Britain's Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has interjected a bit of badly needed perspective to this era of non-stop political bloodletting. The business of government is governance in service to the public and, right now, governance is in urgent demand.
Addressing Scottish Labour’s annual conference, Corbyn said his party was not “obsessed by constitutional questions, like the others are. We’re obsessed, absolutely obsessed, with tackling the problems people face in their daily lives”.
In an apparent effort to shift the focus away from his party’s deep divisions over Brexit, Corbyn said the UK’s greatest challenge was global warming. “We are facing a climate crisis. There’s no bigger threat to our future. And fundamentally, the destruction of our climate is a class issue,” he said.
If you want to turf Justin Trudeau this October, do it over what matters most: not Lavalin, not the vaunted "economy," but this government's horrible energy policy that powerfully subverts meaningful action on climate change. Turf them for pretending to be progressive while doing so little that is actually progressive. Turf them for their embrace of neoliberalism in the pursuit of perpetual, exponential growth when the planet already stands hopelessly overgrown. Turf them for pretending we're still in the 1980s instead of on the cusp of the 2020s, a decade that will usher in unprecedented climate change impacts and represents our last, best chance at averting catastrophic runaway global warming.
Step back, take a deep breath and put Lavalin in the perspective it deserves - as a sideshow in a land facing huge and imminent perils. There is much important work that needs doing.
First climate, then pile on all the other stuff. Here's a modest proposal: suspend parliament for a term of two years and hire Elizabeth May as Joe Stalin doing a slash and burn campaign on our electoral process, the public service, the bench, pharma, the energy industry, big Ag and the lot. Disband both Libs and Cons, caution Dippers, then relaunch elections restricting anyone from previous admins from holding office. They had the chance and screwed the pooch.
ReplyDeleteOf course, this doesn't even rise to the level of political fantasy, anomy guess is that Ms. May, believing in the rule of law, just wouldn't stand for it. However, it seems that we are going to need some fairly radical action to take us out of the fecal maelstrom of our present political and social gridlock.
ReplyDeleteDanneau, there's food for thought. Put both the Liberals and the Tories into the penalty box - on a trial basis, of course - for a decade or so and then have a referendum to allow the public to decide if we even want them back. Maybe that's the source of our problems, we've never had a chance to live without them. Thank you for that delightful thought.
I am an unashamed Corbyn fan.
ReplyDeleteCorbyn plays chess while the old neoLiberals (Blair/May etc) play checkers.
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