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Recovering backpacker, Cornwallite at heart, political enthusiast, catalyst, writer, husband, father, community volunteer, unabashedly proud Canadian. Every hyperlink connects to something related directly or thematically to that which is highlighted.

Tuesday 13 November 2012

A Rant Against the Politics of NIMBYism




 
 
 
Gas plants are being moved out of wealthy suburan settings with high power usage and being moved to more rural settings with less ability to influence politics both in terms of votes and dollars.  Bike lanes that benefit local users in downtown Toronto are being nixed to benefit commuters from suburban areas or out-of-town visitors.  Wealthy cottagers are decrying mines and development that would be good for people who live in the region year-round, but again, they aren't as well-heeled as the summer commuters.
 
Here's the elephant in the room, folks - we can decry politican shenanigens all we want, but this is how our democracy works - or not, as the case may be.  Political Parties are at the mercy of modern realities; people don't pay attention so huge advertizing budgets and expensive campaigns are neccesary.  Money is more important than votes, because with dollars you can rustle up votes or essentially buy votes through enacting or cancelling projects that suit those who support you.  That's how Parties land on policy choices - by what the people are willing to support.  Those with more ability to support financially, with votes or with volunteers are listened to the most - squeaky wheels, etc.
 
Or, if you get people angry enough, you can motivate them to come out and vote against.  But you have to pay to get that message out, too, as the CPC has been very successful in doing.  While this is a way to grow your support, there are consequences when you keep pushing the anger button - people tend to stay angry.  This approach is exactly the thought process behind what the Golden Dawn is doing today in Greece.  We're nowhere near that bad, but we are on the same spectrum - something we should find disconcerting, but will refuse to acknowledge.
 
We can start pointing fingers of blame at rural bumpkins or urban latte-sucking elites; we can blame the poor, the wealthy, immigrants, each other, but until we start acknowledging our own responsibility for the sad state of affairs in our province and around the world, things are only going to get worse.
 
I grow weary of the rising chorus of people decrying "the system is broken!" and yet insisting that it's a dog-eat-dog world and it's every man for himself.  The system is simply a process - it's us, the people, who matter.  The system fails or succeeds based on the choice we make.  Those with the most resources are suggesting that everyone should be forced to compete equally and aggressively for what goods are to be got - after all, they were successful, so anyone who works hard enough can be. 
 
That's crap; not only do people have differential skills (this "retarded" man communicated more effectively than billionaire Donald Trump has managed) but they have different opportunities, too.  A kid from a broken home with a learning disability has to climb a mountain to reach success while for someone like a Mitt Romney, success requires nothing more than a quick jaunt across a well-manicured lawn.
 
Those at the bottom are demanding to have what they see the people at the top having - and yes, the challenge is vexing enough to be a deal-breaker, but the disparity remains.  There are those who suffer in dejected silence - they don't vote, they can't contribute to the economy and the system is stacked against them changing their (and their children's) lot in life.  Then there are those who decide to take the dog-eat-dog mentality to its natural next stage - if it's all about doing as little as possible as aggressively as possible to get ahead, why not just take the things you want by force?  Why do you think crime is a greater problem in poor communities near wealthy communities than where the playing field is level?  Because poverty is crippling but a gun provides an immediate avenue to the power and resources that others take for granted. 
 
Oakville is one of the wealthiest communities in Ontario and the largest consumer of power in the GTA; the monied people feel entitled to blast their aircon and keep their lights on all day, but government dare not impinge upon their rights by presuming to put power generation in their backyard.  They raised a fuss, they threatened with their dollars and they got what they wanted - and the people who listened were rewarded.  Everyone won except those to whom the loss was downloaded to - but, the way our system runs, it was up to those communities to put up an equally strong fight to bend government to their will.  They didn't, so too bad for them.  This is how the polarization game festers.
 
In Eastern Ontario there's a big battle over whether French should be mandatory for people hired to work in local hospitals; it's not fair, say the militant anglophones; you're taking opportunity away from unilingual English speakers.  That's not fair, says the francophone community; we have historic language rights and it's important we understand what advice we're getting as clearly as possible.  The immigrants who have come to Canada and are struggling to learn either or both official languages are simply told to suck it up, because this is the reality they chose when they came here.  No one has time or patience for middle-ground solutions; dog-eat-dog, etc.; they who are forceful get their way at the expense of others.  There's no middle ground in that world view.
 
There are more than enough dollars in our economy to have robust employment and there certainly are enough fresh ideas (if untested) that could lead to massive innovation opportunities, but those with the capital aren't hiring or taking risks on semi-proven entrepreneurs; why should they?  If people want to work they should prove they deserve to be hired by breaking through the fog of other people's busy-ness or better, yet, just start their own thing, and brow-beat customers into hiring them.  People with new ideas have to find someone else to prove they work, first - do that, then maybe we'll consider investing in you.  The people without opportunity and worse, a bit of skill are being discouraged from even trying; again, that's survival of the fittest. 
 
Here's the thing that people seem to be missing - this is a society, not the wild.  Those who aren't the fittest don't die off, they fall into poverty and either end up destitute, homeless and sick or turn to crime to get what others have gotten through other means.  Yeah, it sucks, but you aren't going to solve the problem by toughening up crime or building firewalls - that only increases the divide and builds on the already-smoking kindling of frustration.  Those with dollars can tell everyone else to suck it up - but that's leading to its own series of challenges, isn't it?
 
Everyone deserves a backyard, but as populations become more dense, we need to realize that a growing portion of the land is becoming public space - it's a natural evolution from fiefdoms down to urbanized living.  "Not in my backyard" means not at all - "not my problem" really means it becomes everyone's problem.
 
There's only one way out of this growing mess and it's a counter-intuitive one. When the tensions rise and it looks like we each have more to lose individually, that's when we need to work together the most. That means reevaluating how we see ourselves and our needs; it means drilling down to the core of what we believe in; if it's a dog-eat-dog world, than we need to except rising crime and social disruption as inevitable and start stocking up for the Zombie Apocalypse.  Otherwise, we need to start realizing that the fates of each of us is inextricably linked to the fate of all of us - we can only be strong as individuals when we're strong as a society.
 
There literally is no other choice.

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