The Political Artist

The continuation of a random and ongoing series on the nature of art.

It’s extremely hard to be an artist and to be politically astute. I mean, each is difficult in its own way for its own reasons, but both together? Hard.

                “Oh, yes. But important.”

                Maybe, but what walk sees you already plagued with self-doubt more than the artistic one? Throw into the mix the existential hand-wringing of wondering what good an artist is doing in the midst of all this bad and, well, the problem sure isn’t in anyway eased.

                Fact is, in my own art, especially my writing, I want to feel like I’m making a difference, that I’m doing good. Blame it on too many superhero comic books as a kid, blame it on a Catholic foundation that never took but still leaves its guilt. Blame it on a male need to leave a legacy. Blame it on an immaturity that I never graduated to the level of self-servitude and malice that more and more people I hear refer to as “the way it is” or “the world.” I want to write pieces of merit, pieces that are important. However, when that’s exclusively art—that is, the exploration of what it means to be a human, the exposure of this life—I often wonder what difference I am actually making. Is the metaphor taking?

                It’s all I can do not to go on a political rant right now. I’m enraged at the state of roll-over denial in the province of Albertan and Canadian politics. I’m sick of people accepting transparent lies and I’m scared to death about how much it's really working on our lives; it’s not just “same shit different day politics.” It’s happening. Bad is winning. We’re being ruled by corporate whores and all I want to do is rip apart every lie that Jim Prentice has fed the public in this province since Christmas.

                I went on a political rant. I lied, I knew I was doing it, I admit it. That’s why I feel I can judge liars like Prentice and his old boss our prime minister.

                That feels good, that ranting. I don’t know how much good it’s doing because people in this province and of late this nation don’t like facts: they like backing a winner. What he does matters a lot less than the fact that he’s winning. I don’t know the good I’m doing, as I say, but it feels good to point that fault out. It feels right. 

                And then suddenly I’m less an artist, more a political writer, or at least an opiner. A leftist political blogger living in Alberta. There goes my readership.

                It’s tough finding the balance between art and reality in writing, and at times like these that much more difficult because you want to use your art on reality.

                It’s the fine line. Times like these you want to wield your words against the lies being spouted, to rail against injustice and misinformation, to use the abilities you have to arm people against their own ignorance.

                But then, where’s the art in that anymore?

                A hero of mine—for his work, not his character—is Hunter S. Thompson, who wrote some of his best work about and against a corrupt right-wing administration. Familiar times. But, his greatest achievement—despite it’s autobiographical nature—was a work of art, not politics or journalism. No one ever reads Las Vegas after being turned on by On the Campaign Trail. Fear and Loathing always begins in Vegas.

                Many artists are political, but when you let politics take over your art and you’re not Thompson, it can certainly act as a distraction, as a hedging of bets. Jack of all trades. . . Many convicted and gifted artists—Margaret Atwood pops up—only let the themes of society penetrate their work, but then as public figures are highly political. This is wonderful. Artists should be political, because far too many pop stars are given far too much air time for their fumbling opinions.

                These are dark times in Alberta, in Canada. We have an unimaginative, megalomaniacal, self-serving, and lying premier. More than your average politician, I mean. And if Harper is re-elected this fall, the damage he has done to the Canadian identity, to our culture, and to the standard of truthfulness I thought we held our leaders up to—both he and Prentice have convinced their electorate that they hold presidential powers in a constitutional monarchy—will be forever lost.

                Caught me ranting again.

                Artists are obligated to do good and expose truth. In a time like this, when there is so much bad and so many lies, how are we to avoid turning our art to politics? I suppose we’re not. 

Love of Municipal Politics

                 I do believe that municipal is my favorite kind of politics.

                Unlike federal and provincial, it’s easier to view the politicians as human leaders, rather than superstar media creations. In municipal politics, you truly can see your own effect on community involvement. But the best—the best—part about municipal politics is its lack of party affiliation. There are those who seek to change this, but they appear to be the type who vote for the same party in every election at every level, with some vague dedication to textbook ideologies.

                This fall we vote in the big town I live in. We have two choices for mayor—a sign that this past term was met with greater approval after six names for the top job in 2010—and some thirteen going for councilor, four of whom are incumbents.

                Of these councilors I know of only two who won’t get one of my six votes, and it has almost nothing to do with party politics. I just don’t support what they want us to pay attention to, nor do I feel their fiscal and environmental priorities line up with my own. I will admit that, sadly, a third’s affiliation with the Wildrose Party makes me suspicious of his motivations. I won’t say that I’m not voting for him, but he would have to do a lot to convince me to do so.

                Pierre Trudeau said you judge the policies, not the person. I try to follow that as a rule in politics, and as much as I disparage Stephen Harper’s despicable methods and “leadership,” I try to avoid commenting on him as a human. It’s simply his political behavior that’s, y’know, evil.

                This is harder at the municipal level.

                Depending on the size of your town, and your own drive, you can have a lot of interaction with your municipal politicians. At the municipal level, you might talk to your mayor and councilors often; at least you’ll see them at town events, eat burgers they’ve flipped, or read them interviewed in the newspaper. It can be easy to form opinions on their characters, rather than on their qualities as leaders. There are people who, perhaps, are less proactive about judging person rather than policy. It’s common in our partisan-mad world.

                What we see creeping into our newsfeeds lately are descriptors of municipal politicians who stand for Party X. Every so often you see a letter demanding party politics in city hall because then—if I may summarize cynically—people will know who to hate.

                That’s the joy of this forum, though. Truly, you can represent your constituents because you aren’t toeing a line, although I will admit there are those with aspirations on the next level and perhaps they have a little trouble hiding that big ugly C tattoo.

                What I find most enchanting about municipal government is that it’s a small group made up of individuals—this is the key—working together because they have to, even though they would likely sit across from each other in Edmonton or Ottawa. Issues get addressed, work gets done.

                I have found the partisanship in our Legislature and Parliament to be poisonous, possibly in parallel to the near-religious team mentality you see in the States. I am excited for the fall elections because it allows me to act on issues I see directly, by voting for the people whose policies I approve of, who must work with those whose policies I don’t.

                You know, like democracy? 

The Future of Elections? Here's Hoping

It’s a sad state of politics in this country that when Calgary and many of the municipalities in Alberta held elections last night, people celebrated huge turnouts at the polls, but those numbers revealed that only about half of eligible voters turned up.

About half. Hurrah for democracy at work.

In Calgary, and in some towns such as Okotoks, Airdrie and Strathmore, voter turnout was high because the races were tighter, ferocious, and highly publicized. People got angry, people got interested. People did something we’ve been seeing less and less of in this country of late: they exercised their democratic right.

In our last federal election, Stephen Harper’s Conservatives won a minority government with thirty percent of the vote of the just less than sixty percent of the country that voted. More people voted against this government than for it, but in a multi-party system, that’s life. Doesn’t it make you wonder what would’ve happened had the other forty-some percent of the country shown up at the polls. A Harper majority? A completely different government?

About a year ago I commented on my Facebook page about voter apathy, and some of the most disturbing replies to this came from intelligent people who have given up on our system. They don’t believe in our democracy at all. “It’s useless; they’re corrupt; they just fight and holler; they’re more concerned with keeping power than with governing.”

Disturbing, especially when I find myself inclined to agree with the last two statements.

Could it be that the childishness of our governing officials, the petty finger-pointing and playground “he did it first!” mentality has turned Canadians off of a system the rest of the world has so admired for decades?

Yeah. Duh.

It’s been bad for a while now. I can remember a time it wasn’t this bad, where every single statement in the House of Commons wasn’t met with caterwauling from the benches across the way, but maybe it’s because back then I was younger and ignorant. Or perhaps those were the days of crushing majorities so the Opposition just couldn’t voice its pettiness to the same levels of immaturity they can today.

Calgarians woke up this morning to a new mayor, a man whose Obama-like rise to glory overshadows the fact that he could be just as petty as the rest of them during this past election. I’m glad for Calgary, glad they elected an intelligent, educated man, a younger mayor whose status as a visible minority may do much to erase the taint of being “the Whitest City in the West.” However, when the mud was there to be slung, Mr. Nenshi was willing to come up with mitt-fulls to huck into the faces of opponents eventually defeated not so much for their policies as for their status as representing the old guard.

I am overjoyed at the new involvement, at the news of line-ups at polls and that the third place mayoral candidate would’ve won any election in the past with her number of votes. I am saddened that at the municipal level we are seeing the seeping of the slimy partisan politics that are making a mockery of Ottawa. We are seeing attack ads, character vilifications, and basically the same levels of Us and Them idiocy that has stained the Houses of Parliament for the last decade or so.

I hope that the new interest is a start, and that the numbers continue to climb. I hope that our new mayors, respectively, can live up to a few of their promises. I hope most of all that people are voting because it’s the right thing to do, not because of the spectacle that has been created.