"What's up, Jack?" - Murray Dobbin

Murray Dobbin wrote:

This gauntlet is being thrown down [by the Liberals], not to the Conservatives, but to the NDP.

Gauntlet? If all the NDP ever got as competition was these supposed challenges from the Liberals, we'd already be at 100 seats.

Murray Dobbin wrote:

But the NDP team has an excess of tacticians who aren't very good at strategy.

Coming from Dobbin, I'll take that as a compliment.

To Murray's fear of a 1993 outcome, one could respond:

"But then, Iggy isn't the little guy from Shawinigan, izzee? And there are no promises to slay the fire-breathing deficit dragon. The well's gone dry. "Local infrastructure repairs and upgrades" if necessary,  but not necessarity "Medicare, education or poverty reduction." Not without a local or national media to sell it for you.  Hell, Tommy Douglas railed at the fact that there were no newspapers onside (well, maybe one) 50 years ago. What's changed?"

I'm afraid Murray succumbs to the MS media fear of offending readers/listeners/watchers by not pointing to their role at this very, very difficult point in history. What is at stake, of course, is what the neo-cons have worked for with many years of election calls for lower taxes. Yes, Martha, history is not a plot, but there are plots in history. Suddenly, "state" (the enemy) involvement in social welfare - built up over the post-war period - is seen as dependent on economic growth, isn't God-given.

You know, when Dobbin writes about the right, he makes a lot of sense. When he writes about the left, he gets it consistently wrong.

The fact that he writes for a website whose very existence is premised on the (correct) notion that the mainstream media will never give a fair shake to progressive voices makes you wonder why he can't figure out the reason that he is "having trouble finding much media reference to the NDP these days". I heard Judy Rebick saying something similarly disingenuous on CBC Radio while ago ("If the NDP are speaking out on all of these issues, why aren't we hearing about it?").

On prorogation, the NDP proposed legislation to require parliamentary approval for prorogation. The Liberals scoffed at the idea, with some even pronouncing that it would be unconstitutional. Two weeks later, they introduced their own version of the plan (with many qualifications that actually weakened the proposal).

On pensions, the NDP proposed an expanded pension plan to cover workers who either never had a pension plan or who had lost it due to the collapse of their company. Two months later, the Liberals copied and pasted it, removed all of the specifics and put it out on their own letterhead.

On child care, the NDP actually introduced and passed legislation to create a permanent national child care program. All the Liberals can deliver is more promises.

On climate change, the NDP's efforts made Canada the first country in the world to pass legislation that enshrined Kyoto targets into law.

On Afghanistan, the NDP called for withdrawal in 2006 (remember all of the Taliban Jack epiphets?) when Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals were conspiring with the Conservatives to extend our stay, first until 2009 and then until 2011.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Time after time, the NDP has met the challenge on all of the major issues of the day. The Liberals can only play catch up.

So, Murray Dobbin can go on believing what he reads in the mainstream media if he wants, or he can do what an alternative columnist is supposed to do and cut through all of the BS.

Good grief, not left enough again.  Do you pay attention to people IRL?

hsfreethinkers wrote:

[URL=http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/murray-dobbin/2010/02/whats-jack]"What's up, Jack?" - Murray Dobbin[/URL]

Also interesting to see the strong Liberal pushback (see Paul Martin) on the skepticism to Ignatieff's child care proposa (even in the Liberal Star). This is good news for getting progressive issues front and centre in the federal debate.  Bring on the GST discussion! Let's just hope the well is not poisoned with the HST provincial campaigning and we can find a way through the next round of deficit debating.

How left does one have to be to say emphatically that one shouldn't partake whatsoever in corporate inspired violence and invasions of other countries?  Apparently slightly left of the NDP.

There is no need to trouble oneself in producing proof of the duplicity on this point, regardless of attempts to falsify the clearly stated intent.  A platform of collaboration buried near the back of the national website is meant to return people to the calm of their routine affairs, comforted in the knowledge that while it surely can't remain possible indefinitely, we'll do our part in line with more traditional 'values.'  Instead of attempting to reveal to the public the source of the horrors, the bombed villages and victimized citizens, staying on in some other supportive role is apparently meant to console and assure those who might become momentarily shocked and concerned, that another form of engagement to the same end is possible.

Slumberjack wrote:

They called for an end to the current mission, not withdrawal from Afghanistan. Show me anywhere on their website or policy statements words to the effect that they would remove all troops from Afghanistan. Such a statement doesn't exist.

You're correct, of course, about the official policy and statements by the leader. But the rank and file delegates, and some MPs of conscience, have been [url=http://www.billsiksay.ca/default2.asp?active_page_id=765]very clear[/url]:

Quote:

Last August the federal NDP convention passed a very clear resolution and that resolution called for a safe and immediate withdrawal of our troops from Afghanistan, that we should continue our aid, undertake diplomacy, support our troops and participate in peacekeeping missions through the United Nations in other areas of the world.
I, like many Canadians, support a full withdrawal from Afghanistan. I do not believe we can play a significant peacekeeping role there now that we have been a combatant on one side of the conflict.

That was Bill Siksay.

Anyone can say anything Unionist, but until it becomes policy, it amounts to hedging ones bets as a party in support of plausible deniability if the outcome is to shift from combat operations to maintaining an armed peacekeeping footprint in another area. Why hasn't the resolution become policy and clearly reflected as such? Why hinge the statement upon withdrawal from the 'mission,' instead of an emphatic withdrawal entirely from the country? There's a purpose to the ambiguity. Here in this very thread you have people using the ambiguity as fact that it means total withdrawal.  They either choose to believe the intent despite the absence of a clear statement, or are using it in a disingenuous manner to imply something that just isn't so.  There's nothing new here, and nothing democratic for that matter if motions are passed and not put into effect through policy statements.

[wrong thread]

hsfreethinkers wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Bill Siksay never hedged his bet, but he doesn't speak for the NDP - any more than the convention delegates do. A very small number of people determine party policy, and they do so in private.

 

That sounds ominous. Is it any different in other parties? I'm asking as I don't know much about internal party procedure.

The larger the "tent" the more control gets sucked into fewer and fewer hands. The Liberals and Neo-cons in federal politics are very bad. In provincial politics the BC Liberals are corrupt and evasive and the BC NDP is tightly controlled by a group of insiders.  That is one of the reasons we need PR because then there would be room for four or five parties with varying views and the party members would be more cohesive and possibly able to get their views presented to the public as part of a platform at election time.

That is not to say their structure is not designed to be democratic it is just that human organizations often don't actually have the control structure that is on the hierarchy chart.  I think most people have worked at places where some person who is not high up on the "official" charts has huge control over their higher ups.  Guarding against control freaks is the one of the most difficult tasks of any progressive organization.  It is so difficult because often control freaks do far more work than the average member does and that is part of how they gain control. 

Here Here Scott Piatkowski!

What's up Jack?

Oh, only dealing with cancer.

I look forward to an abject apology, Mr. Dobbin.

Voting Liberal Is Not Enough!

I like that as a slogan.

Scott Piatkowski wrote:

You know, when Dobbin writes about the right, he makes a lot of sense. When he writes about the left, he gets it consistently wrong.

On prorogation, the NDP proposed legislation to require parliamentary approval for prorogation. The Liberals scoffed at the idea, with some even pronouncing that it would be unconstitutional. Two weeks later, they introduced their own version of the plan (with many qualifications that actually weakened the proposal).

On pensions, the NDP proposed an expanded pension plan to cover workers who either never had a pension plan or who had lost it due to the collapse of their company. Two months later, the Liberals copied and pasted it, removed all of the specifics and put it out on their own letterhead.

On child care, the NDP actually introduced and passed legislation to create a permanent national child care program. All the Liberals can deliver is more promises.

On climate change, the NDP's efforts made Canada the first country in the world to pass legislation that enshrined Kyoto targets into law.

On Afghanistan, the NDP called for withdrawal in 2006 (remember all of the Taliban Jack epiphets?) when Michael Ignatieff and the Liberals were conspiring with the Conservatives to extend our stay, first until 2009 and then until 2011.

I could go on, but I think I've made my point. Time after time, the NDP has met the challenge on all of the major issues of the day. The Liberals can only play catch up.

It's a good post, Scott, and of course you are right on all the specific issues you cite.  I also agree that Dobbin is being incredibly naive and hypocritical in giving any credence to Iggy's opportunistic blather on child care, abortion, etc (though Dobbin says he knows it is probably all lies, he still seems to praise Iggy's rhetoric despite the lack of substance). 

But for all that...Murray does get one thing right; as other posters have said, the NDP hasn't been able to tie the individual policy strands in your post into a coherent vision so far. 

And we do tend to fall into the 15-second sound bite trap - for example, on Kennedy's GST hike speculation, rather than the NDP seizing on the need to talk about fair taxation to avoid drastic cuts to services and programs in the next round of deficit hysteria, Mulcair and other NDP reps simply piled on about the Libs and the HST and attacked the Kennedy trial balloon.  Yes, we are correct about that issue in isolation, but when we fall into the tax-bashing mode (i.e. "Scrap the HST") we actually help advance the Harper frame of taxes being a burden on people and something to be fought, rather than the "price we pay for living in a civilized society" or "supporting the public services we depend on like health care and education", etc.  As George Lakoff says, when you buy into the right-wing frame on issues, the left always loses no matter how much we argue on the facts or merits of individual proposals.

To be fair, Paul Dewar and Fin Donnelly in particular have talked about needing to "have a mature conversation about taxes" but we haven't said anything substantive on taxes yet.  It's finding that courage, the same courage Jack had on Afghanistan, that he had in the 2004 campaign about homelessness, to take a clear stand despite the pundits and the polls, that I think Dobbin is calling for, and I agree with him on that point at least.