On politics IV

To Garth Turner: Thank you for illustrating the Tories’ hypocrisies and disrespect of the electorate, and their high-school malice in Parliament ... taxing income trusts, bribing only those with money and children to vote Tory, dividing the middle class into trenches of self-interest, keep 'em coming ... I confess I was sad when you didn't respond to my letter asking how the Liberals are going to tack the Tories to the wall over the reproductive rights committee they filled with social conservatives, but I’ve moved on.

To Stéphane Dion: So, Stéphane, how are the Liberals going to tack the Tories to the wall over the reproductive rights committee they filled with social conservatives? Low-hanging fruit, Mr. Dion.

To Gordon O'Connor: Speaking of easy targets, give up Gordon. Be a man and call an inquiry into the torture of prisoners passed to Afghanistan. If you’re not going to admit our strategy in the war is like beating a bees’ nest, admit you’re wrong about this and help treat the drones well on both sides: Support our troops.

On politics III

To Stephen Harper: Brooding, Stephen? Polls not rising like you dreamed? like you strove? You may draw together a plurality of people to vote Conservative on a day when the lighting is just right and the air is sticky with resentment, but will even a church basement of people vote for someone who discards his reputation the moment he takes office? tosses aside the open government he brandished? neglects pensioners suffering from a brutal, abrupt taxation of income trusts, despite your promising otherwise? tries to tether the judiciary to the ideology of the day, never mind it being one of the three free-standing pillars holding up democratic government? not only tries to remove rights already granted but shuns a Charter of Rights loved across the country and envied by others—and whose architects I understand included at least three Tories? eviscerates Liberals on the stake of corruption but won’t reveal the salary taxpayers pay for an image consultant kept in the shadows? Bugging you Stephen? Just a little?

Careful now. In a government of one, who is there to blame? Repudiate your principles long enough, people might think you want power for its own sake.


To Stéphane Dion: Nice to hear from you. Good job with the optimism and glad to see your suit and haircut fit. Enjoying the criticism of the Tories’ neo-conservatism by stealth, and grateful for the ads: He’s Hip He’s Cool He’s Stéphane Dion. Just keep working on de English.


To Jack Layton: STOP MONKEYING AROUND! Do not. Attack. The Liberals. We know the advantage Harper will take from a divided centre-left. Witness the leg up the NDP gave Mike Harris in Ontario in 1999 by drawing support from the Liberals. McGunity was actually winning until Howard Hampton cried at the polls half-way through the campaign and attacked McGuinty out of convenience to save face and party status. The result? More homelessness, more impoverishment for Toronto, higher electricity costs, hidden deficit, Walkerton.

For once, for once, fall on your own sword. You believe in secular social justice? Fight the party that will disembowel its institutions and paradigms and let the Liberals be. They’re not perfect but they will prevent wanton destruction of social programs, keep church and state separate and free the judges; and anyway the Tories offer a target big and bloated enough for all of you, even that green lady.

The NDP will survive, as it has before, with a much better chance to grow once neo-conservatism has less air-time and fewer instruments and performers playing themes of hate and power. Do it for the country man.