tangled up in blue

Politics in the age of sexting

                                 

No doubt or denying that social media has taken centre stage as a major political platform.  I found out Osama died almost an hour before it was announced on TV - thanks to Twitter. Online activism spurred Egypt’s “facebook revolt”.

Additionally, social networking offers politicians the opportunity to embarrass and or/reveal themselves more than any other technological platform before.  Sure, Nixon got busted after recording his phone conversations, images on T.V. brought war into living rooms and Clinton stared straight into the camera and uttered those famous words “oh no I di’nt!” (or something like that).

Today, a British MP apparently left his Twitter open at the mercy of his intern, who playfully tweeted “I better close my Twitter before my intern twit-rapes me”. Ouch….ouch. Twit-rape and frape (facebook rape) are now becoming common terms with a younger generation, but I sure as hell can say that a bunch of uptight middle age brits did NOT appreciate the rape reference what. so. ever. But c’mon intern, bad call. Let’s just not use a word like rape on a politician’s twitter, mmmkay?

Wieners like Weiner and Toronto councillor John Parker have made themselves viral sensations through social networking platform twitter - all in the never ending hunt for lady lovin. Creeptastic.

Why we pay to ride the gravy train

My dear city of Toronto is tangled up in blue.

I am not going to say “I told you so”.

It really doesn’t matter now that last fall, I vehemently argued that even George Smitherman would make a better mayor than Rob Ford (and Smitherman’s biggest fan, I am not.) 

I couldn’t believe then how voters within the Greater Toronto Area could possibly believe Rob Ford would deliver his crusade on gravy. It seemed that voters interested in the ‘Ford for Taxpayers’ hooplah weren’t concerned about the repercussions of Ford’s plans. 

Rob Ford’s proposed budget cuts would gut many of the social services that most people - and many, I guarantee you, who voted for Ford himself - rely on or believe to be a quintessential aspect of the city.  He went after libraries, the zoo and daycares, for goodness’ sake! Won’t somebody please think of the children!?

Ahem.

I promise the point of this entry was not to harp on people who voted for Ford (or people who didn’t vote at all), but rather to explain my own epiphany as to how Rob Ford was possibly elected mayor in Toronto. And why he shouldn’t have been.

Because after waiting for the punchline that never came, I decided I needed an epiphany to save me from going mad.  

Rob Ford was elected based on promises that most voters who understand politics know are damn near impossible to fulfill without horrifying consequences. Unfortunately, most people who understand politics are not most people.  

Now in hindsight, we (I use ‘we’ in a conciliatory way, friends) realize these massive cuts to our system mean great sacrifice.  Our infrastructure in the GTA is buckling under the weight of an ever growing population.  Roads simply cannot hold the traffic, the transit systems cannot sustain reliable service for the masses. Encouraging public transit should be a priority of our city council, funding it should be a top priority. 

Ford promised to “cut jobs at city hall”.  That is a lot easier said than done.  And, um, do the police count as city hall?  Might need clarification on that one, Roberto.

I don’t think I need to explain why cutting funding to our libraries would be madness, too.  Hopefully you can figure that one out for yourself.

I refuse to believe a large chunk of the GTA population was greedy enough to vote for Ford because he promised them more money in their own pockets. I really do not want to believe so many Torontonians are unconcerned with the greater good. 

Now, months later I realize it wasn’t a lack of concern that got us all into this mess - but a lack of consideration. What seems obvious to us now was unclear to us then, and now we will pay the price.

After all, haven’t you bitches ever played SimCity???

How did this happen!?

I appropriately named this blog “tangled up in blue” as both homage to a favourite Bob Dylan song and (more so) as reference to the current Canadian federal political leanings. Dylan was tangled up in blue but his was a lot different than ours, as Canadians.  In May 2011, the Conservative party of Canada (CPC) won their first majority government since that party was formed in 2003. Merging parties Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative Party of Canada became one big super conservative party, and it took time for the cohesion to result in election success.

Oh, but it did.  Somehow, it did.  I am obviously extremely unhappy about this, though was not surprised for one moment when it happened.  But, the point of the blog isn’t necessarily to slam Harper and his minions in a public forum. Being completely unbiased is impossible - so it is rather possible I will, in fact, be a bit bias.

But I digress…

There is no changing the results of this past election - a majority is a majority.  We will be stuck with these mofos for almost FIVE years.  What is the point, then?  There is still power in the people!  Understanding our government and parliamentary procedures is the first step to honing this power.  We are fortunate to have access to forums such as twitter, blog and facebook - in these ways we are able to express concern and outrage over practices of the government.  

Let’s do this.