New Democrats Call for End to Military Mission in Libya
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I don't think the answer is to continue allowing ourselves to be maniplulated into supporting war of any kind. They just murdered another 3000 people in Libya recently. And for what? It wasn't anything as noble as pursuing democracy. They are able to fool the gullible with high minded references to a word they have no intention of respecting. It was about Libya's very lucrative oil fields cheapest in the world to extract at a dollar a barrel.
Former Soldier is right when he says all wars are actually resource grabs. They loved Hitler and thought he could win the war of annihilation against Soviet communism. World domination has been on their greedy, mass murdering agenda for a long time. All war is fraud and crime against peace. As a lefty I can never support war. My father went in 1939. He came back a brand new person and not for the better. War is a bad excuse for depriving whole nations of social democracy. War is why countries go into debt. War is the ultimate failure of governments to avoid war by diplomacy and direct conflict of interest when corrupt politicians acquiesce to corporate influence in going to war.
I disagree -at least on the central point I was arguing. Frmslr is wrong when he says that we should have just sat back during ww2 and let Hitler finish dividing the continent between himself and Stalin (if he was ever sane enough to finish the job before attacking Russia as well). Regardless of whatever role SOME Allied leaders may have given Hitler, before he got so dangerous even Chamberlain could see the threat. Most of his early support in the US though came from isolationists and fascist sympathizers. One point that's continually missed is that democracies don't necessarily have unified leadership. I think I mentioned it earlier. But whatever, onto other subjects.
I don't believe Hitler would have been content with sharing anything with the Sovs, Russians, Ukrainians, Slavs etc. It was a war of annihilation against Soviet communism. The final solution in Russia was a slightly different plan - the Nazis were to take no prisoners of war beyond the Russian front. The final solution in Russia was blitzkrieg, bombs, bullets, flamethrowers, and mass starvation. Hitler wanted to construct the autobahn from Berlin into the heart of Russia, Ukraine etc. Germans would drive into the colonies and lord it over the inferior races and taking the natural wealth for themselves. But they intended to share nothing with hordes of useless eaters in all of the Balkan and Slavic countries to Russia.
But why are we even talking about a war that came just 20 after the war to end all wars? Ronald Reagan said to Gorbachev that NATO would cease expansion into Eastern Europe and Asia if the Berlin Wall came down. That was obviously a lie as we observe "North Atlantic" Treaty Org nations pushing into former Soviet countries and surrounding its cold war enemies with weapons of mass destruction and staking new claims all the time. The last superpower is still sailing the seven seas with nuclear armed battle ships and expanding "forward operating" military bases encircling Russia and China. The cold war era taught us something, and it's that there can be no legitimate purpose for nuclear weapons or military aggression in general. We know that an economic ideology backed by military might has failed the test for legitimacy when its proponents resort to military aggression and resource grabs.
You're still repeating yourself and, given the arguments you haven't addressed squarely,...
And what arguments are they?
Some wars need to be fought, regardless of their evils.
You never answered my challenge:
Name one.
Libya wasn't one of them.
Agreed.
Thats part of what I was arguing. That part is pretty much text book history, but it doesn't change the fact that Hitler's increasing belligerance had to met head on eventually. One of the weaknesses of the left is that we too often fail to consider changing cicumstnces or behaviour patterns, regardless of what led up to them. Who is ultimately to blame becomes almost academic after a certain point. As frmer soldier wrote he could have been stopped earlier, but earlier than the Russ0-German agreement to divy up Poland. He should have been stopped before there was a hige loss of life and firming up of nationalistic instincts. But that too is hindsight.
Correct me if I'm wrong but I believe that we agreed at one point that prevention of WW2 should have begun in November 1918. Then continued from there by peaceful means (some of which were tried) that were and would have been (had they been tried) very successful.
You argue that by 1935 Britain and France appeased Hitler because they were unable to do anything else.
I disagree: Britain and France appeased Hitler because they were unwilling to do anything else. What we have is "official" history handed down to us that is a coverup of Britain and France's (and other Western democracies' and capitalists') shameful collusion with Hitler and the nazis.
Two things that should never have happened:
1. The (continuation of the) blockade of Germany, Austria and Hungary after November 11, 1918.
2. The Versailles Treaty. Or at the very least the "War Reparations" clause.
I disagree -at least on the central point I was arguing. Frmslr is wrong when he says that we should have just sat back during ww2 and let Hitler finish dividing the continent between himself and Stalin...
Never would have happened.
Nazism is three things:
Rabidly antisemitic.
Rabidly anticommunist.
Rabidly antidemocratic.
RE UK/France appeasement of Hitler ...
In fact the UK was negotiating with the Nazis at the same time the Soviets were (in August 1939 or thereabouts) and failed to get an agreement before the Soviets did. The UK and France were "forced" into declaring war that fall - a war that was so badly fought that it was initially nicknamed "the phony war".
However one should add that we're talking about inter-imperialist rivalry (in addition to the role of the Soviets and whatever way you'd like to characterize THEIR foreign policy at the time) which IMHO means an inevitable tendency towards war (just like today). So these "what ifs" are untimately of limited soundness.
The NDP knew full well that NATO's game in Libya, involving serious and substantial participation by Canada, was yet another imperial war to install client control of key physical resources. The elimination of longstanding NDP policy against Canadian participation in NATO, was preparatory to this. This, along with moves to remove 'socialism' from its mandate, has successfully communicated to the Canadian ruling class, that it is completely prepared to support imperialist, militarist, New World Order objectives. It is irredeemably sullied, soiled and discredited in its barefaced support of empire. My old Commie friend was right when he described them to me as 'a party of the working class, run by the middle class, in the interest of the ruling class.'
RE UK/France appeasement of Hitler ...
In fact the UK was negotiating with the Nazis at the same time the Soviets were (in August 1939 or thereabouts) and failed to get an agreement before the Soviets did. The UK and France were "forced" into declaring war that fall - a war that was so badly fought that it was initially nicknamed "the phony war".
It wasn't fought.
Britain and France did exactly what Hitler wanted:
NOTHING (Their inactivity was referred to as "sitzkrieg.")
Thus leaving him free to conquer Poland.
Stalin returned Hitler the favor in 1939-40. Hitler offered the bait of half of Poland and Stalin bit.
In 1940, Stalin left Hitler free to conquer Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, France and attack Britain. Instead of fighting nazi Germany's Wermacht in western Poland and into Germany itself, Stalin was busy waging war against and attacking Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary, Rumania and Bulgaria.
Erik Redburn wrote:You're still repeating yourself and, given the arguments you haven't addressed squarely,...
And what arguments are they?
I've made several already, it's not my fault if you can't deal with them straight on.
Erik Redburn wrote:Some wars need to be fought, regardless of their evils.
You never answered my challenge:
Name one.
I already have. Several times.
..nato is a powerful tool used to transfer wealth to the wealthy and maintain or expand power. in canada it is paid for by people it is used against here in this country. if nothing else, by the direct support to the military industrial complex. nato is like a land mine. it cannot be reformed it needs to be dismantled.
..to use libya as a political issue which is what i believe the ndp did has an ugly result. these kind of things always do. you can't erase what's left after the dust settles. no matter how you spin it war is always wrong as is all military might.
..this issue will be dealt with internally or it will be dealt with elsewhere. no one can ignore the direct democracy movement that has come calling from egypt and europe. they have rejected political parties in europe. we are in deep crisis environmentally, economically and morally. we need a total change in direction. what the ndp did will not do.
I made the point in another thread (on inappropriate or excessive praise for the late Jack Layton) that the NDP's failure to take an anti-imperialist approach (much less a socialist one) undermines the credibility of the NDP and any of its leaders, including one who was so obviously loved by so many people as Jack Layton was. By credibility I mean here the presentation of a genuine alternative to the neo-liberal and war-like orthodoxy of the parties like the Conservatives and Liberals here in Canada. This failure of the NDP dissapates the energy of the left in general, demoralizes solidarity efforts, and so on. It's extremely important to soberly expose this NDP failure.
Imperialism must be named in order to be defeated. This naming the NDP directly and contemptuously rejects.
Fact: Neither NDP nor Liberal Party support was necessary for the "Harper Government of Canada" to carry out the colonial-administrative task to bomb Libyan civilians and delegated to them by their bosses in Washington.
Let's not pretend that what we have is democracy in Ottawa. It's not something that can be fixed overnight. Our worst past the post system simply does not reward political integrity 100% of the time - there are other factors, like who are the Canadians voting in elections and parties being forced to appeal to a narrow electorate. Is that democratic? No, it never is, and we should know this by now. Parties taking 100% principled stands on every issue are all there on the sidelines looking in. The NDP used to be one of them as they say. The reality is that it's a dirty system promoting dirty politicking. FPTP is designed to prevent competitive elections. Do we play or not?
So what? Is there a point to the statement? Are you implying that the NDP should vote with the government on all issues because their support is not required anyway with a majority?
Fidel is doubly wrong. He's wrong because it's the duty of the Opposition to provide an alternative to the regime in power. And in the case of a social democratic party (or such), this alternative shouldn't be simply cosmetic over such significant issues as war and peace and whether Canada goes to war.
Fidel is also wrong because Ms. May of the Green Party managed to demonstrate that one M.P. can make a difference on this issue. How much more of a difference can over 100 M.P.s make?
Why Elizabeth May refuses to be a rubber stamp in the Commons
P.S. If I didn't already mention it, welcome back Fidel ... and how's them apples? :)
Cold Fact: The NDP has voted against The Harper Guv of Canada more times than any other opposition party by a wide margin.
What you are doing is focusing on one of the few times the NDP has voted with the two old line parties and distorting the overall political reality - the NDP really is the most opposed to the overall Harper agenda. The reality out there is different than the vacuum of a babble thread that says what we have in Canada is genuine democracy, and that the problem is the NDP and that party's opportunism.
The NDP says our worst past the post system needs fixing if we want a social democratic agenda in Canada. But in the mean time the NDP is still going to try and raid as much of their soft Liberal and Tory voter support as possible in the mean time. And it's very dirty political maneuvering on the part of the NDP, we know. Do you know of a better way? Because even now the Harper Government will proceed to ignore just about everything youre concerned about until some random election call Harper will make according to his agenda for short-term political gain sometime in 2015. Until then you should defer to Warshington's foreign policies being ditto for Ottawa as per usual. The Harpers and their Liberal Party backers own a perfect record in that regard.
..a vote is a political position. it is not meaningless. eta: i use certain issues as my guide to vote for. war is core with me. it's not balanced with a good policy on pensions.
Exactly. And no party in Ottawa has voted against the Harpers more often than the NDP and by a wide margin. It's as close to perfect political opposition in Ottawa that we have had in over 30 years. This is about as far to the left as some large percentage of Canadian voters are willing to go in this country.
And if we don't vote, then why even complain about it? Why discuss politics at all if we don't feel the NDP has anything better to offer than Harpers or Liberals? Voting once or twice with the Harpers can hardly be viewed as duplicating the Liberal Party's acquiescing to a Harper agenda on just about every House vote since 2006 though. Because that's not reality. Very few people vote for a party based on single issues. That's not how most people select which party they will support.
Carry on.
..your spinning me fidel. your not debating me.
Do we have democracy in this country yes or no?
..more spin
What small percentage of the time does the NDP vote with the Harpers and LPC? Spin that.
..that's not the point.
..why did the ndp do that fidel? why did they vote the way they did re libya?
The answer depends on when you were born, before 1991 or after, and whether or not you read and absorb a lot of lamestream newz media spin concerning a cold war era. Because they spun it often and hard against the CCF-NDP more times than not over the course of 50 years or so.
Fact: The NDP's vote on Libya was not needed in order for the Harpers to toadie like they did. Why did the LPC vote for it as well? That's the real mystery.
You're still repeating yourself and, given the arguments you haven't addressed squarely, rather dogmatic IMV. Some wars need to be fought, regardless of their evils. Libya wasn't one of them.
*effing cumbersome edit/post program*
Thats part of what I was arguing. That part is pretty much text book history, but it doesn't change the fact that Hitler's increasing belligerance had to met head on eventually. One of the weaknesses of the left is that we too often fail to consider changing cicumstnces or behaviour patterns, regardless of what led up to them. Who is ultimately to blame becomes almost academic after a certain point. As frmer soldier wrote he could have been stopped earlier, but earlier than the Russ0-German agreement to divy up Poland. He should have been stopped before there was a hige loss of life and firming up of nationalistic instincts. But that too is hindsight.
Tell that to everyone on the left. I'm just pointing out facts. Only one of which is, I never support anyone unconditionally.