Mulcair: stay or go?

nicky wrote:

Can you share with us what your provinance in the party might be, Off the Readar?

Many of those calling for Tom's head never were supporters of the party so we can assess thyie comments in that light. You are new to Babble and it is hard  to discern whether you are part of the anti-NDP group that is so eager to give us advice on the leadership. If you have a history in the party  and have paid your dues  that would put you in a different category. 

nicky wrote:

The party has a difficult decision to make about the leadership at its convention in April. I may be a delegate to that convention and am interested in the views of a broad range of party members. I have attempted to gague this by speaking personally with a braod range of members and trying to assess what is being said on social media.,

I can tell you that the general sentiment towards Tom is not nearly so negative or vitriolic as it is on Babble.

I am not at all interested in the "advice" of people who have never had a fair or objective wotrd to say about the NDP and who have consistently attempted to undermine it with concern trolling. This has been especially evident on Babble where the discussion has been deeply infected by such faux objectivity.I suspect that the Justin groupies do not want Justin to have to face Tom in Parliament. 

Most of these people are pretty obvious, so clumsy is their pretense to offer good advice. With others, particularly those wo have recently joined, it is harder to discern. that is why I asked the question I did of Off the Radar.

Wow. That's so prejudice. You evaluate people's words based on political affiliation not on what they are saying. You assume ulterior motives of one person but not the other even when they are saying the exact same thing. You have to know what team someone is on before you can evaluate their argument.

Certainly bias exists and it is only reasonable to consider it when evaluating someone's words but assuming dishonesty and malice goes too far.

Your use of the term "groupie" and the need to know whose team everyone is on before judging their words reflects your approach to politics and to people.

This is the way it should be:

Unionist wrote:

Hey off-the-radar, here on babble, we discuss and debate positions, ideas, proposals. We don't base our discussion on who we think someone is - except of course when trying to provide safe spaces for oppressed or marginalized people in various forums. What party you belong to, or "support", or vote for, or donate to, is your business. You're free to divulge all that if you want.

The following is the way it is:

Unionist wrote:

But take note that hundreds of threads have been destroyed by speculating about people's political "allegiance" and namecalling on that basis, instead of discussing the substantive issues that bring us all together.

No Pondering I do not ascribe the slightest objectivity to you. You have long since forfeited any presumption of good faith. You are an implaccable foe of the NDP and your views on the leadership must be assessed in that light.

In your case in particular the Empress has no clothes. 

All I see here from Off the Radar is the posting of information: one pro one against and one prediction in terms of the leadership.

I do get irritated by the people who seem to be here at least in part with a predetermined agenda to slam the NDP, no matter what the subject. But the reaction should be contained to those people who have exposed this agenda. I would be inclined to give the benefit of the doubt unless this is demonstrated.

Interestingly, the questionning of Mulcair's leadership from an NDP MPP, in some respects, is more positive than negative. If the NDP had more of a resistance to Mulcair right now I would have been more likely to want to stay to fight from within. The reason I decided to no longer identify as an NDP supporter is the lack of NDP senior personalities and MPs standing up to Mulcair's agenda.

My problem is not the loss of seats but the surrender of principles on the way. The last straw being that vote in December of the Liberal tax cut.

I think a revolt against Mulcair's leadership from prominent New Democrats including MPs would do more to improve the NDP's popularity than contentment with it.

In any case when someone new comes to Babble -- let's assume good, fair and honest intentions until proven otherwise.

Welcome to Babble Off the Radar.

Flames do happen here -- lots of passion areound here. But you can earn respect as well as anger here and sometimes you have to stick up for what you beleive. And if you are a Liberal -- that's okay too. Many of us will be hostile to shameless Liberal propaganda, baiting or dishonesty. But A Liberal point of view that does not engage in sanctimonious baiting is welcome. We have had such people in the past and it can work. We even have had the odd token Conservative who got along with many. People from centre or right wing parties coming here to poke people in the eye will get a worse reception than those who truly come to engage and discuss.

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

Interestingly, the questionning of Mulcair's leadership from an NDP MPP, in some respects, is more positive than negative. If the NDP had more of a resistance to Mulcair right now I would have been more likely to want to stay to fight from within. The reason I decided to no longer identify as an NDP supporter is the lack of NDP senior personalities and MPs standing up to Mulcair's agenda.

The reason that there may not be a lot of questioning of Mulcair from the NDP MP's is because there aren't that many MP's of stature left in the party.

Almost all of the Senior NDP MP's were defeated in this election, or chose to retire.

Most of the NDP MP's that remain in the caucus are fairly new and have only been elected within the past couple of elections (2011 & 2015), with only a few pre-2011 MP's remaining.

Deleted. Already posted above

Sean in Ottawa wrote:

That does not matter to me. You have to stand up for some things. You don't need to be senior.

True, younger MPs can theoretically express themselves, but the point is that it's harder for newer MPs in a party (particularly those who got elected on the current leader's watch) to have as much authority to challenge the way things are run.

For example, let's say that some of the Liberal MPs end up disagreeing at some point this year with the direction of the Justin Trudeau government.  Since almost all of the current Liberal caucus (+150 MPs) were elected under Trudeau's banner in 2015, many of them may feel they owe their election to him and may be less likely to challenge him when they disagree with something.

Although Mulcair lost MPs, there were still 16 new NDP MPs elected this year while Mulcair was leader, as well as some of those that came in during 2011 when he was Deputy Leader.  Chantal Hébert mentioned in a column a few weeks back that because more than one-third of the NDP caucus (16 of 44) come from Québec, that may give Mulcair some security.  Although Mulcair finished 2nd to Trudeau in Quebec, that is still his home province, and he still finished 2nd there.

How many winning campaigns have i worked on? If you mean how many where we formed government? Three . BC in 1972 and 1991, Ontario in 1990. 

If you mean riding victories in both General elections and by-elections? Probably about 25.

I'm not checking the dates on NDP memberships, but I do think the views of trolls should be ignored.

nicky, i'm not a member just a supporter. i don't think Mulcair should be going anywhere. the so called NDP voices here against him were also against him all through the election and imv were large part of why the NDP declined in the election and why we lost good MP's.

i don't trust their judgement on this.

Michael Moriarity wrote:

quizzical wrote:

nicky, i'm not a member just a supporter. i don't think Mulcair should be going anywhere. the so called NDP voices here against him were also against him all through the election and imv were large part of why the NDP declined in the election and why we lost good MP's.

i don't trust their judgement on this.

Are you really saying that you think the things people posted on babble had a significant effect on the outcome of the election? I would be shocked if what people write here had any measurable effect on the result.

Don't you remember the 34 traitors that condemned Andrea Horwath's NDP to 3rd place? Had nothing to do with her policies. Same with Mulcair's NDP. A handful of traitors did them in. And third place. See the pattern?

quizzical wrote:

nicky, i'm not a member just a supporter. i don't think Mulcair should be going anywhere. the so called NDP voices here against him were also against him all through the election and imv were large part of why the NDP declined in the election and why we lost good MP's.

i don't trust their judgement on this.

Could I please have a list of so-called turn-coat NDPers? I want to know who is in the dog house with me.

off-the-radar wrote:

My Babble comments clearly indicate my progressive values and I hope to thoughtfully and respectfully continue participating in Babble discussions.

Please do! Those have been interesting comments so far and I look forward to reading more. 

The "group of 34" stuff I think symbolizes a key issue. Does the NDP only want to listen to members, or does it wish to become a voice for a broader left including former members and non-members? Many in social movements still look to the NDP as the default voice for their issues, and are disappointed more with the NDP than they (we) would be with similar failures to act on key issues by Liberals or Cons. Does this represent a double standard, holding the NDP to higher standards than other major parties? Yes, absolutely. But shouldn't we hold the party of social justice to higher standards when it comes ot voicing support for social justice issues? 

(My credentials to comment: Former NDP member, always vote NDP federally, worked on several NDP campaigns in the past, current Quebec Solidaire supporter.) 

nicky wrote:

Unionist references the "Group of 34" who knifed Andrea Horvath in the last provincial election. They floated the line that Wynne was more progressive than the NDP and helped her win a majority that she is using to institutionalize corruption and privatization. 

Oh, and how many of theat Group were actually NDP members? Precisely 4. 

There is a parralel here with the faux progressives like Pondering who insist on telling us what to do concerning the leadership.

Have you ever seen the movie Big Night?  It's about two Italian immigrant brothers in America trying to run a restaurant in the '50s that serves authentic Italian food rather than faux-Italian spaghetti and meatballs crap that others were serving at the time.  The brothers were having financial difficulties, so a competitor, Pascal (who runs a competing Italian food restaurant -- which serves the inferior faux-Italian stuff), supposedly takes pity and advises them to have a big party with the press to get the word out -- and, to make it a success, Pascal promises to invite his friend, famous jazz entertainer Louis Prima, to attend, ensuring interest of the press.  So the brothers spend their cash reserves on this fabulous party and provide fabulous food, inviting the press to come dine and meet with Louis Prima.  Needless to say, Prima never shows up because Pascal does not want a competing business to succeed and threaten his own business, and thus his charitable sympathetic gesture of help was just bullshit.  So, no story in the press, and the brothers' restaurant presumably and sadly fails, leaving just the choice of inferior faux-Italian food in the vicinity for the next few decades. 

Anyway, to me it's obvious you don't take advice from supporters of the competition who have a vested interest in your failure.

nicky, I feel Mulcair should stay.  I joined the NDP in 2003, supporting Comartin as leader then.  But I felt Layton did a good job.  I supported Topp in 2012.  But I felt Mulcair did a good job.  The campaign didn't go as well as I hoped.  But it made sense.  The Cons were seen as the biggest obstacle -- recall that Cullen and Murray in their respective leadership bids advocated joint party nominations.  So, the NDP focusing attacks on the Cons (IE, enough and not working) made sense. 

Also, it was important to fight the unfair perception of the NDP as poor fiscal managers (and implicit in this is to fight the perception that government spending on programs is a sign of poor fiscal management).  Recall that the two right wing parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives, practically together on the same day, attacked the NDP's promises to spend on government services, like child care, as out of balance and unsustainable (shame on those here who support this view).  http://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/election/liberals-tories-attack-ndp-platf...

Implicit within this was an attack on increasing corporate taxes and taxing stock options by both the Conservatives and the Liberals.  This would have provided over $4B per year to the government coffers, certainly enough for the NDP's promises.  Also, Mulcair was being respectful of the membership of the NDP when he rejected needlessly going into deficit to fund either government programming or infrastructure.  This is the NDP's current policy,

NDP policy wrote:

1.6  Finance and budgetary policies

New Democrats believe in:

a)  Balancing budgets and confining short-term deficits to severe economic downturns and national security emergencies.

He rightfully stated that 2008 was this and that the NDP were the first to call for deficit stimulus spending.  But not the case here.  The Liberal argument that deficit spending is needed for regular government programming, like child care (which they mix in with "social infrastructure") while ignoring the billions of dead money that corporations sit on, is nauseating.  This Liberal deficit promise also came with the promise to cut later ("structural review").  All here who bought into this, hang your heads in shame!  They will likely begin gutting the public service later.  I believe Mulcair and the NDP's expressed feeling that increasing revenue through increased corporate and stock option taxes rather than through needlessly incurring debt will prove prescient in 2019.  And that increasing infrastructure spending via an enhancement of the Gas Tax Fund transfer to municipalities will also prove prescient.

He's been showing good tactics in bringing forward the NDP's concerns with this new Liberal government.  I feel he has done well and should be given another chance as leader in 2019.

Bah!  You just want the NDP to choose a weak leader so they won't be a significant source of competition to your new party, right?

ETA:  I'm just kidding.  I do wish you luck with it.

mark_alfred wrote:

NDP policy wrote:

1.6  Finance and budgetary policies

New Democrats believe in:

a)  Balancing budgets and confining short-term deficits to severe economic downturns and national security emergencies.

He rightfully stated that 2008 was this and that the NDP were the first to call for deficit stimulus spending.  But not the case here.

That approach led most people to think that the NDP believed Harper when he said the budget was balanced. Any number of progressive groups showed how the budget had actually been cooked partly by selling off assets.  The idea that in 2015 Canada was not in an economic downturn was part of the problem with the NDP message. 2015 might be good times when you have always worked in government or the corporate world and come from a middle class background but for millions of people in this country the recession has never ended and it has turned into an ongoing struggle to provide the basics of life for their families.

Mulcair in effect said the economy is strong and I will be fiscally responsible. A great message for a party that wants to appeal to the middle class voter who isn't hurting from 30 years of austerity budgets. A really piss poor message for the young voters in the country who want decent jobs in an era when the oligarchy prefers to stash its money in tax havens too investing in Canada. 

My first NDP experience was working on the David Lewis led "Corporate Welfare Bums" campaign. I have been President of NDP constituency associations' in two different provinces. I have been President of a federal riding association. I have been part of winning campaign teams and am proud to have helped elect two women who were new to politics and then went on to be NDP Cabinet Ministers. I am personally mentioned in the Hansard in a fair well speech by an NDP MP.

If Mulcair leds the NDP into the next election I will not vote for the NDP. Mulcair is a liberal and I don't vote for liberals. I said the same thing about Ujjal when he was running for the BC NDP leadership. Being liberal is a mindset and world view and Mulcair like Dosanjh is one.

BTW the Tyee have a poll going: 57% say he should go and 33% say he should stay.

Of course maybe the 57% includes some LPC and CPC supporters who think he is good and so should go or maybe the 33% includes some of LPC and CPC supporters who thnks he is crap and should stay. Who knows?

Re: post #132:  Mulcair has openly said very recently that policy may need to be revisited.  But I would not have expected him during the campaign to back away from it.  And I do feel that Trudeau's Wynne-like approach will not sit well with people four years from now.

mark_alfred wrote:

Re: post #132:  Mulcair has openly said very recently that policy may need to be revisited.  But I would not have expected him during the campaign to back away from it. 

The policy is right it is just that Mulcair doesn't understand that for most of the people a social democratic party is supposed to represent it still is an economic downturn and we are going to need massive government involvement in the economy to restart a green economy. He doesn't have the chops because he is from the part of the middle class that is in the top 10% and his life experience as a government lawyer and then politician is so far removed from a retail worker in the innner city anywhere in Canada he just doesn't get it. Not his fault he is just a product of his upbringing and life choices including being a Minister in an austerity government.

The people of Canada heard the message and decided that voting for a lying Liberal was better than voting for a social democrat who was either confused about the real state of Canada's economy or lying about being a left alternative.

Here is a poll that rabble is doing. Its now running at over 80% for Mulcair to go.

http://rabble.ca/polls/do-you-think-tom-mulcair-should-remain-leader-ndp

Quote:

Here is a poll that rabble is doing. Its now running at over 80% for Mulcair to go.

The preamble sets the tone for it.

Quote:

In the 2015 federal election the NDP led by Tom Mulcair were sent to third-party status with only 44 seats in Parliament.

After what many felt was a crushing blow to the party, calls for Mulcair's resignation began to circulate, most notably from Ontario MPP Cheri DiNovo.

And of the six choices, none was "This is for the party membership to decide at convention, no different from any other leadership race"

ed'd to add:  I just opened a different browser and voted a second time.  If you feel strongly, you may want to do the same.

the poll adds up to 125%

quizzical wrote:

if you don't expect people to take your adbice pondering wy do you give it then?

I'm not giving advice or looking for it I am participating in political debate/discussion, expressing my thoughts and reading or contemplating the thoughts of others.

Debater wrote:

mark_alfred wrote:

I feel he has done well and should be given another chance as leader in 2019.

Mark, what are your thoughts on Mulcair's age?  Do you think it will be an issue?  Do you think there is a generational factor that needs to be addressed?

Mulcair would probably be the oldest leader again in the next election (eg. older than Trudeau, and probably older than whoever the next Conservative leader is).

In 2019 I look forward to Prime Minister Mulcair meeting with President Sanders.

Quote:

Keynesianism is at least a much more progressive option than that advocated by the Milton Friedman school of unfettered capitalism.

Are those the only two options?

And just to be very clear, is a balanced budget the slippery slope to "the Milton Friedman school of unfettered capitalism"?

Debater wrote:

Badriya wrote:

josh wrote:

nicky wrote:

I don't understand why a goal of a balanced budget is a right-wing policy. Many reponsible left wing governments have had such a policy, largely, as Tommy Douglas said, to free them from the constraints of the banks.

Because hewing to a balanced budget in the face of a sluggish economy is classical economics and a rejection of Keynesiasm.

But Keysianism is not left-wing policy. 

It's a start.

Keynesianism is at least a much more progressive option than that advocated by the Milton Friedman school of unfettered capitalism.

Liberals pulling out the K-word again.  I wrote earlier,

mark_alfred wrote:

Implicit within this was an attack on increasing corporate taxes and taxing stock options by both the Conservatives and the Liberals.  This would have provided over $4B per year to the government coffers, certainly enough for the NDP's promises.  Also, Mulcair was being respectful of the membership of the NDP when he rejected needlessly going into deficit to fund either government programming or infrastructure.  This is the NDP's current policy,

NDP policy wrote:

1.6  Finance and budgetary policies

New Democrats believe in:

a)  Balancing budgets and confining short-term deficits to severe economic downturns and national security emergencies.

He rightfully stated that 2008 was this and that the NDP were the first to call for deficit stimulus spending.  But not the case here.  The Liberal argument that deficit spending is needed for regular government programming, like child care (which they mix in with "social infrastructure") while ignoring the billions of dead money that corporations sit on, is nauseating.  This Liberal deficit promise also came with the promise to cut later ("structural review").