Buzz off, Hargrove
Preening union leaders who think the NDP should collectively kiss their asses - I dislike them as much as I loathe Conservatives. Bob White, Sid Ryan, Jack Munro, Dennis McDermott, Dave Haggard (freshly thrashed 56% to 23% as a Fiberal candidate in Vancouver East), and this what's-his-hat with the lame nickname and the huge attitude. 'Buzz', yes, that's it. I thought we left stupid nicknames to the Americans, like 'Scooter' Libby and 'Lips' Bush, which Kitty Kelley claims was bestowed upon GWB in college for his skill at giving blowjobs to his frat buddies. Come to think of it, strike Sid Ryan off the list of shame for now, because he at least has run twice now as a federal NDP candidate, in Oshawa, demonstrating his commitment to the party he tries to boss around. None of the others has run for the New Democrats.
Buzz is all hurt and confounded that the Ontario NDP has suspended his membership pending a written commitment not to attempt to play electoral God again and shaft the party he has 'proudly' been a part of for 41 years. Because the provincial sections of the NDP are at one structurally with the federal party, the suspension is valid at both levels. Hargrove says Paul Martin hugged him, not the other way around, and I'm sure new fascist Justice Minister Vic Toews will want to have Martin charged for forcing unwanted same-sex attention on someone, on TV no less, where impressionable children might be watching and get ideas about that sleepover coming up on the weekend. Getting back to Buzz, he said it was perfectly OK to call on people to vote Liberal or Bloc in many ridings, instead of the NDP, so as to minimize the number of Tory wins. He also noted that his Canadian Auto Workers had endorsed this strategic voting stand, so it was doubly OK for him to do it.
Problems. I used to be a card-carrying (cauldron-stirring) NDP member, in both Alberta (I know, I know) and BC (same to you). The back of the card, to which each member affixed his or her signature, stated bluntly that the signatory committed NOT to support any other political party in any way. I assume that this little proviso is commonplace for NDP memberships across the country, though I am prepared to be corrected on this score. If Buzz has been a member for 41 years, he must have at least once or twice glanced at the back of his card and noticed this. Second, this strategic voting stuff might make sense for an individual unaffiliated voter, but not for a fucking longtime executive member of a political party fighting an election campaign, particularly one in which it stood to make substantial gains in union strongholds like big-city and northern Ontario and BC. Third, I don't care what the CAW decided. Yes, they're affiliated with the NDP, but they are not THE NDP. The NDP, of which Hargrove was an executive member, never decided that strategic voting was the message they wanted to broadcast to party members and voters in general. And the CAW is hardly the most progressive organization. Federal NDP conventions often draw truly embarrassing policy resolutions from the CAW, including such democratic socialist gems as the restoration of capital punishment.
Jack Layton has opened his smug mouth and said he wouldn't have chosen to suspend Hargrove. Way to stick up for your party, Jack, and its principles and democratic structures. And to think I was actually liking him in the last campaign, where he performed far better, in my opinion, than in 2004, reversing his bumbling and quiet response to Martin's strategic voting appeals and his Howdy-Doody impression during the leaders' debates. So, Buzz thinks he's above the commitments that ordinary NDP members make when they join the party, and Jack's OK with that. They deserve each other, but I'm not sure the party deserves either of them.
I like what NDP leader Carole James has done in BC, democratizing the party further by curtailing the ridiculously inflated union power that in effect gave members of affiliates two - or even more - votes in party affairs. It was heartbreaking at the 1995 federal NDP convention to see my candidate Svend Robinson gangbanged (in a bad way) by union operatives from the Steelworkers and their allies, who imported warm bodies at the last minute to fill their delegate entitlements and ensure that a homo didn't win the leadership. These machinations were the work of a few people and there was nothing I as an NDP member could do to have input into those decisions. The rule clearly was that the NDP couldn't interfere in union matters(even if they directly impacted the NDP), but the unions were to get their way in the NDP, lest they withdraw their funding.
Unions are a vital part of progressive politics and education in this country and I would love to see them get stronger in many ways, and in particular I would like to see the long decline in union membership decisively reversed. This is a completely different matter, however, from the arbitrary and self-serving exercise of power within a democratic party, almost always to the detriment of the party itself and the movement as a whole.
As Marianne Faithfull said, Buzz, "you're a brain drain, you go on and on like a blood stain." Time for you to suck face with the Fiberals for real, or else get serious - after 41 years - about backing the party you claim you love.
Buzz is all hurt and confounded that the Ontario NDP has suspended his membership pending a written commitment not to attempt to play electoral God again and shaft the party he has 'proudly' been a part of for 41 years. Because the provincial sections of the NDP are at one structurally with the federal party, the suspension is valid at both levels. Hargrove says Paul Martin hugged him, not the other way around, and I'm sure new fascist Justice Minister Vic Toews will want to have Martin charged for forcing unwanted same-sex attention on someone, on TV no less, where impressionable children might be watching and get ideas about that sleepover coming up on the weekend. Getting back to Buzz, he said it was perfectly OK to call on people to vote Liberal or Bloc in many ridings, instead of the NDP, so as to minimize the number of Tory wins. He also noted that his Canadian Auto Workers had endorsed this strategic voting stand, so it was doubly OK for him to do it.
Problems. I used to be a card-carrying (cauldron-stirring) NDP member, in both Alberta (I know, I know) and BC (same to you). The back of the card, to which each member affixed his or her signature, stated bluntly that the signatory committed NOT to support any other political party in any way. I assume that this little proviso is commonplace for NDP memberships across the country, though I am prepared to be corrected on this score. If Buzz has been a member for 41 years, he must have at least once or twice glanced at the back of his card and noticed this. Second, this strategic voting stuff might make sense for an individual unaffiliated voter, but not for a fucking longtime executive member of a political party fighting an election campaign, particularly one in which it stood to make substantial gains in union strongholds like big-city and northern Ontario and BC. Third, I don't care what the CAW decided. Yes, they're affiliated with the NDP, but they are not THE NDP. The NDP, of which Hargrove was an executive member, never decided that strategic voting was the message they wanted to broadcast to party members and voters in general. And the CAW is hardly the most progressive organization. Federal NDP conventions often draw truly embarrassing policy resolutions from the CAW, including such democratic socialist gems as the restoration of capital punishment.
Jack Layton has opened his smug mouth and said he wouldn't have chosen to suspend Hargrove. Way to stick up for your party, Jack, and its principles and democratic structures. And to think I was actually liking him in the last campaign, where he performed far better, in my opinion, than in 2004, reversing his bumbling and quiet response to Martin's strategic voting appeals and his Howdy-Doody impression during the leaders' debates. So, Buzz thinks he's above the commitments that ordinary NDP members make when they join the party, and Jack's OK with that. They deserve each other, but I'm not sure the party deserves either of them.
I like what NDP leader Carole James has done in BC, democratizing the party further by curtailing the ridiculously inflated union power that in effect gave members of affiliates two - or even more - votes in party affairs. It was heartbreaking at the 1995 federal NDP convention to see my candidate Svend Robinson gangbanged (in a bad way) by union operatives from the Steelworkers and their allies, who imported warm bodies at the last minute to fill their delegate entitlements and ensure that a homo didn't win the leadership. These machinations were the work of a few people and there was nothing I as an NDP member could do to have input into those decisions. The rule clearly was that the NDP couldn't interfere in union matters(even if they directly impacted the NDP), but the unions were to get their way in the NDP, lest they withdraw their funding.
Unions are a vital part of progressive politics and education in this country and I would love to see them get stronger in many ways, and in particular I would like to see the long decline in union membership decisively reversed. This is a completely different matter, however, from the arbitrary and self-serving exercise of power within a democratic party, almost always to the detriment of the party itself and the movement as a whole.
As Marianne Faithfull said, Buzz, "you're a brain drain, you go on and on like a blood stain." Time for you to suck face with the Fiberals for real, or else get serious - after 41 years - about backing the party you claim you love.
posted by Exile | 6:33 PM
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