The Wrong Man

I remember being woken up by a frantic phone call.
Planes. New York. Buildings. War.
It didn't make a lot of sense, frankly. I had no frame of reference for what I was being told. I switched on my TV just in time to see the first tower fall.
Mouth agape, comprehension still elusive.
Eventually I arrived at work, and found co-workers huddled around computers streaming radio broadcasts.
"They have no idea what they just woke up," I said.
Turns out, none of us did.

The Presidency of George W. Bush is irrevocably tied to 9/11. At first he spoke with restraint and clarity in response to the attacks, but that only lasted about 24 hours. Then it became apparent that I what feared was actually being contemplated: Pax Americana -- American forces tearing a swath across the globe, making the world "safe."
The irony is that this is exactly the plan that Bush's neo-con advisers had wanted him to follow anyway, even without a 9/11-type tipping point, and this is exactly what bin Laden expected him to do.
Bush believed that he was a man destined to live out a defining moment of greatness, and he threw himself down this ruinous path chasing that moment.
But Bush was never great. Not at anything, except having a famous last name and falling in with people who were willing to exploit it. His moment of destiny was the moment that he became President, thus proving the old adage that anyone could become President, even a party-hopping ex-frat boy drug user who had failed at almost everything he tried.
The wrong place, the wrong time. The wrong man.

Pax Americana didn't succeed, mostly because the Neo-Cons, drunk on hubris and their own press clipping, believed they knew better than anyone else. I guess when your invasion of a foreign country is based on lies, soon you actually start believing them. They forgot that the mission was to get bin Laden.
In WW II, it took 2068 days for the Allies to get Hitler. Now after 2688 days, Bush is gone but bin Laden is still out there. A free man.

Those who like Bush perceive him as a strong leader. But he wasn't. He was so weak that he bought into every stupid and destructive idea his clique of Neanderthal advisers whispered into his empty head.
Perhaps his rigidity was mistaken for strength. But sticking to your plan no matter how far reality diverges from your hoped-for reality isn't strength, it's inflexibility. In Bush's case, it was a disastrous liability.
Bush didn't even come through for his constituent base, the people who actually like him and think he's done a good job. He failed the neo-cons, he failed the religious right. He failed everyone.

We all know that this is the century that the American Empire finally falters. Bush pushed that time frame up by at least a generation or two. He praised free market capitalism, but was forced to to use the tools of socialism to save the business elite. He denied there was a need for fuel conservation, and now there's no oil. He denied the need for financial regulation and now there's no economy. He denied that climate change existed, and now there's no time.

So, George, what are you going to do now? Start a new oil company and run that one into the ground too?
Or perhaps you'll be dealing with the creation of your "Presidential" Library. That should be an easy job -- you only read one book of any consequence while you were "President": My Pet Goat.
So long, Bush. And good fucking riddance, too.

Fool:
1: a person lacking in judgment or prudence
2 a: a retainer formerly kept in great households to provide casual entertainment and commonly dressed in motley with cap, bells, and bauble b: one who is victimized or made to appear foolish : dupe
3 a: a harmlessly deranged person or one lacking in common powers of understanding b: one with a marked propensity or fondness for something (a dancing fool) (a fool for candy)
4: a cold dessert of pureed fruit mixed with whipped cream or custard

World Peace in Four Easy Steps

Despite the end of the Cold War, the world is still a dangerous place. Many nations continue to fight each other, and we are very lucky that in recent years the major powers have not been drawn into a conflict. It may interest you to know that the third largest nuclear power in the world is Kazakhstan. This is not a thought that fills my dreams at night with confidence and security. (For those of you unsure just where Kazakhstan is, it borders Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Feel better now?) So I suggest that we redouble our efforts to end conflict and bring peace to the planet. I present the following suggestions:

-- During times of aggression between two or more countries, the United Nations should be granted special powers to intervene. The U.N. hasn’t had much success with military interventions in recent years, so I suggest instead that they order out pizza for all combatants. Nothing causes young men’s minds to forget what they were doing faster than a fresh, piping hot pizza. (Okay, there is one other thing, but that’s too tawdry. Even for the U.N.) Pizza would be a quick, painless method to stop a battle (and cheap if you order from a 2-for-1 place).
-- Communication between societies must be improved. There are thousands of languages, dialects and sub-tongues in the world, and yet laughter is a universal expression that everyone understands. Therefore, I suggest the U.N. take over all military and communication satellites and instead of using them to spy on the world’s population and send secret messages back and forth, it should use them to broadcast a world-wide Mr. Bean Marathon.
-- We must build more McDonalds restaurants. McDonalds has restaurants in (at this writing) 101 countries in the world. Amazingly, no country with a McDonalds has ever invaded any other country with a McDonalds. (Some of you may be thinking that the U.S. invasion of Grenada is an exception, but it’s really just a question of semantics; in some cases involving the Super-powers, “invasion” is pronounced “liberation.”) We must make sure that a McDonalds is built in every country in the world immediately. We could even make having a McDonalds a condition of entry into the United Nations. Admittedly, this proposal will have devastating environmental and social impact. But hey, that’s progress, right?
-- Young people, particularly young men, have a lot of excess energy, pent-up frustrations and an overabundance of testosterone. In many cases, these factors influence young people in their decision to enlist in the military. We need a “military substitute” where these young people can safely vent their rage and hostility. This is why Canadians invented hockey. (You’ll note that since the formation of the National Hockey League, Canada has never started a war.)

Let’s sum up these proposals: pizza, Mr. Bean, McDonalds, and hockey. Let’s break the proposals down even further into their basic elements: make sure that everyone has enough food to eat and foster a sense of well being.

Jeez, it can’t be that simple, can it?

Leers and Frothing on the Campaign Trail '96 - Part One

The desperation in his voice should have been a clue. I should have known better. Something should have told me that to listen to him was a mistake. Where was that little voice inside my head when I needed it? Sure, it was there last night, spending hours telling me that there was a one litre jug of Oreo Ice Cream calling me from the supermarket, but now, now when I really needed the voice to tell me something HELPFUL it was long gone, baby. Outa here.
I picked up the phone. It was...him.
“John,” said the voice of Aurora Award winning radio personality with great hair Adam Charlesworth. “I need your help.” Quickly I sized up the situation and hung up.
The phone rang again seconds later. Damn, said the little voice inside my head, just before it vanished into the ether to force me to fend for myself, he called back. Fortunately, there’s Plan B.
I picked up the phone again. “Hi doodley-doo!” I said, disguising my voice as that of famous cartoon character Ned Flanders. No one would ever suspect a thing.
“John, it’s me, Adam. I have--”
“Sorry, you’ve got the wrong numberino!” I hung up again. Close, too close.
Then, the phone rang. Again.
Damn, said that little voice. He’s called back again!! Oh well, I want some ice cream. And it was gone.
“Plan C?” I whimpered to myself. “Is there a Plan C?”
There was no answer forthcoming, save the incessant ringing of the phone. No escape. Have a tequila, baby.
“Hello?”
“John, it’s me, Adam.” There was a long pause.
“Yes?”
“Sorry, I was waiting for you to hang up on me again. Listen, I need a favour.”
There was still time! There was still enough time for me little voice to return and get me through this. But, alas, it was not to be. My voice had deserted me. I was alone, much too alone. I had no choice but to give in, and set myself on a course that would drastically alter my life and this country as we know it. I was about to help Adam enter politics.
“Yeah, sure. Whatta you want?”
“I’ve got it on very good authority that there going to call the provincial election tomorrow.”
“That rumour’s been around every week for the last year.”
“Yes, but I have it on very good authority that they’re calling it tomorrow.”
“Okay, so they’re calling it tomorrow. So what?”
“Well, if they call it tomorrow, I’ll be announcing my candidacy for the Green Party in Victoria Hillside the day after. Will you be my campaign manager?”

Some, like MP Nelson Riis, call politics in British Columbia “a blood sport.” Wrong. Politics in British Columbia is more a cross between American Gladiators and Stupid Pet Tricks. Politics in Québec, for instance, is like watching the fifth estate; in BC it’s more like Wheel of Fortune or A Current Affair. (In fact, former Social Credit cabinet Minister Bud Smith was featured on A Current Affair because he had the misfortune of someone taping his cel phone calls to a newspaper reporter he was trying to hit on while giving her juicy behind the scenes gossip and insider information. Oops.)
BC’s second premier was Amor de Cosmos. His real name was William Alexander Smith, but he changed it to a name that he said “tells what I love most ... order, beauty, the world, the universe.” He eventually went mad.
From 1952 to 1972, BC’s premier was Social Creditor W.A.C.Bennett (Wacky Bennett). Under his reign, more dead people voted in provincial elections than at any time previously. In 1986, Bill van der Zalm was elected premier on the platform of style, not substance: “The smart candidate avoids detailed policy statements for they rarely help and can do you harm. Your answers should concentrate on style.” He stylishly treated BC to possibly the most corrupt government Canada has ever known (Mulroney’s the possible exception). Was Adam seriously considering to join these damned souls in Hades, er, um, the Legislature? Indeed, he was.


I decided the best course of action for me as Adam’s campaign manager was to hide out behind the scenes and do nothing. This way I figured I could lie low, escape unnoticed, watch some tv, and maybe see Adam at the end-of-campaign party. (I would call it a victory party, but let’s get real....)
Adam, however, had other ideas. He actually expected me to do some work. Damn him. Fortunately, the RCMP came to my rescue. Bingo-gate had reared its ugly head again.
On the day the election was to have been called, the RCMP raided a number of locations, including NDP party headquarters, for materials relating to the Nanaimo Commonwealth Holdings scandal. So for now the election was as dead as Tony Orlando’s acting career. Adam was off the hook for the moment, but plans had to be made.
Quickly, I assembled my crack crew -- The Myles in ’89 Gang: Angst Philben, degenerate, weapons expert, and speech writer for David Duke; Monika Bandersnatch, blackmailing expert and part-time Madonna stunt double; Marsha Chondrite, a financial whiz who worked in Ottawa during the Mulroney years and just loves the Airbus A320; Robert Gunderson, professional Tiny Tim impersonator and part time spin doctor; and Robert Runté, a sociologist from Alberta who paid me five bucks to mention him in this article. They were joined by our new recruits: Jamie Tower, hair consultant; Buzz Berkowitz, who claimed Adam owed him $50 and wasn’t going to let Adam out of his sight until he was paid, and Mikhail Gorbachev, former ex-communist. As the campaign manager, they were all looking to me for leadership. I ad-libbed an aspiring speech.
“Listen. We’re gonna lose. And we’re gonna lose big. But let’s make sure that doesn’t stop us from... er... not winning.”
My troops listened intently to my every syllable. Obviously, my speech had hit home; their gaping mouths and surprised expressions were testament to that. Now we needed to solidify the feeling that was in the air, that rock-hard, electrifying surge of near-apathy that was trickling through the air like a slam dancer with compound fractures in both legs.
“Now first things first,” I said. “We need to pick a campaign song.”
There was little discussion. My initial choice, Through Being Cool by Devo, was selected nearly unanimously. Jamie left our little group at this point. (They’ll never find the body. Politics is a mean game.)
Next, I presented my list of Possible Slogans:
Vote For Adam. It Could Be Worse.
Vote For Adam. He’ll Cook You Dinner.
Up and Adam.
Adam and the Green Party. Guilt is on Our Side.
Vote Charlesworth. Desperate Times Call For Desperate Measures.
Adam. He Likes Cheese.
Charlesworth. He Has More Hair Than Harcourt.
Adam. No Longer on the Lunatic Fringe.
Charlesworth. Anyone But Mike Harris.
Your Options Are Limited. Vote Charlesworth.
Charlesworth. Mediocrity to the Masses.
Charlesworth. He Won’t Win, but What the Hell.
Adam liked the last one, and so did I. Mikhail liked any slogan that mentioned the word “party.”
Next I decided to spring a surprise on Adam: a practice press conference. Earlier, I had jotted down some questions he was sure to be asked. But Adam surprised me; he was ready with answers.

Question: Just how will the Green Party save the world?
Adam: I think you are really just asking me how am I going to save the world, or how is my voting for you going to save the world. My answer to this is to ask you the opposite. What are you going to do to help destroy the world? Today for instance we are over fishing and deforesting so massive an area of the planet that naturally occurring species are being removed from the Earth at over three hundred times the rate from the previous century. If we were to do nothing, the NDP strategy, all life on the planet can be safely removed in less than 250 years. But I am sure that we could improve on this figure if really try to. Lets remove those tiresome environmental bonds that hold industry back and hinder job creation in the province, of course we should also allow the foreign logging companies and the off shore fishing industry to take whatever they need so as to help provide more jobs in their countries as well. And it all will come with the special added bonus feature that we could reduce the lifespan deficit we are currently facing so as to be able to maximise extinction of the Earth in only 100 years time. But it wont happen if we are not prepared to make bold hard decisions. We will have to cut health care, selling out to foreign multinationals never actually generates any revenue for BC, just looking at the Mining and Forestry books for the last fifteen years shows that it has actually cost British Columbians money to denude our forests. Health care wont be enough of course, the Liberals plan bold incisive cuts in Education as well so as to further protect the future of British Columbia’s economy in the Global marketplace. This is how I choose to answer your question. Last year the Herring fishery was considered a success because it ran for half an hour. The entire year’s catch during a lunch break, and it was considered a success from the previous years twenty two minute fishery. Salmon rivers that carried 150,000 salmon last year brought only thirty and this year just ten thousand. A 96% reduction in fish stock is what business as usual has done for the future of this province. The flaming letters in the sky that say the World is Ending are getting bigger each day, UV ratings, Air quality index, sunblock in the high double digits. A vote for the Green Party doesn’t mean all this will go away but it does mean that you are voting for a party that can see farther ahead than four years.

Question: What’s your view on this Québec thing?
Adam: As a BC provincial candidate my views on events occurring in another province are moot I just hope that the citizens inside Québec are able to come to a decision that they can live with.

Question: Why are you goddam fascist tree-huggers taking away an honest man’s right to work?
Adam: Actually we are trying to make a world where you can keep your job cutting down trees for your entire life. A sustainable cut that provides a guaranteed number of jobs. Remember the pictures of the province at the turn of the Century. Trees so big it took forty men a week to cut one down. Today, if we had those trees still, forty men could cut them all down in a week, instead of the years it did take. Where are all those trees now? Why are you afraid you are going to lose your job. Because there are no more trees to cut down? If you are accusing us of cutting down the trees that sustained your livelihood and that of others in the logging industry you must remember that it was the forest companies being allowed to overcut in the past that has led to our present state. We are suggesting a certain level of restraint to protect what is left, but if the people of BC are willing to vote for legislation to remove every single tree from the province in order to keep you in work than we are more than willing to go along with it. Newfoundland used to be covered in trees, so did Scotland and Greece actually. Beautiful places really, a bitter cold bare empty rock of an island with no jobs, an island where you can get an excellent pint of bitters but no place to get out from under the rain with no jobs and a group of islands and bare rock with less topsoil than a pound of Moneys mushrooms but luckily also surrounded by a warm and inviting Mediterranean Sea. Best two out of three?

Question: Why are you running when you’ll know you’ll never win?
Adam: Good question! Why would someone run? I suggest you think about it.

Question: What is the airspeed velocity of an unladden swallow?
Adam: I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I may have to provide a demonstration of my silly walk after I do so.

Question: How can we balance the budget?
Adam: Carefully, considering our ozone deficit, our salmon deficit, our forest deficit and our fiscal deficit, I’d say carefully about covers it.

Question: Boxers or briefs?
Adam: Briefs.

Question: What about welfare reform?
Adam: What about it? I believe that welfare should always be there for the people who need it. If you design an American welfare system. The Laisssex Faire approach to social programs. You will find that people will approach welfare with a more “do it your self” air, with Smith and Wessons at bank machines, rather than a quiet queue. The difficult part is designing a system that provides welfare for people who need it not just people who want it.

Damn. He had an answer for every question I had posed. Some even made sense. He was serious. I realized I would have to change tactics. I was going to have to come up with a better strategy than changing Adam’s last name to Charlesworthsanjabi.

NEXT: Premier Mike Quits, The Job No One Wants, Adam on the Trail, and Stupid Politician Tricks.



Originally published in UNDER THE OZONE HOLE Number 13, March 1996.

Leers and Frothing on the Campaign Trail '96 - Part Two

The story so far: Adam Charlesworth, Aurora Award winning radio personality with great hair, has convinced your chronicler to be his campaign manager as Adam prepares to run for the Green Party in the upcoming provincial election. I, sensing the chance to do a series of humorous articles agree immediately. Meanwhile, the ruling NDP government has found itself on the ropes battling a decade-old party scandal that has blown up in their faces. It is against this backdrop that we rejoin our heroes, about to thrust themselves deeply into the political muck. But first, some exposition....

The bursting boil that spoiled the NDP’s chance at re-election is a decade-old scandal only now reaching the light of day. It is not uncommon for many political parties in B.C. to raise funds by holding charity events (i.e. bingo) wherein the charity and the party split the proceeds. Back in the mid-1980s, a group of NDP bigwigs in Nanaimo formed a holding company (Nanaimo Commonwealth Holdings) to administer such events, as well as to invest the NDP’s portions of the take. But for a time in the 1980s, the charities did not receive their cut. These facts became public knowledge during the reign of Premier Mike Harcourt, who, like many members of his government, had no knowledge of the events, and whose involvement with the party at the time consisted of membership in it only.
The scandal forced Harcourt to resign, not because of any involvement (he wasn’t involved, after all), but for his inept way of handling the crisis. (After months of Harcourt’s waffling, Minister Joan Smallwood offered her resignation, saying that although she wasn’t involved, someone has to take the fall for this. Harcourt refused her resignation. When she leaked word of her attempted resignation a couple of days later, Harcourt fired her. Ain’t politics grand?)

It was Adam on the phone. Again. “I think I’ve got our slogan,” he said.
“Uh, huh. What is it?”
“‘Not Left, Not Right, but Forward.’ Whatta ya think?”
Adam’s behaviour was starting to concern me. He was taking all this far too seriously. This was but another example. Whereas I thought that “Adam. He’ll Nationalize the Hair Club,” was a damn fine piece of electioneering, he was thinking up real slogans.
“You’re serious about this,” I said in shocked realization. “I mean, you’re really running.”
“Of course I am!”
“But why? You can’t really think you’re going to be elected.”
“I hope not. But the key is awareness. If we can run a full slate of 75 candidates, that makes us all the more credible. And credibility is what the Greens have always lacked. But if we get a full slate, then maybe, maybe, we get on the leaders’ tv debate. And you know what a good showing on the debate can do.”
I did, indeed. In the last election five years ago, Liberal Leader Gordon Wilson, whose party had no seats in the house but was running a full slate, finagled his way into the debate and turned in a bravura performance. He took his party from the political nether-world to 17% of the popular vote and firmly entranced as the second party in the house after the election. (And, as the Liberals stand ready to form the next government, where is Gordon Wilson? He and fellow Liberal MLA Judi Tyabji were caught performing public adultery and eventually thrown out of the party Wilson had restored to credibility in a revolt lead by new leader Gordon Campbell.. Now Punch Gord and Judi are the only members of the PDA, a party sure to be obliterated come the election. Ain’t B.C. politics grand?)
With Harcourt gone, one would think that NDP leadership hopefuls would be coming out of the woodwork. But, no. One by one, all the party power brokers took themselves out of the race. (For a time it truly looked like “None of the Above” might actually become premier.) One by one, the mighty fell by the wayside until only cabinet minister Glen Clark remained. Oh sure, there were a couple of other people running (a mortician from Port Alberni and a tree hugger named Corky. This is B.C., after all.), but Clark was a shoe-in, winning by a landslide. Things looked rosy for a day, even two, until B.C. Hydro-gate arose from nowhere to dominate the headlines.
So this was Adam’s plan all along. If the Greens could run a full slate, they could use the Liberal Party’s 1991 precedent and perhaps wangle their way onto the Leader’s Debate. But would their message be heard? The debate was sure to be acrimonious between Clark and new Liberal Gordon Campbell. Campbell, a Vancouver backroom double-vested money boy, was currently running a series of ads in which he appeared in a lumberjack shirt to cultivate that “one of the boys” appeal but instead was earning scorn and ridicule. (His spin doctors should be sued for malpractice.) Clark, attempting to buy votes by freezing tuition fees, auto insurance rates, and taxes, is slowly watching his slim chance for victory disappear as the RCMP continue more investigations into the bingo business. And now, the B.C. Hydro scandal -- well, not much of a scandal really, but a scandal that the Liberal Party kept the lid on until it was politically advantageous to release it, namely Clark’s swearing in day. How was the Green Party going get heard through that?
“Adam, you guys are the fringe! You’re in the Political Hinterland’s Who’s Who between the Christian Heritage Party and the Marxist-Leninists! People are more likely to vote for the Rhinoceros Party than you!”
“But we’ve got some big names backing us up. David Suzuki is endorsing us.”
“!” I said. “The David Suzuki?” From what I knew about Adam’s past (the motorcycle gangs, Vancouver airport security, the atomic reactor he was forced to work in as a child, his night as prom queen, public radio, unswerving belief that the Edmonton Oilers will again the Stanley Cup in his lifetime), I considered that he might be delusional. But he sounded almost as sane as he ever was.
“Yes, yes, yes! David Suzuki! He endorsed us!”
“He did? I didn’t hear about it.”
“That’s because no one did! The press release went out yesterday morning, and only CBC radio went with it. Twice. No other media touched it.”
Ah, a media conspiracy of silence. We said nothing of it.

And then came Premier Clark’s so-called Sixty Days of Decision, wherein every day heralded a new attempt by the premier to bribe the electorate with its own money. Each day brought about a happy announcement from an exceedingly pleased Cabinet Minister. Hydro rates, tuition fees, insurance rates were all frozen, taxes were dropped, and money given away like the Apocalypse was Thursday. In six short weeks, Premier Clark made campaign promises totalling nearly a billion dollars.
“You gotta give Clark credit,” I said to Adam. “It takes balls to stand up there, give away all this money, and then say you’re not electioneering.”
“Oh, I know,” agreed Adam. “Clark is an excellent politician. He’s not campaigning – he’s seducing. It’s like he’s sneaking up behind you and cops a feel. At first you’re outraged, but then he starts talking, and then its ‘…Mr. Clark what are you doing back there? Oooh, Mr. Clark, please, I shouldn’t vote for you but, well, okay but… hey, you loosened my belt. Mr. Clark, I’m not sure what you want. You’ll promise me anything? Ooooh, yes, all right. Hey, my pants fell down. Hmmm? Sure, I’ll bend over—’ Only at this point, do you suddenly realize you’re getting screwed up the ass.”
“Well, he’s not the only one sniffing at that particular piece of your anatomy. Look at the Liberals. They’re promising a three billion cut in spending, taxes cut by 15%, but they’re going to increase health care funding by a billion dollars. Explain that one to me.”
“Simple. A politician said it.”

Next: Leers and Frothing -- The Final Chapter (unless Adam really does get elected): Adam on the Campaign Trail; Beers and Debauchery in Esquimalt; More Lies and Made-Up Facts; How To Run Hospitality at V-Con in Vancouver When You’re Running For Public Office in Victoria.



Originally published in UNDER THE OZONE HOLE Number 14, June 1996

Leers and Frothing on the Campaign Trail '96 - Part Three

Our story thus far: Adam Charlesworth, Aurora award winning radio personality with great hair, has convinced your chronicler to be his campaign manger as he prepares to run for the Green Party in the May 28th British Columbia General Election. The ruling NDP government, plagued in recent months by a bingo scandal, is in a tight battle with the opposition Liberals who, amazingly, are on the defensive as new Premier Glen Clark manages the brilliant maneuver of campaigning on the Liberals’ record (which is pretty amazing since no one alive can remember when the Liberals last held power in B.C.). So with the Liberals on the defensive, the NDP gaining, and the Reform Party goose-stepping, the Greens are about to make their big election-eve move. But, as we shall see, not everyone is playing fair….

Yet again, Adam was phoning me. I thought the new unlisted number would work, but no, he was still able to track me down. I, of course, had memorized his phone number, and I checked the call display when he called. Obviously, he was one step ahead of me and had changed his phone number, too.
“Well?” he asked.
“Well what?” I asked back.
“Well, how did it go?” He was referring to the all-candidates’ debate on the local community cable channel. There were eight candidates, including a Natural Law candidate and NDP environment Minister Moe Shiota. The debate started with independent candidate David Shebib’s opening comment, wherein after a moment of staring crazily into the camera foaming at the mouth, he started yelling, “There’s no one watching! It’s all a big media-driven conspiracy! You aren’t allowed to vote for who you want!! Run! Run to your church basements! Conspiracy! Conspiracy! They tell you nothing but lies!!” He was right, of course, but an election campaign was not the place to bring up ethics and honesty. He interrupted the other candidates by shouting, “Fraud! Fraud! Media pawn!” until the moderator turned off his microphone. Adam gave his opening remarks last, right after the Natural Law candidate.
“Well, I think you did really good. You used that King Solomon story about cutting the baby in half to your advantage. That was one for the highlight reel. But I think you were in a tough spot having to regain the audience after the Natural Law speaker.”
“Yeah. She was pretty cute. And she didn’t even once mention levitation.”
“Isn’t that just like a politician? They tell they’re all for debt reduction and family values during the election, but when they get in they suddenly spring tofu, yogic flying and karmaic defense shields on you.” Later, it seemed ironic how my words would come back to haunt me.
“No kidding. How did I handle the question and answer session?”
Here I had to be diplomatic. After the opening statements, for the next ninety minutes, the candidates fielded phone-in questions from the viewing audience. Surprisingly, there were people other than me watching. Unfortunately for Adam, no one phoned in with a question for him. Someone had a question for the Natural Law candidate, and someone even had one for David Shebib. (This resulted in more mouth foaming.) I felt like phoning in just to tell Adam that his hockey team had lost that night. Finally, the last question was to Mighty Moe Sihota concerning transit issues. The moderator, in either a move of pity or a carefully crafted political dirty trick, said, “Well, let’s bring the Green Party in on this last question. Mr. Charlesworth, what about transit?”
Adam’s response, although witty and off the cuff, was not as lucid as I would have liked: “[snore] Huh? Wha--? Can you, ah, repeat—what?” In terms of substance, Adam’s response had been no worse than any other politician’s that night. His delivery was, I’m afraid, not up to snuff.
“At least you didn’t get spit all over your microphone like some of the other candidates did,” I replied hopefully. “How’s that lawsuit going against BCTV for not allowing the Greens in the TV debate?”
“Not well. BCTV just sent party headquarters a letter showing them all the legal precedents, and a friendly note saying, ‘Don’t bother suing, you’ll never win. No one ever has. And here’s the bill from our lawyers for their time.’”
“Yeow. Hardball.”
“No kidding. The only mention we got at all on BCTV was when one of our candidates was being investigated for having naked hot tub parties with teenage girls.”
“Well, no nudes is good nudes. It didn’t help when they interviewed his campaign manager and he said, ‘Right on!’”
“Shut up.”
My candidate was obviously tense. The campaign had not gone well. (At least, that’s what he told me. As he campaign manager, I felt it was my duty to stay out of the limelight. Far out of the limelight. As far out as possible.) “Look,” I said, “it’s not so bad. The NDP’ll squeak in and let’s face it, they’re the best choice of the mainstream parties, right?”
“Sure,” Adam grumbled. “With the NDP, we’re only speeding towards extinction, not hurtling like we would be with Campbell and the Liberals.”
“Now, they’ve done some good. They’ve balanced the budget. They created the Forest Renewal Fund, which by their own act of parliament, the government is not allowed to transfer into general revenue. It’s not like they’ve been lying about the budget during the election and will be forced to break the law and use those funds to cover the deficit, is it? No government in their right mind would do that.”
Whoever accused politicians of being sane?

Final Results -- Malahat-Juan de Fuca
Sihota, Moe NDP 13,833
Landon, Heather BC Liberal Party 6,770
Davidson, Scotty Reform BC 1,179
Whims, Ron PDA 921
Charlesworth, Adam Green Party 376
Danyluck, Sylvia Natural Law 60
Shebib, David Independent 58
O’Neil, Bob Communist 35

Final Results -- British Columbia
NDP 39 seats
BC Liberal Party 33 seats
Reform BC 2 seats
PDA 1 seat

Epilogue: Won’t Get Fooled Again
But, boys and girls, we all know how our story turned out, don’t we? You see, the NDP knew they weren’t going to balance the budget before they called the election. They, um, fibbed. That’s it. They campaigned on a balanced budget they knew they didn’t have. A big fib. And then they had to enact legislation to repeal their own law saying that they couldn’t dip into the Forest Renewal Fund and take money that they swore up and down would never be used to erase the deficit. Only took them three months in office to defile themselves totally. And politicians wonder why they get no respect anymore.
As The Who said, lo those many years ago:
“Meet the new boss. The same as the old boss.”

Originally published in UNDER THE OZONE HOLE Number 15, September 1996



2003 Update: Where Are They Now?
The NDP: went through three Premiers (Glen Clark, Dan Miller and Ujjal Dosanjh) in their last term before finally being demolished by Gordon Campbell's BC Liberal Party in 2001. The Liberals won 77 seats to the NDP's two.
Adam Charlesworth: vanished into the wilds of Toronto. Last seen trying to score tickets to a Leafs-Oilers game;
Mike Harcourt: the former Premier injured his spinal cord in a near-fatal fall at his house in late 2002. As of this writing in 2003, he is again making public appearances while on his way to what his doctors describe as an amazing recovery;
Glen Clark: Clark resigned after being charged in a casino licensing scandal. The court proceedings took years, but Clark was eventually exonerated by an acquittal. The judge said that Clark had erred in his judgment, but bad judgment is not illegal;
Gordon Campbell: Finally became Premier in 2001. He continued to blame everything wrong in the world on "10 years of NDP mismanagement," yet in his first year, he slashed taxes to the rich and created the biggest budget deficit in the province's history. He tore up contracts with hospital workers' unions and government civil servants, claiming the contracts were too expensive for the province, yet he refused to break lucrative agreements with business interests or reduce the "golden handshake" deals being given to deputy ministers that Campbell's government has hired, all the while claiming that a "contract is an unbreakable sacred trust."
Some trusts are more sacred than others in the Campbell government, as BC was about to find out.
Despite the upheaval in the province, all signs pointed towards a Liberal re-election in 2005, until Campbell got falling-down drunk and tried to drive himself home in an SUV during a vacation in Hawaii in early 2003, thus becoming the only sitting premier in Canadian history to serve time in jail. And after having spent the last decade in Opposition, demanding that NDP ministers resign for even the slightest appearance of impropriety, Campbell refused to resign, citing that his mistake occurred on his "personal time," and thus his "terrible mistake" (and presumably his brand-new criminal record) don't really count as impropriety. One can only assume therefore that if one of his ministers spent his vacation exploring the under-age sex clubs in Bangkok, that would be okay too, since it was on "personal time."
Wasting money can get you fired in the Campbell government. Recklessly endangering other people's lives seems to be a normal course of action.
British Columbia: Since Bill Bennett's second term from 1979-1983, no premier in BC has managed to survive through a complete term. Bennett retired towards the end of his third term in 1986. Since then, six premiers in a row have resigned under suspicious circumstances, or were put up by their respective parties as the sacrificial figurehead to get slaughtered in the next election.
BC was recently declared one of the "have not" provinces, and we certainly have less, unless you're in the highest income bracket. Less schools, less hospitals, less services all for the sake of luring businesses to the province. Big business must like employees who are sick, uneducated, ill trained and low paid, because those are the only employees that will be left in this province after Campbell's version of "trickle-down" economics had bled us all dry. This is now a province where deputy ministers get 15% bonuses for dropping people off the welfare rolls and bringing forth legislation that reduces provincial care for children in distress.
Hey, if I was premier of this province, I'd drink too!

I Don't Get It

William Kristol says it again here, and it's a statement that deserves some scrutiny.
(Kristol also says that all the problems in the world are the fault of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, sorting of glossing over that the reason for the Islamists' popularity was the American-backed coup of the democratically-elected Iranian government of the early 1950s and the installation and American support of the Shah's 25 years of brutal dictitorial repression. When Bush rambles on about how a democratic Arab nation will change the Middle East, remember that there was one 50 years ago until the West overthrew it. But I digress.)
While talking about the current war in Lebanon, Kristol says, "Better to say that what's under attack is liberal democratic civilization, whose leading representative right now happens to be the United States."
I don't get it. How do you quantify the statement that the US is the leading representative of democracy? They're sure doing a good job -- Be Nice To America or They'll Bring Democracy to Your Country!
What about that other chestnut that America is the "freest nation on earth." Again, how is this determined? Does Time publish some sort of "freedom index"? Is it determined by a straw poll of Fox News correspondents? Don Rumsfeld's tea leaves? Or by reading the pattern of buckshot left in Dick Cheney's hunting victims, er, partners?
It is a strikingly American perception that somehow the USA is rightfully the leader of the democratic world. Only in the US is the President often referred to as "The Leader of the Free World," and it is done as if it was the obvious natural order of things.
I don't recall when this was decided. Did I miss a meeting? Was I on vacation that week? If we're in the free world, and the free world has a leader, shouldn't there be a vote or something like that on who leads us?
I know I didn't vote for him.

A Modest Tax Proposal

There's been a lot of talk in this campaign about cutting the GST and/or cutting Income Tax. Which is fairer? Which helps out low and middle income Canadians the most?
Let me offer my own modest tax proposal -- let's scrap income tax and raise the GST.
Now before anyone calls the looney tuner on me, consider these numbers:

Canadian Government Fiscal 2004 Revenue
GST $28,200,000,000
Income Tax $84,800,000,000
Corporate Tax $27,400,000,000

Note that the GST revenue is almost exactly one third the amount of income tax revenue. So scrapping income tax and raising the GST from 7% to 28% would be revenue neutral.
Yes, 28% is a whopping tax to spend on purchases, but on the other hand there would no income tax deductions off my paycheque. For me personally, that's a savings of around $350 a month. Suddenly, my idea doesn't seem so wacky now, does it?

The GST is strictly a voluntary tax. It automatically taxes an individual based on the taxpayer's ability to pay. For instance:
- a rich person might spend $4000 on a wide-screen HD TV. That's $1120 in tax.
- a middle-class person might spend $1500 on an LCD TV. $420 in tax.
- a lower-income person might spend $500 on the last of the tube TVs. $140 in tax.

Clearly, there are some problems with my idea. Low-income Canadians who pay little or no income tax are not going to benefit from this scheme, so some sort of equalizing payment would have to be developed.
And rich people, some of whom will do anything to avoid paying taxes, will undoubtedly try to import goods from other countries to avoid the new GST.

But in fact, higher income earners should love the new GST. The higher the income bracket, the bigger the income tax savings.
And imagine the other savings. Imagine a vastly downsized CCRA, not spending money to track, compile and check tax returns.
No more income tax audits, and no more income tax forms. No more loopholes for smart accountants to exploit.

I think there's something here. Paul, Stephen, Jack... any comments?