In the woods, alone.
For a moment there, a couple of years back, I ridiculously found myself believing that the accounting (I'm actually not allowed to characterize it that way, so let me insert instead, corporate) scandals would mark the end of the so blatant and all encompassing dominance of corporate interests. For a wee second I thought the "invisible hand" might just get smacked into servitude, knocked from its despotic throne. You know, schools might actually be about educating and hospitals about healing rather than determining their profitability potentialities. (Always a shame when patients just won't get sick the way the spreadsheet hoped they would.) You know when citizenship meant more than asking for value or a good return on one's taxes.
Kinda silly when a fellow writes it down, ain't it!
Today I saw a headline saying that 52% of Canadians support private health care. But, of course they do. After a long and dedicated campaign to systematically pull the testicles from the health care system we are left with health care that can't serve us effectively. So we remove funding in alarming amounts. The system beings to fail remarkably as 3 nurses do the jobs of 10, people can't find doctors, hospitals close at a ridiculous pace (to serve us better, of course), people begin to bitch and moan. Suddenly (surprise), if you you've got the cash you can get excellent care in Buffalo or Seattle. Fuck, in Plentywood, Montana. So, guess what? The solution is private care. See over on that side of the fence the scalpels are sharp, the aspirin fresh and the nurses have had a holiday this year.
All of this is manifest in WHO we elect to lead us, sorry, manage us. I ain't no babe in the woods. I understand the ruling class has always been the business class -- and there is nothing wrong with the business class, except when the interests of that group becomes THE only agenda. The only agenda. The only one. Name a single visionary goal a Prime Minister has articulated and sincerely gone after in the past couple of decades. As a nation we have been chasing fiscal responsibility. It is what will make us great again -- our credit rating is AAA, we lead other nations in debt reduction, deficit spending is banished. We sit in dark rooms rubbing our hard surpluses. How sad. Reaching for the stars, striving for humanity, well the ROI just doesn't support... but hey, interest rates are down.
At least the electing of CEOs instead of PMs is entertaining. When nostalgia and the demands of PR call for action or rhetoric on issues not frameable by a powerpoint presentation to some suits, it's great to watch 'em squirm.
Case in point. Another headline today heralds the cancellation by our CEO Paul Martin of his attendance in Europe to mark the 60th anniversary of V-E Day. Sure, he wants to protect his political ass back home, but imagine him canceling a G-8 meeting in Rome on the same dates. Exactly. (By the way, as perfect contrast to the business dicks who get elected these days compared to the business dicks who got elected in the past -- the former with no sense of public duty whatsoever, the latter more often statesmen -- I give you Paul Martin Srn., who clearly had the interests of business in his heart, but never lost sight of nation building either. He must be rolling in his grave.)
Here's a letter I sent the living Paul Martin this morning:
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
Can I ask you for one minute to stop being a CEO and to begin to act like the Prime Minister of Canada (which last I checked, you still are, thankfully).
Go to Europe for the V-E Day observations, for God's sake! Screw politics, screw Bay Street for just a few days and go represent our country on a milestone anniversary of a world event in which Canada played such an important role (when you're in Holland, ask anybody about that).
Oh and if the sloped foreheads in the Conservative or BQ parties are stupid enough to take advantage of your absence, the electorate will not be amused.
Go to Europe, be Prime Minister. You can come back and view everything through the eyes of the banks and investment houses soon enough. Our history, the sacrifices this nation made in world war, is one thing Bay Street has not completely assigned zero worth, quite yet.
With respect, yours truly,
Steven Heipel
Kinda silly when a fellow writes it down, ain't it!
Today I saw a headline saying that 52% of Canadians support private health care. But, of course they do. After a long and dedicated campaign to systematically pull the testicles from the health care system we are left with health care that can't serve us effectively. So we remove funding in alarming amounts. The system beings to fail remarkably as 3 nurses do the jobs of 10, people can't find doctors, hospitals close at a ridiculous pace (to serve us better, of course), people begin to bitch and moan. Suddenly (surprise), if you you've got the cash you can get excellent care in Buffalo or Seattle. Fuck, in Plentywood, Montana. So, guess what? The solution is private care. See over on that side of the fence the scalpels are sharp, the aspirin fresh and the nurses have had a holiday this year.
All of this is manifest in WHO we elect to lead us, sorry, manage us. I ain't no babe in the woods. I understand the ruling class has always been the business class -- and there is nothing wrong with the business class, except when the interests of that group becomes THE only agenda. The only agenda. The only one. Name a single visionary goal a Prime Minister has articulated and sincerely gone after in the past couple of decades. As a nation we have been chasing fiscal responsibility. It is what will make us great again -- our credit rating is AAA, we lead other nations in debt reduction, deficit spending is banished. We sit in dark rooms rubbing our hard surpluses. How sad. Reaching for the stars, striving for humanity, well the ROI just doesn't support... but hey, interest rates are down.
At least the electing of CEOs instead of PMs is entertaining. When nostalgia and the demands of PR call for action or rhetoric on issues not frameable by a powerpoint presentation to some suits, it's great to watch 'em squirm.
Case in point. Another headline today heralds the cancellation by our CEO Paul Martin of his attendance in Europe to mark the 60th anniversary of V-E Day. Sure, he wants to protect his political ass back home, but imagine him canceling a G-8 meeting in Rome on the same dates. Exactly. (By the way, as perfect contrast to the business dicks who get elected these days compared to the business dicks who got elected in the past -- the former with no sense of public duty whatsoever, the latter more often statesmen -- I give you Paul Martin Srn., who clearly had the interests of business in his heart, but never lost sight of nation building either. He must be rolling in his grave.)
Here's a letter I sent the living Paul Martin this morning:
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
Can I ask you for one minute to stop being a CEO and to begin to act like the Prime Minister of Canada (which last I checked, you still are, thankfully).
Go to Europe for the V-E Day observations, for God's sake! Screw politics, screw Bay Street for just a few days and go represent our country on a milestone anniversary of a world event in which Canada played such an important role (when you're in Holland, ask anybody about that).
Oh and if the sloped foreheads in the Conservative or BQ parties are stupid enough to take advantage of your absence, the electorate will not be amused.
Go to Europe, be Prime Minister. You can come back and view everything through the eyes of the banks and investment houses soon enough. Our history, the sacrifices this nation made in world war, is one thing Bay Street has not completely assigned zero worth, quite yet.
With respect, yours truly,
Steven Heipel
posted by Heipel at
9:37 AM
4 Comments:
wow....
yah i'm with the Korean on this one.
Brilliant post, as always. (Though I'm trying not to look at the bunny thing again, 'cause it scares me.)
This is encouraging, though:
CBC item
Though of course once there's an election, I suppose the Liberal budget can just be ignored.
Then again, who else could be the main party in Canada? Too many people still think hammer-and-sicle over anything as socialist as the NDP, and then there are those loons from out west, whose cloakroom must be filled with white hoods and gowns.
Good luck!
Then again, we have an election next week here in the UK. I really hope Blair gets run out of town this time. I'm voting for the Scottish Socialist Party, just because I can, and because they're the only not-business-orientated party running. (Well, the Greens, but I'm not a pot-smoker, so they're irrelevant to me.)
Someone waited HALF A YEAR to get a knee surgery done.
My dad had a heart disease, if he was in Canada, and if he waited half a year for that specific doctor he wanted (which he had back in Asia), he would have died.
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