in california i walked or cycled to the school and grocery store, shared a car with a friend for longer excursions, even learned to ride buses on rather onerous journeys through the expansive silicon suburbia. when i returned to victoria, in 1990, i was a devoted environmentalist. i reclaimed my car, but parked it, and rode the long bus journey from sidney to the university. in california i had studied ecology, biology, anthropology (cultural and physical - the study of evolution), helped found the 'green future' environmental club which brough recycling and rainforest awareness to the campus and, awake and aware that human activity on the planet was incredibly detrimental to its wellbeing, was determined to living simply so that others might simply live. i drove the car for a few months when i lived in victoria but still worked at a pub near sidney and the buses just didn't serve that schedule, but i sold it in the early 90s and have had no desire to own one ever since.
the point is ..... i guess i'm feeling guilty because, this week and next, i'm in sidney looking after two doggies who love to run in the forest. i'm with them on that, the forest is enchanting and besides my arms and shoulders just can't take two strong-willed cat-chasing dogs on leashes. so i've been driving every day, to the forest and back. sometimes twice a day. i'm definitely using up all my carbon credits for this year, and especially if i get on that cubana airplane from tampico to havana later this year (after hauling humanitarian aid over ground through the usa). hopefully the rest of my life is green enough to make up for these small indiscretions.
i have a love/hate relationship with the automobile. when i'm on my bike trying not to be killed, i hate them. when i have a chance to load up a couple of doggies and go to a forest, i love them.
yesterday i went to john dean park, a place rather difficult to get to without a motorized vehicle, for a walk with the western canada wilderness committee. it was very pleasant, we found a douglas fir tree six feet in diameter (the ancient giants at cathedral grove are seven feet and more) and hiked to the summit, overlooking the inlet and the malahat from a beautiful arbutus grove. there were only a few of us, and i'm still a bit confused about why two local mla candidates, gary holman and tom bradfield, took time from their campaigning schedule to be there. maybe they thought there'd be a bigger crowd to pontificate to, or maybe they just wanted, like the rest of us, to get a bit of fresh air and learn something about the local ecosystem.
murray coell, the incumbent, was not there. no big surprise. i'm sure i would have taken a different hike if he had been.
i'm not sure what it is about this riding, who these people are who vote so strangely. they seem so nice, otherwise. but they vote consistently for right wing politics ... at least those who do vote, and those whose votes comprise the winning team. of course there are large numbers who vote otherwise, but unless we get some electoral reform, their votes just don't count and whoever gets elected doesn't really care about them except to win them over before the next election. although, locally they've voted out the pro-development folk, both in sidney and in north saanich (at least that's how i understand it, from my heresay derived, unresearched viewpoint). so why did they vote for gary lunn and the conservatives federally? i suppose the under-reported scandal about strange anonymous calls encouraging people, days before the election, to vote for the non-existent ndp candidate who had actually withdrawn from the competition may have something to do with it. plus, folks here are relatively comfortable.
a friend of mine has suggested that marx was wrong --- it's not religion that's the opiate of the masses (though apparently that's a bit of a misquote, but we get the point), it's comfort. i'm not saying people shouldn't be comfortable, just that i wish they'd think about how their levels of comfort compare, are influenced by, depend upon, the comfort levels of others in their communities and around the world. for the most part, people vote to protect their own interests, without thinking about what life's like for so many others. life in sidney, for many, appears to be very pleasant and comfortable. why change that? but surely there's a working class that's been affected by the bc liberals cuts to services - i remember one of the first things they took away from us was the ability for low-income people to have one free eye exam a year. it's not enough that our teeth are rotting and falling out, for lack of any form of dental plan, thanks to the bc liberals we're now blinded too. there must be people here who can see and feel the effects of the taxation without representation method of right wing politics, who care that, even if they're still comfortable, there are increasingly more each day who are rendered poor and/or homeless for the sake of maintaining their own 'status quo'. has the economic collapse of 'free market' capitalism taught them nothing? are we not canadians, who care about our neighbours? isn't this what distinguishes us from the 'every person for him/herself' americans?
i'm not necessarily a big fan of the ndp - their recent ancestors threw 800 of my environmentalist friends in jail in the 90s, including their own svend robinson. that's not to say this current bunch would do the same, but certainly they've strayed far from their socialist roots - a method of redistribution of wealth which, strangely and cruelly, so many americans think is evil (greedy buggers). back in the day the ccf (before they were the ndp) influenced the introduction of social security and welfare and old age pensions and health care and unemployment insurance. last time in power here in bc they held firm with a tuition freeze (since the bc fibberals deregulated tuition it's increased almost 100%), and we did own and had access to some accountability for the goings on at bc ferries and bc hydro back in the day. sure, there was the big 'fast ferry' scandal, but really that was nothing (mostly media hype) compared to what the formerly new york based hertz car ceo has done to our ferry access. and then there's the western forest products deal, the first of many cut and run real estate offerings, no doubt, if campbell and his goons have their way.
the bc liberals of today are the socreds of yesterday, regrouped after their own ship sank, and they hate us.
they hate us, the bc 'liberals'. they hate the poor and working classes, and most of all they hate the earth. they allow the slaughter of grizzly bears for tropies, and they want to clearcut the province, including the last ancient rainforests on earth, and sell it off as real estate to their ultra-rich friends. they set up a 'free trade' zone with alberta called tilma, so that oil from the tarsands wastelands can be shipped by oil tanker along our precious, pristine coastline. they're mean-spirited, murderous, self-indulged, greedy power mongers and they shouldn't be allowed to hold power of any kind.
so i walked through the forest yesterday with two other wanna-be politicians, listening to what they had to say, actually hopeful (despite my anarchist tendencies) that maybe the people of north saanich will wake up and elect one of them. or vote for them, at least. even if they don't get elected, it's a vote against the bc liberals (who aren't liberal at all). it's not a split vote, it's really not. if there were no green party getting votes there would be no green discussion from the other two parties. politics is a game, a vote-gathering game, and if the greens or ndp take votes away then the liberals must wonder why. they must, that's all they care about, getting votes.
i learned, while hiking in the rain, in the rainforest, with the beautiful lush green undergrowth - the trillium flowers and the vanilla and the ferns and all the rest of it, that ndp gary helped establish the very successful little bus onto salt spring island, and that tom's got native roots in the saanich nation and a mom who donated her reservation school settlement to his campaign. i'm not voting in this riding ... in fact i'm not voting at all (i'm tired of endorsing an old patriarchal system of oppression and colonization), but i did tell them that those of us who care deeply about the horrid and inhumane injustices being inflicted upon the palestinian peoples are very upset with both their leaders. carole james has stated that any criticism of israel is to be considered anti-semitism (a misnomer since all peoples from that region are 'semites), and elizabeth may said, on chris cook's gorilla radio show the other day, that she believes hamas is receiving depleted uranium from iran ... because they don't have any information that's not what's happening. (chris had asked if it's fair to evaluate both the palestinians and the israelis equally, considering the weight of the environmental weaponry they're using (depleted uranium and other awful stuff vs. small home-made rockets), and that elizabeth's response.) i realize that gary and tom are provincial candidates, and that palestine is a long way from a walk in the majestic forest of john dean park, but it's all connected. the truth is the truth, it's not something derived from what we don't know, and our ability to criticize a government ought to be encouraged, let alone permitted.
we talked about the ndp and the green party stance on forestry, the potential loss of jobs as we move away from cutting ancient forests. personally, i think it's time that people make a little personal sacrifice and think about alternative forms of employment. it's like the seal clubbers in the east, complaining that the recently announced european union ban of canadian seal products will put an end to their careers. oh, boo hoo already. if you can't think of anything better to do everyday than go club a seal over the head, then maybe you should apply for disability insurance because you've obviously got some rather severe mental deficiencies. again, if the government was about providing solutions rather than throwing big expensive elitist parties and lining their own pockets with the money they take from us, maybe they'd think about things like re-fitting the sawmills to handle second growth (or hemp!) rather than old-growth, and/or create and encourage some job-retraining that's not dependent on the destruction of the planet.
in the late 80s i learned that 'conservative' white-collar and tie scientists believed, from studying the evidence, that the human species has about 30 years to dramatically change the way we live and do business on this planet, or we're simply not going to be allowed to live here anymore. looking at the evidence myself, that made sense to me, and i changed my life. i quit eating my animal friends, started buying organic, and sold my car. and yesterday i walked in the forest with two guys who care enough to be there, in one of the last temperate rainforests on the planet. if i lived here, i'd take a big chance and actually vote for one of them if for nothing else then simply to send a message to the ruling party. collectively, we remaining humans are on the brink of extinction. it couldn't get any worse .... could it?
