Now, the real reason that Mulcair has found a coalition to be palatable is because the NDP is running a distant third place to the Liberals and the harpercon scum.
Why should the dreamy, vapid air-head Justin Trudeau sully himself by publicly contemplating associating with those radical nutbar socialists? For that reason, Trudeau sniffed that the very major policy differences betwixt the two parties made a Liberal-NDP coalition very unlikely.
Certainly there are differences between the Liberals' neo-liberalism and the NDP's neo=liberalism/"social democracy." But is Trudeau saying that the differences between the NDP and the Liberals on reducing greenhouse gases are just as important as stephen harper's denial that there is a problem, cynical delaying of legislation to address the problem, and contribution to the increase of the problem?
This could have been both a teachable moment for Canadians, but, alas, Trudeau would rather contribute to the further debasement of our political intelligence and contribute to a tactical error in not coming out swinging against the real enemy of Canadian democracy; stephen harper.
NOTHING is more important that getting rid of harper. In the long-run, obviously, harper is just a carbon-based bag of mostly water. However, we cannot begin to legislate for the things we want unless and until we have a government that restores respect in the parliamentary legislative process. We cannot work to elect semi-decent, semi-sane governments to legislate for the things we want until we defeat the party that commits widespread election fraud and corrupts all our electoral institutions.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again: We have only a quasi-democracy in this country. We elect representatives from among the three parties that have managed to gain enough wealth from a capitalist society to be able to afford campaigning. In a materialist, consumerist society such as ours, obtaining these resources requires sacrifices to the cause of capitalism. Then, capitalists use their influence over the economy and over political parties, to influence the actions that our politicians can take.
That is regrettable. It can also be dealt with. But to deal with it requires investing in this system and working to make it better. (I'm not even going to discuss the empty-headed belief that bands of ordinary people refusing to engage with a corrupt system is going to produce anything of significance.) Working to make our system better has to involve working to destroy the party controlled by those who would make it all a farce.
The longer someone like Justin Trudeau continues to treat the policy differences between the Liberals and the NDP as of more weight than harper's contempt for Parliament, harper's election crimes, harper's brazen toleration for corruption, harper's scofflaw attitude towards Supreme Court rulings, harper's anti-democratic omnibus bills, harper's wholesale dismantling of our environmental protections, harper's unilateral (and therefore illegal) altering of our treaty obligations with the First Nations, the longer your average uninformed Canadian will continue to see harper's crimes against democracy as just ordinary political machinations.
Why should the dreamy, vapid air-head Justin Trudeau sully himself by publicly contemplating associating with those radical nutbar socialists? For that reason, Trudeau sniffed that the very major policy differences betwixt the two parties made a Liberal-NDP coalition very unlikely.
Certainly there are differences between the Liberals' neo-liberalism and the NDP's neo=liberalism/"social democracy." But is Trudeau saying that the differences between the NDP and the Liberals on reducing greenhouse gases are just as important as stephen harper's denial that there is a problem, cynical delaying of legislation to address the problem, and contribution to the increase of the problem?
This could have been both a teachable moment for Canadians, but, alas, Trudeau would rather contribute to the further debasement of our political intelligence and contribute to a tactical error in not coming out swinging against the real enemy of Canadian democracy; stephen harper.
NOTHING is more important that getting rid of harper. In the long-run, obviously, harper is just a carbon-based bag of mostly water. However, we cannot begin to legislate for the things we want unless and until we have a government that restores respect in the parliamentary legislative process. We cannot work to elect semi-decent, semi-sane governments to legislate for the things we want until we defeat the party that commits widespread election fraud and corrupts all our electoral institutions.
I've said it before, but I'll say it again: We have only a quasi-democracy in this country. We elect representatives from among the three parties that have managed to gain enough wealth from a capitalist society to be able to afford campaigning. In a materialist, consumerist society such as ours, obtaining these resources requires sacrifices to the cause of capitalism. Then, capitalists use their influence over the economy and over political parties, to influence the actions that our politicians can take.
That is regrettable. It can also be dealt with. But to deal with it requires investing in this system and working to make it better. (I'm not even going to discuss the empty-headed belief that bands of ordinary people refusing to engage with a corrupt system is going to produce anything of significance.) Working to make our system better has to involve working to destroy the party controlled by those who would make it all a farce.
The longer someone like Justin Trudeau continues to treat the policy differences between the Liberals and the NDP as of more weight than harper's contempt for Parliament, harper's election crimes, harper's brazen toleration for corruption, harper's scofflaw attitude towards Supreme Court rulings, harper's anti-democratic omnibus bills, harper's wholesale dismantling of our environmental protections, harper's unilateral (and therefore illegal) altering of our treaty obligations with the First Nations, the longer your average uninformed Canadian will continue to see harper's crimes against democracy as just ordinary political machinations.
4 comments:
If the election results return a minority situation which allows a combined Lib-NDP majority to command Parliament, I will bet anything Trudeau goes for it, especially if, as seems likely, his will be the dominant party making him PM whatever he says now.
While I would much prefer a unified attack by both parties against Harper, I've long since resigned myself to not seeing it, and that I blame both sides for (more the Dipper side, as I've said before, and laid my reasons for why, but I've never pretended the Libs had no sins on this front either, just that I don't see them as the bigger issue, and one that would not be as bad had the NDP been a little less ugly over the past few years culminating in that harassment shiving) it.
I personally see far more in common with the Libs and NDP then anyone else and the CPC, and have all along. One of the reasons I've found listening to some Dipper partisans so difficult is their idiotic belief in Lib Tory Same Old Story as applied to the CPC. That anyone not on their side is on the Right, it is the mirror image of the CPCers who see anyone not in their camp as leftist freaks.
So while I won't say I am happy to hear Trudeau do this, I am hardly surprised, and I honestly think that at this point expecting cooperation on the leadership front is just a mirage, that the only real chance for us all is that the voters realize what is the truth, that Harper is the real enemy and that embracing the best aka most likely choice in their ridings to defeat him (which lets face it will be the Libs much more than NDP) is what is needed and do so.
At this point I am actually wanting a Trudeau/Lib majority for a practical reason, namely I fear what Harper might try in a minority situation in terms of triggering a Constitutional Crisis, especially since I don't trust David Johnston, our current Harper installed GG not to do what Harper wants regardless of actual law and precedent. After all, he whitewashed Mulroney for him, so I am not all that confident in him for this role, and after watching Jean screw it up in 2008, well *shrug* you can see what I mean, right?
If you look at what Paul Martin actually did, and the reasons why Layton called that election, you'll see that the Liberals are just as much corporate shills as are the harpercons.
It's harper's Rovian tendencies that makes him dangerous. As someone to the left of the NDP, I've made my peace with corporate shills. It's the wholesale eviscerating of our parliamentary traditions that makes the present bunch of "conservatives" the enemy.
And, as I said in my original post, JT could have articulated something about that, but instead, he chose to blather about "policy differences" somehow outweighing despotic tendencies.
The billions and billions that Chretien and Martin stole from the EI fund, to pay for their deficit reduction and tax-cuts for the rich, and the slashing of transfer payments for social programs, ... all of that made their economic policies as rotten as anything Flaherty cooked up.
thwap:
No, I disagree, the Libs can be corporate shills, but for a much wider segment of businesses, not just one main sector, as we have seen from Harper and the energy/oil sector. That alone is a significant difference too you know. They also weren't always siding with them either, there was some divergence on some issues some of the time, under Harper we don't even see that.
As to Harpers Rovian tendencies, I WISH it was just that simple thwap, but it isn't the Rovian tendencies that are the real threat/problem, it is the Cheney/Straussian tendencies of redefining government to mean whatever he wants it to mean regardless of tradition, precedent, and Constitutional law. Not to mention the elitism and the noble lie. THAT is why I've opposed Harper to energetically all along, because I am more of a process geek about politics than an issues person, so the infrastructure/institutions of government mean a lot to me. The damage Harper has done there may be irreversible, and what isn't is going to take a lot of time, just the precedents alone he set are going to be major problems for future Parliaments and responsible Speakers.
Not disagreeing with you on the Trudeau point, I think he is doing this for partisan political means in part, but I also think he feels no reason to trust Mulcair and the NDP leadership at this point given recent events, bad enough the contempt they showed him from the moment he became leader, but what happened on the harassment file was truly disgusting. Seriously thwap, that was one of the lowest things I've seen in federal politics even including the record of the Harper CPC, which is really saying something, you know? It was also a low I didn't expect to see from the NDP, which was also a real anger generator for me.
To your last point, in part I agree, in part I don't. It comes down to just how seriously one took the threat from the IMF in the early 90s to intervene if we didn't get our fiscal house in order. If these things were going to take a hit, I'd rather they were hollowed out by us rather than eliminated altogether by a group like the IMF, and the EI business for me is a part of that thinking. That is not to say I entirely approve, I don't, but at least while doing it the Libs gave competent government, the Harper CPC has not at all, not even for many in what it believed to be its core base, a la veterans.
Scotian,
I could have mentioned Cheney/Strauss too. But they're all of a piece to me.
Cheney saying Congress had no authority over him because he's in the Executive Branch, and then saying that any watchdogs over the Executive Branch have no authority over him because as President of the Senate, he's in the Legislative Branch.
To me, the contempt for oversight, legality, acountablity, coherence, ... it doesn't matter whether it's Rovian or Cheney.
I don't know why you continue to go on about the harassment scandal as the worst thing in the world Mulcair could have done.
Since we're both agreed that neither of those two female MP's are secret "honey-pot" traps for those male Liberal MPs, we're left with conceding that genuine harassment took place.
Now, for whatever reason, both those women imagined that Trudeau could take care of this privately.
We're BOTH agreed that, in fact, Trudeau had no choice but to respond as he did.
This though, upset the two NDP MPs, who relayed their upsetness to Mulcair, who, hating Trudeau's guts, complained about it.
That was unfair, but not entirely inexplicable, and not the lowest thing ever.
Especially given the Liberals' disgusting teaming-up with the goddamned harpercons to press these bullshit charges about NDP satellite offices and NDP use of political flyers.
Look, neither party has covered itself in glory. Mulcair is an apologist for Zionist massacres. He weeped like an idiot when scum-bag Jim Flaherty died. He fuking hugged harper after the gunman's assault on the Hill.
But here, in declaring that the NDP's mildly social-democratic/1970s Liberal platform shit platform is more irksome than harper's Rovian/Cheneyian/Straussian evil, it was JT who pulled the boner.
And we were never in any danger of the IMF in the 1990s. Linda McQuaig wrote about how a New York bond-rater gave us a good review and Canadian elite politicos and pundits called him up and complained that he was making their austerity policies harder to sell.
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