Not everyone will take elections seriously.  They might even vote, but likely won’t think too much about it before they arrive at the polling station.  In the midst of these thoughts the melody and lyrics from Simon and Garfunkel’s Mrs. Robinson filled the space between my ears and lit up behind my eyes.  

“Sitting on a sofa late on Tuesday night

Listening to the candidates’ debate

Laugh about it, shout about it

When you’ve got to choose

Every way you look at it, you lose”

In my minds eye the images of a few hosers flipping between the game of the day and then laughing and joking as they hear the candidates debate.  Before I can jot down the quips and insights they share the voice of the lyrics change to a much older group of voters rueing the changes and getting caught up in losses and wondering what will replace the loss of the familiar structure of society. 

Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?

A nation turns its lonely eyes to you

Wooh, wooh, wooh

What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson?

Jolting Joe has left and gone away

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey”

Then, while the ear worm continues the voices change to the knocks on the door, the pamphleteers at the mall, the talking heads in the press. 

We’d like to know a little bit about you for our files

We’d like to help you learn to help yourself

Look around you, all you see are sympathetic eyes

Stroll around the grounds until you feel at home

They may say all the right things, but seem tone deaf when you talk, if they give you the opportunity.  So the chorus comes around again:

And here’s to you, Mrs. Robinson

Jesus loves you more than you will know

Woah, woah, woah

God bless you, please, Mrs. Robinson

Heaven holds a place for those who pray

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey

Thank you for joining us in prayer.  Think about it – and remember no matter the result – there is life after elections.  A life that will thrive on your smile, your hope, your persistence is doing what is best for all.

The post Late Tuesday Night first appeared on Thinking About Thinking .

Because of our antiquated party system some will see themselves as being government, they are not.  And some will see themselves as being opposition, and they are not.  They have all be hired to work to create a better BC for everyone, with a special focus on those living in their riding. 

I ask my MLA (I did not vote for the winner in my riding) to remember who is paying the  salary and to whom primary loyalty is owed – the people of the riding.  While loyalty to party and leader are a small part of the equation the task at hand is to work with the other 92 to make things better for all.  I know each MLA has one or more good ideas to improve things – they need to find others of like mind, no matter party affiliation or leadership pressure, to work cooperatively and civilly to take these good ideas and give them life through positive change. 

I would ask each representative to be aware we are watching.  And although you parties and leaders do not believe this – voters have memories.  This was proven wrong again by the 2024 election results. 

To all 93, thank you for stepping up.  May your next four years  be a blessing to you and those you serve.  Remember if you cause us to waste our hard earned tax dollars before 2028 you will not have our votes at the next election.  May you prove worthy of the position you are serving. 

The post Off We Go first appeared on Thinking About Thinking .

A few years back I decided on a new way to engage in the electoral process.  I would write to each of the candidates with three questions.  Two would be the same for all candidates and one would be unique for each candidate.  In the letter I told them that I would base my voting choice on their responses. 

I continue to do this each election – although now I e-mail each candidate.  In all the years I have done this I have never gotten more than one response per election. 

This leaves me with a challenging decision; do I intentionally spoil my ballot?  This is often my option, however, it does not help the candidates understand why that ballot is spoiled.  So often I will write on the ballot ‘none answered my questions, therefore they are all unqualified to receive my vote’ – this is illegal but it does communicate to the party scrutineers my displeasure.  And sometimes I hold my nose and vote for a candidate even though they have not responded to my questions.  This is usually actually a vote against another candidate as much as it is a vote for the one selected. 

In each election going forward I will do everything in my power to assure we have a minority government, as this result is the only event that makes parties take the time to think and maybe even begin to listen.  They are not elected to serve their party leader, nor are they elected to serve the party they are a member of.  They are  elected to serve the people, all the people in their riding. 

Remember we do not elect governments or cabinet ministers, opposition critics.  We elect representatives who have the honour of serving us for their term.  Their job is to work together to make our province and country a better place for all.  No matter what they may want, they work for us and should be representing everyone, even those who didn’t vote for them or didn’t vote at all. 

They need to remember they are civil servants.  Civility needs to be seen and heard in all they do, especially in the halls of power.  I hope the remember an election is a drawn out job interview and when they are elected they are on probation until the next vote. 

The post Is Voting an Exercise in Power first appeared on Thinking About Thinking .

This insight is that life goes forward not backwards!  Those seeking leadership positions that are looking back and saying they want to reclaim the greatness of the past may, unfortunately, for a time succeed.  History tells us that if they succeed all of humanity – including you and me – will pay the price and have to dig ourselves out of the mire they will create.  We’ve done it before and we can do it again – but maybe this time we’ll succeed in moving life forward against the regressive tide of anger and self centeredness that some are saying is the option. 

Matthew Fox in his morning meditation today gives us these ideas: 

Teilhard de Chardin’s observation on the death knell of religion in the West:

Because it is not sufficiently moved by a truly human compassion, because it is not exalted by a sufficiently passionate admiration of the universe, our religion (our principles and values) is becoming enfeebled.

Teilhard elaborates in another place. 

I give the name of cosmic sense to the more or less confused affinity that binds us psychologically to the All which envelops us. In order that the sense of humanity might emerge, it was necessary for civilization to begin to encircle the Earth. 

Teilhard again: 

The cosmic sense must have been born as soon as humanity found itself facing the frost, the sea and the stars. And since then we find evidence of it in all our experience of the great and unbounded: in art, in poetry, and in religion.

Fox reminds us we find this awareness of the sacred well named by Celtic scholar Philip Newell in our time. 

“The Celtic tradition has been saying all along, that we cannot contain the sacred. Rather, we are to look for it everywhere, and we are to observe it and be liberators of it in one another and in the earth.”

And that there is work ahead. 

“The labor pains of a new birthing will be mighty. There is no going back to the small God.”  Anthropocentrism and human narcissism is in no way the future—of religion or politics or a viable path for humanity.

He continues, what I call “deep ecumenism” in my book on the Cosmic Christ is born of this renewed sense of the whole. As Newell puts it: 

“We now know too much about the interrelatedness of all life to pretend that well-being can be sought for one part alone and not for the whole, for only one religion, one nation, one species.  There is no returning to the limited notion of sacredness as if it were somehow the preserver of one particular people over another, of one race, gender, or sexual orientation. Sacredness is the birthright of all that is. It is the grace that comes with existence.” *

*John Philip Newell, Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul: Celtic Wisdom For Reawakening to What Our Souls Know and Healing the World, pp.  20-22.

So today I will climb out of my worry, fretting and concern to once again embrace the potential of inclusivity, compassion, equity, creation and hope that brought my grandparents to live in a new world that they would help to create, not only for themselves but for all around them.  They knew life goes forward, so I will continue moving forward rather then giving power to those who would pull us back. 

The post Life Goes Forward not Backwards first appeared on Thinking About Thinking .

In the United State assimilation is often viewed as a melting pot.  You lose your past and become something new.  However, not all of the old melts away, and others notice the differences.  If you are of a different skin tone, the melting always leaves a tint of difference that can not be overcome.  If your origins worry you, the tint of difference carries forward forever. No matter how well you learn to lose your accent, learn a new posture, push to succeed, you know you never really fit in, you are not “one of them” even when you tell the world you are. 

I think of the little orange haired boy who has denied is his past, rose to high office only to fall into the legal system he had disabused for years.  Suddenly, it was as if the finger was pulled from the dyke on the Rhine river in Germany and the fertile plains were flooded and everyone was up to their knees in mud and slime.  His friends and associates have blazed a path to prison and convictions.  It is now spreading across the political spectrum.  Suddenly everyone was demanding ethics and accountability.  Why? 

We are looking for leaders who understand “power with” rather than simply acting from “power over.”  So there is no longer a safe place – past indiscretions are now being placed on people and accountability is being demanded.  The  system that kept these accusations at bay has been washed away when the little orange haired boy had his finger pulled from the dyke by a criminal conviction.  The low lands of politics are now flooded, the slime and the rot are floating to the top and the whole world can see and smell it. 

Is there anyone interested in rebuilding the dyke?  Might it be rebuilt in such a way that those on the plains are able to thrive, using the compost of the past to feed a new vision of equity, inclusion and service that will allow us all to thrive? 

The post The Fingerless Dyke first appeared on Thinking About Thinking .

The media is doing in depth coverage or foreign electoral interference while seemingly ignoring the simple fact that electoral interference has been a foundational part of representative democracy from the beginning. 

There is finally some recognition that the nominating process within the party system is deeply flawed and open to pressures from many levels (often reaching the level of interference).  BC’s recent withdrawal of one party to enhance the chances of another with both the withdrawer and the “victor” influencing or abandoning already completed nominations could easily be considered to be electoral interference. 

But back to polls.  It is not always easy to determine who paid for the poll.  Finding out the questions that were asked and how they were phrased, a key to determining the validity of the poll is also guarded information. 

Commentators have discussed that polling reports can encourage people to stay home (voter suppression).  They have also opined that certain poll results may encourage strategic voting.  Yet, polls are rarely discussed in terms of election interference, even though there are polls that are conducted and paid for to achieve influence on the outcome of an election. 

Needless to say, while not immune from polling data, I determine my vote in ways that will be covered in future posts. 

The post Polling first appeared on Thinking About Thinking .

In 1958 on the way to the largest Progressive Conservative majority government Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s train stopped outside a small Alberta town.  He was driven to the local high school and was standing back stage with the local PC organizers.  They stood at the bottom of the stairs leading into the stage left fly loft talking.  I was stranded, unnoticed at the top of the stairs so I simply sat down and listened.  The Prime Minister said a number of things that caused me to think about thinking. 

What I remember him saying went something like this: 

Remember, nobody in this riding can vote for me, or any other federal party leader!  The leaders are not on the ballot here.  Now, our job, yours and mine is to show the voters here that our candidate is the best qualified and most worthy to represent them in Ottawa for the next four years. 

His second statement came with a visual aide.  He said, This will be the last time that someone like me (he then shook his head, and after looking at each of them, put his hand to his chin to stop his jowls from waggling) will be able to be elected as a party leader and potential Prime Minister in Canada.  The electronic pollution from the south means we are forgetting how our democratic system works. 

Even when we are not in the midst of an election,  the “electronic pollution” from the south is filling the airwaves and digital media pushing out most of the ideas and issues that might be relevant to Canadians. 

One issue that is crucial is that in our system we cannot and do not vote for a Prime Minister or a Premier.  We only have the power to cast a vote for one of the local candidates running to serve as a Member of Parliament or the Legislative Assembly in our electoral district.  Yet, the political parties and the press focus the majority of their energy of promoting the party leader or attempting to discredit or undermine the leaders of other parties. 

Is it just my imagination or has everyone forgotten how the Canadian parliamentary system works!  Maybe this is something we should all think about.

The post Electronic Pollution first appeared on Thinking About Thinking .

As we prepare for any election it is important for individuals to determine the role that they will play in the electoral process. 

There are many options – I will list the two at the extremes of the pendulum and name one other. 

The first, is a role that has been carefully crafted by decades of political operatives.  They have create an anesthetic to numb the voters but not totally debilitate them.  And then they have used unbridled propaganda to emotionally reactivate the sedated by offering them the opportunity to be extras (all be it unpaid, unlistened to, and with no allowance for costume or make up) in the reality TV show called Fake Democracy Canada.  We will cover the incredible downsides of this option in a series of post about “Election Interference”.  By thinking you will undermine the effectiveness of this approach to elections. 

The second, is to claim the position of “Citizen Elector”, to see yourself as part of the human resources department that will hire the next representative for your constituency.  The candidates running in your riding are asking you to give them a job, a well-paid job, for the next four years. 

As a Citizen Elector you have the right to have the candidates meet with you, answer your questions, demonstrate their vision and commitment, offer information about their qualifications, and ideally demonstrate that they have the ability to listen and respond in meaningful ways. 

Population and geography may make a personal interview impossible, however there are ways to gather this information.  Assure you treat their proxies that appear on your door step with the same level of scrutiny as you  would the candidate.  At public meetings pose your HR interview questions to the candidate(s). 

Also, as a CE you need to reflect on the messages being published, mailed and the comments in interviews. 

And before you fill in your ballot remember what you are doing.  You are hiring someone to represent you for the next four years.  Are you willing to pay them for the term?  Do you believe they will be able to fulfill the job?  To me voting is not an option.  If you don’t vote no one needs to listen to your complaints.  However, if no candidate meets your hiring criteria you may spoil your ballot and place it in the box. 

Citizen Electors always vote. 

The post Citizen Elector or Unpaid Extra in Fake Democracy first appeared on Thinking About Thinking .