On Voting

I'm pissed I might have to vote in the upcoming Federal election. I haven't voted in a federal election since, let me think, shit I have to check wikipedia. In 1993 I voted for the Marxist Leninists in London North. They didn't win.

I am, like the majority of Canadians, a non-voter. I guess I am political for a non-voter but all that "If you don't vote, don't complain" bullshit bothers me so much I never ask people if, or how, they vote. You can always complain. It's a human right. The trick is finding someone who will listen. I don't know how political most non-voters are. It might be that all the most politically opinionated people I know are also non-voters. Anyway, back to why I might be forced to vote.

When I was young and exciting about participating in the democratic process I used to vote in every mayoral election. Mostly because a crazy person named Agnes Shaw ran on a two point platform - legalize prostitution and build a huge landing pad for alien spaceships. Both these ideas are so self-evidently right I felt I had an obligation to do what I could to help. And that was the beginning of my disenfranchisement. Londoners kept electing klepto business people instead of a woman of vision. It is worth pointing out two of London's three previous mayors have been indicted under corruption and fraud charges (and the other was booted out of office for letting her husband run an illegal business from her office) and London still doesn't have a UFO landing pad.

Reading Noam Chomsky's analysis of the American political system pretty much guaranteed I would never vote again. Chomsky's point (one of them and you should read him rather than take my word for it) is elections are theater. There purpose is to make you feel like you have a say. You don't. Only 20% of the population have any influence in American politics. They are the people in charge and all the policies of both parties are formulated specifically to keep them happy. So if you aren't in that 20% it makes no difference to you who wins. I think that 20% number is way too high but it doesn't change the argument. I'm not one of those people.

I think of American presidential elections as a race to 55 million votes. Each vote has a price. In 2000 it was approximately $7. By 2008, it was $14. Now it's about $20. Inflation is a bitch. All the debates, all the speeches, all the rallies - they are just the show you can choose to pay for. The true election is the race to $1.1 billion. This isn't a perfect rule: in 1964 Lyndon Johnson won while spending only 55% as much as Barry Goldwater (but Goldwater was a creepy nazi). And in 1996 Clinton spent less than Bob Dole (but only 1% less). Your vote by itself is worth nothing. Your vote and $20 is worth about 1/25 000 000th of the President's time and attention - so you are still going to be reckoning with units borrowed from physics. You get the point.

So no matter what happens in the next election I'm not getting any richer, any happier, or any closer to realizing my dream of living right beside the world's largest UFO landing pad but, and this is the thing, I really don't like Stephen Harper. I also don't like elections where I have no choice but to vote against something I dislike rather than for something I like but, landing pad.

Canadians have never managed to define what we are but we are very good at saying what we aren't. We aren't Americans. And Harper doesn't represent the Canada I believe in - I've been reading that one a lot on FB recently. What is the Canada I believe in? Apparently not Stephen Harper. I might have to vote because of how much I dislike Stephen Harper. I hate his sweaters. I hate his face. I hate his politics and his pro-business, pro-oil economic agenda. I hate how he can blow through tax money like a sailor on shore leave but still keep his reputation as a "fiscal conservative" because, well I don't know why that is. Mostly I will vote against him because he is a jerk to librarians. I've written about the current government's rules re librarians before and, seriously, fuck that shit. You pick a fight with librarians, you pick a fight with me. And yes I know, the hot woman with the glasses and the uptight demeanour who is really a total slut is a porn only fiction but still, librarians. So fuck you Harper. I will show my disrespect for you in the only way I know how - by voting for the first time in 22 years.

On Politics - Canadian and American

Who cares about Canadian politics? I'm Canadian and I don't. I care about politics but not as the word is applied in Canada. I used to think this was because Canadian politics is just so damn boring. We don't have completely insane people running for office anymore. We used to - W. L. Mackenzie King was certifiable. His top two advisors were a portrait of his dead mother and his talking dog. But since the economy just kept improving while he was prime minister, people just kept voting for him (a policy I approve of). Now we have sensible politicians running just to the left of centre and just to the right of centre. Not much to get excited about.

Most people I know are either vocally terrified or silently hopeful that Stephen Harper will win another election. I don't like Harper, I don't think his politics represent the best Canada but I can't get that excited about it. That he is a dick has been amply documented. He has no respect for the rights of citizens, his government has silenced scientists, jumped on every war America has suggested, and generally been for the wrong shit and against the right shit is well known. But still, who cares?

There is a reason no one ever talks about the Canadian dream. It's because the Canadian dream consists of only two things: a rational and reasonable government and beating the Americans at hockey. American politics is so wonderfully bizarre because there are competing and completely different versions of the American dream. That is doesn't matter at all who sits in the Oval Office is immaterial. It is theatre and it is entertaining. There is a Canadian election right around the corner and an American election a year away and still the American version is better. Where is the Canadian Donald Trump? Or Bernie Sanders? Or Michele Bachmann?

Also, I think I would care more about Canadian politics if the people running for office did more illegal shit. Americans have committed treason to win the presidency. No Canadian seems to care that much. If you want to be my prime minister, you should be willing to commit a capital offence to get my vote. I would like to see a story in the news about Elizabeth May having her staffers murder people to win more seats.

There is a kind of fatigue that sets in that saps the ability to care about problems when the answer is known to everybody but no one fixes them. For instance, first past the post vote counting. This is just stupid. Everyone who reads about alternate methods of vote counting thinks, "that's a great idea, we should do that." But no one does and so you just get tired of saying it and tired of hearing it. Similarly gun control in the US. Some people don't think it's right that some American citizens shouldn't be allowed to own semi-automatic weapons. Fuck them. Some Canadians don't think it's right that child porn should be illegal, we don't call for a national debate about it. So when the problems and the solutions are all out there and still nothing gets done all that is left is theatre. And Americans do that better than Canadians.

On the Honda Civic

Yesterday on my way home from work I got cut so hard by a Honda Civic I almost wound up in the ditch. Five minutes later, the same car stopped traffic in both lanes by trying to merge and winding up stuck at a forty five degree angle to traffic flow. When I got off the highway I got in behind another Honda Civic who blew through a solid red without slowing down. Then, on my way from the parking lot to my front door there was a head on collision right in front of my building - which is really rare on a one way street. Care to guess what kind of car was heading in the wrong direction?

Honda Civics are the Hannibal Lectors of the highway. And, like Hannibal, they can be very unassuming. My Mom bought one when she was in her sixties. You know that joke people make about used cars, "Used to be owned by a little old lady who only drove it to the grocery store once a week..." that was my Mom and her Civic. Still, if someone is going to do some completely psychotic shit to you on a highway - you know what they will be driving.

Maybe the psychos are attracted to the reliability, the reasonable price, and the high resale value.

When you spend time on the highways brands and models of cars take on personalities. Everyone thinks BMWs are the cocks of the road. And, while it is true I have met some, the shit people seem to associate with Beemers is mostly done by Toyotas. I think this is because most taxis are Toyotas. The mechanism that allows the assholery of cabbies to transfer itself to the brand as a whole remains a mystery. One presumes scientists are working on it.

My personal theory - nothing scientific about it - is owning a Toyota is such an awful, soul-killing experience the drivers need to spread the pain around just because they start to hate and resent the whole damn world.

And if you are going to get stuck behind someone doing 20 kph less than the rest of the traffic - they will be driving a Nissan. I would have said that clunking looking mini minivan would be the worst offender for this but it isn't. It's all Nissans except the supercar version.

My advice is this - don't get stuck behind a Nissan, in front of a Civic or beside a Toyota. If you have a choice nestle up close on to the bumper of one of those crossovers that looks like a jumped up hatchback (but not a Nissan Rogue or a Toyota Rav 4). Those people have a surburban sense of entitlement. They have worked hard for everything and they have and they aren't going to wait in traffic! And they really really really don't want to get a scratch on their brand new hatchback thing.