The Dance Of The Film Crews

There was a bit of a flurry of comment over the weekend about how the Premier’s staff deleted some Facebook material posted by folks in the film and television industry about how other jurisdictions were offering tax breaks and subsidies better than what was available through the Province of BC, with the consequence, seemingly inevitable, that the work was moving to the lower tax jurisdictions. That the comments were removed is deplorable, and typical of how our current government handles anything that doesn’t present their case in a totally favourable light. There will be no real debate, and all dissenting opinion will the ruthlessly squelched.

However, the question should not be whether we should offer better hothouse conditions for the industry, but whether there should be anything like a tax break or a subsidy for any of this, ever. This is not a fledgling industry. If I understand correctly, much of the work undertaken in “remote” locations is Hollywood through and through, contracted out as it may be. This is an industry that has had decades of support, and yet seems not to be able to stand on its own in our “free market” economy.

Perhaps it’s a bit off the central theme here, but it’s worth considering the kind of content that our money spawns: reality shows, talk shows, fishing shows, cooking shows, in short, all manner of drivel of no intellectually enhancing value or lasting benefit to society, other than perhaps acting as a distraction from all the depressing actions of the governing bodies of society.

The last point brings back to the main theme: I don’t really care that much if people want to watch that kind of entertainment (as long as they are willing to counterbalance that aspect of their lives with more enlightening content), but I don’t want to pay for it, which is exactly what happens when production companies get lower taxes (meaning that I have to pay more) or are given funding (same beef). Everyone pays for this dreck and gets no say in what they fund, while they do get to see an inordinate amount of bandwidth sucked up by pap, soft-core porn, propaganda and humourless silliness.

I was a one-time fan of the Montreal Expos. They left town largely because the taxpayers of the city and province refused to pony up millions for a new stadium for them. Off they hied to DC, where the taxpayers coughed up $600 million so that the boys of summer could ply their trade in a more lucrative market. Good riddance. The same phenomenon is rearing its head in Edmonton right now, with Oilers’ owner Darryl Gates hinting that Seattle might like an NHL team if city council can’t see its way clear to parting with hundreds of millions of public dollars to support his glory habit. We are still subsidizing the fossil fuel industry, the arms industry and who knows what else while schools, libraries, roads, water systems and other public infrastructure languishes in various states of disrepair. The funding equation is upside down: the producers should be funding the public projects rather than the public funding private schemes to sequester wealth in the hands of the few, the greedy, the undeserving.

Simpson, Reality and Idle No More

Jeffrey Simpson seemed to be a reasonable guy at one time, but he seems to think that no one should have a dream, a set of goals not entirely rooted in the world of the way things are done these days. Perhaps Mr. Simpson has been cloistered too long in the comfortable confines of Toronto Journalism and has become an insider looking out on a reality too foreign for him to encompass.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/commentary/too-many-first-nations-people-live-in-a-dream-palace/article6929035/

 

Most of us try to run our affairs within the parameters laid out for us, but we also hold some vision of a reality that might be better, perhaps for us alone, perhaps for a broader swathe of humanity. This might be at the root of Idle No More, where a people beset with the worst woes of contemporary society says that they’ve had enough of being kept down and pushed around. It’s something akin to what the Trilateral Commission decided in the late ’60s when they perceived that there was too much democracy developing in the Western World and they were going to take a firm long-term stand to see that society went as far back to the Middle Ages as they could send it. First Nations have no monopoly on a sense that they’re not getting a fair shake, they just happen to be the latest group to make some noise. Should First nations be conforming to the economic models in vogue right now? A look at the specific piece of legislation in their sights shows that their fight is a fight for anyone who wants to see Canada do its part to protect what remains of our living environment and perhaps, why not?, improve it. The current government in Ottawa is serving the fossil fuel industry’s quest for profits at the expense of the rights and consultations that, by decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, rightly belong to Canada’s First Nations.

Is FN quarrel not the quarrel of all those disrespected, disaffected, disenfranchised and dispossessed by the rapacity of the global corporate dominance?

Hope Might Be Slim For Participation In The Processes of Society

Was having another of those discussions about the ills that confront us and about how we don’t seem to be capable of electing a government that will strive for the best long-term outcomes for the general citizenry and I was reminded of those on-line questionnaires in which you place yourself on a quadrant with one axis representing the progressive/conservative dichotomy, the other representing the continuum from authoritarian to libertarian. I’m proposing a version of that same quadrant-type visualization that would help to frame the problems that confront us in working within our current social parameters. Basically, where there is a system of governance based on the implementation of ethical principles, and where the people charged with the implementation of those principles are themselves imbued with a deep sense of ethical obligation, there is also likely to be a government that will represent an informed constituency and consider a large part of its mandate to be the informing and ongoing education of its electorate in all aspects of its mission. A huge problem arises when an ethical system gets compromised by people who do not possess the ethical foundation to fulfill the mission confided to them, where they stray into narrower self-interest and to supporting the accumulation of wealth and power for groups to whom they are sympathetic, either by emotional attachment or by dint of deriving a benefit from those groups. Conversely, a system that is built on a weak or ineffectual ethical foundation will tend to thwart even the most ethical of people who find themselves trying to right a skewed government. From my standpoint, the worst case is where unethical people are able, through an unethical system of governance, not only to enrich and empower themselves and their friends, but also to perpetuate that situation and to cloak their activities behind a smokescreen of omissions, half-truths, misdirections, propaganda and outright lies.

 

Quadrant of Govts

 

The exercise now is to think of the various régimes under which we have the privilege of living and to place them on this graphic.

A Few Guesses

A Few Guesses

It’s an interesting exercise to plot positions on the quadrant for leaders of all stripes, but there are a couple of ticklish questions that arise, not the least of which is any judgment of ethics and what is, or is not, for the greater good.

Over the last several decades, a host of people in positions of authority have subscribed to the notion of trickle-down economics as expounded by Hayek and Friedman. The hegemony of this doctrine is still largely in place along with the notion of the infallibility of markets, though there seems, thankfully, to be a counter current that seeks to recognize that, while the theory may have stemmed from the purest of motives, the practice has largely devolved into a greed fest. Where I would put, for instance Saint Ronald Reagan in the picture would differ considerably from where many others might put him.

Note also that I have put Nelson Mandela on the quadrant in a spot not overly populated, based on my knowledge of the man and his achievements, and I feel reasonably confident in doing so, particularly when he had the courage to lead from outside after one term in office when it was clear that he could have stayed on for longer. However, most public figures are a mash-up of motivations and actions and it often seems clear that we don’t have the necessary information to make an accurate assessment. Some figures, also, tend to be weighed on the basis of their pronouncements rather than on their actions. Public figures are often capable of grandiloquent pronouncements that bear little or no relation to the policies they implement. Thoughtful people often need to engage in internal debate (hopefully not in supermarket aisles) before engaging fellow citizens on matters of personalities and policies.

 

The second part of the discussion dealt with the indifference and frustration of a large part of the electorate, specifically here in Canada and B.C., an indifference built on lack of real choice. For most of recent history, there was a choice of Liberal or Conservative at the Federal level, with no other party having a realistic chance to form government. Even now with an Official Opposition of New Democrats, the choices have narrowed as the NDP has attempted to make itself more electable by moving to a “mer too” centre. In BC the same situation exists where a Socred/Liberal choice is arrayed against a New Democrat alternative that has failed to capitalize on a couple of stints in government to make a dent in the damage done by their opponents. There is also considerable frustration with legislators being unable to distinguish between governance and politics, between getting the work of government done and getting re-elected. Voters are throwing up their hands and throwing in the towel in increasing numbers as voting increasingly seems a mugs’ choice and the only option that citizens have to participate in running their own social business.

Often, a good part of the electorate has little or no notion of what is being done for them and to them, both because the entire succession of governments in recent history has done a great job of letting out as little information as possible about what they are doing, about how they are doing it and about the possible consequences of their actions. In addition, the press generally has tended to serve the interests of a certain set of groups, largely represented by the BC Liberals and the Federal Conservatives/Liberals, ensuring that the flow of information and analysis is restricted to as great an extent as possible. Further, there are many easier and more entertaining activities available to a large part of the electorate, creating a cocoon fantasy world of “reality” shows, “news”, films, concerts and parties that help us forget what our real obligations might be. Some citizens are so busy scrambling to feed, house and clothe themselves that they literally have no time to think about the ethical considerations relating to participation in the business of government: governing (and reflection) becomes an activity reserved for the leisured classes.