Political spin makes me dizzy!

So, as much as I disagree with all that happens behind the scenes at the Olympics, I do support athletics and I do believe that our athletes are the best in the world. I don’t think it’s their fault that these games cost so much and that they do a lot of damage. Joannie Rochette, for example, blew me away. I love figure skating and her story was nothing short of miraculous. And being a huge hockey fan, I screamed louder than anyone when Sidney Crosby scored the gold-medal winning goal in overtime!

But last night I was watching CTV and I heard the anchor announce that the Prime Minister was coming from the men’s gold medal win in curling to the studio to chat. What struck me was that not only has he prorogued Parliament, he’s actually IN Vancouver watching the Olympics! (On a side note, I think it says a lot that our PM wagered beer on the outcome of the men’s gold medal hockey game)
I mean, it’s one thing if he had just stopped by to watch an event or two, but he’s been there for most of the games — doing NOTHING yet gaining public support for being there supporting our athletes. As I said, I support our athletes too, but I’ve been working every day too. He decided to take a couple of extra months off, paid, mind you, not only to hush up our current political strife to the world to make us look better, but also apparently to go pump up his name in the most artificial way possible. The anchor mentioned that “he knew Mr. Harper is a huge hockey fan and that he’ll be at the gold medal game tomorrow night.” Well, when they finally talked about hockey, he didn’t seem any more excited than when they were discussing the weather. He comes off as so damn fake to me, it’s a wonder that our amazingly intelligent, compassionate population doesn’t see right through his awful political spin. I mean, did it really escape everyone that the reason he was there in the first place was because he was ditching work? If I had ditched high school to go watch a hockey game I would be held entirely accountable for my actions.

This is the Conservative government which was elected mostly on a platform of ‘Accountability’, which was successful only because of the foul taste left in the mouths of Canadian voters from the previous scandal-ridden Liberal gov’t (again, mostly spin, because obviously it was the EXTREME minority of Liberal MPs that had any wrongdoing on their hands). Mr. Harper was so adamant that only he could rid the government of scandal and institute an era of ‘accountability’. I keep putting ‘accountability’ in quotes because I don’t think any of us really know what the word means. It’s one of these buzz words that has been popping up more and more in politics and also in the values of many of the organizations I work with. In the case of the groups I work with, they take this value to heart in a very profound way. When we make mistakes in my line of work the effect on the populations we work for can be extremely profound and in some cases could even cost lives, and we take this very seriously, obviously! When we make errors, we expect to be held accountable to our peers — meaning, in short, that our mistake will be shared with our colleagues, that it will be corrected as quickly as possible, and that we’re prepared to face the consequences in a mature, positive manner, so that we can learn something from the experience and bring it forward in our continuing work.

The Oxford Dictionary definition of ‘accountability’ is:

accountable
• adjective 1 required or expected to justify actions or decisions.

  • 2 understandable.
    — DERIVATIVES accountability noun accountably adverb.

and the dictionary.com version:

–noun
1. the state of being accountable, liable, or answerable.
2. Education. a policy of holding schools and teachers accountable for students’ academic progress by linking such progress with funding for salaries, maintenance, etc.

They also mention that liability is a synonym. I particularly like that they’ve drawn that parallel, because we all seem to be scared of liability in our society. It’s often used in insurance terminology to denote fault — if you hit someone with your car you’re liable for damages, and if a lawsuit is filed against you you’d better hope you have liability insurance of at least a million or two. It’s also the only type of insurance you MUST have to drive on Canadian roads. Interesting, that it’s the only thing you MUST have to put the lives of others in your own hands?

It seems to me that our government, being at one point in an almost religious fervour over accountability, and swearing to conduct a political witch hunt when it came to the wrongdoings of others, is so afraid now to have their problems leaked out to the world. Maybe now they’ll develop a little bit of empathy for their Liberal peers, or even better yet, a little bit of honesty and transparency. We can dream, right?

I’m still scared that even after all this, and even though their Spin Shield is starting to crack, the Canadian public will do as the Americans did in George Bush, Jr. re-election after four years — they were so scared of what could happen to them if what the government was telling them came true that they voted out of fear. The Politics of Fear have been exposed through documentaries and the media, yet it’s such an effective tactic that it’s still being widely used. And why not? When you scare the pants off of someone, they react with fight or flight — either way they’re going to support you because you’re offering to protect them. But I still have faith because I know how much more courageous, intelligent and loving Canadians are than our American counterparts… and I will never stop believing that eventually we’ll get it and start heading in the right direction.

How about you?

[note: the link on the Politics of Fear is a GREAT article, well worth the read]