Jack Layton's sliding into irrelevance

Debater wrote:

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

pppssst-- a little secret - hardly anyone votes, beyond a few partisan diehards, on "I'm mad because she switched parties".  Not in today's Canada.

There is a simple fact at play here.  Hebert and others are making shit up.  The poll out today shows the NDP sitting at 17% in Quebec.  That's almost double the Conservatives.  Since the last election it is clear Conservative and BQ support has slipped to both the Liberals and the NDP.  That my friend is the real story.

Hebert and her cohorts are either trying to manufacture a story about the the demise of the NDP to facilitate Liberal switching, or they are intellectually and otherwise lazy.  I suspect the latter is more likely the case, although never put it past the Ottawa chattering class to create a mythic love-in with the latest Liberal messiah.  Remember all those stories about Paul Martin potentially getting the biggest majority in history and burying the Conservatives, Bloc and NDP for a generation- how did that work out again?

Yes, but that is one poll and is the high-water mark this year for the NDP in QC.  Most of the other polls have had them below that.  What is also important is not just polls, but the sentiment on the ground as to how people are talking and planning to vote in QC.  Right now the NDP is not a hot item in QC the way the Liberals and Ignatieff are.  If the NDP can consistently start placing ahead of the CPC, then people will start to notice.

As for Paul Martin, he would have had a huge majority had the sponsorship scandal not happened.  He was at 56% in the polls before Sheila Fraser's report came out.  When it did, he dropped 20 points.  One doesn't have to have a PhD. in political science to see what happened.

You're so cute.  You are claiming that the polls, or poll is irrelevant because some people you know are excited about the Liberals again and thus that makes the NDP irrelevant.  Wow - what do you do with a rabbit, a hat, a calculator and a pencil crayon?

And Martin could have resuced himself from even that if he had a polictical clue.  He didn't.  It was imagined for him by the pundatry.  When Canadians got a look at the real thing they said- uh no thanks.  I predict the exact same thing will happen to this messiah that happened to the last two.  Hard to beleive I pine for the days of Chretien, but there you go.

Already happening. That is why the fire extinguishers are coming out on the NDP

Oh dear! Someone who has always held that the NDP was irrelevant is suggesting that they are sliding into irrelevancy. Whatever shall we do?

Yeah yeah...he was so terrible he wanted people to be able to get treatment for illness. I suppose that is a lot worse than most other who shared his view on eugenics but felt only the rich wasps should be cared for

Ummm...so what if the Bloq got elected, it is better than either the Liberals and the CONs winning.

thorin ignore scott, what he wrote has as much relevance as Trudeau's  running about the country with Swatiska's and his penchant with Nazis philosophy, he is just hoping that people are stupid enough not to look further than what he wrote, and linked to, to see his typical corrupt Liberal smearing motives.

remind wrote:

Ummm...so what if the Bloq got elected, it is better than either the Liberals and the CONs winning.

thorin ignore scott, what he wrote has as much relevance as Trudeau's  running about the country with Swatiska's and his penchant with Nazis philosophy, he is just hoping that people are stupid enough not to look further than what he wrote, and linked to, to see his typical corrupt Liberal smearing motives.

Ummmm... That's a right winger's wet dream you've repeated there. It was a WW1 Kaiser era uniform. There were no swastikas involved.

Hardly LTJ, have you not read Young Trudeau?

Quote:

Since his death in 2000, Trudeau's legacy as a modern father of Confederation, the philosopher-king who remade Canada into a shiny multicultural mosaic, has been burnished to a high polish. Young Trudeau, authored by Max and Monique Nemni, cuts a scratch on that polish, exposes a dark underside to Trudeau's political legacy long hidden from public view.

The Nemnis' book, a model of scholarly rigour and research, reveals that as a youth and young man in the 1930s and early 1940s, Trudeau was no champion of democracy and individual freedoms. He was instead an ardent Quebec nationalist who, during the worst of the war years, admired fascist dictators, regarded reports of Nazi atrocities as British propaganda, plotted treason against the Canadian state and actively promoted a revolution to establish an independent Quebec solely for Catholic French Canadians.

As the Nemnis put it, Trudeau in his youth "was remarkably different from what we and everyone else had assumed."

For example, while still attending the Jesuit-run school, College Jean de Brebeuf, Trudeau wrote a play that described Jewish merchants in a derogatory fashion. In 1936, at age 17, he wrote in a school text that he was willing to use terrorist tactics against Canadian military facilities. The teenage Trudeau also predicted he would return to Montreal 40 years later -- in 1976, no less -- at the head of an army "to declare the independence of Quebec." (The Parti Quebecois under Rene Levesque won its first election in 1976.)

In 1942, the 23-year-old Trudeau was a member of a "secret" revolutionary organization calling for a "national revolution." "The nation that will be reborn from the revolution" would be Catholic and French. Even in 1944, when reports of Nazi atrocities could no longer be dismissed as propaganda, Trudeau was full of admiration for the writing of the now infamous French anti-Semite Charles Maurras.

This cannot be regarded as "youthful stupidity," as one academic has suggested. Other Canadians Trudeau's age, and younger, were scattered across battlefields around the world, fighting what Trudeau was promoting. Many were francophone. They had figured out right from wrong.

What was wrong with Trudeau?

Quote:

This book shines a light of devastating clarity on French-Canadian society in the 1930s and 1940s, when young elites were raised to be pro-fascist, and democratic and liberal were terms of criticism. The model leaders to be admired were good Catholic dictators like Mussolini, Salazar in Portugal, Franco in Spain, and especially Pétain, collaborator with the Nazis in Vichy France. There were even demonstrations against Jews who were demonstrating against what the Nazis were doing in Germany.

Trudeau, far from being the rebel that other biographers have claimed, embraced this ideology. At his elite school, Brébeuf, he was a model student, the editor of the school magazine, and admired by the staff and his fellow students. But the fascist ideas and the people he admired – even when the war was going on, as late as 1944 – included extremists so terrible that at the war’s end they were shot. And then there’s his manifesto and his plan to stage a revolution against les Anglais.

This is astonishing material – and it’s all demonstrably true – based on personal papers of Trudeau that the authors were allowed to access after his death.What they have found has astounded and distressed them, but they both agree that the truth must be published.

http://www.mcclelland.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780771067495

Quote:

Trudeau's pro-fascism was part and parcel of Quebec's nationalism at the time. Certainly Quebec nationalists did not hold England in high regard. Not only did they back Salazar and Mussolini, they also embraced the pro-Nazi Vichy regime of Marshall Pétain in occupied France.

This is the same Pétain that sent the Nazis thousands of Jews and thousands of Frenchmen to do forced labour in Nazi factories.

Trudeau was pro-Pétain because his regime was run on corporatist Catholic lines. Trudeau disliked the Third Republic because it was against the Catholic Church and had ties to international Jewry.

In all this, Trudeau was really being pro-church and anti-democracy and anti-liberalism. Trudeau thought liberalism was British. Trudeau felt World War II was a British war. He opposed the war because he felt it was helping Britain at French Canada's expense.

Trudeau even founded a secret society to come up with his dream of a French Catholic Laurentie. Trudeau also read Trotsky on how to stage a revolution to get that Laurentian state.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/viewpoint/vp_zolf/20060613.html

Quote:

I noticed how prompt Trudeau was to cover for his youthful mentors, like André Laurendeau and François Hertel. I didn't know then that he was covering up for himself too.

 Catherine Pomeyrols kept the best for the end of the lunch : she told Trudeau she had a copy of a petition he has signed when he was 13 years old in support of Les Jeune-Canada, a youth group extremely close by Lionel Groulx. He was surprised and said : «Pas vrai!». He seemed amused by it. A few days later, I brought a copy of the document to his office at the law firm Heenan Blaikie. I had joined a short note : «As evidence that when Pomeyrols and I look for something, we find it.»

 A few months later, in early 1996, Trudeau invited to lunch to talk about «des choses sérieuses et moins sérieuses.» I declined. By then I was immersed in the writing of Sounds and Silence and I knew that by meeting him privately I would jeopardized my objectivity. I would become tempted to explain away, to dismiss the lies and omissions that bothered me in his Memoirs.

 A seasoned retired detective and a bright lawyer told me that Trudeau had accepted to discuss his youth with students and that he had invited me to lunch afterwards because he wanted to know what I and Pomeyrols knew. He was fishing for information. Maybe. It is plausible.

 I was unaware of how politically charged this issue was until Jean-Louis Roux lost his job as lieutenant-governor when it was revealed in the the widely-read L’Actualité November 15 of 1996) that he had wore a swastika on his right arm while studying medicine at Université de Montréal. Luc Chartrand explained that he had been led to that information by Gérard Pelletier who had suggested he asked Jean-Louis Roux what he was doing in 1942. I sometimes wonder if Gérard Pelletier had not made that unkind suggestion at the instigation of Pierre Trudeau in order to divert the attention from Trudeau himself. By way of prevention, Roux was put under the spotlight.

http://www.barricades.ca/articles/2_4/Hidden_in_Plain_Sight.htm

More here below in a PDF

http://www.springerlink.com/content/u4743tr7351jqnh7/

But all this does is indicate my point, people change over time, as they grow and become aware of the world through life experiences and associations.

Nor do I believe the misinformation about the WWI uniform and one does not have to be right wing to realize Trudeau's love of fascism in his youth.

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

Debater wrote:

The NDP and Liberals basically tied for 2nd in Gatineau.  The difference between them was less than 1%.  In the next election, the Liberal vote is likely to overtake the NDP vote because of the large increase in support the party is getting in Quebec.

Anyway, I used to like Francoise Boivin.  A few years back I spent a bit of time working with her on the pro-SSM campaign.  I'm just a bit disappointed with the way things have turned out in the riding.

You get funnier by the moment with your twists and turns.  The simple fact is the Liberals placed 3rd.  That's 2 places behind the BQ.  If you really believed the logical outcome of your arguments you would be chastising the Liberals for trying to allow the BQ to win again.  Since your rhetoric, like all Liberal strategic voting rhetoric is just code for vote Liberal everywhere, it is hardly surprising you show no shame in being caught with your rhetoric pants down.

I already explained above that the NDP and Libs basically tied for 2nd place and that the Libs are likely to be even higher next time.  I'm not going to change what I said as I have already explained the numbers.

Incidentally, Francoise Boivin, despite having a huge amount of support and attention from the NDP, barely finished ahead of the Liberals at a time when the Liberals were disorganized and running low in the polls in QC.  It is therefore very likely that now that the Libs are about 10 or more points higher than they were then will have the best chance of winning next time.

remind wrote:

Nor do I believe the misinformation about the WWI uniform and one does not have to be right wing to realize Trudeau's love of fascism in his youth.

You've done nothing to prove that my information is false, nor that your unsubstantiated claim is true. Instead, you've demonstrated that in his youth he was a conventional nationalist/separatist of the day. Bravo.

Bookish Agrarian wrote:

You get funnier by the moment with your twists and turns.  The simple fact is the Liberals placed 3rd.  That's 2 places behind the BQ.  If you really believed the logical outcome of your arguments you would be chastising the Liberals for trying to allow the BQ to win again.  Since your rhetoric, like all Liberal strategic voting rhetoric is just code for vote Liberal everywhere, it is hardly surprising you show no shame in being caught with your rhetoric pants down.

Exactly correct BA, the Liberals, as third place finishers, according to their own ideology, should be standing down and not splitting the vote in Gatineau, if they are so worried about the Bloc getting in again.

And as I pointed out, time changes people, in rebuttal to scott's attempt to smear Tommy. 

And I still believe he did, and it was buried just like his fascist leanings.

Thanks Observer. I love how the MSM particularly the Star tries to play up that the liberals are pushing the EI agenda when in fact, it's the NDP.

Ah yes, but whose head with it be "off with", Cueball?

"We've got new generals our leaders are new
They sit and they argue and all that they do
Is sell their own colleagues and ride upon their backs
And jail them and break them and give them all the axe

Screaming in language that no one understands
Of the rights that we grabbed with our own bleeding hands"

Homage to Marat

ottawaobserver wrote:

The way this EI bill is coming together, it's forcing other parties not only to respond to the NDP's agenda, but also raising the stakes significantly for any party (like, say the Liberals who seem to be suddenly feeling their oats and believing their own rhetoric) who might be thinking of bringing down the government. 

Very minor side point on the probable nature of Liberal intentions. Being as Iggy continues to say that they are weighing whether they should pull the plug and will decide next week.

I don't think there is anything more to this than using the time to solidify erasing the memory of all those votes with the government. Nifty trick since it includes Iggy in January and February. And its a meme where they can at least talk if they are the ones doing the driving.

If the NDP is going to succeed at taking centre stage, the Liberals will will ready the scipt that still has them in charge.

Based on your posts here, never would have guessed you were someone for whom the NDP wasn't socialist enough.

Scott McWhinnie wrote:

boy, this could be dangerous being here using my real name and all, unlike most...I dont think I am wooly sweatered enough to be here anyway. Getting called a fascist by a complete stranger is disheartening, not unlike Douglas' paper when I first found out about it.

It was probably this and the divestment of the word "socialism" by the NDP that led me to not renew my card with a party I had faith in at one point. Try and find that word at ndp.ca. They/you dont even apply it to Douglas anymore. Its all about Jack's pretty headshots.

 

The axe shit is pretty disturbing as well.

see ya!

It is. The purely partisan politics free axe grinding that makes up the majority of the posts of these NDP threads, leaves me cold.

And the non-partisans are critical of federal and provincial NDP parties in about 90% of their posts. Interesting. It almost makes me wonder if they really are non-partisan. I highly doubt it. It not only leaves me cold, it's a creepy feeling as well;-

remind wrote:

Oh yes, distill them down to your own perceptions of worth, cue, but fair enough as your anti-democracy positions leave me cold.

There isn't anything democratic abour partisan axe grinding, stonewalling or deflection. In related news, a former Argos cheerleader friends of mine posted the "I mad, I am angry, and I am not going to take it anymore" clip from the movie Network, on her facebook site.

OK, well if the axe-grinding thing was directed at me, I was just trying to lay out what I saw as the outlines of the rest of the Parliamentary sitting, and point out that ... as always at the end of the sitting ... Layton's moves are not so irrelevant as the pundits would have you believe.  If that makes me partisan, well I guess I'll have to wear it.  I'm not losing too much sleep over the label, but it's not like I don't reserve the right to my own opinion.

The NDP is useful to the Conservatives, as they draw off enough votes from the Liberals to allow the Conservatives to win.

The NDP helps that process by saying that the Liberals are the same as the Conservatives. This means that Liberals can switch to the Conservatives without feeling guilt, and it allows the Conservatives to say that they are just as moderate as the Liberals. If that were not true, it would mean the NDP has been lying, which is obviously not possible.

Pretty good system, if you accept the inevitability of Tory and Liberal majority and minority governments.

If Hebert (a Tory-Liberal supporter) is saying the NDP is being bombed into irrelevance, it means she thinks the Liberal wing of the Establishment will win.

The real truth is that the NDP are part of that establishment, especially now they have bought into the Tory "Hang 'em High" justice policies, and the neoliberal concept that budgets must always be balanced.

If the NDP are elected anywhere, the rich people will move their money out, so they can "prove" the NDP are "bad for the economy", even though there is no economic evidence that changing the mix in a given economy does harm or good.

Uncle John wrote:

The NDP is useful to the Conservatives, as they draw off enough votes from the Liberals to allow the Conservatives to win.

The NDP helps that process by saying that the Liberals are the same as the Conservatives. This means that Liberals can switch to the Conservatives without feeling guilt, and it allows the Conservatives to say that they are just as moderate as the Liberals. If that were not true, it would mean the NDP has been lying, which is obviously not possible.

Pretty good system, if you accept the inevitability of Tory and Liberal majority and minority governments.

If Hebert (a Tory-Liberal supporter) is saying the NDP is being bombed into irrelevance, it means she thinks the Liberal wing of the Establishment will win.

The real truth is that the NDP are part of that establishment, especially now they have bought into the Tory "Hang 'em High" justice policies, and the neoliberal concept that budgets must always be balanced.

If the NDP are elected anywhere, the rich people will move their money out, so they can "prove" the NDP are "bad for the economy", even though there is no economic evidence that changing the mix in a given economy does harm or good.

Simple and clear. Voting for the NDP is at best voting for a sentiment.

Uncle John wrote:

The NDP helps that process by saying that the Liberals are the same as the Conservatives.

And in some cases, theyve governed even further to the right than Tories.

In much of Europe, voters discovered long ago that the differences between Liberal and conservative parties are anywhere from superfluous to non-existent.

Liberal, Tory, it's the same old story.

Better sentimental voting, than voting for reasons of greed, or not voting because of apathy and stupidity.