Some men see things as they are and say, “Why?” I dream of things that never were and say, “Why not?”
– George Bernard Shaw

It is easy to be apathetically indifferent. The world has its problems, sure, but hey, life is short and one should take care of oneself first, no? Yet the danger is that there are a *lot* of issues on which the silent majority is not sufficiently aware to care one way or another, and a small but outspoken minority gets to drive their agenda, because the other people who know the first group is wrong find it too uncouth to engage them in debate. To spread the word to the masses. To do something.

People have various reasons for being apathetic, and most of them certainly make sense. At the time, anyway. Life is short. Or, I know this guy is deluded on some issues, but how much harm can he/she do anyway? Or, people will come to their senses (how, if the only passionate people are on two diametric opposites, the mainstream media too busy triangulating and the moderates too indifferent to make their voice heard?). Or they believe in the “great leader” myth: mere mortals can’t lead movements for change, let’s wait for an inspired leader to set things right.

The latter is a particularly pernicious argument. Just because what you do does not have a great impact, does it mean you should not do it? We too often underestimate our potential impact. Whether negative (how much can a single SUV affect the environment anyway? Or taking those cheap flights in Europe. Or watching movies that glorify senseless violence). You’re just an anonymous consumer, right? Yet collectively our negative contributions add up to something significant.

It is the same with the positive things we can do. When you buy food from a local farm, who knows how many people are affected by your example? If stores and supermarkets notice that their customers are starting to buy up local produce, market economics dictate that they will allocate more shelf space to these produces. It’s a virtuous cycle.

Perhaps the feeling might be that meaningful change cannot be achieved within one’s lifetime. Yet is that reason for apathy? If the suffragettes became disillusioned early on, would women have the right to vote in the Western world today? If black Americans get discouraged by the post-Reconstruction setbacks, would the civil rights movement come into being?

Change does not crystallize magically once the right leader emerges. Were Stalin to be struck by lightning and decide to democratize overnight, would the system he had a hand in building let him do that? Even the most tyrannical dictator relies on a support structure, and thus is constrained in his/her (mostly his) actions. Education can work, no matter how plodding, slow and fraught with setbacks the process might seem at times.

Moral of the story? Put your efforts behind what you believe in. No matter how futile the cause might be, nothing feels more emasculating than not even talking about an issue you care about deeply, let alone doing something about it.

Personally, my #1 bugbear is electoral reform. A healthy discussion of issues is impossible within a two-party system: they are either too polarized for their supporters to talk to each other (and the center too indifferent), or in their attempt to appeal to centrists, too indistinct and amorphous. Paradoxically, they can even swing between the two at short notice. Politicians pander to the base during primaries and swing to the center for the actual election. In the end, nobody’s happy.

Or take feminism. Or anti-racism. Indifference abounds here — just because our society does not discriminate openly, does not mean that institutional discrimination does not still occur. Most women are still unfairly expected to do double duty between house and work. Yet how many of us question the way the workplace is structured, leaving most men (the traditional breadwinner) no choice but to work long hours? In the end it’s mostly the women who are forced to sacrifice career once they start families.

Affirmative action programs are flawed. Too targeted at specific minorities, and thus open to attacks on the grounds (ironically) of equality. Yet the problem is real, and even conservatives like George Will agrees. Fairness demands that we help those born with socio-economical disadvantage. That we try and make sure everyone gets to pursue the American Dream (or the equivalent), rather than using the Dream as a deus ex machina (oh look, here’s another rags-to-riches success story! (s)he can do it, so if you can’t, you must be lazy and it’s your fault).

Magic wands do not exist in the real world. Not everyone will be fêted as heroes, and no problem will magically go away. Yet is being an unsung hero so bad?

Johannes Schmid forwarded this very disturbing video from YouTube:

Why a company with shady political connections and a disreputable security track record continues to be contracted to supply voting machines, I don’t know.

Technology is neutral. But belief in the infallibility of it is irresponsible, misguided, and .. perhaps actively encouraged by people with vested interest. Big Brother is watching YOU!

… as in General Election, not General Electric. Or, to be precise, the federal election. Today is the last chance to vote for those who have not voted in advance, so it’s going to be a cliffhanger, not just for Canadians but also for a lot of us here in the States.

Why, you might ask. Well, all the rhetoric made by a proportion of liberals after the 2004 elections is predicated on Canada having a Liberal government. Both capital and lower-case ‘L’. As of tomorrow morning, that might not be the case. Meanwhile, American conservatives would be cheering on the man from Alberta, Stephen Harper, who appears to be triangulating himself between his core conservative supporters on one end, and the electorate at large on another

Would this be a mirror of the 1993 federal election? It saw the right-wing vote splintering, and as a result, an 11-year liberal majority, before the 2004 election returned the outgoing minority government. Would the NDP supplant the liberals as the main left-of-centre party? Assuming the voting pattern in Ontario is stable, the Liberals’ long-term future probably hinges on the outcomes in Quebec (traditionally a Liberals-BQ contest, with the Libs imploding) and British Columbia (Liberals vs NDP).

With the lack of PR, it’s hard to predict the final outcome, so mine is probably as valid as half the predictions out there:

.. with Michael Ignatieff narrowly winning his riding by a margin of < 2000 votes. No clear winner, but with the two main incoming opposition parties losing support they would probably not rock the boat, so the minority government might last more than 2 years. The NDP would probably prefer to hang on to its gains as long as possible as well.

Categories: Canada, Election, Politics

(As posted on LJ, in an attempt to figure out if Technorati has problems with tracking LJ blogs)

Stayed up rather late in the hope that I get to witness the Lib Dems getting their 60th seat in Westminster, but that was not to be.. after wondering whether they’d actually get there, considering a lot of the 20-odd seats left would be in Northern Ireland, which has had an entirely different political map for at least over a century, I woke up late this morning to a nice surprise: Lib Dems are at 62 seats!.

A lot of the gains are taken from Labour, and three of their seats fell back to the Conservatives (but two of those are won at by-elections and one was a Labour defector, so it looks quite good), but the Lib Dems are now in second place in 160 seats, 50 more than before. And they’re doing this despite the reduction in seat allotments north of the border, which on paper should hurt them more since they are historically stronger in Scotland than in England, but turns out Labour losses there more than make up for it.

Students seem to vote disproportionately in their favour, with Bristol West and Cambridge turning yellow, which bodes well for the future. A slight dampener to hopes of a more representative election system (with PR elements, preferably first-past-the-post plus a top-up party list ala the Scottish Parliament) is that apparently some pro-PR Labour MPs lost their seats [This is a low, Guardian blog]. The Lib Dems and smaller parties are currently way under-represented - with their 22.3% share of the vote, in a pure PR system the Lib Dems would have over 140 seats, instead of the current 62 (unlikely to be more than at most 63 or 64 when all dust settles). Meanwhile, Labour has 355 seats to the Conservatives’ 197 despite leading them by less than 3% in the popular vote.

A good analysis of the Lib Dem result here [Markos Moulitsas, Guardian], and thanks to the_wild_iris for linking to a humorous guide [Daily Kos] to the British electoral system. Congrats on Solihull ousting the Cons!

[Update - 1:36PM] It’s amazing how well the exit poll predictions hold up [Scotsman] - Labour majority is now at 65 seats with 5 seats still to declare, compared to the 66 seats predicted yesterday

Categories: Lib Dems, Britain, Elections, Politics