For the 41st election in a row it looks like developers and business groups will win again!

It doesn't really matter which candidate wins the election for mayor on October 18, 2010. The mayor as always will again be the suburban and inner city developers. The Urban Development Institute is the mayor to ensure that Calgary remains "open for business".  According to UDI "if you stop growing, you die" and you should chill out because “growth pays for itself”. Whether it is suburban sprawl or inner city condo towers on residential streets, up and out is the way. The mayor is advising citizens to just roll over and get the hell out of the way of the Undemocratic Wrecking Ball.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) will again be elected as Aldermen. They will democratically work to ensure that front line worker wages in Calgary stay low (and owners and management salaries stay high), to ensure that government keeps subsidizing business, in addition to keeping business and personal taxes low. To top it off they will bellyache that their subsidies, I mean government waste, have created an insurmountable fiscal deficit. The CFIB and CTF will use the free market wand to mesmerize taxpayers to socialize their members' costs and to privatize their profits.

UDI, CFIB, and CTF want to continue cheering the election horse race from their luxury boxes. While we hoot and holler for or against the peoples' champion in the run up to the election, the pullers of the strings will be moulding the election winners to ensure that the masters stay in their boxes of luxury.

The challengers for City Council are just those at the end of the strings. They will take the heat and praise and will be paid decently to keep the gravy train and profit bonanza going for developers and business groups. It surprisingly does not take much money to grease the egos of politicians. A little money goes a long way. For this, a City politician will talk tough, distract, meet behind closed doors, and position development for the 'common good' that reflects 'citizen sentiment'. Politicians are the spokespeople who twist and turn subsidies into rights and marketplace rhetoric. The reality is that each piece of paper in an election box is just a piece of paper in the election box.

Many political candidates get elected on the platform of bucking the system. Once elected though they do a turn-about of remarkable proportions. They all end up doing thy master's bidding in fear of getting bucked off. The political system is littered with a cemetery of good intentions.

The political system is broken, yet we keep thinking we can fix it. Just vote and somehow it will start working. As Michael Parenti in his book 'Power and the Powerless' said, "Many of those who think they are going to change the system from the inside do not seem to realize that as they work their way within the system, the system works its way within them."

The political system needs to be dismantled. In its place we need to create and build movements that keep politicians and businesses accountable. Instead of putting faith in others, we need to put faith in each other. It is time to build a new democratic system that puts citizens in the bike seat, rather than on the bike spoke. We should be steering, not just going for a ride.