2/12/08

Political Statement, Independent Candidacy, Central Nova

Global warming is a given. In spite of what is claimed by befuddled flat-earthers, the Canadian public is of one opinion that the environment is its number one concern. In short time, the public will also come to the realization that concern over the economy is not secondary to concern over the environment, but primary. The pending political slogan, “It’s the environment, stupid,” is tantamount.

The nation’s mainstream political parties have followed suit to the public’s concerns. Over the last several years, these parties have fallen over themselves to develop Green policies, ranging from the banal to the ludicrous. Wisdom, courage and leadership have been betrayed by electoral spin for political favour. The Kyoto Protocol was too late by at least 25 years.

What all parties, the Green Party of Canada inclusive, hold in common re their differing environmental policies is a common premise. It is the premise that an ecological catastrophe and related social hardships can be averted by endorsing their particular environmental platform. This is a blatant misperception and falsehood.

All political parties, except one, can be relatively forgiven for not being more forthright with the Canadian public and charting a courageous and realistic course to tackle the challenges and dimensions of true eco-politics for the coming century. The governing Conservatives can be forgiven for a philosophical and moral blindness bordering on the insane. The Liberals can be forgiven for attaching themselves onto anything that might possibly translate into power and privilege. The NDP can be forgiven for being historically irrelevant. The party that cannot be forgiven for its timid and narrow political stance is the Green Party.

Global warming is but one of three factors constituting the socio-political triad of industrial civilization’s collapse. The other two points of this triad are global overpopulation and peak oil. To deny this interrelated triad of global transition relegates mainstream politicians as pre-Copernican monks mumbling into their beards the empty platitudes of an earth-centered and false heliocentricity. It is a simple fact that global overpopulation and peak oil have never been brought into public discourse by our political parties. The one party that may have been in a position to do so, the Green Party, has betrayed and abandoned its historical principles and responsibility by pandering to short-sighted and opportunistic drool. In a severe and paradoxical twist, this leaves the nanny Green Party as the most irresponsible, least trustworthy and most deceptive of all for addressing the political challenges at hand.

Industrial civilization is not merely in decline, it has entered the end-game, with all the squalid and amoral machinations of a decayed empire that accompany such historical epochs. The social, economic and political consequences of this historic transition constitute a bullet that cannot be dodged. It is that simple. The end of industrial civilization is neither good nor bad; it merely is. It is not the first time, nor will it be the last (assuming the human race survives), that a civilization has outlived and outstripped its institutional purposes, and collapsed.

As such, and as an independent candidate acknowledging that bioregional survival trumps vacant political posturing and, seeking the endorsement of the Central Nova electorate, I put forth the following for the electorate’s consideration.

Ø Recognizing the eco-political primacy and necessity of decentralization and jurisdictional bioregions, I propose the creation of a new federal political party, tentatively called The Atlantica Alliance Party. Such a regional political entity would accomplish the following for Maritimers:


1. Transfer the recognition of a legitimate commercial and cultural designation to a historically necessary political designation.


2. Empower the Atlantica negotiating position at the federal table with a unified block of 34 ridings (all Maritime ridings plus two from The Gaspé). Atlantica would thus possess an equal electoral leverage as currently held by British Columbia (at 36) and Alberta (at 28). This is essential in order to: a./ secure necessary leverage and funding for ecological crises of a particular bioregional nature, and; b./ establish alliances with other non-central Canadian jurisdictions to prevent a fiscal run on the nation’s treasury to unduly bail out the industrial infrastructure of Ontario and Quebec.


3. Return integrity and a necessary pre-Confederation commonality-of-vision to The Maritimes. As long as Maritimers allow themselves to remain divided along Liberal/Conservative lines, they remain conquered.


Ø Via a Private Member’s Bill, introduce to the House of Commons a motion to conduct a feasibility study of the Confederation Bridge (which returns to Federal management in 2032) to determine if a tidal turbine fence can be incorporated into the structure. If not too late, such measure could salvage the TrentonWorks plant. Should such a tidal turbine project be feasible it would deliver hydro self-sufficiency for Atlantica and negate the senseless building of a proposed second nuclear reactor in New Brunswick.


Ø Via a Private Member’s Bill, introduce to the House of Commons a motion to call for a review of the Constitution Act with the aim of reflecting a post-industrial institutional mosaic and template for the nation as opposed to a dated industrial one.


Ø Via a Private Member’s Bill, introduce to the House of Commons a motion to introduce legislation for the creation of an Environmental Emergency Act so that at times of pending ecological and social crises the Government of the day is not called upon to introduce the draconian War Measure’s Act.


Ø Via a Private Member’s Bill, introduce to the House of Commons a motion, as a gesture of hope to all peoples during this critical century of transition and to truly establish Canada as a proactive peace keeper, to instruct our Ambassador to the United Nations to introduce a motion at that body to change the name of our planetary home to Gaia (pronounced guy-ah).


Ø Lastly, to send a concrete gesture to the citizens of Central Nova that, because in short time we will all have to learn to do with less, I will donate from the obscene MP’s base salary of $150,800, twenty-five percent of the net, i.e. approximately $22,000, to three Central Nova charities of my choosing.

All Central Nova electors are invited to attend an open nomination meeting for Mr. Ronin’s independent candidacy to be held at Summer Street Industries, March 10, 2008, 7:00 P.M. Further nomination meetings are slated for Antigonish, Guysborough and Sheet Harbour.

2 comments:

  1. Anonymous15/2/08 22:42

    "1. Transfer the recognition of a legitimate commercial and cultural designation to a historically necessary political designation."
    Um...kinda stuck on this number 1 plank Mr. Ronin...Could you translate it into Gaianese so that me and my fellow "Guy-ah" could understand? We're kinda simple.

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  2. Anonymous16/2/08 06:01

    Lex, pre-Confederation Maritime trade flowed north-south, to the West Indies and to Great Britain. The economy was sound, if not necessarily robust. Of course, Confederation with the National Policy's high tariffs whacked that. Culturally, Maritimers and New Englanders share a common sense of place, identity with the sea, etc. There are many Google and Wikipedia dimensions for you to search, should you wish to do so. The Atlantic Institute of Market Studies web site has some good backgrounders. You need not agree with their policies to take advantage of these.

    Same with the notion of Gaia, i.e. Google or Wikipedia and you can make up your own mind. Al Gore hints at the planet "breathing" on a seasonal cycle in An Inconveient Truth.

    The label of Earth is a pre-Copernican holdover, ergo contains religious notions of terra nova. As we discovered and named our planetary neighbours, the identities given them far outmatch our own, IMO. All around us swirl Venus, Mars, Neptune, etc. and we sit on the planet "Dirt." Think about it.

    I grant you that this is the "flake" of the platform, but I hold that a legitimate argument of hope can be attached to it.

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