Partisan Trap and the Open Solution

What could be done?  Quite a bit.  To begin, the prime minister, to whom all Canadians look for leadership, could ditch the stupidest of his party's attack ads and begin speaking positively, regularly and publicly about how he hopes to build a better country.

Den Tandt's article is worth a read, beginning to end; if you follow politics and political commentators, there's much that sounds familiar.  Increasingly, political dialogue in this country is becoming bread and circuses in which even the participants feel like recipients.  

Responsibility has become a fool's errand, as taking ownership is no longer a measure of leadership, but the presentation of a target.  Even being on the victimized end of an attack, including a home-invasion, becomes fodder for personal debasement by one's foes, their hired guns or bitter partisans taking out their animosity at the world on a select few.

Do we have a stronger political discourse because of all the attack ads?  Not at all - we don't have a discourse at all, really.  It's talking points vs talking points, with the scripted officials reading out their lines with as much conviction as a phone bank operator.

Kill or be killed, in a metaphorical sense, has become the norm.  The world's returned, in the minds of some, to a black-and-white place; take Israel/Palestine as an example, but there are plenty domestic ones as well.

I applaud Den Tandt's optimism, but I feel it's a bit misplaced; increasingly I find I'm looking beyond the politicians and whatever their voter margins are to public servants and citizens themselves.

While the pols fight with each other, there are those who seek to work with everyone and make the system better.  This isn't to pad their CV or for personal wins, nor to back a candidate; the Virtual Schemers of the world seek to make the world better because they know it's possible, and that we'll all be better off for it.

My favourite of these is Richard Pietro.  You can learn about his mission to bring Open Government across Canada, by motorcycle, here.

That, to me, is where I differ from Den Tandt the most.  I certainly hope political leaders, PM included have some sort of positive vision for Canada.  For implementation, though, I look to the people making a difference not for brand or a paycheque, but because it's what they believe in.

This is our country.  If it's to get better, it'll happen because we make the conscious choice to stick together.