Results 41 to 59 of 59
I decided not to watch the debate. Since your description of it already has my blood boiling, I think I made a good choice. Enough stress in my life as it is.
It is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists.
-Karl Marx
@Brad -- I've been quite intrigued on the question of inter-provincial trade agreements since I came across your mention of that in your post. Easing them is in the Green Party platform. It actually makes sense in that they call for a potential withdrawal from NAFTA ie they would give and start negotiations to remove the most egregious elements.
http://www.greenparty.ca/en/policy/v...de-sovereignty
I can't stand the debates -- the only party leader I do like at all Elizabeth May, maybe because she's a bit nuts.
The latest news overall is the NDP is calling for more cops and decriminalizing marijuana. They shoulda been doing the latter a long time ago, but whatevs.
When Stephen Harper refers to “barbaric culture,” he means Islam — an anti-Muslim alarm that’s ugly and effective because it gets votes: Edward Keenan
When Team Harper refers to “barbaric culture” it means Islam. And it’s an excuse to talk about Muslims as barbarians in a press conference.
By: Edward Keenan Columnist, Published on Mon Oct 05 2015
It seems quaint now that in mid-September, there was a debate about whether Stephen Harper’s off-hand use of the term “old-stock Canadians” was an example of him blowing a racial “dog-whistle.” Two weeks later, any imperceptibly high-pitched whistles the Conservatives might be using have been drowned out by the cacophony of their constant cranking of the barking dog siren. It’s an ugly sound, an anti-Muslim alarm. And it’s all the uglier because of its apparent effectiveness.
Consider Friday’s announcement of an RCMP tip line to report “Barbaric Cultural Practices Against Women and Girls.” If you think for a moment they are talking about taking action on the many hundreds of missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada that organizations, including Amnesty International, have been reporting on this year, or perhaps the vulnerability of rural Canadian women to sexual violence highlighted at last month’s premier’s Roundtable on Violence Against Women, then you haven’t been paying attention.
But if you have been paying attention, it’s obvious enough that when Team Harper refers to “barbaric culture” it means Islam.
And so this new election initiative is intended to respond to some imagined Canadian epidemic of “child and forced marriage,” “sexual slavery and so-called ‘honour killings’ ” and “female genital mutilation.” These things, of course, are horrific and are already illegal. And while they do not appear to be particularly common here compared to other crimes (even compared to other crimes against women), there is already an established national reporting mechanism for those encountering them: dial 911. So nothing about this announcement actually makes women any safer. Instead it’s an excuse to talk about Muslims as barbarians in a press conference. It’s a transparently BS announcement to drum up hate and fear, for their own sake.
Or, rather, for the sake of getting votes. It’s a strategy the Conservatives have already been employing, with some success, since mid-September.
Harper’s equating of Syrian refugees with terrorists, his government’s illegal and basically pointless ban on wearing the niqab during the citizenship oath, his pledge to revoke the citizenship of dual citizens convicted of terrorism: what they have in common is that they a) immediately apply to and vilify some Muslim Canadians, and b) are almost purely symbolic, with no discernable practical effect on the lives of most Canadians whatsoever.
As they’ve unveiled these items, the Conservatives have gone from third to first in many polls. Is it a coincidence? There’s reason to think not.
A government poll showed 82 per cent of Canadians support the niqab ban, for instance. Moreover, eight per cent of voters told Leger marketing that the niqab ban was the main issue determining their vote. Considering that the Conservatives’ recent swing into the lead has been an increase of only about six points in their support in most polls, it’s not crazy to conclude this anti-Islam posturing has made much of the difference for them.
This brings us face to face with a pretty harsh truth about Canada, a country in which people like me frequently refer to tolerance of diversity, proud pluralism and respect for individual freedom as defining values, and a country in which 93 per cent of people rank the Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the most important national symbol. We may think those things about ourselves. But we’re also a country where it appears an election may be won by blatantly disregarding the Charter and promoting intolerance for no discernable reason other than to stick our thumbs in the eye of a minority whose cultural and religious practices we find off-putting.
In defence of his policies, Stephen Harper often points out that a majority of Canadians agree with him on these issues — as if the Charter didn’t exist specifically to protect against the bigoted whims of the majority, and as if somehow popularity itself is a coherent justification for prejudice.
Full story: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2...rd-keenan.html
I'd have to agree with Jason Unruhe here; "If the conservatives get re-elected knowing all the things they've done then Canadians may as well be part of the USA" or something to that extent.
Heh. I'm pretty sure you lost 99% of this board right there.
Entryism by self-decribed Marxists is bad enough, but when so many people's idea of pragmatism is "Vote Liberal to get rid of the Conservatives" and the Green Party becomes the standard for "change" and "progress" and "challenging the status quo", there's no way that silently waiting for people to come to communist conclusions on their own is going to get the left anywhere. For all I care, the CPC-ML can start occupying polling stations and yelling at people if it just breaks the monotony.
"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." - Antonio Gramsci
"If he did advocate revolutionary change, such advocacy could not, of course, receive constitutional protection, since it would be by definition anti-constitutional."
- J.A. MacGuigan in Roach v. Canada, 1994
I don't partake in the shit-slinging at Jason.
I don't think it's especially productive, either, but "Harper behaves like an American" sounds too much like something I'd hear from chauvinistic Liberals who buy into all the national myths about Canada being oh so progressive and friendly. He's not just trying to "Americanize" Canada...English Canada in particular has already been flooded with American media and the like. He represents capitalist interests that sometimes match the U.S., but also reveal Canada's own bourgeois politics.
I don't have any real grudge or vendetta against him, but I just find his analysis on the election kind of lacking this time around (even the PCR/RCP takes a position of active antipathy toward electoral politics, last I checked).
"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." - Antonio Gramsci
"If he did advocate revolutionary change, such advocacy could not, of course, receive constitutional protection, since it would be by definition anti-constitutional."
- J.A. MacGuigan in Roach v. Canada, 1994
Unruhe occasionally makes preposterous appeals to Canadian national chauvinism. I'm not singling him out; he's hardly alone in this habit. The Canadian left has a long history of nationalism and patriotism, which still rears its head from time to time. Its time we stamped it out. It does us no favors. Besides being contrary to the principles of internationalism, it's not even like we're particularly progressive. Just look at the history and continued oppression of our native people, or the current xenophobic fervor about Muslims. Its time for us to stop patting ourselves on the fucking back.
It is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists.
-Karl Marx
Darkest night of the year. As people chant their idiotic abc mantra, it looks like Canada is on its way to electing the son of the man responsible for not only taking a knife to the throat of Quebec separatism, but also the worst civil liberties abuse in Canadian history. I need a drink.
And so it had come to pass that Justin, Son of Pierre the Manipulator ascended the throne of the Canadian Empire and took the title His Right and Honorable Holy Progressiveness the Emperor Justin of Canada, Defender of the Petite-Bourgeoisie, Legislator of Oppression and Destroyer of Civil Liberties. His rival, Stephen of the Prairies, was given mercy and simply exiled to the Houses of Parliament for eternity. The foolish people celebrated their victory over Evil King Stephen, running out into the streets and singing songs of their Savior. Little did they know this peasant revolt was to end with precisely the opposite of what Justin had promised: no real change. Ever.
"If you're feeling low, stuck in some bardo
I, even I know the solution
Love, music, wine and revolution."
-The Magnetic Fields
“The most violent element in society is ignorance. ”
― Emma Goldman
Honestly, this may be the best case scenario. Harper is gone. And Mulcair likely is as well, because, what do you know, making the NDP seem like a less honest version of the Liberals just made people vote for the Liberals.
Economic Left/Right: -9.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.67
I was covering a Liberal and an NDP event for an assignment and I could have had alcohol, but I didn't want to do that before interviewing anyone.
Big fucking mistake.
Seriously, the result was distressingly predictable more than anything else. Aside from the TPP and Bill C-51, and an inexplicable effectiveness of doublespeak, the fact that the "get out and vote" machine commands so much respect after all is disheartening. Even if you believe that voting can be a useful tactic, the reasoning generally used was chauvinistic. People were shamed into engaging in "their civic duty" that "people died for".
As per usual, the changing of masks will just lull people into thinking that a "progressive" is in office and things will take better care of themselves.
Last edited by The Intransigent Faction; 20th October 2015 at 07:36.
"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." - Antonio Gramsci
"If he did advocate revolutionary change, such advocacy could not, of course, receive constitutional protection, since it would be by definition anti-constitutional."
- J.A. MacGuigan in Roach v. Canada, 1994
Interestingly, every [non-leftist] acquaintance of mine claimed to be voting NDP. Even people with conservative views (which says a lot about how "left wing" the NDP actually is these days.) If I'd have listened to people talk, I would have expected a resounding NDP majority. I should have known the whole "get rid of Harper" momentum would terrify people into voting liberal - except for the bigots who fell for the niqab controversy.
I should have seen it coming when my dad - an NDP supporter as far back as I can remember - started talking about how Justin has "really stepped up to the plate."
Anyway, this all amounts to business as usual, and would have no matter who won. I abstained from voting. There's just something so disheartening about seeing people excited about a liberal majority. Might as well have just called off the election and asked Harper to wear a giant smiley-face mask.
It is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists.
-Karl Marx
Anyone know how many votes the communist parties got?
Probably less than 1% in whatever ridings they're in, like last time.
On a different topic, how did the NDP come across as dishonest? The Liberals came off as shiftier to me.
The CPC-ML gave up on my riding this time. I don't know why they bothered in, of all places, an area that swings back and forth between Liberals and Conservatives.
"I'm a pessimist because of intelligence, but an optimist because of will." - Antonio Gramsci
"If he did advocate revolutionary change, such advocacy could not, of course, receive constitutional protection, since it would be by definition anti-constitutional."
- J.A. MacGuigan in Roach v. Canada, 1994
The CP and the CPC-ML run largely for propaganda purposes, especially to take part in all candidates debates. I believe only one CPer has ever been elected to the House of Commons and I think my father played golf with him but I could be wrong on that. Can't ask pops, he's long gone too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Rose_(politician)
Excellent piece on the NDP fuck up:
Mulcair Shrugged: How NDP Strategists Failed the Left
Party insiders played a chess game and let Trudeau echo Layton.
By Charles Demers, Today, TheTyee.ca
Almost invariably, there is nobody less politically minded than somebody who gushes, "I'm a total political junkie!"
What they usually mean is that they are thrilled by the horse-race aspects of politics, the wheeling and dealing; they can't get enough of the panel shows that parse strategy and tactics without ever really getting into who will be affected by a particular set of policies, or how, or in whose interest they're being advanced. In this West Wing view of the world, triangulation and chess-playing are everything; the possibility of genuine political feeling among people who aren't already players is precluded.
The big, unprecedented federal breakthroughs for the NDP came in 2008 and 2011 -- two years of cataclysmic financial crisis and worldwide popular turmoil. 2008 was the year of the crash, the biggest crisis in world capitalism since the Depression, which happened to have been the crucible for the NDP's predecessor, the CCF; it was the year of candidate, then president-elect Obama, and the seemingly unprecedented mobilization of formerly-alienated voters who raised him up.
Slavoj Zizek called 2011 "the year of dreaming dangerously," for Occupy, Tahrir Square, and other massive street uprisings around the globe.
Despite itself -- despite taking Jack Layton, a leader from the party's genuine left, to the tepid centre -- the NDP benefited from the Canadian franchise of what was clearly a global desire for change in both years. In 2015 -- the year of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, the election and re-election of Syriza in Greece -- they were well-positioned to get lucky one more time.
But the people who run the NDP are political junkies. The clutch of strategists who steer the party, incapable of thinking politically or historically, were convinced that the breakthroughs in 2008 and 2011 owed to the fact that they'd suddenly gotten better at sending emails, were suddenly running more efficient campaigns. They favoured what was not only a purely national explanation for what was clearly at least partially an international phenomenon, but one that even more specifically rested on the story of their own personal genius.
'35 seats' fail
The election of a federal social democratic government (whatever's the NDP's vast shortcomings) would have been an historical blow to the country's age-old electoral framework. Instead, the NDP rushed to make the prospect seem like the most modest thing in the world. Strategist Brad Lavigne spoke in an online video about how daunting and impossible Justin Trudeau's path to victory would be, how many more seats he had to win, compared to the tiny hop, skip and jump it was to an NDP majority -- this despite the excitement of 2011's "Orange Wave," of which Lavigne had been an architect, and which had completely upended the electoral map, especially in Québec, making a mockery of early polls or the seat count at the time the writ was dropped.
At some point, late into the summer, Justin Trudeau's team figured out that Thomas Mulcair wasn't going to run as the Jack Layton of 2011. So he could.
There are two explanations for what briefly catapulted the NDP into the lead over the summer: the election of Rachel Notley in Alberta, and the party's initially unpopular but principled position on Bill C-51. Each instance obviously played a role, but which one a person decided was the more important almost always reflected their values: political junkies universally saw Notley's election, the proof that the NDP were responsible and ready for prime time, as the fount of the party's polling successes. For those world-weary apolitical chess players, who like pundits wear their cynicism on their sleeves as a matter of pride and tribal belonging, the alternative -- which relied on genuine, semi-sophisticated political feelings on the part of a large swathe of the general public -- was silly. It is to Trudeau and his team's great credit that they were willing to give the public the benefit of the doubt: Trudeau was wrong on C-51, and Mulcair was right, and only the former learned the proper lesson from the experience.
By the time it came down to deficits versus balanced budgets, Mulcair had already painted himself into a corner, not only fiscally but temperamentally. He had kicked off the campaign by shit-canning a handful of candidates for their statements on Palestine (reminding many of us of the time he hounded Libby Davies; for some of us in the West and in the left our introduction to Mr. Mulcair), and then, when video emerged of him praising the political economy of Thatcherism, he shrugged. Candidate Obama would have taken the opportunity to deliver a defining, inspiring speech about the way we change as individuals and societies, what the left could learn from the right; Candidate Trudeau would have said something vapid and sappy and vaguely evasive. Mulcair shrugged.
Canadians have elected a Liberal majority that, as many observers have suggested, looks strikingly like something out of the 1990s -- the decade when the federal Liberals invented Canadian homelessness, gutted the CBC, and devastated federal transfer payments for health care.
A historical opportunity for Canada's parliamentary left has been squandered, and the parliamentary caucus has been so decimated that even some of the bright young lights that could possibly have been part of finding us a way out of the darkness, like Halifax's Megan Leslie, no longer have the job. The NDP will be in the wilderness for the next several years at least.
Oh well, that's politics.
source: http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2015/10/22...iled-the-Left/
Well, basically the NDP came off as no different from the Liberals, in fact I've seen claims that on some issues, Trudeau Jr. was actually to the left of the NDP. So I'd say the NDP was actually awfully honest, admitting where it really stood unlike the past.Probably less than 1% in whatever ridings they're in, like last time.
On a different topic, how did the NDP come across as dishonest? The Liberals came off as shiftier to me.
But that's why the NDP failed. Why vote for the NDP if the old traditional Liberal party is no different and maybe even better?
The crashing defeat of the Labour Party in England in the spring resulted in the
Corbyn renovation. Is there any possibility of a similar worker revolt vs. the degenerate state of the NDP, with whatzsisname the current NDP standard bearer becoming the NDP's Tony Blair? I doubt it, the NDP is just too worthless a party. More than likely the NDP is going to start fading to oblivion, having so totally blown its one great chance for political success.
Alexa McDonough's leadership of the NDP in 1997 tried to steer into Blairism and then's when Blairism was popular and new! It didn't really take hold. Progressive centrism was the domain of the Liberal Party and it still is.
Jack Layton's leadership of the party was very much tied to a popularity for his anti-war stance. And he was great on a whole lot of other issues. He appointed both Mulcair and Davies as deputy leaders, the former representing the right of the party, the former the left. The right wing and party bureaucrats have inherited the party. The left keeps getting pushed out. There's a good number of people who'd like to make some kind of left alternative, but under the present voting system it's near impossible.
