ONDP's Dirty Laundry Gets Aired

While the author might or might not have (a few) valid points, they needlessly wrap it up in hysteria and overblown rhetoric, thus sabotaging any points they were trying to make. I see plenty of accusations and claims, but precious little evidence.

It's part of the standard Conservative whisper campaign runup to all elections. Their intellectually challenged following need attack ammunition given that Hudak will give them fuckall idea about what he intends to actually do...besides lower taxes, of course.

The tactics would seem to vary riding by riding, party by party,Ltu.   The Cons depended mightily on the whisper campaign in Peterborough.  Those folks were not "hamfisted."  But perhaps that only reflects the political waters where my first hate-on took hold. However, it was the Cons who foirst imported political talent from the U.S. in '95, as I recall. 

I actually enjoy the Precy blog and think it is a real breathe of fresh air to a stagnant party. I also find it amusing that you folks seem to be doing exactly what Percy is accusing the party in general of being guilty of in the first place, sticking your heads in the sand.

Rather than paying attention to real concerns like the fact that the party fundraised for a building it did not buy, kept the truth from its won membership, is in a real labour crisis and possibly a strike situation, is 3 millon in debt and counting, and fundraising is practically non-existent, you concentrate on your dislike of these issues being raised in the first place, the package they come in, or even better, you try and cover-up by using the NDP's last and most deperate recouse--paranoia. All reminiscent of the Mubarak loyalists...

Yes boys, the liberals and the conservative are so freaking terrified of the powerhouse NDP that they spend all their time hatching plans against the NDP. All of the NDP's current woes can be traced back to what lurks outside in the big bad scary world, not to the NDP's history of mismanagement and bad decison-making. Newsflash, the NDP is very far down the list of concerns of the two main parties. Each party has its own internal wing that ranks as a "third" party before the NDP does.

Seems to me the lesson in Percy's blog is that the NDP needs to start looking at the mounds of dogshit in its own backyard that has piled up over the years before pointing anymore fingers.

@edmundoconnor, nothing personal, but you're no party insider by any stretch, you'd would have no idea of which points are valid or not. The financial documents speak for themselves.

Perhaps this thread could be about the substantive issues rather than about the now tiresome traditional NDP whinning.

Obviously a Conservative creation to appeal to the easily led, the anti-social, the JALLs.

Its a misnomer that 'financial documents speak for themsleves'. They rarely do. As pointed out, wrightpercy did not provide them. But even if they were provided, its all about interpreting what you have in front of you.

There is nothing self-evident about any of this.

I am not sure what to make of any of this. Someone forwarded the wrightpercy blog to me and I went over it, finding some of it more interesting than the rest.

The accusations in the blog are serious, and in some cases very personal.

As I am no longer a New Democrat, I don't really care. The party has burned its bridges with many people, so it is hardly a surprise that someone would turn the tables, fairly or otherwise. And the NDP has never been above this kind of stuff...an organizer publicly violated my privacy rights without anything being done.

Humorously, the blog must have struck a note, however, as I accidentally came across this blog in response...

http://percywright.wordpress.com/

Looks like the ONDP is not above getting personal...and they had better hope they are right about Kelly, who I know, or they may find that these things cut both ways.

Check for Liberals under the covers. 

Michael Laxer wrote:

Looks like the ONDP is not above getting personal

Nice try,  Not only are you a smear jobber, you are dishonest from one post to the next.  You clearly tried to imply the ONDP was behind that blog.  It seems highly, highly unlikely.

Seems the NDP is lucky to see the back of you

Actually, I just realized the true irony of this...

You are saying I smeared the ONDP by posting a link that DEFENDED the ONDP.

Is that not kind of stupid?

Since it seems so difficult for you I will spell it out more clearly.

 You made a specific claim that the ONDP (the organization) was behind the 2nd blog.  That is so unlikely even the most obtuse person would know that saying such thing is a deliberate attempt to mislead and smear.  Clearly, given the level of proof-reading on the site alone, the most likely explanation is that some enthusistic supporter(s) (and I would guess given the level of energy required someone quite young) decided to try to fight back instead of just ignoring such clear factless gossip.  That alone tells me it is not some highly placed New Democrat, or that it is a concerted attempt by the ONDP as you suggest.  Your continued unwillingness to withdraw that accusation lowers you to the level of both bloggers. 

My interest is I don't like liars, smearers or bullies of any kind.  Again I am not an NDP member, and only an occassional supporter, but I have grown weary of the bullshit kind of attacks I see coming constantly from fair weather progressives of the NDP.  If you want your own party go start one and see how far you get.  I helped start the Greens in Ontario in the 80s because I was concerned about the lack of attention to the enironment, I did not snipe at the NDP from the sidelines but went out and did something positive.  Not once did I ever attack the NDP or its leadership - I understood that they were focused on other issues and their leaders (with the exception of Bob Rae and that impression was formed before he became Premier) cared and believed in what they said.  I see the exact same committment in 99.9 per cent of New Democrat leaders, candidates and local representatives today.  Today I am an unaligned voter who works for change through other means that electoral, but have supported strong local candidates based on their personal qualities

Your claim that the NDP does not want lefties is just utter bullshit.  If getting elected was all a lot of those people wanted, or believed in they would go work for or be candidates for the Liberals or even Conseratives, even being a Green under the right wing leadership it now has is a damn sight easier than being an NDP candidate in most of the province/country.  However getting elected is only a secondary goal as a way to implement their beliefs and concerns.  They work hard to bring a different voice and perspective- giving of themselves, their limited financial resources, energy and committment.  Many of the candidates I have seen over the years are so highly skilled they could have done much better for themselves financially by keeping their heads down and just working a way at a job or whatever.  But instead they go out and give their all, take time away from family, endure constant attacks from the right and I am sure work themselves into health problems by the end of a campaign.  Andrea Horwath is the best leader of any party I have seen in a long time and she deserves support if people actually care about progressive politics.  In short all of these people (and it is people who make up a party from staff, leadership, candidates and local people) are, for the overwhelming majority, caring and concerned human beings and yet some like you shit all over them and de-humanize them by the kind of rhetoric you use at every turn.  The kind of folks your attitude represents are the very reason the right wins today and I am tired of pussy-footing around that fact. 

The second blog is comical, really.

A few points:

• 'This should have been an easy one to win'. We were running against Sheila Ward, a mulitiple-term incumbent who benefited from the incredibly high turnout in Ward 27. If you think that was an easy one to win, I have a few NDP races in Alberta for you. It's rather telling that Ward's name is never brought up, the writer preferring to smear Kelly.
• '(Chris) had everything going for him'. He did, and he is a terrific, terrific guy. He was also a first-time candidate with next-to-no name recognition against an entrenched incumbent with multiple competitors to split the anti-Ward vote. In 2010, the Ward vote was lower than the votes cast for candidates other than her. Chris has set himself up as Ward's leading challenger, and Ward's retirement draws closer every day.
• Progressives won in both races, but the writer forgets to mention that McConnell was an incumbent councillor in a system that favours incumbents, and that KWT won Ward 27 by a relatively slim margin. Ken Chan was by no means as progressive as KWT was on the campaign.
• 'What stopped him from winning was Kelly Foote's vindictiveness'. So it was nothing whatsoever to do with the other candidates, everyone's attention focusing on the Ward 27 race (we were struggling to get arrested during the campaign), or Sheila Ward being a multiple-term incumbent, then?

I am writing as someone who actually worked on the campaign, and worked closely with Kelly. Whoever wrote this post clearly didn't. I invite others to judge the rest of the blog accordingly.

I disagree with Kelly on a wide range of issues (we had some great arguments), but this sort of thing is embarrassing. I subscribe to Life's idea that some overzealous character decided to some freelance flaming, and wrote big, hoping no-one would call them on it. They should consider themselves called out.

Michael, I think your guess that it might someone who wishes to seem like an insider, but isn't, is more correct than you know. Certainly the evidence above would seem to corroborate that line of thought.

Edmund O'Connor
Volunteer Co-ordinator/Research Chair
Chris Moise TDSB campaign

I might note that it is also clearly an attempt to "out" wrightpercy, whoever that is. That they would pick on Kelly is interesting, as he is no longer a New Democrat.

I suppose I simply feel that only someone in the party with a vested interest in discrediting the original blog, right-or-wrong, would have bothered to do this, and that their choice of Kelly, who is not a well-known figure outside of NDP circles anymore than we are, is telling. I doubt that most NDP "outsiders" have heard of any of the "dissidents" or Kelly.

So why do it at all?

Except they stand for nothing and are Mike Harris with a "human face".

I'm not that interested in the personal attacks on the blog, as I think they distract us from the more significant problem facing the party.  We're a well-meaning bunch, but the vehicle we're using to turn our best intentions into action is out of gas.  The CCF figured this out by the end of the 1950's, and they had the courage and foresight to transform the party into something more relevant to Canadian progressives. 

Obviously, the outcome has not been an overwhelming success, so here we are, 50 years later, facing the same dilemma.  How does a social democratic party communicate its message to the electorate?  At the federal convention in Halifax the party honchos wouldn't entertain even a discussion of the direction of the party, and they manipulated the rules of order, in a most unethical way, to quash the debate.  The ONDP is no better; in its present formation, the party is pretty much dead.  The election results since the defeat of the Bob Rae government are evidence of that fact.

Rather than 'circle the wagons' in defence of the party's status quo by parsing the various claims made in the "Percy Wright" blog, why not show the same courage that the CCF did half a century ago, and engage in a substantial debate about how to transform the NDP into a more relevant social democratic party.  "Percy Wright" is not the problem, but a symptom of a much deeper problem - the NDP itself.     

NorthReport wrote:

Mike, you made your point thanks, now get lost!

 

Despite my disgust at Mr. Laxer's continued attempt to link the response blog to the NDP as a party- with zero evidence -your comments are undemocratic and have no place on this board.

Life, I appreciate your response.  At the 2000 federal convention in Winnipeg, I had the privilege of sitting with a couple who had attended the CCF's founding conference and who taught me a lot about the party's history, a history that I would not want to misrepresent.  Incidentally, they were also supporters of the New Politics Initiative, which was crushed by the party establishment.

Nevertheless, by the end of the 1950's support for the CCF had pretty much hit rock bottom, which suggested the need for an extreme makeover that resulted in the name change to the NDP.  Today, I think there are other movements that we need to be included in our party, including environmentalists and those social justice advocates who have yet to embrace the NDP.

I don't know if a name change is necessary, but I don't think we should rule out the option, and I certainly don't think the exercise of reinventing the party is a waste of energy.  Spinning our wheels by refusing to change, on the other hand, is a waste of time and energy that we just can't afford.

NorthReport wrote:

Mike, you made your point thanks, now get lost!

 

Again, antagonistic and hostile.  If I have to ask folks to tone it down again, I'll close the thread.  And that would serve no one.

So far, all we've heard is hearsay.  At any rate, would anyone want an ONDP that couldn't stand up to scrutiny?

I'll bet a lot Jim would not welcome your concern.

I dont like the condecension myself.

Geoff OB wrote:

I think there are other movements that we need to be included in our party, including environmentalists and those social justice advocates who have yet to embrace the NDP.

I am a social democrat at the voting booth but a socialist at heart. And I think that social democracy itself was a really good idea 20 or 30 years ago. It's still the best system in the world where it exists today in purest form in Nordic countries. And now we can see certain countries and especially Sweden striving to be "oil-free" economies and leading on the energy transformation scene with some of the lowest per capita and lowest per GDP carbon emissions among developed economies. And those countries are free to write their own national energy policies because they are freer than countries with energy intensive and energy exporting economies like Canada that signed dumbest free trade deals in history.

Social justice is only a bit to the left of social liberalism. That political-economic idea is even more outdated than social democracy though. I think had social and economic liberalism been more successful and not led industrialised economies toward this global warming crisis and financial meltdown, then we I think the NDP should be more supportive than they are. But I think more now than ever before what's needed is socialism with an emphasis on cleaning up the economy and shifting to greener energy sources and greener economy on a whole. Sweden's social democracy is not perfect, but at least they have the freedom to pursue change and tweak where necessary. Canada, OTOH, does not have that kind of freedom with NAFTA and governments in Ottawa pursuing longer term free market goals laid out by WTO diktats and capitalist central planning under GATS agreements. IMHO, we don't want to water down the already soft left wing economic agenda in social democracy so much that by the time we do win federal election the party's ability to govern effectively would be neutralized by centrist ideology. I really believe now is the time to try to pull voters to the left if only a little toward social democracy with an emphasis on greening the economy. Liberals merged with conservatives to create neoliberalism, and that way isn't working. If we want our style to work we need to insist on the already watered down package at the very least and nothing less.

I think the possibility of Kelly Foote coming to council is on a par with me winning the 6/49. And I don't buy a ticket.