NDP Embrace War in Afghanistan

As some one who knows Svend personally and is involved in Burnaby Douglas your comments are as truthful and and insightful as listening to Harper. This BS is unbelievably stupid and ill informed even for you. Why not stop making things up and instead deal with the real world.  No one tells our Riding who to nominate and we win despite the central campaign and always have in this Riding. Go blow smoke out your ass about someone else's' riding that you might know something about.

 

Cueball wrote:

That would be nice, but I highly doubt it. I am sure this is just some off-hand tory attempt at whipping up homophobic sentiment. Svend has been organizationally defrocked by the right wing of the NDP, and they are never going to let him back in. End of story.

The jewelry theft thing did not help his case either. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________ A Sight to See: Harpo Hoisted on His Own Petard

kropotkin1951 wrote:

As some one who knows Svend personally and is involved in Burnaby Douglas your comments are as truthful and and insightful as listening to Harper. This BS is unbelievably stupid and ill informed even for you. Why not stop making things up and instead deal with the real world.  No one tells our Riding who to nominate and we win despite the central campaign and always have in this Riding. Go blow smoke out your ass about someone else's' riding that you might know something about.

 

Cueball wrote:

That would be nice, but I highly doubt it. I am sure this is just some off-hand tory attempt at whipping up homophobic sentiment. Svend has been organizationally defrocked by the right wing of the NDP, and they are never going to let him back in. End of story.

The jewelry theft thing did not help his case either. 

___________________________________________________________________________________________ A Sight to See: Harpo Hoisted on His Own Petard

I am not talking about the NDP allowing Svend to run in his riding. Of course the NDP will exploit Svend Robinson's popularity with the anti-neo-liberal left to win seats in the Lower Mainland. I am saying that as long as the Neo-Liberals, and the closet conservatives like Pat Martin, hold the balance of power in the NDP, Svend is NOT going to be given a high profile critics post, let alone being forwarded as possible cabinet minister in a coalition government, which is the topic here.

Look at the fellow who ran in his stead in the last election, and the statement he just made about future military commitments to Afghanistan, linked above by Webgear.

Svend's upward mobility in the Federal NDP party is over, sadly.

Succeeded Svend in the riding he last won. Not the riding he last ran in. Svend ran in Vancouver Center in the election before last, and was replaced by the neo-Liberal laywer in the the last.

If you read the thread, you will see that someone was wistfully missing Svend Robinson.

Pu-lease. Your personal animosity toward me, is interfering with whatever cognative abilities you inately have.

LOL

Great logic.  Now I can say that Bill Siksay did not succeed Svend but actually Svend succeeded Bill in a losing run in Vancouver Centre. That is relevant to what?  You seem to like to draw negative conclusions about the NDP from bits of irrelevant information. Svend lost his upward mobility in the party with the bullshit over his tabling a petition to take god out of the constitution. But don't let the facts get in the way of your "logic."

 

The NDP right wingers have not taken over the Burnaby seat that is winnable so your point is nonsense and that was my point. My animosity towards you is that you are determined to undermine the electability of people like Bill Siksay and Libby Davies. Boo birds on the sidelines are annoying to me. If you want to have say in the NDP and its direction then get in the fight and help people like me stop it from going ever further right. Instead you prefer apparently just to be negative and not to engage in the electoral battle. If you don't care about the NDP then why do you post such unrelenting negativity. Get over it it isn't your party because you don't want it to be. You want to be a critic but you don't want to do any work except sit behind your keyboard and pontificate on your own moral superiority compared to those of us who have not abandoned the field of electoral politics to the right wingers.

 

___________________________________________________________________________________________ From North of Manifest Destiny

Are you still having a crisis about this? Now you are simply trolling. 

Anyone who is interested in what I actually said, can simply read the thread for the details.

Its very simple, Svend Robinson was for a while one of the bright lights of the NDP caucus, and a popular figure with the anti-neo-liberal left. He was summarily defrocked as FP critic for the NDP, after he said, and did some things that were not in line with the neo-liberal agenda. Politically he was defeated within the party. It takes a long time to recover from such defeats within a party, and the scandal with the jewelry did nothing to help a possible recovery.

My opinion actually is that Svend's odd behaviour probably had a lot to do with vicious attack of the Neo-Liberal (qua Zionist block) in the NDP and this betrayal by the party. 

Its not about me. Its about Svend, and his political position. Certainly I can see him returning to federal politics, but until such a time as the stars change in the NDP executive and the caucus, Svend is a lame duck in terms of achieving important leadership position.

You are just stupidly obessessed, why don't you engage what the personality is saying as opposed to obsessively and perniciously trying to prevaricate on point. Your obsession is leading you into doing some stupid things, like attacking me for not precisely articulating every single aspect of the history of Svend Robinson's career, in every single post, and then saying because I have not gone into such a detailed acount, I am evading the truth.

I precisely explained what it was that I meant when I said "Look at the fellow who [i]ran in his stead[/i] in the last election..." It is pretty clear. I definetly did not say the person who succeeded him in Burnaby. Read it again, I said: "ran in his stead". When you disengaged your brain, and then attacked me for misrepresenting the facts, I explaing precisely that I was talking about Vancouver Center, by saying: "Svend ran in Vancouver Center in the election before last, and was replaced by the neo-Liberal laywer in the the last."

Your harping on this point, is nothing but an expression of your obsessive behaviour. You have a problem.

kropotkin1951] </p> <p> Oh and did I mention that you change your posts often and never note that you have rewritten. Svend getting back into federal politics maybe some day but I think he is probably enjoying his new position. Bill Siksay is every bit as progressive a voice in the House as Svend ever was. We elected both of them despite boo birds sniping from the sidelines.  </p> <p>   </p> <p> So hows that withering away of the state agenda going for you? </p> <p>  [quote] </p> <blockquote dir="ltr"><p> Dear Friends: </p> <p align="left"> It has been some time since I last updated this website, and much has changed since then. After running in the last federal election as the New Democrat candidate in Vancouver Centre, I returned to my work in early 2006 with the BC Government Employees Union in the Advocacy Department. I was also elected to the national executive of the NDP, and a member of the Federal and BC Election Planning Committees. I was also Co-Chair of the Federal NDP LGBT Committee, and Chair of the Constitution Committee. So a very busy time. </p> <p> In the spring of 2007, I took on a major new challenge, which has meant moving to France. I was appointed by a major international labour federation, Public Services International, as their Public Services Advocacy Officer. PSI headquarters are in Ferney-Voltaire, France, very close to Geneva. In this exciting new post, I have global responsibility for servicing public administration workers, and for coordinating PSI’s work on globalization and trade issues at the OECD, UN, ILO, WTO and other international and regional bodies. I will work closely with global NGO’s on these issues as well. Taking on the growing power of corporate globalization, fighting privatization and deregulation, and working for quality public services and the right of public sector workers to be treated with dignity and respect…that is my work. A great opportunity. I left the BCGEU reluctantly, as that was also work I valued and enjoyed. In addition to this new job, I was also invited to Co-Chair the 2009 International LGBT Outgames Conference in Copenhagen. </p> <p> So I recently relocated to a small village near Geneva in the French Alps. Max and our two dogs will join me later in the fall, and together we will embark on this new adventure. Of course, BC will always be home, and I look forward to spending summers at our beautiful place on Parker Island. </p> <p align="left"> Yours, </p> <p>   </p> <p> <img src="/resources/sign.jpg" alt="" /> </p></blockquote> <p> [quote wrote:

Reading that resume and the positions he took on after the ring incident highlights the fact you know nothing about him or his relationship to the party.  So try posting on something you know about.  

___________________________________________________________________________________________ From North of Manifest Destiny

I did not change anything in my post. Now go take a pill, or the night off or something.

Ahh so you have decided to zero in on something specific that I said, as opposed to trying to chip away at my integrity by suggesting I was willfully distorting the truth by attributing false statements to me that I never made. I never said, for example, that Svend was replaced in Burnaby by a neo-liberal. Obviously not because Siskay is not from the neo-liberal wing of the party. Of course I can't depend on you to put two and two together and make 4, and understand that I am talking about Vancouver Center, where he was replaced as the candidate by a neo-liberal lawyer by the name of Beyers, even after I explicitly say: "Look at the fellow who ran in his stead in the last election". That would be too easy, instead though, you want two and two equal five, in order to follow through on your bizzaro internet vendetta.

 

 

Actually he resigned, did he not? And Siskay took over. Then the NDP tried to reinvigorate him in Vancouver center, since he is a popular figure despite his stupide moment,

Moreover, that is irrelevant to what happened before he did something stupid. In fact, I think it was the vicious attack of the right wing of the party, and the vicious charges of anti-semestism leveled at him for being so naive as to actually believe that he could raise Arab Palestinian issues in the context of the NDP, which is likely to have created the stress that caused him to start doing stupid things. But that is just conjeture.

What I do know is that in Vancouver Center the only NDP MP (in fact the only MP) to raise the issue of Omar Khadr in the house of commons, prior to 2007, was replaced as a candidate by Beyers whose instinct is to have Canadian law changed so that it is line with the US national security aparatus, so that Omar Khadr could be put on trial here, instead of Guantanamo Bay.

No you are wrong again in many of your details.  

First of all Bill's name is Siksay not Siskay. Secondly he was Svend's right hand person and the bedrock of his political writing for the decades Svend held office. As for being "replaced" as a candidate maybe you should back above and read Svend's words.  He was not interested in running again because he moved to France in 2007.  But in your imagination his not running was some sort of replacement by the right wing of the party.  

As for your misguided conjecture about his unfortunate problems around the ring incident, please shut up about personal matters of people you know nothing about and have probably never met. 

You are trying to vilify the NDP because Svend did not run again and I have shown your assumptions are stupid because they are not based on any facts.  Try getting your facts straight so I don't have to do remedial training with you to correct your inaccuracies.

Cueball wrote:

Actually he resigned, did he not? And Siskay took over. Then the NDP tried to reinvigorate him in Vancouver center, since he is a popular figure despite his stupide moment,

Moreover, that is irrelevant to what happened before he did something stupid. In fact, I think it was the vicious attack of the right wing of the party, and the vicious charges of anti-semestism leveled at him for being so naive as to actually believe that he could raise Arab Palestinian issues in the context of the NDP, which is likely to have created the stress that caused him to start doing stupid things. But that is just conjeture.

What I do know is that in Vancouver Center the only NDP MP (in fact the only MP) to raise the issue of Omar Khadr in the house of commons, prior to 2007, was replaced as a candidate by Beyers whose instinct is to have Canadian law changed so that it is line with the US national security aparatus, so that Omar Khadr could be put on trial here, instead of Guantanamo Bay.

[quote] [quote] ___________________________________________________________________________________________ From North of Manifest Destiny

M. Spector wrote:

Julian listed a number of issues that the NDP would fight for in the Koalition, such as cap-and-trade, job creation spending, improved EI benefits, pension protection, and a national child care program.

What snowball's chance do we have of pulling troops from Crazy George's phony war on terror with a lap dog like Harper in phony minority power? There is none. Harper is a vicious toady for the empire and bent on pulling an RB Bennett of things while the worst economic crisis since the '30's picks up steam. You'll have to excuse the NDP for focussing on the crisis at home instead of Crazy Jorge de la Yayo's war on democracy on the other side of the planet.

Webgear wrote:

Afghanistan is a nearly dead issue now, ...

Hmm, not the best choice of words today.

Unionist wrote:

Webgear wrote:

Afghanistan is a nearly dead issue now, ...

Hmm, not the best choice of words today.

Why not the best choice of words?

Webgear wrote:

Fidel

The NDP have drop the issue. They are in agreement with the Liberals now, they are speaking less and less about Afghanistan as the days pass by.   They have sold out.

It's because they've focussed on flushing the Harpers from their  eagle's nest retreat for the time being. Canadians are being murdered in the Stan while our fearful leaders run away and chicken out from the 62% majority. So how does it feel having an AWOL Foghorn Leghorn for  leader?

 

 

Fidel wrote:

I don't see the phony war agreement between our Whigs and Tories and herr Bushler anywhere in the accord. The NDP was never on that train. This is a temporary accord outlining emergency action on domestic affairs for the next 18 to 30 months.

The NDP is running to catch that train. A Kanadian Koalition government will be in charge of the war, and that includes the NDP.

Is the price of a coalition the deaths of thousands of people in the next 2½ years in Afghanistan, and is this a price the NDP should be willing to pay?

If you are reading this, you have just proved once again how annoying signatures/tag lines are. Support their abolition.

M. Spector wrote:

The NDP is running to catch that train. A Kanadian Koalition government will be in charge of the war, and that includes the NDP.

I don't see Dawn Black or anyone other NDPer slotted into that ministerial role, no. That part of the coalition government will be mismanaged by proven idiots on the Whigs' end of things. And they will be no less the idiots than the current batch of Crazy George boot lickers on early vacation/AWOL. The NDP is more interested in what it can achieve within its own limited circle of political control.

Quote:

Is the price of a coalition the deaths of thousands of people in the next 2½ years in Afghanistan, and is this a price the NDP should be willing to pay?

Whigs and Tories would have made sure they went to murder Afghans and be murdered on Crazy George's behalf to at least 2011 regardless. The NDP understands this and so do the Bloc. We've been over this a thousand times. Not unless there is a major overhaul of electoral machinery in the Northern Puerto Rico will that particularly despicable bit of Ottawa's kowtowing to the USSA change in a hurry anytime soon.

But the NDP doesn't quit on Canadians when they can't have their way on foreign policy. Quitting is what ReformaTories do when faced with a good fight. In fact, they take two month-long taxpayer funded holidays weeks in advance. Harper is afraid to show up for work, and that's because the Tories are chicken-hearted, lilly-livered, arsehole creeping, Crazy Jorge's ass-kissing, snivelling, grovelling pro-USA, anti-Canadian, AWOL, cowardly scumbags who should be taken to a cement wall at dawn and shot between the eyes with a load of their own shit.

 

Webgear wrote:

Dawn Black and the NDP has hardly spoken about Afghanistan in weeks, they seem to AWOL on the issue.

Dawn Black has been horribly bad on the Afghanisan question.

Webgear wrote:

Dawn Black and the NDP has hardly spoken about Afghanistan in weeks,

 They would but the Harpers arent anywhere to be found to issue a protest to. And we already know the Liberals' pro-USA stance on the same issue.

So, once again, where do you suppose the Harpers will be vacationing while Canadians are flown home in plastic bags from the stan, webgear? Do you think our Bay Street pawns and Warshington's stooges give two shits about Canadian soldiers, really?

Webgear wrote:

Fidel

No politician from any party cares about the military unless the military is making them look bad.

I doubt Dion, Harper, Layton, or even May gives 2 shits about any soldier

Ya but the NDP cares so little about Canadian soldiers that they don't even want them over there in Central Asia and doing Crazy George II's dirty work. How's that for a total lack of respect for Crazy Jorge de la Yayo's phony war on terror?

Webgear wrote:

The NDP only care because it suited their cause at the time, and obviously that cause has ended. If soldiers were getting killed on their favorite cause like a mission to the Congo or Sudan, they it would be the same story has Harper, that the soldiers died for a good cause.

And the NDP's cause differs from that of the two big money campaign parties. That;s a good thing as far as democracy is concerned. What would it be like if all parties in Ottawa nodded up and down in rapid agreement to a Crazy George request for troop deployment in the colonies, or all folding their cards in unison when the next war criminal in Warshington bluffs us into joining them in waging phony war for whatever reason they conjure up?

[quote]There's another old saying, Senator: Don't piss down my back and tell me it's raining.

If you don't appreciate that old white boys club, then don't support the enablers. They'll never volunteer to cover your asses in a shootemup with terrorists trying to throw foreign invaders out of their country.

Webgear wrote:

So getting killed for a NDP cause is better than getting killed for a Liberal or Conservative cuase.

 How many CrazyAss Jorge de la Yayo phony wars has the NDP pushed you into lately? Use your head.

And you won't be sent to the Congo anytime soon until US proxies Rwanda and Uganda have had enough time to slaughter as many Congolese as possible in paving the way for rich investors from the US and Canada to loot that country of its natural wealth.

M. Spector wrote:

The NDP will not be given a "limited circle of political control". The Liberal-dominated Cabinet will control everything.

And the NDP will be obliged to support and defend the "proven idiots on the Whigs' end of things" who run the departments of finance, defence, etc.

I realize this is thread drift, but this raises a question which may be obvious to everyone else, but not to me:

Who does run a ministry?

I'm thinking of this in management hierarchy terms. Can the Minister hire and fire the Deputy Minister, who (I believe) is the ultimate authority in the sense of giving orders, insubordination, etc.?

Can the Cabinet overrule the Minister on all issues? On any issue?

Does the Prime Minister have any legal powers at all, or does the Minister serve at the pleasure of the G-G?

If anyone knows, please help me out here. Or in another thread if need be.

These are the kinds of questions we never need to ask, but talk of "coalition" suddenly makes them interesting.

M. Spector, I appreciate your answers, but I'm wondering: what is your source? Is it written constitution, written statute, or convention?

The NDP have been dishonest all along about their policy on Afghanistan.  They keep tossing out the same old line, that they don't support the mission of aggressive war fighting, as is currently the policy.  What they have never been clear about in any interview that I've seen, is what they will actually do, change the mission, remove all troops from Afghanistan, send money to the NGOs operating there or anything substantive that can be nailed down as their exact policy.