Kootenay Crust By Ian Cobb

(Op-Ed Commentary with some foul language)

We live in an age where idiots are celebrated and, in the case of the USA, in control.

Canada is trying to join the club of morons, with the federal Conservative Party and Performance Art Pete, a professional politician with no honour (he should have fallen on his sword after his atrocious defeat to Prime Minister Mark Carney, despite being a huge favourite) mimicking Donald J. Trump and his pack of sycophantic nitwit followers and vampiric handlers.

It’s all about aim low to snag the bottom feeders with fear and lies and keep it up as repetition works. Build the cult, sell the merch, create the brand – rinse and repeat. Politics has always been greasy but this new form of grease can only be cleansed by fire or logic.

We do not have leaders any longer who share visions for the future that does not include feathering their own nests and ensuring endless re-election. Speak to your base; repeat saws endlessly debunked. Attack the media and call it enemy. Dictator 101 horseshit.

Do the right thing and solve societal woes? Fuck that! Dig in your heels; call the opposition “enemy” and perform endlessly on once vaunted stages they sully with their deceitful presences. That is today’s basic ‘upper’ level politician.

The greasiest and most insincere and arrogant politicians in Canada are federal trough slurpers. Politics has gone from being an art to a game to a shit show. Gone are the days of greatness and here are the days of plastic incompetence. Such shallow waters.

Provincial politics are another sham turning off more and more voters, with the Lower Mainland imbalance an endless source of wonk in B.C. The current NDP government is the same as previous ones in that it could give a happy shit about rural B.C. Why? Because rural B.C. votes right, usually.

And just like Trump, they govern for theirs but not the rest. And yet Premier David Eby dares to act he is above the blitheringly dim Magats or similar IQ deficient egomaniacs trying to shove Canada backwards. You’re not sir.

Nor are any of you elected assholes out there. How quickly you lot forget who it was who placed you on the road to a fat, mostly unearned government pension. It is voters and constituents who elect politicians and all they do in return is poor performance art for the sake of their shitty parties, stuffed full of old boys’ clubs, backroom palm tickling and trough oinks.

I’ve been covering politics of all levels for about 35 years and I have never seen such a heavy concentration of useless pooch pookers as I see today.

You may notice I have not included ‘local’ politicians in my ‘critique.’ The reason why is most local politicians are earnest and work solely for their constituents, and to get re-elected, but it doesn’t consume their work weeks as it does for federal and provincial political party slaves.

That said, I have noticed a slide since the start of the pandemic from local government leadership in terms of communication to constituents. For example, how many columns from mayors do you read in your local newspapers? (Kudos to District of Sparwood Mayor David Wilks for his efforts to do that.)

I also seem to be hearing from more and more East Kootenay residents, from every corner, too, with complaints about not being heard or ignored by elected officials and bureaucrats. You are not exempt from this, dear bureaucrats – oh no you are not.

Much of that stems from less spear-tip accountability as once existed not so long ago (media coverage of town councils etc.).

Social media and mega tech corporations have blown traditional media business models to pieces and coverage is suffering in most journalistic sectors, except for entertainment and sports media. Why do you think that is? Bread and circuses.

Roman statesman, orator and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero nailed it more than 2,000 years ago when he wrote:  “The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.”

Along with the Internet and television, the circuses these days are Parliament, the Legislature and town halls, where performance art, some polished, some varnished, holds sway much of the time.

The easiest solution to this political problem is proportional representation.

Canada continues to divide, with Danielle (mini-Maga) Smith and Alberta whining about living in the most accomplished and privileged time in that province’s history and Quebec contemplating another referendum.  Isn’t it time to implement a voting system that provides the fairest and most balanced election results?

Down south, our American cousins are in deep divided trouble thanks to an outdated political system that does not reflect the urban and rural realities of that nation, much like British Columbia. But good luck with that lot adopting a different way of doing things, such as proportional representation.

But B.C. and Canada can and likely will get there some day. Sooner would be better.

Because it’s time for performance art politics to piss off. Wouldn’t it be nice to enter an age of united, wise and all-encompassing leadership with eyes on the future, instead of this transparent, insulting, lowest common denominator idiocy?

It’s a big ask, I know, but this descent to extremism is going to be the end of us – in the Age of Idiots.

– Ian Cobb is owner/editor of e-KNOW

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