maybe ou should move over to the Marijuana Party!
Green Party supporters: What would other parties have to do to convince you you didn't need to keep your party going?
Mon, 2009-07-27 17:28
#52
Mon, 2009-07-27 17:37
#53
Not likely. I support legalization because prohibition is an attack on the health of the nation. The physical health, the economic health not because I want to walk down the street with a joint in my mouth.
It's the libertarian in me I guess. Stupid laws that are based on racism and the theory that you can use laws to help your friends in corporate america bother me greatly.
None of you have answered my question. What would bring you into the Cons?
Mon, 2009-07-27 17:42
#54
smalltownguy I did not put you in a box- you did with comments like this "Citizens of this fine country/province are getting tired of being held hostage by public sector unions."
Held hostage - those are the silliest of contentions. How about held hostage to corporate interests that want to turn Ontario and Canada into a low wage zone. Public sector unions have fought long and hard for many of the things non-unionized workers take for granted. Things like a decent standard of living.
I know a lot of small business people like me who are involved with or support the NDP. In fact in my riding I know more small bussiness people involved in the NDP directly than I do labourites. Your contentions are out of some Cold War era red scare hand book and frankly bordering on silly at best.
I have found many good people in the Greens who are just naive about who is really in charge and what their real agenda is around the environment. I have also met people who are willing to cut their nose off to spite their face based on some ridiculous notions of what they are fighting against. You fall into the latter category.
Also at this point it has been the Liberals who have done nothing in the strike in Toronto with an intransigent employer that caused a strike, And federally it was the Conservatives that left VIA engineers hanging without a contract since 2006. If you wanted to check the facts you would find out in both cases it is the employer that has been at fault with a union finally saying enough is enough.
But given your posts I find it unlikely you will bother basing anything you have to say on anything as mundane as facts.
Mon, 2009-07-27 17:44
#55
The Cons are not my second choice party, smalltownguy, so a better question, for me, would be "What would the Greens have to do to get me back from the NDP?"
They'd have to...
1. Get one or two Suzukis to run. And have 10 or 20 amazing candidates in other ridings.
2. Elizabeth May would have to be a better politician. I honestly can't understand why she likes the Liberals so much when they've failed Canada. And Green activists are rightly pissed off when she says contradictory things about strategic voting one day to the next. She needs to speak clearly and stick to one story.
3. Decide they support the Global Green Charter and then vet their candidates carefully so that everyone understands what policy is, what a platform is, and that capitalism needs strict oversight and consumerism needs to be severely curtailed if humankind is going to approach sustainability.
4. Stop attacking the NDP. You want to be number 1 in my heart? Stop attacking your allies, and focus on your common enemy: Harper and Ignatieff. I know lots of Greens feel NDPers are overly sensitive to May's attacks on Layton, but for a leftist, her attacks seem misplaced and the edge in her voice whenever she talks about the NDP just pisses me off. The Greens want my vote? Attack the Liberals and Tories - they're the ones (federally) who should be ashamed of their record. Federally, the NDP has put forward some good stuff.
Mon, 2009-07-27 17:45
#56
A carbon tax is retarded. I'd never vote for any party that supports that piece of shit policy.
Mon, 2009-07-27 17:45
#57
remind
Change of ideology
Mon, 2009-07-27 17:45
#58
None of you have answered my question. What would bring you into the Cons?
Let's see they would have to jettison almost all of their ideology, stop trying to divide people along linguistic and religious lines - inlcuding imposing their immoral morality on others, recognize the importance of the arts, stop protecting and promoting corporate interests over family farmers and other small businesses. Oh heck, the short answer is pretty much everything.
Mon, 2009-07-27 17:53
#59
You wont get those things to happen by staying with the NDP Sandpiper.
Bookish in bi-lateral monopoly where you have one buyer and one seller of services it takes two to tango. In the real world, not one where monopoly has taken over, three things can happen in any given year.
One they can improve.
Two they can stay the same.
Three they can get worse.
Mon, 2009-07-27 17:55
#60
I was trying to make that point Bookish. Pretty much everything sort of sums it up.
Mon, 2009-07-27 17:58
#61
remind
Ha....great minds, BA
Mon, 2009-07-27 18:19
#62
But I do have lots of those things in the NDP, smalltownguy. A few changes to their environmental policy and an equivalent of a Suzuki, and I'm theirs forever. They're not perfect, but they'll get more done in the next twenty years then May and the Greens will. I could spend all my time trying to help build up the Greens over the next few decades, but I'm lazy - I'd prefer to just fix the NDP instead of starting from scratch.
Mon, 2009-07-27 18:32
#63
Maybe that's the difference between us Sandpiper. I kind of like the idea of building an organization from the ground up. I've been self employed for 35 years. I get to apply a lot of what I have learned.
Mon, 2009-07-27 18:53
#64
I understand the ground-up thing - We're both self-employed... maybe I just have a shorter attention span.
Mon, 2009-07-27 19:14
#65
remind
Or perhaps you like to see return on time and labour spent sandpiper and do most of your work at your business?
Mon, 2009-07-27 19:20
#66
I'd be among the first to say that the NDP needs a more mature attitude toward public sector unions and vice-versa but banning all strikes in the public sector isn't it. Workers have the right to withdraw their labour if they can't reach agreement with their employer on a collective agreement and inconvenience in itself isn't reasonable cause to deny that. Keep in mind that labour law in Canada tends to limit the legality and usefulness of labour actions short of a strike so it's often a case of that or nothing.
Mon, 2009-07-27 19:24
#67
That's certainly part of it, remind. I sure do like working on winning campaigns: three in a row now! But I've also worked my ass off for candidates in ridings we can't win, and I did it, not to build up the base to win in the distant future, but because it was right. Knowing I'm going to lose doesn't make me stop fighting. But again, yes, seeing a return on my time and labour has made post-election beer taste that much better.
Mon, 2009-07-27 19:37
#68
The Cons are not my second choice party, smalltownguy, so a better question, for me, would be "What would the Greens have to do to get me back from the NDP?"They'd have to...
1. Get one or two Suzukis to run. And have 10 or 20 amazing candidates in other ridings.
2. Elizabeth May would have to be a better politician. I honestly can't understand why she likes the Liberals so much when they've failed Canada. And Green activists are rightly pissed off when she says contradictory things about strategic voting one day to the next. She needs to speak clearly and stick to one story.
3. Decide they support the Global Green Charter and then vet their candidates carefully so that everyone understands what policy is, what a platform is, and that capitalism needs strict oversight and consumerism needs to be severely curtailed if humankind is going to approach sustainability.
4. Stop attacking the NDP. You want to be number 1 in my heart? Stop attacking your allies, and focus on your common enemy: Harper and Ignatieff. I know lots of Greens feel NDPers are overly sensitive to May's attacks on Layton, but for a leftist, her attacks seem misplaced and the edge in her voice whenever she talks about the NDP just pisses me off. The Greens want my vote? Attack the Liberals and Tories - they're the ones (federally) who should be ashamed of their record. Federally, the NDP has put forward some good stuff.
Yeah, 2-4 apply to me as well. Although I wish there was less animosity towards the Greens on babble, May deserves it. And the eco-capitalists and union bashers are a real turn-off too.
Mon, 2009-07-27 19:59
#69
I'm curious. Does being a self employed Green and feeling that public sectors unions are out of control make you an eco capitalist union basher?
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:00
#70
"I'd be among the first to say that the NDP needs a more mature attitude toward public sector unions"
Without exception, whenever the NDP is in power in a province or a municipality, they drive a hard bargain with public sector unions and strikes have not been uncommon. What sort of "more mature did you have in mind"
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:09
#71
Capitalist union basher are explained by what you do.
The eco bit can be all in your mind. A likely situation if you fill the bill on the other three. Probably a hunter.
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:11
#72
remind
I'm curious. Does being a self employed Green and feeling that public sectors unions are out of control make you an eco capitalist union basher?
Yep based upon your comments here.
You should be having a problem with corporate greed, and nonm-protection of the environment, as opposed to bashing workers
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:22
#73
Not a hunter . Don't like guns. I'm not bashing workers. I just think that the balance that there should be between what used to be TRADE unions and the employer does not exist in the public sector. My thoughts here are about public sector unions not the union movement in general which has done a great deal for themselves and workers in general.
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:27
#74
remind
public sector employees are not slaves you know!
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:29
#75
remind
BTW, I am a hunter and like to shoot.
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:42
#76
Good I have no problem with hunting. Do you agree with the Conservtives that we should shut down the long gun registry.
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:47
#77
I will watch my Ps and Qs in future, Remind.
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:49
#78
remind
No
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:55
#79
You mean to say that there is not universal support in the gun owning community for the end of the registry. Who would have known?
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:57
#80
You mean to say that there is not universal support in the gun owning community for the end of the registry. Who would have known?
Anyone with much of a social circle I would think.
Mon, 2009-07-27 20:59
#81
remind
No there isn't, I know of many who agree, and we registered our guns immediately.
Mon, 2009-07-27 21:15
#82
Good I have no problem with hunting. Do you agree with the Conservtives that we should shut down the long gun registry.
Ah one of the great lies of the Conservatives.
The Conservatives could have shut down the long gun registry at any point since gaining government. All they would have to do is withdraw funds through the budget and viola it is no more. This is done with all kinds of government activities. With a compliant Liberal party deathly afraid of an election the Conservatives could have either cancelled it or forced an election on the Liberals that would have not changed the numbers in the House much but would have bankrupted the Liberals.
The long gun registry exists today because of the Conservative, no flight of fanciful thinking can get around that.
They have continued to keep it in existence for three reasons
1) it is an enormous fundraising bonanza for them and they want the cash cow to continue
2) it is an easily exploited wedge issue for them and without it they don't have much ideological differences between the Liberals anymore
3) they do not want a public fight with the police services of this country who strongly favour the registry.
Mon, 2009-07-27 21:19
#83
I have to admit that I haven't thought of it in those terms, but that makes a lot of sense.
Mon, 2009-07-27 21:23
#84
You wont get those things to happen by staying with the NDP Sandpiper.
Bookish in bi-lateral monopoly where you have one buyer and one seller of services it takes two to tango. In the real world, not one where monopoly has taken over, three things can happen in any given year.
One they can improve.
Two they can stay the same.
Three they can get worse.
I've been hauling manure all day, which helps enormously in reading your posts.
You clearly know almost nothing about working in the public service.
When I was a young man I worked as a public servant. People were on short term contracts with no benefits and constantly treated like crap by the employer. Within a year of being hired I had helped organize a union in the workplace. Public service workers have every right to withdraw their labour and this is often the only way they can fight for changes in their work environment. Many of the jobs these workers do are things a smug ass like you would probably never dirty your hands to do. If you think collecting garbage is an easy, cushy job I would challenge you to try it some time.
The very simple truth is that one of the worse employers out there in terms of how staff are treated and interacted with is the public employer. That is just plain old reality there smalltownguy.
Mon, 2009-07-27 21:29
#85
For your information I am in a business where I go to the dump quite a lot. I went twice on friday with two loads. One a load of shingles and the other general garbage.
Mon, 2009-07-27 21:46
#86
No, I can't. I promised.
Mon, 2009-07-27 22:01
#87
remind
For your information I am in a business where I go to the dump quite a lot. I went twice on friday with two loads. One a load of shingles and the other general garbage.
Oh yes... going to the dump once or twice a week for a few minutes, is equivalent to being outside in the freezing cold, or pouring down rain, and/or blistering hot, 8 hrs a day 5 days a week, hauling other's garbage.
You need a dose of reality my friend.
Mon, 2009-07-27 22:07
#88
Those two trips took most of my day. I live in rural ontario and the dump is a long way away. I load and unload and sometimes sort at the dump. The county I live has 16 bins you must sort into.
And yes it is other peoples garbage. I get so much I bought a dump truck. I do it winter and summer.
Mon, 2009-07-27 22:11
#89
remind
Yes...we have to haul our own garbage too, it is about 12 kms away, and we have to sort into bins too.
And yet i still know there is no compare.
Mon, 2009-07-27 22:18
#90
I've done both. And to think you can compare the two is extreme hubris.
It is like comparing making a family meal and catering a gathering of 1500 people.
The only thing I can think to compare it to would be loading and unloading hay wagons from sun up to sun down day after day after day. It is gruelling, gruelling work where workers often suffer all kinds of injuries.
Mon, 2009-07-27 22:19
#91
I'm in the propertry management business. I cut grass, plow snow, clean up other peoples messes. I have a much better idea what these people do than you might think.
Mon, 2009-07-27 22:25
#92
I am not saying these people do not need unions to protect them. I just think that there is need to look at the world we live in today. I believe that sometimes you can have to much of a good thing. 35 days on strike is for me is to much. My original post was about the need for the NDP to think about how this is affecting there electability and hence there ability to affect real change.
Mon, 2009-07-27 22:35
#93
My father ran a similar bussiness for decades. I spent my vacations helping him when I was in school. You simply can not compare the two - they are not even close. Of all the jobs I have done in my life the time I spent on the truck was amongst the hardest thing I ever did. Blowing snow is a fairly easy job unless you are claiming to be moving snow by hand. Yes it is long hours and pretty boring, but compared to garbage collecting not even close. Not even in the same ballpark.
And your premise about the NDP is entirely faulty as has been pointed out time and time again. Have you failed to notice who the Ontario government is and who has been allowing the strike to go on because they want to avoid binding arbitration.
Mon, 2009-07-27 22:51
#94
I personally really enjoy plowing snow. I have done it for 17 or 18 years now.
You maybe correct that there is more going on than I am aware of. And therefore there is the need for you to get your side out. I am just your average guy running a small business. I pay for my glasses, teeth etc and I don't get vacation pay.
I am however extremely lucky and I am aware of that. Life has been good. I do what I do because i enjoy it. It isnt work when you love it.
As I said earlier I have an economics degree. You know if I was stuck at a desk puking out reports on this and that I might be thankful I had a union too.
Goodnight it's been a slice.
Mon, 2009-07-27 23:46
#95
Maybe a private room would be better for some of you ?
And where's the topic cops who would be on me for this drive off the thread?
getting back to politics....and the greens VS the ndp etc .......eh em
Looking at union jobs when you are homeless or one of the millions under the yoke of private business's yes makes them look privileged and they are compared to me these days as a business for self type
But looking at them compared to academia or the medical profession... namely doctors ....for example ,,,or even sitting politicians ......makes them mere middle class if that !! and the real engine of our local communities in fact.
Just think how lousy it would be out there if we did not nor never have unions
yes sometimes they are portrayed as the problem and that is the point of their detractors
If we do not only want to live in a world of greed or graft and corruption the human thing to do is to join each other for the betterment of the group....hence a union
If it was not for the golden rule there would be no need of unions...the man with the gold rules....
but as the human animal is such a poor example of DNA and such a filthy beast even consuming its own in many ways...
yes bravo unions !! stay
Before my life changing incident and with 30 employees at a time no one wanted a union with my operations but then I did do things like profit sharing and had respect for my team and did not try to make my profits off their sweat and backs
cheers
as far as the greens ???? the ndp will be decimated in the next election..the game is up
they will loose steam and shrink !!!
mark my words !!
If anyone else has the plan to make it so.... like my group does and is .... yes...you guys are in very serious trouble !
Join the Greens as the rest are just about the partys themselves and we ...as being all from the other parties already and sick of just party rule ....above citizens rights...that's why we will grow and you will not as after all had you not changed from the party of all the people we never would have been created to fill the gap you left behind.
Thats just natural and now with poor leadership from lieyton and the cracks showing... it has to happen
Wait and see who Iggy wants to destroy before the Greens and I think it will back fire and yes build the Greens even at his own partys expense.
You can call me silly all you want ....like usual it certainly matters not!!
cheers
Mon, 2009-07-27 23:57
#96
I'm not sure what "tactics" you're even referring to. Its been a long time since I've seen anyone from the NDP walking any picket lines in support of any public sector unions, since the ban on corporate and union donations labour has had less influence on the NDP than ever before and I I watched the last federal election campaign very closely and I don't recall the NDP making much noise about labour issues or about the virtue of unions etc... the most high profile "union boss" (sic.) in canada Buzz Hargrove seems to have run off to support the Liberals and their green acolytes etvc... so you are really flailing against a straw dog.
I saw Joe Comartin at the Aramco occupation down here. However that was more about the illegal withdrawl of tooling then about wages and benefits for union members. All they wanted was a PORTION of their severance.
Tue, 2009-07-28 00:11
#97
If any party has ran out of steam it's the greens. May got into the debates through some shenanigans and still didn't get one single MP elected. I bet if Hurtig had been in the leadership debates in 93 he would have garnered more votes with a party only 1 year old. May hasn't done squat with a world recognized brand and the backing of her own sierra to lend credibility to the lies of being most green. Byelection even high % BC seats could not be won. It's been 20 years in and not a single seat.
The libs were dog meat last time around and as you seem to think the NDP(despite winning more seats) looked morabund, so how is it the greens could not win a single seat when everyone on the left was a failure from your point of view. Heck if they had their pre-election polling numbers(more horsehit from the media) they should have captured up to 11% of the vote. They managed barely half that with a diehard base to start with of 4-5%. May only managed to get a few dis satisfied libs to vote green when they were pissed at poor leadership...wow what a great victory they really are on the move.
If that is the huge bump they recieved from A being in the debates, B the worst showing for the libs ever and C a hated NDP with all it's trapping(your words not mine) , then how to you think the greens are going to do much better if they could barely crack 6% with all the stars alighned in the last election? Is she going to go and find a magic potion that makes people love the enviroment even more now that the economy is in the shitter? I doubt it.
Sometimes it takes a stranger telling you your wrong for it to finally sink it. Your welcome. I am a selfless person and only too glad to help.
Tue, 2009-07-28 00:35
#98
Maybe but I don't see it so much as a decline of the NDP as from the rightwing parties. The greens are too pro business to attract a lot of informed dippers. I also don't see the NDP as on the decline. Holding steady might be appopriate, but certainly not racing downhill.
Tue, 2009-07-28 00:36
#99
It really all depends if the Greens can inflict damage on Iggy, he certainly is weak on the environmental front and the Vote for the Environment strategic voting message under Dion should be completely moribund. As of yet May hasn't shown the inclination to go after the Liberals but if the party was thinking strategically about their potential for growth that's where they would focus their attacks. There are a lot of young disillusioned Liberals out there who tried to take their party in a greener and more progressive direction only to see a back room coup and anti-democratic installation of the rightwing elite's chosen one.
By running in a no hope riding and obviously as the spoiler against the NDP, May made her party look strategically clueless and if they don't change that perception then I think the gloom and doom predictions about the Green's prospects have merit but I wouldn't count them out yet, there is potential if the party develops a competent strategy.
Tue, 2009-07-28 00:38
#100
Yeah, I agree, I think the same goes for the NDP really, and they have just as much perhaps more room for growth, despite the MSM moving onto other things, the environment hasn't disappeared as an issue and the Liberals have lost what little credibility Dion had gained them environmentally in order to suck up to the tar sands industry.
Tue, 2009-07-28 01:47
#101
Sorry... but if you did not spend 30 years in the ndp
or be on every level of their executives ....like I did ...
well you are only talking out of pure ignorance.
some ndp do really care about the environment ....human rights.... even their members and actually are my kind of people or were for 30 years...it is not their fault and based on our numbers feel just like my team.
Watch and wait.
You think we Greens are bumbling fools because our current leader is one?
She perjured herself on a sworn statement that I hold in my hands and could in fact be gone as leader by the next vote ...again just watch and wait.
How do you supose lieyton will do against some like Frank De yong for example in the next election ...?
So much to come
So much you do not know and its very very obvious.
Again we are only Green because of the current ndp leaders games ....ignorance.... neglect ....and those stardust covered eyes of yes Mr lieyton.....REMEMBER THAT!
Yeah sure jacky you want to be PM ...LOL
You are already to me if that PM .....means pompous munchkin...LOL
Cheers