Passenger Dave Toms
October 20, 2019
I Know You Are But
What Am I?
This one’s going to be short and sharp at one end.
Sticks and stones and schoolyard taunts. That’s what we’ve got here masquerading as adult behaviour in the most important election ever held in Canada.
What a massive hollow pit of nothingness it has become. No issues, no vision, no guts, no glory – just a pile of innuendo and invective slurs thrown from camp to camp. All it is – is plain old nasty. And in the end Election 2019 just stinks.
This moment could have been, no should have been about the future, about the planet, about our children and theirs and theirs beyond them. But it’s not. It’s all about greed and power and tar. The uncountable resources of big oil are winning the day. The tar heads are planning the parade.
Here’s all I know for sure: my accountant a normally levelheaded guy. Best man at my wedding – our beautiful wives are best and lifelong friends. My accountant has completely lost his shit about carbon tax. In what amounts to about $130.00 yearly – coffee tip money for him – money that’s earmarked to fight climate chaos, he sees red, blind hate.
He doesn’t have a problem however with the $3.5B subsidy, tax concession, exploration and research welfare scam big oil has greased the rails for and gets in a massive tax funded yearly rip off. He doesn’t get it that a tax by any other name still comes from the people. Just like taxes.
And like so many conscientious consumers of the conservative horde he has come to equate taxes with socialism. And like so many he has no idea what socialism really is – he just thinks it’s bad.
So I went through a litany of things that are taxes/socialism. Things that he embraces: the cops, the ambulance, the firefighters, the highway, the hospital, the school, the safe food, currency. It deteriorated quickly and when I stood up banged on his kitchen table and bellowed, “You are the fucking problem.” I knew it was time to climb up into the balcony and watch the show.
We vote on Monday. I also know this, everybody wants to save the planet but nobody’s giving anything up to do it. How the fuck is that supposed to work?
Greta the Great is in Alberta today – scene of the crime.
Welcome to the pit – it’s not your imagination, it actually is getting harder to breathe.
Yo Canada, Vote.
it’s way worse than you think/c’est bien pire que tu ne le penses.
onward,
the passenger
There is a lot of Canada in the history of Lincvolt, and I am proud of it! – ny
October 7, 2019
The Cult Of Tar
We’ve reached the halfway point and so far the campaign here in the great white has failed to inspire. At a time when inspiration and hope and optimism are in very short supply our prime ministerial aspirers have with few exceptions come up woefully short.
Liberal leader Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has arguably led the most progressive government on the planet over the past half-decade. As the world knee-jerked to the right Canada sailed in another direction. Our inclusion and diversity policies, our immigration record, our social benefit structures are all near or at the very top of the charts. But right now progress seems to be secondary. Trudeau is casting too wide a net over too many self interest groups and too many small issues. I don’t think you can simultaneously support both the environmentalists and the oil/tar industry. But that’s what he’s trying to do. Justin’s best hope and Canada’s may be as leader of a minority government.
Conservative Andrew Scheer is flat out a fraud. He held himself up as an insurance broker on his resume – a complete fabrication. The man has never apparently held a real job. Okay he’s a politician and we seem to accept the fact that this breed lies constantly and in the extreme pathologically. But Andrew, we just learned, has dual Canadian-USA citizenship. Nothing wrong with that except we’re half way through an election campaign and the Conservative Party has been crapping all over everyone else in the race.
Here’s why this part grates my ass flesh. A few years back when the driver orchestrated the Honour The Treaties Tour he took serious shit from a bunch of publicly elected instant experts just like Andrew Scheer. The Prime Minister of Canada at the time, the Premiere of Alberta at the time, the Premiere of Saskatchewan at the time and various other money grubbing government flacks – all Conservatives by the way – stomped all over his right to speak out for Mother Earth and against greed. Those shit talkers are at the core of the cult of tar and they are Andrew Scheer’s people.
Most recently the same hacks from the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers – headquarters for the Canadian division of the cult of tar – suggested that Greta the Great Thunberg was a naïve girl for her uncompromising stance on climate change. The same jerks said the same thing about the driver during the tour. You know, “Musicians should shut up an play. Leave the tough stuff to the experts.” Eh? Experts because they win an election? Experts like Andrew Scheer?
Here’s what’s naïve: a bunch of greed heads just like the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers who think that things are gonna stay the same. Who think that they’ll keep on pumping the toxic sludge out of the tar pit till it’s all gone? That’s naïve.
One more thing: Canadians are highly unlikely to elect someone who has sworn allegiance to another country. Just doesn’t feel right.
New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh rocks. His party is focused on the needs of the working class, the poor, the middle class, you know real people. The right-wingers hate him. He’s not like them.
Singh is starting to cut through. As voter grow tired of the mud slinging and lies Jagmeet’s making headway. If young voters decide that can’t vote for Justin this time and actually show up Singh might find himself in an interesting situation. The NDP could hold the balance of power in a minority government. From there they could champion issues that are important to the left. That would be good.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May took the train across Canada on her major campaign tour. Carbon footprint management – it’s a good thing. She stopped along the way to talk to people who came down to the station. It was very old school and hopefully very effective.
The tar culters jeered her every move of course. Their prime argument has never wavered, Not in half-a-century. The argument the cult founders hatched way back there in the middle of the 1970’s holds true for them to this day. They reckon that it’s one way or the other – either you use the tar and love it or you have to start walking. No tar for you if you oppose their greedy ways.
Those in the cult of tar are unable to comprehend transition or evolution or sustainable growth. They only understand money. They also think this is okay:
Fort McMurray tailings pond.
Elizabeth May may also end up holding the balance of power. She has stated unequivocally that she will not support any government that supports pipelines.
Me neither.
it’s way worse than you think/c’est bien pire que tu ne le penses
onward,
the passenger.
September 29, 2019
The Passenger Speaks
Today in Montreal Greta the Great will lead another day of solidarity and emotional outreach by the youth of the world. Instead of going to school today they will plead for their futures with the power-heads. Imploring them to cut the crap and start using their authority to save our species.
The powers, of course, will not listen. They will chortle and nod and smile and elbow each other out of the way to get a selfie with Greta. Then they’ll tweet out some bullshit about what and inspiration she is. Then they’ll go back to their main purpose – the accumulation of power and wealth for their own benefit. They are on the wrong side of history.
The thing that Greta illustrates most to me is this – the whole fucking thing is broken and beyond repair. Adults who should know better are talking shit about her – a child. That’s crazy.
The election here in Canada – 4 weeks away now illustrates that point perfectly as it staggers into a sea of madness and blather.
Here’s the latest:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
His Liberal Party was given a majority mandate in 2015 when he crushed Evil Steve Harper and his Conservative government. Harper was and still is one of big oil’s biggest boosters. Trudeau appeared not to be but his support of the Trans Mountain Pipeline renders him unsupportable to me. Currently he’s defending the indefensible blackface photos taken 18 years ago when he was really young and apparently really stupid. He will not get my vote this time.
Andrew Scheer
Just like Harper – a climate change denier. The policies of his Conservative Party are all about making life good for the fossil fuel industry and big business in general. He’s ready to hand over all the environmental oversight and all the regulation to the very industry that is destroying the planet. Flat out stupid is this man. I could never vote for him or the greed heads he represents and am baffled why anyone else would. We’ve seen what conservative policies mean. All money – all the time – nothing else matter.
Jagmeet Singh
His very existence as leader of the party of the left – the NDP – fills me with hope. The reasons should be obvious. But, so far, he’s been unable to make much of an impression and his party is still struggling to find a path. He is definitely a believer of science and is starting to articulate a coherent green policy. I could very well vote for him.
Elizabeth May
The Green Party is building momentum and could end up with significant gains this time – especially if people really think about it. Elizabeth gets it and might hold the balance of power in a minority situation. She’s already stated that she and the Green Party will not support the Trans Mountain Pipeline or any party that does. If I were voting today it would be for the Greens.
Thing is, our planet’s burning up. That’s the only issue on the table for me, for my children, for Greta for you and even for the boneheads who deny science. It’s simple: the last five years are the hottest five years in recorded history. It’s not debatable and the politicians who are gum-flapping that it is are wrong. We need them to go away.
In fact it might be time to scrap this whole nations idea all together. Maybe we should just focus on being a tiny planet floating through the great void. and get to the task of shoring up our now failing life support systems. You know, things like water and air and earth. Maybe we should just get out of the way and let Greta and the kids sort it out.
They’ll have some strong allies. In recent times I’ve been wading through the Honour The Treaties project. Yesterday we found this clip from Chief Alan Adam of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.
Right in the heart of Alberta’s tar sands. Chief travelled across Canada with us 5 years ago when the driver orchestrated the Honour The Treaties Tour and the Chief’s people were the beneficiaries of the money that was raised. Stay tuned for the whole story coming soon.
The Chief and his people are right on the front lines of the Climate Wars. So are native people everywhere. He gets it:
Go Greta. Go Chief. Go Earth.
it’s way worse than you think/c’est bien pire que tu ne le penses
onward,
the passenger.
September 16, 2019
Election 2019
I was talking to the driver a few days ago about LincVolt and her journey and where she went and what it all means. We focused in on the connection between her epic drive from San Francisco to the Alberta tar fields then on to Washington D.C. and the driver’s subsequent tour, The Hounour The Treaties Tour in the winter of 2014. Those concerts raised a million dollars for the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation legal defense fund. The whole first part of that great road trip unfolds across the arc of Volume 4 of The LincVolt story so you’ll get to see it for yourself pretty soon.
Right now, a lot of the reasons why LincVolt took that long distance labour of love are back on the table here in the north.
Canadian PoliSci 101 for 2019:
In Canada there’s no direct election for the position of Prime Minister. Instead each party selects a leader and that leader has to stand for a seat in our parliament just like all the other Members of Parliament (MP’s). The party that wins a simple majority (one more than half) of the seats wins a majority government and rules as they wish. If no party wins a majority a coalition (minority) government emerges. This requires a strategic alliance between at least two of the 4 parties currently holding seats so as to create an allied majority. There are fringe parties also running.
Now, back in the late summer of 2013. When LincVolt headed north Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative Party held a big majority. They were and still are in the pocket of big oil. Harper decided to rebrand ‘tar’ and started calling the tar pit the ‘oil sands’ – home of ethical oil. Has a nice ring to it. ‘s bullshit.
Same guy decided it was okay for Canada to keep exporting asbestos to the third world and rebranded it ‘crystallite’. A total asshole was Mr. Harper.
In 2015 – our last national election – political thoroughbred Justin Trudeau, leader of the Liberal Party, just like his dad, hammered the tar heads so badly that Harper snuck off the national stage under the cover of darkness and fled back to Alberta. There a new model tar head was immediately stamped out and Andrew Scheer became the new leader of the Conservatives and official big oil puppet.
Justin was looking pretty good there for a while. He pissed off stand-in President Donnie Trump and made us smile. Then he bailed out Trans Canada Pipeline. Go figure.
The once resurgent New Democrat Party is quickly falling apart. Their leader Jagmeet Singh has yet to find a resonant chord. The NDP has traditionally been the party of labour and the left in Canada. They are currently lost and in danger.
The Green Party leader is Elizabeth May. She represents a riding in the islands off Vancouver. It is a very peaceful and openhearted place.
The Greens are polling in the 10% range currently with the Cons and the Libs running close at 34%. The NDP have dropped to 14% and the fringe parties are polling at 4%.
One of the fringe parties, the Peoples Party of Canada, is led by Maxime Bernier. This clown was talking shit about my new spiritual advisor Ms Greta Thunberg to the press recently. What a dick.
Anyway, it’s on. October 21’st. A short vicious run to the best seat in the house. And here are the contenders. Clockwise from top left: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Elizabeth May, Jagmeet Singh, Andrew Scheer
One more thing – we now have a motto here at Canadian Corner/Coin Canadienne.
it’s way worse than you think/c’est bien pire que tu ne le penses.
onward,
the passenger.
P.S. Reverend Billy, you moved me brother. Strong.
August 28, 2019
They’re Back
We’re having a federal election in Canada in October. We’re just starting to gear up. Canadians just aren’t that into the 24/7/365 full-on constant campaigning that our dear sisters and brothers in the USA have so firmly embraced. Sadly I think to the great neglect of having and actual government that actually governs. Americans have opted instead for an incoherent rage-fest and barn-storming onslaught by the greatest snake oil salesman who ever slithered. He’s loud – I’ll give him that.
(Side point: Trump’s bragging about drawing more people to a New Hampshire arena than Elton John. I’m wondering how many’d show if he charged the same for tickets as Sir Elton. Or how many people would come if Sir Elton decided to throw a free concert like the MAGA crowd does. A million? The whole state? More?)
Back in the late summer of 2013 when Lincvolt and her crew drove north to the Athabasca tar fields of Alberta, big oil was on top. Massive federal subsidies, unchecked exploration, little or no regard to environmental sanity. We saw, first hand total devastation in the great northern boreal forest on a massive mind blowing scale. And back then big oil and the greed heads who run it and work it and reap massive profit form it didn’t give a shit. They still don’t.
So the driver decided to make a statement – a loud one. He organized the Honour The Treaties Tour and set across Canada in the dead of the frigid 2014 winter with Diana Krall, Dr. David Suzuki, members of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation and a confederation of good, good people all dedicated to fighting for Mother Earth. Our message was simple: Canada needs to Honour The Treaties signed in the 19th Century with Queen Victoria. Those treaties gave the original people the right to clean air, clean water, healthy hunting and fishing grounds and self-determination – in other words, a future. Big oil is adamantly opposed.
We made a lot of beautiful noise and raised a million dollars that went straight to the Athabasca Chipewyan Legal Defense Fund. For a while things turned around. Pipeline expansion plans were shelved. Big foreign oil giants stopped plans for exploration and expansion and one by one left the tar field once they realized that the treaties would stand up in the Supreme Court of Canada.
Alberta even elected the left leaning NDP (New Democratic Party) in a huge upset of the far right Conservative party that ruled the province for decades and was owned lock, stock and barrel by big oil. I was feeling pretty good there for a while.
Now the greed heads have come off the ropes with a vengeance. Alberta has elected another damn-the-environment far right conservative Premier who’s determined to win it all back for big oil and undo all the good that’s been done over the past 5 years. He even set up a 32 million dollar, get this, “war room” to investigate and hopefully make illegal the actions of what he called “shadowy foreign organizations”, Groups he and his ilk claim are bent on the destruction of Alberta’s precious planet killing tar field oil extraction industry.
“Shadowy foreign organizations” is the kind of crap you’d expect to hear from a tin pot dictator in a third world country. In a Province that sold its soul to big oil, foreign-owned (shadowy?) big oil, the irony of the whole idea seems lost. The Sierra Club, Greenpeace, any and everybody opposed to their greedy ideal, us – that’s who they consider to be “shadowy foreign operatives”?
At the federal level the conservatives have nominated another Alberta born anti-environment, anti-abortion, anti-gay, pro-greed leader to stand for the position of Prime Minister of Canada the post currently held by Justin Trudeau and the middle-of-the-road Liberal Party. A party that has lost its way. For the left we have the federal NDP who actually won that Alberta provincial election back in 2014 then lost badly in the next one.
Here’s the kicker. In Canada we also have, like many other concerned civilized countries, a fully functioning Green Party that bases all things policy and platform on the one single prime issue. It’s the prime issue that dwarfs all the other issues – climate change and the well being of Mother Earth. Check the polls. Climate chaos topics are at or very near the top of most people’s concerns clear around the entire planet. Hell, it should be the only issue we’re talking about.
So for the next few months I’m gonna talk about it from the Canadian perspective during the Canadian election cycle. The big oil lobby is in the right wing camp trying to make the whole climate conversation go away. They even tried and failed to get the idea that even talking about science denial could be considered hurtful and partisan to those who deny. As usual the right is trying to steer the conversation toward issues that mean nothing unless we seriously address climate change. Gun control, free speech, immigration, economy, jobs, China, military spending, voter rights, justice, corruption, net neutrality – the list of stuff that need attention is endless. But this I know for sure- no planet, no issues.
I’m going to call the columns I write here for the duration of our election is Canadian Corner/Coin Canadienne. The official film for Canadian Corner/Coin Canadienne was originally intended to be published before last February’s historic twin concert shows from Winnipeg with Neil Young and Crazy Horse. It was going to be an official The Lincvolt Years out take. But I missed the deadline. So here, in adherence with our strict recycle/reuse/repair credo, it is:
p.s. Neil and Crazy Horse and the audience singing where all in Vancouver that night. I was honoured to accompany Ms Elizabeth May to the show. We had a great time. Ms May is the leader of Canada’s Green Party and will stand for re-election in October. Elizabeth, this one’s for you.
onward,
the passenger