We have an alarming tendency to overly complicate politics. Often we don’t recognize the simplicity of the fact that relationships between two or more people are politics unless you’re a peculiar kind of schizophrenic …in which case you can be a whole political debate alone with a mirror. The model for most civic politics is the lower grades of an average highschool. I would have said grade school but one can’t afford to offer excuses of true immaturity to some of the things these folks get up to so high school and puberty seem about the right intellectual age to work with. This doesn’t mean that the people involved are all adolescents…merely that the way in which they approach decision-making from election campaigns to street names to garbage collection pretty much highschool. When you consider that the training for most politicians is actually being one…you realize that by necessity the processes need to be as simple as possible to provide enough latitude for the successful campaigns of the occasional idiot with money who chooses to get elected. Idiots without money need not apply…they don’t get elected…they get hired. After a lifetime of observing the seemingly mystical pronouncements of politicians at all levels in my country I realizes that I was making the mistake of thinking that they actually knew what they were doing. In fact they’re just like the rest of us and “knowing what they’re doing” is a relative term. It’s possible to know what you’re doing today and have no idea what the impact will be tomorrow…or two weeks from now. It’s equally possible to have no idea what the impacts are in any direction. These days almost everyone has a tame expert or two or more to give some expensive perspective on things like implications. It’s quite a good gig…being one of these experts. You keep up to date on your field, read the research, dress appropriately, host the correct social events and kiss the best placed anatomy parts and you should do well enough. The advice doesn’t have to be taken…or if taken will probably be deflected by other advice from other experts but you’ll want it to be taken seriously enough to let the politico know that he or she could not answer even the softest lob in your field with hitting you on the speed dial. So much for experts.
What complicates politics is that there are too many politicians. Back in the day when life was worth more than a plugged nickel if a serious threat arose the people would send the politicians to the benches and call in the meanest bear in the woods and make him boss. Admittedly, getting rid of the guy was almost always a problem…unless you could find an even meaner bear in the woods. That seems to be the way that royal families get started. Alas, along came capitalism and the reign of money and we now have more politicians than fleas on a junk yard dog. We have so many that half of them are out of work if not out of gas. And they all talk at once. I’ve attended parliament , federal and provincial and I’ve attended city council meetings. I know these people often work long hard hours and they’re often dedicated, committed and conscientious people. But attend parliament just once and you’ll go home stunned. The hallowed halls of rich wood panelling and the rows of benches with padded seats…the speaker’s chair rising above the floor in majestic omnipotence are far and away more impressive than the jabbering juveniles occupying the place.
It’s our expectations that are at fault. We want to believe in the wisdom of those we elect while at the same time we want them to so much like us that even when they’re acting in their own self-interest, they’re also acting in ours. We don’t want to think that they could be corrupted by the power and wealth of big corporations or interest groups because we don’t like to think that we would be…Bullshit! of course we would. It doesn’t stop there though. A peculiar thing happens to politicians that has nothing to do with corruption and everything to do with the complexities of the problems confronting any level of government today. If one enters politics from business one is used to the types of problems confronting business and they can be daunting. Yet it’s a major mistake as we’ve seen over and over again for business-people-turned-politician to assume that the solutions from business will work as effectively in government. The number and range of perspectives, interests and concerns combined with the speed of technology and communication are what drives the political process into the boardrooms of consultants. By not understanding this we also can’t understand why our representatives don’t seem to be representing us. By not understanding this we lose faith in the politicians and eventually the political process. We become convinced that people who really are like us…who really can represent us…cannot be found or cannot get elected. There are certainly times when our political processes have been unduly influenced by powerful professional lobbies who are not acting in our best interest but rather in the best interest of a profit margin or private agenda. One need only ask how long we had to live with the knowledge of the life threatening effects of tobacco or chemical pollutants while our politicians were just as aware as any of us…and did nothing. By doing nothing…by being influenced by the tobacco lobby for so long…they were complicit. They are complicit now and our disenchantment and dislocation from our political processes excuses their complicity. These are the failures of democracy.
Can we take on the lobbyists? Some activists say that we can and set out to tackle it in any way they can. I say …more power to them…but I’m thinking the answer to one lobby is not another lobby. It seems to me that we need to start lower down the food chain. We need to look in our local communities and educate ourselves on the issues and concerns. Could be the garbage pick up…snow removal… local policing. We already know more about these things than we realize…we just don’t want to bore ourselves or each other by talking about it. But if we do manage to talk about it a bit our knowledge increases…our opinions mature. we discover just what it is that pisses us off. Then we’re ready to help the local politicians make decisions that reflect our reality. I say… all power to us yokels!
Chagal4's Blog 