|
An Election Debate Blog-Flog This election means being blogged and flogged by media and politicians. I decide to do some of my own while watching the debate. Owning neither a laptop or a Blackberry I look for a solution – one idea is to text message myself on my cell phone, but I give that up and settle for turning my home computer keyboard sideways, reclining and slamming out letters with my thumb. Whoops, forgot to turn off spell correct … wouldn’t be a true blo\oOg if anything got spelled properly or looked edited. But then again, aren’t blogs now really marketers, columnists and political party speech writers shaping their work into cleverly edited blog format. Of course the debate is at an arts centre in Vancouver, so I feel gutsy, rude and crude, doing the thumb hammering while enjoying the wonderful sculptural backdrop. Wow! Intros aren’t even done and I’m already in the groove. The great thing is that when you write with your thumb you start to think with your thumb, getting quickly into synch with the four politicians.
So here’s what the campaign is about.
Thoughts on the intros Questions are brought forward for the leaders, and the flogging comes in as I see these are the exact same questions we’ve heard all through the campaign. Invisible Plexiglas shielding prevents any attempts at lobbing in Newfie snowballs or Alberta spitballs. New ideas also bounce away. It is now clear that this whole thing is carefully scripted by the parties and the media ... fake as one of those Liberal commercials where Liberals play independent voters. No knockout punch – can’t be when the leaders are so heavily padded … and according to Martin and Layton parliament will be the same once we get more women in there. Then the dirty stuff will stop and they’ll all be civil. Like they’ve never seen a cat fight. Rating E. None of them have real answers on how to get family doctors to five million Canadians that lack them. Rating Z. Healthcare – Harper and Martin’s answers show they really support the deteriorating status quo. Duceppe wants more money for fiscal imbalances, and Layton action to prevent the growth of private care. Rating D. Martin scores a point with his emotional appeal and accusations that Duceppe will work for another referendum. This being Martin’s sword blade for fighting off Duceppe’s daily charges of corruption and Gomery. Harper lets out some gas when he says Quebecers voting for the Bloc are voting against liberal corruption and not for separation. Rating I for interesting. America. Martin says Harper would’ve taken us into Iraq and Harper says that the Liberals are engaging in a series of phony and reckless wars of words with the United States. Duceppe and Layton say much the same as Harper. Rating – 1812 – keep the yanks out. Daycare – Duceppe likes the Quebec model. Layton calls for a program with 200,000 new spaces right away. Harper wants no program or spaces but a choice and childcare allowance. Martin a mixture of choice and his new program. Rating C. The usual Guns and Gun Control question, posed by a rifleman and his wall of guns. Martin and Layton hate handguns but likely can’t stop them. Later in the poverty/crime aspect only Duceppe mentions that gutting Employment Insurance led to poverty and crime. The Tories really have no gun control plan, unless killing off the long-gun registry and putting more people in jail is a plan. Rating E. Only Martin thinks it should be up to the Prime Minister to defend the Charter of Rights. And this was really the first question and the key to the hidden media agenda. Harper wants to hold a free vote on marriage, presumably to get rid of gay marriage. The others point out that it has already happened. Plus the courts have ruled. Rating B-. I’m not fast enough to cover all the questions with my thumb, but I have noticed that across the spectrum of this campaign the media has begun to push Harper forward as a big Teddy Bear. We don’t need to be scared any more … he’s promised not to use the notwithstanding clause and he’ll cut the GST. We’ll wake up with him as PM and everything will somehow be fine. We’ll still be in Canada not Kansas and the old Reform gang will have morphed into gay cowboys.
And that’s where the blogging becomes a flogging. It’s time for Reality
Check. I now believe that there is a majority … Canadians who have
become too complacent, fat and media manipulated. We need a Stephen
Harper or a Mike Harris. Let four to eight years of whipping begin, and
lectures about belt-tightening resurface as the social contract is sold
off wholesale. Let us bear the stripes of our phoniness and iniquity …
and be trampled underfoot and led to war by American horsemen … let our
faces be rubbed in the dirt by the fake forces of a rightwing god … and
eventually we’ll strive and awake to common sense, tears and the vision
of the Canada we willfully lost. |
