Maclean's national leaders debate: Thursday, August 6 -- 74 days before the election

It was hardly hawkish. No mention of improving the defence budget other than helping veterans. Opposed to the Isis mission. Turning on the Libyan mission once it was changed. Merely a sanctions regime on Russia over Ukraine to add the 2 russian oligarchs Harper is protecting for business interests. Only supporting UN sanctionned missions.

The anti Nato crowd nonsense here is fringe.  Most canadians support the wide ranging alliance and our military that has helped to keep the peace in Europe. Had the NDP held on to that antiquated cold war notion we wouldnt be anywhere near where we are in the polls today. May's weakest performancce was on the foreign file. Are there any murderous, anti democratic, authoritarian oppressive even genocidal regimes she would sanction a fight on if called to do so?

socialdemocraticmiddle wrote:

May attacks Mulcair because he's leading in BC, and she is most competitive in ridings with NDP MPs. Since the Liberals and Conservatives are both pro Keystone, there aren't many voters to convert from those parties. She has more pro-environment votes to gain by tarnishing the NDP's environmental record. Cooperating with the NDP might be better for the environment, but attacking the NDP is better for the Green Party.

Welcome to party politics.

FPTP politics.

Pierre C yr wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Pathetic.

 

Take that back into your marxist rathole. You guys have damaged the NDP's progressive agenda for decades with your radical fringe marginal ugly canadian tactics.

Ooo, didn't take much, did it? Just referring to the NDP's support for slaughtering Libyan civilians brought Karl Marx out of his grave.

Did I remember to say:

Pathetic?

Your type of support for the NDP is roughly equal to the support provided by a rope for a hanging person. Unwelcome.

But do carry on. Who knows, you might get appointed to the Senate.

The one supporting the slaughter are guys like you who condemn ANY mission that seeks to prevent mass murder and genocide. Ask Chris Hedges, leading progressive voice on these issues. He supported the mission into Kosovo because it was the obvious prevention of another mass murder of muslims after several mass murders by christian serbs.

Your anti Nato anti US everything offering spoken and unspoken support for the worlds worst autocrats in that old neo marxist imperialism conspiracy nonsense when Nato has never taken an inch of foreign ground is the kind of shit Harper thrives on.  He's just hoping some of you nutballs made it through vetting somewhere in the NDP camp so he can sink us again.

A rope? Better to continue to pull the party into a proper moderate position after decades of you cutting us at the knees with buzzsaws. Your garbage was rejected and weeded out at party conventions. Dont like it join the greens or marxists... 

socialdemocraticmiddle wrote:

I'll count myself among the fringe, then. NATO wouldn't be enough to legitimize a mission.

I'm hoping that Mulcair's argument isn't that we'll follow NATO into every mission, but a more civil way of saying "it's so bad that even NATO won't touch it". 

But that's being pretty blindly optimistic about how much things have changed. It used to be that the UN was basically a tool to push an imperial foreign policy. Now the UN isn't imperialist enough for the imperialists. 

Mulcair clearly stated UN humanitarian missions involving Nato. But you talk to guys like unionist and its still imperialist nonsense.

Pierre C yr wrote:

He supported the mission into Kosovo because it was the obvious prevention of another mass murder of muslims after several mass murders by christian serbs.

What shameless shit you spew. What filth. How dare you even post here?

The NDP has had its share of fearless heroes, unafraid of admitting their mistakes and making amends. Svend Robinson was among them:

Quote:

Press Release
For immediate release
Thursday, June 8th, 2000

Robinson Condemns Canadian Medal to Nato General Wesley Clark; Calls for Kosovo War Crimes Trial

OTTAWA - Svend Robinson, NDP Foreign Affairs spokesperson and MP for Burnaby-Douglas demanded that Minister of National Defence Art Eggleton reverse the recently announced decision to have the Governor General present the Meritorious Service Cross to US General Wesley Clark, Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Kosovo. Robinson noted the Canadian Forces Decorations and Commendations Advisory Committee (CFDCAC) announced on 18 May its decision to extend the award to Clark for having "exhibited the highest standard of professional dedication in Operation Allied Force."

"It is appalling that the Governor General and the Canadian military would honour Clark, when Amnesty International and others have called for Clark to be put on trial for war crimes committed during NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo and Serbia in the spring of 1999. NATO deliberately bombed the headquarters of Serbian Radio-Television, killing 16 civilians. They deliberately bombed a bridge in Varvarin in broad daylight, killing several civilians. They fired not once, but twice, on a train on the Grdelica bridge, killing 55.

"Canada should be urging the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, Carla del Ponte to reverse her decision not to try top NATO officials for their alleged war crimes."

And much more besides.

Mulcair, lover of NATO and Israel, should be condemned by people who love peace and non-aggression.

How do you like that assessment?

Pierre C yr wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Pathetic.

Take that back into your marxist rathole. You guys have damaged the NDP's progressive agenda for decades with your radical fringe marginal ugly canadian tactics.

The Communist Party has a really good piece about the Social Democratic shithole that is dragging the left into a swamp. It's worth quoting at length. Basically, the biggest barrier to moving politics to the left in Canada, especially in any sort of genuine alternative (Social Democrats are really quite apalling on foreign policy generally, as it exposes their belly crawling pro imperialist approach so fully) , is the Social Democrats like the NDP. And the paradoxical truth is that they do more to shut the door to alternative policies, especially by their abysmal failure to offer actual alternatives to the neo liberal coolaid, etc.

Having made that important remark, it's also to important to remember that the cosmetic differences between the 3 leading parties is, sadly, where the bulk of Canadians are at in terms of their political literacy. The pathetic NDP is the best that many can rise to.

Anyway, kudos for the Communists for speaking truth to power. The NDP sure as hell doesn't.

here is the quote.

CP wrote:

In our view, it is necessary to assess the Mulcair NDP on its own merits. It is abundantly clear that the right opportunist slide of the federal NDP, which dates back decades, has continued and even accelerated under the current leadership. Under Mulcair, the party expunged the “s” word from its constitution at the 2013 convention; it has shifted its Middle East policy in an overtly pro-Israeli position; it now supports increased defense spending; it no longer favours cancelling NAFTA, and has refused to clearly oppose the CETA pact; it has called for cuts to the small-business tax rate and juicy tax breaks for manufacturers; it no longer speaks of nationalization or public ownership, but rather worships at the altar of the ‘market’; and it has given its blessing to the “Monument to the Victims of Communism” monstrosity in Ottawa. The list could go on…

This rightward tilt of the Mulcair NDP toward the murky centre of the bourgeois political spectrum must be sharply criticized. The right opportunist reorientation of the NDP is hardly unique, but in fact tracts the further degeneration of the social democratic parties throughout most of the so-called advanced capitalist countries. For the most part, these social democratic parties have abandoned and betrayed the labour and mass democratic movements which had historically been their social and electoral base. Instead, they have adopted bourgeois ‘free market’ neoliberal policy, and given servile support to the imperialist drive for militarization, aggression and war. In ‘opposition’ these parties advocate tepid social reforms at best, but support the main pillars of the bourgeois system of values and government policy; when in office, they too often renege on prior commitments and instead dutifully implement neoliberal policies, maintaining the capitalist order of domination. This sharp swing to the right by social democracy has created anger and confusion even among its own rank-and-file supporters, and has sown divisions within the ranks in the labour and popular movements, weakening and often undermining the people’s fightback.

While reformism, narrow electoralism and class collaboration are hardly new features of social democracy, the deepening of the systemic crisis of capitalism today brings the abject failure of the social democratic ‘option’ into much sharper relief.

Historically, social democratic illusions about incremental change to ‘reform capitalism’, about the neutrality of the state, and so on, have been one of the main agents blunting the development of revolutionary class consciousness. Today, it is the main subjective factor holding back mass united, militant action needed to confront the capitalist offensive head-on, to move onto the counter-offensive against finance capital and its governments and to win socialism.

Absolutely spot on. "... it is the main subjective factor holding back mass united, militant action needed to confront..." etc.

a link for those with a spine.

Why dont you take your vile mischaracterizations and defense of the Putins and Assads and Gadafis and other murderous regimes back into the Ukraine shithole thread in the Canada politics forum with your buddy NDPP. Your non stop attacks on the few and rare and weak democratic efforts in a foreign policy sea of strategic and business interests at helping free millions from the bondage you cant even begin to understand.  You fear oligarchy here? Seee what its results are in that oppressive shithole Russia that you clamor as some kind of twisted 'freedom' fighter. Your hypocrisy makes me sick.

Your ignorance irreparable.

Unionist wrote:

Pierre C yr wrote:

He supported the mission into Kosovo because it was the obvious prevention of another mass murder of muslims after several mass murders by christian serbs.

What shameless shit you spew. What filth. How dare you even post here?

The NDP has had its share of fearless heroes, unafraid of admitting their mistakes and making amends. Svend Robinson was among them:

Quote:

Press Release
For immediate release
Thursday, June 8th, 2000

Robinson Condemns Canadian Medal to Nato General Wesley Clark; Calls for Kosovo War Crimes Trial

OTTAWA - Svend Robinson, NDP Foreign Affairs spokesperson and MP for Burnaby-Douglas demanded that Minister of National Defence Art Eggleton reverse the recently announced decision to have the Governor General present the Meritorious Service Cross to US General Wesley Clark, Supreme Commander of NATO forces in Kosovo. Robinson noted the Canadian Forces Decorations and Commendations Advisory Committee (CFDCAC) announced on 18 May its decision to extend the award to Clark for having "exhibited the highest standard of professional dedication in Operation Allied Force."

"It is appalling that the Governor General and the Canadian military would honour Clark, when Amnesty International and others have called for Clark to be put on trial for war crimes committed during NATO's bombing campaign in Kosovo and Serbia in the spring of 1999. NATO deliberately bombed the headquarters of Serbian Radio-Television, killing 16 civilians. They deliberately bombed a bridge in Varvarin in broad daylight, killing several civilians. They fired not once, but twice, on a train on the Grdelica bridge, killing 55.

"Canada should be urging the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal on the former Yugoslavia, Carla del Ponte to reverse her decision not to try top NATO officials for their alleged war crimes."

And much more besides.

Mulcair, lover of NATO and Israel, should be condemned by people who love peace and non-aggression.

How do you like that assessment?

He gave a clear distinction for the 2 state solution, the overwhelmingly preffered choice in progressive circles, in the Israeli Palestinian problem. Totally distinct from Harpers one sided Pro Israel only position.

You're willfully blind.

Been reading that garbage you guys keep on posting in that thread. Get back to it since you seem to like to attack the UN/Nato/US at any and all times over any mission to any shithole on the planet.

Imperialism!!!

Ah yes inevitable, the refuge of the scoundrel, libellous accusations. So Im 'racist' against russia because their country is driven into the ground by Putin's kleptocratic regime and his oligarchs? A shithole is a shithole. You dont fix problems by painting lipstick on a pig. People need to know how bad things are in some places before they will pay attention and made to care to help out.

 I thought Mulcair did very well on the issue of Isreal, and was the only leader to bring up the interests of the Palestians at all.

Elizabeth May sounded more like a traditional NDP leader than Mulcair. Mulcair sounded more like a traditional soft Liberal leader. Trudeau looked well rehearsed but left you with still no real platform or substance to speak of. Harper was Harper. This whole NATO issue bothers me as well with Mulcair's statement. I would like to see Canada be an international ambassador of peace. If that means withdrawing from NATO, then we need to seriously reconsider bringing back the Waffle movement and getting our party back to some of it's original positions, not that NATO withdrawal was ever a formal NDP position, but we need to get back to our social democratic roots again.

Pierre C yr wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Pathetic.

 

Take that back into your marxist rathole. You guys have damaged the NDP's progressive agenda for decades with your radical fringe marginal ugly canadian tactics.

It's not as if the party would've broken through in '62, '63, or '65 if only they'd totally towed the Cold War line(Trudeau, a Liberal rather than a Dipper, won a majority in '68 on a promise to consider pulling Canada out of NATO and almost did so a year later) and backed Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon in Vietnam-or in the Eighties if only they'd cheered Reagan on in Central America and on the nuke buildup-or in 2004 if only they had backed Bush on Iraq and Afghanistan. 

Canada is not an intrinsically militarist society like the U.S., is.  And most Canadians don't want there to be a militarist consensus between all major parties on Canada's role in the world.  I have no idea where this huge group of progressive-but-war loving voters you seem to think exists actually dwells in your country.

Besides which, no Western military missions anywhere on the planet at this point(or even any under consideration) are about freeing anybody-wars of "national interest" can't liberate people.

There should at least be the chance, in every election to vote for peace-to vote for the idea that one's country should play a solely positive, compassionate and solidaristic role in the world.  What is it about that idea that so outrages you, Pierre?

Pierre C yr wrote:

Pondering wrote:

The senate can be reformed without opening the constitution.

I think May is winning by far.

Like what. You cant elect them without opening the constitution.

You can set up a multi-party committee to present multiple candidates to the PM for consideration. Rules for expenses and reporting the purposes of trips can be made more transparent. They could be required to sit on committees not paid extra for it. Rules for expulsion can drawn up and they should be very strict. Pensions can be cut.

Pierre C yr wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

Pierre C yr wrote:

Unionist wrote:

Pathetic.

 

Take that back into your marxist rathole. You guys have damaged the NDP's progressive agenda for decades with your radical fringe marginal ugly canadian tactics.

It's not as if the party would've broken through in '62, '63, or '65 if only they'd totally towed the Cold War line-or in the Eighties if onlyy they'd cheered Reagan on-or in 2004 if only they had backed Bush on Iraq.  And no Western military missions anywhere on the planet at this point are about freeing anybody-wars of "national interest" can't liberate people.

Canada is not an intrinsically militarist society like the U.S., is.  And most Canadians don't want there to be a militarist consensus between all major parties on Canada's role in the world.

There should at least be the chance to vote for peace.

 

Why not? There were plenty of social democrats winning elections in the 50's and 60's in Europe. Why do we think they are so ahead of us in some ways? They didnt have bombastic positions on such as Nato tho. We have only ourselves to blame for our weak position for so long. We finally get to that reasonable position on a few basic issues and we start winning... Its not rocket science.

And none of them did anything offensive like support a Reagan or some radical right position on an issue. They simply didnt have any stupid ones.

Not every war was a 'national interest'. Yugoslavia wasnt, theres no oil there, and neither was Somalia. We should have gone to Rwanda. You think only right wingers opposed that one? We carry the debt from that genocide like no other. The UN, heck everyone completely failed to stop it. We just stood by and watched...

Theres only shame in this. No one can grandstand and say every time we go overseas to intervene its 'imperialism'. Not in Rwanda it wasnt.

See that statue in front of the UN? The guy weilds a hammer...

 

A hammer that represents the means of building a better world...not an implement of destruction.

Social democrats were winning some elections in Europe in the Fifties(actually, they were more often the official opposition in most Europeam countries, not forming government but demonstrating sufficient strength to force the CIA-invented Christian Democratic parties that usually beat them to bring in social democratic policies on workers' rights and the social wage) because Europe had a stronger labour movement and a far-better developed left tradition in politics than Canada ever has-NOT, in particular, because European social democrats were cool with militarism.  How do you explain the overwhelming victories won in that decade by Sweden's Social Democrats, a party that was neutralist and antiwar to the core?  

The NDP did badly in the Nineties and early Zeros because it had unpopular leaders who didn't know how to use television well and strategists who couldn't come up with anything remotely resembling strategy...not because they didn't say, to repurpose the Billy Bragg lyric "we don't like peace campaigners 'round here".  And the Liberal government of that era, right-wing as it was, kept Canadian troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan and didn't play any significant role in the "humanitarian" interventions you speak of.  

So no, the NDP never had to "get our war on" to move out of third place.

BTW, Unionist did nothing to deserve the abusive, redbaiting response you flung at him.  He's one of the most decent, principled people we have on this board.  And while he is on the left, he's not a "Marxist"(at least not in the 1950's Stalinist sense you meant to imply).

Violence can't truly end violence.  The only way to end violence is to create other means of resolving differences.

Ken Burch wrote:

Violence can't truly end violence.  The only way to end violence is to create other means of resolving differences.

You dont end genocide with genocide but you can stop it with force. Violence is a big word that encompasses politics not just the military. Some say mandates are the violent application of political force. You think when facing multinationals ruining the planet or dictators bent on mass murder we can always just find a way to negotiate our way out of it?   Any transition towards a less violent world will take time. We wouldnt have less violence had we not opposed the nazis and let them keep europe. You apply force sometimes to avoid worse outcomes. Worse outcomes that themselves seed further violence.

There is no possible use of force in the world we live in now that could possibly be compared to the fight against Naziism.  That was a singular event.

Besides, it's likely that IS is a product of the fact that the West hadn't got completely out of the Arab/Muslim world after 2009.  Much of their support was a twisted, wrong-headed form of anti-imperialism.  More Western troops(and let's face it, every Arab and Muslim person in the world sees Western military intervention as imperialist, even if that word bothers you) are very unlikely to be helpful in a situation with that sort of roots.

It sounds as if you are desperate to prove that war can still be progressive and defensible.

That mindset is what led the Kennedy Administration into Vietnam.

Pierre C yr wrote:

Misfit wrote:

Elizabeth May sounded more like a traditional NDP leader than Mulcair.

You need to listen to more of her positions. Shes not a social democrat shes a libertarian. And her party still has far too many market based notions to claim much of any real progressive roots outside some popular ones like student debt.  

Pierre, Green Party policy is not "market based." The Green Party wants to use the market as a tool within a social context determined by law and regulation. There are *some* things the market does better than bureaucrats. There are some things that government does better than the market. The market in any case needs government to set and enforce the rules.

Do you know of any other party that has the strengthening of consumer and producer cooperatives as a platform plank? I'd say that's "progressive."

I do not support the Green Party. I think their positions are vague and obscure. What I said was and I'll repeat, Elizabeth May sounded more like a traditional NDP leader than the leader of the NDP during the debate. Mulcair sounded more like a traditional soft Liberal leader than the Liberal party leader. She brought up health care and other social programs, First Nations issues, human rights, poverty, homelessness, low income housing...these are all issues that the NDP normally dominates in at the debates. Mulcair hardly touched on social issues at all.

Mulcair was oddly flat.  And the man cannot read a statement to save his life!  WTH?  No big mistakes, tho.

Trudeau started out well but was too "hot" and needs to dial it back.  His closing statement could have been quite effective but he screwed it up.

May was excellent for most of it.  I'm no Green, but she was by far the smoothest, and the best at communicating really complex info.

Harper did better than I thought.  He is just too experienced at this stage of his career to really muck it up.  And he was not as condescending or hostile as he can sometimes be.  

So.  TIME'S UP!  I wonder what the NDP will decide re other debates??

Let's keep the conversation respectful - no more personal attacks please.

a bit late, Meg!!

honestly, this thread brought out everybody to the Left of the real-world electoral NDP (including our pro-Putin contingent)...

in the real world, the NDP is a moderate centre-left parliamentary group, like dozens similar in western Europe, and yes, they are going to regularly side with NATO, as Pierre Cyr points out, just as the CCF-NDP considered then rejected motions at every convention in ther 1970s and 70s to pull out of NATO or NORAD.... will not happen

Pierre C yr wrote:

Trudeau gave up on winning in Quebec so hes stoking the separatists issue to win seats in Ontario. Ontario wants a strong federalist leader so he will play that up. Its a cynical ploy. I dont think itll work. Mulcair's federalist credentials are too solid and not everyone thinks the way to deal with separatists is to forever confront them.

Mulcair let Trudeau get away with a few whoppers. I hope he makes up for it.

No he hasn't. Contrary to popular opinion separatists are a shrinking minority in Quebec. The Sherbrooke Declaration and Unity Act are current NDP policy and Mulcair does pump it up in French. Mulcair is being dishonest by pretending he doesn't talk about it in French.