The View from Here by Jack MacAndrew

The Eastern Graphic   Wednesday May 16, 2007

by Jack MacAndrew 

THE VIEW FROM HERE....

" Political language ...is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable ,
and to give the appearance of solidity to pure wind "...George Orwell

Indefatigable readers will have caught me quoting Mr. Orwell's observation on the practice of politics on past occasions . I do so again , as a reminder to the populace that it would be wise not to take too seriously , the gospel according to the political parties contesting the current exercise in democracy ; especially the two major ones .

Mr . Orwell said many wise and wisdome laden things during his lifetime . For instance , he observed that ... " political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible" ; that ..." all issues are political , and politics itself is a mass of lies , evasions , folly, hatred, and schizophrenia ."

And , said he ..." if thought corrupts language , language can also corrupt thought . "

I pass these tidbits along in an effort to be helpful to those of you who may have broken from a past ov voting the way your daddy did ; or even , God save us , should you be in contemplation of jumping the fence to some political party other than the one to whom you have pledged obedient submission in the past , of your own volition.

For it is certain , to be sure , that the very air we breathe is redolent these days of more than the usual healthy springtime stench of pig poo being spread upon the land . It , at least , will assist in bringing crops to ripeness , and perhaps even cash to farmers' bank acounts.
What the torrents of ..." lies, evasions , folly , hatred and schizophrenia ..." currently being tossed about may bring , is another matter entirely.

Indeed , it is wise to ponder another , more earthy aphorism , that of the mushroom theory of politics , which holds that the most effective form of political discourse is to : " keep 'em in the dark , and feed 'em full of horseshit . "

It is true , I believe , that attempting to divine what is really being said in political discourse , courts severe migraine headaches , intense stress , and ultimately a feeling of total ennui and shouts of .." a plague on all your houses. "
It has been said that the first casualty of war - is truth.

So it is with political discourse in a democracy .

For instance : the truth is that all of the political parties contesting this election know who is dumping nitrates into the water we drink. The two major parties have known it for decades ; and for decades they have refused to do anything about it.

Study after study has shown us increasing levels of nitrates from fertilzer polluting our water.Study after study has shown a causal relationship with the proximity of potato fields. Study after study has shown much lower levels , well within the safety margins , when streams run through forests.

If potato production is the major cause , golf courses come next .

We know as well that the blooming of algae and the infestation of sea lettuce clogging the shores of every river estuary and bay , choking off oxygen and killing every form of animal life ; is caused by another fertilizer by-product - phosphates , dumped into the water from farm run off and other sources of pollution.

And we know that all of this is caused by the practice of industrial agriculture ; otherwise known as the mining of the soil .

Let us be clear about this .

The overuse of fertilizer is the underpinning of industrial agriculture as it is practised in Prince Edward Island. Over the past sixty years the amount dumped on our soil has tripled , tripled again and doubled twice more as we have moved at full speed into the practice of monocultural agriculture.

Forcing the land with fertilizer replaced resting the land with crop rotations ; and farmers here as around the world became ensnared in artificial stimulation of the soil to produce their crops.

Costs went up as farmers spent more and more on herbicides, pesticides and fertilizers. The accumulation of debt became a fact of life . Stress became the occupational disease. The romance of independence foundered on the balance sheet.

Dr. David Montgomery is a scientist at the University of Washington in Seattle. He has written a book ( Dirt: The Erosion of Civilizations ) about the larger , eventual costs of erosion applicable in a province where government allows three tons an acre of topsoil to blow away in the wind or seep into a waterway with impunity to the landowner.

He writes in his book : " We are on track to lose most of our agricultural soils . And even if we solve the water crisis and the climate crisis, if we don't conserve the soil , then that will do us in."

" We only have a fixed amount of soil - and we're digging it up, " he says.

Or , as a farmer once told me : " We're minin' the soil. When we had the horses we only could plow six inches deep. Now with them big tractors we're goin' sixteen inches down. We're just plowin' it up to blow it away."

What was blowing away was the fibrous material that makes soil fertile.The deeper you plow the less of it there is to hold the soil together once the furrow turned it over.

It's gone . Gone forever.

The thing of it is this : the challenge of preserving our planet and our province for generations to come is not a political issue. The challenge transcends political discourse . The challenge transcends the petty mouthings of partisan politicians.

It is a challenge so all embracing that democracy fails us in our feeble attempts to respond to our eventual self immolation and annihilation as a civilization .

There's a reason why the attempts of both major political parties fail to do anything meaningful about nitrates or any of the other problems with our land.; why their discourse on the subject is a classic case of .." pure wind " ; and it doesn't take rocket science to figure it out .

The Conservative response to the latest nitrate study is to offer to spend $100,000 to study what will happen if government does nothing . Save our money Patrick m'lad , I'll tell you what will happen - it will get worse.Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result , is one definition of insanity.

The Liberal response differs only in the detail of its non-effectiveness.

The NDP isn't much better.

All of them..." don't amount to a hill of beans " , as my old Aunt Gert used to say.

Abraham Rupert , Chief of the Chisisabi Cree people , said to me last week in his teepee on the shores of James Bay..." There is no future . There is only today and the past , and our children and their children who come after us. What we leave to them will determine the future they can create. "

Sharon Labchuk , speaking for the Green party , doesn't just finger - point ( which Jamie Ballem doesn't want us to do ) . The feisty Sharon uses toes , elbows and any other pointed part of her anatomy to state the obvious historical truth about nitrates - that governments Liberal and Conservative , were party to policies and practices which defied scientific warnings about nitrates ; and in divers ways were accomplices to farmers and fertilizer companies in dumping ton after ton of fertilizer on our fields.

She speaks the truth ( and any remedy must begin with the truth ) when she says .." The environmental and human health problems caused by the potato industry cannot be mitigated or solved . They are inherent to the industrial agriculture system ... if we act now to put an end to industrial agriculture , future generations will thank us . "

Revolutionary words...but one of the few truths you may hear in this dreary election debate over doctor residency programs , whether hospitals or schools should be built here or there , or any other of the
nit - picking , my way is better than your way dreck that passes for political discourse nowadays.

I leave you with one further admonition from Mr. Orwell : " In a time of universal deceit , telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. "

And one which takes some guts.

That's The View From Here