Thursday, July 3, 2014

If We're Not Losers, Why Do Our Own Parties Ignore or Defy Us

Why am I not "training my guns" on the real enemies? Because, say I were to write some brilliant condemnation of the capitalist-imperialists, what would happen? The left would go "You tell 'em thwap!" and that'd be it. There's no movement to galvanize. There's no organization. There's no hope of tactics. There's nothing.

Better, methinks, that I shame the smug, self-satisfied denizens of the left out of their brain-dead allegiance to failure. Or not. It's what I want to talk about anyhow, so tuff shit to you all.

It's pretty simple really. We're so useless and powerless that even our own parties think nothing of ignoring us to "move to the center" to get votes of people more numerous and important than we are. They even smile gratefully when they receive praise from the corporate media for ignoring us or even for abandoning policies designed to appeal to us.

They do this because they know there's nothing we can or would do about it. (Rather than take our supposedly inconsequential amount of votes away.)

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alright Thwap, you win. The left is weak, pathetic, limp dick that can't get it up. Happy?

-J

thwap said...

Aw J, ... don't be that way.

Okay. YOU win.

The left totally rocks! We've strung up a list of victories that has our opponents shaking in their boots about where we'll win next!

We'll win because we're in the right!

The people, united, can never be defeated!

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

...

What bullshit.

...

Did you notice you never made a single, solitary effort to actually prove your case to me?

Did you notice you never once tried to counter my interpretation of the left's abysmal failures to impact on the war in Afghanistan, to stop harper, or to effectively fight the Tar Sands?

That's how dominant ideas persist, long after they're bankrupt. People mindlessly believe what they've been trained to believe, or what they want to believe, and they simply refuse to acknowledge alternative viewpoints.

I told you that you had an open invitation to prove me wrong. You didn't even fucking try.

I wonder why that is?

Anonymous said...

I was actually being sincere, not sarcastic.

But what case? All I've been trying to say is that I think it's better to articulate a message out of hope than depression. You're the one who's made numerous blog posts about it dude, not me. I gave you some evidence on that and some reasons to be hopeful and you ignored it or (dis?)respectfully disagreed with it. As for your questions, you'll forgive me for not knowing they were aimed squarely at me. I thought they were open to everyone. But you're right, the left hasn't done anything or enough on those issues.But I myself am not personally involved in any of those issues in terms of campaigning, so try asking someone else I'm obviously not the guy to debate with you.

Scotian said...

J:

Got to say you made thwap's point in oh so many ways, including that last shot you just took. I've been watching this little disagreement since it started, and from where I sit thwap has made clear arguments and presented you with a simple and clear set of questions to disprove if you could the point thwap was making. You not only failed to give good answers to them, you failed to even try, which does rather make thwap's point that much more accurate from where I sit. Worse, you came back with that juvenile response in this thread and decide thwap was no longer worthy of your consideration by leaving such simplistic male bovi9ne excrement.

I may tend to disagree with thwap on political grounds and have, a lot in fact and I'm sure thwap would agree it is mutual, but I also keep reading thwap because I can tell I am reading the opinions of someone how cares about what they are writing about, and that counts for something with me. I do believe that thwap was making very valid points, while I myself would not call myself a progressive and I know thwap wouldn't, I am far from being anti-progressive on policy rounds and on fundamental beliefs, I just happen to be a more centrist type of progressive/conservative in the old Canadian sense before the American brand of conservativism started corrupting our political environments.

I also knew a lot of old fashioned progressives who were active politically and felt they were having an influence doing so, but over the last decade especially but starting well before that I saw that change, and these days I see the NDP as being no more responsive to its base/activists than any other, indeed arguably less so than at least one other (I do think the Libs are starting to reconnect that way, mind you they were forced into having to by the events of the past eight years). This latest thing about their refusing to allow the son of a former NDP stalwart MP to run as a candidate despite his impeccable NDP credentials all because of his position on Isreal and his public displeasure with Mulcair's position on it when his father was held in Israeli jail apparently captured illegally and so on because of his peace activism, well that clearly is not the NDP of old in oh so many ways.

Bottom line though I think thwap is right to go after those thwap believes is selling out on thwaps own side first, there is that old cliche about making sure your own house is in order before you try to tell someone else how to clean theirs after all. Bottom line, I'm far more inclined to trust someone like thwap even when I disagree so much with them over those that try to be what they are not. You failed utterly to show why thwap was wrong, instead the way you handled it only underscore what thwap was arguing. That is hardly an act of strength of any sort.

thwap:

I'm sure you didn't need any help or support from me, but still, there you go. At least with you I know I am seeing someone honest, which these days is no small thing wherever one sits on the political spectrum.

Anonymous said...

Thwap's case in point. http://www.nanaimodailynews.com/news/nanaimo-region/nanaimo-fillmmaker-told-he-can-t-run-federally-for-the-ndp-1.1192051

thwap said...

J,

At no point did I think you were being insincere.

I understood: You wanted me to talk about positive things, not negative things. I declined the offer because I thought it was important to address the issues i was addressing.

I'm unaware of any effort on your part to offer any sort of argument to counter my pessimism that I might have responded to respectfully or disrespectfully. I engaged with a fairly irrelevant piece by George Monbiot, and I think I established why it was irrelevant for the topic under discussion here.

Those questions were not aimed squarely at you. They were aimed at anyone who took issue with my negativity. You were one of those people. I thought they were pretty huge topics, but if you don't have the slightest idea about any of them, I understand your reticence to grapple with them.

You could have, of course, countered with the important victories I'm assumed you won on the issues you have been working on. Perhaps some "local victories that can build to larger ones" that I was able to understand.

thwap said...

Scotian,

Yes, I disagree with you about some things. Mostly though, I was irked when once I gave a lengthy reply to one of your comments here, which received no reply, but which I noticed you made a snide reference to it at another blog.

I'm happy that you believe that I'm honest and not a hack. I have never thought you a Liberal sell-out. Your faith in that party resembles zealotry to me sometimes, but that's a different accusation.

I believe it is important that the left not be deluded, so that it can reform and start to win. call me crazy.

I doubt anything will come of this though.

thwap said...

anonymous,

Yes, that link is a great case-in-point. I mentioned that incident on my facebook page (where i am not known as "thwap").

Anonymous said...

thwap?

For what it's worth:

Afghanistan:

Bin Laden- dead.
War- called 'over'.
Gitmo- closed.
Water-Boarding- nothing new under the sun.
(Assassination by government
should be the rule. Stop invading and destroying CIVILIAN COMMUNITIES. Please.)
Bush- dabbling in his paints.
Dick- still a, whatever.

Stop Harper:

Harper- is done. And he knows it.
I caught an actual 5 seconds of him actually answering a reporter,
unscripted, last evening. It was sad. He even said that. His "yippee! & yeehaw!"
are "sad". I know he is as much a faulty human being as myself,
therefore I take back every mean thing I've said or written re the
man. And there's been plenty. But, he still has to go. And his Party, too, back to the GOP/HUDAK/HARRIS
REAGAN/THATCHER/CAMERON drawing-
board. It simply sucks. From top
to bottom, inside and out. But, we
must play on that mountainous
"level playing-field" we've got
going on. Unless you think Anarchism will make it all better.
I learned many moons ago, that
Purism and Perfectionism are the
Enemy of, well, US ALL!! We must not succomb to that 'all or nothing'
mental trap, thwap. Or we get what
we deserve, I guess. RoFo?
Rigidity can be found high and low. You know that.
Andrea did us
all a large blessing. No more
Conservative whining, incompetent,
buffoonery. Provincially at least.
And where the heck did Ms.Andrea's
core principles go, when she went one way and so many of her
base went the other? Don't include us Grits, in your scathing
and unnuanced daily diatribes,
please. You're better than that,
right thwap?

That's it for now.
Tar-Sand Dil-Bit deserves it's own
but Neil Young, k?

thwap said...

There's too much for me to go at in that comment. I'll limit myself to two points:

1. Yes, Afghanistan is over for us. But for the ELEVEN YEARS we were involved, the goddamned left had zero impact for all of our "rallying" and "actions."

2. harper might be through, but it will be because of widespread disillusionment with his own corruption, incompetence and the unpopularity of his policies.

Which means, we were pretty much useless in bringing about his expected political demise.

Which has been my point this whole time.

Anonymous said...

Don't think you have to "go at" my opinion or anything else, how is that helpful? To you, me, or the others here?

1) So?

2) Correct.

In conclusion;

I always knew they'd be 'given enough rope' someday.

Believe it or not thwap-
there are more powerful forces
in this universe than you.

Or me.

So as Dana says so well- enjoy friends, family, work, whatever- and most importantly, to this Liberal- have FUN!! Or change your
own life 'til ya do. That much power, we do have. And that's why people become frustrated with you-
you seem to have stopped looking for change, growth and fun which is in our power. Don't do that,
anyone. Never stop looking.

And how does encouraging others matter?
WTF thwap, you're not seriously asking that question, right??

greg said...

Some good news but not enough to ....My parents did not vote for Hudak. They thought he was a nutter. They ALWAYS vote conservative . Obviously, you can say so what, but it shocked the hell out of me. I'd love to come up with some wonderful commentary and sum up by quoting Sartre, but my laundry water is backing up into sink. My God, that's it!!! Metaphor of the day.

thwap said...

Congratulations to us.

Scotian said...

I've got no problem with you not wanting the left to be deluded, and to be fair I don't think I'd ever tried to delude the left when I argued that stopping Harper was in its own best interests and in keeping with its own principles/priorities. I've also never claimed to be a "progressive" politically speaking, I've always said I was an unaligned centrist swing voter because that is what I am. I will say I do tend to resent this idea that I have some sort of zealotry for the Lib party, my support for them as a vehicle to stop/remove Harper has always been rooted in my reading of Canadian voting patterns as shown by actual voting, not out of any particular support for the Libs in their own right. Indeed, it is only in the last little while as I've started to return that I am starting to actively support the Liberals even a little, and I've been honest and upfront about that. I don't do absolutism in things thwap, including politics, and fanaticism of any sort is something that makes me acutely uncomfortable, which makes me uncomfortable to see the word zealot attached to me in any manner, so I am forced to disagree about that.

I will also admit that I have felt very betrayed by the NDP under Layton for reasons I have listed time and time again. I trusted the NDP to recognize a true right wing radical/extremist and to actively call one out and prevent them from gaining power, period. I trusted them to be that party of principle first for something like this, and I feel very much sold out. My wife, who was a hard core NDP partisan a decade ago has been left feeling utterly betrayed and abandoned politically and if you think you think I've got anger issues about the NDP you don't want to be near her.

I also get irked when I don't see credit being given equally to when blame is, and I'll admit I find it especially irritating to constantly be told how the Libs are so anti-progressive while having been the governing party for most of the past century creating such a progressive state. I'll give the NDP full credit for keeping the pressure on the Libs to move in this direction, but to not credit them with having actually taken such actions, nor to recognize that they have from time to time done progressive things without having to be forced to at electoral gunpoint is dishonest to me.

Bottom line though thwap is I've never had faith in any political party to act other than as a political party, and for it to follow its stated core values/principles, with all the ups and downs that come with it. I've never believed we can have uncorrupted government because of the very nature of human beings and power. What I have always looked at was what kind of corruption, how far did it go, and what kind of government were we getting along with that corruption. I'll admit I respect the Libs, but then I used to respect the NDP and PCPC too, but these days only one of those is left in a form I find recognizable.

Ironically enough this fits in with your post quite well. None of the parties appear to me to be all that responsive to their base anymore, the Libs lately are more so but that was forced upon them by circumstances for their own survival, and I wonder how long it will last especially if they return to power next time out. I don't kid myself about these things thwap, as I've said before I am a centrist pragmatist, like so many others in this country. Most of my point over the past decade was that progressives and centrists both had a mutual stake in stopping the madness that is Harper, and the failure to do so, indeed the complicity of Layton in enabling it makes it very hard for me to trust the progressives to do the right thing with power. Again, ties into your post doesn't it, which is why I'm glad when I see true voices of conscience go after their own for their apostasy, and you do that well.