Polls, and the extention of polls.

remind, already happening

http://www.rabble.ca/babble/canadian-politics/latest-federal-political-opinion-polls-started-friday-september-3-2010

sorry NR did not see that thread, but there is actually no poll in it, as such the thread title is wrong anyway.

Just to finish this off, Stuart's point was that the Democratic Party was stronger for the massive disruptions.  My point was that the massive distruptions came when Nixon won.  Mainly I was just trying to withraw.  I like reading the poll thread here, and appreciate the posts of you and others who are concerned with politics much more than I am.  The odd time, usually late at night, I can't help saying something, and then usually regret  getting out of my reader (lurker sounds unpleasant) mode.

Is that why hardly any NDP MP's showed up to the G20 in Toronto? Showing up is one thing, taking a leadership position is quite another. I have yet to see any footage or even photos of people with and NDP banner at the G20. Any help with that from anyone?

Presuming to represent "social movements" is not the same as participating in those movements.

The presumption is that you can represent without participating. In order to represent the NDP needs to participate and take an overt leadership role in them. But as we see, other than by making third party critcism of the G20, there wasn't a whole lot of NDP participation in organizing of the G20 protests, nor participation of the NDP leadership in the demonstrations directly.

Ken. I am certainly not going to contain my political analysis of moribund nature of NDP electoral politics to discussions about whether or not the NDP conforms to the NDP's self conception of itself, or the view of some of its members. Indeed, I intend to continue to have an anlysis that includes ideas outside of the NDP paradigm: indeed that was the point I was making.

There is a real disconnect here between the NDP role as critic and the roll of tradtional left parties in mobilizing people. There is the definite sense that the NDP is "standoffish" in relationship to grass roots organizations of the left, for the most part the visible leadership seems to fear association with anything "controversial".

I wouldnt go so far as to say standoffish. But more distance, yes.

And maybe thats a healthy thing. We do different things, and that cuts both ways.

I dont see the social movements ever having tried to e more like the NDP. So it was always a hope the NDP would be more like the social movements. And maybe thats trying to do 2 things that are intrinsically different, and ending up being good at neither.

You presume that it is all or mostly about being too controversial.

I still spend most of my time in social movements, and the last thing I want is for the NDP to adopt our approach. My feelings on this are stronger on this than most members- and opposed to many others [Peter would be one of many], but its the appraocah of social movements more than the content that I dont want to see mimicked.

Well that is a really odd point of view to take from someone who is a supporter of a party whose last serious political achievement happened in 1966, at the time, when the party didn't simple "represent" social movements, but was the political arm of two important social movements the CCF and and CLC.

Well, actually, this is an extension of a thread which was not about polling, but about "everything but the polls" that directly stemmed from some other discussions we were having.

Anyway, if this converstaion bores you why not watch this.

There isnt a thing in there I agree with as a historical statement. [And the dig it starts with has no anchor, not that such digs should be paid attention to anyway. But I'm weak.]

Nothing?

You are really going to assert that somehow the CCF-CLC -- NDP axis comes into existance as some kind of "theoretical" that didn't have its origin in labour organizing and leftist socialist "social movements"? It didn't grow up in a groundswell of public support for social change aimed at bringing progressive social programs to the disadvantaged of the society in a wide spread progressive movement involving millions of people all over Europe and North America? It didn't have its basis in grass roots organizing by progressive organizations such as unions actively promoting certain ideas, engaging in labour actions, and demanding a fair deal for ordinary folks?

Tommy Douglas and a few old hands just thought the idea of a "single payer" healthcare program one day, and people saw a flyer and said, hey, that's brand new I will vote for that?

About achievements of political parties v social movements?

I have answered that. If you think that the NDP's success at bringing real social change to Canada in the 1960's is somehow seperated from the social movement that the NDP was the express political agent for, then you simply will not understand what I am saying to you. The NDP and any political successes that it can claim are the direct result of the "social movements" that founded it and supported it, and forced the hand of the establishment through the NDP.

The "NDP" and the "social movement" was part of were not two things that can be distinguished.

It is this idea, that they can be seperated that I am precisely talking about. The fact that the new NDP sees itself as "seperate" from the "social movements" that it presumes to "represents" is the problem I am addressing.

That isn't relevant to what I am saying. I am not talking about taking "clear stands" I am talking about effective social organiztion.

No i didn't say with the "NDP dragged along". I said the "social movements" and the NDP were one in the same, at the point when they were most successful, they were an integrated whole.

No i didn't say with the "NDP dragged along". I said the "social movements" and the NDP were one in the same, at the point when they were most successful, they were an integrated whole.

I am saying your dichotomy: Social Movements V. Party; question; "which has achieved more?", is false, since they were one in the same.

No the dichotomy is yours, here:

My point is that there is a culture in the NDP that percieves such a distinction, and operates on that basis, not, but it was not like that in the 60's.

As for successful social movements that have translated their views into action since 1966, I would say the most successful has been the Reform.

Can we step back a minute here?

This is a thread in the "Canadian politics" section of rabble.ca. I think the idea that there should be some kind of affirmative action program to make sure that groups much smaller, less well-funded and not engaged in electoral politics get equal criticism to the NDP is silly. I come to this forum to talk about electoral politics and I often use it to express my views about how the NDP can do better.

People can take or leave these views on their own merits but I reject the idea that how seriously my views are taken should be conditioned by my demonstrating an equal willingness to criticize other parts of the Canadian Left.

Furthermore, this weird twist in the conversation is resulting in greater incoherence because it is reifying "the movement" as though there is some kind of coherent, cohesive leftist movement in Canada. Certainly, there is a labour movement and an environmental movement that have institutional structures for federating most unions and most environmental groups but that is about as far as one can go in talking about coherent, self-conscious movements with mechanisms for collective action or at least consultation.

The question is not "can 'the movement' do more/better than the NDP?" The question is how can the NDP do better in shaping (as opposed to responding to) public discourse and opinion? If people think that is an unfair question or a question that is asked too frequently, let me recommend a Stockholmesque solution: withdraw from the conversation.

Now, let me throw out something constructive: currently CCPA is a labour-funded entity. What if the party earmarked some of its resources for setting-up an arms-length Fraser Institute-like think tank through a set of loans that could be paid back through services like costing election promises and other research tasks? Here's another constructive thought: what if the party polled on unpopular issues that it might take up and asked voters how likely they would be to change their vote if a candidate they would otherwise vote for disagree with them on that issue. Then more data-based risk assessment could be done on the actual cost of taking unpopular positions. Just a couple of thoughts -- why don't people attack these ideas instead of each other?

Stuart, I think the idea of more explicitly left-wing/progressive/social-democratic think tanks is very important (I don't care what we adjective we use to describe them).  Since the CCPA, there also emerged the group run by Steven Staples (Rideau Institute?), and you could tenuously include Democracy Watch, and certainly there's the Council of Canadians and David Suzuki Foundation.  But a lot of the rest of the policy work is going on in NGOs who depend on the kind of funding that requires partisan neutrality.  The Liberals do a very good job of outreach and schmoozing to all those groups (and the university faculties), which we don't as much.  The Party is affiliated with the Woodsworth-Foundation which I think is financed through an endowment.

There are some technical details about who could fund what, and how (I don't think federally tax receipted political contributions could be used to finance a think tank, for example).  But the general point is that the conservative movement figured out a way to establish and finance think tanks, and folks on the left need to be thinking along the same lines.

Media outlets is the other part of the equation.

You may not be familiar with the party's financial statements, Stuart, but for the moment most of its assets are tied up in the equity of its building in Ottawa.  It gives them collateral for election loans, and a small source of rental income, but spare cash is either being devoted to the riding building campaigns (Local Victories Challenge parts I and II) and paying down the election loan from last time.

I'm not saying it's not a good idea, but the financing will have to come from elsewhere for now.  Especially with federal elections going every two years at the moment.

Let's talk of  claims that there should have been more NDP MPs, MPPs, riding associations   all proudly marching under  the NDP banner in the G20 protests. Let's call those claims, ciaims the NDP failed to adequately  represent the social movements at the G20 protest. Let's  say I agree  that this is a valid criticism of the NDP.But I ask  how much responsibility do the the social movements carry  to make sure they were adequately represented by the NDP at the G20 protests or any other matter? ..   Did they invite the NDP -collectively or  individual MPs, MPPs  or ridings staff or executive or activists? Have they worked  with these MPs  and MPPs or activists  or any part of the NDP in the past?, Have they seen and been seen by the NDP as a friend and ally in the past and are now disappointed in "their" party and feel their party did not for once adequately represent them?  Are they  going to  their party and demanding better representation in the future?

solidarity

Peter

Have a hard time with people criticizing others for not going, while really not even knowing whether anyone else did, or not, other than those listed already who did, who are now being ignored, whilst they themselves played avoidance at all costs.

Cue, I adore you, but I cannot support this false line of rhetoric.

Its also worth noting that the NDP not persuing longer term comminications strategies isnt necessarily connected at all to prpective initiatives being probably not liked by the NDP 'universe' of supporters and possible supporters.

It can be that the issue is just too complex to have sufficient traction with voters to get near term results out of work put into the initiative.

The example I like to use is the NDP's climate change policy package deleveloped in the context of the House committee hearings for changing the Harper government's dead on arrival Fall 2006 "Clean Air Act" [C-30].

It was developed as a new C-30, which of course the government was not going to budget money for. But it was a well thought out policy package- both the policy parts and the politics of appeal, and blunting predictable opposition.

While the NDP talked about it, it was more waved around as 'we have a plan that is better'. There was no serious attempt to develop an understanding of it. That would have reequired a longer term approach: resources now [which means less resources for other issues that will pay off sooner], payoff down the line.

Thanks for the props! And I think you are great too, but my observation comes from years of experience. I have sat at 100's of community organizing meetings for various causes, everything from peace organizing (sometimes included mass protests numbering in the 10's of thousands) to police accountability actions, and never once have I seen the NDP present itself to become directly involved at the grass roots organizing level. Certainly, some members can be counted on to participate, but getting the NDP as an organization to do much more than accept or decline speaking invitations, is a near impossibility.

Now of course, NDP candidates and caucus members can't be everywhere at all times but there seems to be little to no presence of NDP membership co-ordinated through the NDP to get actively involved in anything beyond the confines of internal party wrangling, and this unfortunately has the sad effect of leaving many non-aligned persons who want to do activism at the mercy of the rump of the communist organizations such as the International Socialists and other random socialist elements, and the occassional anarchists. We can expect the members of labour political action caucuses to be directly active, but the NDP can more or less be counted on as a no show.

I don't know what your experience is at your end of the country, but this has been mine in Toronto for the last 25 years.

Indeed, it seems many NDP'rs, and the party in general does not see itself as a tool through which members can mobilize people outside of the "election" process, and like all "parties" seems more interested in having activists and their organizations serve their specific electoral agenda.

Of course one has to pick ones battles but the G20 was most certainly a very big deal, and not seeing the NDP making itself felt in a very public manner on the streets is indicative of the stand-offish attitude that seems prevalent in NDP circles. Indeed. complaints that some NDP'rs have voiced about the nature of some of the demonstrations that took place at the G20, such as the vandalism of the Black Bloc, seem hypocritical in the light of the fact that the NDP did little to help take charge of the proceedings.

Perhaps it is just that many party members simply have given up on the NDP as a vehicle for organizing beyond the quadra annual ballot box shuffle, but whatever the reasons, these are the facts as I see them, and in my view the result is that the NDP is doing very little to shift the national agenda beyond the narrow confines of the neo-liberal/neo-conservative agenda, at the grass roots.

At the end of the day, the fact is that unless some kind of serious re-iteration of "left" agenda can take hold at the level of the "average" Canadian, then there simply is no chance that the NDP will ever be electable on any kind of "left" platform.

I don't see Jack Layton recommending government investment in "new productive enterprises" here. I see him talking about investing in "infrastructure" to stimulate the economy through the existing construction industry, basically. Certainly, this has merit, but it does not address the issue of creating sustainable and profitable industries that serve Canadian interests.

In anycase, my point is not about the "ideas". It is about how to build effective organizations.

Why should I be wary of it? It's the truth. I love social democrats who insist on a policy of Soviet styled "democractic centralism" and party discipline.

The power to do something means building effective organizations. Again, you have it ass backwards. The labour movement didn't build this country by waiting for a "national consensus" to arrive and then wondrously being graced with power through the electoral system. They did it by building effective organization, person by person, community by community, not by wishing on a star and telling people who critique the status quo parties to shut up.

But today, all people can do is complain about how the mass media is biased against them, and forgetting that when the labour movement became an effective tool for changing the way business is done, there was no "mass media", or very little to speak of, and what there was of it was entirely in the control of the business class.

Good thing I didn't say that then. But you will never miss an opportunity to miss the point in the pursuit of defending the moribund status of the NDP: the central point is about building effective organizations, without the support of any kind of mass media, not that we are living in 1900, the real benchmark date for the rise of the international labour movement.

One hopes of course that the labour unions can do their part in the transformative process, given that they are about the only cohesive organizations left, with any power and motivation to counter the neo-liberal agenda, as ideology, but sitting on the sidelines and hoping that the "national consensus" will miraculously change for the better and sunny skies will appear, is not going to get anyone anywhere.

Pretending that labour's votes for Tweedledum or Tweedledee while running from the very idea of Climate Change - the experience since the 1970s - is not the basis of a rallying cry that all could follow.  The Georgettis will have to stop fawning over the brilliance of Jimmy Flaherty and increase their concerns beyond those of the membership.  A wonderful start would be an insistence on increasing national pensions for everyone...not just those fortunate enough to have jobs and saving from relatively high wages in the  CPP and with RRSPs.

And I don't see election workers "sitting on the sidelines."  That's the position of critics up in the rarified air of the  bleachers.

I think people are forgetting the strategizing that does go on. And the NDP and social movements being related is not past tense entirely. For one, the membership of the NDP and many, many of those organizations overlaps.

Now I know of events where the NDP has been asked to show up without banners -- I also know of events where organized labour has been asked to show up without banners and places where those who did were criticized. These questions are not so simple-- at times people do not go to lead out of respect-- they go and stand in the rain and provide the bodies supporting the organizer not taking over.

You can debate if it was the right strategy but you should be careful about making assumptions about the reasons any particular organization might choose to show up but not be visible in an obvious way.

I don't know the organizers of the G20 protests-- anyone here know what invites, requests were made?

I don't think the issue is one of right or wrong or "strategic" positioning optics. I am quite sure that part of the reason the party doesn't pursue grass roots organizing is because it is afraid of embarrassment. That said, being "connected" and having a pretense in these kind of affairs is the only way to functionally take steps to prevent "embarrassment", and indeed, simply participating in something, and being directly involved in organizing, do not necessarily require total agreement with everything, and every person in an organization.

That is what coalitions are all about, and it is usually not such a big dieal striking a consensus on a generally accepted statement of purpose.

So, in my view, I would have no problem with the NDP becoming so actively involved that it bullied its way into events, demanding a visible presence. That is just politics. But I really don't see that kind of active interest from the NDP these days.

Cue:  "Those are the rules, sorry. Pensions, and so on, amount to more "stimulus" not "new productive enterprise" what you were calling for. Not that I object to this idea, because I know this was just your chance to take another shot at selfish unions that don't look out for anyone but the membership, but that neo-liberal talking point is just not going to wash with the great unwashed, such as myself."

Cue, you can look forward to enjoying a pension that will be far and above the pensions of the majority of workers. They would like to have a guaranteed income at the end of their working days (which may be 70 within the next couple of decades). Corporations will no longer set up pension funds with a guaranteed income, they will only guarantee to make payments into a fund, and the rest is up to the MARKET. That is the one institution in the panoply of capitalist institutions that you never mention, as though , unmentioned, it will go away.

In reality, Cue, you are involved in the stock market and international investments, right up to your ying yang.

The 'productive enterprises" should be state-owned, as were so many in the mixed economy at war's end. The accumulated pension funds including our sovereign funds should be employed in the development of Canadian industries...only one living in another world would not consider them our primary hope for the generations to follow.

And please, don't suggest that New Democrats do not support a multicultural workforce. That lie could easily be refuted by any active New Democrat on this board.

You are entitled to your opinion that the real reason the NDP does not participate is mostly because of the embarrasment part. But you could at least acknowledge that you have heard people saying that they dont think the NDP belongs there in the way you think it should.  Why you think your reason it isnt there trumps, and what is the connection to the reason others gave, Remind most recently. 

A pretty complex attribution of motive. Not so much complex, as dependent on a lot of disputable variables. 

To a degree we all agree on this. Though there is an important divergence in that you see it as a departure from what should be and was once much more. Which 'organically' leads to the different colouring of what is.

Always right there with the anal epithets, Cue dissociates himself from the real world of company pensions:

"George. I notice you spend considerable amount of time talking about shit you know nothing about. In this case the topic is me. I am getting CPP buddy and that is all. The last time I was in a union was the IWA, when I worked in forestry in the 80's.

As usual you have mixed up a lot of preconcieved notions about other peoples self interest (projection?) to fuel your anti-union hobby horse. I am not involved in "stock market" boondoggles, or "international investments". Nor are the unions actually, since they don't control how the pensions funds are used. They are controlled by a committee, in which the union voice is the smallest, as the teachers unions discovered when they tried to get Cadillac Fairview (a company you suggest they "own" and control) to negotiate a fair contract and rehire locked out CEP workers. In fact, the pensions funds are in control of a bunch of venture capitalists who are just as capable of losing all the pension money as they are of making it."

Then there was Cue, some weeks back, after explaining why he does follow the Ontario Teacher's Pension Plan's fortunes rather closely: "I am married to an elementary school teacher you fucking moron."

The teachers suffer along with all dependent on the finance capital industry, as Cue explained:

"Having a successful pension fund speculating on the market that might blow up at any minute, is not "asking for more". Indeed, the value of OTTP has decreased by 30 Billion dollars over the last 3 years, doncha know it.

Quote:After eight straight years in the top quarter of Canadian pension plans, OTPP announced that the pension plan lost $21.1-billion of its asset base, which represents a negative 18% rate-of-return for the year ending Dec. 30, 2008. The fund's total assets have dropped from $108.5-billion to $87.4-billion."

But of course, Cue, it has always been a matter of whose ox is being gored. In this case, it's a matter of explaining how the majority of workers are to EVER enjoy the old age that you face, if there isn't an acknowledged role for at least a market designed to improve their lot, controlled by a state that reflects social democratic values.

I love live cases . Can we discuss good green jobs and this coalition as part of the discussion about the relations aomongst  political parties and social movementssay with an idea ot ciriqun this coaliton for not doing what it should?

[quote

s. =Cueball]

Indeed it seems to me that the kind of new and productive and sustainable enterprise that you were talking about is something like this: Good Green Jobs. Now this kind of thing is not really good enough, and might be too little too late, but is far further along the line of toward building a sustainable economy than Layton's proposal for "shovel-ready infrastructure projects just waiting" to be staffed with ten dollar an hour temporary day labourers.

Be that as it may, what is really important here, is not the idea itself, but the fact that this is a project that directly links labour to the needs of our communities, and examples how community organizations and labour can work together to develop new ideas and create organizational links beyond the immediate needs of the membership.

Notably, we see an attempt being made to build bridges by the entrenched labour movement in aid of new immigrant communities as represented by the Canadian Tamil Congress and the Jamaican Canadian Association. I don't think that we will be seeing any "good green jobs" anytime soon, but this is the kind of initiative that builds strong organizational links at the grass roots in the long term, which is what we need if we are going to weather the coming storm, and maintain even a slight smidgen of the values that we share.

See the NDP there? I don't.

So, keep putting, maybe you'll make it to the next hole, someday.