Election 2011 - The Failure of Canadian Politics

None of the major parties talked about the real issues facing us. Yes, the NDP and the Greens said good things about climate change and the need for sustainability, but neither were willing to stand up and shout the whole truth.

The truth is, Peak Oil is happening. We only have a few years left before the era of Happy Motoring is a thing of the past. Right now we should be planning for a future with a lot less automobiles, planes, imported food, cheap junk from China, etc. Couple this with Climate Change. The level of planning, organization and mobilization to deal with these twin crises ought to be about the same level as that of fighting the Second World War.

The second truth has to do with the global economy. No one really knows what might happen with it. Peak oil makes any sustained recovery very unlikely. Patting yourself on the back, that Canada is somehow disconnected from this crisis, is insanity. Not talking turkey about the crisis is foolish in the extreme. We should be preparing people for economic stagnation (or worse) and proposing ways of dealing with it that cause the least suffering for the populace.

The third truth has to do with our neighbour, the USA. Their empire is in rapid decline and they are descending into a possible collapse situation like that of the former USSR. To chain ourselves politically and economically to this Titanic of a country is suicidal. Furthermore, if collapse does come about there may well be civil unrest in the US and Americans will come pouring across our borders.

The fourth truth has to do with the Canadian military. The fact is, we have no enemies, nor are there even any potential enemies looming on the horizon. Armies are also useless for fighting terrorists. No one is willing to ask “Why do we need it ?” – or at least “why do we need it in its present form?” We do need search and rescue, we do need a force to help out in disasters and we need our coasts patrolled. In terms of fire power, a genuine truly defensive force would be a Swiss-style citizen guerrilla army. All of these functions combined would be vastly less expensive than our present military and would have the advantage that it would be impossible for our armed forces to be embroiled in US imperial adventures such as in Afghanistan. But there was not so much as a whisper about this in the campaign.

The failure to talk about the real issues, and the bleak outlook that any politician in the future is willing to discuss these problems, leaves me with one conclusion. - the system is so set up that cannot respond to in a rational way to disasters looming on the horizon. If a system can no longer respond rationally to the problems it creates it has become decadent.