Thursday, July 03, 2014

Party Poly-ticks

Perhaps it's the nature of party politics that eventually causes parties to abdicate themselves of their founding principles. Political parties come into existence with ideological agendas and a set of corresponding positions and policies. It's what makes them political parties.

Eventually though, parties lose themselves in politics. The Conservatives, whether Reform or a proper Tory variety, used to at least have some kind of honesty (brains?) regarding what they were about and tried to conduct government responsibly, at least as far as they saw it. Mulroney tried to sort Quebec, and NA/FTA fit within their vision. They liked nice suits, unity and business, and none were in the dark about it. Then the Great Grey Glans's Western faction of self-centred and piss-ignorant junior officers and cadets launched their coup and promptly fracked the place with what the rest of us know as authoritarian fascism (or abject thuggery). I really don't think that they could actually describe what they are.

Now the party that should really be the diametric opposite of all that is the HarperCons (including focusing on the party, not its expendable leader on the website) has embraced Tony Blair's (TONY BLAIR!) Giddens-y black-is-white, up-is-down, help-confused-voters-sleep-at-night, third-way mumbojumbo which saw Blair's Labour sign-up to an American Neocon war that continues to slaughter innocents to this day. At least our LIBERALS saw that thing for what it was.


Congratulations, NDP: You're now worse than useless.

4 comments:

Alison said...

Boris, did you read this? Canada's Third Way.

Boris said...

No, I hadn't, thanks. There's a dire need for a serious alternative vision, or we're all sunk. I hope the various leftwing causes and groups in Canada can find common ground but I don't have a lot of hope. I might post on this at somepoint, but briefly, in my recent experience the radicals are young and seem more geared toward individual identity self-affirmation and emotional-ideological infighting than finding common ground and collective vision or even understanding the need for it.

Edstock said...

"the radicals are young and seem more geared toward individual identity self-affirmation and emotional-ideological infighting than finding common ground and collective vision or even understanding the need for it" — um, like the Talking Heads song goes, "Same as it ever was".

Actually, it's a case of the political who cannot see the forest for all the trees.

You see, the real key to the problem is that the people we NEED to reach are the not-so-radical.

The Mound of Sound said...

What is most galling to me is that Harper has been clear since he came to Ottawa that his prime goal was to move Canada's political centre well and permanently to the right. Both the Libs and the NDP have been Harper's water bearers in achieving this objective.

Our kids and grandkids will pay dearly for it if we leave the Left adrift. The Left is the beating heart of social cohesion and those who follow us will need an abundance of that if they're to weather the challenges that will batter them this century.

Broadbent has been pretty complacent about this business beyond his initial reservations about Mulcair. I wish David Lewis was still alive.