I came upon this chair in a backyard in North Vancouver. Just a regular white plastic chair, probably the single most ubiquitous furniture item of the last couple of decades.

The question I have is: if it had been left in situ, would the moss would have won, or the chair? My bet is the moss.

A reminder, coupled with a CBC Current interview last week with James Lovelock on his Gaia theory, that for all of our talk of global warming and green lightbulbs we a) really have no concept of how this all works on a global scale, and b) it is the height of arrogance to think that we do.

If you take the really long term view – thousands and tens of thousands of years – you have to conclude that everything is bio-degradable, that species will come and go, and that ultimately we’ll be among those that will either evolve or disappear.

Last week I wound up kicking off a discussion on the North Vancouver Politics blog.  After the rather distressing voter turnout in this month’s Provincial election, I suggested that perhaps we need to remove money from the equation in order to get a better calibre of candidates and government.  You can read that proposal, and the subsequent forty plus comments here.

Part of what interests me in North Vancouver politics is the feeling that the stakes are not particularly high.  By any standard life in North Van is easy and comfortable, with neither the lows of the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, of the highs of the nouveau riche of West Van.

People in North Vancouver enjoy decent incomes, nice homes, quiet streets, relatively little crime and a glorious and natural environment.  Although we may lack some of the urban sophistication of Vancouver, we also we also don’t have grit and grime that comes with a “real” big city.

North Vancouver, especially the District of North Vancouver, is really a nice place to live, but it also makes it awful easy to forget that this is still a country with growing poverty and unemployment,  homelessness, and inequity.

I guess that years of living and working in Hamilton, Ontario, Appalachia, and even the Downtown Eastside have made me accustomed to framing political discussions in terms of the extremes of our social landscape.  How can you support things like Olympic Games when there are people living under bridges?   How can the densification of Lynn Valley be more important than the crisis of whole towns in Northern BC that are losing their entire industrial base?

I look at some of the name-calling that passes for debate on the North Van blog, and can’t help but think these are the people who eventually will rise up and become Provincial or even Federal politicians.  If local politicos can’t demonstrate grace, thoughtfulness, and a lack of self -interest, then why shouldn’t our BC government also behave like backwoods small town officials?

Which once again takes me back to the central question: where do we get good candidates for political office, and how do we get them elected in the face of voter apathy and well oiled political machines?

In the wake of last month’s BC provincial  election I’ve been lamenting the lack of  candidates that actually seem to stand for anything tangible.  You can read my thoughts over at at the North Vancouver Politics blog.

Today though I’m reminded of one of the squarest cogs ever to be squeezed into a round political hole – Jesse “The Body” Ventura.

For those with short memories, Jesse is a former professional wrestler who ran for Governor of Minnesota.  To pretty much everyone’s surprise – especially the media – he actually won.

I visited Minneapolis and St. Paul during his term when I was awarded an Integrated Media Fellowship at Minnesota Public Radio.   What surprised me was that I couldn’t find many people who would actually criticize Ventura.  If you wonder why, you might enjoy this “inerview” of Ventura by Fox News twit Sean Hannity.

My favorite Ventura story was told to me in Minnepolis when I asked about all of the rapid transit construction.  ”Simple.” I was told, “All of the road construction companies refused to give money to Jesse’s campaign, so he’s building lots of transit instead.”

Even though there is no shortage of egregious Liberal behaviour to be noted and studied in this provincial election, my heart just isn’t into it.  Sure Gordon “Convicted Drunk Driver” Campbell is slime, and sure he’s done possibly irreparable damage to this province.  Sure the NDP is flailing around in another spastic attempt to seem like they have a coherent policy on anything.  And sure the Greens are, well, the Greens, if you know what I mean.

Sadly even the various wingnut parties (Examples A, B, and C) don’t interest me enough to study them.

Ultimately I just can’t see that any of the likely suspects will do anything to fundamentally change the way that this province handles problems like poverty, the environment, transit, housing, livable wages, justice, crime, or even litter collection.  And God knows that none of them look likely to do anything to display real Leadership, or vision, or a comprehensive or holistic vision of what government should be and do.

The Right as always is in the back pocket of Big Business – although in this province it looks more like they’re located in the athletic protector of Big Business.  The Left, after years of trying to make Big Business love them (Oh no! They’ll make fun of me like they did Bob Rae! My feelings will be hurt!) has pretty much lost their natural constituency.  Hell, if Labour and the environmental community don’t back the New Democrats then just what is their constituency?

So I propose that we start a new political party, one that doesn’t try desperately to parrot right wing economic mantras, and that stops trying to please everybody and anybody.  I’m proposing a hard left party that has simple aims, and which will stand up for these things even while the media and Business attack them.

And I’d like this to be a party that – unlike New Democrats – is out to win, that understands that there is no second place in politics, that getting five more seats means nothing.  More to the point, I want a left wing party that understands that politics these days is a blood sport, and that it not a place where you should turn the other cheek, or even necessarily take the high road.  The goal is to get power, then change the world in ways that better all of us.

It’s time to say that yes, the end does sometimes justify the means.

A Platform? How about:

- ALL workers deserve decent pay, legal protections, the right to unionize and strike, and employers who break the law will be punished severely.

- ALL people on welfare deserve a comfortable income, a decent home, and the utmost of respect and courtesy and a minimum of harassment and interrogation.

- ALL health care should be free, including dental and vision care, and all prescribed drugs.

- Education too.

- Transit, hospitals, schools, universities, roads, utilities, and the operation of these essential services should be in the hands of government, and not for profit.

- ALL police should be answerable to a civilian body with the power to levy penalties, and investigations should be public.

- If it’s poison it shouldn’t be dumped in the air or water. Period.

- Corporations should held to a higher standard of behaviour than individuals, and the people who run them should face heavy penalties – including  jail time – for not playing within the rules.

How does that sound?  I’d vote for it.

(The Independent Labour Party (I.L.P.) was established in Hamilton in 1907. Read over their platform and think about how many of these things we’re still seeking a century later.)