Gary Doer defends Alberta oilsands II

Oh goody another thread allegedly on questioning the optics of it this time though.

Go Iggy go.....

Boom Boom, that's exactly what I wondered aloud in the previous thread:

Why did he change - when did he change - and does the change reflect something more than one person's career moves? Something to do with Manitoba Hydro getting involved in natural gas marketing ("Centra")? I'm really deferring here to someone who knows, which I don't.

 

These are wonderful questions, which perhaps even warrant a thread of their own. I think a lot of cynicism, voter turnout issues etc. has to do with this - it seems that practically no politician has any principles to speak of that they stick to. This crosses right/left/centre etc. Harper's base thinks he abandoned his principles, if you read what Iggy wrote before moving to Canada and what he has said afterwards it is as if he had a brain transplant. Layton is one of the least worst, but seems mostly interested in power plays than principles. Doer is just the latest example. I am sure getting the wonderful home, the perks, the easy job etc. were great, but wasn't there ever something more that he aspired to when he joined public life? Was it all just to get this plum appointment? 

Yes, remind, this is no place to discuss Liberal and Tory selloffs of the environment to Exxon-Imperial and friends. That's hitting below the belt.

Apparently some of us still believe we have a country and any control whatsoever of our own energy. I'd just like to wish all Canadians luck with their skyrocketing energy bills in the near future.

Remind said this in the last thread:

"I do not see it like that at all, Sean people in MN elected him over and over, apparently because they like his positions, that have long been known, contrary to some's expressed surprise here. My cousin comes to mind here, who got the right to turn a northern Manitoba lake into an acidic ecosystem in order to write her environmental science MA. Not one NDP voting person in her family would take issue with Doer's alleged stance on the tar sands. Those who vote NDP are NOT universal in their beliefs."

The last comment is so painfully true. I understand what Remind is saying here but there are many who have felt connected to this party for a purpose who do feel betrayed by this. We are also frustrated because we are often the same people who can see clearly that the political parties are not all the same. We support the NDP becuase it is the best of the bunch and then feel let down when the best of the bunch is not only not good enough but pinch-hitting for the other side.

We know that for the party to grow big enough to make a difference it is not that little family of like-minded people we can trust-- there will be those who lost their way and ended up with us but without real convictions and principles. And we have no where to go to escape them because we know the alternatives are worse. As I wrote in another thread-- I don't want to vote NDP because it is the least bad.

I don't agree that the NDP has more turncoats than the others-- I think it is more newsworthy when they come up-- it isn't news when the other parties take patronage positions.

I would like to think that there could be more New Democrats who don't feel the need to sell out to get power. I have never believed that we need to sacrifice principles to get elected-- in fact I think it is this lack of confidence that keeps us out of power in most places.

Remind, to reply to the fact that people in MB voted for him over and over again-- this is only a political choice not a full endorsement. I vote for me best choice but it isn't always the best it could be. Had I lived in MB, I'd have voted for him as well-- only because faced with Liberals and Conservatives the NDP is the best choice. Many who voted for him may not have liked this-- and on the other hand there will be those who do not care. I agree with you-- it is mixed.

I can't quite put my finger on it, but there is something in George's trademarked cryptic and vague posting style that appears to be aimed at me.

I understand George's predicament, though. He champions those who ought to represent him, but doesn't. He praises those who should speak for him, but silences him instead. He believes the fear of electoral politics can be instilled in the established order if only we could get in line behind the processes designed to keep the established order in place as the established order. He believes corrective action to be doing the same as has always been done. Odds are at least once it will go our way - perhaps even in our diminishing life times.

George, he fails to recognize that party politics and partisanship is by definition fratricidal. It pits brother against brother and sister against sister and tree sitter against tree sitter and social justice advocate against social justice advicate as humans are forced to choose between political expediency, incremental change, radicalism, and actual relevance. Party politics is to change what glue is to disassembly.  And indeed, the neo-cons, the con cons, the lib cons, and the ought-to-be-convicted cons are having a hearty laugh. And who, really, could blame them?

Imagine intelligent people committed to change believing any real change can be brought about by diluting the strength of social movement solidarity and parcelling it out to organizations devoted only to raw votes--the political profit motive, and the status quo.

Gary Doer is not the exception.

I'm all for the NDP so long as the NDP is all for me. Anything else borders on ... well ... something far less than victorious.

remind and Fidel, I understand that you feel like the NDP is being attacked - but this is a perfectly legitimate thread topic.  If you feel it's not worth discussing, then please feel free to find some other thread more to your liking.

M. Spector: feel free to notify a moderator if someone is posting something annoying, rather than responding in kind.  Thanks!

"Quote:I see it more, remind, as coming from and being applauded by frustrated folks who are devoid of ideas for corrective action. And it is a damned shame to be reduced to a venue for bitter infighting by frustrated, otherwise well-meaning people because of it. New Democrats are an easy mark for snipers. But I guess to divert learned opinion here, we'd have to paint targets on the neo-cons who are laughing at our fratricidal ways."

 

Hi FM. I wrote that because I could not take the continued, mindless carping about yet another social democratic failed model. I dislike what he did. Intensely. He has failed us - not just New Democrats but humanity itself. The nature of his failure demands strong condemnation.

 

But the repeating of the account of the failure, ad nauseum, does nothing to ameliorate it. It only makes social democrats who post here feel they are surrounded by the types that I have described in the above quote. Michelle is wrong. This is an attack mode by frustrated people who can and do hurt, and continue to, despite the protests.

But the enemy is out there.

 

It is thesame with Barack Obama - your absolute favourite hit, FM. Had I not been away, I would have seen Rick Salutin's Friday piece in that capitalist propaganda sheet, the Globe.

"Everyone's own private Obama" in which he attampts to explain how the president became the target for invective from both left and right political factions. He does it with humour: "Anyway, Barack Obama never said he was left. The right charges he is and the left rages he isn't. He seems to think he's post-all-that: left/right, the Cold War. He has the advantage of not being able to recall where he was in the Cuban missile crisis. What leftists seem to forget, when they fume, is that, er. He's the President.

 

"You don't get there as a leftist or socialist. If those are your goals - as Ralph Nader may have learned - you don't win. You can't just hide it all, thenpull it out when you move into the White House.

"What else drives both sides wild? He seems to be having a good time...He hasn't quite forgotten the moves of real life, so he seems to savour it all. As he did dancing with his kids this week at the Latino fest. It does seem odd to enjoy life, when so much he has responsibility for is a mess both at home and abroad, but there you go.

 

"Maybe he really is postideological. The venerable ideologies have failed dramatically: the left one, 20years back and the right one a year ago.

 

"Could it be the absence of ideological certainty that unsettles people and disposes them to wacky reactions? The only ideology that didn't smash up recently is anarchism, and Barack Obama certainly isn't one of those.

"Or, hm, might he...?"

 

Dammit, that is so refreshing. Thanks Rick, but you are wrong on the end of ideology pronouncement. The libertarian idea is waiting in the wings. Everyone for themselves - the idea that came in with capitalism in the first place.

 

Oh yes, threads started out of "concern" for NDPers, by what Doer has alleged to have done, is very legitimate.

 

First, no one used the word "concern" in this thread until you did. Second, I believe that there were links to what Doer said in the first thread. They are not allegations. They are facts. One can agree or disagree with them but one can't deny that he said them by calling them "alleged". Third, this is a legitimate thread. I can understand that you may come from a political culture where this kind of discussion is illegitimate. That's fine but you can't impose a partisan culture on babble. It is not an NDP front. That's one reason I enjoy rabble.ca.  So perhaps you may want to reconsider your approach as a defensive line guard. 

I'm tired of organizations, meetings and people who try to stifle discussion using all sorts of pretenses including calling people neo-cons, liberals, traitors, "ist", silencers, etc. The ultimate "silencer" is to tell people that what they're discussing is illegitimate. 

 

Well, George, you raised him, remember that. I hadn't read Rick's column, but from what you've posted here and from your own comments, I'd say you both miss the point. The critiques of Obama from the (let's call them) principled left, isn't that he's not left enough. The critiques aren't that he isn't "progressive enough". The complaints, if you actually listen, is that he has betrayed his own promises. Broke them. And not just broke them, but snapped them, set them afire, and then urinated on  them.

He campaigned agaisnt secret meetings and then held them. He campaigned against signing orders and then did them. He campaiged to end the Iraq war, but has asked Congress for money money for the war in Iraq, the expanding war in Afghanistan, and the new war in Pakistan than George W. Bush. He said he would renegotiate NAFTA, and now his ambassador says "no". He goes to Cairo and speaks of the rule of law and justice and then does all he can to scuttle just that at the UN. He speaks of peace, but can't even get Israel, entirely dependent on US dollars, to freeze settlements.

Can you see the problem?

And what are you arguing anyway? Another conservative emerges from his social democrat clothing and we're all supposed to look the other way lest we demoralize each other? We are demoralized. We've been demoralized for decades. And precisely because we keep compromising our beliefs and principles to elect those who don't share our beliefs and principles in some sort of pathetic belief that maybe they will once in office.

You're an intelligent fellow, George. Surely by now you can see that in the pursuit of crumbs we've compromised our way to hell.

 

You and your mom can say whatever appeals to you, George. However, I would suggest with an age of scarcity upon us, war raging throughout (except, not yet, within the walls of the empire), and poverty as chronic as it has ever been, and misery spreading like wildfire, while the crooks and cons rule the world, well, I would suggest your and your mom's methods have failed. Or do you describe the slippery slope as just a faster way to what you sought all along?

And please, George, you are hardly being bullied or silenced. I would rather recognize and confront reality than paint a pretty face upon it  and tell myself it will all be different if we don't change a thing but just believe that much harder. I've never been one for religion, George.

I came across something today, George. It was sent to me. Do me a favour. Print it out and then drive around the subdivisions popping up in your community, visit the big boxes and the Wal-Marts, the fast food joints, the geography of nowehere that cuts through your town, and from time-to-time view the images, think of the state of our natural world, the warming climate, the dying seas, the rapidly disappering species, and then come back here and tell me how pretending in the process designed to perpetuate the system fosters change. Here you are: http://chrisjordan.com/current_set2.php?id=11

  My mom and I both knew that for the family trying to survive in a capitalist world, you had to look on the bright side of your personal situation, otherwise you were admitting that the bastards had got to you.

 

As for the message that one conveys to the public - I try for in-your-face criticism of the system, and often the silly bastards that buy into it and then wonder what hit them. I was invited to write the letter, below, which appeared as an end of year statement in the local rag that's just gone over from nominal Liberal to Conservative to preseerve its advertising base.  But the letters/op-ed editor is trying for balance:

 

"The Editor:

It was obvious to me early in the year that something bad was building in an economy where the central figures were unable to adequately explain why the prices for commodities were skyrocketing, why corn for fuel was creating food scarcity. Serious descriptions of an economic bubble began to appear in print.

 

"Even as it became obvious that greed was central to any explanation, market defenders continued to insist that all was unfolding according to free market principles - and then we began to learn the extent of the chicanery involved. All was unprincipled , unregulated greed, and all lost as the bubble burst in a few weeks.

 

"As violent as the economic collapse, however, was the blow to any idea that a workable answer to our planetary environmental depredations was being assembled.

 

"The Liberal Party chose a principled leader who spoke openly and seriously to Canadians about policies that would be needed to aid in a world-wide renaissance of human activity. The New Democratic Party forced passage of Bill C-377, the world's first political recognition that Kyoto's targets will be required. The year began with environmental concerns first among all others, following from the continuing revelations of the scientific community."

 

"The year ended with all environmental concern subsumed in a nation's need to preserve jobs and pensions, maintain economic activity as before - the fragility of our polity, our ability to generate an adequate response to critical needs now more than ever in question."

 

Any serious omissions of our existential situation that you can find there, FM? Or how would you confront the Great Misled with the horror show confronting them? Perhaps you could give an example (outside the confines of this politically protective environment?)

Or there's this one, which appeared in June in the little thrice-weekly Cambridge Times:

 

"The Editor:

Growth is being forced upon the residents of Cambridge and Waterloo Region by the need to control growth spreading outward from the Greater Toronto Area.

 

"That makes it even harder for us to think out means for easing the burden of transportation we leave for our descendants in a world that can't be dependent on fossil fuels.

 

"Unfortunately, the consultants seem to have convinced our municipal politicos that it's just a matter of building it - a rapid transit system that will entice people out of their autos - and the builders/developers will make possible increased population density along the routes, rail and bus.

 

"In the meantime, the 60-year insanity of subdivision construction, the automobile-driven force that makes any attempt at a sustainable future problematic, continues as though there is no tomorrow. Pity the folks whose income forces them to live in the 'burbs a couple of decades down the road. Particularly if they commute any distance to work.

In the absence of farsighted leadership, federally and provincially, municipal politicians and citizens hunker down in submission to growth spewing across spaces that are far beyond the reach of a planned transportation system for the kids' future. "What can you do, it's the OMB?" is heard interchangeably with "What can you do, they're politicians?"

 

"We're witnessing the political cop-out of a  generation of "consumers" and "taxpayers"."

Ah, George, in my day I've done a great deal and I have the scars (and perhaps the baggage) to prove it. But, you know, I am a voracious reader. And after all that reading, still on-going, I will admit to not knowing a great deal of anything about most things. But I have concluded a few things:

1) Television is the crack cocaine of the people; 2) Hope is the lazy person's action; 3) Change has never been accomplished through more of the same; 4) Despite the gift of memory, foresight, and both inductive and deductive reasoning, people, in general, still only get really excited over what they see from their front door; 5) People remain creatures of our biology - we will cut the last tree, cacth the last fish, and spoil the last river and then claim we had no idea; 6) The human appetite is infinite. 7) The planet is finite; 8) Despite centuries of mathematics including advanced and abstract methodologies and formulas that allow for financial instruments so complex not even those who devised them truly understand them, we still haven't quite calculated the result of 6) and 7). 9) Disconnects are the dots that when connected lead to the bliss of ignorance. 10) Love for one's child only extends to the next stoked anger at foreigners to which said child may be sacrificed or the inconvenience of trading in the car for public transit.

I have reached the pinnacle of cynicism, George. And from this far from lofty height I can predict that humans prefer conspicous consumption to real happiness. People prefer to believe in technofixes and magic pills than any sort of work, self-examination, or behavioral change. And with that I have developed a simple philosophy by which I now live my life and, in the spirit of friendship, and I do regard you as a friend, I shall share it with you. But not just yet.

We are in overshoot. We will pass the critical tipping points (if we haven't already). Our political system is the text book definition of inertia. And even if it wasn't, few of your neighbours would be prepared to surrender their granite counters, ceramic floors, 2500 sq. ft. homes, two garages, and SUVs for the sustainable world we all believe is possible. While at least one king gave up a throne for love, I know of none that have, or would, join the great misled for organic gardens, knitting, and the production of one's own cheese and beer.

So here it comes, George. Pop a cold one and find an comy chair while I impart to you my new found philosophy: Sit back, relax, and enjoy the collapse. Cheers!

I don't see the resemblance.

FM, are you familiar with the late George Carlin? This was his exact approach to life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4W9Cs6KPTus

CBC Oct. 21:

"Federal Liberals say they won't support the NDP in its effort to push a private member's climate-change bill through the House of Commons on Wednesday.

 

"The proposed legislation, called Bill C-311, the climate change accountability act, sets strict targets for greenhouse gas emissions and is currently being considered by a House environment committee.

The committee has asked for an extension of 30 sitting days to review the bill, a request that will be considered Wednesday when the House sits.

But New Democratic Party Leader Jack Layton said the delay would undermine efforts to have the bill passed into law before the Copenhagen summit in December.

 

"Layton wants the bill's tougher greenhouse gas emission reduction targets to be in force when Canada sends delegates to the summit, where international leaders hope to forge a successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the global greenhouse-gas treaty ratified by dozens of countries, including Canada.

"The bill has passed through two readings in the House of Commons since it was introduced by NDP member of Parliament Bruce Hyer, receiving support from the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois.

 

"Liberal environment critic David McGuinty, however, said the committee needs more time to study the implications of the bill.

"We need to hear more about the American position, the European position, the Chinese position" before considering the bill, McGuinty told CBC News.

(Some things bear repeating. Mixing the "good" with the "bad". Stopping short of innuendo, however.)

*bolding mine

Wow, now we have Dalton shilling for the tar sands and oil companies too, guess the federal Liberals do not want to get their hands too dirty.

The American position of course is Suncor's position, the European position is of course Royal Dutch Shell and British Petroleum, while the Chinese position is that of the Chinese Oil consortium who just entered into new developmental contracts in the tar sands.

Sickening really, especially when people should be contacting their MP's demanding that this Bill pass.

 

oops, read quickly, thanks pogge.

So the Liberals are shilling for the oil compainies directly with no in between. :D

And they're actually losing ground in Alberta. I guess it never occured to them that the support they did have in Alberta was from those concerned about tomorrow.