The Future of the NDP

It's also very curious that Buzz is not a supporter of proportional representation but supports strategic voting. Electoral reform - making everyone's vote count through some form of PR - is the only way to put an end to strategic voting and let people vote for their first choice each and every election. 

"Buzz Hargrove" 

The redcoats are coming.

Boom Boom wrote:

The NDP is the only party with real growth potential, especially after the rallies this weekend.

Don't all the opposition parties have the potential for growth?

The activists are a much smaller group than the angry people opposed to prorogation and abuse of power. Unless you mean that anyone attending a rally or joining a facebook group is an activist. I generally think of activists as "organizers". The CAPP base is really a mixed bag so I think it's perhaps a bit early to suggest that new voters will flock to the NDP. Many will want to punish their local conservative and may not see a vote for the NDP as accomplishing that end in their particular situation. However, the NDP at least has something on the table to address this particular kind of abuse and that should get people's attention. 

I think the Liberals are the most likely party to benefit since they are the ones best positioned to defeat the Conservatives as the Official Opposition.

That is kind of what Polunatic2 is saying above.

I think even the prediction of a slow self destruction of the Conservatives is WAY premature.

We haven't got the better of them yet. In fact, I'd say we haven't even got them on the defensive yet.

Though as time goes by the Cons hopes of pushing the button on a March election get ever less likely. So even if they get back on track, which I think is only a matter of time before they do it at least temporarily, derailing them from pushing the button will have been no mean feat.

And if they don't push the button for an election now, their day of reckoning is coming anyway... albeit more than a year away.

What Harper wants is irrelevant.

Like you said- as far as governing goes, he doesn't need a majority. But hes created a situation where next election he must have a majority... not so he can whip out that secret agenda, but simply so he can keep governing period.

And they were seeing that the prospects of getting a majority was only going to get worse next year. Hence setting up to push the button in March.

KenS wrote:

What Harper wants is irrelevant.

Like you said- as far as governing goes, he doesn't need a majority. But hes created a situation where next election he must have a majority... not so he can whip out that secret agenda, but simply so he can keep governing period.

And they were seeing that the prospects of getting a majority was only going to get worse next year. Hence setting up to push the button in March.

Yes, I think it's very likely that the next election will be Stephen Harper's last unless he wins a majority.  If he still can't win one next time it will become obvious to everyone both in the public and in his own party that he can't do it and that people don't like him enough to give him one.

He will end up like Lester Pearson who eventually had to hand over the reigns after several minorities.  Other challengers within Harper's own party will begin to get bolder as they see he is damaged goods who cannot win a majority.

Harper has always been underestimated in the past, and I see no evidence of any change in that scenario presently. 

And surely no one is suggesting there would be another attempt at a coalition government.

I'm not so sure about that, as a matter of fact I think it is highly unlikely. Once burned. well, you know the rest of the story. There are a lot of NDP supporters who thought it was just dumb to try and do anything cooperatively with the Liberals. 

I know this is babble heresy, but I think Buzz has a few good points sprinked in there, and sometimes has the right idea about things.  Sadly, somehow he managed to get from some decent premises to giving Paul Martin the jacket.

For example, I would say that the third paragraph of this piece is pretty dead on in a lot of places, although I'm not sure about the attitude of the CLC cooling off to the NDP, but he does a good job of explaining the traditional ideology of the NDP and how the economic crisis does provide opportunity for rejuvenating some of those ideologies regarding public ownership, TINA, P3s, and the alleged efficiency of the private sector in everything.

Believe it or not, I can kind of see where Buzz is coming from on strategic voting and the NDP.  He was incredibly frustrated with the NDP over the Rae government and maybe he moved them from the "good" column to the "lesser of the evils" column, and felt they couldn't be trusted given his experiences with the Rae government.  Also, I think seeing the horror of the Harris government left an impression on him that the Tories have to be stopped no matter what.  So, if you're going to be voting for the "lesser of the evils", you might as well vote for a lesser of the evils who has a decent chance of winning - no one says "I want to get rid of Bush, and Ralph Nader is the lesser of the evils so I'm going to vote for him".

That said, the coaliton wasn't exactly "challeng[ing] the power of private business and right-wing ideas", even if it did turn out.  I'm sure most people on babble are wary of the idea that we can work with the Liberals to challenge the power of private business and right-wing ideas.

I don't really agree with where Buzz ends up though, and think there has to be a third way (okay, really really bad pun) for labour - neither Hargrovian strategic voting nor the unconditional support of the NDP which has been a dead end in Manitoba.  It would have to be charting an independent course from the political parties, and work on building up resistance to this agenda in the communities, workplaces, and in the streets.  It would also have to find ways to mobilize the membership on economic and other social justice issues maybe not directly connected to the workplace, which I figure would also raise consciousness and forge some good future leaders - these days, it seems as though the only mass membership organizations really doing a lot of member mobilization are the student unions, but they have some pretty big problems as well.  In short, it's about building up independent politics of working class resistance, instead of relying on one party or voting for the lesser of the evils.

After all, Buzz is dead on when he says

Buzz Hargrove wrote:

With or without the NDP, the labour movement in Canada must remain politically alert and active because, in many ways, it represents the most effective bulwark against reactionary right-wing thinking that seeks to eliminate many social and economic advances.

In short, I think Buzz found a problem back in 1993 and came up with a crappy solution.  +5 for seeing the problem, -20 for the jacket incident.

Why doesn't Buzz help form a party to the left of the NDP?

genstrike wrote:

I don't really agree with where Buzz ends up though, and think there has to be a third way (okay, really really bad pun) for labour - neither Hargrovian strategic voting nor the unconditional support of the NDP which has been a dead end in Manitoba.  It would have to be charting an independent course from the political parties, and work on building up resistance to this agenda in the communities, workplaces, and in the streets.  It would also have to find ways to mobilize the membership on economic and other social justice issues maybe not directly connected to the workplace, which I figure would also raise consciousness and forge some good future leaders - these days, it seems as though the only mass membership organizations really doing a lot of member mobilization are the student unions, but they have some pretty big problems as well.  In short, it's about building up independent politics of working class resistance, instead of relying on one party or voting for the lesser of the evils.

Anti-party leftists haven't exactly been successful over the past century, have they?

KenS wrote:

It must be nostalgia that accounts for you seeing any pattern of something useful in what Buzz recommends. The jacket incident was no aberration, and in Buzz's hands 'strategic voting' went from being something always problematic to a strategy deliberately aimed at helping the Liberals against the NDP.

I'm not saying his recommendations are good, I'm saying it's his premises aren't bad and the fact that he is recognizing a problem in the NDP is good.

Jacob Richter wrote:

Anti-party leftists haven't exactly been successful over the past century, have they?

Neither have party leftists.  And social movements not tied to parties have accomplished a lot, and some of them have been rather successful (Spain)

You know, it actually wouldn't be a bad article if he cut a couple paragraphs out and a sentence here and there.  And it were written by someone who still has a bit of credibility left

for example:

Bill Hargrave wrote:

The NDP staggers from election to election, becoming less relevant each time. Why? Because, I suggest, it has become less associated with the ideas that appealed to its base from the beginning, and less successful at selling them to the electorate at large.

Since my dust-up with Bob Rae back in 1993, the entire relationship between labour and the NDP has changed. Many of the unions that disagreed with my criticism of the party have come to recognize that the old model of strict affiliations to the party is out of date, and even the attitude of the Canadian Labour Congress toward the NDP has cooled noticeably.

Some of this change is due to the leadership, or the lack of it, in the party. Much of it, I believe, links back to the NDP's apparent abandonment of long-held principles. Whatever happened to using public ownership as a tool to achieve social goals? When applied with restraint, isn't this an effective means of dealing with the periodic traumas that threaten to shatter raw unfettered capitalism? In fact, given the chaos that has resulted from the current global financial crisis, there is a huge political opening right now to rejuvenate the idea of public ownership. The old assumption that the private sector always does it better than the public sector is in tatters. All we need is creative, inspiring leadership to show that public ownership, in certain areas, can play a constructive and efficient role in rescuing the economy.

Sadly, NDP leaders respond too cautiously and conservatively to opportunities to challenge the power of private business and right-wing ideas. For example, time and time again, when I proposed that a provincial or the federal government assume control of a company that chooses to move out of Canada, leaving an entire workforce without jobs and with no pension benefits just so the owners can add a few percentage points to their profit statements, I was told we were beyond that. Socialism of that kind is dead, people lectured me. Sure, it would preserve jobs and help us retain our manufacturing base, but the idea would never fly.

Really? How do they explain the American government's decision to acquire the private mortgage lenders Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae during the credit crisis? How do they account for the same government finding $700-billion, give or take a few billion, to bail out investment bankers? How do they deal with the wave that swept literally around the world, when capitalist governments suddenly became socialist in their outlook? Do jobs matter only when the workers wear white collars, not blue collars?

It sure seems that way when you look at the way workers at places like Versatile Manufacturing were treated. Located in Winnipeg, Versatile achieved international success building a line of farm tractors and other agricultural equipment specially suited for western prairie conditions. When John Buhler acquired control of it in 2000 he gave the Versatile employees, members of the CAW, an ultimatum: Accept a deep cut in their wages and benefits or he would move the company across the border into North Dakota. It wasn't a matter of saving the company; Versatile had always made money, and its products were top-quality. It was a means of lining the pockets of the new owner with a few more bucks and to hell with the Canadian Versatile employees who had invested much of their working lives with the company.

I suggested to Gary Doer, the NDP premier of Manitoba, that he tell Buhler Versatile was to stay put. "Take over the company," I said. "The province can invest in it and save the jobs."

Doer didn't like the idea. "The Manitoba government," he sniffed, "is not in the business of purchasing private businesses." Maybe it damn well should be if it can guarantee jobs and fairness for the people who elected it. That was my point and I still maintain it. As it turned out, an 80% controlling share in Buhler was purchased in 2007 by a Russian company, Rostselmash. The shrunken Winnipeg facilities have been operated without a union since a bitter nine-month strike and lockout in 2001. The federal and Manitoba governments actually facilitated this Russian takeover by forgiving past loans that Buhler owed them. Premier Doer was unwilling to use public ownership to protect a key economic asset and stood idly by while yet another Canadian company fell under foreign control. Why is public ownership considered completely off the wall, yet another foreign takeover hardly raises an eyebrow?

It's clear to me that the Western world, in the early years of the 21st century, has two types of economic systems: capitalism for the working class and socialism for the rich. It's time to spread the socialist idea down the economic ladder, now that we have precedents like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and various bank bailouts around the world. Maybe there's an NDP leader somewhere who can make it happen.

With or without the NDP, the labour movement in Canada must remain politically alert and active because, in many ways, it represents the most effective bulwark against reactionary right-wing thinking that seeks to eliminate many social and economic advances.

We may be tied to the American economy in ways that both benefit and harm us, but we can and must follow an independent course in seeking peaceful solutions to reducing international tensions, protecting the environment, maintaining social programs for our citizens and making other choices that reflect Canadian values and tradition. I'm not suggesting that the left has all the answers to these problems, but it's the best damn one available right now.