.JPG)
rabble.ca is today launching an extended series on the Canadian left -- Reinventing democracy, reclaiming the commons: A progressive dialogue on the future of Canada -- a look at where it stands after the recent federal election, and what the future can hold. The series will run in this, rabble.ca's 10th year, and is curated by journalist Murray Dobbin.
As progressive Canadians struggle to come to grips with the prospect of four years of a Stephen Harper majority government, rabble is launching a series that aims to start a broad dialogue about where the "left" has been and where it needs to go. We will be inviting the country's most respected activists, thinkers, writers and researchers to address what we think is a crisis on the left -- a crisis of confidence and effectiveness. And we will be inviting rabble readers to join in, too, over the course of this, our 10th year.
Is there a crisis? Just the fact that Harper has a majority is evidence of that crisis. That 40 per cent of Canadians have been persuaded that there is no point in voting is more evidence.
Things are not nearly as bleak as they might have been. The Harper Conservatives gained only two percentage points over their 2008 count. The Liberals, the other party of the corporations, was decimated as the "orange wave" of NDP support humiliated the former natural governing party. As Jesse McLaren wrote in rabble on May 10, 2011: "Over the past decade ... the combined corporate vote inside Parliament [declined] from 78 per cent to 58 per cent, a significant drop of 20 per cent." Comparing the last two elections, the NDP gained votes in 293 of 308 ridings, saw declines in just five and came in second in more than 110 other ridings. For better or worse, Canada seems headed in the direction of having a single corporate party and a single, genuinely progressive party, vying for power.
But why did this surge happen and is it the beginning of a trend? Equally important, what role or influence, if any, did Canada's social and labour movements have in this unexpected electoral shift? The organizations that used to speak for us with powerful voices have been greatly diminished over the past 15 years. It's hard to argue that we prepared the political landscape for this important change.
We know that the vast majority of Canadians share our values -- they share the conviction that government can and should be a force for good. They support the expansion of universal social programs to include childcare, home care, Pharmacare and more. They are appalled at the level of poverty in the country and ashamed of Canada's new, aggressive foreign policy.
Yet too many have been convinced that their expectations of what is possible from government are too high. The right has succeeded in demonizing government, and Stephen Harper has made matters worse by making politics so offensive that many people no longer have the stomach to get involved. The right, through ownership of the media and think-tanks, and the recruitment of academics, have managed to frame many of the critical issues -- the deficit, economic policy, taxes, public investment -- from their perspective. They have perfected the use of language to induce people to support policies that are against their own personal and community interests.
It is not that people have not been politically active -- there are thousands of activists across the country working incredibly hard. Things would be much worse without this political response. But we have been on the defensive for over 20 years -- since the historic fight against free trade in 1988. Young activists have with rare exceptions, experienced nothing else but negative campaigning -- stopping the next outrage, trying to anticipate the next assault on our values, defending social programs and the environment, fighting the WTO and IMF. We have been so preoccupied with fighting off the right, we have taken little time to imagine the future we want.
I originally thought of the idea of this series as the economic crisis developed and exposed neo-liberal ideology as bankrupt and destructive. Yet just when the system we have been fighting for decades seemed exposed like an emperor with no clothes, we seemed incapable of responding in a manner that suggested a progressive way out the crisis and into a future that would leave savage capitalism behind. We had no Big Ideas. While the right is expert at taking advantage of "useful crises" we were not. The crisis is still with us and while new ideas are appearing -- for example, prosperity without growth -- we are not yet engaging the public in considering them.
Those fighting for a better world are still fighting in what has been called issue "silos" -- single issue organizations or movements fighting for discrete, seemingly disconnected (except that they are socially desirable) causes. This reflects a period when governments actually listened and were engaged in activist governance. In the 1970s and even into the 80s and 90s, this method of organizing produced real results. Stephen Harper and even Paul Martin before him have done their best to end this era of civil society political engagement. Victories have been increasingly rare but we haven't come up with a different way of organizing for change.
We face globe-threatening crises -- climate change, species extinction, a looming water shortage catastrophe, more economic disasters created by finance capital, peak oil, and the relentless growth of consumer culture. But we have not created organizations or movements that can address these issues effectively. It seems that only the equivalent of a cultural revolution -- a movement to counter consumerism -- will address many of these issues and make political change possible. But it is unclear how that will happen.
Perhaps at the root of our decline in effectiveness is simply our inability to motivate sufficient numbers of people to affect real change. We need to ask why millions of people find more meaning in a hockey game, in the death of Michael Jackson, or at the shopping mall, than they do in defending their communities or becoming active citizens. As Michael Lerner says in his writings, including The Politics of Meaning, we have, in our efforts to engage people politically, failed to offer them greater meaning to their lives.
Another positive outcome of this election and the previous two, is that our democracy is now on trial. Never before in Canadian history has there been so much attention paid to the fatal flaws in our parliamentary form of liberal democracy. That attention needs to lead to a fundamental debate about democracy -- one that goes beyond the need for proportional representation to look at banning television advertising by political parties and making attack advertising of any kind illegal.
But it also means exploring how to democratize how government itself operates, how the delivery of services can be democratized. The title of the series includes 'reinventing democracy' because it is so obvious that our current version fails the people it is supposed to serve. If any part of our national life deserves the exploration of Big Ideas, it is our failed democratic system.
The other part of the series title is reclaiming the commons and it suggests cultural change. The success of the right in the past 30 years is reflected in the destruction of community as well as the diminishing of the role of citizenship. Consumerism is anathema to community, it isolates people, distracts them from aspects of life that are more nurturing and more satisfying. As such, consumerism is a threat not only to the planet and its ecosystems but to the natural functioning of human society. Reclaiming and rebuilding the commons -- that is what we share and do together -- is fundamental to fulfilling the World Social Forums' declaration that "a better world is possible."
The series is not meant to be an exercise is blaming ourselves for the political dominance of the right. It will be a reflection and dialogue on the recent past and how we have reached this point. We will be examining various movements to analyze their history, calling on activists and writers best placed to provide us with the insights we need -- and asking them to put forward their best ideas of how to rebuild civil society.
But beyond looking at where we have been we want to focus most of our attention on where we need to go, searching for the best ideas about how to communicate our values, how to motivate people to become intentional citizens, how to rebuild community and resist the seductive power of consumerism -- and put forward a vision of genuine prosperity without destructive economic growth. And yes, for millions living in poverty or near-poverty, consumerism is not an immediate concern -- though it could be argued that chasing the consumer dream also dis-empowers the poor.
We will also be examining the exercise of political and corporate power and the neo-liberal ideology that tries to justify it. That ideology lies exposed and discredited in the wake of the financial meltdown -- yet it does not die easily and is still being promoted as if nothing had happened.
And in the wake of the NDP surge, we need to examine the divide that has plagued progressive politics in Canada for so long -- the gap between extra-parliamentary politics and party politics. Building on the leftward shift in voting patterns is the job of both branches of progressive politics.
Of course progressives In Canada are hardly alone in dealing with the assault on democracy and equality. In the English speaking developed world Canada is actually the last country to fall prey to neo-liberalism. With that in mind, we will also be drawing occasionally on writers and activists from around the world where they can assist us with examples of successful resistance to neo-liberalism through positive alternatives that might have application here.
We invite writers, thinkers and activists to make their own contributions to the series. We will also have a rabble page where those not inclined to contribute articles or mini-essays can contribute their thoughts and experiences to the conversation.
Let the dialogue begin.
Murray Dobbin is a guest senior contributing editor for rabble.ca, and has been a journalist, broadcaster, author and social activist for 40 years. He writes rabble's bi-weekly State of the Nation column.
Thank you for choosing rabble.ca as an independent media source. We're a reader-supported site -- visited by over 315,000 unique visitors during the election campaign! But we need money to grow. Support us as a paying member (click here) or in making a one-off donation (click here).
To those who don't already understand - the coming parliament will conclusively reveal an NDP that is clearly aligned with the elite interests of the Canadian state. The sooner the no difference party is finally understood to be a bourgeois party like the others, primarily interested in getting elected, the sooner Canadians can begin to build a true Left, free of the NDP's debilitating influence.
Loved your article Murray! I heard you speak at a Council of Canadians session last Fall in Courtenay - where you outlined the historical events of the rise of the Conservative movement (including the Trilateral Commission and the Wahsington Consensus). I see the need for Progressive's own similar strategy/agenda; hopefully this dialogue gets us moving in that direction!
The NDP is the party of the middle class, ruling in the name of the working class, in the interests of the ruling class.
Seriously, all anybody has to do is take a good look at "labour" and social democratic governments in Europe and elsewhere to get a general idea of where an NDP government might take us: Social Democrats in Greece are implementing a cruel, vicious "anti-austerity" programme dictated by the IMF (whose accused rapist former director had been touted as a Presidential candidate for the French "Socialist" Party) in a country which already was among the poorest in the European Union, a "Labour" government in Australia is cutting welfare, including for people with disabilities, and implenting a racist "quarantine" of Aboriginal and poor communities which forces recipients to spend a certain percentage of their meagre welfare payments in government approved stores and social democratic parties worldwide (including the NDP) support the imperialist assault on Libya (where a number of Muslim clerics were just murdered by a NATO airstrike on the building hosting their peace conference - NATO said it was a "command and control centre").
NDP provincial governments in Canada have implemented their own forms of "austerity" including cutting welfare. I remember former BC NDP Premier Mike Harcourt, in response to baiting by the corporate press over so-called "welfare fraud", saying he was going to go after "all the cheats and deadbeats" (prompting many anti-poverty activists to quit the party). NDP provincial governments have also engaged in union busting such as Bob Rae's Ontario NDP imposing their "social contract" on union workers there which paved the way for the greater assaults of the arch-reactionary Tory government of Mike Harris (in much the same way as the right wing, pro-business policies of "New Labour" in Britain has paved the way for the current dismantling of the last remnants of the welfare state by the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government in that country).
I have no problem with people voting NDP for strategic purposes (I did). However, if we want real alternatives we'd be better served looking to the various movements fighting against these policies rather than the "left wing" parties that are imposing them.
I think some of the comments here about the NDP are somewhat unfair. It is true that the Bob Rae Ontario NDP was an utter disgrace. But I think that should we ever have a Federal NDP majority the first priority will be to implement a proportional rep or range voting system where the left will finally have a voice in the parliament.
The failure of our democratic system (including our corporate responsibility system) has been explored in detail, and Big Ideas to democratize it have been advocated, for almost two decades in positive campaigns that have won more than 100 democratizing changes to the system, all the while obtaining regular mainstream media coverage that reaches millions of Canadians.
So please join with the more than 100 groups, with a total of more than 3.5 million members, who have helped with these very successful campaigns, by donating or writing letters to politicians, or having your organization join one or more coalitions in support of the 100 further changes that are needed to close undemocratic and accountability loopholes and flaws that still exist in the federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments across Canada.
See all the details, and links to all the Action Alerts and campaigns, at:
http://www.CoffeeParty.ca
And see in particular info about a very successful method for forming and funding broad-based, well-resourced, self-sustaining citizen groups that would do more to democratize Canada than any other method, at:
http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/QandA.html
Hope this helps,
Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch
http://www.goodgovernment.ca
Organizer of the CoffeeParty.ca movement
http://www.CoffeeParty.ca
Take this brother, may it serve you well.
http://www.ae911truth.org/
I'll take an NDP government over a ConservLiberal one any day, but I can't see it happening unless there's a total Conservative meltdown next time. That would only happen after Harper has totally wreaked havoc on this country.
Good luck to all those who believe that more talk, alone, is going to change anything.
I can't believe this fear of the use of the word socialism...by the NDP...so the code word "progressive" is thrown about...I am a socialist and very proud of the fact. The world really needs to get over the notion that the 'S' word will scare people off...just get the message right and people will understand...but the NDP as it stands currently has moved so far to the right that JS, MJ, and TC would not recognise it...
The NDP currently stands as a great socio-democratic party as it is. While I am no fan of Blair's foolishness and dark reign, it is evident that we must capture the centre third way vote. All sane parties must adapt to the global climate to survive, just as the Swedish Social Democrats have done for decades. Even Tommy douglas predicted that there would be two parties remaining, one left of centre and one right of centre. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfGB855SQ1A
David Lewis spent time fighting not only his luekemia but wasted time fighting communism in the labour movement and the trouble-making waffle. The point being is that Jack Layton and the NDP should not have to deal with those who seem to wish to wreak division for the cause of their divisive revolutionary stance but should encourage those on the more progressive wing to be champions of their democratic idealism and pacifism. We must choose solidarity over division.
Is there any possibility that advocates of constitutional reform might be able to use the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to challenge the fundamental anti-democratic elements of the existing electoral and parliamentary system in Canada? If indeed citizens are to be treated equally as the Charter asserts then the present system makes a mockery of such a claim. I realize that a court challenge is unlikely to achieve success in a constitutional system where the Prime Minister appoints both the guardian of the constitutional rules (i.e. the Governor General and the members of the Supreme Court. Voters in Canada, depending where they live are not treated equally because in the majority of instances their votes are rendered useless unless they vote for certain parties. Is this system likely to change when it serves the interests of the "natural" ruling parties who have benefited from it ever since Confederation? We will continue to have 39% "majority" governments while this system lasts but most Canadian seems to prefer "stable" or authoritarian government to real democracy. Barring some kind of legal challenge perhaps the only option is left for those of us who feel that we cannot tolerate abetting this fraudulent democracy is simply to stop supporting it. The first step in that process is to stop voting entirely and try to convince as many of our fellow electors as possible to join us in this kind of national protest. To some that may seem an extreme choice but as the present system has been with us unchanged since 1865, there seems little else we can do to change a system of governance that would befit a banana republic. I do not plan to perpetuate this system any longer by participating in a fraudulent electoral process that attempts to legitimize it.
The recent electoral success of the NDP, particularly in Quebec, can help the entire left. A door has been opened, to paraphrase Fred Wilson from another piece.
We know, however, that the mainstream media will do their best to urinate on most public campaigns and policy proposals for Canadians from the NDP. So the door is only open a crack - it's up to the broad left to force the door open for light to get in.
Perhaps a metaphor from the labour movement might be appropriate. Experienced trade unionists know that the best way to build a union is to prepare for a(n) (inevitable) strike. The Canadian left needs to "prepare for a strike", or something like that, in order to bring down the Harper regime and end their odious and misanthropic policies. Alternative policies fit in here, contrasting with the neo-liberal and war-mongering and Scrooge-like approach by the Harper regime.
The offer of a broad progressive dialogue on re-inventing Canadian democracy is attractive. But it invites an act of blind faith to trust the NDP to engage and lead this dialogue for renewed democracy and militate for parliamentary reforms which if implemented will dilute the NDP's parliamentary privileges or result in sharing its opposition functions with the proportionally represented political interests. The NDP is not resisting Canada's slide towards a globalized mainstream mediated US style two party state. The Harper government is shotgun wedded to an NDP opposition with whom it finds way too much in common. Both persuasions would grow the economy and both would priorize corporate globalized economic growth over national economic re-development and equitable economic distribution. The benefits of corporate globalized economic growth attribute ever more disproportionately to corporate capital and these benefits are impossible to tax or re-distribute once they have been allocated, concentrated and alienated from the nation's domestic purview. The NDP is betting the Canadian farm on baseless pie-in-the-sky hopes to reform and transact globalized corporate power to domestic control and harness foreign capital to national democratic aspirations. The NDP as a result of excessive pragmatism from its provincial avatars is now habituated to offering greedwash and greenwash to corporate power in return for celebrity corporado photo-ops and deductible gifts from declining federal corporate taxes. The NDP is now just a heart beat from government and it becomes daily more worried about the threat of capital strike than it is interested in striking back at globalized corporate capital under whose heel our country's aspirations, democracy and institutions now crumble. If the new NDP is to represent our most progressive aspirations it will need to demonstrate resistance to globalized corporate priorities more strongly than its opposition to the Harper government. Till we are firm is this demand, we leave the NDP free to negotiate for progressive appearances. Michael Major\\
An essential key to breaking through the stranglehold of hyper-partisanship and big-money is to involve citizens directly in meaningful way -- through randomly selected citizens' councils and assemblies.
Random selection is best way to achieve a legitimate voice for the public interest... for 'we the people.' With effective facilitation (www.tobe.net) these groups are achieving breakthrough solutions to even the most difficult problems.
Randomly selected citizens' councils are being used effectively around the world -- in Iceland, Austria, Ireland, and here in British Columbia. At the municipal level our group, Wise Democracy Victoria, has facilitated 6 such councils and the results of the last three are now being woven into the revised Official Community Plan for Victoria.
See www.wisedemocracyvictoria.org and www.wisedemocracy.org
A cycle of randomly selected councils provides a statistically valid and very powerful mechanism for achieving a representative cross-section of any particular population, whether it is at the municipal, provincial, or federal level.
The political leverage for what progressives are trying to achieve would be greatly magnified by conducting a randomized sample and inviting 100 Canadians to participate in 3 separate face-to-face facilitated sessions. And we the citizens can organize our own councils - we don't need permission from any government! See www.wethecitizens.ie
Murray,
Having never met you I would have to guess by this piece that you wrote that you are in the winter of your life. In the past you gave yourself to socialist ideals that the world has grown to ignore and dislike. There is much irony in your piece given the medium you are a part of and the required capital and consumerism that had to take place in order to make it so but then isn't that the way with all communication.
Fear seems to be at the core of what you write about but what is unclear is any solution. The world is full of people who don't approve of the "status quo", to use an overused activist term, who do not offer a real alternative.
Why do millions prefer the Hockey game more " than they do in defending their communities or becoming active citizens. As Michael Lerner says in his writings, including The Politics of Meaning, we have, in our efforts to engage people politically, failed to offer them greater meaning to their lives."
Michael is partly right but typically obtuse about the explination. "greater meaning to their lives" What greater meaning? There is no greater meaning. Once you put the hash pipe down and take a deep breath you may come to understand that life is what it is. That no system or government is ever going to be what everyone wants. What you hope for is that you will be left alone to live your life the way you want too without some alturistic fool interfering.
Your answer sounds like a program for everything because we can't sort this stuff out on our own. Stubb your toe? Canada has a program for that! Can't take care of your children? Covered! Can't be responsible with "Fill in the blank" ban it and create a program.