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Quote, please.
Quote, please.
Look, with all due respect, don't call me "flippant" and don't accuse me of hypocrisy or inconsistency. Don't talk about me at all, ok? Just deal with what I say. Thanks very much.
What are you expecting - an inspiring candidate that will turn the NDP into a totally different kind of party that can lead thoroughgoing social change, protect the environment, act in solidarity with people around the world... I'll settle for defeating Harper and what he represents, thanks.
Convince people that there is a credible movement to Stop Harper, and you'll get them to vote - even if they know little or nothing about the absolute merits of the person or party they're voting for. I saw that happen last year. That's not cynicism. It's profoundly inspiring. Build on that, and you'll get somewhere.
If you have one single anti-union statement by Mulcair - a real one - quote it and I'll condemn him for it. Meanwhile, I'll only condemn him for the things he has actually said and done - like his unabashed pro-Israel attack-dog actions of last year.
If Romeo doesn't change his tune on what you call his "hypotheticals", he will be justly condemned as the enemy of the Québec people's right to self-determination. What he said on this, and repeated, is public knowledge and has been quoted here.
You can't cover up for him just because you like him, you know. Life doesn't work that way.
I've told you not to engage in personal characterizations. You consider that "bullying"? Cool.
Please quote Mulcair's "anti-union remarks" [whoops, don't mean to sound "bullying"], because accusations like that are a dime a dozen - and it appears to me that you have no idea what Mulcair actually said. Do you?
As for Saganash, I support him. That's what gives me full rights to call on him to correct his ways. He has no special rights to equivocate on the issue of Québec.
Niki Ashton?
Okay KenS, you've suggested two things over the past few threads (both the leadership threads, and the one about SD you yourself made). One is that no matter who the NDP picks as leader, they are going to be attacked on the SD in relation to the CA. Two is that you think Mulcair is vulnerable to the attack. I'm not sure if you think he is the most vulnerable, but you have pointed him out instead of any other specific candidate (that I have seen, anyway). Yet you have also said you think the attack will be "managable". However, I don't think you've said how it can be managable, or which candidate running you think would be the best at doing so.
Maybe you don't know, and that's fine since I don't either. But it's just seem to me that if you're going to such great lengths to point out a problem, you should have some idea about the solution.
Is anyone actually still talking to each other? Because I see a lot more strawmen than anything.
IM TIRED OF PEOPLE SAYING WE CANT PICK ROMEO BECAUSE HE GROWS A LOUSY MOUSTACHE
IM TIRED OF PEOPLE SAYING WE HAVE TO PICK MULCAIR BECAUSE HE HAS A BEARD
So do I. I don't like parties beholden to organizations (even unions), and I don't like unions that line up behind parties. I like parties that represent everyone (because they ultimately seek to govern everyone), and unions that represent all workers, irrespective of what some individual worker's political preferences may be. That doesn't mean a party can't support a union's struggle, nor that a union can't decide to support and finance a particular party at a particular time.
Well, that's why I like Saganash. It's also why I take some time to comment on his statements (you won't find me doing that with any of the other candidates, by the way - because I can't stand their political posturing). And you don't need to apologize to anyone, RP. Your heart and soul are on the side of the people. That's good enough for me. I'm sorry if I got all defensive. I just thought you were looking for partisan motives behind my criticisms.
Yep. Competence is not a right-wing attribute. And if we cede it to the right-wing, we've already lost.
What pisses me off is that it seems to be a de facto belief that only those to the right know how to manage the economy. This is not a slam on babblers but a comment on how the public are led to perceive things. The worst deficits seem to come from the most conservative governments. How is it that this myth persists?
Even in the private sector, you only have to look at Nortel to say WTF. How are these so-called captains of industry supposed to be considered the best economic managers? Let's just look at the latest international banking fiasco and ask how these people are considered experts.
You want to see good economic managers, than go to successful small businesses who have managed to survive against the odds of multinational intrusions into the market place. Take a look at any non-profit arts organization that manages to survive for many decades on shoe-string budgets. Make no mistake that large captial industries are important in making it possible to pay people decent wages because of the profits they can generate but that does not necessarily make them great managers when they manage to bring a company to its knees.
Anyway, I just think that it's time that the public be educated on what is sound fiscal and economic policy and it isn't pandering to investors.
Alright, let me first clarify my views on OMOV, the union block vote, etc. I defer to Sam Gindin, former research director at the CAW:
"What makes this issue so difficult to deal with simply is that on the one hand, there IS a problem with the special union status - voting should be by equal individuals and union leaders use the special status to ignore actual mobilization of workers politically. On the other hand, those leading the fight to end the special status are generally not acting on principle or to increase the mobilization of rank-and-file workers but but to opportunistically distance themselves from unions. The 'right' position - one member one vote, no special organizational status AND a greater orientation to the working class - is hard to inject in the debate in news clips..."
Here is the Globe article in question:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ottawa-notebook/mulcair-draws-line-in-ndp-sand-describes-telling-union-boss-no/article2214319/
Again, Mulcair stated that this union leader wasn't used to not getting his way, but under his leadership, he'd have the guts to say no. This plays right into the right-wing "frame" of "beholden to the unions."
There are two reasons the hard right has such a poor track record of balancing budgets.
The first is convenience. Tax cuts are an easy sell, but spending cuts aren't. Everyone likes the sound of lower taxes. No one likes the sound of shittier health care, or halfway pensions.
The second is strategy. It's easier to convince people to slash their favorite social program if the state is having a financial crisis. In that sense, bankruptcy is desirable for true conservative idealogues. (Grover Norquist - "Starve the beast.")
Some people will say that bankrupting the government on purpose is a poor strategy, because voters kick poor fiscal managers out of power. But remember that conservatives make more money in the private sector as lobbyists than they do in government. They don't care about re-election. What's even better for them is they leave the mess to their opposition, who will be too busy trying to fix the budget to actually improve services. And in 4 to 8 years, the right-wing gets another shot at power, and they can do it all over again.
I agree. And as far as I can tell, the candidates who have been talking about a different approach to the economy have been Nash (who has the support of many of the country's most notable progressive political economists) and to a lesser extent, Topp. Certainly not Mulcair, who seems to accept the more orthodox approaches to economic management and public administraton:
"Above and beyond anything else, I'm a public administrator and a manager. I chaired Quebec's largest regulatory agency and reduced staff there and brought in management schemes to make things more effective... When I was minister of the environment, I reduced by 15 per cent the budget of the ministry."
http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2011/10/24/NDP-Leadership-Race/
And returning to the "attacking Rae for incompetence is not right-wing" line - I ask, should he have made balancing the budget a higher priority? At what cost?
Mulcair could have used this opportunity to clarify his pro-union bondafides, and could have attacked Rae for ripping up public sector collective bargaining agreements. Instead, he decided to attack the Rae govt. for being "fiscally irresponsible," which echoes the right-wing critique.
For a guy who allegedly hates unions, he sure has a lot of them endorsing him.
Mulcair has a perception problem within the NDP because he's a former Liberal. I hear a few paranoid people say he's the next Bob Rae, but I haven't seen the fire. I haven't even seen the smoke, actually. It's all unreliable blogs saying Palestine this, anti-union that...
I'm not saying the Mulcair police are wrong. I'm only saying the Mulcair police have shitty evidence. Paranoid people can be right -- sometimes.
Part of that is the shitty debates we've been having. It's impossible to find out anything more than -- yes -- all eight candidates support the official NDP platform. (And yes, at the debate I heard a lot of positive things about unions, many of them from Mulcair.)
Yes, that's "it." Were you expecting a silver bullet?
I never said "Mulcair is anti-union." I said he was opportunistically playing into the right-wing/MSM line about the NDP being "beholden to unions."
Pretty disappointing for a guy who supposedly stands head and shoulders above all the other leadership candidates for his political "street smarts."
I dunno. Publicly proclaiming that unions will have no special status with you, and then still getting their endorsements... strikes me as the best of both worlds. What candidate wouldn't want that?
Simple: affiliated members are members too. In Ontario, Andrea Horwath was elected with good support from the affiliates. Defining them as non-persons, or at least non-members, when labour was one of the party's founding partners, is profoundly ignorant of the party's history, and offensive. I like almost eveything else about Mulcair a lot. That line of Mulcair's was, I thought, an early mistake, not a reason to rule him out as leader. I still don't rule him out, and may well end up voting for him. However, when he repeated that line last week, and even seemed proud of it, it gave me very serious pause.
That's his only one, as far as I know. But it's a big one, to me.
That's just as bad. Affiliated unions are part of the NDP. Their members are no longer voting members federally, but they are built in as part of the structure right up to the federal executive. Saying Andrea Horwath is "beholden to the unions" is a very anti-labour remark.
If I end up not voting for Mulcair, that will be why.