Commentary:
The New Policy Initiatives movement scares the hell of me. You can't have a better dinner party by rearranging guest seating. The food still matters.
I know it's a sad metaphor, but I keep trying. You want John Updike, go to the library.
What's "wrong" is that the NDP got whipped in three elections: one Federal, two Provincial. Maybe we deserved to get whipped. Maybe the new mindset of voters has become selfish, self-centred, and angry. Maybe our message is flawed.
So the new tactic will be to embrace every balaclava-wearing dissident group? So it will be to try to embrace such a wide grab-bag of ideals and ideas that our original ideas of Social Justice, Fair Taxation,. and above all the pre-eminence of government in the affairs of the country and its people will be submerged in a sea of fractious and factional dissent and nutbar ideologies?
The craving to be "more relevant" scares me. What we are preparing to do is to pander to every special interest whether it fits our overall objective or not.
Our failure to sell our ideas in an atmosphere of winner-take-all capitalism, is simply that a failure. Don't compound it by thrashing around looking for new solutions. Steadfast staying the course is the solution. And just maybe some fresh new leadership might help. But beware we don't fall prey to the neo-con tactic of looking for scapegoats.
On another front, where the Right is wrong
America is moving to a "Death Squad" mentality. The World's Greatest Democracy is actually considering political assassination. Grotesque! Targetted killings! That's like "strategic" bombing, but worse because it returns us to the bad old days when CIA assassins, or worse, thugs hired in other countries, execute designated enemies. No trial. No due process. Bang. Bang. That's all.
And will we be complicit? Looks like Ottawa thinks the way out of accusations that we are soft on refugee/terrorist arrivals in Canada or that we export too much cheap lumber is to be a cheering section for new laws that create a North American standard of arrest and detain without due diligence. Lock 'em up for 72 hours and ask questions later. Goodbye habeus corpus. So long Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Hello War Measures Act. Wasn't once enough for that one?
These are battles the Left should be fighting, instead of trying to climb into bed with every daffy movement that parades as progressive.
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Posted: November 05, 2001
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