We’ve all heard a lot about it these days. It really is doom and gloom as critics point out that the cuts just won’t go deep enough to avert an economic Apocalypse. Raise taxes some say. Cut spending others say. Don’t raise the debt ceiling, said a few angry and hardcore Tea Partiers.
Below I’ve clipped an image. Click on it and go to the Time’s site. There you’ll be able to interact with Obama’s 2011 budget. It’s pretty damn nifty. Couple initial observations:
1) They’re spending as much on National Defense ($738 billion) as they are on Social Security
2) Education (ie preparing the young for their bright futures – where they’ll continue to pay the elderly’s medicare, medicaid and social insurance bills) gets $122 billion – that’s like 16% of defense funding and that’s with a Democratic president.
Not only did you soundly lose the last presidential election, but you control neither the house nor the senate. Odd feeling for a party that’s previously controlled the legislature for nearly 12 years.
Now, with the recent passing of health care reform, many of the pillars of the right (like low taxes and many of the ubiquitous “family” oriented values) are increasingly coming under siege.
Often the feeling that your values and core principles are under attack can energize people. That’s where campaigns are born and what nurtures them into movements. And no movement is totally complete without a leader.
These days, American politics increasingly seem like a pitched battle between partisans of both sides. The Democrats have Obama at their helm.
But for Republicans, there is no such icon to rally around. One of the biggest problems is the difficulty of shoring up the party’s support on the one hand, and the general electorate’s support on the other. When the base of the party is composed of voters who hold similar values, that’s not a problem. But when your base is unaligned with the general sentiment of the times, you end up with someone like Sarah Palin.
Not so big an elephant anymore.
Palin doesn’t strike most observers as presidential smart (certainly not in the league of people like Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton, or even George Bush Sr). She isn’t particularly charming either. But she does possess something many other more qualified candidates do not: name recognition and strong conservative values, which have both given her a growing power within the party’s grassroots.
Is she electable in a battle against the bright and shining hope? Not likely.
So who is? Let’s be honest – plenty of people. The problem is, many of the best candidates are continually being dragged to the right, forced to say radically conservative things and kowtow to the religious power-brokers of the party. This in spite of the fact that most Americans want more help from the government, not less, particularly in tough economic times like these. Afterall, when you lose your job (or are worried about losing your job) do you really want a government that says, “you’re on your own”?
And yet, many hardcore Republican activists refuse to recognize this vulnerability and ignore the fact that the farther right they drift, the farther they move from the average voters’ sentiment. As Globe and Mail writer Konrad Yakabuski writes:
No record of accomplishment is enough to compensate for a perceived failure to adhere to the most rigid conservative values. Carly Fiorina, the former chief executive of Hewlett-Packard, might be considered a catch for any party. But Republican stalwarts have organized a campaign to thwart her bid to become the party’s Senate candidate in California in 2010.
Popular Florida Governor Charlie Crist has similarly become suspect in the eyes of the Republican base. It was bad enough that he initially supported Mr. Obama’s $787-billion (U.S.) stimulus package and has backed legislation to cap greenhouse-gas emissions. His worst faux pas, however, was hugging the Democratic President.
The photo of that embrace has become Exhibit A in the campaign to paint Mr. Crist as an ideological heretic and prevent him from winning the primary to become the Republican candidate for a Senate seat in next year’s midterm vote.
In the end, the inevitable forces of party politics are doing the Republicans a disservice. Disqualifying some of the best candidates before they even have a chance to run. Unless this is fixed soon, they’ll end up with Sarah Palin (or some right wing carbon copy come 2012. That’s not a winning proposition.
[Editor's note: Aboard the Editor's Pirate Ship is pretty similar to "from the Editor's desk" or "The Editorial Section" of a "newspaper" (remember those, kids?) - thing is, I spend a lot of my day at a desk, so, when I get to twitblogging, it takes place on a creativity-inducing pirate ship where I can stretch my legs as I expand my mind. To you, dear readers, I say "Welcome Aboard!"]
Ideology just got exclusive, ridiculous and so much cooler!
Militarism. Communism. Conservatism. Fascism. Socialism. Liberalism. Pansexualism. Capitalism. Bullionism. Humanitarianism. Modernism. Post-Modernism. Cannibalism. Existentialism. Hylomorphism. Environmentalism. Idealism. Primitivism. Realism. Terrorism. Zoomorphism. Relativism. There is a long list of ideological isms out there. They all have their strengths and weaknesses. For example, people are very, very delicious. They also control the universe through their sexual energy, but need to be cared for by the State lest their hedonistic ways destroy the environment to the detriment of exponential, free market growth! Or take democracy – democratism – as a great example of a fantastic, but horribly flawed, ideological system. As up-and-coming historical figure Winston Churchill, and his glass of whiskey, pointed out: “It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government, except all the others that have been tried.” Zing, Winnie! In 1835, Alexis de Tocqueville even warned America about “the tyranny of the majority” as a veritable Achilles-heal of our favourite social system. Democracy, claimed de Tocqueville, had the potential to marginalize minorities, fix peoples’ pursuits on material pleasures and/or relax people into seeking “to use government to protect them in their mediocrity by restricting the freedom of any who might challenge or endanger them” (evidently, Iraq didn’t get de Tocqueville’s memo).
Needless to say, whether it’s Vancouver Parks Board Commissioners using taxpayer dollars to pay for rehab or 3 New Jersey mayors (and 5 Rabbis) being arrested on international money-laundering charges or HST and BC Rail – ahem - irregularities or the Shenzhen Construction Bureau spending much of their coffers on massages, foot rubs and other spa treatments or Obama being the re-incarnation of Hitler, well, democracy just doesn’t seem to be working too well these days. Voter turnout around the world is a shadow of its former self. People are cynical and uninspired. But with all the other ideologies being even more terrible than democracy we’re pretty much stuck with what we have, right?
Wrong.
There is an answer. There is a solution. It couldn’t be simpler. And it’s called Johnism.
John in Chinese
Like I said, it’s simple. See, fueled by democracy, the global political system is still built in a way that attracts and enables people who want to be the world’s powerbrokers and reap all the delicious, material, ill-gotten/gettin’ goodies that such power allows. So, we need leaders for our communities – from local to global – but we need a new selection process. Enter Johnism. Recent findings show that there are approximately 942,564,723 people on the planet named “John” (translation and regional dialects were taken into account during this study). So, this up-and-coming ideology isn’t based on status or age or experience or ability or education or qualification or being good at anything. It’s based on having a really common name. A name so common that, when the random, name-based selection of global leadership takes place, we can be sure that the new team in charge are truly drawn from all parts and places of society. Wow – think of how much extra cash we can spread around when credentials do not include the ability to raise $1 billion in campaign funds! People not last-named “Bush” or “Clinton” might be in the running.
The name “John” – after all – transcends all social classes, ethnicity and lines on a map. People named John are everywhere. Check this out:
Terrorism or Johnism? We know where John McClane stands.
…in Germany – Johann or Johannes
…in France – Jean
…in Denmark – Jens
…in Holland – Jan
…in Spain and Latin America – Juan
…in Italy – Giovanni
…in Russia, the Ukraine, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Serbia, and Croatia – Ivan
…in Estonia – Jaan
…in Israel – Yochanan
…in China (see named image)
…in the Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Sudan, Libya, Syria, Morocco, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates – Yahya
…and, finally, in Armenia – Hovhannes
Clearly, when it comes to ideas from, literally, everywhere, Johnism has Planet Earth covered (I could’ve listed more countries, but my market research has determined that Scandinavia and most of Africa is a veritable lock for this idea). And that’s just the name John today. In the present. Let’s look to the past to get a bit of a sense of some of the more famous and “leadership-capable” Johns throughout history. This cross-section, when taken in an active historicalmanner, allows us to learn from the past as we plan for the future. The historical success of the name “John” logically determines that such success will continue into the future.
In no particular order, here are some Johns (multiple cultures acknowledged) of note:
Political figures, writers, kingmakers, pirates, popes, entertainers, cowboys, revolutionaries, scientists, religious leaders, sex symbols. The name John/Johnny/Jonathan covers ‘em all and then some! Keep in mind this list doesn’t do justice to all the teachers, plumbers, architects, ninjas, fishers, businesspeople, doctors, lawyers, athletes, engineers, and community organizers who have made an impact on humanity but don’t appear on the list. Needless to say, if the past is any indication of the future (and it totally is) I think the world will be in good hands.
Does Kurt Heinrich support Johnism? Probably not, but he's giving a big "thumbs up" here!
So, what are the tenets of Johnism? Well, they’re pretty similar to those of The Daily Gumboot. The ideology’s mandate is to “collect ideas from everywhere and use them to build community.” Other than that, no structure has been hammered out; however, should Johnism get picked up by the people of the planet, the upcoming Summit of John will see the collaborative development of a vision for the future and a strategic plan to carry it out. When it all comes together, I’m confident that you will be impressed. And, hey, people who aren’t Prime Ministers or Mayors or Aldermen or Premiers or Governors or Presidents or Ayatollahs or Dictators for Life or Directors get involved in their communities all the time in organic, contagious and meaningful ways. Just ask Paul Hawken. Like Paul, you folks not named John will totally have a role in the new way of doing things. We’re all part of the same team, after all.
Oh, one other thing. At this point the female readers are probably losing their minds (sorry, mom). Relax, ladies. Johnism is merely a well-thought-out selection process. As part of my very strong belief that women are smarter than men it should also be noted that each John will bring two women to the collaborative, visionary and strategic Summit of John [insert lewd comment here if you so choose]. For example, I will bring Michelle Burtnyk and Naomi Klein [again, insert lewd comment here if you so choose]. Savvy?
I don’t know about you, readers, but I find this all pretty exciting. And, really, what’s the alternative? Should we just exercise our collective voice in demonstrations of mass democracy in an effort to clean up our current social and political systems so they evoke an efficient, egalitarian and productive triple-bottom-line mandate that defines the true ideal of liberated human progress in a way that creates a healthy and happy global community in which we can all thrive? Man, that’s ridiculous!
Billy Shakes once asked, “what’s in a name?” As it turns out, a lot’s in a name. And the name is John. So, Johns, Ivans, Juans, Jeans, and Yahyas of the world: I look forward to working with you soon.
This has been from Aboard the Editor’s Pirate Ship. Thanks for your time.
