Ok, Peter, tell me how this will be done.
Where have all the Protesters Gone?
Mon, 2009-06-29 00:58
#52
Mon, 2009-06-29 01:14
#53
peterjcassidy
Ok, Peter, tell me how this will be done.
Can you not agree this is a prettty good postion, worhty of support?
what part are you unclear about or having difficulty understanding or supporting?
withdrawal of Canadian troops?
a refocus on aid and development?
d a negotiated resolution to the war in Afghanistan?
peace negotiations that ensure women are at the table in significant numbers and that their rights are foremost in the efforts that Canada deploys to defend human rights and development in the region?
Mon, 2009-06-29 01:29
#54
I am interest in the details.
- How long will the NDP plan for withdrawal take? Will all soldiers be withdrawn? Will soldiers be protecting aid and development organizations?
- What types of aid and development are we going to focus on? How will CIDA and DFAIT move around the country?
- Who is invited to the peace negations? How are will going to get women to the table? What happens when the male Afghans do not want women at the table?
I would like someone in the NDP to provide me with facts, details and a plan. Having three paragraphs on a website is not a plan.
Mon, 2009-06-29 01:49
#55
This protester found alternative political formations more leftist, anti-war, pro-active and uncontaminated by the corrosive and self-serving influence of NDP "steering". Less demos and rallies but more grass-roots organizing. Most people I know and talk to see politicians as the problem not the solution.
Mon, 2009-06-29 02:01
#56
Are the grassroot organizations gaining strength compared to 2002/3? Are these group specific to only a single cause?
There was a local movement in my hometown however it died out after some brief and successful demonstrations in 2006.
Mon, 2009-06-29 02:51
#57
I think not. And most groups I know of tend to focus on single causes in my experience to maximize their effectiveness. My sense is that there has been a steady activist decline for some time in Canada. There definitely needs to be some serious capacity and coalition building nationally. Then connected internationally to other progressive formations.
Mon, 2009-06-29 11:11
#58
I would like someone in the NDP to provide me with facts, details and a plan. Having three paragraphs on a website is not a plan.
I think our so-called Canadian military leaders would have to be consulted along with NATO leaders for a detailed plan on Canadian troop withdrawal. A real political leader in Ottawa like Jack Layton would say to them, write a plan and make it happen.
Mon, 2009-06-29 11:52
#59
That's DFAIT. And you'll have to learn a whole lot of acronymns before anyone trusts you to lead.
Mon, 2009-06-29 12:12
#60
I think our so-called Canadian military leaders would have to be consulted along with NATO leaders for a detailed plan on Canadian troop withdrawal. A real political leader in Ottawa like Jack Layton would say to them, write a plan and make it happen.
So then, there is no plan for a withdrawal, just 3 paragraphs on a website. What is the plan for aid and reconstruction efforts, let me guess, go tell CIDA and DFAIT to make things happen.
If that is leadership, I am going to become a politician.
Mon, 2009-06-29 12:37
#61
I would prefer to have a plan. A plan which explains in detail, what needs to be done, by whom it needs to be done by, when and where the tasks need to be completed and why this is being done by whom and when.
The plan will have section outlying foreseen second and third order effects of withdrawing, aid and reconstruction, and negotiations.
Throughout the plan there will be timelines, guidelines and instructions for potential problems and how to deal with them.
Then I would take this plan to the public and explain it to them, showing them the problems and issues that will be face, the possible outcome of our actions.
Mon, 2009-06-29 13:42
#62
I think this helps answer the thread question: Where have all the Protesters Gone?
Critique of Bourgeois Consciousness
http://www.mostlywater.org/psychology_private_individual_critique_bourge...
Tue, 2009-06-30 00:52
#63
I think our so-called Canadian military leaders would have to be consulted along with NATO leaders for a detailed plan on Canadian troop withdrawal. A real political leader in Ottawa like Jack Layton would say to them, write a plan and make it happen.
You're joking, right?
The U.S. has a plan for its NATO sock puppets for Afghanistan alright. Here it is:
(CP) "U.S. Democrats have quietly sounded out powerbrokers in Ottawa looking for advice on how to convince war weary Canadians to keep military forces in Afghanistan after 2011. Conscious of the deep political and public opposition to extending the mission further, American officials - political and military - are struggling to understand those concerns and identify the right arguments to make the Harper government to 'keep Canadian boots on the ground.' said defence sources. The U.S. has not formally (or even informally) requested Ottawa extend the deployment of 2,850 troops, trainers and aircrew in Kandahar... The questions being asked are meant to lay the groundwork for a potential request, which the administration could make late this year or in early 2010, said one source. (It's unclear whether the Americans would ask Canada to stay in Kandahar or elsewhere). The informal exercise comes as no surprise to seasoned diplomats, who say Canada's self imposed pullout deadline of 2011, and a Dutch plan to withdraw its troops in July next year, complicates America's long term strategy in the region."
Italics added. Here's the kicker. The article ends:
"Any discussion of Canada's involvement beyond 2011 will likely make Prime Minister Stephen Harper's minority government squirm because there's no appetite for extending such a costly war. Contrary to the picture painted by opposition parties, Harper is personally opposed to staying beyond the end date and has said privately that if Parliament 'hadn't imposed a deadline' on him, he would have done it himself because an 'open ended war is not in the best interest of the country.'"
Iggy's (yeah, the other guy who supported the Iraq war) support for the Afghan war counts out the Libranos. "Contrary to the picture painted by opposition parties...", gee, I wonder where they would possibly get that idea?
Wed, 2009-07-01 04:57
#64
Here is another web page that explains the difference between the 1960s and now.
http://original.antiwar.com/engelhardt/2009/06/30/a-secret-history-of-di...
Wed, 2009-07-15 04:50
#65
Where have all the protesters gone?
Here's one:
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/jul/10/bn10long123257/?milit...
Here are some more:
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/afghanistan-war-resister-to-put-the-war-on-trial
Fri, 2009-07-17 19:33
#66
Krystalline Kraus
as a personal observation, I don't quite get the NDP with its "anti-war" work? I mean, we have had to contend with the NDP's first stance on the war in Af'stan and then the party back-burning the issue of troop withdrawal from Af'stan for the sake of a coalition on one hand. On the other, we have received support from people like Olivia Chow regarding anti-war activism -- everything from the war in Afghanistan to her super wonderful awesome support of Iraq war resisters!!!! -- so i've always been in a little bit of a fog about the NDP as a whole.
Fri, 2009-07-17 23:48
#67
Olivia Chow is definitely more progressive when it comes to agitating for peace and against war than her partner Jack Layton. Let's hope she will have greater influence over Jack. The sooner, the better.
Sat, 2009-07-18 00:36
#68
NDPPas a personal observation, I don't quite get the NDP with its "anti-war" work? I mean, we have had to contend with the NDP's first stance on the war in Af'stan and then the party back-burning the issue of troop withdrawal from Af'stan for the sake of a coalition on one hand. On the other, we have received support from people like Olivia Chow regarding anti-war activism -- everything from the war in Afghanistan to her super wonderful awesome support of Iraq war resisters!!!! -- so i've always been in a little bit of a fog about the NDP as a whole.
the "fog" is produced intentionally to obscure mendacity and fatal contradictions. They are not up to the tasks that need to be accomplished. World peace cannot afford this lesser evil "opposition" which is no opposition at all. The faint hope that Olivia may have a word with Jack or not play politics with the file, or get elected to rule over us in place of others - is not, I promise you, going to do it. Only we the people are capable of doing that.
Sat, 2009-07-18 01:23
#69
"We the People..."
Yeah, I can dig that. When I was inducted into the Army, I signed an oath of allegiance. It was an oath of allegiance to the British Crown: A foreign, unelected, unrepresentative hereditary title that dates back to the feudal age. 
Ugh!
I would much prefer to sign an oath of allegiance and protection of the Canadian Constitution and Canadian people.
Yep, I think it's time to get rid of this contradictory constitutional monarchy crap and become a republic!
Sun, 2009-08-30 00:51
#70
Where have all the protesters gone? Here are some more:
http://www.truthout.org/080309T?n
"The latest study that was done, which was in 2006, showed that 72 percent of all the troops in Iraq are against the war and want immediate pullout."
And more...
http://www.truthout.org/081209A?n
And still more...
http://original.antiwar.com/letman/2009/08/17/soldiers-who-just-say-no/
Antiwar movements plan fall campaign on Afghanistan:
Wed, 2009-12-09 02:01
#71
Are Americans Too Broken for the 'Truth to Set Us Free'?
http://www.counterpunch.org/levine12042009.html
"Can people become so broken that truths of how they are being screwed do not 'set them free' but instead further demoralize them? Has such a demoralization happened in the United States?"
Wed, 2009-12-09 02:59
#72
Media's the problem. In Alberta, you're lucky if the press even bothers to cover a protest. Even if it's big by Alberta standards (that would be 100 people or more) the TV, both local and national, will show half a dozen stragglers standing off to the side as though that's what the protest looked like. (The newspapers are even worse as they rarely bother to cover protests at all.) What's the point if the mainstream public never even hears or knows there's been a protest at all?
Furthermore, the press makes a point of photographing and interviewing the oddest looking individuals in the group - the girl with the clown's wig or the raging Grannies singing their hearts out - anything to make the protesters look weird, dishevelled, and... well, mentally ill, if at all possible. Protests here will continue to be a losing battle until we have a mainstream media that reports the facts. (P.S. I'm not holding my breath.)
Wed, 2009-12-09 07:09
#73
The fact according to whom? Raging grannies are weird? The girl in a clowns wig did get your attention did'nt she? The CBC and CTV interiviewed the green peace protesters in Ottawa and gave the protest alot of airtime.
Wed, 2009-12-09 16:29
#74
"The fact according to whom?"
The fact according to those who've observed 100 to 500 people at certain protests (For example, the George Bush visit where the Stephen Avenue Mall block was packed), whereby they go home and turn on the T.V. and the media has made it appear as though there were only a handful of people present.
That's good news that in Ontario that you get great coverage at your protests; I'm speaking about the dismal and biased coverage in Alberta.
As for the girl in the clown's wig, you bet she isn't be the best representative. Mainstream voters take one look and think protestors are jokers instead of professional, rational "ordinary" citizens they can relate to. Unfair as it might be to judge books by their covers or people by the way they dress, that's the way public perception works.
Wed, 2009-12-09 16:48
#75
remind
They all have stock potfolios, RRSP's RREP's, mutual funds etc, and do not want their retirement rocked in any way.....
Wed, 2009-12-09 17:28
#76
And most of them worked hard and sacrificed most of thier lives to have those savings for retirement. (If companies like Nortel don't take them away that is. )