Liberal Policy Convention

[Reverend Blair]

The Liberal Policy Convention is this weekend. Sadly, it looks likely to be a non-event. Only a couple thousand delegates are showing up and any attempts to oust Martin will be kept in the backrooms...probably the back rooms in cities far away from the convention.

Anyway, what would you all like to see in this convention?

Here's my list.

1. Shiela Copps and Carolyn Parrish in a tag-team cage match against Paul Martin and Ann McLellan.

2. For Justin Trudeau to show up wearing a cape and challenge Paul Martin to a duel.

3. For Bono to show up and bitch-slap Paul Martin for being a grandstanding liar.

 

[missile]

Numero uno for me,especially if they make it a barbwire cage match!

 

[Vanni Fucci]

Re: RE: Liberal Policy Convention

Numero uno for me,especially if they make it a barbwire cage match!

...and come in wielding cattle prods... :twisted:

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Liberal Policy Conven

Actually with the timing of Chretien's attempt to have Gomery removed this could get interesting.

I don't think the timing of that was wholly coincidental somehow.

 

[zenfisher]

Rev... no all of the above category...

 

[HOCK]

Sounds like you are all against Mr Martin, although I would like to see #1 with the barb wire cage........do we have anyone any better? Harper?? Layton??? Duceppe??????? They all have their hidden agenda and we probably don't know 3/4's of what goes on. If they spent as much time on running the country instead of the in house fighting, we'd have a great country.

 

[tibear]

Problem is the Liberals have probably had the most in-house fighting of any party and they still have to run the country.

They can barely keep a civil caucus meeting never mind planning how to run the country.

Thank God the civil servants are the ones really running the country because most of politicians are too busy ramming their noses up the backside of their perceived political horse that is going to pull them up the party hierarchy.

 

[Reverend Blair]

Snippet of an e-mail from a Liberal friend:

Would somebody please invite Frank McKenna to the meeting. We need to tell him the policy.

:lol:

It isn't that I'm against Paul Martin, Hock. I just think that since he keeps going on all these trips that he should actually do something about foreign aid. I just think that since we have to meet our Kyoto targets, he should have a comprhensive plan on how to do that.

I never thought I'd miss Jean Chretien, but at least he was funny.

As for who would be better...Looking at straight policy, Jack Layton has the plan. Not only that, but much of it is the plan that Martin ran on.

 

[HOCK]

Have to agree with tibear after dealing with the government from the Military side....but who doesn't have those in house fights, especially when you're the guys / girls in power.
Rev - Jack Layton???? if all were used car salesmen, he'd be the last guy I would go to - not that he looks the crook part??
I think we are all going down hill and the 8O bottoms going to drop out soon (before George W leaves office - and it will probably be his fault)

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Liberal Policy Conven

Layton is the only one that hasn't been caught outright lying. He is also the one with the platform that most closely matches what Canadians say they want in polls.

 

[SirKevin]

If you read Layton's book (which was released on the eve of the last election campaign to boost his policy credentials) you would see that he far and away has the best policy for this country.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Liberal Policy Conven

Layton has a book?

Just kidding...read it, mailed it to my brother. He claims to still have it.

Throughout my entire life, and I really ain't as young as I'd like to think anymore, I've been watching this pattern. People say, when polled, that they like certain policies. Those policies tend to match the NDP platform. The Liberals run stressing how similar their platform is to the NDP's. They win. The Liberals implement policies that look like the PC/Reform/Alliance/Conservative platform. The PC/Reform/Alliance/Conservatives complain that the policies that the Liberals are implememting are too left wing.

 

[Vanni Fucci]

I have a co-worker here that is a huge supporter of the Conservative Party...he's a vice-president of something or other in the party...and I delight in teasing him about cross-burnings and such...anyway, he started bad-mouthing Jack and the NDP platform, so I pulled up the site, and went through the platform with him...every point that the NDP had in their platform he said he could support in his own party...

I got pissed off and started yelling at him..."Why the f**k are you so involved in the Conservative Party for then???"

He said "because they are more fiscally responsible...and because they are more likely to win"

...well not likely...but I get the sense of that everywhere...that no one really takes the NDP seriously enough to support them...and I think that goes back to the vilification of socialism in Canada back in the '60s, which we somehow can't seem to outgrow...very distressing, because I think Jack would do a bang up job at the helm of our country...

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Liberal Policy Conven

It's really bizarre, Vanni. I've been in this since I was a little kid. My grandmother used to take me to the meetings when she was looking after me. Since then I've actually learned about all of politics and how they work. I even flirted with reform-conservatism in my rebellious youth, but we got beat up for not hating Pakistanis. It was bizarre and hurt a lot, but I learned an important lesson that night.

Some of the problem is the NDP sabotaging themselves. Ever been to a meeting? They are better now, but there's still always somebody grabbing the mic and mumbling about the "brethren and sistren" or some damned thing. It's not that they are wrong or right or anything, it just scares the crap out of people to see somebody trying to do a Tommy Douglas imitation like that. It's creepy.

Most of the problem is that the neo-cons have successfully tied socialism and a mixed economy to communism and totalitarianism though. It's why I get so pissed off when people call me a communist. They don't what the hell they are talking about. They are just repeating some line that they heard when Reagan was in office most times. They won't discuss the facts around the different policies, theories, etc.

 

[Vanni Fucci]

I took half a semester of sociology in university...long story...

...anyway...one thing that sticks out in my mind, from the foggy haze of useless information that I was bombarded with, was that in order for actual change to take place in a government, there would have to be a revolution...

I don't necessarily believe that, at least not the way the prof was describing it...a violent, bloody clash, with people dying on all sides...like the French, American and Russian style revolutions...

...but I think there can be an intellectual revolution as well...one where people could be shown the fallacies and wrong-headed thinking of the parties and ideologies that they espouse...

...maybe I'm too much of a dreamer though...

...of course we can't convert the vociferous right, because they are far too entrenched in their own hypocrisy to understand anything but fear and hate...but there are the moderates...people who can listen to reason, and are hopeful for change...

So keep writing what you do Rev...and hopefully some good will come of it yet... 8)

 

[no1important]

Re: RE: Liberal Policy Conven

Layton is the only one that hasn't been caught outright lying. He is also the one with the platform that most closely matches what Canadians say they want in polls.

But the problem is too many people believe the Provincial NDP governments (BC and ONT in particular) screwed up so bad, I think people are scared to vote for them Federally. Personally I like Layton but I unfortunatly don't think his party is going anywhere fast.

 

[missile]

That's my opinion,too. As long as they are part of the Opposition,they are very effective for those who voted NDP. It is as if they forgot all their guiding principles when they were elected in BC and Ontario.

 

[Reverend Blair]

RE: Liberal Policy Conven

They haven't done any worse in BC than the variety of conservative governments over the years though. It is also very arguable that the spending of the Rae government laid the footings for the boom that happened under Harris.

In Manitoba and Saskatchewan, where they've been in power the most, they've shown themselves to be fiscally responsible and very capable of governing.

The anti-NDP sentiments are really driven by the propaganda of the radical right more than anything factual.

 

[HOCK]

I think Ed Brodbent quit too early. He would have made a great leader - better than Jack Layton. I also agree that the NDP has screwed up on occasion but then again, what government doesn't

 

[missile]

Being in power has a corrupting influence on all governments so it's nice when one that hasn't had their turn at the trough finally gets in.