NDP Ex-MPs to rock Couillard's world?

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

In other words, it would be one MORE party of austerity, inequality, and appeasement of greed.  Why even bother?

Conversely, then why even worry?  What more could they do but split the Liberal vote?  And how is that a bad thing?

How can that be a bad thing? Are you kidding? That would ensure a CAQ government. And as much as people hate the PLQ (just like me) CAQ is MUCH worse. A  CAQ government would be a complete disaster and pull this province signifigantly more right wing than it currently is.

So yeah,splitting the vote would be moronic. Unless you're a right winger.

<a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> wrote:

How much worse does the Centre need to become? When will the corporatist centre parties be bad enough that the cowards stop saying “the other guy’s worse” ? Smithee, I hope you have a magic calendar where you can pencil in the date to vote for progressive change. Your magic date will be “Never”.

There's no choice,friend. Not until a progressive party becomes a viable choice to form a government.

There's no NDPQ yet and QS is losing ground and not gaining ground.

I'll take the wretched PLQ 100 times out of 100 than CAQ. And the next election is going to be a fight between the PLQ and CAQ.

That's not my choice. Those are the cards we've been dealt. Maybe 10 years from now the NDPQ will be in position to take power.Right now they are not even an official party.

It will remain a choice between the lesser of 2 evils until that day.

Sorry,mate. 

alan smithee wrote:

<a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> wrote:

How much worse does the Centre need to become? When will the corporatist centre parties be bad enough that the cowards stop saying “the other guy’s worse” ? Smithee, I hope you have a magic calendar where you can pencil in the date to vote for progressive change. Your magic date will be “Never”.

There's no choice,friend. Not until a progressive party becomes a viable choice to form a government.

There's no NDPQ yet and QS is losing ground very fast.

I'll take the wretched PLQ 100 times out of 100 over CAQ. And the next election is going to be a fight between the PLQ and CAQ.

That's not my choice. Those are the cards we've been dealt. Maybe 10 years from now the NDPQ will be in position to take power.Right now they are not even an official party.

It will remain a choice between the lesser of 2 evils until that day.

I can't allow Legault to obtain power. Right now we have a social safety net. Do you want to lose it? 

Sorry,mate. 

I thought you voted PQ.

Ken Burch wrote:

alan smithee wrote:

<a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> wrote:

How much worse does the Centre need to become? When will the corporatist centre parties be bad enough that the cowards stop saying “the other guy’s worse” ? Smithee, I hope you have a magic calendar where you can pencil in the date to vote for progressive change. Your magic date will be “Never”.

There's no choice,friend. Not until a progressive party becomes a viable choice to form a government.

There's no NDPQ yet and QS is losing ground very fast.

I'll take the wretched PLQ 100 times out of 100 over CAQ. And the next election is going to be a fight between the PLQ and CAQ.

That's not my choice. Those are the cards we've been dealt. Maybe 10 years from now the NDPQ will be in position to take power.Right now they are not even an official party.

It will remain a choice between the lesser of 2 evils until that day.

I can't allow Legault to obtain power. Right now we have a social safety net. Do you want to lose it? 

Sorry,mate. 

I thought you voted PQ.

WRONG. I voted QS as I did the election before and been doing since they were the UFP. I don't see where I alluded to voting any other way. The election in 2018 is going to test my tolerance for a lesser evil.I cannot and will not play a role in Frank Legault becoming Premier. It's going to be a choice between a austerity party that didn't destroy our social safety net (I know,people here won't like hearing it but it's true.) and a party that wants to destroy our social safety net led by a man who compared himself with Donald Trump. This is not the year for me to waste my vote supporting a party that has no chance of getting anywhere. Hopefully by the next election I can vote NDPQ.

Mr. Magoo wrote:

Quote:

So yeah,splitting the vote would be moronic. Unless you're a right winger.

Well, there's the rub.  People want electoral choice, they want a party that's different from the ones they cannot support.  But how shall we have this without the possibility that some might vote for the old one and some for the new one?

The "People's Front of Judea" and the "People's Judean Front" seem to be a perennial problem for the left, typically more so than for the right.  Would fewer options be a remedy for this?  Everyone must suck it up and support the One True Choice?  Because I don't think left voters would have the stomach for it.  So then, what?

Electoral reform?

alan smithee wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

alan smithee wrote:

<a href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a> wrote:

How much worse does the Centre need to become? When will the corporatist centre parties be bad enough that the cowards stop saying “the other guy’s worse” ? Smithee, I hope you have a magic calendar where you can pencil in the date to vote for progressive change. Your magic date will be “Never”.

There's no choice,friend. Not until a progressive party becomes a viable choice to form a government.

There's no NDPQ yet and QS is losing ground very fast.

I'll take the wretched PLQ 100 times out of 100 over CAQ. And the next election is going to be a fight between the PLQ and CAQ.

That's not my choice. Those are the cards we've been dealt. Maybe 10 years from now the NDPQ will be in position to take power.Right now they are not even an official party.

It will remain a choice between the lesser of 2 evils until that day.

I can't allow Legault to obtain power. Right now we have a social safety net. Do you want to lose it? 

Sorry,mate. 

I thought you voted PQ.

WRONG. I voted QS as I did the election before and been doing since they were the UFP. I don't see where I alluded to voting any other way. The election in 2018 is going to test my tolerance for a lesser evil.I cannot and will not play a role in Frank Legault becoming Premier. It's going to be a choice between a austerity party that didn't destroy our social safety net (I know,people here won't like hearing it but it's true.) and a party that wants to destroy our social safety net led by a man who compared himself with Donald Trump. This is not the year for me to waste my vote supporting a party that has no chance of getting anywhere. Hopefully by the next election I can vote NDPQ.

My mistake about your voting history, sorry.  It was an honest mistake(probably caused in part by the degree to which you've seemed to center the objective of sovereigntism in your posts).  Is the riding you live in a PLQ-CAQ marginal?  If so, is it at all likely that the CAQ would win the riding by a smaller margin than the vote share QS tends to receive?

It's up to you, obviously.

And I assume you wouldn't ask people living in any of the current QS ridings to switch their votes to the PLQ.

Questions I'd suggest you consider between now and polling day:

1) Is it worth keeping the PLQ in power if(as it the case)the PLQ will never be a progressive party again?

2) If people on the left in Quebec followed your example, threw their votes from QS and, as a result the PLQ was re-elected but in the process QS lost all seats , would you still say any greater good would be served?

3) If people on the left did follow your example and, as a result, QS was wiped out, would there be ANY possibility, at any future date, of ever building a Left party in Quebec of any description?  If that were the case, wouldn't that move Quebec essentially just as far to the right as a CAQ government might?

Ken Burch wrote:

My mistake about your voting history, sorry.  It was an honest mistake(probably caused in part by the degree to which you've seemed to center the objective of sovereigntism in your posts).  Is the riding you live in a PLQ-CAQ marginal?  If so, is it at all likely that the CAQ would win the riding by a smaller margin than the vote share QS tends to receive?

It's up to you, obviously.

And I assume you wouldn't ask people living in any of the current QS ridings to switch their votes to the PLQ.

Questions I'd suggest you consider between now and polling day:

1) Is it worth keeping the PLQ in power if(as it the case)the PLQ will never be a progressive party again?

2) If people on the left in Quebec followed your example, threw their votes from QS and, as a result the PLQ was re-elected but in the process QS lost all seats , would you still say any greater good would be served?

3) If people on the left did follow your example and, as a result, QS was wiped out, would there be ANY possibility, at any future date, of ever building a Left party in Quebec of any description?  If that were the case, wouldn't that move Quebec essentially just as far to the right as a CAQ government might?

QS is not a viable party in the sense of ever winning the election. Winning seats gives them a bit more press but it doesn't change anything. I've still voted for them because "why not?", it's not like they will ever win so it's just a statement. On the other hand the CAQ could actually win. The tragedy of Quebec is that the Liberals are actually the best alternative among the parties with a chance of winning. CAQ and the PQ only have a chance because the Liberals are so dreadful. The NDPQ does have a chance. Long long shot for this election but certainly for the next.

In a parliamentary system, one votes for one's MP (or MNA or MLA), NOT for the premier or prime minister. If the QS vote is split in the ridings we currently hold, that would only benefit the PQ, which held those three ridings before and had for many, many years. No influence on either the Libs or the CACA...

On the question of vote splitting.

Based on some of the recent posts I've read here I'm supposed to only vote for a party when it is viable, doing otherwise will help the CAQ gain power. Well how does a party become viable if people are not supposed to vote for them before they become viable?

QS didn't come from nowhere, the party wouldn't exist if people didn't initially "waste" their vote on a party (and the parties that preceded the QS like the UFP) that never had a seat. If people don't "waste" their vote on the NPDQ now, then they'll never have a chance of winning a seat later because they'll never have money from the per vote subsidy to run a campaign. For anyone who genuinely wants the NPDQ to succeed, now is the time to support them, not in 10 years.

Pondering wrote:

lagatta4 wrote:

In a parliamentary system, one vote's for one's MP (or MNA or MLA), NOT for the premier or prime minister. If the QS vote is split in the ridings we currently hold, that would only benefit the PQ, which held those three ridings before and had for many, many years. No influence on either the Libs or the CACA...

Do you genuinely believe that the NDPQ threatens any of those 3 seats?

Why shouldn't the NPD-Q make sure it doesn't by not standing in those seats?  

It can't have any legitimate motivation for running in those ridings.

Quote:

How about to represent the will of the people?

Again, I find it funny how many people bemoan the purported lack of electoral choices, but then resent a new party because it might "steal" votes from their favourite.

If nothing else -- like, literally if their platforms were identical except for this one thing -- they would give the Federalist left in PQ a new option.

Some of us evil far-left people spent YEARS campaigning for social housing in Mercier (Amir Khadir's riding, and the borough of Luc Ferrandez) falling prey to condofication and gentrification. Not that I have anything against condos or nice shops as long as people with lower incomes can also stay in their neighbourhood and not be exiled to some godorful place where it is impossible to walk anywhere...

There was a campaign to convert a former schoool building (part of le Collège français) into social housing, namely a housing co-op that would include housing at market rates (but relatively protected from speculation) and subsidised housing for people with low incomes - not just people on social assistance; in the Plateau area, there are many freelancers in the arts etc who have very unstable incomes). We won. We won with help from the Projet Montréal bureau and from Amir Khadir's riding office. We won because there are people on the LEFT who care about the lives of people who aren't in the 1%.

The project has been densified to include 92 flats from 1 to three bedrooms, from singles to families, and there are several flats for disabled people. My next-door neighbour, no longer able to climb the two flights of stairs, will be moving there next summer, to a flat adapted for disabled people, in a neighbourhood (like ours) where he can get most of what he needs, including physio at the Y and a specialised centre, within a few blocks either way.

I am mightily pissed off at people who frequent a supposedly progressive site to shit on the left and social movements.

The problem is of course that I have absolutely nothing to say to that capitalist conformist worldview that would be printable here. You profit from the activism of others while shitting on us. You show up here as an enemy of social activism and expect people to say oh the poor dear, not to mention your apologetics for your ecocidal relatives. We all have ecocidal relatives somewhere, but I simply don't speak to mine.

Economic management team? Join the fucking CAQ . That is not the purpose of government. That is the purpose of boards of directors.

This syrupy piece of shit wants me to "let go of the activist mindset" while I've been a social activist since puberty and am not far from pensionable age. She wants me to betray my life's commitment at an age when I would certainly not benefit from doing so. Is she a real poster or just a construct to mock the type of people who founded this board almost twenty years ago? I don't care and I don't care if I am banned for speaking out against such mendacious hypocrites. Benefiting from social housing (if that is the case and not just another construct) is the result of years or even decades of protracted efforts by housing activists (including me, but many other people have played greater roles).

I have much less problem with people who are straightforward right-wingers than this kind of concern troll.

Pondering wrote:

lagatta4 wrote:

The problem is of course that I have absolutely nothing to say to that capitalist conformist worldview that would be printable here. You profit from the activism of others while shitting on us. You show up here as an enemy of social activism and expect people to say oh the poor dear, not to mention your apologetics for your ecocidal relatives. We all have ecocidal relatives somewhere, but I simply don't speak to mine. 

I don't and never have shit on activists or social activists. I take part in many of the protests in Montreal. You are a frustrated dictator and no I don't cut off relatives based on commonly held political views.

lagatta4 wrote:

Economic management team? Join the fucking CAQ . That is not the purpose of government. That is the purpose of boards of directors. 

You don't get to dictate the basis on which people vote. Neither do I. I'm saying that most voters vote first and foremost on the ability to manage the economy. If more than one party is viewed as able to run the economy other factors come into play. It doesn't matter whether I approve or disapprove of it. It's just the way it is. The CAQ is in first place because people are fed up with the Liberals and the CAQ is percieved as able to run the economy and they have dropped sovereignty.

lagatta4 wrote:

 This syrupy piece of shit wants me to "let go of the activist mindset" while I've been a social activist since puberty and am not far from pensionable age. She wants me to betray my life's commitment at an age when I would certainly not benefit from doing so.

I said: long enough to see electoral politics as a different animal from social movements. Opening your mind for a minute or two seems to strike terror into your heart.

lagatta4 wrote:

  Is she a real poster or just a construct to mock the type of people who founded this board almost twenty years ago? I don't care and I don't care if I am banned for speaking out against such mendacious hypocrites. Benefiting from social housing (if that is the case and not just another construct) is the result of years or even decades of protracted efforts by housing activists (including me, but many other people have played greater roles).

And now we get to heart of why you do it. You expect people who you consider beneficiaries of your activism to bow to your superiority not dare disagree with you. You aren't even capable of discussion. You want this board to be an insular little place for old timers to talk about the good ol days and pat each other on the back.

QS has 11% support in Quebec yet you don't want the NDPQ to exist on the asumption that left leaning voters will be forced to turn to QS.  So far that has resulted in every other political party in Quebec moving right because there is no competition on the moderate left for voters to turn to. Instead of forcing Quebecers to vote QS it forced them to vote for right wing parties.

That doesn't matter to you. You would rather see CAQ win either this election or next than allow a non-sovereignist moderate left to rise in Quebec.

You sneer at the importance of sound economic management but that is what pays for social programs. It's not shallow for people to worry about their jobs or the value of their homes or to fear rising taxes. They are not the enemy.

"a frustrated dictator"?  Really?  REALLY?

Do you have any idea how condescending and abusive you sounded there?  

And how bizarre it is to suggest that Quebec needs a party that would govern(let's face it, this is what "moderate left" means) like the right-wing NDP governments in Saskatchewan under Romanow, or Manitoba under Seliger and his predecessor, or Nova Scotia under Dexter-in other words, that you want the NPD-Q to govern Quebec just like all the NDP governments that ended being voted out by landslide margins in provinces they governed?

Their centrism was failed economic management.

Managing the economy by deferring to corporate power simply doesn't work. 

Managing the economy by sending the police to break up demonstrations, clear out protest encampments and evict low-income tenants so their apartments can be converted into luxury flats doesn't work.

Looking the other way on fracking and the dispossession of the Indigenous doesn't work.

Those things(all of which are unaovoidable part of what YOU would call "sound economic management") don't EVER work.

They don't work because there's no social payoff for any of them.

They don't create jobs and the don't fund social programs.

Corporations don't WANT to create jobs anymore.  They don't want to fund social programs-in fact, they never stop demanding cuts in social programs.  They care only about short-term rate of return on investment-EVEN if that short-term rate of return is obtained by skeletonizing corporations and immiseating the many.  The wealthy, as a bloc, have pulled up the drawbridges and disconnected themselves permanently from the rest of society.

​Why do you want a repeat of what has failed everywhere else?

Why do you want the Third Way when the Third Way has now been rejected in every country in the world?

Ken Burch wrote:

"a frustrated dictator"?  Really?  REALLY?

Do you have any idea how condescending and abusive you sounded there?  

You must have skipped Lagatta's post to me in which she expects to be banned for her lengthy attack on my existence as a human being.

There is nothing condescending about my calling her on her shit and her dislike for democracy. You know, the kind in which people get to vote for the party of their choice. I used to have enormous respect for Lagatta, I still do for her knowledge, but now I realize she has no respect for others. She looks down on the people she claims to want to help. She is sorry I got into low income housing thinking she might have been partially responsible. She'd have me kicked out if she could. Apparently only people who agree with Lagatta on -everything- are deserving of social housing, so yeah, dictator personality type.

Ken Burch wrote:

 And how bizarre it is to suggest that Quebec needs a party that would govern(let's face it, this is what "moderate left" means) like the right-wing NDP governments in Saskatchewan under Romanow, or Manitoba under Seliger and his predecessor, or Nova Scotia under Dexter-in other words, that you want the NPD-Q to govern Quebec just like all the NDP governments that ended being voted out by landslide margins in provinces they governed?

I didn't mention any of those governments but you would rather have the extreme right-wing CAQ or the right wing Quebec Liberals? Looks like you will get your wish. Or are you going to pretend QS will win the next election, or the one after that, or the one after that?

Ken Burch wrote:

 Managing the economy by deferring to corporate power simply doesn't work. 

Duh. Now how do you plan on changing things?

Ken Burch wrote:

Those things(all of which are unaovoidable part of what YOU would call "sound economic management") don't EVER work. 

Quote me. I never said it is sound economic management. Read carefully. If that sounds condescending I'm sorry but I am fed up with having words put in my mouth.

I said the number one concern of voters is that the political party they elect can run the economy successfully.

Obviously you think that isn't true. That voters have a different top priority. So please do share. You tell me what you think influences Canadian voters the most. When voters are standing at the ballot box choosing between the Liberals, CAQ, PQ, and QS what will be their first and second considerations?

Ken Burch wrote:

 Corporations don't WANT to create jobs anymore.  They don't want to fund social programs-in fact, they never stop demanding cuts in social programs.  They care only about short-term rate of return on investment-EVEN if that short-term rate of return is obtained by skeletonizing corporations and immiseating the many.  The wealthy, as a bloc, have pulled up the drawbridges and disconnected themselves permanently from the rest of society.

And yet you would rather keep them in power than admit current approaches aren't working. QS has 11% support. Please tell me why you think they will win the next election in Quebec. You think teaming up with ON is going to put them over the top?

Ken Burch wrote:

 
​Why do you want a repeat of what has failed everywhere else?

Why do you want the Third Way when the Third Way has now been rejected in every country in the world?

Show me where I promoted this so called "Third Way"? You are the one(s) dedicated to using failed approaches to gaining power.

There is no point in us discussing; we are adversaries. You never stop shitting about Québec solidaire and lying about our programme. Of course we are concerned with tax shelters and tax avoidance, and the fact that online businesses do not pay their fair share of taxes.

We are also interested in the economy; you are welcome to read our programme and platform online. But we reject economic blackmail that means anglicisation and crap mass culture from the behemoth.

You twist everything I write. I have never "cut off" relatives with ecocidal lifestyles; we simply no longer have anything in common. And now I'm a mini-Stalin! I have never in my life refused to help a tenant or precariously housed person get housing assistance because they have reactionary or racist views. And I'd never do such a thing to  you. But I am sick of you shitting on the left and on activists.

We should both simply refrain from communication and cut off all dialogues. It is wasting my time and yours.

Ken Burch wrote:

Also, there is no reason for you to be obsessed with getting everyone to "drop sovereignty".  It no longer matters whether any party is "sovereigntist" or not-with the polls as anti-sovereigntist as they are, no Quebec government, even a QS government, is actually going to introduce a referendum that would be certain to go down to defeat.

Your paranoid fixation with making everybody in Quebec renounce an idea that has gone close-to-extinct on its own is a waste of time.  Give it a rest.

This isn't 1970 and there are no Floquistes anymore.  Move on already.

Why is the onus on Federalists to move on from discussing sovereignty? We didn't bring it up, sovereigntists did. I'll get over sovereignty when QS and the PQ do.

Here's a vital question:  if there's such large-scale support for a "left-fedealist" project, how do you account for the fact there hasn't been a single poll showing that the NDP-Q is drawing any large-scale support?  Everybody knows the NPD-Q is there now, so we should have seen that party demonstrating significant support at this stage.  They're not getting much of any all.

Almost no one knows that the NPDQ exists, they've only started getting minimal media coverage when the leadership race started. The most common response I get when bringing the NPDQ up is "I'm fine with the job Justin Trudeau is doing". We know about the party because we keep ourselves informed about politics to the point of knowing minor political parties that have never contested a general election, most people don't follow politics to that degree.

lagatta4 wrote:

There is no point in us discussing; we are adversaries. You never stop shitting about Québec solidaire and lying about our programme. 

I was defending my view that voters top priority is good economic management. You responded….

lagatta4 wrote:

Economic management team? Join the fucking CAQ . That is not the purpose of government. That is the purpose of boards of directors.

 

That's a quote Lagatta.

lagatta4 wrote:

You twist everything I write. I have never "cut off" relatives with ecocidal lifestyles; we simply no longer have anything in common. 

Here's another quote:

lagatta4 wrote:

You show up here as an enemy of social activism and expect people to say oh the poor dear, not to mention your apologetics for your ecocidal relatives. We all have ecocidal relatives somewhere, but I simply don't speak to mine.

 

I have no idea why you are referring to my relatives as ecocidal. I feel no need to apologize for any of them. They aren't my responsibility. Okay so, you didn't cut your relatives off, you just don't speak to them.

How dare you call me an enemy of social activism. You have no evidence of any such thing.  You claim to be a social activist but your focus is on personal attacks.

lagatta4 wrote:

I have never in my life refused to help a tenant or precariously housed person get housing assistance because they have reactionary or racist views. And I'd never do such a thing to  you. 

I don't have a quote this time but I do recall your saying you hoped that your efforts had not helped me get into social housing. I assured you that you had nothing to do with it.  Maybe it is or maybe it isn't something you would actually do. I can only go by what you say here and from that it would certainly seem to be in character from my perspective.

lagatta4 wrote:

We should both simply refrain from communication and cut off all dialogues. It is wasting my time and yours.

 

How about you refrain from attacking me personally or paraphasing what you assume to be my views. If you want to address something I have said quote me.

Pondering wrote:

Am I the only one who believes neoliberal policies are bad for the economy?

OMG!! You haven't heard that Babble is a web site for people who love neoliberalism!! [I believe we are called neoliberalphilliacs] This misunderstanding might explain why your posts here on Babble generally differ so much from the other posts here on Babble! That being said, even though I am a neoliberalophilliac, I think your unique anti-neoliberalism posts here offer a desperately needed alternative perspective here that provides us all with new avenues of thought. As a famous neoliberal once eloquently said, [Donald Trump? Milton Friedman? Kid Rock?] "only through the open unfettered communication of differing viewpoints can we produce the solutions we desperately need for a better future and beyond!" [Buzz Lightyear?]

[Also, I took it for granted in our previous discussions about electoral reform that my support for proportional representation was based on my deep and abiding love for neoliberalism. Why else would someone support proportional representation other than to give more justified power to the 1%??? That's why a certain neoliberal electoral reform organization calls themselves Fair Vote Canada. Everyone knows they mean fair voting only for the richest 1%. Duh.]

JKR wrote:

Pondering wrote:

Am I the only one who believes neoliberal policies are bad for the economy?

OMG!! You haven't heard that Babble is a web site for people who love neoliberalism!! [I believe we are called neoliberalphilliacs] This misunderstanding might explain why your posts here on Babble generally differ so much from the other posts here on Babble! That being said, even though I am a neoliberalophilliac, I think your unique anti-neoliberalism posts here offer a desperately needed alternative perspective here that provides us all with new avenues of thought. As a famous neoliberal once eloquently said, [Donald Trump? Milton Friedman? Kid Rock?] "only through the open unfettered communication of differing viewpoints can we produce the solutions we desperately need for a better future and beyond!" [Buzz Lightyear?]

[Also, I took it for granted in our previous discussions about electoral reform that my support for proportional representation was based on my deep and abiding love for neoliberalism. Why else would someone support proportional representation other than to give more justified power to the 1%??? That's why a certain neoliberal electoral reform organization calls themselves Fair Vote Canada. Everyone knows they mean fair voting only for the richest 1%. Duh.]

I was being sarcastic because whenever I point out that the economy is THE most important issue in getting elected I am accused of being on the right.The right has defined the left as economically irresponsible. The left plays into it by reacting to economic discussions as though it is just one of many topics to address or automatically right wing. It's as though leftists are only nominally concerned about the economy. I don't believe that to be true. I do believe it is the impression the general public has of leftist politics.

lagatta4 wrote:

I want to block Pondering's antagonistic messages. I trust that she will do the same to me. Don't waste my time and I won't waste yours.

No I won't block your messages. I am here to discuss politics and I will comment on any political ideas or positions that come into any discussion I'm participating in. If it pisses you off that is something for you to learn to manage not for me to indulge. It is my responsibility to avoid retaliating in kind to personal attacks (which is a work in progress). Even at our ages we can still improve.

Pondering blocked.

There is no reason for any communication between us. Your message confirms that we are enemies. Don't waste my time (I'm translating a history book); I won't waste yours.

Meg:   Just to clarify, if a babbler blocks another babbler, does that mean they no longer see the blocked babbler's posts, past or future?  

Mobo2000 wrote:

Meg:   Just to clarify, if a babbler blocks another babbler, does that mean they no longer see the blocked babbler's posts, past or future?  

Actually, as far as I know babblers can only block private messages from other babblers. When I block a babbler it disables their ability to post. If there's a way for one babbler to block another, it's a new feature that I don't see.

Unionist wrote:

I'm sick and tired of listening to myself. Can I block myself?

You could take up mime and avoid mirrors.