Anagogy of the Depressed

Last night, a good friend kept a promise and delivered me "some tough-love realness." "Your family is not dead," she said. And she was quite right, of course. There was no question of that fact, but its meaning is what she helped me to see.

My partner, our son, and our baby daughter are not here with me. They are away for the week. And the purpose, the very reason for our temporary separation is so that i can finish my thesis.

I had slipped into self-pity after dropping them off at the airport yesterday morning. But last night at 8pm, after i had come home and consoled myself with Cap'n Crunch, ice cream and pizza, my friend called — as she and i had agreed she would each day while i'm here alone. She snapped me out of it. She did so with tact and gentleness, but she did it. She redirected all my efforts to rationalize my anxiety. She told me to just get to work.

I'm on it now.

Post-election puke-fest

Story:

At around 10 o'clock this morning, Roy abruptly barfed all over both of us and half the bus.

But the day got better after that.

Help from strangers came immediately: a dude on the bus passed me a plastic bag (to stow  spew-soaked sundries); the driver told me don't worry about the mess; a mom pushing a stroller stopped to offer us a stack of baby wipes; a passerby handed over an unopened bottle of water.

Roy took the entire thing in stride (which made it way easier for me to play/stay cool as well). “It's not as yucky as poo-poo,” he explained.

As it happens, we landed across the street from Please Mum: where we once bought the pants now soaked in toddler-vomit. The clerk invited us to use their staff washroom to get cleaned up; i got Roy a brand new / identical pair of pants. The shop didn't have any socks, however, Roy was unconcerned, having rediscovered the wire/wood-bead labyrinth toy facing the register.

So we made our exit, and followed her directions to a nearby shoe store. Then another. Then to the pharmacy. It turns out that toddler size 8 socks are not that easy to come by. Therefore i kept on carrying my barefooted son while pushing the smelly, barf-soiled stroller.

I figured we might as well start making our way back home as we were. But just as i was starting on the mental math concerning alternate routes, i remembered: the costume store!

Thus the morning went from nasty barf disaster to epic imaginary adventure! In addition to his very classy pair of casual black socks, Roy settled on a triceratops costume and a shiny shield. (Runner up options were dino-robot and astro-dino combos.) Instead of feeling bummed about thesis work (or gym workout) that would not get done today, i experienced serendipitous joy and a surge of gratitude.

And that was all before lunch.

This afternoon i got to go for a very vacation-y walk along the seawall, wearing Shea in the baby-carrier. She napped and bobbed along as i listened to a radical theology podcast.

And so i just think: wow... fucking awesome.

Context:

The happiness these simple experiences brought me today has been highlighted by the gloomy background: Yesterday's election sure sucked.

But... maybe not totally. After all, non-proportional electoral results always suck, so that is to be expected. Certainly this one must have stung for anyone who had their heart set on an NDP victory, or even just a better distribution of legislative power — and our hearts had good reasons to be set on both.

If we can momentarily put aside our investment in a specific outcome at the polls and become rather more concerned with the longer-term forecast — for electoral reform and democratic revitalization in general — there are some (okay, two) obvious silver linings to this otherwise very dismal renewal of an unrepresentative provincial Liberal oligarchy: Eby and Weaver!

The Liberals will want to milk their victory for all it's worth — but the very question of its worth can be rendered nicely uncertain, since the captain of their winning team lost her own home game. And that's without mentioning the specific virtues that David Eby himself will bring to the Legislative Assembly (which are many). Congratulations, Mr. Eby.

Better still (in this long-view) is the fact that, as of last night, it can no longer be smugly said that Green votes are “wasted.” That was always offensive majoritarian garbage; now it’s also demonstrably false. Congratulations, Andrew Weaver.

All provincial parties will have to recalculate their chances in future elections. The NDP, for their part (and i think this is a good thing), will have to decide what kind of relationship it really wants to have with the third-place party. My hope, once again, is that a co-operative relationship can be established.

There has never been any excuse for political parties that do not concern themselves with eliminating the evils of party politics. The consequences become clearer with every iteration of political decay. (How low does voter turnout have to get? How wildly unrepresentative do the results have to become?) I don't really care what we call it. "Coalition" or "co-operation" or whatever. But here's what i think needs to happen: The BC-NDP and the BC Green Party ought to co-ordinate, and yes in some cases that means not run candidates against one another, in order to JOINTLY END THE FIRST-PAST-THE-POST SYSTEM.

This is what the federal opposition parties need to do as well. It is what Joyce Murray was calling on Liberals to do; Trudeau's credibility will depend on how he handles this question of priorities. (So far, he's a charming distraction.) Maybe David Eby, will see fit to use the well-earned prestige of his defeat of the Premier to direct his NDP colleagues towards a collaborative strategy for electoral reform; and maybe Andrew Weaver will use his voice to help keep this on the agenda in Victoria — as Elizabeth May has done in Ottawa.

The Liberals are now (officially) working to bring us more of what we've seen these past 12 years. I can hardly stand to look at the dystopian neoliberal horizon towards which they are leading us. The likelihood that they will soon resume their devastating attacks on education is particularly disturbing to contemplate. So instead i choose to focus on a future that lies further beyond that horizon, by planting some seeds for it here and now.

Moral:

Politics is pretty yucky stuff, but it happens. It could be worse.

If we need good news on days like today, then let’s make some. (Or at least let’s make believe.)

Electoral Reform: have an impact TODAY!

Here’s the short version: 

Today is the deadline for registration to vote in the Liberal party’s leadership race. One candidate (only one) has declared that she is committed to forming a serious, unprecedented, strategic coalition for electoral reform. And it isn’t the frontrunner, Justin Trudeau. It’s Joyce Murray. 

If you support fixing our electoral system, then please help her win: Register to vote, and do it now because tomorrow is too late. 

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In case you’re not convinced, here’s a long version:

Dear friends and family. 

This might sound unusual, coming from me, but i’m asking you to “join” the Liberal Party of Canada. Today. Like right now.

Yeah, that sounds really fucking weird even to myself. But i’m not kidding. Have i experienced some kind of bizarre political “conversion”? No, not at all... So let me explain. 

We have a chance, today, to affect the outcome of the next federal election. 

Obviously, our government sucks rotting zombie balls. And that’s not just because Stephen Harper sucks. He sure does really, really suck; but our government pretty much sucked anyway, even before he showed up (and the Liberals dominated parliament). And that’s the problem. For a long, long time it’s felt like just about the best thing we can hope for is a government that sucks a bit less. (And even that usually seems overoptimistic.) As you probably know, i always freak out telling people about how important it is to vote — but the best argument i’ve been able to make is that it’s an important kind of “Harm Reduction.”

So why do i think participating in the Liberal party's leadership race can make things any better? Well it’s not about joining (or even supporting) the party. It’s about making ALL the parties work together. 

With literally 5 minutes of your time, for free, you can register to vote in their leadership race. And then you can vote in in April. 

The deadline to register is March 3rd. Yeah, Sunday: today. Right now. 

But why bother? Because in both of the last two elections Stephen Harper LOST. By a landslide. Hardly anyone voted for this asshole. So why the fuck is he our Prime Minister? How the fuck does he have a parliamentary “majority”? It’s not because people are stupid (they’re not). And it’s not because of a conspiracy (there’s no need for one). It’s just because our electoral system is shit. 

But there’s nothing we can do, right? Actually there is: We can make the electoral results matter; we can make the “popular” vote the actual vote. We can change our system; we can have proportional representation. We can work together, and pressure elected officials to do the same. We can pressure them all, by supporting the ones who already support proportional representation. 

We can register today to elect the only candidate in the Liberal leadership race who has a plan to establish a proportional system: Joyce Murray.

Joyce Murray is the only Liberal leadership candidate who supports absolute cross-party co-operation for electoral reform. She deserves our support.

She is an underdog candidate. That’s why your vote is needed. Tons of people are registering to “rock” the leadership vote. That’s why we have a chance. In the last couple of weeks the movement for electoral reform has mobilized to support her. If you really don’t believe me, go listen to what Avaaz, LeadNow, David Suzuki have to say. Read and think about what Naomi Klein, and all your favourite political commentators are saying about electoral co-operation.

Murray doesn’t just claim to “support” proportional representation; she is not saying that Canadians have to support the Liberal party and elect a Liberal majority to make it happen. She is saying she wants to work with anyone — from any political party — willing to help change the system. She has a plan to help form a strategic coalition among opposition parties.

Murray proposes that the opposition parties co-operate: 

• run a single candidate in swing ridings in 2015
• defeat Harper
• pass legislation for proportional representation. 

If Liberals, Greens, and the NDP co-operate in the next election, it will be our last under the current system. 

Please register today, right now. (I know, the deadline is stupid because the actual voting doesn’t happen until next month. But if we want change to come we have to confront present circumstances.)

Co-operation is possible. Today we can help make it happen.

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Here's what little i have to say to the people who'll never read this anyway:

It’s always easy to abstain on principle. It’s easy to say that the choices we have are “not good enough.” And there’s no denying it’s true. But the righteous feeling of “purity” comes at a price. The consequences of our current parliament’s unrepresentativeness are made clearer every day by Harper’s abuses of power. This situation is unacceptable not only on principle, but especially because those consequences are felt disproportionally by the most vulnerable people in our society.

It’s up to the constituents of her riding to help Murray win her seat in the next general election. (Just as it’s up to each of us to elect MPs in our own community who are committed to proportional representation). But it’s up to us, today, to help her become the leader of her party. 

We have a chance to put proportional representation at the centre of political debate in the months and years ahead. If we act now, we can have a strong voice for proportional representation in a major influential position. 

We can have a dramatic transformation of politics in our pseudo-democracy. We can have proportional representation. But we have to work for it.

Help Joyce Murray become the next leader of the federal Liberal party. 

Please register right now.

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Note: People rightly feel uneasy about clicking the stupid little box at the bottom that says: "I support the Liberal Party of Canada, and am not a member of another federal political party in Canada." It's bullshit like that, in principle, which has to be set aside in order to change our system. It's bullshit, because it contradicts the statement on the Liberal website that "we’re inviting all Canadians—and not just members—to help pick our next Leader." It's just a matter of good faith. It should say: "I promise i'm not just doing this to fuck with you."

If the very thing at issue in the leadership vote is the question of whether or not party affiliations should be more important than democratic politics itself, clicking a box like that is nothing but a bad joke. (Objectionable on principle, but insignificant compared to the dangerous consequences of refusing to overlook it.)