The Democratic Party–Nothing Democratic About It

Voting is the most precious right of every citizen, and we have a moral obligation to ensure the integrity of our voting process. - Hillary Clinton

If you get so unequal that people believe they don't have a chance, that the field isn't level for them and their children, that puts democracy at risk. - Hillary Clinton

American politics is always an open competition. - Hillary Clinton

As I looked at the current delegate count for the Democratic Party this morning, I noticed an intriguing statistic:

Despite a virtual tie in Iowa and a sound thumping in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton is leading Sanders by a significant margin, thanks entirely to the Democratic Party’s superdelegate system.

Of the 4763 delegates that will vote in the Democratic Party caucuses and primaries, 2,382 are required to win the Democratic Party nomination.  Of those, 712 delegates are superdelegates,

These superdelegates are an interesting group, being made up of current and former presidents, vice-presidents, congressional leaders, and DNC chairs, Democratic governors, Democratic members of the United States Senate, Democratic members of the United States House of Representatives and elected members of the Democratic National Committee.

So while 2,382 delegates are required to win the nomination, 30% of that total, if one’s cards are played well behind closed-doors, come from a select few people and not “the people”.

It sounds like an unfair system at first blush so it would make sense that one could turn to the leadership of the Democratic Party to allay any concerns that this system could be used to "fix" a result.

However, when DNC Chairperson Debbie Wasserman Schultz notes that “Unpledged delegates exist really to make sure that party leaders and elected officials don’t have to be in a position where they are running against grassroots activists”, one realizes that the Democratic Party knows nothing of democracy and anyone who subscribes to such a system knows nothing of it either.

If Sanders and Clinton come to the finish in a dead heat or even with Sanders running a slight lead , Hillary Clinton will be handed the nomination, removing the voice of the people from the Democratic Party candidate selection process.

This doesn’t seem to bother many people or maybe they don’t care enough to ask.

Perhaps we should examine it another way.

Let’s assume that the most recent Super Bowl had the Panthers leading by 6 and they had the ball on the Denver 1 yard line.  It’s first and goal for the Panthers with 1 second left on the clock.  Since there is only time for one more play (ignoring the rule that a penalty on the last play may allow another play), the game is pretty much a slam dunk for Carolina.

Now assume that as the ball is about to snapped, an announcement is played over the loudspeaker.  It is this:

The NFL has ruled that in the interests of a Hollywood ending for Peyton Manning, the game will be awarded to the Denver Broncos.

Football fans would erupt in anger and people would be demanding someone’s head.

And yet when the same thing is happening in regards to the selection of the individual who may become the next President of the United States (once the most powerful person in the world but no longer), no one seems to care

It’s an interesting thing to note that what is unimportant can elicit such outrage yet what matters doesn’t seem to matter to most.

The Bottom Line

Many people in America have tuned out of the political process for a variety of reasons, including finding themselves being crushed as they fight for day-to-day survival, being cynical about their political representatives or benefiting from the way things are.

Ironically, while few people care about the process of selecting a leader, many people have much to say when things aren’t going well.

Maybe if they took more time to care early in the leader selection process, they might choose a better leader or at least understand what the leader is dealing with the next time something happens or the leader makes a choice that upsets the voters.

Unfortunately, most voters don’t care or are so uninformed that they keep proving Winston Churchill’s observation correct when he noted:

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

To implore the voter to make democracy something better than “two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner” as noted by James Bovard is a useless waste of time.

The average voter couldn’t care less who or how someone comes to power but they have lots to say when things go wrong.

As a strategy guy, I think this is insane and it makes the average voter insane as a result.

Are you insane or merely an uninformed, misinformed, indifferent, apathetic, rabid follower unable to think for yourself and thus a waste of a vote?

Does this mean your right to vote should be taken from you since you don’t care how it is used?

How would you like it if someone denied you the right to vote as a result?

After all, if you are misinformed or uninformed, what difference does it make if you vote or not?

How can you prove that you are worthy of expressing your opinion at the ballot box?

Do you even care?

If you don’t care, fret not.  You will likely pay little penalty if any at all.

Your children and your children’s children on the other hand …..

…. well, that’s another story.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

PS For those offended that I said that the President is no longer the most powerful person in the world, they should recognize that the POTUS is only halfway up the chain when it comes to the security classification system in America. This means that there are people who are ranked higher than the POTUS in regards to national security and who have access to information that the President is not permitted to know. Since information (and knowledge when information is applied) is power, who do YOU think is the most powerful person in America?

Neil Young–Hypocrite or Democracy Champion?

Sincerity makes the very least person to be of more value than the most talented hypocrite. - Charles Spurgeon

We ought to see far enough into a hypocrite to see even his sincerity. - Thomas Fuller

The only vice that cannot be forgiven is hypocrisy. The repentance of a hypocrite is itself hypocrisy. - William Hazlitt

Neil Young is riding into Calgary today to wrap up his anti-oil sands tour.  There is no irony lost in recognizing that Calgary for the most part is built upon the revenue from the petroleum industry.

To reinforce his anti-oil sands message, he and his entourage will be arriving via wagon train instead of fuel-burning vehicles, his instruments will all be hand-carved out of eco-responsible materials and no semblance of any petroleum-based product will be allowed in the presentation of his show. 

Oh and I forgot, I have just been named the President of the Pan Galactic Council For Indigenous Alien Life Forms – Milky Way constituency.

Yup – bullshit all around, if you ask me.  :-)

I believe Mr. Young is a hypocrite, having been happy enough to leverage “the system” for years and having made himself a success, is now happy to turn on the system and tell the rest of us we are hypocrites.

But there’s a larger issue in my mind than the musings of a drug-fried, bitter has-been in the music industry (although I profess to like his early music).

And that issue is this.

Mr. Young is entirely within his right to voice his opinion about the oil sands.  That is a foundational element for democracy that we insist separates us from the rest of the world.

However, I do object to two things in how his opinions are being expressed.

1. Stick with the facts.  Deliberately presenting false, out-of-date or misleading information in a hateful, demeaning, insulting, intimidating way, as PETA does, as the “save the seals” crowd does, as Mr. Young does and many other groups do actually negates the opportunity to engage in an intellectual discourse that might actually be able to find compromise.

2. Allow expression of counter opinion.  When Mr. Young expresses his opinion and some of us counter his opinion with our own, we are immediately beset upon by his minions who tell us that we are not entitled to our opinion.  

Because problems, if real, get solved when we get together as responsible, respectful adults and we solve them using the best, most reliable, most verifiable data that we can find.

For those who believe that people like me are not entitled to a counter opinion to Mr. Young’s fact-less, emotion-laden rants, I have three suggestions:

1. Divest yourself of anything that can be traced back to alleged “dirty oil” and live without it.  This includes your home, your car, the electronics you use to bash others and anything that could be remotely associated with oil.  Give it a year (if you last that long) and let me know how it works out.  Please shower before you approach me.

2. If you believe that Canada or the US should be a country where only one opinion is allowed (in this case, yours), find another country to live in where the concept of expression suppression is embraced.  You may be surprised to learn that the one opinion that is allowed there is not your own and you will have to resign yourself to perpetual silence.  Maybe then you will appreciate the power and potential of two-way dialog where the mutual right to express opinions is respected.

3. Remember that we receive what we give.  When we treat others with disrespect or we attempt to steamroll over them with emotion, that is what we receive in kind.  Feigning surprise when this happens makes you look less intelligent than you believe you are.  You may also find that what comes back is more powerful than what you dished out and you may be swept away in the process.

Bottom Line

I believe Mr. Young is a burnt-out hypocrite.  The upside is that he is in good company, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with many politicians and other powerful people who are not doing the right thing, the right way, right now, for the right reasons.

But what makes “this place” work is that despite the hypocrites, the greedy, the selfish, the hate-spreaders, the bullies, the intimidators, the uninformed and the ignorant we also have the intellectual, the learned, the respectful, the collaborators and the solution-finders.

And we live in a place where all opinions, even the ones that hurt, are allowed to be expressed.

But what also separates us from other places in the world is that the opinions of the weak-minded or misinformed eventually fade into obscurity, a meaningless, entertaining but sometimes painful anecdote that people forget about as they move forward.

So Mr. Young is making a lot of noise but this too shall pass.  As he himself wrote, “It’s better to burn out than fade away.” 

Maybe he’s in the process of accomplishing both.

And in the meantime, “keep on rockin’ in the free world”.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum – January 19, 2014

In an interview given Sunday evening in Calgary, Mr. Young indicated that his tour was not an anti-oil sands tour but in fact was a pro environment / pro First Nations treaty tour.

If that’s the case, he needs to hire a new head of communications as his message up to now has been very specific regarding the oil sands as has been the message by his minions. 

As he recently noted:

"Fort McMurray looks like Hiroshima. Fort McMurray is a wasteland," said Young, 67, during a National Farmers Union conference.

"The Indians up there and the native peoples are dying. The fuels all over — the fumes everywhere — you can smell it when you get to town," he said.

"People are sick. People are dying of cancer because of this. All the First Nations people up there are threatened by this. Their food supply is wasted, their treaties are no good. They have the right to live on the land, like they always did, but there’s no land left that they can live on. All the animals are dying."

This looks and sounds like an attack on the oil sands to me with a lot of emotion but little (or no) verifiable data. 

As a matter of fact, when you look at where his focus started in this statement, it almost looks as if the First Nations people are brought in as “supporting data” to his primary issue which is the oil sands.

<<Whisper>> By the way, Mr. Young.  A lot of my First Nation’s friends don’t like to be called Indians. But I guess if you are in the business of insulting people without thinking and then expecting cooperation later, your inner monologue might have come out into the light by accident.

Rex Murphy offers up similar analysis in classic Rex Murphy fashion in his article “Neil Young’s oilsands stance is unfair”. In addition, this article by the Calgary Herald, where Mr. Young notes that he keeps 5 mammoth tour buses idling all the time when on tour (whether occupied or not) and that he likes to travel by private jet on occasion, also highlights a message not in congruence with action.

If Mr. Young really wanted to solve alleged First Nation’s problems, there are smarter, more strategic ways to accomplish it.

When I want to resolve an issue with someone, I don’t kick them in the head first and then expect them to be cooperative or collaborative.

How about you?

The Secrets in Democracy

With apologies to my daily readers, I offer the following musing and warning directly to my crypto network.

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The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference and undernourishment. - Robert Maynard Hutchins

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In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum – November 16, 2013

Many have tried to decipher this blog post and have asked for the decoded version.  My friend Doug finally convinced me to release it.  Here is the process used to encode it and the translation.

Each 8 digit group is a reference to a word in the Bible .... book #, chapter #, verse #, word #.  Therefore each 8 digit sequence points to a single word.  While any given word may appear more than once in the decoded message, each word usage is from a different point in the Bible to prevent patterns from being discerned.

If I remember correctly, I used the NIV Bible at the time (although I may be wrong).

Therefore the blog reads as follows:

With apologies to my daily readers, I offer the following musing and warning directly to my crypto network.

The difficulty with the world today is that not enough people think, that not enough pay attention to what is happening in the world, that not enough people think that their efforts matter or that they can influence the world through words and deeds.

As a wise person once said:

The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment. - Robert Maynard Hutchins

And there lies the call for all of us to do better because we must.

In service and servanthood,

Harry

The Alberta Economic Summit and Tough Decisions

Most people celebrate the removal of a knee brace by doing something celebratory and fun.  I, on the other hand, celebrated by attending the Alberta Economic Summit on Saturday past.  The Summit was a gathering of politicians, academics, business leaders and citizens who passionately explored, dissected, discussed and debated the future of Alberta.

“Ah”, some might say.  “Harry is a sucker for punishment on the heels of his injury”.

Hardly.

As a long time Wall St. / Fortune 25 strategy advisor, I could not pass up the opportunity to participate in the Summit and I wasn’t disappointed by what I witnessed.

The Summit turned out to be an insightful, fascinating dialog representing ideas from the left, the right, the center and some people who have no idea where they stand.

Some ideas were nonsensical or worrisome …. for example:

Heather Smith, President of the United Nurses of Alberta, suggested that many problems in Alberta’s economy would automatically be solved if we had more public servants – that bigger is always better.  Sadly, here is an example of how well Alberta Health Services is doing when it comes to cost containment. <<Editor note: Sorry for the dead link – the Calgary Herald has subsequently removed the article that was referenced>>

Gil McGowan, President of the Alberta Federation of Labour, when confronted about the challenges regarding productivity, cited some mumbo jumbo about per capita public-servant-to-citizen ratios compared to other provinces as proof of productivity when the question was in regards to increasing individual and collective productivity.

Angus Watt of the Angus Watt Advisory Group and his response to a PhD candidate’s question about attracting more VC or other investment capital that was so wishy-washy that it almost sounded defeatist – as if investment capital would not be welcomed or would not work in Alberta.  I liked some of his other ideas but this one struck me as disappointing.

Some ideas were right on target …. for example:

Jim Prentice, vice-chairman of CIBC, for comments along the lines of “Canada being too complacent when it comes to making the most of its resource wealth” and “Canada not playing the global energy game with much skill, foresight or cohesiveness.”

Hal Kvisle, President of Talisman Energy, in his observations regarding the cost of doing business in Canada, the red tape that exists and the need to improve the productivity of workers in Canada.

Dr. Joseph Doucet of the University of Alberta, who resonated with me deeply with his call to implement metrics to measure productivity baselines, implement change and then measure the effectiveness of such change.  As Dr. Doucet and I agreed later in a one-on-one conversation, the great challenge with metrics is that the use of them introduces transparency and accountability, something not always welcome within government or any organization with productivity skeletons in their closet.

Peter Tertzakian of ARC Financial Corp, who shared insightful, pragmatic, strategic views on getting fair value for Alberta’s resources and his analogy that we need to focus on where we are going and not how fast we are going (the “staring at the dashboard to see how fast I am driving versus the importance of looking out the windshield” analogy).

Big Brothers and Big Sisters Edmonton Executive Director Liz O’Neill’s compelling ask of government not to cut programs while at the same time, sharing her brilliant analysis of how not-for-profits can execute more strategically, more efficiently, more effectively and with greater impact on those who consume not-for-profit services.  Her insight should should be required reading for ANYONE in the not-for-profit sector.

Leo de Bever, CEO of AIMco, in his correct assertion that not all taxes are evil when applied strategically nor is all debt bad when leveraged strategically.

Some were close ….

Dr. Tom Flanagan from the University of Calgary was close in his message regarding the need to cut spending and get spending back under control.  However, across-the-board cuts that he was calling for will have a crippling effect on the Province and I would prefer that enhancing productivity be sought instead, achieving the same effect of reining in unnecessary spending.  Ensuring that spending is more effective is just as valuable (or more) than merely cutting it just because it is inefficient.

And there was some fun ….

I was delighted that Danielle Smith, Leader of the Official Opposition, took a couple of minutes to chat with me.  In fact, I was doubly delighted when, as I approached her, she looked at my name badge and even though we had never met before, recognized me when she said “You’re the guy who is always tweeting at me”.  I was appreciative of the couple of minutes we spent together and I thanked her for her tireless service to Albertans. 

What was clear

For the sake of brevity, I can’t name every speaker and in truth, most of them did make some good points.  I also have to give a special nod to Gil McGowan for being the most energetic, engaging speaker (and he did make some good points despite my previous criticism).

A few things were clear to me as I participated in this Summit.

1. It takes guts, courage and strong leadership for Premier Redford to call such a group together and even smile while some panellists lobbed verbal grenades in the direction of her, her government and her political party.  The other leaders in attendance should also be complimented for attending and participating in the collaborative spirit of the forum.

2. While some people are proclaiming gloom and doom in the media, Alberta stands upon the strongest foundation of perhaps any area of North America and is poised to exploit this foundation if done so intelligently, being able to answer the strategic questions of “Why?” and “How do you know?” when making decisions.

3. The people representing the public sector seemed to bristle when the use of data, accountability and measuring productivity were brought up - things that MUST be on the table.  I grow weary of people who believe they are untouchable or who cite their own studies as proof that they are as productive as possible, especially when said people represent a MAJOR piece of the cash outlay of any government.

4. People fear taxes and debt “just because” instead of applying facts and science to the appropriate use of either (or they cherry pick data that feeds and justifies their fear).  Such fear is not rational nor is it intelligent when it means that one might avoid what could be the best choice of many difficult ones.

5. If you are the type of person who likes to please everyone, then politics is the last vocation you ever want to consider.

6. If the Alberta Government can figure out how to bottle and sell Barb Higgins’ secret to eternal youth, then their revenue problems are solved forever.

The Solution – Legislatively Speaking

1. Taxes aren’t inherently evil when used appropriately.  New taxes may need to be introduced intelligently in some form to solve Alberta’s financial challenges.  And besides …. lotteries have been referred to as a tax on the ignorant and we seem to have no trouble tolerating those sources of revenue!

2. Debt isn’t evil when one is leveraging low rates strategically to build for the future and may also need to be considered in some form.

3. Having one primary customer for one’s resources (i.e. the United States and oil products) is suicide for any business.  While the evolution of this was strategically short-sighted, we have other options that must be pursued aggressively.

4. Spending must be brought under control using sharp measurable outcomes, intelligent baselines and appropriate metrics.  As someone who has measured productivity, including in the public sector, when people like Heather Smith aggressively assert that healthcare is running at optimal productivity, I don’t know if I should burst out in laughter, tears or indignation. 

5. Enhancing efficiency and productivity trumps cuts any time.

The Solution – Societally Speaking

As someone who was privileged and honor to be invited to attend the event by MLA Rick Fraser, I had an opportunity to see democracy in action.

I was able to observe, listen to and participate with passionate, intelligent, eloquent people who are all focused on creating a better world for future generations.

And while we couldn’t agree on everything (and some things were generally rejected as insane) having the opportunity to experience and participate in the formation of our future is what makes democracy great.

For all the naysayers that I observed, especially in social media, I can only say this.

If the best you can do is lob verbal grenades and be critical of everything without offering anything of substance, then you don't deserve democracy.  You deserve a system that will really make you miserable and will then give you something to complain about.  But by then, you will not be permitted to have a voice.  Oh well – good luck figuring that one out.

In the meantime, the rest of us will do the best we can with democracy and no matter where we stand, far left, far right or somewhere in the middle, we must continue to listen to each other, to work together and to pick the best ideas of the many available to ensure healthy sustainability for the generations to come.

The tough decisions facing Albertans and all citizens of the world are not only within the responsibility of politicians to deal with.

They are a call for all citizens to complain less, contribute more and work collectively to build a better future.

It’s easy to hold governments accountable and responsible for solving our problems.

It’s much more difficult but equally or more important to hold ourselves accountable and responsible for contributing to the solutions that we need to strive towards.

Great futures don’t happen by accident.

They are created wilfully, strategically, intentionally, factually, collaboratively and passionately.

And so the tough decisions aren’t just for someone else to make.

They are for all of us to make.

Are you helping creating a better future for yourself, your family, your community, your province / state, your country and the world-at-large?

How do you know?

In service and servanthood,

Harry

Addendum – February 28, 2013

On February 28, 2013, Dr. Tom Flanagan, referenced in this blog, was dumped as an advisor to the Wildrose Party after making comments questioning the harm of child pornography.  The story can be read here.  I wonder if the story should be entitled “How to end a career in an instant”.