My goodness!
I really haven’t sat down to do many blog posts since the US election… Where does the time go?
What is there to say? Much to the delight of virtually all Canadians (at least based on my limited sampling of forum posts, websites, street signs and t-shirts), Barack Obama, the charismatic, young, black senator, did indeed emerge victorious after America hit the polls. It isn’t going to be easy for him. The US economy is on the brink of ruin, with the government bailing out bank after bank, insurance company after insurance company… (As an aside, I notice that the free-market ideologues who got us into this predicament in the first place aren’t preaching their gospel anymore… they’re just lining up in the dole line (albeit a dole line that gives out billion dollar payouts))… Anyway, even after he (inevitably) reneges on his (foolish) tax cut promise, Obama will still have some serious business to attend to… and it will take a visionary commitment to the future of his country and a tremendous sense of confidence in his own abilities as a leader. He is going to have to make some unpopular decisions. I hope that he has the courage to do so.
All of this being said, I have to admit that I felt a little lump in my throat reading the election coverage (especially the ubiquitous stories about elderly black voters) and noticing how much hope Obama elicited from the general public. Americans came out to vote in record numbers, believing that it was *indeed* time for a change. While I’m realistic enough to admit that this type of hopeful outlook is not sufficient to yield beneficial changes, I know that it can’t hurt.
Compare this to the grim situation in my beloved Canada… A record low number of citizens trudged out to an unpopular election and voted Stephen Harper back into office. This is the same Stephen Harper who spent years denying climate change, who actively restricts the freedom of the press, who overtly lied to Saskatchewan and the Maritimes about equalization payments, who tried to sneak a censorship bill through Parliament, who is trying to modify Canadian copyright law in a manner that *only* benefits American corporations, and who (seemingly) knew about a Conservative plan to bribe a dying man with a million-dollar insurance policy and then perjured himself about it. There was no reason to vote for him… his party didn’t even have a platform, running instead on attack ads directed at environmentally-conscious milquetoast Stéphane Dion… When your best argument for election is “we’re better than that guy,” your party has serious problems. Yet, somehow he’s back in office, twirling his metaphorical mustachios like a silent film villain and ready to unleash new horrors upon the (bovinely unsuspecting) Canadian public. Sigh.
We’ve had it easy over the last eight years in Canada. No matter how slimy, crooked, or insane our politicians have appeared, it was so easy to just look south of the border at the atrocities being wrought by George W. and think “we’re not doing so badly.” Those days are (fortunately) behind us. Good riddance.
Some day, I want to feel proud of my government (and my country) again. I suppose that is something worth hoping for.
