"Canadians are withdrawing from the democratic system, because they see politics as irrelevant."

[ltmurnau]

I hate reading stuff like this.
It's so discouraging.

*****

CBC Asks: Many Canadians distrustful of federal politics, poll indicates

4 in 10 Canadians never talk politics, Samara Canada survey suggests

CBC News Posted: Mar 25, 2015 5:00 AM ET Last Updated: Mar 25, 2015 4:02 PM ET

A strong majority of Canadians don't take part in politics beyond voting and don't trust their federal parties or MPs, a new report suggests.

What's more, four in 10 Canadians said they hadn't had a single political conversation in the past 12 months, according to Samara Canada, a non-partisan charitable organization that works to improve Canadian democracy.

In Democracy 360, Samara's report card on the state of Canadian politics, a wide-ranging poll of Canadian residents shows strong levels of distrust and disengagement.

Among the highlights:

• Only 40 per cent of Canadians say they trust their MPs to do what is right, and only 42 per cent place some trust in political parties.


• Sixty-two per cent feel politicians only want their vote.


• When asked to rate MPs across six areas of responsibility, Canadians gave failing grades in five categories, including helping people in their riding and explaining decisions made in Parliament. The only passing grade was for "representing their parties' views."


• Thirty-one per cent of Canadians say they have contacted an elected official in the last year.


• Thirty-nine per cent of Canadians say they haven't had a single political conversation in a year, online or off.


• Many see politics as irrelevant

Samara says in its report that Canadians are withdrawing from the democratic system, because they see politics as irrelevant. Less than a third of Canadians (31 per cent) believe politics affects them daily, and slightly more than half (54 per cent) believe MPs can shape the direction of the country.

Despite the apparent negativity toward the country's democracy, 65 per cent of poll respondents said they are "very" or "fairly" satisfied with democracy.

Samara said in its report that there is some cause for hope: while only 37 per cent of Canadians give time or resources to political activities between elections, 83 per cent did participate in at least one civic engagement activity such as donating or volunteering.

"This is proof that many citizens do care about their communities and their country and are willing to give their time or resources accordingly. But this activity is often at a distance from politics." the report says.

Samara plans to use their report as a baseline and re-do the survey in 2017 in time for Canada's 150th birthday.

Samara Canada conducted its survey online, surveying what it called a nationally representative sample of 2,406 Canadians in English and French from Dec. 12 to Dec. 31.

*****

Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ, how can people see politics as irrelevant?
I guess they do, if they can't even see past the plate of nachos set in front of them.
Small-p or large-P, politics horns in on anything and everything in modern life.
You can try and live without, but it will come and get you, and bite you in the ass eventually.
But it will be too late by then.

I wouldn't be so upset by this if democracy would stay the same whether these butt-scratching schlubs were around in such numbers or not, but this is no longer the case - there's less and less of it to be had these days, and a certain fraction of people would seem to be just fine with that.
But the roof will fall in on all of us.

Comments

[sabotabby]

I almost cried when I listened to this on CBC this morning.

And like, I get it. I've never trusted politicians either, and the system is rotten to the core, but that's exactly why we should be involved in politics. It's partially apathy that let it get to this point.

Although I wonder how much is how they define politics; if people are disengaging from electoral politics to fuck shit up, that's okay. But I don't think they are; I think people are consciously adhering to a political position dubbed apolitical, and that's terrifying.

I was also going to ask you a question about that metal thing you do but that's not germane to this conversation. :)

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Precisely.
And like Mencken said, we are all going to get it good and hard.

Please ask me about that metal thing I do!

[sabotabby]

How do you do the metal thing that you do? If I wanted to make a similar metal thing, now that I have access to a tool library, how would I do that?

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

http://ltmurnau.livejournal.com/tag/metal for tales, advice and pictures

http://ltmurnau.livejournal.com/53460.html for the how-to, for a one-sided, open-face mold.

What I do now is make the mold out of RTV silicone as described, but with a "cone" coming out the top like a funnel to pour the metal into.
Then make a little "box" around it of cardboard, about 1/2" high, then fill that box in with 100% silicone caulking - it sticks to the RTV and gives it a solid backing.
Use one of those large joke erasers you get at the dollar store "FOR BIG MISTAKES" to form the flat wall of the casting (get a rubber one, not a vinyl one as most of them are now - vinyl will just melt and burn).
Get a piece of cardboard and fold it around the two halves of the mold, and clamp it shut with one or more of those ratcheted clamps putting pressure on it to hold the metal in (the cardboard is to spread the pressure).
Stand the assembly on end in a box of sand.
Melt the metal as described, then pour it in the top in one smooth motion until it is level with the top of the "funnel" in the mold.
Wait a few minutes for it to set and cool.
Unclamp, unwrap and take the mold apart, dig out the casting.
You will have to clean it up with files, a Dremel tool, and/or steel wool.

This probably made no sense without pictures...

[sabotabby]

This is probably too complicated for me to do but I really want to try it.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

No, it's not complicated at all; I just explained it in a stupid way. A couple of pictures would help and I will try to find some that are already out there, as no one has ever recorded me doing this deed.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Okay, look here

http://www.ehow.com/how_7922384_make-mold-smelting-lead.html

and this will give you some illustrations about how it's done. What they show here is rather complex, more complicated than what I do as I generally cast flat-sided badge and button-like things. Looked like there were some useful links away from the page too.

For mold material I use tubes of gasket material from the automotive aisle at Canadian Tire, fairly cheap, the red stuff takes a high enough temperature, and thinned down with paint thinner so it takes detail from the master.

[sabotabby]

That looks a bit easier to follow. So, make the thing out of plasticine and then pour the silicone over it to reverse the mould?

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Yeah, exactly! Except you have to kind of work the silicone into the corners if it a complex positive, to make sure there are no air bubbles and things. And give it enough time to cure properly. I do this on top of a sheet of wax paper as the silicone doesn't stick to it so much. You will need to cut away the paper and pick the bits off with tweezers or soak them off with water.

Next time you go to the dentist, ask to look through their box of dull and broken tools. They keep them for people who ask, hobbyists and the like (at least my dentist does). Lots of uses for this sort of thing, good for modelling the positives and for carving soapstone if you want to try that later (different kind of casting entirely) and you can leave the tools around for people to eyeball wonderingly later.

You don't need to use much of the red stuff, but you do need to back it up so it doesn't flex when you are clamping the mold halves together, so that's why you use the cheap silicone caulk (use 100% silicone, the really cheap stuff doesn't stick) to make the backing. You could use plaster too but it doesn't stick.

[sabotabby]

Wow, thanks. I'm maybe going to try this in the summer.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

OK, well if you have any questions I am full of disjointed bits of advice!
This old-timer do ramble on...

[dyvan.livejournal.com]

I suspect the rights are not being fought for, we are not being lead, and the bad leadership results in a disconnect between results and the actions taken.

We need passion in politics, but the craven manner in which political parties, and political leaders, rule by public polls or general opinion, too afraid to do what is right, rather than what is popular, and couching their speeches in misleading sound grabs, mean the electorate has become steadily more dis-illusioned.

To get the right leaders, the right politicians, we must invest the time to choose, to consider, beyond our own narrow needs, to a wider societal need. If apathy rules, we get what we deserve, and the cycle of apathy continues to circle inward, and downward, towards total negation of any action to reverse the cycle.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

It's kind of funny, you have mandatory voting in your country, yet your politics aren't much better.
A lot of people suggest a mandatory vote here in Canada would change things: I don't think so, any more than a military draft instils civic responsibility or citizenship desires in anyone.

We ask for so little, and boy do we get it....

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

A lot of people suggest a mandatory vote here in Canada would change things:

It changes nothing.

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

I imagine the situation in Canada is pretty much the same as the situation in Australia. It's not that people don't care about politics. They have very strong views on a variety of political issues. But they don't believe in parliamentary democracy because they know it's a sham. They know that when it comes to an election they have no genuine choice. They can choose between two parties, neither of which has the slightest intention of ever doing what the people want.

We're having a state election in NSW this week. When you listen to the two party leaders it's impossible to tell which one represents one party and which represents the other. They both say exactly the same things. We had a change of government in 2011. Nobody noticed. If we have another change of government on Saturday no-one will notice.

When people are asked if they believe in democracy they say yes, for the very simple reason that they can't think of an alternative. If you asked them whether they thought the present system was truly democratic they'd laugh at you.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

So why can't they think of an alternative?
One of the simpler changes we could make here is to go from the first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system we have here now (guess you have the same in Australia) and go to some form of proportional representation, which most developed parliamentary democracies have.
This would drastically alter the party balances and how our governments are formed and operate, but it seems to frighten the horses rather.
And of course to adopt it, would require the complicity of a government that got into and stayed in power under the present system... it would probably happen if our Prime Minister's Office, which effectively IS the government now, made it so but they depend on the present system as much as anyone.

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

One of the simpler changes we could make here is to go from the first-past-the-post, winner-take-all system we have here now

We have a preferential voting system. That does give minor parties more influence but unfortunately they have proven to be just as corrupt and as remote from ordinary people as the major parties. They advance their own narrow sectarian interests. And they paralyse government almost completely. The minor parties have turned out to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

The problem is democracy itself. The paradox of democracy is that "democratic" governments are hyper-sensitive to opinion polls but they still don't listen. They interpret a poor polling result as an indication that people don't understand their policies. So they double down on the PR and the propaganda because they refuse to accept that the people actually understand their policies all too well - they just don't like them. But rather than changing their policy they just try harder to sell it.

Our previous Labor-Green government was a classic example. As their opinion polling got worse and worse they kept intensifying their efforts to sell people on policies that people did not want at any price. Inevitably when the election was finally held they got annihilated.

What we're seeing in Australia is an electorate that is so disillusioned they will vote against whichever party is in power simply because it's the party in power. We've seen governments win landslide victories only to suffer landslide defeats three years later. The message people are trying to get across is that they hate both sides equally.

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

One of the things that disillusions me is bipartisanship. It's inherently anti-democratic. The Australian foreign policy. The foreign policy of the current Liberal-National Party Government is that we do whatever Washington tells us to do. On the other hand the foreign policy of the Opposition Labor Party is that we do whatever Washington tells us to do. There is zero difference between the parties. On-one cares whether the Australian people agree with this policy or not. That's the foreign policy we're going to get either way.

It's the same on most important issues. Both sides are committed to free trade and globalisation. The people were never asked if they wanted it but that's what they get.

[ltmurnau.livejournal.com]

Yes, there's little to tell our three main parties apart as well.
They used to be very similar but there has been a bit of polarization: the right-wing party has been taken over by hard-liners, with essentially a personality cult at the top - we are going through our W-Bush years but there are no term limits in Canada, so Dear Leader could be there forever (currently they have 100% of the power, through controlling 53% of the seats, which they got through 40% of the popular vote, but as you read above we had only a 60% turnout, so in the end only 1 in 4 eligible voters got what they wanted).
The centrist and left-wing parties are a bit different rhetorically but they are too busy playing power games within and against each other, so it's quite possible that the election this fall will see the progressive vote fatally split, again, so we will have another 4 years of what the last 9 have been like, only harder and faster because civil liberties and the social safety net are being ripped to shreds faster and faster....
I suppose 35 years of telling people of all ages that "there is no such thing as society, there are only individuals", being prompted to see everything in terms of individual investment/rate of return, and Fear Thy Neighbour does work, in a twisted way, to get an even more twisted result.

[dfordoom.livejournal.com]

The odd thing is that people on the Left and people on the Right are equally disillusioned. The vaguely leftist parties give us all the worst features of leftist ideology while the the vaguely rightist parties give us all the worst features of rightist ideology.

I'd like to see more direct democracy. Major legislative changes should be decided by referendum. The voters should get a direct say on policy, rather than merely getting the choice between having the exact same policies implemented by either Tweedledum or Tweedledee.

In Australia none of the issues that really matter ever get debated at all. Those issues are now entirely off limits. The political elites decide those things for us because they know what's good for us. Try opening up a debate on free trade - to even raise the question is forbidden.

Part of the problem is that people still see politics in terms of Left vs Right. But Left vs Right is now largely irrelevant. It amuses me that my own views on some issues that would once have put me solidly on the mainstream Left now make me right-wing while my views on other issues that would once have made me right-wing now put me on the Far Left.