Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Monday, June 27, 2011

Hume: Under Ford, city’s reputation for tolerance is strained

Time hasn’t forgotten Toronto, but Toronto would like to forget time.

Under its new mayor, Rob Ford, the city is turning back the clock to the good old days of the chief magistrate’s imagining. Never one to be distracted by reality, Ford believes that we can ignore — no, undo — the changes that have redrawn the face of Toronto during recent years and return to some white-bread suburban utopia that never existed.

No one should underestimate the power of illusion, of course, but just months after Ford took office, the credibility gap between what we know and what he says has been stretched to the breaking point.

In Rob Ford’s Toronto there is no need for public heath nurses. There are no poor people, no gays, no immigrants, no cyclists, no need for housing and nothing the market can’t fix.

That this is nonsense goes without saying. While Ford’s hordes cheer him on in the most unseemly manner, cutting off their collective nose to spite their collective face, they have little to offer aside from insults and jeers. Not believing themselves a part of Toronto, they are content to watch as it is dismantled by the mayor.

Though it has quickly become predictable, the glee with which Ford’s hordes greet his every bêtise still disturbs. The sort of casual civic destructiveness Ford has legitimized in Toronto reminds one of what happened recently in Vancouver. Toronto hasn’t experienced riots — at least not since police went on a rampage during the G20 summit last summer — but both events demonstrate the human capacity for and love of destruction for its own sake.

When someone starts throwing rocks — proverbial or actual — others happily join in. If that person is the mayor, so much the better.

At first, it seemed Ford, widely dismissed as a buffoon during his decade on city council, would be simply a civic embarrassment. Now he has become a liability.

His refusal last week to accept two provincially sponsored public health nurses demonstrated a shocking contempt for the people who live in this city. Ford sent his favorite “Gino boy,” Giorgio Mammoliti, to do his dirty work in explaining the inexplicable. Beyond doing a brilliant job making a fool of himself, Mammoliti accomplished little.

But many of Ford’s normally docile council concubines responded with disbelief. Before the end of Ford’s term they will have to reflect carefully on what the cost of that support will be.

Depending on how many transit riders live in her north Toronto riding, Ford’s chosen TTC eviscerator, Karen Stintz, might want to start reading the help-wanted ads once again.

Peter Milczyn, the self-styled Baron Haussmann of south Etobicoke, should also start looking around.

Similarly, Deputy Mayor Doug Holyday, a right-winger but not a redneck, is starting to look silly. His incredulity is clearly being strained by his boss’s antics. Unlike Ford, he understands that the mayor represents all the people, not just those who think and look like he does.

Opting out of Gay Pride may play well to Ford’s hordes, but in the wider world it makes him, them and the rest of us look like yokels.

If nothing else, Ford has reminded us of how fragile are the bonds that keep this most disparate of cities from flying apart. By the standards of much of the world, what has been achieved here borders on the miraculous. But the one quality visitors so admire about Toronto — its civility — is the same one Ford most conspicuously lacks.

Origin
Source: Toronto Star 

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