenbaker once said that justice “not only needs to be done, it needs to be seen to be done.” Lester Pearson understood fairness when he made the Canadian philosophy of fairness and patience the governing principle of UN Peacekeeping. We’ve had others before and since.

Each not only understood what it meant to lead a Fair Country, they were able to apply that understanding to the needs of average Canadians in their time and place.

We’ll have leaders like that in future. We’re patient.

For now.

Haiti, and the global response to the disaster there, is one of the better examples of what happens when we rise above self-interest and act out of compassion.

That compassion always gets a hard second look after any disaster, as the first blush of the need to simply “do something” begins to give way to the realization of the enormity of what needs to be done.

That’s okay. Every time we act as one, no matter how imperfectly, we learn something. We’re just a little bit better able to cooperate, a little more efficient in our repsonse; our governments a little less wary of each other, and our politicians a little less partisan.

I’ve added a new poll – do you think the governments of the world, in responding to the Haitian catastrophe, will learn anything about the value of cooperation?

Let me know what you think.

There’s a new poll here at Reciprocal Politics and I hope you’ll take a moment to express your opinion.

When it comes to deciding how to vote, whose position should a politician put first?

• The Party they belong to?
• The constituents who elected him or her?
• Their conscience?

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Friends, I have a confession to make.

In a moment of weakness early this year, I joined the Liberal Party of Canada. In my defense, I was going through a health crisis at the time, on medication, and not at all sure I’d be around to see the summer, let alone Christmas.

Still, I shouldn’t have done it. Politics is politics and commentary is commentary, and, in my opinion, nare the twain should meet.

At the time, (again, thinking I might not be around) I felt the urge to do something, anything to support an open and egalitarian Canada. It was the heady days just after the coalition.  By the way, I do not agree with those who raked that idea over the coals. I mean, it was doomed, but not because there was anything wrong with the reasoning. It was a perfectly appropriate avenue. Had it been done properly. It wasn’t. But I digress. 

Michael Ignatieff had just taken the reins and in my addled state I had visions of Chretien, Trudeau, and Pearson dancing in my head. Alas and alack, such has not been the way things have played out.

Such a shame.

My politics have always been “left-leaning”, whatever that might mean in practical terms. For the most part, I confess that it’s meant that I’ve leaned towards supporting the Liberal Party in Canada. Then again, I’ve also, when our issues lined up, supported the Conservative Party. At least, the Conservative Party of people like John Diefenbaker (in spirit anyway, I’m not that old) and Brian Mulroney. This current party of the school yard sandbox kickers has little in common with them that I can find. I can even get behind some of the things that Jack Layton, Gilles Duceppe and Elizabeth May bring to the table.

With a broad spectrum of people pointing out that Ignatieff had considerable global credentials, was practiced in considering sweeping concepts, and had a team of seasoned players like Bob Rae and Dominic LeBlanc, among others, to back him up, it seemed as though this might be the time to plant my flag; or lawn sign as the case may be.

I shoulda known better. (How much more Canadian can you get?)

With things going from great to worse, Mr. Ignatieff has called in some of the old guard; the heavyweights from past glories, to pull the ship off the rocks. Not a bad idea in its way. But when I heard the old, tired “We have to find a wedge issue” wafting on the wind, I realized it was time to get out the smelling salts (for myself, not the Liberals). A coupla good snorts and my head was clear. They’re tying the tug on the wrong side of the shoal.

 The Canadian Prime Ministers who left their stamp on this country, from Sir John A. Macdonald to Jean Chretien, were able to do one thing better than their opponents – communicate the uniqueness of Canada to Canadians in a way that spoke to them in their time and place.

The world has changed.

The world tends to do that.

The leader, of whatever party, who can once again communicate what makes this country unique, in a way that fits a globally-connected, totally wired world, will be the leader who joins the ranks of a diverse, yet unified, elite.

Canada, when we strip away all the rhetoric and window dressing, is, above anything else, a country of win-win. We’re not always successful at it, but it’s what we strive for, and its what we expect of our leadership.

For the majority of Canadians, the current state of affairs is not “the will of the people”. It’s just the lesser of two evils.

I’m truly sorry Michael. My membership will lapse on New Year’s Day.

I’m not sure if it was more amusing or sad to see all the recent hoopla about “climategate”, the “amazing” revelation that climate scientists are human beings who have biases, agendas, and suffer from as much pique as the rest of us.

The question around Copenhagen is not whether or not climate change is real. Ask a polar bear, whose habitat is dissolving around him. Ask anyone who lives where there used to be snow two foot deep by now and instead there’s none. Ask anyone who lives where there used to regular rainfall, green grass, and crops enough to feed their families, and instead there is only dust.

Climate change is real. However …

Even if we shut down every single carbon contributing activity on the planet at noon Thursday (feel free to pick your own hypothetical date), would it change anything? Would it keep the Arctic frozen? Rebuild the Antarctic ice cap? Calm the storms? Bring the rains in time for next year’s crops?

Probably not.

Whether or not the catalyst for a warming earth was human activity or some natural process, the reality is that it is going to be with us for the foreseeable future. Your children and mine, our grandchildren and theirs, are going to inherit a warmer planet than we were born into.

It’s way too late to be asking “how do we stop it”? That’s like Thelma and Louise looking for the brakes after the car went over the cliff.

No, the real question is “How do we deal with the consequences?”

How do we address the fact that hundreds of thousands of people will need to be relocated from inundated lands over the next few decades? How do we negotiate land claims for places like the Northwest Passage that until now, were pretty much “passages” in name only? Are we prepared for the increasing spread of disease fueled by warm, moist environments that offer fertile ground for viruses and bacteria?

I do laud the efforts of the twenty thousand attendees whose carbon footprint is trashing Denmark this week. There is much talk of global consensus, of collaboration, of reciprocity. Indeed what else, after all, is cap-and-trade, once stripped of its trappings?

However, I cannot help but wonder – where will the reciprocity be when patterns of rainfall turn the breadbaskets of the world into empty cupboards? When medical supplies are unable to staunch the march of pandemic?

Shifting to “sustainable” economies and ”greening” our lifestyles are admirable goals. It’s kind of like agreeing with Mom and Dad that, for our next party, we’re not going to pour Jello in the pool or destroy the roof shingles by carting the bands instruments up there so we can hear them better.

But right now, the roof is leaking and the pool water is kinda thick.

What are we going to do about that?

US President Obama now owns a war. It’s in a place called Afghanistan.

He didn’t really have a choice about accepting delivery of this rather overripe and kinda tattered package. I’m no president, but if I were in his shoes, I think my first inclination would have been to mark it “Return to Sender” and to ship it back to a particular somebody in Texas.

Since that wasn’t an option, I doubt that President Obama could have accepted the mess much more graciously than he did in the speech he gave last night. His consistency in using terms of mutual respect and his refusal to demonize either Islam or indeed any group in the blanket way that the “right”, no matter what country it’s in, loves to do, is commendable. He changed, or at least created the opportunity to change, the tone, the characterization, of the conflict.

But will that tone carry downstream? That is up to the people who believe that armed conflict is about more than pummeling the other guy until he cries uncle. And then kicking him in the head for good measure. It is up to the people who believe that, justified or not, now that the US and the rest of NATO is there, it needs to find a way to plant seeds, not just destroy worlds.

There are millions of people like that in the US. They need to make themselves heard. They need to take the CNNs and Fox News’ and right wing sabre rattlers to task. They need to support their troops in a way that makes it clear that they are fully behind the struggle and sacrifice of their sons and daughters and husbands and wives and neighbours; and that their support is not contingent on how many notches someone has on a belt buckle.

The people of America sent a powerful message to the world when they sent Barack Obama to the White House. Those same people need to keep sending that message to those who, both inside and outside their great nation, aren’t sure they really meant it.

President Obama has given them an opportunity.

I hope they’ll take it.

US President Obama’s speech tonight will outline the reasoning for sending more troops to Afaghanistan. I look forward to hearing it. The rhetoric around the number, 30,000 pluse whatever other NATO countries will add to the pot, is already building.

Too many. Too few.

It does not, I would suggest, matter. It’s not the number of troops sent – it’s the purpose they’re sent for.

If the purpose is to “spread democracy”, let’s save the lives of a whole lot of young men and women and just stay home.
If the purpose is to destroy the Taliban, perhaps a history lesson from the days of the Soviets would be in order.

Not just the US, but NATO as a whole, is stuck with a mess of another’s making. But that’s not really the problem. The problem is that we keep doing the same thing the messmaker did, and expect a different result – the textbook definition of insanity.

So why not try something else? If standing toe to toe and slugging at one another until somebody falls down isn’t working, perhaps it’s time to change the game.

This may be President Obama’s one and only opportunity to change the face of the Afghan war. After tonight it is his war.

I look forward, none too optimistically, to see what he does with it.

The World Summit on Food Security begins today, November 16, 2009.

A) As noted in an Associated Press article, UN food summit to back new strategy against hunger - AP, November 12, 2009, and on the FAO’s website, more than a billion people on the planet are undernourished.

B) In an article in Canada’s Maclean magazine from the same week, What a waste - Macleans, Nov. 16, 2009, Nancy MacDonald states “The agricultural industry can now produce unlimited quantities of meat and grains at remarkably cheap prices, creating an abundance of food, and profits.”

I’m sensing a gap in … sense here.

Perhaps we could fill that gap with the wisdom of another article in the same Macleans issue, Do you mind if we pick your pears? a volunteer project in B.C. gets fruit that would have rotted to people who need it - Macleans, Nov. 16, 2009. In the closing quote, Dianne MacLean, the woman who initiated the project now known as the LUSH Valley Food Action Society, says “This is how easy it is. Anybody can do it. You can do it without money and without an organization. It’s important for people to know that.”

I wonder if Macleans would offer to distribute copies of the article to summit delegates?

I don’t suggest that feeding the world’s hungry is as simple as pulling up to a grocery store or a food distribution center, filling up a big truck with stuff that won’t sell, and shipping it to where people aren’t quite so picky. Not quite. Nor am I ignorant of the delicate realities and sensibilities that must, for the sake of human dignity, be taken into account.

I reject, however, the amazingly blind concept that “food security” is a matter of more money and then again more money. The FAO estimates that 44 billion dollars will be needed in yearly agricultural aid. Per What a waste, The UK alone wastes 16 billion yearly in discarded food - more than one third of the FAO’s figure.

If those are accurate numbers, we do not need to produce more food. We do not have a food “shortage.” We have, instead, a distribution problem, one that people like Dianne MacLean, on a small scale, have already solved.

That the distribution problem is exacerbated by the conflicting interests of groups large and small is a given. That all of those groups are, in the end, under the control of individuals who can choose to exercise, or not, choices of conscience as well as commerce, is also true.

It is not easy for politicians and bureaucrats to set aside their individual agendas. It is not easy for business to reconsider its understanding of what constitutes profit and how to make it. It is not easy for consumers to re-examine the aesthetics that motivate us in food choices.

None of that is easy.

But it is essential.

No Canadian election this summer.  No real surprise there.  All of the parties played their parts to perfection, gave us something to talk about for a few days, and we can now all go off about our vacation plans – assuming you have a job to have a vacation from – without the nagging concern that you should maybe possibly consider where you’d be at the end of July and whether or not you should think about maybe possibly voting.

Actually, I’m not as cynical about this as I sound – I’m one of the people that actually think Canada’s multi-party system has distinct advantages to the American two-party version, and that we’ve just seen the second example of why that’s so (the other recent example being the “coalition crisis”, but I’ll leave the why of that for another day).

The NDP and the Bloc set the stage – had they not come out solidly against the Friday vote, the Ignatieff Liberals would not have had the leverage they needed to force the Conservatives to the table, and the Conservatives wouldn’t have been able to save face by “saving” the public from the nasty Opposition.

We, the public also played our role to perfection. We clearly did not want an election. But we clearly are also tired of the Conservative bully and personal attack model of operation. Its just not the “Canadian way” – something the Conservatives seem to have a perennial blind spot to. Which is unfathomable to me, but there it is.

Regardless, there was a distinct possibility that, should we be riled by being annoyed throughout the first month of summer by having to mow around election ads, we would very likely switch to a minority government of a different stripe. That was something that Harper and Ignatieff could both agree that they didn’t want. Score one for common ground.

From there, the rest was a walk in the park I’m sure.

In a two-party system this would not have been nearly so clear cut. Note that in the US, success or failure in Congress and Senate are often a matter of convincing just a few “rogue” congressman or senators to vote against their party. Which gives, in my opinion, individuals way too much power in the governance of an entire country.

Sometimes, more (parties) really is better.