Rest in Peace, Political Maverick Jack Layton

I'll be honest, during the election season in April and May I was actually excited. It seemed like the NDP would win, a variable ~10 reader group was reading the posts, some of whom were even Canadian, and I got to write about politics that I was familiar with. Canadian politics, milquetoast in comparison with other countries where opposition parties are harassed or exploded, are still an important thing to follow and the election was most important.

But what really came out of that election was the feeling that Jack Layton had become a justified Political Maverick. And I didn't use that term lightly, fallaciously, or jokingly. I was really convinced that Canada's only decent candidate was about to win. Of course, that didn't happen, but I was hopeful that when the political season opened up and those loafers went back to Parliament to shout at each other, Jack Layton was going to tell the Conservatives what the fuck up. I was thinking that some great sound bytes would come out of that and reveal the Harper majority for the regressive, wasteful, ignorant political behemoth it was. (And it wasn't at all a majority, unless the apathy non-vote were Conservatives).

 The election was clearly demarcated from the start: Harper was going to be fiscally conservative on the surface and ideologically centrist, Ignatieff was going to be fiscally liberal on the surface and ideologically centrist or inconsistent. Jack Layton was going to deal with social problems and was ideologically right, because Canada does not look after her social problems very well. He had a history of giving a shit about people, which Harper (who shakes his own son's hand instead of embracing him) is possibly incapable of doing. Layton was the Maverick, and had proved it repeatedly...

Layton probably knew what was coming, and made a point of leaving final words. And really, on this day, as during the election, my regret is that I never met him. I would've had a few soft-boiled questions and mostly I would've just wanted to know if he was as nice as people said. He was demonized by the scared dummies of this country as a communist, and the politically ignorant crippled him in the last election, but he was nothing if not an aware and principled politician, whatever his faults.

Political Maverick Jack Layton in the early days.

Yeah Yeah...

For a minute or two yesterday it was almost possible to believe that Political Maverick Jack Layton was going to become a prime minister. There was this sense of optimism and energy, almost limitless, that something dynamic was finally going to happen in Canadian politics. Certain senior mandarins in parliament were already crying and cracking open priceless bottles of brandy.

Desperate operators roamed the streets of Canada in a last-ditch attempt to rustle up support for Harper and Ignatieff, each of whom were in their 'situation rooms' taking shots of maple syrup and shouting into microphones phrases such as (but not limited to): "Show me the votes!", "This isn't politics; it's a slaughter!", and my favorite of all time: "There's no time for the harmonium, just get the fuck out of Bridle Path!" Who even knows who they were talking to, but my guess is Prince.

Yes it sounded like the Liberals and Conservatives, after decades of dual-monopoly stranglehold over the Canadian Voter, were finally about to get a solid drumming for their misbehavior. Jack Layton had the image, had the poll numbers, had even half an ear among Quebeckers under the age of 35, had young voters countrywide, and just one final precipice to climb: the hearts and minds of Canada's most stubborn voters: knee-jerk Conservatives and habitual Liberals.

The Debate is On!

Moderated by the unparalleled Steve Paikin, the Canadian debate is happening right now, and it is a little rude. I'll be quick about it so I can get back to watching: everything has been rough, nobody's been excessively rude, but there is some frank backbiting. Harper has been calm thus far, not even breaking a sweat as the other politicians condemn him soundly. Layton and Duceppe are definite secondaries as Ignatieff and Harper go at it. Let me paraphrase an injunction by Iggy:  "This isn't bickering, Mr. Harper, this is debate. This is democracy."

Harper's weakness is foreign policy, the G20 is a definite black eye, but Ignatieff and Layton have a lot to prove, and Duceppe has to reach out to angophones. Where is Elizabeth May? The consortium vetoed her away. Is that fair play? I say, "No way." Shame, shame, shame.

Talks of coalitions, party brandings, closed door meetings, and all that other good stuff abound. Watch. Consider. Vote.  Laugh, because some of the bickering is relatively petty.

Oh and the other big news is that humanity gained space 50 years ago, via Mr. Yuri Gagarin, cosmonaut, lately of Russia. Props to him and Russia for winning the first leg of the space race. (Lets also remember the many people who died, laboured, and sacrificed so that we could fire unreliable columns of machined steel out of Earth's atmosphere.)

Continuing Canadian Context

Go ahead and ask them now, some weeks later, what the political landscape of Canada is. It features nothing the Group of Seven might have done except for the map with its abstract political colours. Harper is blue, Ignatieff is red, Layton is orange and May is green. Let's ponder these colours. Green is the colour of life, Orange is the colour of Hollander royalty, red is the colour of life (but also Soviets and the dying Maple Leaf). Blue is the colour of disenchantment, also of life, and thirdly of lack of options.

Since the election has been announced there has been a deafening silence about the government deficit and the global depression (or recession if you're an optimist, or end of capitalism if you're an alarmist) and everyone opened volleys of 'family politics' and other types of sensationalism. In this country you do not play politics on weighty issues. Let me explain: families, in Canada, are doing well. Most families are in the easy-to-control low-to-mid middle class, relatively wealthy, perhaps overspending on credit, but doing well and employed, with an exception rate of less than 10%. This comes out to maybe 15,000 out-of-work families facing destitution or hard times, probably half that and maybe even less than that.  There is no particular zone of concentration as in the '90s. The east coast probably can be weighted a little.

What makes this weak politics is that this group of people is easy to hoodwink. They think their fair taxes are monolithic tithes to the state. All an aspiring prime minister has to do is promise that these taxes will be reinvested into the middle class family background that pays the majority of them. It goes without saying that the poverty line does not discriminate between families and individuals, but families are more important. Help them, and help yourself to a political majority. This is all theory, but the parties have acted on it as if it were a rule.

So each of the big three politicians started election season by flogging family politics. Some friends of mine distilled it thusly: Conservatives meant a straight family with not even a gay child, while the Liberals and NDP would help any family.  Never mind the family unit is the sort of ancient structure that is known to be able to survive all kinds of nonsense. Maybe in the 'post-industrial' era families are endangered or suddenly overwhelmed by the corporate world structure. Anyways, because in most countries all people come from families, they are the safest bet for politics, and that is why for weeks there were shameless attempts by each party to win this faction over.

This is how majority politics works. I have no idea how these aspiring governments are planning to fund their extravagant family subsidies, but it will probably include wasteful consulting, forms in triplicate, and a communications blackout. Nearsightedness is a curse on the populace, but a blessing to the politicians.

Reviewing Fog

Fog is a musical group (it is I assure you) or project (look it up) or whatever highfalutin concatenation. If I was stubborn and vain enough to try and review the group I would be forced to review at least three albums. On a blog, and I don't profess to know much about those, three album reviews is virtual suicide. You might as well bake bread, or bet on Political Maverick Jack Layton.

Please take a moment and note how both alternatives are good ones.

Now to properly review an album, you have to state with methodical correctness who authored it, who published it, and the year it was published. If you are a particular rebel you will open with a quote from a review of another type of art. Then you move on to comparing it to other albums that it sounds like. Once you have completed that torturous step, you get personal.

Break out some adjectives and make a good time of it: after all, you've broken the album down into a series of ethical and musical and historical components to make it relatable. Plus you've already established your judgment by your tone, and most of your thinking audience has already agreed or disagreed with you. Then you write a paragraph about how the album sits in the context of the times as you see them, and when you attach it to a particularly noxious news story they come and sit on your legs and stuff hot peppers into your nostrils.

Since I'm reckless and generally a sloppy blogger I will raise the stakes and tell you I can review Fog's first two albums in only one image. The album names (so you can be conscious of the true extent of my wager) are the eponymous "Fog" and "Ether Teeth":
 

You're all welcome