Amplify!

So here’s the next chapter in my tentative foray into democratic participation.  I have been putting together an event with an organic farmer, Chris Krucker (Manorun Farm).  We come from different spheres but we share the opinion that Brian McHattie is an ethical and talented leader whom the city would be wise to elect, but who likely needs a ramped up effort from his supporters to do so.   Together (with some encouragement from Mixed Media owner Dave Kuruc) we have quickly hashed out the basics of a bare bones event:  Testify! Amplify! Multiply!  It happens in less than two days-- this Wednesday October 22, 7pm, Melrose Church (on the corner of Homewood and Locke). There will be a coffee and a microphone.  And pure, unfettered belief.

Chris’ vision for this evening is, I think, more sophisticated than mine.  He wants to use this event to encourage the notion of ‘connectors’ (with a nod here to Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Tipping Point”); that there are at least ten people who straddle divergent social spheres within this city who can push the urgency of this election onto another ten people, who in turn can, push another ten and so forth.  It’s the idea of stoking one’s own conviction and then making it public, and in turn infectious.  The good kind of infectious. I like it because at its core is a fairly non-technological, non-gimmicky desire to simply connect people, have them speak, and collectively build their magnetic charge.   A good thing to do, election or not.

My vision is more bombastic I think.  It rests on a fantasy where a bunch of people get together in a space, make testimonials which get video recorded by people’s phones and then uploaded to social media, hopefully going viral in such a transformative way that the city becomes happy forever.  The unrealistic kind of infectiousness.  The kind you see in uplifting Hollywood film montages where people get their shit together in the three minutes it takes for a saccharine pop song to play out.

Yes.  I believe with my whole heart that Brian McHattie should be our mayor. But I’d be a liar if I didn’t also admit that I desperately want to be part of one of those feel good pop-song montages of people getting their shit together.   It’s because of the twelve-year old inside me that will never mature, or adjust his expectations in a reasonable way.  In other words, an urge for civic participation that relies on delusion.

But who cares.  It’s the effort that matters.  You can come on Wednesday and knit yourself into a fabric of people who want better things from their city, or come and fall headfirst into my happy and cliché-riddled fantasy.  Or do a little of both. 

Go McHattie Go!  Run hard and free like a mighty stallion!  See you Wednesday!!

TESTIFY!!

It occurred to me, perhaps much too late, that this upcoming Hamilton municipal election is unlike any other in which I have participated.  There is actually a candidate that I believe should have the job.  Not just a candidate I think is better than the rest, or is the one whom I can tolerate the most, or is the one whom I am least repulsed by.  No.  I actually think that Brian McHattie would make a good mayor.  Everything I’ve heard, witnessed, or read about the guy suggests to me that he is hard working, ethical, consensus building, and is not driven by his ego; he also has some grip on what I believe is the emerging new identity of this city.  

I can’t remember actually wanting someone to be mayor before.

What do you do with such a feeling?  Up until now, I have maintained my habit of being both silent and modest with my political beliefs, and have let this campaign drift along, fretting when I hear the polls, comforting myself when I see the lawn signs, but that’s about it.  It’s wrong.  I should be more alert to how rare it is to actually have faith in a political candidate.  It’s an event like a junebug emerging from its seventeen-year underground gestation, or a solar eclipse.   So unusual it needs special attention.

I also have this growing suspicion that there are lots of people in this city who harbour similar feelings.  Good, modest people who are bound by similar discretion and entrenched habits of remaining clear of the political fray.  People who right now wrestle uncomfortably, like a pubescent teen, terrified and aroused with strange new municipal convictions they’ve neither invited nor experienced, hesitant to do anything because they know it will only come out awkward.  Lord knows that's how it is with me.

I know there is just shy of two weeks before the vote; so yeah, I know I've left it too late.  But I can’t help wondering what would happen if all us people who normally clamp down on their municipal passions, just started talking, or posting, and making public their opinions.   What if there was big messy surge of political fervour these last two weeks?  How awesomely would that put a charge in Hamilton’s psychic cosmos?  

To ease my conscience therefore, to make one slight step towards citizenship, I will now awkwardly attempt to go beyond the work currently being done by my lawn sign.  I will now testify:

Go McHattie! Go Strong into the Fray! I am still too timid to be an official part of your campaign, but that is beside the point!  I believe in you!

Who’s with me?