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Syndicate
Chris Watson is a "bona fide labour guy (as opposed to one of those rich socialists who have never actually seen the inside of a pair of coveralls)"? Really?
he'll do;)
"Chris Watson is a "bona fide labour guy (as opposed to one of those rich socialists who have never actually seen the inside of a pair of coveralls)"? Really?"
I have nothing against Chris Watson and he makes some perfectly valid points, but he is hardly a "bona fide labour guy". In fact he has about as quintessential a "rich socialist" background as anyone could have (not that there is anything wrong with that). His father is Patrick Watson - you know the legendary host of This Hour Has Seven Days and Question Period and more recently the Chairman of the CBC. Something tells me that growing up in the Watson household was very far removed from being the son of some working stiff struggling to make ends meet after a shift working in a coal mine!!
his heart's in the right place;)
ditto
______________________________________________________________________________________ Our kids live together and play together in their communities, let's have them learn together too!
I will not speculate about whether ex-New Democrat turncoats have their hearts in the right place. I'm talking about people who are in the NDP NOW.
Dosanjh is actually from a very humble background in India. Rae is a quitessential patrician. Jack Layton is actually from a very patrician background as well - and he is such a loyal New Democrat that i think he bleeds orange.
You don't have to be a so-called rich socialist to end up as a turncoat. I don't recall Ross Thatcher or Hazen Argue having been born with silver spoons in their mouths either.
How come these rich people make policies to placate the rich? I have no problem with silver spoons unless they're tryiing to feed me it.
Talking about someones background and who their parents are is taking on shades of the Red Guards and cultural revolution. It was absurd then and its juvenile now.
Will we be talking about class enemies next yet still be able to maintain a straight face?
"How come these rich people make policies to placate the rich?"
You don't have to look far at all to find people from poor backgrounds who make policies that "placate the rich" as well. Thatcher was a humble grocer's daughter and Nixon was from a poor family as well. On the other hand many revolutionary leaders that people go gaga over like Castro or Che Guevara or Marx or Lenin were from very comfortable backgrounds - so i really fail to see your point.
i'm sure that's a debate we can have til the cows come home. i'm more interested in what chris actually has to say, and how well it's said, than talking pedigree.
scarboroughnative: "my point exactly...this philosophy [moving to the left] will not translate into any form of electoral success."
Because moving to the centre has been working so well. The party has not only lost most of its dignity and moral suasion, not only is it increasingly indistinguishable from Liberalism, but also has been an electoral disaster. So the obvious tack must be the middle road, you know the one privately owned and paved by Liberals.
alphasix: "Synthome's first year university rant against capitalism demonstrates how out of touch him and his fearless leader are. Has Peter Tabuns been paying his campaign bills using the Barter system?"
I guess the only thing worse than a first year university rant is a high school rebuttal. I mean I expect this kind of narrow minded either/ or thinking from neocons, but not here. Am I to understand that capitalism is now officially beyond reproach around here? And that to think otherwise is necessarily to regress to bartering and primitive collectivism. WTF?
If it's good enough for Stephen Lewis to call the NDP back to its democratic socialist roots and to name rapacious capitalism as the beast leading to increasing economic and social injustice around the world, then it's good enough for me.
"Michael Prue understands that a strong economic position based on real world conditions will bring the NDP to power."
Real world material conditions are that capitalism is untenable, unjust and soul destroying. But I get it, Prue is taking a page out of Layton's book: he's running for the job of Premier of Ontario?
re: Richard Florida. With the many great political economists we have at Progressive Economics Forum and the Canadian Centre for Policy alternatives, we now should listen to quintessential neoliberal Richard Florida. In his own words "I am a political independent, fiscal conservative, social liberal, and believer in vigorous international competition and free trade."
re: Obama. As historic as Obama's victory may have been, there's nothing in that story for the NDP. We'll never have the organizing muscle that comes from being propped up by Wall St. and having billions and billions of dollars at your disposal. Second, Obama is possibly the most serious threat to democratic socialism since Bill Blair third way social democracy. Obama amounts ultimately to little more than a slick shill for capitalism. Ideologically, he's basically John Tory. And, no, the Michael Prue story is not tantamount to Obama's.
ignore what? pedigree?
not a chance, especially not my own particularly low-born one.
that said, mine is what it is, theirs is what it is. when you get right down to it, no aristocrat or pauper is responsible for the accident of their own birth. they're just born into it.
i'm less interested in square footage than i am with the content of character and the vigor of ideas, which is why chris' letter is much more indicative of a respectful attitude towards the working class in a way that offers hope of common ground between that class and the 'creative class' (and new canadians and the poor and LGBT and the oppressed and environmentalists and progressive small business and organic farmers and etc., etc.).
the only way you assemble such a progressive coalition is by have a frank and honest discussion about what's working, what's not working, and acknowledging the need to evolve and adapt. and not being afraid to evolve and adapt.
i think the part of chris' letter that struck me the most was the following:
SNIP
4. After the last election the official sum-up by the ONDP Campaign Leadership framed the result as "Another moral victory." When victory is defined as not losing party status for the 3rd time in a row, is something not seriously wrong with this picture?
UNSNIP
no question something's seriously wrong with this picture. i've noticed a tendency on our part in the party to blame, rather than accept the notion that our shortcomings represent a collective failure on all our parts--NDP, former NDP, labour (public and private sector), social activists, political left in general, really.
many of us cling to a worldview through our own dialectics--socialist, communist, social democrat, democratic socialist, blue collar, pink paper, social unionist, business unionist, craft unionist, social gospel, anarchist, PoMo, BoBo, creative class--what have i missed?
but many of us also seem to cling to the notion that at the root of our problems is the fact that none of us are really doing anything wrong and if people would just 'think more like us' we'd be okay. more often than not, if we assign blame, it's directed outward. the establishment blames someone, the leader's office blames someone, labour blames someone, the executive blames someone, the various caucuses and 'tendencies' blame one another, everyone blames the right-wing media and other bugaboos.
all that blaming really cuts into the introspection time, which really should have began sometime in 1995. we all threw a lot of effort into fighting the harris agenda, but perhaps we should have thrown a bigger percentage of our energy than we did into asking ourselves how things went so wrong and how we could gone from government to losing official party status in two election cycles.
Certainly we ought not to have been patting ourselves on the back when, after another two cycles of flirting with oblivion, we chalked the last election's results up as a 'moral victory' because we didn't lose party status.
once again, there was plenty of blame to go around, but no one seems willing to own the collective failure that has been ongoing for more than a decade. it was john tory's fault for stepping on the rail. it was dalton's fault for exploiting it. it was the media's fault for ignoring us. in the end, it was the voters fault for not voting for us.
but it was also our fault for not giving them a compelling enough reason to do so. some fingers point to the establishment, some to the executive, some to the staff, some to the leader's office. know what? if everyone's blaming everyone, it's a pretty safe bet everyone's to blame.
i think prue has intuited that, and that's why chris spoke out so eloquently in his support.
so yeah, pedigree counts insofar as you can't escape it and it illuminates your worldview. but to dwell on it when the issue really is who has the vision and the courage to renew and modernize our party. chris obviously thinks it's michael, and expresses it in a very articulate way.
if i had any coveralls and shop gloves left, i'd give him a pair of each
.
geez synth, must you? your intellectual dishonesty is so rank as to make me feel like you're channelling david frum in here. i mean, really! must i rebut your every rebuttal in here?
look, don't get me wrong. i admire your smarts, but if you'd only take that gift and put it into the service of good!
what gives many hope from the obama win is the possibility a nation can shake off the shackles of the horribly destructive culture war that's been waged in the U.S. for far too long. a shill for capitalism? maybe? in his own way, so was roosevelt, who saved it from itself.
and no, prue's story is not tantamount to obama's, and he isn't like some candidates who wrap themselves in the obama mantle every chance they get. i've heard his spiel enough times to know he pays tribute to obama's 50-state strategy when discussing electoral tactics, and that's about it. the candidate you shill for (tabuns) is WAY more shameless.
and THIS is so much better?
Thursday, December 26, 1996
BY DON WANAGAS, CITY HALL BUREAU
"Annus horribilus" is how Queen Elizabeth described a particularly bad year a few calendars ago.
By comparison, Toronto city council's 1996 might rank as annus horribilus maximus.
The year went from bad to worse -- to even worse -- and ended with the provincial government giving Mayor Barbara Hall and her 16 council colleagues notice 1997 will not be a Happy New Year.
Toronto and Metro's five other municipalities are being amalgamated into One Big City. And come next Nov. 10, they'll all cease to exist.
There are those in the public and even at City Hall who will suggest that Toronto council was the architect of its own demise.
HARVEY'S BOYCOTT
There's plenty of support for this theory given the Toronto board of health's February endorsement of a public boycott against the Harvey's hamburger chain.
The burger chain's sin? Its parent company, Cara Foods, gave $4,000 to the Ontario Tory party and should be punished, according to Councillor Peter Tabuns, the health board's NDP chairman.
A howl of public outrage eventually forced the board to back down.
But by summer, the board was back in the news as the force behind a highly controversial bylaw that -- come next March -- will prohibit smoking in all city bars and restaurants which don't spend a fortune building ventilated quarters for puffers.
Amalgamation or the courts could still quash the new regulations.
In October, council shocked the public by supporting organized labor's campaign to shut down city and Metro services for a day as a protest against provincial social services cuts.
Agreed.
I think Prue would be my 2nd choice after Horwath.
i'm sure that's a debate we can have til the cows come home. i'm more interested in what chris actually has to say, and how well it's said, than talking pedigree.
Well, you're the one who brought it up!Actually, foxy, it's not a subjective call. YOU brought it up with this quip about Watson: "a bona fide labour guy (as opposed to one of those rich socialists who have never actually seen the inside of a pair of coveralls"
But, sure, let's talk about Chris's analysis. He thinks that the main problem the NDP faces is that we aren't trusted on the economy. I agree it's a problem. However, simply saying that over and over doesn't solve the problem. To be blunt, if we're not trusted on economic issues isn't that partially the fault of the guy who's been Finance Critic for the last five years?
I'm a little surprised given Watson's pro-Florida bent that he's not endorsing Tabuns who strikes me as being of that bent (notwitstanding synthome's belief that Tabuns is readying the world for socialism).
Hat, did i inadvertently speak in code? whose pedigree did i mention? i said he was a 'bona fide labour guy' as evidenced by his many years of work with various labour unions and the fact I haven't been given any sort of evidence to suggest he's strong-arming union locals where he's got a little pull into supporting a particular candidate...i mean, i'm not aware that he's got any pull with any locals, but what do i know?
Now, others have been very eager to raise Chris' pedigree, but I'm certainly not to blame for that now, am i?
foxymoron: Would you agree that to be a part of "the left" and not stand in critical opposition to capitalism is kind of like "labour" ceding the right to strike? In my view, these are essential, integral and minimal conditions for those two words to function meaningfully. They're are the anchoring points. No room for "nuance" here. These are as you once said "dealbreakers").
Your ideological positioning and defense of capitalism is sounding more and more neoliberal. Not that there's anything wrong with that... Actually when we're competing to define the ideological core of the only party that the Left might look to, there is a problem. On another thread there was the question of whether the Left should part ways with the NDP. This in some ways could be a completely irrelevant question as much of the Left has already split itself off from the NDP AND it looks like the NDP is increasingly wanting to sever its ties completely with the Left.
Really, how does your vision for the NDP differ from the McGuinty Liberal position? He's a neoliberal. You seem to be a neoliberal. He likes Richard Florida. You like Richard Florida. He loves kissing corporate butt, you like "enlightened" corporate relations. He feels people's pain. You feel people's pain. It may actually be more expeditious to become the left flank of the Liberal caucus and try and move them from within. I have enough respect for the legitimacy of our democracy to abide by the will of the NDP membership in deciding the direction upon which the NDP will embark. But if it continues down this middle road, it will do so without me.
p.s. I wasn't around here in 1996, and truth be told this is the first I've heard of the Harvey's boycott, but is it wrong that my estimation for Peter Tabuns has just gone up? The health board democratically voted to support the boycott. Even if the boycott was politically motivated, it's called politics.
The Tories and Liberals try to minimize the power of labour and unions when they can through legislation and co-option, the left should minimize the power of multinational corporations. Nothing undermines sovereignty and democracy more than Global capitalism. We should not be unquestioning props of the system. But there I go again trying to make that innocuous, reified C- word sound like it's a bad thing.
btw anyone care for one of my "How's capitalism working for you?" t-shirts?
6% of Ontario Voters trust the NDP on the economy. Why doesn't that surprise me.....
Is there any ONDP leadership candidate that can bring credibility to the party on economic issues? Seems that the NDP which, according to another thread shows the ONDP between 15 and 19%, loses 2/3s of its own base, when the economy is the ballot question.
That has to change.
Sunday Hat: "(notwitstanding synthome's belief that Tabuns is readying the world for socialism)"
Look, I harbour no illusions. When it comes to ideological affinity with the leadership candidates, I'm simply looking for the one standing furthest left and one that isn't afraid to say the C-word. If he/she were to use the C-word derogatorily, that would be a bonus. That's what I've been reduced to as a member of the NDP. I mean, I'm being told by fellow dippers that I should be grateful that the most abundantly overproductive rapacious system in history has seen fit to throw a computer my way. Yes capitalism is unprecedentedly "generative", but at what cost? How much is your true freedom and humanity worth? I simply refuse to resign myself to thinking that capitalism is a good as it gets.
btw: My problem with Florida isn't his description of the changing nature of the city and the emergence of new creative class. I mean that there have been reconfigurations of the labour market is easily described. My problem is that he's a neoliberal. I just think if we're on the left, we should apply a political economy approach to a fairly obvious social transformation. It is the economy, stupid, but with one qualifier. It should read, "It's the political economy, stupid."
Synth, you are SO adorable. Your estimation has just gone up...awww... i could go on a big tangent about how it's an affront to free speech, etc., but i'll just snip from the article...
SNIP
If Tabuns and his NDP colleagues don't like the fact Cara gave its allowable contribution to the Tories, that's their problem. Just like it was Tory supporters' problem that unions and organized labor gave cash to help install Bob Rae's NDP government at Queen's park in 1990.
There are some folks out there who will claim the New Democrats also posed a big threat to the public health with the programs they brought in during their five-year tenure. But we never heard a thing about boycotts from Tabuns and the board of health during all that time.
That's because the Harvey's boycott has nothing to do with public health concerns. It's purely political.
As an angry Mayor Barbara Hall pointed out on Friday, Tabuns' action "verges on a witchhunt."
UNSNIP
pretty harsh, but you know that right-wing media...oh wait--isn't wanagas like david miller's director of communications? i guess that right-wing conspiracy has long tendrils. they apparently got barbara hall, too.
but like most dishonest thinkers, you prefer not to traffic in the issue at hand, and when you're on the losing side of an argument, you resort to tantrums and wild-eyed speculation about what my purported 'defence of capitalism' must mean about my own leanings.
let me set you right.
please don't equate an acknowledgement that you and i both benefit from it with a defence. again, you revert to the same either/or manicheanism you claim to decry. it is indeed possible to put forward a critique of a system and acknowledge that you exist within it. and yeah, i'm not afraid to say that it's a flawed system that benefits you and i. i'm also not afraid to draw a distinction between commerce, which probably pre-dates writing, and market capitalism, a system which is less than 200 years old. But that's all moot to the core of my own personal vision, which is my own, not a vision of the NDP. i long ago recognized that political parties, like organized religion, live or die on the strength of the ideas their members bring to them. it makes me unpopular with my own catholic church, and it probably makes me unpopular with you. i'll survive.
your concern with notion of 'labour ceding its right to strike' is laughable, given that your candidate has a record of pre-emptively depriving his workers of that very right by stripping the contracts they had signed.
as for your eagerness to flog your t-shirts in what is a refreshingly non-commercial space, you're the one who called me 'gauche' once.
than again, it's not the only crappy merch you peddle around here.
*EDITED* to add missing 'the'