Polls, and the extention of polls.

I know this is unlikely to be central to the larger discussions. But I wanted to comment on this exchage.

Banjo wrote:

I know you are a lot younger than me, and I think that is why you have misreported the politics of the sixties in the US.  The civil rights movement moved forward in the early part of the sixties because of the disruptions in the south where the worse incidents were actually happening, and finally became law with the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which Johnson was able to push through because of his influence with the Senate.  All achieved by electing supporters to office.

Stuart_Parker wrote:

First of all, I teach US history at university for a living. I think my empirical grasp of 1960s US history is fine, thanks very much.

I think it's pretty tough to suggest that the Freedom Democratic incident did not constitute a disruption or that the rhetoric used by the Mississippi delegation was not profoundly condemnatory of Johnson.

Banjo wrote:

I would be careless enough to get into an argument about US history with someone who teaches it.  We'll have to disagree about whether or not the earlier disruptions of the Democratic convention could be called massive, compared to  '68 in Chicago.

Process wise, I dont think there should be even a hint of deference here. Not that I think Stuart was trying to pull rank. Even if innocently, your comment did invite that response of his.

You are on perfectly solid ground. And I think Stuart is stretching things to put the 1964 disruptions on anything close to the same scale. You did say "massive disruptions".

That said, I dont know what relevance it has to either of your points. Or what the points were for that matter.

Besides, this is a continuation of "[electoral] politics beyond picking over the polls".

So its appropraite there are two seperate parralel threads.

I see this discussion revolving around the tension between electoral politics and movement politics and finding the appropriate synthesis. I accept  that our party  is now primarily an electoral machine/cadre party significantly deficient in its relations with progressive social movements and the extra-parliamentary left.  However, however flawed it may be,  there is  deep involvement with the various progressive social movements at almost every level of  the NDP and the claim the NDP fails to adequately represent  social movements, carries with it some responsibility for the movements  to take steps to make make sure they are adaquetly represented by the NDP and  part of the responsibility must rest with those movements, especially those who insist they  have to be non-political, e.g.   cannot pubiclly support the NDP or criticize the overnment or the  Liberals and Conservatives.   I  also argue that the NDP's deep organic relationship with the labour movement gives it a deep organic  link to  the most crucial social movement. If many of the " progressive" social movements  tend  to avoid those nasty brutish union goons who say there are no neutrals here, that is their loss.

solidarity Peter

How does Peter referring to "the claim the NDP fails to adequately represent social movements" become a presumption to represent social movements?

Ken. I am certainly not going to contain my political analysis of moribund nature of NDP electoral politics to discussions about whether or not the NDP conforms to the NDP's self conception of itself, or the view of some of its members. Indeed, I intend to continue to have an anlysis that includes ideas outside of the NDP paradigm: indeed that was the point I was making.

There is a real disconnect here between the NDP role as critic and the roll of tradtional left parties in mobilizing people. There is the definite sense that the NDP is "standoffish" in relationship to grass roots organizations of the left, for the most part the visible leadership seems to fear association with anything "controversial".

If you think that electoral politics is such a waste of time and that the NDP is so moribund - why do you keep using up huge proportions of your time endlessly pontificating about those two points. Maybe if you added up all the hundreds hours you have spent on babble as a resident nattering nabob of negativism towards electoral politics and instead used all that time leading some great social movement - you might actually accomplish something in life!

yawn....there are lots of things I think are a waste of time and which i don't bother to debate. I have no interest in Nascar - so I don't bother posting on blogs devoted to Nascar. I wonder why people who keep telling is they have no interest in electoral politics still spend a VAST amount of time posting on blogs about - drumroll please - electoral politics???

I guess we will never get an answer - just like we will never no why there is no Channel 1 on an old TV set.

Stockholm wrote:

If you think that electoral politics is such a waste of time and that the NDP is so moribund - why do you keep using up huge proportions of your time endlessly pontificating about those two points. Maybe if you added up all the hundreds hours you have spent on babble as a resident nattering nabob of negativism towards electoral politics and instead used all that time leading some great social movement - you might actually accomplish something in life!

Interesting point of view coming from someone who has devoted his life to a party whose last noticable accomplishment happened in 1966.

Stockholm wrote:

yawn....there are lots of things I think are a waste of time and which i don't bother to debate. I have no interest in Nascar - so I don't bother posting on blogs devoted to Nascar. I wonder why people who keep telling is they have no interest in electoral politics still spend a VAST amount of time posting on blogs about - drumroll please - electoral politics???

I guess we will never get an answer - just like we will never no why there is no Channel 1 on an old TV set.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_1_(NTSC-M) 

KenS wrote:

I still spend most of my time in social movements, and the last thing I want is for the NDP to adopt our approach.... its the approach of social movements more than the content that I dont want to see mimicked.

Cueball wrote:

Well that is a really odd point of view to take from someone who is a supporter of a party whose last serious political achievement happened in 1966, at the time, when the party didn't simple "represent" social movements, but was the political arm of two important social movements the CCF and and CLC.

Remind me of all the serious political achievements we have had since 1966. And which ones you would attribute to social movements rather than the political parties.

KenS wrote:

Cueball wrote:

Well that is a really odd point of view to take from someone who is a supporter of a party whose last serious political achievement happened in 1966, at the time, when the party didn't simple "represent" social movements, but was the political arm of two important social movements the CCF and and CLC.

There isnt a thing in there I agree with as a historical statement. [And the dig it starts with has no anchor, not that such digs should be paid attention to anyway. But I'm weak.]

Nothing?

No I wouldnt argue that at all. I was disagreeing with your original attempt to force me into a framework of your choosing, which is different than the CCL-CCF-NDP historical statements.

Want to answer my question there at the end- asking you to explain something you said?

This part gew onto the post after I responded to it:

Cueball wrote:

Tommy Douglas and a few old hands just thought the idea of a "single payer" healthcare program one day, and people saw a flyer and said, hey, that's brand new I will vote for that?

Another toss off.

But in case you care, I just recently discussed just this historical event, with a little more depth, not that is difficult.

And it came up in these threads about politics beyond polls. http://rabble.ca/comment/1177665/NDP-needs-push

Cueball wrote:

About achievements of political parties v social movements?

I have answered that. If you think that the NDP's success at bringing real social change to Canada in the 1960's is somehow seperated from the social movement that the NDP was the express political agent for, then you simply will not understand what I am saying to you. The NDP and any political successes that it can claim are the direct result of the "social movements" that founded it and supported it, and forced the hand of the establishment through the NDP.

The "NDP" and the "social movement" was part of were not two things that can be distinguished.

It is this idea, that they can be seperated that I am precisely talking about. The fact that the new NDP sees itself as "seperate" from the "social movements" that it presumes to "represents" is the problem I am addressing.

First of all, answer, or make satements, without incorporating impugned positions of mine [the highlighted part]. And the last sentence of the quote suffers from this so much as to make it difficult to disentangle what you are saying, from what you attribute to me [or the NDP, not clear which].

"The NDP and any political successes that it can claim are the direct result of the "social movements" that founded it and supported it, and forced the hand of the establishment through the NDP.

The "NDP" and the "social movement" was part of were not two things that can be distinguished."

I dont distinguish them either. I've said so a number of time in this discussion that has rambled across a few threads.

Which gets back to the question I asked 'what are these political achievements since 1966?' IE, of anyone. And no, that doesnt mean I dont think there any. I want you to explain what you meant when you said the NDP didnt have any serious achievements.

I think you obliquly answered with the "The NDP and any political successes that it can claim are the direct result of the "social movements" that founded it and supported it."

Like Ive said before, what we have achieved, thats the social movements. The failures are the NDP holding us all back [or whatever else one thinks the NDP does or doesnt do].

My question about what we have achieved since 1966 was sincere, and in mine is two fold: what exactly do we think we have achieved since 1966. And then, who do we think is responsible for those.

You've already said to the second part that the achievements were those of the social movements, with the NDP dragged along. Definition in hand, we dont need discussion.

KenS wrote:

I just recently discussed just this historical event, with a little more depth, not that is difficult.

And it came up in these threads about politics beyond polls. http://rabble.ca/comment/1177665/NDP-needs-push

Cueball wrote:

That isn't relevant to what I am saying. I am not talking about taking "clear stands" I am talking about effective social organiztion.

Your answer doesnt make any sense. You mentioned, albeit in a toss-off dig, Tommy Douglas bringing in health care. So I linked to me discussing that just yesterday:

KenS wrote:

To me the classic case of the left pushing the enevelope, is the CCF and Tommy Douglas and medicare in Saskatchewan....

That dichotomy is yours, not mine.

Not only are they not one and the same, they never were. There certainly have been change over time. But your dichotomous framing of the origins severely prejudices the discussion.

Of course the CCF was borne out of social movements. But it always was a political party, and a different animal as such. When it was borne it was rooted in a rich political culture that very few of us have had the pleasure to be part of.

But thats been gone a long time. The remnants lived on longer in Saskatchewan, and thats very important, but not changing that the CCF was a political party.

The NDP became in practice "CCF plus".

Whether we're talking about movement(s) or party, or 'the left' overall.... my discussion about the CCF and medicare did address how we get concrete political achievements that are beyond whats immediately achievable.

Chalk it up to misunderstanding then. I perceived it be yours. No point expalianing where that comes from. Not mine either.

We differ on whether its legit to see party and social movements AS integrated as you see their origins. Lets just mutually concede thats not an innocent interpretation either way.

I hope we agree that there is a lot of distinction now. Thats a fact. [And trying to go to whether or not it was 'made' that way deliberately will get into that same endless chase.]

Again, what are our political achievements since 1966? Anybodys political achiements, no worry about who to attribute the credit. Without thinking too hard exactly what and what not, I'd say its thin gruel.

And that a lot of the achiements that come to mind will not be anything like medicare. Social advances yes, and those are by no means lesser, but notable absent [or at least much less] will be any programs or anything like that.

And that what will leap to mind is a lot of things like 'ended some wars' and we're building organizations.

Which I would say is we keep putting out fires, and only some of them, the forest gets smaller. And we're building organizations means were still doing what we did. Which is the same of political parties.

Stuart, I think the idea of more explicitly left-wing/progressive/social-democratic think tanks is very important (I don't care what we adjective we use to describe them).  Since the CCPA, there also emerged the group run by Steven Staples (Rideau Institute?), and you could tenuously include Democracy Watch, and certainly there's the Council of Canadians and David Suzuki Foundation.  But a lot of the rest of the policy work is going on in NGOs who depend on the kind of funding that requires partisan neutrality.  The Liberals do a very good job of outreach and schmoozing to all those groups (and the university faculties), which we don't as much.  The Party is affiliated with the Woodsworth-Foundation which I think is financed through an endowment.

There are some technical details about who could fund what, and how (I don't think federally tax receipted political contributions could be used to finance a think tank, for example).  But the general point is that the conservative movement figured out a way to establish and finance think tanks, and folks on the left need to be thinking along the same lines.

Media outlets is the other part of the equation.

I have to catch up with and digest some good contributions here.

But I'd like to interject that I agree fully with at least the theme in the first half of post37 Stuart. I dont think you are obliged to give equal criticism to other than the NDP. Not at all. and its reasonable to surmise even I am implying that, let alone some do flat out say it.

That said: I make a legitimate point that its always the NDP that gets the blame, and 'the movements[s]' amorphous as that is, is the solution. Thats not a 'nah- nah' point. Its a practical point. The way movements are is unquestionably held out as the single biggest thing the NDP needs. and THATS why I criticise directly the notions of what movements have accomplished, etc.

Its not to defend the NDP. Its to criticse what I think is a serious distraction from how to change the NDP. Distractions are real bad when they are 'comfort food' for their holders. there may be more Dippers or primarily 'Dipper supporting' people on this board- skeptical of that, but even if there are its the NDP thats fair game and the butt of not merely 'not good enough' but inherently and deeply systematically flawed [ranging from absolutely hopeless so, to almost hopeless].

there's no nned to worry that around here at least we're going to get too comfortable in our self delusions. I dont think the same can be said for the systematic flaws of social movements and people who look first to them for their example of 'how to be'.

Who was supposed to invite them? Really, this is a very strange question to ask. No one invited anyone. They invited themselves by reaching out to others and organizing the event. Among politicos this is known as networking.

Conversely, it would probably be better to aks, who was supposed to do the "inviting" if not the political institution that claims to be the single broad based party of the "left"?

A number of food for thought items from Stuart in post#37. I'll pick up on one:

Stuart_Parker wrote:

Here's another constructive thought: what if the party polled on unpopular issues that it might take up and asked voters how likely they would be to change their vote if a candidate they would otherwise vote for disagree with them on that issue. Then more data-based risk assessment could be done on the actual cost of taking unpopular positions. Just a couple of thoughts -- why don't people attack these ideas instead of each other?

Polling is expensive, and doing it that often would be prohibitive. I also dont think its appropriate or necessary.

I made the point in the Educating the Public thread that we need to stretch where NDP supporters will go. And I emphasised that you dont do that- and no one else has either [no, Refrom didnt] simply by "saying it like it is" and expecting people to come around.

But you dont do it either by testing with polling, or anything else, of what amounts to how far you can push your universe of supporters.

Thats equally static.

You just decide there is somewhere you want to go with your supporters. And if they arent ready now, you start moving them. 

In steps.

This takes a lot of resources. So you have to be very selective doing it. And on top of that narrowing, it is only going to work where you have an "entry point" with your supporters: some value or principle they already broadly hold, which you are then going to build on. Essentially by showing them something that not enough of them would support now if you brought it out, but how it is both feasible and consistent with their larger values.

There does have to be some research testing in this. It isnt [just] some collective think and then do project. But the research would be more akin to focus group: getting people to discuss things that you want to try out- see where they go with it.

This could by the way be done as a project within the framework of a single riding association: even doing some quick and dirty region or nationwide tax receiptable fundraisng to support some short term but stable staffing of the project.

And besides this being the sort of thing we would like the NDP to do for substantive reasons, I'm a firm beleiver that the only way we are going to plant a 'hook(s)' in the public with the potential for appealing to folks beyond our glass ceiling limit, is by going deeper than the kind of things the NDP does now.

Thats a general concept thats very poular around here. And a general concept is better than nothing. But without some work on how to do it, the concept will never amount to anything.

And until ANYONE can put forward ideas for the restoration of jobs - involving investment in new productive enterprises - they really, should be wary of being critical of a social democratic party that cannot command, only condemn, finance capitalist institutions, the keepers of the "average" Canadian's savings. Only those who have it "made in the shade" in that regard can feel safe.