Youth vote Simcoe North: Politics 2.0
Posted on March 30, 2011 in Governance Debates
Source: Orillia Packet & Times — Authors: Jacob Kearey-Moreland
orilliapacket.com – news/article
Published March 28, 2011. By Jacob Kearey-Moreland
It’s election time. Planning on voting Green, NDP or Liberal? Don’t hold your breath. Bruce Stanton wins.
If we had proportional representation, or a united left, then there might be a chance for the will of the majority to be enacted.
The Liberals are going to try to convince the Greens and NDP to strategically vote for them because they still don’t realize that Canadians have packed up the big red tent. The Greens will attack the NDP, the NDP will attack the Liberals and the Conservatives will sit back and cruise to power.
The Conservatives are going to tout how they ensured the economic recovery. Of course, we recovered; we’ve got all the resources in the world — which unlike money, still has value. They assume we forget that it was the past Liberal governments who regulated our banks, insulating us from the largest pyramid scheme and transfer of wealth in the history of civilization. Money is debt. The threat of an NDP-Liberal coalition was actually responsible for “Harper’s Economic Action Plan”.
In the end, Harper got his way, and gave our tax money to his friends in the energy, banking, and mining sectors, plunging us into the largest deficit we’ve ever seen. He still hasn’t cut the billions in subsidies for oil barons, despite his promises. Nor has he told us how much all his new prisons and fighter jets will cost. That’s fiscal responsibility for you!
Ever-rising gas prices, climate change, ecogenocide, revolutions and civil unrest in the Mideast, earthquakes, tsunamis and nuclear meltdown in Japan, over a billion people going hungry, thousands just in our community, a thousand billionaires controlling $4 trillion, record youth poverty and unemployment…
It will be Bruce’s task to convince us here in Simcoe North that everything is OK, and that we shouldn’t care about the unfolding global economic, social and environmental collapse. To convince us the most important thing is low taxes and the freedom to buy, trade and consume like drunken sailors. To convince us that Canadians don’t care about honesty, transparency, accountability and respect for our democratic traditions because as long as we’re doing better than those foreign people on TV, who cares?
Luckily, he will have a well-funded and well-orchestrated media campaign to brainwash us into eating the blue pill, he will have backup from the cavalry at Sun Media, (the owners of this paper) and other corporate media who for years have been bombarding us with partisan shells. Don’t expect original thoughts, any reference to the problems or solutions; the limits of the debate have been set.
I’m tired of the partisan dead-end debates. While all life on this beautiful planet is destroyed, we’re boxed in a false dichotomy, in a never-ending left-right march to self-destruction. So I’m launching a pre-emptive strike.
I’ve started an online forum on Facebook called Youth Vote Simcoe North for people to gather and share ideas and co-ordinate events and projects. The forum aims at fostering local resilience to these global problems and empowering young people through education, art, food, community engagement and social media to inspire creative and innovative local solutions — and then implement them. True democracy requires that we do more than vote.
We have all the resources, knowledge, skills and technology to create an abundance of food, water, energy, transportation, housing, education and health care — we simply don’t have the money. Through sharing and co-operation, our power is limitless.
This year get involved with Transition Town Orillia or Orillia Community Gardens and join the hundreds of others in this community who are springing into action. This is participatory democracy at its finest. Start or join a community vegetable garden! Divest from this insane system and invest in yourself and community. Join Youth Vote Simcoe North and let’s get growing together not apart.
Jacob Kearey-Moreland is an Orillia resident and founder of Orillia Community Gardens.
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Tags: globalization, ideology, participation, standard of living, youth
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