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Notes from a Garage

With John Gardiner

Humanizing Harper; waiting for Karl Marx; and power to the people…..

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

It’s interesting to watch the federal Conservative Party softening up the image of their leader, the Right Honourable Stephen Harper. During his time on the Canadian political stage, Harper has always seemed sort of unfriendly and wooden – sort of emotionless. Now, every time you turn on the TV all you see is our illustrious PM tinkling the ivories, playing cribbage with seniors and kissing babies – well, I haven’t actually seen him kiss a baby, but I’ll bet he has.. Anyway, the whole plan here is to make Mr. Harper more electable – the quest for the elusive majority. Well, don’t be fooled, folks. A Tory is a Tory is a Tory. Doesn’t matter how you dress him up, he’s always a Tory – unless, of course, he’s Jean Charest and has no real values. And make no mistake about it – if you vote for a Conservative, you’re going to get Conservative values. And it’s not necessarily a bad thing if you like Conservatives and their philosophy – and lots of people do. Conservative philosophy is supposed to mean fiscal responsibility, smaller government, stricter central authority and stuff like that. But after watching Mssrs. Reagan and Mulroney balloon the defcits in their respective countries, after watching George W. Bush spiral the American economy out of control, I’m not really sure what a conservative is these days. Even our own Mr. Harper is in the process of running up a $56 billion deficit. Strange, but true. Anyway, watch this Harper stuff – they’re trying to trick you, folks. All they want is that majority and they will fundamentally re-make Canadian society. Remember free trade and the GST – got them both from Tory governments….remember….

I see a news clip from the former East Germany – they are showing a statue of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels covered in graffiti and commenting that the two economists are now vilified in the former Communist country. I am deeply saddened by this – that two of the greatest minds in the history of the planet are now scorned and ridiculed. We just don’t get it. The so-called Communist countries that have existed on the planet so far were about as far from being communist as they were from being democratic. The former Soviet Union and current day China have nothing to do with communist philosophy. They were and are totalitarian dictatorships, oligarchies…call them what you will, but they were not communist in any sense of the philosophy. A purely communist society would be a pure democracy by definition. All would be equal, not like in the Soviet Union or China where some are more equal than others and there are still rich and poor. No, I think we’re not quite ready for the Marx/Engels thing on this planet. We have not yet reached a desparate enough state. And the sad reality is that if we don’t learn to share the resources of the planet, we are heading down a very rocky road. Eventually, the disenfranchised and disadvantaged of the world will demand their fair share – and if we don’t offer it willingly, they will simply take it. I believe that we are just entering the period of rampant capitalism predicted by Karl Marx and the oppression of the workers is only just beginning. The world wide revolution when the “workers of the world unite and cast off their chains” will happen. We’re just not there yet…..and, remember, you read that here first!

I seem to run into a lot of disgruntled people these days – folks who are sick and tired of government and technology and a whole lot of other stuff about our modern society. And all of these people have something else in common besides their griping – they all express the notion that we are powerless to change the way society or the world works. And nothing could be further from the truth. I always remind these folks that the power always lies with the people….the people can change the way society works whenever they want. But they only really want to change things when the whole situation gets really messy. Nearly every society on the planet operates basically the same way – there are rich and poor and the rich and powerful work very hard to stay in their position of privilege. And they do this by letting the poor people feel like they have some freedom and a small piece of the pie. The rich people give the poor people just enough to keep them sort of happy…..grumbling, but not rioting. It’s the way of the world – if you’re gonna have rich people, you gotta have poor people. But every once in a while, everybody forgets that the power always lies with the poor people – because there are a lot more of them. And the rich people heap just a little too much abuse on the poor people, put a tax on their tea, do something without thinking it through – and the poor people rise up and cut off the rich people’s heads. That’s also the way of the world. And, so, if you’re one of those people grumbling about how unfair life is and what a mess things seem to be, know that you have the power to make change. And don’t let those rich folks tell you any different. And don’t think a few million makes you one of the rich….

Well, out of time for another week – that was sort of a long one this week, but I’m really enjoying writing these days again, and have even started on some new fiction….I’ll keep you posted. So, remember…..”Hew to the line; let the chips fall where they may.”



John Gardiner is a 25-year-veteran of the community newspaper business, but he is also a prolific writer of moralistic short fiction he refers to as "emotional thoughtscapes" or "adult fables". Samples of his fiction can be found at:

He has also produced a noteworthy piece of humanist philosophy which can be found at: http://www.xs4all.nl/~aboiten/ad502.htm He welcomes comments on his work.