Polling Thread: Part 1 Volume 5

Geoff wrote:

The NDP's biggest immediate headache is the growing influence of the misogynist fringe of the Harper Conservatives.  I've spoken to progressive women who are my friends, for whom I have the greatest respect and who have been tireless supporters of the NDP.  They are terrified of the increasingly shrill, anti-women agenda of Harper and company - to the point where they're seriously considering throwing their support behind the Liberals in the next election.  In their opinion, the danger of a Tory majority trumps the ineptitude and hypocrisy of Iggy and his stooges. 

Of course, almost without exception the people you describe tend to live in inner city ridings where the Conservatives have zero chance of winning in the first place. This is the problem with whole attempt by Liberal organs like the Toronto Star to try to play up the "culture war" on abortion etc... the reality is that almost no one who cares deeply about abortion funding or funding for Pride day - lives in a riding where the Conservatives have any chance of winning. I suppose that if the Toronto Star scheme works the way Donolo wants it to work (which it won't) - some NDP voters living in Trinity-Spadina and Toronto Danforth and Parkdale-High Park will be so "terrified" of harper that they'll be coerced into voting Liberal. I think the bigger question is what the Liberals are going to do about getting Liberal-Tory switchers in places like Kitchener to come back to the Liberals - and I don't think the "culture war" will do it.

You see, this is the problem with hyperventilating over poll numbers, and which ridings are winnable.  It all amounts to nothing if the political discourse shifts to the right.

Now let me qualify that previous sentence: public opinion did not move to the right.  It was moved to the right (I'm paraphrasing some American right-wing intellectual, whose name I can't recall).  Now, I actually think that oversimplifies the actual dynamics of what is happening in modern industrial societies, but I used that quote because it shows the limitations of focusing on a purely parliamentary strategy to effect societal change.  Especially when that strategy involves sending canvassers around at election time, and making sound bites in between.  If your only strategy is to win, and the way to win is to hold your base, while stealing undecided and soft voters from other party's, then parliamentary politics becomes simply a game of marketing, and not a battle between competing ideologies.

The effect is that instead of trying to explain issues to voters, and analyzing the complexities of current events, political parties will simply try to tailor their message to maximize their vote.  Now, this is not some Stanlinist attack on Democracy.  This is an attempt to explain why, in the absence of grass-roots social movements, organizing actively to present an alternative version for how society is organized, parliamentary politics will simply be a game between the dominant interests in society.

Kloch, you could flesh that out a bit more. In particular, it would probably be useful and substantiate your argument more strongly if you also pointed out how political power (even a governing party at the Federal or Provincial level in this county) is dominated by economic power in this country, and others, and, therefore, a strategy based on a myopic view of politics narrowed down to Parliamentary bean-counting/seat-counting is hopeless in terms of making fundamental improvements to the lives of Canadians, etc.

In this era of the financialization processes, in which financial interests come to dominate social life, where banks are given billions and ordinary people are given a blow to the head, all of this should be obvious to all but the most obtuse, and therefore conservative, observer.

N.Beltov wrote:

Kloch, you could flesh that out a bit more. In particular, it would probably be useful and substantiate your argument more strongly if you also pointed out how political power (even a governing party at the Federal or Provincial level in this county) is dominated by economic power in this country, and others, and, therefore, a strategy based on a myopic view of politics narrowed down to Parliamentary bean-counting/seat-counting is hopeless in terms of making fundamental improvements to the lives of Canadians, etc.

In this era of the financialization processes, in which financial interests come to dominate social life, where banks are given billions and ordinary people are given a blow to the head, all of this should be obvious to all but the most obtuse, and therefore conservative, observer.

That the voter turnout is around 50-60%, is I think, proof in and of itself, that people see parliamentary politics as dominated by interests outside the general population.

To get back to what Kloch was saying-- There is an ideological battle that is not being engaged on the left. Perhaps this is because many on the left are idealists who think this sort of thing happens naturally following honest discourse. As Kloch is saying the spectrum has moved to the right and has not been engaged sufficiently.

Many on the left also like to blame the parties and politicians but in fact that is not how opinion moves. Politicians who move out in to the hinterland are "labeled out of touch." Sure you can rant about the right wing media but it is more than that. We have to do better on the left. The internet is a leveling force to some degree. We need to be engaging in the discussions about policies as a public rather than expecting that to be carried only by political leadership. In fact I suspect that is one great difference between left and right. The right has many outside of public politics (even if their partisanship is well known) lobbying the public. The left may lobby the politicians but does not do a good job going after the public. A huge exception was the anti-prorogation campaign which actually made a difference and got some ideas out.

When you engage in the ideas -- absent the politicians and parties, you find yourself discussing those things that really matter, things often taken for granted by the left but not publicly fought for. Tell me where is the public grass roots campaign arguing for a bank tax? Where is the public campaign even on environmental policy? Fair taxation? Public regulation on anything? Public goods and public ownership of anything. Public transit. Certainly, many of these exist as campaigns and people work very hard on them but most others across the country never hear of them. The outreach is a huge challenge without the money and access the right has but this is also a responsibility.

If we wait for that leadership to come from left of centre politicians, they will only fail. That has to be out there and others have to do it. The CLC, to their credit do a lot of outreach but that is mostly to their membership-- even on issues of much wider appeal.

I don't have all the answers but if we are expecting to tilt the political spectrum we should not be looking for politicians to do it-- not because they don't want to but because they can't. That is not what they are for. Politicians are to offer choices expressing in policies what we have in values and philosophy. To that end left of centre politicians do a pretty good job most of the time. The problem is that the values and political philosophy they are basing these on are not popular and are not being championed outside of politics. It would be great if we could get a discussion here on Rabble.ca on how to extend that. Indeed this challenge is in fact exactly why rabble.ca was created in the first place. It is also why the focus on polls, individual politics and scandals is actually self-defeating. That aspect of rabble is entertainment-- and that has a value but it is not why we are all here.

Yes, agreed.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  

I think part of it is to foster a better understanding about how our current political-economy works, and to share that knowledge as broadly as possible.  

The NDP, and many of the movements from the 60s, were influenced by a Marxist analysis which held that Socialism (or some other left-wing ism) would come into existence after the collapse of Capitalism.  The problem is that, technically speaking, capitalism did fail, but what replaced it was not socialism.  The entire industrial world has some sort of welfare state in it which buttresses the excesses of capitalism.  The alternative would be either fascism or anarchy.  The welfare state isn't just about providing welfare cheques to the poor, or public education.  It's a means of redirecting public resources to the private sector.  In the US, this is obviously more obvious with their military and prison industrial complex.  In Canada it happens to, though for the most part, more polite ways (government funding for petroleum projects in Alberta, bailing out the auto industry, etc).  The libertarians at the Canadian Taxpayer Federation who rant about corporate welfare aren't entirely flawed in their analysis.  The issue is they don't understand without this model, the private sector, particularly large corporations, would simply not survive.  It's all well and good to complain about corporate bailouts, but the alternative was a collapse of the financial institution.

The conclusion to draw from this, I think, is that any effective socio-economic model will require government intervention in order to be sustainable.  The trick is to couple that intervention to some sort of political system that is accountable to the population.  What we are talking about, in practical terms, is economic democracy.  

The reason that some movements, including the NDP and labour, have failed is that creating economic democracy requires the abolition of the current economic model that we have.  They have a stake in the preservation of the system.  Not as much as Goldman Sachs of course, but a stake to be sure.  Successful movements that will take their place will have to, in my opinion, need to encourage solidarity and cooperation between different groups in society, based around the ideal of both political and economic democracy.

How to get there... well, if I knew that, I wouldn't be posting on babble.  I guess the short answer is: organize, organize, organize.  There's no manual on how to do this stuff, and I'm certainly no expert at all.  I'm definitely not as experienced as other folks here (not meant as a comment on your age there, KenS). This is just my opinion based on my observations of what I've seen and read.  Take it for what it's worth.

Kloch wrote:

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.  

Which fits the grassroots movements to a T.

We've been doing the same thing now for over 50 years. And over time fewer people have been joining in for 40 years.

We delude ourselves about our traction because we can put tens of thousands of people in the streets, and we can have global congresses.

But look around you in North America- it takes recruiting the continent of a miniscule slice of the population to achieve that. With contemporary communications and resources to move about [which we did not have in the Sixties] we pull this fringe of the fringe together and we achieve things on the hydraulic principle: pull a bunch of people from hither and yon and focus their work on a small point. Bingo.

But 40 years ago we didn't have to move around and focus. There were literally dozens of centres across North America each of which could mount a demonstration of a few thousand on 24 hours notice... and given months could put together a few hundred thousand. And do it again next year.

We were unable to break out of the margins 40 years ago. And we are if anything more in the margins now.

But we convince ourselves that we have clout because of the demos we can mount and the headlines we can get. Yet we have the same slim traction we always had.

Which is the compliment to your derision of the NDP: focusing on the poll results, without looking at the broader history.

KenS wrote:

the majority of the participants will need to go against the stake they have in the system. Institutions are not the same as individuals. But equally- when it comes down to it, moving masses of people is not so different as moving institutions like the NDP. As collective bodies, even not formally organized ones like 'the masses', agitating among them you run into the same kind of resistances. The stakes people have in the system, cognitive perceptions of security, simple fear, inclination to follow authority, and so on.

The workers who engaged in sit down strikes in Oshawa and Flint, Michigan had a stake in their plant staying open so their families could eat. The few Germans who resisted the Nazis on general principles (and paid with their lives, mostly) had a stake in a German victory in World War 2.  If people didn't occasionally let their moral impulses over-ride the stake they have in some entity, human society would never progress at all.  The fact that not everyone engages in resistance shouldn't be seen as a failure.

KenS wrote:

We were unable to break out of the margins 40 years ago. And we are if anything more in the margins now.

But we convince ourselves that we have clout because of the demos we can mount and the headlines we can get. Yet we have the same slim traction we always had.

Which is the compliment to your derision of the NDP: focusing on the poll results, without looking at the broader history.

I disagree somewhat with your assessment.  In some ways, society has progressed significantly.  There is generally less racism and homophobia. Women are participating more actively in society.  The anti-war movement in the 1960s didn't become significant until about 1967.  In 2003, people were marching before it started.  Were they successful? No, of course not.  However, there is a more important criteria for evaluating resistance other than was it effective.  The more important question is: was the resistance morally justifiable?  What is important isn't winning, because for every victory, there are hundreds of defeats.  What is important is the effort.  

A reporter interviewing A.J. Muste, who during the Vietnam War stood in front of the White House night after night with a candle, one rainy night asked,Mr. Muste, do you really think you are going to change the policies of this country by standing out here alone at night with a candle? Muste replied, Oh, I don't do it to change the country, I do it so the country won't change me.

I didnt say its all pointless. Nor did I say there weren't victories. But I return to your global assessment/question:

" Which these circumstances produce is largely determined by the ability of grassroots movements to articulate a coherent alternate vision of society."

For all the social advances, we still live in a time where the ideological spectrum has shifted right.

And nowhere is this more apparent than in the traction or lack thereof a coherent alternate vision.

By the same global and overarching historical view criteria you put on the NDP- put that lens to the grassroots movements. There will always be victories as well as defeat. Cut across all that and take a look, what traction have we achieved?

" Which these circumstances produce is largely determined by the ability of grassroots movements to articulate a coherent alternate vision of society."

Decades later we have no traction with a vision beyond the margins. Yet we still do the same things.

I think people like to say that things have shifted to the right as a kind of cop-out.  It makes it sound as if people's political opinions are just weather systems, and when things just move left, or when the right catastrophically fucks up, or some great heroic figure comes along, things will go our way again.

People's opinions don't shift by themselves.  They occur in reaction to specific events around them and in the minds of the people holding them, are completely rational.  The tendency towards the right, and certain types of right-wingers (phony populists, religious nutbars, immigrant bashers) happens in response to a crisis, be it economic or political, where the left cannot or will not organize people in response to the crisis.  Parliamentary and non-parliamentary organizations can be participants in this respect.

ottawaobserver wrote:

Why should we pack it in now, when if we could surpass them it would make for a more progressive outcome afterwards?

How long should we have to wait for that to happen?

And if the NDP gets 50 seats and the Liberals get 45, how will that help Canada if it means that the the Conservatives get majority governments by default with a minority of the votes?

To answer that question, I'm much more skeptical than OO of the hope that if there is a mass influx of Dippers into the Liberal Party, that it will change the latter.

It won't. There would be some talk and noise for a while, but very soon the institutional force of the Liberal Party would take over.

That expectation is buttressed by what we know about how the Liberal Party responds to competition. Without any substantial pressure from the NDP, it does only what it needs to do to compete with the party of the right. It even did this with the Reform Party. Even though Reform was not a serious threat to displace it, with the NDP marginalised all the LPC positioning effort was in relation to Reform. Only in the immediate run-up to an election would they make as much effort as to recycle some old promises for the Red Book to appease NDP/Lib swing voters.

And look at the Conservative Party. Was the Reform Party changed by the influx of PCers? Not a bit. Reform cherry picked a few individuals [MacKay and Prentice], and changed not a bit. The only thing that has changed them is the Harper-Flannagan pragmatism of getting elected and staying there. Nothing to do with the old PCs.

But you know what- even if all that wasn't true- if hypothetically the NDP were to fold into the Liberal Party, I'm not along for the ride. We all have our thresholds. For many the NDP is already too little or too pathetic to bother with. Merging would be my limit- and no, I wouldn't "buckle down to make the best of it."

Mind you, I know absolutely its not going to happen. Some people can talk about it all they want- and some within the NDP would be included among those who would not reject it out of hand. But those of us who wont go there at all are more than the overwhelming majority.

The idea is comatose, and getting deader.

And by the way, here is another compelling obstacle to even talk of a merger.

Several NDP MPs would never go along with it, and they would be the core of a new party.

I can't even picture how talk of a merger could ever gain traction among the leadership of the party- even say after some kind of electoral disaster in the election- but if it did have some basis for taking off... it would run immediately into this reality. That maybe the leadership of the party could decide a merger was best, and maybe get 2/3 of the party to agree [far feteched, but given some new conditions, we can at leat entertain the possibility].... but that they would know absolutely that there would still be a social democratic party out there, and with a number of incumbent MPs and a full slate of candidates, that they would have to run against.

As well as that being tough for people to contemplate on a gut level, it would severely undermine the utilitarian raison d'etre for a merger.

I agree that is more or less how it would play out. And like Sean said, most of the players in this potential drama would know it would be messy, and that the outcome even after a couple of elections would not be like the pretty pictures of Liberal+NDP+Green= .....

Which is one reason its a non-starter.

Here we are at 80 posts without discussing polls, plus all the posts in the latter part of the last thread. How about the successor be something obvious like "Not a polling thread" ?

And by the same token, if someone has some polling they want to talk about, they should go ahead and start a Actually the polling thread.

Here Ken...

POLLING DATA FROM EKOs

http://www.cbc.ca/politics/story/2010/05/19/ekos-voter-intention-poll.html

34.4 per cent Conservatives

25.1 per cent Liberals

15.3 per cent NDP

12 Greens,

10.6 per cent Bloc Québécois.

I post this against my will but for the integrity of the thread.

EKOS polling is absurd. Its not possible to take it seriously. I gave up on EKOS when their data was Showing Green Support in the 12% range and their actually polling numbers were between 3% and 6%.

If your out by 300 to 400%, your polling firm is not worthy of discussion or print.

However, I agree with the fact that this is a POLLING THREAD.

EKOS!!! Get your act together!!!

Kloch wrote:

I think people like to say that things have shifted to the right as a kind of cop-out.  It makes it sound as if people's political opinions are just weather systems, and when things just move left, or when the right catastrophically fucks up, or some great heroic figure comes along, things will go our way again.

People's opinions don't shift by themselves.  They occur in reaction to specific events around them and in the minds of the people holding them, are completely rational.  The tendency towards the right, and certain types of right-wingers (phony populists, religious nutbars, immigrant bashers) happens in response to a crisis, be it economic or political, where the left cannot or will not organize people in response to the crisis.  Parliamentary and non-parliamentary organizations can be participants in this respect.

Exactly the opposite is true.  The "things" that have shifted : the growing and complete dependence on the market ...our own savings are used to destroy our sovereignty, our ability to decide on political and economic future at the ballot box.  How?  Just what do you think has happened to both our taxation system and our industry in the last third of a century?  Seen any tendencies, perhaps? Any move on the part of anyone to save up for old age...if they earn enough?  Anyone NOT playing the market these days? Any plays by finance capital that turned out to be a tad risky...the the players were not all jailed?

What is happening is exactly as Marx would describe the processes...capital is demanding and regaining control of its single preoccupation...the need to grow wealth.   You are indulging in mystification...as though the workers have simply been left leaderless in your imaginary political economy.   They are in fact trying to survive the forces that have been created out of the production of wealth...the use of our own savings to make sovereignty next to impossible. Damned frustrating, but let's get it right.

(and Tommy's Mouseland was his famous "parable", used to explain the social and political structure within a capitalist system and leave 'em laughing. He would have said "economy", but politics was simpler then, before globalization and the Chicago School's teachings. )

If one wants to start a thread on polling, then one should be able to be criticized on whether said data is a meaningful measure of whether a more equitable and socially just society can be created.  These are the points that cueball and myself have raised.

Kloch wrote:

If one wants to start a thread on polling, then one should be able to be criticized on whether said data is a meaningful measure of whether a more equitable and socially just society can be created.  These are the points that cueball and myself have raised.

At least in the abstract that makes perfect sense.

And I think its been a productive discussion and intersting discussion.

But in practice, if its to be read as a general rule, I think your statement is abstracted.

Because its also true that a certain point- and not very far along I would suggest- repitition of the same criticism, which it always is, becomes yapping.

It is not just A polling thread discussion. Its a serial discussion that by its very nature is very divorced from the kind of considerations you want to inject. Given that they are about discussing a very narrow slice of what politics is about, and even a pretty narrow slice of what electoral politics is about... given that narrow range IS the common interest of people in the threads.... what is the point beyond an occassional and brief reminder that this is not everything that politics is about?

There is the useful content in this discussion. But the message you usually impart is that discussions of polling by their very nature are divorced from the larger issues. In truth, you really are saying we shouldn't bother. If that was made exlicit it would violate the rules of Babble. "You shouldnt have this discussion people."

Kloch:

"People's opinions don't shift by themselves.  They occur in reaction to specific events around them and in the minds of the people holding them, are completely rational.  The tendency towards the right, and certain types of right-wingers (phony populists, religious nutbars, immigrant bashers) happens in response to a crisis, be it economic or political, where the left cannot or will not organize people in response to the crisis.  Parliamentary and non-parliamentary organizations can be participants in this respect."

I'll see your "huh" and up yours with a paraphrasing of the above...people's opinions shift due to events, and in the minds of people hlding them are completely rational. The tendency for their opinion to shift rightward happens in response to a crisis, economic or political, where the left cannot ro will not organize a response to the crisis. (and a response is anyone's game to play).

And you paint an ahistorical, timeless picture, where responses to crises occurring in 1917 or 2010 are simply a matter of gathering troops. How absurd. The "minds of people" are focused today on making a living and salting some away for their decrepit years. You've said nothing about that, but carried on in half-baked generalizations. Or perhaps your "huh" was prompted by difficulty in understanding historical materialism itself?

And in fact your "huh" would be exactly the reaction of the Great Unread to any serious attempt at explaining to them how they are being shafted by the misuse of their own savings.

And I too am sorry,Kloch, because attempting to explain the Marxist sense of history - much, much more than a recitatiion of past events, it is a description of a society very much in process of change - can't be undertaken here.  Read Marx's critiques of Hegel and then let's talk.

And get to Robert Reich's Supercapitalism for a much more up to date explanation of what's been happening since the mid-70s.   The dynamics in the real world of economics and markets.

George, I am sure that you have important things to say at times but don't you see how incredibly confrontational, arrogant, demeaning and hostile your approach is?

There were moments in this thread that I wanted to engage for the sake of interest in the things you were raising but got so turned off by your rudeness that I won't touch your posts. You don't handle any disagreement without insulting the person -- calling them dumb or up yours stuff-- this is really not conducive to having a productive conversation. While you send other people to go get their education before being worthy of speaking to you -- perhaps you can brush up on manners and everyone will be better off.

Certainly, you will get further with your arguments which no doubt have incredible merit underneath that irritating veneer-- and I am not being sarcastic-- I accept that I do lose somewhat in the trade-off when I decide I can't handle your aggressive hostility and decide not to involve a discussion with you. This is not the first thread that I have written off replying to you because of your manner. Can you at least give that a thought?

Hypothesis: Stephen Harper is such a big meanie, he's making everyone else crabby, including Babble contributors.

Corollary: This is his explicit intention, or at least a pleasant but unexpected byproduct.

KenS wrote:

So do tell what the feet on the ground what is to be done difference is between "it did not move to the right, it was moved" ?

Spare us the obvious power difference analysis. The context of the discussion was and is why you brought it up in the first place: What good is all the hyperventilating over which ridings are winnable if the political discourse shifts to the right?

I was applying the same test to decades of grassroots movements: sure there are victories and progress to be pointed to, but the topic you brought up is what has happened to the overall political discourse, and what of an alternate vision.

When we are talking about what the NDP does, its pointing out that while that is going on the horse has gone from the barn.

But when we're talking about what the grassroots movements do, lets stick to the specific little victories and the potential.

At least the NDP can point to an explicit self-awareness of the dissapointments that the New Jerusalem is always over beyond the hill. Distilled to phrases like "next year country."

Did this make sense to anyone?