Wednesday, April 17, 2013

No signs please we're Boweners

A funny little Bowenism.

Traditionally on Bowen provincial and federal elections have gone on without lawn signs going up. It's a funny thing. It's as if political debate is unseemly or something. Those who take signs are stigmatized as if they were serial litterers. And God forbid you are party campaigner and you exercise your right to place a sign on public property.

So today on the Bowen Forum the debate begins anew.. It's funny. One poster even muses about whether we have a local by law that can stop this unseemly exercise in democracy from muddying the view. I have no idea why we do this. Perhaps people feel politics should be a private matter.

I used to think it was quaint that we had this local tradition. But during the national park debate there were lots of no parks signs that went up. So now I think we have abandoned the practice. Politics on Bowen has now become personal it has become nasty and it has signs. I think it's time we realized that we can't have it both ways.

The Little Bowen mindset is getting tiresome, but its harmless and funny.
But watch how the debate unfolds and you will learn something about why people think our community should have its own standards with respect to off island politics. A funny kind of exceptionalism that looks small minded and hypocritical the more I see it play out.

UPDATE: This morning there was an NDP sign at the corner by the Catholic Church.  This afternoon it is gone. You will see this happen throughout the campaign.  What IS the word for this kind uppitiness?


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