christy= long in the tooth partisan hack

that describes clark to a tee!! christy EDITED FOR UNSUBSTANTIATED ACCUSATION. will change uniforms to suit her goals.she tries to look oh so confident in front of the cameras. christy EDITED

Is she a land developer?

Campbell and Global have been telling you like it isn't. We want Campbell he will make us rich and give us the biggest and best party BC ever had.

[UNSUBSTANTIATED ALLEGATION REMOVED. -MODERATOR.]

Back to real estate and a little reality wouldn't hurt and it isn't just the poor voters who are going to be hurting funny how that works.
http://www.vancouversun.com/business/most+vulnerable+economic+downturn+report/4250845/story.html

blake you said it all

great post blake, you summed it up perfectly.
anyway i vote for the cat..

Within the next year the

Within the next year the Real Estate industry here in BC is going to go into a nose-dive cuz of the jacked-up interest rates. So the Liberal will call an election as soon as possible (early summer?). If the NDP gets elected then your Michael Campbell types will be screaming about how the NDP is business unfriendly and the sky-is-falling. If the Liberals win; we know that the business community (Fraser Institute, Vancouver Board of Trade, BC Chamber of Commerce, etc, etc,..), the mass-media and the professional liars will blame the global economy. So whatever happens the NDP is in ka ka whatever happens.

Changing anything of importance

When the coffers are empty and the province is in a sea of red ink and the NDP forms the government there will be gnashing of teeth and a great cry because they don't change anything and they don't do it right away. It took the NDP last time about eight years to balance the books and the whole time the howling from those who wanted more spending was deafening. There was no patience show ever, not even in the first few years they were in office. Folks still thought that you could manufacture solutions without resources. Most of the resources were so depleted they couldn't even shift form one ministry to another. By the time the budget was balanced there was no sympathy left.

Now I hear the same shite from some of you posters. "They are all the same," you cry. Bull! If they are just caretakers, it is because the public lacks the brains to understand what and who caused the problems we are in. So we keep electing crooks, then blame the left for not getting us out of the mess in a day or two, or in the few short terms they get.

Now the new mantra is electoral reform of some description. As though that will save us. What utter crap!

Skywalker, there is a difference,

... a significant difference, a fundamental difference! in the daily operations of government versus entrenching some rules that advance the peoples' democracy, thus offering some protection against future governments running amok with authoritarianism.

Or do you figure three short terms in government is still far too little time to, for example, lawfully entrench a free vote by MLAs in the House?

Stop making excuses, Skywalker. IF the NDP had even unsuccessfully tried to run a democratic flag up the pole, I'd have some reason to think otherwise. But when compromise is the gameplan, principles can be sure to take a back seat.

A governing system that protects the principles of "of, by and for the people' democratic representation is far more important than illusory dreams of success. Operating in a system designed to be gamed and exploited by anyone who gets into control and has the yearning, is bound to ultimately fail in time. History is clear - Power is not relinquished on noble grounds. And this explains why the NDP (and Obama for the most recent example) either kept what power it received or built upon it, at worst.

Reading samuidave ... priceless

"Are you illiterate, Frank? Are you seriously unable to read what was said and make a correct interpretation of the words? This is what I said and what you replied to, verbatim:
...
How you arrived at your conclusion, Frank, is simply beyond reason. "

What a lovely statement. I can feel the love from here. Allow me a moment to bask in the glow of pointing out the fact that where we left off, just one day ago by the way, had nothing to do with Mulroney. That was two days ago.

One day ago you posted the following :

"Heres what your govts are bring us, Frank
"Late Friday afternoon, Prime Minster Stephen Harper announced he had unilaterally signed a deal with the United States government..." yada yada yada

And then added :

"Keep voting Frank. You are clearly making a big doifference. And, yes, a vote for the NDP is a vote confirming the 'legitimacy of the government', as you put it."

So there you go. A nice quote about a Harper policy and drawing a line between it and my voting for the NDP. Most people would say that's a bit of a stretch, I would say its par for the course with you. You and coyote have pretty much blamed the NDP for everything from nuclear weapons to GMO foods so why should you rein in your over-the-top hyperbole now.

Of course I can see why when I mentioned Harper you would assume I was talking about the more distant conversation involving Mulroney. Their names are so similar anyone could make such a mistake. Of course you were probably thinking about Mulroney and I should have known that and thus it was no wonder you were flummoxed at why I was talking about Harper.

and so on and so on

So let's talk about your argument itself. The Harper one, not the Mulroney one although it doesn't really matter as they're the same argument.

Your point is that by voting against Harper I am to blame for his policies because by voting I legitimize his government. Whereas you on the other hand didn't vote against him and thus are the only one who truly opposed the policies that he implemented in spite of your not voting.

After all, his policies can't be implemented unless samuidave votes. I think I read that in the BNA Act.

So not opposing Harper is the only way to oppose him whereas actually voting against him is in fact what makes me part of the grand Liberal-Fascist-Kryptonian alliance that is enslaving us.

Its a level of logic that one can only stand back and admire from afar. Not voting is the only way to stop Harper from being elected and enacting policies, huh, how about that.

Yet in spite of millions of people not voting he enacted those policies anyway. What a jerk, doesn't he understand your logic?

Kind of like how you're a genius because you say things that are so ungenius like it only proves how much of a genius you are. Whereas people who think its best to oppose those they disagree with are as you say idiots and obviously not genius material.

Its all so Wile E. Coyote of you.

Let's now discuss your Mulroney argument. As I recall you wanted to know how Mulroney imposed free-trade when most Canadians didn't vote for his party. I told you that he won the election under the same rules as previous governments or for that matter subsequent governments.

I may not like the first-past-the-post electoral system but the fact is its the one the people want. Its not like Mulroney pulled it out of his ass and imposed it on us just before the election.

Unfortunately I realize that answer isn't enough for you. Oh well, I'll live.

Will, thanks...

It's so nice to see all these Hoobastank "let it out" ( http://www.lyricsmode.com/lyrics/h/hoobastank/let_it_out.html ) listeners blog here. Nice to know they really fear Queen Christy of BC sailing the waters, her air wing full of ChristyCats & Hornets giving a heck of a sting to the socialist bullies that want to confiscate wealth instead of create it for all...

Man, thank you Will! This is so much to read here on the MV Queen Christy in the officer's mess w/ my slider and Coca-Cola and Olympia curling around my feet, especially the stuff about lack of BCNDP guts! :-)

Huge morale boost...

Jerry

"Leave the Liberals in..." paisley.

I agree. The NDP doesn't have the cajones or the ovaries to begin to build the real foundation needed... for "real" power.

You know, I'm of the vague impression paisley was being ironic. He's unimpressed with both choices in our Grand Championship earthworm race.

But I don't think you're kidding. You go on to whinge and whine about "cajones" [sic] and "business-friendly talk", when you and samuidave and jeffrey j and skywalker and others of that ilk were so big on the huge opening that Carole's walking the plank opened up to change the party for the better - to make it more representative.

Shall we go back to the Tyee columns of December 5th and see how hopeful everybody was that this event meant the renewal of the party? Seven lurkers renewed their memberships right away!

Youse guys got your wish - this was going to be the big change for the party and everybody would come streaming back to take the party to the hard left where it "belonged". But now you're not even giving it a chance - as far as you're concerned it's "business as usual". We haven't even had the convention yet, for God's sake!

Well, if as far as you're concerned, it's "business as usual", that gives me the right to call you irresponsible, facile and most especially, that fine old British word, a cad. Look it up.

What happened? Didn't anyone sign up to be leader of the party who meets your high standards for quality, cleanliness, service to the standard, and inbreeding? Did someone bring a boatload of Punjabi hijackers in with pre-printed membership forms? Exactly what did you do in response to create the kind of party that you could vote for?

Kudos to all of you who signed up in good faith to change the party. You stood up for your principles.

Brickbats to anybody who's still complaining. You didn't think this through before you tipped over our stew pot. Now we've got nothing to eat but bitter herbs, and another four years in the desert staring us in the face.

I can only hope that the Fiberals got more Punjabi pirates than the NDP did, and that they pick Mr. 20/20 himself, Kevin Falcon to lead them. I'm pretty sanguine about most of BC's population - I think they'll find him unelectable. That's about the only one of the few remote chances the left has to stop the gratuitous rape of the poor, the landless, the disenfranchised, the powerless, the handicapped, the aboriginal, and especially the kids.

Two ships

Frank, keep on trying. It's a desert out there, so I know the words are sinking in, it's just that there's nothing growing.

Samuidave, I respect your integrity. But Frank's wit is his weapon - in fewer words than an Ebonian news release, Frank highlights the details of conflicted thinking with a humorous barb and an ironic rebuttal. I'm convinced he's a pseudonymous Geoff Olsen (http://geoffolson.com/) and I'm sure it's not pleasant to take. But don't stop pitching - one day, we'll understand what you're on about.

This, on the other hand...

...is simply hilarious

ChristyCats & Hornets giving a heck of a sting to the socialist bullies that want to confiscate wealth...

As opposed to the Fiberal hordes who've confiscated more than $36 billion in provincial wealth into private coffers in the last ten years?

It would be hilarious to read the rest of Chrusty Fun's missive if it hadn't made me gag like a waterboarded Iraqi detainee...

Sayyy.... aren't you Polakite come back from under the bridge to haunt honest folk?

You miss/avoid the principle of the entire argument, Frank, ...

Your default reply is that voting in a obviously corrupt political system is not an act legitimating the process itself (though I am not sure you say as much).

If you do not care about being represented, Frank, say so. But stop the act that the political arena is an honest one; or 'it is just what it is' and, whatever that is, we need not immediately concern ourselves about it; or that its remotely representative of the people's desires.

Oh, it isn't corrupt and/or the corruption does not matter -- is that the reply I can anticipate?

My Mulroney question was rhetorical. It speaks volumes that 57% vote against him, and thus NAFTA, but he imposed NAFTA on the nation anyhow. That is corruption, whether legally sanctioned or not. The law, by the way, is not some noble thing. It is made by very fallible people with specific objectives in mind, objectives not always in the people's interests.

Your argument has been, 'well, that's the system" and he was just playing by the rules. (rules he never wrote admittedly, but rules he never changed for our posterity, either). He did nothing wrong. Except take advantage of the corrupt political system which is designed to represent foremost the voice of the plutocrats, I must add. Or do ethical concerns have no place in your world of political compromise?

Further, you then make claims on the back of this corrupt system by saying, "that is what the people wanted". Try using the simplest of maths, Frank -- one man, one vote -- and you'll soon discover that his pushing through NAFTA, or Harper unilaterally imposing an expansion to NAFTA, was anything but indicative of what the people wanted.

Whereas the principle of my argument remains, stop supporting the system that clearly is not seeking to represent you. Each government's track record reaffirms this systemic lack of care.

Substituting one Conservative leader for another makes no difference to the argument. Nor does voting for any ccurrent Party involved in, and thus legitimating, the money politics game.

As long as you fail to see the political paradigm, pretending to offer us a people's democracy, which only seriously allows pre-selected and proven servants-to-power into office, you will carry on being unable to see the fundamentally sound logic against participation.

Your voting, your 'just doing my duty' attitude, reminds me of those marching off to war to murder strangers, or be murdered by strangers -- on the grounds that this is the system we have. But what if the people refused to go to war. Wouldn't things be different?

Of course going to war perpetuates warfare. So why would voting not perpetuate our gamed and plutocratic corporatocracy? But your vote doesn't Frank. Honest. Your just one soldier.

I understand your sentiment, zalm

but if you think misplaced wit is a substitute for conscionable and sound reasoning, I'd beg to differ.

When one has the entire force of state propaganda blowing one's sail, as does Frank, I do not expect much more that the typical "Fcuk You" type of reply, perhaps complimented with witticisms or barbs on issues collateral to distract from the concern.

I still await a reply that addresses the underlying issue head on: whether voting is making our political system less corrupt and more accountable to the people or not? I'll stand by 100 + years of history to say matters are worse than ever.

Leave me out of this, zalm

"But I don't think you're kidding. You go on to whinge and whine about "cajones" [sic] and "business-friendly talk", when you and samuidave and jeffrey j and skywalker and others of that ilk were so big on the huge opening that Carole's walking the plank opened up to change the party for the better - to make it more representative.

I never ever made such a claim re: change for the Party; nor have I ever said Carole James was a bad person. Argument is easily made that she wasn't ethically bankrupt enough to succeed; thus she was cast aside. Successful politicians nowadays must be far more two-faced to garner support from the moneyed-men runing the show.

Ever hear of passive resistence, or the non-recognition of power

So not opposing Harper is the only way to oppose him whereas actually voting against him is in fact what makes me part of the grand Liberal-Fascist-Kryptonian alliance that is enslaving us.

Its a level of logic that one can only stand back and admire from afar. Not voting is the only way to stop Harper from being elected and enacting policies, huh, how about that.

Yet in spite of millions of people not voting he enacted those policies anyway. What a jerk, doesn't he understand your logic?

I am not appealing to Harper or the ruling class for support, Frank. That is simply ridiculous, despite it being your only game plan. But as ridiculous as that is, it is a tactic. Appeal to your opponent's humanitarian side hoping he will see your needs, or some such idea.

And I've never said non-participation is the only way to mount opposition. You said that, Frank, again recontextualizing my argument to suit your understanding. Putting words into my mouth is a tactic, too, Frank, but it's an intellectually dishonest one.

What I am suggesting is the sort of conscionable behaviour and acts of peaceful resistence and non-participation which Gandhi used to free India from authoritarian, colonial rule.

Here's a primer in case you have never heard of this approach used effectively to overturn authoritarian rule:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nonviolent_resistance

But it takes the people's support to work. And this will take time to acquire, for changing the collective perception of folks on matters they have adopted as 'that's just the way it is' is an uphill battle (like fighting the state propaganda taken on face value), but it does tend to gain support as their ever-increasing hardships mount.

Of course, Frank, your erroneous reworking of my argument into something unstated, let alone suggested, only further buttresses my earlier comment.

samuidave is nothing if not relentless

"You miss/avoid the principle of the entire argument, Frank, ..."

No, I don't. I recognize that your point is built on a logical fallacy and thus keep knocking down the little arguments you surround it with hoping you'll see the elephant standing in your living room.

Your central point is that things are getting worse and political parties exist as part of the system and that therefore political parties are the reason things are getting worse.

According to Wikipedia your argument could qualify as one of their examples of a logical fallacy.

Their examples are :

"Argument: Cutting people is a crime. Surgeons cut people. Therefore, surgeons are criminals."
"Argument: It is illegal for a stranger to enter someone's home uninvited. Firefighters enter people's homes uninvited, therefore firefighters are breaking the law."

See the similarity? Just walk around the elephant, its right there, by the fireplace.

Anyway, just for shits and giggles why don't we move on to your most recent rant against me.

"Your default reply is that voting in a obviously corrupt political system is not an act legitimating the process itself"

True.

"If you do not care about being represented, Frank, say so."

But I do vote for the representative in my riding. You and coyote don't. So are you saying that voting for a rep means one doesn't want representation whereas not voting means you do?

part 2

"But stop the act that the political arena is an honest one; or 'it is just what it is' and, whatever that is, we need not immediately concern ourselves about it"

Once again you prefer to erect a strawman because it makes your life easier. First, yes, the political system "is what it is". The people can change it, have had opportunities to do so but they don't wish to. You would naturally respond by saying that either the entire population is corrupt or that they are the victims of propaganda. Whichever doesn't matter, the point is that the people aren't responsible.

Well, I beg to differ. The people in most other democracies have been able to make changes in spite of propaganda. Even now in the UK they are looking at a new electoral system and yet their current system (very similar to our own) is holding its own.

Latest polling here, right after the party support one:
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

So although its hard to accept, many people do in fact support the current system. Whether that is because of propaganda or because they're all part of the corruption means little, the system is what it is.

As for not concerning ourselves with it. Many of us do. Its a sentiment that every politician ties his barge to. They say they'll be more honest and better listeners than the last guy. So obviously they must believe people are looking for those things. Why then do they vote for people who advertise themselves as "honest Johns" when if John were truly honest he wouldn't have to advertise that fact? Well, its a tough question, but in the past GWest and I have put forward what we think is a reasonable explanation for this behaviour, 1. they're morons or 2. maybe people don't care that much about honesty after all.

part 3

On to the rest of your original sentence, which was :

"or that its remotely representative of the people's desires."

But don't you see? It is. People really do get the government they deserve. Whether its because they're apathetic and only tune in at election time, or because they believe people based on their wealth and social standing or whether its because they really do think about what's best for them and not other people's kids or the environment, we really are represented by people we deserve. When people like Campbell are elected three times you at some point have to accept the fact its not the system, its the voters and maybe they really do want a government that will deliver to them lower taxes and two week parties and economic growth and leave the bill for someone else.

part 4

"Oh, it isn't corrupt and/or the corruption does not matter -- is that the reply I can anticipate?"

I hope my above reply answers this question. However, I want to also add that many of us do in fact pay attention to what's going on between elections, many of us do care about the environment and other people's kids and rising debt levels and poverty and the sick. The problem is there's not enough of us.

Which is why I get quite black and white on this issue. Turning one's back on the system means nothing and will do nothing. No matter how much one tries to tell oneself that you are pure and its people like me that are corrupt I will simply never see it that way. When you turn your back on the system you are no better than those who actively support a narrow view of the world that doesn't extend further than their front yard.

Someone who votes on the basis of selfish or ignorant reasons must be challenged, opposed. If there were enough of us our government would reflect us and not them. The policies of our government would reflect our views on social justice, human rights and macroeconomics, not theirs.

Which brings me full circle back to you and coyote. How are your reasons for not voting any different than those who vote on the basis of what's good for them? How is turning your back on those that need better government a moral victory? Yet that is what your arguments do, they turn logic and reason on their head and you attack those that want better government. Well, in my world that makes you someone I have nothing in common with.

"My Mulroney question was rhetorical. It speaks volumes that 57% vote against him, and thus NAFTA, but he imposed NAFTA on the nation anyhow. That is corruption, whether legally sanctioned or not."

As you say, regardless of whether he had the moral authority to do it, he had legal authority and in Canada the only way to prevent that is by changing the law. To do that requires winning elections and/or referendums.

Ida Chong billed the taxpayer what? Somewhere around $6,000 for meals in spite of that being more than her government gives to many people who need help just to survive. Yet the people decided that was okay and wouldn't recall her.

part 5

"The law, by the way, is not some noble thing. It is made by very fallible people with specific objectives in mind, objectives not always in the people's interests."

The answer then is to get better people making the laws.

"He [Mulroney] did nothing wrong. Except take advantage of the corrupt political system which is designed to represent foremost the voice of the plutocrats, I must add. Or do ethical concerns have no place in your world of political compromise?"

Ethical concerns certainly do have a place in my world. When I see something wrong I oppose it, I don't turn my back on it. If I saw someone beating a child I'd intervene, you apparently would walk away and blame the "system". Again, I see such an attitude as being very opposed to mine. Apathy and blaming the system is not going to make the world a better place.

"Further, you then make claims on the back of this corrupt system by saying, "that is what the people wanted". Try using the simplest of maths, Frank -- one man, one vote -- and you'll soon discover that his pushing through NAFTA, or Harper unilaterally imposing an expansion to NAFTA, was anything but indicative of what the people wanted."

Get your quotes straight. When I said "that was what the people wanted" I was talking about the electoral system. If the people want first-past-the-post which warps electoral outcomes I fail to see why blaming people like me who vehemently oppose the current system is a productive use of your time.

part 6

"Whereas the principle of my argument remains, stop supporting the system that clearly is not seeking to represent you. Each government's track record reaffirms this systemic lack of care."

Because you offer no alternative. If I didn't vote it would mean one less vote against the Right and one less vote for the Left (I won't bother with coyote's assertion I'm a fascist because I'm to the Right of him). Millions of you don't vote, what have you accomplished? You blame me for the policies of Harper and Mulroney but I have a lot more reason to blame you for them. I opposed them, you didn't.

I've been fortunate to live under NDP provincial governments most of my life, both here and in Saskatchewan. I won't bother to list everything they've done but I know they've made a positive difference in people's lives. Without them we wouldn't have medicare, worker protections would be non-existent, wealth would be even more concentrated in the hands of the few. Public education might not even exist, certainly not to the degree it does now. Generational poverty would be worse, child poverty would be worse, there would be less help for the down and out.

Its like my analogy of the person beating the child, the NDP intervenes and makes a difference, non-voters walk away.

"Substituting one Conservative leader for another makes no difference to the argument. Nor does voting for any ccurrent Party involved in, and thus legitimating, the money politics game."

You didn't vote and the "money politics game" didn't even notice. Your non-vote legitimizes the status quo more than my opposition does.

"As long as you fail to see the political paradigm, pretending to offer us a people's democracy, which only seriously allows pre-selected and proven servants-to-power into office, you will carry on being unable to see the fundamentally sound logic against participation."

There is no sound logic in your argument against voting. If you had some you would have brought it out by now I'm sure. Instead you offer us a logical fallacy to rally around. Bad things happen but not participating won't stop those bad things.

As for who participates. Anyone can run for political office. You say they're proven servants-to-power yet that argument doesn't hold water. I can list people from JS Woodsworth to Tommy Douglas to Dave Barrett to Stanley Knowles to Allan Blakeney to Carole James as proof of people who stood for election, won their seats and often became government. I wouldn't call any of them "servants-to-power" unless you want to sound like a raving Marxist.

part 7

"Your voting, your 'just doing my duty' attitude, reminds me of those marching off to war to murder strangers, or be murdered by strangers -- on the grounds that this is the system we have. But what if the people refused to go to war. Wouldn't things be different?"

How? The Kaiser and Hitler could have been stopped by not participating? Mulroney and Harper could have been stopped by not participating? The naïvety in that statement is breathtaking. Denmark didn't put up much of a fight in 1940, how did that work out for them? Luxemburg? The Baltic States when Stalin invaded?

It worked out the same as it did for you and other millions of non-voters when you didn't oppose Harper.

"Of course going to war perpetuates warfare."

No, it doesn't. Again, life is not always like a school classroom where you can refuse to fight back against a bully. Sometimes the bully will follow you home and take everything you have.

"So why would voting not perpetuate our gamed and plutocratic corporatocracy? But your vote doesn't Frank. Honest. Your just one soldier."

Voting does not perpetuate the ills of the world. It opposes them. As Carole James said, regardless of what happened to her the people need us to stand up for them. I'd rather do that than join you and be part of the group that lets the bullies carry out their policies unopposed.

part 8

"I still await a reply that addresses the underlying issue head on: whether voting is making our political system less corrupt and more accountable to the people or not? I'll stand by 100 + years of history to say matters are worse than ever."

Back to the logical fallacy thing. How has non-voting worked out over the last 100 years?

Has the world become a better place since you and others stopped voting?

Anyway, in my opinion Canada has become a better place over the last 100 years. Something you'd appreciate more if you and coyote weren't so tied to American history and quotes.

And the reason Canada has become a better place is because of people standing up for what's right instead of turning their back on those in need.

part 9

"Putting words into my mouth is a tactic, too, Frank, but it's an intellectually dishonest one."

If I'm the pot, you're about three of the kettles.

"Appeal to your opponent's humanitarian side hoping he will see your needs, or some such idea."

And how has that worked out?

"And I've never said non-participation is the only way to mount opposition."

Then by all means show us where other avenues have produced more results. The Olympic and G20 protests did not produce positive results compared to the HST petition for example, did they?

"What I am suggesting is the sort of conscionable behaviour and acts of peaceful resistence and non-participation which Gandhi used to free India from authoritarian, colonial rule."

The Gandhi thing has been debunked on this forum more often than Hitler has been mentioned. zalm did the best job of this the last time it was brought up by you. Why not go back and read that and first debunk what he said before bringing it up again? Because until then I think his argument holds more water.

"Of course, Frank, your erroneous reworking of my argument into something unstated, let alone suggested, only further buttresses my earlier comment."

Yes, quoting you is such a terrible thing.

Talk About Relentless....

Wow! Where to start? Talk about relentless and verbose. Frank has put on a pretty good show of that himself here.

In any case, I think everyone's positions should be clear to us all by now, in this thread. I see no point re-mining old ground.

The NDP is what it is, as the Liberals are what they are, and as the Corporate Greens are what they are... different factions of the One Big Capitalism Party. None of them is going to change anything.... at least in a way that better positions, favours, or enhances real democracy or wellbeing for the working class. ("Ordinary" people, the NDP catchall, doesn't cut it with me. Again, it is clear about nothing, as is their wont.)

My not voting may not change anything either, immediately. I'm even prepared to concede this. But neither will voting for any of the above mentioned. Indeed, I know it will continue to worsen my position as a member of the working class. I and my class, whether these latter class mates of mine know it or not yet, are in a classic "damned if you do and damned if you don't" situation.

In which case, as I have come to see it over the last couple of years, I have no existing real choice but to let what is heading in a major crisis direction, continue to do so. It's an oncoming freight train, sure as shootin', with a freight train inevitability about it.

So those of you of a like mind with Frank or realisticman, centre right or far right, you carry on as you will. I think both of you are doing a fine job, of preparing the political and economic preconditions for alarming and awakening an eventual working class movement, such as will eventually be compelled to deal with the mess you are relentlessly creating in our lives... rocking your world.

I will certainly not help give you credibility by advocating for the election of any of the lot of you. And I'd be a damned fool to vote, as a working class person, for any one of you. I'll stand down here from this bullshit process, and focus on exposing y'all, and urging people to take responsibility for their own lives, over all elites and vanguards.

coyote

from another thread...

"simply walking away from the bullshit and beginning the hard work of building more serious democratic economic and political alternatives."

By all means build away, good luck, just don't ask us to surrender while we're waiting for you to actually do that hard work.

Frank's right.

I have not seen anything perfect like Jerry Munroe suggests on the political horizon. I'm also not inclined to vote Liberal as they are the most imperfect of the lot. So now I have a choice. Either I don't vote or I vote NDP. What to do.

Out of the entire history of BC since confederation, there have been 13 years of NDP governments to 144 under a series of right-wing governments from Tory to liberal to Socred to Campbell Liberal. This is not a difficult choice.

Is this a joke you are playing, Frank?

Quoting Frank:

Your central point is that things are getting worse and political parties exist as part of the system and that therefore political parties are the reason things are getting worse.

According to Wikipedia your argument could qualify as one of their examples of a logical fallacy.

Their examples are :

"Argument: Cutting people is a crime. Surgeons cut people. Therefore, surgeons are criminals."

"Argument: It is illegal for a stranger to enter someone's home uninvited. Firefighters enter people's homes uninvited, therefore firefighters are breaking the law."

See the similarity? Just walk around the elephant, its right there, by the fireplace.

Let's start by breaking down the logical fallacy argument:

Action Y is wrong.
X does action Y.
X is wrong.

Your understanding of my argument, in your words:

a) Things are getting worse.
What action is wrong here, Frank? What is action Y?

b) Political Parties exist as part of the system.
What action are the 'Political Parties as system' (i.e., X) doing here, Frank? What is the eggregious action Y?

c) Political Parties are the reason things are getting worse.
Still no action Y, Frank.

You did not show a logical fallacy in my argument, Frank, but you did illustrate a little more of your circular reasoning by offering up an idiotic example of something you clearly do not understand.

The circular argument uses its own conclusion as one of its stated or unstated premises. [things are getting worse] Instead of offering proof, it simply asserts the conclusion in another form [Political Parties are the reason things are getting worse], thereby inviting the listener to accept it as settled when, in fact, it has not been settled. Because the premise is no different from and therefore as questionable as its conclusion, a circular argument violates the criterion of acceptability.

From T. Edward Damer, Attacking Faulty Reasoning. Wadsworth, 2001

.... (I'll say no more on other similar reasoning errors in the remainder of your rant) except this:

Because you offer no alternative

INDEPENDENT Candidates. Remember?

samuidave

Whatever, hope you feel better now.

Haven't had much to say lately Frank

I'll just make the simple observation that you're a lot more patient than I'd be, under the circumstances.

Cheers as always - and thanks for holding up the end....

I'd expect no less from you, G West ...

as blind support for ideology by dogmatists like yourselves in epidemic.

If something as obvious as good people being drowned out by the Party voice isn't recognizable to you, no doubt any further discussion is going to be fruitless.

I've enjoyed your absence, by the way.

well samuidave...

The message was for Frank - in case you hadn't noticed...Seems to me I recall you writing some time ago that you'd already 'given up' on me.

In terms of dogmatism, I'd say you've lapped everyone else I've ever read here at Tyee, many times - including moi.

BTW, what does 'in epidemic' mean?

No hard feelings though.

Cheers

No Hard Feelings... :-)

"By all means build away, good luck, just don't ask us to surrender while we're waiting for you to actually do that hard work." Frank.

Wellll, like I've said to you before Frank, nobody anymore, I don't think, has much expectations of anything from the NDP. (The entire working class in fact, hasn't for a very long time.) You guys, and much of the NDP led trade union leadership, surrendered a long time ago... only not to me or my class.

As for the hardwork of building meaningful social, economic and political change, until they lay my bones on a pyre and set me alight, I will keep picking away at it as I always have. Part of which right now is, exposing your Party, along with Liberals and Corporate Greens, as the frauds you all are. 8-D lol And like GW says, no hard feelings. It's just politics.

coyote

"The entire working class in fact, hasn't for a very long time"

And you know this how? Because the working class does in fact show up and vote for the NDP, the Liberals and the Conservatives both federally and provincially.

So I'm afraid you don't speak for your "class" as you put it.

As for "exposing" the NDP, be my guest, I think your "exposing" helps make us more popular with the average person.

But if you ever do find a like-minded group, I wish you the best.