The Scum Also Rises

British Columbia is a place where we like our politics loud and abrasive.To say things are always on the up and up would be like looking for that rabbit hole.The current Liberal government came to power as much because of absolute disgust with the previous NDP government as for anything they did or said.They did,however,promise to be honest and open and to clean up the image of government.No-one can argue that they've been and done anything but.Now the voice of law and order,the solicitor general of the province,has been forced to resign due to an old scandal that followed him from his old job as mayor of Chilliwack.This government has been scandal prone and anything but transparent in it's dealings with the doings of government and is currently emeshed in a trial that they seem to be stalling in the hope that it will go away.(go to Bill tielman's site for all the dirt on Basi-Virk)Premier Gordon Campbell started things off by getting arrested for impaired driving and refusing to resign.Now,in a move that only the arrogance of this government would try to pull off.Mr.Les tried to put forward a bill that would implement mandatory minimum prison time for that very crime.That Les is gone will cause no-one to lose any sleep in this province.For as long as I can remember the Liberals seemed invulnerable to any kind of defeat.The current leader of the NDP won't be able to make any gains because her recent policy decisions have been so unpopular the NDP couldn't win a fixed election.That said,this could be the beginning of the end.This government is it's own worst enemy and Gordo's recent epiphany on climate change is being handled like every thing else this government does.He made grand announcements first and then put his people to work trying to figure out if it was even possible.The recent resignation of the person Campbell put in charge says a lot about how high the mountain is and how little thought went into planning it.

Try a lot more self esteem and a lot less bull

Vancouver's mayor Sam Sullivan met with the dinosaurs of the drug movement today as they made their case for a bigger chunk of the drug war pie.In a move that would virtually duplicate the recent campaign by the Harper Conservatives,they want to lecture youth as young as seven years old on the perils of drug use.These people are hard line abstinence proponents and think all drugs belong in the same book.They are the left over just say no crowd that want a drug free world and actually think they can make one happen.It's like the sixties never happened.There was no Viet Nam and Happy Days was a true story.Drugs are for the negroes and jazz musicians and have no place in a white bread world.If I sound a tad bitter it's because it's people like these that are maintaining the ridiculous drug laws that are destroying society as we know it.I have no beef with their desire to give children a sense of self and some self confidence.It's just that there are a lot of kids that have really horrible lives.This province has the worst child poverty in Canada and these people want more money for a drug awareness program that is based on a myth.There are better ways to spend our money and drug education should be fact based and not a diatribe of prohibitionist non-sense.I too think it's vital to give our youth the information necessary to allow them to make informed decisions on their drug use or lack of it.To use campaigns that lump marijuana in with heroin and speed is the kind of programs that have given youth the false impression that marijuana is addictive and no worse than heroin.That might be alright in an abstinence world but it makes no sense in the real one.These are well meaning people.I have heard them speak and I know they feel passionate.It's too bad that they're so ill informed and misguided.They have been the benefactors of years of funding for a failed abstinence philosophy and are fighting for what they see as their share of the drug war pie.They do so much harm and have no clue that they're doing it.The days when you could tell some scary stories and show some frightening movies are gone.If you want to make a difference you have to tell the truth now.Everything is at their finger tips.The drug war is a lost and flawed cause.Giving money to groups like these is like flushing money down the toilet.