Moose Factory Journal

The other day three polar bears were seen three miles to the north of Moose Factory — on Shipsand Island.  Two mothers and a cub.  Bobby’s nephew was out on Shipsand Island relaxing in the warm sun when he saw the bears.  He got out of there really quickly!

No one knows quite why the bears are coming in so close.  Maybe they are just very, very hungry — to come in this close to a settlement.  That happens up north.  But this seems a strange time of year for a bear to be hungry.  Maybe they have lost some of their fear of man.  After all, they are a protected species now.

Whatever the reason(s) for their being around they are very dangerous.  We human types are definitely NOT at the top of the food chain.  They are.  AND they are VERY unpredictable.  Of course, no one willingly or knowingly would ever get between momma and baby or between bear and food. Still, what happens when you are a group of ten to twelve canoers? How much do you have to worry?  Locals here — and especially further north — have been puzzled that I never carried a gun in the summer — because of polar bears.  I don’t think the bears were much in evidence thirty years ago.  We certainly never heard of them — being a threat or otherwise.  When they show up now — this close to a settlement — they’re all anybody can talk about.

Even though I live in Moose Factory  I spend a great deal of time stewing over American politics.  Now the news is all about the ‘Nuclear Option’: closing down debate in the Senate in order to stop a filibuster over the appointment of federal judges by GB.  Lemme see if I got the basic picture right….

• It’s warm up time for the mother-of-all-nuclears — the appointment of a Supreme Court Justice.
• Some of the judges have already been turned down.  They’re that bad.
• Nuclear george will change the government (destroy the Senate) to get the judges he likes.  He has good reason.  Remember, it was the Supreme Court that (illegally/unconstitutionally) gave him the election.  He got a good thing there.  Why not go for more?
• The Democrats should have hired George Galloway on the spot while he was over here.

Move-On-America — or something like that — ran an ad on their website.  The ad was a parody of something in Star Wars.  The Republican National Committee opined that the ad was ‘outside the pale of proper political discourse.’  Gimme a break.  Carl Rove is jealous he didn’t think of it first. Roger Ailes or Lee Atwater would have.    So the Republicans missed it.  That makes it outside proper political discourse.  Actually, The Republican National Committee may or may not have run it.  No matter.  They easily could have commandeered one of their fringe/hate groups to do the dirty deed.  So, the real question is: If one of those far-right groups had run a similar ad, would the Republican National Committee have objected — or even commented — or noticed?  I don’t think so.

I googled move-on-america.  Nothing there.  I DID come upon ‘move on FOR america’.  Wouldn’t you know it. It was a hate-the-democrats-site.  Then, I tried ‘move america forward’ .  Another hate-the-democrats site.  But that site mentioned how much better it was than ‘move-on’ — a site produced, they said, by the likes of Howard Dean.  YEE-HAW!!! Bulls Eye!  I found it.  Thanks folks!  I went over to moveonpac.org, where I found the ad.

It wasn’t much of an ad. But who am I to critique political ads?  I don’t like any of them.  I WAS interested in a project, elsewhere in the site, to get Tom Delay fired.  But, actually, I think Tom Delay may be good for the Democrats.  As long as he sits in the House, he exemplifies why one should not vote Republican, even if the candidate is a Olympia Snow or Lincoln Chaffee.  AND, news about him is news taken away from W’s — and others’ — political agenda.  Right now he is — or has the potential to be — the Monica Lewinsky of the Republicans.  I find that deeply satisfying.

On the news last night the Canadians were worried.  Martin’s government survived, yesterday, by one vote.  Now there won’t be an election, we were told, until maybe next winter.  So, what happens in the mean time?  Will the politicians be able to work together again?  One of the analysts being interviewed commented that character assassination has always been around in (Canadian) politics.  But heckling and interrupting had come to the point where debate sometimes was impossible.  That may be changing even now, however, as the electorate has started to make its displeasure with the raucous ‘debate’ known.  The important thing, here, to me, is that evidently the voters were saying something, and the politicians managed to hear it. And the news people noticed it.

American politics have degenerated into mud wrestling.  There may be no way back from this.  And it has people like me worried — or despairing.  And that’s what the electorate wants?   Very possibly that’s exactly what the voters want.  But I want to doubt it.  A small percentage of potential voters turn out on each election.  What keeps the others away?  Indifference?  Sloth? Or, Disgust?

Some day, some historian might start to ask:  Where did it go wrong?  Some are asking now, Have we gone past the point of no return?

In church meetings up here First Nations people are positively Entish.  Everyone has their say.  And meetings can go until 2-3 in the morning.  I just can’t do it.  I can’t sit still that long.  I can’t listen that long.  I can’t stay awake that long.  I wish I could.

And they aren’t even filibustering.

And, maybe, just maybe, they’re the last people on earth who know how to do politics, who understand that consensus is the foundation of human community, is worth working for, is worth waiting for — tough as that may be.