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Opening comments: More at the end.
In this EDITORIAL there are some very strong words about a very serious subject - " Does he feel any shame?
Does be enjoy this excretion in public?" The words in this editorial can apply to so many politicians, that it becomes time less.
Mississauga Business Times - Nov. 2003 - pg 1 & 8 - Editorial by Rick Drennan. Disgrace: Is Gyles a reflection of society? In J.M. Coetzee's seminal book, Disgrace, an aging professor named David Lurie succumbs to the charms of one of his students, still only a teenager, and begins an affair that leads to his ultimate fall. The shame of his actions (the word 'abuse' rears its ugly head), is only matched by later struggles in his discordant life. He admits his guilt but refuses to repent, and in the end, he finds a small form of salvation - and his own humanity while helping out in an animal hospital. Coetzee, who recently won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his unique body of work, has written that animals have no shame because they do have sex or make excretions in the open. "That's what makes them different from us," he says. Shame is what makes us human. Shame was also on the mind of Christopher Hitchens in a Vanity Fair essay a few years back. In today's society, anything goes, he says. People are blameless and shameless. You rip off a friend for money. So what. What are friends for? You beat the insurance company with a false' claim. So what, everyone else is doing it, right? How low can we go? It doesn't matter. No one's watching. No one's judging. There's always an excuse. Always someone worse. This might be a nihilistic vision of life, but what's changed in our McWorld, even after 9/11? Cliff Gyles, the shameful councillor for Ward 5 in Mississauga, has reached new lows in the annals of municipal politics. His recent convictions of municipal corruption and breach of trust, weren't enough - in a judge's opinion - to stop him from seeking office in Ward 5 this month - because, of course, we have to await the outcome of his appeal. The shame of it all Twice, someone has stepped forward and offered up his bail, so Gyles, 59, can (at this writing) continue to conduct his re-election campaign. In fact, 21 hopefuls are now vying for the seat. Gyles, I suspect, has as good a chance as any of taking home the top prize. The fact that Gyles is allowed to run says something about our legal system (no shame, no blame), but more about the Municipal Act, which must have Mayor Hazel McCallion doing cartwheels in her office - even at her advanced age. But Gyles' shenanigans in taking $35,000 in bribes to support two rezoning applications from two constituents, isn't really the story here. Crooks come and go. The politica1 world is hardly immune from corruption. My favorite (besides Dick Nixon) is Adam Clayton Powell, the flamboyant New York politician. Powell was a pastor of the Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York City. He soon became known as a militant black leader and was elected to the city council of New York in 1941. He was elected for the first time to the U.S. Congress in 1945. Although a Democrat, he campaigned for Republican President Dwight Eisenhower in 1956. As chairman of the House Committee on Education and Labor after 1960, he acquired a reputation for flamboyance and disregard of convention. In 1967, be was excluded by the House of Representatives, which had accused him of misuse of House funds, contempt of New York court order concerning a 1963 libel judgment against him, and conduct unbecoming a member. He was overwhelmingly re-elected in a special election in 1967 and again in 1968. He was seated in the 1969 Congress but fined $25.000 and deprived of his seniority. In June. 1969, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that his exclusion from the House had been unconstitutional. Powell was defeated for re-election in 1970, and if memory serves, spent his final years enjoying the luxuries of the isle of Bimini. Hey, the guy had a good run, even if he was a convicted felon. So what does all this say to our children! In a shameless world you can put up election signs and throw your name forward for re-election and attend debates, and few, if any, will say no no no, that's wrong. That's not our way. Not in this shameless world. When Gyles' contretempts [sic] hit the pages of the Mississauga News, the editorial staff braced for a barrage of letters to the editor. Surely irate taxpayers will jam the phones with disgust. Still others - like my mother - would throw their hands up in disgust and vow: "if he is re-elected, I'll never vote in another election again. Ever" So what was the response at the News? Not much. A few calls - and two of them supporting Gyles. When Gyles was in court before the Superior court judge who sentenced him to two-and-a-half years in federal prison, Madam Justice Bonnie Wein called it a "clandestine and insidious assault on democracy." Yet, it seems there is nothing short of imprisonment to disqualify a member of council from holding his office - until he's led away kicking and screaming. When (and that is the question these days) Gyles begins serving his time, he might be the newly re-elected councillor from Ward 5. Stranger things have happened in the waxy world of politics. I suppose the most disquieting aspect of this case, and the one thing that irks me, is the lack of a response from Gyles. The lack of contrition, the lack of shame. While Coetzee's Professor Lurie skulked away to his daughter's farm, tail between his legs, so to speak, and looked (or some kind of meaning to his life, he found some redemption in his acts of kindness towards animals. What does Gyles do? Mount a campaign, and seek the seat that eventually led him to a prison sentence. Does he feel any shame? Does be enjoy this excretion in public? But if he doesn't get it, if he doesn't feel remorse or shame, what's the point? How can he redeem himself, if he doesn't feel disgraced? But don't blame Gyles. Perhaps we naively believe that all our political leaders should be squeaky clean, heroic figures. Yet today, we hold our politicians in such low regard that most of us don't even bother to vote - or run for office. The turnout to the last provincial election was an all-time low. So was the quality of some candidates. Which got me to thinking about the Emperor Caligula who, showing total disdain for the political process, named his horse to the Roman Senate. One thing about horse: they don't take bribes. The turnout for the upcoming municipal election will be worse. Did I say 21 are running in Ward 5? That's 21. How many are hoping to use the seal to reclaim the high moral ground for their constituents? Hopefully, a few. How many are just looking for a cushy job with loads of perks. I think I know one. The old saying, you get the government you deserve, has never been so true. If we don't read the papers and stay up the issues and follow the movements of our politicians, and if we don't even bother to cast a ballot, what do we expect? That's right: you expect and get Cliff Gyles. There is broadening moral and political crisis in this country. Novelist Jonathan Franzen calls it "an age of apathy and distraction." The apathy is towards those in public service, the distraction is the vapid lives we lead - out-of-control consumerism, hours and hours of mindless TV, and a total disengagement from our children. Cliff Gyles tried to squeeze some bucks out of two constituents? So what? It's only a crime against money, right? If there's duplicity in the political arena, so what? Look at the business world: Enron, Arthur Andersen, the New York Stock Exchange. Talk about rip-off artists. We can't afford, as a society, as individuals, to give in to people like Cliff Gyles. We can't afford to expect so little of ourselves and the people that represent us that we excuse fraud or corruption. We've got to stop lumping together all politicians - "they're all a bunch of crooks" - and admire, even reward, those paragon of public service, the ones who run and serve for all the right reasons - to help their fellow man. The road to anarchy is paved with court documents from cases like the ones that convicted Cliff Gyles. Somehow, I think we're all on trial these days - not just Cliff and his bunch. Every time there's an election and we fail to vote or fail to read campaign literature or fail to do our homework on the candidates, another strong case is being made against our society. I still believe that good will unseat the bad, but we've all got to play our part in the unseating. I'm not asking Cliff Gyles to do the right thing and climb under a rock. I'm not saying he has to get on his knees and beg for our forgiveness - although that would be a good start. I'm asking him to show some shame. I'm asking him to show some humanity. I'm asking him to separate himself from the animal world. I'm asking him to begin the long climb back to redemption. Right now, he's a disgrace. Photo; EDITOR'S DESK - Rick Drennan's smiling face.
[COMMENTS BY DON B. - ]
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