Sunday, May 15, 2011

Party partisanship...

...is bullshit. Because they're all a duplicitous bunch of fucks. At least the Aussies were up front about wandering into Iraq in their limited way.

I've run into that level of power a few times and sensed acutely that it's largely a elite boys club where, in these great liberal democracies we have, the run off cliffs like so many lemmings. Wait. I should correct myself. It isn't those paper-skinned men in suits who fall into the sea. No, it's the poor plebes that happen fall under their bombs, or put a flag on their arm and a rifle butt in their shoulder thinking they're out to do some good. Queen and country, peace and democracy? No fucking way, sir. At the end of the day, even a Prime Minister Jack Fucking Layton would likely get drawn into packing the troops off on whatever great crusade the other international intellectual defectives come up with next.


Why anyone would become a card carrying member of any political party is beyond me.

11 comments:

West End Bob said...

Thank The Universe for WikiLeaks and other whistle-blowing sites or we'd never find out what governments are doing "behind closed doors."

It's no wonder the Excited States Justice Dept. is attempting to prosecute Assange - He's allowing too many people to see the emperor has no clothes . . . .

H7N9 Watch said...

The media's a decade late on this story. It should have been obvious from the fact that we had as many military assets in the Gulf as we did in the Gulf War that we weren't just sending all those ships there by coincidence.

Ah, well. I hope they never get away with extraditing Assange. I doubt they'd like it if China attempted to extradite an American for breaking Chinese censorship laws... I wonder why the same principle doesn't apply...

Niles said...

My fuzzy brain seems to recall there were stories at the time about Canadian military being in the area and giving support in the area, ie controlling/patrolling/logistics, but not being on the direct firing lines.

Is this different from that?

susansmith said...

Not sure what this has to do with Layton considering it was about the Liberals.

I disagree with your final comment - NDP don't like supporting corporate warmakers!

Anonymous said...

Niles
You're right, even if we picked up more duties in the Gulf and released US and UK assets to Iraq, we would have been playing a role in Iraq.

Jan
Layton would have had to fit into a pre-existing system of career officials and would have been assimilated into the borg. Once in power it is amazing how many things cannot be changed or will take longer than expected to change.

Dana said...

Jan surrenders her rational functions once the three letter acronym of her deity is present.

Niles said...

Didn't the Aussies get out of Iraq in July '09 after a government change? Wouldn't that bely the notion that all people getting into politics and then into national government are the same slithery varmints so don't bother seeking anyone different?

Naive as it might be, Canadian party membership allows a person to find out more about who's in the 'boys club' and attempt to swing the representatives/policies of the favoured party; that party being favoured because its policies are already tilting towards an individual's interests(or not, if you get into the discussion a party can be undermined by those gaming the system to crash it).

I'm just grateful it's an internal system membership you can quit/switch at any time if motives part ways.

We're not like the American system where we MUST be a member of a registered 'party' to vote (where sometimes Independents are not even allowed) and in many cases, MUST vote the same party ticket on all positions up for filling that election.

Personally, I'm waiting to hear from Mr. Layton on the war situation, as Opposition Leader. No need to wait for him as PM. He has no clout against Harper's majority except for publicity. Will he get any for something other than one woman MP the press are frankly harrassing at the expense of everything, *anything* else?

croghan27 said...

JAY-SUS, poor Jack .... he has to put up with a very biased media that would criticize his spelling if he wrote the Magna Carta.

Now he is attacked, not for something he has done, supported oendorseded .. but for something he could do/might do, even as he has spent years railing against.

Layton is a very good and successful politician - he could do well within (the old) Liberal Party and probably inside Mr. Harper's bunch.

He stood with his 14 members of the NDP in 2002 and opposed going to Iraq. Why suspect he would change now?

Anonymous said...

Niles
The Aussies did pull out in May 2009 and it was an election pledge. But they didn't leave until after the Brits (which wasn't an election pledge) and was done after a fixed deadline had been announced by the US.
It looked like it was going to happen anyway. The pledge was made because it could easily be kept with little loss of face abroad while gaining maximum brownie points at home.
Parties are the root cause of a lot of the issues because loyalty to the party comes before duty to ones constituency. And scoring points against the other parties becomes paramount. As well as costing nothing, this pledge was a poke in the eye for the opposition.

Boris said...

Harebell gets at my point. I'd also add that at that level power, there's a whole other social and psychological dynamic at work that can cloud priorities and judgments.

Blogger ate my last response on this thread, but I'd sketched out the following scenario.

PM Layton/NDP gov want to place restrictions on the Canadian arms industry. However, he also has to cater to union interests given that they are big NDP constituents. The unions, not to mention the arms makers, figure out that the plan will hurt them because it impacts their ability to keep people employed/turn a profit. What does the NDP govt do? Produce weak legislation that barks louder than it bites? Leave the issue alone?

Rev.Paperboy said...

Niles,
In the US one registers as a Democrat, Republican or Independent - which allows you to vote in the primaries held by the party under which you have registered. When the actual election is held you can vote however you like. There is no requirement that you vote the way you are registered or that you vote a straight ticket.