4 - Wednesday, July 29, 1992 — North Shore News

Running the world i foul and filthy business &

AS A person who has spent, on and off, a quarter of a century urinating from the parapets of newspaper columns onto lowly politicians below, I have to confess something.

I have to confess that, generally speaking, | admire anybody who has the guts to get into politics.

That’s right. Ata time when politicians rate lower than ever in public opinion polls, 1 want to say something nice about them.

And by “‘them,’’ [ mean nearly every politician from Brian Mulroney, a lawyer and lapdog to American corporate interests, to Vaclav Havel, the just-departed Czechoslovakian president, who used to be a playwright, helped to topple communism, and is therefore a hero, not merely a skuzz, even if he did biow the task of holding his country together.

(Question: Will Mulroney have the grace to quit the day after Quebec votes to separate?)

You see how | couldn’t even write a single sentence intended to praise Mulroney without bashing him? It's a habit.

In this regard, I’m like most Canadians, even if the Tories are clawing their way back ever so slightly in the polls. We tend to loathe politicians, don’t we?

It’s hard not to. People who want power should be viewed with healthy suspicion from the start, especially those who want to do it for the gcod of others.

Not that, with all the perks of political office that exist these days, anybody can really get away with that line any more.

At least not quite so bare- facedly. It remains that there are plenty of politicians around who are still peddling the routine that they’re doing it for more reasons than ego, a power-trip, travel op- portunities, sex appeal, and the rush of exercising dominances.

But who believes them? We

, know intuitively that all those fac- tors are at work in the motiva- tions of any politician. I’m sorry. Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. and Louis Riel and W.A.C. Bennett alike.

What I’m trying to express is an appreciation for their witlingness to interfere so massively with the lives of others, especially since, in the process, they are frequently scarred for life, their reputations and fortunes ruined, and their psyches scorched beyond repair.

These people suffer for their ar- rogance and presumption. Even

Bob Hunter

STRICTLY PERSONAL

when they don’t seem to be suf- fering — such as when they become senators in a corrupt po- litical jurisdiction like Canada — they are, in fact, running the serious risk of becoming twisted inside.

Maybe ‘‘twisted”’ is too cruel a word, Maybe I mean scrambled. Politics is of course 99% illusion. Tam putting the figure so high — instead of, say 85%, which is probably what you were thinking — because I’m including the fact that the first victims of the illu- sion are the players in the game themselves.

Like any good salesman, a poli- tician must first sell himself on a product.

If you opt to support the Pro- gressive Conservatives, for in- stance, you must somehow con- vince yourself that ‘‘Toryism’* the Way, the Path and the Light.

Whether shoe polish or ideology, the product has to be the very best in the known uni- verse.

The purveyor must hypnotize himself into believing it heart and soul, otherwise he’s not going to make many sales.

Bill Vander Zalm always struck me this way: a great pitchman who conned himself first of all, and only got into trouble when he confused his wares and forgot who his main client was.

In politics, as in sports, team- playing is what it is all about.

The sudden collapse of Ross

Perot came about simply because, having been the undisputed poobah of his own private empire so long, he couldn't play ball with the pros he needed to guide him into political power.

In picking a political philosophy and gang, once you have iden- Ufied with the concept intellectu- ally, the next step is to make an emotional leap — a way of coping with the fear of aloneness, | sup- pose.

Their philosophy has to become your philosophy. ‘*You’’ and “they”? merge like amoebas, fus- ing to the extent that you and they can now use the word ‘‘we’" when talking about yourselves.

I'm sorry, but that’s the image — amoeba soup — that came to mind after watching the Demo- cratic convention on TV.

tt is as though everybody pres- ent had strapped himself into the same Virtual Reality machine, or at least, one with the same pro- gram.

In any event, you'll agree, for politics to work, some kind of bonding — to use that awful but irresistibly effective new word — absolutely has to occur.

After a person has been an elected politician for a while, you can’t get a straight answer out of them any more.

They’ve forgotten how to just say what they think or feel. And that’s partially because being locked up in a legislative assembly for hours at a time with a bunch of other raving egomaniacs is enough in itself to drive anyone crazy.

But, more to the point, you can’t afford to be honest any more. Honesty and political ac- tion, as George Orwell observed, are mutually exclusive. Too bad. But there you are.

Even more so than writers, pol- iticians take on the burden of bending reality to suit their aims. It looks easy, but it’s not.

Unlike writers, however, they also take on th: burden of having an aim. It goes without saying that they have to have egos and a lust for power, and that they are a suspicious-looking fot.

It’s a foul and filthy business, running the world, but some- body’s gotta do it. If there weren’t politicians, the rest of us might have to do it. Scary thought, eh?

raise ire of ratepayers’ group

COMMUNITY GRANTS make up a relatively small por- tion of West Vancouver’s $53 million operating budget, but the passage of 1992 community grants totalling $241,735 still managed to create a stir at West Vancouver District Council’s July 20 meeting.

Coun. Andy Danyliu refused to vote on the portion granted to professional arts groups.

“I would only support these grants if they did workshops in our local schools,’ said Danyliu.

He added that the municipal grant resulted in a ‘‘double tax’’ on those residents who already support the arts through their patronage.

But Coun. Pat Boname said, “There are strings attached to these grants and these groups do do things in our community and in our schools.”’

As council’s chairman on the parks recreation, culture and community services committee, Boname presented the grant schedule, which consisted of:

@ $146,336 contributed through

By Maureen Curtis Contributing Writer

council and the North Shore Arts Council;

@ $77,850 contributed through the community services advisory commission;

@and $17,550 contributed through the parks and recreation advisory commission.

The West Vancouver portion of the contribution to arts groups, such as Judith Marcuse Dance Co., the Playhouse Theatre Cen- tre, the West Vancouver Com- munity Band, the Vancouver Youth Symphony Orchestra, the West Vancouver Youth Band, the West Vancouver Little Theatre

WEST VANCOUVER DISTRICT COUNCIL

COUN. PAT Boname... pres- ented gtant schedule to coun-

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