Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "You Can Fool Some Of The People":
It is disheartening to see serious people put together responsible platforms when running for public office, including a listing of their lifetime experiences in the work world, family life and community activity, and then, upon being elected, for many of the right reasons, they disintegrate before our very eyes, and the responsibility that they sought is abandoned, and we, the voters, are left scratching our heads and wondering if the entire process is not somehow corrupting.
Do decent people change so dramatically when they become elected officials, or were they never decent in the first place?
Is the concept of trust no longer valid? What will replace it?
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NO NO NO ...the process is not corrupting.
Decent people do get elected to office without having an idea of the requirements. Sometimes they don't do it again.
Most times, a losing campaign is sufficiently bruising not to be repeated.
You'd better believe the concept of trust is valid.
If you think it is threatened, it's time for you to step up to the plate.
All that has been achieved with blood sweat and tears cannot be abandoned so easily.
"All that's needed for evil to triumph is for good men and women to do nothing"
Michael Ignatieff gave a presentation to students at Osgoode Law School at York University this week. A National Post story
reflecting on Mr. Ignatieff's negative view of politics was forwarded.
I had already heard a different slant on the lecture. Alison thought it was an outstanding presentation I think no small part of her appreciation came from having had the experience.My impression was Mr. Ignatieff spoke of his experience in politics as a complete revelation.
I think the Professor was recruited from outside politics for the Liberal leadership because they thought he would repeat the Trudeau mantra. They were wrong .. so very wrong.
I think Trudeau had a focus. It wasn't about a career in politics.
It was about bringing home the Constitution and enshrining into law a Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
He was obsessed.
Being obsessed is a quality of leadership.
The measure of The Honorable Pierre Trudeau's success will be recorded in history.
Politics at its best is like white river rafting. Raging torrents, jagged rocks, flimsy craft, disaster looming, catastrophe imminent and nothing but skill, intuition, confidence and the exhilaration of risk to justify the challenge.
The concept of being alive is never more keen.
Intuition is natural. Skill is honed by experience. The willingness to risk is obsessive/compulsive.
Politics is not for everyone. .
Time was, when Councils were composed of incumbents.People would vote for experience every time.
A new members would mostly be elected to fill a vacant seat.
There was opportunity to learn and plenty of willing instructors. There was no manual of precedents and traditions. No army of redundant civil servants creating their own employment from so-called expertise.
People allowed the neophyte time to learn..
Nowadays, people without experience are catapulted into leadership roles, without an understanding of the concept let alone recognise the need .
The spotlight on the Mayor's chair is not enviable in the circumstances. Expectations are high. People believed. Others just knew there was no option. There is no place to hide.
Things need to improve.
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You want to talk about leadership. Take the Prime Minister. You can have him, I don't want him, he's scary.
ReplyDeleteTurn to the frighteningly funny article and excerpt from the new play "Proud" that was banned from the Tarragon Theatre in Toronto - The Globe and Mail of today's date - Globe Arts section - page R7.
What does this tell us? That satire is dead and that we have to take politicians seriously?
Spare me!
Toronto's slightly obese mayor, whose subway has been "derailed," is talking about holding a referendum on the matter. It is my understanding that the province of Ontario is funding the city's new mass-transit system, whatever and whenever that will be, to the tune of $8.4 billion - yes - BILLION! The premier has no favourites, whatever the people decide, says father Dalton. Where is some spine?
Where is there any leadership? Possibly only in the satirical play that the Tarragon doesn't have the guts to produce. Some feared defaming our leader, notwithstanding an independent legal opinion from a libel specialist who happens to advise the newspaper in that area.
Is this happening here, in Canada?
You are a brave and battle-hardened woman, to be much admired; a political survivor.
ReplyDeleteIf I had to sit around that Council table with some of those social and political misfits, listening to their self-righteous smug opinions and their barely coherent questions, I could well imagine myself running the Snake River in a large flexible dinghy, hoping and praying that we would not be dashed upon the rocks.
But I don't think I could sit there quietly while the prattle rambled on. I would be forced to call out to the mayor, as a point of mercy, to shut down this incessant buzzing.
THere should be schools for aspiring politicians, where they could go, to learn the basic rules of procedure, where they could participate in mock debate, where they could participate in creating a budget, and a whole host of other things so necessary to the political art, for art it surely must be; never science, never even rational.
Something must be done, for our politicians are reaching increasingly lower lows with no end in sight.
My Dad used to refer to summer as ' the silly season ' when the papers had to scramble to find strange stories to fill their pages. It seems as if every day is now the silly season as the bizarre political stories just roll off the presses.
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