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Because you need to add your voice, even for the split instant required by the process, to theirs?...to this? Saying thanks but no thanks is a voice too.
Did you see it go by that several of the candidates have said the support the UN resolution? I dont remember which or how many.
Maysie, for many of us the NDP is a compromise. This race is not eliciting and hope or excitement in me.
Caissa, me too. I still haven't decided on anyone, and I may not even vote.
I say it again, I wish Sagenesh had stayed in. He'd have grown into the job.
dp
Policywonk - please read the opening post in this thread. It was sent, to rabble, by the Mulcair campaign, in direct response to the discussion here. It says:
In the language of crooked politicians everywhere, that is the code word for opposition to the PA's bid for recognition by the U.N. - recognition which is opposed by Israel, the U.S., and Canada - recognition which would be unilateral and non-negotiated.
The CJPME has put out a press release accusing Mulcair of opposing Palestine's bid. Either he is such a little aristocrat that he can ignore everything, or he could clear up the "misunderstanding" in two words. There is no misunderstanding to clear up.
This is not rocket science.
It's not a matter of "adding our voice to theirs", Slumberjack, if I understand you correctly and you mean that we're simply accepting their cowardly pro-Israel stance (whether it's tacit or not). It's a matter of recognizing the forces at work here and considering the priority, which is ensuring the electability of the NDP. Remember what happened to Cynthia McKinney in her last run for Congress after she came out in support of Palestinian rights.
Having said that, I do admit that in voting for Mulcair (if I do) I would be placing electability over the very pressing moral issue of Palestine, because Mulcair is the most obvious "friend of Israel" in the line-up. (Which is why I am heavily inclined toward Nash, but I don't know enough about her staying power through all the added disrespectful crap that the other two parties would pile on just because she's not an alpha-ish male like them.)
If Mulcair & his associates could simply refrain from silencing his fellow-NDP MPs from criticizing Israel and supporting Palestine, many of us would be happier.
Agreed.
I've supported Mulcair very directly in three consecutive elections, notwithstanding everything I know about his stand on Israel and Palestine. There were bigger issues at stake. You can make a choice like that with your eyes open, or shut. What really disturbs me is those who don't want the truth to be told about him. Their attitude is far more dangerous for progressive politics than his.
Unionist, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank you for what you've shared of your voting history with Mulcair, which I read in one of the leadership threads way back, but this thread has reminded me. Your thoughtful, informed, realistic and hard-assed politics is what I enjoy most about your posts.
I'm with oldgoat in that I'm voting for his dogs, and my cats, before I'd vote for Mulcair for leader.
Ahh..realism...*snap*...damn it!
I missed this. It really clarifies the issue.
Get it? "Peace". That's what it's all about. Like in South Africa under apartheid. "Peace". Or Afghanistan - "peace". What transparent sophistry. Either Mulcair's campaign writes in a clumsy amateurish way, or he (like Netanyahu, like Obama, like Harper, like Verwoerd) just wants the natives to shut the fuck up and accept their fate in peace - and someday there will be "two states". "Peace". With or without justice and freedom.
Some babblers quote stuff like this as if it shows that Mulcair is even-handed. Others say, who cares, all we want are jobs. It would be kind of nice to find a space where people who support a just future for both Canada and the Middle East could actually discuss where the NDP leadership candidates stand, without having to start from zero and explain that Palestinians deserve support.
This exemplifies one of the main problems with modern social-democracy: Getting elected used to be seen as a means to an end; now it's become an end in itself. The goal is no longer the implementation of a program of reforms by obtaining a democratic mandate; the goal now is to gain power, using the program as bait for votes. As a result, party strategy revolves not around presenting leadership and an alternative vision to voters, but around pandering to public opinion (Gaian's "Great Misled", who are only misled because there is nobody willing to lead them in the right direction) and working within the narrow parameters of political thought and discourse prescribed by the capitalist media.
Over time, this operates to ratchet social-democratic politics to the right. Why? The logic is unassailable: If the "priority" is to ensure the "electability" of the NDP, then surely empirical evidence would indicate that the most likely way to do that is to mimic the Conservative Party, which has been the most "electable" party for the last five years.
Cynthia McKinney chose not to go down that road, and consequently she has a lot more respect than she would have if she had knuckled under to the Democratic Party.
Where is the NDP's Cynthia McKinney?
Cynthia McKinney stood with Libya against NATO's war. The NDP stood for NATO's war against Libya. I guess that's what happens when you knuckle under...
I don't think people raise Mulcair's quote to show his approach is ideal so much as it's the same basic approach as all the other NDP candidates. Again, no candidate has stated that Palestinean independence is going to come without a negotiation. A few have said that the UN bid is an important step, and I take those candidates on good faith to mean that they support the UN bid. But as Unionist pointed out, some of their answers are less direct than others, with Mulcair's non-answer being the least direct of all. Mind you, he's never been asked a direct question to my knowledge, either.
The CJPME named other candidates who they say support Palestine's bid for statehood at the U.N. I've transcribed the relevant portion of the Concordia University debate of Jan. 30, 2012, so that you can judge for yourselves. My opinion: Ashton and Cullen are clear enough. Nash isn't. Topp simply avoided answering the question entirely. A "yes" or "no" would have been helpful from all:
Thanks for transcribing, Unionist. I think Cullen gave the best answer, IMO. (The best of the candidates, that is.)
Quite a while ago - prior to the 2011 election - someone wrote to me and said "vote for the candidate of your choice and let the chips fall where they may". I'm not sure that makes sense now as the NDP will likely be very, very close to being elected government in the next election (2015?). Here, I've had conversations with my beighbours and friends in homes, at the clinic, at the airport, at the hospital, and on the road, asking if they knew who any of the NDP candidates are - and the only name they could come up with is Mulcair. I doubt very much any of these folks have an NDP membership - I'm the only one. But it tells me that Mulcair, even in this isolated rural community, has name recognition, and, for better or worse, porbably has this same recognition all over Quebec and probably to a lesser degree outside Quebec. So it just doesn't make any sense for me to go against the tide here - despite my misgivings about the man's negatives. I can only hope that if Mulcair wins the leadership race, if Canada elects him Prime Minister, that he will indeed be a progressive person in office - and I have no doubt whatsoever he will be a much better person as our PM than Harper - or, indeed, than any of the Liberal or Conservative PM's we've been stuck with over the past few decades. Maybe he'll show some progresive backbone on the Israel/Palestine issue once in office - who knows? People can change.
I know I sounded like an opportunistic pragmatist in my last post about "electability". What I wanted to emphasize was NOT that the NDP should seek power at the cost of becoming a neoliberal wannabe party or of trying to please everyone. In fact, in an earlier post I expressed the opinion that the NDP platform has to remain strong and become clearer, if it is to attract red tories, left-of-centre liberals and some greens.
On the other hand, given that before, during and after the next election campaign, the whole party and the leadership in particular will come under extraordinary pressure from Bay St. and Warshington (and NATO), it is not unwise to prioritize its battles -- taxation, tar sands, energy, military hardware, etc. . Canada is no Venezuela nor will those forces allow it to become like Venezuela or any social-democratic country.
Of course I will find it very very hard to vote for a leader whose stated position on the Middle East is the most suspect of all the candidates'. But I don't for a minute believe (a) that the NDP stands a chance of winning a parliamentary majority if the Zionists go into overdrive to prevent it, or (b) that whoever is elected will not cave in under US-Israeli pressures, once in office, and change his or her tune.
Of course I admire Cynthia McKinney,always have. But we saw how quickly she was marginalized and her congressional career destroyed by the Zionist interests. We're about to elect a national party leader AND a parliamentary majority, not just an individual MP.
So yes, on principle, I would not vote for Mulcair or any candidate who keeps repeating the same useless "negotiated two-state solution" mantra, but at the same time I don't know which candidate is immune from being "McKinneyed" should he or she speak up strongly for the Palestinian people. And I suspect that Harper's Xtian Zionists as well as the LPC would make life hell for every single NDP candidate, all over Canada, by gleefully tarring her or him with the same brush as the party's new "anti-semitic" leader. How much time and energy should any candidate have to devote to rebutting that slander instead of going on the attack about all the other issues?
And ultimately I trust (or hope) the grassroots of the Party will remain engaged after the election, to keep the leadership on a progressive path, regarding the Middle East AND the NDP's socialist principles and program.
So the binary is "Great Misled" v. "all-knowing"? Nothing in between?
How about a highly-educated, literate, healthy, politically engaged and resolutely anti-imperialist electorate? Like, oh I don't know, Cuba? The same electorate that was considered in 1958 to be the Great Misled?
I don't have it now, but Jack Layton replied to me by email last summer explaining that the NDP would not be supporting a long war in Libya.
And in truth the NDP did support a no-fly zone over Libya, apparently to prevent Gadaffi's air force from bombing Libyans. The NDP's position could also have been interpreted as concern for the safety of civilians. There was never any proof that Libya's air force were attacking civilians, however. Russian officials said their satellite reconnaissance photos depicted no evidence for it happening.
Hitler's generals didn't actually support long wars either. They wanted them short and swift, or not at all.
Fidelio, you're like the used car salesman of an NDP car lot that has to try to sell that lemon we both know is a lemon and why. Sorry no sale today.
I'd buy a car off a NDP lot anytime. Not so from the Libs and Cons. Definitely from the Greens, if it's a hybrid with an iron-clad warranty.