babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
Support rabble | Advertise with us | Contact our staff | About rabble | Log-in or Register for a new account | Corrections | Privacy policy | Newsfeeds | Mailing lists
rabble: Features | Columnists | In Cahoots | Blogs | Books | Photos | What's Up | Polls
babble: Forum Topics | Active Topics
The rpn: About the RPN | Become a podcaster
rabbleTV: Program Guide | Features | Indie Inside | Best of the net
Copyright © 2001-2013 the authors
Syndicate
Talk about a list of totally failed parties...you'd think "Die Linke" would be having a heyday being the only opposition to a CDU/SPD grand coalition, but they are going no where and can't escape being tarred with being mostly made up of ex-Stasi agents.
Typical Blairite social-liberal banter, as I expected.
All developed countries suffer from lower voter turnouts, due to apathy from among middle-class occupations (like the self-employed), and due to disillusionment and/or lack of self-respect from among workers, seeking the opiates of "consumerism," organized religion, and revolutionary spontaneism (no organization needed for revolutionary change, as if it will come like a religious rapture).
Any genuine socialist party would have to organize the latter class on all lines, from token electoralism to spoilages, from legal political action to civil disobedience (like coordinated bossnappings), from limited cooperative projects to alternative cultures.
I do hear the narrative, repeated again and again, that if the NDP were to become more left wing, there woud me many many people who don't currently vote for the party (or even vote) who would support the NDP. first of all, the Federal NDP is already fairly left wing. But secondly, where is the evidence for this? If being left wing were to attract more voters, then the current Ontario NDP ought to be on the way back to government. I'm not sure who these masses are who are crying out for a more left wing party. Does anyone know who these people are? I don't see masses of people demanding a more left wing party. Besudes, there is already a more left wing party (the Marxist Leninists, the Communists) and they don't get many votes. And, the Mel Hurtig National Party got trounced in the polls (though Al Q'abong apparently voted for them, good to see that you're an NDP loyalist.)
That is because the NDP you speak of is merely an electoral machine that's out to get votes come election time. The failure of many left-wing parties to "cash in" on the crisis globally is because they're set up to be mere electoral machines. What I talked about above is a "total" organizational model that can be seen in the pre-war Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (and even the short-lived USPD breakaway) to the former Kommunisticheskaya Partiya Sovetskogo Soyuza to the modern Lebanese Hezbollah.
Such "party" would be such in the 19th-century sense or early 20th-century sense: a genuine political party, a way of life, a distinct class culture.
Well, after "those crackpots" in the Militant Tendency were expelled from Labour,a process began that led to the party ending up, by the time it did return to power, agreeing with the Tories on every issue that mattered. By you that's an improvement?
Well, "Die Linke" is the only party on the German left that's increased it support at all since Angela Merkel came in. THe Greens have treaded water(and, since they're now in coalition with the Christian Democrats in at least one area, are now on their way away from being left-of-center at all)and the SPD is in massive decline, even though it's just as bland, tame, and moderate as you want all left-of-center parties to be.
The association with the Stasi and the East German past really should be considered extinct in this day and age. Almost no one in Die Linke today was connected in any meaningful way with the SED. Most of those types quit as soon as that party transformed into the Party of Democratic Socialism. Old SED types are much more likely to have joined the Repulibkaner or other hard-right anti-immigrant parties.
Die Linke has its flaws, but a Die Linke government would never have anything in common with the kind of regime Ulbricht and Honecker ran. Stalinism is extinct in Germany.
It's ashame that I will probably live to see August Bebel's political project be buried and animated by another political party, Ken.
Thanks for the link Remind
I think it actually went more like this:
1968 election the NDP only got 22 seats
1969 Waffle was formed
1972 election the NDP rose in support to 31 seats
1974 Waffle disbanded
1974 election the NDP dropped down to only 16 seats
That's right. Even if the Waffle was kicked out in 1972, rather than 1974, the period following that expulsion was a period of general NDP decline. After the NDP kicked them out, the NDP wasn't able to do much of anything with the "balance of power" status they had between 1972 and 1974(there was single-payer, which is eternally to the NDP's credit, but that would have happened at the same time if the Waffle had't been driven out, since NDP support would have been just as strong in '72 if the Waffle was still there). And Trudeau was able to cut heavily into NDP support in 1974 as a result of the post-Waffle NDP not seeming to be very different from the Liberals at all. And if they WEREN'T different, then why NOT just vote Liberal, since the Liberals were going to have a chance to lead a government and the NDP wasn't.
If expelling the Waffle was a surpassingly brilliant political move, wouldn't NDP support have soared across Canada in the 1973 to 1977 period, rather than dropping like a stone?
The Waffle made a brief reappearance as the NPI. It was disbanded and driven out of the party after the 2000 election. In 2004 the NDP made significant gains in terms of number of seats and popular vote. This couldn't be a coincidence either, based on your logic.
There you go. Better late than never.
So, here's something of a radical suggestion, blending two seemingly disparate ideas together.
There are many radical leftists who are people of colour, immigrants, queers, feminists, etc. For all the issues of the NDP's lack of national diversity, if the leadership were to be turned over to folks who have longstanding activist, and leftist organizing credentials, from either their countries of origin or outside-the-mainstream activism, I think there would be a massive change and surge in population in the NDP, or whatever it wants to call itself.
Thanks for adjusting the thread title Maysie.
That would be a very interestig experiment however I just can't see those who presently control the party giving up power. What is it they say: Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
But a diversity group could form within the NDP similiar in a sense to the Waffle, and try to do it that way. I read Michelle's comments in the diversity thread, and I have a feeling this issue is going to come back and bite the NDP in the ass.
The thing with power holders who refuse to give up power is not waiting for them to "give it" and to simply take it.
And:
No diversity committees!!! Nooooooooooo!!
I seem to remember hearing about a diversity issue in Toronto a while back, to do with the Board of some organization, was it called Jessie's perhaps, that was operating a residence for women. How did that sort itself out?
You don't just "hand over" the leadership of a party to anyone.
And I would NEVER countenance electing, or promoting for leadership, a whole group of people with no demonstrated commitment to and patience with electoral politics. Electing one particular person like that- maybe even for Leader- fine. But a wholesale changeover to people with no commitment- frankly, not going to consider it.
The hypothetical of turning the NDP into some [very hypothetical] version of an agglomeration of social movement groups is endlessly attractive to people who don't like electoral politics.... who only want to cheer for [ocassionaly] and against aspects of it they don't like.
While issues of power are most definitely central; it is also definitely not as simple as 'being willing to turn over power'.
You're crazy if you think this is new. Its been biting the NDP in the ass for longer than I've been around. This particular issue of the speakers list- if it exists at all in 2 weeks- is a pip in comparison.
Just for the record- I'm more than willing to accept criticism for what the NDP has not done. Where I get dismissive is some of the facile solutions I hear.
This is delusional at core. If the entire leadership of the NDP were to walk away- which is quite a large group actually, entailing many people who are not staff or politicians- and the doors were to be thrown open...
In the first place, I'm not so sure their would be as many takers as you think. Its a lot of work, a lot of bullshit even if you are now in charge, and people have their existing struggles and lives that are their priorities...
But supposing I'm wrong, and people come rushing in the door, there would be an influx of 'good people', but not an overall surge in poulation in the NDP.
Funny thing I learned when I got more invloved with the NDP after 25 years as social movement activist- that vast majority of people at the grassroots who come in the door are most of all interested in electing people. It doesn't have to be about winning, but it does have to be about electing people.
So good luck with that surge in population.
WTF???????
Never gave you any links so I do not know what you are trying to insinuate!
Um, KenS, there are people out there with years of experience in local and national left-wing politics that the NDP hasn't tapped yet, and has not been particularly interested in tapping into. Maybe because the experience of such people doesn't happen to be in Canada? Such people, as amazing as it may seem, also know what volunteering is, and how to mobilize communities for elections. They sure could teach the NDP a thing or two. But sadly, such ideas are dismissed.
And you wonder why change isn't happening?
Actually remind, I was thanking you for this link which you posted above.
I call "bullshit" on both of you.
Maysie, who are all these "leftists" with amazing credentials and organizing clout that the NDP should be calling upon. If they had such amazing credentials and were such great organizers and were connected to the larger community, they'd already be a force to be reckoned with. Such people don't wait to be called upon...
Ken, this is the kind of attitude of the current leadership that makes people wish for a new one. People holding on to power because, hey, they're the only ones stepping forward to do the job. Yeah right. It's because they hoard power and positions for their "in group" that there aren't any other people stepping up. You can't actively discourage people from stepping up and then say "Well, I guess we have to continue with our status quo clique because hey, nobody is stepping up...". That's somewhat tautological. And oh, what a tough life it is. All the criticism and the bullshit these people have to put up with (for not producing any tangible results over the past three elections!) Give me a break.
Big Daddy, tone down the rhetoric. You can disagree without "calling bullshit". Stop it.
As for where are all these people I mentioned, well, that question's been asked and answered. See the thread on lack of diversity at the upcoming convention for a hint.
Okay northern, my apologies.
OK, I guess it's better to be called delusional by Ken.
The Waffle Manifesto
You have a point, Big Daddy. That's one of the challenges of moderating. If I call Ken on it, is it because he's disagreed with me? Will my words of warning be taken more seriously b/c I'm a moderator? The easlest thing for me is to let all but the more offensive ones go by.
But in the interests of consistency:
Ken, don't call posters "delusional". You can disagree without being personal.
I think the NDP could do well if it was just like the Liberals were in the 1970s.
Ideologically, the modern Liberals are a bit of a corpse.
I don't think the Waffle reconstruction would be a good idea. There is absolutely no traction for socialist/communist class struggle in North America, except among a tiny minority of diehards. Exposed as the CPC and the CPC-ML are, socialist factions might be able to get 100 votes in a riding in an election.
A lot of people emigrated here to get away from socialism.
The only major socialist power these days is China, which is more like Nazi Germany was than Soviet Russia.
However, capitalism has its excesses, and wealth disparities are a concern. The top 10 people are worth more than the bottom billion. That is a problem.
Someone would do well to demonstrate that the Scandinavian model works well. Where there is less economic inequality, there is more social cohesion. Which is what I think the Liberals were talking about in the 1970s...