Impending Election Woes

2004-03-09 - 8:45 a.m.

I'm thinking that we're looking at a depressing federal election this year. For one thing, I don't like any of the party leaders (all men, so far), not even the leader of my usual party the NDP. They're all...politicians, I guess. I don't feel I can trust them. They either do things that I completely, utterly disagree with, or else their PR machines are so clumsy that I wince whenever I see or heard about them.

There also don't seem to be any noteable women involved. In past elections, certainly in every election I've paid attention to (the last 10 years or so?), there's been at least one woman with a high profile. This may be in my head, but campaigns take on a different tone when women are involved...they seem, somehow, more connected to the issues that I want to see addressed. Right now, all the political action feels like it's happening in some Mount Olympus-style, high-above-the-rest-of-us forum. It feels like I'm disconnected from the process. That the leaders are going to do whatever the hell they want, and there isn't much I, or anyone else with less than a million dollars, can do about it.

Democracy isn't supposed to work like that. A democracy where people feel powerless or somehow seperated from the halls of power is a sick democracy.

I'm not necessarily the biggest defender of democracy...to me, it's a tool for helping people to have equal access to their needs, to minimize needless suffering, and to spread out power so that everyone has a chance to have their rights met. If there's a better way, or even a different way that works about as well, I'd have no problem with ditching the one-person-one-vote thing.

However, if we have a democracy right now, I want it to work. I want it to be healthy. I want it to be the best that any democracy can be.

I think that a part of that is having it be accessable, and I think it's a sign that right now the political field only appears to be accessable to white, rich men.

Cheers,

The Magus

PS This is the second entry today...maybe I'll be prolific again.

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