Thursday, July 25, 2013

Adam Giambrone & Justin Trudeau & The Mound of Sound

What benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your only soul? A bit melodramatic perhaps but What The Fuck. I mean, supposedly Adam Giambrone was an up and coming Toronto City Councilor of the progressive stripe. He ran for mayor and had to resign because he was exposed as having an affair.

Personally, i don't care if politicians have sex in their offices. As long as they get the work they're paid to do done. I'm easy that way. I also don't have too much of a problem with people having "affairs." Sometimes shit happens. People get attracted to other people.

But the way Giambrone handled it just struck me as more sleazy than required.

This was all before my time as a Torontonian anyway. Then the golden-boy of the left bounced-back, sort of. He scored some regular writing gig for the NOW weekly that I've never been too interested in.

Then I heard that he wrote to the CRTC to say that the disgraceful SUN TV should get whatever public subsidy it's asking for because they provide a unique perspective or some such shit. (Turns out Giambrone occasionally gets some money from SUN to disgrace himself by appearing as a panelist and commentator.) That's when I got totally uninterested in him.

He was president of the federal NDP at one point.

So, he got himself on the selection committee for a candidate for some provincial by-election in Scarborough and he selected a great candidate. A young woman of South Asian descent and a trade union activist. Then he got the bug himself and the last day it was possible he told her he was going to run against her. The vote that selected him was dodgy (to say the least).

So, the ONDP has shown itself willing to debase itself and its own constitution and democracy within the party for this useless piece-of-shit?

That brings me to Justin Trudeau. If anything speaks to emptiness of Canadian politics, it's the "buzz" around him. Political dynasties can happen. But what are we talking about here? What's Trudeau done or said that makes him more remarkable than any other politician? Nothing. Liberals (and lots of other people) are getting excited because he shares the same last name as his father (imagine that!) and because he's young and good-looking. The same thing happened with Belinda Stronach.

I'd like it for Canada to be a more boring, sober place, where politics is decided by ideas. Not through fraud and beauty contests!

Finally, Mound of Sound; you write so many important posts about the need to deal with global warming. Points taken. I don't write so much about this civilization-threatening crisis because I think it's futile if we can't even rouse ourselves to force politicians to respect the basis of their own supposed authority over us.

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