Module 1 Post 2 – Money, politics and ethics TREMBLAY

What would happen if you didn’t need any money to run for political office? While politics and capital have an uneasy relationship, they are absolutely but unofficially connected. For example ask yourself: How easy it would be to run a political campaign without large sums of capital to finance all the expenses for media, space, paraphernalia, nevermind the time involved.  The ethical problems related to the finances involved in political participation, especially at the very top levels, where much more money is involved and needed for “success”, are huge but often ignored in the name of moving forward and progress. However that capital can come with an expectation or price that is in direct contrast with the interests of the constituents who elect the person to office.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_political_financing_in_Canada

So what happens when the people are told that a system is designed to work for them, but instead is subverted instead to work against their interests? Couldn’t that be considered the same sort of exploitive tactic that was sold to trusting indigenous cultures during colonization? Unfortunately, when the people speak out against this sort of injustice, they are not portrayed much better than the groups in the past who have spoken out against capital exploitation:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2013/jun/15/g8-protest-belfast-live

Recently Stephen Harper confirmed his pro-business approach to Canadian politics (again) when he attended  a trade mission rather than take the time to address some concerns of the youngest and fastest growing demographic in Canada.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/cree-youth-from-northern-quebec-reach-ottawa-after-1500-km-trek/article10292486/

A second example of this type of capitally motivated subversion is how technology is supposed to make things cheaper and easier, but we have allowed a system  to develop which allows for huge amounts of public money to be spent on political advertisements and media. Marshall McLuhan famously said “The medium IS the message”, but if this is the case then we are willingly submitting ourselves for exploitation and considering the power and reach of modern media, the consequences could be dire:

http://ijpor.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/2/144.short

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/04/26/prime_minister_stephen_harper_defends_conservative_bulkmail_campaign_against_justin_trudeau.html

These attack ads were run while simultaneously to the conservative party’s working towards shutting down the CBC, canada’s only publically (non corporate) owned media outlet.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/04/29/pol-cp-parliamentary-budget-officer-pbo-report.html

The final video and article that I chose is an interview that the guardian did with David Simon the writer of the wire who talks about the war on drugs, its roots in capitally influenced public policy and how it has in fact created a situation where the constituents, in most cases the weakest members of said society, are not just mis-represented but instead exploited by the system that deigns to protect them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/25/the-wire-creator-us-drug-laws