Why I'm Mourning Mulcair's Win (thetyee.ca)
By Murray Dobbin
Issues Pages:
Regions:
Thomas Mulcair, the right-wing Liberal, pro-Israel, political bully
Mon, 2012-03-26 17:40
#1
Thomas Mulcair, the right-wing Liberal, pro-Israel, political bully
Mon, 2012-03-26 17:44
#2
Yes, like I say in the UNITY thread, Unite to Stop Harper, Murray is better at it than perhaps any in the Cons' camp.
Mon, 2012-03-26 17:50
#3
Mulcair was the first- and even second-ballot choice of barely a third of the party members who voted.
Among the other two-thirds, antipathy towards him was never far below the surface of the convention — even to the point of a rare public bashing by a former party leader, iconic NDPer Ed Broadbent, on CBC’s Power and Politics with Evan Solomon.
Mulcair's move toward the centre, jettisoning the NDP's traditional socialist roots along the way, is a virtual guarantee large numbers of the rank and file won't follow without a fight for their long-held causes.
Already, this is a party lacking enthusiasm in the wake of Jack Layton's death.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2012/03/25/pol-vp-weston-mulcair.html
Mon, 2012-03-26 17:51
#4
NDP Frays Over Mulcair's Candidacy For Party Leader - by Carl Bronski
http://wsws.org/articles/2012/mar2012/cndp-m23.shtml
"...There is no doubt that Mulcair seeks to move the NDP further to the right. But the trajectory he is following is that uniformly pursued by social democratic parties around the world and which was championed by none other than the party's 'sainted' late leader Jack Layton..."
Mon, 2012-03-26 17:55
#5
Like Murray Dobbin says, New Democrats aren't great readers. Thank Christ when they ae pesented with these ratty ideological scrapings. You probably didn't see question period today and the marvelous showing by a great many in the NDP caucus. :)
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:05
#6
Good thing my irony meter was already broken, otherwise the thought of someone chastizing all of us for not being left enough using Greg Weston would have shattered it.
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:09
#7
The NDP Leadership Convention: Expectations and Reality - by Don Currie
http://www.focusonsocialism.ca/random.asp?ID=651#_ftnl
"..Within the narrow boundaries of social reformist class-collaborationist politics, the just concluded NDP Convention upheld the view that image trumps substance. Using that measure to determine the outcome of the leadership convention, the NDP has moved to the right...To be popular, the NDP establishment wanted that outcome. That makes the task of labour, peace and democratic activists more difficult. There is a discernible movement among voters for a change in capitalist Parliamentary politics that will not be denied and may not go to the NDP if it continues to move right.."
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:10
#8
Time for a "hostile takeover" of the Green Party?
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:13
#9
The NDP Leadership Convention: Expectations and Reality - by Don Currie
http://www.focusonsocialism.ca/random.asp?ID=651#_ftnl
"..Within the narrow boundaries of social reformist class-collaborationist politics, the just concluded NDP Convention upheld the view that image trumps substance. Using that measure to determine the outcome of the leadership convention, the NDP has moved to the right...To be popular, the NDP establishment wanted that outcome. That makes the task of labour, peace and democratic activists more difficult. There is a discernible movement among voters for a change in capitalist Parliamentary politics that will not be denied and may not go to the NDP if it continues to move right.."
I guess the endorsement of the largest private sector union in the country (that's the UFCWs folks) didn't register on any of these insta-pundits.
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:13
#10
Murray's chastisement of us comes from one not caught up in the Acute Immmediacy of the crisis for so many. So just as this babbler thought theory should come first:
"Cheering on more free trade for the Canadian branch of global capitalism is not the way for the NDP to support workers.
"An NDP government should renegotiate NAFTA and place Buy Canadian rules in key sectors of the economy, certainly in the energy sector but also in monopolies like CN rail - maybe that way Electro-Motive would still be in London Ontario. And that way Canadian workers would be able to buy lots of groceries in UFCW grocery stores. And in this week's news, the same deal with Air Canada hiving off its maintenance first to a separate company in Montreal and now to El Salvador?
"Gaian, you live in Ontario, right? How is global free-trade working out for Ontario manufacturing right now? If the NDP embraces the free trade agenda, workers in many provinces and sectors will lose their jobs. The Conservatives and Liberals have done a fine job selling out the country to global capital, the NDP doesn't need to join in."
---And he never, ever, came to understand the situation facing working people NOW
"gaian wrote:
As you put it, HUH? You expect the workers at the checkout to survive while you fulfill your damp dream of doing away with NAFTA? Right."
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:16
#11
The same link is being posted here and in the Thomas Mulcair for Prime Minister.. Perhaps we can combine both threads into a "Mulcair Discussion" thread and no one will feel overly complicit by contributing to an unpleasantly-named thread ;)
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:17
#12
Sounds like some people are just happier losing. Then they never have to take responsibility for anything.
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:17
#13
Boom Boom
On P&P just now: "FEAR THE BEARD!" 
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:18
#14
Boom Boom
I'm more happy that I voted for Mulcair than I was when I cast my vote. He was awesome in the Mansbridge interview, and quite good tonight against Evan Solomon on P&P. If he and the caucus can keep this up for the next three years, I think the NDP will have a good shot at finally forming the next government.
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:19
#15
According to Mulcair, "They offered me two senior posts, one as head of a federal agency in environment, the other as a senior advisor." But once he learned he would have to toe the government's line in attacking the Kyoto Accords (on limiting greenhouse gas emissions) and suppress his disagreements with the government on several other environmental issues, Mulcair rejected the Conservative overtures. Or so he claims.
Sources from within the Conservative Party, who admittedly have an interest in damaging Mulcair's credibility, claim that the real reason the negotiations fell apart was that Mulcair insisted on a cabinet post as his price for helping the government burnish its environmental credentials.
But Mulcair quit the Liberals and rejected the Conservative government's request for him to lend credibility to their anti-Kyoto, anti-environmental agenda. And instead of providing us with the obvious reasons why the environmentally responsible Mulcair rejected those two parties is because of their actual records in government for polluting the environment and betraying voters with their promises to do otherwise. That is the most obvious explanation which Bronski neglects to mention.
Why would Mulcair reject a top job in government and political limelight if he just another conservabral?
Mulcair did not consider the federal Liberals is that they were the ones who sold the environment to Exxon-Imperial and fossil fuel industry and not the NDP. Bronski makes no mention of that fact, either.
If the NDP are just like the two old line parties in federal government, then Bronski should be able to point us to a federal record of NDP government to examine. He can't. He can't because it doesn't exist the same as his equating the federal NDP with those parties that have actual historical records in government for every Canadian to examine. That's not bs, it's the truth.
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:19
#16
Yep, Boomer, that's the level of criticism.
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:25
#17
Why did Mulcair never consider joing the Green Party, or the natural law party?
And why on earth did Mulcair reject top government jobs with the Conservabrals if he's just another Bay Street stooge?
He was just lusting after power and planned to take a road less(as in never before) traveled to federal power with the NDP all along? Is that why?
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:26
#18
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:28
#19
Tom Mulcair "lusting after power .."
You missed Olivia's response to that one from the Cons? Priceless.
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:43
#20
I will judge Mulcair's NDP after their first term in federal government and not a minute sooner.
Because right now Ottawa is about as far to the political right as its ever been. We have no government, really. They are just colonial administrators and tax collectors for the corporatocracy.
And these Reform Party retreads tend to rubberstamp U.S. takeovers of our economy same as the Liberals and Tories before them.
The truth is that Ottawa swung so far to the right since 1975 that they've met themselves on the way back. We actually could not swing much further to the political right in Canada without eliminating socialized medicine altogether and moving to a U.S.-style system of free market health care where only those with lives worth living can afford to see a doctor.
If the NDP can save socialized medicine and rollback the rollbacks to 1990s levels, then Canada might be as far to the political right as we were by 1991.
It took decades to push Canada this far to the right, so what's the hurry on the return trip? Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither will social democracy or democracy in general be achieved in Canada over one single four-year term in power. It's time to be realistic imo.
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:47
#21
I missed Judy's take on Tom's environmental position...his telling Charest to shove the ministry when the park w2as threatened, and his statement that he didn't want his kids and grandkids to be left with our leavings, sort of impressed this granddad, and quite a few more, I'll bet. Maybe Judy is just not into Earth things and it doesn't cross her radar.
But this one by Judy really left me scratching my head: "My view is that the NDP has elected an old-style patriarchal politician who has the same politics vis-a-vis Quebec as the pre-Jack NDP, seeing sovereigntists as bitter enemies instead of potential allies, is more of a liberal than a social democrat and who will move the party to the right especially on international issues, including free trade and Israel, two issues at the centre of Harper’s agenda."
As I was able to tell Tom a couple of weeks back, I was on the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway engineering crew when Duplessis died,just up the line in Schefferville, and I watched those young guys around me develop into real Social Democrats. "It took you 50 years to bring them on board federally," I said, to a fella who would have been five years old at the time, "but better late than never."
My joke was appreciated, but Judy does not seem to appreciate the nature of Jack and Tom's triumph...or much else, apparently.
Mon, 2012-03-26 18:55
#22
While we are all suspending judgement for the next seven years, does that mean we need to talk, campaign and rule right (center) so we can maybe have a shot at implementing something from a social democratic agenda AFTER a first term in government? Wouldn't it have been easier to just vote for the Liberal party?
It's frightening the way the rank and file is falling all over ourselves to jettison long-held principles so as to be deemed worthy of the big chair. What about vigilantly holding the party leadership to a social democratic agenda? Not on any more?
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:03
#23
Boom Boom
While we are all suspending judgement for the next seven years,
I have no idea what you meant by that.
It's frightening the way the rank and file is falling all over ourselves to jettison long-held principles
Such as?
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:05
#24
By gum I just hope and pray we don't shift any further to the political right in Ottawa. Let's never allow that to happen.
Because any further to the right will mean that we've been pushed over a cliff compared to about 15 other OECD capitalist countries further to the left than Canada.
Before we can climb into the gutter, we first have to climb out of the sewer. Maybe the gutter is where we ought to be.
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:11
#25
Were you about to quote Oscar Wilde there, Fidel?
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars".
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:29
#26
Were you about to quote Oscar Wilde there, Fidel?
"We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars".
Nothing so literary. And perhaps that quote was borrowed for the sake of a Hollywood movie.
Gene Hackman in a scene from Mississippi Burning when he and Dafoe are standing in a field in the pouring rain discussing tactics.
I think sometimes agents of change along the road to overall change are not so memorable but still necessary in the greater scheme of things. I think it's always been a game of inches and small victories. A good football analogy might come in handy. Bronko Nagurski perhaps. Bears v Cardinals final game 1935?
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:29
#27
Well, maybe it is.
Dobbin doing self parody?
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:29
#28
Wrong thread.
I was expecting satire.
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:32
#29
It's frightening the way the rank and file is falling all over ourselves to jettison long-held principles
Such as?
-Re-open NAFTA
-Progressive tax system
-Proportional representation
Two down, one to go.
*Layton's position on NAFTA detailed here by poster [i]theArchitect[/i]: http://rabble.ca/comment/1327264
I really don't want to bash Mulcair before he's had a chance to show and prove, he deserves every chance. I'm just appalled at rank and filers on here suddenly cool with the NDP being cool with NAFTA.
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:33
#30
Could you wait to see how Mulcair performs before claiming he's a "right-wing bully"? And stop giving credibility to Liberal and Conservative pundits who are eager to claim that the NDP is breaking up because they hope that by saying it often enough, it will become true. This is their game, divide and conquer, they want to split us up.
Please don't give in to the stereotype that New Democrats just want a protest party, that the last thing they want is to govern. If you want to change things, to really change things, you need power. You don't get to change the world by always sitting outside the room where decisions are made. If the principled refuse power, only those without principle will have power.
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:37
#31
I'm surprised it took so long for this thread to get going - you're slacking!
This crap is straight out of the Liberal's playbook.
No wonder so many progressives drift away from here but quite understandable with nonsensical threads like this. Too bad!
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:38
#32
Liberals who?
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:41
#33
I'm surprised it took so long for this thread to get going - you're slacking!
This crap is straight out of the Liberal's playbook.
I suspect the Liberal Party will focus much of its attacks on the Sherbrooke Declaration.
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:43
#34
I'll hold up and not get ahead of myself here, it's only day 2 with the new leader. But I hope we don't spend the next 3 or more years winking at each other as the NDP turns into a perfectly acceptable liberal party.
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:44
#35
When did the country make a right turn? That's what I'd like to know.
I think some of us think that if we wait long enough and hold-out for the perfect party in government, the job will be easier.
And it won't be.
We wouldn't wait 35 years to brush our teeth. So why would we think having the same two parties in government with the exact same political agendas on the right doesn't result in decay and rot in Ottawa?
What could have been a checkup and teeth cleaning 25 years ago has become super-gingivitis and major dental surgery. And I'm sorry but it will require more than one appointment.
It's just the way it is.
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:46
#36
Liberals who?
What's a Liberal?
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:51
#37
It's absolutely on as long as you realize there are constraints that aren't exactly easy to work in. The amount of revenue the federal government has to pay for programs won't be (unless we get extraordinarily lucky) much larger than it is today. There's spending to be shifted around from unnecessary or ineffective programs like the F-35 purchase and prison expansions but there is a limit and these represent real people losing real jobs too (if you suppose the union representing corrections officers will be thrilled with layoffs, you would be wrong). The case needs to be made for higher taxes and that's an uphill battle, especially while stories of government waste and ineffectiveness abound. Deciding who to whack, for how much and with what economic effect isn't simple. Our opponents won't be standing by twiddling their thumbs while the NDP governs in what they believe to be their place either.
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:57
#38
AS I said this BS is right out of the LPC playbook. Unsuccessful Mulcair means we would be forced to merge rather than just let the Liberals die the slow painful death they deserve. People starting threads like this should be ashamed of themselves. Dobbin's a Liberal. And if he isn't he should be, and we should take up a collection to buy him a membership in the LPC. This is so obvious LPC strategy
If Mulcair can’t hold the NDP’s gains, the merger whispers will begin
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/03/26/wayne-k-spear-if-mulcair-...
Mon, 2012-03-26 19:59
#39
I voted for Mulcair. I also think a lot of the emotional anti-Mulcair reactions I have seen in the past 2 days have been too simplistic. However, I'd like to know where the line is drawn between legitimate criticism (especially from the left) and "divisiveness", being a liberal stooge,etc. Don't forget, this isn't an official NDP message board, no one has to be ashamed of themselves just yet.
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:01
#40
The crank'nfile should really be tuning into CPAC right now. Just watched a brilliant youngster, Hoang Mai, do a beautiful job of summing the NDP position on Aveo, and the Conservative failure to meet the law.
Then came Francoise Boivin to to explain why she had supported Topp...she wanted to ensure the French presence was appreciated. So her second choice was....Mulcair, of course, for the same reason.
These wonderful, hard-working people don't deserve the shit of threads like this.
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:03
#41
AS I said this BS is right out of the LPC playbook. Unsuccessful Mulcair means we would be forced to merge rather than just let the Liberals die the slow painful death they deserve. People starting threads like this should be ashamed of themselves. Dobbin's a Liberal. And if he isn't he should be, and we should take up a collection to buy him a membership in the LPC. This is so obvious LPC strategy
If Mulcair can’t hold the NDP’s gains, the merger whispers will begin
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/03/26/wayne-k-spear-if-mulcair-...
Just curious, do you have Post Media as your wallpaper?
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:08
#42
I believe the point - and it's well taken- is that you don't have to turn to the National |Post to find this level of criticism, no joshing.
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:09
#43
Just curious, do you have Post Media as your wallpaper?^Prince charming
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:13
#44
Does anyone have a link to Mulcair on P&P today?
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:16
#45
The crank'nfile should really be tuning into CPAC right now. Just watched a brilliant youngster, Hoang Mai, do a beautiful job of summing the NDP position on Aveo, and the Conservative failure to meet the law. Then came Francoise Boivin to to explain why she had supported Topp...she wanted to ensure the French presence was appreciated. So her second choice was....Mulcair, of course, for the same reason. These wonderful, hard-working people don't deserve the shit of threads like this.
I find deciding between the NDP and the Harpers is a lot like choosing between wine and swill. Some swill drinkers swear it's not so bad that they would switch, though. I suppose it's an acquired taste.
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:19
#46
You know what, I know a few Liberal supporters who could match anyone here for their dedication to progressive causes , and not taking any shit from anyone. So support whatever party you like, but these derogatory labels are bullshit.
For that matter, I can't say that I know any progressive conservatives now, but I used to.
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:20
#47
The crank'nfile should really be tuning into CPAC right now. Just watched a brilliant youngster, Hoang Mai, do a beautiful job of summing the NDP position on Aveo, and the Conservative failure to meet the law. Then came Francoise Boivin to to explain why she had supported Topp...she wanted to ensure the French presence was appreciated. So her second choice was....Mulcair, of course, for the same reason. These wonderful, hard-working people don't deserve the shit of threads like this.I find deciding between the NDP and the Harpers is a lot like choosing between wine and swill. Some swill drinkers swear it's not so bad that they would switch, though. I suppose it's an acquired taste.
I've no idea what idea you are trying to work up here, Fidel. Must you be quite so obtuse? :)
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:22
#48
And I think we should encourage everyone to vote strategically for the NDP next election. Really.
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:23
#49
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:49
#50
And I think we should encourage everyone to vote strategically for the NDP next election. Really.
It pains me to read that, having always opposed strategic voting. It would be another of my life's ironies if in the next election I began to encourage my Liberal friends, who previously had encouraged me to vote strategically for the Libs, to now do the same but for the NDP.
Mon, 2012-03-26 20:59
#51
chimurenga
BREAKING NEWS : ANTICHRIST UNACCOUNTABLY ELECTED NDP LEADER
A lot of people are taking their cues on Mulcair from the mainstream media and the Conservative Party. Even the word "opportunist" has come up in some folks' posts to describe Mulcair, and that word came straight from the Conservative propagandists - quickly, and rightly, denounced by Mulcair and others as absurd, given the state of the NDP in QC when he joined 5 years ago. There's a lot of hysteria in progressive circles, but it should be calmed by Mulcair's actions of the past two days... from keeping on Libby Davies as dep leader, to his interview with Evan Solomon, which, minute for minute, had more accute and progressive content than we've seen for some time. And anyway, if Mulcair should prove problematic at some point, are we powerless to do anything about it? Of course not. The whole point of a party like the NDP (unlike the others) is that it's an ongoing discussion, the leader isn't in a position to lead by diktat.